People joke about Raoul not having a solo, but what if that was actually done on purpose?
When The Phantom’s singing his song, Music of the Night, he’s still kind of talking about himself and his world and commanding Christine to submit to it.
His love for her is really still self-centered, as he wants her to love him for his sake and he realizes at the end that he doesn’t really love her if he forces her to be with him against her will.
However, Raoul’s song—because I consider All I Ask of You to be Raoul’s song—is a duet.
Because he lets Christine be a part of it. It’s not just about him, he’s not trying to command her or force her to do anything. He says “LET me be your freedom”, “LET me be your shelter”, “LET me be your light”. He says “say the word and I will follow you”. He wants her to love him, but only if she’s on board with it and says so. No “just succumb to me already, you belong to me” stuff like with The Phantom.
The Phantom is a dominator. Raoul is a team partner.
“Master Yoda, surely you did not track me down for a mere report. Especially when my Padawan has been so diligent in filing his own.”
I’M CRYING RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I COULD NOT HAVE ASKED FOR ANYTHING FUNNIER THAN YOU KNOW OBI-WAN WAS BEING SUPER FUCKING PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE WITH HIS REPORT FILING.
HE’S MAKING SURE QUI-GON KNOWS HE IS UTTERLY SHIT AT IT
QUI-GON PROBABLY NOT CARING THAT HE’S UTTERLY SHIT AT IT
OBI-WAN PROBABLY WRITING TWENTY PAGES OF THE MOST BORING SHIT IN THOSE REPORTS JUST BECAUSE, BY GOD, IF HE HAS TO DO THIS (BECAUSE HIS MASTER IS SUCH UTTER SHIT AT DOING IT), HE’S GOING TO MAKE SURE THE PERSON READING THEM HAS TO SUFFER AS WELL
YES, MASTER SINBUE, YOU WILL HAVE TO READ THIRTY PAGES OF REPORT ABOUT THE LOCAL FLORA THAT I COPIED AND PASTED + SLIGHTLY REWORDED SO YOU CAN’T SAY I JUST COPIED AND PASTED IT FROM SPACE WOOKIEEPEDIA, BECAUSE IT’S VERY IMPORTANT TO THE MISSION
VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU KNOW THE EXACT SPECIES OF PLANT THAT MASTER QUI-GON TRIPPED OVER WHEN HE WAS RESCUING THE PRIESTESS OF WOOD AND THE EXACT NUMBER OF CORUN THORNS HE GOT TANGLED IN HIS HAIR AND THE HOUR AND A HALF HE SPENT TRYING TO COMB THEM OUT
AND IT’S NOT AT ALL THAT HE’S JUST RATTING HIS MASTER OUT
“Will you be having dinner on board, sir?” asked Doughty. “No,” replied Hornblower. He hesitated before he
launched into the next speech that had occurred to him, but he decided to continue. “Tonight Horatio
Hornblower dines with Horatio Hornblower.”
Maria was quite shocked at the notion that a man should hold a crying baby, even his own, but it was a
delightful kind of shock, all the same, and she yielded the baby to his proffered arms. Hornblower held his
child — it was always a slight surprise to find how light that bundle of clothes was — and looked down at the
rather amorphous features and the wet nose.
“There!” said Hornblower. The act of transfer had quieted little Horatio for a moment at least.
Maria stood bathed in happiness at the sight of her husband holding her son. And Hornblower’s emotions
were strangely mixed; one emotion was astonishment at finding pleasure in holding his child, for he found it
hard to believe that he was capable of such sentiment.
This was happiness again, fleeting, transient, to have his lithe son tottering towards him with a beaming smile.
“Come to Daddy,” said Hornblower, hands outstretched.
Then the smile would turn to a mischievous grin, and down on his hands and knees went young Horatio,
galloping like lightning across the room, and gurgling with delirious joy when his father came running after him
to seize him and swing him into the air. Simple and delightful pleasure; and then as Hornblower held the
kicking gurgling baby up at arm’s length he had a fleeting recollection of the moment when he himself had
hung suspended in the mizzen rigging on that occasion when the Indefatigable’s mizzen mast fell when he was
in command of the top. This child would know peril and danger — and fear; in later years. He would not let the
thought cloud his happiness. He lowered the baby down and then held him at arm’s length again — a most
successful performance, judging by the gurgles it elicited.
The sadness and distress he had suffered when he parted from Atropos had largely died away by now. He was
back in England, walking as fast as the old man’s legs would allow towards Maria and the children, free for the
moment from all demands upon his patience or his endurance, free to be happy for a while, free to indulge in
ambitious dreams of the frigate Their Lordships might give him, free to relax in Maria’s happy and indifferent
chatter, with little Horatio running round the room, and with little Maria making valiant efforts to crawl at his
feet. The thumping of the barrow wheels beat out a pleasant rhythm to accompany his dreams.
