Chapter Text
Your name is Karkat Vantas and you’re pissed off.
Well, your name is Karkat Vantas and you’re always pissed off, but right know you’re feeling something less akin to the moderate irritation you usually experience. This is more something more like slightly-more-than-moderate irritation. Actually, since this was a somewhat new scenario for you, you’re feeling slightly more than slightly-more-than moderately pissed off. You may have had a slight fear of change, but that is one hundred percent not important right now.
Your name is Karkat Vantas and you’re slightly more than slightly-more-than-moderately pissed off. This is because you just read something that made you laugh.
You’re an college English teacher. More accurately, you’re a TA for a teacher who is so old that you’re only about ninety percent sure he’s still alive, so you end up doing most of the teaching in the class. You’re probably too young to be an actual teacher. The students seem to like you (you have no idea why) and to some extent, you like them. You have a good class, most of your students are good listeners, and you even have a few promising students that you almost felt satisfaction for considering the improvements they’ve made with your advice.
However, not once, during your entire two years of working there, have you ever read something written by a student that made you laugh. You’ve never even read anything written by just about anyone that made you laugh.
The culprit was some human kid who didn’t even bother to show up the first day, or even not bullshit any of the smaller assignments he’d turned in. Not that this paper you were currently angry about wasn’t some form of bullshit. The assignment was to explore the juxtaposition between two systems of government. Most people had given you some anarchy vs. capitalism crap, but this single fucker had decided to turn in his communism vs. socialism paper that compared funk music to Carl Marx and pop music to Lenin and Trotsky. You reread the last passage that you had giggled at.
Communism seems like a perfect system. It looks plenty rad on paper, and seems to have the parts needed to benefit society and stuff. But it never works. Look at the two fathers of communism (Lenin and Trotsky) and compare what they stood for to modern pop music. On the outside, pop music is catchy. It’s one of the more automatically enjoyable forms of music. It even chemically sets off more dopamine in your brain than other forms of music (probably but who cares about science). However, the feeling of euphoria quickly passes after you listen a few times, and you end up seeing pop music for what it really is; often overly synthesized and/or auto-tuned, less based of improvisational themes, and just not as interesting. Sure there are good pop songs, but they just aren’t enough for it to be more than a mediocre genre of music, shadowed by Jazz, Rock, Hip-hop, Funk, ect.
However, look at Carl Marx and socialism (and funk music). Although at first glance, socialism might just seem like communism (not that people mistake funk music for modern pop, that would be sad, this isn’t a perfect analogy because those don’t exist), socialism is simply a bit more complicated. Take funk music. Chemically, funk music doesn’t give you the immediate euphoria that pop music might, but you can listen to it longer without your brain getting used to the sensation. It’s mathematically more interesting, with more intricate rhythms, beats, and derived from better genres of music than pop was (arguably though, as these facts are forty percent made up). It may be lost on modern America but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give it a chance. I told you I could do it John.
Joseph Stalin was country music ’cause he suuuuuucked.
Before you can stop yourself, you lose yourself again, giggling like a maniac. You quickly stop yourself as a wave of rage passes over you. You toss the papers down on your desk and angrily wonder why some stupid shades wearing idiot just wrote you four pages of funk music propaganda. You briefly consider how some guy dumb enough to turn in the words “Joseph Stalin was country music cause he suuuuuucked” knew anything about the chemical reactions your brain went through while listening to music. Maybe he was just making it up. You decide to do some research. You take out your phone and pester your smarty-pants roommate.
CG: HEY, WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BRAIN CHEMISTRY AND MUSIC?
TA: siince when diid you ever trust anythiing ii have say about mu2iic
CG: JUST READ THIS AND TELL ME IF IT’S AS DUMB AS I THINK IT IS.
CG: ASSFACE PAPER FROM HELL .pdf
TA: you were riight about iit beiing 2tuiip.
TA: ii mean thii2 ii2 probably the wor2t comparii2on iive ever seen thii2 per2on ju2t wanted to complaiin about the corrupt mu2iic iindu2try or 2omethiing.
