History Fanfic / BurningBridgesBuildingConfidence

** In fact, many of Lila's accusations are based on things that ''she's'' done - and wanted to do - to Marinette and Cole.

* CrazyPrepared: {{Downplayed}} and {{Justified}}: Cole arrives at Françoise Dupont with a game plan for dealing with Lila and her new classmates because Marinette had been confiding in her about her problems at school well before Cole learned that she was going to be moving back to Paris and attending the same school. In addition, it takes time for her to gather evidence of what's going on, and even though she knew what she was walking into, the stress and frustration still wear on her.

''[[https://archiveofourown.org/series/1480772 Burning Bridges, Building Confidence]]'' is a ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' fanfic series by [[https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeanWritesStuff/pseuds/BeanWritesStuff [=BeanWritesStuff=]]]. Like [[FandomSpecificPlot many other fanworks inspired by]] [[Recap/MiraculousLadybugS03E01Chameleon "Chameleon"]], it explores Marinette having to weather the storm. In this case, she has [[OriginalCharacter her cousin Cole]] in her corner, along with forming a new group of friends.

* DropTheHammer: Revengance swings a giant hammer around.

* ShoutOut: While recognizing how much Alya has changed, Nino states that she's become more like [[Franchise/SpiderMan J. Jonah Jameson]] than [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Lois Lane]].

* PeekABangs: Cole has these in order to cover her eyepatch.

* AdaptationalJerkass: Lila's influence makes most of Marinette's classmates significantly worse, with Alya's, Kim's, and Adrien's worst traits getting amplified.

* {{Omniglot}}: Lila claims to be one. Cole and Aurore make fun of this by making mocking comments in English, Spanish and German, aware that she can't understand them.

** Chat Noir and Alya are shown to be equally deluded and insistent on [[ItsAllAboutMe having things their way]]. This gets driven home with how Chat openly sympathizes with Alya while she's akumatized into [[spoiler: Revengance]] by taking her side over Ladybug's.

** When Chat Noir is sitting on the sidelines during Akuma attacks because ''"[[EntitledToHaveYou Ladybug has to admit we're meant for each other first]]"'' before he'll lift a finger to help. Due to her disgust with him, [[OriginalCharacter Cole]], Marinette's cousin, assisted Ladybug as civilain in an Akuma attack which led her to become the new Fox miraculous holder (permanently).

** Ladybug confronts Alya after her outrage over being replaced as the Fox leads to her making wild, baseless accusations on her blog, getting akumatized into Rena Rage and outing herself as the former heroine:

'''Ladybug:''' "No, you are going to listen and listen only. You have shown me time and time again that you are no longer trustworthy with a Miraculous. Today's events only confirmed this. You have betrayed me both in and out of my mask. Your blog has become nothing but gossip and unsubstantiated stories. Your pride has gotten in the way and has made you into someone unstrustworthy. Vexxin wasn't chosen by me because I can only ''loan out'' Miraculous. Vexxin was chosen by the same person who chose me and Chat Noir, she's permanent. She's staying. Before today, I wasn't sure if I could trust you with a Miraculous again, but today you not only proclaimed a Miraculous was stolen, you revealed you were Rena Rouge and claimed that the Fox belonged to you. You put not only yourself, but your entire family in danger. I wish I could say I'm sorry, Alya, but I'm not. You brought this upon yourself."\\

--->'''Cole:''' "I don't think so. I owe nothing to any of you. My respect is something to be earned, and you lot will ''never'' earn it. Once you stop thinking like a mob, then maybe I'll consider any of you worth my time. Now leave. Us. Alone. I’d rather not have my IQ lowered anymore than it already has."

** As of Chapter 7, Cole's mother and Grandpa have been made aware of just what their daughter has been dealing with at her new school. Nino also contacts her to get her side of the story, and [[spoiler: Alya has been grounded by her parents when they discover what's been going on]].

