#kagami deserves better

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

They also transformed Lila into the type of psychopath you'll see in an adult horror movie, remember the scene of her creepily cutting Marinette's face from photos she randomnly has of her while repeating how she'll destroy her life ? That's the type of scene to show up in horror movies with psichopathic serial killers, not children's shows. Not to mention all the fake identities and the creepy lair from the Catacombs where she has a serial killer type of board with her potential "targets", Lila may have had some sociopathic tendencies in S3 but she still fit the mean girl archetype in children's show back then, now they'll turned it up a notch so much she's essentially Lenna Klammer from Orphan incarnated in a kid's show.

(Pretty sure this was in response to my post on the darker version of Miraculous' that the creators originally wanted to make, so here's the link to that for context!)

You make a good point. The longer the show goes on, the more Lila feels like a villain from a teen or adult drama. Well, I say that she feels like a villain from one of those, but it's more accurate to say that she feels like she wants to be a villain from one of those. While her vibes match those shows, her actual execution falls extremely short of the intended goal.

Of course, that's not Lila's fault. It's a writing problem. A complex master manipulator is a terrible choice for the villain of a formula show because complex plans need to be set up over multiple episodes. It is possible to mostly do it in the background so that most of the episodes fit the formula, but you do eventually have to break the formula to really bring it all together in a satisfying way.

Miraculous really doesn't do that kind of thing. The writers are adamant that each episode can be watched as a standalone even when it really shouldn't be, thus that weird thing where Felix told Marinette who had the butterfly only for her to seemingly not remember in the very next episode. If that's the best that we can hope for in terms of greater continuity, then Lila as the main villain is going to be painful.

The cutting up pictures moment is a great example of the headache that likely lies in our future. That scene was from the episode Perfection (S5E12):

Lila: (upon cutting off Marinette's face in her picture with Kagami) Soon, you'll have no one left, Marinette. Soon, you'll have nothing.

This moment feels creepy and threatening, but it goes nowhere. Marinette never loses any of her friends because she can't. This is a formula show. Losing friends means changing the status quo and that's not how formula shows work, which is why we get the worst of both worlds with characters like Alya dismissing Marinette's concerns about Lila while also staying close friends with Marinette because Lila can't actually have a meaningful impact on these relationships.

I think this may be why Lila got Kagami akumatized so many times. Kagami is an outsider to the main friend group, so the writers could have Kagami effected over and over again without it feeling like other people should be asking questions since Kagami isn't friends with anyone but Adrien and Marinette. I really hope that trend is over now because I got real sick of Kagami being written as the Queen of Gullibility Land. It simply didn't fit her character. She can tell that Adrien is sad from a picture (see: Risk), but believes that Lila isn't lying to her after Oni-Chan? Sure, writers. Sure.

[gameguy20100]

So.... you just sat on the sidelines and did nothing while your cousin and your girlfriend watched the world burn... hating themselves for not being able to help.

Felix.... I fucking loathe you, you useless waste of space!!!

[rena-rain]

Warning: I'm breaking my own rules about salt in this post. You have been warned.

You cannot possibly convince me that Kagami would stay with Felix if she found out he SA'ed one of her best friends. Also, it is so fucking creepy that she's with basically the evil clone of her ex. Unless this turns out to be a story about how anyone can get sucked into an abusive relationship, this plotline can die in a garbage fire for all I care.

[powercake]

Yippee Kagami fanart!!!!!!

[miraculouscriticismshub]

My thoughts on Felix - anti hero gone wrong

Introduction - SEASON 5 SPOILERS AHEAD

Felix Fathom - the show's anti hero. Easily one of the smartest characters of the show and has gained quite a large fanbase. However , his Character took a drastic turn in Season 5 , with the transition from anti-hero to a hero. He joins the team in the season 5 finale - which has raised a few eyebrows. This post will explain my thoughts on Felix and why I dislike how his character has been written this season . Don’t get me wrong , I don’t hate Felix but it annoys me how he does awful things and doesn’t face any consequences. This is not a hate post on Felix but simply me sharing my opinion on him.

His Character explained up until Emotion

Felix seemingly had a rough childhood. Due to Amelie being infertile , Colt created Felix from the peacock miraculous , which caused him to be a senti.

Due to Colt using the broken miraculous , he got sick and seemingly blamed , abused and controlled Felix.

When Felix was 13 , due to frustration , Colt punched the wall , breaking the ring which is where Felix’s amok is. This nearly killed Felix and made him realize his life was tied to his father’s ring. Soon his father died and he took his ring , securing his freedom. However he was forever paranoid of the idea of disappearing and when he found out about the peacock miraculous, he made it his goal to steal it from his uncle to ensure his survival. We see him first in the episode Felix , where he steals Gabriel's ring. We see him come back in Gabriel Agreste , finding out his uncle is a Shadow Moth , confirming his suspicions that he had the peacock miraculous.

The trauma from his interaction with Gabriel , thinking he was about to be snapped out of existence, triggers him to complete his mission. In the Season 4 finale , he steals most of the miraculous and trades all of them and Gabriel's ring for the peacock miraculous.

The rings from my understanding were a safety net in case anything went wrong. He knew Gabriel would never trade the peacock miraculous for his wife's ring because of how powerful the miraculous was so he stole most of the miraculouses because he knew about Gabriels plan. He laid low for a few months then in the episode Emotion , he committed mass genocide by snapping every human to the red moon and leaving only the senti-trio and Marinette on Earth. 

His motive - freeing his cousin and Kagami ( who he recently found out was a senti) from their parents. He however realized he lost control and brought everyone back. Felix is an anti-hero in the sense that he had good intentions but goes about it in the wrong way. He had a good reason to trade the jewelry for the peacock in order to be free , to never be under the mercy of the peacock miraculous holder , who can snap him out of existence anytime. However he achieved his goal in an unethical way , by betraying ladybug and stealing the miraculous. This also applies in Emotion , he felt empathy for Kagami and felt bad about Adrien because he was in the same situation as them which is not being able to be in control of themselves. He wanted to help them experience the same freedom he has so he snapped Gabriel and Tomoe to the red moon.  However he went way too far by snapping away literally everyone committing genocide. He had a sympathetic motive - helping Adrien and Kagami but how he conducted his methods in a questionable way portrays him as a morally gray character.

This is what makes his Character compelling . You sympathize with his character and understand why he does the things he does but at the same time disagree with his methods and resent him for helping the main villain. 

Why Feligami doesn’t work

Pretension is the episode where Felix’s character went wrong for me. This is mainly because of Feligami (sorry Feligami stans😔😔). He seemingly falls in love with Kagami after one episode and from my understanding - stalks and kidnaps her from her mom . Now Tomoe is awful but there really was no need to kidnap her - she was only shouting at her - not beating her up. He kidnapped Kagami not because she was in any danger but wanted to confess his love towards her and make her fall in love with him . Kagami was not having any of it however when he seemingly saves her and tells her about his tragic backstory , she instantly gains feelings.

The problem with this is that Kagami barely knows Felix . From her POV , he could easily be lying in order to gain sympathy from her. They got together during one episode which caused the ship to feel rushed. Another reason why this ship doesn't work is how they fell in love. Sure Kagami saw Felix differently after Felix saved her from Tomoe and gave her the ring but you don’t fall in love after three interactions.

Kagami chooses to be with Felix because he looks exactly like Adrien which causes the ship to be unhealthy because she still has unresolved feelings for her ex. She doesn’t love Felix for who he is , she loves him because he looks like Adrien. If she started dating Felix after knowing him for a few weeks/months then it would’ve made more sense that she fell in love with Felix because of his personality , not his appearance.

