So Silly

didn’t have much time to draw something better but happy killugon day! 🎉✨

My boyfriend just woke up, mostly still asleep and told me “don’t worry, it’s getting better” in a heavy, American accent, which is unusual for an Australian man.

“Why are you American?” I asked, to which I got:

“Sorry, it’s getting better” in a stereotypical posh English accent.

“Why are you English?” I asked, amused.

“What is he normally?” He managed to ask.

“He? You’re not anyone else, you’re you.”

“Ugh, me” was the last thing he said, in a right proper Aussie accent before he fell back into proper sleep.

so, i just binged the entirety of good omens.

i need some time to process this- these emotions i'm feeling right now.

i can say all i want that i loath aziraphale after the events of 02x06, but i can't say i fully do cause i know why he left. doesn't make the fact that he left crowley any better- but i do understand. as much as it pains me to say i loath one of the ineffable husbands, i loath the side ship of ineffable bureaucracy more.

the problem is that it doesn't seem like they knew each other before the attempted doomsday, which pissed me off that they got a happy ending and crowley and aziraphale didn't. don't get me wrong, i'm happy they got their happy end, but it feels like they didn't, idk, deserve it like crowley and aziraphale.

loved the show, 6,000/10, would absolutely recommend.

I don't like ging but at least he was direct with gon on not wanted to see him and didn't denied he was an shitty dad compare to silva on doing terrible things to his children and think it was the right thing to do on prepare them be world-class assassins

I kinda agree. I have a really hard time and mixed feelings about Ging in general, but in comparaison to Silva, there’s no doubt Silva is worse.

No one can really be sure what kind of Dad Ging would have been - even now, he doesn’t consider Gon like his son, and Gon does’t feel like he is considered as such. So even his current behavior, that is to scold Gon and tell him to suck it up, is not exactly telling of if he would have been a good dad or not.

Abandon does a lot of horrible things to a kid. When it happens this early especially, it creates damages that are hard to overcome. Which is why also Mito lied and said Ging died, and it’s Kite who told him about Ging being alive and that Gon had to be worthy of finding Ging if he wanted to meet him. 

I think Mito meant well by taking Gon away from Ging, and that Ging wouldn’t have been able to raise Gon properly. Ging, as far as we know, doesn’t know Mito told Gon he was dead, and so far he didn’t care. He did leave a track though, and I find the whole thing with him letting Gon access to Greed Island a little douchy, but even there it is true that Ging had always spelled out that he didn’t want to be here.

Which is still harmful for a kid. Which is still really bad. Ging isn’t a good father at all, not even now.

But compared to Silva? He’s far better than this. Silva abused his children, all of them, in one way or another. the fact it’s “normal” in their family doesn’t make it okay. the fact Killua especially, once in a healthy environement, talks about all of this with horror, saying it was painful, means it was not normal. 

Silva wanted to have his children under controls, especially Killua. He agreed with Illumi to put Killua under mind controle, he locked Alluka up, Silva is not a good father.

And honestly when I see what kind of person Illumi is… While he became an abuser himself, all of this seems to me like the result of an even harder training and the fact he was far more isolated since, as the first born, he didn’t always have his siblings running around. Illumi accepted all this abuse as normal and necessary because that’s what he was taught, and that’s why he reproduces the cycles of abuse, especially on Killua. 

Silva’s way of raising his children had been proven harmful and destructive for their own individualities. 

Especially because Silva has expectations for them, and even if he gives them the illusion of a choice (or at least he does with Killua) he does so while still repeating that after all, Killua is his son so he’ll come back in the family’s ways.

It’s far more fucked up. It’s extremely fucked up.

Type of trauma and the reprecussion on children caused by family are harder to discuss than just saying one is better than the other, because the children will react with other ways, and it should be the responsability of the adults to not screw up their children.

But as far as bad father goes, Silva takes the cake.

Take care!

theres a lot of things that scare me in this world, but i'd like to think that as of late, i've been working twards a better life, a slightly better me, slowly but surely.

I created this illustration for @cheritsundere's fic Polaroid Through Your Lashes for this year's hunter x hunter big bang!! (@hxhbb2021)

It's a really fun story check it out! I love art about art. [https://archiveofourown.org/works/32722693/chapters/81181117]

AAAAAAASAIDHS THIS IS SO SADDD

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Hunter X Hunter Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Gon Freecs/Killua Zoldyck, Gon Freecs & Killua Zoldyck Characters: Gon Freecs, Killua Zoldyck Additional Tags: Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Past Torture Summary:

Set post S1 E25, just after the Zoldyck family arc. Little bit of head canon filler/ fix it fic. Canon compliant violence and discussion of abuse.

‘Killua hisses as he passes over a particularly deep lash, its edges are frayed and it cannot have been made by a regular whip. Gon’s fist clenches around the cloth, and warm water runs out between his fingers. He’s heard of such things in dark corners from cruel people, but never seen them. His next word breaks in two and he sounds far more like the child both of them are supposed to be than either of them ever do.

“Why?” ’

Killua and Gon discuss what happened to him at the Zoldyck mansion.

“I am not perfect. I am sometimes selfish, occasionally self destructive, and prone to very brief, yet severe, spells of sadness. But I would fight until every bone in my body was broken to protect you. That’s a promise.”

— Beau Taplin • T h e  B l o o d  P a c t  (via afadthatlastsforever)

I think there’s a consensus that most of the adults in the CAA failed Gon and Killua miserably (mainly by treating them like adults and not traumatized children). But if a responsible adult HAD shown up, and told them Kite’s death wasn’t their fault and they shouldn’t be involved in the operation, would they have even listened? Neither takes kindly to being “treated like a kid”.

Anon, I love you! 

Yes, I completely agree this is the issue in CAA.  Here’s some panels for the folks following along at home: 

SO, I’ve been saying for a while that one thing Kite does, that Gon and Killua’s previous mentors did *not* do, is treat both Gon and Killua as professional - adult - hunters. 

I believe Kite does this because - unlike Wing and Bisky - he isn’t used to working with kids.... Wing is also training Zushi, who’s even younger than Killua and Gon, when they meet.  And this isn’t Bisky’s first go-round training child protegies in nen, either.

On the other hand, Kite works with a crew of adults, he treats Gon and Killua the same way he treats anyone else on the crew:  

Look at Gon and Killua’s faces in the last panel... they freaking LOVE Kite telling his crew, of adults, that they have a lot to learn from them haha.

Also, there’s actually a bit of time between when Gon and Killua reconnect with Kite, and when they go to NGL to investigate the Chimera Ants....if you only watched the anime you might not realize this, but in the manga, Gon and Killua work with Kite’s crew for a month before the Chimera Ant Queen washes up on shore in NGL. 

And that whole time, they aren’t just two well-respected members of the team, but like... two of the BEST two members of the team???  Kite’s assessment of their abilities is not based on nothing, it’s based on his observation of them and their abilities. 

Here’s what Kite’s crew think about Gon and Killua’s abilities:

Here’s what Kite thinks:

SO, when Gon and Killua choose to follow Kite into the NGL battefield, it’s actually against this background of working as professional hunters for the first time, and being respected for it!

Gon is earning the respect of Kite, the hunter he respects the MOST because of his connection to Ging, and because he saved Gon’s life as a kid.  We all know how much Gon hates feeling weak, right?  When Kite rescued him as a kid he was weak, but he got stronger, passed the Hunter exam, did a bunch of stuff and now he’s on equal footing with Kite, in the sense that they are both Pro Hunters. 

And Killua is also earning respect as a Pro Hunter, not an assassin... it’s only because Gon and Bisky encouraged him that he left Greed Island to take the Hunter exam, but it seems at this point in the story that he’s fully resolved to stop working as an assassin, and work as a Pro Hunter with Gon instead. 

So getting back to the question of whether Gon and Killua would have gone home, if the adults in charge had told them to... I mean, that’s what Kite, Netero, Morel and Knov ALL told them to do.

It’s in chapter 196, if you’re curious. 

Kite was wrong, he underestimated the enemy. He admits as much to Gon, when Gon comes to apologize to him (chapter 338 “repentance”).  He could have been a lot more firm about excluding Gon and Killua. 

