Erik takes his bride for the first dance

🥰 some Pharoga moments 

I'll be uploading all my drawings in full res in my patreon, they'll be all available for free, for personal use, so leave a tip if you want to help me create more free content.

Kay Erik & Nadir - with a lil cameo by Ayesha.

The “angel” Erik dressing up for a human party. 

phantom of the opera + twitter

You know I know we all love the Daroga Erik Buddy sit-com where Daroga bursts into to Erik's House, Kramer stylez (except its always to demand that Erik tell him if he killed some one, crashed or exploded something etc.) But I love that in Canon, Daroga cannot even get into Erik's house. He can't even get twenty feet out into the lake. And Erik ALWAYS knows when he's around. So I think it's equally funny to have Daroga trying his darndest to throw rocks at Erik's door from across the lake like "ERIK, DAMMIT I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME. GET OUT HERE. ERIK!!"

This has been the proverbial thorn in my side for the past several weeks. >:((

I decided to take the plunge and make the page I’ve been thinking about for well over a year or two now…but oh man, would that I had the capacity to learn 3D modeling…because that would’ve saved me grey hairs. Anyways…You can see the spread in 2 pages here:

The Daroga’s Flat, everybody!

You cannot see it, but you can always feel it....

This art for my fluff Pharoga story called “Accidentally Married” was inspired by my favourite PotO artist @nipuni . (If you read this, I just wanna say that your art helped me so much with improving my art style and giving me tons of ideas. You are amazing artist and your Pharoga art makes my day!)

The Daroga is actually an extremely important character to the themes of Phantom of the Opera

Many people might not know this but living as a Muslim/brown person in the west ( especially France… see: burqab ban, burkini ban, hijab ban, etc) is extremely difficult for some. Not to mention in a world post 9/11. Not to mention ( probably) in the 1890’s like in Phantom of the Opera where orientalist art and inaccurate and often dehumanising portrayals of the Middle East and it’s people ( muslims, arabs, Persians etc) were common and were used to justify colonialism.

In classic literature there’s only like, ONE character who is brown and is treated like an actual human being by the narrative and is presented as a central cast member to boot: and that’s the Daroga/ The Persian in Phantom of the Opera. And even then, every adaptation after either replaces him with a white person or has an incredibly disingenuous and inaccurate portrayal of him and his ethnicity/religion. Heck, in the Phantom Susan Kay book he’s given the surname “Khan” which isn’t even Persian it’s a PAKISTANI name.

Every other presumably brown/POC character are written animalistically and antagonistically. E.g Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights and Bertha from Jane Eyre. Bertha especially who is just used as an obstical/metaphor instead of an actual genuine character who deserves her own nuance and voice.

Now, back to the tittle, why do I think The Persian’s mere existence and especially with him being Persian/Muslim is inexplicably tied to the themes of POTO? Because he’s just like Erik and completely unlike Erik at the same time. In the book he’s constantly described as wearing as astrakhan cap/ a fez. Something quintessentially Middle Eastern and exposes him as ethnic right away to the eyes of the then European public. Both Erik and The Persian have sides of them that the society they live in at large shuns/dehumanises/condemns. For Erik it’s his face, and for The Persian it’s his culture/ religion/ race. But unlike Erik, The Persian has the choice to “ take it off” or assimilate more into society. He can, and it was better for him if he wore, a top hat but he CHOOSES to wear a fez. And he never takes it off. While he CAN and he has the chance to be more accepted in society than he already is.

But Erik can’t “take it off”, he can’t take off his face.

Though we don’t know much about the Persians’ beliefs, it’s safe to assume he was probably Muslim since Persia has been a Muslim country for a long time ( ignore the one we have now lmao). And I like to think that even in France he doesn’t give up this one part of him. He could just convert to whatever the majority religion in France was at the time and he would be more assimilated into French society, but he doesn’t . He actively chooses to keep parts of who he is even though they put him at a disadvantage. In contrast, Erik would give anything and does try everything ( even to phycotic lengths ) to be considered “ Normal” in society.

And throughout all of Erik’s efforts the only one who was ever really there for him was The Persian. But Erik dismisses him constantly.

I like to think that The Persian stayed because he understands Erik to a certain degree, and I like to think that Erik resents him because he doesn’t use every chance he gets to assimilate into society. To be considered normal. Sometimes Erik quite literally would kill for. Instead hanging onto every part that makes him who he is even when it only isolates him further.

Past Erik 🤔

Get them here (I'll get them to work on Instagram in the near future too.)

Another way to access them, install the app Whatsticker, then search the code Ysunic and the you go!

This is the last post of this year so happy christmas and happy new year, see you in 2024!

The Daroga decides to check out Erik's opera (and therefore his plan to kidnap Christine). Hold up. Erik wanted to do WHAT on stage?

Palais Garnier fits 1979 people so 1979 people would have witnessed this phenomenon. Erik, why

insp. by this still from Eerie Tales (1919)