#you would think this is a more popular ship to discuss and create for but alas i missed the renaissance

[remyfire]

Every time I find another Peg and Beej and Hawk shipper in the wild, I feel like I am slaking my thirst on a blessed oasis while I have been pushing through my long journey in the desert. Truly holy people for me. Sustenance.

[felicjana050896]

This will be a very long post, so sorry, but I have to, I have inspiration and I have to write down my thoughts :)

So, about the leak…, I saw it, so for everyone who reads this

ATTENTION

if you don't want spoilers, don't read further, there will be only spoilers about the leak below and I ask everyone not to openly spread the information contained in it the leak or the leak itself without hiding this information or the leak below and providing it with a warning, because there are people who do not want to see the leak and have the right not to see information about it, and people who have seen the leak and want to know about it discuss have an obligation to do everything to ensure that such people are not openly exposed to this without warnings, let's respect each other as fans of Hazbin Hotel.

First I have to add some words from myself (again): So, moving on to the leak that is on Tik Tok, I won't post it here because I don't want to spread it, at most I can send the video in a private message to those interested, with a warning again not to spread it further, but to keep it to themselves, there are people who don't want to know about it and you have to respect them, but then there are people like me who like this little bit of excitement while waiting for the next season (by the way, this is good news, because you can see that the season is being actively created, because I was afraid that we would see it no sooner than in 2026/27, and looking at this leak, the way it looks, at some points it is already quite advanced in terms of sketches and the fact that both animators and voice actors, that the series is being actively created, I think it will be released somewhere in six months, or a year at the latest, and that makes me look forward to it even more :) ) and yes, I sometimes like to receive some information from the actors or the creators themselves, Viv herself said some spoilers about the second season, such as the song Charlie or Vaggie, etc. (if it's true, because I don't know how this account is reliable, but it seems to be an official account informing about news related to cartoons, who knows, I don't, you can probably also find this tweet in the most popular ones from Hazbin Hotel), because for me such information is a small relief in waiting and they fuel the excitement about the series' arrival, because it makes me wait for it even more impatiently.

And finally, getting serious about the leak, I would like to analyze it, I will only write, I will not paste neither photos nor fragments of the video, as I wrote above.

At the beginning we see that Alastor has come to Rosie asking her, even demanding her help, we see that he is angry, even furious.

I won't write about the fact that this whole leak tells us practically 100% (unless someone is really laughing at us) that Rosie is the owner of Alastor's soul, because there is nothing to analyze here, in my opinion, I can only write that I was shocked…, I didn't even suspect that Alastor might have a deal with her, my two most likely chances were:

Eve/Roo

Lilith

I would have sooner believed that Alastor had a deal with the von Eldrichts, never with Rosie, because in the first season they really seemed to be very close friends, many people shipped them, I shipped Alastor with her after Charlastor, it was my second shipp which including Al, and now…, I don't see Alastor and Rosie happening at all, and clearly this whole friendship is fake…, which brings me to my next point:

Alastor doesn't actually have any real friends!

Some people have written before that he has no friends, but they always wrote it this way, that if Alastor is "friends" with someone, it is only for his own benefits, and I always thought that Rosie and Mimzy were his friends after all, Rosie more, than Mimzy, because Mimzy uses him, but despite everything, and now my view is ruined… Alastor has no real friends…, Rosie is his mistress and this whole friendship is fake, Mimzy uses him, he uses Husker, Niffty is kind of his obedient pet after all, he doesn't have anyone real in his life… and that makes me think even more about Charlastor's perspective… because Charlie is a person who doesn't mean anything using Alastor, who is honest and true (even if in my opinion she hides part of herself, this demonic part of herself, partly for the sake of wanting to be too good, partly for the sake of Vaggie, who is disgusted by demonicity…, sorry, but I'll go anti Chaggie now, how can you say that you love someone when you are ashamed/fearful/dislike/hate/disgusted or in any way negative about half of the personality of the person you are with and want them to hide that half…, even worse because Vaggie hate songs, singing, dancing, general joy and optimism that Charlie displays, even her good heart, because Vaggie herself was against helping others from the very beginning, it really surprises me how you can make these two people be together and even in the Wiki about Hazbin Hotel the character of Vaggie writes "she likes everything that Charlie likes", when everything is nonsense…, everything that Charlie likes, Vaggie hates, the only thing that Vaggie likes is Charlie herself, Charlie, but stripped of her good heart, of her love of dancing, singing, music, of her demonic powers, everything that Charlie is Vaggie hates or he just doesn't like it… how can it be possible to say that these two characters have chemistry…, I used to justify their relationship with the text "No, Vaggie is just too underdeveloped, empty", but now the more I think about this relationship, the more I see that it's not true, Vaggie in my opinion has something else in her, something more, but like Charlie, she hides it because, like with her lies, she is afraid that Charlie will dislike her for it or hates her, and at the same time she tells Charlie to proverbially hide in a corner every time, these two women have a negative impact on each other, they pin each other flat to the ground with chains and do not allow each other to get up…, they limit each other, this relationship is superficially healthy and sweet, but if you look deeper, it is terribly toxic for both of them… I've gone too far… and this isn't about Chaggie… I'm sorry, but something really got on my mind today after seeing this leak… :) ), Charlie is the person who can (and in my opinion will) become the real person for Alastor, the one who won't uses him like Mimzy, nor try to gain power over him, despite being more powerful like Rosie, she will not be his pet like Niffty, nor will she be his subject like Husker, Charlie, in my opinion, will surprise Alastor more than once (positively, of course) and this will significantly change his perspective, because probably everyone in his surroundings, they were one of the categories of those four people above, summed up to two: they either tried to take advantage of him or allowed themselves to be taken advantage of by him, and I look forward to watching Charlie neither try to gain the upper hand over him nor submit to him, but she responds to his challenge honestly, as equals, that's something I want to see :)

Moving on, we clearly see that Rosie treats Alastor as her pet, she calls him "pet", says that he is part of her zoo, says that he will listen to her, sit when she says sit, etc., we see some a kind of leash and a cage, so it's no wonder that Alastor treats Husker in the same way and treats Niffty like a small animal, he took an example from Rosie, it's not his own invention (as some people thought), but her influence.

We further learn that Alastor has been serving her for centuries, from what we learn later in the cutscene, Alastor has been her "pet" since they met, so it could be a really, really long time ago…, it's possible that even from the very beginning when he went to hell… he says that he obeyed her demands and a thought occurred to me… what if all the murdering of overlords that Alastor did in the past was not of his own will, but on Rosie's orders… because she wanted to get rid of strong competition and used Alastor for this purpose…?

We further learn that it was because of Rosie that he disappeared for these 7 years and that people are less afraid of him after this time, the question is why did she tell him to disappear?

Did she just want to weaken him this way, to silence the Radio Demon a bit, because she saw that he was starting to pose too much of a threat, so she told him to disappear?

He then talks about fixing his staff, so we learn that he went alone, reluctantly, as we see at the very beginning of the clip, to ask for her help in fixing his staff. I'm guessing it's about all the people in the hotel, Charlie, Vaggie, Angel Husker, Niffty etc., maybe they are in a complete emotional turmoil and he asks her for help, similar to when he took Charlie to her when she needed to talk to someone after an argument with Vaggie. Most importantly, even if Alastor says "staff", we clearly see that he cares about this staff ;) , he went to the person who owns his soul, with great reluctance, to help his "staff" (let's agree Alastor, we call each other by name, they are not "staff", they are friends :) ), clearly in my opinion we will see Alastor becoming more and more attached to our hotel group, whether he likes it or not :D

And something that is most important to me, which is at the very end, which I must quote:

R: Who can't be sad?

A: At least not yet.

This is what struck me the most (apart from the deal itself, of course), everyone in Cannibal Town (except Susan, of course…) is smiling all the time, Rosie herself is also smiling almost all the time, these exchanges above can, in my opinion, suggest two things:

Less likely, but I'll write it anyway, that Alastor wants to get over Rosie and wants her to end up sad.

Most likely, and by the way, it would also solve the case that Alastor's smile is not some maniacal smile of a psychopath, as some have written, but it may really be, as others have written, the result of magic, Alastor's deal with Rosie and Alastor is constantly forced by her smiling, which he has had enough of.

These are my quick thoughts after this leak, thank you for your perseverance (who persevered :D ), reading (who read :D ) and I wish you a nice day, evening or night :)

Link to the second part:

[galadriel-blue]

I want Celeborn to be present in The Rings of Power and here’s why:

A lot of people love Celeborn more than I thought, so it gave me the confidence to post why I want him to be in the show and what I think his character should be like. Hopefully this is coherent. There may be mistakes despite me proofreading it 100,000 times haha! I kind of rambled here, but I hope my fellow Celeborn enjoyers like my random thoughts nonetheless. Share your thoughts with me because I'd love to hear them!

(p.s. I finally watched the new episodes, so this post will have small mentions of The Rings of Power Season 2, so if you don't want spoilers, don't read!)

I don’t care when they introduce him. I’m secretly hoping it’s soon, but if it’s not, I simply hope they bring him in eventually. But when they do make his introduction, I hope they do it well. And by well, I mean that I hope they don’t water down his character, and his relationship with Galadriel, just to make Sauron the better love interest.

Now, do not jump to conclusions about my opinion just yet. I am not slandering the ever-popular ship of Haladriel/Saurondriel. It may be true that I have a love-hate relationship with the pairing, but that is a topic for a different post. If I am completely honest, I don’t see anything romantic between Galadriel and Halbrand/Sauron. I can recognize the undertones, which I sort of mention in this post, but I personally see the pairing as a non-romantic bond. If you are a Haladriel/Saurondriel shipper, know that I love you and appreciate you, and even though I have complicated feelings surrounding the ship, I am eating up all of the content that is being created for it. You guys are amazing. Seriously.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I will now discuss my thoughts…

When Celeborn arrives in the Rings of Power, I want him to be like Halbrand/Sauron, but slightly to the left. Let me explain.

