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ordinaryschmuck · 8 months ago

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Why I Love The Owl House: Part 3-The BEST Thing About The Owl House (I'm Not Kidding)

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Salutations, random people on the internet who are already skimming past this! I am—The best thing is Lumity.

Yeah, might as well rip that bandaid off right now. I’ve done enough teasing last time, so the least I could do is jump right into it NOW.

If you were to ask a fan to pick five things that perfectly capture The Owl House, I’m willing to bet a good chunk of them would bring up Luz, Amity, and their adorable relationship. And for good reason, because Lumity is the one thing that Dana Terrace set out to do when making her show. The woman wanted to make the gayest show Disney could allow, and went about it by creating a bisexual main protagonist with a lesbian love interest. The reason WHY is because Dana is bisexual too and wanted to give kids who were just like her a character to identify with. So given how Luz and Amity are a couple who the fandom obsesses over the most, I like to think Dana rubbed her hands together like a cartoon villain, going, “Good, good…”

And BOY did the fans obsess. Even before the writers gave the TINIEST confirmation that Lumity would be canon, these two were EVERYWHERE. There was fan art, fan fiction, fan comics, and even an animatic that was SO popular that its creator deleted it because fans were being too annoying about it. A lot of fans LOVED Lumity…and a lot more grew to despise them.

Yes, like most things that grew intensely popular, showing up everywhere no matter WHERE you look, it grew tiring to those who didn’t get the hype. Some members of the fandom grew sick of Lumity’s popularity and said that there’s more to love about the show than the love between two teenagers. And then there were the fans who DID like Lumity but hate that they had to dig through MOUNTAINS of Lumity to get fan content of THEIR favorite characters and ships. As for me, an INTENSELY biased Lumity shipper, I definitely see where both kinds of fans are coming from and even sympathize with a few of them. But you CAN’T hate Lumity in the actual show just because the fandom blew them up. They’re the one aspect of the show that the writers put EVERYTHING into, crafting a love story that’s MOSTLY perfect. You might doubt that, but allow me to explain how well their relationship went throughout the series.

Now, I know what you might be thinking: “Shmuck, you handsome bastard, didn’t you already analyze their relationship last year?” And you’re right. I AM a handsome bastard…Oh, and I DID in fact write two posts that went through Lumity’s journey into becoming a canon couple, one focusing on Luz and the other on Amity. But that’s not…ENTIRELY what I’m doing here. I mean, yes, I WILL have to discuss how their relationship developed, but I’m also going to focus on how well it WORKS. The ups and downs, pros and cons, and overall quality of their relationship. I love these two with all my heart and will gush over every bit of cuteness, but I would be lying if I said there weren’t SOME criticisms that I have with their love story. Not a lot, mind you, but enough worth discussing. And let’s finally discuss it before this review turns into forty pages…

(It's actually thirty three, gosh dang it...)

“I Was a Teenage Abomination”: Ah, where it all TECHNICALLY started. In this episode, Luz and Amity were in the enemies phase of their relationship. Amity was a bully that needed to be taken down a peg and Luz was an annoyance that made Amity look bad. That’s how they saw each other, and, as a result, they didn’t care how poorly they treated one another. It was worth it to Luz to cheat because it helps Willow and annoys a bully who looked down at her. Just like how it’s worth it to Amity to almost get Luz dissected because it proves that Amity isn’t one to be messed with. This is the most these two have been directly against each other, neither willing to talk, hear the other out, or apologize. It works out in their favor, because if Luz and Amity spent most of the series wanting to kill each other before becoming friends, it would make their inevitable romance feel…inappropriate. Like, NO ONE should want to go out with a person that continuously wanted to kill them. The enemies portion of the enemies-to-lovers trope is best used briefly to better sell that the romance works despite the early hatred. It would also help if the attacks on each other aren’t too heinous, and Amity nearly getting Luz dissected…isn’t that, but I’m more than willing to say that Amity either wasn’t sure what Luz was or that she expected Willow to come clean the second Bump pulled out the knife. It’s not too much of a stretch to think, as it has enough believability to make it line up more with the Amity we know now, a version of the character that Luz would know better the next time they meet.

Covention: Another and FINAL moment where these two were at each other’s throats, this time much more directly. Luz starts off nice enough, willing to bury the hatchet instead of making an enemy. She’s not really looking for a friend, either, but you can tell in the way Luz holds her hand out for peace that she wants to squash out all animosity between them and start over. Amity, still reeling from the fact that a HUMAN tarnished her reputation, rejects Luz’s attempts at peace and further sells that she’s not to be messed with by treating Luz and King with disrespect. Luz, who is likely numb to people bullying her, doesn’t react too much to how Amity puts her down. But when it’s KING that Amity messes with, that’s when Luz takes a stand. She cares more about her friends and found family than she does about herself, willing to go above and beyond for them. Even if it means doing something incredibly stupid.

Challenging Amity to a witch’s duel was NOT the smartest thing Luz has ever done. What it IS, though, is a moment where Luz directly goes up against Amity. Helping Willow cheat caused Amity to be upset, but the main reason Luz did it all was to help Willow. Annoying Amity just came out as a happy accident. But for the witch’s duel, Luz does it for the sole fact that she’ll go against Amity and make her stop being mean. It’s partially influenced by The Good Witch Azura teaching her that to stop your enemies from being so negative, you must best them in combat. Only for the consequences to quickly meet her head-on when Amity forces Luz in an everlasting oath that could potentially stop her from learning magic forever. Because while Luz wants Amity to apologize to King, Amity just wants Luz out of her life as efficiently as possible, so she’s perfectly fine with messing with Luz’s life like this if it means never dealing with her again. It’s that unexpected consequence mixed with Luz realizing how more proficient Amity is with magic that she gains a bit of a reality check. Ironic, considering she ran away to the Boiling Isles to escape getting that exact same thing.

Luz definitely learned to regret it during the fight, not because Amity was SEEMINGLY more powerful with a giant abomination, but due to Eda overcompensating Luz’s lack of skill with magical mines. Luz, the good person that she is, has major objections to this plan. First off, cheating goes against the whole point of the duel. Luz won’t prove that she’s the better witch if she has to cheat her way to victory. Like she said, “Even if I win, I still lose.” Then there’s the fact that Luz doesn’t want to really HURT Amity. Yes, it’s a fight and Amity’s out for blood, but Luz is still the one to stop Amity from stepping on a mine because she doesn’t want to MAIM the girl. Luz is on schoolyard fight rules where the worst that could happen is scraped knuckles and maybe a black eye. Not third degree burns and a potential impalement. So to prevent Amity from getting killed, Luz tries to stop her from taking a step too far. Only for Amity to get extra angry because Luz still cheated. To her, this is confirmation that all Luz is is a cheater who causes nothing but trouble. She’s about ready to leave, accepting that she’s the better witch…only for it to be revealed that Amity cheated too. Well, technically. She was unwillingly a tool for LILITH’S cheating because she expected Eda to cheat first. Didn’t matter to Amity, because just like Luz, Amity never wanted to cheat. What’s the point in proving that she’s the best if she didn’t earn it though cheating? Amity is as prideful as she is vengeful, being someone who worked so hard to prove everyday that she’s the best. So when it’s revealed to an entire stadium of her peers that Amity CHEATED…yeah, it breaks her a bit. Breaks her enough to run away crying and Luz, the kind person that she is, goes after her.

What follows is quite possibly the most pivotal moment in their relationship, one so good that I made a scene breakdown to it a few years back. To keep it brief, this moment is Luz once again trying to bury the hatchet, not wanting to have a relationship where she and Amity almost kill each other and one of them runs away crying. Seeing Amity in such a vulnerable state proves that it’s not good for EITHER of them, so Luz tries her best to apologize. Amity, of course, isn’t having any of it and chooses instead to yell at Luz for all the strife she caused her…and accidentally reveals some angst about Amity working so hard to be where she is now. It’s a taste of the real person behind the bully facade that Amity puts up to prove that she really is the greatest witch she worked hard to become. It’s why she’s DEMANDING that Luz admits to being the worst witch. Amity wants this brief moment of confirmation that all her work wasn’t for nothing and that she IS the best witch, the one that beat this scrappy human. And Luz caves, giving Amity what she wants…but a little something more: Perspective. Luz DOES admit that she’s not a real witch, but instead of leaving it at that, Luz performs a light glyph, explaining that while she isn’t a real witch like Amity, Luz still wants to be one. With that explanation comes this image:

THIS IMAGE! The beginnings of Luz and Amity’s relationship is perfectly surmised in this image of Amity being in the dark while Luz holds out the light. Of course, Amity recedes back into the dark at first, playing Luz’s efforts off as nothing special. But because of that moment of perspective and Luz doing what must have been this mind blowing thing with just a pen and paper, it’s enough to get Amity curious and point out that she’s never seen a spell cast the way Luz did before. Luz points out how she’s willing to work hard for her goals, not wanting to be the best but just to be a witch in general. After that, Amity unbounds the oath and walks away. And I really love how it’s up to interpretation for WHY she did it. Was it because Amity decided that because they both cheated that Amity decided that the oath was null and void? Or was it because Amity saw the passion in Luz’s desire to learn magic? There’s no direct answer, but either way you look at it, Amity unbounding the oath is still a moment of mercy. She didn’t NEED to do it and, knowing Odalia’s conditioning, it’s likely that Amity would have been encouraged to let Luz be unable to learn magic. Gets rid of even the POSSIBILITY of competition. But she unbounds the oath anyway, probably telling herself there’s a logical excuse for it when, in reality, it’s Amity doing something nice for someone.

“Covention” perfectly takes Luz and Amity’s relationship to a better direction. This is the last time they’ll actively go against each other as rivals, and for good reason. By the episode’s end, they gain new perspectives towards each other, Luz seeing a fragile side to Amity’s rough exterior and Amity seeing that there's a harmless desire in Luz wanting to learn magic. This perspective comes AFTER almost killing each other, but this is a work of fiction and you learn to accept an exaggerated reality. So the big fight doesn’t take away the sweet ending of these two making a sort of…LIGHT connection. They’re definitely not willing to be CLOSE, but they’re at least in a better place with each other. They’re not friends, not enemies. Just two young girls who acknowledge each other’s existence and are fine with it being just that.

Hooty’s Moving Hassle: Even though there was a BIT of back sliding. Amity all but directly called out Luz in a Penstagram post and Luz was more than willing to get back at her for it. It’s definitely a moment where they’re against each other, but it’s quick and comes across as two teens being bitter. We’ve all been there. Plus, I’m willing to bet that Amity was goaded by her peers into telling Luz to “bite it.” Knowing Boscha, she definitely wouldn’t stand someone in the group being showed up by a human and the last thing Amity wants is for Boscha to get suspicious of why Amity is soft on the human. OR it could be Gus pulling an illusion. Him and Willow were already dead set on showing up Amity and he just HAPPENS to find the Penstagram post that would convince Luz to join them? Even though Amity had no idea that Luz would see it because she has no way of knowing if Luz has Penstagram? I don’t know, I’m calling shenanigans on that.

Regardless, no matter what reason there is, this was clearly a blip in the relationship. The meat in the episode is mostly about WILLOW and Amity, not Luz and Amity. There wasn’t much of a need to develop their bond when it’s not a central focus. Still a LITTLE weird that they went back to old habits of being enemies despite the decent spot they were in last time, but I can wave it away. They got a GLIMPSE of who the other was, but nothing more to make them willing to commit to being friendly. But when they meet again…

Lost in Language: Things get more interesting.

Luz, recently swooning over the idea of befriending rivals, has the desire to befriend her own. I’ve heard some complain that it’s a weak excuse for Luz to reach out to Amity because she got inspired by a kids book. In fairness to Luz, not only does she CONSTANTLY use Azura as a source for inspiration towards EVERYTHING in the Isles (It’s the INITIAL motivation for why Luz wanted to stay), but with the way Luz said she wish she could befriend her rival, it almost sounds like she wanted to for a while. She got a glimpse of a complicated person at the Covention and likely saw someone worth being friends with. The problem is that Luz wasn’t willing to commit to that idea because all she got was a glimpse. And, yeah, being told to bite it wasn’t helpful either. Still, the way Luz swoons tells me that she isn’t AGAINST the idea. She just needs more of a reason to befriend Amity, and gets one pretty quick.

While avoiding the hell that is babysitting demons, Luz spends her day being taken in by the magic of a magical library. Everything amazes Luz about it, but what stuns her the most is seeing Amity reading to kids and being so happy while doing it. There is true joy and delight in Amity’s eyes and smile as she treats these kids nicely when reading to them. THIS is what Luz needed. In this moment, Luz has visual proof that there’s a sweetness to Amity’s sour personality. Amity tries to play it off as her trying to get extra credit, but there was no putting the genie back in that bottle. Luz saw the kindness in Amity’s eyes and knew that it couldn’t be faked. So, she goes all in with Friendship Mode, being over enthusiastic about wanting to help Amity read to kids so it can be something that they could bond over. What Luz isn’t aware of is that the library is Amity’s safe space, a place for her to go to, without her family getting in her face. At least, most of the time. And then here comes this human who caused nothing but stress in Amity’s life, even if accidentally, who then shows up to suggest that she could ALWAYS invade Amity’s space. Needless to say, you can’t blame Amity for snapping at Luz. She’s fine with Luz existing as long as she stays far away from Amity. Luz, very quickly taking the hint, apologizes and heads off. She really doesn’t want to cause conflict anymore, and it at least shows that Luz learned that it’s better to squash issues with Amity than make things worse with confrontation. She literally almost died in “Covention” and “Hooty’s Moving Hassle” all because she HAD to show up Amity for being mean. In a way, it IS Luz just not wanting to tempt fate, but you CAN tell in the tone of Luz’s voice that she DOES regret pushing Amity. And even Amity regrets something too. We’ll later learn in this episode that Amity doesn’t WANT to come across as a cruel person. The scene even hints at that with the way Amity almost reached out to Luz after she apologized. Except Amity stopped herself because, thanks to the conditioning of her family, she believes that kindness is a weakness. So there’s no apologies for Luz unless Amity wants that softness getting to her mother. Which she very much does NOT. But on the topic of her family…

After Luz is about to give up on befriending Amity, Edric and Emira showed up to do two things in this episode. First off, they confirm Luz’s bisexuality, because while she was VERY attracted to Nevereth and his angsty muscular energy, Luz still blushes at both Edric AND Emira when they wink at her. And when you want to start a romance between two girls, it’s important to prove that both of them are attracted to, well, girls. Ed and Em accomplish that feat while also providing MORE perspective for Luz. Through them, Luz gets a peek at Amity's home life. Or, at least, an assumption of it. With the way Ed and Em stand up for Luz and humble Amity, it leaves the impression that they’re the nicer members of the family and are as fed up with Amity’s behavior as Luz once was. And that’s…partially true. Luz will learn the truth later, but at that point they were, to her, cool kids that were more than fine to hang out with Luz. They got along perfectly with her, having what were originally harmless pranks and goofing around where no one got hurt. Luz went along with it because she’s living the teen girl fantasy of having cooler, older kids liking her (Ten bucks say that she was mentally debating on who to go out with). On top of that, Luz thought that it would be a great way to befriend Amity, getting to know her better by dating—I mean, hanging out with her older siblings. And I do like that Luz doesn’t give up on befriending Amity despite her earlier outburst. She’s still all for the idea of hanging out with her, but wants to go at it from a different angle, believing that connecting with Amity’s family would present a connection between her and Luz. It’s a valid plan…that goes to pieces that night.

At first, when the Wailing Star flew across the library, it was still harmless fun between Luz, Edric, and Emira. But when Edric and Emira find out that crazy things happen when you vandalize a book, it’s the first red flag Edric and Emira present that night. I really adore how obvious the episode makes it that Luz is uncomfortable with making innocent book characters suffer disfigurement. It shows that while Luz is up for fun and games, there are lines she’s unwilling to cross. That will become more relevant later, after Ed and Em take Luz to Amity’s secret room. Before we get to what goes down, I find it interesting how Luz adores the clubhouse, saying how much it’s something SHE would want to have. She COULD be saying that to appease her crushes, but it sounds like she was genuinely delighted by it. To me, it feels like a subtle hint that Luz and Amity have similar mindsets of what makes them comfortable, hinting that they’re not so different after all. An idea that is strengthened by the reveal that Amity is just as big of a fan of The Good Witch Azura as Luz is, shown by the collection of books and the fan art of Amity as Azura on her diary’s cover. BUT I’m getting ahead of myself. While this secret room reveals so much about Amity, it indirectly reveals Ed and Em’s true nature as they want to leak Amity's diary pages. While Luz was more than willing to brush off how sickly entertained they were to mess with that poor cartoon duck, likely thinking it was a little thing, Luz is IMMEDIATELY against it. For one, she still wants to earn Amity’s friendship, and there’s nothing that could ruin that more than DIRECTLY ruining Amity’s life. It’s also because Luz’s good nature would prevent her from stooping so low. She doesn’t care how sour Amity can be, she doesn’t deserve to have her private thoughts revealed to everyone. Edric and Emira tries making excuses about how it’s tough love and that Amity DOES deserve it, all to justify their actions that Luz finally realizes are awful. It’s why Luz tries to get them to stop and try to hide the diary when finding it… but not without taking a peek. It was involuntary, yes, but Luz STILL lingers on the diary’s passage a little longer than she should have. She should have closed it the second she realizes it’s the diary, but still leaves it open as a tiny Amity admits that she doesn’t want to be cruel. To me, this is showing a bit of selfishness in Luz. She WANTS to know more about Amity and here’s the very thing that tells her more about Amity. So Luz listens a bit, but stops herself when coming to her senses. She shouldn’t be hearing ANY of this, and goes about making sure that NO ONE does. Even when pages fall, revealing more about Amity’s loneliness, awkwardness, and occasional frustration, all Luz thinks is to grab each page before more is revealed. And, of course, that’s the moment Amity finally shows up.

Amity didn’t hear Luz defending her privacy, so when she finds her grabbing at diary pages, it really DOES look like she’s stealing Amity’s secrets instead of protecting them. What’s most interesting is Amity’s reaction. At first, she’s furious, and rightly so. But when she simmers down, Amity sounds almost disappointed with Luz. Amity admits that she was struggling to figure Luz out, proving that “Covention” DID have an affect on her in that she was willing to except that Luz wasn’t a bad person. An annoyance, maybe, but that moment they shared after the duel proved that Luz isn’t one to be malicious. But after causing chaos with her siblings and trying to steal her diary, Amity feels as though she was wrong from the beginning and assumes Luz IS a bully for all the ways she messed with Amity’s life. So, feeling both embarrassed and little betrayed, Amity runs off…from her room hidden away in the “romance” section. Don’t TELL ME that wasn’t an intentional hint from the show to where these two were heading in their future. But enough about obvious symbolism about Amity running away from her inevitable future. Luz rightfully ditches the twins to go make things right with Amity. She doesn’t want to leave things on a bad note and if Luz could bring out peace once, surely she could do it again. Except that Luz doesn’t get the chance, not just because Amity isn’t having it this time, but also because a twisted children’s book character shows up to kill them.

Now, it WOULD be bad that a monster attack spoiled a heart-to-heart moment, but Otabin’s useful for the fact that he shows what Luz and Amity are willing to do for each other despite everything. If Luz really was a bully, she wouldn’t have tried all she could to save Amity’s life. Sure…she fails. But Luz still tries, and doesn’t stop trying as she keeps coming up with plans to try to get them out of this situation. And when she acts all goofy despite the danger they’re in, showing her true self, Amity laughs. For what might be the first time in years, she lets down her walls just long enough to appreciate this small moment and laugh at the madness. By the time it was LUZ who’s in danger, it’s Amity’s turn to do all she can to save her. Amity was free and could have left, but she’s not a monster or a bitter rival to leave the hero to her fate. Amity’s a good person who is willing to help this weirdo girl who may have brought chaos into Amity’s life, but doesn’t deserve to be in a book forever. This crazy moment of escaping death led to Luz and Amity realizing that neither of them are bad people and are willing to help despite how they treated each other in the past few days. Even when the danger has passed, Amity sticks around to help clean up the mess Luz made. Things seem to be going well…until Amity decides to pretend that nothing they went through happened and is more than willing to move on. It’s a moment where Luz has an out. Amity now knows Luz isn’t a bully and they can go about their lives as they did before. But after everything, Luz doesn’t want that. So she does the best thing she could think of: Give a peace offering. Through astute observation, Luz notices that Amity is missing the last Azura book in her collection. Luz offers hers as a way of apologizing further, and you can tell that Amity appreciates it dearly in the soft way she says “Thank you.” This is likely the nicest thing anyone has done for her in forever, and I think it’s that reason Amity’s willing to let her walls stay down a little longer to admit that she’ll consider friendlier things with Luz. Amity didn’t HAVE to say that, she could have just said thank you and left, but this one small act of kindness that meant the WORLD to Amity helped make her realize that this annoying human isn’t so bad after all. So she leaves Luz, this sense of hope in the air that things might be better between them.

This whole episode does wonders to jumpstart Luz and Amity’s relationship. It allows both characters to see the true versions of each other, past the antagonism and annoyances. And given how this episode takes place in a library, the “Don’t judge a book by its cover” metaphor practically writes itself. By the end, I’d say the enemies phase has faded. I wouldn’t say they’re FRIENDS yet (I don’t think even THEY would say they’re friends), but it ends with BOTH of them being more open to the possibility. It’s smart to have them at this stage by the THIRD big episode together. The sooner enemies make peace, the easier it is to accept the very possibility of a romance. “Lost in Language” does that well, while also perfectly giving us cute moments like Amity laughing WITH Luz and showing how they have things in common. The pieces were there for an eventual romance and fans couldn’t wait for Luz and Amity to meet again to strengthen their romance. And by the time they did…

Adventures in the Elements: it was in a lackluster episode. If you love it, love it. That’s fine. For me, I’ve explained well enough in separate reviews how I feel about this episode and how it’s pacing makes Luz feel unreasonably impatient and whiny. BUT one addendum I WOULD like to make is how this was the ONE episode where I agree with the complaint about how Lumity feels rushed. For the most part, I don’t think they're rushed at all. I think that complaint is from people who are too used to an endgame couple becoming official near the end of the series, especially for same sex couples. To me, Lumity isn’t really badly paced, but instead…differently paced. I think it’s great that we got a couple who grew closer together with every episode they shared, giving us EXACT phases of their relationship. At first, I thought that “Adventures in the Elements” was the only time things felt poorly paced, as Luz and Amity seemed too friendly with each other. Amity went from “I’ll think about it,” to waving at Luz as if they were already friends. But then I looked at some subtle touches that makes me realize this is less of an episode where they’re starting out as friends, but more like they’re testing out a friendship.

Luz acting friendly is a given. She’s friendly with almost everyone, so when she’s engaging with Amity about the book, it’s no different than if it was anyone else. There’s a bit of excitement, but that could be attributed to the fact that she’s finally interacting with another fan for the first time in her life. It’s pretty obvious that, for both Luz AND Amity, their love for Azura isn’t common among their peers and they’re the only teens they met who really enjoy the books. So Luz is noticeably excited to talk about Azura with Amity, and Amity is a BIT more closed off. She simply calls the fifth book fine and burns her self-insert fan art out of embarrassment and being unwilling to let her nerd flag fly. Amity’s grateful for the book, there’s no doubt about it, but she’s not comfortable with fully expressing that gratitude. But she’s still polite enough to engage in Luz’s conversation, Amity just holds back a lot more of her feelings. In fact, being polite is the best way to describe Amity in this episode, especially with what happens next. When Luz announces that she’s going to Hexside, Amity’s voice, face, and even the musical cue in the background makes it clear that she is NOT ecstatic about this news. At least, initially. Once the shock comes and goes, Amity calmly explains to Luz the requirements to be in Amity’s class and asks if Luz knows enough to register. There may be a part of Amity that doesn’t want to see Luz more than necessary, but her willingness to act politely proves that Amity still wants to give Luz a chance.

