Evil Luz, alternatively known as the Luzifer AU, is a The Owl House fan comic created by Tumblr user MoringMark (best known for their Star vs. the Forces of Evil webcomics Echo Creek: A Tale of Two Butterflies, Ship War AU, SVTFOE Metaverse and their Owl House comics such as Witches Among Humans).
A human walks the streets of Bonesborough, and her name is Luz Noceda. But this isn't the bright-eyed, fantasy-loving misfit you're all familiar with. This Luz is... evil.
Or at least she wants to be.
Follow Luz Noceda as she vows to take over the Isles, making new friends along the way.
The comic can be found on Mark's Tumblr
, Twitter, and Reddit. Following the comic "Decision", the story splits off into two different paths, each path exclusive to different platforms. Unofficially known as the "friendship" and "betrayal" paths, the former can be found exclusively on Mark's Tumblr and Instagram, while the latter can be found on Reddit and Twitter. It can now be found here on Archive of Our Own after being given Mark's permission, with comics after "Decision" now being uploaded and able to be read side-by-side.
Tropes with their own pages:
Evil Luz provides examples of:
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Tropes prior to "Decision"/present in multiple paths
- Adaptation Species Change: Heavily downplayed regarding several Palismen, as while they're still Palismen, they're different species of animals, typically ones that would be considered more "aggressive".
- The brief look at Owlbert when Eda summons him suggests he's a Great Horned Owl, compared to canon where he most resembled a Burrowing Owl.
- In canon, Stringbean is a Snakeshifter, her most prominent features making her resemble a rattlesnake with a cat's head. Here, initially hinted at with her depiction as a Serpent Staff, Stringbean is a cobra instead. However, she is humorously shown to still have the face of an adorable kitten like her canon counterpart, just with a cobra-esque hood and slightly longer fangs.
- Flapjack has a hooked beak common to predatory birds, unlike his canon counterpart who resembled a herbivorous cardinal.
- Clover is a ladybug instead of a bee.
- Adaptational Badass:
- Kikimora makes quick work of Luz in a one-on-one fight.
- In the "betrayal" storyline, Luz has Viney transplant a bile sac into her body, gaining actual magic and allowing her to fire blasts of energy from her hands. Unfortunately for her, this power came at a price, putting her health in critical condition.
- Vee isn't exactly one that you'd call a "fighter" in canon, mainly using her shapeshifting abilities to keep herself safe, the closest she came to fighting being her trying to drain Belos' magic at the graveyard, and while she proves the most effective, she's quickly forced out of the fight after Belos tries directly attacking her and Amity has to knock her away, leaving her as a spectator since she can't fight directly and would be a liability were Belos to hyperfocus on eliminating her. Here she's shown to be rather threatening with a gun and still has plenty of magic in reserves by the time she and Luz meet, having been able to perfectly morph into Jacob in order to disarm a time bomb through its iris recognition system and later the President of the United States, allowing her and Manny to take over the entire US government.
- Adaptational Curves: Kikimora in canon is tiny, being shorter than even King and looking more like a little kid, one of the reasons she liked riding her Abomatron being that it made her feel tall. Here, the Abomatron is a suit of Power Armor and she is genuinely that tall, as well as absolutely jacked.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Unlike his canon-counterpart, Emperor Belos is an aging hippie who reluctantly took the title of Emperor after he prevented his brother from committing genocide on the Isles. It later turns out that he isn't truly kindhearted as he's later revealed to be working for PETA, leading to Hunter locking Belos out of the Demon Realm and giving Luz the portal door.
- Lilith is more heroic than her canon counterpart initially was, and cursed Eda to stop her from doing evil deeds.
- Adaptational Jerkass:
- While her canon-counterpart was an eccentric Genki Girl, Evil Luz is a Card-Carrying Villain. While she self-identifies as "evil", she's more like an edge-lord teenager out to troll people for her own personal amusement.
- Canon-Eda was a rebel and a "bad girl", while Evil Eda outright identifies as evil. If her curse didn't make being a real villain so difficult, it would be more of a case of Adaptational Villainy.
- Amity enthusiastically supports Luz's desire to become a powerful villain, promising to help her reach her full evil potential and saying that she will cheer her on when she destroys her enemies. What stops this from being Adaptational Villainy is that Amity's idea of "evil" is more along the lines of Poke the Poodle, and "destroying" her enemies being more akin to "styling" on them, with the "Friendship" path seeing her and Luz act more like mischief makers, and the "Betrayal" path having her break up with Luz after she starts acting genuinely evil.
- While canon-Gus is a humanophile, Evil Gus hates humans and vows to find the human walking the halls of Hexside and setting fire to them.
- Evil Willow is a firm believer that anyone who can't do magic should be "taken out of the gene pool". She also despises plants, having a flamethrower at the ready for when she wants to burn a tree down.
- Canon-Vee is a Nice Girl who took Luz's place to live a more peaceful life. Here, she has no qualms about assisting Luz's father with a bank robbery. In fact, she's the one to offer to join in the first place.
- Adaptational Job Change: Lilith is the leader of the Witch Scouts, an actual merit-badges-and-good-deeds Scout troop, rather than the Emperor's Coven.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- Subverted by Amity. She initially appears to be a genuine Nice Girl rather than someone hiding their kindness behind an Academic Alpha Bitch Jerkass Façade. However, she then shows that she's also a yandere already highly in love with Luz and gives her an Implied Death Threat when Luz insinuates she didn't mean to ask Amity out. Then when Luz reveals that she adopted her "bad girl" persona after being picked on, Amity swears to lead her down the path to true evil so she can take revenge on the people who hurt her.
- Taken to the extreme by Hunter, who is so agreeable and nice that he will do literally anything to make anyone happy regardless of consequences, and is incapable of criticizing or arguing with anyone.
- Kikimora in the betrayal path is genuinely devoted to the royal family rather than a Glory Seeker, confronting Luz over their disappearance. Downplayed in the friendship path, where she's a Green-Eyed Monster over Luz taking her position as Hunter's advisor, but is still suggested to be genuinely loyal to Belos and Hunter.
- Adaptational Villainy: Played with. While some characters are more conventionally evil regardless of the path, others have their morality differ between the two paths, blurring the line between this and Adaptational Jerkass.
- While it was implied that Caleb in canon started out as a Witch Hunter before developing a fondness to the Isles, here he intended on destroying the Isles, his brother killing him to prevent said destruction.
- Manny is a professional criminal, and Vee nonchalantly joins in on his heists when she impersonates Luz.
- Raine and the BATs are genuine members of the Bard Coven planning a coup to install Raine on the throne, and openly oppose Luz and Amity due to considering them competition for the throne.
- Luz in the "betrayal" path tries to murder Hunter in cold blood, even after he's already agreed to join and help her. She later casually nearly kills Kikimora with a blast through the heart.
- Adaptational Wimp:
- Evil Luz is useless in magic combat in stark contrast to her canon counterpart. However, she appears to have unlocked the Light and Ice glyphs so far. Later subverted in the "betrayal path" when she not only unlocks all four glyphs, but also develops magic of her own.
- Emperor Belos appears to just be an aging hippie here compared to the Humanoid Abomination his canon self was beneath his human visage. He is supposedly still a master of glyph magic and his artificial staff is briefly seen, but he's never shown actually doing any magic.
- Adapted Out:
- As Eda's curse here is different, there is no sign of the Owl Beast here.
- Hooty has not appeared at all in either path, with shots of the front door for the Owl House showing he isn't inside it.
- Age Lift: Belos is significantly younger than is canon counterpart, being an elderly hippy instead of a British colonist who's been artificially extending his life for centuries.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: This version of Amity develops a crush on Luz because she's a bad girl.
- All-Loving Hero: Deconstructed by Hunter who appears to view everyone as his friend, to the point that he loves Belos and Luz equally. This means he betrays Belos to help Luz, seemingly because she is the one in front of him at that moment, and makes him incapable of arguing with or criticizing anyone, which is a big problem when he becomes Emperor.
