#me after reading accourir v. intr. auxil. être: WHO CAN I TELL ABOUT THIS I NEED TO TELL SOMEONE ABOUT THIS--

[coquelicoq]

imagined conversation between two anglophone members of the french dictionary fandom:

1: ooh so which adaptation are you reading

2: le robert de poche (1995), but i read a lot of fic first so i have the general idea

1: wait how far into the A's are you? i wanna talk about something but i don't know if you're there yet...

2: just finished with achalandé(e) ^^

1: okay so you read accourir already?

2: omg YES i can't believe it takes être! what the fuck!!

1: i know right! plot twist of the century!!!

2: really didn't see that coming! can't wait to finish so i can read some meta. like at this point i can't see any connection with the other être verbs but i'm sure others in the fandom have some great thoughts about it...

1: what did you think of accès? i remember being really thrown by the medical meaning

2: oh actually that word showed up a ton in this one fic i read (le comte de monte-cristo) so i was spoiled for that one haha. but yeah i was really confused when i first saw it for sure !

1: that's so funny that you read fic before you read the dictionary. like you must have been so confused by like...everything.

2: oh definitely. i was like okay i'm not totally sure what's happening here, i'm just vibing 😎 i'm now finding out which of my internal characterizations are just totally OOC. like all this time i really latched on to the "hang up" meaning of accrocher and had so much trouble making sense of the others, but i saw the word "crochet" in the definition and now they're all starting to hang together (get it? hang together? haha)

1: haha. yeah it's such a great feeling to see the related words and suddenly things start clicking. the narrative parallels! and omg don't even get me started on when they list antonyms. just straight up telling you about the character foils...

2: totally. it's so satisfying. the one thing that takes some getting used to is the non-linear storytelling...like when the definition includes words from later in the alphabet. i'll admit to sometimes skipping ahead to look those up. don't cancel me!!

1: omg no i think we all do that lol. like it's impossible otherwise.

2: oh okay whew that makes me feel better

1: even on the reread i have to do that. the book is so long and there are so many characters and plot points i literally cannot remember all of them. it'll get easier as you go but definitely don't expect to have all of them down, that's ridiculous!

2: wow i'm so glad i said something because i've lowkey been ashamed of it haha. or on the other hand when i already know a word because it's the same in english i feel like i'm cheating lol. like i'm not experiencing it the way it was meant to be experienced?

1: bro idk how to tell you this but i think the dictionary was meant to be experienced by people just looking up random words one at a time lol. like we are so far past worrying about the intended experience, it's totally irrelevant to us. death of the author babey!

2: no no, you're right, you're right. i just needed to hear it from someone else haha

1: lol i'm here for you! anyway lemme know when you finish and i'll send you a link to the discord...it's full of spoilers so you'll want to avoid it for now but someday you really gotta experience the shipping in this fandom. it is. bananas

2: bananes if you will

1: ...okay i don't want to spoil you but this may be one of those OOC situations you were talking about

2: bananes doesn't mean bananas???

1: no, it does! just like, for the fruit. it doesn't really have the same colloquial meaning. i mean, it does have colloquial meanings, but they're not quite the same? there's nuance

2: oh gotcha

1: i can tell you more but it would be a spoiler

2: no that's okay, i mean the B's aren't too far off

1: i'm actually not sure if robert de poche 95 gets into it...you might have to look at some other adaptations?

2: no worries, i've also got some french-english dictionaries that i can turn to

1: ooh crossovers!

2: it's funny, usually i'm not into crossovers but idk, there's something about dictionaries that makes crossovers so interesting??

1: yeah i feel you! the dictionary fandoms have SUCH a high incidence of crossovers relative to other fandoms...you're definitely not alone in that.

2: oh sweet. well i am dying to get back to my reading because i'm almost to s'acharner and i've been soooo curious about that one, like it has always been so mysterious to me when i've seen it in fics. can't really get a bead on it. but tysm for talking to me about this!!! no one in my real life cares about this book and i think they're getting tired of my ramblings haha

1: of course!! happy to talk anytime. and i'm so excited for you to get to s'acharner, it's my poor little meow meow <3 godspeed!

2: à tout à l'heure!

1: wow look at you! a T and an H!

2: yeah i just picked those up from osmosis haha. did i use them in character?

1: yeah that was really good! how long have you been reading fic in this fandom??

2: about twenty years

1: ...

1: jesus christ

the great thing about reading the french dictionary cover to cover is that now whenever someone says a word i don't know i can be like "no spoilers please! i'm still in the A's!!"