Glossary

AtS

Angel, the Series (as opposed to the character)

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BC&S

The Buffy Cross and Stake board, run by AnGeL X. Most commonly, the acronym is used for the BC&S SPOILER BOARD

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BIAF

Buffy In A Flash.

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Bitca

It comes from an episode from Season Two, "When She Was Bad."

Willow, Giles, and Xander are talking about what's wrong with Buffy:

Willow: That's what it was! I mean, why else would she be acting like such a b-i-t-c-h?
Giles: Willow, I think we're all a little too old to be spelling things out.
Xander: A bitca?

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BLBOVOS

Big Lug Blocking Our View Of Spike. (::cough::Riley::cough::)

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BTVS

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the series as opposed to the character).

Other useful acronyms to know are SMG (Sarah Michelle Gellar), JM (James Marsters), DB (David Boreanaz), NB (Nicholas Brendan), ...

We also often use initials when talking about the writers; thus DP is Doug Petrie and MN is Marti Noxon. However Joss is just God. <G>

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Canon

Canon is what happens on the screen. So it's canon that Giles has said, for example, that a vampire is not a person. It's NOT canon that Giles was either (1) right or (2) telling the truth.

The Buffyverse canon is still open, which means that Joss and his writing staff get to reinvent and reinterpret and retcon canon at will - this happens all the time. They've made many changes in the mythology (for one tiny example, Spike's age).

In the Giles example, he could (1) change his mind, (2) reveal that he was spouting CoW propaganda to ease Buffy's mind, (3) learn something new, (4) start telling lies the other way if he had been telling the truth previously, or (5) many other things we haven't thought of yet.

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CoW

The Council of Watchers. Or Wankers, if we believe Spike

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Evilista

Redemptionistas use this term to denote their polar opposites. To an Evilista, Spike is forever owned by his basic vampire nature. He is unable to change, learn or grow, because he lacks a soul. He is eternally evil, unredeemable, forever and ever, amen.

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Fanwank

Sounds dirty, doesn't it?

But there's no shame in it. We all do it!

Fanwanking is as simple as coming up with a scenario for what you think happened offscreen during a particular time on the show.

For instance, in season Six we've seen very little Spike/Dawn involvement. We've had no real scenes of them hanging out together since Bargaining. But when Dawn is injured in Wrecked, Spike and Buffy wordlessly divide their tasks: Spike looks after Dawn, and Buffy kicks demon butt. We can therefore fanwank that Spike and Dawn are still close, and probably doing things together, offscreen.

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Fic

Fic is short for "Fanfiction", the unpaid, unprofessional fiction of the fandom itself, incorporating characters and situations from the show.

A good place to start (when it's up) for selected quality fanfic will be Bloody Revelation (coming soon). In the meantime, our sister list Spike's Salvation hosts fanfic postings and discussions. You could also try fanfiction.net .

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Fundie (Fundy)

A Buffyverse fundamentalist. This term refers to people who adhere blindly to the onscreen canon of Season One and their hallowed Season Two. Nothing that contradicts anything from that period can be recognised as valid. Thus there can be no character growth, no added backstory, that is not "Revisionism" (A Dirty Word).

To Fundies, Vampires lack souls and therefore lack humanity. Except Angel, because he's Special.

These people are committed to canon and show history, and tend to value Strict Adherence to Previous Canon over characterisation and storyline plotting. They are often literalists, insisting that whatever we've seen onscreen in seasons 1 and 2 are literal truth, and any deviation from the established history is 'retconning.'

Examples of Fundyism include:

  • "Spike is just over two hundred years old."
  • "Angelus sired Spike."
  • "The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after." - Yes, some people think Giles was serious.

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MBTV

Mighty Big TV. See TWOP

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ME

ME is short for Mutant Enemy, Joss Whedon's company that produces Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

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NG

The newsgroup. More specifically, the alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer newsgroup, for text discussions. Sometimes used for the Buffy Binaries newsgroup, alt.binaries.multimedia.buffy-v-slayer (where you can download Buffy episodes, promos and other multimedia)

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Pod Person

This term comes from the old sci-fi movie "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers". In the movie, aliens came down to a town and started 'replacing' all the people with alien duplicates. The duplicates were hatched in pods, hence 'pod people'.

In this context, it means "People who have the same names and faces and memories as the people you used to know, and have taken over their lives, but are so totally and completely *not* like them." Or, to put it more shortly, it's a curse for "Damn, this is *SO* out of character."

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PWP

Porn Without Plot (or Plot? What Plot?)

Fanfic of the -errrm- titillating variety. Sometimes slash, sometimes not. Like the name says, Plot is *very* optional. Sex (or sexual activity) is not.

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Redemptionista

People who believe that Spike can be redeemed, despite his lack of a human soul. Redemptionistas come in many shapes, sizes and flavours. At BTVS-TabulaRasa, most of us believe that Spike will be redeemed through his interactions with the other characters, and especially Buffy.

Originally, this term referred to MBTV posters who refused to see Spike as Just Another Evil Vampire. Redemptionistas look at Spike as an anomaly among vampirekind, they see his tremendous capacity for empathy and humanity. They (We!) believe that Spike can overcome his vampire nature to embrace his humanity.

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RETCON:

A change in Buffyverse canon, usually made to expand or reinterpret existing storyline history.

For example, "You were my Sire, man, you were my Yoda." Spike's sire is explicitly given as Angelus in season two, but later contradicted in Fool For Love, when we see him turned by Drusilla. (Incidentally, Joss has explained this!)

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RST

Resolved Sexual Tension. A rarity to see done well on television, this refers to the spark between a couple who have already consummated their relationship onscreen, and may also refer to couples engaging in an ongoing sexual relationship.

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Ships (or 'ships)

A relationship (geddit?) on a show. The characters are usually identified by their initials.

This is an old term, originally from X-Files Fandom.

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Shippers ('shippers)

People who support (or want to see) a particular 'ship.

For example, many of us at BTVS-TR are S/B shippers. Some are A/C shippers (Angel/Cordy - yes we do watch the other show as well!). It's safe to say that none of us are B/A shippers (Buffy/Angel - wash your mouth out), B/R shippers (Buffy/Riley) or B/X shippers (gaaaaaah).

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Sides

The term Sides refers to casting or shooting sides. In both instances, it refers to actual bits of script that sometimes get out ahead of the episode. Casting sides in particular become available early on, because they are what actors and actresses reading for a particular part on the show use to audition with.

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Slash

The term Slash originated from the / in a particular 'ship pairing.

Before there were named and designated 'Shippers, there were fic writers. Ficwriters who gave us the likes of Kirk/Spock, or Mulder/Krycek, and created the term 'Slash'. It means a pairing is Boy-Boy or Girl-Girl, and generally features heavy smut.

Your FAQ Queen would thus direct you to Days of Our Unlives for some serious slashy goodness.

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Spikefeed

The Spikefeed is the wildfeed summary provided early Monday morning by our very own (and very fabulous) Dori. It's Spike-centric, so it's a good contrast to the points of view provided by other Wildfeed reporters.

We get an early (preliminary) Spikefeed about 5:15am ET, and post it to the site. Later, Dori writes a detailed description of the episode. This goes up some time during the afternoon. Both are mailed to the BTVS-TabulaRasa mailing list and posted here at our site.

You can see the Spikefeeds of episodes that have already aired (and of the one that's about to air if you check in on Monday or Tuesday) in the episodes area of our site.

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Spoilers

Wow, you really are innocent :-)

"Yield to temptation, as it may not pass your way again."

Spoilers refer to material about or from an as yet unaired episode. They can be concrete material from legitimate sources like casting sides or scripts, or unsubstantiated material from setside sources, stunt doubles, people in post-production, and the like. Tabula Rasa members (in general) love spoilers. We adore them. We are a listful of Spoiler Whores.

Nonetheless, our spoiler-phobic friends would greatly appreciate a warning in the thread title if you're going to talk about spoilage in a post.

To get the goods, see Wendy's SpoilerZone on this site.

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TPTB

The Powers That Be.

On the show(s), TPTB refers to some amorphous god-type beings who have a purpose planned for Angel and who, according to Whistler the demon, "never saw [Buffy] coming."

In production terms, TPTB refers to all the writers, producers and network execs responsible for making the decisions that affect the characters we love and the environment they inhabit.

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TWOP

Television Without Pity (Formerly Mighty Big TV) . Be warned - their name says it all.

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U/C Ships

Unconventional 'ships, or character pairings. Until Season 6, S/B was considered a U/C ship.

If you can think of the pairing, it's likely that someone else has too. If you think I'm exaggerating, go visit Fanfiction.net and have a look at the wide and very creative range of ships that people like to write about.

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UST

Unresolved Sexual Tension. Chiefly, the spark of chemistry between characters who have not yet consummated their relationship onscreen.

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Wildfeed

The Wildfeed is the feed from production companies to networks, that runs in advance of the network broadcast. People with C-band Satellite dishes have access to this feed. Leoff, from the BC&S boards, posts his Wildfeed Summaries for both Buffy and Angel at his web site http://www.leoffonline.com.

At Tabula Rasa, we're lucky enough to have Dori and her Magic Spikefeeds to keep us sane.

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