#france rant

[disast3rtransp0rt]

We shit on France a lot for a country that does most of our favorite stuff, such as:

Antagonizing England.

Antagonizing and disrupting global religious norms (Western Schism, anyone?).

Beheading the greedy, overwealthy bourgeousie and demanding various workers'/civil rights on a regular basis.

Holding their governing body accountable, with very real consequences if citizens' demands go ignored.

Normalizing snack culture (bread and spreadable cheese with juice, amirite, fellow neurodivergents?)

Having the BEST possible villain accent for campy children's cartoons (step aside, Cockney Brits)

Providing endless meme content.

Like I'm not a France Stan by any means. Please don't get me wrong. The one French exchange student in my university's English Literature MA program did his thesis on Homestuck, for fuck’s sake.

But damn... They have the vibes.

[bethanydelleman]

I'm really tired of the "woman sad about her arranged marriage" trope, especially if that woman is royalty.

I am sure that many women across time were sad about their arranged marriages, but I'm sure a lot of others were excited, ambivalent, or resigned. Again, especially if you were royalty! I am sure if you were born a princess, you were trained from birth that your whole purpose in life was to marry someone important to solidify the power of the person on the throne. And honestly, it's an important job, if it wasn't, they wouldn't have tried so hard to do it.

That woman isn't just marrying another king or prince, she's going to be an ambassador of her country. She's supposed to be there promoting good relations. She isn't just a woman being sold off, she has a job! Also, if she is marrying the reigning monarch (or the heir), she may well end up running the country if the king is off at war or he dies when the heir is really young. That happened a lot throughout history! (or maybe she marries the third son and helps him find his way to the throne. Good for her)

It just feels like a modern sentiment being projected back. In Romeo and Juliet, when Juliet's mother first brings up marrying her to Paris, Juliet's basically cool with it and says she'll try to like him. She would have known this was going to happen because that is what rich women do, they marry into another family so their two families can be buddies. What else would she even be expecting?

It wouldn't bother me so much except that it's all we see! Give me a story about a woman who is like, "Cool, I shall give it my all!" Or she's like rolling up her sleeves and planning how she's going to get the court on her side and rule France, power behind the throne style (these women are mostly portrayed as villains, but who is to say the king would do a better job?). And also, have a little faith in women's fathers? You think men in the past didn't occasionally consider the happiness of their daughters? Not even a little bit?

[marzipanandminutiae]

Of course, the burkini ban is messed up on grounds of religious freedom and racial discrimination. But also

Under any other circumstances, people would be HORRIFIED at a government mandate that women have to show a certain amount of skin. Like. That’s fucking dystopian, and the absolute opposite of feminism. If a government tried to pass a law that all women had to wear tube tops and miniskirts to go outside, people would rightfully be up in arms demanding blood

But because it’s targeting a marginalized religious group, many folks are lauding the blatant forced sexualization of women. Appalling

(apparently the ban also outlaws things like sun – protecting bathing suits if they cover too much skin. Which like. Yes, let’s give everyone skin cancer just so we can spite a religion we’ve decided to hate. Sounds like a good plan </s>)

[rogloptimist]

LAKE MISSOULA x JONAS VINGEGAARD

credits under cut!

