Whenever i talk in favor of Chloé there have always been people telling me how she did nothing to deserve the miraculous, that she doesn't deserve a redemption, that she never showed any signs of wanting to be better. I don't agree and in this post i go in detail on why.

Since day one they've written her as a horrible person and I've never denied that. But i do say that there have been more than just signs of her being written as someone who could be better. I'm just not being blinded by hate. Let's recap some episodes... I'll try to be as brief as possible.

-Despair bear. How many of us know someone stinking rich? Maybe just from the distance? Do you really think that rich people allows their employees to talk to them the way Chloe's butler talked to her in that episode? Sure, when Chloé felt humiliated she yelled at him, but that doesn't take away that she had allowed him to get emotionally close to her. He knew her, what she had lived and how she felt. And she listened to him.

People say that her effort in this episode doesn't count because she only did it because it was convenient for her. She cared about Adrien. Even then it shows good in her. She cared about him. Adrien. Not his money, not his position, not his fame. This goes against what the writers forced on her later on season 3 finale when they said she only loved herself. - Zombizou. Oh, i love this one. People saying that she only apologized to Miss Bustier because of Chat Noir and Ladybug were there. Apologized only so she could get her miraculous again. Look at her facial expressions:

She even felt self conscious when she noticed Ladybug and Chat Noir watching them. And that wasn't an act. The character's acting is supervised by the show's director. Look how the show portrays when someone is lying, here is Lila in Protection:

And it's more than just the visuals. Go watch the episodes, listen to the music. Chloé apology do was sincere. I've also been asked "Then why didn't she apologize to Marinette?" Well, a truly shoehorned redemption arc would had her changing just like that, from one moment to the next. It feels more natural if it happens little by little, step by step.

-Malediktator. Last week i showed a video of Marinette choosing to trust Chloé with her miraculous. Let's now take a look at this scene:

Again, look at her facial expressions. She dreamed of being a hero along side Ladybug. She was so into the moment that she almost slammed against the chimney. She admired Ladybug. She wanted to be her. That was shown since season 1:

Again, more than once i've been told she only wanted the spotlight and Queen Wasp is brought as the source for that. Have we forgotten the Queen Wasp episode or are we choosing not to see what happened back then? Audrey couldn't even remember her daughter's name. She was praising Marinette, offering her the opportunity of a life time. Offering to take her to New York with her, when she hadn't even taken her own daughter with her. May the first stone be cast by whoever wouldn't truly feel jealous and hurt by something like that. Chloé had tears in her eyes. Audrey said the only exceptional thing about Chloé was being her daughter. Chloé replied (and i quote): "I'll show you how exceptional i can be!". It was then that she transformed into Queen Bee for the first time and it was after that that she did the thing where she put the train in danger so she could be the hero to save everyone. Wrong, yes. But again, this was a character that was just beginning a redemption journey. She didn't want fame, she was looking for her mother's love.

-Miraculer. Come on... How can people say she didn't try to be better? She was being offered power and she rejected that.

Yes, later she embraced the akumas, but till before season three's finale she had been written differently. That was a character that could truly become a good person. That didn't happen not because she didn't have the potential, but because the writers didn't allow that to happen. Let's not forget she's a fictional character. I mean, in Lilo and Stitch. Stich was genetically designed to want to destroy everything and even for a character like him there was redemption. It comes down to whether the writers want to write that path for a character or not.

Then Mayura tried again, she offered her the chance to retain the bee miraculous. If Chloé had truly only wanted the spotlight she could had accepted the offer. She wanted to be a hero and this time not to impress her mother. Not because she wanted the attention from the media. Come on, she's super rich. If she only wanted to be famous she could have easily made that happen. This scene was a huge mistake from the writers and they tried to patch it up with Miracle Queen episode:

They knew they were going to keep handing the same miraculous to same people. Alya has been even trusted with the Ladybug miraculous twice! So, of course they had to write the Miracle Queen episode to say "Look, she's bad, she can't be trusted." I don't know how much of the fandom didn't like that, so what did they do: "Chloé hate campaign" all along season 4. And now what they're giving us for season 5. And all this,... Why? For what? To represent people who will never change? That's an excuse and season 2 and most of season 3 are proof of that.

If after this recap you still think that she was never written trying to be better,... I'm sorry, but it would be that you don't want to see it, not that it wasn't there.

....fuck it, here's more stuff in my AU where Felix becomes Argos as early as S1/S2:

He talks his mom into letting him transfer to DuPont. So what if he's already graduated? This way he and Adrien can bond!!

Kinda a repeat of when Lila joins the class, he's just not lying (much) to people. (By not lying much, I mean he pretends to be a nice, good, boy, but he's secretly enjoying bidding his time to be an absolute menace, bonus points to him if he can get Adrien in on it).

Nino likes him instantly after he hears Felix refer to his uncle as "that whiny, candy cane, little bitch? What about him?"

Lila returns and immediately believes Felix is Adrien but gets surprised when Adrien walks in a few minutes later. To her further surprise, he pulls his "twin" away from her and takes him to the back, to their seats (another thing she was unaware of). Nino is sitting with Marinette and Lila has to sit with Alya.

Felix, indeed, managed to get Adrien to act like a little menace (there are his bonus points). The rest of the class doesn't know whether to feel proud or betrayed.

People send the Ladyblog pic after pic, video after video, of Chat Noir and some guy (?) dressed like a bird. Some have even captured a clearly mad Ladybug in the background.

Argos makes his "official" debut after that.

Reporter: Chat Noir, why have you been patrolling less with Ladybug? Are you replacing her with Argos? Chat Noir:...he knows things about me, I know things about him. It's complicated but only to people who aren't....us. Reporter:... Are...are you not concerned? If he knows things, he could risk your identity!! Chat Noir: Nah, it's fine. He loves me too much. Argos, in the distance: FUCK YOU!! Chat Noir: See? (:

Fast friends with Kagami. Neither have any understanding of social cues.

Unsure where he stands with Marinette. On the one hand, she seems to genuinely care about Adrien and wants to see him happy. On the other hand, where the fuck did she get his schedule? He doesn't believe she uses it for all her friends/classmates. He's calling bullshit on that.

Gives Nino free ammo to use against Gabriel.

Ladybug still tries to get him to hand over the peacock Miraculous, or at least tell her who he is. He continuously tells her to kiss his ass.

He's also done that to Hawkmoth.

Akuma of the Day: HAND OVER THE PEACO- the peacock Miraculous?? But, don't you- Hawkmoth: YES, YES, I WANT THE LADYBUG AND CAT MIRACULOUS, BUT THAT, THAT- Argos: Go ahead, take your time. What am I? Hawkmoth: HE STOLE IT FROM ME, I WANT IT BACK!! Argos: let me think about it... No. Hawkmoth: HAND OVER YOUR, I MEAN MY, I MEAN MAYURA'S MIRACULOUS!! Argos: You can join Ladybug (Ladybug, knowing what's he's about to say: Hey!) and the Guardian in kissing my ass, this Miraculous is mine. Argos: bitch.

Why I Hate Adrien

So a few people have asked me why I hate Adrien so much. I've given it some thought, and I've realized that my hatred comes from 3 sources:

1. Adrien is a passive, useless character and a waste of screentime.

Adrien is a very passive character. He doesn't really have goals that he works towards outside of romance. He doesn't feel like a real person with a real life. He's just an object for the actual main characters to fight over. And to be clear, not every character needs to be active or well developed, but thei screentime should correspond to this. Adrien takes up a massive amount of screentime in the show. And since he ended up being worthless, I feel like he personally wasted my time by appearing so much. His screentime could have instead been used to develop the other characters.

2. Adrien is a creator's pet.

While Adrien doesn't really do anything in the show, I think I still may have felt bad for the character if I felt like this was because the writers didn't like him or something. Thing is, Adrien is the complete opposite, as the writers are clearly biases *for* him at every turn. He's almost always portrayed as right, even in situations where he clearly isn't. "Chameleon" clearly portrayed his "advice" about Lila as good, even though anyone with basic respect for their peers wouldn't be okay with letting them be lied to. There's episodes like "Kuro Neko", where Adrien is very clearly in the wrong amd being unreasonable, yet he's still clearly framed like we're supposed to feel bad for him. Part of the reason he has so much screentime is because the writers love to insert him in every situation they can. Even his status as a passive character can be considered as the writers favoring him. They think he shouldn't have to do anything because he's such a precious boy, so everyone should just do everything for him. I'm not inclined to like a character that I feel is getting special treatment just because of who they are.

3. Adrien does horrible things.

Those last 2 points definitely provide potential for me to dislike a character, but I don't think it's possible for me to actually do so if that character hasn't done anything wrong. Well, despite what the writers want you to believe, Adrien has absolutely done a lot of horrendous things. There's the fact that he continued being friends with Chloé despite her remorseless bullying of Adrien's "friends". He keeps trying to date Ladybug despite her repeatedly rejecting him, to the point where it's straight up harassment. This culminates in "Kuro Neko", where he quits his job of protecting the city because he keeps getting rejected (again, this is portrayed as symptomatic). Like I mentioned before, he tells Marinette to let Lila continue lying to everyone else. And why does he do this? I honestly don't know, and neither does anybody else. There's no rationalization for this moment. But the point is, Adrien put Lila above everyone else for some reason. He also emotionally cheated on Kagami, hurt her feelings, and barely cared afterward. He didn't have to do anything to make up with her, that just worked out on its own. He tried to Cataclysm multiple people despite knowing that it can be fatal, and the only time he displays real remorse over it is when Monarch is on the receiving end. Oh, but he only feels bad for like a minute, then he's fine (I believe that that was just to make Ladybug's exposition about not being able to fix it fee more natural, he wouldn't have shown any remorse if that wasn't necessary). Oh, and then there's that one moment in "Passion" where he pretends not to know what the consequences of making a wish is and tried to convince Ladybug to let him make one. If she said yes, he would have sacrificed somebody else to heal Nathalie. The show has made it clear that this is morally wrong. To me, this is the moment where Adrien became irredeemable. Also, in the Paris Special we find out that Adrien became a mass murdering supervillain in an alternate universe because he's sad that his mom died. He didn't have any grander plan, not scheme to bring her back like Gabriel did. Nope, he just killed people because he was sad, that's how they presented it. I know that this is technically a different person, but the alternate characters from tbe special are meant to be pretty close to the originals, just with different circumstances. So I think this shows who Adrien really is deep down. So yeah, I think Adrien is one of the most despicable "good guy" characters ever.

