Lady Running Outside of Car and Tries to Get Back in

Scarlet Lady is a Miraculous Ladybug Role Swap AU fan comic written and drawn by zoe-oneesama on Tumblr. The first part can be found here, with the master post for the series here, and the index for the comic parts (starting from Season 1) here.

In another universe, Master Fu decided to put the Ladybug Miraculous in Marinette's purse rather than her room. Chloé, still mad at Marinette for talking back to her, decides to rifle through her purse for something she can steal to take revenge. She ends up finding the fancy box the Miraculous is in and takes it, concluding that it's a family heirloom of some sort.

Naturally, this backfires: not only did Marinette not know about the box's existence, but now Chloé finds herself saddled with an annoying fairy who's trying to get her to become an actual hero. Hilarity Ensues.

    Episodes in the series thus far:

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

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Scarlet Lady contains examples of the following tropes:

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    A-E

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • In "Copycat", when the titular akuma tells him that Scarlet Lady might have a crush on him (due to his own misunderstanding), Chat Noir is horrified.
  • "The Pharaoh" sees Adrien learning that Scarlet Lady is one of those type of fans when she glomps him from behind. His expression says it all.
  • Adrien has also started to see Chloé as one of these, as she absolutely refuses to accept he has no feelings for her. Best shown in "Volpina", where Adrien looks mortified by Chloé glomping him from behind.
  • In "Riposte" Adrien rebukes Chloé for loudly cheering for him at the fencing trials, calling it "disrespectful."
• Accidental Public Confession: When Marinette is announced as the new class president, Chloé protests that she gave Jagged Stone CDs to the voters and asks about her votes. Ms. Bustier questions her about trying to buy votes.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism:
  • Being the Director for the class's movie in "Horrificator" goes straight to Nino's head, and he makes several thoughtless calls while trying to boss everybody around. He does at least apologize for his "directator" behavior after the whole akuma debacle.
  • Along similar lines, Max assumes that he will easily beat everyone in the Ultimate Mecha Strike 3 tournament and is casually condescending to the other participants... right up until Adrien and Marinette both beat him.
• Actually Pretty Funny: In "Simon Says", Nathalie struggles to bite back laughter when the titular Akuma makes Gabriel think he is a butterfly.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the canon "Captain Hardrock", all the people who are chained together for "mutiny" just roll into the hold like logs. Here we see reactions of embarrassment and concern because each pair is at least a potential love interest. The author notes: "The Ship is a shipper."
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Downplayed with Vanisher, who in canon was basically just Sabrina turned invisible. In the headers for her episode, she is given a beautiful white dress. In the comic itself, she also has a different design.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Due to Scarlet Lady being an incompetent Load, Chat Noir is forced to pick up the slack way more often.
  • Vanisher is far more powerful than in her original appearance, complete with having new powers.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • In canon, Ella and Etta Césaire don't debut until "Santa Claws". In Scarlet Lady, they appear in the finale of "Lady Wifi".
  • In canon, Marianne Lenore doesn't debut until the middle of Season 3. In Scarlet Lady, they appear in Season 1, during the finale of "Mr. Pigeon".
  • In canon, Marinette's Cat-Miraculous form didn't appear until "Reflekdoll". In Scarlet Lady, the character debuts (ironically enough) in "Reflekta".
  • In canon, Luka Couffaine doesn't appear before season 2. In Scarlet Lady, the character debuts in a bonus panel at the end of "Reflekta".
  • Ondine doesn't appear before season 2 in canon. In the comic, she comes to cheer on Kim's race with Alix in "Timebreaker", and also helps with Marinette's birthday party in "La Befana." Additionally, her Akuma episode, "Syren", happens before Kim's Akuma episode, "Dark Cupid".
  • Marc Anciel makes a first appearance in "Riposte" rather than in "Reverser", having been permitted to watch the fencing tryouts to help with their writing. Marc will be using gender neutral pronouns in this AU, identifying as nonbinary or genderfluid.
  • Marinette ends up becoming a temporary holder of the Mouse Miraculous in "Puppeteer".
• Adaptational Dumbass: Without Marinette, the team of the Ladybug and Black Cat don't do nearly as well with the Lucky Charm clues as their canon counterparts do, to the point that multiple Akumas are taken out by means of using the Lucky Charm as a ballistic weapon, regardless of what they were supposed to do with it. The first such was Bubbler, but it's become a staple of Akuma-fighting since then, to the point that Marinette eventually dubs it "the Chat Noir method". After Marigold joins the team, this becomes less common, but they still occasionally resort to it.
• Adaptational Gender Identity: Marc Anciel is portrayed as nonbinary, and uses gender-neutral pronouns. In the show proper, Marc is a somewhat androgynous-looking boy and is referred to with masculine pronouns.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Downplayed; Stormy Weather initially gets akumatized for the same Sore Loser reaction she had in canon, but her actions become slightly more justified when it's revealed that the contest was rigged against her.
  • Also downplayed with Lila; while she's still the same person she was in canon to begin with, her grudge against the Ladybug hero is far less petty than it was in canon thanks to Scarlet Lady's Nominal Hero status. She soon drops her Consummate Liar persona in favor of Brutal Honesty.
  • In canon "Captain Hardrock", Anarka's music is loud enough to shake the entire street, making Roger's decision to ticket her somewhere between "defensible" and "justified". In this story, the noise complaint comes before she's played a single note due to Chloé spitefully filing a false claim, making her come off as much more sympathetic in this version.
• Adaptational Intelligence:
  • In "Rogercop", the police refuse to submit to Rogercop's authority when Mayor Bourgeois surrenders his power to him, as he is clearly akumatized. The tags note that the author normally tries to avoid this trope, but considers the canon police to have been holding way too big of an Idiot Ball to just let slide.

    #this is my rare rule break when it came to not going out of my way to make characters smarter than canon if I can't excuse it #but this was seriously stupid for these grown adults to turn on the Heroes of Paris that protect them from an emotional terrorist #on the orders of that very terrorist's minion!

  • In "Animan" the heroes completely forgo their canon plan of luring him into Marinette's home as a tiny animal and trapping him in a box, and instead go straight for trapping him in the bus instead. He still breaks out, but they quickly defeat him.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Alec Cataldi intentionally mocks Aurore about losing the Weather Girl contest, and rigged it against her in the first place.
  • Max's nasty and entitled behavior is emphasized more in "Gamer", highlighting his condescending attitude towards his classmates and the sexist nature of his anger towards Marinette. As Gamer, he is shown taking a disturbing amount of glee in annihilating helpless civilians.

    Gamer: Nothing says 'Best Gamer Ever' like gaining EXP from NPCs with no defensive capabilities!

  • Downplayed with Mr. Kubdel, who all but outright confirms (via some Suspiciously Specific Denial) that the "youngest child inherits the watch" rule was, in this 'verse, made up to keep the watch away from Jalil - which is harsh but somewhat understandable, given that it's Jalil.
  • In canon, Chloé dropped Alix's watch because she was startled by it going off near her. Here, she deliberately drops it out of spite.
  • Roger gets hit by this in "Captain Hardrock". Thanks to Chloé, he arrives at the houseboat before the concert starts, gets upset by Anarka calling him a 'bootlicker', and hits her with a list of Felony Misdemeanors and tickets.

    Roger: No authorization to dock here, no concert! And the mess! And the decorations! A ticket for your attitude, for provocation, for my sea-sickness, and 'cuz I can!
    Anarka: You bilge rat scum!
    Roger: And one for name-calling!

• Adaptational Late Appearance: The episode order is different from canon, which means that some of the villains appear later than others. For example, there are villains from the show's first season that don't appear until after "The Collector", the first episode of the show's second season. An interesting example is "Dark Cupid" which, while still taking place on Valentine's Day, happens after "Syren".
• Adaptational Sexuality:
  • Marc Anciel uses they/them pronouns in this AU. According to the author, "they're nonbinary or genderfluid." This is a change from canon; for example in "Reverser" Alix says to Nathaniel, "Maybe you should've given him a chance to explain?"
  • Marinette is hinted to be bi, having the exact same reaction to Kagami unmasking herself as Adrien has.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: In this comic, aside from having a different design from canon, Vanisher can not only turn invisible but turn other people invisible too (as well as inaudible), which she does to Chloé. She can also merge in and out of reflective surfaces, effectively teleporting from one surface to another. This is how she comes into the classroom to mock Chloé. She can go back and forth between the real world and a parallel dimension where her victims can see the real world but not interact with it.
• Adaptational Villainy
  • As the story progresses, Chloé degenerates from self-serving to flat-out evil far faster than she did in canon; in "Gamer", she deliberately draws Marinette into the line of fire of an akuma to get her out of the way so she can have Adrien to herself, while in "Reflekta" she explicitly hopes that her cruelty to Juleka gets her akumatized so that she can show off.
  • Jagged Stone in "Guitar Villain", before he is akumatized, assaults XY with his tablet. In canon he just threw it to Fang.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Marinette is an ordinary student since she never got the Ladybug Miraculous in this timeline, though it's downplayed because she's still a Badass Normal who helps against the Akumas. She is eventually given the Bee Miraculous to make up for Scarlet Lady and becomes the beloved and noble Marigold.
  • Chloé/Scarlet Lady is far less competent than canon Ladybug or even Queen Bee, because she doesn't bother to actually train or do any fighting, instead just using Lucky Charm and Miraculous Cure as needed.
  • Heavily downplayed with Adrien/Chat Noir, who is shown in "Evillustrator" to be extremely claustrophobic and can't focus properly when the villain traps him and Marinette in a glass box, even when she tells him how they can escape.
• Adaptation Name Change: In canon, Marinette uses the superhero name "Lady Noir" when wielding the Cat Miraculous. Here, she goes by "Maotif" (a pun on "mao", the Chinese word for "cat", and "motif").
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • As a coping mechanism for dealing with Scarlet Lady, Adrien and Tikki are far more sarcastic than they are in canon.
  • Adrien is also more rebellious due to dealing with both his restrictive lifestyle and annoyance towards Scarlet Lady, leading to him cussing out Nathalie when she tries to keep him from going to school, dying his hair green when Gabriel kicks Nino out of his house for being "fashion trash", sending a video of him eating a croissant (defying his strict model's diet) when Gabriel doesn't show up for career day, and stealing the book from his father's safe without Plagg needing to convince him. He also displays more of a backbone when dealing with Chloé's antics, and possesses a crush on Marinette.
  • While Marinette was a Shrinking Violet before Alya and her victory as Ladybug gave her more confidence in-canon, here she's far more confident in herself, saving Alya from Stoneheart and helping Chat Noir even without a Miraculous. Her crush on Adrien also isn't as massive as it was in canon; she still likes him, but she doesn't obsess over him and she has stronger feelings for Chat Noir instead. In addition, while in canon she is extremely strict about maintaining her secret identity as Ladybug, here she immediately and deliberately outs herself as Maotif to Chat Noir since she's expecting her stint as a superhero to be a one-time gig.
  • Nathalie is far more of a Servile Snarker to Gabriel than she was in canon, and there's no hints of a Subordinate Excuse to be seen.
• Adapted Out: The AU's changes have (or will, by Word of God) result in several heroes and villains not appearing.
  • For the villains, Akumas from filler episodes (like Santa Claws and Gigantitan) will not be adapted, and some villains won't show because their plots simply wouldn't work. Since Chloé is the Ladybug hero here, she has no reason to become Antibug - that episode instead focuses on a revamped Vanisher. Dark Owl was defeated because Chat Noir and Ladybug trusted each other, while here Chat has an antagonistic relationship with Scarlet Lady. Timetagger and Chat Blanc won't appear because the author dislikes including time travel (Timebreaker gets a pass because she doesn't go that far back). Additionally, only a few of the villains from Season 3 will appear: Silencer, Ikari Gozen, Desperada, and Party Crasher.
  • On the heroes' side, Bunnyx won't appear because of the aforementioned ban on time travel. Mister Bug won't appear because Adrien wouldn't want to give the earrings back, and Word of God is that Alya and Nino will have their Miraculous swapped from canon, meaning that Carapace and Rena Rouge won't appear either. An Easter Egg in "Intermission" reveals that in addition to the Dragon, Snake, Horse, and Monkey Miraculous being used, the Mouse Miraculous will also be used at some point (which turns out to be by Marinette in "Puppeteer"), while the others (aside from the Fox and Turtle) will likely be used by the same characters as in canon. Any heroes from after Season 3 will not be appearing, at least not within the comic's timeline.
  • In "Animan", Nino's crush on Marinette is nowhere to be found outside of a brief prank he pulled on Adrien at the start of the episode. Instead, he uses the zoo trip to hook up Marinette with Adrien.
• Adults Are Useless:
  • During "Rogercop", Tom chides his daughter to let the adults handle the problem... and then proceeds to do absolutely nothing about it, with the other adults also proving completely unhelpful. This is Lampshaded by Marinette giving him a disbelieving, disgusted look, and later by Alya blowing off his attempt to call her out on her own inaction.
  • Mayor André lets Marinette take charge of the defense efforts against Darkblade, too terrified to act himself.
  • Zigzagged with Sabine between "Darkblade" and "Gamer". In the former, she lets Sabrina up into Marinette's room, giving her the chance to steal her diary. However, when Chloé attempts to con her way into the bakery in the latter, Sabine is having none of it, recognizing her as her daughter's long-time bully. It's also implied that she learned from the last incident and is keen to avoid any repeats.
  • "La Befana" opens with Chloé crying to Mme. Bustier about how the other students are excluding her from a party, and their teacher promptly scolding them, ordering them to invite her. This is despite the fact that they're discussing Marinette's birthday party, which isn't being held at school.
• Adult Fear:
  • In "Rogercop", the Mayor goes though this after the titular akuma presents him with his daughter's bag and declares that she was "punished for her crimes". All he can do in the face of this is tear up, whispering a Little "No".
  • "Timebreaker" has Marinette's father on the phone with her when Alix gets akumatized. There's nothing he can do but react with horror when his daughter informs him of the situation.
• Affectionate Parody: For the most part, the story follows the events in canon to a T, while also poking fun at certain aspects of the show and calling out some of the characters' less than stellar decisions.
• Alas, Poor Villain: A minor example in "Rogercop"; after she watches Chloé tumble out of Rogercop's flying car (not knowing she transformed into Scarlet Lady), it's clear in her next appearance that Marinette was crying over her supposed death.
• Always Save the Girl: Adrien wastes no time trying to save Marinette in both of his identities during "Gamer", much to Chloé's ire because she is trying to use the Akuma to kill Marinette.
• And I Must Scream: Vanisher's new powers in this comic include making people not only unable to be seen or heard by anyone, but also unable to interact with anything unless she herself allows it. Chloé is the only person she uses it on, though.
• The Annotated Edition: In this case, it's an annotated cartoon panel. In "Vanisher" Marinette gives out bee-themed ornaments as gifts to the girls in her class. There is a second image with pictures of faces pointing to each ornament, showing who got what.
• Answer Cut: In "Captain Hardrock", Lieutenant Raincomprix is asked who made the noise complaint. The next panel shows Chloé exclaiming "Yoo-hoo!".
• Appeal to Vanity: Tikki usually has to resort to playing on Chloé's need for attention to push her into action. She often states that Chat Noir will get complete credit if she just lets him fight on his own (though it's not like Chloé does much when in action anyway).
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Marinette comes up with one when Alya phones her to say Chloé is using Jagged Stone to buy votes.

    Marinette: Wait, what are you doing over there already?
    Alya: Um...

  • Sabrina gets a good one off on Chloé in "Reflekta":

    Chloé: I won't let her ruin my picture with Adrien!
    Sabrina: The one where he pushes you off of him?

  • Adrien manages to cover up the fact that he'd taken the grimoire to Master Fu with one. Gabriel is caught so off guard he drops the issue immediately and does not question Adrien's claim that he had the book all along.

    Gabriel: Why did you not say so before?
    Adrien: Would you have listened?

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • In "Horrificator", while everyone else gives valid reasons as to why Chloé shouldn't take the lead role in the movie (she deliberately scared Mylène off so she could have the part), Adrien adds that she can't even remember the characters' names.
  • Inverted in the climax of "Darkblade"; when Chloé protests that her classmates accepted her CDs, Kim and Max compare them to campaign buttons while Rose snaps about how she abandoned them the moment Darkblade showed up.
• Artistic License – History: Lampshaded in "The Pharaoh". When Jalil introduces his theory regarding Akhenaten and Nefertiti, Alix repeatedly snarks about how inaccurate his claims and theories are.

  Jalil: Papa, look, this is Akhenaten and Nefertiti. She died before him-
  Alix: She literally didn't.
  Jalil: -and Ra made her his goddess.
  Alix: He literally wouldn't.
  Jalil: Akhenaten offered up a new wife to Ra so his would be brought back to life.
  Alix: Dude, Egyptians would be super not into that.
  Jalil: This scroll details that very ritual - and only I have deciphered the hieroglyphics!
  Alix: Lieeeeees!
  Jalil: WOULD YOU STOP THAT?!
  Alix: PEDDLE YOUR BAD FANFIC SOMEWHERE ELSE!

• Ascended Extra:
  • Alix in "The Pharaoh". In the original episode, she didn't appear at all; in SL canon, however, she has a far larger part, acting as the catalyst for Marinette and Alya to come to the museum and snarking at all the chaos that happens as a result.
  • Marc has an Adaptational Early Appearance in "Riposte" where they watch the fencing tryouts for writing references (Chloé also watches because Adrien is there).
  • In canon, Lila completely disappeared between "Volpina" and the season 2 finale. Here, however, she shows up again in the very next episode ("The Collector"), and it's implied that she'll make more appearances afterwards.
• Attention Whore: One of Chloé's motivations to play the hero is the idea of having all of Paris' attention.
• Author Avatar: The artist makes a cameo appearance at the start of "Princess Fragrance", as Zoe Rapporte, the Enchanted Florist.
• Badass Normal:
  • Marinette might not have a Miraculous in this timeline, but she is still capable of ruining Hawk Moth's day when she gets dragged into akuma fights. "Timebreaker" reveals that Sabine has forced her to take martial arts training because of her tendency to get caught up in Hawk Moth's plots, which she uses to good effect against the titular villain.
  • Nathalie demonstrates this in "Simon Says", much like how she was shown to be a skilled fighter in canon.
  • Following the lead of Nathalie and Marinette, Nino also gets an Improvised Weapon and plays a part in distracting Simon Says.
• Bad Boss: Nino proves to be overbearing and not very fun to work with as a director during "Horrificator", as he treats his classmates poorly, makes changes to the script without informing anyone, and prioritizes the film over their safety.
• Batman Gambit: Predicting that the Bee Miraculous will draw attention, especially from Alya, Marinette spends an entire night creating several Bee-themed resin accessories to share with the girls of her class. That way, nobody suspects the Bee Miraculous to be out in the open.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: When Chloé locks Juleka in the bathroom, she hopes the latter gets akumatized so she can show off as Scarlet Lady. Juleka's akumatized form shows up when she's trying to prevent Marinette from erasing the photo where she appears next to Adrien.

  Chloé: Why does an akuma have to come now?!

• Being Evil Sucks: In "Syren" Adrien and Master Fu discuss how Scarlet Lady is unhappy at being out of the loop about certain secrets; they have no sympathy for her. Fu says, "Well, sucks for her." The author compares this with what Chat Noir seemed to think in canon: "Or how certain people THINK canon Syren went LOL."
• Beleaguered Assistant:
  • Tikki and, to a lesser extent, Sabrina, play this role to Chloé, constantly snarking at her vanity, selfishness, and stupidity.
  • Nathalie has her moments where she acknowledges the stress of working for a Control Freak fashion magnate-cum-supervillain, such as when she quietly prays not to get akumatized for not having a gift for Adrien ready in "The Bubbler" or mouths off at him when he attacks her in "The Collector".
• Beneath the Mask: At the end of "Captain Hardrock", Gabriel responds to Adrien's request to play a duet with him by immediately allowing him to attend his friends' concert. His inner thoughts reveal he hasn't played in a decade and is afraid of embarrassing himself.
• Berserk Button:
  • For Chloé, it's anyone ignoring her, anyone badmouthing her, and anyone who gets in the way of her "romance" with Adrien.
  • For Adrien, it's hurting Marinette — to the point that he almost transformed out in the open when the Bubbler sent her to space.
  • Jalil really dislikes being corrected on all his wild claims about Egyptian mythology and history.
  • Alya warns that her father Otis "gets so weird" when people engage him in front of the animals. This may be especially true of the new panther, since he "switched zoos with it."
• Big Bad Ensemble: Hawk Moth is out for Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir's Miraculous, but Chloé is responsible for many of the Akumas (which she is aware of and uses to her advantage) and has no qualms abusing her Miraculous to sabotage anyone in her way despite being one of the "heroes".
• Big Entrance: Alix shows up for her big race in "Timebreaker" via shoving Chloé out of the way, all the while sassing her for making fun of the others when she wasn't even invited.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • During the battle with Stoneheart, Marinette arrives just in time to get Alya out of the way of a flying soccer net.
  • Marinette wielding the Cat Miraculous saves Scarlet Lady from Reflekta.
• Big Damn Kiss: Chat Noir kissing Marigold looks like one, but it doesn't really count since Marigold doesn't remember it.. However, Kim kissing Ondine soon after does count.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Word of God is that this is why Roger believes Chloé's claims in "Captain Hardrock": he has a very simplistic sense of justice that he takes to the point of self-destruction.
• Blatant Lies:
  • Whenever one of her schemes is exposed, Chloé tries to foist the blame off on Sabrina by insisting it was her idea.
  • "Gamer" sees her attempt to bluff her way into the bakery by claiming they have a project together. Sabine doesn't buy it.
  • "Gamer" also has Scarlet respond to Chat's "Scar, what the HELL?!" by claiming she just wanted to meet up with her sidekick in order to deal with the akuma, when in reality she was deliberately leading Gamer right to them in hopes that he'd zap Marinette.
  • Chloé's account of what happened in the final confrontation with Evillustrator is completely fabricated, claiming that "Scarlet Lady handled it perfectly while Chat Noir wrecked my room!"
  • Near the end of "Vanisher", Marinette manages to avoid people suspecting her identity from seeing her wearing the Bee Miraculous by creating other bee-themed acessories and claiming that Marigold inspired her. Meanwhile, when Nino points out that Adrien's ring looks like Chat Noir's, the latter says that he's had it for years (even though it's only been several months), with a narration box in the corner of the panel saying "Just lies".
• The Blind Leading the Blind: During "The Pharaoh", Alix tries to avert this by repeatedly refuting her brother's wild claims. The narrative commentary under Part 5 notes that "Alix had to shut Jalil up before he messed everyone up on tomorrow's test."
• Bound and Gagged: Marinette gets hit with a variation this in "Copycat". The titular villain first chains her up, then gags her after she posts his hideout on social media.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Upon first seeing Plagg, Marinette panics and screams things like "Tiny cat!", "Mouse!", and "Tiny cat-mouse!".
• Brick Joke:
  • When her boss attacks her as The Collector, Nathalie declares that "I'm going to hit you when you lose." She keeps her promise, giving him a nice smack on the back of the head.
  • In "Kung Food", Hawk Moth tells the villain to get his slaves to attack Chat Noir first rather than Marinette, as doing the latter "never ends well". A few pages later, when Alec attacks Marinette first and makes Chat angry, Hawk Moth's response is "Dammit, what did I tell you?".
• Broken Pedestal:
  • It's a work in progress throughout "Copycat". At first, Théo blames his heartbreak over Scarlet Lady's rejection on Chat Noir; the more he sees her in action, the more that pedestal gets chipped away.
  • Prior to "Simon Says", Gabriel/Hawkmoth was under the opinion that Scarlet Lady hanging back was to protect her earrings and viewing her as a Worthy Opponent. However, in this episode, he sees her up close for the first time and is... not impressed by her shallow, vain, bossy personality and her trying to butter him up to get close to his son.
  • The first real cracks in Alya's admiration of Scarlet Lady come when she witnesses her dumping Lila into a fountain. While she reluctantly accepts Scarlet's excuse of ensuring that villains don't fall for Lila's claims and target her, it's clear that she's still shaken by the incident.
• Bruce Wayne Held Hostage:
  • In "Kung Food", Chloé gets captured by the akuma's minions as in canon. Tikki was left behind in her purse and flies to her, thinking, "I hope Chloé doesn't anger the akuma and get killed before I get there." It gets even worse when she is tied up and dangled over boiling soup as in canon. Tikki can't untie her without letting her drop. It takes a rescue by Chat Noir before she can hide and transform.
  • In "Vanisher" Chloé is effectively kidnapped in the eyes of the world. While still physically free, she is invisible, inaudible, and intangible to everyone, including Tikki.
  • In "Pixelator" both Chloé and Adrien are trapped in a void by the villain, leaving only Marigold free to save them.
• Bully Brutality: Chloé doesn't gets physically violent with her bullying targets in her civilian form, but she definitely has no problem attacking them when she is Scarlet Lady (exhibit A: Lila Rossi). She also loves to enrage them as Chloé in order to make them become Akumatized to justify hurting them (and provide additional bullying ammo after they are de-evilized) and in "The Gamer" she even demonstrates that when it comes to getting rid of obstacles to the affection of Adrien in the classroom she is not above attempted murder .
• Butt-Monkey: Nino gets hit with this trope in "Horrificator", being both physically and verbally harassed and having trouble commanding his classmates. For the most part, he deserves it due to his Acquired Situational Narcissism.
• Call-Back:
  • Adrien's personal photographer is handling the class picture in "Reflekta". Much to Chloé's utter disgust, as she remembers how he sassed her when they met back in "Stormy Weather".
  • In "Timebreaker", when Chat Noir follows the villain back in time, Past Adrien has to ask who he is, thinking he might be a villain like Copycat. Scarlet Lady alludes to this by asking "Did you get akumatized again?!".
  • During the "Bubbler" incident, Gabriel is impressed by Scarlet's supposed strategy. When he gets to meet her firsthand during "Simon Says", he's taken aback by her shallow behavior and flirty comments about his son. He also winds up winded again when rushing back to his secret lair, just like before.
  • During the epilogue of "Captain Hardrock", Chloé tries to use her father to threaten Officer Raincomprix, who recalls the events of "Rogercop" by saying he and Sabrina found out the Mayor doesn't have the jurisdiction to fire him.
  • In "Syren", after finding out that Chat Noir is keeping secrets from her, Chloé comforts herself by hugging Mr. Cuddley (the teddy bear from "Despair Bear").
  • In "Dark Cupid", Marigold is happy for Adrien's support, "even after you saw me at my newest and clumsiest", referring to the mistake she made when defending him from Riposte, which caused him to injure his ankle.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Since Marinette still lives in Paris, Hawkmoth's still active, and Chloé still causes several akumatizations by virtue of being herself, Marinette finds herself caught in the crossfire time and again.
• Caught on Tape: In "Kung Food", it's revealed that Chloé was caught by a security camera while messing with the soup.
• Character Development: After her father was fired in "Rogercop", Sabrina seems to have a Broken Pedestal relationship with Chloé in "Darkblade". She no longer hangs on her every word. In "Reflekta" she is barely responding, to the point where Chloé asks, "Seriously, what is with you lately?" Sabrina also refuses to carry out Chloé's dirty work against Juleka. She ends the friendship for good in "Vanisher".
• Cheaters Never Prosper:
  • Like in canon, Chloé's attempt to cheat her way into winning the derby contest fails because the people she hired to make a derby based on the stolen design copied Marinette's name as well.
  • Chloé tries to bribe her classmates so she could be re-elected as class representative but they still choose Marinette.
  • In this comic, Max is relying on prewritten codes during his failed attempt to win a spot at the gaming tournament.
• The Chooser of The One:
  • Master Fu is meant to be this, as the Guardian, but things went a bit Off the Rails and he has no idea who Scarlet Lady is.
  • At the end of "Mr. Pigeon", Marianne Lenore wonders if the Rooster Miraculous would be a good fit for Xavier Ramier.
  • Adrien takes up this role for the first time in "Puppeteer" when he needs a hero to take Marigold's place after the villain steals her doll. He chooses to give Marinette the Mouse Miraculous because he doesn't know that she is Marigold.
• Cliché: Adrien sees the idea of his father being a supervillain as practically this.
• Color Failure: Both Chat Noir and Scarlet Lady turn white when confronted by Kung Food and his giant pizza sword.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • In "Lady WiFi", all of Marinette's attempts to tell the titular villain that she isn't Scarlet Lady fall flat.

    Marinette: I don't even like Scarlet Lady.
    Lady WiFi: Girl, we gotta work on your self-esteem.

  • "The Pharaoh" sees Tikki attempting to convince Chloé to take Sabrina to see the Egyptian exhibit at the museum, as they could brush up on their history together. She mentions that there will also be some cool Ladybug-related stuff to see there... and Chloé immediately leaps to the conclusion that there's a brand-new Scarlet Lady exhibit, ditching her study date with Sabrina to hurry off to the museum.
  • After Adrien sees that his earlier comment about how they're lucky they don't have to deal with an akuma is no longer applicable thanks to Rogercop arriving on the scene, Plagg expresses pride in his bearer being a 'true Black Cat'.
  • While working together with Marinette to take down Gamer, Chat makes a pointed comment about how he knows he can rely upon her. Scarlet reacts more to the way he's flirting with Mari than to the implied insult aimed her way.
  • When Chloé gets evidence of Marinette going to steal the ruined class photo, Tikki laments the notion that without her guidance, Marinette is becoming a criminal. ...Not really considering the fact that she's doing this for the greater good (so they can retake it with Juleka) or that her 'positive influence' has done absolutely nothing for Chloé.
  • When Rose confronts Reflekta, she tells her that the Juleka she knows wouldn't attack people who didn't do anything to her. Reflekta takes this as a prompt to go after Chloé first since she's the one who wronged her initially.
  • When Maotif says Cat Noir "doesn't need powers to fight akuma" and uses herself as an example by claiming to "do it all the time", Scarlet Lady, unlike Cat Noir, doesn't realize Maotif is Marinette.
  • When Nadja shows up at the bakery and sees it closed, she phones Tom to demand the cake she ordered and asks "Yeah, and?" when he points out she's 20 minutes early.
  • In "Kung Food", Chloé tells Tikki to shut up and fails to realize the latter only obeyed because she's bound to.
  • In "Vanisher" Chloé yells at Tikki, "Where were you?!" and complains that there are ladybugs all over, not realizing Tikki did a difficult solo World-Healing Wave to rescue her from the akuma's power.
  • In "Riposte", Argencourt is so excited about Adrien and Kagami's exciting match being "real" fencing that he ignores the latter's illegal moves.
  • In "Princess Fragrance", Marinette sees Chloé with Tikki and assumes Chloé stole Scarlet Lady's kwami.
• Commonality Connection: In "Animan", Nino and Alya realize they "have a lot in common".

  Nino: An interest in video editing...
  Alya: Really young siblings...
  Nino and Alya: (Looking at Adrien and Marinette) Best friends that ditch them.

• Compliment Fishing: In "Gamer," Adrien does this during his practice session with Marinette. He praises her playing and says that he's no good, expecting a comforting reassurance. Marinette instead frankly tells him "That adds up," explaining that since he has only played alone, he's not used to working as part of a team. In the end, this provides a good reason for giving his tournament place up to Max.
• Compressed Adaptation: The comic doesn't go into too much details on the plots, mostly keeping its focus on Chloé, Adrien and Marinette, trusting it's audience to have seen the show to know how some of the akumas came about, how they're defeated and the plot developments concerning Hawk Moth. The fun in the comic is seeing how they play out with Chloé as the main super heroine instead of Marinette.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The misbehavior of Alec, rigging the contest in "Stormy Weather", has given Aurore power over him, which explains why Nino was able to get on as a Challenge contestant in "Simon Says".
  • In "La Befana", Plagg brings up the time Marinette was Maotif.
  • In "Kung Food" Hawkmoth warns the akuma, "Make sure you get Chat Noir first. Attacking the girl never ends well." The experience of La Befana must be fresh in his mind.
  • In "Evillustrator" Chat Noir leaves a message for Scarlet Lady that her supposed "best friend" is being targeted, and that "you might want to pretend to care for 5 minutes." This is based on his impression after Scar failed to show up in time to save Chloé from Kung Food's soup.
  • Also in "Evillustrator", Chat Noir is surprised to find Scar facing off with the akuma at the hotel. When she says, "Obviously! My best friend, Chloé Bourgeous was in danger!" Chat replies, "Is that why you almost let her become soup last week?" This causes her to break out in a nervous sweat.
  • The flashback in "Vanisher" shows that Jagged Stone hasn't forgotten about Chloé sabotaging the soup he was judging in "Kung Food", telling Nadja that she could have poisoned him. Sabrina was also wearing the hat Chloé gave her at the end of "Evillustrator", as well as the rose-shaped brooch which will become her akumatized object.
  • When Chloé claims on TV that she is best friends with Scarlet Lady in "Vanisher", Sabrina asks, "Didn't you learn anything from Lila!?" She's referring to Lila's similar claim in "Volpina" that got her publicly attacked and humiliated.
  • In "Riposte", Tikki and Plagg watch a TV image on Chloé's cell phone, showing Marigold giving an interview with a sheepish grin, captioned "Bravo Marigold", which shows an event that was skipped over in "Vanisher".
  • Also in "Riposte", all the girls in Marinette's class (except for Chloé) wear the bee accessories she made and gave out in the previous episode.
  • In "Princess Fragrance", Marinette recognises Tikki when she sees her with Chloé, as she'd previously met her in "Vanisher".
• Contrived Coincidence: In "Puppeteer" the author has Tikki request more cookies at just the right time so that Chloé will see Lady WiFi flying up to Marinette's room. She assumes it's to prove Marinette is Scarlet Lady again, which annoys her. Otherwise she might not have gone into action at all.
• Cool Mask: In "La Befana", Lila gives Marinette a Venetian carnevale mask for her birthday. She bluntly admits she wanted to get rid of it because it reminded her too much of Scarlet Lady.
• Correlation/Causation Gag: In "Reflekta", Marinette thinks her pleas and flattery get the photographer to do a retake, when he actually does it for Adrien, who was whispering "please" behind her. A humorous version of Scared of What's Behind You where the effect is influence (and his suspicions about Adrien's crush) rather than fear.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Alec, who not only rubs Aurore's loss in her face, but also rigged the votes so that Mireille would win.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot:
  • As Marinette notes, all Alya had to do to avoid the events of "Lady WiFi" playing out as they did was ask her about the suspiciously spotted object she saw her putting in her locker. Had she asked, Marinette would have happily told her that it was part of some costumes she was making so the kids she babysits can play heroes. She also ribs Alya for forgetting about how she was taken hostage during the Stoneheart incident. In fairness, Nino was the one to make that suggestion first and Alya did attempt to call Marinette to ask her. But when all she got was a voice message, Alya opted for the locker ploy rather then just wait the following morning to ask her.
  • After the defeat of Guitar Villain where Jagged points out anyone would want to work with the 'second best' musician Marinette questions why he didn't do that earlier.
• Crazy-Prepared: As in Canon, Marinette has everyone's schedules plotted out on a board in order to make coordinating easier. When Alya ribs her for it in "Copycat", Marinette responds by pointing out that she forgot about the statue unveiling.
• Creator Cameo: The author's personal OC makes a cameo appearance at the beginning of "Princess Fragrance", having just been akumatized and defeated.
• Crocodile Tears: Chloé fakes tears while convincing Sabrina to let her bum off their project, claiming she was traumatized by Evillustrator's attack. She palms an eyedropper just out of Sabrina's line of sight.
• Crush Blush:
  • Théo gets one while talking to Scarlet Lady, and later while watching Marinette call Scarlet Lady out... until Chat Noir steps in to shut that down.
  • Adrien and Marinette both get one during "Gamer" after they end up on top of each other after dodging the titular Akuma's attack.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Stormy Weather initially lays one down on Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir.
• Damsel in Distress: Marinette becomes this in Chloé's place during the second Stoneheart attack.
• Deadpan Snarker: Adrien/Chat, Tikki, Sabrina... anyone who hangs out with Chloé/Scarlet Lady on a regular basis, really.
  • In terms of people not in the above category, Alix gets some pretty good snark in whenever she shows up.
• Death Glare:
  • Implied in "Copycat"; we don't get to see Chat Noir's face after he hears that Théo thought he and Scarlet Lady were an item, but whatever expression he turns towards his partner is enough to make her recoil with fright.
  • We do get to see the look he gives Théo after he starts Crush Blushing while watching Marinette yell at Scarlet Lady, which is enough to shut that down cold.
  • Nathalie and Principal Damocles hit Chloé with a double-barrel death glare after she attempts to blame her plagiarism attempt on her best friend, throwing her under the bus to try and save herself.
  • Ivan is not pleased when he learns Nino went behind Alya and Mylène's backs and wrote in a kiss scene between Adrien and Mylène's characters in their movie.
  • Marinette gives Chloé a flat stare after she accuses her of stealing her bracelet, while Adrien and Tom have matching furious looks as they rise to their friend/daughter's defense.
  • Adrien hits Chloé with a withering look after she traps Juleka in the bathroom, ruins the photo with her attempts to force herself onto his arm, then 'suggests' to the principal that they don't have time to retake it with so many other classes waiting for their pictures.
  • Adrien is not happy when he finds out that Lila threw out his father's book on the Miraculous after she stole it from him.
• Death Is Cheap: It's mentioned in the author's notes that Miraculous Cure can bring people back from the dead, meaning death by akuma battle has no meaning. It's then deconstructed in the fact that this makes Scarlet Lady extremely indifferent towards civilians in danger.
• Deleted Scenes: The author says, "I tend to skip over some scenes if I can't think of a way to change it enough from canon and it's not totally vital to the story, so I'll imply it happened without showing it..." giving the example of a deleted fight scene in "Gamer" where the heroes won a mecha to control.
• Department of Redundancy Department: "Pigeon Man on his Pigeon Roof with his Pigeon Friends gets a Pigeon Happy End!"
• Description Cut: While working on Marinette's surprise party, Alya says "She won't know what hit her!". The next panel shows Marinette waiting for Alya's phone call and saying "It's cute that they think they're subtle".
• Didn't Think This Through: Chloé is a frequent victim of this.
  • Chloé's decision to steal Marinette's work for the design contest. Not only does Marinette incorporate her name onto her designs, she points out that she has all the original sketches.
  • Chloé insults Marinette right as she's handing out free croissants on Career Day, sarcastically ordering her not to get her 'Poor Grease' near her precious bracelet. Marinette responds by skipping over her entirely.
  • During "Gamer", Chloé attempts to con her way into the bakery by claiming that she and Marinette have a school project together. Not only does Sabine refuse to let her in, she points out that she's fully aware of how much she's bullied her daughter over the years. (Not to mention what happened when she recently let Sabrina in...)
  • Chloé complains about Reflekta: "Why does an akuma have to come now?", forgetting that she anticipated getting an akuma to fight when she locked Juleka in the bathroom.
  • Lila mixes this with Didn't See That Coming in "Volpina". Her attempt to impress everyone by claiming to be Scarlet Lady's BFF has more mixed results due to others having more experience with what the superheroine is really like. She also completely failed to consider what might happen if Adrien figured out that she'd 'borrowed' his book, and is caught completely flat-footed when he calls her out on the Contrived Coincidence of her revealing her Secret Legacy to him right afterwards.
  • Scarlet Lady chooses to follow Marigold when the latter rescues Adrien from Riposte... leading the Akuma right to where she hid him. The other heroine does a Facepalm upon realizing Scarlet's stupidity.
  • Played for Laughs in Riposte's denouncement. Once everything's been resolved, Plagg points out to Adrien that his decision to convince D'Argencourt to let Kagami onto the Fencing Team, he's unintentionally sacrificed a chance to have Marinette join instead. Adrien's reaction makes clear that he hadn't thought about that.
• Disability Immunity: By being an unpleasant person, Scar fails to inspire Marinette to make a cute, representational doll of Scarlet Lady for the kids she babysits. She makes an ugly paper-bag doll instead, which Scar tears up in anger. This renders Scar immune from the Puppeteer's control.
• Disaster Dominoes: Jalil shoves Scarlet Lady right into his sister Alix, who bumps into Marinette, who gets knocked into Adrien. Which Adrien doesn't mind so much, except it also causes Scarlet Lady to notice he's there.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • In "Lady WiFi", Chloé finds out that Alya thinks Marinette is Scarlet Lady. She responds by snapping a photo of her getting into Marinette's locker, then makes a scene in the Principal's Office and railroads him into suspending her from school for a whole week. Discussed by Sabrina and Kim after they witness the whole debacle in the principal's office:

    Kim: I just thought Alya was taking something from Marinette's locker.
    Sabrina: And I thought Chloé just wanted to get her in trouble. I didn't know she wanted to go THAT far. Especially when Alya didn't even do anything to her.
    Kim: Maybe Marinette can talk to the principal and get her a lighter sentence...

