The Babysitting Fiasco
is a complete Miraculous Ladybug fanfic by quicksilversquared.
When Marinette finds she doesn't have time to babysit Alya's siblings one day, she lets Marlena know so that Marlena can alert Alya and they can find a new sitter. This causes some confusion for Marlena, since Alya was supposed to be the sitter and she had no idea Marinette was substituting for her. A little investigation reveals that Alya and Nino have been foisting their babysitting duties off on Marinette for months while they go on dates, resulting in Marinette becoming increasingly exhausted as all the extra work weighs on her. Marlena resolves to put a stop to this at once, see Marinette fairly compensated, get both Alya and Nino appropriately punished... and also maybe inflict some damage on Lila Rossi, who pressured Alya to exploit Marinette in the first place.
The Babysitting Fiasco contains examples of:
- Adults Are Useless: Completely Averted; Once Marlena learns what her daughter has been doing, she sets out to put a stop to it immediately. Same goes for Otis, as well as the Dupain-Chengs, Nino's parents, and Mrs. Rossi as well.
- All Take and No Give: Alya cheerfully exploits Marinette's reluctance to "let her friends down" by roping her into babysitting her younger sisters and Nino's little brother while she and her boyfriend sneak around behind their parents' backs. She doesn't pay her a single cent for this, and complains when Marinette is forced to cancel in order to focus on catching up with her homework.
- Badly Battered Babysitter: While the little kids don't torment Marinette too much at any one time, the cumulative effect of spending countless hours babysitting them, often on very short notice, wears Marinette down to a state of utter exhaustion.
- Blatant Lies: Lila is in full swing with her "celebrity connection" stories when Marlena gets home, and Marlena immediately recalls Alya repeating similar blatantly false anecdotes from school. She can also tell from Lila's body language that she's making up a story on the spot when Marlena asks why she's babysitting instead of Alya and Nino, and that she's lying when she claims it was just the one time.
- Caught Coming Home Late: Alya and Nino return from a date and are surprised to find Marlena and Otis waiting up for them.
- Disaster Dominoes: The entire fic happens because Marinette's phone goes dead during a long akuma attack and she happens to bump into Alya's mom on the way home. Marlena is understandably upset that Alya has been pawning her babysitting duties off on others behind her back and heads home early to catch Alya and Nino in the act, which compounds further when she finds Lila telling Blatant Lies to her kids. The end result: a long, severe grounding for Alya and Nino, and Lila being exposed as a liar and shipped back to Italy.
- Extreme Doormat: Marinette has this tendency, finding herself unable to say no as Alya bombards her with requests for free babysitting.
- Food as Bribe: Alya and Nino bribed their little siblings with extra dessert so they wouldn't tattle and reveal that Marinette and Lila were babysitting them.
- Godzilla Threshold: Downplayed. After learning that Alya has been lying to them and sneaking around behind their backs for months, Marlena and Otis reluctantly make the decision to read some of her texts in order to get a clearer picture of the situation. It's specifically noted that they wouldn't normally invade Alya's privacy like this, but with how badly she's broken their trust, they need to get a clearer understanding of the situation somehow, and at the moment they can't trust Alya to tell them what really happened.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: If Alya is to be believed, Lila was the one who convinced her to exploit Marinette's friendship by foisting all her babysitting duties onto her without compensation. When Marinette's forced to cancel, Alya turns to Lila next; while Marlena was already passingly aware of the other girl, meeting her firsthand puts her solidly on her parents' radar. And their shit list, which snowballs into all her lies being exposed and her empire coming undone.
- Honesty Aesop: Discussed, with Tom and Sabine both reassuring Marinette that Nino and Alya created the mess they're in by not being honest with Marinette or their parents and expressing the hope that they'll learn from this experience. They also stress that under normal circumstances, they would say confessing her involvement in the situation to Alya would be the right thing for Marinette to do, but they're advising against it in this case because they know Alya would unfairly blame Marinette for everything if she knew the truth.
- Internal Reveal: The adults learn that Nino and Alya are having Marinette do unpaid babysitter work so they can go on dates. Mrs. Rossi also learns that Lila made up stories about dating Adrien and about the school being closed due to akuma attacks.
