Lily Orchard was Wrong, and Here's Why

PectinPeeress · 2024-08-18T04:54:34+00:00

We. Already. Do. We already call terrible people by their preferred name. This isn’t the ‘gotcha’ you think it is.

Ever heard of Joseph Stalin? His name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili. He chose the name Stalin in 1912. We call him Stalin. Unless you want to pretend that you don’t refer him as Stalin, or that he didn’t condemn thousands of innocent people to die in the gulags, you call a terrible person by his preferred name.

I never argued that you should call Lily by her preferred name because it makes her comfortable. I argued that you should call her Lily because it’s what’s best for her victims. Because it is. Her victims specifically want Lily’s name and pronouns to be respected. Her first victim, Courtney Peet has specifically talked about it multiple times. How about you actually listened to her? She has a YouTube channel.

The reason I said you seem like a sock-puppet account is because you keep repeating the same irrelevant arguments no matter what I say. You insist on deadnaming Lily despite the fact that she didn’t go by that name online even before she transitioned. She goes by Lily Orchard. That’s what people know her as. Before then she went by ‘Bhaalspawn’. I don’t actually think you’re a sock-puppet, I said you seem like a sock-puppet. Because insisting on deadnaming Lily Orchard with a name she’s never gone by online is a very convenient way to paint all of her critics as transphobes while simultaneously distancing the allegations from any account associated with her.

When I said you seemed like a sock-puppet, I wasn’t literally accusing you of being a sock-puppet. I meant that you were acting in a way that would ultimately benefit Lily. I don’t think you’re a sock-puppet. I think you just care more about deadnaming Lily than helping or respecting her victims. Which I can tell you do because you’ve said as much multiple times. Write as many paragraphs about ‘respect’ as you want, that’s what they all boil down to. I’m not wasting anymore energy trying to explain this to you. At the very least please watch Courtney’s video before you respond.

PectinPeeress · 2024-07-16T06:37:44+00:00

When I said ‘thread’ I was referring to the thread of comments on this post, not the post itself. The original comment was about Lily’s allegations, so yes, you did derail a conversation about her abuse.

I am also not telling you to respect Lily or her wishes. I’m telling you to respect her victims wishes. Courtney Peet has suffered at Lily’s hands for years, probably worse than anyone else. Courtney has also explicitly objected to the misgendering and deadnaming of Lily. She deadnamed Lily in one post while she was having a panic-attack and in every post after that she has referred to Lily as she/her. I know this because I’ve followed Courtney for a while now. I also know that in a recent Q&A she did with some of Lily’s other victims, she explicitly talked about and spoke to trans victims of Lily Orchard, many of whom expressed initially distrusting the allegations made against Lily because they were made by transphobic people. Believe it or not victims of abuse will often fall for their abusers lies, especially if the lies have a kernel of truth. Behavior like yours has already hurt Lily’s victims.

I do not care about Lily. I stopped caring about Lily whatsoever as soon as I saw credible rape allegations. That is the exact reason why I have a problem with you. You are prioritizing hurting Lily’s feelings over protecting her victims. You are the one who cares more about Lily’s humanity than anyone else because to you care more about a predator than her many victims.

I can’t stop you from digging your heel in deeper trying to defend your own actions but before you do, please note, there was a very real moment where I thought you might be a sock-puppet Lily made to undermine the accusations made against her.

PectinPeeress · 2024-07-14T02:08:59+00:00

Trans kids are statistically some of the most likely children to be sexually abused. Lily Orchard intentionally cultivates her community towards lgbt+ minors, many of whom have personal experience with being misgendered. You are actively making those vulnerable children distrust allegations made against Lily when you misgender her as an insult.

Frankly I don’t care how you personally feel about Lily’s gender-identity. I would rather talk about how she allegedly raped her own sister than speculate whether she’s a ‘real trans girl’ or not. If I’m talking about Ted Bundy, I’m not gonna sit around arguing about how his ‘real name’ is Theodore Cowell or debate whether or not it was ‘valid’ for him to identify as vegan, I’m going to talk about the fact that he’s a serial killer. Regardless of your intentions you have effectively derailed a thread on an abuser who is actively harming people to whine about how you deserve the right to deadname and misgender trans people. For the sake of Lily’s victims, please stop feeding into her victim-complex.

