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 Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:19 am
Much as she’d never personally considered herself a “suck up,” per se, Andesine wanted to trust in any given Chain of Command with which reality presented her—especially if there was a chance that she, herself, could get to the top of that hierarchy, someday. Or at least several rungs above wherever she currently stood. In the Negaverse, that meant trusting that Metallia and Queen Laurellite wouldn’t honor with promotions people who didn’t deserve them. Unlike the world outside Negaspace, where your name and connections mattered so much more than what you could do in your own right, people in the Negaverse got put on an even playing field as soon as they enlisted. Anything you got, you earned through hard work, loyalty, and dedication.
Unfortunately, nowhere in that arrangement had anybody mentioned that bigotry or prejudices wouldn’t be rewarded with promotions, or at least ignored enough to give someone a rank-up. Andesine wanted to believe that no one in the Negaverse would have handed out rewards for such things—hardly conducive to creating the best work environment, she thought, or encouraging people to give their best efforts to their work—but……something that Monoceros had said about Captain Arsenolite had stuck with her. “He’s gotten better, but he’s still like, midkey homophobic”—there were too many things that “midkey homophobic” could mean, and too many possibilities wrapped up in the idea. Too many of those possibilities involved reasons why Andesine might’ve found reason to question the Negaverse’s hierarchy, which sounded like a terrible mess to consider, if you asked her.
She’d meant for some time to go directly to the other person involved in this. Asking Captain Arsenolite for his side of the story seemed, on one hand, like a good way to get lied to……but on the other hand, it only seemed that way in theory. Someone else in the Negaverse, sure, Andesine might have believed they’d take that opportunity (well, maybe not General Ashanite or Monoceros; they were special exceptions, though). But Captain Arsenolite had a tendency to be……irrepressibly himself, regardless of whether or not it was necessarily in his best interests. Andesine didn’t doubt that he’d give her an honest answer, even if he did try to lie.
She hadn’t exactly made a plan for how to find him and get some of his time—but fortunately, Fate intervened in her favor. As she left the Medical Bay (a follow-up on the magical chills that stupid b***h with the bunnies had inflicted on her), Andesine’s path practically wandered right into Arsenolite’s. And before she could think twice about this idea, she went over to him, ready with a salute. “Captain,” she said, “are you busy? I wanted to ask you something, if you wouldn’t mind?”
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 1:34 am
Arsenolite had been having a pretty good day. Things were going well for him as he tried to rise up the ranks again. He felt it, like... he was getting close. He had to be. He wasn't sure where the threshold was, but it was like he could feel their eyes on him, making his skin prickle with anticipation. He was being considered for a promotion, he just knew it. So lost in thought, he startled when the Lieutenant caught his attention and asked for a conversation. "Huh—Yeah, sure thing, Andesine. Wanna step into my office? It's not too far from here," he said, gesturing down the hall. "Assuming this is gonna be a big conversation, you look pretty concerned."
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 3:07 am
“It’s a bit on the big side, yeah?” No sense in pretending otherwise, honestly. Monoceros had made a pretty concerning allegation against Captain Arsenolite—one that kind of mattered to Andesine’s lesbian a** personally, on top of being generally concerning—and it really wasn’t something to take lightly (hence needing to hear his side of things before passing any judgment or anything). “So……if we could go to your office, yeah?”
Someday, hopefully someday soon, Andesine would have her own office. Not until she made Captain, of course.
Once they’d safely made it to Arsenolite’s office, though, she took a seat opposite his at the desk. Better to just come out with it and be direct, she told herself. Yes, she had to be professional and well-behaved about it, but beating around the bush would only cause further problems.
“So, the issue on my mind, sir, is something that came up in conversation with Monoceros.” So far, so good, she hoped. Deep breaths and keeping a level head. She went on, “We had time for some personal chatting after an investigation we handled together. I mentioned having shared some home-baking with you, and Monoceros…tried to warn me off of getting too close with you. Because, in his words, you’ve ‘gotten better’ but are ‘still midkey homophobic.’”
