#but say luz was selfish for feeling guilty and being. you know. DEPRESSED

[saucetail-hasanewblog]

How come the people who kin Be////los have the worst takes in the fandom. Oh wait it's probably because he's a christian puritan from the 1600s literally trying to eliminate an entire group of people and they're comparing themselves to him

[juliettedunn]

Luz’s Softness in Thanks to Them

We all knew Luz was going to have an angst arc in Thanks to Them. Her angst had been building long before then, and King’s Tide was the final straw.

Angst is popular in characters like Amity and Hunter, who act cold and mean as a result of deep pain on the inside. If they cry, it’s in secret, hidden away from anyone who might see through their confident persona. The “bad but sad boy” / “I act like I don’t care but I secretly do” type, to quote Luz.

That’s not what Luz does. Luz cries multiple times in  front of others in Thanks to Them, and even has an emotional outburst in front of her teacher in classmates.

It’s the classroom scene that has a lot of people saying Luz is being “cringey,” and that they have to cover their eyes from “second-hand embarrassment.” I’ve seen post after post mocking that scene, saying Luz needs to “sit down and shut up” and that she has a “y/n complex.”

Whether a vulnerable person gets sympathy or ridicule from others is based on mysterious standards of what are acceptable and unacceptable ways to act when we are at our worst. And what is acceptable for some isn’t acceptable for others (white favoritism, especially in the fandom’s response to Hunter’s over-the-top emotional displays vs Luz). 

Luz’s outburst in the classroom was highly impulsive and not something many would do, but Luz doesn’t know how to ask for help, not when she feels too guilty to confide in her friends and family.

Luz is at best passively suicidal in TTT. It’s actually one of the first times she DOESN’T see herself as the main character, she sees herself as the selfish villain, the “evil Lucy” rather than the good witch Azura. Her self esteem is at an all time low, to where she doesn’t think she truly deserves love.

It’d be so easy to lock herself away, bottle those feelings inside and turn cold. Many thought this was the direction her character was headed in. And Luz does indeed isolate and keep her inner feelings secret.

But she remains soft and tender-hearted, constantly cheering on her friends and supporting Hunter through his hardships even when she herself is at her worst. She even lets her silliness peek through, calling a possum a “little angel.”

Despite her low self esteem, she very clearly WANTS someone to help her and intervene. She wouldn’t have had the classroom outburst if she didn’t think there was some worth in making her feelings clear, some hope that someone might respond to her and perhaps tell her something different. Which makes it even more heartbreaking when the class gives her a weirded out look and then ignores her.

If someone behaves this way in real life, it should be taken as a serious warning sign, not as a “Oh my god that’s so cringe” moment. 

You can see multiple times in the episode Luz fighting her depression, like when she goes to cuddle with Camila. When she asks Camila to let her stay in her bed, it struck me how amazing she really is for being able to do that.

Luz feels she doesn’t deserve to live, yet she still desperately wants to. She wants to hold on so much that she manages to seek comfort, despite her guilt telling her she shouldn’t be receiving it.

When I was her age and in her mental state, I didn’t have the ability to do something like that. Seeking help when you’re in that kind of state is one of the hardest things to do, and Luz does it multiple times.

For people to call her a cringey embarrassment for having an outburst is in very poor taste, and a bad sign for how we view signs of mental illness in real life.

Not everyone who angsts will be like Hunter and Amity, becoming aggressive and/or cold towards others. Not everyone can hide behind thick skin. Some become softer and more sensitive, cry more easily. The latter is in fact the healthier and often more difficult option. 

Some expected a cold, withdrawn cynic, hiding away her emotions. Instead we got a messy, tender-hearted girl desperately seeking help in impulsive outbursts.

The fandom is finally starting to focus on her angst and trauma, but let’s not forget the strength that lies in her unfaltering softness as well.

Luz is a loving, kind, strong, beautiful disaster, and she deserves better from this fandom.