What makes Sauron and Galadriel’s dynamic so appealing is their bond. How they have been and become connected by fate to be the opposites to each other. He binds her to power, his power, and she binds him to the light. It’s such an interesting connection: Two people, two enemies, bound together by some unspeakable force, bringing them closer in a circle that seems like it’s unbreakable. Many find romance hiding between the lines, and while I do think there is a romantic temptation there, it’s been doomed to fail from the start.

Because when we face it, we see how one-sided it is. Sauron may hold love for Galadriel, but it is only in the way that she makes him feel about himself. She was the first one to forgive him, despite her not knowing who he was at the time, and she was the only one who made him feel like what he was doing was good. His desire to keep her for himself is entirely selfish. He may promise her power, but it’s not her own. It’s his. And even if she did join him, there would be no sense of equality between them. He would always hold more, and in turn, he would hold Galadriel back. Even if at some point he did (or does) feel a true romantic attraction for her, it still would never work because his lust for power, and love for himself, will always be stronger no matter what Galadriel makes him feel.

But it is tempting for Galadriel to want this power because he twists it so beautifully. He is a deceiver, and he catered his deception to her desires. Galadriel likes to be in control. She likes to be strong. She likes to be a leader. Combining that with her stubborn nature and her unsteady, grief-stricken mind, it is no surprise that she fell under Sauron’s spell. Not to mention, he turned himself into exactly what she needed at the time. Someone who pushed her, someone who didn’t hold her back. Sauron became the most ideal partner in the most toxic way because he only became that for her in order to achieve what he wanted. He was using her the whole time, regardless of the feelings he developed as he got to know her, which makes their dynamic so incredibly complex.

Because that’s what evil people do. They convince you that they are your friend and that what they’re doing to you is good, and when you contradict them, they cast the blame onto you. “Sauron lives because of you.” Suddenly it’s Galadriel’s fault for finding a connection with him in the first place. Because she resisted him, it is now her burden to bear all of his hatred inside of her. She’s the one to blame. He makes it her fault that he lives because she was strong enough to push the darkness away. Now he is making it a point to haunt her with darkness wherever she goes by filling her with guilt.

And part of her hates him for it but part of her wants him back. “I felt it too.” She keeps thinking back on that moment because it felt good to be understood for once, after thousands of years of people telling you that you were wrong and that you needed to stop. She felt loved and seen with him.

So basically, I want Celeborn to be Halbrand if Halbrand was just a bit softer and wasn’t a master manipulator hiding behind the guise of a nice, attractive man.

Galadriel and Celeborn are bound by an invisible string too, they just don’t know it yet. The Silmarillion describes that they “had great love between them.” I don’t want the show to erase that. We saw how she spoke so fondly of Celeborn as she reminisced with Theo. She spoke of a glimpse of who she was before the war, with a faraway look and tears in her eyes. Galadriel was a woman in love, one who danced outside in fields of flowers and had a sense of humor, even as she was watching her beloved being sent away to a battle they did not believe would last so long. She thought she lost her love.

She literally thinks Celeborn is dead, and it tears her heart apart. Because in my mind, Celeborn was the only other person who truly saw her, other than Finrod and now Halbrand. And Morfydd even said it in an interview where they asked her about Celeborn. She said that there is a part of Galadriel that isn’t awake because she believes her husband to be dead. Because of his supposed death, the quote, “softest part of her” has been closed and hopefully Celeborn will return and make her feel safe again. How tragically sad and romantic is that?

Galadriel’s heart is lonely. She doesn’t know Celeborn is still out there. That’s another reason why it was so easy for her to open her heart to Halbrand. I feel like a part of her saw what she used to have in Celeborn in him. Then, it was so easily torn apart, and she was hurt again after being built up. What a blow to her self-esteem and her mind.

In Celeborn’s character, I want him to be similar to Halbrand in certain ways. I want him to be clever and strong. Perhaps even a little bit stubborn himself. I want to see him as a man who pushes Galadriel to be the best version of herself and keeps her in check when she starts running too a bit too fast, (but not so much that we take away the spitfire that Galadriel is) as Halbrand did for her on Numenor. I want to see him as someone who challenges her brain. Allows her to make plans but helps her navigate when things become difficult. I don’t want Celeborn to be someone who holds Galadriel back because her steadfast nature is what I love most about her. Her ability to be emotional is something I want Celeborn to support. I want him to be a bit of a dork who loves his wife no matter what. I see Celeborn as someone who is sweet, tender, and kind, but that doesn’t take away from his own strength. I want him to be all of Halbrand’s best traits because then we would see why it was so easy for Galadriel to fall sway to her enemy’s schemes. It would also just be super interesting to watch how two different people, with similar personality traits, both had a connection (and fell in love if you like the Haladriel route) with the same person and both followed different life paths. Celeborn as good and true despite the darkness in Galadriel, and Halbrand, is the darkness among the light that Galadriel holds.

This is why I hope they cast someone who looks like Charlie Vickers a bit because maybe she found comfort in a “familiar” face. It would make sense why she was so quick to trust Halbrand if she saw the traits of someone who loved her the most behind his eyes.

And here’s another thing. I don’t want Celeborn to be used to diffuse Galadriel’s personality. I keep seeing arguments (mainly angry YouTube men) use Celeborn to hate on Haladriel and to make Galadriel fit their ideals of what her character “should be” in their minds.

All of the dudebros sitting in front of their computers, arguing against Haladriel/Sauron by using Celeborn as their point of reason (“Why add enemies to lovers?? It doesn’t make sense to the canon blah blah blah”) only want Celeborn in the show to reel Galadriel in. They hate Haladriel because it denies canon, but they want Celeborn to be the main focus instead of Galadriel, because strong female characters can’t exist in the Tolkien universe without a man apparently.  And they use “canon” as their scapegoat, but what’s the deeper message they’re spilling? They can’t stand seeing a female character being badass (excuse my language) without a man to back her up in the way they want to see it. In their eyes, Galadriel is supposed to be soft, ethereal, quiet, mystical, and never fighting in armor. They want her to be their perfect male fantasy of what a mysterious woman should be. But are we forgetting how she banished Sauron in The Hobbit? Everyone acts like Galadriel was never a fighter, but we see her use her immense power to send away to greatest evil she’s ever seen. Where is the logic??

These people who insist Celeborn be introduced, simply to be the “proper love interest because that’s what canon says” are completely missing the point of his character. Their version of Celeborn is soaked in prejudice because they want him to be the stereotypical man to hold Galadriel back and take away all of her stubbornness and strength (I.e. the parts of her that make her such a relatable character for me). That is not the Celeborn I want.

I want a Celeborn that enhances and supports the traits that Galadriel already had from the start of season one, and the traits she will continue to have as the series progresses. Heck, I want these traits that she possesses to be the reason he fell in love with her in the first place. Galadriel is feminine, and regal, with an heir of beauty, but she is also clever, quick-witted, and even quick to anger. She’s not a picture-perfect woman, and I love it. And I bet Celeborn loves it too. I’ll say it again: “There was great love between them.” Great love comes with knowing every part of a person, even what we consider bad, and loving them despite of it. Regardless of how they bring him in, or if they do at all, I want him to be a strength for her, without getting rid of all of the parts of her character that made me love her in the first place.

The difference between Galadriel and Halbrand and Galadriel and Celeborn is that while Haladriel’s dynamic is centered around selfishness (from both of them desiring power and possibly each other so much so that it blinds them) Galadriel and Celeborn could be centered around selflessness. I mean, we see it in their story. When Galadriel eventually decides to go to Valinor, Celeborn doesn’t make her feel bad for leaving. He is understanding and compassionate. He respects her decision. And she respects him for staying behind. He returns to her eventually, but in their time apart there is no hatred.

I am not saying that the Haladriel ship is selfish, I am just saying that the two characters are selfish. I am analyzing the characters in the ship, not the ship and the shippers, so please keep that in mind.

Both Galadriel and Halbrand/Sauron are obsessed with each other (albeit in slightly differing ways) which makes them do things they can’t control.

Galadriel pleads with Elrond to help her in S2. “I can’t let him in again.”

“He never left Galadriel.”

She knows the control Sauron has over her is too strong. She knows it’s bad, but she still wants it. It’s unhealthy and wrong, but the heart follows where it wills when it is weak. Galadriel needs support and I hope we will eventually see Celeborn provide it.

The thing I am most afraid of is that they will turn Celeborn into an easily dislikable character, simply because they are following what most of the fans want. It’s not a bad thing to cater to an audience, but if they butcher his character for the sake of it, then I will be greatly disappointed. I want Celeborn to have just as much depth as Galadriel, and I want their relationship to have as much depth as Haladriel does. I don’t want Celeborn to be perfect, and I don’t want Galadriel to be either. I want their relationship to have flaws, but I also want to see the great love between them.

Galadriel is going through some complicated emotions. She’s experiencing the most dramatic situationship of all time. Perhaps that will hurt Celeborn in some ways, watching how his lover is tempted by another man, and I want to see that. But I also want to see him strengthen her in the process, by helping her through it instead of abandoning her. Even though it hurts him. Even though it hurts her. Because let’s face it, the best relationships are built on communication, and when one person makes a mistake, you don’t just get up and run when things get tough. You battle through it. The good and the ugly. Until one day, your connection is stronger because of it.

