The REAL Civil War

[dorcas-gustine.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it was someone here, but on fandomsecrets this was posted.

Where is all the fic, I wonder? XD

Comments

[skyearth85.livejournal.com]

LOL, well it's a pretty good plot!bunny!
it could be also linked to the What If - Captain America Fought in the Civil War :) *more plot!bunny*

[dorcas-gustine.livejournal.com]

And then we could have our REAL Gone With The Wind story! XD

[gekizetsu.livejournal.com]

ROFL!

I laughed, and laughed

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

That's brilliant.

It would also make a good prompt for an epic fic. Oy.

Re: I laughed, and laughed

[pensive]

*cough*

Heh. I'm weak.

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted. Arrgh, I might just do it.

right now, I'm writing crack Ultimates fic for jynx. The prompt is crack. Crack. I don't even know if I'll post.

But I want to do this. But erm... I'd need a beta to bounce off American history stuff with. I'm a proper tea sipping Brit who still thinks of America as a colony who threw a tantrum remember? The notion of MasonDixie, etc would be lost to me.

You know me, I tend to go big or go home. This would be big.

Re: Heh. I'm weak.

[dorcas-gustine.livejournal.com]

Ultimate crack? Man, I would love to read it! :D

ETA: Also, go for the Civil War fic! :)

I'm tempted, I really am.

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

Also, go for the Civil War fic! :)

I *think* I have enough nous to write 616 fic (I'm more comfortable with 1610 fic, no lie). But alas, I'd need someone who was comfortable with American history to call me up on if and when I slide into Britishcisms.

LOL. No, this Ultimates prompt is kinda cracky, for real. I'm enjoying it so far, but I don't know if it would be up to my standard (I know, I have some! :D) in terms of posting.

Re: I'm tempted, I really am.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I would bet this fic bunny idea in a hot second! And shower you with scholarly articles on the antebellum south, if you want.

I'd take you up on that, actually.

[jazzypom.livejournal.com]

The scholarly articles on the antebellum south does appeal. I'd have to think about who goes where though. Oy. Then reread Civil war marvel stylie. ¬__¬

Re: I'd take you up on that, actually.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I studied mainly the South, not the North, so the things I can think of off the top of my head are heavily weighted in that direction. There are some really good primary source collections online, if you want just a look at some Civil War era stuff for ideas.

UVA's Valley of the Shadow (http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/) project, which is basically a bunch of primary source material (newspaper articles, letters, diaries, army records, etc.) from the Shenandoah valley just before and during the Civil War. It's really made available for in-depth academic research, but if you browse their newspapers section (http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/xml_docs/valley_news/html/topics.html) by topic, it gives you a nice look at some examples of Northern and Southern public opinion about the war, politics, race, etc. (The "Augusta" links are Virginia papers, the "Franklin" ones are Pennsylvania papers).

The Difference Slavery Made (http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/AHR/), an online version of an article by William G. Thomas and Edward L. Ayers first published in the American Historical Review, comparing two small communities below and above the mason Dixon line.

University of Maryland's Freedmen in Southern Society (http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/) project. Mostly an offline endeavor, and the site only has a few dozen sample documents which really don't have much to do with writing a Steve/Tony AU fic at all, but they're fascinating looks at the effects of Emancipation and Reconstruction on black Southerners. (Also, the online documents are transcriptions, not scanned .pdfs, which spares you the misery of trying to read 19th century handwriting).

University of North Carolina's Documenting the American South (http://docsouth.unc.edu/) project. Hands-down the biggest and best digital collection on the Antebellum and Civil War-era South out there. There are diaries, letters, books, all kinds of things.

There are also some re-enactor sites out there with incredibly detailed information on Union and Confederate army uniforms, if you go looking, and don't mind the fact that half of them have Confederate battle flags plastered all over everything.

*Sits back and watches as her master plan unfolds*

[dorcas-gustine.livejournal.com]

Excellent.

Re: *Sits back and watches as her master plan unfolds*

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I cannot help myself! This is my area of lame, geeky specialty!

I'm still trying to figure out how to get Rhodey into a "Southern!Tony owns Tredegar Iron" scenario, though, because I just can't see Rhodey standing for the kind of treatment he'd receive in antebellum Richmond even if he were free (having to carry around documentation to prove he wasn't a slave? Not being able to carry arms or vote?). Maybe he could be part of a U.S. Navy crew that captures Tony after Tony gets all blown up and shrapnel-fied, or something.

Re: Heh. I'm weak.

[pensive]

I'm a Southerner, so the Mason-Dixon stuff is pretty much part of my upbringing. If you need someone, feel free to throw things at me.

YOU BETTER POST CRACK ULTIMATES!!! :DDDDD

Re: Heh. I'm weak.

[perrypadfoot.livejournal.com]

HELLO FELLOW DIXIELANDER!

Re: Heh. I'm weak.

[pensive]

Y HULLO THAR

Re: Heh. I'm weak.

[perrypadfoot.livejournal.com]

It always manages to suprise me when I find someone else down here. It's like I expect everyone to be from the North or the Midwest or someting...

Re: Heh. I'm weak.

[pensive]

I'm used to everyone being on the West coast.
Whereabouts are you located?

Re: Heh. I'm weak.

[perrypadfoot.livejournal.com]

Heh, there too! I'm in South Carolina, the upstate area. You?

Re: Heh. I'm weak.

[pensive]

Heart of Dixie (Birmingham AL)

Re: Heh. I'm weak.

[perrypadfoot.livejournal.com]

Aha! Big football fans down there, right?

[pensive]

OH MY GOD.

yes, and it is unbearable sometimes. I love my Auburn Tigers, but I'm not going to lose friendships over it, yanno? OY!!!!!!

[perrypadfoot.livejournal.com]

My mother's church had a pastor who was a big LSU fan, and when that game against Bama rolled around, yeesh...

It's the same up here with our high school teams and the Clemson Tigers and USC Gamecocks... Crazy, man.

[pensive]

man church attendance goes down when certain teams lose. It's ridiculous.

I was rooting for LSU all the way in that game, they almost pulled it out!

My ex bf is going to USC in the fall for his doctorate. I can finally get away with calling him a cock heh

[perrypadfoot.livejournal.com]

It's the opposite up here: it goes up! *shrugs*

I KNOW. I've never rally watched any football before, but I tried to watch some of that game. It was interesting, but eventually I got bored and convinced myself that football is an excuse for guys to have aggressive man-hugging...

USC Columbia or USC Upstate? Their cheer is literally "Go Cocks" *headdesk*

[pensive]

the main campus, so I assume Columbia.

[perrypadfoot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that would be Columbia.

[cosmicbiscuit.livejournal.com]

.... Actually, that might be interesting in a kind of 1602-alternate-univer- Augh! Bunnies! ::kicks them off::

[xlineartx.livejournal.com]

I kind of want to write a 1602 AU where Steve tries SO HARD to get everything about the country just right, even though nothing's going the way it's supposed to and it's all wibbly wobbly timey wimey and whatnot. Except there wouldn't be any slavery and women would get the right to vote, and they'd figure something out with the Native Americans and so forth, because it's Steve. Yes.

[cosmicbiscuit.livejournal.com]

Ah, the timey-wimey stuff. No faster way to give yourself a massive headache than screwing with that.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty fine notion, I must say. :D

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

OMG, when I first heard about Civiw War, I wanted it to be Marvel: 1862 so badly. I was crushed when I didn't get Steve in a union officers uniform and Reed Richards as a Victorian mad scientist and Tony as the Northenr industrialist guy making a mint off war profiteering and inventing the first iron-clad and fighting the Confederate Dynammo (Tony wouldn't work properly as a Southern gentleman, alas - he needs to be someplace with tech and industry, and the industrial revolution didn't seriously get going in the South until post-Reconstruction).

[ymfaery]

Tony could have had a Southern gentleman background but relocated to the North? Because his father liked to diversify, and since Tony "failed" at being a good and proper son, he was exiled to manage the factories up north (or whatever excuse you could think of for Howard sending Tony away)?

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I think I'd actually make Howard Stark a souless Yankee factory owner who's a Copperhead (pro-slavery supporter of the Confederacy) because some of his factories are textile mills and he's dependant on cheap Southern cotton for his profits.

There were a decent amount of them in NYC in the Civil War - there was actually a (very short-lived) proposal floated around in the very first days of the war that New York City ought to cecede from the Union along-side the South.

Marvel is so New York City centric that almost none of the characters other than Gambit & Rogue and maybe the Braddocks really work all that well as Southerners - it was the shoal my Civil War-era plot bunny kep running aground on, the fact that I just didn't have enough Southern characters unless I screwed around with people's backstories more than I was willing too.

Gambit as a Confederate artillery officer, though, would be sex incarnate, possibly even hotter than Steve in Union blue. Sam Guthree could be his NCO.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

ETA: However, the fact that Howard Stark is a yankee industrialist doesn't mean he can't own a plantation or two in the South - more than one Northerner invested in Southern plantations during the 1850s, when cotton was undergoing a major boom. He could totally have sent Tony to VMI circa 1859-ish (Virginia Military Academy - many VMI cadets were commissioned directly into the Army of Northern Virginia during the war) to "make a man of him" and ensure himself of keeping his southern business contacts if a split really happened. Then Tony could keep his same old industry background and still end up in the Confederate army.

He could work on turning the Merrimac into the CSS Virginia instead of on the Monitor.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Oooh, oooh, I've thought of a way to make Southern!Tony work now. The South did have one heavy industry center - Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond, VA (they're the ones who rolled the iron plating for the Confederate iron-clad). The Starks could live in Richmond and own Tredegar Iron (which would of course be Stark Ironwork in Marvek-verse) and a couple tobacco-packing plants.

I'm an idiot for not thinking of Richmond immediately - I've heard stories about how Richmond used to have beautiful wrought-iron gates and railings all over the place that were all melted down during the Civil War since I was, like, four.

[velithya]

Someone is going to write this, right? :D

[perrypadfoot.livejournal.com]

THIS!!!