#lnds stupid posting

[skynapple]

Sylus is Nero's evil alter ego

[rafayelbiter]

evil gang 😈 yes i can finally tell them apart

[goldenstring6123]

This happen to my bestie last week ajsjsjsjsns

She came to school all moody instead of cheery and vibrant and it's not normal to see her like that– I asked what happened, at first she doesn't speaks and just shook her head. Like, 20 minutes later, she suddenly cried. I was there next to her and comfort her, (I literally get all concerned and panicked)

During break, I asked again why she is like that and she told me that her mom told her to die out of frustration (Like– girl, wth) it is all because her little sister overslept and make her late for school. And her mother also late for works.

So, can I ask how LaDS men comfort their partner when they're feeling down? 🥺🥺

Thanks ♡⁠(⁠Ӧ⁠ｖ⁠Ӧ⁠｡⁠)

Lnds: Comfort for a crying heart

Warning: Comfort. GN!Reader

Author's note: I'm sorry to hear that about your bestie, no person should ever be told that especially by their mother. I'm sending my hugs to you, your bestie and everyone who's having a hard time! You have my full love and support!

Zayne: The Patient Comforter

Zayne never sensed the shift in your personality that day. He knew there was something different with you, but he didn't think much of it, considering it was morning time. When he got home after work, he found it odd that his house was very silent. It was as if it had gone back to the days when you hadn't moved in yet. He entered your shared bedroom and found you sleeping, but it was odd, too, because the room was too dark and the air was too dry.

He changed his clothes and tucked himself into bed, but unlike his usual routine, he wrapped his hand around your waist and buried his nose in your hair. You were running hot, and simply by that alone, he knew you had been crying. He hugged you while you sobbed quietly and tried to catch your breath.

"It will be alright, honey," he would whisper to you and rub your arms. When you rolled over to him, you immediately buried your face in his chest. There was nothing to say to him at all; it was just one of those bad days when all the bad things chose to be at the forefront of your mind. Zayne stroked your hair and pulled you in closer to his chest, not minding the snot and tear marks you were making on his gray shirt.

When you let go of him and scooted back a little, he went to the kitchen and brewed you tea. He came back and handed it to you while waiting to see if you wanted to tell him how you felt. You looked so tired in his eyes, so he was very, very patient with you. You both talked to each other for a good hour or two, and Zayne listened intently, asking you how you felt.

He wiped your tears for you and lent you his shoulder when you spoke. His hand held onto yours, and his thumb brushed the back of your palm while you cried again.

Rafayel: The Comforting Joker

Rafayel is more perceptive than you thought. The moment you stepped into his house, he could see that you were in a bad mood. He stared at you, and the first thing he asked was, "Why the long face?" which was pretty odd considering that you were smiling.

You thought you were holding it in so well, but when he asked that question, everything seemed to slowly topple down in an instant. You found a way to distract yourself in his home, but Rafayel was having none of it. He looked so serious about it, and not a single hint of teasing escaped his mouth.

His frown made you frown as well. You decided to give in and tell him what was wrong, how you felt heavy when you woke up in the morning, and how things seemed to go wrong the moment you got out of bed. The moment a single tear fell down your cheek, Rafayel pulled you into a tight, long hug. He said a lot of stuff to try and cheer you up, and he did his best to make you laugh even if it made him look stupid; he didn't mind doing it for you.

Along the way, he talked about how he'd rate bomb that rude store and punch that post you walked into, and as stupid as that sounded, you managed to let out a stupid laugh. When Rafayel saw that, he was more than glad to see you slowly getting back on your feet.

Throughout the whole day, he gave in to your whims, doing things that you liked and eating the food you wanted to eat at that moment. He acted all cutesy for you because he knew you liked that about him the most, but he didn't joke with you in return. Instead, he acted all romantic and such.

Xavier: The Silent Comforter

Xavier could sense that something was off. Everything was in its place, and you were acting practically the same as every day, but he couldn't help but be instinctively close to you as if the energy he was sensing was oozing out of your body. He was quiet beside you, tending to his own entertainment, but the moment he heard a sniff, all his suspicions were confirmed.

Xavier kept his lips shut and reached an arm over your shoulders, pulling you closer to him. He didn't say a word to you. You continued to sniffle and hiccup while watching the movie, but both of you knew you weren't actually paying attention to the show.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

Xavier would pat your arm or your thigh to comfort you, placing a kiss every now and then. He listened intently to your rants and your concerns, nodding and asking the right questions. It was his strategy to get you to relax and let it all out naturally. Albeit he'd have a hard time trying to understand you through your sobbing, all he knew was that you needed him at that moment.

It didn't take long for you to calm down and doze off to sleep, feeling the emotional exhaustion weigh you down more than you'd like to admit. You always fell asleep on his lap because he would always comb through your hair while you spoke.

A few hours later, you would wake up next to Xavier on the bed, and on the night table was some convenience store food that he bought.

Sylus: The Kissing Comforter

Sylus didn't know you were having a bad day, even if you were going on and on about that small little thing that made you feel so infuriated. Although he was listening very, very intently, offering you some practical advice and partially suggesting that he could deal with it for you, it wasn't until you headed to the restroom that Luke and Kieran sneaked into his office after hearing the entire thing.

Sylus was confused when the twins told him that you were crying on the way to the bathroom. At that moment, Luke and Kieran thought that their boss was too…insensitive. Sylus knew the look on their faces.

When you headed back to his office after half an hour, Sylus was waiting for you by the door. He pulled you into his grasp and brushed his thumb under your puffy eyes. "Are you alright?" he asked, and you burst out crying ugly like you did in the bathroom. He frowned when you told him that you were just having a bad day, but Sylus could see right through you.

Your efforts in brushing your own misery aside were futile at best.

He picked you up and carried you to the couch, and he patted your back like a baby. You went on and on again about how you felt so bad and why everything was going in the wrong direction, and this time, Sylus was quiet, shushing you and telling you, "Don't cry; everything will be better tomorrow." When you had nothing left to say, Sylus slowly began to distract you by giving you kisses in between cries, touching you, and petting you until you couldn't think of anything else for a few minutes. He nibbled on your ear and whispered sweet nothings alongside comforting words.

Author footnotes: I'm more than sure that their way of comforting the reader/you would vary depending on how you particularly act when you're having a bad day so I decided to go generic and not specify anything... Layout by me, using canva premium | Do not repost |

[ay-chuu]

Self aware!characters. Gn!reader. Not yandere but... possessive aim to... get real? C.ai mentioned. (Secretly) and pls be nice this is my first attempt to write self aware 😔🤞🏼reblogs and comments are appreciated 🫡

( HELLO! IF YOU SEE THIS POST AGAIN ITS BECAUSE THAT THIS POST IS A REPOST DUE TO TAG BAN! SORRY FOR INTERRUPT!)

~◇~

He hated how your world is too small. Too small to reach you. He felt millions of gazes on him, millions of love to decleared to him, but still he cant reach to you.

You were a usual reader too, at first. He was annoyed by another... 'stalker's intreaction to read him through game/manga. He hated how accessible he was. He hated how coded he was... but then he heard your voice for the first time as you sighed.

"That stupid scene... Is characters are just toys to the author or something else?" You wondered.

He wanted to be read by you from then. He wanted to known by you. He wanted to learn every reaction you gave to him. Hopefully only to him... at least in a romantic way...

Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months and months turned to years... He felt so tired to be not reached by only you, but everyone. He felt so tired to be not able to reach you. He felt so tired to feel angry.

What he could to though? He tried every method to be real for you. To you be real for him. He added small details to your pursue which you were shocked by know, but always though you were going mad since you didnt saw the same info in web... He always tried to be his sincere though the bots you talked to as him but always failed since you deleted the chats... He even hacked your phone for a time being, to show you his love with writing a letter through you notes but which made him failed again since you thought it was a joke from your friends or something else like that.

He was angry. He didn't wanted to be revealed to anyone else but you. He didn't wanna be a cool character, unless you thought so too...

