#all it takes is one person announcing ‘omg Matt said autism Marcy canon !!!1!1’

[blizardstar]

Insane pet peeve I have that drives me nuts is when people are like “Yeah Marcy was confirmed to be Autistic by Matt Braly :3” when like. no. no she wasn’t. I’m not saying I don’t think Marcy is autistic. She’s the most autistic character to ever exist. She’s so autism. Her marshmallow charm might as well be TBH. But that’s NOT what Matt said.

Matt has repeatedly answered the “is Marcy autistic?” question with some variant of “She wasn’t intended to be written that way, but I’m glad people see themselves in her :)”

The defining event people usually are referring to when they say it was confirmed word of god is a fan of Amphibia had some psychologist (psychiatrist? The qualified position) watch clips of Marcy and diagnose her and they agreed she could be diagnosed with Autism according to the DSM-5. This information was presented to Matt during an interview and he again emphasized she wasn’t written that way intentionally, and since he isn’t on the spectrum he doesn’t feel qualified to say for sure whether Marcy is or isn’t autistic. He then said it was “up to you” (you being the fans) whether she was or wasn’t. Basically saying that if you see her as autistic, then she’s autistic! But he’s not going to make it an official statement about the show or the character because he doesn’t feel qualified. He later confirmed that was indeed the intent of his statement once people started to say he confirmed it.

It’s just so hard to argue this when like. Marcy is in fact so autistic. I believe she’s autistic. She goes YIPPEEE!

But I also feel like. So much warmth when I think about how Matt created her. He set out to design a quirky nerdy friend, who struggles socially and makes mistakes but is adorable and lovable and endearing. And on complete accident, just creating a “normal” character, he created a picture perfect diagnosable example of a young autistic girl. And like. I dunno that makes me feel good. Knowing the person who created my favorite show created someone like me, not because he set out to use that as a base, but because he found that kind of person an enjoyable and realistic character he wanted to include in his show.