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What the hell are they talking about? I've often wondered that myself. If you can think of any terms that should be included here and aren't, e-mail us. Most of these terms are self explanatory and well known to anyone in the slash world, but here they are, anyway.
Age statement - A statement that you are at or above the age of consent to view pornographic material. Often required to join mailing lists.
Angst - A story that involves one or more of the characters in a deeply emotional and stressful situation.
Archive fic - Fiction that revolves around the author's real life. For example, if an author is not getting along with her parents, a story in which a vampire from Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes after the author's parents is an archive fic.
AU - Alternate universe. The basic guidelines of the show may not apply.
Badfic - Fiction that is bad, offset by goodfic, which is fiction that is good. Intentional badfic is fiction written intentionally to make your skin crawl.
BBS - Boy band slash.
BDSM - Bondage, domination, sadomasochism.
Beta - Proofreading a story. Saying "this story has been beta'd" means "this story has been proofread."
Bottom - This is certainly not a phrase that originated with slash, but it's often used. It refers to the person on the receiving end of anal sex.
BtVS - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (commonly used acronym: X/A - Xander/Angel)
Canon - A pairing that is true to the show, the movie, life, etc. In other words, a pairing that already exists in "reality" as we know it. For example, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy and Riley are already dating and their relationship is portrayed on the show. Therefore, Buffy and Riley are canon.
Challenge - When a member of a community or mailing list issues a call for a topic or theme she'd like to see used in a story. Stories written as a result of that challenge are challenge responses.
Crit - A critique of a story.
Crossover - A story that combines elements of two separate fandoms.
Delurking - A person's first post after lurking.
DS - due South (Be aware that there are two Rays in the due South universe, Kowalski and Vecchio.)
f/f - A slash story involving two female characters, otherwise known as femme slash.
Fandom - The term used to describe the community built up around a certain TV show, movie, book, group, etc.
Fanon - A relationship or character elements that are common in fan fiction but not necessarily common on the show.
An astute CABS reader's description: "Fanon refers to much more than pairings. As you probably know, it's short for "fan canon"--widely accepted ideas that are the creation of the fans and not TPTB. Some easy examples: Mulder's insomnia, his dead fish, his Armani suits are fanon. Methos tossing the bottlecaps behind the fridge is fanon because he did it once on the show and fans took it and expanded it to ridiculous proportions. My favorite bit of Highlander fanon is the 'uncontrollable arousal after Quickenings' idea."
Fen - The participants in a fandom.
Gen - A general story which does not feature any overt or implied sexual interaction between the characters.
H/C - hurt/comfort. One of the characters gets hurt and the other comforts him.
Herc - Hercules
Het - A story about a heterosexual relationship.
HL - Highlander
HLOTS - Homicide: Life on the Street
LOC - Letter of comment.
Lurker - Someone who subscribes to a mailing list and reads it but doesn't post.
m/m - A slash story involving two male characters.
Mary Sue - A story containing a character that very closely resembles the author.
(Or, as someone pointed out to us: "Mary Sue" can be a superhuman, savior-of-the-world type character, who has beautiful eyes and perfect hair, speaks eight languages, is equally comfortable walking a tightrope or deep-sea diving, and hooks up with the hero (in het) or gets the two leads to hook up with each other (in slash)...I still say there are two types of Mary Sue, the Author's Surrogate and the Too Good To Be True.)
Mod - A person who moderates a mailing list. Also referred to as the Listmom or Listdaddy.
Mpreg - Male pregnancy.
Newbie - A term used throughout the Internet to describe someone who is new to the community.
Nifty - A large and well known archive of gay erotica that contains slash and RPS, located at www.nifty.org.
ng - Newsgroup. A comprehensive list of ng's and an archive of the posts made to them can be found at Deja.com. Ng's are different from mailing lists in that they are public and anyone can read and post to them.
ObFic - A piece of fiction posted as retribution for making an off topic post to the mailing list.
Pregnancy fic - A story in which one of the male characters becomes pregnant.
PWP - Short for "Plot, What Plot?" A story for which the main purpose is a sex scene.
R/T - Rape/torture. There's a lot of them. Watch out. R/T is a common theme in H/C fic.
RPS - Real person slash. The term used to describe stories written about real people, not fictional characters.
Schmoop - The term used to describe overt romanticism. If there are flowers, chocolates, candles and terms of endearment, it's schmoop. Variant spelling: shmoop
Sen - The Sentinel
'Ship ('Shipping, 'Shipper)" - Short for "relationship"; i.e., "I'm a S/X 'shipper" means "I enjoy, prefer, and/or write stories about S/X."
Slash - A story that is usually sexual in nature involving two characters of the same sex, usually two men. The term is named after the punctuation between the two primary characters in the story, eg. Duncan/Methos (Duncan-slash-Methos).
Song fic - A story built around or heavily inspired by a song.
Squick - A fetish or story element that the reader finds hard to stomach. Example: "Stories about incest squick me a little." Variants: squick factor, squick-o-meter
TPM - Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace (commonly used acronym: Q/O - Qui-Gon/Obi Wan)
TS - The Sentinel
Top - The person on the giving end of anal sex.
TPTB - The powers that be.
VG - Velvet Goldmine (commonly used acronym: C/B for Curt/Brian, C/A for Curt/Arthur)
XF - X-Files (commonly used acronym: M/K for Mulder/Kryczek, M/S for Mulder/Skinner)