humblegeniusinboxfive

Latest Posts by humblegeniusinboxfive

Outside the Opera, Paris - Jean-Georges Béraud - 1879

@cuddlesforerik Thank you for tagging me!

Yay, this one is about BOOKS. Let’s see…

1. Currently finishing up The Count of Monte Cristo. (Took nine hundred pages for the story to actually start, but dear goodness, it’s so good.)

2. Next will be The Gentle Spirit by Fyodor Dostoevsky (my favorite author to ever exist). This is one of the few stories of his I haven’t read yet, so I’m very excited and have been preparing my soul to be crushed once more.

3. Les Misérables is a must. Finished Notre-Dame de Paris a while back, and I’m in love with his writing style. Truly a master at his art.

4. Bleak House by Dickens. Because nothing that man writes is bad.

5. The Turn of the Screw. A recommendation from my sister, so we’ll see.

6. And finally, Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard. I started it a while ago, but I was too busy to give it the attention it deserves (30 pages in and could already tell it was a masterpiece), so I’m going to start from the beginning now that I have more time to absorb it properly.

No pressure tags: @angel-with-paper-wings @buccaneeering @holyspiritgirl

Tagged by @rainintheevening to list 6 books I wanna read this year!! It's my New Year resolution to read more this year so this is great!!

One Piece (currently I have Vol. 1-3 but I plan to get at least up to 12!)

Re-read Wings of Fire 1-6, then read books 7 and 8 for the first time!

Mary Poppins!! One of my closest friends gifted me the most lovely copy and I really wanna read that!

Re-read the Phantom of the Opera!!

The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban! It's been on my bed waiting for MONTHS lol

Re-read Artemis Fowl 1-3, then read book 4 for the first time!!

No pressure tags: @the-old-fashioned-girl @overthinking-with-katy @enigma-absolute @nerdywriter36 @brendadaaedestler

I literally have never seen a more beautifully accurate account of this man.

The other day, I was trying to explain to a friend the difference between Erik and Quasimodo from the Hunchback, and I got caught up in this distinction. Erik isn’t a moving character just because he’s a softy misunderstood by society. He’s awful. He’s terrifying. He IS horrific. And it’s the dichotomy within him that makes him so compelling. It’s the fact that he is both Angel AND Phantom. The point of the novel is in the question: “Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him?” It’s a choice that Leroux puts to every reader, having given them evidence and justification for either options. It isn’t sugar-coated; it’s raw and real. It’s life and death. It’s shocking but it’s truth. Just like Christine in the first unmasking scene, we are exposed to it in all its horror; but it is only through this very horror, the full expression of his madness and his grief, that we are able to experience the heights of his innate divinity and, like Christine, finally recognize the truth of his identity: “the most unhappy and sublime of men,” a man acquainted in equal measure with both Heaven and Hell.

We must never forget that our Erik is tragic hero. Uncomfortable and doomed but, because of this, oh so beautiful.

I love the Phantom because he wasn’t “pretty on the inside”.

He was full of hate and disdain for himself and mankind.

And he was beautiful through his gifts and talents. And he was beautiful when he was exposed, when he was unguarded… But he was also ugly. He was more complex than simply being a monster or being ugly ‘on the outside’.

He was still magnificent, but he changed the rules. He changed the game. He changed everything. He wasn’t kind and he wasn’t terribly sincere and he wasn’t patient or helpful but he was still beautiful.

He was beautiful through his obsessions, his knowledge, his struggle and his downfall.

His struggle, his downfall, his destruction and his insecurities were his beauty.

I noticed this the other day and it made me sad.

At the end of All I Ask Of You, Christine says she must go and is about to leave when Raoul sings "Christine, I love you" and she turns back and goes to him, they end up leaving the scene together all happy and in love.

Phantom tried to do that at the end of Final Lair, his "Christine, I love you" is an attempt at making Christine stay the same way he saw Raoul do in the rooftop :(

Wedding day

@cuddlesforerik I am honored.

