Sorry for not being active, I’ve got hit with the AO3 curse somehow and plus I’ve just had horrid artblock. Here is some art I forced myself to do. Also I am very aware of the Qwel situation, I will still draw the characters, but I do not support her actions.
I'm in love with your character designing abilities and your style is just *chef's kiss* I could eat your art all day if that's possible.
I was curious about the lore and character dynamics I hope that this is not too much to ask from a lore nerd I want to know the process behind the creation of this Au and how it came to be.
🕯️My major questions🕯️
🕯️How did you come up with the phantom of the opera AU? It can't just be Psychocuties x Phantom of the opera alone that's the main reason like I'm really curious about this one.
🕯️How much does it differ from the PC canon and the main inspiration (Phantom of the opera house)? I wonder how much it diverges from canon especially the vibe too.
🕯️What are the character dynamics?
🕯️major themes explore in this au?
🕯️least favourite and favourite child lol.
Finally, I never experienced Phantom of the opera myself but I am really interested in it as a whole. Definitely something right in my alley to experience what made you like the phantom of the opera house so much?
Lwk don't mind being lore dumped on I'm ready to lock in and sit down. I pay attention to ANYTHING but my college assignment.
My show is on.
OH MY GOD THIS IS MY FAVORITE ASK RN HOLY COW ILYSM OMFG
:D I absolutely LOVE my AU and I adore telling people about this- it was such a surprise to me that other people were interested in the AU 😭 I’m so so happy you like it /gen it made me so unbelievably happy when I saw you consistently look into it <333
also WARNINGS this will include a lot of spoilers for the movie and story since I’m explaining some of the plot and their differences etc also I’m gonna talk about character death, abuse mainly just all the themes phantom of the opera and Pshycocuties has combined :)
OKAY ONTO ANSWERING THESE TEHE
It’s gonna be a long one so I’m putting it all on a read below… this one will be a bit…
AU Creation
this is actually a pretty fun story- basically I was in this Psychocuties discord server where I met @mute-doll and @/ 1nsxmaniac ( I don’t think they have tumblr—) through posting my art and just being like excited to meet people in the fandom, they were both (ARE) really sweet to me and I offered to do a magma w them since they are both also artists and I find drawing with people actually helps me bond w them, so we get into a magma and @/ 1nsxmaniax starts drawing a diferent au that I think their friend made, it was a doodle of Masacrik with a half mask lookin thing which IMMEDIATELY set off my “holy shit phantom of the opera mention” brain, and then before I knew it we were all talking very merrily about if it was an AU and I was doodling concept designs:)
I don’t know if iv actually posted them but here they are in case I haven’t ^^
These were the very first concept sketches I did along side some friends, they were telling me what I could add on and off (me screaming about how the hell id include Mimi’s ear things and them just saying to remove it lmao)
in short though I just saw him w half of a mask and thought “yo that would be sick asf” and then me and my friends continued talking a bit about it! ^^ they didn’t really draw the au much and probably wasn’t as invested as i was but they helped create it nonetheless for sure:)
Canon and noncanon aspects of the AU
actually this is a really really good question that iv done a fair amount of thinking about :D!! I definitely don’t see it being strictly Psychocuties or strictly Phantom of the opera, it’s a messy blur plus some other personal preferences to the story, the best case I can think of this is that in the Phantom of the opera (specifically the movie version, im still reading the book so I can’t say anything on that side rn lmao) Instead of how Raoul (buttercup) and Christine(ushka) are to be wed and in love in the original POTO, I made it closer to where Raoul (buttercup) has this like- celebrity crush thing on Carlotta (which yes you guessed it is, is strawberry- though her design is still a bit up in the air it is getting there- I’m gonna work on her design later this week since this actually reminded me I need to do that still lmao) and Carlotta (strawberry) only really sees Raoul as a walking money bag whom she has and probably will once more abuse his feelings just for a cash grab- (though she doesn’t fully know he actually likes her- its not an actual abuse of power or dynamic since she genuinely believes their just fairly okay to good friends since he goes to most of her shows as a way to support her and give her some extra income etc—)
this part will be leaking into the character dynamics a bit since it’s relevant to the whole btw^^
iv also decided it so that Carlotta (strawberry) has this odd like— obsession and fascination with the phantom, she heard the tales and chases the stories whispered about the opera of this so called phantom with a hidden face and long winter coat, though if you were to confront her about it, chances are she would scoff and dismiss you (though she would nudge you a bit like “why are you asking me about that, I have no interest hahabutalso do you know something about it tho…?”)
