What Does Meet-Cute Mean?
Content TermA charming, often comedic first meeting between future love interests — spilled coffee, mistaken identity, a dog that tangles two strangers in its leash. The term comes from romantic comedy screenwriting.
Meet-Cute in Practice
Fandom borrowed the meet-cute from Hollywood and made it a load-bearing element of AU fic, since alternate universes need a fresh reason for the pairing to collide. Coffee shop AUs, flower shop AUs, and 'wrong number' fics are essentially delivery systems for meet-cutes. A good one establishes chemistry and comedic tone in a single scene, which is why one-shots so often live or die on them. The deliberately inverted version, where the first meeting is a disaster, has its own name: the meet-ugly.
Example usage
"Their meet-cute involves a stolen cab, a shared umbrella, and the worst first impression in history."
Related Terms
Meet-Ugly
The deliberately awful inverse of a meet-cute: future love interests meet under terrible, embarrassing, or antagonistic circumstances. Think fender benders, rival lawyers, or throwing up on someone's shoes.
Definition →
Coffee Shop AU
The archetypal cozy alternate universe: characters reimagined as baristas and regulars in a coffee shop, where lattes and name-on-cup flirting replace canon's stakes. Possibly fandom's most famous AU genre.
Definition →
AU (Alternate Universe)
Short for Alternate Universe: a story that deliberately changes fundamental facts of the canon setting — the time period, the world's rules, or the characters' circumstances. Coffee shop AUs, no-powers AUs, and modern AUs are classic examples.
Definition →
One-Shot
A complete story published as a single chapter. One-shots are fanfiction's short-story form, ranging from a few hundred words to surprisingly hefty single posts.
Definition →
Read fanfiction on the go
Fanfict Reader is the best way to browse, search, and read AO3 fanfiction on your iPhone. Download for free and start reading your favorite stories today.