Two lesbians and their banshee friend.
Lily's Poke-Madhouse (often shortened to just Madhouse) is a slice of life webcomic created by Lily Orchard and Mikaila Turkleson in February 2019 about their comic personas living together with Lily's best friend (her Gardevoir) and taking care of their Pokemon together.While often dealing with domestic issues, the comic also dabbles in deconstructing the Pokemon fandom and stories about abusive power-dynamics.
This comic provides examples of the following tropes:
- Aborted Arc: The "Vacation" arc was cut short due to the strain it would put on Mikaila, and instead we are shown a clip show of the vacation highlights.
- Affectionate Nickname: While Lily doesn't give official nicknames to her Pokemon (with the exception of Cala), she does sometimes refer to Gardevoir as "G."
- All Just a Dream: Two different comics involve Lily and G kissing, only to turn out that one of them was dreaming.
- Art Evolution: Subtle due to the art being utilitarian, but Mikaila's style and art has steadily improved over the course of the comic. Compare this panel
◊ from the first comic of the series to the August 2020 comic◊. - Author Appeal:
- Orchard is well known for her preference toward Slice of Life storytelling, so the fact that the comic deliberately avoids anything that might get in the way of that idea was a given.
- The Found Family that the residents of the compound become, as it is one of Orchard's favorite tropes.
- Of course: Gardevoir. G is one of the most nuanced and developed characters in the comic, with a lot of care put toward her story arcs. And the gentle way Lily treats her is considered one of the comic's biggest selling points.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Lily invokes this to piss off her mother when she calls asking about Bonnie.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: G seems to operate on this, performing an invasive and highly illegal ritual on Lily while she is sleeping and only being worried about her being angry about it, and then seeing nothing wrong with trying to attack a baby Ralts for the crime of unconsciously bonding to Lily. Generally, G seems only concerned with what will make her and her immediate family happy.
- Breather Episode: Blizzard, which is several pages of Lily keeping Gardevoir warm after the heat goes out while explaining how their bond works to Mikaila. It’s a fan-favorite due to how much it emphasizes the close personal relationship between Lily and G.
- Deconstruction Fic: The comic's main story arcs deconstruct the reputation of certain Pokemon as targets of abuse.
- Denser and Wackier: Any comic with Bonnie in it is likely to utilize her strange tendencies and borderline Reality Warper abilities.
- Designer Babies: G and Diantha's Gardevoir are said to be the products of selective breeding that is extremely similar to the games system of IV Breeding. Both are considered to be perfect specimens of their species, having extremely powerful psychic abilities, physical strength and endurance, almost no ailments whatsoever, and extremely high intelligence. However, both of them suffer from extremely debilitating psychological conditions that make their peak physical conditions extremely dangerous and prone to getting people hurt. Where they differ is that they are on opposite ends of the mental health spectrum where G has been steadily improving and learning to control her instincts, while Diantha's Gardevoir is actively murdering and blackmailing people to keep her illicit relationship with Diantha a secret.
- Disproportionate Retribution: A version Played for Laughs towards the end of the Ralts arc. Some bullies push Cala and Sam in the sandbox? Sic an eldritch abomination on them. Lily phrases it best.Lily: G. Traumatize them.
- Double Meaning: “Let’s get something straight, missy!” “Don’t have a good track record with that, but I’ll try.”
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The comic as a whole didn't really come into its own until Orchard started exploring short story arcs. Before then, the comics were considered to be extremely shallow and seemingly a vector for Orchard and Turkleson to make cute drawings.
- Family of Choice: Lily and Gardevoir. Lily has even described Gardevoir as the only family she has left.
- Freudian Slip: When asked if she ever thought of Lily as a mother figure, Gardevoir said that would be weird and made a joke about paging Dr. Freud thinking that it meant seeing someone who isn’t your mother as a mother figure. Lily had to correct her and inform her that Gardevoir had just implied the two of them were sleeping together. Cue Gardevoir being very angry with herself.
- Friendship Trinket: Lily wears a Gardevoirite around her neck instead of a keystone. This was done at Gardevoir’s insistence.
- Fur Is Clothing: While doing laundry Lily finds G's "dress", which on a normal Gardevoir is part of their body and doesn't come off. This freaks her the hell out.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Bonnie, a child created from a cloning experiment meant to replenish the Gardevoir population. G knew Lily wanted a child, which she would never get being a lesbian, so G deliberately mixed DNA samples from herself and Lily to create a half-human, half-Ralts love child between the two. It becomes problematic as her existence makes the news and the tabloids went right for the Waifu angle.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: "Well, there's still kinda the one Donphan in the room."
- Homoerotic Subtext: Lily and G’s relationship crosses into this on many occasions. The two are often a little too affectionate and too close, to the point that numerous characters, including Lily’s other Pokemon and her girlfriend, crack jokes about there being something going on between them.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship:
- The relationship between Lily and Gardevoir as this, surmising that the two do in fact have romantic feelings for each other but are smart enough not to do anything stupid (or illegal).
