1 I will eventually watch Fairy Tail Zero, though it took me many moons before I bothered watching the most recent Tantaros arc. It was okay, but I doubt I could have watched it episodically. I marathoned the last season and it was fine as such.

I'm okay with the prequels, but that's more because I don't care where the manga is going.

I will watch anything with Mahou Shoujo in the title. This is non-negotiable, and sad.

I am tired of dragons. I plan to search out the worst of the devil/vampire-themed reverse harem series and imitate all of the bishoujo songs until my neighbors commit me to the nearest asylum.

2

The manga of the Tartaros arc felt unreasonably slow, and the anime was much worse. They're padding like mad to try not to outrun the manga.

The current story in the manga is getting really, really strange.

My guess on how this is all going to turn out: Zeref isn't going to die. Instead, Fairy Tail is going to figure out how to lift his curse, and Mavis's curse (which is the same). Natsu is going to defeat Acnologia, to give us a big therapeutic victory. And one way or another, it's going to be Lucy who does something astounding by mastering and using the "One Magic". Either that's how the curse will get lifted, or something really bad is going to happen to Natsu (for instance, Acnologia will lay a curse on him) and she'll save him.

As to Fairy Tail Zero, the manga just revealed the outlines of that story including how it ends, and it's pretty much a tragedy.