Right, I sincerely hope this works, since I'm still unable to log in to fix broken syntax or do anything other than post new articles... If this lasts much longer I shall be forced to join the great majority on Dreamwidth. Which would be a pity, because there's a lot of history (most of it not mine) on LiveJournal.

Oh, and I haven't mentioned the site's new and endearing habit of apparently loading every page twice with about twenty seconds' delay between them, so that you have just typed several sentences into the browser form before the page rerenders and wipes everything...

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So here we're into what is basically the epilogue of the story, from the point of view of Gustave who is essentially an optimistic and sunny-natured child, and who is busy forgetting all the less pleasant parts of the last couple of days. It's basically Raoul-and-Christine fluff being observed through the largely oblivious eyes of their ten-year-old son :-)

I tried to model my Edwardian boy's PoV on the various heroes of E. Nesbit's pre-War stories, which deal with such prosaic matters as comforting crying little sisters, explaining to grown-ups how your best clothes came to be soaked through, and various imaginative pursuits that made perfect sense at the time but get you into no end of trouble when reality intrudes. Although Gustave doesn't really have to deal with anything more than traumatised parents :-p

(Apparently I don't have a tag for Gustave. Well, under the circumstances I can't very well insert one retrospectively :-( ) [Edit April 2017: finally going through and inserting tags via Dreamwidth, two years later!]

Chapter 9: A Hero of Our Time

Mrs Morrison had been a lot more friendly this morning since their luggage had come. But Gustave couldn’t help remembering the way she’d looked at Mother last night as if she didn’t approve of her or of Father at all. He was polite, of course, and let the landlady ruffle his hair and smooth down his new jacket and tell his mother what a fine boy he was in a New York English so broad it might as well have been Flemish so far as they were concerned. But he was glad when the carriage she’d sent for finally arrived and they could load everything up again and get ready to leave. He wasn’t sure he entirely liked Mrs Morrison or her house.

It had been fun to sleep in his clothes and be tucked up at the foot of his mother’s bed and wake up in a strange little room with the sounds of the street outside. He could see it was the sort of adventure you got tired of quite quickly, though. And when they’d heard a heavy vehicle stopping outside and footsteps running up the stairs to come banging on their door, he’d seen his mother go white as a sheet.

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I've been going backwards and forwards on whether Meg Giry is actually 'in love with' the Phantom or not (especially since I'm using the original London production canon here, after which we were assured that her interest is purely professional, though this frankly isn't what it looks like at all...) In the end I've largely left this part of the story in its state of confusion, since if there is one thing for certain in canon it is that the Phantom is not in love with Meg.

I never really thought much about the consistency of Meg's backstory before starting this chapter (not least because I was proceeding on the initial assumption that this dialogue would be seen from the Phantom's point of view!), so I've leaned quite heavily on aceofgallifrey's analysis, though I haven't swallowed this lock, stock and barrel because it's based on hyper-interpretation of the 2004 movie version in which Meg's role is considerably embroidered...

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Chapter 7: Notes from Underground

Meg Giry had been the one on her way up out of the chorus, before any of this had ever started. She had been the one people noticed: the bright one, the quick one, the girl with the spark that said Look at me. She’d been the one who’d been featured in the minor rôles — serving-maids and confidantes, pageboys and peasant dancers, tiny parts all of them, but she’d been there on the programme with her name in print, she’d been there on the stage with her clear voice and her vivid grace and she’d made an impression.

She’d been the one with initiative and ambition, the one who was going places: her mother’s daughter. And it hadn’t been fair, because dreamy, quiet Christine Daaé had talent of her own that no-one ever saw. Christine could have done just as well as Meg if anyone had given her the chance. But if it had been left up to Christine, no-one would ever have looked twice.

So when Carlotta, the diva of those days, had let loose her temperament one time too many and stormed off the stage before the start of the production, Meg had followed the impulse of a moment — as so often in her life — and spoken up on her friend’s behalf: “Christine Daaé could do it, sir.” She’d known Christine was good; she’d heard her practising for her new teacher. She hadn’t had the faintest idea Christine was that good...

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This was originally planned to be the end of the preceding chapter; but not only did the 'pier' scene overrun, it rapidly became obvious that the characters had an awful lot to sort out that wasn't appropriate to Gustave's presence. Also, having all been through the wringer by this stage, they were worn out.

The result was that the ending didn't come out at all the way I had originally anticipated, and a couple of completely new settings come into the story to accommodate the 'delayed matter'...

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Chapter 5: The Seagull

Christine buried her face in Gustave’s hair again, nuzzling the warm small-boy scent of him and enveloping him in a tight embrace until he began at last to wriggle and pull away. She was still shaking with reaction.

She’d believed the Phantom fully capable of taking her son from her and keeping them apart to hold her to his will; but he would never have harmed him. Not the child he had so ardently believed to be his own — the boy in whose quick mind and talent he had seen an unmarred reflection of what he might have been. If she’d had any doubt of that, the man’s horror and distress when the boy was found missing from backstage had made it clear: Mr Y would never hurt Gustave, she was certain of it, even in heartbreak or despair.

Harm to Raoul... was a very different matter.

And so in those first few bewildered moments it had been Raoul’s life she feared for, cut short at the hands of some trap or over-zealous lackey when he’d plunged out after their son in the grip of blind misery and the desperate need to act. She’d been afraid for Gustave at the first when the boy had failed to return, and again when she understood that he was truly missing. But he’d wandered off before, caught up in the flush of some unforeseen interest or following a trail that no adult could make out: as a mother her worry was acute enough but tempered by the pangs of experience.

She had not truly panicked to begin with. Not until frenzied inquisition had brought to light Meg Giry’s hand in the whole affair, and a tumult of insecurity and rage at which Christine, horrified, had never guessed. Not until Meg’s mother, herself on the point of breakdown, had flung accusations that betrayed all too clearly the direction of poor Meg’s heart, as Christine’s presence stole everything from her that she had wanted or might have had. Not until the loaded gun that had been called for, against Christine’s protests, had turned up missing, with Meg Giry as the last to have entered the high Aerie without its Master’s knowledge...

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Raoul, naturally, doesn't have the faintest idea why Meg Giry would want to kidnap his son -- and of course he isn't the rescuer that Meg is hoping to see...

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Chapter 3: Diary of a Madman

Gustave. Raoul would not let himself think of anything else. He kept the boy’s face before his mind’s eye with a fierce, willed concentration, as if that small fair head could blot out the rest.

Gustave’s face — lost. frightened — haunted him round every corner, with every glimpse of a child through the crowd and every furtive shape that whisked away down dark alleys at his approach with what might have been a struggling burden in tow. Gustave...

The persistent small shadow trailed in memory at his heels, demanding acknowledgment — attention, affection — again and again with the same uncomprehending hope, until Raoul’s teeth had been set on edge by the knowledge of it. The child had wanted the old days back. He’d made himself a living reproach to the father he’d lost, and it had been one more reminder that Raoul neither wanted or needed to tell him what he had become.

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I've based this on the original cast recording and -- so far as I could establish it -- on the costuming and staging of the London production. (Christine is not wearing the 'peacock dress' for her stage performance, for example, but a skimpy modern-style evening gown!)

As will become obvious, this story does not take place in the same continuity as either of my other LND plots set in this universe, The Choices of Raoul de Chagny or To Ease Your Troubled Mind...

All the Rules Rearranged

Chapter 1: What is to be Done?

Her dressing-room at Phantasma held no clock. But the call-boys had been past, the dancers had flocked outside in their bright chattering gaggle, and soon it would be her turn.

She’d come so far to sing this song; so far, in so many ways. The past she’d thought forgotten had opened its guilt from the grave — its guilt and its allure both — and that old storm of tears had closed weeping and raging over her once again. Somehow she’d held herself together through it all with a strength learned from womanhood and ten years of marriage. Only a few more minutes now, and it would be over. One last aria to pay their debts — and repay a debt that was all her own — and she and her son would be gone from this place, leaving the tormented past to rest at last in peace.

She and her son and Raoul, and their baggage with them. Safe on familiar shores, in the life that she had so painstakingly pieced together for Gustave’s sake out of the ashes of their young dreams...

One song, Christine had told herself throughout the hours of waiting. Just this one song left, this one thing she needed to do, and then they would be done with America and all it stood for. Time itself had narrowed down to these few minutes ahead of her, and the music she had rehearsed over and over again.

And then Raoul... had changed everything. For a second time.

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"All the Rules, Rearranged" is finished(!) -- after some major issues with the last sentence. I'm still not certain about that ending, which seems a bit unfinished; can I really break off the story with my cast in the middle of a carriage-ride? They never even arrive, although that's partly due to lack of research... Maybe I ought at least to have Gustave spot a ship close by, or something.

Next I have to worry about the summary (do I give away my two main plot ideas in order to attract readers, or conceal them in order to interest and surprise them as they read?) and the chapter titles.

I had the vague idea that I might use Russian novel titles rather than quotes from the libretto this time round, chiefly because the possibilities of "The Master and Marguerite" for the chapter where Meg keeps referring to the Phantom (as per LND canon) as 'the Master' are so irresistible :-) Unfortunately famous Russian stories, like English novels, have a tendency to be named after their protagonists: "Oblomov", "Eugene Onegin", "Anna Karenina", "The Brothers Karamazov" etc. don't really offer much possibility, even if I allow myself to edit the titles subtly along the lines of Marguerite for Margarita. "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" might just be adaptable, for instance...

It also depends how I decide to split the chapters: whether I post four long chapters (Christine, Raoul, Christine, Meg) and an epilogue, or whether I split the long ones in half, thus effectively requiring twice as many chapter titles. I'm almost tempted by that option simply because it means the titles can be that much more specific, e.g. "Dead Souls"/"A Hero of Our Time" for the Raoul/Meg confrontation...

Brilliant(?) new idea -- have the new 'epilogue' (i.e. the left-over/delayed matter from Chapter 3) seen through Gustave's point of view rather than Christine's. We've had two chapters of Christine's PoV already, and using the child's-eye view of his parents opens a whole new set of possibilities :-)

*Still* no title decided on for this story, though... (I shall have to go back and tag all these meta-posts retrospectively!)

I really wanted to have Christine say to the Phantom (re her 'aria') "Meg Giry could sing it, sir" -- but sadly I don't think she would credibly be in that frame of mind immediately after discovering that Meg has abducted her son, which is the only available time-window during which the dialogue in question could take place :-(

Finally finished the second (Raoul-PoV) chapter of the new story, with much labour. It seems to have come out at about 5,000 words, so possibly I don't need to split the long first chapter either.

Visual side-effect of switching to an A4 notebook after a sub-A5 notebook, I strongly suspect... and of very slow writing where I'm fumbling to get back into the story repeatedly. (I do tend to get the impression that most of the incredibly long fanfics on fanfiction.net are the ones where the authors are making it up as they go along without any clear idea of the plot... but maybe I'm just jaundiced because I'm completely incapable of generating that many words myself, and I have to 'win' at everything...)

I didn't actually take this on to the intended finishing point of the chapter (where they go off and find a new hotel for the night, the old one having uncomfortable associations), since I was struck by inspiration for how to deal with the Phantom's puzzling disappearance at this point :-) The original truth being, of course, that I simply wasn't interested enough in the character to wonder why he would walk off with Meg and let Christine go; but Raoul's long-scheduled retort of She wants you... God knows why cuts both ways, of course. And I'd already changed the ending of the first chapter on impulse to try to humanise the rather unsympathetic Phantom, so it ties back to that quite neatly.

The result, however, is that I shall have to add an extra half-scene into the start of the final chapter and deal with the end of the pier sequence from Christine's point of view instead -- or do it as a flashback, which would be pretty much par for the course :-p

I'm still not sure about the title of the story; the obvious and intended title was "If You Still Love Me", but I discovered that there is already a Raoul-friendly story by that name -- one that's even present in my own Rescue Raoul! collection -- which is slightly embarrassing. Ironically the title actually fits my story better than hers, since the whole thing revolves around Raoul's doubts as to whether his 'unfaithful' wife does still love him... but the two stories are close enough in concept that it's an awkward resemblance :-(
I can't immediately think of a good alternative, though.