It can be hard to be different from everyone else. To be a different race, a different ethnicity, or a different orientation. Marinette has always felt different due to being bi-racial.
It's just that it seems to be coming up a lot lately.
Red For Fortune
is a Miraculous Ladybug Fan Fic that centers around Marinette's struggles as a half-Chinese young lady in Paris, France.
Red For Fortune contains the following tropes...
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Adrien does a lot of this when Marinette calls him out over his father's latest fashion spread:Marinette: (throwing the magazine down on his desk) This is what's going on in here, Adrien. This racist pile of crap that your father helped produce.
Adrien: (glances at the magazine and recognises the photos, before turning back to Marinette) You're upset over a fashion spread in Mᴏᴅᴇ? I don't see what the big deal is; I mean, none of it is lewd or anything. I guess this collection isn’t my father’s best work...
Marinette: Oh, it's an awful collection; completely uninspired and cliché. But I wouldn't be half so upset if an Asian designer had been behind a shoot supposedly inspired by an Asian holiday.
Adrien: There probably weren't any Chinese designers that were high profile enough.
Marinette: Do you honestly believe the words coming out of your mouth? I can name three Chinese designers off the top of my head that have been members of Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. There are tons of other Chinese designers that participate in Paris Fashion Week. One of them, Ms Min, even puts out a collection every year in honor of Lunar New Year. The Met Gala, you know, the premier fashion event in the world? It was teeming with work from Chinese designers last year - four of whom were featured in the exhibit! Your father has never caused such a sensation as Guo Pei's fox fur gown, and he sure as hell has never been featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gabriel doesn’t make art; if this is anything to go by, all he makes is racist garbage.
Adrien: (stands up and glares at her) It’s not like he could control who Mᴏᴅᴇ asked to do this spread. They chose the person they thought had the best collection for what they wanted to portray.
Marinette: Gabriel Agreste could have easily turned them down if he had the decency to see that what Mᴏᴅᴇ was doing was wrong. Of course, that would require him to realize that his collection was racist trash, and that Mᴏᴅᴇ clearly wanted to portray racist trash. (turning the pages over, with Punctuated Pounding) How. Else. Can. You. Explain. This? (finishes on a shot of Adrien) It wasn't enough that they whitewashed my culture, was it? They also had to deck their white models in yellowface. (glaring into his eyes) What made you think that this was in any way okay? How can you claim to be my friend and do something like this?
Adrien: He's my father; I couldn't just say no.
Marinette: Your relationship to him is precisely why you were the only one who could say 'no'.
Adrien: (bitterly) You really have no clue about how wrong you are there.
Marinette: I know that any other model or member of the production crew would have committed career suicide if they confronted him. Just as your father was in a position to turn down Mᴏᴅᴇ without consequences, you were in a position to call him out without ruining your future career.
Adrien: You're crazy if you think I wouldn’t have faced consequences, Marinette.
Marinette: What, you'd be grounded? Lose your video game privileges? No sweets for a month? Do you really care more about some petty personal comforts than doing the right thing?
Adrien: 'The right thing'? This isn't some grand moral conflict. You’re overreacting.
Marinette: Spoken like a truly privileged white man. Your father must be so proud.
Adrien: Don't act like such a martyr, Marinette. It's not like you're some oppressed minority - heck, your skin is even paler than mine.
Marinette: (lets out a harsh and bitter laugh before cutting it off and continuing to glare at him) You were right, Alya; white faves will always disappoint you in the end. (turns and walks out of the classroom, the magazine still in her hand.) - Dramatically Missing the Point: Because of his social naivete, Adrien thinks everyone is siding with an overreacting Marinette because she has been everyone's friend for far longer. In reality, he said some very racist thing due to said naivete and everyone else is sympathetic to the rightfully offended Marinette or offended themselves.
- Everyone Has Standards: Chloé Bourgeois is the first one to call out Adrien for his innocently made but racist comments towards Marinette. She isn't actively upset like everyone else, but she makes it clear that she does not agree with Adrien's sentiments.
- Formula with a Twist: Unlike most akumatized Marintte fics, Marinette's akumatization has nothing to do with Lila or Chloé. Instead, it comes from a bad week facing discrimination culminating in Adrien making some innocent, but terribly racist comments.
- Innocently Insensitive: Adrien doesn't mean to be offensive towards Marinette, but his sheltered upbringing and misunderstanding just why she (and the rest of the class) are so upset leads to him looking extremely racist by mistake.
- Point of Divergence: Lila decides to give up on getting into Adrien's good graces after his disastrous encounter with Marinette, both because she realizes Marinette seems to be more favored and Adrien has now lost his own status."Wow, Adrien, I don’t think I’ve ever seen somebody screw up that badly with my own two eyes."
- Sheltered Aristocrat: Adrien is so sheltered and privileged that he fails to see how racist his father's latest designs, based on east Asian culture, are. Even after the entire class gets upset with him, he doesn't understand what he said wrong and thinks everyone is siding with Marinette because they know her better.
