#lumillow

[levbiishipping]

they had so much canon ship potential I’m crine

[bugchuckles]

they all slept on the floor so gus & vee could have the bunk beds but knowing them they'll probably all be in a pile by the time camila comes in to wake them up

[edalynn]

You know what I’m disappointed I’m not seeing after the ending of LR? Lumillow

[pyroclastic727]

[tacticalchokehold]

They're so pretty it hurts

I'm not talking 'bout boys, I'm talking 'bout girls

They're so pretty with their button-up shirts

[pyroclastic727]

Amity and forgiveness

Episode 15 showed Amity at the most expressive she’s ever been throughout this entire series. Above is a collage of a 11 expressions I’ve seen from her (there’s one accidental repeat but I didn’t save the document and I’m lazy), and in every single one of them, she is sad or scared. I love seeing Amity having an expression other than her Resting Blight Face, but I hate that that expression is a negative one.

A lot of the reason Amity was scared throughout this episode has to do with the fact that this is also the first time Amity messes up badly. I mean, she’s an arsonist now! And if that’s not bad enough, Luz is also going to see all the things she did to Willow, from Willow’s perspective: how she used Willow’s greatest insecurity to get rid of her friendship, 

This begs the question: why does Amity care?

I mean, if I committed arson on someone’s mind, while living in a magical place, I would be a bit panicked. But if it were my parents’ fault that I ruined my friend’s life, I would be apt to blame them, rather than blame myself for it. (I would also tell my friend about the ban). And I would never try to erase myself from someone else’s memory; if they met me, then they’re stuck with all the experiences I’ve given them. 

So why would Amity go so far as to burn herself away?

I mean, this proves a lot of stuff. Sure, Amity is an arsonist, which is really cute. But arson is only cute when it doesn’t hurt someone. Amity’s arson was designed to erase herself completely from someone’s life. This means that there’s a strong part of her that believes that Willow would be better off if she had never met Amity. 

As someone who has gone through mental health issues, this is extremely concerning.

Amity doesn’t believe she is capable of being forgiven. 

Let’s analyze this. First off, there’s the fact that she sees hers and Willow’s memory hanging up and looks terrified. I would say her face drains of color but she’d have to have color to begin with. Regardless of that, she literally sees a memory, hanging up alone in a classroom. No one is even close to it, yet she knows that if anyone sees that, she’s toast.

So then she decides to burn it?! As lovely as that is to mock, there is something deeply disturbing that she is more inclined to try to kill the memory of herself, and risk killing Willow. It’s practically self-h*rm symbolism, with how Amity intends to hurt herself but ends up emotionally scarring a bunch of other people.

Why did she do this? Because she doesn’t know forgiveness. All she knows is that, once Luz figures out, she’s going to be mad. She’s going to hate Amity. And she wasn’t wrong.

But in Amity’s life, that’s it. All she gets is mistake and punishment. Every time she slips up, whether that’s with having a friend like Willow, or the library incident, or bad grades, you bet that she gets punished for it. Otherwise, why would she be so apt to delete herself from Willow? She doesn’t think Willow or Luz will ever forgive her.

Now let’s flash forward a bit. Even in Willow’s brain, Amity still tries to hide stuff. The hopeful part of her sees this as a date. I mean, Amity thrives in places away from her parents (the library, the Knee, Willow’s brain), and that’s where she tends to have romantic breakthroughs with Luz. Not to mention that she is all over Luz--hugging her, blushing at her, grabbing her hand, throwing herself at her. Amity wants this to be quality time with Luz, away from the rest of the world.

Of course, there’s still a big part of her that is seeing what’s happening with Willow and wants to hide it. She does her best to stop Luz from seeing her memories, getting to the point where Luz literally holds Amity back by the face (which is my favorite Lumity moment). She seems perfectly fine with large parts of Willow’s memory being missing. Even when faced with immediate danger, she needs Luz to literally push her into a memory, because she personally would be okay with burning away in Willow’s mind. 

You can see, throughout it, how often she’s scared. The only times she smiles in this episode is when Luz is doing something to cheer her up.  As for the rest of it, she still thinks Luz is going to punish her.

It worsens at the end. When Amity has to face what she did to Willow, she’s terrified. She literally hides behind Luz, which would be extremely romantic if it weren’t for the fact that Amity was scared, and here on this blog we do not like when Amity is scared. 

Furthermore, she lets Willow say her entire monologue before she refutes it. Amity is so used to punishment that it’s instinctual to let Willow reap her full emotional damage on Amity. And only then does she show that her parents made her do it, and she literally didn’t have another option. She was (mostly) innocent in this, and yet she still sat there and took the punishment. As someone who’s sought punishment for something I was innocent for, I can say that this was a force of habit, combined with some intense gaslighting on her part. 

Then isn’t it so poetic that Luz comforts Amity? I mean, look at this! 

Luz literally says “I’m not here to judge.” Has anyone ever said that to Amity before? As a part of the popular clique, you bet that Amity is subject to constant judgment. When she gets home, she gets even more judgment. Even Edric and Emira are always looking for ways to embarrass her. Amity is constantly shamed and ridiculed and punished for her mistakes. For Luz to offer no judgment, no hard feelings, nothing but kindness and acceptance? It’s enough to make Amity’s walls come crashing down.

Of course, her walls can’t crash down for too long. Sure, Amity gets to keep her tiny hand wrapped around Luz’s when they first pop out of Willow’s brain. But it doesn’t last long. And then Willow wakes up, and Luz goes crazy. Calling her “my girl,” hugging her so hard that Willow will never forget her again.

Meanwhile, look at Amity’s face! She’s devastated! This is the moment when she realizes: it doesn’t matter. Sure, Luz can say nice things. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. Luz doesn’t like her. She could hug Willow like she hugged Amity, with even more vigor than she gave to Amity. That’s because Amity will never be perfect, never be kind, never be enough for Luz.

Or so she thinks, until she waves, and Luz waves at her slyly. And then Willow offers forgiveness, meaning that those two can interact at school. Once again, Luz proves Amity wrong, that she can be forgiven, and she really has nothing to be sorry for, because she’s allowed to make mistakes.