Rather Be Me (Than With You)
is a Miraculous Ladybug Song Fic by unmaskedagain. It takes its title and the lyrics from a song in the Mean Girls musical.
After Lila drives all of Marinette's friends away, Marinette decides she's done with them and moves on. When that proves insufficient and the class resorts to increasingly obnoxious efforts to regain her friendship, Marinette decides to let them know what she really thinks of them via a certain song.
The work contains examples of:
- Always Need What You Gave Up: The class falls apart after losing Marinette's friendship. Ivan and Mylene break up, Rose loses Ali's friendship, Nino's music career flames out along with Nathaniel's comic work, the Ladyblog is virtually destroyed, Juleka loses her self-confidence, and so on. It's indicated Marinette was supporting everyone, so without her, they can't maintain any of their progress.
- Here We Go Again!: By the end of the story, Lila is cooking up a whole new batch of lies to assert her control over the class with - this time, throwing Alya under the bus as a convenient scapegoat.
- Karmic Jackpot: While all of Marinette's former friends are failing to achieve their dreams, Marinette is rewarded both with new, true friends who actually appreciate her, as well as a skyrocketing career in the fashion world.
- One-Hit Kill: A nonlethal variant. When Alix trips Marinette (after her and Alya's plan to convince the school Marinette is a bully fails), Marinette just decks Alix and knocks her out in a single blow.
- Turn in Your Badge: Fu fires Adrien from being Chat Noir on account of him repeatedly abandoning Ladybug to fight akumas alone.
- Villain Respect: Lila attains a sort of grudging respect for Marinette by the end.