And he promised himself; that it doesn't matter how many times he tries to reach you through the bots, through the pages, through the screen or through the anything.

He just wanted be real for you.

He promised himself, to reach you, to find you, to love you.

To feel your reality, in your reality.

~♡~

《 ~ ☆ (Bsd) Ranpo, Sigma, FYODOR, Dazai, Chuuya, GOGOL, Akutagawa, Atsushi, Jouno ; (LnD) XAVIER, Zayne, Rafayel ; (BNHA) Bakugou, SHIGARAKI ; (Twst) MALLEUS, Rook, Riddle ; (DC) Jason Todd, Dick grayson ; (Obey me) Lucifer, DIAVOLO, BARBATOS, SOLOMON ; (Genshin) Xiao, Neuvilette, SCARAMOUCHE ... And your faves... 》

maybe part 2?

[phantomonabudget]

We need to talk, Pham. Stop shaming Christine Daaé.

I have seen this behavior consistently for the 30+ years I have been a Phan. What's worse is that I see A LOT of it from grown women. I see posts calling her foolish for leaving Erik. Slut shaming her or calling her a gold digger. Calling her stupid, weak, or unworthy because a "real woman" (presumably the women posting these absurd notions 🙄) would have loved him better and been worthy of his awesome talent and capacity for love. 😳🤮

It's disturbing, disheartening, and disgusting. And it needs to stop.

First off, none of these characters are real, so perhaps let's take things a little less seriously in general. It's a fictional story. I get it: we all love it, and probably love the Phantom's character. That's fine....I've made a 20+ year career dressing as the dude, for crying out loud. 🤣 Maybe we all identify with Erik/The Phantom to some degree. Regardless of the version of the story, if the actors or authors do their job well, we *should* feel pity and compassion for him. But feeling compassion and completely ignoring the character's dangerous and abusive behavior are two very different things. It has the potential for some severe consequences in the real world.

By shaming Christine for leaving Erik at the end, you are potentially telling young people that staying in abusive relationships is the right thing. You make them think that if their significant other is talented, misunderstood, been abused themselves etc, then they should stay and love them into a healthy relationship. That if they just love their abusive SO harder, sacrifice themselves a little more or for a little longer, or keep putting that person's needs above their own, that the relationship will suddenly become this wonderful, euphoric experience. It won't. As a survivor of longtime abusive myself, I can tell you from experience: it doesn't happen that way.

Celebrate healthy relationships and enforcing healthy boundaries. Stop shaming Christine for fighting for and winning her life and saving the man she loves.

And please stop calling this a romance. It's the antithesis of romance.

I am sick of members of this Phandom completely ignoring Erik/The Phantom's behavior to justify their blind adoration. Erik is an abusive and dangerous character, and extremely toxic. He lies to and manipulates Christine using her trauma from her deceased father. He kidnaps her, multiple times. Threatens her and her colleagues. He extorts hundreds of thousands from the business managers. He endangers dozens of people with the chandelier crash, and effectively holds hundreds hostage for months or years at a time with his reign of terror at the Opera.

Then there are the murders. Several of them. Probably been at that for awhile so we can assume it's far more than the two we see in the show. We don't know his actual body count, but we do know he's adept and comfortable taking human life.

And yet, I see some mature phans out here completely ignoring all those things and still shaming Christine for leaving him. Why? Because he's "sexy" (author's note: PLEASE go re-read Leroux. Please). And he's talented. And has so much love to give. And is misunderstood. And society was terrible to him...so it's all fine. 😳🤮 She should have just stayed and loved him like he deserves to be loved. 🙄

Recently I saw a post shaming Christine and the justification was that Raoul was so much worse. He isn't. Is he a perfect character? No, not at all. Does he make mistakes and try to use Christine? In some versions, yes. Does he run around extorting, manipulating, threatening, and killing others? Also no.

Pleasw don't ever use LND!Raoul's character assassination as some kind of justification, because he's still the most sane, normal human being in that show, and Erik is still 1,000 times worse than Raoul in LND. Also, using LND as justification for anything makes for a very weak and uninformed argument.

"Hurt people hurt people." Ever heard that phrase? Abused people sometimes abuse others, especially if they haven't done the work to heal themselves. Their previous abuse does NOT entitle them to abuse others. That is always a deliberate choice and those choices have consequences. The dangerous, disgusting rhetoric I see in the Phantom community basically excuses toxic behavior because Erik was previously abused and nothing is his fault. That is simply not true. Those that abused me were previously abused. Didn't make my abuse hurt any less. And I made the choice to do the work so that the abuse stopped with me. Previous trauma is a reason for the behavior, but it is NEVER, ever an excuse.

And don't let the fact the dude can sing or that he's a snappy dresser blind you to his toxicity.

We can all enjoy the Phantom character's complexity and love him, while still acknowledging his flaws and holding him accountable for his deeply inappropriate choices.

We talk a lot more these days about trauma, toxicity, and self care. And yet, as a community, we still shame the character of Christine Daaé for doing the healthy, correct thing. The ONLY thing. And in doing so, we set a disturbing precedent for our young or vulnerable Phans who now might think that staying in toxic relationships in the real world is okay.

Please do better, Phandom.

[captainjoongki]

I felt the "I've only loved 8 couples since 2019" down to my bones. Dramas have been downhill since then and this year is probably the worst for me. Idk wtf they're doing? Have they forgotten what romance is or what? Because take love next door as one example of the many failures what was that? I came out of it not believing the relationship at all he was obsessed with her since they were kids and she looked like she could leave him or take him at any point... Like I don't think you can watch that as a love story and think it actually delivered unless you're watching it from the female lead as your stand in. I know they want to cater to the "green flag looser in love ML while FL does nothing so you can pretend to be her" as romance majority but lord give us some real relationships with FLs ACTUALLY being shown in love and doing something about it???

seen a lot of kdrama blogs on here talk about similar things and i agree with you so wholeheartedly anon! like i genuinely had to stop and think about the couples i've cared about in recent years and when i stop and think i realize that they were relationships where both parties expressed their care and love beautifully.

for me, a love story just cannot be one-sided - unless that's the PLOT - and i fucking HATEEEEEE this stupid "green flag red flag loser in love" nonsense that's been going around lately like you cannot box characters like that and when you do, you get the mess that was LND. like, if you loved that drama that's your opinion, but mine was that it's the perfect example of the garbage that kdrama writers are spewing in the name of romance in recent times.

i want full fledged characters who are human who fuck up and feel things and do questionable things and do right things and mess up and are wrong and right and in between and love with their whole heart and BOTH fight for their love. i want romance that feels worth going to the ends of the earth for and not some stand-in AUs with characters who have 1 shade to them.

idk so many things about kdramas in recent years annoy me but also i have some (in that post you mentioned mostly) that truly have checked off boxes for me. so all hope is not lost. but these types of dramas are just too rare which is soooooo whack.

like, i'll give an example - back in 2007 there aired a drama (thank you) with jang hyuk and gong hyojin where the romance was between a single mother and the doctor whose girlfriend fucked up a medical procedure hat lead to a HIV case for the mom's daughter. that's the kind of plot we had in 2007!!!!! can such a drama even exist in 2024? no because you'd have user 193i4294 on twitter dot com tell me that jang hyuk is not a green flag.

[laqueus]

look, I know this is messy but I watched LND for the first time the other day and honestly? really gotta love Christine’s choice of words when introducing the phantom

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

Father Brown s3e15 turned me into a morosexual

[reanimationstation]

what r ur thoughts on 2004 phantom of the opera even though I don't know what that is

2004 phantom is the movie with . uh. i dont lnow names. it was on youtube for free last night!! legally!!!

