Some salt after a break lmao

You will never catch me being ok with Alya still not on Mari’s side by now with Lila lmao this is ridiculous like its literally a plot hole for Mari not to tell her “she tried to purposefully merc me as LB, threatened me in the restroom, walked down the stairs to frame me for pushing her”

At least show Mari TRYING to tell her instead of having the viewers guess on why she hasn’t by now, we are still wondering from S3 to S5 lol

Or have Tikki question Mari on why she won’t tell Alya

its not about trust its about “hey she’s an actual danger to this important job and to the public so lets not invite her to secret hero shit hm?”

Lila will never be a good villain for me her set up is so forced, I don’t think Alya is OOC until Lila enters the ep. It’s the same shit you gotta roll your eyes at.

Miraculous Ladybug Analysis: Why Lila Fails

So for those of you who aren’t new to my blog or fanfics, it should come as no surprise that I despise Lila Rossi from Miraculous Ladybug canon.

I despise her as a person. I despise her as a character. And I despise the very idea that she is in any way supposed to be a credible villain or that her choosing to be an antagonist is supposed to be anyone’s fault but her own. She annoys me in every possible way except for the reasons canon would probably have intended.

But ultimately, if I had to explain my specific issues with her and her character, it’d boil down to four main things:

If I'm being perfectly honest, I don't know how to feel about Lila's character after Guiltrip.

I mean, I'm not going to lie, I can't stand her, but after this episode I sort of can't help but agree with the side if the fandom that sees her as a plot device?

I mean, she had no relevance in the plot whatsoever. And while it makes sense she wouldn't really care about helping Rose (since she's repeatedly been show to care only about herself), it's also weird that nobody included her either. Since she's portrayed as a popular and well-liked classmate whenever the focus is on her.

Sure, Marinette hates her with a passion, but she dislikes Chloé greatly too (who also has a prominent mean-spirited, selfish side) and she included her in her speech. Even when Chloé was directly responsible for Rose's first akumatisation into Princess Fragrance!

Look at her! She seems like she couldn't even be bothered to give a fuck!

She's basically a background character at this point!

And now that I think about it, it would've actually made sense if she had had some sort of reaction to Rose's situation. I mean, Lila HATES not being the centre of attention and gets insanely jealous when someone receives more attention than her. That's why she lied about Volpina in the first place... And in this case, Rose was receiving LOTS of attention because, unlike Lila, she really does have health issues!

And considering her reaction to seeing Marinette and Adrien together in Startrain... You would expect her to pull some sort of stunt to mess with Rose/Juleka while still pretending to be a sweet and caring friend.

I'm sorry, it's just... This episode makes it blatantly obvious that, unless she's antagonising Marinette/Ladybug and Adrien/Chat Noir, she really doesn't have much relevance in the plot.

I don't mean this as salt, but I'll tag it as such just in case.

Lila could have been much more interesting,

in my opinion, if we as the audience weren’t immediately aware of her true nature. Like if the writers inserted her near the beginning as a very minor, neutral, but sweet character.

They could have started having her more active and frequent in episodes as the series went on until she became someone on equal grounds as Alya, presenting her as a very lovable and cool character. Maybe a Mary Sue

She could have built up a bigger fan base. And instead of a big, sudden reveal the writers could have started slipping in little clues about her true nature–parts with her just in the background, glaring or with a faint smile at someone else’s misfortune. Not even a second long– but enough for the audience to catch it and just question her for a second.

They’d just keep building up on our suspicions from there– little holes in her stories and hiccups in her act. People would make their theories about her being secretly evil and helping Hawkmoth and her fanbase would try to defend her only for the writers to confirm it near the end of one of the seasons. And by then not too many people would have been surprised anymore because of all of the clues. 

I don’t think Alya just stopped Lila for the sake of her ship happening. I think she was also trying to stop Lila from making herself look bad. Think about it - Alya is under the impression that Marinette is jealous of Lila and that Lila is after Adrien. So even though Lila was going to Marinette for “innocuous” reasons, Marinette would think that Lila was purposefully annoying her, and thus make her like her less. Alya, therefore, stops Lila to give Marinette less ammunition to dislike her.

But then, what if the other classmates got in on it? Like they genuinely try to help Lila from making herself look bad, inadvertently sabotaging her schemes? 

