Yeah. Lily has never read Pride and Prejudice, when she talks about getting the characters together in the middle act she is exclusive talking about children's shows where the main couple gets together in the last episode. If she watched media for adults then she would, if I'm being honest, double down on her writing tips. A normal person, though, might have their mind expanded.
@@flameknightdragon Honestly a catch to me is even the sliver that is "fair enough" or "I agree" I can't help but read cynically. Yeah sure if you intentionally make a world bigoted and it's a good thing, I don't like that but considering her takes on various children's shows, I can't help but presume she would assert that SU is bigoted and etc.
Lily's advice on this list can be summarized in three bullet points: >Tropes she doesn't like >Shows she doesn't like >Writing tropes she doesn't understand
Also >When communicating something, vomitting out the first words that pop into your head instead of phrasing it in a way that literally anybody who is not Lily can understand (the number of times Anthony responds with "what are you talking about")
The fact half of it isn’t even writing advice, though. “Cinderella is more feminist than beauty and the beast”. That’s not advice, that’s just an opinion.
I used to be an “Aang should’ve killed Ozai” truther until I read a post about the fact that airbenders are known as a pacifist culture, and Aang not killing Ozai isn’t just because he’s scared to but also because it’s a sign of him preserving a culture that was decimated by genocide. That really made me think a little more.
it's also about his belief, his conviction that he does not need to kill to balance the world, that it can be saved without the need to sacrifice that AGAINST Ozai's love of power and violence and the way he views the world through violence and that someone who chooses not to kill is weak in his mind it's also an ideological confrontation and a refutation of the villain's belief, and at once, a more powerful lesson of humbling him than killing him in short it's a lot of aspects that make it a powerful choice
Also in MANY cases for characters death is a mercy. You don't have to live with the consequences of your actions. That would have been the TRUE mercy for Ozai, a man obsessed with power and terror dying while at the top of his reign written into the history books where his "accomplishments" are what he died for. No. Death would have been Ozai's win. Living as a non-bender as he watches his empire crumble while he's powerless to stop it and now all he'll be known as a fallen emperor? How is that not a better fate for his action than death.
What you're describing is a good character conflict that was solved by deus ex machina at the end of the series. Wouldn't it be way more interesting that to save the world Aang would had to "go against himself" and do a thing against his nature? Also, being a pacifist doesn't mean - stay iddle and let yourself be killed as I'm pretty sure Air Nomads tried to defend themselves (evident by Fire Nation soldiers corpses in the southern air temple). Avatar Yangchen was in the right when she said "this isn't about you, this is about the world". His duty is to the world, he has to sacrifice part of himself in order to do that. I though that was clear and I was SO disappointed with the finale, because they completely ignored the whole dillema of killing Ozai by giving Aang the power to take his bending away so Aang could both save the world, and escape making a tough choice for the sake of everyone.
I am firmly in the "Aang was right to not kill Ozai" camp for so many thematic reasons. I am also firmly in the "they did not foreshadow and set this up very well" camp. I can't argue with anyone who found the sudden spirit-bending too much to swallow - I found it too abrupt myself. But I think the issue was in execution, not concept. Firstly, as you say, because Aang is the last survivor of Air Nomad culture; giving up his pacifism at that point isn't just a personal sacrifice, it's a betrayal of his entire culture and the balance he's meant to restore. Secondly, the final Ozai-Aang confrontation is as much philosophical and spiritual as it is physical and political. Given that, if Aang kills, he wins the physical/political battle but loses the philosophical/spiritual one by ending the violence and death of war with more violent death. Thirdly, Aang's ongoing character struggle through the series is about owning the fact that he's the Avatar and what that means for him. By finding his own way instead of doing what everyone says, he takes ownership of his own power and position. If he was forced to kill Ozai, that would essentially destroy Aang in favour of the Avatar - the exact thing he's been fearing and running from the whole time! Fourthly, I think that whether the heroes kill the big villain at the end needs to be fitting with the rest of the story. Avatar consistently prioritises healing, both personal and cultural, and breaking cycles of violence. Within that context, killing the villain would break the underlying aesop. In conclusion, I think that wanting Ozai dead is perfectly reasonable, but wanting Aang to kill him is fightin' words.
@@Arko777777 I'm more focused on the fact that Aang wasn't simply allowed to incapacitate Ozai without killing him, knocking him out, restraining him, breaking his limbs so he couldn't bend, breaking his jaw so he couldn't breath fire, doing everything he could to not kill Ozai without needing being given a new power to take Ozai's away when he already had the advantage over him with his restored Avatar State. Aang has technically already indirectly killed others defensively in the heat of battle (the series just doesn't really call attention to it and for the most part tries to downplay how lethal its characters can be, never explicitly even showing death, blood or much in the way of fatal injury), but his one line had always been he refrained from directly killing, especially executing, his enemies, so him committing to that, while not a perfect resolution that should be applied to every story depending on context, fits his character and the tone of the show aiming to emphasis a strong, if strict, sense of right and wrong. It'd simply be a different show if that weren't the case. If you want characters that compromise their innocent, virtues or morals to benefit others, things like Invincible do that very thing. But that wasn't the intent of this particular story and that's fine. No stories should always try to have the same messages, even if it means they have flaws, since everything, including their flaws, distinguish them from each other and say new things about the same topic.
@@Luna-Moon.UnderFNAFThat’s up for debate because there are genuinely fantastic fanfic writers who sometimes will leave whatever fandom they are writing in and create their own story. Even if that story was bad or good, they took their time to create a small universe with their own ideas.
@@jonal5126 I beg to differ on both! AO3 is just as atrocious and I don't understand why people act like it's this place for high art. It's for people to share fanfics/stories, good or bad.
She's also OBVIOULY talking about writing for actual cartoons, not fanfiction, she's specifically calling out storylines that annoyed her on, like, Steven Universe and stuff.
I did have to keep reminding myself that she's part of the fanfiction sphere whenever she had some of the most baffling and irrelevant to actually published media "tips"
I love how tips 8 and 9 are just Lily saying, "Characters that kill a bunch of people are evil and irredeemable, unless it's a character I personally like, then it's okay."
Even Blizzard seems to wish the story of Shadowlands and Battle for Azeroth had never happened. Sylvanas had her character fully assassinated. I hate to say it, but she's right about Sylvanas.
Lily Orchard: It's bad when protagonists refuse to kill genocidal dictators! The protagonist she's definitely talking about: is a 14-year-old child in a kid's show
But what if a real person doesn't kill a dictator because they watched Avatar or Steven Universe as a kid?????? What if our children learn to think through their moral dilemmas instead of following Lily's infallible guidance?!!??!?
@@sylph8005 Exactly, she doesn't seem to realise that the whole thing with Aang's arc is he's a pacifist. He's already lost so much of his life, his culture, his people to Sozin and his lineage. He won't let Ozai take this from him too. Not to mention, Ozai as a person would consider this the supreme punishment. If he were to die I imagine he would far prefer to go down in a blaze of glory then quietly, utterly powerless in all ways, locked in a dungeon as everything he built crumbles around him.
I think you could also argue that Aang is keeping his culture alive by following it to the letter. If he kills Ozai he kills the last remnant of airbender culture.
Yeah and I was surprised to see how much vitriol she had for Noncon writing and CNC. Which is… ironic, to say the least. Considering her background and all.
Hawk gets trapped in this abandoned house and all the deer mice that live there start freaking out. And then what essentially consists of armed thugs come in and start treating everyone there as a pit stop. Ol' classic "Soldiers without training are just thugs." Why let a lack of productive forces get in the way of a good anti-human crusade?
Yes, and as long as they know the definitions of words. He over uses the word "fetish" /"fetishizing" which implies there is a kink or sexual tension there. I'm not defending Shadow of the Conqueror, but hyping up achievements in war and fetishizing something are very different.
Nah, I hate the idea that creators should ever feel like they NEED to interact with their fandoms, especially to speak about conflict in said fandoms. Not their job or responsibility.
Exactly, if anything, it can fan the flames, making it much worse. The only time I see it making sense is if people are claiming you have said something or make up your opinions/statements/etc
A massive issue with Lilly as a critic, is she ignores the target audience for the media she consumes. She almost exclusively consumes kid's shows, and then criticizes simplified versions of issues intentionally dumbed down for kids to understand.
ikr? Steven Universe is a show for kids and its themes heavily focus on how children will encounter imperfect adults in their lives. Steven learning to manage them, learning when it's unhealthy to get too involved, learning how they can improve, learning how they can hurt you, they're all good lessons for children to learn to handle their environments. It's not realistic or helpful to tell children they should kill nazis
I wouldn’t even say “dumbed down,” I’d just say representing particular sets of values which she doesn’t personally hold in ways which are accessible to people lacking the life experience to fully understand certain things or for whom careful and patient explanation is required. Say what you will about Steven Universe, but I wouldn’t say that it talks down to its child audience, but rather at least attempts to meet them where they’re at, which is different.
"Oh boy I sure hope this Lily Orchard person has some good advice for me, as a new writer!" Lily: "Tip 1 if you were hypothetically working at Cartoon Network and writing the show 'She Ra' in 2019, this is what you should have done"
I think it speaks volumes how Lily has about 10-ish works she's seen and speaks about all the time, and Anthony can bring up a myriad of examples of movies, series, books, anime, etc, etc, to talk about each trope Lily brings up. I don't know much about Anthony but from just 40 minutes into the video I can tell he's well-read and knows what he's talking about when it comes to media and stories!
This video was partially an exercise to discuss as many pieces of media as I could that folks wouldn't ordinarily seek out. If i am gonna talk Lily Orchard, i am gonna get as many people as possible to watch Lake Mungo
@@agramuglia great exercise! What Lily struggles with is that good storytellers also love stories. Are you a real storyteller if you're not well-read? She proves the impact of this when she shares that her favourite type of stories are slice of life, where nothing happens, all the characters never have conflict, etc... I mean, nothing wrong with stories like that, but the thing is, they thrive in fanfiction. I'm not making a point about fanfiction being lesser, no, but that fanfiction relies on an established media. Therefore, it's much more rewarding and enjoyable to read a cute little coffee shop AU with low stakes about a character you already know from something, who you want to see having a break from their canon narrative's stressful world. The same can't be said about an original character you've never met... It's wild to me that in the amount of years it's been since I first heard about Lily, I have probably read, watched and listened to far more stories than she has, and I'm in my 20s... Sorry, got a little sidetracked in my response, but TLDR: Every person, especially those who are aspiring writers, should consume a variety of stories to better their tastes and ideas
@@diss8702 what's great about the whole "Great storytellers love stories" is that I would struggle severely to name many things that Lily talks about that she likes. I mean, Friends and ATLA apparently given how often she compares things she doesn't like to them, but I don't remember her ever talking about them back when I used to watch her? I think she liked Owl House at some point, maybe Gravity Falls, but?? For someone who tried to make the point of "be more positive for once" in a few of her "tips", she really doesn't like to talk about things she actually likes for some reason, only things she doesn't like. You're not going to be a good writer by CinemaSins dinging stories.
i think that emphasising that lily has a limited range of media she likes is a moot point. it is fine to prefer that. it is fine to stick to a smaller scale for various reasons-familiarity is comforting to a lot of people. but anthony is also correct to point out that these indicate preferences and shouldn't be tagged as 'advice to follow'. maybe if you are going for a certain type of media content-in a way, the media production equivalent to pointing out that the fashionable 'oversized look' is all about the looseness of a waistband hem to hips ratio, if you will. to pull the metaphor together, lily should be pointing out her tips apply to achieving an oversized comfy aesthetic, but instead she seems to treat this advice as applicable to all sweater waistband hems by not being specific.
@@russianbot8576 I agree on the most part, especially the whole "Lily should specify her advice applies to a specific case" point. But I do wanna point out, Lily is a writer and a media critic, so "it's fine if you prefer not to branch out into other media" doesn't exactly apply to her. She's picked a career that requires an exposure to literature, media, etc. To introduce another metaphor, it's like being a food critic who's also an extremely picky eater. Or a wine taster who only drinks Rosé. These jobs are not meant for people who aren't open to trying things out
Rich vampires aren't as impactful. A working class however is. A vampire who struggles to live their life taking only night shifts and will do something drastic that'll get them caught. And the best part? They can be everywhere. The garbage truck driver is probably a vampire. Or the barista is a vampire or the teacher is a vampire. That's what makes them terrifying. They can be anyone. It can be you it could be him! IT COULD EVEN BE BEHIND YOU!
Yeah, just because a trope has certain origins doesn't mean you can't do twists that play with the origins. It's why Twilight, for all its faults, actually made me admit their vampires aren't nearly as silly as people claimed back in the 2010s. Like yes, sparkle sparkle silly melodramatic line, but I love the idea of 'vampires are hot to lure in victims, also they're super pale and durable because their skin's basically alabaster'. There's... a lot of issues that are brought up in the process but people REALLY laid into Meyer not having her vampires die in the sun when like, only Nosferatu onwards did that anyway. Dracula OG just became weak as the old man he resembled in light, he didn't crumble upon a ray hitting him.
As a male who has gone through assault It does not make your actions inexcusable. It does not turn into an automatically good person And yes, trauma can turn into a worse person if you cope with it in unhealthy fashion
as a woman who went through assault i've treated many people like absolute shit when i shouldn't have i'm not innocent, just because i'm jaded because of a traumatic experience doesnt mean i get to take it out on other people and i've made attempts to change because i realized that im not justified in those actions a survivor can ABSOLUTELY be a villain, and that's literally how cycles of abuse are propagated
@cirnopyramidcirnopyramid8796 That's quite possibly the best possible way you can describe who Lily Orchard is as a person: "a survivor of trauma who thinks that trauma survivors can never be the villains no matter how they behave."
@@JohnSmith-vk9ds i lowkey feel bad for lily orchard because she just refuses to undergo any development as a person in favor of creating an echo chamber where people feed into her views blindly genuinely this is just hurting the quality of her life, i seriously hope she someday gets help or develops as a person or something so she can experience the full spectrum of joy that life has to offer i wish her well because she’s clearly miserable, i hope she one day gets better and experiences the joy of life so she can stop being bitter
@@JohnSmith-vk9ds As a survivor too, there are many people who go on to hurt others with no excuse. If you can ONLY see yourself as a victim, you can justify being horrible to people.
AND it seems she is implying that drawing isn't a form of storytelling! That artists or "draw-ers" just put images down on paper devoid of meaning. She thinks that they just draw images of things they know how to draw and put colors they like and the writer is the one who gives it coherent meaning. It reminds me of when I wanted to make a comic with my best friend in 3rd grade. It was my job to write everything, dialogue, etc, and her job to draw stuff. And there would be no crossover. Because she was good at drawing and I was sort of good at writing. That was how we believed we had to split it at the time. The truth is that she was amazing at drawing characters and creating entire lives for them and thinking of what they wore and their personalities and everything. And I was good at writing book reports (not stories 😂) and actually happened to be pretty good at drawing objects and backgrounds too. But at the time IN THIRD GRADE, she thought of herself as a draw-er and me a writer. One person does words the other does pretty art. Unsurprisingly the comic did not work out.... I'm SHOCKED that lily orchard, an adult who allegedly can read and use google, would openly admit to having this simple of a view of how storytelling and media works.
I hate how holier than thou Lily is about the word “queer” I’m queer, I like the label because it’s nonspecific and unrestrictive. It communicates my sexuality and my gender in one, both of which fall outside of the norm. Queer is a label I use in addition to the Aromantic label. It’s a neutral thing, a helpful thing. To erase it would be bad enough, but to scorn those who would use it is even worse. Lily’s really only driven by 2016 Tumblr discourse and the 5 pieces of media she’s ever consumed. It shows :/
100%. I personally don’t really like people calling me queer because I’m far too used to it as an insult, but it’s very much a label that truly includes everyone in the LGBT+, and all those whose gender and sexuality doesn’t fit into a defined label.
Online queer/LGBT+ discourse is a nothingburger of a discussion. Im not going to waste my time contemplating the validity of neopronouns when there is anti trans legislation running rampant throughout America. Its not my place to tell someone they can or can’t go by xe/xem, what is my place is to ensure their safety and acceptance and protect them from bigot fucks.
Queer is also a great term because it directly contradicts the cultural narrative of something being different equating something being bad. Which if you get down to it, is really the heart of basically any ingrained form of prejudice in society.
I personally like the vagueness. Queerness is an umbrella term to describe myself and others without focusing on our specifics. It makes the differences matter less between us fellow humans.
Basically, what we can glean from these tips is: 1. Lily fucking hates nuance 2. Lily fucking hates conflict in stories 3. Lily has no idea how competent creators make stories.
There's this tumblr post by user phantomrose96: "Your children’s show unfortunately has the absolute wrong take on tackling fascism. Yeah the power of friendship angle is showing a dismal lack of understanding of Marxist theory or even intro-level Leninism. Yeah my only two interests are children’s media and online leftist discourse so this is gonna be a problem" and I feel that perfectly sums up Lily
Almost all of these could be easily responded to with "she literally wrote Stockholm", "this is just her throwing shade at a cartoon she didn't like", or "Lily wants all media to just be slice of life AU fluff fanfiction"
@@thenerderrant4293 It's actually really interesting that she makes a "tip" that victims of abuse "cannot and shouldn't" be portrayed as villains, and yet despite claiming to have gone under abuse is still doing bad shit and covering up her bad past. She herself is the counter-argument to her own rule
"Villains should be unredeemable if they kill a bunch of people; But my favorite character of all time Sylvanas Windrunner is perfectly exempt from the rule despite literally starting a war with the intention to kill as many people as possible, innocent or not to condemn them to super hell to make her more powerful."
@@audreyharris7643 Alex Afrasiabi was a writer for Blizzard who joined around the time of Wrath of the Lich King and became a head writer around Cataclysm (which is when Sylvannas went from amoral but having noble qualities to cartoon supervillain). Afrasiabi was later revealed to be a massive creep/sexual predator in the 2021 lawsuit, so it's safe to say that he may have deliberately written her as awful as possible because he didn't like someone with connotations of being an abuse survivor gaining strength.
Also when I think Miyazaki my firsts thoughts are My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away (My favorite personally) Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Kiki's Delivery Service)
how is that film even considered “pretty standard”???????? i’ve straight up never seen any other kids movie that dealt with habitat destruction and the specific conflict between the town that needs resources and the forest that is being destroyed for those resources, in such a beautifully nuanced way. especially with the brutality and the horror with which the forest god’s (? its been a while since i watched it lol but i think it was the forest god) death is depicted. did lily watch the movie or did she see it was anime and made up an opinion about it w/o watching it?
A 'standard kids action-adventure film' would not have an antagonist who provides a refuge for lepers... though I guess Lily would see that as trying to humanize a fascist or whatever.
Funny thing about the “never mix comedy and drama” advice. I’ve heard that for the time period Romeo and Juliet is a pretty standard romantic comedy like Much Ado About Nothing until Shakespeare literally kills Mercutio, the comic relief character.
Eh, I heard it be praised by Literature teachers as this "perfect romance" story for AGES. Seems only NOW people are taking more notice that Romeo & Juliet isn't this "perfect romance".
Also that is a very much Western take on it. There are a lot of other places where drama and comedy are hand and hand. There's a reason why there are a bunch of Filipino drama memes on UA-cam. The one where an older woman is crying/laughing while cheering on a bunch of guys who is burying her daughter-in-law alive is absolutely hilarious. It's absurd and it fits somehow. Comedy/Absurdity has always went well with drama.
@@DrawciaGleam02wait, the teachers are describing it as a perfect romance? That seems odd. I know the pop culture perception/reputation of R&J is a perfect romance, but I thought most of the teachers would be aware that it’s not that. To my understanding R&J is a story about a pair of teens being young, and dumb and the tragedy is teens being young and dumb escalates into multiple deaths because their families have a stupid beef so old that no one remembers who or what started it.
I like how Lily is so stupid she thought she could disguise her obvious envy of Rebecca Sugar and ND Stevenson as "100 writing tips" and no one would notice.
There are a lot of ways that Lily contradicted herself on this list, but one I find particularly funny is her saying “Aiming to write a specific relationship dynamic you enjoy is bad!!” after multiple tips about how people should write more low-stakes friends-to-lovers stories. Ma’am, what do you think friend-to-lovers is?
ALSO, going on to state _later in this very thread_ that "EVERYONE is defined by their relationships." Yeah. _WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS, LILY??_ Maybe it's because those relationships had clear dynamics? Maybe!? Just a thought!
@@yurifairy2969 she'd hate it purely because it's unconventional. I have no idea if there's any actual precedent for Lily hating things that do something unusual, but that's my soul read.
@@Deadflower019asking lily, who only watches children’s shows to read house of leaves would end like that video of a medieval serf listening to promiscuous
And let's not talk about generational divides and cultural context. Friends was a 1994 American sitcom. Toonami didn't even launch until 1997. Anime, as a genre, was still being Americanized as late as 2007, and arguably still is. To the point where "anime" is still a genre and art style in the U.S., while in Japan it's just the general term for any and all animation. Comparing Friends to Anime is like comparing Apples to an Apple iMac G3.
Lily Orchard: "You shouldn't EVER change between comedy and drama. Changing genres and tone is always bad." Also Lily Orchard: "Don't plan your stories. Fly by the seat of your pants." Edit: WAIT HUH? She thinks Princess Mononoke is a children's action adventure film? The movie with bloody decapitations and the only Ghibli movie to get a PG-13 rating is for KIDS?
I see both commenters talking about the edit but let me just say that mixing comedy and drama together can create insane whiplash (in a good way) Examples: Metal Gear Rising Revengeance: There’s a scene right after a standard fight where you’re surrounded by hundreds of Children’s brains held in cyborg casings to be made into cyborg child soldiers and have their lives ruined by a cyborg organ harvesting scheme. Undertale: Literally every moment where the comedic atmosphere is thrown off by a serious or sad moment happening. Metal Gear Solid: LIKE LITERALLY EVERYTHING
"Never switch between comedy and drama" The Sopranoes, Breaking Bad, and fuck knows how many other shows: "Am I a joke to you?... Lily... Lily, over here! Hi there!... Nope, no, she doesn't see us; she's just watching children's cartoons again".
I've come to the conclusion that lily's advice is too based on hating shows, too many, to take seriously. You my friend, seem to actually like the art of storytelling.
Lily Orchard's take on comedy and drama is 100% purely her preference. She hates stories like this and refuses to grasp why stories like that come so highly recommended. Hell, even ATLA is arguably a comedy that gains dramatic elements.
She acted so confused about Dungeon Meshi, unable to grasp that a story can have silly monster hijinks, dramatic character beats, and dark horror moments.
It's so much more hard hitting in my opinion when a comedy takes on a dramatic turn because you'd have already grown to know the characters before hitting you with the dramatic moments. She hates when a story changes from episodic to serialized, completely ignoring the fact that the story's goal was to get you to know the characters and their dynamics before they go into the heavy hitting stuff.
14:00 Hasn't Alex Hirsch been EXTREMELY open about how heavy Disney pushed back against many things in the show? This is actually so stupid, he has openly shown how the gay cops (been a while, I forgot their names; Edit: Blubbs and Derlin) were pushed back against because they were "too close" in some scenes
@@NeoGMan64 Blubs and Durland* 🤓☝ Also, other stuff got censored too. Like the two elderly lesbians who got replaced by a straight couple in The Love God episode. Shit sucks, man.
china, latino america and japan (don't know about other countries) have gigantic dragonball audiences (with china having 2bi people who enjoy and love the sun wukong tale which based the dragonball anime), it's popular even in america, that statement is not only false but also kind of non-american erasure, i'm not surprised considering she calls the empire and the diamonds as space nazis, when one is openly based on the USA during the vietnam war and any argument of the diamonds being based on nazis is countered by lack of holocaust and usage of weapons of mass destruction (so more like USA, like the latter as the former has happened in it), she'd 100% say that helldivers is a allegory to nazism and fascist regimes that people don't get without realising it's quite literally a parody of america's militarism and imperialism.
@@joaopedrofm1299The Empire is definitely also based on the Nazis. The look and vibe of Nazi Germany is used as a quick shorthand for "villainy" a lot in the films. They were based on America during Vietnam for the last sections of the third film, but the Nazi vibes are constant throughout the series.
@@Talisguy yeah but that is just in asthetic and look, you can't say that the empire's actions are based on nazi germany when they only lose battles, waste money and resources on big dumb shit (the "rat" german tank was scrapped for a reason) and again no holocaust, calling the empire nazis dumbs down the latter's impact on the world and kind of erases what they've done, a pastel white with gold accents would've better visualized their superior wealth and false righteousness over the rebels, would also have made them unique for years to come.
@@joaopedrofm1299 Huh? what do you mean sun wukong is based off of dragonball???? Sun wukong is from a story called "journey to the west, its old. Dragonball is actually inspired by IT, not the other way around!!!
“Don’t try to do what avatar did.” Really is such a weird rule. Like the only thing it “did” was be an exceptional lightning in a bottle show. And it’s damn near impossible to do that deliberately. Like at most you try your best on a project and it turns out that good. They did their best and Avatar turned out to be something everyone wanted. Like yeah Lucas set out to make Star Wars but he wasn’t trying to do anything more than get a story out of his system. Just turned out him and his crew did a good job and the entire world also wanted his story.
It's so weirdly specific and vague too. Like they made a show they put a lot of passion into and it got famous. Is that what not to do? Would have been better advice to make the rule "Don't try to copycat or be another bug ip". Like it's fine to take inspiration, but your story should stand on its own instead of running on the coattails of another one and feel like a knock off.
Lucas was expecting success, that is why he was primarily paid in having the merchandising rights. He got paid VERY little for the movie itself. So the Star Wars example is bad.
@SioxerNikita perhaps, but I doubt Lucas expected Star Wars to end up being the insane success it was. Expecting toys to sell just means he had faith in the costume and special effects departments' skills to maje cool characters/creatures/spaceships.
Some of these are not even writing tips. They’re just “I don’t like this thing, so it’s problematic, and if you think it’s an interesting idea or concept you’re a bad person.”
Yeah, the writing tips that relate to dark romance and taboo ideas or concepts in fiction (or even the concept of sex and sexuality in fiction tbh) betray not only a discomfort that she conflates with moral righteousness but also a complete unwillingness to even try to understand why other people might find those sorts of things interesting to explore in fiction. The "lesbian noncon" point is especially transparent when you look at it that way. Any romance that is enemies-to-lovers or darker makes her uncomfortable, so she refuses to interrogate why others might want to read or write fiction depicting unhealthy romantic or sexual relationships between women- she just immediately leaps to calling people who are interested in that kind of fiction sexual predators and moves on with her day. It just seems to me from her public writing and thoughts on writing that Lily has an unhealthy relationship with sex and sexuality that manifests in this need for purity in fiction.
@@northstarjakobs Considering Lily wrote an MLP fanfic that romanticized abuse and p3d0philla, and apparently has SA’d her younger sister, you’re half right. She’s just virtue signaling in an attempt to keep people from finding the skeletons in her closet.
Back when I used to be on Tumblr, I remember thinking "...You know you can just not like something, right? That thing you don't like doesn't have to be 'problematic.' You can just have wanted Katara to end up with Zuko instead of Aang, you don't need to say Aang had no respect for Katara's feelings because he tried to talk her out of murdering an old man that one time." It honestly felt like not everyone was aware that they could have story preferences without this being some kind of moral argument that they were on the Right Side of. That's what I feel with some of these picks. I don't know if she knows that she can just not like a trope.
@@northstarjakobsi do think there’s a lot of nuance to this subject tho (coming at this from a writer’s perspective). shows that actively bend logic and morally scapegoat the rest of their cast to make a morally devious look good is just straight up bad writing. dark and taboo fiction works best when it doesn’t shy away from the full implications of whats happening in the text. nobody likes it when a character (or multiple) is objectively horrible and yet is treated like they’re gods gift to the planet by the narrative, it feels extremely contrived and uncomfortable. tldr; taboo and problematic subjects definitely have a place in fictional media, as long as the narrative doesn’t try to portray these subjects to the audience like they’re good (narrative /=/ character opinions/pov)
Lily Orchard Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe: 1. Stir flour, eggs, and sugar into a bowl 2. Do not add salt. It’s too spicy which means it’s problematic 3. Do not try to do what Gordon Ramsey did (I like being really vague in my tips) 4. Do not try to do what Gordon Ramsey did (I like repeating tips) 5. Do not use sugar from anyone named “Rebecca” 6. Mix the flour, eggs, and sugar (Ignore the fact that I tell you not to later) 7. DO NOT add chocolate chips because I hate chocolate 8. However, white chocolate is allowed because I personally like it 9. I hate She-Ra 10. Ignore the fact that I have burnt several cookies before 11. DO NOT ADD NUTS, I HATE NUTS 12. I hate She-Ra 13. I hate She-Ra 14. DO NOT TURN ON THE OVEN WHEN YOU PUT THE COOKIES IN (Putting cookies through any sort of character redemption/change is bad) 15. DO NOT MIX OR KNEAD THE DOUGH (Because it’s somehow fetishizing abuse?) 16. I hate She-Ra 17. DO NOT actually follow a recipe or plan, just make it however you want to 18. *Alludes to another recipe she hates* 19. Put butter into the mixture 20. Again, DO NOT MIX THE DOUGH 21. Did I mention I hate She-Ra? 22. Put the cookies in the oven, WITHOUT TURNING IT ON 23. Take the cookies out after exactly 100 minutes 24. Wait… Why are they still doughy? 25. Enjoy!
never use chocolate. some people (me) are allergic and to use it reinforces bigoted elitism in your dish. no i am not elitist because i say so. I've only ever baked cookies. and don't use sugar i HATE Sugar
I couldnt finish this video. Im a writer, and you made good points. Im sure you continued to make great points after the point stopped. But hearing Lily's 4th grade reading level takes on writing being given any serious thought at all was giving me heart palpatations. Great video!
Lily Orchard is a woman who watches fiction aimed at a child age group and then gets mad when the endings to those shows considers the age of their main intended audience. A violent solution is not appropriate for every story or audience.
The amount of times I've said to weirdos like Lily "Did you REALLY think the series about love and change and forgiveness headed by a pacifist protag was going to end with Steven murdering the Diamonds?" is frankly ridiculous.
@@MallyMcAlliI mean, even if Lily is obviously wrong, that's not a free ticket for a story to sweep things under the rug. There is such a thing as going too far in the other direction.
"Don't make a comedy and turn it into a drama, that just annoys people." BoJack Horseman 8.8/10 Moral Orel 8.1/10 The Boondocks 8.5/10 Regular Show 8.5/10 Adventure Time 8.6/10 Steven Universe 8.2/10 Gravity Falls 8.9/10 Mob Psycho 100 8.5/10 Breaking Bad 9.5/10 Better Call Saul 9/10 Yeah, people definitely dislike tonal shifts, Lily.
Theres a tumblr post that says "people b saying things so definetly. like man i think it depends" and I thing it defines very well the answer for a lot of lily's tips from this thread
For Anthony and for passerby: Lily was being incredibly disingenuous when writing "Tip" 38. There has long been discussion in fan spaces about how people writing lesbian couples are held to a higher standard than those writing about gay or straight couples. People will actively avoid writing lesbians bc they will receive harassment and threats at a far higher level than if they write other couples, especially if that lesbian couple is not wholesome and perfect. While I'm sure someone on Twitter did say "I want more lesbian noncon", the larger discussion there that Lily is boiling down into just noncon, is "I want more lesbian couples that are allowed to be messy, complicated, and problematic because every single lesbian couple being wholesome and perfect is not only boring, but unrealistic and unrelatable." Always remember that these are conversations about /fiction/ and not real people. No one is actually saying "I want lesbians to be more abusive". What they're saying is "I want more stories about lesbians where the lesbians get to be a little fucked up."
THANK you. that's the thing that's been annoying me about not just lily, but anthony as well throughout this entire video: they both have varying degrees of "fiction = reality" in their opinions. like suggesting that if someone writes something that would be abhorrent in reality (like noncon) that it either makes them a horrible person (per lily) OR that it *has* to be for some justifiable reason or moral commentary in order for it to be "acceptable" to write about (per anthony). like, people should be able to write whatever they want for whatever reason when it comes to fiction because none of it is real. sure, you can argue that an author may have "subconscious bias" and that's reflected in the way they portray, say, a character that isn't white. but if they're writing stuff like noncon or other dubious scenarios that would make them ostracized if performed in real life, that shouldn't reflect on their character as a person. like, no one ever accuses people who write horror fiction of being secret murderers because they wrote someone getting murdered. why is that not the same for any other topic that would be abhorrent to experience IRL?
I wasn't aware about lesbian couples being held to higher standards in fics and I'm intrigued by why this has such a double standards. Regarding the harassment those writers receive, who do you think sends them such harassment? Lesbian people policing fics? Arrogant straight fans policing fics? I want to understand it more so any context helps.
@@l.n.3372 not OP, but the reason seems to be because there are so few "good" lesbian couples in fandom spaces (meaning any ships, not necessarily "canon" couples) that when you *do* write them, there's pressure to make them "wholesome" and whatnot because there's less fan content to consume. so therefore, since there's a plethora of variety for het and m/m ships of all types between wholesome and "messy/problematic," the idea seems to be that since there's less available for f/f content that the majority of it "should" be wholesome/non-problematic. as for "who" is sending harassment, it's mostly the fans of whatever ship it happens to be. this is generally a thing in fandom vs. original characters that i've seen, but i'm sure it happens with OCs too. tl;dr: it seems to derive from the lack of good f/f content so people are more aggressive about stuff being created as more positive.
@@neonhalos fascinating insights. I appreciate your analysis. I will be honest and say that I have never read a fan fic that was f/f because, as a straight woman, it just never appealed to me. but among the f/f couples in fiction that I ship "casually," now I wonder if those fics force said characters to be wholesome instead of messy/problematic. I cannot believe all of those fics are portrayed as perfect, but I was not aware about these double standards until I saw the above comments. what would you say, hypothetically as an example, for LoK's Korra/Kuvira? surely, that is a f/f ship that must be allowed to show messy, too, right? when one is a hero and the other is a villain, their fics cannot just be happy fluff, right? or Vi/Caitlyn in Arcane, where they live in a corrupt city and Vi's sister is a killer, surely their fics can have nuance too?
@@l.n.3372 I'm happy to discuss! as for your examples, I think that those specific ships, being more hero/villain (broadly speaking), are the kinds that will have "sane" fandoms around them (that is to say, fandoms that are not afraid to show the ships as they are) vs. having a fandom that would try to sanitize them, if that makes sense. the "problematic" nature is so hard-baked into the premise of the ship that most of the people who complain about the things I mentioned in my other comment just would rather discourage people from shipping them at all rather than call for the fics to be sanitized. so for example: a common tactic I've seen in other fandoms is to accuse people who like the "bad" ship as being inherently abusive as people. in other words, "if you like [ship] then chances are you're probably abusive, sorry to say." that's a super common tactic in most fandoms, f/f or otherwise. I've seen it for m/m ships and het ships. it's a powerful tactic, too, because people are immediately put on the defensive when it's thrown in their court. or, if someone was a casual shipper, it might make them far less likely to openly voice liking said ship or creating content for it because harassment in fandoms is at an all-time high these days. so while the people who are actually writing "problematic" ships aren't the ones sanitizing them, it's more like... if you have an average, every-day pairing, those are the ones that are the most pressured to keep it wholesome. the people who ship villains with heroes tend to just get wholesale marked as a problematic person in general. there's definitely more detailed stuff I could go into regarding this, but that's the basic, broad-strokes rundown of what I have seen in fandoms over the years. I hope that makes sense!
@@daelen.cclark in many ways, this video was an excuse for me to discuss a ton of works i normally wouldn't be able to discuss. I fit in Marquis de Sade, Sartre, and Wes Craven into a silly vid about the lady who hates She-Ra. How many other SEO relevant chances would i have to do that?
@@GravityFaizIt's funny. For someone who stole basically all of her ideas from Yahtzee Croshaw and especially Jim Stephanie Sterling, she sure seems to get fussy about "stolen content".
59:48 As stupid as the "artists draw, writer write" statement is, there actually is a big problem in the modern American animation industry of storyborders being forced to take on additional roles like scriptwriter without being given extra time, pay, or even proper credit for doing so. Probably not what Lilly was trying to get at, but it is an issue.
Literally why are there only two people bringing this up 😂 I dont care, this is why the rule was made. Ants point against it was so strawmanny that it drove me nuts. Why yes, of course artists can write. They shpildnt be exploited to do two jobs and only get paid for one though, and in my opinion, Ant should know better because of his proximity to the comics industry. Saying “oh duh comic artitsts are writers too” was such a disappointing take coming from an obviously intelligent person who just phoned in a response basically
Haven’t finished the video, but I think what Lily was trying to get at was just “Steven Universe sucks, and artists suck”. Because in the garbage video Lily complains that the show was bad because the episodes were storyboard driven instead of script driven. I also believe that the storyboard argument was ripped off from another youtuber redbuddi (robobuddies), because THEY made a video about Steven Universe making that exact point before Lily.
@@SpaceBoyDigital It is a good point and something worthy of larger discussion, but I severely doubt that's what Lily was trying to get at. From her Steven Universe video (and a clip of it was used in this video as proof) it's clear that she genuinely thinks that the main reason Steven Universe is bad is because Rebecca Sugar is an artist, not a writer. It has nothing to do with unhealthy industry practices, it has to do with her personal beef with a jew she claims to be antisemetic for no reason. Even Lily's good arguments are misplaced and misguided. So many of her "writing tips" are "if person does x, they're a piece of shit", which, while I might agree with on a surface level, ignores a lot of important nuance and... isn't a writing tip. She's just telling you not to do something, which is very rarely helpful in creative work.
If that’s what she trying to say, then it’s still not a good advice since it’s not about writing, it’s about management. Something that the writer most likely doesn’t have much control over
I'm pretty sure that's not what she was talking about, but even her intended point is incredibly stupid. People aren't allowed to have multiple overlapping interests now? You gotta pick one thing to live and die by?
30:36 I think a great example of this is how Lily got really upset that Ruby and Sapphire's wedding episode also had the Diamond's invasion in it without realizing that they did that so that they couldn't not air the wedding episode without also not airing a major moment
I know that some people got angry because Sapphire was in a tuxedo and Ruby was in a gown - they accused Rebecca Sugar of 'erasing butch identity' not realising that they'd made that choice because quite a few foreign language censors were writing and dubbing Ruby as an actual man, and putting her in a dress was a direct challenge to that. Also, butch people irl can wear dresses if they want to.
@@katherinefrost6318 also role swap, a typically butch character like Ruby can be femme, and a typically femme character like sapphire can be butch, it's so dumb to think someone can't have those moments of being outside their role
Like 99% of Berserk was figured out as it was being made with Miura even deciding he had no clue what the ending would be and he’d figure it out when he got there, Tolkien planned out the entirety of The Lord of the Rings before writing it. Both are incredible artists who made great works, but in Lily’s eyes only one is valid, actually she’d probably hate Berserk anyways.
Berserk is a story about healing from trauma and getting back up to move forward. And we all know how Lily thinks of those kinds of stories *cough* Steven Universe *cough* Knowing Lily she would probably think Guts is just an edgy badass hypocritical incels idolize whose a major dick from beginning to end without understanding why he's jaded, undermine the strength of a character like Casca because of how many times she gets violated or nearly violated, and at WORST she'd probably try to argue Griffith wasn't that bad.
@@animeotaku307 I'm only saying that given her track record of going against characters who were victims of abuse and siding with their abusers (N and Ghestis as well as Jasper/Peridot and Lapis)
i don't like fantasy but you don't see me saying "tip 37 of writing: never use any magic or dragons or mythical creatures in your story, only write realistic stuff. Because it pisses me, random person, off. So, like don't do it.". Honestly, lily gives me the vibe that she literally only consumes media and stories catered towards 12 year olds. That has to explain why she has such a dense and black and white understanding of writing and media.
Even if she only consumes childrens cartoons... That still explains nothing. I love a good light hearted adventure, but I can still understand that different medias require different levels of criticism
funny enough, i read a manhwa where the setting is modern but it has many race from fantasy or mythical creatures. the world building explanation is pretty good. basically they finally discover modern technology. technology vs magic happened for a moment but technology win because everyone from different race can use it while only some people can use magic. magic still preserve in the modern setting, but they have regulation. imagine thinking such a story isn't good idea.
@@mr.dirtydannnnn well here’s the way i see it: i think some children’s media deserves to be dissected and analyzed for what it is. there are many examples where a children’s show is a lot deeper and a lot more meaningful than black and white stories so i’m not saying that’s what they are. BUT to analyze those shows, i believe you have to be knowledgeable and educated in more mature media, in mature writing. Lily DOESNT seem to have that which (in my opinion) seems to be the reason why she analyzes the way she does. She doesn’t have understanding of anything more mature than children’s media and that’s why she doesn’t fully understand the said children targeted media and for that matter, basic writing facts and innerworkings.
"if character's bodycount is over thousand innocent souls" Trigun, Vash. Whole anime is about him trying to seek self-redemption over the fact, that he once "snapped", and basically lost self-control, leading to a whole city whiped out. And yet, he isn't the bad guy
Relatedly, Dalinar Kholin from Stormlight Archive. Man's an actual war criminal whose past is defined by spearheading incredibly violent conquest. Much of his character progression in the present is spent trying to grapple with his atrocities and how they define him as a person.
It's almost like trying to determine someone's capacity to change and seek redemption purely on the basis of body count is a completely asinine approach to the subject that completely misses the entire point of that type of character arc. It's also kind of messed up given that it implies all of the lives prior to that arbitrarily chosen number are somehow of inherently less value, since you can be redeemed after wiping out everyone up to that point but not anyone after. Why is that? What makes the life of person 1,001 so much more valuable than the 1,000 who came before that the one who took them can no longer redeem themselves?
@@sekiro_the_one-armed_wolf Not even just probably. Lily has actual allegations against her from her sibling that is disturbingly close to some of the events in her Stockholm fic.
@@anothermiddleschoolburnout8816 As somebody who's known of Lily for almost a decade, that doesn't surprise me at all. Everything about Lily screams that.
5:19 "if youre writing a 5 season show" how often do show runners know exactly how many seasons they will have in advance? Isn't that a decision thats usually out of their control?
One thing Lily Orchard does which annoys me is how she refuses to accept irl context, like how Korrasami was underwhelming in terms of their romantic set up...... because the network censored their relationship and barely allowed hand holding. Or how Steven Universe's finale was rushed because the network axed the show for Ruby and Sapphire's wedding. Or how most showrunners/writers end up with very little control over whether they get another season and often don't plan that far ahead for sake of realism. On some level, yeah, it can result in poor writing, but it's wildly unsympathetic to assume these are all deliberate choices by showrunners
Not to mention that for TV writing, that is TOTALLY a play by ear situation. Not just for the reason that you mentioned, but also by watching actors' chemistry develop. Two actors/characters you didn't expect to just have that kind of chemistry pops up and they end up getting together at some point even though that wasn't the original plan. Same goes for writers planning to have two people end up together and realizing that wasn't going to work. Similarly, there's MANY instances of characters that pop up on a show that were planned to only be on for an episode or for a short arc, but they were so good that they ended up staying on the show as one of the main characters. Jesse Pinkman is a prime example. He was supposed to die halfway through Season 1, but ended up being the Secondary Protagonist on the show.
@@TheGeorgeD13 I think one of my favorite examples of this - not just for romance, but for television writing in general - is Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was originally intended to be a one-off villain who only briefly appeared in the series, but the cast, crew, and audience all loved him so much that they not only found ways to keep him involved in the entire season, but also brought him in as part of the main cast from season four onwards. Nobody PLANNED for the character to be a character who played a major role in the series finale, the character and actor were just so damn lovable that it ended up that way. Writing in general is fluid rather than static, and that's especially the case in writing for an episodic story format that may or may not get an extension based on what forces outside the author's control decide. Even in the case of stories that are released in their entirety, such as novels, it's not that unusual for ideas to change (and previous parts to be rewritten) while making a novel because the author had new inspiration or realized that they liked something better a different way. The key difference is that when we're looking at a novel, we're only seeing the finished product - changes by both the author and any outside influences already included - rather than seeing the authors adapt to changes in real time.
Actually some show runners with clear arcs and endings in mind have the exact amount of seasons planned out and 5 (or 7) is a magic number for a show because that was when, back in the day, syndication could occur. So yes some have a number in mind and try to stick to it. Supernatural is an example of the original showrunner had a 5 season arc and stuck to it. But the network wanted more!! 😂 So it kept going. A viewer could watch to season 5 and be pretty satisfied tho. Breaking Bad also had, after awhile, a clear end date and arc. The nature of TV is that nothing is set in stone because high level management changes frequently and they are forever cancelling shows when a new president takes over
She should hear about how that idea went for J. Michael Straczynski on Babylon 5. He had a full five-season story arc planned out from the beginning, and he did eventually manage to tell it. But it was a hellishly stressful undertaking. He set up character arcs that would have run most of the length of the story in the pilot, only to lose half the cast between the pilot and the first episode of season 1 and have to write them out and set up replacement characters. Some of these replacements inherited their predecessors' character arcs, some arcs went to different people or were split among characters. One small but crucial plotline went through three characters and four actresses before it finally made it onscreen. He was constantly losing and gaining cast members - including major characters with big, important arcs - and having to rewrite on the fly to accommodate them, characterisations are visibly rewritten as the show goes along as he takes time to adjust to the strengths of his new performers, and the series included so much foreshadowing that Straczynski ended up writing the entirety of seasons 3 and 4 and almost all of season 5 _by himself_ (and these were full length, old school, 22 episode seasons) to make sure nothing was lost in translation. Then Babylon 5 wasn't renewed for a fifth season, forcing him to cram two seasons' worth of payoff into season 4, only for the show to be unexpectedly picked up by another network for a fifth season at the last minute, after he'd used up most of his remaining material, so he had to scramble to flesh what was left out enough to carry 22 episodes. ...And then he lost most of his notes. This could not possibly be the norm for a five season show.
I will never get over how badly Lily misses the point of What’s the Use of Feeling Blue. It’s like she can’t comprehend that people act differently at work than they act when they’re in private. Because that’s what’s going on, the first time we meet Yellow she’s at work, and in what’s the use of feeling blue she’s alone with Blue, her equal, where she can let down her guard a bit.
It’s wild when people who complain that Steven Universe feels rushed forget that episodes are like 11 minutes long My friend rewatched the entire series in 3 days
She seems to be having a real life villainous meltdown because of how she never seemed to pay much kind to her critics outside of making them look bad in her videos.
As someone who actually watched Lily for about 2-3 years, picking on my insecurities and viewing her as this bastion of intelligence because i was isolated and didn't any better pretty much hits the mark. She is a beast who preys on a very specific crowd and i am ashamed that I didn't see that till I actually had friends. Great Video Anthony.
Lily is a shitty critic and an even shittier person, but I don't think it's appropriate to call a trans woman a beast, and we shouldn't stoop to that level.
Dragonball is the PERFECT counter to "Friends is more popular than your favorite anime". When Akira Toriyama tragically passed away, he was mourned by hundreds of millions of people all around the world. Dragonball is one of the most influential and beloved works of art in modern history.
Entire governments, major corporations and even the bloody Mexican cartel were openly mourning Toriyama's passing. It was major news for several days. The idea that Friends, a defunct sitcom from the 90s no one but old ass, specifically American, gen Xers care about, is more popular then most animes is ridiculous. My mother, who was the exact correct demographic for Friends when it was on, couldn't name a single character from it, but she sure as hell can name and recognize Goku. She doesn't even like cartoons, much less anime.
@@Trotoloko Okay, I can understand that in terms of “oh, it didn’t invent anything other media at the time hasn’t done already”. But it is VERY influential in terms of who it inspired to create material based on Dragon Ball. So, ironically, it DID invent certain fan made AND modern franchises today.
A writing tip my high school English teacher would always say..and I'm not going to remember his exact words but it was " if you're writing and your characters have a plan and you as the writer know it isn't going to work then tell the reader the whole plan. If it IS going to work don't tell the reader and let them experience it naturally." EVER since that I've noticed that a LOT of writers do this in one way or another. I just thought this somewhat tied into one of the first "tips" from this trainwreck of an author lol
Heist movies basically use this as a formula, having the characters explain the plan in detail and then showing it unravel because of circumstances beyond their control. Which is then rectified when they come up with improvised solutions and pull it off after all.
I’ve seen this not fully in play and it work have the plan said in detail then you can have it fuck up in several small ways to build tension but ultimately work or you don’t tell the reader the plan and it still fails as the actual plan isn’t as important as the helplessness and dread that the caricature (and reader) feel
@@shinyagumon7015 This is why Logan Lucky is such a great movie, because you don't know most of their plan before they pull it off. Every trick they use is novel.
Given these tips and the way she words them, it's clear a lot of these issues come from her ego. Media MUST be written in a certain way that appeals to her, and that is a very reductionist thing to believe about art
That’d be like if I slam Kamen Rider Gaim (a highly acclaimed Rider series I’m just getting into) and complain that it isn’t like Gotchard writing wise (a Rider series I like for my personal tastes). That would be stupid of me.
Yes. Although I feel like she was basically inspired by the Evil Overlord Lists and all the spin-offs that created about various other characters and fandoms/genres before realizing it's so old school a lot of people might not even be aware of what those are so she aimed for garnering more attention by simply calling it an all-encompassing writing guide. Or she just didn't have a theme. It's possible she didn't take this very seriously but it does give a lot of insight into her opinions from whenever she wrote this.
Given her stance on writing is so black and white and neat, it's not surprising. As soon as a story shifts to any color in the gray spectrum, she throws a fit on why with no nuance. I get not wanting your characters to suffer, wanting a villain to die more than anything, but I also get that, ye it'll get worse before it gets better. It hurts, but I get what the story is gonna go and I believe in the author's ability to stick the landing and make me go either way on how the story will go. Lily doesn't believe in the author, she believes in her own fucked ability to make a story.
@@bluewolf6323 I honestly think it's more shallow than that, I think Lily doesn't like nuance, subtext and grey morality because it makes her feel stupid.
Number 19 from Lily's list is rich considering how she once DEFFENDED the depiction of Sheldon Cooper! (aka, the ""autistic" ethically-challenged number fetishist" from TBBT)
I will say, tho I don't agree with Lily's completely black and white take on it, I do think there is a genuine issue with autism rep where it's often boiled down to the stereotype of unfeeling savant (in either stem or music), who is blunt because they literally don't have the empathy to care if they're mean. And I do think that stereotype can genuinely be ableist because it perpetuates a lot of harmful misconceptions about autism and has kind of been the default example of "this is what autism looks like" to a lot of NT people for years, to the point that people whose autism presents differently aren't believed or taken seriously by the general public because they've been presented with a very rigid caricature of autism by most media.
@@troyjardine5850 let’s be honest, Lily doesn’t give a shit about neurodivergent people and actively hates them, so her pretending to care is just insulting.
The Sheldon debate is something I actually think is really interesting. And I think that because from what I know the creator said that Sheldons mannerisms were based on a real person...and then they also aggressively denied that Sheldon was autistic (at least to my knowledge) even still...so I see Sheldons character as, well, an exaggerated character as all the big bang theory, friends, and other characters from shows of the time were, but I ALSO see him as a neurotipical persons outside interpretation of an autistic person turned INTO an exaggerated tv show character. So like...I don't believe Sheldon as a character was created to BE autistic, (the show writer literally said so) but I think he is an exaggerated character based on a real (probably very autistic) person. They probably ate the same food everyday, had "their spot", maybe had "strange" repetitive ticks (Sheldons three knocks) or needed to do things in a specific order or a specific way. Basically if he had been created to be autistic he would feel...a bit...yeah...but I think bc they really didn't know they were portraying autism (which caused some separate issues) I think it's really a fascinating thing. A character based on how neurotipical people see autism when they hadn't even realized that's what it was. Someone should study that. Like genuinely. So idk if it's bad per say, mostly bc I find all characters from around that time to have...similar irritating exaggeration issues...but I do think it's super fascinating personally.
As a guy with autism, I'm more offended by the """""""humor""""""" in TBBT than Sheldon being a poor depiction of an autistic guy. Actually, from what little I saw of the show, I never even thought he was autistic (I thought he was just supposed to be a cringe nerd.) I think Sheldon is either just a poor depiction of an actual human being, or a fantastic depiction of a pretentious, smartass, unfunny person (but the laugh track would suggest otherwise.)
10:15 wow lily really can't get over Steven Universe (a child) not committing murder. Not every story is an action story where the protagonist is likable while still killing 20 faceless henchmen each scene. Murder sucks in real life, it's not fun, it's not an easy decision and it can haunt you for the rest of your life. Even the most justified murder can be emotionally devastating. Not to mention Lily seems to pointless hate villains and redemption unless it's the villains she is writing. Villains can be goofy irredeemable monsters but they can also be human and tragic who don't deserve to die. Not every story has to end with a nice neat little bow with the bad guys dead and the good guys married with 2.5 kids.
These our my exact thoughts whenever someone complains about Aang not straight up killing Lord Ozai. Literally forgetting the ENTIRE point of his character
@ealusaid Yeah, it's the hypocrisy that sickens me. She wants to be this Tumblr pure idol who has done no wrong and who can speak with moral authority, all the while having written something that is just as bad or in a number of cases worse than the things she called out. It's not just that the advice is bad. It's that the advice rings hollow, 100 tweets of, for lack of a better term, virtue signalling. If she had not said anything at all, maybe I'd be more ambivalent. Fucked up shit gets made by a person, more at 11. But like I said, it's the hypocrisy that pisses me off.
I was looking for this fucking comment. I don't understand why anyone is giving her the time of day when she wrote a pedophilic abuse fanfiction. I wouldn't even begin to THINK about even hearing her out about her "writing tips". I'm sorry, once you cross that line, I'm going to stop taking anything you say seriously.
@@vickypedia1308 i mean - when you sometimes just look at some comment sections of therian shorts (even worse when the videos are clearly made by young teens who do not deserve that hate ...)
I think the best part of this video is how effectively it demonstrates the importance of a broad media diet to being a critic. On one side: dozens of tips are clearly just subtweets of surface level issues Lily didn't like in at most 5 children's cartoons from the 2010s. On the other side: hundreds of counter examples from genres as far flung as personal diaries, classic French literature, modern anime, and exploitation horror films spanning centuries and requiring actual media analysis to unpack. The sheer disparity should embarrass Lily.
I would never tell the world how to write a story cause I haven't actually seen that many stories. I usually stick to the genres I like and I'm happy. I'll never pretend to be an authority on this cause I'm only consuming a small amount of media.
I'm under an hour in, let me say this. As a straight white dude, you need metaphor and allegory to make it digestable for someone who isn't living through things. Have I lived the life of a genderqueer person? No, no I haven't. Experiencing a story of a shapeshifter/alien/whatever who is an allegory or metaphor for it CONTEXTUALIZES IT. I have not experienced racism as as someone of color does, giving me the context in the form of characters who do gives me a better method of understanding it and a deeper empathy for those groups.
This is why the trope of "robot racism" is a surprisingly popular one for writers. Their origins may be different, but the robots/androids/whatever being treated as second class citizens can be used to tell good moral quandaries
THANK YOU for addressing Lily’s queerphobia and how policing queerness is inherently bigoted. Being queer is very important to me and it angers me when people try to exclude or silence it.
And she’d probably play the “if you hate me you’re --phobic” card too. I have never seen someone with such a profound LACK of self-awareness. She’s so full of shit, the toilet’s jealous.
yeah it is annoying. i have trauma around the word queer itself as a catch-all (the use as an insult is alive and well where i am; organisations that exist as supports for the LGBTQIA+ community here use the acronym as the catch-all in recognition of this issue!) but have a tendency to make it extremely clear that my issue/reaction _does _*_not_*_ extend to individual use of and self-application of the term._ i support that and completely get how that would be liberating and meaningful, in fact! i also reject the... vaguely cisheteronormative-leaning? rejection of 'queer' based on 'no but we're not _actually that different_ from the cishets, we're _normal_ and not _weird_ but just like youuuu!' logic that seems to pander to the comfort of cishet folks. in fact, i would go so far as to say, i _wish_ the reclamation of queer, esp as the catch-all, made cishets uncomfortable and squirmy, i would appreciate it so much more than i currently do, as cishet folks use the term as a catch-all increasingly thoughtlessly. but ofc lily can't just be like elder LGBTQIA+ folks who are uncomfortable with the use of queer as catch-all and just object on the basis of 'hey, you are lumping some of us with traumas into a word that reopens those traumas, maybe we should keep that in mind?'. instead she has to go full wildfire 'raze it to the ground' because the egregious idea that some LGBTQIA+ folks absolutely do not want to be like the cishets.
@@Dan_Kanerva Going to take this is good faith, cishet is shorthand for cisgender (stays the gender they were assigned) heterosexual (attracted to the opposite gender). Cis as a prefix come from Latin "on this side" while trans means "on the other side" often used to express something moved (TRANSportation, TRANSmit, etc)
@@VayaKahvi wow, that is actually very useful. Don't know why he wasn't more clear and just said "straight" but thanks for the info, here in where i live this is basically unheard of LOL
I do not think Catradora is a healthy relationship. I DO think it's good queer representation. Queer relationships in media should not all have to be perfect. We should be allowed to have bad media, bad stories, bad writing, bad relationships-everything that straight people have, queer people should be allowed to have as well, because we are just people. It's this nuance that I dont think Lily understands.
Lily has outright said that she believes if queer media isn't perfect then it shouldn't exist because it'll just be used by 'phobes to harm us. As if THEY WOULDN'T DO THAT FOR ALL QUEER MEDIA.
Of course it's not a healthy relationship, they're two kids who were raised in an authoritarian military school. It would be comically unrealistic if they were well-adjusted. They have literally never seen what a healthy relationship looks like in their entire lives. Also they are cute together.
@@PlatinumAltaria Not to mention, their direct guardian was an abuser who constantly pitted them against each other and blatantly favored one over the other. Catra grew up constantly trapped between loving Adora for being the only source of positivity in her life and despising her for inadvertently causing her suffering just by being better than her.
If twitters inability to understand nuance is the reason that we have so many saccharine USA-based middle-class gay romance between two white dudes with no character flaws, I'm gonna lose it. (Then begrudgingly accept it because straight people also have tons of boring romance films, so I guess it's equality)
@@ScouseJazmin genuinely, yes, i think that those boring as fuck american or western european queer shows that have zero substance are just as important as anything else. i think that we deserve to have shit media too
10:15 Tolkien, who literally served in WWI and lived through WWII and saw all the horrors of humanity, only to write Théoden sparing Gríma: Uhm, what are you talking about?
17:00 Not to harp on the same strings, but Tolkien would also have something to say about this -- namely that, even if _directly and intentionally_ responsible for so many deaths, nobody is beyond redemption. It's an ideology directly tied to Tolkien's Catholicism, but it's not inherent to religion and can (and arguably should) exist outside of it. Also, what a random fucking number? 10,000 kills is right out, but if you kill 9,999 you gucci!
Forgiveness and redemption were key aspects of LOTR as well. Regardless of your thoughts on religion, Tolkien was a traditional Christian (not one of our modern day psychos fearmongering for the masses) whose work was heavily influenced by the positive aspects of his faith. He honestly believed that wicked men could always become better. When Boromir is tempted by the ring and attempts to take it from Frodo, he realizes what it has done to him and mourns his loss of reason, sacrificing himself to try and protect the hobbits. Aragorn encourages Theoden to spare Grima. Gandalf tries to persuade Saruman to surrender peacefully, and Theoden attempts to remind Grima that he can still have a place in Rohan if he renounces Saruman. The ring is destroyed not by Frodo, but by Smeagol - who was shown mercy both by Bilbo and by Frodo in his lifetime. Even if mercy does not result in the redemption of wicked men, *it is what separates us from them.* If there are people you can try to reason with, why not try?
@ApexGale Appreciate the Tolkien context but I have a question. What about the non human "monsters" created by Sarumen to fight in said war? Does Tolkien say it's ok to slaughter them by the dozens? Because they're "inhuman"? Is Tolkien moral standards about sparing life only applicable to humans? What about elves or dwarves?
@@l.n.3372 In Letter 153 Tolkien states this: "They would be Morgoth’s greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote ‘irredeemably bad’; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making - necessary to their actual existence - even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God’s and ultimately good.) But whether they could have ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’ seems a different question; and since in my myth at any rate I do not conceive of the making of souls or spirits, things of an equal order if not an equal power to the Valar, as a possible ‘delegation’, I have represented at least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them. That God would ‘tolerate’ that, seems no worse theology than the toleration of the calculated dehumanizing of Men by tyrants that goes on today. There might be other ‘makings’ all the same which were more like puppets filled (only at a distance) with their maker’s mind and will, or ant-like operating under direction of a queen-centre." In simpler terms, Tolkien being a religious person who genuinely believed in the goodness in the hearts of people. Hw did not feel comfortable saying that the Orcs were irredeemably and inherently evil and instead fashions the reason for their evil being that they were corrupted by an evil man for generations, twisting their nature. In other writings ("Orcs," part of "Morgoth's Ring") he mentions how due to the corruption it was virtually impossible for Orcs to resist Morgoth's domination over them. In that same essay he also lays out terms of war regarding their treatment, as follows: "...though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost. This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded." It is definitely a topic of contention with modern Tolkien scholars, but I think it's at least clear to see that Tolkien regretted his unintentional implication that there would be an "inherently evil" race of people and tried to change that. Even if the Orcs were the equivalent of men made bad by a dangerous authority, they were supposed to be treated with some degree of dignity - though, during war, people simply fight to survive.
Having a copy of Blood Meridian situated between a novelization of Revenge of the Sith (which goes hard) and Pikachu plushes is an insane choice that I support wholeheartedly.
If my memory of the RotS novel from when I was 8 serves me correctly, that book deserves to be put on the same pedestal as blood meridian, i read that book like a dozen times as a kid
Something I love about these videos calling out Lily’s writing “tips” is that they bring in so many other examples across a wide range of media genres to debunk these “tips” and exposing her limited media diet in the process
Well it's more exposing how little she really understands storytelling in general, because even with just the stuff she watches I can easily counter every single "argument" she has for My little Pony, Steven Universe, and Pokemon. Because I'm a normal person with common sense.
People forget that sometimes, characters just have convictions. Batman doesn't kill because he doesn't kill. Killing is wrong. Writers and fans have come up with a thousand reasons as to why: Fear of not being able to stop, core belief in redemption, fundamental hatred of firearms rooted in trauma, not wanting to become like Ra's al-Ghul, needing to be better than his villains, being a model for other heroes and people in general, and much more. But by the end of the day, Batman doesn't kill because he simply does not. That's not how he does things. Killing is wrong. Not only does he not kill, in his best versions he goes out of his way to not let anyone die. Proof of that is that Terry doesn't have the same convictions. Yes, he never allows innocents to die, but some of his villains end up accidentally killing themselves, and he lets it happen. Hell, he has an actual body count. It's not large at all, and all of those he killed weren't exactly normal thugs, but this doesn't change the fact. Terry isn't Bruce, so he, as Batman, sometimes kills. Bruce does not.
By the way I've seen it, it's because there's often a fine-ish line between himself and the villains he puts away, he's a hero but his condition could just as easily turn him into someone like them, and one thing that stops that from happening is that he does everything in his power to do what he does without ending a life
Yeah it bothers me when people try to insist killing is the answer when its really really justified this time because the point of the story is that there is no one time its really really justified for a character to be judge, jury, and executioner of another character’s fate. Like traditionally, if you can come up with a way to stop the bad guy that DOESNT require them dying…writers will take it because the goal is to give the real world audience a story that says “violence shouldn’t be the only answer”. Like especially in a post world war 2 era, people really didn’t want to make stories where the only way to end a story was by killing the big bad. Just stop them and keep them from doing anything ever again. What is so wrong with wanting oxai to go to jail for the rest of his life ya know? It stops him and aang doesn’t have to learn the lesson of “everyone else was right and murder is okay as long as the person really really deserves it. The things I was taught amd so thoroughly ingrained into my culture simply do not matter because everyone else wants to do a murder and i, as the one who’s supposed to be the balance of all elements, can just forgo one of them because who cares?” Like what kinda message is that supposed to send to kids anyway?
Another reason for a lot of characters to not murder, is very rapidly they can become incel bait power fantasies. Like if Batman just started executing random criminals he’s just the punisher with tech. The white supremacist *icon*
There are so many people on the internet who think that Vivziepop is the worst writer on the internet. Those people clearly haven't read anything by Lily Orchard in a while.
@@Smoothbrain-nvrm acceptance and hatred are both tools for good and bad how they are used and for what matters most. Sometimes I unintentionally say some wise stuff without wanting to but I try
1:08:29 Holy shit, it's so relieving to hear this statement. People always downplay SA against men as "wow, bro, you're lucky" and "I wish I was in your place", like... I fucking HATE those arguments. They will NEVER understand that the trauma instilled by being assaulted can and most likely has happened to anyone, regardless of gender. It should be treated the same on both genders, and yet it isn't. Sorry if this seemed as though I'm going off on a tangent. I was SA'd as a kid, so this hits close to home.
8:31 Conversely, victims of abuse are not blameless of their capacity to hurt others just because they suffer abuse. Victims and villains are two separate entities, in fact they are almost always simultaneous occurrences.
Hi, professionally diagnosed autistic here to talk about 33:05! One of the big problems with a lot of autistic representation is a lack of actual nuance or “depth” to the characters that we’re given, and instead are reduced to “uwu babies” or annoying savant assholes. Moral complexity is absolutely FASCINATING!! Giving autistic characters flaws and shortcomings, especially ones derived from a unique worldview they only have BECAUSE of their special interest/autism? That’s absolutely incredible! We would LOVE more of that!
@@Direwolf181 I'm one of them lol, I was real happy they got together in the end! Didn't expect him also getting plant superpowers though, but it was a fun bonus. I find it silly that Lily would thinking liking Drakken and liking shipping are mutually exclusive lol
@@Bunni89 yeah I mean Draken Shego was Mega popular (I mean ShegoxAnyone was popular lady was hot) but Draken was easily her most popular ship (along with Kim/Shego of course lol) also Draken is funny!!! How cam you not like him
What’s funny is that I’m pretty sure they actually did because you can actually notice drakken and shego appering way more in later seasons than the earlier ones
"This is a shitpost." That's the thing: to her, it's really not. She's using tongue in cheek sarcasm to deflect criticism for something she does, in fact, believe.
I found the Twitter thread to be utterly and completely baffling. Stephen King's On Writing is writing advice. Brandon Sanderson's Knowledge base is writing advice. That is just a very long list of incredibly niche criticisms of cartoons that has virtually no real world application. How are any of the points supposed to help with the mechanical or creative process of writing?
@@agramuglia Also - I've re-read my comment and it actually reads like I'm criticising YOUR additional points as well. I've edited it because it was intended as a criticism of the twitter thread. Turns out I'm not so hot at this writing thing either
The "no sex scenes, ever" idea has driven me up several walls for a while now. At the end of the book Babylon Steele, the eponymous character finally returns home after enduring SA and torture, and we get a sex scene spanning several pages of her and her sorta-boyfriend making each other feel good. Because she's finally somewhere safe, in control of the situation, and with someone she cares about. It. Matters. To. The. Story.
I agree to an extent, but sometimes it can feel that there are way too many sex scene happening in a story. One of my biggest gripes about the Throne of Glass books is how there are so many sex scenes during the second half of the story, and they will usually take up multiple pages. And while I can understand the whole "safe, in control of the situation" thing you brought up, especially since the characters are fighting a brutal war against demons from another dimension, when every bit of free time the characters have is spent with them doing the nasty, and I have to repeatedly read about how they're biting and clawing each other, it gets real old real fast. Contrast this to something like Tokyo Ghoul, which had only a single sex scene that comprised a single chapter, and ended up being one of the most beautiful moments in the story.
Well that's a book, where it's easier to see the value if you have good media comprehension. In most tv shows and movies, it serves no point other than making me feel uncomfortable and skipping it (half joke)
@@wiltfoster5386 Bzzt. Wrong wrong wrong AND puritanical. If written well, sex scenes drive the plot, character arcs, inform relationships and emotions.
@@nenakarra2579If, but most of the time they aren't written well. I am not opposed to sexual scenes, but the main complaint is exactly that, when they have no purpose and thus end up being uncomfortable or boringm
Despite me agreeing with some of her “tips”, I just feel like this whole list of “writing tips” is really just Lily vaguely venting about what pisses her off in the stuff she watches under the guise of “writing advice.” Throughout several of these tweets, I could get the feeling most of them were digs at shows she didn’t like (the most major one being She-Ra and the Princess of Power which I can blatantly tell in tips 3 and 4.)
@@ExtremeMadnessX Just the stuff like the ones that boil down to “don’t do stereotype” tips (which she take up several because she couldn’t come up with 100 actual writing tips), The “Don’t write any pedophilic relationship ones” (which also takes up three tips and is ironic coming from her).
"Friends is more popular than your favorite anime" Dragon Ball is so popular in Latin America that not only was the UI Goku vs Jiren fight being advertised in strip clubs, but there are rumors that say that cartel activity would halt whenever a new episode of Super dropped.
The cartel thing was kind of a joke, but the Goku v. Jiren thing was *so* hyped up with flyers akin to wrestling match advertisements that it got the attention of Toei, who had the Embassy of Japan send a note to a Mexican governor telling him to stop allowing the public airing of the last two episodes because it was an infringement on Toei's author rights. The Mexican governor ignored it and people kept playing it in bars lol
We need to put the word fetishize on the top shelf away from people until they can use it properly. Words mean things - just because something isn’t handled perfectly or something is messy or imperfect (sometimes DELIBERATELY written that way) doesn’t make it “fetishized.” Also, sometimes writers just have fetishizes, and that’s not inherently bad! Some of the best art comes from people being hot and bothered! It makes you human! Unhealthy relationships in fiction are dramatic and compelling!! Seems like people these days just…don’t want drama in their fiction??? Why are people so adverse to any type of conflict in fiction these days????? SMH Acting like Game of Thrones wasn’t a global phenomenon for YEARS…
I think people have forgotten that you can just not be into something. Fetish is morally neutral. You can be into it or it can turn you off, that doesn't make it good or bad, it just makes it not your thing. Game of Thrones, for example, not my thing because I'm not into sexual violence in story settings, but I'm not going to say because I don't want to watch it, it shouldn't exist. I'm not an asshole
@@M0ONCommander Yeah definitely, because one is using child actors who probably don't realise what they're being used for and the other has it animated by adults. Definitely less about the fetish and more about how they go about it (also idk about Miyazaki but Schneider also has sexual abuse allegations which is where we stop discussing it in terms of art/fiction)
@@Sootielovethere’s just a lot of women who don’t wear shoes in Fromsoft games as well as a few moments of lingering shots on their feet. The presentation is never disruptive, but once you notice the pattern it’s a little hard to ignore. It’s honestly just funny, never intrusive or annoying.
Murder the diamonds because they're irredeemable? Ah, yes. Frick all the gems who need putting together again. Like, I originally wasn't a huge fan of the fact that shattered gems can be revived because it minimized previous tension points, but also, this gives the diamonds a purpose and a reason to atone, and their dedication to doing so is a testament to their commitment to atoning, which is important if your message is rehabilitative justice (as opposed to retributive justiceーsomething the show abhors). Also, it's kind of obvious only now, but the diamonds were programmed to do what they did across the universe as a means of "reproducing" through colonization, which parallels human history and our inconsideration for other humans, animals, and the ecosystem. Do humans not deserve redemption?
It’s also kinda funny how every time the ‘kill the Diamonds’ idea floats around, no one ever seems to come up with an answer of how that ending would’ve been better. Like yeah, a story about empathy and understanding should TOTALLY end with the teenage protagonist committing triple murder. This is also ignoring the fact that killing the Diamonds would have def screwed over the Crystal Gems and Earth.
@@DaHedgeMoonit also would have fucked up Steven tremendously. He freaked out in SU Future over killing Jasper, who luckily he was able to bring back. Imagine killing three Diamonds and plunging the Gems back into a civil war. He’d never get past it mentally or emotionally. He’d spend every day blaming himself.
@@DaHedgeMoon Not to mention that if Steven just killed the diamonds without changing their society, it just would have created a power vacuum and the diamonds would have just been replaced with another group of power hungry gems and the cycle would have either continued or even gotten worse.
Personnally, I'd always been on board for a full redemption for everyone. Because it's Steven Universe! They sing, they cry, they talk about their feelings, and Steven is here with what no other gem has: his humanity. That was the show, that was the vibe. So, yeah, it had been rushed because it had been stopped sooner tha expected so it feels like the diamonds don't earn their redemption, but honestly I love the final. It always had been a cozy show. People who think they should have killed the diamonds should watch future because it's way more dark and realistic than the first show. Still great, but very different vibe.
The issue is that she was an amoral person who didn’t care about good or bad as long as it aligned with her interest. Like she can’t understand good and bad because she’s autistic and autistic people don’t know the difference
@@BabyGirlTiny Honestly? It really is that way sometimes. I had a hyperfixation so strong that the lack of content for it caused me actual physical pain, so despite knowing it was wrong, I turned to ChatGPT to write me stories for that hyperfixation even though I myself can write. I did a bad thing to fuel my interest because my interest was so unappreciated online that it literally hurt me, and doing the right thing by creating my own content from scratch would take too long. It's not about not knowing right vs wrong, it's about feeling appreciated and understood, and being willing to disregard our own moral compass if it means we get a sense of community surrounding our Special Interests/Hyperfixations.
It's interesting that so many of these "writing tips" are actually moral claims. I think it's this weird Twitter and TikTok mentality I see a lot in Gen Z where people want "representation" for stories that exclusively treat characters with traits like them well and see those who hurt them punished, as they see that as good representation. While I'm not suggesting people should be exposed to great amounts of harm to characters they identify with, we must accept every person's capacity to be villain and victim in stories, not dichotomously, but interactively.
I've started calling it "neo-puritanism", and it's really weird. Like, the most popular "sexy" books for decades were ones with (often romanticised) taboo subjects - Thorn Birds is the first that comes to mind - but also did generally have a plot addressing that taboo, an exploration of themes outside of sex, people who did bad things getting rewarded for it, and exploring the fallout. And now there's a kind of online demand for "moral stories" where heros are perfect and villains are punished on twitter, while booktok keeps going crazy over books where the entire plot is about how hot it is that this 30 year old teacher wants this particular teenager, absolutely no further depth required. It's like people want both taboo and moralistic stories, but putting them together would mean nuance. So they'd rather split them apart.
I think it comes from a fear that, by portraying a queer person as morally reprehensible, it will give the impression that queer people are inherently immoral-a belief that a disgusting amount of people hold and shouldn't be perpetuated. For this reason, I do understand that the topic should be handled very delicately, but not using it at all is also worrisome. If all media portrayals of queer people are as perfect and flawless, that may lead into the belief that queer people who _aren't_ flawless (which is _ALL_ people, gay or not) are _deserving_ of hate they experience. At that point, aren't we setting impossible standards to be judged for when we inevitably fail to meet them?
“Sex scenes are never necessary” is one of those statements that’s technically true but meaningless. I’m sure she’d respond to your counterexamples with “they could just tell you sex happened, showing it is unnecessary.” Which is, strictly speaking, true, but by that logic they don’t NEED to show any scenes, you could just read a plot summary. In fiction, you’re trying to invoke emotions, and it’s usually (not always, but usually) more impactful to show rather than tell.
yeah it's just a bizarrely mechanical way of looking at art. maybe stuff can just be there because it's fun sometimes? idk about anyone else, but I generally read books because I... enjoy them. it's not a race to reach the resolution of a plot. detours that aren't strictly "necessary" are more than fine if they enhance the overall experience.
Exactly!! I would even argue that no fictional books, movies stories or whatever are necessary. They're literally redundant. We could just write history books and autobiographies. But we write fiction and love fiction anyway for a reason, don't we? so I always find this argument a bit baffling Plus, there's always an audience for those 'pointless scenes' that enjoys these scenes. Who are we to deny them? like man
Yes! Besides I'd say sex scenes, just like action scenes, are there to enhance the Vibes of the story. Do we actually NEED a high-stakes car chase? Probably not. The chased party is likely going to get away anyway, so what does it change? Nothing. And if they do get caught, why add the chase? Why not just have them get surrounded before they enter the car? But the thing is, the high-stakes chase adds so much in terms of vibes and interest, and it enhances the story. Some stories are enhanced with sex scenes.
@@Basile.BowBow ha I mean personally, as an aroace woman I agree, I find them boring and always kinda "eh." Like I do find myself thinking, during sex scenes, that this adds nothing because I'm personally not interested and I'd rather relationships were advanced through other means. But logically, and also as a writer, I do realize I'm wrong and speaking only from personal opinion and not fact. Mostly because action scenes? Hecking LOVE them. And they, technically, add as little as sex scenes, but they're amazing to me and always enhance the story for me, so I do assume allos (and sex-positive aces) feel similarly with sex scenes
No, silly! It’s totally ok if a JUDGE decides people should die because then it’s by the system and morally correct and definitely not still killing someone.
@@salsathemonkey22even Dexter didn’t go after every criminal. He only went after serial killers who specifically were active (he kinda let trinity go because he had just gotten off his season)
Not just the fact that Batman doesn’t want to become a villain but him killing is literally what Joker wants. Joker exists to push Batman’s limits. He believes that Batman is just as bad as the rest of the “scum” of Gotham and all it takes it one bad day to break him. If Batman ever gave into that urge to kill a villain, he’d be proving that Joker is right and that’s probably one of the last things he wants.
Rule 26 made me laugh manically because that's what the creator for Nier Automata said was the reason for the YorHa android designs. He wanted to see cute girls in cute outfits and encouraged fans to make all the Ass fanart of 2B.
Yoko Taro is an honest man. He wants to see cute girls who can kick ass, and by god he will have cute girls who can kick ass. The same could also be said for Kaine, from the first Nier. She's a hermaphrodite, but she's easily the most memorable character in the game because of how cool she is.
@@AshleyBreads The boy! ;w; But seriously, Lily’s inability to engage healthily with sexuality in fiction speaks less to the issues in what she may be criticising-even when it may be worthy of criticism in that respect-than to her own dysfunctional relationship with the subject.
@@kamikazelemming1552another example is Oda he LOVES ladies with massive tits so all his female characters have massive tits snd tend to be dressed pretty fanservicy outfits (Nami especially) but his female characters are as well written just as well as the boys and we get plenty of cheesecake shots of the boys because they are all muscular and rarely wear shirts lol
37:56 It's Hunter from The Owl House. She hates Hunter and felt he took away the screen time from characters like Willow and Skara (who was never one of the main characters). She really hates redeemed characters. It's funny, because his time as a villain does not even last that long. I also remember her hating Amity and not liking she got together with Luz and only accepting it when Lumity got really popular.
@@jonelrobinson7432 It's More messed up when you remember that Belos made Hunter to be his tool and nothing more. Like at what point before he met Luz and the others should he have known that?
@@jonelrobinson7432 The worst thing about certain abusers is how they can get you to believe that what they do to you is normal, that you’re overreacting if you object to what they do to you. It’s why victims don’t always speak up or, in Hunter’s case, defend their abuser. Lily saying how Hunter “should have known better” shows either how little she knows about abuse or it gives a window into what she did to her sister.
Worth noting, Batman can't kill because then he'd just become Owlman. Owlman is an alternate universe Bruce Wayne that realized there was no value in keeping his moral code. He decided it was fine to kill, and because of that it was fine for him to engage in crime. It became fine for him to steal and control gang terf, and do horrible things for the sake of his plans. Owlman is what happens when Batman realizes there's no real value in ethics and that the world is meaningless, everything is just pawns on a chessboard and the only thing that matters is your end goal. It's not a good thing to be Owlman. Because, at that point, when there are no more objections against murder or lines to cross, you're just left with the exact type of villain Batman's devoted his entire life to stopping.
Let's note that Owlman's goal is to ultimately erase all existence, because it doesn't matter anyways, and deleting everything is a form of brutal mercy.
@@william4996 I dunno about mentally damaged, there's a pretty long history of heroes either angsting over killing villains and needing therapy or just straight-up becoming genocidal maniacs afterwards. Seems like a pretty straight shot from "Superman kills The Joker" to "Unstoppable fascist global dictatorship."
@@dracocrusher my initial version of this post was a response based on me misreading what you said, my bad. I just don't buy it, frankly. Killing a heinous person who tortures and kills people shouldn't cause a mentally normal person to turn into a genocidal freak. Batman makes non-heroes follow his moral code too, if Gordon put a gun to Jokers head would he try to stop him? Would he tell him not to? He would for sure. Keeping villains alive always just feels like a cheap way to force a moral grey into situations that just don't make sense or to keep a villain around because people like him. The joker is irredeemable with 0 possibility for rehabilitation. It isn't noble to allow someone like that to remain alive and if Batman is so mentally fragile he can't pull the trigger, at least in this one situation, he is not much of a hero, IMO. If someone like the Joker existed and he was beside me and I had a gun I could shoot him and sleep like a baby. Why wouldn't I? He's literally a psychopath that murders people for the lulz. The fact batman can't do that tells me he is mentally damaged and unstable and he projects that onto everyone else. Honestly, as you probably know, I hate Batman. Nothing about his moral code makes sense when people try to spell it out for me. I have this issue with most superhero media, but it always seems the at its worst in Batman stories.
@@william4996 The problem is you're mixing what's realistic with what's expected from comics. Realistically, you could just throw The Joker in prison and that'd be that. There wouldn't be constant escapes or anything because he's just a dude, and as long as that chance at rehabilitation is a thing, no matter how unlikely it seems, then we should try to ethically strive for it. Like, yeah. Of course, right? And sure, if it came down to it, realistically you could make an exception to kill someone and not fall down that slippery slope. But that's not really a good thing when better options exist. But in comic book world, you can't rely on any of that. In comic book world, jails are temporary, evil people will always come back to do evil things, and rehabilitation basically never exists. So you take real morality off the table because you know this character isn't going to act like a person you could help with therapy and medication. They're just a force of nature that's going to commit mass terrorism no matter what, because it's a comic book and that's just their nature. So you want to view everyone evil in this super comic book-y way, but you also don't want to view the heroes in the same way where they are ideology made manifest and what they do reflects on their nature as a hero. Superman killing an armed bank robber just isn't heroism. It's a corruption of who Superman is and what he's meant to represent. When you cross that line, you turn him into a villain, so he gets written like a villain for that arc. That's how these types of stories work.
I feel bad because the trailer for Lake Mungo showed the start of one of its outright scariest scenes. If you end up seeing it, you will know what shot i mean and how frustrating that they'd show it in the trailer of all things
1:57:00 I'm pretty sure this one is based in her idea that the anime references in Steven Universe are Rebecca Sugar cramming in a reference to everything she knows and that's bad.
@@salsathemonkey22 ...are you stupid? Do you not understand what references and homages are? Every single anime ref in SU still fits into the scene, you can watch it comfortably not even knowing there's a reference.
listening to her rants about how evil it is for lesbians to have the slightest amount of interpersonal conflict while gideon the ninth is in the background is killing me 💀 if she thinks she-ra is unbelievably toxic yuri the locked tomb would make her brain explode
I can tell you for a fact that this was not a troll thread. I witnessed the downfall of this when it happened and she was in her Tumblr complaining about people being a-holes about her list and her fans validated her claiming they haters didn’t know any better. Some of these tips are also things she’s gone into detail before in her other essay videos. The first one, for example, was discussed in her video titled “Mystery Monger”. That was her in response to the latest WOW story setting up this massive predictable mystery which lead to her tangent about spoilers and how the don’t matter. There’s plenty of other examples in the thread too. It’s just too much serious stuff she believes for it to be just a joke. And even then, by the time your each 100 of them, the joke’s kinda worn out.
Yeah, I recognize a lot of these tips from several talking points. Even as an old fan of her vids I never took _any_ of her writing tips seriously. Which says a lot because I was a young adult who failed most of my english classes at the time lol
I was looking for this comment to see if anyone else said this before I posted this. I'm shocked so many people believe this is a "troll thread" when she still agrees and heavily pushes the rules seen in it.
Fun fact! Lily Orchard banned me from her comments after I called her the "Steven Universe is bad" girl 🤣 She really is something. AMAZING VIDEO Anthony!!
I like Lily’s writing advice because 70% of it is a fun game of “what specific children’s show is she referencing when making this point”
the other 30% is what character are shitty plot is she trying to defend. (looks at all the ones about clearly about Sylvanas)
Projection with a Captial P. What else can be said about these “tips”?
Yeah. Lily has never read Pride and Prejudice, when she talks about getting the characters together in the middle act she is exclusive talking about children's shows where the main couple gets together in the last episode. If she watched media for adults then she would, if I'm being honest, double down on her writing tips. A normal person, though, might have their mind expanded.
I feel like that’s just flipping a coin between TLOK and SU with her.
@@flameknightdragon Honestly a catch to me is even the sliver that is "fair enough" or "I agree" I can't help but read cynically. Yeah sure if you intentionally make a world bigoted and it's a good thing, I don't like that but considering her takes on various children's shows, I can't help but presume she would assert that SU is bigoted and etc.
Lily's advice on this list can be summarized in three bullet points:
>Tropes she doesn't like
>Shows she doesn't like
>Writing tropes she doesn't understand
Also
>When communicating something, vomitting out the first words that pop into your head instead of phrasing it in a way that literally anybody who is not Lily can understand (the number of times Anthony responds with "what are you talking about")
>buzzwords
>Specify if the character the tip is applied to is gay or straight
The fact half of it isn’t even writing advice, though. “Cinderella is more feminist than beauty and the beast”. That’s not advice, that’s just an opinion.
Also Lily: (Writes stuff that breaks several of the rules she made herself)
I used to be an “Aang should’ve killed Ozai” truther until I read a post about the fact that airbenders are known as a pacifist culture, and Aang not killing Ozai isn’t just because he’s scared to but also because it’s a sign of him preserving a culture that was decimated by genocide. That really made me think a little more.
it's also about his belief, his conviction that he does not need to kill to balance the world, that it can be saved without the need to sacrifice that AGAINST Ozai's love of power and violence and the way he views the world through violence and that someone who chooses not to kill is weak in his mind
it's also an ideological confrontation and a refutation of the villain's belief, and at once, a more powerful lesson of humbling him than killing him
in short it's a lot of aspects that make it a powerful choice
Also in MANY cases for characters death is a mercy. You don't have to live with the consequences of your actions. That would have been the TRUE mercy for Ozai, a man obsessed with power and terror dying while at the top of his reign written into the history books where his "accomplishments" are what he died for. No. Death would have been Ozai's win. Living as a non-bender as he watches his empire crumble while he's powerless to stop it and now all he'll be known as a fallen emperor? How is that not a better fate for his action than death.
What you're describing is a good character conflict that was solved by deus ex machina at the end of the series. Wouldn't it be way more interesting that to save the world Aang would had to "go against himself" and do a thing against his nature? Also, being a pacifist doesn't mean - stay iddle and let yourself be killed as I'm pretty sure Air Nomads tried to defend themselves (evident by Fire Nation soldiers corpses in the southern air temple).
Avatar Yangchen was in the right when she said "this isn't about you, this is about the world". His duty is to the world, he has to sacrifice part of himself in order to do that. I though that was clear and I was SO disappointed with the finale, because they completely ignored the whole dillema of killing Ozai by giving Aang the power to take his bending away so Aang could both save the world, and escape making a tough choice for the sake of everyone.
I am firmly in the "Aang was right to not kill Ozai" camp for so many thematic reasons. I am also firmly in the "they did not foreshadow and set this up very well" camp. I can't argue with anyone who found the sudden spirit-bending too much to swallow - I found it too abrupt myself. But I think the issue was in execution, not concept.
Firstly, as you say, because Aang is the last survivor of Air Nomad culture; giving up his pacifism at that point isn't just a personal sacrifice, it's a betrayal of his entire culture and the balance he's meant to restore.
Secondly, the final Ozai-Aang confrontation is as much philosophical and spiritual as it is physical and political. Given that, if Aang kills, he wins the physical/political battle but loses the philosophical/spiritual one by ending the violence and death of war with more violent death.
Thirdly, Aang's ongoing character struggle through the series is about owning the fact that he's the Avatar and what that means for him. By finding his own way instead of doing what everyone says, he takes ownership of his own power and position. If he was forced to kill Ozai, that would essentially destroy Aang in favour of the Avatar - the exact thing he's been fearing and running from the whole time!
Fourthly, I think that whether the heroes kill the big villain at the end needs to be fitting with the rest of the story. Avatar consistently prioritises healing, both personal and cultural, and breaking cycles of violence. Within that context, killing the villain would break the underlying aesop.
In conclusion, I think that wanting Ozai dead is perfectly reasonable, but wanting Aang to kill him is fightin' words.
@@Arko777777 I'm more focused on the fact that Aang wasn't simply allowed to incapacitate Ozai without killing him, knocking him out, restraining him, breaking his limbs so he couldn't bend, breaking his jaw so he couldn't breath fire, doing everything he could to not kill Ozai without needing being given a new power to take Ozai's away when he already had the advantage over him with his restored Avatar State.
Aang has technically already indirectly killed others defensively in the heat of battle (the series just doesn't really call attention to it and for the most part tries to downplay how lethal its characters can be, never explicitly even showing death, blood or much in the way of fatal injury), but his one line had always been he refrained from directly killing, especially executing, his enemies, so him committing to that, while not a perfect resolution that should be applied to every story depending on context, fits his character and the tone of the show aiming to emphasis a strong, if strict, sense of right and wrong.
It'd simply be a different show if that weren't the case. If you want characters that compromise their innocent, virtues or morals to benefit others, things like Invincible do that very thing. But that wasn't the intent of this particular story and that's fine. No stories should always try to have the same messages, even if it means they have flaws, since everything, including their flaws, distinguish them from each other and say new things about the same topic.
You can tell two things from Lily's writing tips:
1) That she's a fanfic writer.
2) That she is not a good fanfic writer.
Most fanfics writers aren’t good ones
@@Luna-Moon.UnderFNAFThat’s up for debate because there are genuinely fantastic fanfic writers who sometimes will leave whatever fandom they are writing in and create their own story.
Even if that story was bad or good, they took their time to create a small universe with their own ideas.
@@Luna-Moon.UnderFNAF in Wattpad yes but AO3 beg to differ
@@jonal5126 I beg to differ on both! AO3 is just as atrocious and I don't understand why people act like it's this place for high art. It's for people to share fanfics/stories, good or bad.
yeah there's literally nothing useful about the actual mechanics of writing here at all
I hate the defense of "Well she's just talking about writing fanfiction" as if that somehow means you shouldn't try when making fanfiction
Even fanfiction itself is writing, so why it need to be separated from actually good writing tips.
She's also OBVIOULY talking about writing for actual cartoons, not fanfiction, she's specifically calling out storylines that annoyed her on, like, Steven Universe and stuff.
she LITERALLY wrote Stockholm. A LOT of her own tips are completely ignored there...
I did have to keep reminding myself that she's part of the fanfiction sphere whenever she had some of the most baffling and irrelevant to actually published media "tips"
If that’s true why did she phrase it like everyone reading it has a tv show with a fanbase?
"Artists draw. Writers write."
Tell that to several mangaka. I guess they missed that memo.
Well I like to draw AND write! So there.
@@alphared920 - Comic books have many who do both too.
*Hirohiko Araki has entered the chat*
Who says a person can't do both? I write and draw. It's more personal when an OC is drawn by my own two hands,.
also ozamu teszuka creator of astro boy and a ton of other works
I love how tips 8 and 9 are just Lily saying, "Characters that kill a bunch of people are evil and irredeemable, unless it's a character I personally like, then it's okay."
Aint this the same chick who wrote mlp kiddie pr0n?
Even Blizzard seems to wish the story of Shadowlands and Battle for Azeroth had never happened. Sylvanas had her character fully assassinated. I hate to say it, but she's right about Sylvanas.
*The villain kills 9999 people* "Nice, there's still redemption for me yet!"
@@Grf1556 Huh depends... do Lily like you or not?
@@sockpuppy8811that doesn’t matter, according to Lily as long as my villain hasn’t taken 1 more life there’s still a chance for redemption.
Lily Orchard: It's bad when protagonists refuse to kill genocidal dictators!
The protagonist she's definitely talking about: is a 14-year-old child in a kid's show
But what if a real person doesn't kill a dictator because they watched Avatar or Steven Universe as a kid?????? What if our children learn to think through their moral dilemmas instead of following Lily's infallible guidance?!!??!?
And he’s a (fantasy version of) a Tibetan Buddhist monk
@@sylph8005 Exactly, she doesn't seem to realise that the whole thing with Aang's arc is he's a pacifist. He's already lost so much of his life, his culture, his people to Sozin and his lineage. He won't let Ozai take this from him too. Not to mention, Ozai as a person would consider this the supreme punishment. If he were to die I imagine he would far prefer to go down in a blaze of glory then quietly, utterly powerless in all ways, locked in a dungeon as everything he built crumbles around him.
@@TheGallantDrake Are you saying I shouldn't base serious, adult, real-world decisions on a children's fantasy show?
I think you could also argue that Aang is keeping his culture alive by following it to the letter.
If he kills Ozai he kills the last remnant of airbender culture.
