Pen's Nest

Dear three ships writer

Don't panic!

If you've looked at my requests and thought, okay, it's going to have to be the SGA one, you'll realise I haven't said a whole lot about Stargate Atlantis in my journals (I'm pensnest on LJ as well as here). Sorry about that... I've just watched through the whole series, and I've been reading occasional fic (usually McShep) since before I even saw an episode, but I've not considered myself part of the fandom because I haven't written in it.

That said, I find myself kinda in love with the threesome I put in my request. Rodney is, well, Rodney, an ordinary-looking guy with flashes of beauty, and far too many brains for his own good—and his social ineptness works for me because there's an essential innocence underneath it. Zelenka is downright adorable, I love his interactions with Rodney and it makes me Very Cross when other characters on the show (Sam! How could you?) put him down. And how anyone on Atlantis ever gets work done with Ronon around I do not know—in all reason they should be lying there drooling, or licking his arms, or something. All that, plus he's smart in a completely different way from the science team. Cor.

I'd definitely prefer a canon-based story—not a great fan of FPF AUs, and there's plenty of scope for variety within SGA. I like stories in which something *happens*—I'd rather have plot than three people musing about why they like each other. My favourite stories generally have a good dose of humour, but that doesn't have to be the main element. Angst is also good—I can enjoy a nice wallow, provided it's not derived from someone being an idiot. I like smart characters to behave intelligently.

Anyway, I suggested 'inferiority complex', because I imagined Rodney fretting about his physical inferiority, Ronon being secretly intimidated by the others' brains, and Zelenka being sensible about the whole thing. (Or, being secretly a Sex God with no need to be inferior about anything—if you write comedy, that'd be a lot of fun.)

HOWEVER. If a perfect, must-be-written story leaped into your mind at the sight of the prompt, please write that. I've been through enough SeSa challenges to know that a story the writer believes in can blow me away even if it is theoretically *nothing* that I expected to like.

The same is true of popslash—though if you're a popslasher, I assume you've read my stuff and have a clearer idea of what I like, anyway. My stories are archived on my website, and I've done crack_van recs aplenty, so you'll see that I really do like quite a wide range. I love canon stories, whether that means "could have happened, we just weren't told" or simply "well, they're popstars"; I love magical realism—canon with a twist of genderswap, or being-turned-into-cats, or whatever; I can love AUs, so long as they are AUs with conviction and credibility.

With this threesome and this prompt, I was envisaging any or all of them being reluctant to commit to one another, and the only thing stronger than that reluctance would be their need to be together. Awwww! But as I said above, if you come up with a completely different idea, that's okay with me. I really do like all kinds of stories. If you do comedy and/or crack, yay! If you do strong, emotional, pressured stories, yay! Really, all kinds of stories.


SQUICKS? Embarrassment squicks me deeply, so please don't put anyone into a humiliating situation. I dislike character bashing, so don't give them an 'enemy' within the group (although if Sheppard or any of the pop boys is jealous or bewildered, that would be just fine). I also don't like infidelity or the erasure of an actual partner—so ideally, the timeline won't be when Rodney and Jennifer are together or when Lance has an actual boyfriend. (Other canon partnerships seem to be of less importance—in the case of popslash I'm a bit fuzzy on when they were, anyway—and I don't mind if they're ignored.) I vastly prefer snark to 'men-who-are-really-teenage-girls', and there's plenty of scope for snarkiness in both threesomes.

SEX you can include or ignore as you prefer or as the story dictates. I'm pretty vanilla (not into humiliation, pain or strict, formalised behaviour) but I have at times been amazed by the hotness of well-written kink, so if you feel something works for the characters you've written, I'll probably be happy with it. I really like equality within relationships—less (I think) of an issue in the popslash threesome, but that's probably why I like the inferiority concept in the SGA threesome, as a means of putting them onto an equal footing. A D/s/s arrangement, therefore... well, let's just say, if you can make it work for me, you are one heck of a writer.

I hope that's given you some insight, some ideas, and not too much fear.