#akuma victims

[ilikelookingatthings]

Thoughts on Miraculous Ladybug : A Comment from YouTube I'm proud of about themes and Gabriel

and don't get me STARTED on Gabriel. the undercut and sabotaged any nuance this man had for 5 freaking seasons. every time he showed nuance or good feelings, they undercut it by forcing him to do something worse to snuff out any sense of sympathy or complexity, so we know who the bad guy and good guy is. yet they try to ham fist a last-minute redemption?!

don't get me wrong I actually DO want a redeemable complex Gabriel but its VERY confusing and just BAD how they handled it. at the very least they could have made it better if they literally said he was good and genuinely had good intentions to save his wife. after all she was 'missing' which means the plan was to use the wish to wake her up and she could come back using going missing as a cover. He wasn't raising the dead as she was in a magical coma.

he has a fix it as he knew if he lost that the ladybug miraculous would fix things and if he won, he could use the ladybug miraculous to fix any damage he did. by making 'hawkmoth' the villain it means people would have a target outside of the victims and the victims technically have to agree to the powers, so Gabe has the illusion of consent. and his plan to make a villain was to lure the ladybug and chat miraculous out of hiding by forcing them to activate to fix the problem since he couldn't track it down otherwise.

Overall, yes, it's not 'good' but his plan made sense in a way of minimizing damage for just wanting to save his wife. play up the fact they had no one to ask for help since the guardians were gone...from his view he was 'acting' as a villain. he had no training and didn't even have a properly translated book and wasn't chosen for his role.

just point to the fact Gabe has been using his miraculous of emotions wrong. he has been amplifying his own negative emotions to feel others negative emotions and forcing a fixation on the miraculous to get his victims to try to steal them. we have literally seen how even being a little emotionally off can have consequences.

Feast with fu was a rouge Senti-monster that sensed Fu's negative emotions, negative emotions that weren't even a part of why he made the Senti-being (which was to get him some snacks, Marinette's miraculous immediately timing down when she used it to separate Adrien and Chloe instead of attacking bubbler due to her jealousy, how Tikki's snack attack affected Mari when Mari transformed. and how Akuma Victims are prone to making dumb mistakes and you literally can't reason with them properly and act more fixated and aggressive.

they could have fixed the situation by just pointing out as a side effect from using his miraculous the way he was...his personality was literally getting twisted like his Akumas due to using mis miraculous in a way it wasn't supposed to be intended. Even more with how they mention using multiple ones can cause a strain on you and literally make you insane.

that way it would validate the times Gabe was reasonable or genuinely cared as the real him while also validating and explaining all the times he became SO much worse and cartoonishly evil.

while I would have preferred Adrien actually being there in the final battle with hawkmoth..... if they just played up that Mari being more willing to sympathize and see the villians genuinely needed help and weren't just evil was due to adrien's/chat's influence because that is adrien's strength in the show. his sympathy and ability to think deeper on motivations and not just punish and how he helped teach mari to not take things entirely at face value and be more patient.

heck the final battle could have worked if they played up the Mari and gabe are actually genuinely VERY similar. they have LOTS of parallels in the show...

like I think they were going for a parallel to collector/the end of collector when mari went to him to give him the book she took(even if lila took it first) where gabe surprised us by him admiring ehr stepping forward and not being mad at her, even answering her questions and agreeing not to tell adrien when she asked him to keep silent. and a reminder about how gabe did give a genuine apology to adrien at the end of collector when he could have gotten away with not doing so since adrien DID steal the book from his locker...Gabe genuinely apologized in depth.

but because the show had spent most of the season undercutting any goodness in Gabriel again with no explanation to cover it like saying it was the influence of him going insane like his victims due to how he had been using his miraculous....it just feels unearned and messed up. even more if he was going to use the wish...why couldn't he had used it so Nathalie and the mom would be okay? if his plan had always been to use himself in case there was a price how would Mari have reacted?

like I still don't get why she trusted him at all. and because they never mentioned Gabe going insane or his behavior was due to how he handled the miraculous (like Akuma victims)

...it just comes across as Gabe just being genuinely terrible and abusive as him as a default for most of the show which makes the redemption/him fighting his choice WEIRD.

like please for the love of GOD WHY did they not just make it a side effect of using his brooch the way he did literally! it would have used the fact they primed us to sympathize/not judge what people do under the Akuma influence/in the deepest throes of their negative feelings because its prompted by them being twisted by the magic to at least give Gabe a BUFFER(for the audience).

