#anti anti nalu

[patentedsun]

You guys I'm actually crying over chapter 204.5 (which is technically an ad for a certain company we're all boycotting btw) but ignoring the actual ad THE STORYLINE WAS SO??? GOOD???? the Natsu characterization in this was INCREDIBLE (be prepared for intense 100yq hatred) and it portrayed exactly why I fell in love with nalu in the first place....

Summary and analysis below (doesn't incl all the pages btw!!)

We start off with Lucy finding Natsu and Happy at her place, as always.

this is followed by him being like "do you think we'll peek or something" which... 100yq natsu would have... that IMPOSTER...

Anyways while she's taking a bath, Natsu and Happy are browsing around Lucy's room and find a book that stands out. (Btw right next to this book is her diary, 100yq natsu would've gone straight for that). However they end up accidentally destroying it and start panicking. They ask Lucy if they can "borrow it" and Lucy panics at first, saying it's precious and not to touch it, but relents when they say they found it "interesting".

fast forward, we see them worn out after trying and failing to find a replacement copy. ONCE AGAIN, they're doing this because it's something precious to LUCY. Not because they care about reading, or because the book has any value to them, but because they understand it's important to HER. Natsu (and Happy) going the extra mile for things that are important to Lucy is SUCH AN IMPORTANT PART of their entire dynamic.

continuing, Lucy walks into the guild and asks how they're finding the book, they say it's interesting. Lucy gets SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THIS and starts talking non stop ab the book. Happy asks her why this book is so important to her and...

Y I K E S.

So yeah, they ultimately decide that lying isn't it and they should apologize upfront.

this is so beautiful to me, idk like the imagery of them bowing so sincerely is so.... and like wow MASHIMA seems like natsu IS capable of acknowledging his own wrongdoings and offering genuine apologies. I'm not even talking ab the whole post tartaros situation no, I'm talking about fucking 100yq, where natsu actually physically hurts Lucy and doesn't apologize for it (AND IN FACT ITS PLAYED FOR A GAG)(IMPOSTER!!! NOT MY NATSU!!!)

Soooo Lucy doesn't take it well and runs away.

the fact that they didn't stop their search here. the fact that they EXPANDED it to other towns to try and find her the book THIS IS JUST <3333

Anyways, Lucy returns and reveals dozens of copies of the book...

My heart actually broke for her here because as someone who ig creates stuff as well, it really can be painful to have no audience interaction. And to have a book you wrote bomb like that...ouch... and of course she would've been excited, her best friends told her they found it interesting!!! my HEART. OUCH. and the sheer guilt on Natsu and Happy's faces here 😭 Once again, 100yq would've played this off for a gag...

And they all start bawling (and the ad comes in so I will stop there) but YEAH. THIS WAS SO BEAUTIFUL??? The way she's regretful too, the way they're still trying to apologize and make her feel better I'm :(. This is what makes nalu work and it feels like mashima is forgetting that ab his own work... they're both genuinely good and kind to each other... like not to get sidetracked but there has always been goofy fanservice moments but there were also so many wonderful, emotional, complex scenes with them with depth and maturity and I just feel like that's lacking now. So reading this was like getting punched in the face srsly because wow... THIS is the natsu I know and love ugh .....

[fairydares]

loook i get why the idea of riding the "anti/pro" fandom disk horse makes people gag a little in their mouth and try to opt out entirely, but here's why i went from feeling exactly the same way to taking a firm profiction stance. I've been meaning to make this post for a while.

~10 years ago, I posted a fic for the first time and it got its own harassment campaign. The fic wasn't even sexual, and wasn't going to be (it remains incomplete). It was accurately rated T on fanfiction.net. Anyone in the Fairy Tail fandom will understand this: I literally got harassed for writing a "Lucy leaves the guild" fic💀.

After many nice comments, someone left a pretty nasty one. Hurt, I messaged them back. They acted super attacked that I'd responded (lmao) and after we argued, threatened to "rip my shitty story apart in the comments section" if I responded again. I told them "go ahead lol."

They went ahead.

Now know that it was a relatively small harassment campaign, but at the time, it was devastating. Right around then, I wound up in the hospital. After I got out, I went to excitedly check my fic, and found several reviews saying things I wouldn't repeat to my worst enemy. I was suicide-baited more than once, told "thank fuck you finally abandoned this shitty story, dumb cunt," stuff like that.

