Ashley Brown (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hashtagafreakingghost) wrote2016-02-07 04:54 pm
hashtagafreakingghost) wrote2016-02-07 04:54 pm
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route_29
Player
Name: Ashley
Personal Journal:digi_dragon
E-mail: dragonninjagoddess@gmail.com
AIM/Plurk/Etc.: ionlyshootupwithyourperfume
Timezone: CST
Current Characters in Route: N/A
Character
Name: Ashley
Series: Until Dawn
Timeline: Immediately post-credits
Canon Resource Links: Wiki link!
Since Until Dawn is a game where the player can affect the plot based on choices, here’s ones that’d affect Ashley that will be present in her timeline:
- She takes the séance seriously.
- Chris is honest with her about what he found in the library.
- Chris chooses to save her.
- She’s reluctant to explore but repentant about the prank.
- She investigates the noise at the lodge.
- She stabs The Psycho! ...and gets punched in the face in response.
- Chris chooses not to shoot Ashley AND makes it back to the lodge.
- Emily gets bit, but Mike doesn’t shoot her. Ashley reveals what was written in the Stranger’s book.
- Ashley goes to investigate the voice in the tunnels but doesn’t open the trapdoor.
- EVERYONE LIVES ENDING
Personality: Until Dawn is the kind of game that gives base stats and character descriptions, so that’s a good insight into Ashley’s personality. The words that display when Ash is introduced? Inquisitive, Forthright, Academic.
Inquisitive. Along with this, Ashley’s highest stat at the start of the game is curiosity. It’s one of her key character traits, and one a strength and weakness all in one. Ashley is the kind of girl who questions EVERYTHING, and that can be a good thing! If the right clues are found, she’s the one to bring up the idea that someone’s messing with her and Chris in the basement, pushing them which way to go. She’s always thinking, always wondering, and in a mystery scenario, that can really come in handy! ...It can also be very, very bad. Ashley has more than one choice that can lead her into danger, or at least perceived danger. Despite being in the ruins of an old underground hotel with a potential killer, Ash can run off to investigate a noise she hears, thinking it’s her friend Sam. This puts her right near said potential killer. Sure, he’s not really trying to kill anyone- but it’s worse when much later, she hears a voice call out to her in the mines. It sounds like her friend Jessica, and she can choose to go and investigate it instead of rejoining the (potentially dwindling) group. If she investigates and chooses to open the pounding trap door… Well, decapitation looks like a painful way to go, doesn’t it? Curiosity killed the cat seems apt here.
However, in her foolish, potentially fatal decisions, there’s a modicum of bravery. Ashley’s curiosity in these moments leads her to risk her life, and it’s in both times because she thinks she’s helping a friend-in-need. Despite being scared out of her mind, her curious nature can spur her into a situation she knows is dangerous, and she has the ability to come out of both of them with her head still on her shoulders, too! In this sense, one could consider her inquisitive nature a crutch at times, keeping her going.
Ashley’s always-thinking nature also ties into a BIG drawback: fear. Ashley, in general, is not very brave. It’s a stat that steadily decreases over the course of the events of the night- and boy is that obvious to see, as she is likely to scream and freak out and jump at every little thing, even the light of a projector that she just turned on. While she’s naturally a jumpy and anxious person, scenarios like the one on Blackwood Mountain -- like she’s trapped in a horror movie essentially -- ramp up her racing mind until she’s “jumpier than a paranoid kangaroo.” She HATES horror films, scary things - creepy men in masks trying to hunt you down, Saw traps, and especially the supernatural. So curiosity and wonder mean that with this fear exploited, she becomes a nervous wreck. There are a few times she’s able to pull herself together and think rationally, but it’s usually with a grounding presence, Chris, ever the Scully Skeptic to her Mulder, so if she’s in this state...uh, yeah, this is very much to her own detriment.
...But it’s not just her terrible, horrible, no good imagination that she has to worry about! It’s bad decisions! There is a point where, no matter what choices have been made, if Emily (one of the other girls) is bitten by a wendigo, Ashley will notice the bite and freak the heck out because, operating on zombie logic and vague rules from an old guy only known as The Stranger or The Flamethrower Guy, she’ll immediately think that Emily herself will turn into a wendigo. Granted, she’s not the only one, but her fear and panic cause her to try and force Emily out of their safe room. It’s not her best moment, but at least she’s not like one of the other guys in the group, who considers shooting her her? Still. Ashley’s panic, definitely not a good thing. It’s often that the bad decisions she makes are informed by her fear and anxiety.
Forthright. This one is, honestly, the least defined of the three given traits, especially in how it plays into her strengths and weaknesses, but it can be seen as both in that it manifests as Ashley being very set in what she thinks. You wouldn’t expect this to go well with her curiosity, but dang does it ever-- when she starts to think the lodge is haunted, it will not leave her mind, and even if the choice is made for her to concede she didn’t know what she saw, she’ll eventually press again about there being ghosts. She will not stop talking about it. In fact, honesty is naturally one of her high traits as well! (And another that drops naturally as the night goes on, every time she tries to say she’s not scared, oh dear.) Ashley is a terrible liar, but most of the time she just takes this in stride and says what she thinks, save the few times she starts to try being brave when she is Really Not Feeling It. Whether she’s too scared to go on, or has to let Chris know she’s grateful he chose to save her life, or spies a particular bite… This can lead to some problems, but honestly being set in her ways can help; you know where you stand with Ashley, especially if you fuck her over. ...More on that later!