Carlotta (strawberry) has always found Christine (Ushka) a bit of a pest to both her life and her career, mainly just because Christine (ushka) at the age of 18 had already started working working her way up the ranks despite only joining the cast and crew of the opera for a few months prior to when this takes place.
Characters and roles
Masacrik = the phantom
Ushka/mimi = Christine
Strawberry = Carlotta
Buttercup = Raoul
Mishka = Meg
Mr WolfMan and Ramman are in there somewhere- idk that’s up to your own personal preference cuz I’m too lazy to figure out how to fit them into there.. and due to the lack of characters we have, the story has been shifted slightly, esp for the Phantoms Backstory and all that stuff-
Base story/dynamics kinda..?
Strawberry/carlotta was especially jealous of Ushka cuz of her fascination of the phantom/masacrik, since she heard about Christine/mimi hearing a voice that helps her sing or whatever via Meg/Mishka ((since Meg befriended everybody and continues to do so at the opera)), Carlotta/strawberry started trying to convince people that mimi was crazy and she started spreading her own rumors.
Raoul/buttercup heard these rumors and did not shy away from mimi, instead he became rather worried about her— I mean Carlotta/strawberry talked about this phantom guy(masacrik still—) from time to time about how his voices carried through the walls if he ever wished to speak to you- essentially infiltrating your mind and soul with his sweet words and deceitful melodies- and she always spoke about the phantom/masacrik as if real and not some fairytale (like she was claiming it was now.)
Raoul/buttercup now starts trying to find ways to connect to Christine/Ushka, but she seems uninterested, anytime he tried to find her after a show or during rehearsal he was blocked by Carlotta/strawberry or Christine/Mimi had already left for her room.
Themes and reason :)
As for themes of this au I was leaning towards Obsession and isolation the most- since it revolves around Christine(mimi) and the phantom (masacrik) I wanna make it feel like a ‘smthn is off with my dark romantic fantasy’ thing since that’s kinda what the phantom of the opera already is in its own form- I mean the whole story is about her following him because he’s this ‘Angel’ who ‘knows what’s best for her’ and he’s mysterious and romantic and morally grey and it makes us (the viewers) kinda cheer him on in a way- we actively in media see this underdog and hope they win, most stories esp dark romance has it so the cool edgy guy gets the naïve and pretty girl, the one we root against is the rich already made for her choice- hell look at twilight, Badboy or sweetheart tropes sell yk?
what I love about poto though is that it kinda turns that classic story on its head- like it’s the same story but it’s with a twist, in the end the guy who’s been traumatized and has done all these horrible things isn’t gonna be a ‘I can fix him’ case, instead he sees his mistakes, he sees what he is doing and he is horrified.
he doesn’t force her to fix him because that’s only something a fuck ton of self reflect and professional therapy can do at this level of severity, or in the phantoms case, he chose to run off away from all this to do GOD knows what, which also leaves that familar mystery to his character and room for imagination on like wtf happened…
(At the end he basically threatened to end Raoul if she didn’t choose him, then she kissed him and he realized how fucked up what he was doing was and set them both free as the rest of the opera house and a mob of people chase down the catacombs looking to kill him, after he let them go he made a run for it and then the opera caught fire:) this was actually based off of an actual fire in an opera house that took place btw! very cool)
some extra stuff
for some extra backstory on Masacrik I wanted to talk about the phantoms past, I’m not sure if you know the usual lore but for a basic breakdown, he was born with a disfigurement on his face due to some condition, People found him a monster for this so they would put him in a cage with a sack on his head and pelt rocks at him for fun, they used him as a carnival attraction to make money, oneday this lady named Madame Giry (who at the time was a child) pittied him and helped him escape, where now he resides at the Opera house and She works as the Ballet mistress and messenger for the opera owners. (Don’t ask me who that is in this au lmfao we don’t have that)
since Madame Giry isn’t even a thing in the AU, iv decided masacriks mother plays a part in his past, though she was loving and lovely when she was alive, some sort of incident occurred that basically left her dead and the people of the city(/town or wherever they were at the time) saw him over her body and just assumed it was him- they mutilated him and kept him caged for months at a time, using him as an example of obedience and a ward off to people, telling lies about him to push whatever agenda they could : “If you do etc etc you’ll end up like him” “he didn’t use this that the other product and for that he fell to this fate!” “Sinners like him go to a cage, stay pure or this will be you one day” etc etc.