Lila tries to slip in the test answers into Marinette’s backpack? Rose catches her with the backpack before she can set Marinette up, insists that she can take it back to Marinette, and they don’t have to say anything about Lila. After all, we don’t want Marinette getting the wrong idea, do we?

Lila can’t make a class picnic and wants to reschedule? Well, Marinette might think that Lila’s just trying to set up extra work for her, so what if they just hold a picnic for Lila outside of school? We wouldn’t want to stress out Marinette with scheduling conflicts, would we?

Lila tries to pull Adrien away from hanging out with Marinette so she can study with him? Max intervenes and volunteers to help instead. After all, he has some of the best grades in the class and could use the extra time tutoring. We wouldn’t want Marinette to be sad about having her time with Adrien interrupted, would we?

Scheme after scheme is foiled, all thanks to her annoying classmates’ “kindness”. Surely, they have to be scheming to stop her, right? No can actually be that nice, right? But no, they’re all under the impression that they’re truly helping Lila down the line.

All the while, Marinette has no idea about any of this happening, so Lila goes to confront her about it. Some of the girls catch Lila stalking Marinette, and just as Lila decides to start throwing threats, they catch her in the act, saying that they were only trying to help her and Marinette lose the animosity towards each other, and that Marinette had nothing to do with it. 

Lila realizes then and there she messed up bad.

Adrien is the one to orchestrate all of this. He tells Marinette not to go after Lila and just leave her be, but doesn’t tell her about his plan so she can remain innocent. He goes to Adrien and Alya to argue Marinette’s case and suggest coaching Lila so she doesn’t come off as trying to rub Mari the wrong way, all the while unaware of Adrien’s real intentions. After some convincing, they take the plan to the rest of the class and Operation: Make Lila and Marinette Friends. Optionally, Kagami and Luka are the only ones in on Adrien’s real end goal.

We have fic now: https://xxxsaltybugxxx.tumblr.com/post/188221174564/good-intentions

I don’t think Alya just stopped Lila for the sake of her ship happening. I think she was also trying to stop Lila from making herself look bad. Think about it - Alya is under the impression that Marinette is jealous of Lila and that Lila is after Adrien. So even though Lila was going to Marinette for “innocuous” reasons, Marinette would think that Lila was purposefully annoying her, and thus make her like her less. Alya, therefore, stops Lila to give Marinette less ammunition to dislike her.

But then, what if the other classmates got in on it? Like they genuinely try to help Lila from making herself look bad, inadvertently sabotaging her schemes? 

Lila tries to slip in the test answers into Marinette’s backpack? Rose catches her with the backpack before she can set Marinette up, insists that she can take it back to Marinette, and they don’t have to say anything about Lila. After all, we don’t want Marinette getting the wrong idea, do we?

Lila can’t make a class picnic and wants to reschedule? Well, Marinette might think that Lila’s just trying to set up extra work for her, so what if they just hold a picnic for Lila outside of school? We wouldn’t want to stress out Marinette with scheduling conflicts, would we?

Lila tries to pull Adrien away from hanging out with Marinette so she can study with him? Max intervenes and volunteers to help instead. After all, he has some of the best grades in the class and could use the extra time tutoring. We wouldn’t want Marinette to be sad about having her time with Adrien interrupted, would we?

Scheme after scheme is foiled, all thanks to her annoying classmates’ “kindness”. Surely, they have to be scheming to stop her, right? No can actually be that nice, right? But no, they’re all under the impression that they’re truly helping Lila down the line.

All the while, Marinette has no idea about any of this happening, so Lila goes to confront her about it. Some of the girls catch Lila stalking Marinette, and just as Lila decides to start throwing threats, they catch her in the act, saying that they were only trying to help her and Marinette lose the animosity towards each other, and that Marinette had nothing to do with it. 

Lila realizes then and there she messed up bad.

Adrien is the one to orchestrate all of this. He tells Marinette not to go after Lila and just leave her be, but doesn't tell her about his plan so she can remain innocent. He goes to Adrien and Alya to argue Marinette's case and suggest coaching Lila so she doesn't come off as trying to rub Mari the wrong way, all the while unaware of Adrien's real intentions. After some convincing, they take the plan to the rest of the class and Operation: Make Lila and Marinette Friends. Optionally, Kagami and Luka are the only ones in on Adrien's real end goal.

