#french things

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Tous les gens français/ francophones de tumblr vous pourriez mettre un like à ce post pour que je sache si ça vaut le coup d'avoir de la promo de petite maison d'édition indépendante de l'imaginaire ici ou c'est un doux rêve et que vous nous mangeriez pour x ou y raisons si on mettait un pied ici

[kcrabb88]

Found Jean Prouvaire’s ghost quoted at the French impressionist exhibit I went to this weekend! 😂

Plus Bonus Gautier:

[flo-nelja]

Obscur-echange, session 19

Bonjour !

Cette année encore a lieu l’échange de fics et fanart sur les fandoms rares en français obscur-échange.

Si avec le filtre “français”, votre fandom a moins d’une page sur AO3 et sur ffnet, alors c’est bon ! Vous pouvez le nominer, vous pouvez en nominer un nombre illimité ! Tout fandom nominé deux fois sera retenu.

On peut y trouver des fandoms énormes en anglais qui n’ont jamais marché en français (Mob Psycho 100, Gideon the Ninth, The Old Guard), des fandoms francophones (Le Petit Prince, le Comte de Monte-Cristo, Gradalis), des fandoms tout neufs (Gloutons et dragons, The Summer Hikaru Died) ou des fandoms qui sont rares partout.

Pour nominer des fandoms, c'est là : https://obscur-echange.dreamwidth.org/262540.html

11 avril-25 avril : Nomination des fandoms ! Chacun fait une longue liste de ses fandoms rares préférés, tous les fandoms qui ont été cités deux fois sont retenus !

26 avril-9 mai : Fiches de participation ! C'est le moment des inscriptions, chaque inscrit.e fait une liste avec la liste de ses fandoms, personnages, ships, genres et thèmes préférés. Il faut être multifandom, car chaque fiche doit contenir au moins dix fandoms rares !

10 mai - 25 mai : Requêtes ! Chacun regarde les fiches des autres et envoie des prompts à quiconque peut écrire quelque chose qui l'intéresse

Juin-juillet-août : écriture / dessin ! ON envoie les oeuvres au fur et à mesure, elles sont postées anonymement.

1er septembre : Tout le monde devrait avoir reçu quelque chose ! On désanonyme et on reposte les oeuvres.

[mask131]

If you ever want to get distracted with some of the little scandals of France, here's one if you want.

During the 2010s, Chinese investors and fortunes frenetically bought a LOT of the wine estates of France. It is known that China always ha little something for France, and already at the time it made lot of people grumble (the usual saying of "Why are we letting foreigners buy what's typically and traditionally French?"). The Chinese desire to buy or import a certain "French art de vivre", a French lifestyle, wasn't so much the problem, as some of their open and public commercial projects (some clearly announced they wanted to produce 5-euros wine in France to sell it back in their own network in China 100 euros).

Today, the Chinese are selling back the wine estates. Why? Well the most obvious and immediate reason was the Chinese government's decision of regulating more harshly the Chinese investments in foreign countries, and closing a lot of ways through which money went elsewhere than China itself. This resulted in the Chinese owners of these wine estates realizing they couldn't keep up. It becomes too difficult for them: after all, they realized that having a wine estate isn't as easy as just buying it and waiting for results to happen. Not only are Chinese people buying and drinking less and less wine year after year, but wine-making in France became QUITE difficult since the 2010s thanks to the climate change.

Because unlike what Trump and his insane clowns are saying, climate change is real and wine-makers suffered a LOT from it. Between the winters way too hot, the violent thunderstorms and hailstorms, the regular floods in river-adjacent areas, and this year a summer way too gray and rainy... Vines suffered a lot.

But that's not the scandal. The scandal is all what is coming up now that the Chinese are selling the domains. Already the mayors of the towns around were alerting people on the fact the Chinese are fracturing the domains - because typically a wine estate in France is a domain made up of a historical castle and the vineyards, and they always went together for quite some times. The Chinese bought them together, and now are selling the castles separately from the vineyards. That's a patrimonial problem, but not the biggest.

