#mob psycho autistic

[dragons1re]

[magnetic-dogz]

[ IDs in alt text ]

Okay

[fish0009]

"it's still you"

[vulcan-moon]

finished sketchbook spread for these guys, a found family so close to my heart auuugghhh

[talleslittlelion]

Kagebros chilling together under their favorite fluffy blanket~

Other places to find my artwork 🎏 | Redbubble (Pins, prints and much more!)

[ajolote-arte]

Happy trans day <3333

[doctorsiren]

I was having a crisis as I warmed up this morning (WHY CAN’T I DRAW HIM RIGHT 😭)

The background was because I asked if I had enough refs of wawa and my discord said no, so I added more 😁

[soullessjack]

mob psycho 100 is literally just “what if we put an autistic kid in as many situations as possible until he’s so overstimulated he turns into the avatar” and it fucking rocks

[jackedjacket]

The autism allegory in Mob Psycho 100 hits so hard and I love it so much. Wanting to be able to relate to classmates and be 'just like everyone else' but not being able to. Getting picked on and asked out as a joke but not fully understanding that the people who were doing it were doing it to be mean. Wanting to feel the same things as classmates but not being able to because, when it comes down to it, our emotions are Not The Same. Being terrified of being pushed to a place where all you can do is explode and rage and destroy things, but also desperately not wanting to be the person that hurts others, and hating yourself if you do. I love Mob, he is Me

[juneaupaws]

that sweet autistic boy <3

[autisticboybattleroyale]

Round 2 PART 2

Light Yagami X Kageyama Shigeo

[angelmachines]

teru & socialization

i've posted about this before but something ive been thinking about a LOT is mp100's themes of loneliness (and eventual connections). i think this is an aspect of teru's character (in particular) that gets left out because it's not as explicit but i've been wanting to do a deep dive on it for a while and i finally sat down to do it. just a warning, this post is gonna be LONG.

these two panels are from chapter 16 of the manga (which i'm using for my evidence because i. dont want to scrub through the anime LOL). initial sentiment: teru uses his powers to cheat having friends/a good social life and wouldn't have that if he tried earnestly. this is a fair interpretation of the scene. with what we know, at this point of time (as in within the teru-mob fight) teru would not be able to connect with other people earnestly, due to his mindset. which i think is a fair interpretation, HOWEVER:

(from chapter 17 ^^) the first panel shows teru's expression to be strained and the second is visibly unhappy. this puts the first set of panels into a different context, that maybe underneath all of this, teru doesn't WANT any of this life that he's built. keep in mind that i'm analyzing this with teru's possible autistic tendencies in mind & you dont have to believe he's autistic, im not your dad, but i do find this a pretty meaningful indication of masking if he were

(note: yes, the strain can definitely be read as comp-het, and i would agree but that's not relevant so go read this post on that instead)

even if the rest of these panels show teru content with his life, i think these expressions are pretty vital to how we read his life especially because we know so little of it. think about it, if you were a kid desperate for affection because you couldn't get it anywhere else, especially not in a way that would come off as "mature" or "unaffected", wouldn't you also look for validation in your popularity? even if it aligned you with people who you consider fundamentally different to you? my point here is that teru can't not stand out-- it's in his nature-- and we are shown how he tries to blend in & receive attention in the only way possible to him; which is to say that he molds himself into something that is palatable, likeable, and superior to other people. if he's nothing, like mob, he has spent his entire life covering up for it. if he fails socially, like mob, he has to be good at everything (even if he cheats to do so) so that everyone else can look past it.

(side note for my teru angst enjoyers: this is a panel of his mom. the mom who he hasn't seen in years. doesn't it make sense that, if he hasn't heard his mom say he's proud of him for literal years, that he would overachieve in response? not related to the autism thing i just have the teru bug. also don't be misogynistic in my notes both his parents suck we just get a singular mention of his mom)

so if teru couldn't meaningfully have friends before mob, that could very easily be because of his past mindset, right?

...except, we don't.. really... see him make other friends afterwards.

but, the awakening lab, right?

