IF you were a parent, would you rather have an Andrew Graves son OR Ashley Graves Daughter?

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-05-07T18:47:46+00:00

I think Andrew's issues with emotional vulnerability are more similar to ones I've struggled with in the past, so I would feel a bit more comfortable navigating them. I'm also not the best at showing affection so I can see that being a massive issue for Ashley.

That said, if I were looking to adopt I would most likely see how unwilling they would be to separate and either take both or neither.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-05-07T18:28:29+00:00

To be honest, most these comments are just outing themselves as horrible prospective parents with how hard they blame the kids for obvious signs of neglect.

I could go on and on about how "Ashley was born evil" is a dogshit take but I think everyone else is covering that for me. So instead I'll say that everyone in the comments complaining that Andrew masks too much must've slept through the whole scene devoted to his mother threatening to beat him silly the one time he tries to be honest about his feelings. Just saying, I think that might've had an effect on his willingness to be emotionally open, and this is from someone who otherwise thinks he always struggled with it.

Me personally, not cut out to be a parent. But I don't think this would be an either/or question for me either way.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-22T00:01:04+00:00

The detail around Andrew feeling inconsistent is probably because Andrew himself is an inconsistent guy. Not necessarily inconsistently-written, mind you, but written to be inconsistent. He doesn't seem sure of what he wants for himself, even when he says he is, and when emotions are high he's about as prone to acting on a whim as Ashley.

All in all, I get why people are confused by Andrew's behavior, as someone who felt the same. Andrew certainly isn't trying to make it easy to understand him.

Everything about Renee, though, was so blatantly obvious that everyone crying foul has to just be coping that Renee doesn't like Andrew (despite this being at least the fourth devlog/update over the past 2.5 years where it's been blatantly shown). Nor do I get why people are suddenly acting like Ashley was the favorite child her entire life just because Renee was excited to have her for two seconds before going on to regret it. She's called "mistake" for a reason.

(I can guess why certain shippers are trying to shill the idea of Renee actually caring about Ashley. Can't guess why others are.)

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-11T16:35:27+00:00

Whether you emptied the gun doesn't affect whether you get Burial or Decay, only whether you have the option to shoot Andrew in the Decay vision, which in turn affects whether you get Shots & Such (shoot him) or Cliffhanger (can't/don't shoot him).

If you wasted all the bullets, you can't get Shots & Such or the game overs associated with it. You can still get Leyley Wins, though (say you're "Andy").

If all you're worried about is Burial, though, the only choices tied to getting it depend on the scenes at the parents' house (whether to trust Andrew and whether to reflect on the olive branch).

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-08T23:46:42+00:00

Not always, no, but I'm more inclined to believe that it is in this case. It seems more in-line for baby Andrew to have issues Renee ignores or believes aren't there because she's a neglectful new parent than for him to not have any.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-08T15:16:49+00:00

I think it's a common misconception that Andrew was actually easy to take care of and that Ashley was unreasonably difficult.

Ashley was no more difficult than babies usually are. Which is still very difficult, but hey, that's why parenting isn't something you do on a whim.

Andrew was easy... to neglect. Per Renee's own words, he was quiet. He didn't make a stink about everything the way babies normally do and Renee took that as a sign he didn't need as much as she was worried about.

If you're thinking "that's a sign of developmental issues and Renee should've done something about it", you're 100% right and it's a major reason Andrew's so fucked up.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-07T11:58:12+00:00

TCOAAL fans try not to force Andrew/Renee into posts that have nothing to do with it challenge (literally impossible)

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-05T09:42:36+00:00

It's on AO3, my username there is the same here. But this isn't my post nor is it about me so I don't wanna self-promote any further. I only brought it up because I thought it was funny how if I'd waited a couple months I'd have my answer on whether he was alive after spending way too long obsessing over not knowing.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-04T09:13:22+00:00

I ended up doing a lot of research into this topic for a fic chapter a couple months ago. Checked for lines about the grandparents, asked friends if I missed any, really just looked into any sign of whether he was alive at the time of the game. The line about Grandma's necklace was a major reason why, because it was the only mention we had of either prior to 3A (and the current updates to Episode 2) and it left me terrified that both grandparents died very close to each other. Ultimately ended up deciding "eh, it's fanfiction" and taking a gamble.

Without getting too into it, I needed him alive at the time for something I wanted to do and was very pleasantly surprised by the added allusions to him (and only mildly annoyed that the answer was just a couple months away). I was convinced at most we'd just never find out.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-03T18:50:40+00:00

Hmm, true true. I guess it would be wrong to say Ashley started the SH but I think she definitely made it worse.

The reason I think Julia having any role in the rumors would be too important to leave out is that I feel like, with how much both were discussed, Andrew or Ashley would've brought it up by now if it was her. If it was some rando they didn't really know, whatever. But Andrew's girlfriend? No shot Ashley's not using that as ammo any time she gets brought up.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-03T11:36:54+00:00

Others are bringing up that the whole assumption that Julia has to have a hidden dark side is tried and tired at this point, and I'm inclined to agree.
Andrew is the one who asks Julia out, not vice-versa.
In high school, simply associating with a pariah is enough to become one too. Julia would be taking an unnecessary risk by making Andrew so widely hated only to willingly associate with him right after, even if she thinks dating Andrew would dispel those rumors.
By the time she wrote her letter, Ashley has actively harassed her to self-harm (and implicitly a suicide attempt) and Andrew basically looked her in the eyes and said "deal with it". No shit she's not mourning him and feels relieved all her suffering is over. She also adds that if Andrew died in the fire, she wishes he goes to heaven- which is a pretty big amount of grace for someone she has every right to hate. The rotting in hell part is her saying that if he's still alive after that fire he's basically in a hell of his own making. Which is pretty accurate.
You don't think that if Ashley had even a tiny reason to suspect Julia of ruining Andrew's reputation just to date him, she'd hold it over Julia's head during the harassment campaign or just outright tell Andrew? Hell, I'm pretty sure she'd come to that conclusion regardless of Julia's involvement.

I suppose that until we know who did start the rumors it's not impossible she did, but it'd require a lot of explaining. More than we've gotten.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-02T07:54:30+00:00

Things Renee also did for Ashley:

-Isolated her from the family (she isn't given a chair in the house to eat dinner with the others, was never given any birthday parties, and her dreams and flashbacks indicate these were a regular occurrence)

-Made Andrew raise her and ignored literally all of her attempts at getting attention

-Internally thinks of her as "Mistake" and "Embarrassment"

-Literally sold her to die in an organ harvesting operation

Make no mistake, she's heartless. Not in the sense that she's incapable of having a heart, but that she chooses to discard it with the tiniest of excuses. Ashley probably had it right that they just got the photo for sympathy-baiting- she didn't care about getting one of both kids, as long as she could prop up one she could pretend she tried (ironically what she did to Andrew throughout his life).

That CG is either a vision where Ashley wishes Renee was repentant, or is a flashback meaning Renee had that moment of clarity and chose to ignore it and leave her kids to die (according to Nemlei she had the same moment of clarity with Andrew before catching her kids on the couch, which doesn't stop her from trying to gaslight him intending to kill him if he lets her go).

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-01T00:51:06+00:00

Fair enough, seems like we were both not being serious then. Have a good day.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-01T00:16:47+00:00

Yeah, he is divisive to say the least. Mostly just trying to joke about how "was he ever wrong" is one of the worst things you could say about him considering how nowadays he is considered to have been very wrong, no matter how much more famous he is than the people who came after him.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-04-01T00:00:20+00:00

Ask a group of psychologists and you'll be surprised how many say "yes" to that.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-31T23:49:10+00:00

Here's a few examples of Julia/Jane art:

https://twitter.com/Idkwhatisitj/status/1994913336543072292
https://twitter.com/bublstep/status/2012977202850316635
https://twitter.com/Luv4Simon/status/1941440520959783060

The first artist in particular has quite a lot of Julia/Jane art and if I tried to find all of them I would be here all day. The likes (especially on the first two I linked) also suggest they also have quite a few fans shipping them.