  • A bonus panel for "Horrificator" implies that Hawkmoth deliberately makes Mylène's akuma incapable of speech in response to her sassing him. (One of the tags on said comic implies that Mylène thinks this is Worth It.)
  • "Rogercop" opens with Adrien implying to his father that because he broke his promise to come to Career Day, he's going to ruin his diet by binging on the croissants Tom and Marinette brought in. Gabriel swears to himself that he's "akumatizing the S**T out of someone now" purely to get back at his errant son.
  • In "The Gamer":
    • Max wants to hurt Marinette because she (a girl) beat him in a game. Hawk Moth even points out to Max that he was beat by two people.
    • Chloé tries to get Marinette zapped all because she was hanging out with Adrien.
  • In "Volpina", Chloé reacts to Lila's lie that she is friends with Scarlet Lady with extreme hostility (that Lila tried to approach Adrien with it didn't help) and assaults her in front of the whole class, tossing her into a nearby fountain.
• Distinction Without a Difference: When Tikki tries to tell a jealous Chloé that Adrien is free to date whoever he wants, Chloé replies that of course he is, but only if it's her.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • In "Reflekta", both Scarlet Lady and Marinette recognize one of the akuma's victims as Chat Noir, not as Adrien Agreste. This leads to Scarlet openly mocking them for getting zapped, blissfully unaware that she's making fun of her crush.
  • "Reflekta" also ends with the implication that Chloé sits out of the retake because she's still clinging to the original photo as her picture with Adrien, resulting in her being excluded.
  • As she accepts Hawkmoth's offer of akumatization, Lila declares that Scarlet Lady is an abymsal example of what a superheroine should be. Yet Volpina is every inch the same sort of posturing, self-centered Attention Whore, which Chat immediately recognizes.
  • "La Befana" has Mme. Bustier acting authoritative for once and scolding several students for bullying... pity that she's doing so in defense of Chloé, the biggest bully in her class. And forcing said students to invite her to Marinette's birthday party, setting the stage for more problems.
  • After posting Lila's claims on her blog without verifying anything hurt her credibility, Alya declares that she's going to be more careful from now on. Yet after the "Evillustrator" incident, she's shown interviewing Chloé and getting a hilariously biased version of events.
  • During "Guitar Villain", Chloé notes that Adrien's father might veto her plans to hang out with Adrien, prompting her to make a 'backup plan'. What she doesn't know is that Gabriel is forcing Adrien to spend time with her, as he agreed on his son's behalf.
• Dropping the Bombshell: At the end of "Copycat":

  Adrien: Is that Théo?! What is he doing [at school]?!
  Nino: Dude, he goes here.

• Dude, She's Like, in a Coma!: When Ms. Bustier tells her students about how kisses in fairy tales break spells through the power of love, Max contradicts this by pointing out that, in most cases, the kisses are done without the kissed person's consent.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Chat Noir would just like some simple acknowledgement for his help in stopping the akumas, thank you very much. Ironically, when Scarlet Lady describes her beloved Adrien to Théo as someone "beloved by all of Paris", he naturally assumes that she's talking about Chat Noir, and that he naturally gets that kind of acceptance because of his heroism.
• Duel Boss: Pixelator is able to successfully trap Chloé and Adrien with his pictures, forcing Marigold to deal with him one on one.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Sabrina sports these in "Darkblade", a sign that she she hasn't forgiven or forgotten Chloé's actions in the previous episode.
• Dye Hard: In-Universe, Adrien temporarily dyes his hair lime green as a form of rebellion against his dad.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Ella and Etta Césaire appear at the end of "Lady WiFi", wearing the masks that Marinette made for them.
  • Pun not intended, but at the end of "Mr. Pigeon", Marianne Lenoir makes an appearance, showing Xavier Ramier to a pigeon sanctuary and secretly scouting him out as a potential Miraculous holder.
  • Luka Couffaine makes a brief faceless cameo at the end of "Reflekta".
  • Ondine arrives with Kim to watch his race with Alix in "Timebreaker"; Kim comments that he wanted at least one person there he could count on to cheer him on.
• Emerging from the Shadows: In "Vanisher" a shadowy intruder enters Chloé's room and says, "You won't see this one coming, Chloé," followed by a evil laugh. It must be Vanisher, even with the hexagonal-shaped head outline, because the author has redesigned the akuma. The author says, "there's a short mystery so I hope you'll look at the clues!"
• Empowered Badass Normal: In "Reflekta", Marinette goes from Badass Bystander to full-blown superhero when Plagg transfers the ring from the incapacitated Adrien to her.
• Enemy Mine: Defied. When Marinette reveals she hates Scarlet Lady's guts, Volpina is visibly excited, but Marinette makes it abundantly clear that she hates Hawk Moth more before she can even ask.
• Engineered Heroics: Hinted at in "Reflekta"; after trapping Juleka in the bathroom, Chloé thinks to herself that she'll be lucky if this gets her akumatized, as it means that she'll get to 'show off as Scarlet Lady'.
• Entitled Bastard: Chloé believes that she's entitled to Paris' love and affection, despite not really doing anything to earn it.
• Entertainingly Wrong: In "The Bubbler", Hawkmoth expresses respect for Scarlet Lady staying out of the fight, believing that she hung back in order to protect her earrings. As opposed to her just... not caring about all the guests being endangered.
• Epic Fail:
  • In "Gamer", Nino's score is so low Max wonders if it's first time playing. Nino says he's just boosting numbers.

    Nino: Dude, I'm only playing to boost numbers, ain't nobody here for this tournament.

  • In "La Befana", Chloé tries to ruin Marinette's birthday party by hiding the gifts in a bush and unplugging the electronics needed for the music. The gifts are so poorly hidden Sabrina easily recovers them and she later just replugs everything back.
• Especially Zoidberg: When Roger tells Mr. Ramier that feeding the pigeons is forbidden as a health and safety hazard, Mr. Ramier says "But not for me, right?" Roger just snaps "Especially for you!"
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • The very first scene in the comic is Chloé fuming over Marinette standing up to her, then slipping her hand in her purse and stealing what she assumes to be a precious family heirloom.
  • Jalil's introduction in "The Pharaoh" has him rudely shoving Alya out of his way without sparing so much as a glance towards her as he hurries towards his father.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Scarlet Lady never figures out how to use her Lucky Charm object against the villain on her own. It's up to Marinette (if she's there) or Chat Noir to come up with a plan. There were exceptions in the Rogercop and Darkblade stories, but the author says "Don't get used to it."
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Sabrina may be Chloé's lackey, but she's confused and upset by Chloé's behavior in "Lady WiFi". As she admits to Kim, getting Alya in trouble was one thing, but getting her suspended...? That caught her completely off-guard.
  • Both the mayor and Hawkmoth are creeped out by Théo's obsession with Scarlet Lady (who everyone is aware is underage), both assuming he's significantly older than her.
  • Although he akumatizes him into "The Gamer" all the same, Hawkmoth finds Max's monomaniacal dislike of Marinette beating him to be excessive (he even points out to Max that he was beaten by two people).
  • While Gabriel briefly considers taking advantage of Scarlet Lady's interest in his son, when he brings up the subject with Adrien, he readily accepts his rejection of the idea. It is also Played for Laughs in the fact that Gabriel is relieved that Adrien also doesn't like her at all.
  • Volpina is surprised when Scarlet Lady doesn't care about her threat to make a building collapse, saying that she can just bring back anyone inside who got hurt after defeating Volpina, to which she responds that Scarlet Lady "really [is] a villain."
  • La Befana calls Scarlet Lady out on her cowardice, claiming that she is going to turn her to coal for it (by contrast, she was going to turn Chat into an angel).
  • Even Hawkmoth and Scarlet Lady are surprised that Animan wants revenge on kids for claiming to be able to outrun a panther.
  • Hawkmoth is weirded out by Vincent's obsession with Jagged Stone, mentioning how glad he is that he kept Adrien home for so long.
• Everyone Can See It: Adrien's crush on Marinette is quite evident to others. Even Master Fu playfully refers to her as 'the girl you love'.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • Despite being an awful hero and treating him poorly, Scarlet Lady doesn't understand why Chat Noir hates her or why he refuses to call her by her real name.
  • Chloé gets hit with this in "Reflekta" when she can't understand why Sabrina won't make up for her weird behavior (read: getting fed up by Chloé's antics) by helping her prevent another picture from being taken.
  • Scarlet Lady is confused over Chat Noir and Marigold not wanting to sink Captain Hardrock's ship due to the fact she has hostages because they'll just come back with the cure, not seeming to get that they wouldn't want people to drown even if they would be safe in the end.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • How the AU begins; Chloé decides to steal from Marinette as payback for talking back to her, and ends up with the Ladybug Miraculous as a result.
  • In "Lady WiFi", Chloé snaps a picture of Alya getting into Marinette's locker and goads the Principal into suspending her for a whole week purely because she's salty over the very idea that Alya thought Marinette could be Scarlet Lady instead of her.

    Chloé: Too bad your friend Marinette isn't Scarlet Lady... or she might have saved you.

  • Hawkmoth responds to Mylène snarking at him during her akumatization by rendering Horrificator incapable of human speech.
  • In "Rogercop", after Gabriel fails to show up at Parent's Career Day, Adrien snarkily implies that he'll ruin his diet by helping himself to the free croissants. Gabriel's reaction?

    "Oh, I'm akumatizing the s**t out of someone now."

  • Max gets really angry that Marinette beat him, completely disregarding that it was both her and Adrien. Hawk Moth even points it out when Max gives his Motive Rant.

    Hawk Moth: Didn't you lose to two people...?

  • Chloé, meanwhile, proves to be so petty that she not only trips Marinette as Scarlet Lady, but actively aids Gamer in tracking her and Chat Noir by leading him on a merry chase.
  • Chloé again in "Reflekta" as she refuses to let another picture be taken with Juleka in it, even though she was being pushed off Adrien in the first one.
  • "Timebreaker" sees her snatching Alix's pocketwatch out of Adrien's hand, insulting its appearance. Upon hearing who it belongs to, she casually declares it worthless and tosses it right onto the racetrack. The narrative commentary underneath the strip implies that this is partly due to Alix knocking her out of the way while pointing out that she wasn't even invited to watch the race.
  • In "Volpina", Adrien uses this to Pull the Thread on Lila's lie that she's friends with Scarlet Lady. As he puts it, there's no way that Scarlet Lady could have "saved Lila's life personally" because Scar never tries to save anybody.
  • Scarlet also gleefully subjects Lila to a mini-Humiliation Conga, wrapping her up in her yo-yo and sending her spinning into a nearby fountain.
  • The conflict of "Kung Food" can be laid entirely at Chloé's feet, as the moment she learns that Cheng is related to Marinette, she decides to ensure he can't win the contest.
  • Chloé's the one who files the noise complaint in "Captain Hardrock" after being refused entry, and rode along with the police simply so that she could ensure everybody saw she was responsible for reporting them and ruining the concert.
• Exact Words:
  • At the end of "Timebreaker", Kim thinks he'll just have to "go one month of no dares" since it's december but Max reminds him that the terms of the bet he lost is that he can't dare anyone to do anything for the rest of the school year.
  • In Guitar Villain, when the titular villain makes his appearance, Chloe calls for Luka and Adrian to get her out of there. They comply by shoving her into an elevator.
• Exhausted Eye Bags:
  • Adrien naturally develops visible bags under his eyes after stretches of dealing with akuma and other issues effectively by himself. According to the author, he uses concealer to help hide them.
  • Marinette has eye bags in "Vanisher" after she stayed up all night so she could draw attention away from her identity as Marigold by making bee-themed accessories and pretending her Miraculous is one of them.

    F-J

• The Faceless: Luka's first appearance at the end of "Reflekta" has his head above the panel, preventing readers from seeing it.
• Face Palm:
  • Hawkmoth can't help but do this when Kung Food's minions get cheese crumbs in Marinette's eyes after he specifically told them not to harm her, as Chat Noir's berserk button is pressed. AGAIN.
  • Master Fu reacts this way during "Syren" when Chat Noir justifies his decision to reveal the Guardian's existence to Marigold without express permission by playing the friendship card.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • After Stormy Weather shows up at the park, Marinette is so focused on comforting Manon that she misses Adrien transforming into Chat Noir right behind her.
  • Chloé completely misses the fact that the reason the Bubbler agreed to play a slow song was for Adrien to dance with Marinette, not her.
  • When Marinette immediately recognizes that Lady WiFi is an akumatized Alya, Nino wonders how she can possibly tell. Marinette stares at him in disbelief before deadpanning that it's because of her phone charm.
  • Marinette gets another turn at this in "Mr. Pigeon" when Officer Roger gets mobbed and carried away right next to her while she's busy sketching.
  • Two happen in rapid succession in "The Pharaoh": nobody notices the black butterfly fluttering past as Scarlet Lady and Adrien try to figure out where the Ladybug/Black Cat materials are, and Alix and Marinette fail to notice Adrien ducking around a corner to transform.
  • Adrien, Marinette and Alix walk right by the display of Chat Noir-related statuary (large black cats with Plagg's whisker style) while discussing how he suspects his friend lied to him about there being anything related to the superhero there.
  • It takes three months for Gabriel to notice that his son has started wearing a ring. Adrien is utterly unimpressed when he finally comments on it.
  • Lila completely misses that Marinette, Nino and Alix are mortified about her "knowing" Scarlet Lady, even though they are standing right behind her. Alya, Rose and Kim also don't notice.
  • When raiding Gabriel's hidden safe, Plagg completely misses the Peacock Brooch despite being right next to it.
  • Both Lila and Chloé miss Adrien's not so happy facial expression when asked if he likes Scarlet Lady.
  • In "Vanisher", Chloé's butler doesn't wake her up, she has to go to school by herself after her driver doesn't show up to take her there, and neither the teacher nor the class make note of her late arrival. It isn't until her father declares her missing on live TV that she realises she's been turned invisible.
  • On a rooftop with almost no cover, Riposte looks right at Adrien, demanding that he not run away from fighting her. Somehow, Marigold gets him away without Riposte making a move or saying anything. Somehow her focus must have been distracted by Scarlet Lady making a speech, saying, "Come, my prince, I'll take you far away from this dangerous girl."
• Fair-Play Whodunnit: Just barely. At the start of "Vanisher" the author says, "there is a short mystery so I hope you'll look at the clues." Vanisher is shown lurking in Chloé's room doing something sinister. In the second part we get a Red Herring when Chloé bangs open a door: this is actually done by the akuma invisibly to mislead her. In the third part comes The Reveal that Chloé has been cut off from the physical world and is actually in a Prison Dimension, so she can't actually open doors. The real clue is an Absence of Evidence: Chloé has her cell phone, it's charged, and her father is looking for her. If she were merely invisible and not cut off from the real world she would have gotten calls and texts from him.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: "The Pharaoh" parodies this; Jalil sees his father as one, but...

  Mr. Kubdul: Jalil, you're not using museum artifacts to perform a sacrificial ritual! For several reasons!
  Jalil: [flipping him off] Gawd, you just don't understand me dad!

• First-Person Smartass:
  • Ondine thinks up a snide remark at Kim's expense, which she keeps to herself.

    Ondine: I'm super in love with a boy who doesn't suspect anything.
    Kim: That guy sounds like an idiot!
    Ondine: [thinking] You're not wrong.

  • Nathalie thinks up a snide remark at Gabriel's expense, which she keeps to herself.

    Nathalie: Look at it this way: at least [Adrien]'s admiring the smart Marigold and not the incompetent leader, Scarlet Lady.
    Gabriel: Scarlet Lady is not incompetent! She's the slipperiest of the whole group!
    Nathalie: Of course, sir. [thinking] Because if she was an idiot, you'd be the guy losing to that idiot.

