I Have No Idea What I’m Doing

What a nightmare, I had to reread and review all the Tampa missing scene fics in my bookmarks to make this list! This is exactly what it says on the tin. If you're as horned up for fics that fill in the blanks between Shane rocking Ilya in his big strong arms between his big strong thighs and the bed looking like a tornado ran through it, look no further. There are as many takes on this lacuna as there are stars in the sky, here are some of my current favorites.

Obviously, all these fics are rated Mature or Explicit, we're doing a missing sex scene here. Please read all tags and warnings yourself.

the heart is hard to translate (it has a language of its own) by @pageandpetals (Ilya POV, beautiful, beefy fic- 11k! They go two rounds in this one- I'm passionate that they would fuck more than once!, and there's some gorgeous sensory detail and quality Ilya inner monologue. Highlight for me is Ilya's Russian confessions to Shane while they're having sex. They also talk and bond, lots of pillow talk. Top Notch, don't miss.)

honey and milk are under your tongue by EveFrancesca @sailyourshipsaroundme (Ilya POV with some inventive and stirring added backstory, lyrical prose, fucking without a condom for the first time, Ilya Rozanov cries during sex, poetic rich internal life Ilya- my weakness!, just really beautiful emotional erotica, I fuck severely with things inspired by Song of Solomon of course)

One Hell of a Drug (FLORIDA) by verbaepulchellae (Shane POV, 69ing- rare treat in this fandom! Ilya mole appreciation, emotional reunion, technically written when the show aired but before ep5 so more based on book canon)

i could take away the salt from your eyes by @porcelainmortal (Shane POV, blowjobs, Slightly dominant Ilya making Shane voice what he wants from him, this has more of a hook-up feeling, like they're still in their old habits but there's this unspoken feeling of More)

call out my name by LetMeDown (Shane POV, frantic but romantic sex, there's some stuff in here you don't see a lot where Ilya comforts Shane more about coming out- sometimes we forget that Shane just accepted that he's not going to settle down with a nice girl, biblically accurate dirty talk as they lose control, good stuff)

~

Shameless self-recs! All by yours truly Ilyapasta (destielpasta on ao3). It's my rec list and I can self promote if I want to:

a man of his word (Ilya POV, shameless manipulation of first name saying, dry humping, Intercrural (thigh) sex, my favorite piece of Ilya dialogue I've ever written and I used it up in my first HR fic oops)

Untitled Tumblr Ficlet (just a snapshot of a larger unwritten scene, they've already gone two rounds and this is the third, get your overwrought clock metaphors here)

the name your parents gave you (Ilya POV, technically this is not just a Tampa fic, but an exploration of all the missing scenes between tuna melts and the Tampa scene)

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And that's all I have for now! I have a passion for Tampa fics though so I might do a part 2 as more emerge. Never stop asking yourself, how can I make this freakier? How can I make them cry more as they reunite? If you wrote a Tampa fic or want to rec one please drop it in the replies and I WILL check it out. No one is safe.

the random Russian nouns as pet names, obviously

turning to Anya to arbitrate who won the race/loads the dishwasher correctly/scored a sexier goal etc

Ilya. Ilyusha. Ilyushenka. Ilyushenkechka.

and who won Rookie of the Year????

"I have never said this in my life"

threatening to tell Yuna

"pass me the remote?" — "come and get it" — [wrestling]

butt slapping. at every opportunity.

"we will have to shoot you like lame horse" when one of them gets so much as a papercut

idioms translated literally into the wrong language

"this is not hall of fame behaviour"

Source

here's the thing. A lot of people like to assume that only "idiots" or whatever are susceptible to this. But when you are experiencing sustained hardship, it can be much easier to see meaning where there is none, believe things you wouldn't ordinarily, etc. Many MANY people, possible MOST people, are a simultaneous heartbreak and job loss away from being at risk for this kind of thinking.

It is very survivable and usually pretty temporary IF you are not heavily influenced in the wrong way while you are at your most vulnerable.

Meanwhile, AI LLMs are being marketed as person-like, trained to behave in a person-like way, the interface and design is such that we interact with it very much like it is a person.. when it is NOT anything like a person at all. But it touches our brain in a way that is similar to how we experience interacting with a person, because we are hyper-social creatures, and these programs are designed to feel person-like.

These things are not our friends, they are not our therapists, they are, despite their name, not intelligent or thoughtful in any way, they are data-set probability generators. And they are good at generating words with a statistical probability of being interpreted as believable and trustworthy and smart.

We need to not talk about them like they have anything in common with people, and there should be legislation against marketing them as people, with people names and people voices and descriptions like "friend" or whatever.

This is spelled out so clearly in the book but also pretty obvious in the show. That man is also babying and torturing and being psychosexually obsessed with his mannnnnnnn’s junk and we should CENTER that. #mytruth