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#nirvana arc
fairydares · 1 year
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imo Nirvana was one of Fairy Tail’s weaker arcs but some points were stellar
1. the official guilds decided they needed to create an alliance and show a united front against the dark guilds, so which wizards does Makarov choose to send in the name of unity and cooperation? Natsu and Gray, who share one braincell when in the same room and fight constantly; Erza, who’s fascist on accident unless it's on purpose; Lucy, whose local nickname is “the Blonde Devil”; and Happy, who thrives on chaos and the annoyance of his comrades.
2. Brain is somehow under the impression that Jellal being revived will go well and cause no problems for him whatsoever. After Wendy is forced to heal Jellal, he wakes up and--in true Kikyo form--blasts the shit out of anyone who attempts to breathe in his direction. Then, without missing a beat, he ambles gothly through the woods to make a suicide pact with the gate to entropy without a single thought in his head--quite literally, as Cobra explicitly confirms. Intermittently several people scream at him that he’s a huge piece of shit and they hate his guts and they're going to kick his ass and the entire time he’s like
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3. Gray and Lyon fighting together
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to beat this guy
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who brags literally every single second he's on-screen about how he’s faster than Lightning and even goes so far as to claim he’s "the fastest man alive"--only for it to turn out that he moves at aggressively average speeds and just makes everyone around him move really slow lmfao
4. Angel's entire character design. I'm not denying it's fanservicey and normally I hate that but I just can't make myself dislike this look. Made me wistful on my last rewatch because I personally think her character design goes to shit by the end of the series
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5. The foreshadowing of how Wendy is bound by fate and history to both Natsu and (even moreso) Erza. Natsu recognizes Wendy even though he didn't recognize Gajeel. Erza and Wendy notice each other right away. Wendy ignores everyone else's protests and follows her own moral code to revive Jellal, the love of Erza's life and the mage who would wind up up playing a crucial role in helping Natsu defeat Brain/Zero & ending the potential threat of Nirvana. When the Cait Shelter's secret is revealed, Erza is the first one who understands what this will mean for Wendy, and she's the one who offers the girl comfort in her own grief.
6. Debut of the "wouldn't you like to know, weatherboy" Dragon Slayer, AKA Cobra.
7. Celestial spirits go on strike finally. Even though a lot of things immediately leading up to this were kinda stupid imo it was both sad and inspiring to see Gemini and Caelum refuse to attack a mage who treated them with respect and compassion instead of like slaves. These guys need a union. Urano Metria was cool, too, but I don't love how Lucy learned it tbh.
8. I actually thought Natsu accepting Jellal's Flames of Rebuke to beat Brain was a really good poignant moment. Brain said something to the effect of, "The recipient of those flames accepts the sins of the caster," as Jellal was offering them to Natsu, not-so-subtly indicating that Natsu's acceptance of the flames was him taking the first step to forgiving Jellal and accepting him as an ally.
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nagirambles · 2 years
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Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 160
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I think it’s the paneling, but this moment feels more genuine and tragic in the manga than the anime counterpart. 
I think it’s the way she’s curled up against the ground, too ashamed to even lift her head, that makes this scene so heartbreaking.
Lucy is still weaker than Natsu and Gray. She’s already stronger than before after the Angel fight, but she’s facing the reality that she’s still incapable of contributing in the most crucial, final moment, and that breaks her. 
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But Lucy’s greatest strength has never been in magic capacity or physical strength-- it’s in her ability to touch the hearts of people around her, and connect sincerely with Celestial spirits. 
That’s why in this moment, that part of her comes through and helps her. 
Lucy’s greatest strength has always been centered around being helped by spirits and standing alongside them. 
I do love Lucy now for being able to fight by herself, but I miss when the spirits’ feelings and personalities were the most important part of it.  
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ritzu · 1 year
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go girlie
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coquelicoq · 3 months
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love kim dokja's non sequitur answer to people thinking he's into yoo joonghyuk: "i like women." okay? good for you?? quick question totally unrelated but have you heard of bisexuality.
