Fandom Glossary Continued
“/”: Used as shorthand to link two (or more) characters in a romantic relationship. The standard example is, of course, Kirk/Spock, but it can be used for any combination of characters: Harry/Ginny, Ben/Kate/Sawyer, Sweeney Todd/knives and so on. Also see: Slash.
Pairing: A romantic relationship between two characters. Many authors will list which pairings their fic will include in the summary.
OC: Short for “original character”. An OC is a character created by the fic author and inserted into canon. OCs as a whole receive mixed responses, although the reaction to any given OC typically depends on how prominent their role is, whether they are supplanting a canon character that could be used instead, and just how well they're written.
OOC: Short for “out of character”, used to describe when canon characters are not behaving in a manner that would be expected based on their canonically established characterization. Typically used in a derogatory sense, although some authors will use it as a tag when they’re writing something silly (such as crackfic). OOC can also be used in a role-playing setting to denote a post made while “out of character”, ie posting as oneself rather than the character being played.
Mary-Sue: A character, typically female, who takes over the story completely. Every other character is presented exclusively in terms of what their opinion of her is, every event is centered on her. Typically refers to a character who is so far beyond the rest of the cast in abilities, knowledge, and general Specialness that she can solve everything effortlessly. Generally presented as having no flaws or only flaws that don't actually hinder her. Tragic past that makes the other characters feel sorry for her (even if they’ve been through worse) and/or self-destructive tendencies (common in self-insert fics written by the middle school set) optional. The traditional Mary-Sue is an author self-insert, but it has become common for non-insert OCs to be labeled Mary-Sues as well. Some people will refer to canon characters who have gotten power upgrades/been made OOC/been unusually emphasized as Mary Sues, but this is a matter of some contention, as many canon characters are explicitly the center of the show, extremely powerful, etc. For further reading, including the Star Trek origins, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Mary_Sue. Want to know if you are writing/reading a Mary Sue? Check out: http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm
Gary Stu: The same thing as a Mary Sue, but for male characters. Technically, there’s nothing preventing a male character from being called a Mary Sue, but many people find it odd and use Gary Stu (or Marty Stu, or something along those lines) instead.
Self-Insert: An OC meant to represent the author, or in some cases be the author. There are three types of self-insert:
1) When the author uses their own name, likeness, personality, or history as the basis for an OC.
2) When the story is about the author entering the diegesis from the real world.
3) When the story is about the author interacting with the characters or setting as the author.
In terms of fic reception, the third variety is difficult to pull off well and requires a certain style of storytelling to work, the second is typically looked down on, and the first has all the potential issues of any other OC, plus the danger of the author trying to make her- or himself more influential, powerful, and beloved than the readers are willing to believe (See: Mary Sue).
Beta: Also known as a beta-reader, someone who will read over a fic in process and edit it, offer suggestions, etc. before the author publishes it.
Spoilers: Things that are supposed to be a surprise to first-time readers/viewers. Many people are annoyed when someone else tells them before they get a chance to see the work in question, and so spoiler warnings are customarily posted before discussing them. Rules vary widely on how long something is considered a spoiler-some communities only require spoiler warnings until the material has been released/aired in its home region, but others will continue to consider material a spoiler until it has been broadcast in another country or for a set period of time after airing/release. Spoilers are generally warned for (“SPOILER WARNING for episode X”), and either followed by a large amount of blank space forcing the reader to scroll down for the information or a link to the information (either on a separate page or by using a “cut” that when clicked on will expand the material). Short spoilers in an otherwise non-spoilery post may use a combination of text highlighting and font color to black or white-out the few words so they are only readable when the cursor is used to highlight that chunk of text.
Tag: A particular story element mentioned in the summary or author’s notes of a story to attract people who like that sort of thing. Tags are used to quickly and efficiently communicate what people are likely to find in a story. Some examples: Slash, AU, listings of pairings, genre, rating, and so on. On sites such as Delicious.com, AO3, and Livejournal, tags are a means of organizing posts: searching for a particular tag brings up all posts containing it, which is a popular method of finding stories of interest.
Triggers: Tags denoting story elements which people may find offensive or reminiscent of extraordinarily bad personal experiences. The name is derived from the way these can trigger severe stress and damaging emotional and physical reactions. Commonly “required” in works involving non-consensual sexual activity, graphic violence, suicide or suicidal thoughts, and addictions/eating disorders. The necessity of trigger warnings is sometimes contentious when such a warning would spoil a plot point in the fic, but it is generally accepted as courteous to at least post a vague note (even as simple as “possible trigger warning”, with perhaps a link to more detailed warnings available if the reader cares to investigate) if there is danger, as well as to promptly add such a warning if requested.
Types of Fanfic:
Gen: Non-romantic fanfiction.
Het: Fanfiction featuring a heterosexual relationship.
Slash: Male/male romantic or sexual relationship; can refer either to the relationship itself or the genre of fic featuring it.
The term “slash” originated when romantic fic began to be differentiated from gen!fic by labeling it “Character/Character” instead of “Character&Character” (the ampersand indicating that the fic was featuring these characters, but not in a romantic way). While any gender combination can be represented with Character/Character, “slash” typically refers only to a fic involving two men.
Femslash (or femmeslash): Female/female romantic or sexual relationship. Some people will include this under “slash”, but opinions are divided. Certain (usually older) fandoms will refer to this as altfic, short for alternative fiction, but though once the predominant term, this is becoming less common.
Oneshot: A self-contained fic, as opposed to one with chapters or multiple parts. Does not actually tell you anything about the length of the fic, merely how it is broken up.
Drabble: A short fic of exactly 100 words, originally conceived of as a writing exercise. (May also be used with modifiers such as “double drabble” or “triple drabble” for works of 200 and 300 words respectively.) Alternately, any short fic with less than 1000 words. The debate over which definition is correct is extremely heated.
RPF: Short for “real person fiction”, which is fic written about real people rather than characters--oftentimes the actors for a given fandom. RPF is controversial, as the people it’s being written about can find it, and not all of them are as understanding as the actors from Supernatural. (The two male leads are often written as a slash pairing. They are aware of this fact. So far, they haven’t made a big deal about it.) In some fandoms, it can be nearly or as popular as fiction written about the characters they portray. RPF can also be centered around people who do not play a character, such as musicians (often referred to as “bandom”) or TV personalities (Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert, anyone?).
Songfic: A fic centered around a particular song. Often, the lyrics are reproduced as part of the fic, but sometimes the author will simply recommend the song be listened to while reading. Not the same as filk.
Fixfic/Fix-it-Fic: A fic intended to fix a problem with the canon. Sometimes this is an error in the canon--a gaping plothole, characters contradicting themselves, and so on. It can also be a problem that the author has with the canon--disliking a character’s death or a particular plot twist or just the direction the canon is taking. Whatever the case, the fixfic is intended to solve the problem. Often, these are AUs (the “what if ____ changed/happened” variety), but sometimes the fic is intended to depict something that “did” happen during/without major changes to the canon, simply taking place offscreen.
Crackfic: Term used to describe fic where it looks as if it was written while the author was on crack--wild, ridiculous, and typically OOC. When done intentionally and well, the name’s a joke about how the fic is as good as crack. When it’s not, it’s a joke about how the author was clearly on crack when they wrote it. Sometimes written as crack!fic. Often overlaps with drunkfic.
Drunkfic: Fic written while drunk. Sometimes written as drunk!fic. Often overlaps with crackfic. Can also refer to fic entirely centered around the characters’ being drunk.
PWP: Short for either “Plot? What Plot?” or “Porn Without Plot”, depending on who you ask. They both mean the same thing: a story that has no plot beyond characters having sex.
Trope: A common element across fics. Tropes can be types of plots, plot elements, stock characters, and so on. Some common tropes include:
Genderswap: Deals with characters being or becoming a different gender. Lots of varieties of this: AUs where the entire cast is the opposite sex, AUs where specific characters are the opposite sex, AUs where specific characters were in disguise during canon and are secretly the opposite sex, stories where a character turns into the opposite sex in any of a variety of ways (magic, technology, mysterious medical condition).
Fuck or die: characters have to have sex, or they will die (due to something like Star Trek’s pon farr) or be killed
Sex pollen: magical horny-ness spores (or potion, or magic spell, etc.; pollen is used as
Alternative character interpertation: Presenting characters in a different manner than they were in canon. This may be in-character, and just a different point-of-view (the perspective of a villain, for instance, and why he thinks he’s doing the right thing), or out-of-character, where the good guys are actually evil and vice versa.
Zombies: Everything has zombies these days. Why would fic be any different?
Mpreg: Men getting pregnant. Often cracky, but also (rarely) can be done seriously to great effect.
Wing!fic: Everyone has wings.
Creature!fic: Characters either are or can turn into a supernatural creature (either at will, such as with Harry Potter’s animagi, or involuntarily, like werewolves). Used often in conjunction with some sort of soul bonding trope in the form of taking a mate.
Chibi!fic: Characters are miniature, extremely cute versions of themselves. Very popular in fan art or comics.
Soul bonding/soul mates: Used to indicate some sort of everlasting bond, possibly transcending time and reincarnations. The latter was explicitly established in the canon of Xena: Warrior Princess.
Hurt/comfort (often abbreviated h/c): A character is badly wounded (physically, mentally, emotionally, etc.) and then cared for by another. Often, but not always, a means of setting up a romantic relationship between the two characters. Much crossover with “magical healing cock”.
Telepathy: Can be intentional (a Vulcan initiating a mind meld), but trope form more often involves some circumstance awakening latent telepathy or creating a telepathic bond between characters. This telepathy allows each character access to the other’s deepest thoughts, including their hidden attraction to the other, and it goes from there.
Amnesia: A character gets amnesia of one kind or another. Typically bears little to no resemblance to the way amnesia actually works, and is often used to set up a romantic relationship.
First-time: The predominant relationship-setting in fanfiction; a story detailing the way that characters first got together. Though “first-time” implies sex, it is not a requirement for this label.
Magical healing cock: A character has undergone some sort of trauma or has a personal flaw that is cured when they consummate a relationship.
Forced marriage/fake relationship: Often to obtain some sort of benefit like diplomatic immunity or financial/status benefits. Starts as a farce (either with or without UST on the part of one or both), but evolves into a real relationship.
Deathfic: Fic about a character dying.
Time travel: What it says on the tin. There’s a subgenre of this called a “Peggy Sue”, where a character goes back in time to fix everything using their prior knowledge.
We Can’t Think Of What This Is Called: Characters discovering that there is fanfiction being written about them and commenting on it. This may or may not be self-aware fic; some fandoms, such as Supernatural, actually have this occur in canon.
Kid!fic: Focused on the children of the characters, or on the characters as children.
Self-aware fic: Where the characters are aware that they are in a fic.
General Fic Hosting Sites:
Fanfiction.net (aka The Pit of Voles): One of the most widely recognized fanfiction hosting websites, ff.net covers a wide variety of fandoms. There is no age restriction, quality control, or other kind of filter system for people to post. FF.net is a common introduction to fanfiction, but “veteran” fans tend to look down their noses at it in favor of hosting sites with some form of quality control. (When asking fans how to desctibe ff.net, the response was: Person A: “Don’t go there. Just... don’t.” Person B: “Unless drunk. There’s no filter system, no necessary beta’s, and my 13-yr old fic is still up there.” Person C: “And yet 95% of any Avatar: the Last Airbender fic is ONLY POSTED THERE, which is frustrating as all get-out.” Person B: “And don’t forget the plagiarism”.)
Livejournal (LJ): An online journal site, used for everything from blogging, to setting up communities for subjects ranging from news to knitting to fandom, to archiving fics. It’s a nexus for many fandom-related activities. Livejournal is notorious for not being understanding to fandom activities, banning users and removing fanfic and fanart without warning. This created the need for safe fan communities and (both directly and indirectly) created the journal services Journalfen, Insanejournal, and Dreamwidth, as well as the fic archive Archive of our Own.
Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization established by fans to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms. Relatively new, they are trying to legitimize the place of fanwork on the internet and create a legal haven.
Archive of Our Own (AO3): Run by OTW, AO3 is a multifandom fanfiction archive built on open-source archiving software designed and built by and for fans. It is hosted on servers owned by the OTW and therefore not vulnerable to a commercial hosting company deciding they don't like fanworks. One of the reasons that AO3 was created was due to the practice of hosting websites deleting fic without warning due to “explicit” or “homosexual” content.
Usenet: Now almost outdated, some say that the usenet was where fandom began on the internet. Usenet was a text only message board to which users could post and interact with each other. There are separate subdomains for many groups, such as “alt.startrek.creative”. Usenet was full of its own wank and flames, and it is a community in and of itself.
Fandom Specific Sites: Some fans will create their own web archives dedicated to a specific fandom or pairing. These archives can be hosted through Livejournal, etc in the form of a community, or can be entirely separate websites. The Harry Potter Fandom has many of these sites, each with a certain leaning, such as SugarQuill.com (Ron/Hermione), FictionAlley.com (Harry/Hermione, but now accepts all), the now defunct GryffindorTower.com (Harry/Ginny), and RestrictedSection.org (“Adult Fic”). The moderators of these sites can get in bitter flamewars with each other, and often relations between the sites (and the users of these sites) are not friendly.
Extra Reading: People and Situations
This is where we need your help! What do you think people should know about - or what do you want to tell them about? The LJ SixApart Drama? Amazonfail? Racefail? msscribe? A BNF? Your favorite fandom-specific drama? What about Yuletide? ComiCon? VividCon? This section doesn't need to be as 'formal' as the previous ones. Think of it as an appendix describing fandom situations. Terms should have already been defined, so don't worry about saying things however you need to phrase them. We've included an example below - comment with your additions! :)
Cassandra Claire (CassieClaire): Back around 2003 there was a BNF named CassandraClaire, or CassieClaire, who was internet-famous primarily for her “Very Secret Diaries” works in the Lord of the Rings fandom and her “Draco Trilogy” in the Harry Potter ‘verse. If you weren’t around then, it’s hard to imagine someone quite at her level. Basically, everyone knew who she was - or at least had heard of one of her fics - regardless of how new to the fandom you were. There’s no one quite at her level anymore, which is possibly a good thing - there were many flamewars and fan!wanks centered around her. If anyone who was in HP Fandom from 2002-2006 asks who the “biggest fandom plagiarist” is, odds are they’re referencing CassieClaire. CassieClare is now a legitimate published author of YA fiction (one of her books made #3 on the NYT Bestseller list), her works are sold in our campus bookstore (so weird), and she has removed the Draco Trilogy from the internet (although you can google around and find .pdf download links).