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04/03/2003 Entry: "First Gluhen ramblings"

Note to brain: do not attempt to choreograph a Weiss Gluhen music video to "Hazy Shade of Winter" when you haven't even *seen* any Gluhen. Oy. Although I've now managed to watch the first couple of episodes finally--and I have to say, the first thing to cross my mind was "It's CLAMP School Detectives gone horribly, horribly wrong!" And the thought of a CCD/WK Gluhen crossover niggles evilly at the back of my brain. (High school age or adult Nokoru & Co., probably.) Not that I'd ever actually write it, because it would then have to tie into the X universe, and I've already daydreamed out and discarded my X/WK crossover. I'm only doing *one* immense end of the world fanfic, thank you very much. And Weiss are *not* in it.

My brain likes crossovers. (Well, thinking about them, not always reading them.) It likes crossing a series with other series, and it likes crossing a series with other versions of the same series--daydream AUs, fanfic continuities, etc.--in weird cross-dimensional and cross-temporal interweavings. Something about rediscovering the characters in new ways by looking at them through the points of view of other characters, or tracing the changes in the characters by contrasting them with what they were or might have been. It's funny, because one of the unique quirks of fanfiction as a genre is that it's generally preferable not to spend time introducing the characters to the reader, since the reader presumably is already familiar with them. Yet a crossover inevitably has some element of introduction to it, as the characters from one world and/or time discover what the others are all about. Maybe crossovers are popular to write and read because it's like being introduced to your favorite characters all over again, meeting them for the first time, or like introducing your friends to a new series obsession. Unfortunately, that might also be one of the reasons why they're hard to write well--avoiding a tedious retread of an information dump is tricky. (There's also the "What the heck are these people all doing together?!" problem, but that's been well-ranted about.)

Anyhow, Gluhen. I can't say too much about it, having only seen those two episodes, but--Aya. Braid. *meeeeooow* Although god help me, my first impression was that he'd turned into some weird mixture of himself and Duo Maxwell. All those crosses don't help. And wow, he actually talks. (Although I seem to recall that canon-Aya talks and on occasion smiles a bit more than the fanon usually credits him with.) Sena's madly cute. Kyou I haven't really seen enough of to form an opinion yet, though in one respect I've already seen quite a bit of him. (Gee, fanservice much?) Toudou is interesting. Pretty golden eyes. Overall quality seems a bit better than the original series, although I'm delighted to see that the implausibility factor remains high. (Disturbed brain waves? Okay....) I mean, c'mon, that's one of the charms of WK--I can *write* a story where Omi gets exposed to a mutagenic gas and turns into a catboy and it's perfectly fine because the series was even dorkier. (Two words: Monster D.N.A. Or one word and an acronym. Whatever.)

Speaking of the original series, I started rewatching that again as well. (Research, you know.) Dear god...I always tell myself that I'm misremembering and that the first episode can't possibly be that bad. And then I watch it again and it is. Hurgh. But it's such sweet torture, after all. Entirely worth it for the moments of pure bishounenness.

Earthian! Eee! I had no idea that the manga was being rereleased with an ending. How did the shrieks of a million fangirls escape me? Fortuitously, I was going to be heading out to the Mitsuwa this weekend anyhow for birthday sushi, so I can pick up my own copy of the new version. And now I'll have a translation to read it with! *huggles* I just have to find translations of the earlier bits somewhere....

Writing continues apace, more or less. I seem to be back in obsessive mode, which is both a good and bad thing. I'm kinda hoping to clear the next segment of the Weiss thing I'm currently working on (one of the several ^^;;;) by this weekend so that I can put in some quality time with "Sakura."

Note: I was originally going to post this from work, but our T-1 decided to gack and make any sort of web browser work impossibly slow, so I ended up having to mail this to myself and post from home. On the plus side, I've now seen the next two eps of Gluhen. Toudou, you megalomaniac little squeeb. I like you better and better. Too bad an evil brain is apparently about to make you sad and unhappy at the same time. I continue to want to huggle Sena. And, um, Aya, do you think you're visible enough in that white coat? Very scenic, though, I must admit. What cracks me up the most, though, is that the fansub of 3 and 4 that I watched insists on translating "Fujimiya-sensei" as "Miss Fujimiya." Augh! Rex is also apparently "Lakers."

Oh, well. It's still better than the Worst Gravitation Fansub Ever....