Hi everyone! For context, I'm the authoress of Two Bees in a Pod, a Miraculous Ladybug AU fanfiction. I'm also a member of the Marinette Critique Studio, and recently I made a post analyzing how Ladybug's ladybug motif is some very good accidental symbolism of Marinette's toxicity in her relationships with others, particularly in how she treats other girls, Chloe, and Adrien, by comparing her to a solitary, poisonous, carnivorous, and cannibalistic beetle that evolved to shove past ants to steal their aphids, with some notes on Chloe's honeybee motif reflecting Chloe's aggressive and frankly territorial personality.

In the comments, one lovely poster made a good analysis of how Adrien/Chat Noir has a black cat motif to represent bad luck, but how this is actually quite symbolic of Adrien being a sweet, playful boy who loves people but will break out the claws if pushed too far. That got me thinking about how the writers of Miraculous Ladybug might not understand the ecologies of the animals they designed their heroes after, and if the ecologies of said animals might be unintended symbolism of their personalities. This post is all about Kagami Tsurugi, the bokken-wielding bean whose animal motif received one of the most drastic changes in Two Bees in a Pod.

In canon, Kagami received the Dragon Miraculous, which houses Longg, Kwami of Perfection. Thematically, it's perfect (pun) that Kagami receives this specific Miraculous, as perfection is the concept that defines her life. She's a sentimonster, meaning she's essentially a designer baby with a psychic remote control, and her mother Tomoe is exceedingly strict, incredibly stern, and also a member of the Kingdom, which is basically a cult dedicated to causing the apocalypse in the name of creating a perfect dystopia where a small handful of rich people (all of whom are presumably light-skinned) rule the world and everyone else is either enslaved or dead. Despite the years her mother spent trying to mold Kagami into the perfect heiress, however, Kagami herself isn't perfect: she tends to be blunt, misses social cues, and is overall a bit socially-awkward. As a result, Tomoe is quite hard on her, and she constantly yearns to one day be totally free from her mother.

There's a headcanon in the fandom that Kagami is autistic, and as an autistic woman myself I definitely see it. It'd frankly fit Kagami's backstory of everyone expecting her to be perfect, as autistic people have trouble understanding why people are so insistent that we perform certain actions that neurotypicals do without a fuss, and our questioning of rules and manners, not to mention rejection of what we see as uncomfortable in favor of what is comfortable, isn't taken kindly. It would also explain why Kagami has seemingly little love for her homeland; Japan, and East Asia on the whole, is notoriously a lot worse about accepting autistic people than Western nations due to longstanding cultural insistence on rigid conformity (and autistic people are, again, very bad at the whole conformity thing) and great social stigma against mental health issues.

It isn't just Tomoe who expects Kagami to be perfect, however: nearly everyone else does too. Gabriel wants Kagami to date Adrien because he sees her as the perfect wife for his son in a way that just screams eugenics. Felix's attraction to Kagami is almost certainly borne of her sentimonster heritage, viewing her as the perfect bride for himself. Chloe dislikes Kagami because she thinks that Kagami wouldn't be the perfect girlfriend for Adrien and Chloe herself would be, and Kagami telling her off because Kagami doesn't take crap from anyone bothers Chloe too so she tries to sabotage her in Animaestro. And when it comes to Marinette...oh boy.

Despite acting like she likes Kagami, that really isn't the case. Marinette initially hates Kagami because she thinks that Kagami is weird, and more importantly is incredibly jealous that Kagami gets to be Adrien's girlfriend and actually has a lot of chemistry with him. While Marinette does let Kagami have the Dragon Miraculous she still mostly tolerates her at best, and she still tries to sabotage Kagami's relationship with Adrien so she can have Adrien herself. And ultimately, Marinette succeeds in the worst way imaginable.

