Ashley treatment in the Family

[Todlied]

We know for a fact that Mom have the dominating role in the Parents' relationship. So why have Andrew been raised with such favoritism? In the birthday scene is show that Ashley don't get anything in her birthdays, Mom tries to talk and rationale with Andrew sometimes in episode 2 and separate the two, but not so much with Ashley.
Mom knows about Nina, but probably hides it only to save face, if she started to dislike the Andrew and Ashley's relationship because of it, would make sense, but Ashley's Bunny separated from the family dinner table and the birthday thing suggests that this treatment have existed from the moment Ashley have been born.
Ashley have a murky soul, is it because of her raising or from the birth? If so, could mom know about it and that's why she show so much disdain for her daughter?
I'm curious if the cult and the water company thing as well, maybe the parents were involved in sketchy things from long ago and that's why they're so distant with their kids?

[水面]

Regarding favoritism: Obviously I think Mom and Dad Graves can't be trusted in a lot of different aspects, but I think it's somewhat reasonable to take Mom's word about Ashley, at least a little. Andrew didn't act out as a baby, so they decided to have another, who turned out to be more work. Over time this grew into him becoming her favorite because he was the level-headed, obedient child, and Ashley was a troublemaker, feelings that she still held towards them in adulthood. This led to Ashley being neglected and Andrew needing to step up as a parental figure for her, which only made her feel more distant from her parents and more dependent on Andrew. With this idea in mind, the reason that she didn't try to rationalize with Ashley becomes pretty clear: she thinks of her as a lost cause and an obstacle that could get in the way of her influencing Andrew.

It's also worth noting that they were both teen parents, and specifically would've been 16-17 when Ashley was born, so it's very possible that they overestimated their own abilities. If the dream in the Decay ending is anything to go off of, they genuinely love each other, and sometimes that can mean doing things you end up regretting. I should clarify that I'm not trying to defend her actions, just contextualizing them in a way that some might miss. Childhood neglect is a very serious topic, and the story presents it exceptionally well.

[djsumdog]

I got the impression her mother saw her psychopathic nature at a very young age; like there was something definitely and discernibly off about Ashley. Most mothers would do anything to protect their children, even the psycho children (thinking of the movie _We Need to Talk About Kevin_), and in this case, their mom has a strong feeling about the girl who dissipated but kept it quite all those years until that scene with Andy in the basement.

Andy becomes co-dependently attached to a psycho; a "Type-2 Psycho" might be a good way to think of it. He doesn't have his sister's indifference to human life, but he has to learn that in order to deal with the horrific things she convinced him to do.

[W0RTHL3SS]

ngl, I kind of see it as a simple fact that teen parents should not be left to themselves and need help with raising the children.

The saying "it takes a village to raise a child" doesn't come from wet farts, There should have been grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins around to help, but they lived in the same flat all their lives. We see it in the birthday flashback, same home, same couch (ew) and we see the siblings sharing their room in their twenties.

The meaning of what I want to say may be lost since it's 5 am and I reeeeeally need to get my fat ass to bed, good night!

[gyrotim]

One of the things you see in the apartment security room are organ-harvesting papers. This would imply that Ashley and Andrews parents (most likely the mother) willingly sold them to organ harvesters for a solid sum of cash under the guise of "protecting" them from a pandemic. This is cash that went into the parents new home.

[NECROMUSE]

Mrs. Graves and Ashley are a lot alike in their manipulation towards others and their preference for men (and likely people, for that matter) that are absolute doormats. We see this manipulation first-hand in chapter 2, and it's also noted that Andrew is "just like his father" as he goes along with whatever mom's whims are.

I sincerely believe a lot of her favoritism towards Andrew is simply tolerating him a lot more because he was "easy" in this sense. She even comments he was "an easy baby," which is supposedly why they decided to have Ashley. I think she feels he was easy to manipulate, and this also explains why she thought she could convince him to turn against Ashley in chapter 2 as well.

Ashley, obviously, is not easy to manipulate in this way. She's certainly not passive the way Andrew was. Mom doesn't like that.

[SolidPayne]

considering that the parents were willing to sell both of them to have their organs harvested. I'd say she doesn't care much more for Andrew just that he seems easier to put up with. Maybe when she first had Andrew at such a young age, it was easier to deal with so she could put up with him more since he was just one child but once two children hit the equation, she just couldn't be bothered

When the mom yells at Andrew to go to bed at once or get out right away, that shows her clear impatience with him. So it seems pretty obvious to me that there's not so much favoritism towards Andrew but more tolerance like "well I had you a bit longer so I guess I've formed some sorta bond kinda but not really"

[men.ace]

Is her soul tar because of her parents treatment or is her parents treatment because of her tar soul.

[steppenelf]

Ehh. A part of me wonders if she wasn't sexually abused as a child by extended family. How she viewed relations between people at a young age is *very* bizarre for a child. Look at signs that care takers are taught to look for for sexual abuse in children, and then look over how flashback Ashley behaves. She seems less of a psychopath to me, and more like a child who was deeply abused. Her bizarre views on women, her utterly dysfunctional memory (Andrew even comments on it), her views of herself being worthless, wild mood swings jump, her *major* compartmentalization, and her view of every friendship and relationship as sexual. What Ashley wants is surface level and she is quite open about it, whether or not she remembers past events correctly. It's possible she doesn't fully remember past promises; and she has a mixture of intentional and unintentional manipulation.

[gyrotim]

Originally posted by otohime.1978:

Ehh. A part of me wonders if she wasn't sexually abused as a child by extended family. How she viewed relations between people at a young age is *very* bizarre for a child. Look at signs that care takers are taught to look for for sexual abuse in children, and then look over how flashback Ashley behaves. She seems less of a psychopath to me, and more like a child who was deeply abused. Her bizarre views on women, her utterly dysfunctional memory (Andrew even comments on it), her views of herself being worthless, wild mood swings jump, her *major* compartmentalization, and her view of every friendship and relationship as sexual. What Ashley wants is surface level and she is quite open about it, whether or not she remembers past events correctly. It's possible she doesn't fully remember past promises; and she has a mixture of intentional and unintentional manipulation.

Nah, she's a psycho, maybe even an abused psycho, but a psycho none-the-less.

[Wicker]

Originally posted by otohime.1978:

Ehh. A part of me wonders if she wasn't sexually abused as a child by extended family. How she viewed relations between people at a young age is *very* bizarre for a child. Look at signs that care takers are taught to look for for sexual abuse in children, and then look over how flashback Ashley behaves. She seems less of a psychopath to me, and more like a child who was deeply abused. Her bizarre views on women, her utterly dysfunctional memory (Andrew even comments on it), her views of herself being worthless, wild mood swings jump, her *major* compartmentalization, and her view of every friendship and relationship as sexual. What Ashley wants is surface level and she is quite open about it, whether or not she remembers past events correctly. It's possible she doesn't fully remember past promises; and she has a mixture of intentional and unintentional manipulation.

What are her bizarre views on women? Also, she did say she was a virgin at one point. I feel like even as a small child, she wouldn't be afraid of using force to protect herself. She wasn't afraid at all when she saw a dead body.

[gyrotim]

Originally posted by Wicker:

Originally posted by otohime.1978:

Ehh. A part of me wonders if she wasn't sexually abused as a child by extended family. How she viewed relations between people at a young age is *very* bizarre for a child. Look at signs that care takers are taught to look for for sexual abuse in children, and then look over how flashback Ashley behaves. She seems less of a psychopath to me, and more like a child who was deeply abused. Her bizarre views on women, her utterly dysfunctional memory (Andrew even comments on it), her views of herself being worthless, wild mood swings jump, her *major* compartmentalization, and her view of every friendship and relationship as sexual. What Ashley wants is surface level and she is quite open about it, whether or not she remembers past events correctly. It's possible she doesn't fully remember past promises; and she has a mixture of intentional and unintentional manipulation.

What are her bizarre views on women? Also, she did say she was a virgin at one point. I feel like even as a small child, she wouldn't be afraid of using force to protect herself. She wasn't afraid at all when she saw a dead body.

True, she was always screwed up.

[Wicker]

Originally posted by envy728:

what birthday scene? what did i miss

In one of the dream scenes there is a little present somewhere in the map, if you open it, you get a new scene. It's one of the achievements.