EXTRA-WONDERFUL MASTERPOST (1/2)
Yooooo,, it’s me the Xilef guy. That’s my name now, call me as such. Now.
Two of my most recent extra-wonderful (Felix x Xilef) have gotten a lot more attention from accounts I don’t even know so I might as well explain more in depth on why I personally enjoy this ship so much..Mostly just because I wanna see if I can convince more others to like it too.
If you haven’t read the Felix the cat Graphic novel yet, you can read it here, for free!
(Tw: Longlong LONG post, spoilers, bad grammar, swearing, mentioned mirrorships/rarepairs, lots of notes between sentences, and me looking way too much into this book again.)
(PRO, DARK, + ANYYY PROBLEMATIC SHIPPERS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE, THIS SHIP IS NOT INTENDED TO BE PROBLEMATIC 🚨🚨.)
(Please don’t feel obligated to read this post if you really don’t like this ship, it’s alright. I just want people to understand why I even considered shipping this in the first place, and how far I’ve come)
The shipped:
On the right, is Felix. You know him, you love him (romantically) ((don’t lie to me I know you do)), you’re a big fan of him, everybody is.
The lesser known one on the left with the badass cloak is Xilef, “Felix” backwards. Why? Well for the most original reason ever!
He’s an evil doppelgänger of our pal Felix over here, or course!
He came from another unknown dimension with the help of his “dimension hopper” (pink bunny), presumably seeking out Felix’s magic bag for more power than he already has. (He doesn’t explicitly say it, as he gets cut off in the second image, but it’s pretty obvious)
The common misconception:
*I’m using Venn diagrams because it’s easier to explain, even though I prefer Xilef, I tried to be a little more unbiased comparing the two
you might’ve seen this be talked about before (by me or others) but idgaf I’ll explain it again just in case.
Xilef is exclusively in the Felix graphic novel, and not featured in any other official Felix media, just resembling Alex because of how simple the concept is.
I mentioned in this diagram that The Twisted Tale “Version of Alex” doesn’t count. Why? Well they’re only in one episode, and are just made in a dream. To me they seem to more of an anti-Felix than they are Alex. They don’t talk, they aren’t real, and Felix never acknowledges them by Alex. Even if they are in reference to Alex, I still don’t believe that they’re the same person.
if you wanna headcanon Alex and Xilef as the same person, fine, that’s your choice, I can’t change your opinion on that. But please don’t come at me or my friends if you do. It’s honestly rude and just shows you don’t have any fandom experience at all.
When I first started reading the graphic novel:
The first time I started reading this book I did draw the comparison between Xilef being Shadow, and Felix being Sonic, which sonadow is a popular Mirrorship in the Sonic community…I did consider Felix and Xilef together (mostly jokingly), but never expanded on it at first since I was kinda into Alex at the time.
And, believe it or not, I wasn’t a big fan of Xilef the first couple of times I read. WOAH. SHOCKER. It’s even funnier when I remember taking one good look at Xilef and thinking: “He’s gonna become my favorite at some point isn’t he”
The Great Shippening:
As a Multishipper, I usually ship rarepairs because I like both characters and wondered how’d they’d interact in a romantic relationship…Which is kinda silly I’ll admit, but that was how my fascination between this pairing started.
Back when I first got into the Felix tumblr community, I came across a now good friend of mine, @cartoon-buffoon , who started openly shipping Xilef x Felix a little bit before me. She’s the one who gave me the courage to post about Exta-Wonderful for the first time and make tons of friends and mutuals on here.
Toon, I know you’re reading this so I just wanna say that I owe it all to you for making me as openly creative as I am today, thanks for shipping the same stupid thing as me. Even if this doesn’t make any other people like this ship at least I’ll have you to talk about it to lol
The ship background info:
Enemies to lovers is one of the most popular tropes out there and is constantly used in media everywhere, and so is Mirrorshipping (to a lesser extent). Sonic x Shadow, the Undertale + Lorax fandom in the early 2010s (which we do NOT talk about), Spy x spy, Smg4 x Smg3, etc.
Mirrorship (Aka subcategory “Selfcest” but that name makes me cringe so badly) is internet/fandom slang meaning for the romantic pairing of a fictional character with an alternate universe version, clone, or "mirror" of themselves. While it can be seen as way too close to being in love with someone blood-related to you, or as just loving the appearance of the double, but that simply isn’t normally the case.
What I personally enjoy about Mirrorshipping is not about the physical aspect, but more about the psychological and emotional parts.
I also didn’t see Felix and Xilef fight and go “Awww they’re so in loveee yaoiii” (even though I am like that sometimes) it was more like “Ok but what if they were in love?” And the “why” is in finally here, in the section below. (I love stretching things out I know)
The big, over-complicated explanation:
*Another venn diagram just to summarize below
Felix and Xilef are both very important characters in the graphic novel. Their conflict is the main plot in the story, and so is the comparison and contrast of the two.
Contrast:
Xilef tries to take from Felix because he believes he deserves something that rightfully belongs to Felix, while Felix gives away what he deserves just to please someone he loves.
Felix loves and cares about his magic bag as if it was a sentient creature (which it is btw), while Xilef doesn’t care about his magic cane and even sees it as less powerful than Felix’s magic bag.
Xilef jumps straight to lust without even meeting Felina, While Felix wants to stay loyal because he already has a lady at home.
Xilef can be good, and Felix can be bad.
Xilef says he’s known for being a good person throughout dimensions (which isn’t confirmed but let’s just say it is) and Felix is a bitchass boyfriend (some of his flaws are more prominent in other adaptations, especially the 60s show)
And finally, Felix is very resilient and doesn’t surrender, while Xilef gives up immediately (which is probably the actual reason why he had Master cylinder, Professor, and Rock bottom do the challenges for him)
ok guys guess what. This post is so long and I’m starting to reach the image limit I gotta make a second sooo
Never kill yourself there will always be a reason to keep going.
This game is beyond human comprehension I’m in love with it
Idiots
They’re blushing. and sitting next to each other on the water fountain. At sunset. Yes talking about corn the cob but that just..that just makes it more romantic ya know /j
(Tw: Read first one before this one if you don’t wanna be confused outta your mind, Long post, spoilers, bad grammar, swearing, mentioned mirrorships/rarepairs, lots of notes between sentences, and me looking way too much into this book again.)
(PRO, DARK, + ANYYY PROBLEMATIC SHIPPERS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE, THIS SHIP IS NOT INTENDED TO BE PROBLEMATIC 🚨🚨 PREVIOUS POST EXPLAINS WHY.)
(This is probably the longest piece of literature I’ve ever wrote and it’s about Felix the cat’s gay relationship)
Welcome back. I missed you. Let’s go back to where we left off, right after finishing the contrast section.
Compare:
They are both non-stop talkers, which is apparently destiny for Felixes?
They’re both pretty dumb (Xilef just acts smarter, which is my favorite thing ever)
They look almost exactly the same (for obvious reasons)
They both are queer-coded characters.
Xilef protrays a trope simply described by Drew Kiser’s 2018 article as “The Rich gay” or “The Urbane gay” (I don’t know if they were the one to originally come up with that, I didn’t read the whole article yet). This basically is what it sounds like.
A sophisticated person of upper class, highly cultured and particularly feminine. Think Fox from don’t eat the neighbours (and his voice actor. I love that man.) Now, we don’t know if Xilef is canonically gay or not, he did fall in love with a woman at one point, and we don’t exactly know if he is wealthy, but he does seem to have a large, strong vocabulary, and talk about how high his peers treat him.
Felix on the other hand doesn’t exactly portray a queer trope, but is known for having some queer coded moments, like the famous fox kissing scene everyone talks about, and how twisted tales season two made him. Awfully fruity./hj
Get to the fucking point Lazzy:
OK FINE YOU DON’T NEED TO SHOUT AT ME.
I just needed to show some examples. Sorry for dragging this out for so long you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to talk about this.
To put it in the simplest words, I ship Xilef and Felix is because I believe Xilef is the manifestation of Felix’s flaws, and intrusive thoughts. Xilef is selfish, he believes he deserves things he didn’t earn just because he’s been good in the past.
Xilef chooses lust over loyalty. Xilef cares too much about what other people think of him. Xilef gives up. All of these are things Felix could’ve done/been like. Felix usually shown as always in the right, which I hate because it doesn’t give him much room to grown as a character. Giving Felix more flaws while still being morally good is much more relatable and gives him more opportunities for character development.
I’m definitely overthinking this but it would be so interesting if Felix hated Xilef because he couldn’t face himself. It could be the opposite, where Xilef can’t face Felix because of how heroic and hopeful he is. How much he cares for others and even his magic bag. Maybe that was Xilef before now.
Felix and Xilef loving eachother is not them being physically attracted to themselves, but accepting themselves and learning to be better people together.
What about Kitty?:
Kitty is known as a “satellite partner” she only exists to be Felix’s girlfriend. As much as I do enjoy Kitty x Felix, I feel like she deserves her own spotlight, not just always with Felix.
She could alternatively be paired with Felina (Lesbians), she could be paired with nobody (happily single), she could even be paired with Felix and Xilef (polyamory).
No, Kitty doesn’t have to “get in the way” of the ship, it was hers in the first place and I don’t support people who say things like that.
final thoughts:
holy shit if you read through all that I love you so much. This was so much fun to write after going through Adhd paralysis for this entire week so far. Yes I know pride month just ended but I picked today because it’s my second year being in the Felix fandom.
Felix the cat and Xilef the extraordinary actually mean the whole world to me I just haven’t been posting about them because I’ve been getting into Bomberman as of late. I’ve been meaning to pick this draft up for a while so yayyyy!!!!
I’ve been typing so much my mobile keyboard fucking froze
Have some more Xilef x Felix, I'll die by this ship
Rambles below
I imagine Xilef and Felix have the same thing Felix and his other villains have. If you look at it, none of Felix's villains truly hate him and in fact kinda like him. Rockbottom is a hired goon for The Professor and just wants money, The Professor himself is very materialistic and wants money like Rockbottom or the magic bag. The master cylinder is the most directly antagonistic (besides Xilef himself) and yet we see in the graphic novel he can put aside his differences and honestly it makes sense, he doesn't see Felix as any less inferior as anyone else. Everyone of Felix's villains just want his bag or want to fulfill their own goal, yet Felix just so happens to stop them and there's no direct malice towards the cat himself (The Professor legit has him babysit Poindexter, despite saying he hates him we know that ain't true). I imagine it's an on the clock and off the clock type of situation, when doing their evil deeds they "hate" him, meanwhile off it they either actually like him or are indifferent.
In the case of extra-wonderful shipping, I imagine when on the clock Xilef and Felix are enemies and rivals, meanwhile off it their a couple. They got the type of dynamic where Felix casually stops one of Xilef's plans and after Xilef asks what's for dinner. In this case though uhh... Yeah, work and home life accidentally bleed together and the rest of the villains sees what exactly the two do off the clock lol.
Anyways, have this image of xilef with his pussy out.
