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alternate_university2019-11-23 11:03 pm
profrollo) wrote in alternate_university2019-11-23 11:03 pm
Entry tags:
Sub-Faustian Freshman (Action, OTA)
[The usual business management teacher had to take a day off, and so Frollo, one who rarely took sick days, filled in. Many teachers dreaded this exact occurrence, for Frollo was too well-versed in academia to avoid, and too fiery to not add his own personal touch to their otherwise vanilla lesson plan.
The students visibly stiffened when he entered the room, and his severity meant their wariness never let up. Frollo chalks this up to his fine teaching ability, and can't quite see what part fear might play. With a pained, perfunctory air, he went over the usual. Operations, finances, the seedy, psychological tricks that people use to part the innocent from their alms. Before long he'd covered the material, leaving him ample time to teach what he really wanted.]
"The Manager"; the grotesque, worldly thing you all no doubt aspire to, is something of a junior demon. It is, to my lament, a product universities such as this reliably spawn like bot flies poring from flesh. A testament, I fear, to the increasing monetization of what used to be such hallowed halls of learning. Yes, even a university can fall to the base nature of supply. Perhaps I might amend the "demand".
[The look he gave them was one full of grim, caustic chastisement. Clearly the impure, financial side of college was both their fault and their full intent. Sinners.]
The world, low and greedy, would readily employ ones such as yourself as vassals to extend its reach. It would embroil you in hateful work--the gradual enslavement of others--, and its only reward being the deferment of the same for yourself. In exchange for swindling your soul, it promises that you, having done its dirt, may avoid its chains by pursuing worldly pleasures beyond the reach of those you "manage". What better way to avoid the lash then holding the whip?
[He spoke as if he had personal experience with the instrument. He became yet graver.]
Bureaucracy is the yoke by which it punishes and rewards, and despite my efforts, colleges are no less exempt from its schemes. Management positions are among the highest for graduates, who go out into the world only to consume and, in the end, be consumed thereby. They work their own damnation, and unlike Faust, do so unknowingly. Even if one seeks to avoid its claws, management becomes increasingly rife with every rung higher up the corporate latter. A climb that ends, spiritually, with a noose.
It is my fain, if vain, hope, that you will hold fast to your souls, and not trade them for the world's rewards. You shall find that the devil pays a fair wage, in the end: exactly as one deserves.
[His flaming eyes bored into them so fiercely that they regarded it as salvation itself when he finally said]
Class dismissed.
[He wasn't long in following them out the door, pinching his forehead at the thought of dealing with these demoniacal underlings in the world outside. How on earth do people...manage?]
The students visibly stiffened when he entered the room, and his severity meant their wariness never let up. Frollo chalks this up to his fine teaching ability, and can't quite see what part fear might play. With a pained, perfunctory air, he went over the usual. Operations, finances, the seedy, psychological tricks that people use to part the innocent from their alms. Before long he'd covered the material, leaving him ample time to teach what he really wanted.]
"The Manager"; the grotesque, worldly thing you all no doubt aspire to, is something of a junior demon. It is, to my lament, a product universities such as this reliably spawn like bot flies poring from flesh. A testament, I fear, to the increasing monetization of what used to be such hallowed halls of learning. Yes, even a university can fall to the base nature of supply. Perhaps I might amend the "demand".
[The look he gave them was one full of grim, caustic chastisement. Clearly the impure, financial side of college was both their fault and their full intent. Sinners.]
The world, low and greedy, would readily employ ones such as yourself as vassals to extend its reach. It would embroil you in hateful work--the gradual enslavement of others--, and its only reward being the deferment of the same for yourself. In exchange for swindling your soul, it promises that you, having done its dirt, may avoid its chains by pursuing worldly pleasures beyond the reach of those you "manage". What better way to avoid the lash then holding the whip?
[He spoke as if he had personal experience with the instrument. He became yet graver.]
Bureaucracy is the yoke by which it punishes and rewards, and despite my efforts, colleges are no less exempt from its schemes. Management positions are among the highest for graduates, who go out into the world only to consume and, in the end, be consumed thereby. They work their own damnation, and unlike Faust, do so unknowingly. Even if one seeks to avoid its claws, management becomes increasingly rife with every rung higher up the corporate latter. A climb that ends, spiritually, with a noose.
It is my fain, if vain, hope, that you will hold fast to your souls, and not trade them for the world's rewards. You shall find that the devil pays a fair wage, in the end: exactly as one deserves.
[His flaming eyes bored into them so fiercely that they regarded it as salvation itself when he finally said]
Class dismissed.
[He wasn't long in following them out the door, pinching his forehead at the thought of dealing with these demoniacal underlings in the world outside. How on earth do people...manage?]
no subject
"Professor, do you have a moment?"
She would follow him even if he didn't stop.
"I wanted to express my enjoyment of your lecture. It was... atypical. Might I inquire where your potent distaste for late-stage capitalism comes from? Perhaps the politics that arise from oligarchical donations, or was it from a foray into Wall Street yourself?"
Porrim's interest was sincere. Who would keep working in a system that disgusted them if they any other choice? What in particular had so broken his vision? Was it something she should avoid in her bid to navigate the outside world, or perhaps he has insight into what mechanisms her activism should target.
no subject
"Yes. What is it?"
Frollo's true interest in the school, and willingness to work in it, came from a place bred many years in the dark. What exactly was it about AU that could take in these abominations--physiological, though plenty were deranged within as without--and convert them into something passing human? Something unholy was behind it all, that much was certain, and that he had to confront. Any year now.
But that's a private opinion. Professionally, he'll have to give something a little lukewarm.
"It's inspired just as Helen of Troy inspired war: one merely has to look."
Give Frollo five minutes and he can manage disgust at just about anything. Business management was simply the latest topic to fall under his ire.
no subject
She had obviously come to the same conclusions, but then, she was a pinko commie liberal.
"I think your analogy of Helen of Troy is apt, as Helen's role in the myth is a romantic superficial one that disguises the much more mundane aspects of a hegemony attempting to expand its territory."
She tilted her head to the side slightly, her eyes unwavering from their focus on Frollo.
no subject
Frollo can't claim much fondness for literary interpretation in particular, or the Greeks in general. Hard to muster much love for those who venerated patricide and adultery that they figured the gods as base as themselves. It was simply a ready allusion, chosen, perhaps, for Frollo's subconscious weakness for beautiful women.
There's something like suspicion in Frollo's eyes; he didn't like...well, much of anything, but certainly not any relationship with students that went beyond strictly necessary. AU boasts many teachers one could be friendly towards for hours. Frollo's not one of them.
"Is there something else you needed?"
no subject
She had wanted to challenge that "basket of deplorables" argument, at least on the grounds of being political poison. Dismissing someone who differed in opinion was a poor strategy towards persuading them to your cause. Empathy was called for.
"I suppose not," she said, although she hadn't gotten what she was after in the first place. "Are you going to be attending the campus feast?"
no subject
"That rather depends on the headmaster's cupidity. Will there be foul play?"
No one of sound mind wants Frollo anywhere near a party, and he agrees. An intellect like his means work; work the headmaster seems to take joy in disrupting. Whether it's because he has a talent for sniffing out and punishing troublemakers, or the headmaster's amusement in the contrast is just one more AU mystery. Something horrible happening is about the only thing he can think of that'd liven it up.
no subject
"I'm sorry, their cupidity?" She brushed a stray hair off of her furrowed brow. Was that their likeliness to a cupid? Or their penchant for matchmaking? And what was that about foul play?
"I just thought it would be nice to see you at the potluck, is all."
no subject
Instead of finishing that line, he coughs. Even a sourpuss like him knows that it's unwise to trash talk one's boss so publicly. All the same, he hopes the irritation he has for being that Willy Wonka's Oompa-Loompa got across.
Nice to see him? Porrim would be the first to say so without a heaping helping of sarcasm.
"Thank you," he said more out of obligation than human warmth. "Perhaps he'll require one familiar with the Heimlich maneuver, or diverse toxins."
What can he say? This genius could double as a doctor, sans bedside manner.
no subject
"It sounds like you'll be indispensable in case of a sudden outbreak of salmonella at the party." Porrim's tone didn't portray any particular sarcasm. It was an almost infuriating neutral tone where it was impossible to determine intent, and her face kept a matching expression.
no subject
That earned a small, wry smile. All those frivolous, flippant students, falling ill. What a delightful thought. On the whole he likes a smooth, neutral attitude. It makes for fewer irritants.
"Let's hope it won't come to that. Unfortunately, my labors keep me from such extracurriculars. I trust you'll mind yours before attending? I'd so hate for the campus to distract from its raison d'etre."
no subject
"Mind my extracurriculars or my labors?" she asked, amused. "Until next professor sick day, then, Professor Frollo."