◢ a p p l i c a t i o n . . .
CHARACTER
» Name: Hitagi Senjougahara
» Fandom: Bakemonogatari
» Reference:
◢ series wikipedia
◢ my animelist write-up
◢ episode recaps + blog
» Canon Point: after episode 8, end of Suruga Monkey arc
» Gender: female
» Age: ~17 (in her final year of high school)
» Orientation:
Heterosexual. Open-minded. To clarify, over the course of the series, she's met and fallen in love with Araragi Koyomi, confessed to him and has entered into a fairly seriously relationship with him. The novels show that things are becoming progressively more physical between the two of them so her personal orientation seems pretty well-defined. However, certain complications arise when a formerly close friend from her past, from before the events that drastically changed her, discovers her relationship with Araragi. Kanbaru Suruga was her best friend back when they were both the stars of their respective teams (leading the two of them to be called the Valhalla Combo) and Hitagi states that she was aware that Kanbaru had a crush on her. Kanbaru's feelings were deeper than Hitagi's assessment, as she viewed Hitagi as having saved her. Having lost her weight and emotions, Hitagi then forcibly pushed Kanbaru away from her, brutally rejecting Kanbaru's desire to help her and the relationship between them was left unresolved until she began dating Araragi and things came to a head when Kanbaru's own encounter with the supernatural led her to a physical confrontation with Araragi. Hitagi intervened and thus finally gave Kanbaru a clear answer, that she simply did not reciprocate her romantic feelings which did allow them to reconcile and resume their friendship.
With this in mind, I feel that with Hitagi, the issue wouldn't be gender as with her acceptance of Kanbaru's feelings and how she turned them down (Kanbaru herself was conflicted over wondering if it was because she was female that she couldn't be with Hitagi. Hitagi's final rejection was worded without reference to not liking girls or only liking boys but to just not loving Kanbaru the same way). She's in love with Araragi because of Araragi, because he helped her even when she was a stranger and even when she threatened him to keep him away, because he's the sort of person who would do that for anyone and she loves him for his incredibly forgiving nature. She cares about very few people so it's really more about getting past her defenses. Because once she loves you, she's committed.
» Personality: Boy meets girl, boy saves girl, girl threatens boy bodily harm with a stapler, it's a love story, baby just say yes~
she's so cold and human / it's something humans do
Hitagi Senjougahara makes a striking first impression; by reputation, that sort of fragile, beautiful girl in your class whose presence feels like absence, often sick and always distant. And that's setting aside the impression she'll definitely make on your forehead with her stapler if you go looking for a second. Hitagi is sudden danger with a polite smile, something sharp in your mouth when you least expect it. You won't even know to expect it.
But she wasn't always like that. Once upon a time, she was a girl better suited to receiving expectations, easier to slot into convenient descriptions. Once upon a time she was normal.
she stays so golden solo / she's so number nine / she's incredible math / just incredible math
Even then, her normal was extraordinarily charmed. She was once the only child of a well-off family. She was popular, well-liked, had great grades and was the ace of the track team. She was outgoing; a friendship with Kanbaru Suruga developed after Hitagi sought the younger girl out in a friendly challenge to a race. She had problems at home, but who didn't? Whatever terrible things happened in life, she didn't seem touched by it. After all, previously sickly to the point of needing an operation, she'd survived worse.
And then she graduated middle school and worse got redefined and was became the operative word for that pretty Hitagi, that friendly Senjougahara-senpai. She was. Now she isn't.
and is she really human? / she's just so something new / a waking lithium flower / just about to bloom / I smell lithium now / smelling lithium now
Her is goes like this: she's strange now. Her family came apart, her life fractured and to keep from breaking under the pain, she broke herself away from the pain. One day, she met a crab. And the crab took her weight away.
The coming to be of the was and the isn't both came from this loss, this loss that hides another loss. Hitagi Senjougahara lost her weight. Hitagi Senjougahara lost the things that weighed her down, that keeps a person tethered to the world, that keeps people connected. Hitagi Senjougahara lost her feelings.
And so her is goes like this: Hitagi Senjougahara's strangeness looks beautiful from afar (the way the moon looks like the side of a lovely face) but up close is where it hurts. It hurts other people because Senjougahara can't feel it anymore. And she pushes everyone away, anyone who might know, anyone who does and tries to help, old friends, what remains of her family. Even a stranger who tries to help.
But the stranger pushed easily but he's got his own pull. And he dragged her to a man who helped her face the truth that her loss is from her own wish to be spared of the pain.
