#✯ ✧ ✧ jin shirato. ☾ ✞ ☽

[revclver-jesus]

hihi! thoughts on takajin? any specific headcanons you have for them? i’ve been obsessed with them since i beat p3p and there’s not enough takajin content out there to satisfy me lol

{{ Hi!! Sorry btw I went to sleep before I saw this ! but

vibrates-- Oh yeah, I have a few thoughts.

Takaya x Jin... Specifically from the angle of just how they are in Reload? There's a lot on my mind about them! I could honestly summarize Takaya's whole arc-- in a way-- is just waiting again and again to see if he'll acknowledge that he clearly has an attachment to Jin ( or if he'll outright say he doesn't! ) every single time Jin expresses affection towards him. And he confirms it at the very last second. He wishes Jin was with him. But Jin isn't there to hear it.

This unhealthy, codependent, and yet somehow emotionally stunted relationship could be studied in a dish. And by codependent I don't just mean Jin, Takaya clearly needs Jin. A lot. Every single time Takaya flies off the handle, which is often, who catches him? It happens enough that Takaya even begins to just sigh " I know " not with any anger but in the same way you say "yes dear" to a partner you've been with for ages lmao. Jin may be incredibly in awe of Takaya's very existence, but he also has some intuitive understanding that Takaya is unstable and needs someone to hold him steady if he's going to be truly great.

It takes... an insane amount of intimate familiarity to be a close partner of takaya. This quiet two person language of somehow saying you want to die by each other's side but also you're not attached or anything. Casually strolling around landmines of trauma and defensiveness because you know exactly where the mines are in yourself. It doesn't occur to Takaya that he already has an attachment because he trusts Jin so deeply to understand his need to sever cleanly without feeling grief, and its only when something as unpredictable as the protag gets too close does he call him an "attachment" because he's uncomfortable, he's new, his existence feels wrong in his life, and attachments are bad, so they must feel that way.

But Jin, this person he's always with and always has been with, that he can sit in a dark room with without feeling the need to speak, that he knows everything about, that he goes everywhere with, that's not an attachment, surely, that's just Jin.

I think its only when Jin forces the gun away from his head does he realize.... Oh. Someone is attached to me. Someone would mourn me if I died before they did. And he's shocked to utter silence. He doesn't argue back, tell Jin he's being emotional, if you look at takaya's face he's... scared. Jin is acting beyond their quiet agreement and he isn't disappointed-- he doesn't know what to feel.

What I would give to write the scene of what must have happened right after they fell off the bridge, what did they even say to each other..... probably nothing. They probably just focused on the task at hand.

Anyways um-- if you read all this i hope it was any help lol ! Thanks for the ask! }}

[revclver-jesus]

{{ Do you think the hype has died down in me, because it hasn't, it refuses, it lives in my head rent free, unfollow me now because this is all i'm going to talk about for the next 5--

I have replied to all my threads ok, let me talk to myself in the corner--

I really feel like people misremember a lot of Strega sometimes, which I cannot blame, its definitely like a game of telephone, fandom echo sort of effect. But people seem to remember Jin as being so much more subservient and more naive than he was. One of the things I look forward to is them really hammering in just how much on board he was with what team Strega was doing, that he's not the kind that was going to get convinced out of it like Chidori. Takaya and Jin were side by side in levels of intensity, they just have different priorities.

I mean-- I remember years back when one of my friends told me they totally forgot the scene where Jin takes Takaya's wrist and makes them walk off a bridge like- Me, local Strega obsessed person: That's my favorite part???fgdhksfd Cause its so fascinating that Jin was written to do that? Jin is the one to hold Takaya back-- even when he's visibly frustrated by the gesture, and then its Takaya that backs down!! And Jin is the one to give the speech, talks about the two of them as a single entity, declares their shared purpose and Takaya trusted them enough to fake-out their suicide without saying a word. Like, these two are on equal respect in each other's mind, but its so easy to just remember that Jin was the openly devotional one and Takaya was a cult leader. It requires so much reading between the lines to get these guys were actually close. In reload they really gotta convey what their dynamic is like more clearly so its more memorable to even people not paying these dorks any attention, and it looks like they're going to so!! i'm just sitting here kicking my feetsies }}

[revclver-jesus]

(( Midnight Takaya rambling--

I do default to Takaya having romantic feelings for Jin in my main verse but the reason he hesitates to ever directly call it that isn't just him being shy or ashamed in some way, its.... complicated lmao

In the novel, you can see Takaya talk about love to Chidori but its distinctly this disaffected, "other people experience it" kind of tone. He clearly has a sort of stereotypical understanding of love, borderline a poetic, love story idea of how it works and that its inevitable for teenagers, but that gives me the impression that he is garnering this entirely from media and watching couples in passing. Its not pessimistic but it is... dismissive. Endearingly human but frivolous and something he doesn't relate to.

