Fandom High School

A message had gone out handwavily to meet at the port this week. When they got there they’d find their teachers standing in front of an old fashioned tall ship, its sails furled, rigging stretched all the way up the masts.

“Welcome back,” Duke said. “Or just . . . welcome in general.” Since two of their students were out of town last week.

"Welcome to Pirating, lads," said an amused Edward, clearly in his element. "This beauty of a brig's the Jackdaw, my ship, stolen right from amidst a Spanish treasure fleet."

He gave a dramatic wave with his arm.

"She's a nation to the worthy free. And today, you lot get to climb 'round her like fools."

Duke had to bite back the urge to add “allegedly” a Nader his breath at the mention of the ship being stolen.

Well. The statute of limitations should be long over on it, anyway.

“Basically you’re going to do a little obstacle course.” He pointed out the path along the boat. “Up to the forecastle, scale the rigging, swing over to the center mast, grab a flag from the crow’s nest, then head back down to the poop deck any way you want to. First to hand their flag off to one of us wins.” He grinned. “Cheating is encouraged.”

Duke was looking slightly less like a crazy person this week — but since his gremlin bite persona last week hadn't been quite as out of character as he might like to think, it was really only very slightly. He had a pirate hat on, and Polly Lobster (Duke would swear the porg itself had insisted on keeping the name) on his shoulder, and a piratey cutlass at his side.

"Welcome to the last pirate class!" he said, once the students had gathered. "You've all survived! Congratulations! I was thinking we could finish things off with a nice pirate party —"

His hat went flying backwards off his head and stuck onto the mast behind him, a short, rough-hewn arrow piercing right through it.

"— Or maybe we'll get attacked by enemy pirates." Duke turned to look at the enormous, palm-tree laden boats appearing out of the mist off their port bow. "Sure. That works."

A trio of little round creatures loomed at the prow of the enemy boat.

"Please tell me those aren't porg pirates." Duke squinted at them. "Ah. Nope. Coconut pirates. It's all good, Polly." Polly burbled and shifted to try to hide behind his hair as another volley of arrows rent the air.

"Well?" Duke asked his students. "What are you waiting for? Attack!"

Class was back! Duke was perched by the ships wheel when the students came in, and gestured to the deck in front of them to have a seat.

"Pirate ethics!" he said. "Sounds like an oxymoron. But the fact is, you can't run a ship like this by yourself — at least, most regular, non magic people can't. And if you want to get a bunch of rough and tumble, antiauthoritarian criminals to work together functionally on basically anything, you're going to need a set of rules. Or, you know, guidelines at the very least. So, how do you do it? You're setting off to sea, a very dangerous place, with nothing but your boat, your wits, a couple months maybe worth of frankly terrible food, and a whole bunch of sailors, most of whom have killed people, all of whom are looking to make sure everyone else thinks they're willing to kill again to get their way. How do you convince them to follow your orders? How do you make them a crew?"

Duke looked over the students, giving them time to think about their answers.

"There's no one right answer to this question. Despite what stories would have you believe, there was never a centralized pirate government or 'code' everyone followed. Following a king kind of defeats the point of being a pirate. Pirates with kings were called 'privateers', and were kind of like those trust-fund kids who play at being homeless while always calling home to ask for more money when they run out. And don't get me started on the nonsense of 'honor amongst thieves'. These people lie and cheat like breathing. You're going to need something more than 'we're both criminals' to be able to trust them." He frowned, eyes going a little distant. "And even then, you still have to watch your back."

He shook the darker moment off and looked at the students again. "So how about it? How do you get loyalty out of your crew? Do you use fear? Money? Superior knowledge? Or do you even lead at all? Who says a boat has to have a captain? Surely there are other ways to organize, right? Let's hear it."

"So this was . . . not the plan for the day," Duke said, as the students entered. Their usual ship had been replaced by what was clearly a stage set, complete with proscenium arch and footlights. Duke looked like he had a headache. "Seriously, I figured we'd do sea shanties or something and was just trying to get a digital musician. And the damn Danger Shop turned into . . . this."

An overture started as he spoke, and holographic actors milled about, taking up their positions for the first scene. A digital stage manager, complete with headset, came out of the wings to shove Duke off the stage with a mop.

"Alright, jesus. You know you're imaginary, right?" He shook his head and gestured the students towards the audience area. "Anyway, I guess we're watching a pirate opera today. Enjoy."

The Danger Shop for today's class was set up a bit differently than it had been before. Instead of the deck of one big ship, the students would find themselves on a replica of Fandom's docks facing seven small sailboats.

"Ahoy, mateys," Duke greeted. "I thought today would be a good day to give you all a taste of some actual sailing. Pick yourself a boat, give her a good name, and lets get started with some sailing basics!"

Duke kept the whole "intro to sailing" lecture as short as possible (which wasn't very), glad to have a classroom available where he could control things like wind power and direction, and be reasonably assured that no one was going to get concussed or crushed by a swinging boom. There was a lot of terminology to cover, and loads of guidelines, and he was pretty sure at least half the students would end up capsizing or falling into the drink today. But hey, that was half the fun of learning to sail, right?

"Alright! Now that you've got at least a bit of an idea of what to do, let's have ourselves a race! First one to make it all the way around the island and back here wins! Seeing as we're pirates —" and in a very safe environment full of safety protocols "— sabotage and cheating are not just allowed, but encouraged. Show me what you've got, ye scurvy bunch of sea dogs! Arrr!"

Class met below-decks again, this time in the ship's galley, a long room stocked with barrels and jars of dubious color, and a small gimballed stove. Duke leaned against the counter while the students gathered, then spread his hands when it seemed like everyone who was going to show up had.

"Welcome to the galley, aka a ship's kitchen. I hope you all brought your appetites, because today we're going to talk about pirate food!" His grin was just a little bit evil. The students had probably better watch out.

( jerky and scurvy and hardtack, oh my! )

Mmmm. Tasty.

"Let's be talkin' about fights, mateys!" Duke greeted. "As ye might guess, the scurviest sea dogs who ran these here seven seas under the pirate banner were a scurrilous, rambunctious lot, proud and angry and often at least a little bit drunk. Fights were common amongst the crews, if their tendencies to tussle weren't satisfied on the regular with a raid of a merchant ship. So!" He faced his crew, hands behind his back. "What d'ye suppose the rules of a pirate fight might be?"

So help him, if anyone had an answer other than 'there were none'. . . .

"Anything went! The most important rule of piracy is to live, by any means necessary! And if that means fighting dirty by Blackbeard's mullet that's what a pirate will do!"

He strode across the deck and rapped a knuckle on a barrel. "And how 'bout weapons, ye ask? Well, those be anything they can get their hands on, be'n't they? A pirate is nothing without their knife, be it gully, dagger, or dirk. They also be using guns, though good fucking luck trying to get one of those slithey toves to fire straight. Pirates often be in close quarters below decks, so they be mighty big fans of short swords like the cutlass as well. Ye'll meet pirates who favor their boarding axe in battle, and those who'll just grab anything that might happen to come to hand, be it belaying pin or marlinspike. Ye've got to be quick on your feet and with your wits to be a proper pirate, ye see, and never miss out on an opportunity for a bludgeon."

He stopped pacing, dropped his chin, and breathed once. When he looked back up, the accent and piratical sneer were gone. "Anyway, I'm told you all can't actually injure yourselves in here? Some kind of holographic magic safeties. So I'm basically going to let you all go nuts today. For the love of god please don't try to attack each other with bludgeons outside of class. Not without really good reasons first." He smirked and shook his head, then flung his arms wide as he fell back into character. "But enough disclaimerin'! Grab yer weapons, ye damn dirty mome raths, and let's have ourselves a melee!"

[NOW WITH ACTUAL OCD, thanks dw]

"Welcome back, me mateys!" Duke greeted, this time greeting the class from a lean against the center mast of the Danger Shop's ship program. "Ye've been on me crew for two weeks now, and it's time to start pullin' your weight. But before I can start orderin' you to swab the poop deck or batten down the hatches, you're going to need to know what the hell those things are." He pulled a sheath of papers from his waist coat and brandished them in the air. "For that we have worksheets." Because Duke was not at all above stealing a kid's ship parts activity from the National Park Service. At all.

