I'm Sure You'll Think I'm Selfish
Sabine greets her daughter and her boyfriend warmly as they enter the bakery. Marinette's response is oddly flat, something that doesn't go unnoticed even as Sabine and Tom do their best to sell the idea that one of their customers canceled their 'special order', leaving them with a whole bunch of opera cakes. Maybe a couple of hungry teenagers can take care of them for them~?
As the happy couple settles down in the living room, Luka remarks that she's got some really great parents. Marinette agrees... save for when they get akumatized over petty things like Chat Noir not wanting to date her or fighting over whether she should get a motorcycle. But oh, yeah, they're wonderful. Really.
Silently, Luka reflects that she's being a bit unfair. After all, he remembers just how hard it was to try and resist Hawkmoth's influence, how his powers amplified negative emotions to the point where even the smallest slight felt like a massive injustice. But at the same time, he knows a huge chunk of her memories — everything related to being Ladybug and the Guardian — were erased when she renounced her position. Ripped straight from her mind, another loss linked to her years of service.
He asks whether she's been watching old news footage of her fights again. Marinette quietly admits it, noting that the Ladyblog's not an option anymore, and that she finds it... interesting, what sort of things people got akumatized for. She starts quietly breaking down, imagining what it would be like if she had to make some excuse and ditch their date, while Luka reminds her that it's not going to happen. That's not her responsibility anymore.
Turning their attention back to the cakes, Luka declares that they might well be the best ones he's ever tasted. Marinette briefly beams at the compliment, before worriedly wondering whether he's just saying that. As he reassures her, Luka feels a flash of anger towards those who conditioned her to have such low self-esteem, thinking that the Order of the Guardians has a lot to answer for.
As they cuddle on the couch, he reflects back on how timid Marinette was when they first got back together. How she constantly tried catering to his every whim, seemingly terrified of expressing any of her own wants, wishes or desires. How he had to gently, carefully coax her into sharing her feelings, and how terrified she was of seeming selfish. While she lost all her memories relating to Ladybug, she still recalls the civilian side of her life, as well as vague impressions of her heroic past. And that seemed to have left her completely convinced that she wasn't allowed to have any hopes or dreams of her own.
Her letter continued with her expressing her certainity that Luka would see her desire to quit as selfish. And she admitted that it might well be, for she knew how much everyone was counting on her. That she was lucky to have shelter, steady meals, a loving family... and superpower.
But being Ladybug meant carrying the safety of Paris on her shoulders. And her performance was constantly critiqued and criticized. Any slip, any mistake was held against her, even as everybody expected her to save them all. Everyone else could get angry and akumatized as much as they wanted, without even trying to resist, while she had to bury her emotions, keep them hidden away where Hawkmoth couldn't reach.
She admits to Luka that she's tired. Tired of seeing news reports focusing on her mistakes over her successes, spinning baseless speculation for the sake of ratings. Tired of dealing with a 'partner' who takes advantage of how she's stuck putting up with his bad behavior, and with people getting akumatized over the pettiest of reasons. Tired of repeat offenders like Xavier Ramier, who refuses to get any help dealing with his issues and takes her saving him completely for granted.
She's spent two years sacrificing parts of her personal life so that she could race off and save the day, over and over. And now she sees that the people of Paris have apparently decided that that's just fine by them. That none of them mind being completely reliant upon her and her alone.
But she can't handle it anymore.
This chapter contains examples of:
- All Take and No Give:
- Marinette is used to being the Giver, and to having her gifts go unappreciated or get picked apart and deemed unsatisfactory. This makes her fret over whether or not Luka really likes the cakes she made.
- This is also how she views her dynamic with all of Paris. While she was fighting to protect everyone, the citizens of Paris began taking her presence for granted, simply expecting her to continue fighting for them so that they didn't have to do anything.
- Backhanded Apology: In her letter, Marinette recounts having fought Mr. Pigeon for a solid hour during one of their many encounters. After he'd been cured, Xavier tossed an off-handed 'sorry' her way, more interested in finding more birds to feed.
- Blatant Lies: The whole pretext of the opera cakes being a 'special order' that some 'customer' canceled. Luka points out what a Contrived Coincidence it is that half the cakes just happen to be colored blue and green, his favorite colors, while the other half just happen to have Marinette's face frosted on them.
- Disappointed by the Motive: For Marinette, this applies to anyone who got akumatized over petty, frivolous or trivial matters. All the more so since she was constantly repressing her own emotions.I'm tired of people getting so upset over trivial things like losing a game, bread that isn't baked the 'right' way, or someone insulting a panther, that Hawkmoth can corrupt them — while I can't even let myself cry over losing the love of my life or disappointing those around me yet again.
- Entitled Bastard: On top of how it seemed that Paris was taking her protection for granted, Marinette began to suspect some felt entitled to being akumatized as an easy outlet for their frustrations, expecting her to save them from the consequences of their actions.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Luka knows that renouncing her guardianship erased all of Marinette's memories about her time as Ladybug, along with everything involving the Miraculouses. However, she still has all her memories of the civilian side of her life, along with some Wistful Amnesia regarding her time as a superheroine.
- Opportunistic Bastard:
- Chat Noir exploited his 'partnership' with Ladybug, letting her shoulder the burden of being The Reliable One while he screwed around to his heart's content. This included screwing with her, taunting, teasing, and harassing her, knowing that she had to put up with and try to placate him so that they wouldn't get akumatized.
- Marinette also believes that certain citizens saw nothing wrong with letting themselves get akumatized, since they assumed she'd always be around to save them.
- The Reliable One: Deconstructed; Marinette strove to be this, both as Ladybug and as 'regular old Marinette', only to find that people were relying upon her too much, offering her nothing in return.
- The Resenter:
- Over time, Marinette came to resent how she was constantly forced to push her own needs, wants and feelings aside in order to focus upon her myriad responsibilities. She grew especially resentful of everyone who got akumatized for petty, silly reasons, since she wasn't allowed to express her own negative emotions.
- This includes her own parents, causing her to react coolly upon encountering them in the bakery. Privately, Luka thinks that she's judging them too harshly, not taking into consideration just how powerful Hawkmoth's influence was and how hard it was to resist akumatization once he was pumping his power through you.
- Self-Care Epiphany: A key part of why she wanted to quit: as long as she was Ladybug, Marinette couldn't take care of herself, as she kept putting everything else first. She couldn't allow herself a single Moment of Weakness for fear Hawkmoth would exploit it.
- Taking Advantage of Generosity: Luka reflects that Marinette is far too used to being on the bad end of this; when he compliments the opera cakes, she doesn't look convinced, and he mentally rails against the ones "who had taught her that generosity just meant pain, that any gift given was a promise to do more and more forever and to accept the blame when any future present inevitably proved to have even the tiniest of flaws".
