Fanfic / What Big Claws (To Protect You With, My Dear)

What Big Claws (To Protect You With, My Dear) is a The Owl House fanfic written by Itonomen

Much like in canon, Luz accidentally stumbles into the Boiling Isles right before she's supposed to be sent to Camp Reality Check. The difference here is that Luz is a ten-year-old Child Prodigy who has had to deal with a lot more pressure in the Human Realm as a result. In addition, because of how close Eda is with her, everyone else assumes that Luz is actually Eda's daugher.

What Big Claws (To Protect You With, My Dear) contains examples of:

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • Luz already had trouble fitting in among her human peers in canon, but before she went to the Boiling Isles in this fic, she struggled with the additional schoolwork that came with being a gifted child in high school and never told her mother about how unhappy she was. Being sent to Camp Reality Check was a lot more upsetting for her than it was in canon. Not only was she close to tears before Owlbert stole her Azura book, but when she tells Eda about her past, she actually broke down crying due to feeling more guilty about lying to her mother.
  • Both Lilith and Raine have had troubled relationships with Eda, and the misconception that Luz is her child has only added to their guilt over their relationships with her that have deteriorated over the years.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Raine, Amber, and Derwin appear after the events of "Lost in Language", almost an entire season before their proper appearance in canon.
  • Luz discovers the plant glyph second, and before she officially enrolls in Hexside.
• Adaptational Explanation: When telling Eda about her book report on The Good Witch Azura, Luz explains that she snakes she used were harmless garden snakes, which she found near her house.
• Adaptational Intelligence: In canon, Luz was a bookworm whose grades in school were said to be inconsistent, but in this fic, she is shown to be a very gifted child with a strong long-term memory, and skipped several grades to high school at the age of ten. This extends to her magical prowess, as Luz manages to learn how to create her own spell circles with her glyphs here.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Unlike in canon, Luz is more bloodthirsty, prone to violence, and less trusting to others.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In canon, the Owl Beast usually acts like a mindless beast. Here, it shows its maternal instincts, and voluntarily drinks an elixir so that Eda can heal Luz.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Due to being under a lot of stress at such a young age, Luz has issues with her self-confidence at times, and can be very shy around certain people. At the same time, she is also very energetic and curious to learn new things. She also has a bit of a temper when it comes to dealing with bullies, as seen with Amity and Boscha.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul:
  • While Eda gradually became a more motherly figure to both Luz and King in canon, here, because Luz is younger, she takes on more of a parental role much faster. By Chapter 12, Luz and King are calling Eda their mother.
  • Due to being younger, Luz believes King really is the King of Demons and takes part in his “war games”.
  • Eda and Lilith's relationship in the first season was mostly hostile due to the former's refusal to join the Emperor's Coven, and Lilith was just as dismissive of Luz, referring to her as a "human pet" at one point. When Lilith meets Luz for the first time, she assumes that she's Eda's daughter, and by extension, her niece, making her feel even more guilty for cursing Eda in the first place. As a result, the two stay in touch more, and don’t fight as often, though Eda still points out some of the unhealthier aspects of Lilith’s life.
  • Willow and Gus still befriend Luz, though they act more like older siblings to her, especially Willow.
  • Thanks to the age difference, Luz and Amity don't harbor any romantic feelings for each other, and it takes a while for them to really warm up to each other.
  • Luz is much more amicable with Hooty, and nowhere near as dismissive as the others are of him.
  • Luz and the Bat Queen start off on much better terms than in canon, thanks to Owlbert not being damaged when the two meet.
  • The BATTs have much more of a familial bond, with Raine in particular serving as a parental figure to their students.
• Affectionate Nickname: Eda tends to call Luz "Sunshine".
• Age Lift: The main premise of this fic is that Luz is four years younger than she is in canon. Willow, Amity, Edric, and Emira are also a year older than they are in canon.
