#why doe she get to take my best friend grom me

[kitsunelike]

vent in tags

[anonymoosen]

No one’s gonna see this, buttt-

Last year, I kept this IZ X TOH au between myself and my best friend, but I kinda wanna talk about it now since @thechaoticlittlejester wanted to revive it and add their ideas too! (They’re rlly smart and cool so follow them :3)

Anywayyy here’s what my idea last year was like

No, it doesn’t take part in the Boiling Isles, it takes place in the normal IZ universe

It’s kinda more like a sequel of invader Zim that takes place 3 years after the Florpus incident, but the characters have personality traits from the TOH characters

All the weird things from Boiling Isles happens on earth

Example: Grom is actually an alien who wanted to kill Zim (because of course it did) and went to Earth to seek revenge coincidentally during Prom in skool!

Humans are still stupid and didn’t really care much about the weird happenings and thought Grom was just some failed science experiment from chemistry class or something

ANYWAY MOVING ONTO MORE ZIMPORTANT DETAILS-

This is a really complicated thing to say buttt- some IZ characters have more than one TOH character role/story

Example: Gaz is mainly in Eda’s place, but also has the character traits and development of Willow’s (because she’s also the reliable one in the story and pretends she isn’t suffering)

And Zim is mainly in Amity’s role, but also has King’s kind of story (like- King thought he was the King of demons when he wasn’t, and Zim thought he was the best invader when he’s actually defective)

(BUT ZIM DOESNT HAVE KING’S *ROLE* BECAUSE THIS IS A ZADR STORY AND DIB IS LUZ IN THIS AU!! HE ONLY HAS KING’S *STORY*)

Like it’s not really your standard [FAVE SHOW] as [OTHER FAVE SHOW] AU! It’s just a fan made Invader Zim sequel with stories based on TOH’S stories! (And this AU is mainly about Gaz, Dib and Zim’s shenanigans)

And of course, it’s really gonna be out of character for Dib and Zim because they’re a lot nicer since they’re in Luz and Amity’s roles kdkedmdkdkdkd

(This is what me from last year wrote idjejdjekroeokr it’s so cringe lol)

Now time to explain the character roles:

Dib as Luz!

I know Dib as Amity sounds like it makes more sense, but I chose Dib as Luz because they’re both excluded by everyone in skool, they have “weird” interests, and Prof Membrane would probably want to send Dib to a “real science” camp like how Camila wanted to send Luz to the “normal” camp. (Also both Luz and Dib are dorky dorks lolll)

Zim as Amity!

It’s not justtt because of the ZADR as Lumity thing, it’s also because Zim wants to be the Tallests’ “star student” or in this case, star invader. And like how Amity had that amulet that controlled her, Zim’s PAK had a program that made him loyal to the Tallests (which he would break later on). Also, Zim killed Miyuki with a flesh eating BLOB, and that reminds me of abomination goo loll

So in this AU, the Irkens use those kinds of blobs to create weapons (like how the Blight Industries use abomination goo to make abomatons)

Lastly, in this AU, Zim reads to kids. It sounds out of character but I would like to think that over the years, he’s actually great with kids because he’s been dealing with Gir lolll- (also Zim’s a dad to his minions in my heart, shushhhh)

Gaz as Eda! Even tho she takes Eda’s role, she’s still Dib’s younger sister. Anyway, she takes Eda’s role because she’s sassy and acts like she doesn’t care but does. Also, in this AU, Gaz secretly has a curse, and has an uncontrollable pig demon form.

The reason why she kept it a secret is because she knew how crazy Dib is over supernatural / paranormal creatures and is scared that he would reveal it to everyone. (But Dib accidentally kindaaa gave her away to the Swollen Eyeball and had to rescue her— like how Eda was taken away by the Emperor’s Coven and Luz had to save her)

Tak as Hunter!

Tak somehow manages to get out of her janitor job and became the Lavender Guard of the Tallests. She still hates Zim and had that “Amity vs Hunter” fight with her. She’s also still a cringefail depressed emo like Hunter-

Gir as Hooty!

Both Hooty and Gir Are craAAaAaaAzyyyy beings who might secretly be Gods.

Okay seriously though- Gir once possessed Zim’s entire base and made it move around, which is literally like the plot Hooty’s Moving Hassle where Hooty gets possessed and moves around too.

Plus I’d like to think that Gir would wanna prove himself to Zim and make some Tunnel of Love thing like how Hooty did to make ZADR canon! (Except this Tunnel of Love is more disturbing and has literal human hearts. Whose hearts were those? Nobody knows…)

————

Anywayyy this was an intro of my cringe AU from last year! Bye nonexistent readers since again, no one’s gonna read thisssss- (except for thechaoticjester since I tagged them idkekdekrkeiir)

[sakarrie-creates]

2023 Fic Round-Up/Reflection

Got an early start this year! I technically was shooting to get it done before the new year but I feel like I’m still within a reasonable window, so I’ll take it! Here’s my 2023 Writing Summary! Overall, I think I actually did okay! As usual, my rambly reflection stuff is under the cut. Happy 2024 people!

2023 Stats:

Fics Started: 12 Fics Fully Written: 12  Fics Posted: 5 New WIPs: 0 Total WIPs: 20 (ish?) Words Written: 53,686 (55,598 if including fic outlines that haven’t been turned fic) Words Posted: 34,805 Fandoms Written For: 3 (+1 for Merlin FTH outline) Events: 4 (+3)

Posted Fics:

Supernatural (Gen): 2

When it Rains, it Pours (13,779): As part of Chuck's "reliving of his greatest hits," Sam starts having his painful visions again. He doesn’t want to believe it, but the nightmares keep coming true and now, he's beginning to worry it’s not just visions. During their last hunt, Sam could have sworn that the machete he was reaching for threw itself. Dean didn’t seem to notice anything but later that night, Sam finds a small trail of blood coming from his nose.

He needs to tell Dean—he knows that. But Dean’s been struggling a lot between Chuck and losing... well, most everyone. He's just barely beginning to bounce back, and Sam was his only constant right now. He’ll just have to keep a handle on it until they can take care of Chuck. Set around s15e4 Atomic Monsters. 

Whatever it Takes (1,875): Gadreel's possession of Sam has more serious side-effects than Dean ever imagined. Now, his brother is sick, hurting, and close to giving up. But Dean is determined to make this right. 

The Owl House (Gen and Implied/Background Ship - Huntlow): 2

What Doesn't Kill You (Gives You Trauma) (1,737): With the reconstruction of Hexside finally complete, a sense of normality has been restored. Fortunately, that includes Grom. Unfortunately one of their own has been declared King. Hunter doesn’t even know which fear he'll have to face. He certainly has enough painful memories for Grom to take its pick. With a bit of luck and support from his friends, though, he might just make it through the night.

Frenemies (1,737): Hunter gets a mysterious message telling him to meet them at the night market. He really should have realized Luz would be behind this. Or: Post-ASIAS, Luz doesn't like the idea of Hunter suddenly showing up at Hexside and almost kidnapping her friends.

Code Lyoko (Gen): 1

No One’s an Island (7,612): Yumi is tired. XANA's attacks have been relentless and it's wearing her down. Between school, home life, and Lyoko, she's not sure how much more she can handle. After all, there's only so much weight one person can take. Except, it's not just Yumi's burden to carry, and her friends are going to do whatever they can to remind her of that. 

Specifics:

Events Participated In:

SPN Summergen (Fic), Player Appreciation Week (Art), Weird People MEP (Edit), Dear Fellow Traveler (Animatic), SPN Gencest Bang (Fic), Fandom Trumps Hate (Art/Fic), Mirage and Mischief Zine (Fic), and LOTS of zine apps (Fic, Art, Mod).

Best/worst title?

Best title: None of them super jump out at me, but Whatever it Takes and Between the Lines of Fear and Blame both come from songs where the song vibe/lyrics match the fic PERFECTLY. The latter is a bit long for my tastes, but it’s grown on me. What Doesn’t Kill You (Gives you Trauma) makes me chuckle too, but it’s got the same length issue as well as trying out a new style from my norm which I had mixed feelings on.

Worst title: Oof, well as usual, I didn’t particularly like most of my titles this year. I think Frenemies has to take the cake though. It started as a working title but then I got lazy and just left it when I posted. It feels so generic and not... aesthetic enough? Poetic enough? Literally no idea why it bothers me so much but it does.

General Questions:

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

I honestly can’t remember what I was expecting this year (and it’s tradition that I can’t look back at my goals ‘til I answer these questions, so it will remain unknown). I certainly hoped to be able to do more since last year was a fairly barren year creativity-wise, but I’ve also been quite aware for a while that being in school sucks out my soul makes it difficult to create. With that, I think I probably was in the ballpark of what I was expecting. I might have predicted it being more spread out, though, which is a rookie move considering that my classes are clustered haha. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

I think I’d just barely gotten into TOH at the start of the year, so that wasn’t COMPLETELY unpredictable, but I did write some Huntlow (aka, romance) fics, which is abnormal for me! Additionally, I can’t remember if I discovered The Sentinel this year or last, but that definitely wasn’t expected. Just got the DVDs so I can finish watching the series! Oh, also writing Code Lyoko was a new experience (not counting my random 6th grade fanfiction I wrote in notebooks lol).

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

I’m split quite a bit on this one. On one hand, I really like my Grom fic (so far) so I’m hoping that will continue to flow as I wrap it up. I also like my unposted fic about Willow dealing with Hunter’s near-death and Camila comforting her. Of those that are currently posted, though, I think I might go with No One is an Island. It was a lot of fun trying to figure out how to write Yumi and the other Code Lyoko characters, and considering the small size of the fandom, it was fairly well-received too!

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

Same as the last two years! Fragmentation’s views are hard to really predict since view counts have been down since September, but the total views has officially surpassed the overall word count at 21.4k views (vs 20.7k word count). Which is AMAZING. It’s always a bit wild to me to consider, but I’m so great people are enjoying my fic. Next is still The Problem With Good Intentions at 12.6k, which surprises me less now that I’ve seen just how alive and well the Once and Future Fandom is haha. From the fics I posted this year, it would be When it Rains, it Pours at 1.5k.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

A Letter to Never Be Read on FF.net never really got any traction, but I think I’m over it by now. As for more current underappreciated fic... I think I might actually go with When it Rains, it Pours again. Even though it had the most views, it’s a fairly long, multi-chap story and didn’t get many reviews in between chapters. That’s part of the challenge with bangs and posting dates, though, so nothing too shocking there.

Hardest story to write?

It’s really hard to say! I was struggling with burnout a lot during my zine app timeframes, but most of those fics haven’t been posted yet. It might be Whatever it Takes just cause I had such a hard time coming up with something that matched the prompts as well as my preferences. When it Rains, it Pours was also a challenge at times, but mostly in trying to find motivation to write anything.

Most overdue story?

It’s Only Natural is still very very overdue, but it’s not super popular (and is on FF.net), so it’s not one I’m stressed about. I think about A Long Ways Home a lot, though. I wanted to work on it recently, but unfortunately my writing energy needed to go towards FTH so that continued to be put off. People have left some very supportive comments on it recently, though, which I majorly appreciate!

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

It hasn’t been a very writer-heavy year, which means less opportunities for writing risks. Writing for Code Lyoko was something of a risk in that I had no idea how it would turn out, but it wasn’t actually that adventurous. I also explored different types of grief in an unposted zine app piece, but I think in the end it turned out solid! My biggest risk was probably a different ficlet I wrote for a zine app. It was of young Eda and Grudgy, so both about characters I’m less invested in and in the sports genre, which is totally new for me. Unfortunately, that risk didn’t pay off. I actually felt pretty good about it, but when I sent it for feedback from a mod friend, they really didn’t like it. Everything’s subjective so it’s possible that it would still be enjoyable for some people, but suffice to say, I didn’t use it for any apps in the end.

How’d this year compare to your goals of last year?

Okie here we go! I think my goals were fairly reasonable last year if I remember correctly so I’m tentatively optimistic I’ll have some stuff to check off! 

Oof last year had a bunch of paragraphs of reflection here. I think I’m gonna focus more on bullets this year haha.

Goals from 2022:

-Unfortunately, keeping my scholarship has to be my biggest goal this year again so gonna put that here in case it's the only thing I can check off come December.

-A Long Ways Home (at least 1 new chapter) -SPN Summergen-At least 3/7 Player Appreciation Week days-Catch up on comment replies -At least do some more brainstorming for bigger CS aus -Huntlow/Owl House fics?-One zine?

If crazy inspired year: -All of A Long Ways Home -All Player Appreciation Week Days -WIP Bang with It’s Only Natural -Post More CS One-shots -Write out more big AU scenes -Other Zines

Oof, okay so apparently I was not crazy inspired this year lol. To be fair, I did do a bit more exploration in art and lots more in merch, so it wasn’t a totally uncreative year. And I doubled my word count overall from last year! Plus I did apply to a LOT of zines this year... I just unfortunately didn’t get in to nearly any of them. Next time maybe though! I’m a pinch hitter for a couple so that’s something at least!

It’s also been a year with lots of burnout and anhedonia for me, so brainstorming has been completely unachievable for most of the year. It’s been sad and I feel a little bad for my poor friends who love to brainstorm with me, but thankfully they have other sources. I’m scared to say anything, but I’ve felt more recently like maybe some interest is returning, so I’m crossing my fingers that it will still be there by the time FTH/Mirage&Mischief stuff is finished and school starts.

I actually met my goals this year too! In fact, my stretch goal had 25k posted, which I doubled in total and surpassed in written too, which is really impressive for me! Not to mention, I finished EVERY SINGLE fic I wrote this year!! That’s WILD for me. To be honest, it’s probably more a sad reflection on how I was writing purely for external deadlines rather than myself, but hey! Still got them all done and wrote a lot of words. Overall, thank you last year Sakarrie for keeping things achievable cause I actually did meet/exceed my goals! 

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

Well, I was a little relieved to find that I’d met them this year, so I think I’m going to try to keep things not too high again. Overall, though, I think I want to have a little more room for creative freedom in what I’m writing this year. For how little creative work I was doing, I did a TON of events, and at many times, those obligations stopped me from working on something I was feeling more inspired by. My fandom interests jumped all over this year (main focuses include: TOH, Merlin, Code Lyoko, The Sentinel, Dragon Prince, She-ra, Handplates (Undertale), and Centaurworld). Honorable mentions to Amphibia, SPN, and Miraculous Ladybug too... and that’s all just the stuff I’ve had long hyperfixations on this year. There’s tons of fandoms outside of those that also grabbed my attention on and off this year.)

Anyway, my hope is that I’ll be able to write similarly or more this year, but based on my own fickle inspiration, rather than only writing when I hate to for events. With that, I think I’m going to just stick with the Gencest Bang and zine obligations as the only writing events I’m planning on this year. I also hope to do Player Appreciation Week and Summergen again, but both of those could be art if needed. 

I also 100% failed in my comments goal from last year, but my mindset is slowly getting healthier I think. I do leave comments occasionally, but they still feel like way bigger deals than they should be. I’m getting better at letting old tabs go, though! I’m also fairly behind on responding to comments of my fics, but that one’s a lot more manageable.

Additionally, I want to have a pinned post on my tumblr page and ao3 profile page where people who are interested can see my current status on projects. I don’t expect it would be updated all the time, but it might help me keep track of everything.

Okay so! Goals for next year: -Have a solid zine portfolio -Make pinned update post -Post at least 4 stories -Embrace/follow the inspiration -Finish first draft A Long Ways Home -Gencest Bang -Summergen Exchange -Code:Swap -Player Appreciation Week -Apply to more zines

So, finally work counts goals are...

Easy Goal Word Count Goal: 20k (at least 10k posted)

Stretch Goal (aka, if I don’t die from school agAIN): 60k (at least 30k posted)

Ultimate 2021 Word Count Goal: 38k

[aquaaquila]

I understand where you're coming from, but I disagree on a few things.

I wouldn't call Luz callous and selfish for wanting to abandon her friends and girlfriend behind. Luz was punishing herself for what she did while believing she only made things worse for everyone, because it's not like Luz doesn't feel guilt regarding her past mistakes, not counting Belos. Luz always had that tendency as she was a people-pleaser through and through.

The reason why Luz didn't feel understood was because people quite often couldn't tell the intention behind her actions, or at least they didn't signal it enough for Luz to not draw any conclusions beforehand, and mind you, her wanting to be understood was also a bit of self-discovery, it was sub-conscious, so we also have to take a look at it from sub-conscious perspective.

For starters, just because you attempt to understand someone, does not mean you're suddenly there. An effort is good, but it's not enough. Amity put an effort to understand Luz. She put an effort to learn Spanish and she told Luz herself in Lost in Language that she tried to understand her and obviously failed to do so by calling Luz a bully. Amity also when she was venting back in Covention, assumed that Luz thought it was "Easy" to be a witch, when Luz, in fact, knew pretty well it wasn't and that she trying hard to be a witch and wasn't trying to wing it like Amity accused her of doing so in that scene. First impressions are important and even after everything they've been through, Luz would still have that one thought behind her head that Amity wouldn't always understand Luz's intentions or actions.

Another thing we can see is Eda who took Luz for granted a lot during the series, which made Luz feel like she needs to prove herself. We especially see this in Grom and ST and it took Luz confessing to Eda how guilty she feels about Eda losing her magic for Eda to actually understand why she put herself in danger in that episode, to begin with. Heck, if you feel like you need to explain and justify yourself and your actions, you don't feel understood. If you were understood, there would be no need to have such a conversation.

Willow (and Gus I guess, though it was mostly Willow) in WILW, while did say she understood Luz meant well, she did this after they had a fight. Luz didn't mean to push Gus and Willow too far, but she knew they were screwed and yet still tried to do her best just so Willow no longer would be an outcast. And mind you, she had to explain herself to Amity first, and then Amity had to convince Willow and Gus to help Luz out, so yeah so much for them understanding her rather than getting to understand her.

And Camila did not apologize for making Luz consider other human beings. I'm pretty sure Luz also didn't mean for snakes to attack students and while she seemed rather unbothered, we also need to remember that she was a dumb kid and probably would cringe at herself at night remembering such fail, but wouldn't bother to tell anyone as it's not like anyone asked about this or it ever was brought up (though she didn't look proud after seeing prohibition rules at the art class in TtT). What Camila did apologize for is trying to hurt Luz the same way she was hurt by society, by making her do something she didn't want just to conform. Yes, Luz needed a reality check, absolutely, and mind you, she got one in the demon realm, by directly putting everything Luz knew and got to know front and center.

Then again, it's just my three cents. You can disagree with me, you can call me crazy and an apologist who defends disgusting actions but trust me, I don't, I simply just do not agree with this criticism as I can tell Luz didn't mean any harm.

Luz’s Character Finish Is Bad

“All I’ve ever wanted… was to be understood!” only works from a meta perspective. From the perspective that she is a nuerodivergent (though never stated in the show), LGBTQIA+ character. Groups that, yes, right now are struggling to be understood, accepted and shown love. Here’s the counterpoint: Who the fuck hasn’t shown Luz understanding in the past season and a half before then? And obviously, villains don’t count because they’re kind of, you know, evil. Unless Luz wants to say everyone in existence needs to show her understanding which is commonly a villain’s motivation as it doesn’t allow for other people to exist. Amity here is the second biggest (we’ll get to Camila when we talk about the actual scene itself) because their relationship is literally built on shared understanding and interests. This actually gets worse when you look at Amity’s character. She acts entirely ready to just live in the human realm with how excited she is about it. Obviously stops studying magic to focus more on studying human world stuff to prepare for it. She even goes as far, just like King does, to LEARN SPANISH FOR LUZ. Now… Can a brain refuse all of this? As someone with Avoidant Personality Disorder: Absolutely. Does that excuse in the context of a piece of media? No it fucking doesn’t without some real explorations and deep dives into why/how the character dismisses ALL of it. Because otherwise, it’s the same to use magic to wave something away. They’re emotions, we don’t have to explain it. But if those emotions don’t make sense from ANY perspective within the show… It’s an audience’s right to call the show out for it. If a character who is very business like, to the point, and quiet suddenly goes on an hour long rant in front of the hero instead of just killing the obstacle in front of them like they have literally any other problem of theirs, you can ‘explain’ that as an author. Come up with excuses. It’s not the audiences for not believing those excuses though when the text actively goes against what is being shown. Which… Well, let’s talk about the potential excuse that Luz has never been shown understanding before the Isles? That until Gus and Willow, she had no friends and that King and Eda still did take half a season to start showing care for her and her interests. Okay. That’s all fair and technically works within the text of the show.

But Camila exists. And the first special detailed, pretty clearly, how much Camila has backed Luz up every step of the way in her creative journey. That Camila has never rejected her daughter and shown her as much understanding as is quite possible for a mom to show her daughter. She only held back on this ONCE. And I want to mention that the only time Willow and Gus ever ‘turn’ on Luz, is ONCE. Hell, rule of threes: Put the Bat Queen/Owlbert in there. And all three have the same complaint for Luz: You need to stop caring about your interests and goals at the point where they start hurting people. Now, actually, I do want to point out that if this were properly interrogated and a proper part of Luz’s arc, it would be an AMAZING parallel to how the Collector behaves. Make the two both characters who are so in love with their view of the world and excitement for their ideas and games that the rest of the world stopped mattering at one point. Only Luz has learned and the Collector has not. But then Camila, in the moment before Luz’s grand statement, apologizes for that moment. Apologizes for making Luz have to consider other human beings. Apologizes for the one moment that she has ever held Luz back on… And that’s dog shit. It frames this moment not so much as Luz wanting understanding as much as her wanting to be told there will never be consequences for her actions. That no one around her believes she even CAN make a mistake. and the rest of Camila’s speech, and more problematically Luz’s response, or lack there of, only reinforces this concept. After all, Camila makes a very rousing, very real point about the mistakes people make. She admits to a lot of her own and ostensibly, THAT is the part of the speech that the majority of the first two specials have been building up to. Luz has been torturing herself over a mistake she believes herself to have made (which how stupid that whole plot point is is literally another blog I’ve made) so tackling that, tackling the idea that sometimes you just don’t realize the full picture of your actions and you need to know the difference, makes sense. And Luz ignores all of this. Blatantly and bluntly. She doesn’t react to ANYTHING her mom says until her mom reveals she’s a secret nerd. That she is actually one Luz’s kind which is… A problem and a half in and of itself and I’ve talked Camila’s character too in the past. And Luz ignoring all of that begs the question of why none of that matters to her? She’s made such a big deal out of it after all. Acted near suicidal because of it. Unless… The problem wasn’t the mistake. Unless the problem was consequences she couldn’t guaranty she could fix or were too hard to fix. Too inconvenient and painful. One example of this is perhaps the cruelest thing Luz does: Amity quotes back to her about wanting to spend their future together before stepping through the portal. At that time, Luz knows that her plan is to not go through that door. To let it close with Amity on the other side. Supposedly, Luz loves this girl. There are pictures of them going on dates in the human realm despite Luz having had this question on her mind for a while now… If not the answer she came up with. But she says nothing. She fully intended to not give Amity any sort of closure and let Amity, up to the very second they were separated, believe Luz still intended to spend their future together. The level of callousness and selfishness required to break up with someone like that, let alone abandoning ALL of her friends who would have to deal with that emotional turmoil while dealing with the new form of the Isles, is just beyond me. It’s not something you can excuse with being a teenager. It’s not something you should excuse with nuerodivergence and FUCK YOU if you do. It is simply a god awful moment for Luz’s character. Period. And outside of meta explanations, like the writers knowing Camila would go through and so knew Luz wasn’t going to abandon Amity and thus didn’t think about Luz’s actions, there’s no getting what it says about Luz’s character. Let alone mixed with this. Mixed with her blatantly not caring about any lessons about mistakes or having a conversation about mistakes. She just wants to be told she’s special, act like she’s special and continue to believe she lives in a fantasy. That she is the hero and once she stopped believing that fantasy could come true, she was willing to let the entire Isles burn without even trying to help it.

Because understanding to Luz isn’t recognition of your ideas, beliefs, interests, struggles, etc. It is all of that plus not being critical of anything she does. That any amount, literally any amount, of push back, of suppression, means you hate her and just don’t ‘understand’ her. It’s gross, it’s bad and as someone who was born autistic and suffers from depression now… This isn’t how I want to be understood. And I would hope it’s not how most want to be understood. ======== I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join! I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat. And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[bloodraven55]

I saw a post recently where someone else analysed how Luz's love language is acts of service and Amity's is physical affection, and it got me thinking so in light of today's incredible episode I want to do some serious digging into Luz's feelings for Amity. This is probably gonna get pretty long but hey, these two are more than worth it.

I'm going to go through three key episodes for Luz and Amity's relationship so that I can properly illustrate my points, starting with Lost in Language.

First, I want to talk about how, despite the fact that Amity had been nothing but objectionable to her so far, literally all it takes for Luz to decide she wants to befriend her anyway is reading about Azura befriending Hecate in her book and seeing Amity reading to kids at the library. This clearly establishes that Luz is intrigued by Amity and willing to go out of her way to connect with her, even when Amity hasn't yet given her any particular reason to do so.

Next, let's talk about the manner in which Luz tries to save Amity from Otabin later in the same episode. This is one of the first times we see Luz attempt to be Amity's hero, as she chooses to make an unnecessarily dramatic entrance dressed as her own version of Azura, playing the role of the dashing knight come to rescue the fair maiden albeit not quite as gracefully as is usual in these stories lol. She even takes the time to doodle Amity being impressed by her performance too, introducing the idea that Amity's perception of her means a lot to Luz.

Finally for this episode, we get another example of both these things: Luz putting in a substantial effort to bond with Amity, and Luz wanting to impress Amity or get specific reactions from her. After impulsive plan to get them away from Otabin works, Luz finds the time to be a good even when they're running for their lives and actually manages to make Amity laugh which was an impressive feat at that point tbh, looking extremely pleased when her comment is received positively.

These next two moments provide a neat link to the next episode I want to discuss, Adventures in the Elements, so I'll cover them in one go. We see Luz's first Act of Service for Amity when she offers her the Azura book she's missing to show that she wants to be friends, and then when she meets Amity to get it back we see how important the gesture was for Luz. She's very eager to hear Amity's thoughts, loves it when she finds the fanart Amity drew, and in general it's just obvious that this was another attempt to impress Amity on Luz's part.

This only continues as Luz proudly proclaims that she's going to join Amity's class at Hexside, even winking at her in the process, and solidifies the significance of her giving Amity the book even more by suggesting they start a club to talk about it further. Like, seriously, this entire episode is pretty much just Luz being adorably excited to share classes with Amity and flat out learning a whole new spell just to make sure it happens.

The interesting thing here, though, is that Luz gets really nervous as soon as the twins suggest they all train together, enough to lie to them in a moment of panic, and then gets super embarrassed when she sees that Amity is also practicing at the Knee. This doesn't seem to make much sense since Amity is being pretty nice by this point and not at all mocking or condescending, and Luz has given up on trying to look cool to the twins by now too. But it actually makes a lot of sense when you consider that this is another instance of Luz wanting to impress Amity and worrying about looking inept in front of her.

There's also the way that Luz is just... so clumsy and awkward around Amity in these episodes. The girl knocks a book to the floor and falls off a rock just trying to say hello, for crying out loud, complete with stammering over her words. Yeah, it's safe to say Luz is lowkey crushing on Amity here.

Don't worry, because I saved the best for last. Enchanting Grom Fright is basically the culmination of everything those two previous episodes set up. Not only do we get two Acts of Service from Luz, with her offering to face her own worst fear for Amity with zero hesitation and then happily offering to go to Grom with her so that Amity wouldn't end up alone, but she also brings out some dramatic flair when she declares herself Amity's “fearless champion,” like a knight in shining armour vowing to protect her princess although she still hasn't got the graceful part down lmao.

Plus, there's the fact that in both of their Lingering Eye Contact in Close Proximity with Romantic Tension™ moments in the episode, Luz's expression is the exact same as Amity's, wide-eyed and curious like she's not quite sure what to make of what she's feeling. And that's even before she just full on starts flirting with Amity later on. I'm sorry, but those smirks and fancy show-off moves while dancing are not remotely heterosexual, Luz.

All of this brings us to their current situation: Amity is aware of her crush on Luz but thinks that Luz only sees her as a friend, and Luz is subconsciously flirting with Amity as well as trying to show off for her and be her hero but remains fairly unaware of her crush on her and thinks that Amity likes someone else. So in conclusion, teenagers are useless, but we been knew. Rather, the point I want to end on is that there's a reason why Luz and Amity were so in sync with such amazing chemistry during their dance when they weren't talking, and it's because they both have different ways of communicating their emotions but when they let their actions speak for them they were finally on the same page albeit briefly.

tl;dr - Luz and Amity are both crushing hard on each other, they just need to realise that the other has a different way of expressing their feelings and find the courage to be honest with each other. Amity's crush is more glaringly blatant, what with all the blushing and gay panicking and wanting to ask Luz to the school dance, but Luz's crush on Amity is also pretty evident in the way she tries so hard to impress her and often steps in to help her out with grand gestures, which she never does to anywhere near the same extent with any of her other friends.

