Fanfic / Marinette's Week Off

Marinette's Week Off is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic by Unmasked Again.

Marinette does a lot for her class. She plans the parties, makes the decorations, provides all the goods for the bake sales, and in general runs herself ragged trying to support her friends. In exchange, she asks for just one thing: a single week off when she can go on vacation and not have to worry about other people's problems. She usually tries to take her break during periods when not much is going on, and she works hard beforehand to clear her schedule so nobody is inconvenienced by her absence, but she does insist on getting that one-week break.

Unfortunately, thanks to a certain Lila Rossi, Marinette's classmates (with the exceptions of Chloé and Nathaniel) have been acting in a distinctly unfriendly manner recently. They got her fired from the position of class president and have ostracized and shunned her. As a result, Marinette decides that this year she'll take her vacation during the busiest period of the school year when all sorts of events are going on. She'll still notify everyone of her absence, of course, and give her class sufficient time to prepare, but she's pretty confident they won't use it. And she certainly won't be interrupting her precious vacation to fix their problems.

When the fateful week arrives and Marinette leaves for her beach resort, her class is quick to discover just how much they need her... and what a catastrophic mistake they made by picking Lila instead.

Unmasked Again later wrote a sequel Marinette's Life (After the Week Off), detailing Marinette's rise as a superstar celebrity thanks to the contacts she made while on her vacation, as well as how her class continues to languish without her.

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This fanfic contains examples of:

• Accomplice by Inaction: Marinette, Nathaniel and Chloé all see Adrien this way; while he never directly participated in any of the bullying or ostracization, he also never attempted to defend or stand up for them in any way.
  Chloé: He wanted to take the high road and side with the liar, it's time he learned where that road took him.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Luka in canon is straight and even dates Marinette for a while. In this story, he and Nathaniel become a couple.
• Adults Are Useless: While Miss Bustier's students are accustomed to their Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher being overly permissive and letting them do whatever they please, this is largely Averted in the sequel thanks to the presence of the "student aides". Said aides effectively force Bustier to do her job and enforce the rules.
• Always Need What You Gave Up: As with many of Unmasked Again's stories, Marinette's former friends discover that they really could have used her help and expertise with organizing events, but drove her away right before the busiest week of the school year. In the sequel, the knife gets twisted when Marinette becomes a celebrity, developing the kind of connections Lila claimed to have.
• Ambiguously Brown: Marinette's ambiguous features are cited as one reason why she's in so much demand as an actress and model.
• Armor-Piercing Question: After learning about Marinette's acting career, Alya immediately starts trying to call her, only to find that she's changed her number. She's clearly taken off guard when Juleka questions her flagrant hypocrisy:
  Alya: Seriously?! No one! UGH! I can't believe that girl. Not giving her bestie her new number?
  Juleka: I thought you'd never be friends with her again?
  Alya: (after briefly freezing up) I mean-, yeah, but I'm willing to forgive her if she gets me an interview. I mean it would be the least she could do, right?
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Alya tries to tell Marinette that she doesn't need her friendship, she does so in a way that Marinette calmly rebuffs in this fashion:
  Alya: Just so you know, I don't need you. Lila promised to get me some top notch interviews.
  Marinette: So you're admitting you only wanted to be friends again because of what I could do for you. Huh. (smirks) Thought so.
  (Alya turns bright red, sneering at her before storming off.)
• Big "NO!": Either Chris Hemsworth or Sebastian Stan yell out one when Marinette offers to show photos of a Noodle Incident they were involved in.
• Breakout Character: Marinette's character in Disney's The Embers of Pirates and Mermaids was meant to be a bit character that Marinette only got to play because the actress meant for the role literally backed out in the last second. But then the director fell in love with Marinette's acting, and her role swelled up so much she got to sing a couple of songs for the movie and she was pretty much marked as a "Disney princess" even though she wasn't one of the main characters.
• But Not Too Black: Discussed; When Marinette asks her new agent why she's been landing so many acting and modeling jobs, Leslie explains that Marinette lands solidly in this category; she's largely white-passing, but has enough of an "exotic" look to put her in a sweet spot. Leslie has been exploiting this in an effort to help diversify Hollywood by sending her to roles requesting white girls; she looks white enough that she might get cast anyway, and as she's still a minority, her presence might open the door later for others who wouldn't have been considered otherwise.
  Marinette: The casting director had been surprised when I walked into the room. They didn't expect me to look like me.
  Leslie: Casting call was for a dark haired, blue-eyed, Caucasian, light to olive tanned-skinned girl, between the ages of thirteen to fifteen. I sent you. I send you for the same reason Zendaya tells her manager that: Anytime it says they're looking for white girls, to send her out. Maybe you'll change their minds. Maybe you won't. But in this case you did.
• Celebrity Lie: Lila naturally continues with this, which bites her in the backside when she spins several of these claims around The Embers of Pirates and Mermaids while unaware of Marinette's involvement in the film.
• Character Catchphrase: Marinette repeatedly declares "Not today, Satan," throughout the first story, emphasizing how she's staunchly refusing to do anything she sees as endangering her chance to relax and enjoy her week off.
• Childhood Friend Romance: In The Embers of Pirates and Mermaids, Marinette is cast as a mermaid princess who was in love with Zac Efron's character (a mermaid prince) since her youth but didn't say anything as Efron's character became human so he could pursue Zendaya's character.
• Crossing the Burnt Bridge: Alya and several of Marinette's former friends attempt to do this in the sequel, only to be rebuffed. In Adrien's case, part of this is implied to be his father's influence, with Gabriel believing a "romance" between the two would be good for his brand.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • The crux of the plot. Miss Bustier and her students are so accustomed to Marinette handling everything for them that nobody considers the fact that they need to arrange alternative sources for all of the things she covered until after she leaves on vacation, the same week that several major events are happening at once.
  • Miss Bustier also completely fails to consider that Alya and the rest of her students might need her help to arrange things, leaving matters entirely in their hands despite how she's supposed to be their teacher. Things only change in the sequel because her neglect caused things to turn out so bad that it caught the attention of the school board, spurring them to crack down.
  • In Marinette's Life (After the Week Off), Lila spins several Blatant Lies about Jagged Stone's new song "Queens Don't Cry, Princess". Specifically, she claims that it was inspired by her, and that it's a party song that she'd requested Clara Nightengale to provide the vocals for. While she accounts for the fact Clara doesn't actually sing it by claiming she just asked for to, the song is in no way a party song, being a ballad sung by Marinette herself. Something that the whole class would learn the moment said song actually debuts alongside the movie it was written for.
• Drink-Based Characterization: Played for Laughs when Marinette makes a Starbucks run; Chloé requests a "skinny, iced Cinnamon Dolce Latte", while Nathaniel's order prompts this exchange:
  Nathaniel: I want a coffee as bitter as my soul!
  Marinette: (nodding) One Unicorn Frappuccino, extra rainbow sprinkles, check!
  Nathaniel: Thank you!
• Entitled Bastard:
  • Even though they're no longer friends and Alya has replaced Marinette as the class president, her classmates still expect her to handle all the hard work of organizing everything and handling everything that requires any kind of effort or artistic abilities.
  • Once she learns about Marinette's rising star, Alya immediately starts insisting that they're besties again and that Marinette owes her all the favors and support she could ever demand of her. And then some, for good measure.
• Everyone Has Standards: The whole class is decidedly unimpressed with Alya's abrupt about-face in Marinette's Life (After the Week Off), especially as she makes no real effort to hide that the only reason she's calling Marinette her "bestie" again is because she wants to exploit her former friend's connections.
• Fair-Weather Foe: The moment Lila learns that Marinette starred in The Embers of Pirates and Mermaids, she immediately starts scheming to figure out some way of worming into her good graces.
• Fair-Weather Friend: Except for Chloé and Nathaniel, the class abandons Marinette despite all she does for them just because they think Lila has more to offer. When they learn otherwise, some of them (especially Alya, who barely bothers to hide it) try to get back in Marinette's good graces, but it's too late.
• Foil: Lila serves as a subtle one to Alya in the sequel; while both of them want to take advantage of Marinette's rise to fame, Lila recognizes that she needs to play her cards carefully; she can't just claim to be super close to Marinette after their checkered history together. Alya, by contrast, thinks that she can just strongarm her way back into Marinette's good graces by declaring that they're still besties and never stopped being close, despite how viciously she sundered their bond in the first place.
• Gay Best Friend: Directly Invoked by Chloé in Marinette's Life (After the Week Off), declaring that she's Marinette's "bestie" while Nathaniel is her "gay best friend".
• Godzilla Threshold: Paired with Dramatic Irony; Alya really, really doesn't WANT to swallow her pride and ask Marinette for help, blissfully unaware that her former "bestie" isn't even available. It takes three straight days of disasters for her to be willing to get Marinette involved, only to learn that's not an option.