It would make him 'fighting' so to speak, literally him fighting how he had twisted himself literally with the way he used the miraculous...like how people can fight drugs or the fought akums before. and the tragedy that Nathalie thought Gabe was just bad...not realizing her enabling him using the brooch the way he did twists someone she genuinely cared about.

like, it is easy to notice at judge the physical effects of the peacock broach, but the mental effect of the butterfly is HONESTLY terrifying/scary and has so many implications if their plan was to hint that original Gabe was more similar to Betterfly.

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I think it works even more because it would also explain why Gabe seemed different in this specific fight because he didn't know Adrien was chat noir. people often use Gabe's reaction to Adrien being Chat Noir to validate seeing Gabe as just an abusive horrible person...but what I've also seen is if Gabe actually talks or is around Adrien for enough time Gabe WILL soften to some degree...pointing to how Gabe does care for Adrien and that it grounds him more in his original motive/personality.

So, the change might be because Gabe has been amplifying his negative feelings so 'hawkmoth' is more focused and fixated on the miraculous and defeating ladybug and chat...finding out Adrien is chat makes the 'hawkmoth' affects take over more.

like how we saw Nate and others relax at times around certain people that breakthrough the delusion (like when Nate was actually convinced to leave Chloe alone to go hang with Marinette) but he snapped back into his villain mindset when Mari's actions echoed Chloe.

I think what's worse is it's not even a rewrite since all the blocks are THERE but the show just never acknowledges it.

[tears-of-xion]

Ended up doing a bit of a Lady Wifi redesign for funsies. c:

-

Please do not use or re-post my artwork without my permission. Thank you!   (reblogs, however, are welcome and appreciated)

I do not own Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, nor it’s characters. All rights to their owners.

[tigerdrop-official]

i swear i'm not getting into discourse lol i just follow "miraculous" and its related tags but i just wanted to say for the record that if you get akumatized it's not your fault, you didn't do anything wrong, hawkmoth uses your own emotions against you and manipulates you into doing what he wants.

all you need to do to be akumatized is feel a strong emotion. you are absolutely not in the wrong for feeling strongly, and you're not a bad person if you did/do get akumatized

[rosekasa]

Psycomedian Ladybug's crimes were NOT involuntary

JDHFJSHDJSJS no ur so right. it was 100% voluntary. but i believe she could get off on diminished responsibility if she DID cause any deaths because. akuma mind control

[t4tadrienette]

Oh shit that's when she found out about Marinette holy shit I completely got that out of my mind, yeah when they showed the flashback I didn't understand it was that episode, I can't believe Kagami found out Marinette was Ladybug right in the episode she was akumatized

[stygicniron]

❛  please don't tell me you're about to do what i think you'll do.  ❜

Meme Tag -- @yinbug

"Okay, I'm not going to tell you," Nico said, twelve pack of soda under one arm and a pack of cookies under the other. Both were a much nicer quality than what he was used to giving the spirits back at home, but the French didn't seem to have any readily accessible, extremely sugary sodas, and there were no Oreos in sight, so he was going to have to make do.

At least the food smelled delicious, which he decided was a good thing. Nico liked to be courteous to the spirits, and at the moment, they needed the help they could get. (Nico wasn't entirely sure when 'they' included him, but probably around the saw time Hawk Moth started messing with the dead.)

"Just ignoring me is probably the best," he said, trying to sound soothing before he jerked his chin in the direction of most of the screaming and car alarms. "Don't you have an akuma person to save or whatever?"

[angry-glasses]

Hitsugi best girl. she really went and told Chitaru "I'm sorry :c I wouldn't have killed that girl if I knew she was your friend I promise :c"

like first of all. i'm fairly sure you had no idea who Chitaru was when you got that job. your target being her friend would've meant nothing to you.

second of all can you actually do that? just tell your organization "sorry i can't kill that person, my gf would get mad at me, please ask someone else"??? genuine question, just how high up on the hierarchy are you?

third. girl. sweetie. i don't think that's the point you should be trying to make here. Chitaru's probably a bit too much of a good person to appreciate this kind of apology, i mean, so maybe don't imply you'd have no problem killing anyone who wasn't her friend.

last. and funniest, imo. didn't you just poison Shiena for making eyes at Chitaru. are you sure Chitaru's cherished friend would be safe from you.