During Heart Hunter, Ladybug goes for the Dragon Miraculous even though the Bee would be the perfect counter for dealing with Heart Hunter. Additionally, Heart Hunter is made from Chloe's parents, so having Chloe be Queen Bee and use her knowledge of how they act to plan their attack would make sense. But Marinette despises Chloe and doesn't think she deserves a chance to find purpose in anything other than being a brat, so she doesn't go for the Bee. One thing leads to another and Chloe is akumatized into Miracle Queen, Hawk Moth fixes the Peacock and becomes Shadow Moth, Fu is forced to give up his memories as a Guardian to make sure Hawk Moth doesn't get them from him, Hawk Moth learns the secret identities of most of the heroes, and Ladybug's lack of sympathy and empathy to Chloe's akumatization makes Chloe realize that her idol is just another person who hates her because she isn't perfect.

People say that Ladybug was right to not pick Chloe given her actions in Season 3, but Ladybug didn't pick Carapace, Rena Rouge, or Viperion either. Why did she pick Kagami specifically?

Because Marinette is the kind of fangirl who gets so pissed at her celebrity crush having a girlfriend who isn't her that she'd send the girlfriend death threats in the mail. She chose Kagami to be Ryuko purely to sabotage Adrien's date with her. And, ultimately, she does, in a way, get Adrien to break up with Kagami by Lies, which takes place not long after Heart Hunter and involves Kagami's admission that she's a liar. However, Kagami also says that she dislikes Adrien's lying and tells him to stop messing around when he tries to act like his more natural persona Chat Noir. Had Adrien decided "Fuck it" and told Kagami that he's Chat Noir and feels better as him, perhaps Kagami would've realized that just as she feels more like herself as Ryuko, Adrien feels the same as Chat Noir, and she'd accept that his real self isn't perfect but still worthy of love, just as she is.

But Adrienette Endgame, so instead they break up. And then Kagami ends up dating Adrien's identical cousin who stalked her and killed presumably hundreds of people, and only when she's not a threat to Adrienette anymore does Marinette really befriend her. Literally what the fuck did they do to Kagami in the later seasons?

Admittedly, Kagami doesn't have the best judgement and she is shown to be a bit impressionable. Season 2 reveals that Kagami believes in the blood type personality myth. This is a common pseudoscientific belief in Japan which originated from a study done by Takeji Furukawa in 1927. Furukawa had no credentials, but the study was popular with the public and the government saw it as a potential way to get designer soldiers. The ultimate motivation for Furukawa's study? Politics and racism. He was pissy about the Taiwanese resisting Japanese occupation, so he made up the blood type personality myth so he could assign negative traits to the blood types common in Taiwanese people and justify abusing & killing them.

Speaking of myths, let's finally talk about the dragon in the room.

An asset of a Chinese dragon taken from the Qing flag by User:Sodacan - File:Flag of China (1889–1912).svg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79266778.

The Chinese dragon, also called a loong (Longg's name is unsurprisingly derived from this), is the fifth animal in the Chinese zodiac, and coincidentally the one I was born into (I'm a millennium baby). They're seen as rain gods who ensure prosperity, peace, and harmony among those they watch over. Many dragons own flaming pearls that contain wisdom and power, and anatomically speaking dragons are said to be an amalgamation of body parts from other animals unlike anything else on Earth. Buddhism introduced the idea of evil or malevolent dragons using water to destroy rather than nurture, with the worst floods in history the result of mortals offending dragons. Given Chinese dragon mythology Longg's storm powers are completely appropriate, although I do have to question why Longg has three powers because that's completely overpowered and inconsistent with the Dragon being implicitly on the same level as the rest of the Chinese Zodiac Miraculous and less powerful than the Elements and Taiji (then again, the Goat, Rooster, and Pig are also stupidly overpowered).

Japan's culture and language borrow a lot from mainland China, and China's dragons went to Japan too and did some of the same things. Japan has malevolent dragons too, though, like Yamata no Orochi, Wani, and Kiyohime. So, which of these dragons is Longg?

While Longg's design does take cues from Chinese dragons, she has more than two horns. Why Astruc chose this design is beyond me.

Ryuko's design doesn't really scream "dragon" to me either, and I find it incredibly ironic that the outfit given by the Kwami of Perfection is asymmetric. And once again, too many horns...but it does give me an idea on what to redesign Longg into.

