Big Brother Duties
Three Goblin Art
No title available
Not today Justin
Game of Thrones Daily
trying on a metaphor

⁂

No title available
AnasAbdin

izzy's playlists!
No title available

pixel skylines
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
i don't do bad sauce passes

★

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

Kaledo Art
DEAR READER
Cosimo Galluzzi

roma★
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Germany

seen from Germany

seen from Canada
seen from Vietnam
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Brazil

seen from Türkiye

seen from Germany
seen from Poland
seen from Türkiye

seen from Vietnam
seen from Türkiye

seen from South Africa

seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
@7thharbringer
Big Brother Duties
thoughts and feelings.
My Only and Only
Me when i'm a night owl :)
💛: I know who you pretend I am...
I... am Steve
The way physical violence was focused on and upped in episode 3 really got me thinking specifically about how Ashley actually responds to it. Because, like…
When we start in the flashback at the start of the episode, we get given a clear picture of Renee’s stance on using it as disciplinary action, and for all that she is shitty and cruel and neglectful and spitefully manipulative in every scene that she’s in, one line that she won’t cross with the kids that’s she’s barely parenting is hitting them, and she tells Andrew as much.
Albeit aggressively, but what she’s saying here is obviously that she doesn’t believe it will make a difference, and that she won’t allow that to be how Andrew is forced to parent Ashley for her. To be fair, it is quite in line with her general methods of getting what she wants usually through manipulation, but it is, perhaps, a single redeeming factor about her parenting style, and represents a line that shouldn’t be crossed.
(It’s also possible indicative of her own childhood, which is interesting considering what her mother had to say about Douglas’s father in the Renee and Douglas vision, but I digress. This isn’t a Renee analysis or apologist post.)
But another piece of backstory that these flashbacks give us is that, perhaps unsurprisingly, Andrew and Ashley lived with their grandparents for a few years, before their actual parents. Renee was kicked out and had no money, so of course Douglas’s parents were left with Andrew and Ashley for an unknown amount of years. And their parenting style was… different. Seemingly not as neglectful as Renee’s, and I do think we get the sense that even if Douglas’s mother is just as much of a doormat as he is, and refuses to stand up to her husband (and given the wife beating mentions, is possibly not in the position to) she does genuinely care about her grandkids. So at their grandparents there’s… parenting. Maybe not good parenting, but still some parenting.
Interacting with the swing in the yard, Andrew recounts a short memory of how exactly his grandfather tended to respond to him (or presumably Ashley) doing anything wrong.
Woohoo, the kids aren’t abandoned, but they’re still blamed for things that aren’t their fault, and they’re beat for their troubles too!
But seriously, this obviously goes to show that before Andrew and Ashley moved in with their parents, physical violence was on the table against them as punishment. Andrew certainly remembers it, and we can speculate to what degree that informs his response to Renee about hitting Ashley later, but in particular, it’s Ashley I’d like to actually focus on here.
I don’t think it’s too big of a logical leap to assume that if Andrew was beaten by his grandfather, so was Ashley, given said grandfather’s horribly misogynistic views and obvious tendency towards beating his wife. And as unfortunate as it would be, I have to wonder… Did Ashley actually respond to this? In some way did she, or perhaps more likely Andrew, ever figure out how to behave to avoid it?
Looking forward to the present day, physical violence hasn’t been properly levelled against her in a while. Andrew supposedly attempts to choke her out in episode 1, but she notes that he wasn’t squeezing hard enough to actually choke her. And they get up in each other’s faces, and they yell, and she has a vision about him straight up killing her, but to some extent all of this is just not quite that far, or a true ultimatum. Never is Ashley actually faced with physical violence as any kind of punishment despite it being noted all the way back in episode 1 that Andrew has physical strength beyond her, as he is able to keep trying to kick the door down where she notes she doesn’t at all have the energy.
It’s a possibility in spirit. Andrew has the physical advantage and he could so easily use that against her, but it’s all presented as a game to Ashley in the first few episodes – one that she thinks Andrew isn’t) actually trying at. She’s not even especially afraid of the prospect until the episode 2 Decay vision shows that he’s fully willing to kill her, and at some point in the near future too. That’s still an ultimatum more than it is a direct punishment, but it presents the idea to her that for all she thought he was playing around, no, Andrew would be willing to go there.
And then, this is followed through on in any Decay playthrough where Andrew is willing to grow a spine. He crosses the line that Renee set up, and that gives the moment a lot of narrative weight.
He slaps her, and her expression tells us a lot here. She wasn’t expecting something like this from him either, because of some combination of to not being a punishment she’s actually faced since childhood, Andrew never having gotten like this with her properly before, and how quick and sudden it is. This isn’t just a death threat or potentially far-off vision of him killing her; he’s actually done it now.
Their subsequent conversation is quite interesting too:
"What's with that look? You're the one who put violence on the table."
"...I-!! I didn't mean to............."
"Honestly it's all the same at this point."
Given the characters, we definitely shouldn’t necessarily take their words at face value, but even with that, I do think some part of Ashley is sincere here. When she held the cleaver to his neck, and when she offered a death threat, she still thought that she was just playing. This isn’t any different to Andrew taking his hands to her neck but not pressing hard enough to choke her, to her. She’s back-pedalling quite so hard to try and keep him, of course, this is Ashley we’re talking about… But I also don’t doubt that her sentiment is genuine. She didn’t exactly mean to.
And Andrew’s response tells us exactly why he’s so willing to cross that line. He just doesn’t care! Renee’s dead, so he doesn’t have to care about her rules and policies, and given how cynical he feels towards his life at this point, perhaps he wouldn’t care anyway. If this is a genuine way to get a response from Ashley, then he’ll try it, because for all that his mask of trying for normalcy is still up at this point, this is just between the two of them, where it!s always mattered the least, and as it is, that mask is quickly slipping.
I’d like to note this part of Ashley’s reaction as well, because, well… First we see that same shock as immediately after, but I’ve thought the exact same thing about that second frame, ever time I’ve seen it. With the background and the tears, isn’t this such a Leyley reaction? Such a Leyley expression?
Decay, especially Shots and Such which can follow on from this, is all about Ashley clinging to the Andy and Leyley dynamic to both of their detriments. It changes form as she feels she needs to adapt and find new ways to keep her Andy, but she’s constantly affirming whether or not she has Andy or Andrew because the violence and the hate all comes from Andrew to her, so when she’s continually trying to play Leyley, it keeps coming as a shock.
Andrew slaps her in the car, and she can only react as Leyley would. She never wants to be Ashley, because Ashley never fits into their games, and because Ashley has always been subconsciously rejected by Andrew. Being Ashley would mean facing what Andrew has done here rather than just making petty jokes about it for the rest of the episode and crying like I imagine she would have if her grandfather hit her.
But the cycle of violence only gets worse once Andrew continues to stew in apathy, and as perhaps he realises, that it does get a desired reaction from her. Ashley doesn’t respond in the long term to any threat that he throws, but she’s genuinely scared by the prospect of what him actually killing her means to her, and getting violent against her is a piece of that.
Part of what Shots and Such emphasises is that, even if it never works in the long run, Ashley does respond respond to violence, and that through out all of the ending, it remains Andrew’s way of fighting her.
This doesn’t exactly paint a happy picture of how Andrew regularly treats her. Er… Not that just about anything in Shots and Such is especially happy…
But it once again perpetuates the cycle of violence. Ashley gets actually violent now too, when she can. She makes sex painful for Andrew when she can, because that’s the degree of control she still has as someone who can’t a fight back when Andrew gets physical with her. She’s physically weaker, and with the bathroom lock torn down behind her, she has nowhere to hide. He beats her to short term avail to make himself feel better, and to keep her in line for tiny amount of time, and she gives that right back when she has her own opportunities.
And that’s all without actually talking about the scene of her getting beat.
Ashley’s a terrible person, but this scene is still very genuinely upsetting, because once again, something in her reaction comes across as genuine. She apologises profusely as her only way of even trying to get him to stop, and she goes back to the convenient story of being the scapegoat. She’s the problem, just like how he wants it to be. This doesn’t actually stop any of the heinous stuff she does to him after this point – of anything, it just makes her more desperate to try and exert control back when she gets the chance – but for a short while, it works. She shuts up and leaves him alone. She just makes cookies because that’s all that she can fathom that she’s good for.
Renee was right that hitting Ashley would never fix her behaviour. She was right after her grandfather had presumably done it to her a young kid, and that was never the attention she needed, and she was right after Andrew crossed the line she set because she’s gone, and he has nothing left to lose. Hitting Ashley never teaches her any kind of actual lesson, save, of course, from how to act when people get violent with her.
All that’s learnt is how to behave in the short term to get the immediate beating to stop, and that’s enough for Andrew. Their push and pull has turned into violent fits against each other for control for just a short while, but he genuinely can’t care for it to be another way. After beating Ashley, he just once again reiterates that “I don’t care either way at this point” and that’s that.
It never fixes her behaviour, but it reinforces his. Just like his grandfather, Andrew becomes a wife beater, and he crosses Renee’s line for just a short moment of power and control. His spine is now like a gummy worm because he’s stuck in the easy cycle.
ALRIGHT THINKING MORE ABOUT BOARDING SCHOOL AU AND THE ANGST we can consider this like another route of it (what i initially thought of)
so eventually, Grandpa Graves makes good on his threat and sends Ashley off to a boarding school: they outright put sedatives in her food to make it easier to move her (Andrew of course isn't around at the moment). so this was something i wrote in a gc when i was first thinking of the AU and
so imagine also Andrew is just not doing hot. like it's quiet and peaceful- just what he's always wanted, right? but it's. more quiet than expected. he keeps expecting Leyley to scream at him to play with her or mess up his stuff. it's around summer and Grandma asks him if he's excited that Ashley will be here for summer vacation and he's like. well it's gonna get loud again you know. but in reality her not being here is literally killing him no matter how much he denies it. so here she is, finally coming home, with longer and neater hair and-
"Hello Andrew, grandfather, grandmother. It's great to be back home!"
and the whole time Ashley is just. on her best behavior, smiling, apologizes for being such a problem child, never calls him Andy, and is by all means a model child who even offers to help supper and asks Grandpa if she can lead saying grace and the entire time Andrew is like. feeling almost violently ill to his stomach the whole time
then like a few days later he catches her picking blueberries saying she wants to bake a little treat to grandpa and granda for everything they've done especially since she has to go back to boarding school when the semester ends and Andy pleads for Leyley that she can just let it out
and then she just. finally breaks down screaming and crying
horrible au concept: au where Renee and Douglas just said fuck it, completely abandoned Andrew and Ashley with their grandparents after Ashley was born, and Grandpa Graves really did send Leyley to that boarding school to “fix” her behavioral problems
oh man both the 'shots and such' and 'splat' endings are soooo fun I adore the absolute angst of it all.
It's really sad how much Andrew loves Ashley, but in this route we see what happens when she refuses to grow up and move on from her Leyley persona. He hates Leyley and it's pretty understandable to see why - she was a constant barrier between him and any sort of success - socially, academically, whatever. (Obviously the blame is actually on Renee for not raising her own kid but ya know) Yet despite that, he learned to care about her, and once she grew up into Ashley that's when his feelings shifted from platonic to romantic. But now Ashley is 20 years old, constantly acting like a child throwing a tantrum because she refuses to move on. He very explicitly says exactly this.
And I do understand why she wants to continue acting like a child. makes it really easy to get what she wants, and she can pretend that responsibilities don't exist. everything can be pushed onto Andrew, and as long as Andrew stays Andy, he will continue to be at her beck and call. Or that's what Ashley thinks at least. Really it just makes Andrew resent her even more, because he genuinely loves her, but she doesn't love the real him. she loves the thought of him being around and loving her, protecting her, giving her everything she craves but was always sorely lacking. and in exchange she fucks him, cooks for him, even lets him hit her/take out his anger on her. since in her mind that's what women need to give in a relationship. its all transactional to her, and Andrew knows this.
