Pernese in the Old West

[Weyrlady]

First of all, let me apologize if this thread should be in the writing forum instead.

I had this wild idea for a Pern fanfic...feel free to throw stuff...but what if one took canon Pern characters and put them in the Old West? Yes, I said it was wild.

That would qualify as an alternate universe, wouldn't it? Would I have to 'kill' everybody on Pern first? That could get gory. . .

The other thing I was wondering about is--what about the names? The "usual" names during 'Old West' times were old-fashioned, dependable names like Adam, Benjamin, Sarah, and Ezekial. Not John Wayne, and not F'nor, either. Hmmm. . .

Now that I've thought about this for a whole 10 minutes, someone can feel free to straighten me out

[Anareth]

Actually, "John Wayne" wouldn't be particularly far out for the US "wild west." (It's also not the actor's 'real' name; he was born Marion Morrison.) You might run into a "Zeke", but names like John, James, Michael, etc wouldn't stick out, either. (Unless you're Marty McFly, though, I wouldn't use "Clint Eastwood.")

I don't get why you'd have to kill anyone. You can do whatever you want if it's fan fic. Haven't you ever looked at fanfiction.net? Half the AU stuff just takes 'canon' characters in whatever canon we're talking about and plonks them in a new setting with no explanation at all.

I have to think the dragons would be rather conspicuous, though. And would probably piss the buffalo off. They don't like being eaten. And the Indians who live on buffalo hunting probably wouldn't be thrilled with superpredators.

Unless you got rid of the dragons, but then I'm not quite sure how it would be worth doing a Pern AU, as it's not really Pern without dragons.

[GinnyStar]

Well you put F'nor as human and Canth as he friend in on fan fic. Here something else Cross over, like Dr. Who on Pern, so why not, I might have ideas here, I just wish I could type longer, for that fall I did about a week ago, is effecting how long I can type.

[P'ter]

Somebody (was it Edith?) did a Doctor Who on Pern.

Some of J. T. Edson's books could be rewritten. How about Fandarel as Mr Winchester making rifles? Lessa as Calamity Jane? Groghe as Colonel Chisholm?

[Golden Talisath]

Originally Posted by P'ter

Somebody (was it Edith?) did a Doctor Who on Pern.

Some of J. T. Edson's books could be rewritten. How about Fandarel as Mr Winchester making rifles? Lessa as Calamity Jane? Groghe as Colonel Chisholm?

F’lar as a sheriff? He, he, can you picture F’lar shooting a gun? Or Lessa? And acting like Calamity did in that Lucky Luke comic?

[edith]

Originally Posted by P'ter

Somebody (was it Edith?) did a Doctor Who on Pern.

Some of J. T. Edson's books could be rewritten. How about Fandarel as Mr Winchester making rifles? Lessa as Calamity Jane? Groghe as Colonel Chisholm?

Not me!

[Weyrlady]

Oh, Edith! I was going to ask, can I read it? But if you didn't write it, then nevermind. That's OK!

Also, thanks all! It comes a relief that I don't 'have' to kill everyone. . . I was wondering how that could be done, all at one time, in a society without fast-moving cars, atomic bombs, or seriously high cholesterol. Just having everyone drop dead of (insert your favorite ailment here) is. . . ugh

I have to be in a certain mood to read fanfiction.net and I am rarely in that certain mood! Let's just put it that way. . . Maybe someday I'll actually post something there. What's it like?

One possibility that I thought of for the dragons is to take their personalities and make them...something else. Because you are right, Pernese dragons defenitely would not fit in 1882. On Earth. Nah. But one of the best parts of the Pern stories, to me anyway, is the illustration of the relationship between dragons and their riders, which I don't believe is strictly limited to 'just' dragons and riders. Not 'full-sentences-talking-telepathy', but that kind of powerful inter-species love, is not just limited to Pern.

If (big 'if' here!) I end up doing this paqrticular story, I'm going to try stay away from the Hollyweird, romanticized version of the shoot 'em up, cowboys-and-Indians version of the "Wild West", and go with more how it really was. And smelled--I have this thing with accuracy! Soiled doves (prostitutes), locomotive smoke, sawdust and all. Could be fun

[P'ter]

I'm sure I read a fanfic somewhere where the Tardis materialised on Southern?

How about adding in Thella and co as the Hole in the Wall Gang?

Piemur as the Lone Ranger?

[mawra]

You could have the riders & dragons getting there accidently by going between gone wrong.

[Shalyn]

Sandy did that Dr Who crossover fic. Was quite entertaining.

Weyrlady - why do you want to bring Pernese characters into the Wild West? What you're proposing really do is not making sense to me - unless I'm misunderstanding it completely. You're wanting to take Lessa - and change her name to, say, Lisa, and F'lar - changing his name to, oh, Fred Larson - and write a story around that? I don't understand the point. You could just as easily take Mary Lou Smith and George Jones and write a story around them. Even if you use the same personalities that Lessa and F'lar have, that wouldn't necessarily be plagiarizing, because the characters of Lessa and F'lar fit a certain demographic you can find in any novel. You don't need to put Anne's characters into a different setting - just use your own.

Now, if you were talking about Lessa and F'lar and a few others - maybe they were fighting Thread and were heading back to Benden - and some kind of weird storm came up and placed them into the 1880s, dragon and all, and they had to find their way back to their own time and place? that would be interesting, and would be true AU fanfic.

What you are proposing is a novel set in the 1880s, and the human interaction between everyone.

[Anareth]

What Shalyn said. Unless you have the dragons, it's not Pern, and there's no Earth analog. (Certainly not horses. Rule number one of horses: it's a prey animal that has been psychologically conditioned to tolerate the monkey-predator sitting on its back. First sign of a giant horse-eating monster, which can be defined as 'anything new and scary', from an actual cougar to clothes on a line, if at ALL possible they are taking off and they won't really care if you're still on their back or not.)

[Weyrlady]

Originally Posted by Shalyn

Sandy did that Dr Who crossover fic. Was quite entertaining.

Weyrlady - why do you want to bring Pernese characters into the Wild West? What you're proposing really do is not making sense to me - unless I'm misunderstanding it completely. You're wanting to take Lessa - and change her name to, say, Lisa, and F'lar - changing his name to, oh, Fred Larson - and write a story around that? I don't understand the point. You could just as easily take Mary Lou Smith and George Jones and write a story around them. Even if you use the same personalities that Lessa and F'lar have, that wouldn't necessarily be plagiarizing, because the characters of Lessa and F'lar fit a certain demographic you can find in any novel. You don't need to put Anne's characters into a different setting - just use your own.

Now, if you were talking about Lessa and F'lar and a few others - maybe they were fighting Thread and were heading back to Benden - and some kind of weird storm came up and placed them into the 1880s, dragon and all, and they had to find their way back to their own time and place? that would be interesting, and would be true AU fanfic.

What you are proposing is a novel set in the 1880s, and the human interaction between everyone.

'Cause it was a wild idea I had! 'Cause I've been working on my Master's thesis all day and need a mental break from that. 'Cause I like to write, and I like Pern, and I like to take people places with my writing, and it seemed to me that Flagstaff during the 1880's was a good a place as any and it's something I do know about.Because it's fanfiction, and I do whatever I want. Sorry, I didn't know that there had to be a point, or that it had to be understandable.

You know, I was briefly of ff.net today and I read a Pern/Harry Potter crossover story (and I apologize if that is anyone's here). What exactly was the point of that?

Author note: I hope that I'm not coming across as overly defensive or something, Shalyn. But it is fanfiction, and I'm defenitely not publishing it (I don't think that I'm allowed to anyway...) and I have bigger litarary fish to fry. To me, fanfic is a break and fun excercise, not the whole enchilada.

[Anareth]

Well, I think the point is, if you're not going to write about the actual characters, it ceases to be fan fic. So your original post wasn't really clear--change the names and get rid of the dragons, and it's not Pern. At all. So why bother? For fan fic to be of interest to anyone but the writer, it has to touch base in some discernible way.

Now, DRAGONS in 1881--THAT could be interesting. But changing everyone to an Earth human? They're not those characters any more. They can't be. I would assume in that HP/DoP crossover, they were still the same characters, not Fred Larson the wizard with his pet Hungarian Horntail Nement.

