do share more of your Strega thoughts 👁👁
Oh am I ever glad you've invited!
Strega is very dear to me, although I certainly don't know Everything about them quite yet because I'm running off knowledge up through mid-August in game and a few spoilers I already am greatly fond of them. I find them really interesting and sad and I wish more people appreciated them and the potential they have as characters if only Atlus wasn't so. Atlus. I could say a loooot more about them already probably (like how I think all three Strega members are a great example of different trauma induced styles of disordered attachment...), but between not having a 100% full picture Quite Yet and also being on like day two or so of being sick right now, I'm gonna settle for five million headcanons for now lol. This ask was also mine so see that too, but here's more of my assorted little thoughts/headcanons beyond that! Very mixed bag on what's here lol, some more lighthearted but some more serious also. This is long as fuck bc I started writing it out then went to bed then wrote More, oops lol.
I think that despite his adamant refusal of attachment, presumably even when younger, Takaya inwardly had a very "I need to protect my friends because I'm the oldest and need to look out for them" mentality as a kid. Guy who did whatever he could to keep them all alive and keep Jin and Chidori away from seeing more of the worst of their overall situation (with varying success
I said in the linked post that I headcanon Takaya as having functionally having the equivalent to a sleep disorder because of Hypnos, but also. This feeds into like... a certain Mentality around his Persona to me. Hypnos is a curse thrust upon him against his will, a malady that will kill him one way or another. But Hypnos is also a blessing in a way, a savior, because hey, it's a lot harder to remember the worst of the bad things if Hypnos is "kind" enough to make sure he's barely conscious for them. Being so tired and prone to near passing out is an attack towards Takaya sometimes, and a defense for him from everything else the world throws at him at others. Yes this absolutely does feel like a not so subtle metaphor for trauma induced coping mechanisms I'm so glad you asked.
The silver/very light hair Takaya has isn't like his natural hair color or dye or anything, he just started going gray really fucking early (by his late teens his hair was already mostly gray), possibly as a weird suppressant side effect. His natural hair color before that was just brown.
Instead of a proper bed, Takaya just sleeps on an old mattress on his floor. No sheets, only like one or two blankets, shitty old pillow or two that've likely seen better decades. He's strangely fine with this though. So is Jin, coughs.
Slightly less heavy one after some of the last ones; Jin seems like the type to know how to pickpocket to me. He mostly does it solo when an easy chance arises now, but when they were kids, he and Chidori basically had a team strat for it. Chidori would serve as a "crying little girl in a park/at a station/etc. who's all alone and lost/tripped/etc." distraction so Jin could steal shit easier. They'd split the money between themselves mostly (Takaya just didn't really care to be given much of a share himself) and spent it on stupid shit, or on shitty convenience store snacks because they were kids and this seemed like a smart strategy to them for making sure they'd eat for a while (they never really learned much better there though, food is food right?).
Jin lets Chidori paint his nails sometimes. She likes the practice, he doesn't mind how it looks, it works out. It's not an uncommon hangout for them. Chidori steals nail polish during the Dark Hour for this. She'd do his makeup too if he'd allow it, but Jin pretty much refuses to wear makeup. Mostly just because it's itchy, I don't think Strega as a whole cares much about rigidly abiding by societal gender norms unless they feel like it tbh. And also he doesn't want eye makeup or whatever to get on his glasses.
Similarish to above in that it's hanging out related, I also think Jin and Chidori watch pirated downloads of anime sometimes during down time. Evangelion or some shit. Basically any time period appropriate gorey or violent anime really. With like one magical girl anime in the mix or something that Jin downloaded for Chidori because he thought she'd like it (she did).
Jin literally sleeps on an old couch in his and Chidori's room. She had to help him move it and they had a five minute stupid argument over why he wants to sleep on a fucking couch, but Jin clearly won that one. Old couch with five million blankets that both he and Chidori have picked through and swapped out and cycled between who's using them so many times that neither really remembers which one belonged to who originally.
Jin hasn't (openly) cried since he was 13.
Chidori is stronger than she looks I think. Girl literally has an axe on a metal chain as a weapon, that's gotta get a little heavy even at its most lightweight! Not to mention the strength to use it properly if it comes down to physical combat. She's the designated person to help move heavy shit (Jin is next on that list, then Takaya). She also uses this for evil and will put Jin in a shitty headlock if they argue sometimes. She's shorter than him. It doesn't stop her.
Chidori has a couple potted plants that she's had for years on her side of the room. She tries to take care of them Properly and normal style because that's one of the only things that'll pull her out of a depression pit on really bad days. They make for good drawing subjects too, so extra motivation.
Chidori is like, the primarily reason anyone in Strega has had a haircut in the past several years. She's the only one with little to no hand shaking on a consistent enough basis to have anyone's business cutting hair (and in Jin's case his hair is so short he could hurt himself by accident). She does occasionally request help with her own hair though when someone else's lack of shakiness allows, because cutting your own hair sucks and neither Jin nor Takaya cares enough to argue against "I cut yours so it's your turn to cut mine" logic.
Despite feeling a fear of attachment and not really believing to be understood by pretty much anyone else, Chidori really does care for Strega a lot in her own ways. She's failed at not getting attached despite her fears. Jin is like a brother to her (and the closest she comes to feeling even halfway understood), Takaya is more complicated but she does trust him greatly/view him as essentially a friend (and as practically an informal brother in law because *gestures vaguely to him and Jin and their utter freakisms* yeah, she's not fucking oblivious, she can tell there's Something there).
I like to give all of Strega a little waning crescent moon as jewelry or such somewhere. For Takaya it's an earring (right side), for Jin it's a choker (usually not seen under his jacket), and for Chidori it's a pendant or similar of some sort (necklace maybe?).
The approximate ages (factoring in potentially having been younger for part of P3 bc of like, Birthdays, hence two numbers each) I usually go with for Strega right now are ~20-21 for Takaya, ~18-19 for Jin, and ~16-17 for Chidori. May change later though.
Strega relations with their Personas in general are just kinda fucked up tbh. (Relevant note first; I function under the headcanon that one's Persona retains some personality, this is especially the case for Strega due to their entire nature as Persona users.) Their own Personas want them dead, yes, but suffering and death by Anyone Or Anything But Their Personas will not do. There's still that forced, woefully incomplete bond, so while their Personas want them dead, it cannot be by a living outside threat; it has to be either by their Personas' hands or their own. Their Personas still very much want to kill them though, hence the suppressants. They're a curse forced upon their users. There's just a fucked up almost-bond there (more so with Takaya and Chidori, Jin less so) as well.
Strega is collectively trans as fuck to me for fun and joy and I'm not sorry. If I really like a character they will come out of my hands with a trans flag overlay layer at 10% opacity. I also think they all experience gender in a more complex way than just binary male/female, it's just not something they've ever really cared to put into words. Takaya in particular I think is like, only Vaguely a man or otherwise masculine in his gender identity, but that's complicated and he just knows he'd rather be a man than a woman and deems it easier not to elaborate and stick with the label of just being A Man. Jin I think is like vaguely but consistently nonhuman feeling (partially trauma but also partially just in general) in a way that affects his perception of his own gender, but again he'd rather just not look too deep into it. Chidori is a girl in the most hyperspecific way to me, girl but the exact way she feels about her own gender would take her paragraphs to explain so it's easier to just say girl and not explain further.
