It's been decades since Marinette Dupain-Cheng's many misdeeds were exposed and she was driven out of Paris by an angry mob. But when an old friend runs into at an obscure hospital in rural Nepal, it turns out that there may yet be a faint hope of redemption for the former Ladybug after all.
Karma and Reality
is a piece of Recursive Fanfiction to Karmic Backlash, which is in turn recursive fan fiction to The Karma of Lies. It is complete at 2 chapters.
Karma and Reality contains examples of:
- Ascended Fridge Horror: More, "Ascended Fridge Brilliance", but this fic notes that if the Guardians had erased Marinette's memories, that wouldn't erase Paris's desire for Revenge, and Marinette would essentially still be punished for something she wouldn't even remember doing.
- Deconstruction Fic: If Karmic Backlash deconstructed the karma system from the The Karma of Lies, then this fic denies the existence of karma at all. Rose (who became a volunteer doctor for an international organization) has seen a lot over the years. As a result, she came to the conclusion that the misfortunes of people (including Adrien and Marinette) are the natural result of their actions or an unfortunate combination of circumstances. Not all people deserved their suffering and not all villains were punished for their crimes. This means that karma is either unfair or simply does not exist.
- Distant Finale: Takes place decades after The Karma of Lies and Karmic Backlash.
- Driven to Suicide: Marinette has been so wrecked by the events in Karmic Backlash and her tragic life thereafter that she considers overdosing on morphine.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Deconstructed. Rose concludes that karma is either arbitrary or nonexistent after seeing bad things happen to good people and vice versa, and any instance of Laser-Guided Karma is just the natural consequence of one's actions, not a cosmic force dealing justice.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The story ultimately leaves it ambiguous if karma is real. Rose notes that she has seen innocent people suffer and the immoral thrive, so karma is either unfair for working arbitrarily or it simply doesn't exist.
- No Sympathy: Downplayed. Rose saw with her own eyes the state of physical ruin Marinette got as a result of her punishment (extreme malnutrition among others) and hears Marinette's tale of woe and it still takes her a moment to stop snarking at Marinette. Once the moment passes, Rose is okay with forgiving Marinette, though.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: With the only characters that appear being Marinette and Rose, Rose takes the place of narrator telling Marinette the fate of her former classmates when she asks about them.
