Original air date: 7/11/2020 (produced in 2019)
Production code: 111
When King becomes a bestselling author, it leads to a rift between him and his former collaborator Luz and a valuable lesson in reading the fine print. Meanwhile, Eda and Lilith race to get a rare flower that supposedly grants immortality.
Tropes:
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: While King is always pretty egotistical, he's even worse when he becomes a published author.
- All Webbed Up: Lilith suffers this from the crab-spider before being rescued by Eda.
- An Aesop:
- When you collaborate, don't forget that more than one person is involved. Take other people's ideas into consideration, and don't laugh at others.
- Don't kill off your friends' characters when collaborating with them. It is a good way to hurt others' feelings and ruin a bond even if it makes the story better.
- "[Crunch culture] is a toxic mentality that leads to burnout and unrealistic expectations!"
- Aesop Amnesia: Luz has forgotten that when things seem Too Good to Be True in the Boiling Isles, they probably are, as evidenced by her attempt to go on a Chosen one quest. A writing contest, in this case, proves more dangerous than it seems, but she instead hides her writing from Eda and cheerfully wishes her goodbye.
- Ass Kicks You: During her argument with King inside Piniet's shrinking magic box, Luz tries to turn around and ends up hip-checking King in the face.
- Big Sister Instinct: Eda goes to save Lilith when the crab-spider traps the latter.
- Blinded by the Light: Luz draws the light rune on the story she gives to the publisher, then triggers it when he's confused by its meaning, disorienting him long enough for King to grab the contract.
- Bullying a Dragon: The map seller thinks it's a good idea to target a member of the Emperor's Coven, one of its most recognizable members at that. As well as her sister, the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. He soon finds out just how dumb that is when the two of them beat him into the ground.
- The Cake Is a Lie: The Flower of Eternal Youth is not real. It turns out it was another scam to take down Eda and Lilith. They are not amused.
- The Cameo: Mattholomule makes a brief appearance loading a box of King's books off a truck and throwing it onto a sentient doormat.
- Career Not Taken: Luz admits that she had always wanted to become a writer, her #1 dream — becoming an actual witch — having been a Tragic Dream before finding herself in the Boiling Isles and becoming a writer being the more realistic option. She technically fulfills that dream in this episode, though the novel she co-wrote was thoroughly butchered by King and he winds up taking the credit for the story when she disowns the finished draft.
- Cartoonland Time: King writes a book, has it published, becomes a best-selling author, and writes a sequel in what is stated to be "a rough couple days".
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Subverted, in that neither Eda nor Lilith was really in danger. They comment on the situation with dry humor and sarcastically beg for their lives... while preparing to pummel the con artist who tricked them half to death.
- Character Development: This time when Luz is left in charge of the Owl House, she doesn't invite guests. There's also no mess to clean up when Eda returns, just a copy of King's book. Eda takes it in stride, relatively speaking.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Clawthorne sisters manage to defeat the scam artist offscreen. It was pretty clear even before this episode that attempting to take them on while they are working together would basically be suicide, something the scam artist realizes far too late.
- Foot Popping: Skara does this when she kisses the King standee (right before she steals it).
- Forced Creativity: King sells a book he co-wrote with Luz to a shifty publisher named Piniet, claiming it to be a solo work, and becomes a bestselling author overnight. When King admits the truth after his truly solo follow-up fails to meet expectations, Piniet kidnaps Luz and subjects them to the same hidden-in-the-fine-print fate that befell all his previous star authors: A shrinking magic box that will crush them into a tiny cube if they fail to provide a satisfactory sequel in time.
- Forced Transformation: Piniet's magic box shrinks to pressure the writer trapped inside into finishing their book. If they don't in time, it compresses the victim into a still-living cube he then keeps in his suitcase.
- Forcibly Formed Physique: Piniet's magic box shrinks until the victim is compressed into a still-living cube.
- Forging Scene: Apparently books on the Boiling Isles are forged. A blacksmith is shown hammering a molten ball into a rectangle before the surface crumbles away revealing King's book.
- Freudian Slip: Piniet blurts out to King that "fame can really box you in" right before changing the subject.
- Gratuitous Japanese: On Luz's storyboard of ideas for her and King's book, she has doki doki — a Japanese onomatopoeia for a heartbeat — written on a cue card next to "Love" and "Prince".
- Hard Truth Aesop: Be careful when entering writing contests. Some of the terms can be quite exploitative, and you may lose a few friends in the process.
- Her Codename Was Mary Sue: Luz and King base the main characters of their book after themselves. Luz acknowledges it's a cliché, but argues there's nothing wrong with that.