ANYWAYS

OH BOY

:) my thoughts are somewhat incoherent and disorganized its gonna be long

spoilers ahead for POTO and LND

i love meg with all my heart and i would die for her in a heartbeat

shes so cute dhfjdjd i love her

this is the only adaptation so far that's made me enjoy Carlotta's character?

anyways im forming a meg and carlotta fan club

THE PUPPIES

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY ANIMALS

i stan the people in the elephant

im sorry but the black and white bits are HILARIOUS and i didnt pay attention to them at all

i reallt hated how all the men (minus Raoul. and Erik, to an extent) were fucking creepy towards the women

it was gross. why did they decide to put that in. its not funny

on a lighter note, the managers are definitely fucking

the opera is a lot. smaller? than imagined it?

christines dress in Think of Me is MUCH different than the stage version but still extremely pretty

LET ME TELL YOU WHEN I SAW RAMIN AS CHRISTINES DAD I LOST MY SHIT SHFJDJDJR

hes so pretty,, only man to play all three people christine loves (her dad, Raoul, and Erik)

(hes erik in the 25th anniversary and i love him)

i am absolutely enamoured with this raoul BUT his hair was iffy and i rated it throughout the movie. you will now be subject to that

Raouls hair at his first introduction: 8/10 i love how the bangs bit swoops down and goes behind his ear, he looks like a schoolgirl

Raouls hair during little lottie: 6/10, why did they brush it back, he looked so cute before. still somewhat messy tho

raouls hair during Notes/Prima Donna: 4/10 WHY did they brush it back so much. he looks like a fucking barbie

raouls hair during masquerade: 5/10 the ponytail is hilarious and doesnt fit him at all

raouls hair post masquerade: 7.5/10 some bits have come loose because hes running around and he looks silly. i love him

raouls hair during all i ask of you: 6/10 i dont remember when this song is chronological so im putting it here (im stupid, i should know, i performed this song). anyways he just ran up several flights of stairs it should be messier

raouls hair during the swordfight: 8/10? idk i was distracted. hh swordfight and pretty men make brain go brrrr

like who LET him out of the house in high waisted pants and a thin ass blouse

IN WINTER

but i gotta say, he looked nice as fuck

shit where was i

raouls hair during Don Juan: 7.5/10 it was ok. i was more distracted by his silly little expressions of confusion and disgust. his eyes were WATERING as he watched what was happening on stage. thats betrayal, babe.

raouls hair during final lair: 9/10 it was soaking wet. it lended to the situation.

ok done with that

masquerade couldve been BETTER

how COULD THEY LIMIT THE COSTUMES TO WHITE BLACK AND GOLD (with very muted colors throughout)

i UNDERSTAND its for the AESTHETIC BUT

HHHHHHH

THE STAGE PRODUCTION MASQUERADE IS BETTER THATS ALL IM SAYING

I WANT CHAOS. I WANT COLORS

funnily enough in the stage production, Raoul is basically the only one who keeps this black and gold color scheme, and ends up looking underdressed.

not any of our leads (including the girys) not wearing masks smh

i will say that despite wearing masks, a lot of the ensemble is attractive

i spotted a person who would literally make a perfect book-accurare raoul

mustache and all dbfbdndnd

where was i

oh, Eriks costume was such a downgradeeee

hmph

raoul being a fucking idiot by A) leaving Christine to get a sword, and B) jumping down in tbe pit after Erik

dumbass. i love you

him sleeping outside of christines door was adorable

him. is adorable

uhhhh

on to erik

his face. is that cgi??? it couldnt be practical, right?

anyways i hated it. but not in a "ugh that's disgusting way", more in a "stage versions can and have done this makeup better"

try harder

i barely noticed it when christine ripped off his mask the first time

they really needed to just. try harder with erik overall.

uhhh whats next

oh im gonna talk about the swordfight again

WHY WAS ERIK THE ONLY ONE PROPERLY DRESSED FOR WINTER

and not even on purpose, thats just how he dresses normally

yeah christine was wearing a cloak but aLL OF HER CHEST WAS EXPOSED. SHES A SINGER. COVER UP AND PROTECT YOUR THROAT/LUNGS, IDIOT

raouls arm really never got the proper medical care it needed. ill touch on this again in a sec

the way erik chased joseph buqet(?) had the energy of elementary school tag

the final lair

raoul just falling down into the water trap was the funniest shit

like. he takes a step and immediately DROPS

the water trap was fun!! poor design tho. why was the escape mechanism on the inside

erik is bad at tying people up. good thing instead of trying to escape, out local idior is singing

he liTERALLY couldve just leaned forward to let the first rope fall off this shoulders and worked to avoid the noose

idiot. babey.

his arm is bleeding again and honestly i cant believe it never got infected

like damn. thats been a day or two, right? it shouldve closed up by now. all you did was go swimming, the fuck you mean it opened again

that boat is TINY i gotta say

aaaa meg coming back to set up LND

i hate LND but meg in pants is just 💝💘💕🌈

aaand. uh. oh right

i hate LND

but the date on christines gravestone is 1917?

and i thought LND happened in 1907?

which is when she. dies.

back to the actual movie, the fact that they changed when the chandelier fell to be nearer the end of the movie IRKED me

i think thats all i have to say about this movie?

this was all done from memory, so forgive me if things are off, or if i forgot something

overall: im gay and i enjoyed watching pretty people. it has its problems but its not bad

[thewriterinthebatcave]

So, I read The Phantom Of Manthattan

In its entirety. @baepsyche had tried to dissuade me, she did her best, but I wanted to wade through the sewage that book is by myself and form my own opinion on it. I mean, I had a very clear image of how bad it would be when I heard @lindsayetumbls give the rundown in the Musicalsplaining episode of Love Never Dies, but I had no idea how bad it could actually be!

TL:DR The book is a mess that makes no sense as a sequel to whatever, nor it makes sense on its own because of how it’s structured and written. It sucks, it’s poorly written and isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Love Never Dies is a fucking masterpiece worth of all the awards for musical theater out there in comparison.

I mean... I’ve read bad books in my life. Once upon another time I handled a blog dedicated to poor literature - both printed and online - I’ve read my big fat share of bad literature, I binged on the Fifty Shades trilogy but Sweet Jesus Christ POM makes 50 Shades look like high art! 

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

1. Too many POV characters. There’s like... the Phantom, three different journalists two of which are there for one chapter alone and never return, there’s the priest, and a couple more I forgot. But... WHY? Why so many different POV characters in a book so short I literally finished it in a couple half hour long sessions? WHY? It makes no sense from a narration standpoint, it’s crowded and confusing and voyeuristic! Also, never including Christine’s POV you diminish her character to a paper thin token. Also, where’s Raoul?

2. Speaking of which, Raoul. Poor guy, the book shits on him from chapter 1 (the only barely readable chapter of the book), and by doing so right in the beginning the “big reveal” of Pierre/Gustave true parentage feels more of a “captain obvious” joke rather than a “I would have never guessed!”. Not that it is such a grand plot twist in Love Never Dies I mean, but Jesus, not like this! 

3. Yeah, speaking of that. People shit on Love Never Dies for “Beneath A Moonless Sky” and the sex scene that never was, but this is way worse! At least the song gives you a context, a moment you can at least imagine what the hell happened and maybe even why, but here? Nothing! They don’t even TALK about that, let alone explain to the reader that those two had sex! What the fuck! Pierre just happened to be born and Raoul never even questioned his parentage! Or maybe he does, he just doesn’t care since he fullfills the nobility’s expectations of a male heir, who knows. HE DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING RELEVANT IN THE WHOLE BOOK! No wonder in LND they turned him in the abusive alcoholic, they had no material to build on in this... thing. 

4. The Phantom and the backstory. I appreciate the fact that they tried to give him a past, and I really liked the fact that Forsythe took his time to even give at least a fraction of time/place context to the original book that hasn’t one by figuring out Leroux had a post-electricity Palais Garnier in mind, but the backstory for the Phantom... I’ve read more interesting fanfics. I haven’t read Kay’s Phantom, I have it but I haven’t started it yet so I can’t make comparisons, but seriously, I’ve really read fanfics retellings of Erik’s past more imaginative and fleshed out that this book.

Which leads me to...

