The fandom dictionary

All the terms you need to know to understand fandom

Jun 20, 2025

Welcome to Gen Z Translator, where I break down trending topics on Fridays. If you’re new, you can subscribe here and follow me on Instagram. Views are my own. Happy reading!

(Skip this intro and go straight to the dictionary if you want).

If you were to step into a fan convention like, say, San Diego Comic Con or Phoenix Fan Fusion, without much knowledge of fandoms, you might come across quite a few terms you’re unfamiliar with.

Words like “ship” or “headcanon” might be heard in the hallways, or they might be the focus of hour-long panels. Even when movies, books, comics, and television shows end, the fans carry the world on – and with that, their own terminology. I thought it’d be fun to compile these terms and make my own “fandom dictionary” in this newsletter.

But first, let’s talk about copyright for a second.

The moment an author puts their pen to paper, so to speak, the copyright of that work belongs to them. They don’t need to register it with any sort of office or bureau. They came up with it, so it’s their intellectual property.

Much of these terms come from the fanfiction corner of the internet. Fanfiction is largely dipping into someone else’s copyright – ideas, characters, and worlds another person came up with – and transforming it into something else. So, plagiarizing something word-for-word without credit would be a no-no. But writing a beloved character into a coffee shop scene where they get a latte and read a book? A little more gray.

I won’t pretend I understand it all exactly. I’m not a copyright expert. All I know is that there’s some sort of loophole if 15 million fan-made works can exist on a platform like Archive of Our Own without facing removal.

“Why do people enjoy fanfiction?” ColeyDoesThings asked in a video, explaining that “It’s like playing with dolls or G.I. Joes in your head.”

In other words, it’s desirable because it offers escapism. This can be said for any sort of fandom – the idea of escaping into another world, with its own drama, history, and nuance, can be incredibly appealing.

“Beyond escaping, it’s exploration, it’s examination, the three E’s of fanfic, I suppose,” Coley said. “You have the power to parse through and control anything and everything you want when it comes to a story.”

Personally, I’ve always struggled to see the point in writing fanfiction on a large scale, since publication has always been a personal goal of mine, and you can’t professionally publish fanfiction, as the core elements of the story belong to someone else. It feels like a lot of time and energy put into content you ultimately can’t own. (I’m not saying people shouldn’t write and enjoy fanfiction. Please do!)

However, fanfiction is an excellent exploration into fandom as concept, and a great representation of the terminology that has evolved from it. Fanfiction offers not only the continuation of a universe, but sometimes a do-over of it.

Popular fanworks and media nowadays often revolve around tropes, which are reoccurring patterns across franchises. Bridgerton, for example, is known for its use of a different trope each season: fake dating, enemies-to-lovers, and friends-to-lovers. Tropes have long been included by published authors.

“Fangirl” language can be used for movies, music, books, comics, and more. The following guide errs more toward books and fanfiction. Some of these I’ve already talked about, but some are new!

Your Starting Guide to Fan Terminology

Canon: Something considered by the fandom as confirmed in the original content matter, like a couple who actually date in a book or a character who actually dies a movie
Fandom: A predominantly online group of fans
Fan Edits: Also called “edits,” these are fan-made videos, usually spliced together quickly with clips or photos to express admiration for a character
Fangirl: A commonly used term for female fans passionate about certain media
Fan Service: Appealing to the fans; often when a franchise brings back beloved characters or locations
Fan Theories: Theories from fans !
Feels: As in, “this piece of media is making me feel all the feelings”
Fic: Short for “fanfiction”
Fluff: So-called “fluffy” content where nothing high-stakes happens to the characters
Headcanon: A fact about the story that the fan or fandom accepts as truth, but isn’t actually canon. (You’ve accepted it in your head, hence headcanon)
Lore: The backstory of something
MC: Main Character
Mega-Fic: A ginormous, book-length fanfiction
NSFW: “Not Safe for Work.” Inappropriate. Do not open at work!
OTP: “One True Pairing.” The ultimate, end-all, be-all ship. This is a pairing you would be willing to sink for. (Haha, get it? Like a ship…sinking. Look, I didn’t come up with it.)
Parasocial: A one-sided relationship where one party feels like they deeply know the other, going so far as to consider themselves friends when they’re not
POV: The point-of-view the story is told from (i.e. first person POV, third person POV, [insert character] POV)
Ship: A couple or pairing, usually fictional, that fans think should be in a relationship
Shipper: The fan who “ships” a couple
Ship Name: Usually the combination of two characters’ names to denote a pairing (think: in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the Percy/Annabeth ship is called Percabeth)
Ship War: Disagreements within a fandom about superior ships
Spice: Mature content. (think: “This romantasy has some spice”).
TBR: “To Be Read” list
Tropes: A reoccurring pattern in fictional character relationships, whether platonic, romantic, or familial
WIP: Work-in-progress

Read: AO3 is a fangirl's best kept secret

Tropes, Fics & Ships:

AU: Shorthand for “alternate universe,” this is often used as a medium to imagine characters in a world or setting outside of their original. Some examples of this could be a Modern AU or a Fantasy AU
Canon Compliant: Aligning with said canon material
Canon Divergent: Diverging from the facts of the stories, i.e. branching away from the original canon content
Crackship: According to Fanlore, “a ship that is highly ridiculous, bizarre, disturbing, and/or unlikely to ever become canon.”
Dead Dove: According to one Reddit user, the “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” term is “a warning or tag used to indicate that a fanwork contains tropes or elements that may be deemed morally reprehensible without explicitly condemning the sensitive aspects.” It’s based on this clip from Arrested Development
Enemies to Lovers Trope: When characters start out hating each other but eventually fall in love
Established Relationship Trope: When characters had already been in a relationship prior to the reader entering into the story
Fake Dating/Marriage of Convenience Trope: When characters fake date or rush to get married (think: To All The Boys I Loved Before or Bridgerton)
Fandom Crossover: When two fandoms are combined (think: if Star Wars characters were to meet Star Trek characters)
Found Family Trope: When characters who lack strong biological family ties form strong relationships with each other, becoming their own sort of family
Forced Proximity Trope: When characters are forced to be around each other due to the circumstances
Friends to Lovers Trope: When characters start out as friends and end up as lovers
Grumpy x Sunshine Trope: When characters are opposites of each other, one happy, one grumpy
Hurt/Comfort Trope: When a character needs to take care of another character, usually because they are injured or emotionally hurting
M/F, M/M, F/F: A denotation for the gender of the couple being shipped
OC: Original Character; i.e. a character made up by the author rather than poached from a fandom
Rivals to Lovers Trope: When characters start out competing with each other but eventually fall in love
RPF: Real Life/Real Person Ships; or fan pairings of people who exist in real life. Often, RPFs are frowned upon, as they cross a line into celebrities’ lives that is considered parasocial and intrusive
Second Chance Trope: When characters give each other a second chance
Secret Relationship Trope: When characters are hiding their relationship
Self-Insert or Y/N: Y/N is meant to represent “Your Name Here.” A type of fanfiction that inserts the reader as the main character of the story.
Slow Burn Trope: When a relationship between characters takes a long time to come to fruition, often stretched across the entirety of the work or series
Soulmate Trope: When characters are destined to be together
Unrequited Love Trope: When a character is unrequitedly in love with another character

Read: I'm obsessed with 'Crazy Girl' Literature

I’m sure there are plenty of other terms I missed, but I wouldn’t want to give away all of the fangirls’ secrets. I’d love to continually update this page as new ideas arise.

Click below if you’re interested in reading my full Gen Z Dictionary: