Fanfic / Manynette

"What do you do when you have so much to do but so little time for it?
Well, an akuma that can get on top of it all does have a certain appeal..."

— Fanfic summary

Marinette is a very hard-working girl. Too hard-working, some would say.
One day, she breaks under the strain of her responsibilities and Hawk Moth takes advantage.

Manynette is a fanfic of Miraculous Ladybug by imthepunchlord wherein Marinette gets akumatized via her stress at being overworked. At 18 chapters, it was completed in about two and a half months.

Three years later, imthepunchlord collaborated with ChaoticNeutral to produce a "Sodium Rich Edition" which adds both a version of Felix and an extra Manynette who embodies how bitter or "salty" Marinette feels about the situation.

A separate section of this page with unique tropes to the Sodium Rich Edition is currently a work-in-progress.

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Manynette contains examples of...

• Big Brother Is Watching: Thanks to their Hive Mind, if a Manynette is either distracted or obstructed from their specific goal, or someone is bothering Napinette, another one will show up to intervene, often Presinette or Buginette. The latter takes over this trope near the end, hunting down Chat Noir after he realizes she's a Manynette, and later to stop him and Rena Rouge from taking the other half of the Ladybug Miraculous from Napinette, as it is the akumatized item.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Chat Noir learns about "Justinette", he presumes that Marinette would consider bad-fashion an "injustice" and tries strutting around in a tacky ensemble to draw her out. Instead it triggers Fashionette (who embodies Marinette's skills and passion for fashion), who drags him into her room to make him a more flattering outfit.
• Devil in Plain Sight: When Hawk Moth akumatizes Marinette, he had this in mind. This quickly falls apart when they make it clear they have no intention of obeying him.
• Forgot About His Powers: In canon, Hawk Moth could simply will the akumatized villain back to normal if he focuses. Here, he is unable to do it because he doesn't know which version of Manynette has the akuma. Potentially Justified as he may not be able to will Manynette back to normal if he doesn't know which clone to focus on.
• Harmless Villain: Manynette is ultimately harmless aside from the fact that the real Marinette is no longer present to live her life, thus much of the conflict is Manynette's wish to cover all of her bases versus everyone else's wish to have Marinette back.
• Literal Split Personality: Each incarnation of Manynette all embody her various roles and responsibilities.
  • Buginette is the "Ladybug" part of Marinette, being able to be Ladybug full-time without needing Tikki to transform.
  • Bakinette is the part of Marinette that helps her parents around the Bakery.
  • Presinette embodies Marinette's responsibilities as Class President.
  • Chorinette exists to do all of her other household chores.
  • Fashionette embodies Marinette's passion for fashion, doing all of her commissions and productions.
  • Carinette is the part of her that acts as the Living Emotional Crutch for the people around her, giving out encouraging words and small gifts to everyone she interacts with.
  • Napinette is implied to be the original Marinette, though she seems to mostly represent the part of Marinette who's burnt out, her whole role simply being to get some sleep while the other Manynettes take care of her other responsibilities.
• Me's a Crowd: Manynette is collectively a group of clones of Marinette who each have a specific job.
• Metaphorically True: The various Manynettes put Chat Noir on a wild goose chase by claiming that there is a Manynette called "Justinette" acting out Marinette's sense of justice, and she's the one with the akumatized item. While Napinette is the one with the akumatized item, there is a Manynette embodying Marinette's sense of justice: Buginette, whom everyone thinks is Ladybug. At the time, no one was aware that "Ladybug" was actually Buginette, and when Chat Noir discovers this, his first assumption is that the akuma is in her earrings. While not entirely correct, the akuma is in one half of the Ladybug Miraculous: again, the earring in Napinette's possession.
• Missed Him by That Much: After Adrien gets the Fox Miraculous from Master Fu, Buginette passes over the parlor just as he is about to transform into Chat Noir. As Buginette doesn't know his identity, she waves at Adrien and moves on. Had she been slower to arrive, or Adrien faster to transform, she'd have caught Chat Noir right then and there. Adrien wisely decides to forego transforming and head back to school on foot.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Alya nearly has a meltdown when she realizes that Marinette was stressed enough to get akumatized without her noticing.
• Out-of-Character Alert: When "Ladybug" considers letting Marinette remain akumatized, Chat Noir starts getting suspicious of her, and eventually realizes that, not only is she another Manynette, but Marinette is Ladybug as a result.
• Personality Powers: Marinette gets akumatized when she begins breaking under the stress of her responsibilities. Manynette is a group of clones who each take care of one of her responsibilities with limitless energy. Napinette, the clone implied to be the real Marinette, and the one with the akumatized item, constantly sleeps and leaves all responsibilities to the other clones, implying her power is the creation of clones to do her work for her while she gets some rest.
• Pragmatic Hero: While Buginette — the "Ladybug" part of Marinette — is just as unwilling to work with Hawk Moth as the rest of Manynette, she is also unwilling to do anything about her akumatized state. She reasons that Manynette remaining a Harmless Villain not only keeps Hawk Moth from creating a new, more dangerous villain, but since the various other Manynettes are able to take care of her civilian affairs, she can now dedicate all of her time to hunting down Hawk Moth. When Chat Noir learns the truth and tries deakumatizing her anyway, Buginette tries taking his Miraculous — not to give it to Hawk Moth, but out of self-preservation.
• Red Herring: The various Manynettes manage to convince Chat Noir and Alya that there is another Manynette — called "Justinette" and embodying Marinette's sense of justice — running around with the akumatized item, ensuring that they don't figure out that Napinette was the source the whole time. And their only lies? This other Manynette doesn't have the akumatized item, and "Justinette" is not her name. See Metaphorically True above.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Buginette unloads onto Chat Noir all of her hangups with him, including his inability to take his heroism seriously, getting repeatedly compromised in battle and leaving Ladybug to do all of the thinking for the both of them. While part of it is her deflecting from Chat Noir's suspicions of her, it does get to him because the rest is genuine.
  • Fashionette scolds Tikki, and later Chat Noir and Rena Rouge, for trying to take Napinette's earring — the akumatized item — because, respectively, it nearly tipped off Hawk Moth to who has the item, and later because it was distracting Fashionette from a phone call with Jagged Stone.
• What Would X Do?: Adrien figures out Alya is Rena Rouge after discovering Marinette is Ladybug, by thinking about who Marinette would entrust with the Fox Miraculous when he needs backup. This leads to Alya finding out both Ladybug's and Chat Noir's identities, and at the end Marinette learning Adrien is Chat Noir and knows hers and Alya's identities.

