Just when Marinette is on the edge of breaking thanks to Lila putting her friends against her, Principal Damocles gives her a way out. A friend of his is the Headmistress of Olympe College, an elite all-girls Boarding School for the arts. And he thinks it’s the perfect place for Marinette to nurture her talent. For Marinette, it’s more than that. It’s a chance for a fresh start.
At her new school, Marinette quickly rises up the social ranks of Olympe’s Popularity Food Chain, making great friends along the way, like Vanessa Camberwell, a spunky, take-no-crud mayor’s daughter whom Marinette instantly hits it off with.
But no matter how much she tries to leave her past behind her, it keeps finding her. Her departure from Francois DuPont sets off a chain of events that crumble Lila’s empire and leave the class scrambling to redeem themselves and win back their everyday Ladybug.
Like many fans of Miraculous Ladybug who watched "Chameleon", author IrishDreamer4
was disgusted by the actions of Marinette’s classmates and believed that she would be better off in a new school with new friends. So they wrote Un Nouveau Contes De Fées, or translated from French, A New Fairytale, where Marinette transfers out of her old school and into a Cool School where all her classmates are dedicated artists and performers who know the value of getting success through hard work and dedication, and not through lies and fake connections like Lila and her old class expect to find success. Marinette keeps trying to cut her old friends out of her life so she can truly start fresh, but her transfer changes things and leads to confrontations and scandals that ultimately unravel all of Lila’s lies and make her old friends realize how much they messed up.
This Fanfic contains examples of:
- Accusation Fic: Like many fics of the salt kind, part of the story focuses on the choices of the class, choosing to believe Lila over Marinette. They accuse her of being jealous and ask her for proof of Lila’s dishonesty, driving a wedge between her and them. And Adrien is still taking the high road. It’s enough for Marinette that when Principal Damocles recommends a transfer to an arts school, she takes the chance to start over, and the class has to deal with the fallout of their actions.
- Adults Are Useless:
- Zig-zagged with Principal Damocles. Even though he does not notice Lila’s manipulations until it is too late, he still, albeit unwittingly, gives Marinette a way out of her toxic environment by recommending she transfer to Olympe to hone her talent.
- Subverted with Catherine-Marie Auberon, headmistress of Olympe. She takes action against Lila when the liar causes trouble for her students. She calls Damocles to tell him what happened at the Baltar nightclub and demands justice for her girls. This makes her the only fully Reasonable Authority Figure in the fic.
- Alpha Bitch: Lila has half the class eating out of the palm of her hand. Even the ones who already see through her lies and/or don’t like her are too scared of her to stand up to her, like Juleka, who is bullied into silence after figuring out her lies. Adrien himself says that he can’t figure out whether people love her or hate her.
- Artistic License – University Admissions: Usually, school transfers take a few weeks at the shortest, and boarding schools require tuition. However, Marinette’s transfer to Olympe is finalized over the course of a single weekend, and expenses, or how their paid, are never brought up. Whether she got a scholarship, or her parents are paying for the school, is never confirmed.
- Boarding School: The Olympe College for Young Ladies, which is where Marinette transfers. It’s an all-girls school for the arts, where the students are talented artists and performers.
- Bully Hunter:
- Vanessa has no qualms against calling Lila out for her lies and leeching off the fame of others to look good, but it’s her past mistreatment of Marinette that really brings out Vanessa’s claws.
- Likewise, all the Olympe girls jump at the chance to show up Lila and poke holes in her stories. They also scoff at Marinette’s old classmates for the way they treated Marinette in the past and their willingness to believe a wannabe just for a brush with fame.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Chat Noir brings up to Ladybug how tiring and difficult fighting Akumas is becoming and tells her that it's better to let the other heroes return. Her response is to harshly tell him that she can't trust them which, considering their treatment of her, is understandable. It's downplayed or outright subverted, depending on the reader's point of view, though. Chat Noir IS in the right much more than Ladybug (who's acting more out of spite than genuine worry), considering that the Akumas are getting more difficult to handle.
- Cast Full of Rich People: A lot of the girls at Olympe are related to famous people. Vanessa’s father is the Mayor of London, and her sister Crystal is a world-famous actress; Swanhilde’s mother is the acclaimed prime ballerina Gisella Von Lebedev. Among the students at Olympe are daughters/relatives of Presidents, Mayors, nobles, etc. Even the students who come from humble backgrounds have earned fortunes themselves through their talents and dedication.
- Cool School: Everyone at Olympe is super talented, whether they’re in a famous dance group or a gold medalist gymnast. The school is dedicated to the arts, all forms. They have classes in dancing and design, and Marinette gets to master her skills with A-plus materials and supplies, plus girls who understand her artistic interests and ambitions. They even get “homework” that’s testing their new outfits and practicing their dance moves in a teen nightclub!
