A Recursive Fanfiction inspired by The Lament Series by ChaoticNeutral, Recklessness
explores the idea of Alya deciding to use the Wish to discover Hawk Moth's Secret Identity.
After all, it's not like that could possibly backfire, right? Surely the only reason Marinette hasn't done that already is because she simply didn't think of it. Good thing she's got a friend like Alya watching her back, ready to step in and save the day with her insight!
But wait... why is she resisting? Why is she so upset...? Why's she acting like this is a horrible idea? Well, no matter; all she has to do is get the Earrings, make her Wish, and prove she's right?
Right...?
This fanfic contains examples of:
- Accidental Murder: Thanks to Alya not thinking things through, she gets Adrien akumatized and forced to kill Marinette.
- Accusation Fic: The story takes Alya to task for her canonical tendency to betray Marinette's trust and force her into uncomfortable situations while claiming she knows what's best for her.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: The Kwami give Alya the biggest karmic backfire they can give her: she wished to know the true identity of Hawk Moth? In the reset reality, she is Hawk Moth.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Alya carelessly wishes to learn Hawk Moth's identity, and gets her answer... in the form of an Alternate Universe that serves as Laser-Guided Karma for her.
- Call-Back: Marinette realizes that Alya has completely betrayed her trust before, such as her Shipper on Deck antics during their trip to New York, even though Alya knew that both she and Adrien were dating other people at the time and Marinette had specifically told her she wanted to get to know him as a friend.
- Didn't Think This Through: Played for Drama; Alya decides to use the Wish to uncover Hawk Moth's Secret Identity, blithely ignoring the fact that this entails rewriting reality.
- Dramatically Missing the Point:
- Alya realized that Marinette likely wouldn't approve of her plan... but instead of considering any of the potential reasons why, attempts to circumvent that by stealing the Earrings while she's sleeping.
- When Marinette resists her attempts to take the Earrings, Alya doesn't understand why she's fighting back, accusing her of not wanting anyone to be more powerful than her.
- After she inadvertently gets Marinette killed, Alya reassures herself that hey — this'll make it easier to take the other Earring now!
- Expendable Alternate Universe: In a variant, Alya figures that it doesn't matter how far she goes in order to secure the Earrings and Ring for herself, since reality will be rewritten once she makes her Wish. So she shrugs off Adrien's akumatization and Marinette's death as no big deal.
- Fatal Flaw: Alya's come to the fore here and drive the plot: she's impulsive, leaping to conclusions and coming up with Zany Schemes while convinced of her own brilliance. Once she's set her mind to something, no amount of warning can break through to her — after all, she knows better than everyone else!
- Jackass Genie: The Kwami, naturally quite pissed over Alya getting Marinette killed, decide to fulfil her wish to know Hawk Moth's identity in the way that screws her over most; instead of creating a situation where she discovers Hawk Moth's identity, they make it so that she knew who Hawk Moth was all along... because of course she'd know about her own supervillain identity.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Alya goes careening over the edge when she decides to steal the Earrings and Ring to make her Wish, and shrugs off Marinette's death as no big deal since reality's about to be rewritten anyway.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Alya sincerely believes that she just knows better than Marinette, the Kwami, and everyone else who knows about the dangers of the Wish.
- Lack of Empathy: Alya displays this, dismissing Marinette's reaction to her betrayal and Adrien and her parents sobbing over their daughter's corpse as 'needlessly dramatic'.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Alya gets her Wish, at the cost of Marinette dying and Adrien being her (quite unwilling) killer, and the Kwami make sure to get their revenge: in the rewritten reality, Gabriel Agreste is not Hawk Moth - it's Alya.
- Moral Myopia: Alya, full stop. She's thoroughly convinced that everything she's doing is fine because she's the one doing it, and she knows what she's doing—!
- Mundane Utility: Played for Drama and Horror. Rather than discovering Hawk Moth's identity through investigative work, Alya decides to magically divine the answer through a Wish, blowing off the potential consequences.
- Outliving One's Offspring: The Dupain-Chengs get a nasty dose of this when they wake up to discover their daughter was just murdered.
- Reality Warping Is Not a Toy: Making a Wish on the combined Miraculi of Creation and Destruction completely rewrites reality in order to grant it. This is why Marinette refuses to even consider making one herself... but Alya dismisses the dangers as no big deal, assuming her Wish will give her exactly what she needs to stop Hawk Moth once and for all.
- Recursive Fanfiction: For The Lament Series, inspired by ChaoticNeutral's proposal for Alya's Lament.
- Simple Solution Won't Work: Played for drama and horror. The whole plot happens because Alya Cesaire decides, out of the blue, that the best way to finally discover who Hawk Moth is once and for all is to utilize the Wish that is granted to those who have both the Cat and Ladybug Miraculouses to obtain the information. She was told that Reality Warping Is Not a Toy, but insists in her mind that such a simple wish should make for a low chance of backlash, and goes for it anyway. What makes this a horrific example is that in her impulsive desire to apply said "simple solution" she casually dismisses betraying her best friends to steal the Miraculouses, which leads to Adrien getting Akumatized and to him murdering Marinette, which will lead to the Kwami making sure Alya gets a huge karmic backfire as revenge.
- Single Tear: Shed by Adrien while akumatized, seeing the remains of Marinette.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: The plot is kicked off by Alya impulsively deciding to make a Wish to learn Hawk Moth's identity, brazenly barging ahead with her plan despite all it entails.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Marinette is completely floored by Alya's betrayal, calling her out for even considering using the Wish and risking the lives of everyone in existence for the sake of her ill-considered plan.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Alya sees herself as The Heroine of this story, seeing the solution everybody else missed that was right in front of their noses. The notion that there might be a reason Marinette didn't want to use the Wish never occurs to her, or the dangers of making Wishes that are granted by rewriting reality itself.
- You're Just Jealous: Alya makes clear that she considers herself to be much smarter than Marinette, accusing her of not wanting anyone to outshine her.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Averted. While Hawk Moth congratulates Alya on doing his job for him, she doesn't even bat a lash, brushing off his comments.
