#sorry to tag this it’s a whirlwind of thought but I guess since everybody’s finally doing aono essays 🤓

[hak]

I think I’m still stuck on the doors aono kun opens simply because it still is one of a kind in the dimension it explores shoujo-typical tropes and horror in an equally weighted way. I always bring back ghost hunt since I can’t really equate much else to this genre-wise but there’s a bit of the sacrifice of the “young girl lead” driven storyline for something much more inclined to seinen or shounen readers like I feel happened with ghost hunt even if it wasn’t too intentional.. (mai liking kazuya in the anime was such an ordeal for me because the reciprocal emotional exchange is vital imo in what pushes a “shoujo” drama storyline forward, and that wasn’t present much in the way I wanted / aka the ghost stories were cool, the interpersonal relationships even outside romance were bland + if there’s one thing that drives shoujo to me it’s that)

I’m just hung up because not once was yuri’s feelings made to look juvenile or a side plot to the horror at hand but a vehicle to carry the plot. It’s intrinsic to it. I suppose hikaru ga shinda natsu is also something I relate to aono kun a lot though I do think it’s hinging more or less on the horror of the situation bc otherwise even this comparison can differ slightly (ie “this horrible thing has happened TO yoshiki and hikaru” versus “this horrible thing has happened with/within yuri and aono”).

All I’m trying to say at the end of this is that it isn’t necessarily that the blend of these genres come out at different points - not one scene is necessarily “shoujo” or “horror” - but something about being able to go through the journey with them and still FEEL like you’re reading kimi ni todoke or kare kano because of the same familiar reoccurring themes found in these classics in what is essentially just a horror retelling of them… that’s what makes it so so special

[chasingthecosmos]

Call Me But Love

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: T Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler (The Doctor/Clara Oswald, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald) Chapters: 3/40 Read on AO3 here.

“‘Oh, dear. Looks like we might have picked up an extra passenger,’ the Doctor grumbled to himself. His gaze raised to Rose’s once more and she was struck by the sheer intensity of it and the way that he managed to look at once so familiar, and yet so different from what she was used to. ‘Best find something to hold on to,’ he warned her ominously.”

A Season 8 & 9 AU centering around Rose Tyler and her newly-regenerated Doctor as they both struggle to maintain their relationship in the face of some unknown force that seems to be drawing them together. Will they be able to solve the mystery of who is pulling the strings before it’s too late?

This is a direct sequel to “By Any Other Name” and might be a bit confusing if you haven’t read that first. Tags will be updated as I go.

Rose shouted and reached out helplessly over the railing as the Doctor suddenly disappeared from sight and out of her reach, swallowed up by the black water below. "That daft, impossible, stupid ..."

"So, the Doctor's taken up the case," Madame Vastra interrupted, stepping forward and cutting off Rose's angry, biting words. "That means that if we are to see him again, we must do the same."

Unfortunately, "taking up the case" without the help of a time machine meant assimilating into the daily living of a nineteenth-century household and becoming a part of Madame Vastra's extensive estate. Taking the slow path was something that Rose hadn't had to do ever since she had returned to this universe, and without the Doctor's presence by her side or in her head to accompany her through the experience, she found herself chafing against the confines of a normal human life.

She wondered idly - not for the first time - what it must be like for companions like Jenny, Vastra, and Strax who had to live and carry on with the day-to-day tasks outside of the TARDIS, experiencing the Doctor in their lives like a whirlwind that would blow through and then disappear just as quickly as it came. Their excitement at having something new to investigate made Rose wonder if ti was ever possible to lead a truly normal life after one met and traveled with the Doctor.

However, all thoughts of "normal" were quickly abandoned as Rose uncovered the strange newspaper advert that drew her towards a small Italian restaurant right in the heart of London. It seemed that the Doctor really had gotten his mind back after all, and he was determined to be just as cagey and elusive as ever.

Rose couldn't deny that she was also warily suspicious of the fact that no matter how hard she searched her telepathic bond, she couldn't seem to breach the mental barriers that the Doctor had created against her. Why was he bothering to call for a meeting like this, when he could just as easily have asked her out to lunch without the need for words or games?

The whole situation was suspect, and Rose found herself eyeing the establishment critically as she waited for the Doctor to show up and explain himself. He was nearby, she was certain of that - but with the way that he was purposefully keeping her out of his thoughts, it was impossible for her to tell where he was or what he was planning.

He ended up appearing just as quickly and mysteriously as he had disappeared, and Rose suppressed her gasp of surprise by curling up her nose at him in annoyed disapproval as she met his hard, intense gaze and took in his haggard appearance.

"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked in confusion as she glared across the table at him.

"Well, the smell, for starters," Rose replied coolly, "but really, there's a list. Would you like to hear them all?"

"No, I really wouldn't ..." he grumbled, crossing his arms petulantly across his chest and projecting his own glare out at the restaurant around them.

"Doctor, where have you been?" Rose demanded earnestly. "And what are you wearing?"

"Just, er, you know ..." he muttered awkwardly, refusing to meet her gaze, "been wandering around a bit. Met a very nice tramp, who gave me his coat."

"Oh, he just gave you his coat, did he?" Rose asked, narrowing her gaze on him suspiciously.

The Doctor's eyes darted up to meet hers and then quickly trailed away again with a look of chastisement. "Er, no ..." he admitted sheepishly. "I paid him."

"But you don't have any money," Rose reminded him pointedly.

"I ... had a watch."

Rose's eyes widened in surprise as she suddenly glanced down at the Doctor's bare left wrist and realized that he had given away the familiar gold watch that he had always worn in his previous incarnation. The fact that he had so thoughtlessly thrown it away hurt her more than she thought it would - it felt as though he were somehow betraying her memory of the man who she had loved and lost not so very long ago. When she blinked hard and looked up at him again, she saw that he was watching her with a new, complicated expression on his features.

"You swapped your favorite watch for that coat, that's maybe not a good deal," she finally muttered quietly, for once glad that the Doctor had shielded his thoughts away form her so that he wouldn't be able to pick up on her bitter anger.

"Are you cross with me?" he asked blatantly anyway as he continued to watch her, his head tilting slightly to the side as though that would help him to better puzzle out her current mood.

"I am not cross," Rose snapped irritably. "But if I was cross, it would be all your fault, and ... yes, I am cross."

"I guessed that," the Doctor reminded her with a proud, pointed look. Rose rolled her eyes at him and sighed in frustration, prompting him to continue, "And if I hadn't changed my face, would you be cross?"

"I would be cross if I wasn't cross!" Rose snapped in irritation, meeting his eyes and glaring up into his dark, searching expression.

"Why?" the Doctor demanded defensively.

"Why?" Rose repeated loudly. "Doctor, you just ... disappeared into the night - no message, no goodbye, not even a small kiss on the cheek, and then you just ... shut yourself off so that I couldn't find you. Do you understand how worried I've been? How worried we've all been? Why would you do something like that?"

"Why were you worried?" he asked, his brow furrowing in indignant confusion as he continued to stare at her from across the table. "Did you really think I wouldn't be able to handle myself? It's nineteenth-century England out there, not the height of the London Blitz!"

Rose narrowed her eyes on him with a dangerous look as he casually attempted to steer the conversation towards her own past mistakes so that he could conveniently avoid their current predicament.

"Well, running off with a newly regenerated body while people are spontaneously combusting sounds a little bit worse than hanging from a barrage balloon to me," she hissed in retaliation.

"You were wearing a Union Jack t-shirt!" the Doctor protested loudly.

"You don't even know who you are right now!" Rose reminded him just as loudly. "What if something had happened to you? What if you'd gotten lost? What if ...?" The horrible, terrifying possibilities were simply endless, and Rose's words trailed off into silence as she furrowed her brow at the table between them and tried not to let her fears run away with her.

Suddenly, she felt a small shift in the back of her thoughts, almost like a resigned sigh as the Doctor slowly lowered his mental shields just far enough to convey a sense of regretful remorse directly into her mind. I'm sorry, he whispered, not meeting her eye as he offered her a quick, apologetic mental embrace before immediately shutting himself off from her once more.

Rose felt her own mind chase after his presence on instinct, desperate to feel their connection once more and silently willing him to open up to her. "Just tell me one thing, Doctor," she murmured quietly as she lowered her gaze to her hands and silently schooled her expression into a blank, emotionless mask, "if you've been out all night on the town making friends with tramps, then when did you have time to do this?" She reached forward and held up the newspaper that she had brought with her, displaying for him the advert that called for the "Impossible Girl".

"Do what?" the Doctor asked, taking the newspaper from her hands and scowling down at it. "You placed the ad in the newspaper, I saw it and figured out your little riddle, and then I came here to meet you, just like you wanted. There were better ways you could have done that, by the way," he added, rolling his eyes in a way that instantly had Rose feeling irritated again. "Really, Clara, I thought we were past all of these silly games ..."

The fake name bit at her in a way that it hadn't done in a long time, and Rose felt her jaw tighten in frustration as she glared at him. "I didn't place the ad," she insisted stubbornly, "you placed the ad."

"No, I didn't," the Doctor replied with a suspicious look.

"Yes - you placed the ad, I figured it out. 'Impossible Girl', see?" Rose declared, ripping the newspaper from his hands and shoving it back into his face a bit more roughly than was strictly necessary.

"No, look," the Doctor sighed wearily, "that's a message from the Impossible Girl>'

"No, it's for the ..."

Their eyes suddenly met in matching expressions of horror as realization seemed to dawn on them at the exact same moment. "Oh ..." the Doctor breathed in understanding.

"Oh," Rose agreed quietly.

"Well, if neither of us placed that ad, then that means that this is a trap," the Doctor stated definitively.

Rose gasped in surprise and pain as he suddenly reached forward and plucked a single, long brown curl from off of the side of her head. "Ow!" she hissed, glaring at him as he held up the strand of hair and then let it fall uselessly to the ground.

"There is something extremely wrong with everybody else in this room," the Doctor muttered distractedly as he began to eye the rest of the crowded restaurant around them.

"Basically, don't you always think that?" Rose replied sarcastically as she leaned closer and crossed her arms against the table in a direct, challenging sort of way.

To her surprise, the Doctor didn't pull away as she was expecting him to, but actually leaned in closer as he whispered to her out of the side of his mouth. "Look at them," he murmured conspiratorially, but when Rose moved to do just that, he leaned in even closer as though to block her gaze with his own head. "No!" he hissed under his breath. "Not like that! Look without looking."

Rose flashed him a distinctly unamused scowl as she leaned forward on her crossed arms once more, her head bent very close to the Doctor as she tilted her gaze out towards the surrounding crowd. She held her breath as she realized that while she was scanning the area, the Doctor seemed to be staring very intently at her lips, his brow furrowed in an expression that she couldn't seem to decipher as his own hesitant breath ghosted over the skin of her face.

"They look fine to me, they're just eating," Rose whispered, suddenly finding it difficult to turn back and meet his gaze once again.

The Doctor's blue eyes flicked up to hers as he raised those menacing brows at her in a pointed expression and replied, "Are they?"

He was right, of course - no one else in the surrounding restaurant was eating. They were just lifting glasses and utensils to their mouths in timed, robotic intervals as they stared blankly at nothing. None of them were talking, either, and the Doctor soon pointed out one more important detail - they weren't even breathing.

"What do we do?" Rose whispered nervously as she busily fidgeted with her menu in an attempt to appear normal.

"Well ... you don't want to eat, do you?" the Doctor asked, awkwardly eyeing her fidgeting hands.

"Oh, you always were a cheap date ..." she hissed under her breath in reply, her irritated tone doing nothing to conceal the slight, upward turn of her lips as she continued to stare down hard at the menu before her.

"What are you talking about? I've taken you on loads of expensive dates!" the Doctor insisted petulantly. "Or does all of the majesty of time and space not count?"

"Tell you what," Rose replied as she warily cast her gaze around the still, silent room once more, "let's just say you owe me one and leave it at that. For now, how about we find somewhere else to eat?"

"Good idea," he agreed readily. However, the second that they stood up from their seats, the entire rest of the restaurant stood up as well, and every step that they attempted to take towards the door was matched by the odd, robotic people taking a step closer to them in return.

The Doctor and Rose returned to their seats in silent defeat, but they didn't have to wait long before they were suddenly being catapulted down into the depths of the restaurant with restraints tied tightly around their arms and legs.

"Okay, now you really owe me one," Rose huffed in annoyance as she struggled against the metal bands binding her to the seat.

"Oh, just add it to the list," the Doctor grumbled in reply.

[ick25]

Rockman.EXE Episode 20 Review.

Yaito’s weak bladder strikes again.

The day she almost couldn’t make it to the bathroom!

We start the episode at the tournament with Midorikawa announcing the battle for the semi-finals! Yay!

Only Rockman’s picture is on the screen, so everybody wonders who will be his next opponent. Or should I say opponents?

“Oops, forgot to display Blues’s picture”

Surprise! Rockman will be teamed up with Blues to fight Stoneman and Bombman! The ultimate tag team, or as Midorikawa calls it, the “BR Whirlwind!”

Everyone is excited for this announcement, but just then, Bombman and Stoneman decide to crash the party by reminding everyone of their superiority, again.

Looks like Wily didn’t install a “Humble” program into them.

However, Higure-san justifies their reason to brag since they can automaticaly use battle chips, instead of waiting for an operator to send the chip to the Navi.

Masa-san doesn’t agree with Higure-san and of course they have to start arguing about it.

This isn’t important, but it cuts to Midorikawa telling the audience to wait until everything is ready for the match.

So we move on to our heroes having a picnic outside, where they start to worry about Bombman and Stoneman. Masa-san decides to give Netto a pep talk by saying that he and Rockman have something that Bombman and Stoneman don’t, friendship.

Aww, but we can’t get mooshy over this, so we then have this funny scene.

This whole time Yaito has been eating with an annoyed expression on her face, and after this scene we finally hear why.

They actually think it’s a good idea since Enzan and Blues are strong, and Tohru even says that Enzan already has a fanclub, but Yaito doesn´t care for that since she is still angry at him for insulting her father’s company back in episode 14.

Their picnic is interrupted by mister sympathy himself, Netto says that he is looking foward to fighting with him, but Enzan just tells him to stay out of his way in the battle.

He tries to walk away but Yaito wont ignore the fact that he just insulted her company yet again, after trying to start an arguement with him she then challenges him to a Net Battle, but we all know that is never gonna happen.

Enzan, too cool to be a jerk.

This infuriates Yaito even more who decides she needs some alone time to releave her stress, and she leaves in the quickest and most stupidly rich way she could think of.

Must be one of those new hybrid limos. Was the choffer just wainting for her to give him a signal? The private jet was probably busy.

Shortly after this, Blues tells Enzan that he recieved a message from the president of his company, aka his father.

The next scene is the place where Yaito ran off to, a fancy hotel under the sea, where she washes away her stress with giant glasses of strawberry milk! XD

This scene was cut from the dub because, I’m guessing, Yaito sitting in a bar might make her look like she has a “drinking problem”. This is a joke of course, but you know how some people can get over “grown up” scenes like these.

As faith would have it, Yaito discovers that Enzan also happens to be at the hotel.

We then cut to Netto and Rockman, once again, in the trainning room practicing the Program Advance. A shot of Meiru watching them train is cut out in the dub.

Again, the power disappears before reaching its target, but they wont give up, so they keep practicing as we cut back to Yaito in her funny attempt to spy on Enzan.

She only ends up embarrassing herself by crashing into a table and running away. Enzan is done with his meeting and proceeds to the elevators, where Yaito just happens to be at, and for some reason she decides to hide inside the elevator behind a dinning car.

Her cover is blown by her big forehead, and also because Enzan isn’t stupid. She gets angry at him yet again and begins to yell. It’s almost like this episode is trying to ship these two.

Now we cut to some workers having a conversation.

Woops, but don’t worry, the coffee doesn’t damage the control panel, it’s when he tries to clean it up where he accidentaly presses a button that shuts off the power of the elevators, leading to a commercial break.

We come back from commercials with Yaito tightly grabbing onto Enzan’s arm.

Yeap, the anime wants to ship these too.

Enzan tries to call for help but the power in the elevator is off, and since he doesn’t want to miss his battle, he decides to use the dinning car to climb out of the elevator. All of this while talking to Yaito about him being in a business meeting instead of a date with a “hot blonde” like she initially though.

Enzan decides to leave Yaito alone in the elevator, since she herself said that she doesn’t want to “breath the same air than him”. This comes back for her in the form of all the strawberry milkshakes that she drank earlier, with a close up of her knees shaking being cutted out in the dub.

She then proceeds to follow Enzan through the elevator shaft, we cut back to the tournament where Meiru and the others tell Mariko-sensei that Netto still hasn’t mastered the program advance, they also notice that Yaito hasn’t return from the last time they saw her.

