Honestly sorta debated even reblogging your post when it crossed my dash but I won't lie I am genuinely interested in seeing how noise can really screw with Mac's senses
Yeah! Thank you for your interest :D.
So, some small personal backstory for this headcannon, lol:
I am neurodivergent and particularly averse to certain kinds of sound, both expected or unexpected—I am also pretty severely vision impaired. Its corrected very well with lenses luckily, but what is not is that I have incredibly bad astigmatism that makes light a big issue.
These are two particular points that I've, lowkey projected onto him about, but his own vision impairment does not play a large part in why storms specifically are such an issue for Macaque.
His aversion and disorientation with storms comes strictly from his hearing. As weve seen in season 3, during the episode "Benched," Macaque does react to large, unexpected sound. He reels back and cries out in pain from it, and it's enough that Tang was able to recover and get a headstart in escaping him.
That kind of pain could also easily happen in thunderstorms. Thunder booms and rolls in a way that doesnt have a trackable rythym, it comes unexpectedly and loudly for an undetermined period of time. If you can feel thunder in your bones, that is certainly enough to cause Macaque severe pain.
The reason I say this effects his perception is two factors: one being the physical harm he's having to navigate through, the second being severe light refraction and reflection.
With having astigmatism, the amount of light that bounces off of everything in the rain is fucking awful. I'd imagine it's similar to what Macaque could go through in these kinds of situations.
It would be incredibly difficult to navigate your surroundings when bombarded by sound that makes you endure incredible pain, while also having your hearing impaired due to the rain itself dulling a lot of sound. He has shown he uses his hearing to navigate/guard his blind side frequently, so it is something that he instinctually relies on.
That kind of pain disorients you, and pain + overwhelming sound + constant light refraction from the water covering everything (or a complete lack of light, if hes in a rural location) would certainly impair you enough to have a difficult time moving around and adjusting to surroundings enough to keep easily mobile through them. I think having to try and move around while in this kind of sudden jarring of all of his senses in such an agonizing way would make it really difficult.
I also didnt even mention in full how thunder can be felt through the entire body, and that way that it can rattle you could make things worse as well. Loud and heavy bass sound can actually very easily make you sick and cause headaches, which, if Macaque is as sensitive as it seemed, could suffer from similar effects if exposed prolongly to it.
Hope this makes sense!
This is also a response to @ninjasmudge bc I am in love w ur tags!! I very much agree with sound becoming a nuisance at times for him because of his high sensitivity. He is neurodivergent it is canon mans is highly sensitive to noise 🤝🤝 NODDING SM AT UR TAGS