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- Jan 13, 2021
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I'm not sure if he's changing his tune on that "more than friends/less than lovers" thing either; it's really anybody's guess. It can probably be safely assumed that Lucy is meant to have feelings for Natsu (between dialogue and artwork in 100YQ) at this point, so it really depends on what Mashima and/or Ueda seem up to do. I don't know how much story is left, probably at least three more big arcs (one for Ignia, another for Viernes, and a finale), so there is still time.The problem is I've read that Mashima himself declared in an interview or somewhere that, in spite of realising all of the things you've mentioned, including his own original preference for NaLu, he'd resolved, by the end of the main story, that he'd be painting NaLu as "more than friends and less than lovers"(don't mind me if it was rehashed earlier in this thread).
I'm not yet entirely sure he's changing this decision, even if I've heard that Ueda himself prefers NaLu?! What we just got was another of those typical weird close physical contact moments they've been getting for ages now(at least the post-cauldron moment in HERO'S- or whatsitcalled- was more symbolically intimate-the kind I'd never see casually happening between straight platonic life-partners- than any silly ecchi scene as of late).
And I'm still bugged by the way their more serious moment in ch 22/23 is somewhat cast into contradiction with the fear and pain she must've felt in FT when literally having his Fire Curse in her veins, making me wonder if I can take the recent "soothing" event that seriously, with all the emotional weight it's supposed to carry.
We're getting more clues towards Natsu not being ignorant at all of attraction or rather how attractive the girls around him are, he seems to favour Lucy in each and all aspects(in spite of that confusing harem scene at Selene's temple), but all the scenes where he's supposedly acting out of presumed (romantic) jealousy are either defused in a silly way or off-page.
Yes, I agree, Ignia or Selene herself might trigger something more serious if Mashima decides to take the ship anywhere concrete, but Idk if he really means to(I know what he did with RM, Idk what he aims with EZ, since I've only watched the anime S1, but it's still hit or miss with the FT MCs). Back in FT DiMaria NOS-ed all of his changes and partial END awakening when she tried to kill Lucy, Lucy is now his de-buffer from a similar to END rampage mode, and he seems far too entitled to decide that other guys can't get physically close to her, but with off-paging some guys getting beaten up for apparently trying to hit on her, all these and some of their old married couple shenanigans feel a lot like the Mashima/Ueda duo are just giving nods to the plethora of fanfic NaLu tropes.
It bears wondering how much of that lies with Mashima (who is really just doing the storyboards) and how much lies with Ueda (who does seem to like them by all accounts). To be perfectly honest, after teasing them to hell and back, and bringing literally all the other pairings as far as he did, it would be something of a slap in the face to his readers to leave the most popular one unresolved. I don't mean to sound entitled when I say that, but it can't be denied he's dangled it front of the fan's face for a long time, especially with his Twitter.