one of the more disgusting defences I've seen pros use to excuse juvia's behaviour is when victims of assault speak out against the ship, they claim that victims need to stop 'projecting' onto juvia and that because mashima's intent with juvia's actions is meant to be for comedy it should be treated as such and nothing serious
A Piece About Stalking Victims and gr//via
Now that is just really sad, that people would go and try to invalidate actual victims of stalking and assault just so they can not feel bad for liking a ship that literally glorifies those very things.
So what if some manga author decided to take something that literally traumatizes people and ruins their real lives, and then used it in his manga for a comedy bit, and made all the characters praise the perpetrator and bash the victim, and then made the perpetrator and the victim end up in an exceedingly toxic relationship where the selfish, criminal perp finally gets what she wants?
Does it matter that the author's intent was that the actions were supposed to be seen as funny?
No! Because what he did was wrong, to try to normalize and promote such toxic, unhealthy, downright wicked behavior, to desensitize people to the point where they don't even see that her behavior is wrong and to the point where they laugh at it and to the point where they demonize the people who speak out against it.
Now, I will say this, carefully though-- it's a difficult subject to articulate. I think it's ok for these people to use the "it's just comedy" reasoning to explain to themselves why it's ok to laugh if they know that the thing being portrayed as comedy would be very wrong in real life, because yes, in the end, I doubt that most supporters of juvia and her ship look at stalking and think it's just dandy (though some actually do), and I doubt Mashima really meant to make juvia's behavior in his manga as a statement piece expounding on the virtues of stalking and abusive behavior. (That doesn't change the fact that he ends up doing so, which is undeniably wrong, but my point is that it's understandable if people see it and acknowledge it as wrong, and yet overlook it thanks to the "cute, comedic, and fluffy" setting of the manga and its art style and a "cute" girl doing it so they can enjoy it as a whole. I don't excuse the people who just don't see what juvia does is wrong though; they warrant criticism).
However.
Where they cross the line is when they try to use that honestly pretty faulty reasoning as an argument and weaponize it against victims who are triggered by juvia's disgusting behavior, which is basically worse than victim blaming because they are literally saying yes, you were a victim, and yet no, your experience doesn't matter. These are the people who don't acknowledge juvia's behavior as disgusting and evil.
I've sort of touched on this before, but I am chill with letting people like juvia and gr///via. I'm not out here on a quest to eradicate all Pro gr///vians and juvia fans, which is impossible anyway. They have the right to their opinion, and I have the right to mine. I don't understand them and could never agree with them, but for the most part, they're minding their own business, and I'm minding mine. That's why I block the gr///via and juvia tags and avoid their posts and tag mine correctly. I may hate gr///via and juvia and the content made in support of it, but I don't hate the Pros; it's just a ship after all, and in the grand scheme of things, it's not the best hill to die on. I especially am fine with those Pros who acknowledge that juvia is far from perfect, and that the ship is too, and yet they just ignore certain things to enjoy it, and that's only fair. The only people I have a problem with are the ones who are vocally putting Antis down by bashing us for merely existing or tearing down victims of abuse just so they can keep themselves in forced ignorance that juvia is perfect and anyone who opposes her sucks, people like the ones you mentioned, Anon.
Being tagged in this temporarily brought me out of me out of my indefinite Tumblr hiatus, ahaha.
Itās been ages since Iāve even looked at Fairy Tail, mostly because after being exposed to so many more films and anime in the past few years (aspiring filmmaker here), I found that Fairy Tail simply was not a well-written series. The first few arcs were good, but after Edolas it just seemed to go downhill and I also found myself becoming more and more bitter due to the poor writing and decision-making by Mashima.
OP and I would comment on each otherās posts in the past, but they are correct; we were not friends on or outside of Tumblr. They did not know the details of my life; they were simply expressing sympathy for me at the time (which I greatly appreciated). So OP, Iām sorry if you were harassed because of that.
I feel like I just need to elaborate (in case anyone wants to refer to this in the nearby future). I couldnāt find my original post where I talked about what OP mentioned but yes, I dated a man who reminded me a lot of Juvia. He did not assault me, but he did stalk me for over a year, and he was borderline narcissistic. He would often leave meĀ āpresentsā and would try to manipulate other people in my life so I couldĀ ātake him backā after the break-up. Like Juvia with Gray, he felt āentitledā to my love. He even tried to literally buy my affections more than once. When he tried to win me back trying to make me jealous, he slept with another girl... and she got pregnant. Once his daughter was born, common sense finally hit him, and he left me one last letter as sort of a āgoodbyeā. Unfortunately, it took a few years for my nightmares to finally go away (I used to dream he was chasing me lol). The situation has long passed, but it had such an impact on me I struggle with dating 10 years later. I am still single simply because I am too afraid to date.
It didnāt help that in 2018, a male relative of mine began making inappropriate advances toward me. This led to me being kicked out of my home (I was living with these relatives at the time) because when I brought it forward, they didnāt believe me (aka. they did believe me but didnāt want to acknowledge it).
The point is, I do hate Juvia and Gruvia and I never will change that opinion. It sounds harsh, but it only has negative connotations for me. The fact that so many people seemed to sympathize with Juvia also made me uncomfortable. Itās not a good pairing, and it sure isnāt a healthy one. Juvia, who couldāve actually been a great character, is incredibly manipulative. While my ex-boyfriend may not have gone to the exact extremes Juvia went to for Gray, there were still similarities.
