Letters from Pegasus Week

[em_kellesvig]

Here's a bit of interesting trivia that plays out -- if you're watching carefully -- throughout the series: Pegasus natives don't shake hands.


It's just one passing moment, but John figures it out fast.





pogrebin explores this concept in her post-finale story, Starting Over (In the Same Place) to great effect. This outsider's point of view of the Atlantis crew on Earth shows how they've adapted to the Pegasus galaxy, been changed by it, and no longer belong on or to Earth. The custom of handshakes is just one glaring facet of the Lanteans' behaviour that makes them so different from their hosts.

neevebrody also hints at it in her story for this year's mcshep_match, Nowhere Man. This beautifully layered mystery gives us a Rodney McKay stripped of his memory -- and everything that makes him of Earth, from Earth. Without that frame of reference, he won't shake hands with John.

Any other stories out there that play with this detail? Any recs?


"Letters from Pegasus" 1x17

To all our fannish friends on the East Coast, stay safe during "Sandy"! And to folks coming home from Squee Weekend, safe travels.

Comments

[patk.livejournal.com]

"Starting Over" by Pogrebin! Yes,that's one of the most wonderful outsider's POV stories and has one of the best - if not *the* best - line I've ever read in SGA fanfiction when she describes the expedition members:

"Their successes span galaxies and their failures destroy solar systems. They rewrite time and history and their own DNA."

When I read that for the first time it gave me shivers and goosebumps and till this day it still does.

Actually, I find the whole description of the Atlantis people from an outsider's POV just breathtaking because - yes, that's them and I have never seen a more appropriate wording to describe them:

"Their shadows are lengthening beyond the confines of their bodies, spreading to fill the high ceilings and dwindling-into-the-sky towers of their Ancient city, and they do not even realise it. She fears them because: they are frontiersmen, they make their own laws, their town is the size and shape of a Galaxy. They are the literal, glistening, fleshy embodiment of every moral dilemma or question of medical ethics or colonial mentality or appropriate bounds of scientific research that the SGC has no answer for. They have lived in a warzone, and those who came back through the Gate are the ones that learned to survive. Their home is a weapons platform, a pulsating city built around a stardrive and nestled upon Ancient weaponry.

Their successes span galaxies and their failures destroy solar systems. They rewrite time and history and their own DNA.

So yes, Shen fears them."

[em_kellesvig]

I love that line! *fangirls all over the place*

It's these little details, such little details, in the hands of such fine writers, that make fandom so fantastic.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

I thought it was fanon that Pegasus natives don't shake hands! I loved it in "Starting Over", but I didn't remember that it was actually in the show. Interesting, thanks for the reminder :)

[em_kellesvig]

This little moment goes by so fast, if you blink, you'll miss it. I was lucky to catch John offering his hand, missed Orin's blank stare altogether, and barely caught John's awkward response. But it's there.

They don't directly mention it again until Todd offers his hand to Carter in season four and then you get it: it's all about the Wraith and their feeding hands. ::shudders::

Yeah, now you know why Teyla does the forehead thing with close friends.

[popkin16]

I never connected it with this scene, but I've often thought the Pegasus Galaxy natives wouldn't shake hands. It's the little things like this that would trip up someone from Earth :) I love outside POV fics, and pogrebin's fic is great :D

[em_kellesvig]

Remember the scene with Todd and Carter in The Seer? Yeah, that's why Pegasus natives don't shake hands. Ick.

pogrebin really nailed it in Starting Over, really nailed that whole story.

[popkin16]

*nod* I remember XD

pogrebin really did XD I put it on my Kindle, it's so wonderful XD

[em_kellesvig]

I have it on my Kindle too -- along with 1,050 other stories, and growing! That's all I have on my Kindle: fanfic!

[popkin16]

I have a few books on my Kindle, but it's overwhelming fanfiction. And the majority of the fanfiction is SGA fic *has no regrets*