So its like I said about Takaya and his love language-- he never learned one. You'll notice he can express kind of... military concepts, like loyalty and reliance, but its very... functional. ( which is not helping how sociopathic he outwardly appears-- ) He is not affectionate, not in any way, how would he learn to be affectionate? Who has ever once in the history of his existence shown him affection? He's been idolized! Respected, late in his life, yes! But not shown affection. And its a bit late now. So he literally just doesn't know how. And that's what causes that feeling like he's just manipulating the other two-- but he evidently isn't, or not completely, because he thinks of them as he dies. And I have no doubt honestly that Jin knows this too, like they've been around each other long enough that Jin can read between his lines. I think Takaya's really just accepted things where he's like " Good thing I'm about to die so I don't have to address this any deeper than it is and nothing has to change-- "

Heck, I think half the reason he even likes Jin so much is specifically because he doesn't ever have to express a vulnerable emotion. Jin can just guess, he gets what Takaya is trying to convey. That or Jin hates expressing emotion too so they're just holding hands in emotionally repressed silent solidarity lmao--

TL;DR: Two absolute freaks that have been through hell together developed complex co-dependency in a bond that transcends friendship in some unspoken amorous way DFSGKGDS ))

[revclver-jesus]

{{ I set his birthday to christmas and then I'm just picturing an interaction between him and Jin like

" I got you this " " Since when did we exchange christmas gifts? ' " It's for your birthday " " Why would I celebrate being born? " " Just open it--" DSFHGS But in truth he's only uncomfortable with gifts because affection makes him tense and the thought that he should probably try to express it in return makes him feel like a malfunctioning machine but it's fine }}

[revclver-jesus]

Man's a wreck without Jin huh-

{{ YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND how much of a wreck he is ok

JIN WAS HOLDING THE BRAINCELL WHEN TARTARUS FELL WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO DO NOW DFSHKGDS

That man was his last thread of sanity, and that's saying something considering the state the two were already in lmao-- }}

[revclver-jesus]

If they are holding hands, as a way of escaping verbal expression, that makes the love language touch, hehe

(( NO I MEAN they don't literally hold hands either tbh that was more an expression sorry for being confusing there lmao-- BUT I do definitely think Jin is the only one he's willing to let touch him at all? ( touch aversion and all that ), because besides being irritated that he stopped him from shooting someone he does relax and let him hold his wrist as they retreat ( kind of..... holding hands but more aggressive lol ) when he falls backwards off the bridge with him, but I can't picture them........ holding hands to express affection except in an extreme moment like that.

Maybe the masculine dude thing where you grasp hands in solidarity, but he doesn't.... feel the need to touch people to express fondness, that's not an impulse he has. And his lack of affection has not made him touch starved over the years, ( or, if it has, he's too uncomfortable with touch to feel his want for it ) of all the love languages I was actually thinking that wasn't his most of all. That's the thing!!

Like, he's a very well spoken and poetic person, when he's passionate he feels the need to talk and express himself, I feel it would be verbal expression ordinarily but only IF he wasn't so emotionally stunted. The stunted inexperience with it is getting in the way of his love language, it has to be, because that's why he can't move forward. I might even say....... he's a little annoyed with his feelings for Jin because he can't succinctly put it into words....... ))

[revclver-jesus]

How do you feel when people say that Takaya is just using Jin and Chidori?

{{ You mean like that one hot take that drove me up the wall? lmao I am going to give you the full blown dissertation here i go-- let's call this essay

The Most Commonly Misunderstood Thing About Takaya's Character: or Why Team Strega Is Not Literally A Cult lol

When people say that Takaya is just 'using" Jin and Chidori, what they're implying in most contexts is that Takaya is incapable of forming attachments and his motivations are fairly shallow-- essentially Takaya is not a complex villain and should be dismissed as purely selfishly motivated and malicious. He's a "simple" villain.

Now I realize....... that I might be biased as that girly that's written him on a dedicated blog for multiple years now, but purely objectively speaking, removing all my own headcanons, using only the information provided to use in canon? It's just thoroughly false, tbh!

First I'll go into why he isn't purely selfishly motivated and then I'll explain his relationship with Strega because I can prove the motivation with just Reload as an example, let alone the novel. Takaya, in Reload especially but even in the original game, I would argue has a full blown character arc off screen. At the start of the game he does appear to be more selfish, he has no real motivation and is just living out the last of his life doing underhanded assassin work-- nothing's really challenging him. But as the story progresses, Takaya begins to express a meaningful ideology-- he develops a greater concern for the world around him and expresses a full blown motivation. He says, in protest to the choices of the protagonist in one of his social events, and I quote: " Choosing to turn a blind eye towards your own power, to the grief of the fallen, to the unchosen and the unloved." Its clear he is not talking about himself here, as he mentions grief for the fallen. Takaya is expressing that he feels grief for something-- he is sorry about something that has happened to someone else, and it bothers him enough to nearly scream about it.

