Whoops, You Thought I Was Over Davis Gaines?

Look, I'm very excited to see Jordan Donica in the Gilded Age, but all I know is THIS BETTER NOT INTERFERE WITH MY DARKEST DREAMS OF HIM PLAYING THE PHANTOM FOR THE NORTH AMERICAN TOUR. Listen to the voice. Look at the hands. Imagine the pants!! This man was made to play the Phantom. He is the second coming of Davis Gaines or Howard McGillan in the making.

Whoever is in charge...whoever I need to contact, petition, or pray to...MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

To say music is your life is an understatement. Music is what makes you wake up each day—albeit always in darkness. It’s the living substitute for the family and friendships your face, a damning accident of birth, has denied you.

Then one day you hear her voice from your desolate hiding place. You discover music personified in the form of a grieving girl just as lonely as you are. You can't explain why you took the risk of revealing yourself to her; you only know that there’s no meaning in music anymore without that seraphic voice in your possession. Molding it, controlling it, is your closest approximation to happiness.

It doesn’t end well. Your desire turns to a murderous obsession that nearly wrecks her. You forget that that messiness of the human heart is only partly transposed in the sheet music of an opera. She isn't music personified; she’s just a woman who belongs to the living world from which you're exiled. 

Still, she shows you compassion. For a moment she sees you. In that fleeting fraction of time, she understands you better than you've bothered to understand her in your relentless quest to own her. And so you release her. With one last goodbye, she returns the ring you gave her and your eyes follow her long after her form disappears from view.

You’ve accepted it. You nod your head in resignation and kiss the ring that once touched her fingers. You'll be brave! You’ll think of her fondly and savor the fragments of her that live in your mind's eye.

Then you hear her voice again: that call that first summoned you from the darkness; the instrument that shaped you as much as it was shaped by you; the melody on which you'd set all your wretched hopes. It possesses your body as usual. As it radiates down your spine, you react like a cobra to a charmer's flute. The angelic sound seems to await your response.

But your face crumbles when her rescuer sings back. In the notes of their duet you hear all the things you can't give her, all the grief you've caused, and the sure certainty that you've lost her forever. You hang your head and realize that you're not brave; you're sorry. So very, very sorry, and...

You love her. You love her desperately!

The hug!!🥹

Video from here.

Idk why I did this to myself. But when it comes to Phantom "specs" there's really no one who embodies the character as I imagine him like Davis Gaines did. In addition to just having that slender-but-muscular build, his movements are so elegant--almost balletic. And then you add that ghostly baritone of his and you can easily see how this man poses as both an angel of music and an opera ghost. Just know this is who I'm envisioning in all the fanfics you fine folks are writing.

Gifset dedicated to Davis Gaines's legs...and hands...and everything else.

really is soooo sick that ppl think that overuse of the em dash is a marker of ai now. like why are you people sullying the reputation of my beautiful beautiful wife. if im not overusing em dashes im dead. im like that chuck tingle book thats like the sentient lesbian em dash makes sweet love to me or whatever

David Shannon & Gina Beck

From “Cinéastes de notre temps” Robert Bresson, 1965.

Rewatching Lindsey Ellis's review of Love Never Dies.

I honestly love this play so much. Not even because it's so bad it's good (it's really a little too boring for that). But because I used to write terrible POTO fanfiction when I was like... 8? And at least half my terrible ideas somehow made it into this way-past-its-prime fanservicey sequel.

"Erik has a son" is a complete nonsense pandering idea that undoes the character arcs of the first play's ending. And now people have to argue in the affirmative why it's not canon. It taught me that "real artists" plagiarize fans, and that nothing is too stupid to be made. And that's honestly the best gift I've ever been given.

It's why I'm so confident about "Slippin Kimmy". Love Never Dies taught me to stop worrying if I'm good enough and embrace this affectionate cynicism about art and the entertainment industry.

lol is it good?

masquerade nyc posting a fic on ao3... literally what is going on

Tim Martin Gleason final lair appreciation gifset. I will never get over the way he throws his arms around Christine like he's clinging for dear life.