...left over from my xanga and official Phantom days, among other things.
Enjoy.
The first is the beginning of a "Phantom" roleplay that, sadly died, like all the other ones that I have been involved with. The beginning was written by me, as I had the part of the Phantom himself:
“Behind the Mirror”- Xanga Role Play
Erik:
"I lie in the dark....waiting.... for I know not what. The restoration of my soul? No, that is something that I have long since given up. I fight with my own personal demons....the ones who have taunted and plagued me all my life. The ones that take shape in human forms come back to me in the night. The anguish of these memories is almost more than I can bear! I try to forget! I struggle with the immense pain of knowing how much suffering and death I have caused.
I feel so angry that mankind is so blind! Why can people never see the beauty that is just below the surface, just out of reach. If only people had the courage to take that extra step and grasp what beauty is out there! Oh why are people such cowards? Clinging to the same old routine! They cannot comprehend what they are capable of! I could teach the world to know beauty as they have never seen it....or heard rather, as music is my true passion. Music is what has kept me alive these long years. Music speaks to one on a deeper level then anything else. It conveys without words, the deepest and most desperate desires of our hearts.
As I sit here alone in the dark of my chamber with but one candle burning, suddenly a shaft of illumination blinds me! I cannot make out the words...but the melody....and the voice! It sears through all of the barriers which have long protected my heart from feeling any emotion. Feelings that have long laid dead within me are awakened with a terrifying surge of hope renewed. Hope that there is someone in this world who sees true beauty and is not afraid to reach for it. Someone who might be able to renew my fallen faith in humanity. There is a beauty in this voice that I have never heard before, but there is a sadness also. One that speaks to me and tells me that they too understand the pain and anguish of life. I close my eyes and soar to the very gates of heaven. Gates which I know are forever barred to me. I neither notice nor care for the tears streaming down my face, underneath the mask that hides the true nature of my existence.
Then, just as suddenly as the voice began, it ends. I feel as though I had just become addicted to a drug that was as beautiful and calming as it is brutal and disorienting. I can think of nothing but hearing that voice again! Not fully realizing where I am going, I slip in and out of the many passages below the Paris Opera House, till suddenly I find myself on the other side of a mirror.....and on the other side is a vision from heaven. The most lovely girl I have ever seen sits there brushing her hair, quietly humming to herself. She stops and looks at her reflection and smiles! Oh what I would give to see her smile for all eternity! But there is a sadness there too. A sadness that I recognize as that which one feels when one has suffered a great loss. Just as she begins to turn away, I quietly reach out and touch the glass. It is as close as I dare get.
But look! She has turned back to the mirror and as if she knows that someone is with her, she too reaches out for the glass and for a moment our hands meet. I want to speak to her! To tell her she is not alone! But I see a mixture of pleasure and pain in her face as she pulls her hand suddenly away and turns to open the door. As she opens it, I hear someone on the other side say what my heart will never forget......her name.....Christine!
This next quote is from an email that my Dad sent to me, after I had written an entry on my personal xanga: Desert_Dreamer, comparing "Les Miserables" and "The Phantom of the Opera". He made some really good points:
“Another thought about "Les Mis" and "Phantom"--there are two kinds of love portrayed here--quite different kinds of love and, frankly, one is more noble than the other. In "Phantom" we have the kind of love that society understands as "obsessional"--a real passion, and not in the healthiest or best sense, either, even though it's deeply attractive to our fallen human nature. But this is transformed into self-sacrificing love at the end, which is the only thing that really "saves" it. Nonetheless we are left with a sense of melancholy because this love was tainted by being at first obsessional. But in "Les Mis" we have self-sacrificing love almost from the beginning, in many variations, including the sacrifice of self for the ideals of one's country. These various expressions of love are not obsessional, and are therefore untainted and completely noble, from beginning to end, leaving us not with a sense of melancholy, but with a sense of great dignity and worth.”
I recently purchased a ticket for the 25th Anniversary Production of "Les Miserables" coming to Denver in September!!
This next one comes from a much older source: Queen Elizabeth I
"I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.