- Ironic Echo: When Alya is blaming Lila for everything, her older sister refers back to her infamous line about how "A good reporter always checks their sources!":Alya: I can't believe I posted that bucket of lies on the Ladyblog! There goes my reporter's credibility! And she — she was the one who told me to have Marinette babysit so Nino and I could go on dates! This is all her fault! She wanted me to like her, and so she made me think that it was a good idea and it would be fine and — and —
Nora: (snorting) How very unfortunate that you lost the ability to, oh, fact-check things that went on your blog before posting them. And at the same time you lost your critical thinking skills, too!
Alya: Why you—! - It's All About Me:
- When Marinette lets Alya know that she can't cover for her that afternoon because she's got to focus on homework, Alya tells her 'Go catch up so you can actually babysit next time!', underscoring how she only cares about taking advantage of her friend.
- After being grounded, Alya focuses entirely on what an inconvenience it is for her, complaining that she'd almost saved up enough for a new camera before her allowance was docked and disregarding that the money was babysitting money she'd pocketed without doing the work to earn it.
- As Marlena inwardly notes, Alya's only concern after learning how Lila tricked her is complaining about how those lies impacted her personally, without sparing a single thought to how anyone else was impacted. The more she sees of these tendencies in Alya, the more determined she is to make sure those issues get addressed.
- It's All My Fault: Marinette struggles with this, tending to blame herself when she can't live up to others' expectations, no matter how unreasonable they might be. When she feels responsible for Alya and Nino getting caught, her parents reassure her by reminding her that Alya and Nino created the problem by lying, taking advantage of her, and sneaking around behind their parents' backs. They also point out that Marinette has a right to enforce her boundaries, especially when people try to take advantage of her or blame her for it.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Alya and Nino forced Marinette to babysit their siblings so they could go on dates and sneak around doing whatever they pleased behind their parents' backs, while still reaping the rewards of the responsibilities they were shunting off onto their friend. Once the truth comes out, both get grounded, and their allowances get docked so that their parents can recompensate Marinette for all the "free" babysitting with interest.
- Lila's throne of lies collapses courtesy of the Mom Squad alerting her mother to what's been going on, and she's pulled out of Françoise Dupont and sent back to Italy to live with her grandparents.
- Liar Revealed: The first half focuses on Alya and Nino being caught in the act of sneaking back home late after dumping off their responsibilities upon others. The second half has Marlena and Sabine comparing notes before meeting with Mrs. Rossi and exposing how her daughter's been deceiving her, which in turn leads to her lies being exposed to Principal Damocles.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Discussed when Marinette wants to admit she accidentally told on Alya and Nino. Her parents agree that normally this would be the right choice, but since Alya and Nino are actively refusing to accept responsibility for their actions, they're likely to unfairly blame Marinette for their punishment. After hearing them out, Marinette agrees, and by the end she still hasn't told them what really happened.
- Mama Bear: Once the decision is made to confront Lila's mother about her Toxic Friend Influence on Alya and Nino, Sabine asks Marinette for more information and learns about how Lila threatened Marinette in the bathroom. Both she and Tom are very upset, and Sabine's opening line when she and Marlena meet Mrs. Rossi is to angrily inform her that Lila has been threatening her daughter.
- Never My Fault: Alya refuses to take any responsibility for her actions, ranting about how somebody must have "ratted them out" without ever acknowledging that anything she did was wrong. Upon learning Lila's true nature, she immediately starts blaming her for everything.
- Not Helping Your Case: Having never actually met Lila in person before walking in to find her babysitting Chris and the twins, Marlena is naturally distrustful. Lila's efforts to smooth matters over don't exactly work out, as she's unaware that Marlena already knows this isn't the first time Alya has pulled this stunt, so everything she says to try covering their backsides just digs her deeper. Even her insistence that she doesn't need to be paid only serves to inform Marlena that her daughter is a cheapskate.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Nino tries his best to calm Alya down and convince her that nobody was responsible for informing their parents of how they'd been ditching their duties, unaware that Marinette unintentionally outed them.
- Offscreen Karma: Lila's downfall happens entirely offscreen after her mother is informed of everything she's been doing.
- Papa Wolf: Tom is so angry about Lila threatening Marinette that (according to Sabine) he had to be talked down from going to school with Marinette the next day in case Lila tried to threaten her again, and Sabine jokes that he might have still decided to storm the school after she left to confront Lila's mother.
- Plot-Driven Breakdown: Marinette's cell goes dead during the akuma battle, meaning she has no way of contacting Alya and letting her know that she can't babysit Chris and the twins... until she runs into Marlena and lets her know what's going on, unaware that Marlena was Locked Out of the Loop. Marlena then lets her use her charger so that she can text Alya.
- Poor Communication Kills: A Running Theme:
- Marinette incorrectly assumes that Alya's parents already knew that she was constantly covering for her "bestie", so she naturally asks Marlena if she can let her daughter know that she won't be able to handle it this time. She only finds out that they weren't aware when Alya rants about somebody "ratting them out" at school the next day.
- The Dupain-Chengs Discuss this afterwards; Marinette believes she should fess up and explain her mistake, but her parents convince her that it's better to stay silent, as Alya and Nino are already refusing to accept responsibility for their actions and would just blame her.
- Sabrine also acknowledges in a conversation with Marlena that things likely would have been resolved far faster if Marinette had confided in them about how badly things were going at school. However, rather than Blaming the Victim, she's more concerned about the notion that Marinette felt she had to deal with everything by herself, stating that she and Tom will be reflecting upon matters and trying to figure out how much of a role they might have played in unintentionally encouraging that mentality.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Alya and Nino have this dynamic in the aftermath of their grounding. Alya is furious and looking to blame anyone but herself for the trouble she's in, while Nino is more willing to admit that they're in trouble for good reason, with it being noted in the second chapter that he'd finally accepted his punishment. He's also much more rational when approaching the question of how they were found out, countering Alya's insistence that someone must have told on them by pointing out they could have just been caught due to bad luck.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Technically speaking, Nino isn't wrong that nobody intentionally tried to get them in trouble with their parents. Marinette didn't know that they'd been tricking their parents into believing they were looking after their younger siblings, after all... Of course, Alya is also right that someone told on them, albeit in a case of Poor Communication Kills rather than out of a deliberate desire to get them in trouble.
- Self-Care Epiphany: After finding out how Alya and Nino have been taking advantage of their daughter, Sabine and Tom make clear to Marinette that it's important for her to take care of herself, and that real friends are more than All Take and No Give.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The whole reason everything falls apart for Alya, Nino and Lila is because the latest akuma took too long to defeat. The story opens after said battle, so readers don't even get to see the culprit in action.
- Taking Advantage of Generosity: Alya and Nino repeatedly dumped their babysitting duties onto Marinette's shoulders. They didn't even bother paying her for any of it, expecting her to handle everything for free.
- Toxic Friend Influence: According to Alya, Lila was the one who suggested that she and Nino dump their responsibilities off upon others so that they could go on dates unimpeded.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Marinette is feeling guilty about unintentionally getting Alya into trouble, her parents give her a pep talk praising her reliable nature and reminding her that she needs to take care of herself as well:Sabine: I know that we've raised you to always be responsible and honest. But you shouldn't be taking the responsibility of everyone else's mistakes on top of your own. It's important to recognize when you did something wrong versus, say...
Tom: Versus when someone overreacts or they put you in a bad position in the first place. In this case, it's the latter. It's a good lesson to learn, at least.
Marinette: (nodding) Yeah.
Sabine: And if you're busy or just need time to do your own things, it's always okay to say no. Even to your friends. And even to us and Madam Chamack. We don't want you to get overwhelmed and be sacrificing sleep or having your schoolwork suffer. That's your primary responsibility right now. Okay?
Marinette: Okay.
Tom: We're proud of you for coming to us with this. We know that you want to help others as much as you can, but you have to remember to save some of that time and energy for Marinette, too. You can't help others as much if you're too worn out and spread thin and not taking care of yourself. It's okay to tell other people that they're putting too much pressure on you and to enforce your boundaries when they try to push or claim that something will be just the once. Looking after yourself will never be selfish, even if other people try to frame it that way. And if you ever need help yourself, it is more than okay to ask for it. You've given a lot to people around you, and helping is hardly a one-way street. - You Are Grounded!: Alya ends up grounded for at least a month; it's explictly noted that was a minimum sentence, along with heavy implications that Alya's refusal to admit any fault is ensuring said sentence will stretch out even longer.
- You Get What You Pay For: Alya refuses to compensate Marinette or Lila for any of their work, which karmically bites her in the backside when Marinette is forced to cancel and Lila's efforts to cover for her once caught only make matters worse.
