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Your Touch | Freedom to be Me

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Your Touch | Freedom to be Me (Fanfic)
Cover art commissioned by the author
Your Touch | Freedom to be Me is a The Owl House fanfic by sanmeikitten. Luz ran away from home as a child and spent five years on the streets before finding her way into the Demon Realm. The story's premise is a Butterfly of Doom where the different circumstances of Luz's entry into the Demon Realm and decision to stay cause situations to play out very differently than from canon.

Inspired by several other fanfics in the fandom, most notably HomeLuz, Moringmark's comics, and Drabbles_Of_Writing's Four Years AU.


This fanfic contains examples of:

  • A Head at Each End: A brief section introduces Kimera, a character whose perspective uses nonbinary and plural neopronouns. It isn't long before it's revealed this is because their tail is actually a snake with a linked brain and a fiery breath weapon.
  • Abusive Parents: Amity's mother, Odalia, in so, so many ways. The fic takes elements from the show, which already looked pretty bad, and plays them up to 11. The author outright recommends sensitive audiences skip the chapter in which Amity's past is detailed. Odalia forces Amity to suppress her autism and takes away everything that brings Amity pleasure in favor of studying, leaving Amity with almost no social life.
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Luz is significantly more traumatized by her time on the streets. She is initially withdrawn from Eda and King, and tries to avoid touching and affection whenever she can. However, she slowly grows more open to them as time goes on.
  • Adaptational Gender Identity: Luz is a trans girl in this fic.
  • Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: While in the original canon, Luz and Willow were just friends, here they're dating.
  • Adaptational Sexuality: Boscha's sexuality is unclear in the show, but here, she's asexual and becomes a bully as an unhealthy way of enforcing boundaries.
  • Adaptational Wimp: Whereas in canon the Emperor's Coven controlled all of the Boiling Isles, in this canon they are still moving into the frontiers and the Coven System is not universally implemented.
  • Age Lift: Most of the cast in the show start out about 14 years old (Gus excepted as he was skipped ahead two grades); here, Luz enters the Demon Realm when she's 16 and the rest of the characters appear to have aged accordingly. Eda seems even older because of her curse.
  • Alpha Bitch: Boscha is both this and a jock with her girl posse including members of the school's "grudgby" team (which she captains), but quickly finds herself taken down a peg when she tries to bully Luz.
  • The Berserker: Amity defeats Grom after being experiencing her worst fear (that she'll win, but it all comes to naught as everyone will abandon her despite everything she sacrificed) by entering a berserk state and tearing it to pieces.
  • Bleed 'Em and Weep: It is implied (though never confirmed) that Luz killed a man who tried to abduct her. She clearly carries a lot of trauma surrounding the incident and even thinking about it causes her to scrub at phantom stains on her hands.
  • Blinded by the Light: Luz uses a Light glyph to blind the Owl Beast when Eda transforms.
  • Crapsack World: Zig-zagged. Despite how bad her memories of homelessness on Earth are, Luz is the first to acknowledge that there was enough good in the Human Realm to keep pushing on even when everything seemed hopeless. That said, just the thought of being trapped there again is enough to set off a panic attack.
  • Darker and Edgier: The story incorporates themes of homelessness, suicide, transphobia, and lacking purpose in a merit-based society. It was inspired by the "Beta" concept art of the show, which was much darker than what Disney was willing to air.
  • Death by Adaptation: Mattholomule, Bria, Angmar, and Gavin were all petrified for stealing Galdorstones from the Illusionist's Graveyard.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance: Despite Eda and Willow both being sympathetic characters, they hold fast to the meritocratic culture of the Boiling Isles without issue. Both of them see Luz as in need of protection and eventually end up dueling to prove which of them is capable of caring for her.
  • Empty Shell: Amity has become this after facing her worst fear and seemingly having it come to pass.
  • Excellent Judge of Character: Luz developed this as a survival skill on the street.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Downplayed. While Amity isn't fully evil, and Hunter is, in a certain light, worse than her, he still shows her kindness and tries to help her with her vocal problems. Amity sees this as him taunting her and trying to make her feel weak.
  • Fantastic Fireworks: The Emperor's Coven sets off fireworks on a holiday. Gus apparently believes something is off about them, leading to his downward spiral into cruelty in his investigation.
  • Fictional Disability: Downplayed. Amity is diagnosed as "feral", the Boiling Isles term for autism.
  • Find the Cure!: Luz vows to break Eda's curse after seeing her transform into the owl beast for the first time. Some of her more reckless decisions are spurred by this motivation.
  • First Kiss: Luz shares hers with Willow during their date.
  • Flash Back: Luz's past and the cause of much of her trauma are revealed in a flashback sequence as she recounts the story to King.
  • Hates Being Touched: Luz does not like physical contact due to her time in the streets. Although she slowly grows more accepting of it with Eda and King, she's still not comfortable with touching.
  • Hide Your Otherness: While Luz in the show is fine being known as the only human in the Demon Realm, Luz in this fic is shyer about attention (especially early on) and wears a variety of head coverings to conceal her ears. Only a few people know her secret.
  • Homeless Hero: Luz grows up homeless after running away from her grandmother. She eventually moves into the Boiling Isles with Eda and King, but her past continues to dictate much of her life.
  • Like Brother and Sister: Luz and King eventually develop this relationship.
  • Magic Eater: A basilisk attacked Hexside sometime in the recent past and wreaked havoc by devouring the magic of students and faculty before Viney managed to defeat it with the help of her "pidge-griffin."
  • Mama Bear: Eda straight up tells Malphas that she's willing to kill to protect Luz. Despite him being substantially larger, the implied threat appears to intimidate him.
  • Meaningful Echo: Deliberately utilized by the writer to show characters often suffer the same hangups and insecurities, arriving at the same place despite coming from entirely different circumstances. It's not unusual for the characters to then realize their similarities give them a lot in common.
  • Named by the Adaptation: While the spells used by witches went nameless in the show, in this fic each spell has its own one-word name. The light spell is called Light, telekinesis spells are named Lift and Fetch, and an attack spell is called Blast.
  • There's No Place Like Home: Defied. With no friends or family worth speaking of, Luz has no interest in ever returning to Earth and even indulges in fantasies about having her memories of the human world erased. For better and worse, the Demon Realm is her home now.
  • Older Than They Look: Although King looks like an adorable baby, he's actually a teenager.
  • Oppressive Immigration Enforcement: Camila got deported to the Dominican Republic (in error, per the author) when Luz was nine, leaving Luz living with her homophobic grandmother. Luz managed to send emails to her, but Camila stopped responding after several years for unclear reasons.
  • Parental Substitute: Eda becomes this to Luz after taking her to the Demon Realm, to the point that Luz actually starts to call her "Mom" after six months.
  • Polyamory: It's called "multi" in the Boiling Isles, short for "multiple hearts," when people thought that was the literal explanation for people in such relationships. Viney and Skara prove to be this when they invite Luz and later Boscha to be part of their relationship.
  • Running Gag: People often remark after Luz's nonexistent gills. The novelty has already worn thin for her.
    (Showing Bump her ears) "Please don't ask anything about gills."
  • Sexy Discretion Shot: A sex scene between Willow and Luz quickly cuts away before showing anything explicit.
  • Soul Eating: Whatever is in the basement of the Conformatorium, it eats magic and souls alike.
  • Stepford Smiler: Willow has been in the midst of a depressive episode for months (impacting her magic so much that she seems to have lost it altogether), but no one has been the wiser because she continues to insist everything's fine, to the point of accepting being bullied as par for the course. Part of making things better entails Luz getting Willow's dads to see how much she's hiding.
  • Their First Time: Luz and Willow both take each others' virginity in Chapter 24.
  • That Came Out Wrong: Luz attempts to threaten Boscha to leave Willow alone. Keyword being attempts.
    Luz: I'm Willow's friend, and you're going to leave her alone or I'm going to spray pixie bile in those beautiful blue eyes of yours and it's going to make me very sad.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Gus takes a significant one, beginning to push away everyone around him and training to weaponize ice glyphs. He eventually attacks Hunter, revealing he noticed something about the fireworks which he's trying to investigate.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: While never a bad person, Luz starts out more than willing to lie and manipulate in order to get what she needs to survive, encouraged by Eda (herself no angel), who calls her a natural con artist. Later, as her situation improves and she's able to start thinking beyond the needs of the immediate present, she begins feeling guilty about the way she's treated others and starts using these same skills in less selfish ways.
  • Under the Mistletoe: During their first date, Willow grows a sprig of mistletoe (or as it's called in the Demon Realm, "mistlefoe") in order to have an excuse to kiss Luz.
  • Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Luz's grandmother attempts to send her to a camp for "reparative therapy" when she comes out as trans. Luz then decides to run away, becoming homeless.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: Viney and Skara are shown to be dating in an early chapter. Later, their story is shown to be based heavily on Moringmark's A Little Hint of Blue, adapted to the fic's alternate continuity with Grom rather than Belos serving as the catalyst of their relationship becoming official.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Willow's crippling self-doubt prevents her from casting spells properly, but Luz manages to get through to her and convince her that she's capable of doing magic, and not Half-A-Witch Willow.
  • What If?: The events of the canon seem to have played out roughly according to the show, with the crucial distinction of Luz's absence. This led to a massive divergence in the events that occurred, leaving most of the characters in another place than they were in the show. However, the Day of Unity at least has been averted, with Belos instead working towards a Day of Atonement.

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