Welcome to Gaia! ::

*punjabs authoress* ... *pokes the corpse with a stick* ... *corpse rises as a zombie and chases Fox*

Ohyeah... Gerik isn't going to get a terribly glamorous part in this. Comes from me reading too much CrimeLibrary. Because every time you have a pair of criminals in ritualistic serial homicide one of them is going to be the dominant, aggressive personality, and the other will be submissive, often just following the orders of the former.
I'm still working out all the details and motivations and such, but the gist of the relationship is that Raoul is simply sociopathic. He plays at being nice and charming, but that's just for his reputation. Inside he's a very sadistic individual.
When he finds Gerik living in the opera house years before the movie takes place, the two just click. Gerik isn't actively violent, but because of his upbringing and isolation he is capable of killing and hurting without remorse, if it benefits him. In this case he does it because Raoul tells him to, because he's the only person who ever offered our lonely, wangsty little Gerik friendship. (And possibly more, which is where teh slashy subtext comes in. Mostly it would be suggested in dialogue and the way the two interacted. It was suggested to me that there should be a kiss, but I don't know if my heterosexuality would let me write that effectively. sweatdrop Thoughts?)
The game was inspired by Don Juan Triumphant. For years they've gone back and forth, picking out lonely girls that no one will miss, and seducing them either by sultry bad boy Gerik spiriting them off from a loveless courtship with the boorish aristocrat, or good, noble Raoul 'rescuing' them from the wicked, kidnapping Phantom.
Christine is just the icing on the cake after Raoul recognizes her and finds out what Gerik's been doing in his off-time.

So yes, thus is the premise of the phic. I'm still deciding whether Christine will manage to get away or not.

Aaand apologies for the ramble. I have a tendancy to go on about my plots because it helps me develop them. But you're right, there's nothing more important than characterization. The entire point of phic is keeping the characters in character. That's why most E/C fails... It's simply not in character for Christine to leave Raoul and go running back to Erik to live forever in his dingy batcave/loveshack, making sweet music of the night while popping out the optional 2+ offspring. Scarily enough, that's the plot of most E/C... But it can only work well if someone actually takes the time to see how it could work out between them, without rushing to the happy, feel-good, snuggly bits.

Stupid!Raoul just bothers me slightly less because it is an exaggeration of a pre-existing character flaw. Raoul isn't as smart as Erik... he's not a blithering moron, but at least the groundwork is there. But there's nothing at all to suggest that he's the boorish drunkard so many E/Cers make her out to be. Just off the top of my head I remember a dozen phics I've read where Christine leaves him becase; a) he's cheating on her with meg/a whore/the maid; b) he beats her up because he's drunk/he thinks she's cheating on him with Erik/she's not a perfect little trophy wife; c) he forbids music in the house because he's a jerk/insanely jealous of her love of Erik/always hung-over; d) pressures her, or attempts to pressure her, into sleeping with him before the wedding because he's drunk/a jerk/more libidinous than the Marquis de Sade.

*taunts zombie-authoress through the little window* Well does Erik even have a sense of smell? He doesn't have a nose, so I always figured...


^__^;; Glad you like it...
And you're quite right, Raoul doesn't care about Gerik beyond his usefulness. (I'm amused, actually... I looked at some of the dialogue I'd jotted down, and I'm going to have to tweak his personality... Evil!Raoul sounds like Tom Riddle from Harry Potter. *snrk*) If there was going to be anything slashy it wouldn't be romantic, or even love at all. Just pervyness.
Actually, Gerik might really like Christine... but not so much as he's devoted to Raoul for being the only person to treat him like a human being.


I'm the same way. That's why I rarely ever read phic. *snrk* Generally I can go down the first page at ff.net and, just from the summary, tell exactly what generic phic plot the author is using.

You too? I'm always thinking Erik's in the wall or ceiling somewhere playing it with his portable organ, and Raoul's like *stares at Daroga* (yes, I said he's playing with his organ, get it out of your systems)