(About autistic character) there wasn't any confirmation but I'd like to hear your theory 🤔
Thank you for sending this, and I’m so sorry for taking several months to answer this! I’ve finally decided to scrap the draft I’ve had saved on my computer and finally answer it!
Being as it has been months since I last posted on this topic and I doubt most people who see this post will have seen the previous post this is referring to, so basically, at one point Astruc hinted that there was an autistic character in ML but didn’t say who it was. Someone asked him if he would ever consider creating a character with Asperger’s Syndrome, and his response was something like “if you look closely, you may find that there already is one.”
So, my theory is that it’s actually Marinette.
Now I ask that people please hear me out on this before jumping on me for having such a theory about the main character, and also keep in mind that a lot of this comes from my own experience, as I am #ActuallyAutistic myself.
So one of the first things people think of when they think of autism is the social awkwardness aspect. The degree of social awkwardness that Marinette displays may not be the degree of awkwardness that fits common conceptions of what an autistic person would look like, but that’s not uncommon for autistic females, as we are more likely to assimilate “normal” social behaviors through “masking” than our male counterparts. (This also would add an extra dash of irony, for Marinette to still have a figurative “mask” when she’s not in the Ladybug costume…) We do see however, that Marinette becomes flustered very easily (often with Adrien, but in enough other cases that we can safely say it’s a typical thing with her), and in these cases she struggles to find words, seeming almost as if she’s trying to find what she should say instead of what she actually wants to say. This could possibly be a case where an autistic person is able to mask enough to mostly seem “normal,” but still has awkward times when they struggle to do so. Rather than being recognized as autistic, such individuals are often just viewed as “quirky,” which Marinette has canonically been called.
Another thing about Marinette that I didn’t think a whole lot about until I started wondering about the autistic character, is the degree of dread she has for the first day of school in Origins 1, outright stating at one point “I hate first days.” Perhaps one of the reasons for this is because it’s an entirely new routine to get used to. She may not have the type of rigid daily routine that many autistic people do (neither do I, actually), but there does seem to be some need for sameness, so big overall changes like a new class schedule can be distressing. Other signs that she may like some degree of sameness can be seen in how she has always sat in the same spot in her homeroom class, and briefly noted routine activities such as how it is mentioned in Animaestro that she bakes a single passionfruit macaron every Sunday.
So now there’s stimming, which of course most autistic people do. We often see her waving her arms when she’s either excited or flustered, which other characters do in fact notice, as noted by Alya in the New York special. There are also times when we see her nervously tapping, a particularly visible instance of which can be seen near the beginning of Prime Queen. On more than one occasion when she’s intently thinking about something, we see her pacing back and forth (which also happens to be one of my stims). Also worth noting is that some people stim by doing repetitive crafts such as sewing and knitting, both of which Marinette canonically does.
Autism can affect motor function, resulting in many autistic people being extremely clumsy. I feel no need to further elaborate on this point.
Next I want to talk about special interests. This is another area where females on the spectrum can often differ from males. The special interests of some autistic girls are often overlooked as such because they can often be things that are considered normal and appropriate for girls their age, such as, for instance, fashion, which is shown to be important to Marinette. However, I want to point out that a special interest can be literally anything, including... a person. (I am so going to get hate for this...) If someone’s special interest were a person, then they might know things like that person’s schedule, likes and dislikes, multiple middle names and the days associated with each of said names, work habits... you get the picture. (Side note: I don’t think that Adrien possibly being a special interest would make her feelings for him any less valid, especially given that she often tries to use her knowledge about him in attempts to make him happy.)
And there are other little things like how she doesn’t always notice right away when called on, or occasional failure to control the volume of her voice.
Anyway, in all of the time I’ve spent thinking about this before finally managing to type it out, I’ve gone from thinking this might be it, to having fully convinced myself, so now, although I’m sure some people may not agree with this theory, you’ll have to pry my autistic!Marinette headcanon from my cold dead hands!