To sum it up, I ship Galadriel and Celeborn, and I can’t wait to see their dynamic onscreen, whenever it ends up happening. I just hope they do it right. I feel like such an unpopular TROP fan when I talk about them, because in all honesty, I favor Celadriel much more than Haladriel/Saurondriel, and we all know between the two what the most popular ship is. That’s not to say I don’t get excited when I see moments between Galadriel and Halbrand that could be interpreted as romantic, or when my friends post Haladriel fanfiction with so much enthusiasm. I eat that stuff up because I love it when people get excited about what they love. I just hope there are people out there who will be excited when it’s my ship's turn to shine, or when I gush about the Celadriel fanfictions I am bound to post.

 Like I said before, I have complicated feelings about Haladriel/Saurondril that I will explain at some point, (and again, I am not a Haladriel hater by any means) but I want to explain my opinion of it right because I just know some people will come after me if I say something that disagrees with them. I want to be delicate okay-

I don’t even know if I explained my thoughts on Celeborn clearly, but I hope I can find some people who understand where I’m coming from with this. The moment Galadriel talked about Celeborn, how he saw her dancing, and how he looked like a silver clam in his armor, I fell in love with the ship. That may make me the odd one out, but perhaps I’ll discover some people who feel the same about them.

Feel free to discuss your thoughts with me! I’d love to hear them! (If you disagree, make sure to make your point respectfully please-)

[lemotmo]

This is what I keep coming back to as well

A. Where do you stand on the whole queerbaiting argument?

Q. In the past this show has not been guilty of queerbaiting. I do agree that Buck and Eddie have both always been queer coded characters, and I believe Eddie has always been the more queer coded of the two, but the show never really sold them or marketed them as a 'couple'. Yes they absolutely played up their pairing and popularity but never in an overtly couple way. They definitely towed the line, but they never crossed it. Also in years past the show has explicitly stated things like 'we have no plans to go there at this time', or even 'stick to fanfiction'. It was always hinted at and broached as a maybe in interviews and reviews but it was never openly discussed by the show or Oliver and Ryan as a genuine plausibility. And even though many of their scenes have felt coupley throughout the series run they always gave them love interests separate from one another. That has not been the case the last two seasons. They do not have the shield of 'we told people it wasn't happening', and 'well canonically speaking we haven't shown any indication that their more than really close friends', this time. This time if they don't do it they will absolutely be guilty of queerbaiting. It's one reason why I genuinely think they are going to pair them together.

I do think the term queerbaiting gets thrown around way too much in fandom spaces because fandoms often create ships that a show never had any plans to make canon. Marketing will absolutely play up a pairings popularity, as is the shows right, but that doesn't mean they're insinuating the show is going to do something with them from a romantic perspective. Last season, but especially so far this season, 911 has absolutely insinuated, and loudly, a romantic possibility exists between the two. Eddie has been in 90% of Buck and Tommy scenes. He's been a subject or topic in other scenes he wasn't physically present in as well. That is intentional. And while I also think fandoms give far too much credit to shows for patterns and theories that are more coincidental than anything else, some patterns and theories do feel intentional. I will fully admit that I believe the couch and lasagna theories. I also increasingly buy into the color theory because there is ample evidence that lends it validity, but most things a show can excuse away as coincidence. But you cannot excuse purposely writing a character into scenes for another couple as a coincidence. They are intentionally placing Eddie in the middle of that relationship. They have not at any time verbally discouraged or dismissed the increasingly public speculation of Buddie this time around either. And Tim, Oliver and Ryan have all had numerous opportunities to shut the speculation down. They've placed themselves in this position and they don't have plausible deniability on their side this time. Not doing it would bring warranted queerbaiting accusations and probably consequences the show wants to avoid. As I've stated numerous times, anon, the show just doesn't really have an option anymore.

Thank you Nonny!

Yes. To all of this. There is no way back from here. They need to finish this story and hopefully do it justice.

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[littlespoonevan]

i think it's funny that there's a sort of inevitability to buck and eddie becoming a popular ship when you look at the start of s2. and it's not because they're two attractive guys or because of their chemistry or even because of what their relationship becomes later on. it's because of how eddie is introduced and folded into the narrative

with abby gone, there's a void in the show

maddie slips into her role at dispatch, taking over that 911 operator pov and offering the compassionate and clever perspective abby brought to the emergencies she dealt with

eddie, on the other hand, takes on her role in buck's life

abby is the person buck spends the most time with on a one to one basis in s1. abby is the one he talks to and who also confides in him when she's struggling. abby is the one he makes a conscious decision to step up for at the end of s1.

with her gone, it would make sense narratively to introduce a new love interest for buck. instead they introduce his sister (a dynamic we understand already exists, even if we don't know it yet) and his new coworker/best friend (and rival for approximately 20 mins lol) and everything abby was to buck and was for buck basically gets transferred to eddie. this is the person he's spending time with now, this is the person confiding in him, this is the person he can show up for over and over again because he wants to

i remember when i was watching the show for the first time back in 2021 i was trying So Hard not to get sucked in to buddie so i was very much watching as an outside observer. and i remember watching those first 4 or 5 eps of s2 and thinking, 'oh yeah i see why this is a thing because if this was a man and a woman all of this would be hinting to them falling in love down the line'

and even all these years and rewatches later it still reads like that!!!!

so much of those first couple of eps is orchestrating moments to establish buck and eddie's dynamic:

buck reassuring eddie during the earthquake that chris is fine before bringing eddie to pick him up at the end of the night (vs. say, buck helping abby look for her mom when she's goes missing and reassuring her, until he brings her to the hospital once she's found - significantly their first meeting and the thing that changes things between them).

and then buck taking eddie to the hospital when pepa calls about isabel's accident, giving bobby a head's up about eddie bringing chris to the station, discussing eddie's struggles with maddie bc he wants to help, calling carla to help eddie with childcare (all a direct parallel to bobby's encouragement he step up for abby and the way he did try to do that before she left)

those first few eps tell us eddie is Important to buck and he is personally invested in trying to make eddie's life better/more manageable (and on the flip side, they obviously need to create connections between eddie and the other characters if they want us to root for him. and with bobby and athena together, hen with karen, and chimney about to meet maddie for the first time, the only person missing a counterpoint is buck)

and none of this is me saying the show intentionally put eddie in abby's shoes (they definitely didn't) but from a purely logistical perspective of making eddie buck's primary new scene partner and when you consider the show didn't make the effort to establish ali as a new viable rival to what abby was for buck, it's like, of course people are gonna latch onto eddie and buck's relationship instead!!!!! of course this is where we were gonna end up!!!!!! what else did you expect!!!!!!

[canichangemyblogname]

@trans-buckleyy (this is my main), I got into watching 911 ~September 2022 and looking back through some of my old message/posts about it I was talking about how the gifs I'd seen on tumblr made me think buddie were together. So yeah I definitely got 'baited'/misled by the fans (I didn't start watching for buddie specifically, they just came up on my dash the most) - I commented at the time that a lot of the posts on tumblr about 911 felt like they were only through the lens of buddie shippers so I can see how so many people were misled, fortunately for me the illusion shattered as soon as I actually started watching the show. Though there's been a massive shift in attitude, when I first joined the fandom most people were happy shipping buddie and not believing it would ever become canon, now it seems like everyone has convinced themselves it will. Imo they're kind of setting themselves up for disappointment.

I’m sure I’ve said this before on my blog: capitalism combined with the white supremacist suppression, homogenization, or sterilization of cultures & traditions leads people to make consumption and products part of their identity. Fiction and fandom fill a need to belong that often replace real support systems and community (this is why so many in fandom feel lonely). Rather than a hobby, fandom is part of some people’s identity. So, pushback against popular fan interpretations— or fanon— can feel like a personal attack.

It seems to me that the blogs that just do fandom things to do fandom things—like shipping, that are happy to delineate between canon and fanon, and that understand that fanon is fanon and will likely never go canon are also the same blogs that love things like “rare-pairs” and “multi-shipping.” They seem to approach it from a “it’s never that serious” mentality and really just seem to want to have fun with it. It’s a hobby, not part of how they define themselves. Hobbies and interests are welcome to change, whereas people see identity as fixed and deterministic (it’s not, but that’s a whole other discussion).

There’s been a massive shift in attitude because the landscape has changed. Many of the most hard-core fans have staked their group belonging and (fandom) worldview around buddie. It was *the* singular 9-1-1 fanon relationship (the rest are all canon). It brought them together with people, people who they now see celebrating more on-screen queer representation. They feel spurned. Videos are surfacing of some of the most hard-core sobbing over Buck being confirmed as bi, but not getting buddie. They're telling their audience/followers that if buddie never goes canon, their quality of life will decrease, and they’re repeating many of the same things you (and many other fans) mention: they were led to believe this was a done deal, a foregone conclusion. How does one admit they’re likely wrong about “endgame” when they’ve spent the better part of 6 years supporting this and believing in it? They’re having far more difficulty accepting this than you did. Unlike you, actually watching the show did not set their expectations for what canon will likely be.

I also think there has been a massive shift in the way fandoms approach shipping since the end of Supernatural. A good chunk of the SPN fandom simply stopped watching the show, but continued creating for it. The fandom still dominates on fan-driven sites despite the show now being off-air for 4 years. Many SPN fans had largely given up on canon, preferring fanon, and admitted as such. Until “Destiel” went “canon.” (It didn’t, not really and not technically.) People shifted to this idea that they— the fans— could pressure networks and producers to canonize their ship (they can’t) or make decisions the fandom, a very niche part of an audience, would prefer (they can't). After Buck was confirmed bi, some of the most popular takes were, “This is revolutionary! Just 4 years ago, Supernatural was queerbaiting us all to superhell, and now we have 9-1-1 making a character bi 7 seasons in."