The politeness continues later when they’re on The Knee. The parts where I always felt like we skipped a step was when Amity confided in Luz about breaking Ed and Em’s record and waved at her during practice. To me, it seemed like Amity was being too comfortable and friendly with Luz at this stage of their relationship. But again, I looked at the subtleties of these moments. Amity admits that she’s trying to break her siblings’ record, but she never shared about feeling under pressure to beat them or even that she’s struggling. It’s Edric and Emira who share that Amity can’t perform a fire spell without a wand, a clear attempt to annoy Amity by hitting where it hurts: Her pride. But what also annoys Amity is that they revealed that to Luz when she didn’t really want to. Heck, when Amity was telling Luz, she wouldn’t even look at Luz’s face, almost as if she couldn’t admit something as basic as beating a record. It’s exactly how Amity acted when discussing the Azura book. She’s willing to engage with Luz but is still holding back a lot of her TRUE feelings because, simply put, they’re not there yet. The most Amity is willing to do is wave at Luz from across the way. That was another short, albeit adorable, moment that made me think that they speeded past things, but now I’m starting to see it as a showcase of Amity TRYING. She’s trying her best to be better, even if she’s not willing to fully commit to a full on friendship. Unfortunately, Luz isn’t appreciating any of it at the moment due to being hyper focused on learning a second spell. The last thing she wants is to be in a baby class and be seen as a loser by her peers. She tries to hide it from Amity because they’re not at a point where Luz can confidently confide in her about problems like she does with Gus and Willow. Plus, Ed and Em are always there and something tells me that Luz doesn’t want to come across as a loser to two cool teens she still has a baby crush on. Either that or Luz is worried about being a target to their teasing, and judging by what they would do to Amity (Despite the constant apologies), it’s a justified worry. Any of those possibilities are equally valid, making Luz’s desire to hide her lack of skills understandable. Still wish we spent time on Luz’s impatience with Eda’s teaching methods, just so it can better justify what Luz does next.

Luz stealing Amity’s wand makes sense narratively, at least for where they’re at. It’s more than Luz wanting to hide that she doesn’t know two spells. They’re at a point in the relationship where Luz can’t simply come up to Amity and ask to borrow the wand for a few minutes. After all the strife Luz accidentally caused, she’s in no position to ask for favors, especially when Amity would likely say no. And the thing is that Amity wouldn’t have said no due to a dislike towards Luz. It’s more like Amity’s wand was low on charge and she didn’t entirely trust Luz to be careful enough with it. She gets mad later, sure, but it’s because Luz, once more, lied and cheated for her benefit. When Amity catches Luz with the wand and spell book, her expression is that of betrayal. Amity was actually trying—And say what you about the pacing of this episode, but it actually shows that Amity was TRYING to be better towards Luz. There’s no denying that. She’s actually putting in the effort and being as polite as possible, and here Luz is doing the exact same thing that made Amity assume that Luz was a bully. Narratively, this all lines up. But the piss poor pacing doesn’t do Luz any favors as it makes her uncharacteristically selfish. She is quick to regret it, both because of the scolding and the monster attack she indirectly caused, and you can tell through Luz’s voice and body language that she couldn’t be more remorseful. Regardless, it doesn’t change how bad this makes Luz looks and justified Amity’s anger. Though, I do like what happens next.

While Amity yells at Luz for putting Eda, Edric, and Emira, and rightfully tells Luz to stay put instead of helping, what Amity says next speaks VOLUMES. Instead of telling Luz that she’ll only make things worse, she says, “You’ll only get hurt.” Amity has every right to tell Luz off further and rub extra salt in the wound, but she doesn’t. Amity understands that Luz doesn’t cause problems out of malice. She just doesn’t think things through and ACCIDENTALLY makes things difficult. It’s one of Luz’s biggest flaws and Amity saying Luz will only get hurt by helping proves that she finally gets who Luz is. And I love that while Amity COULD stop trying with Luz, she still keeps at it because the night in the library didn’t JUST make Amity rethink being friends with Luz. The night made her rethink being mean in general, trying not to see kindness as a weakness and trying to treat others a little nicer. Her holding back what she likely WANTED to say to Luz is a testament to that. Though, I don’t think she’s likely be friends with Luz at this rate. Thankfully, Luz proves that she’s not too bad…again.

Once Luz slows down and allows herself to concentrate, she finally learns a second spell and comes up with a plan to save everyone. A plan that puts LUZ in the most danger and proves that she has enough power to back herself up…sort of. Eda’s the one to finish the fight and Luz is there to do most of the work. Still, the whole thing is a gesture that shows Amity the true extent of Luz’s selflessness and capabilities. This was Luz’s mess and she wanted to do all she could to clean it up. It proves that while she may not be perfect, there’s nothing Luz won’t do for the ones she cares about. Seeing that in action miraculously makes Amity willing to forgive and forget about the whole wand thing. Luz can and likely always will mess up, but will always make up for it. And I think at that moment, Amity decides that being friends with Luz isn’t too bad of an idea. She sounds genuinely excited by the idea of Luz going to Hexside now, and is willing to indulge in Luz’s desire for an Azura book club, albeit on Amity’s terms of keeping it secret. She’s finally gave in and decided to give Luz a chance, now knowing that Luz is GOOD despite her faults. It’s the right decision to make and it’s great that the episode ends with them being friends…but it’s still a mess.

“Adventures in the Elements” does great in showing the subtleties of Luz and Amity trying the POSSIBILITY of friendship. Luz is all in, while acknowledging that they’re not too close yet, whereas Amity’s on the fence but willing to be polite before deciding to make the friendship official. The pieces are there for a decent picture but Luz’s actions and the episode’s pacing makes her unreasonable, making it a miracle that Amity was willing to become friends. Luz’s rescue plan saves things, though it doesn’t stop this idea that if Amity wasn’t willing to be nice, she would have distanced herself from Luz further. Luckily, for Luz, Amity WAS trying and is willing to give the benefit of the doubt in the end. It works ENOUGH, but the journey to get there still feels a little messy. Regardless, this is the ONLY time that the relationship feels this way, as it’s handled perfectly from here on out. If you accept that this is the start of the friendship phase for Lumity, then the progression of their relationship will feel natural from there. Especially when you look at Amity’s little blush at the end of this episode. Now, I personally don’t think that this is a subtle hint that Amity has a crush, as this could easily be explained away as her being embarrassed of her siblings overhearing her CONSIDERING a book club. So when I hear people saying that this is the moment Amity has a crush on Luz, I feel like they’re jumping the gun a bit…but that doesn’t mean she isn’t questioning things.

The First Day-Not many Lumity moments in this episode. In fact, if you squint, there’s two. That’s because the meat of this episode is having Luz finally becoming a student at Hexside and making new, easily betrayed friends. But with the two moments we DO get, we see how they are as friends and hints of what’s to come.

Things start out nice, with Amity welcoming Luz to Hexside and congratulating her for getting out of the baby class. It’s genuinely sweet seeing Amity act this way towards Luz, even out in the open. It shows that Amity doesn’t really care who sees her being nice with Luz, because Luz tried harder to be nice to Amity despite every outburst and despicable action. Luz is her friend now, and Amity is willing to be a better person to her than she was with Willow (We’ll get to that). There’s some awkwardness with Amity’s abomination slapping Luz’s face with goo as Amity went for a high five, but it’s still sweet that Amity’s trying and Luz isn’t bothered by it. If anything, Luz is ecstatic to have this new friend, already treating Amity the same as Gus and Willow. And Amity is just as happy…but she is questioning her feelings.

Once alone in the hall, Amity tells herself that her and Luz going to the same school doesn’t change anything. Many people point at this moment as Amity denying she has a crush on Luz. For me, this is more like Amity questioning her friendship with Luz. She isn’t against it, but the two of them going to the same school presents changes to Amity’s status quo. She’s still the top student of her class and has a reputation to keep up. This could potentially lead to a strained friendship of Amity being forced to choose between Luz and a false image to keep up. Except that Amity likes Luz. She isn’t entirely sure why or aware of how much she likes Luz, but the fact remains the same that Amity likes her and is willing to be friends. Now that they go to the same school, Amity is questioning how she should treat Luz further, continuing to be nice or keeping up a rough exterior for her image. And then we get to her saying “That doesn’t change anything.” One way of looking at that line could be Amity deciding that just because they go to the same school now, that doesn’t mean she should change how people see her for Luz’s friendship. She should still act all high and mighty without worrying about coming across as soft. Another is that, despite being in the same school and people seeing them together, Amity shouldn’t change how she currently acts with Luz. I like to believe it’s the latter because it lines up with how Amity acts in the school courtyard. Amity is willing to be BETTER for Luz, reminding herself that things shouldn’t change just because more people will see that they’re friends now. Amity wants to be a good friend this time and NOT mess things up like her last friendship…

Understanding Willow-This is an episode about the friendship between Amity and Willow more than anything that goes on between Luz and Amity. Regardless, some big developments happen here.

Things start off great with the reveal that Luz wants to make Amity and Willow friends again. This could partially be Luz wanting her two new friends to be friends to make the group bigger and stronger, but I prefer to think that this is Luz wanting to make peace now that she knows the kind of person that Amity is. Amity wasn’t the one-dimensional bully Luz was introduced to, as there’s reasons behind her behavior and evidence that proves that Amity wants to become better. Willow, understandably, doesn’t want to be friends with Amity yet, likely still feeling the pain of how they separated. Though, it is interesting that Willow has no objections to Luz and Amity’s relationship. Some would say that it’s a missed opportunity to not have Willow get upset, but this episode reveals that she has a very unhealthy motto of “Out of sight, out of mind.” Add that with Willow’s more passive attitude (At this point), and it’s easy to believe that Willow is accepting of Luz and Amity’s friendship just as long as she doesn’t see it. Just like how she doesn't want to be friends with Amity, thinking it's best not to even SEE her. Luz is a little blind to this knowledge, though, and is still persistent to cause shenanigans, believing that it’s worth it because she knows Amity isn’t a horrible person and is willing to be better. Only for Amity to prove that wrong by burning Willow’s memories.

Effectively causing Willow brain damage was NOT Amity’s intention. She only wanted hide her face from Willow’s memory, to keep people from learning about that part of their history. It’s selfish and the way Amity did it was stupid, but you will come to understand the reason WHY she did it. Amity only kept her reasons a secret from Luz, because A. They’re not there yet. Amity likes Luz, she’s happy to be her friend, but is a little unwilling to disclose heavy stuff. And B. Amity likely doesn’t want Luz to see that part of her. The memory Amity burned features Amity at her worst, something that she doesn’t want Luz to see. Here’s a girl that, by some miracle, was willing to see the good parts of Amity, and seeing Amity’s worst traits, being a part of her since she was seven, could ruin a lot of how Luz sees her. So Amity keeps it secret, no matter how much Luz pries. Though, it is worth noting that while Luz does keep asking why Amity did all this, she never really FORCES Amity to explain. She knows that there’s a reason WHY, but also knows that it’s too personal of a subject. So Luz keeps giving Amity a chance to explain, ALLOWING her to do so at any moment, and only puts her foot down when they have no choice BUT to face the past. Luz has every right to be angry and demanding. After all, Amity BROKE Willow, Luz’s best friend. Amity wouldn’t blame Luz for getting upset, but Luz, the queen of causing problems and fixing them later, understands that the last thing a person wants after accidentally making a mistake is to be yelled at. She does raise her voice to remind Amity that she set Willow’s brain ablaze, but that’s as far as things get. All things considered, Luz is incredibly patient with Amity, to the point where Amity pretty much has to scold HERSELF, admitting shame to cause this much damage. It’s mostly because of guilt, but it can be argued that Amity acts like she’s expecting to be yelled at. It’s made pretty clear that Amity’s parents, mostly Odalia, are ones to scold her for failure and screw-ups. And with how often Amity yelled at Luz for HER mistakes, she probably assumed Luz would have done the same to Amity here. It would only be right, but Luz never does. For the most part, she remains supportive and understanding towards Amity, saying that they can fix things together. And it's at this point that I’d say that Amity realizes she has a crush on Luz.

Before this episode, saying that Amity’s feelings towards Luz were complicated is an understatement. Luz was frustrating, endearing, caused chaos, solved problems, was powerless with magic but resourceful in intelligence. Everything about Luz annoyed Amity, but she grew to appreciate the best sides of her and accepted the worst. And in “Understanding Willow,” when it’s Amity’s worst qualities on display, Luz still acts with kindness and understanding. It’s something Amity never experienced before, all from a person SHE disrespected in the past. Yet here Luz is, proving that yelling doesn’t solve much and is still willing to back up Amity despite everything. It’s a level of kindness that Amity’s never experienced, and getting it all from Luz makes Amity admire her more. She was less than willing to give Luz a chance at first whereas Luz gave Amity all the chances in the world, even now. It’s enough to make Amity finally understand her feelings, starting to blush a little bit due to Luz’s support and sudden proximity. Though, just because she realized her crush, that doesn’t mean Amity knows how to act around Luz. She KNOWS her feelings, but when it comes to figuring out how to go about them, she stumbles. Amity acts as she always does towards Luz, but still wants to be close to her. When the whole adventure is over, you can tell through how resistant Amity is towards going out the door and giving a short, awkward wave that Amity doesn’t want to leave. She does it for Willow’s sake, expecting that she doesn’t want Amity around, despite everything. If not for taking Willow’s feelings into consideration, she might have stayed, talked more with Luz and Willow, and her crush would have grown stronger. But instead, Amity leaves and it’s for the best. She has a lot to think about.

“Understanding Willow” is a fantastic episode primarily for insight into Willow and Amity’s friendship and seeing them reconcile. The Lumity moments are just a little cherry on top to something already perfect, not being the focus but giving great scenes all the same. It’s part of what makes Lumity so perfect: You see Luz and Amity’s bond growing every episode that they interact in, even in episodes like this where it’s not THEIR relationship that needs attention. It causes their relationship to flow all the better and makes what happens NEXT episode feel like a natural conclusion.

“Enchanting Grom Fright”- Ooooooh, this episode…

The episode where the cast and crew kept telling fans that they weren’t ready for it. The episode where there was NO heterosexual explanation for anything. An episode where the writers pretty much looked at the audience and said, “Yeah. We’re doing THIS.” An episode that will likely forever be remembered for the leaps and bounds it did for LGBTQA+ representation! An episode…that I like less and less the more I rewatch it.

Yeah, I’m that jerk in the fandom who thinks “Enchanted Grom Fright” is a LITTLE overrated. That doesn’t mean I hate it. Heck, I loved this episode upon its premiere, and you can see why in my review. But every time I come back to this one, the more the cracks tend to show. King’s subplot is forced padding in an already poorly paced episode, the fact that a responsible principal like Bump allows children to fight a nightmare demon is all kinds of questionable, Eda chaperoning the dance makes LESS sense, the episode feels like it takes place in two days when it’s ONE, some jokes feel awkward to me, and some dialogue is unnatural. All in all, this episode is a mess, with two things that make it worth a watch: Luz’s regrets toward lying to Camila and, as you could imagine, the Lumity moments.

Every scene these two share are pretty much the writers confirming that Lumity is going to be canon. There’s the little stuff, oozing with romantic energy. Like...

How Luz consistently makes Amity laugh and smile, showing how much Amity has come to appreciate Luz’s oddball personality

The scene in the forest is cute with how romantic the lighting is, how close their faces got at one point.

How Luz sits in the mud to make Amity more comfortable after getting messy.

That scene outside the gym, with the playful banter, the genuine admiration in Amity’s eyes, and the little music in the background that’s practically SCREAMING at these two to just kiss already.

All the little scenes are great but the juiciest, meatiest stuff comes from THE NOTE

It doesn’t take a shipper’s mind to guess that Amity’s little pink, love-colored scrap of paper is a note Amity wants to give to Luz, putting ALL her feelings out there. If “Understanding Willow” was the episode where Amity realizes she has a crush on Luz, “Enchanted Grom Fright” is Amity struggling to figure out if she WANTS to date Luz, and for a number of reasons. Because being friends with Luz is one thing, DATING her is another. Amity can always play off their friendship as her pulling a long con on Luz or maybe even faking it to keep the human from being a personal hindrance. There’d be holes in her logic, but Amity can still commit to excuses where anyone can be convinced they’re true depending on how well she sells them. DATING Luz will be harder to sell, as there are a lot of things a person couldn’t fake for a relationship. So the second Amity asks Luz out and they become official, any ounce of Amity’s image that’s left will get torn to shreds. And while Amity is willing to risk it for a FRIENDSHIP, she struggles to think if it’s worth it for a girlfriend. We already know how Odalia reacts to Amity being FRIENDS with someone like Willow and how a so-called friend like Boscha treats people below their status. If word gets out that Amity is dating a HUMAN, life for her will be hell. It’s the main reason why Amity doesn’t want Grom to reveal her fear of Luz rejecting her. It’s a gamble that Grom could take a vague or clear form of someone’s fear, which you see in Luz’s fight with it. It’ll take Camila’s form no problem, but when trying to look like Eda, it’s a lot more like a shadow. And Amity doesn’t want to risk either, because while it’s embarrassing enough to reveal that the great Amity Blight is afraid of rejection, it’ll be worse to show that she’s afraid of getting rejected by the unpopular human. Needless to say, NO ONE would let Amity live this down. And while we’re on the topic of Amity’s greatest fear, it does make sense why she’s so afraid of asking Luz out.

Some fans give the episode flack for making Amity’s greatest fear be her getting rejected by a girl. And out of all the problems “Enchanted Grom Fright” has, this is one criticism I understand but respectfully disagree with. Luz is more than just a girl Amity has a crush on. Despite all the chaos, Luz is the best thing that happened to Amity. She helped patch things up with Willow, gave Amity the final book in a series she adores, and offered kindness and understanding during moments when Amity didn’t feel like she deserved it. Even now, Luz is taking a bullet for Amity by facing HER fears as Amity’s fearless champion. Luz is the bright light at the end of the tunnel that Amity calls life, and she values that. She values Luz’s life so much that losing it terrifies Amity. Asking Luz out is a risk that she’s not willing to take because it’s a miracle that Luz still wants to be friends despite everything Amity has done to her and others. She has NO idea if Luz could like Amity that way or even if she likes girls. If Amity asks Luz out, she risks the gamble of Luz saying no and their friendship being awkward at best and over at worst. Because how can things go back to normal when Luz knows that Amity has a crush on her. It’s why Amity yanks the note out of Luz’s hands instead of letting her keep it. Amity doesn’t want to give it to Luz until she’s one hundred percent sure that Luz could say yes, holding onto the note right up until Grom starts, a point where most would say it’s too late to ask someone to a dance. The grip that Amity’s fear has on her is strong, even if SLIGHTLY unjustified. Most people understand the fear of being rejected by a crush, especially if you’re a teenager and this is the first time you’re feeling the butterflies in your stomach. But Luz isn’t someone who would sever ties with Amity because of a crush. She may be surprised at first, but the worst case scenario would be that Luz would let Amity down gently and politely. As for the best case, Amity bears witness to it.

Once Grom becomes too much for Luz to handle, Amity finally steps in to fight her own battles. And it's great that Luz is worried for Amity facing her fear, showing that there was NO resentment on Luz’s part. She willingly chose to do this for Amity…and partially for the selfish reason of proving that she isn’t as fragile as Eda claimed. Regardless, helping Amity is a big part of why Luz is willing to do this, and it’s her overconfidence that leads to Amity having her fear forced upon her, with Luz sounding more scared than Amity. Because while it’s not LUZ who realizes she has a crush yet, she still cares about Amity like any other friend, wanting to take her place before anyone would call Luz soft. So failing her hurts Luz more than Grom ever could. As for Amity, she weirdly lucked out in this scene. Grom DID reveal Amity’s afraid of rejection, but in a vague shadowy form where Luz couldn’t even tell it was supposed to be her, which is for the best. Amity wasn’t ready to tell Luz and having Grom do it for her would have been a BIGGER nightmare. Hell, it likely already was. The way Amity cringed in anticipation of Luz’s rejection, already assuming Luz had enough information to figure out the truth. Except when Luz picks up half the note that Grom ripped up, all Luz gets is that Amity was afraid of getting rejected by SOMEONE. Not only does Luz act sympathetically, immediately understanding Amity’s plight, but Luz also surprises Amity by volunteering to be her date instead. It was to go as friends, but that’s besides the point. Luz’s gesture proves to Amity that Luz is just…kindness personified. No matter what her feelings were to Amity or how Amity asked her, Luz would have said yes. Maybe she could have misread the situation (somehow) or said yes just to be polite. The point is that Luz would have said yes either way, and while it wouldn’t entirely be what Amity wanted, it’s at least enough to tell her that she has nothing to worry about with Luz. Whether or not Luz would feel the same way, she will NEVER break Amity’s heart. And it’s that confirmation that tells Amity that liking Luz IS worth it. There could be conflicts and consequences from this crush, but Luz is the nicest, warmest person who gave Amity exactly what she wanted without knowing it. Any feelings Amity has for Luz were STRENGTHENED by these events…but doesn’t make her brave enough to admit that she wanted to ask out Luz.

While Amity does understand that Luz won’t break her heart, her strengthened feelings for Luz don’t make her braver. She may be willing to dance with Luz for a beautifully animated combo move to kill Grom, but showing her the rest of the note? Yeah, Amity tosses that thing away immediately. And before I move on, I DO want to say how much of an expectation subversion the writers give with this scene. Most shows fighting for LGBTQA+ representation would have kept out who Amity was willing to ask out. They would have strictly implied it and left it to interpretation to make the studio executives happy…But not The Owl House.

You see it up front, baby! WHOO!

I will ALWAYS gush about how impressive and important this single image is. This is the first big show where a gay character having a crush on the main protagonist is shown EXPLICITLY through visual confirmation. We could have picked up the pieces in past episodes and even in this one. But to have this clear bit of PROOF that it’s officially happening between these two THIS EARLY in the series is all kinds of special. And it is the reason why I still don’t hate this episode despite its problems.

“Enchanted Grom Night” might be a mess, but the Lumity moments will always carry it. Everything that happens between these two in this episode is adorable, endearing, and groundbreaking enough to always make watching the episode worth it. If this was the last bit of Lumity fun we would have gotten this season, I would have been happy…but the writers snuck in one more episode.

Wing It Like Witches-There’s not a lot I could talk about here because a lot of it is pretty self-explanatory. Due to a magical night that proved once more that Luz is perfect, Amity became even more smitten and unable to be near Luz without blushing up a storm. Some fans grew to resent this episode because of how it ruined Luz and Amity’s reputation in the fandom, due to everyone latching onto this idea that Amity is a lesbian disaster and Luz is oblivious to it. As for me personally…I still love it.

The second Amity started nervously stammering in front of Luz, it blew my frickin’ mind. It IS a little weird that this is the only time Amity acts like this, but I can take it as the writers further confirming that this is in fact happening and we should get ready for it. And every moment that shows Amity being a blushing mess was hilarious and adorable to see. As for how Luz, the shipping queen, couldn’t see the obvious signs of a crush, there are two plausible explanations. There’s the boring one where Dana Terrace said that Luz just has a lot on her mind at the moment to notice. Then there’s the interesting explanation, where this is the first time that Luz has ever had someone act this way towards her. It’s pretty obvious that Luz isn’t used to the idea of people caring about her, whether as a friend or something more. This episode alone proves how inexperienced Luz is to friendship itself, making things more stressful for Willow when trying to help her. Before Hexside, Luz was unfortunately a social outcast, with Gus, Willow, and now Amity being the only kids her age who actually like her. So when Amity starts acting a little silly, Luz’s first thought isn’t, “Oh, she’s crushing on me.” It’s, “Gee, Amity sure is acting weird today.” While it’s INCREDIBLY obvious to everyone else, it’s a foreign concept to Luz because it’s not something that she’s used to experiencing for herself. It hurts to think about and is a lot more interesting, to me, than saying Luz has a lot on her mind.

