fandomhigh | Hands On History of the American Civil War, Monday, Period 2

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Hands On History of the American Civil War, Monday, Period 2

There were two archaically dressed gentleman at the head of the class. You know, in case you were doubting the whole 'Civil War veteran' thing. There you go.

"I cannot believe so many books were written about this damned thing," Goodnight grumbled, looking at a decent pile of them where they were stacked up on the desk. Never mind that now. He straightened up, pulling at his vest to appear more academic. "Good morning. I will be one of your teachers. Goodnight Robicheaux is my name."

"And I'm Nathan Algren," Nathan said, arms crossed over his chest, apparently not nearly as concerned about looking academic as Goody, there. Sorry, Fandom. You didn't impress him all that much. But at least he'd put on some slightly less randomly Japanese clothes for the occasion. Still practically archaic. But less Japanese. And by some miracle also not his old uniform. "And we'll be teaching you about American history."

A particular chapter in American history, Nathan. You were teaching a class entirely about it, you could probably say the name.

Perhaps if Nathan had a few more fleur de lis on his clothing, he'd look a touch more academic? No? No.

"The war between the states to be specific," Goody said for him. "Which appears to be a topic of some note near a century and a half after the fact. How… nice." No, he did not find it nice. Nor did he find the sheer level of wrong in so many assessments 'nice' either.

"These days, I believe people tend to just call it the Civil War," Nathan noted, glancing toward the stack of books. "I'm at least mostly certain."

So, there you go, students. This was the sort of class you were about to take. By teachers who mostly just looked bemused at historical accounts written by modern people.

"We won't be teaching you from any of those," he added, gesturing with one hand toward the stack of books. "From where we're standing, we don't exactly need to."

And frankly, neither of them particularly cared to look to see just how history chose to remember either of them.

"I suppose if you were interested in a class on military tactics of the war, perhaps you could try one of these," Goody suggested. "As we will not be covering that. And many of them have decided to use the wrong names for many of the battles. Bull Run, my delicate foot."

It was Manassas and everyone knew it!

"Today," Nathan said, turning an amused look toward Goody before looking back at the class, "we'll be keeping it simple. Introductions. They're something of a tradition around here, if I remember correctly." Which he did. Nathan had an excellent memory. "We want your names. And anything you might know about the war, by whatever name you might happen to know it by."

[OOC: And OCD up! The management would like to apologize in advance for this semester.]

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Historically Inaccurate.

Jalian d'Arsennette

Pinkie Pie

Blue Sargent

Cosette Fauchelevent

Khadgar

Eric Bittle ~~whose player definitely has not lost track of the days of the week due to retail hell~~

Wonder if maybe you signed up for the wrong class.

Pinkie Pie had absolutely no idea how she'd ended up signed up for this class. Probably it happened the same way she was signed up for a room, or for this school at all.

She doodled in her notebook as she listened. It was a lovely picture of a battle between two states. Specifically a state of grace, and a state of emergency.

There was a little picture of a bull running over Goodnight's delicate foot, too.

Name, what you know about the subject matter…

"I am Jalian d'Arsennette y ken Selvren," she introduced herself. "I know very little of this war."

"Very little?" Nathan tilted his head at her curiously. "Might I ask what 'very little' consists of, then?"

If it wasn't all that much, it shouldn't take very long to share, Jalian.

"There were states," she said, frowning. "Some had made slaves of other persons and some had not, and they fought. There is a flag many people get angry about." She shrugged.

That... that was indeed very little. Nathan nodded all the same, pursing his lips slightly in thought.

"Concise," he settled on. "We'll see if we can teach you a bit more before the semester's end, then. I'm curious, what made you take this class? Interest in this war in particular, or war in general?"

"Any wars here," Jalian confirmed. "I need to stop one, and I do not understand them."

"I'm Pinkie Pie!" Pinkie greeted joyfully. "And it's apparently a war about states and bulls."

See? She was paying attention.

"Ah..." It was okay, Nathan. Just take this moment to kind of squint and attempt to puzzle that logic out. "Bulls didn't actually have all that much to do with the war, I'm afraid."

Nathan, be gentle. You were going to spend the rest of this semester shattering delicate misconceptions as it was, after all. Though he could at least keep in mind that there was a good chance most people in their class were barely even familiar with America...

"But Mr. Robicheaux just said a bull ran over his delicate foot."

"Mr. Robicheaux said..." Nathan glanced at Goody for a moment, a touch at a loss, before looking back at Pinkie. "He was using a turn of phrase. His delicate foot is probably fine."

Probably. Nathan wouldn't presume to actually be an expert on the state of Goodnight's feet.

"Oh," Pinkie said. "Then what actually happened with the bull?"

