#anne had a found family she loved with all her heart in amphibia and i argue it was entirely wrong to separate her from them

[twigstarpikachutroll22]

it seems like some people in the owl house fandom still need to hear this

Guys.

The Owl House is not going to end with Luz leaving the Boiling Isles behind and living in the human realm.

Luz has established so much of an actual whole life in the Boiling Isles, none of which can be easily left behind.

Take her relationship with Amity. Remember what Luz said to Amity when first asking to date her? She said "I don't know what my future's going to look like, but it would be so cool if you were in it." Does that seem like it would remotely make sense, after that, for it to just...end? With the two possibly never seeing each other again?

Her learning to be a witch too. It's such a big part of the show, the amount of time that’s been dedicating to her wanting to learn magic, to her finding the glyphs and teaching herself how to use them, developing and honing her skills with them, and that she’s fully enrolled in a school for magic too. It honestly feels very much like a whole life-ambitions thing. It would make no sense for her to just go back to a world where none of the skills she's spent so much time and effort learning can be used and just. Stay there.

The Owl House never felt like it was trying to send any anti-escapism message or anything like that. Luz hasn't treated the Isles like they're just a way to live out her fantasies and escape reality for a long, long time. Arguably since the beginning, even. She said in the first episode that it wasn't the PG fantasy world she'd always dreamed of. And the fact that her life on the Boiling Isles isn't some escapist fantasy has only gotten more and more clear over time, it's been pointed out by plenty of folks in this fandom before.

Honestly, everything Luz has gone through on the Boiling Isles and everything she's been doing there feels like putting down roots and charting out a whole life course there. And The Owl House overall has always been very much about making one's own decisions, deciding one's own future. There've been long text post essays on that. That's what Luz has been doing this whole time, and she's been doing it within the context of the Boiling Isles. It includes her mom, but it also includes everycreature she's come to know and love in the demon realm and everything she's been learning to do there, none of which would be applicable back on Earth.

Not to mention her mom is literally the ONLY thing she’s ever expressed wanting to go back to in the human realm, and we’ve known for a long time she was bullied and ostracized there, and in Thanks To Them Camilla’s nightmare flashbacks and some of Luz’s video diary entries only drove it in even further just how out of place she always was in the human realm. She’s more accepted on the Boiling Isles by now than she EVER was in the human realm. On her mom’s doorstep after the events of King’s Tide, she said “I’m back.” She didn’t say “I’m home.” When she did say “Yeah. I’m home.” after Camilla said she was glad Luz was home, I don’t think it could’ve been much clearer in her voice or her face (which the screen took a moment to fully focus on) that those words didn’t feel true to her.

When Luz DID decide in Thanks To Them that the best course of action for her would be to stay in the human realm, this was framed as being entirely wrong. Partly because it was out of a false belief that she would be of no help and only made people’s lives worse, and partly because it was very much established how she did not belong in the human realm. Camilla clearly knew Luz staying in the human realm wouldn’t be right as soon as she heard Luz say this. Her immediate and wholehearted response was “No, no way in heck am I letting you do that, don’t you even say that. You’re going back there, and now that I’ve seen what you’re up against, you’re taking me WITH you.”

Nothing about The Owl House feels like it’s leading into Luz saying goodbye to the demon realm and going back to living the rest of her life in the human realm. It would make no sense for the show to end like that, and everything about the show feels deliberately built up in a direction that goes completely against ending like that.

So yeah. Anycreature who’s been worrying about this, you can relax.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

What do you think Marcy's relationship with her parents was like after Amphibia?

Oooooh interesting question mmmm well i AM a believer that her parents are awful, so there's that. I don't think they beat her up or anything but if Sasha fucking Waybright was a better option than them in her most desperate moments, they must be just as bad as her if not worse. Or rather, they must have been failing to provide something Sasha and Anne fulfilled. I've seen people despicting them as emotionally neglectful, which is something I think makes sense.

I do have the headcanon that they didn't really have the patience for Marcy. She was just too hyper, had too much energy, talked too much, got into too many accidents, broke too many things. I think they were often mad at her even when she did nothing wrong, like just generally pissed off most of the time. They found everything she said annoying no matter how harmless and let her know, so she started to feel it was better if she kept quiet. That meant Anne and Sasha were her only outlet to like... talk to anyone at all, and they didn't listen to her much, but at least they let her talk. They let her put on her silly little movies and sometimes humored her by playing a little bit of C&C with her. If Marcy was so happy to accept the bare minimum, it must be because she was getting nothing with her family. The fact that her way of worming her way into people's hearts is making herself useful tells me her parents mostly just appreciated her for her achievements, soooo...

I do think her parents love her. I just don't think they like her, or that they have much patience for her, mostly telling her to be quiet, to do play her little games somewhere else or they just ignore her when she talks. They were desperately looking for her when she went missing and were infinitely relieved when she got back. There were lots of hugs and tears and they didn't leave her side while she was in the hospital. They also felt a bit guilty for ignoring her so much during the past few years. Worrying they'd never see her again made them realize how much time they lost. For some time, they were a lot more patient with her, listening to her talk about her little games and her feelings and how her day at school was and the pretty friendship bracelets Anne and Sasha made for her. It almost felt like everything had been fixed, like everything would change and be alright. She felt a little bit less scared of moving now.

But as time passed, they kinda fell back into their own habits. They were a bit less mean about it, but despite how hard they tried... they just couldn't like their daughter. She was weird and annoying and never paid attention to her surroundings. For the first few weeks she'd wake them up every night at 3am in tears asking to sleep with them because she had a nightmare, and they were okay with it at first, but after a month of her disrupting their sleep they began to ask her to please stay in her room unless it's absolutely necessary. Her heart broke when they said that - she needed them.

She began to call Anne and Sasha whenever she had nightmares, panic attacks or chest pain, and they always picked the phone. Late night videocalls became their new routine, until her parents asked her not to call her friends at night because she couldn't keep her voice down when she did, so she switched to texting them instead.

Only good thing was that they were happy to pay for several plane tickets a year so she could visit them. She'd spend full summers with the Boonchuys, and they even let her spend the holidays with her friends. The latter they did because they knew Anne and Sasha were better for their daughter than they could ever be, though the former was a way for them to catch a break from her. Unsurprisingly, Marcy's mental health improved a lot whenever she was with her girls.

So... they fulfilled their basic duties as parents but often struggled to provide the emotional support Marcy needed, relying on her friends to do the work they couldn't. They do want Marcy to be happy and they do feel guilty for not being able to help her but their lack of patience always gets the best of them. Put simply, they just can't stand her no matter how much they try. They do a great effort to treat her nicely but every word that comes out of her mouth is immensely irritating to them. Actually, maybe they kinda just hate their daughter. They're really happy when, ten years after that whole mess, they hear she'll be moving back to LA with her friend Sasha. Hopefully she'll be happy there, and hopefully they'll get their lives back after 23 years of constant struggle and frustration.

[multifanlol]

hello! can u do a romantic darcy x reader but marcy had a crush on the reader before her possession? ty!

Hey! And thanks for the request I love Marcy and Darcy-

“So-“

“….”

“Don’t you think King Andries is a total clown sometimes-“

“I don’t care”

“Jeez you don’t have to be so rude darling-“

“Shut up Darcy!”

“Aww, you said my name this time”

“Uggg”

The teen groaned while the host referred to as “Darcy” who tookover the teens best friends body continue to annoy them, ever since they were captured by the robots King Andrias sent they were originally just sent to the dungeon with “Darcy” coming every now and then to pratically torment them about how they can’t leave.

But later on “Darcy” began to visit more frequently and frequently and even let you have a “spare room” which was just Marcys room when she lived there although you didn’t mind, you were confused though, I mean Darcy imprisoned you sure you might of felt something towards them sometimes…..but that’s only because you have some hope Marcy’s in there…..is what you tell yourself

In truth Darcy began to have taken a liking to you, at first Darcy thought it was just Marcy’s feelings towards you for some reason affecting her, but the more Darcy began to visit you intending to annoy you, Darcy began to feel some strong emotions…..no they weren’t hate nor disgust…..they were weirdly positive, she tried to focus her mind off other stuff but they felt insanely strong and annoying…..therefore after all this thinking she’s trying to win you over

“You know…..”

You groaned banging your head in frustration

“What now….”

“Marcy took a liking to you….now i can see why”

You could already sense Darcy’s smirk but that didn’t bother you as you nearly choked on air which caused Darcy to laugh hysterically

“Just shut up i know your…..your lying!”

“Heh….Please sweetie your embarrassing yourself…!”

She said wiping a fake tear from her eyes laughing at how flustered you were as you clearly liked your best friend

“Y-You don’t know what your talking about, your just trying to mess with me and i can see it, just leave me alone….”

Darcy then turned into a fit of giggling

“Please I’ve told you a million times dear, Marcy’s in here, i can tell she liked you…..and it’s clearly mutual”

You puffed your cheeks and tried to control them by glaring at her which made it look worser which caused the psycho maniac to laugh even harder

“You know since Marcy clearly isn’t coming back, you know I’m basically her-“

“Your not Marcy, Darcy”

“I know you’ll change your mind some day!~”

“….”

“You know we could try to get along at least-“

“You imprisoned me”

“It’s all a bad days work, really would you rather fight for that earth planet?-“

“Yeah, i would! My family and friends are there!”

“…..”

“Well would rescuing them and destroying the rest of the humans make you better-“

“I “appreciate” the offer but there’s others that live there too that while i don’t know them, there are good people that live there-“

“Fine fine jeez….you don’t have to get all hero and mighty n/n!”

You stopped at what she just said the nickname fluttered your heart always because a specific clumsy nerd usually called you that

Few months before Amphibia…..

“Hey n/n!”

“Hey Mar mar!”

“Wanna go to the store to help me look for a gift for Anne, we can also go to that game store and get that game you wanted-“

“Sure Marc, what’s wrong?”

“My parents said they need me home….I’m sure it’s nothing I’ll catch up with you later!”

“It’s fine, I’ll start looking”

Why did she have a bad feeling about this

You ended up meeting up with Anne and Sasha and ended up getting a text from Marcy that she found a gift for Anne

“Why didn’t she tell me….”

I mean you weren’t upset just confused as it felt odd she could of told you whatever it was with her parents was done but it isn’t a big deal

When you met up with Marcy you noticed a different vibe she gave off…..like she was hiding something, you tried not to think much of it as you thought you were maybe being paranoid

“So you got this box…?”

“Trust me Sash, it probably looks cooler on the inside!”

“Maybe Anne should open it since it’s her birthday”

“Alright i will”

As Anne was about to open you felt uneasy especially looking at how overly nervous or excited Marcy looked you couldn’t really read it like you normally could

Yeah it definitely has something to do with her parent-

And just like that a magical portal pushed you all into it

You screamed from the fall and looked around which appeared to be in the middle of a road

“Huh-“

You screamed at all the random huge creatures that nearly hit you with other creatures riding them

End of flashback (Yes I’m aware the other bits were unnecessary-)

You sighed remembering that night where Sasha betrayed you all, and especially King Andrias outing Marcy about getting you all stranded in Amphibia especially when revealed about her parents moving and which stopped Darcy’s laughing as they stared at you sighing

“Aw you can’t seriously be upset at my teasing-“

When you were still staring at the ground glumly it made her feel those strong emotions again…..ugh

Instead they were more of sympathy towards you she really didn’t know how to process that, whenever you were sad like this which was rare she’d usually tease with her “wonderful” flirting and you’d stop here it felt more personal…..they were bad at this

You ended up feeling an awkward arm around your shoulder

“Hey, wipe that annoying frown off your face it’s almost as annoying as King Andrias being gloomy all the time….”

“….”

Darcy then awkwardly moves her arm attempting to think of something else

“Why do you think Marcy went behind me and the girls backs at this crazy plan”

It felt weird telling Darcy this especially since Darcy was technically Marcy but you knew with how much they said it themselves Marcy was in there but at the moment it was technically not your Marcy talking

“What….”

“I just wanna know why she did, if she’s still in there what do you think….”

Darcy shifted awkwardly in a different position she didn’t really know what to do….although you being upset made them feel a certain thing that irritated them, not in the way you’d think though….

“Well, maybe Marcy thought you wouldn’t understand her-“

“Really?”

They felt like they spoke too soon until they noticed you actually considering it

“I mean, maybe she just cared about you or some stupid Marcy thing like that…so she didn’t wanna lose you”

“I mean, it’d make sense but being in this world just feels too much…”

“….I mean while I’m not Marcy in the way you’d want i know she’d probably apologise right now or something stupid like that-“

Darcy stopped when all of a sudden they felt two arms wrap around them which quickly stopped

She didn’t know what it was and couldn’t tell whether she liked it or not

“That didn’t happen”

“Yeah-“

I guess in the end of the day whoever imprisons you, go for it 😍/j

And yeah that’s it sorry it’s short i didn’t have much ideas for this

[lovejapan55]

Long pod on owl house finale

This is late but I got distracted by way too many fanart and liking them all

It happened I finally watched a satisfying finale more satisfying then Steven universe finale that I loved so much thank you so much Dana and everyone who worked on this show it was amazing and wonderful!

Spoilers underneath

Things I love are the lumity ,huntlow ,and reada moments they are all canon. The take this sucka ,line luz said the thing ! while she finishes belos. 