While the fandom definitely went to far with the joke of Amity crushing hard and Luz being oblivious to all of it, the Lumity moments here are still cute. As for any development, this is the episode that cements Amity as part of the group, finally deciding that being with Luz (And, to a greater extent, Willow) is worth any consequence, not caring what someone like Boscha thinks. It’s great and it IS unfortunate that people don’t point that out as frequently as Amity being a blushing mess. But I kind of get it. It’s not as prevalent and you don’t realize it until the episode’s over with Amity sitting with everyone for tea. In a way, this development is more of a footnote in an episode that hammers in the idea that Amity has a crush on Luz, but it doesn’t make it any less important.

And that’s all for Season One. Due to a broken leg, Amity had to sit it out on the sidelines while some big, dramatic stuff happened in the finale. That’s really for the best because with how much Luz and Amity’s romance develops with every episode they’re in together, it makes sense to leave Amity out. Any growth they could have had would have hurt the finale in the long run as it would have been remembered as the episode where Lumity did X instead of…anything else that happened. Regardless, after three episodes in a row where Lumity got closer and closer together, it left fans demanding MORE and hating that they’d have to wait LONGER due to the show going on a nearly year long hiatus. But when that hiatus ended, they were given a good treat.

Escaping Expulsion-Oh, how this one ends beautifully…

But before we get to that, it’s worth noting that this episode is Amity’s last test of loyalty. Once Odalia finally learns about Luz and the others, she wastes no time in trying to cut them out of her life as much as possible. It’s living up to the threat Odalia gave Amity years ago about her friendship with Willow, only this time Amity doesn’t get the illusion of choice to break things off herself. Odalia uses her status and privilege to kick Luz, Gus, and Willow out of Hexside, with Luz begging, screaming, even getting down on her knees (Well, ONE knee—Hey, that’s an image for ya!) as she tries to convince Amity to help them. And you can tell that Amity wants to. She REALLY wants to. The look in her eyes and the way her body goes stiff as if she has to FORCE herself to do nothing shows that it’s tearing Amity apart to not help. Amity wants to be there for Luz like Luz was there for her, but doing so means going against Amity’s mom. Amity’s been allowing herself small rebellions, getting braver for Luz who brought out the best side of Amity. But when the consequences finally caught up to her as Odalia enacted a punishment no one deserved, it made Amity realize that no matter what she’d do, her mom will find out and make her life miserable. So Amity says no and is only brave enough to say sorry. It’s tearing her up inside to let Luz down like that, but she does it anyway. At least Luz eventually gave some motivation for Amity to fight…in an irresponsible manner on Luz’s part.

While Amity is too scared to face Odalia, Luz isn’t afraid of much of anything (Aside from facing her own mom, funnily enough). So Luz isn’t worried too much about going up to Odalia and willing to work things out. Luz goes in peacefully, hoping to set things right where no one gets hurt. Except that Odalia’s out for blood and decides to use Luz as target practice for all of her deadly weapons. Luz takes it all, hoping for it to be for the best until Odalia busts out the literal killing machine. Because earlier, Luz made the valid point that even though they don’t go to the same school together, Luz and the others will still be friends with Amity. Odalia very much disapproves of that fact and decides to take things to the next extreme by trying to kill Luz. Luz fights for her life, but it’s clear how outmatched she is with it taking a miracle to save her. Fortunately, one did.

It’s one thing to separate Amity from Luz or to use Amity as a test dummy, but putting Luz in danger is where Amity draws the line. And it really is amazing that Amity doesn’t waste a second to rebel and get the gang together once she knows Luz put herself in the line of fire (Read: Confronting Odalia). After everything that Luz has done for Amity, it’s great that she’s willing to step up when Luz finds herself in real danger. Getting expelled is one thing, but facing Blight Industries tech and mechs is another. And when the Abomiton 2.0 comes out, Amity rushes to get to a high enough vantage point to come to Luz’s rescue. Perhaps a little enthusiastically with the way she screams, “Stay away from MY Luz!” But she still swoops down like a hero from a fantasy story, standing between her maiden and a literal killing machine. Amity has saved Luz before, but this is the moment that has the most at stake for her as it risks Amity dealing with more hell from her mom. But if the choice is losing Luz forever or dealing with Odalia being MORE unbearable, it doesn’t matter to Amity. Luz has done everything for Amity out of the goodness of her heart, and Amity’s more than willing to do more than anything for her. It’s more than fair to her and she’d do it again no matter the cost. What Amity doesn’t know is that her actions rewarded her in a way she didn’t intend.

Luz liked Amity, there’s no doubt about that. She cares enough to help put out the fires in Willow’s brain and fight Grom for her. It was never a question for whether or not Luz liked Amity…but fans did debate HOW MUCH she liked her. Did Luz have a crush lingering above the surface but never quite knew THAT’S how she felt? I…don’t think so. I know fans like to say that she did (I used to be among them), but it’s clear that Luz’s feelings towards Amity were equal to any other friend. Anything Luz did for Amity isn’t different than how she would act for Gus or Willow. Case in point: The main reason Luz was in this mess was because she wanted to help her friends get back into Hexside. To Luz, Amity is just another friend…But then Amity saved Luz’s life and acted like the coolest witch that ever lived. Luz isn’t a stranger to getting her butt saved, especially when she was too close to death like in that moment. What makes things different here is that Luz is trying her hardest to survive, barely keeping ahead, and is out of luck when she reaches her limit. Just when things seem hopeless, Amity comes out of nowhere as a knight in shining armor, saving Luz in an incredible feat of magic and looking good doing it. In every other dangerous situation Luz found herself in, she either got herself out of it or expected someone to come to her rescue when things got dire. But because Luz didn’t tell anyone about what she was doing, she was all on her own with no one to help her with the Abomiton that she couldn’t keep up with. Then in comes Amity, swinging in holding down the thing that was seconds away from killing Luz in an impressive display of her magical prowess. And with the cape, the way Amity speaks, and how her magic leaves this intense glow in her eyes, it’s all enough to leave Luz a little star struck. This girl, close to her age, is standing between Luz and certain death for the sake of her own protection. It is like every crush fantasy that Luz must have had rolled into one, and it’s Amity doing it all for her. Luz, the fantasy nerd that is, likely DREAMED of a moment like this happening to her. Heck, remember that angsty teen warrior who was used as bait to lure Luz into a trap? He’s proof that Luz has a type and Amity is checking off every box at the moment, finally leading Luz to see Amity in a new light. And, really, can you blame her.

“Escaping Expulsion” is good for seeing Amity standing up to her parents, but Luz gaining a crush on Amity makes the whole thing a little sweeter. And I really do love that Luz gets her crush after Amity gets hers. It goes against the cliche of the nerd trying to win over the popular girl by having that popular girl already falling for her. It provides a decent twist on the concept while showing that Luz doesn’t have to do anything to earn Amity’s affections as that task has been done weeks ago. The problem is that Luz doesn’t know that as we’re now in the phase where the crush is mutual but neither is aware of it. This fact led fans to be excited about what happens next as we’re now super close to Lumity being canon and hoped they’d get closer sooner than later. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait too long.

Through the Looking Glass-This episode gets a bit of flack due to people focusing more on the Lumity subplot other than the main story of Gus being insecure and looking for a confidence boost. This is definitely part of a bigger problem of fandoms and their obsession with ships over other characters, and it IS worth discussing…But this Lumity discussion post, so we’re just going to save that problem for another day.

Luz and Amity’s subplot in this episode is everything I could have asked for and more. Due to their mutual crush, Luz and Amity spend most of their shared screen time as flustered, blushing messes who can’t pick up on the painfully obvious signs because they’re too busy looking away due to their equal nervousness. It’s adorable and I love how it’s STILL obvious to everyone else. Gus is straight up annoyed by Luz’s cowardly BS of constantly asking for his library card to see Amity but never asking her out, and Edric and Emira are willing to give the lovebirds alone time and support Amity for her crush. Everyone gets it, but never forces Luz and Amity together as it’s equally obvious that they need to work this out themselves…At least in this episode. We’ll get to what Hooty does later.

I will say that if “Through the Looking Glass Ruins" was just the cute antics of Luz and Amity being complete messes, it would be an easy 10/10 episode for me. Unfortunately for them, some angst got sprinkled in as Amity lost her job to help Luz find an old book. What’s interesting about this is that both parties have different ideas for who’s to blame. Luz, of course, blames herself. She’s the reason they got caught despite the many warnings Amity gave to be careful. It was her screwup, but Amity blames herself more. She could have just asked Malphus for the book or turned back when Luz first suggested it. Instead, Amity was so focused on helping Luz that logic went out the window. Look back at how Amity reacts to Luz suggesting to show Amity around the human realm. The second she puts it together that it could lead to a date, she yanks Luz further into the library just to get it faster. So when they get caught, Amity believes that she’s to blame because being around Luz makes her do stupid things and act without thinking things through. But when Amity vents her frustrations over it, it only makes Luz feel worse because it made her think that Amity’s upset about LUZ and not what she does to her. Amity was more upset about herself and her actions than she is with Luz, but Luz, already believing that everything is her fault, can’t help but take the message the wrong way. Amity’s quick to pick that up when she sees Luz tearing up, and that makes HER feel worse as she believes she accidentally made Luz think everything is on her. Except that Luz is crying is because SHE believes that Amity is finally tired of Luz getting them in trouble because Luz makes her do stupid things. It’s an entire moment of miscommunication and misunderstandings that’s a heck of a lot more believable than most romantic drama in fiction. Neither is mad at the other or gives up without a fight. Amity just goes home to think about her feelings and Luz instantly sets out to make things right, telling herself, in Spanish, that things won’t work unless she makes it work.

What gets to me is that despite going through hell to get Amity her job back, Luz is already accepting that Amity will never want to see Luz again. It speaks volumes of how accustomed Luz is to rejection that she already assumes that Amity will be the same like every other crush in the past and would want nothing to do with Luz after this. And yet, despite that mindset, Luz still goes through on getting Amity back her job to make things right. Because even though Luz believes that she no chance with Amity anymore, she’s the kindest person in the world and, after everything they went through together, Luz doesn’t want to end things with Amity without fixing her mistake. So Luz goes through a whole ton of trials for Amity’s job and comes up to her door with an apology already prepared. Only for her words to die in her throat upon seeing Amity’s new haircut.

You see, while Luz was busy facing her guilt, Amity was facing her feelings. Through a wonderfully adorable interaction between her and Emira, Em makes the great argument that it doesn’t matter how Amity acts now because of Luz because she’s never been this happy before. It’s a sweet moment that I always think about when it comes to Amity’s relationship with EMIRA, but the meat of it brings up exactly what I’ve been saying most of this review. Luz is the best thing that has happened to Amity, bringing out her best qualities and being brave enough to go against her parents. Remembering that gives Amity confidence to do something that makes HER happy, this time without Luz motivating it. I mean, Luz would have likely encouraged it anyway, but it is smart that it’s a decision that Amity makes without Luz’s input. After feeling frustrated by Luz making her do stupid, risky decisions, I like how we see Amity deciding to dye her hair as something SHE wants without the supposed source of Luz influencing it. It’s a risk that could cause Odalia to be upset about, but it’s worth it for Amity’s happiness…and the effect it has on Luz. But that last part is just a bonus.

Speaking of Luz, she once again proves why she’s so amazing to Amity. She didn’t HAVE to go through so much to get Amity her job back. Amity already blames herself for the incident and was willing to accept the consequences. Then here comes Luz, fixing Amity’s problem without her having to ask for it. It was done out of guilt, but it doesn’t change how Luz, despite any consequence, will always make things better for Amity. It’s a good deed that proves to Amity that any stupid mistake is worth it because she'll always be happy when she’s with Luz.

…And then Amity kisses Luz on the cheek. A moment that surprised everyone, including the audience, Luz, and even Amity. Seeing Luz and the hell she went through to get Amity her job back filled Amity’s heart with so much admiration that she was thinking on impulse. Only for her to immediately regret it because she just kissed her crush BEFORE admitting her feelings. It’s definitely a leap too far and revealed Amity’s crush to Luz before she was ready. And while WE can see the look of awe in Luz’s eyes, Amity’s more focused on the general shock in Luz’s expression and chooses to run away instead of explaining herself. A shame, too, because…look at this face.

That is the face of a girl who finally realizes that she has a chance with her crush. While Amity is too busy panicking about messing up HER chances, Luz numbly falls to her knees, overwhelmed by the most magical thing that’s ever happened to her. And that’s saying a lot.

Like I said, everything between Luz and Amity in this episode is perfect, with the adorable antics mixed evenly with some light angst. I love it a lot and I adore how the next episode quickly addresses the kiss. The writers KNEW that they couldn’t move on to other antics and adventures with new characters without at least ADDRESSING the kiss. All they had to do is have Willow say that Amity missed a school day and that’s enough to tell us all we need to know: Amity’s too embarrassed about the kiss and is avoiding Luz because of it. And Luz understands that. It took a kiss on the cheek to do it, but she finally understands that Amity has feelings for her. She also understands that the ball is very much in her court. If Luz wants to go out with Amity, SHE has to ask Amity out because Amity is too much of a nervous wreck to do it. The problem is that Luz has a different fear of her own, regarding the matter. A fear that a certain someone helped her out with…

Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s Door-Ooooooooooh, NOW we’re onto the good stuff…

“Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s Door” is the best episode of the show. Or second best. Honestly, it’s always a toss-up between this and “Thanks to Them.” Both are very good episodes of television for different reasons, with “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s Door” being great for solely focusing on the members of the Owl House and what makes the show so damn good. You get some great comedy from King trying to figure out who he is, well-done drama and tragedy with Eda’s backstory and curse, and some cute, gay fluff with Lumity.

Luz’s vignette begins perfectly by showing how her feelings for Amity are distracting her from figuring out a way home. Luz KNOWS she has to ask Amity out, but due to being rejected one too many times, she isn’t sure how. Amity is the first crush Luz has had to ever show feelings for her and she doesn’t want to mess that up. Unfortunately, her anxiety has left Luz distracted and unable to focus on figuring out how to get the echo mouse to do what Luz needs and help her learn how to build a portal home. She could ask Amity about it, but how can she get Amity’s help without addressing the kiss and how they BOTH want something more from it. Luz can’t ask Amity for anything without revealing her feelings and asking Amity out, and she can’t do THAT until she plans out the perfect way to ask Amity out. It creates this never ending loop in Luz’s mind, adding in an extra bit of stress that makes her life hell. Thankfully, Hooty is there!

Hooty, like everyone else, picks up that Luz is head over heels in love with Amity and needs a push in the right direction. The good news is that Hooty’s there to offer his assistance. The bad news is that he’s there to offer his assistance. His idea to kidnap Amity and lock her in the basement is more than questionable. It’s downright disturbing with and without context, but Hooty DOES have the right idea. Luz and Amity were NOT going to talk to each other unless SOMEONE forced them into a room and finally see one another face to face. Although, things don’t start off well with Amity IMMEDIATELY suggesting that they pretend that the kiss never happened. Luz panics because that’s the LAST thing she wants. Amity may be willing to forget something beautiful and perfect for the sake of keeping Luz in her life, but Luz doesn’t want to move backwards in their relationship. She’s terrified of taking that next step, but Luz still won’t allow Amity to entertain the idea of forgetting the kiss, distracting her with the goal of getting out of the basement, deciding to talk about the kiss later. Unfortunately for Luz, Hooty literally drops her and Amity into the last thing Luz wanted.

Under different circumstances, Luz might’ve loved the tunnel of love. For all we know, she might’ve fantasized about doing something as cheesy as a tunnel of love. The issue is that cheesiness is something that Luz is trying to stay away from. Due to still having this image of this heroic, aloof badass who will save Luz’s life like a knight in shining armor, Luz thinks that something corny and cheesy will make Amity think that Luz is a loser. Except that Amity has not only seen Luz at her most loseresque and fell for her anyways, Amity is also a loser herself. She drew fan art of herself with characters from her favorite book series and acts as a blushing mess around Luz. Amity’s not the super cool witch Luz keeps remembering fondly and is just as much into cheese as Luz would be. The proof is in HER reaction to the tunnel of love. While Luz is cringing her butt off, Amity is…confused. She has no idea what they’re in or what this whole thing is about. It’s not until Amity starts looking around that she picks up SOME idea of what is happening. Upon looking at the messages on the walls, realizing that they’re describing her, Amity comes to the assumption that this whole thing is some elaborate grand gesture for Luz to ask out Amity. It’s HALF right, that’s the whole point behind the tunnel of love. But instead of knowing that it’s Hooty’s idea, Amity believes it’s Luz’s, which you can’t blame her for. Luz’s whole thing is making grand gestures for people she cares about. It’s the very reason why Amity kissed her on the cheek. So when looking at the tunnel of love and think Luz is doing it for Amity, it shifts Amity’s reaction away from...

Confusion

To realization

To elation

To nervous excitement. Finally, at long last, Amity has what she thinks is definitive proof that Luz likes her. The moment is awkward and she probably prefers NOT to being dragged into a basement, but Amity’s willing to sit through all of it now knowing it might end perfectly between her and Luz. Only for Luz to start tearing the place apart and tearing Amity’s heart to shreds in the process. WE know why she’s doing it. Luz is trying to save face and avoid embarrassment, not letting the chance for a perfect romantic confession be ruined by all this cheese. But to Amity, what Luz does is the very reason why Amity was too scared to ask Luz out. When Amity finally allowed herself to hope that Luz might feel the same way as her, Luz destroys what Amity took as a sweet love confession, burning it all to the ground in a savage display all to make one message clear: Luz doesn’t want any of this. She even makes it clearer later that the whole thing was Hooty’s stupid idea. Again, WE know that Luz meant the tunnel of love, but Amity is focused less on actual tunnel and more on its meaning. The whole thing was meant to convey that Luz wants to go out with Amity, and Luz just called it stupid. Amity was already shattered when Luz was wrecking the place, but hearing Luz calling the idea of them dating stupid just about brought Amity to tears. It’s not what Luz meant, but it doesn’t stop Amity from misinterpreting the words and, worst of all, accepting them. Amity wants MORE than friendship, but she also wants to have Luz be close to her so she tries to live past the pain and laugh it off with Luz. Only for a single tear to betray that, making Luz realize her mistake…And causing chaos to start.

After Hooty thinks that he failed his friends, with Luz being the last straw, Hooty proceeds to have an emotional breakdown that nearly destroys the Owl House. Despite King and Eda trying to explain that he indirectly helped them, Hooty still clings to the fact that he failed Luz, who might be the only person who was currently left worse off after Hooty’s “assistance.” Most of it’s on her, but that doesn’t stop Luz from being backed into a corner where if she DOESN’T ask Amity out, Hooty would only get worse. When Luz explains her situation to Eda, she doesn’t waste a second to give Luz support. She offers great advice that if Luz wants to ask out Amity, she should ask her out. Perfection is NOT something to strive for in a relationship, otherwise you’ll be driving yourself crazy with every little decision. And if you’re too scared to ask a big question, putting it off until the perfect moment, you’ll end up losing your chance, something that ALMOST happened to Luz this episode. Eda gets that idea across in just a few little words, being the exact motivation Luz needs to finally go for it. Though, not before Eda yanks Hooty away to give them a more calm, PRIVATE environment. Because while Eda’s advice rings true, she understands that asking a girl out while a house demon is crying wouldn’t be the most romantic moment.

So, Luz and Amity get their privacy, Luz FINALLY explains herself, and…says something that requires me to go on a quick tangent. You see, a buddy of mine has this sort of nitpick where he doesn’t like that Eda and King got cool, new power-ups where Luz…didn’t. It’s part of this bigger problem where Luz isn’t really shown to be as capable in Season Two as she was in Season One. I get where he’s coming from and I PARTIALLY understand what he’s saying here. It does feel a little weird that Eda and King got new powers where Luz got nothing, but…that’s not entirely the point of this episode. The main trio are all looking for SOMETHING. King’s looking for knowledge of what he is, Eda’s looking for control through the chaos in her life, and both get rewarded by confronting what’s REALLY bothering them. King gets a booming voice when he vents his frustrations about feeling abandoned by his father and Eda gets a new harpy form when she asks for a compromise with the beast inside that went through as much chaos as her. As for Luz, what she’s looking for is certainty. Two episodes prior, Luz comes to the realization that she isn’t sure what she wants anymore. By believing that her adventures in the Isles will lead to her being a witch, she forgot to consider what kind of witch she wants to be or if she wants to be a witch at all. And two episodes later, Luz will be given ANOTHER uncertainty on whether or not she’ll return to the Isles. Might even explain why she isn’t as capable this season, as so much uncertainty has bogged Luz down to the point where she’s distracted and unable to focus on anything other than what’s in front of her. She’s also desperate for some kind certainty in her life, something that‘s easy enough to grasp and obtain. And the only thing that Luz is certain about at this point in time…is that she wants to be with Amity. It’s not as big as her wanting to go home or being strong enough, but that’s the point. It’s small, it’s manageable. Plus, for a teenager, going out with a crush is bigger than anything in your life. There’s a lot of reasons why Luz hyper-focuses on Amity, as it all boils down to the idea that no matter what happens, all Luz wants is Amity to be there with her. All she has to do is ask a single question. A question that could change everything if Luz has the courage. And she almost does, the words were coming out of her throat. Except that Amity beat her to the punch.

I’m fine with that for two reasons. Firstly, Luz was NOT going to ask Amity out with all the tension surrounding the importance of a single question. Amity blurting the question out first takes away the stress and allows Luz to finally ask Amity out with confidence that the answer will already be yes. Plus, this is a good character moment for Amity. Her biggest fear was asking out Luz due to a fear of rejection. A fear she was basically living through back in the tunnel of love. And here Amity is, met with more evidence that Luz really DOES like her. Hell, she’s pretty much saying it to Amity’s face. There’s no reason to be afraid anymore and just have to wait for Luz to ask the question that Amity’s been DREAMING to hear. Except that Luz is taking too long and, either due to the anticipation was killing Amity or because she fears that Luz will change her mind, Amity blurts out the question first. She finally pushed her own fear aside and went for it, with the results being very fruitful. I mean, look at their faces.

Every time I watch this scene, I want to bottle and sell the pure joy radiating from both their bright, smiling faces. After all that pining and hoping, these two are, at long last, together. Things are awkward and these two are mutually scared of dating each other, but that’s to be expected. They’re both each other’s first girlfriend and are a little nervous about what that could mean for the future. One thing for sure is that Hooty’s right. They’re adorable and deserve all the happiness.

It’s a bit of a shame that “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s Door” is primarily remembered as the episode where Lumity became canon as there are equally great moments with Eda and King that make it the best episode of the show. But…you can’t blame people. This is the first time that a bisexual main character and her lesbian love interest became canon HALFWAY through the series. In previous media, this kind of thing could be done through implications, side-characters who appear once or twice a season, or waiting until the series finale. Luz and Amity getting together is not only a huge step in LGBTQA+ representation, but it also gives us more than enough time to see these two act as a couple. And the writers didn’t waste time on doing just that by quickly jumping in and giving fans little moments and episodes about Luz and Amity growing closer and stronger as a couple. How quickly?

Eclipse Lake-The very next episode.

In no time flat, The Owl House delivers cute couple nonsense, giving us the perfect glimpse of what a canon Lumity would be like. From the get go, they both seem so excited to be dating each other. Luz is grinning from ear to ear about calling Amity pretty and Amity is calling herself Luz’s awesome girlfriend at any available opportunity. I also love that most of the awkwardness is fading. Amity still blushes over Luz hugging her and calling Amity an awesome girlfriend, but that’s as far as things go. At least in this episode. So much of their interactions show how happy they are to FINALLY be dating, and you’re right there with them. As someone who’s been hoping these two get together since the damn near beginning, seeing them just slip into this pure, fluffy relationship with equal love.