Felix only like Kagami because she was a senti , he barely cared for up until Emotion. He only spent a couple of hours with her before snapping everyone away and then decided he loved her.  If Kagami wasn’t a senti , he wouldn’t have taken interest in her and snapped her away without caring. The last reason why I dislike Feligami is that it feels forced . The sole reason why the writers gave Felix a love interest is to make him look more redeemable. Kagami is one of the show's more loved characters ( from season 4 at least) and making her and Felix get together was for the purpose of making Felix more likable. To conclude , Feligami is a cute idea but the execution of their storyline was done badly. They fall in love despite barely knowing each other and Kagami forgives Felix way too easily after knowing his story. If you like Feligami though , that's perfectly fine. 

Representation mess

This episode made me lose most of my respect for Felix as a character (I can hear the Felix stans typing 😂😂). The first reason why this episode wasn’t well written is how Felix approached Ladybug. When performing his cringy play (which turned out to be pointless) he asked for Ladybug help without uttering a single apology for everything you’ve done to her. He SA’ed Ladybug and gave her trauma by stealing the miraculous but still had the audacity to request assistance without saying sorry. Isn’t he ashamed of himself or feel any guilt ?

He also sought Ladybug's aid not because he wanted to free Adrien from Gabriel , not because he felt bad about what he did in Strike Back and wanted to seek forgiveness by teaming up with Ladybug to help her defeat Monarch but because he wanted to love his girlfriend freely. He only helped Marinette , gave her the information she needed because it benefited him . This isn’t a bad storyline for an anti-hero. An anti-hero only works for himself but the reason why this storyline failed is because the narrative pushed Felix to be some sort of hero. His moments with Kagami make him look like a good guy and the backstory made Felix sympathetic.

The moment  where Felix explains why he stole the miraculous felt more of a justification portraying Felix as someone who is innocent and hasn’t done anything wrong. He is sympathetic and tragic but isn't exactly a good person either so the part where he justifies what he did and the narrative portraying him as a hero felt like bad writing.

Another thing that bothers me is the inconsistency of Felix creating a sentimonster which is a projector. He said in Pretension he refused to create another senti just for him to abuse them , control them and snap them out of existence when he’s done with them.

However , after Mari wakes up , she sees a feather which we could assume means Felix has snapped it out of existence when he was done with it. The annoying thing is that this could’ve been avoided if Felix wasn’t a coward and went up to Ladybug , APOLOGIZE for what he did , says he wants to help her defeat Monarch and tell him everything he knows. Man up Felix ! The least he could’ve done was give the senti its freedom instead of killing it. However in defense of Felix , he did tell Ladybug about Adrien being a senti which redeemed him somewhat , but the info on Monarch's identity was pointless and the information Felix revealed was barely used in the finale until the Adrienette kiss scene.  Overall this Episode made me lose most of my respect for Felix's character because the writers try so hard to portray Felix as a hero or a good guy when clearly he still is the same as before. He still has villain like tendencies that are never addressed and this episode really swept all of his bad deeds under the rug. 

Why his redemption doesn’t make sense

During the epilogue of the finale - he seemingly is chilling at the Agreste mansion and spends time with Kagami - eyeing her cutely. However the most insulting thing about the finale is when Felix seemingly joins the team confirming a redemption arc (pls don't kill me Felix stans🙏🙏). He is pretty much forgiven for his crimes and faces no real consequences. Well to be fair , he did face a small consequence for mass genocide , he lost control of his power and realized he is no better than Monarch. This is shown when  he cries after snapping the red moon out of existence.

However that was the only consequence he faced out of many crimes he committed and he never redeemed himself to Ladybug for killing everyone. Instead he got rewarded with a girlfriend and ownership of his Miraculous despite his identity being known. The reason why his redemption makes no sense is that he never apologized to Ladybug or proved himself that he is a good person. Sure he had good motives and felt remorse a few times but he never said sorry to Ladybug or felt any guilt about helping Gabriel. His abuse under Colt explains his actions but does not excuse them so him seemingly being forgiven by everyone  without proving himself just felt wrong. The season 5 finale was a missed opportunity to redeem Felix the right way with him saving Adrien and Kagami from their prisons or him fighting alongside Ladybug against Monarch. Instead he was absent and only showed up in the epilogue. Another problem is that his redemption was rushed , only a few weeks ago he committed mass genocide but now he’s besties with Ladybug and already part of the team , the same team he ruined by stealing all the miraculouses. Did she also forget he forced himself on her ? Felix can do whatever he wants without ever being held accountable or face any punishment. I’m not against a Felix redemption arc if it’s written correctly. His character would’ve been better if he continued to be an anti-hero and is redeemed in later seasons.   Therefore , his redemption felt ruined because he basically got away with most of his crimes and was forgiven easily without ever apologizing or feeling much regret. He basically faced no consequences for SA, assisted terrorism , mass genocide , stalking , kidnapping and instead got rewarded .

