#ashley facts

[leyleycraves]

Andy and I are now proud kitten parents oh my god

[double--blind]

(SPOILERS) Ashley, self-esteem, and starvation

So, I adore Ashley. She's this intensely toxic, vicious, cruel, manipulative girl, and her psychology gives me hella brainworms. Andrew's not the only one whose head I wanna crack open and root around lol. She's thrown away the world just to keep her brother by her side, and she'll continue to do worse and worse for the same reason. She's pretty awful! I've been thinking about why, though. How did things get so bad? How did her soul get so dark?

We don't know everything (I'm waiting for those new eps patiently aND CLAWING AT THE WALLS AND FROTHING AT THE MOUTH but whatevs y'know whatevs I'm normal. I'm fine), yet what information we have been given is bumping around my brain like a DVD screensaver on hyperdrive

It's clear from the start that the roots of Ashley's issues lie in her horrible, neglectful upbringing, but it's hinted that even those outside of her family felt the same abt her. I'm lowkey even betting we'll learn later on that she was ostracized by her peers somehow. However, what's most disconcerting, I believe, is how little she was when the results of this alienation are first made apparent to us (bc kids aren't dumb; they notice this stuff oftentimes instinctively, impossibly young, before they even know what it means to be hated), and how devastating the consequences were.

(There's something decidedly childish abt her dream sequence in the "questionable" route—filled with crayon scribbles and rabbit plushies, the metaphors simplistic yet profound—which really hammers in how these sentiments are things that have made a home in her since childhood. Formative subconscious truths.)

Growing up unloved and noticeably unwanted by virtually everyone around her likely left her with a gaping hole in her heart that she'd spend the rest of her life trying to fill. She'd make friends, but she'd always worry that they'd leave her, that they'd betray her, nothing tangible or weighted enough in their connection to trust in its persistence. Why should she expect otherwise? Not even being bound by familial ties ensures affection if her parents are any indication.

Every lesson she'd ever learned had always taught her this: you are easy to abandon. You cannot love and be loved by virtue of your own worth.

You have to rip their affection from their clenched hands if you want it so bad.

This understanding carries with it an undercurrent of degradation, instilling within Ashley a constant, biting inferiority complex which will never fail to be a source of insecurity. She will always be put last. She was difficult to raise, so her parents gave up on raising her. She was difficult to get along with, so her friends gave up on getting along with her.

It's an odd cycle. She's difficult bc she needs to be to get attention, but bc she's difficult, she can't keep it. Not without having whatever fondness she's managed to cultivate within someone fray at the seams, volatile and prone to collapse, bleeding toxicity.

Hence, her relationship w/Andrew.

By being the only reliable constant in her life, caring for her and keeping her company, Andrew essentially became her only source of happiness, and she's since learned not to bother with anyone else. Still, it's dangerous to keep all your eggs in one basket; since he is all she has, she must protect her place in his life with even greater ferocity, which becomes a torturous ordeal when coupled with her damaged self-esteem.

It's apparent in her quarrels with Andrew that she needs constant reassurance that she is wanted in some capacity or perceived in some positive light (getting pouty when Andrew says he's "stuck with her", needing to hear that she's pretty, needing him to "choose her", wanting him to say he loves her back, etc. etc.), yet her insecurity remains, bc unlike her, he's got options. She doesn't think he needs her like she needs him. He's got a gf, their parents love him, her friends love him. Why would he settle for her? What if someone better comes along? Someone she can't scare away?

Wouldn't he just leave her like everyone else?

Even before getting locked in the coffin of their apartment, starvation's been a constant theme in Ashley's life. She's constantly aching for love, and Andrew's the only one who can feed her. When you're forced to fight for a bite to eat or suffer every moment you hunger, you become ravenous—covetous—when faced with food; you don't want the hunger to return, so you lock down the source of your sustenance, wary of its retreat. Ashley's in a permanent state of intense insecurity, always anxious that the love that gives her life will leave her.

Andrew knows Ashley better than anyone else in the world, and it's obvs to everyone and him how desperate Ashley is for him, but I don’t think Andrew has truly, consciously processed the depth of that desperation. It's there buried in his head somewhere no doubt, but rn, he doesn't operate w/the direct awareness that he is everything. He is brother, mother, friend, and soulmate. He is life and love, air and water, everything that is good in the world—everything that there is to justify existence.

