When Luz first came to the Boiling Isle, it was to finally get a chance to live her dream and be the first human witch. However, the more time she spends on the Isle, the more she begins to notice things, things that no one else does. What happens when Luz learns the truth about what she really is, and a truth the Emperor is willing to do anything to keep secret
Wolves and Wild Magic
is a Fusion Fic by Alpinemaster combining Disney's The Owl House with the lore of Cartoon Saloon's Wolfwalkers which explores how things would have played out if Luz turned out to be a Wolfwalker.
Wolves and Wild Magic provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: Luz is far more capable here than she ever was in canon, at least compared to her cannon self before getting Stringbean and especially compared to Season 1 Luz, even before she unlocks her full Wolfwalker powers which not only gives her enhanced physical abilities, the power to astral project as a massive dire wolf, but also enable her to use glyphs without having to write them down even ones that don't exist in canon. Notably, she's able to defeat Amity fairly in their duel simply using a modified light glyph and a few potions she brewed herself, despite Lilith still cheating on Amity's behalf.
- Adaptational Expansion: The Gylph System undergoes this in this fic with there being glyphs representing different elements beyond the four that exist in canon.
- Adaptational Name Change:
- Luz's mother Camila goes through this on account of being adopted as a baby by a couple who only heard part of her given name, as her birth name is actually Carmella Nadir.
- A species wide variant, in canon the witches of the Demon Realm, are referred to as just that, witches and while they are still colloquially referred to as such, here it is a more general term for anyone with a bile sack, including Biped Demons, and the species Eda belongs to is given the formal name of Concubi, a term from D&D which effectively makes them demonic elves.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Here it turns out that Luz and Willow are actually second cousins on account of Luz's biological grandmother being the sister of Willow's long-lost grandfather.
- King comes to see Eda as his mom a lot earlier than in canon.
- A one-sided example between Belos and Luz, even though they have yet to meet here there is every indication that he will still become Luz's loathed Arch-Enemy, however, while in Canon Belos has a twisted form of Villain Respect for her and an equally twisted desire to earn her approval on account of her being human like he was, but here with Luz being a wolfwalker, a group Belos hates more than any of the other residents of the Boiling Isles (which is seriously saying something) all evidence here points to him eventually coming to hate her just as much as she could ever hate him.
- Adaptational Species Change:
- Camila and Luz are both wolfwalkers rather than humans, though Luz technically is a Half-Human Hybrid, due to the ways wolfwalkers work she might as well be a full-blooded one.
- In a downplayed example it turns out that Willow is a dryad, a type of nymph, which are a rare subspecies of the standard Boiling Isles witches that are born of either another nymph who passed on the traits or as one of the two possible outcomes of a witch/wolfwalker couple, (the other of course being a wolfwalker) who while mediocre at most forms of magic are masters at a particular type of elemental magic, with dryads, in particular, being masters of plant magic.
- Amity actually turns out to be a delayed and In-Universe example where Luz accidentally biting her in wolf form results in Amity slowly becoming a wolfwalker herself.
- Animal Motifs: Here, Luz as a Wolfwalker naturally has wolves as hers rather than snakes like her Canon self, while Amity still has cats as hers, which is heavily lampshaded when she inadvertently starts purring when Luz gives her a hug, a fact that quickly becomes ironic when Amity ends up turned into a Wolfwalker.
- Astral Projection: How the wolfwalker transformation typically works, whenever a Wolfwalker falls asleep or otherwise loses consciousness their souls leave their body and physically manifest as a wolf. The exception is during the annual Celestial Convergence that unlocks a Wolfwalker's full power and allows Moonlight Conjurings to take place, where new wolfwalkers physically transform like traditional werewolves.
- Aura Vision: Wolfwalkers are shown to be able to sense magic, which in individuals who have unlocked their full power, takes the form of this trope permanently overlapping their regular vision, with every individual having a unique magical aura, allowing for quick identification of allies and enemies and as Amity discovers when she oversees Luz getting the drop on Ed and Em, means wolfwalkers can among other things No-Sell invisibility spells and other attempts by magical beings to try and hide.
- Batter Up!: In this story Luz comes equipped with her beta design’s iconic baseball bat, which comes in handy in her fight against Adegast.
- Big Bad: Naturally Emperor Belos is this, however this time he represents a more direct threat to Luz due to her being a wolfwalker in this story.
- Bilingual Bonus: As the Noceda family are bilingual, being from the Dominican Republic, there are several words, phrases, and even whole sentences in Spanish, which are all left untranslated, most obvious with Luz's adoptive grandparents.
- Cuddle Bug: Luz as in canon is a hugger who has physical touch as a significant part of her love language, however here it's particularly noticeable given that she's a wolfwalker, and real-life wolves are very tactile when it comes to affection, and won't hesitate to cuddle up with someone if she feels they need it, most notably with Amity who is shown to be very touch starved, and as a result finds that she loves cuddling, specifically being held, and while she initially tries to deny it the fact that she starts purring whenever Luz so much as gives her a long hug proves otherwise.
- Death by Adaptation: Tibbles ends up getting eaten by the Owl Beast when he proclaims his intention of keeping King as a pet.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: in Canon Luz's father died no more than a few years before the show of an unspecified terminal illness but here he died suddenly after getting caught in an avalanche when Luz was six. Justified due to the chapter where this was revealed having been written long before the Season 3 premiere "Thanks for Them" revealed what really happened.
- Fantastic Racism: Belos who has more or less the same backstory as in canon, hates all the residents of the Boiling Isles and magic in general but he has a particular loathing for wolfwalkers to the point that he went to the trouble of using Nazi-style tactics to drive them to near extinction, and all but erase their existence from history decades before his attempt to wipe out the rest of the Boiling Isles on the Day of Unity.
- For Want Of A Nail: While the story starts out pretty faithful to the early episodes albeit with some minor differences there to make Luz come off as less naive and more competent, and Camila more sympathetic out the gate, but as time goes on Luz being a wolfwalker caused changes both small and large to slowly but surely build up until eventually the canon storyline largely gets tossed out the window, with some episodes playing out very differently, some not occurring at all, and additional story arcs that were never in the original series added in.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Luz is this due to having a human father and a wolfwalker mother, but this is only a technicality since in practical terms being a wolfwalker is an all-or-nothing affair where you either are one like Luz or are not like Willow.
- Irony: Amity ends up becoming a wolfwalker after getting bitten by Luz in wolf form by accident even though she has cats as her primary Animal Motif.
- Last of Her Kind: Though she's still unaware of it, Camila was the last living Wolfalker from when she was a baby until Luz was born who became the first one to access the powerset in decades, then this trope gets downplayed further when Luz accidentally bites Amity turning her into a Wolfwalker as well.
- Little Bit Beastly: In this version, Wolfwalkers, new ones who have just unlocked their powers and those who were born in the Boling Isles as wolfwalkers possess wolf-like traits even in their humanoid form, permanently possessing wolf ears, tails, claws, sharp teeth, and in Luz's case Supernatural Gold Eyes. Camila who possessed these as a baby currently lacks them due to a powerful Glamour spell.
- Mama Bear: Surprisingly the Owl Beast is this towards Luz and King who she views as her (and Eda's) hatchlings, even going so are as to eat Tibbles when he wants to make King into his pet.
- Metamorphosis:
- The Little Bit Beastly traits Luz gets upon unlocking her full Wolfwalker powers turn out to be permanent requiring her to make use of a charmed necklace so that she can pretend to still be human.
- When a witch is bitten by a wolfwalker in wolf form they slowly and irreversibly transform into a wolfwalker themselves eventually even losing access to their regular magic due to wolfwalkers lacking a bile sack. it's currently unknown if this affects humans or demons, but it's assumed In-Universe that it does affect the former.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: Belos proving that like his Canon self he is an absolute monster, unwittingly takes a page from the Nazi handbook with his genocide of the wolfwalkers, using racist propaganda to stir up hatred for the group, his Coven being comparable to the Nazi SS, and making a conceded effort to erase the victims from history.
- Nom de Mom: For reasons currently unspecified, despite having had a great relationship with her late father, Luz actually goes by her mother's (adoptive) maiden name.
- Our Elves Are Different: While no attention is drawn to it, except in the comments, but with the Demon Realm Witches formally named "Concubi", in this setting, they could technically be classified as demonic elves.
- The Purge:
- The Wolfwalkers went through one at the command of Belos and his Coven around 35 years before the events of the story, so that by the present day only the only ones left are Camila, Luz, and eventually Amity.
- While only implied in canon, it is indicated that this is also why the Basilisks initially went extinct, almost certainly due to their ability to eat magic being a massive direct threat to Belos' own life, with this genocide happening just before the wolfwalker genocide.
