What is Supposed to go here?

before anyone says anything: i hate this man. i think he's awful. the fact that shane is best friends with him is a personal insult to me. if a montreal public bus ran him over i would look the other way #withthepeople ✊

the problem imo is that rachel doesn't write him ironically. she genuinely has hayden telling ilya he doesn't deserve to live as a rebuttal to "what are you four, you can't eat mushrooms?" and seems to think this is harmless banter. like look at hayden. funny guy 🫵

BUT.

if you stop looking at him through the lens the books want you to and start looking at him through shane's, he makes a disturbing amount of sense

because hayden is safe. hayden is aggressively, boringly safe. hayden talks about his wag queen wife. hayden talks about his pink-frilly daughters. hayden got married at like 19. hayden is the human embodiment of heterosexual respectability. shane doesn't even have to do anything. just standing next to him makes him look straighter by association

and then after shane comes out? after he loses his team, his reputation, the media, basically his entire support system? of course he clings to the one guy who is at least vaguely kind to him

hayden isn't good. he's familiar. hayden isn't healthy. he's safe. hayden is the friend you keep because every alternative feels riskier

like hayden is stockholm syndrome. hayden is the prison you keep returning to because at least the bars keep the wolves out..

and i genuinely think that makes sense for where shane is emotionally

what i need, however, is the version of this story where shane has been married to ilya for five years and suddenly realizes there are people in the world who are kind without making him earn it. people who don't casually belittle him. people who don't make every interaction feel like surviving

bc i don't actually buy the idea that hayden was uniquely positioned to understand, esp considering hayden's family/personality! hayden "guessed," sure, but it was a joke, a stumble into the right answer. meanwhile jj spends years genuinely trying to understand what's going on with shane.

after the plane crash, jj clocks that something is wrong almost immediately. he sees a guy who's miserable, fixated on ilya rozanov, and carrying around feelings he doesn't know what to do with. he's sympathetic. he's concerned! he starts trying to set shane up with other men because he's working with the information he has and trying to help.

then there's the charity. jj is right there helping run the thing, using his cup day for it, watching shane and ilya spend increasingly ridiculous amounts of time together. from jj's perspective the problem is pretty obvious even if he doesn't have every detail. if anything, he's paying closer attention than hayden is.

which is why i always kind of wince when shane brings up "well hayden guessed." bc a) so did jj by that logic, and b) bc i don't think he realizes jj doesn't care abt the solving a mystery bit of it/failing to solve it. jj is upset because he thought they were best friends.

and honestly, i think he had reason to think he'd be someone shane could trust. jj has spent his entire career navigating a sport where standing out can make you a target as a black man in a predominately white sport. he's learned how to read rooms, smooth things over, and survive by understanding people. not in the same way shane does, obviously, but enough that i can see why it hurts to realize your friend spent years carrying something alone and never once considered coming to you.

and no, shane didn't owe him that trust. nobody owes anybody a coming out. but i do think jj is justified in being hurt by what that realization says about their friendship.

and then even after all of it, jj keeps showing up. he goes to shane's house. he rebuilds the friendship. he shows up to the wedding. he stays.

They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point

They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do

This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate

Me:

Cue everyone in fairy tail trying to find out who Natsu is dating, and how long he was dating her, with Erza leading the charge, because she cannot believe she let the fact that Natsu was in a long term relationship pass her notice. Juvia is very helpful in this escapade because she knows that 'love rival and natsu have something going on but neither of them will admit it.

The mystery is solved when Gajeel straight up asks Natsu, who just points at Lucy, who is screaming at this idiot because 'YOU NEVER ASKED ME OUT YOU ASS!'

To which Natsu replies: 'Oh, I was supposed to ask? I thought it was clear that we liked each other.'

