Random Musing on Settings

*muses* I've been watching a lot of Western series lately (The Magnificent Seven, The Wild Wild West, and Alias Smith and Jones), and thinking about crossovers between them (because I like crossovers, and because all three have at least one trickster/conman I'd like to see go up against each other - there's also Chris Larabee vs Kid Curry on a fast draw).

The thing is ... crossing them is actually slightly more problematic than it looks initially. Well, not M7 and WWW, that might actually be relatively easy, but either of those with ASAJ would be quite problematic, at least if you're going for a direct, time-frame-of-the-series crossover.

Because they're actually set around about a decade apart. Season 2 of WWW is set in 1872 ('The Night of the Brain', the date on the newspaper), and judging by the pilot, M7 is set roughly in the early 1870s too. But ASAJ is set at least post-1883, since Heyes learns about fingerprinting by reading Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain in one episode ('Something to Get Hung About'), though probably not too much past it, since Heyes and Curry were orphaned in the Kansas Border Wars as kids (1854-1861) and neither of them is much over 30 years old (er, well, provided the Kid wasn't lying to a nun at the time, and provided their wanted posters at least got the ages right).

(This does, mind you, put Heyes and Curry as teenage runaways at around the right time to run into anyone you like from the other two casts - bounty hunter Vin, Chris in his drunken gunslinger phase (Kid, oh, the Kid), teenage Heyes versus Maude Standish, their first arrest in Four Corners, from M7, or their first job as outlaws being trying to rob the Wanderer -or Loveless, that would be funny, or possibly tragic, depending- from WWW. So there is that. *grins*)

*tilts head, smiles faintly* My point being, though, that just because two works may be set in the same period (eg Old West) doesn't necessarily mean that they're set at the same time (eg less than a decade apart from each other). Ten years mightn't make a lot of difference historically speaking, but it sure as hell makes one to the characters. Heh.

... What now?

I like reading cracked.com articles. They're often funny and interesting. Sometimes, though, I really, really have to wonder if the writers research much of anything before writing?

Six Insane Superstitions That Are Still Shockingly Influential.

Apparently, here in Ireland, we can't build roads on fairy land because the NRA believes in fairies. *blinks rapidly* Now, what they're probably talking about is that roads are (sometimes) diverted to build around ringforts, which are called fairy forts, because ringforts are early medieval archaeological monuments and some people would like it if you didn't bulldoze those (not that that protects them in the long run, see things like the Hill of Tara, but anyway). There is a belief traditionally attached to them regarding fairies (the raths are traditionally the surface entrances to the Otherworld, where the Tuatha de Danann went when they left Eire), but I highly doubt that belief makes no nevermind to the National Roads Authority, given that scientific and/or historical preservation reasons tend to do bugger all either if there's money on the line.

(And, to be fair, there's also a lot of ringforts in Ireland - they were essentially an early medieval type of farmstead, so anywhere there was farming, there's ringforts - the country is fairly lousy with them and we've got to build roads somewhere. Usually only the particularly large or important ones are spared).

Just ... what now? Really? There are any number of religious and superstitious beliefs worldwide and in Ireland that affect the everyday running of things (the concept of the weekend, for example), but thinking that fairy folklore will save a ringfort or divert a road in Ireland is ... somewhat optimistic, darling.

Just. Oi. Really?