• Five-Second Foreshadowing: On the second page of "Vanisher", when Chloé arrives in class, she does so by slamming the door, causing someone to yell. As she talks about how hard her morning was, everyone can be seen still looking towards the door. It's because they can't see or hear Chloé, and are wondering why the door seemingly slammed by itself.
• Fix Fic: The writer has set out to fix as many inconsistencies in canon that she can, despite the AU setting. She's also decided on an actual order and timeline, which can be found here. Said order itself fixes a few things that didn't make sense in canon; for example, "Pixelator", "Guitar Villain", and "Princess Fragrance" not taking place until long after "Volpina" makes Lila's lies about knowing Jagged Stone and Prince Ali more believable to the class.
  • In "Rogercop", Marinette accuses Sabrina of taking the missing bracelet after seeing her handle it in Nino's video. In the webcomic her expression is much kinder and she simply asks Sabrina if she still has it.
  • In "Gamer", Marinette rushes to meet Alya at school to work on a report, only to find Alya recording a video game tournament. Why didn't Alya reschedule? In this version, both find out about the tournament at the same time.
  • Unlike the canonical "Simon Says", Nathalie and Nino don't just disappear in mid-episode. They (and Marinette) are captured by the army of minions and taken the TV studio, where Nathalie uses her martial arts skills (as seen in "Felix") to take part in the fight and save Gabriel from trying to fly off the building.
  • In "Befana", the ice-cream vendor asks Gina "You're not gonna ride back together?" when Marinette runs off to get to her party, causing Gina to look blank. The author says, "Will never understand why Gina didn't give Marinette a ride."
  • "Kung Food" lets Marinette actually know Chinese, and her struggles with the language barrier stem more from nervousness than inexperience.
  • "Evillustrator" has Marinette and Sabrina getting some of their schoolwork done together, partly due to the former not having to run off to transform when the akuma shows up at the library. Sabrina also witnesses his visit to Marinette's bedroom and her agreement to go out with him, unlike her canon counterpart who thought that Marinette just left her to do all the work without a good reason.
  • "Evillustrator" also fixes the sad situation of nobody apparently knowing or caring about Nathaniel going missing on his birthday. In this version, he had birthday plans with Alix, which he blew off in favor of romancing Marinette once he was evilized, which causes her to be annoyed. He also tells Marinette that he doesn't tell many people about his birthday anyway.
  • The above episode also follows up on Nathaniel after his akumatization - he is shown to feel really embarrassed over having asked Marinette out on a date, as he wouldn't have done that in any other circumstances.
  • "Vanisher" gives the titular character a different appearance rather than just Sabrina but invisible, as well as a few other powers.
  • In "Riposte" the illegal "corps-a-corps" shoving that Kagami does is called out by Marinette, even though it is ignored by the fencing master. This means that Kagami deserves to lose, even if the final call on who gets the point is wrong.
  • A small example happens in "Syren" where the fact that the Couffaines live in a houseboat is acknowledged, with Anarka and Luka using it to save Juleka and the rest of the class (except Marinette, Adrien, and Kim) from the flood.
  • There are three different defenses the heroes use against Puppeteer's dolls in this AU: keep the doll away from her (Chat), destroy the doll (Scar), or transform so you don't look like the doll (Marigold). Only the first defense was tried in canon, and it was not done very well: Chat's and Ladybug's dolls were eventually captured for a Near-Villain Victory.
  • The author has the heroes hide the Chat Noir doll before fighting Puppeteer, and the end tags call out Ladybug for not doing the same. (In fact, Ladybug did worse, because the Chat Noir doll was already taken — she brought her own doll to the fight!)
  • From a tag in "Pixelator": "lol i had to fix that weird time stream problem of Jagged and the Mayor 'first' meeting here somehow! XD". They judged a cooking show together in "Kung Food", and Jagged Stone gave an interview at the hotel in "Vanisher". The mayor says he only remembers "important" people, and Jagged Stone says he erases Bob Roth's friends from his memory.
  • When Marigold makes a deal with Pixelator to free half his captives in exchange for the location of Jagged Stone, she is shown thinking, "Chat Noir probably got hit as a civilian. Hopefully this will free him." The tag notes say, "It was never really 'explained' why Ladybug went with this deal with Pixelator in canon, so this is my interpretation."
• Flat "What": Chat Noir's reaction to learning that Marinette agreed to date Evillustrator is a deadpan "What."
• Flipping the Bird: This happens a lot.
  • Marinette to Hawkmoth while she screams at him to stop playing the victim.
  • Scarlet Lady flips a double bird at Lady Wifi (which she blocks) after the latter implies Scarlet is in a relationship with Chat Noir.
  • Jalil to his father because he won't let him use the museum's artifacts to make a ritual sacrifice.
  • Adrien flips off Scarlet Lady after she tries to make fun of him and Maotif for being "gross".
  • Zoe Rapporte does this during a news report about her "Nth akumatization", angrily claiming that it was because of how much people annoyed her.
• Follow That Car: With those exact words, Adrien tells his driver to pursue Kagami in "Riposte", unwittingly running both himself and Marinette into akuma danger.
• Force Feeding: In "Syren", Scarlet Lady tells Marigold and Chat Noir that they can save the day without her since they won't tell her their secrets. They react by force-feeding her the power up potion and saying they would go without her if they could.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In "Rogercop", mentions are made of an upcoming mayoral election (with the adults witnessing the Parents Day fiasco taking Mayor Bourgeois' Screw the Rules, I Make Them! attitude as a reason not to vote for him). The following episode, "Darkblade", covers the election itself.
  • When Lila first declares that she's best friends with Scarlet Lady in "Volpina", Alya immediately snaps up her cell phone and starts recording. Later, when Scarlet publically humiliates Lila in the park, she's among the witnesses. Compared to her peers, Alya's expression is more puzzled than sympathetic towards Lila's plight, and she accepts Scarlet's excuse with relative ease, as she winds up having a personal reason to be okay with how harshly she was dealt with: she posted her lies on the Ladyblog.
  • When Adrien talks to Fu about getting the book back, he mentions that, due to being grounded, he won't be able to make it to Marinette's birthday party. The next episode is going to be "Befana".
  • When Scarlet Lady doesn't show up to fight Kung Food until the last minute due to Chloé being tied up and unable to transform until Chat Noir rescues her, Marinette ends up helping Chat fight against the akuma's brainwashed minions and once again using the Lucky Charm against him, which Adrien tells Master Fu about after (as well as bringing up her temporarily using his Miraculous against Reflekta). This seems to be what convinces Fu to give Marinette the Bee Miraculous.
  • In the last page of "Evillustrator", Chloé guilts Sabrina into giving her another chance to be her friend, which the latter says will be the last chance. the next episode is "Vanisher", where Sabrina is akumatized after falling out with Chloé again.
  • There's an Easter Egg in "Intermission": the titles of each of the pages is the name of a Miraculous power, and they are in the order that they first appeared in the comic. This reveals that not only are the Fox, Turtle, Dragon, Snake, Horse, and Monkey Miraculous going to be used, but the Mouse Miraculous will also be used before the aforementioned ones, which it is in "Puppeteer" when Marigold's doll is taken so Adrien tells her to destransform while he temporarily gives out another Miraculous, and unknowingly gives it to her anyway.
  • In "Puppeteer", Chloé and Tikki mention the work experience field trip to be held at the hotel, suggesting "Pixelator" will be the next episode.
• Forgetful Jones: Kim is often shown as not very smart, but in "Syren" he is especially forgetful. He has to be reminded to take off his swimming cap before going to the movies. Later, when he jumps into the flood waters for a swim, the author points out another memory lapse in the notes: "I'd like a pair of goggles so this nasty river isn't in my eyes, tbh." He has swim goggles, but they are pushed up on top of his head.
• Forgotten First Meeting: In this fic, "Pixelator" isn't the first time the Mayor and Jagged Stone met but neither of them remembers any previous meetings. The Mayor claims he only remembers "the important people" and Jagged, upon being reminded by Penny that the Mayor is Bob Roth's friend, says it's no wonder he erased the Mayor from his memory.
• For Want of a Nail:
  • The premise: what if Master Fu put the Miraculous in Marinette's purse instead of her room?
  • A general example. Having to deal with Scarlet Lady has made Adrien more frustrated and caused him to realize Chloe's antics over time.
  • In the "Lady WiFi" adaptation, as Chloé actually is the Ladybug hero here, Alya doesn't accuse her of being Scarlet Lady. Instead, she suspects Marinette.
  • "Copycat" flips who's unable to make it to the statue unveiling, as D'Argencourt refuses to let Adrien slip away from his fencing lessons, while the more fame-motivated Chloé naturally makes sure she has plenty of time not just to attend, but to doll up ahead of time. This also gives Théo a chance to confess his feelings directly to his crush, only for Scarlet to bluntly reject them.
  • A bonus panel in "Darkblade" shows Marinette already entertaining the possibility of running for Class President without being pushed into it by anyone since she doesn't have the Ladybug duties in this AU.
  • In canon, Marinette pretends to have been knighted by Darkblade to hide the fact she's Ladybug. In this fic, Darkblade really gets her under his command and Chloé hides her secret by claiming she was calling for Scarlet Lady, as she's too prideful to pretend she was caught.
  • Due to being Scarlet Lady, Chloé decides that she's got better things to do than hang out at the library; thus, she misses Max's tournament.
  • Instead of saying she's only better than Adrien at UMS3 because of her amulet, Marinette suggests it's because he's not used to being a team player. He actually accepts her theory. As a result, Adrien steps out of the tournament to give Max a spot. Adrien says it's because he believes Max to be a better team player.
  • In "Reflekta", Chloé has already alienated Sabrina to the point the latter refuses to help her and Chloé decides to get Juleka out of the way herself. Chloé even hopes Juleka will become an akuma so she can show off as Scarlet Lady.
  • "Reflekta" has Marinette using the Cat Miraculous, much like she canonically does during Reflekta's second outing. Because she's only a temporary hero, she isn't nearly as cautious with her identity.
  • Reflekta is defeated more easily with a functioning Cat hero (Marinette/Maotif) in the game. She uses her Innate Night Vision to catch the villain in the dark, rather than a flash camera Lucky Charm.
  • In "Timebreaker", since Marinette doesn't have a crushing schedule as a hero, she is on top of her obligations about the race and keeps her parents informed, and thus doesn't have to lie when her father calls about the customer's early arrival. Additionally, since Marinette's parents know about her planned absence from the shop, the twenty-minute-early arrival of Mrs. Chamack is treated as an unreasonable demand rather than something to blame on Marinette.
  • Also in "Timebreaker", Chloé/Scarlet Lady is the one who ends up affected by Timebreaker's powers rather than Chat Noir, due to her incompetence. As a result, it's Chat Noir who follows Timebreaker into the past and gets blamed for the watch's destruction in the new timeline.
  • "Timebreaker" also has how seeing Timebreaker causes Chloé to drop the watch without being told by a future hero to put it down.
  • In canon, Marinette needs Tikki's confirmation that Future Ladybug is really her future self. In this fic, Adrien believes his future self without Plagg's confirmation because Future Chat Noir calls Scarlet Lady the same way he does. (Plagg seems to confirm the other Chat Noir also, because he shows his face right away).
  • In "Simon Says", Marinette is able to attend the show Nino is participating in because without the superhero duties she had in canon, she hasn't missed as much school and therefore hasn't been grounded.
  • Also in "Simon Says", since Nino doesn't rely on Scarlet Lady like his canon counterpart relies on Ladybug, he challenges "supermodel, Adrien Agreste, and ladyblogger, Alya Césaire" instead of Ladybug and Chat Noir.
  • In "Volpina", Marinette doesn't miss Lila's first lying name-drops, no doubt because her schedule isn't encumbered with superhero business as it is in canon.
  • In "Volpina", it's Chloé and not Marinette who follows Adrien and Lila. In canon, Marinette doesn't appear in front of them until after Lila tosses away Gabriel's book and she appears as Ladybug. In this fic, Chloé interferes as her civilian self as soon as Lila tells Adrien she also likes superheroes.
  • Originally, Adrien never looks in his bag after Lila steals his book, enabling her to use it in her deception. Here, Plagg immediately informs him that she stole it, and he only goes to meet with her in order to get it back.
  • Adrien also knows from the very beginning that the tale about Scarlet Lady saving Lila was a lie "Because Scarlet Lady would never go out of her way to save anyone!".
  • In "Volpina", instead of simply calling Lila out on her lies like Ladybug did in canon, Scarlet Lady throws Lila into a nearby fountain.
  • Also in "Volpina", Marinette finds and returns the lost grimoire to Adrien immediately, not knowing anything about it except that it's an interesting book about heroes. She is present when Volpina comes to visit Adrien.
  • In canon, when Volpina threatens to drop Adrien, Ladybug needs Chat Noir's reassurance that the "Adrien" held hostage is an illusion. In this fic, Scarlet Lady doesn't suspect it's an illusion but is certain she'll "catch him or bring him back with the Miraculous Cure".
  • In canon, Ladybug figures out how to use the lucky charm to defeat Volpina. Scarlet Lady just wants to use it to work on her tan and only defeats Volpina by sheer luck.
  • In canon, Ladybug visits Adrien at the end of "Volpina" and they have a conversation through his bathroom door. Here, Scarlet Lady comes to Adrien's window and blows him a kiss. He presses a button and slams the security shutters in her face.
  • Adrien and Plagg are the ones who bring the book to Master Fu instead of Marinette and Tikki.
  • In canon, Marinette lies to Master Fu about where she found the grimoire, protecting Adrien. In this version of "The Collector", Adrien immediately admits it belongs to his father. He says later to Plagg, "Him being a supervillain almost makes too much sense. It's practically cliché."
  • In canon, Adrien doesn't defy his father's decision to pull him from school as punishment for stealing the book. In this fic, he takes advantage of the fact that at least one of his friends has personal ties to reporter Nadja Chamack to threaten to give his father bad publicity over his decision. Because of this, Gabriel decides to just ground Adrien for a month.
  • In canon, Lila, out of fear of having her social life ruined, locks herself in the house and fools her mother into thinking the school is closed after the events of "Volpina". Here Marinette, not being the Ladybug heroine, talks her out of it and explains her classmates don't hate her. In "La Befana", it leads Lila to attend Marinette's birthday party.
  • In "Evillustrator", Marinette's lack of superhero duties means that she doesn't leave Sabrina to work on their school project by herself after Chloé abandons them. When Evillustrator comes to Marinette's bedroom to ask her on a date, Sabrina is already over at her home (the two of them having left school early after his attack at the library) and witnesses it, and understands that Marinette was cornered by the supervillain.
  • Also in "Evillustrator", Chat Noir watches out for the villain much more closely due to not relying on Scarlet Lady, and sees him leave Marinette's room, prompting him to come and ask her if she's alright.
  • In "Vanisher", because Sabrina has lost more and more faith in Chloé over the course of the comic, and because they don't dress up as superheroes like they do in canon because Chloé is one of them, Sabrina's akumatization not only gives her a different look, but different powers as well. And while in canon she just annoyed Chloé, here she has more of a grudge, and makes her unable to be seen or heard by anyone but Vanisher herself.
  • Also in "Vanisher", instead of pretending to be Ladybug while dressed up as her, Chloé talks about how Scarlet Lady is her best friend.
  • In canon, Adrien doesn't officially meet Tikki until the third season. In this comic, he meets her at Master Fu's when he goes there for advice on how to stop Vanisher, Tikki having gone there to tell him that she can't transform Scarlet Lady.
  • In canon, Marinette takes part in the fencing tryouts in "Riposte" for a chance to be closer to Adrien. Here, she does so because she's just become Marigold and thinks that a place in the school could help her get better at fighting akumas, especially since the power of the Bee Miraculous is one that is used directly on people.
  • Also in "Riposte", Chloé shows up to watch the fending tryouts and declares Adrien the winner of the match between him and Kagami without a second thought, while in canon Marinette really wasn't sure who won.
  • Because both Adrien and Marinette follow Kagami to her car (to advocate for a rematch and another chance for her to join the fencing team), they both get into Adrien's car to follow her and are in position to be attacked by Riposte.
  • With three heroes to keep her busy, Riposte doesn't find the opportunity to isolate the hero who knows where Adrien is supposedly hidden, so she is defeated without ever attacking the sarcophagus.
  • After probably hearing of Marinette's akuma-fighting exploits from Juleka, aiding Marinette's "escape" to go for help, and witnessing the superhero team squabbling, Luka is inspired to lead his friends in direct action against Captain Hardrock.
  • In "Syren", Scarlet Lady doesn't bother to help save Paris from an escaped animal rampage since it isn't an akuma attack; and because no one has been given the Fox Miraculous yet, Char Noir and Marigold have to stop it without the use of an illusion.
  • Adrien arrives at the theater slightly later than Marinette did in canon, with Marinette and Alya waiting outside for him after the others went in. This allows them to see the rising flood waters while still outside.
  • In "Dark Cupid", Marinette knows (or thinks she knows) that Adrien's poem is for her alter ego.
  • Kim sets out to deliver a Valentine's gift of jewelry to the girl he likes, but he has chosen Ondine and not Chloé.
  • Instead of tricking Adrien into signing a poster so she can trick his fangirls into thinking she's dating him, Chloé forges his signature and the fangirls don't fall for the trick.
  • Adrien sees the modified poster.
  • Marigold ends up getting hit by one of Dark Cupid's arrows instead of Chat Noir.
  • Sabrina doesn't need Dark Cupid's influence to take a picture of Chloé in a humiliating situation and Lila is there taking pictures as well.
  • In "Animan" the titular villain is easily defeated thanks to Marigold's Venom. It helps that they also forewent their canon plan of trying to trap him in a small box and just went straight for the bus idea.
  • In "Puppeteer", because Adrien already knows Master Fu, he saves Marigold from being controlled when her doll is taken by telling her to detransform and sit out this battle while he gives another Miraculous to someone else to fill in for her. He chooses Marinette, not knowing that she is Marigold. This works anyway because this AU has a rule that a person can only be transformed and controlled from their civilian identity if Puppeteer and/or Hawkmoth knows it.
  • In "Pixelator" Marigold only gets her right hand digitized, not most of her right arm as in canon, probably because moves with a top are different than with a yo-yo.
  • In "Guitar Villain" Chloé calls for a cute pizza delivery guy as a "back-up" in case Adrien can't make it. This is Luka, whom she had a chance to see because she was active in "Captain Hardrock".
• Freudian Excuse: In "The Collector", Lila tells Marinette that her lies started "as a defense - new kid syndrome or whatever" but it became fun once she realized how far she could push it.
• A Friend in Need:
  • Despite not having a Miraculous, Marinette races to the scene of the first akuma attack in order to help Alya after seeing that she's on the scene.
  • A double dose in "Horrificator": Sabrina desperately searches for Chloé after her disappearance, not wanting to risk abandoning her when she might just be hiding rather than already caught. Marinette then sees Horrificator about to snatch her up and leaps into action, getting caught in the process of getting her out of harms' way.
• From the Mouths of Babes: When one of Alya's younger sisters tells the other younger sister Nino is "the guy all over" Alya's phone, the other sister asks if he's Alya's boyfriend. The tagline even mentions the trope.

  Alya: U-hu- Wait, what?!

• Funny Background Event:
  • During "Rogercop", when Adrien discovers Plagg with Chloé's bracelet, you can see little text bubbles of Alya insulting Chloé as she stands up for Marinette.
  • During "Reflekta", you can see Alix smirking at all the chaos caused from Adrien shoving Chloé off him.
  • After Jagged Stone drops his tablet on XY's head, you can see the akuma that will akumatize Jagged into the titular "Guitar Villain" fluttering by, and a hotel staffer looking at it nervously.
  • Also from "Guitar Villain", while Marigold freaks out about all the stuff she has to deal with once she transforms back, Chat is calmly asking Jagged for an autograph.
• Gender Flip: In their first appearance in the comic, Marc Anciel is established to go by they/them pronouns, and is either nonbinary or genderfluid.
• Get Out!: Adrien orders a fighting Scarlet Lady and Volpina, along with Marinette, out of his room so he can turn back into Chat Noir.
• Gilligan Cut: After witnessing Max's loss in "Gamer", Kim praises him for acting calm and collected despite the crushing defeat handed to him. Cut to Max, who's internally screaming.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Marinette does this towards Hawk Moth's projection during her speech.
• Godzilla Threshold: In "Vanisher", Chloé is separated from everyone else including Tikki by the villain and unable to transform into Scarlet Lady. Master Fu tells Tikki that she'll have to use the World-Healing Wave by herself, which will have consequences, though not as big as if she used Lucky Charm by herself. Master Fu also promises he will send help. It's finally time for Marinette to make her debut as Marigold the Bee hero.
  • The following episode shows that Tikki going to visit Master Fu when she realises that Chloé won't be able to transform is an example of this trope, as one of the rules she tells Pollen is to not visit the Guardian by herself unless her holder can't transform.
• Going for the Big Scoop: Alya's motivation as in canon. The reason Marinette gets involved in the first akuma battle is so she can get Alya out of there, because she believes Alya is freaking insane.
• Gone Horribly Right: Mireille tells Aurore that she only joined the Weather Girl contest as a means of leaving her comfort zone and was never interested in winning, especially since the producers rigged the contest in her favor.
• Got Volunteered: During Mr. Pigeon's siege, Chat suggests to Marinette that they might be able to lure him into a trap. Scarlet immediately 'thanks' Marinette for 'volunteering'.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Played for Laughs; Hawkmoth is incredibly jealous upon seeing the heroes get powered-up forms, pouting over how unfair it is and later imagining what his own transformation could look like.
• Grew a Spine: In "Reflekta", Sabrina finally has enough of Chloé's shit and refuses to lock Juleka in the bathroom, forcing her to do her own dirty work.
• Guile Hero: In "Reflekta", Adrien gets himself zapped by the villain while hidden in a locker, with Plagg holding his ring. Plagg promptly passes the ring to Marinette so she can pick up the fight in his stead. The transformed Adrien's reaction in a later scene shows he was not expecting Plagg to do this. He probably expected Plagg to give him back the ring so he could transform over the Reflekta form.
• Hand Wave: An animation error from the original version of "The Bubbler" that left Max without his glasses is given one; apparently, his mother was cleaning them for him when she got caught in one of the Bubbler's bubbles.
• Headbutting Heroes: Chat Noir and Scarlet Lady were this from the start, but Marigold also taunts Scar with "Well, save us, hero", in front of a group of frightened civilian hostages. No wonder Luka chooses to pick up a weapon and try to take their rescue into his own hands.
• Hero with an F in Good: Chloé only does heroic things when it will benefit her and when Tikki forces her to.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Sabrina goes into one in "Rogercop" after Chloé gets her father fired from his job.
  • Marinette gets one in "Timebreaker" when she realizes that luring Scarlet Lady down from her perch by filming her ignoring an akuma fight has just gotten Scar tagged and destroyed by the villain.
• Heroic Bystander: Marinette, repeatedly. She may not have a Miraculous of her own, but she's good at making do with whatever's she's got.
• Hey, That's My Line!: Chloé's response to Tikki asking who the heck she is during their first meeting.
• Hidden Agenda Hero: Marianne Lenore is set up as one by the finale of "Mr. Pigeon". The Ladybug and Black Cat's activation imply to her that Fu has returned, and she intends to scout out potential candidates for other Miraculous, starting with Xavier.
• Hidden Depths: The Gorilla is surprisingly good with kids, as evidenced with Manon.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: D'argencourt treats his knightly ancestor as a hero, and the person who overthrew his reign as a villain who bought the public's loyalty. Adrien thinks to himself that, if he ruled with an iron fist (D'argencourt's exact words) and was defeated by someone who gave money to the poor, that doesn't exactly paint a heroic picture of him.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: While trapping Juleka in the bathroom, Chloé actively hopes for her to get akumatized so she can 'show off' as Scarlet Lady. Reflekta's grudge against her winds up torpedoing her attempts to stop Marinette from fixing the photo situation.
• Honor Before Reason: Played for Laughs in "Rogercop"; even if it would make things easier for him, the titular akuma refuses to jaywalk.
• Hypocrisy Nod: At the end of "Simon Says", Alec complains about the unfair way Nino beats his second challenge.

  Nino: Do you really want to talk about what's fair? After last week?
  Alec: Uhhhh...

• Hypocritical Humor:
  • When Chloé starts mocking Mylène for having a lullaby she uses to calm herself down, Adrien shuts her up with two words: "Mr. Cuddly."
  • When Ivan tells Chloé off for scaring Mylène and that she sucks, Chloé scoffs and asks who thinks that she sucks. Everybody immediately raises their hands, and she asks who asked them.
  • In "Riposte", when Chloé asks her classmates why none of them signed up for her bff tryouts, they all bring up bad things she did to them in the past, and she asks who asked them.
  • When Master Fu catches Chloé spying on Marinette and Adrien, he tells her to step off his "spying tree".
  • Chloé demands to know who invited Lila to Marinette's birthday, when the only reason she got to come was because Bustier forced the class to invite her.
  • In a "Vanisher" flashback, Chloé tries to crash a Jagged Stone interview with Nadja Chamack by claiming to be Scarlet Lady's BFF, forgetting how she excused herself (as Scarlet Lady) for attacking Lila for the same claim. It is too dangerous for a civilian to do this, she said then.
  • When Kagami shows up to demand a place in the fencing school, Chloé says, "Wow, what a noisy show off."
  • Riposte berates Adrien for breaking her rules and running away from her relentless assault. Kagami herself flagrantly and repeatedly broke the rules during her match with Adrien.
• I Can't Do This by Myself: In "Reflekta," without the help of Sabrina, Chloé is outwitted by Marinette, who manages to delete the incriminating video of herself and also to get away with the camera chip with the photo she wants to delete. The trope is subverted because Chloé is unlikely to admit how much she needs Sabrina.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: In "Dark Cupid", Kagami doesn't outright say it, but internally notes if Kim breaks Ondine's heart, she'll maim him.
• I Kiss Your Hand: Chat Noir does this twice to Marinette in "Reflekta". Once while she's Maotif, and again when she's returning the ring to him.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: One of the bonus panels for "The Pharaoh" shows that this was Mr. Kubdel's reaction to witnessing his son's rampage as the titular akuma.
• I Reject Your Reality:
  • Despite stealing the Earrings from Marinette's purse — and Tikki brightly greeting 'Marinette' when she first manifests before realizing that something was wrong — Chloé has convinced herself that she was The Chosen One right from the start. When Tikki attempts to remind her of this in "Lady WiFi", Chloé outright ignores her.
  • "Reflekta" shows that she's so delusional about the nature of her relationship with Adrien that she obsesses over saving 'her photo with [him]'... despite the fact that said photo captures him shoving her off of him. Sabrina pointing that out causes her to snap at her, angrily changing the subject to her friend's 'weird behavior'.
  • In "Simon Says", Chloé is watching a game show hoping to see Adrien even if "it's Nino who's being featured".
• I Take Offense to That Last One!: This is a Running Gag in the comic, where someone will make a disparaging comment about Chloé and she will only react to part of it. For example, when Marinette stands up to Chloé, she declares that "I'm standing up to ALL supervillains, and a lowlife like YOU is no exception! I'm done taking orders from you and your stupid ponytail, so sit down!" Chloé's utterly outraged that she insulted her ponytail.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: Max takes being defeated by Marinette at UMS3 much more personally than he does being beaten by Adrien, to the point that Hawkmoth has to remind him that he was beaten by two people, not just her.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each episode retains its original title, but adds a subtitle: "Tales of [Featured Character] the [Character Description]". Each page includes a header image of the featured character, either wearing their superhero attire or an outfit styled after their akumatized form.
• Idiot Ball: In "Kung Food", Chloé has a firm grip on this when she sabotages Cheng's dish and leaves her purse behind at his station. Not only is this evidence of what she's done, Tikki is still inside, meaning dealing with the vengeful akuma is going to be a LOT trickier. The author comments, "Just because you treat the hotel as your whole ass house doesn't mean you leave your stuff everywhere!"
• Idiots Cannot Catch Colds: In "Syren", Kim is proud that Max considers him too dense to catch a cold.
• Ignorant of the Call: It's fairly clear to everyone that Marinette is a better superhero than Scarlet Lady, but she just sees it as helping with akuma attacks when Scarlet Lady won't.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Marinette still falls for Adrien and vice-versa, even without her being Ladybug.
  • Marinette still makes her speech to Hawk Moth when he tries to pin the blame for his actions on the heroes, though Chat suspects that part of it is her venting about someone else.
  • While she doesn't fight him as Ladybug, her involvement in the Stoneheart incident also fuels Marinette's resolve to stand up for herself more and not put up with Chloé's attitude problem anymore.
  • The umbrella scene between Marinette and Adrien still happens.
  • In the "Lady WiFi" adaptation, just like in canon, Nino tries to disprove Alya's initial guess as to who Scarlet Lady is by pointing out the major difference in personalities between the hero and the person Alya's accusing. Except this time, since Chloé is the hero, he has to point out that Marinette isn't bitchy enough.
  • Alya still gets hit with a week-long suspension because Chloé threatens to call her father if the Principal doesn't come down hard enough on her.
  • Théo's akumatization is still triggered by his jealousy of Scarlet Lady and Chat Noir's supposed relationship. But rather than Chat deliberately lying about how close they are, Scarlet Lady describes Adrien to him, unaware that all of her gushing description could also be applied to her partner, with Théo leaping to the obvious conclusions.
  • Even without Tikki's comment about Xavier, Marinette still decides to add feathers to her derby hat in "Mr. Pigeon".
  • Plagg still ends up causing Chloé's bracelet to fall out of her purse in "Rogercop". In this case, however, it's because Tikki scares him off, with him flying right into the bracelet in his panic.
  • Despite reality ensuing in "Rogercop", Mayor Bourgeois still wins the re-election in "Darkblade".
  • Marinette still runs against Chloé to become the next Class President, though it's much less spur-of-the-moment.
  • Marinette still gives Adrien her amulet in "Gamer" in spite of coming up with another theory for being better than Adrien at UMS3.
  • Though Sabrina refuses to do her dirty work in "Reflekta", Chloé simply traps Juleka in the bathroom stall herself.
  • Marinette still takes up the Cat Miraculous in a fight with Reflekta, only this time it's the first one.
  • Marinette's first meeting with a kwami has her utter a very similar line to the one she did in canon: "Tiny cat! Mouse! Tiny cat-mouse!"
  • In "Timebreaker", Ondine offers to hold the race banner for Marinette, so she doesn't nearly drop the watch. Chloé still snatches it and throws it so it gets broken.
  • In "Timebreaker", the second timeline's Chloé drops the watch in spite of not being told by any future heroes to put it down.
  • Simon Says is still transformed, but it's hinted that Gabriel was setting him up for a fall in this version.
  • Marinette still visits the Agreste Mansion in "Simon Says" because she wasn't grounded and could attend the TV studio to watch Nino in the show, and avoided being hypnotized by the villain by hiding.
  • Lila still lies about knowing the Ladybug hero, only this time, the claim doesn't endear her to everyone (examples include Marinette, Nino and Alix) as Scarlet Lady is nowhere near as nice.
  • Plagg still fails to notice the Peacock Brooch hidden inside Gabriel's wall safe.
  • Lila still steals the book on the Miraculous and plans to fake being the Fox Hero during her meeting with Adrien. She also remains under the belief that he has a soft spot for the Ladybug hero thanks to Chloé.
  • Marinette still ends up with the book in spite of not being the one who follows Adrien and Lila in this fic.
  • Chat Noir still throws his baton to dispel the illusion of Adrien as Volpina's hostage (not because the threat is working, but out of annoyance).
  • Master Fu still gets to see the Miraculous grimoire at the end of "Volpina", but it's Plagg who suggests the visit and Adrien who brings the book to him.
  • Even though Marinette didn't try to lie that the call from Alya was about a dentist visit, she still lied about liking and eating the candies Gina gave her, and that was enough to draw the fire of La Befana.
  • Among the gifts Marinette receives at her birthday party is Tikki's kwagatama.
  • In "Kung Food", Chloé still gets tied up to be cooked in soup, and Marinette still helps Chat Noir fight against the titular villain's brainwashed minions. Marinette also uses the Lucky Charm adding machine paper in the same way as in canon, dipping it into the soup to produce sticky tape to bind the akuma.
  • In "Evillustrator" Chat Noir refuses to do Chloé's physics homework for her (in canon he was nearly tricked into doing it). She quickly drives him off, whereas in canon he left after a call from Ladybug. In both cases he leaves without doing her work.
  • Marinette doesn't have the Ladybug yo-yo phone, but she is still able to tell Chat Noir about Evillustrator's invitation. Chat comes to her when he spots the akuma leaving from her window.
  • In "Riposte" Marinette still decides to attend the fencing tryouts, but she does so in the hope that getting accepted could help her improve her combat skills which will be useful for her as Marigold rather than just to get closer to Adrien like in canon.
  • Even though there is a larger set of witnesses to the end of the bout between Adrien and Kagami, he is still declared the winner by D'Argencourt based on a biased call.
  • Adrien still gets an ankle injury from saving a hero from Riposte, this time it's because the highly inexperienced Marigold stops to reassure Adrien and isn't aware of an incoming attack.
  • The radiator Lucky Charm is used to defeat Riposte the same way as in canon because Marinette is part of the fight as Marigold and works out how to use it. The author notes in the tags that it's better than throwing it like past Lucky Charms have been used in the comic.
  • In "Captain Hardrock", rather than Anarka Couffaine being so loud and obnoxious that she gets into a conflict with the police all by herself, Chloé takes an active role and files a complaint with the police in revenge for getting kicked off Anarka's boat. The result still ends up being an akumatized Anarka.
  • In "Syren" a new hero still helps Chat Noir to round up escaped zoo animals. It's Marigold rather than Rena Rouge. The ladybug hero is absent, however.
  • Even though Kim thinks Chloé is "a pain", Ondine thinks she hears him say that he's running off to the movies because she's there. Ondine will still get akumatized over jealousy of Chloé. The author comments in the tags, "Catch me still trying to figure out why Kim liked Chloé in canon."
  • As in canon, one of two original heroes is called to Master Fu's shop to help with power-up formulas, and they discuss how the other original hero is starting to feel left out of the loop. Unlike in canon, the left-out character is Scarlet Lady, and Master Fu has no intention of letting her know anything.
  • Marinette still comes up with a way to acquire a tear of joy for the aqua potion by telling jokes to Master Fu, because Chat Noir brought Marigold along to see him.
  • A love poem written by Adrien on Valentine's day is intercepted by the holder of the Ladybug Miraculous, and she thinks the poem is about herself. In this version, Adrien deflects her questions by pretending the poem is about Marigold. In response to a question, the author says the words of the poem are identical to canon. This means that "I wonder who you are beneath that strong disguise" is a poetic way of saying he wants to know Marinette better.
  • Chloé still causes Kim's akumatization in "Dark Cupid" — not by rejecting his love (though she does reject him, it's just out of a sheer self-centered belief that he was trying to confess to her when he wasn't) but by making Ondine think Kim loves Chloé.
  • Even though Marinette and Alya are doing different things (trying to track down Chat Noir instead of mailing a valentine to Adrien), they still end up with heart-shaped candy apples. Alya gets shot by Dark Cupid, insults Marinette, and sticks a candy apple onto her shirt.
  • In spite of not being under Dark Cupid's influence, Sabrina still humiliates Chloé.
  • A brainwashed hero sides with Dark Cupid, but here it's to defend herself from a forced kiss, which was treated much less seriously in canon since it was female on male.
  • The Ladybug hero gets Dark Cupid sticky with a candy apple, but it's with an enraged throw of her Lucky Charm rather than a thought-out plan. The author says, "You Unlocked Useful Scarlet Lady through sheer force of Rage."
  • Marinette and Adrien still enter a two-person love square but this time Adrien prefers the civilian and Marinette loves the superhero.
  • Alya and Nino still wind up locked in a zoo cage together in "Animan", but this time it's a deliberate act by Marigold to get them to spend time alone together, since she knows that Alya likes Nino.
  • Even though there are dolls of other villains from episodes that took place before "Puppeteer" in this AU, Manon still chooses the Lady WiFi, Rogercop, and Evillustrator dolls to play with.
  • Marinette still uses the Mouse Miraculous, only it's against Puppeteer instead of Kwamibuster, and rather than choose it herself she has it lent to her by Chat Noir (who doesn't realize that she is Marigold, who he told to sit out of the battle when her doll was taken).
  • Marinette still deliberately makes her appearance as Multimouse a one-shot. In canon she uses an elaborate illusion to make "Marinette" expose her secret; here she simply hands back the Mouse Miraculous to Chat Noir in public.
  • Adrien and Chloé are still digitized together by Pixelator in spite of Chloé having more akuma experience in this AU.
  • In spite of wasting no time on a bad pair of shades, Marinette still ends up at the right place at the right time to overhear Pixelator zapping his way into Jagged's hotel room.
  • Tikki is still the one who gets sick in "Princess Fragrance", but Chloé is much less sympathetic. The rainy weather that caused it still happened despite the heroes having fought a different akuma.
• Incoming Ham: Chloé sometimes does this, most notably in "Vanisher" when she returns to school after having spent most of the previous day being invisible and inaudible, and in "Riposte" when she barges in on D'Argencourt's fencing tryouts.

  Chloé: Hello, everyone! The darling of Paris has arrived!

• Instantly Proven Wrong:
  • Chloé claims to Marinette that her gift of cookies and coffee will ruin Adrien's diet and that he won't take them from her. Adrien promptly takes the coffee from her, then gets down on one knee like he's going to propose to her.
  • Tikki says to Plagg, "I for one have total faith in Pollen to keep a low profile." A moment later, Pollen shocks them by flying into Chloé's purse in the middle of class. "Greetings, noble kwami of Creation and Destruction!"
• Internal Reveal:
  • Episode 10 has Plagg discover that Chloé is Scarlet Lady.
  • In "Reflekta" Marinette (as the cat hero Maotif) gives Chat Noir a clue to her true identity and he gets it, though Scarlet Lady doesn't. The author comments that Marinette feels free to do this because she knows the hero identity is a one-shot. Later on, Juleka and Scarlet Lady also find out and Marinette doesn't mind if Alya is told.
• In-Universe Factoid Failure:
  • As in canon, the whole plot of "Lady WiFi" hinges on Alya's failure to remember just who was captured by Stoneheart during Scarlet Lady's debut — though the real Ladybug-holder and her false lead are swapped in this continuity.
  • Jalil does not have the impressive understanding of Egyptology that he believes himself to have. His sister is immediately able to peg him as the latest akuma victim based off of his odd interpretation of Thoth.

    Alix: [with a long-suffering sigh] Only he would get the God of Writing and Magic so wrong.

• Ironic Echo: At the beginning of "Pixelator", the class is set to intern for a day at the Grand Paris. Adrien is assigned to the front desk with Chloé; he asks Alya if she wants to trade, and she responds "Not on your life." Then Chloé gets Alya and Marinette assigned to clean trash at the dumpster; Alya asks Adrien if he wants to trade, and he responds "Not on your life."
• Ironic Nursery Tune: Stormy Weather creepily sings the old "It's raining, it's pouring" rhyme when she goes to attack Alec in the studio.
• Irony: In "Guitar Villain", Chloé invites Adrien over and elaborates a backup plan in case his father forbids him from accepting her invitation, oblivious to the fact Adrien's father is forcing him to accept her invitation.
• It's All About Me: Chloé as a superhero, in spades. She's more concerned about looking good than she is about taking care of the akuma problem, and then takes all the credit for stopping the akumas when Chat (and Marinette) is the one who does all the work.
• It's All My Fault: Sabrina blames herself for Marinette being caught in her place in "Horrificator".
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • After Gamer is dealt with, Scarlet Lady cheerfully 'compliments' Max on how he only targeted Marinette and left her Adrien alone. This seems to drive home for him just how heinous his behavior was.
  • After Scarlet Lady assaults and humiliates Lila in front of the whole class for having the gall to lie that they are friends (and trying to use said lie to get closer to Adrien), she "defends" herself by telling everybody that letting her spread those lies would lead to Lila getting targeted by Hawk Moth. Alya (who is more than a little disturbed by what she saw the heroine of Paris do) warily admits that she has a point.
  • Even though it was a downgrade from his original threat of pulling Adrien out of school, Gabriel grounding him is still understandable as Adrien did steal from him.
  • Gabriel says of becoming The Collector: "I did what was necessary to protect my secret." Nathalie mocks him behind his back: "You're truly the picture of subtlety, sir." However, the book did fall into the hands of someone who knew what it was and could connect the dots, so Gabriel's action was in fact vital to avert suspicion.
  • In "Captain Hardrock", Chloé's noise complaint against the concert on the Liberty would have been valid, if she had waited until they actually started to play. Instead, she files it out of spite for not being allowed on board.
• "Just Joking" Justification: When confronted by Guitar Villain about calling Jagged Stone "Ragged Stone", XY says he was joking.

    K-M

• Kick the Dog: In "Princess Fragrance", Chloé rudely refuses a sick Tikki's request to take her to a healer, telling her to "Suck it up" because she doesn't want her school attendance ruined (ignoring the fact that it was already ruined by her outings as Scarlet Lady, as well as what happened in "Vanisher").
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Jalil fancies himself an expert in all things Egyptian, but takes significant liberties with the source material, much to the frustration of his father and sister.
• Lame Pun Reaction: When Marinette says that getting back in time to give Mrs. Chamack her cake order will be a "piece of cake," her mother retorts, "How dare you pun at me."
• Landslide Election: The Weather Girl competition was this, with Alec telling Aurore that she lost by "half a million votes. Or was it a million votes?" Turns out they rigged it, deliberately inflating the numbers and only making Mireille merch.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Alec taunts Aurore after she loses the contest, rubbing in her face just how much Mireille won by. This doesn't end well for him once Stormy Weather is born. Nor does rigging the contest in the first place, as Mireille reveals the truth on Twitter and triggers a backlash against him and the studio.
  • Chloé's attempt to steal Marinette's design, once exposed, earns her stony rebukes from Gabriel, Damocles and Nathalie and gets her instantly disqualified and banned from all future competitions.
  • Chloé gets this again in "Rogercop". After all the grief she caused Marinette, she is forced by her father to apologize, while Marinette and Chat Noir enjoy it.
  • Max losing his place at the UMS3 tournament is presented as this, as it's made clear that he expected to easily trounce his classmates and show off. He scoffs at both Adrien and Marinette, assuming that neither poses any threat, only to be beaten by them both, fair and square.
  • After locking Juleka in the bathroom to take her place next to Adrien, Adrien repays this by shoving Chloé off him.
  • In "Timebreaker", Scarlet Lady decides to not even bother fighting the villain and stay out of reach until she's defeated. When Marinette calls her out on this and threatens to expose her laziness, Scarlet confronts her, which allows Timebreaker to touch her. This also doubles as a bit of karmic backlash for her actions in "Gamer": after all of her efforts to get Marinette temporarily killed, she gets wiped out by an akuma.
  • At the beginning of "Simon Says", Alec screws over Simon by kicking him out of the contest for something he had absolutely no control over (Gabriel refusing to participate in the game). At the end, Nino is challenged to pick two celebrities and get them to dance with his music, and he picks his own friends Alya and Adrien, removing any sense of challenge. He even brings up the Simon screwjob when Alec dares to complain.
• Lemony Narrator: The comments made under the comics serve as this, responding to the events in the comics with varying degrees of snark. Such as chiding Adrien for barely getting any sort of cover before transforming.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Chloé's reaction when Tikki tells her she must get the book Adrien and Lila have.

  Chloé: So, what you're saying is, I have to spy on her and Adrien?

• Let's Split Up, Gang!: In "Kung Food" Marinette is surprised when Adrien says he will go look for her uncle, and asks why they shouldn't stay together. He suggests that she try to flag down Chat Noir. Foreshadowing Marinette's future hero role, the author says, "She's gonna miss these easy separations in the future."
• Likes Clark Kent, Hates Superman:
  • Chloé's very fond of her dear Adrikins, but can't stand Chat Noir because he's so disrespectful towards Scarlet Lady.
  • Downplayed with Adrien; his experiences with Scarlet Lady make him much more critical of Chloé's faults, to the point that he calls her out in "Origins Part 2" and declares that if she's going to act like a bully, they won't be friends anymore. In other words, her behavior as Scarlet Lady has made him far less tolerant of her antics as Chloé, though he isn't aware that they're one and the same.
  • Played for Laughs in "Lady WiFi": when Nino tells Adrien that Alya suspects Marinette is Scarlet Lady, Adrien looks utterly horrified by the notion, and Plagg teases him about it later.
  • Downplayed with Adrien and Marigold. Because of his experiences with Scarlet Lady, he is wary of Marigold while being head over heels for Marinette.
• Limited Wardrobe: Averted; the characters get a change in clothes whenever the author feels they should.
• The Load: Scarlet Lady is completely useless in battle, and Chat Noir only puts up with her because she has a World-Healing Wave.

  Scarlet Lady: What are you gonna do to catch [the akuma]?
  Chat Noir: When are you gonna do your job?!
  Scarlet Lady: Don't wanna.

• Locked Out of the Loop: In "Syren", Scarlet Lady finds out that Chat Noir knows something she doesn't: where Marigold got her Miraculous, and she's furious about it. This parallels Chat Noir's feelings in canon when he realizes Ladybug has access to secrets that he doesn't.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • For his second challenge, Nino must make two celebrities dance but is allowed to choose his "opponents". He chooses his friends Adrien (supermodel) and Alya (ladyblogger).
  • Adrien invokes this when Gabriel turns himself into an Akuma, noting that while he's grounded, Chat Noir's not.
  • The kwamis are geased not to be able to speak their owners' names. Pollen gets around this by pointing at Marinette and telling Tikki "She's my queen."
• Loose Lips: Chloé locks Juleka in the bathroom; she also unwisely tells Juleka what she's doing. This risks a faster akumatization.
• Love Confession: Théo gets his chance to tell Scarlet Lady how he feels after the statue unveiling. Her response?

  Scarlet Lady: Ha. Gross.

• Love Epiphany: In "Evillustrator", Marinette realises she's in love with Chat Noir when Master Fu points it out. She then gets upset because Chat made her promise to no longer get involved with akumas, but she also loves him too much to leave him to put up with Scarlet Lady.
• Loves My Alter Ego: While Marinette still likes Adrien, she has more of a preference towards Chat Noir and even realizes she loves him, not knowing that they are the same person. On the other hand, Adrien likes Marinette but he's just professional with his bee-heroine partner Marigold. Ironically during "Dark Cupid", when Chloé catches him writing a love letter and demands to know who it's for, he blurts out "Marigold" in a panic so as not reveal it's Marinette, making Marinette think it's this trope. She's ironically flattered rather then disappointed.
• Lying Finger Cross: When Adrien finally returns his father's book and confirms that Marinette had already found it, Gabriel asks why he didn't say so before. Adrien is keeping crossed fingers behind him while asking if his father would have listened.
• Malicious Misnaming: Adrien/Chat refuses to call Scarlet Lady anything but Scar (for the scars she leaves on his life), much to her ire.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": When Horrificator directly confronts the heroes, Scarlet Lady, Chat Noir, Marinette, and Nino all simultaneously think, "Oh shit."
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: After Marinette tells him how hard it was to defeated his akumatized form, Max wonders if it was because he was an akuma or because he wasn't relying on his prewritten codes.
• Meaningful Background Event: Chloé is shown painting her nails while Tikki's trying to convince her to take Sabrina to the museum during their study date. When Sabrina arrives only to learn from the butler that Chloé bailed on her, she mentions that they "were going to do our nails while I read the review to her". This subtly underscores Chloé's lack of care for her 'friend'; even before abandoning their original plans, she was already doing the very thing Sabrina was looking forward to without her.
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: After Marinette returns the Cat Miraculous to Plagg and says it was fun, Plagg says "Fun" is his middle name.
• Mirror Character: Both Chloé and Lila latch onto Adrien, forcing their way into his space and ignoring all signs of his discomfort. Chloé cheerfully abuses her powers as Scarlet to publicly humiliate Lila; in return, Lila accepts akumatization in order to get revenge... and to gain glory as Volpina, aiming to show her up as a superheroine.
• Missed the Call: Master Fu intended for Marinette to get the Ladybug Miraculous. Instead, Chloé got her hands on it.
• Mistaken for Gay: Played for Laughs when Alya realizes that the things Marinette likes about Adrien (gorgeous, stood up to Chloé) also apply to her.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Throughout "Copycat", Théo's crushes on girls (apparently) younger than him have been prompting others to ask about his age. Turns out he's the same age as Marinette and co.
• Moment of Weakness: Nathaniel is embarrassed when Sabrina tells him that his akuma-induced character change led him to calmly ask Marinette out on a date. He tells Sabrina, "...Leave me here to die". On the other hand, it provides the perfect excuse to Alix for why he skipped out on hanging out with her. "Welcome to the birthday akuma club!" she says.
• Mood Whiplash: "Intermission" is mostly a Breather Episode, but ends on a downbeat note as Chat Noir and Marigold reflect upon how Tikki is effectively trapped with Scarlet Lady in much the same way that Nooroo is with Hawk Moth.
• Moving the Goalposts: While searching for her missing bracelet, Chloé demands that Marinette submit to having her bag searched. Marinette responds by dumping its contents on the ground. Without missing a beat, Chloé orders her to empty her pockets.
• Mundane Made Awesome: In "Reflekta", Adrien claims his photographer "makes even the most mundane shoots fun".
• Mundane Utility: Chloé uses a towel Lucky Charm to dry her hair.
• Murder the Hypotenuse:
  • In "Gamer", Chloé/Scarlet Lady actively leads the titular akuma towards Marinette in the hopes of getting her zapped because she's pissed that she got to spend time with Adrien. According to the author, she believes that since Miraculous Ladybug will simply resurrect her after the battle, it doesn't count as attempted murder.
  • In "Befana", Chloé is delighted to see Marinette in danger and tells Tikki to "give it a few more minutes" before she transforms to fight the akuma. She also leads the akuma directly to Chat Noir and Marinette, just as she did in "Gamer". When Chat gives her a Death Glare, she pretends innocence and asks "What?"
• Mustache Vandalism: In "Evillustrator", Chloé adds a mustache, a goatee and glasses to Nathaniel's drawing of Marinette.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Marigold is horrified at how Adrien was injured while protecting them from Riposte, blaming themselves for not noticing the akuma's attack in time. This sharply contrasts with Scarlet Lady's reaction, as she refuses to acknowledge her own fault in the matter.
• Mythology Gag:
  • While visiting the Rossis, Marinette asks Lila if she seriously believes that she can trick her mom into letting her miss a whole year of school. Lila responds that "You underestimate my power," referencing how she did just that canonically.
  • "The Collector" ends on a bonus shot of Alix texting Lila, bugging her to attend Marinette's upcoming birthday party. This not only foreshadows that "La Befana" is next, but alludes to a Flashback in "Ladybug" which showed Lila enviously watching the celebration from afar.
  • When Lila apologizes to her classmates, Kim declares that it's not really a big deal that she lied about knowing famous people, adding that it's "not like you had us do your homework or carry your stuff!" Lila laughs nervously, visibly relieved that her plans didn't reach that point.
  • The author drew a page with the character outfits for "Befana" and says that "Some of these may look familiar if you've seen the Christmas Special!" (Many of them look like the outfits seen when classmates come to the bakery and get Christmas logs).
  • Even though it's been stated that Bunnyx will not be appearing in the comic, Alix using the Rabbit Miraculous is still alluded to by her bag having a rabbit on it. It's also possible that she might still become Bunnyx after the comic has ended.
  • In "Vanisher" the akuma draws mocking pictures of Chloé on the blackboard, including some with large mustaches. This may be a reference to the original "Antibug", where Butler Jean played a villain named "Big Mustachio" who wanted all Parisians to have "heinous mustaches." (In canon, Vanisher drew similar images in the girl's bathroom and the mustaches were likely a reference to their superhero dress-up game. There's no game in the AU, only a lunch date that goes wrong.)
  • Also in "Vanisher", one of the heroes is left unable to transform by the villain, so their kwami has to use their ability without a wielder, much like what happened in the canon "Style Queen." It also involves a character getting the Bee Miraculous.
  • Also in "Vanisher", Marinette makes bee-themed accessories and gives them to her friends. Alya picks the one that looks like the Bee Miraculous. In canon, Ladybug intended to give Alya that Miraculous.
  • At the end of "Vanisher" Chloé is discussing the new hero with Tikki. She says, "Whatever. As long as she remembers who the true Queen is," likely a reference to Chloé's self-chosen hero name in canon, Queen Bee.
  • In "Captain Hardrock", Chloé has the same thoughts about Luka as she did in "Miracle Queen" in canon.
  • "Syren" still sparks drama from a team member being Locked Out of the Loop regarding the Guardian's existence. However, unlike Ladybug, Adrien has No Sympathy for Scarlet Lady's anger at being excluded, and brings Marigold to meet Master Fu without a second thought.
  • In "Animan", Tikki suggests Chloé should hide in the bushes. That hideout was used in canon by other students.
  • Nino wants to see "some cool turtles" at the zoo. In canon, he's the Turtle hero.
  • In "Guitar Villain" Chloé gives her Rule 72: "All guys have to be crazy about you." This is one of the rules she gives Zoé in the canon episode "Sole Crusher." In a tag the author says, "so nice of sole crusher to come up with these Rules of the Bourgeois that I can exploit lol".
  • In "Princess Fragrance" Chloé criticizes Rose's perfume. Sabrina, now her enemy, points out that Chloé has the same perfume in her locker. (The author notes the perfume can be seen as a Freeze-Frame Bonus when Chloé has her locker open in the canon version of "Lady WiFi".)

    N-Z

• Nerf: Discussed in the notes for the 13th page of Reflekta, where the author comments that the canon episode "nerfed Chat Noir" (by Reflekta-izing him) because of how easy it would have been for Chat (who has Innate Night Vision) to win against Reflekta once she turned off the lights- which is what happens when Maotif (Marinette with the Cat ring) goes up against her.
• Never My Fault:
  • Played for Laughs with the mistake that set the whole AU into motion.

    Master Fu: ...this one is not my fault, Wayzz.
    Wayzz: Master, would it not have been wiser to put it in her room or-
    Master Fu: NOT MY FAULT!!
    Narration: Well, who's fault IS it Fu?!

  • In "The Pharaoh", Scarlet Lady accidentally drops a tube of lipstick, beaning Alya on the head with it. When she sees the incident on the Ladyblog, Chloé bitterly complains that she'll never get that back "now that [her] stalker has it".
  • When the class discovers Sabrina's hand caught in Marinette's diary trap, Chloé attempts to throw her under the bus by insisting it was all Sabrina's idea.
  • After tossing Alix's watch into her path and getting it shattered, Chloé sneers that it never would've happened if she hadn't trusted 'the blogger' or 'Clumsinette' to take care of it. Alya and Adrien retort that she was the one who took it and threw it down, but Alix blames everyone involved.
  • It's from hearing Timebreaker shout "My watch" that the second timeline's Chloé drops Alix's watch, but Timebreaker blames it on Chat Noir.
  • Alya blames Lila for lying on her blog, ignoring the fact that she was the one who chose to post her classmate's claims without doing any fact-checking first.
  • Chloé is responsible for Wang Cheng's akumatization in "Kung Food", but when he's about to turn her into a soup's ingredient, she claims she did nothing to deserve it.
  • Chloé also puts all the blame on Sabrina for getting akumatized in "Vanisher", but by then Sabrina has decided they are no longer friends. At the end of the episode, after the new hero Marigold appears for the first time, Tikki tells Chloé that Chat Noir needs more help after she failed to show up on time (or at all in the last case) for the last 3 akumas, to which Chloé says it's because the akumas are jealous of her and that it isn't her fault.

    Tikki: Pretty sure jealousy's not the problem.

  • In "Dark Cupid", Chloé claims that Kim has no reason to have anything against her, completely forgetting that she ruined his attempt to give Ondine a Valentine's Day present.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In "Timebreaker", Marinette threatens to record Scarlet Lady staying on a ledge away from the villain and expose her laziness. Scarlet responds by jumping down to yell at her, allowing Timebreaker to touch her, meaning that without time travel, there would be no World-Healing Wave. Marinette's reaction says it all.
  • Mme. Bustier helps set the conflict of "La Befana" into motion by forcing Alya to invite Chloé to Marinette's birthday party.
  • Scarlet Lady leads Riposte right to Marigold by chasing after her fellow hero, demanding to know where she hid Adrien.
  • In "Pixelator", Chat Noir has managed to sneak up on the villain and is about to steal his akuma, only for Scarlet Lady to yell at him and accidentally alert Pixelator to Chat's presence.
• Newspaper-Thin Disguise: Chloé hides behind a newspaper to spy on her classmates in "Animan". Right after she describes her plan as "so original and genius", it's revealed to the readers that another person is using the same trick while sitting next to her.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Reflekta has a critical moment of this when she has Chat Noir cornered in a locker and uses her powers on him without opening the door. Had she done so, she would have caught Adrien Agreste without the Ring, as he'd just sent Plagg off with it. This decision saves his secret identity, and pisses off Hawkmoth over her failure to grab the ring before converting him into one of her clones.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
  • Marinette saves Sabrina from Horrificator at the cost of getting caught herself.
  • Downplayed in "Gamer". Nino joins Max's Ultimate Mecha Strike 3 tournament just to boost the numbers and draw more attention to it. Max rewards him by making a snide comment about his low score.
• No Ontological Inertia: In "Timebreaker", Scarlet Lady gets touched by the villain, but drops her yo-yo in surprise, so it doesn't fade away with her. This allows Marinette to create a way for Chat Noir to travel back in time with Timebreaker, and he still has the yo-yo after that until the World-Healing Wave.
• Nominal Hero: Chloé is technically a superhero, but is vain, cruel, and utterly incompetent, and is only in it for fame and glory.
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite the title, the series is still more Marinette and Adrien's story, except now Marinette doesn't have the powers to really fight Akuma and has to often provide support while Chat Noir does a majority of the heavy lifting. Chloé... "helps" from time to time but is far more worthless than in the canon series. Being near useless in a fight, mocking people in her hero persona, and hanging back from the danger, she's treated more like a necessary annoyance since her Lucky Charm and Miraculous are still needed to beat the Akumas and repair their damage. Yet she still gets the credit after everything's said and done, much to Chat Noir's chagrin.
• Noodle Incident: Fang apparently ruined Bob Roth's car in the past, which is why Jagged is helping Chloé in her bid for class president. He still thinks it was Worth It.
• No-Sell: Chloé's attempts to throw her weight around don't work on the photographer at Adrien's photoshoot in "Stormy Weather". Instead, he sasses her taste in clothes.
• NOT!: Chloé pulls this on Rose when she asks her to deliver a love letter to Prince Ali.

  Rose: Could you give him this letter?
  Chloé: But of course!....NOT! (ripping the letter in half)

• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: When Adrien and Plagg steal Gabriel's book on Tibet and Adrien asks if rebellion is "supposed to feel like you're gonna barf", Plagg answers "Only if you get caught".
• Not So Above It All: Tikki takes a great deal of pleasure in making Chloé's life difficult as retribution for her being a terrible hero.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Sabrina says Chloé is like Lila after she tries to fake a BFF relationship with Scarlet Lady to get a TV interview.

  Chloé: Me and that liar are not the same!
  Sabrina: Yes you are! You care more about your made up friendship than about ours!

• Not What It Looks Like: Kim tries to declare his love for Ondine but Chloé makes her think it's for her.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Played for Laughs: as Master Fu considers giving out another Miraculous, Wayzz asks whether or not he intends to put it in the recipient's purse again.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: In "Dark Cupid" Alya wants Marinette to give a valentine to her crush. She's baffled when Marinette says she has no idea how to give it to him. Eventually they figure out that Alya means Adrien and Marinette means Chat Noir.
• OOC Is Serious Business:
  • Played With regarding Adrien. The added stress that he's under from serving as Scar's more competent 'sidekick' bleeds over into his 'regular' life, such as when he snaps at Natalie to pass on a colorful message to his father or stands up to Chloé. These moments tend to shock his oppressors, unused to having him stand up to them.
  • During "Lady WiFi", Sabrina implies that Chloé's decision to get Alya suspended rather than just getting her into trouble strikes her as such, as it took her completely off guard.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The webcomic often skips over battle details that would have been about the same as the show. For example in one strip Marinette suggests to Chat Noir that he Cataclysm the Gamer's mecha — in the next strip, "Hey, it worked!"
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Master Fu and Wayzz when they realize Marinette didn't get the Ladybug Miraculous.
  • Reflekta when Adrien turns off the lights and Maotif shows up behind her.
  • Marinette has such a moment in "Timebreaker" when her argument with Scarlet Lady gets interrupted by Timebreaker tagging Scarlet Lady.
  • Adrien and Nino in "Simon Says" when Simon's challenge to hypnotize Gabriel Agreste is announced.
  • When Master Fu explains how he can use the Grimoire, Adrien is horrified at the prospect of having to share any power-ups with Scar.
  • In "Kung Food", Tikki has a major one when she realizes that Chloé not only left her behind, but that the person currently holding her is about to become an Akuma.
  • Marinette and Pollen have an epic sweating Oh, Crap! face when Pixelator manages to photograph Penny.
  • Luka when he realizes that Chloé has a crush on him.
• Only Sane Man: Between Alya's fangirling, Jalil's conspiracy theories, Marinette and Adrien's failure at being one, and Scarlet Lady being... well, Scarlet Lady, Alix serves as this in "The Pharaoh".
• Oral Fixation: Théo has a striped lollipop stick in his mouth in the early parts of "Copycat", as well as the episode's splash card image. It gets crinkled up after Scarlet rejects him, reflecting his mood.
• Origins Episode: Aside from the obvious "Origins" two-parter, "Horrificator" shows the genesis of Kitty Section, as three of its members work together to help sing Mylène's lullaby.
• Painting the Medium:
  • The subtitle of Volpina's episode, "Tales of Lila the Liar", has the last word crossed out and replaced with "FOX" in all caps and a different font.
  • The following subtitle for "The Collector" has the last word covered with "[TOP SECRET]" in a different font and in red. The actual title is "Tales of Gabriel the Butterfly".
  • Sometimes the subtitles will be obscured by the picture of the featured character, most notably in "Kung Food" because Master Cheng's name hasn't been confirmed in the show itself, only online. "Vanisher" also has the "Invisible" in the title slightly hidden to make it less visible.
• Papa Wolf: André isn't aware that his daughter is Scarlet Lady, but his parental instincts still go off when Théo starts gushing to him about the young superheroine, prompting him to ask "...Théo, how old are you again?"
• Phantom Zone: Vanisher can make people "vanish" into a parallel dimension where they can see and hear the real world but not interact with it. Vanisher can go back and forth between worlds and affect the real world while in the phantom world, moving things invisibly. She opened doors for Chloé to keep her from catching on, and "vanished" clothes for her to change into.
• Phrase Catcher: Théo, throughout "Copycat", gets variations of "...How old are you again?"
• Picky Eater: Basically how Tikki passive-aggressively gets back at Chloé for being such a terrible person. She refuses to eat anything other than cookies from the Dupain-Cheng bakery.
• Playing the Victim Card: Chloé attempts this after Marinette stands up to her, turning to Adrien all teary-eyed and calling her a bully. Unfortunately for her, Adrien's not having any of it.
• Plot Armor:
  • Averted with Marinette. Since she isn't always required to save the day, she has less plot armor compared to canon. For example, she is bubbled by the Bubbler, knighted by Darkblade, turned to coal by La Befana, and brainwashed (as Marigold) by Dark Cupid..
  • Chat Noir, on the other hand, seems to be able to get away with everything, even though he is exhausted due to Scarlet Lady. For example, he avoids being handcuffed by Copycat, and doesn't get touched by Timebreaker - it's Scarlet Lady who that happens to instead. The few exceptions to this include when he is transformed by Reflekta, although he detransforms and removes his Miraculous right before it happens, and when he gets captured twice by Pixelator, once as Adrien and once as Chat Noir.
  • Aside from what happened to her in "Timebreaker", Chloé/Scarlet Lady doesn't have as much plot armor; she still gets tied up by Kung Food as she does in canon, and in "Vanisher" she ends up unable to be seen or heard by anyone, or to interact with anything unless the villain allows it.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: In "The Gamer", while Max is a jerk to everybody because he boasts his superiority as a player, he really takes it to heart that Marinette, a girl, beat him, even not caring that he was also beat by Adrien.
• The Poorly Chosen One: Even without taking into account that Chloé is Scarlet Lady because she stole the Ladybug Miraculous, this trope is her all over. She only jumps at the call whenever she thinks she can get something good out of it, she is completely useless in a fight, and she is consistently wearing down everybody who knows what kind of person she really is with her unmitigated Alpha Bitch act. Master Fu goes as far as to try to pretend this is not happening because it would involve admitting his part in this fiasco.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • The events of "Lady WiFi" kick off when Alya sees Marinette putting something red and black-spotted in her locker and decides to investigate rather than ask her about it. Followed by a Sustained Misunderstanding where Lady WiFi refuses to accept Marinette's insistence that no, she really isn't Scarlet Lady, insisting that she's just being too modest.
  • When Scarlet Lady gushes to Théo about her crush, he mistakes her description of Adrien as being about her partner Chat Noir instead, leading to him becoming Copycat.
  • Gina becomes La Befana because she falsely assumes that she was intentionally left out of Marinette's birthday party. She also misinterpreted Marinette lying about liking the candy she bought her, refusing to see that her granddaughter was just trying to spare her feelings.
  • Ondine is akumatized into Syren because Kim skips out on their swimming hang-out to go to the movies with the rest of the class, and his making specific mention of Chloé convinces her that he has a crush on her. He fails to mention that he seriously hopes Chloé won't come.
• Popularity Cycle
  • In "Vanisher" Marigold gets a head start with a chance to have a debut presentation to the media, without Scarlet Lady putting in her own spin, due to Tikki being temporarily incapacitated.
  • In "Syren", Nadja Chamack comments that Chat Noir and Marigold are helping with the escaped zoo animals, but that "Scarlet Lady is noticeably absent." This seems to be the first time the news has taken notice that Scar isn't pulling her weight.
  • In "Animan" Scarlet Lady gets very angry when Marigold gets recognition from Marinette's parents instead of her.
• Pragmatic Villainy: After learning about Scarlet Lady's blatant crush on his son and that Adrien doesn't feel the same, Gabriel (though glad that Adrien isn't attracted to her) internally mourns the loss of a potential bargaining chip.
• Precision F-Strike:
  • Adrien's response to Natalie at the start of "Origins: Part 2".

