Gia ☾ ☥

I adore her and I have the biggest soft spot for her, my empathy for her is through the damn roof. She’s a product of her environment, she wasn’t born the way she is (Andrew wasn’t either). It’s frustrating to see people claim she was born evil. I’d go as far to argue that she isn’t completely evil either. Her soul is the color of pitch black according to the demon in the game. But why is that? What caused it? The reason for this is because of how she’s been treated by everyone else around her throughout her whole life. It’s not like she asked or wanted to become a “tar soul”. Her environment made her sour, it made her hate people.. including herself.

After Ashley sacrifices the warden to the demon, when she’s thinking to herself, a text box comes up that says “You decide not to linger on the fact that your soul is apparently a vicious, pitch-black mess.” and after that we see another one that says “Guess you already knew that”.

I was thinking to myself, why the hell am I so attached to this character? Lmao. Why do I have such a huge soft spot for her? Then when I was thinking about it I realized it’s because I relate to some of what she’s been through. Especially her terribly low self-esteem that causes her to feel unlovable, ooo that hit home for me. For quite some time I dealt with that, and let me tell you, it truly is an awful feeling. It can make you very mean and bitter. It quite literally eats away at you. I’m 22 now and I’m able to reflect on those past experiences, that’s when I realized how bad it really was. When it comes to someone having poor self-esteem and not much self worth, it stems from somewhere. People don’t just randomly start hating themselves, there’s something that causes it to happen. It could be from a variety of things such as trauma, childhood experiences, comparison to others, and discrimination.

It truly sucks to see how many people online that seem to hate her (not on Tumblr, but almost everywhere else). Her backstory breaks my heart, it’s tragic, and it seems that people completely ignore what she’s gone through and what she STILL goes through.

I also hate that the game has kind of, in a way, become a meme due to the controversy. This game delves into very serious and depressing topics, so for losers online with 0 media literacy to water it down to “the incest game” is sooo agitating. This is just a personal opinion of mine, but I also feel as though the controversy made people play the game for the wrong reasons. Including a lot of “edgy” teenagers 😬. I don’t think I need to elaborate on that, I’ve touched on it before in a different post. I mean the amount of loud and wrong takes I’ve seen about the game… All I can do is shake my head 💀.

So, I’ll share my (maybe?) controversial opinion that some of the “fanbase” is part of the problem too, not just the people who hate the game that don’t even know what’s going on. I’ve talked about this before so I’ll keep it brief, but I feel it fits in the post so I’m including it. But on the game’s subreddit there are people who will reduce the game itself to fap material, and it doesn’t make sense to me because there’s quite literally nothing overly sexual or explicit in the game?? Even in the questionable route vision we don’t see anything explicit, we just know what happens. I’m like have y’all forgotten that this is a PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR game?? How some of these people managed to reduce Nemlei’s work that she clearly put a lot of thought and effort into that covers dark topics and serious issues to fap material is beyond me…. What a way… just what a way. Let’s hope they get weeded out of the fandom before ch. 3 drops 🙏🏻.

Just to clarify so no one gets confused, I’m NOT referring to people who create NSFW art/posts of the game, like duh you guys know I love Ashley and Andrew 🤭🤭. I know what I’m about! 😂. Seriously though, I’m referring to people in the Reddit community who will quite literally just take people’s NSFW art (any fan art in general really) and upload it there without the artist’s consent. It just seems like the NSFW stuff is the only thing a lot of them care about, and the shit they say is so unhinged at times I’m like???? Seek help. (Obviously it isn’t all of the members, but it’s definitely a lot speaking from my personal experience there before I left). In a way, I can’t blame outsiders for side eyeing the fanbase if that’s their first impression.

Between the amount of haters TCOAAL has and some of the questionable “fans”…. Yeah, we’re in the trenches 😂. That’s part of the reason why I left the server and now only participate in the Tumblr community. Not even trying to gate-keep or sound like an asshole, but a lot of the Reddit community doesn’t fit the game. I said what I said! As I’ve said before in a previous post, most of the trash takes I’ve seen on the game stem from there, and YouTube too. 😬

TCOAAL is a game that requires you to think and dig deeper, that’s why I love it. It touches on very heavy topics. Tbh it’s not something you can simply take at face value, that just defeats the purpose.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Ashley! 🩷✨

When you pay attention to all the details and look deeper into Ashley’s character, you see that Ashley has quite literally been treated like shit her entire life by EVERYONE around her except for Andrew. That’s why it’s so easy for her to treat people as disposable, because that’s how SHE was treated her entire life 💔.