- Allohistorical Allusion: Hunter gives Luz a makeover to look less like a "bad girl" so Amity will lose interest in her; making her look like her canon Season 2 design.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- Luz was supposed to go to a military school here instead of a "troubled youth" camp like in canon, with Manny being the one to send her here and Camila being implicitly dead. Manny however is revealed to be a retired career criminal planning on robbing a bank the day before Luz was set to come home, and expressed pride in Luz, actually Vee, being a natural when assisting their heist, making it unclear why Manny sent Luz to a military school. Was he, like Camila in canon, pressured into sending her somewhere to get "help" and didn't actually want her to go? Was it just a cover to get her out of the house in preparation for the heist? Or was he trying to stop Luz from becoming like him, and only expressed pride because, as far as he knew Luz had already become like him?
- Like in canon, Belos' throne room is over a chasm, and the bottom is full of skeletons. However, the bones seen appear to be from animals rather than humans/grimwalkers. What kind of creatures did the skeletons come from? Did Belos kill them or did they get there some other way?
- Ambiguously Human: Despite the drastically different relationship between the Wittebane brothers here, Hunter still exists, but its unclear if he's still a Grimwalker, or if he's biologically human and just a relative of Philip's here, particularly since Philip had an Age Lift making him much closer to a natural humans lifespan and making it more plausible Hunter is a direct blood relative.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When on their "date", Amity asks Luz if her villain persona is just way to protect herself from those who would pick on her when no one else would. Luz, in a moment of vulnerability, admits that is the case.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- When Luz and Amity threaten to kill Hunter in order to prevent the prophecy of him defeating Luz, he ominously says that he has "tricks up [his] sleeve". This is immediately followed by him pleading for mercy.
- Kikimora when introduced initially seems to be riding her Abomatron just like in canon, with only her head visible beneath the "cockpit" and two circles seemingly meant to be the controls. When Luz tells her to ditch the "suit" and fight like a witch, it's shown to actually be a set of Power Armor rather than a Mini-Mecha, Kikimora here being way taller and absolutely swole.
- Bait-and-Switch Silhouette: Belos is initially in the shadows and seems to be the same as his canon counterpart before he leans forward and reveals that he's actually a laid back hippy with what appeared to be horns of his mask turning out to be a pair of twigs wrapped into his bandana.
- Bare-Fisted Monk: Lilith is revealed to be a martial arts master, allowing her to beat up multiple opponents without using magic.
- Becoming the Mask: Luz was initially only dating Amity due to a misunderstanding and being too scared of her being a yandere to correct her. After initially trying to make Amity think she wasn't a "bad girl" but instead a goody two-shoes in the hopes she'd dump Luz, this just results in her admitting her insecurities and true reasoning for being "evil". Rather than the expected result, Amity instead makes Luz see she can be "evil" still, and Amity will be there supporting her every step of the way, resulting in Luz genuinely falling in love with Amity.
- Befriending the Enemy: Luz is as adept at this as her canon counterpart, although this is often by accident rather than the concerted effort that canon Luz put it to make friends with people. Interestingly, although she assembles the same circle of friends, she does so in reverse compared to the series; starting with Hunter and Amity and ending with Gus and Willow.
- Beneath the Mask: Luz may act like a Card-Carrying Villain, but it’s mostly grandstanding that falls apart the minute an actual threat appears before her. Her Dark and Troubled Past makes clear that she was a lot more like canon Luz, but the bullying was bad enough that she chose to emulate "Villainous Lucy" as a defense mechanism so she'd Never Be Hurt Again, Hunter restyling her appearance to look "nicer" while making her look like how she used to digs up painful memories she tries to brush off.
- Big Bad: Played with. Luz wants to become this, wanting to be a Evil Overlord then a Multiversal Conqueror, but in practice her results leave something to be desired. It's only after falling in love with Amity and meeting Hunter that she comes anywhere close to being competent, but the events of the comic "Decision" and the point where it branches off from ultimately determine whether she becomes this. The friendship path sees her subvert this, instead having her become Laughably Evil and, if anything, closer to an Anti-Hero than an "evil villain". The betrayal path however plays this straight, having Luz go off the deep end and become a despotic overlord, intending on razing the multiverse to the ground even if it means killing alternate versions of herself and Amity, ultimately becoming a monster just as bad as Canon!Belos.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Amity. She appears to be a lovesick Nice Girl, but is in fact a yandere; giving Luz an Implied Death Threat when Luz insinuated she didn't mean to ask Amity out on a date, then switching right back to being lovesick when Luz lies and tells her she did mean to. She later reveals that she's as "bad" as Luz, swearing to help her achieve her full evil potential.
- Bland-Name Product: Eda attempts to sell a Swap Lite from her human trash stall.
- Cain and Abel: Philip/Belos and Caleb as per usual, though in this case Philip is the Abel who had to kill his brother to stop him from destroying the Isles. He considers it a bummer.
- Card-Carrying Villain:
- Luz very consciously cultivates this image through her appearance and behavior.
- The Racist Coven actually has that name on a sign outside their headquarters, though they're smart enough to cover it up.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The initial strips play Luz's supposed evilness very much for comedy, largely due to her ineptitude. However, the strip introducing King takes a hard turn into Darker and Edgier. King in this universe is a severed head kept alive by magic, and has existed for decades in a state of perpetual suffering which has driven him insane. This is bad enough, but he also has a prophecy of a dark, winged figure destroying the Isles; which appears to be Luz in a twisted dark reflection of canon-Luz's Titan form, complete with Stringbean as a flaming Serpent Staff.
- The Chosen One: A darker version. To reflect how canon Luz was The Unchosen One who helped save the Boiling Isles because she's a good person, Evil Luz is suggested to be the one destined to destroy the Boiling Isles, King sensing a "great evil" in her while showing a vision of her in a Titan form, Eda later pulling out a portrait of that same form while thinking the "prophecy" might actually be true. A later strip reveals that in fact Hunter is the Chosen One, as he is destined to defeat her.
- Combat Pragmatist: A flashback shows that Belos defeated evil witches using a taser, pepper spray and a gun. In the "friendship" continuity, Luz uses the same "finishing moves" to take out Kikimora, and later uses a grenade on her "betrayal" counterpart.
- The Corrupter: Played with. Luz was about to give up on becoming a villain when she admits she feels ridiculous putting on the act... until Amity convinces her otherwise, Amity voicing her belief that Luz could be a genuinely "evil" Card-Carrying Villain, and pledges to stay by her side and help her do it. Amity's idea of "evil" however is Luz becoming a Laughably Evil "bad girl", and how this turns out is dependent on the path. While the "friendship" path sees this bear fruit with Luz becoming more like an edgier version of her canon self and is treated as a good thing, the "betrayal" path has Amity get more than she bargained for since the type of "evil" Luz wants is much worse and results in her becoming akin to an unholy fusion of Luz and canon Belos.
- Crush Blush:
- Amity is as prone to this around Luz as in the canon series.
- Luz gets one herself when Amity swears that she'll help Luz become a true villain and cheer her on as she destroys her enemies.
- Cutting the Knot: After Luz finally has the excuse she needs to start a rebellion against Belos, she starts internally monologuing about what an epic adventure taking him down will be. Instead, Hunter just closes the portal and traps Belos on Earth.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Despite Luz treating it like a fight to the death and Amity treating it like a mock fight, their Witch's Duel ends the second it begins with the latter encasing the former in abomination goo (with it being clear from Amity's abomination giant and knife that any follow-up attack would have been lethal).
- Dark and Troubled Past: Luz's All of the Other Reindeer status here led her to be bullied more in the Human Realm, culminating in a group of bullies tearing apart her "The Good Witch Azura" book while she was Forced to Watch. She then began emulating the character "Villainous Lucy" to hide her pain, becoming a wannabe Card-Carrying Villain, with it implied that her behavior only resulted in Manny trying to send her to military school.
- Dark Mistress: Amity declares herself this to Luz when she reveals her inner vulnerability and doubts that she'll ever be a real villain.Amity: Nonsense. Don't give up. Evil is not born, but made! The road to wickedness is never an easy one, and I'll walk you through it! Once you get the power you deserve- oh, whoever hurt you will pay, dearly! When you disintegrate your enemies, one after another, I'll be there... cheering for you.
Luz: (Beat Panel) I'm... like, so in love with you right now. - Defeat Means Respect: Raine and the BATs join Luz after she defeats them in a dance-off.
- Devilish Hair Horns: Luz has these, which become gradually more pronounced as the comic goes on. Foreshadowing her destiny as the figure in King's vision.
- Disabled in the Adaptation:
- Both Boscha and Hunter wear glasses, while their canon counterparts both had good eyesight.
- King has been spending his life as nothing but an immobile disembodied head after Eda accidentally blasted him.
- Dirty Coward: Despite making themselves out to be a eugenicist and Anti-Human racist respectively, Evil Willow and Evil Gus are full of nothing but hot air. Despite having Luz dead to rights after finding out she's human, having her tied up begging for her life and all set to douse her in gasoline and burn her to death, neither of them can bring themselves to do it, not because of any sort of guilty conscience or standards, but because they can't follow through with their threats, trying to force each other to do while keeping their own hands clean until they accidentally drench themselves in gasoline too and Gus drops his match, only surviving because the fire burned Luz's ropes off and let her use an Ice Glyph.Willow: Can't believe we made friends with a human!
Luz: Let me go!
Willow: You've fooled us for the last time. Say hello...To Mr. Arson! Say your prayers now! (Beat) You will have the honor, Gus.
Gus: Haha, finally! I get to actually- Take... someone's life. (Beat) You should do it.
Willow: Nuh-uh, I insist.
Gus: She can't even do real magic, don't you hate that?
Willow: But you hate humans more than I do! Stop pushing!
Gus: No, You! - Divergent Character Evolution:
- Once the events of "Decision" occur, the story splits into two separate paths/timelines, with Evil Luz's characterization suitably diverging with it. The contrast in their characterizations is highlighted when they actually meet, as while "Betrayal!Luz" tries to kill "Friendship!Hunter" out of Misplaced Retribution for "Betrayal!Hunter" accidentally killing "Betrayal!Amity", "Friendship!Luz" seems to have no issue with it but ultimately stops her, risking her life to try and save him.
- In the "friendship" path, Luz gains Positive Friend Influence courtesy of Amity and Hunter, the former helping build up her self-confidence and giving her genuine love while the latter helps her achieve power through more benign means, Luz in turn slowly beginning to surround herself with loved ones who have come to accept her. Luz here is less "evil" as a result, and more accurately a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and a "bad girl"/edgier version of her canon self.
- In the "betrayal" path, Luz slowly loses herself further and further in pursuit of her ambitions, attempting and failing to kill Hunter while pushing Amity away, both of which results in her fight with the former resulting in the accidental death of the latter, something she refuses to take any responsibility for in favor of solely blaming and wanting to kill Hunter, all but severing ties with everyone else in favor of becoming a tyrannical despot. Luz here is genuinely evil, being more akin to if Luz acted like canon Belos if anything.
- The Collector's origins highlight the differences between themselves and Canon Luz, specifically due to the events of "Watching and Dreaming". Whereas Luz in canon learned to forgive herself, received encouragement from The Titan, and had her loved ones there to support her, the Luz in this timeline succumbed to the Despair Event Horizon thinking she makes everything worse after being shown a world where Philip failed because she didn't exist, never received that encouragement, and was all alone when facing the Collector, her desperation to be a better person leaving her to accept the Collector's offer and the two merging into one.
- Once the events of "Decision" occur, the story splits into two separate paths/timelines, with Evil Luz's characterization suitably diverging with it. The contrast in their characterizations is highlighted when they actually meet, as while "Betrayal!Luz" tries to kill "Friendship!Hunter" out of Misplaced Retribution for "Betrayal!Hunter" accidentally killing "Betrayal!Amity", "Friendship!Luz" seems to have no issue with it but ultimately stops her, risking her life to try and save him.
- Eviler than Thou:
- Luz is visibly scared of Evil Gus and Evil Willow in their first appearance, as they appear significantly more callous and violent than her. Subverted when they finally are given the chance to go through with it, and not only prove to be nothing but talk, but nearly got themselves killed had Luz not saved them.
- Played straight by "betrayal" Luz to "friendship" Luz, as shown when they meet and initially hit it off, but "friendship" Luz is ultimately unable to go along with her counterpart murdering a helpless Hunter in cold blood.
- Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: Luz, in a sharp contrast to her canon self, has a visible amount of eyeshadow to help cultivate the whole "evil" label.
- Extreme Doormat: Hunter will simply agree with whoever he is speaking to at that moment because he wants to make everybody happy, which unfortunately means he will cheerfully sign off on Luz's worst impulses.
- Fangs Are Evil: Luz's canines are slightly but noticeably larger than her canon counterpart, and when her teeth are bared the line between her top and bottom teeth is jagged rather than straight.
- Fantastic Racism: Evil Gus fantasizes about setting humans on fire and hands out Anti-Human leaflets in his free time, meanwhile Evil Willow is a eugenicist who believes that witches who can't perform magic properly should be killed.
- Foreshadowing: The Collector first shown here has a noticeable change in attire, mainly having the onesie replaced with an outfit is suspiciously similar to the Azura outfit worn by Luz. That is because this Collector is actually a fusion of a Luz and the child Collector.
- Flowers of Femininity: Amity wears a barrette with a pink flower at all times, emphasizing her characterization as a sweet, girly exterior over a villainous core.
- Funny Background Event: When Luz is first reading up on Witch's Duels, Eileen can be seen walking behind her, revealing that in this universe her eye opens up to a mouth full of sharp teeth.
- Future Badass: Luz is by far and away the weakest character in the comic, lacking her canon counterpart's mastery of glyph magic or the wits that made her an Action Survivor in the source material. However, if the figure from King's vision is her, she's destined to become a lot stronger.
- Girliness Upgrade: In the source material, Amity was already more traditionally feminine than Luz, but the comic ramps it up further. Her civilian clothes are more colourful and give her a long skirt rather than a tunic and tights, and makes her earrings heart shaped rather than triangles.
- Gotta Catch Them All: Amity's plan for Luz to achieve ultimate power is for her to steal the nine relics seen briefly in the Season One finale of the show from each of the main covens. Implicit in this is either defeating or recruiting the coven heads.
- Hero of Another Story: The comic's version of Belos is essentially a standard YA fantasy series hero who discovered a magical realm, saved it from destruction and became king.
- High-Pressure Emotion: Luz challenging Amity to a Witch's Duel (which, unbeknownst to Luz, is actually a way of asking someone out) causes jets of steam to shoot out of Amity's ears.
- Hope Spot: In "Run", Betrayal!Darius sets the portal to close and suggests Amity and Lilith follow him, Friendship!Luz and Hunter rushing for the portal too while Betrayal!Luz ordered they be stopped. Once the portal closes, it looks as if they both made it through... only to reveal the comics are once again split into Version-Exclusive Content and that, while Friendship!Luz managed to get through, Hunter didn't, Hunter now stuck in the "Betrayal" reality at Betrayal!Luz's non-mercy and having lost a forearm to the portal, and Friendship Luz still holding onto Hunter's arm and realizing he was left behind.
- Identical Stranger: The Collector already looked a great deal like a younger Luz (and Mark has made a comic about the Collector Luz theory in the past), but this older version of them seems to look nigh identical to Luz. It’s all but said that this Collector is a fusion of a Luz from a third path, one closer to canon, and the Collector that showed her a world where everything was better if she didn’t exist, as said Collector has Luz’s scar and is wearing her Azura costume under their robe.
- Implied Death Threat: After their "duel", Luz tries to set the record straight with Amity that she meant an actual fight rather than the flirting that it means in the present day, but Amity makes it clear to her that her only two options are dating or an early grave.Luz: Okay, a hypothetical question. What if I tell you I meant it as an actual duel?
Amity: [Summoning up an abomination dagger] Then it shall end like one.
Luz: [very nervous] Kidding! Let's date the heck out of each other! - Left the Background Music On: Before Luz and Amity's Witch's Duel, the former asks why she can hear boss music, leading to an Answer Cut of Skara in the stands playing her mandolin.
- Lighter and Softer: Unusually for a Mirror Universe story, the setting of the comic is actually less dark than the canon series, because the Boiling Isles aren't ruled by a fascist dictatorship and the "evil" versions of the show's heroes are far less effective than their canon counterparts. While this remains the case in the "friendship" path, the same isn't true for the "betrayal" path.
- Lipstick Mark: After the "duel", Luz stumbles home exhausted and with this on her face, the result of being subjected to Amity's exuberant affections.
- Mood Whiplash: A meta example. Once the strips post "Decision" began releasing, MoringMark made sure to release one for each path simultaneously, which can lead to this when the two strips are juxtaposed together as a result of the paths having very different tones. This can result in viewing one path having Luz and Amity having a Good-Times Montage as they cause mischief, only for the other path to have Amity dying in Luz's arms shortly after they had just broke up.
- Multiple Endings: "Decision" is different depending on the platform you view it on. Reddit and Twitter have Luz throw Hunter into the pit where he climbs out of the bones. Meanwhile Tumblr and Instagram have Luz decide to ignore the prophecy and befriend Hunter to rule the Boiling Islands together. Subsequent strips on each platform take place in the separate continuities, so the story has now split into two paths. Each path is revealed in "Reality Check" to be it's own parallel universe, and a more physically mature version of the Collector is able to both view and interact with them via their mirrors.
- The Multiverse: Once Luz reveals that her ultimate goal is to become a Multiversal Conqueror, the multiverse slowly begins serving as an element in the story more and more. Initially this was limited to just the events of "Decision" having Multiple Endings, subtly hinting that both paths spawned from that Point of Divergence are their own universes, but it becomes more overt with the introduction of Luz!Collector in the "friendship" path, who is shown communicating with and directing Evil!Hunter in the "betrayal" path, firmly establishing that the two paths are separate yet connected. "Betrayal" path Darius exploits this to try and curry favor with "betrayal" path Luz, opening a portal and showing her "friendship" path Amity with "betrayal" path Luz pulling her through the portal. The comic "The Right Thing" introduces a third timeline which is seemingly closer to canon, and it's all but stated the Collector communicating with the "friendship" and "betrayal" timelines is a fusion of the Collector and Luz from this third universe.
- Mythology Gag:
- Evil Luz's general style, particularly the purple streaks in her hair, make her resemble "Villainous Lucy", a character from The Good Witch Azura in the canon series who was herself designed to look like Luz. This is later shown to be deliberate, as Luz began emulating Lucy after she was bullied and her Azura book was ripped apart by bullies so as to Never Be Hurt Again. In the "betrayal" path, Luz's garb as the new Emperor is almost an exact copy of Lucy's costume.
- For her "duel" with Amity, Luz has a baseball bat with glyphs pasted on it, an item which she was shown holding in the "beta" development art and has become beta!Luz's signature weapon in fan works.
- When Luz details her Multiversal Conqueror goals to Raine, the fallen disco ball behind them shows visions of alternative versions of Luz, including the “beta” and canon versions of Luz, and some of the Luz versions seen in the funhouse mirrors in “Really Small Problems” in canon.
- In the "betrayal" storyline, Luz gets a bile sac surgically implanted in her chest to give herself magic. This is shown to cause her great pain and she is warned ahead of time is very dangerous. In Moringmark's comics centered around Luz and Amity's half-human daughter Ayzee, it's revealed she needed to have her bile sac surgically removed because magic bile is incompatible with human biology and it could have potentially killed her as she grew up.
- Willow's palisman takes the form of a ladybug, which was canon Willow's fear in "Enchanting Grom Fright".
- Nerd Glasses: Hunter and Boscha each have them, emphasizing their differences from their more athletic and physically oriented canon counterparts. Hunter ditching them in the "betrayal" path both highlights how he's changed after Luz attempted to kill him and tried invoking an Adrenaline Makeover, but also did not think through his attempt at revenge which results in him accidentally killing Amity.
- Newhart Phonecall: Subverted. Both paths would end up releasing comics seemingly depicting a character having a conversation with someone, but only hearing that character's side of it. The two comics however, when put together, depict both sides of the conversation between "betrayal" path Hunter and Luz!Collector, doubling as a means of firmly establishing The Multiverse is in effect.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Eda is cursed so that any attempt at villainy will have a positive outcome. Literally steal candy from a baby? The child's mother gasps... because she hadn't realized her husband had given the child candy, and thanks Eda for removing the choking hazard. Kick an old lady in the back unprovoked? Her back problems of 30 years are completely fixed. Flat-out commit arson in broad daylight with witnesses all around? The building turns out to have secretly been the headquarters of the "Racist Coven", and Eda is cheered as a hero.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Sometime between "Hi Sorry, I'm...Dad?" and "Stronghold", Vee and Manny infiltrated the US Government and put themselves in power thanks to the former masquerading as the president.
- Oracular Head: King, as a result of Eda mistaking him for a goblin and blasting him many years ago; is a severed head mounted on the wall of the Owl House, still alive in a state of perpetual agony which has made him more than a little crazy. He has a nightmarish vision of a winged figure raining destruction on the Isles, which appears to be Luz.
- Plague of Good Fortune: Evil Eda is every bit the criminal canon-Eda aspires to be and no morals to offset them. Unfortunately for her, Evil Eda's curse makes it so that her bad intentions are twisted into good deeds. She steals candy from a baby, only for the mom to thank her for saving it from a choking hazard. She kicks an old lady, only to crack her back into place. She blow up a building, only to accidentally uncover the Racist Coven's headquarters.
- Point of Divergence:
- The main point that resulted in Luz becoming who she is here compared to canon is that, when she was younger, she was bullied by her classmates who ripped apart her "The Good Witch Azura" book, and while picking up the pages was inspired to emulate Villainous Lucy rather than Azura so as to Never Be Hurt Again.
- The comic "Decision" is a divergence point regarding how Luz and Amity react to the prophecy Hunter tells them about, particularly regarding how Luz is characterized and how her relationship with Amity progresses. While the immediate comics after it have similar setups of Kikimora confronting Luz and subjecting her to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, only to schedule a rematch a week later with Amity trying to help Luz, the specifics are different depending on the platform it was posted on, setting into motion two different paths. Becomes more literal with The Reveal that each path is it's own universe, making Luz's decision the spawning point for two parallel realities.
- The version posted on Twitter / X and Reddit sees Luz betray and attempt to kill Hunter, Amity being genuinely unnerved by what Luz did as Luz fully embraces being a genuine villain. Kikimora then confronts Luz over Belos and Hunter's disappearances while swearing to avenge them, and Luz lies by claiming both Hunter and Belos are in the Human Realm while invoking Can't Kill You, Still Need You, Kikimora giving her a week to bring them back, with Amity trying to talk Luz out of facing her and Luz emotionally closing off from her, Amity now uncertain over whether this is really what she wanted. When the week ends, Luz arrives with Eda accompanying her while Amity has come with the Coven Heads, Luz admitting she lied and that she "disposed" of Belos and Hunter like trash, the two doing battle with Kikimora easily overpowering Luz's glyphs... until Luz suddenly creates a spell circle while clutching her chest, then blasts Kikimora through the chest with an energy beam, downing her and intimidating the Coven Heads into submitting, Eda taking Luz to rest as Amity shoots Luz a Death Glare.