 I loved this was more about Luz ,eda ,and king and their found family this is their story they are the main characters ! And them using the power of found family to defeat belos that’s how I saw it .  I loved the collector really I do love his development and it’s just he didn’t understand death and mortality cause he’s a child whose immortal . Oh and Luz awesome titan power up form she looked so awesome! belos death was satisfying He deserved to go that way.

I love everyone’s time skip design eda is the headmaster love that it just fits so much and of course she’d have hook ,king learning his own glyph magic so cute .

I cried at Luz death scene I really thought for a moment Dana would kill her off ,even though I went through this with Anne in Amphibia and should have known better ,dame that was a good one. I love the amazing score it was all just so well done the most satisfying animated finale I’ve seen oh and the finale group BYEE I love how they brought that back that way it was the best send off the this beautiful show!

 I know it was shortened and they couldn’t put everything they wanted to do but with what much time they had they did more then their best I’m satisfied and I can’t understand anymore who is disappointed by that you knew it was shortened you have to understand why they didn’t put more or just what wanted this show us full of actual love and Great writing ,amazing acting ,wonderful gorgeous animation and art. how can you not feel satisfied I know you want more and maybe there’ll be comic stories they can do only if Disney gives all the rights of the characters and story back to Dana she deserves it more then them!

I love you luz ,I love you eda , I love you king ,I love you amity, I love you willow ,I love you gus ,I love you hunter ,I love you raine ,I love you vee ,I love you camila ,oh the twins are great too so are you viney and skara so is masha Steve and the catts are cool, I’ve come to love collector and even Lilith even you hooty you abomination bird worm !

All of you will forever be in my heart and soul I’ll never forget you thank you Dana this show and story was truly outstanding a true masterpiece!

I love you the owl house!

[popculturebuffet]

Amphibia and Owl House Weekly Reviews: The Hardest Thing, O, Titan Where Art Thou? and Clouds on the Horizon:  Sayanora, Frog Town, Steve Rising and WE FINALLY GOT IT PEOPLE

Hello all you happy people! I’m back with my usually weekly reviews of Amphibia and Owl House after a week off.  Now some might ask WHY I took most of the week off despite you know THE FINALE and saved it for this week. 

The reason is simple as it is kinda sad: Burnout. I love this job and yes while reviewing stuff is my passion it is still a job. I do commissions once a week, saving slots just for that, I do my damndest to make sure every review comes out that week, and I put my best into it. But even a job you love, one you wanted some form of for 10 years before finally going for it, can be exhausting. I still tried giving it my best but I was hitting a wall and while I thought scaling back to three reviews a week would magically fix it it didn’t. It HELPED.. but ultimately the actual solution was just stepping away for a bit so I could come back rejuvenated. And frankly as much as I WANTED to talk about the amphibia finale, I also wanted to do so when I was happy and healthy. 

Granted HEALTHY wasn’t in the cards. Yeah despite taking a few days off not long into said days off, I came down with a head cold, horribly conjested and headachey. I still got the rest I needed, but it still sucks that even when I SPECIFICALLY take a week off for the first time in a while that wasn’t me being sick.. I STILL get sick. 

Still i’m back in the new york grove and down to not only covering the heart and liver breaking finale of amphibia, but the last two owl houses. We have epic anime fights IN SPACEEEE, god cats, tearful farewells, soul searching roadtrips with steve, heartbreaking child on parent violence, divorce, and huntlow to get to so join me under the cut.. and for Amphibia.. the last time. 

                                                        The Hardest Thing

Amphibia headlines this week and it’s .. hard saying goodbye. Even with a week after the finale i’m still having trouble letting it sink in that it’s over. We MIGHT get more, and given disney loves the show and this finale leaves lots of room for a sequel, a reunion movie, a spnioff or ALL OF THE ABOVE, it’s likely we will get more eventually.. but the Hardest Thing also does a great job for the most part tying everything up thematically and story wise and giving us one last ride to enjoy. If this world never comes back i’ll be sad... but i’ll still be satisfied. 

Fitting for the title The Hardest Thing did not take the easy way out with the finale and is better for it. Granted it left me weeping in a puddle for the last 10 minutes, but I salute matt for not taking easy outs: Anne and the plantars are separated, as are Sasha and Grime and Marcy, the unambiguously gay duo and face turn bad sad old man. Not only that the three burning stars drift apart: they keep in touch a little, but Marcy still moves away and Sasha and Anne drift apart in high school. There's no big relationship upgrade, no way to keep them together. Anne looses her found family and her girlfriends.. and it was the right call. The series had been building to this and the whole point of it was simple..