5. Satanism? Really? Satanism? Of all the shock cards Forsythe could have dropped on the table, Satanism? Listen guys, I’m a metalhead, I listen to stuff that people have called “the music of the devil” (classic rock, blues and jazz included) for the past fifty years on daily basis, one of my favourite songs of all time is Emperor’s “Inno A Satana” which literally means “Hymn to Satan” in Italian. My parents were scared to death when I started dabbling in heavy metal because of the whole “satanism” thing, I know my shit about satanism (I actually have done my research), and let me tell you that shit is old. Like, dusty and moldy old, not just not fashionable, it’s such an old story no one finds it so shocking anymore. So... WHY? It makes no sense, drives no point in the story, it’s a damn McGuffin that isn’t even relevant anymore! It wasn’t at the time the book was published (the whole trial to Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne had happened like... 10 years prior the book was written so... meh) and I really hope it will never be again because... seriously... nope, it’s stupid and pointless, why on Earth it was used as a plot device I have no fuckin’ idea. 

6. Darius. Dude has no backstory, no descriptor except his greed and “devotion” to money and wealth. Oh and he smokes hashish. That’s it. We’ve got no other data on him. Jesus Christ, for the antagonist of the story he surely is kind of... bland? I mean, he’s non existent! Such a cop out, like really... WHY! At least Meg falling for the Phantom and getting all jealous crazy makes a teeny tiny bit of sense, but this guy? Bland, children’s book cutout satanism aside, which is a terrible choice of moving force for reasons above, the dude himself is so terribly fleshed out (ID, he isn’t) that his motivations are unclear at best and laughable at worst. You are the Phantom’s face in the world, he has so much money that if you start putting a side a grand here and a grand there he wouldn’t notice, you have power to make deals in his behalf, why don’t you just get the money and go? Have you learned nothing by working with the Phantom? Can’t you make your own money and become filthy rich yourself so you can honor your damn god  on your fucking own? Don’t you think your god would appreciate more you making your own wealth instead of pigging on the Phantom’s back and take only morsels of his own wealth? Fuck this book is a mess. 

7. Christine. I mean, she’s rarely there, for the time she is she’s either a hysterical mess or a an angel on stage, and she is supposed to be the reason everything happens. In reality, it looks like everything happens in spite of her. She has no power on her own, she’s like a piece of wood floating in the sea during a storm. 

8... No, I’m not going further with this. I could shit on this book for the whole day, but I have other things to do, better things to do. 

I’m going to wash my eyes with bleach now. 

[avaantares]

Imma rant for a minute. (This is me being critical of a thing, so if you’re eschewing negativity right now, feel free to scroll on past.) :)

Sooooo I took a break from replaying FFVII:R tonight (last night, by the time this posts) to watch the stream of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Love Never Dies, a show I already knew to be terrible (but hey, you can't argue with free musicals, right?). Long before the musical opened, I’d read The Phantom of Manhattan, the book it’s based on, and that was... like... Hmm. Think of a bad fanfiction you've read. I mean a really bad one, one that gets every single character wrong, has the stupidest of stupid fiction tropes, includes ridiculously contrived scenarios to kill off characters and weird medical "science" and historical inaccuracies and a totally implausible plot, all mashed together just to reinforce someone's OTP which was kind of an unhealthy relationship to begin with and got considerably more unhealthy in this story, AND it includes a lengthy author’s note in which the writer bashes the author of the original work his story is based on and explains everything that author did wrong and how it should have been written, using examples from the fic writer’s own work to demonstrate.*

Then picture that as a $24.99 hardback.

So I knew the general story already, and I'd seen a couple of clips from the stage show, and from what I remembered it was all pretty forgettable. But like I said, free to watch, right? Nothing to lose but a couple of hours.

Oh. My. Goodness. I was not prepared for the full experience. It's like Phantom of the Opera and Cats had a (secret) baby that got shoved in a blender with all of circa-2004 Fanfiction.net and then pasted back together by a YA fiction editor’s intern. Despite a truly exceptional cast and some strong visual and set design, it wavered between cringe-y and I’m-going-to-hurt-myself-laughing levels of bad.

Mind you, it’s still better than the book, in which (SPOILER ALERT if anyone cares, which you probably don’t because if you’re the type of fan who would, you’ve probably already seen the show) Christine’s son is not the byproduct of a willing affair she had with Erik after she became disillusioned with her marriage, but was conceived after he kidnapped her at the Opera House, and... let’s just say consent was dubious, at best. (IIRC she was “half swooning” and not entirely aware of what was happening.) Also there’s some nonsense about Raoul being impotent from a war wound and never having consummated their marriage... But broadly speaking, the story is the same as the musical -- by which I mean it completely negates everything good and symbolic and meaningful about ALW’s Phantom of the Opera, to which the book was as much a sequel as it was to the original Gaston Leroux novella.

Love Never Dies fails as a sequel for a number of reasons: Every character you liked in the original? Assassinated. Raoul, who was willing to sacrifice his life for Christine in POTO, is now an abusive, alcoholic wastrel who has gambled his family into crippling debt. Christine cheats on her husband with a guy who has made a habit of kidnapping and threatening her, and who has actually murdered a number of people. Meg, Christine’s dearest friend and confidante, is now a washed-up burlesque dancer who -- again, SPOILER ALERT -- tries to kill first Christine’s son, then herself, then finally succeeds in killing Christine. The broadest take-home message of POTO, that kindness and love can heal even the deepest wounds, is undercut by these dramatic character reversals. Even the show’s title anthem “Love Never Dies” is contradicted by the love triangle at the center of the plot. Maybe love never dies, but that doesn’t stop Christine from cheating on her husband, Raoul from walking out on his wife and son, Erik from threatening to kill Christine’s child if she doesn’t do what he wants, Meg from betraying and murdering her best friend... yeah, let’s not take relationship advice from this group. 

But beyond that, LND is just bad structurally. The Phantom’s opening number builds up to be a “Music of the Night”-style anthem -- a dubious choice, since it makes everything he sings for the next half an act feel flat by comparison. Then we go into a surreal Coney Island segment for a while, then a bunch of really awkward dialogue exposition gets crammed in, and then twenty minutes into the show we finally meet Christine and her family, which kicks off the actual plot. The pacing is uneven. The tone is all over the map, too, bouncing between Phantom-like operatic ballads and Jesus Christ Superstar-esque carnival rock numbers. (All of which, I have to say, the Melbourne cast knocked out of the park. The vocal performances were definitely not a weak spot in this production.)

While I really like a lot of Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff -- I've seen a number of his shows on stage, some of them three or four times -- his titles seem to be hit-or-miss. For every Phantom, there's a Whistle Down the Wind. Some of that isn't his fault; a mediocre lyricist or book writer can do a lot of damage, even with good music. This musical had two lyricists and four writers, and it shows. But IMO, this is also not Lloyd Webber’s best work. Apart from the title song, which I’ve heard often enough to know it outside of the show, I can recall the melodies of... two songs? The score isn’t bad, it’s just not as instantly memorable as Sunset Boulevard or Joseph or Phantom. And a weak story plus average music doesn’t equal a great show.

I’m sure I’ve complained more than anyone cares to read, but I have one final rant about something that caused me to startle my dog by making some very screechy noises: When Christine arrives by ship, the Phantom sends a horseless carriage to pick her up at the pier. Mind you, this scene is specifically stated to take place in New York in 1905. The crowd of onlookers is utterly SHOCKED by a vehicle that moves by itself. “There are no horses!” someone exclaims. "How does it work?"

Apparently all four of the credited writers slept through history class, and also couldn’t be bothered to Google a photo of New York at the turn of the century. Automobiles have been around since the 1880s, and by 1905, New York had so many cars on the streets that the New York Supreme Court had to hand down a ruling guaranteeing that horse-drawn transportation still had the same right-of-way as motorized vehicles, because the motorists didn’t want to share the road. Heck, my own great-grandfather owned a car by 1895! Glaring, easily-avoided errors like this jar me so far out of the story -- even good stories, which this one wasn’t -- that they actually bother me more than other, more significant failings. At least do your basic research, people. Use Google. Grrr.