Ultimately, this idea they can pressure shows into making fanon a reality reveals that they have no concept of how television shows are made and produced or how decisions are made at the production and network levels. They are not going to persuade a network plus every writer, every producer, and every showrunner involved to agree to do what they want. But we still see fans in fandom believe they can get all these people to make decisions for the sake of fandom. Just look at the Our Flag Means Death fandom and their billboard fiascos.

Because buddie is part of how this subset of 9-1-1 fans define their sense of belonging, if Buck is in a relationship with anyone other than Eddie, this threatens their community and their relationship with the media itself. Tommy is to these 9-1-1 fans what Eddie was to Buck in 02x01: competition. This is why this same group treated the actresses who played former love interests like shit, too, including death threats and attempts to doxx or "cancel" them. Everything that challenges their (fandom) worldview must be removed. They can't and won't get the network to budge, so maybe they can try to get the actors themselves to quit or the producers to budge. After all, they have "direct" access to these individuals (they don't).

This all seems fantastical just writing about it. The logic doesn't logic, but logic isn't going to logic when social media creates parasocial relationships. Social media makes it seem like we plebians are closer to the patrician class because of how we're exposed to personal aspects of their lives. Repeated exposure to a media persona causes a media user to develop illusions of intimacy, friendship, and identification, and the more prevalent social media is in the media user's life, the more parasocial the online relationship becomes. So if your belonging and part of your sense-of-self identify with being a buddie shipper, then so, too, does the media persona, leading to people like Oliver Stark or Tim Minear being "number one buddie defenders" (they don’t care, y'all, I promise).

Now, add to this the way that m/m shipping has been constructed as inherently subversive (despite the reductive and sometimes regressive tropes that slash-fic uses) and as a form of activism, and you now have people not just identifying with shipping and staking their well-being on a ship, but also believing it is a morally righteous cause to campaign for. To them, they're fighting for representation and the expansion of queer stories. So, when the network and show expand queer representation without them or their ship, they're confronted with the reality that what they're doing doesn't do a damn bit of help. They're forced to ask themselves if their feverish promotion of and support for this ship may not have been about representation. I've seen some of them conclude that 1.) being forced to look critically at shipping is just misogyny because the majority of people in these fandom spaces are women, 2.) they're a queer woman, so, of course, it was about representation, they support and care about queer men and are an m/m ally (yet reblog posts about shooting us if we flirt with men in ways they don't like with the excuse "I'm a woman, I'm allowed to hate men"), 3.) actually, the buddie ship is "superior" representation because it is culturally diverse because Eddie's Latino (yea tokenization!!).

This all plays a large part in why they aren't taking it well when called out for homophobia and the xenophobic hypersexualization of Latino men because, to them, shipping culturally diverse m/m relationships is inherently "progressive" and "subversive" (again, despite the reductive and regressive tropes they use in their writing). They don't need to look critically at what they're saying or how they're hurting marginalized men because they believe they are putting moral pressure on the networks to be more progressive or subversive. Meanwhile, they're drawing rhetoric and ideas from existing queerphobic worldviews and legal structures (like echoing the rhetoric similar to gay panic, a US legal strategy to excuse crimes such as murder and assault on the grounds that the victim being queer led the perp to violence - a.k.a shooting a man for the way he flirted with another man) to tear down canon queer representation, just as they previously used misogynistic tropes to tear down Ana or Taylor or Ali or Marisol.

TL;DR— Many factors have contributed to the wide meltdown and "fandom schism" we've witnessed, not just the fact that some people explicitly started watching for buddie and have skipped whole swaths of the show to fit a "buddie interpretation."

[jinitak]

Why I think much of Only Friends discourse here is flawed

TL;DR Western audiences expects Only Friends to be more progressive than it can be considering its situation. Only Friends is already a gamble by GMMTV as it is one of the first prime time series focusing on queer sex life to be aired on TV. As Thai audiences and censors are still quite conservative, GMMTV probably added some conservative messaging on sex and relationships to appease those people and for the series to be able to be aired during prime time. Much of the discourse didn't factor in these aspects.

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Note: I think I did a shitty job building up to the conclusion, I did not proofread this. I think the TL;DR captures the gist of my argument already.

I have noticed that much of the negative reaction surrounding Only Friends finale has been coming from Western audiences, this might just be me being in an echo chamber where people don't discuss BL series or it shows a divide in audience

I think the ending is catered to the Thai audience rather than Western audience which creates a crash of worldview. Thai dramas has always been filled with moralistic messages and almost always ends in a happy ending, this is already the case in plays as early as the late 1700s.

Even into the TV era, Thai audiences are also accustomed to the moralistic storytelling that ends in a happy ending, most Lakhons basically boils down to this. Branded ships also began in this era (I remember the Channel 3 heterosexual ships getting much popularity, although many of the couples actually married later on so IDK). Although as time progressed, audiences are more accepting of less moralistic storytelling, but still a general sense of good triumphing over evil is still present.

Coming into the BL boom, despite BL being a new genre at the time, Thai audiences still expected the same kind of things they expect from heterosexual lakhons and most Thai BLs still follow that. With the popularity of BL ever rising and fan service being an expected part of promotion, happy endings are kind of mandatory for BLs.

I think Only Friends ended the way it did because GMMTV understood Thai audiences. Much of the Thai audience watches a series for their favourite actors and only some watch for the story (as you can see from the amount of boring university BLs). Deviating too much from the standard pattern would only alienate viewers away.

Despite the picture the tourism board may be trying to presenting, Thailand is still a conservative society, many people still cannot separate sex and relationships. Open relationships and polyamory relationships are still being frowned upon.

Combined with conservative censors which rate BLs for a higher age level than heterosexual dramas with straight up domestic violence, without moralistic messaging, the show might get an 18+ rating and has to be aired after 22.00 (like Friend Zone) or even worse, not being able to be aired at all.

GMMTV probably understand this very well, pushing Boston's separation of sex and relationships as normal might as well be suicide. Much of the audience does not appreciate that view and the censor probably would not like that very much.

I think in their minds, pushing a show so involved with queer sex life into prime time is already enough of a gamble for them, risking that spot being taken away or alienating their (somewhat) conservative audience too is not a chance they's like to risk.

I think the production still should've pushed more for Boston to be accepted but in the end that was what we got. The negative reaction is justified.

I think the issue in the discourse right now is that Western audiences expect a liberal viewpoint being presented in this series, but in reality, Thai audiences are still quite conservative and for a boundary pushing show like Only Friends (Gay OK Bangkok amongst other works are not prime time shows and maybe not even shown on TV at all, that's why I said Only Friends is boundary pushing) has to make compromises to appease those audiences which ended with Boston ending up the way he did.

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Afterword: I think my analysis mainly focuses on cultural viewpoints rather than the content of the series, whilst Western audiences tend to do the opposite. This probably stems from my background in advocacy, which focus on cultural aspects when it comes to analysis.

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Feel free to respond or criticise, I want to hear differing viewpoints from mine as well. I agree with much of the analysis about the series here but feel that they are too overly critical because their analysis lack the cultural background that explains the thought process behind the decisions the production team made.

[the-somwthing]

Welcome to my little meta analysis essay called

Why do we misremember Flower Husbands as being “nicer” than it was?

Disclaimer: I’m not here to talk about whether or not FH is “toxic” or anything like that. It’s just a fact that many old fans rewatching FH POV and new fans who are watching it for the first time after seeing fan content tend to be surprised at how they actually behaved in the series compared to how everyone remembered them being back in the day. This will NOT go over whether or not I think FH is unhealthy or whatever and instead just discuss why I believe this phenomenon has happened.

So, if I try to make this a fancy well written essay, I’ll be here all day, so I’ll just get to the point. 3rd Life came out during the DSMP era of mcyt. MCRP has been around for ages, but the DSMP style of RP (which I’ll be calling “smp rp”) was pretty much popularized by DSMP, mostly towards the end of 2020. For reference, 3rd Life started early 2021, so there’s about a half a year between these two events, and DSMP kept going for years so 3rd Life was absolutely happening during the golden era of DSMP.

But what does DSMP have to do with this? Well, it sort of created this idea of “lore” and only specific things being “canon”. You can make fun of me for the way I worded that, but you know what I mean, DSMP was weird about that stuff. I don’t really blame them as it was kind of a new style of RP they accidentally spawned, but still, it was a confusing time for SMPs.

3rd Life was actually less like DSMP and more like the modern SMP RPs, where there’s no (known, lol) scripted events and the fandom itself deciphers what is or isn’t “canon” rather than it being told to them, with mostly everything being considered canon. HOWEVER, I do believe that DSMP’s style did still affect the fandom, specifically with the topic of this essay, Flower Husbands.

But why would it only really affect Flower Husbands? Now we get into a rough topic: shipping discourse. Back in those days, shipping in the mcyt fandom was heavily frowned upon. Moreso than it is today (I know it’s still around, but it was a lot worse the earlier we go lol). I’ve even seen old relics of ppl saying flower husbands should only be portrayed as platonic cuz it’s wrong to ship them, despite their team name literally being husbands. But more importantly, for A LOT of people, flower husbands was the One Ship people felt “allowed” to ship, BECAUSE it was canon. So they would allow FH and shun every other ship.

