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lisafication · 7 months

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This post is uh, extremely normal I swear

So hello yes I am absolutely On My Bullshit regarding my new favourite game.

That’s right, it’s the cannibal incest game, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. And I’m here to shove five thousand words of pretentious analysis down your throat because, and I do not exaggerate, I think it is one of, if not the best written game I have ever played. And I have played a lot of games, including Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XIV and Undertale, to name a few narrative luminaries to come to mind.

That wordcount is not an exaggeration. My brainworms are extremely powerful and now you can share them with me as I walk you through my insane skyscraper of inference-driven analysis.

Or you can click away. I really wouldn’t blame you, it’s quite a lot.

Content Warnings: …Yes?

(To drop the bit for a moment, The Coffin of Andy and Leyley covers extremely disturbing material and challenges you to examine aspects of living in this world that many have taken for granted all their life, it is not a comfortable game, this will cover similar topics and will often echo the game’s unremitting scepticism on basic principles of society and humanity and you should look after yourself first. My Content Warning is framed as a joke, but it’s also quite real in that the game is designed to make you uncomfortable and there’s no shame in that not being for you.)

This was originally posted on and formatted for Sufficient Velocity, and you can probably more easily read and discuss it with me here.

With that said, let’s dig in. I have had to split this into multiple posts because tumblr will only allow so many images. There will be spoilers for all endings.

She’s excited, are you?

It’s All About Ashley

It really is, isn’t it? I mean, for approximately eighty percent of the total game as currently released and the entirety of Episode 1, you’re in control of Ashley, just as she’s in control of her and Andrew’s relationship for 80% of the game, up until the various ending sequences where it begins to slip. The only other characters who really matter at all in and of themselves are Andrew and her mother — and the former is under her thumb, and she eats the latter. It’s all about Ashley. Even her obsession with Andrew is, ultimately, about Ashley.

But who is Ashley? What is Ashley? Why is Ashley, even? Let’s take a look.

Ashley as presented to us in Episode 1 is very straightforward, so let’s list off the traits we’re given — she is malicious, she is fearless, she lacks empathy, she doesn’t have anything resembling a conscience, she demands Andrew belong to her and her alone, she has him at her beck and call.

In Episode 2, we’re ostensibly shown how she has him at her beck and call— she leverages the threat of reporting Nina’s death over him and had him swear to be with her forever. We’re shown that even as a child she was “just, like that” — but as a child, she hadn’t learnt to live with it yet, to laugh at the farce of it all.

Yeah, exactly like that!

And she does this throughout Episode 1 — The Coffin of Andy and Leyley is a remarkably silly game much of the time, finding moments of absurdity and levity against a backdrop blacker than pitch — and most of the time, your internal narration is coming from Ashley and the jokes will not-infrequently come at her own expense.

She will later get negged by her human sacrifice for her poor ritual circle drawing

Her reaction to being told that her soul is as dark and viscous as tar is “You guess you already knew that” — it’s confirmation to her, not new information. Ashley knows who she is. But who taught her this? There’s layers to this, nothing in this game is as simple and straightforward as it appears at first sight, which is why I’ve been obsessing over it for days.

While it’s common in fiction, the truth of the matter is, most ‘bad people’ really do think they’re good people. But Ashley has never once thought of herself as a good person — or perhaps better put as a person worthy of love — as we learn across Episodes 1 & 2, with our flashbacks to Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!!

I really wish I had space in this essay to talk about this, but I’d like to touch on these being traits usually more easily forgiven in young boys than young girls at some point.

If she removes all other options, only then can she expect him to like her.

This is something that is echoed in the modern day — her seeming self-assurance is easily shaken and she reaches out to the world — usually Andrew — to affirm and validate her, soothing her insecurities, using any tool she deems necessary. Even when her life is on the line when Andrew has her by the throat at the climax of Episode 1, the only ‘compelling reason’ she can give Andrew to not kill her is her ability to soothe his nightmares. When he tells her there are sleeping pills for that…

Most people would have a bit more to argue for their existence.

