Stars And The Milky Way In Coconino National Forest, Arizona, USA

Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime

HIYA.

So a lot has gone on in the last little bit. NASA recently was ordered to scrub their site of women's contributions to astronomy and astrophysics, even took down their page celebrating women's history month and all the contributions they've made to NASA. So I did a thing and crawled through the wayback machine to find some articles, and decided to put this right here because fuck the government, fuck the orange in charge who told them to scrub their site, and fuck NASA for throwing their people under the bus and bowing to this authoritarian nonsense. This version of the site still has articles on some important figures like Eileen Collins, the first woman to command a space shuttle, and ISS chief scientist Jennifer Buchli and chief deputy scientist Meghan Everett, who, in their words, "-provide the science strategy and make science recommendations for the International Space Station program, and help make sure all of the science on the International Space Station goes smoothly, from preparing for launch to conducting research on the space station with the scientists and astronauts and returning the science to Earth."

THANK YOU.

Controversial hot take, but The Phantom (aka Erik) was never the better choice for Christine. He abused her. I get that some people love "dark romance," but the reality is that she never saw him as a potential lover, and he never saw her more than something he could control and use. Also, he killed a man, and that immediately made her not like him. In the main song for the musical, he literally sings, "My power over you grows stronger yet." Power. Not love or devotion. Power. He saw Christine as a tool for him to use so someone could sing the music he wrote. To the Phantom, Christine is his possession.

Music Of The Night is just the Phantom projecting his hatred for the world and light on Christine, trying to get into her head that she should be in the darkness with him. It's possessive. That's all it is. Note that Christine doesn't have any singing roles at all in the song either. We don't get to hear what she has to say. She's entranced simply due to the fact that she's finally face to face with the man who helped her with her singing voice, and she is being shown new things.

Of course, this all falls apart when she takes off his mask and scares her. Literally chasing her. He calls her a "demon" and a "viper." It's only after he sees Christine's tearful and fearful expression that he starts doing the, "fear can turn to love," thing. She's still afraid of him, though.

Then the El Muto incident happens with Bouquet, and Christine is scared as shit. Raoul thinks that Christine is believing in fairytales, but that's because Christine was also the type to believe in things such as fairies. It makes sense that he wouldn't believe her at first. But of course, people who hate Raoul stop there and go, "That's why Raoul sucks!" But the reality is that he realizes that there's clearly more going on, and that's why All I Ask Of You happens. It's literally the opposite of Music of the Night. Most of all, Christine actually gets to voice her feelings, so we understand her better.

Raoul offers Christine freedom and protection. Christine sings,

All I want is freedom

A world with no more night

And you always beside me

To hold me and to hide me

Now, are we ready gonna sit here and say that she would have chosen the Phantom if it wasn't for Raoul? Christine finally gets a moment to use her words, and this is what she says. She never wanted to be with the Phantom in the first place. It was his singing voice that entranced her, but everything else scared the shit out of her. And when Raoul offers to be her "light," why wouldn't she take that opportunity?

When the Phantom claims that Christine "denied" and "betrayed" him, not only is he projecting hard, but Christine was never obligated to return his affections in the first place. You can't scare a woman to tears and then murder a man and get mad when the woman doesn't want to fuck you. Even the lines, "He was bound to love you when he heard you sing," is just a way for him to somewhat cope with what happened. The reality is that while the Phantom wants to believe that Raoul manipulated Christine into picking him, the two already harbored feelings for one another back during their childhood, and that puppy love they shared never truly left. She wasn't manipulated by Raoul, but the Phantom wanted to manipulate her.

Also, I love how people act like the Phantom truly loved Christine. Even though the moment she picks Raoul, he immediately says she will pay for not doing what he wanted. Then he drops the chandelier. That's textbook abusive behavior. "You don't do what I want? I'll hurt people and say it was your fault."

Christine is also now highly aware that the Phantom would kill Raoul if he knew she was close to him. She says that before All I Ask Of You and during Masquerade. She loves Raoul and can't wait to marry him, but she doesn't want the creepy man who lives in the basement knowing. And again, when the Phantom appears, he says to Christine, "Your chains are still mine– you belong to me," once again seeing Christine as some kind of possession.

And most of all, in Notes/Twisted In Every Way, Christine gets to sing this:

Raoul, it scares me–

Don't put me through this

Ordeal by fire...

He'll take me, I know...

We'll be parted forever...

He won't let me go...

What I once used to dream

I now dread...

If he finds me, it won't

Ever end...

And he'll always be there

Singing songs in my head...

He'll always be there

Singing songs in my head...

[And a little later she also sings]

Do I become his prey?

Do I have any choice?

He kills without a thought

He murders all that's good...

I know I can't refuse

And yet, I wish I could...

Again, there are people who think she should have stayed with the Phantom? Like, are you serious? Did we watch the same musical?

The story of the Phantom of the Opera is literally about a young woman discovering that someone who should have been her friend and guardian was actually a predatory abusive man and how she escaped him. But I get it. A lot of people didn't read the original book where the Phantom is ten times worse, and yeah, the men on stage are kinda hot. I do get that. But we can't forget that he was so abusive and controlling. Erik is the textbook example of how abused people can end up hurting more people. Yes, his backstory was sad, but that's no excuse for what he did. You can't force a woman to love you.

Yeah, I know. This is a rant. I'm just kinda sick of people who just seemed to miss the point of the narrative of Phantom and are acting like the literal abuser was the correct choice for Christine even though she made it clear the in story that she wanted to get away from all that. It was never about her singing career for her. That was never a be all end all. Love Never Dies isn't canon. I don't want to see people using that as some sorta gotcha.

Tl;dr

The Phantom is a little piss baby, and he wasn't the better choice. Stop pairing a victim with their abuser. It's weird.

Looking south from 400 km up, this ISS photo captures Tokyo’s bright lights through broken clouds. Earth glows beneath a thin airglow layer, while stars of Centaurus shine beyond. A Soyuz and Progress spacecraft rest in the foreground.

Credit: NASA, Scott Kelly

Hubble's edge-on galaxy NGC 3432

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The obscene amount of envy that I feel towards telescopes and satellites needs to be studied