Current Mood: amused

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The Vicomte of the Opera

I located the original 'Vicomte of the Opera' reference: https://fdelopera.tumblr.com/post/61559039983/spindleshanking-phantines-one-thing-that-has

Le Fantôme de l'Opéra without Raoul would still be an intensely gripping and tragic story. Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (Le Vicomte de l'Opéra, perhaps?) without Erik, however, would be quite bland, at least by comparison. (Think about it – a young, wealthy vicomte falls in love with his childhood sweetheart when he sees her perform at the Opéra, and after several months of courtship, he marries her, against the wishes of his older brother. The end.)

(This being the reference to which my response was: "I already wrote it, as Count Philippe Takes a Hand" :-D)

Current Mood: accomplished

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Count Philippe Takes a Hand: character discussions

Compiled from all the various character/plot discussions I've had on "Philippe Takes a Hand" (a sizeable number!)

( Being a mistress versus being a wife )

( The reputation of opera singers )

( Why don't they simply elope? )

( Sexual issues )

( Continuity )

( Marriage )

( Adult life together )

( Raoul and Philippe )

( Eustacie )

( Fandom reception )

Current Mood: impressed
Crossposts: http://igenlode.livejournal.com/85017.html

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Fanfic Year in Review Meme

From

pedanther, using template linked to.

Stats:

List of Completed Fics: ( Read more... )

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Laughing on the Outside

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Count Philippe Takes a Hand: Epilogue

I deliberately altered the end of Chapter 3 to make it more explicit that Eustacie was married to Philippe and not to Raoul, but apparently this still wasn't clear enough for Fanfiction.net readers..! I really think there are a lot of clues in there when you look back at it — Christine and Eustacie having their conversation exclusively about how the Count liked the opera, and Christine's remark about how "you both must be very proud of your son" immediately following Eustacie's reference to Philippe — but people will see what they expect to see... especially, I suspect, if they're not particularly enjoying the story or appreciating the humour. And the humour in that chapter is almost entirely at the reader's expense, with that final twist...

Epilogue: In which old ghosts are laid

Quoi qu’il arrivât, votre situation dans le monde m’interdisait à jamais la pensée d’une honnête union... (Ch. XIII, “La Lyre d’Apollon”)

( Read more... )

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Count Philippe Takes a Hand: Ch3

Apparently I'm giving the impression that Christine is being wrongfully oppressed by Philippe, whereas in fact she's using him for her own purposes and -- as will be seen in this chapter -- he eventually realises this...

Chapter 3: In which Christine enjoys worldly success

Si je devais donner mon cœur sur la terre, elle n’avait plus, elle... la Voix, qu’à remonter au ciel. (Ch. XIII, “La Lyre d’Apollon”)

( Read more... )

Current Mood: disappointed

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Count Philippe Takes a Hand: Ch2

Well, Chapter 1 seems to have gone down pretty badly on Fanfiction.net; evidently writing the whole thing from Philippe's point of view would not have been a good idea!

Whether the events of Chapter 2 (which was, like Chapter 1, written with love for the characters rather than as an attempt to pervert them) are likely to win over the readers or simply to revolt them we shall have to see. I have to say I wasn't expecting distaste from the Raoul-lovers, while given the cast list the Raoul-haters are unlikely to be reading it in the first place...

N.B. I appear to have written a nautical Raoul in this story, as opposed to the unintentionally equestrian one of Waiting in the Wings!

Chapter 2: In which Raoul is unworldly

“Nous ne marierons jamais, c’est entendu.... mais ceci est un bonheur qui ne fera mal à personne.” (Ch. XIII: “Au-dessus des trappes”)

( Read more... )

Current Mood: amused

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Count Philippe Takes a Hand: Ch1

Chapter 1 of my 'bodice-ripper': I'm not quite sure whether this still falls under the humour category or not. I was under the impression when writing this chapter that it did, but that's mainly because the cynically amused Philippe turned out to be such fun to write — maybe I should have tried to write the entire story from his point of view!

The setting is a slightly Alternative Universe Leroux canon: events as we know them at the Lyre of Apollo never took place, and Count Philippe is getting tired of waiting... This story is all the fault of wild_concerto, who prompted a crackfic speculation into the form of a fully fledged Victorian bodice-ripper!

Count Philippe Takes a Hand

Chapter 1: In which Philippe is worldly

Le comte... désireux de savoir à quoi s’en tenir, avait demandé un rendez-vous à Christine Daaé.
(Ch.VIII: 'Où MM. Firmin Richard et Armand Moncharmin ont l'audace de faire représenter "Faust"...')

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: http://igenlode.livejournal.com/71656.html

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Seeking appropriate quotations

Still fiddling around with Chapter 2 of "Teach Me to Live" in the hopes of delaying the 'reveal'...

For some reason I decided that it would be a good idea to head each chapter of the story now dubbed "Count Philippe Takes a Hand" with an appropriate quotation from the original novel( Read more... )

Ironically, the Christine and Raoul in the final chapters of "Count Philippe" are actually a good five years younger (and less battered) than the versions in "To Ease Your Troubled Mind", despite all the references to 'old lovers'! While it presumably makes a difference to their relationship that they are forty and have been physically familiar for those twenty years rather being forty-five and having been separated for fifteen, it occurs to me that it might make more sense to amend the wording at this point of the story to refer to familiarity rather than aging.

Current Mood: relieved

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Philippe interferes, part ii

Well, I think I've just finished the story... complete with an unintended epilogue, which was the result of Raoul's thoroughly running away with the end of the previous chapter and completely ruining the structure of it in the process! In the end I decided the only thing to do was to cross it out and write a completely new scene to salvage the usable bits of dialogue: as with The Choices of Raoul, it was a somewhat scary experience because not only did I not have a pre-written plot, unlike in that Epilogue I didn't even know what the outcome was going to be. On the other hand, this did give me a chance to fill in some of the background that was only hinted at in Chapter 3.

I'm not entirely happy with these last two chapters -- the third being a rather silly gimmick which was left over from the plot's origins as a humour fic, while Raoul spends the entirety of the epilogue in a chair repeatedly pulling Christine to sit back down -- but they will probably do. The first two chapters I think are rather good of their kind...

Current Mood: amused

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Philippe interferes

"I don't really want to spend the rest of my life writing romances for Raoul and Christine" -- *groan*.

Well, it looks as if I've got at least one more coming up, and this one a full-fledged 'historical romance'... in the least reputable sense of that description! I'm not entirely sure I can pull the necessary heavy-breathing off and keep it at least plausibly within period, and while I'm sure there would be a readership for the same plot if the Phantom were involved I suspect the audience for Unresolved Sexual Tension between Leroux-Raoul and Christine is a sorely limited one.

But the image of Count Philippe attempting to fast-forward his younger brother's love-life in the name of broadening his education is a very tempting one, and Philippe turns out to be enormous fun to write! Whether I can get away with slipping the intended mention of the Phantom's death into the final scene I don't know; it originally struck me as the twist that was needed to form an ending, but I've had a new twist involving Philippe since then, and I fear that killing off Erik under these circumstances might come across as rather poor taste. However, it does otherwise rather invite the question of just where he is in all this Christine-based activity -- and suicide seems a plausible alternative to murder for an Erik who is likely to be exceedingly disillusioned at the outcome...