Anyway, I’m just rambling now because I can’t sleep and I'm on prescription narcotics for pain and my dog is tired of listening to me grumble. Don’t mind me; I’m not actually this negative in real life. 😅

----------------------------------------------------

* I am not exaggerating. In the foreword, author Frederick Forsyth bashes Gaston Leroux and gives examples from his own works to explain how Le Fantôme de l'Opéra could have been written better. Like. DUDE. NO.

That book went straight into the donation box the moment I was done reading it. When Love Never Dies came out, I briefly regretted getting rid of it, but then I remembered how bad the story was and stopped feeling bad.

[filthybonnet]

And the "I don't associate with transphobes" guy downloaded (or at least interacted in your post) the LND boot you gifted. But of course he'll never acknowledge that you aren't a transphobe because people can't just talk with you or read your posts. They only come here to attack you (and get that boot). I'm really sorry for that, you're a dear and deserve better than that!

EWWWWW!!! i CAN’T POSSIBLY DOWNLOAD THOSE FILES THEY HAVE TRANSPHOBE COOTIES ALL OVER THEM!!! 

OH Too late I already did. BUT IT DOESN’T COUNT BECAUSE THAT WAS BEFORE I KNEW THOSE COOTIES WERE THERE!!

And I’m guessing their principles aren’t strong enough to delete the files and not watch them because no one else is going to give them this file. I mean I hate everything Wal-Mart stands for but I still shop there from time to time out of necessity. And Jeff Benzos is pure evil at this point, but I have an Amazon Prime account.

I hope they keep the boot and I hope they enjoy it. I want everyone to have access to this boot which is why I did this. I’ve become the Phandom punching bag for no apparent reason now. They used to have (albeit stupid) real reasons that were actually tied to the Phandom. Now that those have run out they all decided to go after something easy and picked woke points. It’s so much easier to nod and smile and agree with flavor of the month Phantom and blindly says “Trans Rights.” And at the end of the day as one of my friends pointed out, this is what it’s all really about. I rock the status quo and people don’t like that. I rocked it when I joined the Phandom here on tumblr and refused to kiss ass to the established people, when I questioned the gate keeping and when I decided the rules of boot legging were arbitrary.

And I’m doing it again with being so openly about being gender critical. The thing is I’m not the only woman who is gender critical. There are loads of people who are gender critical and have been their whole life. It just took JK Rowling a public figure so powerful who can’t be canceled or fired to say something to make them realize there are others out there. We have been silenced by the over vocal minority. They are professors and academics who can’t even have intellectual discussions for fear of being reported and fired. When debate can’t thrive in an academic circle things have gone too far. The classes are called gender studies or gender theory: you don’t get to say one is right or wrong you have to be up for healthy debate. And if you think debate means denying your existence, then you’re in the wrong place. It’s called queer theory not queer fact. I did a double major in Gender Studies in undergrad, it’s there to push and make you grow not validate you. To this day I am still growing and pushing myself today because of the double major.

I am comfortable with who I am and what I believe and stand for. I don’t care if it doesn’t look “woke.” Those who know me know I am a very nice, giving and loyal person. I’m tired of having to prove myself or be judged based on a skim of my posts. You know you can always have a conversation with me. I have spent the past 20 years making friends on the internet through conversations not just seeing what they post.

[rafayelbiter]

did the height comparison thing with the LIs im going to fucking end it

chart template NOT made by me idk i found it on pinterest

blocking all hoes who mention drake fucking KYS IM;;';'NOT A KID🤬🤬🤬🤬YALL JUS SALTY I GOT TBE WATTPAD HEIGTH DIFFERENCE AND CAN LOOK EM IN THE TIDDIES👎👎👎👎

[robingurl]

What Kind of Blog Is This?

I’ve been seeing a few other posts like this where they reintroduce their blogs to their followers and to new people so I thought I’d give it a try. 

Hello Everyone, I’m Robin Gurl. I’m a 34 year old fangirl who has been doing the fangirling thing for a super long time. 

I’m in numerous fandoms but my main one and my main guy is Robin/Dick Grayson/Burt Ward from the 1966 Batman. 

What Talents I Have: 

I am a Graphic Designer by trade (I have a BA in Graphic Design). I can draw both digitally and traditionally. I am a self taught (going on 20 years) Web Programmer. I can 3D Model and I’m currently teaching myself Unity. 

My other fandoms in no particular order: 1977 Hardy Boys, 1984 Voltron, 1985 Thunder Cats, Sailor Moon, Ronin Warriors, The Beatles, Ghostbusters (prefer RGB), POTO/LND, CATS the Musical (the original), Slayers, Ghost Hunt, Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji, Super Friends, TMNT (original), Hetalia, LOTR, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and more. 

Games I Play:  Harvest Moon (all platforms), Batman Legos, Animal Crossing (both DS and Switch), DDR, Stardew Valley (Switch and PC), Nancy Drew PC Games, SimCity, SIMS, Hidden Object Games from Big Fish

This blog will have various reblogs from all of the above and some of the below (with more random things) Fall (season), Winter (season), Storms, Retro, Cottagecore, Various Anime, Various Yaoi/Shounen Ai, Shoujo, Stupid Stuff, Quotes, Interesting facts, paranormal, etc. 

I LOVE ANONS. I do my best to answer every single one of them. 

I am not the best tagger but I’m trying to get better. It usually depends on whether I’m reblogging on my phone or computer and what time of day it is. At night or very early in the AM its usually just straight reblogging. 

I have plenty of side blogs which I can link later. 

[gracie-p8-officialblog]

Spilling Tea On Phantom of the Opera 2004

DISCLAIMER: I just want to say from the start that it is not my intention to offendanyone, you're entitled to your opinions and I'm allowed to have mine...

Ok, so, I just watched this movie a few days ago on my laptop and it was pretty much my first time sitting through the movie. I watched a few clips of the movie on YouTube but... Then, I decided to watch the whole movie. And this was my reaction.

Don't get me wrong! There WERE parts I liked but... That was just half of the movie... But overall... Um... It was meh. Ahem. Down to business!

My opinion on Gerard Butler as the Phantom? Um, wow. And not in a good way. I feel like this was a case of a talented performer being grossly miscast as the Phantom. I think this Tumblr post best describes on what I thought of his singing.

"He's supposed to have the voice of an angel, but it sounds like he's been gargling vinegar" ~Quoted by @faded-florals

Don't get me wrong. His voice is quite good for an untrained singer but... The Phantom is one of the biggest musical theatre roles of all time! It's right up there with Jean Valjean. It's really not a role that could go a competent singer, someone who's never sang professionally before but could be good once they've been trained up a bit. The role demands a truly great singer... And he wasn't right for the part.

His voice felt too strainy, growly and rock-ish for the Phantom. I didn't like how Joel Schumacher bought into the whole "sexy Phantom" thing and cast a hunky heart-throb, who was nowhere near disfigured enough. It's meant to be a gothic thriller novel with a small romantic subplot, not a B-grade vampire romance movie!

As for Emmy Rossum as Miss Christine Daae... it's true, her voice is good. She should know though, should she wish to excel, she has MUCH still to learn (Heeeeehee. Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

Emmy's Christine had little-to-no character growth and personality but I don't think it reflects her as an actress, but reflects more on the director and casting director because of how young she was (but more on that later)

Not only that, her Christine was SIGNIFICANTLY dumbed down and oversexualized. I mean, the entire point of the story is that Christine grows strong enough to overcome the trauma of an abusive relationship and make sure that her abuser never hurts anyone ever again but still shows the Phantom compassion and sympathy. I mean, her story arc is her becoming strong-willed enough to overcome the Phantom's pull/spell/enchantment/hypnosis or whatever you percieve it as on her! And don't get me started on her costumes because of the SEVERE lack of modesty.

The chemistry was a little flat because she was underage and her two male love interests were both in their 30s (which totally isn't HER fault, of course, but the directors could easily have cast someone else older)

Her voice, too, strikes me as being much too young and undeveloped. She has a very pretty, sweet-sounding quality to her singing but she doesn't sound rich and operatic enough to be a convincing Christine. Rebecca Caine and Amy Manford do the best job of singing the way I think Christine ought to sound- a maturing opera voice! Though POTO is NOT an opera (you wouldn't believe how many people actually think it is...), it does revolve around opera, and Christine is an opera singer, not a pop star.

And now onto... Everyone's favourite vicomte!!!!!!

C'mon people, put your bottles down. It is a truth universally acknowledged (or at least in the wee Raoul Defense Squad Circle) that Raoul is one of the greatest and most underrated boyfriends to ever exist in musical theatre and it's almost impossible to hate him because of how relatable he is.

Ladies, puh-leeze. He's much more relatable than you admit and face it, we all have a little bit of Raoul in us. Failure to see things staring us in the face, saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, having a 'see it to believe it' attitude when we have little-to-no evidence on something... yeah, don't pretend you don't see a trend. Raoul is relatable whether we want him to be or not.

My thoughts on Patrick Wilson as Raoul, he was one of the few redeeming qualities of this not so great movie. Yeah, the swordfight and Tarzan leaps were a little too much but can you blame him?! And though I feel like that foppish wig made him look more like a magic elf prince than a vicomte, he couldn't control that!

His Raoul was so gentle and caring! Yeah, his acting was a bit stiff but at least his voice wasn't a chore to listen to, it has this warm, tender, comforting quality to it which suits Raoul. I really loved the way he sang "Don't throw away your life for my sake" and "I fought so hard to free you" in the Final Lair (😭😭😭) It feels like Raoul is genuinely apologising to Christine.

I know, I know... The Hadley Fraser fans are approaching with menacing expressions as we speak but let me clarify. I still think Hadley is amazing but... His Raoul kinda felt a little too shouty for me and his Raoul was closer to the LND-canon than POTO-canon (not his fault though).

Miranda Richardson (aka. Rita Skeeter) as Madame Giry is kind of weird. I mean, I know Madame Giry's supposed to be a little Strange and Mysterious. But this Mme. wasn't really Strange or Mysterious at all, or even slightly Spooky at all. She was just kind of an oddball. Popping up in random places to give warnings about the Phantom and looking at people as if she were questioning their life choices or something. As for her daughter... well, Jennifer Ellison's Meg was so-so. She's got a sweet-sounding voice and that added scene where she looked for Christine in the lair was a nice touch... But... Her Meg was kinda forgettable and uninteresting. Meg is supposed to prance around shrieking that the Phantom of the Opera is here, not whisper it in a blase manner that you half expect to be followed up with, "by the way, what's for lunch?" Not to mention, she rivaled Christine as far as low-necked costumes went.

Minnie Driver as Carlotta was spot on! Yes, I know she didn't sing the score but her acting was alright. She was very over-the-top and self-centered, which is great for Carlotta, but I felt her portrayal was a little too childish to be accurate. Carlotta is a successful middle-aged diva who's willing to scream and storm when she doesn't get her way, but she isn't a two-year-old pouting and throwing tantrums. (Yes, there's a difference.)

Ciaran Hinds and Simon Callow played Firmin and Andre, respectively. Their managers kinda felt like twits and nothing more. Also, Firmin's masquerade costume was ridiculous. The stupid kind, not the funny kind. ...Well, okay, it was a little funny.

I'm not going to touch on every song here, but I will say that "Hannibal" was beyond awful (if you thought the costumes in the stage version were a bit risque, you should see the movie ones- no, actually you shouldn't) and that "Think of Me," while very nice, was not particularly memorable. Christine's dress, however (despite its less-than-ideal neckline) was GORGEOUS, even though it looks completely out of place in a musical that supposedly takes place in ancient Alexandria.

"Little Lotte" kinda lost its charm by being spoken instead of sung. And Gerard Butler's voice in "The Mirror" was too rough and raspy for my ears and made me cringe in sympathetic shame. The title song was like a cheesy, campy B-grade horror movie tbh, trying way too hard to be spooky and chilling ("ooh, look, Phantom's Lair! It's DARK and SCARY down here!") and succeeding only in being cringeworthy. Not that I've actually ever seen a bad horror movie- or any horror movie at all, for that matter. Unless you count this one.

Christine's costume, too, annoyed me no end. She was basically wearing a corset and drawers under the dressing gown. *facepalm* The dressing gown is supposed to go OVER your COSTUME to keep it CLEAN, peeps. It's not a BATHROBE. And the amount of eye makeup she had on would terrify a raccoon. Yikes.

Though I liked the random horse because of its nod to the Leroux novel.

"Music of the Night" was so blah-slash-touchy-feely that it made me summarily uncomfortable.

I'd like to be able to say something nice about "I remember/Stranger than you dreamt it" but I have none. One thing that bugged me to no end was how Christine is no longer wearing stockings, like dude, that gives some GROSS implications. Anyways, let's skip to Il Muto!

Oh, but first I should say that "Notes" was rather a flop and that "Prima Donna" is unmemorable and indeed should probably be fast-forwarded as there's a rather unsavory bit involving a crew member showing the audience what he thinks of Carlotta's behaviour.

"Il Muto," I must say, was pretty doggone funny. Carlotta's "Your part is silent. Leetle toad," cracked me up into a bunch of giggling little pieces, and the little vignette of the Phantom tinkering with Carlotta's throat spray made her croaking later on a lot more believable.

Now for "All I Ask Of You", SQUEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! I honestly can't understand how anyone could listen to this song and still maintain that Christine and Raoul don't belong together. He represents everything she needs- stability, protection, a guiding hand and affirmed affection. She represents everything he needs, in turn- someone to show affection to and his childhood friend.

One thing I definitely think could have been left out was the scene in which Erik kills Buquet- we totally did not need to see him being chased, terrified, through the rafters and finally strangled. Gross.

And the Phantom and his rose crouching behind that statue... I think this was supposed to be sad, but there was too much snot mixed with tears for it to be sad. It was, again, gross. So was Gerard Butler's pathetic attempt at the "all that the Phantom asked of you" line. And the lack of a chandelier crash in that scene made the song anticlimactic.

And "Masquerade" was so-so but... The Phantom's entrance is anticlimactic somehow, and his Red Death costume (if indeed it's supposed to even BE the Red Death) is unimpressive. I don't like how Raoul just runs off to desert Christine as soon as things start looking ugly (yes, I realize he was going to get his sword, but still... something could have happened to her while he was gone. Duh, did this guy learn anything from "Little Lotte/The Mirror"? Just sayin)

As for Madame Giry's flashback immediately following, I like how it gives us some of the Phantom's backstory, but it seems really abrupt. You don't even realize until she's done that she was talking to Raoul the whole time- it sounds like she's just randomly reminiscing about Stuff, and if you didn't know the story you might be sitting there thinking, "who is this strange woman again?"

Also, Christine leaving wherever-it-is at, like, five in the morning to go to who-knows-where, completely oblivious to the fact that the Phantom is driving her. Whaaaaaaaaa? How'd he know she was planning to go for a graveyard stroll? Was he watching her through the mirror again? THAT'S JUST CREEPY.

"Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" was rather mediocre and dulled down the fact that it is a Christine Empowerment™ song. Why, exactly, does Christine's father have the biggest monument in the cemetery? If he were a rich and famous violinist as his crypt seems to suggest, why on earth was his daughter struggling along as a chorus girl taking free music lessons?

The swordfight... Well... I had mixed feelings about it. Sword fights are all well and good, but... The swordfight takes away the element of mysterious danger to the Phantom. Okay, fine, Christine getting Raoul to spare the Phantom's life is a nice touch, I guess, but did it strike no one else that his "now let it be war upon you BOTH" makes absolutely NO sense after that? If she just saved his life, why would he suddenly be all, "thanks, but no thanks, I'M GOING TO MURDER YOUUUUUUUUUU"?

And "Twisted Every Way" was after "Wishing" which made ZERO sense. Plus, I didn't like how they cut most of it because in the musical, it gave Christine a spine!

"Point of No Return"? Hooooooo boy....... There are so many things wrong with this number. Let's just a list a few.

