#nopsi meta

My 2nd post for the 2025 #Saiki PPT Party!

I was going to post this one first and then realized that maybe first thing in the morning wasn't the best time for 30 slides of armchair psychology lmfao.

I love saikechi so much. And yet unfortunately 99% of saikechi fic and art focuses around Saiki making Akechi shut up or wishing he would shut the fuck up, both verbally and mentally.

??? That's not nice or romantic or cute??

Like, if you genuinely think that Saiki would hate to have a loud thinker around.... Why ship Saikechi at all? Nendo is literally right there.

Akechi's constant thinking and talking is a fundamental part of who he is — Saiki only liking him when he's quiet, or even preferring him when he's quiet, is genuinely such a depressing concept. Like only loving a partner when they're exhausted and ill.

If I only saw this trope as part of purposefully toxic Saikechi then I'd be cool with it, because it would be an interesting angle for a toxic codependent relationship. But like, I'm seeing this depicted as if it's sweet and romantic????

Have we considered that Saiki might actually like Akechi's busy thoughts? That they could act as white noise, blocking out other people's thoughts while also being too quick for Saiki to really parse, so that Saiki just hears a comfortingly familiar murmur of humanity? With an effect similar to the germanium ring but without the unnerving silence?

Have we considered that Saiki might also enjoy listening to Akechi talk? He certainly likes eavesdropping on other people's conversations and he's used to his parents chattering at home. Plus, Saiki wouldn't even have the pressure of needing to respond all the time, because 1) Akechi knows very well that Saiki's not a huge conversationalist, and 2) Akechi can read Saiki's expressions and body language well enough to decipher a response from it without him having to say anything or purposely respond.

Healthy and happy relationships happen between people who actually like each other's major traits a lot. People who don't like each other's major traits should not be together. Why settle for someone who hates most of what you are, and vice versa?

And it's not to say that Akechi's chattiness wouldn't ever be an inconvenience. Because EVERY character trait is going to cause problems in at least one context, and be beneficial in at least one other. Someone who is always nice may be taken advantage of more easily, while someone with a temper may avoid the same problem. But whoever is dating that person should be seeing those traits in a neutral to positive light if they're going to be happy together long-term.

Anyways, let's celebrate romance where people enjoy each other's quirks and idiosyncrasies, especially when these traits aren't considered to be conventionally attractive or desirable.

He is not his quiet-maxxing normalsona.

However, in the Saiki universe, the soulmate connection seems to lack pretty much all of those problematic elements.

We have to do a little extrapolating from what we see in canon since this aspect of Aiura's powers is not covered in detail, but:

Soulmates do not seem to be guaranteed to ever meet, considering the fact that Aiura specifically looked up her soulmate and that one guy who was linked to someone in a remote African village that would almost certainly never cross paths with him.

Being with your soulmate is completely optional, otherwise Aiura wouldn't bother providing relationship scoring and just tell each person to go find their soulmate. This allows for a lot of narrative opportunities to explore why someone would consciously choose to not be with their soulmate, and also opens up the door for polyamory.

Soulmates do not instantly fall in love, and are not forced to stay in love by any supernatural powers. Aiura didn't think anything of Saiki until he flawlessly saved Yumehara's life like 10x in a row, and Saiki certainly didn't fall for Aiura right away either. They fought over their values strongly enough that it would've been a breakup if they'd ever been together.

Soulmate status just seems to indicate particularly good chemistry, and like the rest of Aiura's powers, is purely informational and not determinative. Presumably soulmates have the highest possible compatibility scores, and it's kinda cool that it seems guaranteed there's at least 1 person out there who will jive with you, but also plenty of other people you can connect with to various degrees.

With Saiki and Aiura specifically, it's shown that Saiki can change the future Aiura sees as soon as he hears about it. It may even be possible for him to change the soulmate determination, and he certainly could've used Time Leap to fool Aiura into thinking someone else was her soulmate if he was really opposed to the concept. She had scryed it recently, so the butterfly effect shouldn't be a challenge.

But they do work so smoothly together with their powers complementing each other, and Saiki is kind of a lonely romantic tsundere at heart, so it makes sense that he would let the soulmate thing play out and yet test the connection by pushing Aiura away as much as possible.

Actually, considering that Saiki can't control people's actions directly (and that he sucks at trying to control people indirectly), the strongest noncon/dubcon force in the Saikiverse shockingly appears to be Teruhashi's beauty.

The only male character that doesn't seem at all affected by Teruhashi's powers is Hairo, most likely because of his heavily implied homosexuality. Women attracted to other women are also impacted by her power, as seen with Aiura.

While Saiki says that married people aren't affected by Teruhashi, Kuniharu does actually show several signs of being affected by Teruhashi, and so does Kumagoro.

All affected people instantly fall in love with her on sight, no exceptions.

Critical thinking ability appears to drop precipitously when it comes to her, with her fans accepting that she had a secret child with Saiki despite being in school with her every day and that she can just choose not to poop for a week. More effective mind control than anything Saiki can do tbh.

The instant Saiki loses some of his powers, he starts being affected by Teruhashi's beauty.

The narrative supports Saiki's theory that Teruhashi is literally favored by God and can affect reality just by hoping for something. The implication that God is (physically??) attracted to Teruhashi and does whatever she wants is.... yikes on several levels. If she asks for someone to love her, do they get a choice in the matter??