It goes like this: boy meets girl, girl threatens boy with bodily harm. Boy helps girl save herself.
so matador / so calm / so oil on a fire / she's so good / she's so goddess lithium flower / so sonic wave
And so her is goes like this: it's something new. She can't regain the was. Time doesn't move backward, entropy won't reverse itself. There is nothing that doesn't change time moving forward is time for the girl to emerge from the strange. A lot of it is still the her of the strange, a lot of it came because of the strange.
And so her is goes like this: Hitagi Senjougahara will still turn menacing on a dime. What she doesn't demolish physically, she'll demolish verbally. Her downright abusive remarks are more difficult with the untroubled expression on her face when she makes them and to add insult to injury, it's enough of a flirt to keep you waiting for the next hit. She's direct and you can believe she knows where to rip at to get blood and tears spilling and she's even quicker to act than she is with her words. She has to be, she acts for herself, she won't wait for someone to help her. She'll do things by herself, in paying off her debts, struggling by herself. She's cynical even about herself. She has a clear view of her own flaws, and zoom lens view of Araragi's.
And so her is goes like this: Hitagi Senjougahara fell in love with a boy who helped save her. She doesn't love him because he saved her. She loves him because he's the kind of person who would, who would save anyone even if it hurts him, even if it hurts her. She's devoted to the point of wanting to be the last person by his side even if it meant she had to kill him to make sure of it. She's committed to the point of involving him in her plans for the future. She's in love to the point that she needs him to understand and to love what she has to offer: a starry sky, her loved ones and a damaged girl who used to be strange.
wow, where did she learn how to surf? / you know I've never seen the girl wipe out
And so her is goes like this: she's not without her vulnerabilities. She fell in love with Araragi whose kindness to everyone meant it was difficult to know what he thought about her. So she tries to get him to confess first, by teasing him and by trying to fascinate him until finally understanding, she confesses first. She has fears of becoming strange again, of encountering the strange again even she pretending to see a ghost, because beneath the fear is the habit of a girl who lived two years without her physical weight. She was always the different one.
And so her is goes like this: she's not without her vulnerabilities. When the pain of her losses became unbearable, she made a wish on a god to take it away and accepted another loss. Even with her feelings returned she looks on her past as it is, something she's bad at settling.
And so her is goes like this: she's not without her vulnerabilities. Even a cynic, she was fooling herself. The loss of her feelings was something she wanted, not something that happened to her.
Understanding that is what finally helped her to get them back.
how does she so perfectly surf? / I wonder what she does when she wakes up?
And so her is goes like this: A lot of it became because of the strange and from the event that led to her becoming strange. A mother's love became weakness became warped enough to leave her daughter defenseless in the face of sexual assault. Hitagi knows better than Oshino that the only one who can save her is herself. By herself, she will do it by herself.
Because even when she was strange, she knew she what she was missing inside. Even when she was strange, she wanted to fight to get it back. Even if it would hurt. Because it would hurt. Because they were her emotions, her weight, her burdens.
» Appearance:
Long purple hair that you just know looks criminally good in a ponytail, blue eyes and a well-developed body, the sum of these parts is lovely to look at from afar. From the distance, she's got that delicate sort of elusive prettiness, rare smiles that slip past her aloof demeanor. Up close, she's all high voltage blue eyes and sharp angles and beautiful all the more because she's difficult. 【 LINK 】
note: she's in her late teens so there wouldn't be a drastic change in aging her up.
» Suitability:
Bakemonogatari is essentially a series about teenagers and thus sexual themes are present. Hitagi has experienced a traumatic sexual assault in the past and the series doesn't shy away from the discussion of how she's moving past that. The novels also show the movement of her relationship with Araragi to a more physical one with Hitagi outright stating that they will get there (in about a week though she may have been joking about the time frame!) Hitagi herself is pretty sexually aware, thanks to how well-versed she is in anime and manga culture, she often teases Araragi ("xxxxx the xxxx to xxxxing from xx-- with xxxx --- xxxx in the xx--" / "...or that you want me to wake you up every morning for a week, wearing nothing but an apron.") and does initiate sexual contact with him (biting him on the ear).
SAMPLES
» "amatomnes" Entry: WARNING! POSSIBLY TRIGGERING IMAGE LINKED IN THE SAMPLE
◢ v i d e o ◣
【 for a few seconds, it's just a storm of white sheets obscuring the view of the rest of the room before one by one they slowly drift to the ground revealing a girl in a hastily and precariously tied toga... cornering one of the palace servants 】
I will only explain myself once. This is a situation without any subtleties to confuse the matter and I will speak slowly for your benefit. So if you fail to completely understand what I will say and act upon it accordingly, it can only mean that your brain has been damaged since long ago.
【 at first, it isn't entirely clear how she's doing it, the servant is male, taller and larger than she is with the added advantage of not having to worry about any sudden moves leading to indecent exposure 】
It would mean there is no point in attempting another explanation and that it is a miracle you are even able to do involuntary actions such as breathing much less kidnap a young woman like myself. It might even mean that you are a single-celled organism.
【 it'd almost be a ridiculous scene (large male being nearly walled by a half-naked girl) if it weren't for the utter calmness of her voice, no fear, no outrage 】
If so I would suggest that you replace me with another of your kind or something within your league. Not a full human but perhaps a bezoar. I am attractive to look at but this cross-species hopes of yours will be answered with nothing but disappointment for I am not as flexible as I appear and I am not the type to make soft sounds like 【 iyaaa~n ♥】 when you attempt to mount my toenail. It will only lead to tragedy. I will make certain of it.
【 and if it weren't for the stapler removing she was holding to the servant's chest... anyone with good eyesight could probably squint see that she's got it so specifically positioned as to have the sharp teeth of the remover delicately frozen in the act of closing in on the man's nipple 】
Shall we return to the explanation? I do not wish to be here. Let me return now and I will even applaud your capacity to exceed your single-celledness.
If you do not-
【 long pause 】
My hand might get tired.
» "amatomneslogs" Entry:
Dreaming, she's light again.
Not the insubstantial thing she used to be before she'd met Araragi, after she'd met the crab, when she'd become something she had never imagined needing any name for but strange. In those years, she'd learned the different kinds of weight, the drag of her clothes like tangible gravity, small candies like lead on her tongue, the heaviness of shoes, the weight of someone's gaze on her back, on her face, looking into her eyes, longing and longing. These weights replaced her own and with eyes like empty mirrors, she reflected emotion back and away. In those years, the variances of weights kept her anchored while she only understood lightness as her own hollowed body.
But since meeting Araragi, she's learning the different kinds of lightness. And here, dreaming, she's light again. This is almost unbearable, a lightness of being, of sensation spilling into emotion, the impossible friction of falling. In this dreaming, she's light again and so it's the weight that wakes her.
Around her neck: a complicated working of metal and chain and quartz, delicate but for how it is pressed against her skin just short of biting. She runs her hand over it and knows it will be beautiful to look at but she recognizes a threat even when it's draped decoratively around her throat. She takes stock; where am I and what do I remember and a heartbeat, how do I feel? almost as an afterthought. How do I feel? It was something she'd forgotten could be asked, forgotten that it needed to be asked, even forgotten the how.
For a long time (2 years, a lifetime and a happy family ago), the answer had been nothing at all.
How do I feel? She asks it again because now there was a different answer. Now there could be a different answer, after Araragi. How do I feel? She is flushed with heat and the beat of her blood still loud in her ears and she's naked but that hardly matters (once she was a modest girl, now she is a practical one) except for how it happened and she is not anywhere she's seen except in fiction.
She's no longer the athlete she once was but she's still quick and quiet and efficient and she's searched out her things (school uniform, her money and a small pile of pens and staplers and rulers and a laser pointer and assorted office supplies) and wrapped a sheet around herself before she even heard the footsteps coming her way.
How do I feel? She does it all with surface calm, tension as yet unbroken but for the battle light in her eyes. Under the blanket, under the surface, under the skin, she is alight. How do I feel? Fear, anger, confusion, identified, catalogue and matched up against a lexicon in her head of what they must feel like, so this is how it feels, fear, anger, confusion and - Araragi-kun - something she cannot describe but with his name. Fearful from this new strangeness not again, anger for the control taken from her hands again, confusion for the how, when, why, who, where am I - is Araragi-kun, confusion for how she has begun to circumscribe her place in the world in relation to him. Fear, anger, confusion all heavy inside her, anchoring her, tethering her to the ground like his hand holding hers.
The door opens and a man walks in, an armful of pristine bed sheets suddenly giving way to an armful of Hitagi. His strangely accented words have barely stuttered out of his mouth when she has him against a wall, frozen in instinctive fear at the touch of something sharp against his chest.
"I will only explain myself once."
It is the weight that wakes her and the weight that keeps her awake.