• Hypocrite: Alya repeatedly claims that she wants nothing more to do with Marinette, yet still gets pissed off at not being able to exploit their "friendship" anymore. Especially after learning that Marinette's star is rising in the sequel.
• Ironic Echo:
  • Intentionally Invoked by Marinette. When Alya makes a point of stressing how she's only inviting her friends to her watch party, Marinette declares that she completely understands and respects that. She then says much the same thing while being interviewed on the red carpet:
    Marinette: I was told I could invite whoever I wanted. But I just wanted my friends and family here. They've supported me the entire time. I hope people at home can respect that. After all, it makes sense to only invite your friends to a party.
  • Marinette also makes a point of reminding Alya of her own words when reminding her that she was the one who cut ties with her.
• Karmic Jackpot:
  • After all the suffering Marinette endured from her friends, she has a paradisiacal vacation in which she gets to frolic in a tropical playground, meets extremely hot boys who adore her, and befriends some celebrities who even give her a walk-on position in a movie shoot and also begin to commission clothes from her. In the sequel, she parlays her new connections and experience into becoming one of the world's most popular actresses and designers.
  • The people who don't abandon Marinette also benefit. Chloé and Nathaniel, her only friends from her class, are at her side as Marinette ascends in status, and Nathaniel is even hired and paid to be Marinette's official assistant. Luka also benefits as Marinette arranges for him to do music for her movies. (The rest of Kitty Section, which kicked Luka out, does not get similar offers).
• Lack of Imagination: One of the class's problems is that Marinette and Nathaniel (who remains on Marinette's side and refuses to bail out the other students) were the only people they really had who were skilled artists. As a result, they're incapable of handling any of the artistic elements that their activities require, such as printing fliers for Mylène's play and making decorations for the class dance.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Marinette's classmates constantly took advantage of her being The Reliable One, expecting her to ensure that everything they want to do goes well. Since they broke off their bonds and replaced her as class president, however, she deliberately schedules her vacation during the busiest week of the school year, so that she can't be strongarmed/forced into bailing them out. Without her around, everything falls apart.
  • Miss Bustier neglected her responsibilities, letting bullies and liars go unchallenged and leaving Marinette to handle things for her. She also leaves Alya and the rest of the class flailing around without any guidance. Come the sequel, her incompetence has led to the school district cracking down and adding student aides who ensure the rules get enforced... and that Miss Bustier actually does her job.
  • One of the reasons why Alya and most of the class turned so readily upon Marinette is because they believed Lila's Celebrity Lies, hoping that she'd use her supposed connections in their favor. Marinette ends up becoming a successful actress who develops actual connections with several celebrities, but none of her former friends are in any position to ride her coattails anymore.
  • Juleka and the rest of Kitty Section kicked Luka out of their band, only to see him get his big break shortly after going solo.
• Lethally Stupid: While nobody dies, the class's incompetence causes several major disasters, including starting a fire when they screw up the lighting system for Mylène's play, poisoning people with the terrible snacks they scrounged up, and badly injuring people at the dance when they forget to tell the janitor not to wax the floor the night before.
• Liar Revealed: Averted; despite Lila telling several Blatant Lies about The Embers of Pirates and Mermaids and its soundtrack that would be easily disproved once the movie releases, everyone is too distracted by the revelation that Marinette's playing a big role in said movie to put the pieces together, and the sequel ends without Alya or any of Lila's followers figuring out how much she misled them.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • It takes a long time for Marinette to realize that the "small roles" she was getting were actually quite the big deal.
  • Marinette's classmates don't learn about her acting and modeling job until they see her at the premiere for The Embers of Pirates and Mermaids, after she has already done a few works prior to said movie.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The whole class goes through one on Thursday, when Nathaniel calmly informs them that they're right in the middle of Marinette's one week off.
• Moral Myopia: In the sequel, Alya makes a point of deliberately excluding Marinette, Chloé and Nathaniel from the watch party she's holding, declaring that she's only inviting her friends. Once she sees those three are attending the premiere, she complains that her "bestie" Marinette didn't invite her. Lampshaded by Marinette, who anticipated she'd react this way and made a pointed remark beforehand that she understood Alya's reasoning and hoped she'd have the grace to respect her own boundaries.
• Mundane Utility: Marinette uses all the training she's had from being Ladybug to do her own stunts as an actress.
• Never Filled Out Official Paperwork:
  • Alya struggles with this after replacing Marinette as the new class president, having very little idea of what the job actually entails. In particular, she doesn't arrange any chaperones for the school dance, and ends up getting it shut down after the first hour.
