hmpf

but a few short notes before I leave to visit ankae...

1.) On Thursday I went to see 'Spirited Away' and it's a beautiful, beautiful movie. It had the same atmosphere and logic of many of my weirder dreams... Gotta go see it again next week, if I can find the time. Highly recommended.

2.) The evening of the same day I had to do a cast of my good buddy Nager's face because he wants to have a Stark mask made for the comic fair we are going to have a Farscape table at. Let's just say that at 40 degrees Celsius it was not a pleasant experience for him having to wear a rubber bathing cap for hours, and half of his head covered in plaster! It made me worry a bit about being Zhaan with that bald cap at the fair... I'll have to wear that thing for about 13 hours and I doubt it is any more comfortable than a bathing cap! The things we do for Farscape.

3.) Birthday (mine, that is) on Friday - nice and quiet. Breakfast with my mom, then work, then dinner with my mom (Indian food - yum!). (My dad was on a business trip.) Got nice books and nice music for presents. Unexpected present from a certain reader of this journal, too. (Thanks! You know who you are! *g*) Am 27 now, an age that almost fits with the grey hair I keep finding on my head more and more often...

4.) Happy Birthday also to my dear friends Kiki and ankae!

5.) And to my Scape Sister Dashan who actually had her birthday a few days ago but had her party yesterday. Very nice party; met Atti there, important figure from German HL fandom and webmistress of Fanficparadies.de. Weird, meeting someone whose name you've known for years on the net 'in the flesh' for the first time... Atti was in the same situation, btw, knowing me from my old essay on becoming obsessed with Methos which seems to be rather well-known in German HL fandom. Hey, at least *one* of my pieces of writing is well-known. *g* AnduraNova and me talked with Atti and her boyfriend all night, I'm afraid - we hardly even noticed the other guests. *g* Atti may even come to the next local Farscape meeting.

5.) Going to visit ankae for a few days, but first I have to have breakfast and then do the dishes. The stacks in the kitchen look like every single plate, knife, pot, fork and glass in the house is dirty. Frell.

6.) Oh, and since kernezelda and kazbaby already posted links to our new vid 'Poison' in their LJs, I guess I should make it public here, too. Actually, we meant to wait a little while yet before really publishing the vid, since we wanted to overhaul the 'Peacekeeper' vid first, but, well, it's out there now, so I may as well point everyone who hasn't found it yet there. I'm pretty proud of this vid. AnduraNova still thinks 'Everybody Hurts' is better than 'Poison', but I think they are about on par. It was great fun to make, too, even if it made AnduraNova's husband realise that we're perverts. *g*

Go here to download it: ScapeSisters videos

7.) Apart from the dishes I'm feeling fine.

All right... haven't really written anything in a while... it's been a busy week, sort of, and I couldn't find the inner calm nor the power to update this journal (nor write any e-mail). Not that anything really important happened - just some annoying trouble with the rings I'm working on, and travel preparations, and the obsession equivalent of a one-night stand. ;-)

So, where do I begin? Maybe I'll begin with the rather startling confession that I haven't rewatched the long-awaited FS ep 4.05, 'Promises' (no spoilers here) since I first saw it last Sunday! (You may gasp incredulously now.)

It's not that I'm not obsessed with FS anymore - I still am, and I'm planning to write a nice bit of fanfic on my vacation! - nor is it that the ep was bad or boring. On the contrary, it gave me the trademark 'FS shivers' more than once. ;-) Though there were two developments I'm intensely uncomfortable about, but only the future will show whether I'm worrying needlessly.

As I said, there will be no spoilers here today, because I just don't feel like going into any details before I've seen the ep another two or three times. Don't worry, folks. I *will* watch it again. I just had a weird week - the only stuff I've watched all week was bits of 'Hellsing', here and there.

Which brings me to the heretical title of this post.

Of course, it's all Kai's fault. Mr 'I'll Make An Anime Fan Of You Yet' introduced me to the relatively new anime 'Hellsing'. I'm not sure if he knew that I will fall for anything that is immortal, enigmatic, morally ambiguous and wearing a long coat. Anyway, here I am, with a brand-new medium-sized obsession for, of all things, an anime vampire with a really silly name and a strange sense of style.