• Ascended Extra: Lilith takes on a more prominent role in this fic, as does Raine and their three students, Katya, Amber, and Derwin.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: While babysitting Luz and King, Amber and Derwin get into a brutal pillow fight with them, and with help from Katya, Luz and King create a giant mass of pillows tied up into a ball with some of Luz's vines. Later on, Katya sends Eda a picture of Amber and Derwin tied up by Luz, with King sitting on Amber's head triumphantly.
• Body Horror: As Luz spends more time in the Boiling Isles, her body will adapt to better suit the environment, to the point where a blister might form on her heart while it tries to grow a bile sac. Downplayed, as Healer Markov explains that it’s a very rare possibility, which Luz even compares to appendicitis, but it still unnerves both her and Eda.
• Bully Hunter: If Luz sees anyone being mean to others, she doesn't hesitate to stand up to them, or in some cases, bite them. It gets to the point where Gus has to downplay how much of a jerk he thinks Mattholomule is just so Luz won’t hurt him.
• Cheerful Child: Luz can be this most of the time.
• Child Prodigy: Luz is this, much to her dismay.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Played for Laughs. Luz mentions how she originally would have cried if she was told to eat fairy wings, but since she came to the Boiling Isles, she's developed a taste for them as a snack. She also doesn't feel that guilty since she knows how bloodthirsty fairies in this world are.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Tibbles meets his end at the hands of the Owl Beast when he tries to take away King like his first appearance in canon.
  • Piniet meets his end at Eda’s hands as well.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Luz is one of the Child Prodigy. From a young age, Luz was shown to have excellent academic prowess and was held in high regard by her teachers, who only wanted to see her succeed in life. The problem was that all this attention coupled with being forced to go to high school at the ten years old put a lot of pressure on Luz, which eventually led to her grades slipping. When people like Eda and Principal Bump learn about the circumstances of Luz's upbringing, they're understandably upset about it. This is one of the reasons why Luz enjoys the Boiling Isles so much: The different environment actually allows her to make friends, play games, express her creativity, and to just be a kid.
• Disabled in the Adaptation: Eda in the show had no signs of being neurodivergent, but in this fic, she has ADHD, though it's referred to as Variable Attention Stimulus Trait, or VAST. It's also hinted that Luz has ADHD as well.
• Dramatic Irony: Pretty much everyone who doesn't live at the Owl House believes that Luz is Eda's biological child when the reader is more than aware that isn't the case.
• The Dreaded: Eda's mere presence at Hexside again proves her to be this, especially to Principal Bump, although she isn't aware of it. The idea of Eda having a child causes Bump to panic internally once he starts thinking about it.
  Edalyn had...children. Edalyn Clawthorne. Wild, Brash, Defiant little Eda Clawthorne was a mother. Well. What do you know. Then, the gravity of the situation settled in. Edalyn Clawthorne, had children. Sweet titan.
• Exact Words: While talking to Principal Bump about enrolling Luz in Hexside, Eda explains that at the last school Luz went to put a lot of pressure and attention on her. Bump assumes that Luz previously went to Glandus, but in actuality, Eda was referring to the high school Luz went to in the human world.
• Forgets to Eat: Lilith has a bad habit of not eating as much as she should, mostly living with ration bars and black tea.
• Godzilla Threshold: Surprisingly, this is a case where the monstrous creature comes up with the idea. The Owl Beast is willing to drink one of Eda's elixirs and relinquish control of her body if it means Eda can heal Luz, who was accidentally injured in the Owl Beast's rampage.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...:
  • A parental example. When Bump agrees to find a way to let Luz into Hexside, Eda gives Bump one of these threats. It doesn't work, as she does this while they're at Bump's school.
  Eda: You do anything to make my kid upset, when she's just starting to recover from that horrible place, I will tear this whole school down brick by brick, reduce it to ashes, and make you eat it!
  • Eda tries this again when she invites Nora over for dinner, but Nora is more than aware of how important Lilith is to Eda.
  Eda: What the hell do you want with my sister?”
  Nora: Lilith and I are friends. I value her companionship deeply.