There were several accounts involved, and I can't say for sure, but I suspect at least a couple different people were involved, though probably at least half of it was one person.

All the other comments were screeching about how I hadn't updated, mostly. "NO UPDAAATEE WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO MEEEE??!!!" was one that stood out after I'd been miserable in a hospital for an extended period of time.

Idk what people think is going on when FT fic authors write this trope, and frankly I don't give a fuck. Because while I was partly writing the story out of some young, cringe feminist rage, I also did genuinely have a real story I was compelled to tell. I was inspired by another, popular fic I loved which used the trope to talk about how trying to shoulder our burdens alone really just hurts both ourselves and everyone who cares about us.

My own story was ultimately going to have similar themes, with more focus on strength, what it means, and in what contexts earning and having it actually matters. In retrospect, no wonder I wound up in hot water, because at the time "Lucy vs. Strength vs. Misogyny" was the FT fandom's Designated Nonsensically Activist Debate™. But that's partly why i wanted to write about it; engaging with the fandom had gotten me thinking about it 🤷‍♂️

Not too long after that, FFNet oh-so-benevolently granted us the ability to delete comments from our own stories (they never took my reports seriously at all, afaik). I deleted all or most of the harassers' comments (may still be a one or two up, and i'm fairly sure there's a couple comments defending my fic from the harassment) without saving screenshots, which I really regret now. I was just so mortified and full of self-loathing about the whole thing that i wanted to forget it completely. Something that had brought me joy at a very lonely, vulnerable period of my life had turned so negative, and i couldn't even tell the people closest to me about it without being made fun of for writing anime fan fiction.

I didn't understand why this happened at the time, but--after a period of trying to forget/bid out of it all with a slight anti lean (a common approach I see people use, and one which I'm not proud of adopting)--I just had to figure out What the Fuck Even Happened There. And I'm telling you, after years of reflecting, wrestling with both sides, and educating myself, that this "status quo of harassment" culture which pervades fandom goes way deeper than you think and comes out of a way darker well than you probably realize. An astonishing amount of this is, quite literally, TERF shit and evangelical shit.

Trying to be in fandom and take a stance of, "Anti/Pro shit? Ew, I'm Not Touching that," is like swimming in a heavily polluted river and being like, "Poison? Cringe. Not me lol."

You might be lucky enough to be in a less-polluted part of the river (AKA a relatively non-toxic fandom, in which case good for you!)...but tbh this rhetoric and peer-signalling will still seep in.

I can't stress enough that pro-fiction, AKA "proship", is the normal, leftist-about-art-and-sex opinion. Pro-ship is against all the horrible things you're against; in fact, pro-ship isn't trivializing real trauma by equating it with fictional trauma, or trying to apply literal evangelical/radfem solutions--which are proven not to prevent or help. Profiction/proship is literally just saying, "Fiction is fiction, reality is reality, and the two don't have a 1:1 relationship. And historically, trying to censor just things we've decided are bad has done nothing but get LGBTQ+ and POCs censored. Therefore, depictions of illegal things shouldn't be censored." That's it. "Proshippers all ship problematic ships," is a brazen lie. Many of them share other fans' disgust for those ships, they just don't believe in censoring fic authors over it.

It is also taking a stand against harassment because--and I hope my own story has helped drive this home--as with all groups who adopt ingroup/outgroup thinking, antis are defined by their tactics, not actual stances on real, serious issues. What happened to me was absolutely a result of anti, "it's okay to 'bully out' anything I just don't like" mindset pervading fandom. In a way, this was the mindset's final form. They didn't even feel the need to cite a reason the trope was "bad" or "wrong"; it annoyed them, and they viewed their own feelings as a valid enough pathway for policing to go right ahead and do so.

In the interest of offering solutions instead of just bitching about problems, I might make a "how to know if you've bought into these types of views"-type post sometime. Also might come back to this and provide some sources/citation.

[smokerswifey]

Lady I have no idea what kind of freak show you grew up in but if you think that grabbing each others tits, fantasing about each other ( in romantic and sexual context ) and having various alternate realities where they're both married to each other is SIBLING BEHAVIOUR then I think you should reflect on your childhood cause idk what to tell you 💀.

Yeaaaaaaaah totally normal platonic sibling behaviour 💀💀💀💀💀

For God's sake, Lucy literally sat on Natsu's face like just say you don't like Nalu and stfu lol .

