#is to engage in delayed-gratification psychological torture

[kisskissgotohell]

there's a sense of sheer joy inherent in cosplaying (yllz) wei wuxian to a convention and attracting men on all sides, bc they're clearly seeing me as "Sexy Goth Anime Mommy," so when they ask me what i'm cosplaying from, i get to look them in the eyes with a smile and tell them to read a book that they will be INCREDIBLY disappointed with the second they google it.

my only regret with this whole experience is that i don't actually get to watch the moment the light dies from their eyes as they realize i'm dressed, not as a big tiddy goth gf, but as a homosexual man, but you win some you lose some :/

[yesgabsstuff]

   I wouldn’t call Hunter x Hunter a show with a Gothic atmosphere visually. However, I think the way that the show approaches beauty qualifies it for the genre. “Hunters hunt” is something repeated a number of times during HxH. The language used there of course has implications of animal satisfaction. At the same time, the whole concept of a professional Hunter is almost that of a professional  connoisseur. Any pro-social ends are a byproduct of the desire for knowledge for its own sake. The Hunter exam is profoundly dangerous and it becomes clear the lengths that these professionals are willing to go for art. These elevated sensibilities are not presented as being at odds with the more traditional idea of the hunt; the animal and the aesthetic are one and the same.

    Perhaps the most on the nose fusion of the flesh and the intellect is Hisoka. His pursuit of the perfect opponent in combat consumes his entire life, with every action he takes bringing him closer to one of his chosen partners. His deliberation in battle, his efficiency, and the way he uses his body are the product of discipline and oddly, the ability to delay gratification. His half articulated vision of the perfect opponent is almost a platonic ideal. These monkish abstractions however have become the wellspring of his sexuality; a bestial force that doesn’t particularly care about small things like promises, loyalty, or the prey’s age. Battle itself is of course carnal in its own right. Hisoka takes the subtext of the fight as lovemaking to it’s logical and grotesque conclusion. The pleasure of his art cannot be disentangled from violence or sex.

    Gon’s aesthetic vision is less externally focused. His project is perfecting himself. He views his body as an instrument, using it primarily as a site of learning. Gon enters the Hunters Association having already become a skilled predator. He honed his athleticism, intuition, and even his sense of smell blending into his ecological environment. He became an animal. Our first exposure to him is when he is hunting a river monster. But unlike an animal, he’s not hunting for survival but to test himself.

     As the series goes on, it becomes clear that seeking out new challenges to beat his own standard is more important to him than almost anything else. He puts himself danger to meet this benchmark early; going after Hisoka with his fishing rod after seeing him kill several people, just to see if he could. He later courts mutilation on purpose to learn something for a single fight. (Just like Hisoka, incidentally.) He puts others at risk to do this; allowing Killua to injure himself in the volleyball game against Razor. He doesn’t do this out of a lack of care but out of the assumption that Killua is as motivated by the challenge as he is. A part of his anger at the death of Kite had to do with his own sense of failing to meet that ideal, perhaps as much as the loss of a friend. This of course leading to his transformation into a version of himself that is terrifying in it’s perfection.

   Chrollo is not a professional Hunter but is in the same rarefied company. He too, has built his life around the pursuit of his passions. He created his surrogate family around it, even. (I think that there’s a case to be made for Chrollo resembling a cult leader in that respect, but I digress.) Chrollo  doesn’t really steal for material gain. His art is in exerting power over his environment through violence. His thefts and murders are shows; he literally stands as a conductor over the Troupe’s revenge plot. The horror on the faces of his victims as they realizes they’ve been had, pleases him. Goring strangers and using the bodies and emotions of his troupe pleases him. It is like he’s winking and the concept of criminality; taking pleasure in chaos while professional criminals are engaging in a pissing contest below. He is a predator because he is true to his muse.

     This pattern repeats in characters we have less time with as well. Illumi’s obsession with his idiosyncratic interpretation of the Zoldycsk aesthetic gave birth to extreme sadism. He also has paired it with his own vision of ideal submission; wielding these ideas to physically and psychologically torture Killua. The Chimera Ants (they deserve their own analysis some other time) are animals fighting to survive, but their desire for self actualization (after consuming humans no less) and becoming “better” versions of themselves that makes them become “monstrous” to the human population. The pursuit of the ideal is inseparable from becoming a monster, something outside of ordinary humanity. Hunters and their peers are exalted and savage.