It's honestly sad. But the saddest part that Cypher is not talking about is that Liliana actively participates on her wife feeling like she's stupid for perfectly normal things or that she should be terrified for innocuous things.
Does anyone remember that little comic about Mikaila and Liliana walking the streets, Mikaila sees a pokemon, does a inappropiate joke about it and then looks genuelly terrified as she begs Liliana not to leave her?
That particular comic always felt so uncomfortable. Why publish that? If Liliana was the only one to write it, then that is how she really sees their dynamic and doesn't understand what is wrong with it? If Mikaila was the one to make the joke, does she not understand how that looks? The only logical conclusion is that they're aware that's a "thing" on their relationship (Mikaila being constantly terrified of Liliana leaving her, treated like an idiot, Liliana judging silently like a cunt) and they don't see any problem with it because to them that just became their normal.
That's terrifying to think about.
Let's us not forget the times that Liliana openly called her own wife stupid, threw her under the bus when it came to excusing the mistakes on TSR and other instances in the comic where the punchline is "Mikaila's a dumb lesbian".
Before a fan could argue that those were just jokes, not to be taken seriously, but the screenshots and observations of Cypher show those had a real impact on Mikaila and her self perception. Those "jokes" reveal something too honest about these two that they share with the entire world and it worries me because they're normalizing this kind of treatment for partners to people too young to see all the red flags.
there's a couple of jokes in Madhouseabout Mikail covering in fear of Lily's disapproval
Mikaila covering in fear before her wife's pokemon, who's openlyhostiletowards her, and
live together with.
This lovely little joke of Mikailabeing to dim do get what Lily is laying at - this is a joke that could workv if it weren't for two things. One, that Mikaila doesn't have an established personality in the comic. She's kinda whatever Lily needs in the moment, a babysitterfor the found ralts, psychologist helping Lily figure out her relationship with G, daft wife for laughs.
The other thig are the last two panels. There's many ways Lily could have explained to Mikaila what she meant that could be a sweet moment etween them, yet she choose to grab Mikail's face, trapping it so she can't move, while humourlesly asking (or demanding, idk) that she want's them to move in together, or is she to stupid to understand that. At the same time, the framing of the panel makes it look like Lily is threatening Mikaila.
Interesatingly, Mikaila is this smart, confident, understandinf partner when the conflict in the story revolves about Lily's needs and desires. Whenever those needs are interlinked with Mikaila'sown, she swithes over to the himbo archetype. like in the strip above, because making the next step in their relationship concerns both of them not just Lily.
Or the joke she makes about being the third wheel to Lily and G, this joke comes after her discovering that G's and Lily's minds are linked, and their thoughts are fused together as if their one being. Which, putting aside how fucked up that is, is something that concerns Mikaila too!!
Also this
Like, the humor in Madhouse is kinda uncomfortable in a lot of ways. If the jokes aren't about whether Lily and G are oraren't gonna fuck,the the humor relies mostly on violence. The jokje being that characters are so bad in handling their emotions they resolve to agression to express their, otherwise not violent, feelings.
Will theyfuck each other or will their murder each other? Find out in the next episode of soft-wholesome-found-family-lesbian-forbidden-love-deconstruction-of-a-womans-fragile-mind of PokeMadhouse.
I have a qustion for the folks that have better memory of Lily's fanfiction - how does Lily even portray
friendships her stories?
I've only read Stockholm, Madhouse, and some chapters here and there from TSR and Scars, but like, all the characters (that are friends) ever talk about with each other are romantic relationships. What do they even do when they hang out together?
She praises the strangers-to-friends-to-lovers trope a lot, but I don't remember her characters actually being
friends before gettintg together, as in doing things friends do. They're imediately established as love interests at the start of the story, and their interaction with other friends amount to mostly ship theasing them.
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