A person can come in, change your life, be the center of your world.. and then have to leave it. It’s just a fact: friends move, but what they meant to you stays.  This hit me especially hard given Bobbi, a woman who was like a second mom to me, had died the previous week.. after having moved away 10 years prior.  So yeah the timing hurt, but it also helped the shows real message change: people change, they can change you and ultimately life is not trying to hold on to some perfect image of what it should be, but accepting what it is as it moves on, as you grow and change. And sometimes.. the things you loose come back to you. I will never get the people i’ve lost back.. but i’ve reconnected with plenty of people.. and now so is anne as she reunites with her girls. 

And look let’s get the very gay elephant out of the room: Yes I’ve been a rabbid sashanarcy shipper. I cop to that. But I support the show NOT taking the easy route and giving fans what they wanted.. but what was realistic. Marcy was leaving and while something may or may not have happened with anne and sasha they were two very different people who simply drifted a bit. Having them drift apart, while still keeping in some level of touch, was realistic as it was painful. Plus their now all back in the same place, so the door’s still open as is it for fanfiction. Sometimes that big gay relationship upgrade doesn't happen because a mouse has a gun to your head, hi ducktales. And sometimes it just doesn't happen because it’s not necessary to the story. 

But back to the point, you can’t hold onto the past. You can treasure it but you ultimately need to let go. It’s why we don’t get conformation IF anne and sprigg saw each other again. Given Terri built a working portal with home goods and now has the government's ear , funding and experimental tech, not to mention the fact several robot factories were just... dropped into la , it probably would only take a year, if not just a few, to get the funding, power source, and time for a new portal. They probably do meet again and i’m not just saying that so I don’t ugly cry. 

But it’s not what was important and that’s okay. The real point.. is that anne and spirgg lived. They probably spend every Christmas together, they probably see each other every so often..  but they moved on from their adventures in their own way. Sprigg used them to start his own, to catalogue what they found and really understand it and Anne used knowing all these wonderful amphibias to study earth’s own versions of them. Their adventures helped each other grow into the people they were meant to be and they’ll always be family.. but the part of their lives where there in it every day is over.. and that's okay.

It also contrasts the core well..  a villian whose entire motive is keeping things the way IT wants them and to last forever... and who fittingly dies. As @jess-the-vampire and I talked about in conversation, a villian really should only die when there’s a reason for it. Otherwise it just feels like they got out easy and redemption or being forced to sit with their crimes while everything they hated occurs around them or being forced to do some recompense is more interesting.  Or to put it in the way my brain often does:

And it’s why even if I feel it was done with mild sloppiness... Andrias turn works. No one forgives him, he’s in chains even a decade later, and he even said itslef it was too late. But he still got to be free, turning against the core on his terms and living the rest of his life actively making up for what he’s done, and even outright refusing any more upgrades, willing to die knowing he did something right for once. It works, in part because Keith David is just that good. 

And honestly the only part of the finale that dosen’t work, before we get to more that does.. is the Core. The final battle is UTTERLY beautiful, from the kick ass living in my head forever more remix of no big deal, to the saint seiya inspired powered up verisons of their armors, to the boss as hell hair, to the gay as hell spin, it is one of the best sequences in the show, and in recent western animation.

But the core itself, while tying into the shows themes well.. just falls flat. IT’s motives are just so simple: it wants to live forever and it wants to conquer. And a villain with a simple motive can work: Thanos in the comics wants to kill everything, as does the lich from adventure time. But what makes them work is while the motive is simple their personalities aren’t: Thanos is a blood kniight LITERALLY in love with death, a master of strategy and battle whose utterly horrifying to face not just for his power but because he’s thanos...

The MCU one has a SLIGHTLY more sympathetic if still horrifyingly genocidal bent, but my point is to be simple in motive you need some gravitas and the Core.. just isn’t that. There’s no depth to what they are, no deep strategy or knowledge from having so many minds in one. Ther’es no sense of what they are or what they can do and the only one we get any sense of with andrais’ dad, which arguably harms it as instead of this unknowing being who happens to have andrias abusive dad in there to rub salt in the wound it’s down to just old king dickhead. The core is just weak as a villian, especially after we got so much more out of andrias over the past season and it’s sad to see the series end with that... still punching out a moon was awesome. 

