I Think One Of The Best Things About Starting A New Series Is When You Had It On Your List For So Long

Lots of thoughts recently. Everything feels plastic.

I could go on and on about why all that AI "art" is bad. I could mention theft, lack of creativity, it's impact on the work field and environment, but countless people have already said all that. I wanted to touch on something that to me is the most utterly wrong about all of it.

Art is more than just something pretty to look at or listen to. It's therapeutic. It's a form of communication. A tool for human connection. It's a pure, human need.

Support real artists ☀️

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 

If you can’t think of anything to say about a fic, writers also like to know:

- what time it is

- how long you’ve been reading

- how many chapters you’ve covered in the last 24 hours

- what you were late for because you were reading

- the woeful few hours you have left to sleep

- the emotional outbreaks you’re experiencing

- the inappropriate place you’re having said outbreak

- the general public’s reaction to your outbreak

- how much phone battery you have left

who are you now

Save My Brother Samer’s Life 🚨

If you scroll past this, you are ignoring a life that can be saved.

I’m writing as a brother watching Samer struggle for survival. His health has deteriorated to the point of falling into a coma, and we are unable to provide him with the necessary treatment. 💔

Samer suffers from bipolar disorder, and his stability relied on daily medications including LeponeX (Clozapine), Depalept Chrono (Sodium Valproate), and Lithium CO3 (Lithium Carbonate). These medications helped stabilize him, but without them, his health has worsened significantly. Every moment is crucial, and the pain and worry are relentless. 😞

There is no place for my brother in the hospital, and we cannot secure the treatment he needs. Imagine being unable to help your own brother as he struggles, without a way to provide the medicine he needs to recover.

Your donation could be the only hope to bring Samer back to life, giving him a chance to heal and come back to us. 🙏

Every contribution, no matter how small, could make a tremendous difference in saving Samer’s life. 💙

gofundme.com

Donate to Help my family survive and start a new life, organized by Hazem friend

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Here's a lil comic strip about how you can protect your art before sharing it to the public!!!

Against AI and against art theft too!

Click on 'read more' to see the extra tip I mentioned at the end!

Geez been working on this since the Meta AI things blew up but I only finished just now!!

Here's the extra tip I mentioned at the end:

you can use http://haveibeentrained.com to search for your images and find out if your work has been used for AI.

In there, you can choose to opt out, but AI companies are not obligated to respect it so it isn't too much of a protection unfortunately 😭

Also be aware that they are associated with AI and they did try to badmouth glaze so artists wouldn't protect themselves; which's very bad for a company that allegedly are on the side of the artists.

Also!!! There's a new type of AI that I was just made aware of last week, Copainter.

It completes unfinished work, which can be used for 'stealing and claiming it theirs', so put a cat picture in the next wips you post as well!

Funny protective measure I know LOLLLL but here's the tests for yall cynical people:

Perhaps I'll complete this comic with this info one day, but just these 10 slides took a looot of work so probably not happening anytime soon 😭

Thank you for reading everything though, I really appreciate it and hope this will help 🫶 be careful out there, privacy issues have been crazy recently!!!

rough wippy of an animatic i want to do with shadow milk cookie! i wanted to make them shapeshift because messing with PV's mind is fun like that

sharing some gofundmes of Palestinians that haven't reached their goals yet

Help Rani Escape Gaza

Help majd's family evacuate from death in Gaza

Help me to evacuate my family from Gaza

Support the Future of AbdalRahman from Gaza

Help Nael to survive and complete his studies.

Help Baraa and her injured family out of Gaza

Help Sana’a and her family evacuate from Gaza

Help Sara get treatment leave Gaza with her family

Reda in Gaza to survive the war

Help me and my brothers flee Gaza

Endo and Takiishi really are kings of miscommunication huh,,.

Despite Endo saying that the only person in Takiishi's world other than Takiishi himself is Umemiya, I don't think that's true. He either is allowed already in, or has the potential to be, and he himself is fucking it up.

Before I attempt to put the mess that they are into words, I want to mention that @finnitesimal's post about Endo & Takiishi wrapping back around to "a fight is a conversation" was something that set a lot of these thoughts into motion!! ( and a lot of this is based on that post as well, aka you should probably look at it first., )

Thanks dude !! You don't know me but you've made me a lot more insane than I already was!!

First thing I want to point out !! When we get Takiishi's POV on how he views other people, he includes both Umemiya and Endo. Endo isn't excluded from it, Takiishi recognizes him as different from the others.

He doesn't directly say he likes or cares for Endo, but still considers Endo different from the others.

I think it's also important how quickly he calls Endo by name after Umemiya tells him the "trick to being with people".

This moment is so important to their relationship. The way Endo says he'll bring Takiishi interesting people, and Takiishi following it up with calling out his name.., it really cements the idea of Endo being allowed in "Takiishi's world" to me.

I also think that one of the main reasons Endo doesn't get recognized and looked at in the way he wishes for, is the fact that he's too focused on pleasing Takiishi, on bringing him anything and everything he wants, going along with his wants and needs, and rarely ever truly going against him.

And when I say he brings Takiishi anything and everything he wants, I mean it, he orchestrated an entire war with all of Furin just to let Takiishi have as much fun as he's ever wanted.

And what Takiishi wants, and truly enjoys, is a fight with someone who won't go down so easily. He says so in his fight with Umemiya.

And even if they're both on a whole other level from the others, I do think that Endo (and Sakura) are following close behind. And I especially believe that Endo could entertain Takiishi, that he could put up a good fight against him.

He's considered a legend for a reason. He won against Tsubaki, Nakamura and Suzuri fairly easily, and we also know that he has never fought Umemiya, so we don't know how close he truly is to catching up with the two. Sakura did beat him in the end, but Sakura is likely going to rise to Umemiya's level eventually, so that doesn't really go against the possibility of him fighting Takiishi and holding his own. Which he absolutely should do. They need to fight.

Crazy as it is to say, beating the fuck out of each other would be really beneficial for their relationship.,

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