Adultfic - Fan fiction that depicts sexual or overly violent material. It would be rated PG-13 to NC-17 if it were a movie.
Alternate Universe [AU] - This is where an author will choose to stray from the canon of the show and create events which are on their own timeline. Usually this is when an author will deny a character's death or act like an episode never happened or say "what if" episode A had happened differently, or they will act like the show stopped a certain place and keep writing as if there are no new episodes after that. If someone writes a fan fiction where Ami never breaks out, this is considered alternate universe. Fan fictions that take place after the end of a show are not alternate universe, however, because there is no canon for them to contradict.
Avatar - Closely related to a Mary Sue, but this is a character which is the actual author inserted into thefandom. For instance, if I write for the character Meg Freeman, who *is* me, but breaks out, this is an avatar. It is basically a vehicle for the author to really, truly play in the fandom.
* B *
Beta Reader - A beta reader is like an editor of fan fiction. This is anyone who is sent a story for the purpose of reading and reviewing a story before it is released to a list or archive so that the author can make improvements to the story before everyone else sees it. These are some of the most helpful and best tools in fan fiction writing. I encourage everyone to seek out a beta reader for every fic they write.
* C *
Canon - All of the events which *expressly* happen in the fandom. Meaning, everything, person, event, statement, that happens in the show, movie, or book is canon. For example, Megabyte's real name being Marmaduke is canon because it expressly says in Origin Story that it is. Everything that happens in the show is canon. This is sort of used like a law for fan fiction. alternate universes are where an author deliberately ignores, goes against, or stop paying attention to canon in order to create their own canon.
Challenge - A challenge to write a fan fiction with a certain, theme, line or idea. If someone says, "See if you can write a story starting with the line 'Call me Ishmael'", this is a challenge. Any fiction which answers this is a challenge fic.
Challenge Fic - Any fan fiction which answers a challenge
Character Death - A heading or warning put on stories warning the reader that in the story one of the canon characters dies. If a story about Adam Newman being killed was written this story would carry a Character Death warning.
Con - Not particularly fan fic related, but common in fan speak. It means a convention of fans.
Consensual - A heading in adult fan fiction that says that all the parties that have sex in the fan fiction are consenting and want to have sex. This is as opposed to semi-consensual where consent is forced or a character is nudged but not outright forced into sex or otherwise having sex but not for reasons of their own (a character sleeping with someone to save someone's life for instance) and nonconsensual which says that one of the characters is raped (non consensual fanfiction is not allowed on this archive, btw)
Continuation - A fan fiction which carries on after the end of a movie or series. Any fiction which takes places after Living Stones, such as a fiction about Kevin eventually going to college and getting a job, is a continuation. This doesn't break canon, but merely extends in the author's imagination. It isn't an alternate universe because a continuation has no canon to break, since all the canon ended with the end of the movie/book/story.
Crossover - A fan fiction which incorporates characters, events, places, ideas, etc from another fandom. If the TP and Buffy were to run into each other, this would be a crossover, since they are two separate fandoms merged into one. Crossovers are also denoted sometimes with the word: "xover", the X standing for cross.