- After Violate it seems to be clear that G did in fact do something stupid AND illegal, and ended up ruining their friendship for several months.
- Shame revealed that, for G at least, there are romantic feelings involved.
- Lampshade Hanging: Gardevoir’s reputation as the “Waifu Pokemon” is routinely alluded to, with the implication that it’s causing Gardevoir to go extinct and Lily’s Gardevoir viewing the W-Word as a slur.
- Lighter and Softer: The comic is mostly fluff and comedy, with occasional lapses into what Orchard dubs “Wholesome Drama.”
- Mundane Utility: Lily has G unleash Surrender to Madness to scare off some kids bullying Sam and Cala. Keep in mind that Surrender to Madness is a Super Mode so dangerous that using it was criminalized for Lily's safety.
- No Sense of Personal Space: After the Mega Evolution arc, we see Gardevoir snuggling up to Lily a lot more. Unsurprising as Lily’s known to be a cuddler with most of her very close friends.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever it was that caused Marah to need to go into hiding.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: After Violate, Gardevoir and Lily’s previously close friendship became much more tenuous as a result of Gardevoir’s total violation of Lily’s mind. Despite being on good terms, there is a lot more vitriol tossed between them on a regular basis.
- Open Secret: The relationship between Diantha and her Gardevoir, mostly because Syir (the Gardevoir in question) is more than willing to kill anyone who threatens her relationship's safety, and the public by and large don't take pokemon abuse seriously.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Lily and G's relationship has an unprecedented amount of physical and emotional intimacy. They cuddle together, are frequently saying "I love you" to each other, and have almost near-constant physical contact. Even G has described their relationship by saying the only thing keeping it from being romantic is the mutual agreement to call it as such.
- Relationship Upgrade: Lily and Mikaila move in together after Confessions
- Running Gag: Mismagius calling Gardevoir the W-word or otherwise taunting her when she shows literally any concern for Lily whatsoever, prompting Gardevoir to flip into bursts of rage.
- Second Love: Marah to G, after Lily rejected her.
- Ship Tease: Played with, in that many of the other characters think Gardevoir is holding a torch for Lily (and a large amount of the comic’s humour is built around that), but the comic itself makes it clear that Lily views her as family.
- Signature Move: "Unique Moves" one-up species-specific moves by being usable only by single specific Pokemon. G has one of her own, Surrender to Madness.
- The Simple Gesture Wins: Mikaila was trying to get on G's good side for a while, but it was when she actually stood up for G against Lily that she won G over, and that she got to move in.
- Stating the Simple Solution: When G worries that Marah won't love her because of her mating bond with Lily, Lily points out that humans don't have the same soulbond that the Gardevoir species normally has- that G has to take this relationship like a normal person.
- Sweet Dreams Fuel: Most of the more serious comics (sans Violate) eventually turn into this, usually reinforcing either Lily and Gardevoir’s friendship, or Gardevoir and Butterfree’s budding romance.
- Symbiotic Possession: Lily and Gardevoir’s bond, which effectively links their minds to share thoughts, feelings, and things that can’t be communicated through words. It also lets them unconsciously provoke actions from the other.
- Wham Episode
- The Mega Evolution Arc. After fretting about Mega Evolution for a long time and dealing with the constant harassment from Mismagius, Gardevoir finally had a breakdown and admitted that she was afraid that Lily might be in love with her. Lily reassured her this wasn’t the case and apologized for allowing them to grow further apart over the last few years and doing nothing about Mismagius. Gardevoir cried in Lily’s arms before finally falling asleep from exhaustion in her lap.
- Violate. Gardevoir was revealed to have formed a mating bond with someone but was tight-lipped about who it was. Then she finally confessed to Lily that she’d formed a mating bond with her when she was 14 while she was sleeping because she wanted to extend her lifespan. Cue Lily becoming absolutely furious and demanding Gardevoir stay away from her. After a while, once Lily had calmed down, she made up with Gardevoir but not without asserting that what she’d done was a massive betrayal of trust and an extreme violation of her very person-hood and it will be a long time before she can fully trust her again. Lily allows the mating bond to remain if only so Gardevoir won’t die, but their friendship is severely damaged after that.
- Shame. G asks Lily what she would do if it turned out G was actually in love with her. Knowing that this wouldn’t be asked if there wasn’t something more to it, Lily forces her to tell her what’s really going on. G confesses that she is in fact in love with her and Lily comforts her saying that nothing will change between them, and she certainly doesn’t have to be afraid of Lily taking advantage of her. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming when Lily hugs her tightly and G, after initially hesitating, melts into it.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Lily is dressed down immediately when she threatens to kill G if she goes into her room in the aftermath of Violate. Mikaila takes her to task for not only that, which severely hurt G, but also her grandstanding behavior being extremely manipulative. Empty threat or no, it was a skeezy thing for Lily to do to someone who was already wracked with guilt.
