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merry christmas thought it would be super duper scary to draw these two after being okegom-free for 4 years booooo!
"But that ship is toxic and problematic" okay โค๏ธ yay โค๏ธ
I wonder if something could be said about Ashley's apparent penchant for drawing.
Leyley used to draw a lot. This, in itself, is nothing special: many kids draw as a hobby. The most noteworthy thing is that Leyley loved to draw so much, she'd do it on the walls, which Andy had to clean...
... and on Andy's notes, which made it difficult for him to study.
I don't need to say that this is just one of the many ways Leyley begged for attention and approval, which most surely had the opposite effect.
However, what made me pause a bit are three completely separate scenes.
This is in the very opening of the game:
We don't see Ashley drawing as an adult, but she doesn't seem to be very confident in herself. Then again, at this point in the game, it could be just goodhearted self-deprecation. It does say something, however, that she's still clinging onto that drawing, both because it's so old and not good-looking, and what it represents.
This is after Ashley, as a teen, has a meltdown over Andrew "seeing Julia":
Andrew is being mean, but to be fair to him, he's also angry and interprets the torn drawing as a way to make him feel bad, so I'll let it pass. The artstyle is so crude, I assume this is another old drawing: the lemon muffin is a reference to a way Andy celebrated Leyley's birthday when they were kids, so it's possible she drew it back then. And then kept it for years, before destroying it in a fit of heartbroken rage. It's how she conveyed her love for her brother, and it was that important to her, that apparently, she still had it in grabbing and tearing vicinity. Her hate for Nina is as important as her love for Andrew.
(the other option is, of course, that it's a much more recent drawing, and yes, this is a pretty abysmal way of drawing for a teen who apparently has been doing so for years. I still wouldn't call it garbage though, Andrew, she meant well :<)
Not much after that scene, Andrew also tells us this:
Whether Ashley still draws in her teen years or has stopped, at least we know it's more important to her than her homework, and enough for Andrew to comment on it.
And this is an offhand comment Renee makes to her mother while pretending she doesn't regret her life choices and children.
This is how Renee chooses to paint Ashley in a good light: by praising her art. Which is a lie, of course, because even back then she wasn't exactly Leonardo Da Vinci, but hey, grandma doesn't need to know about that. Worthy of note is that, despite doing everything in her power to interact with her daughter as little as possible, she did notice how much Leyley likes to draw (although afawk it could be because she once saw her drawing on the walls, so it's even more of a backhanded compliment).
So I suppose Leyley's cry for attention did work, in part.
It's a running gag that Ashley is a pretty bad artist. More than once, people point out she struggles to draw circles.
Speaking of attention seeking behavior, and how Renee keeps denying it.
So, what do I take from this?
That Ashley had a predisposition for drawing, clearly enjoying it regardless of her talent, and partially did so as a way to yell "look at me! I'm a person too! I have feelings, here they are!" at the world; but that predisposition was never nurtured, neglected as she was. Her art was ugly at best, a bother at worst. So she never developed her artistic skills, stagnated, and now she's a "bad" artist, which she resents. It's quite a shame, because of all the ways you could vent your feelings, art is by far the healthiest. Perhaps she would have been less destructive.
Naturally, this is part of one of the game's key themes: Ashley never grew up. She wasn't given the tools to, and now, she doesn't even want to. So she never developed past the "Leyley" phase of her life, still drawing in a childish way, still "playing" with her bunny plushies in her mind, still clinging onto her child self when Andrew wants nothing more than to grow up (or so he says). Much like her art, she too was seen mostly as an embarrassment, and so never improved. But every scrap of attention Andrew gives her? Means the world to her. And that's why she keeps going.
Lastly: every ending of the game comes with a crude crayon drawing.
It makes me believe that Ashley's art, ugly and childish as it is, is an important part of her, and her perception of the world.
Donโt let your girlfriend stop you from finding your wife.
so tired of daddaughter where she's just like her mother give me daddaughter where "she's just like me. she's my girl. she's a mirror of everything i once was/everything i could have been and it fills me with both pride and grief in equal measure"
Here's an interesting instance of Andrew manipulating the audience: I've seen many people say that this moment proves Andrew can feel remorse, but really read what he says,
This is in no way a display of genuine guilt. This is him justifying his decision to not go to the police. He knows that he should feel bad, that's what a normal person would feel, so he needs a good reason to explain why he will never turn himself in. "It won't bring her back" is as good an excuse as any - never mind that confessing would give Nina's friends and family closure (and considering Julia took him to her grave I'm sure he's well aware of this). But alas, Andrew does not actually care, he just comes up with more excuses because that's much easier than admitting he's not normal.
Sisterly love am I right or am I right
So, humanity is at over eight billion people. Time for a bit of statistics education for y'all, because I feel like it.
Okay, take a group that's around 1%. At least officially, it could possibly be higher. So like,
BPD: 1.6% officially
DID: 1.5% officially
Trans: 1.14% officially
Schizophrenia: 1.1%
These are American statistics, but presuming that overall none of these have some sort of strong cultural cause, they should be representative of the norm of humanity. Now, let's get the raw number estimate out of this. What we're going to need to do is multiply 8,000,000,000 by 0.016, 0.015, 0.0114, 0.011 respectively.
128,000,000
120,000,000
91,200,000
88,000,000
So, this a rough estimate for the number of people in each category respectively. Bit bigger than you might assume when you hear "approximately 1%", right? When you hear "approximately 1%", you're liable to think something is super rare. And in proportion, yeah, sure.
But plot twist, I'm discussing misinformation and bad propaganda. Did you know the internet allows disparate groups of small populations to connect and form larger communities than was ever possible offline due to how irl populations are distributed? Now, imagine a community of just 25% of trans people. Using the prior information, you can do this calculation yourself.
Done it? Did you get 22,800,000 people? Good job. If not, the calculation should have been 91,200,000 x 0.25. Now, imagine a community online of 22,800,000 people. That's a pretty damn big community online, right?
And this here shows how false claims of the level of visibility of various groups online being the result of "fakers" and "trenders" is. Those claims rely on your inability to understand that even 1% of humanity is 80,000,000 people. You aren't seeing anywhere close to 80,000,000 different people posting about it. You aren't even seeing 1,000,000 people posting about it. You are seeing a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of humanity posting about it. Social media just enables that itty bitty bit to find each other and interact.
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