Too Much Of The Fandom Really Likes Renee. I Hate Her. I Can Understand That People Find Her Attractive,

The amount of times lately I've read people arguing Ashley isn't in love with Andrew only to go on to describe her as being in love with him in all but name is wild.

"Oh she's not in love with him! She just wants to keep him at her side at all times and wants him to be forever focused on her and never date anyone else and she only wants to marry and have sex with him because she wants to keep him by her side forever" like

It's giving me flashbacks to when people tried to say Aigis from Persona 3 isn't in love with Makoto in the same sort of way.

I would guess in this case it's just people being confused that being in love with someone doesn't necessarily mean you express that love in healthy or selfless ways. Sometimes, quite the opposite.

ARCANE Jinx and Vi -> hugs through the seasons

I love that there’s something deeply wrong with both of them I love being bisexual

What are your thoughts on TCOAAL mods? I tried watching one of Renee and Andrew but... I couldn't finish it due to the characters just not feeling like themselves anymore.

blatant plagiarism if you ask me, and probably would fall under that if nemlei decided to sue for copyright infringement. i have no interest in going near it. it’s taking nemlei’s story and her art and her characters and releasing an entirely different story, a version of the game where ashley’s sprite is replaced by renee’s and andrew wants to fuck his mom. nemlei herself seems a bit irked by it, judging by the piece of optional dialogue she included in the hallway scene:

so, simply put: i find these mods disrespectful because it’s certainly no longer nemlei’s story or nemlei’s characters as she wrote them in her game. and for what? to turn the game into meaningless “yay hot milf x her son” slop that doesn’t make any sense at all for the story?

no, it’s not the same as game mods that are, say, original cc and skins for your original character in dragon age or baldur’s gate. this is a visual novel, an interactive story, it’s the equivalent to dumping a pdf of a book into microsoft word, hitting ctrl+f and replacing “ashley” with “renee” (or your oc’s name, but at least that’s creating original fan content to some degree for your own enjoyment) and then publishing it online.

and no, it’s not comparable to fanfiction either, which is simply borrowing nemlei’s characters for writing purposes and creating original work— generally, in fandom, a way to show appreciation and with no lack of respect towards the original creator’s work.

all that said, i’m not the fbi, i really don’t care what people download onto their computer as long as it wouldn’t put you on a watch list.

I can't wait to find long, detailed analyses of that scene in the new episode

So who said that while Andrew is genuinely attracted to Ashley, she sees sex as a way to keep her brother close? Because will you look at that. Andrew told her that he was considering getting back together with Julia (not that he wanted to impregnate her to "seal the deal" though), they argued, he beat her black and blue in a scene I found very upsetting, and what's Ashley's reaction? Beg Andrew to fuck her even though she's not even into it, because it's not about the need for sex for her, she just wants to be sure, for once, that Andrew loves her. And clearly, she thinks sex is the only thing worthwile she can give - when asked why Andrew should keep her alive and with him, she has no solid answer other than "I can bake", because cooking and fucking are the only two things a woman is for, and if she can do both for Andrew, he will never abandon her no matter how much he hates her.

She even pressures Andrew into drinking because she knows that otherwise, he'll pull away once more, even if he, for once in his amoral life, seems to be genuinely unwilling to "prey on his baby sister".

now this is some toxic shit that leaves my guts all sad and confused. i love it <3

EDIT:

You are an extremely fascinating creature, Ashley. I can't even begin to unpack all of this.

👨‍🦼👨‍🦼👨‍🦼👨‍🦼

praying for an active arcane fandom revival full of proship freaks so i can get vijinx or jilco media like we all deserve

Honestly, I don’t get how people can watch everything Ashley puts Andrew through and still think she isn’t the worse of the two right now. And saying she’s worse doesn’t mean Andrew gets a free pass, far from it, but come on, she absolutely wrecks him in episode 2 and especially in Decay. She’s the one who pushes him to the edge and breaks the promise she made back in episode 1. Every time someone tries to reason with Ashley or calm her down, she just doubles, even triples down. It’s the same cycle over and over: promises to change, only to spiral even further.

Now, if we’re talking about before episode 1, sure, Andrew was a total asshole and definitely played a big part in how Ashley ended up. But seriously, try raising a traumatized kid while being neglected yourself and see how well you turn out.

