#we donated a full pickup truck load of them and i've still got 4 giant boxes of them in the shed out back

[scribbledghost]

Idea I like…

Simon reading old school pulp romance novels.

It started as just, an impulsive “I need something different to get me out of my own head.” Like when you do something out of left field to help with certain anxieties.

He didn’t expect there to be smut.

He also didn’t expect to like it…?

There’s a focus on emotion, there’s trust, it’s frankly quite soft. It helps, and he didn’t expected to, with reclaiming his sexuality a bit.

He has a small collection, because romance quality is all over the place and he needs a few guaranteed ‘good ones’, and they’re all beat up pretty bad because he got them for like 50p at the thrift store.

They’re all also older, (50 shades decimated the romance genre and it has yet to recover) and he sneers at the bad photoshop covers of the more modern covers. (I have opinions™️ and I think Simon deserves to have some for silly things too)

Y'know, I'm 100% with you on this one. (Especially him sneering at the new photoshop covers. Where's the ART!? Where's the meticulously hand-painted vaguely blurry shirtless male protag!?)

He definitely has a few favorites that he goes back to when he's got some downtime and just wants a good story. I think he's VERY picky about the smut that's included, so when he finds sort of a holy grail where the smut isn't awful and it actually has a good story with it, he holds on to it. The rest he just re-donates.

Also you are completely correct that he does not read anything published later than like, maybe 1999. He has never read 50 shades and he does not want to. He's heard enough through the grapevine. He sticks to his older pulp novels, and he has 0 shame about it too. Go on, ask him about the plot of the book he's reading. He'll tell you. In detail.

#reminds me how my grandma had literally over 1K of those little pulp romance novels in her house when she passed #bookshelves EVERYWHERE. FILLED WITH THEM. #we donated a full pickup truck load of them and i've still got 4 giant boxes of them in the shed out back #there was also bear shifter smut in there somewhere but i can't remember the title LMAO #i think she got it thrown in for free when she got a bundle of the other books cause it was definitely newer and not like the rest she had #a woman before her time grandma was #asked and answered #humanransome-note