mp100 doodle dump

친구들에게 더 편하게 모브사이코에 대해 말한다 요즘. 더빙 에피소드 한편 같이 봐준 애도 있고. ㅠㅠ 아나 근데 디스코드 행으로 밤늦게까지 잘 놀아놓고 친구 자러 가자 난 바로 다음 몹사 에프소드를 켰다.ㅠㅠㅠ 좋아 진짜ㅠㅠ 너무 좋아 친구는 오프닝 에쿠보를 green blob 이라 불렀다 that’s the green blob you drew! 내가 팬아트 보여준적이 있었나 뭔지도 기억 안나는데 암튼 놀아준 친구에게 넘 고맙지만 이 열정 나눌 수 있는 사람이 고프다. 비즈니스 관계여도 돼 걍 덕질 얘기 해조ㅜㅜ

Ces jours-ci, j'ai soif. J’étais ivre l’année dernière, ivre sur la richesse de la simple réalité après avoir connu la mort. Maintenant que je l’ai digérée, je veux plus. Je suis dans la phase de ma vie où je dois trouver ma position dans la société, par trouver une profession et un boulot. Je dois trouver la fonction qui va me soutenir et progresser. Et je veux découvrir et avancer.

Même si on a des différents mots pour les référencer, il est difficile de distinguer les réalisations professionnelles et les réalisations en tant que personne. Les deux sont liées aux connections avec les autres. Nous sommes remplis par d'autres de qui nous pouvons apprendre. Les habiletés seules ne peuvent pas remplir la soif que j’ai maintenant… Comme Mob a souligné encore et encore, on a besoin des autres. Maintenant comme je développe mes compétences, je dois connecter avec des gens qui sont déjà sur le terrain. Il y a beaucoup à apprendre des gens autour de moi, aussi, et pas seulement les choses techniques.

Je suis d’accord avec le message principal de Mob Psycho 100 au présent parce que je suis dans la position où je dois connecter avec d’autres. Cependant il y a une anxiété… non, un sentiment tenace quand je pense à ce que la série dit. Parce qu’il y a un autre message qui n’est pas écrit si explicitement, un message que le personnage Reigen porte.

Reigen est un personnage très relatable pour beaucoup parce qu’il est une personne ordinaire qui croyait une fois qu’il était spécial. Mob est spécial mais Reigen n’est pas. Il est devenu quelqu’un spécial pour Mob, c’est vrai, mais fondamentalement il est vide. Il est un adulte qui a accepté qu’il n’est pas ce qu’il voulait être quand il était jeune.

Pour moi, il est difficile de comprendre sa situation. J’ai trop de choses que je veux améliorer dans.  J’ai soif parce que je ne suis pas encore là. Je suis stressée parce qu’il y a trop à faire.

Reigen n’a pas la même énergie.

Alors le problème est : il lui manque quelque chose, mais la série dit que c’est la destination pour la plupart des gens. Ça entrave la deuxième partie de ce message « On n’est pas spéciale, mais tout va bien ». Donc je dois comprendre … qu’est-ce qu’il lui manque ?

Il lui manque un mentor, un confident. Reigen est le plus adulte parmi les gens qu’il rencontre régulièrement. Puisqu’il est le plus âgé mentalement, il est toujours l'enseignant et presque jamais l’apprenant. Et ce n’est pas seulement parce que les gens parmi qui Reigen se trouverait ; Reigen lui-même n’a pas le vecteur, la soif interne qui pourraient lui rendre un apprenant.

Quand Reigen a dit à Mob que Mob pouvait continuer son boulot avec lui, on pouvait voir ses situations différentes. Mob ne doit pas rester là, il doit explorer plus. Plus que ce que Reigen lui fournit avec le Bureau des esprits et autres trucs (Je voulais dire « Spirits and Such Consultation Office »). Mais pour Reigen, le bureau est sa place.

The dim lighting blends in with the chattering and the music. Compared to the long bland day I waited out in my office, the sensations from this place are an overload. In a good way, I tell myself as I take a seat at the bar table. It’s good stimulation for someone who’s spent most of the day in an empty office, thoughts bouncing off the hollow walls. I’m in the hustle and bustle again. Now I get to let the outer voices bounce me around.

