#I’m sure Louis doesn’t know about Gabrielle but also this would be so funny | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

umbrahighpriestofgiratina · 4 years

Text

Heroes After All Chapter 10

LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE

I will respond to reviews later maybe i just want to make this chapter finally happen its been so long i'm so sorry

Chapter 10: I Just Met You And I Love You

Aaron stared. And stared. And stared some more. Until he was finally able to reply to the small Riolu in front of him.

"You can talk? Like a Psychic type can? Are you a Psychic type?"

Riolu raised an eyebrow. ~What? No. I'm a Fighting type. Anyway you didn't answer my question.~

A big smile sprouted on Aaron's face. "Wait, you really want to be my partner?"

~Well, yes, but only to-~

He was interrupted by Aaron hugging him.

"That's great! We'll be best friends!"

~Wait but-~

"We can train together and show bullies who's boss and play games and - oh! I've got to show you to the other kids and their Pokemon! They'll love to meet you!"

It was then Riolu realized his mistake. The human was clearly desperate for the partnership to be a permanent affair.

~Um, I-~

"I'm Aaron, it's so nice to meet you! Do you want a human name?"

~No.~

"That's okay! Come on!"

He grabbed Riolu's paw and started dragging him to the monastery. Riolu thought quickly. If Koba had ditched his human couldn't he do the same with this one? But there was what his dad said about human-Pokemon bonds being special and having a Vow around them... Why did this have to be so hard?

---------------

Eve, Louis, Atta, and Callie, along with Iuroidea, Rook, Stabby, and Munchkin, were passing a ball around - though Rook and Stabby were just watching due to their increased ability to cut the ball open. It was then Aaron dragged Riolu in.

"Guys! Guys! I found a Pokemon partner!"

The kids and their Pokemon froze. The ball dropped to the ground and rolled away. Everyone stared at Aaron and the Riolu inexplicably next to him.

"Callie?" said Louis. "Did you sneak something funny into our lunch again?"

"It wasn't me I swear!" said Callie.

"Then... He did it!" said Eve.

The group gathered around Aaron and Riolu.

"A Riolu?" said Atta. "Isn't that cliche for an Auric?"

"I mean it's a cliche for a reason," said Eve. "Aren't Lucario Fighting-type Aura powers the most similar to humans usually?"

"Why the bloody dogs got it I don't know," said Louis. "Aaron, where did you even find him?"

"He just walked up to me and asked if he could join me!"

"Doubt." said Atta.

~It's true though.~ said Riolu with a sigh. The others jumped back.

"He can talk! Cool!" said Callie.

"So he's like Polly's Metagross then..." said Louis.

"Yeah!" said Aaron. He then shifted a bit. "So, uh, any tips for like... Taking care of him?"

"Well..." said Eve.

The kids went into a huddle; meanwhile Riolu was pulled away by the other mons.

"Well the dweeb finally got a partner!" said Munchkin. "Did he give you a name?"

"No," said Riolu, shaking his head.

"Regardless, Riolu," said Rook, "It is a pleasure to meet you."

"Don't be so formal, Rook, the guy doesn't seem like the type," said Iuroidea.

"He seems... Stoic! Like some kind of gruff loner mon!" said Stabby.

"I'm fine, really," said Riolu, shaking his head.

"Well welcome aboard!" said Stabby. "The human kids are happy to see you, and we're due for some action!"

"Please no action today," said Rook.

"By the way," said Riolu, "Have any of you seen a Chimchar around?"

"No?" said Munchkin, scratching his head. "Someone as canny as I would remember seeing one of those here."

"You could try asking some of the other Pokemon around," said Iuroidea. "Knowing Aaron he's probably going to show you off to everyone anyway."

Riolu nodded. "I'll do that."

-------------

Polly was sitting quietly with Metagross and Dunsparce, enjoying some tea, when Aaron dragged Riolu before her.

"Polly, look! I have a Pokemon now!"

Polly spat out her tea, causing Dunsparce to recoil and hiss. If Metagross had movable eyebrows he would raise one.

