Fannish Terms Glossary

[flowersforgraves]

One of the biggest issues this nominations & signup period has been confusion about certain freeforms. In order to facilitate ease of use in future rounds, I am opening up this post as a discussion space to identify issues and come to some sort of agreement on how these will be treated in future rounds. Anon commenting is on.

The end goal of this discussion is to establish a definition list for terms that may be unfamiliar to some fans, as well as clarify terms which may have similar or the same meanings. The glossary created will be stickied to this comm for future use.

Comments

[rugessnome]

...I for one have no idea what the tags Bingo Book Page (professional & academic document) or Blind Item (in universe publication) refer to?

It might be worth having what FFA is somewhere--I think it was you who told me what it is just recently, so I feel like it might not be as well known an abbreviation (or thing) as e.g. "MMO"

Probably also a good idea to get together a glossary of poetry forms/explanatory links, which I'd be willing to help with (albeit not tonight)

[fencesit]

Bingo books as they were intended in the tagset are a Naruto thing! In Naruto, Bingo Books are "black books used by ninja that contain any and all information on black-listed ninja they are to target." (src: Narutopedia) Narutopedia also says, "Although the word for Bingo Book is written as 'Tehaisho' (手配書), it is read the same as the English 'Bingo Book'. The kanji would literally translate to 'Wanted Person Book' and is commonly used to refer to wanted posters." So, basically, it's a list of people the ninja carrying it is meant to kill, more or less.

[flowersforgraves]

A blind item is basically a blackmailing scheme through a newspaper (gossip column or personals). Events would be described without revealing the people involved, with the implication being they could drag your name through the mud if you didn't do [x].

I'll put together a list of abbreviations, good idea.

Yeah, you can private message me with any poetry stuff! I'll put it in the big post later.

[zdenka]

I had no idea what "A Softer World" or "A Softer World" remix was before work reveals, and I'm still not completely sure I understand the rules or how to make one. I'd be glad to have an explanation of that added.

[sanguinity]

A Softer World was a webcomic with a distinctive construction, style, and tone. That final comic posted breaks the usual format by having six panels instead of three, but if you page back through earlier comics, you'll quickly get a feel for it. I wouldn't say that there's a formal set of rules for making one, beyond three panels, typewritten as-if-cut-from-a-page text over photos, and a particular kind of haunting punchline.

[zdenka]

Thank you! Does it need to be a particular font or set of fonts?

[sanguinity]

The original always used something Courier-ish.

[corpsebrigadier]

The specific font is Loveletter TW, and I believe it needs to be bolded to match ASW exactly.