one day they started putting animals for him to fight against and then they started working their way up to the point where he was pitted against a person, by that point he was already insane and he started seeing the boos of disgust as applauds and cheered for him to continue:) essentially breeding that horrendous behavior for what was probably around a year or more.
He escaped and found his way to the opera, which he stayed at for the rest of the story and found victims to ‘experiment with’, his mothers death still stayed on his mind, sometimes he wished he was the one who actually killed her- to fill the void he continues to do that, what’s better than being a monster yk? Also he’s learned that relying on others makes you weaker and it’s always better to be on the other end of that sort of relationship.
I also want to incorporate the idea that the phantom originally tried to target Meg/Mishka before Ushka/christine- however he failed and then later in the story I want it so he kills her (unsure of its purposeful or not) via the chandelier crash, when originally he was aiming for Carlotta/strawberry >:)
Favorite child
I couldn’t possibly choo- phantom/masacrik…..
least favorite child
Okay so I don’t like Carlotta but I like strawberry…. Them mixed makes things complicated asf.. buttercups design is boring and I wanna change it later on but also I haven’t even had a proper draft for both him or strawberry yet so I’d have to say those two rn;-; NOT BY CHOICE I JSUT HAVENT HAD THE TIME TO DESIGN THEMM
:D I think you should definitely look into phantom of the opera when you have the chance!! Idk if youv done much research on it but it’s one of my favorite pieces of media and has been for a while now ^^ I’m hoping to oneday see it live on broadway or something with the chandelier fall :,) it looks so so cool and iv wanted it since I was like 10 or something crazy—
As for what made me like phantom of the opera, my mother has always loved dark literature, she was actually really interested in the phantom of the opera around my age back in the day :) she showed it to me when I was little and I already LOVED it, mainly because of the songs and the well known high notes that are in the movie. her favorite kinds of architecture and asthetic (if you will) is called art nouveau! (I also adore it- I am my mothers daughter yk) It’s very pretty and the opera house has a lot of the same elements as art nouveau :) (the stairs in the opera house especially w the way the stairlines are carved, feel free to look it up to see what I mean lmao)
I kinda forgot about tpoto for a while because again I was like 10 and by then I was obsessed with whatever 10 year olds obsess over—
Several years later I rewatched it because I was like “hm, that was a movie I remember liking and paying alot of attention too-“ so I rewatched it with my mom late at night and cried because of how much I loved the story ((I vried a lot when I was a kid over stupid stuff 😭 )) and from then on out iv always liked it, it’s never had a HUGEE hyperfixation and it’s always been more of a “oh im interested in this! I should make an au where their in this that the other” and it features as one of them!
I don’t know if you know what the anime ToiletBound Hanako-kun is but they had a poto au that I love love loved :D I’m very happy I was able to make this au w these characters- everything lined up very nicely and the character designs (though not all are done yet) match pretty well with everybody imo ^^
This was so fun to answer I hope some of this was coherent and understandable lmao
And cuz this was so fun I give you a wip that I forgot about and might never finish that I did on my phone a few months back :)
I also forgot to post this I think so it’s a perfect excuse
TY AGAIN FOR THE ASK IM SO SO HAPPY PEOPLE LIKE THIS AU AHHHHHH<3333