"How- Er, yes, Aaron, that's lovely! A Riolu huh? Did you name the mutt?"

~I'm not a mutt.~

"No, he didn't want one."

"Some Pokemon don't," said Polly. "I never gave Metagross or Dunsparce one. Felt weird."

"Huh..." said Aaron. "That's a big thing for Pokemon, so I guess it's okay."

"Yep."

"But I have him now and it's great!"

Ignoring Aaron for the moment, Riolu approached Metagross and Dunsparce.

"You two seen a Chimchar anywhere?"

"Nope!" said Dunsparce. "I would know if I saw a monkey with its butt on fire."

"I haven't seen one." said Metagross. "Why do you ask?"

"...They're a friend."

"I won't pry. And I don't read people's minds without permission anymore. I hope you find them. Maybe ask Aaron for help?"

Riolu paused. Then sighed.

"Maybe."

Once again Metagross would raise his X-shaped metal eyebrow if he could.

---------------

Aaron walked, - no strutted toward Gabriel, Riolu in tow, as Gabriel slumbered on Patricia's back.

"Hey Gabe! I got a Pokemon! How about that!"

Gabriel's eyes snapped open. He quickly looked over at Aaron.

"Wimp? What do you wa-"

He caught sight of the Riolu and just kind of stared.

"...Whose Riolu is that?"

"He's my partner!" said Aaron, puffing out his chest and placing his hands on his hips.

At this Gabriel visibly panicked and almost fell off Patricia.

"You got a Fighting type?! If you got a fighting type then-"

He shook his head.

"No - even with the type advantage you're a wuss! The wussiest wuss to ever wuss! You'll see!"

There was a pause.

"...Patricia, could you move us elsewhere? We need to hi- prepare for a showdown against this twerp."

Patricia gave a "s-sorry about him" only Riolu could hear as her individual segments rotated in tandem so she could roll away, Gabriel running in place on top of them as his purple eyes locked on Aaron with a glare until they vanished.

"Oh yeah! You have a type advantage against Onix! I didn't even think of that!"

~Well now you know.~

"We really will make a great team!"

Riolu paused. And sighed.

~Yeah. Though... Have you seen a Chimchar around?~

"Uh, no, why?"

~I came here to look for him. And I figured one of the humans could help me.~ "Oh really? Sure thing! Anything for my new buddy!"

Riolu looked left and right. ~Yeah...~

"Come on! We'll check the cellars first!"

The two ran off.

---------------

Polly had finished her tea and was walking to Ryan's office when she saw Terrence approaching, along with a Duraludon.

"Polly!" he said.

"Yeah?"

"You available? I have some things I wanted to ask you."

"Sure?"

Terrence looked around. "This place. It's huge. And It seems like it's been around a long time. How'd it get here?"

Polly raised an eyebrow. "Why do you want to know?"

Terrence gave her a look and shrugged his shoulders. "I mean. I've been staying here long enough and I ought to know more about this place. Plus I'm just curious."

His Duraludon made puffing noises and nodded.

"Rohe would like to know too."

Quick brain check. The Duraludon was indeed named Rohe and would indeed sincerely like to know. Polly sighed.

"Alright. This place... you can probably tell, but it's old. Real old. At least 200 years old, and that's probably undershooting it."

"Wow... You Aura Guardians built it I presume."

"Yeah! So people with Aura powers can have a place to be protected and socialize with people like them and taught to use their powers for good!"

"What about fighting evildoers?"

"That shit's dangerous. Only when absolutely necessary."

Rohe made a disappointed noise.

"Oh come on you get what I mean."

Terrence chuckled. "Okay then, seems like we've mostly gone through the obvious. So next question... How did YOU get here?"

Polly blinkled. "You mean in like a metaphysical sense, how I got here on this planet, or..."

Terrence rolled his eyes. "To the monastery."

"Right, right. I was brought here, along with some of the other senior Aura guardians here, mainly Vince, Carol - though she didn't call herself Carol back then and everyone thought she was a boy - and-

She stopped.

"And who?"

"...Elliot."

"I haven't seen him around."

