#hi kachu

[ranvwoop]

Vwoop, a question. How to get into Pokemon? I watched it on TV as a kid (saturday morning cartoon network I think) but that was like, a while ago and I keep seeing it more lately and I'm curious. Hi.

Good morning Mairen! Warning: I like pokemon.

There are a lot of different ways to get into pokemon to be honest!

For the games, if you enjoy that sort of RPG, any of the games can be picked up without prior knowledge of eachother if you've got the means to play them (the 3DS games are relatively cheap secondhand last I checked, anything before this is NOT and emulation is ur best bet but pokemon is very well preserved so it isn't hard to do :3. if you don't have a console skip step 1 and go straight to emulation They're too expensive to just be pokemon machines). I think that just spending a while with one of the games yourself is the Pokemon Experience (tm) due to the relative endlessness of customizability of teams and such. There are so many special guys in this world. As there's no continuity it doesn't really matter which game you start with, and they're all really beginner friendly. Which one is like... "best" is also incredibly subjective, but Heartgold/Soulsilver was really good. Just saying.

If you aren't really interested in playing yourself, there are a ton of playthroughs on YouTube tho! I don't have any solid recs other than the general vwoop endorsement of RTGame is my favourite YouTuber and he Does have edited down videos And stream vods of some challenge runs of the older games as well as playing the new switch releases for the first time. But there are genuinely so many pokemon youtubers as well as any variety streamer ever has probably played at least one pokemon game, especially with recent releases.

THE ANIME/CARTOON is... a different beast. There are like 25 seasons but it is not required to watch them all to Get Into the pokemon anime. It is also just unfeasible to do this legally, I don't even know if the entirety of the anime is on any streaming service and definitely not the same streaming service. With the power of piracy it could be done. Regardless, it isn't really necessary to, as every run of the anime is pretty self-contained to keep things fresh since they can not expect kids to watch 25 years of backlog. The first series, Indigo League, is still cool though and probably a good place to start :] (and also on netflix.) Each season takes place in a different region and loosely follows the plot of the games set in that region also!

The main anime serious just concluded, also, and there's a whole new series with different characters called Pokemon Horizons! So. That whole ramble is irrelevant if you wanted to watch that one instead it just started and has no continuity to the last 26 years.

TLDR: Honestly you can start wherever you find in your heart. If watching the anime, probably Indigo League but you also don't have to do that. If playing the games, all of the DS era is solid and you should always pirate Nintendo games, but there are also sooo many people who have played the games so you don't have to if you wanted to take that route instead. :3!

(If you do wanna emulate things I also wouldn't mind helping you set that up, I've done it a fair bit :D)

[choicesmc]

Let This Be My Punishment

MC: Fiona Lightwood Book: Laws of Attraction Word Count: 730 Summary: Fiona is forever haunted by what he is and cannot be. Banner: The Dying Swan by Tretchikoff Vladimir Prompt: Deity Inspiration List - [Erinyes] Taglist: @choicesmaychallenge24

trigger warnings: queerphobia and homophobia nothing is explicit but as the center of the fic, i wanna cover my bases.

Fiona knew how to ignore ghosts. He knew how to ignore the whispers of rebuke that gripped him as he patted down his skirt. He knew to move past the occasional queasiness when pressed chaste kisses against Gabe’s soft skin. He knew to stifle the nightmares that wrestled him awake in the middle of the night. 

Or, at least, he’d thought he’d known. 

He thought he was past the nightmare stage. It’d been so long since he startled himself awake, replaying that damned day over and over in his mind.

 He never made the same choices. Sometimes he kept his head down, eyes trained on the burning hands of his fiancee on his thigh. Sometimes, he played it off as a joke, becoming ever so slightly hysterical when no one –not his fiance, not his father, and especially not his mother– believed him. 

Sometimes, he left the table yelling and cursing the awful, awful truth. At times, he brought his fiance close, turning to his father and lying through gritted smiles that he’d never, not once, had ever even considered the improbable, unacceptable, impossible idea that he might like the feel of silk dress over the finest pants. Or confessed that men, men!, could be so beautiful as to compel Fiona to his knees in desperate worship. No. He’d bite his tongue like a coward than spit out disgrace. 

