"Crewing My Pirate Ship of Love"
Rana Eros posted her essay "Crewing My Pirate Ship of Love: An OTC Approach to the Question of Relationships" on a site called The Fanfic Symposium this past week.
Members of the fan fiction writing community are invited to write in and join a conversation of thinkers who are debating greater themes within the fan fiction community.
As the home page details, the The Fanfic Symposium has been around for a few years now and has become a respected place within the community to discuss larger themes and issues of fan writing.
This piece in particular is a good introduction to the language people use for fan fiction.
For instance, Eros shares her thoughts on OTC (One True Character) and OTP (One True Pairing), issues in the fan fiction world of one particular element of a story being more true to a canon than others, in this case a core character or an inseparable relationship.
Fans become attached to particular characters and particular pairings, whether they be a sexual bond or a friendship (which fans will often then turn into a sexual relationship through their fictional writing).
The essay gives quick insight into the elaborate ways the fan fiction community has developed its own language and ways of thinking of its writing traditions.