The bartender catches sight of me and slides over to take my order. A lemon sour cocktail, I tell him. Please. The clink of ice hints at the refreshing sensation of the liquid soon to pass down my throat. I already know what it would feel like. This is more of a routine than a reward. Routines are better than holding a notion of rewards. You get disappointed if the reward doesn’t compensate for what you were building up to. It’s better if you never get started on the notion of a reward in the first place. The cold seeps into my palm as I wrap my hand around the glass. Integrate these mini rewards like these into a routine, like fast food. They’re good, functional. Just a short break from the work you’ll have to get back to one way or the other. Before I know it, I’ve already drowned half the glass. I set the glass back down, the clink barely audible over the numbing chatter. My sigh doesn’t push the burble out of my eardrums.

The bartender must’ve been watching me out of the corner of his eye. “Them kids bothering you?” he asks. “I’d invite you over to a private sector if we had one built into the architecture.”

I glance over my shoulder to see that it’s mostly college students in the bar. “Midterm season, huh?”

The bartender lets out a good-natured laugh. “Looks like you’re in the know. We get more of them during the exam season than after. They need an outlet for all the stress.”

“Don’t we all.”

“We get loads.” The bartender leans forward on the counter and nods toward the rowdy groups of people scattered throughout the bar. “From college kids to middle-aged and older. Buddies living through life, chewing through things together. Sometimes I imagine they’re all the same people. Living out different stages of life.”

“Mmm,” I entertain the thought. “The only stage you’re missing is the underage. You only get to see the weaning.”

“Right, the weaning from protected childhood. I suppose you need a place to chew over and take in the world that slowly loses flavor compared to the childhood glories.”

“Like a good ol’ chewing gum. All the flavor’s bled out, but you keep on chewing.”

“Just keep chewing, just keep chewing, chewing, chewing...“ I recognize Dory's ‘just keep swimming’ tone in the bartender’s voice. He laughs it off and turns his eyes on me. “I see the loners, too. Us analyzers, commentators. There’s the living part. The sharing. And the commenting.”

He’s rushing it. It’s strange to feel the velocity of the conversation when it’s me who normally speeds ahead. I didn’t want to think of him today. There’s laughter among the college students.

“There’s something bothering you. I can tell. Rough day, eh?” The bartender’s voice seems way too far away. I internally shake myself to clear the fog.

“Close. More like loud thoughts.” I look up in my best attempt to imitate the bartender’s good-natured smirk, tapping on my head. “Nothing a good wash of alcohol won’t fix.”

“Ahh. No need to spell it out. Wash it away, wash it good.”

With a reassuring nod that might as well be a clap on the shoulder, the bartender saunters off.

This guy’s the epitome of a bartender, ready to talk about life but knowing when to leave people alone. If this is his regular shift, I’d mark this place as a great hop over spot for whenever I want to feel the bustling. But the crowd. It’s too loud. The chatter’s really getting to me, and I quickly down the rest of my drink.

—————

It wasn’t just the chatter, I realize as I climb the stairs to my apartment. It was the college students, the scene that landed too close to what I’ve been trying to bury. I thought it would  be my reality. I didn’t know it would be an image I’d observe from afar. Not that it was tangible at the time. It was simply what I perceived as the given. It’s not part of my life now.

My quivering vision morphs my shoes into sneakers bracing against the metallic ridges of my high school stairs. My feet create the same footsteps as when we climbed up the stairs for our music class.

There’s something hurling up in me. I briefly consider pausing to retch, but decide it’s not worth it. It’s disorienting when I don’t have my sensations aligned and categorized. I need to place my finger on the cause of this nausea. I know what this is. I am already thinking in response to what he would’ve said. I’m preparing to defend myself in a match that will never take place.

“Would you stop it,” he had told me once. He said it like a statement of fact, as if it had the same gravity as the list of evidence I was bringing up at the time to support my claim. I don’t remember the specifics of the topic we were on. I just remember the abruptness that didn’t fit in with the context.

“Mind clarifying the ‘it’?”

“Okay.” He paused. “How do you imagine us seven years down the line?”

Though I was thinking it wasn’t at all relevant, I decided to play along. “At a bar somewhere, I guess, tired from work and washing down our stress with a couple of beers.”

“What will we be talking about.”

“Uh… shitty bosses. Lamenting on our career choices. Commenting on passerby’s.”

