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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́

@christinedaae.bsky.social

2.6K followers 370 following 9K posts

ー𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠 ❦ 日米ミックス ✩ mixed Japanese American • modern gothic heroine songbird ♪ • 着付け師範✩ kimono stylist/teacher • 巫女さん✩ shrine maiden • always has her head in the clouds, I’m afraid https://ko-fi.com/christine_daae

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · Oct 17

Hello there, everyone! I’m Kristina Rin. 🤍

I’m a passionate (silly) dreamer whose soul is dedicated to art, who believes fiercely that a broken piano can still be played, and thinks even a haunted house makes a lovely home.

Oh, you want to know more about my strange little world? Read on!

The photo is a selfie I took in cosplay of Christine Daaé from Phantom of the Opera. I am wearing a blue, intricately designed costume from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lace and a large patterned bow at the collar. The cosplay features a wig with long, dark, curly hair with soft bangs framing my face.

A photo of myself taken from behind dressed in a light blue kimono with a pink lotus flowers and green leaves. In the photo, I am walking down a path with one arm raised as I look ahead. My hair is styled in a braid with a pink flower accessory, and I’m wearing a dark blue obi.

The photo was taken at a park near Tennoji Zoo in Osaka, with a wooden gate and greenery in the background.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 3h

KOMEITO LEAVING THE LDP IS HUGE

The Japan Times @japantimes.co.jp · 6h

BREAKING: Komeito said Friday it plans to leave the ruling camp, parting ways with the LDP and new President Sanae Takaichi after the LDP failed to accept the party’s proposal on political donations.

Komeito announces split with LDP, clouding Takaichi's bid for PM

Komeito’s decision to end the 26-year partnership with the LDP means the ruling party will need to court opposition parties to vote Takaichi in as prime minister.

ebx.sh

𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 12h

It’s the mating season right now too so…

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 13h

Giving a tour in Nara today! Excited it’s not in Kyoto; I love Kyoto, but going somewhere else is nice lol

One of today’s stops is a home that belonged to a certain author from the Taisho, early Showa era. Being a lover of all things Taisho aesthetic, I’m excited

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 15h

There’s a park behind my house in Osaka, and sometimes in the mornings, I can hear a Shiba Inu playing with a ball that squeaks

Whenever I hear that silly sound, it makes me smile

I hope that dog has the best day ever

𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

This clumsy attempt is lacking in so many ways, but I tried.

Thank you, Phantom, for saving me. Happy birthday to the musical that brought me here

And to all the ghostlings and monsters, please know you’re always welcome to rest with me. I shall keep you safe 🤍

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

I actually find it easier to talk about Japan and social issues because caring for others and their happiness and safety is far easier than talking about what music means to me, and how my life has been since Phantom opener the door to my very soul.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

Music is a touchstone for me, something I need as much as air to breathe. My voice lessons are oftentimes my only solace, and whenever I sing, I feel as if I’ve come home

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

Can I sing as well as Christine? I am not a fictional character at the end of the day, and the Angel of Music has never visited me in my sleep. Alas, my voice is not so divine.

But I sing anyway. I can’t not.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

in my very soul. Where my sorrow has shaped my life, but I have tried to still choose to create beauty, to live, still choosing to love, still refusing (as best as I can!) to let that sorrow turn cruel

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

(The above is from Susan Kay’s novel, which isn’t always the greatest towards Christine, but the first lines have ALWAYS resonated deeply)

So, when I say I relate to Christine, it is not just because of the surface things. It’s because her character is a testimony to this private, intimate ache

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

for a kinder world. And I do not want others to be sad. *I’m* supposed to be sad! Not them!

But I am horrifically fragile, which is probably how I ended up with the kind of heart attack I did

Her eyes were always distant and preoccupied, ineffably sad as they searched the mirror in a hopeless quest for something that was never revealed. Often, just before the curtain rose, she would sit very still with her hands pressed against her temples, as though listening intently for a voice she could not hear. I knew by now that her father had died some time back, that they had been inseparably close, that she still mourned his passing with an unnatural and unhealthy intensity.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

I’ve also felt terribly fragile; I may be able to stand up for others, but because you only see text online, you don’t see that I’m trying not to cry (or DO end up crying) almost every single time I call out unkindness.

