Okay one more coffinpost and then I'll go back to being a normal Tumblr about a game played by nobody on God's Green Earth (original editor is unknown I just found this on /v/)
(SPOILERS) Andrew and plausible deniability, OR: mfer doesn't wanna be held accountable for his actions
This has been churning in my head for a while (I am mentally ill 🥴), but a large part of the driving force behind Andy and his actions is his aversion to blame. He sorta shares this w/Ashley (she's got quite a few rants abt how things aren't her fault), but I believe Andrew takes it just a step further.
I've seen many say this before, but from the start of the game, you'll notice that even beyond normal moral quandaries, Andrew's first objection to any horrific action Ashley proposes is usually a variance of "what if we get caught?". He objects not bc her ideas are ethically repugnant, but bc they could be found out as having done them, and he knows rationally that others know they're bad. This goes as far back as childhood with the Nina incident. He fears punishment and the threat of prison more than he apparently worries about what his crimes might mean for him as a person or what they might mean for the people that might be affected by them (save him and Ashley). This doesn't mean he doesn't feel guilt or have nightmares abt them, but they're not his first priority. Trouble's a pain to deal with, and the dude's low-energy.
In fact, most of his guilt seems largely self-centered. Like, no exaggeration: if it isn't about either him or Ashley (which is, in a way, lowkey also about him), then he couldn't really care less. Do you recall him ever expressing worry or remorse on Nina's behalf? Mourning her? We think Ashley's the one w/empathy issues, but Andrew's in the same boat imo. Self-preservation and self-interest is all that's keeping him seemingly amiable enough for polite society, bc for the most part, he really couldn't be bothered.
In his dreams, the victims of their murders are just bodies: interchangeable, holding no more meaning beyond the fact that they're dead. Any corpse's limb will do to replace the one Ashley cooked—never mind that they may be from different people—bc they're all the same to him. Even Julia, sitting in her dorm room surrounded by evidence of Ashley's harassment, gets no sympathy from Andrew. For the most part, he elects to ignore it all, and regards Julia herself with a detached sorta nostalgia tinged in no small part with apathy.
img txt: You'll never see her again. And the fact that it doesn't really bother you, bothers you.
(The only things of notable worth from her were the colored pencils on her desk, which he promptly takes from her to give to Leyley instead, and isn't that just some crazy symbolism right there?)
His fear of punishment goes hand-in-hand with his desperate pursuit of plausible deniability. Everything he does, he does under certain self-imposed conditions. If it's Ashley's idea and he argues back, it doesn't matter in the end if he goes along with it, bc it was Ashley's idea in the first place. He's just there to make sure she doesn't get them in trouble, bc she needs him, bc he's gotta take care of her. Even if it's not her idea at all (e.g., killing the closet warden, killing the lady in room 302), it's still her fault, bc he did it for her, bc everything he does, he does for her.
Ashley's a manipulative, evil lil possessive gremlin w/a soul as black as tar, and Andy's a doormat, but don't think for a second that part of him doesn't use that dynamic a little to keep from reflecting on what he is. He suffocates under it, but he also relies on it. If there's any sort of plausible deniability available, he'll take it and run with it.
The truth of the matter is that they're both deeply toxic, warped individuals. The difference is that Ashley's owned up to it and quite frankly doesn't care. Andrew hasn't. He's the "normal" one.
Now, for the funky incest part (what we're all here for babyyyyy)—
We've all seen the flavor text abt the bed-sharing by now, right?
img txt: Oh yeah, you tooootally have nightmares as often as you claim.
We know for a fact that aside from some light teasing, maybe, Ashley would have no problem whatsoever with sharing a bed w/Andrew. Heck, she'll coax him into bed (demo) or climb onto the couch with him (ep 2) w/o any prompting from him whatsoever, just bc she feels like it. Andrew, apparently, can't do the same. He doesn't allow himself this intimacy of his own choosing, so he has to lie and pretend to get it if he wants it. He's greedy for her, too, but he can't let himself show it.