    Natalie: Adrien! Don't do this! Your father will be furious!
    Adrien: [thinking] I let myself be bossed around yesterday, but no more! Tell them what you really think!
    Adrien: [out loud] Tell him F@$% YOU!
    Natalie: ?!
    Adrien: ...Please? [thinking] Maybe I've been holding in more than I thought.

  • Hawk Moth's reaction to Marigold taking the field for the first time is a shocked and enraged "What the f**k is this?!"

    Nathalie: Gabriel! Language!

• Pull the Thread: Master Fu comes close to working out Scarlet Lady's identity when he wonders why she wasn't there early enough to save Chloé, her supposed best friend, from Kung Food. Adrien deflects him. The author notes, "Fu's trying to have valid points Adrien stop shutting them down!"
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: In "Reflekta", Sabrina refuses to go along with Chloé's plan to lock Juleka in the bathroom with four words:

  Sabrina: I. Don't. Want. To.

• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Miss Bustier has big, shiny eyes as she reluctantly asks Chloé if she actually tried to bribe her classmates into voting for her.
• Pushed at the Monster: Happens in "Dark Cupid", when Chat Noir and Marigold show up to protect Chloé. Chloé thinks Dark Cupid is after her because of her Adrien poster, so she pushes Marigold at Dark Cupid while demanding she protect it. This gets Marigold hit by one of Dark Cupid's arrows in the process.
• Rant-Inducing Slight: When Adrien first meets Tikki, who informs him that Scarlet Lady is incapacitated and cannot transform, an enraged Adrien begins ranting about how she didn't help with the last two akumas and how he shouldn't be surprised.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Zig-zagged with Roger Raincomprix. Some (albeit few) times he acts like the classic unreasonable cop (like giving Anarka two fines for petty reasons like in canon), other times he's more comprehensive (like admitting that the students' music is a bit louder than standard, but lets it go because it's the music festival).
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Marinette gives one to Scarlet Lady after she starts belittling Théo again after he's been de-akumatized:

    Marinette: His sculpture was way better than you deserved, considering how you're always leeching of others' successes! You're lucky he's talented enough to work around your unfortunate face!
    Scarlet Lady: You DARE?!

  • In "Evillustrator" Sabrina gives one to Chloé about how bad of a person she is compared to the rest of the class.
• Recurring Boss: The author's author avatar Zoe Rapporte has apparently been akumatizeed many times offscreen, with her 'nth' appearance as The Enchanced Florist defeated at the start of Princess Fragrance.
• Relationship Values: Throughout "Riposte", Marigold has a "respect meter" with Adrien/Chat Noir that increases as she proves herself to be a worthy heroine.
• Retcon: The "Syren" episode applies a now-canonical retcon. It used to be that the kwamis had to be fed the power-up formulas, so the heroes had to be detransformed to use them. But in the New York special, Ladybug and Chat Noir directly eat the empowering food items to become Cosmobug and Astrocat. So in this AU, the other heroes can force Scarlet Lady to take the aqua potion. In the tags, the author comments, "I'd like to thank canon for making it CANON that the holders can also consume the powerups instead of having to feed it to their kwamis. Everyone say 'Thank you, canon.'"
• Revenge by Proxy: Chloé attempts this in "Kung Food", aiming to ruin and humiliate Cheng simply because he happens to be Marinette's great-uncle.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • When Chloé claims she was calling Scarlet Lady to hide the fact she is Scarlet Lady, one of her classmates calls it a lie under the belief no hero would hang with Chloé.
  • During a sleepover, Lila brings up how Scarlet Lady didn't humiliate Chloé like she did Lila as a reason to believe Chloé was telling the truth about being best friends. Not knowing that Chloé is Scarlet Lady, the girls at the sleepover figure out they're not best friends because Chloé would've posted pictures of them together.
• Role Swap AU: The premise of the fic is that Marinette and Chloé switch places as the Ladybug and Bee heroes, while Chat Noir ends up as the central hero.
• Rousing Speech: In "Timebreaker", Chat Noir thinks things are hopeless because without Scar's earrings they can't fix anything. Marinette encourages him to go back to the past with Timebreaker, saying "Save the past and you save the present". She also manages to lasso Timebreaker with the yo-yo Scar dropped, which makes the time trip possible.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • The statue Théo makes in "Copycat" features Scarlet Lady leaping over a crouching Chat Noir. However, the design also makes it appear that she's standing on his back — which is driven home by the angle when Adrien first looks up at it.

    Adrien: ...Even as a statue, I'm pulling all the weight.

  • In "Gamer", Marinette observes that Adrien doesn't have any experience fighting alongside somebody in UMS3, as he's used to playing alone. Her comment about not knowing how to work with a partner holds extra Dramatic Irony given his experiences as Chat Noir, as does the fact that Marinette has already proven herself to be a more effective teammate than Scarlet Lady against various akuma.
  • "Reflekta" ends with Chloé voluntarily opting out of the retake, symbolizing her growing exclusion from the rest of her class — and underscoring how this is due entirely to her own actions. This is coupled with Alix calling Sabrina over, ensuring her inclusion, along with emphasizing the growing rift between the pair.
• Rule of Three: At the last part of "Vanisher", Tikki tells Chloé that the latter being "a late/no-show to the last 3 akumas" is the reason Marigold was needed as a back up.
• Running Gag:
  • Chloe's penchant for I Take Offense to That Last One!.
  • Scarlet Lady keeps getting her yo-yo taken. Might as well, given how little she uses it.
  • She's also prone to attempt to try to fall into Adrien's hug and Epic Fail in the process.
  • In "Copycat", people hearing about Théo's attraction to Scarlet Lady and immediately asking how old he is. He's the same age as the main cast.
  • "The Pharaoh" has characters getting rudely shoved around as one.
  • A slightly more serious one: occasionally, whenever Chloé does something bad around someone who is usually reluctant to criticize her in the show (Adrien and Sabrina), it gets noted that "X will remember that", indicating that they'll be far less inclined to forgive her in the comic.
  • On a meta level, the creator frequently responds to questions that would spoil the plot with 'guess we'll have to wait and see'.
  • When directly threatened by a villain, both in civilian and hero form, Chloé is most concerned about her hair. For example, she says "Not the hair!" to both Evillustrator and Riposte. Chat Noir also gets Scar to leave the scene early in "Riposte" by warning her that the security cameras will catch her with "that messed-up hair."
  • Whenever Marinette uses a new miraculous, Tikki will cry in jealousy that her chosen is using another kwami. Her sobbing escalates with each instance.
• Sadist Teacher: In "Copycat", Adrien's fencing instructor D'Argencourt rejects his request to go get some water, bluntly informing him that his technique has gotten sloppier and that they're going to do some one-on-one training instead.
• Sadly Mythtaken: In-Universe. In "The Pharaoh", Alix constantly has to correct Jalil on pretty much everything in Egyptian history and mythology, and figures out that Jalil is the akuma because he invokes Thoth for time-powers, and "only he would get the God of Writing and Magic so wrong."
• Sarcasm Mode: The tagline for the page where Lila claims Volpina is "Stronger and more famous than Scarlet Lady" reads "Ah yes, more powerful and more famous which is why no one's heard of her".
• The Scapegoat: Any time one of Chloé's schemes gets exposed, she attempts to pin the blame on Sabrina. It never works.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Max's glasses do this to help hide his expression while he's trying to play off his loss in "Gamer". This happens again later in the same episode when Scarlet Lady praises him for only targeting Marinette and leaving Adrien alone.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: In "Rogercop", the Mayor fires Roger for refusing to break the law on his daughter's spurious accusations. Deconstructed, as the mayor's self-serving actions and abuse of power cost him voters.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!:
  • Sabrina gets the heck out of dodge when Alya tries to share her Scarlet Lady theories with her.
  • Similarly, after she shows Chloé the video of Lila claiming that she's close to Scarlet Lady and pointing out that she's dragging Adrien off to the library, Sabrina walks off rather than allowing herself to get dragged into her counterattack.
  • Chat Noir, faced with the bickering pair of Scarlet Lady and Volpina, simply bails and goes home, leaving his partner to deal with the new "hero" and the fake Hawkmoth trap. (The author says Adrien only realizes Volpina's identity as Lila, not that she is an akuma).
  • When Evillustrator attacks Chloé with a giant hair blower, Marinette and Sabrina opt to get the heck out of dodge. And then Evillustrator himself leaves after getting annoyed by Chat Noir's puns.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Nathalie is shown to be fully aware of her boss's alter ego early on; when she realizes that she doesn't have a birthday gift for Adrien to stick Gabriel's name on, she claims otherwise before muttering "Don't akumatize me."
  • When the dust settles in "Reflekta", Chat Noir, Scarlet Lady, and Juleka all know that Marinette was Maotif. Marinette also directly gives Juleka permission to tell Alya, though she also bars the reporter from sharing that information on her Ladyblog.
  • Adrien is a bad one for Master Fu in "Syren". He visits Fu in hero form, which is against the rules. He also brings Marigold along, drawing a rebuke and later the punishment of having to bring down and reorganize Master Fu's entire pantry.
• Secret Test of Character: Seen in "Evillustrator" when Master Fu approaches Marinette directly and offers to walk her home.
• Selective Obliviousness: "Reflekta" has Chloé acting like she doesn't understand the concept of shame (as in being ashamed of her actions). She clearly, however, understands the concept as it applies to humiliating others.
• Self-Serving Memory: Chloé to a T; she deludes herself into thinking she was chosen to wield the Ladybug Miraculous, ignoring Tikki's furious reminders that it was meant for Marinette.
• Servile Snarker: As Hawk Moth is akumatizing Simon into Simon Says, Nathalie grumbles under her breath that she doesn't get paid enough for this. She later blurts out a tired "M. Agreste... the #$%@." as she is getting drawn into the Collector's book, and the author's notes deliver a sarcastic "I'll be taking my vacation days now, sir."
• Setting Update: Unlike the series, where it seems to be always summer, this AU pays attention to a timeline and seasons. Sometimes this causes a credibilily stretch. For example, in "Syren" when Kim jumps into the flood water for a swim and invites others in, Max says, "Kim. No. It's February." The author comments, "Just... assume the pool is heated okay?"
• Shipper on Deck:
  • The Gorilla offers Marinette as a female partner for Adrien's photo shoot.
  • The Bubbler immediately agrees to play a slow song when he sees that Marinette and Adrien are together.
  • In general, pretty much everyone who sees Marinette and Adrien together tends to ship them... except, of course, Chloé.
• Shockingly Expensive Bill: Sabine gets back at Chloé for stealing Marinette's diary by severely increasing the price for a bag of cookies (the kind Chloé orders regularly to feed Tikki).
• Shoot the Hostage: Volpina discovers that Scarlet simply isn't bothered by her threatening to kill others. Not because she sees through her illusions, but because she assumes that Miraculous Cure will bring back any victims. Even threatening somebody she cares about doesn't work, as Scarlet responds with a dramatic speech about how they'll understand her sacrifice for the greater good.
• Shout-Out:
  • When heading to record the first akuma attack, Alya wonders how Lois Lane can do this and still look perfect.
  • The writer makes a joke about "r/weathergirlthings" in regards to Stormy Weather.
  • After Chloé's plagiarism is exposed, Adrien gets cat eyes while the prompt "Adrien will remember that" appears over his head. It's noted that Sabrina will remember as well, though Ms. Bustier probably won't.
  • Marinette's reaction to the robot eye camera that the Agrestes use is to assume that HAL 9000 works for them.
  • Sabrina and her father both make the 'Surprised Pikachu face' in response to Chloé ordering her father to fire Roger and her father listening.
  • After Chloé attempts to scapegoat Sabrina again for stealing Marinette's diary, the prompt "Sabrina will remember that" appears.
  • In "Reflekta", Chloé's belief that the front row of class pictures is for babies reaches the level where she calls the students there "Rugrats".
  • As part of his plan to distract Reflekta, Cat Noir calls her "Harley Quinn".
  • In Part 8 of "Volpina", there's a tagline reading "Team Rocket blasting off again...in different directions...separately".
  • Lila's line, "Arrivederci, weirdo!" from "Volpina" is a direct quote from The Most Popular Girls in School.
  • A tagline from Part 5 of "The Collector" mocks "Gabriel in his office having the most unemotional temper tantrum ala The Room".
  • Vanisher's redesign includes floating fingers that are reminiscent of the ones from Peridot's limb enhancers.
  • In "Captain Hardrock", a tagline says Marinette Matrix Dodged Alya's hint about Adrien.
  • One of the taglines for Part 14 of "Syren" is "The cold never bothered me anyway".
  • To prevent Scarlet Lady from telling Marigold what happened while the latter was under Dark Cupid's influence, Chat Noir tells the former to leave before she turns "into a pumpkin".
  • At the end of "Pixelator", Penny hands out the tickets to Jagged's concert in a way that acts as an homage to the candy cane-gram scene from Mean Girls.
  • Chloé's pizza order in "Guitar Villain" is "no sauce, no cheese, and gluten-free crust." This is a reference to the episode "Pizza Street" from The Most Popular Girls in School.
• The Show Must Go Wrong: The class' amateur film in "Horrificator", quite frankly, is careening Off the Rails well before Mylène gets akumatized into the titular beast.
• Silver Spoon Troublemaker: Chloé is an entitled brat who's willing to do anything, up to and including attempted murder, just to fulfill her whims. The story balances it out with Chloé being incredibly incompetent and reality giving her a slap every so often.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Word of God has stated that Chloé is Adriensexual.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • Chloé when it comes to akuma attacks. The Bubbler just captured all the adults in Paris and is forcing her to attend a party on threat of joining them? Perfect time to cozy up to Adrien! The same akuma enables a slow dance between Adrien and Marinette? He's going down.
  • Played for Laughs when Stormy Weather goes after the balloon seller in the park, only to pause and openly wonder why she's going after him when asked about it, noting that "It's just balloons." Proceeds to get Zig-Zagged when she still goes after him, demanding to know where HER balloons are, and learns that they were instructed to only make merchandise for Mireille.
  • "Copycat" opens with Chloé prepping for the big statue unveiling by putting on makeup... including lots of eyeshadow. Tikki points out that she'll be wearing a mask, meaning that nobody's going to be able to see her handiwork. (Chloé, naturally, completely ignores her.)
  • "The Pharaoh" sees Chloé blowing off the notion of studying for her upcoming midterm, as she expects Sabrina to do all the work for her. Tikki's attempt to convince her to take Sabrina on a nice outing to the museum leads to her heading there alone under the mistaken impression that there's a dedicated Ladybug exhibit, ditching Sabrina in the process.
  • In the same episode, Marinette lightly teases Alya about her questionable priorities, suggesting that if she didn't focus so much on Ladybug or the lipstick she dropped and studied more, she might not be so stressed about mid-terms.
  • Nino lets being the director really go to his head during "Horrificator". When Mylène runs off, he's more concerned about getting their flick filmed, and he remains fixated on that even after classmates start disappearing. When Chat Noir shows up, he goes into starry-eyed wonder over the thought of the hero starring in his movie.
  • Faced with her 'best friend' blue-screening after her wild accusations got her father fired, Chloé doesn't bat a lash before roughly demanding she surrender her bag to be searched.
  • Chloé is so singularly focused upon getting Marinette punished for supposedly stealing her bracelet (despite the overwhelming lack of evidence) that when "Rogercop" shows up looking to arrest her father for abusing his powers, she drags her after the akuma and tries to get him to arrest her. Despite how Roger's refusal to act without evidence led to his firing and akumatization in the first place.
  • In "The Gamer", Chloé really doesn't gives a damn about her class being part of a game competition or even that Adrien has been selected to be one of the representatives... until she finds out that Marinette was the other student selected. That puts her on a very serious warpath.
  • Used for a Mood Whiplash moment in "Timebreaker". When Marinette reveals that she's recording her slacking off, Scarlet prioritizes yelling at her for 'threatening the hero of Paris' than actually dealing with the akuma. As a direct result, she gets tagged in the back.
  • In "Kung Food", Chloé is more concerned about her hair being ruined by the soup she's suspended over rather than being boiled if she were to fall into it.
  • In "Vanisher" Chloé makes faces at Chat Noir (that he can't see because she's invisible) for saying that he'll double his efforts in Scarlet Lady's absence, despite the fact that his efforts are (as far as she knows) her only hope of rescue from the akuma.
  • In "Riposte", Scarlet Lady is so obsessed with finding out where Adrien is she doesn't care if she detransforms in front of the cameras. Chat Noir tricks her into leaving by pointing out they'd see her with messy hair.
  • In "Captain Hardrock", Chloé isn't too bothered about the possibility of the titular villain attacking her father and his orchestra, but she freaks out when she realises XY is also in danger.
  • "Syren" starts with Chloé refusing to help corral the escaped zoo animals, not wanting to bother leaving for such an unglamorous task. She's outraged when that gives Chat Noir the chance to give an interview without her, something she treats as a personal betrayal on his behalf.
  • In "Animan", Alya is upset for being locked away while her father is an akuma because she's not getting footage, which she considers to be the only thing that makes her relevant since "Scarlet Lady only works with real reporters".
  • In "Pixelator", Jagged Stone wants to sacrifice his life for Paris because it will improve his ratings.
• Skipping School: Marigold finds Théo and Mireille in one of Pixelator's photos. They explain they were walking on the Champs-Élysées when he took their picture. She asks them, "What were you doing on the Champs-Élysées on a school day?"
• The Slacker:
  • Scarlet prefers leaving the bulk of the fighting to her 'sidekick' while she stays well out of harm's way, primping and preening to prepare for any after-battle interviews.
  • When Timebreaker attacks, Chloé's concerned that she's too fast and transforms, but all she does as Scarlet Lady is move to a high ledge to wait out the fight.
• Sneeze Cut:
  • Referenced but not shown in "Kung Food": after Adrien says his father has no taste, the author notes in the tags, "Somewhere Gabriel is having a sneezing fit."
  • Played straight in "Evillustrator": when Sabrina says, "Day 1 of no Chloé is already amazing," the next panel shows Chloé sneezing.
• Snowball Lie: In "The Collector" Adrien tells his father that he lost the book, rather than admit he gave it to the Guardian. Marinette knows she returned the lost book to Adrien, and tells others in the classroom. Chloé refuses to listen to this and wants to hunt down Lila for stealing the book. The consequences of Adrien's lie are escalating.
• The Sociopath: Chloé/Scarlet Lady has no understanding of empathy, sympathy, love, honesty, politeness, mercy, friendship or any type of positive emotion. Her true showing of her uncaring regard of others comes when Volpina threatens to blow up a building unless she surrenders her Miraculous. She refuses, stating that when she wins she'll just bring back the people that died, leaving even a chronic liar like Volpina to regard her as a monster.
• Something Only They Would Say:
  • In "The Pharaoh", Alix figures out the titular villain is his brother by the way he gets things wrong about Egyptian Gods.
  • In "Timebreaker", Adrien believes Chat Noir to be his future self because Chat Noir uses his nickname for Scarlet Lady.
  • More like "Only Something They Would Do", but in Volpina, Lila's theft of the book is what convinces Adrien that she really is friends with Scarlet Lady.
• Speak in Unison: In "Vanisher" three people exclaim "Who are you?!" at the public debut of Marigold the Bee hero. (However, only two of them are really audible).
• Speak of the Devil:
  • Adrien invokes this trope in "Volpina" when Scarlet Lady suddenly appears, saying "Dammit, we said her name too many times."
  • In "Evillustrator", when the titular akuma invites Marinette on a date, Marinette declares that her first objective is to contact Chat Noir. No sooner do the words leave her mouth than he comes in through her window.
• Splash of Color:
  • Tools made by the Lucky Charm are colored red. This includes a lipstick vial and her lips when she's using it to touch up her makeup while Chat fights an akuma without her.
  • Hawkmoth's speech bubbles when communicating with akuma targets are a light violet glow around white outlines, as are the mask outlines.
  • Chat Noir's eyes are colored green when he's using night vision/in the dark. Similarly, in "Reflekta", when Marinette uses the Cat Miraculous to become Maotif, she gets blue eyes when using night vision.
  • The scarf Marinette made for Adrien is colored in when he wears it, and the shadows on his hair are tinted light green while the hair dye's in it.
  • Similarly, the suspiciously spotted object Alya sees Marinette putting into her locker at the start of "Lady WiFi" and everything connected to her "special project" is colored in.
  • Pollen's eyes are coloured blue.
• Spot the Impostor: Defied — upon finding out there are two Chat Noirs running around in "Copycat", Scarlet Lady doesn't care that one of them might be innocent and opts to capture them both instead.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Marinette immediately identifies Copycat as a fake not just because the real one wouldn't rob a museum in broad daylight, but because she recognizes the lollipop sticking out of his mouth as the same type the sculptor had.
  • Played for Drama in "Horrificator": When Chloé fakes her abduction so she can sneak off and transform, Sabrina doesn't believe that she was caught because nobody heard her scream. This leads to her frantically searching for her friend, afraid that if they leave without looking, she'll be stuck hiding alone with an akuma about...
  • Stormy Weather realizes that something is off when she finds out that the balloon sellers in the park are all stocked up with balloons for Mirielle's victory, but none for her- which would be impossible if the contest wasn't rigged.
  • In "Volpina", while Adrien was immediately suspicious when Lila claimed to have inherited a miraculous at the same time his father's book went missing, the real clincher for him was when she claimed that Scarlet Lady saved her life once, knowing that Scarlet Lady would never go out of her way to save another person.
• Stalker with a Crush:
  • Marinette thinks Scarlet Lady is another one of Adrien's stalkers in "Simon Says" after she claims she knew Adrien was at the show because her "love radar always knows".
  • Scarlet even gives away her feelings to Gabriel, saying, "I'm the perfect match for your son, doncha think?"
  • Pixelator enjoys the idea that his power will make Jagged Stone "...mine and mine alone." Even Hawkmoth finds this creepy.
• Stating the Simple Solution: During "Mr. Pigeon", Sabrina reasons that if Chloé wants to steal one of Marinette's designs, it would be much easier to pick up and use one of the sketches she's balled up and discarded rather than going after the one she plans to enter into the contest. Chloé doesn't give her a chance to finish the thought.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • In "Timebreaker", Alix's father tells her that the rule that the last born child gets the pocket watch most certainly wasn't made up just because of Jalil.
  • In "Dark Cupid", Marigold visits Adrien because she heard a rumor about him writing her a valentine, that she definitely didn't hear at his school. Adrien's response is that the valentine is to show appreciation for her as a hero and not because he has a crush on her.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Has its own page here.
• Swapped Roles: "Animan" has Marinette go feral trying to ship Alya and Nino, instead of the usual scenario of Alya going feral trying to ship Marinette and Adrien.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: Early in Season Three, Kagami accepts that she won't be joining the Fencing Club only for Marinette and Adrien to convince D'Argencourt to give her another chance.
• Symbol Swearing:
  • Used when Adrien tells Nathalie to tell Gabriel "F@$% YOU!" when she tries to keep him from leaving.
  • And again here, when Chat Noir is fighting an Akuma while Scarlet Lady reapplies her lipstick. Though which one of them he's cussing out is anybody's guess.
  • Marinette gets a turn in "Copycat" when the titular villain abducts her.
  • Chloé's reaction to the pigeon invasion: " WHAT THE $@#$?! "
  • Nathalie does one when The Collector attacks her: "M. Agreste... the #$%@."
• Take a Third Option: During "La Befana", when Befana asks if Chloé wants to protect or punish Marinette, Chloé responds with an apathetic "I don't care". This actually baffles Befana's moral judgement.
• Take the Wheel: In "Gamer", Marinette holds the game mecha steady while Chat Noir uses the Lucky Charm against the villain, a role-reversal from the original. Her Chekhov's Skill with the game still works in this version, even more so because Chat Noir knows Marinette has demonstrated the skill. (Chloé attempts this earlier and shows she has no skill at it whatsoever.)
• Talking Is a Free Action:
  • Played With when Reflekta shoots the wall next to Scarlet Lady while she's bragging about how she 'got Chloé to safety' and declares that "Next time, I won't miss."
  • Timebreaker averts this. When Scarlet Lady starts yelling at Marinette for recording her, Timebreaker takes the chance to tag her in the back.
  • Averted again when Chat Noir quickly attacks a brainwashed Mayor Bourgeois in "Kung Food" while he's in the middle of announcing his arrival.
  • Riposte defies this again, attacking while Marigold's back is turned to her while she's checking on Adrien.
• Team Spirit: The friends and classmates of Alix pull together to try to find a way to fix her broken watch in "Timebreaker" (unaware of the one-of-a-kind nature of said watch).
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The only reason Chat Noir works with Scarlet Lady is so that she can use Lucky Charm to fix everything at the end of a battle; otherwise, they're constantly at each other's throats.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Chat Noir's first line in the comic is a declaration of how awesome being a superhero is going to be, not knowing what his partner will be like.
  • When Chloé announces that she'll fight Stormy Weather without too much prodding from Tikki, the kwami realizes that even Chloé can be selfless...then Chloé announces why she's fighting Stormy Weather (for ruining a "date" with Adrien), which causes Tikki to rescind this statement.
  • In "Rogercop", when Plagg explains why Adrien can't transform, Adrien says "Ugh, you're so lucky there's no akuma or I'd be really mad". The panel's tagline even asks "Why do you tempt fate like this?". Upon seeing Rogercop, Adrien declares himself "a total jinx". Plagg gets "misty" and declares Adrien "a true black cat".
  • In a bonus panel of "Timebreaker", Marinette thinks she won't get caught in the middle of an akuma and will be early for Nadja. The original timeline shows her being involved with Timebreaker and Nadja showing at the bakery 20 minutes before the agreed time.
  • In "The Collector", right after Adrien comments he never sees his father, he opens the doors to find Gabriel waiting for him.
  • In "The Collector", when Lila says she won't return to school because Scarlet Lady destroyed her social life before it even started, Marinette asks if Lila thinks she can trick her Mom and miss a whole year of school.