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pixelated-dragon · 5 months
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Diversity win! The reincarnating megalomaniac obsessed with the Main-Character™ is genderqueer!
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yoodokjas · 10 months
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if (side story) 41yjh ever reads orv i hope he's baffled when he realizes that every single version of him that has come into contact with kdj has been to some degree obsessed with the guy
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cheesydelphox · 1 month
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ichiya saying "age is just a number" really proves me right about abt all the weird pedo stuff in ft
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markiafc · 6 months
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to fulfill my promises to @ananeiah and to expound on @seventh-fantasy's post, there are many conceptions of enlightenment. because buddhism is a massive and old religion with a very robust canon, enlightenment goes by many names, it's articulated and imagined in many different ways. let's play the game of how many of them are adopted by the show...
popular metaphors that embody enlightenment include a refuge, a flame going out, or a firm island - because this world is often described as an ocean. all human beings are floating in the 生死苦海 sea of rebirth and suffering. to escape it, one must make their way to the island or to get on a boat. mahayana buddhism (aka. chinese buddhism) is literally named 大乘 the great vehicle, the primary idea being that enlightenment = to board a vehicle of transport, it will take you away. however, buddhism doesn't just envision this as an ambiguous vehicle. 乘 the vehicle specifically refers to a 船 boat.
the mortal world and the cycle of suffering is a sea and the way out is enlightenment, envisioned as a boat.
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an extension of this is the concept of 彼岸 the faraway shore (alt tl: the further shore, the distant shore, the other shore, or at times the opposing shore). it draws on the same notion of 苦海 the ocean of suffering. to achieve enlightenment is to swim to shore, where there is finally safety and stability, free from suffering. this is why the euphemism for enlightenment is to 度到彼岸 reach the faraway shore.
此岸 this shore, is this ever-changing world full of agonies. you wade across the 苦海 sea of suffering, and reach 彼岸 the faraway shore. this is enlightenment.
as @seventh-fantasy depicts in this post, the final shot of ep 40, and as seen in the bonus ep 40.5, this is where llh is. ep 40 ends with the camera moving further into the distance, moving further into the sea. and the bonus ep 40.5 makes it clear again that lxy/llh has found his way to a different beach. llh has crossed the sea to another beach. he is on another shore, the 彼岸 faraway shore, far from 东海 the east sea where everyone else is.
let's look even closer at this.
enlightenment is also conceived as a place: 淨土 the pure lands, 极乐世界 the realm of greatest bliss, and so on. one of the geographical markers of this idea is 西 the west. this "land" accessible only to the enlightened (佛 buddhas, 菩萨 bodhisattvas, and 阿罗汉 arhats) is also dubbed 西方淨土 the western pure lands and 西天 the western heavens, etc.
enlightenment is imagined to be westwards. the opposite direction and away from 东海 dong hai = the east sea. where the story began and lxy famously plunged into; he fell into the 苦海 sea of suffering located in the 东 east. from this starting point, llh makes a meandering journey to his final location in the show. he makes his way 西 west, towards enlightenment, and reaches a 彼岸 faraway shore, the enlightened "after" and what is beyond.
now that we're on the topic of the pure lands, it's worth mentioning that this concept is furnished with a lot of descriptions in buddhist sutras. it is a beautiful, glorious land brimming with lotuses. because, of course, the lotus is yet another ubiquitous image that represents enlightenment.
the lotus position is crucial to the buddhist practice of prayer cultivation, especially in 禅宗 zen buddhism that is built around the central practice of prayer. lotuses are motifs in buddhist art, and buddhist myths (the legend goes that lotus flowers bloomed under the buddha's feet when he took his first steps as a child). people practicing buddhism are referred to as 莲友 lotus friends, 芬陀利花 the white lotus is a synonym for the buddha. lotuses are also integral to buddhist canon; the pure lands are detailed to have seven 宝莲池 treasure lotus ponds. every buddhist has their own lotus waiting for them in the pure lands; it is believed the more you cultivate, the more your bud in the pure lands grows/blooms.
