Hard Core Logo -- the Academic AU

[katallison]

OK, sister_wolf is a fucking evil inspiration, and go read hers first. But since I read her version at work, I couldn't resist offering

Joe Mulgrew, known at "That Dick" to his colleagues, is the member of the instructional staff who never got tenure 'cause he never fucking wanted a tenure-track position, OK? Who needs that shit? Besides which, he never finished his Ph.D. (being lucky to escape with a terminal Masters after punching out his diss committee chair). He mostly gets stuck with the intro survey classes, where even his colleagues have to admit he's a charismatic lecturer. His students love him, even though he almost never shows up for office hours and writes entirely inappropriate comments on their papers. ("'Weltanschauung?' What the fuck do you think you know about 'Weltanschauung,' existentialist-boy??") Dean Festus made an attempt once to fire him, after the gin-and-tonic incident, but the students made a stink, and Joe threatening to kick his teeth in also had an effect.

Billy Boisy *is* tenure-track, and after a period of doing little to further his cause, he's begun doing a lot of publishing, hitting the conference circuit, schmoozing the big names in the field, and kissing Dean Festus's ass. He and Joe were in grad school together, and he's never quite forgiven Joe for talking him into taking a position at this podunk school instead of accepting the offer from UCLA.

John Oxenberger is the statutory departmental nutbar, who's held his position due to his erratic brilliance, despite the occasional trip to the bin. He publishes poetry on the side in little-known arty journals, and has a coterie of goth-girl undergrads who hang around his office.

Pipefitter is the guy who is on year fourteen-and-counting of his dissertation, which no one's seen a draft of in living memory. He keeps getting hired for TA positions because he's cheap labor and usually shows up. His strongest bond seems to be with the building's janitorial staff, who loyally hide the evidence that he's been living in his office for the past decade.

And there would be more, but I must go deal with a disgruntled student. (Is there any other kind, I sometimes wonder...)

Comments

[flambeau.livejournal.com]

I was a perfectly gruntled student! And a dream child who never cried or contradicted my parents. And I have this bridge...

*snicker* This is beautifully crazy. :)

[eliade.livejournal.com]

Ha! You are hilarious! I am tempted to sketch some kind of academic or otherwise AU for Spike, Xander, et al, but I'd only end up being derivative, I think. *g*

[lynnmonster.livejournal.com]

You. Are. Brilliant.

[thehoyden.livejournal.com]

"'Weltanschauung?' What the fuck do you think you know about 'Weltanschauung,' existentialist-boy??"

*howls with laughter* Oh god. It's fantastic. UCLA! Goth-girl undergrads! Punching out the chair of his dissertation committee!

[dsudis.livejournal.com]

This is brilliant. And a sign that you can fit four variously crazed guys into just about any milieu (OMG HCL+Vietnam=Dira needs to stop thinking about it).

I'm trying to remember what kind of headaches I gave my advisors. I think allowing them to underestimate my devotion to mild but persistent underachievement was about it, and really that caused me more stomachaches than anything else. (Intensive Latin + tendency to skimp on homework, occasionally skip class, and generally have no knack whatsoever for learning languages = lots of low-grade freshman misery.)

[elynross.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is brilliant! It's not just that you capture the intrinsic characterization for me, but that you maintain the parallels between the characters so completely, particularly with the bit about UCLA, and Billy's recent push for recognition. Hee!

[minim_calibre]

That's so horribly perfect.

[abelladonna.livejournal.com]

You guys are freakin' brilliant. ;-)

[thete1.livejournal.com]

Words cannot describe how much I adore you.

And how much I desperately WANT this story now. *SNORF*

[norah.livejournal.com]

Yes!! Wriiiiiiite Eeeeeeet.....

Please pretty please pretty please? I have the most awfullest academic kink.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

::cackle::

Yup. Just like that.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

Sterling Morrison** taught English Lit at UT-Austin, IIRC. I wonder what his classes were like!

** Former bassist for the Velvet Underground

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

This is great!

Except...I'm horrified to discover that, apparently, I'm Pipefitter. *g*

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

Except for the living-in-your-office part, of course.

Heh.

Kat, you are so brilliant it hurts sometimes.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i'm not sure whether i should laugh or cry...what a perfect match...what an indictment for academia...how sadly true :D

thanks!!!

[umbo.livejournal.com]

Fanfuckingtastic! You, my dear, are brilliant, and this was perfection!

[axiom_of_stripe]

i love you, man.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Hee, I love this.

[kelly-yoyo.livejournal.com]

Sheer brilliance!

[sister-wolf.livejournal.com]

Love this. *Love* this. So, basically, we both need to start working on our AU's. *g*

This is one of the options H and I discussed last night for a HCL AU, but didn't feel qualified to write. We did decide that if Joe is an English prof, his specialty needs to be Kerouac et al.

Also, the line about Pipe living in his office almost made me spit diet coke on my keyboard. ;)

[heuradys.livejournal.com]

Also, the line about Pipe living in his office almost made me spit diet coke on my keyboard. ;)

Yes! Yes! Because that was even better than our "he's the janitor!"

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

Kat, I think I hurt something laughing over this.

Brilliant!

[beledibabe.livejournal.com]

You... You...

Bwah!

You are sick, sick, sick, and I adore you with a Mighty Passion, which is, sad to say, completely unrequited...

[engenda.livejournal.com]

There is awe. Yes. And much laughter. This is brilliant. I so have to read this.

[giglet.livejournal.com]

You had me from Joe Mulgrew, known at "That Dick" to his colleagues, and kept me with the statutory departmental nutbar. It's not only wonderfully funny but terribly familiar.