*HOW did no one recognise the Phantom through his "disguise"?! At least in the stage play, it made more sense because of how he was wearing a cloak that obscured most of his body.

*Christine's sleeves falling down over and over again were REALLY annoying.

*It was just too touchy-feely for my taste.

*The fact that Emmy Rossum was a teenager during filming made this scene gross because of the way they oversexualized Christine in this scene.

*Gerard Butler's voice in that scene made me cringe and shake my head in sympathetic shame.

*In the stage play, Christine ran from him, showing her own agenda and resistance to his pull! While in the movie, she didn't resist him!

*Now for the one that took the cake... The disfigurement! Or it would be a disfigurement if it actually made him look, y'know, deformed. Instead, as several people have put it, he looks like he got a bad sunburn or something. It's really rather pathetic. It makes him look more like a drama queen than he already is! Yeah.... I really don't like this movie.

On to... Final Lair!!!!!!!! It was a flop. From Raoul's whining and flailing around and his stringy hair flopping about (shallow complaint, I know, but it's so ugly) to Christine's sappy melodramatic "don't make me choooooooose" faces to the Phantom's prancing around with his ropes and maniacal laughter that somehow wasn't really scary at all... yeah, it was a flop. A major, major flop. And though The Kiss wasn't all that bad, all I could think of was, "She's SIXTEEN! SIX! TEEN! THIS IS CREEPY, DISTURBING AND GROSS!"

Which is why it's so difficult for me to admit that, um, I... cried at the end.

I COULDN'T HELP IT GUYS HE WAS ALL ALONE THERE IN HIS LAKE WITH HIS MONKEY AND HIS SMASHED MIRRORS AND HE WAS CRYING AND IT WAS SAD.

And then that rose on the gravestone? That single red rose? And the look on Old Raoul's face (still Patrick Wilson, by the way, under all that makeup) when he saw it and realized he wasn't the only one visiting Christine's grave? Yup, I lost it again there, too. And I really didn't want to. Because I tend to cry over movies I love, y'know? And I didn't love this movie. At all

Yet I still cried at the end. I'm not really sure why. I think perhaps it had something to do with the way the story still "got" me, deep down inside, despite the lousy casting and less-than-perfect singing and ridiculously unnecessary elements that totally didn't need to be there. It's still a tragically beautiful romance, and even a bad film can't kill that.

In conclusion, I think Mary Poppins can best express what I thought of POTO 2004.

In conclusion, I rate it a 2.7/5

[glassprism]

Love Never Dies US Tour Review - 4/29/2018

As stated in my previous post, I’m going to attempt to write a more in-depth review while the show is fresh in my mind and while I am still able to decipher my notes (which were done in the dark and are pretty illegible). I’m not going to review every song, and where I do review it, I might just stick to differences from the Australian DVD or any other things I noticed. Because really, we all know how this show goes.

My cast for this show was:

Phantom - Bronson Norris Murphy (alt.)

Christine - Rachel Anne Moore (alt.)

Raoul - Sean Thompson

Meg - Alyssa McAnany (u/s)

Madame Giry - Karen Mason

Gustave - Jake Heston Miller

‘Til I Hear You Sing’: Unfortunately, the first song of the show was somewhat spoiled by the curtain, which featured this sun-like cut-out whose spikes ended up obscuring most of Christine’s portrait (so I never saw if it moved) and part of the Phantom.

Bronson Norris Murphy (BNM from here on out) had a fine voice. He immediately came off as a very tormented figure, hunched over on his chair and throwing himself around (”an emotional ball of angst” is how I thought of him and it pretty much stuck throughout the show). He was very theatrical in his gestures at times, which sometimes worked for me and sometimes didn’t. I also noticed, and enjoyed, how the show used a spotlight to show what is presumably daylight coming through, and how BNM sang to it as well as the portrait. Insert some meta here on symbolism about light and music and acceptance.

‘Coney Island Waltz’/‘Only For You’/’Ten Long Years’ - There’s not a lot for me to say here, except that the disappearance of that curtain with the sun cut-out vastly increased my enjoyment of the show, and I also noticed a quick appearance of a Monkey Girl, because why not throw in some visual shout-outs to the original as well?

As noted in my thoughts, Alyssa McAnany’s Meg was somewhere in a middle ground between Sharon Millerchip’s chirpier but more broken interpretation and Mary Michael Patterson and Summer Strallen’s angry, embittered version. Also, I have never shipped Christine/Meg harder than in LND, because I have friends I haven’t seen in two years, let alone ten, and I don’t talk about them the way Meg does. Karen Mason, as noted, was a bit of a weak point. Her Madame Giry was harsher with Meg than Maria Mercedes in the Australian DVD, and lacked the mystery (what remains of it in LND) of Liz Robertson’s Giry in London.

‘Christine Disembarks’ - My main notes in here are “I hope they cut out the yodeling reporter” (they didn’t, but he was less obnoxious) and wondering why everyone else was affected by the rain except for Christine and Gustave, who showed no reaction at all, as if the Phantom was having a Thor effect where he creates a rainless circle around the people he likes. I did note that Jake Heston Miller’s Gustave had a very lovely voice.

‘What a Dreadful Town’/’Look With Your Heart’ - As stated in my quick thoughts, Sean Thompson’s Raoul was a bit all over the place in how sympathetic he was. On the one hand, he seemed more aggressive in this scene than Simon Gleeson or Austria’s Julian Looman (my favorite LND Raoul, because he was just so sweet). However, the show added in a touching moment here between Raoul and Gustave, where they both play with the music box, perhaps the one father-son bit between the two. He also has a loving embrace with Rachel Anne Moore’s (RAM from here on about) Christine, holding her close to him for several seconds. So it evens out, I suppose.

Nothing much to say about ‘Look With Your Heart’. I did think Anna O’Byrne played the mother-son moments a bit better, as she acted bit more mature in those scenes, but RAM did fine here as well. I might mention here that I adored RAM’s voice - fuller and richer than O’Byrne’s and clearer than Sierra Boggess’s. She doesn’t quite beat out Louise Fribo (my favorite Christine vocally, because she was luminous), but she came very close.

‘Beneath a Moonless Sky’/’Once Upon Another Time’/’Ten Long Years of Yearning’ - Probably one of the biggest differences I noted between the Lewis/O’Byrne pairing and the Murphy/Moore pairing was the emotion the latter poured into it. I think I wrote down something like, “BAMS is still stupid but at least they’re passionate about it.”

BNM did a lot with his physicality, hunching over, gesturing wildly with his hands or clutching desperately onto Christine. He could also be quite volatile emotionally, often shouting or weeping during his scenes. I did wonder if his constant crouching walk was an attempt to make his Phantom look older, but if so, it wasn’t quite successful - he raved and ran around too much to really look like an older man. RAM was quicker to panic, such as when the Phantom lifted Gustave, her voice breaking in barely restrained crying during other scenes, and at one point slamming her hands on the piano and screaming, “Who are you?!” at the Phantom. I think the pair were basically feeding off each other’s energy, which was interesting to watch, if sometimes overwhelming in just how much they SHOUTED at each other.

I also noted what looked like two almost-kisses, one in BAMS and one in OUAT. There also seemed to be a lyric change: after the Phantom says, “I had to, we both knew why!”, Christine says “I don’t know why” instead of repeating “We both knew why”. It was probably done to give the show a little more sense - Christine really didn’t know why the Phantom up and ditched her, though she probably guessed at the reason in the last ten years. Towards the end of the song, the Phantom described Gustave as, “Full of life.. full of you... my Christine”, to which I just wrote, “okay WTF Phantom.”

‘Dear Old Friend’ - I actually have very little to write here. Raoul’s concern for Gustave when the latter took off at the beginning of the song added some more sympathy points to him. Christine and Meg were bit too little-girlish during the song, holding hands and swinging them rather wildly. The crowd of loudly squealing fans around Christine, while Meg is ignored, was amusing. It was also here that I noticed how energetic my audience was, as they laughed at Madame Giry and Raoul’s lines: “It’s him.” “Him? (laughter) You work for him?” “Now so do you.” (more laughter)

Sean Thompson slightly flubbed a line, accidentally addressing Christine as “Madame Giry” (he’s only supposed to say “Madame”) when he tells her he’ll see her at the concert.

‘Beautiful’/’Beauty Underneath’/’Phantom Confronts Christine’ - I’ve always found Gustave singing Christine’s vocalization to be a tad creepy, and seeing it live has only reinforced this opinion. Watching the Phantom do the exact same hand movements he used for Christine in the original show on his son, and seeing Gustave breathe and arch his body in the same way as Christine, was... weird. BNM’s acting didn’t alleviate the creepiness in this scene at all, if anything increasing it by clinging onto Gustave’s shoulders and stroking his face. I think he was trying to convey how desperate the Phantom was for companionship and understanding, but didn’t quite make it work, at least for me. There was also a funny moment to me where it looked he shoved Gustave at a mirror so hard Gustave kind of face-planted into it.

The audience laughed when Gustave shoved the Phantom away in horror, which I thought was rather cruel.

BNM did an interesting thing during his confrontation with Christine, initially flinching away from her comforting hand, then accepting it and gripping it tightly. (”BNM is a walking ball of angst,” I wrote.) RAM was more emotional during this scene, sounding conflicted and pitying, but tore herself away from the Phantom forcefully at the end.

And we had Karen Mason’s Madame Giry finish off the song, and Act 1, with demonic-sounding scream, which basically described my feelings on the show so far.

Intermission - I spent my time writing down audience comments. Highlights: “This is terrible... I don’t like this at all” and “I think I need a refresher course... I don’t remember some of this in the first one...”

‘Why Does She Love Me’/’Devil Take the Hindmost’ - Not too much to say about the first song - I noted that Sean Thompson’s Raoul had a good voice, but also that I was too busy watching for the change from the bartender to the Phantom. His appearance got a good laugh from the audience.

I started thinking of DTTH as “the song of the fallen chairs”, because wow, barstools were everywhere on the ground. BNM started it off by twirling a stool out of his way and onto the floor, and Sean Thompson amped it up by tripping over three chairs at once as he stumbled around. I wrote down in my notes that he was really good at looking like a shambling drunk, but thinking over it now, I’m starting to wonder if he didn’t actually trip and fall and just covered it up well. He also played up Raoul’s distraught state at the Phantom’s revelations - less angry and more horrified, like everything he knew had fallen apart. It was a good take and I enjoyed it.

‘Bathing Beauty’ - The big change I noticed here from the Aussie DVD was that the Madame Giry + Meg confrontation did not have a set; instead the pair just spoke in front of the curtains off to the right. It was pretty minimalistic. Meg also appeared carrying her umbrella, and hurled it offstage when she shrieked “NO!” This presumably is how she shatters her (unseen) mirror, which the freaks note in the finale.

‘Before the Performance’/’Devil Take the Hindmost Reprise’ - I noted that, like in previous songs, RAM’s motherly take was a bit more girlish and light-hearted; while Anna O’Byrne was very much a grown woman and an idolized figure to Gustave, RAM was more of a playmate and companion, though still caring. Sean Thompson was, again, kind of aggressive, slamming his hand on Christine’s table at “this hell-spawned demon”. As in other scenes, RAM felt more fragile, a little more breakable, quickly descending into indecision and near-panic at the change in plans.

The Phantom’s appearance in Christine’s dressing room as also a scene that I felt looked far better on the Aussie DVD. The use of camera angles to obscure his appearance and catch Christine’s reaction, the slow pan to reveal the ominously wafting curtain and the Phantom appearing behind it, was very well done. Onstage, the Phantom just sort of... stepped through the window when Christine’s back was turned.

One really interesting thing was just how hypnotized RAM looked. Her gaze was blank and aimed straight ahead and her movements almost mechanical - after the Phantom dropped her earrings in her hand, her arm stayed upright for quite a while. It’s an interesting take and a clear callback to the entrancing qualities of the Phantom’s voice in the original, but it does no favors for giving Christine any agency, so... eeehhh. BNM got a round of applause at his last lines in this scene though, because they were pretty epic.

One last thing was that in the DTTH Reprise, Meg appeared on a railing far above the stage to sing the last line, rather than leading Gustave away as seen in the Aussie DVD.

‘Love Never Dies’ - This song is really not my favorite. Not bad, but not very interesting either. Only thing I thought was a change was that Raoul left when Christine was turned towards audience, so she ended up looking for him and just finding him... gone. This was different from the Aussie DVD, where Christine actually saw him leave, and I missed seeing Christine’s distressed reaction to that; here Christine just looked confused. Still, RAM gave it her all and she was quite the glimmering figure onstage. She got the longest ovation of the show for this song, and it was well-deserved.

Finale - BNM had some nice moments during ‘Ah Christine’, his hand lingering after Christine’s when she moved to read Raoul’s letter, and showing a great deal of concern, in voice and body language, when Christine began to panic. Doesn’t make up for, you know, the stalking and manipulation and possessiveness, but he made an attempt at trying to make the Phantom seem like an actually viable romantic option, I’ll give him that.

The reprise of ‘Beauty Underneath’ was pretty awesome, and I really hope Jake Heston Miller had fun on top of that spinning walkway (which looked like it was moving really fast, I was impressed). McAnany’s Meg was, as before, more accusatory towards the Phantom, rather than Millerchip’s completely broken, crazed Meg. The gunshots brought quite a few gasps from the audience. RAM did a pretty good job at sounding like she was dying, gasping and singing in short breaths (though still very prettily, of course). I also enjoyed BNM’s reaction to her death, which was less of a big “NO” and more of a series of “Oh no, no God-” before transitioning into the “NO”.

I’m actually not a fan of how the ‘Love Never Dies Reprise’ at the end (Gustave accepting the Phantom while a refrain of ‘Beautiful’ plays is kind of heavy-handed, but I preferred its quieter ending), but as before, BNM played it off nicely, clinging onto Gustave’s coat when he sang. His reaction to Gustave removing his mask was quite good, his hunched over position giving me the sense of resignation and defeat, which turned to slow awe when Gustave touched the deformity.

Ending thoughts - Show got some pretty good applause (someone literally yelled “BEAUTIFUL!” right as the lights went down), and a standing ovation for RAM. Sean Thompson’s Raoul got some boos - why does Raoul hate still exist, le sigh, especially when Madame Giry came off as more villainous? The cast started singing ‘Love Never Dies’ together as RAM and BNM appeared, and there was a BCEFA speech from Karen Mason which got some good laughs. And then I was out of there. I bought a program and had hoped to do some stagedooring, but the cast was taking donations and selfies for BCEFA, so I decided to just head home (though I did snag a shot of BNM and RAM, just without me in the photo). Overall, a quick summary:

Bronson Norris Murphy - Pretty good for an LND Phantom. Sometimes overdid the theatricality of his movements, and was a bit too creepy in some scenes, but played up the Phantom’s instability and desperation while doing his best to add in some more sympathetic moments.

Rachel Anne Moore - Incredibly good voice, Christine felt a little younger and more fragile than some of the others I’ve seen, with some intense passion and love for singing. She and Bronson Norris Murphy had good chemistry together, and played off each other’s emotions very well.

Sean Thompson - Decent Raoul, had a couple of nicer moments, particularly with Gustave and in DTTH.

Alyssa McAnany - Good, strikes a midway point between broken and angry but which is not quite memorable.

Karen Mason - Sharp-ish voice and very harsh towards everyone around her, but I guess she’s playing up the villainous aspect and in that, she succeeds.

Overall, the story is still predictable (my mom guess the entire plotline in the car back home and she’s watched the original maybe once) and the characterizations and continuation of the themes and development of the original are shoddy, but the cast is strong, the music is gorgeous, and the sets and costume design are a lavish riot of color and spectacle, so if you can shut your brain off for 2.5 hours and are willing to spend a couple hundred dollars, you might enjoy it, as I found myself doing so.