#witch hunter

@zoe-oneesama, since you are part of this, too.

SO.

I had a whole thing written up. A whole thing. And it was so awesome! I was so proud and happy with it. I was one paragraph away from being done and posting my glorious synopsis for the world to see. And then the screen refreshed, and I lost it all.  DX

So here’s my slightly less awesome description of the idea that I had to try and recover through memory. Fallible inferior memory of what could’ve been:

So if we’re ignoring Lila’s development and how glorious it would be to have Witch Hunter targeting Scar at the climax of the fall of her popularity, this would be a little more difficult to work with. Difficult, but still very much doable.

There are two ways it could work.

The first would be that Scar DIDN’T out Lila to the entire class so no one besides Chloe knows Lila is a liar. Perhaps the lazy option and closest to Canon, but it still works better than the Canon setup. Chloe would try to tell people that Lila is a liar and it would make sense that no one believes her because…well…it’s Chloe. She’s a known liar herself. AND a bully.

Of course, there’s still the matter of Adrien falling into jerk territory for not telling anyone that Lila is a liar, but given that this IS Scarlet Lady Adrien, we can arguably attribute his poor decision-making to his lack of sleep and added stress from solo hero duty. As such, I’m willing to give this iteration of him a break for not wanting to deal with the added drama between two girls he doesn’t want to be around anyway. Plus, it would be hilarious to see Chloe and Lila sabotaging themselves sabotaging each other in their attempts to rule the class and “win” him, only for each episode to end with Adrien hanging out with Marinette or Nino, because the boy deserves nice things and I live for the bromance.

The second option would be that Lila is outted but fakes her redemption arc.

After all, the classmates are naturally very easily forgiving of people. And Lila is a new student. All she would have to do is apologize and make up some claims, and they would totally be on board with still being friends.

Sure, they would take any of her future lies with a grain of salt, but that would only be her tall tales. Specifically her lies about connections and fame and the lies meant to make her seem “bigger than life“. That wouldn’t quite be the case for the lies made to make her seem weak and vulnerable. Especially if she kickstarts her new brand of manipulation by being just that.

“I’m SO sorry! *sobsob* I was so nervous being the new girl in a new school, and I was scared you wouldn’t like me. And you all are so cool that I wanted to be as amazing as you. *sob* I didn’t mean to hurt anyone! Could you ever forgive me? *sadface*”

And you know they would. Which would make for a particularly sinister form of emotional manipulation as she plays up the remorseful act. “I understand if you don’t believe me. It’s okay if you don’t forgive me yet.” Which would immediately invoke reassurance that of course they believe her and of course they forgive her! Which would distract from her current manipulations and suspicious behaviors. Emotional appeals are like that—focus on feelings and respond to those feelings instead of facts or truth.

And since Lila is “working so hard to be better”, of course they would want to support her in her efforts. Such as say, charity work. She may not go so far as to make up a charity like she did in the OG BURN THE WITCH!, but she can collect funds…which can then “mysteriously disappear” on the way to their final destination.

Meanwhile, Chloe would be the only one actively against it, which would make her a character for Lila to work off of. Nothing makes a liar look good like having someone else look like a bully. And Chloe’s attempts to out Lila for her manipulations wouldn’t get anywhere since it would be brushed off as Chloe being vindictive and not forgiving Lila over a past petty issue that everyone else has already moved on from. Which works both in and out of story because it is true. Right for the wrong reasons and all.

Unfortunately, this does mean that Chloe would get to do the “I Told You So” Dance when Lila does eventually pull her final stunt and gets caught.

Which would lead to Witch Hunter. It could be Rose again, though since the charity would be verified and she would be dating Ali this go around, he wouldn’t likely be mad or blame Rose for being deceived so she may feel less like her world is ripped out from under her. Mylene would also be an option as given her activism and involvement in the community, it’s something she would take seriously. It could even be Ivan or one of the boys. I’m not picky!

There are options!

So regardless, SOMEone is getting akumatized to burn a witch. 

…which would lead to two major problems in story.

The first, of course, would be that Scar is our Ladybug hero and she would happily let Lila burn. This girl intentionally led akumas to Marinette TWICE previously in the comic and also tried to hand her over to zombies another time—not even as a sacrifice or needed act to protect herself but simply out of pure spite. You KNOW she would get Lila caught immediately. She wouldn’t even be affected by the akuma. She would just hand her over and watch the show.

The second problem is that depending on when this takes place in the comic timeline, Marinette may not yet be Marigold. And since she wasn’t the one to out Lila, depending on which of the earlier mentioned to out Lila or not to out Lila versions we take, she may not be already aware of the depth of Lila‘s selfishness, which would make her susceptible to Witch Hunter and likely make her a part of the angry mob...assuming she doesn’t get akumatized into Witch Hunter herself.

Which means it would be up to Chat. A very tired, incredibly stressed out, and just about “done with this sh**” Chat. To save someone he hates from consequences she arguably deserves. All while resisting the urge to cataclysm her himself. 

Especially if she’s wasting time trying to manipulate him. Especially especially if Marinette follows the role of her self from the OG and tries to help Lila only for Lila to pull another “sudden but inevitable betrayal” and try to leave Marinette to the mercy of the mob.

His responses are open for debate at this point.

On the one hand, being the main hero and already hating Lila would grant him protection from the control effect so he could still save the day. And I imagine he would be SIGNIFICANTLY more terrifying than Ladybug was in the aftermath. See Ladybug’s “I will follow you around and make your life exceedingly unpleasant using the circumstances you have created and brought upon yourself” To The Pain vs Chat’s “Let me describe to you what Cataclysm can do to the human body. In detail.” Real Horror with serious implications and be careful with what you try to touch in the future *politesmile*.

…on the other hand, it amuses me to imagine Chat gets affected and helps stop Witch Hunter anyway. Either because he’s just that resigned to the job, because he sees Scar wants Lila burned and even when he’s under the akuma’s influence he still despises Scar more, or because Marinette remains sane and manages to navigate him to help either through cunning or out of his love for her.

……on the other OTHER hand, we were denied an akumatized Marinette in the comic and this could be a way to do it. Chat stays sane and ends up convincing Akumanette to stop out of her love for him to be the bigger person. Yes. Totally.

Chat: (Hugs Akumanette)

Marinette: (Deakumatizes)

Scar: (In background) Booooo. Laaaaame.

Lila: (Tied to a pole) Still tied up here!

Chat: Eh, you’ll be fine.

And since Akumanette is defeated and everyone is freed from the mob control with her defeat, there’s no need for the Cure. So we get the festival still set up and Chat and Mari can have a date.

And they may or may not leave Lila tied up while they do. Plus Lila is still left drenched in Seine water. So all in all, not a pleasant experience. And ultimately, she ends up in the same boat she was at the end of the original story, which I think is what everyone really wanted anyway.

Sadly, that includes Chloe. She will count it as a victory and be bragging about it for a while. A long while. 

Welp this is my first post on here, and its about the 2.0 AU! I actually made these back in January, so some of the manager designs got some revisits since then! Especially Graham. He went through a lot

Don't know how to start so I'll just yap about the basic lore: