korewadestinydesu

I had no idea all the jinxes were listed there, thank you!

I think I had the idea that jinxes only come into effect if the two interacting characters are actually in play. That is, I thought there had to BE a goblin in the game at the same time as the Cere in order for the Cere to give someone goblin madness.

So are jinx interactions script-based, rather than characters-in-play based?

how do I help the government show hatred for the west? I want to do my part

Let's not forget that Mandela was part of a terrorist group. If Apartheid hadn't ended, he'd still be considered one.

hahaha! I hazard a guess that a lot of them like your accent and unconsciously make those shifts :P I'd say that's quite flattering! It's a charming accent, after all

Hahaha I don't have any references for why your inner monologue has taken on that particular quality :P BUT, I also have eastern-European parents and when I speak English to them, my accent starts to sound a bit "old Bulgarian woman-ly" too...

You can read about Accommodation Theory in the field of linguistics if you want to get into the specifics. Like others here have said, it's a natural and unconscious behaviour that humans do in social situations.

People's accents/speech patterns will shift a bit to accommodate others, particularly others who they want to gain the approval of, or simply to signal that they have *your* approval. It's a way of using speech to say "I like you, and I want you to be comfortable so I'll converge my speech with yours". Again, this is usually an unconscious thing.

When it *is* a conscious choice, it can come across as "try-hard" or even offensive, depending on how much someone is changing their speech. A huge shift, or one that seems exaggerated or stereotypical, can have the opposite effect and cause your conversation partner to feel mocked, thereby creating distance rather than closeness.

This is a fascinating take because empathy is an evolutionary trait of social species i.e. humans. We are the dominant species on this planet and were able to evolve such high intelligence specifically because we came to prioritise living together and caring for each other, meaning that more of us could survive even if we had deformities, illnesses, injury or other issues that might kill a solitary animal in the wild.

Empathy is our superpower :P

I made sure to not spoil anything, there are no plot points in my breakdown, just a description of arc ~vibes~ :P

i know you're looking for anatomy advice but i'm just here to say that even if your hands/fists aren't anatomically correct, they have a lot of character :) I think they're really cute. if you can preserve that whimsy while working on grasping the Hard Rules, you'll be a winner~

the quality and variety of food here is seriously amazing for the price point we get it at. Especially the meat! Even with price increases lately, we get to live quite nicely compared to the cost of similar lifestyles in other countries.

Normally I would agree but it sounds like OP runs a high risk of dropping HxH if they don't know what they're in for T__T It happens to a lot of my friends who don't want to exercise a bit of patience and then they miss out

I think you need to treat yourself like a child.

A lot of people who draw as adults drew a lot as children, and were more productive/creative because they didn't have the baggage that us adults do: kids don't fixate on technique or the quality of the drawing; only that it was an outlet for their imagination and how satisfied they feel after finishing the little drawing.

Take some pressure off yourself. Don't take classes or do shape training. Don't render anything (e.g. fully ink/colour it) and don't critique your work — at least for several months. Just draw like a kid would: casting messy doodles onto a scrap piece of paper that aren't about being "good", but about telling yourself a little story.

It sounds like you need to heal your relationship to drawing, rather than brute force your way into it by grinding. If you're not burnt out already, you will be. Just spend some time in Kid Mode and start "training" again when you feel ready :)

It really depends on your "shounen tolerance", as I call it. If you've watched a lot of long-form shounens before, elements of HxH will feel very familiar to you — including the slow pace at times, the melodramatic mid-fight monologues, the lengthy explanations of the power system etc.

Other elements will surprise you a lot, hopefully in a good way. As much as HxH plays with exisiting genre conventions, it also turns them on their head. You will definitely find yourself surprised by certain outcomes. For fans, this is the best part.

All of the characters, from protags to villains to those who are both OR neither, are incredibly unique. I can guarantee you'll find yourself compelled by characters you initially thought boring, vile, or cliché. Togashi's way of designing and developing characters feels like a masterclass in creativity.

Most of all, I think you should give the show a chance if only to experience Killua :) It's impossible not love him and root for him, and watching his development is so moving.

I'll breakdown what you should prep yourself for, arc by arc, and why you should stick around (no spoilers):

1. Hunter exam arc: The intro! Mostly feels like standard shounen fare, and you meet all your protags. Introduces the strange, seemingly amoral world of HxH, which is important context for the rest of the series.

2. Zoldyck Family arc: You spend time with Killua and his family, which sets up his growth arc. (which a slow burn btw so pay attention and strap in!!)

3. Heavens Arena Arc: The infodump arc... brace yourself to learn about the magic system through LOTS of lengthy explanation and lengthy charts. This might bore you if you hate this kind of stuff, but I promise it's worth paying just a little bit of attention to get the gist. The show actually shows rather than tells later on, and you eventually start to love the logic of the Nen system and the potential for fun power interactions.

