History Fanfic / LiesOfAttrition

** Another instance being [[spoiler: that Team Miraculous has been split into two warring factions between Ladybug and Chat Noir, while still hanging out as a friend group in their civilian identities]].

* EvilIsPetty: Chrysalis ''could've'' [[spoiler: tried to take Ladybug's Miraculous herself while the latter was winded from her fight with Chat Noir, but why spoil the fun of letting ''Chat'' take it off her instead?]] There's also the fact that, VillainousCrush aside, she gets a kick out of angering Ladybug by flirting with Chat Noir. In [[WordOfGod wackus_bonkus's]] own words regarding this trope:

** While Ladybug is unquestionably a hero, she also has a bad habit of keeping her allies LockedOutOfTheLoop even when it's more beneficial for them to know what's going on. The resulting PoorCommunicationKills is what turns Chat Noir against her. And as Chat Noir points out, they've spent years fighting to ''prevent'' Monarque from using the Wish, and now she's trying to ''preserve'' it. [[spoiler: This is later compounded by her lying to the other heroes about Chat Noir's motives, trying to paint him as being beyond reason, which almost immediately [[NiceJobBreakingItHero comes back to bite her]] when Chat [[WhatTheHellHero angrily]] [[LiarRevealed exposes her]]]].

* KickTheDog: After Ladybug and Chat Noir's first real fight, Chrysalis corners her [[spoiler: and gives her a short but potent BreakingSpeech, before telling her that she plans to let [[WeUsedToBeFriends Chat Noir]] take the Miraculous from her rather than taking it herself.]]
* LockedOutOfTheLoop: {{Deconstructed|Trope}}. Ladybug's tendency to keep secrets and [[BlatantLies outright lie]] to her allies, and especially Chat Noir, is what causes Argos and Ryuko to question her leadership, and outright [[FaceHeelTurn turns Chat Noir]] [[spoiler: and later three others]] against her.

* NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist: While Chrysalis's stated goal is to undo Monarque's Wish and put things back to the way they were, it's clear that she's ultimately only in it for her own secret agenda. [[spoiler: This is underscored by the way she sadistically taunts Ladybug while she's incapacitated, and specifically mentions that she plans to let Chat Noir take her Miraculous off her rather than just doing it herself]].

* PlaguedByNightmares: Adrien's been having recurring nightmares of [[spoiler: Chat Blanc]] ever since Nightormentor's attack. [[spoiler: Along with it being the reason why he stayed out of the FinalBattle, it's also why he refuses Chrysalis' offer of [[SuperMode Akumatization]]]].

* RegretfulTraitor: While Chat Noir is undoubtedly [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned]], he still holds tremendous regret over being on opposite sides with [[TrueCompanions Ladybug]]. It causes him to [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone frequently question]] [[GreyAndGrayMorality the morality]] of his situation. His [[spoiler: recurring nightmares of [[ApocalypseHow Chat]] [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Blanc]]]] don't help matters.

** Chapter 11 has Chat [[LiarRevealed expose Ladybug as a liar]] to the other heroes, [[spoiler: causing Roi Singe, Traquemoiselle, and Pegasus to turn traitor and join Chat to undo Monarque's Wish.]]
* YesMan: Chat implicitly accuses Rena Rouge of being this to Ladybug when she [[spoiler: ''still'' [[UndyingLoyalty sides with Ladybug after he exposes her]]]]. Although, it's technically a subversion, as Rena isn't so much mindlessly obedient as she's aware that Monarque and Gabriel Agreste were one and the same.

** Even the Butterfly-wielding {{Big Bad}}s conduct themselves differently; whereas Hawk Moth is a serious-minded ControlFreak who freaks out upon losing control of his plans, Chrysalis is a {{Troll}} and is flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. And their alliances are also different; where Ladybug and Hawk Moth utterly ''despise'' one another and only tolerate one another due to shared goals, Chrysalis has a crush on Chat Noir, and happily flirts with him.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: {{Deconstructed|Trope}} Ladybug's tendency to keep secrets and [[BlatantLies outright lie]] to her allies, and especially Chat Noir, is what causes Argos and Ryuko to question her leadership, and outright [[FaceHeelTurn turns Chat Noir]] [[spoiler: and later three others]] against her.

