iâve seen some people say that ashley is kind of an extreme portrayal of mental illness(es), but, from my own experienceâŠ. sheâs actually a very real portrayal. all of her possessiveness, her mood swings, her dependency on andrew, her choice to not think too long about super traumatizing shit, her impulsiveness; all of those are very normal, very accurate ways mental illnesses and other disorders manifest
(andrew also shows Many signs of mental illness(es) and disorders, and so does their mom, but thatâs not what this post is about!!)
iâm not going to try to diagnose her or anything, and iâll try to keep my headcanons to myself, but i believe we can all tell that the way she thinks and acts is not exactly healthy for her or the people around her. sheâs harmful to herself, andrew, and a lot of others. thereâs genuinely So Much that has influenced the way she is, i kind of donât even know where to start
she wasnât âborn evil,â like her mom says. she isnât even âevil,â she just⊠doesnât really understand. thatâs not a bad thing!! she doesnât understand whatâs wrong with her behavior, because no adult ever taught her. no adult ever cared enough to make sure she learned how to treat people nicely. no adult ever paid attention to her harmful behavior and tried to correct it. we see that ashley has been kind of an asshole from a very early age, and sheâs always been pretty blunt with her thoughts and feelings. she hasnât ever felt the need to sugar-coat things, to spare otherâs feelings. aside from andrew, nobody has ever been genuinely nice to her, or spared her feelings, so why should she bother?
similarly, she doesnât lie too often, unlike andrew. she doesnât like pretending, especially not with him. she says in game, during dinner with their parents, that she canât âkeep upâ with andrewâs lies. we only really see her lie of her own accord once, and she doesnât donit very convincingly.
she doesnât really care about anything that doesnât concern her or andrew, which is like. The Most logical path for her feelings to take. andrew is the only person that sheâs ever known who cares about her. heâs been by her side for her entire life. her parents, her neighbors, and her friends have done wrong by her, and have been driven away by her⊠Her. except for andrew. (weâre ignoring the chapter two decay route for this). heâs been there through everything. heâs cared when no one else has. heâs seen her at her worst and her best moments. again, no adult taught her about caring, or pretending to care. she doesnât feel the need to mask like andrew does, and she doesnât have a want to âfit inâ to a society that has failed her and her brother. sheâs been treated as an outsider for her whole life, so she probably believes sheâll never âfit in,â sheâll never be accepted, and she doesnât need to fit in or be accepted by them.
she greatly values loyalty in her friends. we see her act this way with andrew, with nina, and with julia. she sees people chosing others over her as a betrayal. other than andrew, no one has ever chosen ashley first. that upsets her!! that would upset anyone, but it especially upsets her because no one has ever chosen her first. her parents gave andrew all of their attention, but not her. her two friends have betrayed their friendship and put andrew above her. in game, she says it herself: she should be the top priority. with every encounter, every back-and-forth, every relationship, every decision, sheâs waiting to be pushed aside. sheâs waiting to be discarded. with andrew, sheâll do anything in her power to make sure he doesnât leave her, either.
i think that itâs really interesting that she really is her worst self with andrew. sheâs mean, sheâs violent, sheâs petty and crass and acts very childish, but she generally feels safe with him. she feels comfortable with him, and doesnât feel the need to hold herself back at all. thereâs security to be found in a relationship (of any kind) that you can say terrible things and act in horrible ways and that person stays by your side. thatâs a huge part what she has with andrew. she trusts him to stay by her side, despite how awfully she may act. she places a Lot of importance on his presence in her life.
even the murder and cannibalism can be attributed to mental illness (along with The Plot). the intense mood swings that she has go along with her already violent tendencies. she feels anger, frustration, annoyance, and a whole bunch of other really negative emotions that sheâs never learned to cope with. a lot of people in real life use violence as an outlet for anger. plus, she doesnât allow herself feel upset or disgusted by death, even at her own hands (if she even feels it at all). despite that, i believe that murdering her parents had to be So cathartic for her and andrew. ashley explains in the decay route why eating people makes her feel powerful and in control, and being in control is something she very obviously feels that she lacks. sheâs seen as manipulative, but she doesnât really succeed at her manipulation. sheâs understandably insecure with her entire existence, so she tries to control whoever and whatever she can, and that extends to andrew, murder, as well as cooking and eating people
thereâs a lot to life that is treated as ânormalâ and âuniversal,â but everyone starts with absolutely no knowledge. experiences build a personâs worldview and shapes their personality, and ashley has had very rough experiences. she is a product of abuse and neglect and mistreatment, and is a very realistic depiction of a person who has had the experiences sheâs had. the game has a pretty light tone despite the content, but it being âpretty lightâ doesnât take away from the amount of detail that is put into the main characters and the trauma that theyâve suffered
ashley doesnât have to be âgoodâ or âpositiveâ representation to be accurate representation, and i feel like nemlei has done a fucking excellent job at making a very, very unwell person (or two or three) in a very, very unwell society, and i am so extremely excited to see more of the gravesâ childhood in chapter three
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