- The version posted on Tumblr and Instagram sees Luz decide to Screw Destiny and genuinely befriend Hunter, the two and Amity now set to rule the Boiling Isles in defiance of the prophecy. Kikimora then confronts Luz due to being a Green-Eyed Monster since Luz is now publicly Hunter's advisor and thinking she deserves that position, but Luz manages to convince Kikimora her win won't matter unless Hunter sees it directly, Kikimora giving her a week to prepare before their rematch, Amity confiding in Luz how she doesn't want to lose her while Luz is touched over someone caring about her that much, the two sharing their First Kiss as a result. After the week passes, Luz arrives with Eda and Amity, Hunter and Lilith officiating their rematch with the Coven Heads in attendance... only for Luz to easily drop Kikimora using a taser, pepper spray, and a gun.
- Poke the Poodle:
- Luz in this version is a Card-Carrying Villain who goes out of her way to be a bad guy. In practice however, she isn't very good at being one, committing petty crimes like littering, trying to pull open a push-door, having food and drink where it isn't allowed, etc.
Amity: She's pretty bad, huh?
Boscha: Yeah, bad at being bad.- Amity claims that she committed her first crime at twelve. It turns out this was reading a YA romance novel marked for ages thirteen and up.
- Prophecy Twist: Implied. Initially, there appears to be a prophecy of a Titan-like Luz, wielding Stringbean as a Serpent Staff, acting as a destroyer of the Boiling Isles, an idea supported by her making a "contract" with King's severed head and another prophecy having Hunter depicted as the hero who stops Luz. After the story gains Multiple Endings however and the Luz of the friendship path convinces Hunter to Screw Destiny, circumstances begins occurring that suggest the Titan-like Luz wasn't a "destroyer", but a "hero", namely the fact that it's betrayal Luz who is the threat to the multiverse yet doesn't have Stringbean, while friendship Luz gets Stringbean and acts more like an Anti-Hero, suggesting the prophecy was depicting friendship Luz as a half-Titan acting to protect her Boiling Isles.
- Quirky Hawaiian Shirt Wearer: Hunter's civilian attire is a Hawaiian shirt and suspenders to indicate his more loose and relaxed attitude compared to his PTSD-riddled canon counterpart.
- Recurring Element: A recurring factor for many of the characters that outright proclaim themselves as "evil" are for the most part all bark and no bite, their "evilness" either being more akin to Poke the Poodle and/or being unable to follow through with actually evil deeds. Luz initially acted evil so she'd Never Be Hurt Again and this largely amounted to petty antics until she starts Slowly Slipping Into Evil in the "betrayal" path; Gus and Willow claimed to hate everything Luz is and were in the perfect position to kill her but became dirty cowards trying to push it on to the other before nearly getting themselves killed; Raine and the BATs talk a big game about conquering the Isles but are a group of harmless villains that Luz and Amity easily beat in a Dance-Off; Amity falls in love with Luz because she's "evil" and her idea of "evil" was reading a book from the Young Adult section when she was too young yet she is unnerved by Luz backstabbing and seemingly killing Hunter.
- Reluctant Ruler: Due to his hippie roots, Belos actually dislikes authority figures and only became emperor because of insistence from the populace.
- Repurposed Pop Song: When Belos rose to power, he made "YMCA" by Village People the Boiling Isles' national anthem.
- Rewatch Bonus: The two versions of the comic "Decision" have an interesting detail regarding Luz's eyes on reread. In both endings, Luz's pupils shrink and take on a slit appearance, but whereas the ending where she betrays Hunter and tries to kill him has them remain like so, the ending where she says Screw Destiny and offers to rule with Hunter instead of listening to the prophecy has her eyes return to normal. Both cases act as Windows of the Soul as well as the possibility of something else influencing her, as the former highlights how Luz is truly becoming evil to an extent even Amity is disturbed by, while the latter highlights that despite her desire to be "evil" Luz is still a kind person at her core. This is highlighted further with the "betrayal" timeline's "Duel", where Luz's eyes would return to normal... after Amity is fatally shot and Luz focuses more on her rather than chasing after Hunter, reflecting her true caring nature reasserting itself at that moment rather than her quest to be "evil". They later briefly return to normal in "Before the Storm" where her villainous facade once again wavers when she's trying to convince herself she's looking forward to the other world's destruction despite having people like her world's in it.
- Role Swap AU:
- This version of Boscha holds a mild resemblance to canon-Willow, being a bespectacled, bookish straight-woman to her friend's eccentricities. Meanwhile Willow is a bully who calls weaker kids "half-a-witch" just like canon Boscha.
- The "Betrayal Path" goes full throttle in having the conflict effectively having everyone's moralities swapped. Luz is the evil overlord akin to Belos with Raine acting as her Kikimora, Eda as her Lilith, and hallucinating Amity like Belos did with Caleb. Tibbles is leading the rebellion like Darius, with Terra and Adrian Graye acting as Raine and Eberwolf, and the Hunter's of both paths as their Luz.
- Running Gag: Characters quickly defeating their opponents with human weapons like guns.
- Scout-Out: The Witch Scouts, the counterpart to the Coven Scouts, are a literal children's scout troop in this universe, with Lilith as the troop leader.
- Shout-Out: When the two Luzes finally meet, Friendship!Hunter compares it to the Spider-Man pointing meme.
- Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Luz's evil Titan form amps up the bone accents of the canon character to show her clad in armor made of Titan bones.
- Source Music: Luz comments on hearing "boss music" during her duel with Amity, which turns out to be Skara strumming on her mandolin while watching the fight with Boscha and Amelia.
- Spared by the Adaptation: During her duel with Amity, Luz makes a passing comment revealing that this version of Manny is still alive. He is later shown living in the Noceda house and appears to be Luz's sole parent, suggesting that Camila is dead.
- Special Effects Failure: Invoked. During Luz's fight with Kikimora, which mostly involved Luz getting beaten and thrown around, she is drawn to look and flail around like an unconvincing dummy.
- Start of Darkness: It turns out that Evil Luz became the way she is when she was bullied for her interest in Good Witch Azura. After the bullies tore out one of the pages, the following page showed Villainous Lucy, whom it appears Luz decided to model herself after.
- Stopped Reading Too Soon: When Luz learns about witch's duels and their gruesome history, she is quick to challenge Amity to one. It's not until Amity is positively giddy at the thought and word spread around does Luz find out that not only were witch's duels outlawed, but it has since become a euphemism for a love confession, Luz having unknowingly asked Amity to be her girlfriend.
- Stylistic Suck: When Kikimora is giving Luz a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, the moment she grabs Luz it very clearly becomes a mannequin in Luz's clothes, Kikimora throwing "her" around before slamming "her" into the ground. It's only then that the real Luz is shown again, made to look as if she had been the one being beat up.
- Take That!: The fact that Belos works at PETA is considered enough evidence by evil Luz to declare him the most evil person on the Boiling Isles.
- This Cannot Be!: Played for Laughs when Raine and the BATs react with disbelief when Luz and Amity manage to perfectly synchronize and beat them in a Dance-Off, Raine having been confident they'd would beat the two since it was "[Their] jam" and the national anthem of the Boiling Isles since Belos came to power... "YMCA" by the Village People. The four of them act as if Luz and Amity just blasted them with a powerful spell.
- Version-Exclusive Content: As of "Decision," the plot drastically varies depending on whether the comic is viewed on Twitter/Reddit or Tumblr/Instagram where Luz attempts to kill Hunter in the former and chooses to Screw Destiny in the latter. It's later revealed that both versions are part of the same story in "Reality Check," each plotline being an Alternate Timeline to each other. The comics are briefly fully synced when Betrayal!Luz drags Friendship!Amity into her timeline through a portal provided by Betrayal!Darius and Friendship!Luz follows her inside before desyncing again once the portal is closed. From there, the comics resynchronize whenever the plot involves communication across both worlds.
- Villain of Another Story: The Manny of this universe appears to be the Anti-Hero lead of a heist movie, complete with wanting to pull One Last Job and having a Morality Pet teenaged daughter he's trying to go straight for.
- Villain Protagonist: On paper anyways. Luz self identifies as evil, but as Boscha puts it she's "bad at being bad".
