In which I recycle an old post: shipping from beyond the grave!

[lesbiassparrow]

A while back I wrote this while inspired by massive internet meltdown over JK Rowling's choice of 'ships in Harry Potter 6: The One Where She Disappointed Fans Who Ship Harry and Hermione. And inspired by misscam's reports on CSI fandom and the shipper implosion there, I decided to revive it.  Because somehow that made sense in my head.

Without further ado

I announce a new shamelessly recycled fan campaign. Why should we stop with demanding the ship of our choice in books written by living authors? That's for those who want to take the easy route. I'm not going to be defeated by death!

So I plan on hiring a medium (well, maybe it will just be me and a ouija board) to contact deceased authors and demand they write the 'ships that I want.

The campaign will include (but is not limited to) contacting the following authors who didn't do what I wanted totally screwed up their destined lovers. I will demand they end their novels with the following people riding off into the sunset of passion and shagging (not necessarily in that order):

1. Jane Austen: Fanny Price and Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park
2. Louisa May Alcott: Jo and Laurie in Little Women
3. Samuel Richardson: Clarissa Harlowe and Lovelace in Clarissa 
4. Tess and that guy in Tess of the D'Ubervilles. Way to screw that one up, Thomas Hardy.

I will take other suggestions, including Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley in Pride and Prejudice (You know they were totally doing the love that dare not speak its name until that cow Elizabeth came along and ruined things) or any other pairing that people feel like mentioning.

*Weeps* Won't anyone think of the classic fictional lovers?*

Feel free to promote my totally insane brilliant idea! It's all about the fans, baby.

*This also applies to cancelled TV series.  Disappointed Spike and Buffy didn't get together and have babies in the end?  We can summon up the spirits of the past and get the writers to change history.

Comments

[anonymous_sibyl]

Louisa May Alcott: Jo and Laurie in Little Women
Hell yeah. And I'd like Shakespeare to do something about Romeo & Juliet. I hate the ending.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Louisa May Alcott: Jo and Laurie in Little Women

This one broke my heart! Bloody Alcott and her 'principles.' I always pretend Jo said yes.

As for Romeo and Juliet, well, ff he'd really cared about his audience he would have rethought that bloodly ending.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Professor Bhaer is such a dreadful come-down. Prissy and unattractive and condescending.

Which is why casting Gabriel Byrne in the Winona Ryder movie was a stroke of genius. All of a sudden it all made sense.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Gabriel Byrne took some of the sting off it. But not enough!

[ehab-it.livejournal.com]

I always knew Darcy kept Jane away from Mr. Bingley for his own selfish reasons.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Darcy n'Bingley: their love was so 4EVA until Lizzie was all 'ooh conform! ooh feel my heterosexual love!' I hates her! Yesssss....

Goes off to be mad in corner.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Also I have read this in fic. Seriously. (I mean that Darcy and Bingley loved each other until Darcy latched onto Elizabeth because he had to conform, not the nefarious Jane side-plot).

[twilight-zen.livejournal.com]

The whole shipping phenomenon cracks me up. I actually liked buffy/spike together. And I like Gil/Sara together. And I like Ron and Hermoine together, but it did seem like Harry/Hermoine was a more obvious choice to me which may be why she went in the other direction.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love shipping. It's my crack. And I actually thought Harry Hermione was going to happen, but I don't mind Ron and Hermione. Or Hermione and Luna. Or any of them together. Giant orgies all round!

I've had my heart stomped on several times, but I never assume that that's because the writers have it in for me. Or that it means that the other pairing is bonkers.

[twilight-zen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I never assume those things either. I just think the writers did what they wanted.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

heh.

you? are brilliant.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Or mad.

I'll have to check with the ouija board to find out. I does nothing without checking with the spirits, me.

[somedaybitch.livejournal.com]

wise, you are, yeeeeesssssssss.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

* Mr. Knightley and a frying pan in *Emma*. Thrown with great force.

I think the Crawford sister was absolutely right about why Fanny and Henry would have done one another a great deal of good.

Hmm. There aren't as many ships I'd like to repair as lives. I hate what Tolstoy does to Natasha Rostova.

Gronk. Have no brain. Must think.

Oh! Ivanhoe and Rebecca. Scott *had* to send her off to a convent, because otherwise Ivanhoe would never have settled for Rowena.

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Oh! Ivanhoe and Rebecca.

That bastard! He actually admitted Rebecca was the better partner for Ivanhoe, and that he loved her. He said that they would never get together because, well, Middle Ages, not so fond of the marriages between Christian and Jew and life isn't fair, but I know it was because he hated me. Even though I wasn't born yet.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

But if she could convert to join a freaking CONVENT, surely she could convert and marry?

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Wasn't it some sort of Jewish convent? Or as she put it 'a group of holy Jewish women living together.' Er, I may have read that book a lot at some point. Not that I have a knight fetish or anything.

[meret.livejournal.com]

Louisa May Alcott: Jo and Laurie in Little Women

Yes!Yes!Yes! Where do I sign? :)

P.S. - Alcott didn't want Jo to marry at all, but the publishers insisted. That's why she ended up putting the professor in there.

[meret.livejournal.com]

Alcott didn't want Jo to marry at all, but the publishers insisted. That's why she ended up putting the professor in there.

I think I'm remembering that correctly.

[meret.livejournal.com]

If we're changing stuff, I want Old Yeller, Flag, Bambi's mother, and Charlotte to live, and the horses in Black Beauty not to have suffered either! I don't know why children's books have to be so heart-breaking. *sniff*

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Yes! Ginger dying in Black Beauty traumatized me. Also Bambi? That book made me cry every ten pages. Even the film was less traumatizing.

Also I did not know that about Little Women. Interesting.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. Alcott wrote Jo as a member of the Youth Anti-Sex League. She completely freezes up when Laurie gets physical.

Perhaps because Jo was Alcott-in-disguise and she couldn't imagine marrying her ownself?

[k-julia.livejournal.com]

I have a broken teenage heart stored away somewhere over ST: Voyager and the trainwreck that was Janeway/Chakotay. *sniffle*

And I know technically they got together, but after a thousand fucking pages of devotion, couldn't we have skipped the melancholy, too-little-too-late vibe between Emmy and Dobbin at the end of Vanity Fair?

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

Oh god, Vanity Fair. She only loves him when he no longer thinks of her as the most wonderful thing ever and loves their child more. I guess it was revenge of a sort.

As for Janeway/Chakotay, I was one of the lucky ones and got out of Voyager only. Though I did see the guy who played Chakotay buying pie at a local diner, so that's worth something, right?

[k-julia.livejournal.com]

Oh god, Vanity Fair. She only loves him when he no longer thinks of her as the most wonderful thing ever and loves their child more.

After hanging in their with them forever and ever, it was just mean. It still makes me pout.

Chakotay, the Pie Boy. Hee. But oh, how they fucked me over with that show. All my paranoia about reading backgroud info comes straight from that trauma.