Not that the outcome ever really changed. 

This time, he’d gently taken his mother’s hands and placed them around his neck. 

It wasn’t hard. Fiona had always known the virtues of suffering. Always known that the life he now lived required his eternal repentance. It was the only option he’d be given. It was the life he chose. And Fiona was old enough to suffer its consequences.

Uwakwe sat at the table. The first seat to the left of his father. His bride-to-be, his fiancée, Chiamaka sat beside him. Her hand lingered on his thigh, sly and coy, burning against his every instinct. 

His mother, Kachu, pressed against Fiona’s pulse. It throbbed under her touch, vein hammering away with each lingering moment. It begged for her forgiveness. Begged to accept everything he was, even if only through his death. 

“Uwakwe,” his mother spat, placing her son as yet another obstacle to overcome, “This is not enough.”

No, Fiona prayed, It is not. 

 “Uwakwe,” his mother spoke. Her hand gave his pulse another squeeze. It was almost taunting. “This is a dream.” 

It is real, Fiona whispered, Had I given you my neck, you would have squeezed. Had I said nothing you would have done something. This is as real as it is a dream.

Her hands grew cold on his neck. When she spoke again, her voice warbled, swirling with the voice of his father, mingling with Chiamaka’s. She didn’t speak things Fiona knew to understand. 

There was a time I did understand, Fiona wondered, there had been a time when I knew those sounds better than anyone else, hadn’t there?

Instead, he kept perfectly still, allowing his mother to abuse him. Relishing the familiar way she cut at him, the crash of phonemes against his ear, grating and mocking him with each roll of their tongues. 

Fiona let that haunting lullaby move him from his bed. He pushed it behind his brain as he picked up his phone, eyes softly closing at the sound of Gabe’s instructing voice to leave a message at the tone. 

Fiona left a sweet message. A simple ‘Good morning, darling.’, the type that whispered honey and kisses and soft sheets and lingering mornings. The type that hid worried curses and silent tears. The type that Gabe, somehow, always heard anyway. 

Donning his most risqué shirt he could probably get away with, Fiona pretended not to notice as the fabric prickled his fingers, drawing his disgrace to light. Squirming into a tight, bedazzled pencil skirt, he let the criticisms stain him –even pausing to admire his open disobedience in the glimmer of eyeshadow and the gloss of his painted lips. 

Fiona didn’t know to ignore ghosts. He knew how to live with them. He knew how to integrate them so deeply into everything he was that to separate him from his ghosts was to give him a purity he didn’t deserve. Fiona would never be pure. 

The closest he’d ever get to purity was this endless suffering.

Author's Note: for a little more context you might wanna read [this] post. I associate a lot of Christian imagery with Fiona cuz it's how he was raised so, idk, I foolishly thought it would be kinda easy to find something analogous in greek mythos but, spoiler, it was not.

but the erinyes jumped at me because yeah! that's how fiona lives his life! Hoping y'all had fun/enjoyed reading my suffering (<- loving and affectionate) ♥

[shinsengumi-archives]

Anecdotes about Hijikata Toshizo

When he was a child, he used to practice sumo wrestling naked on a pillar in his house after getting out of the bath. The pillar still remains today.

When his nephew (Tamekichi, Sato Hikogoro's third son) fell down in the garden and cut his forehead, he immediately rushed to the scene. He laughed and said, "The boy has a wound on his face now. Congratulations! Congratulations!"

The only extant record of Toshizo in the Tennen Rishinryu dojo is the Chugokui Mokuroku. It seems that he was unable to let go of the habits of the various styles he had learned while peddling. However, it’s said that he was very strong in actual combat. (During a swordfight, he would hit his opponent with the sand under his feet and cut him down while he flinched, or strangle him by throwing his haori at him.)

He is said to have devised strict rules, such as "jinchu-hojo" and "kachu-hojo," and to have showered his merciless blade on traitors and outcasts, earning him the nickname "Demon Vice-Commander", and is usually described as a ruthless man. However, according to Nakajima Noboru, a Shinsengumi member who even followed him to Hakodate, at the time of the Hakodate War, he was "mild-mannered and adored like a mother. It is said that he often took young soldiers out to eat and drink and gave them advice.

