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The Phantom of the Opera (1990 Miniseries) Prompts! These got very long but this is one of my favorite adaptations and my brain wouldn’t stop. Pls tag me if you’re inspired by any of these ideas and I’d love to read it! 🎭🧡

1. In Erik’s lair underneath the Opera House, he has a room that contains a fireplace, a portrait of his mother, and a baby’s cradle. Inside the cradle is a headless baby doll. The baby doll’s head is shown disfigured with angry red scars, probably mutilated by Erik to resemble his own face. Erik found love and happiness with you as his wife and you later discovered you were with child. Even though you and Erik fashioned it into a suitable home as best as you could, it was no place for a child so small. As Gerard said, the catacombs underneath the Opera House aren’t exactly a healthy place to live in. Your child unfortunately died in infancy of an indeterminate cause. It was nobody’s fault. It just happened suddenly overnight. They were fine…until they weren’t.

“You sleep well?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Me too. The baby didn’t make a sound all night.” You give Erik a kiss before getting out of bed to enter your baby’s room and rouse them from their slumber. They look to be fast asleep in Erik’s old cradle.

“Hey you, it’s time to wake up and greet the morning,” you coo with a smile, but you notice something’s wrong when you touch them gently. They’re snuggled underneath soft baby blankets and the fire in the fireplace is still burning strong, but their skin feels cold. Far too cold. “Baby?” When they neither gurgle nor stir, you scream for your husband. Your voice is strained, as if your throat is full of cotton. You’re panicking and are about to cry at any moment.

“Erik? ERIK?! There’s something wrong—There’s something wrong with the baby.” Your husband enters the baby’s room in a flash, rushing to your side. He reaches into the cradle to inspect your child while you take several steps back, not wanting to see. Not wanting to believe what you already know to be true.

“Oh, God. Oh, my God. Dear God. They’re dead. Our baby is dead.”

“No. They can’t be! No! My baby! NO!”

2. For something much happier: You fell in love with and later married Erik, happily living with him underneath the Opera House as his beautiful bride. Usually nobody who’s seen his face is allowed to leave. Up there is where Hell is and Erik wouldn’t dare send an angel such as you to Hell, but you were able to change his mind. You’re his best friend, his wife whom he loves and trusts with all his heart. Despite knowing all the terrible things he’s done as the Opera Ghost and what his face looks like beneath the mask, you still love him unconditionally. He’s perfect in your eyes. So he lets you ascend and takes you back up whenever you wish.

Gerard wasn’t getting any younger and only had a few years left - both you and Erik knew that. It was Gerard who found an officiant who was more than happy to marry you and Erik properly. The officiant told you himself that you’d be surprised how many marriages he did for forbidden, star-crossed lovers such as yourselves. You and Erik were glad Gerard could be there to witness your vows, but he couldn’t help his son forever so you needed to step up and be the one to run errands. When you reached the hidden passage to the surface and Erik could go no further, you’d kiss him goodbye with a promise of returning soon. An hour or two later and you’d come back with food and other necessities, which Erik would help you carry to your home down below. You’re happy with the way things are for a year or so - but then you discover you’re with child and, suddenly, the catacombs under the Opera House doesn’t seem like a suitable home for you anymore. It’s not the healthiest place to raise a child, so you start coming up with ideas for better living arrangements.

If it’ll make Erik more comfortable, you’ll find a cute little house out in the countryside and away from the city. When you tell Erik you’re pregnant with his child, he cries tears of happiness and tears of fear. He never dreamed he’d be blessed with a wife or a child but, oh God, what if the child is cursed with his face? You run your fingers through his hair and rub his back as he cries and whimpers into your lap. The only other time you saw him in this state was when you consummated your marriage for the first time.

Erik has spent his entire existence believing he’s fit for nowhere but these gloomy vaults bereaved of light, like blackness itself. For he is blackness itself, isn’t he? You try your best to convince him that you both need to move forward with your lives. You need to re-enter Paris society to give your child their best chance at a healthy and normal life. You want to give them the proper education, socialization, etc. They’ll need sunlight, plenty of space to run around and play, and the opportunity to make friends. They wouldn’t thrive down here, isolated in the dark tunnels beneath the Opera House.

You know it’ll be a big adjustment and incredibly scary for him, but you assure Erik that all of you will be perfectly safe. You promise him that it’ll be good for his health. He’ll get used to living in the world above, surrounded by fresh air and sunlight. He’ll even grow to love it, in time. You’ll be right by his side and he won’t have to do it alone. He’ll have both you and the baby, and hopefully more children will follow. Erik knows you’re right, but he’s just so apprehensive of change. The Opera House has been his home for so long, it’s all he’s ever known. He doesn’t know how he’d be able to just leave it all behind. But with you by his side, he’ll summon the courage and the strength to do anything - even start anew.

3. Following the traumatic experiences he suffered in childhood after losing his dear mother, Belladova, to fever when he was three, Erik becomes very concerned whenever you fall sick. Even something as common as a cold has him worried and hovering over you. If you so much as sneeze, he’s on high alert. He’s always prepared, ready to hand you a clean handkerchief or give you anything else you may need to feel better. If he must, he’ll go to Gerard for help in procuring items from the apothecary. He’s very doting, sometimes smothering when he acts as your personal nurse and watches over you. Dearest, are you well? Eating well? Sleeping well? How does the heat affect you? Even though it’s so hot, you must always be wrapped up against any sudden changes. You assure your beloved Erik that you’re very well and healthy. You know that every care that could be taken is taken for your better comfort, thanks to his attentiveness. Gerard told you about Belladova’s untimely death, so you understand Erik’s trauma and fears regarding sickness. You’re patient with him when you have to assure him multiple times that you’ll be fine and will recover, you just need to rest. You won’t leave him like she did, you promise.

4. Carlotta used the wrong kind of herbs and inadvertently poisoned you to the point of near-death in her attempt to make you lose your voice. On opening night, you’re bedridden with fever, pale countenance, drowsiness, dizziness or weakness, chills, loss of appetite, mental confusion, loss of consciousness, etc. In your delirium, you think you’re still needed on stage and shouldn’t be lying in bed, so you keep trying to get up. Your friends, consisting of the ballerinas and chorus girls, do their best to urge you to lie down and rest, all you need to do is rest. They try to bathe your forehead and look after you, but you find it hard to remain still, complaining of headache and dizziness. They watch on in worry as they try to stop you from accidentally hurting yourself until you finally succumb to fitful sleep just as the doctors arrive.

Watching you from within the walls, surrounded by doctors and looking so unwell, drives Erik to seek revenge on Carlotta for what she’s done to you. Out of petty jealousy, the odious woman nearly killed you. He shows up in her suite and empties a suitcase full of rats all over her, driving her into insanity as she babbles and sings incoherently. Or he may do something far worse. He soon returns to your room using the secret passageways and spirits you away to his underground lair. You can’t be left alone in such a fragile state and need someone to watch over you. Erik couldn’t bear it if you were taken from him in the same manner his dear mother, Belladova, was. She was the first woman he ever loved and she succumbed to fever when he was but three years old. He’ll be damned if he lets you, the only other woman he’s ever loved, slip away from him too. He wouldn’t survive it. Not again. With or without Gerard’s help, he’ll make sure you have medicine and everything else you could possibly need. He’ll act as your nurse until you fully recover. Taking you back up isn’t an option. He won’t hear of it, not even from Gerard.

“Now you listen to me. For as long as I can remember, ever since I was a child, I have dreamed of her. Now people are born for many things, Gerard. I was born to live, if one can call this living, down here. But until now I have never known quite why. I was born so that she could save me, but that’s what she’s done. She’s the reason I was born. I love her, Gerard. And I believe, in time, with any luck, she will learn to love me. It will be a cruel God indeed to have sent her otherwise.”

5. Erik being the softest, most doting husband you could ever ask for. He not only gifts you pretty dresses, but he helps you put them on and take them off. With so many things to lace and button, and so many buttons being tiny, close together, and often in hard-to-reach places in the case of undergarments, it’s no wonder that many women relied on the help of a lady’s maid or an obliging sister for help getting dressed. But you have no sisters and no maids, so must rely on your husband to help you get ready for the day and prepare for bed at night. Whenever you can’t decide what you should wear for the day, he picks out a dress for you.

“This is what you will wear.”

He ties your dress laces for you while you brush out your hair. He holds the hand mirror for you while you fix your hairdo or makeup. Sometimes you curse women’s fashion for being so complicated and coming with so many layers, but Erik is always ever so patient in helping you get ready. It’s probably one of his favorite parts of the day.

“Forgive me, I’m hurrying as fast as I can.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve never seen such perfection.”

You, of course, return the favor by tying his cravats for him when his fingers seem to fumble and he just can’t get it right, helping him with his cuff links, or buttoning up his vests and coats. You’d go for strolls and have picnics in the woods which he planted. Filled with imitations of woodland animals which he had built, this is the most enchanted spot of all the places in his realm.

6. You’re Erik’s twin sister and live with him underneath the Opera House, having also been born with facial deformities and forced to wear a mask. Your mother, Belladova, saw nothing ugly in her children at all. She thought you and Erik were absolutely perfect and beauty itself. She would sing to you for hours. When you were children, you and Erik saw your reflections in the water of the lake and thought they were sea monsters - and then you realized it was you yourselves. It was not an easy day for either of you or Gerard. Belladova died of fever when you were three and Gerard thought, “and now they will die, and that will be a mercy to all of us.” But your mother begged Gerard to take care of you both, and so he watched over his twins thinking, “If they die, they die.”

With your mother gone, you both began to cry. Your cries would echo up through the shafts and cracks. At night when the Opera House was empty, people could hear them up above. And so the legend of the Opera Ghosts was born. Gerard became manager and let this ghost story grow to make sure nobody would discover either of you. Erik creates beautiful masks for you and himself. You’ve never shown your faces to anyone except each other, unmasking only in the privacy of your underground home when you feel safest and can be sure no trespassers or intruders will stumble upon you.

While Erik’s composing, you’re often dancing to his music or catching the stray rats that find a home in the catacombs by the lake. You don’t always kill them right away, believing they’re your friends. The rats tell you things! Gerard can’t be sure, but he theorizes that Belladova taking the poison to try to induce a miscarriage was the cause of your hallucinations and delusions, as well as yours and Erik’s facial deformities. When you were a girl, you were frightened by your first menstrual cycle and refused to allow Erik to inspect you for what he imagined was a wound. Neither you nor Erik understood why you were bleeding and suffering stomach pains and other strange physical symptoms. You both thought you were dying until Gerard had to explain it to you to the best of his ability. It was very awkward, scary, and gross, but you were relieved it was normal and you weren’t dying after all. Since Gerard has grown old and only has a few more years, Erik has become your primary protector and caregiver. He has to watch you very closely whenever you have another episode because you’ve often wandered off while talking to yourself or telling fairytale stories you make up on the spot. They coincidentally reflect your own life experiences, such as:

“In 1851, the Queen died so the King commissioned a labyrinth to house his son and daughter. The daughter was clever and escaped within a few days. But no one was aware of this, so the people believed she was still trapped. The only things in the maze were rats and rodents, So the Princess was henceforth called the Rat Queen!”

Erik has become very in tune with your behavior, what your footsteps and voice sound like, etc., even when he’s composing or playing music. He can tell the differences between when you’re lucid and when you’re muddled. He’s always been able to catch up to you and bring you back down before you made it up the stairs and opened up a secret passageway to the surface. After exiting his office, Choleti and Carlotta were once stopped in their tracks after hearing scurrying coming from the walls and…faint giggling? Erik stopped you from exposing yourself to the people above and gently wrapped his arms around you, holding your hand or carrying you bridal style as he guided you back home. He tucked you into bed once you were in the safety of your bedroom and sang you a sweet lullaby so you’d go to sleep. He had to kill Joseph Buquet when the wardrobe man ventured down below and found where you lived. Buquet almost discovered you during another one of your wanderings and Erik did what he had to do to protect you. Buquet could’ve seen your faces. You know what Erik is capable of, but he told you so himself that he doesn’t like killing people. Neither of you understand the world above, but you’re happy listening to the music.

When Carlotta poisons Christine and makes her lose her voice during her debut, Erik comes to you for help in getting revenge. You consider Christine a friend, so you happily provide him with a suitcase of live rats and use the secret passageways to hide it in a closet that’ll be ready for him. Carlotta is sitting at her vanity applying makeup when Erik purposefully strides into the room as casually as if he belongs there, forgoing his usual method of stealth. She freezes in terror as he promptly empties the suitcase full of rats all over her. Rats for a rat. After Christine faints upon seeing your faces, you try to console Erik as he cries and wails in agony. You try to stop him from destroying your home, but have to step back and keep your distance to avoid getting hit by falling objects. He’s hurt, he’s angry, but it’s never been this bad before. Despite what’s happened, Christine is still your friend so you help her escape by unlocking the door to her cage and distracting Erik just long enough so she can get a head start before he runs after her.

Erik becomes despondent and very ill after Christine leaves him, and you soon follow. Yours and Erik’s terminally ill state consists of coughing fits and shortness of breath, though neither of you bring up blood. Gerard is by your side and offers to fetch you water, then reveals he’s your father. You and Erik just nod your heads. You’ve both known the truth for many years and were just wondering when Gerard would finally say. Erik has Gerard’s eyes and you have Belladova’s, so it wasn’t very hard to connect the dots. You both have your mother’s soul and Gerard could never leave you nor regret any day spent with his children.

“You should go.”

“What if I stay?”

“Privacy is best for this. Come back in…a day. We’d thought about being buried in our lagoon. Then we thought no, we’d float up and scare some poor child downstream.”

“I will bury you.”

“And make it deep with no markings. There will be an inevitable curiousity.”

“No one will find you.”

“It’s our faces we’re concerned about.”

“You will not end up on display.”

You and Erik lay down side by side and either hold hands or hug as you wait for death, wanting to feel the comfort of each other’s embrace before you go. You were born together, you lived together, and you hope to die together. You succumb to your sickness within the hour. Erik feels your body become stiff and cold, but he only holds you tighter as he weeps for you, glad he’ll soon follow. He kisses you goodbye on the cheek or forehead and doesn’t open his eyes until he hears music. Not just any music, but Faust being sung by Christine. She’s come back. The realization that Christine loves him is enough for Erik to revive from his mysterious illness to sing a magnificent duet with her. After Gerard fatally shoots Erik, Christine unmasks him and smiles, kissing him on the forehead before he dies. Your body is recovered from the catacombs and she kisses your face as well, before replacing your mask and walking away with Philippe. Gerard fulfills his promise to his dearly departed children - He buries you and Erik together in an unmarked grave, in a place where nobody will ever find you.

7. Gerard had only been married to another woman for less than a month. The details of this marriage don’t really matter except there was a child on the way and the girl claimed that he was responsible. Gerard says himself that it could’ve been his, so what if it was? That child is you, but Gerard didn’t love your mother and she felt the same toward him. So as soon as possible, with her blessings, he left. Gerard still provided for you financially and shared custody with your mother, so you’d spend lots of time with him in the Paris Opera House. You’d go exploring while your father worked, often giving the person or people watching over you the slip.

You wandered down into the catacombs of the Opera House, following the sounds of a child crying. You came across a little boy wearing a mask. He looked to be just about your age, maybe a little younger. You introduced yourselves to each other and comforted him until his crying ceased. Though curious as to why he wore a mask, you didn’t ask questions and assumed it was part of the game he was playing by himself. You complimented how pretty it was and then played with him. You’re not sure how long you played together down there, but Gerard eventually found you. He was so angry at you for wandering off, but deep down he was just afraid you may have gotten hurt or kidnapped. Gerard never wanted you to come down here or find out about Erik, but it’s too late now. Erik’s never had any friends and has been sad ever since his mother’s death. Gerard figured his son must be so lonely when he can’t be there with him, so he reluctantly lets you come down below with him to play with Erik from time to time, so he can keep an eye on both of you. He never tells you and Erik the truth.

As you blossom into womanhood, your visits to Erik become less and less due to your busy schedule. Since joining the Opera Company as a ballerina, your days have been sacrosanct and filled with rehearsals. You’ve had no time to visit your friend. Despite your talent and years of hard work, you’re still stuck in the ensemble. The Prima Ballerina is an arrogant and spoiled woman who suffers from a bad case of massive self-importance. She’s gotten the role of Prima Ballerina only because she’s married to the new manager, and not on any show of merit or talent. She can’t dance, but obviously she doesn’t know that. She already has a reputation for being a brilliant but heartless and soulless ballerina and, at the first opportunity, resolves to smother your career by all means possible. She uses her position of power as the manager’s wife to deny you opportunities for any career advancement, spreads malicious rumors about you around the Opera House, and goes out of her way to make everyday life in the Opera House difficult for you. Gerard doesn’t have his job anymore so there’s not much he can do to help you, though he does try.

Your rival is threatened by Erik if she performs instead of you. But she thinks herself the victim of a thousand jealous attempts and goes about saying that she has a secret enemy who has sworn to ruin her. She pretends that a wicked plot is being hatched against her. Neither she nor her husband believe in ghosts, so they shrug the warnings off and she performs anyway. When she does, however, her performance is a disaster due to Erik tampering with her ballet shoes or costume. Embarrassed, she hides from the public view for a few weeks. Erik uses ventriloquism to speak to her and her husband through the walls of the Manager’s Office.

“Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Who’s that?”

“Who do you think? The sooner you both leave the sooner your ordeal will be over. Forgive me if I don’t stay to chat, but I have other matters to attend to now.”

When she returns to the stage, you’re performing as Prima Ballerina in her stead. You receive great applause and esteem, and your dressing room is full of flowers from your fans and admirers. She sees you as the one great threat to her status and career. Her jealousy of you is so bad that she sabotages your performance as Princess Odette in Swan Lake (or any famous ballet of your choosing). Her meddling causes you to suffer a terrible fall and/or injure your leg. This is especially egregious as you’re her understudy and her responsibility.

Erik is enraged by your public humiliation and brings down the chandelier on the audience. While everyone is in a mass panic and distracted by the disaster, he kidnaps you and takes you away, carrying you bridal style since it’s hard for you to move. In the safety of his underground lair, he lays you down on his bed and personally nurses you back to health for days, caring for your injured leg using medical supplies that he either stole or had Gerard retrieve for him. When Gerard comes down to try to convince Erik to let you go, he refuses. He scoffs at the very idea.

“Erik, you must send her back. If you don’t, they’ll come down and take her back. And when they do, they’ll kill you.”

“The world up there is not fit for one such as her. She was betrayed tonight and I’d sooner die than let her be betrayed again! Could’ve burned the place down, better in ashes and memory than like this. Send her back? Never! I may be hideous but I’m not hideous enough to do that!“

When Gerard comes to you to urge you to flee, he tells you the entire story of his romance with Belladova, Erik’s mother. He tells you every last detail about his marriage to your birth mother, his love affair with Belladova, all of it. Until finally he divulges the shocking truth to you - You’re Erik’s paternal half-sister.

“I don’t believe this.”

“You’d better, because he plans to keep you down here forever. You see, he loves you. He’s always loved you.”

You’ve always loved him too. He’s been your dearest friend, but you see him in a new light now that you know he’s your half-brother. You understand now that he terrorized the Opera Company all these years out of love for you. He watched over you from the shadows and saw your potential. He knew you possessed great talent and wanted your ballet career to soar. He wouldn’t let anyone stand in your way. You were destined for stardom and just needed a little help from him.

When you and Erik are alone, you convince him to remove his mask and finally show you his face. He wouldn’t do this for anyone and he’s scared of your reaction, but you’re his best friend and you’ve known him since you were children - so he grants your request. When you see his face for the first time, you don’t faint. You don’t scream or cry out. You smile. He’s perfect to you because his soul is as pure as an angel’s. You don’t care what his face looks like because you’ve seen his eyes. You reach out towards his face with your hand as if you want to caress his cheek, but you hesitate and stop yourself short to ask for his permission first. You’re afraid your touch would hurt him or cause him physical pain. Does he usually feel any pain or discomfort on his face? Erik lets you touch his face and nearly cries when you kiss his forehead.

When Gerard confesses to Erik that he’s his father and you’re his half-sister, Erik only nods his head. He’s known that Gerard was his father and you were his half-sister ever since he was a child. Erik admits his eyes are the only part of his face he can look at in a mirror without wishing to break the glass - but they’re not Belladova’s eyes, they’re Gerard’s. You inherited your father’s eyes too, and Erik noticed the family resemblance early on.

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