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Description
All right, so rather than typing it all out I think a combo of images and type would help you guys to get an idea of what the early days of my story BatB was like.

This was Biest back in 2003, in probably his earliest complete form (there were others but they had no back-story). Back then the story was called "La Belle et la Bête" was set primarily in France and Biests name was Amadeus Lauriea de Candrielle (totally derived his middle name from my own, I know its lame I'm sorry)

The earliest moment of BatB as it is now, came sometime late, late in 2002 with the image of some beastly creature, green-scaled pounding away relentlessly at a piano. It was only a few months after I first saw the Phantom of the Opera, and the earliest version shows some severe influence from that version.

As best as I can recall in this version Amadeus (who was named after Mozart by a mother who adored the mans music) was a famous pianist and composer in Paris in what I'll say was 1790, but which was really in terms of how I dressed them and used world events, really just a mish-mosh of 'old' French looking clothing and environments with a heavy dash of Victorianism.

Anyway, he came from a super abusive home where his father killed his mother when he was only 11 or so, in rage, the boy killed his father and then made it appear as though the man had committed suicide. Nobody asked any questions (right, I'm brilliant, I know! Who would investigate or even question two suspicious deaths in close succession?) Having inherited his fathers estate, and as a result was fabulously wealthy. Anyway, its not like that mattered, he'd been making a name for himself as a composer and musician and had already made quite a fortune by the time he was 21.

His best friend was an opera star Alexandre LeDoux, and he had become 'attached' to his young cousin, another young opera singer from Corsica named Amandine.

Amadeus was engaged to Amandine, more at the incessant pushing of Alexandre than anything else, but he didn't say much about the matter, he wasn't certain he loved the girl, but she was attractive, attentive and had a lovely voice, and she was more than smitten with him. His opera's were the toast of the town; nothing could go wrong with his life.

But, soon another composer hit the scene, whose music sounded eerily similar to Amadeus's. In fact, the man had stolen his music...yes...I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but it did, bear with me, there are a lot of gaps in these early drafts that I never figured out.

Anyway, somehow he figured out that not only had this guy stolen his music, but he had been aided by workers at the opera house in the theft. Needless to say he was pissed, and he was not going to let this stand.

So he started to murder the people involved. With piano wire no less, seeing as their crime had been the theft of his music, he thought it would be best to kill them with music. (Now I'm not actually sure you can kill someone with piano wire, I'm assuming you could strangle someone with it, or potentially open their arteries if you pulled hard enough)

Again with the nobody figuring out who the murderer was thing (really, was it so hard for me to say that he was a likely suspect back then, jeesh!) At least this time people were suspicious though. Rumors began to abound that a ghost was killing people at the opera house because the murders were so clean (strangulation and split arteries clean? Right...) and there were no witnesses to the crimes. Again, I think you can see a damned heavy Phantom of the Opera influence here.

Well, as time goes by Amandine and Alexandre both become suspicious and they figure out who the heck it was that was doing all this. Amandine decides that she must put a stop to this and decides that she must use her one 'weapon'.

Years ago her grandfather helped a spirit who had been trapped in a well for decades, in return the spirit promised to do the man one great boon, but the man died before this could happen. So, the boon was passed down to his son, who also never needed to use it in his life, and eventually it was passed down to Amandine, the only child of that son.

One night she and Alexandre confronted Amadeus about his murderous ways, and tried to convince him to stop, but he refused. Amandine tried to warn him that she would do something terrible if he would not stop, but he simply scoffed at her. So she summoned the spirit (who was called 'La Phantome' to stop him.

The spirit decided that for all the killing he had done, it was only just that he be killed and she proceeded to choke the life out of him. Only Amandine truly loved Amadeus, even if he was a killer, and she pleaded with the spirit to punish him in some other way. The spirit consented and claimed that anyone who would spill the blood of their fellow men was no better than a wild beast. I think you can see where it went from there.

