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Upon her introduction to the series Kagami’s main weapon of choice is a foil, a sort of light weight blunted fencing rapier. This is however possibly also intended as a pun, because her purpose in the narrative is also a foil.

A word repeated changes it’s meaning.

Kagami means “mirror” in Japanese and as is often the case in fiction, that name gives us some insight to what the writers intended when imagining her. In this case, she’s a mirror/foil to both our main protagonists. But since Marinette and Adrien are already a Yin Yang couple, built on complimenting and contrasting each other all the way down to having their color schemes be each other’s negatives. So how does she manage to mirror them both?

Well, where is the mirror between you and your reflection? Right in the middle. She shows each of them themselves, but with a little bit reversed.

A foil exists to provide contrast; When Marinette’s too afraid to make a move Kagami’s bold and rushes straight ahead, when Adrien struggles to disobey his father her strong and stubborn will stands firm, when Marinette’s trying to self sabotage her best friends day contest Kagami’s making an earnest effort with Adrien’s quirky friend who he suggested she might like, when Adrien and Luka are too stunned to help up Marinette she makes her move, when Ladybug has a plan for a stealthy escape Ryuuko boldly attempts to fight Ikari Gozen, when Marinette’s clumsy and disoriented Kagami’s athletic and skilled, and when Adrien is unable to effectively comment why he can’t always be present for her Kagami is able to express why that lack of honesty won’t work for her.

A silvery foil is what gives a mirror it’s reflective surface, the things reflected on the other side will still match.

The Cat and Ladybug miraculouses always find each other through fate? Well Adrien and Kagami were literally made for each other.

She high society like Adrien.

She struggles to communicate and express herself like Marinette.

Adrien’s an anime nerd? Kagami reads manga and bases relationship advice off of them.

Marinette hates liars? Kagami’s reason for breaking up with Adrien also led to her becoming an Akuma that embodies her hatred for dishonesty.

She revels in tiny bits of rebellion with Adrien.

She tries to capture the world around her through art and even sketches and paints in her spare time like Marinette, she even paints with Marinette.

She tries to wingman for Adrien with Marinette like how Marinette tried to help her back together with him

She’s burdened by familial expectations like Adrien

She had a helmet removal scene that was literally copied for Marinette, both even happen at the front of the school

Ryuuko’s fighting style matches Chat’s, her main color scheme matches Ladybug’s, and her civilian attire has a white overcoat with a black under shirt like Adrien’s that give a perfect white/black futatsutomoe (☯️) with Marinette’s black jacket over a white shirt.

She’s obviously visually inspired by Marinette’s overall design with her hair and even her freckles are more prominent on the opposite side of her face than where Marinette’s are(Kagami has more overall but her’s are mainly on the left side of her face while Marinette’s are on the right)

When Adrien’s only parent is his father she’s left with only her mother

When Marinette has several friends to fall back on Kagami feels alone and when Adrien feels isolated Kagami’s there alongside his other friends

When we start to get clues about who is a senti-being we get scenes of both Kagami and Adrien

Both Marinette and Kagami have arcs about setting their own feelings aside to support the other

Both Adrien and Kagami have their image co-opted by their parents for a soulless ai assistant copy of themselves.

She even counterbalances their heroics by having some of the most akuma forms and by being one of the fastest to reveal her own identity

A foil has many uses in a narrative, and by letting her be a counterpart to two protagonists at once it has allowed her to become one of the most dynamic and fleshed out characters in the show, even if a lot of that was in service of fleshing out other characters. Heck she even mirrors herself in ways, just look at how Ryuuko’s symbol flows counter to the Tsurugi family crest, she’s a break from tradition and what was intended for her.

I know I’m probably still forgetting things but I just wanted to have a little rant about how I love these themes.

Kagami is a mirror, she is a foil, a word repeated.

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Realcat!plagg AU idea except I don't have the energy to draw a comic of it so you have to read a wall of text instead.

There is still magic and there are still kwamis. Kwamis can take a variety of forms. Tikki prefers to stay in the regular little sprite form we're familiar with on the show. Marinette gets her miraculous the same way she does in canon. Nothing on Marinette or Tikki's end deviates from canon, actually.

Adrien, on the other hand, gets his miraculous after a ratchet stray black cat wanders into his room carrying a strange jewelry box. He's mainly concerned with trying to get this cat out of his room without his father noticing, but after a while of trying and failing to capture it, he resigns himself to fiddling with the jewelry box and the ring inside of it. He discovers by accident that it's a magic ring that gives him superpowers. He forgets about the cat in his room (which is no longer in his room but in his ring) and goes off galavanting as a superhero the way he does in canon.

He's smart enough to deduce that the ring and his new fugly little cat are connected (since the ring gives him a black cat persona), but he has no reason not to think that the cat, now named Plagg (after the sound of him throwing up a hairball as per @buggachat 's comic, but also happening to be Plagg's actual real name, which Plagg finds hilarious but is also a little offended by) is anything other than a normal but very shady cat. Yeah, he's somehow connected to this magic ring, but he's just a normal, lazy cat who does normal, destructive cat things and shows no signs of higher intelligence. Adrien's conclusion is that as a counterbalance to becoming a superhero, he also now has to take care of this weird fleabag as a way to keep him humble. But he doesn't mind after a while.

Ladybug and Cat Noir don't talk about their kwamis that much at first. They're still getting the hang of the superhero thing and figuring out what's safe for them to talk about. But slowly they get more comfortable talking about different things, and that's when Cat Noir brings up the origins of their powers.

"So what happened when you got your miraculous? Was it just one ladybug bringing you your earrings, or like a whole swarm?"

"...What? It was my kwami."

"Your what?"

Adrien goes home that night and immediately demands answers from his cat. Plagg gaslights him for a while by remaining a normal, oblivious cat. Adrien eventually falters, thinking he's losing his mind, and ceases throwing accusations at his cat. And it is at this point that Plagg finishes the bit, finally transforms into his canon kwami form, and laughs at Adrien, who is screaming

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Viperion is the big brother the team needs.

Ryuko Queen Bee Rena Rouge King Monkey Purple Tigeress Argos

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i really think rose quartz is the voice of our times she was suicidal she was bisexual she was a libra she was fat she was horny all the time she was pink she went to war against herself she fumbles people who demand emotional intimacy from her she has a very loose grip on reality she loves everything and hates herself she somehow has mommy issues despite belonging to a species where mothers do not exist her boobs are self-made she was into soundcloud rappers she has committed identity theft and a hundred other war crimes she has several pet lions one of which is a zombie and she couldn’t break out of herself. peace and love on planet girl

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school uniform AU where everyone goes to kagami’s private school

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decided to subject you all to my mind. and my mind has a lot of feelings about adrien and plagg in real-cat!plagg au.

plagg adopted adrien, not the other way around

(sequel to this post)

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Amanda is Super Perceptive

The super perceptive @occasionallygiveadamn pointed this out to me and now I can't Unsee it.

Because holy crap how quickly does Amanda understand Dirk in S1?

Bear in mind that at this point, Amanda has met Dirk once, briefly. Nothing weird happened, they only said a few lines to each other, nothing case related occurred - and still - Amanda totally gets the following about him:

Weird stuff happening..? Call Dirk.

Dirk is central to the Weird Stuff in some way (caveat below*)

Whatever Dirk is/has - it's Real.

He doesn't need to investigate in a normal way, he works by going with the flow

Despite his protestations to the contrary, Todd really is Dirk's assistant

There is some connection between Dirk and the Rowdy 3

Dirk is fantastic

* I would say that Amanda makes an initial mistake that lots of people (including Dirk himself) make which is to think that Dirk causes the weird stuff, but that's not true, the universe brings Dirk to The Weird so he can fix it. He doesn't cause any of the weird at all.

Dirk also rightly perceives that Amanda is Fantastic

I would have enjoyed more Dirk & Amanda friendship scenes because they are such Instant Friends in the show and Real Friends irl so have great friend chemistry <3

I mean look how sad they are that they didn't get to spend more time together?

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I love enby aroaces. yall really said I don’t want to have to do with any of that actually

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jail isn’t so bad honestly. they have me in solitary confinement and it’s awesome. all i wanted other than my wife to be alive and breathing was to be left completely and utterly alone. i just brood dark and twisted in the corner all day and scare the guards

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Hey can you hold this onion for me? I’m using it for tonight’s dinner, so keep an eye on it for me ok?

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Various stars & moon details from my gouache paintings 🌙✨

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falling apart

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this au got me laying awake at 3am thinking abt steven surviving a job interview

bonus:

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Actually I wanna be someone’s comfort person. their go to. their favorite. the person they wanna grow with and heal with.

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i love microplastics. i’m fond of macroplastics as well. they are immortal and everlasting, unlike Some women i know,