[no-cap-ricorn]

Do you have a faovrite akuma?

that's like saying "when was the best time you've ever been punched in the face" anon ??

and half of the costumes aren't even well designed ? hawkmoth do better

[chocostrwberry]

I like to imagine that after Alya loses her miraculous, she goes full investigation and detective, doing all she can to figure out what Hawmoth, Mayura, and Volpnia (and eventually Madame Morphosis and Argos) are planning and where they could be operating from (since she can't really figure out their identities),

YOU GOT MY BRAIN THINKING!!

What if since alya loses the fox miraculous, she feels like she failed LB and her team. But she won’t just crawl into a hole and feel sorry for herself. She’s still going to do everything she can to help LB, even if she doesn’t have a miraculous anymore. Alya does this through increasing awareness about Hawkmoth’s influence over Paris!!

Maybe she transforms her already popular Ladyblog into an Anti-Hawkmoth platform. She links mental health resources, interviews conducted by her with victims of Hawkmoth, ways to identify an akuma butterfly, etc.!

This would really help LB because if there are less akumas being created, she can have time to recover from unification. And it would be harder for Madame Morphosis in Season 3 to find people to akumatize, but as an unexpected drawback, the ones she does create are extremely powerful because the victims were too emotional to resist.

I didn’t really think of her role after losing the fox miraculous and this is kinda perfect bc I love her so much!!

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

In Defense of Marinette

I like Marinette. While there are many valid criticisms of her writing, the same can be said for literally every other character and she's actually doing pretty well given that she's the main character. After all, in a show where consistent characterization is an ongoing issue, the one with the most screen time will probably be the one who's the biggest victim of the issue.

This is heavily exacerbated by the rule that supposedly governs Miraculous. Namely that, in each story, Marinette must make a mistake. Or, at least, so says the head writer:

I really do not care what this guy says on Twitter or anywhere else. I only care about what's in the show because, if you have to go outside the text to understand the text, then you have no idea how to tell a good story.

However, unlike many of the tweets that I've seen, this one isn't some BS bit of lore. It's a writing rule and it has substantial backing in the text. It's extremely rare to have an episode where Marinette comes out smelling like roses and that's a problem because Miraculous has over 100 episodes. In other words, to follow this rule, the writers have to come up with over 100 ways for Marinette to be wrong so of course she's going to come across poorly. Why would you do this to your main character?

It's extremely common for kids shows to have a "lesson of the day" element to them. Someone always needs to learn something, but I've never seen a show misunderstand the assignment so badly. Learning a lesson is not the same as doing something wrong.

It's been a while since I watched the 2010 version of My Little Pony, but it really leaned into that whole "lesson of the day" thing and it actually knew what it was doing, so I'm going to talk about it briefly to discuss things that Miraculous should have done.

The first thing to note is that MLP had an unambiguous main character - Twilight Sparkle - but Twilight was not the one who learned all of the lessons. She had a pet dragon and a crew of five friends who would, occasionally, be the ones to learn the lesson because there were lots of lessons that simply didn't fit Twilight's character. Instead of warping Twilight to make the idea work (cough cough Ikari Gozen cough), the writers just let someone else have the spotlight for a bit.

This is an excellent way to build out your cast and Miraculous had plenty of opportunities to do it. For example, Lila should not have been Marinette's issue. The fact that Lila hates Marinette could have certainly stuck around, but the one who takes her down and learns to investigate her sources? That should have been Alya. A liar is the perfect enemy for an investigative journalist, but a poor enemy for someone who shines as a battlefield commander and overthinks when she's given too much time.

Another way that MLP would teach lessons was to have someone other than Twilight or the main crew cause the issue that they then had to deal with. This leads to one of the best moments in children's television:

And, frankly? Marinette deserves a moment like this. That poor girl has been through hell and is never allowed to make the right call when it really matters. The show will even completely rewrite its lore to make her fail (see: Strike Back). That is such an awful thing to do to your lead! Shows about female empowerment should include women feeling powerful and, no, Lila and Chloe don't count!

Also, the show is literally about Gabriel taking advantage of people who are upset. You don't need to have Marinette make a mistake to shoehorn in a life lesson. Akumas are life lesson fodder and season 1 actually seemed to get this. I'm not sure why they switched gears to "Marinette is the star and, therefore, must always be wrong."

The final way that MLP taught lessons was to have Twilight do something wrong because having your main character do something wrong is a totally valid way to teach lessons. It just shouldn't be your only way because you know who is always wrong in children's media?

Villains.

They wrote Marinette like a villain.

And a large part of the fandom hates her for it because of course they do.

You're not supposed to like villains.

[ilikelookingatthings]

Thoughts on Miraculous Ladybug : A Comment from YouTube I'm proud of about themes and Chloe

The thing that confuses me is theme wise Akumas are people who are hurt/have been wronged. who feel alone or like that hurt isn't being seen, who then lash out to try to make that hurt seen or help themselves...often in ways that don't make sense logically to us but makes sense to them in the heat of the negative emotions. but the point is these 'villains' are in fact victims. they are people who are hurting and who need help and when you find the core of their problem (represented by an item that often is connected to their problem) and acknowledge it/break it open. then your able to have a chance to actually talk to them/calm them down and give them the help they need.

the show has been pointing to the fact that the 'villains' are victims where in these cases we blame the ones who act like they understand or are there for the victims and who encourage them down bad paths(in this case hawkmoth).

but the show has used Chloe in particular to both have Marinette stand up to someone bad and not let them get away with stuff and shows if your firm about it they aren't unbeatable or that strong. and the show has used Chloe in particular to show as well that people are complex. that even if Mari personally doesn't like someone it doesn't mean they don't have problems and that they might need help seeing how to be better. Marinette went from seeing Chloe as simply evil to seeing how complex Chloe was (and honestly kind of pitiful).

so what I don't understand is if they make chloe completely unredeemable..... If we are supposed to take that at face value...why the HELL should I believe Mari would give Gabriel /hawkmoth a chance or any understanding when Gabe has been terrible all season and been terrible as hawkmoth?

if they invalidate the arc of Chloe which they had been using to teach Mari to reach out to the bad guy because they might be hurting and need help like the victims...why would I believe Mari would reach out to hawkmoth?

even more when WE the audience know that Chloe's downward spiral was a direct plan by Gabriel. hawkmoth isolated Chloe on a rooftop, cut of her line to signal to ladybug literally by cutting the wire to the signal, told her that her parents were targeted because of her, implying that he might keep doing so when she had no way to protect herself since she had understood ladybug saying she couldn't be a hero anymore for her and pollen's safety...just for Chloe to be targeted anyway and for pollen and the other Kwami being stolen and not been properly protected.

like I get why Mari and others think Chloe was just being her entitled self, upset about not being the bee....but WE the audience knows that Chloe only agreed to side with hawkmoth to free her parents who were hostages and because if she didn't he would have kept pollen and the rest...and she had no idea how he'd react if she rejected his offer when she literally couldn't protect herself AND the literally master at manipulating emotions dug directly into her insecurities that he set up with this scenario.

So while I get Mari misunderstanding Chloe at irredeemable.....WE the audience knows better and more about the situation.

it feels even weirder because Chloe's spiraling had a direct parallel to both Adrien and Marinette who relied on old behaviors to cope and distract from their real issues and semi pushed people away to not face those issues. Chloe being worse could work as relying on being mean to cope because THAT is what she knows and is good at. its familiar and she thinks (the literal biggest fan of ladybug) that she probably does feel guilty for what she did...but she can't take it back and burnt that bridge...so Chloe relying on being mean to try to feel a sense of control.

