Video Game / Lily's Garden

Lily's Garden is a mobile game by Tactile Games. It is essentially a Match-Three Game with overarching story elements.

Following a string of bad luck (including losing her job and finding out that her rich boyfriend was cheating on her), Lily finds out that her great-aunt Mary LaRosa has died and left her a large estate in the country. There's just one catch; the property turns out to be in bad shape, and the will stipulates that Lily must restore the entire estate to its "former glory" (to be determined by Mary's lawyer) within thirty days, or else Lily must forfeit the property.

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This game contains examples of:

• Affably Evil: Leonard may be out to buy Marie's estate and reduce it to a golf course, but he also comes to form a genuine friendship with Lily, between going down memory lane and watching her plant flowers around the place.
• The Alcoholic: Cousin Larry is a lush, much to Lily's disgust. A lot of his plans for Mary's house involve stuffing it with wet bars.
• Amicable Exes: Beautifully done. Rachel is a variation where she subverts the idea that the ex-spouse has to be the bad guy. Not only gets along with Luke (eventually), but she even becomes friends with Lily.
• Awful Wedded Life: Regina is actually suffering from this. On the surface, she casually says everything is peachy between her and her hubby. But after the couple take a vacation, Regina soberly admits to Lily that there is in fact trouble in paradise. Her husband has wanted a baby, despite Regina not wanting to get pregnant, and it's been the crux of their argument for years. She even tiredly mentions that their fights have gotten so bad, it's past the point of shouting matches by now. (Later patches retcon this backstory so that her dilemma is considerably different, and she has never in fact been married.)
  • Mr. Rich has also had his fair share of this. He's been divorced three times over during his lifetime. He's convinced that as opposed to his past failed marriages, he might've been happier if only Mary had married him.
  • Sophia shares her father's luck with marriage, having gone through three ex-husbands. Her first marriage didn't last, and the only good thing that came out of it was her son. Her second husband was decent, but they were too different to make it work. And her final husband owned a Tv network and practically televised their own wedding. Two years later, he promptly replaced Sophia with a younger model.
• Bad Influencer: Lily's college roommate Tina has gone on to become a social media influencer. The "Under the Influence" event sees her enlisting Lily and her friends to help fix up her old cabin, with the promise of making them social media personalities. In reality, she just wants the free labor, and is secretly ridiculing them all on social media.
• Blatant Lies: Cousin Larry claims that his father (Lily's Uncle Arthur) would've wanted the first floor of the house renovated with lots of wet bars. Lily is skeptical. And it doesn't help that Aunt Marie's drawing of the house simply being built with a balcony disproves Larry's notion of what his father would've "wanted". It gets worse when it's revealed Larry's been lying through his teeth about being related to Uncle Arthur at all.
• Book Ends: The "Mr. Rich Arc" begins with Mr. Lawrence doing something (planting a spy camera) and Mr. Rich being accused of it. In the ending, Mr. Lawrence helps gets the charges against Marie dropped. Again, Lily assumes this was Mr. Rich's work.
• Both Sides Have a Point: On Day 20 of the first arc, Lily and Regina apologize to each other for the previous day. Lily is sorry she allowed the "new" Blaine to walk all over her and didn't tell Regina about him, as she should've been more assertive, and been honest with her friend. Regina also has her fair share of apologies, as she recognizes she flew off the handle with Lily when she should've been more sympathetic of how complicated the situation was.
  • In Isla Bonita, while Lily is genuinely satisfied Mr. Rich was defeated by Alma, she also feels bad knowing the island was a symbol of his love for a woman. Regina, on the other hand, also has a point when she says she has no sympathy for the man, as his machinations essentially swindled Alma's grandparents out of their rightful home.
• But I Read a Book About It: It's implied that Whitney Wells is able to outplay a trained former CIA agent because the tricks she used showed up in the Agent Nightengale books she'd read—which turned out to be based off of actual spycraft done by the author.
