Webcomic / Feralnette AU

Art by jiso-lee

"I have nothing to prove because I have nothing left to lose."

— Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

The Feralnette AU by Big Fat Break explores yet another divergence of the events of Miraculous Ladybug. In the wake of Miracle Queen, with the constant threat of Hawkmoth looming over her head—made worse by his interest in akumatizing Marinette specifically—and Lila wrecking her social network, Marinette decides that it's simply impossible for her to juggle all her responsibilities. Something has to be sacrificed... and out of everything she does, the most disposable is her social life.

If she can convince everyone that she's no longer interested in being their "everyday Ladybug," abandoning all other interests in favor of focusing on her studies, then maybe she can throw Hawkmoth off her trail long enough to track him down. Even if that means distancing herself from everyone, letting their friendships finish withering away, it'll be worth it if she can protect them, right?

Enter New Transfer Student Felix, wearing a mask of his own. This pessimistic, withdrawn Marinette is the only version of her he's ever known... until he gets a glimpse of her Hidden Depths and is intrigued enough to start trying to get to know her better. And he's not the only one reaching out... and whether she realizes it or not, Marinette needs a trustworthy support network before she burns out.

The master post for the series can be found here. Named entries in the series include:

• "Chapter 1: Enough Rope": Sometime before Felix's arrival, Lila convinces Alya that she's got "insider information" about Chat Noir's plans for the upcoming fair—information that she happily shares with the rest of the class, unaware of just what she's feeding everyone.
• "Chapter 2: Even a Worm Will Turn": Felix arrives in Paris and gets the lay of the land, bringing an outsider's perspective into Ms. Bustier's classroom.
• "Chapter 3: Birds of a Feather": Marinette and Felix get to know each other better, while Gabriel's plans hit an unexpected snag. Lila starts upping her game.

The Feralnette premise has proven very popular in the fandom, even spawning an AO3 tag.

For more of Big Fat Break's work, check out the Dad Villain AU.

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This Fan Webcomic contains examples of:

• Adaptational Gender Identity: Felix is portrayed as nonbinary using he/they pronouns. In canon, he’s a cisgender male.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Downplayed with the Miracle Box kwami. While the majority canonically act like superpowered children and make endless trouble for Marinette while in her care, Birds of a Feather firmly establishes that they're all worried about her and want to avoid stressing her out any further, showing a degree of thoughtfulness their counterparts often lacked.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Adrien, Felix, Marinette, and Kagami are all bisexual. In canon, they are all straight. According to the author, all characters are assumed bisexual (except Gabriel) unless stated otherwise.
• Adults Are Useless:
  • Depends upon the adult in question, but it's noted that most students at Francoise Dupont have no faith in Principal Damocles or most of the teachers to actually do anything about the school attracting so many akumas.
  • In Birds of a Feather, Felix is aghast to learn that Lila was able to not only get Marinette expelled with her Blatant Lies, but admitted her deception later and was rewarded for 'coming clean about her lying disease'.
  • This is zig-zagged by Principal Damocles in Birds of a Feather. On one hand, he foils Lila's attempts to control the narrative by hearing Marinette out... but is also clearly swayed by his interest in how she's taken up boxing. Then there's the little detail that Chloé claims Marinette is tutoring her and outright forbade him from expelling her again, on pain of bringing her father's wrath down upon the school.
  • Also Played for Drama in Birds of a Feather - because of how they handled her wrongful expulsion, Marinette has come to see her parents as unreliable, at least when it comes to Lila. Sabine is mortified to learn that not only was her child wrongfully punished again, but that Marinette decided to handle the situation herself instead of coming to her for help, since she clearly didn't believe her mother would be helpful.
• All Take and No Give:
  • As Birds of a Feather illustrates, Ms. Bustier actively encourages the rest of the class to take advantage of others in this fashion, expecting Marinette to make all the costumes for Mylène's upcoming play just as a matter of course.
  • Birds of a Feather also has Kagami realizing that her relationship with Adrien falls into this; as deeply invested as she is in the notion that they're dating now, Adrien's been taking her presence completely for granted.
• Alternate Universe: Splits off from the canonverse after the events of the Season 3 finale, with Marinette breaking under the pressure and deciding to prioritize her Miraculous-related responsibilities over her civilian life.
• Amazonian Beauty: Marinette has gained some serious muscle from fencing training with Kagami, boxing training with Nora, and sparring with Chat Noir as Ladybug. Felix, Kagami, Adrien, and Nathaniel noticed and are very attracted to her.
• Amazon Chaser: Marinette seemed to gain the attention of Kagami, Felix, and Adrien (much to Gabriel's dismay) after she gained some muscle.
• Anger Born of Worry: Alya isn't happy after seeing Marinette get snagged by an akuma and tossed around, and tells her off for putting herself in harm's way. Marinette responds by pointing out just how hypocritical the Ladyblogger is being.
• Answer Cut: Combined with Tempting Fate: When Amelie calls Gabriel out on "staring at the children with that look on your face", Gabriel immediately asks "Like what?" Amelie appropriately demonstrates.
• Are We Getting This?: Like in canon, Alya embodies this trope's spirit to a tee. The problem, as Felix points out, is that she ends up being a hindrance to Ladybug—the hero she claims to admire so much and whom she wants to impress—in her reckless attempts to get footage. Some scenes later, Felix is shocked that Alya is filming his hypothesis on why White Knight's attack didn't work on Marc without his express consent. She answers that he unwittingly did a good recap for her viewers, not caring about getting permission.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Marinette hits Hawkmoth with one in Enough Rope by asking him what happened to Mayura, his Only Friend.
  • In Even a Worm May Turn, Felix's callout of Alya climaxes with one that renders her completely silent:
    Felix: If you've hurt her using her own personhood, hell, if you've hurt her on any aspect, it is not your call to prove her wrong. It's your job to apologize and promise to do better. It's your job to admit that YOU were wrong.
    Alya: ...even if she was wrong?
    Felix: Alya, we're not friends, but— would you treat anyone else like how you treat her?
  • Played for Laughs when Lila keeps hounding Marinette to spill what kind of club Felix is in:
    Marinette: Pfft, do you actually think that any harmless information should be open to the public?
    Lila: Obviously! Only guilty people hide things! I bet Felix isn't really in a club and he's in some shady gang.
    Marinette: Hey Lila, when did you last have your period?
    Lila: (after gaping at her in Stunned Silence) Why would you need to know something like that?!
    Marinette: Why not? It's harmless information. Why, are you hiding something, Lila?
• Armor-Piercing Response: Tom gets two of these in rapid succession when Sabine wants to punish Marinette for sneaking Felix into her room overnight in Birds of a Feather:
  Tom: But... she hasn't gone out to visit any friends for so long... I would rather she has friends that she sneaks in than no friends at all.
  Sabine: I understand. And it IS important that Marinette have her fun with her friends. But sneaking them in, not informing us? If she had just told us, trusted us—
  Tom: But she doesn't. She doesn't trust us, Sabine. And I can't find it in myself to punish her for being hesitant when we betrayed her trust.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Adrien gets to see this in action when Nora is akumatized into Anansi again, as Marinette starts rambling about her biggest weaknesses—that beneath the akuma magic is a human mind that can't parse having multiple limbs, and whose body structure is weaker than it seems.
• Badass Boast:
  • Marinette delivers one while at the end of her rope:
    Marinette: (crushing an akuma in her hand) Oh, go ahead and akumatize me—see what happens, Hawkmoth! Every leash has two ends! I just have to pull until I find where you're holding it!
  • Chloé combines one with "The Reason You Suck" Speech while confronting Lila:
    Chloé: If you thought Marinette Dupain-Cheng was mean, I'm about to be your worst nightmare, you delusional, transparent, forgettable brat.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game:
  • One of the tactics Marinette starts using against Lila after she turns "feral" is sarcastically playing along with her lies, agreeing with them while also making them more unbelievable, such as taking Lila's spreading rumors about her starting fights and declaring that she took on Hawkmoth behind the bakery.
  • Felix also uses this tactic in Even a Worm may Turn, possibly inspiring Marinette's later usage of it.
  • Alya gets a shot at this in Birds of a Feather when Lila tries to force Felix to accept an insincere apology for her threatening to Blackmail them. After this fails, Alya jumps in and makes her own "apology" to Lila, pressuring her to mend fences since Rose and Juleka are watching expectantly.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Exploited by Alya after her Broken Pedestal moment. She sets out to give Lila exactly what they claim to want in the most inconvenient way possible, in order to Beat Them at Their Own Game as revenge for manipulating her.