I think, often times, people dismiss what Takaya says as insincere almost automatically without any indication that he doesn't mean the words he's saying besides perhaps being vain and dishonest in other scenes, but these social event scenes are clearly meant to be interpreted as him being unusually earnest. By the end, Takaya is not just trying to keep his own power, but, as he says " this is not just my will but the will of all people. " which all culminates into Takaya's final character arc moment, where, in his final boss, he says the line " I will throw away my pride! " before using an evoker instead of trying to summon without help, implying that he is finally sacrificing his ego to better fight for what he believes in. If he was fighting for a positive cause, this would be a heroic moment, but it is still concrete evidence that his motivation is no longer meant to be seen as purely selfish. He is now fighting for " the will of all people ". He cares about the " the fallen, the unchosen and the unloved."

So what about Jin and Chidori? To put it simply, Takaya is not some puppet master that breaks them down emotionally and treats them like tools. They're his friends, and he happens to have a leader's personality, so they follow him, much like the protagonist he is designed to mirror. Its a lot easier to guess how he feels about them when you don't assume the worst and look at all his canon interactions with them. And even easier to tell if you can manage to read any english translated pages of their strega-focused novel ( which we can assume is fairly canon since Reload references it with the child turned into a large shadow ).

In the novel, as far as I've seen ( its only partially translated ), team Strega is extremely informal and lighthearted around each other. There is no sign that they fear Takaya, as they are willing to tease each other and disagree. The opening scenes of the book quickly establish a sort of family-like dynamic, with Takaya having an older brother-like role. He teases Chidori ( in a bit of heavy handed foreshadowing ) that she will understand why people fall in love when she's older-- of which Chidori sort of says gross and "as if" and rolls her eyes at him. Jin, being the narrator perspective, shows no sign of intimidation when around Takaya, something that would bleed through into their every interaction-- especially the establishing scene introducing the cast-- if that were the case. I feel, even if the novel is not canon, the writer would be instructed not to write Takaya so friendly if he was meant to be a heartless manipulator regardless.

In the game, the most manipulative thing he ever does to either is when Chidori is pulled back into Strega. Takaya tells her that there is nowhere else she can go and reminds her that death is not to be feared in a way that sounds like he's repeated this mantra often enough he knows she can guess it. This seems spooky, but the tension is immediately alleviated by the flippant and kind of sassy way that Chidori assures them she remembers Takaya's advice. This is not how you talk to your cult leader and this is not a cult, this is something closer to a gang or a club-- at worst, a coven of witches ( considering their team name is "witch" in italian.). They simply have an in-group and out-group sort of mentality, a shared since of identity, and a shared view of the world to go with it, which is to be expected when you've been openly shunned and mocked by the average person ( as seen at the start of the first scene with Shinji ) But this scene, when compared to all their mundane and lighthearted interactions, doesn't imply anything more severe than the leader of your misfit club reminding you why we don't hang out with the normies. You're "one of us" and a level of loyalty and commitment is expected when you otherwise always act as a group.

Yes, he is very cold and indifferent to the sight of his team members getting hurt-- or hurting themselves, for that matter, but the reason for this is obvious. In Reload, Takaya plainly expresses that he is feeling attachment ( for the protag at the moment ) but is avoiding his own capability for attachment intentionally. That scene was meant to establish that he can feel attachment, that he isn't as cold as he pretends to be, to encourage the viewer to see him with a little more nuance. What causes a man to force himself to be colder than he really is? What can cause an avoidance toward emotional attachment? Maybe...... watching 100 children die after being orphaned and stolen away to live underground for years? lmao

And so, when Takaya watches Chidori do self harm or literally sacrifice her life, for one-- he's not going to parent her, they don't have that kind of relationship, and he would be a hypocrite if he tried to encourage her not to do what she wants to to her dying body-- and two, of course he doesn't mind if Chidori dies, he's expecting that to happen anyways. His one greatest gift is his uncanny ability to accept death and the death of others. Mourning you openly is not how he expresses emotion. Especially when he sincerely believes death is a blessing. Its just the way she died that he's a little annoyed by. ( And why shouldn't he be honestly-- the girl threw her life away on the first nice guy she met at the mall just to make his work harder from his perspective, lmao ) BUT. In the comic version of that scene, Takaya does let himself be cut across the chest purely because he hesitated to shoot when he saw Chidori's spirit protecting Junpei. So... that might imply something.

However, if there is any greater evidence against any who claim that Takaya does not care about Jin especially... Takaya's final words, in multiple renditions of the story including the movies and Reload, are to say that he wishes Jin was with him as he died. If there is anyone that Takaya cared for, at least one single character in the entire game, it is above all Jin Shirato.

In the movies its very obvious, with the sad closeup shot of him looking beaten and washed up as he wishes Jin could be here to see it all end with him. I have the scene as an icon ! Look at how emotional the framing is !

So yeah, that's how I feel, it just drives me crazy when people remember Takaya as just Some Asshole lmao-- he IS an asshole! But he's no Chairman Ikutsuki, he has a lot of complexity to him beyond being the guy who killed Shinji, and not everything he does is black and white. There is highly plausible reason to believe Takaya cared for both of them in his own way, but the ever loyal, best friend, Jin Shirato, especially so. }}

[revclver-jesus]

Love to see them posed together like this, they're the perfect height differences for the pyramid formation lol