"Take a look at that and if ye've got a pen and can write, give a shot at labelling it on yer own time." Duke shrugged. "Or rip it apart and throw it in the sea. That's probably more pirate-y. But it should cover the basics."

He started to pace across the deck, his hands folded behind his back.. "Now there be several types of sailing ship — or 'tall ship' as they're sometimes called. This one. . . ." He frowned up at the masts, his pirate accent petering right out. ". . . I'm guessing is a galleon? Probably? Look, tall ships be not my area of expertise. My own boat runs on a motor." He shrugged. "But! It is much easier to swing dramatically into battle when your ship is covered with ropes and sails! Square ones in this case. And the lateen one at the back, for when the wind's against you. Down here on the decks, we have our main deck, as we're standing on here, the forecastle at the front by the bow of the ship, the poop deck naturally enough in the rear! Or stern, to be nautical, because we can't call things the same as they do on land. There's a rule. Which means that that way is port!" He pointed to the left. "And that'd be starboard." The right. "For masts! We have the foremast!" He pointed to the one up front. "The main mast!" The center. "And the mizzenmast!" The rear. "The crossbeams there are called yardarms, the ropes are rigging, and that little bucket up there at the top is the crow's nest. That . . . should about cover it for our purposes, really." He rubbed the back of his head. "Take a look around and explore. See if you can name any of the stuff I skipped. Fuck around with the rigging for awhile and see what it does. I'm pretty sure we can't actually break anything in here, so — go nuts really." He swung his fist and gave a little sneer. "It be the pirate way."

The Danger Shop had been programmed into the deck of a classic tall ship, complete with multiple masts and sails, three different deck levels, and way, way too many ropes. There were barrels and crates aplenty for the students to use as desks, so long as they didn't mind said barrels and crates occasionally sliding around as the boat drifted along the swells.

Their teacher showed up a couple minutes late, looking ruffled and disgruntled, and — facial hair aside — not really at all like he should be leading a class called "So You Want to Be a Pirate". He was much too clean, for one, and had all his limbs. He didn't even have a pirate hat on!

"Alright, alright!" he called, as he stumbled backwards through the door. "Fine! I'm here, okay? Call off the damn moose!"

He tripped over a rope, flailed his way through a stumble, and turned to get a full look at his "classroom."

". . . Holy shit. Okay. Sure. This is definitely a thing that's happening."

Such professionalism.

He rubbed a hand over his face and blinked around at the students, then sighed and gathered himself. "Hi. Right. So. Welcome to pirate class. I guess. I'm Duke Crocker. You can call me Duke. The description for this class makes me out to be a pirate, which isn't entirely true? But I'm probably the closest you'll get who's not going to fucking kill any of you, so sure. Why not."

Yeah, he was off to a great start here.

"Um. Okay. So the weirdly gossipy radio station you all have around here makes it sound like introductions are the thing to do the first week, and considering I just got bullied in here by a moose, it's safe to assume I don't have a lesson plan. So introductions it is. Let's go with name, sailing experience, and . . . favorite historical or fictional pirate? Sure. Yeah. That's a plan. I'll . . . go first? I already told you I'm Duke. I grew up in a harbor town, so I've been on boats my whole life, though — not quite ones like this one." He was going to have to look up how to run a damn tall ship, wasn't he. "And as for favorite pirates, I gotta go with Ching Shih. She was a Chinese pirate from the 18th century. Born in poverty, worked as a prostitute, and ended up commanding eighty thousand other pirates in her prime, which is a hell of a success story. They say her first rule of conduct was that anyone giving any orders that didn't come direct from her got beheaded on the spot. Woman did not like insubordination." A beat. "Seriously, you all, pirates will fucking kill you, please don't take to the seas expecting loveable drunks who sing sea shanties. Like, they probably will also get drunk and sing. But, you know. Also there's murder."

He let that hang in the air for a moment, then clapped his hands and pointed to one of the students. "Okay. Now you. Name, sailing experience, favorite pirate. Go."