#but Dogma only knows one side of the story and Fox wishes he never found out

[mwolf0epsilon]

Maladjusted Motivation

Fox, arms crossed as he stares up at Olly with clear disappointment: I don't think I need to tell you why I've called you into my office.

Olly, looking miserable from both having to crouch because he's far too tall to stand straight inside Fox's office, and because he knows perfectly well why he's been summoned: No, sir.

Fox: Then you know why I'm currently not very pleased with you.

Olly: Yes, sir.

Fox, sighing: You should have deleted that cam footage Olly. We have procedures and contingencies in place specifically to avoid these kinds of situations.

Olly: It wouldn't have mattered sir. He would have found a way to recover the footage sooner or later. He's their brand of stubborn.

Fox: ... Why did you tell him about what happened that night?

Olly: ...I was hurt. And instead of addressing it properly, I buried my worries beneath my work. So when he confronted me about it, I lashed out...

Fox: ...

Olly: It shouldn't have happened. I should have been a better brother to him.

Fox: I think a lot of his vode before you, should have been better brothers to him. But my opinion on the matter matters little in the end. Just... Make sure you tell him you're sorry.

Olly: ...I will.

Olly, backs out of the office and goes back to work while trying not to think about how Dogma's been obsessively rewatching his cam footage of 79's from the night prior to the Guard rescuing him:

Fox, sighing and going back to signing flimsywork: There has to be a better way to deal with all of this heartache...

#star wars #the clone wars #commander fox #clone ocs #riot trooper olly olly oxenfree #this takes place after the warehouse incident so Olly doesn't fit in Fox's tiny office anymore #it took Fox a while to realize Dogma's been watching footage of some rather cruel insults thrown his way while he was in a prison cell #insults that were thrown at him by very drunk freshly traumatized 501st vode #insults which sparked an ugly bar fight mind you #but Dogma only knows one side of the story and Fox wishes he never found out #needless to say Olly fucked up trice on the matter and regrets it terribly #alas the damage is done #forceful intervention au #coruscant guard dogma #might as well mention: it was Slick who told Fox about Dogma's maladjustive coping mechanism

[bloody-wonder]

re: the ask you previously answered about kandreil, do you think — aside from shippers having overly aggressive approaches sometimes —interpreting anything romantic or sexual in the text with Kevin and Neil erases Neil’s demisexuality? I’ve always been unsure of that as I’m not a-spec, and I know that there are a-spec aftg fans who ship kandreil but I’ve never seen a discussion about Neil’s demisexuality specifically regarding it. Not sure I’m wording this right, just curious what you think.

well it’s a good and complicated question!

i’ve been thinking about it for the last couple of days and instead of giving a clear and concise answer i’m going to acesplain demisexuality and canonsplain neil josten in another lengthy post.

so there are two components to this question - 1) whether kevineil interactions are romantic or sexual 2) whether asserting that they are erases neil’s demisexuality.

1) so first of all kevineil is where the aroace dogma “relationships can be intense without being romantic or sexual and interpreting every such relationship as potentially romantic or sexual erases the experiences of many (not only) arospec/aspec people” clashes with the shipping culture dogma “these two characters glanced at each other once or had an ambiguous dialogue or both like bread and are therefore with a 95% probability already in love”. what can i say to people who think neil has romantic or sexual feelings for kevin? should i shout “people can be friends you guys are just brainwashed” at them? that seems very unproductive. this is a debate that can never be won but still i’d like to remark that interpreting kevineil interactions as romantic or sexual has more to do with this acquired urge to interpret all intense interactions as such than with what’s actually going on between the two. (bUt ThEy WeRe CaNoN iN tHe eArLiEr DrAfTs - i don’t know what you’re talking about, i’m talking about the three books that constitute aftg). i on the contrary rejoice in their romance-less dynamic and firmly believe that they wouldn’t be together even if neil weren’t demi. because some people are just friends. if neil weren’t demi it wouldn’t also be considered in any way problematic to ship kandreil, but neil is and some people like you begin to wonder - because now a rare “endangered” sexuality is involved.