- We Can Rule Together: "Decision" sees Luz offers this to Hunter when she learns the full prophecy, Hunter accepting it. Luz's response however serves as the Point of Divergence that creates the "friendship" and "betrayal" paths: the former stems from Luz being genuine in her offer and the two and Amity leaving together as friends; the latter stems from Luz baiting Hunter and attempting to kill him immediately after, making clear Luz is much more ruthless, serving as the first fracture in Luz and Amity's relationship, and pushing the still alive Hunter to seek revenge.
- Weird Trade Union: The Coven system from the source material also exists here, including the academic tracks with color-coded uniforms at Hexside. However, it's unknown if it's mandatory as in the series, and given Belos' Adaptational Heroism it likely isn't a cover for genocide. Most notably we haven't seen anyone with a sigil tattoo yet, so the covens appear to just be professional associations in this world, rather than state-enforced segregations and limitations on magic.
- Yandere: Amity. She may seem like a lovesick schoolgirl on the surface and was more than happy to accept Luz's "duel", the second Luz suggests she didn't mean to ask Amity out, Amity gives Luz an Implied Death Threat by saying their "duel" will end the way an actual duel would, making clear she will not tolerate her feelings being toyed with even accidentally. Luz, being hopelessly outmatched and already restrained, fearfully says she did intend to ask Amity out, Amity immediately switching back to being lovesick. Amity's more violent aspects later switch to being directed at the people who hurt Luz after learning about Luz's insecurities, continuing to love Luz despite learning the "evil" image she cultivated was fake, and pledging to help Luz become truly evil.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The spirit is there but the words are inverted. When Luz tries to get Amity to break up with her by acting all goody two-shoes, prompting Amity to demand an explanation, Luz fesses up to the fact that the evil girl persona was just a put-on meant to scare away her bullies and protect herself from being hurt, and she never was, and will never be actual evil girl material... Cue Amity encouraging Luz to never give up, because people aren't born evil, they are made evil, and Amity will stand by Luz's side, cheering her on, all the way until she's bad and powerful enough to disintegrate her bullies.
Tropes exclusive to the "Friendship" path
- Adaptational Heroism: In comparison to their initial depictions and the "Betrayal" path. The characters in this path are less "evil" and more just jerks, fitting with the path being overall Lighter and Softer than the "Betrayal" path. This is most pronounced with Luz, who is treated as Laughably Evil but with a good heart at her core, and her and Amity's "villainy" treated more like they're a pair of mischief makers than actually "evil".
- Adaptational Superpower Change: In the source material, Hunter had no magic for much of the show's run until the finale where he gained the ability to Flash Step after absorbing Flapjack. In the comic, "friendship" Hunter has gained an artificial hand which can fire powerful blasts of magic, likely received from the Collector.
- Anti-Climax: Luz's second fight with Kikimora is an abrupt one that is Played for Laughs. Right as Kikimora tries intimidating Luz into surrendering, she holds her hand out and Eda passes her a taser, which she uses to drop Kikimora instantly as the other Coven Heads, sans Raine and Darius, watch on in bafflement. When Kikimora gets up refusing to lose so easily, Luz then pulls out pepper spray and a gun, using the latter to easily kneecap Kikimora.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Luz is given her Palisman egg and hatches it by (begrudgingly) admitting that all she ever wanted was to have people believe in her, it seems like she at least got a decently monstrous looking snake for her trouble, only to be disappointed when it practically squees upon seeing her.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Lilith may lead a Scout-Out group and seem like a goody too shoes scout girl, but she is still head of the Emperor's Coven equivalent here. When Betrayal!Luz orders her, Amity, and Friendship!Luz seized, she immediately proves her skill in boxing, karate, and nut cracking on Betrayal!Luz's guards.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Luz refuses to go through with killing Hunter, a shot of the pit below appears showing what looks to be the Collector's mirror, seemingly meant to highlight how it was left behind in this path since Luz didn't try to kill Hunter. It becomes more relevant however with the introduction of the Collector proper, the mirror shown to be one of several allowing this version of the Collector to communicate with multiple realities, and in turn establish the link between the two paths as them being parallel realities.
- Combat Pragmatist: Luz realizes that, while she may be weak when it comes to using magic, she can always fight smarter rather than harder. As such, she begins to use a variety of Human Realm weaponry to catch her enemies off guard, using a taser, pepper spray, and a gun to beat Kikimora since she'd be outmatched otherwise. She likewise opts to just pull out a grenade when facing Betrayal!Luz since that version of herself has actual magic, Betrayal!Luz clearly baffled to see another version of herself just pull a grenade out.
- Dramatic Irony: The "Friendship" version of "Bodyguard" has Luz and the others assume that Hunter was caught in the other world after the connection through Hunter's hand was unexpectedly cut off. Unbeknownst to them, their Hunter was receiving help from the Collector.
- Everyone Has Standards: Luz seems rather exasperated when she finds out that her father had been committing several federal crimes in her absence and had to use Vee transforming into the president to pardon said crimes.
- Face of a Thug: Stringbean looks like a cobra in this AU, and while initially scary, she quickly proves to be just as sweet as in canon.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: After escaping from the "betrayal" timeline and discovering that Hunter's arm became the new bridge through the worlds, Betrayal!Darius tells Friendship!Luz that she can either keep the hand safe or destroy it to avoid the chance of suffering from an invasion from Betrayal!Luz. Luz tries to go with the latter, but Willow aggressively denies her this option and instead opts to use the arm portal to break their Hunter out of prison.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: At her core, Luz ultimately still wants to be accepted, and her "evil" facade was her means to Never Be Hurt Again. It's because of this she actually falls in love with Amity, as Amity is able to see Luz is better than she thinks and wants to help her be her best self, with Luz making dozens of connections and finding herself genuinely happy now. This is likewise reflected in how Luz gets Stringbean's egg to hatch, as her desire that Stringbean responds to is that she wanted people to believe in her like Amity now does.
- Knight of Cerebus: Initially, this path seems to be Lighter and Softer than the darker "betrayal" path, with Luz finding people that love her and becoming genuinely happy. Things become more serious with the introduction of the Collector, who is not only aware of the multiverse at large, but is the one who has been helping Hunter in the "betrayal" path. Fittingly, the immediate follow-up sees Amity being abducted into a portal that spontaneously opens in the throne room... by "betrayal" path Luz, who had been shown her by that path's Darius implicitly to offer her as a Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest.
- Morphic Resonance: Stringbean perfectly encapsulates friendship Luz's true character once she hatches, as despite having an initially intimidating visage as a cobra, she's still the same lovable power noodle as in canon, reflective of how this Luz, while more a Jerk with a Heart of Gold wanting to be a Laughably Evil villain, is still the same kind person at her core.
- Portal Cut: Friendship-path Hunter runs afoul of this as Betrayal-path Luz blasts the portal just as Friendship Luz drags him through it during their escape. Only his hand goes through, the rest of him stays behind in the Betrayal timeline. The next comic reveals that Hunter doesn't actually lose his hand though, rather that he accidentally created a permanent gateway between the two worlds through the part of his arm the portal closed on.
- Sadistic Choice: Luz is faced with this at the hands of Betrayal!Darius after Hunter is left behind in the Betrayal universe. She can either hold onto Hunter's arm in the hopes of getting him back but allow her Betrayal self the ability to act as a Multiversal Conqueror and declare war on the Friendship universe, or she can destroy Hunter's arm and sever the connection between the two worlds but condemn Hunter to death at Betrayal!Luz's hands. She ultimately decides to go with the latter, getting Gus to grab Willow's flamethrower so they can torch Hunter's hand, only to be stopped by Willow herself, having grown attached to Hunter and discovering they can communicate with him via his hand, and she can even stick her own hand through it to give Hunter access to her muscular hand.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When the connection between Hunter and his hand is unexpectedly stunted, Luz decides to go to the human realm to acquire more military-grade weaponry after Willow once again denies her the option to destroy the hand. Needless to say, Luz is quickly hit by reality when the cops show up to arrest her. Luckily for her, by then Manny and Vee had taken over the US government by having the latter masquerade as the president, subverting the trope and giving Luz easy access to the military.
