The Black Flower is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction, involving Lila as the Ladybug holder, Felix as the Cat holder, and Marinette as their constant victim.
After Lila arrived at her school, Marinette starts to lead a miserable life, being bullied by her classmates, victimized by the hero Coccinella and constantly harassed by her partner Chat Noir. After a bad confrontation with Alya, Marinette is akumatized and killed. After being revived by the Cure, Marinette finds out that despite what she thought, there are people willing to help her.
It can be found here
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This fic provides examples of:
- Accomplice by Inaction: Adrien and Nino are considered as such during Lila's bullying campaign towards Marinette.
- Adaptational Dumbass:
- Alya is basically Too Dumb to Live in the fic, unlike her canon counterpart who is actually a pretty smart girl if not a bit too dedicated to her objectives.
- Lila is constantly called stupid by the girls for being way too trusting about giving away a Miraculous. She's not exactly stupid, actually, but more that her own lust for attention blinds her.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Downplayed in every possible case. Lila and Felix are the main heroes of Paris, but while they are willing to save the day, it's only because it will benefit them and they are absolutely despicable outside (and inside) the suit.
- Played straight for Adrien, who became a hero not to escape his life but because he actually wanted to protect Paris.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Gabriel is definitely more pragmatic and scheming than his canon counterpart.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- While Chloé in canon is an Alpha Bitch with almost no redeeming qualities, here she's much nicer being the first person who wants to check up on Marinette after she run away once revived by the Cure.
- Gabriel is far more reasonable and less cold than his canon counterpart. In fact, he actually gives Marinette and Juleka internships at his agency, recognizing their talents.
- Adaptational Sympathy: Audrey is portrayed in a much more sympathetic light than her canon counterpart. In fact, Audrey was raped back in New York and it left her impregnated with Zoé, thus her apparent mistreatment of her being born of fear of her rapist.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Lila tops her canon counterpart for being willing to kill an akumatized Marinette to keep her secrets safe and also for her own personal amusement. It gets even worse when it's revealed that she tried to kill Fu only for the earrings he was carrying, not even knowing that those were a Miraculous.
- On the same note, Felix goes from an annoying opportunist to a sexual harasser.
- Marinette, Rose, Juleka, Chloé, Sabrina, and Zoé work for Gabriel mostly out of spite for the heroes, even though they also agree that they need to be stopped. They're also far darker than their canon counterpart, being more prominent with Marinette, Rose, and Juleka.
- All of the other classmates are outright bullies, except Nino and Adrien, who are Extreme Doormats. Special mention goes to Alya, who is certainly far nastier than the others.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- In their few instances together, Gabriel and Nooroo are shown to not have a master-slave dynamic and the Kwami is actually willingly working with him.
- Chloé and Sabrina are of the same caliber, showing that they are actually genuinely friends with one another.
- Adults Are Useless: Subverted for most, played straight for Miss Bustier. That's the main reason she gets fired.
- Alpha Bitch: Lila to the class. In the flashback chapter, it's said that Chloé was one as well.
- Ambiguous Situation: The author seems to be really fond of these.
- It's unclear if Chat Noir willingly destroyed the pillar that led to Princess Justice being crushed. Considering his reaction, it was probable that it was an accident on his part to Cataclysm the pillar.
- It's also unknown how Felix was able to obtain the Cat Miraculous.
- Gabriel finding Felix's hidden camera is never properly explained.
- In "Felix", Chameleon is briefly mentioned but it's not explained if it was Lila or another person entirely.
- And This Is for...: Black Tigress delivers one to Chat Noir in the form of repeatedly kicking him in the balls.Black Tigress: This is for what you did to Marinette! This is for what you did to Sabrina! This is for what you did to Rose! This is for what you did to all the girls you harassed! And this...is because I hate you!
- Arch-Enemy: Coccinella is one for Marinette. Chat Noir instead is one for Juleka.
- Attention Whore: Lila saves Paris only because it attracts attention to her. This later turns on her as Risk makes her reveal herself to her classmates, leading to Vesperia figuring out where the Miracle Box is and confirming that Lila is indeed Coccinella.
- Berserk Button: Chat Noir is one for Marinette. In fact, as Princess Justice, her main goal once he shows up is to bash his head rather than hitting him with her truth-revealing powers.
- Better Off with the Bad Guys: Marinette and her friends decide that it's better to help Gabriel take down the holders than to wait for them to get defeated and risk additional harassment.
- Big Damn Heroes: Hawk Moth arrives to fight Chat Noir so that Black Tigress can go save some civilians from a crumbling building. Mayura also arrives to help Hawk Moth and will pull a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Blatant Lies: The protagonists see Lila's lies as such. Zoé is appalled by how their classmates actually believed them so readily.
- Break the Cutie:
- Marinette. Rose and Sabrina too once they are molested by Felix. They get better.
- Zoé's first day in Paris is terrible, from not being believed to be Audrey's daughter by her own family, being kicked out from the hotel by the mayor, akumatized and then falling over a trash can and get dirty. They get better as well.
- Broken Pedestal:
- It's all but said that Rose and Juleka lost their faith in Coccinella after realizing that she willingly killed Marinette and was actually amused by it.