(ok i lied to you sorry there is one anime screenshot and thats because it stood out to me while i rewatched it earlier this month. sorry.) id like to bring attention to this screenshot during the cultural festival because the awakening lab can definitely be seen as a direct contradiction of this and i'd like to point out a couple things:

1) in this scene the shiratori brothers are in another room 2) them and the other three are friends with ritsu (or at least close enough acquaintances to want to see him).

considering this is one of the only times they appear together for Fun i am more inclined to believe this is an encounter where they went together because they all would've gone separately anyway. this isn't to discount the possible bond that these characters might have, but thats the thing. we... aren't really shown that they're friends and enjoy spending time together outside of this screenshot, where two out of six of the members are not even present. not to mention that teru is still placing himself in a role separate from his peers. despite stripping the superiority away, teru is still the awakening lab's mentor, not friend. teru still views himself as fundamentally different in a context where his psychic powers don't make him that way.

...except with mob. i bring this placement of power up because where he is the awakening lab's mentor, teru declares mob to be his rival, or, in other words, teru is just like him. he is accepting that mob and him are the same. (and if we view mob from an autistic lens... so on and so forth)

as if to hammer in that point even further-- in the summer vacation omake, teru explicitly states that "summer break is just a super long, super boring stretch of alone time." i'm not sure of the timeline here, but guessing from the hair, we're at least post season 1. which gives us explicit confirmation here that teru is spending the break alone despite his relationship to the awakening lab. his connection to mob is a lifeline here because mob is one of the only people who can intuitively understand teru's isolation without judgment

(also, on that point of teru's autistic tendencies: teru does and says a LOT of things that would raise other peoples eyebrows and doesn't seem to notice.

here we get teru actively admitting to his home life, right in front of reigen, WHO COULD CALL CHILD SERVICES ON HIM? this genuinely made me rethink this character entirely. teru's filter is... minimal. he isn't constantly volunteering information and generally minds his own business, but if you ask? Well.

teru is a social person, but to say he is proficient in understanding social situations seems... wrong. teru views his loneliness as boring because, despite being fairly open, does not actually allow himself to think about his own feelings and how they affect him. this loneliness is boring because he doesn't have enough of a reference to realize its not

if we are taking pre-mob teru to be a version of himself who is masking, or at the very least someone who is faking a lot of stuff in a less autistic sense, the fight with mob changes teru to the point where he no longer hides himself. in the same way that mob was able to shake teru's fragile superiority complex i think the change in appearance marks the end of the self teru had built up. from this point on we see him become a lot more... Him. his appearance and his fashion choices are, presumably, completely normal to him and we get no indication that he believes otherwise despite the reactions it gets-- which is... well, i wouldn't be writing this post if i thought it was one of his most neurotypical traits.

in fact, he seems... pretty oblivious to what other people think of him. which is an interesting distinction to make considering the intelligence we Know he possesses (which is not to say that you are unintelligent if you don't pick up on social cues, just that its common for media to depict it that way.) these traits are made pointedly, even if unintentionally, separate, ESPECIALLY when you note the amount of characters who Do ruminate on or stare at teru's appearance.

some examples. i don't even think this is all of it-- case in point.)

[ur-fav-is-autistic]

Shigeo Kageyama AKA Mob from Mob Psycho 100 is Autistic!

[fish0009]

Hes so me (autiatic)

[quirkle2]

[zombie au] tome joins the gang. her special ability: AUTISM

[bandtrees]

mp100 is a very very kind show, i love how compassionate it is and how forgiving it is, but i also love how hard it hammers in that there’s no such thing as a perfect person with endless bounds of patience and forgiveness, and that living your life only to please others isn’t living much at all.

the confession arc is very special to me for this reason, and below the cut is some analysis as to why! obviously, this contains spoilers for all three seasons of mp100.

the confession arc takes mob, this very kind loving sweet person who’s compassionate and has been able to see good in and treat with kindness people like mogami, touchirou, etc, and tells you... hey! this kid actually has (reasonable) building resentment and unresolved issues from being constantly people-pleasing and forgiving and not really acknowledging peoples’ flaws!

and no, it’s not a case of mob having this evil dark side who hates everyone, it’s just a case of mob... being human! expecting him to brush off the way reigen treats him and the way he and teru met and the danger to his life shou and touchirou were, as compassionate and mature as he is about them, isn’t realistic! because no human person is just a walking well of love and forgiveness, and for as mature as mob is, he’s still only a kid!