  • Once the student aides are put into place in the sequel, Lila finds that she can't fake her way through claiming various Obfuscating Disabilities, as they're now required to provide doctor's notes and other official documentation of their claims.
  • The student aides also reinforce requiring permission slips for school trips and other outings, much to the dismay of most of Miss Bustier's class.
• Never My Fault:
  • Upon Marinette's return, she finds herself greeted with a bunch of Death Glares and a sarcastic "Welcome back" from Alya. None of her former friends want to admit just how much they took her presence and support for granted, so they blame her for not being available.
  • Alya also refuses to acknowledge how she absolutely torched her relationship with Marinette once she decides she wants to cross that burnt bridge and leech off all her newfound fame.
• No Listening Skills: Marinette provides plenty of advance notice that she's going to be unavailable during the week she's on vacation. Alya and the rest of the class ignores all of this; the only thing that keeps them from immediately trying to call her in is Alya's stubborn insistence that they don't NEED her help. Once Alya's resolve cracks, she fully expects Marinette to come running in response to her SOS and bail them out, until Nathaniel and Chloé bluntly inform them that she's unavailable.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The only things revealed about how the fundraiser went is that it wound up costing more than the class raised, that the fire department was called, and that Alya lost both of her eyebrows.
  • At the end of the sequel, during her Teen Choice Award speech, Marinette offers to tell the crowd the story of how she ran into Chris Hemsworth and Sebastian Stan looking like Smurfs, even offering to show the pictures she took. Thankfully for the dignity of the two actors, she gets interrupted before she can.
• Off the Table: While Marinette was previously willing to help her classmates out, she makes clear that she's no longer willing to rekindle their friendships after she becomes famous. Namely because they only want to be friends again because she's famous.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In Marinette's Life (After the Week Off), Bustier's students collectively realize just how much things are changing at Françoise Dupont when Miss Bustier cuts off one of Lila's bragging bouts and tells her that she needs to keep quiet unless she's got something constructive and related to their studies to offer.
  • This happens again when Bustier yells at Alya to stop pestering Marinette about her absences and informs the class that the next time she catches anyone harassing her, they'll be getting a detention.
• Persona Non Grata: The class is banned from the Dupain-Cheng bakery. This causes them problems when they need sweets for their events but don't have much money (because the class didn't raise any and Marinette isn't offsetting their costs by donating her own stuff) and have to settle for crappy candy and punch from the dollar store.
• Pet the Dog: The sweeping reformations implemented by the school district in the sequel have the side effect of drastically improving Adrien's life. Not only do the student aides prevent Lila from harassing him, his schedule lightens since the school aides will call Child Protective Services if he misses too much school, preventing his Control Freak father from randomly yanking him out of school and forcing him to work. He also gets a social worker who further ensures that Gabriel can't exploit his son anymore.
• Plot-Driven Breakdown: Nino's DJ equipment fries just before the dance, leaving the class in an even worse position. Then his phone dies during the dance and leaves them completely without music (not that it matters much, because, since they don't have chaperones, the teachers force them to leave just an hour into the party).
• Real-Person Fic: After a few days gallivanting around her tropical paradise, Marinette learns about a nearby movie shoot featuring real people such as Harry Styles, Zac Efron, Tom Holland, and Zendaya. Her chaperone Jagged gets her passes to go on set and she's able to make friends with the celebrities; she even gets a part in the movie.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Nathaniel rips into Alya when she's trying to blame Marinette for not immediately leaping to help her out. Chloé quietly observes that this proves they made the right choice bringing him into their fold.
  Alya: Marinette hasn't answered a single one of my calls. What part of S.O.S doesn't she understand? The dance is falling apart. I have no idea what to do about the fundraiser on Sunday. We need her. I swear if that girl lost her phone again...
  Nathaniel: You'll do what? (after a telling silence) That's what I thought. You'll do nothing. That's what I thought. You'll do nothing. One, because you have no right to text the girl you disowned as a friend and ridiculed for the last year for help. Two, you couldn't take Marinette in a fight with everyone in this class helping you. And three, you're the one who turned down her offers to help all year; citing that you didn't need her. You don't get to beg for help at the last minute, and be surprised that she can't do it.
• Removing the Crucial Teammate: Marinette gets removed as the class president and replaced by Alya, who repeatedly insists that they can handle everything their "everyday Ladybug" used to do without her. Marinette happily complies by intentionally scheduling her vacation during the busiest week of the school year, so that even if her classmates abruptly decide they do need her after all, they won't be able to contact or force her into bailing them out. Sure enough, they learn the hard way just how reliant they were upon her hard work.
