History Fanfic / CutMyLifeIntoPiecesThisIsMyLastResort

-->''The rush of emotions she had felt in such a short span of time was overwhelming. Terror at the possibility of her partner being akumatized. Love, so much stronger than anything she could have imagined, when she had learned that both of the boys she loved were one and the same. Joy and excitement and disbelief upon discovering that he loved her'' back. \\
''Guilt, almost'' unbearable, ''at the fact that he loved her without knowing everything that'' she ''had done to him. He didn't know that he also hated her. And she couldn't tell him. He was in love with a'' lie. \\
''She was so'' happy, ''and she'' hated ''herself for it.''

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Marinette '''really''' didn't consider the consequences that faking her own death would have on herself or the people around her.

''Guilt, almost'' unbearable , ''at the fact that he loved her without knowing everything that'' she ''had done to him. He didn't know that he also hated her. And she couldn't tell him. He was in love with a'' lie. \\
''She was so'' happy , ''and she'' hated ''herself for it.''
* TheDreaded: [[BadFuture Chat Blanc]] is this to Marinette. [[spoiler: To the point where she [[GodzillaThreshold reveals herself as Multimouse to Chat Noir]] to prevent him from getting Akumatized.]]

* FakingTheDead: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed.]] The whole plot is set off when Marinette does this to fully commit to stopping Hawk Moth. However, the psychological implications are explored in agonizing detail. Marinette is burnt out and not thinking clearly when she comes up with this plan. And by the end, the stress and guilt have clearly taken a heavy toll on her, to say nothing of the toll it's taken on her friends and family.

* InLoveWithYourCarnage: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]], but Alya admits to finding Nino hitting his RageBreakingPoint with Lila's lies attractive.

* LaserGuidedKarma: Lila endures a well-deserved HumiliationConga in the events leading up to her Akumatization. First, she gets fired from ''Gabriel'' on the grounds of inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment, then [[spoiler: the police find out that she illegally spoofed Marinette's phone to frame her as having an affair with Nino]], then Adrien viciously chews her out and exposes her lies one after the other in front of the whole school and humiliates her. [[RuleOfThree Then]] she [[NotBrainwashed willingly gets re-Akumatized]] into [[MasterofIllusion Volpina,]] only to later [[spoiler:endure an absolutely ''brutal'' NoHoldsBarredBeatdown from Chat Noir, who's only barely stopped from killing her.]] And ''[[OverlyLongGag then]]'', she's finally defeated along with the other villains and turned over to the police for willingly collaborating with Hawk Moth.

** A non-fatal example with Master Fu, as he keeps his memories and position as Guardian, here.

* SuperMode: Halfway through the second act, [[spoiler:Gabriel uses Nathalie to become Scarlet Moth]].

* LaserGuidedKarma: Lila endures a well-deserved HumiliationConga in the events leading up to her Akumatization. First, she gets fired from ''Gabriel'' on the grounds of inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment, then [[spoiler: the police find out that she illegally spoofed Marinette's phone to frame her as having an affair with Nino]], then Adrien viciously chews her out and exposes her lies one after the other in front of the whole school and humiliates her. [[RuleOfThree Then]] she [[NotBrainwashed willingly gets re-Akumatized]] into [[MasterofIllusion Volpina,]] only to later [[spoiler:endure an absolutely ''brutal'' NoHoldsBarredBeatdown from Chat Noir, who's only barely stopped from killing her.]]

* MoreDespicableMinion: Volpina to Hawk Moth and Mayura. While the latter two villains are higher ranked and more powerful than she is, they also have some standards and a conscience. And they sincerely care about Adrien. Volpina, by contrast, [[HateSink lacks any redeeming qualities to speak of]], [[ItsAllAboutMe cares only about herself,]] and is motivated solely by [[EvilIsPetty petty revenge.]]

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Lila to Adrien.

''She was so'' happy , ''and she'' hated ''herself for it.

''She was so'' happy , ''and she"' hated ''herself for it.

** Gabriel is defeated and turned over to police custody. Although, due to negotiating with Ladybug and Chat Noir to willingly turn himself in, they manage to get him a reduced sentence, and according to the author, [[spoiler:Emilie]] eventually negotiates for him and Nathalie to be placed on house arrest after a few years' exceptional behavior.
** Lila is exposed, fired from ''Gabriel'', implied to be in legal trouble, and thoroughly humiliated by the end of the fic.

* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:Hawk Moth manages to create rifts in Ladybug and Chat Noir's partnership by exploiting Chat's grief over Marinette by having [[MasterofIllusion Volpina]] create illusions of Marinette in pain and calling for him to save her. This nearly works in getting him Akumatized, and only fails because [[GodzillaThreshold Marinette reveals herself to him as Multimouse.]]]]

* XanatosGambit: [[spoiler:Hawk Moth's BatmanGambit mentioned above doubles as this]]. [[spoiler:If the Akumas he sends out as Scarlet Moth actually manage to take Ladybug and Chat Noir's Miraculous, he wins. If they fail, they still serve their purpose as a diversion from Volpina]]. [[spoiler:Volpina and Chat Noir's fight also counts. If Volpina manages to take his Miraculous, he wins. If she fails, she's angered him enough to become Akumatized, indirectly giving Hawk Moth his Miraculous and allowing him to use him against Ladybug]]. [[spoiler:It fails, as Gabriel didn't expect Marinette to not actually be dead, and therefore able to calm Chat Noir down]].

