Chapter One: A Prologue of Sorts

*awkward me is awkward* Hi, demigods. Before we begin, I want to let you know that I am not a professional writer, or indeed an expert on all things fanfiction. In terms of PJO/HoO, I have three fanfictions (technically four but the last is a song list) and two of those are one shots, the last is ridiculously long. My disclaimer being this, I have made multiple of these mistakes in fanfiction and my advice, shall we say, might not be stellar. I do, however, read a lot of fanfiction, ergo I know most of the 'annoying bits'.

Before we begin, I would like to point out there will most definitely be spoilers in this. Like, a LOT of them for every PJO/HoO book. Do not read if you have not yet gotten your hands on everything up to House of Hades.

Another thing you need to know before pressing the "Next" button: The PJO Fangirl Glossary. This is a list of terms you might find in a fanfic's description, which I will probably end up using multiple times in this:

PJO – An abbreviation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the first book series in which there are five books all told from Percy's first person POV

HoO – An abbreviation of Heroes of Olympus, Rick Riordan's second book series involving demigods, in which there are four books with the fifth due out this October, all told from alternating third person POV

TLT – Stands for The Lightning Thief, the first book in PJO

TSoM – Stands for The Sea of Monsters, the second book in PJO

TTC – Stands for The Titan's Curse, the third book in PJO

TBotL – Stands for The Battle of the Labyrinth, the fourth book in PJO

TDF – Stands for The Demigod Files, an 'extra' book set in the time frame of PJO, which includes three short stories and interviews with the characters

TLO – Stands for The Last Olympian, the fifth and final book in PJO

TLH – Stands for The Lost Hero, marking the beginning of HoO

TDD – Stands for The Demigod Diaries, similar to TDF

(T)SoN – Stands for The Son of Neptune, the second book in HoO

(T)MoA – Stands for The Mark of Athena, the third book in HoO

(T)HoO – Stands for The House of Hades, the fourth and most recent book in HoO

(T)BoO – Stands for The Blood of Olympus, the fifth and final book in HoO which is going to be released on the 7th October 2014

POV – Stands for Point of View, which means who is telling the story, whose thoughts are we reading?

First person – A first person POV means that you are pretending to be the character, for example: I walked into the kitchen

Second person – A less common POV where the writer pretends it is the readers experiencing this, such as: You walked into the kitchen

Third Person – A POV where the author is 'telling' the story, like they're watching it happen: She/he walked into the kitchen

Flames – Surprising, it's nothing to do with Leo Valdez. A flame is a negative, unhelpful review which goes something like "your story is terrible" without offering any way to improve

AU – Stands for Alternate universe, which sets the characters in a completely different world to the books, for example a High School AU or Office AU etc. Not to be confused with AR (Alternate reality), where a specific event is changed rather than the world. However, most ARs are marked as AU

OOC – Stands for out of character or out of canon, which means the character does not act like they do in the books. An example of OOC would be if Annabeth was to start parading around Camp Half Blood in stiletto heels

! – Seeing an exclamation mark in-between what's usually an adjective, job or personality and a character name means that the character will be OOC or it will focus on an unusual aspect of the character's personality, such as Punk!Percy, Happy!Nico, Drunk!Piper etc.

OC – Stands for original character, which is a character the writer has invented and added in to either an AU with characters or into the book world

Slash – Means a homosexual pairing, typically when both involved are men. The correct term for 'lesbian' pairing is femslash, but slash is a more common. Another common word for this is Yaoi for the men, yuri for the women.

Lemons – Indicates that the fanfiction contains a very strong, graphic sex scene

Limes – A more toned down version of a lemon, sex scenes are either not very graphic or just implied

NB: Fanfictions that contain both lemons and limes can be referred to as citrus

Canon – Something that is the same as the book, or that is not made up. For example, a Percy and Annabeth relationship is canon, Luke Castellan's death is canon etc.

Ship – When you like the idea of two or more characters being in a relationship: I ship Jason and Piper, a ship between Hazel and Leo seems weird to me (all examples)

OTP - One true pairing, the couple that you ship (want to be together) the most

brOTP – People that you ship, but only as friends or bros. For example: Jason and Nico are only my brOTP

nOTP – The opposite of OTP, the ship you can't stand

Beta/Beta reader – Basically your editor. They read through fanfictions, checking for spelling mistakes, continuity issues, bad characterisation etc.

Noncon – Short for non-consensual, in terms of sex. If you see this, it's usually a warning for technical rape

Disclaimer – A very important part of any fanfiction. A disclaimer means you recognise the characters and universe of PJO is not yours, to avoid copyright issues. It is very important that this is clearly in your fanfiction at least once

Drabble – A very short fanfiction, typically under 500 words

Fluff – As the name suggests, a light hearted, happy fanfiction

m/m, f/f or m/f – Another way of letting the readers know what type of pairing this is. m/m means two males paired, f/f means two females and m/f means male/female pairing

Mary Sue – A perfect character with no flaws, very badly written characters. The male version is Gary Stu

PWP – Porn without plot. Means the fanfiction is literally just a scene of erotica

Songfic – A fanfiction including song lyrics

Vanilla – A character or fanfiction description that usually means simple. If a lemon is vanilla it means no fancy kinks and so on

UST – Unresolved sexual tension

Crossover – When two different books/fandoms get combined in one fanfiction, such as Percy Jackson being reaped for the Hunger Games

THE SHIPS (note that there are many more, but those will probably be marked like Percy/Aphrodite)

Percabeth – Percy and Annabeth

Percico – Percy and Nico, sometimes pernico, pico or nicercy

Perachel – Percy and Rachel

Jercy - Jason and Percy (there's so much UST there it's unreal)

Perpollo – Percy and Apollo

Frazel – Frank and Hazel

Lazel – Leo and Hazel

Jasper/jiper – Jason and Piper

Tratie – Travis Stoll and Katie Gardener

Gruniper – Grover and Juniper

Leyna – Leo and Reyna

Jeyna – Jason and Reyna

Lukabeth – Luke and Annabeth

Nictavian – Nico and Octavian

Thaluke – Thalia and Luke

Perluke/Lukercy – Percy and Luke

Thalico – Thalia and Nico

Rico (I'm not sure on the ship name) – Rachel and Nico

Pertamis – Percy and Artemis

Perlia – Percy and Thalia

Pothena – Poseidon and Athena

Jasico – Jason and Nico

Leico/valdangelo/ghostfire – Leo and Nico

Leason/valgrace – Leo and Jason (though the second one could be Leo/Thalia)

Brason – Jason and the brick that hit him at the beginning of MOA (my OTP)

Caleo – Calypso and Leo

Perlypso – Percy and Calypso

The big threesome – Jason, Nico and Percy (not Zeus, Hades and Poseidon)

Tysella – Typson and Ella (the harpy)

Perleo – Percy and Leo

Reynabeth – Reyna and Annabeth

Pipabeth – Piper and Annabeth

Pipeyna – Piper and Reyna

Chrisse - Clarisse and Chris

NB: Most threesome ships are not included because they're easy to figure out

Feel free to request 'lessons' in the review section :)