• Beneath the Mask: Lady Clarity's power exposes what lies beneath the surface of her victims by manifesting their inner voice as a shimmering image beside their body, speaking their thoughts for all to hear.
• Berserk Button:
  • Felix accidentally hits one of Marinette's when he tries teasing her about standing up to akumas more effectively than she does to bullies, leading to her calling him out.
  • Another big one for Marinette is how Bunnyx constantly compares her to her Marinette, acting like the one from her timeline is infinitely superior.
  • Felix is utterly enraged when he learns that Gabriel seriously believes he has the right to dictate Adrien's love life, to the point that the man intends to force him to remain in a relationship with Kagami when Kagami herself isn't keen on continuing.
• Big "NO!": Lila gets one during Lady Clarity's attack, when Adrien demands to know if she really does know Hawkmoth.
• Bitch Alert: Lila introduces herself to Felix by tightly grabbing his elbow, which he immediately identifies as a red flag.
• Black-and-White Insanity: White Knight views the world this way, dividing the world into three categories: Villain, Knight, and Princess. This fuels his power: those cut down by his blade transform into one of the three, but an innocent person who happens to be nonbinary proves immune.
• Blackmail: Lila immediately flirts with this after witnessing Felix coming out of the girl's bathroom, implying that she'll report them to the school unless they tell her what club they're in. This backfires when the threat proves enough to pierce through Alya's Selective Obliviousness.
• Blatant Lies:
  • During Enough Rope, Lila claims that the Chat Noir who told her that he was planning to confess to Ladybug during the fair must have been an akuma disguised as him. Naturally, no such incident ever occurred in the first place.
  • She also attempts to accuse Marinette of working with Hawkmoth right after she resisted akumatization right in front of her and Alya.
  • After her facade is cracked by Lady Clarity, Lila attempts to escape the hole she's dug for herself this way, feeding Adrien a number of painfully transparent claims in hopes that he'll believe them.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Played for Drama in Birds of a Feather when Alya confronts Marinette over facing Battement. While Alya's sincerely worried about Marinette's safety, Marinette dismisses her concern as flagrant hypocrisy, refusing to believe that her estranged friend actually cares that much. And besides, Alya sees absolutely nothing wrong with risking her life and the safety of those around her for the sake of her Ladyblog, so why does she have such a problem with her protecting others?
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: While discussing the likelihood of Chloé kidnapping Marinette versus simply giving her a ride home, Lila notes that her family's rich enough that she wouldn't get anything good from demanding ransom anyway. Everyone else pauses to stare at her for that.
• Break Them by Talking: Hawkmoth tries this on Marinette in Enough Rope, gloating about having the opportunity to do so. Marinette turns the tables by asking after Mayura's health.
• Briar Patching: When discussing her punishment with the principal after she takes the fall for Alya pushing Lila, Marinette suggests that she be punished by not being allowed to participate in school activities, which he agrees to. This gives Marinette a reason not to make Mylène's costumes, something which she is shown to be very happy about.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Downplayed in Enough Rope; Marinette is able to withstand Hawkmoth's attempt at corruption, but is left utterly exhausted and with a massive headache once the akumatizing butterfly is finally destroyed.
• Broken Pedestal: Played interestingly in Birds of a Feather when Alya witnesses Lila threatening to blackmail Felix with their own gender identity, which proves to be more than Alya can self-justify, spurring her to lash out violently.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Despite Lila growing increasingly wary of Marinette, she continues harassing her, trying to help Hawkmoth break her will and get her akumatized.
  • Also applies to Hawkmoth, who keeps sending akumas after Marinette even after she crushes one in her bare hand, on top of all the other creative ways she finds to destroy them. Kind of justified in his case though because Marinette would be a very powerful Akuma and Hawkmoth probably realized that.
  • In the past, Gabriel took advantage of Amelie's sistership with Emilie to try and drive her business into ruin while milking her for all he could get. When he tried twisting the knife by implying Adrien would be hurt if she didn't concede, he pissed her off enough that she pushed herself up out of her wheelchair and dragged him down to the floor in a fit of rage.
• Call-Back: In Birds of a Feather, Alya flashes back to several key moments throughout the first two chapters in a Flashback-Montage Realization as she comes to recognize how Lila's treatment of others parallels the way Kim acted right before and during his akumatization into White Knight.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Lila takes plenty of pride in her efforts to ruin Marinette, to the point that her Lady Clarity-induced inner voice happily brags about this to everyone in the classroom.
• Cassandra Bystander: Shortly before the events of Enough Rope, Chloé witnessed Marinette ripping apart an akuma butterfly with her bare hands. Marinette outright informed her that "No one will believe you."
• Catapult Nightmare: Marinette suffers one near the start of Birds of a Feather.
• Commonality Connection:
  • Played for Drama in Enough Rope: Chloé appeals to Marinette by insisting that they've both been screwed over and harassed by Hawkmoth, blaming him for the latter's personality shift.
  • Felix takes more of an interest in Marinette upon noticing some of the designs in her sketchbook, revealing that she also enjoys fashion.
  • Played With when Principal Damocles learns that Marinette has taken up boxing lessons, reminding him of how he did so in his youth as a precursor to becoming Mister Owl. He doesn't realize that she's also a superhero.
• Condescending Compassion: Bunnyx takes this attitude towards Marinette, treating her as though she's a toddler throwing a temper tantrum rather than a teenaged superheroine struggling beneath the weight of all her responsibilties.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Downplayed in Even a Worm Will Turn; after Ladybug bails her out, Alya waits until she's gone to huff about how it "Took her long enough" to show up. She then reassures Felix that Ladybug 'always saves the day', underlying how she takes her hard work for granted.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: The students at Dupont have become acclimated to dealing with regular akuma attacks, well aware that the school staff won't do anything to lessen the chances of Hawkmoth targeting people there.
• Control Freak: Gabriel. Not only does he micromanage Adrien's life, he wastes no time forcing his will upon Felix when he comes to visit, forcing him to cut his hair to better fit "the Agreste image."
  • When he learns that Kagami intends to break things off with Adrien if he can't prove that he's just as invested in their relationship as she has been, Gabriel indicates that he's going to call her mother and try to force them to remain together. Much to Felix's fury.
• Curse Cut Short: When Verity Queen notes that one of Hawkmoth's Fatal Flaws is that he's too proud to cancel out an akumatization even when said akuma is working against him, he starts to swear, only for her to interrupt:
  Hawkmoth: ...son of a—
  Verity Queen: DON'T SWEAR AT ME, it's quite offensive.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Marinette and Felix are both prone to this.
  • Ms. Bustier of all people gets a moment when she stares down White Knight.
    White Knight: I will find the coward and show them true honor and friendship!
    Ms. Bustier: So you're going to stab them? Very honorable.
• Death Glare:
  • Several appear in the denouncement of Even A Worm Will Turn as part of an Eye Motif: Amelie glares at Gabriel, who glowers at Felix and Adrien, with Felix returning the look. Amelie even calls Gabriel out on giving the kids the stink eye.
  • Ms. Bustier gives Marinette one at the start of Birds of a Feather, nodding along to encourage her to help with Mylène's dream costume.
• Deal with the Devil: Played With. Chloé characterizes getting akumatized this way, and it fuels her own proposal to Marinette: if Mari helps her discover Hawkmoth's Secret Identity, she'll pay her way through college.
• Deconstruction Fic:
  • The constant pressure Marinette has dealt with over the course of the first three seasons, coupled with being held responsible for things that weren't actually her fault, causes her to decide that something has to give—and if she's being blamed for everything, then it's best to remove herself from the equation. This leads to her shelving friendship, fashion and her social life in favor of focusing exclusively on her superhero duties.
  • Alya's belief that she knows better than her "bestie" and that Marinette needs to be pushed only contributes to Marinette cracking, as she adds to the pressure and makes matters worse. Since Alya refuses to reflect upon her actions and realize where she went wrong, she continues to be pushy as they grow increasingly estranged, furthering the fracturing of their friendship.
  • Bunnyx turns out to be completely misunderstanding her role, assuming that she needs to "fix" timelines that diverge too much from her own rather than minimizing the impact she has upon them. This includes interfering in choices that didn't create dead timelines, adding to Marinette's stress and helping create the "Feralnette" timeline.
  • Shipper on Deck is heavily deconstructed through Alya and Bunnyx: both are so insistent on ensuring that Marinette ends up with Adrien and Ladybug with Chat Noir that they push their agendas to everyone's detriment.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • During Birds of a Feather, after already being caught off-guard by Alya's violent reaction to her threatening Felix, Lila gets thrown further off balance when Marinette calmly takes the heat for her former friend.