of note, every living thing residing in the pure lands are made from lotuses. in fact, buddhist canon states that the enlightened are reborn inside a lotus bud, similar to an incubation. their new body is reconstituted from lotuses and they emerge anew when the bud blooms. crucially, it is also stated that every enlightened in the pure lands will have 莲花座 a lotus seat. this is a vehicle of transport, usually likened to the magic carpet from one thousand and one nights. it is described as 随心所欲、飞翔自在 something that acts after your heart's desire, something that flies free. the lotus seat is about boundless, freeing travel.
this isn't comprehensive at all, there are tons of other ways lotuses come up throughout buddhism. but the connection to the show is straightforward and self-explanatory. the primary motif in 莲花楼 mysterious lotus casebook is the lotus - a famous marker for buddhism itself. one of the dominant illustrations of enlightenment, the cultivation process to achieve it, and enlightened entities themselves.
the buddhist notions of rebirth are similarly heavily intertwined with the lotus. it is your body; you become it, it becomes you. from then on, you are surrounded by its image and its presence. you even have a lotus vehicle that becomes your main method of travel, a mode of travel defined by carefree contentment. sound familiar? llh's identity and his living carries major markers of enlightenment. it is one of the primary concerns of his character arc.
quick detour. a prominent moniker for enlightenment is the setting of the sun, as yet another epithet utilized by the drama.
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detour over. crazy connections time.
discussions of death and suicide is, to my knowledge, particularly prominent in japanese buddhism. but as a whole, a significant portion of buddhist canon and a good number of buddhist media deals with this too. dying as a means to get closer to enlightenment, equating death and enlightenment, the subject of suicide itself. characters seemingly pass away and become enlightened, or characters strive for death with this express purpose as death is connected to enlightenment. this is true. one does not necessarily cause the other, but the concepts are interconnected in buddhism. it comes hand in hand, dissecting one means dissecting the other and vice versa.
most buddhist texts and masters do not condone a direct correlation, suicide is not the way to enlightenment. there is no buddhist value to killing yourself. but the key exception lies in one of the most important buddhist texts: the lotus sutra.
"These include several themes dealing explicitly with death, such as how suicide was committed to speed up rebirth in the Pure Land based on the sanctioning of voluntary death as a superior form of sacrifice in Chapter 23 of the Lotus Sutra ..." [1]
the chapter 23 in question talks about a bodhisattva who turns himself into a human candle and burns himself up, in offering to the buddha. there is more to the story, but it mainly functions as a lesson about cultivation and enlightenment.
in the canon about buddhist suffering, there lies a subset dedicated to physical pain and torment. there is a heavy focus on our 5 senses, specifically (that's a whole separate topic i won't go into here). very briefly, to suffer is to experience the world through our 5 senses. to live as a human being is to suffer in a sensory way.
buddhism aspires to transcend this flesh and blood suffering. so annihilation of one's body is an essential step to achieve enlightenment. usually, this theory centers natural death and decay. you accept that you are always aging, your senses will lose their edge, your body is always subject to illness, injury and other failings. let the body waste away, it will do so regardless.
hence, the human body is set on a course of gradual deterioration. this suffering is processed through our 5 senses and is defined by them. in the face of this, the lotus sutra is the only notable buddhist text that looks kindly upon "voluntary death" to transcend it.
similarly, llh accepts the effects of bicha on his body. it mimics the natural decline of the human body, accelerating the degradation of his senses, his immune system, and his physical capabilities in general. his experience of this form of suffering is also emphasized through a period losing his sense of sight. it is a very buddhist torment. but at the end of the day, it is still a man-made, unnatural cause generating this effect. accepting this is not the same as accepting 生老病死 death via age, sickness and other natural processes.
llh embodies the sentiments and themes in the lotus sutra when he consciously chooses to let bicha run its course. he chooses to die, it is a "voluntary death". let this destroy his body. let this suicidal choice (though its more nuanced than simply suicide imo) free him from buddhist physical suffering. thus bringing him closer to peace, a version of himself that will be happier.
finally, enlightenment is about ambiguity.
