No doubt this is me being a bit petty, but I find it irritating to see so many Marinette fans praise her akuma form as Heartfixer into the heavens, claiming it's such a good and gorgeous design that totally shows how much of a lesbian Lila is for her.
I mean.. Heartfixer's design gives barely anything. I'm not saying the design is ugly and awful, it's just... nothing to fawn over like this tbh. Why do Marinette fans insist on having no standards and satisfy themselves with the barest minimum? This happens every time Marinette gets any kind of new suit, no matter how ugly or bare bones. Cause it's MARINETTE who's wearing it, so it must be glazed, even though they SHOULD be asking for Marinette to be given better. This mindless glazing feels like the exact reason why the show designers and writers DONT do better. Because they know they don't have to put in any actual effort because Marinette stans will settle for anything as long as it can somehow be twisted into tunnel-visioned glazing.
Not to mention that akuma victims give themselves their name and design, so Lila had nothing to do with Marinette matching her Butterfly astral form. That was Marinette's decision. Lila is not a lesbian for this, and she isn't one for cuddling up with her like that, during the akumatization, either. Lila has been touchy with all kinds of people and Marinette clearly wants to be cuddled, pitied, and given an easy out, no matter who offers it.
Saying all of this is just Lila being a lesbian misses the point of the akuma victims having agency in how they look and what their power is, and that Lila is a master manipulator who will adjust her approach to her victims' desires and needs.
It also feels very familiar in the way it "coincidentally" absolves Marinette of almost all blame and agency in this. It's not Marinette giving into the Butterfly the moment they give her the cuddles, validation, and easy solution she wants to have, it's Lila being a creepy lesbian who's preying upon innocent little Marinette.
It's interesting how Marinette fans act like it's unfathomable to them that Lila might not be a hard core lesbian for Marinette, but instead that Marinette may be the foe Lila wants to crush and defeat, but at the end of the day doesn't care about one bit. That Marinette too is just used as object and means to an end, the way Lila already did it in Revelation.
Yeah, like, my mutual, @infinitysgrace compared the Akumanetteās design to the untransformed Magic Heroez (the "heroez" tag is a lie it's just all Marinette) toys. Like, itās not much different and people going āOMG, Lila is clearly a lesbian for Marinette for making her so GORGEOUSā is desperate glazing, OBVIOUSLY. Like, WHAT about that Akuma design is so āgorgeousā? Like, Iām not saying itās ugly, there isnāt enough design in there for it to BE ugly, but it is a whole lot of nothing.
Like, thatās a common criticism of the new season; that the characters arenāt allowed to look unattractive, so they emote more blandly to make sure their faces stay basic standard attractive. And thatās what I see in Heartfixerās design: a whole lot of inoffensive nothing. Like, of course Heartfixer ālooks niceā, she barely looks like ANYTHING. Sheās just Marinetteās silhouette with minor added accents.
The Miraculous fandom has a history of predatory lesbian stereotyping, not gonna lie. Iām not surprised the Maripologists are now going to bat to claim Lila is a lesbian for Marinette based on nothing, when I recall how they treated Kagami during season 3. Like, the whole āKagami smirks at Adrien over oblivious Marinetteās shoulderā type fanart WAS SO COMMON. Maripologists took Marinetteās love rival and turned her into Adrienās love rival, because all these girls being in love with Marinette are not threats. Except they totally lean into predatory lesbian stereotypes when they do this, especially when Marinette is depicted as oblivious to their advances.