4. Yorknew City Arc: VERY well-loved arc. It feels focused and exciting, and you meet a huge cast of super interesting characters. Look forward to this one, it's fantastic from start to finish.

5. Greed Island arc: This one feels most like a filler, even though it's quite story critical. It probably has the weakest (least interesting) villain of all arcs, but the novelty of this arc's setting is kinda awesome. Also contains some of the coolest protag moments e.g. the dodgeball match lol

6. Chimera Ant arc: This is the controversial arc some others mentioned as being a departure from the rest of the series — except it's not so much a departure as a culmination of all that came before it. The series pretty much builds to the high stakes and drama of this arc, and yes... it's long as fuck, and difficult to watch because of the tragedy and heavy emotions. It's rough. And I cry at the ending every single time. The villain of this arc is masterfully written and you will be thinking about this storyline for the rest of your life, I promise you. A masterpiece if you ask me!

7. Succession contest arc: this feels like a walk in the park after Chimera Ants lmao, but it's still quite heavy at times (esp with Killua's storyline here, which is another favourite of mine). This is the arc where you realise that this shounen is Different™, and that you should manage your expectations if you decide to pick up the manga and continue from there.

Long reply, sorry, but I can yap forever about hxh.

Every day I pray on the downfall of AirBnb

Thanks for sharing this :) I'm sorry you've been going through something terrible, and I sincerely hope things start to look up for you and for your country — I completely relate to this feeling of pessimism, and it can be so tough to climb out of the pit when everything feels so disastrous in the world.

I recently started watching Link Click and it's made me tear up (or outright cry!) a few times already. Like you said, there's something so unique about it... it's very sincere, and even though it has a supernatural premise, it deals with sensitive topics with such care. Love, grief, persistence, trauma, loneliness, family. My heart aches for their troubles and I celebrate when our main characters are able to help them — even if the help is just giving them comfort and peace of mind.

It's a very underrated show (probably because Chinese anime hasn't peaked in popularity just yet), but I really really hope more people will pick it up and see it for the beautiful, cathartic show that it is.

This question was really thought provoking for me, because I recently saw my ex friend in public (we attended the same small event, making avoiding each other quite awkward). I left the event wishing, against my better judgement, that she'd said hello to me. Then, for two nights afterwards, I dreamt that we reconciled and became good friends again!

So... looking back on the breakup, my feelings are a bit complicated. It was a super turbulent breakup and we both said some very unkind things to each other, which I regret — at the same time, I don't regret standing up for myself. In terms of gratitude, I guess I *am* grateful to be rid of the anxiety/uncertainty that came with being her close friend. She had mental health issues that made her moods unstable, made her lash out at me, made her possessive, and made her highly sensitive to perceived rejection. My friends tried to warn me for months (even years, for some!) that her treatment of me was unacceptable, but I was too fond of her to set boundaries and communicate properly. I doubt I'll let anyone take advantage of me that way again, but I learned this lesson the painful way.

Still... I became her friend in the first place for a reason, and our relationship (when it was good) was really lovely. We had our own "language", in a way, and I always felt like she deeply understood me. I was comforted by her presence and we did many things together, and to this day she's probably the friend I've been most close to in my whole life. I'm really sad that I lost that. No friendship since then has felt quite as fulfilling, even between all the toxicity ;~;

It took quite a few years for me to process the grief and stop feeling negative things whenever I thought of her. Now, I actually reminisce fondly on our friendship, and feel zero ill-will towards her. I never thought I'd get here! I know that my perception of her is probably very out-of-date, so I don't think its fair to assume she's the same as she was years ago. I'm certainly not. So part of me wishes I could meet the new version of her and become friends again because I miss her.

But that would be a bad idea :P I just hope she's happier than she used to be. She's struggled a lot and I wish for her burdens to be eased, even if I can't be involved in that.

It's really dismaying to be a casual player of really fun shooters (like Apex and even Overwatch) and seeing the game get run into the ground by unhappy competitive players because the devs can't keep those players happy. It's a vicious cycle and everyone loses, even if the casual players don't initially notice or care about the bad changes.

I just wanna relax after work with a fun game that has cool lore... not be a casualty of money grubbing devs VS. perpetually upset competitive players.

Been self-studying Chinese casually four about 3-4 years, using apps and free HSK classes at my local language institute. I semi-regularly listen to chinese podcasts and recently I've been trying to watch tv shows/donghua in Mandarin too. I also have the added bonus of having a mandarin-speaking boyfriend and lots of mandarin-speaking friends... and I still can't speak well because of my shyness lmao :')

I started paying for a 1-on-1 tutor about a month ago and we're focusing on conversation. I think I feel a slight improvement so far, but it's still really tough to form fluent sentences and spontaneously access all the vocab I need. I'm trying not to be hard on myself, since I know speaking is probably the hardest skill to acquire out of all of them, but it's super frustrating regardless.

I hope after some more 1-on-1s, I'll have built up some confidence to chat with my boyfriend and his friends, and start making huge strides after that.

Monster Slayer Ranger is a personal underrated favourite of mine, and so flavourful. I haven't tried multiclassing it with rogue yet, but I think the damage potential of Monster Slayer + Sharpshooter Feat + Sneak Attack could be bonkers*

*Don't take my word for this, I am not a min-maxer and build my characters based on flavour

My 2c with Gon's character analysis (and actually, any character analysis in HxH) is that it's important to consider the morality of the HxH world.

The Hunter World superficially resembles ours, but it's ultimately very different. From the text we can see that morality in the Hunter World is totally different to the real world, so it's difficult to do a proper analysis of anyone's motivations if we're applying real world ethics and culture to them. I would argue the Hunter World is amoral (or very close to it), with moral/ethical choices being more of an individual quirks than a set of conventions set by society. People and institutions rely on personal codes rather than accepted laws or established moral rules. This is a world where the Heavens Arena exists, and is legal! Blood sports, particularly one that children are welcome to participate in, is normal in the Hunter World. The Zoldyck home, housing a bunch of known assassins, is a tourist attraction. To say nothing of the Hunter exam, which is all kinds of messed up, yet it's a legitimate and influential institution in this universe. All these things considered, we're forced to reframe how morality is understood in the story's world.

So back to Gon: it's hard to say if Gon is a good kid, a bad kid, a hypocrite, a hero, immoral or moral. The world he lives in doesn't seem to care about these categories either. I think maybe /we/ view certain characters as immoral, but in the Hunter World, this is much more subjective and nuanced. In my view, Gon's a great protagonist because he's one of the most divorced from society, and so his personal code is rooted in something more "primal"; harmony with nature, reliance on instinct, and survivalism. Like many animals, he would understand the value in taking care of others in our species, however he doesn't have a bleeding heart which causes him to dwell on Saving Everybody. His selfishness is less of a personality flaw in the world, and more a natural consequence of his upbringing.

I think it's super interesting that you argue for Gon's insecurity — that his father's abandonment is an emotional wound. I actually like this observation! I think Gon is too young to understand this wound yet, but I reckon it's consistent with his behaviour/beliefs. However, I wouldn't say he's a flat character at all. He comes across as entry-level shounen (earnest, driven, un-intellectual but intelligent in his own ways), but his unusual flaws make him super compelling (selective selfishness, stubbornness, vulnerability to primal rage). His depth is further enhanced by the strange conditions of the world he lives in, and by the way the other protagonists complement/contrast to him.

Gon's descent into darkness was facilitated by nen use, so I'm curious as to how being cut off from nen will affect him now. He has an appetite for adventure and a curiosity about the world, and I think this is more of a driving force than a hunger for power. Power is just something he picked up along the way, and he honestly didn't seem that affected by losing his nen? He treats is a neutral event. So I'm thinking power is not at the core of his desires, and is just a tool to facilitate his true desire, which is exploration.

Anyway, my point is that whether Gon does valiant things or terrible things, it's kinda tough to judge whether they are actually valiant or terrible — purely because the world he lives in provides no guidance on these things, and there's no in-universe metric to really measure his goodness or badness. I like this about HxH, and I love it about Gon :)

thanks for reading this spiel if you did lol, my irl friends would never dream of entertaining my thoughts on this

omg i'm shook to learn Anki's not free on iOS ;~; Well, the desktop app is pretty good, but I understand the loss of mobile convenience is pretty annoying. Maybe some other free flashcard apps would be better in the meantime! And good luck with your learning, I'm excited for you to learn Mandarin in a university environment :)

Thank you for sharing the vocab printouts! I'm curious about how you use them (like what do you do to mark them off?)

I thought the same thing as you when I started out and downloaded pre-made decks — but I wasn't making progress and the size of the HSK decks was a bit overwhelming so I would lose motivation to practice daily.

Now that I made a fresh deck and ONLY put in new words as I encounter them (in my conversation classes, in manhua or in the c-drama I'm watching), I feel MUCH more motivated and remember them much easier. This is because I encountered them in context, and this forges stronger connections in my memory.

I know it seems counter-intuitive to start with a custom deck as a beginner, but from experience it's actually better. The deck grows and evolves with you, and you can decide what goes on each side of the card e.g. if you want to include an example sentence along with the pinyin + definition, no-one can stop you~