凡人 the common people are incapable of comprehending enlightenment. it is understood that the human senses and the human mind is too inept and unrefined, too clouded by illusions, to grasp it. there are a million ways to express it, depict it, and name it. but there is a consensus across buddhism that these are simply aids for the common student of buddhism, and they are not accurate to the truth. at the core of enlightenment is an abstraction, an inherent unknowing.
it is, by definition, a departure and a continuation. it is a removal from this world and a transition into another place, another realm. all at once, the phenomenon straddles a greyness between an ending and a beginning. it is unclear whether the enlightened has left, or is it the common man who is so lacking he cannot recognize or even perceive the enlightened? in the theory of enlightenment, buddhism accounts for both factors. but we will never know for sure.
where do the enlightened go? where are they, where have they gone? these are questions buddhists often ask and explore, and it is also the question that the remaining cast engages with. what is enlightenment, exactly? there is a suspicion, some notion of what must have happened. it might be death, it might not be. only the enlightened can answer this, everyone else is left without clarity.
in the end, the seekers get close to the answer but there is no real fruition. and so the search lasts indefinitely.
that, too, is part and parcel to enlightenment.
as for how enlightenment narratives function, i leave you with this.
"Nirvana provides the full stop (period) in the religious story; it gives what one might call, to use Frank Kermode's well-known phrase, "the sense of an ending" - that is, a real ending and not a mere breaking off. Such an ending is only possible within a narrative.
[...]
Nirvana, I want to suggest, is a moment within a discursive or practical dynamic, a formal element of closure in structure of Buddhist imagination, texts, and rituals. One might say that nirvana has primarily a syntactic rather than semantic value: it is the moment of ending which gives structure to the whole. The fact of narrative structure and closure provides a meaningful and satisfying resolution, although in itself nirvana has merely the formal value of a closure marker.
[...]
Earlier I called nirvana the full stop (period) in the Buddhist religious story; now I can add that it is a full stop in an eternal story, a full stop which brings closure to individual lives in a master text which itself can have no final ending." [2]
Sources:
Tragedy and Salvation in the Floating World: Chikamatsu's Double Suicide Drama as Millenarian Discourse by Steven Heine ↩︎
Nirvāna, Time, and Narrative by Steven Collins ↩︎
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dualdeixis · 2 years
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[Image description: A digital drawing of 2B, 9S, and A2. 2B has a pained expression and a shadow over half her face as she stabs 9S with Virtuous Treaty. 9S has his mouth wide open in a snarl as he plunges Cruel Oath into A2. A2 faces away from the viewer as she stabs 2B with the Type-4O Sword. Their combined silhouettes vaguely resemble a circle, while a warning symbol is drawn in the space between the three of them. Around them is written “WE’LL ALL DIE TOGETHER AND.” End image description.]
This world is full of curses. And we are all links in a chain of killing one another.
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deathdesu · 7 months
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kizubb for the bestie's bday
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we all know what an oneesama is
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fairydares · 3 months
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never forget
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nagirambles · 2 years
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Rambling about Fairies - Manga Chapter 165
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So it’s something that’s bothered me a bit-- Aries has a belt and pouch in the manga, and it makes her look a little more resourceful and workman-like than her anime counterpart. I like the contrast between it and her simple white fluffy dress, because it gives her a good design balance. 
(She has it in the Angel fight and in her Edolas appearance in the anime, but I don’t believe she has it anytime else including all future appearances and the Karen flashback. She always has it in the manga.) 
It makes her look a little younger and cuter, I think? 
As it is in the anime, her scenes are always more emphasized on her offshoulder top and curves which annoys me because, she’s so cute and sexy already, you don’t need to emphasize her boobs and hips, geez. It’s like “wooly cute wooly cute” was the only thing they wanted to tell the audience about her, not the literal work pouch she has to express her sincerely hardworking side. 
It’s a different appeal, you know? The cute thing about her is how meek and shy she acts, so she doesn’t need three times of badoonkazoonkas. Her first appearance in the anime looks kind of wonky because her boobs were bigger than her face, and she had a One Piece reminiscent pencil waist. That is not a good thing. 