- On the same note, the entirety of Paris shun Coccinella and Chat once their crimes come to light.
- Canon Character All Along: Downplayed. The tags of the fic state that Chat Noir (who is proven to not be Adrien in Chapter 3) is Felix but in the fic itself, it's only revealed in Chapter 8.
- Chekhov's Gun: During the fight with the Dearest Family, Coccinella angrily mentions to Purple Tigress that Princess Justice threw her in a trash can. At the end of the chapter, when Juleka tells Marinette, it leads to her realizing that Lila is Coccinella.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- The Irateam barely break a sweat in crushing the holders. The only reason they didn't win was because they were called back by Hawk Moth.
- Considering how the Miracle Team was a stronger version of Irateam the holders didn't have a chance from the very beginning against them.
- Darker and Edgier: This fic has death, sexual harassment, and mentions of suicide and rape. A far cry from the show.
- Didn't Think This Through: When Lila sues Marinette and her friends for assault when in reality they were just defending themselves. When Marinette and her family are akumatized into the Dearest Family, Lila admits that perhaps she made a mistake.
- Disney Death: Marinette, as Princess Justice, is killed by Coccinella in the first chapter. She's later revived by the Cure.
- Nathalie will sacrifice herself to protect Gabriel from Chat Noir and dies. Gabriel will use the Wish to bring her back along Emilie.
- Distant Finale: The epilogue happens ten years after the events of the fic.
- Downer Beginning: The fic starts with Marinette getting akumatized into Princess Justice and killed by Coccinella.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Gabriel's objective is to bring back his wife Emilie. He also cares a lot for Adrien and Nathalie. In fact when she's killed by Chat Noir, Gabriel reaches his Rage Breaking Point and kills him.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Gabriel is utterly repulsed by how Coccinella is willing to kill the Akumas. Enough to actually call out to Irateam before they get killed.
- Despite being a sociopath, Lila is against the idea of having the entire Bourgeois family akumatized, considering it a suicidal move. And when it happens, she's actually worried.
- Unlike Lila, Felix is not willing to kill the Akumas and in fact, he was enraged at Coccinella when she killed Princess Justice. Then it turns hypocritical when he tries to fight Malediktator with a gun, possibly killing him in the process, but it's shown that he had the decency to look ashamed after receiving a What the Hell, Hero? from Purple Tigress.
- Evil Versus Evil: Gabriel and his allies are absolutely not morally correct but they're still better than the 'heroes' they're fighting. The author even stated that there are no good sides in this fic. Only a less evil one.
- Face–Heel Turn: The girls decide to join and help Hawk Moth take down Coccinella and Chat Noir.
- Heal the Cutie: Marinette, Rose, Zoé and Sabrina suffer in some way through the fic, but they all get better.
- Heel Realization:
- Rose and Juleka have one towards Coccinella, realizing that she was actually happy to have killed Princess Justice. They lose their faith in her after that and join Marinette, realizing how horrible her life was.
- Adrien realized how much he screwed up by not being there for Marinette. And once he finds out that Lila almost killed Fu for the earrings, he turns on and fights her, declaring her too dangerous.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Mayura will take a bullet for Hawk Moth. She gets revived by the Wish.
- Ironic Echo: When Chat storms to Coccinella after she kills Princess Justice, he tells her how there were other ways to defeat her other than kill her. After Chat tries to incapacitate Malediktator with a gun, Purple Tigress tells him the exact same thing he told Coccinella.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: After months and months of harassment towards Marinette and, to a lesser scale, other people, Lila and Felix get what they rightfully deserve towards the end of the fic when Shadow Moth kills the latter and Multirat the former.
- No-Sell: Pegasus tries to punch Hornetia in the face. And she shows absolutely no reaction, showing how she was just playing him like a fool for the whole fight.
- Rage Breaking Point: When Chat Noir kills Nathalie, it's enough for Gabriel to scream in rage and unify the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous.
- Reasonable Authority Figure:
- A rare case where Principal Damocles is one. The man actually accepts Marinette and Chloé's reasons for transferring classes, suspends the whole class (barring Rose, Juleka, and Sabrina), and fires Miss Bustier for her inactivity. It's also said that while at first he didn't punish Chloé for her previous bullying, he started to once he realized that her threats of calling her father were empty.
- Roger is one as well. It is heavily implied that he was one of the very few policemen who actually did their job correctly when Marinette and her friends were falsely charged. He also went to apologize to their families for his subordinate's actions.
- Shout-Out: The epilogue has a cameo of Ren Amamiya and Morgana.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: The entire premise of the fic involves this by giving Marinette a chance to strike back against her abusers.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- A policeman charged the girls for assaulting a group of thugs not caring that he charged the mayor, Jagged Stone, and his superior's daughters with no investigation whatsoever.
- Alya, in certain events, is this as well. Like when she followed Adrien (actually Felix in disguise) into sabotaging one of Gabriel's shoots by ripping several expensive dresses. She and Nino are immediately caught and harshly sued.
- Trauma Button: For Audrey, it's one to see Zoé since it reminded her of when she was raped. She gets better.
