fandom glossary
Fandom jargon it’s a language on its own so don’t worry if you are a bit lost. Here you can find the meaning behind fandom slang. Welcome to the ultimate fandom glossary.
ANON: Means Anonymus usually used to refer to someone who hides their identity in online interactions.
AO3: Archive of our own is the biggest fanfiction archive at the moment.
AU: Alternative universe. It marks that a work it’s settled in a different universe than the canon work. It’s usually preceded by the type of universe the story takes place. For example; Student!AU.
BNF: Big name fan. A fan that it’s famous within a fandom.
BURY YOUR GAYS: It the trope where gay characters are more likely to die in a story than their heterosexual counterparts.
CANON: It’s what is officially considered as part of the universe a story builts. In fandom, it refers to the original fiction that fanworks take inspiration from.
CON: Means conventions as in big meetups for fans. Cons are mainly focused on a particular fandom such as comics, anime, etc.
COSPLAY: Creating a costume based on a fictional character.
CRACK: A fanfic that is incredibly absurd for the sake of being so.
CROSSOVER: It happens when elements of two or more fandoms are combined in a fanwork.
DRABBLE: It’s a way to refer to fanfics that are 1oo word long. Some authors define a drabble as any short fic usually bellow 1000 words.
FANDOM:The fans of a certain media (TV shows, books, films, comics, etc) as a group.
FANGIRL: Someone who is obsessed with fandoms and shipping. Fandoms are usually composed mostly by girls hence the term fangirl.
FANART: Art (visual media such as drawing, photo edits, etc.) created by fans.
FANFICTION: Written stories created by fans.
FANON: As opposed to CANON, fanon is a widely accepted theory created by fans.
FANSERVICE: Scenes that are there to please the audience.
FAN STUDIES: Is a field of scholarly research focused on media fans and fan cultures.
FANVIDS: Videos created by fans.
FEMSLASH: It’s a subgenre of slash that focus on romantic or sexual relationships between women.
FF.NET: Fanfiction.net, a fanfic archive that was popular during the 2000s.
FLUFF: A subgenre of fanfiction for fics that are cute and happy content.
GEN: A fanfic that doesn’t contain sexual situations or sometimes no romantic relationships altogether.
HET: Heterosexual.
HEAD-CANON: A canon that is created by a fan. The way a fan think things work in canon but it’s not confirmed in the original fiction. It’s not the same as FANON since the later is accepted by a considerable amount of fans and head-canons tend to be an individual phenomenon.
HURT/COMFORT: A fanfiction genre that involves a part of a couple going through some sort of pain for the other half of the couple to comfort them.
IRL: In real life. The opposite of your online life.
LJ: LiveJournal
LONGFIC: A long fanfiction with multiple chapters and often a complex plot.
MARY SUE: It’s a degradation term to describe a character (usually an original character inserted in a fanfiction) that has no flaws. These type of characters are too perfect hence badly written.
MCU: Marvel Cinematic Universe.
NOTP: A ship a fan hates.
NSFW: Not Safe For Work, like it says on the tin works that are not suitable to see at work because they contain explicit content.
OC: Original character. A character that doesn’t appear in canon.
ONE-SHOT: Fanfic that is composed of one chapter.
OOC: Out Of Character. When a character behaviour varies greatly for the one portrayed in canon.
OT3: One true threesome. The same as an OTP but for a polyamorous relationship.
OTP id=”otp”: One true pairing. The ship (couple) that you love the most. Fans usually have one OTP for each fandom.
PODFIC: An audio version of a fanfic.
POST-CANON: Fanfics that tells what happens after canon ended.
PWP: Porn Without Plot. It’s pretty self-explanatory; a story with little to no plot but lots of explicit content.
POV: The point of view the fic is told from.
QUEERBAIT: A marketing tool where showrunner hint that two-character could be in a homosexual relationship to keep viewers engaged in the story but they never deliver.
QUEER CODING: Giving a character stereotypical queer characteristics without stating that they are queer.
RPF: Real Person Fic. A type of fic written about real people such an actor, singers, YouTubers, etc. RPF is often frowned upon but they gained popularity over the last years.
SHIP: It comes from the word “relationship” and as an action means imagining two o more character in a romantic relationship. As a noun, it means a particular couple, for example, Johnlock.
SLASH: It’s a genre of fanfics that revolved around gay relationships.
SMUT: A fanfic that contains sexual content.
SONGFIC: A fanfic that is based around a song. This kind of fics often features song lyrics in between paragraphs.
TRIGGER WARNING: A warning about the content of a text, video, etc. that might be upsetting or offensive to some people, especially to those who have previously experienced a related trauma.
WIP: Work in progress. A fanfic that is still being written.
YAOI: The Japanese term for slash (stories about gay relationships) but for anime and manga,