• Call-Back: When Lily suggests to her friends they let her try to talk Evilyn down from failing the Visitor Center, her friends remind her that she tried the same thing (and failed) with Mr. Rich, not one month ago.
• Crunchtastic: Lily has a tendency to cap off her tasks with a word in this vein.
• A Day in the Limelight: Day 111 to Day 120 is about solely about Karen, and her adventures trying to help Giovanni restore his vineyard.
• Didn't See That Coming: While most of the first 30 days is Phillip Jones's Secret Test of Character, he's genuinely thrown by the existence of Mary's secret identity as the highly successful author Barry Means. This revelation causes issues in the next arc, as he and "Barry"'s executor are having trouble untangling issues with the LaRosa estate.
• Does Not Like Men: Regina is not fond of men, although she is initially married to one, at least in earlier versions of the story. At best, it took a little coaxing from Lily just to help her warm up to Luke when she first met him. At worst, Regina is livid when she assumes Lily got back together with her cheating ex-boyfriend Blaine again. Later versions of the story imply that she may in fact be a closeted lesbian who was unaware of that fact.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Luke's dog was initially a case of this. It's not until later (and after he learns the dog's a girl) that he and Lily give her a proper name: "Roxy".
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Holly didn't get along with Aunt Marie because in her eyes, she wasn't her mother. Rather, her biological mother Miranda Roberts was her real mother, along with being a glamorous movie star. Nevermind that Marie LaRosa was her Aunt, Godmother, Legal Guardian and the one who cared for her like a daughter. Never mind that Miranda Roberts wasn't a part of her daughter's life and (allegedly) wasn't a good person. Holly was adamant that her aunt stop trying to be her mother on the basis they weren't mother and daughter by blood.
• Dream Sequence: Lily often has these in the middle of the night, and they normally reflect either her latest worries or hopes.
• Eccentric Mentor: Phillip has shades of this. Though he's prone to being vague and cryptic at times, he guides Lily to keep renovating the LaRosa estate. In fact, the fake stipulation in the will that she must restore its former glory was meant to help test Lily's dedication to the estate.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In Isla Bonita, Sophia and Bridgette are revealed to be Leonard Ricci's daughters. In the least, Mr. Ricci loves Sophia, and respects her even more-so when he learns she worked hard to restore a boat with her own two hands.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In Isla Bonita, Brigette tries to convince her father not to cut her from his will by promising to build a casino elsewhere. Mr. Ricci may be a lot of things, but building a casino wasn't his intention. Rather, he wanted his daughters to be self-sufficient. In the least, he admits it falls at his feet that Brigette is still as spoiled as ever.
• Evil Is Petty: In Isla Bonita, Brigette Ricci goes through the trouble of retaliating Lily for ruining her life by abducting Luke. She didn't even steal him because she wanted him. She just kidnapped him for the sole purpose of taking something Lily holds dear.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Leonard Ricci may be the furthest thing from a good person, but he genuinely wants his children to be self-made people who can rely on something other than money to get buy. The entirety of Isla Bonita is about Mr. Ricci trying to get his daughters Sophia and Brigette to build a casino by themselves. By the end, he's happy that at least Sophia restored a boat house all by herself.
• Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy: In the second arc, Lily is so overwhelmed by Leonard's ultimatum that she goes one night without sleep, causing her to act loopy and hyperactive throughout the next day. Despite her friends trying to get her to think about the issue on hand, Lily's too hyped up on fixing the LaRose Horse Ranch. And when Luke invites her to join him and Will Donald on an outing, Lily crankily insists he goes without her, not registering that he does notice something's wrong with her. This is later Played for Drama when, after he goes on the outing anyway, Lily thinks this means Luke doesn't care about her, even though she didn't even tell him about her problem and possibly would've stuck around to help if she said so.
• Fairytale Motifs: According to Phillip, Frank and Anita LaRosa's love life was something like "The Little Mermaid". Anita (the mermaid) grew up beside the ocean and loved the sea, while her future husband Frank (the land-locked prince) lived in the mountains. Their love was threatened by the conundrum that Anita missed the ocean very much. Their fairy tale ended with the twist that Frank let Anita go...Only for Anita to return.
