User Profile

Character: Erik (no last name given), also known as the Opera Ghost, or O.G.
Series/Fandom: The Phantom of the Opera (bookverse)
Original or Alternate: Original

Age: Erik's precise age is unknown, and his appearance really doesn't make it easy to guess. I'd say, however, that he is either close to Christine's age, or else not very much older. The best I can say is that he's in his late twenties / early thirties - even he does not know for certain.
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Sexuality: Heterosexual

Appearance:

Erik is exceedingly thin, tall, and lanky. His clothes hang on him as though he were no more than a skeleton. His eyes are sunken deep within their sockets, so that all one sees when one looks at him are those sockets, unless one sees him in the dark. In the dark, his eyes glow yellow, two tiny pinpoints of light. His head is like a dead man's skull; his skin, which is stretched tightly across his bones is not white, but yellow. He has no nose, or rather, his nose is so shrunken and small that one cannot see it from the side. He is mostly bald, with only three or four long dark locks of hair around his forehead and behind his ears. His flesh is deathly cold to the touch, and the scent of death seems to hang about him, but his voice is the voice of angels.

He hides his face with a black mask, which covers all of his face, and occasionally, when he has to go out in public, he wears a false nose with a false moustache attached. He wears evening dress of the late nineteenth century, complete with opera cape (because you simply can't have a Phantom without a cape. Everyone knows that.).

Personality:

To say that Erik is a madman, a lunatic, is to disregard his intelligence and thereby insult him. If he is a madman, it is because his appearance and his upbringing have made him so. He knows that he is hideous, and so he hides his face behind a mask so that none may see it. Humanity has not been kind to him, and he in turn is not so kind to humanity; he feels as though he owes nothing to the human race, for they certainly don't feel as though they owe anything to him. In spite of his ugliness, however, he is capable of being quite vain and self-conceited - not about his looks, but about his genius, for genius he is, and he knows it, although the rest of the world does not. He adores astonishing people with his tricks, his illusions, but what he adores even more than that is revealing that it was he behind those tricks and illusions, that they might marvel at his ingenuity.

He is a great lover of trap-doors, of torture, of anything that will confound and mystify his victims. His sense of humour is terribly morbid, and he takes great delight in the thought of death, for there are but two things he desires more than death. Although a monster, Erik is quite sane, and perhaps enjoys torturing others because he himself is so tortured. But the one thing he desires above all else is to love, and to be loved for who he is. He thinks nothing of killing an entire building full of people, along with himself, if the woman to whom he has given his affections will not love him in return; his desire for love overwhelms all else.

He is not entirely unkind, however - although he haunts the Paris Opera House as the Opera Ghost, he is very kind to Madame Giry, his box-keeper, through whom he keeps his arrangements with the managers of the Opera. He occasionally leaves her sweets, or a few francs, for her troubles, and speaks to her at times when he is visiting the Opera under the guise of the Ghost. And although he kidnapped the young singer Christine Daaé, he allowed her to come and go as she pleased; she was not a prisoner, once he had ascertained her love for him.

He is prone to bouts of temper, lasting only briefly, and subsiding in a sort of melancholy gloom; he treats Christine roughly then implores her forgiveness; he nearly kills the one man who is the closest thing he has to a friend (for Erik has no need of friends; he is a purely solitary creature), and rages at him before sending him off with nothing more than a warning that he'd better not do it again.

And while his chief concern is finding love, he is utterly obsessed with his music. He works on his opera for stretches at a time, neither eating nor sleeping; he becomes as a living dead man and thinks of nothing but his work, into which he has poured the whole of human existence: it begins as 'one long, awful, magnificent sob' and then expresses 'every emotion, every suffering of which mankind is capable'. When he sings, he pours his very heart and soul into his music, singing with such grief, rage, jealousy, with such triumph, that one might think he is surely not human, but is indeed the Angel of Music, which of course is how he first took Christine into his confidence.

Erik is, above all else, completely and utterly human, capable of every human emotion, of every human fear and dread, and of every human triumph, though his appearance and demeanour make him appear as utterly inhuman, as superhuman.

Abilities/Strengths:

Erik is a man of many extraordinary abilities. He is a master violinist, pianist, and composer; his voice is unlike any other on Earth. He is a skilled ventriloquist, able to throw his voice in any direction at all, without moving his lips. His bony arms are surprisingly strong, and he is a master of the art of the Punjab lasso, which is little more than a modified noose which may be thrown around the necks of his enemies. He is capable, as I have demonstrated in his Personality, of going for days at a time without eating or sleeping when he is working on his music. He is dangerously clever, a skilled engineer, capable of devising incredible torture chambers, of building them.

Weaknesses:

Erik despises people, cannot stand to be around them, because they generally cannot stand to be around him. He is a loner by nature and by choice, preferring to hide in the shadows to hide his accursed ugliness. If relieved of his mask, he flies into a blind rage, alternately hiding his face, weeping in rage, cursing whoever dared look upon his face. He is, like any man, mortal, and can be killed if he can be caught. He does not operate like a normal human, although he is entirely human. He prefers darkness and shadow to light, does not stray far from his hiding-places. And, as he is sick with love for Christine, his love for her is his biggest weakness.

Notable Possessions:

A lasso made of catgut - the Punjab lasso - and also the completed Don Juan Triumphant.

History

Housing Assigment: Loh-Tessera

This is a role-playing journal for econtra_rpg by eddiesteddy4711.
[The Phantom of the Opera/Erik] © [Gaston Leroux].
All content is fictional and for entertainment purposes only, not for profit.

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