Multifandom, primarily Total Drama/Disventure Camp and Casper's Scare School My posts depend on what my spinterest is at the time, I can be VERY on and off with certain ones :P Formerly known as pepastruelove/hedystruelove
Sometimes I'll be giggling at some kind of content revolving around Ashley being a silly clueless idiot but then I catch myself and remind myself that I'm falling for "southern girl character = stupid dumb dummy" propaganda
(also applies to Operetta from Monster High)
(These girls are genuinely really smart why does everyone treat them like they're dumb UGH)
What if I said beta Ashley was written with more layers than a lot of canon/current Disventure Camp characters
(exaggerating, mostly, don't take the title too deep)
I'm not saying that she's a historical example of a character with layers and her writing is worth an award, but she's pretty well written considering she competed in only three episodes and only appeared for four in total. She has better backstory in three episodes than some current characters have to this day.
She's a polite, trusting and gentle cowgirl whose entire life revolves around the farm, just like she is in current/canon. But where she's different is that she doesn't seem to like the farm. She says in conversation with Lill that (in simple terms) it's restrictive and she would love to have more freedom, and implies in her audition that she's only applying to the show because she wants to get away from the farm and the responsibilities she has there. She also suggests that her family is poor and they could really use the money if she won, which follows her into current/canon DVC. All of these things are about as gradual as you can get in three episodes and isn't just immediately dumped on you out of nowhere like a lot of current characters, which is also a huge bonus.
Maybe I just see Ashley in general through rose colored glasses, although her backstory in the beta isn't really anything special it's definitely more well written than some current characters. Nothing special, but really good considering its the BETA with less than ten minutes total screentime. And yes I'd still argue she has more depth than current/canon characters. She's dumbed down to just being a dumb blonde type, which is definitely more prominent in the beta, but even current/canon Ashley isn't safe from being overlooked and watered down so some things really never change
Also completely unrelated side note but she's absolutely adorable. LOOK AT MY BABAYYYY
Hot-ish take, Ashley isn't as stupid as people think
Spoilers for Disventure Camp 1 + All Stars
I find it bizarre that both in canon Disventure Camp and in the fanbase, Ashley is said to be pretty stupid (for example Ellie saying her "intelligence matches her home life" implying she's dumb) when she's actually quite smart.
Ashley doesn't get enough credit for her contributions in the alliance with Lill, or in season one on the whole. Some people say that Lill was the only competent person in that alliance and that the other three were dragging her down, even though Ashley wasn't a problem at all. She sussed Fiore out with Lill pretty early, but she was probably just too polite to say anything. She also did well in episode four when she outsmarted Dan, so she's good at quick thinking/thinking on her feet. ALSO ALSO she was the one to come up with a more solid plan to expose Fiore when she and Lill were on the chopping block, even it was too late.
In All Stars she was able to use Fiore to advance in pre-merge, then dump her when she wasn't useful to her anymore without anyone having any idea that this was what she was doing, including Fiore ! I think it shows her intelligence even though this part was hugely downplayed. It was also smart to get rid of the person with the most tricks up her sleeve before she can use those in the merge. Alec says that she was the glue that kept the heroes' alliance together, because she's the only one who was actually coming up with good ideas on how they could advance further in the game. Which to me sounds like BASICALLY "Oh wow she's actually pretty smart next to the others. That's gonna be a problem later, she's a little bit of a threat"
She proved again that she was good at quick thinking when she used her lasso to stop Fiore from getting back in the game, keeping the Villains' alliance lower in numbers. There are other examples in the game where she thinks on her feet in physical challenges like when she used her equestrian skills to gain points in the very first challenge, and even her silly moments in that one ball challenge where she rolls the ball by walking on it. She also put the most effort into finding clues in the space challenge, so obviously she's not THAT stupid
Ashley has never been eliminated because of her own errors, and this can go as far back as the beta. In canon she has only ever been eliminated because someone in her alliance (cough cough Nick and Jake) was too stubborn to cooperate with her, which hinders the alliance's majority vote, which boomerangs back onto Ashley sooner rather than later if not literally immediately. Jake directly cost Ashley the game ! It's really frustrating that both of her eliminations follow almost identical formulas but I digress
Ashley rant over (for now), thank you for listening !
I know that the track that plays in the Disventure Camp Beta eliminations (apart from Lill for some reason) is just part of the extended track used in Total Drama with no dramatic cymbals but it's so deeply disturbing to me
Especially in Gabby and Ashley's elimination, when the clip cuts from the campfire to the bus stop and the first thing you see is
I wonder what Gabby was thinking
Still I'm in love with the track no matter how eerie it is
I remember people saying that Julia was a wannabe Heather a lot and there’s a lot of dissing on Julia, I mean, don’t get me wrong. She’s definitely popular and I know a lot of people like her in the fandom but I feel like people don’t really look at them clearly like they are both completely different characters. This rant isn’t me hating on them or anything, because I’m a big fan of both of them,, but I’m actually js sick and tired of ppl saying this.
Like, obviously, they took the same concept with the “ girl who stuck up and is looking for 1 million dollars” but it kind of just makes me mad and upset considering I’m a huge fan of both Heather and Julia that nobody really sees them for them and everyone just wants to dumb Julia down as somebody who’s a carbon copy of Heather. Like right off the bat I can think of three main differences that they have that makes them totally different.
First and foremost, the way they introduced themselves when they got to the island,, like right when Heather stepped off of that boat in season one, she was asserting dominance without even saying a word like she just had that presence, and and everyone knew not to mess with her… Julia on the other hand was faking her personality for a couple episodes acting really nice to everyone even when she was pissed off at them,, if it weren’t for MK outing her, she wasn’t planning on giving up the persona she had. In the beginning, they had to completely different ways of going about the game. Obviously, when Julia got outed for being the way she was she didn’t care bc to her it was “freeing”. But even then they’re tactics and just the way they are were different.
This leads me to my next point, which is the reason why both of them are so mean in the first place. We all know Heather has had some trauma like for example we know that her parents weren’t all that good to her. For example in season two she admitted how her parents did electro shock therapy on her and in season one in the special leading into season two she admitted to Harold that she used to get bullied in high school. So we all know Heather at least has some lore to her. From what we know about Julia, she’s just a straight up, spoiled brat, we’ve never really gotten anything abt that. Not saying Heather’s reason for being so nasty is justifiable, but at least she has a reason, Julia is js like that bc she is,, or at least that we know of.
Another huge thing was character development,  disregarding all stars because let’s be honest. I think we can all collectively agree that all stars was absolutely horrible, Heather had some pretty good character development between season two and season three, because we all know, she got humbled hard season two and then season three Alejandro came along so then she was forced to play good guy,, Julia got absolutely no character development when it came to season two. The only “ development” Julia ever got that we saw was when she became friends with MK, we saw a side of her that we didn’t get to see because she doesn’t really like anyone which was obviously shown, but that’s not really development. That’s more so just showing a side that we just never got to see before with Julia, and Heather got some actual development. I would love to see Julia get some development like that or like thrown into that kind of situation where she’s forced to play good guy because I would honestly really love to see how that would play out.
But yeah, there’s probably a lot I’ve missed and more I wanna say but yeah, they are two completely different characters. No one can change my mind. I love them both. Correct me if I’m wrong on any of these,, Thank you for coming to my TED talk🙌 
I've always hated this statement too. because mean girl characters and different takes on the stereotype will always exist in teen shows about teenagers. Mean girl tropes aren't always knock-offs of another mean girl, there is always one "mean girl" per generation of contestants (namely Heather, Jo, Sugar, Julia and there are at least three in TDP:RR because of how many contestants there are). But they are all very different characters to one another
The reboot in general gets a lot of crap for their characters being "rip-offs" of first generation characters when it's not actually the case for any of them. Axel and Eva, Ripper and Owen, MK and Noah, Priya and Courtney...so on and so forth
I would like everybody to know that Jo's voice actor was still writing for the Total Drama Reboot ! And on that note, she wrote the episode with Ripaxel's kiss. You're welcome
"If Beta Disventure Camp was canon, then Ashley's grudge against Fiore would be fair enough ! But her grudge isn't valid because all Fiore did was outsmart her in canon "
I feel like having all of your belongings burned in a campfire then it also being blamed on someone you were veryyy close with, while having a past like SPECIFICALLY Ashley's is also a fair enough reason to hold a grudge, but each to their own I guess
Like yeah she was doing a bit too much considering Fiore is still a child, but it was also only for the span of a singlular episode when Ashley was doing things that were actually just unnecessary