Shipping Glossary

The Shipping Glossary is a list of terms and the definitions in shipping and fandom.

A

 *  - is an umbrella term used by fans to refer to anime and manga at the same time, particularly in the context of a single, large, combined fandom.

B

 *  - Short form of Bisexuality.
 *  - The romantic attraction to both genders.
 *  - The sexual attraction to both genders, opposite and the same.

C

 *  - Another word for official. Used to refer to a pairing or another aspect of the series that is considered to be true to the storyline.
 *  - Short form of character.
 *  - A character is a fictional invention who does not exist in real life.
 *  - A pairing that is considered to be way out there or impossible. Usually between characters who have never met each other or barely interacted.

F

 *  - The community that surrounds a tv show/movie/book etc. Fanfiction writers, artists, poets, and cosplayers are all members of that fandom. Fandoms often consist of message boards, livejournal communities, roleplaying, people and much more.
 *  - A person who has interest or likes something, or somebody. Can refer to many things including sports, movie stars, food/drink and so on. Basically anybody that likes something.
 *  - Short form of Fanfiction.
 *  - Fanfiction is when someone takes either the story or characters (or both) of a certain piece of work, whether it be a novel, tv show, movie, etc, and create their own story based on it. Sometimes people will take characters from one movie and put them in another, which is called a cross-over.
 *  - Femslash is the female version of slash, where instead of two guys, it's two girls. Basically, lesbians.
 *  - A fanfic which the story has no plot. Only humourous or romantic nonsense.
 *  - See Portmanteau.

G

 *  - See Homosexuality.
 *  - A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.
 *  - Gender is the range of physical, mental, and behavioral characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and femininity.
 *  - A Ship that you once supported and perhaps still do that went down in the ocean, drowning all on board (basically, a hopeless relationship)

H

 *  - Fanfiction slang that means "heterosexual." Refers to romance fanfics about heterosexuals.
 *  - Romantically attracted to people of the opposite gender.
 *  - Sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex.
 *  - A word that is short for homosexual.
 *  - Romantically attracted to the same gender.
 *  - When two people of the same gender love eachother.

L

 *  - A homosexual woman.
 *  - Abbreviation term of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. Also a community.
 *  - Feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone.

O

 *  - is an acronym used in the Harry Potter fandom which stands for One Big Happy Weasley Family. It refers to the combined Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione ships.
 *  - One True Pairing. Meaning the your favorite combination of characters in a fandom.
 *  - is a play on OTP, and means "one true threesome".
 *  - means "one true foursome"

P

 *  - the characters who make up the central focus of a fanwork.
 *  - A person who is sexually interested in other people regardless of gender including males, females, transexuals, tansvestites, gender benders, hermaphrodites, intersexuals, androgenous people, and those with sex-chromosome anomaly such as klinefelter syndrome or turner syndrome.
 *  - is a relationship between three or more characters which is deeper and more long-lasting than a one-time threesome/moresome sex scene.
 *  - The combination of two or more words to create a new word.

R

 *  - Sometimes done on message boards, people make their own character and play them (more or less) in a set of rules laid down by forum moderators (once again, more or less). These usually see a lot of fighting, and are usually populated by people between the ages of 12-20. all actions and descriptions, abilities and powers, are at the mercy of the player playing the role, and are described in text.
 *  - A feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.

S

 *  - A Ship that became canon.
 *  - Sexual activity, including specifically sexual intercourse.
 *  - Is a slang word derived from 'relationships' that generally means people who support certain relationships in fanfiction. It is a common joke to say that you "sail" on a certain ship.
 *  - When you watch a TV show or read a book or watch a movie in which you ship two characters, and see their "moments" everywhere, whether they're together in canon or not.
 *  - A depression caused by the end of one's favored ship i.e. a possible romantic pairing between two characters, be it in a book, a movie, or a television series.
 *  - Derived from the word relationship, is the belief that two characters, fictional or non-fictional, would be interesting or believable (or are, or will be, or should be) in a romantic relationship. It is considered a general term for fans' emotional involvement with the ongoing development of romance in a work of fiction.
 *  - A heated disagreement between two or more groups of shippers. Ship wars span a long time (often years) and involve many people in their fandom.
 *  - is a pairing that is described in the story, but is not the main focus. Side pairings can vary in "screen time" and importance; a "secondary" pairing might have almost as much plot relevance as the "main" pairing, or it might be better described as a "background" or "minor" pairing that is only mentioned incidentally.
 *  - Genre of fanfiction involving pairing two male or female characters together; characters are commonly shown with a slash in between.
 *  - is a fan of slash. Some fans of slash who also read or write in other genres prefer not to identify as slashers, seeing the term as meaning fans who are only interested in slash pairings.
 *  - is commonly used to describe relationships between characters of the same gender that can easily be read as sexual or romantic, or texts that contain homoerotic subtext supporting slash pairings.
 *  - See Heterosexual.
 *  - is content in canon (or, sometimes, fanworks) that is inferred by the audience without being explicitly stated. In fan discussions, subtext most commonly refers to canon that is felt to imply a romantic relationship or UST between two characters, or to hint at a character's sexual orientation.
 *  - is a crossover between the three mega-fandoms Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock (with The Avengers also sometimes cropping up), which has formed a fandom of its own on Tumblr.
 *  - is an individual who is an avid fan of supernatural, Doctor Who and Sherlock.

T

 *  - A label often used for fanworks involving three characters in a romantic or sexual situation.
 *  - A person born with the physical characteristics of one sex who emotionally and psychologically feels that they belong to the opposite sex.

W

 *  - is a term used in the Harry Potter fandom to describe fanworks that contain incest pairings involving members of the Weasley Family -- most often twins Fred and George Weasley.

Y

 *  - Yaoi is a slang meaning 'boys love' or homosexuality that is used in the japanese language.
 *  - Explicit lesbian relationships in anime or manga.