TA: ii mean theiir 2ciience ii2 all puriily theoretiical.
TA: iim pretty 2ure theyre riight though.
TA: at lea2t ii thiink 2o iim not a p2ychologii2t.
CG: YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN.
TA: who the fuck ii2 john?
TA: you know what, nevermiind.
TA: when are you gettiing home?
CG: WHAT THE FUCK YOU’VE NEVER ASKED ME ONCE WHEN I WAS GETTING HOME.
CG: NOT ONCE IN THREE YEARS. I’M CRYING. TEARS ARE STREAMING DOWN MY FACE AND I’M FUCKING CHOKING AT THE AMOUNT OF WARMTH YOU CONVAY AS A LIVING BEING WITH FEELINGS.
TA: 2o when are you gettiiing home?
CG: AFTER I TEACH THIS CLASS CONTAINING 19 PERFECTLY NORMAL STUDENTS AND ONE ASSHOLE WHO NEVER TAKES OF HIS SUNGLASSES AND THEN SENDS ME SOME ASSFACE PAPER FROM HELL.
TA: doe2 he wear a lot of red?
CG: HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?
TA: ii know that guy. he2 cool. ha2 a decent taste iin mu2iic. he wore heely2 to his father2 funeral.
CG: WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME ABOUT THE INSENSITVE HOBBIES OF SOME JUVENILE?
TA: nah iit wa2 de2erved. anyway ii gotta go have fun wiith your cla22.
Your class is starting in about fifteen minutes. You briefly wonder if it’s sloppy to be grading papers fifteen minutes before class starts but then you remember that it isn’t even your job in the first place and the only payment you get is the food you swipe from the teachers’ lounge.
Your class is finally over. You talked about some political shit, went on a rant about said political shit, and gave constructive criticism to what your students had written in their papers about political shit. Dave had showed up five minutes late, giving you a “sup” as he walked by your desk.
He’s one his way out the door when you prepare your revenge. You wait until he’s almost out the door, giving him time to think he doesn’t have to deal with anymore teacher crap. You finally call him over.
“Mr. Strider, could I talk to you for a moment?” you say. You feel professional. Time to abuse your power.
He walks to your desk, pulls up a chair in front of it, and takes a seat. He does the incredibly juvenile “sitting on the chair backwards” thing that makes you want to whack him in the head with a rolled-up newspaper. He doesn’t even bother to take his sunglasses off for this.
“Strider.” you start “Why did you turn in four pages of funk propaganda for a political paper?” You speak as slowly as possible, in some an attempt to make him feel like a giant dumbass.
“You never said we couldn’t.” he says.
You rub your forehead. “Strider, I never said you couldn’t because I assumed nobody would have so much a lack of common sense as to write the atrocity that you handed in.”
He looks slightly offended. “Atrocity? Please. It was well written. I though you would appreciate how linguistic it was.”
“It doesn’t matter how many big words you used. You can’t just have the line ‘Joseph Stalin was country music because he suuuucked’ in anything!”
He breaks his poker face for just a second to give a small smile. “Ok yea, that was pretty dumb.”
You’re put off that he agreed with you. You were expecting some shit storm of debauchery.
He runs his hand through his dumb platinum-blond hair. “Are you gonna fail me on this assignment?”
“No.” you lean back slightly and resist the urge to prop your feet up on the desk “You wouldn’t learn anything from that.”
“So what are you gonna do?”
You have to think about this for a few moments. As fearsome as you liked to think you were, you didn’t really like to give out bad grades. It wasn’t even your job to grade things. You wonder what the most painful thing for him to write would be.
“I want you to rewrite this. With a few extra rules.”
“Bring it on, teach.”
“No mentions of music, human pop-culture, troll pop-culture, or really anything that doesn’t have to do with political science. Also, no irony, sarcasm, or any attempt at humor.”
“You really lay it on thick.” he says “But what am I supposed to be learning from this?”
You hadn’t actually thought about that part. You give some rambling speech about respecting your elders.
“Oh my god Karkat, you’ve told us that you’re ten and a half solar sweeps old.”
“That’s in Alternian years.”
“That would make you twenty-two.”
You’re not sure how he knew that, there was really no need for anyone to understand an almost archaic system.
“Don’t call me Karkat.”
He opens his mouth.
“If the next word out of your mouth is ‘Karkitten’ so help me god I will give you a detention in college and no I don’t care if that’s not a thing.”
He closes his mouth.
“That’s what I thought, Strider. Now get out of here before I change my mind about failing you.”
He stands. “Ado, Vantas. I won’t let you down or whatever. Actually I’ll probably let you down. Bye.” And he’s off.
You were done teaching for the day and walked through the door to your apartment. You grunt at your roommate.
You would have asked him how his day was but he seemed incredibly focused on his laptop. You’ve learned that bothering Sollux when he is focused will make him cranky.
You dump a six pack of ramen, a few bananas, and a box of donuts on a table. About ninety percent of what you two ate was swiped from the teachers’ lounge. There really wasn’t another way to live.
“Damn it Sollux, teaching sucks.” You scrap your not-bothering-Sollux idea out the window.
He flinches. “Well, I just died. Thanks for that.” He shuts his laptop.
“Sollux, I really, really don’t care. Some of us have real problems. I’ve been slaving away all fucking day for some obnoxious college idiots who think they’re still in middle school.”
“I thought you liked your students.”
“Ok, one obnoxious idiot who still thinks he’s in middle school. Teaching is hard, Sollux, no one respects their teachers anymore. It’s like everybody just got up and decided one day that the people teaching our children don’t even deserve to be treated with basic human decency.”
“You’re not even 11.”
You sink into your pile of used notebooks and paper. “I’m not getting paid enough for this job.”
“Karkat, you’re not getting paid at all.”
You respond by sinking further into your pile and pulling out your own laptop. You have a message from Kanaya telling you to remind Sollux to eat and some nonsensical messages from your…friend Gamzee.
TC: WhAt If We CoUlDn’T pIcK tHiNgS uP wItH oUr HaNdS?
TC: WhAt If, LiKe, We CoUlD JuSt ToUtCh ThInGs?
TC: AnD ThEy WoUlD jUsT bE aDdEd To SoMeKiNd Of MiRaClE sYsTeM.
TC: AnD wE cOuLd AcCeSs ThEm TrOuGh CaRdS.
TC: LiKe, We AlL hAd DiFfReNt WaYs OuR cArDs WhErE SeT oUt ThAt SoMeHoW rEpReSeNtEd OuR pErSoNaLiTiEs?
TC: WoUlDn’T tHaT bE mOtHeRfUcKiNg WiCkEd?
GC: GAMZEE, NO OFFENENCE BUT THAT’S LITERALLY THE MOST INANE IDEA I’VE EVER HEARD.
CG: YOU KNOW WHAT, NEVERMIND. FEEL FREE TO TAKE OFFENSE. IT MIGHT MAKE IT MORE LIKELY FOR YOU TO FUCKING LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE.
CG: BUT YOU PROBABLY WON’T TAKE OFFENSE BECAUSE YOU SEEM TO BE INCAPABLE OF DOING SO. SERIOUSLY, DOES ANYTHING EVER UPSET YOU?
TC: NoT rEaLlY. I’lL bE bAcK lAtEr, KaRbRo. I gOtTa WrItE tHiS MoThErFuCkInG sMoOtH aSs ShIt DoWn.
CG: WOW THANKS, YOU’VE MADE ME FEEL SO SPECIAL.
TC: LiViNg WiTh ThAt BeE MaN hAs MaDe YoU So SaRcAsTiC. DoN’T LoSe ThE rEaL yOu.
CG: OH MY FUCKING GOD GAMZEE GO AWAY.
TC: LaTeR. :o)
You sometimes feel like Gamzee could have been a good fantasy writer if he could stop the doing that extreme bullshit writing style he had.