Well, I'm pretty sure it will pass - this is not on the scale of my Methos or Farscape or Tolkien or DS9 obsessions that lasted years. This is a 'one fortnight to a month' thing. I've lived with various obsessions long enough to be able to tell the differences.

Of course, obsessions, even of the minor kinds, never really pass... I still find myself seeking out things like Matrix fanfic once in a while, though that was a very minor obsession, if it even deserves the title. Frell, I've even been trying to find Twin Peaks fanfic, a difficult task rarely rewarded by success.

So. What is 'Hellsing' and why has it sent me into obsession mode?

'Hellsing' is an anime about the more or less top secret 'Hellsing Institution', an organisation that tries to protect Britain from all kinds of monsters, mostly from vampires. The organisation is led by (silly name alert!) Integra(l) Wingates Hellsing, a tough, no-nonsense woman who inherited the duty of leading Hellsing from her father at a much too early age and has hardened in emotional self-defence. Her 'secret weapon' against All Things Ungodly is a 'domesticated' vampire called Alucard (it's rather more impressive if you read it backwards!). It is never quite clear how much control she really has over him.

'Hellsing' is an action-oriented anime, which means it's ultra-violent and features guns that are so huge they couldn't work in Real Life. Alucard carries two guns that verge on the ridiculous; since this is anime, there is also a girl with huge breasts and short skirts around who gets to carry a gun so big it's beyond ridiculous. All this may sound a bit derisive... and I guess I am a bit derisive of these aspects of the show. I am neither a big fan of huge guns and lovingly-portrayed shoot-outs, nor of the kind of physical stereotyping that's going on here with Ceras Victoria, the girl with the monster gun. (Oh, wait, it's an 'Anti-Freak Cannon'. How could I forget... *g*)

But, I have to admit that despite these shortcomings, the show has an interesting style, good music, and very good characters with very intriguing twisted relationships. The triad of Integra-Alucard-Victoria is fascinating. I'd argue that the Integra-Alucard relationship is the most interesting, but Victoria's trust in and admiration for Alucard is also worthy of contemplation.

I think I need to go into this to some degree. But first, who is this Alucard guy who seems to be the central figure in this triangular relationship?

Alucard is. . . Hmm. He's difficult to sum up in a few words, but I don't want to write a novel here! ;-) Well, first of all, he is *beyond cool*. This guy is really off the coolness scale - he could beat most of his antagonists just by beeing cool, probably. The clothes he's wearing would look campy on any mere mortal, but on him, they're cool. So are the orange glasses and the incredibly broad-rimmed red hat.

He's also nasty. He has a vampire's sense of fun. He *really* enjoys himself when he's out to battle monsters of all kind. The stronger the enemy, the more gleeful he appears. He's also able to slouch in a chair with his feet comfortably propped up on the table while around him all hell is breaking loose. If he's called by Integra, he will come - most of the time - but he won't lift a finger if she doesn't call. He's proud, arrogant, sadistic... and he lusts for blood, of course. It's a good thing Integra knows how to control him. Or does she? ;-)

All these are less than desirable qualities. And yet... there is something fascinating about him, and it's not just the fascination pure Evil has on some. The confusing thing is, you never really feel that Alucard is actually evil. It's more like he's really somehow outside the system of human morals and values. Words like 'good' and 'evil' don't apply to him.

The qualities that make him interesting mostly come out in his interactions with Integra, his 'master', and Victoria - to whom *he* is master.

Victoria and Alucard:

Victoria is a young police officer who gets taken hostage by a vampire in the very first ep. The vampire who has captured her is using her as a human shield against Alucard, assuming that Alucard, controlled as he is by humans, will not shoot a human. As Victoria is facing Alucard, there is a moment of half-spoken communication between them that is most fascinating. He tells her - quite openly, matter-of-factly - that he will shoot through her lungs, and asks her if she will come with him, and, after a long, intense exchange of looks, she says 'yes'. And he shoots her. And then, of course, makes her a vampire, just before she is dying.

