Lila Rossi | Rewrite and Redesign | Miraculous Ladybug | PART 5

hello everyone this is kelly marr here and no it's not calamari welcome back to another rewrite and redesign of miraculous ladybug before we get into the video i want to give a big thanks to everyone that supported my first merch launch if you bought a shirt please please please take a picture with it and show me on my twitter at calimara because i'm really stoked to see how it looks and what you guys think of it i also want to congratulate the winners of the contest my mod team and i did on my discord server

as you can probably see there are some insanely talented people in there so if you want a place to talk about art and rewrites this is the place for you links are in the description also just in case you guys aren't as up to date on current ladybug news as i am because my subscribers are awesome and they tell me things it was brought to my attention that thomas astrak recently changed his twitter bio to say that he is now temporarily known for being the creator and director of miraculous i found a few articles as

well saying that he will not be staying on for season 5 and that co-director jeremy zag will be taking over his position i mean this is probably old news by the time this video comes out but it was new when i was first made aware of it if you guys aren't in the miraculous fandom this is a huge deal because thomas is basically the lead writer and director of miraculous for seasons one through four and allegedly the source of many if not all of mlb's writing issues including chloe's character arc assassination other things he's well

known for is fiercely defending marinette and arguing and blocking fans on twitter for their criticisms of the show plus his fat nickname is hawk daddy and papa pop pop pop pilon my brain refuses to say that word so it just really made my skin crawl that young kids are calling him that i watched a video by amanda todd hunter recently called the dark side of miraculous ladybug and it is an excellent video that fantastically sums up all of my issues with thomas astruc but i think one part of that video that really connected the dots

to me about thomas behavior is the section about his extremely overblown ego i think amanda said it best in her video so i'm going to play a short clip of it here however what bothers me is that thomas doesn't define negativity and the haters as only the vile comments that string together profanities and throw them at his general direction he will also sometimes block anybody who doesn't agree with him or adamantly praise the show perhaps one of the reasons he lashes out so dramatically at people who disagrees or even has questions regarding the logistics of

the show is because he has one of the biggest egos i have ever seen he truly believes that miraculous ladybug is the pinnacle of children's animated television and on the one hand i do understand that a creator of a show should be proud of their creation think it's the best thing that they could have produced but thomas says this in a way that's both unironically hilarious and quite frankly extremely embarrassing and rude when mark miller one of the most well-known comic writers involved with marvel and dc tweeted one of my pals said last night that

all unique comic book superpowers had been created by 1963. this can't be right surely especially on the manga scene wolverine i guess but even healing and metal skeleton goes back to the golden age heroes any thoughts thomas replied mark may i suggest you take a look at my show in three seasons of miraculous we invented more unique superpowers than the whole industry in three decades yeah i mean he's got a point when have we ever seen the superpowers of creation or destruction or paralyzation or time travel or illusion i guess it's no surprise that he

thinks he's better than [ __ ] pixar that's right folks when someone pointed out the similarities between a character from the movie incredibles 2 and principal damocles is the owl which by the way isn't an original concept it's from batman thomas replied please we have better designers than that absolutely so yeah personally i'm glad that he's no longer on the miraculous team and i wish jeremy zag all the best with the mess thomas left him but back to the video in case you guys missed it i previously did a video on gabriel agrest and i

highly recommend you guys check that video out because it's going to be relevant to this one so if you need to click off go do that now but if you're still here hello [Music] as you might have seen from the title and thumbnail we are discussing lila rossi one of the minor villains of miraculous ladybug and in my opinion quite an underutilized one at that especially considering the potential she had to play a bigger role it's a shame that she doesn't get used if at all and i'm certain no one will really disagree with my

statement especially if you watch the dang show but just in case you don't let me give you some context each season of mlb has 26 episodes since lila's introduction in season 1 where her debut episode is also the only episode she has a major role in she appears in a whopping 2 out of the 26 episodes in season 2 and she gets a bit more screen time in season 3 where she appeared in 8 episode but is once again benched in season 4 where she only appears in 3. all things considered season 3 was probably

lila's best season featuring prominently in chameleon and onichan god i hate that villain name where she was absolutely gaslight gatekeep girl bossing everyone and we love her for it because we actually get a competent villain also marinette indulges in her stalker tendencies again by trying to spy on adrian's room when lila gets herself invited to his house and a fireman catches her in the act and this literal grown adult who is also a fireman not only condones her actions but actively assists in her stalking like no yeah that's okay the other little girl you told

me about sounds like an absolute [ __ ] so i'll help you peek into this little boy's room but anyway this episode also establishes the first connection between lila and gabriel and since then we see her carrying out some of gabriel's plans like in miracular where he enlists lila's help to make chloe lose her faith in ladybug and that gave me the idea to establish lila as one of hawkmoth's henchmen alongside natalie and spoilers for my next video felix as a bit of a refresher for what was discussed in the last video i essentially proposed

that hawkmoth's accumulations won't automatically erase the victim's memories which allows him to cultivate respect loyalty and devotion in individuals who did enjoy the power and liberation that they were given hence gradually growing his influence and grip on the city of paris as he turns its citizens against ladybug and cat noir as the main villain to a story that is intended to be epic he should be someone untouchable and terrifying someone that would require the heroes to overcome many obstacles just to reach a final boss if you will and every big bad villain has their trusty

henchmen to do their dirty work for them if there are characters you want your heroes to go toe-to-toe with and perhaps use as comic relief it's these characters in the last airbender ozai had zuko and later azula who also recruited mae and tylee dr drakken from kim possible had shigo and deep blue from tokyo myumio had kishu plus pie and tart later on so my plan right now is to give hawk moth his own team to use against ladybug and cat noir to maintain that sense of mystique about him it also gives us a more

interesting cast of villains that we can follow the development of as opposed to introducing us to a new villain we have no connection to every episode see i think one of the reasons why the last airbender felt so much more impactful than the legend of korra was in part because the legend of korra introduced a new villain every book and i know that it's because the legend of korra was initially only meant to run for one season before nickelodeon decided to buy three more i think the fact that we got to follow the development of

not only the heroes but also the villains in the last airbender and in a way grow attached to them really made the final face off that much more powerful the gist of it is you need just as much time to establish and develop a villain as you do a hero because if the hero just defeats this random villain that you barely got to know or care about the win isn't very satisfying or exciting at least in my opinion is it always a bad thing of course not it's fun to have throwaway villains sometimes to just

establish the power level your hero has after a major milestone and if you treat your major villains the same way then what difference is there between them and any other random throwaway goon number five so i think it would be a good idea to have a consistent cast of villains for miraculous ladybug that can grow alongside the heroes and go down their own paths of development and i want lila to be one of them so my initial impressions of lila's original civilian design is actually very positive lila is probably one of the only stylish characters

in miraculous she wears a romper with a cool leather jacket and her boots are to die for the moment she appeared on screen she immediately left a strong impression lila feels like a cooler almost edgier marinette but in a good way in a competent way i especially loved her eyes it's such an interesting shape that really conveyed her personality well and that was definitely one of the aspects of her original design that i wanted to keep the only thing i wasn't too fond of was her hair i thought the over-the-shoulder low ties felt a bit

incoherent to the rest of the design like the designers were just trying to give her hair some unique flair but didn't really know what to do and i'm honestly not a big fan of her fringes either they're so thick and blunt it leans a bit heavy on her face and i definitely think the designers could have given her something thinner something with more shape than that otherwise i'm going to take the aspects i did like and try to elevate it in my interpretation i kept her original face pretty much lila has lovely facial features and

a great face shape and i really wanted to keep them so i tried to transfer that as best as i could in my redesign her hair was where i started changing things up i initially drew in her original hair but it looked very out of place with the lila i had in mind lila strikes me as edgy chic and bold so i feel like she would spring for something striking for her hair immediately i decided to go with a he may cut which i think would accentuate her long straight hair give it some interesting layers

