Due to a chance encounter shortly after her akumatizated form Volpina was defeated, Lila receives the Fox Miraculous. Now Paris has a new superhero...one whose life has just become a lot more complicated.
Fox Rain
is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic by lordMartiya. The original version was last updated on September 12, 2019 and is now considered a Dead Fic. The author is now working on a rewrite that can be found here.
Examples:
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Tropes in Fox Rain
- Accidental Pervert: Ladybug notices that Vorpika's costume has an Adorable Fluffy Tail and can't help but stare at it, as she really wanted a pet fox as a child...but Vorpika thinks she was checking her ass.
- Adaptational Heroism: Pretty much everything Lila did in the Volpina episode is reframed as either her connections being found out against her will or her attempting to sarcastically play pranks under stress.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Lila goes exactly the inverse character development than in canon, becoming nicer rather than a villain, owed to Trixx's influence keeping her more rational and from being manipulated by Papillon and getting her closer to Marinette and Ladybug.
- Badass Bystander: This is how Lila meets Master Fu: as she was going back home after her original Akumatization she spotted four delinquents her age trying to mug Master Fu and scared them off by pretending Ladybug was about to jump them — and was actually ready to physically beat them up if that failed (and hopeful it happened and gave her the chance to vent some of her anger on them). She then escorted the old man to his home.
- Boring, but Practical: Vorpika (Lila's superhero alter ego) prefers this approach:
- In combat, she uses an illusion to make herself invisible or otherwise hide her approach and then hits the supervillain as hard as she can with whatever she finds, or just kicks and punches (her costume even has MMA gloves-like padding over the hands). And when she feels she owes a favor to Ladybug and Chat Noir, she pays them back by teaching them the basic one-two of boxing.
- How does she improve her skills? Practice: upon receiving the Fox Miraculous, she spends a whole night casting illusions (it helps her favorite snack is what Trixx uses to fuel his powers and that she already knows how to play the dizi), and later starts taking MMA classes, something that has the added benefit of helping her with her anger management issues by allowing her to vent on something.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Lila is prone to this whenever she switches to Italian. It's a Justified Trope as so far she hasn't spoken in standard Italian but in the Romanesco dialect (Rome's dialect), which in Italy is quite infamous for this and even has its own entry in the Real Life subpage.
- Cure Your Gays: One villain is a homophobe who wants to "cure" Lila of her supposed homosexuality. Papillon recalls the akuma and leaves the guy as is.
- Dream Reality Check: Lila finds the actual Fox Miraculous in her bedroom (given to her by Master Fu after she scared away some thugs who were harassing him by saying that Ladybug was nearby) with Trixx coming out to introduce himself. Lila initially thinks that Trixx is some sort of imaginary friend, which he disproves by giving her a smack to her head.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Papillon and Natalie are quite uncomfortable with the plan to manipulate Lila into losing all her friends to better manipulate her (though Natalie doesn't fully grasp the implications).
- Papillon won't Akumatize psychos, serial killers, and soldiers with PTSD, plus other people with certain mental problems, though Lila attributes it to not being suicidal enough.
- Everyone Has Standards: Chloé is her usual Alpha Bitch self but still has it in herself to try and foil an (ineffective) attempt from an unknown bully to get Lila akumatized.
- Hidden Depths:
- The trope is used with Lila from as early as the first chapter, where her reaction to the muggers harassing Master Fu is musing she could take them before driving them away by pretending Ladybug is arriving and uses the trope to make the point she could have been a hero, or at least an anti-hero, had things in canon gone just a little different. She also knows she needs a therapist, but her mother, for some reason, won't let her, and it's hinted that part of her attitude comes from having been a bullying victim and the guilt complex from an excessive retaliation.
- A good part of Papillon's act is just that: an act he pulls to make his supervillain persona different from his civilian one. And for all of his psychotic persona, he refuses to akumatize "people with certain mind troubles, such as legitimate psychos, serial killers, and soldiers with PTSD" as that would be far too dangerous.
- Colonel Hartmann, the military attache to the Italian embassy, is a nice and cool woman nicknamed "Leprotta" (little hare) for her habit of wearing her hair in twin tails. She also has PTSD serious enough that Papillon won't Akumatize her.
- Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier: Using a paraphrased movie quote, Vorpika calls Papillon "Papillon der grillo coi fiori'n mano", which, in the Romanesco dialect, translates into "Papillon of the cricket with flowers in the hand". The full quote (which the author refused to publish to protect the story's rating) is "Il Marchese del Grillo, coi fiori in mano e il cazzo a spillo", translating as "The Marquis of the Cricket, with flowers in his hands and a pin-shaped dick". Gabriel's none too pleased when he finds out what she called him.Hearing the shout, Adrien decided that maybe he wouldn’t ask Lila about the “grillo” thing.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: How Lila responds to Trixx's presence:Lila: Let’s see if I’ve understood what’s happening. You aren’t a figment of my imagination but the Quantic God of Illusions, for lack of a better term, and what makes the Fox Miraculous more than a jewel somehow older than civilization, your powers are fed by edible seeds in general but you have a very convenient preference for my favorite snack, and you’re here because the Guardian of the Miraculous thinks I can make a good hero… And he took the decision after I went Volpina, WHY?
- Morality Chain: Trixx acts as this to Lila, keeping her from her canonical descent into villainy by giving her the courage to not become a shut-in and fester on her anger and later warning her she was being manipulated by Papillon into mistrusting all her friends.
- Papa Wolf: Why does Zoe Chevalot keeps getting akumatized so much? She's Adrien's Stalker with a Crush. Since she's also the chief of police's daughter, Gabriel can't file a restraining order so he's doing this to get her committed.
- Refuge in Audacity: Vorpika decides to convince Gabriel to let Adrien back into school after he had been pulled out for stealing the Miraculous Book from his safe...so she claims she had brainwashed Adrien into doing it for her, hinting that The Pied Piper of Hamelin was a past Fox Miraculous Holder to give herself credibility, and throwing in her suspicions on Gabriel being Papillon (in which she didn't even believe anymore), that she covertly declares having a small dick through an incomplete movie quote that most of those present would be able to recognize (and laugh about), to keep him from thinking about it too much. It works.
- Revealing Cover Up: it turns out that Lila and some other people have started suspecting Gabriel Agreste of being Papillon because of his attempts to further cover up his secret identity in addition to the magic already doing it, as him publicly insulting Papillon and immediately getting targeted by four Akuma villains seemed suspicious, even with the villain's known temper. It gets to the point that, knowing that Ladybug has just got the Miraculous book, she flat-out tells Ladybug that if she's right "he’ll akumatize himself to throw off suspicions before the end of the day", mere minutes before he does just that. The only reason his identity is saved is that the various Miraculous users know they're immune to their own powers and have no idea he figured a way around that.
- Stealth Insult:
- The Akumatized identity of original character Zoe the Fangirl is named Rose Bride, as even Papillon thinks she's just as crazy as that series.
- The new superhero Vorpika refers to Papillon as "Papillon der grillo coi fiori'n mano", which in Rome's dialect translates as "Papillon of the cricket with flowers in the hand". She's paraphrasing a movie quote that is well-known in Italy and extremely vulgar, enough the author refuses to complete it to protect the story's rating.note
- Tame His Anger: Lila's anger is her biggest flaw and is hinted to be the reason why in canon she'd eventually become a villain, and both her friends from before Paris and Ladybug have made a point in helping her with it. In a variant, Lila is aware of this, she's just unable to keep it in check — and Ladybug snapping her out of an episode of anger is what makes her start to accept that maybe the heroine isn't a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. It's also hinted that Marinette used to have the same problem and has already learned that, and it's how she knew how to help Lila.
Tropes in Fox Rain V2
- Adaptational Name Change: Zoe the Fangirl’s full name in the original was Zoe Chevalot. Here, it’s Zoe du Moralle.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: Lila says this when Adrien explains Marinette and Chloé’s past history.Lila: Let me get this straight… You’re telling me they were childhood friends until Bourgeois, in a misguided attempt to earn her abusive mother’s love, became a royal pain to almost everyone in general and Marinette in particular for calling her on the attitude?
Adrien: Pretty much. There’s a few other things, like a transfer student from somewhere, her weird hatred for the name Zoe, and Father saying he hopes he gets plausible deniability with her mother, but that’s the important part. - Oh, No... Not Again!: Both Adrien and Gabriel have this reaction when Zoe is up to her usual Clingy Jealous Girl self.
- Point of Divergence: The events of "Rogercop" started with Zoe accusing Marinette of stealing her bracelet.
- Shout-Out: Lila caps off her "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Zoe by quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
