Scarlet Lady / Tropes S

"Scarlet Lady's ego is so big she needs this many trope pages!"

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• Sadist Teacher: In "Copycat," Adrien's fencing instructor D'Argencourt rejects his request to go get some water, bluntly informing him that his technique has gotten sloppier and that they're going to do some one-on-one training instead.
• Sadly Mythtaken: In-Universe. Alix has to constantly correct Jalil on pretty much everything in Egyptian history and mythology and figures out that he is the akuma when the akuma invokes Thoth for time-powers because "Only he would get the God of Writing and Magic so wrong."
• Sarcasm Mode: The tagline for the page where Lila claims Volpina is "Stronger and more famous than Scarlet Lady" reads, "Ah yes, more powerful and more famous which is why no one's heard of her."
• Saying Too Much:
  • Scarlet Lady blurts out a lot of details about how bad her day's been going in "Dark Cupid"; it might've allowed Chat Noir to discover her civilian identity if he weren't too distracted fighting a brainwashed Marigold to pay attention.
  • Penny idly blurts out in "Troublemaker" that Jagged is paying child support in front of Marinette and Sabine. When she realizes her mistake, she immediately hands them an NDA to sign.
  • Chat Noir tells Marigold in "Prime Queen" that he knows Marinette in his civilian identity. Meanwhile, Marigold's reaction to this makes Adrien suspect Marigold is Marinette.
  • At the beginning of "Style Queen," Pollen accidentally lets it slip to Marinette that she knows the identities of Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir.
• The Scapegoat: Any time one of Chloé's schemes gets exposed, she attempts to pin the blame on Sabrina. It never works.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Max's glasses do this to help hide his expression while he's trying to play off his loss in "The Gamer." This happens again later in the same episode when Scarlet Lady praises him for only targeting Marinette and leaving Adrien alone.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!:
  • Chloé loves invoking her father's status as Mayor of Paris to get her way. The success rate is mixed, though.
    • Like in the show, Chloé namedrops her father in "Lady Wifi" to pressure Principal Damocles into severely punishing Alya for a minor infraction. However, it's even more exaggerated than the canon example due to how Alya actually looked inside Marinette's locker in the comic, explained she and Marinette exchanged locker combinations, and is suspended before the school has even notified Marinette. Ultimately subverted when Alya's mother calls the school to complain about not being notified of her daughter's suspension, which leads to the punishment being lifted.
    • Deconstructed when Chloé makes her father fire Roger for refusing to break the law at her demand. It shocks Roger and Sabrina so much that they look into things and discover that the mayor never actually had the power to do that in the first place. The next time Chloé tries the same tactic, Roger coolly informs her how empty her threat is.
    • She only has to hold up her phone in "Despair Bear" to get Principal Damocles to exempt her from the school-wide punishment everyone else receives.
    • Also deconstructed when Scarlet Lady announces that Chloé is her best friend. Rather than salvage Chloé's reputation, it horrifies Scarlet Lady's fans that their idol is close with a girl they all despise.
    • "Frozer" has Chloé convince her father to shut down the ice rink and replace it with a gym, all so she can ruin Marinette and Adrien's first date. Mayor Bourgeois ultimately backs off after Adrien endorses the rink, knowing how much shutting the rink down will infuriate the model's fans, though by then, Chloé no longer cares.
    • Chloé railroads her father into abusing his power to shut down Clara Nightingale's music video shoot. However, André is much less keen about doing so this time around and only complies when she threatens to call Audrey if he doesn't do what she demands (and even then, it's more because he fears how Chloé will react once Audrey makes it clear she doesn't care about whatever Chloé's going through). Moreover, Clara gets to film her music video in the end anyway due to Sabrina recognizing André's lie about the singer missing a permit.
  • Bob Roth openly taunts Marinette and Luka in "Silencer" by proclaiming nobody will believe Kitty Section's claims about the record company owner's plagiarism since they aren't as well connected as he is. He then threatens to use his connections to destroy their careers. Later, while fleeing Silencer, Bob Roth tries to ensure his safety by calling the mayor himself, unaware that Silencer anticipated this and has already dealt with André.
  • Subverted when Audrey Bourgeois attempts to fire Nathalie after the latter tells the fashion critic to go to her assigned seat in the second row. Nathalie points out she doesn't even work for Audrey, so Audrey calls Gabriel to get him to fire Nathalie, only for him to not answer the phone (and even if he had, it's extremely unlikely he would've dismissed Nathalie).
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!:
  • Mayor Bourgeois fires Roger in "Rogercop" for refusing to break the law for Chloé's spurious accusations. Deconstructed, as the mayor's self-serving actions and abuse of power cost him voters, and either way, he doesn't actually have the power to fire Roger.
  • In "Frightingale", he makes up a rule to stop Clara's music video shoot from going on.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!:
  • Sabrina gets the heck out of dodge when Alya tries to share her Scarlet Lady theories with her.
  • Similarly, after Sabrina shows Chloé the video of Lila claiming that she's close to Scarlet Lady and pointing out that Lila's dragging Adrien off to the library, Sabrina walks off rather than have herself get dragged into Chloé's counterattack.
  • Chat Noir, faced with the bickering pair of Scarlet Lady and Volpina, simply bails and goes home, leaving his partner to deal with the new "hero" and the fake Hawk Moth trap. (The author says Adrien only realizes Volpina's identity as Lila, not that she is an akuma.)
  • When Evillustrator attacks Chloé with a giant hair blower, Marinette and Sabrina opt to get the heck out of dodge. Evillustrator then leaves himself after getting annoyed by Chat Noir's puns.
  • Scarlet Lady does this in "Anansi" when she freaks out after seeing the akuma is a spider-like being, using the fact that she needs to recharge after using Lucky Charm as an excuse to get away.
  • XY has this reaction in "Guitar Villain" after the titular akuma is defeated, calling both Scarlet Lady and Jagged Stone crazy, declaring he's going home, and telling the Ladybug heroine to stay away from him.
  • Scarlet Lady walks out on Nadja's interview in "Prime Queen" out of frustration that the interview isn't centered on her. Chat Noir and Marigold follow suit, though their reason is that the reporter's questions being too invasive of their personal lives.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Nathalie is shown to be fully aware of her boss's alter ego early on; when she realizes that she doesn't have a birthday gift for Adrien to stick Gabriel's name on, she claims otherwise before muttering "Don't akumatize me."
  • When the dust settles in "Reflekta," Chat Noir, Scarlet Lady, and Juleka all know that Marinette was Maotif. Marinette also directly gives Juleka permission to tell Alya, though she also bars the reporter from sharing that information on her Ladyblog.
  • Adrien is a bad one for Master Fu in "Syren." He visits Fu in hero form, which is against the rules. He also brings Marigold along, drawing a rebuke and later the punishment of having to take down and reorganize Master Fu's entire pantry.
  • Many people learn that Marinette is Multimouse in "Puppeteer" after she deliberately blows her cover to avoid future conflict with her role as Marigold. Though Manon gets Roger, Nathaniel, Alya, and Scarlet Lady to "pinkie swear" to secrecy, the end of "Reverser" reveals that the other members of the art club have since found out that Marinette was Maotif and Multimouse, and she doesn't mind being included in Nathaniel and Marc's comic as either of them so much as she does about making Pollen jealous.
  • In "Frightningale", Marigold and Chat Noir can't separate Lila and Sabrina in order to give them a Miraculous without them becoming suspicious of each other's identities, so they allow them to know each other's identities in the first place.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: "Desperada" reveals that Luka and Juleka know that Jagged Stone is their father, but they haven't told him or Anarka about it. Penny also knows, and she knows that the kids know, but she hasn't told anyone else either.
  Juleka: Funny they think me and Luka don't know.
  Penny: Yup. Hilarious.
• Secret Test of Character: Seen in "Evillustrator" when Master Fu approaches Marinette directly and offers to walk her home.
• Seen It All: Played for Laughs. Due to being a celebrity and Gabriel's son, Adrien doesn't bat an eye upon learning that Luka and Juleka's mysterious father can't show up at a cinema without causing a scene and that twins need to speak to him through his manager. His lack of reaction is juxtaposed to Marinette's wide eyes and sweatdrops.
• Selective Obliviousness: "Reflekta" has Chloé acting like she doesn't understand the concept of shame (as in being ashamed of her actions). She clearly, however, understands the concept as it applies to humiliating others.
• Self-Serving Memory: Chloé to a T; she deludes herself into thinking she was chosen to wield the Ladybug Miraculous, ignoring Tikki's furious reminders that it was meant for Marinette.
• Sequel Hook: "Prime Queen" ends with Chat Noir and Marigold starting to figure out each other's identities.
• Servile Snarker: As Hawk Moth is akumatizing Simon into Simon Says, Nathalie grumbles under her breath that she doesn't get paid enough for this. She later blurts out a tired "M. Agreste... the #$%@." as she is getting drawn into the Collector's book, and the author's notes deliver a sarcastic "I'll be taking my vacation days now, sir."
• Setting Update: Unlike the series, where it seems to be always summer, this AU pays attention to a timeline and seasons. Sometimes this causes a credibilily stretch. For example, in "Syren" when Kim jumps into the flood water for a swim and invites others in, Max says, "Kim. No. It's February." The author comments, "Just... assume the pool is heated okay?"
• Shades of Conflict: The story's central conflict is Chat Noir and Marigold (unambiguously heroic) plus Scarlet Lady (personally selfish and cruel, but on the heroes' side for personal glory) vs Hawk Moth (evil, but with at least understandable motivations).
• Ship Tease: Nathaniel dances with Marc to avoid having to dance with Chloé and thinks, "Wait, isn't this person way too cute?"
• Shipper on Deck:
  • The Gorilla offers Marinette as a female partner for Adrien's photo shoot.
  • The Bubbler immediately agrees to play a slow song when he sees that Marinette and Adrien are together.
  • In general, pretty much everyone who sees Marinette and Adrien together tends to ship them... except, of course, for Chloé.
• Shipping Torpedo: When her parents apologize to each other at the end of "Crocoduel" after realizing their breakup was actually caused by Bob Roth, Juleka asks her father not to get back together with Anarka. He reassures her that that ship has sailed.
• Shockingly Expensive Bill: Sabine gets back at Chloé for stealing Marinette's diary by severely increasing the price for a bag of cookies (the kind Chloé orders regularly to feed Tikki).
• Shoot the Messenger:
  • When Sabrina informs Chloé in "The Bubbler" that the latter's present for Adrien won't get delivered for another week, Chloé responds by hitting her with her own tablet.
  • Because Nathalie informed Audrey that Gabriel assigned the fashion critic a seat in the second row, Audrey tries to get Nathalie fired.
• Shout-Out:
  • When heading to record the first akuma attack, Alya wonders how Lois Lane can do this and still look perfect.
  • The writer makes a joke about "r/weathergirlthings" in regards to Stormy Weather.
  • After Chloé's plagiarism is exposed, Adrien gets cat eyes while the prompt "Adrien will remember that" appears over his head. It's noted that Sabrina will remember Chloé trying to make her The Scapegoat as well, though Mme. Bustier probably won't remember either.
  • Marinette's reaction to the robot eye camera that the Agrestes use is to assume that HAL 9000 works for them.
  • Sabrina and her father both make the "Surprised Pikachu face" in response to Chloé ordering her father to fire Roger and her father obeying.
  • After Chloé attempts to scapegoat Sabrina again for stealing Marinette's diary, the prompt "Sabrina will remember that" appears.
  • In "Reflekta," Chloé's belief that the front row of class pictures is for babies reaches the level where she calls the students there "Rugrats."
  • As part of his plan to distract Reflekta, Chat Noir calls her "Harley Quinn."
  • In Part 8 of "Volpina," there's a tagline reading "Team Rocket blasting off again...in different directions...separately."
  • Lila's line, "Arrivederci, weirdo!" from "Volpina," is a direct quote from The Most Popular Girls in School.
  • A tagline from Part 5 of "The Collector" mocks, "#gabriel in his office having the most unemotional temper tantrum ala The Room."
  • Vanisher's redesign includes floating fingers that are reminiscent of the ones from Peridot's limb enhancers.
  • In "Captain Hardrock," a tagline says Marinette Matrix Dodged Alya's hint about Adrien.
  • One of the taglines for Part 14 of "Syren" is "The cold never bothered me anyway."
  • To prevent Scarlet Lady from telling Marigold what happened while the latter was under Dark Cupid's influence, Chat Noir tells the former to leave before she turns "into a pumpkin."
  • At the end of "Pixelator," Penny hands out the tickets to Jagged's concert in a way that acts as an homage to the candy cane-gram scene from Mean Girls.
  • Chloé's pizza order in "Guitar Villain" is "no sauce, no cheese, and gluten-free crust." This is a reference to the episode "Pizza Street" from The Most Popular Girls in School.
  • One of the many wrong names Chloé calls her butler is Jean-Deer, a pun on the John Deere brand of machinery.
  • In "Troublemaker," Scarlet Lady takes her time going to the aid of Chat Noir and Marigold. She shops for frozen treats that look like Chibi versions of herself, saying, "Can I get five more of these blonde b**ches?" This comes from a "Barcelona Meme" — the author provides a link for reference.
  • Luka finds out in "Silencer" that Chloé copied Marinette's costume design for XY, which the heiress denies. They have an exchange out of Drake & Josh:
    Chloé: I worked so hard on that mask! Are you calling me a liar?
    Luka: I'm not calling you a truther!
  • The Running Gag of characters exploiting apparent moments of weakness in an opponent while shouting "an opening!" appears in Real Life comedic manga, such as Ranma ½.
  • When the girls debate how to punish the guys at the end of "Party Crasher," Kim declares, "I volunteer as tribute!"
  • Adrien reveals in "Frozer" that Kagami learned to skate after watching Ranma ½'s Skating Arc.
  • When the Mayor stops Clara Nightingale's music video shoot in "Frightingale," he claims she didn't submit permit A38 as stipulated by circular B65.
• The Show Must Go Wrong: The class's amateur film in "Horrificator" careens Off the Rails well before Mylène gets akumatized into the titular beast.
• Silver Spoon Troublemaker: Chloé is an entitled brat who's willing to do anything, up to and including attempted murder, just to fulfill her whims. The story balances it out with Chloé being incredibly incompetent and reality giving her a slap every so often.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • Chloé when it comes to akuma attacks. The Bubbler just captured all the adults in Paris and is forcing her to attend a party on threat of joining them? Perfect time to cozy up to Adrien! The same akuma allows a slow dance between Adrien and Marinette? He's going down.
  • Played for Laughs when Stormy Weather starts attacking people at the park, only to pause and openly wonder why she's even there when asked about it, noting that "It's just balloons." Proceeds to get Zig-Zagged when she ends up going after a balloon seller, demanding to know where HER balloons are, and learns that the sellers were instructed to only make merchandise for Mireille.
  • "Copycat" opens with Chloé prepping for the big statue unveiling by putting on makeup... including lots of eyeshadow. Tikki points out that she'll be wearing a mask, meaning that nobody's going to be able to see her handiwork. (Chloé, naturally, completely ignores her.)
  • "The Pharaoh" sees Chloé blowing off the notion of studying for her upcoming midterm, as she expects Sabrina to do all the work for her. Tikki's attempt to convince her to take Sabrina on a nice outing to the museum leads to her heading there alone under the mistaken impression that there's a dedicated Ladybug exhibit, ditching Sabrina in the process.
  • In the same episode, Marinette lightly teases Alya about her questionable priorities, suggesting that if her friend didn't focus so much on Scarlet Lady or the lipstick the heroine dropped and studied more, she might not be so stressed about midterms.
  • Nino lets being the director really go to his head during "Horrificator." When Mylène runs off, he's more concerned about getting their flick filmed and remains fixated on it even after classmates start disappearing. When Chat Noir shows up, Nino goes into starry-eyed wonder over the thought of the hero starring in his movie.
  • Faced with her "best friend" blue-screening after her wild accusations got Sabrina's father fired, Chloé doesn't bat a lash before roughly demanding Sabrina surrender her bag to be searched.
  • Chloé is so singularly focused upon getting Marinette punished for supposedly stealing her bracelet (despite the overwhelming lack of evidence) that when Rogercop shows up looking to arrest Mayor André for abusing his powers, she drags Marinette after the akuma and tries to get him to arrest her. She even gets into Rogercop's car and lets him drive off her and Marinette, effectively getting herself and Marinette kidnapped in the process, all because Rogercop agreed to discuss Chloé's request if she does. Moreover, she does this despite how Roger's refusal to act without evidence led to his firing and akumatization in the first place.
  • Jagged tries to go out into the street to gives his fans what they want even as Darkblade begins his attack.
  • In "The Gamer," Chloé really doesn't gives a damn about her class being part of a game competition or even that Adrien has been selected to be one of the representatives... until she finds out that Marinette was the other student selected. That puts her on a very serious warpath.
  • Used for a Mood Whiplash moment in "Timebreaker." When Marinette reveals that she's recording the heroine slacking off, Scarlet Lady prioritizes yelling at her for "threatening the hero of Paris" over actually dealing with the akuma. As a direct result, Scarlet gets tagged in the back.
  • In "Kung Food," Chloé is more concerned about her hair being ruined by the soup she's suspended over than she is about being boiled alive if she were to fall into it.
  • Chloé makes faces at Chat Noir (that he can't see because she's invisible) in "Vanisher" when the latter says he'll double his efforts in Scarlet Lady's absence, despite the fact that his efforts are (as far as she knows) her only hope of rescue from the akuma.
  • In "Riposte," Scarlet Lady is so obsessed with finding out where Adrien is she doesn't care if she detransforms in front of the cameras. Chat Noir tricks her into leaving by pointing out that they'd see her with messy hair.
  • Chloé isn't too bothered about the possibility of her father and his orchestra being attacked by Captain Hardrock, but she freaks out when she realizes XY is also in danger.
  • "Syren" starts with Chloé refusing to help corral the escaped zoo animals, not wanting to bother leaving for such an unglamorous task. She's outraged when that gives Chat Noir the chance to give an interview without her, something she treats as a personal betrayal on his behalf.
  • Alya panics in "Animan" over being locked away while her father is an akuma because she's not getting footage, as she considers it to be the only thing that makes her relevant since "Scarlet Lady only works with real reporters."
  • In "Pixelator," Jagged Stone wants to sacrifice his life for Paris because it will improve his ratings.
  • In a bonus panel of "Anansi," Hawkmoth knows the titular akuma has a grudge against his son but decides to akumatize her anyway because the ring and the earrings would look so sick on him. As the panel's tagline says, Excellent set of priorities, Gabby.
  • In "Ikari Gozen," Chloé gets imprisoned inside the villain's car body and complains about the lack of Bluetooth in there, while Tikki thinks to herself about how transforming would reveal Scarlet Lady's secret identity.
  • Officer Raincomprix's first reaction to the titular akuma in "Reverser" is to ask if Reverser has vehicle registration for their paper plane.
    Nathaniel: [thinking] Is M. Raincomprix blind?!
    Tags: #roger: 'oh this person looks like two toned origami and is floating 10 feet in the air...do they have a license though?!
  • In "Malediktator", Chloé is at first glad when her akumatized father says he now can punish those who were mean to her and only decides to transform when he brainwashes Audrey into acting sickeningly sweet towards him, which Chloé finds gross. Then there's this exchange:
    Tikki: Now, aren't you sorry for hurting your father's feelings?
    Chloé: I'm sorry I'm about to transform in this rank subway.
  • In "Queen Wasp", even while akumatized, Chloé still refuses to go into places she considers gross, so she leaves Chat Noir and Marigold alone after they hide from her in the river.
• Skipping School: Marigold finds Théo and Mireille in one of Pixelator's photos. They explain they were walking on the Champs-Élysées when he took their picture. She asks them, "What were you doing on the Champs-Élysées on a school day?"
• The Slacker:
  • Scarlet prefers leaving the bulk of the fighting to her "sidekick" while she stays well out of harm's way, primping and preening to prepare for any after-battle interviews.
  • When Timebreaker attacks, Chloé's concerned that the akuma's too fast and transforms, but all she does as Scarlet Lady is move to a high ledge to wait out the fight.
• Slave to PR:
  • Exploited by Adrien. Every time his father treats his friends badly or tries to deny Adrien his freedom, he responds by threatening to do something that'll damage the Gabriel brand, usually dying his hair neon colors or wearing Impossibly Tacky Clothes in public.
  • Despite his resentment of the heroes, Gabriel begrudgingly has Adrien play Chat Noir in Clara Nightingale's music video because it'll help promote the designer's new stores in Korea and China.
• Sneeze Cut:
  • Referenced but not shown in "Kung Food": after Adrien says his father has no taste, the author notes in the tags, "Somewhere Gabriel is having a sneezing fit."
  • Played straight in "Evillustrator": when Sabrina says, "Day 1 of no Chloé is already amazing," the next panel shows Chloé sneezing.
  • In "Sapotis," when Hawkmoth senses Ella and Etta's unhappiness, he says that children should be free to do whatever they like. Cut to Adrien sneezing.
• Snowball Lie: In "The Collector" Adrien tells his father that he lost the book, rather than admit he gave it to the Guardian. Marinette knows she returned the lost book to Adrien, and tells others in the classroom. Chloé refuses to listen to this and wants to hunt down Lila for stealing the book. The consequences of Adrien's lie are escalating.
• The Sociopath: Chloé/Scarlet Lady has no understanding of empathy, sympathy, love, honesty, politeness, mercy, friendship, or any type of positive emotion. She first shows her true lack of regard for others when Volpina threatens to blow up a building unless she surrenders her Miraculous. She refuses, stating that when she wins, she'll just bring back the people that died, leaving even a chronic liar like Volpina to regard her as a monster.
• Something Only They Would Say:
  • In "The Pharaoh," Alix figures out the titular villain is her brother by how inaccurate the akuma's characterizations of the Egyptian gods are.
    Alix: [hearing Jalil invoke Thoth for time powers] Only he would get the god of writing and magic so wrong.
  • More like "Only Something They Would Do," but when Horrificator just licks Ivan and leaves instead of attacking him, everyone realizes Mylène is the akuma.
  • Hearing Maotif remark that they fight akumas without powers all the time, complete with a Secret Message Wink, is what makes Adrien realize Maotif is really Marinette.
  • In "Timebreaker," Adrien believes Chat Noir to be his future self because Chat Noir uses his nickname for Scarlet Lady.
  • Similar to Horrificator, Lila's theft of the Grimoire is what convinces Adrien to consider that she really is friends with Scarlet Lady.
  • Viperion and Purple Tigress realize each other's secret identity is when both Speak in Unison about how they saw the record breaking just as their parents became akumatized.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • The comic starts off with Master Fu's plan to make Marinette the Ladybug hero going awry due to Chloé stealing the Ladybug earrings from Marinette's purse before the latter even noticed they were in there.
  • Chloé's attempt to steal Marinette's hat design for the derby contest fails because Marinette had hidden her name in the hat's embroidery. Downplayed, as Marinette points out that even ignoring how her name was on both hats, she still had the original sketches, while Chloé obviously didn't.
  • Marinette throws a spanner in Chloé's plans for easily winning the Class President elections again when she declares her candidacy, undeterred by Chloé's threats. She then handily wins the election despite Chloé throwing a lavish campaign launch and giving away Jagged Stone albums to her classmates. While Marinette did prove her competency for the role when Darkblade attacked, the class later reveal that Marinette not being Chloé was enough of a reason for them to choose her, and that they only attended the latter's campaign launch for the freebies, not because they intended on actually voting for her.
  • When Chloé orders Sabrina to steal Marinette's diary, the box it is in unexpectedly clamps onto Sabrina's wrist. Not only does this reveal Chloé's attempted theft to the entire class, but Sabrina ends up tearfully begging Marinette to take the box off and lets her have the diary back as well, depriving Chloé of any potential blackmail.
  • Lila encounters a few of these in "Volpina":
    • She lies about being best friends with Scarlet Lady, hoping to get more attention from her new classmates. Unfortunately, she didn't count on Scarlet Lady secretly being the Alpha Bitch in her class, who overhears the lie and then outs Lila as a liar before throwing her into a fountain, all in front of the classmates Lila was trying to impress.
    • Lila steals Gabriel's book from Adrien, hoping to use it to make her story that she's a superhero seem more believable, then throws it away once she's done with it. Her plan is derailed due to Plagg telling Adrien she stole the book. Additionally, Marinette later just happens to find the book while passing through the park and decides to show it to Adrien, making him realize that only did Lila steal from him, she threw his father's book away instead of trying to discretely return it, thus cementing his dislike of her.
    • Adrien tells Lila that even discounting the Contrived Coincidence of her divulging that she's secretly a superhero right after he noticed Gabriel's book was missing from his bag, he knew right away she was lying about being saved by Scarlet Lady; the Ladybug heroine being a Nominal Hero and constantly pushing all the work onto Chat Noir was all it took for Lila's claims to fall apart.
  • Defied when Mme. Bustier forces the class to invite Chloé to Marinette's birthday party. Knowing their bully will try to ruin things, Alya assigns Sabrina as the "Chloé wrangler," and the latter follows Chloé around, swiftly undoing any sabotage Chloé tries to commit.
  • Vanisher might've won if Master Fu hadn't decided on that particular occasion to give Marinette the Bee Miraculous, allowing her to make her debut as Marigold. Both her Venom attack and her plan to use nearby flowers to track Vanisher's movements were instrumental to the akuma's defeat.
  • Kim ends up ruining the class's plans to go see a movie when he mentions Chloé to Ondine as he's rushing to leave the pool. Ondine is soon afterwards akumatized due to jumping to the false conclusion that Kim likes Chloé and subsequently floods the entire city as Syren.
  • In "Dark Cupid," Kim's plan to ask Ondine to be his girlfriend would've gone off without a hitch if Chloé hadn't just happened to cross the bridge while Kim was waiting for Ondine there. Wrongly assuming that Kim's gift was for herself, Chloé unwittingly causes a misunderstanding when Ondine arrives moments later, which leads to Kim's akumatization.
  • After successfully infecting nearly all of Paris, including both Chat Noir and Scarlet Lady, Zombizou's Near-Villain Victory gets derailed when Marigold unlocks her Next Tier Power-Up, "Bee Balm," which allows her to free Zombizou's victims from the akuma's control.
  • Marinette's plan to get Marc to team up with Nathaniel goes pear-shaped when Chloé by chance overhears Alix and Nathaniel discussing the drawings he posted on the school blog and then discovers the drawings mock both her civilian and superhero identities. Chloé subsequently crashes Marc and Nathaniel's meeting and rips up the former's journal, triggering their akumatization.
• Speak in Unison:
  • In "Vanisher," three people exclaim, "Who are you?!" at the public debut of Marigold, the Bee heroine (though only two of them are really audible).
  • Chloé and the titular akuma in "Princess Fragrance" simultaneously yell, "How dare yoooou!": the akuma because she sees people escaping with Prince Ali and Chloé because she wasn't allowed in the getaway car.
  • Viperion and Purple Tigress do this in "Crocoduel," causing them to realize each other's secret identities.
  • In "Prime Queen," Chat Noir, Marigold, and Scarlet Lady all lament, "You've got to be kidding me," when the titular akuma states the former two have disappointed their fans by refusing to admit they're a couple.
• Speak of the Devil:
  • Adrien invokes this trope in "Volpina" when Scarlet Lady suddenly appears, saying, "Dammit, we said her name too many times."
  • In "Evillustrator," when the titular akuma invites Marinette on a date, Marinette declares that her first objective is to contact Chat Noir. No sooner do the words leave her mouth than he comes in through her window.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Lady Luck (Miraculous Ladybug). Both fics are based around the same premise: what if, instead of Marinette, Chloé ended up with the Ladybug earrings instead. In Lady Luck (Miraculous Ladybug), Chloé takes it as a cue that she needs to become a better person and starts behaving more like a hero, treating Chat Noir as well as she can and doing her best to stop akumas. In this fic, she merely sees the earrings as something to make her famous, not even bothering with fighting and only becoming famous due to her skills in working the media. Chat Noir also utterly loathes her, and the two are at each other's throats all the time, mostly because she makes him do all the work when it comes to fighting akumas and trying to stop Hawk Moth.
• Spit Take:
  • Juleka gets this reaction from Penny by calling her "a cool step-manager."
  • Bob Roth delivers one upon reading his notice of termination.
• Splash of Color:
  • Tools made by the Lucky Charm are colored red.
  • Scarlet Lady has a red lipstick vial that she uses to touch up her makeup while Chat fights an akuma without her. Her lips are the same color.
  • Hawk Moth's speech bubbles when communicating with akuma targets have a light violet glow around white outlines; the mask outlines have them, too.
  • The scarf Marinette made for Adrien's birthday is colored in when he wears it.
  • At the end of "The Bubbler," the shadows on Adrien's hair are tinted light green after he dyes it.
  • Chat Noir's eyes are colored green in the dark or when he's using night vision. Similarly, in "Reflekta," when Marinette uses the Cat Miraculous to become Maotif, she gets blue eyes when using night vision.
  • Similarly, the suspiciously spotted object Alya sees Marinette putting into her locker at the start of "Lady Wifi" and everything connected to her "special project" is colored in.
  • Pollen's eyes are coloured blue.
  • Princess Fragrance's perfume is hot pink when used for mind control and light green when used to make Chloé smell like rotten fish.
  • Nino/Fox Trot's Mirages are given an orange glow.
  • Alya/Koki Marina's Shell-ters are given a translucent green color.
  • Scarlet Moth and his akumas are colored red.
• Spot the Impostor: Defied—upon finding out there are two Chat Noirs running around in "Copycat," Scarlet Lady doesn't care that one of them might be innocent and opts to capture them both instead.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Stormy Weather realizes that something is off when she finds out that the balloon sellers in the park are all stocked up with balloons for Mireille's victory, but none for her—which would be impossible if the contest wasn't rigged.
  • Marinette immediately identifies Copycat as a fake not just because the real one wouldn't rob a museum in broad daylight, but because she recognizes the lollipop sticking out of his mouth as the same one the sculptor had.
  • Played for Drama in "Horrificator." When Chloé fakes her abduction so she can sneak off and transform, Sabrina doesn't believe that she was caught because nobody heard her scream. This leads to her frantically searching for her friend, afraid that if they leave without looking, she'll be stuck hiding alone with an akuma about...
  • In "Volpina," while Adrien was immediately suspicious when Lila claimed to have inherited a miraculous at the same time his father's book went missing, the real clincher for him was when she claimed that Scarlet Lady saved her life once, knowing that Scarlet Lady would never go out of her way to save another person.
  • Viperion and Purple Tigress realize each other's secret identities due to them speaking in unison, which also resulted in them each revealing information that only they could've known.
  • Word of God states this was how Jagged realized Luka and Juleka were his children, despite Anarka never telling him herself due to a misunderstanding. He realized based on when she gave birth that she got pregnant shortly before leaving their band, which, combined with how tightlipped Anarka is about the twins' father, had to mean that they're his. Luka and Juleka likewise did this to figure out Jagged is their father.
  • When visiting Adrien's home, Max notes the insane power supply they've got running. Adrien thinks it's the norm for his father, but Max points out it is incredibly not normal. Max later tells Marinette about it, which only reinforces her suspicions of Gabriel being Hawkmoth.
• Springtime for Hitler: Discussed. When Marinette struggles to design a new album cover that Bob Roth would approve of, Pollen asks her what her parents do with bad requests. Marinette responds that they usually make a sample of what the customer asked for just to prove how bad it is. Sometimes it works, but other times, it just makes the customer like it even more.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Marinette thinks Scarlet Lady is another one of Adrien's stalkers in "Simon Says" after the Ladybug heroine claims she knew Adrien was at the show because her "love radar always knows."
  • Scarlet even gives away her feelings to Gabriel, saying, "I'm the perfect match for your son, doncha think?"
  • Pixelator enjoys the idea that his power will make Jagged Stone "...mine and mine alone." Even Hawkmoth finds this creepy.
• Stating the Simple Solution:
  • Alya tries calling Marinette when she suspects the latter is Scarlet Lady. When she doesn't get a reply, Nino suggests that Alya just ask Marinette in the morning tomorrow, but she instead decides to break into Marinette's locker.
  • During "Mr. Pigeon," Sabrina reasons that if Chloé wants to steal one of Marinette's designs, it would be much easier to pick up and use one of the sketches she's balled up and discarded rather than going after the one she plans to enter into the contest. Chloé completely ignores her suggestion, though, and still decides to copy Marinette's entry.
  • André points out to Gina in "La Befana" that if she wanted to spend more time with her granddaughter, she could have just taken her to the party on her bike, which also might've given them a chance to discuss the matter and let Gina learn that she could attend said party, too, if she wanted.
  • As Nadja breaks down in tears in "Prime Queen" over the heroes walking out on her interview, a techie wonders whether they'd have a higher success rate if they didn't film every show at their station live.
  • In "Animan," Marinette points out that if Otis is concerned about his panther getting stressed out during her meal, he could just feed the panther in the back, away from the eyes of the public. Embarrassed, Otis threatens to have her banned from the zoo for daring to question his methods.
  • During "The Mime," as Marinette is having a downward spiral over accidentally erasing Alya's new video for the Ladyblog, Mylène points out they can just ask Alix if Max showed her how to recover deleted videos.
  • After helping deal with Party Crasher, Kim laments that his impulsive idea to exploit Gabriel's absence by hanging out with Adrien at Agreste Manor for a while resulted in the guys ditching their plans to meet up to plant trees with the girls, getting the guys in trouble with the girls in the process. Xuppu promptly asks, "Why can't you just say you're sorry and make it up to them?" and then suggests Kim is too chicken to do so. The guys are soon after seen groveling in front of the girls, who later supervise the guys as they are put to work making up for the tree-planting they missed out on.
• The Stations of the Canon: Per the author, the series sticks to canon events to a certain degree, with every bad guy being a canon one with similar origins to canon. The degree of similarity changes, and no villain is quite the same as in canon.
• Storm in a Teacup: During "The Mime," Marinette accidentally deletes a video off of Alya's cellphone and panics, convinced that this will destroy their friendship. After frantically trying to find some way of retrieving the lost data before Alya can find out, she confesses... only for Alya to reveal that all of her footage is automatically saved to the cloud, meaning her mistake was no big deal. She's only upset that Marinette wound up working herself into such a state over it.
• Strange Minds Think Alike:
  • When they first meet, Nino asks if Trixx is a genie, just like how Adrien asked if Plagg was one. Like Plagg, Trixx claims to be better than genies and able to turn people into superheroes.
  • Marinette and Adrien both have the same ideas at certain points:
    • Both of them end up using the identity granted to them by the Miraculous to avoid something attached to their civilian identities: Adrien uses his as a form Loophole Abuse to sneak out of the house when he isn't given permission while Marinette uses hers to help Chat Noir without breaking her promise that she made to him as a civilian not to do so.
    • When given a new Miraculous by the other, they each craft a situation where they mess up just enough that they will never be called on again.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Gabriel kept his son sheltered for years before allowing him to go to school, regularly lies to him, breaks multiple promises and generally shows disregard for Adrien's life except when it is convenient to him. And yet, he's surprised when Adrien outright tells him he doesn't trust him at all.
• Suspiciously Prescient Planning: In the comic's version of "Stormy Weather," shortly after getting akumatized over losing to Mireille in the weather girl contest, the titular akuma demands that a balloon seller explain why he only has merchandise celebrating Mireille's victory and not hers when Mireille had only just been declared the winner. After he nervously confesses all the sellers were instructed to only make Mireille merchandise, Stormy Weather connects the dots and figures out the contest was rigged against her.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • In "Timebreaker," Alix's father tells her that the rule that the last-born child gets the pocket watch most certainly wasn't made up just because of Jalil.
  • In "Dark Cupid," Marigold visits Adrien because she heard a rumor about him writing her a valentine, that she definitely didn't hear at his school. Adrien's response is that the valentine is to show appreciation for her as a hero and not because he has a crush on her.
• Swapped Roles:
  • "Animan" has Marinette go feral trying to ship Alya and Nino, instead of the usual scenario of Alya going feral trying to ship Marinette and Adrien.
  • In "Anansi," it is Nino who gets kidnapped by the villain and Alya who takes a heroic role to rescue him.
  • When Mme. Bustier is akumatized into Zombizou, Marinette becomes her main target instead of Chloé (who quickly transforms into Scarlet Lady), with the rest of the class and Chat Noir trying to protect her.
  • Going on from the above, it is usually Scarlet Lady who doesn't show up for a while (or at all in one case) because Chloé is usually the one targeted by the akuma; here, Scar shows up almost immediately while Marigold doesn't because the class and Chat Noir are unknowingly prolonging her absence by keeping Marinette close and thus preventing her from getting away to transform.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes:
  • Aurore apologizes to Mireille for letting herself get akumatized, saying that she shouldn't have been such a Sore Loser and should instead have just accepted her defeat with grace. Mireille then begs her to become the new weather girl, revealing Alec had rigged the contest; the two end up as co-hosts.
  • Played With in "The Gamer." Max becomes a Graceful Loser after being deakumatized and apologizes to Marinette for unfairly blaming her for "stealing" his spot in the tournament but still gets to play in it after all when Adrien (rather than Marinette) cedes his place to him due to Max being better at co-op.
  • Kagami accepts that she won't be joining the fencing team, only for Marinette and Adrien to convince D'Argencourt to give her another chance.
  • Wayhem realizes by the end of "Gorizilla" that he's been outright stalking Adrien and apologizes for his behavior. Adrien then rewards him by sharing his email address, offering to hang out with him in the future.
• Symbol Swearing:
  • Used when Adrien tells Nathalie to tell Gabriel, "F@$% YOU!" when she tries to keep him from leaving.
  • He does this again in a flashback in "Lady Wifi" in which Chat Noir is fighting an akuma while Scarlet Lady reapplies her lipstick, though it's anyone's guess whether he's cussing out the akuma or his partner.
  • Marinette gets a turn in "Copycat" when the titular villain abducts her.
  • Chloé's reaction to the pigeon invasion: "WHAT THE $@#$?!"
  • Nathalie does one when The Collector attacks her: "M. Agreste... the #$%@."
  • Penny yells, "Everybody, shut the $#%& up!" in "Troublemaker."
  • Chloé says, "Oh €%$#" when Luka gets akumatized right in front of her.