Anyways, it ended up with Amadeus (La Bête now) living on the fringes of the city for quite some time before eventually leaving Paris and finding an abandoned home near the border of Brussels to take up his residence in. Amandine was so distraught with the blame she placed upon herself for turning Amadeus into what he became that she killed herself and Alexandre was so horrified by it all that he left Paris, changed his last name, moved to a backwater town where no one knew his name, became a merchant and married a girl who had no clue what opera was. He had many children, but never could quite forget what had happened nor could he hide from it.

Many years later, he would stumble upon La Bête again, and then he would find no mercy or friendship from the creature he had once loved so well. Only a brave girl, like his daughter Cosette who was willing to track her father down and barter with a beast as best she could, would be able to help him.

….
So I abandoned this version for many reasons, though I really liked Amandine and Alexandre, the story was too dark, and I found the crime of serial murdering way too extreme and even unforgiveable. This wasn’t something Amadeus could be redeemed of. I also began to find the change from “successful composer” to “serial killer” over something like theft way to abrupt. Ultimately, it changed because Amadeus was just so damned unlikeable. He really was plain out psychotic. I found myself more drawn to Amandine and Alexandre than to him.

I won’t lie and say there isn’t some of this Amadeus/La Bête in Luca/Biest now, but it’s not a very significant amount. If anything, both are a little bit prone to being unrealistic and also to rush into things.

And aside from that, this really did feel way too damned close to the “hantom of the Opera” I mean seriously, I’ll borrow ideas, but I won’t intentionally steal them!

Oh yes, and Amadeus was meant to be super-sexy fine. Luca now, when he becomes human is pretty normal, plain even. This guy was thin, tall, toned and with mischievous charming eyes. Luca is short, perhaps a little on the husky side and has soft compassionate eyes most of the time. Yes, I think I’ll keep my Luca thank you very much…and best of all, though he screws up a lot, he’s not a freaking psychopath! Yes, awesome! Actually, to be honest, Mikhail has a whole heck of a lot more of this guy in him than Biest does (and I think it’s easy for those of you who read the series to see why)

You know the drill; even though I haven’t used this guy in forever (And likely never will) he’s still mine, as is the rest of BatB, no stealing.

Description
All right, so rather than typing it all out I think a combo of images and type would help you guys to get an idea of what the early days of my story BatB was like.

This was Biest back in 2003, in probably his earliest complete form (there were others but they had no back-story). Back then the story was called "La Belle et la Bête" was set primarily in France and Biests name was Amadeus Lauriea de Candrielle (totally derived his middle name from my own, I know its lame I'm sorry)

The earliest moment of BatB as it is now, came sometime late, late in 2002 with the image of some beastly creature, green-scaled pounding away relentlessly at a piano. It was only a few months after I first saw the Phantom of the Opera, and the earliest version shows some severe influence from that version.

As best as I can recall in this version Amadeus (who was named after Mozart by a mother who adored the mans music) was a famous pianist and composer in Paris in what I'll say was 1790, but which was really in terms of how I dressed them and used world events, really just a mish-mosh of 'old' French looking clothing and environments with a heavy dash of Victorianism.

Anyway, he came from a super abusive home where his father killed his mother when he was only 11 or so, in rage, the boy killed his father and then made it appear as though the man had committed suicide. Nobody asked any questions (right, I'm brilliant, I know! Who would investigate or even question two suspicious deaths in close succession?) Having inherited his fathers estate, and as a result was fabulously wealthy. Anyway, its not like that mattered, he'd been making a name for himself as a composer and musician and had already made quite a fortune by the time he was 21.

His best friend was an opera star Alexandre LeDoux, and he had become 'attached' to his young cousin, another young opera singer from Corsica named Amandine.

Amadeus was engaged to Amandine, more at the incessant pushing of Alexandre than anything else, but he didn't say much about the matter, he wasn't certain he loved the girl, but she was attractive, attentive and had a lovely voice, and she was more than smitten with him. His opera's were the toast of the town; nothing could go wrong with his life.

But, soon another composer hit the scene, whose music sounded eerily similar to Amadeus's. In fact, the man had stolen his music...yes...I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but it did, bear with me, there are a lot of gaps in these early drafts that I never figured out.