  • Lila gets blindsided again during the same arc when she finds out the hard way that Ms. Mendeleiev is deeply unamused to learn that she was being weird about Felix using the girl's bathroom.
  • Marinette has a moment of this as well while dealing with that episode's akuma: she attempts to hold them back by letting herself be trapped under wreckage while tangled in their bandages, unaware that they can untangle themselves by unraveling completely.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Played With during the Enough Rope arc; Marinette comments on how foolish it is for Chat Noir to plan on making a big Love Confession in public despite Ladybug repeatedly rejecting him, and that he had better hope that she doesn't find out about it via Alya posting about it on her Ladyblog.
    Marinette: After all, if Chat Noir planned this...without her knowing, and she doesn't feel the same way...and he tries to force a favorable reaction by getting the public to pressure her into a relationship...Well, Ladybug might just be getting herself a brand new kittycat. Who knows? I've got plenty of fingers free for a ring~
    • Chat Noir, naturally, had nothing to do with this; it's another one of Lila's falsehoods. However, Adrien secretly started considering it after hearing his friends gushing about the idea, only to stare at Marinette in horror as she outlines how badly it could backfire. Marinette also uses this to casually point out how Lila could be driving a wedge between the heroes, making her sweat a little. This also highlights how Alya failed to consider such a scenario before sharing it with everyone.
  • Ladybug later calls Alya out directly on posting Lila's claims on the Ladyblog, pointing out that she turned the fair into a tempting target for Hawkmoth and directly endangered everybody attending—all the more so because many of them were attracted by hopes of seeing the superheroes there.
  • Played for Laughs when Adrien calls Chloé to ask whether or not she kidnapped Marinette. When Marinette asks why he didn't just text her instead, he can only stammer in response.
  • During Birds of a Feather, Lila blatantly threatens to Blackmail Felix with their own gender identity... right in front of Marinette, Luka, and Alya, who immediately proves that there are some lines she refuses to stand by and let her cross.
    • She also failed to consider the possibility that any of the teachers might be unimpressed with her behavior.
• Disappointed by the Motive:
  • Part of Ladybug's "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Alya in Enough Rope focuses on how frustrated she is by Alya knowing that Lila has trouble with the truth, but ignoring that so that she has 'juicy stories' for her Ladyblog.
  • In Even a Worm Will Turn, Ms. Bustier stands her ground and lectures Kim/White Knight for getting akumatized over a text message of all things.
  • Happens again in Birds of a Feather: When the akumatized Instructor Serbrus declares that they've been dreaming of having Virgil's stage all to themselves ever since they were young, Marinette snorts.
• The Dog Bites Back: Downplayed in Birds of a Feather: After repeatedly falling victim to Lila's manipulations, Alya abruptly lashes out and berates her for threatening Felix with blackmail.
• Double Standard:
  • Part of the reason Marinette cracked is due to the constant pressure to be an Ideal Heroine, taking on full responsibility for protecting Paris, the Miraculous Box, and everyone around her, along with getting blamed for anything that goes wrong, with Tikki and others holding her to impossibly high standards. Adrien, meanwhile, treated his outings as Chat Noir as his chance to goof around and have fun without his father finding out, and dismissed Ladybug's anger over his behavior.
  • Lampshaded in Enough Rope: Marinette directly compares Chloé's fruitless pursuit of Adrien to how Chat Noir continuously harasses Ladybug. Yet while Alya is more than happy to call out Chloé for her clingy and possessive behavior, she romanticizes and "ships" LadyNoir, completely glossing over Ladybug's feelings on the matter.
• Dramatically Missing the Point:
  • When Ladybug and Chat Noir give Lila grief for her Blatant Lies in Enough Rope, Alya steps in to defend her, claiming "There's no harm in a misunderstanding." She also chastises them for getting upset, despite the fact that Lila had just falsely accused Marinette of working with Hawkmoth immediately after they'd witnessed her resisting akumatization.
    • Ladybug then spells out for Alya in explicit detail just how her thoughtlessly posting Lila's claims on the Ladyblog has turned the fair into a potential hotbed for akuma, putting thousands of people in danger. Alya's takeaway from being called out is to lament her reputation being damaged by Ladybug blacklisting the Ladyblog.
    • Alya also decides that the best way to prove her blog's authenticity isn't to do her own research, but to rely upon live footage of akuma attacks.
  • Chat Noir tells Alya outright that recklessly endangering herself and others for footage isn't going to earn back Ladybug's trust. Alya responds by charging right back into harm's way, determined to prove him wrong.
  • After Marinette has a panic attack in class, Ms. Bustier asks to see her afterwards, intending to lecture her again. Felix hurries her out and away; seeing this, Bustier wonders when she became "so unapproachable."
  • When Feralnette calls out Bunnyx for discounting her experiences because she's not the same as her Marinette, Bunnyx insists that "We can fix this!", ignoring that her arrogant belief that her reality is the only "right" one is part of the problem.
  • No matter how many times Marinette, Ladybug, or anybody else points out the gaping flaws and hypocrisies in Lila's conduct, Alya just complains about them 'bullying' her. It takes Lila crossing the line in a way she can't excuse for her to turn on her False Friend.
  • When Felix and Kagami both make clear to Rose that they don't want Lila anywhere near their respective clubs, listing out all of the reasons why they dislike her, Rose insists that they've got it all wrong: "She's not like that, I promise~!" She also doesn't appear to understand why Marinette looks so defeated as she sullenly remarks that Lila being "nice" to Rose doesn't mean that she's nice to everyone.
  • Bunnyx recognizes that Marinette no longer has any faith in her friends since they've all been listening to Lila... and proceeds to lecture her about how she should trust them more, acting as though it's entirely her fault that her friendships have unraveled and as though she's the only one who needs to put more effort into repairing them.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • The very first comic in the series has Marinette grab an akuma butterfly while daring Hawkmoth to pull the trigger, declaring that "Every leash has two ends!" and intimidating him into recalling it.
  • Amelie is introduced with a Face Framed in Shadow as she calmly asks Gabriel why she hasn't heard from Felix since their arrival in Paris, along with calling Gabriel out on his attempts to exploit Emilie's assets to steal from her company.
  • Instructor Serbrus approaches her "rival" Dante to lecture him about letting his students chat in the hall, declaring that Marinette is clearly unprofessional since she hasn't changed into her leotard yet. Upon learning that she's not one of his students, she haughtily claims that she has no right to be there, acting as though she owns that whole space despite it being public.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Played With in Birds of a Feather: While Alya misinterprets the situation, she still confronts and calls out Lila for hounding Felix, accusing her of being a Stalker with a Crush... and directly comparing her behavior to Marinette.
  • Later in the same arc, Lila learns the hard way that Ms. Mendeleiev doesn't approve of her 'being weird' about Felix using the girl's bathroom.
  • Alya, despite still not being fully back with Marinette shows clear concern when Luka helps the designer back to her seat while she is bleeding from her nose and asks if she has to call for help.
• Evil Gloating: Gabriel loves hearing the sound of his own voice, as evidenced when he gloats to himself about supposedly being several steps ahead of Felix or his intention to repair the Peacock Pin himself through the art of kintsugi.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: Bunnyx sees all worlds that aren't like hers as timelines that need to be "fixed" in order to turn out the same way as her own timeline. None of their residents are real to her, just copies of the versions she knows.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Marinette reminds Alya of a past confrontation in Birds of a Feather, Alya insists that she would have heard her out if she'd only known more about what she was going through at the time. However, she then realizes that Lila would have asked how it went, and twisted Marinette's response around to convince Alya that her former bestie was in the wrong.
• Eye Motifs: The denouncement of Even a Worm Will Turn places a lot of emphasis upon eyes and perception, from Amelie and Felix switching expressions on a dime depending on who they're addressing/dealing with, Adrien failing to notice his father's cold stare, Gabriel comparing Nooroo's weary gaze with Marinette's, and two eyes seeming to appear next to Emilie's in her portrait, with one of her own eyes also colored/covered.
• Fake Defector: After the pedestal completely shatters and she apologizes to Marinette, Alya decides... to mend fences with Lila and be a better friend. Only, it's an act to set up the liar by trapping her between her lies and getting what she claims to want in the most inconvenient ways possible.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Alya has three that work comorbidly: she has a bad habit of leaping to conclusions, excitedly acting upon them, and stubbornly refusing to admit even the possibility that she's mistaken. Lila uses these to manipulate her towards her own ends; Alya isn't intentionally malicious towards Marinette, but gets played against her because Lila tells her what she wants to hear. Alya also tends to put the Ladyblog first, considering exciting stories to be more important than the people affected by the villains or her own actions.
