Chapter 20: Blighted by the Light
Art by Crash X Fusion: She's been keeping that drawing with her at all times for no good reason.note
As Amity questions what she wants for herself, Mabel ropes Luz into what she thinks is sister bonding time.Tropes that appear in this Chapter:
- Adaptational Early Appearance: The Blight siblings' parents, Odalia (not counting her Early-Bird Cameo in "Emotional Guilt") and Alador, make their first appearance during the events of "Adventures in the Elements", not "Understanding Willow".
- Bait-and-Switch: It seems like Blubs is going to do the responsible thing and use the mall's P.A. to ask the patrons to bring Luz to the food court. Instead, he warns everyone that Luz may be about to go on a rampage and tells everyone to get out of the mall while they can.
- The Beastmaster: Puck manages to calm down the Slitherbeast by listening to its thoughts and figuring out what it wants.
- Be Yourself: Luz tells Mabel the reason Amity likes her is because Luz does this, and it means a lot to her.
- Birds of a Feather: The whole reason Eda and Stan didn't stay together; they were too alike, both being con artists and agents of chaos who're too stubborn to give up on anything. As Eda puts it, they were "a match made in hell."
- Call-Back: Amity and Levi's muggings are brought up once more, and it's revealed that Levi's has forced him to make a difficult choice.
- Character Development: Mabel accepts that she can't force the bonds she wants with Dipper and Luz and decides to let them develop naturally. She also foregoes her goal of having a summer romance.
- Commonality Connection: Along with their con artist lifestyles and rebelling against law, Eda and Stan also share a hatred towards Florida.
- Continuity Nod:
- Amity is shown to have kept the "Purple Rain" t-shirt Luz gave her for pajamas in "The Conjuring Conflict".
- Edric using lemons to see Puck and the statement about sugar keeping Fae away were previously mentioned in "I Ain't Troubled Yet!"
- Cute Little Fangs: Luz is revealed to wear a fake one just like Eda.
- A Day in the Limelight: Amity is the main focus of the A-plot, while Mabel is the star of the B-plot (which she shares with Luz.)
- The Empath: Puck subdues and calms down the Slitherbeast by sensing its emotions.
- Eye Color Change: Amity's eyes glow pinkish-purple when she's voicing her hatred for feeling like a coward because of her upbringing and expectations.
- Eye Scream: Puck threatens to yank out Eyepatch's remaining eye if he doesn't spill who sent the demon hunters after the Slitherbeast.
- Failed a Spot Check: As Mabel points out, Luz pretty much announced her crush on Amity to everyone (besides Mabel herself, Wendy, Soos, Candy and Grenda) when she told Gus.
- Felony Misdemeanor: For accidentally knocking over a pile of books, Luz is banned from Books-A-Jillion preventing her from buying the fourth Good Witch Azura book. Since the manager knows of her reputation, he thought she was causing trouble.
- Foreshadowing: Amity's power boost.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Edric points out that nobody can stand being friends with Boscha because of her attitude.
- The Ghost:
- As previously stated Hooty is only mentioned, no physical appearance to his name.
- The real Stanford Pines is mentioned by his twin Stanley.
- Girl's Night Out Episode: The B-plot has Mabel invite Luz on a girls' day trip with her, Candy and Grenda before returning to the Boiling Isles that evening.
- Glowing Eyes: Amity's go from gold to glowing purple/pink during her rant over her feeling weak.
- Groin Attack: Mabel whacks Jeff below the belt for trying to come on to her.
- Heroic BSoD: Amity starts to have a panic attack after Edric and Emira are captured. Luckily, Puck arrives before she can spiral further.
- Hidden Depths: Edric and Emira started pulling pranks as an act of rebellion towards Odalia's attempts to control their lives. They pranked all the kids she wanted them to be friends with, which is why they're not friends with any of their classmates.
- Inconvenient Attraction: It's implied that Amity sees her newfound crush on Luz as becoming this.
- Inelegant Blubbering: Unseen, but Skara is not taking what happened between her and Bo well.
- Internal Reveal:
- Edric and Emira learn it was Puck who previously scared them after the library incident.
- Thanks to Dipper, Luz learns her human surname and her mother's appearance from a newspaper article detailing the crash.
- In Spite of a Nail: Edric and Emira still get captured by the Slitherbeast, and Amity rescues them via the fire spell she manages to learn. And Amity finally develops a crush on Luz!
- I Taste Delicious: Stan namedrops this while eating the waffles shaped like his face.
- It's All My Fault: After learning Levi's going to drop out of school, Amity can't stop blaming herself saying she should've reported her mugging so maybe his wouldn't have happened.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Puck restrains and prepares to torture the Demon Hunters for trying to capture the Slitherbeast.
- Love Epiphany: Amity, after much inner debating, realizes she's crushing on Luz when she realizes how much the idea of not being friends with her anymore hurts.
- Luminescent Blush: Luz has one when she gives Amity the Azura book she found to thank her for all her tutoring, causing Amity to hastily thank her before running home with her entire face turning red. Amity does it again when she realizes her feelings for Luz have changed.
- Misplaced Retribution: Luz gets banned from Books-A-Jillion because her attempts to get away from Mabel led to her knocking over some books.
