Haha I Love.like.ruminating??

last chance to evacuate

as you may know, israel has begun its ground operation in rafah. they dropped leaflets last night ordering people to evacuate, and bombing in east rafah has already begun.

The border is about to become unreachable.

Rafah is trapped.

We have literal hours until no-one, all the GoFundMe's you've scrolled past, all the people desperately begging on TikTok, will be able to escape.

Give now. Give whatever you can.

I am fundraising for the Odeh family, which is only 3k away from meeting its goal.

you will not get another chance.

GIVE HERE

An in-depth of the Takiishi Chika tattoo

With chapter 152, we have a glimpse into the tattoo on Takiishi and Endo's shoulders.

Let's disect it!

Furanki

Breech-loading swivel gun – or Furanki (仏郎機砲, "Frankish gun") in Japanese (Turnbull, 2006) – was one of the first cannons used in Japan. Coming from the Portuguese, these early European models were either called ishibiya (石火矢) or furankihō (フランキ砲) (Gunsen History, 2019), the latter bears similarity with the gun's Chinese name "Folangji", which comes from the Turkish name "Prangi" or Turkic "Farangi" (Chase, 2003). This explains the "Frank" on the tattoo.

I was trying to see if the wheel in the tattoo has any other meanings, but as far as I know, it is simply the wheel of the cannon. The same structure can be observed from Nii Satoru's drawing of the cannon wheel with 4 main spokes and 4 additional, underlying spokes. (Most wheel symbols in Hinduism or Buddhism are eight-spoked wheels).

The right-most part of the tattoo appears to be the rings and the button at the base of the cannon. It is pretty similar to what we'd see with a top-down view of the plan below.

Note. From Oozutsu cannon Japan 16th century [image] by Unknown author. Wikimedia Commons, 2010. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oozutsu_cannon_Japan_16th_century.jpg 

The wolf

The illustration of the wolf was cleverly combined into the cannon. Its hind legs turned into the cannon base while its fur blended into the fire surrounding the cannon.

Wolves have many symbolic meanings, but here I believe Endo was trying to highlight Takiishi's fierceness. Takiishi is an untamed, lone wolf. He doesn't obey the rules; and Takiishi's world, as per Endo's explanation, has no one other than Takiishi (of course until Umemiya makes an entrance).

Name references between Takiishi Chika and Ishibiya

Japanese Ishibiya (石火矢) hand cannons are also early firearms in Japan and have made an appearance in the movie Princess Mononoke.

If you find Endo's explanation confusing, here's a more visualised version for it.

Takiishi Chika (焚石 矢)

焚 (taki): to burn, or anger. This character is made up of two 木 (trees) and one 火 (fire)

石 (ishi): stone, or rock

矢 (chika): arrow

Ishibiya (石火矢)

石 (ishi): stone, or rock

火 (bi): fire

矢 (ya): arrow, projectile

Kunikuzushi (国崩し)

Occasionally, Furanki guns were also called Kuni-kuzushi by the Ōtomo clan, which means country destroyer (Gunsen History, 2019).

Kunikuzushi (国崩し)

国 (kuni): country, or nation

崩 (kuzu) し(shi): breakdown

References

Chase, K. W. (2003). Firearms : a global history to 1700. Cambridge University Press.

Gunsen History (2019). Taihō (大砲): Japanese Cannons and Artillery. Gunbai: Ancient Japanese Warfare. https://gunbai-militaryhistory.blogspot.com/

Turnbull, S. R. (2006). Samurai : the world of the warrior. Osprey

Unknown Author. (2010). Oozutsu cannon Japan 16th century [image]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oozutsu_cannon_Japan_16th_century.jpg 

More than 200,000 people are trapped in the northern Gaza Strip and are facing a real famine and mass extermination. Also, more than a million and a half people are facing the same famine in the southern Gaza Strip.Speak up for them, your voice can make a difference in this unjust world.

Also save my families within these families

Save my families who are suffering from famine here 👈👈

idia’s simultaneous call-out and self-reflection while also still being directed at rollo hits really hard man 😭

like he's not just talking to rollo, he is also acknowledging his own feelings especially with the whole book 6 debacle

to ME free! is about having to grow up too fast and make decisions too early, it's about wishing the summer and school days could last a little longer, it's about wanting to put your all, your whole self into your dreams and aspirations, to lose yourself in your passions but life and expectations and responsibilities keep pulling you back to reality, it's about being thrown into a capitalistic society and told your hobbies are only worth something if you can monetise them or be the best at them, it's about being told to grow up and move on and be realistic when that's the last thing you want to do, it's about wanting to be young and eternal and splashing in the water with your friends forever, it's about all of that being impossible and yet there is still light at the end of the tunnel, hope is not lost

but it's not really about all that (it is) because it's a sports anime about swimming

hades dump #3

you're not an horrible person you are 15 years old

How many classics do I have to read before I'm allowed to stop? Like I was forced to read the Great Gatsby in school and it was literally the worst book I ever read. If I read two more off the classics list, can I stop and read stuff I actually like again?

I cannot tell if you’re being intentionally dense or if your reading comprehension is so abysmal this post made you believe I was metaphorically holding you at gunpoint and forcing you to read Moby Dick.

It is your right not to like The Great Gatsby, I know I am in a minority of people who did enjoy it. It is your right to decide not to explore the works of older writers like Jane Austin and Mary Shelley and William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde but it does not mean these works are fucking bad and we should stop encouraging people to read them. The concept of classics is a wide swatch of history spanning the entirety of written language, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to contemporary classics like The Great Gatsby. It is so narrow-sighted to condemn them all and a disservice to you. You are well within your rights to remain in your comfort zone and only read a certain genre of contemporary fiction but there is a vast literary world out there waiting for discovery.