I started writing for Fanlore

[erimia]

I never planned to, but it seems that my interest in this website reached the critical point. I'm surprised how much I like writing for an internet encyclopedia - it seems that it has just the right mix of collective and individual contribution, of anonomity and visibility that I found suitable for myself. For now I'm writing and editing articles for Blake's 7 (being an older media fandom, it's one of the most extensively recorded at Fanlore), but I'm also thinking about writing about the Phantom of the Opera, which isn't that well-recorded there. The problem, of course, is that while I'm enthusiastic to explore Blake's 7 fandom at any point of its history, I don't want to even come close to large portions of the old POTO fandom archieves, which limits me to the 2010s and maybe the descriptions of the "time before that" that I heard from modern fans.

My Fanlore profile is here. I have a lot of plans, but not sure if I'll be able to carry them out.

Comments

[igenlode]

N.B. The Phantom of the Opera page could do with some edits for basic English, e.g. After the musical, and shortly after its adaptation movie in 2004, Phantom's fans began filling the Internet with Fanfic fluffy, giving almost forgotten other earlier versions...

https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera

[erimia]

Ouch! I hope this section is better now. :D I suspect I'll be given the free reign of POTO pages - I got the impression that Fanlore is generally more interested in recording slash-related parts of fannish history, and POTO, of course, is a het fandom from the capital H.

[igenlode]

A lot better -- I just noticed a couple of missing articles in the Fandom History section (that is, 'a' or 'the', rather than entire wiki pages ;-p)
In fact, looking at it, I'm guessing you didn't touch that section -- the tortured prose style looks rather familiar from the original article.

While it used Leroux's book as a base, it made a lot of significant changes, one of them being to make the making Phantom's personality and his deformity much less extreme than in the book and thus turning him into a more mysterious, attractive and sexual figure, which lead led to the intense romanticization of him by the fans of the musical. Webber'as adaptation was incredibly popular and pretty much kickstarted The Phantom of the Opera fandom. The characteristics of the fandom that formed at that period and which continue to be staples of it to this day are the fannish focus on the character of Erik, perception of The Phantom of the Opera as a romance rather than mystery or horror and the popularity of the Erik/Christine pairing.

Popularity such that the Raoul/Christine page linked to doesn't even exist :-D
(And come to that, neither does the Raoul de Chagny page, or at least 'This page has no text'.)

The link to the "Phantom of the Opera Reader's Choice Fanfiction Awards" is also broken, sadly (I was curious as to what they'd picked, but it was obviously a long time ago and the site has expired). If you can face it, it would probably be worth verifying all the external links :-(

[erimia]

I'm afraid that a lot of the article fails are mine - it is always difficult for me to get them right. :D

Popularity such that the Raoul/Christine page linked to doesn't even exist :-D
(And come to that, neither does the Raoul de Chagny page, or at least 'This page has no text'.)

To be fair, the only character or pairing page for POTO on Fanlore is Erik/Christine. I suppose there are just not enough POTO aficionados there.

Yes, link rot is quite a problem on this website. That's why they recommend archiving linked webpages with the help of archiving websites like the Wayback Machine and provide links to archived versions as a backup to ordinary links.

[erimia]

Awards page can actually be accessed through the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100901074514/https://www.freewebs.com/phanphicawards/

And here is the earlier version of this page from the time when the voting was still going on, though the only lists on candidates that still can be accessed from it are Romance 2 (for non-E/C het romance), Fluff, Horror, Comedy/Parody, [Alternate Reality, Crossovers:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050524132230/http://www.freewebs.com/phanphicawards/

[igenlode]

My Father, the Fop (from the comedy section) did actually mildly amuse me, despite being a spoof based around the 'Raoul is a fashion-mad idiot and Christine gives birth to a mini-Phantom' tropes, having myriad errors, parodies of popular song lyrics, and featuring an author self-insert and lengthy script-style dialogue introductions as it goes on... I think the reason is that the author doesn't in fact despise (or conversely, blindly worship) any of the characters -- she says she rather likes Raoul, and it shows -- and I'm prepared to cut a good deal of slack for stories where Christine and Raoul are actually depicted in a loving marriage, even if they're completely ridiculous... and where mini-Erik is a horrendous child rather than an angsty saint ;-p

...my vision met a horrendously familiar sight. On the wall was written a message, in blood? Unconsciously, almost hypnotized, I reached out to touch the crimson lettering. No, not blood. It was written in tomato pulp. Of course I had no idea how Erik had gotten his hands on a tomato this time of year, but that was besides the point.

I backed away, seeking Raoul's side. The message read:

Dearest Parental units,

I "finished off" the broccoli, as per your instruction.

(Ch3)

"Father, I had no idea you were so covetous." He said, a bit sardonically.

"Oh, I know son." Raoul placed a hand on Erik's head proudly. "Someday, you'll be just as coveting as me." He removed his hand and stopped to comb the hairs he had mussed up. Erik looked like several of his illusions had been shattered. It was obvious his old man had no idea what covetous even meant. Then again, I wasn't quite sure I did either.

(Ch5)

I had specifically instructed, much to Raoul's disappointment, that no pink icing be used to top the cake. Lately Erik had shown such animosity towards the color, which had finally reached its climax one day when I found all my pink ribbons thrown into a washbasin. Erik had insisted that it hadn't been his doing, that the ribbons had fallen in and drowned themselves by accident. I tried to explain to him that inanimate objects were not alive and thus could not die, but he fixed me with a swift and certain "How do you know?" and bounded off. After that I stopped wearing anything in my hair for a while, simply out of fear that my clips would sprout teeth and bite me.

(Ch10)

But as the boy picked himself off the ground, wiping his grimy little face with his round, weak little hands, an idea blossomed. A brilliant idea. Of course all my ideas were brilliant. Except for killing Bouquet in front of Christine… and letting her remove my mask… and letting her remove my mask again on stage… and not killing the fop when I had the chance… and murdering Piangi but not hiding his body… and letting Giry show the fop the way to my lair… oh, and dropping that chandelier…and not killing Carlotta when I had the chance… and not killing Marguerite here as soon as I saw her and allowing her to inform me of all this nonsense… and pretty much existing all together!

Oh yes, I was about to announce my brilliant idea.

(Ch15)

"Are you deaf?" He thundered, suddenly furious. "Get out!"

I tried to stand as best I could and broke into a run. My legs gave way under me and I fell in a heap onto the hard, stone floor.

"Forgive me monsieur!" I cried desperately, terrified. "I'm weak monsieur! Forgive me! I shall crawl out if I must!"

(ch22)

Raoul fell to the floor in a most undignified position. No one bothered to pick him up or even check him. It was not unusual for him to fall asleep at inappropriate times when it was past his normal bedtime.

You know, I sympathize with this Raoul fellow. He doesn't receive nearly as much credit as he should. For all his flaws he is still a good man, and a brave one.

(ch23)

Madame Giry is the first to speak, her face straight though not unkind. "I told him to keep his hand at the level of his eyes." She says with a shrug. "I didn't mean it for just the Phantom's lair. It could come in handy for all situations. Playing soccer? Hand at the level of your eyes. Popcorn thrown at your head in the theatre? Hand at the level of your eyes. Hail storm? Hand at the level of your eyes. Tax collectors? Hand at the level of your eyes." No one quite gets the last one, but we heed this advice anyway.

(ch25)

I sighed, shaking my head. There was no use in placing blame. In the end, there had been no remedy. We had all acted foolishly. Christine had unintentionally led the Phantom on. I had blindly and brashly charged in to be the hero, before I even knew what was going on. And the Phantom had murdered, threatened, set traps, deceived, extorted, kidnapped, stalked, and dropped a chandelier on an audience. And Meg, well, she had led the mob down to the lair. And that had really been not cool.

(ch28)

Little Erik and Philippe had busied themselves watching a sword swallower, both of them still sticky with caramel.

Raoul arrived about then, looking like he had just run through a pack of infuriated scissors but victorious nonetheless. He went to Christine's side immediately, holding her waist and keeping her close to him. Christine grinned up at him affectionately; glad to see her two sons getting along as their fathers never could.

(ch31)