hi! thank you so much omg! this made me super happy, i'll do my best to give you some touya tips!

to be honest, since windows was started so early, windows touya is fundamentally different from canon touya. windows touya is a derivative of pre-canon touya, before we even had the main story, and more of his characterization comes from me than anywhere else. they're such different characters in my head to the point where if i was to write something from canon touya's POV i would probably take a different approach.

but since you're asking, i'll try to take kind of a middle road here, somewhere between touya in contrary and touya in windows.

it definitely helped last time when i identified a key trait and then went from there -- for touya, i think it's probably how observant he is of people. i tend to like to write touya as a perpetual outsider-looking-in, so to speak. he watches how other people interact with things and with each other, and then makes calculated judgements about himself based on that. these judgements aren't always correct, but they reflect how he feels about himself.

for example, in vbs's main story, touya watches how dedicated akito is, decides he'll never be as dedicated himself, and quits. even though akito knows how much touya truly loves music and never told touya anything to make him think otherwise. similarly, in walk on and on, touya decides to start learning how to compose after seeing an and akito talk about writing music. in the main story, it's because of his underlying feelings of inadequacy, and in walk, it's because he doesn't want to feel useless.

this brings me to my next point: touya's strength. i feel like a lot of people write touya to be somewhat wishy-washy or weak and that's not true at all. he doesn't like having to rely on akito for things; he's surprisingly decisive, as seen in his relationship with his father (more on this later) and in sdsc. when he sets his mind on something he's unlikely to let it go. this can be good, but it can also be not good when he makes judgements about how other people see him or about himself compared to other people (see above two paragraphs). this is honestly one of the main things about touya that i like to keep in mind when i write him, and one of the main things that defines his character for me.

now... touya and his father. i think it's important to remember what exactly harumichi controlled in touya's life: his means of self-expression. touya was taught from a young age that his emotions didn't matter - they were secondary to the composer's. this is half a metaphor and half not a metaphor. he doesn't necessarily minimize them, nor is he an 'emotionless' character by any means. he just doesn't think of his feelings as important compared to anyone else's. obviously, he can't last like that forever: for example, he decides he hates music, he rebels against his father, etc, etc. it's for this reason that when i write from touya's POV i keep him separate from his emotions to a certain extent and only have him really feel the emotions that turn his world upside down.

i firmly believe touya's struggle to express emotion on his face is just touya being touya. maybe it goes hand in hand with his idea that his emotions aren't as important as other peoples', but i also just think it's a touya thing. it's more or less because of how akito seems to act about it: it's just touya being touya. in fact, when touya does make these independent decisions, you often times can see it on his face. this is all to say i feel strongly about touya's autism-coding. (this also has to do with his habit of watching people, how gullible he is, his monotone voice, the fact that he seems 'cold' to others, the fact that he finds the noise of the arcade 'soothing', etc, etc.)

otherwise, about his father... everyone says this, but touya doesn't hate harumichi. touya has decided to live his life the way he wants to, to put himself and what he wants before what harumichi wants, and that's obviously the beginning of him learning to value his own emotions as being as important as everyone else's. but he also wants harumichi to respect him for doing such. multiple times he tries to extend a hand to harumichi to talk about music (i think the most recent is during way out, when he tries to talk to him about composing). every single time, harumichi refuses. there's nothing touya can do at this point, the ball is in harumichi's court, so to speak.

it's hard to define their relationship outside of a narrative, in case you're trying to write an au or something, but basically, harumichi controls touya's relationship with art. he decides how touya should interact with and learn music, how touya should always put the composer's intentions before his own, how he should play with an empty mind and focus only on the black and white of the sheet music in front of him.

no matter what, though, touya loves music. he never hated it in the first place. whenever i write him i make a conscious effort to never write anything that could suggest otherwise. his fes card is the best place to look for more on this.

i've gone far enough without mentioning akito besides in passing, haven't i? more or less the elephant in the room. it's pretty obvious that touya is extremely grateful for akito, and as much as he wants akito to learn to rely on others more, touya wants to be more reliable. if i'm honest there's not much else i can say about the two of them without going into akito analysis as well, but i think it's important to know both akito and touya admire the other greatly. i guess i'll leave it here that in windows what touya admires in akito as 'passion' (or love), akito forsakes as anger and spite. that drives a lot of how i characterize their relationship. do with it what you will. (if i tried to explain this i'd risk a) spoiling everything and b) going off on a wild tangent).

that's about it. some little details: he is a bookworm!!! i think this tends to go unnoticed by the fandom which sucks. he has a quote somewhere where he says he won't start a new book by his favorite author too late at night because he knows he'll be up all night reading it. he likes mystery novels the best. he does not question the rules: such as when he thinks akito had actually been drinking underage and attempts to hold him accountable. nocturnes are important to his character somewhat - aside from 'period of nocturne', he's also playing the first few notes of a nocturne on the piano in a flashback during walk. he has two older brothers who don't live at home anymore and, from the way touya talks about them, more likely to be on harumichi's side than touya's.

just a final note because i wanted to mention this and forgot: when something catches his interest, he gets very excited, such as puyopuyo, or when he watches tsukasa's plays, etc. (speaking of tsukasa, i could probably write even more about that relationship, but i'll save it). bottom line, touya does not think anything is weird -- he has a genuine interest in everything he's not already familiar with, because he loves to learn new things about the world.

that should be it... apologies for how long this got again. like usual if there's anything you'd like me to expand on or clarify i'd be happy to do so. thanks for your patience on this and have a wonderful day!