from the response from non mp100 fans to mob winning tumblr autism polls i kinda get the sense that people who havent seen the show think hes a “diagnosed autism at fandom because socially awkward” kind of character and not like. the most autistic character ever written.
like okay. so the plot of mob psycho is that mob didnt have a lot of friends as a child because people thought he was weird for having powers, and when his one friend got kind of bored of him showing off he resorted to repressing the use of his powers entirely to appear more “normal”. however, since his powers are an expression of his identity and not something that exists outside of him, repressing his powers also meant completely repressing his emotions, so he appears completely unemotive until he gets extremely overwhelmed and has meltdowns, one of which hurt someone he cared deeply about and caused him to repress his emotions even more. and because of this unemotive “mask”, as well as his inability to read social cues and general social awkwardness, people tend to look down on him and try to take advantage of him because they refuse to view him as an emotionally complicated person with his own wants and needs, and as a result he kind of internalizes this. and the series is about him learning to build friendships with other people and assert himself and his boundaries more. and instead of the final antagonist being some evil guy trying to take over the world or something its the manifestation of all of mob’s repressed powers and emotions and desires that have gotten tired of being cage which he refuses to let free because he’s terrified that if he’s himself the people he’s spent all this time as his “fake” self building relationships with won’t like him anymore.
like at a certain point it goes beyond “popular fandom headcanon” and into “just actually the plot of the show”