lake missoula - richy mitch and the coal miners // jonas vingegaard - team presentation, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard, tadej pogacar, and remco evenepoel - podium ceremony, tour de france 2024 (belga images) // tadej pogacar and jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // wayward son - rainbow rowell // jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 // it's down to legs - caley fretz // jonas vingegaard - stage 20, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - stage 11, tour de france 2024 // a poem on hope - wendell berry // jonas vingegaard and remco evenepoel - stage 19, tour de france 2024 // quora user shulamit widawsky // jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 (getty images) // jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 post-race interview (flobikes) // 'now the fight is over': jonas vingegaard concedes tour de france battle for yellow, but still aims for second - adam becket // jonas vingegaard - stage 19, tour de france 2024 post-race interview (flobikes) // video: jonas vingegaard and matteo jorgenson consoled after heart-breaking end to stage 19 of 2024 tour de france for team visma | lease a bike - kieran wood // jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // 'probably the hardest moment of my career'-- jonas vingegaard on his crash and fight to be ready for the tour de france - stephen farrand // jonas vingegaard's tour de france was a venn diagram - iain treloar // rise up and salute the sun: the writings of suzy kassem - suzy kassem // jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2023 // jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - stage 11, tour de france 2024 // vingegaard exhausted after tour de france: may cut season short - sjoerd valkering // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - stage 20, tour de france 2024 (belga images) // the thing is - ellen bass // "if you had told me four months ago that i would be second, i wouldn't have believed you" - jonas vingegaard disappointed but proud of his tour de france - ondrej zhasil // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - stage 11, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard - stage 11, tour de france 2024 post-race interview (nbc sports) // alfred lord tennyson // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - stage 11, tour de france 2024 // remco evenepoel and jonas vingegaard - stage 21, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - tour de france 2024 // matteo jorgenson and jonas vingegaard - stage 19, tour de france 2024 // matteo jorgenson and jonas vingegaard - tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard and tadej pogacar - podium ceremony, tour de france 2024 // jonas vingegaard and wout van aert - tour de france 2024 (team visma | lease a bike)

[savemehwsbelgium]

[nixthelapin]

I don’t think enough people realize that Origins Pt. 1 & 2 happen on the same day

In French schools, they have a long lunch break, so lots of kids just go home for that time then come back. Seriously, they get like 90min- 2hours! (Which blows my mind as an American, who only got 30 minutes for my lunch break)

So when Adrien runs away again to school, the stuff that went on with the seats, the hurt from Kim taunting Ivan, Marinette’s insecurity about being picked as Ladybug, is still fresh! They didn’t even have the night to process it!

I just still see a lot of people who discuss origins talk about pt. 2 as “the next day,” when really it’s just the afternoon, so I thought I’d make a post finally lol

This has been a short PSA, thank you.

EDIT: ok, turns out I am a moron. I am being torn in the replies 😭 The amount of time for lunch in French schools is true, so I just took that info and went with it lol- I definitely should’ve just rewatched the episodes instead of being stupid, my bad y’all 😂

[lecoindecachou]

You know, as someone living in France, I always feel like I should specify how I feel about women wearing the hijab since it's so controversial here so there goes the disclaimer: I don't give a fuck what people wear on their heads, how long their skirts are, and I especially don't care what kind of bathing suit they wear to the beach. Pls god let me have one fucking summer without having to hear about the fucking burkini. I wish the French government would spend even HALF as much time trying to solve homelessness at it does policing how Muslim women dress. There.

[chialebeauf]

Dispatch from Absurdist France

Just so you know we're still living in our own weird Kafka/Ionesco fusion timeline.

Macron's a pompous authoritarian dick and we hate him, so the good people of France started a little informal competition amongst ourselves to see which city or town can fuck his redemption tour of public appearances the most. Besides the usual booing, heckling (shoutout to the two old guys that called him a butthole to his face and called his government corrupt while shaking his hand on live TV yesterday, dudes rock!) etc, we've seen a revival of the ancestral tradition of the casserolade/cacerolazo. Which is basically bringing pots and pans and banging on them to make as much noise as you can to drown out government bullshit, thanks to our Latin brothers and sisters for keeping that one warm for us.

Since he's also very sensitive and his minions the préfets -kinda like a local police chief+mini-governor thing- are very attentive to his feelings, they're taking Measures. This morning he went on a visit in the beautiful, beautiful Languedoc backcountry, my only true love, and the local préfet wasn't about to be outdone in fascist shit by his colleagues.

He invaded the small town of Ganges (4000 souls) with 600 riot cops, not a typo, and illegally used an anti-terror law to forbid the carrying of various things in the municipality, including "portable sound devices".

WHICH, Y'ALL, APPARENTLY INCLUDES FUCKING POTS AND PANS!

Irony and parody are dead, here's the video of popo opening people's bags and seizing saucepans. Also they got manhandeld by a buch of dads with an average of around 0,64 baldspots per scalp and then threw CS gas from 5m away while being downwind.

To top it off, the word for saucepan (casserole) is actually slang for a political scandal, which Macron and his gov are full of (2 or 3 ministers in exercice and his Chief of Staff currently under indictement and 4 or 5 former ones still under indictment or convicted, I lost count)

All of that happened before noon.

I'm done with this clown state, I'll start an Occitan independentist guerilla, this is too stupid.

[egberts]

I'm just gonna start blocking people who send me essay length asks trying to argue about stupid shit because their personal experience was different

[madame-helen]

[holyprincenerd]

A Few Thoughts Regarding Why the ESC Jury is SO Dysfunctional

I’m going to cut right to the chase: The judgement criteria for the jury make literally no sense once you stop and think about them. They quite literally cause trolley problem after trolley problem. As a reminder, these are the criteria the jury was supposed to use to judge the performances this year:

composition and originality of the song,

quality of the performance on stage,

vocal capacity of the performer(s),

overall impression of the act.

Let’s start simple - vocal capacity of the performer(s):

As everyone’s aware, this year, we had many talented vocalists participating in the competition: A few examples are Sweden, Norway, France, Cyprus, Spain, Estonia, Albania and Portugal. They all came swinging with their vocalists. Notice something funny about this list of countries?

It’s based entirely upon the assumption that the ability to belt or the usage of one’s head voice is what defines someone’s vocal capacity. Here’s why this is a problem: Assuming that belting as an example is the peak performance of singing means to ignore other, arguably harder and more demanding techniques that are more unconventional sounding to the mainstream ear. A hilariously good example of this would be growling. It require a lot, and I mean a lot of technical prowess and control over your voice, and is thus arguably harder than say belting, as an example. Seriously. Try to growl. Right now. I bet most of you have noticed that you literally can’t growl without sounding hilariously pathetic. If you did manage to let out a decent growl, now try to sing while growling. Pick any song you like, and go for it. Pretty hard, right? And guess what! We had someone doing that this year, and being phenomenal at it.

Too bad they came last in the competition.

That’s right, if we’re going to start judging vocal abilities here, arguably the most vocally capable singer was Chris Harms. There are multiple parts in Blood and Glitter where he uses the growling technique. Not only that, but du-du-dum! He also belts during the song, and does so wonderfully. So, based on this, clearly, he was the most vocally talented artist out of the bunch, right? (Obviously, I am 100% simplifying things here, but bear with me for a bit.) He does everything that the previously mentioned group did, and more. Arguably we could also say that alongside him Alessandra is carrying the torch of the most vocally capable performer, as she does have that one whistle tone in her song (if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, don’t worry, we’ll get to that later).

However, this gets even more complicated than singing techniques, how hard they are to master, and how many of them you use in your song.

You see, we can’t really judge someone’s vocal capacity and compare them with the other contestants, when many of these artists were performing songs in different genres. Here are some of the genres represented during the Eurovision finale of 2023:

Metal

Industrial metal

Progressive metal

Rock

Alternative rock

Progressive rock

Pop rock

Pop

Dance-pop

House-pop

Latin-pop

Hyperpop

Chanson

Flamenco

Disco-house

Electronic

R&B

Rap

Schlager

Tractor (lol)

With this many genres, different singing techniques are more appropriate for some songs than others. So this is no longer even a question about comparing each contestant’s vocal abilities with one another (which is a problem, since you know, this is a competition), but rather who performs well within their own genre. Suddenly, we can add almost every contestant to the list of competent vocal performances. For those of you who are wondering, yes, even Käärijä came through with his vocal performance, especially in the first half of the song.

While we’re on the topic of Käärijä (and we won’t leave him for a bit), how are the juries supposed to judge the vocals of rap performances that are more heavily reliant on the enunciation of words than the vocals themselves, if the song’s not in English? Part of the reason Cha Cha Cha works so well is because of the way Käärijä raps certain lines or even words. How is any other jury, except the Finnish one, (who’re not allowed to vote for him,) supposed to catch something like how good the ”Ja mä jatkan kunnes en enää pysy tuolissa niinku” part sounds to a Finnish ear? Specifically the words kunnes, en and enää, are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that one singular line due to the rhythm and enunciation. Can a jury member who doesn’t understand Finnish catch onto the way he allows the first two words to almost melt into each other while pronouncing the last word ridiculously fast to create a very specific rhythm? I’m sure some jury members would notice that, but it’s just as likely to go completely unnoticed unless you’re familiar with the language.

Next, composition and originality of the song:

Again, we have a clear victor here: Cha Cha Cha is by far the most ”original” out of these songs (despite the Electric Cowboy plagiarism accusations, and it’s all thanks to the fact that the song does a genre based one-eighty by the end). I mean, hello? Blending industrial metal, rap, hyperpop and Finnish schlager? This is such a strange combination of genres, it becomes its own entity. And somehow it works. Personally, I’d say this is at least in part due to the melodic hook that repeats literally throughout the song. Those beeps and boops you hear after the first line of the song? They keep repeating themselves, in the chorus in the ”Cha, cha cha, cha cha cha cha” portion, and in the schlager part of the song, though there, the melody is cut in half and only the last three keys are present in the ”Niinku cha cha cha” parts and in the lines that end with an ”aa-aa-haa.” (So, ”Niinku cha cha cha, enkä pelkääkään tätä maailmaa-aa-haa” etc.) Obviously, we get to hear the melody in its entirety once again in the final cha chas. Brilliant! Douze point. Sometimes less is more, and I can’t believe I am saying that about fucking Cha Cha Cha but here we are. Simplicity is king.

Now, on the other hand, we could say that most of the pop entries are not original in the slightest. We could argue that there is literally nothing original about repeating the same pop formula and the same chord progressions which can be found in most pop songs. This is why Tattoo, Solo, Unicorn, I Wrote a Song, Break a Broken Heart, etc, are getting compared to other pop songs and accused of plagiarism: Pop music just is that generic in its building blocks. It’s also why we could argue that they’re not particularly noteworthy in their compositions.

And while we’re still on the topic of originality, songs that are tied to a specific genre are practically screwed. No one’s going to reinvent genres like cha-cha-chá, waltz or mambo here, unless they step away from what identifies these genres, the rhythm. If the rhythm isn’t there, it’s not a cha-cha-chá, waltz or mambo song. You wanna blend salsa and reggaeton? Too bad, salsaton is already a thing! Should everyone start doing what Käärijä and his team did, and mix a minimum of four genres with a somewhat unusual structure in order to be ”original”? What even is originality in the context of composition, really? There are only so many chords and chord progressions to use, there’s practically no way to actually be original, which is also why the topic of plagiarism is so fucking complicated when it comes to music in specific.

Anyway, let’s move on to the quality of the performance on stage:

To avoid making a lengthy repetition of the previous point, let’s keep this short: Depending on the genre of the song, a certain type of performance is going to be more appropriate than another. Imagine Alika having a performance like Let 3, or Teya and Salena performing like La Zarra. What’s that? It’s the taste of good ol’ thematic and tonal dissonance. Each song is elevated by a performance that matches that song in specific, and the artists can either perform well or fuck up. Again, this becomes a trolley problem, where the juries have to ask themselves: ”Do we value a performance like Joker Out’s above a performance like Luke Black’s?” When both perform well, it’s hard to compare them because they’re playing in two completely different ballparks.

Finally, the overall impression of the act:

Literally what the fuck does that even mean? This is actually just a preference question. Unless someone fucks up tremendously, everyone should be getting points for this. And that’s the core issue here. Because we’re dealing with such a large variety of different artists, different genres, different languages, it becomes impossible to judge them fairly against each other. Do we value belting above growling? Trolley problem. Do we value pop above metal or rock? Trolley problem. You get the point.

”Okay, but obviously the juries are basing their votes upon objectivity and looking at the whole package,” someone might say, and if they do, they’ve missed the point: There is no objectivity here, and because of that, there is no comparing whole packages either. Literally the only way to be objective about this is if everyone has an identical performance; same song, same staging, same camerawork, same choreography. And that’s not the point of the ESC. We’re supposed to be celebrating our individual cultures and our differences. Variety is quite literally required for this contest to work the way it’s intended to. At the end of the day, music is art, and art can be many things. You can’t argue that EAEA is more artistic than Mama ŚČ! (or vice versa) without opening a philosophical can of worms that is way too big for this silly competition. You can’t say Tattoo is objectively better than Cha Cha Cha (or vice versa), because, again, the songs shine in different criteria and are playing in two completely different ballparks. As a matter of fact, their ballparks exist on completely different planets. There are too many variables at play here for anyone to logically be able to be objective. And that’s when this becomes a question of voting based on opinion and personal taste (you know, if the concept of jury darlings hasn’t made this obvious enough). And personal taste is what the audience is supposed to base their votes upon.

Oh, and before I forget to touch upon that, Alessandra: According to some tabloids, her vocals were struggling during the jury show, and that’s why she in specific didn’t receive as many points from the jury as she probably should and could have otherwise. And that’s ridiculously unfair. Why should the jury and the audience base their judgements of an act on two completely different performances? As Käärijä has said in many interviews, each performance is unique and its own entity. Shit happens. Sometimes your vocals are struggling, other times a wire tries to murder you, etcetera. It’s actually bizarre that we don’t give our votes based on the same performance.

So yeah, shitty system, does not work, 0/10. Zéro point in French.

[steelthroat]

First time staying at the hotel of a theme park (against my will, but that's a long story) and... it's so weird??????

Like I feel like I am not supposed to be here, how do I put it... it screams luxury but I a... childlike/childish way????

And I feel restless, like something is wrong. Uncanny.

[joeys-babe]

JOSEPH LEE BURROW I HAVE NO WORDS FOR YOU.

[adorablebanite]

As much as I adore the fruity little Franc Peartree letter, it implies that Franc was finally something that made Gortash giddy again after the disappearance of the Dark Urge.

And what did Orin do about that? 🤔😭

She didn't even kill Franc herself either 😅. She most likely was attempting to skirt the boundaries of their alliance by putting Peartree on a hitlist for Bhaalists initiates to hunt down, despite his rather crucual affiliation with Gortash.

The Bhaalists favour taking out the best types of people; good souls. Franc Peartree was if nothing a Banite aspirant, who was so good at "birthing slithering wet malice into the world" on behalf of Gortash, it sent the Chosen of Bane into an actual tizzy to the point of sending him fanmail.

He's not the typical target for a Bhaalists sacrifice, but Orin apparently hated the mechanical nature of the weapons and traps peppered around the city so much, that she just said "fuck it" and spat in the face of Gortash by taking out his little Banite buddy.

Between Durge missing, Ketheric being angsty about Isobel, and the Emperor fucking off with the astral prism, Franc's success and loyalty was probably one of the first really good things left for him.

If circumstances where different, Orin wouldn't have dared, but in retrospect it seems like a big fucking deal- she knew Gortash wanted to maintain the alliance more than she did, so she used that knowledge to get away with shit that would otherwise have him straight up NUKE the Temple of Bhaal LMAO

Lo-and-behold, Tav/Durge shows up just when things we're really falling apart xD

No wonder he was desperate to ally with them! He would have been so happy to remedy the chaos Orin was wreaking by essentially asking Tav/Durge to marry him ����

[normalpeoplethiings]

aled and daniel have such a cool relationship in radio silence. like they are dating but they are both kind of unsure about it in a way. i really love how that even if they were to break up they would still be best friends because they value their friendship above any romantic relations between them. i’m so happy that they managed to figure things out again towards the end of radio silence because they are such a good power couple 🫶🫶

[mayor-mido]

This is pretty much my personal opinion, but as a trans man I don't feel harmed by slogans like "men are trash".

I'm french, I'm following the trial of Dominique Pelicot and so far the justice system has proven itself to be even worse than what the most "hardcore" feminists have been claiming so far. The defense attorneys lashing out at the victim because "oh no, consequences !" As the medias are just broadcasting their words (the "there is rape and rape" thing), the judge asking the victim to please not say rape but "sex scenes" instead and talk about the accused as her "partners". The accused shouting "I'll rape your mother" at feminists and laughing or sleeping during the audience, them gathering in nearby cafes and casually forming bonds between one another during recesses.

Any time the subject of SA is brought to the table, people scream at victims to stfu and "let the justice system do it's job" and right now we're seeing what is the best justice has to offer.

Anyway as I was saying, "men are trash" when it's followed by "but not trans men of course" makes it feel like saying "men are trash" is actually harming or hurting anyone as if it were a powerful weapon yielded in an equal fight. It's not. It's barely a scream of pain.