#and despite me posting an insane amount of luci material

[sidsinning]

Taking this as a sign Lucifer will be living at the hotel from now on (bless)

The problem Alastor had with him in Dad Beat Dad, Lucifer being more powerful and able to provide for the hotel in his place, might come back potentially in even worse condition?

Because what Alastor had over him was actively supporting Charlie's dreams and doing whatever he could for her to achieve them despite his ulterior motives, and being a strange source of emotional comfort for her with mentoring her through her issues at the same time- being the only one who could fill the position as her provider at the very least

But now Lucifer is moving in, AND has finally stepped up as the dad that's going to support her both in the materialistic sense and now as a major source of emotional support she's always wanted from him and only him specifically

One thing I think makes a difference between them is most definitely Alastor's charisma and ability to manipulate people into doing what he wants for the hotel's benefit, and just teaching her more about hell and making connections- is infinitely stronger than Lucifer's, who is usually honest about his feelings and has been socially stunted for awhile, isolating himself since his depression started developing after losing his family for years

Idk if they're going to explore this in the newest season,,,which I am assuming will receive the same short time span of 8 episodes 💀

[natsubeatsrock]

The Rewrite of Fairy Tail: Bonus (What If? #5)

What if Levy was more important?

One of the scary things I’ve learned in working on this project is the amount of power I have. I can take characters who did little, if anything, good or important and make them into near amazing and integral characters, just because I want to. Of course, I’ve put limitations on what I can actually allow happening in rewriting the series. But it’s not like these rules always stop me from making the exact kinds of changes they ought to prevent me from.

Every now and then, I’ll come up with cool ideas I can’t do anything with realistically within the parameters of this rewrite. Ideas like this often are painful because they aren’t just ideas I work on for a bit and realize are impossible. An idea like this was a part of an important series of changes that drastically impacted Levy as well as a number of big aspects of the series.

As is usually the case, let’s talk about precedent. One of the things I’ve talked about in the past is dropping hints to the greater history of the continent. While the series does this in some ways I mentioned earlier, one way I’ve played around with is using Levy’s knowledge as a way of getting at points that were missed in canon or added in rewriting the series. In the actual rewrite, this just means having things that happen close to her have a connection to that larger narrative or vice versa depending on how you see it.

The issue I with this is that, as this is happening, Levy has to remain only slightly more important than she was. While this inherently makes her more important to the series than she was before, I don’t want to write her to the point of being someone like Happy or Gajeel. (Don’t act like Gajeel isn’t more important than Levy in canon.) I don’t want to make Levy a character with insanely more plot relevance than the original. Rather, I want to dig into the potential she has as a supporting character, as is my general philosophy.

But what if I wanted to make Levy more important?

Levy’s role would be slowly uncovering the history of magic on the continent. While I could imagine someone making Levy more important from a fighting perspective, I want to lean in on Levy’s intellectual strengths. To put it another way, I want to make her more of a Lucy than a Natsu.

This becomes clear by about the time we get our first good introduction to Levy and Shadow Gear. With the Changeling special, we’re introduced to Levy as someone who can understand the languages and contexts of the past. I’m pretty sure it’s not controversial to think of this as a better introduction to her and her team than their canon introduction during the Daybreak arc or as a footnote at the beginning of the series or the tacked-on flashback after they got attacked in Phantom Lord. But, whereas the main rewrite takes this as a launch point for her to show interest in general stories, Levy in this scenario is more focused on the specific story of the past history of the continent.

A big reason why is a change in her backstory. Remember the wacky ideas I mentioned having for Levy? One of them involved her parents being researchers into the history of magic within the continent. In addition to learning more about their research, she wants to find out why they ended up dying. It would turn out to be that they found out too much and were taken out by the Magic Council. (You can see why I thought this was too much.)

I should mention that despite what may be argued otherwise, playing this scenario out doesn’t mean that Levy absolutely and completely makes sense of everything relating to my posts on the subject. I don’t know how you could come to some of the conclusions of the history of magic such as Dragon Slaying magic coming from Irene’s work with Enchanting magic or the exact connection to the Heartfilia Kozern and Zeref without that being revealed directly from them, as happens in canon. There are some things real-life people have trouble making the jumps to and from, even with the benefit of going back to see how events can connect together.

However, there are some things that could be hinted at in different ways. A simple example is a connection to Zeref’s followers to Mildian Academy. As a reminder, the teachings of the school become a hotbed for the eventual followers of Zeref. That connection isn’t terribly difficult. Ther just needs to be some references to the academy scattered through materials from the time of the continent-wide magic ban. Remember that even as these materials are banned, the mere existence of dark guilds and Zeref worshipers means they failed to a certain degree.

The trick is that there are so little places I can place hints at the bigger narrative, as opposed to the other aspects of the series. They exist and will be exploited at my leisure, but not so much as to be as important an issue to fans as the hangups surrounding the members of the Strongest Team. I don’t know how much I could bring that aspect out if I were going to make this Levy’s arc and make that arc more important to the series.

The real big issue is the ending. There are only so many ways I can end this kind of arc. The most obvious is that she figures out what happened to make the continent what it was. I can’t really manage that in a way that feels completely natural given what happens in the series. The only ways I can make it work in my mind would make sense apart from what we got and what I’m actually doing.

The alternative is that something causes her to decide not to search further for information. To be honest, I can't think of a way this could be made and not be infuriating. I don’t want people to give up their dreams for love. I also think, by virtue of being a guild member of Fairy Tail, threats from authorities are nonfactors to this search from the start. I feel that Levy should try to find out what she’s looking for at the end of the series.

Based on Part 18

What If? #1 | What If? #2 | What If? #3 | What If? #4