My hot take is that Fairy Tail has one of the better female casts in shonen and they deserve more credit

Lucy already has her own personal defense post so I won't bring her up too much here so just read that post

Just to get it out of the way so we can focus on the good, I will concede that the fanservice is too lopsided. Fairy Tail does have fanservice for male AND female readers. Hiro Mashima has said that Gray's meant to attract a female audience. You think Sting running around in crop tops is for the straight guys? No way. Totally for the straight women and the gays. That said, the girls are used for fanservice more often. Hence I why I'm criticizing that it's "lopsided", not that it exists

The other thing I will concede is that Juvia and Levy do not get enough of their own character outside of their romances. Juvia is self-explanatory. For Levy, as much as I love her, I have to acknowledge that she doesn't get much relevance unless Gajeel is involved. Even being a S-class candidate is more for showing off Gajeel than her. I love Gajeel btw. I'm just accepting reality

The last flaw I will acknowledge is that the jokes at the girls' expense can be really tasteless. I'm not gonna judge anyone who's tired of Natsu falling onto a naked Lucy for the 9th time in a row

With the flaws acknowledged, lets talk about all the reasons why I think the Fairy Tail girls are underrated

Most of the female characters have well-developed backstories and character motivations

Erza's an escaped slave who became a hardened warrior to hide her weaknesses from those around her. As time passes, she gradually softens and allows herself to be vulnerable and rely on those around her

Mirajane's the eldest of three orphans who was ostracized because her powers terrified their hometown. When she had finally embraced her magic for what it was, the disappearance of her sister forced her magic into a dormant state until she finally overcame her grief

Juvia's immense power isolated herself from everyone with no one being willing to be around her and her constant rain. While they overdid it with her affections later on, her initial crush forming because Gray genuinely reached out to her and gave her the human connection she was looking for since childhood was very emotional

Cana lost her mother at a young age and was essentially alone since her father wasn't aware he had a daughter. Her desperation to live up to her father's legacy despite that being a pressure she's placed on herself is a harshly relatable

Wendy lost her adoptive mother and surrogate family and had to rebuild a new home with Fairy Tail. She started as someone too timid to stand up for herself and became a talented young mage to can protect her new family

And that's just the main guild. There's also Kagura's quest for vengeance, Yukino's desire to find a place she belongs, Brandish's grief about the death of her mother, everything involving Ultear. In general, the female characters are usually given their own level of depth and characterization

Most female characters are competent in a fight

Fairy Tail has 6 main battlers. Lucy, Erza, Mirajane, Juvia, Cana, and Wendy. Of those 6, Cana is the only one with a bad battle record, and Lucy has a mixed one. The remaining 4 are usually very reliable in a fight with more victories under their belt than losses

Erza is the main heroine in terms of battle. She gets a 1v1 fight in every arc and always gives an impressive showing of her power and skill. Whenever she takes on an opponent, everyone around her knows they can count on her to come out on top. Mirajane and Juvia get slightly less fights, but both of them are still formidable wizards with their fight scenes against powerful opponents like Seilah and Meredy

Wendy specifically shows amazing development here. She starts off a pure support with all of her first fights being team battles with her on the back lines. As she grows stronger, she gradually gets more attack spells until she becomes a mage who can fight and heal and can reliably fight one-on-one when she needs to

Outside of Fairy Tail, there are even more female powerhouses. Kagura, Minerva, Chelia, Meredy, Ultear, and Brandish are all powerful female characters who can be trusted to pull their weight in a fight

Compared to most other shonen, Fairy Tail is much more willing to give their female characters a chance to shine in battle. There is no arc where the women stay on the sidelines entirely

Most of the men do not patronize women as a whole

I watch a lot of anime. There's a lot of male characters in shonen who will refuse, avoid, or call out the idea of fighting women seriously. For clarity, not wanting to hurt a woman is fine. I totally agree with that on principle

The problem is that the context is usually "even though this woman is currently tying to murder me and my friends, I will not go all out to fight back and will actively handicap myself despite that putting my loved ones, which include other women, at risk"

In Fairy Tail, if there's a female enemy, the male heroes have never held back specifically because of gender. Even most of the male villains are quick to acknowledge the female heroes as strong and fight seriously from the start

In conclusion

While there are flaws in how Fairy Tail depicts the female cast, like how it handles fanservice and some of the jokes, a lot of the core aspects are done well

Ideas include:

- Juvia gets more character development outside of her relationship to Gray. Yes, her relationship to Gray is so important, but I want the energy from the battle of fairy tail arc where she sacrificed herself for Cana and acted like a normal human being with Gray, while still showcasing her crush.

- Freed development! He was such an interesting character when he was introduced! He even shaved his hair after the battle to show his remorse! He was flirting with Mira! Then he turns into a Laxus fanboy?? On the same level as Juvia. Actually he doesn't have a steady character, it's like Mashima spins a wheel to decide how he's portrayed.

- Break Jellal out of the possession early! This is just because I love him and don't want him to suffer, but the implications of this are awesome. You have Ultear who lost her pawn, so now she has to decide whether to reveal herself or keep acting like a manipulated patsy. This could end up with Jellal chasing this woman to the ends of the earth and declaring war on Grimore Heart. Simon also lives! And discovers his identity as a bi man torn between Jellal and Erza. They end up as a codependent group and no one can tell whose romantically involved. (Is it Simom and Erza, Erza and Jellal, Jellal and Simon?? Who knows?)

We don't even need to have a storyline or even scenes of him talking about how he was affected by Laxus' actions, I just need him to not have the thunderbolts in his hair until after tenrou island is over.

This way he can subtly show that he wasn't okay with what Laxus made him do, and when he finally forgives him, only the people really paying attention to him will notice (like Laxus).

I also need a moment where Laxus sees the hairbolts are back and gives him a subtle embrace like pulling him back so Freed's back is against Laxus' chest and caressing Freed's hair.

i saw the first few of juvia's appearances in the manga and was not ready for her to turn infatuated with gray the moment they had their first conversation on their first meeting, she was used for comedy instead of her being a sad bad ass s-class wizard

she had such a strong presence in her first appearance, with sharp yet sad eyes and a cool look and i expected her to have mental fortitude and really give it her all for a fight especially for someone mashima spent so long hyping up as a powerful wizard and formidable opponent, but instead of taking something seriously mashima went for the humor of juvia falling in love like she was plummeting off a cliff

that said i did think it was pretty good thematically for where mashima decided to handle the ending of juvia vs gray fight and engaging in her backstory mid fight while gray is entirely unaware of her internal monologue and introspection so hes really confused ( i did honestly find it funny and endearing of juvias character that shes the type to jump too conclusions and have strong emotions but the way she developed feelings for gray so quick it felt unnatural and put me off a bit)

and despite her fluster and sudden infatuation shes still strong and powerful in the fight so its not like she was hyped up for nothing, midfight she does put her new feelings aside to engage in combat against gray after he shoots her with ice spears

when she tries to talk gray out of fighting she offers a way to settle the fight peacefully by him turning over lucy to phantom and her convincing jose to send phantom to withdraw (this also shows some of her naivete/the shallow understanding she has of her guild master compared to gray because jose wouldnt abandon his vendetta against fairytail just because the job to kidnap lucy and return her home was complete, he wasnt even going to complete the job he was going to use lucy as leverage to extort lucy's dad for all his money) so that she doesnt have to fight gray because she doesnt want to fight someone she likes, who is also still recovering from an injury btw, in serious combat , this is a good moment in the story because it highlights the difference in their perspective and values that they developed in completely different environments of their respective guilds

but then it takes another turn in the comedy direction of her perceiving gray's declaration of never turning on his friends no matter what as a declaration of gray's love for lucy and its supposed to be funny about how she jumps to conclusions and has a short temper when it comes to romantic rivalry but its just odd to me (although it does showcase how juvia doesnt have a naturally gloomy disposition and shes really high energy and strong in a fight when her emotions are running high)

in actuality i feel like an emotional appeal was really the only way gray could beat juvia who is an s-class wizard and reasonably couldnt be beaten by gray, especially when hes still injured from the mission on galuna island

so ya, im dissatisfied with the comedy cheapening this moment in the phantom lord arc and the nature of the comedy, but realistically its the only way gray would be able to win against juvia and juvia isnt a stone cold bad ass like her reputation made her out to be, shes a teenage girl with a wide spectrum of emotions which is part of what this part of the arc shows during the gray vs juvia fight