I don't CARE how close the acronyms are -
- This crossover doesn't work!
Thank my friend mom_loves_moose for bringing this one to light: it's Pirates of the Carribean and Phantom of the Opera. POTC/POTO, you see. I'll give you a moment to try and figure out how that works; we haven't quite figured it out yet either. Cross-posted to her community of choice, phanwank.
TITLE: Spare Me These Unending Trials - I have it on good authority that this is something to do with Phantom of the Opera. And so it begins…
CULPRIT: Petit Parapluie - Translation: Little Umbrella. What. The.
SUMMARY: Based primarily on my fascination with The Flying Dutchman the opera and what the suave Erik would make of a certain tragic Scottish organ playing doppelganger...Expect chaos to ensue, of course. POTC and Phantom of the Opera crossover. - Oh. Oh, all gods of the sea…It hurts.
THE VERDICT: Decrepit - You know, it’s not all that bad writing. Prose is glowing malevolent purple, but it’s more-or-less coherent. Characterization, though…it starts…alright, and she demonstrates knowledge of Phantom of the Opera…
And then it all goes downhill. My poor, poor fandom…
No Sue, fortunately. Unfortunately, she decides that Erik, better known as the Phantom of the Opera, needs to captain the Flying Dutchman. *head desk* *head wall*
My friend will be sporking in red, and will be concerned with errors in the POTO world. I will be in blue, focusing on POTC. And, yes, we’ve tripped over those acronyms a few times. I repeat: just because the acronym looks similar doesn’t mean that the fandom should be crossed!
Chapter 1-Overture
Note from the Author:
This was a somewhat bizarre idea that evolved from a) listening to Die Fliegende Hollander’s overture Uh-oh… too much when writing Residuals, and b) spending too much time in the company of my POTC-obsessed friend Haphazard Helena. That’s not a good pirate name. Not really, no. But the idea seriously emerged: what would happen if a slight -ahem, switch took place? And Erik, the brooding organ obsessed Christine-fixated rogue, became the doomed captain, and vice versa? No. No. Nooooo!
Don’t expect it to make sense that’s actually one of the main things I look for in a good read, thank you very much! - I’ve striven to keep people in as much character as insane cross-overs allow, though. No fluffy OCs, either. For these and other small blessings, Lord… Inspiration for Davy Jones largely taken from Rob Anybody from the Wee Free Men, because I’m terrible at writing Scottish accents believably. Despite all that, the premise is still that Erik and Davy Jones switch places. If you can’t do it believably…
A strained argument snapped that might, by the charitable, be deemed 'creative differences’, was raging upon the stage. This often makes for a healthy balance, of course - what else was the celestial parting of the ways of the Maker and Lucifer but an extreme example of terminal creative differences? Is this supposed to be intelligent humor? I…It…What? Just…what?
However, the minor war breaking out on the bare, splintered boards of the Opera Populaire I doubt very much that even the Opera Populaire would be in such shabby condition Unless it’s taking place in the future, in which case, we don’t have to worry about anything, because everyone’s dead. was one that undoubtedly was not likely to lead to any profit to either party concerned.
‘No! No, no, no… Monsieur Piangi, concentrate. Please. This is not Rossini! We are not engaged in a comic operetta. I am aware that the managers chose to keep the summer season-‘ Monsieur Reyer glared through his oversized spectacles, like a scientist surveying a particular unattractive species through a microscope. ‘Light-hearted, shall we say, but we are making a fresh break for autumn.’ He finished, raising his baton threateningly. Amidst a fusillade BOOM! of groans from the chorus, attired in a variety of ‘jolly swab’ costumes. At least they’re not performing ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: The Opera’ and at least the author seems to be competent enough to write this story. True…small blessings It was a boiling September with all of July’s aching, whit-hot I love those wit-hot Septembers. No, whit. Means small, I think, as in, ‘not a whit.’ …which means the whole thing makes no sense. heat, and Reyer drove them on mercilessly. ‘A fresh break. No comic barbers, no endless repetitions of Mozart. And no swaggering! Inhabit the role, Monsieur…’
To a fusillade of groans You did this already. I will continue to shoot off the cannons in a proper fusillade until you stop. from the chorus, Piangi glared and took a step forward, small currant eyes puckered resentfully at his artistic director. ‘I do no’ like the beard,’ he said complainingly. ‘Or the ‘at. The ‘at does not suit me. And-‘ Since when did Piangi become Carlotta? I know they’re a couple, but really…
‘It does not, however, impede your singing,’ Reyer interjected, with poisonous niceness. What’s the word for that, oxymoron? He was a small rake of a man unfortunately often used for gathering up the leaves in October, light as a puff of wind and twice as fragile. But he belonged to the Opera as much, if not more than the singers, who came and went as stars do, and anyone who doubted his ability had only to look into the fanatical gleam of his eyes to see that here was a man that was stark raving mad striving for true, artistic perfection. You’d hardly have needed to pay Monsieur Reyer to conduct, to tell the truth. Had the managers chosen to cut his salary in half and half again he would have still gone on conducting with just as much fervour as his always did. Monsieur Reyer is an idiot, then. Opera fed some secret corner of Reyer’s soul quite as much as his salary kept a roof over his head. They got all that from the movie? Stretching. But, at least it’s not unreasonable.
