Fanfic / Raise Yourselves Up

Raise Yourselves Up (We're Done) is a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic by Unmasked Again.

When Lila convinces Marinette's classmates to have Bustier exclude her from the annual class trip, the classmates expect Marinette to be upset. Marinette, however, is completely nonplussed. She just accepts it and decides that she and her new friends — Chloé as well as others like Marc, Aurore, Kagami, and Ondine — will form their own World Travellers' Club, do some fundraising, and plan their own trip. As the year progresses, Marinette's group proves to be very successful at fundraising and planning, while her disorganized and clueless classmates struggle to put on any events or raise more than token sums. By the end of the year, when her classmates can only marvel at the fantastic trip Marinette and her friends are going on, they realize just what it was they lost when they forsook her in favor of Lila.

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This fanfic contains examples of:

• Adults Are Useless: Miss Bustier, full stop. Apparently she's so accustomed to pawning her responsibilities off on her class president that she doesn't know the first thing about what organizing a fundraiser actually entails, much less a school trip. When Chloé starts grilling her peers on what they've done to actually prepare, Bustier just sits there quietly, only reacting when Mylène declares she'll be their chaperone.
• All Take and No Give: Since Marinette is The Reliable One, Bustier grew used to kicking back and letting her handle everything that needed to be done on her own. She's so accustomed to this that it never occurs to her that Alya and the rest of her students might need her help this time... and once the truth comes out, the teacher tries to leech off of The World Travellers' Club instead.
• Always Need What You Gave Up:
  • As in many salt fics, the class abandons Marinette only to find that without her they can't plan any events, raise any money, or do any of the fun things she would have set up for them.
  • This also applies to Chloé. It turns out that she had her father fund thirty percent of the class's annual trip in previous years, but since she's on Marinette's side, her father gives money to the World Travellers' Club instead.
• Ambitious, but Lazy:
  • Despite wanting to go to New York, Alya and her classmates don't look into what arranging such a trip would entail, assuming that all they need to do is focus on the fundraising. And while they start brainstorming ideas right away, they don't actually start fundraising until Novemeber.
  • Applies even more acutely to Miss Bustier, who leaves her students to do all the hard work without so much as a hint of guidance, not bothering to handle anything on her end. Not even letting the school board know about their grandoise plans.
• Armor-Piercing Response: Downplayed; when Lila starts shedding Crocodile Tears and asking why Marinette and Chloé didn't help with their fundraising efforts, Nino points out that the two of them weren't invited. This doesn't stop Alya from lashing out.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • When the class attempts to rub in Marinette and Chloé's faces just how much they earned, the two share a glance before the latter asks "So you're not going to New York?" This completely floors everyone, as they had no idea that the amount they'd raised was nowhere near enough for their plans. She then poses a series of these that reveal just how little thought went into the whole endeavor.
  • When Alix yells that the two of them could have helped them out, Chloé bluntly asks "Why?" The whole class falls silent in response, not wanting to admit that they're responsible for pushing the pair away.
• Bachelor Auction: The Club's seventh fundraiser is a date auction. Marinette gets the highest bid, followed by Chloé, and together the club raises a couple thousand dollars.
• Beyond the Impossible: While meeting the Avengers, Marinette casually picks up Thor's hammer, astonishing everyone.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Alya and her classmates brag about their first victory and say "Beat that!", unaware that the club has, in fact, already beaten them by a good margin. Marinette and Chloé take to using the same phrase constantly to mock them.
• Bully Turned Buddy: Chloé stops bullying Marinette and becomes her only remaining friend in the class.
• Celebrity Cameo: The World Travellers' Club's sixth fundraiser is a raffle, one item of which is a personal meeting with Ladybug. Ladybug also shows up at the auction to draw more people. Between that and other high-end items (such as a luxury spa visit donated by Andre, an outfit by Marinette under her popular fashion brand of MDC, and so on), they raise thousands of dollars.
• Celebrity Crush: The class tries getting money from people who have one on Adrien when they do a raffle as their second fundraiser; one of the prizes is a signed autograph of Adrien. They do manage to pull in a thousand dollars, but when they try bragging about it, the World Travellers' Club just bursts out laughing.
• Celebrity Superhero: Marinette indulges in this when she becomes Ladybug, shows up at the Club's raffle, and lets the club raffle off a meet-and-greet with her so her fans will buy tickets and make money for the club.
• Crossing the Burnt Bridge:
  • Once it becomes clear that the class won't be able to go to New York after all, Miss Bustier and Adrien attempt to convince Marinette and Chloé to let them tag along with the World Travelers' Club. The pair shoot their suggestions down, pointing out that even if they were willing to let everyone join them, there's simply not enough time to make any of the necessary arrangements.
  • Lila attempts to play Fair-Weather Foe and cozy up to Marinette so she can join the Club, only to get turned away.
  • Rose also tries to mend fences with the two at the start of the following school year, proposing that Marinette could even become their class president again. Her efforts are rejected as well.
• Death Glare:
  • Marinette gives Chloé a half-hearted one of these when she immediately donates to their Club's Go-Fund-Me five minutes after she announces its existence. She later gives a proper glare after Jagged Stone and Clara each throw in five grand.
  • Tom and Sabine greet Alya with one when she enters their bakery for the first time since she broke off her friendship with Marinette.
  • Alya and the rest of the class glare at Marinette and Chloé when the two respond to her bragging about how much they raised with their raffle by collapsing with laughter.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Captain Cold is completely taken aback when the World Travellers' Club not only sticks around to watch him and several of the other members of Flash's Rogues Gallery fight the superhero, but Marinette helps him up after he takes an especially hard blow. Then they ask if they can take a few selfies, causing him to muse that there really is a first time for everything.
  • Played for Laughs when the members of the World Travellers' Club each try to lift Thor's Hammer. Everyone is taken aback when Marinette actually manages it, including Marinette herself.
• Didn't Think This Through: A Running Theme:
  • Miss Bustier informs Marinette and Chloé that they won't be permitted to join their classmates for their annual trip at the end of the school year. She fails to consider that Marinette has always been the one who handled all of the arrangements, including all the paperwork and fundraising efforts, while Chloé always had her father donate a large chunk of the money required. Without either girl involved, those responsibilities fall upon others, and the teacher completely fails to step up and handle any of it herself.
  • The class decides to hold their car wash in November, without taking the weather into account. As a result, very few customers show up to it.
  • Alya comes up with doing a bake sale after recalling how much they made from the last one... which succeeded in no small part due to Marinette's parents providing plenty of free baked goods. Something they can no longer rely upon after having burned bridges with the Dupain-Chengs.
  • After managing to raise just over $5,829 during the year, the class is excited about their proposed trip to New York. Marinette and Chloé break it to them that $5,829 won't be nearly enough to take thirteen kids plus chaperones to New York for a full week. They then ask what numbers the class was using to budget, and it turns out that the class didn't budget or plan at all — they just focused on raising money, and once they earned a few thousand dollars, they figured that was all they needed to do in order to set the trip up.
• Dramatic Irony: When the class manages to raise just over a thousand dollars with their raffle, Alya attempts to rub their success in Marinette and Chloé's face, smugly challenging them to "Beat that!" ...while blissfully unaware of just how much money the World Travellers' Club has already raised.
• Dramatically Missing the Point:
  • When Marinette and Chloé are spelling out just how much the class has failed to take into account when planning their trip, Mylène responds to Marinette mentioning how they need to arrange chaperones by piping up that Miss Bustier will be their chaperone. The teacher in question promptly puffs up proudly, ignoring how the girls have been systematically explaining all the things they've overlooked.
  • After hearing that none of their paperwork or passports are in order, Adrien and Miss Bustier still believe that Marinette and Chloé can "fix everything" for them by inviting the class to join them on their trip, even though all of that necessary documentation remains undone.
• Entitled Bastard: Despite having forbidden the pair from accompanying them on the class trip, Miss Bustier fully expects them to invite the whole class to join the World Travellers' Club on their adventure.
• Evil Is Petty: After learning that the World Travellers' Club has been far more successful with their fundraising efforts, Lila and Alya try to have Principal Damocles shut the group down.
• The Food Poisoning Incident: The class bake sale ends with four people getting food poisoning, with Kim as one of the victims. It's noted that they're lucky they didn't get sued.
• Fundraiser Carnival: The Club's eighth fundraiser is a festival carnival.
• Green-Eyed Monster: It's noted in passing that during the Club's big trip, Marinette has to use Kaalki to Portal back to Paris several times in order to deal with akuma. The majority of said akuma are sparked by sheer jealousy.
• Haunted House: The World Travellers' Club does one of these as their fourth fundraiser. They only raise a few hundred dollars, much less than their other events, but they have a blast.
• Hidden Depths: At the pool party fundraiser, it's revealed that Kagami is highly skilled at creating balloon animals.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Non-fatal example; by convincing Miss Bustier to ban Marinette and Chloé from the class trip, Lila, Alya and the rest of the class unintentionally set themselves up for failure.
• Ice Queen: Marinette and Chloé are described as this by the end of the story when they're refusing to help the class plan their next trip.
• Ironic Echo:
  • When bragging about how they raised just over a thousand dollars with their raffle, Alya challenges Marinette and Chloé to "Beat that!" Both girls find this absolutely hilarious, turning "Beat that!" into an In-Joke for the World Travellers' Club. At the end of the story, they bring this up again:
    Marinette: Good luck with your trip, though. Who knows? If you're lucky, it'll be as fun as your last one. We know you worked so hard. Raised over $5,000, right?
    Chloé: Beat that!
  • They also echo the class' former assertion that having the pair along would be "too much drama".
• Lethal Chef: After banning Marinette from their trip and then being informed they're no longer welcome at her family's bakery, the class tries to make some baked goods to sell at a bake sale. The only one who manages to make anything edible is Rose, whose sugar cookies are the best seller. As for the rest... they're so bad that several people get food poisoning.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The class meets characters from both the DC universe, like Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne, and the Marvel universe, like the Avengers. They even meet some of Flash's rogues and charm them into giving photographs and answering interview questions along with Team Flash.
• Moral Myopia: As far as Miss Bustier, Adrien and most of the class is concerned, there was absolutely nothing wrong with barring two of their classmates from joining them on the annual trip. Yet they also see it as horrendously unfair that Marinette and Chloé won't let them piggyback off of all of their hard work and invite them along on their trip. Downplayed slightly in that Nino points out the obvious flaw in their reasoning; it's simply that the majority of the class doesn't want to hear it.
• Never Filled Out Official Paperwork: Without Marinette to handle planning for them, the class didn't remember to get their passports. They also didn't file any of the needed paperwork with the school for an overseas trip. They thus couldn't go to New York (although they didn't have the money to go there anyway).
• Never My Fault: After the class realizes they can't do any of their grandiose plans due to a lack of funds, they begin bemoaning their fates and wondering what went wrong. Alya insists that it can't be their fault because they did all the usual fundraisers like a car wash and bake sale, so any problems must be due to some outside factor.
• Persona Non Grata: Alya finds that she and the rest of the class are no longer welcome in the Dupain-Cheng bakery.
• Plot Parallel: Most of the story follows the miserable fundraising efforts of Bustier's students, which are paralleled and compared to the far more successful efforts of the World Travellers' Club. Some of these are the same type of events, such as both groups holding a car wash and a raffle; others show off how the World Travellers' Club is more creative. They also wind up having far more fun along the way, having a blast at their least successful event.
• Pool Scene: The World Travellers' Club's second fundraiser is a pool party. Thanks to music provided by Luka and his new band, and a variety of concessions and art products available for sale (such as balloon animals made by Kagami and temporary tattoos made by Marinette and Marc), they raise thousands of dollars.
• Poor Communication Kills: Miss Bustier's students assume that all they have to do is raise money, while their teacher assumes that she can just kick back and let the kids handle everything that goes into arranging a school trip. By the time Chloé and Marinette start asking pointed questions about their (lack of) budgeting and pre-planning, it's far too late for them to salvage any of their grandiose plans.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Played With twice over:
  • Lila tries to cozy up to Marinette and join the World Travellers' Club; it's clear that she's only "seen the error of her ways" in the sense that she's realized how much it would benefit her to be their False Friend. Naturally, this doesn't work, and she's officially barred from joining.
  • After seeing how incredible the World Travellers' Club's big summer trip was, Rose approaches Marinette and Chloé asking if the former would like to become their class president again and join them on their school trip. Most of her peers glower and glare at the girls, making clear that they don't really want them back, but just want to mooch off their success and enjoy the fruits of their labors. Naturally, they get rejected.
• Removing the Crucial Teammate: Miss Bustier bluntly informs Marinette and Chloé that they're banned from the annual class trip, which they take as permission to not bother helping with any of the fundraising efforts. Turns out that not only did Marinette handle all of the organizing of said efforts, Chloé's father typically donated massive amounts of money to ensure each trip got funded.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Lila and Alya try to exploit this by having Damocles cancel the Club's trip, but the Club outmaneuvers him by getting the school board involved and force him to back down.
• Start My Own: The World Travellers' Club effectively serves as Marinette and Chloé's way of organizing their own big trip after being banned from joining their classmates on their annual school trip.
• Stopped Caring: When Alya complains that Marinette could have warned her about some of the pitfalls the class was likely to run into, she accuses Marinette of no longer caring about them. Marinette agrees and says she hasn't even thought about the class for months.
• The Team Benefactor: In addition to Chloé's father, some of Marinette's rich contacts such as Jagged Stone and Clara Nightingale donate thousands of dollars to the World Travellers' Club trip. Kagami's mother does the same.
• They Just Dont Get It: After the class realizes their plans are ruined, Bustier and Adrien ask Marinette if the class can just tag along on their trip. Marinette and Chloé have to explain, again, that the class hasn't filled out any of the needed paperwork and also doesn't have the money to pay for any of it, so that won't be possible.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • After Juleka points out that the reason their fundraising sucked and their plans are ruined is that they shunned Marinette, who usually handles both fundraising and planning, Lila complains that Marinette should have helped them because they needed it. Nino has to tell her that they're the ones who excluded Marinette so they can hardly complain about Marinette not wanting to help them.
  • Alix and Alya also complain that Marinette should have helped them, despite them shunning her.
• Video Arcade: After a local arcade closes down, the World Travellers' Club is able to borrow their games for a day in exchange for some pet-sitting and set up an arcade in the gym to do their third fundraiser.
• World Tour: The World Travellers' Club is so successful they're able to fund a two-month world tour for themselves, visiting both real-world locations like Los Angeles and New York, as well as locations from other franchises like Star City, Central City, Metropolis, and Gotham.

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