Subject: Rule of Funny. :)
Author:
Posted on: 2022-05-13 15:28:50 UTC

The Queen Anne's Lace sighed, insofar as a sentient piece of foliage can 'sigh'. Agent Blemishes, she said, what is... that?

Freckles (who had long since given up trying to correct the Flowers on her name) looked down at herself. "It's a dress, ma'am," she said.

It is... The Lace squirmed, a couple of petals falling to the ground. ... pink.

"Yes, ma'am." Freckles gave her department head an apologetic smile. "I was at a party."

I didn't know we allowed parties. The Lace drummed a frond on her desk. And this party, you were wearing... She squirmed again. ... pink?

"Yes, ma'am." Freckles straightened up. "It's not actually just for Suvians, you know. The idea that pink is a 'bad' colour is actually kind of misogynistic, if you think about it - saying that because something is girly, it must necessarily be worse."

The Queen Anne's Lace gave her a blank look (see previous comments on sighing Flowers). But your uniform is black, she said.

"Er." Freckles looked uncertain. "Yes? It should be. Yes."

So, on being summoned by your Head of Department, you chose to come... out of uniform?

"Um." Freckles took a half step towards the door. "Maybe I should go and get changed?"

The Lace sighed again. No, no, she said, you're here now, we may as well get this over with. She paused. But this will be going on your next evaluation.

"We get evaluations?"

You do now, Blemishes. Pink...


"Excuse me? Dr. Huinesoron?"

The robed man at the cluttered desk glanced up. "Student applications are down the hall," he said. "At least assuming the wizards haven't broken gravity again."

"Huh?" Agent Sandra looked at the clipboard in her hand. "Oh, I see. No, I'm not a student, I'm-"

"Of course you are." The Administrator of OFUDisc put his pen down with a click. "You're obviously not staff - not in that hoodie - and I'm pretty familiar with everyone at Ispace these days. Same goes for the rest of OFUU." He frowned. "I suppose you could be someone else's student, but you don't look terrified enough for that."

"I'm not a student!" Sandra repeated. "I'm from the PPC; we need to-"

"No you're not."

Sandra blinked. "Pretty sure I am."

"No, you're not." Dr. Huinesoron got to his feet. He shook his sleeves back, clearing his hands. "PPC agents wear black. They're famous for it. To have gotten that so badly wrong," he twitched an eye at her hoodie, "you must be one of the really dense Suvians. Ladies' Academy, I'm guessing? We always figured you'd survived the War; I'm surprised it's taken you so long to slink back out of the shadows."

Sandra looked down at herself. In hindsight, perhaps the sparkly Unikitty pullover had been a mistake... "Listen, sir," she said, aiming for 'mollifying' rather than 'fearful', "if you just call up the Queen Anne's Lace, she'd be happy to-"

"I don't care what your plan is," Dr. Huinesoron cut in, and fire began to crackle on his fingertips as he stepped around the desk. "It ends here. You picked the wrong OFU to mess with."


So yeah: Rule of Funny, plus Narrative Convenience. Do what you need to do.

(I don't know what's going on with Dr. hS, but apparently he's feeling paranoid right now.)

hS

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