And bcos of idiots like you my girl Lisanna is going to get dragged for absolutely no reason like let that girl catch up with her siblings and family after being gone for years in peace 💀😭.

[terriluvss]

anti nalu shipper: I don’t see it I think their sibling coded

Nalu shipper: eRm WeLl aCtuAllY *pulls out not canon fanarts, and random times where Lucy accidentally fell on him in a weird way.* s-See thIs is pRoOf thEir nOt siBling coded

Yeah because nonconsenual groping is so romantic (sarcasm)

[jadeluz-writes]

Kinda want to rewatch Fairy Tail, kinda don't knowing Lucy doesn't end up with Loke or Gray.

Looking back at it, Natsu treated Lucy so horribly. Calling her fat as "jokes", calling her "weak" at some points in battle, or the cheap "she's always n*ked in battles", ditching her for a year with nothing but a letter, constantly breaking into her house and gr0ping her multiple times...

Loke always made Lucy his priority. Even after he becomes a spirit again, he broke through worlds to make sure she's okay. He adores Lucy to bits and always made sure she was complimented. Not once did he make her feel like she wasn't valued.

And Gray was the only one who really treated Lucy with respect too. He properly apologized after hurting her before the fight with E.N.D, and actually had a canon crush on her for a while. His monotone/cooler temper would've been a better match for Lucy.

It amazes me how people still defend Na/lu. Don't get me wrong, there's still a couple cute moments. But the vast majority of interactions between Natsu and Lucy makes it seem like Lucy is just better off with someone else or with no one at all.

[rose-void-789]

Okay but the biggest thing for me that has always kept me from liking Izuocha is that I come from fairytail. I know shonen romance isn't boring. I know what it's like to see the two main leads love and fight and admire each other. And that's the thing that I always wanted for Ochako. I wanted badly for her to have what Lucy has.

And I did ship them at first because they were cute and I thought oh the hero name. The helping Deku win his entrance exam. Her having her own goals. Being broke the friendship. it seemed so much like Nalu. Better too because I could see Izuku blushing at her too.

And then someone says something about twin stars. About Izuku and Bakugou being intertwined. About win to save save to win. And then I see the second movie and my mind explodes. I reread the manga and realize what Katsuki did. Izuku was always pushing chasing looking at him. And that wasn't to say that izuocha couldn't happen but that interconnection I saw with Nalu wasn't it more with bkdk. And it kept getting worse. Ochako kept getting sidelined to better explore the relationship between Izuku and Bakugou.

Izuku never looked at her like she did him. Never thought about her like she did him. A blush or two wr got at most. But Ochako whole character started to soley revolved around her feelings towards him. She was the only one carrying the romance plot.

Mha isn't a show about romance but neither is Fairytail. And yet Lucy never got sideline in fact even with all the stuff on Zeref and Gray Lucy found herself interconnected to Natsu through her own bloodline. And they always had moments ones where he's scared of her getting hurt, of catching her from falling, of going berserk because he thought she died, of protecting her, of finishing a big villan off together, of being on missions together. Hell when he ran away shes the one that found him. When Izuku ran away bakugou found him. When Ochako was in danger Tsyu was there or any number of other heros, when she almost died Toga held her safely. Nalu gave me such a high expectation for shonen romance and female leads. So of course it's so frustrating seeing people call the obvious love intest boring when it can be anything that. To act like the female lead has to carry the romance plot and contribute nothing else. That the male lead can just walzt up to the that stupid clif and say that he loves her and that he always has when it was only ever iluded that he even thought that much about her in the last half of the war. And for her to so easily accept because when her whole arc is about her feelings for the guy isn't it only fair that they end up together.

Where is the interconnectivity, the care from him. Where is him looking at her the same way she looks up to him. How is the fanservice show better at writing a strong heroen! A strong partnership!

I'm so tried. I'm so sorry to everyone that's watch shonen and are expecting this out of female characters. That it's typical for the romance plot to be given to the girl and the big moments where I seen love intrest shine are given to the "rival." Ochako deserves better.

[riexlu]

so i’m just getting back into the FT fandom. i was a HUGE fan circa 2018 but faded out after a couple years. i didn’t know there was a divide between nalu/anti-nalu shippers?? is it new?

[natsubeatsrock]

Lisanna Makes Me Hate My Fandom More

Is Lisanna overrated by her fans?

No.

I can't believe that I even have to argue this.

