My involvement in this fandom began with my enthusiasm for Shawn/Despereaux, which remains very much a passion; Shawn's shameless starry-eyed infatuation with Despereaux is adorable, and Despereaux might be more subtle about it, but he's clearly a big fan of Shawn too. I also
I think Shawn and Gus have something very special. It might not be the kind of thing leads two people to become a traditional couple, but it's still a powerful bond that I think lends itself quite reasonably to friends-to-lovers sort of stories.
Shules, with caveats. I think it's important to acknowledge that Shawn was terrible to Juliet when she broke up with him; if I was her friend, I would have told her to get a restraining order instead of getting back together with him. However, she is a grown woman who gave her informed consent to restarting their relationship, and I do like what they built together after that. They're not perfect, but they choose to put in the work with each other.
With that said, I'm aware that my Shules fics, though canon-compliant, include a lot of non-canon details to their relationship. If I stuck exclusively to canon, I wouldn't be as into it.
Shawn and Tommy Nix. It's a terrible idea with about a 48-hour time limit before it explodes, but those could be a really fun 48 hours.
Shules and the Nobles. Even shorter time limit for that one, but I think they'd have fun for a few hours.
Lassiter and Conforth. That's just a no-brainer.
I am also a notoriously non-Shassie shipper, though I can get on board with hatesex. (Hate from Lassiter, anyway; I don't think Shawn hates him back. Shawn is more like an overly confident alley cat baiting an angry dog for his own amusement.)
This is an excerpt from the upcoming Semantics fic titled Understatement. Shawn is in London; Despereaux has made a very attractive proposition (Rhetoric) and Juliet has given Shawn the go-ahead to accept (Idiom from his POV, Common Ground from hers), on the condition that he tells her everything afterwards. While she waits, her imagination runs wild.
My current draft of Understatement is over five thousand words long, and different sections fit several different days of Kinktober prompts, so I'm just going to post excerpts as the days go by and then the finished product at the end. Today's prompt: masturbation.
She turned up the vibration again and pulled the toy out so she could use the wet tip like a bullet, finally working it under the hood of her clit and practically buckling in half when it touched the oversensitive head. Her legs were trembling, then outright shaking; she pushed herself upright with her free hand and curled over, gasping. The design of the toy kept the lower portion dry so it could be gripped more easily as a handle, but at this angle, she could see how wet the curved shaft and butterfly teaser had become. They were threatening to drip onto the bed; it was no wonder she was having trouble stopping the toy from slipping off. She thrust it slickly back inside instead to push the teaser as hard as she could against her clit while her muscles pulsed through the first climax.
As soon as her vision started to come back into focus, she carefully pulled the toy out to clean up with still-trembling hands. She hadn’t heard her phone go off, but she still checked it hopefully, just in case.
No new messages.
She groaned in frustration and flopped her head back down on the pillow. This could be a good sign, right? Shawn usually did check his phone when he was working, unless it was a life-or-death situation—and even then, he might still sneak a peek. During sex, on the other hand, he never so much as glanced in its direction unless they were looking at something together. It was possible he was still working and just didn’t have WiFi access, but she preferred to imagine that the radio silence meant he was busy with something very unprofessional.
(‘Preferred to imagine’ was putting it very lightly. It was impossible not to imagine.)
Guide to the Psychateuch (i.e. genesisexorcistleviathan's Psych fics)
Fun fact: Shawn Spencer is always bi in these and always has a massive crush on Pierre Despereaux, whether or not it's relevant to the plot. (Spoiler: it often is. Sometimes it's the entire plot.) In stories where he's dating Juliet, she is very much on board with it. Here's a quick outline of what you'll find over at AO3.
To filter out NSFW content on this blog, you can browse the tag G&T.
Any casefic?
A Scandal in Barbaria is a lighthearted adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's A Scandal in Bohemia; it is not part of the Semantics timeline. Load the Dice is part of the Semantics timeline post-show and pre-movies; it's a more serious story wrapped up in a multitude of inappropriate Bible jokes.
The fuck is Semantics?
A series of fics which can generally be read in isolation, but take place in the same timeline. The overarching plot involves Juliet helping Shawn figure out that he's bi and encouraging him to explore his attraction to men, particularly Despereaux. If you're looking for smut, this is where to find it.
The series has a linguistics theme because I am a huge nerd.
Anything else?
Simile was originally a scene in Load the Dice that took a turn I wasn't expecting and led to No Hands, which explores a serious history of mental illness. It takes place in the same timeline as Semantics, but pre-show.
Just take me to the smut already!
Excellent idea. I'll try to keep this updated (edit: I failed to keep this updated but hopefully will soon), but here's the current selection in order of graphic-ness, low to high: Narrative, Aposiopesis (chapter 2), Portmanteau, Not Subject to Truth Conditions, Transitivity and Speech Acts (roughly equivalent to each other), and Lucky. There is a lot more smut in progress, so if you want more, I recommend subscribing.
When I started watching Psych nearly one year ago, it uncorked my writer's block for the first time in years. Shortly afterwards, I posted my first Psych fic to AO3: Rhetoric. This was the genesis (no pun intended) of the Semantics series, and then more broadly the Psychateuch, which will have its first birthday on October 21st!
My current word count on AO3 is 187,467. Of those, 13,459 are for Brooklyn Nine Nine (currently all Dianetti ♥︎) and 174,008 are for Psych. I want to hit 200k words overall by the 21st of October, which means I need to post 12,533 words before then; ideally, I would like to hit 200k words for Psych specifically, which would require 25,992 words. I already have much more than that in my drafts, so it's certainly achievable! But a little extra encouragement—including in the form of suggestions/requests/prompts—would not go amiss. ;)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
"It's okay, man. Jules totally sanctioned it."
"Wh—?" Gus looked incredulous. "Why are you so relaxed about it, then? Sanctioned means penalized!"
"Uh, no, Gus," Shawn laughed, shaking his head. "She's the one who approved the penalysis."
"Punished, Shawn. Penalized means punished. If she sanctioned this, that's the opposite of her approving."
"I've heard it both ways."
When is the appropriate time to tell your best friend that your girlfriend encouraged you to have sex with a man you put in prison twice? Shawn wasn't sure there was an answer to that question, so maybe it was a good thing that Gus figured it out on his own.
Part of the Semantics series, in which Juliet helps her boyfriend explore his bisexuality.
(Shules PWP/impact scene. Dom/sub dynamics are referenced in the preamble, but not included in the scene itself. Rating will be either M or E.)
🟢🟡🟢🟡🟢
“Hit me,” he said suddenly.
They weren’t really in the middle of anything specific, just some leisurely, mostly-clothed messing around on a Sunday afternoon. She had been feeding him suggestions and he had been indulging every request with gusto, but he hadn’t made any of his own until now. It wasn’t as if this was off-topic or anything; she just hadn’t been expecting it. She frowned slightly.
“You mean, like, spank you?”
He pulled a face. “Spank. It’s such an ugly word,” he said. “Or maybe not ugly so much as…I don’t know. Childish?”
“It’s not like you to have a problem with being childish,” Juliet remarked, idly playing with the hem of his shirt.
“Sure, for life in general,” Shawn agreed, “but sex is a different story. It is quite literally my adult time.”
She chuckled, stroking his cheek.
“So hit me,” he repeated, tilting his head to lean into her touch and meeting her eyes with a wicked smile.
“Well,” Juliet said thoughtfully, “if you want to be punished, you have to stop being such a good boy.”
“Don’t call me a good boy,” Shawn protested immediately.
Juliet grinned. “Oh, talking back now, are we? That’s more like it.”
Shules + Shawn/Despereaux
Rating: very, very E 🍋
Chapters: 5/5
Words: 20179
This took me ten months to finish and it currently has just one single lonely kudo. Go keep the kudo company!
Excerpts and content summary under the cut due to NSFW themes.
It wasn’t unusual for her to look down on him as he kneeled at her feet, hanging on her every word. He always loved it when she put him in his place; he would gladly go there himself unprompted, but it was always more fun when she helped.
They had played that game before, but never quite like this.
Semantics: the story so far
(The directly relevant parts, anyway.)
In 2014, having been propositioned by his long-time crush, Shawn checked in with Juliet to see how she would feel about him saying yes. With Juliet's very enthusiastic blessing, he accepted.
Several years later, a misunderstanding led to Shawn being accused of cheating on his wife. That was not at all what happened, of course, but it gave Juliet an idea.
Hypocorism
Juliet and Shawn roleplay a scene in which he cheated on her with Despereaux and she just found out. He has to confess everything to her so she can decide how to punish him.
(It's kinky fluff. Or maybe fluffy kink. Have you heard it both ways?)
Contents and themes
Dom/sub play (low protocol*), discipline, sadomasochism, doe/reynard relationship I guess, cuckquean kink, impact play, riding crop, spanking, pain play, hair pulling, cunnilingus, nipple clamps, verbal degradation, slut shaming (or slut affirming), dirty talk, pegging, shared sexual fantasies, bruise inspection, regular check-ins, healthy communication, a hint of body worship as a treat. Also, Shawn has a necklace that says "greedy slut" on it.
*I'm refraining from calling Shawn a brat here because he has permission to be a smartass, so he's not really being disobedient; you can't push back against a rule that doesn't exist, right? But I'm open to disagreements on that point.
~~~
Juliet chuckled and stroked his jaw fondly. He tilted his head into her touch, meeting her eyes.
“Hey, watch it,” she said, stopping him in his figurative tracks. He blinked up at her expectantly. “Don’t try to wriggle out of this by acting all cute. Gentle petting is for good guys who earn it, not for dirty lying sluts.”
“Oh nooo,” he said in a deliberately terrible impression of concern, grinning broadly at her.
She pointed a finger at him—a reprimand? A caution? Her eyes shone dangerously, or at least tried to achieve that effect; her own excitement was all too obvious.
“That act won’t work on me, bitch,” she warned him, though the joy was still audible in her voice. His eyes flashed in glee at the slur, but they stayed on her finger as she spoke. “You’re going to be—”
Her words cut off abruptly when he leaned in to lick her accusing finger delicately from base to tip before taking it into his mouth. He pouted his lips, cushioning her fingertip with soft wet heat as he looked up at her through his lashes, cheeks hollowing out while his tongue darted teasingly over the pad of her finger.
Surprised, affronted and extremely turned on, she swallowed and tried to collect herself.
“What exactly do you think that achieved, Spencer?” she asked, trying to sound stern rather than flustered.
“I don’t know,” he said innocently, as if it hadn’t done exactly what he intended. “I’m a greedy slut. I can’t help myself.”
“You are, huh?”
“I am.”
“I have the perfect thing for that,” she informed him.
