i think marinette's neurodivergency is the kind of neurodivergency where everyone's like 'no, yeah, she totally has adhd.' but adrien has spent so much of his life masking that even he doesn't even realise that maybe there's something goin on in his noggin.
but YEARS after they start dating, when theyre like 18/19 and have first moved in together, marinette notices that adrien has a tendency to just... sporadically info dump. just very random chunks of information on things with absolutely no preamble nor explanation of context afterwards.
one night at like, 2am, marinette's just about to drift off to sleep when adrien's like, "are you awake?" thinking he had a nightmare she's like yes of course chaton what's on your mind? he's quiet for a moment before, in a single stream of speech, says "did you know in england they found this man called the cheddar man in cheddar cave? they made this 3d bust of him and it showed that he had dark skin and blue eyes. and apparently this was actually a super common thing because as a species we started off as dark skinned and white skin was actually a genetic mutation that just persisted in the north because we didn't need the UV protection from melanin. and since there were literally thousands of years before we actually got distinct ethnic phenotypes, does that mean in a thousand years the phenotypes will be even more different? what if people develop purple eyes? or blue skin, like avatars? like how do we know that won't happen? and if it did happen how would makeup brands know when to start introducing new foundation shades? at what point will the population have to grow for mac to release, like, a purple concealer line?"
marinette just looks at him and says "do you want to try my adderall tomorrow?"
THE END!! I can't believe I finally completed this. When I first started this comic, I had no idea that it would end up being this long. A little over 3 years and over 200 parts, so around 2000 panels. (My folder that holds all my files relating to this comic is 3 GB with 2,017 items....). I honestly can't believe that I managed to stick around to the end of this. Thank you all so much for the support, I never imagined that so many people would care about this comic when I started it!
Of course, there are still some loose threads. The kwamis and Nathalie for example, but the core of this series has always been about the emotional conflict between Marinette and Adrien, and that has been resolved. I have some epilogue ideas to cover those loose ends, but this comic has already taken so much of my time and I'm not sure I want to promise that I'll get around to it. ... But who knows. Maybe!
For now, Adrien and Marinette will get some long-deserved rest.
Here is a commissioned piece from @sweetmeatdale. Thanks for the opportunity to work with you!
“Multimouse Banging Out the Tu—”
“Boop!”
This was originally animated but I posted both formats, depending on your preference. This was my first time making an animation and I have learnt so much. Here is the finished product;
This is peak Tumblr isn’t it - Neil Banging Out the tunes + Booping?