Rather A Tyrant

CROSS-POSTED LIEK WHOA.

The Fandom Appreciation Meme: My Thread

Album: Jekyll & Hyde: The Gothic Musical Thriller
Artist: Original Complete Concept Recording

Disc One
1. Prologue
2. I Need To Know
3. Facade
4. Bitch, Bitch, Bitch
5. The Engagement Party
6. Possessed
7. Take Me As I Am
8. Lisa Carew
9. Board Of Governors
10. Bring On The Men
11. Lucy Meets Jekyll
12. How Can I Continue On
13. This Is The Moment
14. Transformation
15. Lucy Meets Hyde
16. Alive
17. Streak Of Madness
18. His Work And Nothing More
19. Sympathy - Tenderness
20. Someone Like You

Disc Two
1. Mass
2. Murder, Murder!
3. Letting Go
4. Reflections
5. In His Eyes
6. The World Has Gone Insane
7. The Girls Of The Night
8. No One Knows Who I Am
9. A Dangerous Game
10. Once Upon A Dream - Lisa
11. No One Must Ever Know
12. A New Life
13. Once Upon A Dream - Jekyll
14. Confrontation
15. The Wedding Reception

Stolen from everyone and their dogs:



Two ways to play:

Request kisses from Reyer.
If you'd like a kiss from Reyer just comment here and let him know. He'll reply to your comment with a drabble of sorts that involves the kiss, or put up a thread to get that kiss on it's way. Or if you'd like a bit more control over the situation just start your own post and mark the entry locked to Reyer, and leave me a comment here letting me know where the thread is and Reyer'll be there!

Offer kisses to Others.
If you're feeling particularly bold or adventurous, post the picture in your journal, note that it's open to all, and let people ask for kisses from you. Give them at least a sentence or two in response, though--none of this "*kiss*" nonsense, that's no fun.

Name of Muse: Monsieur Reyer
Fandom/Type of Muse: The Phantom of the Opera/Canon
Link to muse profile page: http://repetiteur.livejournal.com/profile
Mun name, nickname or handle: Allison
Best way to get a message to the mun: E-mail, info in the profile
Do you use AIM or any other IM? AIM - username Freyalise
One hundred words about the muse that everyone should know:

Monsieur Reyer is the chief repetiteur of the Opera Populaire in Paris, France. He is generally short-tempered, lacking in social graces, and does not suffer fools easily. Carlotta Giudicelli is the bane of his existence.

I created this journal as an extension of a story about Reyer that I have been working on for several years. In it, he becomes Christine Daae’s “angel of music”, rather than the Phantom, and my prompt responses will reflect that. I generally roleplay him from the same viewpoint. I have given him the first name Martin, and per the stage version of the musical, he is much younger than he appears in the film and does not conduct the orchestra.

Prompt only, or available to roleplay? Prompt and roleplay
Posting tag: (when given) The Phantom of the Opera - Monsieur Reyer
Link to memories or tag page showing RotM posts: http://repetiteur.livejournal.com/tag/rotm

It's your moment of triumph! Where are you and what are you doing?

The principals for Hannibal were taking their sixth bow, and the applause from the audience was still deafening. Joseph Arsenault and the conservatory kid released Christine Daae's hands to allow her to once again take her own solitary bow, and the cheers rose exponentially in volume. She was literally ankle-deep in flowers, and the adulation gave no signs of lessening. The management was surely only too happy to let it continue for maximum impact on the reviews that would be appearing in the next morning's papers.

Standing in the wings, Monsieur Reyer watched as Christine stood from her bow, the smile on her face outshining even the footlights. He had never seen her look so happy, and he knew she had well and truly earned that happiness. No one had expected her to deliver such a triumph in Carlotta's place--no one except him. The weeks of tutoring had paid off, and he silently congratulated himself for having had the foresight to choose Christine for his master plan to humiliate the diva.

Tonight's triumph belonged to Christine, but he could still claim a small part of it as his own, and he was perfectly content with it going acknowledged. His student had conquered the Opera Populaire, his nemesis had been spectacularly upstaged, and he remained in the shadows, and it was all enough for him.