Most of these points are just "I dislike thing, therefore thing is bad and everyone else is wrong if they enjoy it"
@@ssjbargainsale - Basically her SU, Korra, Owl House and She-Ra videos in a nutshell.
@@Goleon Never heard of her before the pokemon stream here, but wow. She is... a lot
Yeah and I was surprised to see how much vitriol she had for Noncon writing and CNC. Which is… ironic, to say the least. Considering her background and all.
That's basically how the word "Woke" is used by the internet as a whole now.
@@Goleon Dungeon Meshi, too
Tip 35: “Artists draw, writers write. Artists cannot take over for writers on a whim.”
Bold assertion coming from someone who can’t do either lmao
LOL
Officer I have witnessed a murder
@@ataxis8951 Her career is already dead and I cannot kill what is already dead.
BASED
Me: a creative writing major who also draws
Learning how to write from Lilly's tips:👎
Learning how to write from people correcting and criticizing Lily's tips:👍
Hell yeah
Hawk gets trapped in this abandoned house and all the deer mice that live there start freaking out.
And then what essentially consists of armed thugs come in and start treating everyone there as a pit stop. Ol' classic "Soldiers without training are just thugs."
Why let a lack of productive forces get in the way of a good anti-human crusade?
The problem with her tips is that it lacks any nuance and focuses on black and white. Kind of how she views her critics.
Yes, and as long as they know the definitions of words.
He over uses the word "fetish" /"fetishizing" which implies there is a kink or sexual tension there. I'm not defending Shadow of the Conqueror, but hyping up achievements in war and fetishizing something are very different.
Tbh there is not much to learn from lilys tips since half of them are just random ass miscellaneous opinions
Nah, I hate the idea that creators should ever feel like they NEED to interact with their fandoms, especially to speak about conflict in said fandoms. Not their job or responsibility.
Exactly, if anything, it can fan the flames, making it much worse. The only time I see it making sense is if people are claiming you have said something or make up your opinions/statements/etc
Although not as bad, Scott Cawthon seems like an example of this.
A massive issue with Lilly as a critic, is she ignores the target audience for the media she consumes. She almost exclusively consumes kid's shows, and then criticizes simplified versions of issues intentionally dumbed down for kids to understand.
ikr? Steven Universe is a show for kids and its themes heavily focus on how children will encounter imperfect adults in their lives. Steven learning to manage them, learning when it's unhealthy to get too involved, learning how they can improve, learning how they can hurt you, they're all good lessons for children to learn to handle their environments. It's not realistic or helpful to tell children they should kill nazis
I wouldn’t even say “dumbed down,” I’d just say representing particular sets of values which she doesn’t personally hold in ways which are accessible to people lacking the life experience to fully understand certain things or for whom careful and patient explanation is required. Say what you will about Steven Universe, but I wouldn’t say that it talks down to its child audience, but rather at least attempts to meet them where they’re at, which is different.
We live in a society inhabited by adults with the taste of children… hahaha
@@kg7219 don't get me wrong, I love my fair share of "kid's shows" but I don't pretend like I'm not watching something targeted towards children
@@ConvincingPeople you're right, this is a pure case of "I disagree with this so this is bad writing"
"Oh boy I sure hope this Lily Orchard person has some good advice for me, as a new writer!"
Lily: "Tip 1 if you were hypothetically working at Cartoon Network and writing the show 'She Ra' in 2019, this is what you should have done"
😁
I’ll tell you now before someone meaner comes to: She-Ra is a Nickelodeon Netflix show.
@@miticaBEP07that literally does not matter
@@miticaBEP07they were talking about SU & She-Ra in one sentence
"If you were working on Steven Universe or writing She-Ra." Is what would, for clarity's sake, make more sense. I got it though
I think it speaks volumes how Lily has about 10-ish works she's seen and speaks about all the time, and Anthony can bring up a myriad of examples of movies, series, books, anime, etc, etc, to talk about each trope Lily brings up.
I don't know much about Anthony but from just 40 minutes into the video I can tell he's well-read and knows what he's talking about when it comes to media and stories!
This video was partially an exercise to discuss as many pieces of media as I could that folks wouldn't ordinarily seek out. If i am gonna talk Lily Orchard, i am gonna get as many people as possible to watch Lake Mungo
@@agramuglia great exercise! What Lily struggles with is that good storytellers also love stories. Are you a real storyteller if you're not well-read?
She proves the impact of this when she shares that her favourite type of stories are slice of life, where nothing happens, all the characters never have conflict, etc...
I mean, nothing wrong with stories like that, but the thing is, they thrive in fanfiction. I'm not making a point about fanfiction being lesser, no, but that fanfiction relies on an established media. Therefore, it's much more rewarding and enjoyable to read a cute little coffee shop AU with low stakes about a character you already know from something, who you want to see having a break from their canon narrative's stressful world. The same can't be said about an original character you've never met...
It's wild to me that in the amount of years it's been since I first heard about Lily, I have probably read, watched and listened to far more stories than she has, and I'm in my 20s...
Sorry, got a little sidetracked in my response, but TLDR: Every person, especially those who are aspiring writers, should consume a variety of stories to better their tastes and ideas
@@diss8702 what's great about the whole "Great storytellers love stories" is that I would struggle severely to name many things that Lily talks about that she likes. I mean, Friends and ATLA apparently given how often she compares things she doesn't like to them, but I don't remember her ever talking about them back when I used to watch her? I think she liked Owl House at some point, maybe Gravity Falls, but??
For someone who tried to make the point of "be more positive for once" in a few of her "tips", she really doesn't like to talk about things she actually likes for some reason, only things she doesn't like. You're not going to be a good writer by CinemaSins dinging stories.
i think that emphasising that lily has a limited range of media she likes is a moot point.
it is fine to prefer that. it is fine to stick to a smaller scale for various reasons-familiarity is comforting to a lot of people.
but anthony is also correct to point out that these indicate preferences and shouldn't be tagged as 'advice to follow'. maybe if you are going for a certain type of media content-in a way, the media production equivalent to pointing out that the fashionable 'oversized look' is all about the looseness of a waistband hem to hips ratio, if you will. to pull the metaphor together, lily should be pointing out her tips apply to achieving an oversized comfy aesthetic, but instead she seems to treat this advice as applicable to all sweater waistband hems by not being specific.
@@russianbot8576 I agree on the most part, especially the whole "Lily should specify her advice applies to a specific case" point.
But I do wanna point out, Lily is a writer and a media critic, so "it's fine if you prefer not to branch out into other media" doesn't exactly apply to her. She's picked a career that requires an exposure to literature, media, etc.
To introduce another metaphor, it's like being a food critic who's also an extremely picky eater. Or a wine taster who only drinks Rosé. These jobs are not meant for people who aren't open to trying things out
"Lily shut the fuck up" that came from the heart and i cant appreciate it more
I feel like he was holding it back damn near the entire time lol
1:59:15 for anyone that wants to hear it
Her bizarre rule on Vampires only being rich villains is just dumb, vampires aren't real so you can write a working class vampire because whatever
Rich vampires aren't as impactful.
A working class however is.
A vampire who struggles to live their life taking only night shifts and will do something drastic that'll get them caught.
And the best part? They can be everywhere. The garbage truck driver is probably a vampire.
Or the barista is a vampire or the teacher is a vampire. That's what makes them terrifying. They can be anyone. It can be you it could be him! IT COULD EVEN BE BEHIND YOU!
Yeah, just because a trope has certain origins doesn't mean you can't do twists that play with the origins. It's why Twilight, for all its faults, actually made me admit their vampires aren't nearly as silly as people claimed back in the 2010s. Like yes, sparkle sparkle silly melodramatic line, but I love the idea of 'vampires are hot to lure in victims, also they're super pale and durable because their skin's basically alabaster'. There's... a lot of issues that are brought up in the process but people REALLY laid into Meyer not having her vampires die in the sun when like, only Nosferatu onwards did that anyway. Dracula OG just became weak as the old man he resembled in light, he didn't crumble upon a ray hitting him.
My vampire has dyslexia. She just had zero context for what that was until the 20th century
@@SaraBanartistdoes she have friends to help her out? 😮
@@zcgamerandreacts2762 "It could be you; it could be me; it could even be-"
(gets staked)
"What, it was obvious! He's a vampire!"
As a male who has gone through assault
It does not make your actions inexcusable. It does not turn into an automatically good person
And yes, trauma can turn into a worse person if you cope with it in unhealthy fashion
as a woman who went through assault i've treated many people like absolute shit when i shouldn't have
i'm not innocent, just because i'm jaded because of a traumatic experience doesnt mean i get to take it out on other people and i've made attempts to change because i realized that im not justified in those actions
a survivor can ABSOLUTELY be a villain, and that's literally how cycles of abuse are propagated
@cirnopyramidcirnopyramid8796
That's quite possibly the best possible way you can describe who Lily Orchard is as a person: "a survivor of trauma who thinks that trauma survivors can never be the villains no matter how they behave."
@@JohnSmith-vk9ds i lowkey feel bad for lily orchard because she just refuses to undergo any development as a person in favor of creating an echo chamber where people feed into her views blindly
genuinely this is just hurting the quality of her life, i seriously hope she someday gets help or develops as a person or something so she can experience the full spectrum of joy that life has to offer
i wish her well because she’s clearly miserable, i hope she one day gets better and experiences the joy of life so she can stop being bitter
@@JohnSmith-vk9ds As a survivor too, there are many people who go on to hurt others with no excuse. If you can ONLY see yourself as a victim, you can justify being horrible to people.
@@JohnSmith-vk9dsShe probably thinks like that due to her older half-brother hurting her when they were younger.
Writers *are* artists. The idea that they are somehow separate is chilldish
She was definitely referring to the "art is images drawn by people" definition of art
@@des4929 Right, but the same creative process goes into good writing as it does good art. The idea that one cannot be both is ridiculous
AND it seems she is implying that drawing isn't a form of storytelling! That artists or "draw-ers" just put images down on paper devoid of meaning. She thinks that they just draw images of things they know how to draw and put colors they like and the writer is the one who gives it coherent meaning.
It reminds me of when I wanted to make a comic with my best friend in 3rd grade. It was my job to write everything, dialogue, etc, and her job to draw stuff. And there would be no crossover. Because she was good at drawing and I was sort of good at writing. That was how we believed we had to split it at the time.
The truth is that she was amazing at drawing characters and creating entire lives for them and thinking of what they wore and their personalities and everything. And I was good at writing book reports (not stories 😂) and actually happened to be pretty good at drawing objects and backgrounds too.
But at the time IN THIRD GRADE, she thought of herself as a draw-er and me a writer. One person does words the other does pretty art. Unsurprisingly the comic did not work out....
I'm SHOCKED that lily orchard, an adult who allegedly can read and use google, would openly admit to having this simple of a view of how storytelling and media works.
This. Started drawing because I write, and sometimes I write because I see art and want to give it a story.
Ah, my least favorite elitist conceit. Which is rich coming from Lily, considering she has _zero_ right to put her work on a pedestal.
I hate how holier than thou Lily is about the word “queer”
I’m queer, I like the label because it’s nonspecific and unrestrictive. It communicates my sexuality and my gender in one, both of which fall outside of the norm. Queer is a label I use in addition to the Aromantic label. It’s a neutral thing, a helpful thing. To erase it would be bad enough, but to scorn those who would use it is even worse.
Lily’s really only driven by 2016 Tumblr discourse and the 5 pieces of media she’s ever consumed. It shows :/
100%. I personally don’t really like people calling me queer because I’m far too used to it as an insult, but it’s very much a label that truly includes everyone in the LGBT+, and all those whose gender and sexuality doesn’t fit into a defined label.
Online queer/LGBT+ discourse is a nothingburger of a discussion. Im not going to waste my time contemplating the validity of neopronouns when there is anti trans legislation running rampant throughout America. Its not my place to tell someone they can or can’t go by xe/xem, what is my place is to ensure their safety and acceptance and protect them from bigot fucks.
Queer is also a great term because it directly contradicts the cultural narrative of something being different equating something being bad. Which if you get down to it, is really the heart of basically any ingrained form of prejudice in society.
Also it's used Academically
I personally like the vagueness. Queerness is an umbrella term to describe myself and others without focusing on our specifics. It makes the differences matter less between us fellow humans.
Basically, what we can glean from these tips is:
1. Lily fucking hates nuance
2. Lily fucking hates conflict in stories
3. Lily has no idea how competent creators make stories.
To quote another video, she just wants a coffee shop au
@@Titan990 Yes, I go back to that one every once in a blue.
And she hates sexuality
istg girl views everything in black and white it's insane💀
Lily craves the Coffee Shop au and cannot write anything else competently.
There's this tumblr post by user phantomrose96: "Your children’s show unfortunately has the absolute wrong take on tackling fascism. Yeah the power of friendship angle is showing a dismal lack of understanding of Marxist theory or even intro-level Leninism. Yeah my only two interests are children’s media and online leftist discourse so this is gonna be a problem" and I feel that perfectly sums up Lily
I love that post
@@thefantasylife it’s so good
also steven universe isnt even about fascism. its moreso religion
lmao
And the irony is that Lily isn’t even a leftist; she’s a socdem who thinks Canada is socialist. XD
Almost all of these could be easily responded to with "she literally wrote Stockholm", "this is just her throwing shade at a cartoon she didn't like", or "Lily wants all media to just be slice of life AU fluff fanfiction"
👆👆👆👏👏👏
Also "She's a massive hypocrite, and an abuser herself, so lord knows what she's projecting with these points" (and this is coming from a former fan).
Especially given the fact that she ra is incredibly well written and is popular for a reason.
@@thenerderrant4293 It's actually really interesting that she makes a "tip" that victims of abuse "cannot and shouldn't" be portrayed as villains, and yet despite claiming to have gone under abuse is still doing bad shit and covering up her bad past. She herself is the counter-argument to her own rule
@@gradiation counterargument, or just flat out lying that she's a victim
"Villains should be unredeemable if they kill a bunch of people; But my favorite character of all time Sylvanas Windrunner is perfectly exempt from the rule despite literally starting a war with the intention to kill as many people as possible, innocent or not to condemn them to super hell to make her more powerful."
Did you see her video where she said that people like arthas despite being a mediocre character because he's White?
In very slight fairness Sylvannas's REALLY evil stuff occurred because Alex Afrasiabi was a creep who hated strong women.
@@ryanmoore6259 who is that
@@audreyharris7643 Alex Afrasiabi was a writer for Blizzard who joined around the time of Wrath of the Lich King and became a head writer around Cataclysm (which is when Sylvannas went from amoral but having noble qualities to cartoon supervillain). Afrasiabi was later revealed to be a massive creep/sexual predator in the 2021 lawsuit, so it's safe to say that he may have deliberately written her as awful as possible because he didn't like someone with connotations of being an abuse survivor gaining strength.
@@ryanmoore6259 interesting and also terrible
actually shouted "NO???" upon hearing Lily call Princess Mononoke a "pretty standard kids action-adventure film". what the fuck did she mean???
Also when I think Miyazaki my firsts thoughts are My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away (My favorite personally) Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Kiki's Delivery Service)
how is that film even considered “pretty standard”???????? i’ve straight up never seen any other kids movie that dealt with habitat destruction and the specific conflict between the town that needs resources and the forest that is being destroyed for those resources, in such a beautifully nuanced way. especially with the brutality and the horror with which the forest god’s (? its been a while since i watched it lol but i think it was the forest god) death is depicted. did lily watch the movie or did she see it was anime and made up an opinion about it w/o watching it?
@@noeverythingthing I think it’s the latter. She pretty much said that fans of Attack on Titan are childish and need to grow up.
It’s not even a children’s movie, it’s PG13
A 'standard kids action-adventure film' would not have an antagonist who provides a refuge for lepers... though I guess Lily would see that as trying to humanize a fascist or whatever.
Funny thing about the “never mix comedy and drama” advice. I’ve heard that for the time period Romeo and Juliet is a pretty standard romantic comedy like Much Ado About Nothing until Shakespeare literally kills Mercutio, the comic relief character.
It's a comedy the whole time if you hate teenagers.
Eh, I heard it be praised by Literature teachers as this "perfect romance" story for AGES.
Seems only NOW people are taking more notice that Romeo & Juliet isn't this "perfect romance".
Also that is a very much Western take on it. There are a lot of other places where drama and comedy are hand and hand.
There's a reason why there are a bunch of Filipino drama memes on UA-cam. The one where an older woman is crying/laughing while cheering on a bunch of guys who is burying her daughter-in-law alive is absolutely hilarious. It's absurd and it fits somehow.
Comedy/Absurdity has always went well with drama.
@@DrawciaGleam02wait, the teachers are describing it as a perfect romance? That seems odd. I know the pop culture perception/reputation of R&J is a perfect romance, but I thought most of the teachers would be aware that it’s not that.
To my understanding R&J is a story about a pair of teens being young, and dumb and the tragedy is teens being young and dumb escalates into multiple deaths because their families have a stupid beef so old that no one remembers who or what started it.
I’d have to disagree because it doesn’t end in a marriage 😂
I like how Lily is so stupid she thought she could disguise her obvious envy of Rebecca Sugar and ND Stevenson as "100 writing tips" and no one would notice.
She is sooooo jealous it's hilarious.
Sugar does suck tho
@BrennanCh06 Literally what did she do besides draw Ed Edd and Eddy Yaoi like 14 years ago, dude.
@DopeioThePhoneBoi she did😭???? Bro that's hilarious I'm trying not to laugh on the toilet rn
BrennanCh06 and yet you gave zero reasons.. Ok brenann
There are a lot of ways that Lily contradicted herself on this list, but one I find particularly funny is her saying “Aiming to write a specific relationship dynamic you enjoy is bad!!” after multiple tips about how people should write more low-stakes friends-to-lovers stories. Ma’am, what do you think friend-to-lovers is?
ALSO, going on to state _later in this very thread_ that "EVERYONE is defined by their relationships."
Yeah.
_WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS, LILY??_ Maybe it's because those relationships had clear dynamics? Maybe!? Just a thought!
Talking about house of leaves and lily orchard in the same area is the most hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby nonsense ever invented
If Lily Orchard tried to read house of leaves I think she might actually die
@@yurifairy2969she would
Are you Fyodor's first born?
(Rat man)
@@yurifairy2969 she'd hate it purely because it's unconventional. I have no idea if there's any actual precedent for Lily hating things that do something unusual, but that's my soul read.
@@Deadflower019asking lily, who only watches children’s shows to read house of leaves would end like that video of a medieval serf listening to promiscuous
"There's a reason why Friends is more popular than anime"
Look, I enjoy Friends, it's one of my comfort shows. But NO THE FUCK IT'S NOT
Try telling someone that the gigantic story that is One Piece is less popular than Friends. And that’s just ONE anime!
i thought you were literally talking about friends for a second
And let's not talk about generational divides and cultural context.
Friends was a 1994 American sitcom. Toonami didn't even launch until 1997.
Anime, as a genre, was still being Americanized as late as 2007, and arguably still is. To the point where "anime" is still a genre and art style in the U.S., while in Japan it's just the general term for any and all animation.
Comparing Friends to Anime is like comparing Apples to an Apple iMac G3.
I wonder how people in Japan would react to that claim.
the fact that basically implies that one show is better than Japanese animation as a whole-
But we all know how much Lily LOVES anime... /s
Lily Orchard: "You shouldn't EVER change between comedy and drama. Changing genres and tone is always bad."
Also Lily Orchard: "Don't plan your stories. Fly by the seat of your pants."
Edit: WAIT HUH? She thinks Princess Mononoke is a children's action adventure film? The movie with bloody decapitations and the only Ghibli movie to get a PG-13 rating is for KIDS?
It also has so much depth as a kid's film. I find myself resonating with Mononoke more as I age.
@@chrisbicepnredfield7307 The point is mononoke is clearly not "for" kids.
I see both commenters talking about the edit but let me just say that mixing comedy and drama together can create insane whiplash (in a good way)
Examples:
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance: There’s a scene right after a standard fight where you’re surrounded by hundreds of Children’s brains held in cyborg casings to be made into cyborg child soldiers and have their lives ruined by a cyborg organ harvesting scheme.
Undertale: Literally every moment where the comedic atmosphere is thrown off by a serious or sad moment happening.
Metal Gear Solid: LIKE LITERALLY EVERYTHING
"Never switch between comedy and drama"
The Sopranoes, Breaking Bad, and fuck knows how many other shows: "Am I a joke to you?... Lily... Lily, over here! Hi there!... Nope, no, she doesn't see us; she's just watching children's cartoons again".
@@redgrapes7546 Why can't you change between comedy and drama? The Simpsons even does that.
I've come to the conclusion that lily's advice is too based on hating shows, too many, to take seriously. You my friend, seem to actually like the art of storytelling.
Lily Orchard's take on comedy and drama is 100% purely her preference. She hates stories like this and refuses to grasp why stories like that come so highly recommended. Hell, even ATLA is arguably a comedy that gains dramatic elements.
@@renedemers8218 - She would so hate One Piece.
She acted so confused about Dungeon Meshi, unable to grasp that a story can have silly monster hijinks, dramatic character beats, and dark horror moments.
She would hate Horror comedies! She’ll rag on it too wanting it to stick to one when you can both.
It's so much more hard hitting in my opinion when a comedy takes on a dramatic turn because you'd have already grown to know the characters before hitting you with the dramatic moments. She hates when a story changes from episodic to serialized, completely ignoring the fact that the story's goal was to get you to know the characters and their dynamics before they go into the heavy hitting stuff.
I wonder what she'd make of a show like BoJack Horseman. Of course we'll never know because it didn't air on Nickelodeon.
14:00
Hasn't Alex Hirsch been EXTREMELY open about how heavy Disney pushed back against many things in the show? This is actually so stupid, he has openly shown how the gay cops (been a while, I forgot their names; Edit: Blubbs and Derlin) were pushed back against because they were "too close" in some scenes
Blubbs and Derlin.
@@NeoGMan64 Thank you, I edited their names in
@@thebattle7000
It’s a show I was far too invested in, but it took me a few moments to remember Derlin so don’t worry.
He literally made a video about it lmaoo
@@NeoGMan64 Blubs and Durland* 🤓☝
Also, other stuff got censored too. Like the two elderly lesbians who got replaced by a straight couple in The Love God episode. Shit sucks, man.
for someone who supposedly hates racism, "friends is more popular than your favorite anime" is a laughably white american centric thing to say
china, latino america and japan (don't know about other countries) have gigantic dragonball audiences (with china having 2bi people who enjoy and love the sun wukong tale which based the dragonball anime), it's popular even in america, that statement is not only false but also kind of non-american erasure, i'm not surprised considering she calls the empire and the diamonds as space nazis, when one is openly based on the USA during the vietnam war and any argument of the diamonds being based on nazis is countered by lack of holocaust and usage of weapons of mass destruction (so more like USA, like the latter as the former has happened in it), she'd 100% say that helldivers is a allegory to nazism and fascist regimes that people don't get without realising it's quite literally a parody of america's militarism and imperialism.
Also ironic because anime tends to tackle racisim pretty frequently and in well thought out ways.
@@joaopedrofm1299The Empire is definitely also based on the Nazis. The look and vibe of Nazi Germany is used as a quick shorthand for "villainy" a lot in the films. They were based on America during Vietnam for the last sections of the third film, but the Nazi vibes are constant throughout the series.
@@Talisguy yeah but that is just in asthetic and look, you can't say that the empire's actions are based on nazi germany when they only lose battles, waste money and resources on big dumb shit (the "rat" german tank was scrapped for a reason) and again no holocaust, calling the empire nazis dumbs down the latter's impact on the world and kind of erases what they've done, a pastel white with gold accents would've better visualized their superior wealth and false righteousness over the rebels, would also have made them unique for years to come.
