"I wouldn't say it's 'these days,' and it's not really a matter of politics to me. It's just—a thing. The politics, well, it helps you probably, and you could play it up or down however you feel would be best, but marketing me as boy or girl would both be lies." They sit cross legged on the air. "I mean, look at this costume, it's about as genderless as it could be, action figures wouldn't be out of place in either aisle, and that might even boost sales since you'll have twice as many potential customers."

"Excuse me, do you know what market segmentation is?" says Phyllis Constance Yates. "It's a good sales strategy you're proposing to completely abandon for naive economic reasoning just because you want to do something cute with your presentation. We want you to stand out, but not for... random modern notions."

"I don't actually care much about the economics of it, I'm just trying to figure out how to convince you, because it's not something cute, it's something important to me. I don't want to stand out—well, I mean, I do, but like I said, this particular aspect is not what I want to stand out about, I don't give a drat about what you do it with so long as you don't lie about it. It will be very grating—and I'm being euphemistic—to have people misgender me on the street or in the media. And I guarantee you I will be very cooperative about everything else, I'll even get rid of this particular suit, just let me have this one thing?"

"Kiddo," says Phyllis Constance Yates, "do you think anybody's completely thrilled to pieces with their public image? You have to live with it because working with the public and being accessible on the right level to the public is part of your job. And even if we made it out that you were ultra-paranoid about your identity and wouldn't tell your real gender, whatever that is -" she looks them up and down "I guarantee you people would guess and run with it, only they'll trip over each other without a unified image to go by."

"...but this is my real gender." Sigh. "And besides, I'm offering you basically free rein about everything else in my image and I'm pretty sure you don't have even that for people like, say, Lorica. And if we're consistent about it it's really not that hard, yanno, 'they' instead of 'he' or 'she,' it's even grammatically correct no matter what some people on the internet will tell you. And in any case, I don't care if people guess and run with it, so long as we don't actively encourage them to it."

"Lorica has technical constraints on her costume. And so far I see no evidence that there is a 'we', that you're willing to work with me on anything, or that you have the slightest understanding of what things are and are not 'that hard'. You're not going out in costume until you've been cleared by me, do you realize that?"

"...look, you do realize parahumans are a bunch of traumatized people with typically combative and asocial personalities and more power than anyone ought to have in their hands, right? I mean, there's a reason villains outnumber heroes two-to-one, and if when they try to become proper recognized heroes they face this kind of opposition it's no wonder. There are like a million different ways you could've phrased that."

"I don't like your tone."

"I'm sorry! But I wasn't exactly super happy about yours, either, and I'm pretty sure mine wasn't any worse than that, and again, with an environment full of superpowered traumatized people who could be triggered by the color chartreuse, I think all of us should really be trying to get along a bit better."

"You do not seem to be trying to get along, nor do you seem to have any respect or self-control to be resorting to threats against an unpowered Protectorate employee like that. Meanwhile, I am trying to do my job, and until I can do my job you cannot do yours. Are we clear?"

"I was not threatening you, I'm not likely to be triggered by the color chartreuse, I'm just trying to prevent this from happening in the future with someone else, because going Are we clear? at someone is a very unfriendly thing to do. I don't know if it's because I'm a minor, in which case, please don't do that, minor capes have it even worse due to the whole hormones interacting with trauma. Can you talk to me in a way that isn't patronizing and doesn't include threats of unilateral uses of institutional power? It'd be nice if you could at least explain to me why you're right instead of going 'you'll do what I say or you won't do anything at all.'"

"I have been trying, but you haven't been listening. And this is not a social skills lesson and you are not a psychologist and I insist that you stop trying to force everything to happen on your own terms. The world is simply not like that."

"I agree, it is simply not like that. Are you going to also not try to force everything to happen on your own terms?"

"This is not a conversation between peers. If you can't work with me, you can park inside headquarters forbidden to partake in any activities that might earn your keep as long as you like and it will not bother me at all."

"Market segmentation," says Phyllis Constance Yates, as though she's recapping a lesson on how to count to ten, "an apolitical stance, and a relatable public image."

"I wasn't clear, I apologize. What do you mean by market segmentation, why is it good, what are its cons, how much of an impact does it have, why is an apolitical stance desirable, how much would the gender thing if kept relatively quiet affect this and what are the likely drawbacks and benefits of it, why does gender in specific have to be relatable as opposed to everything else, what are the costs of having exactly one hero in the Protectorate not in the gender binary and how do they weight against the gains for the tiny minority of the population that would relate to that?"

"I don't have all day to educate you."

"That's alright, you can do it in parts, since I'm not going out heroing without your say-so anyway it doesn't need to be all of it today."

"I am not here to educate you in the first place," Phyllis Constance Yates points out.

"No, but educating me is a necessary condition for you to do what you are here to do."

"My job description doesn't say I have to convince you, just that I have to outfit you. The job of holding you still to be outfitted is technically left to your captain, Director Piggot, or Chevalier."

Their suit quickly change colours many times, flowing through all colors of the visible spectrum, at the same time as various types of armor and cape appear and are replaced, a bit less quickly. "They can hold me still as much as they like, I'll still look exactly the way I want to look. The best way to deal with me is giving me information and talking to me like I'm an actual person who is capable of reasoning. After all, if you're correct, I will agree with you in the end, will I not?"

"I have the strongest suspicion that you will be pigheaded indefinitely."

"How can I allay this suspicion without at the same time sacrificing the part where I'm actually allowed to reason things out and make meaningful choices?"