"There's a reason for that. He's... He's gone."

Terrence's eyes widened behind his glasses. "Oh, oh... I'm sorry... Didn't mean to go there..."

"It's fine. You aren't a Psychic. You couldn't have known."

Rohe placed a reassuring stump on Polly's side and gave a "dur" of reassurance.

Terrence paused. "I... I have a reason I'm here too. I'm looking for a friend."

"A friend?"

"Yeah. One that went missing. And I think it has to do with the disappearances you all were investigating. Hence why I signed up to help."

"Oh. Oh that makes sense.'

She then squinted at him.

"...Why didn't you say so in the first place?"

Terrence shrugged. "Personal info. This was a professional job. Most employers don't wanna hear a sob story."

Polly rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine."

"Anyway, wanna head over to the mess hall? They've got Watmel berries."

"Ooh, I love those."

Rohe thirded them with a trill of excitement, and they headed on over.

----------

It was late evening. Vince was patrolling the Time Flower Abbey grounds. It was then he saw Louis, with Rook beside him.

"Hey! Kid! You and your Scyther! What are you doing out so late?"

Louis yelped and practically jumped out of his pants before Rook put a reassuring blade on his shoulder.

"Uh, um, I-"

"What is it?"

"...I needed some space. To think."

"About what?"

"...What it was like. Before I came here."

Vince's expression softened. "Oh. Yeah. You were... With that abusive family right?"

Louis flinched. "Yes."

"The Cains?"

Louis flinched harder. "Also yes."

He pulled down his collar to reveal a tattoo on his shoulder. One of two Corvinight mauling each other.

Vince scowled. "Damn Kalosian noble families. Pieces of work, all of them." He blinked, shook his head, and shrugged. "No offense of course."

"...None taken. I'm... I'm glad I'm here."

"Same. I know I was-"

Suddenly Rook perked up, pivoted his entire body in a direction, and snarled. Vince and Louis to look. Something nearby was flickering.

The flickering lunged.

"Get down!" Vince yelled as he summoned both a Night Slash blade and Henry. Both lunged back at the flickering as Rook lunged as well and Louis jumped back. The three of them tackled the flickering, revealing it to be someone in a strange red and white cloak and mask, who was quickly overpowered and knocked back. Vince acted quickly, binding the person to the ground with dark Obscuric whips, which the person attempted to turn intangible again and phase through to no avail. Vince turned to Louis. "Get the others, quick!"

Louis nodded, then scrambled off. Vince turned back to the strange figure.

"Now... Who the hell are you?"

***

#pokemon #sir aaron #riolu #fanfiction #yangverse #heroes after all

2 notes · View notes

i-want-my-iwtv · 7 years

Note

I'm going to be roleplaying with someone and they want to do a mother/son relationship, like not in the usual way. Like, what is the ACTUAL relationship between Gabrielle and Lestat? What is it really? I want to do a thread, but I don't want to trigger anyone or make it look all grim and incestuous. And I sincerely apologize if I've offended you by asking the question. I just dunno.

[By the way, I usually answer things with a relevant fanart/image/gif, but in this case, I think it’s too serious a topic for that.]

“And I sincerely apologize if I’ve offended you by asking the question.”

No offense taken, it’s a fair question!

I am a little wary that this is a bait set out by those who see things in RP/fiction as “promoting” something in real life. A bait set to invite the kind of anti-shippers who are looking for a way to tear me down regardless of how I respond, when all I ever want to promote is:

The 3 Laws of Fandom.

(And I’ll quote a relevant piece of it from @ozhawkauthor, but please read the whole post):

“Much (though not all) fandom is about shipping. There are as many possible ships as there are fans, maybe more. You may have an OTP (One True Pairing), you may have a NOTP, that pairing that makes you want to barf at the very thought of its existence.

It’s not up to you to police ships or to determine what other people are allowed to ship. Just because you find that one particular ship problematic or disgusting, does not mean that other people are not allowed to explore its possibilities in their fanworks.

You are free to create contrarian content, to write meta about why a particular ship is repulsive, to discuss it endlessly on your private blog with like-minded persons.

