"Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la mort."

[dhampyresa]

1. I recently watched Lupin s2 e4 and the ease with which teen!Assane gets a map of the closed/forbidden/unofficial catacombes is LUDICROUS. He doesn't even ask! It gets handed to him by some rando!

Cataphiles are a notoriously secretive people. They hate "tourists", which is how they call anyone who's only going into the catacombes for cheap thrills or any reason beyond the love of it.

But also because. You know. It's illegal. Depending on where you are and how you got in, it can even be double or triple illegal! Most of them don't even have maps! Out of a gatekeepy desire to avoid "tourists" and also to show their catacombes knowledge chops (catachops?). And even the maps that do exist are often outdated, with tunnels and access points being created/blocked off regularly as part of the cataphiles/cataflics (police unit dedicated to patrolling the catacombes, not their official name) back and forth.

The best way to get into the milieu, as it were, is to know a guy who knows a guy, basically. And even then it's a crapshoot.

I'm also going to assume Guédira and the rest called for cataflics offscreen, because going into the catacombes without some way of knowing where you are or where you're going is a good way to end up like Philibert Aspairt.

There's a "gaslight gatekeep girlboss" joke lurking in here somewhere but hell if I can find it.

(Entry title taken from an inscription near the entry of the official catacombes. "Stop! Here is the empire of death.")

Comments

[yuuago]

Interesting catacombs facts! :O

[dhampyresa]

I am full of trivial and interesting facts! For example, cataphiles consider the first ticket/fine for trespassing you get to be your cataphile "diploma", lol.

[merit]

Main character syndrome, perhaps.

A section of a book I read feat. the catacombs but didn't really dovetail into the illegal aspects (which would have made it more interesting since I was getting skeeved at all the descriptions of enclosed spaces).

[dhampyresa]

I'm really curious about the book and what it said! Tell me more, please?

[merit]

Underland by Robert Macfarlane. I enjoyed it though the Paris section was only a smallish part of the book. Made me feel deeply claustrophobic.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm seconding the recommendation for this book — it's fantastic! Macfarlane was the person I was referring to in my own comment on this post.

[luzula]

Fascinating! I'd no idea there were such shenanigans going on with catacombs. Cataphiles and cataflics, huh.

[dhampyresa]

The catacombes are a place of fascinating shenanigans. According to the guy known by the guy I know, there a couple of cataphiles who meet up in a secret room every new year's to eat oysters and stick the shells into the walls.

[dolorosa_12]

I know (of) someone who got given access to the inaccessible parts of the Paris catacombs in exactly the way you describe — people within the community decided he was trustworthy enough to be taken with them into various secret underground places. But even he knew he wasn't being shown the full extent of what existed.

When it comes to Lupin, I just have to handwave this sort of thing as Assane being so lovely and charming that everyone just does what he wants, even when he was a teenager.

[dhampyresa]

I do know a guy who knows a guy! Or, more accurately, I know a guy who knew a guy, so sadly I am now left to my own devices lmao

Assane is very lovely and charming, but this was just a bit Too Extra for me. Oh, well. Show's still entertaining.

[schneefink]

Does it at least mean there are cool scenes taking place in the catacombs? Because I would watch those.

[dhampyresa]

Nah, not really. There a couple scenes in the catacombes, but they're pretty boring. Just people going through tunnels. Couple of bones. Surprisingly well-lit tunnels, even.

[schneefink]

Boo.