Perhaps because she’s so bad at lying, it adds to her I-will-speak-up mindset- a weakness that she turns into a strength. Upfront, open, or at least she tries her hardest to be. This can clash with her paranoia, though, so. Well, good luck with that, kid. At the very least, if there’s something on her mind, Ashley will speak up about it, unless she really has time to think hey maybe this isn’t a good idea, such as if she tries to keep Matt from seeing his girlfriend and her ex sharing a tender hug. (And if she lies, it’s still abysmal.) Good, bad, this attribute plays into both.
Academic. A callback to our first trait, Ashley’s one smart cookie, trying to put the mystery together like puzzle pieces. She’s spurned on by her curiosity, but what probably is the root of that curiosity is her very learning-based personality. She’s implied to be quite the studier, a bookish girl, and it shows. When she’s not too panicked to think straight, she can be very astute -- ie. figuring out someone is messing with her and Chris, even though in moments of worry she starts thinking it’s a ghost again at some points -- and she can even push forward in distress to try and learn more. This ties into her curiosity and inquisitive-nature being a crutch as well; after nearly eight hours of a terror-night, if Emily is shot and killed or not, Ashley seeks out the book the now-dead wendigo expert left them and reads it, when there’s nothing else to do. If the only options left to her are panic or learn, she’ll try to learn, even quietly reading off what she’s discovering so the rest of the group can figure it out as well. The desire to learn mixed with her questioning personality make her a real force to be reckoned with when she’s trying to figure out when things are amiss.
It’s important to note that her fear and worry can make Ashley appear self-centric and self-serving, and in some cases, she is. If one betrays her trust, she won’t prioritize their safety. That’s good for herself, bad for the person who wronged her. This isn’t something small, though, like lied and took an extra cookie or said something rude to her; I’m talking life-threatening. Like the bite, though when it becomes clear Emily won’t turn, Ashley is automatically remorseful and realizes how badly she’s screwed up. Or, like if Chris chooses to shoot her in their second Saw-inspired trap of the night. It’s a gun loaded with blanks, but their relationship drops to zero. This event leads to Chris’ death, as when he needs Ashley to open the door to the lodge, locked to try and keep some semblance of safety from the wendigos, she freezes and watches as he’s killed. When Ashley doesn’t know if she can trust someone with her safety, it means she overthinks. She doesn’t act or react. She doesn’t plan Chris’ death, but she doesn’t prevent it…
...But, two things. One, the event comes with a huge amount of trauma. Ashley breaks under the pressure of all the horrible things she’s seen, and she loses her overall good, kind heart. Throughout the rest of the night, she is more distant and reserved, and should she survive, she looks downright shellshocked. Two, with the choices made in this Ashley’s life, she isn’t as messed up. Ashley becoming so distrusting and traumatized and self-centered that she hesitates and lets someone die-- that is a potential outcome for her. It’s there, in her makeup, but it’s not an inevitable.
In other cases, if someone is in her I trust you and will save you mindset, then in the heat of the moment, she might risk herself to save them. Despite there being a dangerous monster outside, if Chris is in her good favor, Ashley immediately opens the door to save him. When she believes Josh is in danger before any of the horrors of the night really start, she rushes to save him. With a little push from her curiosity, there’s the instances with Sam and Jessica as well. Her positive relationships, therefore, are in their own way a strength; they pull her out of her paralyzed paranoia and stir her to action. Now, something bad could come from that action! But at least she acts, and at least she does something rather than wait. Ashley wants to survive. She wants to keep living, more than anything -- but she also wants the people she loves to be there with her, and if she loves them enough, she’ll even rise above her own terror.
When not in life-threatening scenarios, Ashley, while a bit more serious than some of her friends, is still a teenager who likes to relax and have fun. She gets excited about things she loves (books, studying), she feels nervous about confessing to the boy she likes, she teases her friends with a kind of dry sense of humor-- just a bright and eager girl who wants to be liked and write books and kiss boys and enjoy a quiet weekend with her friends. She’s very content to just exist in her social group, more of a follower than a leader, though not shy to voicing her opinion.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
+ Academic | Study, study, study, smart, smart, smart!
This girl will study anything. She is very devoted to anything she can put in a school-like setting, because learning is her basic way of interacting with the world. She’s got more knowledge about literature and the like, but generally? She’s good at studying, and that’ll be nice in a world where there’s so many new things to learn.
+ Writing | How do you write like you’re running out of time etc etc.
She wants to be an author one day, and she’s focused very much on that, in both a creative and persuasive sense. How to craft a story effectively, how to state her case… As long as it’s written down and she has time to think it over, she’s pretty good at doing so. It’s also just how she works out her emotions? So giving her a piece of paper is a nice way for her to show her abilities and organize her thoughts.
+ Committed | And she tries!
Here you have someone who once she sets her mind to something will keep at it, unless she’s completely and totally out-of-her-mind with fear. She’s not the kind to start a task and just let it drop, and this can keep her on point when she’s uncertain about just about everything else. She’s not a flighty girl, from her devotion to a mystery to her single-minded affections for a boy.
+ Devoted to being a good friend | Oh my God, does she try.
To this end, something she’s squarely committed to is being a good friend. Generally kind and caring, if she has someone in her mind as a friend, she’ll do what she can to cheer them up or make them smile or help them if they need it. It doesn’t always turn out well in the end, but that doesn’t stop her! She heads back up to Blackwood Lodge to help Josh heal, even though she’s really not keen on heading back there, after all. Though she may not always know what she’s doing, she tries so very hard.
+ / - Inquisitive | Curiosity is her highest stat after all.