It is not appropriate to harass creators about their ships, it is not appropriate to demand they do not create any more fanworks about those ships, or that they create fanwork only in a manner that you deem appropriate.

These three laws add up to the following:

You are not paying for fanworks content, and you have no rights to it other than to choose to consume it, or not consume it. If you do choose to consume it, do not then attack the creator if it wasn’t to your taste. That’s the height of bad manners.

Be courteous in fandom. It makes the whole experience better for all of us.”

I want to make it very clear that I’m answering this as someone who supports exploring dark themes and taboo topics in fiction/RP. As long as you are not violating real living person’s rights, or invading any real living person’s space*, then you are doing nothing wrong. I’ve been blocked. I try to tag for things that can be triggering/upsetting to others, but I will not self-censor to appease everyone, so I absolutely support ppl unfollowing/blocking me if what I post makes them uncomfortable.

*Posting your fic/RP with the appropriate warning tags is a form of respecting others’ space and rights. If they don’t like your writing, they can block you, too. Their dashboard is their responsibility.

“I want to do a thread, but I don’t want to trigger anyone or make it look all grim and incestuous.”

I think grim and incestuous could be very interesting to explore; not every fic/RP can be a fluffy Coffee Shop AU!

Re: Concern about triggering anyone, I’ll repeat myself, it is everyone’s responsibility to curate their own fandom experience and as long as you are tagging and putting content under cuts, it is their responsibility to protect themselves. If they are incapable of that, then they should ask a trusted person to monitor their internet use.

People are triggered by many things, not just taboo and darker themed writing. This person’s triggers are Jello, Popsicles, Soup Broth, please read it! And to quote from that post, “a lot of ‘activists’ on tumblr aren’t looking to actually help anyone or make anything better: they’re sadists cruising for new victims.”

TL; DR: Anon, do what you and your partner are comfortable doing.** If RPing it as a ship squicks you both out, don’t do it. If Rping it as a ship is exciting to you both and you want to explore that taboo, go for it! Just be sure to tag it with the right warnings, and add cuts so that ppl will be protected from content they may not want to see. You can also RP privately however you like, there is no rule that says RP must be done publicly.

**If your RP partner is pressuring you to RP something you are uncomfortable with, then I would suggest not RPing that with them, and similarly, if you are pressuring your RP partner to RP something they are uncomfortable with, I would suggest not pressuring them into it.

Hit the jump for my response, cut for length, and discussion about possible incest between fictional characters.

“I’m going to be roleplaying with someone and they want to do a mother/son relationship, like not in the usual way.”

Is there a “usual way” to RP? If you’re suggesting in the ship way, it is something I’m sure exists.

Ppl RP with canon in mind, or without it.

“Like, what is the ACTUAL relationship between Gabrielle and Lestat? What is it really?”

That is a question with a ton of landmines, so I’m not going to say that they are definitely a ship or definitely not, it’s up to the individual reader/RPer to decide based on their reading of canon, or diverge from canon and write the characters however they see fit. This kind of exploration is one of many ways to engage with the characters and I see nothing wrong with canon-compliant or not canon-compliant writing, either way.

Personally, I can see both sides of the argument.

>>Not as a ship: There are some who see them purely as a mother and a son, and DEFINITELY nothing more. She does come to his rescue at the rock concert (how did she know to go to him? She has telepathy, but being his fledgling, she cannot read Lestat’s mind; she could have picked up the warnings from other vampires, or Louis might have contacted her), there are several times in canon when she asserts herself in an authoritative manner. She’s protective of him when he’s in a coma, and she slaps some sense into him when necessary. All these things can be filed under “motherly.”

It’s easy to not ship them, so I don’t really need to provide further canon evidence, they are, biologically, mother and son! There’s nothing more to add to that.

>>As a ship, Unpopular Opinion: one could argue that they can be shipped, because:

A) He becomes her maker, which changes their relationship to him being more of the “parent.”