He was a kimono maker, so he was better than most women at cutting fabric with scissors.

He loved takuan (pickled turnips), and once received a whole barrel of it as a souvenir from a relative's house.

He had a face that was popular among women. The sister of a Byakkotai member wrote in her diary of the day she accompanied her brother to see Toshizo, "He was a nice, fair-skinned man."

He was also described by men of the same sex as a handsome man.

And a little more about the secret story of the formation of the Shinsengumi...

The man behind the formation of the Shinsengumi was Hijikata Toshizo's brother-in-law, Sato Hikogoro (husband of his sister Nobu).

He was under the direct control of Egawa Eiryu (江川英龍), a shogunate vassal, and it seems that Egawa approached him with the idea of a farmer's army, which he passed on to Toshizo.

The Shinsengumi, a meritocratic organization controlled by Toshizo that did not depend on status, seems to have been an implementation of Eiryu's modern concept of a farmer's army.

Interestingly, Eiryu was also the teacher of Sakuma Shozan, and through Shozan, his student Yoshida Shoin may have drafted the original idea of the grassroots soldiers, "Kiheitai".

The Shinsengumi and the Kiheitai may have shared the same roots 😲

Kondo Isami and Hijikata Toshizo met through the dojo that Hikogoro built in his house. He was also a financial supporter of the Shinsengumi.

Without Sato Hikogoro, the Shinsengumi might not have existed.

References

歴史群像シリーズ 土方歳三

新 歴史群像シリーズ 土方歳三

聞き書き新選組, by Sato Satoshi (descendant of Sato Hikogoro), published by Shinmono Oraisha, Inc.

子孫が語る土方歳三, by Hijikata Megumi (descendant of Kiroku, Hijikata Toshizo's elder brother), published by Shinbunjo-Oraisha.

Kondo Isami, Hijikata Toshizo, Sato Hikogoro, Egawa Eiryu in Wikipedia

Other information on fan sites, and many books by 新紀元社 and 新人物往来社.

[ask-the-royal-absol]

🌍 Petunia the Pi(n)kachu :3

Name: Petunia

Species: Pikachu

Kingdom: Mechania

Petunia is certainly a confident one. Her friends all know her as someone who speaks her mind without second thoughts. Mike the electabuzz certainly finds her funny. She loves trying to get her friends out and about, wanting them to relax and enjoy themselves. The night life is something she enjoys and loves seeing if the Storm is out performing. If they are, she'll stop at nothing to get her friends to join her. Not that she particularly enjoys his music but more for the fact that she wants to get her friends to lighten up and enjoy their free time, rather than worrying about work. She had no idea where she got her pink colouring from.

(Not much to say on this one. I'd imagine one of her relatives is a clefairy or clefable which is why her colouring has pink in it.)

[rubykgrant]

Art concept: the 7 AI (maybe 8 if you count Yellow Church AKA Xi) as they would look if they had the same human android body thing that Church and Tex have. I imagine Gamma would look fairly plain except for one silly thing like a twirls mustache or something, Delta would have glasses, Omega would look wild, Theta would have colored hair, Sigma might be bald or at least have his hair shaven, and the twins are twins (what a crazy thought)

I've had some human-designs in mind for the Fragments in my head (usually in a "slightly "normal" world scenario; Church is still a system, with his own fragments that have their Greek Letter names, but he also happens to have some actual COUSINS who perhaps have a few things in common... thanks to memory-loss issues, Church forgets who most of his family even is, but they eventually reunite. in this scenario, he's the younger brother of Leonard L Church, named after the same great-grandfather but with a different middle name, so he's Leonard A Church haha)

I played around with a picrew for the basic ideas of their faces-

(Church is just Church, Theta is the most adorable and I imagine as having dark skin/vitiligo/hair dyed with some pink colors, Delta also has darker skin with his hair done in cornrows and I imagine him being chubby, Omega is one of those guys who never totally grew out of his bad-attitude as a teenager, Eta and Iota are both blonde twins- who are different kinds of "fantasy nerds" with online/tabletop gaming, Sigma at first glance might almost get confused as a Simmons-bro but he actually resembles Carolina, and last but not least is Gamma who also has freckles... and I kinda imagine him as human having speech difficulties, so he uses sign/digital-audio assistance most of the time. Not pictured is Yellow Church, yet another cousin who resembles him the most, except he has frosted tips in his hair. when I think of him, he's @sharkface-daydreams ' boy, Leland, AKA Yurch, AKA the AI designated PI. because he's yellow, like PI-kachu!)

Some other awesome "human" versions of Church and the Fragments I've seen-

("human" meaning they all have face designs instead of little robots/armor)

[pokemon-ash-aus]

Superhero AU: After the first few Team Rocket mottos and having to save the day a couple times, Ash goes "screw it" and decides that if he has to be the hero of the day so often, he might as well dress for it.

He picks out a costume (at first made with mix-and-match stuff he gets from a store, then Delia helps out upon learning what he's up to) and calls himself "Kachu Kid" (similar to his name Ketchum), wears a helmet-like mask that lets his cheek marks show (people think it's themed makeup because he has a Pikachu) and generally shows up in costume whenever there's trouble afoot.

Only Team Rocket and the Pokemons know of his double identity, but no one ever believes the former and the latter will keep it secret (and can't really communicate all that much). After all, who'd think that silly, goofy and "scaredy" (since he runs whenever the action starts) Ash would be so noble as to go and endanger himself as some type of masked vigilante? Completely bogus.

As a result, people also give him more importance on the news and during world-threatening events like in the movies, under the assumption it's because he's a superhero that he gets into so much dangerous stuff (and not due to protagonist syndrome).

Thats so funny to me XD

But also i cant help but think of him in a Falcon Punch Esque outfit XD

[krishnpremika]

Brahm-gyaan ko kachu dino cheeke pe dhar deyo,

Hum gopin sang baithke,

Prem ki shiksha leyo,

Bhale manushya ban jaoge,

Jap-jog gyaan-tap chhod,

Prem ke hi gunn gaaoge,

Nirguna ko bhule,

Humare gunnwale ke hi gunn gaaoge,

Kachu din rahi dekho Braj mein,

Hain prem hi prem ka gandh,

Yaha ki prem bhari raj mein💙

: Uddhav-Gopi Samvad

By Shri Ravindra Jain

[babiejongdae]

11/19/22 - CHEN LAST SCENE VIDEO CALL EVENT (SoundWave)

CHEN: “So that our soondingies will like it, I’ll try to take a selfie with this pose next time~” 

------------------------------------

Op: you said you like cola zero, from which company do you like? 

CHEN: I like both! But usually I drink coca cola when I am eating [something], but pepsi when I just want to drink!

------------------------------------

A video of CHEN singing Traveler at the fansign: https://twitter.com/babiejongdae/status/1593867987790204928?s=20&t=VrL9TipLOgUivY2Kh8-i4w 

------------------------------------

Op: do you perhaps know “Event Horizon” by Younha? 

CHEN: of course I do~ 

Op: can you sing one verse? 

CHEN: I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to memorize the lyrics & melody :( 

Op: then please upload it on chentube next time! 

CHEN: yes thank you~

------------------------------------

Op: If someone tells me to stop liking chen in exchange for 5 billion won, what should I do? 

CHEN: wow, can’t you take 5B right away? Hehe 

Op: kidding~ I can never not like chen~ 

CHEN: it’s just an imagination between us, but if someone says that they’ll give you 50B, get it right away!

------------------------------------

Op: what webtoon do you enjoy reading these days? 

CHEN: I stopped reading them~~ <_> I stopped~~

[WATCH him saying this in the cutest way here: https://twitter.com/babiejongdae/status/1593875516842704899?s=20&t=VrL9TipLOgUivY2Kh8-i4w]

------------------------------------

Op: what is your favorite kimbap? 

CHEN: tuna kimbap! ‘w’

------------------------------------

Op: do you know “life’s four cuts?” (TN: trending 4 photo strip in korea) chen

CHEN: yes I do~ the sticker pictures~

Op: this is your 3rd fansign and you have learned a lot of popular poses, please choose 4 poses for Jongdae’s four cuts! Then I’ll follow you exactly the same!

CHEN: 

------------------------------------

Op: Jongdae you look like pikachu! So let’s do a chen-kachu challenge! 

CHEN: how do I do this? 

Op: just do the same [as the picture]! 

CHEN: 

------------------------------------

Op: you did a lot of radio schedule for this album promotion, are there any more left? 

CHEN: none.. 

Op: you forgot something.. 10ran Night radio.. can you positively think about appearing on it? (TN: 10ran night is a radio show by Jongdae’s  hyungs: 10cm’s Kwon Jungyeol & Soran’s Go Youngbae! Jongdae appeared there before for DMD promotions)

*op forgot Jongdae’s reaction but it was positive!!*

------------------------------------

CHEN said he wants to sing “Best Luck” as the opening song for his solo concert because he wants to start the concert with a bright atmosphere/mood!

------------------------------------

Op: what are your future plans for chentube? 

CHEN: chentube? song covers? for now, honestly, while preparing for the album, there are a few songs in this album that I [already] did, and for future plans, I’m planning to select one song that our soondingies would like, by getting votes, and I have plans to upload it at the end, but I don’t know what will happen <_>

------------------------------------

Before ending the call, Op & CHEN hurriedly played rock scissor paper (the loser will be the winner and will be granted a wish) and op lost the game but won a wish from Jongdae! 

Op: you have to grant my wish!! 

CHEN: what is it?

Op: for your next album bside or for [your] youtube, I wish there was a rock song or a rock ballad song~ 

CHEN: G!! I’d love to (x3) 

Op: please surely grant [my wish]! 

CHEN: [you can] look forward to it! I’m surely promising it!

------------------------------------

CHEN doing the “recreate childhood photos” challenge:

[ranvwoop]

I love Seren actually. Wish i could draw him one day. here he is

[choicesmc]

ah, fiona’s mother: Ginikachukwu (oft. shortened to Kachu in day to day speech), English name: Ginny

the third of five daughters, named after her father’s eldest sister, middling in everything she did. Not the treasured youngest, not the pride of the house (the ada, the first daughter). Named in celebration, Ginikachukwu is ‘What is greater than God?’ + expected to live a devout life, perhaps following in step of her own mother who was a prophetess of some renown or her father whose sermons could stir the dead and inanimate alike.

Kachu, while exceedingly religious, did neither. She yearned for something beyond that. Something that pulled her from the middle and straight to the top. Someone that could ensure she was not the daughter of a pastor nor the child of a seer. No, she married a businessman and moved to the US and had her first (and would be only) child: Uwakwe (‘if only the world would let me’)

Uwa was smart, polite, religious, ambitious. He was miles ahead of his peers. And he was a professor! A professor of physics! Uwakwe set Kachu apart from the rest of her family. He gave her voice, authority, weight, where she had had none. Finally, the world was letting her be more.

Then Onwugbaramuko ('Death robbed me of my pride'), named after her death, was born still. And the world began to take all that was hers away. Uwe was dragged from his faith and now lives a sinful life. It's painful seeing him smile and laugh completely unaware that death haunts his every action. Kachu wants to hold Uwe close, take him away from everything that's hurting him, bring him back into the fold. Make him her source of authority again because Uwakwe is hers and no devil, not death, and certainly no man will tear him away from her.

[elizabethrobertajones]

UPDATE: My brother remembered his name!! Pie-kachu C:

Rate my off-brand Pikachu

circa.... 1999, 2000? My brother won it in a fairground. We tore its tail which was just a cm thick tube about 10cm long with a small black nubbin on the end, and this thing has been dropped from every high place, spent nights in the garden, floated facedown in pools, been doused in Ribena, etc. I rescued it as we aged, washed it up, and now keep it as a watch-pikachu-thing over my room. We used to have a derogatory name for it but I can't even remember what it was, if it used chu or pika as the base, just that we hated it because it Wasn't Pikachu. As an adult I now am actually pretty fond of it for enduring all that with the horrible goofy smile. Good work, nightmare creature. :)

[cle-levanter]

