Red Death's Domain

Yes!! I liked Lindsay Ellis's and Dominic Noble's summary of everything Phantom but they did our boy so dirty by stereotyping him as the jerk who calls Christine a disgraced slut and a commoner opera-wench in every scene they're in together.

Exhibit A: he doesn't call her a slut, and in even implying it he knows it's wrong and he judges himself as stupid

Exhibit B: He apologizes and respects her boundaries. I feel like even my favorite media review bloggers keep on missing this part. Raoul didn't even have to kidnap Christine and tie her up to get this epiphany for himself. She just had to look tired at him. Get you a partner who backpedals when you look sad and tired at him.

Exhibit C: how many estates does this guy even have? he's offering one up for like a 19th-century witness protection program, and when Raoul says that he'll finally (finally!) accept the friendzoning — which he should have done sooner, but better late than never ain't that right Erik? — then i actually believe the insolent boy

and secondly, yes yes my little narrative devices erik and raoul, I love thinking about how similar they are, in a "when I look at you I see everything I could be if my situation was different. I would act just like you given the circumstances. and I hate that" way

One gifset per production of ALW’s The Phantom of the Opera

It's over now, the music of the night...

We know that Erik is really good at making realistic automatons which brings me to my point: what if to convince Christine that Angel of Music is real real he built an automaton of an angel, even though the said automaton was more of a "special effect" (idk probably showing it in a form of shadow/illusion or something like that to still keep the idea of mystery and that this is an otherwordly entity etc) + he can easily use his ventriloquist skills with this doll; yet still giving this mechanical doll HIS face to 1)draw the line that HE is the angel sent by Christine's father to gain her trust 2)idk but i was thinking about this part of the book where he mentions realistic mask so he could've practiced making those with this mechanical project

So here're some sketches of Erik's sketchbook (wanted to add some notes as well but ugh i didn't have any ideas)

Erik creating his mechanical Angel of Music

And Christine seeing the "Angel of Music" instead of creepy mirror bride

Okay so i've been thinking about this au/hc since i've heard "Mechanical Angel" by Sunday Driver for the first time (3-4 years) and it's actually make sense at least in my head☝️🤓