- During the initial phase of Lestat turning Gabrielle in TVL, as he’s taking her life, he says she’s no longer his mother (to be fair, this is the kind of intimacy a vampire feels when feeding on anyone, but still, worth mentioning):

Myknowledge dimmed and flickered and there was no mother anymore,no petty need and petty terror; she was simply who she was. She wasGabrielle.

- Then, once she’s turned, she insists on being called by her name instead of “Mother,” so some take that as proof that she doesn’t see herself as being his mother anymore, in the mortal sense of the word.

B) The act of making a vampire is extremely intimate, it has been compared to childbirth. It’s the most intimate act a vampire can share with anyone. I believe in fanon that it creates a physiological bond between maker and fledgling, so one could extrapolate to say that the act itself could create a ship.

Note: In most maker/fledgling relationships, there is some assumption that turning the fledgling is done to bind maker and fledgling as a ship; essentially making the fledgling into a companion for the maker and the maker into a companion for the fledgling. In this case, Lestat turned Gabrielle in order to save her life, not knowing if he would even survive the act, so I don’t think this was a factor here, neither of them necessarily intending to be in a relationship together, but the physiological bond discussed above would still be a possibility.

Also worth mentioning is that he asks for her consent, as he had not been asked for consent himself, and the question is very clear:

No words again, just the silent thrust of it, and the question, more immense than could ever be put into words, Do you want to come with me now? DO YOU WANT TO COME WITH ME INTO THIS NOW? I hide nothing from you, not my ignorance, not my fear, not the simple terror that if I try I might fail. I do not even know if it is mine to give more than once, or what is the price of giving it, but I will risk this for you, and we will discover it together, whatever the mystery and the terror, just as I’ve discovered alone all else. With her wholebeing she said Yes.

^This could be construed as him wanting her for a companion and her agreeing to it.

C) LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX. This is a point of debate for many fans, whether the Ricean vampires can have penetrative sex. In my opinion, in canon they cannot, and while penetrative sex is NOT A REQUIREMENT to a relationship (there are relationships where there is no penetrative sex and they are no less valid than those which do have it, in my opinion), the incestuous aspect of a Lestat/Gabrielle ship is alot less squicky for me knowing that they aren’t able to literally bone in the mortal way. Some would argue that the bloodsharing is more intimate than penetrative sex, and that’s fine, but still, being unable to literally bone is just so much less squicky, in my opinion. But ppl made fanart of essentially that and it was still very funny, to me!

Call it what you will, but the first bloodkiss shared in canon is between Lestat and Gabrielle on the night she is turned.

^^^ALL THAT SAID, I wouldn’t shoot anyone down who ships it, they are both adult fictional characters. One could argue that there is some canon evidence to support it, but canon evidence is unnecessary.

Again, Anon, do what you and your partner are comfortable doing. If RPing it as a ship squicks you both out, don’t do it. If Rping it as a ship is exciting to you both and you want to explore that taboo, go for it! Just be sure to tag it with the right warnings, and add cuts so that ppl will be protected from content they may not want to see. You can also RP privately however you like, there is no rule that says RP must be done publicly.

If your RP partner is pressuring you to RP something you are uncomfortable with, then I would suggest not RPing with them, and similarly, if you are pressuring your RP partner to RP something they are uncomfortable with, I would suggest not pressuring them into it.

8 notes · View notes

avanneman · 7 years

Text

Call My Agent!—They’ll always have Paris, because they f*cking live there

youtube

Searching for six hours—well, more like 315 minutes—of Trump-free consciousness? Then, if you haven’t already, sign up for Netflix and check out Dix Pour Cent, aka 10 Percent, aka Call My Agent! (which is what Netflix calls it), a catch as catch can tale of agents, actors, directors, wives, mistresses, boyfriends, sons, daughters, and other hangers on in the City of Light, all revolving around that most important, or at least most self-important, of all worlds, le cinéma.

I wish I could write an intelligent review of Call My Agent!, but, well, I can’t. Usually when I write my reviews I cheat a little (or a lot) by relying on Wikipedia or somebody so I can identify all the characters, and the actors who play them, and not make any glaring errors in my plot summaries, etc., but in this case I can’t because, sadly, Call My Agent! doesn’t seem to be that much of a thing—only one season (of two) is available in the U.S.—so I’m pretty much a trail-blazer here and I won’t be providing much more than a once over easy on this one. I’m particularly at a loss because the series features numerous cameos from famous French film folk, about whom I unfortunately know nothing.

We begin with a crisis, of course. In la vie de Bohème life without a crisis is no life at all, but rather death. Agent Gabriel Sarda (Grégory Montel) is struggling with a tempestuous diva, Cécile, who is struggling to learn how to ride a horse, which she had earlier, and falsely, claimed she knew how to do. But her burden is small compared to Gabriel’s, because he’s learned that the deal of a lifetime—of several, in fact—a trilogy with Quentin Tarantino—oui, that Quentin Tarantino!—has fallen through because Quentin thinks Cécile’s too old. Too old! Jesus! Why not just kill her? It would be so much more humane!

But for the moment there’s a more immediate crisis, one that, fortunately, is a lot more manageable. Cécile isn’t supposed to be out riding a horse. She’s supposed to be in Paris for some sort of photo shoot at some impossibly stunning salon that, unless you’re Louis Quatorze, you can’t possibly afford. Gabriel brings her in, still reeking of the stable, but, never mind, Cécile may not be able to ride a thoroughbred, but she is one. A quick wardrobe change and she makes the room look shabby. Mission accomplished! Well, the easy part.

Gabriel knows all too well that discretion is the better part of valor, by far, so he leaves the bad news for later. He has to get back to the agency, ASK, aka Samuel Kerr Agency, because Samuel Kerr, the founding father and beloved papa, is going on vacation, for the first time in his life! Gabriel makes it back just in time, giving us a glimpse of the rest of the cast, including Papa Samuel (Alain Rimoux), the Yves Montand-ish Mathias Barneville (Thibault de Montalembert), a cute gay guy, a couple of seen it all French broads (okay, they’re all French, but these are like French French—old French), and Andréa Martel (Camille Cottin), who, it will emerge, is a bit of a diva on her own.

While the farewell party is going on, a sweet jeune fille wanders in. “Just give me your resume,” Sofia, the stunning biracial receptionist (Stéfi Celma), tells her briskly (in French, of course). “We’ll get back to you.” But shy Camille (Fanny Sidney) isn’t an actress. She just wants to see M. Barneville, and, no, she doesn’t have an appointment. “He’s very busy,” Sofia tells her. But when summoned Mathias appears with surprising quickness. Do we have a plot? I think we do!

Mathias is not at all happy to see Camille, suggesting that she is either his mistress or his bastard, and his nervous line of questioning strongly suggests the latter. Camille is newly arrived in Paris, from that region of France that is, basically, not Paris. She clearly likes the place and isn’t planning on leaving, even though she has not a euro, and even though Mathias clearly isn’t planning on giving her one.

While Mathias is struggling to get rid of his bastard daughter, Andréa is getting all boss from Hell on her helpless assistant, who can’t keep track of all the people she’s lying to on Andréa’s behalf, or even remember which lies she told whom. Plus, there’s Andréa’s love life. She’s into chicks, but there’s a lot of turnover, and it’s hard to remember who she’s avoiding and who she’s screwing, in part because Andréa can’t always remember herself. The assistant, acting out every assistant’s dreams, tells Andréa to take a taxi to enfer. She storms out of Andréa’s office, out into the reception area, where waif Camille is still wandering about in confusion.

“All right then, go to Hell!” shouts Andréa (more or less). “You! Are you looking for a job?”

The answer to that question is not no, and so off we go into the wonderful world of dix pour cent. “We have no lives,” Andréa explains. Their clients are their lives. They live in shitty apartments, they have no money, no husbands, no children, no nothing! But what do they have? They have art! They are the unseen, unheralded, yet all-important grease without whom the adamantine wheels of artistic ego would shatter one another to pieces and bring the sacred world of cinema to a splintering halt.

Yes, the life of an agent is always Hell, but it’s about to get a lot tougher for the folks at ASK, because scarcely has Papa Sam reached his vacation destination—the sunny beaches of Brazil—than the word comes back that he’s dead! Dead? How is this even possible, demands Mathias from the officious official informing them of Samuel’s decease. “He ate a wasp,” the official explains—that being, apparently, the sort of answer you get from the French government when something bad happens.1

Sam’s death is a particular stunner because he was, clearly, the only grown-up at the agency. Gabriel, Mathias, Andréa, and all the rest blink like kittens suddenly exposed to sunlight. We have to pay our bills now? And our taxes? But Sam always took care of that!

ASK’s problems continue to mount. Sam owned a controlling share of the agency, and he died intestate, so all his shares pass to his widow, Hélène (Gabrielle Forest). She’s a grand old femme, to be sure, but how do we know that the grand old femme won’t sell us all out and retire to the Riviera? Blood is in the water and the sharks are circling. And what about our clients? Those artists don’t give a damn about anyone or anything but themselves!

The uncertainty puts a double strain on the standard uncertainty of the dix pour cent business—the constant caressing, cajoling, and hand-holding of friend and foe alike, deceiving your friends and servicing your foes, running madly to stay in place on a frenzied carousel. But—and here is the kicker—somehow it all works. The lies that seem to lead to disaster lead instead to art! The two deadly enemies you booked for the same film, for the director they both loathe? “I can use that energy,” the director gloats, rubbing his hands together in glee. That impossible director who brings in everything over budget and overdue? His reworking of the memoirs of the duc de Saint-Simon is a smash!2

Yes, the madeleines here are a bit too sweet, too candy-coated—too many grand receptions, shoots, and gatherings in impossibly elegant surroundings, too many pretty girls waiting on “you” hand and foot, so much 18th-century privilege handed out to our 21st-century strivers/survivors.3 Even Andréa’s apartment, which was supposed to be a mess, is a little gem. People in Paris have killed for less—for far less—I’m sure.

As the first season ends, the gang at ASK, having survived everything, even a government audit, gather to drink Sam’s private stock of whiskey to celebrate a coup that’s going to assure that the agency will remain independent. Alas, the coup doesn’t quite come off, but so what? They aren’t dead yet, and there’s nothing wrong with getting drunk on the boss’s whiskey. Besides, as one of the old broads puts it, “Whenever I get depressed I go to a movie and that cheers me up.”

Okay, way too on the nose, but I enjoyed myself without the boss’s whiskey. Hey, Nextflix! Season deux! Now!

Afterwords Dix Pour Cent, directed by “César winning” director Cédric Klapisch, gives an unconscious representation of the “Paris Provincial” world consciously presented in Julie Delpy’s Two Days in Paris4—an incestuous assembly of self-indulgent enablers whose feckless life is made possible both by the extraordinary artistic treasures of Paris and massive government subsidies (largely funded, in turn, by taxes on Hollywood films), in the illusion that they are adding to those treasures.5 It’s also reminiscent of Hollywood films like Woody Allen’s Café Society and Martin Scorcese’s The Aviator, which simultaneously “expose” and sentimentalize Tinsel Town.

Sam’s cause of death is grounds for a funny running gag as the cast must repeatedly explain to grieving friends from other agencies that, no, Sam did not die in an orgy. But why else would one go to Brazil? A wasp? Are you sure? ↩︎

Many of the “impossible” people here are celebrities playing themselves, which would be a lot funnier if I knew who they were. ↩︎

Le meilleur century for the French was really the 17th—in the 18th they got their asses kicked by the British too often—but the 18th looks more comfortable. ↩︎

Delpy starred in the film, wrote, directed, produced, and edited the film, and also composed the score. Charlie Chaplin, eat your heart out! (Actually, Chaplin matched Delpy, although he sometimes had help with the script and he always had help—a lot of help—with the music.) ↩︎

There is, unsurprisingly, not a hijab in sight, and the few blacks we see are seamlessly integrated into French society. Hey, this show is about escaping your problems, not solving them. ↩︎

#Call My Agent!#dix pour cent #TV

3 notes · View notes