The House of Chagny

The fact that Raoul and Christine don't actually know that Philippe still believes him dead (not having opened the telegram dispatched from Paris in the last chapter, nor indeed any post for weeks) means that this chapter, being told from Christine's point of view, has ended up with a rather different slant so far from the one I was expecting. For her the anticipated tension is all about the coming confrontation with the Comte and getting his consent for their marriage, and the focus is very much on her arrival for the first time at the chateau as Raoul's intended bride. It's getting distinctly historical-romance-ish at the moment; "The Vicomte of the Opera" strikes again :-D

Meanwhile, having started the chapter on the train from Paris (all that railway research did come in after all), I still haven't managed to reach the second sentence of Plot Point 12...

What I hadn't considered is that Raoul has to arrive and traverse most of the house without realising that everyone in it presumes him dead; the fact that he is still bearded and wearing the travelling clothes he acquired from a Norwegian seaman in Tromso proved unexpectedly useful, since Christine can put down any consternation that appears in their wake, as Raoul rushes her off to see Philippe, as being due to the household simply not recognising him and taking him for an intruder! (The beard also means that it's credible that the vast majority of the servants haven't recognised him in passing as the 'drowned' younger brother, and therefore aren't reacting with screams and horror :-p)

Reduced to rags

Well, I could have saved myself the trouble of mending those pyjamas; they ripped decisively across the shoulder in the apparently sound cloth. Not sure if it's worth hanging on to the trousers on the grounds that normally it's the trousers that wear out first... probably not.

It's nice soft cotton for cleaning and polishing, though. I've now ripped off the button bands, seams, etc to reduce it to rag -- I'm favourably impressed that the sleeve didn't tear at the point where I'd mended it, but ripped preferentially across the undamaged cloth further down. Evidently I managed to make a repair stronger than the hole!

Traumatised by badfic

Oh dear. I stumbled across this one as the result of a Google search for something else.

I think it comes under the category 'wanks itself' (seriously -- it has little interpolated comments in it)...

Clearly an example of old school fanfic par excellence, from the Mary Sue's name to the vast slab of transcribed lyrics and the typos, tense whiplash and deathless prose ("She looked into his blue-grayish orbs"). I was confused by the M rating, but the author kindly explains that this is due to the 'cussing' in her comments :-p


( The Ball and Christine Daae! [sic] )