Fandom Primer Question

[icedark_elf]

Okay, I know I've asked this before, but I'm going to ask again.

Remember when you first entered fandom. Yes, way back then. Remember all the confusing terms that people used. AU, Mary Sue/Gary Stu, OTP. Well, seanmonster, creator of side_quests, and myself are planning a fandom primer. In order to make it the best fandom primer we can, we're looking for what confuses people. What were the things that made you go "huh?" or "what?" when you first joined the bat country that is fandom? We're looking for all of it. Please, toss it our way, because, who knows, it might prove helpful to someone else later on. Gods know I had stuff that confused me, and I know everyone else did. Let's see if we can't help get rid of some of it.

Drop me a comment about what confused you. If it's really obscure, feel free to drop your definition of it as well. The more we get, the better the primer can be. If you comment once and then remember more, feel free to comment more. Direct your friends here and have them drop off their remembered confusion. Everything is more fun when we can laugh about it, and, trust me, I hope it will end up both funny and educational.

Crossposted all over. Feel free to pass it along, as well.

Comments

[marmaladecat]

I may be obtuse, but I never understood what the "!" in phrases such as "cute!Sephiroth" or "emo!Cloud" meant. I guess it was obvious to others but I had to ask to clarify if it had a "special" connotation.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

Definitions of slash, yaoi and yuri. I know I was puzzled by the word "yaoi". It took me a little to connect up that slash was the non-anime version (in-fandom).

When I first started seeing it around, I thought STFU somehow meant "Stuff you!". It took a while before I found out that FTW means "For the win!" instead of some sort of Yoda-speak version of WTF.

That's all I can think of for the moment.

[maaya1x2.livejournal.com]

I still wonder about the differences between fluff, sap and waff. >_>

[lanerose]

Difference between yaoi and shounen ai. Also, what Bittorrent was, and how to find the program / new shows online. And I still don't understand IRC. XDD Pairing names were also really confusing, but that might've been because one of my first fandoms was Gundam Wing and I couldn't tell the difference between 1x2, 2x1, and 1x2x1. Even now, though, I come up blinking every now and again. Also, the meaning of OTP and it's assorted variations ~ took me years to figure that one out. What a ship war is and why everyone hates them.

... can we tell that I'm slow? XDDDDD

[sascharin.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I'd have to say: lemons and limes (you don't know for how long I though all fic writers were crazy to be talking about citrus fruits in their summaries), PWPWDNNSP, shota and things like shipping (especially in Yu Gi Oh) and ship wars.

[mitsuhachi.livejournal.com]

particularly since every once in a while people with either use that acronym to mean "fuck the what?" (usually about xeno or crackpairings?) or actually write out that phrase.

...maybe we ought to not encourage that by mentioning it though, cause that's really annoying. And confusing.

[silverblade-kun.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize the order mattered when you listed pairings until I was drowning in fandom. ie Zack x Cloud vs. Cloud x Zack. ~_~

[acdragonmaster.livejournal.com]

"fluff" generally means nothing explicit, in fact no real content to speak of. It's just a piece of fluff, like cotton candy or something, that is sweet and sugary and fun to have but lacks any meat to it. "sap" is, well, sappy. Pretty much only applies to stuff with romantic themes because of that. The almost sickeningly sweet stuff. "waff", as I recall, originally stood for "warm and fuzzy feeling", so that applies to fics that're just... waffy. The things that make you feel all good and warm inside. The difference from fluff being that fluff doesn't necessarily stir that sorta deeper, heartwarming reaction.

Of course, the terms aren't all mutually exclusive, and some people will vary a bit in how they describe or rate their own fics, but yeah. Those're the meanings I've picked up from how people typically seem to use them. >_>

[twins-randomity.livejournal.com]

MILF?

Fandom Dictionary, good idea

[wanderingscroll.livejournal.com]

1. This is an excellent idea, major kudos.
2. May I suggest: gen, UST, and as a side for fanfic writers what minimum stuff should come with each fic? (title, author name, fandom, rating, disclaimer, etc.) Disclaimer especially since so many fiction archives are now calling for them.
3. Again awesome idea, can't wait to see how it turns out.

[the-perkygoff.livejournal.com]

Things like lemon/lime and how people would differentiate between the two (and rather oddly). That was the one that took me the longest to make any sort of sense of.

The term WAFF was lost on me for awhile, as was AU and OTP (though the latter I picked up on pretty quickly).

And the "!" mark thing through me through a loop the first few times I saw it. Then I really liked that system of classification and use it in inappropriate settings in my LJ. XD

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

I actually found out what that was on one of the Childfree comms, it stands for "Mother I'd Love to Fuck". Original meaning being, and older woman, who despite age and parenthood is still sexy.

It made the Jenova MILF icons make sense to me.

[twins-randomity.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[alydhe.livejournal.com]

I haven't updated it in a while, but on my website I have a Fandom Lexicon page. You are welcome to use anything on it, including the definitions, for your project. It has terms from Western and Eastern fandoms. ex: slash, yaoi, yuri, femmeslash. It also has common symbols you'll see in fandom.

http://grassroots.iwarp.com/lexicon/lex.html

[forgottenlover.livejournal.com]

I think I have a new one!

The difference between an AU and an AT

Also, the difference between a Fusion and a Crossover

I didn't get those for years. ::only just recently figured out the first one::

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

I must admit, almost all of fandom frightens and confuses me, so there'll be no shortage of terminology that we can use.

[arete.livejournal.com]

PWP, guro, squick, probably a quick list of many fandoms abbreviations (FMA vs FMP, GW, HP, SGA, SG, HL, etc.)

[mitsuhachi.livejournal.com]

might add "woob" to this list.