History Fanfic / KarmasABitch

... or not.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Downplayed for Mayor Bourgeois, who is revealed to be a genuinely competent mayor when he's not catering to Chloé's selfish whims. Among other things, he has various programs meant to repair the city set up and ready to go for the day Hawk Moth is finally defeated, and genuinely wants to see Chloé become a better person, to the point where he's willing to ship her off to correctional school once he realizes just how much of a SpoiledBrat she is. It's implied that having a daughter who actually respects him around has been a good influence on him.
* AdaptationalKarma: In ''The Karma of Lies'', Lila ended up being a KarmaHoudini, skipping town and leaving Adrien to take the blame for her crimes. Here, she actually suffers consequences for what she's done. [[spoiler:Ironically, this happens in the same way she set Adrien up in that work. In addition to being punished for what she's actually done, she's framed for additional misdeeds she wasn't solely responsible for, and all her efforts to explain who the real guilty party is [[CassandraTruth are treated as her trying to pin the blame on an innocent bystander]].]]

* AdultsAreUseless: [[spoiler: After exposing the truth behind Marinette's expulsion, the school's misconduct is brought to light, causing Mme. Bustier and Principal Damocles to lose their jobs.]] Andre and Mayor Bourgeois subvert this trope as the former is the first to notice how the school staff FailedASpotCheck and doesn't unfairly condemn Adrien for his relation to his father while the latter is genuinely competent at his job when not catering to his spoiled daughter's whims.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Lila's not a bad con artist, but she's completely outclassed by Zoe. The story shows that while Zoe is just as scummy and dishonest as Lila, but she's much smarter, more subtle, can lie convincingly and is able to fool everybody with a façade of niceness.

** Adrien starts to explain how Lila got Marinette expelled, but is almost immediately sidetracked when Roger begins to ask questions about various breaches of procedure and the staff's FailedASpotCheck moments regarding Lila's claims. It takes only a few of these for Adrien to realize how badly the incident was mishandled, as shown when he starts questioning what ''other'' things the teachers and principal have been dropping the ball on.

** The very premise is this; it follows the usual Salt Fic plot beats of Marinette's world falling apart due Lila's machinations, until a new student shows up (this time, Zoe Lee) who quickly joins Marinette's side and help her take Lila down; of course, the switch is that Zoe doesn't give a damn about either Marinette and ''or'' Lila, merely seeing their feud as a golden opportunity to pull a huge con on the class, and her reason behind becoming Marinette's new bestie who helps her expose Lila is to turn Lila into her fall guy while she gets away scott free.

** When she's questioned by the police, Lila [[spoiler:immediately tries to throw Zoe under the bus. They assume she's trying to do this, since they've already established it as a habit of hers by interviewing her classmates and their investigation hasn't found any evidence of Zoe's involvement]].

** The class has lost valuable and treasured possessions to Lila and Zoe's scam, but their friendships have grown stronger in the aftermath. [[spoiler:Marinette and Adrien's secret identities have been revealed to the world, and they've had to deal with Lila coming back for revenge, but Hawk Moth is finally defeated, Paris is safe, and the two are happily dating]]. In addition, both Lila and Chloé are finally facing the consequences of their actions and one way or another, they won't be able to bother the heroes again.

** Zoe offers to personally deliver Adrien's invitation to Marinette's party, since his unpredictable schedule means he might not get it if they just leave it in his locker. Zoe already knows for a fact that Adrien won't get the invitation if it's left in his locker, since [[spoiler:Lila is waiting to steal all the invitations as soon as Zoe and Marinette are back in the classroom.]]

* ForWantOfANail: Zoe's influence plus Marinette's classmates not derailed into {{Hate Sink}}s causes many things to play out differently from the fic that inspired this one.
** Thanks to Zoe's interference and a chance meeting as Chat Noir, Adrien sees firsthand how much Marinette is struggling to cope with Lila's manipulations. This prompts him to abandon his earlier "high road" stance and begin to openly speak out against Lila.
** In ''The Karma Of Lies'', Lila never expected Marinette's classmates to give away the clothes she made for them, and was only holding the fake charity drive in the hope of scoring some new clothes for herself. Here, she specifically wants the pieces Marinette made, because Zoe knows how much money one-of-a-kind, handmade outfits of that quality are worth to the right people. Actually getting the clothes also proves a lot more difficult, as Marinette's classmates value her work and ''don't'' take her for granted in this version. When Lila suggests that they give the bespoke clothes Marinette gave them to her "charity drive," they're extremely reluctant to give them up, to the point of saying she can have AnythingButThat It takes a lot of persuasion and guilt-tripping from Lila to convince them to part with the clothing.
** Adrien's response to [[spoiler:his father revealing himself as Hawkmoth]] is completely different. Rather than BlamingTheVictim and showing sympathy for the perpetrator, he stands his ground and delivers a massive TheReasonYouSuckSpeech, denouncing how badly they've hurt everyone around them. His reputation is salvaged as a result, with only a small minority being willing to even entertain the idea that he [[spoiler:was in league with his father.]]