If something is sufficiently too intimate in his eyes, beyond anything he can excuse away for some reason or another, then he'll stop himself from doing it. Just like how he wouldn't let himself succumb to the urge of pulling Ashley into his arms to make her smile, but is willing to give her a hug when she asks for it in front of their parents.
He insists on the extra expense of two beds, and then cites his nightmares and panic attacks as the driving force behind crawling into bed w/her, bc then it isn't really his fault now, is it? He tried to stay away, after all. He did! He just didn't have a choice!
Lol
Andrew can't admit to wanting this—buries those feelings and thoughts as deep as he can so they fester and bleed, the repressed idiot—so he gives Ashley all the power to decide how close they get. It's in Ashley's hands. He's free of that hassle.
Which is why the post-sex vision, and Ashley's reaction to it, is so dangerous. @csg-iii made a good point about it in my last post:
img txt: I think the biggest point about "11" is that Andrew asks/begs Ashley for reassurance that it will never happen ("never say never"). It's a subtle admission that if she really wants it to happen, he knows he won't be able to resist his own urges. His only ""hope"" of avoiding going there is if Ashley doesn't want it.
Andrew, in absolving himself of this choice and putting it in Ashley's hands, shoots himself in the foot, bc what if Ashley goes the whole mile? Then the only real thing keeping his desires unrealized was the fact that they had never been voiced as an option before.
He doesn't want to think of himself as someone who'd bone his own sister. Forget being a cannibal, demon summoner, or a murderer; those titles were foisted upon him. This is too close to something real that he carries inside him; this isn't anything Ashley's buried in him, but rather something of his own invention. Something he'll definitely have to take responsibility for.
also i am thinking a normal amount about how andrew nearly kisses ashley in the decay route.
how close he lets himself get to her.
how often he takes her into his arms.
his self-restraint is caving. he loves her, he wants her, but it's tainted by hatred and anger and misery, so his touches are filtered through a veil of fury. he's already decided they aren't making it out of here alive, so what's the point in pretending he doesn't want to touch her?
(SPOILERS) breaking down how obsessed Andrew is w/his sister bc he's a repressed lil liar and I'm going insane
This post got longer than I intended it to
1. He claims they don't spend enough time apart from each other to even begin missing her so he doesn't even know if he would, but just earlier in the game he was apart from her for probs like 30 mins tops to investigates some cultists and guess what???? He was already missing her 😒
2. Says "I thought you grew out of this touchy-feely crap" when Ashley asks for a hug, but earlier when he was cooking dinner, he was the one with the inexplicable urge to "pull this broody bitch into [his] arms and force her to stay until she smiles" 😒
3. Piggy-backing off the last screenshot: WHAT OTHER THOUGHTS, ANDREW??? yOU WERE JUST THINKING ABT HUGGING HER. WHAT DO YOU EVEN MEAN. THESE ARE SIMPLY INNOCENT BROTHERLY THOUGHTS ARE THEY NOT????? 🤨🤨🤨
4. Bro just can't keep his hands off her. And everyone thinks Ashley's the clingy one jeez (lol the way he springs apart from her when Mom catches them is definitely definitelyyyy not worth analyzing. nope. not even when it happens a second time on the couch. nope. nooope)
5. What. What is he thinking here. Don't think I don't see those grey lil blush lines. Is this connected to my third point somehow bc like... 🤨😬 Is "Andrew" is gonna start doing and being what "Andy" was too spineless and afraid of doing?? That's what the vow was partly abt right?? Does that include—
5. WHEWWW BOY that little flashback with his gf has so much baggage in it I just wanna dissect. His girlfriend's tryna have a serious discussion with him abt his weird sister for the sake of bettering their relationship bc she genuinely loves him, but he just gets caught up in fondly talking abt said weird sister instead??
6. He's awfully hesitant abt Ashley learning some independence, bc y'know what?? I think he doesn't really want her to stop relying on him. But what do I know y'know
6. Wants his gf to put tie her hair up in a ponytail, then when she refuses bc he'll pull on it, says it's just "how boys express their love". Well. You know who else puts there hair up in a ponytail??? You know who else's hair he's always pulling on and touching???
7. The voicemails in his gf's phone left by Ashley are heard by him in his dreams, and his dreams are a construction of his mind utilizing his memories, personal hangups, and knowledge of Ashley. The voicemails irl were left on his gf's phone, and for all we know, he never actually listened to them in person. Bearing this in mind... odds are the things Ashley's saying contain bits of truths he believes within himself, filtered thru her crude, hateful dialogue.
Here. I transcribed one of them...
"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."
8. Claims Ashley's the one with the jealous streak, not him, but I think he's just as bad. The only difference is that Ashley's never given him reason to act on it since all she's ever wanted was him, but at the slightest mention of her gettin it on w/someone else, even as a joke, he gets mad. "OVER MY DEAD BODY!!" he says, when she's jokingly contemplating getting knocked up via the neighbor so an ambulance would come for her. "I wouldn't let them," he says, when she's complaining abt not being pretty enough for the wardens to bang her
9. Going hand-in-hand with that fact, he's intensely protective of her. Didn't hesitate to cleaver the warden who found her in the closet (probs didn't even BLINK lmaooo he chose VIOLENCE), and when the cake-stealing cultist insulted her just once, he stepped forward just like that
10. In their apt, when they were lying on the floor talking abt jumping off the balcony, he was really caught up in the "romantic" fantasy of them committing a double suicide and dying with their bodies entwined so irreparably by the impact they form one unified corpse "never to be separated!" and they get buried in the same coffin together. UM??? Bro fr thought he was the sane one of the two. That wasn't even true before the cannibalism and demon summoning 😭😭😭
BONUS:
11. This might just be me, but his reaction to seeing the post-sex vision doesn't strike me as someone who's inherently opposed to the idea. Instead of disgusted, he was... flustered?? He acted like she walked in mid-guilty pleasure wet dream. This wasn't a "GROSS THATS INCEST" reaction which is... the most normal reaction to have. That's the face of a man that got CAUGHT bro.
He asks "we're not like that, are we?" and "why are you like this?" and questions the veracity of the vision, but he never actually explicitly denies wanting the vision to happen, more focused on Ashley and her reaction. He buries the elephant under the rug as fast as he can, bc yeah, it struck a landmine, but it probably wasn't a landmine for the reason Ashley thinks it is. I bet the vision just hit a little too close... :P
Ok i have to talk about how Andrew seems. How do i put this. Hornier? For Ashley, than Ashley is for him- which i find both extremely funny and narratively fascinating. Also how Ashley views sex as transactional let's go:
Ashley is obsessed with Andrew, that's obvious, blah blah we don't even need to get into it; but when the topic of sex arises, we mostly only see her pursue it as a means to an end. She suggests that she may be able to escape the apartment through a pregnancy, or procure money through acting as a call girl whilst in the motel.
Each time, it's Andrew who expresses disdain and stops her from going through with what would otherwise be a rather clinical approach to sex on her end. Ashley puts very little stock in the worth of sex, and seems to border on completely uninterested in it.
Even with Andrew, she internally suggests it matters very little to her. She could take or leave sex with him, so long as he stays around. But Andrew is far more keen on sex and sexual practices; he's apparently (decently) popular with woman and is self described as "not celibate", much to Ashley's chagrin.
When Andrew brings up sex, it's never tactically, like Ashley. When he asks his girlfriend to put up her hair, or bitterly refuses to allow Ashley a sexual partner- even when it would benefit them both AND wouldn't bother her at all- it's just. So telling. So. Indicative of SOMETHING about him. He's the one that's always touching her, and how deeply red he flushes after the dream sequence is insane... And! The way he has an internal space in his mind dedicated to Ashley HARASSING one of his ex's, furious over the fact that she can't give him the sex he so clearly enjoys. Is. We'll say 'hilarious', instead of 'pitiful'.
I was watching a video series on youtube about tiny apartments/houses in Japan, and one homeowner had a cool record collection that he wanted to show off. He pulled out a copy of one of my favorite albums and I went “!!!!!!!!”, but the channel owner obviously couldn’t get the rights to any of the songs, so when the homeowner put it on his turntable to play it they just dubbed it over with generic piano music and I laughed so hard I started coughing
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