Andesine paused briefly, to give Arsenolite a moment with that allegation. “I left that allegation out of my report on that investigation—I haven’t mentioned it to General Ashanite at all—so it shouldn’t have made any trouble for you so far? And it’s an allegation that I take seriously, but I didn’t want to say anything officially until I’d come to you and gotten your side of the story? In the interests of fairness?”
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 6:59 pm
Arsenolite hummed in confirmation, walking with her in silence until they got to his office. He gestured to the mini-fridge he'd purchased himself and lugged into the office, letting her know she could take any drinks or snacks if she needed before the conversation started. He leaned forward in worry, when she mentioned it involved Monoceros, and while he knew intellectually that if he had gone missing again that Andesine would be taking this higher up faster, it didn't stop adrenaline from shooting through his veins at the mere thought. But it wasn't that. Still, what it was, made him wince, leaning back and rubbing his face. Well. He probably deserved that, at least a little bit. "Mm. I will not sugarcoat it, Lieutenant, I was an a*****e when I was younger," he said bluntly, straightening up. "I was the kind of guy who thought all of that s**t was completely disgusting. Dudes in skirts, girls with short hair, dudes kissin' dudes—all of it was sickening to me. So I took it out on my little brother when he started showing signs of being 'soft', like enjoying baking and all that other 'feminine crap'. And I was honest with him about it, when he lost his memories." He used air quotes over the specific insults he'd used to use, hopefully indicating that he didn't use them anymore. People were, in fact, just people, whatever they liked, and it took him way too long to see that. "But I do say there's some things—like the people wearing, like, leather harnesses in public? That's like, totally skeevy," he explained, sighing a bit. "'Ceros seems to think that stuff is fine, but I just don't. I think that kind of... overtly sexual stuff shouldn't be out in public, that's all. I'm not, like—against kissing or holding hands or whatever, but..." He shrugged. "It's just that weird stuff."
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:03 pm
As much as part of her just instinctively recoiled from this conversation and from what Arsenolite was saying, Andesine nevertheless kept her breathing deep so she could stay calm. Focused. She’d been the one to bring this up, and for all she didn’t like what Arsenolite had to say, she couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t expected it. Hands folded in her lap, she kept her mouth shut until he’d finished speaking, and even then, gave herself a few moments to consider her words before speaking.
“Okay, that tracks with what Monoceros said,” she said, “so on one hand, I’m glad that he wasn’t exaggerating or anything?” Not that this has seemed particularly likely. Monoceros was so genuine in how he dealt with people, and he just didn’t seem like the type to make up allegations like this out of nothing. “But……what you’re saying, sir? Absolutely, it’s a very good thing that you moved past the way you thought when you were younger. But the blanket condemnation of the ‘weird stuff’ that you mentioned? I understand where you feel you’re coming from, sir, but I also do understand why Monoceros has a problem with it.”
Well, for Andesine personally, it reminded her of the exact family conversations she’d been glad to miss out on when she managed to sneak out of going to her parents’ for Christmas Eve, thanks to the massive snowstorm.
“That sort of thinking, no matter how well-intentioned it might be on anyone’s part? Still flirts really dangerously into the realm of respectability politics.” Maybe Andesine gripped her hands together a bit too tightly, or maybe she twisted her fingers up in each other a bit too much. Hard not to, under the current circumstances. But if it kept her mostly even for the actual meat of the conversation, then it’d be worth any brief pain. “Obviously, some standards for community behavior need to exist with LGBTQ folks. We don’t want to end harboring abusers just because they’re one of us, for example. But drawing lines like being okay with certain kinds of self-expression is, at best, ineffective. At worst, it can actively hold back progress because we get too hung up on haggling over what ways of publicly being LGBTQ are or aren’t more palatable to a mainstream society where so much of our acceptance is already contingent on whether or not it’s profitable enough to support us.
