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The Vocabulary of Fanfic

Fans, speaking among ourselves, use a lot of jargon. Sometimes it's an acronym, sometimes it's a special usage of some everyday word. Most of the time it's confusing until you get the hang of it. This is my list of things that have confused me at some point.

YAOI or yaoi.  Male homosexual sex present.  When used as a story label, it indicates implied or graphic sex of the male/male variety. This term is an acronym (though it's often used decapitalized) standing for YAma-nashi, Ochi-nashi, Imi-nashi (without climax, without content, without conclusion). This seems to have started life as a genre term, indicating that the story in question is a plotless sex scene between two male characters; it has since taken on a life of it's own, probably about the time it was decapitalized, and is now likely to be invoked even for stories with extensive and complex plots provided that there are two male characters having sex when they did not do so within the original source.

Yuri.  Female homosexual sex present.  Likewise, more or less.

Lemon.  Labels a story as containing graphic sex scenes.  A combination of labels like yaoi non-lemon tends to mean that it's obvious the couple in question does more than cuddle but bodily fluids are not in evidence.

Lime.  Non-graphic or implied sex scenes.

shounen-ai.  This one seems fuzzier.  The literal translation, boy love, actually encompasses the range of use pretty well. It's usually applied to stories that contain male/male snuggling (up to a certain amount of groping, in some cases) or obvious emotional intimacy.

Shoujo-ai. Again likewise for the girls, though more likely to appear on stories featuring obvious emotional intimacy.

PWP.  Plot?  What Plot? or Porn Without Plot.  Sometimes also rendered as WDDNSP, or We Don't Need No Stinking Plot!  This label indicates that the story is pretty much one long sex scene.

Angst.  Indicates that a story features depression, heartbreak, and generally people not having a good time at all.

CD.  Sometime abbreviation for Character Death. Not to be mistaken for Compact Disc (may I register my ongoing irritation with the spelling of that term? It's almost as bad as the company that changed it's product name to Duck Tape).

OC.  Original Character.  That is, one created by the author and not part of the original story. I have also seen this noted as NCC: non canon character.

OOC.  Out Of Character.  This warns readers who may be character purists that the characters in question are acting outside the bounds of their development in the original anime/manga.  "Outside" ranges from further developed to unrecognizable, so read with care.

Self-insertion. Just what it sounds like: the author appears as a character in the story.

Mary-Sue. Not sure of the provenance for this term, but in anime it usually indicates that a throw-away character, often annoyingly perfect, with little to no development and no basis in the original story has been included. Mary-Sues usually seem to get included for the purpose of providing an instant love interest. Distinct from an Original Character in that a Mary-Sue has far less development (and utility). Addendum 9/02: Julie Lim tells me that this term originated with a Classic Trek fic which contained a very flat self-insertion named Mary Sue. Check here for a good academic paper on Mary-Sue's origin and development; many thanks to Julie! For a countervailing laud to Mary-Sue, read this.

Bastardization. "Bastard" has two basic meanings: illegitimate offspring or unpleasant person. If you look "bastardization" up in the dictionary it takes its meaning from the first (older) of those and indicates making something illegitimate. The fic-context version takes its meaning from the second of the above and thus comes out to making a character really unpleasant. Of course, a character purist would say that the fic-context version automatically implies the dictionary version.

Weird.  Usually indicates a story with in which the characters do things you would never, in a million years, expect based on the original story.  Sometimes also labels a story with strange plot elements:  fantasy showing up in a sci-fi context, for example.

Violence or Gore.  This is a less commonly used label, though I think it should enter broader circulation myself.  It indicates that a story contains graphic violence, bloodletting, mutilation of bodies, etc.  Generally when authors think to put this label on their work, you should take them very seriously.

SM/BD.  The sexual version of the above label.  SM is SadoMasochism.  Not to be confused with Sailor Moon, despite the fact that it is also used as an abbreviation for that show.  BD is Bondage and Domination (regional variation: Bondage and Discipline).  Any part of this label should be taken seriously, and if you are not into that kind of thing don't read it.  It tends to freak out people who prefer the vanilla end of the spectrum.

NCS. Non-Consensual Sex. In other words, rape.

Disturbing Content. This is another relatively rare one whose wider use I endorse. This is the label to put on a story whose content may give some of your readers trouble, a story that depicts human evil such as torture, abuse, rape. You don't want to traumatize any of your readership, now do you?

WAFF.  Warm And Fuzzy Feeling.  This indicates what the story is written to evoke.

Sap.  Closely related, this indicates emotional mushiness.

Fluff.  While sometimes used as a synonym for one of the two preceding terms (another possibility in that case is kawaii), it more usually means a story without a whole lot of emphasis on a strong or meaningful plot.  It's likely to be some kind of unframed scene involving positive emotions.

Squick.  I have yet to find a suggested etymology for this word, but I suspect it's an elision of squishy and icky; it describes probable reactions to the story in question.  Example:  lemons involving Mamoru and Chibiusa or, say, Heero and Dr. J. (gyeeugh)

_____ shipper (where _____ is the designation of a particular romantic relationship, eg Rocket-shipper or TezuFuji shipper). Most likely derived from a contraction of "relationship": 'ship. This is a way of indicating that the person described by the term enjoys the romantic relationship named, and acts in some way to support or perpetuate it (writes fics, draws, writes essays, starts flame wars). Be aware that fandom politics in some areas associate the -shipper label with the kind of devotion that refuses to accept any other possibilities, and it may be taken as an accusation of close-mindedness. Among domestic media-fen, on the other hand, this term is used to distinguish those who like a heterosexual couple who do not get together in the source text (shipper) from those who like a homosexual couple (slasher).

OTP. One True Pairing. This term is often used, tongue in cheek, to designate a given fan's favorite romantic relationship, with the implicit understanding that the romance is a fan interpolation rather than an authorial creation. It is occasionally used to indicate the romantic relationship that a fan or group of fans think has the greatest number of suggestive moments/scenes/dialogue. If you see it used in a more literal manner, it's probably a good time to jump 'ship, unless you enjoy irrational screaming arguments.

OT3. Derived from OTP, this could be rendered as One True Threesome. As above, only dealing with three characters rather than two. More likely to be used only to indicate a liking for the notion.

Omake. Japanese word meaning bonus or extra. In the context of manga it often applies to some little extra story at the end of the issue, often a comic strip or parody. In fic it might be an epilogue or a bloopers-style scene, or, really, anything in between.
 

Last modified: 10/11/06
First Posted:  1/01

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