miraculous-clowncar - Tumblr blog

miraculous-clowncar · 2 years ago

Note

Emotionally Marinette is very relatable. The way she hyperfocusses on problems and isn't always aware/ doesn't always see the emotional factors in a situation is even more relatable to when I was a young teen. I'm autistic and reading and watching lots of media &reviews also helped seeing different viewpoints with things I overlook. It's hard to blend into society and not have people misunderstand and take things negatively because you're too direct and don't perform/know unwritten social cues.

Isn't it weird how Adrien stans are treating Marinette the way they'd NEVER want Adrien to be treated? Things like "She should hold in her anger!" And "he's treating everyone so sweetly why can't she?" And "she should have a taste of what abuse feels like"

The second one is what really gets me though, Adrien's acting like an abuse victim forced to compartmentalize his emotions, of course Marinette wouldn't behave the same way he is

I feel like these two separate asks can go together because my response covers both of them

Marinette is STRONGLY coded as a neurodivergent character. You can argue "that's just a headcanon, canon hasn't explicitly said she has ADHD so it doesn't explain anything 🙄" all you want, but Adrien never needed to have it explicitly stated that he has PTSD/depression/etc. for everyone to understand and explain his actions as being because of trauma, lol. By that logic, every meta on Adrien’s mannerisms and interactions with others being trauma responses are all nothing more than headcanons and can’t be used to explain his choices either.

Really, the funniest bit of irony is the way Adrien stans salt on Ladybug for not knowing everything that’s going on with Chat Noir and knowing to check up on him and being able to read and understand his “obvious” trauma responses etc., while proving through their lack of understanding of and sympathy for Marinette’s own actions and mindset that they, themselves, can’t even understand someone they can’t relate to if it’s not explicitly made clear to them.

These fans understand Adrien because they understand having depression/anxiety/abusers, but they don't understand Marinette because they don't understand being neurodivergent. So one gets their lack of action/communication excused as being because of trauma, as well as essays upon essays psychoanalyzing how every little thing he says and does reflects this trauma, but the other is dragged through the mud by these same people and assumed to be intentionally cruel and/or said to be suffering from 'character assassination and bad writing” without the same effort made to understand and explain her mindset. Chat Noir has an angry outburst? “Well, he’s traumatized and bottles up his emotions,” etc. etc. Ladybug has an angry outburst? “Well, she should’ve controlled herself, she should’ve known better, she should’ve known Chat Noir would react to it,” etc. The way these fans see it, she’s just a “normal girl with a normal life” (far from it though), so to them, she clearly doesn’t have any demons of her own to battle with to explain her mistakes. These fans really think the issue here is one character is traumatized and comes from an abusive background, while the other is simply a “Normal” person who doesn’t understand - to them she, unlike Adrien, has no trauma from an abusive parent and therefore no reason to have trouble communicating. Because these fans can read and understand Adrien/Chat Noir’s trauma responses, they believe she should easily be able to as well, and the fact that she can’t means, to them, that she simply doesn’t care to look.

By definition, neurodivergent people’s brains work very differently from what is considered “typical.” People don’t understand how Marinette thinks, therefore they believe she’s terrible/it’s bad writing. Sadly, that follows along pretty well with the typical “neurodivergent person trying to connect with neurotypical/neuro-atypical people” experience. Neurodivergent people miss social cues and unwritten social rules/expectations, act in ways people don’t expect/understand, forget to “check-in” or interact often enough because they don’t experience time/relationship decay the way NT’s do, struggle to read/understand the emotions of people around them, and have many other difficulties in their interpersonal relationships, and the result is that non-neurodivergent people see them as thoughtless, careless, selfish, not emotionally invested, detached, intentionally cruel, “bad friends,” and the list goes on. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it?

