The vanishing of sparklyscorpion
10 June 2015 01:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI discovered yesterday that at some point since January, the author sparklyscorpion decided to remove all her fanfics from fanfiction.net -- which thus removes them from my Rescue Raoul collection. Which is a pity, as she was a seriously talented writer, and they certainly weren't anything to be ashamed of: not self-indulgent gushings or fix-fic, but well thought out reflections on the characters and situations in the original that no published novelist need be embarrassed for.
The following is what I've been able to glean of the five that went missing (plus another one that was in my Favourites but not in the Raoul-collection: "When Summer Fades", I think, though I'm no longer sure why that wouldn't have qualified!)
Sempre by sparklyscorpion. A small fill-in scene after Christine and Raoul leave the Phantom's lair for the final time. Raoul confronts his failures. RC.
De la mort, la vie by sparklyscorpion. Rating:T Words:6060
Summary: A belated Christmas present for hikari-no-tsubasa for the PFN secret santa. Christine and Raoul’s first Christmas together. Leroux-based with liberties taken.
(Christine and Raoul return from Sweden to bury Erik, and in her unexpectedly desperate embrace that Christmas night he thinks momentarily of St Joseph, free to be Mary's husband now that the child is delivered.)
As Summer Fades by sparklyscorpion. Rating:K Words:1915
Summary: After decades of marriage, Christine is struck with a devastating illness that threatens to steal all she holds dear. An explanation of why she might have spoken so often about the monkey music box. Completely based upon the musical. RC but sad.
(Christine in dementia in old age constantly repeats the same stories and no longer remembers who Raoul is when he visits her, though she speaks to him of her love for a young man of that name.)
The Lonely by sparklyscorpion. Rating:T Words:2957
Summary: Alone and with the holidays approaching, Raoul goes to confront Christine about her coldness towards him. He discovers that not all is as it seems. Leroux-based, but the timeline and events are slightly different.
(In which they hold an argument through the front door of Mme Valerius' apartment, and strain to touch fingers under the door.)
Shelter from the Storm
As a child in the attic, Raoul comforts Christine from the storm outside. As an adult, he comforts her from other things.
(Raoul with a book of ships as a boy, and a handkerchief in the coach after the lair.)
Confessions of a Living Wife. Christine consents to become Erik's bride in order to save Raoul from certain death. The following is an account of her time as a living wife in her own words. Dark and not fluffy.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3471128/1/Confessions-of-a-Living-Wife in
which he keeps Raoul hostage for months and then kills him, and Christine
kills Erik, herself and Erik's unborn child when she finds out that Erik
lied about setting Raoul free [eyes]
It's cleverly written; it's couched in the form of a confession to a priest,
and it's not until the final chapter that we discover that it is actually a
crime that she is confessing and not merely the usual 'sins' of the story...
It has some very chilling twists, like the time her captor presents her with
a box of supplies and asks her how many days they would last her --
confused, she guesses five -- and then informs her casually that he hopes
she is wrong, since he left Raoul locked up alone in the dark with just such
a box of supplies nine days ago and has not visited him since [no]
It's a real jolt, because the *reader* has been sort of assuming that Raoul
is safe (if locked up) somewhere off-screen, and forgetting about him in the
midst of Christine's travails at this point: so is then complicit in the
realisation that he has been trapped alone without supplies in the dark
while no-one has spared him a moment's thought...
She is forced to trade increasing intimacies in their 'marriage' in order to
bargain for Raoul's survival, finally culminating in Erik's promise to
release the young man from the dungeon and send him home to his brother
Philippe... but he doesn't. He kills him instead because he knows that Raoul
if set at liberty will try to rescue Christine as well, and he allows
Christine to believe that she has sacrificed herself for a man who has
abandoned her.
But this backfires, because she becomes so resentful of her faithless lover
that when Erik (now confident that no rescue will be forthcoming, and
worried about her health during her pregnancy with his child) allows her a
little freedom, she goes in search of Count Philippe -- and discovers that
Philippe himself was murdered under the Opera months earlier. Consumed by
grief and remorse over Raoul's fate, she confronts Erik: but his babbling
confession drives her mad with revulsion and fury, and she strikes out at
him with the blade in her hand, killing him.
Then with her old hopes and her tenuous new existence both destroyed, she
takes poison to kill herself and the baby that will have a monster and a
murderess for parents: "I am worse than Erik, so much worse than he ever
was, for he killed those he hated while I have only killed those who loved
me." :-(
She is also feeling guilty for being the cause of Raoul's death when she
says that (although again, it was Erik who was responsible for imprisoning
him as a hostage for her good behaviour and then for choosing to kill him
when she thought she was setting him free... [eyes])
The following is what I've been able to glean of the five that went missing (plus another one that was in my Favourites but not in the Raoul-collection: "When Summer Fades", I think, though I'm no longer sure why that wouldn't have qualified!)
Sempre by sparklyscorpion. A small fill-in scene after Christine and Raoul leave the Phantom's lair for the final time. Raoul confronts his failures. RC.
De la mort, la vie by sparklyscorpion. Rating:T Words:6060
Summary: A belated Christmas present for hikari-no-tsubasa for the PFN secret santa. Christine and Raoul’s first Christmas together. Leroux-based with liberties taken.
(Christine and Raoul return from Sweden to bury Erik, and in her unexpectedly desperate embrace that Christmas night he thinks momentarily of St Joseph, free to be Mary's husband now that the child is delivered.)
As Summer Fades by sparklyscorpion. Rating:K Words:1915
Summary: After decades of marriage, Christine is struck with a devastating illness that threatens to steal all she holds dear. An explanation of why she might have spoken so often about the monkey music box. Completely based upon the musical. RC but sad.
(Christine in dementia in old age constantly repeats the same stories and no longer remembers who Raoul is when he visits her, though she speaks to him of her love for a young man of that name.)
The Lonely by sparklyscorpion. Rating:T Words:2957
Summary: Alone and with the holidays approaching, Raoul goes to confront Christine about her coldness towards him. He discovers that not all is as it seems. Leroux-based, but the timeline and events are slightly different.
(In which they hold an argument through the front door of Mme Valerius' apartment, and strain to touch fingers under the door.)
Shelter from the Storm
As a child in the attic, Raoul comforts Christine from the storm outside. As an adult, he comforts her from other things.
(Raoul with a book of ships as a boy, and a handkerchief in the coach after the lair.)
Confessions of a Living Wife. Christine consents to become Erik's bride in order to save Raoul from certain death. The following is an account of her time as a living wife in her own words. Dark and not fluffy.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3471128/1/Confessions-of-a-Living-Wife in
which he keeps Raoul hostage for months and then kills him, and Christine
kills Erik, herself and Erik's unborn child when she finds out that Erik
lied about setting Raoul free [eyes]
It's cleverly written; it's couched in the form of a confession to a priest,
and it's not until the final chapter that we discover that it is actually a
crime that she is confessing and not merely the usual 'sins' of the story...
It has some very chilling twists, like the time her captor presents her with
a box of supplies and asks her how many days they would last her --
confused, she guesses five -- and then informs her casually that he hopes
she is wrong, since he left Raoul locked up alone in the dark with just such
a box of supplies nine days ago and has not visited him since [no]
It's a real jolt, because the *reader* has been sort of assuming that Raoul
is safe (if locked up) somewhere off-screen, and forgetting about him in the
midst of Christine's travails at this point: so is then complicit in the
realisation that he has been trapped alone without supplies in the dark
while no-one has spared him a moment's thought...
She is forced to trade increasing intimacies in their 'marriage' in order to
bargain for Raoul's survival, finally culminating in Erik's promise to
release the young man from the dungeon and send him home to his brother
Philippe... but he doesn't. He kills him instead because he knows that Raoul
if set at liberty will try to rescue Christine as well, and he allows
Christine to believe that she has sacrificed herself for a man who has
abandoned her.
But this backfires, because she becomes so resentful of her faithless lover
that when Erik (now confident that no rescue will be forthcoming, and
worried about her health during her pregnancy with his child) allows her a
little freedom, she goes in search of Count Philippe -- and discovers that
Philippe himself was murdered under the Opera months earlier. Consumed by
grief and remorse over Raoul's fate, she confronts Erik: but his babbling
confession drives her mad with revulsion and fury, and she strikes out at
him with the blade in her hand, killing him.
Then with her old hopes and her tenuous new existence both destroyed, she
takes poison to kill herself and the baby that will have a monster and a
murderess for parents: "I am worse than Erik, so much worse than he ever
was, for he killed those he hated while I have only killed those who loved
me." :-(
She is also feeling guilty for being the cause of Raoul's death when she
says that (although again, it was Erik who was responsible for imprisoning
him as a hostage for her good behaviour and then for choosing to kill him
when she thought she was setting him free... [eyes])
no subject
Date: 2018-06-13 02:58 am (UTC)https://www.fanfiction.net/u/737504/sparklyscorpion