While she, unlike Andrew, acknowledges having had friends before the quarantine… you know she’s got a point that they didn’t even bother to answer her calls, that was clearly not something the state was interfering with given Andrew’s calls with his mother and his girlfriend, and given her general demeanour it’s not hard to imagine that… they weren’t ever very close. When we see her and Nina talk in the infamous ‘box scene’, it’s clear that Nina doesn’t like her very much, despite Andrew’s assessment of Nina as being one of Ashley’s friends.

We see further support for her general lack of companionship in her dream sequence in the Burial route — Leyley and Leyley Alone. No matter what you do, you can’t place the pink plushy at the family table, the flowers won’t bloom if you give the Julia and Nina plushies her own as a companion instead of Andrew’s — and if you’re bold enough to go for the ‘incest route’, in the ‘Love’ room you see that no one ever looks happy to be with her in the childlike depictions of her history, nor is she happy in turn, save for when she’s with Andrew. In a bit of heavy-handed metaphor, the player then overwrites all of these tense, upset, hard moments with Andrew, having him fill in for everyone else in life — and happy with her.

Once Upon A Lousy Life…

THE END

And that’s why she needs him to affirm her, because no one else ever has and no one else ever will. It’s even included in their comic beats — when the siblings are getting along well, they’ll often play a game where Andrew dramatically overpraises Ashley while she demands more; it’s a comedic bit but I mean — it really does matter to her!

For the record, she opened a door. She gets a little heart in a speech bubble after this exchange.

We have a great example of this dynamic, that of insecurity and affirmation, in Episode 1, after Andrew has killed for her, butchered for her, his girlfriend broke up with her, he’s seemingly thrown his entire life away for her… she’s still insecure over her relationship with him, she’s uncertain of her control and she needs him to reaffirm it for her.

This is her victory, surely?

Andrew affirms her once, with his usual dead-eyed look.

But she's still not so sure.

He actively reaches out to affirm her again with cheer.

Look how happy she is!

While it’s most obvious and clear cut here, it’s hardly the only case. Let’s look back to the aftermath of Andy and Leyley and the VERY VERY QUIET!!! (I’m not using the other name). Leyley is, after similarly extreme acts — he murdered a girl and hid her body for her — convinced Andy doesn’t like her and she needs this leverage to keep him around, to meet her basic needs for survival. Because that’s what this is — she receives no care of affection elsewhere, so she forces it out of the only source she sees available through the means she sees as necessary.

I really hope we see some of their earlier childhood in Episode 3

What exactly made her like this? Was it just neglect, or something more specific…

She needs this to be the case because otherwise she doesn’t believe he’d stay.

This pattern repeats throughout — Ashley’s insecurities are hit on and she reaches out to Andy to affirm that she is not alone, and she will use any and every tool to exploit her ostensible control over him and force him to be what she needs him to be — and as long as she has that, as long as she is everything to him and it’s not possible for him to leave, she’s happy. As long as she thinks he loves her in her very particular, very peculiar view of love, she’s content, come what may. As long as Andy and Leyley are together, they can take on the world.

Let’s talk about that view of love, because there’s always more layers to unpack here I’m only scratching the surface with this essay — Ashley consistently refers to anyone else Andrew may have befriended or spent time with as a whore, a slut, a bitch — highly gendered insults that bring to mind the idea that he’s cheating in some way. But it’s not even about sex — when Andrew mentions that their parents had friends, she accuses them of cheating on each other in the same way!

There’s a lot to unpack about Ashley’s view of femininity and the role the patriarchy plays in their relationship.

Any kind of emotional engagement, any kind of commitment, any kind of life outside of your significant other is, to Ashley, cheating. Because that’s what she needs from Andrew, a seeming complete and total commitment, secure in her place as the only thing in his life, because she cannot understand anyone picking her if they have a choice.

This insecurity she has in her relationship is what drives her to empower the trinket — he can’t leave her as long as she can protect him with prophetic dreams, after all. She needs every kind of leverage she can get because until she succeeds in being everything to him, in devouring him so completely she has him in her thrall mind, body and soul she can’t be sure of herself — hell, her dream sequence in Burial has you placing Andrew’s signature green plushy, ‘the best thing in the world’ in a cage far away from anything else.

Ultimately, it really is all about Ashley — even her seeming obsession with Andrew ultimately comes back to her own insecurities. If she is everything to ‘the best thing in the world’, some of that ‘best’ must surely reflect on her!

But that’s enough about the more normal, straightforward and understandable sibling.

That was not a joke.

Andrew’s Rank 100 Deception

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he did not exist.

Let me explain.

You might have noticed that in the previous section I often use language such as ‘ostensibly’ or ‘seemingly’ to describe Andy and Leyley’s relationship, and there’s a good reason for that. From the beginning of the game through to its end, Andrew is lying to you, the player, without ever falsely representing or misinforming you about events that occurred.

The common, or obvious ‘initial take’ on Andrew as presented in Episode 1 is fairly straightforward. The game primes you to think this way, it frames things and strings reveals just right so as to make it very easy to overlook the incongruities it introduces in Episode 2. He’s a victim. Plain and simple, Ashley is his abuser and he is her victim and would be fine, a normal albeit kinda depressed guy without her.

It really is not a difficult conclusion to draw

You can go all the way through the game, have him try to accept his mother’s olive branch and enter the Decay route as a method for him to finally actualise his desire to get out from Ashley’s thumb and it makes sense, it’s a reasonable way for the story to go, given his character.

You see him this way because the game primes you in Episode 1 to view their relationship like Andrew does — he’s lying. He’s lying to himself, he’s lying to Ashley and he’s so good at it — Deception Rank 100 — he even lies to you. Without misrepresenting a single event or otherwise misleading you directly, the game gets you to buy into his preferred self-perception. Nina? Ashley. Julia? Ashley. The murders they commit in the course of the game? Ashley, Ashley, Ashley, it’s not his fault he’s not to blame he’s just a doormat at the beck and call of his demonic sister.

But he wants to be there. From the very outset, the very first puzzle, that’s made clear. Does anyone else remember this exchange, from right at the beginning of the game?

Ashley wants to investigate the music!

Andrew disapproves…

…Or does he?!

Like. Listen. Okay. You do not frown when saying ‘Nope’ and then smile when saying that you’ll instead tag along if they do it if your heart is at all in the no. That’s not an objection, that’s using Ashley as his excuse. Especially if you immediately throw her the balcony key that she could not possibly have gotten from you by force (more on Andrew’s ability to use force later).

This is the very first time you control both characters together with Andrew following Ashley instead of off on his own, the first adventure, the first puzzle!

But put a pin in that for now, let’s talk about his initial framing in Episode 2 first. Episode 1 has set us up to, generally speaking, believe the superficial framing of the siblings as portrayed in its promotional art:

The question that we then ask, right at the heart of it is… why is he a doormat? We explore this in his dream sequence in Episode 2, which does make it clear that the boy’s not okay but— it’s real easy, given the priming from Episode 1 to make you think that he’s the one with the originally functional moral compass, to think that that him being fucked up is damage done to him by Nina’s death and being bound to Ashley for his entire life. She corrupted him.

But, well, is that the case?

You're primed to ignore this as manipulation (which it is) but the best manipulation has some truth to it.

Precisely two things spur Andrew to action in the entire game, consistently — they are the fear of consequences and Ashley. And the first incident of that fear, the very first time we’re shown his seeming moral compass as a kid — the first time it’s really hammered home that it’s a fear of consequences rather than any true moral qualms is after Nina’s death. And why does he fear consequences here?

……

The ‘natural’ read that many take away from this sequence, particularly those who have only played Decay, is that Ashley browbeat him into doing this against his will, using emotional blackmail to overwhelm his objections, and then used the event itself to bind him to her forever as her personal doormat.