2) i personally want to say yes, interpreting neil’s thoughts about kevin and interactions with him as they are presented in the books as sexual erases neil’s demisexuality - the key word being neil’s.

because demisexuality is a spectrum in itself and many aspec people will experience it differently. how strong an emotional bond does a demi need to have with a person in order to feel sexually attracted to them? it can be anything on the range from once in a lifetime soulmate to basically any person they know and like well enough. this lower side of the spectrum is where the line between demi- and allosexuality gets blurred and is probably also the reason why lots of people deny that demisexuality exists, seeing as they also usually get attracted mostly to people they know and like well enough.

anyway i suppose it’s more common for an average demi person to have had one or more of those emotional bonds that result in attraction by certain age even in order to identify as demi. so i imagine a lot of aspec fans who ship neil with foxes other than andrew, project their experience of demisexuality onto him. if you’re someone who identifies as demi, has deep emotional connection with several of your friends and feels attracted to them, you will probably want the very rare specimen of a fictional demi to have experiences similar to your own. if you’re also a kevin fan and are fascinated by the idea of kandreil, then you’re going to ship it without any concern of erasing anything. “neil’s demi and i’m demi so therefore anything i feel or do concerning sexual attraction he must feel and do as well”.

but neil’s version of demisexuality is quite different. based on andreil it really looks like he’s higher on the ace spectrum than that. even when he reaches the point where he’s like yep andrew is totally the person whom i’d let riko torture me for he still isn’t attracted to him sexually and only when andrew explicitly shows that it’s something he’s interested in does neil begin to explore the idea. when he knows he’s attracted to andrew he specifically checks if he’s able to think of his other male teammates in that way and the answer is no. but the most important thing about neil figuring out his sexuality in my opinion is the fact that he never defines himself as someone who “swings” at any person he establishes a profound connection with, but rather as someone who’s attracted only to andrew. (i’m not even sure if neil would use the demi label if he knew about it). he literally says “the only one i’m interested in is you”. so his situation looks much more like “once in a lifetime soulmate” one to me.

so the question is where do you begin to interpret neil’s sexuality? if you begin with the text then you’ll perceive him as someone who’s attracted to nobody at first and then only to andrew. (haha that’s some very wishful thinking on my part - see the shipping dogma above). but if you begin with your preconceived notions about the demi label then you might expect neil to form those special bonds that enable him to feel sexual attraction as often as you like. maybe if an average demi person was in neil’s place they would end up getting attracted to more foxes. but neil isn’t average, he isn’t a stand-in for the entire demi-dom, he’s a very specific person with a specific way of forming connections with people which is why if you want to write him in character i think it’s much more productive to take into account his personality as it’s showcased in the books than to research what demisexuality is or to self-project. so in the end what’s happening here is really not people erasing neil’s demisexuality by shipping him with this or that character but rather them erasing his canon personality by making him do the things he wouldn’t do.

that being said, fanfic is definitely the place for self-projecting and exploring things that aren’t canon. there are multiple ways to write demi neil in kandreil or other ships ranging from rewriting the canon and increasing the amount and quality of neil’s interactions with the new love interest to doing the same in post-canon to writing an au where they all come from different circumstances and nothing matters. the commonality between these types of story is that they all will be about a different version of neil with a different version of demisexuality which is just the way of fandom life and is perfectly normal.

however what i’ve been observing in post-canon kandreil fics is that the absolute majority of them are established relationship which means that their authors and readers think that whatever happens in the books between kevin and neil is enough for neil to form an emotional bond powerful enough to feel attracted to him (provided they at all agree that neil’s demi because if they don’t it’s a different kind of erasure discourse altogether). but that is just not true and totally erases neil’s demisexuality the way he experiences it. but can i really point out this particular facet of his personality being thrown over board when so many other facets get discarded along the way? neil is probably the aftg character whose canon personality gets misunderstood, ignored and rewritten the most. if a neil from some kandreil fic is a sweet peaceful gentle boi then what does it matter to me that he’s already kevin’s bf? it’s not the neil i know from the books. if neil’s canon personality isn’t important or appealing to this fic’s author then it’s only logical that the specific way neil experiences demisexuality won’t be important to them as well.

tl;dr: apart from those fans who don’t think neil’s demi and write him as allo, do kandreil shippers erase neil’s demisexuality? not necessarily. but do they rewrite the way neil experiences sexual attraction to better fit their ship? probably yes.

i want to end this by a disclaimer: like i said, i’m an aroace person talking about demisexuality which isn’t strictly my identity. andreil is very important to me as an ace because it reflects my personal understanding of relationships. of course andreil’s “once in a lifetime” soulmate situation speaks more to me as a person who doesn’t feel any kind of attraction and generally has trouble connecting to people beyond that. i can’t relate to most relationships i see in fiction because they are founded on attraction which is a language i don’t understand, so nora writing andreil in a language i could understand was a pretty big deal to me. consequently i feel very sceptical towards all other ships including kandreil because my views of romance are ace, not even demi. so basically i’m biased too.

#neil josten #demisexuality #kevin day #andrew minyard #all for the game #aftg mine #asks #i don't even want to tell how long i've been writing this monstrosity #is this jumble of words intelligible at all? #idc anymore #gonna go reblog some gifsets now #i earned it #aftg ask