Updates to "No Fandom" Additional Tags, September 2025

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Published:

2025-09-15 15:48:09 UTC

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Spotlight on Tag Wrangling

AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post will provide an overview of some of these upcoming changes.

In this round of updates, we continued a method which streamlines creation of new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.

None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.

In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.

New Canonicals

The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:

In Conclusion

While all these new tags have already been made canonical, we are still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant tags, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. We thank you in advance for your patience!

While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future on the tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.

You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:

Got Questions?

For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.

In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.

Lastly, as mentioned above, we're still working on connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least two months from now.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

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MintGreen_and_NeonPink Mon 15 Sep 2025 08:47PM UTC

What an absolute array of tags. Great job everyone

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napdragon Mon 15 Sep 2025 09:26PM UTC

new fanfic prompt just dropped - has anyone made this joke yet

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1. napdragon Mon 15 Sep 2025 09:47PM UTC
  
  i wonder what the minimum amount of characters a fanfic needs to have to be able to fulfill all of those tags. you could almost definitely get away with three (a bigender/genderfluid parent and their two children who are somehow primarily childhood friends, i guess that's also where the abandonment comes in; "humans are space orcs" probably has to imply more people than just one family, but maybe it's an interspecies one, or you could do a lot of implications...). so the real question is, can you do two with enough false identity or time travel shenanigans? though if you introduce time travel, you might as well go for one, make it real complicated. but then it might get hard to keep track of and i hate keeping track of stuff in fanfic, so maybe three is the optimal number, even if it's not the smallest one. thanks for coming to my ~~ted talk~~ comment on the second page of an ao3 news post :)
  
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2. 1. otblock57 Mon 15 Sep 2025 11:38PM UTC
    
    Well I think the 'Not Edited' tag might dovetail rather well with disliking keeping track of things :P
    
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  2. 1. napdragon Tue 16 Sep 2025 03:05PM UTC
      
      ikr!
      
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  3. magicwonderdreamfantasy Tue 16 Sep 2025 02:07AM UTC
    
    That would be a fun challenge!
    
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  4. bobinny Tue 16 Sep 2025 04:18AM UTC
    
    i wouldn't do this but it would be so funny to have a challenge where to use as many tags as ever possible without overtagging
    
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napdragon Mon 15 Sep 2025 10:08PM UTC

i went to look up the difference between cosmic and eldritch horror and they're the same thing and there are a bunch of tags mentioning both that are synced to cosmic........ fascinating.................

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silentghost Mon 15 Sep 2025 10:20PM UTC

enemies to caretaker and updated incest tags? big W!!!!!

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1. Account Deleted Tue 16 Sep 2025 04:27PM UTC
  
  Caretaker gang, hey!
  
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Raberba girl (Raberba_girl) Mon 15 Sep 2025 10:52PM UTC

What does "Humans are Space Orcs" mean? I can guess the gist of it, but the specifics are eluding me.

Also "Soulmate Goose of Enforcement," I have NO idea what that one means. X'''''D

(Ftr, I do try to look up tags I don't know, but the fanfic listings usually just confuse me and general Internet searches are very hit-and-miss. I figure it's better to get explanations straight from readers who are already familiar with the concepts.)

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1. Esselie Tue 16 Sep 2025 01:45AM UTC
  
  'Humans are Space Orcs', -Earth is a Deathworld', and 'Earth is Space Australia' are all somewhat related tags going on the concept that, in a universe that is massively huge, there are aliens and, among those aliens, Humans Are Weird Mammalian Preditor Beings (I mean.. we _are_).
  
  Specifically, that humans inhabit the 'orc' niche of a High Fantasy Story; I.e.: Hard to Kill, kinda barbaric, willing to do a lot for that adrenaline rush, adaptable to just about any environment that doesnt outright kill us upon contact and have the tendency to packbond to anything that stands still for half a second. Which are all, amusingly, true about Humans In General. We come froma Deathworld that has consistently tried to kill us, we find the _weirdest_ beings adorable and want to squish their cheeks, and many of us would do strange or foolhardy things following the words 'I bettor 'I dare you to'.
  
  Not sure if I've explained well, but it's basically a pushback on the Fantasy and Sci-Fi Expectation that Humans are Generalized All Rounders, bland and normal and good at everything but excelling at nothing in comparison with say, Elves, Dwarves, etc.
  