while matching her straight cut fringes i think the sharpness of the edges of her hair really communicate her personality as well as someone who is more edgy and sharp-minded shall we say i was really happy with how it turned out it definitely looked way better than i expected it to also this is just my personal interpretation of things but from the first time i saw lyla on screen i immediately wondered if she might be of asian descent like marinette was and the more i dissected her design the more i actually felt that way her hair

looks like something straight out of an 80s shojo anime and her eyes remind me a lot of namaris from raya and the last dragon if i didn't watch miraculous and just saw lila i would have thought she was at least half southeast asian but no she's actually fully italian i decided to look into her family tree a bit more and it seems that we don't really know anything about her father yet we've only been introduced to her mother so there is a bit of wiggle room there for me to take some creative liberty miraculous is

heavily inspired by east asian aesthetics so i think this would fall quite in line with the themes in the show though it can cross into orientalism at times with the writers often lacking the nuance to represent the cultures they're trying to portray and hiring cultural advisors instead of just hiring people from the culture to work on the show i do think there is a difference between cultural appropriation and appreciation so i think it would be nice to have people of that culture actually be the ones to represent it so for my version i want lila

to be half asian maybe on her father's side given that he hasn't been established in the show yet for her clothing i didn't really change that much lila actually has a pretty cool sense of style i love that she wears a romper i'm just gonna put her in a better one so now let's get on to the hero design my initial impressions of volpina is that i really like her i know shocking i think the fox miraculous holders have the best designs and i know technically lila never was one but it just always looks really

sleek and effective and i'm a huge fan of the black gloves and shoes but because i like the design it was actually harder for me to think of ways to change or improve upon it how do you improve perfection you can't so for me this was less a case of design doctor and more of me putting my own spin to it lila in my version is a devoted follower of hawk moth basically one of his henchmen so this form isn't actually a result of the fox miraculous but rather akumatization just like it is originally because

of that i wanted her design to look more sinister especially after it has been established that she is a villain but i wasn't quite sure how to convey that yet i figured i should let my pen guide me as i went along i started with her hair and initially i wanted to do asymmetric fringes to further build upon lila's edgier style i was heavily inspired by lusamine from pokemon sun and moon which is another well designed villain character not well written per se but well designed i followed volpina's original design with the waist wrap at

first until i came up with the idea of making the tail part of a coat that would make up the orange sections of her costume i also gave her a neck scarf because i noticed that that's quite a prominent accessory in italian fashion and i thought it would give her costume additional flair to create more segments in the costume i also gave her a chic belt to show off some sense of style i ended up changing the ears to a more realistic shape since i imagined filipina's ears are actual fox ears as opposed to an

accessory because akumatized villains can have all sorts of extra parts and it also helps differentiate her from the real fox miraculous holder but she still didn't feel sinister enough so i gave her long retractable claws inspired by alcina dimitresque and yes it is pronounced with a silent u so don't come at me with that dimitra's goo bs but i thought that added a nice touch to her design but even with the claws i still felt that the design looked boring so i switched up the suit in favor of the other outfit i considered for the

civilian design and while it successfully added more complexity it was still missing something so i added some more details like fluff on the cuffs of her gloves and boots similar to what i did for queen bee but while i was drawing the shapes it kind of made me think of fire then i remembered that kitsunes or japanese fox spirits produce ghost lights called kitsune or foxfire since my version of lila is half asian i got the idea that maybe lila should be a nine-tailed fox now i haven't really decided on which country lila is from

specifically and i initially wanted to make her half japanese so that she could be a kitsune different countries have different names and stories for fox spirits japan has the kitsune china has the huli jing and korea has the kumiho generally nine-tailed foxes are said to have superior intelligence longevity and magical powers the more tales a fox spirit has the older wiser and more powerful they are they are known for their ability to shapeshift into beautiful women and playing tricks either on those who deserve it or those who don't in japanese and chinese folklore they are

depicted with an ambiguous moral compass capable of being either good or evil in japan they may be seen as evil spirits that torment innocent people or guardian spirits that ward off evil some may even be worshiped as a god or become the lovers and wives of normal humans i really like this idea and i was heavily inspired by the story of tamamonomai who was an evil fox spirit that was sealed inside the killing rock or seshoseki coincidentally this rock also split in half right down the middle this year in 2022 so we're screwed but the