- Morning Routine: The chapter begins by alternating between Luz and Amity's routines between realms.
- Multi-Part Episode: This is the third and final part of the "Gravity Falls Vacation" arc.
- Must Make Amends: The previously mentioned Misplaced Retribution leads Mabel to apologize to Luz by giving Candy and Grenda her allowance and having them buy the book she wanted (although they end up forgetting which book Luz wanted and buy the whole series.)
- Mythology Gag:
- Mabel forces Luz to wear the same cat-eared hoodie she wears in canon while trying on clothes.
- Luz's statement towards Mabel about wearing sweaters in the summer is based off Dipper giving Mabel the same statement in the Reunion Falls version of "Boss Mabel".
- Noodle Incident:
- Luz has been banned from 10 stores in the Gravity Malls for causing trouble. She later gets banned from the salon for attacking a stylist.
- When Amity was four, she rode a sled into a tree and was buried in snow, resulting in her getting the flu.
- After Luz is banned from Books-A-Jillion, it's shown that Stan, Old Man McGucket, Jean-Luc the Waiter, and Mr. Poolcheck have also been banned.
- After learning Mabel nearly got forced into marrying the gnomes, Luz reveals they tried that with her when she was 11.
- According to Eda, Hooty ate everyone's beds the last time they were gone too long.
- Old Flame: It's implied that Eda and Stan still carry torches for each other.
- Out of Focus:
- Eda, King, Dipper, and Stan play minor roles in the B-plot with the focus being on Mabel and Luz.
- Since Gus returned to the Boiling Isles last chapter, this is the only part in the three-parter where he doesn't appear. Same goes for Soos and Wendy, who don't appear at all.
- Point of Divergence: To "Adventures in the Elements": with the Clawthornes still on Earth, Hooty is absent without King's subplot of making an army.
- Precision F-Strike: After one of her failed attempts to use the fire spell, Amity shouts "Dammit". The twins happily point this out.
- The Reveal:
- Eda does know about the dimensional portal and Stanley's attempts to use it to find his brother.
- Luz has never gotten a haircut in her life. And like Mabel, Jeff tried to capture and marry her when she was 11.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Luz gives one to Mabel for trying to force a bond between them and making the former more like herself.
- Sadistic Choice: Rather a demand. Odalia tells Amity that since she'll no longer have to tutor Luz, once the semester exams are over, Odalia expects her to end their friendship so Amity can focus on her studies again.
- Secret-Keeper: Eda is aware she married Stanley, not Stanford Pines, and that he's trying to get the dimensional portal working to bring his brother back.
- Self-Deprecation: Throughout the chapter, Amity continuously puts herself down for not reporting her mugging just to preserve her family's image. It gets to the point that she takes the blame for Levi dropping out and panics at being unable to save the twins from the Slitherbeast. It's only when Puck shows up that she saves her siblings and gets over it.
- Sequel Hook: Whether Amity goes through with her mother's order to end her friendship with Luz or not.
- Shipper on Deck: Despite her current stance with them, Luz supports what Blubs and Durland have with each other.
- Shout-Out:
- Before leaving the Blights, Puck calls Amity "Pixie Dust", which leaves her confused. It's a reference to Tinker Bell, as both characters are voiced by Mae Whitman.
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Word of God confirms the Wade Dipper mentions is the same Wade from Kim Possible.
- So Proud of You: Once they hear Amity's aforementioned Precision F-Strike, Edric and Emira happily take it as her first step to becoming a bad girl.
- Stalker Shrine: Edric reveals that Emira has a shrine to Viney hidden in her room.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Mabel sneaks up on Luz while she's on the Shack's roof. Luz says she's worse than Gus when popping up out of nowhere, but she takes it as a compliment.
- Sure, Let's Go with That: When Luz finds Stan soon after he exits the secret door behind the vending machine, she links his nervousness to the snacks in the machine not being FDA approved. He rolls with it.
- Take That!:
- Word of God confirms the "Reason You Suck" Speech is meant to be one to Mabel's canon personality, namely her habit of projecting herself onto others.
- Eda and Stan admit that they have a shared hatred of Florida.
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- This Is Gonna Suck: Luz isn't happy when Mabel drags her to a salon to have her hair stylized.
- Touché: Luz questions why Candy and Grenda would joins her and Mabel for a girl's day out if they're forbidden from hanging out with her; she concedes when Mabel asks if she really expects kids to listen to their parents.
- Tragic Dropout: Levi becomes one when he decides to leave school to help with his dad's fishing business.
- The Un-Reveal: The scene changes just before Puck learns who sent the Demon Hunters to capture the Slitherbeast.
- Unseen No More: After an Early-Bird Cameo 14 chapters ago, Odalia makes her physical presence known.
- Wham Episode: Eda is shown to know the truth about Stan and his brother, Amity meets Puck for the first time and realizes she has feelings for Luz.
- Wham Line:
- Levi declares he's dropping out of Hexside so he can help his dad with his fishing business full time.
- The last line is enough to please the readers and gives Amity quite a shock.
Amity: Oh Titan, I have a crush on Luz…