• False Friend: In the "Under the Influence" event, Lily is enlisted by her college roommate Tina to help fix up her winter cabin. It soon becomes clear that Tina is just exploiting Lily and Luke in order to get free labor and decoration. For added falsity, Tina convinces Holly that she can turn her into a social-media star, but Lily finds out that Tina is actually turning Holly into a laughingstock online.
• Feed the Mole: Lily and Whitney hold a conversation in front of a listening device, discussing how to open the entrance to the Grand Temple, baiting Mr. Lawrence into entering the temple himself... and trapping himself inside.
• Fire-Forged Friendship: Regina and Whitney truly begin to bond as friends when they're both trapped in the secret entrance to the Ascending Eye's hideout.
  • In the case of Tina, her friendship with Lily is re-forged after the shed she is in is snowed in. Lily, Luke and Holly rescue her, earning her respect. Later subverted when she keeps filming things during the event she appears in so that she can get back into fame, promptly ruining any amiable relationship she's had.
• Floral Theme Naming: It's a game about a garden estate owned by the LaRosa family, where the inheritor is a woman named Lily. And her mother's name is Holly.
• Foil: Between Sophia and Bridgette Ricci. While both were trying to build a casino on an island (which their father illegally swindled) in order to prove their worth to him, how they go about it is where the two sisters diverge. Sophia grew out of her wish to please her father when she fell in love with Ernesto. Along the way, she realized she was hurting Ernesto and chose to restore a boat herself in order to earn his trust again. Despite Mr. Rich's claims he was disappointed Sophia couldn't complete the casino, it no longer mattered to her. Compared to her sister, Bridgette remained as cruel and as hung up on pleasing her daddy as she ever was. And despite her best efforts to negotiate a casino in a different spot, she only ends up practically disowned by her father.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Around Day 21, Lily wonders out loud why the LaRosa-Ricci mill would be relatively far away from Aunt Mary's house instead of close by where its owner can supervise. An eagle eye will spot that it is close by the true LaRosa Estate, since Phillip is hiding the truth of the estate's grounds as part of the Secret Test of Character.
  • On Day 23, Holly learns for the first time about the stipulation in the will, where Lily must restore the mansion to its former glory within 30 days or forfeit the rights to it. Holly has a knee-jerk reaction to this which turns out to be entirely correct: "That can't POSSIBLY be legal."
• Freudian Excuse: Holly's actions are often driven by her past, especially when those actions are questionable. For instance, the reason she threw herself into husband hunting was because of a bad experience where her legal husband dumped her at Aunt Marie and Uncle Arthur's house moments before she was due with Lily. From that day forward, she went through husband after husband in hopes of giving Lily someone better than her birth father. And on "Isla Bonita", when Lily confronts her mom's insistence on making Alma and Santiago's wedding as ostentatious and grandiose as possible, Holly admits it was because she never had the wedding of her dreams and wants to vicariously give them a good wedding.
• "Friends" Rent Control:
  • While the game lampshades how Lily is able to afford her estate (it's all inherited), it doesn't really explain how she's able to afford the repairs. Even with Regina and Luke agreeing to work for free, there would still be a lot of expenses that Lily would have to pay for, and she is supposedly between jobs, to say nothing of the expenses involved in moving her stuff across the country. The closest we ever come to an answer is when one story arc gives Lily a source of income via royalties from Mary's successful series of novels, as well as the film adaptations, channeled to a second, previously unknown bank account. This resolves an issue with back taxes and with paying Regina's construction fees up to that point in one fell swoop, and implies that the repairs and projects during this arc and the next are being funded from this extra bank account. However, on Day 62, Lily decides to donate the old LaRosa estate and the money in her aunt's second bank account—including the book royalties—to the state, to run as a museum, promptly re-opening the question.
