sometimes the solution to finishing a project you hate / were struggling with really is to just not fucking touch it for a bit and then come back when you're less annoyed with it. i struggled so hard with this when i first started it but when i came back tonight it was a breeze
The Coffin of Andy And Leyley headcanon: Both of the Graves siblings are autistic.
Andrew's autism however made him into an quiet child, who could be left alone with a book or a toy and entertain himself for hours. As long as he wasn't overstimulated, he was easy to deal with for his mom.
Ashley's autism instead made her a loud, hyperactive kid, because that also happens with autistic people. And that made Ashley a child who her mom didn't want to deal with. So she just ignored Ashley and parentified Andrew to take care of her.
Edit: Also how she justifies this abusive behaviour is interesting:
The mother is a manipulative unreliable narrator here, doing a textbook DARVO, but this suggests that maybe Ashley showed her emotions in "non-normal" ways that her mother didn't expect and couldn't understand or tolerate.
Ashley's problems with forming social relationships and emotional connections is shown by how she had a hard time finding friends:
Being utterly socially isolated due to being perceived "loud and weird and annoying" is common for autistic people. It's possible Ashley also had ADHD, it's not uncommon to be both autistic and have ADHD. But also there are a lot of traits in common between the two.
It is this isolation, abuse and neglect that fucked up the Graves siblings mentally and made them co-dependent on each other. And them both having autism and especially Ashley experiencing severe ableism from her mother and other kids would explain a lot of that.
i've shared my thoughts on this in dms with like 3 people so i wanted to put it on paper so i can always get it
so i think one of the biggest questions that goes around tcoaatl is regarding it's incest, asked in both good faith and by annoying antis: "so is the incest... actually like portrayed as bad? or is it just hot and fetishized and romanticized?" and y'know, i think the most genuinely HONEST answer regarding that is this: "it's both." (the later mostly romanticized)
the Graves siblings have a horrifically co-dependent relationship which even the steam page is very happy to make you remember, multiple characters acknowledge it, it's a fucking awful terrible thing and you can make decisions that acknowledge it and its obvious to anyone with two eyes and a brain capable of basic critical thought that realistically while you can do w/e you want in a fanfic in a canon sense there's no way gravecest cannot result in what will ultimately be a lifetime of suffering even if both parties don't want to admit it. you're condemning them both to a chance of ever finding real genuine happiness that can exist without the other
that being said? they're both conventionally attractive and the game doesn't really shy from making its physical intimacy look hot and it's clear that nemlei doesn't want that physical intimacy to be disgusting or something that will make you feel ashamed if you intentionally pursued
i feel like this is the aspect of tcoaal that is debated the most on all sides of the fandom and i just wanted to post my own two cents in that i think the answer is "its both." the extent of how co-dependent these two are is very clear that it's not good and that most likely in the final release the best outcome for these two will probably involve acknowledging it
but also if you were to approach nemlei and just told her "listen i just think it's hot i don't give a shit about any of that other stuff i just wanna ship them." i think nemlei herself would nod and respect your decision completely. probably feed you even more if anything
you're free to disagree with me, i just wanna state my own thoughts somewhere, so i think the answer is a very solid "it's both" when it comes to this. tcoaal portrays the incest as horribly psychologically damaging for these two but also at the same time it's obviously not gonna judge you for liking it and if you find it hot nemlei would never judge you for it i think
but i just cannot in any capacity really take the argument it's a hard one or another seriously. i think if tcoaal wanted gravecest to only be seen as bad and horrifying that nemlei would've made different decisions in writing it bc it's obvious she COULD have if she wanted to, but also it's not fair to say it just makes incest look hot and sexy when it does show how fucked up it's characters are because of it
Collection of all my native art/edit hcs for the silly doll people in idv !!!
Andrew is mixed White/Ojibwe specifically for desolate sand; I could make an entire yap post about it but just know his mama made that dreamcatcher okay
Demi is mixed White/Yurok bc self projection beam go
Ithaqua is kind've of a mixing pot of Algonquian culture because he's based on a mass story in that region