What Does M/M Mean?
AO3 PlatformOne of AO3's relationship categories, indicating a work centers on a romantic or sexual relationship between two male characters. It appears as a colored square icon on every work listing.
M/M in Practice
AO3 sorts works into broad relationship categories — F/F, F/M, M/M, Gen, Multi, and Other — so readers can filter at a glance before even looking at ship tags. M/M is consistently the largest category on the archive, reflecting the long history of slash fandom that predates AO3 itself. The category describes the focus of the work, not every relationship in it, so a fic with a background het couple can still be categorized M/M if the male/male pairing is the heart of the story.
Example usage
"I filtered the fandom tag down to M/M, Complete, and over 50k words for my weekend reading."
Related Terms
Slash
Fanfiction centering a same-gender pairing, historically male/male — named for the literal '/' in 'Kirk/Spock.' One of fandom's oldest and most culturally significant genres.
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M/F
AO3's relationship category for works focused on a romantic or sexual pairing between a male and a female character. Fans also call these pairings 'het,' short for heterosexual.
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Multi (AO3 Category)
An AO3 relationship category for works featuring multiple relationship types or a relationship involving more than two people. It covers everything from love triangles to polyamorous ships.
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Pairing
The romantic or sexual relationship a fic centers on, named by its two (or more) characters. 'Pairing' is the slightly more formal sibling of 'ship.'
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Femslash
Fanworks centered on romantic or sexual relationships between female characters — the F/F category on AO3. The term descends from slash, fandom's word for same-sex shipping.
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