The biggest is the state of the castles... Turns out, after the Chinese bought the castles of the wine-estates, they didn't do ANYTHING with it. They didn't pay to maintain them, to clean them, to keep them up. They hired nobody for them, no one ever came to live within them, host things or even inhabit them. Basically... These castles stood empty and uncared for, for YEARS. The Chinese are selling them back now, at quite a low price... but they won't get a lot of people for them, because now they are filled with the usual problems led to castles left empty under storms, warm winters and rainy summers - fractured walls, broken roofs, mold everywhere, dust and vermin and animals... So whoever buys the castle, even for a low price, will have to pour a LOT of money to make the castle inhabitable again, or even safe. They're on their way to become ruins.

[Ironically, this careless, not to say clueless, handling of the castles and the wine business around them was explained by a Chinese businessman by the name of Hugo Tian as resulting from a different of investment model between Europe and China. In his own words, European people typically invest in estates on the scale of "generations", and that's how they measure time, in "generations", as opposed to China who has a model of buying-and-selling on a scale of usually five years, with no generatonal investment]

And that's not even talking of how the fracture of the wine estates, and the poor managing of the Chinese investors, results in hundreds of jobs being threatened - because now that everything is being sold back, the disastrous handling of the wine businesses. The companies owning them now have absolutely no representative in France, all the decisions are taken in China without anybody actually there to manage things in France, employees haven't been paid in years, and many taxes also have not been paid in years... Already before the re-sales had been announced, these businesses were about to crumble apart.

So, you know... French people are not very pleased.

[trivialandvague]

[adarkrainbow]

The art of Perrault (2)

Continuing from this post, there is another segment of the article which is absolutely delightful: the one about the "Fairy tale salon" of Jean Veber

Because Perrault didn't just inspire paintings and drawings - furniture too!

In the beginning of the 20th century, Jean Veber (a student of both Alexandre Cabanel and Robert Delaunay) was doing a lot of fairy-themed expositions, and when he was asked by Rosemonde Gérard (the wife of Edmond Rostand) to create her "boudoir" at their Arnaga villa (Cambo, Pays Basque), he chose "fairy tales" as his theme. He notably composed there beautiful wall paintings that attracted the attention of both Léon Bérard (under-secretary of state of the Beaux-Arts) and Gustave Geffroy, the administrator of the Gobelins Manufacture.

(Here is a Sleeping Beauty mural):

In 1912, Gustave Geffroy paid Veber to create an entire salon themed after Charles Perrault's fairy tales - tapestries and various sitting-furnitures. The plans for the salon were originally ambitious, but it was restricted due to limited money - else we would have had five tapestries and thirteen furnitures, including a bed, and many more "chairs" of various models (chaise, fauteuil, bergères). Instead, the "Contes de fées" salon gathers three tapestries, four armchairs, four regular chairs, a sofa, and a fireplace screen - now all preserved in the Mobilier national collection. (The two additional tapestries would have been Puss in Boots and Donkey Skin)

(Here's the Puss in Boots armchair)

(And the Bluebeard sofa)

After the newspapers mediatized madame Rostand's boudoir in the beginning of the 1910s, the Gobelins immediately asked Veber painted preparations of the Sleeping Beauty and Little Thumbling tapestries. In the 1914 he was commissioned the drawings for the various chairs by the Beauvais manufactury - specialized in chair tapestry. The project was interrupted by the First World war, but it began agan in 1919, year where the drawing for the Bluebeard sofa was made. The project got faster by the 1920s, thanks to the collaboration of the cabinet-maker Paul Follot. The entirety of the furniture was delivered by the end of 1922, after the Little Thumbling and Sleeping Beauties tapestries had been completed (1919-1920). The Cinderella tapestry (prepared by 1919) and the Beauty and the Beast screen won't be woven until 1923 and 1926.

(Sleeping Beauty silk-and-wool weavework)

The aesthetic of Veber's paintings evoke the paintings that cover the walls of the Arnaga villa: frize disposition and very colorful.

(Preparation work for the Cinderella tapestry)

These creations appeared half-a-century after Gustave Doré's illustrations, and in many ways oppose them. Here we have a sentimental, idealized, almost childish view of Perrault's story. Everything is light-hearted and funny, and the terror of the tales is removed - even the most frightening characters are merely grotesque. This is due to how, in this era, fairytales had been massively shared and spread as children literature, as well as to the nature of Veber's commission: indeed, the creation of a salon requires a peaceful and comforting ambiance, where someone can rest. He can't possibly put Doré images in there. After the First World War, this literary theme allows one to find back a sort of lightness - the tapestries of Beauvais being in harmony with the walnut-wood furniture, all golden and in curvy shapes.