So that's the reason I hate Adrien, in 3 parts. I wouldn't hate him nearly as much if it wasn't for all 3 components. Kind of a perfect storm really, and I don't think I'll ever hate another character this much, for this reason.

One of the things I find frustrating about ML is that besides the protagonist-centered morality, they keep insisting on this good person bad person binary, which not only just kills any nuance that the younger target audience could (and honestly should) learn about (because people are complicated and not everything is black and white) but also runs on the idea that intent is all that matters like, Gabriel may have been a terrorist whose wish literally killed everyone and Marinette may be gaslighting the entirity of Paris and perpetuates abuse cycles (not just Adrien's but Chloé's too) but they did it Out of Love and for "good" reasons so the writers say they're heroes. Felix is forgiven for tricking Ladybug and trading all the miraculouses to the main terrorist, snappping people out of existence, and kidnapping Kagami (probably among other things, do they ever bring up the shit he did in Felix the episode?) because he did it "for them" because he cares oh so much.

Meanwhile, Chloé was a hero and yeah she might have done shit for attention but that doesn't cancel out that she has helped and saved people but the writers keep yelling about how she's not genuinely good because her heroism wasn't for "good" reasons and also "because she caused the akuma" despite the fact that literally the only person capable of causing akumas is whoever has the butterfly, Chloé (and a lot of other people, including Marinette herself!) just makes people feel bad enough (side eyes the actual villains actually making people feel so bad on purpose) that they're vulnerable to manipulation. Whether or not she deserved to be replaced has no place has no bearing on this because she did actually help people y virtue of just having fought alongside the main heroes and not making things worse when she did.

And in S1 Lila was literally just some chick who lied for attention and that's all we knew about her and it was easy to assume she was just lonely because she knows no one and she supposedly just moved to a new country. But everyone wanted her dead or whatever because... she's a liar that doesn't have a "good" reason for lying? She got in the way of Adrienette (as if Marinette was making any progress)? She got akumatized (because of Ladybug publicly shaming her)? What made her "bad"?

Yeah it's.

It's double annoying because they really seem to want to have the gray morality. Whether it be Gabriel and Felix doing bad things for 'good' reasons or Chloé doing 'good' things for 'bad' reasons as they later claim. Or even Season 1-3 Chloé being a 'bad kid' who is learning to be good.

But they always just either use the bad actions to make Chloé's good actions bad in some way(saying her heroism was just for attention. Saying she only cares about Sabrina and Adrien because they're items to her), or sweeping atrocities under the rug because of One Good Thing.

I think one of the worst things for me right now Ladynoir wise is that I just have no faith left in Marinette not blaming the outcome of the finale on Cat Noir to some degree. The last Ladynoir scene is setting off every alarm bell in my head, I just can't help it.

She's never gonna talk to him alone anymore from here onwards.

If Adrien will have any negative feelings about having lost his father then I can't help feeling like Marinette is gonna subconsciously put it on Cat. For not being there in the finale and for the cataclysm event in Destruction, even though it was her plan she gave him no heads-up on for no reason, but hey, it's Marinette...

I have no faith left in me to hope that she will at least warn Cat Noir that she HASN'T retrieved the Butterfly miraculous (damn, she'd probably blame that on his absence too, huh?) and not just leave him in the dark about it until Lila rises as new Butterfly which is the worst way Cat could find out about that.

And besides, the smartest thing Lila could do now is simply... wait. Postpone rising as new Butterfly until not only Ladybug will be forced to lie to the world about having retrieved the Butterfly (since she would NEVER say that openly unless she has to) which would make Chrysalis rising even worse because LB blatantly lied to the whole world

Lila should also simply wait because no way is Marinette gonna tell Cat about not having the Butterfly and that would mean that he's quite likely gonna dare to ask for a reveal and the longer Chrysalis waits the longer Ladybug has to lie to him with excuses for why they can't do it yet. At some point it would simply come across as her playing with his feelings by keeping his hopes up despite her having no intention on revealing, which, I mean, that's the case. (hello, Ephemeral. I wished you weren't so accurate to all this...)

The longer Lila waits the more Ladybug is lying to Cat and playing with his hopes whne their bond is probably already gonna take a massive bruise from the finale. And the longer it goes on the worse it'll be whne Chrysalis eventually rises and Cat, as per usual in the worst possible way, finds out about Ladybug's secrets regarding the butterfly and that she truly never had any intention on revealing. She just played for time for the Butterfly to rise.

I have no faith left in her giving any kind of hsit what actually happened to him in the finale. Adrien could have memory loss a la Marinette's backstory in Derision (which actually would explain him remembering his father so lovingly at the end), heaven knows the circumstances were horrific enough for that to happen, and even if Cat would mention it towards Ladybug that he can't remember it anymore

I just have no faith left that she wouldn't react the same way as in Wishmaker at best or just brush it aside at work cause she doesn't want to hear an excuse for why he failed her, when "her" ADRIEN is now paying the price for it and the rest of Paris taht she was alone and therefore couldn't retrieve the butterfly.

Or if Cat said that he is feeling incredibly guilty that an innocent man died because he wasn't there, what's realistically gonna be Ladybug's reaction? I don't wanna be pessimistic towards her but at this point being realistic means asking how much she would care for him saying that and not just brush it aside? She doesn't need to do it maliciously for it being fucked up.

I just...

Have no faith left for Ladynoir. Or superficially Marinette in Ladynoir.

What's realistically to be expected here?

Honestly? This. I don't think she'd blame him for anything, but considering her characterization across the last two seasons, I don't expect her to consider being honest with Chat Noir one of her priorities anymore, let alone telling him stuff at all.

Thank you for your ask!

So don't know if someone has used this in a fanfic yet but, what if Lila's ancestry was Cassandra from Greek mythology?

So for those who don't know or don't remember Cassandra(or Kassandra) was a priestess of Apollo who granted her the ability to utter true prophecies but wouldn't be believed.

So say that curse got twisted down the generations and now we have Lila who is believed for her tales (that are obvious lies) but because of the curse no one would believe her if she told the truth. Lila likes the attention and being considered a type of celebrity by her peers, so she keeps it on no matter who it hurts.

Marinette and Adrien know about Lila's lying due to their miraculous. As seen Adrien has grown in a toxic environment so he doesn't see what is wrong with everyone believing her lies, but Marinette was raised with integrity and wants to protect her friends calls Lila out.

Lila doesn't know why she is only believed when telling lies but doesn't care until someone like Marinette call her out and now wants to get rid of them.

It could be with others who don't believe Lila, and doesn't have a miraculous, were descendents of other people from any mythology that was blessed to see the truth of ones words/hearts.

Now these curses and blessings my work like genetics so people may have the potential of carrying them but only a select few have been granted these ability

ML Plot points: Marinette and the "Ladybug" Replacement

This is gonna be a long one. Not only that, it also needs context.

Season 2 has Marinette grow increasingly more stressed out about everything. Chat's martyr tendencies and lack of self care mean that her role becomes even more important since she has to do it solo half the time (though that one does get kinda fixed halfway through S2, not that it helps her feel better). Constantly watching civilians get brainwashed/desintegrated/transformed gives her nightmares. But through it all, she has her friends and family to hold on to, so it's manageable.

Season 3 wrecks that. Her parents know something is up, but not what. Her dad gets convinced that she's in some kind of abusive relationship and gets akumatised over it. Lila is messing with hangouts to purposefully separate Marinette from the class by making her not know about their things and them not know about hers. Her constantly lying to them (even if for a good reason) doesn't help. Fu, the one person who she can be completely honest with, basically goes "Wow, kid. That sucks. Have you tried not being upset?". It gets to the point where she's attracting akuma butterflies on a daily basis. Everyone can tell she's not doing great, but while they try, staying with her just makes her feel worse because she can't go save the day.

Then, the Ladybug episode happens, with Lila doing her thing and the scarlet akumas showing up. After that, she sees Adrien doing a photoshoot with Lila and feels betrayed. After THAT, she confronts Alya and gets shut down. Lila's stories aren't as ridiculous as she's making them out to be when compared to the rest of the class. Ladybug herself allowed the interview with Lila to stay up for months and said nothing. On top of that, Marinette isn't that clean either. Alya has been checking up on her stories and knows that they're lies. Alya wants to help Marinette, but she's not sure she can trust her.

This is the last straw. Marinette finally breaks and gives the earrings back to Fu. She's clearly not fit to handle this. She almost got akumatised and it's only a matter of time before she loses it completely. Fu, who trusted her and saw her like a granddaughter, feels betrayed himself and basically tells her to get out.

Adrien gets back from a harrowing day. First, there was the Lila messing with Marinette, then the scarlet akumas, and finally, having to make aa deal with Lila. And now Fu is apparently calling for him and telling him that Ladybug quit.

Fu tells him to pick a new ladybug holder. While he's not happy with CN knowing the ladybug's identity, the alternative of having a complete nw¡ewe who they cannot trust is worse.

Thus begins the chronologically longest multiple parter, lasting a little under a month. Chat Noir wants to pick someone who he trusts and who he thinks will do a good job:

-Obviously his first pick is Marinette, the "Everyday Ladybug". Not only does she have the right attitude, she's also creative and has used a miraculous before (MUltimouse). Plagg shoots her down immediately. "No she can't. She has too many responsibilities already..."

-The first new ladybug holder is Marinette's boyfriend, Luka Kagami. She's very headstrong and while she has trouble with the ladybug powers (being more used to the straightforward powers of the dragon), she makes up for it with fighting skill and dedication. Unfortunately for her, Hawkmoth realised that the "wear them down" strategy worked and has started releasing three to four akumas a day instead of one to two. Usually by doing shifts with Viceroy. Kagami is good, but between her mother, fencing and classes she just can't keep up. She arrives late to Akumas because she has more trouble getting away, her mother is a lot more on her back about it and she starts falling asleep in class. She's also not as experienced with miraculi which means every akuma attack takes a lot out of her. After her third post-victory collapse, two weeks after she started, Chat Noir just takes the earrings away for her own good.