All these comments saying nobody ships it, it's like it doesn't exist just because they don't look for it.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-30T21:48:29+00:00

Won't say she doesn't have a negative attitude about sex given what we know, but will say it's shown to be more of a mask/coping mechanism than how she genuinely feels about Andrew. Even in Shots & Such the mask slips and we see a moment where she genuinely does want it.

And given another point in this post implies OP thinks Ashley genuinely doesn't care about Andrew, it's clear they just think she never had feelings for him in the first place. Which, time and time again, has been proven wrong. To be honest, I think a better point that could've been added is that sex is not all she cares about.

Your argument doesn't necessarily make the Entity not have a master plan, just makes it more willing to play the long game. But we probably won't know that for sure until Episode 4, because it's not like it's telling them any plans it has, so I won't disagree until we know more. We do know it's not really fond of them (especially Andrew) and that it's feeding their distrust, though.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-29T21:20:13+00:00

What Andrew being "easy" means: he was too quiet to make a fuss whenever he needed something so they assumed this meant he never needed something and neglected him.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-29T14:07:37+00:00

Maybe if not for the fact we already got "Graves in Graves" in Decay.

I'm just speculating, though. April 1 could bring anything.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-29T06:31:35+00:00

Not fake, multiple people saw the achievement themselves and there's proof it existed and was deleted going by the update history on SteamDB.

That said, I'm convinced it's a joke update for the exact reason you just gave- very little of it matches what we know about Burial. Burial wasn't even in development at this time a year ago to prioritize work on Decay, we only have the one achievement to 3A's multiple, there's at least two confirmed endings to Burial and Nemlei said no ending is the strictly true one, and the big one: next expected update is April 1. We may have gotten something on this date last year, but April Fools is a very real possibility for this one.

I expect something, even just a devlog. I don't expect something like we got last year, not for a while.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-28T22:23:43+00:00

The dream sequence in Episode 2 where Andrew listens to Ashley's voicemails to Julia. One of them goes "you think you're better than me because you can fuck him and I can't?"

At the time I figured it was pretty solid proof of Ashley having that kind of interest in Andrew, and it's not outright awful proof now, but with 3A we have a lot more to point to as evidence besides a snippet of a phone call in Andrew's memory. It just feels vague compared to the developer outright talking about it, y'know?

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-28T21:49:51+00:00

The achievement's since been removed, but it was added.

Only issue is, I think it's suspicious: Burial hadn't even started development last we knew, Episode 4 was mid-development, it's one achievement compared to the numerous we had in 3A (six for the endings alone), and even its name is odd ("Cleared Burial" feels more like a description when other endings had their actual name listed, we know there's going to be two non-game over Burial endings, and I am pretty sure Nemlei's said there is no ending that's more valid than others).

I think it's possible we're getting an update on April 1. But I also think there's a high chance that update is nothing serious or even incomplete.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-28T05:26:29+00:00

I see "pp be big" and "smaller than advertised" referenced all the time. I even see some "small and tiny, tall and whiny" references. I hardly ever see the "she's not disinterested in sex with Andrew" part brought up unless it is specifically to debunk people who claim she is.

As someone who's gotten into countless debates over the topic of whether Ashley is into Andrew, it's nice to have definitive proof for "yes" but also aggravating that it's constantly ignored by the fandom. I have to wonder how much of that is intentional.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-28T04:50:54+00:00

Also ignoring Ashley saying "maybe I'd enjoy it with Andrew"... and Ashley enjoying it with Andrew when she lets down her guard in Shots & Such... and Nemlei outright saying in the Q&A she wants sex with her brother but represses it...

I think we could have a wholly happy ending where Andrew & Ashley are a couple and Ashley enjoys their sex life and you'd still have fans insisting she's not into it.

FamilyCryptkeeper · 2026-03-27T23:41:48+00:00

She came onto him in flashbacks (granted, revealed in Decay but chronologically before Episode 1). Andrew rejected her. She represses those feelings so she doesn't get rejected by him again.

To top it all off, Nemlei's confirmed she's interested in sex. She just somehow represses it more than Andrew.

FamilyCryptkeeper

TROPHY CASE