** When Chat Noir is sitting on the sidelines during Akuma attacks because ''"[[EntitledToHaveYou Ladybug has to admit we're meant for each other first]]"'' before he'll lift a finger to help. Due to her digust with him, [[OriginalCharacter Cole]], Marinette's cousin, assisted Ladybug as civilain in an Akuma attack which led her to become the new Fox miraculous holder (permanently).

** When confronting Alya after [[spoiler: she outed herself as Rena Rouge while akumatized]], Ladybug spells out for her just how far she's fallen, laying out every mistake she's made and how she has proven herself completely unworthy of any miraculous at all.
** When Kim and the others attempt to confront Cole, she gives a short, but sweet one to Lila's herd:
--->'''Cole:''' I owe nothing to any of you. My respect is something to be earned, and you lot will ''never'' earn it. Once you stop thinking like a mob, then maybe I'll consider any of you worth my time. Now leave. Us. Alone. I'd rather not have my IQ lowered any more than it already has.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Chat Noir is sitting on the sidelines during Akuma attacks because ''"[[EntitledToHaveYou Ladybug has to admit we're meant for each other first]]"'' before he'll lift a finger to help. Due to her digust with him, [[OriginalCharacter Cole]], Marinette's cousin, assisted Ladybug as civilain in an Akuma attack which led her to become the new Fox miraculous holder (permanently).
** Chat subsequently ''attempts'' to lecture Ladybug about bringing Vexxin onto the team, only for Ladybug and Vexxin to give him a proper example:
--->'''Chat Noir:''' "My Lady, you didn't need to borrow the Fox from the Guardian; all you had to do was admit we were made for each other and I would have helped you."\\
'''Ladybug:''' ''[scowling at his condensation]'' "Chat, it's your job to help no matter what. Paris should come first. I've told you multiple times I don't feel the same way. And Vexxin isn't temporary. She's permanent. Fu gave her the Miraculous yesterday."\\
'''Chat Noir:''' "But why?! We were doing just fine." ''[folds arms]'' "Until you kept denying our love."\\
'''Vexxin:''' "For someone who proclaims you were doing just fine, you sure don't contribute to the work. Especially considering I had to jump in yesterday. ''As a civilian with no powers.'' Even just now, you sat back while Ladybug and I executed a plan that we made ''specifically because'' you can't be counted on to fight."\\
'''Chat Noir:''' "Yeah but--"\\
'''Vexxin:''' "But nothing! Your inaction has caused the Guardian to take the risk of making a Miraculous permanently active! If we follow the logic, the next step he'd take would be taking ''your'' Miraculous. So either sort out your priorities or be prepared to be permanently benched."
** Ladybug confronts Alya after her outrage over being replaced as the Fox leads to her making wild, baseless accusations on her blog, getting akumatized into Rena Rage and outing herself as the former heroine:
--->'''Ladybug:''' "Alya, you are in very big trouble."\\
'''Alya:''' "I kno--"\\
'''Ladybug:''' "No, you are going to listen and listen only. You have shown me time and time again that you are no longer trustworthy with a Miraculous. Today's events only confirmed this. You have betrayed me both in and out of my mask. Your blog has become nothing but gossip and unsubstantiated stories. Your pride has gotten in the way and has made you into someone unstrustworthy. Vexxin wasn't chosen by me because I can only ''loan out'' Miraculous. Vexxin was chosen by the same person who chose me and Chat Noir, she's permanent. She's staying. Before today, I wasn't sure if I could trust you with a Miraculous again, but today you not only proclaimed a Miraculous was stolen, you revealed you were Rena Rouge and claimed that the Fox belonged to you. You put not only yourself, but your entire family in danger. I wish I could say I'm sorry, Alya, but I'm not. You brought this upon yourself."\\
'''Alya:''' "Ladybug, please. I'll do anything, I'm begging you."\\
'''Ladybug:''' "No Alya. From now on, Rena Rouge ''and'' Carapace are permanently ''retired''."\\
'''Alya:''' "But Ladybug, I--"\\
'''Ladybug:''' "Get back to school, Alya. We've wasted enough time here as is."\\
''[Ladybug and Chat leave; as Vexxin follows, Alya spits at her.]''\\
'''Alya:''' "You, you did this."\\
'''Vexxin:''' "No, this is on you, traitor."
** Cole gives a brief one to Kim and several other classmates when they attempt to intimidate her into 'apologizing' for things she never actually did:
--->'''Cole:''' "I don't think so. I owe nothing to any of you. My respect is something to be earned, and you lot will ''never'' earn it. Once you stop thinking like a mob, then maybe I'll consider any of you worth my time. Now leave. Us. Alone. I’d rather not have my IQ lowered anymore than it already has."

* CrimeOfSelfDefense: When Alya attacks Marinette and Cole with deliberately-sharpened nails, Ms. Bustier immediately takes pity on Alya and blames Cole for the incident because she reflexively punched Alya to protect herself. She doesn't even bother to get medical attention for Cole [[spoiler: despite the fact that her eye socket stitches got ripped out because of it]]. Fortunately for Cole, Ms. Bustier finds herself in serious trouble for this because everybody else is utterly disgusted with this flagrant favoritism and victim-blaming. [[spoiler: She gets suspended from her job with the school board conducting a major investigation into how she's been running her classes, and then [[MamaBear Adelaide]] sues Ms. Bustier for child abuse/neglect towards both Cole and Marinette. This makes it very likely that she'll lose her job no matter what]].

* CrimeOfSelfDefense: When Alya attacks Marinette and Cole with deliberately-sharpened nails, Ms. Bustier immediately takes pity on Alya and blames Cole for the incident because she reflextively punched Alya to protect herself. She doesn't even bother to get medical attention for Cole [[spoiler: despite the fact that her eye socket stitches got ripped out because of it]]. Fortunately for Cole, Ms. Bustier finds herself in serious trouble for this because everybody else is utterly disgusted with this flagrant favoritism and victim-blaming. [[spoiler: She gets suspended from her job with the school board conducting a major investigation into how she's been running her classes, and then [[MamaBear Adelaide]] sues Ms. Bustier for child abuse/neglect towards both Cole and Marinette. This makes it very likely that she'll lose her job no matter what]].

** Cole ends up becoming this for Lila's manipulations, partially thanks to her cousin Marinette warning her beforehand. She records Lila's private gloating so she can gather evidence to publicly prove that she's a ConsummateLiar ([[spoiler: which ends up being good for helping Nino to escape Lila and Alya's toxicity and to help Adelaide build a case against Lila as she's drafting the lawsuits against the people who hurt her daughter]]). Her unwillingness to tolerate any of the crap Lila's "sheep" produce and her refusal to be cowed by them also proves to be a major thorn in Lila's side.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Though Cole has plenty of reasons not to give her new classmates any benefit of the doubt, being well aware of how they've been treating her cousin, her decision not to bother with any niceties just makes it all the easier for Lila to turn them all against her.
** Along similar lines, despite knowing what she's facing ahead of time, actually dealing with Lila's manipulation and everyone else bullying her naturally wears Cole down. This culminates in her having a panic attack after Alya's assault - particularly since Ms. Bustier left her to bleed and clearly blamed her for being attacked.
** Alya turning the Ladyblog into her own personal platform to rage against Vexxin leads to her being blacklisted and labelled a [[TabloidMelodrama trashy tabloid]]. And rather than being abandoned en masse by all of her followers, she retains some loyalists who have bought into all of her claims. Hawkmoth also exploits the drama to akumatize people on all sides of the debate. Some in favour of Alya. But most not.
** BullyingTheDisabled as excessively as Lila's goons do not only leads to the complete and utter aversion of SchoolBullyingIsHarmless, [[spoiler: but Cole's mother sues the school for enabling an ''ableist hate crime'' after Alya tears up Cole's eye stitches. Ms. Bustier ends up suspended with the risk of being fired from her job because of her attempt to victim-blame Cole for the attack, and Alya gets put in the doghouse by her family.]]

