i am so interested in this IF! i just read the demo (which is beautiful, by the way. i'm very picky about what i read and Le Fantôme hits all my marks) it's a crime there aren't more asks. so i'm obviously remedying that!!! what is the first thing the ROs notice about Daaé (i guess other than their voice? or what about it, specifically, drew them in?)
R: This one is actually going to get answered slightly more in the story, but R's loved Daaé since you were children (whether or not that's romantic love is up to you). One of the things that made you such good friends was a mutual love of fairytales as kids, and in your first meeting R got to play the hero a bit and thus forever onwards thought of themselves as Daaé's knight in shining armour. Since they were sort of approaching that age where the adults around them were expecting them to start to grow out of playing make believe, it was especially meaningful to R that Daaé never mocked that little fantasy and sometimes in fact encouraged it (doubly so for fem!R for whom the idea of playing a knight would have been a significant break from expected gender norms).
Daroga: This one is going to definitely be answered in the story, but the gist of it is the fact that Daaé's an immigrant. It's not the most noticeable thing (Daaé's mostly lived in France and doesn't have an accent), but there's definitely a sense of a social barrier that is one of the things prevents Daaé from really developing strong connections with any individual (regardless of how much or little Daaé might try). The Daroga can relate to this a great deal, and it's something that makes them empathise with Daaé slightly more than they do other members of the opera. There's other story-related things that make the Daroga start to really keep an eye on Daaé, but this is something that made Daaé stand out to them well before the other external factors came into play.
Sorelli: Suspicion. For a long while Sorelli didn't honestly take that much notice of you. What really starts to get Sorelli to pay attention is when the Voice shows up (not that Sorelli knows it). Why is Daaé spending time at the opera house early in the morning when no one else is there? Why is Daaé behaving suddenly differently than before? Why are a host of other things happening around Daaé that individually would be nothing, but all together paint a picture of something else going on? Sorelli is very protective of her opera house and the people in it, so naturally she's going to pay attention to Daaé more - how else is she supposed to know if Daaé's the one that needs protecting or if Daaé's the one that the opera needs protecting from? She knows logically it all may be perfectly normal and benign, but she absolutely hates knowing that there's something going on that she doesn't get to be a part of.
The Voice: I think that if I ever end up making a Patreon, I'll probably write a scene from the Voice's point of view featuring the first time they notice Daaé. So for this I'll just answer what it is about Daaé's voice that drew his notice. Daaé's voice is not naturally the best (for a professional opera singer that is), it does take you a few months of practicing proper technique before the Voice deems Daaé good enough to perform a major role. However, Daaé's voice has a unique sound to it, something indescribable that makes them memorable compared to other voices of a similar quality. For the Voice specifically, he chalks this unique sound up to emotion - he views it as Daaé feeling the music more deeply than any other singer, and feels that when Daaé sings he is getting to see a part of their soul (hence the reason that I called the acting skill Acting and Soul).
