Lou! is a comic book (and later animated series) created by French artist Julien Neel starring Lou, an initially tween girl who grows up throughout, and her single mom, an aspiring Space Opera writer (who gets published eventually). The comic started out as a gag series, but from the second volume onwards, it focuses on story and continuity, with more characters being introduced and existing ones getting more important roles.
The animated series consists of 52 episodes of 11 minutes each, based on the first volume of the comic. For unknown reasons, the series did not continue past that.
A live-action film, directed by Neel himself, was released in France on October 8, 2014. Said film is mostly based on the first comic volume while also adding characters who appeared on later volumes.
The comic book reached the end of its "first season" with the eighth volume, published in 2018, with the "second season" beginning with the ninth volume, Sonata 1, in 2020.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Clément Fifrelin has been this to Lou's mother since they were teens.
- Adaptational Comic Relief: In the comic, Jean-Jean is a sweet, well put together guy, but still an overall typical teenager. In the movie, he's younger and much shorter than the others, comically posh and acts Wise Beyond Their Years.
- Adaptation Expansion: The animated series stays pretty faithful to the comic book, but has a lot of added material.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: The movie essentially covers events of book 1, 3 and 4 - all in the context of book 1.
- Dazzler, Isocelle and Isohélie appeared in the movie adaptation before being featured in book 7, which was in development at the time.
- Aerith and Bob: In a setting where people have fairly ordinary names such as Karine or Richard, the twins Isohélie and Isocelle (terms used in graphic editing software and geometry, respectively) kind of stick out like a pair of sore thumbs.
- Fulgor's name is also an unusual one, but makes sense in-universe given that he is named for the male hero in his mother's sci-fi novel.
- All There in the Manual:
- Always Identical Twins: Isohélie and Isocelle, suggested.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Marie-Emilie very clearly sees her parents as this, especially her mother, to the point where she lashes out in a rather theatric fashion. She calms down significantly after book 4.
- In a similar but lesser vein, Lou mentions in book 3 that she has delimited a certain perimeter around her school that her mother is not to cross. This is brought up again in book 5 and Lou admits that in hindsight it was a silly thing to do.
- Animal Companion: Lou's nameless cat is a constant to the point where she brings him along to the seaside villa in book 4. In book 8, she befriends a seemingly stray dog she keeps bumping into, and names him Philippe.
- Bickering Couple, Peaceful Couple: Appears to be the case with Lou/Tristan and Mina/Jean-Jean at first, but it turns out to be the complete opposite, with Mina and Jean-Jean constantly picking fights with each other to the point where they keep breaking up and making up, whereas Lou and Tristan, admittedly rather indecisive on the "couple" part, actually do genuinely get along the majority of the time.
- Big Beautiful Man: Paul. He's a rather chubby 14-year old, and grows up to be on the more athletic side of Stout Strength.
- Big Damn Kiss: Lou's mom plants one on Richard when he comes to meet them at the railway station at the end of book 2.
- Book Ends:
- Book 1 opens with Lou spying on Tristan from the top of her apartment building as her mom pops around to see what she's doing. At the end of the book Lou is back up on the roof looking down at the now empty apartment where Tristan used to live as her mom comes around to see what she's doing.
- Book 5 begins with Lou and her mom watching their apartment building go up in flames, and ends with a flashback of the exact same shot some 10 years prior, on the day they first moved in.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Marie-Emilie. Karine calls her out on this in book 4, after which Marie drops the act a bit and develops a real bond with her mother.
- In the past, Lou's mom.
- Butt-Monkey: Clément Fifrelin just cannot catch a break, from making a fool of himself in front of his longtime crush (who still thinks he's a loser) to his unfortunate habit of stabbing himself in the eye with a straw. By the latest volumes, he has had some kind of midlife crisis, quit his very comfortable and respectable job as a doctor and appears to be midway through getting all of his past plastic surgery reversed.
- Cats Are Mean: Lou's cat encompasses every flaw cats have with few of the qualities. He's immediately affectionate towards Jeanne, that said.
- Canon Foreigner: Joss, Mina's mother, is completely original to the cartoon. She didn't appear in the books and was only mentioned during her divorce.
- Canon Immigrant: All of Lou's neighbors that are original to the animated series make a small appearance at the beginning of volume 5.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Lou and Tristan, as well as Lou's mom and Richard, all in the first album.
- Comic-Book Time: Averted. Lou is 12 years old in the first volume, but by the eighth volume she is 18.
