#ch154

[sailingthroughemotion-official]

in april it will have been four fucking years since i started reading “the guy she was interested in wasn’t a guy at all” (green yuri to those that picked up when it went viral in 2025) and man … i hope all the morons that tried to argue that it was never gonna go full-send on the lesbianism a very ‘haha FUCK you’.

furthermore, i’m happy to see sumiko-sensei slowly turn this into a more messy/angsty series like her previous works. she should do more of that i think, and if normies complain about how “ówò my favorite aesthetic yuri ship is so toxic now, nooo—“ i’m blowing them a kiss in the form of it firmly attached to my middle finger.

[t-reversal]

[rarmaster]

also having reread this sequence a lot (for posting queue reasons, for editing, etc) i gotta admit i'm still really fond of ch141-154, despite, like, some of its flaws. im funny! there's big character moments happening!!!! the stakes!!!! the development!!! gah!!!!!!

vexen realizing hey actually this is kind of his son, maybe he should start acting like it to him!!!!

riku's self esteem taking a big hit and the bad combo of that plus vexen trying to be reassuring meaning he's just coping EVEN WORSE now than he usually is.... i'm fond.... god.... he's fifteen!!! HE'S FIFTEEN!!!!!!!!

everything about ch154 tbh is making me lose my mind. the final paragraphs???????? god. riku voice i want to ask becuase i want to hear her say i'm not a failure but i can't work up the courage to do so is just killing meeeeee

holding them in my hands. my children 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

[officialtokyosan]

lunge sex moments 43

[nagirambles]

Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 154

So remember in Tower of Heaven when the girl in the traditional Japanese kimono represented the Courtesan of Death and the path to despair for Erza? 

To further parallel this, soon enough, Nirvana’s beam is going to be a ‘light that destroys everything’ if it hits Caitshelter.

Back then with Ikaruga, Erza was walking the path of hell toward something that would inevitably be painful for her-- Jellal. She was walking up to the tower’s peak, prepared to die with him. 

Now, Erza walks a path of hope, and she’s prepared to bring him out of there alive, too. “Live and find out what happens in the future.” 

While this dress is dark purple in the anime, it’s pure white in the manga, with the sleeve empty specifically on the side with Fairy Tail’s mark to show it off. 

Furthermore, Erza’s dress is slit around the sleeves and skirt for mobility, and she’s wearing sandals, a far cry from Ikaruga’s fully layered kimono and eight-inch heels. Erza may resemble Ikaruga right now, but she’s still inevitably Erza. 

[nagirambles]

Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 154

I suppose I’ll start rambling about parallels between the matchups now. It’s my favourite aspect of this arc, anyways. 

Here, Jellal calls magic power ‘terrible’. 

That was that narrative that he spun in the Tower of Heaven to manipulate all the children, though he no longer remembers that. Now, Midnight’s magic is seen as the ‘bad’ one, and Erza is wearing white like an angel of justice. There’s a bit of a reference to hell connotations in the illusions later, too. Erza does not follow the narrative of magic being ‘bad’, because she’s already learned firsthand that all magic aligns depending on the person, not the magic itself. And yet, she’s situated as the ‘hero’ of this visual metaphor. 

While back in the tower, Midnight was one of the victims and Erza was the unwilling villain, here Midnight is the villain while Erza is the unwilling hero. 

Back in the tower, Erza and Midnight were both the meekest, most pacifist of their group. The O6 weren’t together, but it’s clear that the one that parallels Erza is Midnight, who just wanted to be left alone and not get involved in dangerous things like trying to escape (at first, Erza was scared of building the tunnel too). They had dreams as innocent as ‘fly in the sky’ and ‘sleep all day long’. But while Jellal found Erza and helped her open up, Midnight clearly remained alone and unsociable until Brain found him and brought him to Jellal, where he learned magic. 

They both learned magic, to some effect, because of Jellal’s influence. 

Now, they’re both the strongest members of their teams.

This is a battle between Erza and Midnight, children in the Tower of heaven, and both of them are the result of Jellal’s past mistakes. 

[nagirambles]

Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 154

Okay but...

...this is mildly comical, in a good way. Erza’s requips in the manga actually transition into nakedness in-between. So that blank, surprised look on Midnight’s face right after it actually made me laugh. I’m sorry. 

Though, I do think this is a cool matchup. 

Much like the other battles thus far, they seem to be matched up with enemies only they can defeat-- though, this one’s a bit more one-sided in Erza’s direction. Midnight can bend any projectiles and even the clothes on your body, but Erza just happens to be a wizard specializing in teleporting her clothes and summoning dozens of swords. Midnight’s got an ingenius way of using it to bend light and make illusions, but he just happens to be facing the one wizard in this guild that’s immune to that, too. 

I guess Midnight has had every victory in his life handed to him thus far, and Erza’s spent most of the past arcs on the losing (or being hurt) side to make Natsu stand out for the final battle. It’s a rather satisfying parallel when Erza gets the victory handed right to her in this one, and Midnight stands no chance. 

[nagirambles]

Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 154

Magic is highly affected by emotional state. 

Meeting Erza again pretty much shook him to the core, so while we saw him use magic in his initial revivial when he blasted Brain and Natsu away, we don’t see him use it after that. He gets curbed in this battle without us even seeing the fight, and it’s kind of implied he couldn’t even fight back at all. 

It’s only after Jellal sees Erza fight and conquer her fears that he sheds his confusion and hesitation to use it again. And he uses that new resolve to go find Natsu with the Flames of Regret. 

Erza explains it as this, but honestly, I like to think she’s not exactly right. It can be both, but “oh he’s tired from being dumb just now” feels like a cop-out to give Erza a fight in this arc. It’s not like Midnight is Jura to justify an offscreen curbstomp. And even if Mashima wanted to ‘hide his power’ a little longer, it doesn’t make sense to hide that from us when Erza, the one that figures it out, is literally looking the whole time. 

Was Jellal’s fight completely no contribution to figuring it out? That’s just sad.