The world of fandom and fanfiction is wonderfully creative and vibrant, but when you first dive in and start swimming in the world of fanfiction archives it can be disconcerting. It can be hard to understand what a story is about from just the title or a general description, and the topics that are written about have almost no limitations or taboo subjects, so it is important to be aware of what some terms can mean. This realm operates under different social norms than real life and has its own unique language to help identify what the stories are about or warn about sensitive topics. It is a strange blend of techno speak or netspeak and fandom specific terms that can make it very difficult to translate meaning. I have gathered a few of the more relevant terms below to help make navigating this world a little easier!
- Actorfic
- ANC
- Angst
- A.R.
- A.T.
- A.U.
- Beta Reader
- Canon
- Challenge Fic
- Citrusy
- Continuation
- Convention
- Cosplay
- Cosplayer
- Crossover
- Delurking
- Disclaimers
- Drabble
- Fan Art
- Fan Culture
- Fandom
- Fanficcer
- Fanfiction
- Fannish Text
- Fanon
- Femmeslash
- Fen
- Ficathon
- Filk
- Fluff
- Gen
- Gender Bend
- GIF
- Head Canon
- Hurt/Comfort
- IDIC
- Jossverse
- Lemon
- Lime
- Mainstream
- Mary-Sue
- Mega Crossover
- Memes
- Mirror
- Movieverse
- MPreg
- Next Generation
- NSFW
- Original Character
- OTP
- Panel
- Plot Bunnies
- POV
- Pre-Series
- PWP
- Reverse-verse
- Round Robin
- Self-insertion
- Ship
- Shipper
- Shipping
- Slash
- Vidding
- Vignette
- WIP