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love when fanfic writers are like “I love this character” & proceed to put them through shit even God has blacklisted, baby the middle ages called they want to hear your ideas

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Takes a guy who's obsessed with saving people even if it risks his life and a guy who is literally allergic to asking for help in any situation and puts them in My stew puts them in my fucking stew and stirs it

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i think they should let christine and erik be batshit insane and play bitey!!!!!!

its more of a sketch because i needed to get this out of my system but since i've read @les-gnossiennes-fantomatiques's the fly agaric fanfic i just have this image in my head that i always think about

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where is all the art that perfectly appeals specifically to my exact tastes and desires and nobody elses

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There is no Angel of Music. "I'm a handsome fellow, eh, Christine?"

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I know this is going to make me sound pretensions but I have to get it off my chest. I feel an unimaginable rage when someone posts a photo and is like "this picture looks like a renaissance painting lol" when the photo clearly has the lighting, colors and composition of a baroque or romantic painting. There are differences in these styles and those differences are important and labeling every "classical" looking painting as renaissance is annoying and upsetting to me. And anytime I come across one of those posts I have to put down my phone and go take a walk because they make me so mad

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"a clip of the monsters unchained ride at universal was leaked omg frankenstein dracula creature in the black lagoon-" no ☝️ let me see Him

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i think the anon got deleted (?) but y'all should check out Jude Doyle's new essay

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Musical Erik or book Erik?

I feel like there's so much more to book Erik. The thing about the musical that kind of bugs me is that it cannot stand alone. It's counting on the audience to have some kind of familiarity with the source material and to let that prior knowledge fill in the blanks. My partner watched the Royal Albert Hall version with me and as someone who had zero familiarity with the story or characters beyond being aware they existed he was kind of lost at times and was legitimately confused about why Christine seemed to flip flop around her feelings for Erik and why Madam Giry seemed to know so much about Erik even so they never interacted. A lot of the ALW musical is banking that you either don't care about the details or you know the story already and are going to fill in those gaps yourself. Erik is no exception. We're not even given his name in the musical and his backstory is almost hand-waved. He kind of dumps all of his trauma and background onto Christine during the Final Lair scene where as before that she hadn't known him as anything but the Angel of Music and the Opera Ghost. Musical Erik....kind of doesn't exist and I don't know if we can even call him Erik. We get either the Angel of Music or the Phantom but the actual human part of him, the part that is "Erik" and "Longs to have a wife, and a flat, and to be like everyone else" is kind of reduced to a few lines here and there. His name is never once spoken and I sometimes wonder if that was intentionally done to make him seem more fantastical and less human. It's a little weird to me because the musical plays up the tension and chemistry between Erik and Christine so much but actually cuts down all of the moments that motivate Christine in the book to go back and sing for him one more time. The parts where he's apologizing, where he's remorseful or where he tries to be soft. In the book she remarks that he sang her to sleep. None of these exist in the ALW musical. Musical Erik doesn't actually have any moments where he shows her genuine kindness, just a sense of ownership and intense jealousy.

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I really love Erik. I wish he could heal and be happy. I know he did bad things but still. I feel so sorry for him

He is a sympathetic character. There are a lot of moments where I genuinely feel for him. Erik's scene with the Daroga is honestly such a key scene because it reveals so much about Erik's history and how his mind works. That's where we learn that he's genuinely haunted by the events of his life in Persia and when he says, rather ominously "No one can stop Erik, not even himself," you get a sense that he has some self awareness that he does horrible things and has a sense of regret. But he's also selfish, egotistical and lonely. He only knows one way to get what he wants and that's through violence and force. The scene with Erik holding Raoul and the Daroga in the torture chamber might make one think he's beyond saving given how little he cares about killing everyone and himself. And honestly that's part of why I don't like the romance angle with him and Christine. I think him letting her go and her forgiving him and acknowledging his humanity is stronger for not having them end up together. Because it's not just Christine seeing his humanity and reaching out, it's also him seeing hers. He lets her go because he sees her as more than the idea of a wife.

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He’s very “gongeous” to me

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Erik the phantom of the opera! :D

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what’s getting me by these days is the idea that daroga is obsessed with erik but erik isn’t obsessed with him. imagine this random ass ugly french dude comes into your life and completely upends it. like you give up everything for him helped him fake his death to escape his court ordered execution YOURE SUPPOSED TO PERFORM and that shit gets you excommunicated from your entire family and banished from where you’ve spent your entire life and then with nowhere else to go you’re just like guess i’ll move to the home country of the man who fundamentally changed the course of my entire existence and you’re still keeping tabs on him and he can’t stand your ass and you’ve even got your own live-in twink (darius) who does whatever u ask yet you’re still like… whats that Erik up to…. and find out he’s ruining OTHER peoples’ lives now. and it’s infuriating bc that was supposed to be YOUR THING with him. after everything u did for him…. then you’re old as fuck still yapping about this fucking guy who never gaf about you as you’re actively in a common law marriage with another man (darius, again). it’s so embarrassing. like imagine you’re gay and you’re obsessed with the gayest man you’ve ever met and he’s obsessed with a woman. also he’s fucking ugly. pharoga situationship of all time.

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Erik, you can't make a love confession less intense by saying:

"I love you. We don't have to talk about it. Actually, I won't talk about it. Don't bring it up. Unless you want to. No, you don't want to. Let's just do music."

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"𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒛𝒆 𝒌𝒆𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒆𝒃𝒐𝒏𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒆𝒕𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒍𝒑𝒊𝒆𝒄𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒐𝒖𝒊𝒔-𝑷𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒑𝒑𝒆 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎. ...𝑰𝒏 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒔𝒌𝒆𝒕𝒔, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒂 𝒔𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒑𝒊𝒐𝒏, 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓, 𝒂 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒓, 𝒃𝒐𝒕𝒉 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒄𝒍𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝑱𝒂𝒑𝒂𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒃𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒛𝒆: 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒂𝒚 𝒚𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒓 𝒏𝒐 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖. 𝑰𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒑𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒆, 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑰 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏, 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒊𝒅 𝒚𝒆𝒔. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒓 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒏𝒐....𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒓! 𝑩𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒓! 𝑨 𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒓 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏: 𝒊𝒕 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒔! 𝑰𝒕 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒔! 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒔 𝒋𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒉!"

(ɢᴀꜱᴛᴏɴ ʟᴇʀᴏᴜx, ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʜᴀɴᴛᴏᴍ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏᴘᴇʀᴀ)

The scorpion and the grasshopper always hold a unique meaning to fans of Gaston Leroux's original Phantom novel. Erik's ultimatum to Christine forced her to choose between marrying her ghoulish captor, or deny him at the peril of everyone in the Opera House. It was implied that the grasshopper was connected to the stores of gunpowder Erik had wired to blow the building sky high.

I recently found this brilliant, antique Japanese bronze grasshopper figurine, and knew I had to acquire it. It just arrived from Japan, and is a brilliant piece. Paired with an antique Chinese scorpion and model caskets, it makes a beautiful addition to my Phantom collection.

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i'm loving the whole "interrogate your disgust response" thing but i do think it bears saying that disgust isn't necessarily anathema to enjoyment of something and overcoming it isn't a necessary condition to being able to partake. sometimes the disgust is part of the fun.