How The Owl House fixes the biggest problems with Romances

Who knew there were so many aroace lumity fans like myself?

Also they intentionally avoided stupid tropes, like when Amity gets Luz's phone and respects her privacy where every other show would have had her peek for fear of "infidelity" which is its own whole thing.

I feel like something a lot of stories miss is that a romance should have a purpose in the story. It should elevate the characters, drive the plot, provide motivation, SOMETHING beyond having romance for romance's sake (hello every shoehorned in romantic subplot). Here, Luz and Amity's relationship strengthens their characters, pushes the plot, connects them to other characters, and serves the bonus purpose of being absolutely frickin adorable.

The kiss scene was smooth like when I was watching I was like "why is it suddenly smooth" and then the kiss happen so that's where the whole season 2 budget went

the fact that Luz even says while she's apologizing that yes she's upset over her dad, but that's also NOT an excuse for what she did. she's explaining herself without making excuses or undermining Amity's feelings. it's so so healthy and I was so glad they included that

As an ace myself, I agree 100%. Any other shows with relationships just feel one sided, forced, & completely separated from the plot itself. & they always gross me out. The Owl House on the other hand, just works so well. Like you said, they have chemistry. It feels natural, & just part of the show, which is great for the LGBT representation. The build up to their relationship & eventually the kiss scene just works so well.

The fact that Mako and Korra didn't take notice of the other's problems(most of the times)was what let to the inevitable downfall of their relashionship. So even if it is not a good relashionship, I believe it still makes sense

I love how when amity finds a comfort place it's at the grom tree they they made 🥲 Very romantic cherry blossom tree ya got there 😏

I love how realistic their relationship is. It's their first and they're both awkward teens, it felt scarily accurate to how my ex and I were when we were dating. Plus them starting off as friends and keeping that friendship going through them being girlfriends is something all writers should take note on. You can't have a good romantic relationship without a good friendship imo

Never have I seen a fictional relationship more realistic than Lumity

I'm asexual aromantic and normally relationships in media feel forced, stilted. There isn't any real emotion behind them. Why do you think fanfiction exists? It's so we can portray these characters with an actual healthy relationship. Lumity does this for us. Amity and Luz actually communicate with each other, they ask for and give consent during serious moments. They don't immediately kiss as soon as they find out they want to date, it's a natural progression where they genuinely just want to be close with one another, they just want to hold hands and be together. It makes their first kiss all the more natural, like something brought out of true love for one another. They have one of the best relationships I've ever seen. This is one of the few romantic subplots that I can actually bear to sit through.

I thing I like about lumity is that it never gets in between the plot and that it usually ends up being able to be placed into the main plot. And also I like how Luz and Amity’s relationship isn’t like their only trait after they got together.

I think breakups should happen in shows tbh. But either way, it should come as a focus to what they have learned from this relationship, together or not. Because literally lack of communication problem is EVERYWHERE.

I write literature, not shows, but I AM saving this in my "for writing" playlist and keeping this in my head for the next romances I write, because poor old me has barely any experience in healthy romantic relationships but I still adore seeing them in fiction.

I think the best relationship to come out of ATLA and I will die on this hill was Sokka and Suki. Literally the best couple dynamic whenever they had screentime together.

As someone who is VERY aroace and SUPER romance repulsed, you just put into words why I enjoy the romance plots in the Owl House anyway, despite every other romance plot in any other show making my skin crawl. Lumity and Raeda are very common relationships seen in fiction (nervous teenage romance vs amicable exes), but this show handles them so incredibly well. Even Huntlow, which I have... mixed opinions about, is handled better than most shows. Lumity is good for all the reasons you just described. It's awkward and sweet and yet really mature, the two of them clearly LOVE spending time with eachother, and they're there for eachother when they need it. I've seen people complain about the lack of tension in their relationship, but I genuinely don't think there needs to be tension, their personal issues and how their relationship interacts with those (Amity's self-worth problems from Eclipse Lake, Luz hiding her feelings behind manic overperformance in Reaching Out) is more than enough. Raeda is such a good example of the exes who are secretly still in love with eachother but don't want to admit it, a trope I usually loathe but is done so well here that I wouldn't have it any other way. Raine and Eda still flirt with eachother, there's romantic tension and clearly they have a lot of stuff they need to talk about, but they have their priorities straight! Their loving looks and sweet conversations are woven seamlessly into the Saving The World plot, to the point where they actually enhance eachother instead of being detrimental to eachother. Their history as childhood friends and how absolutely smitten Raine was with Eda just makes it better - it helps that Them's The Breaks Kid is also a phenomenal episode. With Huntlow it really depends on how they handle it, because so far in the show, it's very obvious that the crush is one-sided. Hunter is very, VERY awkwardly in love with Willow, but considering the whole Having Friends thing is new to him as well, I doubt he knows how to handle that, and Willow has shown no signs of reciprocating. It wouldn't be terrible if they got together, but I honestly hope they don't, and just stay very close friends, both because Willow clearly sees Hunter only as a friend, and because with Hunter's very abusive past, it's important for his character to learn what normal, healthy rejection looks like, and how to cope with it.

As an aroace myself I do agree that I would prefer LESS romance stories, relationships, and subplots in adventure fantasy shows UNLESS they are written as well as this. It is also one of the few examples of a healthy relationship where the characters make mistakes yes but they COMMUNICATE and work through there problems. Noone plays the "my problems are worse than yours" game or "if you REALLY love me you'll be my personal therapist and punching bag" OR the absolutely most ANNOYING trope of "oooo I misheard / read something out of context and now we're immediately broken up even though I had no reason to think my partner would say or do this EVER but DRAAAAAAAMAAAAA so I immediately believe random antagonist who I KNOW is not on our side AND is a lier over my partner" aka dumb brain for plot convince / I'm a bad writer syndrome . The only time they got close to tat was when Amity couldn't understand Luz's fever brain texts and hunter was able to trigger her parents abuse reaction to stress that King almost IMMEDIATELY corrects for her xnd her reaction is "oh duh Luz is too nice to say those thing to me" and there is no stupid getting back together after a misunderstanding arc. sorry for the rant but it is just so nice to see a show NOT fall into unrealistic toxic relationship tropes that some shows try to pass off as normal.

the only reason why toh did get to have their relationship become fleshed out is because of the efforts of the previous shows. she-ra, tlok and steven universe paved the way for sapphic representation for the owl house to be possible. cool stuff btw!!

2:18 I feel like a big exception to this are queer romances, not because the "all build off, no pay off" doesn't apply but simply because there is no other choice. I'm sure a lot of writers would love for their queer romance to be introduced sooner, but companies like Disney and co. would axe them immediently, owl house being the perfect example for this. So they got no other choice but to write it that way.

If The Legend of Korra was created in 2022, I would think the creators would of be able to write an excellent love story progression between Korra and Asami(and cancel the whole Mako mess). Considering it was before gay marriage was legalized, they had to FIGHT Nickelodeon to just include that hand-holding scene at the very end of the series. Thankfully, we got more KorraxAsami scenes in the comics(and hopefully in the Korra movie coming out in 2026!). As for The Owl House, I was a little late to the game and did know about the LGBTQ+ representation before going into it. So seeing Lumity, Willow's two dads, and Raine being non-binary wasn't a surprise. But as you said, Dana wrote in all of it SO WELL. THIS is the type of LGBTQ+ I want to see in children's cartoons(and shows in general). As a 24-year-old lesbian, I would have loved to see this show as a kid. Amity and Luz's chemistry was so strong. It's a shame that Disney cut the third season short(at least we get 3 44 minute episodes).