Look, I'm Not Saying Hot Sibling Sex Would Fix Jinx, But I Do Think It Would Help A Little.

Sisterly love am I right or am I right

[ … ] “you say all the right things, but you don’t mean any of it. there is something cold and dead where your heart should be.”

miss julia clocked andrew to the bone.

thought i’d add my two cents to the “is andrew a sadist?” discussion going on from a sadist’s perspective. andrew displays very strong and consistent sadistic tendencies, but understanding those requires understanding what the source of that gratification is. it is, of course, power, and everything in andrew’s life revolves around it.

most tend to think of sadism as exclusively sexual and the plain polar opposite of masochism— which, granted, it often is for people whose sadism is limited to the confines of the bedroom. when it isn’t, however, i wouldn’t say that’s particularly accurate. sadism in the paraphilic sense is just a psychological association between sexual pleasure and seeing others in pain that develops gradually when you get off enough times to that specific stimuli. your brain’s reward system now associates it with the rush of dopamine you get when you bust a nut. congrats, you’ve pavlov’d yourself into a fetish. this is not more innate than jacking it to footjobs on the daily and then getting aroused when you see feet.

i can’t relate to the exclusively kinky flavor of sadism myself, and i wouldn’t consider people for whom it is only a kink true sadists. for people with a sadistic personality, the gratification is emotional, sometimes exclusively so with no sexual component to it, and even with that component, the sexual arousal is secondary. no matter how many wires get crossed between how the sadism actually manifests and the core of that desire or need, the motivation is almost always vengeance and punishment for a perceived crime, projected onto whoever is seen as deserving of that punishment.

andrew sure as hell wants to avenge himself. that’s a recognizable pattern in his thought processes and behavior.

i saw his behavior towards ashley being used as a reference point here, but i personally do not see andrew’s sadistic tendencies applying to ashley— on the contrary, she’s the one person i’d say is exempt from his sadistic inclinations, who he instead feels mental discomfort when he’s causing her harm. his internal conflict shuts his sadism down instantly when he has thoughts along those lines, when he feels a desire to hurt her, because the sense of fulfillment he finds in being her one source of safety, comfort and happiness is stronger than acting on any sadistic desire would be. that’s where he gets his sense of purpose, his reason for living, and the two desires are naturally completely incompatible.

when andrew reflects on his lack of regret over murdering the warden, he admits that he only regrets not killing him slower and making him suffer, deriving pleasure from it, rather than hacking him up impulsively out of necessity to defend and protect his sister. why? the guy supposedly leered at ashley, looked at her as a potential sexual conquest, and for that, andrew would certainly gouge your eyes out and scrape out your eye sockets with a rusty spoon, and he’d savor every moment. my point: every other murder he commits is a stark contrast to the manner in which he kills ashley. he does this with tenderness and bitter sadness, her death pains him so unbearably much that he commits suicide the moment she is gone and dead in his arms, and he makes sure her death is quick and painless and that she doesn’t suffer. and to andrew, this is a loving act of mercy.

this deep love and care for her is not his sole motivator here, we’re not gonna do him the favor of pretending otherwise, he has utterly selfish motives as well, but andrew cannot stand the thought of abandoning ashley, so if he dies, she will have to die with him. in his mind, he needs to spare her from living without him even for a second, save her from the agony she would feel when he is gone and she’s alone in the world without her brother. if he kills her, he won’t have to leave her, and he could never, ever be the one to make his sister’s deepest fear into a horrifying reality. incomprehensible logic if you do not think like andrew does, but he’s not exactly sane.

as for the reactive abuse he inflicts on ashley, it does undeniably feel good to him in the heat of the moment, but it’s not sadistic gratification. it’s a wholly different emotional response. it’s relief from the extremely distressing feeling of powerlessness, the result of ashley relentlessly robbing him of any control until he feels small, helpless and cornered. perceived powerlessness induces panic, it suffocates him, and he lashes out accordingly with explosively excessive aggression when he’s triggered. he takes his power and control violently, whether this is when ashley pushes him so far with her abuse of him that he responds with violent reactive abuse, or when the woman in 302 attempts to retake control over the situation by lunging for the nail gun. the latter may look like self-defense, but only if you don’t know that andrew graves is a pathological liar.

the narrator generously informs us that andrew snapped and stabbed the woman in 302 way, way more times than is needed to kill a person, that he kept going until he felt satisfied even after she clearly stopped breathing, because the “dumb bitch” had the gall to think he was stupid and embarrass him.

to andrew, she insulted him, she deserved it, and it felt good and right to stab the fuck out of her for it. if the circumstances he found himself in simply made her death inevitable, if this was only a necessary evil to eliminate all witnesses, there was certainly no need for andrew to mutilate her.

but here we are. in the flashback to his point of view in apartment 302, we see the undeniable gratification he gets from power and control before the murder when he has the knife to her throat and she is entirely at his mercy, her life is in his hands, when she’s scared of him, and we see it again in the grand finale and act itself when he throws her onto the bed and stabs her to death without a second of hesitation. which he does when she shows that she is not as afraid of him as she should be— as andrew wants her to be. to andrew, fearing him is respecting him, and she was stupid enough to disrespect him when he’s holding a knife.

now this woman is just like ashley. andrew goes fucking batshit, sees red and snaps like a rubber band wound too tight, and the parallel here is clear as day to me given how we saw ashley treat him just a few scenes prior— i’m not scared of you, andy, who do you think you’re talking to?

ashley belittles him, subtly humiliates him when he stands up to her and challenges her to make him back down. she doesn’t take him even remotely seriously even when he makes an honest threat on her life, and now this “dumb bitch” doesn’t either. she doesn’t think he has it in him, so sure he’d never actually use that knife, he’d never actually kill her, he is not a real threat, he’s weak, he’s spineless, he’s a pushover, a doormat, he’s all bark and no bite. yeah, andrew’s livid, and there’s no fucking way he will let that slide when he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by killing this woman.

