lia • she/hers • 20↑ • queer asian • figure skating, fire emblem, fma, mxtx, pdl
⚠️ please be warned that i like ships with a prominent age gap, height or size difference. they can also be teacher/student, mentor/mentee, or idol/fan. i also like incest and underage ships.
🔞 i indulge in darkfic (dead dove) and problematic tropes. if you find this squicky, or triggering, this blog is not for you.
A small comic about Palestine I created to appeal to more passive family and friends
Anyways if you have the money I urge you to donate to Ibraheem Hadi, a Palestinian who contacted me and whom I promised to highlight in relation to this comic:
Title:
"Urgent Relief: Support Ibrahim's Family in Gaza Amidst Devastation"
… Devlin Downs needs your support for Help me and my family to
Otherwise there is always a need for eSims to keep Gazans connected
I've been watching Helluva Boss since forever, and I've seen Hazbin Hotel recently with friends. I enjoyed it!
Might share my thoughts on HazHo (I refuse to abbreviate it as HH) on here soon, but preempting future essayist Lia with a gentle reminder that I am a problematic shipper. By no means is my blog intolerant of possibly squicky or triggering ships or themes.
For what it's worth, I'm generally a shipper of:
Lucifer x Charlie Morningstar
Alastor x Charlie
Stolas x Octavia (from Helluva Boss)
I adore the canon romantic pairs in both shows, though, but these three have my heart.
No, I am not tagging either the characters or the ships for this fucking post. The HazHo and Helluva Boss tags are begrudgingly necessary for blog organization.
Doormat extraordinaire: Andrew Graves is down horrendous for his own sister | Part 2
Here's a link to the previous half of the essay: Part 1
Here's a link to the AO3 version for archive purposes: The doormat extraordinaire has a bit of a romantic streak,
Content warning: This will heavily feature spoilers from Episodes 1 & 2 of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley.
Trigger warning: Abuse, cannibalism, child neglect, codependency, harassment, incest, murder, self-harm, and suicide.
Disclaimer: I will occasionally reference an extremely normal essay from Sufficient Velocity commenter Leyleyfication (here).
It would be a lot easier to read this essay first as Leyleyfication does a pretty good job establishing the following:
- Ashley is dependent on Andrew to assure and validate her of her own insecurities, and
- The game heavily implies that Andrew wants to fuck his own sister.
So in the previous half of the essay, I got to talk about how, yes, why we can comfortably say Andrew wants to fuck his own sister. We also got into how that attraction manifests as his desire to exert his control, and domination, of Ashley. Hopefully, that's the bulk of the essay (I think).
But what about the possessive aspect that I mentioned?
That's what this half of the essay will get into and hopefully, the fatalist aspect of Andrew's attraction.
Episode 2, common route. I had to throw this screenie in somewhere for how out of pocket it is as a thought.
Wow, you're both possessive and jealous!
Thankfully, it's actually a lot easier to list the situations wherein he's possessive and jealous of Ashley. Unfortunately, I don't have all of the necessary screenshots (and I am fucking crying over it).
In Episode 1, Andrew is immediately upset by Ashley loudly wondering if getting pregnant would get the wardens to call help for the siblings.
In Episode 1, Andrew is offended that Ashley is offended that the wardens didn't find her attractive like the Lady from Room 302 to bargain food in exchange of sexual favors.
Again, in Episode 2, Andrew 'lightly' threatens to backhand Ashley when she jokingly suggests being a call girl.
These ones... are almost easy to dismiss. It's actually very easy to reason it's Andrew being a protective older brother: after all, who would want to be in the same apartment when their sibling is having sex somewhere else? That's the answer that Andrew gives to pacify Ashley after leaving Room 302. Having sex with someone who's brother is walking around the apartment is very, very awkward.
And that's even before we factor in that the two share their childhood room. The game plays into what is likely our real-life mortification and discomfort regarding similar scenarios.
But there are times when it's both in our face, and inexcusable. When it doesn't really fall under that notion of brotherly protectiveness: Andrew's dream and memories from Episode 2. The first is when Andrew reflects on the people he's killed up to this point, particularly the warden he killed in the cultist's apartment.
Episode 2, common route. The warden here is likely Malcom. If you compare Ashley's reaction to the wardens' arrangement with the Lady from Room 302 to this moment, we can probably read this as Ashley being so disinterested in others that she doesn't notice attraction and leering. Andrew, meanwhile, can.
The second is when we learn what happened after the siblings left the Bitch in the Box to, yanno, die from her asthma in a likely moldy box in an abandoned warehouse.
When Andy sees Nina's body, he's not wracked with the guilt of her death. He doesn't care about whether or not that reflects on his morals as conveniently forgetting Nina was asthmatic and begged for help, only for Andy to prioritize Leyley. No, Andy's train of thought went from "I don't want people to find the body" to "I don't want people to know it was [us] who killed her" to this.
Episode 2, common route. Leyleyfication pointed out that this outburst precedes Leyley weaponizing the moral consequences of Nina's death against Andy. Andy, even now with Andrew, doesn't particularly care about moral consequences. Although, getting into Andrew's moral framework as driven by appearances and the fear of legal and societal consequences is a whole different word vomit.
Of course, Andrew being concerned that he'll lose Ashley can be chalked up to the fact that he's been her primary caretaker and the third parent (the most active one, mind you) all his life. To take Ashley away is to upend the foundations of Andrew's sense of normalcy. But that doesn't really align with how Andrew repeatedly emphasizes his candid closeness with Ashley, or his preoccupation with her fat tits (their words, not mine).
Episode 2, common route. When you pair this with the optional interactions of Ashley repeatedly blocking Andrew's view of the TV at the motel, it's actually kinda funny how Andrew's eyes trail to her chest.
Ashley is Andrew's pride and joy ("my Ashley") and he also doesn't like being away from her long enough to spy on a failed attempt at summoning demons. He takes sadistic pleasure in being able to kill the warden who leers at her, Andy uncharacteristically has violent outbursts at the notion of losing Leyley.
Ashley's insecurity and jealousy is almost always front and center throughout the game. But the game also takes care to weave Andrew's obsession with Ashley whenever it can. It's a lot more subtle, and perhaps missable, since Ashley almost never shows interest in anyone but Andrew.
We can possibly argue that Andrew finds comfort in this, that he is 'secure' in the sense that Ashley looks at no one else but him. But even something as Ashley simply expressing wonder at alternative scenarios is deeply upsetting to Andrew, enough to provoke his threat of violence.
Whether or not that comes up in either route for Episode 3 (Burial and Decay) is up in the air, but my immediate impression is that Andrew will be forced to dredge up his obsessive need for Ashley to be by his side, to be his, and his alone. It's not really that different from Ashley's desire and love for him. Really, the only difference is Andrew doesn't really mind having acquaintances or a social life outside of Ashley, but Ashley does. If Andrew deludes us into assuming he isn't in love with his sister, there's a good chance he's denying it to himself, too.
(I do want to hark back on Leyleyfication's essay again, when Andrew asks Ashley to reassure him that they won't end up sleeping together. In that regard, not only is Ashley the one he allows to 'veto' that possible outcome, but we can infer that Andrew wouldn't know how to walk away if ever the opportunity presents itself. He's hoping that Ashley's restraint is what keeps them from crossing that line, because god knows Andrew can't help himself.)
Episode 2, Burial route. Andrew values Ashley's opinion; usually when it conveniences him and what he wants. But if you choose, "never say never," although Andrew doubles down on his show of disgust and mortification, he doesn't get pissed at her or start emotionally distancing himself from her.
Andrew is a tragic romantic, hallelujah!
When I first played the game, the first thing that struck me about Andrew's behavior wasn't when Ashley woke up in his lap. It's not when he throws her the balcony key because he'll follow her to check on the cultist if she'd like. It's when, completely unprompted, he goes on about how romantic it would be if they died in a double suicide:
What? You don't see it? Just imagine hitting the ground together. And with such force our bodies turn into a pile of gory mush. Never to be separated! Our remains would get so tangled up they'd have to bury us together in the same coffin.
Episode 1, common route. You live on the fourth floor, Andrew.
