Don't waste your time or mine

1 - We don't know what the family is like in that timeline. His grandparents being alive could indicate that, by some miracle, Ashley and Andrew made up with their parents, at least for a bit. Anything is possible after that, including a perfectly happy incest baby.

2 - We don't know how big of a role Wren will have in the story, or in what context.

The people who ship a brother and sister in fiction and can separate it from reality, or the Zutara fan who has a total meltdown because their dream couple didn’t become canon. Now they’re swearing that the creators made adult Aang "hot" on purpose so incels and redpill guys could self-insert.

The funniest part is that the same people drool over 16-year-old Zuko, but when Aang shows up as a hot 20-year-old, it’s suddenly a massive conspiracy by the creators to appeal to the manosphere and "steal" Katara from Zuko.

Nope, it's as simple as "half of them haven't rewatched the show in years" and the other half just have stan-mind of "I like this character therefore they're good, I don't like that character therefore they're bad."

They're attached to Iroh and Zuko, so they don't even notice that Zuko played as big a role as Azula in supporting war, genocide and imperialism, and that Iroh's actions were worse than both of them combined on the simple basis of "he had more time to be awful." They're not attached to Azula, so they don't notice she has quite a bit of tragedy to her character, just like them.

It's a combo of wanting Zucest without getting rid of Maiko BUT also realizing infidelity (well, "infidelity" in this case) has great kink potential, and several smutty fanarts can confirm that.

For the zionism part: She's yet to go full Lady Gaga, but considering she's been silent about the topic for years, while being very close with people, at the very least, WERE zionists and either backed off of that or know better than to be as open about it now (HAIM sisters, Lana Del Rey, Adam Sandler) and also paying constant homage to Elizabeth Taylor, who had several movies banned in many parts of the Middle East due to her aggressive support of Israel, the "best" case scenario is "She REALLY doesn't care"

For the ICE part: I tried looking into it, and every fucking source I check says something different, from "It's a completely different guy that just happens to share a name with the ICE guy" to "Nope, it is 100% the same guy and it's as bad as it sounds" and even "He used to work for/own a place that was turned into an ICE facility AFTER he had already left", so I genuinely don't know how true that is...

(Even if the several different versions make me think "There has to be SOME connection, because if there wasn't, I can't see a cult-like fanbase like swifties not repeating the exact same, easily provable narrative that fully absolves Taylor of any wrong-doing")

BUT, let's not kid ourselves here. Taylor and Travis, as individuals, might not be MAGA (Trump has flat out mocked them for it several times), but the NFL very much is, and Hollywood might be generally "progressive" but it's also filled with known abusers, and just overall shitty people. And their wedding was filled with people that are important in both of their fields.

If I were to stop and carefully look at the background of every single guest, I'm 1000% sure I'd find LOTS of people that did morally reprehensible shit, even if the ICE thing were to turn out to be false. Aka what I sadly expect to be true of the work AND personal connections of literally any celebrity I'm even mildly interested in (again, see Gaga). Hell, I already side-eyed Taylor's constant Paul Mccartney association since the guy is not exactly a saint business-wise, though at least, as far as I know, he and George are the two Beatles who did NOT beat their wives! The bar is hell, yay!

1. The "Andrew took advantage of Ashley's innocence" argument:

Some players defend Ashley by claiming she is just a lonely, traumatized girl whose lack of sex education or guidance made her an easy target for her brother to exploit.

This narrative falls apart rather quickly. Ashley is not an naive child; she knows exactly what sex is, understands the power she holds over her brother, and knows how to use it to her advantage.

The idea that she wouldn't understand how pregnancy works is a massive stretch. Furthermore, thinking that Andrew, who is inherently paranoid, calculating, and obsessed with self-preservation, would engage in an incestuous relationship without any form of birth control or prevention makes no sense. Andrew's defining trait is his fear of getting caught and losing control. If they took risks, it was a deliberate choice made by two conscious individuals, not out of sheer ignorance.

2. The "Andrew would be normal if Ashley didn't torment him" argument:

On the flip side, some treat Andrew as a "chronically exhausted saint" a helpless victim who only committed atrocities because he was pushed to the brink by his sister's toxic manipulation.

Andrew makes active, conscious choices. He chooses to murder, he chooses to participate in cannibalism, and he chooses to indulge in the darkest impulses of their dynamic. Blaming Ashley entirely for Andrew's actions strips him of his own agency and sociopathy. He isn't a puppet; he is an active accomplice who feeds into the codependency just as much as she does.

Trying to find an "innocent" party in TCOAAL is a misunderstanding of the work. Stripping Ashley of her malice to turn her into a helpless victim, or stripping Andrew of his agency to turn him into a manipulated martyr, sanitizes a story meant to be visceral. Neither is the "lesser evil." They are both the architects and the prisoners of the hell they built together.

YEP, the only people that 100% were the bad guy towards both of them were their parents (from infancy to adulthood), as well as the guards and everyone else involved in the organ harvesting scheme.

Within their own dynamic though? They've both been victim and abuser. In some routes Andrew is worse, in others it's Ashley, and in some they both manage to be at their absolute lowest, or at their best. And in not a single one of these routes is either of them ever the fully innocent party that is in no way contribuiting to thinks getting worse.