I’ll also say Anne’s disney death... was geninely horrifying but it and the ensuign conversation with the stone diety was hit and miss. Anne being offered godhood, having shown how much she’s learned and thus another moral of the series, that we ALL fuck up but what’s important is we constantly try to be better and don’t let our mistakes eat us alive, a fantastic one we all need to hear from tiem to time, I feel there just.. wasn’st time. The diety just comes out of left field. There was no indication the stones were sentient before this.. they CHOOSE our heroes but magical artifacts that AREN’T sapient do that all the time in fiction.  YOu can cast a spell for chosen one nonsense. So while the diety isn’t a bad character, honestly they got more personality and charisma in a few minutes than the core got in an entire half a season being fully reveealed and Charlyne Yi was great in the role, I just feel it’s a bit tacked on. LIke a way to have the trip home be one way by having anne have to use all her power. I don’t midn the results, as I said the ending is effecting and the narrative has built to this over the series and especially this season: the idea of loosing people has been prevalant, of what loss does to you and how seperation can change you. They’ve subtley been buidling to this. But the way they got there feels half assed and given they puttered around most of 3b buliding an army that amoutned to fuck all in the end, they HAD the time to do more with the stones or our heroes researching them. Instead they just rushed it, gave us one glorious but sadly breif taste of the girls at full power, then got to the ending. Amphibia’s three part finale honestly reminds me of Ducktales finale, The Last Adventure. The setup going into it was wonky, it was a bit of a mess.. but ultimately it somehow works an dthe ending is still utterly satsifying. The villians and heroes both end up where they should and it leaves you in tears while wanting MORE. 

So before we get to my overall thoughts some rapid fire stuff since as the final episode and being a bit longer, there’s a lot of ground to cover

 Grime and Sasha’s goodbye is everything I coudl’ve wanted from my two faviorite characters on the show. I may relate to marcy the most but my trash daughter and trash grandpa were the shows mvps and their heartflet and tearfilled goodbyes were as excellent as i’d expect. 

I do like where the girls all ended up as adults: Sasha’s was the most suprising.. but also the most satisfying. Shocker the character I just admitted wa smyf aviorite and whose solo episodes i’ve consiently gushed over had the most satisfying arc. But her going on to help kids like they were and help them with their issues. Really warmed the heart. Also she’s bisexual as fuck as I expected. Marcy being a webcomic writer fits her like a glove and allows her to use her creativity, genius and nerdery without having to put too much presure on it and anne being a hepitolgist was simply brilliant. It was also a neat touch keeping all the va’s, and it fit given their all grown women and adjusted it JUST enough to show their maturity. May they have a conseual pile ever after. 

Lot to unpack with the wartwood side of the timeskip. We finally get to see polly as a grown frog, and thus have an idea of what sprig size her looks like. It also dosen’t rule out my crossover ship with her giant island sized boyfriend from the other show we’ll get to in a moment so yay. The callback to the goodnight you frogs from the pilot was also neat. 

HOp Pop not only still has silvia, but go this alvacados’. Also he’s still alive in ten years. I’m proud of him and his adotped robot farming son. I’m also happy hop pop got one plantar who’d follow in his footsteps since sprigg and polly don’t seem that intrested in farming in present day let alone 10 years later. 

We didn’t get the offical couple I wanted most.. but as I made clear earlier I made peace with that. But we got OLVIA AND YUNAN. Which I never expected to be made canon but here we are. Respectble and Disaster gay together as they deserve. Also grime is an ambadassador now. 

Speaking of which, we got JOE AND BESSIE. I dind’ thtink they’d call back to that much less given them tons of hybrid children but Usopp bless you matt. Speaking of Kids of all people Maddie has them already. With who? I dunno but i’m glad maddie is happy selling her potions with her tiny children. Maybe her baby daddy died under suspscious cricumstances. maybe she brought him back as a fraknenstine. these are questions for us fans to answer. 

Finally we have Sprigg whose not only an explorer, but is stil with ivy. Awww. And they head off for the dark conteint... er the axtol contient. You know if I had a nickel for every time the show badly teased something I wanted an answer for in the finale without actually answering it i’d have two nickels.. which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice. Still got tons of ideas on that. Maybe he invites some old friends along. Maybe he rides on king’s back while chuck grows tulips there. We’ve seen titans can do it. I’ll just have to wait and see on that one. 