@@joaopedrofm1299 Huh? what do you mean sun wukong is based off of dragonball???? Sun wukong is from a story called "journey to the west, its old. Dragonball is actually inspired by IT, not the other way around!!!
“Don’t try to do what avatar did.” Really is such a weird rule. Like the only thing it “did” was be an exceptional lightning in a bottle show. And it’s damn near impossible to do that deliberately. Like at most you try your best on a project and it turns out that good. They did their best and Avatar turned out to be something everyone wanted. Like yeah Lucas set out to make Star Wars but he wasn’t trying to do anything more than get a story out of his system. Just turned out him and his crew did a good job and the entire world also wanted his story.
It's so weirdly specific and vague too. Like they made a show they put a lot of passion into and it got famous. Is that what not to do?
Would have been better advice to make the rule "Don't try to copycat or be another bug ip". Like it's fine to take inspiration, but your story should stand on its own instead of running on the coattails of another one and feel like a knock off.
"guys, Journey to the West already did "overarching plot with serialized stories" really well, we should've never written anything like it ever again"
I think she meant more "don't try to make your show be the next ATLA", but that's basic advice about not chasing trends.
Lucas was expecting success, that is why he was primarily paid in having the merchandising rights. He got paid VERY little for the movie itself.
So the Star Wars example is bad.
@SioxerNikita perhaps, but I doubt Lucas expected Star Wars to end up being the insane success it was.
Expecting toys to sell just means he had faith in the costume and special effects departments' skills to maje cool characters/creatures/spaceships.
Some of these are not even writing tips. They’re just “I don’t like this thing, so it’s problematic, and if you think it’s an interesting idea or concept you’re a bad person.”
Yep! That is what it exactly what it is
Yeah, the writing tips that relate to dark romance and taboo ideas or concepts in fiction (or even the concept of sex and sexuality in fiction tbh) betray not only a discomfort that she conflates with moral righteousness but also a complete unwillingness to even try to understand why other people might find those sorts of things interesting to explore in fiction. The "lesbian noncon" point is especially transparent when you look at it that way. Any romance that is enemies-to-lovers or darker makes her uncomfortable, so she refuses to interrogate why others might want to read or write fiction depicting unhealthy romantic or sexual relationships between women- she just immediately leaps to calling people who are interested in that kind of fiction sexual predators and moves on with her day. It just seems to me from her public writing and thoughts on writing that Lily has an unhealthy relationship with sex and sexuality that manifests in this need for purity in fiction.
@@northstarjakobs Considering Lily wrote an MLP fanfic that romanticized abuse and p3d0philla, and apparently has SA’d her younger sister, you’re half right. She’s just virtue signaling in an attempt to keep people from finding the skeletons in her closet.
Back when I used to be on Tumblr, I remember thinking "...You know you can just not like something, right? That thing you don't like doesn't have to be 'problematic.' You can just have wanted Katara to end up with Zuko instead of Aang, you don't need to say Aang had no respect for Katara's feelings because he tried to talk her out of murdering an old man that one time." It honestly felt like not everyone was aware that they could have story preferences without this being some kind of moral argument that they were on the Right Side of.
That's what I feel with some of these picks. I don't know if she knows that she can just not like a trope.
@@northstarjakobsi do think there’s a lot of nuance to this subject tho (coming at this from a writer’s perspective). shows that actively bend logic and morally scapegoat the rest of their cast to make a morally devious look good is just straight up bad writing. dark and taboo fiction works best when it doesn’t shy away from the full implications of whats happening in the text. nobody likes it when a character (or multiple) is objectively horrible and yet is treated like they’re gods gift to the planet by the narrative, it feels extremely contrived and uncomfortable.
tldr; taboo and problematic subjects definitely have a place in fictional media, as long as the narrative doesn’t try to portray these subjects to the audience like they’re good (narrative /=/ character opinions/pov)
Lily orchard recipe book:
Baking tip: never use chocolate. I think it tastes gross and thats why you should never use it
Another tip: unless it's white chocolate, i personally love it, and therefore it's the best snack you can get.
If I was a chef, I would add little tid bits like that just because
Lily Orchard Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe:
1. Stir flour, eggs, and sugar into a bowl
2. Do not add salt. It’s too spicy which means it’s problematic
3. Do not try to do what Gordon Ramsey did (I like being really vague in my tips)
4. Do not try to do what Gordon Ramsey did (I like repeating tips)
5. Do not use sugar from anyone named “Rebecca”
6. Mix the flour, eggs, and sugar (Ignore the fact that I tell you not to later)
7. DO NOT add chocolate chips because I hate chocolate
8. However, white chocolate is allowed because I personally like it
9. I hate She-Ra
10. Ignore the fact that I have burnt several cookies before
11. DO NOT ADD NUTS, I HATE NUTS
12. I hate She-Ra
13. I hate She-Ra
14. DO NOT TURN ON THE OVEN WHEN YOU PUT THE COOKIES IN (Putting cookies through any sort of character redemption/change is bad)
15. DO NOT MIX OR KNEAD THE DOUGH (Because it’s somehow fetishizing abuse?)
16. I hate She-Ra
17. DO NOT actually follow a recipe or plan, just make it however you want to
18. *Alludes to another recipe she hates*
19. Put butter into the mixture
20. Again, DO NOT MIX THE DOUGH
21. Did I mention I hate She-Ra?
22. Put the cookies in the oven, WITHOUT TURNING IT ON
23. Take the cookies out after exactly 100 minutes
24. Wait… Why are they still doughy?
25. Enjoy!
yeah pretty much
never use chocolate. some people (me) are allergic and to use it reinforces bigoted elitism in your dish. no i am not elitist because i say so. I've only ever baked cookies. and don't use sugar i HATE Sugar
I couldnt finish this video. Im a writer, and you made good points. Im sure you continued to make great points after the point stopped. But hearing Lily's 4th grade reading level takes on writing being given any serious thought at all was giving me heart palpatations. Great video!
Lily Orchard is a woman who watches fiction aimed at a child age group and then gets mad when the endings to those shows considers the age of their main intended audience. A violent solution is not appropriate for every story or audience.
Kids when they don't want to see Aang killing Ozai:
@@sure-peaks3442kids when they ignore the context of Aang's character and his arc:
The amount of times I've said to weirdos like Lily "Did you REALLY think the series about love and change and forgiveness headed by a pacifist protag was going to end with Steven murdering the Diamonds?" is frankly ridiculous.
@@MallyMcAlliI mean, even if Lily is obviously wrong, that's not a free ticket for a story to sweep things under the rug. There is such a thing as going too far in the other direction.
You spelled "man" incorrectly
"Don't make a comedy and turn it into a drama, that just annoys people."
BoJack Horseman 8.8/10
Moral Orel 8.1/10
The Boondocks 8.5/10
Regular Show 8.5/10
Adventure Time 8.6/10
Steven Universe 8.2/10
Gravity Falls 8.9/10
Mob Psycho 100 8.5/10
Breaking Bad 9.5/10
Better Call Saul 9/10
Yeah, people definitely dislike tonal shifts, Lily.
Arguably the pioneer of the dramady (the genre she hates so vehemently)
- M*A*S*H 8.5/10
also see: almost every good webcomic
Jujutsu Kaisen 7/10
was BB a comedy??
@@wontonschannel yea BB and BCS are more like dramas with bits of comedy thrown in.
Theres a tumblr post that says "people b saying things so definetly. like man i think it depends" and I thing it defines very well the answer for a lot of lily's tips from this thread
For Anthony and for passerby: Lily was being incredibly disingenuous when writing "Tip" 38. There has long been discussion in fan spaces about how people writing lesbian couples are held to a higher standard than those writing about gay or straight couples. People will actively avoid writing lesbians bc they will receive harassment and threats at a far higher level than if they write other couples, especially if that lesbian couple is not wholesome and perfect. While I'm sure someone on Twitter did say "I want more lesbian noncon", the larger discussion there that Lily is boiling down into just noncon, is "I want more lesbian couples that are allowed to be messy, complicated, and problematic because every single lesbian couple being wholesome and perfect is not only boring, but unrealistic and unrelatable."
Always remember that these are conversations about /fiction/ and not real people. No one is actually saying "I want lesbians to be more abusive". What they're saying is "I want more stories about lesbians where the lesbians get to be a little fucked up."
THANK you. that's the thing that's been annoying me about not just lily, but anthony as well throughout this entire video: they both have varying degrees of "fiction = reality" in their opinions. like suggesting that if someone writes something that would be abhorrent in reality (like noncon) that it either makes them a horrible person (per lily) OR that it *has* to be for some justifiable reason or moral commentary in order for it to be "acceptable" to write about (per anthony).
like, people should be able to write whatever they want for whatever reason when it comes to fiction because none of it is real. sure, you can argue that an author may have "subconscious bias" and that's reflected in the way they portray, say, a character that isn't white. but if they're writing stuff like noncon or other dubious scenarios that would make them ostracized if performed in real life, that shouldn't reflect on their character as a person. like, no one ever accuses people who write horror fiction of being secret murderers because they wrote someone getting murdered. why is that not the same for any other topic that would be abhorrent to experience IRL?
I wasn't aware about lesbian couples being held to higher standards in fics and I'm intrigued by why this has such a double standards.
Regarding the harassment those writers receive, who do you think sends them such harassment? Lesbian people policing fics? Arrogant straight fans policing fics? I want to understand it more so any context helps.
@@l.n.3372 not OP, but the reason seems to be because there are so few "good" lesbian couples in fandom spaces (meaning any ships, not necessarily "canon" couples) that when you *do* write them, there's pressure to make them "wholesome" and whatnot because there's less fan content to consume. so therefore, since there's a plethora of variety for het and m/m ships of all types between wholesome and "messy/problematic," the idea seems to be that since there's less available for f/f content that the majority of it "should" be wholesome/non-problematic.
as for "who" is sending harassment, it's mostly the fans of whatever ship it happens to be. this is generally a thing in fandom vs. original characters that i've seen, but i'm sure it happens with OCs too.
tl;dr: it seems to derive from the lack of good f/f content so people are more aggressive about stuff being created as more positive.
@@neonhalos
fascinating insights. I appreciate your analysis.
I will be honest and say that I have never read a fan fic that was f/f because, as a straight woman, it just never appealed to me. but among the f/f couples in fiction that I ship "casually," now I wonder if those fics force said characters to be wholesome instead of messy/problematic. I cannot believe all of those fics are portrayed as perfect, but I was not aware about these double standards until I saw the above comments.
what would you say, hypothetically as an example, for LoK's Korra/Kuvira? surely, that is a f/f ship that must be allowed to show messy, too, right? when one is a hero and the other is a villain, their fics cannot just be happy fluff, right? or Vi/Caitlyn in Arcane, where they live in a corrupt city and Vi's sister is a killer, surely their fics can have nuance too?
@@l.n.3372 I'm happy to discuss!
as for your examples, I think that those specific ships, being more hero/villain (broadly speaking), are the kinds that will have "sane" fandoms around them (that is to say, fandoms that are not afraid to show the ships as they are) vs. having a fandom that would try to sanitize them, if that makes sense. the "problematic" nature is so hard-baked into the premise of the ship that most of the people who complain about the things I mentioned in my other comment just would rather discourage people from shipping them at all rather than call for the fics to be sanitized.
so for example: a common tactic I've seen in other fandoms is to accuse people who like the "bad" ship as being inherently abusive as people. in other words, "if you like [ship] then chances are you're probably abusive, sorry to say." that's a super common tactic in most fandoms, f/f or otherwise. I've seen it for m/m ships and het ships. it's a powerful tactic, too, because people are immediately put on the defensive when it's thrown in their court. or, if someone was a casual shipper, it might make them far less likely to openly voice liking said ship or creating content for it because harassment in fandoms is at an all-time high these days.
so while the people who are actually writing "problematic" ships aren't the ones sanitizing them, it's more like... if you have an average, every-day pairing, those are the ones that are the most pressured to keep it wholesome. the people who ship villains with heroes tend to just get wholesale marked as a problematic person in general.
there's definitely more detailed stuff I could go into regarding this, but that's the basic, broad-strokes rundown of what I have seen in fandoms over the years. I hope that makes sense!
If there’s one good thing that comes out of Lily’s… arrogance, it’s the ability to bring some great artists and essayists together!
Frankly, we should thank her because she forces us to realize what’s good about our stuff by way of what she gets wrong.
Terrible people make great case studies
"great artists" please
@@memoryofsalem4474what?
@@daelen.cclark in many ways, this video was an excuse for me to discuss a ton of works i normally wouldn't be able to discuss. I fit in Marquis de Sade, Sartre, and Wes Craven into a silly vid about the lady who hates She-Ra. How many other SEO relevant chances would i have to do that?
Here before Lily’s inevitable tumblr meltdown over this.
She’s struck down Sai’s most recent VOD, she’ll probably do the same to this hours later.
@GravityFaiz Just means I get to give double the watch time to spite her 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
@GravityFaiz is it the vod of sai reacting to lily's video about gay representation?
@@tallfry_uwu8685 yep
@@GravityFaizIt's funny. For someone who stole basically all of her ideas from Yahtzee Croshaw and especially Jim Stephanie Sterling, she sure seems to get fussy about "stolen content".
59:48 As stupid as the "artists draw, writer write" statement is, there actually is a big problem in the modern American animation industry of storyborders being forced to take on additional roles like scriptwriter without being given extra time, pay, or even proper credit for doing so. Probably not what Lilly was trying to get at, but it is an issue.
Literally why are there only two people bringing this up 😂 I dont care, this is why the rule was made. Ants point against it was so strawmanny that it drove me nuts. Why yes, of course artists can write. They shpildnt be exploited to do two jobs and only get paid for one though, and in my opinion, Ant should know better because of his proximity to the comics industry. Saying “oh duh comic artitsts are writers too” was such a disappointing take coming from an obviously intelligent person who just phoned in a response basically
Haven’t finished the video, but I think what Lily was trying to get at was just “Steven Universe sucks, and artists suck”. Because in the garbage video Lily complains that the show was bad because the episodes were storyboard driven instead of script driven.
I also believe that the storyboard argument was ripped off from another youtuber redbuddi (robobuddies), because THEY made a video about Steven Universe making that exact point before Lily.
@@SpaceBoyDigital It is a good point and something worthy of larger discussion, but I severely doubt that's what Lily was trying to get at. From her Steven Universe video (and a clip of it was used in this video as proof) it's clear that she genuinely thinks that the main reason Steven Universe is bad is because Rebecca Sugar is an artist, not a writer. It has nothing to do with unhealthy industry practices, it has to do with her personal beef with a jew she claims to be antisemetic for no reason.
Even Lily's good arguments are misplaced and misguided. So many of her "writing tips" are "if person does x, they're a piece of shit", which, while I might agree with on a surface level, ignores a lot of important nuance and... isn't a writing tip. She's just telling you not to do something, which is very rarely helpful in creative work.
If that’s what she trying to say, then it’s still not a good advice since it’s not about writing, it’s about management. Something that the writer most likely doesn’t have much control over
I'm pretty sure that's not what she was talking about, but even her intended point is incredibly stupid. People aren't allowed to have multiple overlapping interests now? You gotta pick one thing to live and die by?
30:36 I think a great example of this is how Lily got really upset that Ruby and Sapphire's wedding episode also had the Diamond's invasion in it without realizing that they did that so that they couldn't not air the wedding episode without also not airing a major moment
I know that some people got angry because Sapphire was in a tuxedo and Ruby was in a gown - they accused Rebecca Sugar of 'erasing butch identity' not realising that they'd made that choice because quite a few foreign language censors were writing and dubbing Ruby as an actual man, and putting her in a dress was a direct challenge to that. Also, butch people irl can wear dresses if they want to.
@@katherinefrost6318 also role swap, a typically butch character like Ruby can be femme, and a typically femme character like sapphire can be butch, it's so dumb to think someone can't have those moments of being outside their role
Like 99% of Berserk was figured out as it was being made with Miura even deciding he had no clue what the ending would be and he’d figure it out when he got there, Tolkien planned out the entirety of The Lord of the Rings before writing it. Both are incredible artists who made great works, but in Lily’s eyes only one is valid, actually she’d probably hate Berserk anyways.
Berserk is a story about healing from trauma and getting back up to move forward. And we all know how Lily thinks of those kinds of stories *cough* Steven Universe *cough*
Knowing Lily she would probably think Guts is just an edgy badass hypocritical incels idolize whose a major dick from beginning to end without understanding why he's jaded, undermine the strength of a character like Casca because of how many times she gets violated or nearly violated, and at WORST she'd probably try to argue Griffith wasn't that bad.
@@inky5574 As bad as Lily is, I don’t think even she would ever be a Griffith apologist.
@@animeotaku307 Let's not kid ourselves here, she'd totally be a Griffith apologist.
@@animeotaku307 I'm only saying that given her track record of going against characters who were victims of abuse and siding with their abusers (N and Ghestis as well as Jasper/Peridot and Lapis)
@@animeotaku307 She hates N so much she sided with Ghetsis. And she's proud of it too. So yeah she absolutely would say that.
i don't like fantasy but you don't see me saying "tip 37 of writing: never use any magic or dragons or mythical creatures in your story, only write realistic stuff. Because it pisses me, random person, off. So, like don't do it.". Honestly, lily gives me the vibe that she literally only consumes media and stories catered towards 12 year olds. That has to explain why she has such a dense and black and white understanding of writing and media.
lol and even me saying i don't like fantasy is a generalization and definitely varies case by case. which i feel was a big message in this video lmfao
Even if she only consumes childrens cartoons... That still explains nothing. I love a good light hearted adventure, but I can still understand that different medias require different levels of criticism
funny enough, i read a manhwa where the setting is modern but it has many race from fantasy or mythical creatures. the world building explanation is pretty good. basically they finally discover modern technology. technology vs magic happened for a moment but technology win because everyone from different race can use it while only some people can use magic.
magic still preserve in the modern setting, but they have regulation.
imagine thinking such a story isn't good idea.
@@mr.dirtydannnnn well here’s the way i see it: i think some children’s media deserves to be dissected and analyzed for what it is. there are many examples
where a children’s show is a lot deeper and a lot more meaningful than black and white stories so i’m not saying that’s what they are. BUT to analyze those shows, i believe you have to be knowledgeable and educated in more mature media, in mature writing. Lily DOESNT seem to have that which (in my opinion) seems to be the reason why she analyzes the way she does. She doesn’t have understanding of anything more mature than children’s media and that’s why she doesn’t fully understand the said children targeted media and for that matter, basic writing facts and innerworkings.
@@money4fun-cc5uy yeah I can completely agree with that
"if character's bodycount is over thousand innocent souls"
Trigun, Vash. Whole anime is about him trying to seek self-redemption over the fact, that he once "snapped", and basically lost self-control, leading to a whole city whiped out. And yet, he isn't the bad guy
Vash is one of the most moral, goodhearted characters in all of fiction.
Relatedly, Dalinar Kholin from Stormlight Archive. Man's an actual war criminal whose past is defined by spearheading incredibly violent conquest. Much of his character progression in the present is spent trying to grapple with his atrocities and how they define him as a person.
Yeah! His bounty is SIXTY BILLION for crying out loud.
It's almost like trying to determine someone's capacity to change and seek redemption purely on the basis of body count is a completely asinine approach to the subject that completely misses the entire point of that type of character arc. It's also kind of messed up given that it implies all of the lives prior to that arbitrarily chosen number are somehow of inherently less value, since you can be redeemed after wiping out everyone up to that point but not anyone after. Why is that? What makes the life of person 1,001 so much more valuable than the 1,000 who came before that the one who took them can no longer redeem themselves?
snapped?? if i'm remembering correctly, wasn't it knifes that made him explode an entire city?
"don't pair kids with adults"
SHE LITERALLY DID THIS HERSELF IN HER FANFIC
She’s probably done this herself irl
She used to proudly ship Ink Rose, a real life teenager (at the time), with Joshscorcher, a real life adult.
@@sekiro_the_one-armed_wolf Not even just probably. Lily has actual allegations against her from her sibling that is disturbingly close to some of the events in her Stockholm fic.
@@anothermiddleschoolburnout8816 As somebody who's known of Lily for almost a decade, that doesn't surprise me at all. Everything about Lily screams that.
5:19 "if youre writing a 5 season show" how often do show runners know exactly how many seasons they will have in advance? Isn't that a decision thats usually out of their control?
One thing Lily Orchard does which annoys me is how she refuses to accept irl context, like how Korrasami was underwhelming in terms of their romantic set up...... because the network censored their relationship and barely allowed hand holding. Or how Steven Universe's finale was rushed because the network axed the show for Ruby and Sapphire's wedding. Or how most showrunners/writers end up with very little control over whether they get another season and often don't plan that far ahead for sake of realism. On some level, yeah, it can result in poor writing, but it's wildly unsympathetic to assume these are all deliberate choices by showrunners
Not to mention that for TV writing, that is TOTALLY a play by ear situation. Not just for the reason that you mentioned, but also by watching actors' chemistry develop. Two actors/characters you didn't expect to just have that kind of chemistry pops up and they end up getting together at some point even though that wasn't the original plan. Same goes for writers planning to have two people end up together and realizing that wasn't going to work.
Similarly, there's MANY instances of characters that pop up on a show that were planned to only be on for an episode or for a short arc, but they were so good that they ended up staying on the show as one of the main characters. Jesse Pinkman is a prime example. He was supposed to die halfway through Season 1, but ended up being the Secondary Protagonist on the show.
@@TheGeorgeD13 I think one of my favorite examples of this - not just for romance, but for television writing in general - is Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was originally intended to be a one-off villain who only briefly appeared in the series, but the cast, crew, and audience all loved him so much that they not only found ways to keep him involved in the entire season, but also brought him in as part of the main cast from season four onwards. Nobody PLANNED for the character to be a character who played a major role in the series finale, the character and actor were just so damn lovable that it ended up that way.
Writing in general is fluid rather than static, and that's especially the case in writing for an episodic story format that may or may not get an extension based on what forces outside the author's control decide. Even in the case of stories that are released in their entirety, such as novels, it's not that unusual for ideas to change (and previous parts to be rewritten) while making a novel because the author had new inspiration or realized that they liked something better a different way. The key difference is that when we're looking at a novel, we're only seeing the finished product - changes by both the author and any outside influences already included - rather than seeing the authors adapt to changes in real time.
Actually some show runners with clear arcs and endings in mind have the exact amount of seasons planned out and 5 (or 7) is a magic number for a show because that was when, back in the day, syndication could occur. So yes some have a number in mind and try to stick to it. Supernatural is an example of the original showrunner had a 5 season arc and stuck to it. But the network wanted more!! 😂 So it kept going. A viewer could watch to season 5 and be pretty satisfied tho. Breaking Bad also had, after awhile, a clear end date and arc. The nature of TV is that nothing is set in stone because high level management changes frequently and they are forever cancelling shows when a new president takes over
She should hear about how that idea went for J. Michael Straczynski on Babylon 5. He had a full five-season story arc planned out from the beginning, and he did eventually manage to tell it. But it was a hellishly stressful undertaking.
He set up character arcs that would have run most of the length of the story in the pilot, only to lose half the cast between the pilot and the first episode of season 1 and have to write them out and set up replacement characters. Some of these replacements inherited their predecessors' character arcs, some arcs went to different people or were split among characters. One small but crucial plotline went through three characters and four actresses before it finally made it onscreen. He was constantly losing and gaining cast members - including major characters with big, important arcs - and having to rewrite on the fly to accommodate them, characterisations are visibly rewritten as the show goes along as he takes time to adjust to the strengths of his new performers, and the series included so much foreshadowing that Straczynski ended up writing the entirety of seasons 3 and 4 and almost all of season 5 _by himself_ (and these were full length, old school, 22 episode seasons) to make sure nothing was lost in translation. Then Babylon 5 wasn't renewed for a fifth season, forcing him to cram two seasons' worth of payoff into season 4, only for the show to be unexpectedly picked up by another network for a fifth season at the last minute, after he'd used up most of his remaining material, so he had to scramble to flesh what was left out enough to carry 22 episodes. ...And then he lost most of his notes.
This could not possibly be the norm for a five season show.
19:29 Oh boy I forgot about this. Yeah an "extreme amount of time showing the Diamonds be sad" like... one song number and one half of two episodes.
Hi Sai!
Still can't get over the fact that she immediatly struck your stream on her newest vid 💀💀
Hi Sai! It's me, your superchat dealer! Hahaha kidding, but yeah I was there when the stream was deleted
I will never get over how badly Lily misses the point of What’s the Use of Feeling Blue. It’s like she can’t comprehend that people act differently at work than they act when they’re in private. Because that’s what’s going on, the first time we meet Yellow she’s at work, and in what’s the use of feeling blue she’s alone with Blue, her equal, where she can let down her guard a bit.
It’s wild when people who complain that Steven Universe feels rushed forget that episodes are like 11 minutes long
My friend rewatched the entire series in 3 days
Let’s see how difficult the “Try to Watch Video Before It’s Copyright Stricken Challenge” is.
New Lily Orchard copyright strike speed run just dropped
She seems to be having a real life villainous meltdown because of how she never seemed to pay much kind to her critics outside of making them look bad in her videos.
Here 54 minutes after it was uploaded, here's to hoping!
Watching this speed up in the hopes of finishing this before the inevitable take down
I just had a micro-cut on my internet service of around one minute. I thought it stopped because the video was down 😂
As someone who actually watched Lily for about 2-3 years, picking on my insecurities and viewing her as this bastion of intelligence because i was isolated and didn't any better pretty much hits the mark. She is a beast who preys on a very specific crowd and i am ashamed that I didn't see that till I actually had friends.
Great Video Anthony.
Lily is a shitty critic and an even shittier person, but I don't think it's appropriate to call a trans woman a beast, and we shouldn't stoop to that level.
"Obey me or you're a horrible person and must be publicly shamed and slandered."
--most of these tips
Lily in a nutshell
@@robertlupa8273 I had her behavior on the Steven Universe video in mind as I wrote it :P
@@robertlupa8273yep!
😂😂😂😂😂@@robertlupa8273
@@robertlupa8273😊😊😊😊😊😊😅😊😊
Dragonball is the PERFECT counter to "Friends is more popular than your favorite anime". When Akira Toriyama tragically passed away, he was mourned by hundreds of millions of people all around the world. Dragonball is one of the most influential and beloved works of art in modern history.
Dragon Ball is one of the most loved, but by far it isn't the most influential, at all.
Only fans believe that DB invented any of the things it did
What's Friends?
toriyama-san passing away actually paused mexican cartel activity iirc
Entire governments, major corporations and even the bloody Mexican cartel were openly mourning Toriyama's passing. It was major news for several days. The idea that Friends, a defunct sitcom from the 90s no one but old ass, specifically American, gen Xers care about, is more popular then most animes is ridiculous. My mother, who was the exact correct demographic for Friends when it was on, couldn't name a single character from it, but she sure as hell can name and recognize Goku. She doesn't even like cartoons, much less anime.
@@Trotoloko Okay, I can understand that in terms of “oh, it didn’t invent anything other media at the time hasn’t done already”. But it is VERY influential in terms of who it inspired to create material based on Dragon Ball.
So, ironically, it DID invent certain fan made AND modern franchises today.
A writing tip my high school English teacher would always say..and I'm not going to remember his exact words but it was " if you're writing and your characters have a plan and you as the writer know it isn't going to work then tell the reader the whole plan. If it IS going to work don't tell the reader and let them experience it naturally." EVER since that I've noticed that a LOT of writers do this in one way or another. I just thought this somewhat tied into one of the first "tips" from this trainwreck of an author lol
Ykno what thanks for the tip, I'm saving it
Heist movies basically use this as a formula, having the characters explain the plan in detail and then showing it unravel because of circumstances beyond their control.
Which is then rectified when they come up with improvised solutions and pull it off after all.
I’ve seen this not fully in play and it work have the plan said in detail then you can have it fuck up in several small ways to build tension but ultimately work or you don’t tell the reader the plan and it still fails as the actual plan isn’t as important as the helplessness and dread that the caricature (and reader) feel
@@shinyagumon7015 This is why Logan Lucky is such a great movie, because you don't know most of their plan before they pull it off. Every trick they use is novel.
noting this down omg
"Artists draw, writers write" Junji Ito rolling in his sarcophagus
Didn't know the man had such interesting hobbies.
You could say he's spiraling...
C’mon, he’s not dead yet.
Also, he’d probably mildly rebuke her by saying something like “a lot of manga-ka would be in trouble if this was true.”
@@animeotaku307
And then he'd say "look at my cats".
Nah nah, Kentaro Miura is the one rolling in his grave
Junji Ito is about to tell Lily she’s wrong in the most polite way possible
Given these tips and the way she words them, it's clear a lot of these issues come from her ego. Media MUST be written in a certain way that appeals to her, and that is a very reductionist thing to believe about art
That’d be like if I slam Kamen Rider Gaim (a highly acclaimed Rider series I’m just getting into) and complain that it isn’t like Gotchard writing wise (a Rider series I like for my personal tastes). That would be stupid of me.
Yes. Although I feel like she was basically inspired by the Evil Overlord Lists and all the spin-offs that created about various other characters and fandoms/genres before realizing it's so old school a lot of people might not even be aware of what those are so she aimed for garnering more attention by simply calling it an all-encompassing writing guide. Or she just didn't have a theme. It's possible she didn't take this very seriously but it does give a lot of insight into her opinions from whenever she wrote this.
It also doesn't help that Lily is extremely jealous of other, better, more successful writers like Rebecca Sugar and ND Stevenson.
Given her stance on writing is so black and white and neat, it's not surprising. As soon as a story shifts to any color in the gray spectrum, she throws a fit on why with no nuance. I get not wanting your characters to suffer, wanting a villain to die more than anything, but I also get that, ye it'll get worse before it gets better. It hurts, but I get what the story is gonna go and I believe in the author's ability to stick the landing and make me go either way on how the story will go. Lily doesn't believe in the author, she believes in her own fucked ability to make a story.
@@bluewolf6323 I honestly think it's more shallow than that, I think Lily doesn't like nuance, subtext and grey morality because it makes her feel stupid.
Number 19 from Lily's list is rich considering how she once DEFFENDED the depiction of Sheldon Cooper! (aka, the ""autistic" ethically-challenged number fetishist" from TBBT)
It's something that TVTropes calls "boomerang bigotry"
I will say, tho I don't agree with Lily's completely black and white take on it, I do think there is a genuine issue with autism rep where it's often boiled down to the stereotype of unfeeling savant (in either stem or music), who is blunt because they literally don't have the empathy to care if they're mean. And I do think that stereotype can genuinely be ableist because it perpetuates a lot of harmful misconceptions about autism and has kind of been the default example of "this is what autism looks like" to a lot of NT people for years, to the point that people whose autism presents differently aren't believed or taken seriously by the general public because they've been presented with a very rigid caricature of autism by most media.
@@troyjardine5850 let’s be honest, Lily doesn’t give a shit about neurodivergent people and actively hates them, so her pretending to care is just insulting.
The Sheldon debate is something I actually think is really interesting. And I think that because from what I know the creator said that Sheldons mannerisms were based on a real person...and then they also aggressively denied that Sheldon was autistic (at least to my knowledge) even still...so I see Sheldons character as, well, an exaggerated character as all the big bang theory, friends, and other characters from shows of the time were, but I ALSO see him as a neurotipical persons outside interpretation of an autistic person turned INTO an exaggerated tv show character. So like...I don't believe Sheldon as a character was created to BE autistic, (the show writer literally said so) but I think he is an exaggerated character based on a real (probably very autistic) person.
They probably ate the same food everyday, had "their spot", maybe had "strange" repetitive ticks (Sheldons three knocks) or needed to do things in a specific order or a specific way.
Basically if he had been created to be autistic he would feel...a bit...yeah...but I think bc they really didn't know they were portraying autism (which caused some separate issues) I think it's really a fascinating thing. A character based on how neurotipical people see autism when they hadn't even realized that's what it was. Someone should study that. Like genuinely.
So idk if it's bad per say, mostly bc I find all characters from around that time to have...similar irritating exaggeration issues...but I do think it's super fascinating personally.
As a guy with autism, I'm more offended by the """""""humor""""""" in TBBT than Sheldon being a poor depiction of an autistic guy. Actually, from what little I saw of the show, I never even thought he was autistic (I thought he was just supposed to be a cringe nerd.) I think Sheldon is either just a poor depiction of an actual human being, or a fantastic depiction of a pretentious, smartass, unfunny person (but the laugh track would suggest otherwise.)
10:15 wow lily really can't get over Steven Universe (a child) not committing murder.
Not every story is an action story where the protagonist is likable while still killing 20 faceless henchmen each scene.
Murder sucks in real life, it's not fun, it's not an easy decision and it can haunt you for the rest of your life. Even the most justified murder can be emotionally devastating.
Not to mention Lily seems to pointless hate villains and redemption unless it's the villains she is writing.
Villains can be goofy irredeemable monsters but they can also be human and tragic who don't deserve to die. Not every story has to end with a nice neat little bow with the bad guys dead and the good guys married with 2.5 kids.
But you see, the only good written stories are the ones that she personally likes.
@@ExtremeMadnessX the whole list is 90% still whinging about SU and She-ra.
"2.5 kids"
The heck happened to the third one?
@@Stickamajig he either got chopped off or is sharing a body with one of the other two
These our my exact thoughts whenever someone complains about Aang not straight up killing Lord Ozai. Literally forgetting the ENTIRE point of his character
1:29:53 lily orchard's take on reclaimed slurs leaves me very doubtful she's ever listened to a hip hop album in her life
Oh definitely not. Lily gives off “I support black people. But they make me uncomfortable” vibes. I would never wanna meet her ass
A lot of Lily's advice can be countered with "You wrote Stockholm, wind your neck in, Lily."
It feels like a tapdance going "I would NEVER write something like that, see??? They're making up lies against me when I am SO morally pure!"
@ealusaid Yeah, it's the hypocrisy that sickens me. She wants to be this Tumblr pure idol who has done no wrong and who can speak with moral authority, all the while having written something that is just as bad or in a number of cases worse than the things she called out. It's not just that the advice is bad. It's that the advice rings hollow, 100 tweets of, for lack of a better term, virtue signalling. If she had not said anything at all, maybe I'd be more ambivalent. Fucked up shit gets made by a person, more at 11. But like I said, it's the hypocrisy that pisses me off.
I was looking for this fucking comment. I don't understand why anyone is giving her the time of day when she wrote a pedophilic abuse fanfiction. I wouldn't even begin to THINK about even hearing her out about her "writing tips". I'm sorry, once you cross that line, I'm going to stop taking anything you say seriously.
yea idk why she thought it was a good idea to bring attention to things she herself does lol
As a nonbinary person, being a non-human shapeshifter is aspirational for me.
I feel like she’s the kind of person who cracks *really* nasty jokes about therians behind closed doors.
@@ConvincingPeople love how oddly specific this is
@@vickypedia1308 i mean - when you sometimes just look at some comment sections of therian shorts (even worse when the videos are clearly made by young teens who do not deserve that hate ...)
Bruh for real! With the hinsight Nimona that comment has aged like milk
I would kill (Lily would love me as a hero) to have that power.
I think the best part of this video is how effectively it demonstrates the importance of a broad media diet to being a critic. On one side: dozens of tips are clearly just subtweets of surface level issues Lily didn't like in at most 5 children's cartoons from the 2010s. On the other side: hundreds of counter examples from genres as far flung as personal diaries, classic French literature, modern anime, and exploitation horror films spanning centuries and requiring actual media analysis to unpack. The sheer disparity should embarrass Lily.
I would never tell the world how to write a story cause I haven't actually seen that many stories. I usually stick to the genres I like and I'm happy. I'll never pretend to be an authority on this cause I'm only consuming a small amount of media.
I'm under an hour in, let me say this. As a straight white dude, you need metaphor and allegory to make it digestable for someone who isn't living through things. Have I lived the life of a genderqueer person? No, no I haven't. Experiencing a story of a shapeshifter/alien/whatever who is an allegory or metaphor for it CONTEXTUALIZES IT.
I have not experienced racism as as someone of color does, giving me the context in the form of characters who do gives me a better method of understanding it and a deeper empathy for those groups.
This is why the trope of "robot racism" is a surprisingly popular one for writers.
Their origins may be different, but the robots/androids/whatever being treated as second class citizens can be used to tell good moral quandaries
THANK YOU for addressing Lily’s queerphobia and how policing queerness is inherently bigoted. Being queer is very important to me and it angers me when people try to exclude or silence it.
And she’d probably play the “if you hate me you’re --phobic” card too. I have never seen someone with such a profound LACK of self-awareness.
She’s so full of shit, the toilet’s jealous.
yeah it is annoying. i have trauma around the word queer itself as a catch-all (the use as an insult is alive and well where i am; organisations that exist as supports for the LGBTQIA+ community here use the acronym as the catch-all in recognition of this issue!) but have a tendency to make it extremely clear that my issue/reaction _does _*_not_*_ extend to individual use of and self-application of the term._ i support that and completely get how that would be liberating and meaningful, in fact!
i also reject the... vaguely cisheteronormative-leaning? rejection of 'queer' based on 'no but we're not _actually that different_ from the cishets, we're _normal_ and not _weird_ but just like youuuu!' logic that seems to pander to the comfort of cishet folks. in fact, i would go so far as to say, i _wish_ the reclamation of queer, esp as the catch-all, made cishets uncomfortable and squirmy, i would appreciate it so much more than i currently do, as cishet folks use the term as a catch-all increasingly thoughtlessly.
but ofc lily can't just be like elder LGBTQIA+ folks who are uncomfortable with the use of queer as catch-all and just object on the basis of 'hey, you are lumping some of us with traumas into a word that reopens those traumas, maybe we should keep that in mind?'. instead she has to go full wildfire 'raze it to the ground' because the egregious idea that some LGBTQIA+ folks absolutely do not want to be like the cishets.
@@russianbot8576 wtf even is a "cishet"? this whole comment feels like i just dropped on a 2015 Tumblr post 😅
@@Dan_Kanerva Going to take this is good faith, cishet is shorthand for cisgender (stays the gender they were assigned) heterosexual (attracted to the opposite gender). Cis as a prefix come from Latin "on this side" while trans means "on the other side" often used to express something moved (TRANSportation, TRANSmit, etc)
@@VayaKahvi wow, that is actually very useful. Don't know why he wasn't more clear and just said "straight" but thanks for the info, here in where i live this is basically unheard of LOL
I do not think Catradora is a healthy relationship. I DO think it's good queer representation. Queer relationships in media should not all have to be perfect. We should be allowed to have bad media, bad stories, bad writing, bad relationships-everything that straight people have, queer people should be allowed to have as well, because we are just people. It's this nuance that I dont think Lily understands.
Lily has outright said that she believes if queer media isn't perfect then it shouldn't exist because it'll just be used by 'phobes to harm us. As if THEY WOULDN'T DO THAT FOR ALL QUEER MEDIA.
Of course it's not a healthy relationship, they're two kids who were raised in an authoritarian military school. It would be comically unrealistic if they were well-adjusted. They have literally never seen what a healthy relationship looks like in their entire lives. Also they are cute together.
@@PlatinumAltaria Not to mention, their direct guardian was an abuser who constantly pitted them against each other and blatantly favored one over the other. Catra grew up constantly trapped between loving Adora for being the only source of positivity in her life and despising her for inadvertently causing her suffering just by being better than her.
If twitters inability to understand nuance is the reason that we have so many saccharine USA-based middle-class gay romance between two white dudes with no character flaws, I'm gonna lose it.
(Then begrudgingly accept it because straight people also have tons of boring romance films, so I guess it's equality)
@@ScouseJazmin genuinely, yes, i think that those boring as fuck american or western european queer shows that have zero substance are just as important as anything else. i think that we deserve to have shit media too
10:15 Tolkien, who literally served in WWI and lived through WWII and saw all the horrors of humanity, only to write Théoden sparing Gríma: Uhm, what are you talking about?
17:00 Not to harp on the same strings, but Tolkien would also have something to say about this -- namely that, even if _directly and intentionally_ responsible for so many deaths, nobody is beyond redemption. It's an ideology directly tied to Tolkien's Catholicism, but it's not inherent to religion and can (and arguably should) exist outside of it.
Also, what a random fucking number? 10,000 kills is right out, but if you kill 9,999 you gucci!
Forgiveness and redemption were key aspects of LOTR as well. Regardless of your thoughts on religion, Tolkien was a traditional Christian (not one of our modern day psychos fearmongering for the masses) whose work was heavily influenced by the positive aspects of his faith. He honestly believed that wicked men could always become better. When Boromir is tempted by the ring and attempts to take it from Frodo, he realizes what it has done to him and mourns his loss of reason, sacrificing himself to try and protect the hobbits. Aragorn encourages Theoden to spare Grima. Gandalf tries to persuade Saruman to surrender peacefully, and Theoden attempts to remind Grima that he can still have a place in Rohan if he renounces Saruman. The ring is destroyed not by Frodo, but by Smeagol - who was shown mercy both by Bilbo and by Frodo in his lifetime.
Even if mercy does not result in the redemption of wicked men, *it is what separates us from them.* If there are people you can try to reason with, why not try?
@ApexGale
Appreciate the Tolkien context but I have a question. What about the non human "monsters" created by Sarumen to fight in said war? Does Tolkien say it's ok to slaughter them by the dozens? Because they're "inhuman"? Is Tolkien moral standards about sparing life only applicable to humans? What about elves or dwarves?
@@l.n.3372 In Letter 153 Tolkien states this:
"They would be Morgoth’s greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote ‘irredeemably bad’; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making - necessary to their actual existence - even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God’s and ultimately good.) But whether they could have ‘souls’ or ‘spirits’ seems a different question; and since in my myth at any rate I do not conceive of the making of souls or spirits, things of an equal order if not an equal power to the Valar, as a possible ‘delegation’, I have represented at least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them. That God would ‘tolerate’ that, seems no worse theology than the toleration of the calculated dehumanizing of Men by tyrants that goes on today. There might be other ‘makings’ all the same which were more like puppets filled (only at a distance) with their maker’s mind and will, or ant-like operating under direction of a queen-centre."
In simpler terms, Tolkien being a religious person who genuinely believed in the goodness in the hearts of people. Hw did not feel comfortable saying that the Orcs were irredeemably and inherently evil and instead fashions the reason for their evil being that they were corrupted by an evil man for generations, twisting their nature. In other writings ("Orcs," part of "Morgoth's Ring") he mentions how due to the corruption it was virtually impossible for Orcs to resist Morgoth's domination over them. In that same essay he also lays out terms of war regarding their treatment, as follows:
"...though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost. This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded."
It is definitely a topic of contention with modern Tolkien scholars, but I think it's at least clear to see that Tolkien regretted his unintentional implication that there would be an "inherently evil" race of people and tried to change that. Even if the Orcs were the equivalent of men made bad by a dangerous authority, they were supposed to be treated with some degree of dignity - though, during war, people simply fight to survive.
I feel like I'm watching a literature professor talk to a very stubborn teenager.
Having a copy of Blood Meridian situated between a novelization of Revenge of the Sith (which goes hard) and Pikachu plushes is an insane choice that I support wholeheartedly.
Blood meridian was based on pokemon trust
If my memory of the RotS novel from when I was 8 serves me correctly, that book deserves to be put on the same pedestal as blood meridian, i read that book like a dozen times as a kid
Just finished blood meridian
they’re sorted in order of violent intent
@@tonoornottonowith the Pikachu plushes obviously being the most unhinged and violent of them all; I mean don’t ask what they did in the 90s in Bosnia
Something I love about these videos calling out Lily’s writing “tips” is that they bring in so many other examples across a wide range of media genres to debunk these “tips” and exposing her limited media diet in the process
I like your pfp
Well it's more exposing how little she really understands storytelling in general, because even with just the stuff she watches I can easily counter every single "argument" she has for My little Pony, Steven Universe, and Pokemon. Because I'm a normal person with common sense.
People forget that sometimes, characters just have convictions. Batman doesn't kill because he doesn't kill. Killing is wrong. Writers and fans have come up with a thousand reasons as to why: Fear of not being able to stop, core belief in redemption, fundamental hatred of firearms rooted in trauma, not wanting to become like Ra's al-Ghul, needing to be better than his villains, being a model for other heroes and people in general, and much more. But by the end of the day, Batman doesn't kill because he simply does not. That's not how he does things. Killing is wrong. Not only does he not kill, in his best versions he goes out of his way to not let anyone die. Proof of that is that Terry doesn't have the same convictions. Yes, he never allows innocents to die, but some of his villains end up accidentally killing themselves, and he lets it happen. Hell, he has an actual body count. It's not large at all, and all of those he killed weren't exactly normal thugs, but this doesn't change the fact. Terry isn't Bruce, so he, as Batman, sometimes kills. Bruce does not.
By the way I've seen it, it's because there's often a fine-ish line between himself and the villains he puts away, he's a hero but his condition could just as easily turn him into someone like them, and one thing that stops that from happening is that he does everything in his power to do what he does without ending a life
Yeah it bothers me when people try to insist killing is the answer when its really really justified this time because the point of the story is that there is no one time its really really justified for a character to be judge, jury, and executioner of another character’s fate. Like traditionally, if you can come up with a way to stop the bad guy that DOESNT require them dying…writers will take it because the goal is to give the real world audience a story that says “violence shouldn’t be the only answer”. Like especially in a post world war 2 era, people really didn’t want to make stories where the only way to end a story was by killing the big bad. Just stop them and keep them from doing anything ever again. What is so wrong with wanting oxai to go to jail for the rest of his life ya know? It stops him and aang doesn’t have to learn the lesson of “everyone else was right and murder is okay as long as the person really really deserves it. The things I was taught amd so thoroughly ingrained into my culture simply do not matter because everyone else wants to do a murder and i, as the one who’s supposed to be the balance of all elements, can just forgo one of them because who cares?” Like what kinda message is that supposed to send to kids anyway?
coincidentally, this is exactly why people hate the goddamn batman and the batman who has chortles
@@ConsarnitTokkori The only thing redeeming the goddamn Batman is Robin calling the Batmobile "queer". That was funny.
Another reason for a lot of characters to not murder, is very rapidly they can become incel bait power fantasies. Like if Batman just started executing random criminals he’s just the punisher with tech. The white supremacist *icon*
There are so many people on the internet who think that Vivziepop is the worst writer on the internet. Those people clearly haven't read anything by Lily Orchard in a while.
The worst anything is a pretty tall thing to live up to it's easy to give but not to live up to
@@audreyharris7643 I wish to have some more of your knowledge
@@Smoothbrain-nvrm acceptance and hatred are both tools for good and bad how they are used and for what matters most.
Sometimes I unintentionally say some wise stuff without wanting to but I try
1:08:29
Holy shit, it's so relieving to hear this statement. People always downplay SA against men as "wow, bro, you're lucky" and "I wish I was in your place", like... I fucking HATE those arguments. They will NEVER understand that the trauma instilled by being assaulted can and most likely has happened to anyone, regardless of gender.
It should be treated the same on both genders, and yet it isn't.
Sorry if this seemed as though I'm going off on a tangent. I was SA'd as a kid, so this hits close to home.
"That's a dark way to look at it, we see it as hillarious."
- Eric Kripke.
The sex organ is still an organ like the lungs and heart. And I don't want anyone playing with my any of my organs without my permission.
8:31 Conversely, victims of abuse are not blameless of their capacity to hurt others just because they suffer abuse. Victims and villains are two separate entities, in fact they are almost always simultaneous occurrences.
Lily is the type to read "hurt people hurt people" as just saying hurt people twice
lily of all people probably shouldnt be talking about abuse victims like shes any kind of moral authority on the matter lmao
Hi, professionally diagnosed autistic here to talk about 33:05!
One of the big problems with a lot of autistic representation is a lack of actual nuance or “depth” to the characters that we’re given, and instead are reduced to “uwu babies” or annoying savant assholes.
Moral complexity is absolutely FASCINATING!! Giving autistic characters flaws and shortcomings, especially ones derived from a unique worldview they only have BECAUSE of their special interest/autism? That’s absolutely incredible! We would LOVE more of that!
"People didn't petition for another season of Kim Possible to see more about Drakken, they came to see shipping!"
...I wanted to see more Drakken 🥺
I mean there were probably a lot of Draken/Shego shippers wbo wanted another season lol
@@Direwolf181 I'm one of them lol, I was real happy they got together in the end! Didn't expect him also getting plant superpowers though, but it was a fun bonus.
I find it silly that Lily would thinking liking Drakken and liking shipping are mutually exclusive lol
@@Bunni89 yeah I mean Draken Shego was Mega popular (I mean ShegoxAnyone was popular lady was hot) but Draken was easily her most popular ship (along with Kim/Shego of course lol) also Draken is funny!!! How cam you not like him
@@Direwolf181 Exactly!!!!
What’s funny is that I’m pretty sure they actually did because you can actually notice drakken and shego appering way more in later seasons than the earlier ones
"This is a shitpost."
That's the thing: to her, it's really not. She's using tongue in cheek sarcasm to deflect criticism for something she does, in fact, believe.
I found the Twitter thread to be utterly and completely baffling.
Stephen King's On Writing is writing advice. Brandon Sanderson's Knowledge base is writing advice. That is just a very long list of incredibly niche criticisms of cartoons that has virtually no real world application.
How are any of the points supposed to help with the mechanical or creative process of writing?
They're not at all.
@@agramuglia Also - I've re-read my comment and it actually reads like I'm criticising YOUR additional points as well. I've edited it because it was intended as a criticism of the twitter thread. Turns out I'm not so hot at this writing thing either
Nah, don't worry. It's totally fine. :)
Half the time i am either too burned out to read through what i write or just making typos, so i hear you on that
yeah and some of it is just her venrting about specific individuals it's so pathetic.
The "no sex scenes, ever" idea has driven me up several walls for a while now. At the end of the book Babylon Steele, the eponymous character finally returns home after enduring SA and torture, and we get a sex scene spanning several pages of her and her sorta-boyfriend making each other feel good. Because she's finally somewhere safe, in control of the situation, and with someone she cares about. It. Matters. To. The. Story.
I agree to an extent, but sometimes it can feel that there are way too many sex scene happening in a story. One of my biggest gripes about the Throne of Glass books is how there are so many sex scenes during the second half of the story, and they will usually take up multiple pages. And while I can understand the whole "safe, in control of the situation" thing you brought up, especially since the characters are fighting a brutal war against demons from another dimension, when every bit of free time the characters have is spent with them doing the nasty, and I have to repeatedly read about how they're biting and clawing each other, it gets real old real fast.
Contrast this to something like Tokyo Ghoul, which had only a single sex scene that comprised a single chapter, and ended up being one of the most beautiful moments in the story.
Well that's a book, where it's easier to see the value if you have good media comprehension. In most tv shows and movies, it serves no point other than making me feel uncomfortable and skipping it (half joke)
@@wiltfoster5386 Bzzt. Wrong wrong wrong AND puritanical. If written well, sex scenes drive the plot, character arcs, inform relationships and emotions.
@@kamikazelemming1552 You need better reading comprehension because the person you replied to never once claimed that all sex scenes are well done.
@@nenakarra2579If, but most of the time they aren't written well. I am not opposed to sexual scenes, but the main complaint is exactly that, when they have no purpose and thus end up being uncomfortable or boringm
Despite me agreeing with some of her “tips”, I just feel like this whole list of “writing tips” is really just Lily vaguely venting about what pisses her off in the stuff she watches under the guise of “writing advice.”
Throughout several of these tweets, I could get the feeling most of them were digs at shows she didn’t like (the most major one being She-Ra and the Princess of Power which I can blatantly tell in tips 3 and 4.)
What do you agree with?
@@ExtremeMadnessX Just the stuff like the ones that boil down to “don’t do stereotype” tips (which she take up several because she couldn’t come up with 100 actual writing tips), The “Don’t write any pedophilic relationship ones” (which also takes up three tips and is ironic coming from her).
There are also a lot that are about Steven universe, she really hates those 2 shows in particular
@@lunatheluma3804 not to mention Tip 24 is (I believe) about Kylo Ren from Star Wars.
@apieceofbitsandpieces342 that could be both Kylo Ren, and hunter from the owl house
"if someone you know believes that lily orchard is some.. bastion of intelligence, of knowledge, you may be entitled to financial compensation."
"Friends is more popular than your favorite anime" Dragon Ball is so popular in Latin America that not only was the UI Goku vs Jiren fight being advertised in strip clubs, but there are rumors that say that cartel activity would halt whenever a new episode of Super dropped.
Don't forget it beging showed in parks
The cartel thing was kind of a joke, but the Goku v. Jiren thing was *so* hyped up with flyers akin to wrestling match advertisements that it got the attention of Toei, who had the Embassy of Japan send a note to a Mexican governor telling him to stop allowing the public airing of the last two episodes because it was an infringement on Toei's author rights.
The Mexican governor ignored it and people kept playing it in bars lol
@@ApexGale Based Mexico
I swear Latin America fans are ride or die with their series
Like you're set for life if you garner a fan base from them
We need to put the word fetishize on the top shelf away from people until they can use it properly. Words mean things - just because something isn’t handled perfectly or something is messy or imperfect (sometimes DELIBERATELY written that way) doesn’t make it “fetishized.” Also, sometimes writers just have fetishizes, and that’s not inherently bad! Some of the best art comes from people being hot and bothered! It makes you human! Unhealthy relationships in fiction are dramatic and compelling!! Seems like people these days just…don’t want drama in their fiction??? Why are people so adverse to any type of conflict in fiction these days????? SMH Acting like Game of Thrones wasn’t a global phenomenon for YEARS…
Because nuanced conflict is uncomfy and makes them exercise their brainmeats.
I think people have forgotten that you can just not be into something. Fetish is morally neutral. You can be into it or it can turn you off, that doesn't make it good or bad, it just makes it not your thing. Game of Thrones, for example, not my thing because I'm not into sexual violence in story settings, but I'm not going to say because I don't want to watch it, it shouldn't exist. I'm not an asshole
@@Sootielove i reckon there's also a difference between Miyazaki's obsession with feet in souls games and Dan Schneider
@@M0ONCommander Yeah definitely, because one is using child actors who probably don't realise what they're being used for and the other has it animated by adults. Definitely less about the fetish and more about how they go about it (also idk about Miyazaki but Schneider also has sexual abuse allegations which is where we stop discussing it in terms of art/fiction)
@@Sootielovethere’s just a lot of women who don’t wear shoes in Fromsoft games as well as a few moments of lingering shots on their feet. The presentation is never disruptive, but once you notice the pattern it’s a little hard to ignore. It’s honestly just funny, never intrusive or annoying.
Murder the diamonds because they're irredeemable? Ah, yes. Frick all the gems who need putting together again.
Like, I originally wasn't a huge fan of the fact that shattered gems can be revived because it minimized previous tension points, but also, this gives the diamonds a purpose and a reason to atone, and their dedication to doing so is a testament to their commitment to atoning, which is important if your message is rehabilitative justice (as opposed to retributive justiceーsomething the show abhors).
Also, it's kind of obvious only now, but the diamonds were programmed to do what they did across the universe as a means of "reproducing" through colonization, which parallels human history and our inconsideration for other humans, animals, and the ecosystem. Do humans not deserve redemption?
It’s also kinda funny how every time the ‘kill the Diamonds’ idea floats around, no one ever seems to come up with an answer of how that ending would’ve been better. Like yeah, a story about empathy and understanding should TOTALLY end with the teenage protagonist committing triple murder.
This is also ignoring the fact that killing the Diamonds would have def screwed over the Crystal Gems and Earth.
@@DaHedgeMoonit also would have fucked up Steven tremendously. He freaked out in SU Future over killing Jasper, who luckily he was able to bring back. Imagine killing three Diamonds and plunging the Gems back into a civil war. He’d never get past it mentally or emotionally. He’d spend every day blaming himself.
@@Junosensei you clearly have Steven Universe significantly more thought that Lily ever did in that empty head of hers lol.
@@DaHedgeMoon Not to mention that if Steven just killed the diamonds without changing their society, it just would have created a power vacuum and the diamonds would have just been replaced with another group of power hungry gems and the cycle would have either continued or even gotten worse.
Personnally, I'd always been on board for a full redemption for everyone. Because it's Steven Universe! They sing, they cry, they talk about their feelings, and Steven is here with what no other gem has: his humanity. That was the show, that was the vibe. So, yeah, it had been rushed because it had been stopped sooner tha expected so it feels like the diamonds don't earn their redemption, but honestly I love the final. It always had been a cozy show.
People who think they should have killed the diamonds should watch future because it's way more dark and realistic than the first show. Still great, but very different vibe.
Her basically saying "Entrapta is bad autism rep" angers me so much because as an autistic person, Entrapta made me feel seen!
The issue is that she was an amoral person who didn’t care about good or bad as long as it aligned with her interest. Like she can’t understand good and bad because she’s autistic and autistic people don’t know the difference
@@BabyGirlTiny Honestly? It really is that way sometimes. I had a hyperfixation so strong that the lack of content for it caused me actual physical pain, so despite knowing it was wrong, I turned to ChatGPT to write me stories for that hyperfixation even though I myself can write. I did a bad thing to fuel my interest because my interest was so unappreciated online that it literally hurt me, and doing the right thing by creating my own content from scratch would take too long.
It's not about not knowing right vs wrong, it's about feeling appreciated and understood, and being willing to disregard our own moral compass if it means we get a sense of community surrounding our Special Interests/Hyperfixations.
It's interesting that so many of these "writing tips" are actually moral claims. I think it's this weird Twitter and TikTok mentality I see a lot in Gen Z where people want "representation" for stories that exclusively treat characters with traits like them well and see those who hurt them punished, as they see that as good representation. While I'm not suggesting people should be exposed to great amounts of harm to characters they identify with, we must accept every person's capacity to be villain and victim in stories, not dichotomously, but interactively.
I've started calling it "neo-puritanism", and it's really weird. Like, the most popular "sexy" books for decades were ones with (often romanticised) taboo subjects - Thorn Birds is the first that comes to mind - but also did generally have a plot addressing that taboo, an exploration of themes outside of sex, people who did bad things getting rewarded for it, and exploring the fallout.
And now there's a kind of online demand for "moral stories" where heros are perfect and villains are punished on twitter, while booktok keeps going crazy over books where the entire plot is about how hot it is that this 30 year old teacher wants this particular teenager, absolutely no further depth required.
It's like people want both taboo and moralistic stories, but putting them together would mean nuance. So they'd rather split them apart.
@@ScouseJazminthis is the exact right wording for what i’ve been feeling about those topics for a minute now thanks for that
I think it comes from a fear that, by portraying a queer person as morally reprehensible, it will give the impression that queer people are inherently immoral-a belief that a disgusting amount of people hold and shouldn't be perpetuated.
For this reason, I do understand that the topic should be handled very delicately, but not using it at all is also worrisome. If all media portrayals of queer people are as perfect and flawless, that may lead into the belief that queer people who _aren't_ flawless (which is _ALL_ people, gay or not) are _deserving_ of hate they experience.
At that point, aren't we setting impossible standards to be judged for when we inevitably fail to meet them?
“Sex scenes are never necessary” is one of those statements that’s technically true but meaningless. I’m sure she’d respond to your counterexamples with “they could just tell you sex happened, showing it is unnecessary.” Which is, strictly speaking, true, but by that logic they don’t NEED to show any scenes, you could just read a plot summary. In fiction, you’re trying to invoke emotions, and it’s usually (not always, but usually) more impactful to show rather than tell.
yeah it's just a bizarrely mechanical way of looking at art. maybe stuff can just be there because it's fun sometimes? idk about anyone else, but I generally read books because I... enjoy them. it's not a race to reach the resolution of a plot. detours that aren't strictly "necessary" are more than fine if they enhance the overall experience.
Exactly!!
I would even argue that no fictional books, movies stories or whatever are necessary. They're literally redundant. We could just write history books and autobiographies. But we write fiction and love fiction anyway for a reason, don't we? so I always find this argument a bit baffling
Plus, there's always an audience for those 'pointless scenes' that enjoys these scenes. Who are we to deny them? like man
Yes! Besides I'd say sex scenes, just like action scenes, are there to enhance the Vibes of the story. Do we actually NEED a high-stakes car chase? Probably not. The chased party is likely going to get away anyway, so what does it change? Nothing. And if they do get caught, why add the chase? Why not just have them get surrounded before they enter the car? But the thing is, the high-stakes chase adds so much in terms of vibes and interest, and it enhances the story. Some stories are enhanced with sex scenes.
Tbh as an aroace man, sex scenes are boring but in most cases, I don’t think they are useless lmao
@@Basile.BowBow ha I mean personally, as an aroace woman I agree, I find them boring and always kinda "eh." Like I do find myself thinking, during sex scenes, that this adds nothing because I'm personally not interested and I'd rather relationships were advanced through other means. But logically, and also as a writer, I do realize I'm wrong and speaking only from personal opinion and not fact. Mostly because action scenes? Hecking LOVE them. And they, technically, add as little as sex scenes, but they're amazing to me and always enhance the story for me, so I do assume allos (and sex-positive aces) feel similarly with sex scenes
10:14 So, according to Lily, policemen are supposed to just shoot every criminal, because imprisoning is enabling?
That... Is something I really wouldn't put past her.
No, silly! It’s totally ok if a JUDGE decides people should die because then it’s by the system and morally correct and definitely not still killing someone.
The Dexter method
@@salsathemonkey22even Dexter didn’t go after every criminal. He only went after serial killers who specifically were active (he kinda let trinity go because he had just gotten off his season)
Not just the fact that Batman doesn’t want to become a villain but him killing is literally what Joker wants. Joker exists to push Batman’s limits. He believes that Batman is just as bad as the rest of the “scum” of Gotham and all it takes it one bad day to break him.
If Batman ever gave into that urge to kill a villain, he’d be proving that Joker is right and that’s probably one of the last things he wants.
Rule 26 made me laugh manically because that's what the creator for Nier Automata said was the reason for the YorHa android designs. He wanted to see cute girls in cute outfits and encouraged fans to make all the Ass fanart of 2B.
Don’t forget 9S, that’s a cute boy we get to draw ass fanart of :3
Yoko Taro is an honest man. He wants to see cute girls who can kick ass, and by god he will have cute girls who can kick ass.
The same could also be said for Kaine, from the first Nier. She's a hermaphrodite, but she's easily the most memorable character in the game because of how cool she is.
@@AshleyBreads The boy! ;w;
But seriously, Lily’s inability to engage healthily with sexuality in fiction speaks less to the issues in what she may be criticising-even when it may be worthy of criticism in that respect-than to her own dysfunctional relationship with the subject.
@@kamikazelemming1552another example is Oda he LOVES ladies with massive tits so all his female characters have massive tits snd tend to be dressed pretty fanservicy outfits (Nami especially) but his female characters are as well written just as well as the boys and we get plenty of cheesecake shots of the boys because they are all muscular and rarely wear shirts lol
LITERALLY WHAT I WAS THINKING. "I just really like girls" iconic, me too buddy
37:56 It's Hunter from The Owl House. She hates Hunter and felt he took away the screen time from characters like Willow and Skara (who was never one of the main characters). She really hates redeemed characters. It's funny, because his time as a villain does not even last that long.
I also remember her hating Amity and not liking she got together with Luz and only accepting it when Lumity got really popular.
Exactly! She’s self entitled! She also said that Hunter should have known about the abuse which is disgusting!
@@jonelrobinson7432 It's More messed up when you remember that Belos made Hunter to be his tool and nothing more. Like at what point before he met Luz and the others should he have known that?
@@jonelrobinson7432 The worst thing about certain abusers is how they can get you to believe that what they do to you is normal, that you’re overreacting if you object to what they do to you. It’s why victims don’t always speak up or, in Hunter’s case, defend their abuser.
Lily saying how Hunter “should have known better” shows either how little she knows about abuse or it gives a window into what she did to her sister.
My first thought was kylo ren but ofc its another children’s cartoon lmao
Hunter hadn't debuted when she made the list.
Worth noting, Batman can't kill because then he'd just become Owlman.
Owlman is an alternate universe Bruce Wayne that realized there was no value in keeping his moral code. He decided it was fine to kill, and because of that it was fine for him to engage in crime. It became fine for him to steal and control gang terf, and do horrible things for the sake of his plans. Owlman is what happens when Batman realizes there's no real value in ethics and that the world is meaningless, everything is just pawns on a chessboard and the only thing that matters is your end goal.
It's not a good thing to be Owlman. Because, at that point, when there are no more objections against murder or lines to cross, you're just left with the exact type of villain Batman's devoted his entire life to stopping.
Let's note that Owlman's goal is to ultimately erase all existence, because it doesn't matter anyways, and deleting everything is a form of brutal mercy.
I'd still argue that its incredibly dumb. He also makes other people follow his code, despite not everyone being as mentally damaged as Bruce.
@@william4996 I dunno about mentally damaged, there's a pretty long history of heroes either angsting over killing villains and needing therapy or just straight-up becoming genocidal maniacs afterwards.
Seems like a pretty straight shot from "Superman kills The Joker" to "Unstoppable fascist global dictatorship."
@@dracocrusher my initial version of this post was a response based on me misreading what you said, my bad.
I just don't buy it, frankly. Killing a heinous person who tortures and kills people shouldn't cause a mentally normal person to turn into a genocidal freak. Batman makes non-heroes follow his moral code too, if Gordon put a gun to Jokers head would he try to stop him? Would he tell him not to? He would for sure. Keeping villains alive always just feels like a cheap way to force a moral grey into situations that just don't make sense or to keep a villain around because people like him. The joker is irredeemable with 0 possibility for rehabilitation. It isn't noble to allow someone like that to remain alive and if Batman is so mentally fragile he can't pull the trigger, at least in this one situation, he is not much of a hero, IMO.
If someone like the Joker existed and he was beside me and I had a gun I could shoot him and sleep like a baby. Why wouldn't I? He's literally a psychopath that murders people for the lulz. The fact batman can't do that tells me he is mentally damaged and unstable and he projects that onto everyone else.
Honestly, as you probably know, I hate Batman. Nothing about his moral code makes sense when people try to spell it out for me. I have this issue with most superhero media, but it always seems the at its worst in Batman stories.
@@william4996 The problem is you're mixing what's realistic with what's expected from comics.
Realistically, you could just throw The Joker in prison and that'd be that. There wouldn't be constant escapes or anything because he's just a dude, and as long as that chance at rehabilitation is a thing, no matter how unlikely it seems, then we should try to ethically strive for it.
Like, yeah. Of course, right? And sure, if it came down to it, realistically you could make an exception to kill someone and not fall down that slippery slope. But that's not really a good thing when better options exist.
But in comic book world, you can't rely on any of that. In comic book world, jails are temporary, evil people will always come back to do evil things, and rehabilitation basically never exists. So you take real morality off the table because you know this character isn't going to act like a person you could help with therapy and medication. They're just a force of nature that's going to commit mass terrorism no matter what, because it's a comic book and that's just their nature.
So you want to view everyone evil in this super comic book-y way, but you also don't want to view the heroes in the same way where they are ideology made manifest and what they do reflects on their nature as a hero.
Superman killing an armed bank robber just isn't heroism. It's a corruption of who Superman is and what he's meant to represent. When you cross that line, you turn him into a villain, so he gets written like a villain for that arc. That's how these types of stories work.
i really appreciate that with all the examples you show you never mention any spoilers
I feel bad because the trailer for Lake Mungo showed the start of one of its outright scariest scenes. If you end up seeing it, you will know what shot i mean and how frustrating that they'd show it in the trailer of all things
1:57:00 I'm pretty sure this one is based in her idea that the anime references in Steven Universe are Rebecca Sugar cramming in a reference to everything she knows and that's bad.
Didn't you say something like that on the latest stream or was that another previous stream? Either way I remember you saying that!
The anime references in SU were wildly unprofessional at best and borderline plagiarism at worst
@@salsathemonkey22Lily? is that you?
@@salsathemonkey22 ...are you stupid? Do you not understand what references and homages are? Every single anime ref in SU still fits into the scene, you can watch it comfortably not even knowing there's a reference.
@@salsathemonkey22 what in the fuck do you mean "unprofessional?" How the fuck is referencing a work of art you admire "unprofessional?"
listening to her rants about how evil it is for lesbians to have the slightest amount of interpersonal conflict while gideon the ninth is in the background is killing me 💀 if she thinks she-ra is unbelievably toxic yuri the locked tomb would make her brain explode
As someone who's been forced to read excerpts from the Locked Tomb by my lesbian friend, i agree; shit gets whacky.
Those books go so unbelievably hard.
I genuinely wonder what she would think about THAT honkai star rail animated short
"Rondo across countless kalpas" it was called
Madoka is kind of toxic yuri. Homura butchers time just to be with madoka. I could be wrong.
I can tell you for a fact that this was not a troll thread. I witnessed the downfall of this when it happened and she was in her Tumblr complaining about people being a-holes about her list and her fans validated her claiming they haters didn’t know any better.
Some of these tips are also things she’s gone into detail before in her other essay videos. The first one, for example, was discussed in her video titled “Mystery Monger”. That was her in response to the latest WOW story setting up this massive predictable mystery which lead to her tangent about spoilers and how the don’t matter.
There’s plenty of other examples in the thread too. It’s just too much serious stuff she believes for it to be just a joke. And even then, by the time your each 100 of them, the joke’s kinda worn out.
BTW, as a former fan, I admit I defended her. But knowing what she is now puts this list in a sickening light.
Yeah, I recognize a lot of these tips from several talking points. Even as an old fan of her vids I never took _any_ of her writing tips seriously. Which says a lot because I was a young adult who failed most of my english classes at the time lol
I was looking for this comment to see if anyone else said this before I posted this. I'm shocked so many people believe this is a "troll thread" when she still agrees and heavily pushes the rules seen in it.
Fun fact! Lily Orchard banned me from her comments after I called her the "Steven Universe is bad" girl 🤣
She really is something. AMAZING VIDEO Anthony!!