#i tried not to speak for autistic people here or invalidate anyone’s headcanons
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ladyofthenoodle · 3 years ago
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Ramble anon kind of here again - I will try to keep it short and space things out a little this time asdksjhdf but I was reading through all of the analysis threads for Marinette and the different ways ADHD presents itself for her, and I think it did actually help me get a better grasp on her character and how she views situations, which is something that has kept me from attempting to writing fanfic because I was leery on misrepresenting her thought process when I couldn't seem to get it to click in the writing the way I can do for other characters (Alya's very distinctive voice has actually been super fun, and of course Adrien is easiest for me). But one of the comments was about trying to structure friendships and how some attempts on that front could appear 'off-putting' or overly structured and uncanny to neurotypicals, and my mind immediately went to the episode where Kagami was trying to make friends with Marinette and following along an app on friendmaking, and was wondering if that was maybe more of another example of (maybe not ADHD specifically) but someone wanting to reach out and not having the natural skillset for doing so, and doing the best that they knew how with the tools available to them? And once Marinette had learned that was Kagami's situation, she did her best to reach back and understand Kagami, to be her friend and try to help her build that skillset with those tools available to her?
That seems to be what a large portion of the fandom needs to keep in mind for Marinette right now, maybe. That she's doing the best she can with her limited knowledge of the situation and the tools available to her, either mentally or emotionally, (and that when she does gain the knowledge or tools to solve an emotional hurt, she will do her best to resolve it, because she cares about her friends and family, which has been made clear in the show time and time again) and the fandom should maybe be extending the same courtesy to her (and those who see themselves in her and are trying their best, too).
Potentially myself included, as I try and remember what I sent in my previous ramble about Adrien noticing that Marinette launches into fixing things because that's what she knows how to do and is good at, even if that might not be what a situation needs in the moment (on the topic of him considering her as a potential confidant for his secret identity and running down the list of who is available to him) - she's trying her best, and he appreciates the heck out of her for that (a lot of people do, in universe and out), even if it is something that could feed into miscommunication, as they have, or will continue to have, different ways of expressing what they need, and will need to work to meet in the middle on the things that they can work on to resolve any conflicts that may arise because of it, and be understanding of each other when things simply don't align in a way that works for both of them.
There was also a comment that was about how Adrien might not necessarily be presented as autistic, but his situation with his father is similar to a lot of situations of abuse from parents when it comes to neurodivergent children and my brain went YES this is the connection it is in words now and so I just wanted to express my appreciation for the fact that these topics are being brought up and identified and explored and defended (even if it might be exhausting and seem discouraging to have to do so in the first place) and that even though the fandom may be a bit divided over the interpretation of certain characters right now, we have a piece of media that makes these situations part of the narrative and demonstrates the effects they have (both positive and negative) so that in the overarching story, when it finally reaches its conclusion, they can maybe showcase good ways of establishing different methods of emotional communication and the different levels that they can occur at, and ways to reach across any gaps that may form simply by virtue of people having different emotional needs, and not because any one party is purposefully trying to make that communication difficult. Because neither of them are fueling this conflict on purpose; neither of them are intending harm to the other, even if that might be the result due to different factors wildly out of their own control. And when they get the chance to fix it, they definitely will.
Apologies if this is another long ramble needlessly clogging your askbox, but I just wanted to clarify I was trying to look at the character's actions objectively for the last ramble, and I'm sorry if I ended up misconstruing any of Marinette's problem-solver tendencies in a way that could seem negative as inherent to her character as a whole ;-; (and if you just haven't seen it / had time to respond to it yet I'm so sorry for the double ask aslkfhasf I am very patient, I swear)
ramble anon i am definitely going to reply to both your asks and i’m sorry for not getting to it sooner. as you might have gathered from the adhd post i also struggle with it and part of that means looking at a long ask and being like “i will reply to that Very Soon” and then i… don‘t 😂 though yesterday i was at least posting creative content instead of just scrolling through things (this is unrelated to your ask but i’m proud of myself for it)
anyways your previous ask (which i will respond to sometime between an hour and um 11 months) seemed to be mostly an analysis of how adrien is interpreting marinette, so no worries on misconstruing her! adrien, who is also 14 and dealing with his own trauma, is not going to effortlessly understand marinette’s mindset and shouldn’t be expected to any more than she is going to effortlessly understand the effect of his trauma on his psyche. even adults have a hard time understanding people whose brain works differently than theirs or who have very different backgrounds, but we can learn and people should be judged by their effort to understand different viewpoints, especially when it’s one they’ve had to reason to develop an understanding of it before. like marinette, even though i knew about parental abuse in abstract, i didn’t really understand how it affects people until i met (and dated) people who have experienced it. so i might project extremely hard onto the adhd girl with supportive parents who is learning to understand a boy with a very different background and very different coping because i went through that and i’m certain i’ve fucked some things up in the process. and they have interpreted me wrong too!
kagami using the app is a great example of something that might be off putting to a neurotypical person, though you’re right that it’s not adhd in particular. while i don’t have a strong headcanon for kagami the way i do for marinette, she definitely reads as autistic to me in that scene specifically, and i think it’s a surprisingly good example of how two neurotypes might interact. marinette initially does find kagami’s behavior off putting, partially because marinette is already inclined to dislike kagami but also because marinette has had far more time to learn to mask in a way that’s acceptable to peers (who expect you to be fun and casual) while kagami has only learned to mask for adults (whose expectations are more about being well behaved). and so marinette interprets kagami as being rude and fake! but when she sees the app she realizes “oh, this person is Like Me” and is able to very quickly reframe everything kagami has done.
marinette doesn’t seem to use a lot of external tools to manage her relationships yet, partially because she didn’t have a lot of close friendships until recently and partially because most of her friends are in her class so there’s no “out of sight out of mind” thing. kagami is probably the only person she has to go out of her way to maintain a relationship with and i think marinette does make special effort for kagami because kagami needs it (based on mister pigeon 72 anyway). of course now that ladynoir is having issues marinette will eventually realize she needs to make that special effort for chat noir, too. because accommodation goes both ways! because you can’t change your adhd but you can say “this person is important to me and i am going to use the tools i have to make this relationship work despite this.” your partner just has to understand that these tools might not always be foolproof and also that things like setting reminders of your phone to have a conversation with someone isn’t because we see it as a chore but because it’s so important to us that we can’t risk forgetting to do it. which i don’t think adrien will have a problem with at all once he understands because he’s a very understanding person. he’d be touched as long as marinette was able to communicate the fact that this is an expression of love and not an obligation or burden to her.
i see a lot of people headcanon adrien being autistic and even have gotten fic comments on how i wrote adrien in a way that people found resonated with their experiences with autism. which made me think a lot because while i totally welcome that interpretation, it wasn’t something that crossed my mind while writing! so i started thinking about why that would be. and in that story, adrien has an extreme response to curtains being installed in his bedroom, which to me was him reacting to the total lack of control over his own life and not having any other way to deal with it or express it. but of course that’s an experience common to a lot of neurodivergent people! in canon, the thing that struck me was the moment gabriel told him he’d had too many emotions, because boy did that resonate. so i think adrien is representative of a lot of neurodivergent experiences and that is true regardless of whether you headcanon him that way or not. which also makes him a good match for marinette in the long run because even if their brains work differently, they do still have a lot of common experiences that will help them understand each other in the long run
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