Decided to make this a separate post instead of reblogging from this. It made me think of something I put in N2CaTs. To give a quick summary of what this fic is about, it's a time travel fic that jumps off of Ephemeral, giving Marinette's scheme to figure out Chat Noir's identity a different consequence: he gets lost in time and another cat hero from the distant future gets dragged in his place - I made it like that cause I would've liked it if her frankly horrible plan to take advantage of his trust was given some kind of consequence she could not ignore instead of being thrown under the rug like in canon.
Anyway, for people who may not wanna bother clicking the link, lemme just summarize what I wanted to focus on: the post discusses about possible punishments or penalties for Marinette to make her learn her lesson. The reblog suggests she get to see someone else with the Ladybug miraculous do a better job than her. I see the merits of that.
One of the hits at Marinette in N2CaTs I've written down is that I let her get to see her successor Shizubug when an akuma exposed her to Blair's memories of him. I remembered my intent for that was to show her she had options she didn't try (especially considering how Ephemeral actually ended) like directly arguing with the guardian, standing her ground and defending her partner from getting his miraculous potentially revoked. She gave up after one weak argument against Suhan who's just throwing wild accusations at Chat Noir when he doesn't even know him compared to her.
Shizuke is up against a more justified guardian now that Hawkmoth knows Blair's identity - making her a liability to keep. While I think I could've added a little more in N2CaTs, like a follow-up scene revealing Shizubug seriously considered going behind the guardian's back (as in, he did asked Blair if he could tell her his identity regardless of what the guardian said) or preparing to fight the guardian over his partner (mainly Shizubug expressing his lack of trust and respect for the guardian whom he is only now meeting, contrast to Blair who grew up on stories of the Miraculous and was more accepting of a guardian's authority)... Contrary to Shizuke's model minority appearance, he's not as much of a blind follower as people expect (... Shizuke, Keagan and Fiona are best friends for a reason). I think or I can only hope it still came across how that scene is meant to be like a what-if for Marinette... What if she chose to spoke up instead of scheme?
That situation is supposed to somewhat parallel Marinette's in Ephemeral where a guardian pressured her to learn Chat Noir's identity fearing he could be a threat if left unchecked. It rubs it into Marinette what she should've done cause of what she ended up doing instead caused a huge mess in time, so many time-lost people and things including Blair and her Chat Noir.
Something that I should've mentioned in that chapter was that Shizuke didn't just blindly insisted Blair should stay as Chat Noire, he offered some back up plans and everyone involved is in the room with him - including a reluctant Blake who took up the Fox Miraculous as Shizubug presented it as his way of protecting his sister after her identity was exposed. It was completely different from the messy web of secrets Blair is slowly uncovering with Marinette's team and it's subtly contrasted from time to time with how Shizubug and the guardian kept Blair team in the loop.
It's brought up from time to time too on Adrien's end. The first day Adrien was stuck in the future, Shizuke reassured him that Blair is kept on the same page as him especially regarding the people who knew her identity - hell, Shizuke was slightly offended when Adrien questioned if Blair knew about all these people knowing her identity, it's why he was so firm when he told him he would never pull anything behind Blair's back.
Blair shows off she knows how to make potions or use guardian tools around Marinette even if she isn't a candidate for guardianship. There's this way Shizuke and Blair take it as a given that they both should know as much as the other can and are repeatedly getting shocked with how little Adrien is allowed to know. Marinette is also surprised a lot at how Blair is treated and her position in the team, the way Blair can easily take command if Marinette so much as pauses for 2 seconds - Blair's team doesn't work like hers, but they're doing just fine. It's to slowly hammer Marinette out of her tunnel vision so she can see how things could be, and the things she justify as having done cause she thought she had no other choice. She did, in fact, had a choice. Even more of a choice than Shizubug cause the guardian for his generation is still around and the only secrets he's keeping from Blair is his own identity.
It's also to gently coax Adrien into seeing that how he's treated is unfair. It's why, spoiler alert, Shizuke ended up taking Adrien up to give him a few tips and tricks in the week he's stuck with them cause it's dawned on Shizuke how little he seems to know and all he's planning to teach Adrien were the basic stuff - a quick lesson on how to better resist akuma and the basic of reading qi flow for mirakungfu. It's also the way Adrien gets to interact with the team and find not just Blake but even Princess Honey has anecdotes on Blair - they don't all go through Shizubug. Heck, Blake is more connected through Blair than Shizubug. Blair was not isolated and has actual bonds with all of her team mates, unlike Adrien who only knew a few of them were his classmates but they barely interact as superheroes. He can't quite say "I taught my team mate this-" or quote the other on a joke they just said, Princess Honey had her own handful of stories of Blaircat to share despite only having joined the team 2 weeks ago. It's more than Adrien could say about his team mates despite having worked together for months. Saddest is other than Ladybug, he felt most connected to whoever was Scarabella and he doesn't even know she's still on the team as Rena Furtive. It's something I want to get through to Adrien how what he has with his bug and the team, it's not like what Shizubug and Blaircat has with their much smaller team. He wants what they have, even if just a fraction of it (no I don't believe what s6 said about him not wanting a back up hero or confidante, that's probably just there to make people shut up about Adrien being isolated cause Marinette's leadership is supposed to be perfect. Always gonna remember this guy broke out of his house because he wanted to go to school to make friends). What can he do to get it? He can't trust his bug to just change to this.
Marinette may justify everything she's doing, all the secrets and the scheming and having to hold all the cards were necessary but they're not. It's just as unfair to her, as Shizuke may say. Or even Blair as she keeps dragging Suhan through the mud before she learned who cooked that scheme that sent her to the past to begin with.
Anyway, yeah, seeing another Ladybug doing things differently from Marinette, I see the merits of the plot.
