#and I just started the original phantom of the opera book | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

shadysubject06 · 1 month ago

Note

Hii hii!! Not sure if your asks are open per se? But I’ll shoot something over anyways! Don’t feel pressured to respond ^^ (these are gonna be relating to your fnaf:sb au!!!)

Firstly, what inspired you to give the DCA a frozen half mask? I honestly find it to be SUCH a cool design choice and I wanna know your design process! :D

Secondly (DCA related again </3), what’s your interpretation on Eclipse within your universe? Do they exist? Are they a third entity, a combination of Sun and Moon, a security program with no learning AI, or perhaps something else entirely? I’d love to hear your thoughts! (Personally I interpret them as a combination/security program :0!)

Lastly (yes… once more… DCA related…), do you have any fun facts about Sun, Moon, and Chica’s friendship that you’ve been itching to share? Or haven’t gotten the chance to touch on yet? This AU honestly made me grow really attached to the idea of the DCA and Glam Chica being friends! It’s so so SO sweet!

That’s it for now!! Thank you so much for making your AU btw!! It’s been awesome to binge <3

GOLLY HI!!! Sorry, I didn't see this till now! I'm so glad you're enjoying my stuff, thank you!!! I don't have a name for this "AU" since it kinda started as just this series of snippets of the DCA and Chica being besties and then it started bleeding into all the feelings I had about SB's corporate horror subtext and all of the assumptions I'd had about the direction they would take the story after Help Wanted, and now it's kind of a….retelling-slash-one off comics story. If you or anybody else has name ideas for this on-going saga I'd love to hear them so that I could put it all in a dedicated tag! Now that I've got that ramble out of the way I'll answer your questions! (I lied I'm gonna ramble more cuz I'm really good at it ksfdlnlksdfnlksndf)

1) I have a tendency to redesign characters a bit when I make fan art because trying to stay on model to the original design makes my art come out a bit stiff. I'd seen a lot of fan art for the DCA where they had their whole mouth move, but with the way their faces have a "moon" side, it made me think of a Phantom of the Opera mask. Then I heard that in the Pizzaplex books they were apparently a theater robot that was repurposed for the daycare, so I just decided to lean into it! I've been playing with the idea of making the eye holes on Sun and Moon's mask different to mimic the tragedy/comedy masks!

2) Ooooh the security program is an interesting idea!!! So, I don't know how actual programming stuff works. And since I believe that the robots in FNAF have been sentient since Sister Location, meaning that they've been advancing robo sentience in-universe further for years, I tend to play around with the sentience and the programming fighting with each other at times. When it comes to what I think Eclipse is…. I'm actually gonna put that under a spoiler because it's something I've been teasing at and I can't keep story secrets to save my life, so you can look at that answer ~ at your own risk oooOOOooooOOOooo ~ Now. To answer the third point and give you that Eclipse spoiler. I need to add it in a reblog. Because I was writing out this whole thing....and I wrote so much that I hit the text limit. Which I have never done before. Which also freaked Tumblr out and it wouldn't let me post this no matter how much I erased. So please give me just a few minutes and I'll get you the rest of the answer FDLKSNLSFKDNSLFKN

#shady says #answered ask #shibiichi

26 notes · View notes

havikshoochiemama · 6 months ago

Text

My Star Wars Acolyte rant >:(

This shit is not proofread LMAO it’s 5 am i’m mad leave me alone just me being the hater that i am 🤭

I originally wasn’t gonna talk about the Acolyte because clearly the show was just another emotionally immature shitty Disney cash grab with horribly written characters BUT DUDE i keep seeing ads and stuff on my tumblr NONSTOP and i’m actually sick of it .. most of you guys saw one Tumblr Sexyman and just went ham with that…We as a fandom need to stand up because Disney doesn’t care about star wars imma keep it a buck they just want to make their next mcu and they just greenlighting anything at this point

“oh but i like Andor” yeah that’s like what ever 10 shows they make they make one good one that’s not good 😭… anyways like i was saying they are literally pulling shit out their ass they are getting shit from the star wars legends that’s it’s own universe and putting it in…like excuse me ??? those books don’t follow the events of the movie so why would your show that allegedly takes place before the movies (I said allegedly because writers can’t even get characters ages right ) also i’m talking about that bs w the helmet that stops lightsabers… apparently it’s called cortosis from legends never once mentioned in any of the movies (i’m not watching them live action shows idgaf i like SOME of the animated ones) but they use it as a Mcguffin when they want bc they never built on this they just stole it from legends LMAOAA you just can’t do that i’m literally about to pop a blood vessel 😭 i’m not watching that show again but let me critique the shit i do remember… also the “Gayest Star Wars we ever made” KEEP MY PEOPLE OUT YOUR SHITTY WORK !!! but after that man who’s to edgy for a name killed all her friends she “loved” she’s sees his face and is like wow 😍 literally thinkin with her pussy very hetro of you 💀 gah this show just pisses me off star war at its heart is a fuckin space opera and i dont think disney understands that. i literally fell in love with star wars back when i played battlefront and watched all the movies read as many comics and books as i could get my hands on and seeing something you love become something you hate is fuckin sick and crazy it’s started with me from the force awakens that movie is horrible you bitches say pretty graphics and said oh good movie 😍 NO NO it literally was just a new Hope setting everything that luke did back making him basically useless LMAO and they butchered the old characters to help the new ones which are really not that great 💀 i’m still mad that them used Finn as a token black person 😐 i could rewrite the force awakens better same characters and all and yk actually do something better (joking i would if Disney paid me to)LMAO also i hate kylo ren don’t get me wrong i love my cry baby tantrum throwing villains but he’s nawt it LMAO i’m sorry this is a rant about the shitty show YALL NOT READY FOR ME TO SPEAK ON THE FORCE AWAKENS 😭

yeah i hate that show i literally don’t wanna talk about it anymore heart emoji 😝 remember when people said the Phantom Menace was bad yeah… at least it have character development atleast it had good world building atleast the universe was establish and yk i liked it but the prequel’s have always been my favorite clone wars literally came out on my birth year >:3 it was made for me 🤭 but i’m just a whore for world building and lore yeah… umm idk to me start wats ended with the return of the Jedi 🗣️

dont @ me idc this is my opinion and if you want to continue meat riding corporate greed that literally is ruining my fave franchise pop off if you liked the show i don’t care good for you (your def new gen star wars fan)

also Darth Plagueis ?? LMAO WHAT they just doing anything i see and why where all the jedis fuckin morons … okay ? and your main character sucked you don’t get the satisfaction of character arcs like “her joining the dark side” if there was no character building to begin with like ? it not to late Disney just burn it get it over with. Also it’s all so Fuckin boring LMAO also i can talk shit about character development and arcs all i want bc i’m writing my own novel and i’ve did a lot of research even tho this whole rant is a mess it’s 5 in the morning give ur girl a break i just really like my silly space movie okay 🥹 i literally spent a band on the Star Wars encyclopedia leave me alone

Um if you wanna argue my comments are open <3 i love arguing i’m somewhat of a scorpio myself

9 notes · View notes

glindaupland · 1 year ago

Text

The Phantom of the Opera | Seoul, South Korea | October 8-14th, 2023 [REVIEWS]

Wow it's about time I posted these reviews that I kept lying about (this week! tomorrow! in 10 years!) Better late than never?

In this post I'll drop a few general things about the production, but the performances are analyzed in my reviews linked here. I recommend reading those all in order since I revisit points about actors I've made previously along the way to avoid repeating myself. Also leaving a disclaimer that these performances are from October so there are some changes in what the actors are doing now (with the exception of Jeon Dong-seok since he left in November) Apologies in advance for my wordiness, but this is more of a "release my feelings for my sake and if anyone else likes it that's cool too" kind of thing? Listen - I wrote a lot of notes on my performances there. So just go in knowing this is the more coherent version of my insane looking notes app!

Before I start I want to thank a few lovely friends who helped me out with this trip because it wouldn't have gone as well as it did without them!

Thank you to @lucygold95 for helping me so much with planning over the past months and for giving me the best time in Busan. Thank you @capitanogiorgio for all the shenanigans we went through and the most special time going to the 1500th and meeting Yoon Young-seok. Thank you to @fadinglandtragedy for the fun talks and the good advice before my trip! The best part of things like this is making friends of course! : )

PERFORMANCE REVIEWS:

STAGE & THEATER

This was as close to the original staging as possible. So I was able to take it in one more (or I guess 6 more?) times post-Broadway closing. The Charlotte Theater is a lot smaller than the Majestic so every view was pretty solid in my opinion, even the second to last row. I took a video of my view from 4th row under the chandelier during the exit music on October 11th so you can see! The angel and chandelier are shown halfway through. I'd say 5th row was almost the cut off for the chandelier drop (that was my spot next day) Broadway seats in this area were always too expensive for me so I'm glad I was able to grab these spots for this production

There were photo zones you can take pics at which you've probably seen. One was a large rose wall, the other was the cute statue of their mascot 오유령. People also take forever lining up for the cast boards for photos and yes I was one of those people. Here's a comparison of the cast boards from the second season (pictures I found when reading old reviews on Naver) and the cast boards now (I forgot to take a photo of one on the top floor though)

I found this review where someone took more detailed clean photos than I did if you're curious about the layout and decorations!

MERCH AND GIFTS

The tickets had these designs! If you booked on Yes24, you received a special envelope and a ticket holder with the face of the Phantom performing for that show

I only didn't receive a second Ju-taek because that was booked on another site - Interpark (bottom middle ticket). I also received paper masks with printed autographs every day I went to commemorate the 200th performance of the run/100th for Seoul and the 1500th overall Korean performance. We used them for the curtain call photos on those two dates (with Jeon Dong-seok then Kim Ju-taek). There are multiple versions of the program book and at the time of writing this I have all except the Daegu one. The first Busan program book was pretty bare and only had the teaser pictures - the same was the case for my Les Mis program book in Busan. -There are different photos in each one, so to me it was worth grabbing them all. My third version signed by Kim Ju-taek is currently on display as you can see below! (The writing says "내 노래를 날게 해 주오 - Make my song take flight") Once again thank you to Lucy for this! 🥹❤️

Here's some of my POTO merch (including a spare cupsleeve from the coffee shop next door, I also had a keyring, but I forgot to show it) RIP to the second program book I sacrificed for scans I still have the pages stored/displayed though! I'm not wasteful! I'll have more to post soon after sharing these reviews

TRANSLATION

Let me emphasize this: my Korean abilities are limited, so don't look to me as the expert on this at all. But I'll still share my notes and perspective as an outsider who's studying The lyrics have changed quite a bit since 2001-2. There are still lines kept or songs that are mostly similar. MOTN had a lot of similarity to 2009-11 even with its changes, STYDI was identical to 2009-11, but Angel of Music was pretty different from even the last season, etc etc. The Phantoms all have unique lines sprinkled here and there, mainly in MOTN (this happens sometimes in Korean musicals). You get some things like random single line changes in some parts depending on the actor or different order/wording of the same lines as well. Just tiny diversions from the script. This is the case for the Christines and Raoul to a lesser extent. Additionally, actors are often permitted to do some occasional improvisation/ad libs. Some unique lines are pretty normal parts of their interpretations now, some appear depending on the feeling of the performance, some are one time only events. I'll mention some of the actor-specific ones and such in their actual reviews, but I have been trying to mark down all of the differences like these for example

Of course, some things obviously have to be adjusted to make sense because of cultural / linguistic reasons. So one example would be the "Wrote...written" line in Notes I. Firmin speaks rudely and informally, but quickly tries adding a more respectful ending particle 요 after Raoul and André give him a shocked 'what did you just say?' kind of look. So "대체 뭘 썼다고 하는 건데...요!" is pretty much like "What the hell are you saying I wrote?" André would look so embarrassed by this each time 🫣

퇴근길 / STAGE DOOR

Stage door doesn't really work the same as it does in places like New York, London, etc. Most of the time if an actor comes out it's more like a quick greeting or chat with the fans. Some actors (not in this case) might sign or take photos in designated spots, but it really depends and it's not so common. It's gotten more restricted ever since COVID as well. 퇴근길 -> "way home from work" is literally what this is called. Dong-seok did wave at us a few times happily after the 200th performance, Gun-ha briefly came out to thank fans after the 1500th while Ceci and I waited to meet Young-seok who had agreed to meet us. I did not have the time (or strength) for the Seung-woo mob, but he usually greets fans after shows.

I literally asked Yoon Young-seok directly on Instagram if Ceci and I could meet him and give him gifts because I figured it didn't hurt to try! When he agreed, my anxiety was not necessarily about meeting an actor, but more about my ability to express my thoughts in another language. But he was truly the sweetest guy and incredibly patient. I think he got that I understood everything he said, but that replying was a whole other challenge. I'm glad I was making enough sense that he was able to get my points and helped me finish sentences if I looked stressed about it 😂 I basically told him I had been planning this trip since the cast announcement because it was too perfect to miss and that I came for 6 shows. I really like to listen to his Phantom on the cast recordings and I thought he made the shows I had seen so far so much fun.

We both said where we were from (the US and France) and he was amazed. He was also shocked when I pulled out my original Korean cast recording (I still laugh thinking about the way he said "와, 세상에!" like "Wow, oh my god!" and enthusiastically took it agreeing to sign when I was mid-way asking him haha) I also thought it was funny when he asked Ceci if she saw his Phantom last season. We wish! But she mentioned she had gone to Busan a few times and he looked very touched and appreciative that we went to multiple performances 🥹 This poor man was tired he signed our things with November (11.13) though and he also spelled Ceci's name wrong first time, but it was the 1500th show though okay. And if he says it's November...who are we to question him? Ceci should also legally change names so he isn't wrong. Anyway, ramble over you can find the art we made for him in this post

OTHER

Here's just bonus fun I had that I will manage to connect to POTO despite it not being POTO because I love doing that. I mean I went because I like these musicals as well (otherwise I would've been foolish enough to go see Ben-Hur but I have, uh, standards for my plots sorry to Park Eun-tae 😭), but it's fun to point out these things. I'm happy to share my show experiences in a different post if anyone's interested in my thoughts on those

Rebecca

I went to see Rebecca, mainly focused on seeing a scheduled date for 이지혜 Lee Ji-hye (Ich) and 장은아 Jang Eun-ah (Mrs Danvers). The whole cast was fantastic. Some Korean musicals have special encore bits they do where the leads sing a part of a song from the show during bows so that was really fun. Unfortunately, we don't get to have fun at POTO like that haha

Lee Ji-hye was in Y&K Phantom as Christine in the same cast as Jeon Dong-seok (Erik), Yoon Young-seok (Gérard Carrière), and Lee Sang-jun (Cholet). Two other cast members in Rebecca were in Y&K as well - 에녹 Enoch (Maxim) who was Philippe and 신영숙 Shin Young-sook (Mrs Danvers) who was Carlotta. Sadly, they had such few shows this season due to a busy schedule, so I couldn't see them (when will trot give Enoch back to musicals). Original Korean ALW Raoul and Y&K Erik 류정한 Ryu Jeong-han was also on rotation as Maxim, but I picked another day for my show so I didn't see him either

Les Misérables

I went to opening night of Les Mis in Busan! It was the Dream Theater, same place POTO played at before. As many of you already know, Choi Jae-rim is playing Jean Valjean at the same time as the Phantom.