* HeadInTheSandManagement: Miss Bustier and Principal Damocles are guilty of this. Not only did they enable Lila by never bothering to fact-check her disability claims or the forged excuse notes she gave them, despite that being their job, Marinette's expulsion happened entirely because they never stopped to think critically about some of the extremely flimsy accusations and evidence Lila set up -- nor did they think to check the school's security footage to see what really happened. Adrien also points out that none of the students' lockers have working locks, which Lila and Chloé have both taken advantage of, yet there's no sign that the staff intend to get them fixed. And that's not even getting into how they let Chloé leverage her father's name to get away with her bullying...

** Adrien is saved from GuiltByAssociation, but he still suffers [[spoiler:the emotional hardship of losing both his parents, financial ruin thanks to his father's stocks tanking, and he can't even go back to his own house because the police are scouring it for evidence. In addition, his closest relatives are in London, so he'd have to move away from all his friends to live with them. Then, to top it all off, his trust fund is stolen, leaving him without even that financial safety net]]. Fortunately, by the end, much of this is turned around. His friends band together to offer comfort and support; he's repaid out of Lila's own trust fund and college accounts; and [[spoiler:his aunt is able to arrange for him to stay in Paris under the care of his bodyguard, setting him up with an apartment in the same building where Nino lives. He can't recover his father's massive fortune, but by then he's decided he can live with that.]]

* LighterAndSofter: The story is notably more positive to some of the characters (especially Adrien) than the original, all of them apologetic to Marinette for not believing her and working to makes things better after Lila is exposed.

** Zoe offers to team up with Lila and leverage Marinette's trust in her to not only achieve Lila's goal of turning Marinette's friends against her, but scam their classmates and make some money in the bargain. Lila agrees readily, unaware that Zoe has already planted the seeds for her downfall and is just using her to do the dirty work so she can take the fall for everything.

** Zoe recognizes that the best way to escape punishment for her schemes is to be completely above suspicion; thus, she goes out of her way to be genuinely caring and helpful to her classmates, particularly Marinette and Adrien, while scheming with Lila behind the scenes. And once [[spoiler:she's gotten away scot-free with her stolen money, she's careful not to spend too much at once, both so her father won't get suspicious and so the money will last until she's 18, when she can move away for college to escape the fallout of her ''next'' heist.]]
** Lie-On Hunter is primarily after Lila, but when he manages to hit Chat Noir with his truth-extracting power, he decides to take full advantage of it, starting by [[spoiler:forcing Chat to reveal his identity]] and then making him explain why he dislikes Lila so much.

* TheScapegoat: Zoe succeeds in making it look like Lila was the sole one responsible for robbing from her parents and Gabriel Agreste.

** It's implied that Zoe offers to hand-deliver Adrien's invitation because [[spoiler:she genuinely wants him to show up for Marinette's party while the rest of the class appears to ditch her for Lila]]. However, Adrien doesn't get the invitation and has no idea about the party until he happens to pass by as Chat Noir. Zoe speculates that Nathalie, who she left the invitation with, never gave it to him, and Chat Noir internally concedes that this sounds like something Nathalie would do.

* TakeThat: Lila is surprised that Marinette actually charges money for the clothes she makes for her classmates (unless it's a special moment like a birthday), which they find normal since not only making cloth takes a lot of skilled work, but just the materials alone can cost quite a penny. The author confirmed that this is a shot at the common fandom specific plot in Salt Fics were Marinette does this for free to both sanctify her and portray the classmates as a bunch of {{Ungrateful Bastard}}s

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Zoe is a LittleMissConArtist, and it's implied that she has scammed multiple people before. Still, no one suspects anything about her since she puts a front of a nice and sweet girl, and makes sure to only reveal her true self to people who nobody would trust their word.

* YouWouldntBelieveMeIfIToldYou: As far as Adrien was aware, his classmates during "Ladybug" choose to believe a random girl over Marinette for no reason (unaware that they thought that Marinette was being too impulsive over a girl she was jealous for getting near her crush). If they didn't believe a kindhearted girl they knew for years, why would they believe a guy they only knew for one year.

* AdultsAreUseless: [[spoiler: After exposing the truth behind Marinette's expulsion, the school's less than stellar conduct is brought to light, resulting in Mme. Bustier and Principal Damocles losing their jobs.]] Andre and Mayor Bourgeois subvert this trope as the former is the first to notice how the school staff FailedASpotCheck and doesn't unfairly condemn Adrien for his relation to his father while the latter is genuinely competent at his job when not catering to his spoiled daughter's whims.

* BaitAndSwitch: Zoe corners Lila in the bathroom and reveals that she can see right through her lies and crocodile tears. However, she doesn't want to expose or blackmail Lila; she wants to team up with her.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Lila's not a bad con artist, but she's completely outclassed by Zoe.