- What If?: Hunter made it farther through the portal so that he was cut in half at the waist? It's not exactly a pretty sight.
Tropes exclusive to the "Betrayal" path
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: The leader of the resistance against Luz is the most unlikely of individuals, especially since their main timeline counterpart was such a vile scumbag and treated more like a joke: Tibbles, going by "Sir Tibbles" here, and having a more humanoid and physically attractive appearance while serving as a charismatic leader.
- Ambiguous Situation: "Before the Storm" shows Luz talking to a long deceased Amity, who tries to talk Luz out of invading the other world as it was both too risky and amoral. Whether this is Amity's ghost or a version of her created from Luz's conscience is unclear.
- Ascended Extra: Darius has a more proactive role in the "betrayal" path thanks to him remaining Hunter's sole confidant after Luz attempted to kill him.
- Back-Alley Doctor: Viney performs illegal surgery with a chainsaw and no anesthetic to implant a bile sac in Luz.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Amity begins growing doubtful over whether Luz becoming "evil" is what she truly wants, particularly after she starts shutting Amity out too. This reaches an apex when Amity learns Luz had a bile sac surgically implanted into her for her fight with Kikimora despite the risk of the procedure being fatal, followed by Luz dismissing Amity's concerns and saying she deliberately didn't tell Amity cause she knew she'd get all "fussy". This drives Amity to ultimately break-up with Luz, Luz trying to throw it back at Amity how she wanted Luz to be bad, but Amity can only tearfully say she never wanted Luz to be bad to her.
- Big Damn Heroes: In "Bodyguard," Friendship!Hunter rescues Betrayal!Hunter and the resistance from the coven scouts with a brand new magic hand gifted to him by the Collector.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: Played with. When Hunter returns armed with a pistol augmented with Abomination magic, he suggests he and Luz have a "human-style" duel, only to then try to shoot Luz in the middle of discussing it while she's distracted, seemingly subverting it... only to miss and fatally wound Amity due to not wearing his glasses.
- Classical Anti-Hero: Hunter is technically a good guy in that he is trying to stop Luz's plans to conquer the Multiverse, but he's hardly an ideal hero as he's willing to shoot Luz without warning and is working for the Collector. He has pretensions of being a badass Unscrupulous Hero; with a new cocky attitude, gun and Cool Mask. However, this is quickly shown to be an act and he's still the same Endearingly Dorky kid he was before, but now also deeply hurt and angry. This in turn causes him to make shortsighted and rather stupid decisions with lasting consequences, namely discarding his glasses to look cooler, but his poor vision resulting in him killing Amity and later crashing headfirst into a tree while fleeing, the former earning him Luz's hatred and the latter resulting in him losing the Collector's mirror.
- Create Your Own Hero: When Luz discovers that Hunter is predestined to defeat her, she throws him into the chasm under Belos' throne to kill him. He survived and is now out for revenge when previously he seemed willing to join her.
- Darker and Edgier: The "betrayal" path manages to be this for both canon and the "friendship" path, chronicling Luz's descent into genuine evil as she proves herself ruthless to her enemies while alienating Amity from her. This is epitomized by the strips "What Now?" and "Duel", the former seeing Amity break up with Luz over her behavior, and the latter seeing Amity die after being caught in the crossfire of Hunter wanting revenge on Luz for trying to kill him.
- Deadly Upgrade: Downplayed. In order to face Kikimora, Luz has Viney surgically implant a bile sac into her chest, Viney stating the procedure has only a fifty-fifty chance of succeeding. While this gives Luz access to magic, she's left in chronic pain from using it, and repeatedly clutches at her chest due to bile sacs being incompatible with human hearts. So while it won't kill her yet, continuous usage of it is putting a strain on her heart.
- Death by Adaptation: Amity is accidentally fatally shot by Hunter, dying in Luz's arms.
- Demoted to Extra: With the exception of Luz, Amity, Hunter, and Kikimora, most of the cast from before the split and the "friendship" path take a backseat here, the closest exception being Eda due to her helping Luz fight Kikimora and Raine intervening to fight the "friendship" path characters.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: A darker version regarding Luz's feelings toward Friendship!Hunter following her Amity's death. Despite this not being the same Hunter she holds as the sole responsible party in Amity's death, Betrayal!Luz attempts to execute Friendship!Hunter in cold blood, dismissing his declarations of innocence as something he would still do were she not about to kill him.
- Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: Invoked and exploited by Darius. After Amity's accidental death, Darius appears before Luz, who immediately has the guards hold him at spear point and all but asks him to give her a reason not to kill him then and there. Darius proceeds to unveil his latest piece of technology: an interdimensional portal that opens... right behind the "friendship" path Amity. Despite this being a different Amity than the one she knows, Luz immediately pulls her through the portal with Plant magic, Darius having counted on Luz's love and grief for Amity superseding reason. When she's later hallucinating her Amity trying to talk her out of going through with her plans and saying the two paths are "exactly the same", she openly declares she has no issue taking over the "friendship" path because that world has an Amity still, and Luz is looking forward to "Amity" cheering her on as she triumphs over her enemies, it all but said she wants to make friendship Amity into a replacement for the Amity she lost.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Amity is legitimately shocked when Luz throws Hunter into the chasm seemingly to his death, and calls out to Luz in concern over the seeming nonchalance at her behavior.
- Hunter wants to kill Luz after she betrayed him and threw him into the chasm. That said, he is horrified when he misses his aim in a duel and accidentally fatally wounds Amity.
- Upon realizing the other Luz and Amity are alternate universe counterparts of herself and her deceased girlfriend, Betrayal!Luz lets the other Luz have her Amity back, respecting that the other Amity isn't the same as her own. She unfortunately does not give the same amount of respect to the Friendship!Hunter.
- Evil Overlord: Luz in this path has become everything she claimed she wanted to be, deposing Belos and taking the throne for herself, ruling the Boiling Isles with an iron fist while instituting a draft forcing the inhabitants to enlist in the military with no exceptions, and is preparing to become a Multiversal Conqueror just as she told Raine. The price of becoming this however was betraying Hunter even after he had offered to work with her leading him to return for revenge and accidentally killing Amity, hardening Luz's heart to the point what little compassion she had left is now dead and buried.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: Once Luz comes to power and breaks off any connections she had, Gus and Willow end up joining the resistance against her led by Sir Tibbles, even bringing the injured Hunter back to the resistance. There's nothing to indicate they've changed as people however, especially when the strip reintroducing them to the story, "Meet the Resistance", has Willow burning down a tree with a flamethrower while Gus roasts marshmallows.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: While she had been ruthless beforehand, Luz still had hints of some humanity remaining in her even after betraying Hunter. After her Amity's death however, Luz goes off the deep end, becoming a despotic Evil Overlord like she always talked about, and, upon gaining access to The Multiverse after Darius brings the Friendship universe's Luz, Amity, Hunter, and Lilith over, attempts to kill Friendship!Hunter just for the crime of being an alternate version of Hunter, before turning her forces on Friendship!Luz when she understandably wants no part in Betrayal!Luz's madness. She then decides to make good on her declaration to Raine of being a Multiversal Conqueror by declaring war on the Friendship universe, only keeping Friendship!Hunter alive as a prisoner to use as a portal into the Friendship universe, making clear she will raze the entire multiverse now that she has the power to do so, and establishing her as a monster on par with Canon!Belos.
- Laughing Mad: In "Stronghold," Friendship!Hunter does this after explaining the revelation given by the Collector that their universe is just a playground for higher beings and that there's no way out for them, disturbing Betrayal!Hunter who dismissed it as a metaphor. It's not exactly clear if Friendship!Hunter was laughing because the Collector corrupted him or if he simply Gone Mad from the Revelation.