(Beauty and the Beast fireplace screen)

Far from doing a "composition monotony", Veber makes sure each of the tapestries has been conceived in a different way, to offer a large palette of movement and dynamics. For Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella he chose specific moments of the tale. In the first, we have the prince charming rushing to the side of his beloved, in the middle of a thick vegetation filled with asleep characters. In the second, we see Cinderella fleeing the ball, her rushing carriage preventing the prince from stopping her. However, for Little Thumbling several key moments of the tale are presented side-by-side, so that in one glance the whole story is offered in a condensed version.

(Little Thumbling silk-and-wool weavework)

The "Contes de fées" salon of Veber is another example of the universality of Perrault, which can extend further beyond the world of the page, and into the decoration of walls and furnitures. The originality of this project seduced people at the time, and the Beauvais manufecture immediately demanded a new work from the artist: an "Animals in the forest" project for which he created four chairs, three armchairs and a screen. Delivered in 1925, this set can be considered a continuation of his "Fairy tales" salon.

(Armchair of the Foxes)

[haveyouseenthisskeleton]

I think every day life customs are okay, also, thank you very much for helping me with this

Hum... I can think of a few that are very cliche lol, but also very true.

We kiss each other on the cheeks to say hello and goodbye (a lot less since COVID but some still do). Depending on when you live in France it can be 1, 2, 3 or 4 kisses. Not sure why we did this, but we do it lol.

We say "hello" (well "bonjour") to everyone we meet, in the street, at work, in transport... It's a polite thing to do when you cross road with someone, just to acknowledge their existence.

Before dinner, a lot of people have what we call "L'apéro", which is a sort of pre-dinner with salty biscuits and sometimes alcohol. It happens in other countries too, but in France it's like a big tradition when you're receiving someone at home. Sometimes we even have dinner with only the stuff we eat in the apéro. We call that "apéro dinatoire" (literally dinner-aperitive lol).

We have a ton of sorts of bread, the most famous one being the baguette. A lot of people eat baguettes everyday. In the North of France, you can have lines for half an hour in front of the bakeries after work hours.

We love cheese. There's like a ton of differents cheese in France and that's a huge addiction. One of the most famous is the raclette, which is a mountain cheese we eat in winter, but that people love so much we eat it all year really. We have also our very famous camembert, which is a very popular cheese. In my region, we have the maroilles, which is a cheese that smells awfully bad but it's really good in a quiche and cheese tarts!

We have also funny expressions. For exemple, you have "poser un lapin" (put down a rabbit literally) which means not going to an appointment. You also have "ne pas pousser Mémé dans les orties" (don't push grandma in the nettle) which means "don't go too fast please".

We add "little" in front of a lot of words for... I don't know reasons. We just do it. "A little coffee", "a little dessert", "a little walk", ... It's usually to say that we're doing something that is not supposed to take long to do. I think?

To say you're mad, you use "putain", to say you're really mad, you say "putain de merde". When you're extra mad, you use the entire dictionary of insults to show that you're super mad and you just add them one after the other.

We have the most fucked up way to count. After sixty, we decided that seventy would be "sixty-ten". Eighty is "four-twenty". And ninety is... "four-twenty-ten" lmao.

We have two ways to use "you" in France. We have the "tu" which is a "you" that you use with family, friends, and people you know well and the "vous", which is the "you" you're using with strangers and people higher in your work/school hierarchy (teachers, bosses, ...). "Vous" is a serious and professional "you".

We're complaining a lot. No, actually, we're complaining all the time lmao. And when we're complaining and it doesn't work, then we go to protest in the streets just to piss off the people who didn't listen to us. We protest a lot in France, mainly for social laws, but also when something doesn't please us lol.

Hating Paris is also a typical French thing, ironically. Everyone hates Paris. It's polluted like hell and actually a lot less beautiful that what people think lmao. Even people living in Paris hate Paris. Both the subway and the train are not working one time out of two, and sometimes they randomly decide to go on a strike and good luck with that.

I think that's already quite a lot of things lol.

[grlsbian]

oh to be a teenager during the french new wave

[callmejud3]

hey so uhh what the FUCK is going on in france

WAR ZONE/GTA IN REAL LIFE !!! That’s what is happening, it’s literally the apocalypse and everything is so dangerous at night, and some cities have curfews and they are burning down schools and bus and tramway and they are stealing in supermarkets and they burn down cars and it’s so wild and for the first time people are United like people for the 77 are cooperating with the 91 and apparently the marseillais are going up to Paris (which is like WILD !!!)

But anyway it happened bc a cop killed a 17yo who was driving without a license…..

France has been like that for the past 5 days, please don’t come here, stay safe where you are !!

[p0mmia]

Pain au chocolat ou chocolatine ?

Venant du nord de la France... Pain au chocolat ! ✨ J'ai passé le test..?

[atlantis-just-drowned]

France is full of queer goth guys until you're desperately trying to find a datable one

[magnoliasareneat]

I FORGOT ILLUMINATION WAS FRENCH

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Okay but WHY are fiction podcasts so popular in English-speaking countries, and is it the same in other countries? Like is there a super cool Italian horror podcast out there somewhere, or myriads of Polish ones, or Excellent Thai ones, or Egyptian ones or, etc.

Like. Is it just France that apparently isn't doing it (to my knowledge??? Like. France Culture has a few which, eh. There was this one french horror podcast of five episodes that I've listened to for an article forever ago. but although we have TONS SHIT of non-fiction podcasts and I thiiink a few dnd/rpg podcasts growing, fiction doesn't seem to be a thing????

Answers and comments definitely welcome here, I'm curious about how it is in other country, or fellow french people passing by if you've got recs i guess???

[mask131]

There's a documentary about Disneyland Paris on air on TV right now.

They're all talking so proudly and joyfully about how the Sleeping Beauty castle is constantly being taken care of, how they hired the best craftsmen of France to do this, how it is actual societies dedicated to the restoration of historical monuments that are being paid to take care of it... And then there's this line that fucks me up, especially since last week there was a documentary about how castle-owners across France had to let their buildings fall into ruins because nobody had enough money anymore to preserve entire castles, so they had to let entire areas fall into ruin purposefully.

Here's the line they're all saying giddily: "The Sleeping Beauty Castle is receiving as much care - if not more - than actual castles of the country."

... It's like thirty years old. And it benefits from more money, restoration, care and architectural healing than actual centuries-old (or MILLENIA OLD) castles in France.

Fuck.

[hipstersbleedroses]

absolutely insane how 5 days in france has reignited my wish to learn french. i took french in school. I studied french quite intensely a good ten years ago for my paris trip and apparently a lot of that stuck because i understood most of what people were saying to me, i just never knew how to respond beyond "merci" and "oui" lol.

but the fact i usually got the gists of what people were saying to me?? addictive!

also what if i went back to disneyland in a year and by then i could speak french to the cast members WHAT IF

[adarkrainbow]

Huh... I just discovered there was a recent French book that is a Hansel and Gretel retelling... that takes place in Brazil and is called "Hansel and Gretel and Saci Pererê"

The story is that Hansel and Gretel are now children of a gold-searcher living in Brazil... One day as the hungry children wander in the woods they meet the Saci Pererê, who decides to takes them on a magical adventure through time, to discover several of the great historical figures of Brazil - with food and sweets being a running theme unifying the whole book... At least that's what the back cover says.

@ariel-seagull-wings @themousefromfantasyland

EDIT: Wow okay... so apparently this is but one of an ENTIRE series of books centered around traditional European fairytales doing a crossover with either fairytale characters of non-European stories, or folkloric beings of Europe not usually seen in literary tales. Beyond the one above we have...

Donkey Skin and the Tanukis

Beauty and Ganesh

Red Riding Hood and the Chinese Dragon

Bluebeard and B'rer Rabbit

Cinderella and the Fire Bird

Little Thumbling and the Minotaur

Godilocks and Jean de l'Ours

Snow White and the Korrigans

The One Thousand and One Nights of Sleeping Beauty

Wow... Just wow. I definitively need to get my hands onto one of those