But as adorable as things are—And they ARE adorable—this episode shows us the first problem in this relationship, particularly with Amity. Throughout “Eclipse Lake,” Amity’s dealing with the idea that she has to EARN Luz’s love. It’s not true, we know it’s not true, and even Amity didn’t think it’s true at first. But due to some meddling from Hunter, it gets into Amity’s head that if she ever fails Luz, they’re done. And the reason it gets to Amity so easily is because that’s how she functioned her whole life. With her parents, mostly Odalia, Amity grew up thinking that love comes with conditions and that if you don’t do what you’re supposed to then you don’t deserve love. Of course, it’s complete nonsense. Still, look at Amity in the beginning of the episode. Her treating Luz’s cold as this big crisis is the type of adorable overreaction that we would come to expect, but it’s more than Amity caring deeply for Luz. It’s Amity stepping up proving that she can be an awesome girlfriend to Luz. And looking back, with every time Amity keeps calling herself an "awesome girlfriend," it CAN come across as her going, “Yes. This is real. It isn’t a dream, it’s a reality.” With each “Awesome girlfriend,” Amity is reminding herself that she and Luz ARE dating and that they won’t break up as long as she keeps proving herself. Thankfully, near the end, Amity remembers that this is Luz they’re talking about. Luz loves grand gestures. After all, it was a grand gesture that made her fall for Amity. But Luz took an interest in being Amity’s friend due to warmth and nerdy fun that only Luz got to see, feeling attraction by seeing Amity’s strength, bravery, and just how cool she looks. Luz loves Amity for who she is and not what she does, and she proves that by hugging Amity the second she gets back. Amity doesn’t have to earn anything. She already has Luz’s heart and it’ll take more than a partially failed mission to change that. Her love is condition-free and I am so glad that “Eclipse Lake” immediately addresses this issue as Luz and Amity start their relationship. Us fans are ready for all the cute moments. Like Luz, in the next episode, immediately thinks of seeing Amity. She’s in the middle of a mission, and all she can think of is her girlfriend. The writers are quick to confirm that we’d get tons of the cute moments we were hoping to see, but an episode like “Eclipse Lake” proves that things won’t be perfect and that there are SLIGHT issues that these two have to work through. I honestly love that more than just giving us constant Lumity fluff. I wouldn’t mind it, but it’s sweet that we get to see them navigate being in a relationship. Instead of doing this on again/off again nonsense or holding off becoming canon until the series finale, we finally get to see a couple BE a couple as they persevere through every obstacle. Even in episodes that you wouldn’t expect.

Follies At the Coven Day Parade-Given the episode’s description and every single expectation going into the second half of Season Two, I was surprised to see that we’d get some more Lumity moments and an entire subplot about their relationship. Things start off cute enough with pet names, Amity getting flustered by Luz’s proximity, and Luz giving Amity a cheek kiss, completely shutting down Amity’s brain in the process. Things are adorable, but they don’t last when Amity notices Luz acting strangely.

Previously, Luz faced a fear of her own by finally telling Camila the truth about Luz’s summer. Things didn’t go well and it resulted in Luz feeling unsure about a lot of things. Will she return to Isles? Will she see her friends again? Could she and Amity be together? All these questions bounce around in Luz’s head and leave her anxious and trying not to show it. The only people she feels comfortable talking about her problems with are King and Eda, and that’s because as close of a connection that Luz has with someone like Amity, it’s nothing compared to what she has with King and Eda. They’re family to her and she trusts them with anything. With Amity…she and Luz have JUST started dating. Luz trusts her, but there’s more of a limit to it, all due to some issues that become MUCH clearer in another episode. While Luz feels she can say SOME things to Amity or share some secrets, Luz isn’t sure what would be too much baggage to drop on someone you’ve dated for a few days. Nor does Luz want Amity to worry. Being new to a relationship, Luz is too focused on keeping Amity nice and happy, not wanting to bring personal drama or conflict when things are going so perfectly between them. Except that Amity wants things to go differently.

Because Amity picked up that Luz was going through something, she wanted to figure out what. This time, it’s not out of wanting to prove herself worthy of love but instead wanting to just…help. To Amity, that’s what couples do: Help each other through mutual love and understanding. And with all the times Luz helped her, Amity only feels like it’s fair to return every single favor. But she can’t do it without knowing what’s wrong with Luz and it’s with this conundrum that the universe decides to give Amity a test. You see, Luz forgot her phone at school. A phone that has a video that can tell Amity exactly what she needs to know. Amity COULD play the video and figure out how she can help Luz…but that would be an invasion of Luz’s privacy. And given how Amity freaked out over her siblings and Luz nearly getting Amity’s diary, I’d say that the last thing Amity wants to do. Yet she still wants to. A small, selfish part of her wants to just play that video and finally help Luz. But if she does, she’ll breach Luz’s privacy and potentially risk losing some of Luz’s trust. It’s a situation where Amity knows the right answer, but it frustrates her so much that she’s desperate for any justification to act a little selfishly. Ultimately, she sticks with the right decision, and I’m glad that she does. All on her own too. Amity DID go to Willow for advice, but Willow basically gave a non answer, leaving it to Amity to figure out what to do. It’s for the best, because if Amity was told what to do, even though she already knew the answer, it would take the punch out of her final decision. But by far, the best thing about this, is how Amity reacts when she asks Luz what’s wrong.

When Luz saw that Amity holds out Luz’s phone and fears the worst, Amity’s quick to act. She doesn’t yell, act confrontational, or feel betrayed like most love interests in bad romantic dramas. Instead, Amity voices her worries, carefully asks Luz what’s wrong, and speaks with understanding when Luz makes her case. THIS is how a couple SHOULD act in a story. Not get into big fights and force a breakup to milk that drama, but actually TALK to each other for the sake of figuring out this problem together. Though, things aren’t perfect. Primarily on Luz’s end. In this scene, we see how Luz handles telling the truth about something uncomfortable. She looks away to hide how upset she is and forces a smile to give the illusion that everything is fine. It’s unfortunately something Luz does a lot around Amity, acting out of this “Keep things peaceful” mindset that does more harm than good. Avoiding the problem doesn’t get rid of it, nor does it stop Amity from worrying. The only way to fix things is by facing what makes you uncomfortable head on. Otherwise, it’ll fester and get worse. Luz was lucky this time, both for Amity catching on early and for being understanding enough to why Luz would want to be secretive. But if Luz remained tight-lipped longer, telling Amity the truth way later, Amity could have felt a little more betrayed by Luz keeping this secret from herand they would have LESS time to process it and figure out what to do. And I will admit that it IS a little strange that they never talked about what COULD happen if Luz couldn’t return to the Isles. They just kind of ignore it and go about things as normally as they could, almost as if they were expecting things to be fine between them. To be fair, the episode ends with them agreeing to take things one step at a time, but they don’t really go past more than one step. Despite that, I still love this interaction between these two.

I expected Luz to tell Amity the truth eventually, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon and so well. The writers found the perfect time for them to discuss Luz’s promise to Camila, nixing unnecessary drama for the sake of showing how healthy Luz and Amity are as a couple. EVERYONE appreciates that decision, because while couples CAN fight and argue, it doesn’t mean we want to see them do that. You root for a couple to get together and be mostly happy. Some angst can seep in, but don’t forget the good stuff. While Luz and Amity met with their first real obstacle, it’s nice seeing them work through it without an argument breaking out. It’s a good mix of fluff and angst that shows just what makes Lumity so good.

Although, not every story these two have together is perfect.

Any Sport in a Storm-I am NOT a fan of the Lumity subplot in this episode, which is CRAZY for me to admit. I love seeing these two together and seeing how perfect they are for each other. But this episode was NOT doing it for me.

I get the intention that the writers were going for. Luz and Amity spouting theories about who Azura’s author could be is meant to show that they’re both of the same mind, coming up with equally crazy theories together. On paper, I love this idea. It SOUNDS like a cute idea. But in execution, it makes Luz and Amity seem a little TOO dumb. They fully believe everything they come up with is plausible and it doesn’t sit right. I can KIND OF buy it with Luz, she’s said weirder stuff with conviction. For Amity, I don’t think any of it lines up. Again, I get that the intent is to prove that Amity can be just as weird as Luz, but there can be better ways of showing Amity’s weird side that doesn’t involve degrading her or Luz’s intelligence. Plus…did we really NEED this subplot? Did we really need Luz and Amity figuring out the mystery behind their being Azura books in the Isles? Just an off-hand comment about how Amity found her books in a box that washed up onto shore would have been more than enough. Over complicating it with having it be this big scam from Tibbles of all characters makes the whole thing weird and leaves me wishing that Luz and Amity went off to do anything else. There’s some good stuff like Luz calling Amity “beautiful” in Spanish, Boscha being jealous of their relationship, and Luz and Amity deciding to start a writing club after realizing they’re equally creative. I love this, but I’d much prefer it happening in a better written story.

But while we’re on the subject of better written stories…

Reaching Out-This…might be the best episode between these two.

Things start…not great. Not for Luz. We catch on quick that Luz is missing something big and is throwing herself into anything and everything just so she won’t think about it. Nothing that she’s doing is healthy and everybody, from the characters to the audience, can pick up on it. Still, Luz refuses to acknowledge her problem and hopes for SOME kind of distraction. And here comes Amity, having problems connecting with her dad and providing Luz with the distraction she wants.

It’s worth noting that Luz would have helped Amity any other day with no objections. That day, though? Luz’s main reason for helping Amity was so SHE wouldn’t think about her own problems. Luz still cares enough about what Amity is going through and offers nothing but support throughout the entire Bonesborough Brawl. The issue is that Luz’s heart and mind isn’t in the right place, leaving her both distracted and a little reckless. Er, well, more so than usual. And, of course, Amity picks up on it. After all the things that they went through together, Amity knows Luz enough to figure out that she’s a little off. Plus, Eda telling Amity that today’s a bad day for Luz definitely helps Amity figure out that something is wrong. And Luz…does the exact same thing she did in “Follies At the Coven Day Parade.” She brushes off the very notion that there’s a problem and pretends to be happy despite the emotional weight adding pressure to her heart. Now, there ARE a few reasons for this. Luz still isn’t sure if her and Amity are close enough for this emotional of a discussion, she doesn’t want to worry Amity while she needs help, and Luz is trying her best to avoid THINKING about the topic altogether. She doesn’t even go into the details with King and Eda, being vague with why it’s a rough day for her. If Luz can’t divulge the details to the people she considers family, then it’s not really anything against Amity. This is just a touchy subject that makes Luz uncomfortable to talk about it with anyone. But that doesn’t change how things would have gone smoother if Luz wasn’t so tight lipped.

If Amity knew what was going on with Luz, she would not have gone to her for help. Amity’s problem is more than winning the Bonesborough Brawl. It’s all about her trying to form SOME kind of connection with Alador, her father who was always too busy to notice Amity being in the same room as him. This is personal to her, and she wouldn’t want to burden Luz with more problems when she’s already going through something. But since Luz doesn’t offer the exact details, Amity allows Luz to help, only if she’s sure she’ll be okay. Except that Luz isn’t okay, she’s practically bursting at the seams and is making risky decisions with riskier moves. Amity notices all of it and CONTINUOUSLY asks Luz if she’s STILL sure everything’s fine. Luz lies and digs herself deeper into a hole when covering a mistake by attacking an Abomiton that Alador sent to watch Amity. Luz was acting out of anger, and didn’t tell that to Amity because then she’d have to explain WHY. So, she kept it a secret, hoping that Amity would win the brawl before any consequences came up. A decision that would quickly bite Luz in the rear as Alador showed up, called off the fight, and revealed to Amity that Luz lied. Again. Lying once in “Follies of the Coven Day Parade” was one thing. Amity figured quick that Luz was going through something and that there were no personal stakes to her at the time to make it an issue. Here, Amity has no idea what’s wrong with Luz. This was supposed to be a day to help AMITY, and Luz did nothing but lie all day. Doing it once is understandable. By doing it twice, Luz presents a pattern. It tells Amity that Luz would sooner lie to her instead of letting Amity know that something is wrong. It’s that realization, added with Alador’s pestering, that causes Amity to run away from BOTH of them. Alador is understandable enough, but for Amity to run away from Luz, a person that made her feel safe and comforted, just tells you how badly Luz screwed up. As for what happens next…Do you remember how I said in part one that Eda’s talk with her dad was my second favorite interaction in the show? Well, what happens next is my ABSOLUTE favorite.

We find Amity sitting at the tree she and Luz made, a symbol of their mutual trust and teamwork. And now its leaves are falling, making the tree look like it’s wilting away just like the trust Amity feels for Luz. Once Luz shows up, asking to take a seat, Amity doesn’t verbally respond. She gives a small, barely noticeable nod, but doesn’t speak. She doesn’t even look at Luz because of how betrayed she feels. Once more, I cannot emphasize enough how badly Luz messed up with all the secrets and lying, and she knows it too. She tries to apologize, but Amity wants more than that. She doesn’t want this to become a pattern and makes it clear she wants the truth now, no matter what it is. With Luz now backed in a corner, she finally comes clean about what’s been bothering her: Today was the anniversary of her dad’s death.

That truth is already sad enough, but the way Luz explains it is almost sadder. She forces a smile, acting like this isn’t a big deal and prefaces it in a way that’s almost rehearsed. Luz saying it happened a long time ago and how it’s no excuse for how she acts tells me she was scolded for acting up with people telling her those same things. Luz says it to Amity because she expects to get the same treatment from her, anticipating that exact same reaction. But when Luz looks at Amity…

All Luz gets is empathy, shock, and horror. On a day when Amity is dealing with a strained relationship she has with her father, she dragged Luz in to help when she's trying not to think about HERS. Not only that, but it’s a day when Luz WISHES she could be with her dad again, that they could just talk or do anything. And on that day, she spends it helping Amity and failing to do just that. It’s not like Luz can do anything else. She can’t go to the human realm, she can’t be with her mom, she can’t pick FLOWERS. It’s all these thoughts, realizations, and feelings that Luz has been trying to avoid all day, and it’s all coming out at once, breaking her. As for Amity, she gains an even better understanding of Luz than she ever had before. Luz is more than a nice person. She is someone who would push aside her own issues for the sake of helping someone through theirs. In this case, it’s partially for selfish reasons, but it’s no less true. Luz has a great amount of care for all of her friends, caring less about herself when they need her. Just look at all the times that Luz threw herself into danger for someone she loved. This episode is sort of the one time Luz thinks of herself first, using Amity’s problem as a distraction to hers, but every decision she makes is to help Amity, even if her focus isn’t a hundred percent on Amity’s problem. And when a new problem arises and Luz is too emotionally distraught to stand, let alone follow Amity, Luz makes a joke, fakes another smile, and says she’ll catch up later as if she’s not going to spend the next few minutes crying alone. All of it proves to Amity that there’s a tragedy behind the kindness that is Luz, as she would pick helping people over helping herself.

So Amity decides that she won’t let this stand anymore. If Luz won’t help herself, then Amity will help her, pushing aside her previous betrayal and says that when everything’s over they will pick flowers together and do as much as they can while Luz is stuck in the Isles. Because Amity understands Luz now, and realizes that even the helpful can feel a little helpless at times, wanting to be there for Luz like Luz was there for her. It’s a beautiful sentiment, and you see in the astonishment in Luz’s eyes, mixed with the blush, that she finally realizes how much Amity really cares about her. Amity’s ALL IN with this relationship. No matter if it’s uncomfortable or is about something difficult to talk about, Amity will be there when Luz needs her. That realization astonishes Luz, and leaves her realizing she shouldn’t take Amity for granted.

“Reaching Out” didn’t really need to go as hard as it did. If it was just an episode about Luz helping Amity with a problem, it would have been fine enough. Instead, it gave us AND Amity insight about the sadness Luz hides away so no one would be brought down by it. And on top of that, we STILL got cute moments. Luz spinning around Amity while calling her pretty, Luz blowing Amity kisses, Amity being flustered by Luz’s awesome entrance. It’s all adorable, WITHOUT having these two kiss like it was originally planned. Speaking of which, as mind blowing as it would have been to see these two kiss, I’m glad they didn’t. It would have been too much and fans would have remembered this episode more as the one where Lumity kissed instead of the one where Luz opened up about her dad. Not to mention that it would have been a bit inappropriate for Luz to kiss Amity after opening up about her father. Luz saying, “Thank you,” and admitting that she can’t wait to pick flowers with Amity is more than enough to show how grateful she is. We don’t need a kiss to top off what’s already perfect.

And…that’s about it when it comes to Lumity episodes. Due to the show’s shortening, everything was coming to a close and we had no time to have an entire episode dedicated to their growing relationship anymore. We still got cute moments, though. Stuff like Luz and Amity sending messages with a ton of love hearts between episodes is always adorable to see and it shows that these two don’t need to be the center of attention to have an endearing relationship. It’s just that there’s no time to focus on JUST Luz and Amity anymore, so the writers have to squeeze them in at any opportunity they can…But still knew when to throw in the important stuff.

Clouds on the Horizon-People would call this a Lumity episode, but I wouldn’t. There’s so much focus on setting up the season finale and stuff going on with Amity’s family that the Lumity stuff, while incredible, isn’t what the episode is about. With that said, we still got ONE big moment that’s worth discussing. And we’re gonna break it down…

We start with Luz being nervously excited to see Amity again. They’ve been a week apart from each other and the first thing Luz does is climb up to Amity’s balcony as if she’s the Romeo to her Juliet. Luz is probably quoting the play in her head right now as she fusses with her hair to make it look better before seeing Amity. That is, until Luz overhears Amity’s little breakdown.

Amity’s whole life is crumbling down before her eyes. Her parents are helping the emperor do something terrible, she has NO idea where Luz is, and Amity is locked away in her room, unable to do anything about all of it. She’s trapped with nothing to do, and all she can do is think about Luz and what SHE’S going through. With the thought of Luz being in MORE trouble making Amity feel worse.

Funnily enough, it’s thinking about Luz that also makes Amity feel better. It’s just that she focuses on what Luz would say in this moment instead of what bad things COULD be happening to her. And Amity has an accurate understanding of what Luz would do and say, with the very idea of Luz’s warmth and kindness being enough to make Amity smile again, getting enough determination once more to fight to stop everything because she’s not letting a genocidal madman destroy everything before she has her first date with Luz.

Unbeknownst to Amity, Luz was hearing the whole thing, and agreeing with every word with gusto. In fact, I’m willing to bet that Amity said the exact speech Luz had planned to say, word for word. That just tells you how well Amity knows her girlfriend to take the words right out of Luz’s mouth.

And I love that the second they see each other, they both immediately run to each other, with Luz calling Amity "Sweet Potato,” keeping that nickname alive, and Amity jumping into Luz’s arms. It’s already adorable, making the Lumity fans happy with this incredibly cute moment. There’s only one thing to make it more perfect…and the show does just that.

BOOM! On screen kiss! And one with the smoothest animation possible, too! I like to think that’s an extra middle finger Dana gave to Disney, using so much of the budget all for a kiss. A progressive kiss between two girls, but a kiss nonetheless. And I can’t help but appreciate Luz’s facial expressions throughout all of it.

“Heh, my girlfriend is so pretty…”

“Wait what’s happening—“

“OH, we’re kissing!”

“Oh, we’re kissing…”

“Oh, wow…”

It is everything I could have asked for. And a little bit more.

Luz and Amity’s awkward reactions to the kiss is just a little cherry on top that I didn’t know I needed. Amity is embarrassed and astonished that she was brave enough to kiss Luz. The girl keeps making first moves and somehow STILL ends up being surprised that she made them. As for Luz, she’s embarrassed over the fact that she reacted to the kiss by going “Crikey.” Of all the things she could have said in this moment, it’s one random word that nobody would have expected. It’s perfectly Luz and helps sell this scene as a teenager’s first kiss. It’s ALMOST perfect, but the awkwardness and inexperience makes it a moment Luz and Amity will both cherish and regret. It’s the exact type of normalization that the LGBTQA+ community has been BEGGING to see, with The Owl House expertly delivering it.

And that’s…really the last big moment in this series. Don’t get me wrong, we still got cute bits afterwards. Like Amity defending Luz’s honor and Luz being amazed by Amity’s strength. Or in the very next episode where all Amity can think about is saving Luz or how it’s Amity tearfully begging Luz to run that temporarily convinces Luz to leave behind the Boiling Isles. You get the sense that their relationship is still going strong, but there’s rarely a sense of progression or focus, especially when we get to—

Season Three-Yeah, might as well lump the whole “season” together. Because with the writers only having three specials to wrap up the rest of the story, we have no time to build off of Luz and Amity’s relationship more than we’ve had. There were SOME cute moments, like…

Luz’s little video that she used to come out to her mom. The fact that Luz calls them Lumity in universe is perfect.

Their little dance in the rain was precious and everything fans expected.

All the little touches and kisses these two shared proved how comfortable they’ve gotten with each other over time. They’re past the awkward stages of their relationship and finally accepting that this IS their reality.

Their couple costumes are the best and it’s kind of funny that they become their default outfit for most of the season.

Luz knowing she’s in a nightmare because Amity misquoted Azura is how it should be done. Luz knows Amity enough to know that would NEVER happen.

And their last on-screen kisses just feels like a final middle finger to the network that screwed the show over.

I couldn’t get enough of these moments, and I appreciate all of them. But it doesn’t change how Lumity is never something that takes the focus in an episode. Instead, it’s something that just simply exists, which is honestly good for a different reason. It allows Luz and Amity to just…be. To prove that their relationship doesn’t have to be the center of attention to be a good couple. They’re in a comfortable enough state and have already gone through so much that there’s not much to do that wouldn’t be repeating what we’ve seen already. Besides, we do get SOMETHING beyond cute moments.

Due to there being three specials left with the series, a lot of characters got the short end of the stick, even for fan favorites like Amity. And while Luz’s role this season is to go through a goth phase, Amity’s is there to…just be Luz’s girlfriend. I explained in part one how fans didn’t appreciate this decision, but I learned to accept it. I see it less of a downgrade and more of a character progression. And it can be best explained through ONE image:

Luz is in a dark time in her life and Amity brings her attention back into the light. That’s Amity’s real role this season: Being to Luz what Luz was toher. With Luz shrouded in guilt about Belos and The Collector, Amity is there to do as much as she can to help cheer Luz up. Planning a way back home in the hope of surprising Luz with a win, coming up couple costumes, reassuring Luz that life is better with her in it, giving advice about the egg, and motivating Luz to save the world one last time. Luz was the person who helped Amity through the darkest part of her life and Amity’s trying to do the same. It’s a culmination of her character development, showing her being the same supportive person Luz was and proving that she can give as much as she takes. The best part is that it…ALMOST works on Luz. Everything Amity does is effective enough to temporarily take Luz out of this funk she’s in, to the point where most of Luz’s genuine smiles came from Amity’s mere existence. But it wasn’t enough to completely help Luz get out of her depressed state. It worked in spades, don’t get me wrong. Whenever Luz was at her lowest, Amity was there to cheer her up a LITTLE. It’s just that Luz was too deep in her guilt that it would take more than Amity being her wonderful self to snap Luz out of it. Still, it was better than nothing, especially considering how Amity was the closest source that left Luz indecisive about leaving the Isles forever.

Eda and King would have likely driven Luz to stay…but they’re not there at the moment. They’re separated from Luz, with any knowledge of their fates left unknown to her. As for Luz’s friends, she’ll miss them dearly but she can always tell herself that they’d be better off without her. And with Willow and Gus already getting along great with Hunter, it just makes Luz’s argument easier to convince herself with. But with Amity, things are different. Dating her was an act of Luz trying to gain some sense of certainty in her life after all the crazy things that left her unsure of even who she wants to be. Being with Amity is something Luz fought for and, if she wanted to give it up, she had two chances to break things off if having a girlfriend wasn’t an option. She could have confessed that they should break up after telling Amity about her promise or take the L in “Reaching Out” after screwing up Amity’s moment to shine. But She didn’t. Because Luz wants to be with Amity, more than anything. And Luz knows that if she stays in the Human Realm, then that’s the end of their relationship. With that being the LAST THING Luz ever wants, it makes her decision weigh heavier on her heart, making Luz feel even more guilt with each soft moment she has with Amity. Because Luz KNOWS she has to confess about staying eventually and actually plans on doing it this time. There’s no ignoring the problem and solving it on her own or lying about things being perfectly fine. Luz planned to have one last happy memory with the people she loves before bringing down the mood about her staying in the human realm. Then Belos happened, but instead of putting it off for a better moment, Luz still decides that she HAS to tell the truth. The only reason she doesn’t is that Camila stalls things by saying that they’re BOTH going to the demon realm to fix things. Luz agrees with that for now, but is still convinced that she has to stay home. She’s even ready to say that to Amity later, only to get interrupted by Kikimora’s insane plan to rule over teenagers. And by the time THAT’S resolved, Camila managed to help Luz get through her angst and help her understand that leaving the Isles isn’t an option. Which means that there’s really no reason to tell Amity or anyone else about the whole thing anymore. She could, but it’s not so big of a deal that she HAS to. Not anytime soon, at least.