* AchillesInHisTent: Chat Noir decides to start sitting out of battles, watching from the sidelines, and waiting for Ladybug to admit that she needs him... not just as a partner in fighting akumas, but as a boyfriend. This blatant {{Blackmail}} does ''not'' go over well with Cole [[spoiler: or Master Fu]].

* AccompliceByInaction: Adelaide's thoughts in ''The Night After'' make it clear that she sees Principal Damocles as one. While he ''does'' act after Alya assaulted her daughter, he's only doing so for fear of facing legal recourse, having allowed the situation to go on completely unaddressed until circumstances ensured that he couldn't turn a blind eye anymore.
* AchillesInHisTent: Chat Noir decides to start sitting out of battles, watching from the sidelines and waiting for Ladybug to admit that she needs him... not just as a partner in fighting akumas, but as a boyfriend. This blatant {{Blackmail}} does ''not'' go over well with Cole [[spoiler: or Master Fu]].
* AdaptationalHeroism: Compared to her {{Canon}} counterpart, Chloé is shown to be taking her HeelFaceTurn more seriously by working on her behavior. She isn't especially interested in mending fences with her ''other'' classmates, but she isn't bullying them anymore either. She has reached out and apologized to others, and is already tentatively building a better relationship with Marinette before Cole shows up. She also acknowledges that outing herself to all of Paris makes giving her the Bee Miraculous again a risky proposition.
* AdaptationalJerkass: Lila's influence makes most of Marinette's classmates significantly worse, with Alya, Kim and Adrien's worst traits getting amplified.
** Alya goes from Marinette's '[[FairWeatherFriend best friend]]' to Lila's personal [[BetaBitch attack dog]], fully buying into her lies. Her strong sense of justice and willingness to pursue answers is negatively focused upon Marinette, and she refuses to accept any truths that clash with [[TheoryTunnelvision her assumptions]].

** Adrien's pursuit of Ladybug as Chat Noir escalates, to the point where he stands aside during akuma battles in the hopes that this will force her to 'admit how she ''really'' feels' about him. He also stands aside and watches Lila turn the rest of the class against Marinette and Cole, blaming ''them'' for it and buying into her lies enough to believe that Cole is faking her vision issues.

** When the Squad is brainstorming ways to deal with Lila's threats, Mireille suggests talking to the principal. Chloé dismisses him as a pushover who'd cave in the face of Lila's CrocodileTears. Though with that said, even ''he'' is clearly disgusted by Ms. Bustier's blatant favoritism and [[spoiler: winds up suspending her for trying to punish Cole for defending herself from an attack that damaged her eye socket even further. The only reason why he doesn't outright fire her for this offense is that teacher employment lies in the hands of the school board, and the whole incident caused them to launch a major investigation into how Ms. Bustier has been conducting her class, which is definetely taking a while]]. However, Adelaide views this as Damocles just attempting to save face for both himself and the rest of the school when the incident forced him to realize that he can’t ignore the students' misbehavior anymore.

* BatterUp: Cole uses a baseball bat when assisting Ladybug with Nightify, and later carries one as Vexxin.

** Adrien is fully aware of how Lila is manipulating his classmates, but refuses to help Marinette or Cole out, insisting that he's 'taking the high road' by staying out of it and blaming ''them'' for supposedly causing the conflict. As far as he's concerned, it's their fault for not just letting her lie unchallenged.

* BigSisterInstinct: When Nora, Alya's older sister, learns that Alya was in a fight, she's initially mad at Cole because she thinks that she's the one who started it. However, once she learns the whole story, Nora gets pissed off at Alya instead for attacking an innocent, disabled classmate, then shoots Cole an apologetic look before dragging Alya home and tells their parents what really happened. Alya sees this as a betrayal on her sister's part.

** In fact, many of Lila's accusations are based off of things that ''she's'' done - and wanted to do - to Marinette and Cole.

* BluntYes: When Alya and Cole are both in Damocles' office:

* BrokenPedestal: Though Marinette's regard of Adrien was already weakening, the pedestal completely shatters in ''The Worst Day So Far'' when he tries to convince her that she's only suffering because she hasn't 'taken the high road' like him. Seeing just how determined he is to pin the blame on her leads her to lament her former crush, wondering what she ever saw in him in the first place.

* BullyingTheDisabled: Lila ends up claiming that Cole is faking her vision issues, which causes her followers to hate Cole more than before. [[spoiler: After Alya's attack on Cole, Adelaide aims to get it labelled as an ableist hate crime, because Alya uses her insistence that Cole has been faking her missing eye as a reason for the attack]].
* CastFullOfGay: [[AdaptationalSexuality In spite of their canon counterparts' sexualities]], Marinette's circle of friends are all portrayed as queer; Cole, Chloé, Kagami, Aurore and Mirelle are all lesbians while Marinette is pansexual.

* CrazyPrepared: {{Downplayed}} and {{Justified}}: Cole arrives at Francoise Dupont with a game plan for dealing with Lila and her new classmates because Marinette had been confiding in her about her problems at school well before Cole learned that she was going to be moving back to Paris and attending the same school. In addition, it takes time for her to gather evidence of what's going on, and even though she knew what she was walking into, the stress and frustration still wears on her.

** Lila's constant claims that she's Ladybug's best friend gets her taken hostage by [[spoiler: Rena Rage]], who's convinced that this will bring Ladybug in faster.

** Adrien/Chat Noir decides to stay out of akuma fights for a while, withholding his aid until Ladybug agrees to start dating him. He completely fails to consider how Master Fu might feel about this. Turns out the guardian doesn't approve, and appoints Vexxin as another permanent hero, giving Ladybug a more reliable partner.

* DiggingYourselfDeeper: Alya does this by inisting that she's done nothing wrong, even when the consequences of her actions (such as [[spoiler: getting her attack on Cole labeled as an ableist hate crime, getting grounded by her parents for the attack, Nino breaking up with her to escape her toxic behavior, losing most of her Ladyblog fans and having it blacklisted by most news media outlets when she starts turning it into a trashy tabloid]]) start biting her in the butt.

* ExactWords: Lila cherry-picks information from an article she found about [[spoiler: Cole Sullivan]]. Specifically, the article shows [[spoiler: 'Sullivan' being found guilty of child abuse, assault with intent to kill, corruption and obstruction of justice]]. Lila makes it sound as though [[spoiler: Cole was the ''perpetrator'' instead of the ''victim'', telling Alya that Cole's picture is included with the article and feigning concern that she 'escaped custody']] in order to rile Alya up further.

* FairWeatherFriend: The bulk of Marinette's classmates are characterized like this, due to how easily they have turned against her.

* FalseFriend: Lila in regards to Alya and all of her other pawns. At one point, she pretends to be listening to her vent, but secretly has her muted and only turns it back on so that she can pass on some 'juicy' cherry-picked info.

* GirlPosse: A benevolent example. Marinette forms a new group of friends at school, including Cole, Chloé, Kagami, Aurore and Mireille.

** When evidence of Lila's harassment of Marinette and Alya's compliance in the same reaches Nino, he [[spoiler:dumps Alya and]] begins making efforts to repair his friendship with Marinette.

** Chat Noir's decision to stop helping Ladybug until she admits how much she needs him causes Master Fu to choose a permanent holder for the Fox in order to compensate for his inaction, while reevaluating his ability to serve as the Cat.

** In Chapter 6, [[spoiler: Cole's Grandpa spots Trixx leaving her backpack to help him get Cole through a panic attack. Cole's Grandpa reacting calmly to this indicates he already knows about the miraculouses and about Cole being Vexxin]].

