Luz wakes up one day to discover that she's back on Earth. Except things seem to be off. A lot of things, in fact...
Tropes That Appear In This Chapter:
- Achievement In Ignorance: Lovelace teaches Luz how to use her own magic to enhance her strength, allowing her to free him from his cell. What he neglected to tell her was that her limbs would have exploded if she did it in any way wrong.Luz: WHAT!? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME!?
Lovelace: Cause the same way birds learn how to fly, you need to throw them out of the nest and let them figure it out on the way down! - Adaptation Expansion: At the time of writing, it wasn't stated where Luz is from in the human world. Here she's from Texas, with a later chapter handwaving the discrepancy by implying she and her mother originally hail from Connecticut, as they do in the show.
- And I Must Scream: Luz can hear Hooty — rendered as an inanimate object in the Lotus-Eater Machine — screaming in fear, implying that he is still fully-conscious while under the spell.
- Fighting from the Inside: Either being reminded of their real lives or undergoing physical pain is how one trapped in the Lotus-Eater Machine can resurface their real memories and personality.
- A Glitch in the Matrix: While at first she was just confused, it isn't until Camila tries serving Luz eyeballs and tentacles (which become bacon and eggs after she points it out) that Luz realizes just how bad things might be.
- Gone Horribly Right: Luz tried casting a simple illusion spell. The result? She accidentally traps everyone in a Lotus-Eater Machine where everyone lives in a simple human town.
- Holodeck Malfunction: Zul manages to hijack and gain some level of control over the Lotus-Eater Machine Luz accidentally created, their main goal being to get Luz's permission to possess her body and gain full control.Zul: ...in here, you're the one who's my copy...
- Hope Spot: Amity and Luz manage to get to Lovelace, who says that he can undo the Lotus-Eater Machine if he is given permission to her magic. She gives it, only for Lovelace to actually be Zul, having tricked her into giving them all of her power.
- The Immune: Being the Illusion Coven's leader, Lord Lovelace is the only one immune to the brainwashing effects of Luz's spell.
- Lesbian Jock: In this fake reality, Amity is a football player and Luz's girlfriend.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Luz's attempt at using Illusion Magic traps everyone in a Modern AU Fic version of the Boiling Isles.
- Luz is just a regular human high schooler and cheerleader.
- Belos is the Mayor, having won the election in a landslide.
- Camila retired from being a nurse before Luz was born, worked as Belos' assistant before going back to being a nurse.
- Lady Hele is a doctor at a local hospital.
- Owlbert is a normal owl and Eda's pet.
- Amity is a football player at Hexside and Luz's girlfriend.
- Eda runs a coffee shop, her curse instead a debilitating cancer that effects her bones.
- Hooty is just a piece of decoration Luz made for Eda.
- Lilith is a police officer.
- King was turned into a black fox.Cat software running on dog hardware.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: This tends to happen when any of the characters remember their original selves.
- The Reveal: Zul's real name is Kopiere.
- Small, Secluded World: While the transformed town is supposedly on Earth, there is nothing beyond the town since that is as far as the spell goes.
- Subverted Sitcom: The characters wake up in a pleasant Modern AU Fic where everyone has normal roles, but the characters are trapped in their roles and odd happenings eventually give way to the revelation that it's the Lotus-Eater Machine Luz accidentally trapped everyone in. Amity openly compares the weird way that time moves in there to the way sitcoms skip over irrelevant moments.
