#luz criticism

[fandom-discussions-with-avery]

Lumity: wasted potential of the show

Lumity isn't as bad as Huntlow. They were planned since the beginning, they had time for development, even if it was a bit rushed. But they still have writing problems that we should address:

1. Amity's character almost dissapeared. During first season she was the most interesting character out of all, despite the fact that her arc was rushed and involved retcone. But after her redemption, she turned into sweet awkward nerdy girl. It's not realistic in any way to become completely different person in a couple of months, and it also made her boring. She's the second of three ex-villians who got the same new characterisation, which is bad by itself, but she also lost her special chemistry with Luz which we saw in Grom episode. This episode was Lumity's peak you can't deny it

2. Amity is just Luz's gf and nothing more. She has nothing to wish except being with Luz and seeing her being happy. No ambitions, no goals, no new friends. Just Luz. She thinks only about her, she talks only about her, she does everything only when it's about Luz. Only exception is Reaching Out, but it was also turned into Luz's thing. As much as I hate Huntlow, Hunter at least had something except love for Willow. It's bad not only because it makes Lumity a copy of awful mlw couple trope, it also doesn't show hurmful tendency (dependence on a partner and being obsessed with them) as something bad.

3. Lumity made Luz look bad. You know, dating your first friend's ex bestie and ex main bully is kinda messed up. It wouldn't be that problematic if Willow and Amity had already become friends again, but it's not what we've got.

4. Mistrust between Luz and Amity. I agree that the reason is that Luz is a bully victim and Amity reacted hurshly several times when Luz did something wrong. But it doesn't change the fact that it shows another hurmful idea that good partner has to forgive every bad thing and in the wrong for being offended. This moment of Amity would be cute if it appeared ones and clearly showed that she has changed and now she's much more patient with Luz. But in canon, Amity just allows Luz to treat herself like shit bu lying to her (and not only her) over and over again. And Luz lying three times (even if lie about Belos is justified) about things that are important for their shared future and for Amity's safety don't paint her in a good light. There's a line between not being too hursh to partner when they did something wrong and being a doormat for a partner because you were wrong in the past.

5. Imbalance in the effort invested in the relationship. As it is clear from my points that I made earlier, Luz is everything to Amity, while Amity for Luz is just a girlfriend. Amity's doing everything for Luz (which is not good), while Luz isn't even prioritize saving Amity over just being with Eda. In season three they barely interact at all. And now it isn't about Luz being the wrong one: it wasn't the right time for cute couple stuff. Actually, if you think about it, Luz's attitude towards Amity is much healthier. It's just too miserable to see Amity being Luz's loyal puppy who buried all her goals and ambitions, while Luz treating Amity like she treats other friends.

In conclusion, I don't say that they had to be like catr*dora or stol*z, no way. Healthy relationship should be portrayed in media, especially for kids. But there's the difference between being called healthy and being actually healthy. Lumity isn't abusive, isn't even toxic, it's just not a relationship goal. In the ideal world, their flaws should've been addressed and resolved in the show, so they can actually become healthy couple.

[mebssann]

Amity pestered Principal Bump enough times that he finally allowed Hexside to have a student council

[guardianjameslight]

gO wOkE gO bRoKe, then explain success of these.

And there's more.

[flower-boi16]

Can we talk about the fact that TOH, a kid's show that aired on the Disney channel, has an unironically a better gay/sapphic relationship with Lumity than either of these "adult shows"?

Lumity is an incredibly well-developed ship; Its gradually built up throughout season 1 and season 2A and they don't drag the shit out of it, they are just incredibly cute together. The ship isn't abusive and toxic...

...unlike Stolitz, which is a very toxic ship where the victim is portrayed as the abuser and the abuser is framed as just an UwU soft boy. Another thing about Lumity that makes it a good relationship is the fact that Amity is her own character; she isn't solely defined by Luz, her relationship with Luz is an important part of her character, sure, but she still has a lot of development in the series that makes her a well-developed, three-dimensional character.

Compare that to Chaggie, which while not nearly as bad as Stolitz, still has issues, that being how Vaggie's character entirely revolves around Charlie, she doesn't have any real development outside of that. There is the stuff about her being a fallen angel but we'll have to see what the show does with it to make a full judgment, but the reveal that she is a fallen angel feels too rushed to give her depth.

Vaggie doesn't feel like her own character, she feels like she's completely defined by her relationship with Charlie, and she doesn't have that much of a character outside of that. Amity meanwhile, is her own character beyond her relationship with Luz, even in Season 2 where people say that supposedly Amity became just "Luz's girlfriend", she still had that whole conflict with her parents.

Lumity is infinitely superior to both of these ships guys.

Then again TOH blows HH/HB out of the water in every single aspect so...

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

it always pisses me off when fantasy stories have a cast of conventionally attractive humanoid characters with like,, different colored hair or something. like what do you mean your story is set in this amazing fantastical world with monsters and centaurs and aliens and sentient blobs, but your main cast is just a bunch of average joes?

[citricacidprince]

Can I give another massive sorry to the Owl House crew and Dana here?

Looking at the first 6 minutes of season three and I can tell they wanted to make a whole episode of Hunter discovering that book and cutting his hair. They wanted to have an episode of Luz finding out a way to come out to her mom about being bi and dating Amity. They wanted to have an episode of Vee finally figuring out how they want to look like since the can't look like Luz anymore. They wanted to have an episode of the witch kids making up human disguises and seeing what the human world has to offer. They wanted to have an episode that shows the kids working on the door and failing time and time again to get it to work. They wanted to have an episode where all the kids, yes even Luz, struggling to adapt being in the human world. They wanted to have an episode of the witch kids discovering human things for the first time, like rain, and falling in love with Luz's world.

They wanted to, but they couldn't.

Disney said the show didn't "fit their brand" and now all these moments we would've had episodes for are forced to be in a 2-3 minute long montage. And while I'm happy we get to see these moments at all, a part of me is very bitter knowing what Disney did to Dana and her crew.

I hope they know that I appreciate all that they could do with what limited time they had.

I hope they know I want to kill Disney with my bare hands knowing how they cut this amazing shows lifetime short.

Edit: In honor of some of the comments I've been getting I made this

[nixthelapin]

Anyone else think Marinette’s new outfit is just really bad?

I can’t claim to have that great of an eye for fashion, but this just looks like a tacky performer costume to me- the tights, the jacket looking like a fake tux, right down to the tiny bow tie that’s just sitting on her shirt- rather than an outfit an actual person would wear, especially someone who’s biggest dream is to be a fashion designer. And I don’t really think the pink of her shorts go well with the brown-gray leggings, the colors just feel off to me.

I want to like it, I think it has aspects I enjoy, but overall it just doesn’t do it for me and I kinda hate it.

Idk am I going crazy here? I haven’t seen a ton of discussion about her new design, so it’s hard to say what the general opinion is, but even if the stuff I have seen, it’s usually excitement for it, nothing really negative (design-wise, not about the narrative or overall direction of the show lol). But I’d really like to hear what others think about it.

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

I just remembered the "Please. I don't want to see another human life destroyed by this place” line, and honestly did they have scenes of Luz starting to wonder if Belos' had a point and going into the island did destroy her life? If not, they should have had.

No, they did not have Luz ever wonder how the isles affected Belos--except in the storyboards:

Luz still calls him out for trying to destroy the isles and being a hypocrite but there's still that moment of empathy in which she asks point blank: "What do you think they DID to you?!" She briefly contemplates just why someone would go so far to destroy an entire population and what his mindset might be. Unfortunately, this was not included in the final version and Belos' expression is blank instead of pleading.

Then there's this storyboard from For the Future in which Luz, Eda, and King explain to the Collector how people like Amity and Lilith became their friends:

Luz's line about "people being complicated" is in the episode but the entire exchange between her and the Collector is not even though it opens up a lot of interesting ideas and themes. Without it though, the show becomes straight up hypocritical when it states that people are complicated but reduces its villains to generic archetypes and its hero characters as being simply misguided or victims of the villains.

And no, this doesn't mean that the show should have excused Belos' actions or even forgiven him; but they could have and should have acknowledged the complexity of his character by keeping this nuance in and how the characters react to it. By doing so, the message of "people are complicated" becomes clear and strengthens the other characters as well. Luz gets to self-reflect on how she sees other people and learn that even the worst people among us are incredibly complex and have driving forces that are uncomfortably close to our own, thus making it much harder to demonize them. The Collector--instead of being a Giant Star Baby--keeps both his childlike bluntness and keen observational skills that he had in season 2, thus fleshing out the character instead of devolving him.

Regrettably, that nuance is absent from the show and we have a rather black-and-white narrative about Good vs. Evil; people are only ever really "bad" if someone tricked them or if there was a misunderstanding and all the Real Bad People are just selfish jerks who are power hungry and controlling.

This is not compelling storytelling; this is a tale as old as time. And the worst part is that there was a great story in The Owl House but it was left in the rough drafts.

Storyboards by Yasmin Khudari and King Pecora

[toh-rarepairs]

White people will hear the word “family” and take it at face value and it’s honestly embarrassing

So here’s some information, coming from a Latino— Latino and hispanic culture uses the term family a lot more liberally and loosely. A Latina character telling her close friend that he’s family to her DOES NOT MEAN that she sees him as her literal brother. It literally just means he’s part of her inner circle of friends.

It’s okay to headcanon that Luz and hunter have a sibling relationship, but it’s not okay to harass lunter shippers just because they don’t share your headcanon. Once again, Hunter and Luz being siblings IS A HEADCANON, and there’s nothing wrong with that! Headcanons are not automatically inferior to canon-compliant aspects of the show! Learn to have fun!

[tentacledsnakelover]

The Double Standard about the Titan

One thing I have noticed about the show and the fandom is that there seems to be a bit of a disconnect (for lack of a better term) between how the Titan is viewed as a holy figure.

The Boiling Isles is built atop the Titan's corpse, but the only one who put the Titan up as some sort of higher power was Belos. We don't see anybody else really worship the Titan during Belos' reign, and we saw in the Savage Ages that no one really worshipped the Titan either.

When we meet the Titan's spirit in the finale, it is clear he is a flawed being, not some perfect, all knowing diety. But when Luz is brought back with Titan powers, people in the fandom act like she is a (demi) goddess, and that Amity will be swooning over her 'goddess' and that Luz is the show's equivalent of Christ. King is the Titan's son, but his arc was about realizing he doesn't need to be treated as special to be happy. Luz had Titan powers, but she was still just Luz.

[toaverse]

Couples I wish were written better.

[aro-mace]

I love that Camila is legitimately such a good mother. It would've been so easy to write her off as some neglectful and abusive mother who is ableist and wants to erase all of Luz's neurodivergent traits and quirks by sending her to an evil camp (takes I've actually read). But no. Camilla loves her daughter so, so much.

She accepts Luz's quirks, understands what she's going through, supports her and is clearly fond of Luz's overactive imagination and interests, like her saving the foil cranes Luz made her even after Luz (or at least Vee disguised as Luz) threw them away.

Another sweet thing is how fast she accepts Vee. Even after Vee impersonated her daughter for months, Camilla still sympathised with her and welcomed her with open arms, even trusting her with everything after she has to leave for the Demon Realm.

Even when the world is trying to inhibit Luz's neurodivergence, Camila still defends her daughter. She is completely ready to fight people who make fun of her daughter and clearly tries to support her through everything.

Literally the only reason that Camila was even going to send Luz to camp was because she legitimately thought it would help her daughter make friends and fit in. She obviously got bullied and felt isolated as a kid and doesn't want her daughter to go through what she did.

She IMMEDIATELY bought books on parenting LGBTQ to understand her daughter better and most likely read books on Luz's ADHD as well after she got diagnosed.

She is fully ready to go to the DEMON REALM, which she's probably been told all the horrifying details about and just seen their creepy, cryptid looking emperor go to, just to protect her children and keep them safe.

In conclusion, Camilla is best mom.

[mdhwrites]

Recently, I've been poring over the 'TOH critical' tags and, as someone who wanted to properly watch the show, seeing just how many flaws the writing and characters have kinda turned me off from even starting for a bit. Before I found these tags, I would have assumed Owl House was some kind of flawless untouchable masterpiece. Now, I can see that it is immensely flawed. Not bad, but flawed. It has great ideas that it just spaffs up the walls. In some cases that I've seen, it goes against its own message, which brings me to the point of this.

The show seems to have a message of 'be a weirdo! Be who you want to be and don't let anyone tell you to be something you're not'. This 'be yourself' message is fine in a vacuum, but then there's a character who's treatment in the show goes against this. Hooty! From the moment he's introduced, Hooty is presented as a weird creature. Even other people in the Demon Realm find him unnatural. He's kinda in his own world, and he says and does things that are weird. This would work well for the message, but the problem arises from other characters' treatment of him.

Everyone fucking HATES Hooty! They loathe him! They call him names, they hit him, they put him down constantly, the works! Everyone holds him in open contempt! I wouldn't really have an issue with this at first, but Luz also takes part in some of these actions. It would be one thing for negative/antagonistic characters to be doing this, but the self-proclaimed 'weirdo' main characters? She seems annoyed by Hooty's very existence. Don't get me wrong, he IS annoying, but he's also just being himself. He's a proud weirdo and doesn't let anyone stop him from being who he wants.

Why doesn't Luz love him?

He is exactly the type of person(?) who she should feel connected with. And the fact she joins in on some of the bullying is real shitty. Keep in mind Luz was ridiculed and ostracised for being weird, so her then turning around and being all dismissive and annoyed by someone who is, for all intents and purposes, just like her is shitty.

Personally, I would have had it that Luz really likes Hooty. She admires how he's so unapologetic in his weirdness. You could even still have Eda hitting him and calling him names, which Luz calls out. She knows what it's like to be put down for just being yourself, and she's not gonna stand to see someone else get the same treatment.

Or, another idea, Luz starts out sharing Eda's view on Hooty and being annoyed by him. One time, he does something or shows Luz something he's proud of. She calls him or it or both stupid, and Hooty just....cries. I don't mean overblown waterfalls-out-the-eyes crying, I mean he turns his head down and looks visibly upset.

Luz sees that her words have genuinely hurt Hooty. This could be her realising that Hooty isn't just some weird talking punching bag to hurl abuse at. For his weird actions and appearance, he's a person too. Her being mean to him just for being himself, she realises, makes her no better than her bullies.

Then, to make this even more shitty, the characters DO start being nicer to him later on, but only after he's proven himself useful. So that's a good message, isn't it? 'Love is conditional!' It really makes the 'found family' aspect of the Owl House residents feel all the more forced.

Tl;Dr It's okay to be a weirdo, unless you're Hooty!

(But that's just me! I hope all of this made sense and you can decipher what I'm trying to say😊)

So the short answer to this is that Hooty is essentially character/thematic assassination on... Everyone? Because the show wants to say "Be who you are! Have freedom! Express yourself!" Hooty however is constantly mocked, belittled and literally hurt by others with at best an apology. People treat his portable form as gross despite that letting him experience more of life and the one time people begrudgingly acknowledge he is truly good, they then force him to promise to not repeat the helpful behavior. He is not allowed freedom, expression or to be himself without ridicule, EVEN BY LUZ.

This... However has a bigger problem. Hooty is a bit character after all. If you want to claim he doesn't matter because he's just a joke... There's okay precedent for it. The problem is that then you have to ask what he's mocking. After all, gag characters are all about mocking a certain archtype or the like. King's whole point is to mock children who think themselves as self important and point out how deluded and funny that is, or how funny a deluded sense of self grandeur in general is, at least in the first season. As such... What is Hooty?