What’s that, there’s a mystery to solve? Alright let’s blindly run forward and ignore fear! ...Which is obviously good and bad because it can get her out of panic mode but it can also lead her into certain doom because she’s like a dog with a bone and will not make like Elsa and let it go.
+ / - Forthright | Followed by honesty.
Unless it’s about romance, Ashley is the sort of girl to let all her thoughts out, which ties into her being a committed person. She’s not averse to little white lies or important secrets, but generally she operates under the idea that being truthful and open is better than being closed off, so that’s good, keeps her from bottling too much up. It’s less that the act of being forthright is bad but more like the times she is can be- because gosh sometimes this girl needs to learn how to read the mood. Sometimes she just wants to get all her thoughts out there, like when she thanks Chris for saving her life...at the expense of his other best friend. She doesn’t think about how honesty can hurt others.
+ / - Self-preservation | Gonna get off this mountain alive so help me--
At the end of the day, Ashley’s got a strong survival instinct. She’ll go down kicking and screaming if her life is in danger, even though she’s not very physically strong. She’ll stab a supposed serial killer, she’ll scream her lungs out for help- whatever it takes. This is well and good for her but it also means she kind of prioritizes her safety over others’ at times, especially when they’ve proven they don’t think highly of her life. See also, the bite incident, wherein she’s so sure she could be in danger that she almost lets Emily die. Ashley’s sense of self-preservation can put others in danger and damage her relationship with them all at once.
- Cowardly | Scared of candle.
“Their biggest fears” did you mean everything? Ashley is a jumpy girl from a horror video game who is terrified of scary movies and monsters and all that fun stuff. When she’s scared she just goes into a mix of fight or flight or freeze and depending on the scenario she can a) stab someone, b) cry and scream, c) want to abandon everyone else, or d) all of the above. She’s alright in casual situations, just kind of saying she’s fine, but she’s the first person to start jumping about and back out at the first sight of danger.
- Anxious and Paranoid | “...and borderline unstable.”
To add on to the previous point, Ashley is incredibly anxious and quick to jump to the worst possible conclusion. She doesn’t do well with the new and exciting scenarios, see, so even a fun romp through the Pokémon world will take time to get used to. Because of this, she just does not handle stress or extreme trauma well, and when pushed far enough, she can become a fulltime member of the Bad Decisions Zone and just stop thinking about the ramifications of her actions.
- Vengeful | Shoot me in the head? Yeah, no, fuck you.
So Bad Decisions Zone, right. This ties into her self-preservation; if Ashley views someone as harmful to her survival, then she doesn’t regard them with the same care as she regards herself. If someone straight-up puts their safety before her, up to and including saying they’re fine with killing her to live? She does not forgive that easily and is very fast to return the favor. If you throw her under the bus and she can’t be sure you’ll help her, then your life is forfeit, in her eyes, even - or likely especially - if you’re someone she cares about and who’s said to care about her.
- Low self-worth | ...wait never mind fuck me.
...Aforementioned burying her problems and potential Bad Decisions Zone can seriously fuck her up and she’s kind of dealing with the aftermath of valuing her own life over other people’s, even if they’re her friends so. This can get into unhappy self-loathing territory. A lot of “what could I have done to prevent this” kind of thoughts and for an already incredibly thoughtful person that cannot be good at all, making her more of a negative person in general.
- Physical capabilities | Not exactly getting an A in climbing class.
While she’s not exactly weak, Ashley is nnnooot the person you go to when you need boxes moved or rock walls climbed. Honestly she’s kind of average in this aspect, but when you come from a monster movie scenario it counts as a weakness. In the run, hide, fight, or die scale, she’s definitely on the run and hide side of things, and while that won’t be as much of a problem in a place where she has a friendly creature to do the fighting for her, it’ll still give her pause if she reaches, say, a mountain.
- TRAUMA | i mean the whole monster thing
I WOULD PROBABLY PUT IT AS A WEAKNESS THAT SHE JUST WENT THROUGH A NIGHT OF HELL. Being told to train monsters, no matter how cute they are, is not going to go over well in the place she’s in, which is “let me go home and cry and never leave my room” or more accurately hella therapy.
Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Litwick
First choice, the explanation being that a Ghost-Fire type would fit well, thematically, since Ashley has a strong belief in the supernatural and the wendigos’ weakness is fire! Additionally, there’s the feeling of exploring-with-a-candle invoked, which is perfect for a nosy little investigator type like Ashley. I thought it’d be fun and fitting for her to have a partner that fits under things she’s scared of and things that she’s come to associate as comforting, as a sort of callback to how the game works with choice -- something that looks undoubtedly bad vs. something that looks undoubtedly good, though there’s likely something more beneath the surface.
Password: Pumpkin Seeds
Samples
First Person Sample:
[Our setting: A makeshift camp, presumably on Route 29. ...Pretty early on in Route 29. Kind of like, right at the start, actually, uh.
Our cameraman (woman? thing?): Litwick, who taps the screen with a frown. A pretty unimpressed looking candle, actually- anyway, Ashley sitting on a sleeping bag, bent over the Trainer’s Handbook and...taking notes, so it seems, as she’s acquired a pen. The whole thing’s going to be annotated to hell and back.]
Wick.
[Ashley looks up, caught in an expression of rapt excitement. That’s good, seems she’s adjusting.] O-oh! Oh, you- thank you, I forgot I asked you to- [Very eloquent.] Hello, everyone! Since...settling in, I’ve started...well, there’s so much about this world I don’t know and I have a lot of questions. Like, this is all...second knowledge for the natives, isn’t it, Pokémon and how they work, but- if I’m going to be expected to...to train them, I have to know, just what are they? Like animals, but obviously not- Litwick’s a candle, after all!