In a strict sense, this is true. But this doesn’t match up with the details, something the game uses shock to encourage you to overlook. That outburst is before any kind of threat has been made, and absolutely nothing either of them say anything about it being morally bad until Ashley weaponises ‘you’re a bad person’ against Andrew — morality didn’t seem to enter his mind or the equation at all until Ashley brought it up. More than that, his greatest fear and driving motivation even prior to that is, as shown above, being taken away from Ashley.

She, of course, recognises this and uses it against him. But she never needed to, it didn’t change anything about Andrew’s attachment to her, it was there to address her own insecurities.

Just like to touch on how a lot of his affirmations are preceded by him confirming her insecurities.

I adore this phrasing

There’s a second prong to this as well, to the question of ‘who really calls the shots here’ because — Andrew can, at any stage, apply an ‘ultimate veto’ of physical violence. The game is very clear to the player that that is on the table — even when they were children, when Andy swears their blood oath, he briefly considers killing her — and take note of how he ultimately got a ‘winning’ condition out of her by not specifying there wouldn’t be others and she is forced to accept that, there. Even outside of their most serious confrontations, Ashley is portrayed as having to convince, manipulate or otherwise coerce Andrew into going along with her schemes — she really can’t make him do anything, she doesn’t have the supremacy in violence and, to a lesser extent, capability that would allow her to.

Andrew, you are like ten years old.

The truth of the matter is, Ashley can only make Andrew do anything because he lets her. I don’t mean in the sense that I’m saying abuse victims let their abusers emotionally abuse them, I mean in the sense that he is clearly considering his options on the table and choosing to discard those that could stop her, or bring an end to any of this. He needs her.

But it’s true that he hates her, too. He has to hate her, because if he doesn’t hate her, if he isn’t forced to have done this, that means… he’s responsible. And nothing, at the start of the story, is as important to Andrew as avoiding the consequences of his own actions, not even Ashley. By the midpoint, he loves her, he hates her, he can’t live without her, he wants to kill her — by the end… well, that depends if you’re on Decay or Burial, but more on that in a bit.

A great scene to study for this dynamic is the climax of Episode 1, when Andrew grabs Ashley by the throat and considers strangling her to death. She’s pushed him too far with hurtful words and assault, and he’s seemingly had enough.

It’s still framed as a question of risk, of consequences happening to him.

Like, this is not the usual behaviour of someone who’s been pushed past their breaking point.

He tells Ashley that he wants to kill her, because she’s just going to throw another fit and that’s a risk to him. She is… not framed as being able to fight back (she does have a gun here, and more on that in a later essay, maybe). He’s so calculated in how he approaches his use of violence here, which isn’t at all what you’d expect of someone about to commit a crime of passion… but it’s very easy to overlook because of the abuser/victim narrative that the player fits his behaviour into the narrative that the game primes them to accept, brushing incongruities under the carpet.

At the start of Episode 2, we get to control Andrew for the first time, and the first obvious holes in his cover start to show. Some of this is optional — you only learn that he’s been faking having nightmares in order to share a bed with Ashley if you choose to go back into the motel room and check the bed, for example — but not all of it.

----(See reblogs for the second half)

#the coffin of andy and leyley #tcoaal #andrew graves #ashley graves #spoilers #multipost

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m0nsterqzzz · 2 months

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(wife) Natasha Romanoff x reader

word count: 1.8 k

- Snow Day -

summary - snow days with your wife and kids

a/n - ahhhhhh i love snow and natasha.

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The moment Natasha jumps on top of you at 7am is the moment you decide to divorce her.

Not seriously, but you did threaten to as she shook your body and practically screamed, “It’s snowing detka!” You opened one eye and sure enough, there was ice frost covering the outside of your bedroom windows and you could see snow covering the trees.

“That’s nice honey. Now go back to bed.” She shakes her head, jumping off the bed and yelling as loud as she can- which is pretty fucking loud if you didn’t know-, “Kids! It’s snowing!”