- Connected All Along: Lou's friend Paul and Marie-Emilie's girlfriend Dazzler are very offhandedly revealed to be cousins, whose grandfather very unexpectedly turns out to be Arcimboldo Parmentier, the referenced architect from book 4.
- In book 6, a big restaurant chain pops up in the wake of the "crystallopocalypse" that goes by the very simple name of Logan. In the next book, Lou finds an old picture of her mom and a strange boy who appears to be wearing Paul's bead necklace. His name? Logan.
- Cool Big Sis: Lou, being 14 when her brother is born, helps her mom take care of him.
- In book 8 and the new Sonata series, she becomes a big sister figure to Jeanne, who unbeknownst to either of them, is actually her half-sister.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Can be debated. Lou is the result of a Teen Pregnancy, and her father was likely not much older. While he was genuinely in love with her mother, even hoping for a future with her, he was simply not ready for fatherhood and knew it. Lou's mom insisted to keep the baby, and while it broke both of their hearts, they broke up. It's implied that he let her stay in the studio apartment that was originally his.
- December–December Romance : By book 7, Lou's grandma and her old neighbor and screaming match partner, Mr Cassagne. When he dies in Sonata 1, she is devastated for a while.
- Deconstructed Trope: As shown in Sonata 1, Lou may have become a bit too comfortable with the coming-of-age, philosophical Tone Shift of books 6 to 8. Turns out that when you crash a friend of a friend's group hangout to tell them your whole life story, they might not be too enthralled and just want you to leave.
- Deus Sex Machina: The Genre Shift ends in book 8 for seemingly no reason... right after Lou has her first sexual experience.
- Dramatic Irony: So far, Lou has no idea that Jeanne and her brother are her half-siblings. Her friend Nour actually seems under the impression that Jeanne is Lou's little sister, and doesn't pay attention when she tries to correct him.
- Disappeared Dad
- Lou's father. It is known what he looks like, however, because he appears in both flashbacks and in present-time cameos.
- Richard ends up abandoning Fulgor before he's even born, and the last we see of him is his self-imposed exile to a cave in his hometown.
- Doting Parent: Lou's grandma, overly critical of her daughter especially on a good day, does a full 180 the day the first volume of Sidera hits the shelves. She charges down to the nearest bookstore and proceeds to purchase fourteen copies of the novel, loudly boasting that “My daughter wrote this!” before she heads to the village market for some pro bono advertising. When Lou's mom returns to her hometown for a book fair (as part of a book signing tour that has so far been an utter fiasco), the whole town throws a parade in her honor with her mother in the front lines, royally chuffed and keenly reminding everyone that "That's my daughter!"
- In book 5, upon learning that her daughter was pregnant again as she gave birth, she not only raced to the maternity ward, but also shout-comforted her daughter as she was having a nervous breakdown about winding up a single mother for the second time.
- Downer Ending:
- Subverted in the last episode of the animated series, which parallels the last pages of the first comic volume. Lou finally gets the courage to reveal her feelings to Tristan and makes a pact with her mother in which she will also promise to reveal her feelings to Richard, but neither of them are ultimately capable of that. Richard leaves for a camp without knowing Lou's mother's feelings, while Lou panics at a party she was attending with Tristan. Lou then decides to show her feelings by going to Tristan's apartment with a painting she made for him, but opens the door to find the apartment empty (Tristan had moved to another city, and due to Lou's panic at the party he didn't have the chance to tell her), then drops the painting and tears form in her eyes at this. However, Lou concludes that all of her experiences throughout the year ultimately made her appreciate the fact that other people, such as her mom, Mina and Richard, like her the way she is. The episode ends with an optimistic Lou saying ''Well, it's summer, life is beautiful, let's enjoy it!''.
- The fifth volume of the comic ends with Lou's mother, who got pregnant again, this time from Richard, eventually getting abandoned by him just like it happened with Lou's father, as apparently Richard suffered a mental breakdown and ran away to hide in his natal town on a cave. Richard does not appear in the following volumes, where his and Lou's mother's child, named Fulgor, has grown to be around 5 years old by the eighth volume.
- Early-Bird Cameo: During the Christmas part of the first book, we get a vignette of Lou's father taciturnly celebrating Christmas with his wife and children. Lou meets them in book 8, and her half-sister Jeanne becomes a prominent character, but at this point none of them know they are related.
- Elderly Ailment Rambling: Lou's grandmother casually talks about her varicose problems to anyone in the vicinity, even right after dinner.
