Tumblr's official fandom old folks' home

And other times all it takes is for your professor to say, “Let me tell you about a student named Maddy” for you to go:

It also has great grammar and spelling.

The characters are all in character!

I feel like the time has come to produce something like this:

Squick: A fic/art/concept/topic that is repellent to you, so you reject association with it and instead retreat to your personal comfortable spaces- all the while remembering that someone else’s comfort is not your own.

YKINMKATO: Also called “kink tomato.” Abbreviation meaning “your kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.” Used to explain why you are rejecting art or fic brought to you by someone else. A solid mantra to recall instead of sending flames in people’s comments

Flames: The comment equivalent of anon hate.

AMV: “animated music video” or “anime music video.” Often, this is stylized to fit a specific fandom, such as a “PMV” (pony music video) in my little pony. May also be referred to as a lyricstuck.

Filk: Combination of the words “film” and “folk,” this is a music genre, to which “fan songs” and “fan parody covers” belong. If you don’t really understand what this means, take a quick listen to American Pie, then compare Weird Al Yankovic’s Saga Begins

BNF: Big name fan. You know that one person who is just so fuckign popular in your fandom? Their art is always on your dash, everyone knows their fics? Being spoken to directly by them is basically being noticed by everyone ever’s senpai? That’s what these people are called.

DL:DR; Not unliked the teal deer (tl;dr, or “too long, didn’t read”), DLDR means “don’t like? Don’t read!” It’s a reminder that you are under no obligation, ever, to expose yourself to uncomfortable (or, squicky), or potentially harmful (or, triggering), material. Not ever. If you don’t actively like something? It’s not worth your time. Skip it.

Gen: or “genfic” “genart” etc. Fan works which contain no or very little romantic content. Often these are styled after the canon material, and may be called “episodic” ro “slice of life” in addition. 

Lemon: Work containing strong pornographic elements

Lime, or Citrus: Work containing mild or implicit pornographic elements

Sockpuppeting: The surprisingly common scenario of someone making a bunch of fake accounts/sideblogs to send themselves reviews or hate, to try to increase views or drama surrounding a work. The accounts they make are called Sockpuppets. 

WAFF: Warm and fluffy feelings. A genre of fic that exists just to be therapeutically sweet. Nowadays, usually just called “fluffy.”

Schmoop: Take WAFF and somehow make it even more syrupy. You’ll know it when you see it.

Whump: Imagine if you will, a hurt-comfort fic. The comfort might be considered WAFF. The hurt? That’s the whump.

Wapanese: When white autors pepper their anime fanfic with random, tonally inappropriate japanese words. 

Anthropomorfic: Nowadays we just call these “humanstuck” or “humanized AU.”

Wank: Wildly disproportionate drama that crops up because someone wrote/drew/did something that someone else didn’t like. Seriously, I cannot begin to express the fiascos that have come about from all this. Just… Just go look at this.

 Plot bunny: Story ideas that you probably won’t ever actually deal with, but that multiply entirely out of control, creating huge worlds in your head that you’re probably not going to write. But hey! You might! And until then they make great sideblogs/askblogs/tumblr posts.

Casefic: Fanfics that try to create an episode-like feel for procedural and crime dramas, moster of the week shows, etc.

Jossed: When popular fan theories and fanon are addressed in the canon of a series, and whoops, turns out we were all very, very wrong.

Kripked: When popular fan theories and fanon are addressed in the canon of a show and, hot damn, we fucking called it.

Secret Masters: The people who run the websites/ communities/etc that we all do our fanning on. Less relevant now that we have things like tumblr, but when everyone had to run their own archival and social sites for each fandom, it was more important to pay our respects to the strange and powerful beings that brought us all together and gave us our fannish homes. Think the staff of AO3, for example.

Also, this is missing some stuff:

angst: a story meant to evoke intense feelings of sadness, anguish and upsetness in the reader (think “tearjerker” for a similar non-fandom term)

wangst: a story that is intended to be angst, but comes across as laughable because the situations are too over the top or the characters are overreacting in unrelatable ways.

darkfic: a fanfiction dealing with very heavy topics (noncon, death, torture), generally in a more serious manner than the average fanfiction, without trying to gliss on the nitty gritty details.

noncon: stories dealing with the theme of nonconsensual sex (not necessarily porn or even heavily nsfw in nature)

dubcon: stories where consent is dubious, or partially inpaired, but not as clear-cut as with noncon. Unfortunately some people use it to mean pretty much “softcore/gentle noncon”, so it can have unfortunate implications…

PWP: Porn Without Plot, or Plot?What Plot?. Exactly what it sounds like.

fanon: a character trait or other detail that isn’t exactly canon, but is so widely adopted in fandom that it’s almost considered as such ( “Remus Lupin loves chocolate” for example).

prompt: in the context of fandom, is when someone gives you an idea to write about (can be a quote, an image, a concept, etc). Like “prompt: Character A has to share a bed with Character B for one night”.

OOC: Out Of Character, or Out Of Canon. When something in a story clashes with the canon or a character acts in a way that does not fit with what is shown of them in canon.

ACI: Alternate Character Interpretation. When a character acts/is portrayed in a way that is not canon-conform/never mentioned in canon but also not contradicted by canon (for example interpreting a character as bisexual when he has never shown interest in men in canon, but also has not been openly confirmed as straight). I think this is nowadays called “headcanon”?

IC: In Character. Opposite of OOC, when a story is written in a way to be as canon-compliant as possible.

Mary Sue: an overly perfect and over the top ridiculous female character, often a self-insert. Gary Stu is the male equivalent (think Eragon for example). Used to be applied to fringe cases, but has been used more loosely and subsequently came under criticism, as sometimes accusations of “sueism” could have a mysoginistic undertone.

