Fan Fiction

I think it would be useful for folks to have a reference here for some of the terms and acronyms used in fan fiction. During my research of the last couple of days, I've found a lot of 'em. In different places. So I thought I'd collect them all together.

If you find stuff you think should be added, just add a post. What I'll probably do is then edit this first post to include your addition, and then delete your post. Just so things don't get messy, and they stay in alphabetical order.

Sound okay? Okay. Here goes. The Glossary:

Acid or Acid!fic see Crack

Acid Pairing see Crack Pairing

AU/AR Alternate Universe and Alternate Reality. Generally, if you change an event in the fictional universe (like, say, having Luke Skywalker not lose his hand in The Empire Strikes Back), you've created an alternate universe. If you make Luke a farmboy in Iowa in 1995, then you've created an alternate reality.

Band Stories about rock or pop bands. This is a usually a form of RPF (Real People Fiction), but can also be an AU, where characters from a fictional universe are members of a band.

Crack or Crack!fic Stories in which the characters are put in nonsensical, irrational, unbelievable, or random situations that could never occur in the canon universe. Such stories are often humorous, and the characters usually behave out of character.

Crack Pairings A relationship (romantic or sexual) between characters that are not normally (even in fan fiction) paired up.

Femslash Stories where female characters have a homosexual romance or sexual relationship.

Het Stories where a male character and a female characters have a heterosexual romance or sexual relationship.

High School Stories in which the characters of the universe are attending high school together. This is a form of AR (Alternate Reality) fiction.

OTP One True Pairing. This is a term used to indicate that the author believes that two specific characters are "meant for each other" and all other pairings are secondary to this one.

OT3 A variation on OTP that stands for One True Threesome. This can be expanded to OT4, OT5, etc.

RPF Real People Fiction. Stories about actual persons, usually living. This is a controversial form of fan fiction, as it puts real people into fictional situations.

Ship A shortening of the word "relationship". Stories in which two characters have a romantic relationship, even if they did not in the source material. Apparently, this originated in X-Files fandom, with Mulder/Scully "shippers".

Slash Stories where male characters have a homosexual romance or sexual relationship.

Isn't band also AR? You put characters from a canon into a band together?

I was wondering about that when Saren mentioned it in the other thread. I've found references to band fiction, but they've all been RPF references. Maybe Saren can enlighten us.

Saren would've enlightened earlier, except there was no 'RECENT' tag on this thread, so she previously skipped over it without realising it existed. Hum.

Bandfic is indeed a form of AR, but there is a lot of 'bandom' RPF, as well. =3

I've updated the definition of "band".

Can we also have definitions of Crack Pairing and OT3 (like OTP, but essentially a threesome)?

Finally, a chance to show off my fandom knowledge. xD

Wow... I have stumbled into a completely foreign world. This is awesome! :D Thanks for the references Faltar.

I've added OT3 and Crack/Acid

I'm making a Fan Fic about a group of soldiers in the Halo universe that follow the orginal main story line of the games and books, but do not have their own written story line. They can and may have interatctions with the main story line, but wouldn't affect it at all. What would we call that?

I think that is simply a fanfiction story.

All of the things above are sort of like... fanfic adjectives. They just better describe the story, they may even have their own category, but they are all still fanfiction. And if your story doesn't happen to need one of those, then I think just fanfiction will do.


Of course, I just read a few fanfics here and there, haven't even written more then three and didn't actually know half of those abbreviations listed, so I could be completely wrong.

Agreed. If a story is set in the fictional universe of {Halo, Star Trek, Battlestar, Matrix, whatever...} and written by someone not affiliated with the production of the franchise, then it's a fanfic. It doesn't have to focus on the main established characters. It just has to use elements of the universe to tell the story.

Thx, just wondering.

(PS: The story in question is about 5th or 6th in the topics)
(PSS: 105th is the title)

I would like to add several terms to this glossary if that's possible, because I feel like some of the ones you've got are unclear. I've been writing fanfiction for a very long time, and although some of your newer generations aren't used to some of these words, I think they should be included. I'm not sure you feel about adult terms as related to fanfiction, but I'm going to just throw them out there and see what happens.

Fandom: This is what is used to refer to any medium from which the characters/scenario/plot of a fanfiction is derived from. A fandom can be a book, a television show, a video game, a play, a movie, a manga/anime, etc. Anything that you can write fanfiction of is a fandom.

Canon: Information that is true based on fact given in a particular fandom. Something that is a constant in the series. Example: in the Harry Potter fandom, Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley end up being married. That is called a "Canon Pairing" because it is a pairing that is supported in the fandom itself.

Fanon: This is a fact that is NOT supported in the fandom that is so popular that is becomes almost a constant in the majority of the fanfiction written about the fandom in question. Example: in the Wolf's Rain [an anime] fandom, there are wolves that project the image of being a Human. While this doesn't affect the fact that they are still physically wolves, it's become fanon that they can change into a physical Human form, height, appendages and all. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that in the actual show, they cannot do this, but it's become so popular that some fans actually think that the characters can.

Ship: The word Ship gets its own entry because there are different ways to represent the name of a ship. For example, if we had a pairing with two people named [I'm picking random names] Derek and Sarah, you could represent their pairing in the following ways:

-using an 'x', as in DerekxSarah [capital 'X' are used, too.]
--Putting their names directly next to each other without a space or 'x', as in DerekSarah
---using a slash inbetween their names, as in Derek/Sarah, or only using the first three letter with the slash, as in Der/Sar. This an also be done with the 'x' as well, although it usually isn't.
----fusing their names together, as in Derah or Sarek
-----a different way of representing their names altogether is to simply name their pairing. If they do something romantic in whatever fandom that they originated from, like if they had a romantic date and got pizza or something, you could name the pairing Pieshipping [because "pie" is another word for pizza]. There are a lot of different names for pairings. Your favorite pairing might have a name that you don't even know! You should check them out. These names are circulated by word of mouth, and by compiling "official" lists that people see over and over. It is possible that you could come up with a name for a ship that no one really writes about!

Again, ships can also refer to relationships functioning with more than two people. In fandoms with many characters of the same significance, there can be more than even four people functioning in a ship. Example: In the Yu-gi-oh anime fandom, there's a ship named "Incest"shipping, which is the functioning relationship between SetoXJonouchi[joey]XIsisXMokubaXShizuka[Serenity]XMalik.

Lemon- In short, a sex scene between members of a given ship from start to finish. There really isn't anything more complicated than that...

Lime- a scene with rising sexual tension, like the beginning of a Lemon, that breaks off abruptly like a teaser to the reader. If the act of sex isn't written or implied as completed, then the scene is considered a lime.

Usage of "!": an exclamation mark is used to signify something that's out of character. Example: If you see a summary for the fandom of Kingdom Hearts featuring "Angsty!Sora", that means that he'll be more angsty than his character normally is in the fandom, or that the writer feels they're using the emotion more than normally displayed. The exclamation is always used to separate the word that's describing the character, and the character's name itself.

Slash/Femmeslash: In Britain and other European countries, "Slash" is the word used to refer to homosexual relationships that are not featured as canon for a fandom [see the definition of those two words above]. It originates with the "/" that is used to separate names in a pairing [See "coupling/pairing/ship" above]. Because most relationships in genres other than anime and manga are not homosexual, however, "Slash" has developed into a term used specifically by Westerners as a non-japanese terminology for homosexual relationships in literature in general. While "Slash" has for a time referred to both male and female homosexual relationships, in recent times the term "Femmeslash" [also shortened to "Femslash"] has risen to separate male homosexual relationships from female.

Also--um...I think that there should be perhaps a separate glossary for anime-related fanfiction, british fanfiction, etc., because they use different terms that mean the same thing. For example, this is what I would include as some terminology for anime related fanfiction:

Yaoi: originally stemmed from the japanese phrase "yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi", which means No plot, no climax, no point, or some similar version thereof. It's not described as that because yaoi stories have no plot, but because of it's focus/inclusion of the sexual relationship of the characters involved. Originally, Yaoi only referred to parody doujinshi for popular anime/manga [in other words, fanfiction]. Male homosexual relationships are known popularly as Yaoi still all over the world, but in Japan it's been condensed to "Boys Love" [BL], a genre that supposedly describes parodies and original works, rather than one or the other. In America, Yaoi is used to refer to a parody and or/story line [original or not] that involves described sex scenes between characters, be it visual [doujinshi or fan comics] or written [fanfiction].

