A “guide” for MLB non french fanfiction writers
First of all you don’t have to read it or take notes of what I’m going to say. You do what you want, fanfiction isn’t meant to be accurate anyway. But I know some mlb fans do researches for their fanfictions so I thought I was gonna help (some people might already know what I’m gonna say anyway).
In France we don’t have fire escapes
We don’t have sororities or stuff like that in our universities, lmao most of them don’t even have dorms (at least mine doesn’t). But there are students associations and sometimes college sport teams but it’s nothing like in the U.S. I think
There are rarely universities dorms but we have things like student residences which are independents from the schools (I’m currently living in one and it’s pretty cool)
French college students and young adults usually don’t own trucks, (I don’t know why in every American teen movies they all have trucks) but if you want to give a cheap car to a character, choose a small car like a 3 doors car or something from an European brand (like Renault or Citroën), that’s usually what French parents give their children (french brands are cheaper obviously since they aren’t imported)
We don’t have Walmart or Target, but we have Franprix, Monoprix or Carrefour
Gallerie Lafayette is a pretty famous and dare I say expensive (but still affordable, do you know what I mean?) fashion boutique and you can buy a lot of different stuff there (clothes, underwear, bags, accessories etc…)
Underage kids don’t legally drink wine or alcohol wtf?
Paris is a pretty dirty city, like I mean obviously it’s a big city and there is a lot of pollution so keep that in mind. And peoples aren’t really nice apparently
Until this year, for the two last years of high school (première and terminale) we had what was called “filières” where basically children had to choose between following a scientific cursus (S), a literary one (L) , or an economic one (ES) (and a lot more but those three were the “general branches”)
Oh and we don’t have prom, or a ceremony at the end of high school (well, we do but it’s often to reward the best students) or stuff like that (some establishment decide to have a prom, like my junior high school, but it’s pretty rare)
At the end of High school we have an exam called the Baccalauréat (or just the bac), we all pass the french exam at the end of the penultimate year (première) + the science exam for literary and economic branches + somes orals, and we had the rest of the other tests in Terminale (philosophy, languages (orals and written exams), sport, history, and math, bio and physics for the S cursus). --> but this year (or next year i don’t remember) there wil be a reform but it seem pretty shitty and I’m not concerned anymore anyway lmao
And I’m going to get murdered for that and I don’t want to clash writers etc but I really don’t like when people put random French words in their English fanfictions? (except french words existing in the english vocabulary (like cliché, fiancé, coup d’état etc) Like you can do it, it’s fine, but… I think it’s unnecessary and it’s personally make me lose my focus when I’m reading. Maybe it’s because I’m French but I mean I would feel the same way if I was reading a book and suddenly there is a random russian word for no reason. I mean, y’all were saying that including Japanese words in Naruto fanfictions was cringe or whatever but when it’s French words it’s not? Maybe it’s a western thing.
Again I don’t want to sound mean, the last part was just my personal opinion you don’t have to acknowledge it at all lol. You do you, I do me, I just never saw someone complain about that before
I just want to help those who want to be accurate in their fanfictions (even if the show itselft isn’t “french” accurate).
I probably forgot a lot of things and made typos so feel free to add stuffs or correct me if you want
If you have any questions please ask :)