more i looked into the kitsune the more i realized how inaccurate it would be to relegate a kitsune strictly to a villainous role given their nuance i started worrying that it would be a poor representation of kitsunes at best and vilifying them at worst when they are considered to be noble spirits in both chinese and japanese culture so i did some more research on east asian fox spirits and i considered the idea of possibly making lila half korean instead that way not only would we have all of east asia represented with marinette being half chinese

and kagami being japanese but perhaps a more appropriate fox spirit for the idea i had in mind in korean folklore particularly more recent literature fox spirits are known as almost exclusively evil spirits that eat human flesh specifically that of men whom they seduce and lure into a sense of security before eating their liver or heart i think the more villainous portrayal of the fox spirit in the kumiho would suit laila much better than a kitsune and would allow me to represent the myth more accurately another unique aspect of the kumiho are their fox marbles or

beads which provides power to the kumiho but if stolen and swallowed by a human can bestow great knowledge and intelligence however this fox marble can also be used to absorb human energy and the method resembles a quote unquote deep kiss where the kumiho sends the fox marble into their victim's mouth then retrieves it with their tongue plus kumiho seducing men to prey on them also parallels lila trying to seduce adrian away from marinette in fact i think she would have been a better fit for the fox miraculous than alia because of how well her personality

lines up with the common symbolism of foxes that being adaptability cunningness strategy intelligence trickery resourcefulness patience quick wit and overcoming obstacles her nine tails gave me that extra umph the design needed and i was very pleased with myself do let me know what you guys think in the comments below now let's get into my rewrite of lila first let's establish some canon story beats lila moved from italy and started attending francois du pont college in the episode volpina her mother works at the italian embassy in paris and is hardly around for her thus lila is

often left to be on her own as we see in onichan and it makes me think that maybe the reason why she lies so much is to try and get the attention she never got from her parents as we don't know where her father is either of course it's also entirely possible that lila lies about her accomplishments to make up for her lack of popularity while she was in italy to start fresh you know well i wanted to expand on this a bit more for my version of lila so in my rewrite lila was born

in italy where she was mostly raised by her father because of how busy her mother is with her embassy work always traveling and barely coming home eventually due to building tensions in the marriage her parents decided to get a divorce when lyla was only three years old because her father had always been her primary caregiver he managed to win custody of her she moved back to south korea with a young lila and there she stayed for most of her early childhood however she was often treated differently or avoided by other kids at school for not

being fully korean and having a darker complexion she was also picked on for not fitting into the country's rigid beauty standards but her father would always tell her that she was beautiful the way she was that is until the day he was killed in a freak car accident with her father gone lila was left to the custody of her mother she moved back to italy to be with her when she was 10 years old and lyla discovered just how different life was with her mother unlike her father she was never around and always seemed to

put her job first feeling lonely and ignored lila started seeking attention from her new friends at school unlike her old school her new friends were much more welcoming and accepting of her and they were especially interested in her experience living in south korea and lyla loved the attention she started exaggerating her stories telling bigger and bigger lies until she was the most popular girl in school but that story eventually got too big and her lies soon got out of hand she eventually got exposed for making things up and she quickly lost her reputation but luckily

for her she would be moving to a new school in paris for her mother's job and she could start again with a clean slate determined to never be ignored again she wasn't going to make the same mistakes twice which fits in perfectly to lila's debut in the episode volpina getting back to canon in that episode one of lila's lies had included knowing ladybug personally and claiming to be the descendant of volpina the fox superhero noted in the miraculous spell book adrian and lila meet up and she starts bashing ladybug saying that fulpina is a better

superhero and marinette gets petty of course because marinette can't handle anybody talking about ladybug unless it's only to compliment her and in addition to her alarming possessiveness of adrian despite them not even being a couple and barely being considered friends she berates lila publicly as ladybug in front of him the person lila likes even adrian had the sense to be like um that's that's pretty messed up ladybug and in the end marinette eventually apologizes to lyla but understandably she doesn't accept her apology because marinette just straight up used her powers to deface and humiliate lyla

