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me coming in from the rain before I read Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera: bit wet out there

me coming in from the rain after I read Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera: YOU'RE LOOKING AT ME BECAUSE I AM ALL WET?... Oh, my dear, it's raining cats and dogs outside!

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

You’re still the best.

Does ANYONE have video of Erik first coming out to the Overture for the Olympics??? Because I keep hearing about it, and of COURSE I wasn’t watching that day, and I. need. to. know. if. it’s. true.

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.

A great loss to American Literature. Now he joins the greats.

R.I.P. Cormac McCarthy

Famous authors talking about Dostoevsky

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.

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.”

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Crime and Punishment”

all i wanna do is lie in the sun!!!! read my books!!!! daydream about fictional scenarios!!!!! love without fear of abandonment!!!!!! smell like vanilla!!!!!!! cry over great poetry!!!!! sit on the grass for hours on end!!!!! not care about how others perceive me!!!!!! find god in the smallest of things!!!!! be free of guilt and shame!!!!