Iceni

Yes indeed. I wish the characters would undergo a lot more development. Fairy Tail strikes me as a series with a lot of untapped potential. Also I wish Natsu would lose a fight. Ostensibly he's a high-level wizard but far from the best, and we don't get to see how limited he is. To all intents and purposes he's invincible, which is why he can afford to be so cripplingly stupid a lot of the time. He has also never done anything wrong, which irritates me. Never has he had to cope with his own shortcomings or apologize to anyone.

Odd Mold would be a great name for a parody BM band or album, by the way...

Wow, that'd be a good plotline. No, I wasn't thinking that, but it would be kinda nice if they had a sort of falling-out over that. I'd expect it to be resolved, but I don't see why they didn't show up. I don't think Lucy getting beaten up was important at all, Minerva could have done that to someone else. Juvia, for example. On another subject, I actually really like Cheria. She comes off as a very mature and capable character, especially considering her age, and I very much like her demeanor. She acts like a champion to me - somebody so confident that they're actually nice, instead of...well, Laxus.

Capricorn is cool, and I do love his panache, but I have to ask something. Why did neither he nor Leo show up to protect Lucy when Minerva was beating the crap out of her? Ostensibly Lucy's life was in danger, but neither of them even showed up.

I won't address the first question since I'm only trying to explain the motives behind the violent answers to the second - that said, I think the removal of consequences is a moral hazard problem. I think the different answers might lie in the different approaches taken. When I was answering the question I was thinking 'what is the most consequence-riddled thing I could do that would still make me happy?' - in order to make the most use of my ability to escape consequences. However, I think the other answers came from the posters asking themselves 'what is the thing that would make me the happiest but I don't do because the potential consequences are too high?' That is why hurting people I dislike was what first occurred to me, and why tanking up on beer was what JBaker put down. And I don't think this is based on metaphysics, I think this is a personal pathology I can just file away in that bulging, increasingly strained manila folder marked 'My Flaws'. If I had to answer the question using the second approach, I would probably say I'd like to get married. If there are no negative consequences that implies no divorce, adultery or theft - so if you want you can take that as an alternate answer. You know, while I'm dreaming...

I wander into your restaurant, and my sullen, grouchy aura immediately drives every customer from your store, causes all the food to go rotten, and mold to grow over the walls. Sitting alone in the restaurant, I pontificate on how I can turn this into a superpower, or whether this would make good lyrics. The hill is given over to decay.

I'm also not sure they answered Ghouly's question.

I'm not trying to explain those responses.

Well, Nightwish could call themselves power metal, but Moonspell does kind of confuse me.

I don't know how 'cool' it is, it's eminently reasonable not to act on violent thoughts. There are repercussions quite outside the legal; the effect it would have on your social life, your own mind and your family comes to mind as serious. For the most part, the decision not to resort to violence does not betray any significant quantity of moral goodness so much as just the same dose of rationality doled out to most of us. The way the question is framed is 'if you could do something without suffering consequences, what would you do?'. So no negative consequences - no sorrow, no guilt, no legal penalties, no resulting psychosis. That immediately brings iniquity to my mind. Usually the things I want to do that are morally good are also entirely legal and would not weigh upon my conscience, so they are moot as far as this thread is concerned. The thread is not the Mirror Of Erised - if that were the case we might see some happier thoughts - but as it is the question is about removal of negative consequences for action, which are usually the primary motivators for deciding not to do things that are either wrong or irrational. Once the rational inhibitions are released, I would expect to see the darker side of people.

And we've seen Mirajane curbstomp pretty much everyone she's ever fought.

BAN has said that Ringworm and Burn Your World are good metalcore bands; FA showed me a group called As The Sun Sets that I thought was good.

That's very similar to what I assumed...I'd say Gray definitely comes off as the most intelligent of the team, but I think Lucy is probably better at problem solving and plans well. I would assume she picks the jobs and comes up with ways to approach them, in addition to being able to use her spirits to solve a number of problems. She should be reasonably capable in combat, relying on knowing how to plan out an attack with her spirits in order to win - and probably keeping an offense-oriented approach. I was just asking because it seems that (until an episode or so ago) from a narrative perspective she was basically just a punching bag with spectacular boobs.

'Mixture of Forms' by Essence of Datum. Nice Belorussian instrumental tech-death.

Lucy's design changed visibly; her face looks wonky, it looks more gaunt and the eyes are shaped differently. Just a question for you, by the way; what purpose do you think Lucy serves on the team of Natsu, Gray and Erza?

'Watchers of the Wall' by Seven Kingdoms.

It's drawn similarly...but the color palette is a little more washed-out. That bugs me, one of the show's strong points was its vivid and colorful style, and that's been significantly reduced with the new style. Still, the latest episode had a nice fight in it, and the story is developing, so I can't really complain...

Well, who hates who and what each band member personally believes and which scenes are feuding. Now I do care when Joseph Duplantier says he doesn't care whether the Sea Shepherds are terrorists or not, while supporting them in Gojira's music videos - but usually it's not relevant to me. If the artist is discussing their lyrics or the musical direction they want to take, I'll listen, but generally I'm not interested.

'December 20th' by Votum. I love Manticora, essentially everything they've done from Hyperion onward has been excellent. 'Safe' was as close to perfection as I've seen in a metal album, right up there with 'Anagogic Tyranny' and 'Chapter II: The Aftermath'.

I generally can't be arsed with band politics, they're irrelevant to me.

'We Do Not Sow' by Seven Kingdoms. Weird power metal/melodeath combination, but I am liking it.

I'm watching the episodes in English now.

Meh, you could buy a Civic for $10K and still 'pull chicks' with relative ease.