Oboebyrd's Guide to Writing Formulaic Fanfiction

Chapter 13: Abbreviations

Welcome to Oboebyrd's thoughts on those strange abbreviations that crawl across the good face of FF.net like thousands of little black ants... these are taken from my experiences of reading fanfiction... god help me, but I've noticed some patterns...



AU: Alternate Universe... aka, not the Universe which is presented in the book. This should, obviously, represent every single Fanfiction, including character thoughts, because the only RU... Real Universe... is the one which Tolkien created.

LOL: Laugh-out-loud. What we do every time we read a Mary-Sue. (See below)

ROTFL: Rolling on the floor laughing. What we do every time we read a Mary-Sue, and when there are not other people in the room.


Plz: Also seen as Plees, loosely translated: Please. A kind request, unless is followed by the foreboding words 'Or else!'

R/R: (R&R) Read and review. A pitiful plea for moral assistance from writers.

Thx: Thank you, or shorter, thanks. A general term of giving graciousness for a favor or a gift.

Slash: Male/Male or Female/Female romance or 'smut'. Usually involves little or no true love, is simply an escapist's sex ideal.

Het: Heterosexual relationships. Which means male/female pairings. This occasionally spawns the dread beast: Mary-Sue

Mary-Sue: A romance/smut story which integrates a character of an author's own creation into a storyline. The Mary-Sue falls deeply in love with a major character, preferably Legolas, and he in love with her. Actual relationships are not allowed. An unpopular but long-desired variation is the Bobby-Joe, in which a male character of an author's own creation falls in love with a female character from the books.

M/M: Male/Male... basically slash. Usually a little less graphic.

Smut: Pornographic fiction. Very graphic.

Mary-Bloom: Of my creation, a Mary-Sue involving real-life actors... preferably Orlando Bloom.

Fluff: 1. Dryer lint, fuzzy, soft objects. 2. Pointless, yet usually cute, fiction. Sometimes romantic in nature, usually just an innocent story, very rarely goes above PG.

Lint: Not generally acknowledged, but Lint stands for 'Love in Nasty Times', also called 'Sex with Dust Bunnies'. It is much like fluff, in which it has no plot, but is much, much more graphic, and is usually rated R or higher.

Lemon: Cheap, and not as good as it appears. Things often go wrong with a 'lemon', often its pointlessness leads to such problems.

OOC: Out of Character... terribly frightening, when the author actually admits it, is it not? (Uhm... yeah... all the credit goes to BurningTyger for that one.)

IC: In character... which is a LIE!

Flames: (v. To be flamed) Hatred directed in reviews towards an author's piece of fiction. Undesirable, unless you have an iron constitution. Flames can also be mild or constructive criticism, which good Formulaic Fanfiction writers react indignantly to and often delete.

*^^*: An evil, archaic symbolism that is believed by many scholars to be a smiley face... the smile deleted by either the evil of the story or the evil of FF.net's uploading process.

Pre-LOTR: Before Larry Olsen's Television Records. No... that's not right. Before Lord of the Rings... perhaps before the Hobbit, maybe even before the Silmarillion! (Okay, maybe not.)

The Canon Police: A small, non-law based group which 'flames' Fanfiction Writers for not staying true to the books. Holds no official power, but is given substantial influence by the anger of Writers who are 'flamed', when they react violently to their appearance by deleting reviews and writing fictions that kill them.

Cannon: Weapon of destruction, more commonly used as a weapon in earlier days, now used mostly as an exhibit in Civil War museums.

Canon: Book. Book values.

JRR: That guy who wrote the Lord of the Rings Books. Referring to him by his first name seems rude, but hey...

Tolkien: Probably a better way to refer to JRR.

Lil: Well possibly a name for a female creature, usually means 'Little'.

Ya: Familiar usage of 'you'.

Sis: Sister... female blood relative of the same parents.

Bro: Brother... male blood relative of the same parents.

Cuz: 1. Cousin 2. 'cuz, as in 'becuz, or, less popularily, 'because'.



~~~~~~ Oboebyrd: That's it... no more!