** Gabriel is defeated and turned over to police custody. Although, due to negotiating with Ladybug and Chat Noir to willingly turn himself in, they manage to get him a reduced sentence, and according to WordOfGod, [[spoiler:Emilie]] eventually negotiates for him and Nathalie to be placed on house arrest after a few years' exceptional behavior.

** Gabriel is defeated and turned over to police custody.

* TookALevelInKindness: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] but present with Gabriel. While it's not enough to fully stop him from villainy, Marinette's death provides enough of a reality check for him to be more cautious with his Akumas. The impact it has on Adrien causes him to realize how awful of a father he's been, and he starts to treat Adrien somewhat better.

* AttemptedHomewrecker: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] [[spoiler: Lila illegally spoofs Marinette's phone to frame her as trying to take Nino from Alya to destroy her friendship with them. This temporarily works, and results in Alya's Akumatization into Truth Bomb.]]

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Adrien's generally [[NiceGuy very pleasant and mild-mannered]] but when pushed to [[RageBreakingPoint the point where he snaps]] becomes downright terrifying. And that's not even getting into his SecretIdentity.

* InLoveWithYourCarnage: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] but Alya admits to finding Nino hitting his RageBreakingPoint with Lila's lies attractive.

Marinette has reached the end of her rope. Hawk Moth is driving her overboard as Ladybug, and after three years Lila has finally managed to ruin her life and take all her friends. Desperate and exhausted, Marinette finally decides to take drastic measures; something’s gotta give, and that something can’t be Ladybug. Out of options, exhausted, and desparate, she decides to take her civilian self out of the equation for a while, but outside circumstances force her to put things into motion way before she’s ready. Now she has to try and soldier on to the end of her mission, despite the devastation she’s left in her wake…which for some reason seems to have hit Adrien and Chat Noir the hardest.

[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/44353420 Cut My Life Into Pieces, This Is My Last Resort]] is a completed WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug fanfic by [[https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver_fox_fyre/pseuds/Silver_fox_fyre Silver_fox_fyre.]]

* AdaptationalKarma: Gabriel is defeated and turned over to police custody.

* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: [[spoiler: Chat Noir gives one of these to Marinette after learning she’s alive, and detransforms in the process.]]

* BatmanGambit: [[spoiler: Hawk Moth manages to create rifts in Ladybug and Chat Noir's partnership by exploiting Chat's grief over Marinette by having [[MasterofIllusion Volpina]] create illusions of Marinette in pain and calling for him to save her.]] [[spoiler:This nearly works in getting him Akumatized, and only fails because [[GodzillaThreshold Marinette reveals herself to him as Multimouse.]]]]
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Adrien's generally [[NiceGuy very pleasant and mild-mannered]], but when pushed to [[RageBreakingPoint the point where he snaps,]] becomes downright terrifying. And that's not even getting into his SecretIdentity.

* CassandraTruth: Ladybug tells Chat Noir that Hawk Moth is Gabriel Agreste, but by this point, he's become so jaded to everything she says that he refuses to believe her. [[spoiler: It takes Gabriel revealing himself to Adrien and asking for his help in retrieving the Miraculous for him to believe her.]]

* ILetGwenStacyDie: Adrien/Chat Noir has this mindset regarding Marinette's death, blaming himself for failing to save her and blaming [[DramaticIrony Ladybug]] for failing to [[WorldHealingWave bring her back.]]
* InLoveWithYourCarnage: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed,]] but Alya admits to finding Nino hitting his RageBreakingPoint with Lila's lies attractive.

* LaserGuidedKarma: Lila endures a well-deserved HumiliationConga in the events leading up to her Akumatization. First, she gets fired from ''Gabriel'' on the grounds of inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment, then [[spoiler: the police find out that she illegally spoofed Marinette's phone to frame her as having an affair with Nino]], then Adrien viciously chews her out and exposes her lies one after the other in front of the whole school and humiliates her. [[RuleOfThree Then,]] she [[NotBrainwashed willingly gets re-Akumatized]] into [[MasterofIllusion Volpina,]] only to later [[spoiler: endure an absolutely ''brutal'' NoHoldsBarredBeatdown from Chat Noir, who's only barely stopped from killing her.]]

* LoveEpiphany: PlayedForDrama. Chat Noir has one of these during Truth Bomb's attack. As Truth Bomb exposes him as a liar after he denies being in love with Marinette. [[spoiler: And immediately afterwards, Marinette is seemingly killed by the bomb.]] As a result, he drives himself half-mad in his quest to get revenge on Lila and Hawk Moth for their roles in it.
* ManipulativeBastard: Gabriel's regret over Marinette's death, while genuine, doesn't stop him from using it to play on Chat Noir's grief to try and Akumatize him.
** [[ConsummateLiar Lila]] has spent two years slowly alienating Marinette's friends from her. By the start of the fic, all she has left outside of her parents, Fu, and the Kwamis is Adrien, Alya, and Nino. [[spoiler: And she manages to turn Alya against her for a while afterwards.]]

** Adrien is horrified upon hearing of Lila's ceaseless torment of Marinette, and blames himself for telling her to TurnTheOtherCheek.

* SecretKeeper: [[SparedByTheAdaptation Master Fu]] serves as this to Marinette. As apart from Tikki, Mullo, and her parents, he's the only one who knows Marinette's still alive, and he's the only human character to know the full story.
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Truth Bomb only appears for a total of three chapters out of 36, and yet [[spoiler: she unwittingly provides Marinette a window of opportunity to fake her death,]] thus kickstarting the fic's plot.
** Another example is [[OneToMillionToOne Mullo]], who only appears for one scene, [[spoiler: discounting Multimouse.]][[spoiler: It's her power that Marinette uses to fake her death; during Truth Bomb's attack, Marinette creates a clone of herself and sends it to die in the explosion, creating the illusion that she'd been killed]]
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Gabriel ends the story in prison, as opposed to dying from using the Wish.

** [[spoiler: Emilie is saved and woken up by the Order of the Guardians in Tibet.]]
* SuperMode: Halfway through the second act, [[spoiler: Gabriel uses Nathalie to become Scarlet Moth]].
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: A one-sided example on Chat Noir's part, who's grown increasingly frustrated with Ladybug's lies and secrecy [[spoiler: This leads to him temporarily breaking off his partnership with her after [[CassandraTruth she claims that Hawk Moth is Gabriel Agreste. ]]]]
-->'''Chat Noir:''' [[spoiler: I’ve had enough. If I want to talk, I will call ''you.'' Otherwise, unless there’s an akuma, you stay the hell away from me. ''We are finished.'']]

* ThisIsUnforgivable: Chat Noir considers Ladybug lying to him about Marinette's death to be this. And even at the end of the fic, when everything becomes clear, Adrien makes it clear to Marinette that he's ''furious'' with her, and still hasn't forgiven her, but he's still willing to try since he loves her.
* TookALevelInKindness: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed,]] but present with Gabriel, while it's not enough to fully stop him from villainy, Marinette's death provides enough of a reality check for him to be more cautious with his Akumas. And the impact it has on Adrien causes him to realize how awful of a father he's been, and he starts to treat Adrien somewhat better.

-->'''Nino:''' Mar, not to put too fine a point on it, but you don’t owe Alya and I anything . She’s right, we both fucked up big time and we’re both just happy and relieved that you’re okay. But… you ''do'' owe Adrien. An explanation, an apology, and frankly a little groveling if I had my way. You destroyed my boy, Mari. I’ve never seen him like he’s been these past couple weeks, and I can’t even tell you how worried I’ve been. Now, finding out that he’s Chat Noir…did you see the look on his face when you dropped your mask?\\
Well, imagine that, but worse , for two weeks straight without a break. If he wasn’t falling asleep on his feet he was either crying or screaming at someone. I don’t think I saw him eat once at school, so I hope to god someone was forcing food into him at home. I was honestly waiting for the call that he’d hurt someone, or h-himself. Adrien was always on your side, Marinette, and he’s loved you for so much longer than either of you realized. What you did to him, it broke him. And now he knows that you could have put him back together at any time and you ''chose not to.''

-->'''Nino:''' Mar, not to put too fine a point on it, but you don’t owe Alya and I anything . She’s right, we both fucked up big time and we’re both just happy and relieved that you’re okay. But…” Here he’d fixed her with a golden gaze of such intensity that she’d quailed a little beneath it. “You do owe Adrien. An explanation, an apology, and frankly a little groveling if I had my way. You destroyed my boy, Mari. I’ve never seen him like he’s been these past couple weeks, and I can’t even tell you how worried I’ve been. Now, finding out that he’s Chat Noir…did you see the look on his face when you dropped your mask?\\

* PapaBear: Gabriel wastes absolutely no time in firing Lila the second he hears of her sexual harassment of [[MoralityPet Adrien.]]

* ManipulativeBastard: Gabriel's regret of Marinette's death, while genuine, doesn't stop him from using it to play on Chat Noir's grief to try and Akumatize him.

** A much straighter example is Hawk Moth and Volpina. Gabriel ''loathes'' her for her sadistic torment of an innocent girl and her harassment of Adrien, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even flat-out calling her "repulsive and reprehensible."]] But this doesn't stop him from Akumatizing her and [[spoiler: using her to to {{Gaslight}} Chat Noir.]]

** A much straighter example is Hawk Moth and Volpina. Gabriel ''loathes'' her for her sadistic torment of an innocent girl and her harassment of Adrien, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even flat-out calling her "repulsive and reprehensible."]] But this doesn't stop him from Akumatizing her and [[spoiler: using her to to gaslight Chat Noir.]]

* CelebrityLies: [[TeenIdol Adrien's]] own experience with these is what led him to initially dismiss Lila's own lies as harmless. That is, until he learns about the full scope of what she did to Marinette. After which he changes his stance.