[sepublic]

SEASON 2 OF THE OWL HOUSE!!!

          RUHGISN/LIFNALARNGLIENARE

           Onto business first and foremost! We get twenty-one episodes, an extra one to make up for the rather odd, nineteen-count from the first season! That’s forty episodes in total! Then Season 3…

           OH, Season 3… I love it but it hurts! The Lord giveth and taketh away, it’s confirmed, but it’s only THREE 44-minute specials! By my calculations, that’s about the length of SIX normal episodes… THE OWL HOUSE IS SO DANG POPULAR AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO DISNEY?!?!! First Amphibia’s finale gets screwed over, THEN this?! But at least Amphibia gets its full third season… At least I assumeit does, oh for the love of Titan if it doesn’t…

           It is extremely imperative that we petition Disney to let TOH’s third season be full-length! Because Dana herself admitted that the main reason she left Twitter was to cope with THAT news, and… OH MY GOD POOR DANA you fought SO hard against all odds to give us this show, this previous love-child of your mind and heart and spite, for this!? But it might not be too late- If we assault Disney with our demand, they MIGHT just change their mind! SO GET ON WITH IT! Let the cartoon community rally AGAIN!

           But, right-

           The first half of episodes for Season 2 is going to be TEN episodes, the second half will be eleven! Already better than the first season, but as a reminder, that’s what we’re getting so far before our mid-season hiatus! And on THAT note…

           We have confirmation for the first FIVE episodes, which will begin airing just a mere FOUR WEEKS from now! We have Separate Tides, Escaping Expulsion, Echoes of the Past, Keeping Up A-fear-ances, and Through the Looking Glass Ruins!

           These episode titles spell out “SEEK T”, presumably “Seek t(he)”, so we can already guess the next two episodes after TtLGR! That leaves fourteen more letters for the Season 2 message; The last one was “A witch loses a true way,” so perhaps this season is advising Luz to seek something that will help her get back home? Something that will help her confront and defeat Belos? A little bit of both?

           Separate Tides is the season premiere! Luz is feeling guilty about the loss of Eda’s powers, poor girl, so she’s going to set sail for a lucrative bounty? Interesting… Perhaps a real Bloom of Eternal Youth? Something magical and bile-related? More lore on the nature of magic and its origins???

           Escaping Expulsion… hoo boy, THAT’s what we’ve all been looking forward to! Odalia and Alador get Luz, Willow, and Gus expelled?! No rights for them, even if that was already obvious but WOW. But more importantly, Luz strikes a deal with the two?!? What do Odalia and Alador want from Luz, to get her back into Hexside?!?!

           Dana mentioned how Season 1 had more focus on Hexside at Disney’s request. Given how Season 2 is more her style and freedom, we might see Luz and the others remain expelled from Hexside, if only to detach them from the coven system for the time being as their rebellion grows… And give focus to OTHER things as well! Which is going to suck a LOT and I’m going to hate Odie and Al even more for this, taking away not just Luz’s opportunity but also Willow and Gus’… Especially Willow since they DID follow through on that threat, holy shit, Amity and Willow must be hurt and traumatized from this!

           But what do Odalia and Alador want from Luz? Do they want to use her as leverage against Belos? To use her FOR Belos? I’m suddenly reminded of that idea I had about Odalia and Alador being interested in Luz as like, an actual suitor for Amity… GOD my Lumity heart would actually love it if that were the case! Obviously in the long run it’s bad and for THEIR purposes, but the idea of Luz learning to be more proper for them, for AMITY really… Oh man, this is reminding me of my speculation of Luz and Alador parallels! We might just see what makes Alador so interesting to Dana in this episode, and just the SECOND one of Season 2, no less- Right into the story meat!

           ECHOES OF THE PAST! King lore! KING LORE!!! Even better Luz, Lilith, and… HOOTY… go to a new island?! An island related to King’s past? Is Eda sticking with King to make sure he doesn’t do anything, or god, did King’s antics get her into trouble again? And Hooty… HOOTY is coming with Luz and Lilith???! I’m grateful for Luz and Lilith interaction, we might get to see them talk things over, but how is Hooty…? Is the house coming along?

           Dana mentioned two spoilers and a lie, one of them was Hooty leaving the house! I guess this is one of them… The others were Camila beating someone up and Gus getting a growth spurt, which we’ll get onto later; So I think Camila beating someone up is the lie! Dang it… But a dangerous new island, could this be related to the various pieces of Titan bones mentioned in The Unauthorized History of the Boiling Isles, scattered throughout the boiling seas, all alluding to another incomplete Titan?!

           Are they KING’S REMAINS??! And his bones are incomplete because he still has his SKULL!!!!

           Keeping Up A-fear-ances is pretty obviously Gwendolyn. Screw you, Gwen, and the confirmation that her presence is causing strain for everyone… YIKES. Hopefully we’ll get Young Eda and Lilith backstory, and see how they transitioned from the YBOS flashback to present-day! Perhaps Gwendolyn DID help Eda when she first transformed… Either way, I do not like her. But she’ll be fascinating to see!

           Through the Looking Glass Ruins! As I said before, Gus gets a growth spurt, and he’s trying to impress kids from Glandus… Which YES GLANDUS, more schools lore! But uhh… If they’re at Glandus, is it because they didn’t get back into Hexside after all, and they’re moving to a different school? Luz and Amity are exploring a dangerous library there, which, Lost in Language flashbacks! But why is AMITY there… Oh Titan, does SHE choose to leave Hexside at the end of Escaping Expulsion, as a means of defying her parents’ will, to go with the friends she loves! If so… YEAH AMITY! That, or she’s out on a visit. Will Amity run from home and live with the others, or maybe Willow and her dads? Gus and Perry? Or will she still be at the Blight Manor… Dana wasn’t kidding about Emira and Edric being distracted from Grom!

           Maybe Amity works something out that gets her expelled from Hexside, and Glandus is the new school for her, who knows? Perhaps it’s because of Belos, and so Odalia and Alador are furious, but they want their kid at a school regardless, so Glandus it is! The Hexside Banshees lost their best captain… Not that she was even playing so it doesn’t matter, but still! THIS would be quite a shock and change for Amity! And Luz, Willow, and Gus… Dang, they’re just losing a lot huh?

           If they ARE going to Glandus and enrolling there, then maybe the episode will end in a failure, or maybe they’re pretending to in order to access the library, maybe a library incident will get their enrollment cancelled! I’m interested in seeing Glandus’ location, we know it’s on an island elsewhere… I kind of want to see the principal of Glandus, will they be cool like Bump? Have a rivalry with him??? Hexside lore??? FORBIDDEN SHIP BETWEEN BUMP AND GLANDUS PRINCIPAL??!?!

           But yeah, those are the episode synopses, and they promise a LOT! It seems each episode so far is just pure character or plot stuff… Not to dunk on ‘filler’, which I think is misused for a lot of episodes honestly, but I like it! I guess Dana and crew have to make the most of their time thanks to Disney’s weird thing with Season 3, screw you Mickey… But yeah! I’m definitely gonna say more stuff and talk about the intro, but for now, I AM HYPED!!!

[incorrectlumityquotes]

Why Amity fell for Luz: A Theory

Watching all the episodes of The Owl House and reviewing them brought back a lot of thoughts and feelings that I maybe forgot about. We all ship things and sometimes we do it for fun; sometimes for deeper reasons. I just started lumity because it reminded me of Diana & Akko from Little Witch Academia. I loved that show so much that I wanted more, and I thought it would be cool if Luz & Amity did something similar. I had no idea that it was going to go beyond that, so DAMN. To quote a talking science wolf, “For years we ask how, but we should ask why.” I mean, we saw how. But why? Well I can take a guess.

If we’re are going to start anywhere it’s going to be with the girl in question, Amity Blight.

As far as I know as of this typing, Amity Blight is a witchling from The Boiling Isles. She lives in Bonesboro at The Blight Manor estate with her parents and her siblings. She attends Hexside School of Magic and Demonics. Good for her.

Amity has an ambitious and competitive personality. She’s always striving to be better and be at the top of whatever she is doing. When she’s introduced in I Was a Teenage Abomination, she’s showing having great pride in being the top student in her abomination class. In Adventures in the Elements, she goes to The Knee in hopes of training to beat her siblings’ high score on the placement exam.

Amity also has a bit of a temper and gets annoyed easily. In I Was a Teenage Abomination, she sics her abominations on Willow and Luz just because she wasn’t named top student that day. In Enchanting Grom Fright, Amity snapped at the person she bumped into before realizing it was Luz. And later in the same episode, Amity beat up Hooty when he decided to get too close.

But she does have a soft sensitive side. She keeps a diary in her secret room in the library and even reads to kids in her free time. Amity also has a strong sense of integrity. She despises cheating (and cheaters) and feels guilt when she’s forced to break ties with Willow.

So why did someone like this fall for Luz of all people? (see above image)

Enter what I call my Shipping Theory of Compliments

The Shipping Theory of Compliments is that two characters would be shipped and sometimes canonically enter a romantic relationship based on their personalities complimenting each other and fulfilling elements they don’t have alone necessary to developing the character.

People like to use the image of a missing puzzle piece, but I don’t like that comparison because I think it’s a little inaccurate and I don’t like puzzles. Think of it more like the two pieces of the yin and yang coming together and then growing the circles of the opposite colors in them.

Something like that.

And it’s compliments, not opposites. When you think compliments, think more Star and Marco from Star vs the Forces of Evil. Star wants to go on a magical adventure. Marco also wants to go on a magic adventure. The difference is that Star goes in recklessly while Marco wants to plan it out a bit. They still have their adventure as oppose to Star’s opposite who wouldn’t want to go on a magical adventure. That sort of thing.

So how do Luz and Amity compliment each other?

Let’s start with that they have in common. Obvious stuff aside, they’re both training to become the best witches they can be. The difference comes that Luz is a human who has to learn magic via glyphs that she finds and Amity learns magic the “proper” way on The Boiling Isles. 

Luz and Amity are also both fans of The Good Witch Azura book series. Difference is that Luz is more open about her fandom while Amity tries to keep it a secret. Also petty thing but they’re both fan artists too, but I think Luz might be a better than Amity. But hey, her crosshatching is improving.

Luz and Amity are also (at the start of the series) both lonely people. Luz’s mom says that she doesn’t have any friends, and Amity doesn’t like her “friends.” The difference is that Luz reaches outward to ease her loneliness (being social and friendly, trying new things, etc.) while Amity reaches inward (keeping a diary, staying busy, having a secret spot, etc.). They both also use escapist fiction to ease their loneliness.

That’s all well and good, but now we get into the real speculative parts. 

...complimenting each other and fulfilling elements they don’t have alone necessary to developing the character.

When I was taking acting classes I was taught that the way you see people act is a persona based on their experiences on what it takes to survive and avoid physical, emotional and social death. So now we have to speculate based on what we were given on what emotional/social needs and wants has Amity not been getting before that she has with Luz.

First let me point you to another show called F is for Family. F is for Family is an adult animated sitcom on Netflix that follows a very dysfunctional family in the 1970s. These are legitimately bad characters, not in terms of being poorly written. What I’m saying is that these guys are assholes. But here’s where it gets interesting.

One of the characters is Kevin Murphy, the teenage son of the family. He’s a dim-witted wannabe rockstar who is always yelled at and put down by his parents throughout the entire series. However in season four Kevin meets Alice. Alice teaches Kevin that his favorite band is a big reference to Tolkien and gives him a copy of The Hobbit. They bond over their love of Lord of the Rings and get along really well. Alice calls him smart for being able to read all of Lord of the Rings over a few days and never puts him down. Even in the one time they did fight she never yelled at him or raised her voice which he found weird because he’s so used to being yelled at. Alice gave Kevin the emotional support he always wanted but never got from his family.

Using that as a backdrop, let’s go back to Amity.

Amity grew up with her parents making her do things she didn’t want to do, making choices for her. Amity wanted to be one way. Her parents wanted something else. Amity’s mother even dyes Amity’s hair green so it matches her siblings. Amity wanted to be friends with Willow. Amity’s parents wanted her to be friends with the mean kids. While Amity does work hard to be the best at what she’s doing, her parents also put pressure on her to make sure that she is at that level. 

Her siblings are another bag of awful. They constantly refer to her by an annoying nickname that I’m guessing has an embarrassing moment attached to it. They seem to live by a double standard that Amity despises. She has to work hard and follow the rules just to be accepted while they are naturally talented and break the rules with everyone still thinking that they’re perfect. 

Family is supposed to provide unconditional love except it looks like the love of the Blights is based on conditions. Nobody just likes Amity for who she is. She doesn’t have a friend.

Enter: the friendliest person she’s ever met

Amity has to struggle and work for the simplest things, even affection. Except when it comes to Luz. Luz is naturally friendly and positive. Amity doesn’t have to earn her kindness. Even when she’s bullied Luz before, Luz is always coming back with a smile. I suppose when you live life surrounded by jerks, you’ll want to hang out with the one person who’s always nice to you. Sort of.

Yes, Amity did think Luz was a bully for constantly getting her into trouble. But even at Covention and Lost in Language, Luz kept reaching out to her. This combined with Amity’s awareness of her own behavior is what convinced her to try to reach out in kind to Luz by the end of Lost in Language. “She’s trying to be nice to me, so I should try too,” I’m guessing is the mindset especially in Adventures in the Elements. And then...Luz continued to be nice to her which is kind of a big deal for Amity.

Let’s tally up what we have so far:

Luz and Amity have similar interests (The Good Witch Azura series, art, fiction, learning magic)

Luz and Amity have similar values (work ethic, disdain for cheating, protecting those closest to you, etc.)

Luz gives Amity the positivity and affection that Amity doesn’t normally get anywhere else

They still have differing personalities with Amity being more competitive and Luz having more of a live-and-let-live attitude.

Even with all these things in mind, why was Amity so scared to ask Luz to Grom?

Speculating again but my theory is that Amity wasn’t sure if Luz actually liked her or if Luz is just friendly because that’s how Luz is. Amity was scared of being rejected because she felt that maybe she was just reading the situation wrong. Luz is this ray of sunshine in her gray skies (if you’ll forgive the cliché). People like Amity always think of all the worst possibilities (I know because I do this too). Amity was probably thinking a bunch of what ifs. “What if Luz doesn’t actually like me? What if she’s just being friendly because she feels sorry for me? What if she has feelings for someone else? What if she never actually liked me? What if she’s straight?”