-Adrien's next choice is Luka, the one who, unlike him, is actually good at planning and working with people Chloe. She's probably the best of the Ladybug replacements. Smart enough to use the Lucky Charm effectively and a skilled enough fighter to finish the akumas quickly. She also doesn't have the same problems snaking out as Kagami. Her problem is Chat Noir. Chat, thanks to having to deal with Lila during modeling shoots and babysit the new ladybug, is a lot more bitter. With Fu obviously resenting Ladybug for leaving, it isn't long before he starts talking shit about Ladybug. Chloe, on her part, has known that Marinette is Ladybug since the first time she used the Bee miraculous. She didn't forget the "toy" during Princess Fragance. She's also spent the last month watching Marinette slowly break down to the point that it was either give up the earrings or get akumatised and lose immediately. She's having none of that shit. They argue, Chloe gets vicious on Chat, Chat throws the crap she does as a civilian and her mommy issues to her face and it escalates until Chloe attacks him. The fight was short and brutal, with Chat Noir the clear victor. Chloe is good, but not "OG holder" good.

-The next pick is the most reliable guy Adrien knows: Luka. He's the one who actually succeeded with the miraculous Ladybug gave him after all. Nino. He's chill and a good friend. He lacks Kagami's stressful life and Chloe's aggression. He'll do fine, right? Nino lasts three days. He's... not terrible... with the earrings. The biggest problem is that him and Tikki just cannot get along. Tikki tries to make him repress his feelings and Nino absolutely refuses to sacrifice his mental health in that way. If Chat needs help, he can count on Carapace, but this isn't working.

-After Nino comes the only real answer at this point, Luka. He's also better at handling social situations and friendships than him. He's even helping Marinette get better. Adrien just told her to take the high road while she was clearly suffering. Let's not kid ourselves, Luka will do great in any role. He could even replace Chat Noir. That guy just makes the women in his life leave him Alya. Not the greatest choice for the earrings, but he's kinda runnign out of options. He just knows she has experience with a miraculous and that she's his friend.

Alya is... coping. She already blamed herself for things going wrong during Hero's Day. She's seen Marinette slowly break down with nothing she did really helping. And now Ladybug quit. Why? No one knows, not even Lila. And now she has the added mess of being the only one who can possibly fix things. She cannot mess up like in Hero's Day. Not again. Add to that the fact that she's no longer as active in her blog and her family is trying to be there for her, but the extra attentions is the last hing she wants right now because she's a full time superhero and she already messed up once. It's her childhood dream, the thing she has wanted for her entire life. How could she possibly mess it up!

And then Tikki warns her about Lila.

And she is not coping anymore.

It ends very quickly after that. Getting manipulated like that took its toll and she just has a breakdown in the middle fo the akuma attack. She lasted a week. Chat Noir is running out of options.

-Luka will admit that this month did not go the way he thought it would. He finally got a date with Marinette, but it turns out she is actually extremely traumatised. She also refuses to talk about whatever it is that traumatised her in the first place, which makes things harder. He decides early on that it might be better to not date until she's feeling better, just hanging out as friends. It's slow, but he does think that she's making progress. Then one day, Chat Noir grabs him and takes him to a rooftop. His melody is all over the place; nerves, guilt, fear. Chat is not doing great and... Are those Ladybug's miraculous? He knows he was probably a possible candidate, he was Viperion that one time but he's still surprised. And what is Caht saying about Marinette?

Oh... Luka wasn't Chat's choice. It was Marinette. And she had a panic attack and got akumatised in response.

Crap.

The fight was terrifying. Malady successfully immobilised Ryuko, Queen Bee, Carapace, Rena Rouge and Chat. It ended with Luka refusing to fight and managing to talk Malady into breaking her own akumatised object. Luka now knows Marinette was Ladybug.

The special ends with Marinette talking everything out with Fu. They decide to help her by letting the five temporary heroes keep their miraculi full time as support. She also has a friend who she can confide in. Adrien is granted the same benefit and chooses Nino.

Fu has had a lot to think about this month.

Miraculous Shadybug Fanfiction Part 1

Thank you for the request! Dedicated and original idea credit to @josmarney23

{Tom smiles at his daughter.}

Tom: I think that it's great that you have a new friend.

Emonette: She isn't my friend, yet. I'm just...working on things.

Tom: Well, I think that's fantastic!

Emonette: Whatever, just don't answer Sabine's calls while I'm out. She abandoned us, Dad. (leaves to go to school)

{When she gets to the building, Emodrien meets her outside and she's also greeted by Lila's smiling face and wave.}

Reverse Lila: Hi, Marinette!

{People look at her like she's crazy for fraternizing with the emo kids that everyone fears. They're almost in cardiac arrest when Emonette smiles back at her and greets her.}

Emonette: Hey, Lila.

Emodrien: So, finally on time for once?

Emonette: Shut your pie-hole.

Lila: (giggles) Come on, let's go inside. Ms. Bustier's probably waiting for us.

Emonette: (scoffs) Yeah, right. No one wants us to show up anywhere. You, maybe, Lila, but definitely not us. Go on ahead. Adrien and I need to make sure that we remembered our homework.

Lila: (giggles again) Okay, then.

{Then, it was just the two of them. They leaned against a wall. Their reputations made people distance themselves from them, so they could talk in private.}

Emodrien: So, how did it go with the Supreme?

Emonette: About as well as you'd expect. I was in my old costume. We have to make him think that we're on his side for as long as we can. He can't know about the other versions of us, either.

Emodrien: Given that he's the Supreme and known about the kwamis longer than anyone, I bet he knows that there are other universes out there.

Emonette: Yes, but if he knows that we've been to one, he'll start to ask questions.

Emodrien: Okay, but what about Lila?

Emonette: Well, let's just hope that she's the opposite of the Lila in theirs. From what I read in that diary, she's a lying, manipulative bitch over there in the other dimension.

{They get to class and take their seats. After school, they separate, like always, promising in private to meet up for "patrol". They had to make this appear as normal as possible for as long as possible. They knew who Hesperia was, he revealed his identity in front of them to Ladybug and Chat Noir in the other dimension in hopes of helping them catch their Monarch. Shadybug had to comfort Claw Noir afterwards. Emodrien loved his dad, he just...wasn't all that great with affection since his mom passed away. He had tried in the two weeks since returning to put effort into rebuilding the relationship with his father.}

Hesperia's Lair...

Alya: So, what's our next move?

Hesperia: Shadybug and Claw Noir are acting as usual, save the destruction of Paris in hopes of deceiving the Supreme into a false sense of security. The only other thing we can do is continue to check in with their hero versions. Ubiquity needs to open a portal that doesn't connect to the other Alya Cesaire. She seemed so traumatized by my power since it is being used for evil in their dimension, and my, Shadybug and Claw Noir's roles are reversed. They are Ladybug and Chat Noir, the heroes of Paris, and I'm the villainous Monarch.

Alya: Wow, so, it's really a parallel universe?

Nino: Those source images were wild. What other things are different?

Hesperia: Too many to count. For starters, Ladybug and Chat Noir work as a team. They take care of their kwamis and try not to overuse their powers in battle. For example, Ladybug will try to use only one Lucky Charm and Chat Noir, only one Cataclysm to win a battle. I respected their wish to keep their identities a secret at the time, because they were afraid that their Monarch would figure them out. They were already helping me avoid them as it was.

Alya: So, you could have known their secret identities--and Shadybug and Claw Noir's but you passed on that? Why? It's not like you would've used it against their hero versions.

Hesperia: It's a mutual respect kind of thing. I revealed mine to them to help them after they'd done so much for us. They changed themselves into heroes. Shadybug and Claw Noir only agreed to help us because whatever their good versions said to them got through more than we ever could. I didn't get to meet their version of the Supreme, but I got the sense that Ladybug would and could pass along what all had happened to him.

Alya: Well, that's all well and good. What about us? Did you see the other versions of us?

Hesperia: Only Alya. She was in Marinette's room which was where we let out.

Alya: Why the fuck would I be in her room?!

Hesperia: Supposedly, in the parallel dimension, you and her are best friends.

Alya: (eyes widen, incredulously) WWWWWHHHHHAAAAAATT?!?!?!?!

Hesperia: Yes, and Nino is best friends with Adrien.

Nino: I'm sorry, but wh--?!

{All of the sudden, the ceiling gave way again.}

Hesperia: It's one of the sentimonster that the Supreme created, hide!

{They all find a hiding spot.}

Alya: (whispers) What now?

Hesperia: (whispers back) Now, plan B. The Supreme will send Shadybug and Claw Noir back here and we'll just have to hope that they--and he take my word for it.

Nino: (whispers) What's the plan?

Hesperia: This. Nooroo, Light Wings Fall. (de-transforms; gives broach to Alya) If things go south, use my Miraculous to create a portal and get Ladybug and Chat Noir. Only if things don't go well.

Alya: (nods as he steps out to let the sentimonster capture him)

So I wanted to ask about the new Big Bang fic you're coming out with, "In Pursuit of the Uneatable". I've really liked most of your other ML fics (as you well know), so I was thinking of checking it out, but well… the premise makes me wary, since it's one of those "Lila manages to isolate Marinette using her lies" premises. But I did notice that instead of talking about Marinette's friends "turning on her" or otherwise trying to hurt her in some way, you're just talking about them becoming distant, which is something I could feasibly see happening if Lila managed to sow enough doubt about Marinette's motives and actions. They'd never hurt her (everyone thinks of Chloe as a bully and they don't try to hurt HER, and I don't think that's just because of the potential of her father retaliating), but being a little more leery of her is possible if they aren't as certain of her moral character as they used to be.

And I also saw that you didn't mention anything about like, Marinette trying to get revenge of any sort against other people or leaving them to rot or anything, which makes me think it might not be that sort of fic? The vibe I'm getting from the synopsis you gave is that the main reason you went with the "Lila's lies manage to isolate Marinette" thing is to explore how she copes with not having a very stable support network (since in the show she has a huge, solid one, even with Lila's best efforts at sabotaging it), and to have Adrien serve as her main support until Lila's beaten, rather than to specifically demonize everyone in Marinette's orbit and have her take sadistic pleasure in hurting them in revenge.