Pretending like she chose to be mean again on her own makes sense.

even more as a contrasting cry for help because Mari had others who would try to reach out to her where we got to see she was covering up her really issues and stress of her guilt of the loss of master fu. while Chloe was able to push everyone away and no one realized Chloe's actions were a cry for help.....

like, on one hand people have to face consequences for their choices...but on the other the show has spent the whole time reminding us that the people acting out are victims and the true villains are the ones who take advantage of their hurt to lead them into further bad actions...which could lead to people not seeing they need help.

why the hell is the show expecting me to hate Chloe and see her as irredeemable when her downfall was a direct plan by Gabriel/hawkmoth and Lila?! like I can understand believing she should know better but she KNOWS no one likes her which means she is vulnerable to emotional manipulation! and she was cornered into that big downfall she thinks she can't come back from since she failed the one person who had given her a chance.

she literally got replaced by her sister Zoey who everyone liked better and who found being nice easy to understand compared to Chloe who struggled and who's best progress came from trying to not disappointed Adrien and her teddy bear!

even more her father was the worst! he's racist, spoils Chloe but never gives her real attention/guidance and her mother literally hates her, thinks she's useless, forgets her name and bad talks her all the time and they going to stick Chloe with her mom who was the literally worst?

what's even more frustrating is while I could understand it being a 'this is what happens if you don't take the chances to change since it's not other people's jobs to fix you' it undercuts alot of lessons in previous episodes if Chloe is completely unredeemable!

[emsylcatac]

Part of me will always mourn that we didn't get to see Chat Noir fighting Monarch, his father, in the finale battle. That's always gonna be nagging in the back of my mind.

At the same time, it was a little predictable, and what the writers chose to do instead makes a lot of sense when you think about it, and is maybe more satisfying for Adrien's arc regarding his relationship to his father than if he'd had to fight Monarch knowing it's Gabriel. (Not talking about the whole "he still doesn't know his father was Monarch" bit, I'm strictly talking about the fights here - that one's another topic entirely)

I say "predictable", because of what happened in "Representation". Adrien got here his moment to fight his father, as a seemingly akuma victim, and this on his own without Ladybug.

With this set-up we have here: Adrien confronting and fighting his father as in Gabriel Agreste, and Marinette confronting and fighting her nemesis as in Monarch. That's always what we envisioned as the finale fight against Monarch would be: Adrien vs his abusive father and Ladybug vs her enemy. It just didn't happen in the same fight, so both could separately have their moment and their thing to say.

I think in the end it's significantly more important that Adrien got to fight Gabriel Agreste as Psycauchemardeur focusing solely on him as his father, than have him fight Gabriel Agreste knowing it's Monarch. Because everything that happened in Representation, everything Adrien told his father as Chat Noir and everything Adrien was angry about regarding his father's behaviour with him, that all comes down to how Gabriel has acted as a father to him independently of him being a city terrorist.

If Adrien had had the realisation that his father's actions were terrible through the discovery that he was, on top of an abuser, a supervillain, then the whole "terrorising innocents" would have overshadowed in Adrien's anger all that Gabriel did to him personally as an abuser & shitty parental figure.

What I mean is that Adrien realising his father is shitty independently of knowing he's a terrorist and confronting him about it in a fight is part of his arc and is more impactful than Adrien confronting his father for his supervillain acts. He didn't realise Gabriel was a terrible person because he was a supervillain, but because he understood he was an abusive father and that's amazing

And that's why he got his moment in Representation while Marinette had hers in the finale - Gabriel is a shitty person both as a father and by being a magical terrorist. Adrien confronted him about the "shitty father" bit, and Marinette about the "magical terrorist bit", and both these things make sense with their respective character arcs & respective relationships to Gabriel

[bigfatbreak]

I love reading about all your AUs so much! They’re all so creative!

I’m curious about the people of Paris in your villains AU. Like obviously Adrian and Mari are the villains but how do the people of Paris fear them. Is it similar to Hawkmoth in the original timeline? Or are they considered more or less of a threat?

Keep up the good work and make sure you’re getting plenty of rest!

the issue is, Paris is really split on the whole notion. Nekydallon and Pavo clearly are willing to go to strange lengths to find the "miraculous" they're looking for, but neither of them attack citizens, and Nekydallon exhausts herself helping the people of Paris.

They cause trouble, but, nothing that... can't be fixed? Meanwhile, Felix Furvus and Coccinella seem to act as though they're Paris' defenders, but- some citizens ask - defenders from what?

Many people see Nekydallon as a faceless entity who's worth admiring, with Pavo as her stalwart representative into the world. Those who've been her champions don't lose their memories like they did with Hawkmoth, and note that she sounds soft and quiet, and delicate. She never demands anything, and she feels like a friend who's letting them borrow her power to do what they need to do, but, easier.

