Chapter 14: Swap or Not
Art by Crash X Fusion: The body swap's easy to explain, but you lost me at the handcuffs.
After confessing to the Abomination ghost incident, Luz begins to question her morality while someone else begins asking questions of her own.
Tropes that appear in this Chapter:
- All Just a Dream: The chapter begins with Luz impressing Amity with skateboarding before the former's 5-year-old self tells her she'll just get hurt again and she is pulled under a pool of water before waking up.
- An Aesop: You don't change into a better person overnight. It takes time to become that person.
- The Bet: Eda and King go through the usual canonical bet of seeing whose life is harder without Luz, who heads off to do her own thing. After it goes horribly wrong, the two both agree to clean Hooty together as long as they never mention the day's events again.
- Burning Bag of Poop: The rock troll is tricked by Luz and Tyler into stepping on one at the end of the song.
- Call-Back: Luz brings up the slayground incident, which Lilith didn't know she was caught up in.
- Captured on Purpose: It's implied that Luz got arrested because she was subconsciously influenced into it by her inner self.
- Catapult Nightmare: Luz after her nightmare, which causes an anxiety attack that she calms herself out of.
- Continuity Nod: Luz makes it clear where the twins stand with her after the library incident.
- Crush Blush:
- Luz blushes when Amity grabs her hand while she's talking to Lilith, then when she stops her from leaving to talk.
- Emira seems to have this when Viney comforts her, implying she likes the Detention tracker.
- Dark Secret: King's been doing something in Eda's closet that he doesn't want her to know about.
- Dirty Coward: After Luz owns up for making the graffiti tag alone, Tyler immediately supports her confession. It's a stark contrast to Skara hesitating, even if Luz told them to roll with it.
- Drunk with Power: Being in Eda's body, King wastes no time causing chaos in the marketplace using her magic. It takes Luz threatening to expose one of his secrets to get him to stop.
- Foreshadowing: The pale looking fellow who freed Anu Bist from his lamp.
- Freak Out: Skara, Amelia and Tyler start panicking when it looks like they'll be arrested for making slanderous grafitti with Luz, which causes her to tell the guard they were trying to stop her.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite not taking part in the bet, Luz (her body technically) still interacts with Boscha and her posse and the girl herself still ends up in jail where she talks with Lilith.
- Internal Reveal:
- Luz and Viney inform Principal Bump of their causing the abomination track ghost infestation.
- Principal Bump meets Anu Bist for the first time, as he never hired him to begin with.
- Lilith learns that Luz was the unwilling catalyst of the Boiling Zit incident.
- In the Blood: Due to his mixed heritage, Anu Bist had to choose between becoming a god of death or a genie. He chose the second one and was freed by his last master.
- Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: Principal Bump tells Luz that despite being Eda's daughter, she took responsibility for her actions and admitted she made a mistake which Eda never did. He adds Luz is the first Clawthorne to do so, as Lilith was too stubborn to admit she was wrong.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Lilith comes to realize how Luz's involvement with several events aren't public knowledge, especially to her.
- Luminescent Blush: Emira shows this when Viney puts her hand on her shoulder.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever King does in Eda's closet.
- Point of Divergence: To "Once Upon A Swap": with Luz not participating in the body swap bet, Eda and King switch with each other. Eda doesn't get to do much while King goes mad with the power. Luz interacts with Boscha and her posse, Lilith tries to learn about Luz rather than force her or Eda to join the Emperor's Coven, there's no massive body swap and most notable of all, Amity makes an appearance.
- Precision F-Strike: Luz calls the Blight twins "f**kfaces" when she sees them at school.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: After Luz and Viney confess to the Abomination track ghost infestation, Principal Bump (impressed that a Clawthorne admitted she made a mistake) decides not to expel them and orders them to clear out the ghosts.
- Rejected Apology: Luz doesn't accept the twins' apology for using her, but says she'll consider forgiving them.
- The Reveal:
- Anu Bist chose to become a genie and was freed from his lamp by his last master. He was also scarred on his leg when Emperor Belos used an iron weapon against him.
- Emira is strongly implied to have a crush on Viney.
- Fae are forbidden from setting foot in the Boiling Isles.
- Secret-Keeper: Luz knows what King does in Eda's closet.
- Shout-Out: The chapter's musical number is the Boiling Isles' take on "Why Should I Worry" from Oliver & Company.
- Said song also features a cameo from a rock troll counterpart of Muriel Finster, who even shouts "Hooligans".
- Talking to Themself: Arguing with her inner self until she shouts out loud causes Luz to appear like this in public until she gets the civilians to carry on.
- True Companions: Despite not being directly involved in the incident, Jerbo and Barcus offer to help Luz and Viney in clearing out the ghosts under the belief that troublemakers stick together.
- Wham Episode: Lilith discovers Luz's existence is being covered up and begins investigating by talking to Webstor, while Eda meets the fae for the first time.
