“[F4A] long-term, semi-lit to lit, OC x CC, slow burn, FC required, OOC chat welcome, no godmodding.” To a newcomer, a partner ad reads like code. To a regular, it’s a full description of a story and a writer in one line.

This glossary decodes the words you’ll actually meet. For each one we counted how often it appeared in 1,267 partner ads posted on Reddit between September and October 2026, and for group terms in 294 group ads, so you can tell everyday vocabulary from rare jargon. Toward the end, we show how many of these words became plain ad fields in FictionCore, our app.

The ten terms you’ll see most

Term What it means Share of ads
[F4M], [M4A] and so on Usually the character you’ll play, and the one you want 62%
First or third person Whether posts say “I” or “she, he, they” 38%
OC An original character you created 36%
Long-term A story meant to run for months 32%
Literate, lit Polished posts, often several paragraphs 28%
OOC Talk between the writers, outside the story 26%
Slice of life, SoL Everyday scenes rather than quests and battles 20%
Canon The original story a fandom is built on 15%
CC A character from the original story 13%
Pairing Two characters written as a couple 13%

We left Discord out of the table: it appears in 27% of ads, but it’s a platform, not a term.

Codes, pairings and characters

  • [F4M], [M4F], [F4A], [A4A] and similar. A pairing code. In most ads the letter before the 4 gives the gender of the character the poster will play, and the letter after it the character they want opposite; some posters mean their own gender, so check the ad itself. F means female, M male and A any; rarer letters such as NB or T also turn up. FictionCore’s own code describes the writer, as the Guide explains under pairing code. (62% of ads, with or without brackets)
  • MxF, MxM, FxF. The pairing of the characters, not the writers: MxF is a story between a male and a female character. (12%)
  • Pairing. Two characters written as a couple, or the couples an ad is looking for. (13%)
  • OC (original character). A character you invented, as opposed to one from an existing story. (36%)
  • CC (canon character). A character from the source material, such as a film or a game. “OC x CC” means your original character paired with a canon one. (13%)
  • Canon. What actually happens in the source story. Canon-compliant sticks to it; canon-divergent changes something and follows the consequences. (15%)
  • AU (alternate universe). Familiar characters in a different setting, such as a modern coffee-shop AU for fantasy heroes. (5%)
  • Crossover. Characters from two different stories meeting. (2%)
  • FC (face claim). A real person, usually an actor or model, chosen to show what a character looks like. About half of the ads that mention face claims say whether they want real people or drawn art. It’s also called PB, play-by. In OC circles, FC can also mean “fan character”, an original character made for an existing fandom. (6%)
  • Doubling. Each writer plays two characters, often so that both get a romance. (11%)
  • Long-term and one-shot. A story meant to last months versus a single scene. (32% and under 1%)

To write up a character of your own, our character sheet templates give you three to copy.

How you write

  • First and third person. “I draw my sword” versus “Mara draws her sword”. Third person comes up five times as often as first, and past tense far more often than present. (38%)
  • One-liner, semi-lit, literate, novella. Labels that mix length and polish, from a line to many paragraphs. They mean very different things to different people, which our study of post lengths measured. (one-liner 6%, semi-lit 12%, literate 28%, novella 11%)
  • Para. Short for paragraph, as in “2–3 paras per reply”. (2%)
  • Mirroring. Matching your partner’s post length. (4%)
  • Starter. The first post that opens a scene. (3%)
  • Thread. A single scene or conversation, especially on Discord or Tumblr. (1%)

Inside and outside the story

  • IC (in character). Anything said or done within the story. (2%)
  • OOC (out of character). The writers talking to each other, about plans, schedules or questions. Ads that say “OOC chat welcome” want to talk outside the story too. The Guide has the full IC and OOC explanation. In fanfiction tags OOC means something else: a character acting unlike their canon self. (26%)
  • Plotting. Planning the story together out of character. (6%)
  • Headcanon. A detail you believe about a character that the source never confirms. (4%)
  • Muse. The character you write, as in “my muses”, and sometimes your inspiration, as in “my muse is gone”. The writer behind a muse is occasionally called the mun. (3%)
  • GM and NPC. The game master who runs a world, and the characters nobody plays as their own, from shopkeepers to villains. (4% and 2%)
  • Lore and worldbuilding. The facts of an invented world, and the work of making them. (7% and 12%)

Tropes and tone

  • Trope. A familiar story pattern, such as enemies to lovers or found family. (7%)
  • Dynamic. The kind of relationship between two characters, often written as a pair: grumpy x sunshine, rivals, mentor and student. (12%)
  • Slow burn. A relationship that develops gradually over many scenes. (12%)
  • Enemies to lovers. Characters who start as opponents and fall for each other. (7%)
  • Angst, fluff and hurt/comfort. Heavy emotional pain; light, warm moments; and one character hurt while another looks after them. (11%, 3% and 1%)
  • Slice of life (SoL). Ordinary life, from cafés to college dorms, as the main story. (20%)
  • SFW and NSFW. Safe for work versus not: NSFW covers explicit sexual content, but also gore and graphic violence. r/Roleplay requires SFW posts, while r/RoleplayPartnerSearch and r/roleplaying allow NSFW ads only when they’re marked, and still remove smut-focused ones. FictionCore follows SFW rules, as the Guide explains under SFW. Our sample left out adult ads, so NSFW looks rarer here than it is elsewhere. (3% and under 1%)
  • Limits and boundaries. Topics a writer won’t include. Hard limits are off the table entirely; soft limits can appear with care, briefly or off-screen. The Guide calls them personal boundaries. In ads, “limit” more often refers to message length, such as Discord’s 2,000 characters.