And yet here we are.

I even debated the necessity of this post. Do we need another post saying fandom doesn't value Lisanna? Do we really need ANOTHER one?

Well, I need to get back into this writing on this blog somehow.

I reblogged a post about how fans worship characters you dislike some time ago. Someone reblogged my post all but saying they don't like how Lisanna's elevated over others because of filler moments by her fans. I know the person is a Nalu shipper, but I want to keep this about Lisanna. I have to imagine they think fans of Lisanna elevate her over Lucy. I'm not really interested in talking about that. All I care about is that argument about Lisanna's importance.

Part of me agrees with this. Much of the noise made about Lisanna comes from overestimating her relevance before coming back. This post wouldn't exist if I didn't like her, at the very least. However, as I've mentioned, she wasn't built up like multiple other characters or elements in the series.

Do I think we're on the same wavelength about this idea? Almost certainly not. If you think otherwise, remember that they ship Nalu.

But why make a post about this?

Honestly, this post has been on the back burner for years. I've posted it now as a prelude to another post I've been working on. Despite talking about Lisanna almost too much, I don't think I've emphasized something enough.

I've been talking about how fans handle Lisanna, given canon. I happen to be more generous than others are. Though, I have the opposite view of the situation. I don't think fandom does enough with Lisanna. Especially considering everything we've gotten from her.

I've done this a few times, but entertain me. Put Natsu & the Dragon Egg and everything the anime added to the side for a moment. (I need to talk about that special one of these days.) What has Fairy Tail actually told us about Lisanna?

Lisanna is the younger sister of two fan-favorite characters, Mirajane and Elfman. She'd had a close relationship with the series protagonist before the series started. (Yes, I'm considering Natsu as the protagonist for now.) About two years before Lucy met Natsu, she was presumed dead after a mission didn't go well. However, she was actually transported to another dimension. She spent two years working with an alternate version of Fairy Tail, pretending to be their version of Lisanna.

I know that's only a paragraph's worth of information. Admittedly, canon doesn't show a lot of this information. You're not getting the same focus on Lisanna as you would any member of the Strongest Team. Heck, you're not getting the same focus on her as people like Juvia or Cana at nearly any point of Fairy Tail. We've seen more of Mira and Elfman individually after Lisanna returned than just Lisanna over the entire series.

But let's break down each sentence of that paragraph.

Are fans doing a whole lot with Lisanna's relationship with her siblings? Are people writing about the Strauss kids as siblings? What do they think of each other? How has their relationship been affected by their experiences before and since joining Fairy Tail?

Are fans doing a whole lot with Lisanna's relationship with Natsu? I know most people dismiss their past relationships as currently irrelevant. However, it doesn't seem as though Mashima's forgotten about it. What about their past relationship affects their current relationship? What would a partnership between them look like at this point in the series? (I say this knowing this isn't very likely with the sequel's current events.) Is it possible that they could become closer than they are now in canon?

Are fans doing a lot with the mission that supposedly killed Lisanna? How does this affect those close to Lisanna? How do they treat her once she's back? How does the rest of the guild think of the situation?

Are fans doing a lot with Lisanna's time with Edolas? She spent two years with alternate versions of nearly every character in Fairy Tail. How does this affect her views of characters she didn't know before going to Edolas? How does she feel about Edolas and Edolas Fairy Tail? Does she resent being away from Earthland for so long or miss being in Edolas?

As far as I can tell, most people don't address these questions. People don't seem really interested in trying to read into Lisanna's relationships with her siblings or Natsu beyond potential shipping drama. People aren't interested in how Lisanna being in Edolas impacts anyone or anything in the series.

Now, people care about answering these questions. I've talked about these things quite a bit since Fairy Tail ended. My stories involving Lisanna in-series treat her time in Edolas as formative. And I've read several stories that provide answers to these questions from a number of perspectives.

However, most fans don't write about Lisanna thinking about these things. Has fandom moved past the kind of Lisanna that maliciously sabotages Lucy's place in the guild? Can't say. However, they're not doing a whole lot positive with her now.

"Why does it matter? Mashima obviously decided not to do a lot with Lisanna. Why would fans care about a character the series didn't do much with?"

The funny thing is that it's actually the opposite. Fans do (and should) care about Lisanna because there weren't canon answers to the questions surrounding her. Fans are interested in how these questions could be answered.