  • Lila herself is excessively Prideful and petty, driven to make herself the center of attention. Her desire to punish Marinette and Ladybug for daring to call her out makes her willingly and eagerly work with Hawkmoth; the glee she takes in this eventually proves to be her own undoing when Lady Clarity exposes her phantom voice, which proceeds to brag about her misdeeds to a horrified audience.
  • Future Alix/Bunnyx has No Sympathy or empathy for Marinette's situation. Not "Feralnette" or any of her alternates, including the one from her timeline—to her mind, Marinette has to suffer because that's how things went in HER world. This makes her completely unable to grasp the fact that Marinette has been traumatized by her experiences and is changing her tactics accordingly, seeing her behavior as a problem that needs to be corrected rather than addressing the root causes.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Near the start of Birds of a Feather, Marinette explains to Felix how Lila got her expelled once before and went completely unpunished. Later on, it's revealed that Chloé secretly took steps to ensure that wouldn't happen again.
  • We've been seeing three eyes around. Whoever/Whatever it is, it blew out the windows of Gabriel's office, laughing as it did so. Each post also has the tag "Marinette Dupain-Cheng?", hinting that the three eyes are connected to her in some way. Marinette herself doesn't know about this, but Max may have seen it at some point, while Nora definitely did.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: As she's walking away from her classmates after saying her piece in Enough Rope, Marinette casually calls them "silly rabbits." In the panel that follows, while Alya and the rest are confused by her word choice, Bunnyx's sulking silhouette is visible in the background.
• Foil:
  • Nora serves as one for Alya:
    • While Marinette has begun avoiding Alya due to her belief that her friends will better off/safer that way, coupled with her exhaustion with dealing with being constantly pressured by them, she also starts taking boxing lessons with Nora, spending significantly more time around her as a result.
    • Marinette's relationship with Nora is far more professional, with Nora respecting her boundaries and offering her a shoulder to lean on without being pushy about it... completely unlike her sister, who strains her 'friendship' further by forcing her way into Marinette's space and 'helping' her in ways that undercut her own efforts.
  • Birds of a Feather introduces Instructor Serbrus, who acts as one to both Gabriel Agreste and Lila:
    • Like Gabriel, she is a massive Control Freak. Part of her Irrational Hatred of Dante stems from how her niece chose to join his troupe rather than hers; she feels just as entitled to dictating and micromanaging her niece's life as Gabriel does to controlling Adrien and Felix. She also acts like she owns things that don't belong to her, like Virgil's stage and the act of ballet dancing itself.
    • Serbrus also shares Lila's obssession with making everything revolve around her and her petty desires. She's eventually revealed to be just as massive an Attention Whore, wanting Virgil's stage all to herself.
• Forced Out of the Closet: After learning that Felix is nonbinary, Lila immediately threatens to take her "concerns" about them to the school board.
• Friendly Enemy: Sabine Dupain-Cheng gets akumatized into Verity Queen, and Chat Noir rushes to confront her. To his confusion, she cheerily greets him and makes no effort to attack him... because she's laser-focused on locating Hawkmoth, who's been threatening her daughter by proxy, pulverizing him, and heading back home with his Miraculous to show Marinette she has nothing to be afraid of.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Downplayed during Birds of a Feather, when Kagami asks Marinette for advice with dealing with a friend who keeps prioritizing other friends over her, only spending time with her when she's literally the only option.
• Genre Savvy: In Even a Worm Will Turn, Marinette immediately recognizes that the mounting argument between Kim and Ms. Bustier is enough to draw Hawkmoth's interest and get one of the participants akumatized, warning Felix to take cover.
• Has a Type: Adrien is attracted to any of his friends that can beat him up, and to muscular women in general.
  Adrien: I want to be carried by a STRONG GIRL
• Headphones Equal Isolation: During Even a Worm Will Turn, Marinette puts on a pair of headphones to silently rebuff Alya's offer to walk home with her, as she doesn't want to deal with her gossiping or idle accusations.
• Hidden Depths: Played With. Felix's interest in Marinette is sparked off when he gets a glimpse of some of her design sketches and realizes she has a good head for fashion. Something that used to be obvious, but given how he only met her after she stopped caring about her civilian life and appearance, it catches him completely off guard.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard:
  • Alya's attempt to defend Lila means she says exactly the wrong thing to Ladybug, affirming that she knows about Lila's "condition" and still treats her as a good source for gossip.
  • Felix exploits how Lila falsely claimed to have modeled with him in the past to tell Alya and her classmates about how unprofessional she was. He laments that the photos were never released; after all, they don't exist in the first place—but he spins that around into slamming her as a sub-par model.
  • Played With in Birds of a Feather. Gabriel doesn't have any cameras set up around his office because he doesn't want to risk catching anything incriminating. As a result, he has no way of knowing how the windows in his office were all shattered at once... but given exactly what caused that, it's questionable whether having footage would have made any difference.
  • Birds of a Feather also has Lila failing to consider that there might be things even Alya can't justify with her Moral Myopia. As a result, she thinks nothing of flagrantly threatening Felix right in front of her, spurring Alya to lash out.
  • Instructor Serbrus' decision to destroy the costumes Dante ordered bites her in the ass since the act was Caught on Tape. What's more, she suggests to Virgil that Dante's class should go first, expecting that they'll be dealing with a major disadvantage due to her sabotage.
  • Lila's arrogance and the utter glee she takes in pulling everyone's strings comes back to haunt her when Lady Clarity exposes her inner voice, who happily brags about helping "Hawkie" in his efforts to break Marinette and take down Paris' protectors.
  • Nearly happens to Hawkmoth when he akumatizes Sabine, only to learn that the very thing he intended to exploit—her Mama Bear nature—makes her a danger toward him, the one responsible for harassing her daughter in the first place.
• Hypocrite:
  • During Birds of a Feather, Alya accuses Lila Rossi herself of being one, angrily confronting them about how they seem to be stalking Felix despite how she's been dealing with a 'stalker' of her own.
    • Related directly to the above, Alya angrily compares their behavior directly to Marinette, claiming that "even Marinette" never went as far as Lila was threatening to for the sake of her obsession. In doing so, she completely ignores how often she was the one pushing Marinette into joining her Zany Schemes to hook her up with Adrien, even doing so against her will.
    • Also related: said confrontation involves Alya shoving them to the ground, followed by angrily declaring that "Just because you're upset doesn't mean you can do anything to hurt them!"
  • Birds of a Feather also has Alya read Marinette the riot act for intervening against the latest akuma, blithly ignoring how she risks her own life on a regular basis Going for the Big Scoop. Marinette responds by pointing out her blatant Moral Myopia:
    Marinette: Sure, let's have this conversation now. So it's fine when you, the blogger, run off to follow dangerous akuma for social media, but if I run off to try and help people, it's time for me to be lectured?
• I Have This Friend: Kagami employs a variation when she asks Marinette for advice on how to handle a friend that's been rude to her lately, as she intentionally avoids mentioning that the friend in question is Adrien. She privately wonders afterwards if Marinette would have given her the same advice if she'd known.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • Alya proves prone to moments of Open Mouth, Insert Foot, such as when she notes that Marinette seems to have hit it off with Felix and immediately asks if she's only using him to get closer to Adrien.
  • Mylène gets her turn in Birds of a Feather, ambushing Marinette with the expectation that she'll put together an incredibly elaborate costume for the theatre club's performance of The Little Mermaid without a single thought as to how much time and effort that takes.
• It's All About Me:
  • Lila, naturally, being an Attention Whore who gleefully helps "Hawkie" in hopes of destroying Marinette once and for all because she's simply that spiteful over her calling her out on her lies.
  • When Ladybug calls out Alya for posting Lila's claims on the Ladyblog despite knowing about her "compulsive lying disease," she specifically points out how she endangered everybody attending the fair by putting it on Hawkmoth's radar. After she leaves, Alya murmurs to herself that "...we're totally ruined...", focusing more on her reputation over everything else.
  • Alya focuses more on how her feelings have been hurt by her "best friend" growing distant, and continues to believe she knows what Marinette needs more than Mari does. During Lady Clarity's assault, her phantom voice whines about how, since the phantoms can't be caught on camera, she won't get any good footage for her Ladyblog and that views might go down.
  • Bunnyx/Future Alix considers her timeline to be the one "true" reality, and her desire to help "Feralnette" is undercut by her arrogance and selfishness, as she wants to "fix" her by setting her back on the same track as her Marinette.
  • Instructor Serbrus arrogantly believes that she has the right to dictate who gets to enjoy ballet, whether as a direct participant or simply watching others perform. It's eventually revealed that her gatekeeping and generally nasty behavior stems from a childhood desire to have the stage all to herself.
  • Ms. Bustier remains more concerned about forcing Marinette to set a "good example" for everyone else than she is about her well-being, to the point that she gets akumatized into Lady Clarity when Marinette has a panic attack in class and then, astonishingly, doesn't stick around to get scolded for it. She's too busy feeling sorry for herself over being treated like she's "unapproachable" to notice the butterfly flitting her way.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Platonic variant; Marinette decides it's ultimately safer to distance herself from her friends and classmates so they don't get caught in the crossfire between her and Hawkmoth as much.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Almost immediately after Alya shoves her down, Lila starts wailing about how pushy and overbearing she is, accusing her of never listening, talking over her and jumping to conclusions. While she's clearly Playing the Victim Card to guilt-trip her, the audience knows that she isn't exactly wrong about Alya's behavior.
  • During Birds of a Feather, Bunnyx declares that one of Marinette's biggest issues is how she's completely lost faith in her friends and needs to learn how to trust again. Which is true, even if she undermines her own point with her Condescending Compassion and refusal to acknowledge the validity of her distrust. Along with her failure to understand that said Fair-Weather Friends aren't supporting Marinette... and neither, for that matter, is she.
• Jerkass Realization:
  • While yelling at Marinette for putting herself in harm's way trying to distract akuma, Adrien abruptly realizes that he's repeatedly put Ladybug through similar stress with his tendency to needlessly sacrifice himself as Chat Noir... and dismissed her Anger Born of Worry as no big deal.
  • In the original vingettes, Alya and Nino have theirs when Lila's inner voice is exposed by Lady Clarity, making them realize they trusted a Manipulative Bitch over their friend and helped wear her down.
  • In Birds of a Feather, Alya gets one via her Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap! moment.
• Karma Houdini: Lila's status as such naturally factors into Marinette's attitude shift; the fact that she was able to get away with causing her temporary expulsion and suffered no consequences whatsoever for it convinced Marinette that there's no point in trying to expose her, since the principal and their teacher clearly don't care about her lies.
• Kill It with Fire: Marinette uses an aerosol flamethrower to torch an akuma butterfly. Reactions vary from horror and shock to "I have to draw this" and "FIRE BURN".
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Adrien witnessed something with Gabriel present around the time his mother disappeared, only for Gabriel to order Adrien to "FORGET WHAT [he has] SEEN" while touching his wedding ring, which apparently erased Adrien's memory. The audience is shown this in Even A Worm Will Turn Part Three when Felix asks him if he can remember a specific moment when Gabriel started acting like he does now. Becomes a case of Accidentally-Correct Writing when canon revealed that Adrien and Felix are Sentimonsters that Gabriel created. Jury's still out on whether Felix is still one in this AU.
• Last-Name Basis: Amelie and Gabriel refer to each other as 'Mr. Agreste' and 'Miss Culpa', with her correcting him to refer to her as Mrs. Culpa.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: In the Backstory, Gabriel combined this with The Farmer and the Viper: In order to stay in contact with Emilie, Amelie formed several informal contracts with her. Gabriel started exploiting these contracts after Emelie's mysterious disappearance, lining his pockets at Amelie's expense while trying to destroy her company.
  Felix: (quoting Gabriel) "The least you can do for your 'sister' is aid her family. You wouldn't hurt Adrien by hurting my own business, would you?"
• Liar Revealed: Lila's true nature is exposed by Lady Clarity giving her inner voice the opportunity to openly brag about working with Hawkmoth.
• Malicious Misnaming: Gabriel addresses Amelie as 'Miss Culpa', ignoring the fact that she's still married to her late husband. She calls him out on this hypocrisy:
  Amelie: Mrs. Culpa. If being widowed automatically puts me back on the singles market, then perhaps you ought to take that ring off and put your money where your mouth is, Gabriel.
• Mama Bear: Sabine sees how her daughter is suffering; Hawkmoth attempts to exploit that to his own ends. This proves to be a massive mistake.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • Lila is all about manipulating others with her constant lies, feigning concern and Playing the Victim Card to her heart's content.
  • To no one's surprise, Gabriel. Besides his canon acts of manipulation, he knows he will have to furnish Felix with a phone, so he makes it a point to load it with trackers and parental controls. Unfortunately for him, Chloé drops a burner phone for Felix at his first day at school, and he gets another courtesy of Chat Noir.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Lila sets one off during the Lady Clarity incident when her phantom voice gleefully brags about working with "Hawkie" to break Lady-brat in front of Alya, Nino, Adrien, Felix and everyone else sheltering in her location.
• Meaningful Echo: Verity Queen echoes Marinette's declaration about "pulling on a leash" while trying to divine Hawkmoth's location.
• Meaningful Name: Instructor Serbrus is a Control Freak who's attempting to drive Felix's ballet troupe, headed by Instructor Dante, out of business purely because her niece Erin decided she wanted to join them instead of her. She's also hellbent on gatekeeping the whole sport, much like how the mythological three-headed dog Cerberus guarded the gates to the afterlife. Doubles as Theme Naming, as Dante is a reference to The Divine Comedy and Dante's journey through Hell.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Hawkmoth tries his usual spiel with Marinette. To his horror, she's strong enough to force the channel he's opened back and peek into his own mind.
• More than Mind Control: Chloé notes that getting akumatized is addictive, as it provides a rush of superhuman power coupled with a Compelling Voice promising you can stay this way so long as you do something in exchange. And anyone who does fight back gets their head filled with static-infused pressure trying to force them to give in.
• Never Recycle Your Schemes: Lila runs headlong into this during Birds of a Feather. After briefly getting Marinette expelled once before, she attempts to do so again, only to learn that Chloé secretly took steps to ensure she couldn't.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In Enough Rope, Alya thoughtlessly posts Lila's claim that Chat Noir intends to confess his feelings to Ladybug at the upcoming fair. This attracts plenty of would-be gawkers to the event, hoping to catch sight of the superheroes and making it a prime target for Hawkmoth.
  • In a post explaining how time travel works, it's revealed that part of the reason Marinette became "Feralnette" in the first place is because of Bunnyx bringing her into the "Chat Blanc" timeline and making her "fix" it while blaming her for what happened there. This trauma helped push Marinette past her breaking point, leading to the events of this series.
• Nightmare Face:
  • When Lila tries to convince Ladybug and Chat Noir that Marinette might be working with Hawkmoth right after Marinette resisted akumatization, Chat Noir hisses at her while his pupils narrow into cat-like slits, fangs appearing in his mouth.
  • Felix's phantom voice develops one after Lila's phantom voice brags about working with Hawkmoth to try and break Marinette's spirit.
• New Transfer Student: How Felix enters the story, arriving as yet another addition to Ms. Bustier's class.
• Not Helping Your Case:
  • Lila naturally exploits Marinette's attitude shift by using it to paint her as being even more dangerous and unstable, spreading rumors about her getting into fights and causing trouble.
  • Bunnyx's desire to help Marinette is undermined by her refusual to work with her, preferring to take a high-and-mighty "I know better than you" attitude and lecture her about how she shouldn't be doing anything at all, actually.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: Played With in Even a Worm Will Turn. Ms. Bustier attempts to resolve the brewing conflict peacefully by declaring that she'll advise Lila's mother to get her a new phone and a new number. This doesn't appease the white-knighting Kim, who insists that whoever's responsible for the harassment needs to be found and punished, and the resulting argument attracts Hawkmoth's attention.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Marinette points out that Chloé's unwanted pursuit of Adrien has a lot in common with how Chat Noir keeps pursuing Ladybug despite the heroine repeatedly making clear that she's not interested in a Relationship Upgrade. She thus sarcastically concludes that if Alya and the others are so willing to support Chat, then they should admit that Chloé also has a chance with her romantic endeavors.
  • In Birds of a Feather, Alya has a slight variant when she directly compares Marinette and Lila to each other, angrily accusing the latter of being a Stalker with a Crush who just crossed a line the former hadn't.
  • Kagami observes that both she and Alya have a bad habit of assuming Marinette needs them to step in and make decisions for her, whether that's trying to protect her or shoving her towards Adrien. She comments that they both need to learn how to step back and let her make her own decisions.
• Nothing Can Stop Us Now!: In Birds of a Feather, Gabriel is so busy gloating about how he's about to repair the Peacock Pin, declaring that "Ladybug and Chat Noir won't stop me now" right before the windows in his office blow out.