Just like Natasha, your kids love the snow more than anything. Probably more than they love you. It's a few seconds before the cheering begins, and then your oldest sons come running into your room and jump onto the bed. “Wake up! Wake up!” Lev, the oldest, practically screams in your face, and then Andy- short for Anthony-, the middle child, lays his whole body weight on top of you. He’s fourteen years old, only two years younger than his older brother and eight years older than their little sister, but after years of working out with Natasha, he’s very strong and putting his whole body weight on top of you means basically cutting off your ability to breathe.

The sound of little footsteps entering the room makes you all stop, and Lena, your six year old daughter and youngest child, enters the room with her stuffed monkey in hand and crawls into the bed next to you. She loves the snow, but she also loves sleep just like you.

“Come here принцесса.” Lev mutters, grabbing his little sister from the bed and holding her in his arms. Her big brothers are her protectors, and if you and Natasha aren’t there to treat her like a princess, her brothers are.

“You wanna build a snowman little spider?” Andy asks, tickling her stomach as a method of waking her up. She giggles, a tired grin taking over her face as she looks out the window. “Snow day?” “Snow day Lena.” She nods, suddenly much more awake as she climbs out of his arms and back onto the bed. You think she's coming back to cuddle with you, but you should know by the devilish grin on her face- one very similar to your wifes- that is not true. She stands up on the bed, then lets her small body free fall onto yours. Was naming her after your sister in law (the one that totally did this shit to you a few months ago) a good idea? Probably not.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

And that's how you ended up gathering up all the scarfs in the house, which only turned out to be 4. Luckily, one of them was really long so you and Natasha can share it once you get outside. While the kids are in their rooms putting on thousands of layers, Natasha is in a tank top and leggings like she's about to go out on a run in the summertime. “Natalia. Where is your sweater? Sorry I meant, where are your sweaters? Plural because it’s fudging freezing outside.”

She shrugs, continuing to make six cups of hot chocolate despite it being 7 in the morning. You chuckle. “The kids only need one cup each Nat.” She nods, looking down at the cups with a nervous smile. “I know…..three of these are for me.”

You grab a few sweaters for her, forcing her to put them on and then standing in front of her holding in a laugh at the now balloon shaped form of your wife. “You look um….you look amazing honey.” She can't see you considering the beanie going down to her nose and scarf up to about the same place but she can hear you searching through your pockets for your phone. “I know what you’re doing! Do I look stupid to you detka?”

“Yes….and this is going on the Avengers Christmas card.” You snap the photo, running away from her when she begins waddling towards you.

You go stand out on the porch with her, waiting for your kids to come out and join you in the cold. Why they love the freezing temperatures will always be a mystery to you. When they come out, each kid is handed one cup of hot chocolate that they pull down their scarves to chug. They boy’s aren't too big as they’ve grown a lot over the years since you bought the pieces of fabric, but the new one you bought for Lena when winter season started is practically covering her whole head and Natasha has to pull it down in order to see the little girl's bright smile.

You take your seat at one of the rocking chairs you and your wife bought for your wrap around porch, piling several blankets over your lap and watching with a smile as the kids- that's including Natasha- run out into the chilly forest. When Lev was two years old and you had first adopted the few month old baby Andy, Natasha retired from her job as an Avenger and bought you and your kids a large piece of property and a big house. The land is filled with trees that kids spend evenings placing hide and seek in, and in the summer they go horseback riding with their mom. Natasha takes care of all the animals that live around the property and in the barn, and you spend days doing whatever you wish whether it's helping her or staying inside the house relaxing with the kids.

A snowball flies past your head, and you look up to glare at your wife. “Hey! Why are you looking at me? Look at them!” The redhead points to the kids, who stare at her bewilderment. “You know what? Fuck this.” You mutter, removing the blankets from your lap and running out into the snow. You form a snowball, hiding with your kids behind a stack of hay that Natasha left out the other day. Your wife was an Avenger, a spy, and a shield agent. That's all true. But you live with her. It’s not too hard to pick up on her habits.

