- Canon The author's version of character and events. The "official" version. What you actually see happening in the series and are told about the characters.
- Canon weeny/ canon weeny flu Canon weenies have an obsession with canon. They want what they read to be the way it is in the series. Canon weenie flu is an inability to get away from the canon version of a character so you can enjoy other people's versions of him, or occasionally, so you can write decent stories about him yourself. Unknown in Japan, where fans simply have their own 'take' on a character (see settei, below), canon weeny flu afflicts westerners something awful. It's behind the slash fen's need to analyze certain scenes minutely to prove that these two obviously heterosexual agents who have a bird (woman) in every episode and sometimes two are obviously protesting too much and clearly have the hots for each other. The Japanese just stick them in bed together. 'Ii ja nai?' (see below)
- Lemon Anime-derived story with full frontal sex scenes. Penetration, orgasm, descriptions of genitalia etc
- Lime Anime-derived story with implicit sex- fade to black etc. You know it happened but you don't see it.
- Mary Sue A term probably originating in Star Trek fandom. An original female character embodying a set of stereotypical perfections who is inserted arbitrarily into a fan universe where she becomes the focus of everyone's love, admiration and interest. Wise, understanding, talented, mysterious, sexual, enchanting, you name it. Some argue that MSs are idealized versions of the writer, but the generic sameness of the MS character suggests she's more the kind of woman the writer would like to be. Thirty years ago MSs were spunky young ensigns on the Enterprise whom Spock fell in love with. These days MSs are serene survivors of terrible events who have acquired Deep Wisdom. One might see a connection between the changing character and the aging of the fan base. In slash, Mary Sues are often the character who wisely and gently brings the guys to realize that they do indeed love each other.
- Marty Sue (Marty Stu) The male equivalent of a Mary Sue. Debate continues as to whether Marty Sues are a male author's Self character (eg Luke Skywalker is George Lucas' Self character in Star Wars) or if they can be written by women as well.
Mary Sues and Marty Stus are by definition original characters, and have served to give all OCs a bad name, especially female ones.
- Reality bug Another western affliction most often associated with slash. An insistence that all the background physical details of a story be thoroughly researched and totally correct, possibly to counter the highly unrealistic action in the foreground. Reality bug and yaoi are by nature incompatible with each other, but yaoi fans display it every so often in spite of good intentions eg in a tendency to praise a series (New York, New York) if it's 'realistic', and disparage it (Fake, again, or Banana Fish) if it's totally off the wall in its physical setting. 'New York housewives do *not* wear aprons!'
- Settei- (Japanese) The 'givens' of a story. In fannish usage, the arbitrary decisions made by fans about details not covered in the canon, including whether A is doing it with B or not. 'In my settei Treize really loves Zechs but Zechs is only using Treize.' Japanese fan terms being very loose by definition, a settei could also mean a person's version of a story that goes against canon, what we would call an A/U. 'In my settei Kenshin is a hermaphrodite who can have Sano's baby.' Or more simply, 'In my settei Kenshin is a woman in disguise.'
- Wallow A story written to give the author a good cry. Somebody dies, somebody leaves, the remaining chara's emotions are described in aching detail. Often use song lyrics as background
- Japanese social terms
- Ii ja nai(ka) 'Why not?''Pourquoi pas?' with the same nuance of oh what the hell. In the last days of the shogunate, Ii ja nai ka became a popular mass movement where people just took to the road, singing, dancing and having a grand old time. Everything was going to hell in a handbasket anyway, so ii ja nai ka?
- Ijime 'Bullying.' A problem in Japanese schools, where a group of students will pick on a designated underdog. Covers the range from bullying to assault to occasional murder.
- Ijiwarui Mean, unkind, ill-natured, malicious. Slops over into the range of sardonic and ironic, qualities which the west admires and the Japanese don't, possibly because irony in Japanese tends to register as sarcasm. Ijiwarui semes are more fun than zankoku (cruel) semes for us, but the Japanese see them as less 'sincere' and hence to be condemned. Better a rapist than a seme who Says Mean Things.
- Rinchi From the English lynch. 'Not necessarily as lethal as its English equivalent' as the online dictionary of katakana phrases puts it (click here to view), rinchi is when people turn on a member of their own group, not an outsider as with ijime.
- Shou ga nai 'Can't be helped' 'nothing you can do about it' 'I don't have a choice.' One of the basic Japanese attitudes and the reason we see them as die-hard fatalists. 'But Tokyo is built on a major faultline and some day soon the big one's gonna hit!' 'Yeah, well- shou ga nai.' 'The crowding in the trains is unbearable!' 'Yes, but- shou ga nai.' Gaijin who respond 'shou ga aru' (you can so too do something about it) are seen as childish.
- Book sizes
- Tankoubon The standard 'paperback' size of manga, 11 x 17.5 cm or approx 4.25 x 6.75 inches. Hana to Yume, Princess, Jump Comics etc are tankoubon
- Bunko A smaller size of manga, 10x15 cm or approx 4 x 6 inches. Often used for reissues of classic series- Rose of Versailles, Glass Mask, Orpheus' Window. As for shounen ai, Wind and Tree Song was reissued in bunko, but the only yaoi I've seen so far was the Breath anthologies.
Bunko and Tankoubon
- B5 Slightly larger than tankoubon, 12.5 x 18 cm or approx 5 x 7.25 inches. Super BeBoy Comics, Asuka Deluxe, etc. The size of a B5 piece of paper, which is the standard size of doujinshis, folded in half.
- A4 Looks like a trade paperback to us. 14.5 x 20.5 cm or approx 5.75 x 8.25 inches. The size of an A4 piece of paper (close to western legal size) folded in half.
B5 and A4
- Canon weeny/ canon weeny flu Canon weenies have an obsession with canon. They want what they read to be the way it is in the series. Canon weenie flu is an inability to get away from the canon version of a character so you can enjoy other people's versions of him, or occasionally, so you can write decent stories about him yourself. Unknown in Japan, where fans simply have their own 'take' on a character (see settei, below), canon weeny flu afflicts westerners something awful. It's behind the slash fen's need to analyze certain scenes minutely to prove that these two obviously heterosexual agents who have a bird (woman) in every episode and sometimes two are obviously protesting too much and clearly have the hots for each other. The Japanese just stick them in bed together. 'Ii ja nai?' (see below)