    Lila: You underestimate my power.
    Marinette: Good Lord.

  • In "Kung Food", Marinette finds comfort that at least her uncle can appreciate her gift but then he starts "destroying" it. Subverted because everyone who watched the canon episode knows why he did it.
  • In "Vanisher", when Ms. Mendeleiev cancels the class once it becomes apparent that there's an akuma around, at least one person is glad, until she adds that she'll be grading everyone harder to make up for it.
  • In "Captain Hardrock", Anarka says everything goes on her boat. She changes her mind once Chloé shows up.
• There Are No Therapists: "Horrificator" implies that Mylène has actual post-traumatic stress disorder from her experience with Stoneheart, but the closest thing she gets to therapy is using her lullaby to calm down.
• Thinking Out Loud: In "Dark Cupid" Alya hears Marinette talking with Pollen in the bathroom (though she can't make out the words). Thinking Marinette is talking to herself, Alya says to herself, "You sure have strange ways of dealing with bad news, girl."
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • Instead of being impressed by Volpina's flashy entrance, Chat groans at the prospect of having to deal with two Attention Whores as fellow 'heroes'.
  • In a flashback in "Vanisher", upon seeing Chloé clearly about to crash his interview, Jagged Stone irately grumbles "Aw, man."
• Threat Backfire: in "Timebreaker" Scarlet Lady taunts the two Chat Noirs that they will need to beg her to help them. Both of them agree it would be best if she stayed out of the fight.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: "Mr. Pigeon" ends with Xavier finding an unexpected friend in Marianne, who introduces him to a rooftop sanctuary for pigeons where he can feed and tend to them to his heart's content.
• Time Skip: The web comic often skips over material that would be similar to canon. For example in "Riposte" when the akuma villain tells Adrien "This won't take long!" the reader is supposed to remember that in canon Hawk Moth instructed her to go after the Miraculous heroes first, and that she told Adrien to wait there patiently for their "rematch". Scarlet Lady gets the implication that Riposte thinks she will be easy to beat and retorts, "Rude!"
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Manon, maybe you shouldn't have told the supervillain that hates Mireille's guts that you voted for Mireille?
  • Chloé gets hit with this in "Rogercop", where she basically gets herself and Marinette kidnapped by getting into Rogercop's car, much to Chat's horror.
  • Kim's desire to race a panther prompts Adrien to ask if he likes "being lunch".
• True Companions: With the obvious exception of Chloé, Bustier's class are all good friends and will go right to bat to help each other when they're in trouble. Best shown in a bonus panel for "Timebreaker", where they all start to work together on an idea on how to fix Alix's broken watch.
• True Love's Kiss: Max deconstructs this idea at the beginning of "Dark Cupid" in relation to fairy tales when he points out that only 32% of said kisses are consensual.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: Marinette has feelings for both Adrien and Chat Noir, not realizing they're one and the same; Adrien feels the same about Marinette, but treats his new bee-heroine partner Marigold with cool professionalism. It seems to be an inversion of the canonical two-person love square. It gets more complicated in "Dark Cupid", when Adrien is asked about a love poem he just wrote. He panics and says it is for Marigold when he really meant to give it to Marinette as Chat Noir.
• The Unfavorite: While it was implied in the original episode, "Timebreaker" all but confirms (thanks to some Suspiciously Specific Denial) that Jalil is this in the Kubdel family.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Chat Noir pushes Scarlet Lady out of the way of an attack by the Bubbler. She thanks him by yelling at him for messing up her hair.
• The Unmasking:
  • Averted at the start of "Vanisher", by pure luck. If Chloé had addressed Tikki by name during her morning complaint monolog, the invisible akuma would have heard and Hawkmoth would have had Scarlet Lady's secret identity. Tikki flies off right away to warn Master Fu, avoiding being seen by Vanisher.
  • Very close to happening in "Vanisher", at least for Master Fu, when Chat Noir decides to ask him what to do about Vanisher. Tikki must have reported that her holder was vanished by an akuma, though she couldn't say her holder's name. Chat Noir will report that the akuma has a grudge that would motivate her to make Chloé vanish, but not random other people.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Fu's decision to slip the box with the Earrings into Marinette's purse unintentionally kicks off the whole AU, since Chloé finds and steals it while trying to 'punish' her for not being properly cowed.
  • In "Rogercop", Tikki irritably kicks Plagg out of Chloé's purse... and, in the process, knocks him into Chloé's bracelet. This not only sets the episode's plot into motion, but causes poor Marinette to trip over him.
  • Nadja not believing Manon when she claims Marinette let her have the Lady Wifi doll leads to the girl's akumatization.
• Vague Age: In "Intermission", Luka says he's Juleka's older brother but refuses to be more specific than that about his age even when asked how older.
• Villain Respect: Played With; Gabriel stubbornly insists that Scarlet Lady is a wily and dangerous opponent, because the alternative would mean admitting that he's being outmatched by an idiot.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Scarlet Lady knows how to work the media and play to the public, making herself look better at the expense of others. Especially her poor partner Chat, whom she paints as someone she has to 'clean up after'.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend:
  • Alright, they aren't an actual couple, but Marinette (both as a civilian and as Marigold) is more than ready to punch the daylights out of any villain in order to help Chat Noir.
  • Penny Rolling may just be Jagged's assistant, but when Vincent gets too close to Jagged, she is all too ready to beat the daylights out of the guy (Battle Aura included).
• Wall of Text: When Reflekta first appears, the panel behind her is filled with text, and so is the next one with Alya and Nino listening in shock. It lampshades the overwhelming nature of her monologues.
• We Need a Distraction: Scarlet Lady actually inverts this during "Gamer" by getting his attention and leading him right towards Chat and Marinette.
• We Win, Because You Didn't: The Puppeteer needs the Miraculous heroes' dolls made by Marinette to control them. Scarlet Lady saves herself from being controlled by destroying her doll.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Marinette would like to point out to the Bubbler that, while she agrees with his motives, she doesn't support his methods.
• Wham Episode: Episode 13 Part 10. Plagg passes the Cat Miraculous to Marinette, who uses it to transform into a superhero.
  • Episode 21, Part 8. Marinette receives the Bee Miraculous to become Marigold.
• Wham Line:
  • On the second page of "Vanisher", when the class is shown an announcement from Mayor Bourgeois that Chloé is missing, even though she's just arrived at school:

    Chloé: Huh? What's he on about, I'm right-
    Max: Wait, she's not just absent?
    Nathaniel: I thought it was quiet today.

  • On the third page, Vanisher says, "After all, you can't interact with the real world.", which reveals that every physical thing that Chloé handled that day, from getting dressed to slamming open a door, were just things that the akuma "vanished" for her or did for her. As the author says in the end notes, "Vanisher is such a little prankster god that anytime Chloé approached a door handle SHE'D open it just to prolong Chloé's confusion because she'd figure it out pretty quick if she was stuck in her room."
  • Downplayed, but in "Captain Hardrock", Page 16, Rose admits during her performance that she's dating Juleka.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Chloé often finds herself on the receiving end of this from Tikki, Chat and others. Not that she cares. For one particular example, Tikki gets especially frustrated with her for how bluntly she rejected Théo after the statue unveiling:

    Tikki: Are you proud of how you treated that young man?! And after he said so many nice things! That you don't deserve!
    Chloé: Ughhhhh, let it gooo...

  • During "Horrificator", Alya, Adrien and Ivan all call out Nino for adding a kiss scene. Alya's annoyed that he altered her script without telling her; Adrien and Ivan are more concerned with the fact that he didn't get the actors' permission beforehand, or warn them about it. Immediately following this, he gets called out again for suggesting that Chloé should sub in for Mylène, since she is supposed to be her understudy. Given that she chased her off in the first place, nobody else is keen to reward her cruelty by handing her precisely what she wants.
  • When Alya informs Marinette's father that Chloé dragged Marinette off to see "Rogercop", he's furious that she didn't try to stop them. Alya retorts that he didn't, either.
  • Played for Laughs in "Gamer" when Alya accuses Marinette of only joining the tourney to flirt with Adrien.

    Marinette: Flirt...? You sure are fired up about something you learned about five minutes ago.
    Alya: This is SUPER. SERIOUS!
    Marinette: Hey, by virtue of how tournaments work, won't I only earn that spot by BEING the best to represent us?

  • In "Gamer", Chat Noir yells "Scar, what the HELL?!" after his so-called partner leads the akuma right to them. Scarlet feigns innocence, despite how she actually really wanted to get Marinette zapped.
  • "Timebreaker" has Marinette call Scarlet out on refusing to engage, declaring that "if I can see you, then so can my phone which is recording you ignoring the akuma!"
  • In "Simon Says", Scarlet Lady gets two in a row from Chat Noir. First, for trying to impress Gabriel when there's a hypnotized army to worry about. Second, for running and abandoning civilians (including Adrien, she believes), letting them get captured by the villain's forces.
  • In "Volpina", Scarlet Lady is called out by Adrien for dunking Lila, and also questioned about it by Alya. She resorts to an I Did What I Had to Do excuse, that publicly outing Lila as not being her BFF would protect her from Hawkmoth.
  • Volpina's utterly taken aback when Scarlet blows off her threat to destroy a building, casually stating that she'll just bring everyone inside back after winning. The faux fox recoils in disgust, declaring that "You really are a villain!"
  • Happens again when Scarlet blows off her threat to drop an illusion of Adrien to their death, saying that she'll either catch them or bring them back afterwards.

    Scarlet Lady: [with a wicked grin] Do it.
    Volpina: Gawd, what is wrong with you?!

  • "The Collector" opens with Master Fu rebuking Plagg for bringing Adrien to his shop. Adrien then turns it right back around on him upon realizing that he's responsible for choosing Scarlet... or so he thinks.
  • In "Syren", both Master Fu and Marigold are shocked when Chat Noir decides to bring her to meet him without getting permission to reveal the Guardian's existence first.
• Win-Win Ending: In the end of "Stormy Weather", Aurore and Mireille resolve the matter of the contest by becoming co-weather girls.
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: Downplayed example with Chloé and Tikki when the latter says the former has to get the book Adrien and Lila have.
• World of Snark: Many characters have several Deadpan Snarker moments. Just about everyone has no patience for Chloé/Scarlet Lady's behavior, so her antics are often the subject.
• Worth It:
  • In "Horrificator", it's implied that Horrificator was mute because Mylène kept sassing Hawkmoth. The tags imply that this was her opinion.
  • In "Darkblade", it's revealed that the reason Jagged helped out with Chloé's campaign in the first place was because he owed Bob Roth a favor after Fang ruined the producer's car. His response when Penny reminds him of this is this trope.
  • In "Vanisher", Marinette thinks it was worth staying up all night in order to make bee-themed accessories to give to her friends, claiming that the new hero inspired her; the actual reason is so no one will suspect her identity as Marigold from seeing her wearing the bee comb.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Lila is about to give up on school when her lies are exposed, Marinette encourages her to come back, saying "You're not as alone as you think." Marinette also shares how she despises Scarlet Lady (a surprise to Lila since she only heard that before as Volpina and forgot). Marinette says she would pick Lila over Scarlet Lady any day.
• You Are Grounded!: "The Collector" sees Gabriel grounding Adrien as punishment for losing his book. He originally threatened to pull him out of school entirely, only for Adrien to point out how disastrously that could end for him PR-wise.
• You Didn't Ask!: Adrien is caught in an awkward situation in "The Collector" when he finds Marinette explaining to Gabriel that she already returned the lost book. He saves himself by producing the book (just returned by Master Fu) and admitting the return. When his father challenges him for an explanation, Adrien asks, "Would you have listened?"
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Chat reacts this way when Volpina takes an illusion of Adrien as her hostage.
• Younger Than They Look: "Copycat" reveals that this is the case with Théo, who's actually the same age as the rest as Marinette and her classmates. It's hinted that they deliberately invoke this effect with his goatee, protesting that it's the only reason his clients respect him.
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Max has a Heel Realization about his attitudes towards gaming after Scarlet Lady thanks him for exclusively targeting Marinette as an akuma, even though both she and Adrien beat him.
• Your Makeup Is Running: Chloé's tears after hearing that Adrien has been grounded are practically black from all the mascara she wears. A note on the comic by the creator questions why she's not using waterproof mascara.

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Lady Running Outside of Car and Tries to Get Back in

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/ScarletLady

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