Hooty is Sheldon. Not literally but spiritually and this is gonna get kind of rough but here me out. For those who don't get the reference, Sheldon is the main autistic representation in The Big Bang Theory. He is also the most antagonistic force within the friend group. Not because he's evil or anything but because he his own certain ways of doing things and ways he looks at things and as such actually has a lot of episodes about expanding his perception of the world and of others learning to understand who he is and why he is the way he is. The show is actually shockingly respectful in this way, at least most of what I have seen of it, and I can portray this with the best joke I can recall from the series. It also will help me later in why The Big Bang Theory is better than TOH at one certain element people REALLY want to say TOH is great about.

The setup is that the other three main dudes are at a white board, discussing plans to go so see a movie. Every plan they devise runs into a road block because of allergies, time, etc. like that, not even only just because of Sheldon's quirks. However, then the lead, the Ross of the group, stops and goes, "I see it." The others squint and look closer before he adds, "It's the only way." The other two agree... And then they all just leave without Sheldon coming with. Sheldon pauses, looks at the board and goes, "They're correct. It was the only way."

I LOVE this joke... Because it's not mean AT ALL. One might think if they're overly sensitive that it is. I mean, how could they leave their friend behind!? But Sheldon is very honest and up front about his quirks and habits. These guys know him well enough that they know better than to force him out of his comfort zone. That he doesn't function that way. Sheldon KNOWS THIS TOO. As such, when presented with the options of telling Sheldon they can't go because they can't go without him or still having a good night and not making their friend feel bad for being why they couldn't go out, they choose to go out and Sheldon agrees that it was the correct option. They respected him while still living their lives.

And this is because The Big Bang Theory's pitch is not to be offensive to nerds like many online people like to make it out to be (I fucking hate people who call it 'Nerd Black Face') but to just make fun of us like any sitcom would. Sitcoms are parodies of real life. They always exaggerated characters we know are somewhat true. We know a Kramer, we know a Ross, we know a Barney, we know a Lorraine. Are they exactly like this? No, it's cranked up so that it's a comedy, that's the fucking point. But this comedic framing also allows it to be honest about ALL sides of nerd dom.

Sheldon is BY FAR made out to be the most successful, intelligent and wealthiest of ALL the guys. Also, all the guys are doing well in their fields and monetarily. Do they have widespread fame and acclaim? Not really but they're not discredited or anything, they just have interdepartmental bickering. That's accurate from literally every scientist I have seen talk about the subject. It's genuine about the good and the bad of the nerd experience while being entertaining.

So what the fuck does any of this have to do with The Owl House? And especially Hooty? It's actually quite simple. While TOH champions having a nerd protagonist, it presents the 'gentrified nerd'. The convenient nerd. They know about fanfiction but won't force you to actually hear about it. They have interests but not hyperfixations. They don't ever get lost down a rabbit hole because they're passionate about something or just want to tell you a neat fact.

Do you know who does though? Hooty. Hooty just wants someone who is willing to listen about his day. He has some weird quirks to how he behaves and he likes some strange things like bugs. He will talk to you for hours on a subject, randomly and just because he can and might forget that you might have other things to do. To me, those are very, VERY accurate parts of nerd life... And we're supposed to fucking HATE Hooty for these things. Remember the only person, in the ENTIRE SERIES to actually befriend Hooty instead of treating him at best as a convenience is Liltih... At the start of her becoming a joke. The only person who shows him real, genuine compassion... Also becomes 'The Cool Aunt' who hyper fixates on niche architecture and has her trauma of working the EC mocked as just being really bad at her job.

It is, genuinely, kind of gross to me. I've actually talked about this before that the show is so hyperfocused on a very specific, very small set of people for who it approves of, which is essentially whoever fits into Luz correctly, that anyone who felt excluded by the show is extremely valid. And yes, Luz has a montage at the start of silly, over the top and extreme behavior... That doesn't continue. At all. The one time she subjects someone to an Azura rant is to torture Eda enough to go to the Convention and that's only because they were already on the subject because King was interested. She quotes Azura but quickly and doesn't lose the thread. She might say a cute word like 'Snorses' but not even enough to make a break in the conversation.