  • Gleefully exploited in the "Under the Influence" event, where Lily is enlisted by her college roommate Tina to help fix up her vacation home. Ostensibly, Tina is consulting her because of her expertise, but in reality, Tina figures that she can sucker Lily and Luke into doing the work for free.
• Got Me Doing It: If a character is helping out Lily for long enough, there's a high chance they'll utter a Crunchtastic quip themselves at some point.
• Graceful Loser: Leonard takes it surprisingly well when the case against Mary LaRosa is dropped in the third and final trial. He even agrees that he and Lily will never bother each other again, knowing full well they may never quite go back to being friends.
• Hard Truth Aesop: In "Under the Influence", Tina starts out as the Influencer "friend" who is exploiting Lily and her friends for free manual labor around the holidays. After being snowed in, our heroes save her, and Tina's attitude seemingly improves, to the point she starts to rekindle her previous friendship with Lily. As it turns out, she's backstabbing Lily by copying her lifestyle in order to look good for the Fluence Festival. All in all, Tina leaves the group just as bad as ever before, as though making a point that not everyone is changed for the better by kindness or Christmas spirit.
• Heel–Face Turn: In the "Visitor Center" Arc, Evelyn Winters becomes a sunnier person once she listens to Lily and ceases her plans to fail the Visitor Center.
  • Tina also goes from being a False Friend to being a true friend after Lily, Luke and Holly save her life. Before, she was willing to mooch off Lily's hospitality and humiliate Holly behind her back. But cut off her from 'Influencer career', she not only shows gratitude towards Lily for saving her, she realizes she needs to be her own person without an audience and take better care of herself. Then subverted once she reveals she's been using Lily's kind demeanor to win back her viewers and essentially just took advantage of the situation after being rescued.
• Heel Realization: In the "Visitor Center arc", Lily learns Evilyn plans to run the Visitor Center into the ground and let it fall into the hands of Chemix so she can frame the governor for corruption, and rise to power. Lily's the first to make Evilyn realize that by going through with this convoluted plan, she's no different from the corrupt politicians she claims destroyed her home.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: After the first trial, poor Lily is worried that the tax evasion charges will not only lose the estate, but also put Marie's name through the mud. Although Marie allegedly did some less honorable things in her past, Lily knows she was a generally good person who cared about her friends and family.
• Hidden Depths: Outside his occupation in business, Blaine tries his hand at painting a picture and begins feeling actual emotions.
• Innocently Insensitive: Luke meant well when he brought Will Donald to what was essentially his and Lily's first date together, thinking it would be cool to introduce a celebrity friend to his girlfriend. Regardless, Lily is incensed that her boyfriend would bring a third wheel into what was supposed to be a romantic dinner for two.
• Intergenerational Friendship: While setting up for the party to celebrate Lily winning the case, Karen and Holly become tight friends when they bond over their child-like behavior.
• Irony: Mr. Lawrence only came along with the hidden agenda of exposing the late Marie Barnes as a "foreign spy", despite claims he was there to help Lily save her estate from Mr. Rich. After he gets the microfilm, not only does he use it to prove Marie protected government secrets as a hero, but he convinces higher ups to help get her tax evasion charges dropped—therefore fulfilling what he had initially intended to be an empty promise.
  • Holly had resentment towards Aunt Marie (the woman who raised and unconditionally loved her), while she idolized her biological mother for being a famous celebrity. The irony comes in when, compared to Aunt Marie, Holly's mother was never there for Holly and (if Lily's words are to be believed) wasn't exactly a nice person either. Meanwhile, not only was Aunt Marie like a mother to her niece, but she was relatively more accomplished than Holly's biological mother, from being a pilot in World War 2, all the way to being a famed (if anonymous) author of a popular book series.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Holly can be obnoxious but she actually gives Regina solid advice that she needs to end her marriage, or (in later versions) to explore her love life more freely.
  • Although Holly's use of the word "loser" initially comes across as shallow, her standards for a "loser" are much deeper than you might think. From what her first legal husband taught her, a real loser is defined someone who's either a bad husband, a bad father, or can't make something of themselves. From then on, those have been her guidelines for what she wants out of a future spouse.
  • Earlier, when learning that Blaine had returned and Lily allowed him to stay at her home, Regina yells at her without letting her tell her side of the story. While it was harsh of her to jump at Lily's throat like that, she's not wrong: she shouldn't have welcomed Blaine back into her life, especially when he's guilty of something as serious as cheating.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Holly has plenty of flaws to go around, such as her superficiality, her selfishness and her obnoxious behavior. But at the end of the day, she has her standards and generally will stick by her daughter Lily.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: "Under the Influence" has Tina initially look like she's a scared, lonely girl underneath her Influencer personality, and Lily teaching her how to be her own person offline is all she needs to redeem herself. ...Ultimately, that's not the case. In reality, she's stabbing Lily in the back by stealing her lifestyle in order to look good for her fans and be re-invited to the Fluence Festival.
• Karma Houdini: The second arc ends without Mr. Rich receiving any comeuppance outside of not getting his way. However, his Graceful Loser attitude does ease the blow a bit.
  • "Under the Influence" does not punish Tina outside of being told off. She still gets away with exploiting Lily, still gets her trip to Bali and gets re-invited to the Fluence Festival. The only consolation is the implication that she's ultimately alone, while our heroes come out of the experience with each other, Christmas spirit, and a new hot tub.
• Kick the Dog: According to Phillip, Mr. Rich is the master of this trope. His motivation is a prime example of this. In retaliation for never going out with him, Leonard Ricci plans to buy off Mary’s estate and plow it down to make room for a golf course. The kick is, her husband Arthur began experiencing Alzheimer's after Leonard "accidentally" hit him in the head with a golf ball.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Dirk Sides, who has spent all of the "Visitor Center arc" putting a scandal over Lily's head, gets his when Whitney blackmails him for setting the Visitor Center on fire and convinces him to cancel out the scandal with a bigger scandal (that he was in love with Lily).
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: While working on the cactus garden, Lily and Luke discover a bunker that can only be opened by a code. They remark on how normally a code would show itself in a video game scenario. Luke wonders if they're in a video game... Before Lily goes "nah!"
• Like Father, Like Son: Brigette Ricci always makes it her business to get revenge (petty or otherwise) on other people she feels wronged her. Looking at her father Leonard, it's little wonder the apple didn't fall far from the tree. In the least, Leonard at least took his defeat with dignity and learned his lesson.
• Mama Bear: Although she comes off as superficial, Holly certainly has her moments where she'll stick out her neck and stand up for Lily, such as when she tells off Leonard that she won't go behind her daughter's back, or when she tells off Tina for calling Lily "boring".
• Match-Three Game: In order to gain the points necessary to complete actions, you must play through a succession of levels. Each level has different goals, but the basic gameplay involves matching two or more tiles to clear them.
• Maybe Ever After: In "Isla Bonita", it's implied that Ernesto was not only moved by Sophia making a house boat for him, but also accepted the idea of marrying her and seeing the world with her.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's never definitively stated whether Maddy LaRosa's ghost was really haunting the old manor or if it was just various weather phenomena mixed with the decrepit state of the place. Either way, either Lily's returning of her medallion to the mausoleum or the general improvements and fixes being done to the old manor—or both—end up solving the problem.
• Meaningful Echo: While telling Lily how she and Luke got together, Rachel shares a piece of wisdom about how one doesn't need a "counterbalance" to be whole, but rather it falls to one to complete themselves before they can love another. Later, when he's ousted for being in cahoots with Larry, Blaine tries to reason with Lily that he should remain with her because she "completes" him. Lily uses Rachel's earlier words as a counterargument so he leaves for good.
• Mistaken for Spies: Former CIA agent Jack Lawrence is so thoroughly outplayed by Whitney Wells that, in combination with her personal history (she was born in East Germany under a different name), he thought she was a fully trained foreign spy.
