Weird Dad
is an Alternate Universe Fic made by RockSunner, for Miraculous Ladybug. Part of the Smart Adversaries AU for Miraculous Ladybug on AO3, in which Ladybug villains make smarter decisions. The series has a tropes page here.
This is a four-chapter work and it is now complete.
This fanfiction series contains examples of:
- Alternate Universe Fic: A What If? with the change that baby August (the former Gigantitan) cries for his pacifier and Tom Dupain finds it on the roof, exposing Ladybug's identity to Chat Noir.
- Anger Born of Worry: Chat Noir is angry that Marinette lied about being in love with him. Tom Dupain's fear that Marinette is involved with someone who could be dangerous to her is what causes him to be akumatized into Weredad.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Tom and Sabine are concerned when Marinette confesses she secretly met with Chat Noir once on a nearby rooftop. Out of worry that he will come back after being dumped, they want to restrict access to her room with alarms and window bars. Ironically, this would cramp her activities as Ladybug, which would worry them even more if they knew.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Marinette comes dangerously close to getting her room barricaded by her parents after making herself look untrustworthy and losing Chat Noir's friendship after giving him a false love confession, but she manages to salvage all relationships involved and walk off with the guy in the end.
- Easily Forgiven: Chat Noir forgives Marinette for her false love confession that broke his heart, after realizing that she has real love for him as Adrien. It's justified by the fact that he has been similarly forgiving towards Chloé and Lila in similar situations, a fact Marinette plays to.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Tom and Sabine declare that Marninette has broken their trust after her highly toned-down confessions about sneaking out. They don't realize she has done much more lying and sneaking than she admits to.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Most Smart Adversaries fics have the nail be an action the villain takes. This one has the nail be August crying for his pacifier before Weredad even shows up.
- Heel Realization: Marinette realizes how badly she has hurt Adrien by lying, when he compares her to Lila. She pleads for a second chance like the one Adrien gave to Lila.
- Honor Before Reason: Sabine persuades Chat Noir to do the right thing and help Marinette with Weredad, even though he's unhappy with her and inclined to let her solve the problem herself as Ladybug. His knowledge of her identity allows him to facilitate her escape.
- Irony: Marinette's parents accept Adrien as a new boyfriend for Marinette, since he is "much nicer" than Chat Noir and he comes from a "respectable family."
- Poor Communication Kills: Marinette's false love confession is happily accepted by Chat Noir because he thinks Ladybug is finally confessing to him, rather than the ruse it was to protect her identity. Her poor break-up excuses later in front of her parents only make him angry.
- Safety Worst: Marinette persuades her parents not to lock up her room because it would be dangerous in the event of a fire or an akuma attack.
- Shout-Out: To the 1970's TV version of "The Incredible Hulk". Tom tells Adrien, "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry" as part of a If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her... speech.
- Snowball Lie: Marinette's lie about being in love with Chat Noir spirals out of control.
- Swapped Roles: In the original, Chat Noir dumps Marinette and she pretends to be hurt. In this version, Marinette dumps Chat Noir and he is genuinely hurt.
- Two-Person Love Triangle: The two-person love square collapses into this when Chat Noir discovers Marinette's secret after she has given him a false love confession.
- The Unmasking: Ladybug's identity is revealed to Chat Noir when the pacifier she took away by accident is found on the roof of her house. Char Noir later unmasks himself to Ladybug at the end of the fic.
