Don't worry! It's just a dream! For now...
While primarily a slice-of-life comic focusing on interpersonal relationships, Lily isn't afraid to dip her toes into darker themes every now and again.- A lot of the behind-the-scenes lore deals with some pretty gruesome subject matter, including exotic meat trading, Wife Husbandry, eugenics, mass-murder and Pokemon being maimed in battle.
- Pokemon Abuse, the central issue the comic deals with, is set up as an extremely insidious mesh of grooming, power dynamics, and normalized behavior that results in an issue so rampant and ignored by the general public that the League has a hard time keeping it in check.
- Pokemon Abuse also mirrors several real-world examples of sexual exploitation, with Teacher/Student Romance and Parent–Child Incest being directly referenced to describe the power dynamics between a trainer and Pokemon.
- Pokemon Abuse is cited as the reason Gardevoir are going extinct, as the bonds they rely on for healthy neurological development are frequently weaponized to groom Ralts from a young age. The fact that the Pokemon has developed a memetic reputation for it in-universe implies that the public does not take this issue seriously at all.
- G's entire character arc involves the sheer abject terror she experiences when the reality that she's fallen in love with Lily finally sinks in. The amount of trust she has to put on Lily to not take advantage of the situation, regardless of whether G wants her to or not, has resulted in her being very insecure about how their friendship is interpreted and very concerned about the way Lily seems unbothered by what people say about them.
- It's been implied by Orchard on numerous occasions that while Lily was an enforcer, she arrested someone for trying to feed her Gardevoir meat.
- It was briefly hinted at that the League has been using someone Lily arrested as a vector to study mating bonds between Gardevoir and Humans. It is unknown what this research involves, but the Gardevoir involved was recently revealed to have suicidal depression, and the human in this couple was dubbed Subject One.
- All of this becomes more chilling when you remember that until very recently, Lily's wiki page listed one of her nicknames being Subject Three.
- The reason G was banned from competitive battling was that she went into Surrender to Madness and the resulting Berserk Mode ended with her cutting off a Blaziken's leg.
- Surrender to Madness itself. It's described as G surrendering to all of her baser instincts and letting her mating bond with Lily loose at it's full strength. This turns her into an extremely powerful fighter, but also makes her so possessive of Lily in this form that she is driven to violence if anyone comes within five feet of her. Surrender to Madness ultimately represents the very kind of person G has been trying so hard to avoid becoming, and is said to require a great deal of trust in Lily to even use as she is completely at Lily's mercy in this form.
- After Bonnie is accidentally created during the cloning experiment, the doctor with the ponytail orders for Bonnie to be terminated. When Lily points out that doing this would be tantamount to killing a newborn infant, Dr. Ponytail callously points out that she's about the same level of maturity as a toddler, and that because Bonnie is "company property", they have every right to kill her. Luckily G gives Lily a way to save Bonnie, but think about it. If it weren't for Lily's immediate love for Bonnie and G's quick thinking, Dr. Ponytail would have killed a child.
- Universe 2-82 is an Alternate Universe in which G and Lily are not only in a romantic relationship, but married. Ignoring all the horrifying implications, this relationship has not only lead to them both becoming unstable Stepford Smilers it also effectively brought out the worst in each of them. G of the 2-82 universe is a manipulative sleazebag, who actively encourages mainverse's G to gaslight mainverse's Lily into a relationship in the Honesty Arc, implying that she did the very same thing to her Lily, while Lily of the 2-82 universe is an arrogant Jerkass who seemingly forsook all her morals concerning pokemon abuse, downright brags about her and 2-82's G's relationship and ridicules mainverse's Lily's much healthier relationship with Mikaila, while Mikaila is sitting right next to them and listening. It's basically all the reasons why Lilyvoir should never happen rolled into one extremely cursed AU.
- On that note, Universe 1-3 is an alternate universe in which G was murdered. After that, Lily of the 1-3 universe fell into a deep depression and never recovered, and has zero contact with her friends. Meanwhile, G of the 1-3 universe is still present, but as a spirit that is unable to be seen or heard by Lily.
- The Violate arc can be seen as a metaphor for rape whether the author's intent was there or not (also doesn't help that despite them being joke posts there are side stories with similar themes).
- In regards to the mating bond, there is a scene where Mikaila berates Lily for almost severing the bond (thus ending G's life) comparing her to a previous abusive partner.
- G is canonically an adult when it occurs as 15 is the end lifespan in this universe for the Gardevoir line, Lily is 15 as well.
- G attempts to murder an infant Ralts named Cala for bonding with Lily
- G uses Surrender to Madness on a couple of kids bullying a kid, they're never seen again.