She is convenient. Gus is only interested in human stuff when it's convenient. Willow will put aside her interest in plants when it's inconvenient. Amity just stops giving a shit about being an intellectual AT ALL post her getting a crush. Hunter wears a wolf t-shirt and gets into Cosmic Frontier enough to cosplay it for Halloween... But only Halloween. These are people who are extremely socially acceptable in every way.

Which... explains why nerds love them actually. See, I think Big Bang Theory does deserve criticism, it is by no means perfect and I would be VERY interested in hearing what the Jewish community thinks of Howard who is easily the most problematic character in the show but not all of the criticism is genuine. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that we're used to a side, gag character representing the kind worst parts of us... But we're not used to being the focus. We can laugh at all the broke bitches who show up in Sitcoms or the jock failures who are meatheads, etc. like that... But laugh at ourselves? Why would we do that? Why would we allow that? We're better than what this show depicts, even if we're not.

It is inconvenient to the narrative we wish to tell ourselves that we are still the outcasts. That are we not part of the dominant culture and so it is unfair to mock our interests and lifestyle. But like... Marvel movies have been the biggest blockbusters for well over a decade and no one bats a fucking at that. D&D is quickly becoming a household name due to its ever expanding influence. We are not the outcasts anymore. Being into a weird cartoon is not some shocking thing like it was 12 years ago when Bronies first made people aware that this subculture of nerds existed. Times are changing but we still wish to see ourselves as only the victims, even as more and more our spaces show that they are just as evil, corrupt, manipulative and cruel as any athletic superstar or pretty boy actor's club.

A lot of these nerds want to believe they are Luz. Never wrong, never giving anyone a reason to dislike them, and always just passionate about the things they like, never annoying. And you know who those people would mock? Who those people HAVE mocked?

Hooty. Because he's more real. He's the demon they wish they didn't have to face in the mirror. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I really do want to re-emphasize this: FUCK HOWARD. Big Bang is NOT good for the jewish community and I don't think if I watched it nowadays I would be able to tolerate his depiction AT ALL. Also, Raj is also probably all sorts of rough too. I'm ONLY defending the nerd portrayal part of Big Bang.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[flower-boi16]

If TOH Was Written By Vivziepop

For starters, Luz would barely been much of a main focus, despite being the main character since, ya know, she's female

Camila would be an abusive bitch of a mom

Amity would have no personality beyond being "Luz's girlfriend".

Generally, all female characters like Eda, Willow, and Amity would receive little development and focus and only get very one-note character traits

Belos would be woobified and portrayed as a UwU soft boy that we are supposed to sympathize for

Hunter would be demonized and victim blamed for standing up to his poor uncle

Lilith would be a one-dimensional bitch with no depth or personality and remain a villian

The show would have a bunch of rando plotlines crammed in making it unfocused

All the villains would have their depth and nuance removed except for Belos who would again, be woobified

[a-poster-of-a-teenage-crush]

Why Luz's Palisman is SO ASS

omg i just saw a post that featured her palisman and OMG I HAT THAT BS. First off, its so dumb and overpowered and shit that her palisman was "everything and quirky <3 🥺" Like DUDE. WHAT????? it makes no sense, it should have just been a snake! they had all the forshadowing andf it would still work perfect for her!!! also, why make it shapeshift just for her to NOT USE THE SHAPESHIFTING ASPECT???????? LIKE AT ALL??????? could it not have been just a snake, or MAYBE even a half snake half otter like WHY A QUIRKY EVERYTHING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

[the-irreverend]

If you're wondering what I'm referring to, apparently someone made a video on Twitter titled "The Amazing Digital Circus if it was written by the guys who made Helluva Boss" and basically re-did the opening scene to be full of swearing and adult jokes.

How did Vivziepop react to this?

*deep sigh* She blocked the person who made it.

Just... come on.