I have only just started reading this and I think it is brilliant

This story was posted ages ago, I know, but I simply cannot allow myself to read something like this without letting the author know what a genius they are. You are a genius.

Funny and original story! I really liked the metafictional aspect, and out of all the fanfics I've read which deal with that sort of thing, yours does it the best! If only more phanfics were like this... 10/10

Is this from the point of view of Carlotta?

hmmmm... perhaps the shade is actually erik in some weird way? he plays the piano well enough, and is curious on what carlotta thinks of erik

i get it now... "ingenious plane" and 'plan...' XD that is ingenious

lol the phantom speaking in third person

...Urgh...

I loved this story up until the shade was unmasked in Don Juan Triumphant. From there on... I feel like my mind has just woken up after being hit by a truck the night before. Holy flaming crow...

It was so funny! It was hilarious! Man alive, I'm lucky I didn't wake the house up laughing. The plot was great... And then... I was so sure the shade was going to turn out to be Leroux!Erik in disguise, trying to hide from an ErikSue.

In hindsight, maybe that was my feeble little head trying to comprehend this ErikEvil thing. Not only Evil, but an evil LOSER. Because yes, he did some bad, bad stuff. But he does have redeeming qualities which he seems to totally lack here. And he is 100% concentrated Awesome. Look up awesome in the dictionary, and it will tell you "See also: Erik." Even if looking up "manipulative" and "serial killer" gives you the same definition.

But it did seem like you were setting it up that way. Like the scene were he randomly starts playing the piano, and seemed to sympathize with Erik? And the scarves, and the croak, and the fact that he kept beating Erik... I mean, seriously, Erik got out-phantomed by randome-former-apprentice guy? (Interesting backstory, by the way. I don't really like it just because it seems sort of cheesy... Just because, why would it be Erik's fault that somebody else was in the cellars, too? It seemed a little too much. Like Sweeney Todd stories where every rape in London is committed either by Judge Turpin or one of his immediate family members. But I do admire the thought you obviously put into this story, and the fact that you created a backstory at all.)

Anyway, when it turned out not to be the case... Evil - Okay. I'd have to admit you're right. ENTIRELY evil - I'd have fought you on it, but if that's your interpretation, fine. Entirely evil and also made of fail... That's where the truck comes in. And brother, I think it must've been an eighteen wheeler. It's like the gears in my head totally lost connection. Does not compute. From there on out... I had to force myself to finish it, half-hoping you were gonna pull some kind of curve ball in the end.

Urgh. I need psychological painkillers...

No! I don't want it to be over either! Sequel? XD

“Oh they meant that other mob,” said Erik.

XD

ingenious plane... I'm so gonna start using that.

Yay ratcatcher! That character is so minor he's hardly worth mentioning, because we know absolutely nothing about him!

Shade's alive? How what where? nvm.

"Christine isn't the only ghost around here." Foreshadowing?

Yikes! Dead Christine is intense.

Woah, Erik's still a sociopath, Christine's ghost! Random MarySues loving Erik-honestly I don't see the appeal. Necrophilia has always sounded rather vile to me.