Gisèle Alain

Gisele is quite the ladies' man! Err, I mean, ladies'...lady?

What a tired face, at the end... :'(

Spoiler

Yes. He kissed her hand...That's super lewd:)

I want to read this in French... 

There's an official French translation on Amazon.

I want to read this in French... 

That one page was like the definition of the word awkward. BUT THEN COLETTE HAPPENED BAM. And then Gisele and everything is adorable and great

YURI HAREM IS A GO, I REPEAT, YURI HAREM IS A GO.

Meanwhile, not even 10km away, dirty and piss-poor peasants are toiling their guts off.

It plays a bit after that, should be after Napoleons second tour the lulz and before the franco-prussian war.

Meanwhile, not even 10km away, dirty and piss-poor peasants are toiling their guts off.

Lovely art remind me to manga 'Emma'. Hope Their love will grow up an other step closer. 

It helps that this artist was an assistant to the Emma artist in the past.

Lovely art remind me to manga 'Emma'. Hope Their love will grow up an other step closer. 

"-they are platonic at best-"

Spoiler

Uh.

 

... Uh.

 

....

 

... I think you need to read the next chapter. IT'S HAPPENING(?).

Younger?!?! He's a professional writer, which is already quite admirable at his age. As for his feelings for Gisele, they are platonic at best as he never considered them ever being reciprocated.

"-they are platonic at best-"

So...if Gisèle is fourteen, then Eric is twenty-one? That's kind if gross. I thought he was younger than that.

So...if Gisèle is fourteen, then Eric is twenty-one? That's kind if gross. I thought he was younger than that.

It's all about the time period. The story is set in 19th century France age of consent was 13 for both males and females by law. Also women were long considered marriageable once they had their first period. This is besides the fact that Eric shows interest in Gisele as a person but sees her as too young for him at the time (earlier chapters). France was always a bit more liberal with sexuality compared to other European countries.

So...if Gisèle is fourteen, then Eric is twenty-one? That's kind if gross. I thought he was younger than that.

You're also being one-sided.

 

Spoiler

So what you are suggesting is that shutting down the circus she owned so that she could use the resources she'd purchased and maintained over the years to try to set up a life for herself and her daughters was selfish. Sorry, I disagree.

 

She owned the circus. And when I say that I mean she owned the animals, the tents, the wagons, the supplies, and all of the physical things that are used to put on the performances that aren't owned specifically by the performers. It was her resource and the one thing she had to use to gain the money needed to try to provide what she felt was a better life for her children.

 

She had a responsibility to the other performers to pay their wages and take care of them while they were her employees. She didn't have a responsibility to give them all of the things (or even any of the things) she owned when she decided to call it quits. If they'd wanted to give it a go themselves they could have tried to pool their funds to buy the circus; name, equipment, etc. No one did that. Maybe they didn't have the money. Maybe they didn't have anyone with the skill set to manage that organization.

In any event these people are also responsible for their own choices and their own situation.

 

People aren't obligated to screw themselves over to make someone else happy. It's not even 'the right thing to do as a person'.

 

As far as her selfishness goes the mother, unlike the daughter, has been living the circus life for years. She knows exactly what it is and what it isn't. It's the nature of parents to want their children to have a better life than they do. So it's only natural for her to want her daughter to not have to suffer the things she did. The broad paint strokes of 'evil tyrant' for the mother are both naive and overly generalized.

Yes, that's true. In the end, the lack of communication on both sides bothered me immensely.

CLIIIIIIIFF HANGER,

HANGING FROM A CLIIIIIIIFF!

AND THAT'S WHY HE'S CALLED CLIFF HANGER!

people in this comments section really calling this pedophilia? utterly ridiculous

Hmm ... just stumbled across this series and steamrolled all the available chapters to the end. It is quite enjoyable!

I think some of us are forgetting that one chapter where Eric wishes that Gisele would grow up faster (with romantic implications). 

That nullifies any possibility of pedophilia from the start. 

wow this might be really good if it weren't for the intense focus on pedophilia

Kind of hard to be pedophilia when the main character wouldn't have been viewed as a 'child' in the time period in question. The modern world classifies the age for 'children' a lot higher than they did at the time. Maybe a little reading on the subject is in order...

https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/case-studies/230?section=primarysources&source=24

Mm... I think that's a bit one-sided.

Spoiler

Certainly, it's one thing to decide you can't do this forever, and plan to settle down and provide a more stable life for your children to grow up in. Even if her daughter couldn't understand it, having known nothing else, it's a valid plan to have as a parent. However, what about everyone else? They aren't her children. This is their life. They've already committed themselves to an existence of wandering and performing, developing an extremely specialised set of skills that aren't much use anywhere else. "I can't do this forever; I'm leaving the circus" is a decidely different statement to "I can't do this forever; I'm disbanding the circus".

It was an extension of her possessiveness, her need for control: she doesn't want her daughter to be trapped in circus life forever, so she absolutely forbids her to even take an interest in it as a hobby, and harshly censures anyone who even vaguely tells her about it. She wants to give up the circus and settle down, but she's the ringleader and it's her circus, so the thought of passing the role onto somebody else doesn't even cross her mind. She wants to leave the circus, and so the only way she can imagine that happening is if the circus ceases to exist.

Ultimately, it's all about what she wants, for herself and for her children, even if that ends up hurting the people she's responsible for. I mean, hell, she's afraid of her daughter becoming too attached to the circus because she worries that she'll never be able to set her roots in one place and become part of a community and have a steady, comfortable life, but what she's doing the whole time is isolating her away from the only family she's ever known, locked away in some tent with nothing to learn and nobody to aspire to. But it's fine, as long as her daughter is out of sight, far away from the circus, safe from repeating the same mistakes her mother now regrets and fears. It ends up being deeply self-centred: she's allowed her own regrets about her own life override any immediate or tangible concerns about her daughter's happiness and wellbeing, and when she's challenged, she only knows how to crack down harder. In the end, it's only the prospect of losing that control entirely that makes her listen to the people around her.

You're also being one-sided.

wow this might be really good if it weren't for the intense focus on pedophilia