Le fishe: The Full Lore
Disclaimer: this is only my own interpretation and I did this for the lols. In no circumstances shall this be considered canon - but what does "being canon" mean for fanfics based on a silly meme anyway?
Context
Le fishe: The Full Collection (includes Le frogé and Le monguêt)
The YouTube comment that inspired this silly project
Le fishe 13
Le fishe au chocolat
Le fishe de la toilette
Le fishe au lava
The lore
Le fishe 1:
Our protagonist, Le Fishe, lived a relatively normal (i.e. boring) childhood and preteen years in a small country town in Provence, France. He wouldn't have known this at the time, but older him would kill to go back to this stage of his life. Provence countryside is beautiful, but having watched all the TV drama about people living in big cities, he secretly dreamed about going there when he grew up. One may write a paper quoting Marshall McLuhan talking about how televisions corrupt the mind of the young from a leftist point of view, but Le Fishe doesn't seem to mind.
Le fishe 2:
As Le Fishe entered adolescent phase he began to have confusion about who he actually is and where his place is in this big world - nothing out of the ordinary for adolescents. He made teenage friends, he made teenage rivals, he had fun times, he had bad times, all in a worry-free teenage fashion; yet deep down in his soul, the urge of going to big cities grew stronger and stronger day by day.
Le fishe 3:
After entering a local high school our main protagonist fell in love with another fish for the first time, but that fish was rumoured to have a lover already. Le Fishe ended up having to have a duel with the said lover, only to find out that it was all groundless allegation and the girl has secretly transferred to another school far-away for this. They made up afterwards.
Le fishe 4:
Not much happened in this period. After the duel, Le Fishe focused on his study and became one of the "good" students. "You want to go to Paris, right?" one of his teacher said to him, "You definitely can. I have faith in you." Later it will turn out Le Fishe did in fact do well and went to Paris.
Le fishe 5:
Le Fishe got accepted by a decent university in Paris and graduated from his local highschool. Finally, having lived his whole life in a small town at the countryside, Le Fishe finally was able to go to Paris now. Paris confuses the young man, lots of things so different from what he's used to back home; but he faced them with an open mind, drinking them all in.
Le fishe 6:
One of the highlight era of Le Fishe's life. In order to earn enough money to support himself, he applied for a part-time job at a local bar and during his work he fell in love with a girl, a regular of that bar. But that girl was bad news: a runaway from an abusive family, and a part of the local crime scene known as "Le Milieu"; the affair with her dragged Le Fish into the Milieu as well. During his university days Le Fishe juggled between running errands for the local gangs and working on his degree, learning that no matter what kind of man he is his words and action *still* have consequences - sometimes he learns it the soft way, sometimes he learns it the hard way. He met his lifelong friend Le Frogé during his stay in Paris, whom he later helped to get out of a rather difficult situation.
Le fishe 7:
As a thank you gift, Le Frogé arranged a trip to Florida for Le Fishe and his "girlfriend" (words of Le Frogé). The duo accepted the offer and took it as a long-needed break from the Milieu. Le Fishe's relationship with the girl did not progress any further than "very good friends"; seems like that girl's heart is not for anyone. But at least Florida is good, for him at least. He wished the easy life could last just a bit longer, but a vacation is a vacation, and all vacation has its ending - the latter might not be true for a trust fund kid, but Le Fishe ain't one.
Le fishe 8:
A relatively peaceful phase in Le Fishe's life. His part-time job has made him enough money to move out from his dorm into a single room apartment. While the girl still wasn't his girlfriend (Le Fishe, for some reasons, never officially confessed), she became a regular visitor. During this period Le Fishe travels a lot, and paid his first visit to his hometown since Le fishe 5. One day while reading a poem collection in the frontyard, he caught the landlady's attention; turns out she's the president of a local literature club. The landlady invited Le Fishe into the club, and encouraged by his club he started to write short stories. This encounter became the beginning of Le Fishe's later fame.
Le fishe 9:
Right after graduating from the university, the French government passed a bill to crush down on the Milleu; this provided some relief for Le Fishe. Le Frogé also joined the club with a few dissident friends from the eastern bloc. During this period Le Fishe published his first short story collection "Stories from the Bathtub, Stories from the Sea" which received critical acclaim.
An excerpt from one of the reviews at the time:
...at long last, people like us don't have to fight through layers and layers of intricate world-building and story-telling for once. In Le Fishe's stories, simplicity works two-folds: the shortened course of actions and the purposeful lacking of details produced a sentiment that's so painfully direct that it will undoubtedly reach the deep inside of the reader's heart...
Le fishe 10:
Le Fishe was seriously thinking about moving to the US - maybe he liked the sun in Florida, maybe he really need to cut himself off from the Milieu, maybe both. During this time Le Fishe went on business trip a lot and during one of his stays in Rio de Janeiro, one of his friends in the literature club introduced MPB to him, which eventually became the insipration for his first long novel. He published his second short story collection and his travelling journal; his name was starting to become known world-wide.
(some time between Le fishe 10 & Le fishe 11):
Le Fishe came home after a day's work only to find out his apartment has been thoroughly ransacked. He immediately understood this was the Milieu's message, yet he was having none of it. After contacting with Le Frogé, Le Fishe and his girl fled to the US under Le Frogé's arrangement. Le Fishe later married the girl.
Le fishe 11:
Life in the US wasn't always as good as Le Fishe have lived during his vacation in Florida, but it was good enough. Being famous *while* defying the Milieu seemed to be a bad idea though. Le Fishe wrote and published his first short story collection for kids and his first long novel, which established his name in the modern literature scene.
Le fishe 12:
Is the karma from his previous wrongdoings finally biting him in the back? The Milieu finally came after Le Fishe: in a gang shootout his wife was killed and he himself was heavily wounded and barely got saved by Le Frogé who happened to be staying nearby on a business trip. No one knows where Le Fishe went after this and most people believe he's dead. No known literature works from Le Fishe has been published since then.
Le frogé:
Coming to Paris at the age of 16 from an eastern european country the busy people in the metropolis couldn't be bothered to remember the name of, no one's quite sure why Le Frogé got involved with the Milieu in the first place - maybe one day he stole a few baguettes from a boulangerie because he was hungry and had no money and that got the local gangs interested in his abilities, but deep down in his heart, he has always been secretly hating it. He came to know Le Fishe at a small bar, when a brawl happened and Le Fishe, being the bartender of that night, handled the situation smoothly; he later found out they have done work for the same gang. At first Le Frogé did not trust Le Fishe and believed that he was just another gangster wannabe, but when he realized that's not the case, he softened his attitude quite a bit; after all, in a big city like this, it's hard to get a friend as loyal and sincere like Le Fishe. It was said that some time between Le fishe 10 and Le fishe 11 his mom died and he went back home to live with his babushka, but since he completely disappeared from the streets of Paris and no one outside of the country reported any sightings of him, it's hard to say that's exactly what happened. He tried to quit cigarette (a habit he learned to oppress his hunger) but never succeeded.
Le fishe au chocolat & Le fishe de la toilette:
Le Monguêt, a nosy-ass novelist, got part of the life story of Le Fishe from the landlady during his stay in Paris and interpolated a two-part novel about Le Fishe's romantic life from it. Sold decently well when the first half of the Le Fishe's First Chronicle (i.e. Le fishe 1 ~ 6) was published - books about Le Fishe were very popular back then. The critics (or the Le Fishe connoisseurs, if you wish) said his novels were sacrilegious and Le Monguêt was trying to paint their literature hero in a bad light, but the public enjoyed the novel a lot. Likely to be adapted into TV drama and influence the next generation, metaphorically completing the Le Fishe cycle.
Le fishe au lava:
A 360+ page smut based on Le Monguêt's "Le fishe au chocolat" by an anonymous person on the internet (some people says it's Le Monguêt under a different pen name, but the language style is way too different to be considered as the same person) originally published on Archive Of Our Own. Got adapted into a movie (earlier than the original Le fishe au chocolat), and the author, unsurprisingly, turned out to be a white woman in her early thirties. After hearing the news about the movie adaptation, Le Monguêt believed that God was trying to send him a message and it's time to stop being so nosy. Rumor has it that Le Monguêt tried to invite the author for a date twice, but both attempt failed miserably. (By the way, if you really want to know this, Le Monguêt was 27 during this time.)
Le monguêt:
Le Monguêt tried to write about his life in the style of his earlier Le fishe works, sold an okay number of copies, was slandered a lot by the critics (partly due to his notoriety from his Le fishe novels) but the common reader doesn't seem to mind. In this half-novel half-autobiography, there's a part where he recounts his part-time job at a pub in New York when he's still a poor university student. There was this fish regular who sometimes shows up with a frog and speaks English with a hearty amount of French accent. He jokingly proposed the idea that this could be the "real" Le Fishe having moved to New York and his frog companion would be Le Frogé mentioned in Le fishe 6; but Le Monguêt also dismissed the idea, saying it could be just a coincidence.
Now, I admit, I did take a bit of creative liberty when writing "Le fishe au chocolat" and slightly exaggerated his joyous side, but holy hell does this man look unpleasant - it could be an age thing, I don't know. But one day my nosiness got the better of me and, instead of just serving him "ze usuale one" and say nothing, I went a bit further:
...
He sighed. "Back in Pari, I did a lot of bad zings, and a lot of bad zings happened. I zought I could escape, I zought afteur coming to ze US I could escape zem all, but ze bad memories, zey still remains and 'aunts me in my sleeps..."
Looking at his depressed face I did not pry further - sometimes it's best not to say anything.
-- From "Journal of a Monguêt: Recollections of the Past" by Le Monguêt
Le fishe 13:
After the publication of Le Fishe's Second Chronicle (i.e. Le fishe 7 ~ Le fishe 12), it was commonly inferred (or believed) that Le Fishe was dead at the end of Le fishe 12; but this doesn't stop other people wanting to make up new stories to lengthen his legacy. Alas, the interest of the public have long since moved on to something else, and it didn't made much of an impact. Some people confronted Le Monguêt about this but he said he had absolutely nothing to do with this.
But wait, who compiled Le Fishe's Chronicles?
Le Fishe sometimes posts pictures of nearby sceneries on social media; presumably this is how the Milieu found out where he lived (which resulted in the gang shootout in Le fishe 12). At the same time, a small group of very passionate fans of Le Fishe did the same thing. When the news of the shootout came out, they immediatelly started investigating and found the hospital Le Fishe was sent to; but when they asked the hospital about Le Fishe the hospital never properly replied; this is why Le Fishe's death was inconclusive in Le fishe 12. Without a clear, feasible goal to focus on, some people from the investigator group moved on to reconstruct Le Fishe's early life from his works, interviews and other materials; this eventually lead to the publication of Le Fishe's First Chronicle.
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