“Right. We’ll be talking of others. Talking about other people.”

He let the conversation trail off that time. He was a strange one. He went by his own agenda. It could have been that sense of gravity that drew me to him over and over again, even though he wasn’t in my friend circle at school. We hung out from time to time after the extracurricular activities. I bailed on volleyball practice more often than not because it lasted longer than his book club meetings. When we walked home together, he would tug roughly on his bicycle handles and jolt the hardcover book in his front basket.

I tried to establish a routine, and for a while it seemed like he accepted it. Save for these strange episodes when he would try to tell me something about myself that he couldn’t even name. In moments like these, I would get the peculiar sense of cold metallic ridges digging into my ribs, as if I were the book in his basket.

When the conversation cropped up again, he picked it back up like we skipped over the weeks in between.

“People can sense it, you know. When you put up a front.”

“Yeah, I agree it’s pretty easy to spot,” I said, not missing a beat. I couldn't afford to miss any beats. The cold was seeping into my sides again, and I had to warm them back up. “Body language is bound to give people away, whether it be eye or hand movements. From their gaze to the angle of their arms to the tremor in their hands, it’s really not that hard to detect.”

He didn't fall in pace with my rambling. “But it wasn’t because of the tremor that I caught you.”

“Seems like you’re pretty good at reading contexts, then. Do you get that from all the books you read?”

“They help.” He tugged on the handlebars to get his bike over a bump in the ground. “You don’t need to fake that you’re okay. Not in front of me, at least.” He said it nonchalantly, as if he wasn’t even embarrassed about bringing up to the surface what I would clearly prefer to leave unaddressed.

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.” That was the truth. I had no understanding of the cold.

“I’m not trying to put you on the spot, jeez.”

We ran into a group of mutual friends at the crossroad, and the awkward spot in the conversation dissipated.

I think I maniacally avoided that train of conversation. Physically avoiding him would only prove its existence, so I tried to crowd our moments with my comments. It was easier in larger groups of people, because there were only so many ways you could act once the group flow was set. I was excellent at tugging the strings in that setting, a power that became null when I was with him alone.

He seemed to have picked up my routine of walking home after club hours, because he started waiting for my volleyball practice to finish. It was during one of those walks after club hours that he finally laid out what was bothering him. There was that telling pause before he talked, the pause that always came before he would make an insight-laden comment in a group setting. He talked slow., like he was just figuring this out.

“It’s hard to get through to you, Reigen. It’s hard to… I always have to spell things out for you to get it, and that sometimes goes against the grain of the whole thing, you know?”

He wasn’t always good with words, and I could fill in the gaps most of the time. I was at a loss for this one, though.

“Dude, you gotta give me more to work with.”

Was it because I didn’t like talking about myself enough? Was it because I liked to categorize other people? I thought I was doing well reading the undercurrents. I knew how to please people, but it was so much tougher with him. Maybe I could cater to his tastes more if I could figure out the part that went over my head. It was body language, most likely, since that’s the only other form of communication aside from words. In the back of my mind, I was thinking: would you put the damn thing in words so I don’t have to keep shooting in the dark?

“I’m trying here,” he complained, as if he could read my thoughts. He furrowed his eyebrows, and his eyes traveled to the book in his basket. I was surprised when he actually picked it up.

“I’ve been reading this on and off. It’s a narrative book on relationships and bonds, sort of.” He held the book out to me. “I want you to read this.”

“Sounds great.” I took the book, feeling the dents it got from getting bounced around in the metal basket.

The continued furrow in his eyebrows told me that he was still on the task of clarifying his words, forcing me to keep my mouth shut. I silently hoped that we’d run into a group of mutual friends like the last time this happened. But it was too late in the day. He had waited for my volleyball practice to end to walk home with me, and there was usually no one around at this time. Our shadows stretched long in the orange light.

Instead of the group of people, I got what I was almost dreading.

“You lack internal narration,” he said, almost proud of having found the words. Finally. “And I want you to stop trying to make up for it by stealing other people’s.”

—————

The book was actually a collection of short stories. Even though they weren’t long in length, the stories’ plot lines stretched out painfully. The characters were all Hamlet equivalents. I never enjoyed the play. I returned the book to him and he did not ask what I got out of it.