What is your addiction?

It had snuck up on him.

One week after Christine Daae had become the society column's newest sensation, one week since he'd made the colossal mistake of letting his mouth run away without him, and she had not spoken a single word to him. She had even managed the feat of not once looking at him during daytime run-throughs and nighttime performances. If she had to be in close proximity to him, she kept her eyes firmly forward, her lips thin and chin set. And it hurt a great deal worse than he had thought it might.

Reyer's mind kept wandering, unbidden, to the memory of the smile she'd given him and Madame Giry during that stroll in the park on her birthday. How strange that it had only happened just over a week earlier. Now it seemed to belong to a different world, on a different person's face, given to a different person entirely. Perhaps he was a different person now. He certainly hadn't felt like himself on that day, and ever since. And on reflection, he could scarcely believe he'd been that ugly to his student. Was it really his place to concern himself with who she chose to consort with, to be so... so... possessive of her?

That was an ugly word, too. And a foreign one. Again--this behavior wasn't like him. And it wasn't his place, he kept reminding himself. Do stop caring so much.

Caring.

That particular word, that thought, occurred to him at a moment during yet another night of being ignored, watching Christine's determined face and suddenly wishing so desperately for her to smile at him again that it was a physical pain in his chest.

That night, when the performance was over, he went home and had rather too much to drink, hoping in vain to ease the disquiet that had settled over him like a choking blanket.

In time we hate that which we often fear. - William Shakespeare

Monsieur Reyer did not start out hating Carlotta Giudicelli.

In fact, when Carlotta first came to the Opera Populaire, she was an object of amusement to him. Reyer found her entirely too self-important, with aspirations beyond her reach, and quite comically so. He never missed an opportunity to mock the way she always wore her best dresses to rehearsal, the way she sat apart from the others as if they were riff-raff, the way she put on airs. Carlotta already fancied herself a prima donna, and Reyer was convinced it was her own grand delusion. She wasn't cut out of the right cloth for such things.

That was all before he learned--much too late--that Carlotta was worse than the deadliest snake hiding in the proverbial grass.

He learned fear the day he accidentally discovered the plans she had set in motion to get rid of the Opera's resident prima donna and foolishly confronted Carlotta with his knowledge. Reyer had never had cause to be truly afraid of anything before, but after that confrontation there had been a short period where he had genuinely feared for his life. And to his eternal shame, that fear kept him silent.

What actually came to pass was perhaps worse, in a way, than dying. Instead of silencing him, Carlotta had engineered Reyer's dismissal from the Opera. But on someone else's recommendation, Monsieur Lefevre had kept him on as the new chief repetiteur. And so his slow inner death began as he was given the burden of being the instructor to the ensemble rather than a member of the ensemble itself, with Carlotta Giudicelli in her new place at its forefront.

It wasn't very long before his fear turned to hate.

You just woke up and found yourself in bed with the very LAST person(s) you ever expected to. How did this happen, is this real, and now what will you do?

( At first, he thought he was dreaming. )

(application for realmof_themuse)

Tell someone you love them, without using any of the following words: love, adore, dear, treasure, cherish and worship.

Mademoiselle Daaé:

I am sure this letter will fall on deaf ears as you have already made your decision to leave, but I would be remiss in my duty to the Opera if I did not at least make some small measure of protest. Thus I implore you to rethink your choice, and stay. You are a fine soprano, the best this Opera has had in many seasons, and to throw away your career when it has barely begun would be a terrible mistake. The company would not be the same without you. I am sure also the managers would lament the inevitable drop in ticket sales.

That said--You have been an exceptional student and I am very proud to have been your teacher. I daresay such an opportunity will never come my way again. Such achievements are rare.

Please, I urge you again, reconsider. Think of the Opera Populaire. The company needs you.

Yours most sincerely,
Martin Reyer.


Muse: Monsieur Reyer
Fandom: The Phantom of the Opera

He chased her to a train station.

