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Reblog If You Can Take Off Your Bra Without Taking Your Shirt Off.

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Are fedoras really that bad?

YES YES THEY ARE

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somebody once trolled me, successfully rickroll’d me

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This is so well thought out, and much better than canon FT, great job!

How I would do Fairy Tail’s Magical Governmental System

Now I’ve said that I would do a re write of Fairy Tail, which now that it’s over I shall start working on it, however there still things that need some foundation. The biggest being Fairy Tail’s not well explained magic based government. So wit this re write I’m making my own version of it

The Magic Council

At the top of the government is the magic council. Now in this re write, the magic Council was established by 10 nations of Ishgar (and by the year x784 all nations except Pergrande were apart of it) as way of governing the magic world. Each kingdom has a representative who goes to the magic council located in Era to work with the 10 seated members (9 seated members and 1 chairman) of the council. The seated members have the job of managing legalization of job requests, overseeing and deploying Rune Knights, and making sure rules of the magic council aren’t broken. The national representatives focus on mainly helping their own nation’s mages, as well as overseeing magic council branch offices in each nation.

The magic council has the main job of legalizing jobs that are given to guilds across the continent. Anyone can submit a job request for guilds to handle, as long as it comes with an appropriate award (Legal minimum reward for a task is 20,000 Jewel=200 USD). The magic council then legalizes it, and sends it out to the guilds of the nation. Now this is based on location. Guilds can only take jobs within the bounds of their country. A person in Fiore’s request will not appear on the request board of a guild in Bosco.

The first ever seated council members were originally 10 people, 1 from each of the original 10 countries that helped form the magic counci. The council member is now chosen by a process of being recognized by other magic council members. This only happens when a seat is vacant. The person who is recognized had to either be a national representative or a Rune knight commander/general and they had to be recognized by three of the current seated members. A chairman is member that majority of seated members agree should be chairman. The council members are the ones who are in charge of trying someone who has broken a law set by the magic council. They also are the only ones who have authority to activate Etherion and FACE, two last ditch resorts in the case of a scenario that warrants it. These two retorts were officially agreed upon by all nations in the magic council system.

A country could opt out of the magic council system if they wanted to, however the country would no longer have to go through the legalization process of the magic council, the country would have to create their own system of requests, the country is no longer guaranteed any form of assistance from the Rune Knights in the case of international conflict, and any act outside the boundaries of their country is treated with extreme suspicion.

The Magic council has under it, military force in the form of the Rune Knights. The Rune Knights are used by the Magic Council in event of an international conflict. They provide extra military assistance to countries in the Magic Council system. When not fighting in battle the Rune Knights are in charge of guarding magic council facilities such as their branch buildings in other countries, The headquarters in Era, transporting arrested dark mages, and acting as guards in the maximum prison for dark mages involved in international level threats.

Anyone can join the rune knights, as long as they come from a country inside the magic council syste, have a background check, and take an entrance exam. The Rune Knights are broken into divisions with smaller squads inside them. The ranking system working like this:

Rune Knight General: Who oversees all Rune Knight division commander activities

Rune Knight Division Commander: Head of a Rune Knight division and all squads inside the division.

Rune Knight Squad Leader: The entire division as whole is under control of the commander, but due to the number of members in these divisions, they are split up into squads with the squad leader being the strongest and most capable in terms of magic and leading skill

Rune Knight Squad Member: Standard Rune Knight soldier

Individual Kingdoms

The individual rulers of each kingdom do also have an extreme amount of power over guild mages. But the only guilds they can affect is their own. The kingdom, could if they wanted to, enlist the help of all mages without need to pay them or go through the legalization actions, but this is only if the crisis is immediate and on a large enough scale to warrant assistance out side of their standard military. This will also result in the kingdom being put on trial to see if the danger was of a large enough threat to warrant such actions. If not, they will be punished by asking to pay reparations for abuse of power.