in public in front of her crush and that memory isn't just going to go away hawkmoth even spells it out for us saying that lila is still angry and because of that there is a chance for him to akumatize her again if he wants to and this is where my idea comes into play lila after being humiliated by ladybug and given the opportunity to seek redemption and vengeance by hawkmoth decides to join the anti-ladybug movement and become a follower of hawkmoth she keeps her involvement covert of course as some perceive the movement as extremist or

outright in support of hawkmoth even though they are and they're even being run and financed by hawkmoth slash gabriel aggressed himself but the public doesn't know that if this is completely throwing you off please refer to my gabriel aggressed video now due to lila's deep grudge against ladybug she becomes extremely devoted to hawkmoth doing whatever he asks in order to become vulpina again naturally hawkmoth takes notice of her negative feelings and determination to make ladybug pay for humiliating her so he decides to take advantage of that situation i think it would be interesting if hawkmoth

uses lyla to create his own supervillain team essentially giving her the opportunity to take revenge on ladybug leaving her powerless and disgraced in the eyes of the public just as she had done to her because unlike in the original show actions have long lasting consequences it doesn't just get immediately resolved within a single episode and when lila becomes volpina yet again she is no longer interested in pretending to be a hero so instead she takes on the form of a vengeful kumiho as one of hawkmoth's henchmen she is supplied with a certain number of akumas

that she can use to transform herself at any time giving her some degree of independence and autonomy in carrying out hawkmoth's orders another perk of being hawkmoth's henchman is that she can also detransform if she chooses to make a tactical retreat therefore preventing the heroes from destroying her akumatized object and purifying her akuma you might be wondering how does she carry around a whole swarm of akumas discreetly enough to do this covertly well the akumas would already be inhabiting an object ready to transform her when hawkmoth needs it to remember when i mentioned fox marbles

earlier well lila would have her own fox marbles that she can carry they were originally regular marbles that she brought from south korea but now that they are inhabited by akumas she can also use them to communicate with hawkmoth the same way the miraculous holders can communicate to each other through their weapons that also gives her a direct line of communication to ask hawkmoth to transform or detransform her when necessary each marble gives her a different power depending on what hawkmoth needs her to do and she can only transform using one marble at a time

depending on which marble she uses to transform volpina can gain the power of either shapeshifting which is also a canon power she had as the chameleon creating illusions and hallucinations hypnosis firepowers which is a reference to foxfire and stealing the energy of others this last power is by far her most powerful one and the one most detrimental to her if cat noir were to destroy it as a refresher we established in my adrian rewrite that only cat noir's cataclysm can destroy an object inhabited by an akuma while ladybug purifies it with this power volpina consumes

the energy of her victims leaving them paralyzed and weak and giving herself a boost in strength speed and wisdom the increased wisdom part would be a similar mechanic to ladybug's polka dot vision when she has to figure out how to use an item from her mystery mousekatool if lila absorbs the energy of a miraculous user she temporarily gains their abilities while leaving them incapacitated hence it is an invaluable asset to both fulpina and hawkmoth so lila will be very careful not to overuse it at the risk of losing it though i imagine volpina would also

use her different marble powers to trick the heroes into thinking she is using one when really she is using another similar to how she behaved in her debut episode where she claimed her power was super strength when it was illusions the entire time separate from her powers some consistent features in her volpina form are her claws which she can grow and retract in an instant her nine tails which can shield her from attacks even if she doesn't see it coming similar to the legs of the iron spider suit and it can even grab and entangle

opponents which gives her an opening to strike you might remember that in my gabriel aggressed video i gave a hypothetical as to how i would write the story of miraculous and in my season 3 rewrite adrian learns that his father is hawkmoth and he is now aware of the reason why his father is so desperate to get the cat and ladybug miraculous and in the finale cat noir turns on ladybug and the way he turns on her well volpina is the key so imagine this cat noir tries to talk to ladybug meeting her on a