  Goose of Soulmate Enforcement is the concept that, in a Soulmates Universe, said Soulmates have a Goose, a notoriously foul tempered waterfowl, that manifests for the explicit purpose of honking, hissing and biting the Soulmates into each other's arms, literally herding them together and making sure that Tropes such as 'Passed my soulmate in the hallway today, guess I have to Pine Forever because there's no way I will ever meet everyone I passed today again' from happening.
  
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2. 1. Raberba girl (Raberba_girl) Tue 16 Sep 2025 11:35AM UTC
    
    Ah, thank you for the detailed response! :D
    
    Looks like I guessed right on the orc one, but it's good to have someone confirm it. ^^
    And yeah, I grew up during the kiddie sci-fi publishing phase where humans were always pretty pathetic compared to aliens, so this is a really fascinating alternative take I'd like to see more of.
    
    OH, okay. XD The goose one makes perfect sense in hindsight, but when I first saw it, my reaction was pure "????" XD
    
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3. miyu_miyuun Tue 16 Sep 2025 01:52AM UTC
  
  https://fanlore.org/wiki/Soulmates#Soulmate_Goose_of_Enforcement
  someone shared the fanlore link in a previous comment, but just in case! (it's a super fun and silly soulmate au ^^)
  
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4. 1. Raberba girl (Raberba_girl) Tue 16 Sep 2025 11:35AM UTC
    
    Thank you! ^^
    
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5. Esselie Tue 16 Sep 2025 02:04AM UTC
  
  If you have spare time, I _highly_ recommend the 'Humans are Space Orcs' tag on Tumblr. It's _full_ of fantastic drabbles and microstories etc.
  
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6. 1. Raberba girl (Raberba_girl) Tue 16 Sep 2025 11:38AM UTC
    
    Oh boy; although I do have an account there, I try to avoid Tumblr (the way that site is designed is not really compatible with how my brain works). X''''D
    
    I did try the AO3 tag with my current fandom (Batman) and found a good one-shot that explores the concept. :) Wish there were more, it seems like a very interesting trope!
    
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7. JeannetteRankin Tue 16 Sep 2025 03:03AM UTC
  
  Oh, fanlore's got a good explanation of the goose one! Here: Soulmate Goose of Enforcement
  
  And the space orcs bit on fanlore isn't as fleshed out, but this should give you some info:
  Space Australia
  
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8. 1. Raberba girl (Raberba_girl) Tue 16 Sep 2025 11:38AM UTC
    
    Ah, thank you! :D
    
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9. Zumberge Tue 16 Sep 2025 03:37AM UTC
  
  It's the idea that - and this is in sci-fi, hence the "space" part - humans are seen as a warlike and brutish species by other members of the galaxy at large, fond of being loud and stupid and having inelegant solutions to complex problems and being completely terrifying because of it. You can get a feel for the concept in e.g. objective-based physics sandbox games and Helldivers 2 lobbies.
  
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10. 1. Raberba girl (Raberba_girl) Tue 16 Sep 2025 11:41AM UTC
    
    Ah, I see! Thank you for the explanation. ^^ That sounds like a very fascinating trope, I wish I could find more of it (I looked it up again just now, but there was only one fic for it in my current fandom. That one fic was a good example, though!).
    
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Rebirthperson_Yilda192 Mon 15 Sep 2025 11:12PM UTC

Nice. more tags canonized. (　＾ω＾)

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dannythebookwyrm Mon 15 Sep 2025 11:43PM UTC

As I was reading this I was going "Kinks, understandable. Ships, understandable. Character development/ worldbuilding, understandable. Goose what!?" Read the link in another comment, that has to be one of the stranger ideas I've ran across. Good for the author who invented this I suppose.

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tenebrisvox Tue 16 Sep 2025 12:12AM UTC

Cosmic horror? Eldritch Horror?

It's my time....

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DreamlightWeaver Tue 16 Sep 2025 12:17AM UTC

I'm new (as in only just had the nerve to register an account) but thank you Wranglers! There are some tags here that my Kinktober friends will be so happy about <3

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miyu_miyuun Tue 16 Sep 2025 01:47AM UTC

i'm so so glad to see more people learn about the brilliance of the Soulmate Goose of Enforcement through this update!!! ^v^)9 it is /such/ a fun au to write for! very silly and fun with cool possibilities!! i highly recommend it!!!
surprised to see Crying During Sex !! i tagged a draft fic with this through auto-complete recently so it's seems like i had timed it well with it becoming canon! (it's perfect for the fic so i was really happy to see it!!)
Enemy to Caretaker sounds super fun !! (/6/v/6//) the cute possibilities i think are really high!
Friends with Benefits to Lovers is super perfect for one of my fav characters!!! def can see myself making some use of this tag ^^

thank you again for your hard work tag wranglers!!!