Currently he was pursuing a dream. The dream, so to speak, which he had harboured ever since a few years ago, when he had ventured to the Berlin Opera House. Wagner himself…Reyer heaved a minute sigh, blinking behind his glasses. Wagner and Reyer sitting in a tree… Die Fliegende Hollander in Berlin had been so very different to this. The young baritone had sang the role of the doomed Captain with a sort of dark melancholic melody that Piangi, with his puffed-pigeon strutting and Don Giovanni swagger could never hope to capture… it might help if they got a baritone to play the part instead of Piangi, who is a tenor and it had been so hard to convince the new managers of anything other than the usual run. Comic Mozart, Handel, a few of the grander, crass crowd pleasers of Meyerbeer- but he had pleaded. And he had got his opera. Er…just me, theatre-geek, but…don’t theatres, even opera houses, regularly rotate the theme of what they put on? Comedy in summer, tragedy in winter, something modern one show, something old another? Getting stuck into a rut is just asking for people to go someplace else… Although sandwiched in between a poor Christmas selection… the winter season would try his patience sorely this year. But he would get this one right if the effort killed him. He owed it to the music, after all. I’ll venture to guess that only a certain octopus man can perform to the best of Reyer’s expectations? Hey, then there will be a Gerik replacement with a real deformity!
He mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘Places, everyone.’ He said wearily. ‘Scene One again, and Monsieur? When you enter… could you try not to wink at the audience? You are not a pantomime villain, nor are you a comic hero. You should be filled with deep heartfelt despair at your terrible fate. There should not be a dry eye in the house on Die Frist ist um…’ See, I’d think they would be more professional at the Palais Garnier. At the Opera Populaire however, anything goes.
‘Crying with sorrow or laughter?’ a sardonic voice enquired, quietly, from the comfortable red plush shade of the gods. ‘You know, rehearsals are a sure tonic for depression, Madame. Although… I must say this latest effort of Reyer’s makes me unsure whether to weep for the man’s wasted efforts. Please, tell me this isn’t Reyer/Phantom. Please. While that might be slightly interesting, I would need to run out screaming into the snow. He has the creative spirit of a giant; and he has to make do with such petty talents as Piangi… You know, the Phantom’s only nitpick about Piangi was that he was too fat and that was only because he was planning on taking his place in the show. Nowhere in the play or movie does it say he was a bad singer. He only has problems with his accent.
‘Madame threw a sideways glance out of the corner of her eye at him. She had no very pre-possessing appearance in herself What?; life, and the somewhat uncomfortable experience of making very stretched ends meet, had given her lines in the corners of her mouth and tight, pursed lips in her thin slice of face, the skin stretched tautly across the cheekbones. The eyes were lost in the purple shadowed sockets of her face, enhanced by the severity of her black stuff gown. But it was just possible to see a little guarded pity within them. A slight softening of her steely demeanour. Yeah. Right.
‘You are restless, Erik? I would not have thought you-’
‘Prone to change?’ That doesn’t really fit the end of the sentence… the shadow of a man returned, with such unexpected venom that the guarded sympathy leapt, alarmed, from Madame’s eyes and hid itself in the muscles of her face That sounds really uncomfortable. ‘I am a human, am I not? Why should I not crave different air from the stale moulting dust of this old mausoleum? I may crave all I like, at any rate.’ Why, why is he confessing this to anyone, much less her? Oh, they go back a long ways… in the movieverse. He added, making a strained effort to seem as though it was a joke. ‘I am hardly likely to take a turn in the Bois du Boulogne of an afternoon, am I?’ Gerik isn’t allowed to talk like Leroux’s Erik. *pats* Having multiple canons must suck. Multiple cannons, however, are just what this story needs. I will go procure them.
The dry, somewhat sad irony of this made a painful impression on Madame’s face, which he took in, and dismissed, with a wave of a hand. All of his movements had a certain calculated quality about them, even when affecting nonchalance. Like a cynical panther contemplating the vagaries of the world with a little detachment, and a little resentment thrown in for good measure. Is there an emoticon for eye twitching? ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to alarm you… there.’ He said, more kindly. Erik has no such sense of other peoples’ feelings. It would not do to take out his foul temper on Madame Giry. A ballet mistress has enough worries about her modest income, the niminy-piminy chits under her charge, the company, without having to concern herself with a ghost’s fits of spleen. ‘I didn’t mean that. I was merely…contemplating the nature of my situation. I’m no reckless fool; merely…a dissatisfied one.’ Yeah, I wouldn’t want to cross a dissatisfied fool…
Madame Giry leant forward slightly, trying to read the expression in the slightly hooded eyes. It was a useless enterprise, for one; he read her far more correctly than she ever dared to venture with an Opera Ghost. But there was a faint dullness about them…
Onstage, Piangi let out a string of violent Italian expletives that certainly had nothing to do with Die Frist ist um, to a heartfelt groan of real despair from Monsieur Reyer. His doomed “captain” had been so bewildered by his large feathered hat slipping over his eyes that he had walked straight into the side of the painted scenery, causing the background of a seething storm at sea to wobble dangerously over his head. WTF WHY?!
‘No! I told you, you walk over to the rock! To the rock, Monsieur Piangi! Why is he acting like Patrick from SpongeBob? Why, I ask you, WHY? Ugh… again, please. What would the great man think of us disgracing his music like this?’
‘Like that fellow,’ Erik said suddenly, leaning back in his chair, and gathering his own cloak more closely about his shoulders. ‘I comprehend exactly how he feels.’ Er…this is really awkward. Even for him.
‘Yes, me too...’ Madame Giry made a sympathetic clucking noise. ‘Poor Reyer… he’s a widower, you know…’ NO. This is not going to be Erik/Reyer. Please, no.
Erik gave a faintly twisted, utterly mirthless smile as he turned his masked visage towards Madame Giry. ‘I was not referring to Reyer. Or yet Piangi. I was thinking more of him.’ He shrugged an affectedly careless shoulder towards the stage. ‘The idea Reyer is trying to realise…’
‘What?’ Comprehension dawned at last on Madame Giry’s world. ‘The Dutchman?’
‘Something like that. If you consider this old creaking place a vessel, it fits rather well, doesn’t it?’ The Opera Populaire is based on one of the most magnificent buildings in France. Drum that into your thick skull. Erik remarked gloomily, rising noiselessly to his feet. ‘Cursed never to rest, but to wander unrecognised through the world in tow with a -“ Er…doesn’t he love his opera house? In Kay’s book he loves it sexually. He wouldn’t compare it to the Flying Dutchman…Though, granted, that is a magnificent ship as well…Just…not an opera house…
‘Ballet troupe,’ Madame Giry finished brusquely. ‘Pish! What have you to fret about, man? It’s restrictive, to be sure… you are a man of leisure, aren’t you? Don’t you get paid two hundred thousand francs a month? 20,000. What are you complaining about? You know you’re rich enough to go wherever you please - and not have people ask unwanted questions.’
‘Are you suggesting a holiday?’ Erik asked, with faint amusement. ‘For, as you say, a man of leisure?’ He snorted at the suggestion. ‘You can see me promenading along the Cote d’Azur being one of the idle rich? I’m flattered, I’m sure…’
‘You should be NO, but I didn’t mean that.’ Madame Giry got to her feet with a slight wince and leant heavily on her stick as she limped slowly towards the stairs. Her shadow trailed after her. ‘I meant, Erik, that there are occupations for a single man to enjoy without interference or unnecessary curiosity. Like a composer? Or an artist? Or ghost to an acclaimed opera house? Think about it. You just said-‘
Madame Giry would later curse herself, Reyer, and miserable Richard Wagner’s music for putting the idea into his head. But in thinking of an occupation where Erik was not likely to be disturbed by the effects of prejudiced humanity, her eye fell fatally on the planking and stage rope that made up the ‘merchant vessel’ on stage, with flimsy washing line for rigging. And held there, thoughtfully.