• Obfuscating Disability:
  • As in canon, Lila claims various disabilities in order to manipulate others into giving her special treatment. Her attempts to cover her most Blatant Lies with a "chronic lying disease" comes back to haunt Alya when she cites it while defending her from the heroes, unintentionally revealing she's aware of her supposed condition.
  • Lila also claims that referencing her disabilities in any kind of negative way automatically makes others ableist, regardless of context, as part of her constantly Playing the Victim Card.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Chloé proves quite observant about Marinette, commenting on how the dramatic changes in her behavior are likely due to her feeling that she's lost control of her life. She then remarks to Adrien that "Whatever pushed her to turning venomous like that must've been one hell of a bad day, or one hell of a terrible person," unaware of the role Adrien played in pushing her to the breaking point.
• O.C. Stand-in: While taking inspiration from his original concepts and appearance in Miraculous Ladybug proper, Feralnette Felix is more his own character, charming and persistently snooty with a love for fashion who is just as feral as Marinette, but hides it. This is lampshaded by the creator, who mentions him basically being an OC after talking about him being nonbinary.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Gabriel gets a major moment of this in Birds of a Feather when his attempt to repair the Peacock Pin using kintsugi is interrupted by the windows blowing out, leaving the Pin smeared with excess gold and Duusu completely unresponsive.
  • Another one of Gabriel's appears in Flashback when Felix recounts how his mother attacked him in a fit of rage — something he clearly didn't expect from a wheelchair-bound woman.
  • Bunnyx freezes up and gets this expression when she notices a shadowy figure in Marinette's mirror glaring at her during Birds of a Feather.
• Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!: In addition to creating their Ladybug comic, Marc and Nathaniel base an Anti-Hero character off of Marinette named Madame Manticore that proves to be a fan favorite.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The author admits that Chloé is not a great person, but she still asks that Marinette help her take down Hawkmoth. Why? Not for any petty reason, but because in Chloé's words, being akumatized is addictive. She feels like she keeps getting drugged whenever she has a bad day, and that Hawkmoth is manipulating, nay, grooming her to be worse and worse, and she wants it to stop. She's crying by the end of her speech.
• Original Character: Marinette accidentally creates a new Miraculous while trying to make some jewelry for Felix, complete with its own kwami: Imago, the Kwami of Imitation. This is followed by several others, leading to the creation of the "Blasphemous Box".
• Pair the Suitors: The author states that in their Feralnette AU, Luka and Adrien, Marinette's former boyfriend and crush respectively, will eventually get together.
• Playing the Victim Card: One of Lila's favorite tactics.
  • In Enough Rope, Alya plays this card for Lila, accusing Ladybug and Chat Noir of blowing matters out of proportion when they express annoyance at Lila slandering Marinette by suggesting her resisting akumatization was somehow staged.
  • Lila then specifically uses this against Alya to keep the reporter on her side after the Ladyblog is blacklisted, guilt-tripping Alya while insisting that Ladybug's entirely to blame.
• Plot Parallel: Bunnyx/Future Alix's stance is effectively the same as the advice Adrien gave Marinette back in "Chameleon": don't do anything at all. Don't do anything about Lila, and don't change for tactics for dealing with Hawkmoth, because things will work out eventually if you just stick to the status quo. Just like Adrien, Bunnyx is completely ignoring how toxic and terrible said "status quo" is, and the impact it's been having upon Marinette. Both believe that they know how things are supposed to work out; the biggest difference is that Adrien's belief stemmed from naivete, while Bunnyx's confidence comes from her time traveling... but is still rooted in the same flawed reasoning and short-sightedness.
• Point of Divergence:
  • The series mostly follows the canonical series up to the climax of Season 3, with some Broad Strokes to accommodate altercations such as Felix being more of an O.C. Stand-in and other changes to the backstory.
  • Bunnyx's intolerance of this is part of what caused Marinette to go feral — she repeatedly intervened to 'correct' anything she saw as a discrepancy or divergence from her timeline until Marinette completely cracked under the pressure.
  • In Birds of a Feather, Gabriel's attempt to repair the Peacock Pin with kintsugi is disrupted; as a result, he's unable to use it to become Shadowmoth.
• Politically Incorrect Villain:
  • Gabriel repeatedly and deliberately misgenders Felix, trying to force them completely into the gender binary. He's also disrespectful towards Amelie, rejecting her status as Emelie's chosen sister even while brazenly attempting to use Emilie's stock in her company to his own ends.
  • Upon learning that Felix is nonbinary, Lila initially reacts with confusion before immediately attempting to twist this to her advantage by threatening to report her 'concerns' about them to the school board unless they give her what she wants. This proves to be too much for Alya to endure.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Thanks to Ms. Bustier and Principal Damocles' failure to do anything to address the situation—like contacting Marinette's parents to discuss what's been happening at school—it takes several months for Tom and Sabine to learn that their daughter is being regularly targeted and harassed by Hawkmoth's butterflies.
• Post-Support Regret: While Alya starts flirting with this after Ladybug confronts both Lila and her for their self-serving behavior in Enough Rope, she only truly starts regretting her staunch support of Lila when she crosses a line in a fashion that Alya can't rationalize away.
• Psychological Projection: Birds of a Feather shows that Principal Damocles relates to Marinette taking boxing classes, and he gives her a brief speech about how great power creates great responsibility.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Nino and Alya's Lady Clarity-induced phantom voices do this upon witnessing Lila's bragging about working with Hawkmoth.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Enough Rope has Marinette deliver one to Hawkmoth, turning his Breaking Speech right back around on him:
    Marinette: Calling me friendless, what a joke! Where's Mayura, Hawkmoth?! Where's your only friend in the whole world? Did you think no one would notice how sick Mayura was? How weak? How frail? Supposedly I'm the friendless one, but I'm not the one destroying my loved ones. God, but I bet you didn't even care about her! She was so sick! Is what you're doing really worth it?!
  • Ladybug gives Alya one shortly afterwards, calling her out on admitting that she knows about Lila's "lying disease" and still uses her as a "trusted source" for the Ladyblog.
  • Felix delivers one to Alya in Even a Worm Will Turn, calling her out for endangering herself and others in some misguided attempt to 'set things right':
    Felix: Ladybug is the sole subject of your blog, the focus that keeps it popular and relevant, I wager. You don't get to decide when you've hurt her using her own image. If you've hurt her using her own personhood, hell if you've hurt her on any aspect, it's not your call to prove her wrong. It's your job to apologize and promise to do better. It's your job to admit that you were wrong.
  • Marinette points out Felix's innate privilege in Birds of A Feather:
    Marinette: You have the luxury of fighting back with sass and lies without consequence. But not everyone is some pretty blonde from England with a rich mom and a famous family. Sometimes people are baker's daughters who have to choose their battles. Sometimes you have to choose between personal happiness and risking an Akuma. The best I can do in my position is survive this and endure it. Or else someone's tantrum will summon Hawkmoth again. I appreciate you backing me up, and I think the sass is funny, but if you're going to scold me afterwards, you can save it. I get enough criticism from Bustier.
  • Felix calls Rose out on refusing to even consider a simple request from Marinette because she doesn't want to acknowledge that they might have reason to dislike Lila:
    Felix: You're texting Lila.
    Rose: Well I-! I don't want to let her down!
    Felix: So it's okay to let down Marinette? Even when she asked you to restrain herself?]] You know what, Rose? I wish Marinette had never saved you from that akuma. I wish she treated you the way you treat her, and next time, I'll make sure she doesn't come to anyone's aid, especially ungrateful little girls like you.
  • Kagami gives one to Alya after catching her stealing from Marinette's locker:
    Kagami: You and I share a similar issue, Alya—we assume Marinette needs us to represent her in any way. If you really want to earn her love and trust again, you need to stop assuming and let her do what she wants when she wants. She's her own person.
  • Chloé confronts Lila after Lady Clarity, calling her out over turning the school into a circus out of her delusional need to play puppetmaster.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Played With in Birds of a Feather; Principal Damocles serves as a Spanner in the Works to Lila's schemes when he proves willing to hear out Marinette's side of the story for a change... but it turns out that he's still just as biased as ever, having a bit of a soft spot for Marinette over a perceived Commonality Connection. Plus, Chloé made clear he couldn't kick Marinette out anymore, on pain of getting her father involved if he tried.
  • Played straighter by Instructor Dante, who steps in to defend Marinette from getting kicked out of the theater hall by Instructor Serbrus and Lila, then quietly asks her for details rather than leaping to his own conclusions about why she acted the way that she did.
• Rejected Apology: During Birds of a Feather, Lila attempts an insincere apology to Felix, claiming she never intended to make him feel threatened. Felix refuses, then shuts down Adrien's attempt to appease her by bluntly stating that it is up to him whether he accepts her apology, not Adrien, Lila, or anybody else.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • In Birds of a Feather, Alya wrongly assumes that Lila is a Stalker with a Crush, spurring her to shove her down and call her out when she threatens to report Felix using 'the wrong bathroom' to the school.
  • During the same arc, Principal Damocles assumes that Marinette has gotten into boxing because she's going through the same phases he did when he was younger, which led to him becoming Mister Owl. He remains blissfully unaware that she already is a superhero.
• Rule of Symbolism: Lila is repeatedly associated with chains attaching her to her victims. In Enough Rope, her latching onto Adrien's arm is symbolized by black chains wrapping around the limb, and she grips him so tightly that it's frankly astonishing that none of the other classmates (save Marinette) notice it. Similarly, when she greets Felix by grabbing his arm, the panel where he mentally sends up a red flag has a chain running discretely along the back of her arm, up into her jacket.
• Saying Too Much:
  • Alya stumbles into this while trying to defend Lila from Ladybug and Chat Noir's anger over her Blatant Lies. Specifically, she parrots Lila's claim that she suffers from a "lying disease" that makes her compulsively tell falsehoods. Ladybug promptly confronts her with the fact that despite knowing this, Alya still uses her as a "trusted source" for her Ladyblog, posting her gossip without doing any fact-checking herself.
  • While arguing with Verity Queen, Hawkmoth accidentally does this when he responds to her declaration that he has no idea how strong a parent's love can be with "I DO!", spurring her to realize he has a child.
• The Scapegoat: Played for Drama; Being constantly blamed and held responsible for the actions and mistakes of others has caused Marinette to internalize that negativity, fueling her decision to remove her civilian self from the equation as much as possible and focus on her duties as Ladybug/the new Guardian.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: This remains one of Chloé's favorite tactics. Birds of a Feather reveals she told Principal Damocles outright that he can't expel Marinette again, or else she'll bring her father's wrath down upon the school.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Deconstructed in the Enough Rope arc; Alya ships LadyNoir, so Lila feeds her by lying about their relationship, claiming that he's planning a big confession during the upcoming fireworks show at the fair. Marinette points out that Chloé's behavior towards Adrien is just like Chat Noir's towards Ladybug, and suggests that it would be a very bad thing if she learns about him planning to confess his feelings ahead of time through the Ladyblog posting about it. Marinette also casually wishes Chloé "good luck" with Adrien, commenting on how he can be completely oblivious.
  • Bunnyx also ships the Official Couple from her reality...or at least remains adamant that they have to get together in exactly the same way they did in her own timeline. In the explanation of how time travel works, one of the events Bunnyx interfered with was Marinette calling Luka to go out with him, a perfectly mundane divergence that Bunnyx treated as being just as bad as events that result in dead-end timelines.
  • Nathaniel seems to be towards Felix/Marinette—at the very least, he finds Felix's protectiveness towards her inspiring, murmuring about how he needs to add it to his comic.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Marinette Goomba Stomps White Knight, Felix incredulously asks if she just Mario-hopped an akuma.
  • When Luka tells Marinette that he thought she was going to vanish, she immediately asks why he would say such a thing, adding that "it sounds like you just passed a chain-letter onto me, or got me marked for ''Final Destination or some crap."
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • Marinette rebukes Hawkmoth's attempt to akumatize her in "Enough Rope" very succinctly:
    Marinette: What I want... is for you to eat sand and shit glass you stupid bug.
  • In Birds of a Feather, Marinette once again rejects him, declaring that "I don't need your power" and turning the Butterfly's empathetic powers against him by slamming her injured fist into the ground until he retreats from the pain.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Marinette trades her fashionable style for oversized hoodies and unkempt hair.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • Played for Drama with Marinette. She considers her health, safety, happiness and well-being to be less important than her duties as Ladybug and the Guardian of the Miracle Box.
  • Alya prioritizes her Ladyblog to the point that she doesn't consider the potential impact of what she's posting on it beyond getting views.
  • Future!Alix/Bunnyx only cares about making other timelines "match up" to her own, rather than pruning/saving dead timelines.
  • Ms. Bustier cares more about her precious reputation about being a "good, approachable teacher" than she does about Marinette's well-being, as evidenced by her planning to scold her for having a panic attack in class.
  • During the Lady Clarity incident, Alya is upset by the fact that the phantom voices created by her power don't show up on film, with her own inner voice griping about how this means she won't be able to get any juicy footage for her Ladyblog.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • Lila gets blindsided by two of these working in tandem during Birds of a Feather. First off, Principal Damocles actually prevents her from controlling the narrative for once, hearing out the other side of the story. Then we learn the reason why he's acting like a Reasonable Authority Figure for once: Chloé took steps to ensure that Marinette wouldn't get expelled again by threatening to sic her father on the school if they booted out her 'tutor'.
  • Birds of a Feather also casts Nino into this role. Lila and Instructor Serbrus' plans to sabotage Instructor Dante's troupe and get Marinette blamed for it fail because he witnessed the latter dumping paint into the stolen package, recorded the whole thing and gave that footage to the police.
• Spell My Name With An S: The author uses "Hawkmoth" instead of "Hawk Moth".
• Stab the Scorpion: During Enough Rope, Ladybug throws her yo-yo at Alya and Lila, snapping up an akuma that appeared right behind them.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Played With during Birds of a Feather when Alya misidentifies Lila as one for Felix. In reality, Lila is attempting to kill two birds with one stone by spying on Felix while working towards her goal of hooking up with Adrien.
  • Alya also casually refers to Marinette supposedly being one for Adrien, blithely ignoring how she personally encouraged many of those more questionable moments.
• Stating the Simple Solution:
  • Played for Laughs when Chloé seemingly kidnaps Marinette. Kagami points out that Adrien could just text her and ask what's going on. Marinette similarly points out that Adrien could've just texted her as well.
  • Played for Drama with Bunnyx. While she claims she wants to help Marinette, she's only interested in doing so on her own terms, rejecting all of her suggestions. Such as refusing to tell her Hawkmoth's Secret Identity so she can put a stop to his terrorizing Paris.
• Stopped Caring: Marinette decides to give up on being herself, taking a more apathetic approach where the only thing at school that still matters to her is her studies. Downplayed in that this is partly meant to be a mask, pushing her friends away for their own safety; however, she's genuinely stopped caring about herself beyond her role as Ladybug and responsibilities as Guardian.
• Synchronized Morning Routine: Near the beginning of the Birds of a Feather arc, when Felix and Marinette are starting to become friends, their morning routines are contrasted to each other in a Rule of Three with a body part—hands (she puts her brace on, he dons his turtleneck shirt), ears (she slides her headphones in, he adjusts his earrings), and legs (she runs to school, he's driven to it in a limo). It's a way to highlight that Felix is collected and graceful while Marinette is weary and leads a chaotic life.
• Take a Third Option: Marinette's notes to Felix in Even a Worm will Turn include "Lila lies for Clout - 'AVOID or CONFRONT'". Felix instead exploits the fact that she's specifically lied about modeling with him before to invent a few horror stories about how dreadful she was to work with.
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: Mylène assumes that Marinette will leap at the chance to help make her dream costume for the Little Mermaid, showing her a picture she found off the internet of an incredibly elaborate piece. She completely fails to pick up on Marinette's trepidation; Lila and Ms. Bustier do, and make clear how they expect Marinette to help out despite her misgivings.
• Taking the Heat:
  • In Birds of a Feather, Marinette willingly takes the blame for Alya injuring Lila, much to the astonishment of both parties involved. She also smashes another akumatizing butterfly to prevent Hawkmoth from exploiting the situation.
  • Later in the same arc, she attempts this again, and is willing to let herself get kicked out of the theater hall in order to protect Felix. However, Instructor Dante intervenes on her behalf.
• Tempting Fate: Alya comments to Felix that he must have lots of funny stories to tell about modeling with Lila. He takes full advantage of this to spin a yarn that absolutely slams Lila into the dirt — oh, sure, she 'worked with him', right...
• Theme Naming: Felix's ballet troupe is run by Instructor Dante, while a rival troupe is run by the gatekeeping Control Freak Serbrus. Both compete for the right to use the hall owned by Virgil, an old man who greatly enjoys the drama of their rivalry. Dante is the name of the author and protagonist of The Divine Comedy, who descends into hell with Virgil as his guide, while Serbrus' name references Cerberus.
