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like man this fandom has such a thing for making lila into some mastermind who needs a whole complicated scheme to be taken down and you’re telling me no one is taking advantage of that to have her figure out about adrien’s amok
talk about something tailor made to make her as monstrous as people love to see her and to actually require a complicated solution because she has something very real to hold over their heads limiting what they can actually do without extremely careful planning!
ughhh you know what a notion just sort of came to me
like okay lila or chloe have gotten their hands on adrien’s amok and for whatever reason gabriel hasn’t immediately gone supernova trying to get it back from them, and adrien suddenly just turns into a massive asshole to all of his friends and it goes on for a while. no one understands what’s happening and marinette is just. so confused.
and I haven’t figured out how she comes to this conclusion (or passed over the explanation of “there’s been a switcheroo with felix”) but somehow she’s convinced that he’s been replaced by a sentimonster
wait okay so how’s this. it probably involves some convoluted plotting but lila gets the amok directly from papillon who maybe doesn’t tell her everything but just enough for her to know what to do with it. gabriel wants adrien under more of a leash but he can’t be at the school 24/7 so he’s delegating it to lila. he wants adrien to not hang out with his friends so much; lila is one of the only people he’s approved and she’ll make sure he sticks with her like glue, and if his snubbing upsets his classmates enough to cause akumatizations, great
shocker: yeah it probably does. there’s a whole rash of adrien agreste is an asshole related akumatizations. chat noir ends up having this running gag of “yeah yeah I stuffed him in a cupboard somewhere for his safety let’s take care of this latest akuma that wants to murder him”
loooots of black humor from chat noir like, HAHA THIS KID what is WRONG with him??? he needs like six attitude adjustments apparently???? [desperate laughter]
actually come to think of it. i don’t know when luka would be around lila-and-adrien but if he ever happens to be around when an adrien-related akumatization happens…
chat noir: lmao why is this kid is such an asshole haha
luka: [Luka Makes A Face.jpg]
chat noir: yeah yeah i threw the agreste kid in a cupboard or whatever again, he’s fine, not that anyone should care
luka: [Luka Makes A Face Bass Boosted.jpg]
the only thing is I do feel like gabriel is just. so protective of that ring that it’s hard to really believe he would just let lila have it, but at the same time we know he has absolutely no qualms in being an absolute creeper surveilling minors so he probably does have a sentimonster keeping an eye on her at all times just ready to snatch it back whenever
wait wait wait that’s how they work out what’s going on. gabriel had been using the peacock a whole bunch and it was Being A Problem, but he wants adrien under more of a leash and realizes lila will have better opportunities to Cause Problems On Purpose that he can then take advantage of, so he gives lila the amok and stops using the peacock for sentimonsters for battles in favor of just having a single one following lila around at all times ready to snatch the ring back at a moment’s notice if necessary, and the reason ladybug makes the adrien-sentimonster connection is that he starts acting weirdly out of character the same day sentimonsters abruptly stop being an issue
it takes a while for her to make the connection bc at first she’s extremely paranoid that there’s a secret/hidden sentimonster around spying on her, or something like that, but when things just continue going and hawkmoth doesn’t, like, turn up at her house…
something something hijinx figuring out who has the amok and obtaining it, something something eventually they find out that, well, no, he hasn’t been replaced, he always has been one, but there’s going to be a lot of ben reilly spiderman esque “oh my god I’m a copy? where is the real adrien? are these real memories????”
and the whole time he’s still chat noir because that secret has somehow gone on undetected so it’s still the thing that lets him be himself 100%
I mean not exactly but you know what I mean
and like ladybug can tell he is going through something but possibly things are going south enough in his adrien life that it ends up in a reveal? idk, he can’t explain anything and it’s freaking him out and none of his friends will talk to him anymore and when they do he’s inexplicably being awful to them? he legit is thinking maybe he’s cracking under the stress of his home life
like he still just. doesn’t know. felix has dropped hints! but never enough for him to put the pieces together, esp bc there’s also always other stuff going on and bc it’s just never crossed his mind as the remotest possibility. why would he connect the way he literally can’t disobey his father with what he knows about sentimonsters? he’s never noticed his father messing with the ring!! most of the time gabriel’s hands are clasped behind him where adrien can’t even see, if he’s even looking at his father in the first place and not at the floor. it’s just not something that would ever occur to him naturally.
so from his perspective he would just… find himself going along with what lila says, one day, and not know why. very horror movie vibes
and even then it might take a while for him to be certain something is wrong if she’s subtle about it, which admittedly seems questionable given her history. but if we’re assuming she’s observant enough to work out what the ring does then i feel like that’s not really a huge leap, which makes it that much harder/more unsettling for adrien to figure out that she’s genuinely doing something
like. god. i feel like someone else might have to point out that something was up for adrien to actually be sure, is the thing. like as long as lila is subtle about it and no one else says anything he might just tell himself he needs to stop being such a pushover around lila but it’s not like he was good at telling her to stop and leave him alone before so really is there even a difference? (there is, but can he tell? for sure?)