‘How about…boating?’ Yeah, sure: Erik on a cramped boat with a bunch of people. That makes perfect sense. Actually, in Leroux’s novel, Raoul is a sailor, and we know how much the Phantom loves hanging out with Raoul…
‘I beg your pardon?’ My sentiments exactly
‘Boating. You know. Sailing. One man against the elements NO. No. If you’re doing sailing like with the ‘merchant vessel’, then you are not one person, you are among a crew. And fighting against the elements is not fun. , taking inspiration from the tranquil waves, that sort of thing.’ Madame Giry said impatiently, her mind vaguely occupied with old tales of Napoleonic derring-do in the English Channel. ’You needn’t be interfered with there, need you? Not unless everyone else on board needs help with all of the things that need to be done on a ship. Or is Madame Giry talking about Erik spending weekends in a sailboat? And you’d be active and busy Oh, yes, you will at that. It’s bloody hard work, you know? He would hate it., and it would be a nice change of scenery...’ The horizon…doesn’t really change. It’s all just water, far as you can see. Except for the going up and down bit. Nor does the setting of the boat, which gets real old, real quick.
‘I am not five years old - although I thank you for your condescension, Madame,’ Erik remarked vaguely. To tell truth, his own gaze was resting thoughtfully on the bad facsimile of a ‘ghost ship’ wobbling with cardboard stiffness on the stage. Did they have cardboard back then? I think not. And please tell me that this is their rehearsal set, and not the final pieces. ‘You needn’t act as if I was a pouting adolescent, madame…’ He wasn’t acting like a child. Or did I miss something?
‘Except when you act like one,’ Madame Giry interposed dryly. ‘You think you have it bad?’ She gestured with her stick at Reyer painstakingly putting Piangi through his paces. Reyer did ‘anguished’ with far more sincerity than the rotund singer ever could. Let’s see: I think Erik has it much worse than Reyer.
‘Now see here! You trudge! Trudge, Piangi! It’s land! You’ve not set foot on it for seven years! It’s both a blessing and a curse, and yet - what do we see? There’s a man on shore - Yes, that’s it -you’ve been isolated for years! Show some relief at human company! There… now… Durch Sturm, I think. With feeling!’ As touching as this is, Erik doesn’t actually seek human company (except for Christine). He hates and fears people. I will give credit though: the plot of the opera has many similarities to Leroux’s novel and sounds very interesting. And I must admit, it’s a breath of fresh air from rehashed Webber lyrics. True…small blessings. Someone who actually knows what they’re doing…and yet, doesn’t do it. Does that make it worse?
Erik grinned humourlessly. ‘Perhaps…not.’ He said pityingly, glancing sympathetically at Reyer. ‘Durch Sturm indeed…’
They did not make any farewell ZOMG THE AAANNNGST!. Madame Giry limped stiffly away on her stiff leg, the light tap-tap of her cane making no noise on the plush carpet, and he melted into the shadows like the most cunning of felines. Madame was a harassed woman, after all - far better to meet seldom and kept council privately. And this has what to do with harassment?
Yet the thought…itched. In a niggling, annoying way that made his brain ache when he tried to turn his hand to anything - the music skewed sideways dancing crabwise over the keys when he tried to frame a new composition, his pen spluttered ink however will we catch all of these clever nods toward marine life? in a black whirlpool of flooding ink when he attempted a few sketches, idly, of how his own Die Fliegende Hollander would look if he were artistic director NO, and had the managers more securely under his thumb. Rather than living, like Oberon, as a king of shadows and fantastical dark corners… he’d be a Scottish octopus man!
He muttered a curse under his breath and flung the pen down unceremoniously, watching it spit ink over a pile of manuscript paper like a hissing cat. No, it didn’t. That is much too much of a stretch.
There was so much to do he didn’t have the heart to do any of it. That’s how I feel before finals. He couldn’t even manage his normal little critiques to the idiots above stairs above stairs is a new expression to me And he’s horribly out of character right now: he can always manage the nasty little critiques, because the words twisted themselves into untidy, impatient scrawl…
‘Ugh…’ he said in disgust, turning from the desk. ‘Useless. Utterly-‘
His eye caught the glass ones of… well. Her. She didn’t criticise at least, or suggest holidays. Madame Giry meant well, but she had such a motherly mindset that Erik could have sworn, sometimes, that she confused the chattering, chittering Meg with him NO. Bad mental image. As though he were some bad, disobedient child she had to encourage along the way. She was quite different. Having Her effigy like a saint smiling gentle, waxen benevolence down upon him was like a gentle angel’s salutation. He sighed, unconsciously. Eew. He’s worshipping the Christine doll. Make it stop!
‘What do you think?’ he said, addressing himself to the silent mannequin. ‘Is the old fishwife right? Oh, ha ha, more words that are vaguely related to the ocean. Do I need a holiday from reason to regain my sanity?’ Yes, please regain your sanity… or whatever sanity you have that makes you canon.