As mentioned in my Fei post, I really don't like Miraculous' inconsistent magic system. Dislike of inconsistency & surprises is, ironically, a consistent trait of autistic people as our brains aren't as adapted for handling surprises and inconsistencies as other brains will be. So hearing the revelation that dragons existed until Plagg killed them all is jarring in a way that I really don't like. Miraculous Ladybug's setting is fairly realistic, all things considered, with very little indication that magic and magical creatures existed and changed the course of history in a way that we would expect them to have changed, yet by Season 6 the show is Astruc's Fantasy Kitchen Sink. I don't like it.

So, for Two Bees in a Pod, dragons were never real and dragon myths were inspired mostly by living reptiles with enhanced strength and longevity due to exposure to Earth magic (which is about all Earth magic can do without human interference). I toyed with the idea of making Longg an alien dragon but that didn't feel right, and basing Longg on the animals that inspired dragons or just making her a bearded or Komodo dragon didn't fit either. The horns were a necessity for her...fortunately for me, large four-horned reptiles did exist.

Cast of specimen AMNH 5214, skull of Ankylosaurus magniventris found in 1910 in Montana, by Tim Evanson - https://www.flickr.com/photos/23165290@N00/9336678044/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27596767.

Ankylosauridae was a family of euankylosaurian thyreophorans that lived from 122 to 66 million years ago. All species were quadrupedal herbivores with characteristic leaf-shaped teeth and backs covered in large, bony scutes used as armor. Unlike their nodosaurid cousins, ankylosaurids had two bone collars on their neck instead of three; their snouts were also much shorter & domed, and their tails were much stiffer. In derived species the osteoderms on the tail tip fuse into a bony club; it was once believed that the club was primarily an anti-predator weapon, but more recent fossil evidence shows that it was used in interspecies combat, and additional evidence show that the club grew a lot bigger during adolescence, suggesting it was primarily used in sexual selection where males would bash each other in the sides to demonstrate their strength to females – and in doing so prove that they're the perfect mates.

Dinosaurs and perfection are a big part of my own life. Dinosaurs were my very first special interest, forming back when I was a toddler watching Barney on TV, playing with my Play Visions toy dinosaurs, or going to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Pennsylvania/Drexel as I was born within walking distance of it. I've always loved dinosaurs and will never stop loving them, but with that love comes knowledge, and with knowledge comes disappointment. Autistic people often have a drive for accuracy and precision that most people lack; after all, the biggest enemy of an autistic person is ambiguity and confusion, especially when others yell at us for not getting it right through no fault of our own. I have this impulse myself, and since I do have aspirations for science communication that have been stymied by a terrible job market I feel that mine is especially strong. And with a desire for accuracy comes a dislike of inaccuracy, especially deliberate ones.

It shouldn't surprise you that I don't like Jurassic Park. Not only do I dislike the plots, not only do I dislike the characters and find Ian Malcolm extremely punchable, I dislike the prehistoric animals and the ethos of the whole franchise. Right from the start it's placed more emphasis on spectacle and what the writers think is "cooler" and "better" rather than what the fossil record & phylogeny show how these animals would've most likely behaved, which is how we got frilled & venomous Dilophosaurus, a Tyrannosaurus with bad eyesight, and a very misnamed Deinonychus. The franchise continues to push these designs as accurate to the real animals as seen in Dominion, and in my eyes that's intentionally misleading people for personal profit and I find that deeply unethical. Because of my own desire for accuracy I don't like a lot of popular dinosaur media; the inaccuracies stick out too much for me and it breaks my immersion in the show. I've been told that I care too much about accuracy and should just "let people have fun" and "stop gatekeeping dinosaurs". To that, I say

Shut the fuck up. Just because you don't care about something doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to care. And I would rather care too much than care too little.

Speaking of breaking immersion, let's talk about how Miraculous Ladybug treats dinosaurs. The answer, unsurprisingly, is "Poorly."

This is MLB's design of Tyrannosaurus rex. They're ugly as fuck and look like something from Schleich, and in the time of the internet making dinosaur reconstructions widely available this lazy design is imo inexcusable. Their only redeeming bit is they have lips. Here's a more accurate reconstruction from Prehistoric Planet:

Much nicer-looking. Also, isn't it kind of weird that they used an American dinosaur despite the show being set in France? You think they would've done Iguanodon at least...

The Tyrannosaurus pack shown above first appears in Rocketear when Anne-Jeanne Théoxanne du Bocquale resurrects them...somehow. No build-up, no explanation, we're just supposed to accept that Bocquale undid Plagg's evilest action, Ladybug got to fight a dinosaur again, and Bob Roth is now French Hammond because why the fuck not? It breaks the immersion to just...suddenly have living dinosaurs. I plan on doing something like this for Two Bees, but I at least have been building up the revival of Earth's native magic for two seasons by now and don't plan on doing anything involving Mesozoic necromancy until Season 4.

The only other Mesozoic dinosaur I recall has been depicted in MLB is Triceratops, and if this man calls a stuffed animal/plush a "huggie" again I am going to lose it, because guess what else autistic people don't like? Certain sounds and words.

And the Prehistoric Planet Triceratops for comparison:

So, if I like my dinosaurs accurate, I should know how to get the right ankylosaurid for Kagami, right? Well, let's see: no ankylosaurids are known from Japan, and given that the Miraculous are originally Chinese a mainland Asian ankylosaurid is more appropriate anyway, not least because some of the things called "dragon bones" in China would've been dinosaur bones at least once. I was originally going to choose Chuanqilong chaoyangensis because it had "long" (meaning "dragon" as is tradition for many a Chinasaur) in its generic name, but that didn't quite fit Longg's appearance: no club resembling Longg's tail tuft and not enough horns. Fortunately, being the dinosaur nerd that I am, picking one that not only fit Longg's appearance, but her domain of perfection, was child's play.

Holotype skull of Saichania chulsanensis in the Warsaw Museum of Evolution by Shalom - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46245752.

Saichania chulsanensis was an ankylosaurine ankylosaurid from the Baruungoyot Formation of Mongolia dating to 72-71mya in the early Maastrichtian, the final stage of the Cretaceous Period. Like other Asian ankylosaurines it had four horns and a rather rugose forehead, unlike the smoother foreheads of American ankylosaurines but matching Longg's spiky forehead quite well. Adults reached lengths of 16-23 feet and weights of 1.5-2.2 short tons, making the species one of the larger members of its family and appropriately dragon-sized. The morphology of its skull suggests it specialized in living in arid environments with a nose adapted for cooling air & conserving water, a mouth adapted for hard plants, and maybe even salt glands, although given fossil gut contents of other ankylosaurs it likely would've enjoyed fruit, which Longg's power-up food just so happens to be. The scientific name means "beautiful one of Chulsa" in Mongolian in reference to the locality of the holotype specimen and the quality of its preservation. Since perfection is often associated with appearance, this is the perfect ankylosaurid species for Longg. So here she is:

(Illustration of Longg to go here when I get around to drawing her.)

While Longg does call herself a dragon sometimes, this is more for convenience in battle since "Saichania" is a bit long (pun) to say quickly, although when talking slower she does tend to call herself by her proper genus. I redesigned Longg's powers as well; instead of three transformations into wind, water, and lightning I combined them into a single power: Perfect Storm, transforming the user into a living raincloud whose shape and weather they can control. It takes a lot of finesse to control a storm in a small area, making it high-risk but high-reward and therefore a good fit for the domain of perfection, because it's the kind of thing that needs to be done perfectly because otherwise your allies will end up with snow in their pants and that's not fun for anybody.

Redesigning Kagami's Kwami to go from a dragon to a dinosaur encapsulates both her relationship with perfection & her ASD and my relationship with perfection & my ASD. Kagami spent her pre-canon life trying and failing to meet the expectations of others, yearning to be the perfect dragon they wanted her to be and that she wanted to be to earn their approval, but she kept failing because she couldn't be the perfect dragon because she just couldn't understand how to be a dragon through no fault of her own. Once Kagami moves to Paris for Season 2 she tries to find who she is now that she has more freedom to do so, and although she has the support of Ms. Bustier's class she doesn't feel like her mother (who's had a big dose of adaptational heroism and is a much better mother & person in Two Bees) supports her.

This fear comes to a head in my adaptation of Ikari Gozen, where an argument about Kagami's increasingly long (pun) hair leads to Tomoe's akumatization. Kagami blames herself, but the Bourgeois twins, having brought Longg's Miraculous along (pun) on their usual quest to find out What Akumatized Villain Do, comfort her along with Longg herself, who recognizes that Kagami is struggling to accept that she isn't perfect and chooses her to be her champion. In Longg's eyes Kagami is already perfect simply because she's alive, and she feels that Kagami needs to accept that getting to enjoy life at all is perfection. In other words, Kagami is an imperfect dinosaur, not a perfect dragon, but she's perfectly beautiful as she is and shouldn't try to be something she's not just to satisfy another person's headcanon, just like how real dinosaurs are beautiful regardless of whether or not the people at Universal find them marketable and whether some edgelord on the internet thinks feathered dinosaurs are somehow turning people gay (which is a real argument I wish I could unsee).

And so, here is Kagami's Saichania transformation, Akaryu. I renamed her "Akaryu" because it means "red dragon" and red is Kagami's favorite color.

(And before you ask, no, making the Japanese girl a Saichania is in no way a Dinosaur King reference. I hate that franchise; not only are the dinosaurs inaccurate, but the characters are extremely annoying and the show relies too much on Monumental Damage (a trope I loathe), sexual harassment & assault played for comedy, and a considerable amount of racism (there's an episode about an Indian princess despite India not having had any royalty since the literal 1970s). That anime was a hatewatch for fifth-grade me along with Dino Dan, another franchise I hate for inaccurate dinosaurs & annoying characters (Dino Dana cosplayed Henry Fairfield Osborn and treated him like a hero...the dude was so racist that he and his friends literally helped inspire Hitler).)

You might be wondering how I changed Tomoe for Two Bees in a Pod. For starters, she didn't lose her eyes because the Peacock's curse took her eyes "because Kagami was made to be perfect in her eyes"; first of all, how does that work, second of all, I wrote that chapter before Yaksi Gozen by like a year. Here's how I went about it:

Tomoe's father was cruel and abusive to her, forcing her to hide her emotions and be the perfect daughter. Tomoe found out that she has significant fertility issues and so couldn't provide a perfect heir, and feared retribution. Tomoe's husband Asakura, a magic geek who was almost certainly where Kagami got her autism from, learned of the Peafowl Miraculous and wound up meeting & befriending Gabriel, who agreed to let the Tsurugis borrow it and make Kagami. When Kagami was ten, Tomoe and Asakura were in a car accident that killed Asakura and fractured Tomoe's skull so badly that she went blind. Tomoe blamed herself for not being perfect enough to avert the accident, leading to Tsurugi Industries developing self-driving cars and Tomoe becoming a bit firmer with Kagami. After the events of Ikari Gozen, Tomoe starts making steps in accepting herself, flaws and all, and is allowed to know that Kagami is Akaryu so Longg can help Tomoe as well. Like mother, like daughter, as they say.

Two Bees in a Pod is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction set in a world where, among other things, Chloe and Zoe are conjoined twins. It can be read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55779361/chapters/141608677?view_adult=true

Here's one of our tritagonists: Kagami!

Basic facts:

Age: turns 15 in early September (not depicted in the fic). She's not much older than Adrien/Danielle and a little younger than Felix.

Originally from Tokyo, Kagami transferred to Ms. Bustier's class after winter break following her family's move to Paris in December 2015. Tomoe wanted to be closer to the headquarters of Agreste Fashions during the onset of their partnership: fixing the website in exchange for promotional merchandise.

Kagami is the heiress of Tsurugi Industries by virtue of being the only daughter of its current owner/CEO, her mother Tomoe Tsurugi.

Kagami is autistic. She has sensitivities to loud noises, particular flavors & textures, tends to get caught up in routines, and doesn't like the feeling of stiff, starched clothing, which is why she doesn't wear a necktie in this universe. Hand-flapping is her primary stim, though years of Japanese societal ableism have made her ashamed of it in the earlier chapters.

Her hair is initially short not for aesthetics, but for practicality. When Kagami was young and even when she was older she was often bullied via hair-pulling, and Tomoe's father & Kagami's grandfather Junzo was unsympathetic; in his eyes girls didn't cry. Kagami resorted to keeping her hair short so the boys wouldn't have anything to pull, which Tomoe approved of as it made dressing Kagami for kendo less of a hassle. Deep down, though, Kagami's always loved the look of long hair, and now that she's in Paris she's been growing it out.

Kagami is depicted wearing her old school uniform as when she came to Paris there was an adjustment period for her when it came to fashion and schedules. By S3 she wears casual clothes that she likes much more, and she's interested in trying makeup & nail polish under Chloe & Zoe's supervision.

Currently looking for her happy place in Paris with Juleka, whom she became very close friends with during the events of Animan.

Kagami's primary special interests are manga, anime, drawing, and sports. She's very good at kendo.

Tends to be a very blunt, straightforward, and practical girl who favors the simple solution over the elaborate one.

Despite usually being quite serious, Kagami absolutely loves stupid puns, especially Adrien's.

Kagami is a polyamorous pansexual with a sapphic lean. She tends to flirt unintentionally.

Kagami was quite close to her father Asakura, who shared many of her mannerisms and was likely autistic himself. Asakura was interested in Earth magic and dabbled in it, leading to the creation of Kagami's supernaturally durable, able-to-cut-steel bokken, which is her most cherished possession.

Kagami is a sentimonster. Tomoe has fertility issues that contemporary fertility treatments couldn't resolve and Junzo was getting angry about not having an heir at the turn of the millennium. Asakura looked for solutions and learned of the Peafowl Miraculous, and he and Tomoe made a plan to secretly find it and use it to have a daughter. Asakura went to London to look for it and ran into Gabriel, who just so happened to have given that Miraculous to Emilie. When he learned of the Tsurugis' situation he realized how similar it was to his own, so he immediately agreed to let them borrow it.

Tomoe had Asakura specify that Kagami would be fast and precise, as Junzo would not have accepted any other granddaughter. As such, Kagami is much stronger, faster, and dexterous than a natural human, and her balance is particularly noteworthy.

Asakura was the one who made the zygote sentimonster that became Kagami, and she was made real via feeding her her own amok within days of her birth. Asakura would've started displaying symptoms of the Peafowl's curse in Kagami's late teens and would've fallen into a coma in her twenties; however, he didn't live that long. When Kagami was ten Tomoe was driving a car with Asakura in it and they suffered an accident that killed Asakura and fractured Tomoe's skull so badly she went blind.

Kagami doesn't show it, but she misses her father a lot, especially as Tomoe became colder and more distant in an attempt to bottle her own emotions so her own father wouldn't mistreat her.

Junzo died when Kagami was thirteen. She doesn't miss him at all.

Kagami was akumatized into Riposte when she joined Adrien's fencing class and their classmates tried to haze her by making her think she wouldn't join the class unless she could beat all of the current students. After losing to Adrien, Kagami believed she'd brought shame to her family and had a meltdown, which is how she got turned. The support she received from the Heroes of Paris, Chloe & Zoe, and Adrien afterwards made her feel a lot better about herself.

Kagami had another meltdown after an argument with Tomoe over Kagami's increasing hair length caused Kagami to snap at Tomoe and Tomoe to be akumatized into Ikari Gozen. The twins and Longg found her inside and comforted her. Longg learned that Kagami was cracking under the perceived pressure to be perfect, and chose Kagami to be her next champion so Kagami would understand that she's perfect already.

Akaryu's name means "red dragon" as red, especially scarlet, is Kagami's favorite color. Before you ask, she is not in fact a dragon, but a Saichania.

As Akaryu, Kagami has significantly enhanced strength and olfaction. She can turn on a dime and strike with both her sword and her tail club. She has fewer auditory sensitivity issues as well, which makes sense as ankylosaurids had a poor sense of hearing.

In terms of design inspiration, I took cues from samurai outfits, stereotypical Japanese delinquent costumes, and anime girls with headbands. Her eyes were first going to be purple, then cyan, before I settled on green as it felt the most realistic & complimented the red & pink in her design the best.

The autistic superhero is masking. You may laugh now.

Underneath her mask Akaryu is wearing green lipstick that matches her eyes, and her teeth are leaf-shaped like an ankylosaurid's.

The lightning bolts reference Akaryu's power, Perfect Storm. She is able to electrify herself. Electric ankylosaurids are a thing now. You're welcome.