For somebody who wants to be such a strong personality, Lily's tastes really do change with the wind. When one person of the Right Opinion (or Right Skin Color) says something, she adopts it wholeheartedly, even if it goes against an opinion she held before. Thereal thought behind anything she doejust moves with the tides, either accepting the 'right things' to accept or hating things that are popular to hate.
Because honestly the anti-Vaggie sentiment's really shallow. The two writers in that podcast call her out for being a totally undefined character with a super-vague relationship with Charlie that you can't even start to figure out, which isn't true. Vaggie is highly attached to Charlie and extremely protective of her. She's angry at anybody who looks like they would remotely threaten her, is highly anxious when Charlie puts herself in perceived danger, and obviously cares very much about Charlie and about keeping her safe. You can extrapolate a lot from that even if it's not directly stated (and it shouldn't be in the pilot episode where you're selling an audience or a producer on a premise and you have to introduce that premise, the setting, the ensemble, the dynamics... what did these guys want? A conversation between Vaggie and Charlie where they talk at each other about how they met and why they're girlfriends? Sounds natural to me.) Hell, there's a huge point of interest when Angel Dust asks her (somewhat paraphrased), "Is there a man you
do trust? Any men? Heh.
Men?" Obviously something happened to her, it was an evil done by men, and it's probably related to why she's in Hell.
But because it's not elaborated on or specifically talked about, it doesn't exist and implicit information isn't real. Same thing for them just laughing off Alastor, too. The two writers make a point that there are 'no consequences' in Hazbin Hotel because Charlie didn't shake Alastor's hand, apparently totally unaware that the conflict is obviously going to be Alastor manipulating events in order to force Charlie into a position where they have to make a deal. The pilot established the tension of 'what happens if she does make a deal?' instead of following the immediate consequences and they dismissed that as the show having no stakes. Given that they're professional writers it was pretty baffling to see them just utterly not understand what the show was doing, 'cuz it aint' that hard.
Going back to Lily specifically, I did a quick search to figure out what the context for suddenly disliking Vaggie is and yeah, it really is
that shallow; somebody else said something, I assume it was somebody with some amount of clout, therefore Lily is now cold to the character. Also the last time she mentioned Vaggie (properly spelled, at least) was three months ago and only now does she get an 'Anonymous Ask' which conveniently sets her up to mention an upcoming video. It's small potatoes compared to how she usually anons herself but still part of her pattern.
Somewhat unrelated but in looking for what she said about Vaggie I also found a few posts where she was railing against Hazbin ships putting Charlie with anybody that wasn't Vaggie and saying 'why would anybody assume she liked men?' She says this in the same breath as mentioning that Charlie's sexuality isn't well-explained within context of the show, implying that she must have looked at outside information too... which would reveal that Charlie is bi and that shipping her with male characters wouldn't be a problem even
if Vivzie herself cared (and Vivzie does not care how people have fun with her characters so why raise hackles on her behalf?) Just thought that bi erasure was pretty funny coming from Lily.
View attachment 1758930
that's Lily saying what good representation is, which only results in deleting 90% of all representation that the LGBTQ + community received in the past decade
she says she doesn't want the best or perfection, but cancels everything for the slightest "mistake"
View attachment 1758937
she praises Bubbline for being "substantial" but deletes Ruby and Sapphire for not being human. She approves of the vampire and the candy-woman but not two alien rocks, right
and the SU's enby only needed to be human to receive approval, they only appeared for about 5 minutes in the cartoon, Garnet has been there since episode 1
View attachment 1758939
in She-ra she deletes for not saying "Wife" despite the relationship being confirmed on the show itself
deletes Bow's parents for being Bow's parents .......... seriously
Double Trouble is not human and CataDora is abusive, nothing new
and Vaggie's problem was that she is a latina and angry, something someone saidthat it hurt feelings a lot and now Lily has to see it as a problem, typically weak minded person without spine
View attachment 1758940
am I crazy or are these video ideas nothing more than a compilation of what she repeats in every video of the past?
none of the content in this video is new and for the next title I have the impression that we already know everything she has to say
Lily is getting repetitive/out of ideas or I’m become very familiar with her content
(Oh boy. I've been waiting for a rant opportunity like this since I got here, so apologies in advance if I go off a bit too hard. This is a long rant, please take your time.)
