Lumity Love Languages - WLW Edition
At this point I’m pretty sure the majority of the fandom knows about my love languages post (and if you don’t, then you’ve heard of bloodraven55′s update). For those of you who don’t feel like reading that entire essay, here’s the gist of it: Luz shows love through acts of service while Amity shows love through touch. They are therefore oblivious to each other’s feelings because they don’t realize that that’s how the other person shows love.
So the only way for Luz to overcome her oblivion, and for both to realize the other reciprocates, is for each one to understand the other’s love language.
Fortunately for us, they did! This episode of The Owl House had Luz and Amity taking massive strides in understanding each other and showing affection in ways that the other will understand.
We’ll start with Luz, because she did quite a bit. In the past, she has used touch as a way of showing friendly affection towards everyone she meets. For example, she hugs Willow, like, every time she sees her. (It got to the point where many of you made like Amity and assumed there was some romance building up between the two). And she’s always clinging onto Eda or letting King climb all over her.
But in this episode, something changed. Luz was a little more purposeful with her affections. Sure, she hugged Willow. But she didn’t really touch anyone else in this episode, even Eda or King. When she touched Amity, however, it was purposeful. Giving her the confidence symbol/hair clip and touching her hands gently while doing so. Carrying her when she was hurt, even though she has weak nerd arms, because after Amity’s fear-filled life, Luz is determined to be her fearless champion.
Speaking of the weak nerd arms…did you notice that Luz’s arms were weak until after Understanding Willow? I mean, when you think about it, her shows of arm strength are always around Amity. Dancing with her at Grom, carrying her to the infirmary…. And this all happened after she spent time in Willow’s brain, learning about how touchy Amity is. The moment she realized Amity likes being held, she suddenly became stronger. This means that either she collapses in exhaustion when she gets home after spending time with Amity, or she exercises every day so she’ll be strong enough to carry Amity.
And the thing is…this stuff worked. In previous episodes, Amity was a gay disaster. But this episode took it to entirely new heights. She’s at the stage that I would’ve labelled as a “bad crush” and then undertaken some serious gaslighting, conditioning, and avoidance strategies to stop from hurting that person (oh look internalized homophobia). She’s panicking at everything Luz says. She’s blushing so much that Luz probably thinks she has a skin condition. Her gay thoughts are so strong that she’s saying them, rather than keeping them to herself. Luz is doing the things that make Amity fall faster, and Amity is falling faster. (Literally).
And now: Amity. Amity’s journey is even cooler because in this episode, there is concrete proof that she actually realized Luz’s love language.
But before that? Amity was still doing what makes Luz happy. Luz likes grand gestures/acts of service, and Amity sure delivered.
The episode literally started with her roasting Boscha. Which is huge. Ever since she was a child, Amity has been forced to keep Boscha as a friend, even though she hates her. So now, for to just stand up to her, asking when she will grow up, and effectively ending their friendship? That’s amazing. It takes courage, and it’s exactly the thing that will make Luz fall.
But then, she and Luz had that conversation on the bleachers. The one where Luz literally said, “Winning this game is the only way I know how to help.” Luz genuinely doesn’t understand that people can be comforted in ways that don’t include elaborate schemes. And now that Luz has spelled it out for her, Amity finally gets that.
So that’s when we see a change in the way Amity shows affection. Immediately after hearing Luz say that, and then watching Luz agree to…well, to pretty much die for Willow, Amity immediately gets Willow and Gus for help. She throws away her social life and risks catching even more feelings for Luz, by agreeing to play the game with her.
At this point, you can tell she doesn’t expect reciprocation. She’s not losing her status, risking incurring her parents’ wrath, and risking Luz rejecting her and hating her forever, just so Luz will like her. She’s doing it because she knows Luz will be happy if she does that. That’s what makes it such a grand gesture: she’s willing to throw away everything that makes her happy, just so that Luz can be happy.
And then, she doesn’t lose all that. What she does lose: the integrity of her leg. Guys, Amity literally got her leg broken for Luz. At a tiny after-school fight. She’s in a cast. She had to suffer through Hooty picking her up and moving her. Even though things didn’t go as badly as they could go, she still sacrificed a lot so Luz could be happy.
Luz and Amity are learning. They have effectively swapped love languages in the past episode, just to make each other swoon. Their days of oblivion are soon coming to an end, since they’re both doing everything they can to make each other fall in love.