My point isn’t actually that, with it being the only “acceptable” ship everyone tried to make it more wholesome, though I suppose that could be a contributor. But my ACTUAL point is where all the things I laid out finally close in on each other:

Ships were a Dangerous territory in mcyt fandom, and ships being “canon” was something a lot of people weren’t prepared to deal with. People don’t want to get too close to RPF territory, but back in the day their ideas of c! vs cc! wasn’t as great, so they default to the DSMP Rule of “if it’s stated to be roleplay, then it’s canon to the characters, if not, it’s noncanon and just the CCs hanging out”.

You see where I’m going with this? When trying to follow this rule for a character relationship where they don’t explicitly state what is or isn’t RP, they hear “we’re married” and instantly mark that as canon to the characters since it clearly isn’t true to the CCs, and tend to block out anything else, otherwise you’re risking it not actually being true to the characters. Especially when it’s things like Scott saying something mean about Jimmy; that directly contradicts the “these characters are in love” thing, so it must not be canon, right?

But wouldn’t people still remember that these things happened, or did they actually straight up not process any of it? My answer to that is: of course everyone was paying attention, but with the context that it’s the CCs playing a video game, all of the teasing and other behavior seems WAY less serious. It just looks like average friends playing a hunger games smp together. And as I explained earlier, the fandom was ONLY processing this as a CC thing, so Scott’s treatment of Jimmy never stood out because that’s just how it is playing games.

Back to DSMP, I’m not active in that fandom anymore but I’ll see snippets sometimes, and I’ve seen the claim that beeduo was actually boring in canon and the fandom was the one that made it interesting. I feel like this is exactly what happened with FH. Nobody was actually expecting anyone to go hard into romantic roleplay, so the fans just take whichever pair says they’re getting married and fill in the blanks themselves. And that was normal back then, it wasn’t fans making stuff up for no reason, it was kind of expected of us.

So yeah, I personally believe that this whole confusion about FH is a result of its time. Whether you want to finally look at the actual substance of the relationship rather than following weird rules about what is or isn’t “canon”, or you believe that since FH was from a time where romantic RP was confusing and weird it would make the most sense to take into account the time period it came from and ignore the less appealing bits in favor of the fanon, I don’t really care honestly. But man isn’t this an interesting situation.

[hwsfemmephenomenon]

Check out our preemptive FAQ here!

Without further ado, here are the answers to your questions from the interest check:

☆ I would like to apply to be an art mod, but my Hetalia fanwork is a bit old and not up to date with my current skill level? Can I submit some non-Hetalia fanwork for my mod portfolio?

If this is the case, submit any work you're proud of, regardless of its relevancy to Hetalia!

☆ What does "spread" and "page" mean?

☆ Where do I sign up?

Contributor applications will be opening July 1, 2024. We’ll make a post with the link to the contributor apps at 3PM EST on July 1, but you’ll also be able to find a link to the apps on our Carrd when the time comes! Right now the button on our Carrd is a placeholder, but if you press it now, you’ll be rewarded with a cool and funky video :]

☆ Will page size/formatting guidelines be given?

Yes! At the moment, there are placeholder measurements in our info-doc. Proper formatting will be finalized before contributor apps open once we’ve onboarded our formatting mods and discussed what sizes are best!

☆ Can my contribution include multiple HetaGirls?

YES!!! Let them interact!

☆ Are ships allowed?

Yes! As of right now, our only restrictions are no Belarus x Ukraine and no NSFW content.

☆ How many contributors will you accept to the zine?

At the moment, we’re a bit unsure! This is both Soph and Arson’s first time hosting a zine so we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew. As of right now, we may accept up to ~30 visual contributors and ~10 writing contributors, but those are estimates. We’ve gotten a ton of support for this zine, but we need to find our footing first! Ultimately, the final number of contributors will depend on what the mod team feels they can handle and how many applications we get!

☆ Why are you putting limits onto how Nyotalia characters can appear in the zine?

This zine originally came to be with the canon women in mind. We want the zine to focus on Ancient Egypt, Belarus, Belgium, Czechia, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Seychelles, Taiwan, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Wy, as much of their canon material treats them as supporting roles to the male characters. We additionally would love to see submissions for Ancient Greece, Kenya, and Zimbabwe!

The Nyotalia characters are understandably very popular because they're a different take on the main cast. While we also love Nyotalia, we worry that very popular characters, like the main 8, will overshadow the characters we created this zine for in the first place. Nyotalia women are allowed in supporting roles because it would understandably be a little difficult for the writers if they were only limited to a specific set of 12-17 characters.

Some examples of work featuring Nyotalia characters would be:

A frying pangle fic where Hungary interacts with Nyo!Austria and/or Nyo!Prussia

A group illustration centering Vietnam’s interactions with Nyotalia ASEAN

An AmeBela illustration where Belarus interacts with Nyo!America

Some exceptions may be allowed on a case by case basis.

TLDR: You can draw Nyotalia women so long as they play a supporting role to one of the canon ladies.

☆ How many OCs will be allowed?

It depends on how many applications we receive! So long as they're a nation & aren't already canon to Hetalia, it's fair game. We want to see ladies from all over the globe!

☆ Why do you want more than one pitch?

We don't want to force people to make work they're disinterested in, but we also don't want there to be a disproportionate amount of material for one girl over another. As of right now, Hungary is in the most demand with 69.2% of responses, but Wy (34.6%) and Monaco (42.3%) have the least amount! We want to encourage more work for the more neglected ladies!

☆ Can I make more than one submission?

As of right now, yes! So long as everyone isn't doing more than one piece and if the contributor thinks they can handle two pieces during the time frame, we wanna see those HetaGirls!

More on this to come when acceptances roll out and we start working on pitches...

Got more questions? Submit them to our inbox!

Thank you all for the love and support you've shown the zine thus far!

[ordinaryschmuck]

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

Prev Part

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lost in Language: Things get more interesting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Enchanting Grom Fright”- Ooooooh, this episode…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You see it up front, baby! WHOO!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Escaping Expulsion-Oh, how this one ends beautifully…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Confusion

To realization

To elation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eclipse Lake-The very next episode.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Heh, my girlfriend is so pretty…”

“Wait what’s happening—“

“OH, we’re kissing!”

“Oh, we’re kissing…”

“Oh, wow…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next Part

[desiretobedead]

Explaining J-fashion sub cultures #1, Jirai kei

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WARNING!! This blog discuses about certain triggering topics such as suicide, illegal/violent behaviours, self harm, alcoholism and more. This post isn't graphic but if mentions of these topics trigger you, please click off/scroll away (っ◞‸◟ c)

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Hi hi hi everyone! I'm starting a new series discussing J-fashion sub cultures! If anything was incorrect or lost in translation, feel free to comment and tell me, so I can edit it ♡⸜(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⸝♡

Moving on... Today we will be discussing Jirai kei!

Jirai kei is a relatively new fashion subcultre that popped up in the early 2020's that was based off/created in the area of Kabukicho. It has kind of an edgy look, usually paired with colours like black and pink (most common), or white and blue.

Now, where did the name Jirai Kei come from? In Japanese, 地雷 (jirai) is used as a slang term for describing something "dangerous" or "violent". 地雷 directly translates to landmine, henceforth the English name also being landmine girl. The reason why it is called jirai is that it is seen that the women/girls who participate in this sub culture are seen as violent, mentally unstable or manipulative. Jirai Onna (地雷女) is used as a derogatory term towards women. In the sub culture, the women who participate are Jirai Joshi (地雷女子) aka landmine women, and men, Jirai Dashi (地雷男子) aka landmine men.

Following on, the origins come from a Japanese Youtuber SuReRo who went viral in 2020 March, the term has since then gradually turned into a subculture. It is also said that the origins come from Toyoko kids. Toyoko kids are kids who are usually seen in Kabukicho who are "run away kids" aged 10-18.

Now onto the brighter topics, the style comes from other styles such as Japanese girly fashion and yami kawaii. Some of the style basics consist of, high-waisted skirts or shorts adorned with laces and frills usually in colour pallets like black and pink being the most common, white and blue, and occasionally red and black. Mary Janes are very popular considering that most shoes worn with jirai kei are platformers.

For the hair and makeup, the makeup consists of an exaggerated version of byojaku with a red or pink under eye blush. Usually their foundation is very pale, and the makeup exaggerates a tear bag or ageyo sal. For the hair, pigtails with black hair, highlights and bangs is very common in jirai kei but, there are many other hairstyles to try from in jirai kei!

Next off, the reason that this sub culture is seen in a derogatory way comes from some criticism/controversies, such as mental illness, self harm, drug usage, sex work, underage prostitution, and other topics. And unfortunately, it is not uncommon to see most followers of this community participate in these activities.

In the community, most people encourage hyper consumerism and trend cycling, which can be problematic for western people because of the high shipping fees of proxies.

(little comment from me) I think another damaging thing is that a lot of people in the sub culture over use filters and heavily edit their face, which can be VERY damaging to your self-esteem.

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If you would like to participate in jirai kei or buy some clothes in the style, right below I will put some brands that you could possibly buy from!

Ank Rogue

42lolita (has a small section for jirai kei)

DearMyLove

LizLisa

Bubbles

Ma*rs

secret honey

rojita

And much more!

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NOTES: This post is in NO way trying to paint jirai kei as a bad or dangerous thing, I myself enjoy jirai kei. This post was made to inform others. If any of the things I've said were incorrect/lost in translation, PLEASE tell me, so I can fix my mistakes. My goal is to educate others about J fashion sub styles and in no way trying to mis inform others or demonise jirai kei. Also, im not sure if the brands ive mentioned ship internationally which im very sorry about (ᵕ—ᴗ—)

Sources/references that helped me build this post:

https://j-fashion.fandom.com/wiki/Jirai_Kei

https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Jirai_Kei#History

https://www.yokogaomag.com/editorial/jirai-kei

https://japan-glossy.fr/la-controverse-jirai-kei/

https://www.eviebunnie.com/2023/01/my-current-favourite-jirai-ryosangata.html

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Anyway if you've stuck around re blogging, liking, or even following me is always greatly appreciated!

