Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2021: Week 28

Smarm refers to a fanwork genre in which two or more characters are emotionally expressive, warm, and caring with each other. While at times it has been used with different shades of nuance, in its purest form smarm has no sexual content; it is particular to what are more commonly known as gen fanworks. This is not to say that the characters in a smarm fic will not touch; a declaration of smarm is a indication of the author's intent for the touching not to be interpreted as sexual.

It's possible that schmoop is used as the equivalent of smarm in slash stories. The "emotionally expressive, warm, and caring" parts are the main literary feature of smarm, as opposed to the will-they-or-won't-they and actual sex parts that are more likely in romantic first time stories.

While present in many fandoms such as Stargate SG-1, smarm is very prevalent in The Sentinel fandom. From the Cascade Library fiction guidelines:

Smarm fanfiction :: A sub-group of gen (and most likely slash) which is quite popular with TS fanfic, this includes a very intense friendship between Jim and Blair. This can be shown as anything from friendly touches to hugs to prolonged embraces to kisses on the forehead and usually a bit beyond. At times, this area can become somewhat gray as it passes beyond smarm into pre-slash at which point it can depend on the reader for how they want to interpret the scene. Also occasionally referred to as "warm fuzzies."