This resurfaces when Ashley doesn't first wake up in the car in Episode 2. He confesses that if she had not woken up, he would have brought her to the hospital. Admittedly, doing so would alert the authorities to their identities: hospital staff would be concerned as to why they look like they're recovering from being emaciated, they're likely paler than the average person, and so forth. They'll ask for a means to identify Ashley, at least, and then they'll find out that both Graves siblings were legally pronounced dead three months prior to Andrew walking into the emergency room.
That is the pronounced risk that Ashley points out and the same risk that Andrew readily dismisses in his panic and worry. And in a way, it would make sense: if Andy was so terrified of upsetting Leyley that he'd willingly keep a girl trapped overnight, if Andy was so terrified of losing Leyley that he'd rather hide Nina's body, why wouldn't Andrew say fuckit, let's risk getting jailed if Ashley isn't waking up?
But this sense of fatalism is more pronounced in the Decay route, of all places. You know, the one where Andrew resents and blames Ashley for everything and hates her so much she dreams of him killing her some way or another. Jesus.
Episode 2, Decay route. When Andrew doesn't see a point in planning their next steps, he admits he has a strong urge to kill them both.
Barring Ashley's first vision of the hitman killing them both, or even the hidden Steam achievement where Ashley finds the hitman in the closet, Ashley's death is a subject only ever thrown around in the context of dying with Andrew, or by Andrew. Just the same, it's almost always succeeded (or preceded; again: hitman vision) by Andrew's hypothetical death.
Ashley starts and ends with Andrew; he's how she's survived for this long, and she's okay with that. But Andrew starts and ends with Ashley, too. His self-preservation goes out the window where the threat of fatally losing Ashley is concerned, and his morals bend where being separated from Ashley is also concerned.
In Decay, Andrew can loathe and resent Ashley as much as he wants. He can blame her as the motivation and reason for why he does what he does. But he genuinely cannot live without her. The consequences of his actions don't bother him insofar as they don't jeopardize his and Ashley's relationship, or Ashley's well-being. That's what matters to Andrew, ultimately.
He lashes out at her, yes, but he consistently feels awful when his behavior drives Ashley away somehow. There is regret in hurting her (verbally, or physically) even when he hates and loathes her so deeply.
Perhaps the most telling, however, is the pay-off of the gun (I told you we'd come back to that eventually!!). In the chase sequence of Ashley's vision in Decay, she has the opportunity to defend herself. But only if Andrew didn't use up all of the ammo when he goes to find and deal with the hitman at the park.
The player is presented with a choice: either Ashley shoots Andrew with the gun, or lets Andrew kill her. The option of Ashley killing Andrew in self-defense is very interesting (but again, that's a different essay entirely). But what happens if Ashley chooses to let Andrew kill her is also just as interesting:
Episode 2, Decay route. Andrew's hand that restrained Ashley by the hair shifts to cradle her face by the jaw. This moment is also preceded by the first time Ashley's little heart bubble is colored a light pink.
When Andrew kills Ashley through this outcome, he does so efficiently: it's visualized by a single blood splatter. In contrast, Andrew killing Ashley because she can't even choose to defend herself is pure viscera: there are more blood splatters, violent as they come onto the screen, and excessive in contrast to him killing the first warden in Ashley's defense. It's pure loathing.
In this outcome, Andrew kills her in what he promises will be a murder-suicide. Perhaps he frees the both of them from the constant threat of evading law authorities, but his last words suggest he expects to rejoin her in whatever conception of the afterlife he has.
As of either route divergence from Episode 2, Andrew is someone who's both in love with his own sister—and someone unwilling to separate himself from her. Perhaps in the more platonic Burial route, Andrew is a bit more relaxed and is seemingly less troubled by his nightmares; he doesn't depend on Ashley as much. But what remains constant is his attempt to plan for the future with Ashley in tow; platonic Burial Andrew won't leave Ashley for the foreseeable future, either.
So yeah, Andrew wants to fuck, own, and have his sister and he's kinda crazy. He's so batshit. As Leyleyfication put it, I also want to dissect this man in a lab.
Episode 1, common route. Ashley doesn't seem to fully grasp that Andrew (even Andy, back then) loves her so much that he genuinely cannot fathom being separated from her. In her defense, though, Andrew implies he can leave her and routinely suggests he loathes having to put up with her. His mixed signals would drive anyone crazy, man.