I could recognize him easily as the Phantom, but honestly when he appeared at the very start of Les Mis it took me a minute to process that it was him! While I did enjoy his Phantom a lot, I think I enjoyed his Valjean performance a little more. It was only opening night, so curious to see how things develop!

The actor who played Javert that night, 카이 Kai (stage name), was a former Y&K Erik for two seasons too. So many Phantoms!

Frankenstein

On the last day I got to see Dong-seok and Ji-hye once more in a concert for the musical Frankenstein which they have been in together. So have some pics I took without a mask blocking his face!

Ending Note

Thinking back to December 2022 when I said: "Maybe I'll go to Seoul and see Dong-seok once or twice and that's it, I can have my first international POTO" That was funny. That was really very very funny and silly of me to say. 9 performances and 6 of those were POTO! But I'm so grateful and I have zero regrets about it. This is one of the best experiences I've had even if it might look ridiculous to some people to do something like this...I don't care! I hope my crazy essays can help paint a good picture for you!

27 notes · View notes

night-unfurls-its-splendour · 2 years ago

Text

Susan Kay's 'Phantom' Read: Part V (Erik, 1856-1881)

Before we start I feel that I need to talk about a perspective shift that I've had. More than half-way through the book now with the completion of this episode I've come to a realization.

Phantom is not what I thought it was. This epiphany has been slowly dawning but here we are.

My impression of Phantom, based on how I have seen it talked about in the Phandom (and certainly how the reviews on the back of the book present it) was that it was Leroux's story but with the blanks filled in and a few small liberties taken.

I had this impression because I was told that for quite a few years, Phantom was basically considered Canon and also because I have often seen Kayrik (or Kerik) and Lerik (or Leroux's Erik) conflated in discussions.

But as I'm reading I have finally realised that I don't think this is ever what Kay intended.

Don't get me wrong I hate most of the decisions she's made, but this book is a complete re-working of the source material with many elements of the book, some from the musical and some original folded in. For Erik's history she mainly follows the life-history detailed by Leroux, but in terms of Erik as a character, he more closely resembles Musical!Erik than anything (except that Kayrik's deformity affects his entire face, not just half). When we arrive at the Opera, she again adheres to Leroux's history. But once we catch up to the canon events, this time line is swiftly abandoned.

Nadir and Erik bump into each other and resume their friendship.

A few weeks later, Erik finds Joseph Buquet's body in his torture chamber.

A few weeks after that Erik hears the news of the Opera's change in management, and hears Christine sing for the first time.

In the source material, Buquet's body is discovered on the same night as Christine's initial triumph (so three months AFTER Erik began to teach her), the same night that the old managers, Debienne and Poligny, have their farewell celebrations and hand over management to Firmin Richard and Armand Moncharmin. Leroux describes Raoul rushing across the stage, "On which Christine Daae has just triumphed, and under which Joseph Buquet had just died." [This excluded from the original translation.

Why Kay chose to alter the progression of events I don't know, but that combined with a final nail in this coffin for me to realise that I had been approaching this book from entirely the wrong perspective. That final nail is the fact that Christine Daaé, in this book, is dark- haired and not blonde.

Kay does what most Phan-author's do: she cherrypicks her preferred elements from both book and musical (Erik general erudite comportment, his mis-matched eyes, Christine's dark hair) and combines them with her own headcanons to create an AU fic that, because of the reclusive nature of Fanfiction at the time and the fact that this work was published and widely circulated, became, for many fans not interested filling in the blanks themselves, erroneously synonymous with actual canon for a goodly number of years, despite its open contradictions to the source material.

Does that mean I like it any better? Haha fuck no. My irritation with Kay's choices persists. It's just that my ire for this book's influence is more accurately directed at the Phandom at large for making it something of a Golden Calf.

And like the Biblical Golden Calf I am here to pound it into dust and make everyone drink it.

So at this point I was going to complain that Kay never made mention of Erik being Christened "the trap-door lover" in Persia. There's even a CHAPTER of Leroux's novel called "The Masterstroke of the Trap-Door Lover". And this didn't come up even ONCE in Nadir's narrative. In fact the Persian and Leroux's narrator both talk about how Erik "rigged the palaces". Which is to say he made alterations to existing buildings and "turned the most honest construction in the world into a demonic house where one could not speak a word without being watched, or betrayed by an echo. How many family quarrels, how many bloody tragedies had the monster left in his wake with his trap doors?"

In Kay's narrative, Erik doesn't alter any existing palaces, he only constructs the Trick Box inspired palace described in Leroux's epilogue and his love of trap doors? Apparently it just isn't a thing.

Moving on

So of course we have to come back around to his mother. That was inevitable and I do actually appreciate it because we know Erik's furniture in the lair was his mother's.

The part where he views his mother's body is... eighhhhhh.

Erik describes the ravages of time in Madeleine's face and also the ravages of death. He talks about the irony that there's actually some resemblance between them now. And we get... this

And as I looked at her, I suddenly understood her revulsion at last--because now I shared it!

I felt no anger or grief as I looked down upon her . . . nothing except a disgust which enabled me to forgive any act of cruelty that she had ever shown me.

[...]

I did not kiss her, now that I had the opportunity.

I knew that she would not have wished it.

And I no longer felt any desire to do so.

I'm deeply confused as to what Kay is trying to convey here. Is Erik really saying that he doesn't want to kiss his mother because death has made her ugly? He goes on a lot about how death is gross and ugly and like... you just found out that your mom never re-married after you left. Never left the house she raised you in.

The misogyny REALLY steps up to the foreground here as well. He says of his mother's friend, Marie Perrault (the only person in this entire book with any rights imho)

This nervous, anxious, well-meaning lady had taught me to respect all members of the weaker sex.

Which, simply by calling them the "weaker sex"... you clearly don't? And after proclaiming is respect for ALL MEMBERS of the weaker sex, in the NEXT sentence he puts in a caveat about how he's never harmed an innocent woman, and also says something about the Khanom that really made me very, very queasy, and also reinforced my squicky suspicions about why Kay chose to make the cruel and capricious female figure in Persia an older woman (a domineering mother) rather than Leroux's "Little Sultana".

Very annoyed how Kay has graduated Erik's voice from "Automatic Aphrodisiac" to "Literally indistinguishable from Jedi Mind Tricks".

Erik regails us with how, using only his voice he is able to "reduce certain men to a trance-like state of obedience" (once exhibited on Nadir and his son Reza). When he meets Nadir again in Paris we are treated to this observation:

"Do you understand, Nadir? Keep away!"

His hand slid him it carriage door and he stood back with a trance-like obedience. He made no effort to prevent the brougham moving away, but although I knew my secret was safe for tonight, I felt no sense of complacency.

Once before he had broken free of my control, torn down the swaddling cocoon of sound with which I had bound him. Unlike Jules [Erik's lackey], he was not a natural subject; his will was too strong, his sense of identity and purpose too well developed.

Whenever he chose to fight my voice, I knew I would be unable to hold him.

That's a Jedi Mind trick. I'm sorry it is.

This section is actually quite enjoyable where the building of the opera house is concerned, but it takes a downturn, both in terms of the story and just the quality of the writing.

There are two instances of redundancy.

His death excited little excitement.

"My old interest in divination had never left me, and from time to time I still consulted the tarot cards in desultory fashion. It had been a long while since they had revealed anything significant, but now of late, each time I picked a card at random I seemed to turn up Death...

And this latter example leads me to something that really made me want to throw the book.

Since Nadir's narrative I have looked askance at something that has come up repeatedly: Susan Kay goes to GREAT LENGTHS to ensure that the readers know that Nadir I 100% straight. NO HOMO HERE, DEAR READER. ABSOLUTELY NOT. She shoehorns in a dead wife that Nadir never got over losing, and went into unnecessary detail about how when Nadir feels "the itch of manhood" (🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮) he avails himself of a prostitute or an odalisque. It comes up SEVERAL times. And when Nadir pops back up in Paris she makes sure to tell us that he has a mistress that he sees regularly. All of this to bring us to THIS infuriating line:

And so even as I walked with Nadir, talked with him, rejoiced in the warmth of communicating directly once more with a human soul, there was a part of me that looked at him with suspicion and wondered what part fate had assigned him in this new, unrehearsed opera.

Not the Lover, that was for certain. I'd seen enough girls leaving his apartments in Persia to be reassured that all of his instincts were purely heterosexual."

I'm not generally into gay readings of PotO. I don't ship Erik with either Raoul or with The Persian. But I will say that if there is an argument to be made for anyone in this book being anything less than 100% heterosexual, it's The Persian. Leroux makes no mention of him having a wife or anything of the sort. Tie that in with the determined responsibility and complex bond he seems to hold with Erik and a case can be made for our dear Daroga feeling something rather more than just sympathy for Erik. (I don't personally subscribe to this, but the case can certainly be made--I'm more of a DaRaoul girl tbh. I think that's an untapped gold mine).

But not here. Kay bends so far backwards as to have Erik say outright "Nadir is defo straight", while (even more bafflingly) implying that, perhaps, Erik is not. WHY, SUSAN. WHY?

Christine’s introduction is the single most "reads like Fanfiction (derogatory)" thing I've read in this book so far, but I find it very interesting how, when Christine sings for the first time Erik says that she "possesses a near perfect instrument". He says her technique is faultless, and that there's no weakness in either register. My first problem is that Leroux's Erik only ever calls Carlotta's voice an "instrument", because that's all it is to Carlotta. My second is that, according to Christine, her lower register was muffled and her upper register was shrill and her middle register wanted clarity. Maybe that's just Christine being too critical of herself, but I doubt that she had "flawless technique" when Erik began teaching her. Incredible latent talent for sure, but I do believe that she needed help with technique as well as motivation to reignite her passion.

Lastly we have Erik's description of when he first sings to Christine. His narrative regarding his motivation is actually very similar to my own:

She wanted an Angel of Music--an angel who would make her believe in herself at last.

[...] There was no reason in the world why I could not be the Angel of Music to Christine. I couldn't hope to be a man to her, I couldn't ever be a real, breathing, living man waking at her side and reaching out for her. . . .

But I could be her angel.

Is his motive here altruistic? No. But the sentiment is sweet enough. The notion of inspiring Christine's self-confidence is present.

Pity then that he takes a sharp left turn in the very next paragraph and utterly compromises any positivity in his intent.

I could not steal her body--but I could steal her voice and weld it irretrievably with mine; I could take it, and mold it, and make it mine forever...

Softly at first, infinitely softly I began to sing an old, heathen, Romany song. The Hollowed bricks carried the haunting melody relentlessly to her, permitted my voice to envelop her gently like a poisonous mist, seeping inexorably into her mind and staining her soul with darkness.

Well, well.

Once more unto the breach I go...

Masterpost

#phantom of the opera #poto #commentary on 'phantom'#susan kay phantom #phantom susan kay

68 notes · View notes

twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat · 9 months ago

Note

hi ari!!!! hope you’re doing well!! 🐟🐟 these days the weather is so so nice and the sea is so tempting……………… i went ahead and took some days to swim like the fish i am! surprisingly the water wasn’t so cold and it seems i wasn’t the only one who thought of swimming because the beach was full of people 🙂‍↕️ it was really fun!

anyway!! i wanted to ask you, which films and/or cinematic universes you think your jjk favs would suit the most??? :33 if it is too restraining you can name tv series, of course!!

(p.s.: oh, i’m glad you liked my silly rant about statue!gojo TT 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼 it has been rotting in my mind for months now but i’m a procrastinator and i have too many wips… i think it might be that summer is near and i’m super inspired but i don’t know where to begin lmaooo. my notebook is overflowing with half-finished prompts and chapters that are waiting to be completed……. 😭😭) — 🐟 anon

HIIIII MY LITTLE 🐟 ANON!!!! :33

i’m so happy that it’s getting warmer where you are!!!!! the weather is starting to take a turn for the better here too hehe….. but wahhh!!!! beach trips!!!!!!! i miss them i do…. you’ll have to have double the fun for both of us!!! <3333

AND . GULP. that’s a super fun question and also super tough bc i don’t watch …. a lot of movies……… 😔😔 i’ve been watching more recently!!!! but honestly i have a lot of trouble remembering series and movies that i’ve watched….. my brain doesn’t store a lot of them. HOWEVER . yk what i do watch??? and adore????

……. musicals >:33

so here are some musicals that i associate w my jjk favs!!! I HOPE THAT’S OKAY… i got a little too into it i think 😭

gojo - legally blonde

I JUST THINK HE WOULD LOVE IT SO MUCH……….. i know him personally . honestly i would’ve given him the movie if i had followed your original assignment bc it just screams gojo to me either way!!!! i think he loves chickflicks. :3 and this is definitely one of his comfort movies…… the musical is also just SUCH a bop i knowwwww this man is terrorizing his coworkers by singing ”gay or european” in broad daylight (specifically to nanami)……

sugu - the phantom of the opera

THE PHANTOMMMMMMM OF THE OPERA IS HEREEEEEEEE 🎶🎶🎶🎶 …. <- sugu doesn’t sing along to musicals + doesn’t rlly like them that much in general but i know in my heart and soul that he would hum this part quietly to himself . what can i say….. this is just a very classy musical that i think would appeal to him <3333 he’d read the book beforehand too. he’s a lil pretentious but it’s okay :3 he’s veryyyy picky abt what musical renditions he enjoys tho…….

shoko - the guy who didn’t like musicals

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE MUSICAL OF ALL TIMEEEEE <333333 i just know she’d adore it. the blend between horror and comedy is soooo shoko and i feel like she wouldn’t like musicals at ALL lmao so she’d appreciate the meta commentary!!!! it’s just. suchhhh a good musical….. i love starkid so much it hurts………… AND THE WHOLE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE THINGGG she would eat that up!!!! pls watch this one if you haven’t 🐟 anon you can find the full thing on yt and it’s INCREDIBLE i’ve watched it like 10 times!!!! it’s my most beloved!!!!

kenny - beetlejuice

BEETLEJUICE 👏 BEETLEJUICE 👏👏 BEETLEJUICE 👏👏👏 okay so i actually lied this one is ALSO my absolute favorite . and i’m giving it to kenny solely based on vibes :3 HE REMINDS ME OF BEETLEJUICE OK…. and i think he’d love it a lot. the songs are so fucking good and i know he’d appreciate them. the theme of life/death is also very kenny obv !!!!

toji - black friday

ANOTHER STARKID MUSICAL. this one is just…… soooo good and funny and also . tragic. one of the characters reminds me a lot of toji :’3 former veteran w a dead wife…. who struggles to show his son how much he cares…… and the theme of capitalism and money and how it corrupts ppl also feels in line w toji’s character!! but above all else this musical is abt. Family. and that’s more toji than anything!!! :((( this is another musical that i rlly recommend checking out, it’s set in the same universe as the guy who didn’t like musicals but like . an alternate timeline. it’s not my favorite in the series but the songs slap and it made me cry so <3333 yeah.

nobara - heathers

was lowkey considering six the musical for my beloved nobara (bc of the gorgeous women and catchy fun songs) but . i think heathers fits her more!!!! i just feel like she’d ADORE it…… i know she’s singing along at the top of her lungs too LMAO especially to dead girl walking <3333 it’s just such a fun badass musical and i think she’d be obsessed. she does NOT like jd tho god bless 🙏🙏

#I LOVE MUSICALS SO MUCHHHH SNIFFLE SNIFFLE #for one tiny second i was gonna give suguru hamilton BUT . i’ll spare him that fate #(i like hamilton a lot im just a bit embarrassed abt it 💔💔💔)#I ALSO LOVE THE DR JEKYLL & MR HYDE MUSICAL!!!!!!!! if i had to give it to someone it’d be kenny :3 #ANYWAYYY thank you for the fun question 🐟 anon i love you very much <3333 AND PLSS you’re so real for the summer writer’s block 😭#i hope you’re able to write more soon!!!!! sending you all the nice splashy sunny summer vibes :33 #ask tag ✩#🐟 anon !! ✩

13 notes · View notes

your-coquette-queen · 9 months ago

Text

GUYS IM BACK!

HEY EVERYONE!

I'm sorry for the two year hiatus, I went through a period where I struggled and I really just had to come out the other side finding who I am. However, I am now back and feel so much happier! In case come of you forgot, I'm Ava! I originally had this account and ended up talking mainly about rock bands (notably KISS), Stranger Things, and Star Wars!

However, over the past two years a lot has honestly changed. I still love music, mainly now pop and musical theatre however I do love rock and still love talking about it with people. I love Star Wars still however my main fandom is currently Supernatural. Hopefully I have some Supernatural enjoyers in my audience and we can connect.

I also love 2000's everything and Incorporate into a lot of my style , so just expect to likely to see lots of 2000's core on here

A little UPDATED bit about me:

IT WILL BE LONG JUST NOTE:

Expect lots of music on here! I think I will just have one blog and move throughout fandoms that I enjoy so expect a bit of everything!

I am Christian! Christianity has been a long journey for me but I am so thankful to be in a really positive place with my faith. I left this blog two years ago with a lot of struggles but have come back overcoming those problems! I likely will not post a lot about faith as that is not the main part of the account but it is a big part of my life and something I am proud of. If I have other Christians here, I am always open to talking!

I love makeup!

Favorite tv shows:

Supernatural

Movies:

Ten Inch Hero

Wedding Crashers

Cinderella Story

Legally Blonde

Without a Paddle

Star Wars: Phantom Menace

Star Wars: A New Hope

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith

Clueless

Hunger Games

Scooby Doo!

Batman: Dark Knight

Twilight

Princess Diaries

She's the Man

Singers/Bands:

Britney Spears

Christina Aguilera

Rihanna

Destiny's Child

Duran Duran

Katy Perry

Beyonce

NSYNC

Nelly Furtado

Timbaland

Frankie Valley and the Fourth Seasons

Simple Minds

Alice Cooper

KISS

Megadeth

Journey

Motley Crue

The Temptations

Dianna Ross

Michael Jackson

Ice Spice

Lay Bankz

Ayesha Erotica

Meghan Thee Stallion

Fergie

Madonna

Nikki Minaj

Jessie J

Marvin Gaye

1 Direction (when I was like 14 but idc their songs still cook😭😭)

Fav Musicals:

Cats

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Starlight Express

Falsettos

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Book of Mormon

& Juliet

Miss Saigon

Rocky Horror

Spamalot

Back to the Future

Guys and Dolls

Suisical

Pippin

Legally Blonde

Ain't Too Proud

Little Shop of Horrors

Guttenberg

Young Frankenstein

Little Women

Music Genres:

Rock(multiple genres within!)

Pop

80's/90's county

K-Pop

Musical Theatre

Opera/Classical

New Wave

Alternative

Actors/Celebrities I love:

Paris Hilton: SHE'S MY QUEEN/ ONE OF MY BIGGEST INSPIRATIONS

Jared Padalecki

Jensen Ackles

Matthew Lillard

Misha Collins

Christian Bale

Ryan Reynolds

Channing Tatum

Hayden Christensen

Ryan Gosling

Pamela Anderson

Heather Locklear

Chad Michael Murray

Mark Wahlberg

Reese Witherspoon

Josh Hutcherson

Elizabeth Taylor

Taylor Lautner

Tom Cruise

Tom Selleck

I will likely update this as I start interacting on here again but I am so happy to be back!

Excited to talk to some of you guys again🤍

#guys im back #hiiii #im back #!!!

15 notes · View notes

cwpidfangs · 6 months ago

Text

CWPID♡READS🪽

The Phantom of The Opera

(1909) by Gaston Leroux

Another one that I unfortunately couldn't finish reading.

I was super excited to read it because I have recently started to watch musicals and, like I usually do with movies, I wanted to read the book before watching. Unfortunately my experience was not as good and I imagined it would be.

In the beginning, I was extremely interested and excited with what this new story would bring me, but as I progressed throught it, my boredom only grew.

The narrative is extremely repetitive and because of that it is very tiring to read, with very few character and plot development, nothing that makes the story get a good pace and start to become more interesting. Also, the extremely discriptive writing — something that does not attract me at all in books — lengthened the scenes too much, contributing to the boredom. My desire to read until the end because I wanted to know more about the story evolved to the desire to just reach the end.

At a specific moment I thought there would be a plot twist that would make the story interesting for me, but at the end of this brief moment the story went back to its original slow pace and I decided to abandon it.

I was dissapointed because it was a story that really interested me. All I have left is to know if the musical is better and does justice to the massive fame The Phantom of The Opera has.

#cwpidreads.♡#bookblr #book opinions #book review #book #classics #poto #phantom of the opera #the phantom of the opera #gaston leroux #gothic literature #gothic #gothic books #girlblogging #opinions #Spotify

8 notes · View notes

dross-the-fish · 10 days ago

Note

So if your story’s world incorporates characters from lots of different literature as people that actually lived in it as historical figures from the time period they were originally written in our world, does that mean that as time goes on in it, people from more recent literature will be born there? Is it mostly about classic books because you’re writing about the time period that they took place?

The Au is set in the later years of the Edwardian Era. while I do fudge some of the timelines, most of the characters in the AU do have ages correlating roughly to their book counterparts. I don't intent to incorporate any characters who aren't in the public domain, just in case I do ever want to publish any of it and not only do I like classic literature a lot anyway but a large part of the appeal is that most of it is free pickings for me to make my own adaptations and unique versions of the characters. I also just thought it would make a really good theme/setting for a giant crossover AU DnD game I created to play with my friends. Because it does take place in the 1910's This does mean that characters like Adam Frankenstein, who were born circa 1790 are over 100 years old. Adam is the oldest member of the crew. Watson is retired and in his sixties as correlates to the timeline of the Sherlock Holmes novels. There's no exact date given for when Jekyll and Hyde takes place in the novel so I have taken some artistic license and placed the events of the AU roughly 25 years after Henry's attempted suicide. Edward/Henry would be older but the serum has significantly slowed his aging. Quincey Harker was born in 1899, almost 7 years after the events of Dracula concluded. In line with the novel's ending. He is the main reason it's set in the late Edwardian Era because he's our focal character to start off with and I wanted to put him in his early 20's at the start of the story. Lawrence Talbot isn't exactly a gothic literature character so I didn't care to much about making his age accurate to The Wolfman. He's the same age as Quincey. They are the youngest members of the crew.

The Phantom of the Opera is set some time in the 1880s but I did move that up to the 1890's and I have Erik in his mid to late 50's at the start of the AU events. I moved Alice, Dorothy and Wendy's timelines to roughly match and make them the same age. They are all in their early to mid 40's as of the 1918 AU setting. Theo and Selma are OCs so I just had them be however old it suited them to be. Selma is in her mid thirties. Theo became a vampire at 26 but has been a vampire for 15 years so she'd be in her early forties if she were still aging normally.

21 notes · View notes

dreadfullydevoted · 22 days ago

Text

Yawns… the very expected Gatz / Colleymoore lore…

I’ll kinda be organizing via character and do whatever but anyways

We’ve seen a lot of Jay and Vel, but what about Daniel?

Well! Daniel was always a pretty privileged man, he was raised in wealth. He had found Jay when they were young, late teens… and had lied about his wealth so he wouldn’t almost demean Jay.

The two were VERY close, however Daniels family was a very religious one, so he had internalized homophobia. When Jay had gotten together with Vel’s birth mother who doesn’t have a name yet, Daniel got distant. Jay had the dedication to Daniel before and after the death of Vel’s mom.

After Vel was born, Jay decided he’d try and confess, and alas!!! It worked. Was it the best? No, not really, it was more of a “Dan I need your help but I also love you can you help me”

Then yk. Jay left. This left Daniel in a very uncomfortable state. Him, a young child that wasn’t really his, and a lot of inherited money. So what did he do? He went back to his old ways, and used that money to build himself up again. For his own sake and Vel’s sake. Daniel used quite some money to get a stable home, nothing grand or massive at first, but it was enough to start on his writing career.

It took him a while to get a true breakthrough, but when he did people LOVED his works. He was famous by the week. Sold copies, events, he had everything going well.

However, through all this fame and success, he still kept quiet and stayed private with him and Vel. Not a lot of people really knew who he was, just the rumors. Eventually his face got revealed and he was exposed to the public, which caught the attention of many people. Many… Many people.

This caused the two to move around a lot, eventually landing in a nice mansion that overlooks a lake, protected by fences made of wire and trees. Very cozy if you ask me! It’s nothing grand or luxurious, but Daniel made it a very clear thing that he wasn’t going to waste his money on himself. Rather, he’d spend all his money on Vel. She needed a father that cared.

When Jay had killed himself things went haywire fast, since Vel wanted to confirm Jays death, Daniel reluctantly let her go to ramshackle, and we all know how that is…

Currently? They all live together in a huge mansion that Jay chose (not so surprisingly,) surrounded by a lot of wealth and luxurious items, but it’s never really enough. Vel, Jay, and Daniel are all aware that there’s some tension and frustration between all of them, but Vel’s the only one determined to erase that.

Every other night she proposed a family dinner, often it’s Daniel that cooks because let’s be honest here, Jay would make a fucking crazy good barista or drink maker, Daniel is a good cook, it works out.

Vels the baker. No questions. Anyways!

The family dinners are nice, they’re just often chatting and gossiping (they like to talk shit. And by they I mean Jay and Vel are gossip girlies and Daniel just nods along while doing his own thing)

But things are slowly getting better!!! That’s all that counts, right? Yeah :))))

ANYWAYS!!! Onto Misc things!!!

Daniel is legally blind, he can’t be trusted to drive or anything without his glasses (although he prefers to go without them…)

Daniel was originally going to take Jay’s last name in marriage, but they never got married (unless…?)

Daniels Voice Claim is Alfred Molina!

Daniels “smell” would be old books and wood mixed with a nice cologne, basically a librarian grandpa HAHA

Daniels based off of many characters! But to list a few, he’s based off of Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby, Phantom of the Opera, Professor Layton, and Jack Torrance!

Daniel is GAY he is a fa- sorry. I promise I can say the slur.

Daniels most famous work is “The Truth Behind Wealth,” a novel about how wealth is the main puzzle piece to success

Daniel has canonically committed murder. That’s it. Heart emoji.

Daniel has many hobbies, most were often taught to him as a child. Piano, singing, writing, dancing, etc. he has a tendency to get into many different things.

Daniel has markings on his body such as scars from being a clumsy child, he’d play with Jay often and he got his scar on his eyebrow from Jay kicking him in the face on accident. Thanks Jay!

Jay has his own little pieces of info but we know a lot about him….

BUT!!!

Jay is bisexual and free… what a guy!

Jays hair is often very difficult to style, he wakes up at least two to three hours early styling it and doing his morning routine (imagine the American Psycho beginning monologue…)

Jays voice claim is Jeremy Jordan!

Jay knows how to dance and make very good alcoholic drinks!!! Back when he was trying to get some money, he was a bartender before he got fired for drinking their own alcohol behind their backs.

If Jay were to have a smell, he’d smell like cologne and a faint smell of champagne and cigarettes ;P!!

Jay has all of his suits custom made for himself, he wants to be “better than everyone else.”

Jay owns a fashion line!!! He’s planning on giving the rights over to Vel when she’s older, around 18. Nobody knows it’s his but it’s very well known for its luxurious jewelry and clothes.

Jay is heavily based off of Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby! But his personality was also very influenced by characters such as Patrick Bateman, and admittedly The Onceler lmaoo

ONTO VEL!!! Velvette <33

Our favorite sassy 16 year old pansexual…

Velvettes voice claim is OR3O!

Vels influences are Heather Chandler, Regina George, and others! I’m too lazy to list them :,/

Vel would most likely smell like some REALLY expensive strawberry / vanilla perfume!!

Vel is short but DEADLY. She was taught a lot of self defense techniques by Daniel just in case her time in Ramshackle went wrong!

Vel is stubborn but somewhat easily manipulated, she’s good at manipulating others but she’s oblivious to her own manipulation. (Hint hint. Ditch can use this against her…)

Vel actually isn’t fond of getting all dressed up!! She likes to stay more casual, although Jay would prefer if she were to dress to her rank (fancy dresses, etc.) but she likes hoodies/jackets and normal clothes.

Vel visits a lot of events, she’s famous for her modeling career! She’s been elected Ramshackles sweetheart SO many times, and she makes it her mission to win it every single year for now on. (Yes, this includes Jay giving the judges money to give her perfect scores…)

Vel is experienced with piano, violin, harp, and dancing! She loves ballet and dances that people would do in a ballroom!

Vel’s room is one of her only spaces in which she’s comfortable to be open in. She has a lot of random things and stuff, things such as a pink piano, a pink violin with white accents, some photos of her modeling work, etc.

Due to her class, Velvette has a special education program that involves her being home schooled, thankfully Daniel is a smart man! Jay is also smart too, but Jay focuses more on teaching her finance and history while Daniel handles the rest.

Vel has a personal butler, maid, and bodyguard! The reason why we haven’t seen them much is because she chooses not to associate much with them, and the bodyguard stalks from a while away, as to not get too much into her personal space.

Vel has a big stupid crush on Ditch I fear… however, she’s trying not to make the big action to confess because she (and her dads) believe that it’s the man’s / etc job to flatter her. As we can assume, this causes a huge rift in the glitterbomb relationship… sigh.

Vel was originally gonna be a love interest for Vinnie! But I decided Ditch needed a bitch.. He needs someone I fear.

Vel has a silent enjoyment towards silly little creatures. Her room is very obscure compared to what she appears! However, her favorite animal is a unicorn- JUST KIDDING! It’s a mudskipper!! She’d never admit it though.

Velvette has a pet mudskipper named Princess!!

Vel also has a pet cat named Nosferatu! Nessie for a shorter name. Hes the cat that Jay had possessed early in his ghost era! A fluffy ragamuffin. He’s still connected to Jay through some form of soul bond, but it works out well!

After spending a long time, Vel convinced her dads to let her have her own garden! Her favorites are her tulips, lilacs, and the aconite flowers!

Velvette has a piece of jewelry that can call upon Jay at any time, he’s still partially a creature from the underworld which gives him the ability to have some magical abilities as before, however they’re rarely used.

Aaand we’ll see where this goes later. For now

Pspspspspsps @averagetmntfan lock in

5 notes · View notes

bakanokiwami · 2 years ago

Video

tumblr

TOP 10 PLAYS/MUSICALS ON FANFICTION.NET BASED ON NUMBER OF FANFICTION (2000-2022)

To make this bar chart race, all series titles in the Plays/Musicals Section on November 29 (or the closest date to it) of every year were copy-pasted from Wayback Machine to Google Sheets, rearranged according to number of fanworks, and then inputted to Flourish to turn into a bar chart race.

The Plays/Musicals section was created in March 5, 2009. Before this date, play/musicals were found in the Misc. section.

Up until 2005, the only entries for plays/musicals were Musicals/Plays and Screenplays.

In 1999, fanfiction weren’t divided into sections like Anime/Manga, TV, Books, etc. yet. It was just a small list of mixed fandoms. There wasn't any play/musical entry in the only archived page I have for that year.

Phantom of the Opera was removed from the Plays/Musicals section by 2011. All the fanfiction were transfered either to the Phantom of the Opera in the Book section or the Movies section. In 2015, Phantom of the Opera was added to the Plays/Musicals section again. However all but 1 fic were published in 2015 onwards.

Musicals/Plays, the catch-all category for all musicals/plays that don't have their own category, remained in the Misc. section with all the other Misc. [section] catrgories.

Originally, the fanfiction list was sorted alphabetically too, but was changed to number of fics at around early 2013.

By November 2013, FFN started abbreviating numbers above 1,000 to K, so exact numbers aren't available for series with more than 1,000 fanfiction.

This bar chart was made with the assumption that the numbers listed in the Plays/Musicals section are correct. I can't seem to get the same numbers for some of these categories when I go to the specific categories' page and toggle ratings, other filters, and language to All though... I'm not sure where the discrepancy is coming from. (And it’s not the crossover fic numbers that need to be added to serie’s total fics from what I’ve observed.)

Please refer to this post for more bar chart races.

Thanks for understanding and hopefully I didn’t mess up anywhere! 🙏

41 notes · View notes

hug-me-brutha · 2 years ago

Text

Here are my reviews of the nine Phantom of the Opera adaptations I own on dvd (I have than these digitally but for now I'm just doing my dvds)

Phantom of the opera (1925) - Lon Chaney

Accurate to the book in a lot of ways, good soundtrack and atmosphere, amazing makeup for Erik

The changed ending takes away from the story and the silent movie format doesn't work well with the emphasis on singing

3.5/5

Phantom of the opera (1943) - Claude Raines

Christine just vibes the whole time, fun interactions between the two normal suitors

Less sympathetic Erik, all the names are changed, less horror, weirdly would have worked better if they did their original plan of having Erik be Christine's estranged father

3/5

Phantom of the opera (1983) - Maximilian Schell

Keeps the horror part intact I guess?? Prosthetics good

Everyone has different names, the main plot is changed for the worse and there is no levity, Erik is a creep even before his "transformation"

1/5

Phantom of the opera (1989) - Robert Englund

Good song as Erik's hallmark, good prosthetics, good casting and references to the book

Supernatural elements and changed backstop for Erik lessens sympathy for Erik, somewhat hard to follow plot

2/5 (ignoring my general dislike for medical-related gore)

Phantom of the opera (1990) - Charles Dance

Great cast, keeps the spirit of love and tragedy from the book, all plot changes work well, SO SAD

Why change Raoul to Philippe? Some lip-syncing not so good

4.5/

Phantom of the opera (2004) - Gerard Butler

THE VIBES! THE EMOTIONS! WAAAAAAHHH!

Some of the singing is iffy, having old man Raoul popping up all the time is kinda boring, all the age changes (especially the age at which Erik started teaching Christine) are for the worse

3.5/5

Love never dies (2011) - Ben Lewis

Some songs are pretty good, the cast tried their best?

What is that plot? No, really. What is it? Also. BATHING BEAUTY

2/4

A monster in paris (2011) - Sean Lennon

Great soundtrack, character design (especially Francour) is amazing

VERY loose adaptation, some animation is kinda wonkypretty much no horror

4/5

Phantom of the opera (2011/1986) - Ramin Karimloo

Everything good about the 2004 movie but add in great singing and better pacing

Why replace the Daroga with Mme Giry? Shame it didn't have the original production's set design

4.5/5

I love talking about PotO so feel free to leave your own reviews of the ones you've seen! I'm always up for friendly debate when it comes to phantom adaptations lol

#poto #phantom of the opera #the phantom of the opera #love never dies #a monster in paris

21 notes · View notes

noblevicartstudio08 · 1 year ago

Text

Okay. So. Was thinking of a way to fix "Love never dies," cause as it is, It sucks ass. For starters, we need to add a few things so that in the context of the original Phantom of The Opera, Love Never Dies should've never really happened. However, I think I've come up with a few ideas that could fix up the story and make LND make just a little bit more sense.