The kingdom is not allowed to centralize their guilds as a national army when inside this magic council system. They are permitted to have mages in their military, but those mages must have enlisted by their own freewill. Attempts to centralize will be met with either expulsion from the council system or military action by the rune knights.

Kingdoms also have the power to enforce programs for their own countries mages and only their countries mages. A country official is not allowed to enforce rules or programs of their own on any other country’s mages. Legislation passed by an individual country must be considered fair and non discriminatory. So the King of Fiore is allowed to create a Grand Magic Games for only his countries mages as it does not break any guidelines set by th magic council, but another country, like say, Desierto, is under no obligation to make their own versions of the Grand Magic Games.

Also if a mage breaks a kingdom they are located in’s law, the kingdom has the right to arrest them. A legal mage however, can break a council based law, and risk arrest by the magic council.

Guilds

Guilds are headed by a guild Master. The Guild Master does not have to be the strongest member and can be chosen by the guild itself. The guild master is in charge of discussing with other guild masters in optional guild master conferences. The Guild Master is in charge of punishing mages that break set guild rules.  A Guild Master retains all right to give or revoke a mage membership. The Master is allowed to decide how a mage earns membership. The Master cannot reject any membership based on the mage’s race or gender.

Guilds cannot engage in interguild wars with other legal mages. If this occurs the master’s of guild involved are put on trial to see if the are allowed to keep their legal status. If the fail to do so, the guilds in question will lose their legal status.

Other ways that legal status can be stripped from mages and guilds is if the guilds accept non magic council approved jobs (Often ones that are not permitted such as assassination requests), A mage or guild as a whole repeatedly uses magic for personal gain that voids both kingdom laws and magic council rules, without any form of penance, and take part in a job outside the bounds of their country.

Guild members are never allowed to enter a guild from another country an take requests. While a mage is free to travel the continent they cannot get involved in native countries guild jurisdiction. The only time this may be permitted is if a large enough request has come along and it is a joint effort between guilds of each country involved. Such as the case when Fiore and Seven both aligned to take down the Oracion Seis.

Guilds also can also decide how to give out the status of S-Class mage. A common practice by Guilds is to give out S-Class status to mages who have completed 100 successful requests. However, guilds like Fairy Tail use their own form of S-Class trial. S-Class Mages are the only ones who can take S-Class level requests. It is up to the magic council when legalizing the job request to see if it’s worthy of S-Class ranking.

Independent Mages

Anyone is allowed to use magic in their every day life. They are not recognized as legal mages until they have joined a guild. They may not accept any form of legalized job request given out in guilds. They may accept mundane tasks that do not break any kingdom laws or exceed a payment of 20,000 Jewels.

If an independent mage breaks the law of the kingdom they are in they can be classified as both a criminal and dark mage. The dark mage status can be removed for first time offenders if they do proper penance such as time in prison. But repeated action of this will result in permanent dark mage status.

Anyway this is my idea of how the magic system would work.

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If you could, how would you change the Spriggan 12? Like their personalities, relationships, fights and such?

Oh… man thats a HUGE ask. Um, okay. 

I guess what I really want from the Spriggans is; them to be relevant to Zeref’s character and development (ideally Zeref wouldn’t be Emperor at all); have interesting/complex relations with each other; not to be so damn generically evil, it’s boring as hell to read. 

Honestly, the Spriggans are a mess of egos, their interactions should all be interesting. It’s also possible to have villains that aren’t totally black and white: it makes it easier to get invested in them. I spent a few days wondering how to broach this topic, but eventually just decided on a bulletpoint list.  

So on that note…

Keep reading

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After a number of big shonen suffered from a bad war arc, what do you think is the key to a good final war arc?

I will, for this set of points, be using the examples of Mashima (Fairy Tail), Kubo (Bleach), and Isayama (Attack on Titan). There are seven points I’d like to make. 

1. Don’t build up hype if you can’t keep it going.

I’m talking more to Mashima than to Kubo, because from what I understand hype failure is not one of the Thousand Year Blood War arc’s failings. Because Mashima gave not a single shit as to how the Spriggans were actually going to get defeated with the exceptions of Ajeel, DiMaria and Jacob, it does a disservice to the hype the Spriggans were dealt. Rather than thinking Fairy Tail has gotten so much stronger or has scraped a win, it just looks like the Spriggans weren’t as powerful as we were led to believe. Sabertooth similarly suffered that same thing.

2. Use less, not more.

Both Kubo and Mashima need to hear this. Mashima suffered a bad escalation when it comes to powerful villains: he started with six, moved up to seven, then moved up to nine, settled down to five for a bit, and then jumped back up to twelve. And of those twelve, Bloodman’s gimmick literally was just having Tartaros’ powers, Invel was Yet Another Ice Dude, God Serena was Yet Another Fucking Dragonslayer, Neinhart’s power was exposing people to enemies they’d already fought–and won against–August had Power Copying, the most unoriginal power ever, and Irene Belserion’s powers were so nebulously defined it was stupid. Ajeel doesn’t get points either. Kubo was even worse, introducing a new villain and power for every letter of the Latin alphabet, but somehow he managed to make them all interesting, so he gets to slide on this one.

3. If you’re going to have a war arc at all, you need to have knowledge of strategy.

This isn’t optional. Wars that are won by a single overwhelming strike by the hero aren’t wars. In a war arc, I expect to see heroes and villains alike flexing more than their muscles, they need to be flexing their brainpower, too. Instead of going with incredibly overpowered powers, try going with creative uses of more mundane powers.

For example: In Attack on Titan (whose big war arc suffers for entirely different reasons, as Isayama has a moderately good grasp on strategy), Zeke has a very powerful 17-meter Titan that could crush a typical human flat. However, instead of just charging over, he instead throws rocks. It’s mundane, but it’s used to deadly effect: he grinds enormous boulders into smaller pieces and throws them hard enough to break the sound barrier, annihilating entire troops with one throw and reducing the human army to a mass of blood and bones vaguely resembling corpses in seconds. He takes out Erwin this way. This all was part of a much larger strategy on the part of the Titans in which, had Isayama actually played by his own rules and allowed any semblance of realism in, would’ve resulted in a complete loss on the part of the heroes.

4. No “hidden potential” or “unlocks”.

Kubo had this problem–mostly because bankai was his usual “big reveal” for heroic powers, but he revealed Renji’s and Ichigo’s too early, resulting in them not being enough to handle later threats the way unrevealed bankai could. So he basically had to “re-unlock” them and give them new bankai by explaining that no, this wasn’t their real bankai, their zanpakuto had kept their real bankai hidden from them because they weren’t ready”. No. You undermine your threat that way. In doing that, you make it look like your heroes always had the power to beat their opponents, they were just being held back. That doesn’t do your plot or threat any favors. Isayama had this problem with “the Coordinate”.

This tends to be the go-to of authors who write themselves into a corner, unless you’re Mashima, in which case you just plow through the corners by literally making shit up on the spot.

5. Deaths need to mean something

In a war arc, people are expected to die. That means that people on both sides need to die, including the heroes. Mashima, Kubo, and Isayama have all failed at this for different reasons, and completely ruined the impact or meaning of the deaths they gave their characters,

Mashima, quite obviously, pulled fakeout after fakeout after fakeout and has yet to kill off a single character we care about. He can quit trying now, because we know he doesn’t have the balls to actually kill off characters. We’ll never trust a “death” again.

Kubo gave us the completely meaningless and pointless death of Retsu Unohana. Unohana is put into a life-or-death fight with Kenpachi Zaraki in order to train him properly (aka hype him up, as if Kenpachi needed any more of that bullshit), because as it turns out, she’s the original Kenpachi and skilled enough with a sword to slaughter him easily multiple times over. Each time she deals him fatal damage, she quickly heals him so that the training can continue. So, if this was happening, why was she not allowed to heal herself when Kenpachi finally struck her down? Retsu was the superior warrior, meaning she was a valuable asset on the battlefield, more valuable than Kenpachi by a long shot because in addition to having sword skills to put him to shame, she’s a master at kido of all kinds and is the most accomplished healer in Soul Society history. Getting rid of her is the stupidest thing Kyoraku could’ve done–he basically fucked over his whole side. And why was this done? Because Kubo loved Kenpachi Zaraki too damn much. More on that later. Unohana died for manpain at best.