A rival journalist that runs something similar to the Ladyblog could be a good setup

Add this to list of things I support

I mean, seriously, why is another Ladyblog never mentioned? I’m surprised Chloe’s fake interview with Ladybug never led to something. In a city like Paris you think there would be one other person (outside mainstream media) running a blog that gets hits, or is Alya just not the type to worry about competitors

Hell, why couldn’t it have been Lila? If we did get the real Fox vs Fox rivalry we’ve wanted all along, this would have been a perfect way for them to be in conflict.

Lila is good at telling stories and drawing people in. She KNOWS what people want to hear and how to make it at least appear that she’s giving them what they want. She could spin stories about the heroes and celebrities of Paris, giving “insider info” about who they are and the latest “scoop” about relationships or tension between members of the team. Sure, it could go into salt, but if Lila would be good at anything, it would be making up her own blog. AND it would have the added bonus of misinforming the people of Paris, increasing tension, and causing drama–all of which are pretty useful things for Hawk Moth to take advantage of. And think about it! If she was doing this, Gabriel Agreste could even endorse her, making her look all the more legitimate of a news source! It would be the two of them feeding into each other–Lila creating drama for Hawk Moth to make his akumas and Hawk Moth/Gabriel giving Lila more material to work with to boost her own status.

And the best part is that Alya can’t do anything about it. Forget the “high road” nonsense Marinette was told to follow, there would be a real sense of helplessness here because it wouldn’t be a pretentious moral “choice” to let Lila get away with lying to everyone but rather an actual inability to counter her. There really isn’t anything Alya could actually do to disprove Lila in this situation. Not without revealing herself or other things she shouldn’t. And not without playing the “game”, as Lila puts it, and doing the same for her own blog as Lila is doing–which could create some tension between Chat and Ladybug if she goes and outs certain things either of them did or said that they didn’t want the other to know. 

This would be a real test of character for Alya: Does she pursue the truth or “sensationalize” her blog to keep up? How far does she go? How should she respond to a liar? And should she abuse her relationship with Ladybug to succeed?

Tell me that wouldn’t be more interesting to see. Something that requires actual development among the characters, growth in Alya, and makes Lila actually dangerous.

me: Hm, I should probably put a content warning for how unsettlingly friendly Gabriel gets towards Marinette. It’s totally platonic but still, he’s manipulating her and it can be read as really sinister

canon: hold my akuma

catalyst: has Gabriel spying on Lila through video feeds

oni-chan: has Gabriel call Lila and meet her in secret

miraculer: literally does a clandestine meeting in a park where Gabriel pulls strings for Lila in return for Lila doing him a favour

ladybug: has Lila publicly referred to as Gabriel’s muse

me:

canon:

me: can someone please call the fucking cops

And I have to ask again, for that photo shoot, was Lila's mom aware of this? Did she give permission for her daughter to do what should be considered paid work? Either way, there's a major, uncomfortable power gap at play here.

Lila’s character is entirely unnecessary until S3 and not introducing her in S1 would fix 90% of the plot holes about her character

At the end of S1 Adrien steals the Miraculous spellbook and takes it to school. Marinette is checking him out during a study session in the library when Tikki spots him reading over the Miraculous book and begs Marinette to grab the book for her. Marinette tries to strike up a conversation with Adrien and asks him about the book while Tikki looses her pink little head about it. Marinette ends up stealing it from Adrien at Tikki’s request and skips her afternoon classes to go meet Fu for the first time.

Meanwhile, Gabriel has found out that Adrien took the book and calls Adrien out of school in the middle of the school day. Because Marinette’s with Fu, she doesn’t hear about this until after pops back in for one of her later classes and Alya and Nino update her. The rest of the day goes like Collector did except at the end of the conversation with Gabriel, Marinette just admits she took the book by accident while rushing to get to class and she was going to give it back to Adrien.

Then the rest of S2 doesn’t change at all, besides the fact that Alya doesn’t reference Lila getting akumatised, because Lila hasn’t arrived in Paris yet. Catalyst doesn’t need Lila to be the one to cause the fake Ladybug to Thanos snap Chat Noir, all HM needs is mass panic and havoc, which isn’t hard to do when you got crowds and crowds of people.

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