but the thing is adrien has friends. marinette would presumably notice eventually that adrien seems to go along with lila more he used to—listens when she’s telling stories, helps carry her things for her, agrees to study with her in the library regularly, etc—but i think her reaction would be to confront lila over it, not adrien, and lila in this au would be too smart to actually give the game away
so you’d have lila like “told you he was mine, remember?” and marinette like HE’S NOT YOURS, he doesn’t like you and also he’s a person what’s wrong with you and lila just like “it’s okay you can just say you’re jealous. wanna slap me so i don’t even have to frame you for bullying me this time?” and things go from there, marinette probably getting in trouble but like, not even much bc lila wants marinette around to see lila gloating about having gotten adrien
and i like the idea that alya and nino see the lila/marinette conflict as the most popular girl in class taking an irrational dislike to the new kid, probably over a misunderstanding, just like happened with adrien, and treating her like she’s worse than chloe instead of like the new girl who clearly just wants to have friends that she actually is
meanwhile marinette isn’t going to say anything to adrien himself right away because what’s she supposed to say? “hey you seem marginally more of a doormat than you already were but like, specifically around/towards this one classmate i thought we both hated”?
side note while i’m thinking about it: in my head this is super not a chloe redemption story. maybe that could be done well but in this version when they’re talking abt who they can trust someone reluctantly asks abt chloe bc they’ve already covered all their other classmates and adrien contemplates the prospect of chloe knowing there is a piece of jewelry that would force him to do whatever she said and is like ………yeah no let’s not do that actually
plagg is either the first to notice or the last. i love him and i love when he gets protective but i am definitely leaning towards the latter bc if he didn’t recognize the peacock itself when he saw it in the safe how and why precisely would he figure this out
anyway i basically figure eventually nino notices adrien seeming off, looking unhappy or even frowning at lila when no one’s paying attention but then being all attention and smiles when she is, and eventually they talk about it and adrien is like “thank god someone else noticed, i feel like i’m going crazy, i don’t like her, marinette is right that she’s been lying to everyone, ladybug blah blah blah, but i keep going along with whatever she says and i don’t know why,” etc., and nino listens and takes him seriously and is like. okay well obviously marinette is already with you but she’s not going to be able to convince alya on this one, let me handle that
and then like three hours later adrien gets a text like “nino told me everything, i’m sorry i didn’t realize, i promise i’ll make it up to you and we’re going to figure this out” and from that moment on she’s one of his staunchest allies
bc marinette is alya’s best friend but lila is the one subject where marinette is clearly irrational and there’s no point in listening to/trying to convince her anymore, but nino’s always gotten along with lila so alya will actually listen
and she does, and she’s a good friend, and she’s the ladyblogger, and so she’s the one to actually put the pieces together about adrien’s change in behavior/inability to say no to lila starting the same day sentimonsters stopped accompanying akumas in every fight
…and then cue the identity questions and amok heist hijinks and so on and so forth, as established, something something possible chat noir identity reveal, and potentially the whole thing in a hawkmoth identity reveal (and accompanying “surprise lila knew and has been working with him on purpose,” ofc)
also i really want kagami to get brought in on this somehow and maybe this is where?? nino realizes Something Is Up With Adrien and alya starts doing the math on the sentimonster timing, and marinette is just like. well adrien and i have a mutual friend who will be very angry about whatever’s happening to him and isn’t here yet, please hold while i text kagami
or maybe it’s before they’ve actually figured out the sentimonster piece of it and they just know Something Is Wrong and marinette reaches out to her like, have you noticed? anything? with adrien??? which she sort of feels silly about bc everyone has noticed something going on with adrien, but kagami is the one who’s like you know I’ve been a little worried about him lately
i do think it needs to be like. nino and alya also being like “okay there is something off about adrien and lila is definitely involved somehow” that prompts marinette to reach out, because if kagami knows marinette is worried too i feel like she’s going to start poking at the situation herself?