* SpiritualAntithesis: to ''Fanfic/TruthAndConsequences''. Both follow the basic premise of "Ladybug and Chat Noir become enemies while dating as Marinette and Adrien", but where in ''Truth and Consequences'', Marinette is out to [[EarnYourHappyEnding secure the best possible ending]] for ''[[ItsAllAboutMe herself]]'', Adrien views his endgoal in ''lies of attrition'' as a HappyEndingOverride, but chooses to go through with it anyway because, at least from his perspective, it's the right thing to do. In ''Truth and Consequences'', Chat Noir is almost completely isolated from any form of superpowered help, his only real allies being a BadassNormal in the form of Kagami and his new mentor. In ''lies of attrition'', [[spoiler:he manages to sway three members of Ladybug's team to his cause]]. Even the Butterfly-wielding {{Big Bad}}s conduct themselves differently; whereas Hawk Moth is a serious-minded ControlFreak who panics upon losing control of his plans, Chrysalis is a {{Troll}} and is flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. And their alliances are also different; where Ladybug and Hawk Moth utterly ''despise'' one another and only tolerate one another due to shared goals, Chrysalis has a crush on Chat Noir, and happily flirts with him. And while Chat Noir doesn't exactly trust her, he has a much better working partnership with her. And while in ''Truth and Consequences'', both sides are portrayed sympathetically, it's also made unambiguously clear that Marinette is the villain. Here, the lines are much less clear-cut, with even a few scenes in the story calling into question how much ''either'' of them can be considered unambiguously right or wrong in their conflict. Not helping matters is that both characters' views are presented as valid, and both are willing to take questionable actions to further these ends.

--> '''Chat Noir:''' Figures you'd side with her.

* SpiritualAntithesis: to ''Fanfic/TruthAndConsequences''. Both follow the basic premise of "Ladybug and Chat Noir become enemies while dating as Marinette and Adrien", but where in ''Truth and Consequences'', Marinette is out to [[EarnYourHappyEnding secure the best possible ending]] for ''[[ItsAllAboutMe herself]]'', Adrien views his endgoal in ''lies of attrition'' as a HappyEndingOverride, but chooses to go through with it anyway because, at least from his perspective, it's the right thing to do. In ''Truth and Consequences'', Chat Noir is almost completely isolated from any form of superpowered help, his only real allies being a BadassNormal in the form of Kagami and his new mentor. In ''lies of attrition'', [[spoiler:he manages to sway three members of Ladybug's team to his cause]]. Even the Butterfly-wielding {{Big Bad}}s conduct themselves differently; whereas Hawk Moth is a serious-minded ControlFreak who freaks out upon losing control of his plans, Chrysalis is a {{Troll}} and is flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. And their alliances are also different; where Ladybug and Hawk Moth utterly ''despise'' one another and only tolerate one another due to shared goals, Chrysalis has a crush on Chat Noir, and happily flirts with him. And while in ''Truth and Consequences'', both sides are portrayed sympathetically, it's also made unambiguously clear that Marinette is the villain. Here, the lines are much less clear-cut, with even a few scenes in the story calling into question how much ''either'' of them can be considered unambiguously right or wrong in their conflict. Not helping matters is that both characters' views are presented as valid, and both are willing to take questionable actions to further these ends.

* AesopAmnesia: The stress of everything that happened during and in the aftermath of the FinalBattle and her fear of how it could affect Adrien have caused Marinette to relapse back into her ControlFreak tendencies despite having learned her lesson in Strikeback.

* BrokenPedestal: Ladybug becomes this to Chat Noir when he learns that she lied about Gabriel Agreste's death and the success of Monarque's Wish. [[spoiler: The pedestal breaks even further when she tries to lie about his motives, which quickly erodes his remaining sympathy for her]]. [[spoiler: And by exposing her lies to the other heroes, he breaks the pedestal for several of them, causing some of them to join him]].

* HearingVoices: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed,]] but Marinette notes that her subconscious has started to sound eerily like Gabriel to her.

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed.]] Ladybug's tendency to keep secrets and [[BlatantLies outright lie]] to her allies, and especially Chat Noir, is what causes Argos and Ryuko to question her leadership, and outright [[FaceHeelTurn turns Chat Noir]] [[spoiler: and later three others]] against her.
* ManipulativeBastard: Chrysalis is this in spades. First, [[spoiler: she offers Chat Noir the location of her victim's Akumatized object as a show of good faith,]] then when he meets her, she gives him a MetaphoricallyTrue account of the final battle, which he believes because she's able to prove she was there by virtue of wielding Monarque's Miraculous, and plants seeds of doubt in his mind [[spoiler: which [[PoorCommunicationKills Ladybug]] [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom unwittingly]] [[UnwittingPawn nurtures]] with her lies and [[LockedOutOfTheLoop secrecy.]]]]

* SpiritualAntithesis: to ''Fanfic/TruthAndConsequences''. Both follow the basic premise of "Ladybug and Chat Noir become enemies while dating as Marinette and Adrien", but where in ''Truth and Consequences'', Marinette is out to [[EarnYourHappyEnding secure the best possible ending]] for ''[[ItsAllAboutMe herself]]'', Adrien views his endgoal in ''lies of attrition'' as a HappyEndingOverride, but chooses to go through with it anyway because, at least from his perspective, it's the right thing to do. In ''Truth and Consequences'', Chat Noir is almost completely isolated from any form of help. In ''lies of attrition'', [[spoiler:he manages to sway three members of Ladybug's team to his cause]]. Even the Butterfly-wielding {{Big Bad}}s conduct themselves differently; whereas Hawk Moth is a serious-minded ControlFreak who freaks out upon losing control of his plans, Chrysalis is a {{Troll}} and is flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. And their alliances are also different; where Ladybug and Hawk Moth utterly ''despise'' one another and only tolerate one another due to shared goals, Chrysalis has a crush on Chat Noir, and happily flirts with him. And while in ''Truth and Consequences'', both sides are portrayed sympathetically, it's also made unambiguously clear that Marinette is the villain. Here, the lines are much less clear-cut, with even a few scenes in the story calling into question how much ''either'' of them can be considered unambiguously right or wrong in their conflict. Not helping matters is that both characters' views are presented as valid, and both are willing to take questionable actions to further these ends.

* HappyEndingOverride: Adrien considers the return of his ControlFreak [[AbusiveParents Abusive]] ArchnemesisDad to be this, but chooses to go through with it anyway because he thinks it was wrong for Gabriel to be sacrificed for someone's wish. And if he left things as they were, he'd be just like Monarque.

* BrokenBase: InUniverse. [[spoiler:The other heroes are divided on whether Ladybug or Chat Noir is correct in their conflict]]. [[spoiler:This results in them splitting into two factions: one following Ladybug, and the other following Chat Noir and Chrysalis]]. [[spoiler:However, even with the lines now drawn in the sand, it's clear most of Ladybug's team isn't fully sold on her actions after Chat's exposed her lies]].

* GreyAndGrayMorality: Barring the exception of [[BigBad Chrysalis,]] no one this fic is truly evil, but none of them are saints, either.

* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Neither Ladybug nor Chat Noir is truly in the wrong. As Chat points out, the Wish was the very thing they've been fighting for the past few years to prevent, and Monarque performed it, but as Ladybug points out, to undo the Wish would mean re-condemning an innocent person (namely [[HeelFaceTurn Nathalie]]) to death.

* EvilIsPetty: Chrysalis ''could've'' [[spoiler: tried to take Ladybug's Miraculous herself while the latter was winded from her fight with Chat Noir, but why spoil the fun of letting ''Chat'' take it off her instead?]] There's also the fact that, VillainousCrush aside, she gets a kick out of angering Ladybug by flirting with Chat Noir. In [[WordOfGod wackus_bonkus's]] own words:

-->'''[[WordOfGod wackus_bonkus:]]''' Part of the fun of writing Chrysalis is that she isn't just trying to be evil, she's also trying to be annoying!! On no fronts will she give either of the heroes a break 🤣 But she will sure as hell make herself look good doing it!

* EvilIsPetty: Chrysalis ''could've'' [[spoiler: tried to take Ladybug's Miraculous herself while the latter was winded from her fight with Chat Noir, but why spoil the fun of letting ''Chat'' take it off her instead?]] There's also the fact that, VillainousCrush aside, she gets a kick out of angering Ladybug by flirting with Chat Noir.

* YesMan: Chat implicitly accuses Rena Rouge of being this to Ladybug when she [[spoiler: ''still'' [[UndyingLoyalty sides with Ladybug after he exposes her]]]].

* MetaphoricallyTrue: Both Ladybug and Chrysalis' accounts of what happened with Monarque and Gabriel are this; Ladybug says that Gabriel sacrificed himself to defeat Monarque, Chrysalis says that Monarch sacrificed Gabriel to perform the Wish. The truth, of course, being that Gabriel ''was'' Monarque, and [[HeelRealization came to his senses]], before [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificing himself]] to save [[HeelFaceTurn Nathalie]] and [[MustMakeAmends fix at least one of his mistakes.]]