No answer. The glassy eyes stared sightlessly out at him, lifeless as only a doll can be. Yes, that’s the point. Yet the waxen imitation of Christine’s lips seemed, in their perpetual smile, to be faintly mocking his asking the question in the first place. The answer, it seemed, was clearly obvious.
‘I daresay you’re right, my dear. You are - as always - but… if I abandon you…’ His face suddenly looked agonised. ‘The lessons…’
But he could hardly teach Christine - Her- in this state. He should rightly have - have been there even now, playing the master, revelling in the heady power and pleasant sensation of knowing She thought of him with reverence, at any rate…Yes, he should. Now, go back there and be canon!
His pen sputtered, almost in reproach. How, oh how, can a pen sputter? No. He had been too depressed and dissatisfied to continue tonight. I can’t be the only one who’s mind switched to ‘dirty’ mode after ‘the lessons.’ She would wonder where Her Angel was, perhaps. Miss him? Maybe. But only a brief moment’s regret. Wrong. Pre-MotN Christine would have been devastated if her “Angel” didn’t return.
Still… Erik’s pen scratched almost idly, and to his surprise, when he looked down, it had written almost a whole line of words without his thoughts being engaged at all…
Wanted - boat/ serviceable barge for sale/rent of, immediately, for discerning gentleman employed- Erik sucked the tip of his pen thoughtfully, before writing, with a reckless thrill in the lie, within Paris’ renowned Opera Populaire. Indefinite stay intended at present. In other words: I want me a party boat! The pen spluttered again, blotching - and suddenly Erik was filled with entirely irrational rage at the unfairness of it all. I’m sorry, but…HOW? How can the pen prompt the rage?! Well, not the blasted pen - that was simply the icing on a highly unpleasant cake. But the boredom, the growing dismay with the entirely pointless nature of his life, being little more than a boggart in the corner - the mounting recognition that She, however much he hoped, was entirely out of his grasp forever… So… Erik is just giving up on Christine? Without her, there’s no POTO!
It can only have been that which made him plunge into a feverish outpouring of fitful spleen - madness on paper, so to speak. It was a wonder the paper didn’t dissolve under the self-pity and vitriolic loathing. If that did happen, there would be no emo music. Maybe that should happen. If only that happened.
Discerning gentleman my foot. Alright - you want the truth? I’m a wretch who plays at ghost. He wrote furiously. My life is a pointless round of watching other’s frivolity at present, And he likes it that way I have no hope, no aspirations, nothing except a worthless sheaf of manuscript which is the result of my life work But but but…he loves his manuscript and his life’s work! Thus the ‘life’s work!’ Get back in character! You were almost there at the start of it! and -‘The pace slowed a little here. But only a little, as Erik thought, and then continued in a ruthlessly bitter (but truthfully somewhat childish mood of petulantly writing all his grievances on paper. An unprofitable attachment I desire to leave off - why was the ink blotching? What made him write that? Erik hastily added a footnote, guiltily conscious in some way of betraying Her. But find it absolutely impossible to dissolve. So - if any raving maniac out there will even trust with me with a leaky rowing boat, I advise him to do so immediately and let me drown myself - or other people Now, this is more like Erik. Not drown himself, drown all the idiots around him. - as soon as possible. Personally, any man who allows a fellow who torments an organ and himself with such reminiscences is either a madman, a fool, or a kindred spirit. Aaaaaaaaaaaand we have a plot! Which was very obvious from the moment any fool saw that they were putting on ‘the Flying Dutchman’. Give me rum. Now.
Erik has not totally unaware of how pathetic this particular missive sounded. As soon as it was finished he read through it, curled his lip in self disgust and screwed it up into a ball, stuffing it into an empty wine bottle on his desk (which may have contributed to his maudlin sensibilities, who knows? No, it would have helped get him over such sensibilities), and then threw the bottle away. It did not smash as he had hoped, but rolled away over the rock floor and landed with a glassy plop into the water lapping at the edges of his domain. Lame plot device ahoy!
Be careful what you write, and what you do with the words afterwards. Erik did not know it at the time - but not all roads are entirely impossible to travel, and there are more eyes than we think watching the events of the world…
And after all, all water, whether fetid cellar overflow from the proximity of the Seine or still lakewater - it all, eventually, leads to the sea. Well, at the end of the first chapter, you receive bonus points for (so far) writing a crossover that does not make me want to rent my garments. The writing, though flowery, is very good. And this last sentence is rather good…so, if she can do better, than why doesn’t she?!