#fandom terminology

[the-bar-sinister]

Some of fandom really seems to have lost the plot on what "headcanon" means.

A headcanon is not meant to be, and should not be intended as, an attempt to persuade everyone to agree with you that yours is the correct and only interpretation.

A headcanon is not supposed to be an attempt to establish canon, or to supersede canon.

A headcanon is your own personal idea and interpretation that everyone is free to disagree with.

[cacodaemonia]

I've seen non-antis doing this for a while now, so here's your reminder that 'proship' is NOT an adjective for describing fictional relationships.

The 'pro' does NOT mean 'problematic,' as in "this is a problematic ship" (which, if you have critical thinking skills, you'll know is a ridiculous statement). That 'pro = problematic' idea is just something antis made up—or they didn't understand that in English, 'pro' is the opposite prefix of 'anti.' You know, how they're anti-ship, which means they are against fictional ships that they don't personally like.

The 'pro' in proship simply means 'in favor of.' And 'proship' as a whole describes the 'ship and let ship' mindset, which has been a core of fandom basically forever. The reason the term 'proship' exists at all is in response to antis crusading against particular ships and harming real people because of their preferences.

So, antiship, proship; antishipper, proshipper.

Just as you can say you're pro-choice, you can say you're proship—as in, you're in favor of letting people ship whatever they want and it's not your business. That's basically the same thing as calling yourself a proshipper, though I tend to see that more from people who are really into the ship war discourse.

Anyway, calling a fictional relationship a 'proship' makes as much sense as calling that ship an 'antiship.' And when you conflate 'pro' with 'problematic,' not only are you playing into antis' moral purity nonsense, but you're entirely changing the subject of the conversation. Please stop doing it.

[fanlore-wiki]

Terminology Thursday: Filing off the Serial Numbers

For Terminology Thursday, we’re covering Filing Off The Serial Numbers, a fannish term for the practice of removing copyrighted details from a piece of fanfiction so it can be published as original fiction. This typically involves the renaming of characters and changing of the story settings so they aren’t as easily recognizable.

The term originally comes from the practice of eradicating the serial number off a piece of electronics, appliance, weapon etc. so that it is untraceable. In fandom spaces, this term has been used since as early as 1996 to describe repurposed media fanfiction.

One of the most famous examples for Filing Off The Serial Numbers is the novel Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, which began as a Twilight fanfiction. Like most media fandom communities, members of the Twilight fandom are divided as to both the ethics and legality of republishing fan fiction as original fan fiction.

Filing of The Serial Numbers is often discussed in regards to its negative impact on fandom community. A major concern fans have is their favorite stories being pulled offline once they get published. Others feel like they are being used by the author as a virtual testing ground for the quality of their writing.

What are your thoughts on published fanfiction? Join the discussion on Fanlore!

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[proship-shuujuu]

some fandom terms explained:

we just explained a few terms to our boyfriend, since he's not well-versed with fandom terminology and tumblr terminology.

࿇ proship: a stance primarily defined as "ship and let ship". it's the belief that people should be allowed to ship whatever they want in fiction, no matter the ship. it's an anti-harassment and anti-censorship stance.

࿇ profiction: a stance that includes the proship stance. it's the belief that any work of fiction should be allowed to exist without censorship, and that others should be able to create whatever content they want without harassment.

࿇ antiship: the opposite of proship. antishippers usually believe that fictional tastes reflect real-life desires. an antishipper is someone who harasses others over fiction and/or calls for censorship of fiction.

࿇ darkship/darkshipping: a darkship is a ship between characters that have a taboo or "dark" relationship, such as incest, age-gap, human/animal, victim/abuser, etc.

࿇ comship/comshipping: a comship is a ship between characters that have a complex relationship, such as human/nonhuman, doctor/patient, teacher/student, etc.

࿇ lightship/lightshipping: a lightship is a ship between characters whose relationship is "unproblematic", for lack of better words. the characters are usually the same or similar ages, and the relationship is generally healthy.

࿇ selfship/selfshipping: a selfship is a ship between a canon character and someone's self-insert or original character. selfshippers are beings who are in relationships with fictional characters, whether platonic or romantic.

࿇ loli/lolicon: a loli is a young or young in appearance female character. people who are attracted to that sort of character, whether romantically, sexually, or wanting to be them, are called lolicons. lolis cannot refer to real minors, they are entirely fictional.

࿇ shota/shotacon: a shota is a young or young in appearance male character. people who are attracted to that sort of character, whether romantically, sexually, or wanting to be them, are called shotacons. shotas cannot refer to real minors, they are entirely fictional.

these are all the terms we're covering today. let us know if you want us to cover anything else!

[madlori]

Ok fam, gather round.

"Heated Rivalry" is not yaoi.

"The Long Walk" didn't have "yaoi" content.

BBC Sherlock isn't yaoi.

Various age-gap ships in "The Pitt" aren't "old man yaoi."