“Hullo, son,” said Hornblower, gently.
He did not seem to have much hair yet, under his little cap, but there were two startling brown eyes looking
out at his father; nose and chin and forehead might be as indeterminate as one would expect in a baby, but
there was no ignoring those eyes.
“Hullo, baby,” said Hornblower, gently, again.
He was unconscious of the caress in his voice. He was speaking to Richard as years before he had spoken to
little Horatio and little Maria. He held up his hands to the child.
“Come to your father,” he said.
Richard made no objections. It was a little shock to Hornblower to feel how tiny and light he was —
Hornblower, years ago, had grown used to older children — but the feeling passed immediately.
“There, baby, there,” said Hornblower.
Richard wriggled in his arms, stretching out his hands to the shining gold fringe of his epaulette.
“Pretty?” asked Hornblower.
“Da!” said Richard, touching the threads of bullion.
“That’s a man!” said Hornblower.
His old skill with babies had not deserted him. Richard gurgled happily in his arms, smiled seraphically as he
played with him, kicked his chest with tiny kicks through his dress. That good old trick of bowing the head and
pretending to butt Richard in the stomach had its never-failing success. Richard gurgled and waved his arms in
ecstasy.
“Do you think he’s like you?” asked Barbara, as the door closed behind the nurse and baby.
“Well —” said Hornblower, with a doubtful grin.
He had been happy during those few seconds with the baby, happier than he had been for a long long time.
“I’ll cherish Richard, darling. Our
child.”
Barbara could have said nothing to endear her more to Hornblower.
… the intense pleasure he had known when it first dawned upon him that Richard loved him,
and enjoyed and looked forward to his company.
He wanted to have Richard on his knee again, shrieking with laughter over the
colossal joke of having his nose pinched.
Hornblower turned the page, and the grubby fingerprints were there, sure enough, along with the shaky X that
Richard Arthur had scrawled under his stepmother’s signature. Hornblower felt a desperate longing to see his
son at that moment, happily muddy and spading away at his hole in the shrubbery, all-engrossed in the
business of the moment with babyhood’s sublime concentration of purpose.
There had been that golden
afternoon when he and Richard had lain side by side on their bellies beside the fish-pond, trying to catch
golden carp with their hands; returning to the house with the sunset glowing all about them, muddy and wet
and gloriously happy, he and his little child, as close together as he had been with Barbara that morning. A
happy life; too happy.
If there’s one thing Tumblr does well, it’s that tag searches and reblogs make it fairly easy to find people to follow. In comparison, a common complaint I see often about Dreamwidth is that people unfamiliar with the format of LJ/DW find it hard to get “out there”. It’s not exactly like existing in a void, but you’re definitely not instantly connected the moment you start posting.
The key, similar to Tumblr, is exploring.
When you first make your journal, DW will suggest that you add a few interests to your profile. If the interest isn’t unique to you, it’ll turn into a search link when you view your profile, so you can find other users and communities who share it. Even if you don’t have a particular interest added, you can still look around using the search bar. (Example!)
Or, hey, curious to know what’s being posted to Dreamwidth in general? There’s the Latest Thingspage for you. (Keep in mind: you will see literally everything, depending on what and who are posting publicly, including unfiltered porn, spam, huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge images and posts.)
Friending memes play a part in finding other people. Essentially, someone sets up a post, you comment with some details and hopefully that way you gain some new friends. However, they tend to be rare and largely depend on where they’re posted/shared for people to find them. Add Me communitieslikethese serve as an alternative.
Speaking of which: communities! The official FAQ gives a good overview of their purpose, but basically this is where most of the group discussion on DW happens. You might be familiar with them via kinkmemes. Some people even use them as separate art/writing blogs, as you can do on Tumblr.
As previously mentioned, you can search for communities by interest (WHICH IS WHY I can never emphasize enough how important it is to add interests when you make a new community). Alternatively, there’s the official community promo community (and others). Or, you can make your own!
I won’t lie: a lot of communities you come across will be inactive, since Dreamwidth kind of lost out when the majority of fandom shifted to Tumblr. A lot of people see this and try to start new ones, especially now, when it seems like there’s a growing need for more organized fandom than Tumblr can provide. I still highly encourage you to at least give the old communities a try, rather than letting them stay dead, as seeing someone else post may encourage others out of the woodworks. (I have seen it work, although with varying degrees of success.) The FAQ even has steps for you to consider if you think a community has been abandoned. But whatever works for you!
Phew. That should just about cover everything. Hope it helps!
Giving this post another bump again since people are reblogging it a lot right now.
Also, once you have a small circle, you can check out your friends’ circle for people with similar interests, and add them too.
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