This was a full year before we graduated high school, way before we parted ways. That last year was good. We went skiing together with the mutual friend group. He brought me along on a trip with his old friends, too, so it wasn’t like that incident was the beginning of the end.

Except that memory stands out to me as the stamping of the expiration date for my time with him.

At the time I couldn’t understand what he meant by narration. What in the world is an internal narration. I was all but narration when it came to describing situations. The nonstop stream of words was my jam. Besides, it was a harsh thing to say, to anyone. If I cut all context and presented the situation to an outsider, I’m pretty sure the common response would be: that’s a shitty friend.

No, but I liked the guy. He was cool. He would sometimes throw me off because he seemed to be completely oblivious to the social hierarchy in school. He’d casually mention the social pariahs in front of the popular crowd, completely disregarding the unspoken division. This made it hard for me to gauge where I stood with him.

It wasn’t out of malice that he said that to me. He was telling me something because he cared. Something most people wouldn’t have even noticed, or cared to bring up to the surface. I wonder if he knew that we wouldn’t keep in touch, the same way he perceived this unspoken part of me. What I am left with are the bare facts. It’s statistically hard to keep in touch with everyone. It makes sense that he is one of the many I lost touch with.

But I can’t find the narration that connects the dots between these facts.

The night air is sticky. I inhale deep from my cigarette and get a big gulp of asphalt, concrete, and smoke residue. I heave a deep sigh, but it doesn’t push the stickiness out of my lungs.

A part of me wants to dismiss this as an episode of sentiments. Or find a solution. Why mull over something if you can’t do anything about it? Why mull over if you can? Logic cuts off either path. The solution comes in actions because we live in the present.

Another, more sinister part of me notes that I am slipping further away from what I had wanted at the time by thinking this. He knew it. He saw it. I never talked about it but he knew what it was that I wanted. That’s why he was telling me I wasn’t there yet. It wasn’t to present a solution. He probably didn’t know it himself. He was noting my situation because it was visible to him, because he had access to my narration that I never spelled out to him.

My head hurts. Alcohol and smoking probably weren’t a good mix. I cut my entire train of thought short and snuff out the cigarette. There was a kid coming to my place these days. I don’t know how long it would last, but I should try and cut back on smoking just for the time being. Here’s to another beginning to something I have no idea how long it would last.

지금은 나 너 없이 그 두 분야를 재해석하려고 해. The surface level and the depths. 사실 섞일 수 없는게 너무 많고 그 경계가 당연했는데. 덕질과 grief. 언어. The contexts that shift with time, setting, and the people you are with. Meta contextual perceptions aren’t always representable. It’s easier to skirt around them because having everything expressed and categorized sits better with the busy surface level that leaves no time to ruminate.

I’m turning twenty three soon and that’s already older than you’ll ever be. I’m older than you now ahaha can you believe it. 모브 사이코 100 16권이 너가 나에게 마지막으로 준 물질적 선물. 말이 돼? 개웃겨. 안웃겨.ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 아졸라 나 아직도 말이 안된다 생각해 아니 왜??? 카톡 답장을 안해 엌ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 어디간거야 why’d you leave me here you should’ve secured a means to communicate from the other side before you went off without me.

아 졸라 글쓰려는데 또 엉망됐네. 항상 이래 이게 내 평상시 상태야 덕질하면서 즐겁다가 네 죽음 생각하다가 멍하니 할일 하다가...너무 껑충껑충 뛰어서 갈피를 못잡아 글을 못써 요즘 언어도 갈무리 잘 못하고 있어 그만좀 섞어써야하는데 동시에 일부러 섞일 수 없는걸 섞어보고 싶어. 덕질과 grief 원래 공존 못했거든? 처음 네 죽음 받아들이면서 오히려 덕질로 돌아서서 현실 잊고 그랬거든? 지금은 아니야 레이겐 개귀엽고 짜증나면서 동시에 와 다신 너와 말할 수 없네 이 사실 인지해.

There’s a sort of an upside to this phenomenon though: it’s helping me weed out the subtle skepticism that was the default when I took my reality in. Everything’s present now. Vying for attention. Without my anchor I’m pushing through the currents with brute force. I’m hoping to gain more stamina so it isn’t always so draining.