The term yaoi has a specific meaning and refers to a specific genre and community with its own tropes, cultural norms and customs.

It isn't a blanket term for "gay stuff." Nor should it be made into a wink-wink joke term. It feels mocking of the yaoi/BL community and they get enough of that without taking it on the teeth from other people in the fandom sphere. Can we not? Please?

If you WANT a blanket term for "gay stuff," those exist! Our old early fandom term "slash" is right there. I offer it for your use. Or you could just homoerotic or homoromantic. Those are also good.

But taking a specific term unique to a well defined community and smearing it all over everything is...well, this might seem like a trivial use of the term, but it's cultural appropriation.

In the WWII era, with a ton of US soldiers around, Japanese sex workers put on kimono and called themselves geisha. They were not geisha, but to this DAY a lot of people think geisha are sex workers (they are not). Words mean things, and the dilution of their meaning can harm the communities that originated them.

[hypno-gears]

Because I know I'll find at least two contradictory answers if I go searching, what is "whump" ?

Super valid, lol. That's actually a great question because I think a lot of people wonder the same thing. So, for all those wondering, here's my best description.

What is Whump?

I've heard whump described as "hurt/comfort" but very heavy on the "hurt" part.

In other words, it's a fanfiction trope in which the main character goes through a whole lot of torture and trauma, or just had a very bad day in general.

It's popular along us fanfic readers who love fics with lots of drama and angst. It can also be sweet - for example, after the main character has a bad day, their friend (or love interest, if you like shipping) comforts them, and it's adorable.

For example, maybe the main character gets kidnapped. Maybe they get seriously injured in battle. They might get hit with a terrible disease (there's a trope called a "sickfic" dedicated to that specifically).

Essentially, whump is like a trope dedicated to torturing your favorite little guys.

There's whump-related words that might help you understand, as well:

Whumper: Character doing the whump (causing the main character pain). Often a villain

Whumpee: The character getting "whumped" (having a VERY rough day)

Caretaker: The character who, as the title suggests, takes care of poor whumpee after everything happens.

If you'd like more info, I strongly recommend the videos "Popular Fandom Terminology" (both part 1 and part 2) by Coleydoesthings on Youtube. She goes into lots of fandom terms, including whump, and she's really good at explaining it.

Hope this helps!

[forcefemsuggested]

"Icky" is the modern term for "squick/squicky," a word used to tag posts about fictional stories that contain plot points and narrative conventions that – while enjoyable to the poster and those likeminded – are widely considered to be a dealbreaker to others.

Fictional characters are not real victims and anyone who uses fiction to prey on others is a predator. The line between fiction and reality is crossed when children get involved, including underaged voice actors, underaged live-action actors, and underaged fans who post in adult-only spaces.

If you stumble upon an instance of CSEM/CSAM, please file a report to the proper authorities.

Otherwise, block the artist and move on.

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is your definition of coding? Could you articulate for me the difference between coding and headcanon?

Headcanon = Literally "The canon that exists in your head." Generally these are concepts that you believe to be true but have no basis in the source material. They can be based on information from the source material, but ultimately can be absolutely whatever you want. This is a purely fandom concept.

Coding = The source material indicating a trait or theme without explicitly stating it. This is a media analysis term that has been co-opted into fandom spheres and comes in a very wide array of examples and use-cases. There is intentional coding, unintentional coding, positive uses of coding, negative uses of coding, etc etc. Most of the coding you see in Riordanverse, particularly first series, is intentional coding of disability themes into a fantasy/mythological setting, as that is explicitly what the series is about.

So, using PJO examples: A headcanon of mine is that Nico has hazel eyes. There is no textual evidence supporting this, it's just simply what I choose to believe. Meanwhile, Jason is queer-coded, in that he has a thematic narrative (Greek vs Roman) symbolically representing mspec attraction which is consistently paralleled against Nico's explicit queer identity.

Coding occupies an interesting niche in that, because it varies so much and because it's a media analysis thing, not a fandom thing, it's sort of in a grey area in terms of "canon" in a fandom sense and generally operates on a case-by-case basis. Especially since modern fandom operates largely on this idea that unless things are stated explicitly in exact terminology it's "not canon." There are plenty of canon things that technically fall under "coding" purely because it's never directly stated by exact name, even if it's explicitly shown (ex: Percy having cPTSD in PJATO - we're never explicitly told he has cPTSD by name because we shouldn't have to be. it's clearly displayed - we have already been told. you are just supposed to figure it out by yourself). This is the case for a lot of disability themes in PJATO.

Coding is also different from concepts like "fanon" - a fandom-specific thing generally meaning a headcanon or concept widely accepted or adopted by the larger community but not explicitly stated in canon. Coding can absolutely play into fanon/widely accepted headcanons, such as Percy being POC, but coding =/= headcanon.

Here's the fanlore wiki page on coding if you'd like to read more about it.