[A still unimpressed and relatively bored candle.]
Some of the ones I’ve seen here look like birds or rats, but there was this one- like a giant ladybug, and ohmygosh it’s incredible and unreal and none of them attacked me at all, just went about their business-- [Breathe.] And I can’t believe I’m in a world full of monsters like this.
[Suddenly she appears embarrassed, pushing some hair behind her ear and adjusting her hat.] Sorry- I got all...rambly- what I wanted to ask is, people who’ve been here longer, do...do you know where Pokémon come from? Why they develop like they do? ...How many there are? Pokédex only tells me about the ones I’ve seen, so...I’d love to get a look at other people’s…..if, uh...you’re...on Route 29. Hm, maybe I should’ve waited to do this until I was at another city, I’ve been so caught up with research that I wasn’t even thinking about travel.
[...the candle sighs and just shakes its head and takes that as its cue to turn off the PokéConnect. Presumably, the candle wants to get a move on.]
Third Person Sample:
Around the time the unknown woman referred to herself as mom Ashley decides she knows exactly what’s going on here, and that’s quite simple: she’s snapped.
She proceeds with dim confusion, mutely holding this backpack and taking in this explain, the world of Pokémon without saying a single word. Weren’t those the games some of her friends played? Something like that? She doesn’t quite recall, it’s all a bit of a blur after the last few hours of police interview and waiting and… That’s it, the whole...everything has just switched her into this weird, fantasy-game adventure. She’s checked out, lost it, gone completely--
“Wick.”
“AAAAHHH--!”
See, it’s funny, nothing else has elicited a response of panic yet, but the little candle tapping her leg (huh not covered in blood, that’s kind of nice) causes her to leap back as if she’d been zapped with a little scream. To its credit, the candle takes it in stride. It waves.
Ashley sinks to her knees. She has most definitely gone crazy.
“M-my God, what are you…?” She asks this after taking a minute or so to just quietly listen to the cheerful 16bit soundtrack to her mental breakdown, a very nice touch, brain.
The candle’s been waiting, staring at her. “Litwick.”
Well. “O...okay?”
“Litwick.” It pats her leg again.
This is going swimmingly, isn’t it? As it becomes clear that Ashley’s not going to get actual words out of her little companion, her eyes turn to the backpack, still clutched in her arms. It feels full, and since she’s not getting answers from her chatty buddy here, she might as well see if there’s anything in it that can give her some, because damn it, if she’s going to construct a colorful fantasy to escape to, at the very least she’s going to understand everything about it.
Clothes, little red-and-white balls, a whole bunch of traveling gear-- and a book. See, what she’ll come to know as the PokéGear will probably be most helpful to her, and it’s gone forgotten so far- but predictably, upon spying the book she rips right into it, and as if someone’s flipped a switch in her brain, her rushed breathing slows and her tensed muscles relax, and with each page she turns, her fingers tremble just a bit less.
By the time she finishes it and starts in on the PokéGear, she’ll probably start to realize this is too detailed a fantasy for even her mind to dream up, and that’ll spark a whole new set of questions and worries and fears. But for now, she’s content to just kneel on the ground, flipping through a book with a sentient candle reading over her shoulder.
Name: Ashley
Personal Journal:
digi_dragonE-mail: dragonninjagoddess@gmail.com
AIM/Plurk/Etc.: ionlyshootupwithyourperfume
Timezone: CST
Current Characters in Route: N/A
Character
Name: Ashley
Series: Until Dawn
Timeline: Immediately post-credits
Canon Resource Links: Wiki link!
Since Until Dawn is a game where the player can affect the plot based on choices, here’s ones that’d affect Ashley that will be present in her timeline:
- She takes the séance seriously.
- Chris is honest with her about what he found in the library.
- Chris chooses to save her.
- She’s reluctant to explore but repentant about the prank.
- She investigates the noise at the lodge.
- She stabs The Psycho! ...and gets punched in the face in response.
- Chris chooses not to shoot Ashley AND makes it back to the lodge.
- Emily gets bit, but Mike doesn’t shoot her. Ashley reveals what was written in the Stranger’s book.
- Ashley goes to investigate the voice in the tunnels but doesn’t open the trapdoor.
- EVERYONE LIVES ENDING
Personality: Until Dawn is the kind of game that gives base stats and character descriptions, so that’s a good insight into Ashley’s personality. The words that display when Ash is introduced? Inquisitive, Forthright, Academic.
Inquisitive. Along with this, Ashley’s highest stat at the start of the game is curiosity. It’s one of her key character traits, and one a strength and weakness all in one. Ashley is the kind of girl who questions EVERYTHING, and that can be a good thing! If the right clues are found, she’s the one to bring up the idea that someone’s messing with her and Chris in the basement, pushing them which way to go. She’s always thinking, always wondering, and in a mystery scenario, that can really come in handy! ...It can also be very, very bad. Ashley has more than one choice that can lead her into danger, or at least perceived danger. Despite being in the ruins of an old underground hotel with a potential killer, Ash can run off to investigate a noise she hears, thinking it’s her friend Sam. This puts her right near said potential killer. Sure, he’s not really trying to kill anyone- but it’s worse when much later, she hears a voice call out to her in the mines. It sounds like her friend Jessica, and she can choose to go and investigate it instead of rejoining the (potentially dwindling) group. If she investigates and chooses to open the pounding trap door… Well, decapitation looks like a painful way to go, doesn’t it? Curiosity killed the cat seems apt here.
However, in her foolish, potentially fatal decisions, there’s a modicum of bravery. Ashley’s curiosity in these moments leads her to risk her life, and it’s in both times because she thinks she’s helping a friend-in-need. Despite being scared out of her mind, her curious nature can spur her into a situation she knows is dangerous, and she has the ability to come out of both of them with her head still on her shoulders, too! In this sense, one could consider her inquisitive nature a crutch at times, keeping her going.
Ashley’s always-thinking nature also ties into a BIG drawback: fear. Ashley, in general, is not very brave. It’s a stat that steadily decreases over the course of the events of the night- and boy is that obvious to see, as she is likely to scream and freak out and jump at every little thing, even the light of a projector that she just turned on. While she’s naturally a jumpy and anxious person, scenarios like the one on Blackwood Mountain -- like she’s trapped in a horror movie essentially -- ramp up her racing mind until she’s “jumpier than a paranoid kangaroo.” She HATES horror films, scary things - creepy men in masks trying to hunt you down, Saw traps, and especially the supernatural. So curiosity and wonder mean that with this fear exploited, she becomes a nervous wreck. There are a few times she’s able to pull herself together and think rationally, but it’s usually with a grounding presence, Chris, ever the Scully Skeptic to her Mulder, so if she’s in this state...uh, yeah, this is very much to her own detriment.
...But it’s not just her terrible, horrible, no good imagination that she has to worry about! It’s bad decisions! There is a point where, no matter what choices have been made, if Emily (one of the other girls) is bitten by a wendigo, Ashley will notice the bite and freak the heck out because, operating on zombie logic and vague rules from an old guy only known as The Stranger or The Flamethrower Guy, she’ll immediately think that Emily herself will turn into a wendigo. Granted, she’s not the only one, but her fear and panic cause her to try and force Emily out of their safe room. It’s not her best moment, but at least she’s not like one of the other guys in the group, who considers shooting her her? Still. Ashley’s panic, definitely not a good thing. It’s often that the bad decisions she makes are informed by her fear and anxiety.
Forthright. This one is, honestly, the least defined of the three given traits, especially in how it plays into her strengths and weaknesses, but it can be seen as both in that it manifests as Ashley being very set in what she thinks. You wouldn’t expect this to go well with her curiosity, but dang does it ever-- when she starts to think the lodge is haunted, it will not leave her mind, and even if the choice is made for her to concede she didn’t know what she saw, she’ll eventually press again about there being ghosts. She will not stop talking about it. In fact, honesty is naturally one of her high traits as well! (And another that drops naturally as the night goes on, every time she tries to say she’s not scared, oh dear.) Ashley is a terrible liar, but most of the time she just takes this in stride and says what she thinks, save the few times she starts to try being brave when she is Really Not Feeling It. Whether she’s too scared to go on, or has to let Chris know she’s grateful he chose to save her life, or spies a particular bite… This can lead to some problems, but honestly being set in her ways can help; you know where you stand with Ashley, especially if you fuck her over. ...More on that later!
Perhaps because she’s so bad at lying, it adds to her I-will-speak-up mindset- a weakness that she turns into a strength. Upfront, open, or at least she tries her hardest to be. This can clash with her paranoia, though, so. Well, good luck with that, kid. At the very least, if there’s something on her mind, Ashley will speak up about it, unless she really has time to think hey maybe this isn’t a good idea, such as if she tries to keep Matt from seeing his girlfriend and her ex sharing a tender hug. (And if she lies, it’s still abysmal.) Good, bad, this attribute plays into both.
Academic. A callback to our first trait, Ashley’s one smart cookie, trying to put the mystery together like puzzle pieces. She’s spurned on by her curiosity, but what probably is the root of that curiosity is her very learning-based personality. She’s implied to be quite the studier, a bookish girl, and it shows. When she’s not too panicked to think straight, she can be very astute -- ie. figuring out someone is messing with her and Chris, even though in moments of worry she starts thinking it’s a ghost again at some points -- and she can even push forward in distress to try and learn more. This ties into her curiosity and inquisitive-nature being a crutch as well; after nearly eight hours of a terror-night, if Emily is shot and killed or not, Ashley seeks out the book the now-dead wendigo expert left them and reads it, when there’s nothing else to do. If the only options left to her are panic or learn, she’ll try to learn, even quietly reading off what she’s discovering so the rest of the group can figure it out as well. The desire to learn mixed with her questioning personality make her a real force to be reckoned with when she’s trying to figure out when things are amiss.
It’s important to note that her fear and worry can make Ashley appear self-centric and self-serving, and in some cases, she is. If one betrays her trust, she won’t prioritize their safety. That’s good for herself, bad for the person who wronged her. This isn’t something small, though, like lied and took an extra cookie or said something rude to her; I’m talking life-threatening. Like the bite, though when it becomes clear Emily won’t turn, Ashley is automatically remorseful and realizes how badly she’s screwed up. Or, like if Chris chooses to shoot her in their second Saw-inspired trap of the night. It’s a gun loaded with blanks, but their relationship drops to zero. This event leads to Chris’ death, as when he needs Ashley to open the door to the lodge, locked to try and keep some semblance of safety from the wendigos, she freezes and watches as he’s killed. When Ashley doesn’t know if she can trust someone with her safety, it means she overthinks. She doesn’t act or react. She doesn’t plan Chris’ death, but she doesn’t prevent it…
...But, two things. One, the event comes with a huge amount of trauma. Ashley breaks under the pressure of all the horrible things she’s seen, and she loses her overall good, kind heart. Throughout the rest of the night, she is more distant and reserved, and should she survive, she looks downright shellshocked. Two, with the choices made in this Ashley’s life, she isn’t as messed up. Ashley becoming so distrusting and traumatized and self-centered that she hesitates and lets someone die-- that is a potential outcome for her. It’s there, in her makeup, but it’s not an inevitable.
In other cases, if someone is in her I trust you and will save you mindset, then in the heat of the moment, she might risk herself to save them. Despite there being a dangerous monster outside, if Chris is in her good favor, Ashley immediately opens the door to save him. When she believes Josh is in danger before any of the horrors of the night really start, she rushes to save him. With a little push from her curiosity, there’s the instances with Sam and Jessica as well. Her positive relationships, therefore, are in their own way a strength; they pull her out of her paralyzed paranoia and stir her to action. Now, something bad could come from that action! But at least she acts, and at least she does something rather than wait. Ashley wants to survive. She wants to keep living, more than anything -- but she also wants the people she loves to be there with her, and if she loves them enough, she’ll even rise above her own terror.
When not in life-threatening scenarios, Ashley, while a bit more serious than some of her friends, is still a teenager who likes to relax and have fun. She gets excited about things she loves (books, studying), she feels nervous about confessing to the boy she likes, she teases her friends with a kind of dry sense of humor-- just a bright and eager girl who wants to be liked and write books and kiss boys and enjoy a quiet weekend with her friends. She’s very content to just exist in her social group, more of a follower than a leader, though not shy to voicing her opinion.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
+ Academic | Study, study, study, smart, smart, smart!
This girl will study anything. She is very devoted to anything she can put in a school-like setting, because learning is her basic way of interacting with the world. She’s got more knowledge about literature and the like, but generally? She’s good at studying, and that’ll be nice in a world where there’s so many new things to learn.
+ Writing | How do you write like you’re running out of time etc etc.
She wants to be an author one day, and she’s focused very much on that, in both a creative and persuasive sense. How to craft a story effectively, how to state her case… As long as it’s written down and she has time to think it over, she’s pretty good at doing so. It’s also just how she works out her emotions? So giving her a piece of paper is a nice way for her to show her abilities and organize her thoughts.
+ Committed | And she tries!
Here you have someone who once she sets her mind to something will keep at it, unless she’s completely and totally out-of-her-mind with fear. She’s not the kind to start a task and just let it drop, and this can keep her on point when she’s uncertain about just about everything else. She’s not a flighty girl, from her devotion to a mystery to her single-minded affections for a boy.
+ Devoted to being a good friend | Oh my God, does she try.
To this end, something she’s squarely committed to is being a good friend. Generally kind and caring, if she has someone in her mind as a friend, she’ll do what she can to cheer them up or make them smile or help them if they need it. It doesn’t always turn out well in the end, but that doesn’t stop her! She heads back up to Blackwood Lodge to help Josh heal, even though she’s really not keen on heading back there, after all. Though she may not always know what she’s doing, she tries so very hard.
+ / - Inquisitive | Curiosity is her highest stat after all.
What’s that, there’s a mystery to solve? Alright let’s blindly run forward and ignore fear! ...Which is obviously good and bad because it can get her out of panic mode but it can also lead her into certain doom because she’s like a dog with a bone and will not make like Elsa and let it go.
+ / - Forthright | Followed by honesty.
Unless it’s about romance, Ashley is the sort of girl to let all her thoughts out, which ties into her being a committed person. She’s not averse to little white lies or important secrets, but generally she operates under the idea that being truthful and open is better than being closed off, so that’s good, keeps her from bottling too much up. It’s less that the act of being forthright is bad but more like the times she is can be- because gosh sometimes this girl needs to learn how to read the mood. Sometimes she just wants to get all her thoughts out there, like when she thanks Chris for saving her life...at the expense of his other best friend. She doesn’t think about how honesty can hurt others.
+ / - Self-preservation | Gonna get off this mountain alive so help me--
At the end of the day, Ashley’s got a strong survival instinct. She’ll go down kicking and screaming if her life is in danger, even though she’s not very physically strong. She’ll stab a supposed serial killer, she’ll scream her lungs out for help- whatever it takes. This is well and good for her but it also means she kind of prioritizes her safety over others’ at times, especially when they’ve proven they don’t think highly of her life. See also, the bite incident, wherein she’s so sure she could be in danger that she almost lets Emily die. Ashley’s sense of self-preservation can put others in danger and damage her relationship with them all at once.
- Cowardly | Scared of candle.
“Their biggest fears” did you mean everything? Ashley is a jumpy girl from a horror video game who is terrified of scary movies and monsters and all that fun stuff. When she’s scared she just goes into a mix of fight or flight or freeze and depending on the scenario she can a) stab someone, b) cry and scream, c) want to abandon everyone else, or d) all of the above. She’s alright in casual situations, just kind of saying she’s fine, but she’s the first person to start jumping about and back out at the first sight of danger.
- Anxious and Paranoid | “...and borderline unstable.”
To add on to the previous point, Ashley is incredibly anxious and quick to jump to the worst possible conclusion. She doesn’t do well with the new and exciting scenarios, see, so even a fun romp through the Pokémon world will take time to get used to. Because of this, she just does not handle stress or extreme trauma well, and when pushed far enough, she can become a fulltime member of the Bad Decisions Zone and just stop thinking about the ramifications of her actions.
- Vengeful | Shoot me in the head? Yeah, no, fuck you.
