#if we're pals any ship -- romantic platonic or otherwise -- is possible

[quietlyblooms]

chiyo likes people who bully her; she likes people who're kind to her; shall we just say her type is... people??

[ronantwins]

There seems to be two main reasons why people believe that Lilly had a thing for Lee and I'd like to disect them for the sake of character analysis.

1. Voice Acting

Nikki Rapp brings so much to the character of Lilly. One might think that staying neutral and siding with Lilly leads to the same outcome, but this isn't entirely true. If you listen closely their are the same pieces of dialoge, but different takes.

When Lee actively sides with Lilly, her voice has a certain warmth in it. Some people interpret that as romantic, however it's the same warmth that she shows to her father, Larry and baby Clementine. So it definitely can be still read as completely platonic.

2. Kenny's Remarks In Episode 3

When Lee tries to save Larry in Starved For Help (or simply does nothing), Kenny will start saying some weird passive aggressive shit.

To keep this short we're only going to look at the most obvious ones: "That fucking figures. It's only a matter of time until you and Lilly build a white-picket fence around that shithole!"

And a "white-picket fence" refers to a marital home. Implying that Lilly and Lee are going to hook up and form a nuclear family with Clem as their adopted daughter.

He also mockingly refers to Lee as Lilly's pal "But your pal here shot her!" Again the implication here is "If that's waht he really is to you".

Kenny does in-fact believe that there is something romantic going on between Lee and Lilly. The issue here however lies with the fact that Kenny isn’t observing the objective truth. All this is cope.

Notice how Kenny only starts saying this shit after Lee refuses to kill Larry with him? In this gameplay-route Lee has chosen Lilly over him and Kenny doesn't know how to deal with that.

So far Kenny "I could give two shits what Lilly wants" Fischer has done little to try and empathise with the lady that is competing with him over leadership. The fact that she does most of the orgenazing (rationing food, forming a schedule for the group, deviding labour) slides off his brain. So he comes to the conclusion that the only reason Lee could possibly back up Lilly as a leader is because he wants something from her.

3. The Lesbification of Lilly Caul

This is where I'm going off the rails.

In S1 Lilly spends alot of time trying and failing to cater to the outdated ideals of her father: "Yeah, he's bitter and hateful but he's only trying to protect [...] me." Constantly playing devils advocate for the most unpleasent guy left on earth leaves her in bad graces with the rest of the group (who she could be in community with otherwise) and by the time he dies, she has no one left to turn to.

Intresting to note here is that Larry is canonically an abusive father and also homophobic. See "You and what Homo-parade?!"

In S4 we see Lilly refusing to move on from the hateful ideals of her father. Which is shown in the fact that Lilly spends alot of time playing Mary Brown to Minerva's Megan Bloomfield. This might be a reach but the raiders are a group of oppresive adults looking to mold teenagers into perfect soldiers, a process Lilly herself went through in her youth. They're all about overriding their autonomy, change them and fix what they see as flaws in them.

I'm not saying that Lilly's story is a metaphor for someone dealing with intense self-hatred and internalized homophobia — but I'll dare to say it's applicable.

Hopefully any of this made sense. Remember that this is only my take and that people can ship whatever they want. Thank you for reading.

"lilly had feelings for lee, it's clear 🥺🥺🥺" that girl doesn't like men how do i have to tell you THAT'S A LESBIAN