we keep odd hours

First, a few notes:

-----I'm not academic necessarily about the Civil War, I've just been doing a lot of armchair historian reading.** There's some irony that a year ago I said regarding the long-fic ''Jesse will not be getting flashback chapters because I can't be fucked to read for more than 5 minutes about the Confederate Navy'' and then I ended up reading multiple books that included a lot more than five minutes worth of reading.

-------Not an excuse, but there’s a history of the final confederate flag (the blue ‘x’ on red field; the ‘stars and bars’ flag—there were a few earlier designs first) being used as shorthand for rebellion against any establishment, for punk; used north and south as a fashion piece. It was just as wrong in the 80s and 90s as it is today but it was a lot more common to see. In the context of the movie, it means that Caleb on seeing this crowd would’ve seen Jesse, and given his companions are wearing a leather jacket covered in patches and the other is in a corset (and wearing a harness??? even though it has her knife in it that's still??) and figured 'old punk' before ‘dead civil war guys,’

-------Anything I saw on these characters is in regards to them as fictional. They’re serial killers and vile people, but they’re also not real.

A bit of historical background: The most 'well that's not what I expected' thing I learned about the outbreak of the war was that the south didn't even try to hide what "State's Rights" meant. Like at all. Who was it that said Americans think of themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" to explain why so many lower class and working class people vote for those who refuse to tax the rich? That. Even though the system of slavery had lead to a south with little industry of its own, farms that raised cash crops instead of sustenance, directly lead to extreme divide between the wealthy class and the poor AND to a severe lack of education compared to the free states---southerners of all classes were ready to fight for their rich neighbor to be legally allowed to own humans. Meanwhile in the north? The north was no less racist. Delaware (most who chose to fight chose to fight for the Union, and the state remained in the Union) and Maryland (more evenly split, Union but considered 'neutral') were slave states. The north weren't fighting to end slavery, the vast majority were fighting to preserve the Union, fighting for the abstract concept of the flag after it was taken down at Fort Sumter, many were fighting because it meant a paycheck. After the war officially started, most of the fighting was in the south--what southerners weren't convinced to fight for slavery were willing to fight ''Yankee invaders.'' The Federal Army (term used at the time) did not acknowledge the Confederate States as a separate country, and therefore their presence was not an invasion. One of the many reasons Gettysburg was a turning point was because the south could no longer claim that they were only defending themselves.

As for Jesse’s level of involvement? Let’s go with Lance’s version of the character’s backstory, just as Bill’s is usually taken into consideration for Severen’s, and to a lesser extent Jenette’s for Diamondback’s. His concept of the character was that he was originally from Virginia, in the Confederate navy, and after a night battle with a Union ship, where his was completely destroyed, he washed up on the shoreline of [he’s said alternately the Delaware Bay and the Chesapeake Bay] and was turned into a vampire by some harpy/siren-like monster. The character believed it was an act of pity or mercy—even though Jesse remains (per Kathryn’s writing and what she told him as part of her directing) the only one of the clan who doesn’t see vampirism as living, as a life, only attempting to continue an existence. I’d disagree, and think that Homer has more hatred for it than Jesse, and far more reason to, but it’s FASCINATING to have this character who finds what he is as something less than alive, who then made the two people who matter most to him into that same thing. Severen is (per actor and writer/director) the only character without any regrets, he’s the vampire’s vampire; Diamondback’s romantic view was an ‘’impossible life that destiny had in store’’ for her.

Jesse doesn't talk like he was any kind of scholar in his own era; he probably knew how to read and write, but I doubt he would’ve been in any formal schooling into his teen years if any. If he lived along the coastline directly, and was in the Confederate Navy, he likely had to start as a ship owner or at least close with one/working directly under the ship owner as the captain—if I remember correctly, Lance mentioned at some point that the captain had been killed, which made Jesse captain? I could be wrong. At the outbreak of the war, the Federal navy’s ships were either thousands of miles away or not seaworthy. They had about 80-90. Not great. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy did not exist. When it started they had eleven boats. Not ships. Boats. Clippers, schooners, oyster boats, were all used as blockade runners and Jefferson Davis started issuing letters of marque—which actually led to more legal issues. Because the north didn’t acknowledge the south as a separate country but as an unconstitutional rebellion (the constitution allowed for rebellion under specific conditions only, which the north declared were not what was going on), they did not recognize Davis as a president, therefore did not recognize letters of marques issued by him as legal, which meant confederate privateers were legally pirates in the north.

I’m assuming Jesse was on one of the privateer vessels, and for my own sanity in the prequel fic, I “killed” him off early in the war because frankly in a fanfic I’m writing for fun I didn’t want to get too deep into the psychology of someone who was fine with fighting for the south.

Given that the line where Jesse says ‘’I fought for the south…We lost” was, in the original script, meant to be an emotional beat, the character staring off into the distance, but in the final cut he laughs it off as a joke, I can’t see that he had any particular patriotism or political conviction. Some of the boys (on both sides!) at Bull Run/First Manassas only showed up to fight because it sounded like the “most exciting” thing that would ever happen in their lives—but Jesse wasn’t a boy; he was a grown adult in his mid/late 40s (Lance I think you’re hot but let’s be real here, he could also have been in his 50s). He had to know to some extent what he was doing.

And if he wasn’t necessarily invested enough in the war as a whole to not care that his side lost, I can’t imagine he was invested much in any way or another. He’s probably extremely racist (given the time periods we know they’re from, its likely all three of the adult-appearing vampires are) but I doubt he ever had anyone enslaved on his property, if he even had property; he definitely would have seen slavery regularly, especially if he worked at a harbor or a port*** as part of daily routine.

As for a romanticized view of the past, I doubt he has any more nostalgia than anyone has for the world they grew up in---if he can even remember it. Jesse would’ve sat through all three saccharine hours of Gone with the Wind at a drive-in with Diamondback and rolled his eyes at the petty issues of the rich; he would’ve hated Ashley, Scarlett, and despite sharing a career (or at least a partial one) with Brett, he’d find him repulsive too. Not resentment for their wealth, but distaste for what their entire concept.

Based on him making a joke of it; I wrote him as being one of the people who didn’t really give a damn about what was going on****, but war brought the blockade to his waters, would’ve ended whatever trade he was doing (I grew up right in the middle of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays and Philadelphia, the farther south you go, anyone who can afford a cheap, shitty little boat fishes, for sustenance, sale, and/or pastime—so I wrote him as fishing). He might’ve started as a blockade runner before the fighting grew more serious, or vice versa. Coastal waters are notoriously rough, the little coves and inlets that runners would’ve used had shoals that changed daily with the tides and unless you have spent years sailing a locale like that, you’ll never get through without beaching your boat—and any deep hulled cargo ship, you can forget it. Oyster boats, shallow Baltimore Clippers—ships that were light and fast and difficult to sail in deep water, requiring skill to manage; these would’ve been what the privateers were using, the runners getting vital medication and food, or even luxury products for the wealthy that would've made them a higher profit in past Union ships.

Diamondback, despite being from the Great Depression (per Jeanette’s story from when Kathryn asked the cast to come up with histories for their characters), would’ve seen things like Gone with the Wind¸ Belle Starr, and Jezebel as escapism, not something to compare to reality at all. If she ever thinks too deeply about Jesse’s past or politics, it starts and ends with ‘’He was a pirate ; ) “ because here’s the thing. She’s the only one who chose this.

Diamondback chose to become a requisite serial killer. She found a chance to live forever with someone she fell in love with and decided that that was worth every life they’d ever have to take. I don’t think she would’ve given a fuck what his past was, because a) that was the past, and b) she’s selfish. She’s either decided that fate chose this for her by having her path cross Jesse’s and either that absolves her or she doesn’t care. She’s terrifying. She’s the one playing games—she’s the one who saw the waitress at the bar first. Jesse harassing the waitress was after Diamondback reached for her knife, his bad lines and maneuvering of the woman were getting her in place for Diamondback to kill.

*not enough American vampire media really gets into the parasitism of colonization in the first place.

**I ended up reading a lot on the Civil War after realizing I needed more context for other reading I was doing (Louisa May Alcott's work under pennames mostly, but also some of Hawthorne's later stuff, and Henry David Thoreau) because 1849-1880sish was an era I hadn't read much on for US history since grade school. Then I didn't make it to Salem for my spring road trip, so I did a shorter road trip to Gettysburg, just a couple hours instead, and reading more on that before and after going, realizing it's not a long drive and going out there a lot this summer to go hiking, also loving the weird little town, and now possibly getting involved in reenactment.

***The import of humans for enslavement was outlawed long before this time. Think what that means about how the trade managed to continue.