Crack!Fics I Will Never Write: Persuasion/Murder steer legend
There are some fanfiction ideas I come up with which I will never write. Typically, this is either because the idea is too ridiculous to deserve such a distinction, or too few people would appreciate the obscure crossover involved for it to be worth anyone's effort. Oh, and did I mention that I don't actually write crack!fics? I don't. I, arrogantly, take my writing much too seriously to do such a thing. This does not mean, however, that I am immune to receiving absurd inspiration. Take the following, for example.
Who
Persuasion, of course, is one of Jane Austen's novels - the last one she wrote, and published posthumously. The legend of the murder steer is actually mostly historical fact. The story goes that in west Texas, on 28 January, 1891, there was a round-up of cattle belonging to several ranches. The ownership of one yearling calf, however, could not be identified. A rancher named Henry Powe claimed it was his, while a man named Fine Gilliland asserted that it was the property of one of the two outfits he represented. Things grew heated, and Gilliland ultimately shot and killed Powe and left rather hurriedly on horseback (the law caught up with him and killed him two days later). Meanwhile, the other men at the round-up decided to write 'MURDER' on one of this steer's haunches with a branding iron, and the date of the incident on the other. The legendary part of the story is that the steer is still roaming the plains of west Texas.
What
The story would basically be Persuasion set in late nineteenth century (ca. 1890) west Texas. Certain changes would have to be made, of course. The Elliots would probably own Kellynch Plantation, and would have owned slaves a few decades earlier. The Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the U.S. may have had something of an impact on the family's present dire financial straits. Some research would have to be done concerning the fashionability of various Texas cities at the time, but the debate for the place of relocation may have wavered between San Antonio or Austen or Dallas and El Paso, and been decided in favor of El Paso.
Frederick Wentworth was originally a cowboy of no note whatsoever. Somehow, though (this remains a very mysterious matter to me), he eventually manages to own and run his own ranching operation.
How
Anne Elliot meets Frederick Wentworth several years after she had been compelled to refuse his proposal of marriage, and the usual difficulties ensue. Will the trip to Lyme Regis become a visit to Corpus Chirsti or Galveston, or might it be an expedition to one of the local caves - perhaps even Carlsbad just over in New Mexico? Could the last battles with the Indians, before they were all forced on to reservations, play a part in the tale? Is there any hope for a cameo by a (probably historically nonexistent) descendant of one of the camels who were briefly a part of an experiment just before the Civil War on using camels in the deserts of the U.S.? Since we're out in west Texas at this time, could the charismatic Judge Roy Bean get a cameo, too? And where, exactly, does the murder steer fit in, and what are Fine Gilliland's and Henry Powe's connections to the characters?
Why
Because one of the ranching outfits that Fine Gilliland represented was named Wentworth. I did mention that these crack!fic ideas are based on rather flimsy grounds, didn't I?
Who
Persuasion, of course, is one of Jane Austen's novels - the last one she wrote, and published posthumously. The legend of the murder steer is actually mostly historical fact. The story goes that in west Texas, on 28 January, 1891, there was a round-up of cattle belonging to several ranches. The ownership of one yearling calf, however, could not be identified. A rancher named Henry Powe claimed it was his, while a man named Fine Gilliland asserted that it was the property of one of the two outfits he represented. Things grew heated, and Gilliland ultimately shot and killed Powe and left rather hurriedly on horseback (the law caught up with him and killed him two days later). Meanwhile, the other men at the round-up decided to write 'MURDER' on one of this steer's haunches with a branding iron, and the date of the incident on the other. The legendary part of the story is that the steer is still roaming the plains of west Texas.
What
The story would basically be Persuasion set in late nineteenth century (ca. 1890) west Texas. Certain changes would have to be made, of course. The Elliots would probably own Kellynch Plantation, and would have owned slaves a few decades earlier. The Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the U.S. may have had something of an impact on the family's present dire financial straits. Some research would have to be done concerning the fashionability of various Texas cities at the time, but the debate for the place of relocation may have wavered between San Antonio or Austen or Dallas and El Paso, and been decided in favor of El Paso.
Frederick Wentworth was originally a cowboy of no note whatsoever. Somehow, though (this remains a very mysterious matter to me), he eventually manages to own and run his own ranching operation.
How
Anne Elliot meets Frederick Wentworth several years after she had been compelled to refuse his proposal of marriage, and the usual difficulties ensue. Will the trip to Lyme Regis become a visit to Corpus Chirsti or Galveston, or might it be an expedition to one of the local caves - perhaps even Carlsbad just over in New Mexico? Could the last battles with the Indians, before they were all forced on to reservations, play a part in the tale? Is there any hope for a cameo by a (probably historically nonexistent) descendant of one of the camels who were briefly a part of an experiment just before the Civil War on using camels in the deserts of the U.S.? Since we're out in west Texas at this time, could the charismatic Judge Roy Bean get a cameo, too? And where, exactly, does the murder steer fit in, and what are Fine Gilliland's and Henry Powe's connections to the characters?
Why
Because one of the ranching outfits that Fine Gilliland represented was named Wentworth. I did mention that these crack!fic ideas are based on rather flimsy grounds, didn't I?