je t'aime ♥

unknown + Alana Davis

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je t'aime ♥

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Day 10 (Am I Ahead or Behind?) Weirdest Anime Series You've Watched So Far: Code Geass

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Day 9 - Saddest Anime Scene: TIE: Grave of the Fireflies and/or Loveless: Zeros (Girls) Defeat

**Disclaimer: Please remember this blog is spoiler city...we don't care. You have eyes so look away if you're concerned.**

I couldn't decide. I know, that's somehow cheating, right? But, both of these animes left me sobbing and wrecked for a week. They may have given me post-traumatic stress disorder for a short period of time.

First up, what may officially be not only the saddest anime I've ever seen, but the saddest film I've ever seen. And yes, this takes into account some fairly high-ranking live-action tear jerkers, like The Lover, Schindler's List or anything with James Dean in it (I have a problem, and admitting it is the first step).

This US Trailer for Grave of the Fireflies is highly misleading.



Oh, happy pretty right? NO! This film is an epically sad tale of two orphaned Japanese children who attempt (ATTEMPT) to survive on their own during World War II. A few scenes in this beautifully animated film are so intensely horrifying and heartbreaking that it causes physical pain. If you are a person who cries easily you CANNOT watch this film. I publically forbid you from seeing it. If, however, you feel you can watch the exceedingly slow and tragic demise of young children without wanting to cry yourself into a coma...by all means, watch away. It is worth the view, but I cannot bring myself to watch this film more than once every 5 years.

Likewise, this episode from one of our (Ms. Shakespeare and my) favorite series Loveless is intensely sad for very different reasons.



Most Fighters and Sacrifices in Loveless are paired, Soubi and Ritsuka are the exception (something that hinders their ability to fight, ut not their ability to bond. Fighters and Sacrifices usually share a name, a fate, a destiny, all that jazz. And these two high school girls, Kouya and Yamato, who share the name Zero love one another deeply as a result of their bond.
The problem is that they are not a unique pair, their bond was artifically created by a group called the Seven Moons, and their "partners" can be interchanged should one of the pair fail. This is the fate of these defeated Zeros...they will be separated. The sacrifice in this scene takes her role very literally, she says she would rather die than be a burden to the one she loves. Should they forfit the battle, they are as good as dead; the group who sent them to battle and kill Loveless (Ritsuka) and Beloved (Soubi) will either separate them or destroy them entierly. and yet the fighter forfits out of love for her partner. At the end of the scene they crouch in the graveyard alone, the battle forfitted and with it their bond. They make a pact to die for one another rather than be separated. Surprisingly, "dying" is not what we think it is...they break their bonds with the organization, killing themselves metaphorically so that they can finally live on their own. To do this, they take a risk; they thwart their destiny and create a new one based not on the artificiality of their "names" but their very real love. Their symbolic death allows them to be reborn. So sweet.

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Day 9 - Saddest Anime Scene: TIE: Grave of the Fireflies and/or Loveless: Zeros (Girls) Defeat

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Day 10 -- Weirdest Anime I've Watched? Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade

Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade is good, and it's weird.

As a writer who loves to play with genre, I <3 this anime, which also plays with genre. Arumi and Sasshi are on a journey through place to find home. Abenobashi remains the fixed point in the cosmos, but each successive adventure brings them into a new genre of anime with the same characters manifesting the attributes of the genre.

Failing Abenobashi, I'm going to say Pokemon. Why? Team "F'kin Rocket." That's why.



Prepare for weirdness.

We're gonna capture Pikachu, mmm'kay?

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Gym pants

asos knit
zara jacket
hm pants
nicholas kirkwood shoes
fashionology rings
zara bag


pics by tasha


Taken actually a while ago but I am still loving these pants... gym pants maybe but beats a pair of boring leggings anytime.


xxx

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astrid.in.barcelona.

Astrid Berges-Frisbey
Jalouse May 2011

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time.teller.

Nixon actetate watches
available at Shopbop

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i am so proud

Le Portillon

This letter was written for me by my boyfriend before I left to study in Rome.*

To my dearest itialianest bean,

Where do I begin? You know it’s hard for me to write my feelings down or even put them into words but ill try for the bean. You are the love of my life baby. I have never ever felt the way I feel about you for anyone else and I really mean it. I have never wanted to make anyone as happy as I want to make you. I would literally do anything for you to be happy. You make my life so much better baby, we have so much fun together. With the others I have dated I would look at a trip like this as a total relief and an escape from all the bullshit. But with you I see it as literally a piece of me leaving for 5 weeks. I have never felt that way about anyone. I always want to be near you and with you and never get sick of you. I am so excited for you to go off and experience Italy and eat awesome food and meet awesome people. I hope you have the most amazing time, I’m really happy you are doing this. I want you to know that I will be thinking about you every second of the day wishing I could hold you in my arms and kiss you. You make me so happy baby and everything I do, I do with you in my mind because you are such an important part of my life. My heart and everything I am belongs to you and only you baby. I promise to send you emails updating you on what I did during the day and I can’t wait to hear how you spend your days and crazy evenings there. I’ll punch any guy that looks at you. J you are the sexiest most beautiful thing in my life and I am so proud to call you my girlfriend and the love of my life.

With all the love I could ever possibly give,

p.s. I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU

p.p.s you are so f'ing cute it kills me

p.p.p.s you complete me (sike nah, but really if Jerry McGuire hadn’t used it I def would have thought of it and used it on you)

* reader submission

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Day What? Saddest Anime Scene...

Oh, man, I should have left that Mirage of Blaze epic scene for the saddest scene. It is pretty sad. Along with Epic, most anime is also really good at Sad. What do I mean? Well, there are plenty of cliched "sad" anime-types.

Nobari No Ou's Kira Wielding Angel of Death ninja kid, Yoite, is pretty sad:





Both Ritske and Soubi from Loveless are sick sad tragic figures:




How about Yami no Matsuei's Tsuzuki and Kurosaki?




Here is a familiar anime cliche: Character X is abused as a child, maybe locked away or shunned because he/she had some differentness about them, light hair, psychic powers, nothing-definable. Character X is miserable. He/She reaches out innocently only to be abused and abandoned again and again. Maybe Character X had parents who he/she really loved, but some douche bag killed them, those wonderful people, right in front of Character X (Bonus points if said killer is someone Character X really loves and admires).

Character X is hard on the outside, but so lonely inside. Character X seems apathetic. He/she can't understand why anyone would want to be nice to him/her, but all sorts of people are. All sorts of people spend a lot of time convincing character X of his/her greatness.

There is a long journey in which Character X grows thinner, weaker and stronger at the same time. There are a lot of long pauses. There is wind, possibly swords, staffs, ninjistu. There is definitely an epic battle, in which Character X emerges triumphant and softer with some kind of understanding.

Everyone loves Character X, and Character X begins to little by little find worth in him or herself.

One of the reasons we girls squee over anime and manga is because it is full of pain and suffering. Our favorite characters are tortured, dark, unloved by their parents, abandoned, abused by their teachers, left for dead, beaten, starved and special. Our favorite characters are the saddest of people. We want to gather them up and hug them. They stir something inside of us.

Sad in anime is overdone. I like it both ways, when it's fresh, and when it's an obvious stereotype.

I think I actually really like the scene from "Welcome to NHK" when Tatsuhiro Satō accidentally enters a suicide pact, which he thinks is a tropical vacation.

After some misadventures, he decides he will commit suicide, but he is talked off the ledge by his friend, Misaki Nakahara, who convinces him that she needs him to live because she needs someone more pathetic and lower on the social ladder than she is. Then his other friend, Kaoru Yamazaki, tells him, he is too boring to have a dramatic death like suicide.

This scene is so depressing because it feels really true. Enjoy.

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Day 8 - Most Epic Scene: Gurran Lagann's final battle with the Anti-Spirals

This is impossible. I was dreading this catagory because there are so many epic scenes. Every Miyazaki film has at least 1-2 scenes that are all light and drama and cinematic animated "WOW!"
So, to pick one...sucks.

I gotta go with the most epic of epicness of Gurran Lagann. The whole series is climax after climax, and it ends with a fight for the universe...THE FREAKING UNIVERSE! Which we win, because we are awesome.  To pick one scene, I suppose I should go with the obvious.

The final battle of Gurran Lagann, "All of the Lights in the Sky are Stars."







JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE??!!

Yeah, they're throwing universes...no big whoop. Gurran Lagann is the most epic epicness that ever epiced an epic. I am a total fan of this series. It is ridiculously awesome.

"Do not grieve for me, my soul  once drowned in a sea of despair and weariness. And, if this body can create a life for all of tomorrow, I will gladly give it."

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Day 8 -- Most Epic Scene

Damn it, M, this is a really unfair challenge! Anime is epic by its very nature. Take color, add wind, add music and speed lines, get EPIC. Today I watched the entire series: Nabari No Ou



It wasn't even good, but the whole thing was epic. It was all about warring ninja clans. There was tons of wind. I couldn't stop watching, even when I kept thinking about how they did nothing to set up the plot or the characters. They just relied on the typical character tropes for 26 episodes. There was nothing interesting about it at all.

Afterwards, I saw that Most Epic Scene was today's challenge, and I thought, take anything, add feudal Japan, warring clans, some kind of hidden power/magic get epic. So speaking of feudal Japan, warring clans and powers, I always liked this scene from, you guessed it, Mirage of Blaze (around 20:50):



When a lovesick, desperate, obsessed Naoe decides to fuse himself and his Lord into a mirror and cast them to the bottom of the lake where they can live together eternally, basically a murder/suicide pact for the immortal. Oddly, this may be one of the least epic scenes in the entire anime, which is very, very, very epic all around.

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Day 7 -- Favorite Anime Couple -- Taeko & Toshio

"Only Yesterday"



Okay, this is sort of a cheat. It's a full length Ghibli Movie, and probably my favorite one. Taeko and Toshio aren't really a couple until the end, and the movie is more about Taeko, a single office worker in her late twenties who is being followed around by her ten year old self. She goes on vacation to pick safflower in the country side and falls in love unexpectedly with Toshio, an organic farmer.

I like this couple because I'm a fan of last minute saves, and if you watch the movie, you'll find it contains a lovely last minute save. I like this movie because I am a single office worker who one day dreams of marrying an organic farmer of my own.

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Day Six --Super Milk Chan -- Most Annoying Anime Character

Everyone I know liked Super Milk Chan.



Not me.

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Day 7 - Favorite Anime Couple: Dee X Ryo

This counts. OFFICIALLY there is ONE episode of Fake. So, I get to select Dee and Ryo  as my favorite on-screen anime (and on-page manga) couple. They kill me. Unlike many yaoi titles there isn't a weird femme vibe in either Dee or Ryo. They are dudes. They are in their 30s. They are cops. Dee is a god (just my opinion...and his own). Ryo is reflective, affectionate and tender without being girly, and he balances Dee's gung-ho, intensity and immaturity.




And, as is evident above in a still from the anime, they're smoking hot.
Dee's all, "RYO! I will pounce on  you and seduce you and you will want me because who wouldn't want me? Also you are the air I breathe and whatnot."
And Ryo's all, "Dee, no, I can't. I guard my heart."
And I'm all, "SQUEE! Now suck face like 'mwah!'"

And in the middle of their torrid will they/won't they romance drama, they manage to come to terms with their tragic pasts, forge a family out of their bonds with one another, AND be bad ass fighting, shooting and crime-solving detectives in the NYPD.

I feel that this catagory is screaming for some runners up:
1. Inuyasha X Kagome--Another pair who guards their hearts and emotions. There are things about their relationship in the anime that Americans might not pick up on, for instance her "I'm going home" refrain is pretty significant to Japanese viewers (it suggests the end of a relationship or a divorce, which suggests that there is more love between Inuyasha and Kagome than is revealed on screen). Their love is subtle and timid, but ultimately very sweet.



2. Tamaki Suoh X Haruhi Fujioka--From Ouran High School Host Club.  Tamaki and Haruhi are adorable, and perhaps not super-complex, but nonetheless I was rooting for them from the beginning. The anime ends with an implication of a love-hexagon, but the manga moves in a different direction as it continues beyond the anime series' "ending" into something a little more mature and tender.


3. Shizuku and Seiji of Whispers of the Heart--So sweet and realistic, even if there are talking cats.

4. Saya and Haji --From Blood +.  He will not only keep dying for her, he keeps living for her because he promised that he would destroy them both...powerful crazy love. Timeless shit. Maybe a bit masochistic in a good way? I really like the idea of Saya and Kai, because Saya will get her normal life, but Haji has given her so much. Wow.






5. Shunsui Kyōraku X Jūshirō Ukitake ---Okay fine, there's no "official" sort of coupling of them, but it's so obvious...I mean...Come on!




There are plenty of others, but I'm saving those for other catagories.
Ah, love.

Dee is a god.

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Martially

blitz sport jacket
old zara jeans
barbara bui shoes

Yesterday I finally took out my karate jacket that I bought last summer. That's right.. insted of buying a sports inspired one that seems to pop up everywhere I bought a real one from an online sports shop, and I kinda love it. I did take me a year to put it on but I think I might get surprisingly much wear out of it this season...

ps. I listed some of my shoes in the shop!

And congrats to Frida for winning the mtv x gillette style competition! more about it here..

xxx

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Anime Character You Feel the Most Like -- Day 5 -- Tohru Honda

Yeah, this may come as a surprise. I think M would compare me more to Ayame Sohma (also of Fruit Baskets) or Suichi Shindou (from Gravitation). I can be excitable and egotistical and annoying! However, I think I'm more like Tohru.




I'm not anime-esque, leggy and uber-thin, but I do have long dark hair :)

Being a geek, I was often the onigiri in the fruits basket:



And, I relate to Tohru's outsider-ness, even though she seems like a pretty normal girl.I'm also really, really nice like Tohru, sometimes dimwitted with niceness. I don't give up on people, and I guess some people will call it naivete. But, I know what I'm getting into.

Tohru loves all the animals of the zodiac without condition. I strive to love the people around me in the same kind of open and sweet way, even if it causes me pain. So, yeah, I think I most relate to Tohru.

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Gakuen Heaven: Should I be ashamed I enjoyed it? (Day 4)

This is an anime based on a video game. It takes place at an institution called Bell Liberty Academy, BL academy for short, an upper crusty all boys school. It is not very good and yet, I have fond memories of watching it all in one sitting while sucking down giant Mexican freezy pops and gallons of beer and ice cream (I should also be ashamed of what I had come to call food toward the poverty stricken grad/immediately post grad years of my life).

Basically, this anime is full of boys and first world problems -- boys, wind and first world problems. The plot is contrived. There is some kind of secret crush from the past and a rivalry between the chairman and vice chairman.

I could explain it, but the opening credits pretty much encapsulate the entire thing:

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My Anime Crush... Naoe, Mirage of Blaze

Okay, I'm a little behind! I spent the week being tortured by AT&T whilst trying to move my internet from my old apartment to my new apartment across the hall. The Customer Abuse - hrm Service division of AT&T could really teach the government a thing or two about mentally breaking enemy combatants. Forget stripping people, keeping them up for hours, blasting bad music, and denying basic human rights. If you want to take away a person's dignity and get her to admit to anything just to make it end, put her on the phone with AT&T U-verse internet representatives!

After spending about 8 hours on the phone and chat between about 15 people over the course of a week, being transferred, put on hold, lied to, hung up on and taking a half day at home from work to wait for a technician who arrived  2 hours late, I have the internet again. I've never actually cried when dealing with customer service before, so I was surprised to find myself balling on the floor, in a fetal position, and rocking back and forth to comfort myself. What made this all so much worse is that I recognized that this was a first-world problem and that people all over the globe are starving, dying and being shattered by natural disasters and war, and I was crying over the prolonged and incomprehensible incompetence of AT&T.

So what does this have to do with my anime crush, the sexy Naoe from Mirage of Blaze? Well, because Naoe is tortured. He's in love, and he's been in love for hundreds of years with a man who loves Naoe as much as he hates him, which is a lot. Naoe's love is so intense and painful and sick, and I love him for it. He has done some really f*ed up things in the name of "love." Some would say he's a masochist, but his way of being transcends masochism.



The relationship between Naoe and Takaya is so messed up, awful and abusive, but it's one of my favorite anime pairings. Naoe is singularly and painfully focused on Takaya. If only someone would be a fraction in love with me. Le sigh.

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love is...

olive manna

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ruby.aldridge.for.free.people.

Ruby Aldridge
for Free People

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getaway.

Bambi Northwood-Blyth
Muse Magazine

I'm dying to getaway to someplace peaceful with lots of sunshine right now.


via Anniieemal

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Day 6 - Most Annoying Anime Character: Haruko Haruhara

I'm going on record as saying I hate FLCL. I think every character, except for main character Naota is annoying to the nth degree. But chief among them is antagonist Haruko Haruhara. She could not be more annoying to me if she tried.

That's saying something because there are a LOT of annoying characters in anime. Nearly every series has one annoyingly hyperactive and grating idiot. In Ouran it is Renge Houshakuji (self-proclaimed manager and ubiquitous crazy fangirl)--every time she comes on screen I get annoyed. In Bleach there are a ton of annoying characters...too many to list. In Yami No Matsui those effing bird librarians have such horrifyingly irritating voices and personalities that they should be eaten by dragons out of principle.

But Haruko Haruhara wins, not just because she's annoying, irrational, stupid and ultraviolent, but because I find the entirety of FLCL annoying. It's just so...dumb (for the lack of a better word). Just DUMB! And because she is the most annoying character on the most annoying anime she has earned Day Six props.


Congrats! You are annoying!

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anna.de.rijk.

Harper's Bazaar Spain June 2011


Check out those cross heels!


Source: Fashion Gone Rogue

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