Back in the elevator shaft, Yaito is fighting her fear as she climbs the ladder behind Enzan, despite Glyde and Enzan telling her to go back to the elevator. She is too stubborn to listen but ends up screaming after seeing a shark outside a window since the hotel is underwater.

Enzan does the sensible thing and climbs down to talk to her, after asking her if she will keep climbing he tells her to open her eyes.

No wonder he has a fanclub.

After this tender moment, we cut to the tournament where Midorikawa announces that everything is ready for the match, and who are the first to appear at the arena?

Of course they could’t wait to brag in front of everyone again. This is starting to get annoying.

Back to the elevator shaft, Yaito is climbing the ladder with Enzan right behind her, luckily not looking under her dress, they start talking about Enzan’s father calling him to sign a contract at the hotel. Yaito suddenly slips, and after her shoe falls, she opens her eyes to see that Enzan caught her, he helps her get back up but loses something very important in the process.

Enzan, you are rich! How come Netto has a chip pack and you don’t?! You just put your chips in your pockets like a commoner!

Their luck quickly changes as one of the employees finds them.

“We can’t afford a lawsuit from both your fathers!” Now I feel sorry for the guy who spilled the coffee, he can lose his job over this. XD

Although they are saved, we can’t forget that Yaito lost her shoe! Oh, and Enzan’s chips too.

With both of them safely out of the elevator shaft, Enzan runs to the exit of the hotel, where Yaito’s special car arrives for him.

I share that same reaction, that was ridiculously fast!

I couldn’t help noticing that Yaito, despite having a PET, also seems to have a cellphone, which is weird because PETs are suppouse to be super evolved smartphones.

I’m surprise she didn’t peed her pants after those two scares she went through.

We cut to the trainning room with Netto and Rockman’s final attempt to perform the Program Advance before the match. Will this be it?

So... All he had to do was call out the Beta Sword?

Looks like they finally did it since Netto enters the arena excited and ready to take on Bombman and Stoneman.

However, Enzan hasn’t arrive yet, leading to Midorikawa announcing that if he doesn’t appear in the next five minutes he will be disqualified and Netto will have to face Bombman and Stoneman by himself.

I didn’t skip anything, this is literally what the clock shows after Netto says that. The clock showed five minutes and then it jumps to two minutes!

Everyone waits, the clock is now down to 16 seconds, Netto is about to give up until he hears footsteps. Enzan finally arrives with only three seconds left.

That was the quickest countdown I’ve ever seen!

“It was like the anime was trying to ship me with an eight year old girl, can you imagine?”

Speaking of said date, Yaito leaves a bathroom (with the bathroom sign shot cutted out in the dub for some reason) and asks Glyde if Enzan made it in time, Glyde tells her he did and that she aslo received a message from him. He shows her the mail in a scene that was compleatly edited in the american version.

This was changed to an image of an envelop on screen and then playing an audio message with Enzan’s voice. Yaito gets annoyed by this message and the episode ends with Bombman and Stoneman vs Rockman and Blues’s battle about to begin, setting everything up for the next episode.

I love how she calls them a Dream Tag.

My thoughts?

This episode explains a little more about Enzan’s character, despite being a pro and wanting to provoke Netto and his friends with his attitude, we get to understand why he acts that way. As we saw back in episode 14, Enzan comes from a rich family, his father is the president of a company that hasn’t been revealed in the anime yet. We also learn that Enzan is the vice president of said company and that that’s the reason why he had to sign a contract at the hotel where Yaito was. Enzan might seem like somebody who doesn’t care about anything, but we see that he does care about the tournament, we see him wanting to get to his battle on time, and he was willing to climb the elevator shaft just to be able to get there on time.

Just picture, an eleven to twelve year old boy forced to be the vicepresident of a company, his father is always working, mother absent or dead, he can’t eat outside without giant bodyguards because his rich, and is probably homeschooled because he doesn’t socialize with other kids his age. That would make anybody grumpy. Net battles seem to be the only thing he enjoys and he won’t let anything ruin it for him.

The anime tries to ship Yaito with Enzan since their company’s are rivals, even though they work in different areas. Enzan’s company is called IPC and it is a PET manufacturer company. Some sources say that IPC stands for “Ijuuin PET Company”, others say that the name is based on an old rival of Capcom, for which the rivalry between Gapcom and IPC would make sense.