V. Glossary of Terms Useful in Decoding Slash Fan Fiction
Alternate Reality (AR): A story which transplants familiar characters into situations that are entirely different from canon. For example; an alternate reality fic might place Snape, a character from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, in a hospital as a surgeon and have Harry as his patient.
Alternate Universe (AU): Refers to stories that take place in a world that is different from the one in which the original story happens.
Angst: A piece that deals with raw emotions, anxiety, fear, and worry.
Archive: A collection of fan fiction saved and available on a website.
Author’s Notes (A/N): A section of the fan fiction usually located within the header. This section may include the inspiration for the story, a request for feedback, or a thank you to the author’s beta.
Badfic: One of two types of stories:
1) Fiction that is intentionally bad. It is often written to entertain, amuse, and educate the reader by pointing out common errors made by inexperienced writers.
2) Fiction that is unintentionally bad; the author thinks it's good.
BDSM: Stands for bondage, domination, and sado-masochism. This is helpful to know when reading the rating of a story.
Beta/Beta Reader: Someone other than the author of the fan fiction story who edits and comments on the story before it is published in any public form. A beta/beta reader checks the story for mechanical problems (grammar, spelling, punctuation) as well as for things like plot holes, characterization, etc.
Bottom: The more “passive” player in a sexual relationship between males; the individual on the receiving end of anal sex. A common term used among gay males but important in understanding slash.
Canon: A character, event, plotline, or etc that is found in the original text from which a fan fiction is based.
Challenge Fic: A story that is written in response to a challenge set forth by a member of the fan community.
Character Codes (letter/letter): Used by writers to inform a reader which canonical characters they have paired romantically in the story (i.e. K/S for a Kirk and Spock pairing from Star Trek or Q/O for a Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi pairing from Star Wars).
Character Death: A warning for readers that is placed in the header of a story in which one or more major characters die.
Crackfic: A fan fiction in which the concept is so out there, one wonders what the author was snorting when he/she wrote the story.
Cross-over, Crossover (CO): A piece that involves characters and or locations from more than one fandom (i.e. a story that features both Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings).
Curtainfic: Used to identify stories where the characters are in a very domestic “curtain buying” type of relationship.
Deathfic: A fic where one or more characters die or have just died, usually written to focus on how the remaining characters cope with the loss.
Disclaimer: Legal disclaimers which usually include the following information.
3.) The name of the original author of the idea, place, or character whose work it is
2.) That the fan fic author does not have any malicious intent, did not set out to slander the author or work, or some statement that declares that the author means no harm
3.) The statement that the fan writer is not making any profit from his/her story.
Double Drabble: A self-contained vignette of exactly 200 words.
Drabble: A self-contained vignette of exactly 100 words.
Episode Fix: Fan fictions that are written by a fan in order to fix something that happened in the original work that the fan does not like.
Episode Tag/Missing Scene: Stories that are written as a missing scene from the original work or as a continuation of the original work.
F/f: Used to inform a reader that the story contains slash pairings where both characters are female (female/female).
Fandom: Combination of the words fan and kingdom. A collective term used to describe all fans and their activities.
Fanfic, Fan Fic, Fanfiction, Fan Fiction: Any fiction story written by a fan about an existing TV show, book, movie, comic, etc. without permission from the original creators or intention of profit.
Fanon: Any information not contained within the canon that has been generally accepted as true by the fans.
Fanzine/‘zine: A magazine produced by fans that features both fan fiction and fan art. These publications were produced and paid for by the fans who created them. The money that was made from the sales were slightly less than or exactly enough to cover the cost of producing the ‘zines. This medium for reading and writing fan fiction still exists but has been nearly replaced by online communities and archives.
Feedback: Comments left by a reader of a story for the author. There are generally four types of feedback: praise, constructive feedback, constructive criticism, and flames.
Flame: To “flame” someone is to viciously insult them or their work in a manner that has little or no redeeming value. Also an insulting and rude comment often containing unnecessary comments aimed at a story or author. For example – ‘you suck’.
Fluff: Cute, sweet, light-hearted, and short fan fiction.
Gen: Abbreviation of the word “general.” Used to categorize any fan fiction that is suitable for all ages; a fiction that does not include sexual situations.
Half-drabble: A self-contained vignette of exactly 50 words.