That exchange of looks and words is setting the tone for the relationship of Victoria with her master for the whole series. For some reason, in that moment Victoria seems to decide she can trust Alucard, and trust him *absolutely*, although she already *knows* that he is, in essence, a monster. In the light of what we find out about Alucard, and in the light of the difficulties Victoria is going to develop regarding the lifestyle of a vampire, that is a very strange decision, and yet, it's not *wrong*. During the whole series, Alucard is never going to display anything towards Victoria that would not justify her trust in him. In episode three, he offers his blood to her to make her free of the human's control that apparently extends to her by way of him. In several episodes, he gives her advice, always in a mildly amused, but patient tone. For a nasty, 'evil' creature of the night, he does not make too bad a father figure, and a father figure seems to be what Victoria is looking for. Her childlike joy to see him save the day is touching, but not as innocent as it may seem - the closeness she obviously feels to him is also a sign of her becoming more and more a vampire, and thus - probably - moving away from the realm of human values, herself. She may not realize this yet, but it's definitely happening. She won't be able to fight her new nature forever.

Integra and Alucard:

It's hard to tell whether Alucard views Integra as a kind of equal or as another 'little girl', as he calls her in episode 10; and if he sees her as the latter, it's hard to tell whether he wants to protect her or manipulate her, or both. One thing is clear however: he is fascinated by her. In episode 10 we see how he submitted to her command for the first time, and it never becomes entirely clear if he could have chosen otherwise at that moment. Her spunk and defiance in facing him (and facing her murderous uncle) impress him, that much is certain, but does he submit because he is impressed, or doesn't he have another choice? Her father's words that there was something in the basement that would protect her, if need be, point in the latter direction, but somehow... I'm not sure.

Alucard, although at least to some degree under the control of Integra, does not seem to have any hard feelings towards her or the Hellsing family. He respects power in humans. He does not respect her uncle's claims to leadership, because unlike Integra, the uncle is not leadership material, he's a coward and a traitor. He does not have Integra's power.

Besides respect, there is definitely something else Alucard feels for Integra. There is a touch of amusement, as seems present in all his dealings with humans (or almost-humans, like Victoria), and there is.... desire? It's hard to tell, because for Alucard, any relationship is mainly a game for power. But I suspect that his repeated offer to Integra to make her a vampire if she only asked is not just a move in that game but also an expression of an honest wish to... take their relationship to another level.

One of the strangest moments between the two of them occurs also in episode 10, the episode that explains Integras backstory. When she comes out of the coma, she complains about being treated like a kid, and Alucard replies 'You're still the same little girl,' and for a second, he looks and sounds genuinely affectionate.

What Integra feels towards Alucard is even harder to tell than what he feels towards her. Integra does not, usually, betray any kind of emotion. Alucard's emotions may be filtered through irony and games, but at least you can guess. Integra, although human, is rather more mysterious. Whatever she feels is buried deep enough, I suspect, that even she herself may not be aware of it...

* * *
Whew. Did I claim I didn't want to write a novel here? Well... it’s not yet a novel, but it's way longer than I intended it to become. Gee, I should do this for Farscape, sometime! Maybe I'll do something like this about 'Promises' next time... I guess I'll have to forget about replying to all those e-mails that still needed replying to before I leave for Denmark. Sorry, guys. :-(

Oh, and yes, you read that right – I'm going to Denmark. My parents asked me, quite unexpectedly, to accompany them and my grandparents on their trip to Denmark for two weeks, so there'll be no updates here for a while! A friend from Farscape fandom will join us for a week, too. :-)

So, what else was there to tell here? I'll keep it short.

- I have a mouse in my room right now! What do I do about that?!? (We have mice here, but usually only in the kitchen. However, I kept my door open for a few hours today, and that was apparently a mistake.)
- The ring I'm working on is proving far more trouble than I ever expected.
- Fansubbed anime is a hoot. No, make that: Japanese Engrish in general is a hoot! Look here to get an idea of what I mean – this is the Hellsing title song! LOL http://hellsing.madtech.net/featureslyrics.html

Bye! See you here in two weeks!