Manynette: Sodium Rich Edition contains examples of...

• Adaptation Backstory Change: The Inciting Incident is changed from Marinette being generally burnt out from all the myriad responsibilities in her life — school work, being Class Representative, being Ladybug, etc. — to having already overworked herself planning a sleepover at the Louvre, and being forced, at the last minute, to scrap that idea and plan a different trip to Cote d'Azur just because Lila brought it up and the class as a whole (minus Marinette and Felix) considered it a much better idea, and her refusal to disappoint her friends, let alone Adrien, who as usual didn't want to rock the boat and went with the majority opinion. Felix, for his part, tries to reason with her, but can't do more from his position.
• Adaptation Expansion: More focus is put on Marinette's classmates trying on their own to figure out where the akumatized item is, while at the same time realizing they screwed up with their treatment of Marinette, slowing down the plot's progression in comparison to the original fic.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Not yet to the same extent as the original fic, but when Felix tries asking Napinette if her wearing a sleeping mask, a marked difference from the others, is important, she warns him they're being watched, and he spots Ladybug (Buginette) watching them from afar, possibly ready to intervene if he continued questioning Napinette. Not that Felix catches on to this, as he instead wonders why Ladybug is just wandering about instead of dealing with the Akuma.
• Canon Foreigner: Saltinette, Marinette's negativity or "salt" made manifest, and a sour boy named Felix, who acts as the voice of reason for the class, and whose surname and relationship with Adrien are not clarified as of Chapter 7.
• The Ghost: Hawk Moth hasn't appeared yet in this version, not even when tempting Marinette, nor to check in on Manynette, or having cutaway scenes dedicated to him.
• Hive Mind: More explicit than in the original, as Carinette is shown, from her own perspective, closing her connection to the other Manynettes while telling Luka that he'll get his answers if he takes her home.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While blunt and cold, Felix tends to have a point when calling out his classmates, from Alya thinking Marinette's being malicious when Lila claims she wasn't involved in planning the Louvre sleepover, to Adrien's attempt at neutrality only serving to enable Lila while leaving Marinette to suffer, to Kim only making Marinette's problems worse by encouraging Fashionette to make Lila a dress when the latter asks for one.
• My God, What Have I Done?: While talking with Saltinette, Felix realizes he's just as much to blame for Marinette getting akumatized as the rest of the class, and was also pressuring her like they were, even if it was for her to finally say "no" to her increasingly demanding classmates, despite knowing full well that she has issues with that, and essentially boxing her in by implying he'd be disappointed if she said "yes" to the class, when they'd be disappointed if she said "no" to them.
  • Alix's father helps her realize her and the class' screw-up in thinking either the school would cover the expenses for the Cote d'Azur trip without checking if they would, or not offering to lift the weight off of Marinette's shoulders instead of trusting her to get everything done in an inhumanly short time limit.
• Never My Fault: Alya's Fatal Flaw is a mix of this and "Never Lila's Fault" as it never occurs to her that Marinette might be telling the truth about telling everyone about the planning meetings, even posting about it in the class group chat, and even double checking with everyone, including Lila. Neither does it occur to her that, even if there is something malicious in the whole thing, it might be on Lila's end for the purpose of making Marinette look bad. Nope, Lila has to be innocent because Marinette is on the other side, and Alya can't be sure Marinette didn't intentionally exclude Lila, or tell her a different date for the planning meetings, out of spite, or that her reason for opposing the Cote d'Azur plan isn't just because Lila proposed it.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Felix gives one to Alya at the start for assuming the worst of Lila's alleged exclusion from the weekend trip planning and acting like Marinette is being malicious in her inability to do everything for her friends.
  • Felix again, this time to Adrien for failing to take a side, not defending Marinette despite supporting her, not stopping Lila despite claiming not to be on her side, and assuming Lila, whom Adrien knows is a liar, would honor her promise to him to be nicer to Marinette.
  • Presinette gives Chat Noir one for his behavior and appearance, much of which he has trouble refuting.
  • And another one for Chat Noir, from Buginette mistaken for Ladybug, for how he hasn't always been there for Marinette when she was in trouble, but this one isn't really fair to Chat, since she doesn't know who he is, and thus has no idea that he has tried to be there for her — as Adrien, but even then that's not enough because as Adrien he cares more about not rocking the boat in fear that his friends will turn against him if he speaks up.
  • A third one from Felix, this time for Kim, saying that Marinette will just break again if nothing changes, that she only got akumatized this time is because she only hit her breaking point this time, and Kim made it worse by encouraging Fashionette to make a dress for Lila when she asks for one.
  • Alix to Alya after the former realizes the class failed Marinette by shunting all the responsibilities on her, for never bothering to listen to Marinette and doubling down on her misperceptions when confronted about them. It grows to Alix pointing out the class' shared failure to consider Marinette's side of things, and resolving to at least try to apologize to Marinette, with the rest of the class sans Nino following suit.
• Villain Has a Point: Presinette and Buginette present Chat Noir with some points he can't refute when criticizing his behavior, such as when he comforted Chloe after she tried to kill Marinette on a train, or his flirting and lack of focus in battle.

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