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Do you think Killua will want to travel/hand out with Gon again? And do you think he'll take the initiative on that, or will Alluka need to give him a little push to reunite with his bff?

Thanks for the ask, anon!  And thanks for all the asks, if you’re the same anon who keeps sending them

Hmmm, I’m not really sure?   As a fan, obviously I hope this happens, and I read a lot of post-canon stories (fanfics) where this does happen, for one reason or another XD.  

In the manga… I mean, the cynic in me says Togashi will never finish the Boat arc, and we’ll never find out :P I do think the intention is to reunite them though, which is why we get this scene with Alluka:

And even when they part, it’s not like… it’s been nice knowing you.  What they say is this:

I mean, maybe it’s just what you say instead of goodbye… a formulaic thing to say, like “see you next time” when there’s no next time scheduled. 

But I don’t think the intention was ever to split them up permanently.  Killua says he needs family time with Alluka, and Alluka says she wants Killua to herself for a while, but not forever. I think Killua and Alluka are making up for lost time, you know?  Since Killua spent the first 300 chapters of the manga with Gon, and not Alluka. 

As for whether Alluka will need to give the push… I mean, maybe?  I don’t know how I feel about Alluka as a matchmaker, to be honest.  On the one hand, if she supports the relationship that the readers also support, it helps them to accept her; maybe readers would be more inclined to treat her like this terrible Yoko Ono character breaking up the Beatles if she wasn’t also a supporter.

But I also don’t think a female character should *have* to support the main male pairing (however you interpret that) to be acceptable to fans.  I mean, in an ideal world, anyway.  In fact I think Alluka, after being treated as a monster and locked up by her family, might have her own issues to deal with and it’d be cool (and pretty revolutionary) for a shounen manga to highlight the problems of a female character, over *both* the main male characters. 

As far as fanfic goes, any and all stories involving Alluka are acceptable to me though XD. If she’s off screen for some reason, if she has to give the push and play matchmaker, if she’s aware of Gon and Killua but not involved in their love life… I mean, it’s all good?  That’s the beauty of fanfiction, we don’t have to have just a single ending or a single vision, we can have it ALL hahaha. 

***

As far as the canon goes, I think Gon and Killua probably won’t be traveling together “looking for a purpose” like they were before.  That part of the manga is over, and it concluded when Gon found Ging.  I actually expect Gon and Killua to figure themselves out separately, and reunite for a specific reason, related to something in the plot.  HxH has maybe three chapters, total, where the characters are just hanging out without any major plot thing going down XD.

From the threads left in the manga, they’ll probably get involved in the events surrounding Meteor City:

I mean, there a lot of plot signs pointing to Meteor City… besides the fact that Gyro and two of the Chimera Ants are headed there, there’s also the fact that the Phantom Troupe is from there, and probably after whatever slaughter on the Black Whale is finished, the survivors will be headed back there to regroup.  Kalluto, as a Spider, might end up there, maybe with Illumi, also a Spider.  And as a reminder, their mother Kikyo, as well as Canary, are also from Meteor City.  All of those connections might be enough to bring Killua and/or Alluka back into the story.

As for Gon… Kite might end up there as a specialist in Magical Beasts.  Kurapika might end up there to finish up his business with the Phantom Troupe,.  And there’s still the issue of the 5,000 chimera ant eggs that Pariston is stashing somewhere, which means (if the eggs are being stashed in Meteor City) that Ging will be getting involved, as a rival to Pariston.  All of this might be enough to bring the old Palace Invasion crew back together, which would bring in Gon. 

I don’t know, I just expect there will be some external event (not Alluka) that brings Gon and Killua back together again.  That’s my prediction. 

Also, I know I talk about this a lot, but here’s what I think is going on with Killua and Gon in terms of narrative structure right now:

You can read my full breakdown of this here:

https://subdee.tumblr.com/post/185894443751/the-heroines-journey-killua-hxh

But in brief, I would consider when Gon won Greed Island, and then Killua and Gon were working as pro hunters with Kite’s crew, to be Step 3, the illusion of success.  They won the game, they found - not Ging, but the next closest thing - and they found a use for their Hunter skills and saw a lot of professional and  personal success.  Killua told the crew he was a Zoldyck, but had retired as an assassin, and they still accepted him into their group; Gon got to work directly with a surrogate father figure (Kite), and both of them were having a blast.

Then Gon lost Kite, and Killua lost Gon to his monofocus on revenge, and we began the long, slow Descent that ended with Gon self-destructing as Gon-san. 

After that, Killua had a literal meeting with The Goddess, in the form of meeting with Alluka again.  Now he’s travelling with Alluka, meaning he’s on step 6, the reconciliation with the feminine right now.  Both he and Gon are actually taking a step back from adventuring, training in martial arts, fighting life and death battles, and performing what they call “feats” on reddit to focus on their families - Killua with Alluka and sightseeing, and Gon with Mito and finishing his schoolwork. 

It’s all about Balance, right?  There’s the outwardly focused, adventuring side, and the inwardly focused, domestic side inside each of us. 

Hunter x Hunter, as a series, has a major theme of finding this Balance in your own life.  That’s why I think the structure of The Heroine’s Journey, which isn’t just focused on external validation and conquering your enemies, but also on rediscovering what was good about your family life from your childhood, is a good fit for Gon and Killua.

But you see that in this structure, once you do reconnect to the “feminine” (really the domestic, or the inner life, or the family life)… the next step  actually is to reincorporate the “masculine”, adventuring side once again, and find a way to merge them.

So I expect that Gon and Killua, after figuring themselves out, will be brought back together in the story again by some kind of external crisis (like the CA crisis).  But hopefully, they’ll have more perspective, and it won’t end in tragedy this time.  

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"oh wow i thought this fandom was dead" you ignorant slut no fandom is ever truly dead. there will always always always be at least three mentally unwell freaks on the internet irrelevant-posting about their little blorbo(s) who have not been relevant for fifty years. this is the way of the world and they are stronger than you will ever be you FOOL

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Welcome to the tenth annual Hunter x Hunter Big Bang!

Here is this year’s schedule:

Signups this year will open on Friday, January 10 at 12:00 AM EST! As always, the link will be posted to this account and on our carrd for easy access.

This year's schedule closely follows last year's and we're sticking to the two-day reveal plan! Just like last year, posting will begin on July 1 and July 8.

See you in the server! Until then, our ask box and and dms are open if there are any questions and as always, happy hunting.

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Everyone introduce yourself by what you thought your OG queer identity was and what you currently identify as

Ill go first: hi I was bisexual now I’m a pansexual aroace

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While Christmas Day is the last day anyone should ask for you to spend more money, I'm asking you to spend more money. A dollar. Five dollars. Whatever you've got. Elon Musk wants to own Wikipedia - one of the last reliable sources out there, and the only one not owned by a billionaire or corporation.

If you can't donate, this message isn't for you and you should not feel bad.

If you can donate to Wikipedia to keep it out of Musk's filthy, blood-stained hands, please do.

Here's the donations page.

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Ok, so I personally believe Gon will get his nen back, but I've seen some who argue to the contrary use Pitou's estimation that Gon was prepared to never use nen again as "evidence" that he won't be able to get it back. My problem with that argument is that this is something PITOU says, not the narrator, which makes a difference. For example, Killua assumes Leorio is an enhancer, but he was wrong. Characters can be wrong or off the mark.

You are of course right that characters can be wrong or off the mark.  This actually happens in HxH a lot, and contributes to the realism of  the series.  Remember when Gon and Killua first learned about exorcists, and their first thought was to call Kurapika and let him know?  Remember when the Spiders decided that Hisoka must be a victim of the chain user, because they didn’t know about Texture Surprise?  Remember when Kite thought the ants would be difficult, but not impossible opponents? Remember when Ging thought Pariston would use the 5,000 chimera ant eggs in his possession to add to his power within the Hunter Organization, by having them all take the next Hunter exam?    Remember when Killua told Morel that Illumi doesn’t have any allies, he will use needle people (and he says this after Hisoka has already killed Gotoh)? 

That’s off the top of my head, I’m sure there are other (better) examples. 

It’s not that the characters who are wrong are not smart or strategic… Killua (and Ging) are canonically some of the most strategic characters in HxH, a series that is full of smart, strategic characters.  They are just operating off incomplete information. 

***

Anyway I personally also believe Gon will get his nen back, because the way HxH is set up it will be difficult for him to accomplish much without it.  Considering the “real” ending to the Hunter Exam is learning nen, it’s impossible to function as a Hunter without it… all of Gon’s important relationships from the series are either from before he knew nen, or they involve his training in nen in some way.

I also think HxH is fundamentally an optimistic story, and I can’t see Togashi “punishing” Gon forever for a choice he made when he was 13 and emotionally overwhelmed. 

And I think we’ve also seen, that the only real rule of nen is that there’s an exception for every rule of nen…

For example, there are 5 categories of nen… and a specialist category that can be anything. For another example, we thought that Kurapika had bound Chrollo to never use nen again… but then we found out about nen exorcists. 

In recent manga chapters there’s been all kinds of updates to how nen works, now we have unconscious nen… nen beasts given to people not otherwise awakened in nen… nen that activates automatically when a condition is triggered… nen that has a wide, but diffuse effect… basically, the only limit is the limit to what you can imagine, your “talent” and how much you are willing to sacrifice to achieve your goals. 

And absolutely, Pitou’s words are just speculation, based on what Pitou knows about nen.  We probably can believe them to an extent, but how can Pitou know everything there is to know about nen?  There are people in HxH world who study nen their whole lives… Pitou was born a week ago. 

This is another thing I appreciate about HxH, by the way.  Not only can characters be wrong, but the nen system has the kind of depth that real systems have.   Gon and Killua can’t master it after just a few years, there are experts who study nen their whole lives and are still learning new things.   We only recently learned that conjurers and enhancers tend to have more aura around the body part they use the most in attacks, for instance. 

To give another example, there’s a character in the current arc whose entire condition is being able to figure out what other people’s abilities do… once he ffigures out the abilities, he can neutralize them XD.  Actually I would say the entire Black Whale arc is basically about this problem of incomplete information, and trying to guess at other people’s actions and motives, and outsmart them without knowing the whole story.  

Anyway given how flexible this system is, it’s pretty much certain that if Togashi wants Gon to use nen again, then he will.   He’ll just make something up. 

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Readers, make sure you have all your favourite Ao3 fics downloaded.

Writers, make sure you have copies of all the fics you have posted on Ao3.

I don’t want to be alarming, but things could get really bad really fast. OTW shared this today on Twitter, and I'm a bit worried about it 😅

Ao3 is a non-profit organisation. If they have to start paying taxes, I have no idea what will happen.

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Just a thought in passing: Here’s a utility that some of you may want to avail yourselves of in the days to come.

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If you're having a bad day, just remember that it's going to be winter soon and imagine what will happen to all the Cybertrucks ❤️

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Holy fucking shit of all the possibilities I did not see that one coming.

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Today's word of the day: kakistocracy

It means government by the least qualified and worst people.

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PS THIS IS WHAT WE ARE RESISTING, FOLKS:

Tldr: the mass deportations of 10-20 million people currently living in America, including entire families (citizens and noncitizens together), to be housed indefinitely in federal prisons and used as slave labor at a cost of up to 300 billion to American taxpayers.

I am not exaggerating even slightly. Shit is very real.

- Timothy Snyder. The first and perhaps most important lesson from On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the Twentieth Century (2017)

Snyder's new book, On Freedom, was published in 2024.

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oh.

oh.

OH.

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netflix subtitles are great for when you want to read a caption with like 50% resemblance to what's being spoken