- Loving a Shadow: Played with regarding Amity's feelings for Luz here. In contrast to canon having Amity initially annoyed by Luz until she got to know her properly and fell in love with her, Amity here fell in love with Luz thinking she was a "bad girl", seeing Luz's Poke the Poodle moments as just like her own acts of "evil" like when she read a book rated too old for her when she was younger. When Luz reveals her insecurities to Amity in the hopes Amity would dump her, Amity makes clear she does love Luz and wants to help her become the "evil person" she knows Luz can be... but its clear the person Amity thinks Luz can be is not who Luz wants to be. Amity wants Luz to be genuinely Laughably Evil, someone who acts like a Card-Carrying Villain and is overall "extra" but whose acts of "evil" aren't actually extreme or the like. Luz however wants to be a genuinely evil Multiversal Conqueror, Luz even willing to murder Hunter to make sure they don't get in her way, something Amity is actually disturbed by since Hunter had already agreed to work with her rather than follow the prophecy. This eventually results in Amity seeing Luz beginning to become a bastard girlfriend to her, and leads to Amity breaking up with her shortly before her death.
- Meaningful Background Event: In "Duel", when Hunter fires at Luz and misses, while Luz is gloating about Hunter's poor aim, the background of the panels depicts Amity grasping at her chest in pain, subtly revealing to the readers that Amity got shot by accident before its explicitly stated.
- Never My Fault: Whereas canon Luz suffered from a Guilt Complex and blamed herself for things beyond her control, "betrayal" Luz is unable to admit fault when her own actions come back to bite her in the ass, either deflecting blame onto the accuser or trying to downplay the severity of the issue. This becomes especially prevalent when Amity confronts her, understandably upset Luz had a Bile Sac surgically implanted in her without talking to Amity first, Luz trying to dismiss Amity's concerns and saying she deliberately kept Amity in the dark since she knew Amity would get "fussy" over it. Even when Amity is bleeding out from getting shot and her last words to Luz are saying Luz should have been more honest with her, Luz still tries downplaying the issue by saying she just didn't want Amity worrying and making it out to be Amity overreacting, unfortunately becoming her last words to the now dead Amity. This, if anything, just makes Luz double down on this behavior, choosing to blame Hunter solely for Amity's death rather than acknowledge that it was her betrayal of him being what caused him to attack, and that he was specifically aiming for Luz and Amity getting hit was an accident, making Amity's death partly Luz's fault too.
- Not a Game: While Amity did pledge to help Luz become a genuinely "evil" person, her idea of "evil" was more akin to Luz's original Poke the Poodle behavior, with her and Luz's antics being more along the lines of the two spending time together building Luz's self-confidence up and defeating others who risk getting in Luz's way of taking over the Isles, all while admiring how Laughably Evil she acted like when recruiting Raine and the BATs. This begins to change in the Reddit and Twitter version of "Decision", where Luz betrays Hunter after already saying they'd work together and seemingly pushing him to his death, Amity looking genuinely disturbed at what Luz had just done and only able to call after her as Luz nonchalantly leaves, it becoming clear that whatever idea Amity had for making Luz "evil", it's not what Luz herself is aiming for, Luz wants to be genuinely "evil" rather than a "bad girl" like Amity thought, and that means being "evil" to everyone, including Amity, something Amity can't support and results in their breakup and her subsequent death.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: During the battle against the "friendship" timeline versions of Luz, Amity, and Lilith (who are currently winning) over the fate of the "friendship" version of Hunter, Raine arrives as backup, freezing Darius and the other Luz and Hunter in place, causing the former to drop the gun he was using in an attempt to assassinate Luz. Amity has to incapacitate Raine with abomination magic to give everyone a chance to escape.
- Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Subverted. Hunter's Nerd Glasses briefly seem to be aesthetic when he returns not wearing them yet seemingly able to see fine. They are absolutely necessary though for him to properly see, as proven when he tries to shoot Luz and misses due to lacking his glasses... only to hit Amity instead.
- Sanity Slippage: "Before the Storm" makes clear that Luz isn't in her right mind anymore. She's begun to hallucinate her Amity talking to her with Luz talking back. And while the hallucination of Amity tries acting as Luz's conscience and attempts talking her out of not just attacking the rebels but the multiversal conquest in general, even attempting to be pragmatic by pointing out she doesn't have the man power to attack the rebels, she lashes out. When Raine comes in, Luz doubles down on her course of action and orders them to send everyone against the rebels.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: In "Run", once it becomes clear that his plan to try and deal with Luz isn't working out, Darius decides to bolt, remotely shutting down the multiversal portal he'd opened and running into it as it was closing, taking refuge in the "Friendship" path reality.
- Tragic Keepsake: After Amity's death, Luz is shown wearing her earrings.
- Tsundere: Willow to both versions of Hunter. On the surface, tells him to shut up about his feelings because she doesn't care. Inside, constantly restraining herself from blushing or twirling her hair so he won't know she secretly likes him.
Tropes exclusive to the third path (Major Unmarked Spoilers)
- Adaptation Deviation: Unlike the other two paths, this path appears to be derived from canon rather than the "Evil Luz" AU, with events proceeding as they did up to the events of "Watching and Dreaming", where the Collector breaks Luz and convinces her to perform a Fusion Dance with them.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: The version of Luz that would go on to become the Collector is one who never moved past their self loathing. While they presumably still got reassurances from the Hexsquad and Camila like in canon, this version never had her talk with The Titan where he told her how great she is, and instead was shown a reality where everything was better because she didn't exist, then had her hopes of being better crushed. This, combined with the already traumatic Nightmare Sequence she suffered in canon, causes her to cross the Despair Event Horizon.
- Ambiguous Gender Identity: The "Collector" born from Luz and the Collector merging may possess Luz's body, but it's unclear if they identify as female like Luz or don't particularly identify using gender like the Collector.
- Adaptational Intelligence: In canon, the Collector possessed the mindset of a naive child, lacking understanding of the concept of mortality and assuming that they can simply "fix" people like they can with their toys. Here, they at least understand enough to know that Luz played a part in putting Philip in power and effectively pins the blame on Luz by showing her a version of the Boiling Isles that's better off because she didn't exist. Combined with their claim that Luz's "I'll do better" mindset makes her like Philip, they're able to convince Luz to perform a Fusion Dance with them to answer her request to make her a better person.
- Adaptational Jerkass: While it's unclear if the Collector's intentions are good or bad, the fact that they manipulated Luz into making what's effectively a Deal with the Devil with them speaks greatly about how vastly different they are from their canon counterpart in terms of innocence. There's also the fact that they apparently told Friendship!Hunter that they refer to the inhabitants of the universe as playthings that can be discarded, only exist for the entertainment of higher beings, and that there's no way out, painting a far more dire picture of the Collector's morality than in canon.
- Despair Event Horizon: This version of Luz is one who seemingly went through the events of canon up to "Watching and Dreaming", where the Collector managed to successfully break Luz by showing her a world where Philip failed in his goals and she didn't exist, the Collector then putting doubt in Luz's mind that she could "do the right thing" by making her believe it was that same logic that led to her helping Philip in the first place.
- Fusion Dance: The Collector of this path is actually a version of canon Luz, one less hopeful and more broken, and the Collector combined into a new form, acting as The Watcher for other versions of the Boiling Isles in the Multiverse.
- It's a Wonderful Plot: The impetus behind this path diverging from canon was the Collector of this timeline showing Luz a world where Philip failed and implying it's because Luz didn’t exist there. While Luz initially tries to reject this idea, she succumbs to the Despair Event Horizon, and is all but said to merge with the Collector in an effort to "be better".
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- As the Adaptation Deviation stems from the canon series in the middle of "Watching and Dreaming", its unclear what became of Eda, King, the Hexsquad, Camila, Raine, and Belos in this path after Luz and the Collector merged. Based on where Luz and the Collector's talk occurred, the merge happened in the middle of the episode, meaning the Hexsquad and Camila should still be in the Archives as puppets while Raine is possessed by Belos heading towards the Titan's Heart, but considering Amity managed to free the Hexsquad in canon by Fighting from the Inside and drawing the Light Glyph, and Eda and King's conspicuous absence from Luz's confrontation with the Collector, its unclear what became of any of them.
- While she's present during the confrontation, what became of Stringbean after Luz and the Collector fused is unclear.
