The Basic Terms of Fanworks
This easy-to-use guide is intended for all newbies to fanfiction, fanart, cosplay...whatever. And if you don´t know what those terms mean (yet), read on! Most examples are going to be from Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender, because those are two of the fandoms I know best.
Part 1: The Basics
Fanfiction: Stories including something the author did not create. Usually, fanfiction is about characters another writer made in the world that that author made (think of people writing about Harry Potter and friends at Hogwarts, but having adventures that aren´t in the books). Sometimes the characters will be taken from that world to another one (Harry and friends in our world, no magic). Sometimes the world will be written without the characters the original author created (Hogwarts without Harry or anyone we knew about in JK Rowling´s books). Fanfiction is lots of times shortened to fanfic or just fic.
Fanart: Fan created artworks with a world or characters the artist didn´t think up. Includes icons, banners, photomanips, drawings, paintings, etc.
Fanvid: A video edited and (usually) set to music by someone not the creator of those images.
Fanmix: A mix CD posted online that was put together to somehow talk about a world or characters in it that the mixer didn´t think up. Many times fanart will come with it to be the front and back covers of the CD.
All together, these are called fanworks
Canon: All the materials of the original piece or pieces that inspires fanworks - so all the episodes of a television show, all the books in a series, all the movies in a trilogy, etc. Some fans include commentary and interviews by the creator and writers as canon (so Dumbledore is gay because JK Rowling said so in interview), and some don´t. For this second type, canon is limited to the works themselves. (To them, if Dumbledore was supposed to be gay, it should have said so in the books. Since it didn´t, he can be whatever you think he is based on the books.) See also, fanon, below.
Fandom: All the people who create, read, listen to, look at, talk about (...) and otherwise participate in fanworks. Many times, the name of the conon will be put in front of "fandom" so people with the same interests can find each other. (So Avatar-fandom is for all fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender.)
___________ verse: An easy way to talk about events happening in the universe of a particular canon. (Fanworks about Harry Potter´s world are in Potter-verse.)
Ship: Short for relationship. This means the characters that a person or group wants to see in a romantic relationship, or sometimes the characters in a fanwork that are in a romantic relationship, whether people want it or not ;). Usually, the presence of a particular ship is shown either by writing one name, a slash, then another name (Mulder/Scully, which is where the term ship originated) or by smashing the two names together (Hinny or...Garry, which just sounds weird). Sometimes (especially in HP fandom), the ship is written with just the initials of the characters. (R/Hr is Ron and Hermione, so that no one confuses it with R/H, Ron and Harry.) People who ship are called shippers, and rooting for or writing about a ship is called shipping. And if you want to know who I ship...well...someday I might tell you, if you ask reaaal nice.
Rec or recc: Short for recommendation or to recommend, it´s exactly what it sounds like. That´s most of what this journal is for, reccing works that I loved.
Crossover: Fanworks done in more than one canon. Sometimes crossovers are written as AU (See below for the definition of AU), but usually an AU keeps chars in the same ´verse they were originally in or brings them to a totally original ´verse. Crossovers are most often dropping a char or several chars into the world of another canon (kind of like double fanfic) and having them meet chars who were always in that world. One crossover I´ve had a bunny (See below) for lately is if Bones and her crew were brought to New York City to look at a slowly regenerating girl who turned out to be Claire Bennet.
Cosplay: Fans dressing up in the clothing of chars from their favorite series/movies. Most usually this is done for cons (See below).
Fanon: Details about a character or the world that aren´t in the canon but are spread so widely within the fandom that theyare known by virtually everyone within it. And arguable case of this is Remus Lupin´s deep love of chocolate. He does usually carry it in The Prisoner of Azkaban, but since it´s plot related you could easily say that he was just being prepared for a threat he knew was coming. But in many, many fanfictions it is mentioned that Remus is practically a chocolate addict...sometimes it´s even his downfall.
Icon: The 100x100 pixel picture next to a username that serves as another way to identify the person. Often, icons are fanart, either because they are fan-created images of a character/pairing/world or because they are pictures from the canon that have been so edited using digital imaging software (aka photoshop) that they´re an original work themselves with a base from elsewhere.
RPF, RPS: Real Person Fiction or Real Person Slash. This type of fanfiction speculates about the lives (and sex lives) of celebrities instead of about the lives of the characters they play. One particularly large segment of fans reading/writing RPF is bandom - a contraction of band fandom - which speculates about the relationships within (usually rock) bands.
Part 2: Where We Do Fandom
Con:
RPG:
Crosspost:
Comm:
Mod:
Part 3: Types Of Fanworks
Gen: Short for general. This fiction doesn´t have any romantic pairings, but it will frequently take a close look at the friendship - or sometimes hatred - between two characters.
Het: Short for heterosexual, because that´s what all the closely looked at romantic relationships are. That doesn´t mean there are never any homosexual couples mentioned, just that they´re not in the focus and you won´t get much detail about them.
Slash:
Femmeslash/Femslash:
OTP:
OT3:
OC, OFC, OMC:
Fluff:
Angst:
Crack, Crack!fic:
Drabble:
Ficlet:
One-shot:
Longfic:
Meta:
Wank:
WIP: Short for Work In Progress. What this really means is that the work is unfinished, because we call abandoned projects WIP also, but usually with "abandoned" or "will not be finished" in front to warn readers. Many times the chapters of a WIP will be labeled with the chapter number, a slash, and then something to show how many chapters are expected - so 15/20. If the author doesn´t know how many chapters are coming it´ll be a question mark: 15/?.
POV:
Part 4: Being Active In Fandom
Word Of God:
Spoilers:
Mary Sue/Marty Stu:
OOC:
Prompt:
Concrit:
Pimp:
Ship War:
Bunny:
Ratings:
Part 1: The Basics
Fanfiction: Stories including something the author did not create. Usually, fanfiction is about characters another writer made in the world that that author made (think of people writing about Harry Potter and friends at Hogwarts, but having adventures that aren´t in the books). Sometimes the characters will be taken from that world to another one (Harry and friends in our world, no magic). Sometimes the world will be written without the characters the original author created (Hogwarts without Harry or anyone we knew about in JK Rowling´s books). Fanfiction is lots of times shortened to fanfic or just fic.
Fanart: Fan created artworks with a world or characters the artist didn´t think up. Includes icons, banners, photomanips, drawings, paintings, etc.
Fanvid: A video edited and (usually) set to music by someone not the creator of those images.
Fanmix: A mix CD posted online that was put together to somehow talk about a world or characters in it that the mixer didn´t think up. Many times fanart will come with it to be the front and back covers of the CD.
All together, these are called fanworks
Canon: All the materials of the original piece or pieces that inspires fanworks - so all the episodes of a television show, all the books in a series, all the movies in a trilogy, etc. Some fans include commentary and interviews by the creator and writers as canon (so Dumbledore is gay because JK Rowling said so in interview), and some don´t. For this second type, canon is limited to the works themselves. (To them, if Dumbledore was supposed to be gay, it should have said so in the books. Since it didn´t, he can be whatever you think he is based on the books.) See also, fanon, below.
Fandom: All the people who create, read, listen to, look at, talk about (...) and otherwise participate in fanworks. Many times, the name of the conon will be put in front of "fandom" so people with the same interests can find each other. (So Avatar-fandom is for all fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender.)
___________ verse: An easy way to talk about events happening in the universe of a particular canon. (Fanworks about Harry Potter´s world are in Potter-verse.)
Ship: Short for relationship. This means the characters that a person or group wants to see in a romantic relationship, or sometimes the characters in a fanwork that are in a romantic relationship, whether people want it or not ;). Usually, the presence of a particular ship is shown either by writing one name, a slash, then another name (Mulder/Scully, which is where the term ship originated) or by smashing the two names together (Hinny or...Garry, which just sounds weird). Sometimes (especially in HP fandom), the ship is written with just the initials of the characters. (R/Hr is Ron and Hermione, so that no one confuses it with R/H, Ron and Harry.) People who ship are called shippers, and rooting for or writing about a ship is called shipping. And if you want to know who I ship...well...someday I might tell you, if you ask reaaal nice.
Rec or recc: Short for recommendation or to recommend, it´s exactly what it sounds like. That´s most of what this journal is for, reccing works that I loved.
Crossover: Fanworks done in more than one canon. Sometimes crossovers are written as AU (See below for the definition of AU), but usually an AU keeps chars in the same ´verse they were originally in or brings them to a totally original ´verse. Crossovers are most often dropping a char or several chars into the world of another canon (kind of like double fanfic) and having them meet chars who were always in that world. One crossover I´ve had a bunny (See below) for lately is if Bones and her crew were brought to New York City to look at a slowly regenerating girl who turned out to be Claire Bennet.
Cosplay: Fans dressing up in the clothing of chars from their favorite series/movies. Most usually this is done for cons (See below).
Fanon: Details about a character or the world that aren´t in the canon but are spread so widely within the fandom that theyare known by virtually everyone within it. And arguable case of this is Remus Lupin´s deep love of chocolate. He does usually carry it in The Prisoner of Azkaban, but since it´s plot related you could easily say that he was just being prepared for a threat he knew was coming. But in many, many fanfictions it is mentioned that Remus is practically a chocolate addict...sometimes it´s even his downfall.
Icon: The 100x100 pixel picture next to a username that serves as another way to identify the person. Often, icons are fanart, either because they are fan-created images of a character/pairing/world or because they are pictures from the canon that have been so edited using digital imaging software (aka photoshop) that they´re an original work themselves with a base from elsewhere.
RPF, RPS: Real Person Fiction or Real Person Slash. This type of fanfiction speculates about the lives (and sex lives) of celebrities instead of about the lives of the characters they play. One particularly large segment of fans reading/writing RPF is bandom - a contraction of band fandom - which speculates about the relationships within (usually rock) bands.
Part 2: Where We Do Fandom
Con:
RPG:
Crosspost:
Comm:
Mod:
Part 3: Types Of Fanworks
Gen: Short for general. This fiction doesn´t have any romantic pairings, but it will frequently take a close look at the friendship - or sometimes hatred - between two characters.
Het: Short for heterosexual, because that´s what all the closely looked at romantic relationships are. That doesn´t mean there are never any homosexual couples mentioned, just that they´re not in the focus and you won´t get much detail about them.
Slash:
Femmeslash/Femslash:
OTP:
OT3:
OC, OFC, OMC:
Fluff:
Angst:
Crack, Crack!fic:
Drabble:
Ficlet:
One-shot:
Longfic:
Meta:
Wank:
WIP: Short for Work In Progress. What this really means is that the work is unfinished, because we call abandoned projects WIP also, but usually with "abandoned" or "will not be finished" in front to warn readers. Many times the chapters of a WIP will be labeled with the chapter number, a slash, and then something to show how many chapters are expected - so 15/20. If the author doesn´t know how many chapters are coming it´ll be a question mark: 15/?.
POV:
Part 4: Being Active In Fandom
Word Of God:
Spoilers:
Mary Sue/Marty Stu:
OOC:
Prompt:
Concrit:
Pimp:
Ship War:
Bunny:
Ratings: