It’s no secret that I’ve spent a good chunk of my formative writing and non-writing years in fandom spaces. I can’t imagine ever leaving—it’s just so comfy! Sure, there’s wank and discourse, but there are also amazing fanworks and memes. I’ll do a lot for a good meme.
My own personal language has evolved in parallel with these spaces. And I’m aware that not everyone has the same level of education about these sorts of “cultural” terms, though it’s difficult for me to see where the lines are drawn.
So harkening back to the Glossary series I did last year, here we’ll have another mini dictionary series about a lot of terms that arose from fandom spaces.
This week is about ROMANCE and all of its related terms, because that’s long enough to be a post by itself. Fandom goes nuts for relationships.
shipping/ship – This may be one of the most mainstream adoptions of fandom terms, but make no mistake, it definitely came from fandom. X-Files, in fact. Originally, it stood for “relationshipping”, for those who wanted to see Mulder and Scully touch mouths. Now, it’s a broad term—both noun and verb—to describe that you’d like to see two or more characters together in a romantic relationship.
pairing – The term used to describe a ship, couple, or other romantic designation.
OTP – It stands for “One True Pairing”, as in your absolute, top tier, most favorite ever. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who has just one, however. Mostly just means a favorite ship nowadays.
BROTP – Like OTP, except with bros! It is not actually masculine, and can apply to anyone—it just means you love to see two or more characters in a friendship setting. Think buddy cop movies.
NOTP – No thank you to that ship (OTP). It means you really, really don’t like a certain ship. It’s polite not to spread hate for it around, as others probably enjoy it, but respect others’ NOTPs.
OT3 (or OT4, OT5, etc) – Related to the OTP term above, but this is for more than two characters. Honestly, a lot better to look at than “throuple”. (And yes, there are ships with that many characters involved.)
dubcon – Short for “dubious consent”. Which is exactly as advertised.
noncon – Short for “nonconsensual”. Again, exactly as advertised. There is a lot of emphasis placed on proper tagging in fandom spaces, as people like to know what they’re about to get into.
sex pollen – Okay, I’m including this one because it’s hilarious. It’s a trope referring to a thin excuse (alien/magic flowers and their pollen, for example) for characters to get really, really horny. For some reason, I want to say it comes from Star Trek? A lot of fandom owes itself to Star Trek foundation.
fuck or die – Including this because it is specifically attributed to Star Trek. Oh, Pon Farr, where would we be without you? (It refers to a trope where characters must have sex or, well, someone will die, or something equally tragic. Naturally, I don’t think characters have ever chosen the “or die” option due to the fact that this is a smut trope.)
slash – A little aged, but it refers to homosexual relationships. Femslash is a feminine term for it, though technically slash can be used as an umbrella term.
yaoi/shounen-ai – Japanese terms that have crossed into a lot of Western anime fandoms. It means male/male relationships. Yaoi generally has a more sexual connotation than shounen-ai (which literally means “boy’s love”).
yuri(/shoujo-ai) – Another Japanese term that has entered into Western anime fandoms. This one is for female/female relationships. Yuri is used a lot more of a blanket term.
kink meme – An aged term that came from the livejournal days of fandom. It is a large place to post requests for short stories, and for others to “fill” them, as in write them, usually in little parts. Most posters were completely anonymous. Despite its name, it was not all sexual. Most were categorized by fandom.
kinkshaming – Shaming someone for their kink, though generally it means any kind of preference, not necessarily a kink—or sexual. It is also used jokingly for shaming anyone about anything these days—“I’m kinkshaming”, you can say to the person wearing socks with sandals. Generally there is no followup.