And frankly, this wouldn't be the first time. Mashima has done hilariously little with Meredy. But fans love her and create stuff for her all the time. She's one of my favorite minor characters to ship.

Heck, we got more of Levy because fans wanted to see more of her after Phantom Lord. The anime got Changeling to introduce Levy before Phantom Lord. However, there wasn't much else to her relevance to the series before and during that arc. It wasn't until the Fantasia arc that Levy became more plot-relevant and active. Mashima's gone on record to say fans are the reason why.

Fans have argued that Lisanna should have stayed dead for years. I've argued against this numerous times before. I've never understood why this matters to people. Of all the death fakeouts, why is Lisanna's such a big deal for fans? Mashima's written sloppier comebacks for characters. He's brought back characters with less importance. Why is Lisanna where fandom draws the line?

"What else do you expect from the Nalu vermin?"

Calm down, Chris. Of course, shipping has something to do with this. Nalu was always going to be popular with fans. Nalu is synonymous with the fandom. I've seen bias against Nali at work, even where it doesn't make sense.

However, you're not seeing the anti-Gruvia crowd write stories about Juvia being tortured and/or staying dead en masse. The issue with most isn't even with Juvia herself. Isolate her from Gruvia, and the problem is solved. The anti-Gruvia crowd falls into two camps: put Juvia with someone else or keep her away from Gray. Unless we're willing to argue that either is equivalent to killing Juvia, we don't have a discussion. (What day is today, again?)

The closest thing fandom's come up with for Lisanna is Bixanna. Unlike many ships, it feels like the fandom exists to give Lisanna someone to love. In fact, there's a small gap between AO3 stories with Bixanna and Nali. However, much of Bixanna's stories have the ship as a side attraction. Nali stories usually focus on Nali. That's telling on its own.

One last thing before the end. It feels irresponsible to end this post without making a suggestion to write Lisanna. Is there a good way to write Lisanna?

Incidentally, the anime gave us a solid approach. Lisanna has a tendency to tease others. We see it with Natsu at different ages in Natsu and the Dragon Egg. We see it with Elfman on Tenrou Island. If you're wondering, that crack about marrying Natsu aligns with that. That was also in the original chapter, so it's not without precedent from Mashima.

If you're writing Lisanna, you don't have to fall into many pitfalls other writers do. She doesn't have to be evil. She doesn't need to be possessive of Natsu. She doesn't have to be Mirajane's little shipping gremlin. (The fact that this is the best of these worries me.) She doesn't have to be the sacrificial lamb. At least make her a fun character to read.

In Conclusion:

Drink your respect Lisanna juice. This is not a request. This is a command.

[underestimated-heroine]

Warning: 100YQ-negative post (it's fine if you like it but I'm critical of it)

This latest chapter of 100YQ, for me, really just serves as another instance of fan indulgence serving as a counterpoint to fan betrayal with this Fairy Tail spinoff, wherein each chapter is just one or a series of coin flips between the two.

Idk but when nalu's been transformed into an entirely different relationship than the one I got to know in the original series, these toasty Jerza/Jellal nuggets (and even world-building nuggets, with the wizard school!) just are NOT hitting the way they could be, for me. I appreciate them and think they're interesting, but when Natsu's this flanderized, when he's lost this much depth & growth as a character...the story has also lost trust with me.

I'm not thinking "wow, that's so cool Mashima shared this lore with us!" but "huh, so that's what they spontaneously came up with to generate material for 100yq." It feels less like consistent, passionate storytelling (even of the indulgent variety) than it does a manga generator meant to keep revenue alive rather than the story itself.

And I'm grateful to it both because I love fairy tail enough to take even scraps and love that it's keeping the fandom alive but idk, it's hard not to feel somewhat let down...

[marynomi]

I'm finally gonna say this!!!

*Takes deep breath.*

Most of nalu fans are misogynist like wdym you hate lisanna just because she gets in the way of your ship?? WHAT?!!

[gralunaisland]

why do gr*via shippers always say that us graylu shippers always ship nali out of spite when they litterally ship n*lu out of spite????? Like, i'm not a nali shipper (i personally ship bixanna) but it's infinity times waaaaayyyy better than gr*via

Honestly, I haven't really heard of the spite shipping argument before, but I've been absent for a while off of Tumblr and all things gr///via for a few good months, so maybe I just missed something!