This scene specifically proves that:

Andrew really is everything to her. That boy is her sun, her moon, and all of her stars. 🥲💚. We see that he’s her main, and basically only source of happiness. He’s the only thing/person she cares about. I find it genuinely heartbreaking that he has been the only person Ashley could depend on throughout her life. Due to this, it makes sense as to why Ashley goes to such extreme measures to keep him around. if she lost him, she’d have no one else. So of course she’s scared that he’ll leave her. Even though we know he’ll stick by her side no matter what, Ashley does not. She’s quite literally the love of his life but she doesn’t know that. 😩

Then again, Andrew doesn’t show it, so of course she doesn’t get it. He’s never said I love you back to her, the closest we get to that is when he says “I like you… but you’re so exhausting” after their huge fight. If you look closely at his face in that scene, you’ll see gray blush lines on his cheek. Ashley has been abandoned by everyone except for Andrew, she needs validation and reassurance from him to know that he’s there to stay. He doesn’t really give that to her though, but he needs to STAT! As I said, we know he’s in it for the long haul, but Ashley does not.

You see, Ashley operates under the idea that Andrew doesn’t actually care about her. She believes that he couldn’t love her of his own will and that she has to manipulate in order for him to stay. I hold the opinion that she doesn’t do those things because she necessarily wants to, she does it because she feels like she has to in order to keep him around. She manipulates, but she isn’t very good at it 🫣.

Thinking about their huge fight in apartment 302 after Andrew killed that lady (she definitely did not attack him first, but we’ll get into that in a minute). When Andrew’s choking Ashley she brings up the fact that she’s the only one who can make his nightmares go away, but guess what we see in ch. 2? Before going to snoop on the cultist, if you go back to their motel room and you interact with the bed. A text box pops up that says “oh yeah, you tooootally have nightmares as often as you claim.”.. So, we now know that Andrew doesn’t actually have that many nightmares, he uses it as an excuse because he wants to sleep next to Ashley and be close to her.

Back to the apartment 302 incident, when Ashley goes back to that apartment after completing the ritual, she sees that Andrew killed the lady that lived there, he claims she attempted to attack him with the nail gun, but the nail gun was in the same damn spot! People should’ve started side eyeing him at that point in the game. I know I did LOL, “doormat extraordinaire” my ass 😂. Btw, there are people who genuinely believe he tried to sleep with the lady in 302, but she wouldn’t do it so he killed her….. 🤦🏻‍♀️. I wish I was joking.

Anyway, in Andrew’s dream when we go over the justified deaths, with the lady in 302, the first reason he mentions is “Ashley would have wanted to kill this one anyway” then he brings up no witnesses. To me, the fact that the first reason he mentions is Ashley wanting to kill her anyway showed that he killed her for Ashley more than anything. I mean, It did make Ashley happy that she died. He didn’t say anything about getting attacked, although it was obvious that was a lie already lmao. I believe that’s why he got so frustrated, which led to him getting pissed off after Ashley started accusing him of trying to sleep with that woman. Especially because once she started, it escalated quickly and she just kept going.. He was like “girl??? I literally killed this woman for YOU.” I could be wrong, but that was my interpretation on the situation.

Another interesting thing I thought about was how during their argument, Andrew tells Ashley to butt out of his love life, and that she always makes up some bullshit crisis for him to leave/stay when he’s out or about to leave to go meet up with someone. But in the flashback with Julia during his dream, while she’s raising genuine concern and mentions that it could be good for Ashley to learn some independence for her own sake. Also for Andrew to stop cutting things short on her, for the sake of their relationship, and so they can spend more time together. Andrew responds to that with “If your sister needed something, wouldn’t you go?” 👀. Andrew likes Ashley being dependent on him, he doesn’t want her to become independent. During their heated argument he admits to knowing her so called crisis she has before he leaves is “bullshit”. Yet he still chooses to leave to be with her anyway. Because again, Ashley’s the love of his life, people can deny it all they want but the proof is right there lmao. Not to mention he looked so sad hugging Julia until he asked her to tie her hair up… I see right through you Andrew 😂.

Also, him bringing up Nina’s death (Julia’s best friend) and lying to Julia’s face about it like he had no part in it, that was actually scary not going to lie 🫢. Plus him lying about Nina’s death affecting Ashley…like you know damn well. After their huge fight, Ashley said she was glad that Nina choked, which Andrew responded with “I know you are”.

That’s the thing about Andrew, he’s very good at lying and we see multiple examples of this in the game. When they were at their parents house Ashley decided to stay quiet because she couldn’t keep up with Andrew’s lies. In a different post of mine I talked about how “Andy” was a facade, but Ashley doesn’t understand that yet. She thinks he’s changing for the worst, but in reality he’s always been that way. His true colors are just now finally coming out.

Andrew and Ashley both had a shitty upbringing. I mean Mrs.Graves made Andrew take care of Ashley when he was a child, and I remember in a flashback he asked Ashley if she wanted to go with him because their mom gave him money for groceries, like ma’am why are you making your child go out to buy groceries??? Also, at the end of the day, she sold them both to organ harvesters. However, Andrew was treated somewhat better than Ashley during their childhood. We see this through the plushies in the puzzle before the questionable route vision, if you set Ashley’s plushie down at the table she immediately falls off. At their parents new home during dinner, Ashley sat on a mini ladder while everyone else had a chair, and simply the fact that Mrs.Graves gave Andrew their new house address, but didn’t give it to Ashley. They always shut Ashley out, they never cared about her nor did they try.

Now, let’s talk about one of, in my opinion, the saddest parts of the game. The flashback of Leyley’s birthday 🥲.

We see that neither her parents nor her friends cared about her birthday, they didn’t even try. She looked so sad talking about her friends here 😭. The fact that she brought up how her friends are always busy when she asks them for something shows that this is a recurring thing, her friends suck. I am in tearsss. I’m sick rn, she deserves everything and more. Andrew attempted to make her birthday special for her at least 🥺.

Also, I know Julia seems sweet from what we’ve seen, but I’m suspicious of her tbh 👀. We know Ashley hung out around her and Nina. I remember seeing one of the screenshots from a progress report where Andrew asks them if they could invite Ashley to sit with them sometime at lunch, so I’m assuming that’s how their “friendship” started.

Nina had a crush on Andrew, and Julia ended up dating him later on. I think it’s possible they only hung out with her just to get closer to Andrew. Julia wasn’t a very good friend to Ashley it seems, so it makes sense that she wouldn’t be thrilled about them dating. Especially because Andrew is the most important, well, really the only important person to her.

Something else to think about when it comes to people in Ashley’s life outside of Andrew: After Andrew killed the warden to protect Ashley and before they left their neighbors apartment, Ashley tells Andrew “I don’t give a rat’s ass about mom or dad. Or any of my so-called friends anymore.” and “Not one of them felt it necessary to answer my calls…”. When she says this she looks very upset. So, even in present time, Ashley still gets treated like shit by everyone around her except for Andrew, this has been an ongoing thing since her childhood.

Next up is this scene with Mrs.Graves while setting up the ritual:

This was after Ashley says “Lookie ma! I drew a circle!”. Mrs.Graves immediately starts putting her down. Ashley’s response to what her mom said shows me that this is something that commonly happened. I’m sure there were many times in Ashley’s life where she’d attempt to impress her mom and receive praise, but would immediately get shut down by her instead. The more I think about how terribly Ashley was really treated, the more sad I get about it, what the fuck 😭.

Ok, last thing to dissect. I wanted to talk about this comment from a YouTube video that came up under the “all” section on there. Beware, it might make you lose braincells. 💀

“Ashley is heavily sexualized” let me stop you right there ✋🏻 lmao. No she is not. At least to me she isn’t, I never got the impression that the game sexualized her. A lot of male players sexualize her (because of course they do 🙄), but the game? I disagree. You could say Ashley views herself as a sex object, but that doesn’t mean she’s sexualized by the game. She views herself that way because of her low self-esteem and the fact that she doesn’t believe someone could genuinely love her. Not to mention her internalized misogyny. Source? I’m speaking from experience. Having terribly low self-esteem really does drive you to dark places. It can lead to you basing your self-worth on people finding you sexually attractive or just attractive in general, like your self worth is based on your looks alone. That’s how you get validation even if it’s from a not so good place. It wears off pretty fast though, and it leaves a poor after taste. It’s only a temporary “good” feeling. If you don’t like yourself, no amount of attention will be ever good enough for you or truly make you feel better.

“Goth-esque fetish ware”, first of all it’s “wear”, and the “fetish wear” in question is just shorts, a black shirt, and a choker 💀. I cannot lmfao. Does that mean Andrew has “goth-esque fetish wear” too? Bc him and Ashley literally dress the same 😂. Not that this matters, but Ashley and Andrew are more emo to me lmao.

“She’s definitely a manipulative psychopath”… opinion immediately discarded because of this part of the comment alone.

“Her heavily sexualized existence”…. Don’t piss me off 🙄 like??? I can’t believe they said that. People with a brain larger than the size of an atom know that Ashley’s entire existence isn’t sexualized, I’d argue that it’s quite literally the opposite. It’s almost like they want Ashley to be this seductive sex kitten, but she just isn’t that. They project that onto her. I feel like some people think that Ashley simply existing with a bigger bust means she’s automatically sexualized, some men feel this way about women with bigger busts in real life too, so them doing it to a fictional character doesn’t shock me. Worms for brains I swear.

The comment Ashley makes about her “big fat tits” in the motel room during her mini argument with Andrew was literally so unserious. There’s the scene where Andrew was lying on the couch in their parents house when Ashley wakes him up out of his dream, and we see him looking at her boobs from his POV. However, that was literally so mild, you hardly even saw anything lmfao. I feel like Nemlei added that in to show that Andrew’s sexually attracted to her, plus it was a little before the scene where Ashley playfully bites him, and (in my opinion) where they almost fully crossed the line (because of Andrew mind you) before their mom came in. We all saw that pillow placement 😂. There are other signs of him being attracted to her before that as well, like when we see him push the thought of hugging her to the back of his mind “where it may fester with all the thoughts he wish he never had” + that scene in the kitchen where he was sort of touching her butt and had his fingers through her belt loop, but when their mom came in he jerked away and looked as if he got caught.

People will claim that Ashley is the only one that’s incestuous and that she “forced” it onto Andrew, but in ch. 2, we see that Andrew is arguably more incestuous than she is. Ashley loves Andrew to death, but she isn’t exactly horny for him the same way he’s horny for her. Think about their reactions to the questionable route vision. Ashley was pretty chill about it, while Andrew was beat red and embarrassed because his repressed inner thoughts just got exposed. The demon clocked his tea 😂.

I’ve spoken about this before so I’ll keep it brief, when it comes to sex Ashley doesn’t care much about it and views it as transactional, as something she can use for personal gain. As I kind of said already, to me, her viewing herself as a sex object and having that view on sex in general ties into the fact that she has internalized misogyny and her personal belief that she’s unlovable. So, not only does she view herself as a sex object, but you could say that she also views other women as sex objects too.

This is my personal opinion which I’ve shared before, but when her and Andrew fully cross the line (because they’re definitely going to) and he finally shows her that he loves her as well, I think her views on sex may change a bit. That she’ll start seeing it as something out of love that they can both enjoy. As something they can experience together, instead of her ignoring her own desires and being his personal sex object to use to attempt to keep him around.

Do I think that Ashley isn’t horny for him at all? Tbh no. I mean she literally says she assumed it would happen between them eventually anyway, so she’s definitely thought about it before. However, it’s nowhere near Andrew’s level lmao. We know Ashley is a virgin and honestly, I think Andrew is the only one she’d happily lose it to. If she were to sleep with anyone else, I doubt she’d enjoy it and would only use it as personal gain for something. As of right now, she views sex as a way of keeping Andrew around, however, I feel this is because of the fact that she doesn’t actually think he loves her and will stay with her on his own. She loves Andrew and wants to be with him, she wants him to reciprocate her love. As I like to say, Andrew’s her boo 😂, that girl doesn’t want anyone else.

Alright, let’s finish dissecting that goofy YouTube comment.

“practically puts the usually male players protective instincts into overdrive.” I don’t know wtf this means lmao, but it made me cringe. Some men need to be banned from speaking on Ashley until we figure out what’s going on 😂. Bc every time they speak on her I lose braincells. “Protective instincts” yet they quite literally don’t understand anything about her character or her struggles 💀. Maybe sit this one out lmao.

Not to sound like a broken record, but a big part of Ashley’s character is that she has very low self-worth and that she doesn’t believe people, more specifically Andrew, could actually love her (💔). I mean think about how she’s been treated for her whole life, it makes sense as to why she developed those feelings about herself and others. Her mindset is “well people never cared about me, so why would I care about them?”. Having people regularly treat you like shit takes a toll on your self-esteem and impacts your world view. Especially if it happens in your childhood.

Ashley quite literally loves Andrew more than she loves herself. I want better for her :’( and she deserves better too. I don’t care about the Ashley haters opinions. There are people who believe that she’s faking her low self-esteem in order to manipulate Andrew….. 🤦🏻‍♀️. Have you even paid attention to anything in the game?? That’s one of the biggest things about her character like hello?

I should have added this in earlier oops, but I’m adding it in now. After her and Andrew first talk to the lady in 302 and they leave her apartment, Ashley asks why the lady got special treatment but they didn’t, and why she didn’t get any food. Andrew responds with “maybe you just aren’t pretty enough”, he wasn’t being serious, but she took it that way. It didn’t help that he said “I mean… wasn’t she?” After Ashley asked if he thought she was pretty. That’s why Ashley wanted to shoot her after the ritual. You can see Ashley looks upset when she asks “do you really think I’m not pretty enough?”. Then gets angry and says “So ugly am I, that I shouldn’t even be fed?”. This is her insecurity and low self-esteem kicking in on full display.

This is a similar situation to what happened when her and Andrew were looking for something to lock Nina in the crate with at the warehouse. She asked him what he thought about Nina and if he found her pretty. He said “she’s fine… I guess”, which made Ashley unhappy. Even though Andrew wasn’t into her, like at all. Ashley has been dealing with insecurity and low self-esteem ever since she was a little girl 😭. I’m so upset for her like you guys have no idea.

After Ashley traps Nina in the crate, there’s a point where she’s crying and says “It’s not fair!! Why does everyone like her better??” “I’m loud and weird and annoying and no one likes me at all!!!”. 😭. My heart is breaking as we speak. It’s hard for me to believe she said all of that just to manipulate Andrew in that scene. I know in ch. 3 we will be delving more into their childhood, and I have a theory that Ashley was also bullied in school. I mean to refer to herself as loud, weird, annoying, and to say that no one likes her at all. That absolutely came from somewhere, and I don’t think it was just from Mrs.Graves.

So, to see people with the emotional depth of a raindrop get online and say that she’s solely the problem, that Andrew needs to get rid of her, and that she’s simply just evil… is, to put it lightly, very annoying. I’m gonna say something, you know I love both Ashley and Andrew, but we need to be honest! People give Andrew too much of a pass. I mean they literally excuse all of the terrible things he’s done and blame Ashley for “making” him do it. They give him a pass for everything, but have 0 empathy for Ashley despite everything going wrong in her life since she was born. They completely ignore that she’s a product of her environment. When it comes down to it, what good experiences in life has she really had?

Also, Andrew is more violent than Ashley is. I think that’s self explanatory. People seem to forget that she quite literally just wants to live a peaceful life with Andrew. During the “quarantine” while they were still in their old apartment, she says “Aside from the starving, it’s not so bad here.” and “Aside from starving, I like it here”. Ashley doesn’t want to live a life of violence and chaos, and we see this in the room before unlocking the door that leads us to the two burial route choices. If you place the knife down (violence) nothing happens, but when you place the heart down (love) the door becomes unlocked. She also gets upset when Andrew tells her that they can’t live at their parents new house, she literally doesn’t want to be on the run and just wants stability.

On Pinterest, I see girls talk about how much they hate Ashley in the comment sections. They literally just do this because they think Andrew’s hot 😂. Especially when they call her a bitch, like grow up 🙄. I’ve also seen people refer to her as a “pick me”?? Literally how? Immature teens need to be banned from playing this game LOL. It’s giving those male celebrity fandoms that dig to find anything “problematic” on a girl said male celebrity is dating just because they’re pissed it isn’t them, they don’t actually care if she’s problematic or not.

It’s literally just misogyny, they do this a lot to women in media. Breaking Bad is the biggest example of this, the people that act like Skyler White is worse than Walter are delusional as hell. Sorry, but If you’re misogynistic, lack empathy and/or emotional depth, TCOAAL isn’t for you 🤷🏻‍♀️. Period. That’s why the game deserves a better fanbase than the one it has outside of Tumblr. It deserves better in general.

They don’t care to look into why Ashley is the way she is. If it wasn’t obvious already, Andrew brings out Ashley’s worst behavior and blames her for making him do bad things. In his mind he can’t be guilty, so he needs something on the outside to blame (Ashley). Mrs.Graves contributes to this btw, during the setup of the ritual before they sacrificed her and Mr.Graves she was pretty much saying “I know you don’t want to do this, I know she’s making you do it!” 🤦🏻‍♀️. She sounds like one of those boy moms that go “my son didn’t do shit!” 😂.

The worst are the people who reduce Ashley to fap material and a “hot crazy girl they can fix or make worse” 🤪, and basically fetishize her (unchecked) mental health issues that contribute to how she acts. Again, she’s had crippling insecurities and low self-esteem since she was a kid, Ashley has had just about 0 good life experiences outside of the ones with Andrew. So it is incredibly frustrating to see. I’m like I hate y’all I really do, read the damn room 🙄. They need to stop projecting their weirdo shit onto her.

People who fetishize mental illness and talk about how they want to “date a crazy bitch” are so gross. If/when they actually date someone with said mental health issues, when things get bad and they don’t fit the fantasy anymore, they’ll get disgusted and drop the person struggling with mental issues like trash. Anytime I see a guy say “crazy girls with mental issues are better in bed!”…. I’m like I know what type of man you are 🫥…. Perish 🗣️.

Ashley and Andrew both have unchecked mental illness, we know this. It’s quite literally not their fault. However, I personally don’t feel comfortable diagnosing them. Every time I see someone online say they were a born a psychopath, sociopath, etc. I lose brain cells. Mind you, I’m literally majoring in psychology and I still don’t feel comfortable diagnosing them.

To wrap things up because I know this post is LONG! I empathize with both Andrew and Ashley because they’ve both been dealt a bad hand in life. Their parents failed them in every way, and the society they live in is totally dystopian. However, when it comes to Ashley specifically? I have all the empathy for her in the world, especially because I understand some of the things she’s dealt with and how painful it really is. Digging deeper into her character shows you that she has quite literally been through hell and back. You can say she’s a victim turned villain, but honestly? I don’t really even consider her a villain, maybe that’s controversial to say but 🤷🏻‍♀️, I don’t think she’s irredeemable either. She’s someone who was hurt very badly, her wounds run deep, and she never really got to heal from any of it.

I just want her and Andrew to have a happy ending, it would be nice for them to experience genuine happiness for once. I would also like to see Ashley gain some self love in ch. 3, maybe Andrew will be able to help her with that in a way as their relationship improves.

Honestly, people who act like the questionable burial route is the “bad” ending are in denial so bad. Nemlei has said that “Burial” and “Decay” aren’t an indicator of a “good” or “bad” ending though. There will also be multiple outcomes to discover. I’m both excited, and scared lol.

I love Ashley Graves so much as a character, she’s so interesting and complex. I don’t play about her 😂. When it comes to defending her I’m on the frontlines lmao. The misogyny/hate when it comes to her is crazyyy. I’ll be the odd one out I don’t care, she’s my girlie 💕. It’s always refreshing to see other people who adore her and actually understand her as a character.

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Thank you so much for reading ❤️. I think this is my longest post yet 😳.

Also, a big thank you to everyone for all of the notes on my TCOAAL posts! I truly appreciate it. I’m so glad other people adore this game just as much as I do. :)

Unfortunately I’m not able to follow people back since this is a side blog. :/, but I do really appreciate everyone that follows me, I hope you like what I post. 💜

I’m currently working on creating an ooak doll of Ashley! 🤭💕. I’m SO excited to finish it and post her!