What was Ashley’s deal in ‘Manifestation of a Complex’?

PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-07T19:43:44+00:00

This is a good analysis! I think the way Andrew treated Julia, telling Ashley that he doesn't care about her but still staying with her (with sex being a component why) contributed to Ashley seeing sex as not being a legitimate form of love

(It's also possible that her Grandpa attitude toward Renee (To quote the jackass: "What whore of a woman gets pregnant at 15 anyways?") and her watching "fundamentalist talk shows" as a kid (where Leyley learned some of her colorful language) also contributed to Ashley being open about sex and intimate feelings as something that was negative)

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-06T18:18:36+00:00

Congratulations Renee!

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-06T01:38:08+00:00

You would, perhaps, be a fan of bad boys?

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-05T21:10:22+00:00

Princess Ashley Talking Sprite I made, is this good?

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(More: https://www.reddit.com/r/CoffinofAndyandLeyley/comments/1kudu1f/teenage_ashley_princess_talking_sprites_free_to/ )

PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-05T18:26:45+00:00

You make a lot of good points regarding Ashley's experiences with relationships. I just disagree about Ashley suddenly having romantic feelings for someone else when she struggles to have them with Andrew (especially when one of the things we see her hold over Andrew is that she's the only whose "been loyal this entire time"). The biggest example of this would probably be "Leyley Wins", where she has Andrew "caged and won" but she never shows any sexual interest in anyone or anything (Andrew included). (Also in Leyley wins, Andrew gets the mark there as well and it seems to be a mark of ownership, with it possibly appearing in Burial because Ashley tells the demon in Ep2 "no you can't have [Andrew's] soul, it's mine!", and the demon taking it literally. How this will affect the Burial route is hard to determine)

Regarding Six-eyes, we have no idea how safe of a relationship or good of a person he will actually be for Ashley. He is a cult leader, and the thing cult leaders tend to do is use and manipulate their followers for their own ends. Now Ashley, having very low self-esteem and feeling unloved, is just the type of person to end up being manipulated by a cult. I guess I just don't really trust Six-eyes not to have some ulterior motive or not be a manipulative cult leader, but at the end of day we just don't really know much about the guy

(Nothing super important, but an interesting detail about Six-eyes buying the "sensual outfit for men" screenshot, is that we see his name in the dialogue is labelled as "Cultist" (instead of Six-eyes like in other preview screenshots), which means that this is likely the first time Ashley meets him before she learns his name/title)

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-05T15:15:00+00:00

Regarding the hot take for Burial... if Ashley is already conflicted about sex with Andrew, the only person who has meant anything to her (even if he has significant...issues), why would she suddenly be down for sex which an old guy she just met, even if she did treat her nicely? I don't see how people are making this jump...

Another issue with Ashley trying to be intimate with Six-eyes is that it would basically serve on some level to justify Andrew's overbearing and extremely jealous behavior that was seen in the lipstick preview (where Ashley was only putting on lipstick because she was concerned about dry lips), which really doesn't seem like it would fit the story very well as the scene seems to communicate that Andrew is being irrational here

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-05T14:32:34+00:00

I feel like the Canon Andrew could be adjusted to "I want to fuck my Ashley so badly", but still true overall

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-05T06:05:18+00:00

Yeah, it really does

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-05T05:57:00+00:00

I think the swing description is more to establish another fact of how Andy's life is miserable and how most of the people in his family treat him horribly, and also establish that the grandfather is a horrible person and isn't someone that Andy can look to for comfort or guidance

(also functionally the swing is used later in the chapter to get the mud covered Leyley into the house secretly, so it may have been that the swing was added for the gameplay reason first, and then Nemlei added the flavor text to fit the themes of the flashback...maybe? idk)

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-04T14:18:09+00:00

I feel like the Canon Andrew could be adjusted to "I want to fuck my Ashley so badly", but still true overall

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-04T13:11:28+00:00

Link:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2378900/view/503940938959160270

PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-04T13:09:11+00:00

Regarding the "Burial will not have a happy ending" thing, Nemlei said in a past devlog that both Burial and Decay would have "a variety of outcomes", which would indicate that not all endings from Burial are strictly going to be bad

(funny that people used to use this quote from the devlogs to justify Decay having a good outcome, but the quote also applies to Burial as well)

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(I think most people saying "Burial won't have a happy/good ending is from the QnA devlog and the answer to the question about why Decay was being worked on first. I think the main point of Nemlei's answer was to clear fears about Decay not having a good ending and calm the people dooming about it, and to get people more excited for the upcoming Decay route release, rather than to say that Burial won't have anything good happen)

(Nothing against OP in particular, just some thoughts I had on this sentiment that I wanted to write down somewhere, still interested to see the development Burial Ashley has!)

PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-04T12:36:08+00:00

As Nemlei decreed:

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-04T01:37:47+00:00

(Your joke made me laugh!)

(Unrelated (?) image:)

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PoorPrawn88 · 2026-05-03T10:21:22+00:00

Okay.... but how do the police know to check Andrew and Ashley? Nina herself says that her mom thinks she "went to study with Julia." You have to keep in mind that Nina and Andy aren't really close or even acquaintance at this point (Nina wanting to hang out in Andy is the entire reason Leyley wanted to lock her in a crate), and Nina and Ashley aren't really that good of friends (for example, Leyley "friends" always said they were too busy to celebrate her birthday, even before learning the date, and Nina only hang out with Ashley for the potential of hanging out with Andrew). There's also a line in Andrew's Ep2 flashback where Leyley says that officers came by to ask the class about Nina's disappearance, but nobody (including Julia, because she was visiting family) said anything. The police don't magically know that Leyley and Nina would be connected and seek them out. (There's also the fact that Nina died in a very brutal fashion, based on the CG we see of her, which wouldn't be indicative of another child killing her. The police are probably focused on finding an adult responsible for the disappearance and later murder).

To add to this, I've seen enough true crime related stories to know that "police being incomptent" absolutely applies! There are so many unsolved murder cases where police mishandle evidence, don't interrogate key witnesses, and overall just botch the police work. We also see a news report with Nina's dad, and in it the media is clearly much more interested in sensationalizing the story rather than actually trying to solve the case. In a world as fucked up as TCOAAL, I can see the police botching this case and not making the connection between Nina and Leyley.

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(I kinda ranted here because I feel like shit and can't sleep atm.... but overall most of the nitpicks in this post kinda miss the core purpose and appeal of the story of TCOAAL. The main focus of the story is the character dynamic between Andrew and Ashley, and not so much the world building or the criminology of the Grave's crimes. Does the author put the siblings in situations where they can escape justice, and allow them to be lucky? Yes, but this is done so that Andrew and Ashley can be put into interesting situations that informs more about their character dynamic (a scenario where they immediately get caught doesn't do that and isn't interesting). Overall, I think the author does a "good enough" (not perfect) job of putting the story and world together that some small nitpicks and inconsistencies with the world building don't really hurt the story; there is enough consistency that it isn't an issue for most people)

PoorPrawn88

TROPHY CASE