- Elaborate University High: Olympe has fancy gates, a stocked design department, and dorms that are styled in the French Rococo way, with an attached bathroom and widescreen TV for each room.
- Even Evil Has Standards: A minor example. Bob Roth doesn't want his son around someone (*cough* Lila *cough*) who supposedly cheats on her boyfriends.
- Fix Fic: Some characters are a bit different from their representation in other salt fics.
- Adrien has a Heel Realization, understanding that lies do hurt people and with time he grows a spine, telling Lila, Chloé and Kagami off for monopolizing him, trying to say sorry to Marinette and takes his job as Chat Noir more seriously. This is fairly different from salt!Adrien, who is a spineless coward that can't speak for himself and rather not get into fights, while as Chat Noir, he's incompetent, childish, and entitled to Ladybug.
- Principal Damocles, who in almost every salt fic is an incredible doormat, next to useless and has an insignificant role, is the catalyst of the events of the fic, being the one who proposes to Marinette to change school. He's also not aware of Lila's lies and bullying and when he founds out he's genuinely pissed, getting angry at her and providing the punishment that it's in his juristiction.
- Miss Bustier is a minor example of this. In most salt fic, she favors Lila over Marinette in almost ridiculous ways, is naive, and accepts all of her excuses. In this fic, she doesn't seem to favor her and when she comes to know that Lila didn't do her job as class representative, she quickly strips her of the role. She also doesn't accept Lila's excuse of a sprained wrist since she didn't bring a doctor's note.
- Alya in most salt fics is depicted as Lila's Beta Bitch and believes everything she says without researching one bit of it. In this fic, she starts this way, but after getting a tongue-lashing from Ladybug, she becomes heartbroken and researches all of Lila's lies, becoming distrustful and hateful of her. The only reason she doesn't speak up is that she's afraid of being cast out like Marinette. Doesn't stop her from throwing some mean comments at her though.
- The class, in general, is the depiction of stupidity in salt fics and are oblivious to Lila's lies, following her every word. In this fic, their distrust of Lila is more apparent (except for Rose, who is as naive as ever) and genuinely feel guilty after she's exposed for the fraud she is and wants say sorry to Marinette (not like she accepts though). They also try to move on and make things for themselves after receiving their Miraculous and listening to Adrien's passionate speech.
- Marinette herself is perhaps the only subversion of this. Most salt fics have her very bitter towards her classmates and doesn't forgive them, enough to not trust the previous heroes with their Miraculous anymore. Her behaviour is taken up to eleven in this fic. While she seems to be able to move on with her new school and classmates, her accidental meeting with her former class turns her extremely bitter towards them. This, however, has effects on her, becoming too invested in her work at school and as Ladybug, becoming sleep-deprived and harsh, even towards Vanessa. It gets to the point that not only she doesn't trust the temporary heroes, but she becomes incapable of believing that they can change. Unfortunately, her stubbornness makes Chat Noir act without her consent and give the rest of the Miraculous to his classmates, knowing that they need help.
- Girl Posse: Marinette is accepted into the “divas”, the most talented and popular girls in school, hard-working individuals who have dedicated their lives to their art forms. While they are not typical mean girls, they will not hesitate to bring out the claws if someone provokes them.
- Humiliation Conga:
- Lila. The girls of Olympe make her look like an idiot, scoffing at her lies and showing her up with their killer dance moves. Then, when she tries to get Vanessa kicked out of the hotel and make her look bad, every celebrity Lila has ever lied about being close to shows up and denies and disclaims any association with her, crumbling her empire. She finds out this happened because a guy she flirted with at the nightclub turned out to be a tabloid reporter, who posted her stories, knowing they were fake, calling her out as a liar and fame-seeker. Then, after getting rejected by Adrien at the dance, the school staff arrive and reprimand her for her lies. Turns out, Miss Auberon called demanding justice for her girls after Lila attacked them at the club. Lila’s doctor and parents were finally contacted and disproved all her stories and revealed she’d been lying about the school being closed. Other people she’s hurt step forward and call her out, humiliating her in front of the entire school. She calls for Hawkmoth to akumatize her, but he leaves her high and dry, probably because Adrien called her out for molesting him. Instead of getting expelled and sent to a new school to start all over, she is stuck attending Francois DuPont, barred from all school activities, made to serve detention every day, even weekends, cleaning the school for free. The cherry on top? Everyone at school pretty much hates her guts, blaming her for Marinette leaving, and she goes from being queen of the class to the school pariah.
