#ig its kinda jerza

[captainuranium543]

Hi! I just wanted to know your thoughts on this post here: https://www.tumblr.com/yamishika/761491771751596032/something-that-has-been-bothering-me-regarding-the

Do you agree with this? Disagree with this? Was this just a light comedic moment? It def feels out of character for Jellal to a large degree. You have such great takes on Erza in general, that I wanted to check about this. I tried looking at your posts (now that I have better cell service) and didnt see this on your posts list. Apologies if you’ve covered it already. Thanks in advance!

the post in question^

thanks so much for this ask actually cuz I have been resisting the urge to yap about this forever and now I have an excuse ahaha.

honestly I completely agree, I've been saying it forever but as fairy tail has gone on Mashima has kind of stopped putting as much thought into it has he did early on. Early on the characters where the center of the narrative and honestly I think that's when ft is at its best because that has always been the best part if ft as a whole. The tower of heaven and the trauma Erza and Jellal faced along with countless others had so much impact on the story as late as season 6 because of just how massive a tragedy it was.

starting with Erza and Kiria, it feels especially disgusting for this to happen to specifically Erza because she has spent so much of her life being treated as less then human already. In the tower her purpose was literally to work herself to death, they needed sacrifices and lots of them. As soon as she wasn't useful to them anymore she would killed without a second thought and her life would only be another number added to the massive death toll of the r system project. she wasn't a person in there, she was a tool. Even after the tower she was still under someone else's control (on a leash you might say) with Jellal holding the lives of her friends over her head to keep her quiet, constantly taunting his power over her by spying on her with seigrain in the magic counsel. this is exactly what happens with Kiria and it feels genuinely horrifying to see it happen again but still its just played for fanservice and I find that incredibly irritating.

as for the Erza vs Jellal fight in the Aldoron arc, here we have a scene that is objectively horrifying to both of them. Erza and Jellal share INTENSE trauma associated with mind control and the loss of free will, and yet the scene is played for laughs and fanservice.

I do understand why Hiro did this, if they took the scene seriously it would probably set Jellal right back into his old ways again of avoiding Erza like the plague which he doesn't want because he's trying to push them closer together. I get that but its still feels like such a missed opportunity to give them some kind of emotional development which neither has had in so long. I'm gonna get into my own idea for the fight here so bear with me.

The fight begins and they intercut it with flash backs to the tower of heaven arc, or even further back to their actual childhood, showing how genuinely afraid of him Erza is right now while also trying to control herself and keep her "fight" instinct at bay because she doesn't want to hurt him. the fight from her perspective should be chaotic, rapidly throwing her between past and present while she desperately tries to hold onto a sense of reality and remind herself its not him.

now imagine this, at some point she loses control and really starts to spiral and he gets the upper hand. she's totally beaten and exhausted after trying to fight him and her demons at once and while she's on the ground he approaches her, lifts her up, and we get a call back to this scene.

throughout this fight we never really see Jellal's face, its mostly been from Erza's perspective and when we do see his face its a flashback to a different time while he was mind controlled. Now in the present jellal says something, idk what he would say exactly, but its something similar to the "it was the color of your hair" moment where it reminds Erza of something he said to her while he was himself. Erza finally snaps back to reality, she looks down at him and we finally get a clear view of his face in the present, and we see that he's crying.

that is enough to fully snap Erza back and finally give the fight her all, because its not just for her sake its for both of them. he would never forgive himself if he hurt her so she's going to have to be the one to do it even if it hurts because its the only way she's going to save him. and more than anything she wants to save him. (Again, call back to the tower of heaven, she was to late to save him then and it weighs on her to this day, she wont be to late this time.) anyway fight ends shortly after that she knocks him out and she's crying because obviously she never wanted to hurt him either she's just taking one for the team (like always but that's another rant). Just before Jellal passes out he looks at her and he thanks her for saving him (ONCE AGAIN CALL BACK TP THE TOWER OF HEAVEN but this time its not manipulation he's being fr showing us that its really him now). he passes out, erza gets up, looks back at him maybe one last time, says shes sorry, then goes off to go keep fighting. fight over

case and point I think this could have been sick as hell and i'm sad it didn't happen. its not that I have a problem with fanservice I just think it should be tasteful at least a little.