You can hear her crunchy footprints coming up behind the hay, but the kids have already formed even more snowballs so you hold up three fingers, slowly putting each on down until you have zero left. They all jump up, practically yelling war cries as they hit their mother with snowball after snowball. You take this chance to run into the forest nearby, hiding behind a tree with several snowballs in hand.

Once they run out of snowballs and the laughter dies down a bit, you sneak out from behind the tree and begin throwing the snow at the back of your wife. The children laugh, but she turns to you with a devil-like grin and you instantly know you’re in deep shit. “Okay Nat….Nat….our kids are watching. They can't see me go like this.” You dramatically tell her, only bringing more giggles out of your kids.

“Get her mom!” Lev cheers, and your eyes widen as you look at him in mock offense.

“Whose side are you on kid?” You ask. He shrugs, holding up another snowball and throwing it at Natasha's head.

“Neither. Every man for themselves!” He sprints into the forest, Andy close behind him and Lena standing out in the open with no snowballs in hand.

Natasha grins at her, opening her arms for a hug. “Come here and give me a hug, little spider.” The six year old narrows her eyes at the Russian woman before sprinting after her brothers, but Natasha is already forming four snowballs when the little girl gets to the edge of the tree line.

You watch with a grimace as your wife throws each snowball at the back of the little girl, and the force of the snow makes Lena fall face first into a pile of coldness. You smack Natasha’s arm. “Natalia! She’s six years old!”

The redhead just laughs, turning her back to the forest as she grins at you. “She's my daughter. She can handle a couple snowballs to the face.” While she was defending letting her child get hypothermia, Lev and Andy were sneaking up behind her, each with a large pile of snow in their arms.

“Um….Nat-” You start with a giggle, but it's too late and the boys are lifting up the piles to drop them on top of her head. It breaks over her head, falling down in front and behind her like snow and leaving it all over her head and shoulders. “That was for Lena!” Andy yells and then they take back off to the forest, Natasha not far behind.

A few hours later, you watch as Natasha and the kids come back out of the forest, and then plop down in the snow with erratic breathing. You get up from your seat on the porch, walking onto the cold field and then laying down in it right next to your wife.

It's silent for a few minutes, but then the sound of shuffling begins. You look to your side to see Natasha moving her arms and legs, forming an angel looking shape in the snow. You all spread out a little before copying her movements. So that's what you guys do for like three minutes, before standing up and admiring your guy’s work. There are five different sized angels in the snow, the perfect replicas of you and your family.

“Mama. I’m cold.” With a small smile, Nat grabs her by her under arms and hoists her up on her shoulders.

“I think that calls for more hot cocoa.” “Tasha-” You go to tell her that they’ve already had too much sugar and that Lena is practically shaking due to a sugar high, but she’s making her way into the house with the boys trailing behind her before you can say anything. You chuckle to yourself, following after them.

She’s already grabbing the packets of cocoa powder once you get inside, and the boys settle themselves on the couch as you snatch them from her. She groans, sending you her best pout. You've been married to her for a very long time though and rarely fall for that anymore. “No. They can have something else.” The redhead widens her eyes, trying to put on a puppy dog's face that has you laughing harder than you ever had.

“Fine.” You’re not going to tell her that the only reason you said yes is because Lena was doing the face too. The little girls were much cuter. They cheer, beginning to heat up some milk to put in the hot drink as you go sit down on the couch with your boys.

Natasha and Lena join you guys, the older of the two sitting behind you on the couch so you can lay your back on her chest, and the boys let their little sister choose a movie which is why you end up watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Your wife isn’t focused on the movie though. She’s admiring you, how you chuckle at the funny parts as your eyes sparkle with joy.

Snow days are her favorite thing, but it’ll never compare to you.

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#natasha romanoff x you #marvel x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #the black widow #black widow x reader #snow day #marvel x you #marvel

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