That's really the crux of my question and my fear, I guess. Nothing in your previous works made it look like you'd be likely to go this route, but I really need to know before I chance glancing at your fic: are Marinette's friends, the class more generally, gonna be made to be awful people beyond anything that could be reasonably extrapolated out about them? Is Marinette gonna seek revenge or punishment for them for believing Lila's lies? Basically, are they gonna get "Ron the Death Eatered", if you're familiar with that tvtropes term? I've gotten pretty traumatized from running into that over and over in the ML fandom (and no, I'm not kidding about the trauma here, it's gotten really bad at times), so while I see lots of signs that this is gonna be a lot more reasonable than say, the "Alya strangles Marinette for being mean to Lila" or "Marinette intentionally arranges for Lila to be in a position to sexually harass Adrien as revenge for him advising her to take the high road" scenarios that I've seen in the past, I still want to check since I instinctively flinch when I see anything anything even remotely in the ballpark of a saltfic premise due to seeing those sorts of things incessantly for years.

Totally get your hesitation! As someone who generally isn't a fan of saltfics/bashing either, I understand being wary.

I will say that your read of the summary is an accurate one. This fic definitely will focus more on Marinette's mental state than anything else, and it is more of a "Marinette isolates herself from everyone on purpose" rather than Lila shoving her out.

I don't want to be like "oh i wrote all the characters perfectly" because....obvious reasons LOL but I made sure to give the other characters reasons for acting as they do. I know you're an Alya fan, so I will say that nothing bad happens to Alya and even Marinette never really blames her for believing Lila's lies - and the same for their other classmates as well. It's a lot more of Marinette blaming herself, I think, hence the unreliable narrator tag, but she does have a charitable view of her classmates. Instead of blaming them for listening to Lila, she'll still acknowledge the fact that they're her friends too, and them caring about Lila doesn't mean they still don't care about her.

More than the bullying/lying, I think this fic also explores ideas that are a bit different. Not to get too into spoiler territory, but it deals pretty heavily with sentimonter-esque creation, and the biggest thing for Marinette is understanding what it means to be human - and in that process, realizing that Lila, too, is just as human as she is. So more introspection/character study territory than "oh Lila sucks and she's going down'.

But yes, to answer your question: no revenge on her classmates, and no bashing/saltfics here!

Unpopular opinion: The narrative favors MARINETTE over everyone else, so get over yourselves if you think Adrien is being coddled or everyone else is not punished enough.

If it seems like she's being blamed for shit she didn't do, that's the narrative forcing the plot to center around her instead of someone else. If she does something that actually warrants punishment like stalking Adrien or leading Luka on, it gets brushed to the side. If she goes out of her way to snoop somewhere she doesn't belong like say, the Agreste Mansion, that's the narrative shoehorning her in instead of giving screentime to characters who needed it more like everyone who was already at the exclusive party (not just Adrien, but Kagami and Chloe too. Them along with Felix were in the same room and it's a waste the narrative didn't do shit with it). Marinette always "learns" the lesson of the day because she's the PROTAGONIST. If someone else were to learn their lesson, that's taking away from Marinette and the show doesn't allow that. If people like Chat Noir or Alya or Fu seem incompetent, it's because they needed to nerf everyone else to make Marinette shine because this is supposed to be her show and Marinette needs to be the most powerful piece in the board. If it seems like Adrien is doing nothing, it's because the show doesn't know what to do with him outside of being Marinette's trophy. He has to be "perfect" if he's gonna be a good prize, so the narrative pretends he is and ignores his less than pleasant sides. His actions ultimately don't matter. He can save the world from a giant pastry and it's just gonna be a footnote in the episode. He can "get away" with shit cause the spotlight refuses to hang around him long enough for it to bite him in the ass. He has no real power within the narrative. Everyone else has even less than him. They matter less than him. It's why the narrative doesnt say shit about your saint Luka for lying to Marinette's face about him knowing her secret identity.

It's always Marinette who has development and agency and power and can make a difference. She's not the martyr you like to paint her as. She has everything, the good, the bad and the ugly.

(The post this anon is referring to)

Okay, I will once again admit that I really phrased my response to that ask in a terrible way, and once again, I apologize for that bad take saying he was worse than Chloe and Lila combined, but I still stand by my claim that the show doesn’t call Adrien out for the things that he does compared to Marinette getting punished or blamed for every little thing she does.

Are you really going to ignore every single terrible thing Adrien has done while acting like Marinette is the real bad guy here? If not, here’s a recap of the things Adrien did in Season 4 alone...

He actively slacked off on his duties and got excited at the idea of someone almost getting akumatized, in addition to disregarding the responsibilities Ladybug now has as Guardian (Lies)

He repeatedly disobeyed orders for petty and selfish reasons (Lies, Sentibubbler, Wishmaker, Strikeback)

He refused to understand the boundaries Ladybug placed regarding their relationship (Glaciator 2)

He almost harmed innocent people, intentionally and unintentionally (Hack-San, Rocketear)

He got himself captured or brainwashed by an Akuma (Mr. Pigeon 72, Mega Lech, Guiltrip, Ephemeral, Penalteam)

He literally gave up being a superhero and left Ladybug to deal with the fallout (Kuro Neko)

He talked shit about her behind her back because he was left out of certain discussions and plans like the identities of the temp heroes, but as soon as she had no other allies, he acted like he always cared about Ladybug’s best interests. Oh yeah, and before that, he even whined about Ladybug not always trusting him WHILE SHE WAS HAVING A FUCKING PANIC ATTACK, FULLY AWARE SHE DIDN’T KNOW HE WAS CAT NOIR. (Strikeback)

And here’s all the stuff Marinette has had to go through in Season 4...

She wasn’t able to enjoy her relationship with Luka thanks to the growing amount of responsibilities in her superhero life (Truth)

She was yelled at by another Guardian who did nothing to actually help her (Furious Fu, Ephemeral)

She was shamed by Mylene for not doing enough to help the environment because I guess saving lives as Ladybug didn’t count (Mega Leech)

She had to deal with nightmares about losing to Shadowmoth (Sentibubbler)

She blamed herself for her mother getting arrested by a bunch of aggressive cops (Qilin)

She was influenced by her Kwami’s severe case of the munchies that she couldn’t control at all (Dearest Family)

She worked herself ragged trying to find a replacement for Cat Noir after being left high and dry by him (Kuro Neko)

And after learning her best friend went behind her back to not lose her boyfriend (Rocketear) she lost all of the Miraculous, and by extension, all of her other allies after being stabbed in the back by someone she thought she could trust while simultaneously being shamed for not trusting people, and need I mention the panic attack again? (Strikeback)

That’s not even getting into the routine stress of always needing to save the day while Cat Noir either slacks off in battle or sacrifices himself on a whim because he thinks her angry face is cute (Lies), or the fact that once she retires as Guardian, she’ll lose all of her memories relating to the Miraculous and her life as Ladybug (Miracle Queen).

After all that, you think Adrien has it harder? Adrien, the person who routinely screws around while lives are at risk, never takes responsibility for his actions, and will threaten to quit if he doesn’t get exactly what he wants, if he isn’t throwing hissy fits first? You think he has it harder than Marinette?

I get I said something stupid about how bad I think Adrien is, but you can’t act like he’s entirely blameless in this situation.

My Lila Rossi Analysis

So when I did this poll, you guys said that the thing you wanted most to see was random thoughts/headcanons I have about characters, and it took me some time to dig it out, but I found my lil dive into Lila Rossi, so I figured this'd be a good place to start.

It's gonna be a long one, so imma put it under the cut, but send me an ask if you wanna know any thoughts I have on other characters!

So about a year and a half ago, I was talking with @p-artsypants (via my personal account) about Lila Rossi, and we noticed how instead of reassessing herself and her moral compass when confronted with obstacles or conflict, she just escalates:

Chameleon episode: "You want me to stop lying? Hah! I'm going to threaten you instead!"

Oni-Chan episode: "You think I can be a better person? Jokes on you, because I'm teaming up with Adrien's dad to spy on him. But the fun doesn't stop there because I'm also teaming up with our favourite local terrorists, Hawk Moth and Mayura!"

Ladybug episode: "You think I'm going to back off because you've stopped coming after me? Fool! I'm going to orchestrate your downfall!"

Lila goes big and doesn't go home, which is partly why she's so dangerous. We wondered why she didn't escalate further after the Ladybug episode, especially after that moment with Adrien, and so this is my theory as to why:

Okay, so in Ladybug, we have the (what I like to call the “assertive Adrien Agreste moment”) confrontation between Lila and Adrien:

Adrien: (sits next to Lila) I warned you once already, Lila, but you didn't listen. You hurt my friend Marinette, and that's not okay. Lila: Me? Hurting Marinette? But she's the one who- Adrien: I don't know how to prove you lied, Lila, because you're good at it. So you'll just have to come up with another lie, just as convincing. Only this time it's gonna prove Marinette's innocent. Lila: Why would I do that, Adrien? Adrien: Because we're friends, aren't we? (Lila looks over at Nathalie, who gives her an approving nod from the Agreste car)

The underlying context here is “get Marinette reinstated in school and absolve her of wrongdoing or I will expose you for the liar and manipulator you are”. They both are aware that this is a confrontation/negotiation, this is evident in their tonality and cadence, especially once Lila drops her act.

Lila has been waiting for something like this for a while, as he hasn’t been dancing along to her tune like the rest of the class - especially when it came to Marinette. So she tests him, keeping up the act until he directly addresses the issue, trying to figure him out.

She learns a few things from this interaction:

1. Adrien, on some level, loves Marinette.  How, I hear you ask? First off, because of this interaction from Oni-Chan:

Adrien: (angrily) Nathalie and my bodyguard got reprimanded last time because of you. Lila: I’m sorry, Adrien. Please, I didn’t mean to. Adrien: Lila, you can always count on me. But not if you hurt the people I love. (walks away)

Here, he is evidently angry about the damage she potentially caused to the careers and livelihoods of two people he dearly cares about (people he loves and trusts, his relationship with them spanning years), but still states that as long as she doesn’t hurt the people he loves, he can be a friend for her - and he’s genuine about that, even through his anger. “You hurt the people I love, but as long as you don’t do that again we’ll be okay.” This was his first warning to her.

