Gotta say, I've always loved the animation in this sequence.

I just love the irony of the SEASON 1 trailer of Miraculous Ladybug beginning with scenes from Volpina: The very last episode of said season.

Miss Bustier's class is a clear example of "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me".

Lila's tactics

It came to me that, when it comes to being akumatised, Lila's ways of battling Ladybug and Chat Noir are completely different if we compare Volpina and what we've seen of Chameleon.

Of course, both powers are heavily based on lies: Volpina's illusions and Chameleon's shape-shifting. But I'm referring to the way she actually fights.

As Volpina, she's practically never touched Ladybug or Chat Noir. No, really. She's never TOUCHED them! The closer she got was when she approached Ladybug telling her which were her powers.

The rest of the time she keeps her distance by using illusions or dodging their attacks. It should be noted when she was fighting Ladybug in Adrien's house, the most contact with Ladybug she had was when she blocked her yo-yo with her flute, and the moment Chat appeared, she went back to using illusions.

See what I mean?

It's worth mentioning the only time she ever does touch Ladybug is as herself, when she took her hand off her shoulder while refusing her apology.

Now, as Chameleon as we can see in the promo, she clearly takes advantage of Chat Noir's physical abilities and powers to fight her in hand-to-hand combat. Her attacks are way more aggressive.

My theory is this: as Volpina she's aware that, when it comes to physical impact, said form doesn't allow her to do much, unlike what she told Adrien about being stronger than Ladybug. So she knows she doesn't stand a chance and prefers to use her illusions to obtain their miraculouses. But as Chameleon, she knows she's not limited anymore to a form that can't do much since she can now change into the only other person who compares to Ladybug in strength, power, and skill: Chat Noir. Which explains the drastic change in strategy she uses.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

It's been almost three years since Volpina premiered and I hadn't noticed this animation mistake until today...

The "new kid" excuse should just stop

Please, don't misunderstand. I have nothing against those of you who are fans of Lila and I can perfectly get you're just trying to justify the actions of a character you love -we've all done it sometimes- but I'd recommend a different approach.

You see, there's no denying Marinette's way to handle the situation was far from perfect. I myself came up with three different more mature(?) scenarios shortly after I watched the episode BACK IN MARCH 2016:

1. Ladybug waits until Lila's done talking to Adrien and she visits him and personally explains why he shouldn't trust Lila.

2. As Ladybug, she goes to Alya, explains everything and asks her both to post a video with this new information and to keep her sources anonymous.

3. If she wanted to expose her that badly, she should've used a more "subtle" way: "Don't worry, dear citizens! Just patrolling around Paris because that is my job as I am Ladybug! And- OMG! Aren't you Adrien Agreste?! And you're with... who's this? Sorry, I'm just sure I've never seen you before. Nope! Never ever in my life... Whelp, anyway, gotta go!" (And don't tell me that's way too awkward because this is MARINETTE we're talking about, alright?)

So, yeah... She could've done something like that instead of... this...

But, I'm getting off topic.

The reason behind this post is that everytime someone calls out Lila for her lies in the fandom, there's always another fan who justifies Lila's actions as being just a kid who was new and wanted to fit in.

The thing is, just as I've seen before in other blogs (I think one of the people who made me realise my whole point was @zoe-oneesama love your au!) , Lila's lies are not those you use to fit in in a new crowd. How do I know this? Easy. Because I lied once to fit in.

Now, I am not proud of that, even if I WAS just a kid back then. It felt horrible and I felt really uncomfortable about myself. But the point is, my lie had nothing to do with Lila's: I was 11 at the time and had agreed to spending the weekend with my best friend and his judo class, of which I didn't know anybody except for him. Those kids were different from me in a lot of things, even younger, so I didn't want to be excluded. And you know what I lied about to impress them? I said I didn't like Adventure Time, which I used to love. AND THAT'S IT.

Now, my point is, when you lie to fit in you simply say you like or dislike the same thing the person's talking about at the moment, you don't go "I really like Bruno Mars!" "Oh, really? Well, I happen to have flown in his private jet with him, we're super close friends and because of that he even wrote me a song!". The only remotedly similar lie she said in the whole episode was when she told Adrien she loved superheroes. JUST THREE WORDS IN A 22 MINUTE SHOW

In her case, like many others have pointed out before me, she was trying to position herself above her classmates. And according to my personal opinion based on her personality so far, what she wants is to be the constant centre of attention and for her peers to be jealous of her instead of feeling that jealousy herself. But that's just me talking.

But I insist, I don't mean to shame anyone for liking her character, but seriously, saying she only lied to fit in... that's really getting old.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Now that I think about it... at least Alya, Nino, Chloé and Sabrina must know Lila lied to them, right?

I mean, in Catalyst, thanks to Sabrina Ladybug figures out Volpina is back and deceiving Paris into thinking Hawk Moth had won. Not only that, she mentions "Volpina" right in front of Sabrina!

Now, looking back at Sapotis, when Alya transformed she did comment she resembled Lila's akumatised form. In other words, she knows Volpina was a fake in the end (she did introduce herself to all of Paris, after all). So that means parisians are aware of this, including Marinette's class, and more specifically, Alya, Nino, Chloé & even Sabrina.

Then again, they all believed Lila when she said she was at Prince Ali's kingdom, but since Ladybug mentioned her when defying Hawk Moth in Mayura, then if they're clever enough (Alya's proved to be the best at finding out secret identities so far) they must have realised there's no way Lila's come back from thousands of miles away, not even while akumatised. Because, let's face it, she wouldn't even be able to be akumatised in the first place that far away...

I'm just hoping they open up their eyes and learn to be more careful around her, really.