What if Ken was... And what if Takeru was the one who...
Part 1
Part 2
The Takeru/Ken Manifesto: A Foundation of Disaster
Part 3: Imprisoned by Fate
Part 3 Sections
Takeru's obsession, paradoxical attachment, and descent into madness
The evolution of Takeru & Ken's relationship
Welcome to part 3. Congratulations, you've made it so deep into the takeken manifesto that you hit the part where we talk about their characterizations and relationship in our own work. If you've read this much, you're surely converted to the cause! FALLDOWN MODE thanks you for your participation in the Takeru/Ken Corrective Therapy Program™, and welcome to hell!!
This is the closest thing to a headcanons page on a normal ship shrine, but instead, this pertains specifically to the canon of It's Only You I Can't Escape itself. We won't be referring to them as headcanons since they pertain to things which are only applicable in that context, and aren't things we hold as headcanons to Adventure 02 generally. If you think this sounds like hairsplitting, you are probably right, but I'm afflicted with a disease that forces me to be extremely specific about everything all the time, so you'll just have to deal. You can also regard them as some "behind-the-scenes" special insights and some (many) overall horny thoughts.
Warning: Most of the content here is a spoiler for the story as a whole, and some of it is major spoilers! We highly recommend finishing the story before reading this section.
The most significant plot spoilers are hidden (click the arrow to expand or collapse the section), but proceed carefully.
Takeru and Ken in It's Only You I Can't Escape
The concrete inciting factors that separate It's Only You I Can't Escape from the canon (apart from the obvious; that is, Toei is not going to write thousands of words of noncon porn) are "what if the Dark Ocean's influence bled through to Takeru just enough to push him over the line when he's already in a precarious spot" and the simple happenstance of having the roof blown off significantly later and thus, giving enough time for Takeru to follow that destructive urge the first time, setting the stage for an inevitable, gradual downward spiral.
- Takeru's obsession, paradoxical attachment, and descent into madness -
Moro: Takeru's feelings for Ken over the course of the series are messier and more complex than Ken's feelings toward him. What begins as a fairly straightforward hatred metastisizes into fixation, then obsession, then a twisted sort of attachment as time goes on.
This arc actually fell into place quite naturally without a lot of forward planning on our part. The series is entirely set off by Takeru's decision - under the influence of the Dark Ocean - to push just a little further in that fight with the Kaiser than he did in canon, and to make sure the Kaiser really never forgets the lesson by first beating him down and then raping him.
Crossing that line once is bad enough, is enough of a horrifying transgression on its own. Indisputably, it's the kind of act you can't walk back, no matter your reasons. Takeru knows this, even at the beginning of things when he's not thinking rationally. This is the primary reason he knows he has to get the Kaiser into a more private area, away from Patamon, because he knows that Patamon would be horrified by it. This in particular is why it's so catastrophic for him to cross it. Once he's done this one time, there's no going back anyway, so as far as he's concerned, there's no particular impetus to stop at one time.
The other component, more hidden, something Takeru isn't quite conscious of himself, is that it made him feel good to do it, and not only in terms of pure sexual satisfaction. It felt cathartic and it felt like he'd really done something.
I would be remiss if I didn't also point out how this being Takeru's first actual sexual experience with another person would have a tremendous influence on his developing sexuality. His age makes this formative, and he's thus immediately entangled his sexual desires with this anger and reinforced the latent sadism that was already hovering at the periphery of his psyche.
The Dark Ocean continues to reinforce these shifts that have begun to take shape in his personality, the subtle warping of everything that's already there. In episode 27, Takeru and the rest of the group are exposed directly to the Dark Ocean conduit that powered the Kaiser's fortress.
This additional exposure reinforces the dark path Takeru has already headed down, and it presages the second turning point in Takeru's mentality (the first being his initial assault of Ken, of course.)
Spoilers
That comes in the 5th story in the series.
Prior to this, Takeru has been acting in a mostly opportunistic manner in his continued assaults of Ken. He takes advantage of Ken being nearby, or acts based on impulses more or less immediately. He's not necessarily planning to do it; rather, he happens to do it because he feels the urge to and it's convenient or readily available at that moment.
All of that changes in the 5th story, where Takeru, who has not seen Ken for days by that point, actively goes out of his way to go after him, stalking him in the Digital World and then finding him and raping him again. He doesn't plan out going to the Digital World late at night, but he'd spent the whole day obsessing over Ken anyway, and was actively looking for him on his D-Terminal. It's unquestionably premeditated. Now, Takeru couldn't claim even to himself that he's purely acting on convenient timing.
And he doesn't tell himself that's what it is, but he is easily able to rationalize this nevertheless. He finds that Ken was not, in fact, making more Dark Towers, rather the opposite, but rather than take this as an opportunity to consider he might be wrong, he instead concludes that it's only because Ken is afraid of him that Ken isn't continuing to do the same bad things he did as the Kaiser.