• Moustache de Plume: Mary LaRosa, née Barnes, wrote a highly successful series of spy novels under the name Barry Means.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: In the "Mother's Retreat" event, Lily and Luke go off to a couple's retreat run by Karl Mar Mother, an old hippie for whom the free-love era never apparently ended.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: While "villian" is a stretch, Lily would've fallen for Blaine's lies about turning over a new leaf had she not overhead Larry get drunk and discuss their plans.
• Not Actually His Child: This comes into play when Larry tries to pull a Loophole Abuse claiming he gets the house for being Arthur's son. After Lily and Regina do a paternity test on him, they discover Larry isn't related to either Arthur nor Lily, making him anything but an heir to the LaRosa estate.
• Not So Similar: In "Under the Influence", Tina tries to point out Holly has no right calling her out, as she's no more a saint than she is for the things she said on YouCast. To this, Holly retorts that while she and Tina do selfish things, at least she herself does it because she believes its best for Lily, while Tina's just selfish through and through.
• Obfuscating Insanity: Downplayed with Mr. Lawrence, who poses as a representative of the Order of the Ascending Eye. His act includes a number of common superstitions, most prominently Magpies as Portents. Unfortunately for him, Whitney realizes that his particular brand of superstition doesn't fit the beliefs of the old Order, eventually exposing him as a fraud.
• Opposites Attract: This was why Rachel and Luke first got together when they were young, thinking his personality would "counterbalance" hers. Deconstructed, as their incompatibility was one of the factors of their divorce.
• Parents as People:
  • Holly isn't the most ideal of mothers, Lily can tell you that. She's been estranged from Lily for quite a while, tries to convince her to sell the estate on Mr. Rich's behalf, and often criticizes Lily's taste in men as "losers". However, she does have her daughter's best interest at times, even if she has a funny way of showing it.
  • Marie and Arthur actually avert this, much to Holly's confusion. It often frustrated her that they loved her unconditionally, even when she didn't deserve it. It was her wish that they were to do something flawed for once so she could relate to them.
  • Luke is a less malicious example. He really does love Karen with all his heart and wants to be the best dad he can be. But he's so out of touch with her that he neglects to realize she's a 9 year old. Core examples of this are how he gifts her with a play fort and a girly bicycle with training wheels for her birthday.
• Poor Communication Kills: In light of Mr. Rich, Lily hasn't told Luke about how Leonard is going to take her to court in order to get the estate. So when she runs herself ragged over the stress and insists he go to Will Donald's party instead of being with her, she does so expecting him to stay by her side over something she hasn't even told him. This leads to Lily believing Luke is insensitive and couldn't care less about her problems, causing her to hold a grudge against him. It's only later when Regina asks Lily if she bothered to tell Luke about any of her issues that she realizes she's been keeping him in the dark and getting angry at him for not reading her mind.
• Pretender Diss: Towards the end of "Under the Influence", Tina tries to steal away Luke, tempting him that she can give him money and fame, as she's a version of Lily who can give him all those things and more. To that, Luke demonstrates his loyalty by declaring without hesitation, "Nah. I got the real Lily. I'm good."
• Queer Flowers: Regina and Lily strike up a close friendship very quickly. By the end of the first month, Regina is contemplating leaving her husband, telling Lily she loves her "jokingly," and she asks Lily to say the same back. They also dance together. Later patches make this more blatant, with Regina's dilemma instead being an inability to find love with men at all (and never having been married), and being told to explore the possibility of love with women—something Regina had never considered up to that point.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In Isla Bonita, Lily gives one to Brigette after the latter blames the former for taking away her wealth and father's respect.
  Lily: I got news for you, Brigette! Life's not about money or other people's approval. What's important is to be with the people you love. Make them happy, keep them safe. And if you can't see that, you'll be miserable the rest of your life.
  • In "Under the Influence", Holly gets to tell off Tina for generally taking advantage of Lily's kindness, calling her "ugly and selfish".
