#mid January

[beautyqueenproblems]

It was nice enough to hang outside in warm weather IN JANUARY. A rare gift.

[theboxblonde]

So must this be true.

Death took your hand and led you to eternal solitude.

My heart fell weeping,

cold as the stone that crowns you.

I haven’t seen the blue sky since you left.

I miss your voice, listening to you was like listening to a million symphonies echoing to the stars.

I love you,

Don’t you forgo that.

-Echo-

- j.p. smith

[heynhay]

every girl must redraw her first klance art at some point

[willowcrowned]

if we want the rewards of posting our fic we must submit to the mortifying ordeal of editing the damn thing

[asukachii]

"I have no idea what's going on... but the plant has completely stopped moving, and it looks like his breathing came to a standstill at the same time".

(I don’t like putting watermarks so, PLEASE, if you want to post these gifs somewhere GIVE CREDITS! Also, don’t use them in edits/videos. Thanks~)

[bioluminesced]

the cat’s cradle

[l3irdl3rain]

he spent weeks enviously watching Kenny play this game in preparation for this moment

[staticevent]

black olives

[fantasykiri5]

Sorry but I’m just not going to pay attention to some of the bad kids’ canon heights. Some of them are listed as too damn tall (and Gorgug has 100 percent grown since freshman year) so have 80 million headcanons

Like you’re telling me Riz is supposed to be 4’4”?? That’s a tall ass goblin! That’s too big to be reasonably carted around on the others’ shoulders, no no, I’m making the executive decision to draw him as 3’9” - 3’11” from now on and you can’t stop me. I’d give him another inch or two by college and that’s it.

Kristen being 5’11”? NAH She’s 5’6”. BIG 5’6” energy right there.

Adaine and Fig didn’t have their heights listed on the wiki but I’m thinking Adaine is 5’10” and Fig is 5’4”. Or Fig is also 5’10” ish and takes after Gorthalax idk but I’m leaning towards short Fig.

Fabian can actually stay same as canon at 6’1”. Maybe grow an inch or two since freshman year but honestly his still works. He’s a year older than the others, prolly grew a little earlier and plateaued early-mid sophomore year, half-elf youth look and all that. I think he lied in introductions freshman year and was about 5’11” - 6’0” and grew over the year before the others could notice the discrepancy.

And Gorgug. Gorgug. You’re telling me he reached 6’4” in freshman year and didn’t keep growing?? Mother fucker he has to have hit at LEAST one growth spurt since, puberty does not hit that early in boys that he was done growing at 14/15. I’m thinking 6’8” or so by Junior Year so far, maybe another couple inches before graduating, maybe not.

[werewolf-artfriend]

hog moment

[doodlingwren]

❄️☃️

[human-wof-designs]

i really liked reading her perspective - she ended up turning into another favorite for me. still not sure what i think of the actual plot, but the characters were nice

[entomolog-t]

Aedes is my favorite liddol guy :)

Thank you Anon, enjoy a sneak peak of something I'm working on

I love his smug lil face

[vashtijoy]

"in a relationship": akechi's mother and shido

So the phrase Akechi uses to describe his mother's relationship with Shido, 愛人関係 aijin kankei, has been localised as "in a relationship", which makes me want to spit tacks.

What is an aijin?

Jisho tells us it means "lover; mistress", and that aijin kankei means "being lovers". However, Weblio tells us it is "mainly used to mean someone in a sexual relationship, especially an adulterous one with a member of the opposite sex."

Wikipedia tells us:

It was after the war that the meaning of "[aijin]" changed to "adultery partner". [aijin] in Modern Japanese: There is no formal marital relationship;... In some cases, the asymmetry of the relationship is implied, such as exerting some control over the other party or providing a large amount of financial assistance;... From the perspective of a third party, it may have a derogatory connotation.

So aijin used to mean lover, but these days it means something very much more like a mistress. The next line, which has not Google translated well, says: for example, a male student introducing his girlfriend to his parents will say "we are koibito (going out)", but not "we are aijin".

Several articles describe exactly what an aijin is. This one describes it at length. An aijin is not a partner. An aijin is financially compensated. An aijin relationship is not about the other person; it's transactional. An aijin relationship differs from ordinary sex work in that it's a medium- to long-term relationship—but the financial element is the same. Being an aijin is "a socially unacceptable existence".

Now, we could validly get into the politics of sex work here, and the stigma aimed at sex workers, but when it comes to what Akechi is saying about his mother's relationship with Shido? "in a relationship" is a misleading translation.

BTW, the last warning that article gives is that "an [aijin kankei] has the potential to destroy one's life." And, well.

how does p5 otherwise use aijin?

Some students talk about how Shiho will be Kamoshida's next aijin after Ann;

Shadow Okumura tells Cognitive Sugimura that he can take Haru as his aijin "or whatever you like", rather than marry her—to Haru's incredulity;

The trial Sae prosecutes in November is about a politician who "took his aijin to some fancy hot springs";

Some women on Harmony Alley laugh about becoming the aijin of politicians so they can live the high life;

In Akechi's deleted Mementos mission, Morozumi's mistress who commits suicide is his aijin. This is translated as "mistress";

The lawyers in Shinjuku have an exposition sequence here, explaining that the former prime minister's daughter was also Morozumi's aijin—and also committed suicide;

A couple of the Persona descriptions use aijin, sometimes translating it as "mistress", and sometimes as "lover"—but aijin did mean something like "lover" in the past, so that tracks.

So this gives us a pretty clear picture. An aijin is looked down on. They get spoiled, but also tend to come to bad ends. Aijin are disposable.

conclusion??

There's room for speculation here, but it seems pretty clear to me that Akechi's mother is not "in a relationship" with Shido—or at least, not as we'd recognise it. They have a transactional relationship, which resembles sex work more than a love affair before Akechi's even born.

This is very much more in theme, IMO, with the picture we get of how Shido treats women than the idea that they had some kind of dating relationship which only broke down when she got pregnant. aijin relationships will differ based on the people involved, but it seems like there will always be a power asymmetry—and we know Shido.

[solarpunkani]

Sometimes gardening is fun stuff like watching seedlings grow and digging in the dirt and sharing harvests with neighbors and seeing butterflies and bees go crazy over your flowers

Sometimes gardening is stuff you don't like, like weeding and dealing with pest bugs or plant diseases or watering just to have it rain 3 hours later or dealing with unsuccessful plants

Sometimes, gardening is absolutely mind numbing bull shit like making an entire spreadsheet of what seeds you have and from when and when to plant and where to plant and working at it for an hour and barely even making a dent in your seed pile before you even make a DENT because you don't know what info needs to be on the sheet and what info doesn't and it keeps getting bigger and you HATE IT

Take a guess where I'm at right now

[bewareofthenewphannie]

So tumblr posted this on twitter on Dec 31st...

and look who's there or more importantly, look what they said...

SO IN CONCLUSION I FULLY BLAME TUMBLR FOR THIS

or as dan would put it:

(warning for loud dan sounds)