And to some extent Takeru has to rationalize it, because it is also in this installment that Ken brings up the elephant in the room: the fact that not only Takeru's partner but also all of his friends would be horrified if they knew what he's done to Ken. Ken is absolutely correct here, and this is the first time Ken gets an inkling of the tiny scrap of leverage he has in the situation.
But Takeru finds a way to turn it on him anyway. And afterwards, Takeru goes home telling himself he's done the right thing.
Going out of his way this time makes it that much easier to go a step further. The next story shows some of the shift in the way Takeru regards Ken: he's no longer merely seeing him as a villain to be punished, he's begun to see himself as Ken's keeper. It might seem confusing that Takeru would care at all about whether Ken gets any pleasure from being assaulted, but it's a key component of the way Takeru rationalizes all of this, and it is also easy for him to do because Ken is genuinely a masochist and, on some level, genuinely does feel he deserves punishment for the things he's done.
And of course, it's an excellent way to break Ken's will.
- Ken's feelings toward Takeru -
Sparrow: It starts out as furious fear before his fall. After, initially, he lets it happen because he thinks he deserves it, but when he does decide enough is enough, time and again, Takeru refuses to let him be.
No matter how much or little culpability Ken actually has, Takeru's constant recounting of his sins continues to convince Ken to shut up and take it instead of letting anyone know. And the tiniest hints of comfort and affection Takeru offers leave Ken torn up inside.
As time goes on, Ken becomes resigned to his fate, until they leave for separate colleges. But the retaliation Takeru punishes him with makes sure Ken can't ever dare hope to escape.
At the same time, that total resignation allows Ken to live a life beyond Takeru. While his tormentor always looms, Ken lives his own life entirely separate from him.
Spoilers
Including his engagement to Miyako. His final attempt to put a stop to it on the wedding night permanently crushes Ken's resistance, as Takeru's mark mars his skin, and it's gone on so long, he can't even imagine telling anyone. Why would they believe him? What would they think of him? Clearly he likes it, to have allowed it to continue for well over a decade…
The slightest spark returns with his daughter's birth, but not for himself. Only for her. It is his singular defiance of Takeru, keeping her from ever even seeing his face. And while he doesn't use it to shield himself, a secondary effect pushes Takeru even farther off the deep end: he's increasingly isolated from group gatherings. Plus, Ken's fierce love for her feeds Takeru's furious, possessive jealousy.
Through all the years, Ken is somewhat aware, on a rational level, that this isn't okay. None of it's about justice; all of it serves to gratify the sadistic Takeru. But all the same, Ken's deep association of pain and pleasure convinces him that some part of him does like it, even once he stops believing he deserves it. And he's long since learned his lesson about trying to escape Takeru's grasp.
Moro: Ken's own genuine masochism is something Takeru readily recognizes and exploits, even if early on he's not necessarily aware of precisely how effective it is at solidifying his control over Ken. Ken himself isn't necessarily aware of it until Takeru forces it on him.
There's a sort of exception to the otherwise fairly full life Ken does maintain in spite of Takeru, which comes as a decision from Ken himself. In this timeline, he avoids letting himself get too close to Daisuke. This is because, more so than Miyako, Ken knows that Daisuke is the person he'd never be able to successfully conceal his relationship with Takeru from. Daisuke is too perceptive and too determined to understand everything and if Ken let him close enough, would figure it all out.
While Takeru does threaten Ken into keeping quiet, both of them know this isn't the real reason. It isn't so much that Ken views it as an empty threat - in fact, Takeru's volatility makes him continually wonder if Takeru is simply going to kill him one day - as that Ken has his own reasons for concealing their relationship from the beginning.
For one, it starts when Ken is still the Kaiser, even though it is not long before this persona falls, so once Ken does begin integrating into the group, he's already at a certain baseline the others wouldn't find suspicious. It makes it easier to carry on with things as they are than to risk upsetting the status quo even more, particularly when Ken perceives his place in it as being so incredibly fragile. And frankly, would any of them believe him if he told them? Whose word would they really take - Takeru's, their friend and an all around "good guy", or the words of a former villain? Ken knows this just as well as Takeru.
And of course, the more times Takeru fucks him, the bigger a problem it would be, from Ken's perspective, to try and disclose this and get help from anyone for it. Once or twice is one thing, but the more times it happens and the longer it goes on, the less plausible it might seem that it was anything other than a secret relationship, especially given Takeru's reputation within the group compared with Ken's.
Ken, in a way, helps Takeru build the bars of his own prison out of a selfless desire to avoid disrupting what he perceives as a good thing (the dynamic of the group as it already is, his friendships, etc.) and out of pure and simple shame, until it has gone on so long that there is no longer, in Ken's mind, any possible "out", a mutual blackmail entangling the two of them that he can never escape.
- Conclusion -