His too familiar care doth make me rue it.
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.
Some gentler passion slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.
Let me or float or sink, be high or low.
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die and so forget what love ere meant."
She wrote that to the brother to the King of France, the Duke of Anjou and Alencon, whom she had thought to marry....but alas! Twas not to be.
I have always enjoyed this take on the film adaption of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom":
"The Phantom is obsessively in love with Christine. When he discovers that she has fallen for the opera's handsome and rich patron, Raoul, who was once her childhood sweetheart, the Phantom is overcome by a terrifying violent jealousy. And I'm not surprised either, because Raoul looks like a girl, whereas the Phantom is a moody hunk with fabulous dress sense. Christine might have musical talent, but she has infuriatingly crap taste in men."
Then, when I had an interview.....at a Dental office, I was impressed by a poster that the doctor had up in his office, it said the following:
"THE HIGHEST COURAGE IS TO DARE TO BE YOURSELF IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY. CHOOSING RIGHT OVER WRONG, ETHICS OVER CONVENIENCE, AND TRUTH OVER POPULARITY...THESE ARE THE CHOICES THAT MEASURE YOUR LIFE. TRAVEL THE PATH OF INTEGRITY WITHOUT LOOKING BACK. FOR THERE IS NEVER A WRONG TIME TO DO THE RIGHT THING. "
Then there is this little thing I wrote up several years ago:
"The rose seemed to quiver at his gentle touch...slowly it opened to reveal a world far beyond the mind's imagination. A world full of beauty, honor, justice, and love. But...as soon as the world was visible...it disappeared into the soft pink petals....he wept. He wept for a world that would never be...could never be. A world of innocence that had not been lost. After drying his tears, he smiled down at the little flower and whispered.." I promise to do all that I can to insure that that world will never be forgotten!"
"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you." ~C. S. Lewis~ Good ol' Clive Staples Lewis. He really knew what he was talking about.
P.S. Here is something I posted on my Desert_Dreamer a while back:
Thursday, January 13, 2005
There is a thread on the official Phantom website where a girl wrote about how she feels about the musical from a Christian viewpoint, and this is how I responded: ( I thought you might find it interesting)
"I definitely agree with you. From a Christian perspective, the story of the phantom is very interesting and insightful. As I said a few weeks ago in another thread, that is what I love so much about the story and especially the musical, and why I love "Music of the Night". Because for ONCE in out society, we have a love scene that ends with great love and tenderness, instead of what is so "typical" of our society today. That is the beauty of the film, and why I am SO happy that it is doing well. Here is a movie with no sex, no drugs, no bad language, minimal violence, and yet it is one of the greatest love stories of all time. Passionate and soulful, beautiful and horrifying, a movie that can touch you, down to the very core of your being. And in the end, it is because of Christine's kiss, her willingness to sacrifice her own life to save Raoul's and to show Erik that he is not alone. Her selfless act that shows Erik what true love really is, and in that moment, as much as he wants Christine to stay with him, he knows now that he cannot ask her to do it. As he hears the echoes of the mob hunting him, he knows that he cannot "condemn" the woman he loves to live a life like his. He is so shocked by this one act of love, that he, in turn, shows the true beauty of his own soul. So, instead of a happy ending, it ends with love, sacrifice and submission, those qualities that all of us Christians constantly strive for.
My mother died 8 years ago, and I have recently moved away from all of my friends, and my father, so I have had no one to go with me to see the film, so I have really been feeling lonely and sad recently. But I've noticed that as I leave the theatre each time, I don't feel weighed down by thoughts of lonliness and turmoil, but instead, in a strange way I feel uplifted and satisfied. Because really, deep down, we all feel lonely and unloved. Besides would you really like to see Christine stay with him? I think his letting her go, is part of the beauty of the story, and I think that deep down, he always knew that that was how it would end. We should all remember that we are not alone, that Christ is always with us, and that it is when we feel the farthest away from Him, that He is really the closest to us.
Phantom_Lover22"
That was my screen name on the Official "Phantom" website back in the day.
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