Luz is Amity’s first crush and it is scary as all hell to put yourself out there like that for the first time. She wasn’t expecting to get married at Grom night. She just wanted to dance with the girl she liked.

The dance at Grom was like confirmation for her that it could happen. Amity didn’t have to ask out Luz because Luz asked her. Being with Luz isn’t a pipedream. It’s a definite possibility. And we all know how she reacted to that idea.

Uh...she’ll be in her bunk.

While Luz and Amity aren’t together as of this typing, I believe it’s bound to happen. Until then, after The Lumity Trilogy, Amity knows that Luz is the girl she likes. 

tl;dr version

Amity fell for Luz because they have similar interests and values, their personalities differ in a compatible way and Luz provides Amity emotional needs and wants that she doesn’t get anywhere else.

Also, round eared girl pretty.

.

Thanks everyone for reading.

[ramblingguy54]

“Everything’s changed, since you came here...Being around you makes me do stupid things and I wish it didn’t!”

This moment really surprised me in showing not just Amity Blight’s vulnerability, but especially Luz’s emotional sensitivity, too. Amity has a lot on her plate, in terms of baggage, from many regretful acts growing up underneath the abusive environment of her parents. However, that isn’t to say Luz isn’t without any kind of grief either, considering this kid is going through quite a lot currently, as well. Luz isn’t sure when she’ll see her mother again, felt seriously guilty at first about Eda’s curse overtaking her at Season 1′s end,  and still doesn’t know how to exactly go about confessing the truth of her real whereabouts, which was the entire conflict of Grom Night’s plot surrounding Luz’s dramatic internal conflict. Luz’s greatest fear was her mother not understanding and being greatly hurt by her lying about summer camp, where she stayed in a more dangerous reality.

What seriously crushed me about this line of dialogue above from Amity is how she wishes Luz didn’t bring out this kind of inspiration to do super impulsive things from herself. This obviously isn’t so much a matter of Amity saying, “I hate you, Luz.”, rather I took it as Amity inflicting loathing sentiment upon her own self esteem. Amity has done a lot of things she’s not proud of whatsoever, which can definitely be seen through her treatment of Willow and how it was ripped to shreds by her parents demands for a great period of time, until Luz came along. Amity isn’t used to feeling so free to have a sense of self, let alone having some definition of happiness. Before Luz appeared, a good chunk of Amity’s life was ruled by manipulative, uncaring, and toxic parenting on how she should live. She was never allowed to have an actual carefree childhood, due to her being born a Blight getting saddled with unfairly high expectations of deemed “perfection”.

Luz is the complete polar opposite of how she has lived in contrast to Amity’s lifestyle. Luz wasn’t expected to become anything spectacular by any means necessary. Granted, her mother was gonna send her away to a summer camp as an attempt to try getting Luz’s more wackier nature under control, but to be fair it was also another way for her to try getting the kid to make actual friends. Regardless, my point is, Luz was able to live an all around normal life, whereas Amity had to immediately follow shallow standards set from the get go in a society full of unfair ideologies surrounding magical abilities. Amity meeting Luz, this kid who was so optimistic, endearing, and Hell bent on becoming a Witch, was such an alien concept to her, overall. Amity has been so used to living a life of obedience where, like her parents constantly beat into her mind, that a Blight must never show weakness to anyone on the Boiling Isles, so for awhile this was the mantra this kid followed at the expense of having genuine friends.

Every time Amity saw Luz in public it reminded her of the person she truly is buried underneath all the bullshit her parents threw onto her. A kid who simply wanted to become a Witch through hard work, determination, and have loving companionship, too. It’s why Amity was so terrified of Luz rejecting her in Grom Night because after everything that has happened she feels, “Do I deserve to be happy or loved? I’ve hurt people in the past and brutally cut off my best friend, Willow. Who would ever want to be with a person like me?”, which was plaguing her thinking throughout that entire day, until Luz helped pick her back up to take on the dark shape shifting blob of nightmares turned real.

“It’s okay I-I-I do stupid things around you too, Amity...”

There’s a lot of poetic truth to Luz’s statement here on her connection to Amity. After all, in Grom Night she willingly took on the ceremony upon herself in Amity’s place because she wanted to help her out that badly, despite having next to zero knowledge about how dangerous this tradition actually is in their world. Even after being filled in on the deadly details of how important it is to defeat the creature, Luz still didn’t waver in her determination to combat the nasty creature. Luz has unintentionally caused Amity so much trouble in the past, where she wanted to help with something very serious for a change because she knows there’s real compassionate kindness inside of her. Luz may have started to run away when her worst fears became manifested from the creature about her mother, but Amity rushing to help her out made them both inspired to defeat it together. It was the best way to explore their blossoming respect and love.

Luz did all that for Amity because she wanted to and not outta some obligation from an unfair code of Blight honor. Amity isn’t used to seeing someone go this far out of their way to help her this passionately, given she’s most likely accustomed to other peers at Hexside either fearing her, or outright being bitter about that ranking as a top student. Amity didn’t know what to make of Luz’s intentions for awhile in Season 1, due to this super self conscious behavior of conflicted inadequacy. She had a set path on her way to becoming a Witch suddenly interrupted by someone who reminded her of something Amity thought was out of reach, her happiness. While Amity felt so oddly happy about someone wanting to be there for her, it also tore the kid up inside emotionally because those regrets gnawed away at her. One could say Amity was “content” in living life of solitude away from those, like Willow, who actually care for her well being.

Luz, however, completely threw a wrench into those plans for Amity breaking her free of the mental shackles set by undermining parents. It drove Amity up a wall in the best and worst ways. On one hand, she’s deeply thankful for what Luz has helped her through in confronting bigger emotional issues, yet is still greatly confused on what it all means in the long run. Does she get a second shot at having real friends through her own decisions? Is she worthy of being loved? Is it not too late to change for the better at last? Can Amity live a life that isn’t ruled by her parents? Yes, of course she can. It just boggles Amity’s mind still that there’s someone who’s willing to go so far for her happiness this drudges up insecurities of guilt for past mistakes. Some part of Amity still thinks those moments define her, so to see Luz try to apologize wanting to make amends for the library incident in this episode’s story makes her feel, “Why are you apologizing to me? I’m not worth giving the time of day to, Luz.”. All of that gets undermined with an act of love by Luz to help get Amity her job back, by taking on deadly trials to accomplish this goal.

This moment between them carries so much layered weight.

[pyroclastic727]

Luz is kinda right to be oblivious

I know you all are relentlessly teasing Luz for being completely oblivious to Amity’s clear romantic advances. And while you definitely have a point, Luz isn’t entirely wrong to do this. Luz’s assumption that her and Amity are just friends is her way of protecting herself and Amity.

Let’s start by laying out the scenario from Luz’s POV. You’re a human from another realm who visits a magic realm. There you meet a bunch of amazing people, but one lettuce-headed blushy mess sticks out to you. You start doing all these favors for her, things you would only do for Eda and King in the past. She returns a few of them. Then she starts getting comfortable around you, where she feels good enough to hug you and stuff. Well, then there’s this dance, and she doesn’t ask you out, and she feels bad because she’s afraid of being rejected by the person she does want to ask out. 

Well, duh, of course Amity likes her! But Luz has quite a few things to disprove that.

First off, we’ll start with the psychology that makes this possible. (This is what happens when the analysis blog takes a psych class). There’s this thing called confirmation bias, which I’d say a good proportion of you are familiar with. For those that aren’t: if you have a preconceived opinion, you’re more likely to look for things that support that, rather than those that disprove it. Everyone uses this all the time. Usually it’s fairly harmless, but when in the wrong hands, it is a powerful tool that can be used to influence elections and such.

In Luz’s case, her confirmation bias comes from good evidence. Any wlw who has actually lived on Earth knows that it’s dangerous to assume your friend likes you. First off, there’s the selfish aspect of it (you know, the “who am I to assume that I’m cool enough for someone to have a crush on me? You can’t control those things!”). Second, there’s the fact that straight girls on Earth can be very affectionate. One of my straight friends kissed me twice until I asked her to stop because I did not want to fall for her. In Luz’s mind, Amity could easily be one of those touchy straight girls. So of course she’s looking for evidence to stockpile and convince herself that Amity doesn’t like her like that.

And there sure is a lot of evidence to stockpile.

To start with, Luz doesn’t think she knows Amity that well. I mean, the girl has been to Luz’s house twice. They haven’t had a lot of time to spend together. And even their dates have been sporadic: Luz took her top student badge so Amity watched her get dissected, Luz and Amity fought to what should have been their death, Luz almost got Amity killed at the library, Luz almost got Amity’s friends killed at the Knee, Amity almost got Luz’s friend killed, and then they danced. That’s it. As for the rest of Amity’s life...that’s largely a mystery. Luz didn’t figure out that Amity’s parents are abusive until last episode! Amity was actively avoiding her on the first day (hiding out in the halls and such), so who knows what she was doing then? And she spends a lot of time with rich kids: what if one of them was her crush? There’s a lot of Amity’s life that Luz can leave up to her imagination.

Secondly, Amity has shown Luz explicit proof of liking non-girls. Particularly, Malingale the Soothsayer. While their gender was never confirmed, Malingale seems to be male or nonbinary. With Luz, this could be some extra proof of not liking girls.

Okay, well how has she not even noticed all of Amity’s blushing? She has. But here’s the thing about white people: we blush a lot. As a blush-prone white person myself, I will blush when I’m angry, when I’m humiliated, when it’s too hot, when I exercise, when I’m uncomfortable, when I’m insecure...the list goes on. From Luz’s point of view, Amity really has permanent redness. I mean, she’ll hold her breath when she’s angry and her face will go red. She could be always angry to be around Luz. And especially in the past two episodes, whenever she so much as looks at Luz, she blushes. With how red her face is, Luz could even think it’s how her face always is. Or, that it’s a skin condition she got recently. Yeah, a lot of that evidence is grasping for straws, but remember that Luz has confirmation bias working against her.

How about all those times that Amity did heroic things? Luz’s love language is literally acts of service, and Amity has done those several times. Like when she caged Luz because “you’ll only get hurt.” Or when she burst from the trees as the leaves formed a heart around her and T-posed in front of Luz. The truth behind that is that Amity is starting to pick up on how Luz shows affection and is reciprocating it in her attempts to be the type of person Luz can love. But there’s another interpretation, which Luz could easily be using. 

Luz was the one who started the acts of service. She was the one who decided to befriend the Amity, to burst in as Luzura and save her, to say she’s not actually a witch, to save her siblings, to learn an extra spell and be in Amity’s class, to go fix Willow’s memories...the list goes on. So for Amity to reciprocate that? Maybe she’s just making it up to Luz. Amity probably feels bad about all the times she has let Luz be the hero, and wants to make her feel better about it.

Amity has also shown Luz proof of liking another girl. Right before Grom was Understanding Willow, which was an episode about Amity reminiscing over her childhood crush and fixing the damage between them. Sounds like friends to enemies to lovers, the trope that She Ra showed us to be an emotional and rewarding trope. Since Luz is a fanfic type, she could totally be looking for that trope.

And besides, you saw Luz in Willow’s mind. She literally watched Amity and Willow hold hands, gaze into each other’s eyes, apologize, make up, and look like they were going to get married. Sure, Luz wanted to go in there and claim Amity, which is part of why she put her hand on Amity’s shoulder there. But she is big enough to know that when her crush likes someone else, she should back off and support it. She would rather see Amity happy than see Amity with her, if those happen to be mutually exclusive. Which she thinks they are.

Going off that, Amity’s last words before her fear was revealed were a bit suspicious. She said “I’m sorry.” Who the hell would apologize as she was saving her friend?

As audience members, Amity’s reasoning for this is clear to us. She did this because she thought Grom was going to out her in front of everyone. She thought Luz would see her crush and hate her for it. Which makes sense if you assume the point of view of Amity’s repressed self, where her only crush was literally removed by her parents, and proceeded to hate her for years afterwards. If Luz knew that a monster like Amity liked her, she would remember what happened to Willow and cut Amity off like she was a long hairstyle.

From Luz’s point of view, it’s much worse. Deep down, Luz knows that she likes Amity and wants Amity to like her back (although she might not have the words for it). And think about it: if Amity’s fear is romance-related and she’s apologizing to Luz for something, wouldn’t it be for not liking her? From Luz’s point of view, she has been pretty obvious about her crush. She literally risked her life countless times for her. She even faced her worst fear for Amity, even though Eda strongly cautioned her against it. And besides, it wouldn’t even occur to Luz to hate Amity for liking her. So Luz thinks Amity is apologizing because Amity knows that Luz likes her, and she knows that her crush will hurt Luz. That also explains why Luz didn’t recognize her own mudsona: she was looking for someone else’s face to be reflected in it, so she could maybe help Amity by being her wingman.

Also, Luz can’t even stay in the Boiling Isles. Let’s say that everything goes perfectly. Luz falls for Amity, Amity falls for Luz, they date, they kiss, they face the Emperor’s Coven together, they face whoever’s writing notes to Luz’s mom together, they call each other girlfriends...all that won’t last, because Luz has to go home. 

Luz knows this. She already knows that making attachments is bad. That’s why her mom is her worst fear: it means she loses her real mother figure Eda, her best friend King, her love interest Amity, and her friends Willow and Gus. So of course she wouldn’t want to fall in love! She’ll only end up breaking Amity’s heart, and breaking her own. She saw how Amity reacted to having to leave Willow. Do you really think she would do that to Amity?

So can you blame her for the pain in her voice when she said “that’s what friends do?” She knows that’s not what friends do. But she has to put up that wall or risk hurting everyone.

[toh-writings]

Fortunes of Love Pt 2 (Eda x OC)

Summary:

Eda and Niliana strike up a business deal. In the meantime, Luz tries to figure out what she's going to do about this love of hers.

Warnings: None

Pt 1  Pt2

-

“And then she said that I’d fall in love with someone close to me!” Luz said, eyes shining. Willow and Gus were listening intently, looking just as amazed.

“Whoa…” Gus said, voice quiet. “Amazing.”

“That’s great, Luz!” Willow said. “Do you know who it is?”

Luz thought for a moment, eyes squinting as she debated with herself. She shook her head.

“Not really. She said it might be one of my friends.” Luz narrowed her eyes at her two friends. “Do either of you like me?” She asked suspiciously. Her two friends looked at each other and shrugged.

“No, not really.”

“Not in that way.”

“Then who is it?”

The group went silent as they all thought it over. Suddenly, Gus began to giggle.

“Hey guys, what if-if it was Amity?”

Willow giggled a little at the suggestion, but Luz could only think about it. She thought about Amity, about how she read books to kids, how smart she was, the fun they had dancing together at grom, the grudgby match, her smile, that cute little giggle she had. The more she thought about it the redder her face got and the more the other two giggled.