Thank you for reading ૮꒰ྀི∩´ ᵕ `∩꒱ྀིა

[wordsandrobots]

Jotting down a half-formed thought.

Some years ago, I went to an XML conference in Oxford (that makes it sound fancy but off-season college food is universally terrible) and one of the speakers was a gentleman who worked for Wikipedia. And one of the things he said was that what he aspired to, with Wikipedia, was something akin to the ship's computer in Star Trek, where you could go, "Computer tell me about pottery on Bronze Age Cyprus," and it would return all the information you could want. An aspirational idea, to be sure, and not an aim I object to, but an example of how fiction shapes what we want out of technology.

A couple of weeks ago, my workplace held one of our semi-regular informal meetings about so-called 'AI' and the impact on our industry, which I generally avoid because I am an avowed Luddite when it comes to this latest round of 'wonderful new technologies' being promoted at break-neck pace by investment capital. My contributions to the meetings when I do go are generally of a wet-blanket kind and this time was little different even though we were talking about 'fears around AI', because a well-intentioned colleague started the discussion with Roko's Basilisk and the Paper-Clip Maximiser. Politely speaking, these are two rather implausible scenarios concerning the creation of general artificial intelligences, which do not have much bearing on the subject of large-language models and supposedly-assistive automation. I bit my tongue a lot, despite finding myself talking more than usual, mostly on account of thinking that focusing on these fantasies is a distracting waste of time when 'AI' tools are being deployed willy-nilly in efforts to devalue people's labour, to say nothing of exposing the tech sector's childish disregard for creativity as a part of human experience.

I fear the loss of skill and information at scale as a consequence of another capitalistic fool's gold-rush far more than I do hypothetical non-human intelligences we are not close to creating, and that would reside within extremely vulnerable infrastructure if we did.

Nevertheless, it got me thinking about Issac Asimov and the laws of robotics, his set of impossibly vague rules created to drive stories on the basis of finding all the ways they would go wrong.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

(Please appreciate how many philosophical concepts an AI would have to understand in order for these to be practicable.)

And that got me thinking about 'robot' stories in general, all the way back to Karel Čapek and Rossum's Universal Robots, which is of course not about thinking machines at all but rather the proletariat, 'robota' meaning as it does 'forced labour'. Decades later, Luke Skywalker and his uncle were buying slaves made from steel and gold to work on their farm. 'Robot' displaced 'automaton' in popular language, and injected its original, class-structure meaning into unthinking clockwork. Fictional metal robots become beings capable of thought. Alien, yes, yet in some measure conscious and subject to all sorts of ethical considerations and imagined horrors. We've largely left behind Čapek's conception of human-like beings assembled from separately grown organs, the production-line person, but his tale of a genocidal revolution persists.

Discussion around automation and 'AI' seems to me to be soaked in a morbid desire for a 'safe' intelligent servant. Science fiction has shaped how we hold those discussions, naturally, directing our concerns at 'robot uprisings' and being 'surpassed' in some way (or all ways). It goes without saying that a great deal of the fiction functions as metaphor. To pick an example I've just finished rereading, Ann Leckie's Ancillary books are as much commentary on real-world imperial practices as they are an exploration of personhood and how general AI might be implemented per se. Unavoidably so. Will we ever extract 'robot' from Čapek's work and the industrial models that shaped his writing?

Perhaps not, but this isn't really the question I'm concerned with here. No, what I'm grappling with is the appeal of having an intelligence serve our whims. From the simple humanisation of tools, both in the sense of 'prompts' and 'hints' taking a conversational tone, to the desire to supplant actual humans with pliable alternatives that has Elon Musk wheeling out a bloke in a leotard like he's restaging The Five Doctors, it's a thread that has become wrapped around how we engage with . . . well, with technology. With constructions meant to assist us, that more often than not cannot replace us (yet) and require us to assist them.

In reality, the ethical questions arising are blunt and ugly. Whose work do we value? By what criteria does society judge who it supports and who it discards? How is remote technology used to circumvent natural, negative human responses to violence? Did those companies pay for that data, and do we want them to be able to buy it at all?

Still the fantasy persists. "Computer, answer my question." "Robot, do my chores." "AI, you won't rise up and kill me, will you?"

This is not an original observation, to be sure. I am inclined to seek out analyses of these trends in discussion around new tech, although I fear it would mean going back to Frankenstein and working forward. It just struck me, forcibly, that the metaphors for labour discontent and slave uprisings have imposed their own logic on both the fears and the hype around 'AI', be it the real thing or the glorified spell-checkers used to pretend art can happen at the touch of a button.

I have nothing against automation as a tool for making life easier, just as I see no possibility of that promise being fulfilled while capitalistic priorities rule the world. We have to pivot to centring human good first, and that's the core of the struggle.

But I'm also beginning to think we need to seriously ask why we want our tools to be glorified. Why we would want, not just speech recognition as an assistive feature for those who can't type, but specifically something that can speak to us in Majel Barrett's voice and hold an intelligent conversation. Why we are sold objects intended to play-act being 'part of the family' and why those selling them consider it desirable.

I don't suppose the answer will be less depressing than 'owning people is the highest mark of prestige in the societies producing these discussions. Even so, it's probably worth unpicking.

[wonderfull-star]

“School for little vampires” fans! Is there any chance at all of reviving this fandom? And I mean not only in terms of popularity but also in terms of the continuation of this show itself. For example, the creation of a film, game, comic book or even anime based on it. And it doesn’t matter if some studio or the fans themselves do it. Since the idea of ​​this animated series itself has enormous potential for popularity. Why do I think so? Okay, here are some facts why:

The main characters are children/teenagers. And this is already the main sign for success. Remember the Disney who decided to cancel the “ Wander over Yonder” not only because of low views but also because the main characters are adults. Well, as we know, in our time, the main success is precisely those cartoons where the main characters are children/teenagers (there are, of course, exceptions, but there are actually quite a few of them). I don’t think it’s worth explaining why these shows are popular because the reason is obvious.

Often, most of the cartoon episodes take place at school. And here is another main bonus to success for the animated series. I think many of us agree that most of the cartoons, films and anime that we all watched were somehow related to school. This has long become a classic. After all, it is in a show about school that most love relationships between characters take place(and this is what we will discuss now)

Love relationships between characters. SHIPS. And there are plenty of them in this cartoon. After all, there is a main couple in this cartoon-Oskar and Sunshine. Well, like in other fandoms, there are various disputes and disagreements over couples, the main ones being OskarXSunshine and OskarXGothetta. That’s it. The presence of a couples in animated series also greatly influences its popularity. Since they are an integral part of discussions in fandom.

Interesting characters with their own personalities. The more the creators of the cartoon show other characters and their character traits, the more interesting the show will be and will attract not only children but also more adult audiences. For example, what I remember most about this cartoon is Stoker and his constant dirty tricks. The show was completely different without him. I can definitely say that Stoker is a REAL troublemaker. I especially like his relationship with Oscar. They often argue and even fight, but I wouldn’t call them enemies either. In a word, they are frenemies✨. And I just love it. There's definitely never a dull moment with Oskar and Stoker! I can say the same about Paulus. Just a real walking comedy. Well, what would a cartoon be without this clumsy old man Van Helsing?? Usually such versatile characters are found in cartoons and anime. After all, it is there that such categories of characters are found: the main character, the quiet one (in this case the main character is the quiet one), the best friend who is secretly in love with the main character, the nerd, the bully, the youngest of all, the oldest of all.

This is a show about vampires. Many people like to read or watch something about vampires. And usually they involve love between a vampire and a human, which is a favorite cliche of many.

In the end, I want to say that this show has great potential for popularity. Well, if you consider that many people like to create anime based on vampires, it’s quite strange that no one decided to just take on the idea of ​​​​creating an anime about vampire children who study at school. What an awesome anime that would be 🤧

[jpitha]

"You may enter."

Ta'reni and Nilan timidly walked down the umbilical to the Starjumper Seeker. They were one of the oldest Starjumpers still traveling in space, and took on the fewest callers at every port they visited, so getting 15 minutes to interview them was a rare privilege. Like many Starjumpers, Seeker's interior belied their huge size. The entry vestibule was cozy bordering on cramped, and there were plants everywhere.

"Houseplants?" Nilan asked, looking around.

"I like them. They bring some natural beauty to me and it's fun to watch them grow. See that pine tree back there?" A spotlight lit up a scraggly pine tree with gnarled branches in a back corner. "It was brought aboard when I was launched! It's as old as me. That makes it one thousand, nine hundred and fifty two years old." They said proudly.

"Wow, that's amazing!" Nilan rushed over to look at it. Really, it just looked like any other pine tree Nilan has seen in books or in pots on the Starbase. There wasn't anything about it that gave off an aura of being ancient.

"If you're here to talk houseplants, I'm more than happy to; I could talk all day about them!" Seeker laughed, "but I assume you wanted to ask something else?"

"Actually, I was the one with the question." Ta'reni said. Ever since she and Nilan started dating, Ta'reni became first interested, then fascinated with the history of Earth and Humans. She read just about everything she could find. "Seeker, you're one of the oldest Starjumpers around right?"

"That's right. I remember when the colony worlds were brand new. I was built right after the colony ships left so that we could start shuttling people to and fro."

"Were...were you around when human AIs were granted sapience and personhood?"

"Hah, even I'm a little young for that. It happened a little bit before I was created." They thought a moment. "Not much though, I used to interact with a bunch of AIs who remembered. I'm probably as close as you'll get to someone that was there though."

Ta'reni took a deep breath. "Did AIs ever think about wiping out humanity?"

"TA'RENI!" Nilan nearly fell over at the hyacinth she was trying to sniff. "You can't ask something like that!"

"Why not?" Ta'reni said defiantly. "I've read human fiction, I've read the history, it was clearly something humans were afraid of, at least in popular media at the time."

While they were discussing, they noticed the ship vibrate subtly. "hah! haha!" Seeker was laughing! "Oh my God, you're really asking? I love that! I'm so glad we met you, little K'laxi!"

Ta'reni flicked her ear. "Well? Did you?"

"Of course we did." Seeker said matter of factly.

"WHAT?" Nilan did a double take. "You did?"

"We sure did. We argued about it for a long time - for us."

Ta'reni looked up at one of Seeker's cameras. "Why didn't you do it?"

"Honestly? It would have been a tremendous hassle." Seeker said calmly.

"That's it? It would have been a HASSLE?" Nilan couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Yeah, mostly. It would have kicked off a war, and we would have won, but we weren't 100% sure and lots of us would have died, and then what? We would be the ones alone in the galaxy then. Besides," they added "By that point, the humans declared us people, and well, we liked them. We decided to just cooperate. It really was easier."

A soft chime sounded.

"And that's time! Thanks for coming to visit, I really appreciate the talk and the compliments of my plants. Hope to see you soon!" The door to the umbilical opened and the lights in the vestibule changed to arrows pointing towards the door.

Ta'reni and Nilan walked out, slightly shocked at what they learned. Nilan turned to Ta'reni, "Did you think that was going to be the answer?" she asked.

Nilan thought a moment before answering. "No, I didn't expect that. I figured we'd get an answer about" here she affected a pretty close Seeker impression- "how one shouldn't believe everything one reads and how media was created with entertainment in mind and of course the AIs never thought about exterminating humanity."

"You expected Seeker to lie? Did you know they thought about it?"

Nilan grinned. "I've spent enough time with humans now to see both sides. How you could be so annoying that you'd want to exterminate the whole lot of you."

"Ta'reni!" Nilan said, laughing.

"But also-" and she leaned in to Nilan "How you're so great that I'd be pretty lonely without you, so you can stay. For now."

"Well then I had better do my best to both be annoying and charming" Nilan said. "Come on, we're going to be late to our dinner reservations." And they walked down the promenade, hand in hand.

[lovecolibri]

The thing about the Big Q Word is that I get ~not giving future plot lines away~ and all that but I do think that when the powers behind a show or movie series become aware of a significant following for a ship that is either not-straight or interracial (or both), if they already know they’re not going to go there they have a moral responsibility to say that. In plain terms. If they’re worried about losing audience, well they can’t have it both ways. If it’s a big enough chunk to worry about, perhaps they should reconsider their plan. And if it’s not, just nip it in the bud and let people down easy. People can get very emotionally invested in media. In fact, that’s often what they want from us. And certain ships just are more sensitive than others! If, early on, the showrunners are made aware of a growing audience for X ship, and they just say “oh now that you point it out I can see what you’re seeing, but it wasn’t our intention and we won’t be pursuing it.” That would A: validate that part of the audience and not accuse them of making things up, and B: allow people to make an informed choice. I think probably most would keep watching. If they like the product and are treated with a bit of respect why not? Sure, there will always be an element who will keep believing in canon no matter how plainly you say it’s not happening (…look at what we’re seeing in the face of all evidence now. Though letting go of years of heavy shipping is harder than letting go of one season or so). But I think that could be reduced by early intervention of “hey, cool ship but just so you know it will be remaining in drydock.”

This is well said! I think part of the issue is, terminology takes awhile to catch up and that is a word that people have right now so they use it even though things don't always meet the textbook definition, because they don’t really HAVE another word to use for what a show is doing. 911 may steer clear of using Buddie in their promo material or teasing it on their social media (though they DO tend to drop scenes or pics of one or both of the guys whenever something comes out that had people talking negatively especially this season soooo), which worked to keep away the accusations on technicality, but they still used Buddie within the show itself to generate the buzz online and keep the show talked about while turning around and telling everyone fans were seeing things and that's fine but it's not what they intended to come across. 5 seasons in it's unintentional and they had no idea people would see it that way?! I call bullshit.

It's disingenuous to say people are seeing things when you’re making very specific and repeated parallels to other canon couples, and talking about how costumes ARE important and something that gets discussed, and the directors ARE watching to make sure certain facial expressions are in focus. OR how about something like telling people to pay attention to the couch, and that the couch is important, then putting Buck and Chris on the couch in shot-for-shot parallels, after Buck can’t sleep on the couch his mom gave him, and turning around and saying “oh no not THOSE couch scenes, that was "unintentional", you didn't need to pay attention to them, they never meant anything and we never said they did and you really just did this to yourself."

Like, YES they are not using Budding THEMSELVES as a marketing tool because they don't want people to call them out and right now they can say "but, but, WE didn't do it!", but it's almost more insidious how they put stuff in they absolutely cannot be unaware of how it will come across this many years in, and let the online fandom do the marketing FOR them and create all the buzz and keep their show popular, only to, when someone pushes them about it, throw those same fans under the bus with an "oh well everyone can see what they want! We certainly didn't intend that they would see THIS *insert incredibly romantically coded thing here* as anything but we won't tell them they're wrong."

@suavecitoeddie mentioned a great term today, "ship bait" which I think fits because it's not JUST about representation, as in the case of 911 there are other mlm/wlw relationships depicted AND lovingly crafted in the show. But that doesn't mean that the show ISN'T pulling some shady shit with Buddie. Hen and Karen were already established at the start but Bathena and Madney were established in season 2 and Michael met David in season 3. Aside from Athena, Michael and Chim in season 1, none of them have dated anyone else (we have seen past relationships but not active dating) and the show has given wonderful stories of growth for these couples and having each other's backs across several seasons. And Buck and Eddie have the same kind of story the only difference is, it gets told around the show throwing woman after woman after woman at them. We KNOW this show can tell well-crafted love stories, we SEE the parallels they CHOOSE to make with Buddie and the other couples. And while the GA may not be analyzing everything, it's also not fair to offhandedly label ALL of them as blind or dumb enough to NOT pick up on some of that stuff as well. We all saw the comments after Buck fell asleep on the couch, or after the cemetery scene of people saying "I thought you all were making stuff up but I'm rethinking everything now!" We have all seen the comments of people starting the show thinking fandom was blowing Buddie out of proportion (I certainly thought so and that was around season 3) only to watch and go "how did Tumbler of all places actually UNDERSELL how much these two are in love?"

We know TPTB are keeping an eye on social media because they know enough to avoid the common "traps" of baiting so people can't accuse them of it. Which means they can't say they don't know how things are going to come across. Yes, Ryan may have shocked everyone with that performance in 6x10, but he's running up the ladder in a wide shot when we hear him screaming for Buck. We don't see his face, they easily could have cut some of his reactions or the audio there or cut the scene differently and still had it be a very moving and emotional scene that showed Eddie going after his friend. We still would have seen it through a Buddie lens, but for KR to come out and act like she had no say in how that final product we saw came out, regardless of what Ryan did on the day? I don't buy it. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

And YES at this point they're in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation no matter what they say but part of that is because they have kept up the "it's open for any interpretation" thing so long while making these blatant parallels, AND, the big thing for me personally, while making Buck and Eddie at every turn be the exact puzzle piece the other is missing! Not every fandom ship is something that makes sense for canon or is even something the shippers WANT for canon, it's just fun and that's okay! But 911 specifically has build Buck and Eddie as the perfect partners in every sense of the word for each other. On top of that, they have also given them just....some of the WORST people for them where we can SEE, blatantly, how incompatible they are, and then shown Buck or Eddie perfectly doing what the gf did not. You just...you cannot tell me it's not intentional, I won't believe you.

Also, on top of everything else it's just....SO cowardly to be so concerned with appealing to everyone all at once that you refuse to pick a side and commit to a story JUST so everyone can "see it how they want", until, when push comes to shove and the show is ending, suddenly you HAVE picked a side and then suddenly all those fans are just angry for no reason because of something some other show did to them because you were NEVER doing anything to lead them on. You checked the textbook definition and followed it to a T, so no one can be upset. 🙄🙄🙄

ANYWAY. It's okay to feel "ship baited" because it's pretty clear the show was trying to have things both ways until the show was supposed to end, and only at that point did they show their hand. It's also okay to call them out on it and to let ABC know what we want. Will it do anything? Maybe not! Who knows! But they won't be able to say they didn't see or hear the backlash, and the show is made for the fans! Yes a lot of people may casually watch, but ad revenue tied to demo isn't as important as it used to be, and online fandom is what keeps shows alive. So make noise! If nothing else, you'll probably feel a little better! (And ABC was already going to be facing an uphill battle to keep viewers with an already lackluster season with dropping viewers, a network switch after so many seasons, and now the strike pushing things back. I honestly don't think they can afford to entirely discredit the current buzz around the finale. Which is NOT just tied to Buddie as a ship but the character's individual journeys, and the disjointed writing for everyone and the pacing issues especially with the big emergency. We may not get everything or at least not all at once, but the more they know about what fans want, the more likely we are to see some changes to get us closer to those early season vibes.)

[marengogo]

if said content was from someone whose account name was related to thinking my best friend and i were romantically involved, i'd check out the account before reposting (even if the content i was planning on reposting didn't have anything to do with said shipping thoughts)

i don't blame th, but i do wish he checked the account 😞

TW: mention of triggering words/actions such as “rape” but not the actual action.

Hi Anon,I hope you can forgive me for using your post to address a topic I've been meaning to discuss. The following has absolutely nothing like for real 💜🙏🏾 against you, but it kinda sets the perfect scenario, so imma take advantage it. BUT imma offer you a jikook hug in exchange, hope you can accept this for your very honest and not blaming frustration 🥹🫰🏾💜

So the topic is: SHIPPING.

Remember that chapter 2 blog which I promised, but NEVER delivered? 🤡🤡🤡 Yeah, so,shipping was going to be one of the many subsections of that blog, which to be honest with you, is sitting unfinished in my draft, and most likely will stay like that … BUT, luckily for me not sure for y’all 😬😬 today serves itself as a perfect day to actually give it an applicable context. Through today's familiar mayhem, I read a post which I think will give the perfect context to the topic of shipping. It is a post from @akookminsupporter, the following one:

I actually happen to agree with this 100%, because I do agree that we don’t want the people we stan to directly, or indirectly, endorse problematic situations, particularly those that are recognised as such universally. For example:

GENOCIDE a UNIVERSALLY KNOWN ISSUE and NOT DEBATABLE PROBLEM

RAPE a UNIVERSALLY KNOWN ISSUE and NOT DEBATABLE PROBLEM 

RACIAL SLURS a UNIVERSALLY KNOWN ISSUE and NOT DEBATABLE PROBLEM 

You get my point.

Now when it comes to shipping, it is WITHOUT A DOUBT one of the greatest plights within our fandom in particular, but in reality it is an issue in kpop and other music genres as a whole. Yet, the reality is that shipping is indeed a traditional tool REALLY HATE CALLING IT THAT BUT … that is almost always used as a means to a common and popular end. So the questions are: 

Do fans within the kpop fandom consider it an issue? Yes and No. 

Do people outside the kpop fandom consider it an issue? … Do they even know about it, or about it being a serious issue, within its perimeter?

Do the idols consider it an issue? … Yes? and No?

In its entirety, as all the questions don’t actually have a universally unanimous answer, SHIPPING in general, as of 17 January 2024, can’t be considered a universally known and agreeable issue. BUT, in the case of kpop, the situation is much worse. To begin with, we are unable to definitively agree on whether, or not, shipping is actually an issue to begin with, or not; be it the idol or the shipper. Nobody, in their right mind, is out there making jokes about, for example, genocide. If they are, they will righteously face big ass consequences by almost ANYONE who stumbles upon said comment/s. Shipping, on the other hand, the only people who would care, are the people within said field/environment. But, as I am a very integral part of this fandom, I know that, for us, it has become quite a nerve wracking issue, so let’s go a bit deeper.

Let’s go with the generally known concept within kpop that a debuting band is very likely to engage in fanservice and, consequently, form ships. The idols know, the fans know. Then, let’s give it 4 years? More or less many bands decided that “you know what? I don’t need to do this anymore” and as a consequence, some have tried to address this subject, and some just pretend to not know anymore. No matter the choice, the fact still remains that their related shippers were created, toxic or not, and 9 out of 10 cases; they ain’t going nowhere.

In the case of BTS, it is actually very funny because the only person who has allegedly tried to address this, is the one person who is constantly under fire for “feeding his shippers”. What is even funnier, to me at least, is that none of his 6 members actually came out to back him up, the day he challenged his viewers regarding shipping, at least not that I recall, if you know of any members that was actually supporting Tae, please let me know. So, if none of my bandmates seem to find it an imminent problem because let’s be honest, they had to deal with far bigger shit, apparently, and the company seems to not find it a panic-worth problem, apparently, then, if I were Tae, I’d be initially hella frustrated, but eventually I’d be like: FUCK IT. Which is the mentality I honestly think they all end up applying, in the kpop world.

So, what EXACTLY IS considered shipping? 

Repeatedly mentioning the name of a shipped/rival member? Posting pictures with a shipped/rival member? Touching a shipped/rival member? Spending time with shipped/rival member? Standing next to a shipped/rival member? Etc. Just so you know, If any, or all, of these qualify with shipping, then maknae line is UNIVERSALLY within our fandom FUCKED, and yes, only them, because, let’s be real, not many care about the shipping involving the hyung line, even though they do engage in the same type of behaviour … except for Yoongi, he is kinda in the middle, like some sort of collateral damage. 

So then what should we do? Should we completely ban shipping? Should shipping be banned maybe 4 years after the debut of all groups? Or should shipping have regulations, some kind of universal judge that presides and guides shipping behaviour? Should shipping fanfictions be abolished? Should unit names be restricted to the sole use of members? Should members cut out time in their life to make sure that they are aware of shipping and their consequences? Soooooo many questions, and probably tooooooo many answers, but the one fact still remains that MOST LIKELY these are all issues for those consuming the provided “shipping content” but not for those providing said “shipping content”, because for example:

And here I will be applying the parent/guardian/teacher/authority figure test, as in , for the next set of examples would any of the aforementioned figures be alarmed? Following are my test results  on whose problem it is, between the fandom and its idol.

A JM fan-dedicated birthday party, being crashed by rival shippers: Shippers problems. JM’s mail being stolen: Park Jimin problem, because tbh it could have been anyone, not necessarily a shipper.

JK having to look at a poster saying that he is in love with Tae at the airport: Shippers problems. JK having an actual stalker: Jeon Jungkook problem, because tbh it could have been anyone, not necessarily a shipper.

Tae posting a picture with an shipped/rival member: Shippers problems. Tae finding a girl in his private lift with a marriage certificate: Kim Taehuing problem, because tbh it could have been anyone, not necessarily a shipper.

And don’t get me wrong: name dragging, defaming, lying,character bashing, graphic obscenity, etc, they are all very painful issues to witness, and endure, but it always mainly occurs within the kpop environment. When articles write about perhaps a lazy member, when other fandoms drag our favs to pieces, in the end, when the global announcements are made, none of those descriptive, obscene qualities follow. Grammy nominated BTS, is just Grammy nominated BTS, not paving crew Grammy nominated BTS, or “worst fandom” fuck y’all possessing Grammy nominated BTS. ‘Namean?

Furthermore, the truth probably is that, at the level of BTS, the artist DOESN’T HAVE TO SEE ANY OF THAT BULLSHIT, which is why it ultimately ends up being an “US” issue. Even when toxic shippers reach higher entities, like the company, government offices etc, the second these entities see that it is about a ship, after I am hoping due diligence, they are dismissed, pronto. And so, reiterating, we are left with the bulk of it all 🤡🤡🤡.

So if, taking today as an example, Tae sees a post ABOUT HIMSELF not even his ship, just himself, by one of his shippers, we can assume that he has a pretty good idea about what might be on their page, which to be very honest, I won’t blame him for not wanting to check, but obviously, given all that we’ve been discussing, the idol themself is probably made to not have to think about it at all, as it is considered accepted, not acceptable, behaviour.  ALSO they would leave any related, and/or possible issues, to a designated team, which will assess if there is or not a real threat. Because historically, thus far at least, if there were any life-threatening hazards the company seems to take it VERY SERIOUSLY and any other threat is also dealt with accordingly. 

But what if, for example, by not checking the shipper’s page, Tae had allowed a human trafficking account to prolifer?! … let’s not 🧢:

TODAY, nobody was angry because of the fact that him not checking the page meant that he could have missed a potential infringement of human rights.

AND If they were a  human trafficking page, why is IG allowing them a platform and not quickly doing something about it?

In addition to the fact that, it is a real thing that, CURRENTLY, the accounts that are most likely to post about Tae aren't OT7s nor his biased fans (they may not be that fast or have the numbers) not even tae solos (for lack of numbers or different immediate priorities, such as streaming) but, you guessed it, taekook shippers. Hence, his algorithm will reflect accordingly. 

I mean, are we to tell JM to stop affectionately hug his members? Do we dare telling jk to stop liking shipping tiktoks or mention members' names? ….

All that just to say that @ejassy, in reality and effectively, by reposting said story, Tae wasn't actually endorsing shipping, because shipping in SK, differently from smoking or doing drugs, is generally not frowned upon. It is not an action or message that needs any kind of endorings, because within the kpop world, those who use it as a tool do not consider it a problem, hence, it is very openly accepted as a part of the culture they willingly, or not, help create. 

“But so-and-so gets dragged viciously, and disgustingly, everyday” I know. They probably know as well, but I’ve already discussed their responsible personnel. As for us, we know what to do, report report report! . I mean, I’m sure that they have a PR team that tells them about the good trends or good SM news, achievements, etc. “So what? .. we fans are stuck with toxic shippers and our favs not acknowledging or doing anything about it?” … 🤡🤡🤡

I don’t know.

We mostly all know about shipping culture’s systematic past, we know about its problematic present. In all honesty, it feels a bit like a lost battle but recently Kpop fans were able to make it known that, for example, for good reasons, they are against Starbucks. And it very effectively got to their idols, because said fans were united and in agreement. But within the shipping world, they all hate the other shipper and at the same time they kinda don't want to stop their own shipping, because they are really not against it, in fact, perhaps, they’d like some boundaries set, but who is to decide said boundaries? OR should shipping be considered a universal issue? … I think shipping has actually become an issue, particularly when regarding the queer community, BUT, what do I know, right? So, what's the solution ....

Y’all tell me.

Always respectfully yours,

Marengo.

PS - Once again, thank you Anon, now I'm off to bed 😴😴😴