Shounen-ai: although this term literally translates to "Boys Love", it isn't to be confused with the BL above--which is why the translation for shounen-ai is rarely used to refer to it. Shounen-ai refers to an original male homosexual story theme, rather than Yaoi, which was made famous by its male homosexual parodies of popular straight anime characters. As stated above, both Yaoi and shounen-ai have been swallowed up by the term "Boys Love" in Japan, which encompasses both original and parody works. In America shounen-ai refers to storylines [orignal or not] that contain the description of a non-sexually explicit relationship between two males. Both Yaoi and Shonen-ai are to be separated from the term "Gay manga", which is the name used for homosexually based manga written by gay men for a gay male audience. Yaoi and shounen-ai are actually reputed for being written for women by women.

Yuri: While this is the sister term of Yaoi, meaning that Yuri refers instead to the subject of female or lesbian homosexual relationships, the etymology and development isn't nearly as complicated. The terms Yuri and shoujo-ai [the counterpart to shounen-ai that translates to "girls love"] is actually considered by many to be interchangeable, since both genres can address both emotional and physical aspects of the relationship plot. Recently however, following in the path of "Yaoi" and "shounen-ai", authors of doujinshi and fanfiction alike are starting to use Yuri to imply explicit content and shoujo-ai to refer to less offensive themes to limit confusion. There has been a recent movement in Japan to eliminate both terms by using "Girls Love" [GL] parallel to "Boys Love", but it's been mostly unsuccessful. Even manga artists have begun to use the term Yuri more often, and "Girls Love" has only become a term used most often by publishers.

@darkdragonwriter Wow. Thanks for all that info. I really appreciate experienced fanfic writers joining in here, because, although I like fanfic and have written some, I'm no expert. The manga stuff, especially is utterly foreign territory to me.

I'll have to read through your posts a second time, because there's a lot of information there, but I think it's a good idea to add the terms you presented to the main glossary. I'll likely do that in the next day or so.

As for separate glossaries, I think perhaps the manga terms might be separated out on their own, but I'm going to have to think about that for a bit. I don't want the info to be all over the place in this group discussion area. But your suggestion does make sense.

Again, thanks. This group has been fairly inactive for a while now (mostly because I'm realizing how little I actually know about fan fiction), so I'm glad you've contributed.

I'm really looking forward to being able to add stories to groups. I don't know when Nick is rolling out that feature, but I think it will make a big difference to this group when it happens.

@Faltarego

Thanks a lot! I realize that I wrote a lot, and I appreciate you taking the time to read through it--and even suggesting that you would do so again!

A lot of people are intimidated about posting fanfiction on Protagonize particularly because the site focuses on original works, which makes a lot people feel that the community would be overly critical to them. But I've glanced at some of the things that have posted in the section so far, and even though I'm unfamiliar with some of the fandoms that are written about there, a majority of fanfiction writers show a lot of potential! It's definitely convinced me to stick around for a while, and I'm determined to help in any way that I can to help this group become more active.

As far as the separate glossaries idea, even simply separating them from the ordinary glossary terms would be fine. I just know from experience that many fanfiction writers have difficulty identifying with the whole 'anime/manga' experience. Like you, it's foreign to many other people as well. It's a separate sub-category under fanfiction already!

And you not knowing anything about fanfiction, of course, is fine~! You only learn through experience, and those links that you posted to the wikipedia pages with definitions and overall explanations are indeed very helpful.

I can't wait for this group to get up and kicking~! Thanks for being patient enough to read my suggestions!

I just joined the group, I've never written fanfiction before, and this thread was SO helpful! I want to write fanfiction, I just haven't exactly gotten around to it :)

And, if I can be honest, all the technical terms kinda scare me. :P

-Cay xo)

Don't worry, the first time I started writing a fanfic, I didn't know any of them. Literally, none. In fact, I didn't know half of them until this thread popped up. :P

Hey Cay... Glad you joined up. Lemme tell ya... I volunteered to lead this group when it was created, and I was astonished at how much I didn't know. I just enjoyed playing in somebody else's sandbox. Terminology? Types of fanfic? My mind was blown.

So, yeah, like chaos said... don't worry.

Okay, good :)

I'm going to look around protag for some fanfic too. I always find reading is the best way to learn how to do something. :)

Thanks again!