I hate this. I hate everything about this. Her "criteria" is ironically some of the most bigoted shit I've ever read.
First things first: "Main characters only". My main problem with this is that any character in a series can gain recognition and become a fan favorite for whatever reason, even if they're not the main character. I've never heard of a Harry Potter fan, for instance, whose favorite character is Harry Potter himself. For a character that stands out via a minority identity, this effect multiplies tenfold. People cling to anything "different". Another problem with this, one that will appear multiple times later in this criteria, is the internalized projected classism and hierarchy reinforcement that she's SUPPOSED to be fighting against. To her, if you're not "at the top", you're nobody. No rational person thinks like that; their favorite characters are the whole WORLD to them. She's one of those people who kisses up to the managers and CEOs of the world, then proceeds to treat janitors and bus drivers like shit because they're "beneath her" and she can do what she wants to them with no consequences.
Second, and this time I'm paraphrasing while keeping the original meaning: "Nonhumans don't count". Sounds pretty gross when you put it like that, huh? Again with the classism and hierarchy reinforcement. I know this "nonhuman" description also applies to that one She-Ra character, but I haven't seen that show and , unlike Lily, I'll gladly shut up about things I know nothing about, so I'll just focus on the Gems. First of all, the show has human non-binary characters, too; there’s one in Steven Universe Future. Since there’s both human and non-human non-binary characters, it’s not dehumanizing. The gems in particular are great representation because their alternate ideals of sex and gender aren’t treated as part of what makes them aliens. Ruby and Sapphire being a couple, for instance, isn’t treated the same as them not understanding the concept of birthdays, or not needing to eat or sleep (also, Lily says that Rebecca Sugar wasn't involved in Steven Universe Future when she actually was, as an Executive Producer, but that's besides the point). Different gender and sexual identities also exist in nature among hundreds of plant and animal species, thereby making nonhuman nonbinary characters normalizing in their own special way, by way of "this is already a thing, get with the program". I never saw what was so important about being "human". Why is that the ultimate goal? This is the respectability politics and hyper-focusing on assimilation that Lily claims to be against. By treating non-human LGBT+ characters as less valid, isn't that what the bigots want?
Third: "Healthy relationships only". I can only see this as a valid rule if a relationship is ACTUALLY unhealthy (not just given that label in a hot take that falls apart under the slightest scrutiny), and more importantly, if said unhealthy relationship is portrayed as normal and healthy. If a spade is called a spade, it's not bad representation. By assuming that a depiction is an endorsement, you out yourself as a fool. For instance, you may have heard of a webcomic by the name of Killing Stalking. It's a psychological horror that happens to depict an abusive relationship with two men. For these reasons, it's considered part of the Boys' Love genre by both some of said genre's fans and ALL of its detractors, who cite it as one of many instances of Boys' Love glorifying abuse (which is only a minority of BL works by the way, I have research to back this up). Both sides of this debate are wrong, though, because the author has literally said that Killing Stalking is NOT a Boys' Love literary work, that he did not want it to be considered part of the genre, and that you should seek help if you are in an abusive relationship. Lily would bypass all of this, though, by saying "intentions don't matter", but that's just her being stupid.
Fourth: "No Last-Minute Relationships". All I'm going to say about this for now, my only argument unique to this point is that the true catharsis of seeing two characters in a relationship lies in the declaration of love and the relationship starting, not the relationship stuff itself, and that in fact, treating the relationship ensuing as the structural climax can give it more "punch". You can have two characters go through all the couple story beats together and only later realizing that this means they feel a romantic way towards each other (isn't that a running joke in the lesbian community?), and that relationship is still valid (don't believe me? Just ask shippers). That's all I'm going to say for now, though. (By the way, a gay character doesn't need to be in a relationship to be valid. Just telling us or showing us that they're gay, and just letting them exist as a person who happens to have this one trait, is fine.)
Fifth: "Straightforward Language". I'll get to this later, too.
Sixth: "Enby/Ace characters must exist as their own identities and not as copouts". First of all, ew. Nobody treats asexuality as a copout except for idiots like Lily. About the enby thing, I'm assuming she's talking about the Gems in Steven Universe. Basically, the narrative for a long time until the lesbian wedding episode, maybe sooner, was that Sugar was referring to the Gems as non-binary IRL rather than explicitly in the show partly to keep the show from getting cancelled for depicting romantic feelings between female-presenting characters. After all, if they don't have a sex or gender they can't be lesbians, right?. What Lily doesn't realize is that NO representation would have taken place without this, uh, technicality. Studio executives can veto whatever they want and to not be angry at creators for having to cave in or "plan ahead" sometimes to bypass censors. This also goes for saving love declarations until the last minute. This also goes for having to forgo words like "girlfriend". Sometimes, it's all that's allowed. But it's still representation because people aren't idiots. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together can look at Ruby and Sapphire and think "Ohhh, I see. They're lesbians!".
Last and quite possibly least: "Dead characters don't count". Getting the Voltron thing out of the way first, because despite never seeing the show I managed to do some fucking research, the studio itself cracked down on the show having that one character whose name I don't remember, and the showrunners apologized for how that turned out even though they were forced to follow orders and kill him off, which shows some measure of integrity on the showrunners' part. Wasn't even a big deal anyway, they didn't deserve the shitstorm they got. And, hey, at least there was a gay character left over! All limitations (two-second scenes or use of "old tropes") were executive meddling.
Beyond that, it's not homophobic to kill a gay character. Putting myself in a writers' headspace, here's what a writer actually thinks about in such a scenario: writers are aware that LGBT+ status makes a character “different”, and that viewers get attached to characters that stand out in such a way. I think they think that since people will attach themselves to a “standout” character (who stands out for no reason than their identity), killing them will have a greater emotional impact. After all, people do tend to like sad stories and tragic endings, for underlying psychological reasons that have been studied at great length but I can’t get into here. I just don’t think a gay character dying makes them “bad representation” or diminishes their worth, since all representation (that isn’t equivalent to, like, blackface) is at least something, and death is part of the universal human experience. Not to mention the reasons that gay people DO tend to die earlier than straight people, which can translate into story reasons for their death (a trope called “Truth in Television”). It also doesn’t count if it’s a story where lots of people die anyway (ex. Danganronpa). There, any single gay person is bound to have their coin land on tails, as it were. Sure, a greater VARIETY of gay stories is nice, but the “Bury your Gays” “trope” is just people being disappointed that a character didn’t get the treatment the viewer thought they deserved, which I get. I understand disappointment, and needing somebody or something to blame. It’s just that you can’t assume what they think of gay people from whether the character dies. (By the way, this benefit of the doubt does NOT extend to already “yikes” people like JK Rowling). There’s multiple behind-the-scenes factors to consider, and you can’t read people’s mind and figure out their intentions that way, either. Being dead does not give you less value. Again, it's this weird obsession she has with assigning things "value".
Look, I'm just going to put the rest of my cards on the table and say that I care very little for "media representation" discussions. They're all pointless until we can be sure that a creator is acting completely on their own accord with no outside influence. I just have a very inquisitive mind and do a lot of research.
My message for Lily: stop calling every instance of a LGBT+ character "representation". It puts too much pressure on people to get it "perfect". Realize that even "imperfect" representation in your eyes can perfectly represent somebody else's story and situation, and that all non-overtly-offensive representation has some value to it. Don't throw things away because of some flaws. Decide before pitching your argument if the problem is that the trope is bigoted or that it's overused, and stop flip-flopping between these arguments, because they are separate issues. Stop ignoring the role of global capitalism in upholding old status quos, and assuming that just because you don't see creator-executive conflict it must not exist, while still claiming to be on the left. We don't want you, and you are not taken seriously by anybody who matters. That fact that you measure value by anything besides the labor that went into it is a dead giveaway that you are no leftist. And on that note, I will not respect your opinion if you don't respect your own opinion enough to put any effort into it.