So Bad Decisions Zone, right. This ties into her self-preservation; if Ashley views someone as harmful to her survival, then she doesn’t regard them with the same care as she regards herself. If someone straight-up puts their safety before her, up to and including saying they’re fine with killing her to live? She does not forgive that easily and is very fast to return the favor. If you throw her under the bus and she can’t be sure you’ll help her, then your life is forfeit, in her eyes, even - or likely especially - if you’re someone she cares about and who’s said to care about her.
- Low self-worth | ...wait never mind fuck me.
...Aforementioned burying her problems and potential Bad Decisions Zone can seriously fuck her up and she’s kind of dealing with the aftermath of valuing her own life over other people’s, even if they’re her friends so. This can get into unhappy self-loathing territory. A lot of “what could I have done to prevent this” kind of thoughts and for an already incredibly thoughtful person that cannot be good at all, making her more of a negative person in general.
- Physical capabilities | Not exactly getting an A in climbing class.
While she’s not exactly weak, Ashley is nnnooot the person you go to when you need boxes moved or rock walls climbed. Honestly she’s kind of average in this aspect, but when you come from a monster movie scenario it counts as a weakness. In the run, hide, fight, or die scale, she’s definitely on the run and hide side of things, and while that won’t be as much of a problem in a place where she has a friendly creature to do the fighting for her, it’ll still give her pause if she reaches, say, a mountain.
- TRAUMA | i mean the whole monster thing
I WOULD PROBABLY PUT IT AS A WEAKNESS THAT SHE JUST WENT THROUGH A NIGHT OF HELL. Being told to train monsters, no matter how cute they are, is not going to go over well in the place she’s in, which is “let me go home and cry and never leave my room” or more accurately hella therapy.
Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Trainer
Starter: Litwick
First choice, the explanation being that a Ghost-Fire type would fit well, thematically, since Ashley has a strong belief in the supernatural and the wendigos’ weakness is fire! Additionally, there’s the feeling of exploring-with-a-candle invoked, which is perfect for a nosy little investigator type like Ashley. I thought it’d be fun and fitting for her to have a partner that fits under things she’s scared of and things that she’s come to associate as comforting, as a sort of callback to how the game works with choice -- something that looks undoubtedly bad vs. something that looks undoubtedly good, though there’s likely something more beneath the surface.
Password: Pumpkin Seeds
Samples
First Person Sample:
[Our setting: A makeshift camp, presumably on Route 29. ...Pretty early on in Route 29. Kind of like, right at the start, actually, uh.
Our cameraman (woman? thing?): Litwick, who taps the screen with a frown. A pretty unimpressed looking candle, actually- anyway, Ashley sitting on a sleeping bag, bent over the Trainer’s Handbook and...taking notes, so it seems, as she’s acquired a pen. The whole thing’s going to be annotated to hell and back.]
Wick.
[Ashley looks up, caught in an expression of rapt excitement. That’s good, seems she’s adjusting.] O-oh! Oh, you- thank you, I forgot I asked you to- [Very eloquent.] Hello, everyone! Since...settling in, I’ve started...well, there’s so much about this world I don’t know and I have a lot of questions. Like, this is all...second knowledge for the natives, isn’t it, Pokémon and how they work, but- if I’m going to be expected to...to train them, I have to know, just what are they? Like animals, but obviously not- Litwick’s a candle, after all!
[A still unimpressed and relatively bored candle.]
Some of the ones I’ve seen here look like birds or rats, but there was this one- like a giant ladybug, and ohmygosh it’s incredible and unreal and none of them attacked me at all, just went about their business-- [Breathe.] And I can’t believe I’m in a world full of monsters like this.
[Suddenly she appears embarrassed, pushing some hair behind her ear and adjusting her hat.] Sorry- I got all...rambly- what I wanted to ask is, people who’ve been here longer, do...do you know where Pokémon come from? Why they develop like they do? ...How many there are? Pokédex only tells me about the ones I’ve seen, so...I’d love to get a look at other people’s…..if, uh...you’re...on Route 29. Hm, maybe I should’ve waited to do this until I was at another city, I’ve been so caught up with research that I wasn’t even thinking about travel.
[...the candle sighs and just shakes its head and takes that as its cue to turn off the PokéConnect. Presumably, the candle wants to get a move on.]
Third Person Sample:
Around the time the unknown woman referred to herself as mom Ashley decides she knows exactly what’s going on here, and that’s quite simple: she’s snapped.
She proceeds with dim confusion, mutely holding this backpack and taking in this explain, the world of Pokémon without saying a single word. Weren’t those the games some of her friends played? Something like that? She doesn’t quite recall, it’s all a bit of a blur after the last few hours of police interview and waiting and… That’s it, the whole...everything has just switched her into this weird, fantasy-game adventure. She’s checked out, lost it, gone completely--
“Wick.”
“AAAAHHH--!”
See, it’s funny, nothing else has elicited a response of panic yet, but the little candle tapping her leg (huh not covered in blood, that’s kind of nice) causes her to leap back as if she’d been zapped with a little scream. To its credit, the candle takes it in stride. It waves.
Ashley sinks to her knees. She has most definitely gone crazy.
“M-my God, what are you…?” She asks this after taking a minute or so to just quietly listen to the cheerful 16bit soundtrack to her mental breakdown, a very nice touch, brain.
The candle’s been waiting, staring at her. “Litwick.”
Well. “O...okay?”
“Litwick.” It pats her leg again.
This is going swimmingly, isn’t it? As it becomes clear that Ashley’s not going to get actual words out of her little companion, her eyes turn to the backpack, still clutched in her arms. It feels full, and since she’s not getting answers from her chatty buddy here, she might as well see if there’s anything in it that can give her some, because damn it, if she’s going to construct a colorful fantasy to escape to, at the very least she’s going to understand everything about it.
