Title: Phantom Girl
Author: bibliosophia
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure
Status: Complete
Fandom: Fairy Tail
Pairings: None
Summary: "Phantom Lord's famous for not getting along with Fairy Tail. I actually fretted deciding which one I wanted to join. After all, their reputation is nearly as nuts as Fairy Tail's!" Lucy helps a Dragon Slayer defeat some slavers, and in exchange he invites her to join his guild! ...no, not that Dragon Slayer. No, not that guild.
Link: fanfiction.net

So, the impossible has happened and I have found a good Fairy Tail story. One that is not a shitty crossover with Naruto, where he has his harem of Fairy Tail girls.

Premise as stated above is clear; Lucy, instead of Natsu, cooperates with Gajeel and gets invited to Phantom Lord. As opposed to the happy go lucky, friendship over everything Fairy Tail, Phantom Lord is a survival of the fittest/ might makes right kinda guild, where failure is not tolerated, infighting is practically encouraged and you can't really trust anyone.

Lucy is forced to become a bit more ruthless and cynical for it and while it did not exactly go the direction I wished for it to go, it still did a great job.

The writing is good all around, but the strength of this author is her humour. I have laughed in practically every chapter and especially Jellal is hilarious but everyone gets good lines, Lucy and Juvia especially.

Here is one of my favourites:

Jellal/Sieg is just such a smug douchebag, you have to enjoy every time he has screen time.

Well, with Lucy joining Phantom Lord, this casts a lot of butterflies. Some canon actions have more severe butterflies and a lot of the dynamics have changed. For one, and I am rather glad for that, Natsu is benched relatively early, forcing the characters to deal with a few arcs without his asspull wins overshadowing them, making for a more satisfying journey.

Then there is the friendship between Juvia and Lucy, which is just great to read as it develops and becomes a great dynamic.

Then there is the fact that Lucy is not friends with Fairy Tail, not really and as such, does not have the bias in canon to just roll with their more insane actions and is instead the one sane (wo)man and views them with suspicion. Lucy's generally more cynical view is rather enjoyable and it makes her actions more interesting, as she clashes with others.

Similar, this also caused changes in Gajeel and Juvia and their dynamic with Fairy Tail characters. Most importantly, Juvia's character is not bogged down with that stupid obsession with Gray.

Another good thing is that this story has a lot more Silver Keys for Lucy and others to use. The Golden Keys of the Stellar Spirits are supposed to be ultra rare and powerful and all, but for all that, we have seen far more Golden Keys than silver ones in canon, and this story kinda deals with that, although not much, seeing that the world itself is still more or less the same.

All that said, it does have flaws. For one, while it has different takes on the canon arcs, it still follows the canon arcs. I kinda wish Lucy would have split doing her own thing without being shackled to Fairy Tail and while the whys are still logical and work in story, it still feels a bit railroaded, that despite everything, it still, more or less, plays out similar to canon. There are changes, don't get me wrong, but the arcs still happen.

It still uses a few of Fairy Tail's more lame conventions, such as Taurus being a pervert who loves boobs and whatnot. Then again, outside of the first chapter, it really doesn't have the offputting fanservice of canon, so, you win some, you lose some, I guess.

The story is finished, although, I wish the author would continue.

Overall, it is a solid 4/5. It's not perfect, but compared to every other Fairy Tail story I have read it's outright magnificent. It had a lot of elements that I liked and while plotwise it didn't exactly go to unknown lands, its take on the characters was pretty good.

 

Ow? As someone who write one, yeah... Ow.

Anyway, I'll second this story. Initial impressions are good. I've only read the first chapter, and this has over 240k words, so I'll withhold my ratings until I complete it or make some decent headway. Protag-Lucy is likeable. IIRC, there's only one other good Lucy-centric story and that was Tartarus that went inactive in WbA. However, if you're nit-picky about canon, just go in assuming it's an AU. There is no explanation for Lucy's new found snark, which can be hilarious, and the story still maintains her as the sole voice of reason in the series--even if it wavers.

As for the complaints of using the series' 'lame conventions', it's a lot harder in this medium to show off its fanservice-y tendencies, so the gripe about Tauros feels unfair. It's his character as was given. I'd find it worse if the author just straight up changed it.

 

4/5 Before the Lucy/Father kidnapping arc. It gets progressively worse from there until a consistent 1/5 when the entire story is forced plot and plot devices. Juvia is made invincible and unstoppable with a hate on for Grey so the author can ship her elsewhere. Natsu is removed at author convenience so that Erza can be made the main character, given unlimited power, and fight every major villain.

Giving a 2/5 overall for an interesting start and competent grammar.

 

... Tartarus is being recommend by people? Weird.

Maybe I'll update it at some time.

Anyway, this story was sick before the Lucy kidnapping saga and went progressively downhill from there. I read pretty far but eventually I just so frustrated with it I had to drop it.

Before Lucy kidnapping: 4/5
Afterwards: 1.5/5 rounded up to 2/5

Overall: 3/5