Skip to Ladybug:

Adrien: (sits next to Lila) I warned you once already, Lila, but you didn't listen. You hurt my friend Marinette, and that's not okay.

With the context of his altercation with her in Oni-Chan in mind, it’s evident how different the sentiment is here. “You hurt someone I love and that’s not okay.” Marinette (someone he’s known only for months/a fraction of the time he’s known Gorilla and Nathalie) was hurt by Lila and he’s ready to draw blood. He loves her - probably more than he does Gorilla and Nathalie (people he considers to be family to him). She is his weakness.

2. She found loopholes in his wording. What loopholes, I hear you cry. This loophole, I reply:

Adrien: ...So you'll just have to come up with another lie, just as convincing. Only this time it's gonna prove Marinette's innocent. Lila: Why would I do that, Adrien? Adrien: Because we're friends, aren't we?

If he explicitly stated that he’d expose her lies and manipulation, she would have, in all likelihood, stepped up to the next level (maybe two if she was feeling it) in retaliation. But he didn’t, he went implicit, interestingly using the very desire that drove him to enrol in school in the first place as his thin veil over his threat. Here, he is not genuine in his mention of friendship - here, it’s: “You fix this mess and I’ll keep up the pretence”.

So here’s the two loopholes:

A) Fulfil this request (demand) and she wins the facade of friendship with Adrien Agreste to exploit. B) The request (demand) only includes the proving of Marinette’s innocence, nothing further.

He’s implying that he wants her to stop targeting Marinette completely, but since he hasn’t stated it explicitly, she won’t see the need to hold herself to that as it’s not part of the deal, so she doesn’t need to up the stakes. She’s still free to target Marinette.

3. She can hurt both Marinette and Adrien with one cleverly destructive plan. She knows they care (love) each other deeply, and that they hurt when the other is hurt, so she can exploit this knowledge to her advantage in a “kill two birds with one stone” style approach.

This is then made all the sweeter to Lila when she later discovers Marinette is seemingly oblivious to Adrien’s involvement in getting her reinstated, highlighting to Lila that they are both trying to protect each other but aren’t communicating that with one another.

Marinette: People should know better. Things aren't always what they seem to be at first sight. So look, I don't know why you felt the urge to start all this, or why all of a sudden you lied to fix this mess, but I'm glad to see you're capable of coming back to your senses. Sometimes. Lila: As you said, things aren't always what they seem to be at first sight. (walks off)

While unconfirmed, Lila probably suspects Adrien doesn’t know about the bathroom threat from Chameleon.

So all Lila needs to do is adjust her plans to include the new target of Adrien Agreste to her pre-existing targets of Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Ladybug. Things are already interesting at this level, and she doesn’t feel forced to “level up” if you will, so she’s content with staying at the threat level she’s currently at.

Here, she can have fun.

Here, her plans (while altered somewhat) haven’t really changed course - she’s managed to get Marinette expelled (showcasing both the unethical responses/conduct from the school staff - I just completed a unit on this very topic last semester - and that Adrien was the only one who consistently spoke up in Marinette’s defence), sow the seeds of doubt about Marinette in the minds of her friends/classmates/cohort (undermining Marinette’s trustworthiness in the eyes of her peers), and she still managed to present herself as the victim - even with the reinstating of Marinette - earning compassion from the very peers that are questioning Marinette’s character. She is in a great position, and she’s not going to sacrifice that, not when she’s got her foot in the door to truly fulfilling her threat towards Marinette.

Oh! Also, for the whole thing about “stepping up to the next level of evil instead of re-evaluating her moral compass” thing? We have an explicit canonical moment about that very aspect about the monster that is Lila Rossi - again from Oni-Chan:

Oni-Chan: Do you get it now? I'll hunt you down wherever you go. Just give up on Adrien, and I'll stop tracking your every move. Lila: Alright. I'll give up... on Adrien. (horn grows) Oni-Chan: You're an awesome actress, but you're lying. Your horn betrays you, see? It will only disappear once you've sincerely given up on Adrien. Lila: But how could I possibly give Adrien up? I love him so much! It's too hard for me, honestly! You can't ask me to do that. The only thing that would persuade me to give him up if you got rid of Ladybug for me. (smiles sinisterly. Oni-Chan smiles, very impressed.) Hawk Moth: (from his lair; intrigued) This Lila girl is... astounding! Oni-Chan: If that's the only thing that will make you give him up, I'll do it. (attacks Ladybug)

In the comments section of Details, Details by Lady_of_War_and_Heartache (ongoing), the author and I have this massive back-and-forth about a whole host of topics in relation to ML, and we discussed Lila at one point, and I made a list of all of Lila’s crimes/acts in relation to crimes from S1-S3:

Lila does not deserve a redemption arc. She is a horrible human being and thrives off it, full well knowing EXACTLY what she is doing. She has committed so many crimes already that she is predisposed basically to much more and becoming a most dangerous threat. Truancy, lying and manipulation, defamation (to Marinette, Jagged Stone, Clara Nightingale, Chat Noir, Ladybug, Prince Ali, to name a few), sexual harrassment (to Adrien), bullying and physical and psychological harassment and threatening (to Marinette), theft, framing others for theft and physical harrassment (to Marinette), falsely claiming to suffer from mental and physical disabilities for personal gain, falsifying claims/connections in relation to a royal family (to Prince Ali and Achu), willing and active involvement and association with known terrorists (Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth and Mayura). And these are all the things we are aware of canonically from S1-S3. Lila is a pathological liar and utilises this for personal gain without remorse. Lila is in position to potentially become the future Hawk Moth alluded to in Timetagger.

And, because I forgot about the aforementioned moment in Oni-Chan, we can add conspiring to attempt murder/grievous bodily harm to the list.

Lila Rossi is a psychopath.

Now, what does this mean for Lila's future in the show?

We've seen with every confrontation the characters have with Lila that she is smart, she adapts, and she evolves. She learns from her pervious losses and becomes a more dangerous threat every time she pops up. The fact that she didn't really do much in S4 indicates to me that she will become a massive threat in S5/S6; she's bound to have something brewing, and when it's revealed, it's bound to have a devastating impact. I think it's safe to say we all suspect her of becoming the "new Hawk Moth" that Timetagger foreshadowed, but I think what's uncertain is exactly how she will achieve this, and how brutal this will be on our heroes, our villains, and on Paris as a whole.

Does this mean she is not redeemable?

Me of a year and a half ago would say "yes". Me today would say "no". As @ladyofthenoodle pointed out in a discussion on discord, it's probably too hasty to label a teenager as irredeemable, and I agree. Teenagers are still growing and developing, and are still in need of life experience and maturity. We know teenagers don't have all the answers, we know they will make mistakes and rash decisions, we know they will be easily swayed by their emotions.

We also don't know enough of Lila's backstory to be able to say conclusively what is going on inside her mind. There's possibly some motivator there that needs to be addressed, likely in therapy, with a healthy support system to help her navigate her way to a better place in life. She's still young, and needs love and support, much like any other character in the show. She's no Snape (who I firmly believe is irredeemable, and will probably be the focus of my next character rant XD); she has potential to be redeemed. Whether or not she will be redeemed in canon is another matter.

I Had Miraculous Ladybug Thoughts, Specifically the Chloe Lila Alliance Situation, and I'm Making It Your Problem! I am So Sorry!

Just. Read the title of this post. I am the most biased person you could have on this topic. You've been warned.

Okay, so. Chloe. If you are in the ML fandom, first off, my condolences, we shall suffer together. Second off, you know that Chloe is incredibly divisive. On the one hand, she's an absolute a**hole to everyone around her at any point in the series that is not season 2 and parts of season 3. On the other hand, it is clear that she has no adults teaching her how to not be an a**hole or regulating her behavior because the only people who have the necessary authority should not have ever been parents.

And then you have that whole thing in season 2 where they started to explain her awfulness and gave her the bee miraculous and she started getting better and developing a support structure, and then she stopped being allowed to have the bee miraculous and dove headfirst off the deep end. This frustrates pretty much the entire fandom. On the Chloe hate side, you wonder why they were wasting time with this. On the Chloe love side, you just got baited, and you're annoyed as heck, and you also are wondering why they wasted your time with this.

But fine, okay, it's dumb, but whatever, the fanfiction can work with this. What the fanfiction has a MUCH harder time working with is Chloe and Lila forming an unholy alliance over their mutual hatred of Marinette and Ladybug. Because the problem here is, it's redundant, it doesn't make sense, and makes Lila even more of a Mary Sue.

Tangent warning: YEAH I SAID IT! I think Lila is a Mary Sue. You don't have to think that. My definition of a Mary Sue is "a character that warps the fabric of the story around them without it making any sense because the author likes/hates/pities/has other strong emotion about this character/ too much to care about a coherent narrative." Not everybody defines a Mary Sue this way, but by this definition, Lila is a Mary Sue. Everyone immediately loses their brain cells around her despite being compassionate and sometimes intelligent individuals who will kill for Marinette in most other scenarios. Nonsensical story warping just because the author said so. Tangent aside:

What this alliance does is it gives you two manipulative lying b*tches who willingly get akumatized to further their petty schemes and are out to destroy Marinette and Ladybug and are weirdly possessive of but don't actually seem to care for Adrien. There's really no point in having two. They occupy the same narrative niche and it is awkward and stupid and I DO NOT LIKE IT. Neither does most of the fandom it seems, because this alliance rarely appears in fanfiction.

There are a couple default solutions in fanfiction:

1. Redeem Chloe. I like this solution. I like Chloe, I think she's entertaining, and I think her interactions with other characters as a good guy are especially entertaining, I think she brings a lot of valuable skills and perspective to the cast as a good guy, I think she has a lot of reasons for being an a**hole that should be properly addressed, and I think the reasons her redemptipn arc got aborted were stupid. Most fanfiction goes the route of having redeemed Chloe viscerally hate Lila too, because Chloe goes after enemies with passion and her whole heart. This is a clean solution, but not great if you don't like Chloe all that much or are trying to make it canon compliant (best of luck to you, canon is all over the place).