Overall though this is a GREAT finale.. but as I said it just has a thing or two holding it back. But like The last Adventure i’ll hold this in my heart. And as I say goodbye to amphibia.. it’s sad. I truly loved this show, warts and all, and it’ll be sad to see it go. Sure I still got season 1 to cover.. but it’s not quit ethe same as digging into new content next week and it’s also hard knowing that with owl house’s finale movies likely airing this year, it’s not the last goodbye to a show I love i’m going to have to deal with. Still this show was a heck of a ride with characters i’ll treasure forever, some hilarous all time great episodes, and a hell of a moral.. one i’ll follow. I may be leaving Amphibia behind.. but i’ll carry it with me. I’m also not QUITE done yet, as i’ve decided to make a tradition of what happened with ducktales.. since the series is over.. best of the series list coming next. Then i’ll finally get back to season one. Still it was a great show.. .so long matt.. and thanks for all the frogs. Can’t wait to see you next time you hop into the creators chair.  PS: As much as I hate to ruin my heartfelt goodbye yeah turns out I was wrong. What I thought was an erroneous fan theory was actually correct: The time skip only takes place 10 years later on Anne’s side. For amphibia it’s 9 MONTHS later. A large part of why I wrote it off as bs was simple: why would they be at diffrent times and if so why wouldn’t they tell us? And I still have no idea why either of those things but it does actaully make the epilogue make a bit more sense: none of the adult cast has aged which I thought was weird at first but is now simply there wasn’t enough time, and the younger cast makes sense given 3 of them were on the cusp of puberty and Polly was changing into a grown child. I still want a follow up on the dark continent thing and all, but it still just feels weird. I’m fine with them having two diffrent time epilogues but as WeirdKev wisely said when informing me of my mixup, WHY wasn’t there a “9 months later thing” it would’ve made this less confusing. Yes again there are context clues, sprig didn’t look or sound like an adult versus anne , sasha and marcy who not only were grown ass women but soudned like it, but I shoudln’t need context clues to figure out two scenes are 9 years apart. There was no reason not to do this. It dosen’t HURT either epilogue story wise, it’s just annoying. 

                                                O’Titan, Where Art Thou?

And now we’re back to the boiling isles as death looms over our heroes... as usual.

This one got back to luz, with Hunter’s fate once again left to next week.. aka this week’s episode but more on our faviorite bad sad hobo willow liker in a bit. For now it’s the time of steve as King is understandably having a bit of an exestetial crisis after finding out he’s...

Not helping is the fact is how while his mom, sister and weird uncle that’s also a tube all get he needs time to process this, that he’s still the king they know and love, and that he just wants to be normal.. lilith on the other hand, given her desperate need for authority and tendency to take things a little bit TOO far in her exciement...

Eda of course wants her to knock off treating her nephew like a god.. but gets distracted with the a-plot. So instead LIlith threatens to murder people in his name, do his bidding etc. And what makes this intresting, and something king himself even points out later with his new big bro, is that this is what he WANTED up until he learned the truth about himself. King wanted to be an angry god and have attroacities commited in his name. He wanted power and worship and whatever he wanted. But now he has that.. he’s HORRIFIED by it. He’s realized he just wants a family, and now some of the only family he has, especially after learning his people are likely dead, all dead, is treating him like a god instead of her nephew. It’s no wonder he runs off. 

Thankfully he finds steve. Look I forgot steve existed, I had no idea he was not only going to get a deep character arc, but conclude said arc via a soul searcing hard traveling road trip with king. It was something I always clearly needed but never knew it till now. Steve has left the coven.. not defected just yet but he’s correctly assumed belos dosen’t give a shit about anyone, the day of unity is a lie and thus has taken off with his sweet new jacket and hog (and his signature steve t-shirt), to find himself. And the episode helps further flesh him out as a character. Steve had no real reason to invite king along.. but he saw a kid in trouble, as unsure of himself as steve was and clearly needing a fucking break. And the montage of said road trip/soul searching journey/walkabout/fucking break is just.. one of the cutest and most heartwarming thing. King comforts steve’s distress at not having a parnter while steve helps him: taking him to the titans bones which the boy hugs and later adorably setting a paper craft figure of a human on top of king. He also tells him he dosen’t HAVE to be whta people want him to be just himself. Granted LIlith tries tracking king down, to the point even HOOTY thinks King just wants to be normal.. and is also the mighty worm of arakis apparently.. and has a tiny him inside. 

Yeah freeze frame it. Ther’es a mini hooty in there.. starring.. meancingly. HAVE FUN TRYING TO SLEEP TONIGHT! :B 

We also see steve’s face and he’s really really redicusouly good looking. Like I was not expecting steve to be a smokeshow of keith david quality but here we are! Steve is just .. fantastic, having grown immensely from a grunkle stan flavored joke cahracter into the loveable guy we know now. I didn’t expect to care this much for steve but here we are. You go man

As for our other plot, Eda’s attempts to keep Luz out of it despite it making no sense finally come to a head: Lilith left them directions to where they were hiding, as she shoudl since you know, bonesburough is now full of wanted posters for all of them so maybe she wasn’t wrong, and neither sister has an actual plan, with Eda just wanting to give her kids one great day before they possibly die in the whole genocide thing. And while it works out for King, Luz is too determined to get their stuff back, particularly francois.

