graveyard-galaxy

[graveyard-galaxy]

Yk I realised one of saddest thing. Like people often hc that if Reese and Dougals were more present in Andy and Leyley's life things would be normal. But they both themselves just run away from their families. They were young and then they got to support two children in the hard economy, of they were gonna neglectful. I also think it highlights the point the young couples who often thing if they just run away with from their trama and start new life- everything be fine. But it's not a child cannot act like parents.

I’m going to answer these two asks together because they are very related.

I think what episode 3 has really served to hammer in is commentary on the cycle of abuse across the Graves family. We are shown Douglas’s parents in the opening sequence of the episode, and we finally get to hear about Renee’s family life (at least, slight mentions of her mother and sister) because like how the abuse between just Andrew and Ashley motivates each of them to keep the cycle going against each other on a somewhat self-contained level (at least whilst they’re just by themselves) a lot of their parents behaviour can be explained by their early home lives, and a lot of their behaviour can be explained by how Renee and Douglas treated them.

Douglas inherited many meek behaviours from his mother because his father is a physically and verbally abusive misogynistic prick. It’s clear enough from how Douglas actually respects Renee that he hasn’t internalised his father’s mindset, but he has certainly internalised things from growing up under him anyway. He’s like his mother in that he has learnt how to not set off his father by necessity. He doesn’t know how to stand up to himself because you just often can’t stand up to people like his father. And so when he becomes a parent himself, he’s apathetic, and he’s distant. He’s still very young himself, like you say, so he’s not emotionally equipped to actually support Andrew or Ashley, and given that he’s still recovering from being under his father’s oppressive thumb, of course it makes sense that his strategy is to just not enforce anything on his kids.

And then Renee… We know less directly about her homelife, so she’s slightly harder to analyse, but we also know MUCH more about her character. Interesting points to note are that she’s internalised a rule against physical violence – quite possibly due to Douglas’s parents given her total disdain for them, but this could also possibly be indicative of what her parents were like – and that her view on siblings is… skewed. We know that Renee felt that her sister’s presence was oppressive. We know that she tells Andrew that feeling like your sibling is everywhere and taking over your life is normal, and whilst she could just be trying to placate him, because that is most certainly her overall intention in the scene where she tells him that, I do think it likely comes from something of a genuine place, given how utterly vindictive she is about her sister’s death, and also how upset she gets after her mother only calls her to ask for help with her sister. So Renee won’t discipline with violence, but she will yell and scream and pass on responsibility, because in her mind, if siblings are that are oppressive, they might as well do something for it, right? And because she has very, very likely taken on a lot of her mother’s behaviours in a similar way to how Andrew has taken on a lot of hers.

It’s a genuine question that can still be asked why exactly Renee had Ashley. We know Andrew was an accident, and we know that he was an easy child despite Renee having gotten pregnant so young, but it’s certainly worth noting that Ashley was also a teen pregnancy, and that given Renee’s view on siblings, there is certainly something to look at here. Yes, we’re told by Renee herself that she had Ashley basically just because Andrew was easy, but if you start to think about it, why did she need a second child at all? Just the one was enough reason to never go back home, and Andrew was being at least partially raised by Douglas’s parents, who she hates anyway. We know she later views Ashley as a mistake, but what exactly were her intentions here? She was never going to be a great parent to Andrew, even if it had stayed only him, because she had already internalised a lot of the wrong behaviours, and Douglas is just so apathetic to anyone who isn’t Renee.

If I’m to speculate, the obvious throughline is regarding Renee’s own sister. We know that Renee is an older sister, and one possible interpretation of why she hangs up the phone when she does in the vision where her mother calls her is because she maybe does have complicated feelings on just letting her sister die. (Another possible interpretation, and perhaps the more obvious one, I should say, is that she’s just upset in general and has had enough of her mother so clearly using the same manipulation tactics that she uses on her kids on her) We know Renee’s angry at her mother for kicking her out and for not supporting her. But what role did Connie (her younger sister) have in that? Because she can’t have been a direct force, but she certainly could have been a compounding one, to Renee. We don’t know enough about her to say exactly, I suppose. I think in general though, a decent reading of this scene, and Renee’s broader story in general, is that she had Ashley, the second kid, because she’s acting at least partially out of spite to create the sort of “happy family” she felt she never had.

Or at least, the image of the happy family. Renee keeps Andrew despite everyone telling her not to, because suddenly it gives her reason to live with the one person she actually loves, and because when she’s met with an ultimatum by her mother, she decides she’d much rather do the harder thing of literally raising a child than stay there. It wasn’t her choice that she was kicked out — her mother is wrong about that – but it was hers to keep the child even after she left. So then Andrew is an easy child, and despite her and Douglas still being children themselves, maybe it does seem easy. Like, really easy to prove her mother entirely wrong, and show that she could raise a nice little happy family. So she has Ashley two years later as well, because maybe she feels the tiniest bit of lingering regret about Connie, but mostly, I suspect, she’s just sticking it to her mother. “Look, I have two kids now, and we’re all much happier than you’ll ever be!”

This goes wrong, terribly wrong, because Renee and Douglas’s motives for having these children are clearly not fair on the children themselves and don’t seem to actually have much interest in doing the hard work that comes with raising a child. To some extent, this is not their fault. They were children themselves at the time, and we can clearly see patterns of the cycle of the abuse appearing in them. But they made the decision to have Andrew and Ashley anyway. The thing is, to Renee, I suspect, it doesn’t matter that much. Siblings are oppressive, so leaving Ashley with Andrew is just normal, and as long as she looks like a good mother from the outside, especially to her family, I’m just not sure she cares.

You raise an interesting point about the gender of the kids, but I should say that I actually think it might matter considerably less to Renee that is being assumed here, because I think her ideal completed family is moreso built upon her own family’s structure, as opposed to societal norms. She is the older sister, and so she is the parallel to Andrew. If her first child had been a girl, I think perhaps she might have seen the parallels to herself more, but I also think that would have just been more likely to have to have the second kid – the Connie to her Renee, to really build up the image of the perfect happy family. And if her second child had been a boy? I still think she would have stuck Andrew on him to raise him, had he been as difficult as our Ashley, but I think this would be much more likely to potentially impact the Andrew and Ashley relationship (or, uh, Andrew and hypothetical second male child who for the sake of argument is exactly like Ashley) than it would be to impact Renee’s relationship with her kids. I think the scenario in which she would maybe have a third kid is one where Ashley was just as easy if a child to raise as Andrew, but even in that case, if Renee was just trying to mirror her own family’s structure, I suspect she would have stopped at just two kids anyway. (Unless, of course, she has more siblings that we don’t know about)

This is all mostly to say the firstly, I’m not certain there is any recognisably similar scenario where Andrew and Ashley are still born under the same circumstances but Renee and Douglas aren’t neglectful, but also, of course they would not be equipped to raise children at such a young age. The game tells us this through Douglas’s mother, who basically says as much to Renee, even if she’s not so direct about it because of her learned behaviours from being around her husband.

Douglas and Renee couldn’t just run away from their trauma in the most literal way possible, because they had to leave Andrew and Ashley at “the wife-beater’s” house anyway, at the heart of Douglas’s trauma, and with the people Renee had been planning to murder only months before. She has no good options once she’d had the child, no, and if she really wanted to have it, then that was her prerogative, but just because of her situation, it was never going to go well. Andrew was never going to have a good life under his parents, let alone Ashley.

[graveyard-galaxy]

Why Ashley Gets Along with the Entity and What it Might Want

There's a delightful irony to the fact that the only person Ashley seems to even somewhat get along with that's not Andrew is a literal demon. And when you see the interactions between them throughout the routes it makes sense.

For one Ashley doesn't have a fear reaction that would tell her to run the other way. It's been stated that Ashley isn't afraid of Andrew, but I think it's more accurate to say that she's not afraid of anything except for one specific thing. Being separated from Andrew. She can take on anything else so long as Andrew stays. Even after being almost killed and beaten up by Andrew she is more afraid of his absence than the clear danger he presents to her. Even when it comes to dying, its not the death that scares her (though she clearly doesn't want to die and would rather not thanks) it's the idea of death permanently separating her from Andrew.

All this to say unless the Entity threatens to unglue her and Andrew Ashley sees nothing wrong with hanging with it. It's only in the scenes where it says that Andrew could betray her in Cliffhanger and when it threatens to kill Andrew in Shots that Ashley's ever afraid, because in both cases it threatens to permanently split them apart.

So that's why she's unbothered by the Entity, now let's move on to why they actually get along. That being deals. The deals the Entity makes are, at least on the surface, clear-cut and precise. It wants A in exchange for B, simple and easy to follow.

There's no vague request for conceptual shit like Andrew demands. Respect? Boundaries? Even if she would agree to those things, she has no fucking clue what that means or how to implement things like that, because she never had to learn those concepts and frankly doesn't even respect herself or her own boundaries. Not to mention to her things like respect and boundaries might feel like excuses for Andrew to get away from her, the one thing she's afraid of so like, no thanks. There's also the issue of Andrew himself never specifying what he really wants from her, because to do so would reveal how down bad he is. Even if Ashley somehow learns respect, it was never going to be enough for Andrew in the first place. But that's for another post. Moving on!

With the Entity she doesn't feel the need to "play games" with it to get the needed reaction. What it wants and what it provides in exchange appear obvious and solid. She doesn't need to perform a specific way to get what she wants, she just needs to do simple exchanges. It's the same with the puzzles in the world. It initially frustrated her, but once she understood that she just needs to do A to get to B the same way deals work it was easy to follow. When she understands the rules of the game she thrives.

And while the Entity isn't the best conversationalist, it also doesn't pass judgement on Ashley's crassness. It doesn't belittle her or question her intelligence like Andrew always does even when they get along. The only time it went, "girl why?" was the period blood summoning, which Ashley simply laughs off. It doesn't seem to care but it does appear to listen to her quietly when she complains. It often doesn't have a response (or maybe it's more accurate to say it doesn't know how to respond most of the time) but it also doesn't cut her off. It even sometimes acts genuinely curious about Ashley, asking about why she's so attached to "the brother" and if she's in the right headspace to do business.

Like when Ashley was first complaining about Andrew in the Realm Between, the Entity lets her finish before continuing its offer. And then later in the parents' basement it makes note of the brother, showing that despite not seeming to care it was paying attention to what she said. How it treats Andrew is also affected by Ashley's response. It wasn't just that Andrew's a Grime Soul that made the Entity so dismissive of him, it was how Ashley introduced him.

She says she doesn't know why she keeps him around, which is why the Entity is later confused at why she wants him around anyway. Even after the vision of her dying at his hand and especially in Shots where she was literally almost killed by him.

Then in Shots when she ends up as his eternal servant and is the most agitated with her, it still lets her stay with Andrew in the Human Realm. There's no reason for the Entity to not keep her trapped in the Demon Realm regardless of how she feels, or even let Andrew leave instead of killing him after he freed all the souls. And yet it does. While also being suuuuper petty about it lol.

"HuRrY uP aNd DuMp HiS aSs, TaR sOul"

This isn't to say it's doing things out of kindness. A lot of what the Entity does seems to be more about what's most convenient while conserving its energy. It's how it treats summoning, where its very calculating on which summons are worth the cost, and it's how it treats the souls it takes, allowing them to hang out in a nice playground so they don't fade too fast. And this extends to its treatment of Ashley. It may want her obedience and for her to dump her brother in Decay, and could push for this harder, but the effort it would take for her to cooperate just wouldn't seem worth it. It's not worth fighting her over it.

It goes in line with one of the first things we learn about demons too.

But also Ashley doesn't care as much about the Entity's reasons more than what it provides. That's why it's impossible for Andrew to convince her it's up to something. She doesn't care! What matters is that the demon gave her the trinket and an isolated place to stay, things that she believes ensures Andrew stays with her.

The certainty of keeping Andrew with the leverage of a trinket to prevent troubles and a place he can't escape her outweighs any price she pays to the Entity. So long as the Entity doesn't separate Andrew from her Ashley will consider the Entity a pal. She gets what she wants and it get what it wants, win win!

...............this friendship might be shaken up depending on how Ashley reacts when Andrew's not there after waking up. I think the Entity might be able to spin it by insinuating Andrew's himself agreed to doing the "cooperating" to go back to the human realm and leave her, which would punt the blame onto Andrew. But it's going to be difficult threading the needle.

So why is the Entity, which as stated before prefers to conserve its energy and only take deals worthwhile, putting so much time and effort in Ashley? Let's explore what this evil little ball of yarn's end goal could be.

Main Course Ashley?

I'm just getting this one out of the way. One of the main predictions that seems to go around is the Entity wanting to eat Ashley's soul and is preparing her for that. While that would fit the whole cannibalism stuff and would match how the Entity treats its souls as free-range livestock, I just don't think this one's that likely.

For one it seems like the only souls the Entity wants to consume are Untainted souls. It calls both the Grime and Tar To-Be souls "useless" when it's given either to snack on. So instead of Tar Souls being the best to eat they might actually be the least edible.

And for two we have the interactions between Ashley and the Entity in Shots & Such. Ashley in her panic told it to stop Andrew from attacking in exchange for "anything." We've seen how this usually works out with the very first summoning in Episode 1.

Offering the demon "anything" gives it free reign to take whatever it wants with no restrictions. Usually that leads to it just flat-out taking the person's soul. But when offered "anything" from Ashley the Entity instead makes her it's eternal servant.

Forever being the key word here. Whatever it's planning for Ashley, it requires her being alive. Or at leave with her soul intact.

As a bonus there's also the terms it set with Andrew before he left.

Clearly the Entity never intended for Andrew to find all five wandering souls and return, but it still agreed to Ashley being in the realm, safe and sound. If it was planning on snacking it wouldn't have agreed to the terms easily.

But "safe and sound" doesn't have to mean "untouched and unchanged" which leads us to...

Ashley Joining the Demon Club?

The other popular theory and the one I agree with most is that the Entity wants Ashley to become a demon.

In Cliffhanger it made a point of explaining its reasoning for choosing which summons to pursue, and lets Ashley sift through the summons herself. It very much felt like it was teaching Ashley how to take souls as a demon would.

During the vision in Episode 2 Ashley said a soul looked cute and the Entity was like "you mean tasty?" It really felt like it was suggesting something to Ashley when it said that, though it could be that as a demon it didn't understand what "cute" meant. Either way I think it wants Ashley to snack on some souls, which is why he's gathering so many. She's a growing demon to-be she needs the nutrients.

To become an Entity probably requires a lot of souls, but depending on the method it might somehow have to involve another Entity spending energy. After all according to the Entity in order for humans to enter the demon world without dying they need to be summoned. Meaning when it was still a human another being had to have summoned it there.

There's also the chance that Ashley's being affected by just interacting with the demon, using the trinket, and/or being in the demon realm and realm in-between and vice versa. In the first troubles ahead vision there's only the red eyes surrounding it.

But then every vision after recharging the trinket includes eyes colored similar to hers.

HMMMMMM......

So yeah my bet is on Ashley becoming a demon. The real question to me is the why. Why does the Entity want another Entity? Here's the options I'm putting down before I mercifully let you go.

Powerful Ally - It might not want to eat Ashley, but there may be a benefit to having a powerful being under your wing. I think this is actually the baseline possibility with Shots in mind, since in that route it plans on keeping Ashley as a servant after she Ascends. I'm also just guessing that newly formed Entities are a lot stronger than veteran Entities like the yarn ball, since they haven't spent any of their energy yet. (Would piss off Andrew because its supposed to be just him and her like they promised. The demon is NOT INVITED!)

Inheritance - There's also the chance it wants to "raise" Ashley to inherit its realm. Perhaps there's a cycle of Entities in the Demon Realm who pass on their demon genes before running out of energy. Because yeah, demon is smol which indicates its used up a lot of its energy already, and while it could consume the many souls in the playground its choosing to only partake for visions and travel fees. Who knows, maybe when Ashley ascends she'll eat the yarn ball, thus completing the inheritance. (The idea of someone else "raising" Ashley would piss off Andrew to no end because she's his problem and no anyone else's)

Fusing - Another interesting idea is if entities can fuse together like cells. That way Ashley's still technically unharmed and uneaten but the Entity combines with her and would be able to siphon her power. Think angler fish, where the tiny male permanently latches onto the much larger female and acts as a parasite stealing nutrients. And in the Shots scenario the Entity would probably have most control of the "body" as Ashley's already its servant (I can't even begin to describe how pissed Andrew would be with this one even without servitude involved like not to curse but my god-)

Loneliness? - Okay like Ashley casually suggests maybe the demon just wants friends in reaction to Andrew's suspicion and its very clear we're supposed to roll our eyes at this like Andrew does...but wouldn't it be funny if she was right? The little yarn ball, alone with it's toy car that no longer moves, plants that it cares for, souls it lets roam around and play instead of consuming...it might state its doing what it does for convenience and utility, but it might also be for something it can't quite remember. That once human need for companionship. It could be like Ashley, someone who on the surface is plain evil, but beneath that is someone just desperate to not be alone...................................Nah probably not. I am interested in seeing a scenario where the yarn ball wants to be what Andrew is to Ashley, or to even be taken care of the way Andrew cares for Ashley, but I fully expect the author to ruthlessly pour cold water over this idea next episode. (...but I mean if it DOES somehow turn out to be true you know how Andrew's going to react already don't you?)

Now I'm leaving out the predictions to what the demon's plans could be that involve Andrew, since in most of Decay Andrew is seen as a nuisance at best and a direct danger to Ashley at worst. The only time the demon seems interested in Andrew is in the Leyley Wins ending, when he becomes harmless to Ashley and is unable to interfere with whatever it wants to do. I'll talk about what the demon could want with Andrew involved in a another post (I've been saying that a lot huh.) Until then, toodles!

[graveyard-galaxy]

Okk I do not support incest or whatever (like how do you mean support it by marching the prade??) but anyways so as I was saying-Andrew and Ashley are meant to be with each other, like screw anyone for not liking tcoal because of their relationship which very in fact is the basic core of tcoal. People need to get understand not even get over it like you can't ignore it-it is the reason they have come to the situation they have come. Also I love exploring ur account (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)

Honestly, though… If you don’t like tcoaal, that’s fine, but there’s a big difference between being able to just say “I don’t like it” or “it makes me uncomfortable and that’s why I don’t want to engage with it” and going “I don’t like something so it’s bad” or “this psychological horror game makes me uncomfortable so it’s bad”. Like yeah, no shit, do you know what genre you’re in? ESPECIALLY people who haven’t even played it but immediately judge based on the subject matter. No one’s saying you have to start liking it, but if you don’t like, just don’t engage? Just understand that’s it’s not for you…

And yeah! Andrew and Ashley are quite obviously the core of the game! Even most of the scenes we get about other characters, especially the visions in episode 3 from other characters’ perspectives, are made to inform us about the siblings by proxy.

Yes, the vision with Renee’s phone call expands on Renee’s relationship with her family and with Douglas, yes, it does actually give us something more than a few lines long to work with for Douglas, and yes, it begins to explain Renee quite a lot, but part of the reason any of that is relevant is because seeing Renee’s isolation from her family and hearing that she has a sister that she refuses to be near is quite telling about her view of Andrew and Ashley, and that then helps to explain her treatment of them by proxy. And seeing Julia talk to Jane on the phone before she meets up with Andrew in another vision builds Andrew’s character by showing us someone who sees right through him in Jane, but also someone who wants to see the best in him despite his off-putting actions when Ashley is brought into things in Julia. We spend so much time seeing Andrew’s thoughts on Julia and whatnot in the episode 3 flashbacks, that getting to see him from the outside is here to help inform us about how he outwardly appears – about why he’s generally well liked.

There aren’t somehow “safe” aspects of this game to fixate on in place of Andrew and Ashley, because this is a story about them. If you say you like tcoaal, but don’t at least somewhat like Andrew and Ashley and their relationship (and I say somewhat because obviously there are some very good reasons to not like one or both of them at various parts of the story) do you actually like tcoaal? Because once again, it is okay to not like something, just don’t make that everyone else’s problem, and don’t call tcoaal inherently bad for it. The game is clearly very interested in exploring what exactly these two characters are like, who and what they are to each other, and how that all came to be; it cares a lot about the story it’s portraying, so the least anyone could do in return is respect that.

And I’m very happy to hear you enjoy my blog! I have a lot of fun trying to analyse media in general, and tcoaal just runs so deep that it’s very rewarding to look into.

[graveyard-galaxy]

andrew graves made me realize i’m ftm

Honestly, anon, good for you 👍 I imagine that’s quite the story to tell, ahah

[graveyard-galaxy]

No hate to Julia but people who like her only because "she is better than a psycho sister" gets to my nerves like I thought we already clear that Andrew and Ashley both have their influence on each other, both see each other as their own property. Plus do you saw how cute schoolgirl Ashley was? I would probably want to keep her forever too!

It is certainly a shame, because I do think I often see people either only liking Julia because she’s “safe” to like, as you say, or plainly refusing to believe that she could actually be someone not somehow secretly fucked up and evil. Both cases are quite saddening to me, because both are just people refusing to engage with the game and its writing.

Julia is absolutely an interesting character in her own right, especially when you begin analysing pretty much all of her phone calls (I think I have some tags lying around on this blog somewhere about how interesting her episode 1 phone call is knowing what we do about her character now) but she’s not a good character just because she’s the “non-incest option” or “not as rancid as Ashley”. If you truly see Ashley as purely a burden to Andrew, or think the game would be better without the incest, I don’t know what to tell you. Julia and Andrew’s relationship is interesting to me because it is also terrible, just in a very different way to Andrew and Ashley’s.

Julia’s final letter to Andrew in Shots and Such about having been afraid of him is absolutely fascinating, especially when paired with a lot of the flashbacks we get of her in the cliffhanger ending, because we see and hear about the kind of treatment which sort of seems so right on the surface, but we have the benefit of seeing Andrew’s actual thoughts and knowing just how shallow most of it is.

Andrew: “(That’s right, I love Julia. She’s nice and, uhh… kind.)”

Certainly the words of someone who knows and cares about who they’re talking about here………

But in all seriousness, thinking that Julia is just simply a better option than Ashley fundamentally misunderstands the Andrew and Ashley dynamic, as well as honestly demeaning Julia quite a bit? Surely it should be evident that if you (not you specifically, anon, just ‘you’ as in someone) supposedly like Julia for not being as bad as Ashley, then you either don’t respect, Ashley, Julia, or both.

It’s like you say, anon! Andrew and Ashley both need each other around, and see each other as property that they are owed, so of course they can never truly stay away for long. Andrew views Renee parentifying him to take care of Ashley as her having given him Ashley to keep, his nightmare to forever love and then hate and then love again, and Ashley very genuinely believing Andy’s forced promises to Leyley are binding because she very much needs them to be binding to validate herself. He’s owed Ashley because he views her as a creature given to him, and she’s owed Andrew because he’s the only one who fulfils her needs, so once he’s played the part of her Andy in the toy box, that’s how she expects him to stay.

We are shown very clearly that even whilst separated for Ashley in the year they were apart, even and whilst actively on dates with Julia, Andrew can only think of Ashley for a reason.

[graveyard-galaxy]

Feel like it’s been a little quiet around here lately. If anyone wants to send me tcoaal thoughts my inbox is very much open :)

[graveyard-galaxy]

Agree with pretty much all of this, but if I could just add one thing (because the scene’s been on my mind since yesterday…)

Narrator: You tell your husband it was probably your kids that killed the child on TV.

Douglas: “That’s………….. awful, isn’t it? But they’re just kids. The consequences can’t be that bad can they?”

Renee: “I don’t wanna be in the news as that bitch who raised her kids so badly someone died!”

I think it pretty succinctly sums up both Renee and Douglas’s general views about what happens with the kids. We see Douglas acknowledge how fucked up it is, but then also downplay it. The consequences for the kids can’t be that bad, he suggests, not really caring that his kids killed someone or that there will still be some consequences for this. As usual, he’s apathetic, because it doesn’t directly involve Renee. He has no bond with the kids, so he can’t really care.

Renee though… Her reaction here is not especially subdued or token. There’s no one to act for, since Douglas already knows exactly who she is, so she is perfectly happy to be as callous as she likes. And yeah. She doesn’t care that the kids might be in trouble, or that they committed a murder, or anything like that. She worries exclusively about her reputation. There is no remorse or regret for her obvious part in why her kids, especially Ashley, might have taken a classmate to a warehouse and killed her (which, from her perspective, is what happened, given that all Ashley said to her about the matter was that she and Andy killed [Nina] ) and no sense that her kids are anything to her other than a front of a happy family so she can pretend she has a stable life.

Should've sent this yesterday but ever felt like Renee ever felt guilty or remorse for anything she did to the kids? At all?

happy belated mother's day Renee wish the kids had killed you worse! anyways... that's an interesting question because like, it feels like you could make an argument for that based on two separate scenes but I'm much more inclined to believe she doesn't and that Renee was largely more uncomfortable when faced with the reality "I'm murdering my children for money" more than actual guilt or remorse for doing it. i used to think maybe she did when i first only played Chapter 1 but not anymore

so first in chapter 1 Renee seems to have some regret or hesitation about what she's doing, and then again in the 3a flashbacks she seems to have some hesitation to the point of having to ask if there's truly no chance the kids are going to live for assurance to go through with it

but also Renee's response when she's lead to believe the kids definitely died in a fire and they're 100% in the clear was to buy steaks and wine to have a celebration dinner. Renee's flashbacks shows her viewing her kids solely as Embarrassment and Disappointment in her internal narration. nothing about her actions after believing them to be dead hints at any kind of actual remorse in any capacity, only joy

Renee is a Tar Soul To-Be and i think these scenes are more like... Renee being uncomfortable with being confronted with the reality of what she's doing more than feeling guilty about it. something Nemlei talked about in that Q&A regarding Renee's original plan is noting that there are some similarities between them, and I think Insincere Catholic Guilt is definitely one of them. teen Andrew laments that he would turn himself if it would bring back Nina but justifies because it won't there's no reason to, there's a really great post about it here and I think Renee is kind of the same. this was still presumably early enough she could've gotten her kids out quicker, but the Surgeon says there's no way her kids are gonna make it. she knows the parasites aren't real. but this grand conspiracy with forces stronger than them has taken root... if her kids are going to die no matter what, shouldn't she get something, a compensation for the 22 years she spent on these hellions? it's going to happen no matter what, even if she warns them, they'll probably prevent them from leaving right?

that's just how i read these scenes. i think if Renee felt actual genuine remorse she would've probably like, more calmly accepted her fate in chapter 2, you know? like, ha. i tried to kill my own kids. of course they're going to kill me and their father. i had this coming. of course the situation was fucked beyond belief, but that's my personal take. if Renee had been a full Tar Soul i doubt she would've been uncomfortable facing the reality of it though. what Renee really wants is both justification for her actions and to be able to turn a blind eye to the reality of what it cost

you could say that maybe she was written to be harsher than initially intended when the early game was still out before chapter 2 and some aspects of her changed just a little bit, but i doubt Nemlei would've done that and i think her character has been pretty consistent. i suppose you could also argue the first scene isn't reliable as it was solely from Ashley's POV and Ashley shows throughout the game (and especially in 3A) she has an odd relationship with wanting her mother's attention despite hating her and that this might've been more being shown from her perspective alone and that Renee was harsher, but unless Burial shows Ashley misremembering things from the past with her own rose-tinted filter i find it really unlikely. everything in this paragraph is purely just wild mass guessing speculation

tl;dr: no i think she's just uncomfortable being confronted with the reality of her actions like Andrew usually is because she also wants to believe she's a normal person in normal society

[graveyard-galaxy]

You know I actually think Douglas Graves is more spineless than Andrew could ever be. Douglas seems to simply view himself as an extension of his wife, I do not think Andrew consistently views himself as an extension of Ashley.

This one’s interesting, because I do conceptually agree, but I also think I have a little more to say than just that.

Where Andrew and Ashley vs Douglas and Renee gets interesting to me is that Douglas isn’t necessarily portrayed as uncomfortable just doing what Renee wants in the same way that if nothing else, just the ____ in a box ending (Choosing Andy ending in episode 3) shows that Andrew is completely miserable just being Ashley’s plaything. It does get a little hard to say, because we are very deliberately shown very little of Douglas, typically, because the story is told from Andrew and Ashley’s perspectives, and he is completely absentee to both of them. (We don’t even get his portraits until we’re in a vision from Renee’s perspectives, for instance) I would say though, that whereas Andrew feels confined and consumed by being under Ashley’s thumb, Douglas seems to be comfortable under Renee’s direction, from what we see.

He won’t stand up to his abusive father, but Renee will do it for him. (They had a plan to kill his parents together, and though we have no idea how much Douglas really liked the idea of this, we know that he was perfectly prepared to go along with the plan before they discovered and decided to keep Renee’s pregnancy.) He doesn’t get the social mind games the surgeon plays with him, but Renee does, and he’s perfectly happy for her to just speak for him entirely in the opposite way to how the surgeon speaks to him for her. And even just in the car on the way to the grandparents! He tries to stammer out to the kids why they shouldn’t ruin the car, but they don’t respond, and then he’s perfectly happy to let Renee bark out the orders. (Only to Andrew, passing that chain of responsibility right along, as well….)

Andrew wouldn’t take this from Ashley. We’ve all known for a while that his ‘doormat extraordinaire’ descriptor is a good bit of unreliable narration, and is exactly what he wants us to think, but it’s still worth noting for that all he does give into Ashley and appear to be that doormat, it’s reluctantly. A lot of the time he’s only battered down into agreeing with her, which is part of why he’s so frustrated and often times verging on nihilistic in episode 3.

So whilst, yep, I do think Douglas would be happy to call himself an extension of Renee, because when he comes home from long hours of work, feeling tired and frustrated and perhaps verging on nihilistic (note, we do not know this, but considering he has to tell Andrew in an episode 2 flashback that he isn’t about to jump off the balcony, it’s not hard to see potential parallels to our very suicidal and nihilistic Shots and Such Andrew) she makes everything right again.

But it really is more complicated for Andrew. Just in this framework, Andrew is both happiest when he has Ashley right beside him, but also at his most miserable when he’s ‘forced’ to put up with her. When he’s apart from Ashley, he feels wrong. But when he’s with Ashley, they so frequently fight and he does things that he doesn’t like. If he thinks of himself as an extension of her, it’s in a very miserable sense; he wants to be more to her than just what she wants to be, and more than just Leyley’s Andy, and feels confined as just her plaything. He views her as fundamentally incapable of drawing any kind of lines between them, so when he is Ashley’s anything, for all that he claims to be happy to be her everything, it isn’t offering any kind of safety or fulfilment in the same way that being Renee’s husband offers something to Douglas.

To put it succinctly, Andrew yearns for an equal partnership; Douglas yearns to be with Renee in any capacity.

Or, well, it’s hard to say exactly how Douglas feels, because we never see his perspective, and because most of the thoughts we have on their relationship are from Renee’s perspective. But we know that they both feel as though they saved each other — it’s just that Renee’s words about this are a lot stronger. She very fervently insists that meeting Douglas is practically the only good thing to happen to her, in her time capsule letter, but Douglas’s is more… wishy-washy, I suppose? He says that being with Renee gives him a reason to stay alive, but practically everything else he says is along the lines of “I want to do this because you do”. Even in Renee’s vision in the vision room, mostly Douglas seems to just test the waters more saying anything concrete, so it’s hard to get his thoughts on things beyond just the obvious “I love my wife”.

What I will say is interesting about that vision is how he does take some actions without Renee’s direct input. He, at the very least, is in tune with her enough to act on her behalf sometimes, as here, he unplugs the phone for her, and is the first to tentatively bring up that they don’t have to do anything about Andrew and Ashley potentially being Nina’s killers. But I think more relevantly here, we also observe he easily he backpedals. He thinks out loud about how the punishment for Andrew and Ashley can’t be that bad if they killed Nina, because they’re both just kids – very apathetic to the situation as he’s apathetic towards the kids – but quickly changes his tune when Renee snaps about not wanting to be seen as the mother of two kids raised so badly they’re murderers. After that, that’s when he starts of his casual avoidance – the “We don’t know that it actually happened, so therefore it probably didn’t” type attitude. (Curiously, this is more of a parallel to Ashley’s line of thinking about Nina with her whole “If you don’t think about something for a really long time, it’ll be like it never happened” type mentality.)

We see Andrew test the waters in similar ways, especially in episode 1, where he lets Ashley dictate a lot of his behaviour for some kind of plausible deniability (“Do we, uhh… Do you want to go check on him?” about the neighbour once on his balcony, and the infamous “Wanna go take a peek?” “Nope. But I’ll come along if you do…” about going to see what the music is about the first time) but I think this comes from a bit of a different place. Douglas tests the waters with what he says because he fundamentally trusts his wife’s judgment over his own, seemingly, and because he doesn’t want to go against her. But Andrew speaks like this because his mask is still so far up in episode 1, especially when we don’t see him from his perspective, so he’s still very much shifting responsibility for what they do onto Ashley because he doesn’t want to accept it. It’s not that Andrew especially trusts Ashley’s judgment, clearly not, given how much he doubts and insults her plans and motives in later episodes, but if she makes the decisions, then it’s just not his fault if things go wrong.

Or once again, to summarise, Douglas lets Renee be responsible for his actions and opinions because he trusts her and because he wants his thoughts to align with hers, whereas Andrew lets Ashley be responsible for his actions and seemingly at fault for his opinions only when it’s both most convenient for him to have her to blame, and when he’s willing to entertain her as actually Ashley – when he’s having enough fun with her to actually want to hear her thoughts.

Because if there’s one big thing that stops Andrew from being an extension of Ashley, it’s that most of the time, he doesn’t see her as her own person. Most of the time, if anyone’s an extension of anyone, she’s just some extension of him, as he’s the stand-in mother, father, boyfriend, whatever the fuck she feels like that day to her, whilst he consistently dehumanises and infantilises her. He can’t be the extension of someone he views as never having grown out being a child at the best of times, and as simply an “it” – some kind of object that can’t be consistent because it doesn’t have its own thoughts – at the worst. And when she attempts to force him into that position – when she chains him up or puts him away in the toy box – he’s miserable, because he is only willing to be Ashley’s if it’s on his terms.

[graveyard-galaxy]

Hello graveyard! you think the burial ending, despite them not addressing their past issues, will involve them reconciling for their past behaviors and moving on without further toxicity towards each other?

I'm not nearly as confident about the future of Burial as the rest of Decay, just by virtue of it having not even started yet, however! I think that if Burial has multiple endings like Decay, we will certainly see some (likely multiple) 'bad' endings/dead states. But as for a more reconciliation ending?

To say with much certainty, I'd want to see if Decay has one, but given that we're closer to that with the Cliffhanger than Shots and Such, I wouldn't discount it. My hang-ups about it are simply that a lot of what's been implied about Burial hasn't been... quite as cheerful as I think a lot of us were expecting.

Nemlei has stated in the devlog that just burying your problems is liable to make them worse, and there has also been added text to episode 2 now to show that the rift between them has not been quite as closed in Burial as we'd previously thought (Ashley apparently trusts the trinket and its ability to save her more so than she does plainly Andrew) and we have dialogue by the romance door explicitely telling us that it won't go the way we expect. Honestly, I'd likely be a little more comfortable considering where some if these changes will take Decay, given the Entity's vision of Andrew burning the trinket, however, I shall endeavour to do my best anyway!

I suspect that "without further toxicity" is just too great an ask if they're not addressing any of their issues. I absolutely do think it's worth remembering that whilst some of Burial's end of episode 2 dialogue is much more friendly, it also shares a decent amount of it with Decay, where Andrew is still on edge and a bit snappy. He's not cold or detached in the same way, but just because he's not pissed off in general doesn't mean he can't still get annoyed at Ashley, you know?

Now, clearly some of their issues will be addressed, else how else will we get what (appears to be) Andrew and Ashley having sex and seemingly both enjoying it? (note, due to the nature of visions, this is liable to never even come true, but come on. I sincerely doubt we'll not get any furtherment of their relationship in Burial, romantic or sexual) We know very well from Shots and Such (and some Cliffhanger flashbacks too) that Ashley has large hang-ups about sex, and especially about letting herself enjoy it, and we also know that Andrew is very firmly in camp "make it look like an accident or it won't happen at all" until Ashley forces it, and he can't see her as enough of her own person to actually rightfully blame her.

I just think that any reconciliation for past behaviours in Burial are perhaps more likely to be *sweeps under the rug and pretends it doesn't matter anymore*. In a worst case, I see a Shots and Such type ending, except where one or neither are willing to acknowledge that what's going on is truly miserable, and in a best case... Perhaps they really are forced to deal with their respective issues towards having sex with each other, and we get the rare 'consensual and enjoyable sex in tcoaal' achievement, but that seems like something possible by just looking forward. A lot of it requires Ashley to grow up, but perhaps not to actually consider why she never really grew up in the first place. If we get a happier tone of ending, I do honestly still expect it to be a bit toxic...

I think that perhaps they'll take the Nina approach to dealing with past issues: if you don't think about something for a really long time, you won't even remember it. Well, I don't know how well that will work for Andrew... But if Ashley comes to accept Andrew acting differently to how she expects, not needing her to comfort him, it really might be that this is the catalyst to growing up without addressing the past. If Andrew and Ashley can actually be fun to her, like she eludes to the night as teens that Andrew firmly rejects her we see in the Cliffhanger, it won't be about the push and pull of Andy and Leyley, and she will seem to have made development, just without much actual self-reflection. Like a lot of things with her, that would be Andrew-focused.

And it's hard to imagine that Andrew would be as comfortable with that as her, given how there are a lot of past incidents that Ashley is extremely flippant towards that bother him a lot. But then again, we can kind of see Andrew being pushed into the direction of closer to Ashley without reflection in how because he thinks that Ashley trusted him to leave him with their parents, he didn't bother having to panic about it all. He wasn't mourning himself like he was in Decay, when he cuts up his parents, and thus fairly inadvertently, he's become closer to what Ashley wants without her really understanding why.

If the conflict in Burial is primarily about their new changes in behaviour, specifically with Ashley's fear of how Andrew's seemingly changing, and then perhaps Andrew's push-back to that, then they really are just leaving the past behind without bothering to dig up the ugly parts which are actually informing their behaviours and conflicts now. Perhaps it will be less surface-level toxic. But this is Andrew and Ashley; with how far they've gotten now, I do think it would take MOUNTAINS of change to truly remove the root of toxicity that neither wish to address in Burial. And it's Andrew and Ashley, so even if they do reconcile, they'll probably find a way to keep fighting anyway.

[graveyard-galaxy]

The scene has also now been uploaded!!

This is a kinda silly one, but you got any thoughts on the phone call to the police you can have Andrew make in Shots and Such where he confesses?? (Has anyone else even seen this scene, because I tried to find footage of it for this ask, but couldn’t immediately find any??) Because on the one hand, I think it’s obviously supposed to be a sort of joke type scene, where like yeah, look Andrew confesses all of the bizarre and messed up stuff to the police, and it’s kinda funny when he lays it all out like that, but also, I don’t know, there’s something about how they *don’t* believe him that fascinates me. It’s so against all of his paranoias, and it’s like… the second he tries to make a choice whilst Ashley has him chained up, it’s disregarded. And interesting narrative flip of the first two episodes.

And maybe in some way, it’s honestly some pretty depressing commentary on where Shots and Such is going from there. Calling the police and confessing all of your sins isn’t even a dead end because nothing comes of it. Once Andrew steps into the demon realm with Ashley on the Shots and Such main branch, the only dead ends out of it are a murder-suicide, and double suicide… (Or, okay, technically you can get caught by the police with Carl, and by Julia with the fridge, but those don’t get ending cards, so???) For a joke extra scene that I think most people missed, because *obviously* calling the police isn’t a good idea, I do just think it verges on interesting. I really wanted to find some footage of it to say something a little more specific about the actual content of the conversation, but uh. Like I said, I couldn’t find any, so I’m just going off of my memory of it from nearly a month ago :/ Sorry about that…

okay so @sunshine-jesse has the transcripts of the conversation and i read them!

i think him just blatantly explaining all of the horror he has committed like he’s recalling yesterday’s breakfast is both funny and also telling that the confession is not out of guilt but just totally because he needs to escape the apartment. andrew doesn’t really give a fuck about the crimes themselves and it drives it home that it never really mattered to him in the first place.

and on the other hand, it’s so funny that the police don’t believe him because he’s so flippant about it 😭 clearly if these are all connected, it’s the work of true insidious evil! but the guy isn’t sad so he must be pranking :( LMFAOOOO

but yes, it is really really fucking sad. andrew does the morally correct thing (although not for moral reasons) and like with all his encounters with authority, he gets nothing. no one is coming to save him even when he takes the blame. it’s like a slap in the face to him. “it’s too late now, you made your choice and it’s ashley forever.”

also very worth mentioning that he lies about killing ashley so they won’t look for her, he won’t take her down with him even when the reason he does this is to escape the prison she’s locked him in. it shows the kind of love he has for her, he will always be her protector for right or for wrong. she can chain him up in an apartment and he will continue to protect her.

[graveyard-galaxy]

This might have been said before, but…

Interesting to note that Andrew eludes to the fact that smoking, which he supposedly takes up for stress relief, was something that started for him during the year he and Ashley weren’t really talking…

Transcript:

Ashley: “Why did you even pick up smoking in the first place?”

Andrew: “For stress relief.”

Ashley: “That’s it..? If something was bothering you, you should’ve come to me.”

Andrew: “……..It didn’t seem like you wanted me near you back then.”

We see this play out in the cliffhanger route, of course, and…

Ashley: “Goodnight, Andrew.”

Yep, on that first night, after Andrew shoves her away, it certainly does seem as though Ashley doesn’t want to be near him… But we know Ashley’s tactics, with regards to this. She’s perfectly capable of giving Andrew the silent treatment, or just refusing to engage with him, until he apologises. (We see in the drive to their parents in episode 2, of course, and whilst she’s not even sure what exactly she’s mad at him for, no less…)

I think this interaction had a massive impact on Ashley, and could have very easily cemented her ideas that she is unlovable, and that if she is to keep Andrew, she has to force it, because even when it seems like he really wants her, and she tries to play his game, he shoves her off. Many have said it before, but it’s not hard to read that Ashley might have been subconsciously taught that, yes, the only way to get her way is to do things her way, here.

But once again, we do know Ashley’s behaviour patterns. Because of that terrible self-worth, it’s actually shockingly easy to win her right back over. Winning her back over will cause her to demand greater and greater things, and does seem to have taught her that crying and acting up will lead to her getting her way, no matter what for, in the long run, but… From just examples from the cliffhanger route, Ashley forgives Andrew for not being honest with Julia after he buys her chocolate and some stuffed animals, and forgives him for being distant for her for an entire year when he writes her a fake cheque for the amount she demands.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s this easy only because Ashley fundamentally needs Andrew, and because it’s all meant to show how she’s refused to grow up. She is, quite literally, won back over just as easily as a child.

But I am getting a little off track. My point in all of this was that, should Andrew have really wanted to, he could have won Ashley back over quite quickly after this, if he engaged with her games, and offered her a proper apology. But the thing is, this time, he really doesn’t want to play her game, because he really, really doesn’t want to explain himself. He’s quite deep into his “I love Julia, and being in a relationship with her will surely mean I’ll stop wanting to get with my sister” insistence phase at this point, and well, he tells himself:

Andrew: “(……….I have to address this, don’t I? Arrghh!!! I don’t want to!! I seriously don’t want to!!)”

Now, as a disclaimer to not be misleading, he does still go to check on Ashley after this, leading to both the above scene of her telling him goodnight, and also the scene in front of the TV the next morning where she refuses to sit next to him or joke with him. The main difference between these scenes and their other fights, is that Andrew kind of just gives up after the surface level observation that she doesn’t want to talk to him.

Because Ashley has always so much been his responsibility, he usually always, and after this year, will still continue to, work quite hard to cheer Ashley up after he upsets her. As a child, Renee did not take him fighting with Ashley at all well, because if Ashley was upset with him, then she would actually have to parent her daughter, and she would much rather Andy do that for her. And then later on, he doesn’t want to upset Ashley because he genuinely loves her, even if she hurts him over and over again, and he often wants to hurt her right back.

But this time is different because this time, Andrew’s avoidance of the issue is the whole reason there’s even a rift forming. Do I necessarily blame him for shoving off Ashley’s forwardness after a dream that clearly upset him, even if it was more meant to address what he really wants? No. But the fact of the matter is, he shoved Ashley off because he’s uncomfortable with his own desires, and his refusal to engage with having to address them as soon as he’s given the smallest excuse not to (So Ashley being unwilling to talk without an apology) led to a rift that had them the most disconnected they’d been since Ashley was born.

And the whole reason I bring this up, is that we see Andrew be sheepish about it, when he explains that he thought Ashley didn’t want him around, and that it was apparently bad enough that he takes up smoking to cope, even when as a child, he could only think about the dangers of it.

Andy: “What the hell, Leyley? Smoking is bad for you.”

And obviously people’s opinions on things are going to change s they grow up, especially on things perceived as ‘grown-up’, but I don’t think Nemlei would just show us Andrew saying smoking is dangerous if she wanted to establish that young Andy was careful and scared of consequences. We already know that, and it’s very evidently obvious in most scenes with young Andy, actually. The choice of smoking as the vice Andy argues against is clearly deliberate dramatic irony, since Andrew’s lighter is one of the most passed around items in the game, and him smoking is far from a secret. (Perhaps also worth noting that the lighter he finds in the basement here later might be his current one? Not sure on that, though.)

All this goes to show that Andrew taking up smoking anyway whilst separated from Ashley definitely goes leaps and bounds to show the kind of mental effects that was really having… And yeah, he does literally kill himself in episode 3 after killing Ashley because he can’t live without her, but that doesn’t make the subtler ways in which that’s backed up not still interesting.

And just finally, Andrew also claims that smoking doesn’t actually help with stress, but that it takes his mind of off things first a bit.

Andrew: “All it does is preoccupy your mind for a minute. Though sometimes, that pause is all you need.”

Hmm…

Andrew: “(Bet there’s distance now because she’s creeped out by me… She kind of already admitted she’s not even into that sort of thing to begin with… God, I’m sick… Why am I still even thinking about this?)”

Hmm…

Even whilst he’s out with Julia after fighting with Ashley, as ever, he can’t stop thinking about her, and that seems to be his real problem. So he smokes, just for a chance to get his mind off of her for a minute, where that pause it sometimes all he needs to reset and get right back to acting and not addressing the underlying issue.

And funny, how Ashley insisted that she’s never not wanted to be around him during the conversation about why he took up smoking, and that still makes perfect sense because in her mind, he never approached her, to express that he still wanted to be around her. He ignored the problem, and then it warped to seemingly like Ashley genuinely didn’t want him near. Not to even mention how his takeaway is that she’s probably not interested full stop, and thus that’s why even after she kisses him in return for the shotgunning, he views it as a mistake and tells her not to think anything about it.

[graveyard-galaxy]

THE SCENE HAS BEEN FOUND!!!! (hi yes, sorry this was me, but I had to send anon because this a side blog)

I had totally forgotten about him saying he killed Ashley specifically in it, to be honest… I remembered he said something to keep Ashley out of it, but not exactly what, but just…. He tells Lord Unknown in the cliffhanger ending that he hasn’t seen Ashley for years as well, and he straight up lies about having murdered her too here… Every single time he’s put into a dangerous situation that he’s lying his way out of, he pretends he’s been alone… Done it all alone…

I’d be fascinated to see kid Andy’s thoughts on if he was put in a situation where *only* he would be in trouble for Nina’s death, and not Ashley. I feel like it would be very different then (being afraid of prison because both being in prison would split them up still means that if just he went to prison, they’d still be split up, and I’d think he’d still be scared? As opposed to modern day Andrew both wanting desperately to get out of where Ashley has locked him up by any means, but also refusing to abandon her, because he can’t live without her, and if he ever knew she was dead, he would just refuse to go on) But it could also make for either a very interesting parallel or contrast?

Really is kind of depressing that prison alone with Ashley safe and escaped is better for him than this makeshift prison Ashley has put him in… It’s exactly like you said, the narrative pushes that, no, he’s made his choice, and he can’t back away from it now. Like Ashley’s always screaming, he chose her. And then even later in this route, when he gets a successful escape attempt phone call off to Julia, he still comes right back instead of going with friend b, because he has recognised that as well himself… He can’t leave, because the narrative won’t let him, and even when he manages to squeeze around it anyway, he won’t even let himself.

There’s also probably something to be said about how the disinterested manner in which he recounts his crimes ties into his overall disillusionment in this route… He keeps saying that it’s all the same to him, and that he doesn’t actually care, and then he can’t bring himself to leave with friend b because he can’t even see the point anymore. It’s all just become meaningless. Both sometimes only *except* for with Ashley, but also only because of Ashley.

And honestly, just really puts it into perspective how fantastic this game’s writing is that a joke scene about confessing to the police that barely anyone has seen can still be analysed to actual merit

This is a kinda silly one, but you got any thoughts on the phone call to the police you can have Andrew make in Shots and Such where he confesses?? (Has anyone else even seen this scene, because I tried to find footage of it for this ask, but couldn’t immediately find any??) Because on the one hand, I think it’s obviously supposed to be a sort of joke type scene, where like yeah, look Andrew confesses all of the bizarre and messed up stuff to the police, and it’s kinda funny when he lays it all out like that, but also, I don’t know, there’s something about how they *don’t* believe him that fascinates me. It’s so against all of his paranoias, and it’s like… the second he tries to make a choice whilst Ashley has him chained up, it’s disregarded. And interesting narrative flip of the first two episodes.

And maybe in some way, it’s honestly some pretty depressing commentary on where Shots and Such is going from there. Calling the police and confessing all of your sins isn’t even a dead end because nothing comes of it. Once Andrew steps into the demon realm with Ashley on the Shots and Such main branch, the only dead ends out of it are a murder-suicide, and double suicide… (Or, okay, technically you can get caught by the police with Carl, and by Julia with the fridge, but those don’t get ending cards, so???) For a joke extra scene that I think most people missed, because *obviously* calling the police isn’t a good idea, I do just think it verges on interesting. I really wanted to find some footage of it to say something a little more specific about the actual content of the conversation, but uh. Like I said, I couldn’t find any, so I’m just going off of my memory of it from nearly a month ago :/ Sorry about that…

okay so @sunshine-jesse has the transcripts of the conversation and i read them!

i think him just blatantly explaining all of the horror he has committed like he’s recalling yesterday’s breakfast is both funny and also telling that the confession is not out of guilt but just totally because he needs to escape the apartment. andrew doesn’t really give a fuck about the crimes themselves and it drives it home that it never really mattered to him in the first place.

and on the other hand, it’s so funny that the police don’t believe him because he’s so flippant about it 😭 clearly if these are all connected, it’s the work of true insidious evil! but the guy isn’t sad so he must be pranking :( LMFAOOOO

but yes, it is really really fucking sad. andrew does the morally correct thing (although not for moral reasons) and like with all his encounters with authority, he gets nothing. no one is coming to save him even when he takes the blame. it’s like a slap in the face to him. “it’s too late now, you made your choice and it’s ashley forever.”

also very worth mentioning that he lies about killing ashley so they won’t look for her, he won’t take her down with him even when the reason he does this is to escape the prison she’s locked him in. it shows the kind of love he has for her, he will always be her protector for right or for wrong. she can chain him up in an apartment and he will continue to protect her.

[graveyard-galaxy]

Me getting serious with my Tcoaal stuff?? U bet your ass!

This is extremely self indulgent and tbh kinda personal? I discuss heavy abuse I went through as a teen as I try to make some people understand Julia’s motives!

Let’s discuss!

The first instance we get of meeting Julia is in chapter one when she breaks up with Andrew.

It’s shown that she’s talking over him and not letting him get his piece in which like? Without knowing their relationship, you can maybe chalk it up to being annoyed with him not making an effort to see her despite the quarantine.

This is not the case.

Andrew could have reached out, called her, see how she’s doing. He didn’t do that though! It’s shown that he has no issue ignoring Julia’s calls.

Julia has reached that point where she’s had enough time to step away from him and talk to someone else about their relationship in a timely manner.

I can recall being 15 and being in a horribly mentally abusive relationship. I felt like I couldn’t leave because I loved him so much, I wanted to see past all of the BLARING RED ALARMS that had presented themselves within THE FIRST MONTH OF DATING.

But I was lonely! And a teenager!

Bring into the factor that Julia and Andrew have been dating since maybe their junior year of high-school and are into their early twenties by the time we start following Andrew and Ashley.

Julia is desperately trying to tip toe around Andrew to appear as the sweet, perfect girlfriend because she wants to be needed.

Especially by the man she’s devoted time and energy into! They’ve had sex, been intimate in multiple ways. Shes opened up to him about loosing her best friend.

She genuinely loves Andrew!

I spent most of my relationship with my ex desperately pining for affection. But he was very focused on giving it to another person.

It was so obvious to even 15 yr old me, that he loved this person more than me.

But I couldn’t leave because I was infatuated with him, I thought if I could see the goodness he had under all the red flags I could love him genuinely. Which is exactly what Julia does.

Shes willing to be patient with Ashley for him, willing to backpedal and second guess everything she does if he shows any inkling of doubt in her choice.

The fact he is TEXT BOOK manipulating her and people sit there and say “oh she knew he was fucked up!” Ya and she loved him regardless!

If you choose to call her in the at the start of the cliffhanger ending, she is visibly conflicted on her feelings for him.

Their break up was fresh here, maybe two months since the apartment burning, she’s actively seeing a FUCKING THERAPIST and she still wonders if she could go back.

But with Jane’s support she stands up for herself. But this isn’t the first time Jane has been on Julia’s side to LEAVE.

During one of the visions you can unlock, you get a cutscene of Julia talking with Jane over the phone discussing Andrew, and how Ashley was sending her death threats.

It’s shown this isn’t the first time Julia has gone to her sister for support.

Andrew also is emotionally abusive to Julia in this very scene! Intimidating her into thinking that Ashley wasn’t sending her death threats, to the point she cries.

Then he soothes her, giving her the attention she’s desperately pining for. Almost like an abusive pet owner and their beaten starving dog.

That’s what she is to him. Someone to pretend with, someone to “love” so he seems normal.

She had every right to be angry with him.

She had every right to write that letter.

Cause he was a shitty boyfriend.

He is a shitty person.

I had so many people in my ear desperately telling me to leave my ex. I saw everything wrong with our relationship, but the idea of being alone and facing the fact I dedicated so much time to a man who didn’t want me made me sick.

It was easier to pretend not to notice the red flags and just tough it out for as long as I did.

Julia was dealing with grief when her and Andrew met. Ya maybe she was a little socially awkward and probably depressed but compared to Ashley and Andrew. She is more mentally stable.

The fact that people are literally victim blaming her is INSANE????

“Duh she knew Andrew wanted to fuck Ashley!?!”

NO SHE DIDNTNTTTT!

The first thing she says to Andrew as teens is “I don’t believe the rumors”

Did Andrew date Julia to hide the fact he wanted to fuck Ashley. Yes!

Was she aware? NO CAUSE HE PAINTED IT AS ASHLEY BEING CLINGY AND HIM HAVING TO PARENT HER

GET AWAY FROM MEE OMG

No idea if any of this makes any sense but like, idk this whole take made me so angry? And tbh sad as fuck.

[graveyard-galaxy]

Grandma, a victim of grandpa’s abuse, trying to help Andrew, a victim of Renee’s abuse, but freezing bc Renee acts like grandpa

[graveyard-galaxy]

I mean, yeah!! You had a point!!!

I think just bringing up the abortion conversation between Renee and Grandma as a counterpoint is reductive, because they also literally point out in that same conversation that Grandma had Douglas late. It's differing viewpoints. I don't know if we have enough information to say whether Grandma more likely didn't want kids or wanted them earlier but couldn't ask (In either case, I think it's potentially indicative of the fact that she unfortunately very likely didn't have a choice of if/when she wanted them) but either way her bringing it up to Renee isn't supposed to be like, and indicator that she actually thinks the kids are bad and life would be better without them or something.

We can question whether Grandma backs down because she always backs down or because she actually doesn't want to argue against the grandkids' existence, but... Either way, she us explicitly the only figure who does nice things for Andrew and Ashley without expecting a return.

She's by no means a saviour, because she never actually did anything substantial to help them with their situation (unless that's somehow tied to the point of the abortion conversation, and she was actually trying to steer towards what would be best for the kids? Idk) but come on. Compared to literally every other parental figure in the game, she at least does try to care, and she does seem to want to give love unconditionally. And given how much of a piece of shit her husband is, I don't know that we can exactly give her too much flack for some of her inaction. She is very likely in active danger if she tries to act against her husband's wishes.

To potentially also expand on when I mentioned the blueberries, given how her husband seems to get on SO terribly with Renee, it's probably not a stretch to assume that his behaviour is worse when she's around. And in that sense, despite the Andy and Leyley stories about their parents hoping they get lost and die, I suspect her intentions are probably along the lines of keeping the kids out of the way of the man that she knows better than anyone is violent and foul-tempered and more than willing to take whatever he wants out on the kids. Yeah, Renee would just send them out because she didn't want to deal with them around, but Grandma's few defining traits are that she's a pushover, outwardly friendly to the kids, the second option to stick Ashley on, and the one Renee can expect hand outs from.

I mean, hell, even if she brings up Renee having kids early because they do make her life worse by them being around, that's not her in anyway saying she doesn't hold affection towards them and do nice things for them?? I hardly think having Ashley, who's brash and rude and apathetic and everything the grandfather seemingly hates in women, would make her life better, but the few scenes we see of her are her still trying anyway, so...

I stand by what I said! Grandma probably did love the kids, but she clearly didn't have the backbone left to stick her neck out for them.

I seriously wonder if Ashley and Andrew's grandmother loved them. I wonder if she gave them any affection while the grands were taking care of them for the first few years of their life. Leyley hated going over there and called their grandma "ugly", but that was the worst thing she could say about her. I can imagine their grandfather being an utter piece of shit and dissuading grandma from giving them affection, but in private she'd do her best to love them.

Weirdly enough, it reminds me of the Grandma Smith from The Glass Castle, the one who died and Jeanette's mom didn't even tell her right when it happened. The one who'd comb her hair and let Jeanette wear her perfumes and eat cream of wheat.

I can totally see Renee not telling the kids that their grandma died until it came up later and them being devastated, but Renee just shrugging it off cuz who cares.

[graveyard-galaxy]

The way Ashley is so much more comfortable in the demon realm than anywhere else because it's a game with puzzles that are straightforward and simple clear rules she can understand and pacts no one can break, where no one (Andrew) can just perform whatever appeases her in the moment and double back on it later, where no one can lie and things don't change

[graveyard-galaxy]

I seriously wonder if Ashley and Andrew's grandmother loved them. I wonder if she gave them any affection while the grands were taking care of them for the first few years of their life. Leyley hated going over there and called their grandma "ugly", but that was the worst thing she could say about her. I can imagine their grandfather being an utter piece of shit and dissuading grandma from giving them affection, but in private she'd do her best to love them.

Weirdly enough, it reminds me of the Grandma Smith from The Glass Castle, the one who died and Jeanette's mom didn't even tell her right when it happened. The one who'd comb her hair and let Jeanette wear her perfumes and eat cream of wheat.

I can totally see Renee not telling the kids that their grandma died until it came up later and them being devastated, but Renee just shrugging it off cuz who cares.