• Rebuilt Pedestal: Regina and Lily mistakenly believe that Mary and Phillip were having an affair behind their spouses' backs. Lily, whose ex-boyfriend cheated on her, finds this unsavory. And Regina doesn't take it any better. When they confront Phillip with the truth, he admits that he and Mary were a couple. However, they only started going out when each of their spouses were dead (essentially in Arthur's case). The only reason they didn't make it official was because they didn't want to make it an unnecessary fanfare. Needless to say, both Lily and Regina apologize for the misunderstanding.
• Redemption Rejection: Lily tries to help sweet talk and bond with Leonard in order to change his mind about suing her and taking the estate. It seems to work at first, and Leonard almost considers letting go of his grudge to be part of Lily's family. Instead, he refuses to take the high road and sticks with his plan to take the matter to court like he intended.
• Samus Is a Girl: Luke initially addresses his dog as a "he". But it takes Lily to realize "he" is actually a "she".
• Scary Stinging Swarm: When Larry is ousted as not being Arthur's son, he tries to lock himself inside the house so he won't have to leave. Thankfully, Lily uses this trope to her advantage by smoking the inside of the house with lavender. Not minutes later, Larry is chased out and stung by the bees.
• Second Love: Mary and Phillip were each other’s second loves after their spouses died.
• Secret Test of Character: The reason Phillip had Lily fix up everything except the LaRosa estate for the past 30 days was because he wanted Lily to know her family history first before she could own it. He wanted to test her loyalty to her family's estate, in the event that Mr. Rich tried to buy it from her.
• Shadow Archetype: Both Leonard and Brigette tried to get revenge on Lily in order to make up for their lack of happiness. But Brigette is everything Leonard would've been if he wasn't nearly as half-way decent. When all is said and done, she doesn't own up to her actions and instead further blames Lily for the loss of her wealth and her father's respect.
• Shout-Out: Karen at one point mentions that her dad is still stumped by That One Level in Battletoads.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In the climax of "Isla Bonita", Brigette tries to justify that the reason she essentially kidnapped Luke was to get back at Lily by taking what she held dear. Regina rightly shoots down her excuse by snarking "Poor little rich girl. Doesn't get her way and everybody has to suffer? I don't think so!"
• A Side Order of Romance: Phillip Jones met his late wife while she was working in a restaurant in New Orleans. He happened to be visiting the city for work and ended up staying a week in order to keep seeing her.
• Significant Anagram: Lily realizes that rearranging the letters in the name of author Barry Means results in Mary Barnes, her aunt's maiden name.
• Silly Will: Mary's will leaves Lily her entire estate, but stipulates that she must restore it to its former glory within thirty days or forfeit the property. It's later revealed that the condition in the will was not binding, and that the task was meant to be a Secret Test of Character for Lily, who passed with flying colors.
• Spoiled Sweet: Sophia Ricci. She may start out a bit pampered and sheltered. But after she meets Ernesto, she's set on being a better, self-made person, to the point that she renovates a boat house for him.
• Spotting the Thread: Whitney notices that Mr. Lawrence's behavior doesn't fit the belief system of the old Order of the Ascending Eye, which eventually leads to her exposing him as a fraud.
• Spy Versus Spy: Mr. Lawrence describes their former line of work as basically this—foreign spies trying to slip past the country's defenses, and the domestic agent doing their best to stop them. Small wonder that when an amateur spy (Whitney Wells) manages to outplay them, they think the amateur is a trained professional.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: In "Isla Bonita", Sophia reveals to her father Leonard Ricci that instead of putting her efforts into building a casino as of late, she's instead built a boat for Ernesto. Leonard initially expresses disappointment in his daughter for what initially seems to be a sign she's not self-made. But Sophia in turn admits it's no longer about earning his approval or his money. She did this for herself and for someone she loved. With that said, Leonard rescinds his Dissappointed In You remark and tells her he's so proud of how she's grown self-sufficient.
