Unacceptable Sitch Series

An Unacceptable Sitch by Allaine is one of the early classics of Kim Possible fanfiction. It is set a few years after the series, after Kim and Ron have (separately) gone to college. Kim has put the heroic lifestyle behind her, leaving that role to a family of heroes called "The Acceptables". She was actually glad to let somebody else save the world so she could dedicate her attention to starting a normal life by getting a college education and establishing herself as an independent adult.

Then, one night, Shego came in through her window, pleading for Kim's help and insisting that the Acceptables were the ones the world needed to be saved from. Kim was skeptical of her story... until the Acceptables showed up and attempted to murder Shego in cold blood. Kim and Shego then found themselves working together to escape and prepare for the day they can strike back and bring down the false heroes.

Along the way, they establish enough of a bond to take the first steps toward real friendship. In the following stories, their relationship continues to develop by fits and starts into a full-fledged romantic pairing.

The stories in the series are (in sequence):

• An Unacceptable Sitch
• Green, Black, and Blue
• No Living in the Past
• But For the Grace of Ron
• If You Build a Better Monkey
• Under the Milky Way Tonight

Tropes used in Unacceptable Sitch Series include:

• Alternate Continuity: "An Unacceptable Sitch" was mostly written before "Go Team Go" provided Shego with a Canon Backstory. The author decided to ignore that episode, giving Shego a different history and retaining the original explanation of her plasma powers as a function of her gloves rather than an inherent superpower.
  • The latter isn't just a "background flavor" difference; Shego's gloves provide several significant plot points (beyond the obvious Put Down Your Gun and Step Away scenario).
• And I Must Scream: Dr. Drakken tries to put a control chip on Shego and make her a permanent prisoner in her own body, as revenge for her failure to rescue him from prison.
• Back From the Dead: At the climax of the first story, all the Acceptables except toddler Thomas are Killed Off for Real. In the last story, Junior is employing clones of the three field-team siblings as minions, and a clone of the mother as a Dead-Man Switch on his Doomsday Device.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Or, in Junior's case, being tortured makes a comically Harmless Villain into a viciously focused psychopath.
• Big Damn Heroes: Ron releasing Kim and Shego from the Descending Ceiling deathtrap, by threatening to skewer Junior with the Lotus Blade. Kim is so elated when she finds out it was he who saved them, she outright asks him if he'll be the sperm donor if she and Shego ever have kids (though the Epilogue reveals that they adopt instead).
• Brick Joke: When Drakken captures Kim in the second story, he gets the notion into his head that she looks different now because her hair used to be brown (rather than because she's five years older). In the penultimate scene of the last story, Drakken tells himself that he's the Only Sane Man in prison — after all, he remembers that Kim Possible's hair used to be brown.
  • It's possible that he confused her with Bonnie. As if Kim didn't already have enough reasons to beat the crap out of him....
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Shego resents having to share Kim's attention with her friends and family. She gradually gets better about it as she becomes more secure about their relationship and closer to the other people in Kim's life.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: The Acceptables' treatment of their prisoners.
• Coming Out Story: Bonnie Rockwaller discovers Kim's attraction to Shego and spreads the news to take Kim down a peg. It Got Worse when Kim, afraid of how people will react, initially denies the rumors. Shego is hurt, and Ron is furious when he finds out Kim lied to him.
  • Things get better after Kim faces the situation honestly. The closest thing to a negative reaction is her mom's disappointment that a wedding and kids are now less likely. Her dad is just happy that he can stop worrying about Kim getting involved with boys.
• Darker and Edgier: Both the Original Character villains and the familiar ones from the series are significantly nastier than the enemies Kim faced in high school. See also the Thou Shalt Not Kill entry.
  • In addition to the case mentioned in the Being Tortured Makes You Evil entry, most of the other major villains have spent the past five years either in prison or in hiding. This may be the underlying reason they're more dangerous now.
• Even Evil Has Standards: At one point, Shego explains over-the-line actions like assassinating heroes in their sleep would bring disgrace on the guilty villain. In the final story, Señor Senior Junior and Gemini cross the line with tactics such as taking Kim's family hostage. Señor Senior Senior is so appalled that he helps the heroes defeat them.
• Forceful Kiss: Shego's way of letting Kim know she wants to be more than just friends. Kim doesn't take it well. Shego takes her rejection even less well (see the Then Let Me Be Evil entry).
• Freudian Excuse: Shego's childhood (see the Alternate Continuity entry) has left her with major self-esteem and trust issues that she hides behind her tough snarky exterior. Years of being tortured to the breaking point by the Acceptables didn't exactly help matters. On a few occasions when she lets her guard down, it becomes evident that her Clingy Jealous Girl behavior is driven by fear that Kim will eventually reject her just like everybody else.
• Friend Versus Lover: At first, Ron and Shego both resent the other's presence in Kim's life (he thinks she's still the same old criminal; she regards him as a buffoon who holds Kim back). The tension boils over after Kim gets outed in "No Living in the Past" and gives way to mutual respect in "But For the Grace of Ron".
• Full-Frontal Assault: Almost played straight with Kim and Shego. After being released from the ceiling deathtrap, the two women reaffirm their love for each other by beating the ever loving shit out of Junior's minions, while still wearing the party dresses he forced them to don earlier. By the time they've knocked everyone out, they're literally holding what's left of them up.
• Future Me Scares Me/I Hate Past Me: Shego doesn't want to turn into somebody like The Supreme One even if it means she gets to Take Over the World; for her part, The Supreme One is disdainful of Shego's "softness".
• Genre Savvy: As one of the villains attempting to escape near the end of the final story puts it:

Once I heard you escaped, I was the only person on the station who remembered what every villain on Earth knows — Kim Possible gets away, Kim Possible engages villain, villain loses.

• Heel Face Turn: Shego, obviously. Also, Señor Senior Senior becomes a legitimate businessman at the end of the first story, and helps Team Possible defeat his son in the final story.
• If It's You It's Okay: Kim's feelings for Shego seem to be personal and individual; she still finds men attractive and has no such reaction to other women.
• Insistent Terminology: The black-clad figure who patrols the streets of Middleton while Team Possible handles larger threats is called "Oryx", not "Onyx".
  • The Supreme One keeps getting mistaken for a clone. She does not like that.
• I Have Your Wife: The Acceptables held Señor Senior Junior hostage to keep his father in line, and later kidnapped Kim's mother to force Kim out of hiding. Later in the series, Junior and Gemini seize the Space Center and take a large group of hostages, including Kim's family, to force Team Possible to surrender.
• I Shall Taunt You: Used to particular effect in the showdown with the Acceptables — jibes well-targeted at their dysfunctions and fears help to push them to the point of turning on each other.
• It's All About Me: After Bonnie outs Kim, Josh Mankey realizes just how mean-spirited she is and breaks up with her. Bonnie blames Kim, and agrees to help Dementor lure her into a trap. She regrets doing that... when she belatedly realizes the potential consequences (being charged as an accessory to Dementor's crimes and losing Josh forever) if she gets caught.
• Love Is a Weakness: Shego is reluctant to fully admit her feelings for Kim because she worries about being vulnerable.
• The Man Behind the Man: After being captured by Gemini, Team Possible discovers that he's now Junior's lackey.
• Mandatory Unretirement: As noted in the synopsis, Kim had hung up the grapple gun hairdryer years ago, and was brought back into the hero business because Shego had nowhere else to turn. After defeating the Acceptables, her sense of responsibility forced her to continue providing a real hero to replace the false ones.
• Meaningful Name: Sappho shamelessly flirts with Shego, getting particularly saucy when Shego pilots her.
• The Missus and the Ex: Shego takes an instant dislike to Josh Mankey because he used to date Kim. This adds to the awkwardness when Kim, Ron, and Shego are dinner guests at Josh and Bonnie's apartment.
• Nightmare Sequence: After Kim realizes that she does have feelings for Shego and chases after her, she dreams that Shego lashed out even more bitterly than she actually did and tried to strangle her. After Shego is rescued from Drakken's control, she dreams that Drakken succeeded in making her slit Kim's throat.
• No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: After capturing Team Possible in the final story, Gemini and the Seniors host a dinner complete with formal outfits for the captives. Tensions quickly boil over with the revelation that Junior is now in charge, turning Gemini into his minion and stealing a big chunk of Senior's fortune, prompting the villains to cut directly to the Death Trap portion of the evening's entertainment.
• Oh Crap: When Junior dramatically activates the viewscreens to show his moment of triumph, he and his minions are instead greeted by the sight of Kim and Shego administering a brutal beatdown to their best fighters. Said minions react with increasing alarm and dismay:

"I'd say you made them extremely mad,” Ron added. He looked at his "captors", who he suddenly pitied. "No telling how long they'll stay like that, either." Someone whimpered.

• Passed Over Inheritance: Señor Senior Senior leaves the bulk of his fortune to Team Possible, providing Junior with a small trust fund to pay for therapy.
• Sadistic Choice: Two versions in "Under the Milky Way Tonight":
  • Kim and Shego are put in separate Descending Ceiling traps that will give them half an hour to live... unless one of them presses a button that will free her and quickly crush the other. For a bit of extra nastiness, Junior points out that "quickly" will still give the victim a few final seconds to die knowing that she'd been betrayed.
  • The villain's Doomsday Device is connected to a Dead-Man Switch, so that it can only be shut off by killing Mrs Acceptable's clone. The intent is to break Kim by making her relive the first killing; instead, Shego is the one confronted by the dilemma. She kills the clone, fearing that Kim will hate her for it.
• Sentient Vehicle: S.A.D.I./Sadie the car (from "Car Trouble") and S.A.F.O./Sappho the spaceship (Original Character).
• Ship Tease: The Where Are They Now? Epilogue reveals that Dr. Director becomes part of a happy couple, but doesn't say with who. At the end of the story, she's dating Steve Barkin, but several hints in the epilogue point to her finally settling down with Vivian Porter.
• Stalker with a Crush: Professor Dementor toward Bonnie, to the point of repeatedly following her backstage after her ballet performances.
• Statute of Limitations: The clock ran out on all the old charges against Shego during the years she was a prisoner of the Acceptables, leaving her free to start over after they are defeated.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Even while facing the Sadistic Choice Junior put her through, Kim realizes that he was turned into a Complete Monster by years of torture by the Acceptables. She still intends to personally make him pay... until she catches him in the middle of a Villainous Breakdown brought on by his father's death.
• Team Pet: Ron sends Rufus to deliver an upgraded Kimmunicator to Kim (the Acceptables had hacked into the old one). To prevent Rufus' absence from being noticed, he buys another naked mole rat, a female named Ruby. In later stories, she becomes a member of the team and Rufus' mate.
• Temporal Paradox: The Supreme One from "A Sitch In Time" appears in (the fic's) present-day Middleton after her timeline is obliterated. This poses a serious problem in that her paradoxical existence has the potential to unravel the space-time continuum.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Shego rejoins Drakken after Kim's unwillingness to accept her romantic interest severely pisses her off. Luckily, she turns back after Drakken immediately betrays her by mind controlling her, and when Kim comes after her and admits her mistake.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: The issue of killing as a last resort arises on several occasions. Kim kills Mrs. Acceptable to save Thomas, and feels recurring guilt over it. Shego kills Mrs. Acceptable's (fully sentient) clone to save the world, and fears losing Kim over it. Dr. Director argues that Team Possible policy should allow use of lethal force when necessary.
  • In the first story, Shego tells Kim that, however dangerous their fights got, she never intended to kill her and just wanted to see how she'd escape this time. This point is revisted in the final story, when Kim tells Shego that she always had a moral compass hidden under her criminality.
• The Time Traveller's Dilemma: While trying to convince Shego to help her, the Supreme One claims to be the mysterious benefactor who gave her the plasma gloves that got her into the villainous big leagues. If so, then preventing The Supreme One from re-establishing her timeline would erase Shego's criminal career — and relationship with Kim — from history. The Supreme One was lying. It turns out that future-Kim gave past-Shego the gloves in order to create a Stable Time Loop.
• Titled After the Song: "Under the Milky Way Tonight"
• Tyke Bomb: Thomas Acceptable (later Thomas Director, when Betty adopts him after the deaths of the rest of the Acceptables).
• Ungrateful Bastard: Señor Senior Junior tries to kill Kim and Shego despite the fact that they rescued him from the Acceptables, irrationally blaming Shego for failing to bring him along when she first managed to escape. This seems to be the main reason his father decides to work against him.
• Villain with Good Publicity: The Acceptables, at the beginning of the series.
• Villainous Breakdown: Señor Senior Junior, after Señor Senior Senior states his regrets and disappointment in him before dying.
• Villainous Demotivator: The Acceptable parents punish failures with verbal abuse and Electric Torture.
  • Also, Gemini's habit of dropping unsuccessful agents down trapdoors has ruined their ability to take initiative when a situation goes off-script, a flaw the hostages at the Space Center are able to exploit at a critical moment.
• Visions of Another Self: Shego and The Supreme One in "But For The Grace Of Ron".
• Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: As the first story opens, Kim is glad that the Acceptables took over her old role as a freelance hero. After learning the truth about the Acceptables and taking them down, she finds herself wrestling with the issue of how she can juggle both heroics and college, and perhaps even continue as an adult Part-Time Hero.
• We Can Rule Together: While they're on the run from the Acceptables, Shego asks Kim what she intends to do if and when they win, and invites Kim to abandon her old life and team up with her. After they do win, Kim admits that she'd been tempted.
• Where Are They Now? Epilogue: The closing scene of the series has Dr. Director brought fifteen years into the future and told a few key facts about Team Possible's future to make sure that history comes out like her future self remembers it. There are some (mostly unspecified) bad events in store, but the main characters are all alive, well, and active.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In the final chapter, Shego tells Kim that she's afraid of losing her sense of self — she'd been rationalizing her good deeds with her bad-girl self-image by telling herself that she had self-interested motives (being close to Kim, getting even with other villains who'd crossed her), but she just couldn't believe her own excuses anymore. Kim responds by telling her that she hasn't really changed that much: she wasn't as evil as she made herself out to be even when she was working for Drakken.