Doormat extraordinaire: Andrew Graves is down horrendous for his own sister | Part 1
Or as I like to call it, actual literal word vomit attempting a proper character analysis!
Here's a link to the AO3 version for archive purposes: The doormat extraordinaire has a bit of a romantic streak,
Content warning: This will heavily feature spoilers from Episodes 1 & 2 of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley.
Trigger warning: Abuse, cannibalism, child neglect, codependency, harassment, incest, murder, self-harm, and suicide.
Disclaimer: I will occasionally reference an extremely normal essay from Sufficient Velocity commenter Leyleyfication (here).
It would be a lot easier to read this essay first as Leyleyfication does a pretty good job establishing the following:
- Ashley is dependent on Andrew to assure and validate her of her own insecurities, and
- The game heavily implies that Andrew wants to fuck his own sister.
Anyway: The Coffin of Andy and Leyley! A game in early access where a pair of siblings are stuck through a seemingly never-ending quarantine together, desperate not to starve to death. When their cultist neighbor dies in a ritual gone wrong, they rationally resort to cannibalism. Fun!
I am definitely going to assume that you read Leyleyfication's extremely normal essay (I am on my knees, begging you to read that). Which is why this essay immediately starts with, "yeah, Andrew definitely wants to fuck his sister" as its baseline.
What I will be adding to that funny little cauldron of fucked up sibling dynamics in a horror visual novel are the following: Andrew's fixation and sexual attraction manifests as his desire to control, dominate, and possess Ashley. And it is framed as a fatalist attraction and the totality of his existence (for worse or even worse).
Because of Tumblr's limit for 30 images per post, though, I'm going to have to split this extremely normal and reasonably lengthy essay into... multiple posts! Yeah! I have no idea how long this will fucking go!
So first things first: how can we tell that Andrew is even attracted to Ashley in the first place?
Nemlei (Devlog 05). Note the hickeys above and below Ashley's choker and her left inner thigh, and Andrew's left hand creeping into her right thigh.
As Leyleyfication points out, the game primes us to believe that Andrew is a pushover and Ashley is his abuser. This occurs in the Steam page as it explicitly says Ashley is "in fact, very bad" and Andrew is a "doormat extraordinaire." Moreover, it's very easy to tell that Ashley is, on some degree, obsessed with Andrew:
She's happy to hear that Julia broke up with Andrew over the phone;
She repeatedly accuses him of finding the Lady from Room 302 attractive and he 'tried anything with her;' and
Her flashback to wanting to punish her friend Nina ("the Bitch in the Box") for crushing on Andrew.
Episode 1, dream and memory. Leyley previously said that Nina should know better than to 'steal from another woman,' referring to herself. The implication that Andy is hers is toyed with after this moment, when she says she'd put Andy back in the box.
The game does prime us to think that Ashley is Andrew's abuser. It also suggests that Ashley projects an unrequited and incestuous love onto Andrew. Before we consider Episode 2's narrative, Episode 1 gives the initial impression that if Andrew comes to reciprocate her feelings, it's more of a reaction and subsuming to her will. That it may not be something he wants for himself and independent of Ashley's manipulation.
But again, I do believe Andrew wants to fuck Ashley. And always has been. He just frequently vacillate between 'subtle' and 'really fucking obvious' tells that completely take advantage of the game's third person limited POV.
Keep in mind that both Andrew and Ashley are extremely unreliable narrators. We aren't going to get information they personally do not care about and that is on top of our own choices as the player.
(A digressive example: you will not learn that the founder and CEO of Toxisoda's company was a former surgeon unless you interact with the television in Andrew's Episode 2 dream and memory of their blood oath. Otherwise, it neatly ties into the surgeon that Mrs. Graves conveniently says she was directed to regarding the siblings' quarantine in the main story.)
When it's really fucking obvious
When you play as Andrew in Episode 2, his post-dinner argument with Ashley carefully frames them both. They are cramped in the foreground and Andrew's left arm is conveniently blocked by Ashley and the kitchen knife, as seen here.
Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, you can interact with Mrs. Graves for her to pointedly comment on the siblings being inseparable.
At this point in the game, their physical closeness is something we're used to by now. After all, we've already seen Ashley on his lap at least twice; Andrew slept in her bed in Episode 1; and Ashley confirmed they've shared the same motel bed multiple times in the one-week interim between Episodes 1 & 2.
But the game abruptly shifts to Mrs. Graves' POV when she enters the scene and not only do we see the two as physically close, but we notice a few more details.
Episode 2, common route. The first picture transitions from Andrew's POV to Mrs. Graves as it introduces us to her entering the scene.
The contrast of how spacious the kitchen is from Mrs. Graves' POV to Andrew's cramped POV is obvious. More importantly, Andrew's fingers loop through Ashley's belt loops when the two are huddled together. When Mrs. Graves clears her throat, the two don't really separate.
Ashley pivots on her left foot so that her body is turned to their mother, not Andrew, but she doesn't step away from him. Andrew, meanwhile, recoils from Ashley and withdraws his hand. But he isn't turning his body to face their mother like Ashley does here. His attention, at least in this moment, is still towards Ashley (and, yanno, the sink).
Episode 2, common route. Two things to consider in the second picture: Andrew hides Ashley's bite mark on his cheek with his left sleeve and he conveniently moves the pillow from behind him to his front.
The 'tell' isn't so much as the two are unusually physically close. Again, we're used to that by now. But it's how the two siblings react whenever Mrs. Graves comes into the picture. Ashley doesn't really give a fuck about whether or not people assume the worst of her or even her intentions regarding Andrew. To Ashley, their proximity is normal and anyone who sees that as a problem is not worth an explanation or reason.
But Andrew is at least subconsciously aware it's 'not normal.' As far as these moments are concerned, Andrew instinctively tries to do damage control by either putting space between them or keeping his hands occupied so they aren't visibly touching Ashley. Still, he either does not mind or actively appreciates his physical closeness with Ashley.
When it's really fucking obvious
(but only in hindsight)
In Episode 1, Ashley passes out after trying to clean up after the apartment. Regardless of her passing out in the living room, the bathroom, or their parents' room, she will wake up on the couch with her head pillowed by Andrew's lap.
Episode 1, Ashley's POV. Andrew's hands often hover over Ashley's head, but more than that—
I personally didn't notice this until I replayed Episode 1, when I basically have the hindsight of Andrew's fixation with hair. But yes, his fingers idly twirl through the ends of Ashley's hair as they watch TV. It's implied that Andrew can and will do this when Ashley pillows his lap, awake or asleep. He does not recoil from it when Ashley does wake up and later on, in Episode 2, even continues to brush it from her face.
Episode 2, common route. Ashley fell asleep at the passenger seat, so Andrew had to have transferred her to the back seat to pillow her head again. Though, technically, she's more cramped at the back seat than if he'd just reclined the passenger seat.
So far, we've seen that Andrew has a natural tendency to not only be physically close to Ashley, but to hover over her personal space and be in constant and direct contact with her. Whether it's by having her head on his lap, twirling her hair through his fingers, or even constantly grabbing her by the head in various states of comfort, playfulness, or outright threat (but let's put a pin on that for now).
The weight behind this candid contact shifts when Episode 2 draws a pretty explicit parallel between Julia and Ashley. Assuming that you interacted with Julia's landline and heard Ashley's voicemails, you know (and Andrew knows) that Ashley draws that connection herself:
DO YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME!? Just because you can fuck him and I can't? You think that's love?! Are you fucking delusional?? Cumdumpsters like you are just that. He will never love you. Not like he loves me. I am the only one. I am everything. I am the secrets you'll never hear. When he lies in bed at night, and when he needs someone to hold on to... It's not you he seeks out. It is me.
Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and vision implies that Andrew's heard these voicemails before.
That connection extends to the hair contact as well, as Andrew goes in to hug Julia, cards his hand through her hair and requests she tie her hair up.
Episode 2, common route. Andrew's dream and memory of Julia when they're older. From the use of Andrew's present-age portrait, suggests is closer to the timeline of the game's events than his and Ashley's memories as Andy and Leyley.
From this moment, we can have one of two assumptions: either Andrew wants Julia's (black) hair put up like Ashley's, or Ashley caught onto Andrew's hair kink and puts her hair up to imitate it.
Regardless, we infer the following:
Andrew teases affection through touching and even pulling on one's hair.
His fixation on ponytails and pulling on them does not exclude his own sister. It still stands and without reservation, perhaps more explicitly since he can do it so candidly, as we saw before.
The last of that Julia-Ashley parallel is self-contained within Episode 2. But only if you end up in the Burial route regardless of Ashley's platonic or incestuous vision.
Episode 2, common route (first picture) and Burial route (second picture). It's worth pointing out that Andrew is actually disinterested and moody during his conversation with Julia, and only perks up when he mentions Ashley or feigns care for Julia (since he extends his care of Ashley to her as well).
The game ends up drawing parallels on how Andrew treats Ashley, for better or for worse, with his ex (which is definitely worse, poor Julia). In doing so, the game blurs the lines between romantic affection for Julia and 'platonic and familial' affection for Ashley.
Y'all, this isn't even getting into how Andrew respectfully gives his parents space and only crowds them when he threatens them with his cleaver. In his mind, Ashley and Julia are in that same space of physical and romantic displays of affection; something he reserves only for them (only without reservation for Ashley) that does not extend to anyone else. His ex-girlfriend, and his sister. Shit's wild.
When it's obvious BUT it's violent!
That isn't to say that his hair fixation (hair kink?) is completely innocuous, though, as it rears its ugly head (pun unintended) in Decay. Which is what that previous pin was for! Yay!
You end up in the Decay route if Ashley doesn't trust Andrew with keeping an eye on their parents. Here, Ashley sleeps on their parents' bed by herself and has an alarming vision: an unknown party chases after her through the in-between and when they catch up to her, it's Andrew. Ashley has nowhere to run and Andrew eventually grabs her and threatens to kill her.
Whether or not Ashley can defend herself depends on Andrew expending all of her gun's ammo when he deals with the hitman, or not. But that outcome divergence will matter much, much later (so that's another pin for us to come back to).
The sequence of events actually mirrors the way the siblings ambush the Lady from Room 302 back in Episode 1. There, Andrew closes in on her and grabs the Lady by her wrist and uses his front to pin and restrain her. With his cleaver to her throat, the Lady is completely at his mercy.
Episode 1 & 2, common route (first picture) and Decay route (second, third, and fourth pictures). Note that Andrew restrains the Lady from Room 302 by the wrist while with Ashley, by her hair.
Andrew asserts control of the person and the situation through violence. Whether it's by killing them (the wardens) or by threatening physical violence (the Lady from Room 302 and Ashley). It's always on the table for him. As Leyleyfication puts it, "He's so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence [here]."
That violence includes Ashley. It's always on the table where Ashley's concerned. The game even juxtaposes when Andrew threatens violence and physical assault 'playfully' versus when he's seriously out for blood:
When you interact with the wall of call girls' numbers and Ashley jokes about leaving her number on the wall, Andrew 'jokingly' threatens to backhand her for even thinking about it.
When you interact with their parents' latched window for a second time, Andrew 'teases' slapping Ashley if she doesn't find a way to open it. (Ashley jokingly asks if it's on her ass or at her face, and assumes it must be the face when Andrew says she'll have to find out.)
The two other times that Andrew exerts violence against Ashley are both in Episode 1 & 2. We can remember when that happens in Episode 1, when Andrew's had it with Ashley's fits and threatens to kill her:
Episode 1, common route. Y'all, Andrew was choking her hard enough for his grip to bruise.
It happens again in Decay when he confronts Ashley about repeatedly calling him Andy and therefore, breaking the promise he coerced her into from Episode 1.
Episode 2, Decay route. Another thing to keep in mind is that Andrew's outburst is preceded by Ashley prodding him about his current state and insisting that Andrew was fine with 'Andy' during their home invasion.
In Episode 1, Andrew resorts to harming Ashley because he's fucking had it with her accusing him repeatedly of trying anything with the Lady from 302 and, in her eyes, his 'infidelity.' Where she accuses Andrew of not loving her enough that if his eye catches another girl, he'd leave her behind or flip on her. In Episode 2, she's poking and prodding on his boundaries on 'Andy' and whether or not, once again, he's with her on their now-committed life of joint crime.
If I can give another example, it happens in Andrew's common route memory of Nina's death and his blood oath with Leyley.
Episode 2, common route. Prior to this, Andy expresses immense exasperation at Leyley's tantrums over him 'thinking about that bitch again.' When he goes to grab the kitchen knife, cleans it, and returns to Leyley on his bed—he's briefly considering killing her.
Andrew threatens Ashley violently whenever he intends to confront her on her perceived brattiness, for lack of a better word. And keep Leyleyfication's essay segment on Ashley's insecurities and need for Andrew's validation in mind here—when Ashley does this, she wants and even needs Andrew to comfort her. But her aggression treads Andrew's patience and really, his tolerance of her behavior.
When Ashley's anger, clinging behavior, insecurities, and possessiveness of Andrew slips his control and tolerance, he resorts to violence to coerce or even dominate her.
I think (or hope, if it's clear enough) it reinforces what Leyleyfication points out:
The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don't mean in the sense that I'm saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this.
It also reflects on another aspect of why Andrew resorts to violence: in all three situations, Andrew remarks on Ashley's behavior and her sake. If she acts up again once they're out of the apartment, it'll cause trouble for him while they're evading authorities. If she's going to call him Andy from hereon out, what's the point of running away with her. If she expects him to leverage keeping 'her secret,' he won't because it's for her sake.
Andrew rationalizes his attempt to control of Ashley's behavior as being for her sake. But really, isn't it him confining her behavior to something he can tolerate and personally handle?
I'd also like to point out that Andrew admits that he noticed Ashley push for calling him 'Andy' during the home invasion, and he did not argue with her on it while they held their parents hostage and readied to sacrifice them. We can infer that when Andrew calculates his use of violence, that can also factor when, where, and how he exerts it.
--
Well, that's where I can reasonably end this half of my word vomit! Now, onwards, to part 2!
I'd personally like to thank the pearl-clutching puritans on Twitter for blowing The Coffin of Andy and Leyley up because I'd never have found this gem on my own as I don't go through Steam like a normal gamer.
Now I want to make effort-posts on Tumblr and/or AO3 why the Graves siblings' codependence are two-way and why Andrew is especially depraved for his attraction to his sister... but I must overcome my laziness first.
How to prepare for, and recover from, getting your account terminated
Here are some ways you can be prepared to recover from a termination with a new account.
NUMBER ONE TIP: Create a task to auto-backup every post you make to your account to another account or service. There are many ways you can do this, but we use the service IFTTT, which autoruns whenever we make a post on tumblr (including reblogs), and copies it to another site.
The most secure method is to have your tumblr back up to a wordpress account that you own yourself on a cheap webhost and domain name, but you can also have the service back up to a free wordpress account, another tumblr account, etc.
More tips:
Keep a file with all of your account’s images in it: your banner, profile pic, etc so they are easy to find when you are restoring your account.
Keep a file with a list of all of the tumblr accounts that you follow and would want to refollow in the event of losing your account.
Additionally, keep a file with a list of all the tumblr accounts that you block and would want to reblock.
Compose your posts in google docs, word document, or other program before putting them on tumblr, so you can easily save the content.
Save any media you create; art, edits, moodboards, etc, to a private file.
Save any pictures on tumblr you want to keep to a private file, ideally with source info.
When you create a new tumblr account it sometimes will take a while to be able to post in the tags and be seen by other blogs. Be prepared for this by having a backup blog already created and “warmed up” to move to in the event of losing your account.
Have a way for people you know and care about to contact you off-site in the event of losing your account.
Never post things like fanfiction that you make to one site only. Keep them archived at more stable sites like AO3, and other services, as well as in your own files.
make sure that tumblr side blogs have your backup account as an admin, so that you don’t lose the side blog if you lose your main blog.
“No more regrets”
Got permission to share the comic page I made for @EaglesBox zine “Serenity”!
Thought it would be nice to share it in my other art pages as well, because why not. :)
At my request there was a team debate about the setting I was going to do. Because I had no ideas! There were so many options that got me overwhelmed.
In the end was decided that would be from angsty to sweet. So here’s some good old Edeleth (what else would it be from me, right?), where Byleth has rewound time over and over again and retained the memories of every timeline she killed Edelgard, which manifest through her nightmares.
Please do reblog, do not repost!