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Her later appearances are fine, they fixed the proportions to look more reasonable and petite, but first impressions matter, you know? 
Anyway, with the belt in the manga, it’s almost like she’s actually here to work, and I like that. She emphasizes firsthand, in both of her appearances thus far, that she takes her job seriously despite the odds (against Leo) and she is not here to do things outside her job description like service men (against Karen). 
I wish that this part of her personality, which shows she’s not just a damsel in distress but also a genuinely earnest worker, was developed further. But alas. 
Anyways, I went off topic. I wanted to talk about everyone. 
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Can we talk about the fact that Scorpio’s tail is clearly a fucking machinegun???
I think he uses it to shoot sand, but, literal ability-type magic looks like that. He could have been shooting it out of his tail and we’d believe it because we’ve seen hands and vases shoot out similar vortexes of elements, so why does it look like a machinegun? Heck, Lucy can do all this with just her hands in her star dress, too! 
I want to see him prepping and charging up a energy laser blaster of sand, at least.
I understand now why the Scorpio-Aquarius dress went in the mecha direction, but in the exact same way, Like, you can make it look like a gun or a mech all you want, it doesn’t feel like it works like one, you know?? Scorpio has a gun that doesn’t need to be a gun. SxA has huge machine limbs, but Lucy can’t even heavylift or efficiently tread terrains in it, so what’s the point? A cool design is pointless if it's clearly just a whimsical decoration! 
I kinda want Lucy to have sci-fi laser guns in her star dress, if only just to shoot sand blasts with. Honestly that would have been better than the weird clunky metal parts. And it would feel like Rebecca, with twin guns, so it's in Mashima's nature to do as a reference for readers of both.  
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spark-keys · 2 years
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the sejima family is perfectly normal (heavy aitsf and aini spoilers under cut/in tags)
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just-someone-online · 17 days
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Okay, so I had this idea for an AU where Coco ends up in Earthland, because I like her vibes and I wanna put her in situations.
Basically, the day Wendy finds Carla's egg (Which I'm gonna say is a couple days after it and the other Exceed eggs were sent to Earthland), Roubaul takes her back where she found it to make sure it didn't fall out of a nest or something. Of course, they don't find anything, but on the way back to the guild, they hear someone crying and find Coco hanging from a tree branch.
I'm not completely sure how she ends up there? She doesn't have any magic for Anima to mess with and I don't think we ever find out just how Porlyusica winds up on Earthland. Either way, once she calms down and tells them what happens, Roubaul regretfully tells her that he doesn't know how to send her back or if it's even possible, but she's welcome to stay with them in the mean time.
And just like that, Cait Shelter has another living member.
At some point, I could see Roubaul setting her up with a similar kind of Athletic Magic to her Earthland counterpart's, probably with the caveat that she can't use it without supervision until she gets the hang of it. Similarly to how I imagine Mystogan's staves working, the lacrima in Coco's shoes draw and storing magic from the air around her instead of her body. Of course, even with supervision, she'd still get into scrapes. But hey! At least Wendy gets more chances to practice her healing magic.
I'm trying to figure out how to describe her dynamic with Wendy and Carla in detail, but it's not coming out the way I want it to, so I might go in depth in a different post. But off the top of my head, Coco and Wendy are thick as thieves, but Carla kept Coco at arms length for a while after she first hatched, especially when Edolas is mentioned.
Anyways, Wendy and everybody else are a little more informed going into Edolas. Unfortunately, their info came from someone who hasn't been there since she was five, so it isn't completely accurate. I imagine Coco wouldn't know exactly how Anima worked when she was little, so seeing Magnolia get sucked up would be just as much a surprise for her as it is for everybody else. And throughout the arc, she has to deal with he fact that Edolas is a lot more different than she remembers.
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sassquire · 1 year
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the dumb (but admittedly very ebic) super mario 64 covers of famous rock albums finally got me checking out nirvana for the first time ever
to the surprise of nobody, it fucks hard
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mysteriousxace · 5 months
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:3 idk
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