** When Vexxin rips into Chat Noir, pointing out that he might be in danger of losing his own miraculous if he doesn't shape up:

** After turning on Marinette and slandering her and her cousin, Alya sees herself replaced as the Fox Heroine. Her reaction to this ensures that she will never be trusted with a Miraculous again, due to [[spoiler: outing herself as the former Rena Rouge]].

** Alya transforms the Ladyblog into a tabloid trashing Vexxin, accusing her of being a lowly thief. Lila feeds the flames by claiming that Vexxin is a {{Streetwalker}}, with the fact that Alya, Lila and Chat Noir all judge her for this being shown as further proof of their awfulness.
* MamaBear: As Alya, Lila, and Ms. Bustier learn the hard way starting in Chapter 6, messing with Cole is not gonna go over well with her mother Adelaide, ''especially'' when Adelaide was a lawyer before becoming a CEO of a cybersecurity company and is all too willing to resort to litigation to make sure that people get punished for their actions. [[spoiler: When Alya attacks Cole in Chapter 6, Adelaide gets it officially labeled as an ableist hate crime, and also sues the school for enabling it. She also sues Ms. Bustier for her attempt to blame Cole for the attack and is also aiming to make sure Ms. Bustier loses her job, and when Cole reveals that she collected evidence proving that Lila is a ConsummateLiar, Adelaide ends up using that same evidence to build a lawsuit against her so that Lila can never hurt anyone ever again]].

* NotHelpingYourCase: Cole's not particularly interested in making nice with her new classmates, since she's already heard all about how they abandoned and turned upon her cousin. Lila exploits this to turn them against ''her'' as well.

** Chat Noir and Alya are shown to be equally deluded and insistent on [[ItsAllAboutMe having things their way]]. This gets driven home with how Chat openly sympathizes with Alya while she's akumatized into [[spoiler:Revengance]], taking her side over Ladybug's.

--->'''Cole:''' I owe nothing to any of you. My respect is something to be earned, and you lot will ''never'' earn it. Once you stop thinking like a mob, then maybe I'll consider any of you worth my time. Now leave. Us. Alone. I'd rather not have my IQ lowered anymore than it already has.

* TheScapegoat: While Cole's arrival ''does'' shake things up, she finds herself getting blamed for ''all'' the drama that starts unfolding in her new class after she transfers in. Not just by Lila and her followers, but by Ms. Bustier, who even goes so far to blame her entirely for Alya assaulting her and her cousin and neglecting to give her medical attention. [[spoiler: She winds up temporarily losing her job for it, and it's heavily implied she'll lose it entierly once the school board is done reviewing the case]].

* SharedFamilyQuirks: Like her cousin, Cole proves to be highly creative and resourceful, with a penchant for planning things out and putting a lot of thought into matters.

** At one point, after [[spoiler:Kagami and Chloé]] are akumatized, Adrien decides to focus on tracking down Marinette over dealing with the threat... so that he can blame her for said akumatization.

** Cole ends up becoming this for Lila's manipulations, partially thanks to her cousin Marinette warning her beforehand. She records Lila's private gloating so she can gather evidence to publicly prove that she's a ConsummateLiar ([[spoiler:which ends up being good for helping Nino to escape Lila and Alya's toxicity and to help Adelaide build a case against Lila as she's drafting the lawsuits against the people who hurt her daughter]]). Her unwillingness to tolerate any of the crap Lila's "sheep" produce and her refusal to be cowed by them also proves to be a major thorn in Lila's side.

** Though Cole has plenty of reason not to give her new classmates any benefit of the doubt, being well aware of how they've been treating her cousin, her decision not to bother with any niceties just makes it all the easier for Lila to turn them all against her.

* TabloidMelodrama: The Ladyblog descends into this as Alya gets increasingly worse about not checking facts and letting her bias show. After Vexxin's debut, she posts an article claiming that the Fox Miraculous was ''stolen'', and proceeds to become a hate-blogger posting all manner of MaliciousSlander about the new heroine. [[spoiler: This ends up getting the Ladyblog blacklisted by most major news sources in Paris]].
* TeasingFromBehindTheLanguageBarrier: Cole and Aurore make fun of Lila by making mocking comments towards her in English, Spanish and German, aware that she can't understand them despite claiming to be an omniglot.
-->'''Cole (in Spanish):''' I wanna make s'mores when they burn her on the pyre.\\

* ThereIsAnother: While searching for information, Cole comes across another copy of [[spoiler:the Grimoire]] in a [[GrailInTheGarbage secondhand store]]. Fu explains that that one was used for ceremonies while the other was kept in the Guardians' libraries.

* TrustPassword: When meeting Vexxin for the first time, Ladybug asks her the names of both of their kwamis, in order to affirm that she met both of them.

** Cole, Chloé, Kagami, Aurore and Mireille are all furious when they learn that Adrien knew all along that Lila was lying, but chose to stand aside and let her turn the others against Marinette while insisting that he was 'taking the high road'.

* YouAreGrounded: Following a violent confrontation, [[spoiler:Alya is grounded by her parents, who also post an announcement on the Ladyblog about it being put on hiatus... and why]]. This is noted to have caused several akumatizations as a result. Some pro-Alya. But most not. [[spoiler: Alya also ignores her grounding to keep posting.]]

** Marinette is [[MixedAncestry half-Chinese, half-French-Italian]], and pansexual.

* CriticalResearchFailure:
** InUniverse, Ms. Bustier mixes parts of ''Theatre/{{Othello}}'' into ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}''.
** [[PlayedForDrama Used more dramatically]] when Lila exploits Alya not checking her own sources by feeding her [[ExactWords carefully phrased information]] about an article she found regarding [[spoiler: a child abuse case, making it sound as though Cole was the ''perpetrator'' rather than the ''victim'']].

Ever since Lila Rossi returned to College Francoise Dupont, Marinette's life feels like it's been steadily sliding downhill. Despite her best efforts, Lila's [[CelebrityLie fabulous-sounding fibs]] have most of their classmates mesmerized, and she's got every intention of keeping her promise to ''ruin'' the fashion designer for the cardinal sin of standing up to her.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Compared to her {{Canon}} counterpart, Chloe is shown to be taking her HeelFaceTurn more seriously by working on her behavior. She isn't especially interested in mending fences with her ''other'' classmates, but she isn't bullying them anymore either. She has reached out and apologized to others, and is already tentatively building a better relationship with Marinette before Cole shows up. She also acknowledges that outing herself to all of Paris makes giving her the Bee Miraculous again a risky proposition.

** When the Squad is brainstorming ways to deal with Lila's threats, Mireille suggests talking to the principal. Chloe dismisses him as a pushover who'd cave in the face of Lila's CrocodileTears. Though with that said, even ''he'' is clearly disgusted by Ms. Bustier's blatant favoritism and [[spoiler: winds up suspending her for trying to punish Cole for defending herself from an attack that damaged her eye socket even further. The only reason why he doesn't outright fire her for this offense is that teacher employment lies in the hands of the school board, and the whole incident caused them to launch a major investigation into how Ms. Bustier has been conducting her class, which is definetely taking a while]]. However, Adelaide views this as Damocles just attempting to save face for both himself and the rest of the school when the incident forced him to realize that he can’t ignore the students' misbehavior anymore.

* AttentionWhore: Chloe explicitly refers to Lila as such. Rather accurately, too, given her tendency to make everything revolve around herself as much as possible.

* BullyingTheDisabled: Lila ends up claiming that Cole is faking her vision issues, which causes her followers to hate Cole more than before. [[spoiler: After Alya's attack on Cole, Adelaide aims to get it labelled as an ableist hate crime, because Alya uses her insistance that Cole has been faking her missing eye as a reason for the attack]].
* CastFullOfGay: [[AdaptationalSexuality In spite of their canon counterparts' sexualities]], Marinette's circle of friends are all portrayed as queer; Cole, Chloe, Kagami, Aurore and Mirelle are all lesbians while Marinette is pansexual.