But I do this because I am so very, terribly full of sorrow and optimism

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

(Obviously now that I am no longer six years old, I understand that Erik is not entitled to Christine’s love, and thankfully have NEVER felt that way. But before I even understood the story, that is what I felt sitting in front of the CD player weeping for the Phantom)

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

and so I remember opening one of the Phantom booklets and reading this line:

“I gave you my music
Made your song take wing
And now— how you’ve repaid me
Denied me and betrayed me…!”

I had NO idea what Phantom was about it, but I began to cry reading that.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

My journey with Phantom began with me literally pitying him, just like Christine! I had always been a very strong reader (having a mother too high to realize where she even was meant that I was forced to learn to read abnormally young)

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

To be called ‘soft’ when I was simply trying not to let cruelty change me. To give, to remember how crucial it is letting others feel seen who are suffering also

Christine’s greatest strength is not her willpower or the fact that she resists Erik or is assertive towards Raoul. Her greatest strength is that she tries to make a difference in a cruel world. She gives sweets to the little ballet rats, who live a hard life full of deprivations. She cares about others — especially to those who are considered “unimportant.” And above all, she overcomes her own fears to reach out to a rejected and shunned man, a “monster,” in a deeply human and compassionate way. Christine made all the difference in Erik’s world. She is one of the best examples that kindness is not weakness, but true strength.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

So, to speak of what Christine Daaé means to me is to lay that all bare, aching and still bleeding, still weeping. That she’s a reflection of enduring deep sorrow, and yet meeting it with kindness and compassion.

Like Christine, I’ve known what it means to carry pain quietly and sing anyway

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

I don’t talk about how I was locked in rooms as my mother left to go find her next hit, or how she denies it ever happened

For every thing I speak about on here, there are a dozen more I never do

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

I do not speak of my past often on social media; I don’t like to think of how I once lived in cars and shady motel rooms with a mother that was addicted to drugs like cocaine, that I’ve faced homelessness in adulthood or even was when I was barely a toddler.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

in kindness and compassion.

I try to emulate this, as imperfectly as I am. My sorrow made me devastatingly soft instead of jaded

Honestly the previous post resonates with Christine so much cause what makes her character so beautiful to me is she isn’t a stranger to tragedy or pain. she went through so much , life cheated her in more ways than one she isn’t this ray of sunshine who is ignorant to sadness it’s festering within her , she’s a sad character. but she still chooses kindness and compassion and ultimately gave Erik his redemption and seeing the world as it could and should be and when she gets called weak for that?? OUT THE DOOR.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

I am so clumsy here that I had to seek out Tumblr posts that may explain better than the rambling, aching mess I feel whenever I reflect on why I feel Christine is such a (at times terrifying) mirror for me

It’s the fact that I have seen so much sorrow in my life, and yet I still somehow believe

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

As I got older and began to read and explore Phantom more, especially the original novel and adaptations such as Susan Kay, I began to realize how much Christine mirrored me beyond the surface.

This is where it gets very, VERY vulnerable for me, so please forgive me if I babble.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

I can trace my heritage to Luleå. My complexion that is very loudly No Tan, Only Burn seems to whisper very Scandinavian protests as far as the sun is concerned.

Again, as a child, that was enough to start.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

I missed my father. Christine missed her father. At age six, that seemed to be a good enough start.

Christine was from Sweden, living in France. On my mother’s side of the family, my ancestry is mainly Swedish and French, by way of Canada.

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𝑪. 𝑫𝒂𝒂𝒆́ @christinedaae.bsky.social · 16h

There are the surface things. I spent most of my childhood wishing my father was with me. I was too young to understand how much of a deadbeat he was, and my family sought to shelter me from the reality of what kind of a person he really was.

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