#but then i forgot it

[sinkableruby]

on ougi's mentality; spoilers

Let's talk about Ougi. I want to talk about Ougi.

Because the thing about Ougi is that they are so shrouded in mystery for most of the series, and it's because of this that it's easy to miss their interiority that they definitely do have. So I'm writing an analysis post. Yay.

The first thing you have to talk about if you want to talk about Ougi is that Ougi is a little shit. Ougi is a mean asshole who criticizes you and fucks things up for you, and everyone knows it. They know it. It is likely the first thing they knew, from the moment they were born as an oddity. Araragi wanted to be criticized, and so she wanted to criticize him-- her personality became that of someone who would be able to criticize and punish him.

This makes sense, of course. She's his oddity, she's him, of course she would be a reflection of him. But she's also herself. She has substance, according to the light novels. And her experience is different from his. I'm not going to really spend time proving this, because it just doesn't make sense thematically or otherwise for this to not be the case. Oshino Ougi is Oshino Ougi, and they all lived happily ever after.

The thing about Ougi is that they are very self-aware (and to be an oddity of self-criticism, you would have to be!). In Tsukimonogatari, she theorizes about herself, about the reason why she's alive (more on this later).

And so, being self-aware, she's aware that she's an oddity of Araragi's self-criticism. She's aware that she is here to criticize him, and him specifically. If you don't know who she is yet, this seems like foreshadowing for her being the Darkness, but in reality she's only vaguely acting in that role because he wants someone to.

It's not that she doesn't genuinely think the things she does. She does want to make things proper, she is an asshole-- but she also knows exactly why. I'm going somewhere with this, trust me.

"Even if I wasn't able to make your youth better, I was able to make it more right," she says as she's about to die. This was the purpose she was born with, a purpose that she wanted to fulfill, but still the reason for her existence. She was born to fill a certain role, and fill it she did. "Even if" she couldn't make his youth "better." "Even if?" Was making his youth better something she wanted to do? Is it something she would have liked to have been able to do?

The thing that it is certain Ougi wants to do is to fulfill her purpose. The reason she was born: she wants to carry out her criticism of Araragi, make his youth "more right." She cares about this purpose very much, and tells us as much in the light novels. In the anime, she says once she's done this, she wouldn't mind dying. Everything she does is predicated on what Araragi does, everything she does is about him, for him, to the point where she neglects her own basic needs, like having a home, which she looks back on with regret later in Zoku and--

Wait, hold on.

There's something familiar about this.

HEY, WAIT A SECOND! THAT'S JUST THE THING THAT ARARAGI DOES! HE DISREGARDS AND KILLS HIMSELF FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS ALL THE TIME!

You guys. Could it be that... Ougi and Araragi..... are actually (originally, at least) the same person?! And therefore struggle with similar problems!?!!? (Yes.)

The thing about Ougi is that she does not exactly have the highest opinion of herself.

she says with a smile.

Because she was born to be mean, and an asshole, and to hurt. That's why she exists. That's her true identity. Something made of all the rotten bits of Araragi scraped from him, all his self-hatred, his guilt complex, his regrets, all the bad things. Unsightly; ugly. An awful mean malicious little monster.

She was born to be terrible, and terrible she is. She plays the role of Araragi's corrector, and his enemy. Hating yourself isn't good. Thinking you need to be punished isn't good. Those are things you need to overcome, like a final boss. She is those things, she plays the role of bad guy because she was born to.

This is what she says in response to Araragi choosing not to save her life. It's the correct answer, it's the right thing. She's the bad guy, she's the reason why all the bad things are happening, he should "beat" her and move on with his life.

But...

she still doesn't want to die.

She asks him to save her, a few times. Before he summons the Darkness, she does what she describes as "begging for her life," although she does it in her regular chipper attitude. In the light novels, she tells him she looks collected, but she's trembling on the inside. She doesn't want to die.

...but she still thinks she should. She thinks it's "right" for her to die, because she's so terrible, because she only knows how to cause problems. What she thinks "should" happen and what she wants are two very distinct separations. And she prioritizes the former rather than the latter. Even as she begs not to be killed, she doesn't really put up much of a fight. She willingly goes to the place where she knows she's going to die. Basically, she thinks she's terrible and tries to kill herself. This isn't really subtext, it's just text. She herself calls it suicide, because it is.

It's to the point where even after he does save her, she has trouble accepting it.

And I mean, it makes sense. She's an oddity of self-criticism. It's kind of her whole thing. Of course that would extend to herself. And after you are explicitly born (I cannot stress this enough. Ougi's existence was for one specific purpose, and they know it very well) to suck and be awful and dangerous and cause problems in the name of rightness, I can see how that wouldn't really lead you to think well of yourself. In Ougi's mind, by all means, she should just die for the betterment of everyone else. What point is there in letting her live?

(But she still wants to live.)

She only really seems to accept Araragi's saving of her by justifying it with some other purpose. Again, it comes back to purpose. Purpose and meaning and value. Ougi needs these things, because they were born wanting things to be proper. Because they were born with a purpose, because their value was in fulfilling that purpose.

As though there's no value in "keeping her alive" if she can't "be good." As though there's only value to her existence if she's "functioning" for some meaningful cause. "Functioning," as though she's more of a tool than a person, as though her being a person doesn't even come into it.

She puts all these footnotes on her own existence. But she still wants to live. Despite everything, despite not seeing a reason for it, despite thinking she needs a reason for it, she wants to live. Oshino Ougi the person, Oshino Ougi as themself-- wants to live.

