#behold: first of possibly several essays about the psychic boys! :P

[incomingalbatross]

similarities between Mob and Saiki:

boys with terrifying psychic powers

complex relationships with said powers

trying to live normal-people lives

gradually acquire friend groups over the course of their stories

HOWEVER. Saiki and Mob have notably different relationships to their powers.

Saiki's powers are very much a burden, but they're also woven into his sense of self much more than Mob's - Saiki can't turn half of them off, he wears special gloves and glasses and headgear to restrain them, and even so they're his go-to tools for doing basically everything in daily life. He navigates the world with telepathy and clairvoyance instead of talking to people, he uses telekinesis and teleportation as naturally as his arms and legs... every human capability has an ESP counterpart that he uses just as instinctively, if not more so. And that's not even discussing World of Cardboard problems, because his powers also come with enhanced physical speed and strength that he has to consciously tone down.

Mob's powers, on the other hand, exist... a little less pervasively in his normal life. He can see spirits, of course (Saiki can't, with one exception), and exorcise them, and his telekinesis is always readily available and even sometimes acts up without his permission. But for Mob it's more like an extra sense, and an extra limb. He's immensely powerful, but his powers exist in addition to his normal human abilities, where Saiki's are inextricably tangled up together.

Because of this, Mob's reaction to the difficulties of his powers was repression. He tamped them down deep, into their own box, and then his growth took the path of gradually reintegrating them into his ordinary life and his full sense of self - both developing who he is personally without regard to his powers, and learning to accept them as one facet of the person he now is.

Saiki's method of dealing with his powers is restraint. Repression is not an option, and neither is developing a self-image apart from his powers, because they're part of everything about him. But he also can't embrace that part of himself, because "using them openly and naturally" would lead to widespread terror, social upheaval, and/or infringement on others' rights, almost inevitably. So he consciously restrains both his powers and himself, limiting his actions to things that won't make waves.

These differences in relating to their powers also contribute to differences in their relationship to "normality." Saiki is trying very hard to mimic normality, while believing that he is innately abnormal. Mob has internalized the idea that he is normal, regardless of powers, and is trying to be a good normal person.