Everything goes in the salad!

LOOK AT HIM.

Okay now imagine him going on little not-dates with Rodney because Madison insists on him coming along. John taking Rodney and Madison to dinner after the robbery because he wants to take care of them. John and Rodney following Madison around the zoo, stealing glances at each other. John and Rodney sitting next to each other on Rodney's couch for movie night because Madison insists on laying against the arm of the couch.

>:3

So for the longest time, "bug!john tail smut" was on my WIP list, but I couldn't figure it out, so eventually I set it aside in favor of more active WIPs. However, there has been some Captain America: The Winter Soldier goodness on my dash in this, the year of our tumblr 2026. It appeared when my brain was deep in McShep mode, and I thought, hmmmmmmmmmmm bug John. I'm still giving him a tail (:3), and I'm going to make him clingy and horny when Rodney finds him (:3), and I'm going to abuse the laws of science and the rules of the ascension machine because they lose John and the galaxy is falling apart and Rodney is gonna figure out how to give people superpowers, dammit. (it only works once, on him because he won't risk anyone else as the guinea pig, and then something vital inside it is fried and they have to start building pieces to fix it from scratch. Ronon has dibs on being second though.) It's set yearssss post-canon (and post-return to Pegasus) and John and Rodney were secretly together before John turned into a bug and ran off, so there's the whole Rodney mourning in private with the few people who actually knew about them because they kind of assume he's dead after a while. There's a lot still up in the air, but it's coming together.

This one has been through a weird, meandering plotting process, and I feel like a lot of the foundational middle thoughts aren't going to be represented in the fic because of it?

It started with this picture of course. Side note: Did y'all know there was a raccoon in this picture? I didn't. Anyways.

So for the folks at home who don't know, you sent me some Mountain Goats songs, and Bleed Out reminded me of Margaritaville, and it gave me the vision of war vet John throwing his leg at someone robbing Rodney's tech repair shop. I imagined it set in a chilly coastal town right away, with a windblown, sun-bleached Main Street. But I wanted to up the ante for Rodney when the robbery occurs, so I thought I'd have Madison visiting. I love earnest, worried, grumpy, trying-his-best-to-do-things-Correctly Uncle Rodney.

Now, Bleed Out and Margaritaville both have a lovely cheerful melancholy to them, and plopping 13-year-old Madison in the middle of the story to play mischievous little matchmaker (because Rodney is oblivious and John is a coward shy) has made everything SO fun, but it also means that 'Lost Shaker of Salt' doesn't really fit as a title anymore?

Yay!!!!!!!!!! (thanks @spurious)

Current WIPs

Regular middle-aged Mcshep Romcom

Young McShep Mulan AU (in culinary school)

Octo-merman!Rodney (because idk if I fw the word cecaelia?) x Shipwrecked!John pwp

Uncle John's Big Day

Convoluted Bug!John canon divergence inspired by Captain America: The Winter Soldier

This week's ✨WIP Wednesday Theme✨ is...

Gather Round the Campfire!

Put a 🔥 in my inbox to get a campfire tale about a WIP: what inspired it, what's happening in the background that won't make it in, what I'm looking forward to, what I'm struggling with.......anything goes.