Final thoughts

To conclude ,  Felix started off as a great character with layers and complexity but unfortunately got ruined as the story progressed. I don’t hate Felix , his character is fascinating because of his character status as morally gray but like most characters in this show , was a victim of bad writing. His redemption felt disappointing and his relationship with Kagami felt unnatural. I understand his motives (he was doing it for his own survival) but they way he conducted his methods was immoral. He got away with most of his crimes and faced no punishment. Hot take but Felix is one of those characters who’s better off as an anti-hero. He still has so much villain potential which shouldn't go to waste. However I will end this post on a positive note and say not all hope is lost and Felix’s character can be saved in season 6. Going forward , I hope Ladybug and Cat Noir (especially Cat Noir)  still are a bit suspicious of Argos and don’t fully trust him despite letting him into the team.  Another Unpopular Opinion is that I want Felix to turn on the hero team in future seasons and work with the villains. It’s logical because he never was held accountable or faced real consequences so what is stopping him from betraying the team again ? His character has so much potential and he is unique solely because he is an anti-hero. I hope in Season 6 , his character improves. However these are just my opinions , if you love Felix and agree with how the writers are handling his character , that is perfectly fine .  Please stay respectful 😊😊😊 .

[mad-witch-moon]

KAGAMINETTE

[ilikekidsshows]

Feligami for otp ask

Rate Your OTP Game

Crème de la crème | Excellent Taste | A Worthy Sailing Vessal | A fine ship it is | The Finest Crack in the Den | Unorthodox yet not Unwelcome | It is a good | Overrated | It is acceptable | Forgive me but I am not familiar with the source material | I would not consider myself a fan | Just because you are contrarian doesnt make it good | What dump did you find this? | In the lowest pits of the Abyss is where your taste was forged.

Considering I'm 75% sure you sent this pairing in just to have me tear it to shreds, I feel comfortable being nasty about it.

Feligami as a ship emphasizes and underlines the artificiality of these characters both in universe and out of universe. It's the token ship where a couple is brought together by the writers specifically because they fill out the same niche. The ethnicity couple, the nerd couple, the artificial slave species couple.

Look, Miraculous has a really, really, REALLY bad track record with making its Sentimonsters seem like actual people worthy of sympathy and human rights. The creation and controlling of these creatures is totally okay most of the time, no one considers how horrifying it is that their lives are so fleeting, fragile and easily controlled by others and they're called Sentimonsters. The only character who cared about Sentibug dying was Adrien, apparently another Sentimonster so, with Félix's season 5 characterization of him caring about Kagami and Adrien because they're Sentis, we have a 3/3 track record of only another Sentimonster choosing to care about someone they know for a fact is a Sentimonster from the get-go.

Félix only started caring about Kagami because she was part of the same slave species he is. Kagami's previous love interest was also a part of this slave species and Kagami was explicitly attracted to him because they were "so alike". With Kagami exclusively falling for guys who are part of the same species as her, who also easily fall for her right back, the show is implying Sentimonsters can subconsciously recognize each other, and this instict presents itself as them being drawn to each other.

Outside of all this Sentimonster nonsense, the pairing also emphasizes how artificial these characters are from a narrative perspective. Kagami is headstrong, and wants to pave her own way. Her previous love interest and first friend were both people who were kind to a fault. Now she falls for an asshole who's also a perfect clone of her previous boyfriend, a breakup she had such a difficult time getting over that she couldn't even see him for a time. It's obvious Kagami likes Félix only because the writers want her to like him. She also shields the writers' pet Félix from the consequences of his own actions, something I've pointed out the writers loooooove to do with Félix. All of this makes it obvious that she's not a real person but a made up character who will do and feel what the writers want regardless of her previous characterization, which just takes a more savvy viewer completely out of the story.