Favorite color: Honestly, black. It’s so beautiful to me. Very classy/elegant. But if that doesn’t really count, I also like a dark red, almost burgundy.

Currently reading: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas (1846); The Collected Works of William Wordsworth (1793-1850); Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard (1843); AND I am about to start Le Fantôme de l’Opéra by Gaston Leroux (1909), for the first time in the original French (so incredibly excited).

Last song: “Talking About Hope” by Snow Patrol

Last film: 2005 Pride and Prejudice (in theaters, I might add. Gorgeous.)

Last series: “The Walking Dead” (original)

Sweet/salty/savory: Sour. (Guess that falls under sweet most of the time?)

Tea or Coffee: COFFEE. Black. Though, I can be persuaded to drink a flat white now and then. But only when in Europe. Which leads nicely to my last point…

Working on:

Currently: Getting home from a trip to England (lovely, lovely country, home to many of my favorite authors).

In general: Writing a novel, learning French, and preparing for grad school (daunting but full of promise and reward).

No-pressure tags: @fdelopera @forever-and-whats-left @dailykafka @mournfulroses @waistcoatntails @coatntails

Nine people I wish I knew better

Thank you for the tags @meilas and @dj-triumph!

Favourite colour: Green, especially dark forest greens

Currently reading: The Otherwhere Post by Emily J. Taylor and an ongoing read of Les Miserables by Victory Hugo. Almost finished both!

Last song: There Are Other Ways from the Circe Saga of Epic: The Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans

Last film: The first half of Chicken Little before bailing on it

Last series: Andor

Sweet/salty/savoury: Always a toss-up between sweet and salty for me

Tea or coffee: Coffee, but always decaf!

Working on: Goodness, a few things, and I am excited about all of them!

A new oneshot about @rose-margaritas’ bartender!AU, based on this piece specifically

My next multi-chapter fic, which is another collab with @brendadaaedestler that we started for NaNoWriMo 2024

The third and final part of Heaven Is Not Fit to House a Love Like You and I

A multi-chapter fic expanding on The Blackened Rose, my 1920s Phantom AU oneshot

Tagging: @brendadaaedestler @ablatheringblatherskite @rose-margaritas @erik-carriere @xcspy @les-gnossiennes-fantomatiques @achillmango @angel-with-paper-wings @blackghostm2o (apologies for any double tags/tagging people who’ve done this already! 💕)

Currently imagining Erik's limp hand as Christine gives the ring back to his corpse

Daroga is so funny because wdym you saved him because you thought he was funny?? Was it the really dry jokes about death?? The bad puns?? The weird cryptic metaphors???? The frog impressions?????????

Not just obsession, not just lust, people. That man was in LOVE. “…and love of the most exquisite kind.” What else could have prompted him to give up his one hope for life? It was an act of selflessness, aka divine love. Just read “The End of the Phantom’s Love Story,” I beg you; just look at that forehead kiss.

(Don’t even get me started about the plain gold ring.)

The Phantom of the Opera IS a love story btw. It's inherently a story about love. A lot of people still find it hard to accept it, probably because they're busy with their "I'm smarter than this beloved classic" Edgy Hot Take, this is why it's always important to remind.

It's a story about a man that, because he was abused and denied of love his entire life, he was forced to live with everything he knew about: survival.

It's a story about a man that craved so much for love, that he thought he could buy, or force it, throught talent and lies.

It's a story about compassion, redemption, and most importantly, love. Because Erik loved Christine. The ending is impactful because he loved her. His love for her didn't make him immune to be obsessive nor to hurt her. And if you don't believe Erik loved Christine, you're the one that misunderstood the relationships between these characters and why the story is the way it is in the first place.

Probably people more coherent than I am have talked about this before, but I feel like the biggest difference between Leroux Erik and ALW Erik besides the deformity and the fact I think ALW Erik is supposed to be a little bit younger than Leroux's, is that Leroux Erik does everything he can to try appearing "normal" to Christine (the decor and fake flowers in the lair) while ALW Erik does everything he can to make Christine think of him as some supernatural force even after revealing himself as a Phantom instead of an Angel.

So while Leroux Erik desperately wants a normal life with a normal house and a normal wife he can take out on Sundays, ALW Erik wants to convince Christine that it's so much sexier and cooler to acutally hang out in the darkness with him as Hades to her Persephone. It's a contrast I appreciate.

*speechless because someone has finally understood*

Erik and Christine - The Seduction of the Soul

Ever since I first saw (and then read) “Phantom”, I - like many others - have been fascinated by the relationship between Erik and Christine. There was something incredibly touching, moving, earth-shattering about them in both their ALW and Leroux portrayals. Both narratives are comparable in the degree of ambiguity they afford to their relationship. But why exactly are Erik and Christine so compelling as a couple? They probably mean different things to everyone, but I have tried digging a bit more into the reasons why I personally love this tragic pair so much…

One of the reasons their relationship holds such a huge appeal for me lies in the deep symbolism it carries. Throughout the narrative, Erik and Christine are presented as opposites - angel and demon, black and white, beauty and ugliness, underground and aboveground. They represent the dualism of the human condition, embodying extremes that complement each other. Just as there is no light without darkness, either is incomplete without the other. That symbolism brings a universal, almost transcendental quality to their relationship. Visually, the „yin and yang“ symbol sums them up perfectly:

They are not only opposites - they also mirror each other. It is no surprise that the mirror is such an important symbol in their story, literally turning them into mirror images of each other. They are two sides of the same coin, both representing a part of dualistic world. And just as Erik shows Christine her own darkness, she brings out the light in his soul.

They also have quite a few features in common: Both have a past of being travelling performers. Both are each other’s „angels“. They are also both enormously talented and passionate musicians. The soul-deep connection they share through music is incredibly intimate, passionate and spiritually erotic - and it is the core that lends an almost otherworldly quality to their relationship. Through music, Erik and Christine seem to unite as one being, creating their private world where nothing matters but their hearts and souls:

„Music has the power to abolish everything in the world except its sounds, which go straight to the heart.“ (Christine Daaé)

Emotions are heightened and pushed to the limits here, resulting in what Christine repeatedly describes as „ecstasy“. This transcendental experience of going „beyond themselves“, of transcending the limits of their own being to connect with another, is a deeply Romantic concept.  But just as too much passion can become overwhelming and consuming, resulting in a loss of control, Christine’s connection to Erik becomes both necessary and terrifying as she fears losing herself in it, both fascinated by him and equally afraid of his potentially destructive power. Erik and Christine are in equal parts moth and flame to each other. They are helplessly drawn to each other despite knowing that the other holds the power to destroy them.

But perhaps the most important reason why I love Erik and Christine together is the fact that Erik is so utterly, completely, head over ears in love with her. What might appear as just an obsession at first glance is proven to be the truest kind of love in the end - a selfless love that puts Christine’s needs first and makes Erik sacrifice everything for her, “calmly cutting his own heart to pieces”. His love is like a searing light in the darkness, beautiful and pure. In the end, it does not even matter if Christine returns it because his love for her is so powerful that it alone redeems him. It also helps him grow and become a better person. He recognizes that his behaviour has been wrong, that love mustn’t be forced, and that he must give her up if he really loves her:

„In the end, most of the Phantoms, including Leroux’s, sacrifice their desires for a woman‘s and honor her choice. […] This sacrifice is the true aphrodisiac of most Phantom narratives: women‘s desires are upheld, no matter how conventional. It is this moment that earns the Phantom narrative its audience‘s loyalty, not the unseen „happily ever after“ promised to Christine by her conventional Raoul.“ (Ann C. Hall, “Phantom Variations”).

It is not certain though just how happy the „happily ever after“ will turn out for Raoul and Christine because we never even get to see it. Both Leroux (with his allusion to Christine’s „solitary singing“ and her return of the wedding ring to him) and ALW (implying that a solitary Raoul seeks closure by buying the Phantom‘s music box for Christine as an old man) insinuate that the loss of Christine’s almost symbiotic artistic relationship with Erik means that her soul will be missing an important piece for the rest of her life. And this is the extended tragedy of it, because Raoul also really loves Christine and would be willing to give up his life for her - the difference between him and Erik being mostly that Raoul is never required to go through with that sacrifice.

And even if Erik‘s love for Christine might not be entirely unrequited, it still remains unfulfilled in life. It is no surprise that Leroux links them to Romeo and Juliet - they are, in a sense, also star-crossed lovers whose love is doomed, both by wrong choices and by circumstances outside their control. Raoul, who is quite perceptive, sums it up in his fateful question in „Apollo‘s Lyre“:

„If Erik were handsome, would you love me?“

Christine’s reply of „ Why tempt fate? Why ask me about things I hide deep within my conscience, the way one would hide a sin?“ was not included in the widespread de Mattos translation - possibly because it is the most telling expression of her harbouring deeper, forbidden feelings for Erik that she can’t admit, since she is clearly unwilling to answer Raoul’s question. In Leroux, the narrator also implies that after Erik‘s death, Christine returned to him and put the gold wedding ring he had given her on his finger, ultimately fulfilling their impossible love in death.

If things were different, if Erik had been born with a normal face and lived a different life because of it, Erik and Christine might have had a chance at happiness. But this is left to the audience‘s imagination and wishful thinking, perpetuating the fascination with their tragic tale of unfulfilled love.

Artwork by @elfinmirror

I had to go back.

the real true purpose of having a brain is to think about fictional characters

The angels wept tonight.

"Tonight, I gave you my soul, and I am dead."

"...your soul is a beautiful thing, child. No emperor ever received so fair a gift."

Yes, in fact

you ever just going about your day and then the weight of 'he had a heart that could have held the entire empire of the world and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar' hits you and you want to launch yourself over a cliff due to the sheer emotion

*gasp* I love them

“Kissed her bruised and bleeding forehead”

Erik, you can't make a love confession less intense by saying:

"I love you. We don't have to talk about it. Actually, I won't talk about it. Don't bring it up. Unless you want to. No, you don't want to. Let's just do music."

I….am in love. SOMEONE UNDERSTOOD

Theme of this little book, The 8 Grecian concepts of Love.  A final project that I’ve forgotten the parameters of, for a class I cannot be bothered to recall, BUT I got two books out of it, one in English, and one in dubiously translated French.

Process pics are on my Patreon

From my College Illustration Thesis, Lesbian Phantom of the Opera

Perfection🖤

I'm in the torture chamber

Oh, goodness I love you

PERFECTION I’M GONNA CRY

Duality of the man

Who. Was. The. Genius.

my version of book Erik

without the mask

He's a depressed mess here 😊

At first I wanted him to look as close to the book as possible, but then I just couldn't resist giving him this haircut and changing a few other things because why not.

I plan on drawing other characters and more of Erik too, so hopefully I'll have enough time lol.

In celebration of the birthday of this most-beautiful building (a few days late, I know), I upload these photos I took on my recent visit to its majestic halls. Nowhere else have I seen such beauty nor felt such awe; it is a sanctuary for divine art and a fitting home for the Angel of Music.

Words cannot express my love for it, so I won’t even try.

Let me only say: Gaston Leroux NAILED its description in that book, both visually and atmospherically. That building IS Erik.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

         I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

         To take into the air my quiet breath;

                Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

         To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

                While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

                        In such an ecstasy!

         Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—

                   To thy high requiem become a sod.

-Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats

oh dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky, from a letter featured in "Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family & Friends,"

This is literal perfection.

My take on ALW Phantom meets Leroux Phantom.

May your day be psychologically torturous and filled with existential dread.

You’re still the best.