For starters, if you're gonna make Raoul villiainous, and make The Phantom the main love interest, give hints in the original play. In Phantom of The Opera, Raoul is still a spoiled rich boy, but he is still kind, loving, and cares for Christine so much that he is willing to risk his life for her. Home boy loved her through and through and it makes no sense for him to have this heel turn for literally no fucking reason. However, in the book, he was more whiny, entitled, and selfish, so if you implement more of those traits in the original Phantom of The Opera, then not only do you give Raoul more character but Love Never Dies makes more sense. Plus it gives that added tragic factor where Christine chooses Raoul over the Phantom in the end. So that would be the first thing I would do. Make Raoul a legit villainous character that wins in the end because The Phantom can't keep her. Hell, for added flavor, make Raoul responsible for some of the murders and pin it on The Phantom! That will also contribute to Raoul basking in his role as "The brave hero that slayed The Wicked Phantom and saved his childhood sweetheart."

Okay. Now onto The actual events of Love Never Dies.

I feel like Erik would take whatever riches he could and flee to America after the events of "Phantom of The Opera." He would become an anonymous poet, composer, and even an opera singer himself. His talents get him recognized in a smaller theatre on Coney Island where he thinks he can start his life anew. I think that Meg and Girys would still help him escape as they might have sympathy for him. Meg is a kind and gentle soul that Love Never Dies does DIRTY. So if she is going to have a new role, it's a support system for Erik. They help him craft a new identity and start a new life to cope with his heartbreak.

10 years later, Raoul, Christine, and Guastave move to Coney Island, with little Guastave wearing a mask that covers his entire face and his father giving him a dirty look. Yup. Raoul has a similar deformity to The Phantom when he was born and Raoul is not happy. He constantly accused Christine of going behind his back and, "whoring herself off to that hellspawn." When, no. No, it was sheer coincidence, or the gods above not giving poor Christine a break. At least The poor boy has his ever-loving mother to comfort and raise him while his father is getting drunk and gambling their money away. Things get so bad, that Gustave starts singing on the streets for cash as a street performer at night. Meg catches wind of Christine's financial situation and how Raoul has been treating her, so she gets a plan. She invites Christine to perform at the same theatre she's performing at along with her "new friend and colleague," Simon Rose. Upon meeting "Simon" she knows exactly who he is, but she keeps it to herself, but stays professional for her family's sake… and his. Simon does the same. However, upon seeing the love of his life again, he starts to spiral. He threatens to fall back into his old ways, and Raoul grows more and more suspicious with each passing day.

One night, Simon is walking the streets alone at night, when he sees Gustave performing for a few coins so the poor boy can buy groceries. Simon, feeling pity for the child as he was in the same position once, gives Gustave pretty much all the money in his wallet. Not only that, he takes the boy to a nearby park to perform a small song together on the park piano. Feeling comfortable with the child, he removes his mask showing the child his true face. Gustave is delighted and takes his off. Erik is the first person that's just like him. They share a tender bonding moment that has Gustave wishing Erik was his father instead of Raoul.

Alright. Alright. Because I am a slut for "Devil takes the hindmost" & "Devil takes the hindmost Quartet," I found a way to work into this version. After getting Gustave home safely, Erik is outraged at Raoul. Here is his poor son, begging strangers for money, while he's becoming a stinking drunk that practically burns through what little money they have. Erik confronts Raoul at the bar he's drinking at and the wadger is on. During Christine's next performance, if she doesn't sing, Raoul wins. He gets Christone, his family, and all the money to fill his pockets and pay off his gambling debt. If she does sing, Raoul leaves alone. Forever. The devil takes the hindmost. However, Raoul panics and tries to bring back that pretty boy charm to win Christine back. Something of note here. In "Before The Performance," The Phantom puts a diamond necklace on Christine. While it may appear to be a romantic gesture, similar movies like Moulin Rouge and Titanic portray this as an act of control and obsession for our female heroine. Like a diamond encrust collar or leash of sorts to tie them forever in a golden cage. I think this kind of thing would be better if it was Raoul putting the diamond necklace on Christine, using the last of his money in a last-ditch effort to secure his love before the show. It would also be more thematic if Erik came to her and took the necklace off her as he sings about her setting the music in her free. As for Devil takes the hindmost Quartet, Girys' lines would have to be changed, but you're gonna have to that. Just because I'm the firstborn of a lyricist doesn't mean I am one folk.

Christine chooses to sing. And love never dies can have a few meanings here. Not just love for Eric. But love for Gustave, Meg, herself, and The art of performing. Christine had to give up all of that except for Gustave after she married Raoul, but she takes back her life and choose her happiness for once instead of the happiness of others. After the performance, Erik runs up to her backstage and gives her a Hollywood-worthy kiss, dip, and all. They then give their short reprise version of "All I ask of you," but there's one problem… Where's Gustave? Erik and Christine panic, when Meg states she saw Raoul run off with Gustave towards the pier. Christine, Erik, Meg, and Girys all rush off to find Raoul and the poor child before something tragic happens.

Meanwhile, at the pier, Raoul debates whether to shoot little Gustave or drown in the ocean with him, all while the poor child is sobbing and pleading for his life. Erik and company show up just in time, but Raoul holds a gun to all of them, threatening to kill Gustave if they get any closer. It's there that Raoul hashes out all of his grievances, his insecurities, and his hatred towards Gustave. All he can see is "That Damned Hellspan," even though that's 100% biologically his son, he just has a similar deformity to Erik. Erik uses his skill to lasso the gun and Gustave away from Raoul and has the cruel drunk at his mercy. He's tempted to kill him right then and there, but then looks over to Christine and Gustave. His anger quells and Erik gets a bit of character development here. Because he now knows what real love is… It's taught him so much. Romantic. Familiar. Platonic. Self-love. It has changed him forever. It has taught him patience, kindness, empathy… and mercy. Erik harshly tells Raoul to board his cruise and leave. Never return. Raoul leaves like a dog with its tail between its legs as Erik comforts his family.

Time skips to an elderly Raoul lamenting about the woman he lost, and "has died," because while he still loves Christine, she's dead to him now. (You know, mirroring the beginning sequence of the original play~?) Meanwhile, on Coney Island, Erik, Christine, and Meg sit in the opera box and listen in awe as a grown-up Gustave's voice fills the opera house with a beautiful rendition of "Think of Me."

The end! This is… by no means perfect, and could DEFIDENTLY use some tweening, but this is what I got so far. Hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it and feel free to give me some feedback!

#vic speaks his mind #phantom of the opera #love never dies #Me: Ya know I'm a bit behind on swordtember I should get on that.#Also me: Rewrites a god awful phantom of the opera sequel #IF YOU'RE GONNA WRITE CHRISTINE CHOOSING THE PHANTOM DO IT RIGHT

16 notes · View notes