- Establishing Character Moment: All over book 3, Karine is only shown as aggressive when not completely boring. At the end of the book, she turns out to be the only one who actually understands Lou's teenage turmoil.
- Fake High: In book 7, Tristan takes a sip of what he thinks is Liquid Courage (actually just beetroot cordial) and appears to finally confess to Lou, before he proceeds to act completely sloshed and plants one on Dazzler, who furiously decks him.
- Fanboy: Manolo and Preston are huge fans of the Sidera books, and practically worship Lou's mother.
- Fictional Earth: The series is set in a sort of alternate France, which is discreet when it's just about making up small towns - less so in Sonata 1 when Lou moves Tygre (counterpart of Lyon: a major city with a feline name and a similarly random Y stuck in the middle.).
- First-Name Basis: To the point that we only know the last name of Marie-Emilie (because her parents are initially adressed as Mr and Mrs Garsillac) and eventually Richard (Bréal, which Lou writes on the package when she sends him the journal her mom kept when she was pregnant with her).
- Forgettable Character: Poor Groseille (which means "redcurrant") can never seem to get anyone to remember her name in book 6, and Lou and her mom alternately name her after other kinds of small fruits, namely Framboise ("raspberry"), Myrtille ("blueberry") or Cerise ("cherry"). This to the point where Lou's mom introduces Groseille as:Lou's Mom: This is my assistant who has a fruity name.Groseille: Groseille. It's Groseille.
- Framing Device: Lou's diary entries, which open and close every volume of the series.
- Full-Name Basis: Clément Fifrelin is always Clément Fifrelin to Lou's mom.
- Genre Shift: The sixth volume takes the series in a sci-fi, solarpunk, post-apocalyptic Mind Screw direction. The seventh and eighth ones, however, are a return to its original direction. All this parenthesis served as symbolism for Lou's self-discovery: since the outside world had litterally shut down, she was able to focus on introspection.
- Girls Like Musicians: Lou and her mother both seem to have a thing for men who can play a stringed instrument: Lou's father and Tristan both play the guitar, Richard plays the cello and Paul plays the ukulele.
- Good Stepfather: Richard and Lou get along swimmingly and she is ecstatic to find out that he and her mom are having a baby. It all comes crashing down at the end of book 6 when Richard has some kind of nervous breakdown and flees back to his hometown, leaving his pregnant girlfriend and unborn child behind.
- Happy Dance: This is one of Lou and her mom's traditions when something good happens, and Richard joins in when the first volume of Sidera is published and put on sale in a bookstore.
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Lou's mother's Author Avatar, space amazon Sidera, certainly seems to be this. Although her Sidera stories were apparently good enough to get published.
- A Hero to His Hometown: Lou's mom fully expects to have become the laughing stock of Mortebouse following her badly organised and underwhelming book signing tour, with her disapproving mother in the front row; much to her surprise, the whole town has gathered to welcome and celebrate her... with her uncharacteristically thrilled mother in the front row.
- Clément Fifrelin's claim to fame is winning a regional golf tournament, immortalized by a newspaper cutting referring to him as "a native son" of Mortebouse. Lou's grandma is definitely impressed. Lou and her mom still think he's lame.
- Funnily enough, Arcimboldo Parmentier is a subversion, since no-one in Mortebouse seems remotely impressed, let alone aware, of his architectural career, jet setting or even of the controversy associated with his name. Not even Parmentier's grandson is aware of his exploits, and is even a little embarrassed that they named the village library after his grandfather.
- Heroic Bastard: Lou never knew her father, as he left his girlfriend right after she told him she was pregnant.
- Heroic BSoD: In book 3, Lou is already struggling with the general confusion of puberty, and between her lovestruck mom, the increasingly distant Mina, and the completely self-absorbed Marie-Emilie, she has no one but her therapist to confide in, compounded by the fact that she isn't entirely over Tristan's very abrupt departure back in book 1, and Paul, the one person she thinks she could talk to about these things, lives in place that doesn't have cell reception. At one point, without giving any warning, she seeks out refuge in the bus graveyard, which is essentially a municipal dumping ground for crashed buses, curls up between the metal carcasses and dozes off as the rain begins to pour.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Manolo and Preston are joined at the hip, and Lou covertly isn't actually sure which one is Manolo and which one is Preston.