For premises built on the most requested genres and tropes, see our plot ideas.

Etiquette and problems

  • Ghosting. Stopping replies without a word. It’s the dealbreaker partners name most often, as our count of roleplay red flags found.
  • Hiatus. A planned break, ideally announced. (1%)
  • Bump. Reposting an ad so it rises again, or nudging a partner about a reply. (1%)
  • Godmodding and powerplaying. Writing an invincible character, or deciding what another writer’s character does or feels. Definitions overlap; the Guide’s entry on godmodding and powerplay untangles them. (under 1%)
  • Metagaming. Letting your character use something only you, the writer, know. The Guide explains the difference between metagaming and planning. (rare in 1x1 ads)

Platforms and formats

  • 1x1. One-on-one roleplay between two writers. Few ads bother saying it, because a partner search already implies it. (3%)
  • Group roleplay. Several writers in one story, usually on a Discord server or a forum. Our study of group ads covers how they recruit.
  • Discord. The chat app where many roleplays continue after the first message. (27% of partner ads, 77% of group ads)
  • Tupperbox and proxies. Discord bots that repost your message under your character’s name and picture; the reposted message is the proxy. (4% of group ads)
  • PbP (play-by-post). Taking turns in written posts rather than playing live. The Guide covers play-by-post. (3% of group ads)

FictionCore: fields instead of code

FictionCore is our app for text roleplay: adult roleplayers use it to find partners and groups, share plots and build characters and worlds. Many words in this glossary don’t need decoding there: they became ad fields and settings you can filter by.

  • [F4M] and other codes → a two-part pairing code that describes the writer.
  • Semi-lit, literate, novella → an approximate post length, from one-liners to very long posts, plus a “Mirrors length” badge.
  • “OOC chat welcome” → OOC preferences, from “Enjoy OOC chat” to “Mostly IC”.
  • Long-term and one-shot → Commitment: one-shot, short-term or long-term.
  • OC x CC → OCs only, canon only, or OCs & canon.
  • Open roles → a group ad’s cast list, with each character marked open or taken.
  • Hard limits on topics → Hidden tags, which keep plots and ads with tags you’ve chosen out of your results.

The app’s Guide glossary explains the core terms in more depth. FictionCore is available on Google Play for Android. Slang keeps changing faster than any glossary, so ask a partner when a word is new to you.

How we counted

  • Ads. 1,267 unique partner ads from r/RoleplayPartnerSearch, r/Roleplay and r/roleplaying, posted between 10 September and 18 October 2026, with reposts, near-copies and adult ads removed, and 294 group ads from r/RoleplayGroups posted between 6 July and 18 October 2026. Shares are the proportion of ads that used a term at least once.
  • Matching. Each term was matched with its common spellings, such as “OC” and “OCs” or “slow burn” and “slowburn”. Short codes can collide with other words, so treat small percentages as approximate.
  • Definitions follow community usage, Fanlore’s term pages and two community glossaries, read on 19 October 2026.

Questions roleplayers ask

What does OOC mean in roleplay?

Out of character: the writers talking to each other rather than their characters talking. People use it for plans, schedules and questions, often in brackets: “(OOC: back tomorrow)”.

What does FC mean in roleplay?

Face claim: a real person, usually an actor or model, whose photos show what a character looks like. Some ads ask for real FCs only, others prefer drawn ones.

What does [F4M] mean in a roleplay ad?

It’s a pairing code. Usually the letter before the 4 is the gender of the character the poster will play and the letter after it the character they’re looking for: F for female, M for male, A for any. Some posters use it for their own gender, so read the ad.

What does muse mean in roleplay?

Usually the character you’re writing, as in “my muses”. It can also mean your inspiration: “my muse is gone” means you can’t write for now.

What does OC x CC mean?

An original character, created by one writer, paired with a canon character from the source material, played by the other.

What does slow burn mean in roleplay?

A relationship, usually a romance, that develops gradually over many scenes instead of starting right away.

What does 1x1 mean in roleplay?

One-on-one roleplay: two writers sharing one story, as opposed to a group. To find a 1x1 partner, post on r/RoleplayPartnerSearch or r/Roleplay, join a Discord partner-search hub, or use FictionCore, an app built for finding roleplay partners and groups. Our guide to where to find a roleplay partner compares them.

Bookmark this page, and the next time an ad reads like code, you’ll have the key.