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Hiro Mashima’s deplorable shtick

Topic of today: Wendy Marvell and Rule 34

As we know Wendy is a main cast member in fairy tail. She is frequently posted with Team Natsu and treated as an icon, which in itself is not a problem. The main issue arises from the publicity that comes with the trope of being an older character while still having the appearance of an underage child. Wendy canonically speaking is 400 years old, which is why artist including Mashima and Ueda get away with fetishizing her character. This gives other artists the ok to draw her under rule 34 soliciting her in a sexual nature. Mavis vermilion is in a similar predicament of age dysmorphia, the difference being that Mavis does not age but is treated like the much older wiser person that she is even as an apparition. Wendy however does age, but still has a youthful appearance because of the time bubble. She just doesn’t get treated the same way Mavis does because it isn’t clear that Wendy is from a relative time period and isn’t a spirit like Mavis. In the beginning Wendy was posted as being only twelve years old and was treated as such, from her appearance to other characters treating her as if she were the younger naive sister. Comments are thrown around about her growing into her clothes, or protecting her sight and hearing from mature situations such as; loke talking about sex, nudity of numerous characters, and even just talking about being in the same bed. They allow her to drink alcohol after all the fuss of protecting her “innocence”, but when things start to pick up in battle she is treated as a full fledged adult again . She deals with healing the heavily injured or fending off enemies that are triple in size compared to her physically small stature. Which in continuously being mocked and pointed out. Speaking of her stature, one of Mashimas infamous gags is to write about her chest size. It does nothing to drive the plot and even if it is a joke it comes off as creepy and derogatory. In one instillation of this moment about her being young and small during the Tartaros arc, pedophilic implications of Mest Gryder ( come on even his name feels like an arbitrary choice) being interested in young women appears as the main cast is shrunken down from a spell that was cast on Erza. He is blushing and appears during the statement of Jellal saying he is ‘not interested in little girls.’ This moment is also backed up by Mest being flustered again (during the Alvarez arc) while he sees Wendy and Carla helping children find there parents. He refers to her as an “angel”. It’s not set evidence of him enacting on any of his strange behavior but it is clear that Mashima used these moments as some nasty satire to make light on a serious topic like pedophilia, only for him to cover it up as if Mest and Wendy have a friendly close relationship, when really Mests subplot relied on him gaining his memories back after being inclined to erase them. Wendy being the one to help him get accepted back into the guild. It pushes the line between friendly admiration and uncomfortable attraction.

It is conclusive that Mashima should have the resources to help him write better story plots, he has bitten off more than he can chew coming up with Edenz zero, Ft100yq, illustrating characters for a game, as well as the recently released manga Dead Rock. Fairy tail is probably his most well known work and what boosted his career after Rave master. It deserves a better conclusion and more care and consideration put into the characters he created. It would not only lessen his workload, it would also help refresh the characters that we would like to see elaborated on considering they are important to his story.

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Team Natsu

Natsu dragneel-The team leader and optimistic character of the group. Fire user

good qualities- Natsu Always tries to defend his family when he believes something is unjustified. And often times is there to be the uplifting presence when the people around him loose hope. His admirable trait is that his strength stems from his loyalty to his family and friends.

bad qualities-He goes into situations recklessly without thinking them through first. He is hare-brained about his emotional feelings towards the people he has become closest to and refuses to acknowledge that he may have caused distress. He breaks personal boundaries with his teammate Lucy heartfilia by breaking into her house and touching her body inappropriately without her permission. He has little mental character growth from what we have seen of him from the beginning of the series.

Happy- charismatic counterpart to Natsu and the group. Exceed

good qualities- He is thoughtful and makes good decision a decent amount of the time. He’s aesthetically pleasing to look at. bad qualities- lets be honest he’s a talking flying cat so the most bad he has done is stole some fish or break into lucys apartment with Natsu. besides that I almost didn’t want to add him because he is nearly irrelevant to the development of the series and mostly there as a companion to Natsu.

Erza scarlet-The mother figure / strong physical character of the group. Requip mage

Good qualities- Erza can be a really wise character when talking about her experiences, weather it be with friends or even enemies. She is able to quickly recognize what her next plan of action is. She is open about her feelings on matters during tense situations. She’s always there to offer comfort or advice.

bad qualities- To confident in the power of friendship always pulling through. When she apologizes it’s either too genuine or not genuine enough. I.e when Miliana was upset with her for forgiving Jellal so easily, she didn’t really take any of that to heart and has had a hard time showing her authentic understanding that she did something wrong that has effected her relationship with both people. This sort of happens again during the avatar arc when she offers Gray the position to go undercover in a cult. She tells him not to tell juvia, not thinking that it would screw up her state of emotions. It indeed did and when it was all over she apologized in a half insensitive tone as if she wasn’t all that guilty and would do it again if given the chance. She forgave Jellal to quickly because even though he was mind controlled by Ultear, it doesn’t change all the horrible things he has done to her and her friends. Some character growth but she has blatant issues that are not resolved.

Lucy heartfilia - The book smart / persistent main character of the group. Celestial mage

good qualities- Relatively known for being friendly and forgiving. She doesn’t back down in extensive situations even when her life is on the line. She cares a lot for her celestial spirits and if you come to her with an issue, she is open to talk about it. She’s useful in problem solving even if it falls through a little bit the first time, she masters it pretty quickly afterwards. She’s got extensive knowledge in literature and calligraphy. Power wise she has grown immensely, mentally, she is a wip but she definitely isn’t the same person from the beginning of the series. bad qualities-Thinks to little of her abilities as a mage but then contradicts herself by flaunting her powers to her enemy. Is a bit like erza in that she is ignorant to feelings sometimes i.e she was upset that natsu had left her behind with just a note, but she mostly thought about her losses and didn’t take into account that he had also lost his dad. In turn his runaway quest caused her to isolate herself from the rest of the guild. Keeping track of them only through letters, which she eventually stopped sending because everyone was doing different things. But her insecurities because of the note must of kept her from joining the rest, otherwise she wouldn’t be in a lonesome grieving state. Not that what Natsu did was right but she was definitely blaming him for all of there shared issues. Not to mention when she saw Juvia in a similar depression state she didn’t reflect on it as being similar to her own. When in reality they were both left behind in a different context but shared the same grief. I didn’t appreciate that Lucy didn’t defend Juvia during this time. It was brought back to just her and her friendship with Gray (she slapped him but it wasn’t for juvia.) She never mentioned Juvia at all In that situation even after she had seen the state she was in and knew Juvia had been sick because of it. Why couldn’t she have told him off just like natsu?. Infact she got all blushy when he apologized, it felt selfish. (Further proving that Mashimas statement about writing female characters bad was certainly true. It should also imply male characters as well.)

Wendy marvel - The young healing mage/ younger sister of the group. Air user

Good qualities- Wendy is really useful in dire situations and easily makes amends with a few of her past enemies. She is empathetic and has gained quite a bit of character growth unlike many of the other characters in fairy tail. Once she was timid and felt not useful but now she has some confidence from her experience in battle. She still has a little bit of doubts but she gets back her confidence with a little help from her friends.

bad qualities-She doesn’t really have bad qualities. But in a future post I will talk about her being a child and Mashima really being incredibly gross about it. (Yes she’s over 500 years old but he presents her still as if she is much much younger.)

Carla- The attentive counterpart to Wendy.Exceed

good qualities- she takes up for Wendy that’s it that’s the good qualities.

bad qualities-Grumpy and rude for what. Actually I get it a little bit. But she’s right in that category next to happy.

Gray fullbuster - The quick learning visual expressionist of the group. Ice make mage.

good qualities- Has strong relationships with a lot of people I.e Lyon, Erza, plus team natsu. Reliable, if you ask him to do something, he will try his hardest to get it done. Stays ‘cool’ in most situations. I need help with filling out the rest of his good traits, he’s got to have more*** help.

bad qualities-Back to being reliable, it’s a half and half trait being one of his best qualities and one of his worst. You see when he gets to being obsessed with something he will not stop going after it. It started with Deliora or however tf you spell his name, Gray wanted to be great (Gray-t) enough to surpass him for killing his family and also to surpass Ur his former master. Ok so spoiler alert Deliora is dead and melts away along with the iced shell of UR. Gray’s upset and Deliora still continues to haunt his mind until recently where he is forgotten and is comforted by Ur in an illusion state and his father acting as Deliora to get over his fear. This obsession with something new is created when Silver(his father) tells him to go after the book of E.n.d . Turns out Grays thirst for vengeance never went away, and so with his new devil slaying powers from Silver Gray starts obsessing over finding this book that produced Deliora. Of course Gray becomes a bit of a douche bag in this process, he tries to kill Natsu because he finds out his best friend is attached to the book that caused all his suffering that Natsu knew diddle about. He fiddles with Juvia saying he’ll treat her better or that he’ll give her an answer and runs off to try to get better but really is just holding off on his answer. Much like Natsu he was written with musty traits like, sexually harassing Lucy by asking her for her underwear or commenting on her outfits or her underwear. Stalking Lucy to her home, breaking into her house in an undressed state, trying to spy on women in the hot spring, groping an alchemy of Juvia without consent, putting Juvia in his mouth in her state of undress, this list is unnecessarily long. Next to zero character growth because he hasn’t changed any of his behavior. Please get them all therapy especially Gray.

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Hot topics

off to a fiery start we have these topics:

. The power of friendship

. The deterioration of character development

. plot holes

. Over-sexualization/ unnecessary fan service

feel free to add more that can go on the list and know that some subjects may make some people uncomfortable.

[fairytalk]

Hello tumblr fairy tail fans?!. I have created this blog to talk about some of the things that could be made better or what you would want to see happen in fairy tail. I have been sort of unsatisfied with some of Mashimas lack of inspiration to continue putting quality effort into fairy tail. please be mature and know that this is just a discussion and opinions are not fact.