If you write a random scene with people who look vaguely like Pern characters and who have named their Earth-animal pets after Pern dragons, that's just kind of odd.

If you write Lessa, F'lar, and F'nor showing up on their dragons at the OK Corral--now you've given Pern fans something to THINK about. And you can see how those characters adapt to this radically weird world. (I mean--guns and gunpowder? Cattle drives? Photography? Outlaws? A world without Thread? Heck, a big planet with MILLIONS of humans, hundreds of countries, railroads, the beginning of the automotive age, electricity, indoor plumbing?) Are they trying to get back to Pern? CAN they? Do they want to? Are there reasons to want to stay? If you have the wild west, do they meet historical figures? What if the Benden crowd landed in Abeline, but a group of Oldtimers found themselves in the middle of Sitting Bull's tribe? How does Little Big Horn turn out if one or both sides have dragons?

There's a million ways such a crossover would be cool, but if it's like your thing with "F'nor" in a truck with a dog, it's not really Pern. If you're going to change everything so much that fans can't identify with it, why do it?

[Shalyn]

What Anareth said.

Now - I don't blame you for being defensive over a fanfic idea you have - I have plenty of ideas myself. And when I write fanfic, or original fic, I get defensive if someone disses it, because it's my baby.

And yes, fanfic is fun. It's great to unwind. It's good for getting creative juices flowing.

However - you don't understand why I'm saying there needs to be a point to a fic. (edit: Of course, since it is your fanfic, you don't have to have a point. I'm not the fanfic police. I'm just trying to help - if you don't want my help, stop reading here and I won't ever bother you again with my thoughts.)

All fiction - fan, original, published, not published - has a point. There is a reason it was written.

The DRoP/HP crossover? The point is having the characters from two different universes interacting. Now, you may think, "But that's what I'm trying to do!"

But it's not the same. In the aforementioned fanfic, the HP crowd will have their HP powers, personalities, and everything that makes their universe unique. The Pern crowd - ditto. So the fic would be, what happens if Ginny Weasley Impresses blue, but Harry doesn't Impress at all? How does Hermione handle seeing her first dragon - does she immediately do an unmentionable curse on it? How do they feel after they find out dragons are pseudo-intelligent? (Hmm. Darn plotbunnies.)

Your proposed fic has lost all of its Pern-ness. No dragons, so no way for Lessa to save the world by going back four hundred years. Your proposed fic is, well, an original fic, and you would be able to publish it. And there's nothing to stop you from it, because you have removed anything that makes it parallel to Pern.

Take a look at the fanfic that has been written and posted here. Kath wrote one based on Facebook - yet it's still Pern, because it has the dragons. It has Lessa. It's just written in a different style.

My Brekke story is a snippet of Dragonquest, but written from Brekke's POV. The point of that fic was to get into her head and tell her story.

The fic I'm working on now? (and it's been over three years since I started it!) - I'm now in Mardra's head. And sometimes in Lessa's. But the point is to tell the story from a different POV again.

The point of Dragonsue? Well, that point changed halfway through. Most of the point of that one was to show people that you cannot just BAMF! into Pern from Earth and expect everything to be finedandyhunkydory. It was going to be a parody, but ended up being a redemption fic.

That's all. Just because I am one dissenting voice on your proposed idea does not mean that you should not pursue the idea. I'm just trying to understand how your idea would retain its Pern-ness, when you have removed everything that would make it Pern. It's like, making macaroni & cheese, but without the cheese. Or the macaroni.

That's what I'm trying to clarify.

[GinnyStar]

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[Weyrlady]

Originally Posted by GinnyStar

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You found it! Thanks Ginnystar!

Hey Shalyn, I just want you to know how well-written your post was. I totally agree with you about the "point to a fic" idea--oh, it's a "major dramatic question"--got it!

Acting like the grad student that I like to think I am, I had to go look up the definition of 'fanfiction' so I could quote it. () According to Wikipedia, "Fan fiction (alternately referred to as fanfiction, fanfic, FF, or fic) is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. Fan fiction, therefore, is defined by being both related to its subject's canonical fictional universe and simultaneously existing outside the canon of that universe." So. . . there I am.

Anyway, all of what we refer to as "fiction", mine or anybody else's, has a point or answers the major dramatic question, because that's the,um, point.My point is that I agree with you.

However, knowing what I now know, I would not call "my thing with F'nor in a truck with a dog" Pern fanfiction. Actually, I'm not sure what I would call it--I'd call it darn fun to write. Where it takes place--Lockett Meadow--is a beautiful place, very special, and totally real. So is it still 'alternate universe' if the universe in question is my universe? I'd almost call it 'original fic' except for F'nor and, of course, Canth. It's nice to put F'nor and Lockett Meadow together in my head sometimes--F'nor's a fun guy to write about, regardless of what planet he currently exists on.Did it answer it's major dramatic question? Yes--at least to me--but like anything else, it could use some work. I'd call it 'blurring the lines'. I'm not ashamed of it.

As for what would happen at Little Big Horn if they had dragons; the Native Americans would have kicked butt with Canth on their side. And that would rock. And it would change the course of history.

[P'ter]

It's no worse than what Naomi Novak did with the Royal Navy having dragons in the Napoleonic War. If she took it a bit further and had Admiral Hood with dragons at the Battle of the Chesapeake the Union Jack might be flying over the White House!

[Anareth]

Thing is, if you're going to "publish", meaning broadly to put a work out for public consumption, if it doesn't make sense to anyone but you, you can't expect much in the way of positive feedback. So there has to be SOME kind of external logic that works for a reader not in your own head. Even when things make sense to YOU and seem cool to you, they might seem utterly bizarre, even to (or ESPECIALLY to) other fans.

Some ideas make sense, others don't. Ask poor Shalyn about all the brainstorming to which I've subjected her over my stories. Down to last night's "Have any old coworkers whose names would be good for a murderer?" (As she's known me long enough to know I'm not completely mental, she puts up with this.)

[Ryuu]

Originally Posted by P'ter

It's no worse than what Naomi Novak did with the Royal Navy having dragons in the Napoleonic War. If she took it a bit further and had Admiral Hood with dragons at the Battle of the Chesapeake the Union Jack might be flying over the White House!

Novik did change something to the history of the Americas.

There was an oblique mention of Washington, and while nothing specific--the passage is about the same time where a Sioux rider & his dragon are seen (the Canadian Brits did have historical contact with the Sioux ATT)--it appears the colonies managed a break from British rule. However, other mentions of the Americas scattered throughout the series seem to indicate the Incas managed to completely repulse the Spaniards.

[GinnyStar]

Originally Posted by Weyrlady

You found it! Thanks Ginnystar!

Hey Shalyn, I just want you to know how well-written your post was. I totally agree with you about the "point to a fic" idea--oh, it's a "major dramatic question"--got it!

Acting like the grad student that I like to think I am, I had to go look up the definition of 'fanfiction' so I could quote it. () According to Wikipedia, "Fan fiction (alternately referred to as fanfiction, fanfic, FF, or fic) is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. Fan fiction, therefore, is defined by being both related to its subject's canonical fictional universe and simultaneously existing outside the canon of that universe." So. . . there I am.

Anyway, all of what we refer to as "fiction", mine or anybody else's, has a point or answers the major dramatic question, because that's the,um, point.My point is that I agree with you.

However, knowing what I now know, I would not call "my thing with F'nor in a truck with a dog" Pern fanfiction. Actually, I'm not sure what I would call it--I'd call it darn fun to write. Where it takes place--Lockett Meadow--is a beautiful place, very special, and totally real. So is it still 'alternate universe' if the universe in question is my universe? I'd almost call it 'original fic' except for F'nor and, of course, Canth. It's nice to put F'nor and Lockett Meadow together in my head sometimes--F'nor's a fun guy to write about, regardless of what planet he currently exists on.Did it answer it's major dramatic question? Yes--at least to me--but like anything else, it could use some work. I'd call it 'blurring the lines'. I'm not ashamed of it.

As for what would happen at Little Big Horn if they had dragons; the Native Americans would have kicked butt with Canth on their side. And that would rock. And it would change the course of history.

Only thanks to another-> Ryuu and his feedback thread, oh I've three more crossovers via another member here Dr Who/DoP. who I've also inviteded a few this way too.