• Revenge Fic: Marinette gets revenge on her False Friends by intentionally leaving during a busy period. Since they're over-reliant on having her handle everything, all the events they have that week crash and burn. In the sequel, Marinette becomes a famous celebrity, taking her true friends Chloé, Nathaniel and Luka along for the ride, but leaves the rest of the class behind her.
• Shout-Out:
  • The roles Marinette gets as an actress include Stefanie Salvatore, Azula, Cassandra Cain, Sailor Mercury, Liv Hale, Thalia Grace, Pippa Cross, and a Slayer.
  • While at the red-carpet premiere of The Embers of Pirates and Mermaids, the tuxedo-clad Tom has to be warned not to pretend to be James Bond.
• The Show Must Go Wrong: Mylène's play is such a disaster due to the terrible production values and bad acting (because the students are so frazzled they can't remember their lines) that people begin walking out, including Kim's grandmother. Kim is one of the leads.
• Sidekick: After Marinette starts getting overloaded with acting and modeling work (not to mention stunt training), Chloé and Nathaniel step up to help her. Chloé takes over her social media and manages her accounts while Nathaniel explains the various franchises she's working in so she can understand them without having to spend weeks reading or watching decades' worth of material. They also help her stay on top of her schoolwork and fend off the rest of the class when needed.
• Social Services Does Not Exist: Averted in the sequel; one of the many improvements to Adrien's life is how he's assigned a dedicated social worker who helps ensure his father can't overwork him anymore.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: One of Marinette's roles is Avery Black, a Slayer who discovers her boyfriend is a half-demon and convinces herself that she can save him, while he tries to corrupt her in turn. This ultimately culminates in her choosing to save the world over her love.
• Sucksessor: Alya takes over as class president following Marinette being fired, but she quickly proves to be incompetent. She doesn't get any of the paperwork, planning, or other preliminary work done on time, meaning the class is scrambling to catch up and is totally overloaded as they approach various events. She also didn't run any earlier fundraisers for the school trip, meaning the one fundraiser scheduled for that week has to provide all the funds to take everyone in the 15-person class (plus chaperones) somewhere, an extremely challenging task which Alya is in no way capable of completing.
• Take That!: One of the roles which Marinette is sent to (and gets) despite the casting director only wanting white people is Azula in The Last Airbender, a movie which in Real Life is infamous for casting a bunch of white people in roles that had originally been Asian in the animated series. The director is implicitly criticized for trying to force white people into those roles.
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: Marinette's classmates are so accustomed to their All Take and No Give dynamic that they find themselves flailing and failing in her absence.
• Time Skip: In the sequel, it takes over a year and a half before the first of the projects Marinette was involved in comes out, with The Embers of Pirates and Mermaids debuting over spring break.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The story flips back and forth between following Marinette on vacation and showing how things are going back in Paris.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Played With in the sequel; Collège Françoise Dupont transitions from a Sucky School to one where the rules are actually enforced by student aides. Bullies actually get punished, absences require actual documentation, students aren't allowed to do each other's homework, and so on. They also aren't allowed to go running after akumas anymore, and when Bustier's class complains, the teachers get their parents involved.
• This Is Unforgivable!: In the sequel, Alya responds to Rose wistfully wishing that Marinette would be "nice again" by ranting about how she'll never forgive her former bestie for how she hurt Lila. Of course, this comes right before they see her on the red carpet...
• Uninvited to the Party: The sequel has Alya intentionally exclude Marinette, Chloé and Nathaniel from her watch party, pointedly stressing that she only wants her friends there. She then throws a fit upon realizing Marinette didn't invite her to attend the very premiere they're going to be watching.
• Villainous Respect: Even Lila admits that Marinette's acting is very good.
• We Used to Be Friends: As Marinette pointedly reminds Alya and the rest of her classmates near the end of the sequel, Alya was the one who cut ties with her. She sees no need to rebuild their relationships just because everyone wants to piggyback off her success.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: After learning how her agent has been exploiting Hollywood's tendency towards But Not Too Black casting, Marinette admits that she feels a bit dirty at the prospect. Leslie reassures her that she wouldn't send her to auditions she didn't feel she was right for, stating "I don't like to waste anyone's time. You will never get cast in part or get a modeling job you are not right for. If you get the job, it's because it's yours. Let it be yours."

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