Christine was leaving the Opera, leaving Paris, leaving her career, to marry that idiot vicomte and go across the Channel to live in London. And she hadn’t even deigned to tell him the news herself; she’d left him a letter and he’d been blindsided by it. All the things he’d never noticed or tried not to notice: the way she looked at him, the way she smiled, the way she’d been there every day of his recovery, the way she’d long ago ceased to be a mere student... And there it was, plainly written on a sheet of paper in her small, neat handwriting.

She loved him—-him-—but she had chosen to accept the vicomte’s proposal of marriage because she knew he would never return her feelings.

It was like having the air sucked out of his lungs, or being hit by a falling backdrop in Carlotta’s stead. In one instant of searing clarity he knew what he’d been refusing to acknowledge for months: he’d fallen in love with his student. And she was leaving to marry another man, believing he didn’t love her, when in fact he’d long ago forgotten what it was like to live without her.

He’d caught her at the station before her train arrived. He didn’t really know what he’d gone to do, or say. The truth was he didn’t know what to say. He’d never loved anyone before, and he was having a hard time admitting to himself that he was in love, much less to the object of his affections, even though he knew she felt the same for him. They ended up having a fight. Reyer confronted her with the letter, and told her he refused to act like the lovesick imbeciles he saw fawning over the singers and dancers every performance night; it simply wasn’t his way. Christine argued that she didn’t want him to behave that way; she’d only ever wanted him the way he was. He found he couldn’t say the words she wanted to hear, couldn’t tell her he did love her—-he could only keep repeating that he didn’t want her to leave for the sake of the Opera.

And then her train had arrived, and she’d kissed him on the cheek and said goodbye with tears in her eyes, and left him there on the platform. His own eyes were dry, but the sudden emptiness in his heart did his weeping for him.

He’d chased Christine to the train station out of love, but even then, he hadn’t been able to say three simple words.

If...

Reyer is a man who does not prefer to deal in 'what if's. Wishing one could change the past is for the foolhardy, and the past is best left alone. Better to live in the present, accept your lot, and not trouble yourself with useless dreaming. What’s done is done.

At least, that’s what he tells other people. And tries to tell himself.

In reality, he wonders 'what if' quite often.

What if Carlotta had never come to the Opera Populaire... what if he had been a better singer... what if he had refused the position of chorus master when it had been offered to him. What if he hadn’t been so foolish to think his treatment of Carlotta wouldn’t come back to haunt him; what if he hadn’t let her cow him into silence. He’d only wanted to protect his place in the ensemble. And he’d lost it anyway. Even though nine years have passed and he still hasn’t breathed a word of what he saw Carlotta do that long-ago day.

So many what ifs.

He tries to run from them, but they still continue to chase him in his mind.

In two words: Carlotta Giudicelli.

That’s not to say she’s the sole spark for Reyer’s occasional fits of temper, indeed far from it—but she is the cause of the worst of them. The things the woman has done in the past to ensure that no other singer could challenge her, the unending petty insults she flings at him for being a mere chorus master, and above all else the way she treats his student, Christine Daae. It’s enough to literally make him see red, and at times he’s surprised he has any back molars left from the way he has to grind his teeth to keep from making a spectacle of himself, or flat-out murdering the diva in the middle of rehearsals.

Of all the insulting things he has said and done to members of the Opera ensemble during his tenure as chief repetiteur, he has yet to lay a hand on a woman. But for Carlotta, he would make an exception to that rule.

Martin Reyer does not have much of a concept of loyalty in that he feels beholden to no one. He cut his ties to his family years ago; he holds his employers in barely-disguised contempt; he has no wife or mistress. He considers his life to be entirely his own, save for that one brief span of time where his career was at the mercy of Carlotta Giudicelli. But he prefers not to think about that. It's embarassing and a stain on his pride and best forgotten.

He supposes if he has loyalty to anyone or anything, it is the Opera Populaire where he works. Not to the snivelling management or the rest of the largely tiresome staff, not to the temperamental artists he controls much like a cattle herder would his flock, but to what the Opera embodies.

A long tradition of excellence in art, in music. Music is the only thing of substance and longevity Reyer has had in his life, and it is one of the few things he holds any emotion for. He tries to continue the Opera's tradition as best he can. By and large he considers himself a failure at it, but he continues on for the sake of his art. For loyalty to his art, perhaps.