“Ooooh, Luz has a cruuuush.” Gus said. Luz blushed harder, shoving his shoulder but all that accomplished was making them laugh harder. Luz laughed with them. She couldn’t help it, just was just a giggly person.

“Luz, you have to tell Amity!” Willow said. Gus nodded in agreement.

“I know, I know, but what do I even say?!”

Gus shrugged.

“Tell her about the fortune teller or something?”

Willow and Luz shook their heads.

“Whatever you do, can ya do it somewhere else? Your teenage gossip is scaring off the customers.” Eda gave them a hard look from her spot behind the stand’s counter.

The teen’s gave an apologetic look.

“Sorry, Eda! We’ll head off!” Luz said, ushering her friends away. “We can walk and talk, right guys?”

They, of course, agreed, but before they got too far Eda stopped them with a hand on Luz’s shoulder.

“You got this, kiddo.” She gave the girl a wink, earning her a smile.

“Thanks, Eda.”

Eda nodded, letting her go. She waved to them as they left, Luz waving back before continuing her talk with her friends. Eda shook her head and muttered “teenagers” under her breath. They’d figure it out eventually. She turned back to her shelves of human junk with a sigh.

“Alright, back to work.”

She decided it would help to rearrange the items a bit, put something different out front to catch the costumer's attention. It helped a little but overall it remained a slow day. Sure, it happened, but it was still aggravating. She was debating sending Owlbert out for more when she saw someone approaching from the corner of her eye. She instinctually put on her customer service face before dropping it for a smirk when she saw who it was.

“Nily! What a pleasant surprise.”

The other woman gave a little wave as she approached. She was wearing her hair down today, the dark curls reaching just below her shoulders. She wore casual clothes, probably off of work for the day or something of the sort, her staff in hand.

“What brings you out of the gloom and all the way to my stand?”

Niliana didn’t answer at first, her eyes gazing at the assorted human items. To anyone else, it would have just looked like she was perusing the available wears, but Eda liked to think she was better at reading people than most others. To her, she looked uncertain, like she was thinking something over that she probably should have figured out before coming over.

“I had a proposition for you.”

Eda raised an eyebrow at that.

“I’m listening.”

“Well, I had the idea that we could possibly work together. You know about my hobby making and fixing stuffed animals. What if I gave you some of them to sell at your stand?”

Eda laughed, shaking her head. Niliana crossed her arms, just waiting for her to stop, an irritated frown on her face.

“Oh, Nily, I sell human stuff at my stand! Your stuffed animals wouldn’t fit here.”’

“Which is why I would make them out of supplies from the human realm,” Niliana said, not missing a beat. Perhaps she thought this out more than Eda initially thought. “Just grab some discarded clothes or blankets, I make them into my animals, and you can market them as a piece of the human realm for children. You’ll be widening your market. If you want, I can buy the fabrics off of you so if they don’t sell you don’t lose anything.”

Yeah, she really did think through this.

“And what would you get out of it?” Eda asked.

Niliana didn’t have an immediate answer. She thought for a moment before responding.

“Other than a small portion of prophets,” Eda nodded. She expected as much. “I really don’t want anything.”

Eda looked doubtful. The other witch sighed.

“Honestly, Eda? I’m bored.” Niliana admitted, surprising Eda a bit. “I do the same thing day in and day out. I live in my tent, go to work, maybe work on a toy and that’s it. I just want something more. I want some excitement!” And for a moment, she brightened. Eda hadn’t even noticed how down she looked before, but now her eyes were alight with emotion, she stood up a little straighter and even her voice was a little louder. “What better way to step up things then working with Eda the Owl Lady, the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles?”

Eda didn’t even need to think it over.

“Alright, you got yourself a deal!” She declared, and they shook hands. Niliana had the biggest smile on her face. Eda had to admit, that sort of guine smile suited her. “I was gonna send Olwbert anyways, I can get him to pick up some things for you to get started.”

At her words the wooden owl sprang to life with a little hoot, flying over to Eda’s outstretched hand. She smiled at him softly, giving him scritches and petting his adorable little cheek.

“Thanks, Eda.”

She looked back to Niliana, that soft smile never really leaving her face.

“Of course. I mean, who am I to deny someone a little excitement. Besides, it’s not like I’m gonna lose anything out of this. Worst comes to worst, I still manage to sell some of my wares. It’s a win-win!”

She turned away, entering her tent with a “Just one minute!” shouted over her shoulder. Now hidden away, she took the key out from its hiding place, pressing the eyes to open the door. With a few hushed words, she sent Owlbert away, ready to collect all sorts of new human memorabilia.

-----------------------------------

It didn’t take much for Luz to realize that yeah, she really did like Amity. She had wanted to be friends for so long she hadn’t even realized those feelings had changed. Of course, then there was the issue of whether or not Amity would like her back.

“She does,” Willow said, not a hint of doubt in her voice. They were walking through the market, cones of ice cream in their hands.

“How do you know?” Luz sounded uncertain and Gus gave a doubtful look, but Willow wasn’t deterred.

“Trust me, I can tell. Didn’t you see how red her face got when you picked her up after the game?”

“I didn’t notice…”

“You’re right!” Gus agreed, face brightening and a hand landing on his cheek. “Her face got so red!”

“Plus she said she loved how stupid you were sometimes right before.”

“And she called you sweet!”

“Honestly, I can’t believe we didn’t see it before.”

Luz could feel the heat in her cheeks, a smile on her face. This was perfect! But then her smile fell.

“That’s all good, but… how am I supposed to ask her out? I’ve never even dated before…”

“Can’t you just ask her? You like her, she clearly likes you, what more do you need?” Gus asked, head tilted to the side in confusion. Willow just shook her head.

“I’m sure that works for some people, but you can also make it this big thing! Maybe with flowers... “ Willow trailed off, already contemplating what arrangement would be best.

The three of them devolved into a fit of giggles. Luz felt lightheaded at the very thought of asking Amity out.

-------------------------------------

She didn’t really know how long it had been before they were headed back to Eda’s stand. An hour? Maybe two? Whatever the case, when the three teens returned Luz was surprised to find a familiar face at the stand, talking happily with Eda.

“Nily!” She cheered happily, running over to the witch.

“Oh, hello. Luz, right?”

She nodded.

“Yep! And these are my friends, Willow and Gus.” She waved to them as they caught up, giving their own shy little waves. She smiled at them, one of those warm parental smiles that some people had, the one that made you know they were a good person. They smiled back, not nearly as shy anymore.

“It’s nice to meet you two.”

“It’s nice to meet you two, Miss Niliana,” Gus said, stepping forward and offering his hand for a handshake. She took it and gave it a little shake. “Luz told us about you!”

“Did she? Well, I hope she said good things.”

“Yeah! She said you told her the future!” Willow said, beaming.

“And it’s been so helpful!” Luz pushed her way through the two to stand in front again. “You said I would fall in love with someone close to me! And I … think I figured out who.” Luz tried to turn her face away to hide the blush creeping onto her face. Niliana chuckled.

“You work fast don’t you?”

“But now I don’t know how to ask her out.” Luz sighed, looking a bit crestfallen. She looked back up when she felt a hand on her shoulder, the woman smiling down at her.

“Don’t worry too much.” Niliana said. “Love can be complicated, especially when you're young. Just don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.”

Luz smiled at her, a hopeful smile. Maybe things would work out, she thought. She just needed to keep it simple!

Eda watched the interaction from her spot behind the counter, a soft smile on her face. She felt an odd sensation in her chest, one she was not entirely familiar with. It was all warm and fuzzy and other cheesy stuff like that. She didn’t like it, not one bit. The last time she felt anything even remotely similar to this it was with an old boyfriend of hers, one that ended up cheating on her for some cyclops floozy. It was not a pleasant memory.

“Anyways, you can pick up the supplies tomorrow.” Eda spoke up, interrupting their moment. Niliana turned her eyes to her, a little smile still on her face.

“Thanks, Eda! I’ll be sure to stop by to pick them up. I should have a few done in a week.”

“Sounds promising!”

The two shook hands and Niliana gave her goodbyes. The three teens shouted their own goodbyes back, waving madly. Eda waved too, albeit not with nearly as much energy. Her mind was far too occupied.

[sostanotes]

A Timeline of Lumity

So I’ve been thinking about Lumity; honestly, I’ve been pondering this meta since “Escaping Expulsion”. I’ve seen some people that said that Luz’ blush was the moment she started crushing on Amity. I’m with all the people yelling at them that ‘no, it’s not’. But when did it start?

I’m going to try and break down both of their feelings and how they’ve grown and developed. I’m going to use a plant metaphor to talk about the stages (Willow would be proud of me); details of the metaphor and the analysis are under the cut.

The metaphor is nothing new, really; people have been using plant and seed metaphors for feeling (especially romantic ones) for a long time. Still, I’m going to define my terminology just to make things clear:

Tilled: At this stage, we don’t have a seed yet. This is the foundation for the seed, the moment when friendship begins/is possible; or the moment that one sees the hidden qualities of the their future crush that will become the foundation for that crush.

Planted: At this stage, we still have a seed. This isn’t a crush yet, but that nebulous stage between friendly feelings and something else. I don’t know if other people feel attraction this way, but *I* certainly did. This may be the same as what some people call ‘puppy love’.

Sprouted: At this stage, it’s a real crush; but it’s small, vulnerable, and easy to overlook. The person isn’t blushing yet, in fact, they don’t even realize that their feelings have changed yet.

Budding: At this stage, we start to get blushing. This is the point the person with a crush REALIZES they have a crush.

Blossoming: At this stage, it’s something more. Now, we can sit here and argue all day about ‘can a 14-year-old feel ‘true love’ (whatever THAT means)’. Regardless, what I mean by this is that this is the point the person moves *past* blushing and being awkward, and starts taking real steps towards establishing something. It’s also a process: plants produce a lot of buds, and they don’t all open quickly or at the same time; but we can certainly identify certain buds-to-blossoms moments in these two.

So I’m going to take this timeline for them both; I’ll list episodes below that I think show development from one stage to another (bolding my keywords), and color key names just to make it clear who we’re talking about.

1.5 “Covention”: This is the moment that things get tilled for Luz. She was making an attempt to patch things up with Amity after the event in “I Was a Teenage Abomination”. I wouldn’t even say she was trying to befriend Amity yet, just smoothing out the misunderstanding, trying to get back to 0. But at the end, she see’s Amity’s facade crack, realizes there’s someone quite different under the face she puts on for the world.

1.6 “Hoot’s Moving Hassle”: No real development here, just furthering tilling for Luz. She learns the fact that Amity and Willow used to be friends. Combined with her knowledge that the Amity the world sees is a mask, Luz probably starts to think that Willow’s childhood friend is still in there; given how cool Gus is, and that Willow is willing to be friends with her, Luz must feel that befriending the ‘real’ Amity is possible, and worthwhile.

1.7 “Lost in Language”: Hoo-boy. The—first—big one. This could easily be the place where the seed of Luz’ crush gets planted. At a minimum, her urge to develop this friendship kicks into high gear; she see’s more of Amity’s vulnerable side and learns that Amity’s just as much of an Azura nerd as she is. As for Amity, this is the tilling stage for her; I can even pinpoint the to major points: 1) Luz makes her laugh as they run from Otabin, and 2) Luz offers Azura 5. At this point, they’re friends, its new and tenuous for both of them, but I’d argue they are definitely friends by the end of the episode (regardless of what Amity says out loud).

1.12 “Adventures in the Elements”: After the previous mini-arc of development, we the audience haven’t seen Amity for a while; Luz has been in contact with her at least once, since they arranged a meet-up for Amity to return Luz’ Azura book. Now, if the seed of Luz’ crush wasn’t planted in “Lost in Language” it definitely is here; specifically, I’d say when Amity put up the barrier; yes, Luz was down in the dumps at that moment for all sorts of reasons, but subconsciously, she likely picked up on the care in Amity’s warning of “You’ll only get hurt”. That’s not what most people say in this sort of situation, and that may have trickled back into Luz brain. And I’d say Luz heroism after meeting up with Amity in the cave, and or the cuteness of her proposed Azura Book Club, is what likely planted the seed of Amity’s crush. Yes, she blushes near the end, but that’s as much embarrassment at Ed and Em’s teasing as anything else.

1.13 “The First Day”: Maybe Amity’s crush as sprouted, maybe not, but it’s explicit proof that there is one.

1.15 “Understanding Willow”: Our second big episode. This is our first Amity blush; even though I put blushing with budding, I’d argue that Amity is still in the sprouting stage at this point. Amity blushes from embarrassment and is *not* used to physical affection. So if we don’t claim “The First Day” as the sprouting, then it happens here; otherwise, you could argue this is the first sign of budding. Possibly more important (as much as I love watching Amity blush), I think *THIS* is the moment that Luz’ crush sprouts. It’s somewhere inside Willow’s mind, possibly in the second-round cleanup we don’t get to see, and I’ll talk about why in later episodes.

1.16 “Enchanting Grom Fright”: And here comes big one #3 immediately. Amity’s crush is definitely budding at this point; she’s trying to make her moves, but is mostly too embarrassed to do it, only overcoming it in the face of Luz’ encouragement, and even then ducking out of the full reveal. And Luz definitely shows signs that her crush has sprouted. She’s always thrown herself completely into helping her friends, but her energy here just seems, higher. Maybe it’s just me, but the tone of her enthusiasm seems to have changed. But if you don’t buy that, maybe the dance is the moment that her crush sprouts.

1.17 “Wing It Like Witches”: And big episode #4 completes a trifecta of episodes. We get blushing disaster Amity showing off her crush in full bud; she’s like some of our rose bushes at this point: full to bursting with buds, but no sign of the color in the blossom yet. And then Luz; you can argue the previous episode, but there’s no denying that she lights up when Amity comes into view—there’s a freaking musical cue—so her crush is officially sprouted.

2.2 “Escaping Expulsion”: And season 2 continues to come out swinging. Amity shows the first signs of blossoming here, like a rosebud that’s still closed, but you can see the color it will be starting to peak out. She’s making moves: some, like the fairy pie, she couches in other contexts, and others, like her Big Damn Hero moment swinging in to protect Luz being field by adrenaline; either way, she knows how she feels, she just can’t usually bring herself to act on it. And we get Luz’ first blush; this is the moment Luz *realizes* she’s smitten, this is the moment the crush begins to bud.

2.5 “Through the Looking Glass Ruins”: And now Luz is a blushy mess around Amity. And everyone but Amity seems to have realized how Luz feels; even Gus, who seemed mostly oblivious to Amity’s feelings last season. Luz is full in the budding stage at the beginning of this episode; she KNOWS she has a crush on Amity, but her own self-worth too low for her to admit it. And things start to go so wrong. But then, the end. Amity looses herself in the moment again and we get that cheek kiss. This is our first full blossom from Amity; but consider Luz’ reaction. Luz doesn’t blush, like Amity does when she realizes what she’s done; Luz is just… stunned. And her eyes grow wide and sparkle, as we’ve seen them do while blushing. I’m fairly sure that was Luz realizing that Amity like her back, and that pushed her own feelings into their own blossoming.

So that’s what we’ve seen so far, but I’ve got some further speculation. The next move is Luz’; whether that’s a clear confession, or at LEAST a reciprocal cheek-kiss—likely at the end of “Eclipse Lake”. I fully believe that they are going to be *TOGETHER* before the end of the season; best possible world they start dating at the end of “Eclipse Lake”. I don’t want to get my hopes that high, though.

So that’s my thoughts. I’ve run 4 pages of text so I’m stopping here. If you have thoughts, feel free to add them on or send them to me. I welcome the discussion.

[popculturebuffet]

The Owl House: Enchanting Grom Fright: Happy Valentine’s Gays

Happy Valentine’s Day owl ladies, gentleman and non-binary folks! It’s time to finish off this holiday in proper style with a LONG overdue review of enchanting Grom Fright and even longer overdue coverage of the Owl House.  The Owl House was one of the best debuts of last year if not THE best, only in contention because Close Enough also started last year and looks to surpass regular show in terms of quality. But with stunning animation, tons of representation, and colossal worldbuilding. And given how i’m on record for thinking Star Vs went so far down the tubes they bumped into where Cthulu is sleeping, it’s nice to have another magic based show that seems to be on the right track: carefully building i’ts world, supporting cast and for today’s topic main romance. It also rather than just obliquely hint one character was bi and the other pan, actually goes out of it’s way to have a bisexual protaginst with a gay love intrest. As my good friend @jess-the-vampire has brought up quite a bit, star had plnety of options. .but no willingness to actually campaign for any queer rep, the way Gravity Falls head Alex Hirsch tried to, he still gets credit for trying, and Owl House creator Dana Terrace gets full credit for. 

Terrace got her start working on Gravity Falls in line production before working her way up to directing for ducktales, being instrumental in how Webby was animated and how she moves and acts, and being the director for several classic season one episodes including “Woo-Hoo!”, “The Spear of Selene” , “Day of the Only Child!” which was one of my faviorites from season 1 and “The Beagle Birthday Massacre!”. And while I can’t 100% confirm she’s the only part responsible for starting Weblena, given she was director on an episode where a lot of the romantic subtext was in the visuals, she certainly helped so thank you Dana. Thank you a lot. Their adorable. Point is she’s a talented lady and wasn’t satisfied with directing, so she pitched her own show, combining tons of ides and stuff including of all things, Pokemon Red. I checked the article wikipedia had sourced, it was one of her happy childhood memories as it was one of the last things her dad gave her. Awwwwwww. That’s as sweet as it is painful. She’s also currently dating Alex Hirsch, something I was entirely unaware of but find also adorable. Point is i’m glad I looked into her as she’s a very nice person, and very much my kind of weirdo and i’m happy for her sucess and her singuarly weird show that sprung from that sucess. 

Now that part of it’s out of the way the episode itself was an uphill battle as you’d expect. As anyone familiar with this blog is aware, but just in case your new, you tend to hear me bitching about Disney’s handling of queer represntation a LOT

For the most part Disney’s pretty bad at it: There was the string of “FIRST GAY CHARACTER IN AN X” they had going for a while.. that consisted of a character I dind’t realize was gay, a kiss I didn’t see, and a talk with a character who I honestly wouldn’t of been looking for had disney not patted themselves on the back with some giant sized hands because htey saved some pym particles for that occasion. Ducktales was unable to have Penumbra come out as gay more clearly because I don’t know Ducks can’t be day.. but they can be IMPLIED to be gay or pansexual as hard as the crew possibly can so they win anyway. Pixar was able to have a gay lead character for one of it’s sparks shorts out and even focused on him coming out of the closet and it’s very good and something I WILL give Pixar credit for... but not Disney Plus who go out of their way to not mention the lead being gay.. despite the fact the short opens with a gay space cat riding a gay space dog out of a rainbow and then it being revaled our lead is in a relationship not long into the short. My point is the idiots who won’t watch this for having gay characters are just going to turn it off, who cares what they think, why are you like this Disney. They need to do better, and be better and i’m getting tired of this shit.

That being said... this episode is a step in the right directoin as despite having to get past one obstructive asshole, not her words but damn if it isn’t the truth, as the rest of hte execs were fine with having a gay character, Terrace fought hard for it and WON, having a clearly gay character, and a clear road to a gay romace as the lead one, all because she wanted some representation in her works. So to honor this, I present this review in honor of love, effort and saying screw you to not having represntation because money. Join me under the cut and allt hat. 

We open in the owl house, in the owl house, duck dodge push and shove, it’s how we show our love in the.. you get the point. Luz is learning yet another Rune, this time plant runes.. and already something I love about the series pops up: the fact Luz’s rise in skill is gradual but noticable. Each spell noticably improves in potency with time,  going from simple lights to shaping them into simple constructs, and learning to control or time her spells and glpyhs so they launch she she says so, with each one getting more powerful the more she learns. And on top of that osmething I just noticed on rewatch of this episode is her tecnique in finding them evolved, something I dind’t notice the first time because I hadn’t fully caught up and checked this one out to see if Disney would actually let them go through with it.. and they did. Point is her first spell is found by accident, her second by realizing how her magic works fundemntally, both require skilled deduction and on the fly thinking and casting, so she’s already pretty skilled.. but now sh’es ACTIVELY seeking out a new spell here for the first time. She knows how she gets them, she knows each school is tied to a form, and she likely got the plant from williow since that’s her thing and she’s a saint. A demon but also a saint. They can have those too. It’s what I assume relicor is. 

I miss that goblin demon bat man. Point is it shows an evolution in Luz’s thinking: while it’s a subtle thing she took a more proactive approach this time even if it took a lot of practice.. and it pay soff as by the time of her next rune, while it’s once again sorta handed to her she has less time to learn it, almost none, and finds it singed onto a ball.. and learns it effortlessly to the point where by the next episode it’s a crucial plot point. IT’s subtle but clever character progression, and stuff I really enjoy, showing our hero going from a bit inept but not helpless or incomptient.. to a force to be reckconed with and far more clever and strategic than yo’ud expect given her sometimes reckless and almost always happy go lucky attitude. 

Luz worries teaching King about the internet was a bad idea because he gets excited about a literal cat fight which .. yeah... it was a bad idea but not because of that.. but because next he finds someone saying the earth is flat and she wisely yanks it away. It’s.. very sad that the absolutley maddening and easily debunked flat earth theory is still RELATIVLEY more sane than the stuff we’ve had pop up during the trump era and the cornoavirus pandemic. 

But one of the main conlficts of the episode pops up as Luz’s mom messages her and Luz can’t bring herself to tell her anything and just sends a thumbs up.  I do think this episode helps even things from the pilot a bit as it was a bit lopsided: While I got that Camillia was genuinely struggling with how to deal with Luz, and was offered an out and had to take it... the fact she sees NO problem with the normalcy camp, which comes off intentioanlly or not a sa parallel to conversion camps or camps to make autistic kids “Normal”. And as someone whose both bisexual and autistic, I naturally relate to luz way more as someone whose intrests sometimes just don’t quite fit with everyone else, and who dosen’t get how bad some of their actions were.  THat’s why this episode feels like a necessary course correction: Luz is shown to genuinely love her mama and feel guilty.. but we see camilia genuinlely loves and supports her daughter a bit more. While it was clear from the pilot this shows it more, with her genuinely just wanting to know her daughter’s okay and checking up on her, and giving me the feeling that possible consequences or no if something bad WAS happening or she didn’t hear from her for a long time, she would’ve drove up there to get her. It feels like the writers realized the implications they accidently created and wanted to fix it, though I can’t say for certain. But if so good on you for course correcting, not every show does that. 

But King encourages her, telling her she’s doing the right thing by lying and to “trust the demon on your shoulder”. Keep this in mind for later, but that joke is great on it’s own. But soon i’ts time for school and Hooty.. barfs out Luz’s books for her. 

I haven’t been this disturbed since.. (Looks at the clock) About 2 maybe three hours ago when I watched a man have, if apparently shorter than the oriiginal cut as I wanted to see everyone else’s reactions dammit, sex with hiis car which was possesed by the mad ghost of his dead wife. Because that’s the kind of stuff i’m into when i’m not reviewing stuff. And before that Tinky.. just everything about tinky. 

I do not have enough time to get into TInky here or why he exestially horrifies me. Or why Jeff blim is a living god. I will save that for a proper review if I have the time tomorrow. Point is I saw a lot today and that still tops it. Willow and Gus are likewise grossed out and want to leave. 

Cut to school where Luz wonders what’s with all the decorations.. that remind me of this honestly

And frankly given the whole state of the boiling isles it REALLY wouldn’t surprise me if the decorations were indeed well cooked faces. But i’ts Grom time, which means elaborate gromposals (Some Dude asks Skara out with a beating heart and an elaborate medical proposal.. which.. points for effort. And for using an actual heart. Couldn’t get one for mine. ), dancing and someone being chosen for Grom Queen. WHich Willow hints isn’t as nice as that sounds. Before we can get into that though Amity bumps into them and gets into a tizzy before meekly greeting “Luz.. and Co”. which.. not going to lie.. is my faviorite gag of the season. Just htw way she adds them and just the way Willow and Guz both smile widely at it as if to say “That’s us!”. Amity drops a note and snatches it back. This will be important later, you all know why, point is Amity becomes Grom Queen.. and is heavily depressed with Luz following her to find out why.  At the gym.. she does indeed ifnd out why: Turns out Grom is not some mutation of an earthname but is based around a horrifying entity lurking beneath the isles, Gromethious the Fear Bringer, who emerges from his slumber once a year and must be fought back and brings out his target’s greatest fears. Just like groundhog day only with less time loops and rodent abuse. Amity is scared of hers, and i’ll obviously get into this more later, and Luz simply suggests asking bump to opt out and Amity appricates the support. Awwww. 

Luz heads home and we find out Eda is chaperoning and King is mcing. Eda is also rocking a suit. Just damn girl, damn. But Luz considers taking her place.. and gets laughed at, with Eda assuming she’ll have to save her and King just being kind of a dick. I mean he’s a loveable thoroughly cuddly dick but he’s still a dick... just more like a stuffed plushie of one.  So basically exactly like Tinky. Look I mention him more than once in this review he dosen’t put me in the bastard box. It’s a great system.  Naturally this makes Luz more determined than ever to prove herself and she finds Amity in the night, with Amity having been unable to get out of it.. and Bumps a resonable guy, he just wants a substitute and no one wants the job.. except Luz who galdly volunteers and insists ntohing scares her before the giant spider on the back of her head proves otherwise. Because of course it does, spiders are fucking terrifying. Kill then all.. except the pokemon ones. Galvaltula are sweethearts. As are Ariadoses. Sweethearts who can elctorcute or poison you but still. 

So the next way Luz begins preparing.. and by that I mean it’s time for training. Sadly we don’t get an episode of Luz and Amity getting trapped in an 80′s fashion montage... I mean yes Rise of the TMNT also did that plot the same year, but we had two diffrent plots about someone getting trapped in an eldtrich sitcom and a THIRD this year, all entertaingly unique. Though we do get Luz pulling out an otter suit that’s adorable and she sadly still hasn’t worn yet. “This one says i’m an otter, with a dark side”. She also got thrown out of a school dance for.. wearing an otter suit. Okay the other things we saw in the pilot were understandable but htis is just.. baffling. Who cares what you wear to a dance as long as it isn’t horribly racist of nothing at all. 

Damn you flanders and your glorious ass. Point is Amity shows up and threatens hooty’s life because.. he’s hooty. The fact he isn’t dead already is a testiment to how badass he is and how much money he’d cost Eda to replace. Owl Tubes don’t come out of a stygian hole in the unvierse every day you know. That’s only every three years. It’s basic styigan owl tube science. 

But Amity wants her to be ready and that she’ll have to face her greatest fear.. and cue hooty popping up, poking amity in the face and asking if she wants to know her greatest fear. Really he can clearly hear everything in the house given he heard that, so he heard the death threat he just chose to ignore it. That.. was a mistake. And by mistake I mean we get a hilarious cut to the outside of the house as Luz tries to stop her love intrest from murdering her second mom’s tube monster. The result is some bandages and an eyepatch. To be fair that last one was just flaring up from a  previous beating. 

For this solem task of training, Amity has brought in her local disaster bisexuals.. aka her twin siblgins Eldric and Elmyra, whose greatest fears are dying alone and being stuck with Eldric. Both understandable. They conjur luz’s greatest fears which are.. some of the funniest shit I heard all year.. and also very relatable. Human souls in cat bodies, which is genuinely terrifying good job Luz, Jerks on the internet who mansplain things, relatable, and soy milk. 

But Amity knows this is just the openign act. it needs to be something deeper.. so while Luz dosen’t realize it’s probably her mom issues she brings up her issues with her other mom: that Eda dosen’t think she can do this. Hence we get a giant eda putting Luz in a babychair. Before we can unpack how wrong that sentence sounded, Eda comes out, and marvels at how hot giant her is. But she’s quickly distracted from sex with a giant version of herself, which is not an easy feat, by the relization “Wait Luz is going to fight grom isn’t she.. fuck i’m going to have to save her”, though Luz holds firm on doing it to prove she’s fine and dosen’t need to be saved constantly. it’s a good conflict. Eda IS right that Luz is not ready for this alone, that she’s overcompensating and that Eda would, in normal circumstances be the one to rescue her. As we’ll see it’s not her who does it but still, were this any other foe she probably would be. But Luz’s motivations are equally understandable: She wants to help her friend not have to do this and she wants to prove she can do it. She just wants her mentor, the only person in her life up to meeting her that GNEUINELY supported her in magic to respect her. To have faith in her and actually see how far she’s come. And given how her own mother writes off her dreams, if not unrealistically, and before this she had no friends or support system to speak of outside her mom, it’s easy to see why this is so improtant to Luz: she just wants to make the one person in her life whose ever support her actually think it was worth it when in truth Eda already thinks it does and just dosen’t want her to die. 

