An Observation
I’ve been marathoning the song “Knowing What I Know Now” (from “Wish”) and it’s got me thinking about the similarities between Magnifico and my former friend.
Never in a million years would I have thought that I’d be making comparisons between these two, but it’s true. My friend, like Magnifico, started out with good intentions. He was noble and pure-hearted.
However, like Magnifico, my former friend let power go to his head and influence him. At the time when we first started talking, I was wary of pursuing a friendship because he was a mod on the Miraculous Fanworks server (yes, their bias of neurodivergent people is important to this story). The leadership team there has hated me since the day I’d joined because, as a neurodivergent person, I didn’t fit in with the type of person that their “head admin” wanted in their community.
At first, my friend did not let it get to him, but the leadership’s bias slowly seeped in and poisoned his heart, turning him against me and he began to see me in the exact same way they did: as a terrible person. He was consumed by the power they’d given him and at one point even told me that “If [he] gets kicked off of the mod team, it would be [my] fault because we talk too much.” What kind of friend would say that to someone else!? Better question, what kind of leadership would allow their volunteers to feel this way and lead them to say something so hurtful!?
My former friend knew how the leadership in that server felt about me. He knew that I was terrified of making that one mistake since Miraculous Fanworks clearly expects everyone to be inhumanly perfect. Well, my former friend (who was apparently promoted to their admin team in gratitude of finally getting rid of the terrible person who is me…) used all of that to advance his own power.
That is why I keep up my Neurodivergence Advocacy Project. How many others have faced similar circumstances because of the bias of their leadership? Bias that leads to a leadership who does not validate information and, instead, delivers consequences for circumstances in which only half of the details are known to them and thus paints an incorrect portrayal of what actually happened. I continue the Neurodivergence Advocacy Project to urge Miraculous Fanworks to do better. Despite their bias and mistreatment of neurodivergent people, I still believe they have potential, but they first need to want to change and want to improve. Unfortunately, from what I’ve seen and experienced when I tried to share with them the full story of what happened, it does not seem like that will happen anytime soon…sadly.
