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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.
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.
I finished door 7
Took a while!
Actually mainly only because I took a break for a while, if I look at the stats it took me only 6 days, with rather long sessions!
Door 7 comments and replies (with spoilers for door 7)
Oh I didn’t notice for the music. Nice touch.
I’m at the stage where I can recognize some of the musics but can’t really tell at for which scenes I’ve heard them before, too bad.
And now my comments
Really loved the drawing style here!
Not sure what happened to lead to the Michelle → Michel transformation? They got a fever and then the voiced changed and the body transformed? Probably just hitting puberty, and they were born intersex but the transformation did seem a bit extreme to me, from being a beautiful young girl to a strong broaded shoulder man, I think something a bit more in between both sexes would have felt a bit more realistic.
Wow didn’t expect Aimee to turn out to be so cruel. Maria, Amedee,… you can’t trust anyone in this VN??
The scene with the two brothers freeing Michel was quite wholesome, especially after seeing the flashback of Michel saying he still wants to live to have a chance of being happy like in the old days. Though that still doesn’t explain well why the brothers never reached out in the past two years and knowing how it ends 10 years later, probably it was only lies
It was nice to see Michel’s side of things for his time with Gisèle. And even though you see it coming, heartbreaking to see him executed by his own brother.
Also very cruel that’s Michel’s “soul” is following his dead body and seeing it exposed naked to the villagers laughing
A bit less chocked about the mom’s reaction as she had always been very frank about not accepting to lose her daughter Michelle. But still, makes you feel bad for all LGBTQ people that may be going some similar rejections from their families. (same thought as you basically @Daisoujou , you said it better!)
Was a very nice scene with the reunion with Gisèle.
She says in the end, let’s go to the last door, there’s someone only you can save, could that be Morgana? When the song with the French lyrics start, I got very surprised!
And the lyrics, before the confrontation, confirm that it will be with Morgana:
Au manoir… je n’arrêtais pas d’écouter cette voix
La voix de la sorcière, que j’étais le seul à pouvoir entendre
J’étais dans les ténèbres, et elle seule me prenait en pitié
Je me noyais, je me laissais porter, sans essayer de comprendre ta haine
…En fait, j’aurai du vous faire face depuis longtemps…
À Giselle, et… à toi
C’est entre toi et moi maintenant, Morgana
Cool to finally see what she looks like, I was wondering if she was going to stay a voice only forever. And only one arm of course.
And as Michel says, it’s exciting that now we are going to see a door where the end of it can still be written, instead of a scene in the past that has already happened. I wonder if there will be more choices on how to end things!
I really enjoy that I’m not a big fan of revenge stories so it’s pretty cool that Michel and Gisèle are fighting against that and want to rescue Morgana. She is really deep in it, harassing Michel all the time “who should we curse?? who should we kill??” xD
Also I had this list of questions at the end of door 5:
Except the wine, which was probably nothing, pretty much everything has been answered already. Though there are still some doubts about the girl with white hair, as Michel says that it can’t be him, he only just reformed now and came back to the house and that it’s Morgana.
Yes it was a long hiatus! I also think everyone else just gave up at this point and that I’ll be the last finisher?
Now let’s see for door 8, with my current pace I expect that it will take me around between 2 to 3 weeks to get through it, or maybe I’ll be faster if the story is so good that I can’t stop reading
I feel like the style here was really fitting for the overall atmosphere of Michel’s backstory.
Now that you mention, the transformation may have been a bit exaggerated. But also the way I see it, is that Michel’s features were more so androgynous/ childlike leaning towards being a girl due to dressing like a girl and stuff.
Well, don’t know about the strong part, haha.
Aimee would for sure be among my most disliked characters in this VN.
The big reveal!
Really like Michel’s character development throughout the whole story.
You’re not wrong. I guess I always figured this was partly their expectations at play, even if Michel was only moving a little bit from one side of semi-ambiguously feminine to masculine, the femininity is probably heightened by how they’re dressing and treating him, but once he passes the point where masculine features are undeniable, that clash against how they think he “should” be feels stronger.
Congrats on the progress! You’re doing great, nearly there. I’ve been thinking I need to come back for A Requiem for Innocence, but 100 Line is nowhere near done, heh. Might just wait til I finish that? Dunno.
Thanks! Yeah I saw in your log, good progress but it’s so big props on you to take on such a big project. As long as you have the motivation for it I say keep at it! If it become tiresome then you can take on something small such as A Requiem for Innocence
I am looking forward to reading A Requiem for Innocence, but I’d like to wait to read it in a club again . Right now, I am reading some extra higurashi content which I’ve been putting off/ dragging out for a long time. (You have the main 8 chapters, and then there’s extra arcs which were released for the console version of the game - and these add up to about the same length as the main 8 chapters.)
props on you to take on such a big project. As long as you have the motivation for it I say keep at it! If it become tiresome then you can take on something small such as A Requiem for Innocence