You are fundamentally misunderstanding what makes Andrew tic as a character, WHY he'd rather die than be separated from Ashley no matter how awful she gets, and why those two things make people go "He's just as bad as his sister, maybe even worse"

Andrew's entire inner struggle can be explained by his thoughts on Julia after she breaks up with him "You'll never see her again, and the fact that it doesn't bother you bothers you."

Unlike Ashley, Andrew has at least some understanding of what a normal, healthy, GOOD person does or doesn't think/feel/do. But he still has all the same petty, immature, selfish, possessive, controling, manipulative and violent impulses Ashley has.

That's why, no matter if the player is making Andrew stand up for himself or revert back to Andy, the parents and the campers still die, because Andrew resents the former and doesn't care about the latter. Why his relationship with Julia is doomed, and why he'll get furious at the very thought of Ashley being with someone else. Why Ashley's obviously fake tears still convinced him to leave Nina, a girl he knows is asmathic and has clearly heard said the words "I can't breathe", locked up in a dusty box all night.

Despite knowing better, he still goes along with all the vile things Ashley wants - because even though he knows it's wrong, some sick part of him either doesn't care about these people (and thus doesn't care what Ashley puts them through) or actively ENJOYS their suffering just as much as his sister does.

Ashley is a chaotic, impulsive, reckless type of evil, and thus acts on impulse. Andrew is all about PREMEDITATED evil. He doesn't really "snap" and "get pushed too far" or even "gives into pressure/manipulation" that often. Most of the time he's making the conscious choice to ignore what he knows it's right. He doesn't care about the harm he causes, but he knows he should, and that brings him shame.

That's why in Burial, if he embraces the "Ashley and me VS the world" mentality, he is SO calm with all the vile things he's doing, that even his sister is shocked, and both demons/entities take an interest in him (as he likely "hatches" into a Tar Soul like Ashley in that route, instead of being just a grime one like in Decay, wich we explicitly know is all about self-perception - aka despite lack awareness of most things, Ashley was the only one between the siblings, up to that point, to not kid herself about the evil they did).

That's why Ashley doesn't just break her promise about never mentioning Nina again, but also points out that Andrew chose to kill her too.

Being "the doormat" that is simply "too weak willed" to tell Ashley no is far more comfortable for him than admiting that, even if she had never been born, even if he had been an only child, he would still be a terrible person, and would actively seak out someone like Ashley so he'd have someone who can understand and accept him.

"Snapping" at her only when she (admitedly) does horrible things to him that no one else would tolerate gives him a way out of acknowledging that there's a part of him that, no matter how much he loves Ashley, genuinely wants to hurt her simply because he's a monster too, not because of anything she did.

That's why he's so codependent to the point of killing himself right after murdering her - she's a terrible sister, friend, girlfriend and partner in crime, but she's still the scapegoat. If she's not around anymore, Andrew will run out of excuses, and in Decay he'd rather die than accept responsibility. In Burial? We'll see.

"Ashley is worse than Andrew" is and has always been bullshit. They're both violent, controlling, possessive, manipulative, and abusive towards each other in every way imaginable (verbal, psychological, physical, sexual). They're the exact same. And Andrew is well aware of it because, to some extent, Ashley is his creation as much as Renee's. And while he knows that should be tragic for several reasons (including the fact that he couldn't have been expected to act differently since he was just a child too) there's some part of him that is PROUD of having damaged his sister that much.

That's why he'll say things like "you're the most alluring thing I've ever laid eyes on", or mentally gush about how "his" Ashley summoned a demon on her first try, beat her to break her down even more, or actively use their feelings for each other to get her to fall in line, just like she does with him.

Andrew doesn't want Ashley to be "better", despite seeing all the harm she causes to everyone - including the two of them. At some point, he went from "Innocent child that should have never been raising another child, especially one like Ashley, because he's obviously unfit for the job and will accidentally enable her" to "Bastard that is actively shaping his sister/girlfriend to be the perfect scapegoat/partner in crime."

If she weren't exactly what she is, Andrew would have gotten rid of her a long time ago, like he did with all their victims.

all the andrew julia shippers and “andrew is a victim only” people have disappeared. amazing