• Theory Tunnelvision:
  • Alya has a bad tendency to fall into this, something which Lila has naturally twisted to her own ends by priming her to act aggressive and accusatory towards Marinette, believing that she's either changed for the worst or has always been a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
  • Marinette herself has also developed this; she's grown so accustomed to Lila turning everyone against her while having her side of the story summarily dismissed that she sincerely believes that Alya and the rest of the class outright despise her, and that there's absolutely nothing she can do to repair their relationships. So why even bother? Especially when they're better off keeping their distance anyway...
• They're Called "Personal Issues" for a Reason: Nora takes this attitude towards Marinette; while it's clear that she started taking her classes for some personal reason, she opts not to push the point and to focus on helping her out through proper instruction.
• Title Drop:
  • In Enough Rope, Ladybug declares as much to Lila and Alya:
    Alya: Lila told me that her disease acts up when she's really nervous, and you two are acting really intimidating! What's up with the grilling, there's no harm in a misunderstanding.
    Ladybug: (with Sugary Malice) Really~ Give someone enough rope and they'll hang themselves! Looks like you two proved that to be a tried and true idiom, hm?
  • In Even A Worm Will Turn, Felix delivers this rebuttal to White Knight:
    White Knight: Foolish coward! You would defend a mangy cat — (locks blades with the Lucky Charm prop sword) — but not Lila?! (disarms Felix) Why do such a thing!
    Felix: You've annoyed me to a limit. "Even a worm will turn at last," and I've got a threshold for how much stupidity I can handle.
• Took a Level in Badass: As part of focusing more upon her heroic duties, Marinette begins training extensively in fencing and boxing with Kagami and Nora respectively (and sparring with Chat Noir as Ladybug). This enables her to start throwing down with the less powerful akumatized villains. Case in point? Flipping Volpina over her shoulder by her hair.
• Tranquil Fury: Played With; when Felix hears Lila's inner voice cheerfully admit that she's been working with Hawkmoth to break Marinette's will during Lady Clarity's assault, he calmly declares "I think I'm going to murder you." As he's under the effect of Lady Clarity's powers at the time, his phantom voice is visible, and it looks like a monster in its own right.
• Troubled Teen: To Sabine's horror, Marinette is evolving into this as Lila's extended bullying campaign takes its toll, becoming sullen and withdrawn and losing interest in what was once her passion. Sabine has no idea why it's happening, and Marinette keeps her at arm's length. Then Sabine learns Marinette had been targeted and harassed, and had been dealing with it for months—long before her behavior noticeably shifted, leaving her to agonize whether it was noticeable all along and she just wasn't paying enough attention to see it.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Felix accuses Rose of being one during Birds of a Feather, reminding her that Marinette saved her from being cut down by White Knight... something Rose proceeds to completely ignore when Marinette subsequently requests that she not reveal which club Felix is in to Lila.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation:
  • Amelie Graham de Vanily and Emilie Agreste aren't twin sisters, but close childhood best friends. They do consider each other sisters due to their closeness. Gabriel refuses to honor this bond, despite attempting to exploit Emilie's investments in Amelie's company.
  • Since their mothers aren't actually sisters, Felix and Adrien aren't related either.
• Unwanted Assistance:
  • One standalone mini-comic has Alya break into Marinette's locker. Finding a gift inside, she automatically assumes it must be for Adrien and tries to deliver it on Marinette's behalf. Kagami intervenes, noting the massive breach of privacy and that Marinette never asked for her 'help'.
  • During Birds of a Feather, Luka tries to help Marinette out by swinging by the Dupain-Cheng bakery and letting her mother know about how she was called to the principal's office. While he means well, Marinette doesn't appreciate how he didn't give her the chance to share her side of the story with Sabine first — it strikes too much of a chord, especially given how one of Lila's all about twisting narratives to her own ends.
  • Later in Birds of a Feather, Alya decides that she's going to help Lila find just the right club to join. Unfortunately, while she's doing this to try getting the upper hand on Lila, her enlisting of Rose in these efforts results in Rose discovering Felix's ballet troupe.
• Unwanted Harem: Marinette tries to go the loner route, breaking up with Luka and giving up on her crush on Adrien, but in the process Kagami, Felix, and Adrien gain a crush on her.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Alya's Skewed Priorities make her an ideal patsy for Lila and a prime source of information for Hawkmoth. Ladybug specifically points out how her posting Lila's claims about Chat Noir's intention to confess at the children's carnival made it a prime target for gossipmongers and Hawkmoth.
  • In Even a Worm Will Turn, Ms. Bustier's attempt to solve the problem without further conflict inadvertently triggers one of her students getting akumatized.
  • Mylène's innocent presumption that Marinette will naturally help make costumes for their Little Mermaid play only gives Lila and Ms. Bustier the perfect opportunity to pressure the poor girl.
  • Later on in Birds of a Feather, Alya unintentionally makes Rose into one, as Rose learns what club Felix attends. Then she gets another turn at this when she shows up at the theater hall with Lila in tow.
  • Birds of a Feather also has Hallmaster Virgil, who gleefully encourages the rivalry between Serbrus and Dante without realizing how far the former is willing to go.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Played With during Birds of a Feather, when Marinette notes that seeing Alya confront and call out Lila doesn't feel as good as she thought it would.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Gabriel believes that Marinette would make an especially powerful akuma if he could just sink his claws deep enough into her psyche.
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • Marinette with the rest of her classmates. Alya, Nino and Adrien are impacted the most by this.
  • Referenced directly by Marinette during Birds of a Feather, and combined with an Armor-Piercing Question:
    Marinette: I wouldn't have been best friends with you if you weren't somebody I appreciated. Do you appreciate Lila, too? Just think.
• Wham Line: Enough Rope has Chloé's proposal to Marinette: "I want you to track down Hawkmoth's identity for me."
• Wham Shot:
  • In Enough Rope, Hawkmoth's power of Transmission works against him, and Marinette witnesses a memory of Emilie using the Peacock.
  • Birds of a Feather has the moment where Alya grasps Lila's shoulders and shoves her to the ground right before calling her out on her harassment of Felix.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Kagami confronts Alya over breaking into Marinette's locker and taking out her property, calling her out on presuming she knows what's best for her former friend.
  • Marinette is thoroughly unimpressed by Bunnyx's desire to "fix" her, particularly since she only wants to do so on her terms, treating her as an anomaly that needs to be hammered back into shape rather than an actual person. She points out that if Bunnyx really wanted to help, she could simply tell her who Hawkmoth is; her refusal to do so shows how self-centered she is.
  • Felix calls Alya out on her Skewed Priorities, needlessly risking her life Going for the Big Scoop and endangering others. He also confronts her over recording his "Eureka!" Moment as a "good recap for [her] viewers", treating him as just another asset for her precious Ladyblog.
  • In Birds of a Feather, Alya calls out Lila for threatening to 'out' Felix and get them into trouble with the school after witnessing them emerging from the girl's bathroom.
• Worf Had the Flu: In Even a Worm Will Turn, Chat Noir gets a Drama-Preserving Handicap during his duel with White Knight from the fact that the sword Ladybug's Lucky Charm created was a prop sword. He doesn't realize this until after the fight begins, throwing off his performance.
• Wrong Assumption: Alya is naturally prone to these. Ironically, this actually works in the heroes' favor for once when she mistakenly concludes that Lila is a Stalker with a Crush towards Felix and calls her out for threatening him.
• Wrong Genre Savvy:
  • Despite how much Marinette's behavior has shifted, Alya assumes that her friend hasn't changed at her core, and that she's still interested in getting together with Adrien. At one point, she breaks into her locker, finds a lovingly wrapped gift, and assumes it must be meant for Adrien because "who else would she go through this much effort for?" It's for Kagami.
  • Lila mistakenly believes that she's the one pulling Hawkmoth's strings, getting him to dance to her tune and using him to achieve her goals. The idea that he's using her simply doesn't occur to her.
  • Future Alix/Bunnyx believes that there is only One True Timeline—her own—and that any deviations from that must be "fixed." In reality, there are meant to be infinite possibilities and permutations, and a Rabbit holder who hops between these alternate universes is supposed to minimize their impact upon the timelines, not try and force everyone and everything into the exact same mold. She also believes she's saving the Feralverse Marinette from herself, rather than meddling in affairs she's not welcome in.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Lila dabbles in this to some extent; if her initial plan of attack doesn't quite pan out, she often takes a step back and attempts another angle. Downplayed in how the various contradictions in her storytelling are glaringly obvious to the audience, as well as to more Genre Savvy characters.

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