Fiction

Ratings

G: General audience; everyone can read.
PG: Parental guidance suggested.
PG-13: Recommended to people over age 13; parental guidance.
R: Adults only. Adult themes and situations.
NC-17: Strongly adviced only for mature audiences; over age 17. Very mature situations: violence, sex, etc.

Warnings

Slash: Fanfics in which boys get it together with boys.

Femme slash: Exact same thing as slash, but with females instead.

MPREG/Male Pregnancy: A male in the story somehow becomes pregnant. Often combined with slash.

OC/Original Character: The author presents a new character, who takes up some space in the story.

OOC/Out of Character: The character in question does not act as he/she does in their canon personality.

Spoilers: Spoilers to the series if you haven't read/seen it yet.

Violence: Graphic violence in the fic. The more violence, the higher the rating.

Language: Swearing or the like. Lots of language can make the rating go up.

Classifications

Angst: Prepare to be depressed and have a tissue box handy. Not necessarily a happy ending.

AU/Alternate Universe: Does not follow the official storyline. Most fics tend to be more or less AU, and not all of them are labelled as AU. The ones labelled AU are usually ones dealing with an alternate course in canon (for example, in Harry Potter, Lily and James were never killed).

Dark fic: Usually very angsty, can deal with death, violence, suicidal thoughts, etc. Doesn't necessarily have a happy ending.

Deathfic: One of the characters in the fic dies.

Epics: Many chaptered fics, normally the size of novels (over 50 000 words).

Fluff: Warm, fluffy pieces that leave you feeling warm and fuzzy inside. No angst.

Friendship: Plot that centers around two characters becoming friends.

Humor: Fic that's supposed to be funny, obviously...

Hurt/comfort: One of the characters gets hurt (emotionally or physically) and another character takes care of him/her.

Oneshot: One-off fics which contain the entire plot (as it exists) in a single chapter/file. Can be any genre - fluff, angst, deathfic, or other, though usually not all that much plot.

POV/Point of View: A piece told from the perspective of one character/first person POV.

Pre-Slash: Usually a fic about how two characters got together, but the fic does not deal with the said characters actually being together. Can usually be read as friendship-pieces. No kissing and such.

PWP/Plot What Plot: Meaning there isn't meant to be any deep and profound meaning behind the story. Usually refers to a fic put together simply for the benefit of getting some 'action' between the characters, often with a high rating (R or NC-17).

Romance: The romance between two (or sometimes three) characters is the main plot of the story.

Songfic: Fic with song lyrics used as a theme.