2. Only focus on one as a villain and yeet the other out of the story. If Chloe is the villain, set the story during the time that Lila was off being Cerise or wandering around Paris or whatever, or before she showed up. If Lila is the villain, give Chloe an unrelated reason to decide she's not dealing with that today, thank you very much. Usually used in salt fics to dunk on whichever character grinds your gears more without unwanted interruptions. I like salt fics, and this is also a good clean solution. Having both of them is redundant, so just remove one. For Lila, it makes sense because she's a Mary Sue and writing her is annoying, so pretending she never existed is a great fix to that. For Chloe, it makes sense because "lying manipulative ladybug hating b*tch" only really starts being her archetype after the writers screwed up her character with a million inconsistincies. Before that, she was more of a "comically loud, bossy, really obssessive fangirl b*tch," so Lila just works better for certain plots. Downside is that you can't focus on Chloe-Lila interactions, and you sometimes have to do a bit of finagling to figure out how to remove them from a situation they would ordinarily be VERY invested in.

3. Make them hate each other. This is one of my favorite solutions because I have a weakness for villain rivalries that are equal parts comedic and dramatic, but bias aside, this absolutely works. They both want Adrien's sole, undivided attention, and, prior to aforementioned screwing over of Chloe's character, Chloe is the world's biggest Ladybug stan, and Lila is her number 1 hater. They also both have a weird power over the adults in the story that two 14 year old girls really shouldn't have. All these factors make it very easy to guess they would clash. Watch as they try to destroy each other! This plays into the "they both suck, but it's different flavors of suck," and makes those flavors mix BADLY together. The one downside is that it is hard to not make this the central focus of the story, because both of them are so over the top that they're absolutely going to drown out most other going ons, and this is technically supposed to be about Marinette and Adrien. It also erases some of the storylines you can get from an actually thought out alliance.

4. Redeem Lila. I have only seen this in one place, but it is a prominent place and that's more places than my suggestion on this whole ordeal. The prominent place being the Scarlet Lady AU by the very talented and lovely ZoeOneesame. Her take on it was basically:

"Chloe in this AU has the ladybug miraculous, and Chloe sucks at her job, so Lila's ladybug hatred is justified. Marinette is in love with Chat and isn't involved in the ladybug drama, so Lila has no reason to hate her. Adrien is both much smarter and much more active in this AU, so he wouldn't deal with Lila in the same hands-off way. Everybody else is also smarter in this AU and would probably know Lila was lying and also not care because they are forgiving and compassionate. So Lila's lies would most likely get called out, she would have the freedom and desire to figure out who she is beneath the lies, and she would have a justified hatred of Scarlet Lady matched by other characters in the AU, and would probably band together with them."

And thus, no filter, vindictive good guy Lila was born! Again, I have only seen this in Scarlet Lady, but it is amazing over there, so I had to talk about it. Redeeming Lila is an unconventional choice for sure, but I think if you arrange for circumstances where Lila would rather ally with the heroes than the villains, then you can get a lot of mileage out of her people-reading/manipulation skills helping out the heroes while possibly scaring the crap out of them at the same time. This has basically all the same downsides as the Chloe redemption though. It's not fun to do if you're here for Lila salt, and it's ABSOLUTELY not canon compliant.

Now. You may have noticed that nobody who writes fanfiction for this show does the canon Chloe-Lila alliance. This is for a myriad of aforementioned reasons: it's redundant, it continues the confusion of Chloe's character arc, and Lila is a Mary Sue, so anything that involves her tends to be frustrating. But, I think there is a way to make it work, so I'm writing about it.

First of all, don't do what canon did where 6 just have Lila teach Chloe how to lie. Take full advantage of the fact that they are two very different types of a**hole. They can ally for the same reasons: they both are super possesive of Adrien and are raging about him getting together with Marinette. And while I don't like the arc of Marinette being a trash and controlling guardian who shows inordinate favoritism to Alya and Zoe and literally nobody else because she's gay for them, you can still do that and have them both hate Ladybug too. I don't like that plot beat, mostly because it's never really addressed that Marinette is in fact a bad guardian outside of some light sulking from Chat, but it can work. She's a 14 year old girl in way over her head with no adults left to help (except the kwamis, but they don't really count because they are very unhelpful). It makes sense that she wouldn't do a good job at first. But whatever their reasons for teaming up, lean into the fact that Lila is a two-faced secretively awful person while Chloe is an in-your-face publicly awful person. From there, it depends on the tone you're going for.

Chloe is a great villain for humor because she's so loud and dramatic. She can get away with saying and doing really insane and rude stuff on the grounds that she's insane and rude (and also rich and powerful). People don't have any expectations for Chloe to be nice or rational, so she can do stuff like try and write a Queen Banana character into the class film and be met with annoyance and frustration rather than outrage and shock. So if you're going a lighthearted route, let Chloe be the one who does all the public legwork for their schemes, and let her be absolutely over the top about it.

On the other hand, Chloe can also be threatening in a far more tangible way than Lila. Lila can make people think you're a bit of a jerk, but it takes a lot of work for her to come close to getting Marinette expelled, even with all her Mary Sueness to help. Chloe can just look at the principal and say "My dad will fire you and remove all school funding if you don't expel her." Chloe won't make people dislike Marinette because nobody likes her, but she can physically hurt Marinette in ways that Lila can't. So if you're going for drama, you can lean into that. Chloe is in a completely different social class than everyone else and has actual power.

Either way, let Chloe be a complete drama queen who is publicly out to get Marinette, because there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

Meanwhile, let Lila work in the background. Lila has never been a comedic villain, only getting introduced after the show had taken a turn for the more dramatic, so don't bother. Leave that to Chloe's antics. Let Lila be the actual threat who is driving their plans. A lot of the reason Chloe was manageable while Lila never was is because Chloe's rage tends to be directionless and impulsive. She has a short temper that can easily be triggered, but also easily soothed, and she doesn't have any thought out plans or long form schemes. She just does whatever she thinks will make her happy in the moment. Have Lila be the one who convinces her to think in the long-term, and who comes up with an overarching plot to get rid of Marinette, adding a sense of real tension to the situation. Sure, before Chloe could have you expelled on a whim, but she also would have stopped bothering the second Adrien paid attention to her. Lila will help Chloe drop that boundary.

Lila also has the advantage of people actually liking her and being willing to do things for her without threatening or bribing them. Lila can do things like make it so Marinette doesn't have any of her friends around to help in an emergency. She can make it so people believe Chloe might actually be justified in her crusade against Marinette this time. She can plant seeds of doubt and distrust and she can socially isolate Marinette in ways Chloe can't. Make people love and believe in her instead, slowly destroy Marinette's support system, and so on. It not only is really dramatic and upsetting, it basically leaves Mari with just Adrien and Chat to rely on, which is FANTASTIC ship fuel if that's your jam. This can also let you have some other prominent characters come to the fore. Have some Kagami focus. Have some Luka focus. Bring in Socqueline and Felix and see how that changes things.

Point is, between these two, you could have a genuine, non-redundant threat that you can get emotional mileage out of. Lila is on one side turning all of Mari's friends against her and scheming to destroy her in the long term. Chloe is on the other side threatening Marinette's lifestyle---her bakery, her school, her fashion career, her public image, her existence in Paris---anything that can be damaged by the Mayor and the Style Queen is under attack. And then you have Hawkmoth on the other end, throwing akumas in her face and forcing her to make impossible choices. I would imagine Lila also gets akumatized on purpose whenever she needs a little extra help, while Chloe just gets egged on and pushed off the deep end by Lila whenever Lila thinks it'd be advantageous. So that trifecta is super genuinely threatening. But you can also have Chloe being a really stupid drama queen whose fits of rage can still be silly and poorly thought out, even with Lila helping her. And you can have some really heartwarming stuff as the people left in Marinette's support system band together and become even closer to get rid of these two once and for all. I just think this plot beat has a lot of untapped potential if the writers didn't make then fulfill the same narrative role, and I haven't really seen it explored yet.

Feel free to use this idea in fanfic, tell me that it sucks and would be bad, or ignore me, I mostly just needed to write this down!

If the mood strikes me or multiple people express interest (yeah right), I will make a (probably much shorter) post explaining how you can redeem both of them effectively and also why I think that would be bad in most circumstances.

Congratulations if you read this whole rant, now please go to sleep. Please. So much please.

Lila and her priorities

I noticed a pattern bit with Lila in each episode we see her.

She can and will switch her priorities when it suits her or when it's in her best interest.

I think it does say something about her. She can aknowledge when she's in a good or a bad position, and tread carefully from there.

For example, after Volpina, when we see her in Heroes Day, she makes sure that the lies she tells can't be as easily found, as Marinette couldn't say she was lying because Lila was more careful and planned ahead, while Prince Ali was in another country, he could still have invited her to her palace without him being there, as his parents could host her.

In Chameleon, she has no idea at first why Marinette is on her back, and when Marinette tells her off about her lies, she drops her act and quickly threatens her, but also tries to have her on her side by giving her a deadline to be with her or against her, saying that Marinette seemed less dumb than the others so she was interesting in having her around since she seemed a cut above the other guillible students, and when Marinette doesn't sumbit she promises her that she will make sure Marinette ends up alone once she's done with her.

Next in Oni-Chan, when facing the villain, Lila is willing to give up on Adrien if it means Ladybug is gone for good, despite her affection for Adrien, she is willing to let go of him if it means her enemy will go down, showing her priorities. And she's completely honest about it too, which impress both Oni-Chan and Hawk Moth. Her hatred runs deeper than her feelings for Adrien. But it shows that she is willing to give up on stuff if it means that she's getting rid of a thorn on her side. She is willing to compromise and give the other party something they want in exchange for something of equal mesure that she would want, and they can trust her on that. She adjust her priorities and can change them.

Best first example of this would be in Ladybug, after succeeding in expulsing Marinette from school, Adrien makes a bargain with her, she tells whatever lie it takes to bring back Marinette to school and he stays her friend, and with Gabriel's approval, she accepts. She brings back Marinette, even though she wanted her gone. She could have also just laugh in Adrien's face and tell him no, he has no proof, it will be his word against her, and well, he wasn't around to witness anything, other than her lie about Ladybug back in Volpina, he knows next to nothing. Again, priorities. She brought back an enemy to appease someone else. It says something, as if she didn't care, Marinette wouldn't have come back to school. Keep in mind that she also almost won there by making several people upset over the expulsion of Marinette that Hawk Moth could become Scarlet Moth again and bring back his Scarlet Army, and she pratically had pulled it off without an inch, freaking Ladybug was just about to give her earrings to Hawk Moth and become Princess Justice, only Nathalie's health declining at that exact moment prevented them from winning right there and there. Sheer, dumb luck. Nothing else. None of that on Lila's fault there, she did her job correctly, it's just Nathalie's health due to the Peacock being broken that they dropped the plan.

Later on in Penalteam she starts to form an alliance of sorts with Chloe over their shared hatred of Marinette, both girls knows Marinette has a crush on Adrien and neither want them to be together, so it's easy for Lila to have Chloe shove Marinette away anytime the girl tries to confess in Risk. She saves face and Chloe gets to shove Marinette around and both prevent her from confessing to Adrien, works for both of them and win for them both.

In season 5, Lila befriends Kagami and tries to make her stop being friends with Marinette, being able to get her akumatized. Kagami calls her out but Lila manages to stay friends with her. Her goal hasn't changed, but she also keeps her priorities in mind, she can't ruin Marinette's friendships if she can't keep her friendships with her friends, so she plays "nice" with Kagami.

But it's in Revelation that we see her priorities change. Gabriel stopped using her as a model for the Agreste brand and replaced her for Kagami. She's beyond enraged at this. She will make him pay, as she swore in the previous episode, Emotion. She shifts her priorities entirely there, usually she's going after Ladybug or Marinette, not this time. Marinette is just an excuse. Her hatred of her is genuine and she uses it to make Monarch come to her so she can be akumatized. She'll pretend to want to destroy Marinette, which will distract Monach enough that he won't notice her going behind his back to get all his secrets and getting away with it. Even better, it works like a charm. And nobody suspect a thing. She fooled everyone. By adjusting her priorities.

Gabriel made the same mistake that Ladybug did back in Volpina, he publicly humiliated Lila and then thought nothing more of her, not thinking her of a threat anymore. He didn't learn a thing from that time it seems. And he was aware of her emotions and how she rejected Ladybug's apology over the whole thing, even sensed her anger for months over her, effortlessly manipulated one of his villain to do what she wanted and he still thinks she's just a liar. But he doesn't know her that well, apart from hating Ladybug and being good at lying, to him she is just useful as a source of information and getting rid of Adrien's friends who aren't good enough for Adrien in Gabriel's eyes. Big mistake of him.

Lila changed her priorities so that her enemies would jump to conclusions and go in her trap so she could get everything in one fell swoop. Usually, she wants Marinette and Ladybug dead. Not this time. She's going after freaking Monarch, she knows who he is, and she doesn't care, he's going down, and she'll take his miraculous from him too in the process. After she learned everything there is to know from him.

Lila doesn't do things halfways. If she faces a loss, she'll make sure to be better prepared next time so she won't be so easily defeated. She learns from her loss and adapt. And she's also willing to make her act more believable by learning skills so that nobody would doubt her, as seen with how she communicates easily with her deaf mother in sign language in Revelation. She has dedication. And is very determined. And is willing to change identities entirely to try again under another name if she fails the first time around.

She will also switch her target when it comes to it. Marinette and Ladybug are her greatest enemies, so much that she ignored taking Chat Noir's miraculous to go after Ladybug back in Chameleon. But she learned from that time since then. As seen in Revelation, her beef was at first with Gabriel/Monarch, who wasn't going to give her powers when she hated his guts, she only got his attention when he thought he was no longer the target of her hatred. She's really good like that. Her plan seemed to be on 2 parts in Revelation, learn Gabriel's secrets and redirect his attention on Marinette. While she's talking to Marinette as Hoaxer, she discreetly brainwashed Nathalie to give her all the information about Monarch, and when she listens to Marinette's speech, she gives up her powers to make herself look good and win the class election, while also making Gabriel think that Marinette was responsible for his loss, and given he already didn't like that she couldn't break Marinette and Adrien together as he wants Adrien to date Kagami instead, Lila redirects Gabriel's anger toward Marinette at the same time, hoping he might try to destroy her for her. She wouldn't have to do a thing. She has known for a while that Gabriel wants Marinette gone from Adrien's circle, and now she gives him another good excuse to be pissed at Marinette more than at herself. Meanwhile she'll go and read all his secrets to prepare to go steal his miraculous when the right time will come. If Gabriel doesn't get rid of Marinette and Ladybug by then, then it's fine, she'll get his miraculous, and do it herself.

But you see how she change her priorities for her plans. When it suits her. She will do anything and everything, if it means putting on standby 2 of her biggest enemies in the hopes of getting something more out of it that would give her even more satisfaction in the long run and would make her even more able to get rid of her enemies herself in the future, then yes, she is willing to change her priorities.

She will already change identities and looks for season 6, and she'll have Nooroo now.

I wonder what she'll do in season 6 when back to school, like I said in a previous post before, maybe she'll try to befriend Marinette and Adrien without all the big lying around her "amazing life". Maybe she'll keep a lower profile, given her look as "Iris Verdi", she will most likely appear normal so to not arouse suspicion. Maybe she'll try what she tried when she was akumatized all the way back the first time as Volpina, a false friend to the main duo who won't see anything coming until it's too late.

She's sadistic enough to pull it off I would say, and she would take great pleasure in it. She could be like a fifth wheel to the Marinette, Adrien, Alya and Nino group of friends, while secretly plotting their demise maybe.

If she got all Gabriel's info on the miraculouses, I must wonder if she'll also get the information about the miraculous holders that he had, like the identities of Rena Rouge, Carapace, Pegasus, Viperion, Ryuko and King Monkey. Knowing they are all close friends of Marinette and Adrien, maybe she would connect the dots and thinks that they are Ladybug and Chat Noir, and then everything would be perfect for her. Marinette and Ladybug being only 1 person would make it so much easier for her to plot her destruction. As for Adrien being Chat Noir, well, given he knows how she really is, and given her actions back in Oni-Chan, she would be probably also be willing to destroy him/give him up for the change to get Marinette/Ladybug. And then with their miraculouses, well, who knows what she might wish for. Probably to be the Goddess of the Universe who is worshipped by everyone, or just make sure to erase the memory of Marinette Dupain-Cheng from history, or just being able to bend reality to her lies. Who knows.

But we'll see if any of this happen next season, and how she will adjust her priorities then.

Submitted prompt: This Series Needs An Adult

Edit: The prompt has been edited to fix a misunderstanding, Lila's dad is meant to be an Arab man, not black, I relied only on a quick google-image search to figure out where Maghreb was, and assumed that because it was in northern Africa that it meant he was black. This is 100% my mistake, and I apologize again, it won't happen again!

AU on many fronts, including Lila being mixed-race and having a dad that’s in the picture.

Edited a lot so it doesn't break the rules: No downplaying or defending Lila's lying, including by saying she can't help it. If you want her lying to not be a bad thing, then it can just be an AU where she doesn't go around manipulating people in the first place.

And since this is an AU where she has a parent in the picture who's not as neglectful as her mom is in canon, and actively cares for her she'd be a lot less likely to be a compulsive liar because she wouldn't be constantly starved for attention/affection. Also edited to add more details.

I named Lila's dad Mir as a placeholder name since just calling him "Lila's dad" is a bit of a mouthful when he's pretty much our perspective character. Feel free to change it.

-

Lila's dad is an archaeologist who knows what the Cat Miraculous looks like from ancient depictions of it, and he's great at spotting liars. And so one day when he's giving a presentation at Bring Your Parent to School day, he sees firsthand the way Adrien defends Chloe when she's openly and blatantly racist towards the other children, and even their parents. Marinette, Alya, Nino, Kim, Max, and Kagami and their parents are all targets of her racism, along with Mir and his daughter.

And to Mir's horror...Mrs. Bustier stands there with a stupid smile on her face, and does nothing, says nothing, doesn't do anything to stop her student from being horrifically racist.

None of the stories Lila had ever told him about her school ever included the fact that the teacher stood by and did nothing. He's assumed that Chloe was at least being punished for her misconduct, but now...now he sees that that assumption was giving too much credit where it wasn't due. Ms. Bustier does nothing, remains silent--

Until Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Alya Cesaire confront Chloe, telling her to knock off her racist comments. Then Ms. Bustier loses her gentle smile, and instead turns it into a frown, and scolds the two children for standing up for themselves, their friends, and their families.

And Mir gets to see firsthand how Adrien Agreste comes to Chloe Bourgeois' defense, even with all of the other students and all but one of the adults in the class arrayed against her.

The injustice of it all causes one of the other parents and their child to be Akumatized when they storm out of the classroom together, and in the ensuing chaos, Mir notices very quickly the way Adrien Agreste makes his excuses to leave the classroom to hide elswhere, even though the Akumas had already broken in to kidnap Chloe and had left.

As the kid is gesturing, Mir gets a very good look at the ring he's wearing, and recognizes it instantly, with a pit of shock opening in his stomach. He's stared at this thing's likeness countless times, he knows it like the back of his hand. It can't be possible--but it is all too possible, and now that he's seen both side of the mask, it's clear that the behavior matches up.

Adrien Agreste, the billionaire white boy who defends his billionaire white girl friends' abject racism, is the same white boy known as Chat Noir, who's been sexually harassing Ladybug, the real hero, since day one, his behavior escalating to new levels of horrible every week that went by, until now several times he'd been caught on camera trying to get people Akumatized by playing off their fears and angers.

It all makes perfect sense. Too much sense. He thought he was seeing red before, now he's more angry than he's ever felt in his life.

His only sensible course of action?

Follow Adrien as he leaves, take the damned sacred ring before Adrien can use it to transform, and go to the fight himself, leaving Adrien safely in the school with the rest of the civilians. Adrien tries to put up a fight, of course, but he’s just a kid, and Mir shrugs it off, then gives him a push back towards the classroom with a single command: “Go hide with the others. Your job here is done.”

He puts the ring on as Adrien continues to protest, and Plagg, asks one one question: “You’re here to help?”

“I’m here to help.” Mir replies.

“Then say ‘Plagg, claws out’!” Plagg commands, and Mir obeys.

They transform, and Mir and Plagg again order Adrien back to safety, then they leave out the window, ready to join the fight.

And that's how Marinette Dupain-Cheng ends up with Lila's dad joining her in the fight to rescue her friend and their family, and after the fight’s over, they meet up again for patrol that night, and－feeling she can trust him because of his actions earlier in the day－Marinette tells him just how much harassment, touching, kissing, unwanted advances, etc. she's had to deal with from Chat Noir. She finally breaks down crying at the end, too overcome with the emotions.

And Mir makes the executive decision that while he may not be what people imagine when they picture a superhero - he's in his fifties, he's a coffee addict, he's an academic not a fighter, and he’s an Arab man - he'll be happy to be Ladybug's sidekick until they can take down Hawkmoth if it means she never has to put up with someone creeping on her again. He’s not going to trust anyone else with helping this girl. He’d originally planned to give her the ring, so she could find someone to help her, but that just flew out the window along with his ability to care about how being a superhero is going to completely destroy his research schedule. 

He gives her a shoulder to cry on, and tells her, "I have a daughter. If anyone treated her like this boy treats you, I would get akumatized and I don't want to know what I would do next."

Thus begin the adventures of Ladybug and Nightcat, or, as Alya immediately dubs him on the Ladyblog, Dadcat. Because it's high time Marinette has an adult figure in her life who:

A) knows about her being Ladybug (which disqualifies her parents, unfortunately)

B) doesn't validate Chat Noir’s harassment towards her. 

And now, if Adrien wants to get to her again, he's gotta go through a superhero who’s hellbent on never letting that happen. 

Fights go a lot smoother with someone around who takes them seriously, not to mention with someone who is actually committed to fighting Hawkmoth to the point where he's trying to figure out the man's identity during their downtime like Adrien should have been doing for four seasons, and actively hindered when he lied to Marinette about finding the Grimoir in his father’s office.

In the end it turns out that with a partner who actually does his half of the work, Ladybug and Nightcat are able to take down Hawkmoth in a matter of a month and a half flat, and when that's settled, Mir gives her the Cat Miraculous with Plagg’s blessing. From now on, she can decide who she wants to work with, and if she ever needs him again, well, he had to detransform to give her the Miraculous, so she knows where to find him.

Marinette admits she's not sure if she wants to keep being Ladybug, and he tells her he supports her no matter what, because that should be her choice, too. Her consent matters, in all things.

"Chat Noir never told me that." She says.

"Chat Noir never told you that because he never believed it. Find people who do, and hang out with them instead."

-===================

Then and only then does he finally contact Adrien Agreste via email, now that he finally has time and energy to give him a piece of his mind.

He starts by telling Adrien that he and Chloe are both racist jerks, and that chloe who has absolutely made comments about Lila's skintone that Mir, a Maghrebi-French man, finds abhorently offensive and no, Chloe being Adrien’s friend does not excuse her racism, Adrien, or yours by defending her. No, it's not okay for Chloe to be racist to someone just because she doesn’t like her. The reason she doesn’t like Lila is that Chloe’s racist. This is not a difficult concept. Any comments Lila’s made back do not excuse racism. Nothing does.

Secondly, goofing around, making puns, laughing and acting like a six year old at play when akumas attack? Are you serious, young man?! People died! Too many people to count had gotten seriously hurt! No, it doesn't matter that it got fixed by magic once the fight was over, the whole experience was still traumatic, and it's disgusting that Adrien ever thought it was okay to endanger the public like this, what the actual hell was he thinking? Did he have any idea how much psychological damage he’d done to the people of this city?

Thirdly, Ladybug had clearly not been faring well with the stress of being a hero, and if Adrien couldn’t grow up for the sake of the people of Paris, couldn’t he at least act like a reasonable human being for her sake? No? He were too busy hitting on her, to the point where the people of Paris had noticed and discussions of his sexual harassment were rampant on social media? Gross. Despicable. Not how anyone should ever behave, let alone a superhero.

Fourthly, Hawkmoth had still been running around undefeated for months under Adrien’s reign as Chat Noir, thanks majorly in part to Adrien’s harassment of Ladybug, his refusal to take the fights seriously, and his directly aiding the villain by antagonizing people to the point of Akumatization.

That was why Mir had taken the Ring of the Black Cat away from him － because wearing it meant accepting a responsibility, and Adrien had refused to uphold that responsability.

Mir loves Lila, and now he loves Ladybug too like a second daughter, but unlike some people, his love translates into doing something to make the city safe for his loved ones to live in, rather than tormenting them for his own pleasure.

He ends the conversation with one scathing final comment:

(But I suppose, if you did stop the great evil, then there would have been no reason for Ladybug to continue putting up with your horrible behavior, would there have been? I wonder if that's the real reason the situation had been allowed to go on for so long.")

the villain competency thing was something I was thinking about recently like. at least with Gabriel we have the whole kids vs adults, new generation vs old generation type thing and we didn't know much about him other than he was bad. additionally, since he was Adrien's dad, he had a control over him even without the sentinonsense. he posed a threat on both sides of the fight.

With Chloe and Lila, we were given them as civilians except they've made one so stupid that she's become an illiterate puppet scapegoat and the other can't even lie well without making other actually established smart people stupid enough to fall for it. And yeah they tossed in that bs with her fooling three separate adult women but like, idk i feel like that says more about them being incredibly negligent parents than it does about her cause is she just doing it for fun? what's that got to do with our heroes at this point in time? what's it show besides the fact that rather than making Lila actually great at manipulation you decide to show her manipulation by giving us scenes of something more "horrible" than her lying about knowing celebrities to a bunch of high school kids.

so if they decide to make this dumb blonde and plot armor liar our Big Villains from this point forward, they've got their work cut out for them. Like they're gonna keep retconning shit so it doesn't actually matter but if they cared at all about continuity then they can't make Lila the main lead villain without making her or the miraculous team look useless. If they're going with the callback to whatever scared her at the end of season 5 and have that help her be the main villain then damn she couldn't even do the evil shit herself huh? and if it's mainly just her and the akumas then high chance they'll toss in the heroes and have them be just as dumb as when they were around her at school. but then it'd be "why did Marinette give miraculouses to such pathetic heroes?" in the same vein of "wow the class was stupid enough to believe Lila's shitty lies" and it wouldn't even be their fault, it would be because they keep giving Lila plot armor. at the very least, the fact that Gabriel just kept doing the same thing over and over and kept losing was because that was established before they decided to be more story driven.

Chloe can't be smart. Austruc would absolutely refuse. so then you run into the same problem again except this villain is easy to beat and if you're all going against her at once then you're all the bullies at that point tbh. but also like, 18 vs 1?? gross. And she wouldn't even be a fun villain if she was stupid either. nowhere near Team Rocket levels of amusing cause at least they were their own characters. if they decide to make her a senti, it'll be bad either way cause they're def not gonna add any nuance to that. if they decide to make her good (highly highly highly doubt), it's going to be like those fics where Chloé has to go through so much shit as "punishment" that she's basically going deeper than the rock bottom of being literally abandoned by her dad and being abused by her mom that it's still a salt fic no matter how you spin what side she's on.

it's just like, the worst of characterizations of these characters and you picked every single bad story thread/end of each story arc of the past few seasons and it's a mess i don't have confidence in their writing to fix. but considering the writers' (specifically Austruc tbh) tendency to "we do what we want when we feel like we need to" attitudes to plot (side eyes that tweet about timeline) then highly doubt they'll even touch on old shit cause, as said by a different tweet, the Agreste Family Arc is over. they're def just gonna move on.

Yeah it's a mess

Continuing my Felix becomes Argos early AU (which I'm currently referring to myself as the Early Bird AU not sure if I'm keeping the name officially)

Seeing as one of his main (and likely only) goals for attending DuPont is to look after Adrien, he very much steps in to remind Marinette (and potentially later on the rest of the Akuma Class), after he (Adrien) suggests they take the high road when it comes to Lila lying, that Adrien isn't her boyfriend. He is not her keeper. She doesn't have to agree with him. But fuck her if she drags his cousin under the bus because she can't get over a silly little crush and has that affect whether or not she can actually disagree with him. If she wanted to go with it, fine, but she should have laid her own terms. Like if Lila does something drastic, she's going to tell someone, an adult she can trust to do the right thing. Or if Lila doesn't stop soon, even with the more minor lies, she's going to say something. And for love of everything, actually get evidence before you say shit because you're just sounding like a bitch whenever you say Lila's lying with no proof.

Marinette: BUT THEY AREN'T PROVING SHE'S TELLING THE TRUTH EITHER!

Felix: THAT ISN'T THEIR JOB!!

Felix: Literally no one but her has claimed she was telling the truth as far as we know. We all just think her stories are interesting and considering this class, what with Miss I'm The Mayor's Daughter, my cousin the Famous Model, MX. I Live in a Museum and YOU, Miss I Actually Have Connections But I'm Too Humble About It And Don't Wanna Brag, is it really hard to believe what Lila says?

Marinette: But, it's not fair that I have to-

Felix: Have to what? Back up your claims? Yes. It is fair. BECAUSE YOU'RE THE ONE MAKING THEM!!

Marinette: Felix.

Felix: Marinette.

Felix: Listen, like I said, I'm just here for Adrien. And for whatever reason, he likes you and wants to be your friend.

Marinette:...

Felix: And I'm not going to stop him from being your friend. But if he gets hurt, just because you can't get a clear head when he says something to you, when he suggests something you don't agree with, I don't care what connections you have.

Felix: So, either come up with terms for the honestly very likely time the highroad comes to an end, or tell Adrien you can't take the highroad at all.

Felix: Do I make myself clear?

Marinette:...yeah. Yeah, okay. Give me a few days.

Felix: I'm giving you two at most.

Marinette: But-

Felix: I was going to give you until tonight. Would you prefer that?

Marinette: Ugh, no, fine...

Marinette:...it's hard to like you.

Felix: So I've been told.

Marinette: But I can't hate you, when...ughh, when I know you're right.

Marinette: I'll see if I can come up with any terms, and if I can't... I'll tell Adrien I can't take the highroad.

Felix: Good. I'll hold you to that.