- Alya goes through the conga line, too. First, her best friend Marinette suddenly up and transfers to another school without saying goodbye or even telling anyone about it. Then, when she tries to get an interview with Ladybug promised to her by Lila, she instead gets torn to shreds by her idol, revealing that Lila is a liar and not Ladybug’s best friend. The heroine is so angry that she tells Alya she has her trust and with it, her Miraculous, and her right to exclusive interviews for her blog. When confronting Lila with this new information, the liar simply brushes her off and threatens to ostracize her like she did Marinette. Then, at Baxter, Alya runs into Marinette—with Vanessa Camberwell, who declares Marinette to be HER best friend, making Alya realize that she’s been replaced. The salt in the wound is that Juleka falls hopelessly in love with Vanessa, and proceeds to gush on and on about how amazing the British girl is, much to Alya’s annoyance and fury.
- This happens to all of the class, actually. After Marinette leaves, half the class realizes that Lila is a fraud, but are too afraid to speak up and/or threatened into silence. Then, they run into Marinette at Balter, only to be confronted and called out for their mistreatment of her by her new Olympe friends. Then, they are further humiliated at the hotel where every celebrity Lila has claimed a connection to denies and disproves everything she said, exposing her to the whole class. When Lila gets punished, they believe that they can apologize to Marinette and get her to return, and things can return to normal. However, Marinette rejects their apologies and refuses to return or rekindle their friendship, calling them out for taking advantage of her kindness and loyalty to them and taking her for granted. Without their everyday Ladybug, the class struggles with getting by, along with the added weight of their guilt and missing Marinette.
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Marinette immediately recognizes that Swanhilde Von Lebedev is the “alpha girl” of Olympe and a possible mean character. While she is mean to those she dislikes, Marinette is not one of those people. In fact, she respects and admires Marinette, praising her talent and accepting her into the popular crowd of Olympe.
- New Transfer Student: Marinette becomes this, setting off the events of the story.
- One-Gender School: Olympe is an all-girls school.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: The basis of your character depends solely on how you treat Marinette. If you believe her at her word with Lila, no questions asked, and side with her instantly, even if you only met her, like the Olympe girls, you are a good person and loyal friend. If you do not side with her immediately without evidence and ask her for proof of Lila being a bad person instead of just immediately shunning her, you are a Gullible Lemming and bad friend and need to work to earn Marinette’s. Anyone who gives Lila the benefit of the doubt instead of turning on her instantly based on Marinette’s word alone is morally gray and in need of redemption at best.
- Rejected Apology: Even after Lila is exposed and punished and their old friends come to Olympe come to her new school to apologize and beg her to come back to Francois DuPont, Marinette refuses to forgive them or leave Olympe. Even after she does decide to forgive them, she says she will never trust them or be their friend again.
- School Clubs Are Serious Business: Being a school for the arts, the girls at Olympe take their extracurriculars very seriously, taking pride in their talents and hard work towards honing them. Some girls have dedicated their whole lives to perfecting their skills and getting them in the spotlight.
- School of No Studying: The Olympe girls are never seen studying outside the classroom, unless you count dancing and modeling designs as studying.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Subverted with most of the cast, but taken up to eleven with Marinette. Although it's likely the author didn’t intend to do this to the "everyday Ladybug", that is exactly what they did. While it’s not like that at first, after Lila is exposed and Marinette rejects the class’s apologies, Marinette becomes consumed with bitterness towards her former friends. She becomes harsh to Chat Noir when he suggests they give out Miraculous to get extra help for the akumas that are becoming more and more powerful, not even bothering to think that she could have given Miraculous to people outside her old class. Then, when Chat Noir can’t contact her and goes ahead with giving out Miraculous to get extra help, Ladybug scolds him like he was in the wrong, even though she was the one who was putting her grudges above her duty as a hero. Then, when she does agree to train the heroes, she actually takes pleasure in running them into the ground and making them suffer for what they did to her as Marinette, even though they have no idea she’s Marinette. The worst part is, the author frames all this as though all her pettiness and schadenfreude is justified, that she has a right to be this bitchy towards the class and make her drama with them more important than her responsibility to protect Paris, even though at this point, Chat Noir is more of a responsible hero for understanding that they needed extra help and getting it, instead of risking defeat and the city to Hawkmoth over Ladybug’s stubbornness. The characterization most likely comes from stress and sleep deprivation, as Marinette most likely hasn’t fully recovered despite the collapse she had.
- Wise Beyond Her Years: It's downplayed, but Manon was able to see through Lila's stories. Needless to say, Nadja is not impressed with Marinette's former classmates.