rooftop to ask her to give him the ladybug miraculous because he needs it to save someone he loves obviously marinette can't do that without revealing her true identity to cat noir so she refuses he insists saying that he is going to give it back straight away but ladybug grows suspicious and asks him if hawkmoth has gotten to him somehow cat noir says nothing and that confirms her suspicions she feels betrayed and she yells at him to come to his senses that hawkmoth is trying to manipulate him and they can't let him get his hands on

their miraculouses but adrian has made up his mind he tells her that the only way all of this chaos and suffering is going to end as if they give hogmoth their miraculouses and that he doesn't want to fight her but ladybug tells him to stay back and that she isn't afraid to fight him if she has to and cat noir looks at her with unwavering determination and tells her then i guess we will and ladybug readies herself for an attack and the episode cuts off we start season 4 with a bang we see a news

report discussing a brutal fight between ladybug and cat noir we see traffic camera footage of the two tearing into each other cat noir activates cataclysm and ladybug activates lucky charm but in the end ladybug gets the upper hand and forces cat noir to use his cataclysm on himself there's an explosion and the footage turns to static as the audience we know that cataclysm only severely injures miraculous holders it doesn't destroy them so he's alive but where did he go the camera pans out to marinette who was watching the news report horrified the report continues on

to say that the police are currently investigating the matter further and the audience is left wondering if marinette had done that to cat noir the event creates a rift in ladybug's own superhero team as she would corroborate that she did meet cat noir and have a disagreement with him but that they both walked away from the argument despite the video evidence showing otherwise she even loses the support of the ladyblog who had always been rooting for her in cat noir naturally hawkmoth capitalizes on this development this time hacking into the broadcast frequency to talk about

how ladybug would even turn on her own partner at the threat of losing her powers he cast doubt to the minds of the audience on ladybug's intentions did she truly wish to be a hero for noble causes or was she simply doing it for the fame and power meanwhile adrian had been taken to the crypt where his mother is and hawkmoth treats his injuries personally and it's here that adrian finally agrees to retrieve the ladybug miraculous but only if he's the one who gets to make the wish to bring emily back hawkmoth agrees and assures

adrian that they both want the same thing and it doesn't matter how they get there in the end hawkmoth then leaves the crypt and meets volpina he congratulates her for a job well done and we discover that it was vulpina the entire time using her shape-shifting marble to transform into ladybug and attack cat noir to trick him into thinking that ladybug had betrayed him and convincing him to turn on her completely of course given that volpina was the person who attacked and subdued him she also learns cat noir's true identity and she realizes that the

person she had fatally injured was none other than her crush adrian aggressed the discovery shakes her to her very core she looks at hawkmoth and horror as the realization of what she's done dawns on her suddenly she has doubts about what she's doing but hawkmoth threatens to expose her identity to the public if she dares to betray him and lila assures him that that will never happen but as we know lila is an excellent liar and the next time cat noir appears in the public eye he has become part of hawkmoth's supervillain team throughout season

4 marinette must find a way to clear her name protect her miraculous and convince cat noir to come back to her she starts to discover that unlike in the show she can't do everything on her own and everything only felt easy because cat noir was there covering her weaknesses but now had she lost him forever well luckily for her she might soon find an unexpected ally i think i'll leave it there for now if you enjoyed my rewrite then you might enjoy the project i'm currently working on basically i'm doing my own take on the

miraculous concept and powers and writing an entirely new story and cast of characters with parallels to the original mlb it's going to be set in an alternate universe so i have more creative freedom and all the characters are 21 and above essentially this is my depressed college age magical girl idea and if you're interested in hearing more about it make sure you subscribe and follow me on my social media to make sure you don't miss anything also thank you to all the amazing fan art and all the adorable hydrates that you guys have been sending

me i love it when you guys send me fan art so please keep it coming and i will keep featuring it at the end of all my videos so make sure you check out my videos and see if you're a fan art made it then also do check out my comic because that will make me really happy and i will see you guys in the next video goodbye [Music] you