Aww omg that sounds stressful indeed!! A few of my friends handed in their bachelor's thesis this year and they seemed very stressed and busy, I can only imagine a master's thesis costing even more of your energy. So I'm wishing you good luck and much strength for this final phase!!💗 May I ask what you're studying?🥺 And thank you for your kind words!! I'm currently a bit sick but I'll start preparing for exams soon c:

in belgium we don't always have a bachelor's thesis (at least i didn't), it depends if your studies are supposed to be done in 3 or 5 years i think

thank you for your kind words 🥰💛

i'm finishing (soon, fingers crossed ahah) a master in translation (english and chinese) but my master's thesis is basically a translation of a book into french (the book is about greek mythology so nothing to do with english or chinese ahah, i just really like mythology) but it's not just a translation i have other stuffs to write with it (and it's killing me bc my translation has been finished for 3 weeks now) but i should be done before next week, only a couple of days left i can see the finish line it's a great feeling (and stressful ngl)

crossing my fingers for your exams (and your health), i believe in you 🤞🏼💪🏻

[kachulein]

no pls I've made a sketch/lineart (so far) of Joshua with such a pretty accessory/necklace thingy in his face and I haven't really drawn since exam period started and I also haven't drawn Joshua in 4-5 years but for some reason, I'm extremely happy with the drawing so far and I can't wait to finish it up

[dreamyaqua]

I've been doing a lot of shadow work the past few weeks on top of studying for exams. I definitely feel like it's helped me to ascend spiritually...at least a tiny bit? Because this week I had two manifestations come true and one of them, I didn't even consciously manifest. Like wow? Am I getting more powerful?

On Monday afternoon, I manifested a specific text message from a friend using the 17 second method and 2 hours later, she sent me the exact text message I was manifesting. And then a few days ago, my mom was talking about what kind of cake to buy for my birthday and in my head I thought "I'd like some chocolate mousse cake" which is something we've never had before. I didn't say anything to my mom and just assumed she'd buy whatever... and so, they went to get the cake today (bc my birthday is today) and guess what? SHE BROUGHT A CHOCOLATE MOUSSE CAKE. Literally what? how? This is amazing. Alexa please play just like magic by Ariana Grande lmao

[runawaycarouselhorse]

I can understand and respect that! I largely trust him as a writer too, I guess just the little we got made me feel wary because I didn't think of where that concept might end--I do generally prefer Pokemon as being a rare example where the special human and fantasy creature bond isn't restricted to children, it makes growing up seem much less negative. No time lost in the Pokemon world, you can still become a trainer and still go on adventures as an adult.

What you brought up about the Diglett is a very good idea and yes, I wholeheartedly agree about Pokemon not just being animals... so many are of human sentience or even more intelligent than humans (particularly the Legendaries)--too many people nowadays only liken them to animals and it feels so off given how highly intelligent they are in the anime. Man, you have trainers calling them their soul mates, Pokemon that fall in love with humans, the DPPt games originally saying humans and Pokemon used to marry, and people in the fandom reducing them to just animals or even pets. Man...

They can be metaphorically like animals, they're targetted by poachers, they're representative of wild, untouched nature, but they're also sentient and intelligent. Some Pokemon are more animal-like and simple (but still understand human speech, even if they cannot speak it--it's so much more pronounced in Japanese, where you can easily tell which words Pikachu is trying to say because he has his own pronunciations for others' names "pi-pi-pi" for "To-ge-pi," "pi-ka-pi" for "Sa-to-shi," even phrases "piiiikapikaaa" when others say "saaayonaraaa," "pipi-kachu!" for mirroring Satoshi's "getto-daze!", etc.), others are based on fairies and ghosts and youkai, yet others are thousands of years old immortal beings once worshipped as gods by people in the past, etc.

And then people go "oh, it's like a pet!" NO. ;_;

Those people usually also get creeped out by humanoid Pokemon. Hmmm, is it making you consider there is something still lacking in how Pokemon are treated? Is it making you more conscious and aware, when they look this human and you know all of them are intelligent, but this little blue man isn't being treated enough like an equal..? Good!

Yes, I think Shudo could've done great work with that. ;3;

i legit feel like i'm the only person who likes Takeshi Shudo's text writing style. (And thinks he's a good writer.) I've only been able to read pocket monsters the animation, but I vibe with it. If ever possible I'd like to make a blog defending his writing style.

[kachuwritings]

oh hey, look at me, I still exist- 😅