I didn’t mean to be so all over the place when I started writing. Sorry about that. I can’t ever speak with you in person again, but I just wanted to capture my reality in the present moment. Which you’re still a big part of. 이제 23살이야. 와 너보다 오래 살았다 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ아직 많이 흔들리고 뭐가 진짠지 잘 모르고 그러는데 이건 아마 네 죽음을 받아들이면서 오랫동안 지속될 현상일건데 나는 이 과정 전부를 받아들일려고. 너가 준 책으로 덕질하는것도 중요하고, 일방적이지만 너와 대화 이어가는것도 중요하고, 내 인생의 여러가지 다른 부분도 중요해. 전엔 덕질 치부했단 말이야 길티 플레져식으로. 이젠 그냥 이것도 진짜라고 받아들이고 있어. 나에게 진짜가 뭔지 보여줘서 고마워. 이제 나 혼자 헤쳐 나가고 있지만 그래도 네가 준 지표 소중하게 간직할게. 아, 나중에 만난다면 너 나 언니라고 불러라 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

This is what self-hate is like. I’m not entirely sure if self-hate is the right umbrella term. Whatever it is, in this state of dealing with perspectives and conflict within yourself, you’re utterly on your own. Not much can surface for others to lend you a helping hand.

What Reigen sees is Mob on the outside. He sees Mob through actions, through respective positions. He sees his pupil stirring up a tornado. He sees a kid going through an internal turmoil. He sees a kid he has to take care of.

The panels alternate between the black and white space Mob is in and the debris Reigen plows through. There’s no way Reigen can get to Mob in this separate realm. Only his voice travels through, and what he says is immediately countered by ‘Shigeo’ Mob (the suppressed persona. I’ll just call him Shigeo). Up till now we mostly depended on Reigen to process situations. He’s a natural born commentator, so quick to reframe situations and glean one-line dogmas from them. But here it’s Shigeo who’s defining the situation. This time it’s Mob’s call. Reigen supposedly has no say in this because he has no idea what’s going on. What he sees on the outside is so different from the actual internal conflict within Mob.

Even though Reigen’s the lab rat in this unusual case of Mob being the narrator, what Reigen says somehow falls in line with the overall flow of the dialogue.

“몰랐어!” “그게 네가 안고 있는 고민이었구나… 이렇게 큰 것이었구나.” (‘I didn’t know!’ ‘So this was what you were shouldering all along...this massive thing.’)

Granted, Reigen’s staring straight into a tornado. But it’s not fear or awe that takes hold of him. It’s regret. And his next action isn’t self preservation (e.g. running for cover) but rather a concession, a surrender. He surrends his position as a mentor. ‘I didn’t realize’ “미처 몰랐어.” A surrender that’s perfectly in line with what’s happening right now with Mob struggling in this separate, inaccessible realm. This was supposed to keep Reigen out of the loop, but somehow Reigen plugs himself back in. By agreeing that he has no place in this.

He’s still surprisingly in sync. His words translate into action. When Mob flakes away to Shigeo, Reigen jumps in as if he physically saw it happen. He runs after Mob yelling out his name as soon as Mob disintegrates—which makes sense to us readers with access to both realms, but there’s no way this could’ve been visible on Reigen’s end. He has no idea what’s going on inside. All he’s looking at is a middle schooler standing in the eye of the tornado, not even responding to his desperate cries. What did he think he could do? How did he know that Mob was battling his inner self, tormented by his double identity?

The two realms (Mob’s black/white space and the shared reality) are reunited when Reigen reveals his own position of having to struggle with self-hate. (Of course, there’s the whole bit where Reigen gets tossed around like a rag doll. It’s only thanks to Dimple that he managed to secure a space for himself to talk). As this happens we’re swung around to the other side of this unbreachable wall. Instead of getting the visual representation of self-hate as we did with Mob, we only get Reigen’s struggle through a brief summary. We were with Mob in a place where he was utterly alone, and now we get a glimpse of Reigen on the outside, who’s also struggling in his own private realm.

The point here is that it’s Reigen who acted as the bridge between the two immiscible realms. As readers we’re simply taken along for the ride, but from Reigen’s perspective…he’s all but shooting in the dark. Blindly risked his life at that, too. But he somehow saw through everything and took the right actions and said the right words to save Mob from being torn apart in two. The two realms slide back thanks to Reigen.

“괜찮아.” ‘We’ll be alright’/’It’s alright.’ I think that’s what the panel meant.