okay ------ this might be a bit slip shod, but i gotta talk about and am having trouble organizing my thoughts, so i’m dumping this mess here and coming back later ( maybe ) to organize it. so, under the cut, stuff on ashley’s feelings towards leon --- !!
ashley LIKES leon; obviously. she likes his personality, and his snark. she likes his smile and how kind he was to her even when she knows many others wouldn’t have been. she just likes leon. she likes him as a friend, of course, but those feelings OBVIOUSLY veer into the romantic as well. ‘overtime?’ but what are her feelings? a mere crush? something more? WELL!
some of it is merely trauma; ashley is very dependent on leon even after they’re off the island; she went through something truly horrific, and then he appears! her savior! he rescues her more than she can count, he protects her, he does his best to keep her safe. the mind, especially one addled by trauma, clings to such figures. she is romantically attracted to him in part because her mind has fixed him as her savior, as her safety. she is dependent upon him.
some of it is a simple bodyguard crush. ashley’s a romantic young woman --- a lover of raunchy novels and silly romcoms. he’s sweet and kind and good - looking, and her romantic heart thus encourages such a crush.
and some of it is real, true, romantic love. she loves him --- perhaps calling her IN LOVE sounds overly dramatic, but it’s true, at least to some extent. she knows it’s a result of trauma and her silly heart but she knows love when she feels it, and she loves him. the whys don’t matter; the reality does.
however, it’s also pretty obvious that it isn’t returned ------ she isn’t blind to how he looked at ada, and even more than that, he turned her down flat and then immediately hit on another woman; ashley can take a hint. she’s alright with merely being his friend; like we’ve said, she likes leon, even outside of a romantic context. she likes leon in every way you can like a person. so she’d never bring her feelings up further ------- on the other hand, though, she has no desire to STOP loving him. unrequited feelings are no fun, of course, but her feelings for him are hardly tortuous. they’re soft and good and --- something not totally traumatizing that came out of the mess that was her kidnapping. besides, because they are at least partially trauma - induced, she can’t totally separate her feelings for him romantically from her friendship with him in general, and she’s hardly giving that up, so trying is useless.
in short: ashley has very real romantic feelings for leon, but she knows they aren’t returned and is largely okay with it. she knows she’s probably never going to stop having feelings for him, but is okay with that, too, and doesn’t feel overly bad about them.
turnnoffyourmind
2087
romaincrisis
andulkaphoto
snowghoul
tangentwithtanner