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ivy_on_saturn Tue 16 Sep 2025 01:58AM UTC

very VERY excited to read humans are space orcs

ALSO WOUND CARE

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1. Account Deleted Tue 16 Sep 2025 04:29PM UTC
  
  Yes, go lesb lady. BTW IKK
  
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2. 1. ivy_on_saturn Tue 16 Sep 2025 08:05PM UTC
    
    LESB :3
    
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Account Deleted Tue 16 Sep 2025 02:33AM UTC

Pussy spanking nation rejoice!

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1. Snowgrouse Tue 16 Sep 2025 10:23AM UTC
  
  *Throws confetti*🍾🎉🥳🎈Been a long time coming!
  
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SparklinTwilightMoon Tue 16 Sep 2025 02:38AM UTC

YESSSSSS CRYNG DURING SEX!!!!! SHOUTOUT TO ALLLLLLL THE BUCKCEST GIRLIESSSSSSS!!!!! (Iykyk)

So happy humiliation kink was finally made a canon tag ♡♡

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1. gasmasked Fri 19 Sep 2025 08:58PM UTC
  
  BUCKCEST MENTIONED!!!!!
  
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2. 1. SparklinTwilightMoon Sat 20 Sep 2025 08:39PM UTC
    
    YAAAAAAS!!!!!! :DDDDDD!!!!!
    
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Mari_the_squishyyy Tue 16 Sep 2025 02:43AM UTC

Bro what is soulmate goose enforcement 😭🙏 good tags tho, keep it up hehe

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1. Forested_Woodlands Tue 16 Sep 2025 05:05AM UTC
  
  yes no one explains this so please anyone what is this!
  (btw good work tag wranglers)
  
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CommaSama Tue 16 Sep 2025 03:31AM UTC

Abandonment Issues, Enemies with Benefits, Feather Preening, Self-Sabotage… Granblue Fantasy archangel/fallen angel/astral fans we are SO back

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1. Account Deleted Tue 16 Sep 2025 04:31PM UTC
  
  THE PFP, for real with the tags drop but good fantasies around fallen angels YES
  
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BillyVell Tue 16 Sep 2025 04:06AM UTC

I wish AO3 would add the option of rearranging the order of tags. I have fics who could use some of the new canonicals, but I don't want to have them listed last in the fic (cause I usually tag in either an order of events or placing similar themes/tropes/acts together (say, "oral sex, blowjob, deepthroating" next to each other).

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1. MysteriousMihai Tue 16 Sep 2025 06:20AM UTC
  
  I'd wish to have this option, too! I like to arrange my tags in an at least somewhat logical order, and whenever a new tag comes into my mind that I might have forgotten or hasn't been canonized yet, I have to delete them all in order to rearrange them. It's possible, but could be a lot more convenient, especially with multi-chapter works that already have a large number of tags in the first place.
  
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2. 1. Snowgrouse Tue 16 Sep 2025 10:19AM UTC
    
    Same. I wish there was an easy way to juggle them around. I mean, I love the oldschool, low-tech interface of Ao3 and I doubt they'd ever go for anything like the drag and drop option we have for this on places like Tumblr, but having some kind of option of rearranging your tags would be great. It's exhausting that the only option to do that right now is to basically delete the all the tags that come after the mistake you mean to fix, then save the fic, then come back, fix the mistake and then retype all the deleted tags in the order you actually want them to appear in.
    
    Would also be nice if we could have tag clusters, if you know you're always going to be including certain themes and tropes whenever you write your take of a specific character or pairing.
    
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  2. 1. MysteriousMihai Tue 16 Sep 2025 11:40AM UTC
      
      Of course - I love using this oldschool interface feeling like it's 2010, too, and so do a lot of people around these parts, as it seems. But we already can rearrange chapters within a work and works within a series using drag and drop, so I don't think this would impair the general experience too seriously.
      
      (The technical part of an implementation might be a different thing to consider, though - I'm by no means an expert on that, but I do have roughly two decades of experience of getting told about how seemingly minor changes can't be implemented without unreasonable amounts of effort due to some iffy thing I couldn't be aware of, so ... we might just have to wait for staff to let us know how realistic that would be.)
      
      Tag clusters would be an extra gimmick and certainly useful as well, albeit I do picture this a bit harder to implement. But as I said, I'm not an expert.
      
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    2. 1. Snowgrouse Wed 17 Sep 2025 11:36AM UTC
        
        2010?! Try 2003. By 2010, we were already doing drag and drop tags.
        
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      2. MysteriousMihai Wed 17 Sep 2025 01:28PM UTC
        
        I'm from a rural area, thus accustomed to delays in advancement ... ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
        
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    3. Dawen Wed 17 Sep 2025 04:30AM UTC
      
      ...I'm so used to how AO3 does tagging, and the tagging of ten years ago, that I didn't even know Tumblr has drag-and-drop tags now.
      
      Tumblr has drag-and-drop tags now?? kind of life changing.
      
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    4. i_dwell_in_darkness Thu 18 Sep 2025 08:13PM UTC
      
      If you copy the tags on the editing interface, tags will be separated by the "×" character with spaces on either side. You can paste the entire block of tags into a plain text editor and use find and replace to replace the " × " with a comma. Then rearrange your tags in whatever order you wish.
      
      I usually deleted all the tags and temporarily replace them with the tag "Other Additional Tags to Be Added". Then once I have the block of tags that I've rearranged, I paste them all back in.
      
      Still cumbersome for sure, but it helps avoid the retyping them all part.
      
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    5. 1. Snowgrouse Fri 19 Sep 2025 02:35PM UTC
        
        Heh, I know; I'm ancient enough to do that sort of thing (I even write all my fics in Notepad). I do have a .txt file with a list of character/fandom-typical tags ready to paste in, but then I may forget to include something that's unique to that particular fic (and which I'd love to include among the very first tags) and have to start again. Even if you do have that readymade list and tweak accordingly, it's such a PITA to have to go and click away all the tags from the Ao3 page one by one before you can start over with the tweaked list. Just having an option to delete all tags with one click would be so helpful--but drag and drop would be even better. Just today, I posted a new fic and realised I would've wanted to move the "Fluff and Smut" tag to the very beginning (because I only remembered it after pasting in my usual, rather darkfic-leaning tags) but fuck having to click X on all those tags that came before just to move Fluff and Smut higher up on the list, so I just gave up:p
        
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3. OTW_News_Post_Moderation (Official) Wed 17 Sep 2025 03:02PM UTC
  
  Hello,
  
  Thanks for the suggestion! OTW News Post Moderators do not handle nor have authority over feature requests. If you'd like to make a formal request for features to be added to AO3, contact Support as they handle feature requests in addition to providing technical support to AO3's users.
  
  In the meantime, there is an unofficial script that will allow you to draft and drop and drop tags: AO3: Reorder Tags with Drag & Drop. If you're unfamiliar with scripts, you can refer to our Unofficial Browser Tools FAQ for advice on setting them up.
  
  Hope this helps!
  
  Best,
  Joey
  OTW News Post Moderator
  
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4. 1. Snowgrouse Sun 21 Sep 2025 12:25PM UTC
    
    Thank you! You should add that link to the Unofficial Browser Tools FAQ. Or, if someone's maintaining a list of *all* kinds of Ao3 scripts somewhere, a link to wherever that can be found.
    
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BlueKirby Tue 16 Sep 2025 08:06AM UTC

HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU HONKS AT YOU

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PokePotter1 Tue 16 Sep 2025 08:39AM UTC

I'm going to assume the Father/Daughter incest tag was designed specifically so people writing in the Percy Jackson fandom could use it (Yes, Zeus, I'm talking about you).

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1. Account Deleted Tue 16 Sep 2025 04:32PM UTC
  
  Had me dead, lores 'bout mythologies really like that other than (maybe) tis fandom
  
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loraeli Tue 16 Sep 2025 09:36AM UTC

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS TO LOVERS HOLY SHIT WE WINNNN

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1. Account Deleted Tue 16 Sep 2025 04:33PM UTC
  
  NO familiar PFP for another reason, anyway YESS *high pitch scream*
  
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Snowgrouse Tue 16 Sep 2025 10:00AM UTC

Oh my gods, finally PUSSY SPANKING IS A CANONICAL TAG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've written a fair amount of it recently, since my current villain crush is *very* slap-happy in canon (...are we going to subvert that for hot BDSM? Of *course* we are!) and those fics always get loads of hits, I've noticed. Definitely one of those kinks that pulls in readers, whether they know the fandom or not. So I was amazed that it wasn't canonical until now. The pussyspanking fandom thanks you!

And now, back to the slap-slap-slap of firm, cruel hands on plush mounds, spraying drops of sweet arousal everywhere... 🍑👋💦🍑👋💦🍑👋💦

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