I can definitely see gr///vians shipping Lucy with Natsu just to keep Lucy away from Gray though, which is a big eyeroll. People should ship characters together because they like them together, not to make sure other they don't compete with a different ship lol; they're not real people, there's just no need.

I don't ship NaLi personally. I'm not a Lisanna fan, I find her to be sort of annoying, but I don't really hate her anymore.

Need all my ire for juvia!

Kidding (sort of) aside, NaLi is still much, much healthier than gr///via, like most normal ships in Fairy Tail. Lisanna may be annoying to me, but she's still a kind person, something juvia is and cannot be.

Anyway, thank you for the ask, Anon! Sorry to take so long! And Bixanna sounds like a fun ship!

[smokerswifey]

thank you for supporting me

Lmao it was an April fools joke.

I still like gruvia, I still like nalu and they are still healthy happy pairings and they're ain't nothing you can do about it .

( No hate to the graylu fandom btw )

And I STILL don't like you.

You're a bully and a harassaer and a homophobe and u literally have a r34 account dedicated on hating Juvia, like have some shame.

I will NEVER support you and Gruvia will always reign supreme so you best unfollow and reblock me again 😂

[fttwts]

what're your opinions on popular ft ships? you can talk about any you like i'm just curious which ones you like and which ones you don't. specifically laxus and gray tho 👀

inspired by your post about erik / kinana !!

If by popular you mean the big 4 then I don’t like any one of those sorry 💀

I shortly summarized why i don’t like Jerza a while back

Gajevy is kinda boring and it developed forcefully and out of nowhere, one day Gajeel was hanging the team shadow gear to a tree and the next day Levy had already forgiven him and was crushing on him like girl stand up

+ I hate how Levy’s character went from being important in the earlier seasons and actually having a personality to being reduced to a love interest once Mashima decided to pair her up with Gajeel for some reason

As for Nalu, it’s not like i don’t like them, I just can’t see them as more than friends. This may be a little petty but i think the two main protagonists of a manga about friendship shouldn’t end up together in the end. Kinda crushes the whole point lmao

And then there’s Gruvia man…

They could’ve handled it way better if they just put in the effort. Instead, we got the obsessed stalker trope… and apparently everyone’s ok with that. Sigh.

“It’s canon now” i don’t care, being canon doesn’t make something immune to criticism and saying that Gruvia is all straight up bad writing is common sense i fear

Juvia’s character’s only purpose is to be in love with Gray. No other personality trait whatsoever. Take her out of the story and nothing would really change except for some of the ‘comic relief’

Mashima literally had to force Gray’s personality into doing a 180 in 100yq for him to start liking Juvia

Since you asked which ships I like, I suppose you mean the popular ones and not the rarepairs, I have way too many of those lmao.

My favorite ‘popular’ ship with Gray is Graylu; I like Gratsu too but not that much for it to be one of my favorites

I have a soft spot for Nali since i’m a sucker for the childhood friend trope

I also like Lolu a lot

You asked for Laxus too, but I don’t like any of the popular ships involving him. I don’t see the point in Miraxus even existing except for the amount of heteronormativity in this fandom, and Fraxus doesn’t really do it for me. They’re cute tho

A bunch of the ‘crack’ ships I like can be seen in some of my posts lmao

Btw i’m not shading on anyone who likes the big 4 or any other ship i mentioned, this is just my opinion and everyone can ship whatever they want :)

[jadeluz-writes]

Y'know what, maybe I'll just pretend Fairy Tail ends at the Edolas Arc so it's a win for everyone. Lisanna comes back alive, there's no Zeref to worry about, Loke and Lucy are hinted with the "Is he your boyfriend?", Juvia and Gray don't end up together, not much of the Mystic/Jellal & Erza bs, and so forth.

That means you'd get about 95 episodes without having to worry about fanservice or forced pairings with just a tiny bit of filler in the middle. It's before it gets all "what the fuck is happening/why are we wasting so much time" segment and arcs.

A perfect ending in the rain while most of the characters concerns are finally resolved. It would be an intense, but well-executed ending instead of what we actually got.

[dailygraylu]

On the other hand, Gray treats Lucy with great care. Who is more likely to date Lucy, Natsu or Gray? If you ask me, I would definitely say that Gray has a better chance! I can say that.

[shinpikurage]

Couldn't include every single one I stumbled upon AO3 sorry :( so if you like any other one, even if it's a crackship or really rare, please do tell! I love Lucy ships