And also: there used to be (not sure if still is) a phenomena of putting [descriptive]![character name] for alternate or very specific versions of a character. For example “black!Hermione”, “bisexual!Sirius”, “human!Shere Khan”. To add more than one you’d do it in sequence, like “vampire!redhead!Van Helsing”.

Writing couples is both enchanting and exhausting. How do you make people ship your couple? How do you make them an OTP? How do you make your couple matter to the story? Or matter at all? To answer all these questions, I’ll explain three major must-have characteristics for couples:

1. Realism

Falling in love is a slow process. It’s different from person to person. People are flawed. Relationships are flawed. People make mistakes. People fear rejection. Not everyone will find their soulmate exactly when they need most. People show love in different ways. People are not flirty all the time. Realism is important. Development is essential. When writing a couple, visualize yourself as one of the characters (or both). Imagine their love story as if it was happening to you in real life. See how different it goes? Maybe not as fast and a thousand times clumsier, but also charming and interesting.

Example of strong realism: Carl and Ellie (UP), they take a lifetime to mature their love and mutual respect. Neither are perfect. The relationship goes through bad times, but their love only grows.

Example of weak realism: Caine and Jupiter (Jupiter Ascending), they fall in love in two or three days, not enough scenes are dedicated to developing the relationship. In the end, it feels strange. 

2. Balance

Give your couple opposite but complementary features. This is basically the Yin-yang symbolism that a lot of stories shows. If one character is all love-and-peaceful, maybe the other is a furnace of anger. If one traveled the whole world, maybe the other never left their village. If one is a millionaire, maybe the other is homeless. If one is short with dark hair, maybe the other is tall with light hair. However, no matter how opposite they are, always keep the balance. One shouldn’t overshadow the other. They must shine together, but also as individuals.

Example of strong balance: Fix-it Felix Jr. and Sargent Calhoun (Wreck-It Ralph), they belong to different worlds, they would probably never meet. He is a sweet pie that always tries his best, a peacemaker. She is, on the other hand, an explosion, a warrior. They are both relevant in achieving victory. Also, both are the heroes of their own games.

Example of weak balance: Sasuke and Sakura (Naruto), he is way more powerful than her, he doesn’t respect her as a ninja, he doesn’t like working with her. He tried killing her more than once and was never sorry about that. She accepts being overshadowed. She lacks character development compared to Sasuke. There is no opposite-complementary features tying them. It’s unbalanced.

3. Synergy

Make them work together. Make them accomplish common goals. Make them a power duo. Make them laugh of the same jokes. Make it easy and natural for them to be together, talking, sharing and having a good time. Make their conversations flow. Make it easy to touch, and stare, and embrace, and kiss. Make their mind and body work together.

Example of strong synergy: Cat Noir and Ladybug/Adrien and Marinette (Miraculous Ladybug), they are the heroes of Paris. No, they are partners in saving the world. It doesn’t feel uncomfortable when they interact, fight and save each other. It feels right. It feels natural. You crave for interactions.

Example of weak synergy: Kim Tan and Eun-Sang (The Heirs), they are the type of couple that are always fighting, but sometimes indulge in a passionate kiss. However, there’s no synergy between these characters. They are never on the same page. They are never partners. The magic of their relationship never sparkles. Even their kisses are uncomfortable to watch.

Now, think of your favorite couples (even non-canon ones) and try spotting the realism, the balance and the synergy in them. If you ship it,I’m pretty sure it’s there. 

Just because you can write a well-structured story with dynamic and consistent writing and characters doesn’t mean you will be popular. And sometimes stories that have disorganized plots, mediocre writing, and/or OOC characters will be held up as the greatest things to ever exist. 

Just because your writing isn’t popular doesn’t mean you are a bad writer. Don’t ever compromise who you are, who your characters are, your plot, your writing style, anything for the sake of readership.

oh my god

ok this is actually pretty easy 

shallow world building. don’t just tell me there are four kingdoms, give me two sentences about vague things about a few of those kingdoms, then drop it at that. stop using ‘jungles’ to pretend you’re not set in a western europe analogue just own up to the western europe analogue my god. stop throwing in 3 vaguely russian sounding words and claiming your world was inspired by russia even though all your other world building is anachronistic to that claim.

inconsistent naming conventions??? why do we get books where half the names are made up and the other half are Bland as Hell i don’t get it???? 

14 thousand male characters, all of them hot. maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get one female character to be the main characters’ friend but she’s probably a servant and she’ll probably die. i cannot beLIEVE I STILL SEE THIS. 

edgy princess can use sword. which i feel needs no more explanation than that. 

i hate secret princesses and i need that trope to stop forever. 

this really strange inability to mold convincing dialogue in high fantasy? like they don’t know how to make it casual while still setting appropriate? it’s not that difficult? your characters don’t need to sound like they have sticks up their asses for half the book yet also have dialogue that could be taken from a contemporary from the other half? 

ya high fantasy is still white and straight as hell with only an occasional variation from that 

love triangles between brothers

please stop that 

LOVE IS ALWAYS THE ANSWER GUYS 

inconsistent magic systems that aren’t actually magic systems at all but super powers thinly veiled as magic for the sake of high fantasy. this one REALLY bothers me and i see it from super talented authors whom i respect. Like I get rationing out magic in different forms and ways but you can do that and still have it be a system with limitations, cause/effect, and consequences. but no. we get super powers instead. 

STOP OVERPOWERING YOUR CHARACTERS WITH LITTLE TO NO REPERCUSSIONS ON THEM. THIS ISN’T A VIDEO GAME YOUR CHARACTERS AREN’T LEVELING UP.