#like all denizens seem to have some kind of base want to help passengers but they can very

[saturnniidae]

Really interesting how literally Every denizen on the train is fully sentient. Even ones that can't speak or have like, no recognizable features to emote with (the origami birds, the castle) are capable of free will. It's kind of horrifying actually

[shrimpchip123]

I need more info on the infinity train au! Does it work like s4 where their numbers represent the lengths they have to go through to fix their relationship and it’s all like… conjoined? Or is it more like s3 where you get two people who have been on the train for a while working through their issues (they don’t… fully do that in s3 but u know what I mean)?

Because well… Wilbur and Q have a lot more issues than just their relationship. But also it your au so u do whatever you want.

Ohhhh!!! And the numbers would be so interesting for Wilbur since I’m my head at least he already thinks of himself as the bad guy and almost a lost cause (arguably, Q’s the same way), so when given a metric that tells you how many issues you’ve worked out could motivate him or absolutely crush him

I’m so exited for this au oh my gosh!!!!!

my au is based around book 2 where cwilbur is a denizen and cq is a passenger ^__^ cq boards the train due to Self Worth Issues (exacerbated by cschlatt lol) and meets ckarlnap on the train. they team up and explore the train together and everything is going great and dandy and cqs number is going down until one day cq gets separated from them due to smth happening in one of the cars n its a situation where it's safer to leave cq than try to save him so, albeit reluctantly, they leave him which messes cq up. a Lot. his number shoots back up since he was so dependent on them for self worth that them leaving made him feel even worthless than before. so now he's back on track on his journey to get back home but all the more jaded and closed off with a shit ton of trust issues!!! after some time on his own roaming the train he encounters the theatre car where cwilbur is the "head" denizen of. in order to leave the car you have to perform a leading role in a three-act play written by wilbur and appease the audience (which are also denizens). the audience can get very violent if they aren't appeased so it's imperative that you do well. in the first act cq follows through with his lines as usual but then he's like. what if I completely changed it up so he starts improv-ing the lines and the story and wilbur's like HUH? but the audience seems to love it so he plays along. I haven't planned out the exact details yet but essentially the play turns into some kind of sappy telenovela where wilbur and q are each other's romantic endeavors LOL and since nobody's ever gone off-course before wilbur's intrigued and also Very Flustered since he's not used to all This. and it doesn't help that the passenger is Very Pretty n in the intermissions between each act wilbur subtly flirts with him and q is like ??? IS THIS DENIZEN FUCKING FLIRTING WITH ME? WHAT THE HELL and act 2 begins and they end up dancing on stage and it's very homoerotic. anyway in act 3 the audience is absolutely loving the show and in one specific scene wilbur says the line "I don't know why anyone would ever leave you." which is supposed to make sense in context of the story they're acting out but it hits cq way deeper than it should and he looks absolutely fucking devastated. wilbur is taken aback but he has to appease the audience so he leans in and kisses him so the play can end and cq feels horrible and he wants to leave Right Now. however the audience isn't too keen on letting him go because they've never been so enthralled with a play where it subverts their expectations and where they get to see wilbur less composed/flustered by the unexpected changes. they swarm him and he takes out his axe and starts fucking SWINGING and moving through the crowd forcefully and as wilbur watches him make his way towards the door he thinks to himself This is my chance to leave this car... I don't know what it's like outside because I've never seen it and I'm afraid but this could be my only chance so as the crowd is distracted by trying to grab q back inside wilbur makes a run for it and dashes out of the car right before the door closes. q doesnt notice wilbur getting out of the car & hes already on his way going through the other cars and wilbur has zero idea what he's doing or where he's going so he just ends up following q until q notices and after a while q is like Sigh. this guy is not leaving n hes like Why are you following me . and wilbur is like sweats I've been caught and then he ends up tagging along with q on his journey. then shenanigans and romance and angst ensue!!! i have a very basic outline of the story planned out so far that i didn't talk about here/there's a lot of details I left out for the sake of length and also my fingers because I'm on my phone right now... so yeah! ^u^

[twilightprince101]

The Train, Purple Lightning and “Fate”: An Infinity Train Theory

NOTE: This contains HEAVY SPOILERS for all of Infinity Train! Putting this under a read more, but tl;dr, I think the train has a way of predicting when things will happen-but not entirely be correct.

I was going back and rewatching Infinity Train Book 1 (Mainly bc I love the show and wanted to relive it) when I noticed something interesting. At the end of episode 9, when Tulip decides to fight and is racing to the Engine, we get a glimpse of the sky and see hints of purple lightning

Which was pretty cool as an effect, but then I remembered something: I’ve seen this lightning before. And if you’ve just watched the Book 3 finale, I’m sure you know what I’m referring to.

But it wasn’t just here either, it was also in another scene with Simon earlier. The one where he shifts from “okay he’s a shit but kinda ok” to “motherfucker unlimited.”

After thinking about it for a little bit, I went to Book 2 to look around, and sure enough, the lightning was there too

I’m going to reiterate: I’m rewatching all of Infinity Train, and the purple lightning throughout the entire series only appears this prominently during these scenes.  (May I reiterate: this prominently. I am aware that it can be seen in a brief flash in the very first episode when that random passenger gets sucked into the vortex, but it’s barely as noticeable as these three instances)

At first I thought the lightning was just a cool effect to reiterate the tension and weight of these dramatic scenes, and to be honest it very well could be. However all of these scenes where the lightning appears have something in common.

They all take place during times of great change not just for these characters, but for the entire train and its system as a whole.

Let me break it down and explain it one at a time.

Season 1: The lightning appears as Tulip is taking a stand against Amelia and her reign as Conductor, resolving to overthrow her and save Atticus.

This one is relatively simple, all things considered. Amelia has reigned as Conductor for 33 years (as noted by OneOne in the documentary shorts), and now that Tulip is going to fight back and bring OneOne back to the engine, her reign is soon going to end and things are going to go back to normal

Season 3: Simon, after committing so many atrocities, gets his number up so high that it has nowhere left to go on his body, giving him the highest number in existence.

(I’m doing season 3 before season 2 bc it’s shorter and relatively simpler than its big brother, you’ll understand soon)

As twisted as the train may be, we all know that its base premise is that it helps those it deems as needing help, teleporting them onto the train so they can sort out their problems. But as we’ve seen with Amelia and The Apex, they don’t technically have to. Aside from the threat of being stuck on the train forever, there’s nothing stopping them from fucking about and ignoring their problems.

Throughout Season 3, the Apex assumes that because they are destroying the cars, OneOne is trying to fight against them and put them back on track. However, as Amelia clarifies, he doesn’t even know that they exist.

Despite the fact that their numbers have been climbing in the complete opposite direction, the train hasn’t logged them down as anomalies or glitches in the system, they’re still considered normal passengers. It could be assumed that, like Grace and Amelia, they’ll all eventually come around and get the numbers to zero.

But then of course... Simon happens.

Considering our limited view of the train and its history, we don’t know if the numbers really can go higher or if other passengers have done the same thing in the past. However if he is the first, the fact that Simon’s number literally had nowhere else to go, reaching the highest possible limit, this goes against the train’s whole philosophy of “helping people.” There is now a clear flaw in the system that can no longer be ignored.

(As for the other instance with Simon, we’ll get back to that)

Season 2: Mirror Tulip (AKA M.T. (AKA Lake)) and Alan Dracula are waiting for one of the passenger pods so they can hijack one and get a number to get off the train

From what we’ve seen of the train and how it works, it seems clear that everything is made to revolve around the passengers. The cars are made to help people realize stuff about themselves, the numbers are made to represent their own personal growth and the denizens are made to assist them throughout their journey.

But that’s the thing: These denizens are made by the train. Every car that is created, the denizens are created alongside it. They are literally made to be the NPCs of the whole system and are made to assist passengers. OneOne even says so in the final episode of Book 2.

“Your passenger.” Not “Your friend” or “That one guy,” he specifically says “Your passenger.” Somehow, despite already helping Tulip with her problems, MT was assigned to Jesse.

And we’ve even seen this in other circumstances too! Tulip had Atticus to help her with a bunch of her stuff, and Grace had Hazel to make her realize that “Nulls” were people too. If they weren’t there, they wouldn’t have gone through their whole character arcs and back!

(As for how MT got assigned to Jesse despite already having “served her purpose” for Tulip, we’ll get back on that later).

But back to the point: The Denizens are created for the passengers by the train itself. So its whole deal with helping people grow and giving them an exit? That’s a luxury only reserved for passengers. It doesn’t see the denizens as “real people.” 

So Jesse refusing to leave MT behind, returning to the train so he can get his friend back? The train literally cannot fathom this turn of events and literally begins to break down.

It’s only through MT outsmarting the entire system and resolving OneOne’s broken logic loop that she’s able to escape, leaving the train for good.

But the fact that she’s even able to get off is crazy in of itself! We may not know how long the train has been around for, but the fact that the train began to broke down at MT wanting to leave means that this has to have been the first time this happened. And now that it’s shown that it can be possible for one denizen to leave the train, that opens the door for every single other denizen on the train! If they can “get a number,” they can leave the train.

Not to mention, Lake’s presence in the human world now gives people concrete proof that the train exists. If the train has existed for as long as humans have been alive, then that means there has to have been some rumors about it. And now, with a living girl made of chrome walking around (and a girl without a reflection), it is impossible to blow off those rumors anymore. The train is real.

So what does all this mean then?

The purple lightning (bet you already forgot about it now, eh?), throughout the series, has only showed up during these moments.  Tulip brought back OneOne, MT proved that denizens can leave the train, Simon proved that some passengers cannot be redeemed.  All three of these instances were points of great change in the train’s system, that will drastically alter things to come.

But why does the lightning only show up here? Is it that the train’s world can somehow sense when big things are going to happen? Or is it something deeper, like it can tell the future, and that’s how the passengers get “assigned” denizens? Well... I think it’s kind of a more complex system than that.

It’s painstakingly clear by now that the train is extremely flawed with the way it does things. Nothing is stopping passengers from staying on the train forever, it can whisk away people that are probably no more than 7 who are still developing as people, it’s possible for passengers to never change and make their numbers reach infinity, it doesn’t account for all the trauma that the train itself can leave on the passengers after they leave, it cannot fathom denizens wanting to get off the train and passengers wanting to help those denizens getting off the train and, in the case with Amelia, it’s possible for anyone to overthrow OneOne and take over as Conductor of the train.

However, I think these flaws show something very important. The train itself isn’t some sort of balevolent god that wants to help people become better, nor is it a malevolent one that wants to wreak havoc. It’s a giant machine.

Each car is made from different orbs, programmed by the Conductor (whoever that may be) to be whatever they like. The train’s helpers are all machines. The entire system itself runs on code. Very outdated code.

This is how I think different denizens are “assigned” to the passengers. I don’t think the train itself can see the future, but it can make predictions based on pre-existing data. Whatever passenger gets whisked to the train, they have their entire history and internal angst calculated and carefully analyzed. After running through their problems, the train can figure out exactly what that person needs in order to grow.

In the case of MT being Jesse’s “assigned Denizen,” while also technically being Tulip’s, here’s how I think it went down: After MT left to go her own path, the train kept her in mind as she went about her business, reassigning her to be someone that can help passengers grow. When Jesse got onto the train, it assigned MT to him and sent him in her general direction in his pod.

As for why exactly he didn’t get dropped off in the same car as MT, Jesse needed a bit of time to adjust and had to befriend Alan Dracula while MT wasn’t there. So when MT was asleep, the train moved the car Jesse was in right before the “Family Tree” car and let the rest of its predictions run its course. We do know its possible for the train to move around cars after all, with passengers on it.

But just because the train is good at predictions, it doesn’t mean they’ll always be 100% accurate. Remember: the train runs on very flawed logic. It isn’t always correct with how the passengers will act (Again, see Amelia and the Apex). So bringing this back around to the purple lightning, I think we found our answer.

The purple lightning represents moments when different aspects of the train completely fly off from their “intended course.” 

The train likely wasn’t thinking that Tulip could be its savior, especially with Amelia as the conductor. It likely thought that, as soon as her exit appeared she’d leave for good. But instead, she stuck around and went to save her friend. Tulip stuck around longer than predicted.

The train doesn’t see its denizens as actual people, thinking that as soon as passengers resolve their problems they’ll leave without a second thought. So MT going off on her own to get a number, along with Jesse coming back for her, both of them defied what the train thought was possible.

Then Simon. Simon, Simon, Simon. Out of everything the train could have predicted, it couldn’t have predicted him. 

The first time he broke from the train’s “intended course” was when he killed Tuba. We already know that Hazel was likely Grace’s denizen, since she was the reason that her whole view on the denizens had changed. But I think Tuba was meant to be Simon’s denizen (at least, his second one since The Cat abandoned him). With how helpful she was in The Colored Clock car, helping him escape and being the key to leaving the car, she was likely going to be Simon’s ticket to learning to trust “nulls” again. 

But then... yeah.

The second time he broke was after his fight with Grace. Despite abandoning her, betraying her, trying to kill her several times, Grace still saved him when he was about to fall. The train likely predicted here that Simon would see the err of his ways, pull an Amelia and go on the path of redemption.

But then...... yeah.

The third-and final time-was when he got what he wanted and got the number to end all numbers, likely bigger than the entire train expected. He had gone so far down the rabbit hole that there was nowhere else to go. Every chance he got to become a better person, he rejected. Simon himself is definitive proof that the train’s prediction system is flawed.

Each of these big moments reflects a gigantic flaw in the train’s system. It doesn’t expect these passengers to do the things they do, go off course from their intended destination. Like I said, the system relies on very outdated code. But now, having each of these situations be resolved, it knows how to deal with these issues going forward. A passenger can leave however they want, anyone can leave if they have a number, and most importantly, its prediction system needs fixing if it wants to keep helping passengers.

The train itself is a very, very strange beast. It’s kind and cruel all at once. But at the end of the day, it’s just a big computer doing its purpose. But this computer is old, outdated, extremely touchy. Each time these offshoots happen, it gives the chance for that code to be rewritten. And it’s very likely that it’s going to commit to these changes. For if it doesn’t... well... 

Let’s just say a lot more sand is gonna be added to this desert.

[gamesception]

So, the Infinity Train is bad, right? Not the show, the show is great, but the train itself within the show.

Spoilers, below.

Including spoilers for the end of season 3.

Like, ok, it's trying to help people work through emotional problems and maladjusted/antisocial personality traits.  Benevolent intentions, at least when humans are concerned, seem sincere enough.  And sure, it worked for Tulip & Jesse.  But while maybe not deliberately malicious, the train is trying to serve a moral function with an automated, amoral system that doesn’t work and is fundamentally inhumane.

Especially to the denizens it creates.  However artificial they may be, seasons 2 and 3 especially make clear that they are fully realized actual people, and the train just makes them up on a whim and suborns their entire existence to the passenger's personal growth. Life for a lot of denizens is pretty horrific. Not just Lake being hunted, but kick-me toad, the wind guy, several denizens seem created to suffer an existentially nightmarish existence so that their suffering can teach some passenger a moral. Even the ones that aren't created to suffer still face perpetual risk from ghoms, passengers, & other dangers of the train, and are still trapped in a single car, or risk being forever separated from that home by the movement of cars if they ever leave it. Even if the system works to help humans, creating an entire subordinate class of fully sapient creatures and then treating them as expendable tools in furtherance of that goal is kind of horrific & bad?

And that's before you consider that therapy train isn't even very good at what it does. Like, looking at the memory tapes we've seen, the things that land people on the train aren't that bad? Like, they're bad and all, but they're still things that people can and do work through and overcome in the plain old regular ass world. None of that shit seems like stuff that would be easier to work through with the help of isolation from human contact and regular mortal peril. The success rate among characters we've met isn't especially high, and one one himself has admitted that, statistically, passengers are more likely to die than they are to get their numbers to zero and get off the train.

Which would be bad enough if the passengers were adults, but most of them are little children! Which, like, of course. Because whatever inhuman system is choosing the passengers seems to key in on self centered behavior and uncontrolled emotional outbursts as criteria for passengers, and sure those are signs of maladjustment in adults, but they're also just normal conditions of children and young teens who are still developing socially and emotionally?

In season one, it could be readily imagined that the train only picked up people who were otherwise going to die. Tulip ran off into the snowy night in Wisconsin & easily could have frozen if not picked up by the train. Amelia, standing next to the tracks before the train even appeared, seemed like she could have been contemplating suicide. And based on that reading, the risk of death is slightly more forgivable. But implied in season 2 and explicitly in season 3, the train can pick up anyone at any time, so yeah, you could easily imagine a kid lashing out from some traumatic abuse they can’t process ending up on the train to become monster food when without the train some teacher or counselor could have intervened to actually help them.

We don't get to see Simon's backstory before the train, but according to the numbers, it wasn't as bad as what happened to Grace, and wasn't all that far removed from Tulip's issues with her parents. Could any bad thing he did before entering the train have justified the traumas he was subjected to from the moment he got there?  Did he really have a better chance on the train than he would have had off of it? Yeah, he made his choices, I'm not saying he "didn't deserve" his fate, but how did any of the stuff he went through constitute helping him?  Not all of this can be blamed on Amelia’s usurpation of the train.  Even without One One, Tulip shows that the train was more or less working as normal outside of the cars Amelia directly tampered with, and even after One One was back as conductor, the dangers of the train - from flecs to ghoms to laval moles - were still very real.

And if the train wasn’t helping Simon, that only makes all the suffering that it allowed various denizens to experience at his hands by abducting him in the first place all the more unforgivable, since there was never a point to him being on the train at all. Unless he was only there to serve Grace's growth?  There’s not a lot of reason to think that, but it is a possibility since without Simon reflecting her worst actions back to her, Grace might never have grown in the way she did.  Was that an accident, or intentional on the train’s part, with Simon’s fate an acceptable cost of Grace’s redemption?  If it was that would only be worse, since then the train then wouldn’t just be failing to recognize that it's own creations matter as much as humans that exist apart from it, it's also actively choosing to damn some humans to save others.  Either the train is dangerously incompetent, or actively malicious here.

Or consider the flecs, the ‘mirror police’ antagonists for most of season 2. I doubt many felt bad for them when they died. After all, they chose to become flecs, and chose to repeatedly try to murder Lake just for wanting her own life.  Unlike Simon we don't see a string of humanizing traumas driving them towards those choices. But did they actually choose any of that?

In s2e8, Mace questions not just Lake's existence, but the entire existence of the mirror world, implying that their memories and personalities are as artificial as their bodies, constructs created by the train to teach a passenger a lesson. He drives the questions at Lake, but the same reasoning could be applied to him. Did Mace become a flec after his prime died, or are those memories fake, and he was always a flec, created by the train to be a villain in a little morality play for Tulip's & later Jesse's benefit? Did Mace ever really have the choice to be anything other than the monster he was? And even if he did, would that absolve the train of a measure of guilt in creating Mace to be that monster in the first place? Did the train intend for him to catch and kill Lake after Tulip & Jesse had returned home, cleaning up loose ends? One One seemed to jump at the chance to let Lake off the train once her trick of reflecting Jesse's number provided an adequate excuse, but before that he also seemed perfectly willing to go with Sieve's suggestion of resolving the conflict by just killing her.

Again, that’s not to say the flecs didn’t deserve their fates, or that it was wrong of Lake to kill them.  Mace in particular questioned the entire purpose and reality of the mirror world, which means he had the self awareness and philosophical insight needed to question and reject the role the train had created him for, and even while dying he instead chooses to use that insight as just another way to vindictively deny Lake’s person-hood. He chooses to be every bit the monster he was created to be, and Sieve makes the same choice even seeing the fate that it led Mace to.  They didn’t “deserve better”, but them choosing to embrace their predetermined villainous roles doesn’t reduce the train’s accountability for creating them to fill those roles in the first place.

So yeah, Trauma Train is a fantastic show - imo s2 is still the best, but s1 and s3 are both very solid. But within that show the train itself is a dangerously negligent therapist and a willfully unjust deity, and if Infinity Train does get future seasons I hope that aspect gets further explored and deconstructed.  And I think it will be.  Like, I don’t think any of this analysis is an unintended edgy dark reading for the heck of it.  Season one could have left you with a neutral or positive impression of the train, but the fundamental systemic injustice of the train is, like, the explicit text of season 2, and while Lake managed to trick her way free, the underlying system she fought to free herself from is still in place in season 3.

That said, I kind of hope one way or the other that the show is done with grizzly on-screen deaths. There's a lot of good lessons for kids in the show, important stuff about handling life changes, dealing with grief, the importance of self identity & self determination. And much like the train is a bad therapist for trying to traumatize its victims into self improvement, the show becomes a bad vehicle for the lessons it's trying to teach if the scenes of shocking violence are what stick most firmly in younger viewers memories.

[rubykgrant]

Oh man... imagine an Infinity Train RPG game...

You start out by being able to build/design your character (lots of options for hair/faces/body-types/colors, all that good stuff), but then you also take a personality quiz. You can answer the questions honestly as yourself, or “get into character” with whoever you created (there would alos be a few save files, so you can play the game differently a couple times). You can even build your own back-story a little bit. The answers you give will determine the “number” you have on the train (it is mostly random honestly, but it kinda gives you an idea), and ALSO will start the path of the cars you enter. The first few cars reflect the answers you gave, but as you continue, the cars will change based on your decisions. So, it is also like a “choose your own adventure”.

The cars range from all different kinds of puzzles and what-not. Perhaps a few hundred would be designed for the game, but each run with your character will only take you through a few dozen cars, more depending on what you do. You meet random characters who can become your companions, your friends/allies, or perhaps even an enemy. You also run into other passengers that might help you, need help, or try to hurt you. Sometimes you pick up useful items as well.

There are certain events that occur, which are story-plots of their own. You can engage with them, or just focus on “your story”. These events involve things that often reveal lore about the train. You can potentially unlock lots of secret info by playing different runs with different characters. You can also choose to NOT get off the train. If you want to keep playing as one character after your story is over, you can keep exploring the train. While this can let you find certain cars and keep exploring, some areas are only found by making specific choices that are part of the story (a character who needs to learn about forgiveness will be given different cars and options than a character who needs to learn to be more assertive, ect). It isn’t possible to go everywhere and unlock everything with just one character. However, if your character stays on the train long enough, eventually you will be asked by the Conductor to help out; you can be a guide to other passengers (NPCs, or if online connection is possible, your friends can visit cars within your game. you dond’t NEED the internet to play though, just for a few features). You can also repeair certain things, go on errands for denizens of the train (the cat Samantha would mave lots of goodies to trade, and if you bring her important things, you might get some cool stuff).

If you fall off the train and enter the waistland, you can potentially wander around out there, and eventually find some train tracks (even if you seem to lose the train, it’ll give you a chance to get back on. if you wait a certain a mount of time, you’ll see it go by again). Gohms can be a problem though, and getting attacked by them is one of the few game-overs. Luckily, you’ll be sent back to your last save-point, and you’ll hopefully get a chance to make a different choice or figure out what to do.

[liaroflesbos]

HxH and Continuing the Dark Continent Arc

So, in this awful unending hiatus of the hxh fandom, i thought i would make a post about how, from the beginning chapters that we have been given, it looks like the dc arc will shape up. I’m doing this a) because of obsessive curiosity and a need for a systematic understanding of unresolved plotlines and b) in case i or anyone else wants to write a dark continent fic that stays accurate to what canon suggests. because i know i could never write a dark continent filler fic without as good an understanding of the base text as possible to use as a jumping board. Fair warning, this is extensive and long-winded. I may go and add page references to everything at a later point.

First off, the event chunks that this seemingly massive arc will contain. So what we’ve had so far is the preparation for the launch, which will of course be discussed in greater detailed, but basically gets all the people and plotlines in place to climb on a ship towards the dark continent.

Then, we got the very beginning of the “journey to the new continent” section of this arc. I didn’t catch this until my like… third readthrough… but the HA is going to drop off all the passengers from Kakin on an island that is much closer to the normal hxh world than to the dark continent, including the princes. So this arc will contain the entirety of the Succession War, because the princes are leaving after this leg of the journey, and also include leaving the Human Territorial Waters to go to the “Untamed Waters,” which may be the introduction of some exciting magical creature things.

I’m fairly certain that we’ll get a chunk of the story happening on the New Continent, when they reach it. First of all, you have the logistical nightmare of all the people setting up camp. Then there’s the finishing touches to the Succession War and almost certainly the resolution to Kurapika’s struggle to get the eyes that the human monster Prince Tserriwhatever has collected (and god am I not obsessed with the theory that he has Pairo’s head in a jar, because I love Suffering). Then we have the possible escape of Beyond from the HA at this point. I’m having a very hard time finding the reference point I remember that implied Beyond would escape when reaching the new continent, but I did manage to reach that conclusion last time i read through. Will update with source when possible. They’ll also take this chance to change ships to one of Morel’s and guys, I am so. fucking. excited. that we’ll almost definitely have Morel and might have Knuckle and/or Shoot after this point. I loved this gang of overly sensitive hunters so much and I cannot wait to see them again.

The next stop that they make after the New Content is a relay point in the Untamed Waters between the New Continent and the Dark Waters. I don’t really know what’s going to happen here, except that we know that Knov will be helping in transferring people and goods. However, the manga does make special mention of this relay point, going as far to show us it on the map, so shit might go down there too.

After the relay point comes the border between the untamed waters, the normal realm of the hxh world, and the dark parts of the globe beginning with the dark waters. There is supposed to be some kind of Guardian here, so expect them to be having a very serious conversation with this Guardian--who I am so curious about. Apparently they’re like a separate species? I wanna know what they look like. Anyway, we’ll also have some time here devoted to Ging and Pariston’s crew going a way that has never been tread before, and so probably bypassing the normal guardian checkpoint that the HA’s will pass by. This is supposed to be even more dangerous than going the normal route, which already has an incredibly low survival rate.

And then we’re in the Dark Waters! After this point, we don’t have too much data on what will happen. However here’s what we know/is probable: first, there may be some battles/struggles against the beasts in the dark waters, which are also terrifying like the beasts on the dark continent. Then we will (finally!) get to the continent itself. They will clearly face all kinds of strange and deadly natural phenomena while out there. And they will try to find amazing things that can benefit mankind to bring back home with them. Also, we’d clearly expect tensions with Beyond’s group as both struggle to survive, to get the goods, and to return home. I’d say it would be a safe bet that Ging’s quest for Don Freecs will come up here. Otherwise, I have some thoughts on what might happen, but it’s hard to understand the shape events that far away in the story. Things like the struggle between the groups may be resolved before they actually get to the Dark Continent, or things like Kurapika’s hunt for the Red Eyes might not be fully resolved.

And then, maybe the journey home? They mention a detail or two about the return trip but I think the arc will be so long by this point that we skip it.

Alright!! So that was A Lot, but I am still not finished. I know, I know. I’m a Lot too, but I still want to go over all the plotlines that I think will be picked up by the end of the arc. Part of my thinks that most of these will be resolved because I do suspect that this will be the second to last arc. I think it’ll be another ten year arc like the Chimera Ant arc, but I think it may be one of the last, partially because it looks like a lot of these narrative threads could be tied up.

I think the biggest separate plot thread that will be tied into a neat little bow is the phantom troupe’s story. Okay, maybe not totally finished, but pretty damn close. I couldn’t find it on my last read through, but I’m pretty sure chrollo orders the whole phantom troupe on board. If not, then he definitely said that they would steal from the expedition, so the HA will have to contend with them trying to steal from whoever and whatever remains at the end. At the same time we have Hisoka looking to kill Spiders and fight a rematch against Chrollo, and Kurapika is playing a central role, so perhaps we’ll revisit revenge with a newly magicked Chrollo and a young Kalluto as troupe member. And, fuck, I certainly hope Togashi reveals why they left that Meteor City message at the site of the Kurta massacre.

It also seems likely that we’ll get a more full explanation of what happened with Netero’s expedition, and perhaps Beyond’s as well. I’m betting we’ll have something about the Ai and Zzigg Zoldyck, how it connects back to Alluka and Nanika, how it could’ve passed to this later generation and what exactly that means. And how much Ging knew about it. We also briefly met Linnet Audoble during the Election Arc as the oldest person in the association with a fierce devotion to Netero, and that may have been padding for a future role. And we got that suggestion of Netero’s connections with the Zoldyck’s during the CA arc, that I’m sure we all want more depth on.

I’ve been working on a theory that we’ll get the conclusion of Senritsu’s arc too. The music she listened to is normally translated as the Dark Sonata, I think, which has an obvious linguistic link to the Dark Continent and the Dark Waters. And she’s at least on the ship until the New Continent as one of Kurapika’s bodyguard spies. Maybe she’ll stay on after and complete her mission to destroy the Dark Sonata? Or at least learn more about it?

This is just a general thing I started wondering about: why exactly is Bisky one of the bodyguards? I got the sense that she requested to be one through Killua. What is she expecting--will she also go to the Dark Continent to find treasures? Couldn’t she do that without helping Kurapika on this? She’s obviously skilled enough to be heavily valued by the association.

We’ll clearly learn a lot about all the different Zodiacs, which I’m very excited about, especially for all the girls. And Saccho, who I don’t have a good grasp on yet but think I’ll like. And Botobai. And the sheep one--Ginta? And Mizai, of course! But I think there’s a special something in Kanzai, the tiger’s, backstory. Not only is he crazily stupid, but he mentions something about “after he woke up,” suggesting that he may have been Sleeping for a long while. Curious!

And then we have Beyond’s supposed team. Of course, we’re going to need to work out the Ging/Pariston rivalry some more, in some very interesting ways certainly. And then we’ll have Ging on Don Freecs. But otherwise, I can’t really make a guess as to what the individual stories will be for them--we don’t totally understand their relationships yet either. They all seem very cool though. Oh, and I almost forgot! It’s so interesting that Pariston’s temp hunters didn’t know about the Succession War--finally Pariston slips up, not the ultimate genius that we tend to think of him and Ging as, and sure to have big impacts on the balance between Beyond’s group and the more knowledgeable HA.

Oh, we’ve also got that undersecretary from the shadowy government agency--the travel bureau?--coming with us. Clearly he will leave his dorm at some point and come interact with the other characters--I wonder how his knowledge matches against Ging’s? With him comes the geopolitics of the newly minted v6.

There were also two mentions of the mafia so far, as related to this arc. I have no idea what they could have to do with this, but them plus Kurapika plus the Phantom Troupe makes me think that it’s a potential factor in this part of the story.

Within this first part of the arc, I think we’ll also see more of the Zodiacs trying to get a handle of the poorly planned denizens of the ship. Specifically, Mizai says that the medical teams are understaffed, so this  must mean something for Leorio. I just realized that it could be an attempt to put Leorio on a bus for a while.

Finally, as a diehard Leopika fan, I think Leorio and Kurapika’s relationship is going to develop significantly. It might not be a romantic relationship, but a relationship will happen. However, I believe in my heart that they’ll get together!!!

And for the arc after this one: I think we’ll return to help Gon figure out his Nen shit and to uncover the mystery of the missing hunters which was so important to the politics of the election arc. Well, since the missing hunters probably has something to do with Pariston, it may be resolved before then.

[rubykgrant]

Ah, to heck with it; have some “Simon Survives Scenarios”. Various ideas that have been rolling around in my head, I can’t be bothered to actually DO anything with them myself, but perhaps others will have fun! Or angst. Or both. You can use these in a “and then everything was OK, the end” kinda way... OR “and then he felt BAD, because he made US feel bad, you get what you give dude” kinda way. Either way, enjoy~

Scenario 1- starting from the point of Grace still being trapped in her video memories, what finally snaps her out of the trance is somebody knocking the projector out of the way... it is Samantha. She started feeling anxious (and perhaps a bit guilty) about giving this to Simon, and worried about what he’d do with it. Samantha and Grace talk for a moment, concluding with Samantha lamenting that she should have taken better care of the boy when he was younger, and Grace pointing out that he’s a big boy now, his actions are his own choice. Grace continues on while Samantha stays behind. Things proceed basically the same as they did originally, until the Ghom attacks Simon. It seems that he’s really going to die, the thing that he’d been running from since he was a child finally caught him, he wasn’t able to stop himself from becoming somebody terrible and now he was going to be stopped forever... and suddenly, something lunges at the Ghom. It is Samantha, still dressed in her very classy vest, but now she’s got her fur raised, claws out, hissing and ready to bite. She lunges again, grabbing the Ghom and rolling, swiping and swatting at it the shole time. Simon is still out of sorts... he just tried to kill his best friend, then she was OK, and then the Ghom was on him, and he could feel himself dying, and then Samantha was there, and he feels tiny and afraid again. Grace takes a step forward, not sure if she can do anything, but wanting to try. Samantha is pinned down by the Ghom, looks up at the children, and manages to shout “GET BACK IN THE CAR!” before she pulls herself free, rounding on the Ghom. Grace grabs Simon by the arm and pulls him back toward the doors of the Mall Car, the kids rushing in ahead of them. Grace pulls the doors shut, and Simon finally reacts. Sitting on his knees in front of the door, he slams his hands against it. For a few seconds, everybody is just trying to ceatch their breath and process what just happened. Simon looks down at his arms, both covered with numbers. He turns around, sitting against the door, and off to the side he turns and looks into a reflective surface of some window the kids broke years ago. He sees his face, and then quickly looks away. Grace speaks to the kids as she did in the original, her number going down, her new little origami companions with her. Simon is silent for now, he doesn’t even want to hear his own voice (you can take that wherever you want from there. maybe he still keeps being a jerk and eventually bites it in a whole other way, maybe they find Samantha again later, maybe whatever)

Scenario 2- The well-being of the passengers was the most important thing... and that was why One-One jsut couldn’t leave this alone. Before... before Amelia, before a lot of things, there had been very specific safety measures that made sure, no matter WHAT, a passenger wouldn’t die. It hadn’t been all Amelia’s fault, not entirely, but when she took the train, she removed several safety measures, and others fell into dis-repair as she was only concerned with her personal project. There was also other problems, things that had nothing to do with Amelia, things One-One should have anitcipated and fixed before anything bad happened... but he hadn’t, and then he’d been so invested in getting things “back on track” (so to speak) after becoming the Conductor once again, he missed this. Now a passenger was dead, and that was simply not acceptable. Even Sad-One couldn’t find the right words to describe how devastating this fact was. Amelia was a little reluctant to mention that One-One was so concerned with the whole Simon Incident, that he was ignoring other issues. After all, passengers weren’t in danger before she started taking over the train, and she’d been RIGHT THERE, right in front of the boy, she could clearly see how troubled he had been, how narrow-minded and head-strong, how very much like herself when she’d been at her worst... and she had only antagonized him, then left. Finaly, Amelia forced herself to speak with One (being more honest and direct was something she needed to work on. her number spun down as she took a deep breath and walked up to the little robot). She talked about how this was unfortunate, and very sad indeed, but warned One not get so obsessed. That was what had hurt the boy. It was also what had hurt her. She’d been so obsessed with bringing back Alrick, she’d tried all kinds of things, now obviously nonsensical; cloning him, holograms, once she’d even tried using her memory tape and a particular car to create some sort of time travel. “Oh? Which car was that?” One asked, in an off-handed way. Amelia explained it had been a car that was now currently glitching, but the original purpose was to go into “history books”, like some after-school special where children time travel and learn a history lesson. The car couldn’t let you change or alter the past, just re-visit and re-live it. Until Amelia started adjusting it... oh, she’d gotten CLOSE with that thing. However, after some experiments, she decided it was a bad option. Pulling something out through the machine from the past almost never lasted. Most of the time, whatever she brought back deteriorated. She had only chosen random objects, things like house plants or fruit, too afraid to actually put Alrick through all that. Going through the machine yourself also wasn’t practical, you also got pulled back to where you had been after a certain period of time had passed. You could bring things with you (she’d been able to grab a chair), but that still held the same problem of the past object possibly falling apart. She also found that you couldn’t be very accurate with where and when. She often was a few minutes and several feet off where she was “aiming”. Finally, she noticed that she also became more unstable after trying to go back. Not only had she not even been able to see Alrick (what with being an hour later than she wanted and also two hole miles away), she had nearly destoyed herself. Amelia had intended to share this story to hopefully help One understand that he couldn’t keep dwelling on Simon. Instead, she had given him an idea

Scenario 3- The Ghom doesn’t suck out Simon’s soul... it turns him into ANOTHER Ghom. Grace quickly rushes the kids back into the Mall Car as the thing that used to be her best friend tries to attack her. Again. Any hope she had of reasoning with him, helping him, sotpping him... all that is gone. Inside the car, Grace tries to comfort the kids and explain to them that they need to change. In the days that follow, instead of going out on raids, Grace goes out on little trips with the kids. Now that they know what they are supposed to do, learn lessons and get their numbers DOWN, they really seem to be making progess. Sometimes she head out with a group of 7 kids, and come back with 3. At first they were afraid of getting to 0 and suddenly facing an exit door, but Grace helps them understand that it will be OK. They’re going home. The kids still don’t want to be alone, and that’s why Grace still uses the Mall Car as a base. If nothing else, they can still come back here to rest. Some kids find their true companions, and Grace says good-bye. She knows she should try to get her own number down (although, it seems to do it just fine without much effort), but she doesn’t want to leave just yet... for one thing, she’s been on this train for... what? 10 years? 11? She wasn’t totally sure, but she did know this had been her life for a long time, and she wasn’t ready for “the real world” yet. She also still wanted to find Hazel. If nothing else, to apologize and make sure the little girl was alright. Why lie, she also kept thinking about Simon. She knew it was impossible to even think she could find him, or tell him apart from the other Ghoms, or help him if she DID find him. She kept thinking about him though. One day, while exploring some cars with her little origami companions, Grace hears somebody yelling; she can’t believe it, but it is Hazel! A group of Ghoms have gotten into the car, and they’re chasing her. Grace runs as fast ashe she can, but the car is designed to be like a giant jungle-gym in a fast-food place. Everything is all twisted together, an obstacle course in bright colors. Grace gets stuck, and calls out to her friend. Hazel tries to get to her, but 3 Ghoms advance on her. Hazel crouches down, her turtle shell appearing as a last line of defense... and suddenly a fourth Ghom slams into the others. It chases them off, then turns and walks toward Hazel. Grace finally finds a way through, runs over, and wraps her arms around the tiny girl to protect her. The Ghom stops. It seems distressed, which isn’t unusual for Ghoms, but it also isn’t attacking. It keeps pacing around them, growling and crying. Hazel slowly relaxes in Graces arms, and Grace finally asks “Simon? Is that you?”

Potential Follow-Up to Scenario 3 and 4- Simon is returned to his normal form, still covered with numbers and still not in his right mind. After first panicking when he sees who he still considers to be the “false conductor”, he then starts to remember what he did, and asks “Wait, what happened to Grace? Did I hurt her? I... I thought I did, but I didn’t really WANT to, but I still DID... no, did I kill her? I didn’t, right? Something saved her... Din’t it?”. Finally Amelia comes in, and taking a softer tone than the one she used when they first met, she explains that yes, he did indeed try to kill Grace, and yes, she was saved by denizens of the train. Now, he has been saved as well. Still trying not to be too harsh with him, Amelia explains that he has been wrong about the numbers and how the train works. Simon still doesn’t want to listen to that... because if he was wrong about that, then EVERYTHING he did was wrong. After some time passes, Amelia manages to locate his former friends, as they’ve been concerned about him (he has trouble understanding why they even still care). Samantha comes to see him, and after looking at his face she says “Oh, Simon... what have you done to yourself? What did you do to everybody else?”. Grace comes to see him as well, and she’s a mess “I should be HAPPY to see you alive, we should both be happy, but we can’t be, I don’t know HOW to feel about this, we saved each other so many times Simon, until the very end I was still trying to save you, and you... YOU...” she can’t finish. He knows. He tried to kill her. Shame doesn’t seem like a strong enough word for what he feels. Hazel is somewhere nearby, but she refuses to come near him. He can’t blame her. On his own, Simon looks at himself in a mirror, seeing all the numbers on his face. Like brands of his mistakes and bad choices. When Amelia finds him, he’s crying and scratching at his face “I don’t want them anymore, I don’t want these numbers, get them off, GET THEM OFF!”. She runs toward him, grabbing his arms “Simon, stop! Stop it! Hurting yourself is just making your number go UP!”. He colapses against her, crying, and Amelia has to do something she’s not very good at; comfort him. She also tells him “Sometimes... the hardest thing we can do is live with the consequences of our actions”. In the days that pass, Simon finds himself constantly thinking about how this isn’t fair, why should HE get to be here? He doesn’t deserve this. If he could come back, why couldn’t... Simon starts asking about how the denizens of the train work, how they are “alive”. He learns about the “cores”, how they can be repaired and thus possibly heal a denizen that has been hurt or destroyed. If the core itself is broken, then nothing can be done. If Simon could just find Tuba, then he could fix this (this could be wither him traveling way back to the spot where he cause her to tall, searching the wasteland in the area. or, him using the time machine, which is potentially dangerous to him as going back and forth might cause him to fall apart)