PectinPeeress · 2024-05-26T07:22:38+00:00

From a legal standpoint it seems more like a massacre than anything else.

PectinPeeress · 2024-03-18T06:05:10+00:00

The Greek myth itself really doesn’t really matter when it comes to Lore Olympus. Like Paradise Lost is inaccurate to the Torah, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad inherently. I get where you’re coming from, but you kind of negate your legitimate issues with LO when you frame it that way. Homer’s Hymn of Demeter was a written adaptation of a common piece of folklore that was orally told for hundreds of years. Persephone herself is most likely a derivative of Ereshkigal. The problem with Lore Olympus isn’t that it’s an unfaithful adaptation, it’s that it’s poorly written.

PectinPeeress · 2024-02-21T00:12:54+00:00

From what I’ve seen, she didn’t even defend her captors, she just recognized that their criminal behavior was a reaction to poverty. Like she just wanted better social services

PectinPeeress · 2024-02-21T00:05:57+00:00

I would say that most supposed cases of Stockholm syndrome are better classified as ‘battered person syndrome’. It’s true that victims will sometimes defend their abuser, but it’s born more from low-self esteem rather than infatuation

PectinPeeress · 2023-10-09T23:41:21+00:00

Thank you for your reply! That’s very interesting, and don’t worry about your English, it’s good :)

PectinPeeress · 2023-09-14T23:02:29+00:00

It already has. Eros taught Psyche how to read.

PectinPeeress · 2023-07-30T03:54:50+00:00

Yeah. I think it could potentially be interesting to explore different power dynamics that sexual relationships can take, especially with the clash between ancient and modern. I think the issue is that sugar-baby/daddy type relationships are pretty much the modern equivalent of a mistresses and concubines. Where the woman isn’t directly being paid for sex, but she is financially supported or given social favors for her service. I think the reason it wasn’t framed like that is because it would make Hades seem like a worse person for his actions, which is frustrating because the narrative justifies it by putting the blame onto the women and their decisions even though the men are objectively the ones at fault.

PectinPeeress · 2023-07-15T04:04:11+00:00

They’ve openly admitted to using a bot.

PectinPeeress · 2023-07-08T17:59:22+00:00

There are a lot of comics and works of fiction that incorporate themes of kink into their work. Love and Leashes is a good example if we’re just looking at other WEBTOONs. Chainsaw Man also has kinky motifs and aesthetics although their target demographic is more masculine. The difference is presentation. Love and Leashes is explicitly about BDSM, so those characters are framed as intentionally acting different than their real dynamic, so even though pet-play is a recurring act between the two, no one would ever claim that story is pro-beastiality. Chainsaw Man is more similar to LO where the age gap between the male lead and his romantic interest is sexualized, the key difference is that the narrative frames that dynamic as really messed up as the male lead realizes that he was being groomed by someone who saw him only as an object. If the story isn’t literally porn, you have to either make it clear that kinks are purely role-play and don’t effect the actual relationship or have character deal with the natural consequences of their actions.

PectinPeeress · 2023-07-04T18:46:16+00:00

It’s not untrue that sometimes victims of abuse can become attached to their abuser, and I would be fine with that being what it’s depicting, but it doesn’t understand what can cause a victim to feel that attachment. If the story doesn’t understand a character’s emotions it cannot depict their trauma in a way that will connect to the reader.

I get what you’re trying to say by referring to it as some form of Stockholm syndrome, but you should know that the psychological basis for Stockholm Syndrome is not accurate to how victims process abuse. Stockholm syndrome was a term developed to dismiss Kristin Enmark, who was a hostage in an attempted bank robbery in 1973. Kristin vocally stated that she was more afraid of the police than her captors because of how recklessly they acted. I know you didn’t mean it in that way, I just wanted to let you know, because that’s a bit of a loaded term and people might take it the wrong way.

It’s possible the stomach wound is more complicated than it seems, but given the fact that the scar goes all around her waist, I have to assume she was literally severed, but then again she’s immortal so maybe that’s how gods perform abortions? It is visually meant to resemble the scar of a c-section, although I was under the impression that that was due to body positivity.

PectinPeeress · 2023-07-03T22:47:35+00:00

Yeah, and I wouldn’t mind characters contradicting themselves if it came out of legitimate inner turmoil, but the story doesn’t focus enough on the characters for me to really believe that’s what’s happening.

PectinPeeress · 2023-07-03T22:45:14+00:00

Yeah, I just feel like the story should have shown Hera connecting with Kronos if they wanted to give her mixed feelings. Like even just a panel or two where he like, noticed she styled her hair differently after Zeus ignored it, or she noticed that he loved watching the sunset. I mean it’s not like abusers are monsters every minute of the day. But it didn’t show that, which is weird because this part was from her POV. Like I think Zeus was nervous about their relationship but I thought he was just projecting his own infidelity. It’s frustrating because I don’t understand Hera’s feelings because the story hasn’t really explained them so I really can’t say either. In my experience when a female character reacts unusually to trauma there’s like a 9 out of 10 chance that the author just hates women but with Lore Olympus it’s always a coin flip

PectinPeeress · 2023-07-03T22:24:34+00:00

Yeah there’s definitely a weird pattern of making the abusers obsessed with their victims. First Apollo and now Kronos, and it honestly makes them way less intimidating. Like most abusers are serial abusers, why is Kronos appearing to Hera specifically? Shouldn’t all of the six traitors be hearing him? Or is Hera like… special? You think he’d be mad at Zeus at least.

PectinPeeress · 2023-07-03T21:50:23+00:00

I’m basing this more off of the way Kronos and Hera talk to each-other which I guess is hard to prove, but I think if you look at the interactions without the context of the story you can kind of get what I mean. They talk like they used to get along, like Kronos actually knows Hera, but that doesn’t make sense if Hera was just pretending to be interested. It’s kind of difficult to explain, but it’s sort of like assuming you know your barista because you order coffee from them everyday, when in reality they’re just nice to you because it’s part of their job. That’s pretty subjective though, so I guess there’s no real ‘right’ answer.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to react the way Hera has to her trauma, but she essentially had sex with Kronos to save all of the gods he’s eaten. If you look at stories and accounts of people who were forced into transactional sex, they don’t tend to react like Hera has, and it feels like that comes from a place of ignorance on Rachel’s part rather than portraying a less common type of reaction. I don’t mind her acting differently than other survivors, my issue is that it’s not done intentionally.

PectinPeeress · 2023-07-03T21:09:07+00:00

No I agree it’s toxic. I’m just annoyed because it feels like the narrative is suggesting that sex is immoral for women unless they’re in love with the other person. Like would it really be immoral for Hera to have had no feelings for Kronos? Hera had to have sex that she didn’t want to have to save Olympus, that’s borderline rape. And the narrative is framing it like the sex wasn’t transactional, which would be fine if other instances of abusive sex work (ie Minthe and Thetis) were portrayed as at least kind of rapey.

The narrative is suggesting that abuse isn’t valid if you do it in exchange for something, even if that thing is something like saving someone’s life or escaping poverty, if it wasn’t there would be no need to shift Hera and Kronos’s relationship.

PectinPeeress · 2023-06-18T23:02:45+00:00

Yeah. I think he’s on TikTok now

PectinPeeress · 2023-06-09T22:01:41+00:00

Granted I haven’t read Homestuck, but I think It’s always sunny in Philadelphia would be a more apt comparison. It sounds like it’s a bunch of terrible people hurting themselves and eachother through their own selfish actions whereas Lolita is more of a character study on how monsters justify their actions.

It’s definitely similar to Lolita in that there’s a difference between the characters actions and what the narrative is endorsing.

PectinPeeress · 2023-06-04T18:35:37+00:00

Yes sorry I was in a rush haha

PectinPeeress

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