It's heartbreaking, in a way, that it's so difficult for Andrew to convince her of his loyalty. This goes further than his tendency to hide his true feelings, bc when push comes to shove, he's at her beck and call. Objectively, he's hers. She doesn't see that bc all she sees is all the ways she can lose him.

So, she gets bratty. She gets pushy, possessive, territorial. Manipulative. Gets under his skin, guilts him to exhaustion, bc she can't see him staying any other way, bc he doesn't get it, bc it works. He bends to her will, for her sake. For now. It's always "for now", bc he'll start slipping away again, and then it'll get worse. She does worse.

Becomes worse.

[knifefightandchill]

[melzzzzz]

that how that scene went, right?

[bamsara]

trick or treat!!!

TRICK

CHEESE BLOCK

[miwtual]

You wanna know where my treasure is? I’ll tell ya. Wealth. Fame. Power. I’ve found everything this world has to offer. Free yourselves. Take to the seas. My treasure is yours to find.

ONE PIECE (2023) 1.01: ROMANCE DAWN

[incorrect-gravescest]

💛: I mean, she is your sister, Andrew. You share DNA with her.

💚: Share DNA? Sharing my DNA with her?! Are you insinuating that I want to pump Ashley full of my hot cum?! I thought better of you, Julia!

💛: W-what? N-no, Andrew! I know how sensitive you are about those...those allegations! I was just saying you share a lot of the same, uh, habits! Like you both bite your nails when you're nervous. Th-that's all.

💚: Oh... right, that's true. We both do that. Hey, listen...I'm sorry about that. Just forget I said anything about pumping my sister full of cum. I'm just a bit cranky. Hangry, even. I didn't eat breakfast.

💚: C'mere, you. My beautiful silver medal. You know I'll always love you.

💛: Thanks, Andrew. You know I-I love you too.

💚: Have you ever thought about wearing a choker? That would look so hot on you.

[ashleygraves-number1defender]

“I dont know whats wrong with you” andrew says, crawling into his little sisters bed (a regular occurrence)

[yashley]

“but I will tell you now that if the Raven Queen fucks with you, or hurts you, or doesn't change you for the better, then she's going to have to deal with me, and we're going to have a problem.”

[leyleycraves]

But you arrived like sunlight in the gloom 🎶

And burned off the haze when the year was still new 🎶

[mrsbridgerton]

shonda rhimes, a black woman, staying MUTE when the POC actors/actresses in bridgerton (rege, simone, ruby, masali, charithra, victor, martins and emma) have received vile racist abuse and harassment yet she only defended *checks notes* nicola coughlan, a white woman….

[pikopiikko]

i am getting barraged CONSTANTLY on all sides by STUFF THAT SHORT CIRCUITS MY BRAIN THIS EPISODE

[lokitty-supreme]

There’s just something about Leon, who has been through literal hell, telling Ashley that it’s okay to be afraid & that they will beat this thing together (despite losing people before that he’s tried to save) that gives me a lot of feelings…

He hasn’t let his hope that this time it can be different die just yet.

[duckapus]

Idea: one of those "Ash somehow ends up in a group chat (usually with the Champions or Legendaries, sometimes with other characters) the first day of his journey and it messes with the series" AUs that've been popping up on AO3 lately, but instead it's a group chat made up of alternate versions of himself. One of them's the canon version (or at least close to it), the rest are AU versions, at least one of them is Ashley (not sure if trans or just genderbent. leaning towards trans), and all of them are from post-series and trying not to give too many spoilers because they don't want to overwhelm their "mini-me" or make things too easy for him 'cause if they do he won't grow as a trainer and person like they did (not that he'd want them to coddle him like that anyway. He's always wanted to get through on his own merits not have victories just handed to him). Also Arceus told them not to (who else do you think would've set this up?).

Granted, sometimes even when they do give spoilers it doesn't help much between them not having perfect memories, being from alternate timelines so a lot of the details are different between them, and forgetting just how stubborn and bull-headed their Kanto Era self could be.

I call it the "Self-Help Hotline" AU

[scandalouslamb]

Actors Being Interviewed (1/4)

—Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes 8-Part Documentary

[non4ry]

drew some of my favorite resi girlies as my little ponies for funsies ^_^

designs are f2u with credit! also check the notes for me just infodumping about my horse designs lol