Anyway, somehow he figured out that not only had this guy stolen his music, but he had been aided by workers at the opera house in the theft. Needless to say he was pissed, and he was not going to let this stand.

So he started to murder the people involved. With piano wire no less, seeing as their crime had been the theft of his music, he thought it would be best to kill them with music. (Now I'm not actually sure you can kill someone with piano wire, I'm assuming you could strangle someone with it, or potentially open their arteries if you pulled hard enough)

Again with the nobody figuring out who the murderer was thing (really, was it so hard for me to say that he was a likely suspect back then, jeesh!) At least this time people were suspicious though. Rumors began to abound that a ghost was killing people at the opera house because the murders were so clean (strangulation and split arteries clean? Right...) and there were no witnesses to the crimes. Again, I think you can see a damned heavy Phantom of the Opera influence here.

Well, as time goes by Amandine and Alexandre both become suspicious and they figure out who the heck it was that was doing all this. Amandine decides that she must put a stop to this and decides that she must use her one 'weapon'.

Years ago her grandfather helped a spirit who had been trapped in a well for decades, in return the spirit promised to do the man one great boon, but the man died before this could happen. So, the boon was passed down to his son, who also never needed to use it in his life, and eventually it was passed down to Amandine, the only child of that son.

One night she and Alexandre confronted Amadeus about his murderous ways, and tried to convince him to stop, but he refused. Amandine tried to warn him that she would do something terrible if he would not stop, but he simply scoffed at her. So she summoned the spirit (who was called 'La Phantome' to stop him.

The spirit decided that for all the killing he had done, it was only just that he be killed and she proceeded to choke the life out of him. Only Amandine truly loved Amadeus, even if he was a killer, and she pleaded with the spirit to punish him in some other way. The spirit consented and claimed that anyone who would spill the blood of their fellow men was no better than a wild beast. I think you can see where it went from there.

Anyways, it ended up with Amadeus (La Bête now) living on the fringes of the city for quite some time before eventually leaving Paris and finding an abandoned home near the border of Brussels to take up his residence in. Amandine was so distraught with the blame she placed upon herself for turning Amadeus into what he became that she killed herself and Alexandre was so horrified by it all that he left Paris, changed his last name, moved to a backwater town where no one knew his name, became a merchant and married a girl who had no clue what opera was. He had many children, but never could quite forget what had happened nor could he hide from it.

Many years later, he would stumble upon La Bête again, and then he would find no mercy or friendship from the creature he had once loved so well. Only a brave girl, like his daughter Cosette who was willing to track her father down and barter with a beast as best she could, would be able to help him.

….
So I abandoned this version for many reasons, though I really liked Amandine and Alexandre, the story was too dark, and I found the crime of serial murdering way too extreme and even unforgiveable. This wasn’t something Amadeus could be redeemed of. I also began to find the change from “successful composer” to “serial killer” over something like theft way to abrupt. Ultimately, it changed because Amadeus was just so damned unlikeable. He really was plain out psychotic. I found myself more drawn to Amandine and Alexandre than to him.

I won’t lie and say there isn’t some of this Amadeus/La Bête in Luca/Biest now, but it’s not a very significant amount. If anything, both are a little bit prone to being unrealistic and also to rush into things.

And aside from that, this really did feel way too damned close to the “hantom of the Opera” I mean seriously, I’ll borrow ideas, but I won’t intentionally steal them!

Oh yes, and Amadeus was meant to be super-sexy fine. Luca now, when he becomes human is pretty normal, plain even. This guy was thin, tall, toned and with mischievous charming eyes. Luca is short, perhaps a little on the husky side and has soft compassionate eyes most of the time. Yes, I think I’ll keep my Luca thank you very much…and best of all, though he screws up a lot, he’s not a freaking psychopath! Yes, awesome! Actually, to be honest, Mikhail has a whole heck of a lot more of this guy in him than Biest does (and I think it’s easy for those of you who read the series to see why)

You know the drill; even though I haven’t used this guy in forever (And likely never will) he’s still mine, as is the rest of BatB, no stealing.