Isayama gave us the tragic, heart-wrenching sacrifice of Armin Arlert. After two chapters (meaning two months irl) of dangerous buildup, Armin finally sacrifices himself in a fatal ploy to distract the Colossal Titan so that Eren can cut its controller out of it. He’s giving up his lifelong dream–seeing the ocean, a dream that he fueled all of his ambitions and his participation in the war on–and entrusting it to Eren. Armin knows his death is necessary for humanity’s win, and he understands that sacrifices are necessary, and he’s no exception. If his dream and his life have to be sacrificed, so be it. Armin launches himself at the Colossal Titan, latching on and refusing to let go even as he’s steam-blasted with enough heat to sear the skin off his flesh and melt his eyes out. It’s not pretty at all. And you know what? It works. Thanks to Armin’s plan and his death, the Colossal Titan goes down. Just kidding. This was all a pointless ploy to give the heroes yet another power on their side they didn’t need. That’s what the entire war arc was, really. You see, Armin survives not only getting his flesh melted off, but falling 50 meters with no working gear to stop his fall, and remains alive long enough for the heroes to have an extended argument and fight over whether he should get the serum or Erwin, and he gets it, and chows down on Bertholdt, saving his own life at the expense of the biggest icon of the series and the one described as the God of the SNK world by its author. In doing so, not only did he alienate me and prove he ultimately cared only for the heroes of his story’s success, but he made the sacrifice Armin was doing–which was far more meaningful and powerful than the one performed by Erwin (and a lot less survivable than the hole in Erwin’s stomch) completely and utterly meaningless. We were led on and lied to, and it did a disservice to the war arc as a whole.

6. Destroy or put aside whatever love you have for your favorite characters.

Having not quite gotten to the war arc, I don’t have a big rant already written for this part of Bleach. But I will say quite plainly that I know it applies to Bleach, and I know exactly how it applies as well.

With Fairy Tail, you have Erza. With Attack on Titan, you have Levi. With Bleach, you have Kenpachi Zaraki. That is to say, each of these manga has an extremely overhyped, overpowered person on the heroes’ side whose prowess (with a blade, especially) is legendary and whose power and skill is not realistic at all by any standard within the ramifications of the story, whose combat record far surpasses any actual ability they should have. These characters are the ones the story (meaning, the author) goes out of their way to hype up because they’re just so badass, when the actual abilities they are gifted with should not be nearly enough to keep them from getting crushed. What I’m saying is, it’s author favoritism and it’s annoying as fuck. 

Erza Scarlet is a woman with hundreds of magical armors with different effects who is very good with a sword. What does this mean against an opponent who is exponentially stronger than she is, enough to rearrange the entire continent in minutes, who can transfigure and transform whatever she wants? It means her opponent commits suicide, but not before some plagiarism takes place and Erza shatters a meteor with all her bones broken.

Levi Ackerman is a man with a unique gene that makes him a beast in combat, but does not turn him into a superhuman, and he flies around in wire-cable gear propelled by gas tanks. What does this mean against someone who does have superhuman powers, and is currently in the form of a 17-meter Titan described as insurmountable by someone who knows both his skills and Levi’s? Who has been built up as his counterpart? It means Levi thrashes him in the space of a few panels before he can even fight back.

Kenpachi Zaraki is a man with potent skill with a sword and a huge amount of spiritual pressure. And literally nothing but that. While all the other captains have speed, magic, deadly shikai and bankai abilities, and skill with a sword and monstrous spiritual pressure, Kenpachi has nothing but his presence and his sword. In other words, he’s the weakest captain–and the battle data backs that up. His shikai and bankai, when he finally gets them, just give his cutting abilities massive upgrades. What does this mean against an opponent whose power is imagination and can create literally anything, including other living beings, multiplying himself, and altering reality on a level Rustyrose could only dream of? It means his opponent has a pretty shitty imagination, really, considering what beats him is that he “cannot imagine something that [I] cannot cut”. I thought of three things Kenpachi Zaraki couldn’t cut in less than as many seconds. Yes, Kenpachi beats what is basically God Himself because said God couldn’t think “I should drown him or roast him alive”.

And all this, because Mashima, Isayama, and Kubo couldn’t control their damn boners for characters that were essentially creator’s pets when it came down to it. And it makes it fucking suck. The realistic stack of abilities is what makes wars so interesting, and violating it all in order to hype up your favorite characters ruins the entire thing. I cannot tell you how many stories–not even just war arcs, manga in general–have been utterly ruined because seemingly accomplished authors loved one or two characters too fucking much and shoved them to the fore in every arc. 

7. Don’t rip off your entire arc from another author.

Talking directly to Hiro Mashima, here. Everything of substance from the Alvarez Empire arc has basically been ripped from Kubo’s Thousand Year Blood War arc, but on top of being plagiarized, it was plagiarized by a shitty author who wouldn’t know good writing if it hit him in the ass. I can see everything you did, Mashima.

I’m currently compiling an entire post listing everything Mashima blatantly ripped off from Kubo. While Kubo isn’t perfect, his work deserves better admirers than the likes of this shitty thieving unoriginal hack.

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If Mashima was capable of handling Acnologia and Zeref well, it could have played out amazingly. However, with how Fairy Tail is going, well... You've covered essentially most of it. I agree, an Acnologia vs Zeref flashback done well would be something astounding. Like you said, your point does still hold about it being useless to buff Acnologia---actually, I'd say it was useless to buff Zeref as well. Apparently, summoning and creating demons, being able to bring someone back from the dead---

—(albeit getting cursed by a god in the process), being a genius and a prodigy, none of them are relevant if you’re fighting your brother. Justification of Zeref giving up at fighting Acnologia would be great, but unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to see it. Being super powerful and being hyped have some issues in Fairy Tail. Look at the Wizard Saints and the Magic Council, which got taken out by ONE demon when it’s supposed to handle the entire country (continent?)’s guilds and magic use. I’m not entirely sure of what it was supposed to do anymore. Thank you for taking the time to respond my previous ask [and this one, if you choose to]. Sorry about how they’re fragmented—the character limit won’t let me say more in one.

Acnologia vs Zeref in some form or another is the absolute least I wanted from this arc. In flashback form it would’ve even established Zeref and Acnologia’s base power levels, so… what gives, Mashima? That said, if we saw them at full power prior to this arc Mashima probably couldn’t sell Natsu curbstomping them so easily. Ha.    

Oh, it absolutely was pointless to buff Zeref. Immortal regenerating Fairy Heart!Zeref should have been the most terrifying thing on the planet, not chump change for Natsu OP Dragneel. Kinda feel like “Acno eats magic” was a nice way to sidestep the fact that regenerating Fairy Heart!Zeref vs Acnologia should have happened at some point. (Also, Zeref with unlimited magic and his repertoire of spells? come on) 

Besides, it’s not like it’s impossible for Slayers to lose to their own elements. Zancrow got pummelled by Natsu and Wendy damaged Chelia - and dragon slayers can’t eat God Slayer magic without difficulty so… the hell? I get that Acno’s strong and all, but there was definitely room for him to get overpowered if Mashima really wanted to. (Also, DiMaria’s time stop would nullify the ‘eating magic’ problem anyway? ugh)

Oh yeah, the power levels in FT are screwed to high hell. Apparently Wendy > Irene, Natsu > Everyone except Laxus, Gildarts and Erza(?) and is equal with Gray(???). The way power levels are described rarely match up with how they’re portrayed. I couldn’t make a comprehensive power ranking if I tried. 

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So did you hear about the next Pokemon game? :’D

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I think about the fact that kirishima got hard because of Bakugou every day…

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Mashima *Oprah Voice*: You get a fake death! And you get a fake death! And YOU get a fake death!! And y--

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I bet the next chapter's gonna involve Lucy saving Natsu by re-writing his book. I'll honestly be surprised if this doesn't happen

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Fairy Tail Chapter 537 Reaction

This was a pretty interesting chapter to say the least. On it’s own it was an OK chapter, but following this train-wreck of an arc... it was quite bad. This is going to be shorter than usual, as there isn’t much I’m too salty about. So here we go!

The cover was nice, it’s pretty cool seeing the Edolas versions of FT one last time, But where’s Mystogan? He was an integral part of this arc, but *shrug*.

So the majority of this chapter involves a conversation between Mavis and Zeref, mainly about how she both hates and loves him, we also get to see the full effect of the contradictory curse first-hand. The contradiction itself was well done (Not something I usually say when Mashima’s involved), you can clearly see how she struggles to juggle these feelings, of love and admiration for what he did for her in the past, and hate for how much pain he’s caused to the guild and the world. Personally, I can’t see or understand why she still loves him after all that’s transpired this arc; capturing her, extracting Fairy Heart, attacking the guild etc. So it feels a bit forced and unhealthy, (as does most of this ship)

The main problem I have with this chapter is that there was no build up. Zeref has barely shown any affection towards her this whole arc, so this conflict doesn’t have the impact it could have had if their relationship was more developed. And personally, I think this was too perfect of an ending for Zeref, it’s not particularly fair that he gets to die, free of any repercussions after all the shit he’s pulled, and all the people he’s killed. Personally, Zervis is my main NOTP for Fairy Tail, but shoving that aside this was a decent end to both of them regardless.

Sooo Makarov then.... What the hell Mashima?! How the hell did he come back? Was he just ‘sleeping’ this whole time, and nobody checked his pulse? Wasn’t the deal with Fairy Law that it took away the caster’s life force with every target hit? Sooo what happened...?!

Makarov was the one and only casualty of this entire war (if you can call it that), so why the hell is he still alive? I mean how many times has Makarov been at death’s door? Phantom Lord arc, Fantasia Arc, Tenrou arc and this one, I mean come on. He honestly should’ve died on Tenrou .

This has to be the most one-sided war I have ever seen. Even Tartaros had more deaths and consequences on the heroes side than this arc.

All in all, this is a good stand alone chapter, but once you look at the rest of the series, it really subtracts a lot from it. Except for Makarov, there’s no upside to that whole thing, it was just complete bull shit.

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Chapter 537: A Beautiful Ending that Zeref Did Not Deserve

Alright so it is time for a very salty review from a very salty robot. 

So this chapter is very interesting…my feelings for this chapter are CONTRADICTING. 

Get it???

On its own, the scene between Zeref and Mavis was absolutely beautiful. The discussion between them about Contradiction and Love. Gorgeous scene, well executed. It would have been a perfect ending for them if…Zeref fucking deserved it. 

There is not a single reason for us to root for Zer/vis. Not a single reason. Zeref did nothing but screw Mavis over multiple times this arc – and done nothing to redeem himself. And the whole “I can’t watch her suffer” DOESN’T COUNT! It is unhealthy and even disgusting *cough* August *cough.* And let’s not forget how according to Mavis, Zeref longed for her since age 13. (unless it was a platonic THIS-PERSON-TREATED-ME-WELL-I-WANNA-BE-FRIENDS-FOREVER!) but the context suggests otherwise. 

The Zervis scenes in the beginning of Alvarez and the end were well done, however, Mashima’s own weakness in writing well constructed middle and built up completely decimates the ship. 

And don’t get me started on Makarov  – absolute bullshit right there…like the rest of this arc. 

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Kirishima and Kaminari, trying to convince people that Bakugou is on the heroes’ side

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someone: hey you alright?

me: yeah im okay!

me @ myself: