#gruviugh

I refuse to believe that manipulative and toxic affection was the true moral of Mashima's Fairy Tail, even if his characters actively advocate for it. I think he lost sight somewhere along the line of what it truly means to be a Fairy Tail member, and that means to be a loyal, compassionate, brave friend who always looks out for each other and love one another. juvia is none of those things, not even loyal to Gray, because what she does is a detriment to him, and she's really just loyal to herself and her "love" for him. Yet, Mashima promotes her behavior by giving her what she so desperately coveted in the end and by forcing his characters to be completely OOC and back up juvia, the slobbering, nasty, selfish pig, and not their loving, stalwart brother-in-arms and victim here, Gray.

That is despicable.

What's more, beyond how awful it is that FT people would rather back juvia than Gray, it's just bad, lazy writing. In no world would juvia be able to abuse other people and manipulate them and bully women and yet also be praised and protected and loved by those same people. Erza should have never sided with juvia over the 413 days matter or berated Gray for "not being clear enough" when he's been plenty clear. The other FT members shouldn't have ever blasted Gray for "leading juvia on". No one should even like juvia or want to be her friend because of what a b*tch she is.

Yet of course, everyone loves her for NO REASON. There are so many reasons to hate her (and honestly not one good reason to love her in my opinion), but does Mashima care? Absolutely not. juvia is his self-proclaimed self-insert's waifu, after all.

Anyway, true FT fans should be enraged that juvia lockser is one of the main people we are encouraged to be like in this show. They should be indignant that juvia has been made a poster child for this anime, when she embodies none of its values. They should refuse to accept this as healthy and desirable. They should balk at the fact that their beloved characters endorse juvia's actions and life choices, which are wholly unacceptable and unhealthy not only to herself but most importantly to others.

But lots of fans delude themselves, and the fans drive Mashima, so unfortunately, here we are, with a whole cast of characters who promote and affirm juvia, the least deserving of the Fairy Tail members.

For the record, I am not really talking about the fans who acknowledge juvia's toxicity but still like her and the ship because of a sort of suspension of disbelief. Honestly, there are many problematic or evil characters that many people like, and I usually see no problem with it if you are able to separate your fictional fantasies with reality. (Some deeply problematic things I do not excuse though). For example, I like Sukuna from JJK. Do I think he's a good person? Aaaaabsolutely not. He's a completely awful person. But still, I think he's cool and his power is sick, so I like him.

My issue lies within the area of the FT community who refuse to accept that juvia's behavior is deplorable and who attack anyone who tells them otherwise. These are the rabid fans who'd go for Mashima's throat if he dared to not make gr///via canon. I don't believe the fans who know juvia is a bad person but still ship gr///via would be so up in arms about it because this sort of self-awareness indicates maturity to me.

[Sidenote, the really aggravating and only thing that sets juvia apart from the characters who are literal villains and douches is that juvia isn't treated like a bad guy within the story. Sans some uncomfortable stares and sweat drops, she is largely treated like family, and everyone loves her. When even the canon material itself won't acknowledge a character's toxicity and awfulness to itself, of course there'll be people who don't think she's toxic. I hate that Fairy Tail lies to itself in this way. It just helps to turn the deluded fans against well-meaning Antis who speak literal objective truth, that the way juvia acts is not okay in real life.]

I actually go into 2 instances in this post of mine, and I can quickly summarize it here, but that post is much more in depth so I highly recommend reading that one as well (though actually I noticed you reblogged it so you've probably already read it! Thank you for that!)

The two instances I talked about in the aforementioned post was when juvia sacrificed herself for Gray and when she "apologized" for "killing" Silver. For the first point, I said in my post that she lacks self so therefore her sacrifice doesn't mean anything as she would die if Gray died since her entire being is based off of him. It is only selfless in the way that she is devoid of a self in the first place, and this action is just as selfish since she wouldn't have a reason to live if Gray was gone.

As for her apology, I continued on in my post to say that she never apologized and only had a personal pity party to make Gray feel bad. she's not sad for Gray at all that he had to lose his father twice, she's just sad because she thinks she lost her "right" to love him.

I can go into a couple other instances as well.

juvia sacrificing her body for Cana in their fight against Freid scene? Look no further than this post of mine where I go in depth as to how it doesn't prove any real character development not to mention goodness. Short answer is after this one instance, she goes back to being a butt to every woman again as well as making it clear that she doesn't really love FT, and "reverting back to your sickly ways" is the definition of not growing.

juvia making nice with Lucy in the Tower of Heaven? Guess what? Same thing because she goes right back to calling Lucy a blond bimbo as soon as their lives aren't in danger. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but if you only really apologize and act like you care for someone when your life is in danger but are a jerk every other time, you don't really care for them, you just don't want to feel guilty and have regrets.

All this doesn't even mention how juvia continues to stalk and harass Gray even to the end of FT and into 100yq. Literally nothing about her behavior changes; only Gray's behavior does as he is thoroughly brainwashed by this wicked woman.

Honestly at this moment, I can't even think about other examples Pros might come up with because there are so few instances of things that could be misconstrued as being character growth. If y'all think of any, let me know and I'll give you my thoughts!

Also, @absolutezerotolerance had a wonderful post that drew a really helpful comparison linked here. Most of that post was debunking a dumb gr///via post, but the thing that stood out most to me was comparing juvia at the beginning of the manga and then at the end. she really hadn't changed at all, from doom and gloom because no one loved her, to doom and gloom because no one, least of all Gray, loved her. Absolutely nothing had changed except for the fact that she only wanted Gray's affections instead of affection in general, and through that, she became a dependent, parasitic, satellite character who lacks agency.