there is genuinely so much mischaracterization around the concept of ashley crying and i am so sick of it.
a lot of people like to think that ash is just constantly emotionless and unable to cry at all just because she didnt cry at her grandmas funeral.. but she did when she watched one of her best friends get killed. they are just arent comparable and are not solid grounds for deciding how she feels or acts all around.
one very important detail that people seem to skip over is the fact that ashley herself never said “i dont ever cry”. it was specifically only sal and ben who mentioned that they never saw her cry. the dialogue focused in on the detail she was only never seen crying, not that she never cried.
i think this only implies that ashley just does not cry in front of other people; and this is actually something that makes sense for who she is as a person. her desire to be such a strong pillar for other people to lean on could also let in the desire to not cry in front of said people, as to not be seen as anything less than the pure strength that she wants to be viewed as — not because she sees crying as weak, but because she does not want her own emotions to get in the way of others’.
another thing that bugs me about this topic is that people try to turn her crying for sal into some kind of romantic thing ???
again, sal dying is not very comparable to her grandmas funeral because ashley had to watch sal die in front of her, knowing that he was only being killed because he was misunderstood; not to mention that ashley had felt as though she was responsible for that fate, and in that moment could only feel as though his blood was on her hands.
a funeral and a direct death are very different. whos to say that she did not cry at finding out the news about her grandma?
ashley did not cry for sal because “”she was in love with him””, and her stronger “feelings” for him brought her to breaking character.
ashley cried for sal because he was one of her best friends. she cried for sal because she had to WATCH him die. she cried because she knew his death was inadvertent. she cried because she felt as though sal dying was HER fault, and that this was a result of her own mistakes. she cried out of grief, trauma, and guilt. not because she had a crush.
this whole fandom is always misunderstanding who ashley is and what she does, but this topic in particular has always bugged me. by just choosing to interpret her as a person who never cries, takes away so much depth to her character. ashley campbell CAN cry!!!
