a long winded rant about ashley campbell

hey.... so just to start off, sally face is a SUPER huge interest of mine and i pour a lot of energy into it, analyzing every bit of it and forming my opinions on the storyline and characters. and i wanted to talk about ashley campbell because after reading this forum post, i've come to an almost coherent conclusion about her character.

a lot of people base their judgements on ash solely on the fact she testified against sal. in my opinion, i believe that ashley calling the police on sal the night of larry's death/the apartment murders made her extremely human. she was the "group skeptic," she didn't believe in the paranormal and immediately wanted to tell authorities about the cult temple underneath addison apartments. hell, any sane person would do this. you can't blame her for being paranoid, i would NOT be able to sleep knowing that my teacher killed people and turned them into meat to provide at school. oh! and also that same teacher discards the bones in the cult ruins below my best friends' apartment!

i don't think ash realized how much influence the cult had in nockfell. i assume that she assumed that sal would plead insanity and be sentenced to a psych ward. ashley had no idea that sal's psychologist was an imposter and, well, so was most of the attendance in the courtroom. she doesn't find out until later, when she mentions to larry's ghost (i think) how much harder to spot the imposters are. ashley didn't want sal to be put on death row, she genuinely thought her best friend has a psychotic break and wanted him to get help.

unfortunately, other than the events past chapter 4, i think that ash is a terribly written character, for a multitude of reasons. a lot of these ideas are opinions i have gathered from the forum post i linked above. firstly, to me, ashley seemed like she was written in to be a woman. she was no other than a love interest for sal, to be a "cool badass girl." she has no personality than being a laid back alternative girl. however, many fans hate her because she is a woman, and don't take into account how she could've been written better. (not saying all fans here) but a lot of fans who have "fictional crushes" on sal fisher or. erm. oldschool sallarry shippers (ew) hate on ashley because she is sal's love interest. (usually i see that salash and salvis shippers get along, or people or multishippers). you can critique her character for being a woman who is "just there" and expand on how she could've been written better, but you shouldn't project your misogyny onto her and hate her because she "gets in the way" of your ship or wtv.

ALSO. this may be a hot take but i HATEDDD the scene in chapter 3/the bologna incident where she takes off sal's mask. i get it, she was trying to be helpful, but DAMN!. imagine one of your best friends removing your disability aid in the middle of your school's hallway. man, if i was sal in that situation, i'd be super fucking uncomfortable. however, that's just how i see that scene and if anyone else sees it positively, than that's okay! different opinions exist.

tl;dr i think ashley is a complex yet human character, but still bland at the same time. i hope the second game develops her concept more, because she has so much potential. it's so interesting to me how everyone in the sally face fandom has different takes on her character.