You guys, Ougi is really bad at living.

(pauses for slightly too long)

Those lines from Zoku are after she is saved, after she is told she is herself, after she becomes herself, is given her own identity. After we learn, even if we might have already suspected, that she has substance. She doesn't have to justify her own existence; she can just be. But she can't let herself. She was born with a justification for her existence, and doesn't know how to move on from that. She is, as Zoku puts it, tilting at windmills.

Obviously, this is not a very good thing. Which is why I despise the choice in the light novels to have her stuck in the school, being other people forever so much. Because it's one thing for Ougi, the character, to make that choice-- that part is consistent. She thinks she's a problematic existence that needs to be justified and limited. She doesn't know how to live in any other way, because her existence was for a purpose, and so thought she needed to keep having a purpose to justify a continued existence. But it's another thing entirely for the narrative, the series to go, "Yes, Ougi, you're right. You are bad, and bad things do not get to live freely. You do not get to be your own person, you will not be treated as such." It affirms all the stuff it would never affirm about any other character, and that's why I hate it.

It's fine to go the direction of "Ougi is struggling defining their life for themself," but just like. Actually show that! Show that their thinking isn't okay or healthy! Give them people who can help them see that!

she says, with real hurt and pain in her voice.

(How terrible it must be, to have all your efforts thrown away at the last second. To have the purpose you were fighting for be rendered meaningless in an instant. To have failed. To only be able to criticize him more even now, to think he's throwing away his life for someone terrible like that.)

But like. I don't think they're really that terrible. And even if they were, it wouldn't mean they'd need to justify living. But I guess NISIOISIN forgot about that and decided it was to the box with them! Cool.

To cap off this disorganized analysis, here's lines from Kabuki where Ougi is introduced that I got from the Wayback Machine. Teehee.

A few lines later...

Certainly gives her trademark wide smile another meaning.

TLDR; Ougi is very not okay and needs nice things now.

[karkkidoeswriting]

I finally watched The Old Guard and it's so fucking good. I noticed a funny thing while watching it. There's pretty strong parallels between Nick and Joe (I love them so much) and two of my characters from BAMS.

So for those who haven't seen the film (mild spoilers, these come up in the first act) it's about immortal warriors and Nick and Joe died the first time during the Crusades by killing each other (Nick being an Italian crusader and Joe an Arab defender) and then they became immortal husbands and they have been for a millennium. In BAMS there's a vampire, Darius, whose an ancient Indo-Iranian Maryannu from Mitanni from roughly 1360 BC. Then there's Venel (who is in fact dead dead when the story starts), whose an Etruscan from roughly 500 BC. They meet around 100 BC, also kill each other only to discover they are both vampires and then they have a 1500 years romance till Venel gets dead dead. Like Venel is not Italian and Darius is not Arab but they are from around the same areas (Mitanni was in Middle East (roughly) and Etruria was in Tuscany). And while they meet in Ancient Rome, not during the Crusades, the circumstances are very similar. Also they have very different personalities from Nick and Joe. I just thought it was very funny and now the movie inspired me to hyperfixate on Darius and Venel lol

[kayiiin]

Some extra content of the birthday post

[valtsv]

stuck between "psychological horror statement" and "objectively the funniest thing you could say to your real flesh and blood dad" in the father's day card aisle

[kinigoni]

[kuropin]

Mouthwashing!

[s-aint-elmo]

pass it on!

(ID in alt text)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[noodles-and-tea]

Feels like an appropriate time to bring these back…

[aliendeity]

the man who owns and runs the thai restaurant in my town knows me by name. he is one of the kindest and most thoughtful men i know. i started ordering from his place back in january, which was when i got my fibromyalgia diagnosis. back then i was using a walker, had limited mobility in my entire body but especially my hands, and was very visibly in pain. i always ordered the same thing: yellow curry with no meat, potatoes and carrots only (i have texture and other dietary issues). he always made it a point to make sure i could get out the door and carry the food safely. he had his workers package the food so that it was easier for me to open. as i kept coming back and i told him a little bit about my health status, he would always encourage me to keep going. he told me about how the spices he used were good for inflammation and began to edit the recipe just for me so that spices that were even better for fighting inflammation were used. he’d give me extra portions and despite the fact that i would tip every time, i realized later that he never charged my card for them. as time went on and my condition began to get better, especially with the help of a physical therapist, he would make encouraging remarks and tell me how happy he was for me. the day i came in without my walker, he practically jumped for joy, and despite my insistence, he gave me my meal for free that day. i continue to make progress with my conditions and i continue to go to the thai place. this man who does not know me personally and who i hardly know anything about is one of my favorite people. it’s interactions with humans like these that make loving life easier. and his curry really does help my chronic condition. it’s comfort food taken to the next level.

[beeqisch]

izutsumi but its this thing my cat does (licking my food)

[disgustinggf]

not ignoring you not replying to you but a secret third thing

[hedgehog-moss]

I was making chitchat with the woman who works at the plant nursery and I mentioned that two baby trees I bought the other day aren't doing too well, their leaves are yellowing, maybe I'm watering them too much? what could be behind this phenomenon? and she looked like she was trying to find a gentle way to phrase it but then gave up and just said plainly, "Autumn."

another social interaction that will come back to haunt me at 3am five years from now

[mangozic]

my dead goth son and his friendly neighborhood personified concept of insanity