"Let’s just buy that I’m a future you from another world who’s seen your future and knows that if nothing is done, everybody’s screwed."
—Bunnyx
Alix Kubdel is having an ordinary day when a superheroine jumps out from a portal and gives her a warning: within a week, Chat Noir is going to screw up so badly that he'll lose his Miraculous while Lila gets away with horrible actions. The superheroine is desperate to avert this fate, but because she's from another universe, if she just reveals who the heroes are or otherwise acts too directly she could cause paradoxes, time loops, and other problems.
She therefore decided that her best course of action was to talk to the version of her in this universe — Alix herself, now dubbed 'Karmic Alix' by her counterpart — and get her to do something about the upcoming catastrophe.
Karmic Alix thus finds herself tasked by her alternate-universe self with averting a major disaster despite having no information about the real identities of the heroes that she's trying to stop from self-destructing. Compounding that problem is another time traveller, one wielding the power of the Butterfly (but insisting he's not Hawkmoth) who seems determined to make sure the original timeline goes off without a hitch.
Down the Karmic Hole is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic by Exotos135. It's based on the previous fanfic The Karma of Lies and features Bunnyx working with Karmic Alix, Fu and others to try to avert the events of that story before they happen. It can be read here
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This fanfic contains examples of:
- Alternate Self: The story begins by having Alix meet one of her own, Bunnyx, who tells her about the potential future and tasks her with preventing it.
- Alternative-Self Name-Change: Played With. The Alix that comes from the Karma of Lies universe is dubbed "Karmic Alix" by Bunnyx in order to be able to tell them apart. However, since the alternate Alix is always in her Bunnyx form, she's generally called Bunnyx while Karmic Alix goes simply by Alix.
- Alternate Timeline: The main setting of the story is one where allegedly the events of The Karma of Lies happens, but a week before the chains of events that led to them, Alix gets visited by Bunnyx, who tells her everything about what's to come and tasks her with preventing the bad future from happening.
- Ambiguously Human: Alongside their identity being a mystery, Temporal Moth gains some question marks regarding how human he actually is. Not only is he completely cloaked, but when Bunnyx tries to keep him in place with her umbrella, he gets up, walks right through it, then flicks Bunnyx hard enough to send her flying into a wall.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear who the butterfly user is. The Karma of Lies had the Butterfly Miraculous wind up with Rose, who didn't use its powers but got along with Nooroo and took care of the butterfly swarm. It has not been specified, however, if this butterfly user is still Rose, if it's another person from the 'Karma' universe, or if it's someone from a different universe entirely.
- Ascended Extra:
- Alix was just another classmate in the original story, but this story has her be given the task by her alternate future self to prevent the Bad Future that is the original Karma of Lies from happening.
- To a lesser extent, there's also Master Fu. He was barely present for the original story, but this one has Bunnyx not only tell him about the potential future that will come if nothing changes, but also meets with Alix herself and gifts her the Snake Miraculous for safekeeping, even subtly revealing the activation and deactivation codes for her to use it.
- Awful Truth: As Temporal Moth eagerly confirms to Bunnyx, not only is he a triple Miraculous user, but the timeline they're in isn't 1:1 the original Karma timeline, as Master Fu is still around despite the original timeline taking place after he would've sacrificed his memories to make Marinette the new guardian.
- Bad Future: Technically bad present, but the Karma of Lies timeline is painted by the alternate Bunnyx as this, with her traveling back a week before those events in order to have her counterpart avert those events, with some help from Master Fu.
- Cryptically Unhelpful Answer: As soon as Bunnyx learns that she has some competition in changing the timeline, she furiously asks Temporal Moth what his motive is for protecting such a Bad Future. Temporal Moth basically brushes her off by calling her arrogant for not considering that the butterfly effect might lead to a far WORSE result.
- Didn't See That Coming: Bunnyx admitted that she expected to encounter some difficulties in averting the future she foresaw. She did NOT expect another time traveler, unknown even to her, on a mission to keep the timeline on track.
- Double-Meaning Title: "Down the Karmic Hole" refers to not only the presence of Bunnyx and the Rabbit Miraculous - as the phrase is a pun on "down the rabbit hole", which means to go fall down into a surreal situation, which fits the sudden arrival of an alternate Bunnyx - but to the fact this takes place in an alternate version of The Karma of Lies.
- Fusion Dance: As it eventually turns out, the Butterfly user, Temporal Moth, is in fact a wielder of Butterfly, Peacock, and Rabbit Miraculous, making him a fused wielder against Bunnyx's singular Miraculous.
- Help Yourself in the Future: Sort of. Bunnyx, who's the future version of Alix, travels back in another timeline's past to warn her counterpart's past self about what's going to happen.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: This work opens by revealing most of the twists and outcomes of The Karma of Lies.
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right: While Bunnyx goes back to the past to get her alternate counterpart to change events so The Karma of Lies doesn't happen, Temporal Moth decides to do the opposite; ensure that the events go on as planned, although in doing this, he ends up getting Adrien akumatized.
- Misanthrope Supreme: The butterfly user tries to turn Adrien into this, warning him of his fate in the original timeline and convincing him that everyone around him are horrible and judgmental liars who will laugh at his pain while praising Ladybug despite her not doing anything to help him. Ultimately, the butterfly wielder is able to Akumatize him based on this.
- Never Shall The Selves Meet: Averted. Alix encountering her alternate future self, Bunnyx, is the basis that sets the plot forward.
- Original Character: Temporal Moth, a mysterious Butterfly Miraculous wielder who goes to the same timeline as Karmic Alix in order to ensure that the events that led to The Karma of Lies remain unchanged.
- Recursive Fanfiction: For The Karma of Lies. This fic is largely about changing a timeline to stop the events of that one from happening and thus stopping Adrien, among others, from suffering horribly.
- Revealing Continuity Lapse: Bunnyx gets some details about the Karma of Lies timeline wrong, such as by saying that Lila gets the Black Cat Miraculous there (which never happens; in that story the Ring goes to Luka after Adrien loses it). The author noted in the comments that this was Bunnyx mixing up details from other timelines, indicating that she's having trouble keeping the various potential disasters straight.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The basis of the story; Bunnyx, as in the future Alix, discovers the future that will befall the Karma of Lies timeline if nothing happens, but finds herself unable to interfere without risking a paradox, so she decides to ask her counterpart from that timeline to undo the bad future instead.
- Terminator Twosome: Bunnyx and Temporal Moth are this, with Bunnyx fighting to change the timeline and Temporal Moth struggling to keep everything the same.
- Ticking Clock: Bunnyx states that Hawkmoth's final battle — the one where, in the original story, he was exposed and thus started the chain of events which completely destroyed Adrien's life — will happen within a week. That means Karmic Alix and Fu only have seven days or so to try to change things before Adrien is hopelessly doomed.