Let’s get in to it:

The fact is, ADHD is a disability, and yet it’s always the people who have it who are expected to accommodate everyone else. It’s always diagnosed based on how it inconveniences others. I’ve read a lot of anecdotes from people with ADHD and the conflicts they have with their partners, including, sadly, partners who aren’t very understanding. Their partners assume they’re being inconsiderate/uncaring, and even after they talk about their problems, the partner’s conclusion is “now that you know this is a problem, you can do better.” Except that’s not how it works. It is a mental disability. The person with ADHD can learn to reassure and communicate with their partner about why they may forget to talk to them or be late or forget things or have mood swings, but they Cannot simply change how they perceive time or experience emotions or magically fix their memory problems. See here and here for some examples of hurtful assumptions that neurotypical people often make about people with ADHD. See here for some examples of how ADHD can affect relationships.

Marinette is undeniably coded to have ADHD, and when you look at her actions/mistakes with that in mind they make perfect sense. I rambled on this a little in a post a little over a month ago, but I’ll just repost what I said then here:

I know the main thing people tend to point out is her eccentricities, her bad time management / tendency to be late, her fixations, etc., but ADHD doesn’t just affect work/life habits and is something that creates difficulties in maintaining interpersonal relationships for people who have it. E.g. A person with ADHD might literally forget to talk to/spend time with a friend of theirs for 2 months because they got busy with work or got really in to a new game or what have you, and once they contact the friend again, the friend might act weird or upset and think they were being ignored/forgotten, while the person with ADHD will be acting like nothing’s changed bc of the way they perceive time and will be thinking “what? didn’t I just talk to you like last week?”

So when you wonder “why didn’t Ladybug consider how Chat Noir might feel after doing XYZ,” it’s not because she’s inconsiderate or doesn’t care about him, but because she’s so wrapped up in everything else she has going on and is so Deep In Her Own Head that it slipped her attention. That, and being neurodivergent, i.e. literally having a brain that works differently from the majority of people, makes it hard to read people and understand social cues/expectations. So in Hack San, Marinette being surprised when Alya tells her to go talk to Chat Noir would be partially because she doesn’t really know just how much she means to him or the fact that he has abandonment issues, and partially because she was so wrapped up in making sure the role of Ladybug was covered for that day and planning for every possible issue that could arise (the 749282 tips she sent Alya) that it completely slipped her mind.

People with ADHD tend to not consider the past or future, only NOW. They tend to hyperfocus/tunnel vision on one thing and lose track of or fail to consider everything outside of it. Ladybug’s focus is on solving the problem in front of her, and when it comes to Akumas she doesn’t care Who takes care of it as long as it gets done quickly. She solves things in the short-term but fails to consider the effects they may have in the long-term or other consequences that could branch off, e.g. in her mind, her plan to have Viperion learn Chat Noir’s identity solved the short-term crisis where Chat Noir could have his Miraculous taken or he could be put in danger by her knowing his identity. She failed to consider all the other factors like “would he be okay with that” and “how might that affect him in the future” etc. because her only focus was resolving the issue in front of her. Similarly, she defeats Akumas with minimal help from Chat Noir in Optigami and Sentibubbler, and doesn’t consider how that may make Chat Noir feel. Her only focus is on defeating the Akuma as quickly and efficiently as possible.

In Ephemeral when she’s fighting Moolak she thinks “Need to Defeat Moolak → Need Chat Noir → No Chat Noir → Call Nine Other Heroes → Moolak Defeated → Mission Accomplished.” That’s it. She doesn’t even make a fuss about it when he apologizes about it on the Eiffel Tower later that night, she’s just like “oh yeah that, it's no big deal dont worry about it.” To her it’s simple: “of course I don’t think any less of Chat Noir when he’s not useful to a battle, he’s my partner and my friend no matter what, isn’t that obvious?” She didn’t think less of him for a second during that fight, so it doesn’t occur to her that he might have thought she did. It’s that whole ADHD lack of object permanence thing - “I didn’t see it so it doesn’t exist.” She’s also not good at getting into other people’s heads because she’s deep in her own, and she’s too preoccupied with all the Guardian business to stop and remember to consider things like “maybe I should check in with him to make sure.” And the whole bad sense of time + stupid sense of object permanence that comes w/ ADHD would manifest as Chat Noir being depressed thinking “we haven’t done a patrol together/defeated an akuma as just a duo in a long time…” while Ladybug would be thinking “I thought we just did a patrol? Like last Wednesday” “That was 6 weeks ago.” “….It was????”

There’s also this post by @rena-rain that goes in to more of Marinette’s ADHD behaviors, and here’s some more ways ADHD manifests that Marinette has definitely shown in canon:

Emotional Hyperarousal/Dysregulation - people with ADHD often feel their emotions very strongly and have a hard time regulating their intensity. They can feel extremely happy and euphoric about something new and exciting or something they love a lot. They can easily succumb to despair when things go wrong. They are easily angered. They easily get frustrated. They are easily overwhelmed. They can easily give in to outbursts. They're often seen as “too loud and excited” and “too much.”

Think of how Marinette has reacted to her frustration and stress, of the times she’s been short-tempered and acted on her emotions without thinking ahead -- like when she yelled at Lila as Ladybug without thinking of the consequences and how it might reflect on her.

Think of how incredibly happy and excitable and unchill and ridiculous and lovably cringe she can be.

Think of Marinette getting too enthusiastic to help people, to the point where she might fail to recognize that they don’t want help, or might accidentally overlook their own wishes (e.g. Guiltrip).

Here’s a great comic on ADHD & Emotions + part 2

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria - Nobody likes rejection, but it is a fact that rejection is far more severe for people with ADHD than for neurotypical people. Rejection is extremely painful for them. Physically painful, even. Even if it’s not reality, the simple perception that they’ve been rejected or criticized by someone important to them is enough. “Rejection sensitivity is hard to tease apart. Often, people can’t find the words to describe its pain. They say it’s intense, awful, terrible, overwhelming. It is always triggered by the perceived or real loss of approval, love, or respect.” Because of this the fear of rejection/failure often leads to people with ADHD either becoming people-pleasers or avoiding things that could go badly for them until the last possible second/until it’s too late - the latter results in them often being seen as careless, lazy, procrastinators, etc.

Think of Marinette seeming to do everything except just tell Adrien how she feels - basically self-sabotaging and beating around the bush to “procrastinate” or put off what she thinks is a guaranteed rejection.

RSD can also show itself as reacting to perceived rejection in outbursts of anger. Kuro Neko hasn’t come out yet, but Ladybug reacting with anger to Chat Noir seeming to quit being her partner without an explanation makes a lot of sense with or without the presence of RSD, because it’s easier to feel angry than sad when in pain. Here’s a very good comic illustrating RSD. You can also read more on RSD here.

Task Paralysis, Procrastination, etc. - people with ADHD can easily become overwhelmed with too many things on their plate, and the more important those things are, the more paralyzing they become, the more they get put off. These tasks can be things like chores, replying to emails, making phone calls, or even having a difficult conversation about something important. Marinette has put off and avoided things like difficult/unpleasant conversations, like, for example, telling Chloe that she could no longer be Queen Bee.

Rapidly changing/“Random” thoughts & unconventional thinking - This is how her disability becomes a “superpower” - when she gets a lucky charm and comes up with a bizarrely brilliant plan on how to use it within a minute of thinking. Who gets a spoon and thinks “this will make the perfect fishing hook” of all things?? Who the hell would get a little 2 kg weight and come up with “this represents this international government organization, clearly we have to go to their specific satellite in space and reset the clock” within 5 seconds of getting it? Someone with ADHD absolutely would think like this. That’s often why NT’s think people with ADHD seem to have “random” thoughts. We can translate this to a spoken conversation to show how it usually looks in real life:

Someone’s talking to a person with ADHD about lifting weights, and their ADHD brain goes “weights → weights and measures → International Bureau of Weights and Measures → Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) → a satellite coordinates international clocks” within about 5 seconds so in that conversation they suddenly change the subject and start talking about satellites, and the NT person responds, “how did you get to talking about satellites from weightlifting??? you’re always distracted/never pay attention”

That’s a pretty typical experience for people with ADHD. That Marinette literally uses this as her superpower is amazing. Percy Jackson gave us “ADHD actually means you’re a demigod” and now Ladybug is giving us a heroine who literally uses her ADHD to defeat the bad guys

“Out of Sight, Out of Mind” - people with ADHD literally struggle with object permanence and this bleeds in to a LOT of things.

For one thing, they can literally lose track of their limbs - they’re not aware of how far their elbows go out or where their feet are because they’re not looking, so they can be clumsy/prone to knocking things over. Who does that sound like?

When they don’t see a loved one for a while, they may not miss them or notice or think about messaging them or feel homesick because those feelings are “out of sight, out of mind.” As a result, people with ADHD can seem uncaring/detached/not emotionally-invested when that’s not the case at all. Think of Marinette needing to be told to talk to Chat Noir in Hack San, instead of realizing for herself that she should do it. A lot of people salted on this as “proof that she doesn’t care about Chat Noir.” That’s the same way NT’s tend to react to this aspect of people with ADHD.

All-Or-Nothing Mindset - Either you do it perfectly the first time or you give up. Either you’re able to do everything on your to-do list or you’re a failure and do nothing at all. Success or catastrophe.

It’s no secret that Marinette can think in extremes. Marinette catastrophizes about things going wrong.

Marinette made one mistake on her first day as Ladybug and immediately decided she was a failure and needed to give up.

Marinette thinks that if she doesn’t perform perfectly as Ladybug and if she and Chat Noir don’t keep their identities secret, then the alternative is the literal end of the world.

Marinette is also traumatized. Yes, she is. That’s not a headcanon. It’s not fanon or a headcanon to say she’s traumatized by Chat Blanc if she has literally been shown to have nightmares about him and about everything going wrong because one person found out her identity. ( @gentil-minou wrote a breakdown of said trauma here. ) Not to mention the fact that we’ve SEEN the world canonically END twice because of identity reveals in Chat Blanc and Ephemeral, so her fear and proneness to keeping secrets because of it isn’t even unfounded or irrational.

If Adrien doesn’t need an official diagnosis of PTSD from the writers for everyone to dissect his actions and write essays on why him being non confrontational and not communicating his problems is easily explained by trauma, then Marinette doesn’t need any official diagnosis to justify attributing her actions and difficulties reading others to her mental health/trauma, either.

I love Adrien because, among countless other things, I love seeing a realistic depiction of a child who is abused but still kind-hearted. I love Marinette because, among countless other things, I love seeing a realistic depiction of a child who is neurodivergent and one who LITERALLY uses her disability as a superpower, but who also shows the very real and ugly ways in which that disability makes life and relationships immensely more difficult for those who have it. I especially love that this is being shown in a girl, because ADHD is so underdiagnosed in girls due to how people are more accustomed to the way symptoms manifest in boys and how girls learn to hide their symptoms.

These are two teens who have been saddled with far more responsibility than they EVER should have had to handle. These are two teens who are also, on top of that, dealing with very realistic mental health issues, hangups, and fears that are affecting every aspect of their lives, including their relationship and communication with each other. Not to mention, they’re getting no help or guidance from the adults in their lives in dealing with these issues - often the adults only make their lives even harder. The issues and miscommunication they’re dealing with are very realistic issues for two fourteen-year-olds with their own respective mental health issues and trauma to be going through. And it’s all entirely new to them both. They are not going to handle things perfectly or understand each other or even themselves from the start, they’re going to make mistakes, they may hurt each other unintentionally, but they’ll get there

#definitely going to write my own meta on this as an adhd person bc this is EXACTLY what having adhd is like #metas #marinette #adrien #season 5

2K notes · View notes