Bell Curve, or, Ladies Night at the Boom Boom Room

Fanfiction
Title:	Bell Curve, or, Ladies Night at the Boom Boom Room
Author(s):	rageprufrock
Date(s):	2006
Length:	44,392 words
Genre:	slash fanfiction
Fandom:	Stargate Atlantis
External Links:	online at AO3
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Bell Curve, or, Ladies Night at the Boom Boom Room is a John/Rodney Stargate Atlantis story by rageprufrock.

It has a sequel called Learning Curve, or Tab.

DVD Commentary

A fan's 2007 DVD commentary is here.

Reactions and Reviews

Unknown Date

Once again, glitterati hits all the right notes with this fic and its sequels. Her stories are the perfect balance of angst, a hint of sap, and humor. Rodney/John *****

2007

Classic AU in the fandom, with a whole bunch of sequels you can find on Pru's website. Rodney's a physics professor, and he goes into a male strip club in order to secure a date for a wedding. But he gets distracted by...guess who?

2013

Why read: This is probably my all-time favourite Atlantis AU and it still holds up incredibly well years after I first read it. There are parts that had me howling with laughter and other parts that were just so gorgeously written, it took my breath away. John and Rodney are in character and their relationship builds in such a believable way that I fell for it completely. It sounds like it will be slightly dodgy or sleazy from the summary, but I promise it isn’t: the strip club is a minor (yet hilarious) plot point in a much larger premise. At heart it’s a college professor/TA fic with a dose of (reluctantly) found families but it’s also much more than that as well and the author weaves all the elements together just right. This is one of those “can’t put it down” fics and deservedly a classic of the fandom.

2006

Billed as Pru's answer to the romantic comedy genre this is a hilariously funny and gloriously heart-wrenching au where Rodney is a college professor and John is a sometimes stripper and Rodney's physics TA. Pru has a definte knack for comedy and throwing the boys into unbelievable situations. Her characters are both sympathetic and larger than life and I love this story a lot. It's long and detailed and really, it'd be hard not to fall in love with a John that draws F-14s on student's papers when he's happy with their work or with a Rodney whose greatest nemesis is a fellow professor who hates String Theory.

Not only a classic in the fandom, and perhaps the most amazing piece of writing ever in the history of time in any language (no, I'm serious), you could not ask for more. I mean, TA!John, stripper!John, and lots and lots of other hot, amazing things with wording like orgasmic poetry. If you like AU's and you like McShep, this is the piece for you.

2016

I had no idea what sort of AU this would be when I started reading. And when I started and thought “ah, it’s this sort of AU!” I was always proven wrong in the next chapter. This story successfully contains lots of AU tropes but I don’t want to spoil them at all. It’s a well-written love story. In my opinion the sequels are even better. I always love fanfiction with children who are not annoying or obnoxious or complete angels, and so I loved the illegitimates very much. But just a warning, in the first story I noticed both ableist and transphobic language. What’s even worse is that it’s not used to point out transphobia or ableism. Instead, the main characters just casually use the r-slur and the t-slur and it serves no purpose at all. I think this fic was written in like 2006 when people weren’t this educated about issues like that, but it’s not like you can’t edit fanfiction now. Rageprufrock, if you see my review, please consider editing those words out. It could hurt a lot of people reading your otherwise really well-written stories.