- Hidden Depths: Initially, Tristan has none, it's the whole joke : while Lou obsesses over him and their relationship, he's your typical 12-year-old boy, who likes his video games and his music and not much else. Later as they grow up, he becomes more cocky and even somewhat asshole-ish. This is revealed to be a façade to hide his fears of the future and insecurities, both about his looks and his personality. Unfortunately, this reveal does not endear him to Lou, as it explains his behavior, but certainly does not excuse it.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Lou's family's hometown is an insanely boring village in the deep countryside called "Mortebouse" ("Dead dung").
- Identical Stranger: As of yet undisputedly the case between Gjörd the Swedish eye patch guy and Richard, who is still MIA.
- Important Haircut: Lou cuts her trademark long blond hair short in Sonata 1, to signify the extent to which the series and its tone are changing.
- Lou's mother is an offscreen example when she gets rid of her trademark bangs sometime during the events of book 8; this makes for such a dramatic change that Lou barely recognizes her when she finally comes home from her trip.
- Interquel: The seventh comic book volume, La Cabane, is set between volumes 5 and 6.
- In-Universe Nickname:
- Lou's mom couldn't remember Marie-Emilie's name with a gun to her head, and calls her "Marie-Machin" (or "Marie-Thingy"). She actually leans into it. Her friends occasionally call her Marie.
- Lou's mom calls her "Louloute".
- It Runs in the Family: Lou's mother, grandmother and late grandfather all need glasses, and Lou herself winds up needing a pair of her own in book 7. Also lampshaded by Lou herself that for some reason neither her mother nor grandmother could keep track of a roll of kitchen towels if it bit them on the nose.
- It Was a Gift:
- Of the memory-triggering kind, the vintage boots Lou borrows from her mother in book 3. When she rides the subway with them, the man in front of her recognizes them as the boots he once stole, having no money, because his girlfriend wanted them so bad... just before she told him they were about to become parents. Lou gets off the train before her father has any chance to interact with her.
- In book 5, all of Lou's possessions burn in the fire that ravages her apartment building, except for the green bead necklace Paul gifted her, which she was wearing. The realization makes her very emotional.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Lou's Grandma is a mean old harpy who never has a nice thing to say about anyone (except perhaps Clément Fifrelin), but she does love her daughter and granddaughter, and wants them to be safe and happy. She becomes markedly nicer in Sonata.
- Karine may look and sound gruff, but she is by far the most empathetic of the girls, actually displays kindness and respect to sweet Mrs Garsillac, and manages to bond with all sorts of people who feel at odds with their lives, like Lou or her eventual boyfriend Mr Juice.
- Just Friends: After a long time of introspection and conversation about their relationship over the years, Lou and Tristan have decided to be this by Sonata 2, calling it an "appeased status quo".
- Kids Love Dinosaurs: Fulgor is a toddler and a big part of his personality is his love for dinosaurs.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Lou's mom initially wanted to call her Sidéra, the name of the main character of her novel. Lou thinks the change was for the best, and that a book titled Lou! never would have sold well.
- In Sonata 2, Lou and Tristan give their friends a long exposé about the ins and outs of their relationship over the years.
Manolo: You should write a book about this.Tristan: We've actually thought about it... But would read that? - Lethal Chef: Lou's mom, bless her heart, cannot cook to save her life.
- Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Both the fathers of Lou's mother's children seemed like nice, reliable guys. But neither of them were prepared to accept the responsibility of fatherhood. Lou's father got some offscreen Character Development though, as he now has a wife and two children. He doesn't seem to be on the best terms with them lately, however, and he can be interpreted as riddled by guilt over his Parental Abandonment.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: A more subtle example than most. The first place Lou visits in her travel in book 8 is a houseshare filled with travelers and lost people hosted by the unbelievably chill Violette and Pyjama. Lou keeps losing track of time in this place, which seems to have everything she could ever want (friends, fun, video games and daily adventures). It even seems that she's not the only local to feel like she was stopped dead in her tracks on a larger quest. When she finally musters the strength to leave, she's spent over six weeks in a house where she was just supposed to stay for a couple of nights.
- Make-Out Kids: Jean-Jean and Mina.
- Meaningful Name: When Lou's mom became pregnant with her, her mother sent her all of her personnal savings, stating that even if she disapproves, she would never abandon her, as her own mother would never have abandonned her either. Lou is therefore named after her great-grandmother, Louise.
- Missed Him by That Much: This happens a few times between Lou and her biological father, once on public transport, a second time when she serendipitously happens upon his wife and kids during her gap year, and once more when he comes to pick his (legitimate) daughter up at the station in Tygre, with Lou remaining none the wiser. Invoked and ultimately subverted in Sonata part 2, where after a very hectic day spent running around trying to find different people, it turns out that Lou's mother and grandmother have actually seen the man with their own two eyes, and conspire with Jeanne - in the loop and seemingly cool with it - to finally introduce Lou to her father.
- Money Slap: For the first two volumes, Lou's mother is broke and unable to pay rent. In the third volume, when she finally has her book published, she happily throws a wad of money at her landlady and shouts "Rent!" before scurrying off in triumph.
- Motor Mouth: Marie-Émilie's biggest flaw in the earlier volumes is her tendency to talk at people instead of to them about subjects that don't necessarily interest anyone else. She wises up to it in book 4 and later drops the habit.
- Ms. Fanservice: Lou's mother. Cleavage and panty shots of her are abundant - although they are meant to express comfort more than sensuality. As Lou grows into a young adult, she gets her fair share of them too.
- Never Given a Name: Lou and her mom never manage to settle on a name for their cat. By book 2, they decide to change his name every week.
- No Accounting for Taste: Seems to be the case with Lou's grandparents, two fairly miserable people who hadn't known each other all that long before they decided to settle for one another. In the present, her grandfather has been dead for quite some time, and her grandmother doesn't appear to mourn him too much.
- No Name Given: The handsome glasses guy in book 6. He reappears in Sonata part 2, and we still don't know his name.
- Jeanne is the only member of her family whose name the audience knows.
- Lou's grandmother's name is never brought up, which she has in common with her daughter.
- No Sparks: In the movie, Lou finally shares a kiss with her long-time crush Tristan, but to her confusion and dismay she feels nothing at all. A variation occurs in book 5, where she and Tristan decide to test the waters and share a kiss, and they both agree that something feels off.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Mr Juice, who is never seen out of his fruity mascot costume. Also likely to be the case with Dazzler, which sticks out in a setting where everyone for the most part has an ordinary name.
- Operation: Jealousy: Lou and Tristan attempt to pull this on each other in book 4 by roping Paul and Marie-Emilie into their situation, with mixed results.
- Pair the Spares: In Sonata part 2, we find out that Paul somehow got together with Marylène, a florist Lou befriended in book 8.
- Parental Abandonment: Having been abandoned by his own parents as a child, Lou's grandfather had few qualms in disowning her mother over her Teen Pregnancy. By the time of the series, he's long dead, and there's no evidence they ever made up.
- Practically Different Generations: Lou is fourteen when her little brother Fulgor is born, and she goes off to college when he is about five or six.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Karine has a gender flipped, French version of this going on when she's introduced in book 3.
- Relationship Revolving Door: By the time book 6 rolls around, Jean-Jean and Mina have split up and got back together approximately 36 times. Mina doesn't mind, since it just means that they got 36 first kisses out of it.
- Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: Invoked with posh doctor Clément and new age hippie Richard, respectively, for the affections of Lou's mom, but ultimately defied because Clément never had a chance to begin with.
- The Runaway: Lou's mom ran away from home at age 16 with a bunch of strangers, leaving nothing but a letter, and only recontacted her parents months later to tell them that she was pregnant and alone in the city. When Lou doesn't show up for dinner in book 3, her mother is afraid she ran away, and breaks down when Marie-Emilie, equally terrified and always as dramatic, exclaims that she may have killed herself.
- Satellite Love Interest: Other than being Lou's lifelong crush and eventually her boyfriend, Tristan has not had much focus throughout the series, and all that is seen of him besides his relationship with Lou is that he plays guitar and is an avid gamer. In the sixth volume, Lou is still angry about his unspecified "thing with the redhead" (it is revealed in book 7 that he had a meltdown and started utterly deriding love as a concept, before passionately declaring his love to Lou... and then to anyone within reach, including the cat and Dazzler, who is somewhat red-headed). He is barely, if at all, mentioned in the eighth volume and Sonata 1. To boot, Lou still has conflicted feelings for Paul, and may or may not be exploring bisexuality with Marie.Tristan, on the train platform: I'm going on a trip. My train leaves from the platform opposite in two minutes.Lou: Well, I'm back from my trip. And my train is leaving right now!Tristan: Story of our lives!
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Lou's Grandma.
- Shipper on Deck: Lou ships her mom and Richard.
- Lou's grandmother ships her daughter with Dr. Clément Fifrelin. While he certainly isn't opposed to it, she's a different story altogether.
- Jean-Jean and Mina are very firmly aboard the Lou/Tristan train, and routinely try to give their respective best friends the push they need to actually get a relationship going.
- Sitting on the Roof : Lou and her mom love doing that in their appartment building.
- More figuratively, in book 3, the building next door gets demolished and becomes what Lou refers to as a Bus Graveyard, a creepy place she finds solace in. In book 5, we learn that her mom felt the same way about a great tree in her hometown, which becomes the setting for the eponymous "Treehouse" in Book 7.
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Lou's Mom and Richard have a bit of this going on inbetween books 3 and 4. Also Jean-Jean and Mina in Sonata part 2.
- Stalker with a Crush: Lou is introduced in book 1 spying on Tristan with a pair of binoculars, and it is quickly established that this is a habit of hers. The movie takes this a step further with Lou actually taking pictures of Tristan without his knowledge, and even collecting his discarded pizza hot sauce pouches, which by her own admission is kind of gross.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Both Lou and Jeanne clearly take after their father, and as such they look almost like clones. Everyone who meets them assumes that they're sisters, though they all learn the truth only at the end of Sonata 2.
- Struggling Single Mother: Lou and her mom actually aren't struggling too hard - her mom is a certified translator in Syldavian, which makes her rather unique on the job market, and her publisher trusts her enough to pay her prior to getting the actual manuscript. The real struggle was a few years back, when Lou's mom had to get an education and work part-time jobs while raising a baby on her own. When her novel takes off in Book 5, they even become rather comfortable.
- Teen Pregnancy: If you subtract Lou's age from her mother's, that makes her pregnant at around 17, as the fifth volume's flashbacks establish. This is actually addressed and seen in the first volume of the comic and in one episode of the TV series, where Lou tells to Mina how her parents met, how her father abandoned her mother and how they have lived happily despite that.
- Tone Shift: The series starts as a down to earth, one-page-comic comedy, and slowly evolves into a more character-focused, introspective, even somewhat fantasy-ish coming-of-age story. Also society collapsed at one point. But it's better now, thanks for asking.
- Tough Love: While she does love her daughter, Lou's grandmother's firm belief in this has unquestionably complicated their relationship, and she isn't much nicer to her granddaughter. She takes a drastically different approach in Sonata part 1, where she is shown to be a doting grandmother to Fulgor.
- Twice Shy: Lou's mom and Richard towards the end of the first album.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: Most episodes of the show contain a B-plot focusing on Lou's mom.
- Unnamed Parent: We never really do find out what Lou's mother's name is.
Word of God says it isn't Emma. On the back cover of the third volume, her book is authored by "Graëtzel Blondilla", but it's likely a pseudonym. - Vitriolic Best Buds: Lou thinks of her friendship with Mina as type 2 of this trope. According to the sleeve notes, they are the only ones who tolerate each other's bad attitude. As of book 3, Marie-Emilie and Karine, who obviously have difficulties making friends too, join their group.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Lou's mother's... uh, creativity extends to her ideas for prospective baby names, and she goes from "Ninja Laser" to "Mongo Elvis" before finally settling on "Fulgor", which is tamer, but no less outlandish. Lou points out to her mother that she did okay with her name, to which her mother tells her that she was originally going to be named "Sidera" before she decided to use the name for the heroine of her novel. Lou is understandably relieved.
- Will They or Won't They?: Lou and Tristan. It's been 6 years in universe, more than that if you count the years they spent spying on each other as kids, and they're still basically at the same point. Mostly, this is because of Tristan's insecurities and Lou's complicated feelings regarding Paul.
- Subverted with Mina and Jean-Jean. They have been exclusive for four years, and it's clear they already "do". The "off" part in their "on-and-off" relationship is more of a game to them. As Mina said, 36 breakups means as many first kisses.
- Write Who You Know: Lou's mom does this in-universe, basing many characters from her books on the people around her, such as:
- Prince Fulgor : Richard, her crush and eventual boyfriend.
- Neptuna, Witch of the Abbyss : A woman selling fish on the market.
- The Highly Revered Guardian of Knowledge : Her own mother.
- Fifrelus the Polymorphous Gastropod : Clément Fifrelin.
- Writers Cannot Do Math:
- Six years have passed between book 1 and book 8, but Jeanne and her brother have aged at least ten years.
- Lou's mother was 17 when she had her, but her teen journal reveals that her waters broke in the middle of a university lecture. Also, what university lecture? Lou's birthday is in the middle of summer.