Félix's personality also keeps changing with his every appearance, and him falling for Kagami is just more of the same. The Félix in season three might as well have been another identical Sentimonster and the only connection he still has to his season 4 behavior is him still having the Peacock Miraculous. I actually saw a screenshot of him doing an Adrien expression sincerely because he just wubs Kagami so much, and I gagged. It's just gross when he does the doe-eyed look.

[red-balloon12]

I can’t believe I’m saying this but….

WHY WOULD KAGAMI BE PAIRED UP WITH FELIX WHEN ZOE WAS RIGHT THERE??

I’ve heard enough from others to know that I’m not a fan of Felgami. Zoe would have been a better lover to Kagami. Like yeah, I have my grievances with Zoe, but I know that she’d probably love Kagami for who she is and not just because she’s a senti-monster UNLIKE SOMEONE-

[jennycinco-5]

Double standard at FINEST when I see fans looks fine with “Kagami is a sentimonster things” while they still unable to accept “ Adrien is a sentimonster” all because of they want Kagami away from Love Square by pair her with an Asshole like Felix because god forbid her to be Bisexual by pair her with a girls or try to give an cheap excuse Tomoe behavior who looks like a caricature of “Asian Tiger Moms”

Both Sentidrien and Sentigami things are bad ! But Sentigami probably the WORST! Because The Peacock miraculous already established possessed by Agreste and they were the first one who found it during expedition in Tibet. After Emilie fell into comatose state, Gabriel didn’t allow anyone to use Peacock Miraculous until Nathalie willingly use it to help him do his evil scheme until she continuously ill and paralyzed,

In fact Kagami was made her debut BEFORE Nathalie become Mayura and Tomoe made a business deal with Gabriel in “Animaestro”, So when did Tomoe use a freaking peacock miraculous to create Kagami ?! I don’t buy to someone said “ Oh but she has different ring !” explanation or any kind of  stupid explanation about this shit, This is just truly out-ot-nowhere like Mary Zoe existence because THERE IS NO FORESHADOWING about it and its purely a bad retcon by steal a fandom content 

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Saw a post about how disappointing it is that Marinette never asked Adrien out (accurate) and had a thought: is Kagami the only girl who ever asks a guy out? Because I think she is and, if so, then yikes.

For a "feminist" show, it's certainly a choice to have a girl ask out a guy and have him accept just because he wants to move on/be loved. I remember being told to not ask guys out for exactly that reason. "He'll only say yes because he thinks you're easy" and stuff like that. This isn't a gender specific behavior, anyone can enter a relationship for "the wrong" reasons, but the stereotype is heavily gendered and Kagami is the only girl who ever got the guts to break the standard "guys ask the girls" mold, which is why Adrigami's writing is an issue. If your single piece of representation fits some very negative stereotypes, then you done goofed. Unless you're trying to teach little girls to never ask a guy out?

These are all of the hetero relationships that I can think of where we basically see the couple get together:

Ivan and Mylene - Ivan asks her out/writers her a song, longest lasting teen couple in the show. Consistently depicted as loving, supportive, and healthy.

Luka and Marinette - Luka asks her out and Marinette legitimately tries to date him/get over Adrien. Luka is incredibly supportive and understanding of the fact that she likes him, but still has Adrien brainrot. They probably would have stayed together if not for the Ladybug thing.

Adrien and Marinette - Adrien asks her out in Chat Blanc, Ephemeral, and the Kwami's Choice, each of which results in a relationship. The first two seemed healthy and loving and the writers sure seem to think that the current one is, too. Marinette obviously tries to ask him out a lot, but never manages to do it, so we don't know how that would have gone.

Nino and Alya - unclear, possibly mutual, but Alya certainly didn't ask him and their relationship is reasonably solid, ignoring Nino's terrible writing in season 5 which is clearly not meant to be seen as the lead-in to a breakup (good boyfriends do not reveal their girlfriend's secret identities unless they have a very good reason to do so!)

Kagami and Adrien - Kagami has to do all the work for their dates and Adrien continues to flirt with Ladybug in a non-playful, I'm-still-totally-interested way as opposed to the playful flirting he does with characters like Rena Rouge and Purple Tigress. He canonically only thinks about Kagami when Ladybug isn't available. I think it's fair to say that this relationship wouldn't have lasted even if Chat Noir wasn't a thing and Adrien just had a crush on a civilian. I don't think I've seen anyone who was happy with how Adrien was written here. Same goes for Kagami who suddenly only like her image of Adrien and not the real person, a thing that came from nowhere as far as I can tell. It also gets abandoned real quick with Kagami's crush returning in season five and her being one of the only people who can see that Adrien is sad during the season four final.

Felix and Kagami - does kidnapping count as asking someone out? I guess it does in this show, in which case, Felix did the asking. He certainly was the only one who confessed! They're our dramatic thespian couple who will do anything to be together because they love each other that much. I think they're here to stay, so it's a good thing that Kagami learned to wait for the man to ask. Now she can have her happily ever after!

[gameguy20100]

Why am I the only one bothered by the way Kagami has been treated this season?

She gets gaslighted and manipulated by Lila, to the point she becomes suicidal and everyone says she's stupid, sucks, and doesn't deserve to have friends.

Then Felix stalks, kidnaps, and gaslights her into a relationship, and all anyone says is "Aw it's sweet. She can do so much for him."

Like, the fuck? What does she get out of this? Nothing is my answer.

Give the girl a break.

[howhow326]

I will never feel bad for Lila, but my thoughts exactly

“In a good show, you’re angry at the characters. In a bad show, you’re angry at the writers. I don’t hate Chloe, Zoe, Luka, Kagami, Lila or Marinette, because none of them are being written consistently and so instead I feel vaguely bad for all of them, like I would a friend who has crappy parents.”

[powercake]

So I'm gonna be drawing Kagami again (bc she's my fav) >:))))

[miraculouscriticismshub]

Kagami vs Mai

[lovysmtalks]

Adrien is the Ken of Daminette and every other existing ship with Marinette

I can't explain why or how, just "I'm just ken, where I see love she sees a friend" fits most of the usual daminette scenarios, OR any other ship.

#AdrienisKenough

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Ugh god yes, literally everything you said. And honestly I'm 100% sure the reason why Felix gets no blame at all is cuz the majority of the fandom loves him and therefore he's absolved of every bad thing he did. God.

And the Kagami believing Lila thing, that always confused me because that came out of nowhere and I would've love if the show built up on it in the previous seasons, but Lila is so underutilized it's crazy. Like her being a fake friend and manipulating Kagami is fine, to me it's believable. But not because after what happened in Oni-Chan like you said. Kagami have no reason to trust her after the photo thing, she even called her a manipulater and stuff (her akumatized self did but still, I'd like to think that's some of Kagami's feelings seeping through). This is what should have happened in that episode!

I like the idea of Lila becoming Kagami's fake friend and manipulating her to turn against Marinette, but I felt it was unnecessary in season 5 when it should've happened in Oni-Chan, which is what I'm going for in my rewrite.

I didn't like Felix at his intro, but I was intrigued by him in season four and was on board to see what they did with him. And the answer is: they reduced him to a consolation prize love interest whose knowledge means nothing for the plot. Poor boy was robbed! He could have been a very fun grey character.

I just want to know how Kagami and Lila freaking met! This would have been a great opportunity to introduce one of Lila's alter egos to actually set up that reveal! It being the fall out from Oni-Chan could have also worked, especially if you set Oni-Chan after Kagami and Adrien break up because Kagami would be in the right headspace to think that he used yet another girl to try and get over his crush.

Lila really could have been a fun villain, you just have to actually be good at writing manipulators to make her work.