• Symbolism:
  • Lily keeping the engagement ring Blaine once gave her can be seen as a symbol that although she intends to sell it to keep everything afloat, she still has issues to work out with him. When she ousts him as having used her, she gives him back the ring, showing she's done with him and has found closure in cutting him off.
  • Towards the beginning of the story, Luke has a brand new car with the intention of using it to win back his ex-wife Rachel. This represents that (as Lily puts it) Luke is focusing on all the wrong things, like bribing Rachel instead of cleaning up his act so he can have custody of Karen. Later, Luke sells the car, as though reflecting he's let go of his tendency for focusing on the wrong things.
• That Man Is Dead: In the "Visitor Center arc", on Day 90, this is Evilyn Frost's response when Lily asks what Evilyn Summers would say if she could see her future self now. Evilyn says that her former self would be too naïve to understand her motives. It doesn't stick.
• Turn Out Like His Father: Despite being raised by his kindly father figure Frank LaRosa, Leonard is bitter about how he ended up becoming more like his biological father. It becomes harsher when it's revealed Leonard's father was not only a mafia boss, but also shot Giovanni LaRosa in cold blood, a sobering testament that Leonard couldn't overcome the Ricci's tendency to cause suffering to the LaRosas.
• The Unapologetic: When Lily learns Blaine only came back so he could convince her to sell the estate to Mr. Rich, she soon confronts him on his deception. She then tells him the one reason she hasn't entirely trusted him: because he never said he was sorry for cheating on her. She sums up that he's only "sorry" that the affair costed him his relationship with Lily.
• Undisclosed Funds: Twice in the initial arc. First, a letter from the state's Tax Board regarding unpaid back taxes is noted to have "a lot of zeroes" by Lily. Later, Lily finds she has access to a second bank account, which contains the money needed to cover not only the back taxes, but all the construction costs up to that point—and much more besides.
• Ungrateful Bastard: "Under the Influence" has Tina display this in spades. Throughout the story, she has Lily do all the decorating for her so she doesn't have to pay for any of it, on top of making Holly look like a fool on the internet. So when Tina is trapped under snow, instead of freezing to death and being rid of a toxic friend, Lily proves to be the bigger person and saves her. Not only that, Lily helps Tina rediscover how to be herself again outside the influencer persona. It seems like this kindness has taught her to turn over a new leaf. ...but not really, because she instead repays Lily by stealing her lifestyle to look good on YouCast and be re-invited to the Fluence Festival.
• Villainous Breakdown: Played with in "Under the Influence". Tina's not an outright villain so much as she is a False Friend and a Bad Influencer who made a laughing stock out of Holly. But when she's snowed inside a shed and fearing for her life, she frantically loses her cool and starts ranting at her fans for being unhelpful to rescue her. She even spills the beans about how her husband is divorcing her, and how stressed she is that his virtual "empire" is "eclipsing" her own. The aftermath allows her to realize she's been neglecting herself as a person. Though all of that falls down once she reveals she's only pretended to have learned her lesson so she could keep exploiting Lily and her peers' help to get back into the Fluence Festival.
• Wham Line: "There is absolutely nothing legal about the special condition of Mary's will."
• What the Hell, Hero?: Regina does not take it well when she learns that Lily has been letting Blaine stay on her property behind Regina's back. If anything, it certainly rubs Regina the wrong way that her best friend would allegedly welcome her cheating ex-boyfriend back into her life.
• Worthy Opponent: Mr. Lawrence, a former CIA agent, is so impressed with Whitney Wells's abilities—spotting him as a fake Order of the Ascending Eye member, then leading him into a trap—he initially thought she was a trained foreign spy.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Barely two days before the 30 day deadline, Lily learns the entire west part of the property isn't the LaRosa Estate like Phillip lead her to believe: it's the untouched east part of the property. This is reconstructed when not only does Lily get to keep the estate, but it opens a whole new chapter where Lily has to restore the other half to its former glory.