like she isn’t going to just sit back for another week and a half for alya and nino to coincidentally work things out
but i think that also makes sense with what we said about how for a while marinette wasn’t really saying anything to anyone bc her classmates wouldn’t have listened to her conspiracy-theorying about lila, she’d be too unsure of herself to say anything to adrien (if she could even find a moment when lila wasn’t around to affect what he said in response, which… good luck), and if she tries confronting lila it doesn’t go well
so at that point, like. why would she talk to kagami about it, it’s not like she’s talking to anyone else
BUT SO the minute alya and nino are like “so adrien is freaked the hell out, he kind of hates lila and absolutely isn’t going along with her or being a jerk on purpose but he can’t stop” marinette is like OKAY TIME TO CALL IN THE CAVALRY (adrien’s other closest friend, who may or may not have noticed what’s up with him since lila doesn’t care about fencing but who will definitely want to help)
and then kagami has noticed, so that’s yet more evidence… and when marinette looks up from her phone again, kagami having said she’s going to see if she can come over to marinette’s to compare observations and so on in person, alya and nino are staring at each other, silently, visibly more worried than before
marinette is kind of afraid to ask how things could get more concerning, but it’s almost worse that she doesn’t have to, because when alya starts talking she sounds hesitant and unhappy with the words coming out of her own mouth like she almost never does
and then the words start to sink in, and… sure enough, it’s worse, because of course alya’s right about the timing and marinette should have seen it, she’s been worried about what the absence of any sentimonsters means and about adrien’s behavior both since day one because they started the same day, and she’s just. absolutely kicking herself
and then ofc it’s nino who chimes in with the question, well if the adrien who’s been acting so strangely for the last couple weeks is a sentimonster under lila’s control… what happened to the real adrien? where has he been?
so then they all start worrying about the “real” adrien and how on earth they’re supposed to find him—if he’s been kidnapped by hawkmoth, where is he? is gabriel agreste having to work with hawkmoth to ensure the real adrien’s safety? if he had the chance would he work with ladybug to effect a rescue, or would he be too concerned about the potential danger and turn around and tell hawkmoth that ladybug was onto him? how often does he actually see adrien, let alone talk to him? does he even know?
but eventually it finally occurs to someone that if the “replacement” adrien is under lila’s control, but the peacock miraculous was in hawkmoth’s possession as of the day before things all went down—incidentally i keep saying they can pin it down to a specific day bc given that there’s been seventy-two m pigeons in less than nine months, oh my god, i assume there’s at least one akumatization almost every day and often more than one because otherwise how has there been time—then lila must have gotten the miraculous and/or the amok from hawkmoth and might be deliberately assisting him, which pretty much hits all three of them like a two-by-four
and i think it would be fun if while they’re all reeling from that is when kagami shows up
and they have to explain why they all look Like That, and fully (unconsciously) assume kagami is also going to be completely stunned but actually she pretty much just shrugs and takes it in stride bc sure that’s a logical conclusion given the evidence
and. well. it is, so.
at that point they back up to catch kagami up on the conversation she’d missed—marinette had covered the bases as of when they were texting, but there’s been A Few New Realizations since that, obviously
and i think it’s probably kagami who points out that while yes secrecy generally is probably better for the moment here, they do need to tell adrien, somehow
because he might be a sentimonster who’s been given false memories in order to replace the real adrien—incidentally, jumping forward, i think it’s probably kagami who’s mostly responsible for them figuring out that adrien is the real adrien and has just been a sentimonster all along, because that’s actually a much simpler explanation for everything, mostly, it’s just that it’s harder to think of in the first place—but based on her conversations with him, he genuinely does not know that and feels awful about how many people he’s hurt in the past few weeks and is scared and upset about whatever’s going on, and it’s going to be hard, but he deserves to know the truth
(i’m so glad there’s precedent with the ladybug episode where they have sympathy for a human sentibeing)
and okay i’m not sure if this actually makes sense but: marinette trying to convince “replacement” adrien that they absolutely do know that he’s a real person in his own right and even if he was made to be a duplicate of an existing person it’s not his fault and he deserves to have agency and the ability to live his own life and ladybug and chat noir will definitely agree and be glad to help find his amok and give it to him → adrien still questioning everything about his life/identity and kind of freaking out and like okay but how do you know → marinette trying to pretend she met sentibug at some point → adrien being like “no you definitely didn’t???” → marinette like “how would you know that” → adrien like “because i met her and saw her be destroyed and you weren’t there” → marinette like “okay no, i did, you weren’t” → cue identity reveal
also I like the idea of one big piece of proof that he isn’t a fake adrien is his being chat noir
i don’t think it’s adrien or marinette who thinks of it, though—they’re too busy like [spider-man point.jpg]
but one of the other three is like. okay so wait do you have your ring though? like does it still work? and adrien’s like yeah how did you think i’d been clinging on to sanity this whole time lmao, if i couldn’t hang out on rooftops without lila around and meet up with ladybug i would have completely lost it by now
[someone]: and lila doesn’t know
adrien: yeah, obviously
[someone]: so if hawkmoth created you a couple weeks ago to secretly replace adrien, how’d you get the real miraculous without knowing you were basically a clone, and without hawkmoth noticing that was a miraculous
[collective 😶]