- Hidden Depths:
- Luz is quite adept on a typewriter, which doesn't allow for as many errors as a computer does.
- Tiny Nose writes a story that is an instant bestseller in one draft.
- The Hero Dies: King rewrites Luz's story so her character dies at the end.
- It's All About Me: King literally trashes all of Luz's contributions to their book project and takes it over for himself, then selfishly credits himself for the manuscript for the book so he gets all the fame.
- Karma Houdini: Piniet gets away with nearly crushing Luz and King by signing a contract with Tiny Nose for her book. They just get away, without bothering to warn her. Though he did receive a bit of karma when the cubed authors attacked him.
- Literal Metaphor: Piniet makes his authors "crunch" to meet deadlines by actually trapping them in a shrinking box.
- Loud Gulp: By the scam artist when his efforts to intimidate Eda and Lilith clearly fail.
- Magically-Binding Contract: King's contract allows his publisher Piniet to force him into a shrinking box to motivate him to write.
- Meaningful Name: Piniet's name comes from the "pineal eye", the scientific term for a structure similar to a Third Eye which is present in most lizards and amphibians (among other animals).
- Mugging the Monster: The scam artist decides that Lilith and Eda are good marks for his scheme to lure in victims for him to feed on, and is genuinely confused when they react with dry sarcasm instead of cowering before him.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Eda saves Lilith from a Giant Spider because they're sisters, and if anyone is going to knock off Lilith, Eda intends to be the one to do it. Though Eda may have been joking about that last part.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: A variant; Luz says they are going to work on a book together for the contest. King takes her story, kills Luz's character, and makes his avatar the lead. He realizes he messed up when Piniet demands a sequel, and dismisses his own work as trite.
- Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Discussed. King tells Piniet to flip to the final page of his and Luz' manuscript, claiming it's "quite a payoff". After Luz activates the light spell on said page, King realises he missed the opportunity to quip, "You'll find it enlightening".
- Punny Name: John de Plume, the famous author before King, is a pun of "Nom de plume", or "pen-name".
- Recycled Plot: Played with. The scam artist luring victims with a fake map to a magical treasure brings Adeghast from the second episode to mind, but it is Eda and Lilith who are lured for the episode's B-plot. However, while Adeghast was treated as a credible threat, the scam artist stands no chance against the Clawthorne sisters and is beaten into the dirt with no trouble.
- Sequelitis: In-universe. When King gives Pinet his manuscript for Ruler's Reach 2, it's so awful that he thinks it's a joke, leading King to realize he can't write without Luz's help.
- Serious Business: When King scoffs at Luz's obsession with shipping, she responds as such:Luz: Don't you dare insult shipping in my presence!
- Shout-Out:
- King's pose on the cover of his novel is a reference to Randall Flagg's pose on the cover of the first edition of Stephen King's novel The Stand.
- The standee of King saying "Spend money on my thing I wrote" is a reference to the "Buy my book" joke from The Critic.
- Silent Treatment: Right after King publishes Ruler's Reach, Luz refuses to answer him while she's typing her own book and listening to him brag about his success, even going so far as to knock his invitation to his book signing off her desk. It is only when King leaves the room does she start talking to the typewriter.
- Stupid Evil: Piniet crushes authors that fail to meet their deadlines into living boxes. The problem is then they can't finish their books, and he has to find new authors to fill in the deficit. It practically becomes a Ponzi scheme for him.
- Super-Speed Reading: Piniet's third eye allows him to read books in a few seconds.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Any previous and future moments King had of being dickish toward Luz were fleeting and mild. Here, he's much worse, insulting her contributions to the story, taking credit for her work, and continuing to insult her writing when asking her to collaborate with him for the sequel. Fortunately, he gets better later on.
- Truth in Television:
- Some writing contests are fairly exploitative; Writers of the Future is one where the fine print becomes a concern for the authors who win. That's why it is always important to read the terms and find word-of-mouth on the companies that run them.
- There's also Luz's retort regarding how crunch time is an easy road to burnout and unrealistic expectations.
- Visual Pun: The writers that fail Piniet get turned into cubes. Or, to put it another way, they become writer blocks. It's also literal crunch time.
- The Walls Are Closing In: King and Luz are trapped in a magic box which slowly shrinks. In a twist, the box shrinking completely isn't fatal, it just crushes victims into tiny living cubes.
- Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: Eda repeatedly insists that Luz ask no questions about where she's going. Each time, Luz cheerfully says "OK" without asking any questions.
- You Do Not Want To Know: The sentient typewriter says this to Eda when Luz and King flee at the mention of books at the end of the episode.
