The Love Duel Series is a set of short stories set during Season 2 of The Owl House, written by 77xfire. The first story serves as Part 2 of their Fourth Light Series, while the sequel serves as Part 3.
The first story, aptly named Love Duel
, takes place before "Yesterday's Lie": following a failed portal test, Amity is horrified to discover that her mother, Odalia, has learned of her relationship with Luz and demands she end it. Refusing to submit, Amity challenges her to a witch's duel, which leads to a familiar face deciding to help her. It can also be found on Archive of Our Own here. (Lasted from August 25 to September 8, 2021.)
The sequel, Tomorrow's Truth, is set the night after the aforementioned episode's events: when Luz shows up at Blight Manor in tears to tell Amity what happened between her and her mother, she must find a way to cheer her girlfriend up. With help from her family, she may have a way. It can also be found on Archive of Our Own here. (Originally a one-shot. Lasted from December 5 to 8, 2021.)
It was followed by The Fourth Light, which began on December 15. It also serves as a sequel/crossover with the author's Amphibia story, One Small Change. It has its own Trope page here.
The Love Duel Series contains the following examples:
- Adaptational Explanation: According to Tomorrow's Truth, the reason Amity wasn't present for the portal test in "Yesterday's Lie" is because she was comforting Emira after she got stood up on a date.
- Adaptation Name Change: Flapjack's name wasn't revealed In-Universe until "Hollow Mind", so he becomes known as "Rascal" in the series.
- And This Is for...: Per Willow's request to hit Odalia once for her, Amity nails her with a fireball in Willow's name during their duel for making Amity end their friendship.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Zig-zagged. Remembering his last meeting with Amity and with prodding from Rascal, Hunter decides to help train the Blight on the ground of owing the girls a favor (rather half a favor each, since Luz saved his life then escaped with the palismen and Amity gave him the portal key, but only after breaking it and taking half the Titan's Blood within.)
- The Bet: As part of their witch's duel rules, Amity and Odalia make one: if Amity wins, her parents will support her relationship with Luz. If Odalia wins, Amity goes back to being her obedient daughter. With help from Luz and Hunter, Amity wins.
- Big "WHAT?!": Luz's reaction after Amity challenges Odalia.
- Call-Back:
- The events of "Hunting Palismen" and "Eclipse Lake" are referenced.
- Camila gushes over King the same way her daughter did when she first met him.
- Contrived Coincidence: Hunter's cardinal palisman actually is named Rascal, but Luz didn't know that.
- Cry into Chest: The night after seeing her mother, Luz flies straight to Blight Manor to see Amity and bursts into tears in her arms.
- A Day in the Limelight: "Love Duel" puts Amity front and center as she faces off against her mother so she can continue seeing Luz.
- Earn Your Happy Ending:
- "Love Duel" ends with Odalia supporting Amity's relationship with Luz along with her dream of staying with Luz in the human realm after learning what her daughter sees in the human and giving them hers and Alador's support by having the latter help with building a new portal key.
- After convincing Camila to allow her to come and go between realms, "Tomorrow's Truth" ends with Luz having successfully made a portal and defeated Belos on the Day of Unity, with her school being destroyed giving her a few months of free time to show Amity the human realm. Vee is also allowed to stay with the Noceda's and Luz has carved her palisman, a blue jay named Bluebert.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Her hatred towards Luz aside, Odalia's still a mother and won't stand by when she sees a child in need.
- Everyone Can See It: With how affectionate Luz and Amity are with each other, Camila outright tells the latter she figured out what's going on between them.
- Everyone Meets Everyone: "Tomorrow's Truth" has Luz introduce her friends and found family to her mother, with the addition of them meeting Vee too.
- Exact Eavesdropping:
- Odalia spied on Amity in order to learn why she had her father examine Psuedo Blood (duplicate Titan's Blood) and saw her having a moment with Luz as a result.
- Hunter had a day off and was walking past Blight Manor when he saw the inhabitants of the Owl House and Amity arriving. Out of curiosity, he chose to listen in on Amity's conversation with Odalia and overheard everything about the duel.
- Exact Words: "Anything goes": that's the only rule for the duel between the Blights. As such, Odalia uses 5 abomitons against Amity, who holds them off long enough for Luz to figure out this means there's nothing stopping her from giving her girlfriend some assistance. Hunter (the one who pointed it out to Luz) jumps in after the rule change where none of Amity's other friends can help her, since he's an acquaintance.
- Face Palm: Everyone supporting Amity does this when she agrees to not let any of her friends help in the duel just before they can jump in.
- For Want Of A Nail:
- Odalia and Alador learn about their daughter's relationship much earlier, as "Reaching Out" shows neither of them still had a clue (at least until Alador learns near the end) while Edric and Emira already know about it.
- In "Tomorrow's Truth", Luz tells Amity about her promise to her mother first, then comes clean to Eda, King, Willow and Gus with her girlfriend's encouragement. "Follies at the Coven Day Parade" revealed Luz had told Eda and King and she only tells Amity near the end when she calmly confronts her about it.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The first letters of the first eight sentences in the sequel's epilogue provide an early hint for the next story: put together, they spell AMPHIBIA.
- Go Through Me: A comedic case. Luz makes it a habit of protecting Amity from three explosions while they and Eda try building a portal and fail.
- Hand Wave: As confirmed by
Word of God:- The reason Hunter wouldn't appear after "Love Duel" is due to his fate in the show having yet to be revealed and thus, he can't be prominently featured only for him to be killed off or something.
- The epilogue of "Tomorrow's Truth" takes place after the Day of Unity. It was glossed over due to not occuring in canon yet.
- Insistent Terminology: Hunter repeatedly makes it clear he's not a friend to the girls, he's an acquaintance.
- Internal Reveal:
- Amity's whole family learns that she's dating Luz.
- Luz learns that Lil' Rascal bonded with Hunter.
- Camila meets Eda, King, Hooty, Willow, Gus and Amity, due to them learning about Luz's promise to her and learning about Vee in the process.
- Lazy Alias: As part of his disguise, Hunter calls himself "Gunther".
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One suggestion on stabilizing power for the portal is waiting for the "High-Atus comet" to pass, its indefinite arrival serving as a nod to the 7-month mid-season hiatus for Season 2B.Gus: How long is that going to take?
Eda: Well, I think it passes in a couple of days actually. Lilith would probably know better though...
Luz: Ugh, seriously?! At this point, that might feel like months! Like, four to six, give or take... - Literal Soapbox Speech: Luz invokes this by digging up a soapbox to stand on as she declares she won't let Odalia keep her and Amity apart.Amity: (thinking) She's such a loveable dork...
- Loophole Abuse: Due to the only rule in the duel being "anything goes", Odalia uses 5 Abomatons against Amity. In turn, Luz and a disguised Hunter step in to give Amity some backup.
- Noodle Incident:
- Back when Eda attended Hexside, she played several pranks on Alador and made up a song about him that she continues to sing in present day, even back during his first date with Odalia.
- According to the second story's epilogue, it took a few more weeks for Luz to complete her portal and when she did, the Day of Unity took place. Luz and her friends defeated Emperor Belos and stopped his plans (thanks in part to Luz's palismen Bluebert) covering it up by saying it was a Halloween light show gone wrong. The only collateral damage was that Luz's school got destroyed, giving her a few months of free time.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Eda and Willow managed to create duplicate Titan's Blood using plant and potion magic.
- Open-Minded Parent:
- Unlike Odalia who cares more about image, Alador cares about Amity's personal growth and thus, has no issue with her dating Luz.
- Odalia, though admitting she still hates Luz, comes to at least understand what Amity sees in her after she jumped in to help her.
- Camila comes to see that keeping Luz from going back to the Boiling Isles will do more harm than good, so as long as she has her friends to keep her safe she'll have no problem letting her visit them. She also accepts her relationship with Amity since she's just as much a good influence on Luz as in the reverse.
- The Reveal: During the duel, Odalia questions why Amity's fighting so hard for Luz since she's going to have to return to the human realm sooner or later and they'd probably break up. Amity confidently reveals that her dream is to get Luz home, and go live with her in the human realm; the revelation brings Luz to tears.
- The Stinger: The epilogue of the sequel takes place at the same time that Anne and the Plantars arrive on Earth in One Small Change.
- Tempting Fate: Eda tells Luz Odalia won't find out about her and Amity before their first date. When Amity arrives and reveals Odalia knows, Eda realizes she jinxed them.
- You Owe Me: Hunter's reason for helping Amity is because he feels indebted to the girls.Luz: Why are you here?!Hunter: (smugly) Well, I happened to have the day off, and overheard the juiciest bit of gossip! Then I realized that I owed the two of you a favor, so I decided 'eh, why not?' and decided to help you out! You should be honored!Amity: You owe us a favor?Hunter: Well, more like half a favor for each of you, since the human did kinda sorta save my life… then took the palismen for herself… and the Blight gave me the portal key… after breaking it…
