The Most Hated Girl In Paris Au: Chloe Salt and Possible Redemption
Overview: Listen, I may not like the direction Chloeโs character has taken or what she represents [the white woman tears, rich, privileged, nepo-baby, classist, fascist, racist], but I myself love a redemption journey, ya know, as long as they prove that they deserve a chance or earned it!
One of my (many) problems with Chloe Bourgeois isnโt her nonexistent redemption arc but the fact that many of her stans and a select number of characters within the show are just handing her chances on a silver platter (which she acts like sheโs entitled to anyways) without any effort on Chloeโs part to earn or deserve them. This is not a redemption. This is just handing a spoiled brat undeserved chances of the off chance that sheโll change. And she doesnโt. In fact, it just makes her look worse.
That brings me to my next point: Consequences. This is how I knew for a fact that Chloeโs โredemptionโ arc was never real from the start. Because never at any point during her arc was she given any actual long-term consequences for the way she behaves or how she treats people. In Writing 101, the foundation of a characterโs change for the better would be them realizing that their actions have an impact on other people, their surroundings, and/or themselves. The next step should be a slap in the face from reality. For the rug to be pulled underneath them and theyโre forced deal with the fact that it isnโt always about them and that they are not all that. But with Miss Bourgeois, we never see any of that. If anything, she believes that sheโs entitled to the endless chances at redemption that everyone keeps giving her. And is actively defended by others who correctly call her out on her inability to grow and learn. When people try to help Chloe change or give her an example to follow, it just inflates her ego. No wonder everyoneโs given up on her.
With these writing and character flaws in mind, Iโve come up with an AU where Chloeโs actions have piled up and now she has to decide if she wants to make things worse for herself or actually change and be able to love.
It starts with Queen Wasp, where the train crash incident actually leads to numerous people pressing charges against her, whether they were on the train or had family members who were on the train. Since Chloe is a minor, the best they could do was an ankle monitor for an indefinite amount of time. Given how sheโs also stolen a miraculous, sheโs not allowed to be outside when thereโs an akuma attack.
In typical Chloe fashion, she just keeps digging her grave while cheering herself up. By making everyone else feel worse. However, seeing as Chloe was being held accountable by the law, the school staff feel more comfortable punishing Chloe for her bullying and harassment of other students. She threatens to get her โDaddy-kinsโ involved, but they argue a point back that makes her blood run cold. If Mayor Andre Bourgeois cracks down on his daughter who has been famously dubbed โTrain Witchโ it may be the final push thatโll end with her father not being re-elected. Seeing no other way out of it, Chloe must go through detention for the first time in her school career.
Given how Roger Raincomprix stands for the pursuit of justice and safety, I have no idea how he still allows Sabrina to be friends with someone who by all accounts, should have a criminal record. In this AU, Officer Raincomprix forbids his daughter from being friends with Chloe and to steer clear of someone he views as a budding criminal. Parents of the students who attend Francois DuPont also follow suit. They tell their kids to stay away from the Mayorโs daughter and to not associate themselves with her. Theyโve done this before the train incident. (As weโre shown in canon, Chloe ruthlessly bullies her classmates and people outside of school. Itโs not far fetched to assume that she regularly bullies kids from other classes). Now, effectively friendless and a social pariah, Chloe has to endure scorn from both her school mates, adults, and the majority of Paris. She now the most hated girl in Paris.
Bustier would also wake the fuck up. I know she likes to see the best in people (to a toxic degree) and believes that love conquers all, seeing her student, the one sheโs made endless excuses for, actively endanger the lives of innocent people including one of her own classmates (Marinette was on that damned train for gods sake!) shouldโve been enough to shake her faith in Chloe or shatter it completely and question if she was really going about this in the right way. This also causes her to re-evaluate the way sheโs been treating Marinette and her other students when comes to her blatant favoritism of Chloe. In this AU, the train incident is the last straw and Bustier decides that she isnโt going to force her students to forgive her. You know, because she almost killed one of them and it wouldnโt have been a good look. Now that her second biggest enabler has switched sides, her classmates are more encouraged to stand up for themselves and not take her shit lying down anymore. Marinette (who also pressed charges against Chloe) calls Chloe out on her crap more often, reads her the filth that she is, and isnโt cowed by her usual threats anymore. When Chloe acts up in class, Bustier holds her accountable and gives her three strikes. On the third strike, she sends Chloe to the principalโs office for the first time.
With Adrien, he finds it difficult to look at Chloe. While he defended her and brought attention to the fact that Ladybug lost a miraculous (by accident) on national TV, maybe hearing that one of his classmates almost died because of Chloeโs poorly thought out choices, might make him view Chloe in a completely different light. And since Gabriel Agreste is all about self preservation, he refuses to allow Adrien to associate with Chloe anymore. Chloe possibly looses her childhood friend and this is what finally breaks her.
In canon, Chloe is used to hatred, but refuses to acknowledge why so many people want her to rot. But this much hatred on a national, possibly even global level would be enough to destroy anyone. Especially a 13-16 year old teenager. But knowing that her best friend since diapers possibly views her as a monster is too much and she falls into despair. Because at least before Queen Wasp, people acknowledged her existence, even if the attention was primarily negative. Now Post Queen Wasp is a hell that she is solely responsible for creating. People either refuse to look and pretend she doesnโt exist, or they show her that she does exist and lash out at her in a flurry of suppressed rage and vitriol.
Her melt down comes later. At the beginning, she toed the line between not caring, and being annoyed that things werenโt going her way and that everyone was making a big deal out of nothing. No matter. Everything will blow over soon and life will go back to the status quo, with her as the Queen and everyone else as the peasants beneath her feet. But it doesnโt go away. Because unlike the show, people remember. They remember and arenโt willing to forgive or forget. And this is the first kick to the gut, not the disapproval, not the shame, but the fact that the usual routine has been changed and is unfamiliar. People like Chloe have one fear: The status quo being challenged.
A large part of the reason Chloe thinks sheโs untouchable is because people arenโt willing to challenge the status quo (aside from the class beginning to stand up to her in season one). And if they do, they end up apologizing for thinking the worst of Chloe, or told to back off by other characters. If anything, every one of her victims would be well within their rights to spit in her face and double down on their worsening opinions of her. After all, Chloe hasnโt given them a reason not to. She has a record of being at her worst when people are actively challenging the status quo sheโs created which riles her up into further cruelty. Now that a new status quo has been formed, one that she doesnโt have any control over, she has no power and it increasingly becomes more unbearable.
Every time someone or something deviates from the usual status quo that sheโs used to, a little part of her soul dies. Her father refusing to go along with her whims anymore is another slap to her face. As Mayor Bourgeois has been her biggest supporter ever since she was a baby. In canon, Chloe has always taken her father for granted, but his disapproval wounds something deep within Chloe, which contributes to her mental break down.
This is due to the fact that Chloe is a very rigid person who thrives off of a set routine that she forces everyone around her to follow. People like this canโt accept change, and instead of learning how to adapt, they try to destroy the source of that change which just makes things worse for them. And thatโs what Chloe has attempted to do. But every time she tries, she is always shut down by the people around her, which makes h things even more horrid in her eyes. If the show is any indication, Chloe cannot learn and cannot adapt because everyone always bends over or forget to hold her accountable. This does not work for a chronologically story driven show like Miraculous Ladybug. Since Queen Wasp wasnโt even the tip of the iceberg, all of the problems people have with Chloe are brought out into the open as people openly bond over the fact that sheโs getting her just desserts. Right in front of her. Que tantrum and then scorn.
Itโs a terrible loop in which, Chloeโs own inability to change and adapt contributes to the endless cycle until one day she breaks.
Iโve written this AU out this way because Chloe Bourgeois does not deserve a redemption to be handed to her. What she deserves are long lasting consequences and several reality checks that will force her to actually look at herself and ask herself if this is truly how she wants to live for the rest of her life. Then, and only then, will she deserve to at best have a chance redemption.
But even if she does change for the better, she isnโt owed forgiveness by anyone.
Redemption isnโt about forgiveness. Itโs about personal growth.
