Emperor Belos: Great Dictator, Average Father
(AO3 link) is a The Owl House fanfic written by FoxOnPie, the same author of Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, Ars Goetia, The Superheroics of Haruhi Suzumiya, and The Sky Pirate's Magical Odyssey, where Luz is the daughter of Camila Noceda and Emperor Belos.
Emperor Belos: Great Dictator, Average Father provides examples of:
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In this story, due to her status as the Emperor's daughter, Luz is mentored by Lilith instead of Eda.
- Adaptational Abomination:
- Belos is implied to be some sort of Lovecraftian horror-beast in a skin-suit instead of a normal witch, and Luz is the same on account of being his daughter.
- According to Emira, Far Far Away is protected by an "Ogre God" who's rumored to be the strongest in the universe, implying Shrek to be this god.
- Adaptational Badass: While still needing to use glyphs, Luz is introduced as a far more experienced witch compared to in the show.
- Adaptational Comic Relief: Belos is still evil, but now he's also very goofy and awkward.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- Belos is still a dictator, but he's more personable and kind while in canon he was outright malevolent.
- Boscha, while still a bitch most of the time, is less of one to Willow and not as much of a bully, though that stems from trying to be on Luz's good side more often than not.
- Alador and Odalia are implied to be more Amazingly Embarrassing Parents than Abusive Parents to Amity, if only because they want Amity to marry Luz. Between the two of them, though, Alador comes off as more understanding and genuine with his niceness.
- Adaptational Species Change:
- In the series, Belos was revealed to be a normal, if mutated old human pretending to be a witch, while here he's a Humanoid Abomination. This is understandable due to the fic being written before said revelations were ever made.
- Which also means rather than Luz being fully human she is half-human and half horrific nightmare monster...or fully the latter since her human side seems to be more of a skin-suit than her real form.
- Bizarre Alien Biology:
- When Belos finds out that Luz has been practicing his language he goes to say it warms his heart, only to realize such an expression doesn't work for him.
- Luz is also this by virtue of being a Cthulhumanoid whose human appearance is just a sort of skin sack. Chapter three has her mention having an egg repository and being able to spew an ink-like substance derived from blazar nuclei mixed with plasmic resonance.
- Black Comedy: Belos is still as cruel a monster as in the show, but now all of his cruelty is Played for Laughs.
- Black Speech: R'lyehian from the Cthulhu Mythos is a language spoken by witches that Luz and Belos are apparently fluent in.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Luz's first impression on Amity and her 'friends' is as a squid girl wearing an otter costume.
- Cthulhumanoid: Luz appears to be this underneath her Full-Body Disguise.
- Doting Parent: Belos outright adores his daughter and is very caring towards her.
- Droit du Seigneur: Edric and Emira jokingly told Luz to enact "prima nocta" when she becomes Empress, and while Luz didn't know what that meant, she agreed to it because they said Amity would like it. When she found out what it meant, though, she kicked them both in their respective genitals.
- Full-Body Disguise: Luz's human appearance is implied to be one, with her actually being a Cthulhumanoid.
- Gold Digger: Alador and Odalia want Amity to date Luz so they can gain political power and eventually have a grandchild running the Boiling Isles.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Luz is half-human, half eldritch god.
- Laughably Evil: The story makes no reservations when it comes to Belos being a Card-Carrying Villain, openly referring to his regime as totalitarian and imprisons or evicerates his staff for minor slights, though almost all the time this is Played for Laughs.
- Mythology Gag:
- Luz's nickname for Amity is Choco-Mint, a reference to what Edric and Emira call her in either the Japanese or Korean dubnote instead of Mittens.
- Amity is also a fan of Paul McCartney, referencing a line from the famous "Little Miss Perfect" animatic.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Luz seems to have a liking of creepy things in this story.
- No Badass to His Valet: To the Boiling Isles Belos is the supreme overlord they all live under and fear/respect. To Camilla he's an ex-husband who's somehow good with kids.
- Papa Wolf: Belos loves Luz with all his heart, so if you don't want to have your ass cut off and mounted on his fireplace, don't hurt Luz.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: Boscha is this if there ever was one. She tones her negative attributes down to zero and blindly agrees with everything Luz says and does just so she can be on her good side. It's revealed in Chapter 3 that this is because Belos was going to kill her in an extraordinarily weird and violent manner after she bullied Luz, but Luz convinced him to spare her life. After that, Boscha never stopped being overly nice to Luz.
- Shipper on Deck: Belos and everyone in Amity's family want Luz and Amity to get together, although Amity's parents want it for self-centered reasons.
- Shout-Out:
- The bartender at Grimgrub's Pub is Denji.
- Chapter three:
- When Boscha is talking about hating human television, she cites Friends as an example, questioning why Ross, the largest friend, doesn't just eat the other five.
- At one point, Boscha and Skara say "gunsta".
- Edric and Emira spend Luz's public debut tying the shoelaces of waiters together to make them fall into plates of spaghetti.
- Emperor Belos holds off on making his entrance to the party until his ramp finishes slowly descending, because there's nothing people love more than a slowly descending ramp.
- When Edric and Emira decide to run away with Amity, possible locations thrown out are Far Far Away, a place inhabited by a crazy butterfly demon that tried to erase all magic in the universe, and places with talking frog people and talking duck people.
- Take That!: In Chapter 3, when the Blight children are trying to figure out where to run away to, Mewni is briefly referenced in the context of being inhabited by a crazy butterfly demon that tried to destroy all magic in the universe, and the idea is shot down because they want to live, but they don't want to live that badly.
- Would Hurt a Child: In chapter three, Emperor Belos was more than willing to kill Amity, Boscha, Skara, and Amelia for picking on Luz.