mob, as ???%, is very violent towards teru and reigen, and i choose to interpret this as how intensely he’s repressed his unresolved resentment for them that he swallowed down in favor of forgiveness and being the bigger person - the wider theme of mp100. we never really see mob express any discomfort around teru for nearly killing him, or around reigen for lying to him and generally treating him like trash sometimes, or around shou for burning his house down... and while i can’t express enough how important the messages of compassion and forgiveness are in this story, i think it’s also equally important to see, in ???%’s rampage, it’s not some evil side of mob or some shadowy separate personality in his body who’s deciding to hurt teru and reigen, it’s mob himself, because he never unpacked his conflicting emotions towards them, and now, when he can’t control himself, they’re running wild.

and this isn’t me saying teru and reigen are horrible people who never earned mob’s forgiveness. of course not! they’re very important people to him, he cares for them a great deal, they help to bring mob down from his violent episode... but as we hear in the mogami arc...

mob, kind as he is, isn’t some all-forgiving, forever-loving kid, and the same goes for his relationships with others. he cares about teru as a friend, he has resentment towards him for what he did that he never unpacked until now - these things coexist!

and there’s the ultimate catharsis when reigen tells the truth about himself, revealing to mob that he’s a complete liar who’s been using and exploiting him from the beginning. he lied to him from the day they met, and those lies ultimately led to the disaster in seasoning city that we’re seeing now. it was mob’s honest belief that reigen was a strong, powerful adult who had everything figured out -

- that led to him being unable to accept the contradictions within himself, and so reigen laying those bare, the fact that he’s a liar and an exploiter, that he too, this person mob has admired and learned from for the whole series, has a part of himself he hates for how it thinks of other people, is what’s able to let mob finally accept himself. 

reigen being a liar doesn’t make him an evil monster who deserves nothing but mob’s resentment - and in turn, mob destroying the city and trying to kill his friends doesn’t make him a violent, hateful murderer. it makes him and mob flawed humans, whose relationship couldn’t ever have healthily continued if those things weren’t unpacked - if reigen never honestly confessed about who he was, if mob kept forgiving reigen without looking inward to ask how he felt. at best, it would have been shallow and dishonest for them both until the end, and at worst... well, mob wouldn’t have been able to repress his emotions, dangerous as they are the more he hides them, forever...

this is why the scene of mob breaking down and crying is so important to me. finally, he feels safe expressing ugly, crude, selfish emotions. until now, when we see mob cry, it’s either tasteful tears running down his face, not changing much of his actual expression, or the complete opposite direction in exploding and bawling his eyes out with 100% sadness and 100% rejection - either mob’s emotions are pretty and subdued, or soul-crushing explosions he has no control over.

(sidenote: 100% rejection is one of the coolest explosions in the series to me and i wish it was talked about more!)

now, though, with the reassurance that he can cry, full-on cry, and it won’t hurt anyone, that he isn’t some selfish evil for being a middle school boy devastated he got rejected by his crush, that he’s allowed to feel broken up and miserable and have it not be an explosion that destroys the city... he cries! he feels all those negative emotions he’d held back, and because he feels safe expressing them, they’re not dangerous at all, they’re just... again, a middle school boy crying because he got rejected by his crush.

mob’s emotions, on their own, aren’t dangerous. it’s his refusal to express them, and the violent outbursts that leads to, that is.

something i love so much about mob psycho 100′s ending is that it’s not an ending at all. it’s just the beginning - finally, after three seasons, mob can actually feel and safely express his emotions. he can be on even footing with teru, reigen, all of them. he can start balanced, open, communicative relationships with those around him, showing that the compassion mp100 preaches goes far deeper than simply forgiving those who hurt you, or giving people chances.

mob’s kindness is so, so, so important to me, and where season 2 was about extending kindness to others, culminating in mob sitting down with touchirou after deciding that letting him die alone would only have been needlessly cruel and reinforcing the man’s worldview that he needed nobody, and that extending kindness towards him was what he needed to properly change - season 3, culminating in mob confronting the parts of himself that may have wanted to leave touchirou behind, is about extending kindness to yourself.