Did you regret everything yet, Nathan?

Nathan frequently found himself regretting everything. His one saving grace at this point was the fact that he hadn't chosen to be here.

"There wasn't a bull," he sighed. "Bull Run is the name of a stream near Manassas. There were two battles of note, there."

And a topic that had Nathan grimacing. Just a bit. Bull Run had been a loss for the Union, both times. It hadn't really gone well for either side, come to that, the first battle a sort of litmus test for how brutal the war ahead of them was going to be. It had been a sobering realization.

"The names of particular battles is a topic that's likely going to come into contention between myself and Mr. Robicheaux at least a couple of times this semester," he realized. "We often had somewhat different naming conventions."

"Oh," Pinkie said again. "I guess I don't actually know anything about this war you're talking about then. Maybe that's why the school put me in this class!"

Or maybe the school thought it would be funny to break the teachers' brains.

... The school was not wrong.

"Well, then we'll do our best to teach you, Ms. Pie. That is what we're here for, after all."

"You're off to a great start!" Pinkie held up her picture as proof.

Please excuse Nathan for a moment, Pinkie. He had to just kind of blink and decipher what was going on there.

And then look back and forth between the drawing and Goody.

"... Well, it's not a bad likeness."

"Thanks!" Pinkie beamed. "I do feel a little bad about his foot though."

"I'm Blue Sargent, and I got the standard Virginia public school unit on it," Blue said with a shrug. "And that 'state's rights' is code from my inborn ability to read between the lines."

Slavery. State's rights was code for slavery.

Edited 2017-01-02 21:11 (UTC)

Oh thank god, someone named after a color without being the color and making Goody question the potency of Faraday's bourbon. "Is that really how they're teaching it these days?"

Because it was a huge duh.

"The losers like to try to put a good face on losing," Blue told him, sarcasm dripping from her words. "But blatant racism is out of fashion--or I thought it was, until November--so they had to come up with excuses."

Wait until Goody got to the theory that slavery was dying out economically and therefore this whole war couldn't have been about it despite all the glaring evidence that the bulk of the initial conflict came from it's potential spread west of the Mississippi. What? Who said that?

"Might I inquire what happened in November?" Did the future have more terrible things in store? Yes. Yes, it did.

"Orange fascist sack of hair got elected president," Blue said grimly. "Stupid electoral college, ruining everything."

He understood a good majority of those words, Blue. But beyond that...

"...well, alright then."

"It sucks," Blue said.

Look, when he figured it out he was probably going to want to get really drunk immediately. Blue certainly did, and she was not one for teen drunkeneness usually.

"I'm Cosette," she said warmly, "and it hadn't yet happened for me at home, and I'm honestly not sure how well news about it would have travelled to France even if it had. I've read a fair bit since being here, but not a whole lot."

"Enchantée, Cosette!" Yeah, his French was some backwoods shit. That's what happens when you meet a Cajun, Cosette. "It... hasn't happened yet?"

Look, he was still new. So new.

Cosette was not so Parisian as to be reflexively disdainful of anyone else's French accent, mostly because she was too nice for that.

Look, she mainly thought it was lovely of people to try.

"Yes, I'm from a bit farther back in time than that, you see. I beg your pardon, monsieur, I had gotten accustomed to not explaining that in all my classes any more, in case it had become tiresome."

"No apologies needed," Goody replied easily. "Only patience for an old man's confusion."

"That's easy enough," Cosette said, nodding. "I suppose you haven't had more than a few days to adjust to this place yet, after all."

"It has been a touch trying, I suppose."

Just a little. No big.

Cosette nodded. "There's so much to get used to, isn't there? There are days I still find myself in awe of some thing or other, and I've been here nearly four years already. But it can be trying sometimes, that's certain. You're certainly not alone in that experience, if it's any consolation."

"My name is Khadgar, and I know next to nothing about this war," he admitted. "I'm from a different world entirely, so I've only learned a little about Earth's history. We've had many wars where I'm from though, and I've found that studying wars are a good way to get an idea of what a place's people are like."

"You're from a different world?" Oh, Goody needed at least a week and three bottle of whiskey to deal with everything going on here.

When they tag in, naturally.

Nathan was going to remain firmly settled at the front of the room until the students had filed out for the day.

He was also going to actually behave himself for this class. Generally speaking. It wasn't a semester talking about the Indian Wars, after all. This topic was an ugly one, but he liked to save all of his 'horrible person' points for the battles he'd fought after it.

Hey now, all of Goody's horrible person points were firmly in this war. And he hadn't the heart to replace the flask he was missing (it was with Billy) in order to drink during this.

But it was damned tempting to do.

Holy shit, I forgot I had this icon.

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Hands On History of the American Civil War, Monday, Period 2

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