Clothes, little red-and-white balls, a whole bunch of traveling gear-- and a book. See, what she’ll come to know as the PokéGear will probably be most helpful to her, and it’s gone forgotten so far- but predictably, upon spying the book she rips right into it, and as if someone’s flipped a switch in her brain, her rushed breathing slows and her tensed muscles relax, and with each page she turns, her fingers tremble just a bit less.
By the time she finishes it and starts in on the PokéGear, she’ll probably start to realize this is too detailed a fantasy for even her mind to dream up, and that’ll spark a whole new set of questions and worries and fears. But for now, she’s content to just kneel on the ground, flipping through a book with a sentient candle reading over her shoulder.
addendum:
Regarding how Ashley fits in among her friends, it's a little nebulous as we really see her only interact with Chris and Josh for an extended period of time before the night descends into horror movie central, but a lot can be gleaned from short interactions with other characters and the relationship bars present during the pause screens. In a kind of split between the more popular half (Mike, Jess, Emily, Matt) and the less (Sam, Josh, Chris, herself), she spends more time with and gets along better with the latter, with the exception of Matt. Combine this with the fact that in the prank, she was the least to have a hand in it (Jessica planned it, Mike carried it out, Emily as Mike's girlfriend wholeheartedly supported it, Matt filmed it, Ashley just watched), it's safe to say she's one of those people who is, in big group events, more of an observer. When drama starts going down between the two established couples (Mike and Jess, Matt and Emily), she along with Chris and Sam just kind of watch awkwardly, not getting involved; there's not exactly a hierarchy, but a way things work, and that is that she does not get involved in group drama that doesn't concern her.
In instances with Chris and Josh, she's more outspoken and teases the other two lightly, showing that she feels more comfortable with them. She seems to speak her mind easier. She and Sam don't speak a lot or have many meaningful interactions throughout the game, but given the relationship bars and a few moments of downtime (chuckling together at Chris getting startled by a wild animal, Sam defending her when Emily's angry after The Bite incident, etc.), it's safe to say she feels a similar comfort with her. Compare to her interaction with Matt, who according to the bars she's as close with, when he sees Emily and Mike hugging- she's hesitant and and awkward about comforting him and trying to reassure him that his girlfriend isn't cheating on him. Part of it is just how Matt is as a person, but it can also be assumed she's just not as good at speaking her mind when outside the people she's most comfortable with, at least in her friend group. This can also be seen in big group scenes in the latter half of the game; the more people there are in one place, the less likely Ashley is to speak up, instead defaulting to the natural leaders like Sam or Mike or Emily to take control. When she does speak up, it's because she's incredibly worried (Chris volunteering to leave to find Josh) or incredibly scared (spying Emily's bite and worrying that'll turn her into a wendigo).
Regardless of the implied distance between her and some of the others, she does have generally favorable relationships with them, so it's not a scenario of like...this person who I know who is friends with my friends or something like that- she and Emily for example don't get along great, but in moments of stress pre-Bite, Emily expresses low-key worry over her and vice-versa; they put their hands on each other's arms or the like in the background, try to provide physical comfort. They're very different people, but they get along, so it's safe to say with the implied distance in mind that Ashley feels comfortable in the group while understanding that she's not in the same social circle as some of the others.
Speaking more on the prank, it's clear to see throughout the events of the game that Ashley is regretful of what happened to Hannah. The player has the option to say she's unrepentant, but she'll still express guilt and apologize in other places, giving off the suggestion that even if she doesn't voice it, she harbors a lot of responsibility for Hannah and Beth's disappearance and deaths. It very well plays into her issues with her own self-worth, feeding them from the start. The idea that the player can choose for her to act blameless despite these other scripted instances suggests the idea that she's spent some time trying to justify her own actions to herself in the year between the prologue and the game proper, and it has not worked.
Additionally, it's worth noting that every single character either naturally pranks at least one other or has the option to during the main game except for Ashley. Given how the group just keeps on freaking playing tricks on each other in big ways or small, it can be assumed this is just a thing with them, playing jokes and the like, and it has been for awhile- but after the accident with Hannah and Beth, Ashley doesn't. Ashley's described as being more "serious" than the other girls, and that plays into this- she doesn't find the pranks the kids used to play funny anymore, due to what happened to the twins.
...As a side-note, we do only see the main group of characters interacting at length and their relationship bars post-prank, and given how the brief glance at Beth's shows all of her relationships much higher than most of the other cast, it's also safe to say that all of the kids grew distant with each other in one way or another in the year between the prologue and the main game. For example, Ashley is said to spend "her whole life" with Chris already, but their bar is only around halfway on the chart, about the same length as Beth's Jess bar. Since the people Beth are really close to (Hannah, Josh, Sam) are much higher, we can assume all the other characters' relationships dropped. Therefore it's hard to know just how they all fit together before traumatic events really hit with the deaths of two friends, outside of the prank-each-other-all-the-time atmosphere. In that sense, it can be said the prank affected not only Ashley's personality but her interaction with the others. Perhaps this is why she agreed to go up to the mountain in the first place, despite being the most openly scared about everything as the night goes on; she wanted to fix her relationships with her friends, especially Josh, who she expresses a lot of concern for before it's revealed he brought all of them there to trick them. She works hard at seeming happy and fine, glossing over her fears until they become too much to handle, even around Chris, despite her forthright attitude. It shows how much she values her friends and their approval.