An Unfair Advantagewas far more successful on fanfiction.net than I'd expected (for some reason my one-shots always seem to do better than my longer stories; maybe people find them more accessible for casual browsing?), with 119 visitors and ten reviews in two days. And people actually seemed to find it funny (unlike my previous attempts at 'humour', which were more a matter of ironic situations).

I still don't think it's as good as my other one-shots, but for a story that features their beloved Phantom being bested by a minor character it seems to have gone down amazingly well in the fandom. Admittedly the summary and opening scene are deliberately misleading in terms of E/C cliché, but the high number of appreciative reviews suggests that people genuinely were enjoying it (as well as actually bothering to click on it in the first place, which tends not to happen for updates to my multi-chapter fanfic!)

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I've completed one chapter of Nautical Raoul for the Swedish story, roughly corresponding to the first sentence of plot point seven, although since all the material covering the next few weeks is basically an extraneous patch job to cover up the geographical error in the original plot, I'm not going to be able to tick much of it off for a long time...
I did hope that writing Raoul would be less laborious than writing ad nauseam about Christine and Erik's situation, but I'm not sure it is -- I've just got to the stage in the book at which everything feels like a long haul. ( new characters )

This story was the result of reading one too many fanfics in which the staging of "Point of No Return" is taken uncritically as 'proof' that Christine fancied the pants off the Phantom; it's a performance, people! And some poor longsuffering individual had to spend hours practising the choreography of it with her, and even in the sexed-up movie version it certainly wasn't the Phantom in those rehearsals...

I came to quite like Piangi as a result of writing Meg's chapters in All the Rules Rearranged, just as I acquired a fondness for Count Philippe as a side-effect of writing a chapter for him in Count Philippe Takes a Hand. So here's my version of his point of view. He isn't very quick-thinking, perhaps, but he is essentially good-humoured and instinctively kind despite his loyalties to Carlotta and the 'old way' of doing things. He doesn't have an ounce of harm in him, which makes his cold-blooded murder at the hands of the Phantom all the more appalling -- I'm afraid Piangi, like Buquet, is one of those characters who automatically suffers in fanfic for being a victim of the beloved Erik, which means that he must somehow have 'deserved' what happened to him in order to justify Erik's actions.

And Christine from Piangi's perspective is very different from Christine through Raoul's eyes, of course...

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Don Juan Rehearsed

In which Ubaldo Piangi encounters a fit of temperament, and makes a well-intentioned promise.

Another week’s rehearsals, another week of disaster. The orchestra had been close to mutiny since they’d seen their music, half the chorus were claiming to have sore throats, and even when the notes were supposedly correct the new production at the Opera Populaire left a great deal to be desired in all directions. The reluctance of the leading soprano to fully inhabit her rôle was not helping matters.

Her arms were as slender as carved ivory in her partner’s embrace, and almost as unyielding. Ubaldo Piangi adjusted his hold, sighing, as Signor Reyer flung down his stick in frustration.

“From the top. Again. And act, girl, act! This is ‘Don Juan’, not ‘The Vestal Virgin’. You’re being seduced by the biggest lover in history—” An unkind ripple of giggles from the wings died beneath Reyer’s glare, and he directed an apologetic look at the tenor, who shrugged off the wording with an expansive gesture.

“You’re being seduced by the greatest lover in history, Miss Daaé, so do try to show a little response... and don’t just stand there gawping like a country innocent who’s stumbled across an orgy!”

( Read more... )