What Does Getting Together Mean?
Fic TypeThe canonical AO3 tag for fics whose central arc is the couple becoming a couple — the chase, the realization, the confession, the kiss. The genre of the threshold itself.
Getting Together in Practice
Getting together names the structure underneath most ship fic: whatever the setting or trope, the story's engine is the journey from not-together to together, and the tag tells readers that journey is the plot. It pairs with the entire to-lovers taxonomy — friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, exes to lovers all describe routes, while getting together describes the destination — and contrasts directly with established relationship, the tag for fics that begin after the threshold. The genre's pacing spectrum runs from oneshot meet-cutes to glacial slow burns, with the confession and first kiss as standard load-bearing landmarks. Many readers sort their entire fic diet along this single axis: chasing the spark, or savoring the hearth.
Example usage
"I filtered for getting together plus mutual pining, because today I want the entire arc from denial to confession."
Related Terms
Established Relationship
A fic in which the couple is already together when the story begins — no getting-together arc, just the relationship in progress. The tag tells readers the pining is over before page one.
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First Kiss
The tag for fics built around a pairing's first kiss — the threshold moment when subtext finally becomes text. A pillar of getting-together fic and a structural landmark in every slow burn.
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Friends to Lovers
The trope where an established friendship becomes romance — the slow recognition that the person who already knows everything about you was the answer all along. The gentle counterpart to enemies to lovers.
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Slow Burn
A romance paced glacially on purpose: the relationship develops over a long stretch of story before anything is confessed or consummated. The wait is the genre.
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Love Confession
The scene — and the tag — where feelings finally get said out loud. The structural climax of most getting-together fic, executed in infinite variations from rehearsed speeches to blurted accidents.
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