he will fucking show her how seriously she should have taken him— andrew makes a terrifying example out of her, she will take his sister’s punishment because he wouldn’t think of ashley as truly deserving of it, and he definitely enjoys every single second of it. that taste of power? i’ve no doubt he enjoyed it more than he’d ever imagined enjoying anything in his life.

none of this sadism ends up directed towards ashley at all. in fact, he obsesses over whether or not she’s safe and sound upstairs even as he’s reveling in the complete power and control he has over their notoriously fuckable neighbor. ashley returns unscathed and immediately calls him out on his shit, observant as she is— he killed the lady in 302 because he enjoys killing, not out of pure necessity, that’s an excuse, and he got off on it.

this is hardly ashley making shit up from a dismissive throwaway comment andrew made about the woman being easy on the eyes, even if he defensively reduces it to that to make ashley look and feel irrational. she can’t prove anything, so andrew will die on that hill insisting he was just dutifully protecting them both from harm, while this is ashley’s insecurities talking and making her act crazy. as usual. he clearly jumps through mental hoops to justify what he did and lies his way around his motives and intent constantly, but when ashley accuses him of getting his rocks off killing their downstairs neighbor, there’s his “even if i did, who cares, she’s dead.”

king of telling on himself even when he’s bullshitting.

The “That’s immoral you shouldn’t write that, we need to get that taken down” discourse on tiktok right now is PISSING ME OFFF

Wdym you want censorship for a literal ARCHIVE are you fucking stupid

Ao3 was literally founded to preserve works that were largely getting taken down due to censorship

Censorship is the opposite of what Archive of Our Own stands for

The TAGS and WARNINGS are there for a REASON. Use them and stop complaining

The universal rule—don’t like, don’t read

It’s THAT simple

I find it incredibly hilarious that there's so much ship discourse in the gravity falls fandom regarding more controversial ships with people arguing shit like "alex hirsch would hate you" meanwhile-

He does not give 2 shits about any shipping discourse, like these are literally his responses to getting asked questions like this, please stop dragging him into this

An aspect of Andrew and Ashley’s relationship as kids I’m very interested in is that, when you read between the lines, they actually care about each other quite a bit.

On Leyley’s birthday, after she rants about how birthdays are “all nonsense anyway” and ends said rant with “who cares,” Andy responds that he does. In turn, Leyley is shown to have genuinely appreciated his willingness to celebrate it, as she made a drawing of that day and kept it with her until adolescence.

Prior to that, Leyley notably doesn’t make a fuss when she recognizes Andy can’t afford a cake. She also states she went along with Andy choosing the lemon muffins because she thought he wanted them.

In the flashback about Leyley’s suspension from school, she’s displeased that Andy’s cooked her “the same crap” again but quietly eats it anyway. This, in conjunction with the previous point, suggests that as much of a brat as she is, she does (in a way) understand that Andy is trying his best to look after her.

Leyley appears concerned for Andy as he breaks down at the grandparents’ house and asks him if he’s okay. When he asks her if she wants to be friends, she replies “I thought we already were.”

In the abstract segment within Andy’s subconscious at the start of 3A, his family is represented by ghosts. At one point, the player is given a choice - either Andy gets yelled at by his teacher, his mother, or Pink Ghost/Leyley. When he takes away Pink Ghost’s coloring pencils, her reaction is a quiet expression of sadness as opposed to a roar.

The same segment also contains a similarly abstract “family portrait.” Renee’s Lime Ghost is the one depicted as angry - Pink Ghost, contrary to expectation, is depicted as sad.

I find the last two points particularly noteworthy. Leyley’s external belligerence doesn’t seem to leave as visceral of an impression on Andy as the underlying reasons for it.

Everyone else sees a helion. He sees a heartbroken little girl.

Oh yeah, I honestly respect any ship people want to have with Andrew, but my problem with the Andrew x Renee mood is that it literally makes no sense??

I mean they completely forget about the fact that Renee is the reason for the two brothers' misfortunes and just use Renee as an Ashley 2.0 with the exact same personality just a little more serious so you don't notice it lol

Same thing happens with most ocs, it's crazy to me to see people who hate gravecest/Ashley but ship Andrew with an oc that is EXACTLY the same as Ashley like ???

It's almost like... If you take Ashley out of the story the game wouldn't make sense/wouldn't be interesting!! 😱

I'm so tired of the hate Ashley Graves receives on the internet in general.

Not because I think everyone should like the character because there's no accounting for personal taste, but it's so obvious when they are just misogynists who hate Ashley but for some reason love Andrew and actively defend him for actions that both siblings committed.

Like no, Ashley did NOT force Andrew to do shit, Andrew had plenty of opportunities throughout his life to at least try to separate himself from his sister as much as possible and put a stop to Ashley's actions (example: take Ashley's harassment to Julia seriously and not just dismiss it)

The point is that he doesn't do it because he's just as bad as she is, and him blaming her for all his misfortunes is just his way of coping so he doesn't feel so bad about himself afterwards.

I know this is something a lot of people have already pointed out, but it's because I'm on Tumblr (where I only read posts from people who adore her) that I sometimes completely forget how much people actually hate her out there 💀

this moment where little Andrew and Ashley find used cigarettes.... something something foreshadowing

Why do people call us proshippers? Because we're professional shippers? Because we have professional taste in ships? Not my fault the doomed sisters have more chemistry in one glance than shitbomb and acabvi have in their entire forced narrative. Sorry that your otp is basically soggy toast in a trench coat.