Fake Marriage — Tag Meaning
Raises the pretend-relationship stakes to legal documents: a sham marriage for citizenship, inheritance, cover identities, or convenience. The domestic intimacy marriage requires — shared homes, shared beds, performed affection for witnesses — gives the trope its slow-burn power.
What to Expect From "Fake Marriage" Fics
Cohabitation and enforced intimacy under official scrutiny, with genuine feelings growing in the gaps of the arrangement.
How to find Fake Marriage fics on AO3
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Browse "Fake Marriage" works on AO3Want the deep dive? Read our full trope guide: Fake Marriage →
Popular Fics Tagged "Fake Marriage"
Real examples from AO3's most-kudosed works:
The Game Plan
by FestiveFerret
Facade
by Hazel_Athena
a sequence that you never learned
by annataylor
We Are So (Not) Married
by MikeWritesThings (orphan_account)
time out of mind
by aknightley
Thirty-Eight Days and Counting
by thecommodore_squid (orphan_account)
Related Tags
Fake/Pretend Relationship
The canonical tag for one of fandom's most beloved engines: characters pretend to date — for a mission, a wedding, a visa, a nosy family — and the performance becomes real. Every staged kiss and practiced anecdote doubles as genuine intimacy the characters refuse to acknowledge.
Tag guide →
Marriage of Convenience
A marriage entered for practical benefit — property, protection, propriety — by parties who choose it with open eyes. Subtly distinct from arranged marriage (the spouses arrange it themselves) and from fake marriage (this one is legally and socially real), it is a staple of historical and regency-flavored fic.
Tag guide →
Accidental Marriage
The comedy-of-errors marriage: characters wake up hitched in Vegas, trigger an alien wedding ritual by sharing food, or discover that signing that ancient document had clauses. The accident forces an intimacy question neither party was ready to ask, and annulment somehow never quite happens.
Tag guide →
Sharing a Bed
The broader bed-sharing tag, covering every reason two characters end up sleeping side by side: necessity, nightmares, cold, comfort, or quiet mutual preference nobody examines too closely. Platonic or charged, the shared bed is fanfic's favorite vulnerability laboratory.
Tag guide →
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