Ultimately it shows that Andrew and Leyley cannot be happy in a romantic relationship together. Andrew and Ashley could possibly make it work, but in this route it's clear that Ashley stubbornly refuses to change, even if it'll kill her. but hey, at least in the splat ending they get a truly romantic lovers suicide. with their bodies inseparably smashed together forever
ashley is such a broken girl, it's sad.
everyone in her entire life, even on some accounts her own brother, has told her that she is an insignificant, small, useless, loud, annoying, childish and irritating thing. everyone either talks bad about her directly, or has negative thoughts about her in the back of their minds. and she just lives in the label because she has, really, genuinely NEVER felt real love and affection before.
her parents conditioned her to be clingy to the one source of love that she could possibly scrape up. and even then, andy only loved her initially out of a familial obligation that he was groomed into upholding by his own mother, it's only with time (as stated in-game) that andrew grew to love ashley.
shes like a feral cat with no direction, she can't even trust the small crumbs of affection she DOES get from others, because theres ALWAYS a caviot, surely! so she pre-emptively lets the other know through aggression that she SEES through their "facade of love", "whens the carpet being pulled!! wheres the cameras!! because surely it must be a joke!!"
shes so neglected that even when she DOES receive love she doesn't know HOW to take it, so she just... responds in the only way she know how to. its so indecipherable in her brain to receive this affection that she just defaults to anger or discomfort because of its unfamiliarity. shes so lonely that shes convinced herself that Other People aren't worth it, because when have they ever been for her?
its why it makes me so upset to see people demean ashley to a one-note abuser with a shitty mom. shes so fucking scared and lonely you don't even KNOW. shes a cat that hisses and scratches at getting pet. shes scared.
(tw for extensive discussions of dubiously consensual sexual situations, typical to canon. also spoilers for the decay route update)
honestly, one of the most interesting aspects of andrew's psyche that we get to see in the most recent decay route update to me is his nearly unending hesitancy about having sex with ashley, despite both his overwhelming desire to AND her incredibly blasé, Yeah Sure Let's Do It attitude in response to the question.
while the end of the burial route provides some key insight into ashley's point of view regarding this topic (e.g. if you go with the less enthusiastic/more teasing answer to andrew's question of "we're not like that, right? right??"), and the shots & such ending provides even more intrigue into her motivations, i think that decay presents two key reasons as to why andrew has continued to hold back for so long: his two core conflicting desires, and an inability to see ashley as her own full person. notably, both of these parts can easily be connected to his mother's childhood abuse and parentification of him as well.
with regards to the first point: andrew has two main overwhelming desires at the heart of his character that motivate most of his actions, which unfortunately for him are completely incompatible. andrew wants:
to be a normal, average person-- someone who can hold a steady, respectable job, fit in at the block party BBQs, and not attract any negative attention from the neighbors.
to fuck his sister.
to some degree, you could even read the distinction between the two main routes themselves (burial and decay) to be motivated by whether or not andrew can diffuse the tension between these two wants-- in burial, he gives up on his need to fit in with the rest of respectable society, presumably pushing him more towards the fucking-his-sister route; in decay, he struggles significantly to let go of this desire for normalcy, and the stress almost always breaks him. notably, in neither of these routes can he fully give up on the second desire-- really, his relationship with julia and the rest of his life up til the point that ep1 begins has been about him trying and failing to do so, so this makes sense.
(sidenote: i would also like to clarify that i think the Most key distinction between these two routes comes down to the decision you actually have to make to get one or the other-- namely, whether or not the siblings are able to trust one another. but anyways)
this focus on the first desire for normalcy is also interesting in that it seems to be one of the core desires that renee holds as well, as we see her so happily boast about during their interactions in ep2. honestly i could probably write a whole post about how much andrew (consciously or, more often, not) mimics his mother's behavior and takes on her standards and ideals, but the key point to pay attention to here is the fact that andrew has subsumed his mother's viewpoint in such a way that he is either not fully aware of or simply hasn't questioned in all that much depth yet.
we can also see this with the aforementioned parentifiication, which has really interesting consequences on how much andrew does (not) see ashley as her own autonomous person. pretty much every single childhood flashback we get in 3a shows the same terrible cycle:
andrew is told by renee that ashley is His responsibility -> ashley causes problems on purpose -> andrew takes the fall for her
frankly, we don't even really need that first step for andrew to fully internalize the idea that ashley's actions are His to take responsibility for. the horrible consequences of this are also quite obvious: not only is this pressure to take responsibility for someone else's actions an incredibly unfair burden to put on anyone, much less a kid, but it also continually pushes andrew to see ashley as something less than human, or as little more than an extension of himself rather than her own person.
the main conflict in decay really comes down to this conflicting desire between the two of them, where what both andrew and ashley want above all else is Complete and Utter control over the other-- andrew wanting control because he has again been groomed to see ashley as his full responsibility, and ashley wanting control to assuage her own insecurities and fears about being isolated and hated forever. the more sympathetic throughline underlying a lot of this is that what both of them seem to want is safety, to protect both themselves and each other from any and all situations outside of their control-- though, unfortunately, a lot of times those exact external situations are simply the other acting on this mirrored desire for control lol.
anyways, going back to the sex thing-- since andrew doesn't see ashley as her own person, since he sees her as incapable of taking responsibility for her own actions and therefore as someone who cannot make decisions for herself, due in large part to him automatically transferring this burden to himself, andrew also sees ashley's consent as essentially meaningless.
the more sympathetic reading here is that andrew does genuinely want ashley to be at least kinda into it as more than a manipulation tactic/transactional thing-- but i think it's also equally likely that andrew simply doesn't want to have to once again shoulder the full burden of Committing Incest on his own, and he doesn't trust ashley to ever be even capable of taking the fall for her own actions. the fact that andrew still ultimately sees ashley as Leyley and NEVER as Ashley Proper (as he himself recognizes at one point) really just reinforces this to me. he says it himself-- he practically raised this woman. and in this case, even above all others, ashley's actions are quite literally also his own. it all goes back to that initial mistrust, and he carries that resentment with him even after they get around to actually doing it. mutually dubious consent, truly in-fucking-deed.
The Decay of Andy and Leyley: the bad, the ugly and the terrible
Now that it’s been a while since I finished the Decay route, I think I’m ready to finally analyse this chapter as a whole. I’ve collected my thoughts and read through a couple of people’s opinions here and there… just to be utterly disappointed. I knew casual fans generally didn’t understand much of the subtext for tcoaal, but damn are they completely lost with this one. Maybe it’s the fact that I only interact with a small echo chamber of the fandom that does get it, but after all the terrible takes I’ve had the displeasure of seeing, I think it’s time I leave my own. There is quite a lot to comment on, since this part of Decay builds upon several plot points of the story: the quarantine, the entity, lord unknown, and namely, the main duo’s upbringing and relationship. While I’d love to pick apart every nook and cranny of this episode, this analysis will only focus on Andrew and Ashley’s relationship, as that alone has plenty of things to dissect for one post. I will also comment on some of the changes done to the previous episodes and what that could mean for the next routes. (More below the cut, this will be a long one).
Basically Chpt3
I drew this, this is original art 🫡
💝 Happy Valentine's Day! 💝
I had the idea for this comic in like August but now it's been so long that I can't really tell if it's funny anymore 😂😭
Look at me ♥︎