Anyways, there are way more elements of noncon/dubcon with Teruhashi ships than there are with actual canon soulmate mechanics in the Saikiverse and that's just such a wild choice by the author lol.

Short answer: Basically no.

Long answer:

According to author commentary, Saiki wasn't initially intended on being a silent protagonist, he was supposed to speak up occasionally. But as the series went on, Asou never really found a good opportunity for Saiki to say anything and so he just ended up making him essentially silent.

As a result, Saiki generally only "speaks" to the audience and a small subset of characters using his telepathy.

Here is a pretty complete list of characters Saiki actually "talks" to:

His immediate family

His grandparents after the power reveal

The Psychickers (Toritsuka, Aiura, Akechi)

Neighborhood kids (Yuuta, the little girl with the dog)

Various animals

You, the audience (he's narrating)

With everyone else, Saiki exclusively communicates using only body language, pointing, and facial expressions. We can see how dedicated he is to his silence when he's trying to convince his friends to not go on a deadly volcano vacation but only throws brochures at them and crosses his arms in an X shape instead of actually saying a word or two to them.

Interestingly enough though, we can tell by Toritsuka's performance that Saiki's friends are used to him saying "yare yare" / "good grief" all the time. Saiki is actually shocked that his friends genuinely think this is normal behavior for him. How does that happen?

Well, it's quite likely that Saiki unintentionally says "yare yare" / "good grief" "out loud" with his telepathy even when he's not "talking" to anyone.

We have two precedents for Saiki's telepathy not being 100% watertight: the manga-exclusive suicidal musician chapter where a song getting stuck in Saiki's head makes it play in everyone else's, and the second light novel where the evil Saiki comments that our Saiki's thoughts leak out everywhere.

This would explain why Saiki's friends are so shocked by him speaking directly them, even if they're sure they've "heard" him speak before – because he exclusively "says" "yare yare" / "good grief" all the time but never joins conversations or talks to them directly.

So after using up a month's allotment of quotation marks, my best answer to this question is really....

STEP ONE of good characterization:

YOU ARE NOT THE CHARACTER. THE CHARACTER IS NOT YOU. STOP RELATING TO THE CHARACTER.

They do not think the way you think. They will not react the way you react. They don't have your morals, preferences, tastes, fashion sense, etc etc etc.

You are not the guy.

You must appreciate them as a separate person. Only once you have separated them from yourself in your heart can you start on the road to knowing your blorbo....

STEP TWO of good characterization:

When asking any question about the character at all, START FROM CANON.

If the exact answer is not in the canon, pick the CLOSEST scenario / fact / interaction, and work from there.

Example: Blorbo has never seen Glup Shitto held at gunpoint. But Blorbo was really angry when Glup Shitto's diary was stolen, and freaked out during another life or death situation.

Held at gunpoint is like 10x more fucked up than the diary so make Blorbo's like 10x angrier and similarly freaked out.

STEP THREE of good characterization:

For details that are not addressed at all in canon, use THEMES, GENRE, and CHARACTER ARCHETYPE/ROLE to create a believable rendition of the character.

Don't forget to include any quirks that significantly set them apart from similar characters when choosing these things btw.

Your BRILLIANT POWERFUL SCIENTIST may have dark polished hardwood furniture that speaks to sophistication but show her love of travel with tchotchkes from around the world.

Your ANGTSY MANPAIN MAN may choose military combat gear but wear pink socks because his daughter picked them out.

Your MANIC PIXIE DREAM GUY may love jogging with his cute dog in the park but reveals hints of a DARK PAST in his music playlist. And in the gun he keeps in his fanny pack.

Don't forget that other characters likely have their own knowledge and opinions of blorbo that you can draw from. If Glup Shitto is consistently wrong about blorbo and thinks blorbo is probably a good cook, make blorbo a bad cook. If Glup Shitto is blorbo's childhood best friend and used to play doll murder courthouse a lot, it's a good stretch to say that blorbo may have played doll murder courthouse as a child too, and this was something they did together.

STEP FOUR of good characterization:

DO A LITTLE RESEARCH!!

The character almost certainly hasn't taken the exact life path as you. If they are from a different area, look into cultural norms that may differ from yours.

No one is expecting you to be the foremost scholar on Japanese etiquette or British regional slang, but a little can go a long way.

People in places with socialized healthcare should not be worrying about medical bills, blorbos in tropical areas will not experience the seasons as much as you might, other cultures attitudes towards nudity/sex/drugs may be wildly different to yours.

IF you actually have relevant experience then feel free to use it in your fics. But don't forget that you are not the guy! Really think through how their perspective may differ even in the same situation.

STEP FIVE of good characterization:

PUT LOVE INTO IT AND HAVE FUN!!!

If you don't love Glup Shitto, don't write about them! If you're not having fun, hit the bricks!

Fanfiction is for HAVING A GOOD TIME and SHARING WITH OTHER FREAKS!!!!!!

Also it's pretty clear in the series that he's trying to not use Mind Control any more or get involved with people's problems because the last time he did that he ended up almost killing a bunch of kids and getting severe trauma lol. Plus some sort of bizarre unintended consequence ALWAYS shows up after he does this.