** Thanks to Marinette telling Cole about Lila, she audio-records every confrontation with Lila and also geotags pics of her and her friends whenever they're doing something fun together. For example, she takes a picture of herself, Chloe, and Marinette when they are eating lunch at a fancy cafe and geotags it, which proves to Principal Damocles that they did not threaten Lila in the girls' bathroom at the same time. So far, the collected evidence has been used to expose Lila's lies to Nino. [[spoiler: Cole also gives the evidence to her mother so that she can press charges against Lila for everything she's done to Cole and Marinette]].

'''[=BumbleBitch=] (Chloe):''' gays\\

* GirlPosse: A benevolent example. Marinette forms a new group of friends at school, including Cole, Chloe, Kagami, Aurore and Mireille.

** Before Cole's arrival, Chloe decides to solidify hers by standing with Marinette and making a sincere effort to become a better person rather than falling back into her usual habits.

*** The students of Ms. Bustier's class besides Chloe and Marinette are put under watch after the attack. The temporary teacher, Mendeleiv, also puts her foot down on their behavior and is clearly planning on making sure that Lila and her followers can't hurt Marinette and Cole anymore.

* RealityEnsues:
** Though Cole has plenty of reason not to give her new classmates any benefit of the doubt, being well aware of how they've been treating her cousin, her decision not to bother with any niceties just makes it all the easier for Lila to turn them all against her.
** Along similar lines, despite knowing what she's facing ahead of time, actually dealing with Lila's manipulation and everyone else bullying her naturally wears Cole down. This culminates in her having a panic attack after Alya's assault - particularly since Ms. Bustier left her to bleed and clearly blamed her for being attacked.
** Alya turning the Ladyblog into her own personal platform to rage against Vexxin leads to her being blacklisted and labelled a [[TabloidMelodrama trashy tabloid]]. And rather than being abandoned en masse by all of her followers, she retains some loyalists who have bought into all of her claims. Hawkmoth also exploits the drama to akumatize people on all sides of the debate. Some in favour of Alya. But most not.
** BullyingTheDisabled as excessively as Lila's goons do not only leads to the complete and utter aversion of SchoolBullyingIsHarmless, [[spoiler: but Cole's mother sues the school for enabling an ''ableist hate crime'' after Alya tears up Cole's eye stitches. Ms. Bustier ends up suspended with the risk of being fired from her job because of her attempt to victim-blame Cole for the attack, and Alya gets put in the doghouse by her family.]]

---->''Good ultimatium,'' Alya thought. ''She better do it quick, or else they might get her miraculous.''

** At one point, after [[spoiler:Kagami and Chloe]] are akumatized, Adrien decides to focus on tracking down Marinette over dealing with the threat... so that he can blame her for said akumatization.

** Cole ends up becoming this for Lila's manipulations, partially thanks to her cousin Marinette warning her beforehand. She records Lila's private gloating so she can gather evidence to publically prove that she's a ConsummateLiar ([[spoiler:which ends up being good for helping Nino to escape Lila and Alya's toxicity and to help Adelaide build a case against Lila as she's drafting the lawsuits against the people who hurt her daughter]]). Her unwillingness to tolerate any of the crap Lila's "sheep" produce and her refusal to be cowed by them also proves to be a major thorn in Lila's side.

** Cole, Chloe, Kagami, Aurore and Mireille are all furious when they learn that Adrien knew all along that Lila was lying, but chose to stand aside and let her turn the others against Marinette while insisting that he was 'taking the high road'.

* AngryBlackMan: Gender inverted with Alya.

* UnfortunateImplications: Alya's violent behavior and general demeanor give this impression.

* BadassGay: Cole is Vexxin and a lesbian. Marinette is, of course, Ladybug and a pansexual.
** [[spoiler: The new back-up Miraculous holders Aurore (Lapin) and Mireille (Capri)]] are lesbians.