To me, Luz wanting to come out and say that she’s staying in the Human Realm is done well enough to make it where she SORT OF learned her lesson in “Reaching Out.” I used to think the opposite and…yeah, it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. Luz might still stall from saying the truth, and never does, but she still wants to. Luz was just struggling to find the right words or stalled for the right time. As for Amity, she knew that something was wrong but respectfully didn’t pry. Amity offered support when needed, but understood at this point that if Luz was hiding something, it was likely for a good reason. She’ll say it in time and Amity’s willing to trust Luz to do so. And while Luz never does, again, there’s no real reason or urgency to. Plus, trust me when I say that the last thing I want in the final season of The Owl House is more Lumity angst. I am perfectly content with there being primarily fluff between these two with just the SLIGHTEST angst sprinkled in.

I’m also content with the series ending with Luz and Amity STILL being together. They don’t break up, they’re not forced to separate, and neither die.

…Well, not permanently, anyways. The show ends with them together and still dating up to three or four years if the time skip is anything to go on. They got a chance to go on more dates, say “I love you” to each other constantly, hold hands and share soft kisses, go to Grom WITHOUT the drama, have disagreements they can work through, and…likely do adult things in the future when they’re ready for it. They get to go through it all together, likely for forever. I know that there’s this opinion about how it’s unrealistic for teen couples to stay together, especially ones who only ever dated each other, but…I don’t really care. For one, it’s a work of fiction. In a work of fiction, I WANT to see the cute couple get together, stay together, and ALWAYS be together. No sane person should want Luz and Amity to break up unless their reasons are “I don’t ship it.” These two are cute and have a healthy relationship that communicates well and learns WITH each other. These reasons make Luz and Amity one of my favorite fictional couples in animation, as well as the best thing in the show.

Lumity being the best thing in The Owl House goes beyond them being a cute couple. It’s ONE reason, but there are still others. Luz and Amity’s relationship normalizes LGBTQA+ romance, trading spectacle for sweet, awkward teen love that was a joy to see every time. It was also a joy to watch their bond grow stronger every episode, seeing the natural progression of rivals to friends to now girlfriends. There’s no forced drama or stretching out the romance. The writers figured that fans would want a cute couple to be a GOOD couple, so they prioritized as much as they could to make it as appealing as possible. It’s why Lumity works so well. It’s a part of the show that the writers knew they needed to get right, so they tried their best to do so. With it came an impressive romantic subplot that I, and others, couldn’t get enough of, for the adorable moments, showing us how far these two grew, and giving them both a happy ending they deserve. For me, I couldn’t have asked for anything better from a show I love.

Now, a normal person would stop their big, six part long review after talking about what they call the best thing about their favorite show. Save the best for last, and all that. But I…am an idiot who didn’t think this through. And there’s two more things I want to get out of the way before the conclusion. So tune in next time as we discuss the STORIES within The Owl House.

Next Part

#the owl house #luz noceda #amity blight #lumity #what i thought about #the owl house reviews #long post #really long post #again #sorry #my bad

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angelosearch · 5 months ago

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Tag game for fanfiction authors!

This one has been in my drafts for a while, I forgot where I got it from oops!! Tagging @tr1ck5 @suleikashideaway @gardengalwrites @aleheartilly @mathiwrites @waltzforthemoon @summonerluna and anyone who wants to join in!

Tell us:

The story you're proudest of: It's got to be Eyes of the Storm. It's a FFVIII AU but honestly, I don't think you need to know FFVIII at all to read it. It's magical realism with a lot of focus on place and nature and that's the kind of stuff I've wanted to write in long form for my whole life. I am so proud of it I kind of want to shake everyone I know and get them to read it.

Your story that's gotten the most love online: TECHNICALLY, Chaos Theory, but that's only because I've been posting it for a while and it's 21 chapters. In terms of Kudos per hits, I'd have to go with Silver Anniversary.

Tease a current WIP or idea you're working on: I'll give you two! First, a bit from A New Beginning's sequel (The Sorceress Awakens). This is from chapter one of three, "The Commander Dreams Again."

Squall nodded as though he’d been dismissed and started walking toward the door. “Hey wait son—I MEAN, son-dier! SOLDIER! No, Commander, Commander Squall? SQUAMMANDER—” “What, Laguna?” “Uh.. I just, uh…” Shit shit shit! He already looks annoyed! Gotta change the subject! “Uhh, what’s Rinoa up to these days? I’m surprised you didn’t bring her with you!” Perfect save, hell yeah! Squall looked away, and then to the floor. “She’s just busy, she couldn’t come.” And before Laguna could ask any further, Squall stepped out of his office.

And then a bit from the next chapter of Chaos Theory, "Part IV: The Edge of Chaos | Suspended Animation"

But there was another face there beyond his own. He could see his father’s features across the terrain of his countenance, filling him with a tightening ball of emotions too complex to name, nonetheless untangle. Most people told him he, luckily, resembled his mother, but Laguna was there, hiding along his brow bone and around his jawline. His reflection reminded him that he had been behind that man’s face, felt the things he felt, thought the things he thought, and it made it worse to realize how much he and Laguna had in common. It had been simpler to just see Laguna as a man that lived up to the shoddy expectations of the people of Winhill, as a guy who pushed him away and let him down intentionally, and hate him for it. Now an entirely different picture had been painted for Squall, and it was hard to reconcile his long-held beliefs and tinted experiences against the formerly unseen reality.

Also, I have this project I've got bouncing around in my head called "Odine Asylum" which hopefully I'll try to put on a page soon.

Your top 3 fandoms: Final Fantasy VIII, Hazbin Hotel, The Locked Tomb!

Your top 3 ships: Squall x Rinoa (FFVIII), Trevor x Sypha X Alucard (Castlevania), Thrawn x Eli (Star Wars Thrawn novels)

Rec someone else's fic: UGH this is SO HARD so I am just going to go with the fic I've read most recently (there were moments that had me cracking up): Dirty Boots.

Pick one!

Fluff or Angst (but why not both?)

Oneshots or longfics

Canon compliance or canon divergence

AO3 or FF.net

#tag game #ao3 #ao3 fanfic #fanfic

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cursedvibes · 1 year ago

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omg I finally found someone who cares about Kenjaku and interested in them as much as I do. I always felt like most of the annoying fans (cough Geto/stsg fans cough) see them as an extension of Geto and not their own character with a unique personality, also they’re not really popular with Japanese fandom so there’s that…

Sooo idk if someone has already asked you that question but I just wanted to know what do you think of the existing paradox within Kenjaku’s behaviour? I’m talking about the fact that they seem to behave differently depending if they’re being observed or not, in such cases as: Kenny generally treating Yuji like a tool for their plan but saying “thank you for getting along with my son”, while they were walking with Yuji’s friend inside the “cursed space”, in complete darkness, not observed by a single soul — I’m still not sure whether it was just a way for Gege to emphasize that Kenjaku is, in fact, Yuji’s parent (if some readers didn’t catch it in ch.143) OR it should be interpreted as Kenny saying “oh yeah thanks for helping me to fulfill my plan by befriending Yuji —> resulting in him finding a finger”… but I also wonder could it be their real, genuine feelings? The fact that they actually care about Yuji in a sense would probably feel weird a lil bit but on the other hand there are also cases where they act contradictory, for example looking down on Tengen in general when fighting Yuki & Choso, mocking Tengen in that scene where they sit in front of TV, but the moment they’re not observed directly - the moment Tengen dies - they say their goodbyes to her and call her their “friend”. You see what I’m trying to imply? I might be completely wrong on this but it kinda feels like Kenjaku has an issue with the whole true feelings/emotions shtick. It probably makes sense since they should stick to their plan and any kind of attachment might ruin everything, it’s high risk on their part — Kenjaku shutting down their excitement immediately after they start feeling something real for the first time in hundreds of years, pressing Takaba to the ground — once again, understandable, but I do wonder if it results in something more in the end. There is also a theme of loneliness/intellectual loneliness specifically that is associated with Kenny so I’m honestly sooo fascinated by their character and I’m looking forward to see how it all unfolds.

Also do you have any analyses/meta posts about Kenny maybe? I’d love a link or something and I would definitely read it!!

Hi! Always lovely to meet a fellow Kenjaku fan! It's a real shame that Kenjaku so often gets overshadowed by other characters, particularly Geto, even when the story is focusing on them (as we can currently see) and when they are talked about, then often purely in the context of stsg, when they have so many more meaningful connections and ones that are also more important to their character.

The stuff you bring up about Kenjaku's contradicting behaviour is exactly what's been ghosting around my brain the past months or year even. I talked a little bit about it recently here and here. As far as other analysis posts go, what I could remember (and find again on my blog...) there's something about Kenjaku's motivations and how I think "for the lulz" is a bad way to describe it, a post about their perspective on death and a post reflecting on the power Kenjaku & Tengen have over Sukuna and Gojo, despite those being technically "The Strongest". I hope that's helpful and what you were looking for?

Regarding what you said about Kenjaku's contradicting behaviour, I think it all ties back to Tengen and their dispute because here you can see very well that Kenjaku both cares about Tengen, but also puts her as the centrepiece of their plan and is thereby ready to sacrifice her when push comes to shove. Despite going through with capturing her, Kenjaku doesn't seem very happy with how things ended with Tengen. They like her, respect her, see her as an equal, but are also very frustrated by her stubbornness and inability to change or even engage with the world. They had to force her in the end to do it and they didn't even get a good conversation with her after waiting centuries to see her again. She just kinda went along with what they did, again showing no resistance or strong will for survival. So Kenjaku doesn't really hate her, they are just frustrated with her non-actions.

You can also see that in the words they scream at her in ch 205 about having actually lived and gained new experiences, contrary to Tengen, who stuck to her old ways. It seems like they wanted to bait her into a response, a discussion, something, but they didn't get anything. At this point it was probably not surprising to them. I assume Tengen used to argue with them a lot more back in the Heian era and that is what Kenjaku is currently missing. Even if people disagree with them, Kenjaku wants to be presented with interesting perspectives by people who understand the world like they do. Tengen clearly used to have that, she build jujutsu society on it, but then she decided to distance herself from Kenjaku out of self-preservation and...maybe weariness? Hard to say at this point, but she was clearly not about allowing her body to evolve to discover new things about cursed energy and humanity.

Kenjaku tried to find something similar in Yuki, but she doesn't engage enough with them to bring any meaningful discourse (unfortunately, I wish the two had discussed their world views more during their fight). So now that Tengen is gone or controlled and can thereby not give any meaningful intellectual input, Kenjaku is looking for new people to fill that hole, new friends who are equal to them, challenge them and also give them some sort of stimulus they have been missing for centuries apparently. That's part of why they do the merger in the first place. They want something that can truly surprise them and present them with something completely new.

Besides intellectual curiosity, Kenjaku just seems lonely. Unlike Sukuna, who is fine just playing around with others, eating and having one person to rely on, Kenjaku seems to want more people around them. Not many I assume, but they need friends and currently they seem a bit desperate to find new ones, seeing how they even ask Hazenoki to hang out with them. That's also where we see that contradiction. Kenjaku wants friends, but over the last millennia their plan has taken up so much of their headspace that they are ready to kill said friends for that end and that tendency to use others for their gain is also what keeps them from finding new connections because obviously nobody wants anything to do with them when they get treated like that. They ask Hazenoki to be their friend, despite both of them knowing he has to die for the Culling Game to end and their plan to progress. So at best he could've given them company for a few days and then they would've killed him. But at this point Kenjaku is even fine with that. Hell, they are talking to dead people and the thin air (a non-listening Tengen). Not a good sign for the state of your mental health.

Takaba is interesting because he came to Kenjaku out of his own will and offered to give them something interesting/funny, basically fulfil their conditions for friendship. He doesn't even mind that much that Kenjaku is trying to kill him. Perfect candidate for friendship, but by being so open, forthcoming and generally being a weird guy, he unnerves Kenjaku. For one, they aren't used (anymore) to people being so friendly with them without any self-serving motives, listening to them and sharing their interest. Like with Sukuna & Uraume, Kenjaku is always the one who engages conversations and meetings, the two don't care about Kenjaku unless they need to further their personal goals. Similar with the reincarnated sorcerers. Kenjaku approaches them for a binding vow and the entire relationship depends on serving their own benefits. The other thing is that Kenjaku doesn't seem used to having someone they share so many common interests with and who they can indulge with, without ulterior motives playing into it. In this case it's comedy and pop culture instead of cursed energy, but that doesn't seem to matter and solving the riddle that is Takaba's cursed technique gives Kenjaku another reason to get invested in/with him.

It's like you said, Kenjaku wants connection, but when presented to them, they get uncertain and awkward on how to deal with them and don't seem to want to get too attached because they will kill them in the end anyway. With Tengen that was less of a problem because she's immortal and will always exist in some way, but not talking to her still seems to be very aggravating for them. Even with Takaba, despite having the time of their life and feeling better than they have for centuries, Kenjaku will have to kill him in the end. At least with how the Culling Game rules are now (they could change them...). Takaba is also very hard to kill... The ocean scene where Kenjaku goes from happiness to trying to drown Takaba honestly perfectly encapsulates their mental state towards close relationships, including how they treat Yuuji. Someone gets too close, they try to push them away like they're allergic to feelings. It's like a defence mechanism. If they want to follow through on the plan they have been working on for thousand years, they can't afford to dally around with some random clown, even if they like his company.

Same with Yuuji. I think Kenjaku does care about him in some way and sees him as their son, but that just doesn't keep them from hurting him. They sound proud of him in Shibuya and excited to see what he will evolve into. I think they banked on Sukuna switching vessel and Yuuji using his special body to become hopefully something interesting in the future, using Sukuna's cursed energy as a kickstarter for his development so to say. I mean, if Sukuna hadn't switched vessels, he would've been useless and unable to ever come out again after Shibuya and Kenjaku was clearly preparing for him to participate in the Culling Game. So Yuuji being a vessel/cage was only a temporary solution.

So I think Kenjaku's words to Sasaki are genuine, but they are also thanking her for starting the whole finger situation (Yuuji was the one who found it, but Sasaki was the one who wanted to play around with it). I'm also wondering if they intended for her to look into Yuuji's past and confront him with his parentage because they know Sasaki is very curious and Yuuji's parent he never mentioned turning up in her bedroom and telling her about a death game they started seems like something that she wouldn't be able to brush past. I mean, they didn't say this to Iguchi, who was also Yuuji's friend, only Sasaki. Only question is, how do they expect Sasaki to get in contact with Yuuji in the state Japan is in? And then there's of course the question of if Gege will even pick up this plot threat again.

Being interested in seeing what Yuuji will evolve into is Kenjaku's own way of showing they care, you could say. They don't give a shit about Choso's power level or potential after all, he's just a failure. Yuuji's potential is what makes them care and I think having birthed him themselves plays into their feelings as well, since Kenjaku clearly has a very close attachment to the womb, pregnancy and birth. Their interest in him is self-serving, but that doesn't mean they don't care or deny any parental feelings (at least not when in the right company, where they can open up more). Hell, despite looking down on Choso, Kenjaku does call themselves his parent. There's only a bit of blood connecting them, they didn't even birth him, but they don't deny their familial connection. So yeah, despite all that, Kenjaku always treats people bad because their own interests come first.

The current fight is interesting because Takaba could give something different to Kenjaku. He can entertain them, satisfy their curiosity and show them something new. He proofs that they don't need to go through with the merger, that there are other options they could take and might even end up happier for it, but I also think that Kenjaku will not use that opportunity to turn around. They have come too far, suffered set-back after set-back for thousand years just to get to this point, so no matter how good the alternative is, they will not give up on the merger. Tengen is already captured, she can't stay inside them forever and when she's set free, she will likely wreck chaos even if she doesn't merge with other humans. This fight shows us what Kenjaku could be or less destructive ways they could take, but at this point they are too far gone. I'm really curious to see how this will all play out and how this fight will end, what it will mean for Kenjaku, their plan, the protagonist team and how exactly they will deal with Takaba. Highly doubt it will mean anything good though. Either way, I smell some character development incoming.

#asks #kenjaku #jjk spoilers

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musette22 · 2 months ago

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Hi Minnie, hope you’re well. Saw your reblog about not reposting artwork, and it made me wonder what your thoughts are on something sort of similar.

Most people on here would probably agree that stealing someone’s fan art or fanfic is wrong. But there’s also something I’ve noticed in a smallish, maybe medium-sized fandom I’m in that has gotten some new fans recently. Maybe it happens in other fandoms too. Using Chris for an example—let’s say someone found a rare old interview with him in a print magazine that didn’t seem to be known in the fandom, so they scanned it and posted it. Most people would just reblog or like it. But someone else might nab it and post it on their own Tumblr blog or Twitter or Discord, etc.

Now, I think that’s not so bad if they at least credit and link to the original post. But most people don’t bother to do that, and are happy to accept the credit as if they were the one who found it. This happens fairly often in my fandom now (and it seems to be mostly the newbies doing it) and I’m not sure how to address it as I seem to be the only one who notices or cares.

It’s not quite as bad as stealing someone’s art, because they’re literally just sharing an interview or pic or whatever which they technically don’t own in any way. But I still feel like it’s slightly shady to do if it’s something rare, or maybe if there’s already a very similar “legacy” post that’s well-known in the fandom. What are your thoughts on it? Should we basically accept that as soon as we post something it’s free game for the internet, or try to have a bit more, IDK, Tumblr decorum, lol.

I know some of it’s down to excitement and eagerness to share things, and of course people don’t necessarily see every post even in a small fandom so they might not know that someone already posted something. But the frequency of it happening makes me think maybe they just want all the notes to themselves.

Have a great day ❤️

Hi darling! I'm doing well, thank you, I hope you are too! Thank you so much for your message, this is actually such an interesting question, and so eloquently put, too.

I definitely recognise what you're describing, it happens occasionally in the Stucky / Sebastian / Chris fandoms as well, and I basically feel the exact same way about it that you do. I agree it's not quite on the same level as stealing/reposting fanart or fanfic, and it also ranks below using gifs without credit and passing them off as your own, because all of these kinds of works take a great deal of effort and time to create, and are overall very personal in nature.

That isn't quite the case for photos or interviews that people dig up and post, but even that takes time and effort, and so in my opinion, the decent thing to do if you want to share that sort of content to another platform would be to ask permission first, or at the very least to give credit to whomever posted it first (although it is of course hard to determine to whom the credit is really owed in this case, because you could argue the credit belongs to the original photographers/authors only, but of course that is often arguable too when they've been released publicly etc., but hey, how hard is it really to be like "I found this here, thank you to this person to bringing it to my attention!" or something to that effect?)

So yeah, basically I think there can't be any hard rules for this sort of reposting, but I do absolutely think that ideally, everyone should always try to be decent about it, and not just repost stuff they've just seen someone else post and act like it was their own discovery, especially if it's something rare. There are definitely folks around who do this often and shamelessly, ostensibly for the notes and clout. It's not a crime, but it is kinda lame imo, and just bad fandom etiquette.

I hope that answers your question and that you're having a wonderful day yourself! ❤️

#tumblr things #fandom etiquette #minnie answers

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oneshortdamnfuse · 2 years ago

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are we allowed to ask about the anon hate huffpost wrote about or no...

Oh my god, so yeah - HuffPost essentially wrote an article about anon hate I received. It was technically a rape threat I received after I had called someone out for the way they were talking to/about asexual people. In response to that anon hate / threat, I wrote up a post about sexual harassment and corrective rape as it’s been directed towards asexual people. I post this on my M/arvel blog, mind you - this was like 2012? 2013? Maybe? I am in college at the time. I go to sleep. Wake up to hundreds of new followers and a lot of messages. I have no idea what’s happening, until I find out that this whole thing was published in a series HuffPost was doing on asexual people.

They took screenshots of my blog (embarrassing). They used my real name. I’m not even “out” to most people let alone my family at this point. Like, literally did not ask for permission. Not only that, but they screwed up the order in which things were posted. I received the threat before I made the post about sexual harassment and corrective rape, but they made it seem like the threat was sent to me after I made the post which doesn’t seem like a big mistake but it just alters the context and made it look like I was asking to be sent threats after such a controversial post.

I doubt anyone I knew personally read the article, but the series they did on asexuality got so popular and at the time there were very few high profile articles about asexuality. For a good while, I was afraid of people who I didn’t want to find me, finding me. Also, really? It’s just embarrassing to bring all that traffic to a fandom blog. I understand everything I post is public, but it would have been nice to be asked if / what I wanted to share before posting it. Even if the article was sympathetic towards me, it would have been better to get the story straight. Anyway, that’s how my beef with a hateful anon went public on HuffPost.

😩

#asks #weirdest time of my life #rape mention

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 2 years ago

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Me: I agree you shouldn’t post spoilers for things on purpose. It ruins other people’s experience. And by this I mean going out of your way to spoiler someone on purpose, and news sites (not your own personal blog, unless it is literally recently released). As long as news sites and people aren’t being assholes about it, it’s on the person who is trying to avoid spoilers....to.....avoid the darn spoilers themselves (like wait to follow people and the fandom and such).

Also me: Why are people so up in arms about the RPGSite P3 tweet? TT0TT Like as someone who has never touched P3 or anything related what is it that you see that’s spoilery??? Is it when the game ends and the vibe (only thing that makes sense imo)? The fact it looks peaceful? The fact MC is with best girl? The fact he’s laying down and it’s implied he’s sleepy???? What are you drawing from it??? What is it about it that looks spoilery?

People: You know why!

Me: Yeah I know why cause I played all the games, but like.... out of context, from someone that SHOULDN’T know.....what does it look like??? Huh?? Huh??? Or did you look it up and because curiosity got the cat and satisfaction didn’t bring it back??? Then doesn’t that mean you spoiled it yourself? And don’t say “people can read between the lines” because people were def confused when it ended and Atlus needed to make the Answer to you know....ANSWER PEOPLE’S QUESTIONS. 8U I’m just wondering why people are up in arms if they don’t know the context of the darn scene. XP Cause the only people that technically should be upset are.....ones that know the context klfjdaslkjflaf It’s not adding up, and I’m so confused. TT0TT

(Me: but also, why tweet out a screen shot? You could’ve just been like “*posts game cover art of P3/P/FES* Happy March 5th for P3 fans guys if you know you know” that would’ve been the safest tweet TT0TT)

#silly talks #silly rants #'i don't want to be spoiled for p3' then don't follow the p3 tag???? until you finish it????#like people celebrate march 5th in the fandom for years for a reason it's on you if you don't buckle down and avoid the spoilers #i thought they revealed more in their tweet then they did TT0TT #like I'm on the side of not being spoiled #BUT I HAVE QUESTIONS!#rising from the dead to bitch again #I live (to) bitch #jk jk #i'm not really bitching I'm just wondering the logic #if someone has a story or a theory I'm happy to listen (and again I'm more on the side of not being spoiled)#i just thinki it's funny you see a happy picture of two people with nothing implied and people are like 'SPOILERS!' klfjsdal;kfjafjkl

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crisis-aversion · 6 days ago

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Some random wrap up thoughts either from after the fact or that I didn’t post at the time I had them:

(Under the cut bc I went on longer than I thought)

I love Zeller. Will should have bullied him more (affectionate)

Gallows humour strikes again but it’s so funny how the running jokes range from grim dark “Chilton almost dies every season” to innocent “Hannibal really hates Will’s aftershave”

Chilton always trying to say the things least likely to get him killed any time he’s been kidnapped. You can see the moment he failed his perception check on that last one with Dolarhyde

I was gonna say that Dolarhyde shooting himself was very anticlimactic. And then he showed up again

Despite being married Will and Molly barely have couple vibes. At all

Chilton essentially predicted this outcome three years ago. Actually he was right (or half right) about a lot of things that I bet Jack regretted ignoring him about

I’ve known about The Fall for a Long Time through fandom osmosis. Thing is I always expected it to have been like. Intentionally jumping off the cliff together to escape the police. Not. Actually just falling

BEVERLY DESERVED BETTER

Chilton also did not deserve to be tortured so much but it’s not nearly as devastating as Beverly. Also his is at least funny

It’s both kinda funny and kinda messed up that Will’s “memories” of Abigail talking to him in the hospital was basically just written over Chilton being there

On that note Chilton probably wasn’t actually the only person to visit Will in the hospital. But the fact that he’s the only one shown to have is really funny. And he brought him flowers!

To be fair he brought Alana flowers too but still

“May I use you shower please?” Is still one of the most morbidly funny scenes in the show

Imagine vibing in your house, possibly wondering when our ex-psychiatrist is gonna kill your other ex-psychiatrist, when the second psychiatrist shows up on your doorstep covered in blood and shaking like a chihuahua

Chilton pulls a gun on Will when he finds out he called Jack but he’s shaking so badly I genuinely don’t think he’d have hit him even if he had pulled the trigger. From two feet away

Bedelia has technically killed at least two people and genuinely no one cares

Hannibal gets called in to consult on a case, shows up to fake shock and concern, gets in the way, solves the case on his own without telling anyone, wanders off to kill the murderer, and tells Jack the guy he’s looking for is in his pile of bodies via riddle

Imagine being a murderer hiding out in a grain silo and you’re carrying your latest victim in, only to have this grinning maniac on your roof be like “hi :)”

if this was a supernatural horror I’d be 100% convinced Chilton cannot die. How. How

The dogs have a taste for human now

If I had a nickel for every time a character lost their face. I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice

half the time when you put the entire FBI team in one room they’re just insulting each other and not actually focusing on the task at hand

I have not given Price enough attention during this liveblog (or it was always in conjunction with Zeller). I love Price

in case anyone was wondering from my previous metronoming about Chilton. Yes he ended up being my fave. I’m a sucker for a cockroach

HanniGram is just the evil version of JohnLock. Eccentric crime consultant with a Doctor friend who helps him out on cases, has killed someone for him, and totally isn’t his bf? The Fall? Yeah. It’s the same picture

Will is so mentally unwell every psychiatrist in a fifty mile radius desires him carnally

Will can say the wildest thing about a corpse and all he ever gets for it is the sideeye to beat all sideeyes. Everyone’s just agreed to not mention it

Everyone can be all action hero posed up ready to shoot and Will’s just standing there like🧍‍♂️

Jack gives Will the benefit of the doubt and brings some food from one of Hannibal’s dinner parties to the lab to test. And everyone’s just looking at him like “you want us to test leftovers?”

I wonder if after they tested it and found it was just. Normal food if they were like “our boss has lost his mind. But at least he brought us snacks!”

I’m half convinced when Hannibal framed Chilton he didn’t actually expect Miriam to shoot him. But he’s definitely not disappointed bc he does seem to relish in Chilton’s suffering especially

Everyone being like “Hannibal isn’t a cannibal!” In season two and meanwhile Chilton’s in the bg gagging

the tonal dissonance of a normal dinner jumpcutting to a literal murder

Hannibal quoting Dante in Italian for ✨Authenticity✨

Hannibal being an apex predator even when it comes to other serial killers. How many other murderers has he killed?

Hannibal and Will killing a dude together and Hannibal being like “this is all I ever wanted for us 😍 “ and meanwhile Will’s panting on the ground covered in (mostly) his own blood

Will basically telling Bedelia that he’s intentionally getting Hannibal out of jail and Hannibal is probably gonna eat her. And she doesn’t really react in any way. Or do anything about it

Chilton casually committing medical malpractice and still being the most normal psychiatrist here, mostly by virtue of not having killed anyone (that we know of)

Mason probably shouldn’t have had that eel in his floor

Love how everyone keeps calling Mason a serial killer as if he ever actually got the chance to kill anyone. He wanted to, sure, but he never managed it

tfw when the psychiatrist dating her patient’s sibling and helping her kill him for being abusive is in the least toxic relationship in the show

Chilton spends the first half of the show in the psychiatric version of Grey’s Anatomy and the second half in a psychological horror

half the characters in this show don’t seem to realize they’re in a psychological horror. But the ones who do are having a Time of it

Bayverse Optimus is now not the only character I can make the “give me your face”joke about

Chilton got to legitimately talk to Will once and basically immediately decided he was the good guy

✨Stabbing as a love language✨

If you asked Chilton what the worst day of his life was I wonder what he’d say. It definitely happened on the show though. His life just keeps getting progressively worse

Chilton once said they’re living on the best timeline (or roughly so). Considering that was after he got vivisected and shot in the face I wonder what his definition of the worst timeline would have been

Chilton mumbling that he hopes he hasn’t been burned while still drowsy from being drugged absolutely gave Dolarhyde ideas, rip

Hannibal talks like if a 17th century vampire had a kid with an art scholar

Will has a seizure and Hannibal’s just like “eh it’s only mild” and carries on with his day

Will shows up with Abel wanting Hannibal to confirm he’s not just hallucinating the guy. And Hannibal promptly gaslights him into thinking he’s not. And then just. Has a casual conversation with Abel while Will has a breakdown in the bg

#lex lurks #jack watches hannibal #Tumblr did *not* want to properly paste this from Discord #Yes this took four messages to send on Discord shh

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angstandhappiness · 2 years ago

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So true

@bafflement #facts#this poor man#immortality sucks#at least he's never truly alone?

@azerothx And the kicker? Salem destroyed so much, bc her hubby died, so technically speaking it is Ozma's fault, or maybe even it's Salem's father's fault for keeping her locked up in a tower, from which she send letters to help her /jk #no good character is meant to be perfect btw#if they're perfect they're mary sues#and we don't like those

@quetozcoatl #YEEEAAAAAAHHH!!#I AM A SIMPLE PERSON I SEE OZPIN APPRECIATE I REBLOG#i want to kiss you on the lips op#thank you for this post#rwby#ozpin enthusiasm

@eyesteeth #i'm not up to date with rwby#but ozpin support forever

@that-1-nocturnal-creature We love oz, his morals are just a bit skewed bc he is immortal

@lacependragon #this is one of the few things on this season ill reblog#because i am an oz stan first#and a person second#fuck people

@albion-93 Reblogging not because I like Oz that much (with or without the fandom hate), but to keep myself from steering back into hating the guy because this post raises good points. He’s made questionable choices that got people killed (then again, who hasn’t in this show?), but his intentions are as noble as you can get.

@iamafanofcartoons if they stopped hating on Oz? That would force them to hate on Ironwood. They cannot bring themselves to do that. So they shame Ozzie Ozzie Ozma instead.

@chadfarsight #ozma of Remnant#a lot of the things people blame Ozma for#are really TINDICK'S FAULT

@epsilon-system Ozpin isn't entirely innocent, but the Academies were also built to give people the tools to survive against the Grimm. Not to mention the combat schools also do that.

And I do think ozpin should've told the inner circle the full truth, but I don't blame him for not telling RWBY and JNPR.

And I don't think Ironwood got his paranoia from ozpin- Oz spoke against ironwoods decisions repeatedly and never liked the idea that Ironwood brought a whole fleet to Vale in v2 ("...But yes, those are a bit of an eyesore." -Ozpin, v2 ch2, 'Welcome to Beacon'). Ironwood is honestly just really really stubborn. The dude got ozpin kicked off the vale council bc of his paranoia and bc ozpin wasn't budging

#felix (host)#rwby#ozpin#also yeah making atlas float wasnt the smartest idea lol#i can get why he did that#to give ppl hope after such a brutal war#but uh yeah it was dumb af lol

@aspiringwarriorlibrarian yeah it was bad advice, but that was because ozpin is himself traumatized with abysmal self-worth. He's not a jackass who wants kids to suffer, he genuinely believed it would help her. He was just wrong.

@effortlessdeer Oh for sure Ruby, would have always gotten involved, but he definitely still out a lot of pressure on her by making her the leader. He obviously thought that she would have years to train, and I definitely think he could have brought her in to some degree to keep an eye on her, but I feel like he also used her. He could see the spark she had inspiring others, and knew she had great power, so I’m sure he wanted to recursion her and made her leader for that. She maybe took his advice the wrong way But I do believe he didn’t have any malicious intentions, but as you said he is flawed. I also found it odd he did not tell her of her silver eyes power. Perhaps he wanted her to rely on her own skill before learning the power so it wasn’t a crutch? There’s no way he didn’t know silver eyes can destroy grim. Or perhaps he was afraid word would get out about her, and Salem would target her? The Pyrrha as a maiden thing I still feel iffy about. Allowing her to take the power I think should have come with more truth into what was going on. That was always going to paint a target on her back.

@epsilon-system @effortlessdeer I do agree that making ruby leader put a lot of pressure on her, though I imagine there weren't really any other choices. Weiss and Yang aren't leaders, and Blake only started showing leadership skills after she started healing from the fall. So ruby was kinda the only choice. As for not telling ruby abt her eyes, I imagine it's bc Oz didn't want to put more pressure on her. Plus iirc he knew that there was an infiltrator in Beacon so he didn't want that- -information getting back to Salem. And as for pyrrha not getting the full truth, I imagine ozpin thought that pyrrha knowing abt salem would've put more pressure on her to say yes. He obviously didn't want that, so he didn't tell her.

OP's tags: #and im not saying ozpin has no faults#hes absolutely flawed#its a big part of his character and its what makes him so interesting#hes not MEANT to be perfect

God I'm seeing SO MUCH Ozpin hate lately and, frankly, it's completely unfounded.

He is NOT the cause of Ruby's breakdown nor jaunes. "Oh but he gave her that advice in v1!" So?? It's not like he knew it was bad advice! Ozpin saw a student in need of comfort and offered that comfort in the best way he knew how. Oz is NOT the kind of person to leave a student alone when they're despairing.

"But he let ruby join Beacon early!" Yeah, he did, for likely many reasons. Because she's a SEW, she's incredibly important, plus she was going to get dragged into his and salems war ANYWAYS due to her eyes and the fact she was going to be a huntress anyways. Plus, ruby is the child of summer, someone we can assume Oz was close to much like qrow. Letting her into Beacon early was the SAFEST option. Why wouldn't he want to protect her? And it's likely ruby would've gone off to fight Roman if she wasn't let in, and not only that, it's entirely possible he and cinder would've targeted her due to her eyes. Being in Beacon with a team was the SAFEST possible option.

"But he lied to her, the inner circle, and rwby and jnpr/jnor!" Yeah, he did. I do think he should've told the inner circle that Salem couldn't be killed, but a bunch of teenagers he hardly knows? He said himself that his actions are backed by EXPERIENCE. He's been betrayed God knows how many times over tens of thousands of years. Lionheart was not the first betrayal by any means, and Leo literally said the exact same thing RWBY did- "We won't turn our back on you." Why wouldn't he be wary of people he hardly knows, especially kids?

"But Oz dragged kids into his war!" They were going to get involved anyways! At least Ruby and Yang were! Plus ozpin admitted in VOLUME 2 that he hoped they never had to fight in his war! Oz gave them MULTIPLE outs, including pyrrha! Qrow said that they didn't HAVE time, but ozpin gave her time to think on it anyways and even needed her VERBAL consent to start the aura transfer! He didn't WANT to bring any of them into his war! Why would he want to force pyrrha into the same situation he's been in? And as for the Academies, ozpin built them so he could give people the tools and training to defend themselves and others! Protecting the Relics was just an upside to that! Plus he can't nor wants to force anyone to be Huntsmen! It's ENTIRELY up to the students!

"Oz caused Ruby's breakdown!" Believe it or not, he didn't. Sure he gave her bad advice, but he constantly gave ruby and her team an out. She CHOSE to keep fighting. Not that it's her own fault that she had a breakdown, cause it isn't, but like. It's certainly not Oz's fault! If anyone, blame cinder and Salem! They literally attacked Beacon, Haven and Atlas! Ozpin could NOT have known that would've happened, because that was the POINT. All he knew was that there might be an infiltrator, and that was AFTER he let ruby in. I'm sure that if he HAD known about the attack beforehand, he wouldn't have let ruby into Beacon.

Oz is NOT a bad person. He's a traumatized, immortal man who's scared to trust. He cares deeply for his students and friends. He manipulated NO ONE. A lot of that trauma is because of Salem. If you want to blame any character for Ruby's mental state, blame HER.

#rwby #ozpin #and im not saying ozpin has no faults #hes absolutely flawed #its a big part of his character and its what makes him so interesting #hes not MEANT to be perfect #rwby meta #spoilers #rwby spoilers

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avintagekiss24 · 4 years ago

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Hi! I don't want to start anything on here and am always willing for civil conversations. At this point there's so much I've found out about Seb (besides the video he liked, the tommy lee thing, and the girlfriend thing) that I feel so guilty if I would continue to support him. I love him sm but it just doesn't look good rn. He is associated/follows an organisation (for helping veterans) that has posted a blue lives matter flag picture and who's co-founder has sexual assault allegations against him, and worked with him in 'The last full measure'. His friend Paul Walter Hauser has done blackface in the past, and when called out on it he just listed a few people that also did blackface. There's more, I found a discussion on here that I can link. I seriously don't support "cancel culture" bc I don't think it helps anyone but there are just a lot of 'mistakes' and shady people that can be linked to Seb, I wish it wouldn't be that way. I honestly don't know what to think about it anymore.

Hi! I’m also open to having civil conversations and I don’t believe you’re trying to start anything. I really do think this situation of dragging up a four year old video and taking it completely out of context is harmful not just to Black people, but to fandom/activism in general. This is gonna be long because I’m going to take your points one by one, and I want to preface this by saying that I will not answer any derogatory, sideways asks pertaining to this subject. I will delete every single one and will block your silly ass. I’m not going to argue with people who think I’m blindly supporting Sebastian because I’m just trying to get fucked by him, or people who think I hate myself and am trying to appease some white man.

So, on with the discourse!

The video he liked - this video was taken completely out of context and that is my main issue with this whole situation. It was not a video of a white man saying that he thinks he should be able to say the n word as everyone claimed it was. They were quickly debating on whether or not it's okay to say in rap lyrics. He was told no, that's not okay, that's never okay and they moved on from it. That's it. End of story. That somehow was twisted into a click bait style headline of "Sebastian Stan likes a video of a white man defending his right to say the n word" when that is absolutely not true. My other issue is that people are more upset that Sebastian liked the video than they are about the white man in the video literally saying the n word. So, do you really care about the use of the n word like you're claiming? Cuz if you do, you'd be more upset at the white man that said the word than you would be about the white man simply liking the video. Or, are you just using this as an excuse to grandstand against a white man you don't like?

The Tommy Lee thing - Sebastian Stan playing Tommy Lee does not make Sebastian Stan a bad person. Is Charlize Theron a bad person for playing Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who started murdering men? Is Leonardo DiCaprio a bad person for playing a slave owner? Is Edward Norton a bad person for playing a nazi sympathizing racist? Actors play bad people. That doesn't mean that they themselves are bad people. 1990's Tommy Lee was a bad person, but that should have no bearing on who Sebastian Stan is or his character as a man.

The gf/Paul Walter Hauser thing - Why are we holding Sebastian accountable for what the people around him are doing? Again, why are we more upset that Sebastian is associated with people who have done questionable things than the specific people themselves? I'm not going to speak on the kimono wearing -- I'm not Asian. It's not my place to say whether or not its offensive because it's not my culture, but she posted that picture and attended that party before she started dating Sebastian, quite possibly before she even knew him. Same with Paul. I think that black face thing was long before he knew Sebastian. Now, if Sebastian was defending these actions, going around saying "I think it's okay for white women to wear Kimono's" "I think black face is fine" "I think white people should be able to say the n word" then we'd have a different story, wouldn't we? But that's not what we have, and that's not what he is doing. He is not responsible for the things his friends do or have done in the past just because he's more famous than they are, and he is not required to speak on them. Let's put it this way -- would you be comfortable having to be responsible for something a friend of yours did before you knew them? Would you want to have to be forced to answer for your friend when you yourself had nothing to do with the questionable behavior?

The organization that supports the military/blue lives matter - Sebastian cannot control what message that foundation puts out and it does not mean that he is or is not pro-police himself. There is not enough concrete evidence -- if any evidence for that matter -- that Sebastian is a blue lives matter supporter. Did Sebastian donate before they put up the blue lives matter post? Or after? I don’t know, cuz I don’t follow him that closely, but if he donates before they come out with a particular stance, that means he should be held accountable for that? I know I donated to an organization once and they turned out to support something that i’m 100% against. That means I’m a bad person because I couldn’t see into the future? Another point, how can we be certain that Sebastian saw the blue lives matter post in the first place? I know I’m not online 24 hrs a day, I miss posts all the time and I’m just an average person. I make three or four tumblr posts a day, and I’m gone. I have to play catch up on social media, and even then, I still miss stuff. So I’m sure the same happens to a working actor. As for the co-founder, I don't know who this person is and would rather not get into any allegations against them because I don't want to trigger anyone who comes across this post. If Sebastian knows about these allegations, is a willing participant/supporter of this person then yeah, that's pretty shitty, but we don't know the inner workings of this friendship/acquaintance/work relationship. We don’t know how close they are or if they even still speak.

I’m a pretty big fan of Don Cheadle. He’s a stand up guy, he’s a great actor, he’s funny, he’s political and stands up for what he believes in and in a very public way. I support him. Don Cheadle is also friends with Chris Evans, RDJ, Mark Ruffalo, and Letitia Wright (just to name a few). Chris Evans has a bipartisan forum that highlights/promotes right wing politicians, RDJ defended Chris Pratt during the whole “he’s the worst Chris in Hollywood” crap, who’s technically done black face, and who once said to a female reporter “nice tits” when she walked into the room, Mark Ruffalo just walked back his support of Palestine, and Letitia Wright retweeted/supported an anti-vaxxer/anti-trans Pastor who equated an ingredient of the covid vaccine to the devil because it contained some parts of the word Lucifer. Does that mean Don is now a bad person because he’s friends with these people? Why isn’t he getting any heat for his friendships with them? Why isn’t he being held accountable for what they’ve done and said? Oh right, because he’s not a white fave. So people don’t care one way or the other, which brings me to my next point.

I can guarantee you that if Sebastian’s gf or Paul or this co-founder were not associated with Sebastian in any way, nobody would give a shit about her wearing a kimono, about Paul doing black face, or about the co-founder/organization being blue lives matter supporters and in that lies the actual problem. Being critical of people and their actions should be consistent and should happen all the time -- not just when they interact with your white fave. That’s when it becomes performative and looks like you just want to be able to show internet people that you follow/support/stan unproblematic celebrities, when really, you don’t care.

I think the moral of this post is that I think it's unfair to hold a complete stranger to a standard that I cannot hold myself to. I also don't view celebrities the way most teenagers/twenty somethings do, and that’s because when I entered fandom we didn't have social media, so I grew up with a wall between myself and said celebrities. There is no wall now with the presence of social media. "Fans" nowadays have a weird ownership feeling over celebrities because they can read their personal thoughts or view personal pictures and think that they have this personal quasi-friendship with them. I can't get on board with that. I prefer having the wall and I still keep the wall.

If supporting Sebastian makes you uncomfortable, then by all means, stop supporting him. Just make sure you are making this decision for yourself based on credible sources and concrete evidence and that you're not letting this fake woke activist mob make you feel uncomfortable. Internet activism means nothing unless you put your money where your mouth is in your real life and 90% of the social justice internet warriors do not. Real activism is bigger than changing your avi to a black square.

#asks #answered #sebastian stan

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dhwty-writes · 3 years ago

Text

The Terribly Sad and Tragic Affair that Is the Fake Funeral of Shadowhand Essek Thelyss

Apparently, I am not only drawing for the Critical Role fandom, but writing for it, too. After months of nearly no progress I just vomited out 3k words this Tuesday and it only went downhill from there.

This fic is based on this post by @anne-o-nyme, I really hope I managed to capture the energy of it.

Have fun!

Summary: There were eight strangers in the foyer of his dead brother's towers and Verin Thelyss was slowly losing his patience.

After the sudden "death" of Shadowhand Essek Thelyss, it is his brother Verin's job to empty out his towers. The Mighty Nein show up to help (and maybe steal a few things).

OR: Verin is grieving, Essek just wants his stuff back, and the Mighty Nein are the Mighty Nein.

Warnings: I didn't tag this with MCD, because Essek is technically alive and kicking. Since Verin doesn't know that though, and this fic is written from his POV, this is dealing with grief and includes depictions of depressive thoughts as well as anxiety attacks. For more explicit warnings, please mind the tags on AO3. Take care of yourselves, and let me know if I forgot anything.

Read on AO3

There were eight strangers in the foyer of his dead brother's towers and Verin Thelyss was slowly losing his patience. "Listen," he said with what little calm he had left, "I know that by returning one of our beacons you became heroes of the Dynasty and were placed under Es— My bro— his stewardship. But this here—" he gestured vaguely at the interior of Essek's towers that had always been too cold, too empty, but not like now, never like now— "This is a very difficult situation for me, so if you could please leave, that would be greatly appreciated."

"Yes, yes, it's very sad that Essek died," the blue tiefling said—Jester, her name was Jester; she had given him that already as she had offered him her condolences with a hug—and Verin could barely contain his anger. After the funeral he had quite enough of lying dignitaries, nobles, and heroes currying favours with him. That had always been Essek's thing, he would know what to do, how to make them regret even daring to speak up; Verin had never been any good at it.

"But we're his friends!" He grit his teeth at Jester's blatant falsehood. Perhaps his anger showed on his face, since the tiefling faltered. "And, uh— Fjord?"

"It's true," the half-orc with too-smooth words and too-smooth voice lied, too. "We spent quite some time with your, er— your brother here. Made some good memories. We thought we might take this as our chance to say goodbye, too."

"We are here to help as well. We wouldn't want to infringe upon your grief, though," the tall firbolg added. "So, if you'd prefer us to return at a later point, we'd be happy to."

Verin was still trying to process everything—from these strangers showing up unannounced to their overwhelming presence to the fact that his brother was dead—while simultaneously trying to keep an eye on the halfling who looked like she might have sticky fingers. So, he latched onto the word that stood out the most to him: "Help?"

"Right," Fjord said, looking slightly embarrassed, "we probably should have led with that..."

"We should have called ahead, too," the scary-looking human in blue—they didn't even wear white for the funeral—added. "We always forget to call ahead."

"But Beau, how should we have called ahead?" Jester complained. "We didn't know Verin yet."

"Well, Essek—" the human was interrupted by the even scarier-looking woman next to her stepping on her foot unsubtly. She at least had the decency to act embarrassed. "Right. Sorry 'bout that."

Awkward silence fell across the room, the Mighty Nein looking anywhere but him. It took him a few moments to realise they were waiting for him to speak up. "Help how?" Verin could have kicked himself. By the Light, he could do better than that. He had to do better than that.

A beat of silence followed, then everyone seemed to talk at once. Verin wanted to weep. How was he supposed to deal with this? How had his brother dealt with this? 'He probably hasn't,' he thought. 'They're probably all liars, probably—'

Someone cleared their throat and all eyes turned to the other human who hadn't said anything so far and who looked properly miserable. Immediately, the Mighty Nein fell silent. "Word has reached us that Den Thelyss ordered these premises to be vacated as early as possible," he said quietly with an accent Verin has been taught that belonged to the enemy. "And while some of us may not look like much, I can assure you, we are quite capable."

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "I supposed such menial tasks are beneath the heroes of the dynasty. There are servants—"

"Well, sure," the halfling with the probably sticky fingers interrupted, "but we know him. Knew him, I mean; sorry, force of habit."

"Besides, there's a lot of stuff," the lavender tiefling, who Verin was pretty sure was a known pirate, piped up. "Looks like you could use the help."

"If you want to, of course," the sad Empire human added.

Verin only wanted to scream, to give room to the torrent of thoughts raging in his head. 'My brother just died. My brother just died and he wasn't consecuted, so he's gone for good. He's gone for good and I didn't even know him; I didn't even know about these supposed friends he had because he didn't allow me near him in decades. I was a horrible brother and so was he, but I can't even be mad at him because he's dead.

'And now these liars show up and talk about friendship and knowing him, but those are all lies, horrible ones, because Essek had no friends. Essek was cold and cruel and lonely and do you even know how horrible that is? Dying alone with no-one who mourns you, just the favours you still owe them? Do you? I don't even know, and I'm his brother.'

Were he a weaker man, a less disciplined one, he might have said so. But he was Taskhand Verin of Den Thelyss and he had learned discipline before he had learned to talk. So, he said: "Your help would be greatly appreciated, thank you. I'll have the servants bring up some tea. There are, uh—" He straightened his back, summoning the composure that was befitting a Taskhand, even one with a dead brother. "There are boxes up there, they've been brought to the rooms already. Anything of value will be sold; the rest will be given to charity. The things— Well, if you find anything that might have sentimental value, something in his handwriting, perhaps, I think I should like to keep that, please."

The firbolg nodded sagely. "Of course. We will be careful with our selection."

With that, Verin turned around and— froze. Where was he even supposed to start? The towers had always seemed to huge for just Essek and he knew that there were very few personal belongings in them. Still, they would have to be scoured clean within the fortnight.

A large hand on his shoulder made him jump, although he'd never admit it. "Sometimes, when a task seems too large, you should start with the smallest part," the firbolg said. "If I were you, I'd start with the smallest room."

"Thank you, that, uh— that seems like good advice," Verin replied, still a bit startled and confused. "I, er— I'm afraid I didn't catch your name."

"Caduceus Clay. I live in a graveyard, so I'm used to this," Clay said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Verin furrowed his brows slightly. A graveyard? It seemed highly unlikely to him that one of the heroes of the Dynasty would live in a graveyard of all places. Perhaps they were not only liars, but impostors too? But they had the symbols of the Bright Queen, so there wasn't much that he could say.

"Right," he mumbled. "I believe the smallest room would be the closet. Although it might be tied with the bathroom..." He trailed off again. He had never seen Essek's bedroom in his towers. Judging by how many times he had even seen the inside of the building; he could count himself lucky if he even found the way there.

"Why don't we split up?" Clay suggested. "One group takes the closet, one the bathroom and one the bedroom. We'd get done sooner that way."

"That is a great idea, Caduceus," Jester said excitedly. "I'll take the bathroom; I promised— er, I'm curious if I can find more of that hair oil, I got for Fjord that one time!"

"Ohhh, are you saying this is... an investigation?!" the halfling joined in.

"That's exactly what I'm saying, Veth!"

"Seems like a case for Wildemount's best detectives!"

"Bye, Verin!" Jester called and he blinked and they were gone. Fjord joined them as well, muttering something about having to supervise them.

The purple pirate-tiefling shrugged, heading off in the same direction. "Well, I wouldn't mind rifling through some drawers. I'll have a look at that bedroom."

"Yeah, I don't need to see Essek's underwear, so I'll pass on the closet," Beau added tactfully—Verin was getting the sneaking suspicion that manners were not really her strong suit. She linked hands with the large woman at her side, pulling her along. "Come on, Yash."

"I'll go handle the tea," Clay said. "Don't worry about it." He vanished in the direction of the kitchen, his steps accompanied by the constant tap tap tap of his staff.

When Verin looked around, he realised that only the sad Empire human was left with him in the hallway. "If you wouldn't mind," he said, pointedly avoiding eye-contact, "I would love to have a look at the closet. I always, ah— appreciated your brother's sense of fashion."

Verin blinked at him a few times, then shrugged. "Sure." He began heading up the stairs.

"My condolences," the human continued. "I realise I didn't speak up earlier, but— I am sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," he said, letting the same numb feeling wash over him again that he had embraced since the news of Essek's death had reached him.

"I know that we seem like a bunch of, ah— forgive my language, but assholes, but we're really here to help. I will tell the others to tone it down a bit."

"Thank you," he repeated.

"If you'd prefer that we start in, ah— less personal rooms, we can do that also."

"If I'm perfectly honest, I don't even know what I should be doing there."

"Neither am I." The human laughed nervously. "I have dealt with grief before, but I've never had the, ah— how do you call it? Hang on." He pulled out a copper wire and whispered: "Beau, how do you say zweifelhafte Ehre in Common? You can reply to this message." A moment later he straightened. "Right. I never had the dubious honour of emptying out a deceased person's house before."

"Neither did I," Verin admitted. 'Usually, the deceased person comes back,' he didn't say. Instead, he opted for: "You're, er— What's the word in Common? You're weird? I'm sorry if that's insulting, I just— waele xanalressen [stupid languages]."

"I don't understand your words, but I think I understand the sentiment." The man grimaced. "And I've heard that one before. I hope we're not too much of a... too much."

"It's alright," he lied and opened the door to Essek's bedroom.

It wasn't alright; Verin wanted to weep again.

The door to the bathroom stood ajar, as did several drawers and cabinets, although he couldn't glance inside. Considering that he heard glass shatter and a quiet "oops" followed by a hushed "Jester!" he was rather glad about that. Besides, what he saw was already quite enough to handle. Beau was currently rifling through Essek's nightstand, the tall woman tossing unread books on the bed carelessly, while the lavender tiefling seemed to make his way through his brother's collections of make-up and jewellery alike.

They froze when they spotted him and the sad human in the door. "Heeey, Verin," Beau drawled.

"These were all still closed, I swear," the lavender tiefling said immediately, gesturing at the jars in front of them.

Verin just sighed in defeat. "I don't wear any make-up, I don't care; you can have it. Put the jewellery in the box to be sold; the books are for charity if he hasn't read them. Just leave the earrings in front of the mirror, please. Those were his favourites."

Without another glance at them, Verin headed straight to Essek's closet, desperate to get some quiet. He took a few moments to collect himself, before closing the door and leaning his head against it with a heavy thunk.

He stayed like that for a minute or maybe two until he heard someone clear their throat. "I have been debating for the past fifty-five seconds, if I should just Dimension Door out," the sad human said and Verin very nearly jumped out of his skin, "but that would be loud and I didn't want to startle you. Not that I didn't startle you like this but—"

"Vithin shu," Verin cursed.

"Vithin shu ke," the sad human agreed, his accent in Undercommon even heavier than normally.

For a moment, they both stared at each other, equally startled by the course of events. Then, the human looked away again. "I, ah— have started learning Undercommon before, um— well, before." Verin tried very hard to focus on the way the human was scratching at his forearms; that way he had something else to focus on besides his nearing breakdown.

"This is a bit embarrassing, but, ah— I believe I forgot to introduce myself," the human continued. "I'm Caleb Widogast. Essek and I were... friends, yes, and ah— colleagues, of some sort. It's... complicated."

He scratched at his arms again before turning towards the shelves and pulling out a stack of tunics. He unfolded one, looked at it, then carefully folded it again, cast a cantrip to smooth out the wrinkles, and put it in the charity box. Then he repeated the procedure with the next. And the next. And the next.

Verin frowned, thinking for a moment about his words. There was something about them that seemed painfully familiar, although he couldn't quite remember. Then: "The transmutation specialist."

Widogast looked up in surprise. "Yes."

"Essek told me of you," Verin admitted.

The last time they had seen each other had been here, in these towers, just a few months ago. He had found his brother in his office, pouring over notes for a new spell, alive and healthy as ever. As always, he had entered without knocking. As always, he had pretended to read the notes. Not as always, he had noticed something wrong. "Whose handwriting is that?" he had asked.

"What?" Essek had snapped, his head whipping up. Then, however, his expression had softened. "Oh. A friend's. A colleague, of sorts. He's helping me out, a bit."

"With the spell?" Verin had asked incredulously.

"Yes. He's a transmutation specialist; you know that's not my forte. Now give it back, will you?"

"A colleague, huh?" He had grinned and held the paper out of Essek's reach. "Are you sure that's all?"

Perhaps Essek had been sick after all, for the strangest thing had happened: instead of using his floating cantrip to snatch the notes back, he had gotten a dreamy, far-off look in his eyes. He had even smiled with an expression Verin might have called dopey, if it weren't his brother they were talking about. After a few moments, he had snapped out of it, sighed, and said: "It's complicated."

"Did he?" Widogast asked tentatively. "Did he, ah— did he say anything else about me?"

Verin pinned him down with a glare, sizing him up. In hindsight, he should have noticed the thick spellbook at his hip earlier; judging by his slim frame alone, he should have known the man was a wizard. He supposed Widogast was handsome enough, although his brother had never cared much for that, with his copper hair and his striking blue eyes. Blue eyes around which crows' feet were gathering, as he noticed to his dismay. 'He's human,' Verin reminded himself. He might have a few decades left, maybe, whereas Essek had centuries ahead of him. The thought why his brother might condemn himself to more loneliness crossed his mind, though it hardly mattered. His brother had been the first to die, after all.

"Verin?" Widogast inquired quietly.

"I'm sorry," he answered with a thick voice. "I got lost in my thoughts there. He, uhh— he said that he trusted you." That didn't even begin to cover it, but these Mighty Nein had been lying to him since the moment they got here, so what was a little lie by omission? Besides, there were some memories that he wanted to keep just to himself.

"Essek," he had teased, still waving the sheet of paper out his reach. "Come on! Aren't we brothers?"

Essek had crossed his arms and pouted. He hadn't done that since they were both little. "Unfortunately. You are a menace. And a child."

"If you tell me about him, I'll give it back. Is he handsome? Is he a drow? Where's he from? How did you meet? When will I meet him? Can I promise to kill him if he hurts you?"

"Verin!" Essek had groaned and hid his face in his hands.

"What do you do when you meet? I bet you stay up all night, talking about 'arcane research' or something."

"We do, in fact. Are you done now?"

"Oh, is that what young people call it these days?" He had cackled at his own joke.

"Evidently not," Essek had muttered. "Might I remind you that you're younger than me?"

"Might I remind you that you're a buzzkill?" Verin had shot back and placed the note down. He had gotten bored of his own game.

Essek had taken the sheet of paper almost reverently and thanked him. "I would have hated it to rewrite that page." He had smoothed it down, stored it safely away in a folder, silent for a long time. Then, he had said: "Caleb."

"Excuse me?"

"That's his name," Essek had said. "Caleb Widogast."

Verin had frowned. "Hey, Essek?"

"Hm?"

"You must trust him a lot, to share a spell with him."

His brother had taken a shuddering breath and closed his eyes. Verin hadn't expected him to answer, yet he'd said: "I do, actually. It's not the first spell we've created together and I would be honoured to create a thousand more with him. I'd trust him with my life, my death, and beyond. I think—" He'd huffed. "I think I trust him almost as much as I trust you."

Verin watched Widogast as he was looking through his brother's tunics, placing most of them in the charity box, and he wondered. Wondered if the trust Essek had obviously put in Widogast had been misplaced. Wondered if it had extended to his friends, as well. Wondered if ultimately trust had been his downfall, as he'd always feared.

Then again, if Essek had trusted him... perhaps that trust had been mutual. Perhaps they had been friends. Perhaps there was another person mourning his brother after all.

"Do I have something on my face?" Verin had given up on counting how many times Widogast had now startled him out of his thoughts.

"No, no I—," Verin stammered. "I'm sorry."

He tilted his head to the side. "For staring?"

"No, er— For your loss." Liar or no liar, it only seemed appropriate.

"Oh." Widogast turned back to the tunics. Verin probably should get started, too, shouldn't he? "Thank you. Though I'd wager your loss weighs heavier than mine."

"Probably," he agreed and turned to the task at hand. At this point, Widogast had moved on from the simple tunics to Essek's court regalia. After a short moment of consideration, Verin decided to look through the pants; he also had no interest in sorting through his dead brother's underwear.

Out of the corner of his eye he kept watching the wizard, pulling out one cloak after the other. At a few he wrinkled his nose, at others he just stared before putting them with the tunics. After a while one made him pause; an elaborate, beautiful robe in deep purple. "This is what he was wearing when we first met him," he said.

'He hated that one,' Verin thought. Not that he could say that out loud. Instead, he cocked his head and asked: "Are you sure? He has a lot of those. Had, I mean. Had a lot of those."

"Yeah, I'm sure." He tapped his temple with a faint smile. "I have a good memory."

"As does Essek," he snapped, suddenly feeling very defensive about his brother's capabilities. "I suppose most wizards do."

Infuriatingly, Widogast only nodded. "Indeed. Or they're not very good ones."

Silently, Verin turned back to the trousers. The sooner he got done, the sooner he got these people out of his brother's towers, the better. He didn't know for how long they worked in silence, Verin reminiscing about the times he had seen Essek wear the clothes and wondering about those he didn't know. Eventually, he folded the last of them and forced himself to return to the present. "I think we're done here," he announced. "Do you have a preference for a next room?"

"Perhaps the library?" Widogast offered a tentative smile. "I think I might be of more use there than folding clothes."

"More use than I will be, surely."

"I take it the wizardry doesn't run in the family, then?"

Verin only scoffed and opened the door to the bedroom again.

He immediately spotted Beau leafing through one of the books Essek had never read, while the tiefling was chatting amiably with the aasimar while braiding her hair. He also noted the boxes neatly stacked in the middle of the room. Besides that, he noticed with a heavy heart, the room looked much the same. If anything, it looked less orderly and empty than before. Except for—

"Where are Essek's earrings?" Verin demanded to know.

"What earrings?" the lavender tiefling replied with a too-wide grin the same moment Beau said: "Dude, there's tons of them, why don't—"

"No," he said decisively. "Essek's favourite earrings; they're always up here. I told you about them. Where are they?" His hands curled into fists, his neatly manicured fingernails pressing almost painfully into his skin.

"Perhaps you should look in one of the boxes," the aasimar woman suggested "I'm sure they're—"

"You're lying," Verin interrupted her, barely containing his anger. "Why are you lying? If they're in one of the boxes, then only because you put them there. So: where are they?"

Widogast only now stepped out of the closet, wearing an amber necklace he hadn't noticed before. "Verin—" he said tentatively, but he'd had enough.

"Shut up!" He startled himself with how loud his voice was. But he was beyond caring. "I know they're not in there, because the only ones to put them in there would have been you. So, either you're lying about having them put in there, or you're lying about stealing them, I don't care. Just— please. Please give them back."

The four of them passed a guilty glance. "We can't," Beau replied finally.

"The fuck you can't," Verin spat. "Give them back!"

"Verin, love, we would really love to," the tiefling added, "but we can't."

"I don't understand; is it precious things you want? Here, have some!" He strode over to the boxes and ripped the first open, tossing the lid towards the bathroom door Jester was peeking out of. He reached in to grab a necklace—an ugly one, he had always thought, with a stylised beacon—and threw it in their direction.

Beau caught it. Of course.

"Have a whole box, actually, if you like them so damn much." He reached inside and pulled out a jewellery box, tears prickling in his eyes. He threw one of those, too, just for good measure. It gave him some satisfaction that Widogast had to dodge it. "Just give me back the bloody earrings that my brother wore at my fucking consecution!" He was properly crying now and could only imagine the mess he looked like, but he had reached his limit. And, in his opinion, he was allowed to with all that was going on.

At least they looked a little bit guilty. "Fuck man, we didn't know," Beau mumbled.

"It's just one pair, Beau," Jester called over from the bathroom. "I'm sure it will be alright."

"Yes, there's no need for this to escalate," Fjord agreed and strode over to them, his hands raised innocently.

"I don't even know you people," Verin muttered, looking at the people crowding into his brother's bedroom. "Why did I even let you inside?"

"Do you want the earrings back?" the aasimar woman asked, reaching into a bag at her hip. Had she been carrying a greatsword for the whole time? Verin suddenly noticed how overpowered he was, were he to face all of them. "You can have them back if you want. Here, you can have them back."

"For a moment," Widogast added, slowly drawing closer to him and taking the earrings from the aasimar. He held them out on his flat hand, almost like he had seen soldiers offer treats to horses. His whole demeanour reminded him of someone trying to calm a spooked animal. For some reason, that seemed hilarious to him and he couldn't help the hysterical giggle that escaped his throat.

"Verin, I need you to calm down," he continued. "I know that's easier said than done, but you need your head."

"I think we should all calm down," Clay said from the doorway. And despite being surprised again, he did. It didn't make any sense, but few things these days did.

"Did it work?" the halfling asked. Verin wasn't really sure what she was talking about.

"It did," Clay confirmed.

"Gut," Widogast said and pressed the earrings that had seemed so important a moment ago into Verin's hands. "I think we should maybe go somewhere else, ja? Will you come with me?"

Inadvisable as it might be, if Essek had trusted that man, he should, too. And out of all of the Nein, he seemed to be the most normal one. The one he could see Essek with most. So, he nodded.

"I'll get us back to the kitchen, quickly." Caleb held out his hand and Verin closed his eyes, steeling himself. 'I hate Dimension Door,' was the last thing that crossed his mind before the teleportation spell ripped him away, together with: 'We haven't been to the kitchen, yet.'

Evidently, there went something wrong with the spell. Verin didn't know much about magic, but he knew Dimension Door couldn't transport more than two people. So, when he heard Beau groan and say "Fuck, dude, warn us next time," he knew that something wasn't right.

"You knew about the plan, Beauregard," Widogast replied.

"It doesn't matter," Fjord decided. "Caduceus, do you think you could make tea again? I think the Calm Emotions is about to wear off."

Cautiously, Verin opened one eye, then the other. They were, in fact, standing in a kitchen, as far as he could tell. All of the Mighty Nein were surrounding him. The furniture seemed to have been made for people taller than them; Essek probably would need to float in order to avoid awkwardly climbing onto the chair. The firbolg, however, who was fussing with a teapot, seemed to fit right in. All in all, the interior was very rustic. And very much not in Essek's towers, not that he had ever seen that room, of course.

The panic hit him once more. Verin whirled around to the wizard, instinctively grasping for his sword. "Where the fuck—" he faltered, finding his hip bare. Of course, he hadn't brought it for the funeral. Instead, he opted for just grasping Widogast by the lapels and lifting him up a bit. It was supposed to be menacing, which surely would be more effective, were humans not so annoyingly tall. "Where the fuck are we?!" he spat out.

A lot of things seemed to happen at once—he heard a "Fuck, man, what-" from Beau, a "Well, Mister Thelyss" from the pirate, several hands trying to tug him away from the weak wizard—but he didn't pay them any mind. He just shook Widogast, who looked entirely too calm for his liking, and demanded: "Answer me!"

"Leave him," was all Widogast said. "He has every right to be angry."

Indeed, the people grasping at him retreated, still on guard and surrounding him. There was a creak outside the door and Verin desperately wished for his sword once more. Then, a voice cut through the tense silence that had descended over the kitchen: "Caleb, is that you? You're back early."

"Yeah, there were some complications. Best come and look yourself, Schatz."

There was a sigh that was entirely too familiar for Verin's liking. Then, the door opened with a creak and in walked a dead man. "Complications," Essek Thelyss said with a fond smile. "I was just a Sending away, what did you come here fo— oh."

The person wearing his brother's face stopped in their tracks as they saw him. A couple of complicated emotions passed over his face—confusion, surprise, regret, guilt. If he hadn't known before, Verin was certain now that they were impostors, all of them. His brother would never tolerate such a display of weakness. Still, the impostor said: "Hello, brother."

Verin whipped his head back around to the wizard in his grasp. "What the fuck are you playing at?" he hissed.

"I- what- Verin!" the Essek-impostor sputtered. "What are you doing; put him down!"

"I would appreciate that, yes," Widogast added.

"Not before you don't tell me what's going on."

"Going on?" The impostor sneered and shook his head in a perfect imitation of his brother. "Nothing is going on, Verin."

"You died," he accused him.

"Evidently not," Essek scoffed.

Verin narrowed his eyes, looking from the man claiming to be his brother over the other too calm wizard to the rest of the Nein, seemingly perfectly happy to let this play out. "Prove it," he demanded. "Tell me something only my brother would know."

"You've become paranoid," he noted and Verin couldn't decide if it sounded proud or disappointed. "Alright. When you and I were in our early thirties, you once got in trouble for scaling the outside of mother's mansion. Rightfully, I should have gotten in trouble, too, but I was hiding on the attic. And the reason you never told anyone, is because then you'd have had to explain that I, the wizard, had somehow outpaced you, the fighter, in a climbing competition."

Verin wrinkled his nose at that. "Well, my brother cheated."

"I did not cheat, thank you very much!" He huffed indignantly and crossed his arms. "You didn't say 'no magic' before we started."

He stared at Essek for a few moments. "It's you," he whispered.

"Obviously."

Verin dropped the wizard on the ground and looked over at his brother; really looked. The man looked nothing like the one he had known for most of his life. His hair was longer than it had ever been since he'd cut it off and his bare feet were touching the ground. His clothes were casual, a simple tunic and trousers. After this day, Verin knew for a fact that not even Essek's trancing clothes were that informal, and yet his brother looked more comfortable in them in another's house than he had in decades. On top of that, he kept glancing over to Widogast. And smiling. Essek was smiling.

No, this man looked nothing like the one Verin had known for nearly a century. But he looked a lot like his brother.

"You're alive," he said stupidly.

"Yes, of course I am," Essek said, as if Verin hadn't just attended his funeral.

It felt only right to tell him so: "Why are you alive? I was at your funeral."

"That's a long story," he sighed and floated onto one of the chairs that were slightly too tall for him. He accepted a cup of tea from Clay with thanks and turned back to Verin. "Why are you here?"

"Well, that's a pretty long story, too," Jester spoke up. "He kind of started freaking out about your earrings, I think? And he was crying and looking pretty awful and everything, right Caleb?"

"I, ah— didn't think he'd believe us if we told him about you," Caleb said. "So, we had agreed beforehand to bring him here, in case of an emergency."

"He thought we were lying," Clay added.

"I suppose it is my story to tell," Essek said. "Earrings, Verin?"

"They're your favourite," Verin said stupidly and held them out to him.

His face grew soft. "Oh," he said as he took them gingerly, "I didn't know that you kne—"

Before he could overthink and do something stupid like stop himself, he surged forward and enveloped his brother in a tight hug. After a moment Essek closed his arms around him, too.

It seemed so unreal, to be able to hold him after mourning him for what felt like years. All the worries, all the grief and anger that had crushed him in the past few weeks and for what? For the bastard to still be alive after all. It wasn't fair. Why had he had to go through all of that? And why did he feel the pressing urge to start crying again? He should be happy, shouldn't he, that his brother wasn't dead. So why did it make him feel so awful?

"I think this is our cue to leave," Fjord said. Verin felt his brother nod and heard the Mighty Nein shuffle out of the kitchen, the door closing behind them with a creak.

Only then, Essek spoke up. "Verin," he asked quietly, "are you crying?"

"Shut up," he mumbled through the thick fog of tears and snot, definitely not crying. "I hate you, Essek. Do you know what I went through?"

"Meeting the Mighty Nein? Yes, I can imagine."

"They're horrible," he complained. "They're loud and they're rude and they had absolutely no respect for any of your belongings! I thought I was going mad."

"They are. They also are my friends, you know."

"How?" he asked agonised.

"I know they don't look like it, but they are surprisingly capable. And I am sure that you've noticed most of them to be annoyingly charming. But I think their absolute worst traits are their infinite stubbornness and perseverance. They quite literally did not leave me alone until they had befriended me."

Verin glanced up at him questioningly. "And were half in love with the wizard?" he guessed.

Essek scowled darkly, a faint blush colouring his cheeks. "Perhaps."

He snorted and disentangled himself from their embrace. Very calmly he said: "You're a liar."

Essek looked genuinely startled at that. "What?"

"You said, you trusted me more than him. Why then, did he know and I didn't?"

"It's... complicated," he said.

"You wizards say that a lot."

"Verin." Essek closed his eyes. "I trust you. Implicitly. And I care about you. Which is why I chose not to burden you with the knowledge of my misdeeds. I didn't— I didn't want to put you in an impossible situation to choose between me and our queen."

He laughed nervously. "What on earth are you talking about? I mean, you didn't commit treason or anything."

Essek didn't answer, avoiding eye-contact instead.

"Right?"

Still, Essek kept stubbornly quiet.

"Oh," Verin breathed. He took a moment trying to reconcile what he knew about his brother with the fact that he was apparently a traitor. It all fit together ridiculously easy. "The beacons."

Essek looked up at him in shock and he knew he had hit the mark. "What?"

"You stole the beacons." Now that he thought about it, it made perfect sense. Essek had been studying them at the time, one of the only people with frequent access to them. He had always been fascinated by them, yet his theories had been rejected for their heretic nature. As Shadowhand, he had also regular contact with counterparts from the Empire, albeit not officially. Then, a few years after Essek’s research had been denied, they had vanished. How had he never seen this before?

"Oh Essek...," he said softly.

"No, please— I don’t—Please don’t—” He seemed to deflate, curling in on himself. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you, I—”

"I don't care,” Verin interrupted his frantic ramblings.

"What?" Essek looked up at him, looking just as shocked as Verin felt.

“I don’t care,” he repeated, realising that it was true the moment the words left his mouth. For how could he care about something as trivial as treason when Essek was sitting right in front of him, alive and well. "You're my brother, I don't care. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in a year. Maybe in ten. Right now, I only care that you're alive."

“I—What—I don’t—” Essek stuttered, lifting and then lowering his hands a few times. “I don’t know how— If I can—Fuck.”

There was a joke on the tip of his tongue, but even he knew that this wasn’t the right time for it. Essek was obviously trying to tell him something and it took him a minute to decipher that strange behaviour. “Are you asking for a hug?” he hazarded a guess.

An agonised expression passed over his face and for a moment Verin thought there were tears gathering in his brother’s eyes. Surely not. “I don’t know if I may. I don’t mean to overstep—”

Without further ado, Verin stepped forward and gathered a yelping Essek up and squeezed him tightly. “Of course you may!” he assured him, awkwardly patting his shaking shoulders. “I love you, Essek. I am very glad that you’re alive.”

“I’m very glad to see you, too,” Essek answered and squeezed him a little tighter.

302 notes · View notes

shijiujun · 3 years ago

Text

on the danmei twitter fight

okay guys i didn’t wanna say anything about this and yes it’s that hot danmei twitter translations saga thing that’s going on, because honestly i feel like there’s nothing much to say but when i see dumb posts on tumblr taking about that, by people who present a misleading hot take and their friends or moots run off with it without even knowing what exactly is going on - it really pisses me off.

and also if you shit talk translators for not continuing their translations or locking their translations whatever - the door is that way on your right and left, but anyway here’s a rundown on what happened because i am seeing people make comments without two brain cells put together, without the slightest bit of consideration for the people who bring them translations

here’s my hot take and thesis: if you enjoy english translations made by fan translators, you don’t, in any way, no matter happens, shit talk fan translators. fan translators do this for free, and whatever their intentions are, whether genuine sharing or like some of you like to say, for clout, if you consume, and you enjoy these translations, i’m sorry, you’re not uninvolved, and you don’t get to sit on a high horse and say translators should or shouldn’t do something. you should just keep quiet, honestly, because someone else is doing you a favour, a favour that you are enjoying and taking. that’s what respect is.

i’m presenting both sides or i guess three sides of the story as objectively as i can, altho my support is still for fan translators who were just minding their own business before this blew up.

===

🔺 what happened:

so it started because one of the bigger translators in the fandom did this poll - i’m not blaming her at all, i doubt she had any intentions of shaming anyone or causing any controversy and was plain curious, but her poll asked english speaking danmei twitter how many people buy the digital, print copies of the danmei they read, and who did not.

in my honest opinion, it’s not strange at all for her to have created that poll, considering just how much work she’s put into making sure things are accessible for the eng-speaking danmei fandom. i mean i’d be curious too, to know out of my thousands of readers, what the reading and buying behaviour is like. do yourself a favour and don’t read too much into it.

obviously in an era where a lot of people do consume content for free whether the underlying content is profit-making (like anime, donghua, manhua, manga etc.) or not (fanfiction etc.), it was unsurprising to see that the last option - the ones who consume danmei without paying a single cent, came out as the majority. i don’t think this is a surprising result at all, for all sorts of reasons that i will not get into now.

anyway, this is obviously kind of a sore point in the fandom especially for translators who want a wider audience to support their fave author’s works - i won’t get into that for now, but the issue began because other translators or fans started to criticize the majority of people who don’t pay for objectively rather affordable danmei and just consume things for free.

and yes, i don’t deny that the argument on both sides got really heated and emotionally charged with both sides calling each other names which i believe is uncalled for, but it totally derailed the crux of the issue, which basically is that the majority of english-speaking danmei fandom - consumes danmei for free.

anyway this whole thing escalated and fan translators were brought into this for no fucking reason at all except that the people who didn’t want, or were unable to pay for the danmei they usually consume, made what i call a LOGICAL FALLACY in argument by going to the extremes, i will explain why later.

the end result is that fan translators were brought into this (most of them, the bigger ones i know at least) without even participating in the direct crossfire. and obviously, you can see why they’re hurt and decided to lock their translations. let me explain why

===

🔺 kind of like four camps:

(1) translators and fans who criticized those who consume danmei liberally but do not pay for them in any way - no merch, no digital copies, no physical copies, no audio dramas whatever

*** their arguments:

danmei is so cheap right, that technically people should be able to pay for it in one way or another, even if not all

danmei and its authors are, at the end of the day, out here to earn a living, and the industry, like any money-making industry, is a for-profit enterprise - and unlike public goods, if you cannot afford danmei, then there is no obligation for others to make it free for you (fan translators or otherwise, it wasn’t super clearly stated while this shitshow happened) when it is inherently a for-profit industry

yes, i don’t deny that some of them did call the peeps who don’t pay at all, “leeches” and other sort of names. personally, i wouldn’t go that far or even like venture there to be honest because in general, if it’s something that i’ll get punched in the face for if i called someone that in real life i tend not to do it, but i’ll leave my opinions, whatever they’re worth, for later

(2) the readers and fans of danmei who do not pay in any sort of way for them

*** their arguments:

some of them really cannot afford, even the dollar or more, to spend on danmei for several reasons: upbringing, culture, money-spending mindsets, real poverty, struggling to make ends meet etc. - some definitely more valid than others (and when i say not valid, it’s because SOME, a minority or like those few stragglers, say they cannot afford and then you see them like idk, throwing $50 on other merch on kpop and stuff - i’m just bringing up ONE example. not shaming anyone for spending more money on one aspect rather than the other, but yeah you can see why some of them, when making this same argument, are a little invalid, that’s just a small number of them tho)

if translators are blaming them for consuming free of charge, then the fault lies, at its foundation, fan translators who translate illegally, which i mean, in that definition, all of them including me

did i mention that we were called illegal translators like you know in response to being called leeches? anyway-

(3) others translators who literally were just minding their own fucking business before some smart alec dragged them into it

i don’t think most of us had an argument. we were just quietly munching on popcorn and staying out of it and yeah, can you imagine, we provide a service, however illegal it is, for free on our own time, we don’t even check whether people support legally or not, we just... provide, and pray that those who are able to, at least support in some small way or another do so, on their own time. i mean i don’t check, most of us don’t, not the bouncers at your local club before COVID happened do, and then suddenly, to be used to derail an argument, we were called illegal translators. and that we should stop translating, and that it is our fault that there are free riders in the fandom

(4) people who offered to provide JJWXC credits to those who said they couldn’t afford it etc.

honestly i think they were just trying to help - no different than a gofundme. there’s no shame in taking a free thing that people already weren’t intending to pay for. it’s there, just take it!

===

🔺 the shitshow that led to fan translators locking their stuff up:

i would provide some actual examples in the form of screenshots but i’ve blocked most of them, and i don’t want to direct any sort of traffic to them so i guess you’ll have to take my word on it or go search on twitter yourself but-

(1) the affordability issue: i can understand the frustration at being called leeches, and some if not a majority of people, do have valid reasons for not being able to afford something or anything and end up pirating content they enjoy. hey, i am not about to crucify anyone for pirating at some point in their lives. we all have done it at some point, or for example hate disney+ and that $30 they were trying to rip off us for a subpar Mulan live action. i don’t have anything to say about that. inherently, is it wrong and illegal? yeah sure of course it is. do we call people leeches? i wouldn’t go that far.

if anyone cannot afford, cannot access for whatever reason, fine, i’m not gonna go check if jjwxc truly is banned in your country, or is your postal service so terrible that you definitely won’t be able to receive a hard copy of the book you like at affordable rates.

and if you have to pirate? go ahead. i mean it’s always been a rampant thing. the only thing fan translators and fans can do is encourage, motivate and incentivise as much as possible to get people to support legally. they can only put up REALLY COMPREHENSIVE guides as to how to access jjwxc or taobao or whatever.

and if you still cannot afford it and pirate, honestly no one cares about the story behind it. you owe no one justification, just as how no other person is obligated to take it into consideration or understand you or empathize with you. i don’t say this in a malicious way - i do think that in general, you just do you.

(2) the poor people don’t deserve nice things argument: honestly, this was not the point of this entire debacle, altho yes, people were rude to those who could not afford to support legally. but this is not the point of this whole thing.

main point - there are free riders who can support but choose not to because they choose to just consume it for free and if you are able to you should support

everyone going off on a tangent - you guys hate poor people / you guys are leeches

well guess what, no one wins in this argument.

there were a lot of people saying “reading danmei is our only source of happiness, are you saying poor people who can’t access legally don’t deserve to read danmei” (this is just one example i’ve seen, there are other variations), and it wasn’t put across perhaps in the right way, but the other camp of people were saying “you’re not entitled to it for free if you cannot afford it”, which raised a lot of hackles and anti-poor yellings

altho i do not deny that there are those who mean it maliciously, i think what everyone is trying to say is - the danmei industry, like any other profit-making industry, is looking to make profits. the people working in the industry, the authors even, are looking at numbers - traffic to jjwxc or other legal platforms, how much revenue they’re making from their live actions etc., comments, rankings, etc. i think @/hunxi-after-hours made a really succinct post on this aspect which yall should read.

it’s the same as - if you wanted to purchase a standee which costs $20 USD, but you cannot afford it = you don’t get it. there’s no way you can get this standee unless some gifts it to you for free. what the camp trying to ask people to support legally is saying, is that danmei is NOT A PUBLIC GOOD. it is a private, for-profit product. it might be intangible, but it is a PRODUCT that has a price that needs to be paid.

if you cannot afford it, you either don’t get access entirely (i’m saying this objectively and honestly from an economic standpoint). if someone gifts that standee to you for free, count yourself lucky - if someone makes a danmei accessible to you for free, COUNT YOURSELF LUCKY. you don’t have to be grateful and treat them as gods or like obey their every word, but it’s not rocket science. someone did you a favour that you accepted and consumed, show some respect.

if you cannot afford to buy the standee - you do not go on twitter demanding that someone ensures that you have access to the standee for free. do you see how ridiculous this sounds once it’s a tangible product? and danmei novels ARE PRODUCTS. they are not FREE CONTENT. if someone cannot afford the standee, this is the equivalent of people going “we didn’t get the standee for free because poor people don’t deserve nice things”

totally missing the point. i don’t even know how it got to this. once again, i do admit that some users were unnecessarily mean, but going to the extreme of this is ridiculous. in argumentative essay writing we call this a logical fallacy:

e.g. “if you cannot pay for merchandise or danmei, it is a fact that you might not have access to it” morphing into “if we cannot pay for food, does this mean we cannot have access to it?!” - this is a slippery slope, and factors are not equivalent!!!! do they not teach people anything in school

don’t confuse fanfiction with danmei - danmei novels ARE PAID PRODUCTS unless for free chapters, just because it’s released online doesn’t mean it’s free public property, and also selected novels (did you guys know the WHOLE of SCI novel is free? about 500 chapters sorry, random, just a tidbit)

there are of course nuances right, like if anyone told me they were pirating disney+ content i’d be like yeah hey get one over those bloodsuckers, they take enough of our money and produce shit content anyway. the difference is that danmei authors, and the danmei industry itself can still be considered a nascent and not-yet matured industry, with a majority of authors if not all, depending on monetary flow, likes, comments, virality on the sites their content is hosted on, for a living, unlike hugeass MNCs trying to squeeze us dry for content that isn’t even interesting.

danmei is priced rather reasonably - and this brings me to another argument that was made, that the value of money is not the same for everyone. i don’t want to make comments on this because yes this is correct to a large extent. a $6 book might be cheap to most of us, but might be expensive to someone else. i’m not gonna comment on how cheap or whatever it is, if you gotta use your money for other things, definitely! i still maintain however, that a novel less than a dollar should be affordable to most people, a majority of people. and i definitely side eye some users who obviously have money but are just creating noise because they wanna continue free-riding

(4) the “they’re losing out on their international audience” argument: honestly, i feel like english-speaking danmei fandom gives themselves a bit too much credit. danmei has long thrived in china in its domestic market - sure the international audience is a plus to have and i’m sure the authors are grateful and flattered that people who don’t understand chinese love their content and love it a lot, but do they and their companies care about fans who basically don’t bring in money? i’m not sure (okay i’ll get to the fan translators doing illegal shit later okay i got it don’t be impatient)

and international fans are great, i don’t deny that - but when i see arguments like “oh but it’s their loss if they don’t cater or deny access to us, they get more popularity and sharing overseas”, i honestly think they don’t care as much as you think. once again, hunxi made a really good argument regarding non-sinophone audiences, but it really irks me, because this is the same as:

an instagram influencer saying they’ll give a restaurant exposure for free to their followers, if they get a free meal

it’s par for par - danmei authors wants earnings, popularity, tangible results that show that they are succeeding. this is life. if i put something out there for sale, i better be getting returns, simple economic logic. they probably don’t care that a non-paying reader is bringing them greater ‘exposure’ - once again, i mean this objectively.

and yes if they’re thriving without the international market then why should it matter that people are pirating right? which brings me to the next point~

(5) it’s fan translators faults for so many people pirating, and fan translators are the ones doing the “illegal” work: this one is like... wow where do i unpack this and how-

firstly, we are talking about assholes who can pay but decide to free ride and not pay for danmei, and we assume that if you really cannot afford and have to pirate, no one’s saying anything as long as you don’t go around spreading how to pirate, how the hell did it get to fan translators from “you guys are anti-poor” and whatever

yes, fan translations are indeed illegal, i don’t deny that, and i also don’t deny that there are translators who translate for clout and popularity but putting these aside - here’s what i have seen from people who ran their mouths and made this argument

“if you guys care about us pirating the book so much than fan translators shouldn’t have translated in the first place” and “if you wanna come after us for reading illegally, then fan translators, you guys should go get the copyright for the book and then translate it cuz what you guys are doing is also illegal”

hooooo i’m telling ya, i am all for translators locking up their translations at this point. see how fucking hurtful that is? you eat from my hand and then now you biting at the hand that fed you the gays in love?

honestly if you’ve made this argument or supported this, you can basically go to hell. yes this is personal because what, you think fan translators don’t take out their personal time and effort and hard work to make translations accessible to you? if you’re ever consumed and read translations, don’t be a hypocrite and make this argument. you benefitted from it, now you wanna say it’s their fault?

most translators want to share and spread the love they have for a novel right, want to show you how wonderful all these authors are, how much enjoyment u get from reading these wonderfully thought out stories of gays in love. yes we all know we are illegally translating, which is why on top of sharing we first, purchase the novels legally ourselves first, and then we try to encourage people to buy etc. and actually put their money to use. it doesn’t make it any less illegal, but we are bridging the gap between danmei and basically the english-speaking fandom, albeit illegally

we aren’t that self-important to ask for gratefulness but some respect would be nice. like i said, you read it, you consumed it, you enjoyed it, you can only access it because of illegal translators - a bit counter-intuitive to yell at these translators, who are simply telling you, if you can, please support. and none of us went “if you cannot afford, begone!”

===

🔺 some people tried to help by offering jjwxc credits so people who cannot afford as they say, can get legal access: honestly, just take it right, guess what some of these users did in response

they said the people giving away credits are trying to redeem themselves for their comments by giving away free stuff

they also said that we are trying to shame the people who cannot afford it with this handout to them, to show that they are the bigger person - the fact that they think this is a handout to them is TELLING. the people offering this is giving their money not to these readers, but to the authors! that’s the point of this exercise!!!

one of them even said “instead of trying to do these giveaways, here, there are greater world problems out there, donate instead to these causes” - love the initiative, but how did we get from being able to afford danmei and entertainment content to saving the world? i just- i cannot

===

🔺 so why i get why fan translators are locking up their translations, because wow, so hurtful:

you have no idea how many fucking assholes went “sure, lock up your translations, deal with the consequences” - ermmmm firstly, thanks for making a threat. like who the fuck do you think you are?

the consequences is... the authors still don’t get the money these free riders weren’t going to give them anyway, so no loss, and they weren’t reading on jjwxc anyway so you know, the authors don’t lose or gain any readership numbers or traffic they didn’t already have. instead, it WILL push and force people to pay for the PRODUCT. once again, it’s a product.

this works, and i’d say Word of Honor’s payment model worked marvellously for Youku, because they fucking forced everyone to pay to access content. ALL OF THEM. sure ok some people still pirated it, but how many MORE people paid on Youku, on Youku Youtube, watched on Viki etc. than if they didn’t? even english-speaking fandom were wracking their brains trying to purchase a Youku pass even if there were no subs initially - and other examples that lovely hunxi brought up in her amazing piece

and for translators?! honestly me for one, i’m glad i don’t feel pressured anymore to churn out a chapter every week since we get called names etc. most of us are glad to have a break to be honest. we’ve lost all motivation to translate because it’s a free service, at the very least we don’t expect like hate, or rudeass fuckers. for those who are doing a proof of purchase thing - go for it honestly!

hopefully it’ll minimize the free rider problem - some people for whatever reasons really cannot buy or support legally, that’s totally cool and they don’t have to justify it, i get that. but for others making the same argument but obviously are just unwilling to pay because they can’t read chinese, think it’s too troublesome when there are guides and translators provide it for free anyway so what’s the point - we all make concessions and make decisions to grab what we like (not talking about the ppl who have their various troubles and difficulties!)

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🔺 and those who are saying why is it the ‘rest of us suffer’ from locked translations just because of a few bad apples:

IT ISN’T ABOUT YOU. where the hell were all of ya when we were getting called illegal huh? it’s about us fan translators getting shot at for no reason, and then people still demanding things for free. i don’t see any of the people i’ve seen on tumblr complain about fan translators stopping or locking translations defend any of us in any way. instead, you’re complaining.

it is the translator’s prerogative to start, stop and end translations, unless of course the original author starts to sue i suppose. i see people on tumblr going like if they were gonna do this, they shouldn’t have started in the first place etc. - i don’t what world you live in, but when i do something for free, then get called names and am attacked or get dictated on how i should do something that’s already like free, i tend to be less generous.

i’m sorry, do us illegal and free translators owe ANY OF YOU? i wasn’t aware any of us were being paid for this hobby. readers, especially those who CAN and just refuse to support, don’t get to say SHIT. translators deal with so much shit and so many entitled readers, i say they get to lock whatever they want as long as they aren’t profiting off of this monetarily.

let me give you an example - nan chan, which is translated by lian yin, completed translations by the way for all chapters. it is all free for viewing, and she only locked up one extra and asked for proof of payment. some dumbfuck quotes that locked up extra chapter tweet and said “honestly, this turned me off reading this novel because they restricted access”.

the. fucking. entitlement. the whole of nan chan is free, that’s like what more than 80 chapters. she locked up the EXTRA and the money goes to the author, she doesn’t earn anything. AND HERE THAT BIJ is (yes, i’m going to call them names because you know, fucking asshole who didn’t bother to check) going “yeah i didn’t wanna read because 1/80+ chapters were locked”.

AN EXTRA. LITERALLY AN EXTRA!!!!!!

at the end of the day, translators are not like DYING to translate, not like some of you are DYING to read the translations. once again, this isn’t a “BE GRATEFUL” message, it’s a please be respectful to the people who put in time and hard work for free and share the goodness ya know? what’s the use of yelling at fan translators as if we owe you anything?

================

🔴🔴🔴 TOO LONG DIDN’T READ 🔴🔴🔴

some people may need really need to pirate - and no one needs to justify why they cannot afford to purchase etc. pirating happens all the time, translators only hope that when you can, and in whatever way you can, to support legally - in general we don’t ask and we get it! we’re just annoyed that some people think that it SHOULD BE FREE, when it is a paid product, especially for those who CAN afford it

readers are not entitled to shit on translators for what they do with their translations - once again, you’re not OBLIGATED to have it. so what if i start and stop? i’m the one doing the work, i get the only say. don’t be a hypocrite and shit on translators, whose works you’ve read - it’s no loss for translators, we read and enjoy danmei just fine

yes, fan translations are illegal, but you can’t read and enjoy them like some of you have, and then turn around and point the finger at translators - a lot of us are happy to stop translating - this isn’t a threat, but at the end of the day, shitting on translators simply decreases access, and sure, some people can indeed live with you know, MTL or shitty translations from people who’ve learnt chinese for only six months or whatever, but you’re gonna be reading an entirely different book tbh

the people saying illegal translators are at fault - funnily enough, most of them consume the translations, so what the fuck? i mean we know it’s illegal, we’re trying to share the love and trying to minimize the illegalities of it by redirecting people to hopefully support legally. it’s still illegal yes, but i think it’s hypocritical for people who have read translations, stab translators in the back. and now that translators are indeed ‘restricting’ and ‘removing’ their ‘illegal translations’, yall yelling again? and threatening?

fan translators aren’t “elitist” or “classist” - just looking for some respect in a community which seems to have taken them for granted, and also looking for support for their fave authors - and honestly a lot of us were caught in the crossfires truly, don’t be an asshole and demand things from fan translators - who are you talking about? do you know why they decided to lock? do you know know what their locking system is like and what for?

it’s not EASY to lock the translations up - it’s more admin work, it’s putting together a whitelist of people, if given the choice i’m sure translators would prefer to share everything. but not when there are assholes who have a comment on how they should translate etc. and yeah!!! calling us illegal!! i mean we are but still!!

the last straw was seeing that post on tumblr and people in the comments going like fan translators shouldn’t or should do something, without getting the whole picture, without even considering how hard it is for fan translators being caught in this situation.

whoever puts in the work gets to decide, and everyone else should leave them alone.

be nice to the people who really cannot afford as they say so (or just don’t think about it), be nice to the translators feeding you content, and the people who free ride and shit on translators - honestly, i’d say ready the pitchforks.

edit: i forgot to mention this is my hot take and i’ve tried to like present all the arguments i’ve seen so far. i’m definitely not doing all of it justice and i don’t claim to speak on behalf of any of them except maybe one or two- and i’ve definitely left out stuff, but anyway, lmao we’re just tiny people doing what we love. i wish we could solve you know inequality or poverty or hunger or other pressing concerns. if i was that great i wouldn’t be stuck on tumblr or twitter or have to make posts like these like a loser.

thanks for coming to my ted talk.

#danmei #danmei twitter #rambles #long post #literally cannot take the stupidity of some people anymore

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