Netero, Knov and Morel were also wrong, they also underestimated the enemy (and Killua).   For example, when they heard that Killua had knocked Gon out and retreated from Pitou, they told him it was a cowardly thing to do, and a real Hunter would believe in his ability to win even against a stronger foe (something Bisky also says to Kilua). 

And that assessment is something Killua takes to heart, because it’s something he’s struggled with since the beginning of the manga, when Netero told him Gon had more potential as a Hunter.  (Also when he failed the exam on purpose and went home, and also when he struggled in Yorknew with his desire to prove Illumi was wrong about him by sacrificing himself for Gon.)

(And also, you know... when he pulled the needle out!)

I think we’re supposed to believe it to an extent, BTW, that this kind of blindly optimistic attitude - Gon’s shounen protagonist(TM) attitude that everything will work out if you just give it your all - is somewhat correct.  That there’s some truth to the idea that being willing to risk your life to win is how you win.  Bisuke says as much to Killua, and Bisuke is usually right... Like they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  It’s the highest-risk situations that also have the highest rewards.

But we’re also supposed to see the limits to this kind of blind optimism.  Gon is optimistic that he can defeat Pitou and save Kite (or he’s in denial that he can’t), and look what happened with that, right?  Sometimes the enemy really is too strong.

SO I see I number of things going on here: One, the fact that the adults are treating Gon and Killua like professionals (or at least not being discouraging enough); and Two, that the adults are failable, in the end.  They don’t realize the true extent of the threat, they overestimate themselves and underestimate the enemy.  

That’s Kilua’s assessment, by the way.

As for Knov, Morel and Netero:

(Netero asks, was it such a powerful adversary?  And Killua explains about Pitou’s aura.  At which point:) 

Only Netero takes Killua assessment of Pitou’s strength - “You guys are powerful, too... and still I don’t think you could defeat him” - even a little bit seriously.   But then, Netero is also the only one, of the three of them, who knows exactly who Killua is and what he is capable of. 

Knov, and Morel and Netero in the end get their comeuppance, when they experience firsthand exactly how strong the enemy is (Knov especially).  All three characters come up against the limits of their abilities, where they’re just outmatched in terms of strength, even as powerful pro hunters.   Netero and Morel fight through it, Knov retreats to a support role.  But definitely they are all humbled. 

People can be wrong,  you know?   All of these characters were wrong about how strong the Chimera Ants would be...    

If you want my opinion, HxH Chimera Ant Arc is a Deconstruction, it shows the limits to the Weekly Shonen Jump core values of Friendship, Hard Work, Victory. Sometimes the enemy is just too strong. 

And it’s also a Tragedy.  The thing that defines tragedy, as a genre, is that it is the inevitable result of a specific character flaw of the protagonist... which in this case is Gon’s willingness to sacrifice his own life, because he doesn’t value his life enough compared to others’ lives.  And it’s also Killua’s flaw of following what Gon wants to do, and not voicing his objections because he fears they would damage the relationship.  Because both of them are protagonists, it’s a double tragedy...

Here’s what Hegel says about Tragedy, as a genre, btw:

His later lectures formulate such a theory of tragedy as a conflict of ethical forces, represented by characters...

The heroes of ancient classical tragedy encounter situations in which, if they firmly decide in favor of the one ethical pathos that alone suits their finished character, they must necessarily come into conflict with the equally justified ethical power that confronts them.

Modern characters, on the other hand, stand in a wealth of more accidental circumstances, within which one could act this way or that, so that the conflict is, though occasioned by external preconditions, still essentially grounded in the character. The new individuals, in their passions, obey their own nature... simply because they are what they are.

Hegel's comments on a particular play may better elucidate his theory: "Viewed externally, Hamlet's death may be seen to have been brought about accidentally... but in Hamlet's soul, we understand that death has lurked from the beginning: the sandbank of finitude cannot suffice his sorrow and tenderness, such grief and nausea at all conditions of life... we feel he is a man whom inner disgust has almost consumed well before death comes upon him from outside."[71]  

Anyway.  The Chimera Ant Arc is a Tragedy.  Possibly it could have happened differently, but at the same time, exactly because the characters are the people they are, and “individual personality... must manifest self-destructive passions because only such passions are strong enough to defend the individual from a hostile and capricious external world” (Hegal again), there was no other outcome that could have occurred.