Doctors and Nurses find that, being bestowed with a power grants them to operate with better accuracy or with steadier hands, or they're capable of clotting and healing deathly wounds with mysterious powers. Some Akuma are capable of healing life-threatening illnesses or diseases, or at least helping people cope with the pain.

Firefighters find themselves with the power to spring water from their fingertips or to smother fire with the flick of their hands. Some can suddenly carry six people at a time without breaking a sweat to evacuate a house.

Retail workers in the middle of getting robbed suddenly have the power to fight back. People being kidnapped are suddenly granted the power to escape. Victims have a butterfly bond to them and they find the strength to stand up to their abusers and/or escape their clutches.

Marinette works very hard as Nekydallon. She can hear Paris' woes, and doesn't hesitate to try and assist whenever she can. The rest of Paris sees butterflies as a good omen for the most part, though some are deeply suspicious. However as a whole, its the black cat and ladybug that people are most suspicious of, as they hear a lot of talk but don't see results like with Neky.

[tigerdrop-official]

IM FINE LOL i just went to bed when i got home. please stop sending me so many worried asks and dms

[ladyofthenoodle]

“adrien wasn’t bothered by chloe’s behavior until it affected him” okay first of all it’s literally affected him since origins because it impacted the assumptions his classmates made about him but okay. i’ll grant that his disapproval of her has gotten harsher as it has hit him closer to the heart.

BUT i would like to offer an alternative perspective: this is the first time that adrien has seen chloe’s actions cause long term damage. while hawkmoth is at large, chloe’s actions usually lead to someone being akumatized - a big consequence, yes, but one where the damage is fixed with the toss of a lucky charm and some catharsis or opportunity for growth for the victim. yes, chloe hurts people and she’s mean and it’s wrong, and adrien never approves of how she treats people, but at the end of the day he’s willing to give her another chance after the day is saved. tomorrow is a new day full of possibilities and chloe can try again to be a good person, because the mess she made today was cleaned up.

this is the first time adrien has seen the way chloe’s actions continue to cause harm, months and years after the fact. this is the first chance he’s had to condemn her not for the abstract idea of how one should treat other people or the short term consequence of an akuma, but for causing lasting psychological harm to someone that doesn’t go away even after the akuma is defeated or they learn something about themselves or they get support and love from their friends. because even after all that, marinette still can’t take adrien’s hand. what chloe and kim did is burned into her psyche in a way she can’t easily heal from. and this is the first time adrien has really seen that, has seen that chloe isn’t just mean but causes lasting damage to people’s spirits. so i think yes, he reacts this way because it’s his girlfriend and it’s impacting his relationship with her, but he also reacts this way because he’s finally able to see the long term consequences of her actions in a concrete way.

[maddascanbe-blog]

Lifeswap Alya! (you'll get Nino in a bit)

Alya doesn't run the Ladyblog. Instead she runs the Bug-Cast, a podcast covering Ladybug and Chat Noir's exploits. As well as talking to the akuma victims about what they experienced and theorizing about the miraculous.

Since Ladybug came onto the scene in all of her magical girl glory, Alya has been the number one advocate. She admires the girls confidence and determination and decided to devote her time to chronologically recording all of the miraculous incedent's in Paris.

Alya is more focused on research and entertainment so she tries to stay away from the akuma fights if possible. After all, there are plenty of other witnesses she can ask later, ones who might not get to tell their story on larger news broadcasts. Or ones too scared to reveal their identity post being akumatized. Alya's podcast format and mostly anonymity from going by 'Miss-Red' online, lets victims feel more comfortable talking about it.

Only Marinette and Nino are aware that Alya is Miss-Red. Later Adrien, as Chat Noir, also finds out.

She picked Marinette up because she saw this poor anxiety ridden girl and said "honey. chill." Alya's easy going attitude is a nice ballance for Marinette's livewire personality. She also is new, and doesn't really carry the (deserved) prejudice against Luka that everyone else does. So she's more willing to put up with him for the first and second season.

As Rena Rouge, Alya is a stone cold badass, prone to hanging back and playing tricks on her adversaries, often leading them to cause their own downfall. Ladybug and Chat Noir will sometimes give her the miraculous for the sake of letting her investigate Hawkmoth. This becomes a permanent arrangement when the guardianship transfers.

Also her design and some of her personality is based on The Question *cough*

Bonus- Fully Colored Rena Rouge