  Eda: Lilith is my only sister. She might be older, but she's dumb, and sometimes she cries and she won’t say anything if she's hurt, or if something's hurting her. I have spent my entire childhood learning how to figure out the shit Lily won’t say. I know when she’s being bullied, and I know who's bullying her. I know when her lunch goes missing or she’s standing on her ankle funny. And when my sister is hurt, someone always pays for it. If I ever... (Feathers start to sprout out on Eda’s neck in her anger) ... find out that there is so much as a hair out of place on Lilith, or that you've been lying about what exactly you want with her, I will string you up and make you choke on your own intestines and leave you to bleed out for days before I tan your corpse and feed it to my hatchlings!
  (The room is silent for a moment)
  Nora: ...You have a big heart.
  Eda: Excuse me?
  Nora: (smiles) Lilith is very lucky to have you as a sister. She needs more people in her life who care so completely about her.
  Eda: I...
  Nora: Edalyn, I assure you, I am not unaware of the gravity of my decision to befriend Lilith. You’re right to be concerned for her. Lilith is...incredibly unaware of her worth.
  Eda: (sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose) She really doesn’t, does she?
• In Love with Your Carnage: When Luz sinks her teeth into Boscha's arm as retaliation for insulting Amity, Principal Bump is impressed by the ferocity she has for her age, and recommends she join the junior grudgby team. While Bump still gives Boscha permission to go to the Healer's office, he isn't as concerned for her safety as he should be.
• Innocent Prodigy: Luz is smart, but there are times where she isn't aware of everything going on around her. One chapter has her tell a story from her old school where a class project on religions was shut down by one of her classmates' parents, and when a confused Eda and Raine ask what she means, she says even she doesn't know, saying that everyone forgot about the incident about a month later when there was a new source of drama.
• In-Universe Catharsis: When Amity sees Luz biting Boscha's arm, she internally muses about the satisfaction of not being the one on the receiving end of Luz's wrath.
• Literal-Minded: When Eda wakes Luz and King up for breakfast one morning, she says "It's time for little birds to get their worms". The Owl Beast believes that they're going to feed the "hatchlings" actual worms. After Eda clarifies that they're having donuts for breakfast, the Owl Beast makes a patch of feathers flare up on Eda's neck just to be petty.
• Mama Bear: Eda, and by extension, the Owl Beast, is this towards Luz and King.
• Must Have Caffeine: To say both Eda and Raine like their coffee strong would be an understatement. Not only does Lilith recoil at how strong Eda's homemade coffee is, when Eda and Raine go out for coffee at a cafe, their orders have three and five shots of espresso each.
• Noodle Incident: Katya and Amber signed up for a cooking class in the past, but got kicked out during the first twenty minutes for something not even Derwin knows about.
• Not What It Looks Like: Played for Drama. One of the reasons Lilith initially assumes that Luz is Eda's child is because Luz was covered in feathers from the Beastkeeping Coven exhibit at the Covention, making Lilith think that Luz inherited Eda's curse. Lilith’s fears are only exacerbated when she sees that Eda and Luz have set up a routine where they take their potions at the same time, when in reality, the potion Luz takes is a nutrient supplement meant to help her stay healthy in spite of all the foods she can’t eat on the Boiling Isles.
  • When Raine reunites with Eda and meets Luz for the first time, they realize she has a lot of traits they and Eda share, and is about as old as the one-night stand they had ten years ago, leading to the assumption that Luz is Raine’s daughter.
• Original Character:
  • Nora Oxfoot, a tall minotaur woman and old classmate of the Clawthornes, who eventually befriends Lilith.
  • Armenia Markov, a Healer who Eda has seen for years, and isn't afraid to call her out for her dangerous lifestyle.
• Running Gag: Luz getting mistaken for being younger than ten.
• Retcon: On February 27th, 2023, the author decided to undo the romantic relationship Lilith and Nora had been building up to that point to comply with the former being uninterested in romantic partners in canon. As such, the context of their interactions is changed to them becoming close friends, but Eda is still protective over her sister's wellbeing.
• Shipper on Deck: Katya, Amber, and Derwin try to find ways to bring Raine and Eda closer together during the camping trip to the Knee.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Despite having to care for two children, Eda has a bad habit of swearing around Luz and King.
• Synchronization: Eda and Hooty share a magical link thanks to the former taking residence in one of her family’s ancestral homes, though Eda still isn’t fond of communicating with Hooty this way.
• What If?: What if Luz was a ten-year-old Child Prodigy when she discovered the Boiling Isles?

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