She’s just not good with talking to her or not condescending to her as her own ego is stacked sky high, probably because the whole curse thing meant Eda was an outcast by default and the system wants to either chain her to one form of magic and one only or shackle her to them as a hired goon. Her ego, while justified, is also a defense mechanism: a way to shield herself from the fact almost no one cares about her and one of the few people who DOES, dosen’t care what she wants or needs. Once the curse happened she lost just about everything and had to rebuild and thus build up walls around herself and kept everyone else at arms length till Luz changed her for the better. It’s just a tragic clash of two wills both with similar problems but both unwilling to talk about them. 

But with time up, our heroes need to get to the diggity dance. So they indeed do and we get some fun sight gags, Willow makes corsages,  that one girl with the cresent head somehow ended up with Mathomule and is not happy, as anyone who ends up with him should. And it’s time for Luz to face her destiny.. in a tux with a tutu because of course, and Amity likes it because also of course. 

IT’s time to rumble, with King getting nervous due to eda’s prodding about mcing since his co-mc gus is really good at it, and introducing our champion.

No wait sorry he’s still trapped in Mojoworld. no it’s still Luz who shows off a seasons worth of skill by easily dispatching the first few fears and saying to grom let’s finish it.. before grom puts a tentacle on her head. 

It’s to downlaod her fear.. which is Camillia. Granted we could all see it coming but still Luz obviously can’t fight her own mother or her own overwhelming guilt.. her mom did hurt her.. but she gets why and just loves her and wants her to be proud but dosen’t know what to do: tell her the trutha nd possibly loose a happy and fufilling life or wait until it all blows up. It’s a painful choice. So luz and king end up running. King runs first because he can’t handle it and Gus talks him back into the groove while Luz runs away because she can’t fight her own mom, understandable, and Gus encourages king to lead the crowd which he does. Amity and Eda follow Luz. 

So Luz is backed down, facing down a monster tha’ts going to go on to everyone else next if she fails... and Eda prepares to interfere.. but it’s AMITY who faces her fear and dives in. And we find out just what her fear was as grom turns into a humanoid shape and rips the letter in half.. it was a grom invitation. Though conviently the who it’s adressed to was ripped out. 

And yeah not going to save this one: It’s Luz. You know it I know it I didn’t even hide it in the intro. Even before the reveal in a bit it was obvious. But it also makes perfect sense. I’ve avoided talking about her character arc up to this point because I was waiting for now. Amity’s growth is the third major arc of the season behind Luz’s slow learning of magic and eventually induction into hexside and eda’s curse, which I lump in with Lilith chasing her since both were mildly entertwined and then entirely are once the reveal hits in the finale. When we meet her she’s an outright bully.. but we slowly see there’s more there. That she’s not really HAPPY or content, is contstantly under pressure by her family name, is outright bullied by her own siblings who don’t understand her. So Luz coming in, seemingly only being intrested in magic because i’ts neat.. understandably bothers her. She’s not a great person, bullying her old best friend because tha’ts what’s expected and being close with outright bullies because of that.. but it’s through Luz she starts to grow, realizing Luz is genuinely nice and genuinely sorry for any trouble she caused Amity, and evne then both cases were causaed by Amity’s own dickishness and outside forces, so it’s easy to see why she defrosts faster. Her siblings realize they’ve genuinely hurt her, and actually try to be good siblings from then on and help her, and slowly Amity learns to truth luz, trust in her, and accept her... and thus accept her feelings for her. There are gradual hints she’s growing attracted to her.. but her walls had to come down first, and it wouldn’t of worked from the outset. The show cleverly has the two build a genuine friendship, two opposities who work well together, so when feelings do happen it feels natural. It’s not “I’m in love with this person because I have to because you can’t be friends with someone your attracted to” bullshit or anything like that, cough star vs cough, it’s just well built catching feelings. I’ts how this kind of thing SHOULD go: niether went in intending for this to happen.. it’s just happening. 

And Amity’s reluctance is painfully understandable, as Luz is the ONLY friend and support she has. Sure she and willow are patching things up, but WIllow would understandably choose luz over her and she’s terrified of loosing the one good thing in her life. Of course Luz would either say yes, and probably will some day, or let her down gently, she’s nice.. but it’s also understandable to be afraid that someone won’t take the reveal well. I’ve been there trust me, it’s easier when you let it out even if you get rejected, but I get it being hard to let out because you don’t want to loose a friend. I did not, and niether would she, but I can see why she wouldn’t want ot take the plunge. At least not yet. We’ll see this summer hopefully. 

But we do get a shiptastic, gorgeously aniamted scene of the two dancing an fightin gin perfect synch, combinging luz’s new use of plant magic with amity’s mastery of abominations resulting in the two utterly decimating grom, likely in part because with two fast moving targets he can’t get a lock on and likely nees more fear and mass to attack multiple targets at once. Or just more tendrils. it’s a quick, beautful sequence that’s utterly glorious, being framed as romantic as any hetero scene of the type and rightfully so. A triumph and well deserving of this praise. 

Our heros have won, get crowns, and King gets praise. All is well.. except Luz drops the crown once she gets home because she feels like she failed and feels lost about her mom.. though at least king gets it “I’m king and queen, best of both things!”. You tell em sister. 

So we end with Luz genuinely responding to her mom, with some montage stuff as we see Gus and Willow poke a fear blob, willow fears bugs, understandable and Gus fears clowns... 

Also understandable. Though I didn’t put up a bug picture because

And Amity looks out folornly into the night. Camilla responds to Luz.. and mentions letters.. which while Luz brushes those off.. we see someone sent them. And by someone I probably mean king since we now know only eda and him had acess to the portal, and given he was actively encouraging her to lie.. yeah i’m supscious. But we’ll see next season. For now this episode is fan fucking tastic, showing off tons of character development, being representative and sweet as all hell.. and being really funny. Tons of great gags in this one including the turtle guy from an earlier episode being forced to be adisco ball.  This is easily the series best so far and if you haven’t checked it out, please do it’s fantastic as is this show. Check both out. Until the next rainbow i’ts been a pleasure. Tommorow more disney shenanigans this time with pete. And also more of this possibly we’ll see what I get done. 

Goodnight everybody!

[archive-of-the-guild]

 Character Bio and rules are below the line

You can call me Shadow. i’m a 28yo male that hasn’t rped in years. Last time i did was i think 3 maybe 4 years ago so i am plenty rusty. I know this doesn’t say a lot about me but if there’s anything you’d like to know, just ask.

About Karisa

Name: Karisa

Race: Tiefling: A Humanoid people descended from humans who made pacts or crossbred with demons.

Age: 18

Height: 6'3"

Hair color: black

Occupation: Golemancer, Adventurer, occasional Blacksmith

Appearance: As a tiefling, Karisa has several traits that distinguishes her from Humans. She has Lavender colored skin, ice blue eyes, two horns, pointed ears, and a 4 foot long tail.

Personality: When it comes to enemies, Karisa can be downright ruthless. if she hates them bad enough, she will leave an enemy broken but alive to let them try again. She swears a LOT around everyone no matter who they are with the exception of children and has a habit of making enemies through her mannerisms. She’s bad enough with her words that there have been jokes made about weaponizing her lexicon and isn’t afraid to cuss out friends! BUT if you can take her words with a grain of salt and actually befriend her, then no matter what she says to you, she will protect you with her life. In her words, “You may be a cunt, but you’re MY cunt. And no one FUCKS with my cunt!”

Background:

Karisa was born on a small farm and raised by her parents until she reached the age of 8 when they passed away. Since then she would delve into golemancy as a way to cope, keeping her hands busy and moving foreword as best as she can. This is around the time she found the large crystal that would become Grom’s core. At the age of 10, she made her way to the city with her golem Grom, who was wood at the time, to try and become an adventurer. There she met the Dwarf Bormi who gave her a place to stay and taught her in the ways of the blacksmith.

Modern Verse (Hazbin Verse rewrite):

Karisa is Tiefling who was born into an organization known as The Adventurer’s Guild. The purpose of this organization is to deal with supernatural threats to society as a whole by hunting down creatures, artifacts, books, and other things that could pose a danger. If it can’t be recruited, it is to be either destroyed or relocated. People of course know about them but there is a general distrust of the organization due to their habit of employing non-humans and the Guild’s use of magic.

When it comes to the forces of Heaven and Hell, the Guild was able to get their hands on a blueprint for portal technology. The portal they have doesn’t always work and sometimes accesses realms other than Heaven or Hell. This can have a tendency to get adventurers stuck in realms outside of earth.

Skills-

Golemancy: Throughout her life, Karisa has made a variety of golems. These golems can me made from just about any solid material if given enough time. Golems made from metal, stone, wood, and even flesh are within her area of expertise. Her favorite golem is an 8 foot tall minotaur automaton she named Grom.

Cooking: Karisa LOVES to cook. She’s always experimenting with different dishes and creating a few of her own.

Basic Martial Arts: Since she turned 13, Karisa has trained with a quarterstaff and dagger so that if her golems failed, she could still take care of herself.

Magic: In addition to Golemancy, she has a small arsenal of spells at her disposal.

Fire Spells: All Tieflings are capable of fire magic. Fireball, Burning Hands, and Firewall to name a few. Using fire helps her a lot if she has to weld parts together on a golem.

Lightning Spells: Karisa can perform rudimentary lightning spells but this mostly equates to coating her hand in electricity to use. The strength of this can range from the power of a normal stun gun to enough power to jumpstart a city’s electrical grid.

3D Movement: This is a form of wind magic that allows her to “kick” the air. by doing this, Karisa can give off the impression that she is flying. This does not mean she stays in the air, only that she can move in it. she usually only uses this to get over walls or cliffs or maybe to get into a tree.

Empathy Link: This is something she originally learned in order to better deal with golems in order to find out what their orders are. it can be used on other creatures and objects to get a kind of idea of either how they are feeling or how they are used. She MUST make contact with the palm of her hand for this to work.

Golem Creation: As a golemancer, Karisa carries a number of golem cores on her at all times. These cores can often be infused into whatever matter she chooses to create a quick golem in the field. These golems aren’t as effective as one she has time to prepare but they get the job done. Golem cores are also extremely volatile! Damaging a core will cause any magic in it to go haywire and explode in relation to the core’s size. This makes golems and their cores effective bombs if she needs to!

Golem Override: This is a skill that allows Karisa to manually control her golems and see through their eyes. HOWEVER this is only a last resort because it leaves her immobile and defenseless. 

Please send Karisa questions and asks either from yourself or your characters! i will fill this out as i go!

Rules

1: i am all for fight scenes and such but please do not god-mod. meaning do not assume what happens to my character. (EX: “My character fires a gun and hits your character in the shoulder.” or “Your character tried to dodge but my character cuts off their arm before they can.”) In my responses, i’ve taken to rolling a dice to determine whether or not my character gets hit and how badly she gets hit. I do not mind my character dying in a particular thread so long as it is discussed at length beforehand and is necessary for the development of the plot. communication is key for stuff like this.

2: Don’t send hate. I don’t mind criticizing because it helps me reflect on how i’m doing. Hate is just a dick move though.

3: I reserve the right to choose whether or not i rp or answer an ask. There will be times that i don’t have the inspiration or motivation to continue it or there is not enough for me to go on. An example of this would be if i responded to an rp and the response i get back is “Character ducks.” or something as equally short.

4: I don’t mind reminders but i DO mind spamming. I will mostly be rping either on the weekends or some afternoons when i can get up the motivation. DO NOT spam me reminders every day or every other day. I have a 5 month old son and a job that has me working monday to thursday with the occasional friday up to 12 hours a day. Those come first.

5: You will see a lot of stuff on here that i will do my best to tag from gore to n//s//f//w// threads. If there is anything in particular you would like me to tag when it shows up, please let me know! Anything truly spicy will placed uner a read more and tagged as “Read at your own Risk!::NSFPC” (nsfpc stands for not safe for public consumption.

6: While i accept starters, memes, questions and comments through asks, starters and starter memes WILL be turned into a post to start a thread. I will not rp through constant asks because this can lead to more dash clutter than the post will. That being said, i will trim the post before it gets too long and will try to have any appropriate tags on it.

7: THERE WILL BE LOTS AND LOTS OF SWEARING! Enough that i will not be tagging it because it is everywhere! I will not tone down her swearing except around child muses because this is part of her character and i ask that you please understand.

8: When it comes to shipping, Karisa will make things fairly clear on whether or not she wants to be with your character. I love shipping but i also know that not everyone will ship their characters with Karisa and that's perfectly fine! Karisa WILL flirt and get touchy with people she's interested in but if the mun or character they are controlling doesn't want that, TELL HER! Not me. HER. Have your character reject her advances, tell her "no" or even smack the shit out of her if she gets too handsy! I will not be upset and i will completely understand! A lot of people plan ships out and tell others there has to be chemistry, but as I'm thinking about it, im going to be removing that little section from my rules. Why? Because failed ships have the potential to create drama, angst, and even enemies if done properly! If she comes onto a character and it makes you uncomfortable or you're just not interested, EXPRESS IT THROUGH YOUR CHARACTER! The same will apply to her! The only time i will have any sort of problem is if she says no, gets into a fight, and you try to godmod it to your liking or try to guilt ME about it. My character makes up her own mind about how to do things just like yours.

I may add more rules as time goes on but it’s pretty straightforward. Don’t be afraid to come and talk to me! I’m pretty open about things and i would love to see you around! Come and join me on discord for more Mun stuff! Just make sure you edit your name to match your tumblr url so i know who you are please! https://discord.gg/6ftZuSP8XH 

[reefartandwriting]

Running out of Time Pt 1

When Luz had announced that she only had two weeks left until she had to return home, Amity felt her world shatter. She heard Luz assuring everyone she wouldn't be gone forever, she'd visit, and come back next summer… but Amity didn't pay much attention.

Luz was leaving.

That single thought was tearing her apart. This past few months had changed her. Luz had changed her. But despite that her fear of losing Luz was becoming a partial reality. And she hadn't even said anything about her feelings. Luz was just as clueless and dense as she had been during Grom, and their match of grudgby against boscha.

She wandered away from the group gathered. More than she had even expected. So many lives that Luz had affected, for the better. All smiling and wishing her the best and for a safe return when she could.

"It was stupid anyway…" she muttered, blushing at the whole situation. "Luz isn't going to like you back, and all it does is hurt."

All the memories of that insufferable dork came rushing through her mind. The library, their book club meetings, grudgby, Grom, and beyond. How close Luz seemed to get without even realizing. The effect it had on her. 

Amity couldn't take it. She couldn't take two weeks of pretending to be okay with Luz leaving.

So she didn't.

For the next week at school, Amity avoided Luz at all costs. It minimized her panicked lovestruck thoughts, and any danger the human girl would get her into. It hurt, but by not looking at the disappointment she could imagine on Luz's face, she managed. It felt helpful. It created a distance. Distance was good. The pain wouldn't be as bad.

Or atleast, is what Amity told herself.

It was another half week, just about three days before Luz had said she was leaving, when Amity broke.

The final school bell rang, and she gathered her books and made her way outside, ready for the walk home, when a familiar voice came from behind her, as well as audible footsteps.

"Amity!" It sounded mixed between happy and searching, like Luz had been looking forward to seeing Amity but for a specific reason. 

She almost stopped, swallowing thickly her nerves, but kept walking, the footsteps stopping. But they began again, and suddenly the face she had ignored was in front of her, and she was forced to stop in her tracks. She wanted to run away, but she was frozen.

Luz looked so sad, her brown eyes searching Amity's guarded face for emotion. "You've… been avoiding me." 

Amity tightened the grip on her books and looked down, hoping that was it, Luz would let her go in peace, and not trouble her again. And once Luz left she could try to forget…

"Did I do something?" Luz asked quietly, making Amity look up to meet her face again. She looked genuinely worried. She had purposefully kept close to a whisper, and reached for Amity's hand to grip it between both of hers. "Look, I know I mess up, and I'm oblivious and stupid. So if I did something to upset you, I want to make it right." She looked up with a smile. "And I know I can't just fix everything, but I want to try. I don't want to leave the Boiling Isles on bad terms with you…" her smile faded, and she squeezed Amity's hand.

"I- have to go-" The girl squeaked, blushing and trying to form the will to pull her hand away. But it remained, and she started shaking with nerves. 

"I'm sorry, for whatever it was… I affect people when i'm not even aware of sometimes. Please Amity, You're one of my best friends, I want to make it right." She squeezed again. "Talk to me."

Amity's facade crumbled, and she let out a defeated sigh. This wasn't how to deal with emotions. And looking into Luz's sweet, stupid face… she couldn't let her go. Not like this. 

And she couldn't let her go without being honest.

She squeezed her hand back, and spoke quickly and quietly. "Meet me at sunset. At the cliff close to the Owl House. I… need to talk to you. I've been putting it off. I've been afraid."

Luz released Amity's hand, smiling. "I'll be there. But you're okay? You're more important than me feeling good when I leave. You mean more than that to me."

Amity turned away, drawing a sharp inhale. "I think I will be… after we talk. But I really have to go- my parents will be upset if I don't get home for my study time. I'll see you at sunset, Luz…" she slid past the girl, a blush overtaking her face. She covered it halfway with the hand Luz had held so gently, conveying such a soft message while she spoke. How had she managed to ignore her for so long? Why had she thought it was how to handle things?

The hurt expression alone on the humans face nearly destroyed her. But that smile… that cursed smile… built her up all over again. Her heart was beating fast, and an unconscious smile took her over as she speed walked home.

Her study time at least soothed her, but she was fairly distracted, trying to find the perfect way to confess. She was determined to tell her now, even if it hurt. Luz was too sweet to not let her down easy, at least. The convincing and thinking took up almost two hours, and before she knew it she had to get ready to leave. She grabbed nothing but a piece of paper and a pencil, Incase words failed her.

It was such a quiet walk, that nerves set in. All the stores were packing up for the night, people were on their way home, and she was on her way to do one of the hardest things she'd ever done. 

All the magic, death defying, pressure to be better… it didn't hold a candle to this. Her stomach squirmed in nervous anticipation as she drew closer to her destination. She just focused on breathing, the sound her feet as she moved, looking forward and not letting herself overthink. 

But she came around the corner and paused, her heart beating again when she saw Luz sitting and looking upwards at the stars, seemingly tracing them with her finger and facing away. Amity could only imagine the small smile plastered to her face. Absent-mindedly adorable.

She closed her eyes and took a breath, approaching slowly and carefully sitting next to her, the paper in her hand laid gently at her side. "Hey, Luz."

"It's crazy how clear the stars are here in the Boiling Isles." The human murmured, turning only slightly to show a smile. "it really shows how it's a whole different world from mine. And I get to experience it."

Amity huffed, a hand tugging on her own tunic nervously. "Yeah, and all the near death experiences."

"Well- you got me there. But that's what gives this place charm." She smiled wider, turning fully, meeting Amity's golden eyes. "Just like all the people I've met."

"I think you're the one with the most charm." Amity answered, taking a breath. "And that's why I was avoiding you." She looked up with a guilty face. 

"Because I'm charming?" Luz asked, confused. "Is it a bad thing?"

"No! Not at all! I just- you're so likable. And after you said you were leaving… I didn't know how to handle it." She shrunk into herself a bit. "Luz, I've had a hard time being super honest with you… you came crashing into my life and I was so confused on why you acted the way you did. You were so determined to be my friend even when I was awful to you because you made a few mistakes. You're so happy and hopeful and stubborn…" she covered her face with both her hands. "...You were my first real friend in a long time. And you've wanted to do nothing but help me and Willow and Gus, and because of that Im actually happy."

Luz put a hand on her forearm, giving a soft caring look that Amity couldn't see. "And you want me to stay." She smiled a bit. "Amity, I know how scary it is. And I'm gonna miss you so much! But I can't stay… I have to go home. To my Mom. I was only supposed to be gone for the summer."

[captainmwai]

WELP IT’S ANY TIME AT ALL SO THAT MEANS IT’S TIME FOR MORE LUMITY RANTING

So like about Luz’ obliviousness.  I’m starting to think this is Luz’ reaction to getting the wrong idea at Grom.

LET ME RANT ABOUT GROM SOME MORE OK

SO LIKE

Luz does not think the note is about her.  But it’s more than that.  Luz thinks the note ISN’T about her.  Luz thinks Amity isn’t interested in her like that, because in Luz’ mind, if she HAD been the one in the note, Amity would have had no reason to be bashful, because hey, I’m just Luz, the weird kid, nothing intimidating about me, wow!

Ohhhhhhh how wrong she is~

So let’s think for a second about the information Luz thinks she has: Amity has an active crush in progress.  One that’s not seen through.  One she can’t get to yet.  And it’s someone else.  So Luz starts emphasizing that she doesn’t want anything from Amity, because she’s trying to be the Best Friend She Can Be, and has gently, gracefully, accepted she will Just Be Friends With Amity.

LOL THE WORST

So all of Luz obliviousness AFTER this point, I think, is directly caused by her having specifically shut off her frankly RAGING romantic fantasy engine where Amity is concerned, out of respect for Amity’s crush on [person who definitely isn’t me, Luz, because that’s impossible lol].

Which is why for me, the Grom dance is starting to take on a whole different vibe.  For both of them, there’s a kind of undercurrent of sadness to all this HECK YEA WE ROCK THIS WORLD energy-- Luz thinks Amity is after someone else.  Amity thinks Luz sees her as a friend.

AUGH MY GAY HEART

[azraqnar]

Thoughts on Agony of a witch (Spoiler warning! (Duh))

Oh boy I was doubting this series’s before but not anymore! This episodes is easily the best in the season. Grom doesn’t have shit on this episode! Everything was just great about AOAW, the music, the suspense, the action, the story, the animation, it was all wonderful!

- for one, Hooty is damn creepy when he fights not only does he effortlessly kick the emperors covens ass (you’d think they’d be more powerful than this but whatever) but he has a tea party with their unconscious bodies after. That was an interesting (& creepy) choice & it has me curious if Eda created him or not. We need a hooty backstory.

- Eda’s curse is getting worse and after episodes of not mentioning it they finally acknowledge how bad it’s getting & how Eda needs more potions or a higher dosage to barely keep it under control KEY WORD “BARELY”. It does remind me of when my aunt had cancer and her chemotherapy stopped working they had to higher the dosage. Good job on finally talking about it.

- When Luz leaves I do like how Eda & King reflect on how the “vibe” of the house changed when Luz showed up & how King thought they were gonna eat her (I guess it confirms witches do eat human kids)I am picking up a familia love from Eda & King so now we have the found family trope (Which I love). I thought it was cute when Eda decided to make a cape as a sign of gratitude & how it sets up how important this cape is when Eda talks about the material it’s made out of.

- Luz’s class is going on the field trip to the emperors coven but isn’t Bump the principal not a teacher?At my school whenever we had a field-trip it was the Teachers that went with us not the principal, Bump didn’t even play a big role so they could have swapped him out for a Teacher & nothing would change.

- Amity’s leg is still broken so she can’t attend the field-trip, which I thought was a good idea she didn’t go. I feel like the writers would try to force in more Lumity moments and it would distract from the plot. I do like Lumity but if Amity was there then fans would focus on that rather than the story & the last two episode were Amity focused so she wasn’t needed in this episode. Smart move from the writers, maybe if her legs heals next episode she could be there but idk.

- Now while Luz was thinking about stealing the healing hat I was a bit conflicted on it. I don’t like how the show is telling viewers it’s okay to steal but In Luz’s case it’s for a good cause, she wanted the hat so she could heal Eda’s curse. It’s like those cases you hear of people stealing groceries to feed their families, I felt the same here. Yeah stealing is bad but if it’s for saving someone you love is it really that bad? Idk if the writers wanted us to be conflicted over that dilemma but they succeeded.

- “Good luck with puberty” I laughed when Lilith said that, can’t believe Disney let that slip in.

- I have to say I do like the lore we get in this episode. Emperor Belos established the coven system 50 years ago to “honor the titan” which is the boiling Isles where they might get their magic from, before that witches were doing wild magic in what was called “the savages ages” it’s setting up more lore about the emperor like how did he rise to power? Who was he before? What were these “savage ages” like? If it was 50 years ago then there still are witches & demons that were alive in the savage age & they could tells us what life was like before. It also means Emperor Belos is 70+ years old. I’m just saying a human could live that long. 👀

- Now emperor Belos, wow his designs looks cool as hell, his voice is amazing too, it’s kinda sinister yet soothing at same times. As shown, it looks like he’s in a weakened state, he has to take these weird bird glowing green slime thing to have energy. We don’t know why or how he got like that, but it seems like he wants to Capture Eda so she doesn’t try to overthrow him since he’s weak. In fact, that might be the reason for the coven system, if he limits their magic then they aren’t strong enough to overthrow him. We only saw him for a bit but he gave a good impression when Luz said that no one will know about her stealing the hat we hear Belos voice echo: “ I will know” in the most bone chilling voice ever! The crew did a great job on him! Tho one thing I noticed is why is every big villain always in a weakened state? Darth Vader, Hordak, Aaravos, Zarkon, every anime villain. I just noticed this trope is overused, but I hope we can see Belos at his strongest and see how powerful he is. I have high hopes for him!

-Lilith discovers Luz is there & decides to use her as a decoy to lure in Eda. Which she succeeds when Eda goes there all angry for daring to drag Luz into her issues. I love how Eda doesn’t even try to stay calm she just straight up attacks Lilith & you can feel her angry.

- Speaking of that fight, best fight in the series thus far! The animation, the spells, the music, the raw emotion, it was all down great! It does remind me of a DBZ style of fighting when they’re moving so fast that your eyes can’t catch up & their magic surrounding them like Eda went super Sayion, I’m not complaining I like those kinds of fight & The intensity you feel in the fight is overwhelming. Luz’s life is at stake and Lilith even uses her as a human shield. She knows how much Luz means to Eda & was willing to kill her. Hell, she even threw Luz toward the spikes and Eda had to save her, then they both struggle with Eda trying to lift her up & Lilith trying to press her against the spikes & then Eda slowly turns into a monster THIS IS HOW YOU WRITE A FIGHT (takes notes she ra)

- Now the biggest bomb drop in the series. IT WAS LILITH WHO CURSED EDA. she blurted it out in a rage of jealousy it seems. They were insulting each other on how one is better than the other. Then when Lilith says “THEN WHY WERE SO EASY TO CURSE?!” My jaw dropped, I suspected they would tell us but not this episode, you see can see the hurt & betrayal in her eyes when it was her own sister who cursed her. Like ouch. From what I suspected is that Lilith was jealous of Eda from what their exchanges told us. But why was she jealous of Eda? Friends? Magic capabilities? Power? Maybe fighting over a crush? What? Whatever the reason is does not excuse doing that to your sister and your YOUNGER SISTER AT THAT. Goodness & I thought Edric and Emira took it too far with the diary thing. I’m officially part of the hate Lilith club. Idc what you do but hurting your sibling like that is the worst thing you can do to them, just imagined how much Eda suffered for DECADES with this curse. No redemption can fix that. But boy do they need Family therapy or just punch it out that works too.

- I loved it when Eda went into rage mode when she found out it was Lilith who cursed her. Her own sister. Like damn that has to hurt knowing your own family did that to you. She deserved to beat Lilith to a bloody pulp & I’m happy she didn’t even bother to listen to Lilith she just wanted to attack her & I don’t blame her one bit.

- Ugh the scene where the curse overtakes Eda was a heart wrenching one. She knows she slipping away and tells Luz to take care of King & Hooty & to stay safe before she slips away. When Lilith told Luz that Eda is with her true family made me want to punch her more than Amity’s parents. You feel how helpless Luz felt & I hope they work towards her character with that feeling because Luz is happy go lucky & seeing her in despair makes for great character development.

- it kind of reminds me of when Queen Angella sacrifices herself In season 3 but I hated how they never acknowledged it since season 4 & she doesn’t even return by the end season 5, they pretty much forgot about her. We know for sure Luz will never leave Eda behind & will go save her.

- So we know Luz will go back to save her cuz we do see her wearing the cape Eda made her in the promo. Also we have 1 episode left so we know she’s gonna attempt a rescue mission for Eda but will she succeed? She’s up against the emperors coven! She’s gotta pull all her cards on the table & team up with her friends.

- A witch loses a true way. It could refer to Lilith officially turning to the dark side or Eda being lost in her curse even into season 2. Knowing Disney, they will give us a happy ending cuz it’s Disney but I will be pleasantly surprised if Luz fails to save Eda by the next episode.

- One last thing, I like the credits had no music, just silence. It reminds me of in full metal alchemist whenever a character dies the credit are always silent. I guess it’s meant to represent despair in a way? Or change? Yeah it think it’s change.

- This is why shows should focus on the plot because when you do, it delivers for some great storytelling & this episode surpasses all of the episodes combined. when you focus on the story & lore & characters it makes for great emotional impact of an episode and I hope Dana and the crew continues to do this. This show has so much going for it & people who only watch a show for a ship are clowns because this is what you’re missing out on. an amazing story. I applause Dana & the crew for this episode, really outdid yourselves!

- Overall 9.7/10 it was phenomenal!