“It’s like the Negaverse, in a way.” Not exactly, but maybe contextualizing the issue in these terms would help. “Obviously, yes, someone always has to look out for themself; no one else is going to do that for you. And in a lot of ways, it’s easy for other LGBTQ people who aren’t as flashy, or swishy, or overtly queer, to condemn those of us who can’t hide as easily. But, like how we in the Negaverse need to stand together or else we give the White Moon agents room to run roughshod over all of us? We in the LGBTQ community need to stand together—even with the people we may not like or approve of, even with the others who seem so weird to most people—or the gains that we’ve made since 1969—since the Stonewall Riots, that is? We could skip backwards and lose them all so easily.”
Taking a deep breath, Andesine squeezed her hands. “At least, that’s my take on the situation, sir, and why, again? I understand where you might be coming from, feeling uncomfortable with LGBTQ people who do your definition of ‘weird stuff’? But……I do disagree, and I do understand why your discomfort there still rubs Monoceros wrong.”
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:21 pm
Oh, boy, this was going to be something bigger than he thought it was, huh? He leaned forward, chin in hand to listen to her as she started on her long speech. Well, at least she knew her arguments—Monoceros just... probably rightfully so, he thought regretfully, far too upset to actually explain any of this to Arsenolite, and then nothing ever went anywhere. He was still hurting his little brother, no matter what progress he thought he made, huh? All of Andesine's arguments made sense, and, though he could see the clumsiness in the analogy she'd grasped for, he also, in a rare moment of using his higher intelligence brain, could see it for what it was: speaking to his heart in a different way to try and snap him out of that specific sense of stupidity. "...I see your point," he finally said quietly, sitting back in his chair. "I... wish it were easier to get people to stop bullying about this sort of thing, though. Like... I was horrible to 'Ceros when we were younger. He doesn't remember it, but I do. And I'm sure he lost more memories of the things I did than the amount I can even recall. The ax forgets but the tree remembers or whatever that saying is. I just don't want to see him hurt like that again. Or anyone." He felt wetness on his cheek and inhaled sharply. No, no. No. He couldn't cry, that was stupid, crying was absolutely not cool! Especially not in front of his subordinate, for Chrissake!
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:42 pm
……Oh, that had not quite been Andesine’s intention. The initial rush of satisfaction at being listened to—at feeling like Captain Arsenolite was really taking in what she had to say and would probably use it to help himself and Monoceros, going forward—faded away pretty quickly, just as soon as Arsenolite started crying. Truthfully, she guessed that she couldn’t be that surprised. Even disliking some of her parents’ disturbingly hypocritical political opinions, Andesine didn’t know what it felt like to be at such cross-purposes with your own family, or to argue with them so badly that it was like an estrangement, even if they both remained part of General Ashanite’s team and therefore not completely estranged.
Tactfully, she decided not to mention the tears. She only nodded, and offered Arsenolite, “That may be the case with his memories, sir. And even if Monoceros doesn’t explicitly remember those things, some unconscious part of him still might. It may be difficult to make things right with him, going forward?” She paused to give him a small, hopeful smile. “But you are trying, and I know that he knows you’re trying. Before anything else he said, he did bring up the fact that you’d changed for the better from when you were younger. It might be a long road, and a difficult one?” A deep breath and a small nod. “But it does mean something to him, for you to keep making this effort, for his sake.”
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Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:51 pm
Arsenolite took a deep, steadying breath. He's fine, he's fine. There was no reason to make a big damn production out of this. Andesine was right. She really was a brilliant Lieutenant, a shining star among the rest. Hm. He should put her name forth for Captain consideration. The nature of their conversation would remain obscured, but he could easily spew some stuff about her great insights, excellent control, debate skills, ability to stay calm in adversity... Yes, that sounded nice. She really was an excellent person. She'd grow into a great leader someday. "I appreciate this a lot," he said sincerely. "He's a good man, Monoceros. I want to see him rise to great things." He paused, humming. "And you, as well. You've shown great courage, addressing me about such a... delicate matter, shall we say. And you kept your head even though this is something close to your heart. I think you're destined for great things, Andesine." He smiled at her widely. "Dismissed. Thank you, again."
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