Pace
Everyone is welcome to read at their own pace and post any impressions, theories, or questions at any time within this thread. Those of us starting together may loosely informally stick together, but please feel free to chime in any time!
Guidelines
- Please use spoiler tags or collapse where needed and describe, indirectly, what point in the chapter they are a spoiler for!
- When asking for help, do your best to provide context. Pasted text, screenshots, descriptions, etc. Unlike book clubs we can’t flip to relevant pages, so we may need a little help identifying exactly what is being discussed.
- Feel totally at ease to ask questions or give your thoughts, any time! Clubs live and die by participation, and asking whatever question you have, no matter how silly it may seem, helps others who are reading it and even the answerer themselves.
- Have fun, and do your best to interpret anything said with as much good faith as possible
Been reading a lot today, just a quick reaction
Spoilers -- 水
It can be hard for things to affect me in fiction at this point as strongly as I’d like them to, but reading this is stressing me out haha. Hell of an image and it’s playing that evil song again that was only in the most upsetting Giselle scenes before. Oof.
Also just want to say I find it interesting that it’s チェスを打つ. Think it’s the first time I’ve come across the pairing, that I can recall.
Ok been trying to devote a few hours a day to this and I finished door 7! The end is in sight. Love this one.
Full door 7 spoilers
We saw this previously with Giselle, but this ominous hallway is so cool. The Michel story has scenes that are brutal to get through, with that long segment locked away starving then being degraded, and point where even after death he’s made to watch his body. Horrible life. I do like how this backstory ties into little moments with Giselle that we had already seen, giving lots of context for why he’s as closed off as he is.
Absolutely love the progressive attitude I feel from the author too. This isn’t exactly a trans story directly in its content, with Michel seemingly born intersex and no one in this time knowing what to make of that, but it feels pretty broadly applicable to LGBT type issues. This level of family rejection is sadly very real. It’s not an issue I’ve personally dealt with, but as far as I know it seems to be a great portrayal, so much care put into the painful self denial and perpetually conflicted feelings towards toxic loved ones.
The story seems to be leaning heavily into trying to not get wrapped up in hate despite having unfairly suffered at the hands of others. I’ll probably come back to that after door 8, but Giselle and Michel consistently pick to either work to move beyond and heal or somehow forgive those who inflicted their trauma, which is obviously the thing Morgana hasn’t done. But we’ll see what happens at the end here, my memories are vague enough I don’t really know.
Giselle finally appearing really gets to me, fantastic outlet for all the emotions the VN has had simmering for so long. Just a really earnest scene of accepting someone for who they are.
開きましょう！