Header: Information located at the top of any given fan fiction. This information can include the disclaimer, plot summary, author’s notes, dedications, and/or rating.
Het: Abbreviation of heterosexual. Used to label stories in which the romantic/sexual pairing takes place between characters of the opposite sex.
Hurt/Comfort (H/C): A fan-written story in which one character is harmed (physically or emotionally) and another must save that character, make him or her feel better, or both.
Kink: Informs the reader that a story’s sex scenes involve “non-normative” sexual practices (i.e. BDSM, urine play/golden showers).
Lurker: A member of a fan forum or community who rarely if ever posts or leaves comments. Generally lurkers are not looked kindly upon as they don’t pull any weight in the community by participating.
Mary Sue/Marty Stu: The generic name for any new character (usually female) who's an ego-stroke for the writer: she's beautiful, has amazing skills/powers, gets into a love affair with an existing character, or (usually) all of the above. Mary Sues often convince characters to hook up romantically, especially in slash. These characters are generally not considered to be well-written characters in the fan fiction communities. Mary Sue/Marty Stu can also be used to describe the author who put themselves into the story.
m/m: Used to inform a reader that the story contains slash pairings where both characters are male (male/male).
Mpreg: Used to denote stories that feature instances of male pregnancy.
Newbies: A newcomer (fan fiction writer or user) to any online group/place/genre.
Original Character (OC, OMC, OFC): A character that was created by the fan fic writer and is not found in the canon work. OMC is the abbreviation for these new characters that are male and OFC is used to denote female characters.
OTP: Written out as One True Pairing. The belief that a given fandom only contains one "real" couple and that any other pairing is preposterous
Out of Character (OOC): A fictional character acting in a manner not consistent with his/her personality as it is established in canon.
Plot Bunny: An idea or concept for a story.
Point of View (POV): In fanfic, a type of story told first-person from a character's point of view.
PWP: Stands for either “Plot? What Plot?” or “Porn Without Plot.” PWP is a story that is little more than a sexual encounter.
Ratings: Common in most fan fiction communities, ratings give the reader some ideas on the content of the story before they read the actually fic. Most common rating system used is based on the American Movie Guidelines.
· G: Good clean fun for all ages.
· PG: Mild implied sexual innuendo, mild bad words, violence, or serious (though not quite mature) topics.
· PG-13: Some violence, bad language, obvious sexual innuendo, implied sexual relations. Also may include some mature topics such as suicide, homosexuality,
of the fandom involved.
· R: Just-short-of-explicit sex, graphic torture or violence, rape. Not recommended for minors.
· NC-17: Explicit erotica, excessively gory violence. Often illegal for underage readers.
Real Life (RL): Usually will be found abbreviated and is often the reason given for a long break in between updates to a fan fiction series when an author finally returns to his/her normal activity level in the online fan community.
Real Person Slash (RPS): Slash stories in which the pairings are between the actors and not the characters of the original work.
Relationshipper/Shipper: This term originated in X-Files fan fic and is used to describe a fan who holds the relationship between two characters of their choosing to be better than other pairings.
Rim/Rimming: To perform foreplay on the anus with one’s tongue.
Schmoop: Term used to describe a story that is overrun with romanticism (i.e. flowers, pet names, chocolates, candles, etc).
Slash: A type of fan fiction, often written by women, involving romantic or sexual involvement between two characters of the same gender. The term originates from early Star Trek fandom, namely "Kirk/Spock" stories. The term "slash" comes from the slash (/) placed between the names of the characters involved.
Songfic: A fan fiction story that is based around or inspired by the lyrics of a song.
Spoiler/Spoiler Warning: Warning found at the beginning of a fic that informs the reader that the author mentions/references some portion of original movie, show, or book’s plot that the reader may not yet know.
Squeeing: A squeal of delight at reading a particularly wonderful fan fic.
Squicked: To have been disturbed at a personal gut level, often but not always in regards to sex, by the content of a fan’s story.
Top: The more “active” player in a sexual relationship between males; the individual on the giving end of anal sex. A common term used among gay males but important in understanding slash.
Vignette: A very short story dealing with a single brief period of time, a single subject (an event, an emotion, a relationship, etc.), and often only a single character.
Work in Progress (WIP): A story that has not yet been finished and that is still being worked on.
No comments:
Post a Comment