Sadly.. things reach their natural conclusion. Eda lying about the plan means Luz thinks she has one.. and as such when she hears Eda BEGGING rahne to take luz and king and run as far as possible, even if has to give herself up, she’s furious. The scene itself is heartbreaking: Rahne clearly realizes how badly they fucked up trying to leave Eda out of this, while Eda is just so desperate. We’ve seen her so confident that seeing her just begging, willing to give up if it means her children leave... it’s devastating and Wendy Mallick utterly sells it. 

And it’s only apptizer to the main course of tears, as Luz is naturally pissed Eda seems to be underestimating her.. and expects her to run. While her girlfriend, best friends, and ANYONE else she’s met and cared the least bit about, whcih is to say a lot of people are at risk of dying horribly.. eda wants her to run. Yet what makes this inevtible clash so heartbreaking.. is you see why Eda WANTS her to run. They have no allies, no plan, and no hope and even if Luz is capable, she not only shoudln’t HAVE to fight this war, but she can’t. She MIGHT be able to figh tbelos, we’ll see next week, but not only is that a BIGGGG might, it’s to eda’s knowledge three people against the bulk of the isles. At least Luz MIGHT be able to undo the draining spell or find some way to win eventually. At least she’ll live. You can’t blame either for backing their side: One is a daughter being abandoned AGAIN, the other is a mother desperate to keep her kid alive

And so we get one of the most devisttaing fights in animation since Amethyst Vs Garnet: Luz trying to escape to fight anyways and Eda trying to stop her. And you  can tell that while neither is half assing it both are DESPERATLEY trying not to hurt each other. The stakes are too high to do nothing, with Luz using her magic cleverly and eda pesuing her owl-dly, but neither WANTS this. The audience dosen’t want this. but it had to happen. It does show how far luz has come.. but it’s not enoguh. Sadly the fight gets them captured... and Luz not only find sout why but begs for eda to be okay... 

Thankfully like the episode before instead of ending on pain.. we end on hope. Not only does luz wake to being freed by darius, but with the batts. Seriously that had been bugging me all season. The conformatiroioum is cardboard. Eda could’ve busted them out. Btu now we know why: their parental figure already busted them free, and also found king, steve, lilith and hooty. Rahne reveals the truth, apologizes and admits to having learned the same lesson Eda did: it’s fine to want to protect someone.. but sometimes their going to fight anyway and the best you can do is fight with them. We also find out that Darius and Eber were already working on this rebellion and simply attacked rahne because their a terrible actor. Which given we’ve seen the poor person nearly break down just giving an acceptance speech and be easily found out as rebellion leader, yeah good point. Together they are the

Covens Against The Throne S??????

The CATTS. As you’d expect and likely already know because it’s been a week, Darius is horrified by the mere idea of that being the name never mind Rahne telling everybody. But he’s outvoted so CATS IT IS. 

The ending is also geninely sweet, with Luz and Eda carving her new palismen, Luz finally ready and Eda ready to teach her. While time is ticking down to doomsday... the world can wait. For just one minute. For mother and daughter to share one last moment before the world turns upside down

As usual this episode was excellent and I have no real complaints or crticisim here. At most the pacing is slightly rushed.. but given it’s clear by the “if we had 20 more adventures line” there having to do a steven unvierse and try and get to the finish line with what they have left. Granted it’s uknown to me at least just how much of season 2 was finished before the axe came down, writing had STARTED on season 3 at least, or how much was adjusted, but given the sheer panicy nightmare that entails I applaud it for seeming seamless. Things are accelearated but they don’t feel rushed or unearned and they had at least enough time to speed things up. And we’ll see the momentum keep..

                                Clouds on the Horizon

Before we get into the obvious i’d like to be a pedantic old man for a second: This title.. .feels out of place. It’s not a bad one... but at this point the day of unity is HERE. In the utterly amazing intro we see Belos struggle to open the door.. and it turns out the door ISN’T necessary to the DOU. He just wants to go home once his genocide is done. 

Thing is... it’s not that easy. As the collector points out, Belos isn’t human anymore, even if he tries to punch his little buddy for it... he’s not wrong. Belos is a monster in body and soul. And while the right people would likely accept this monster man, as we’ve seen with anne’ and the plantars elsewhere on the same earth... the world has changed. Witches have faded into myths while witch trials, something Phillip probably relished in his day, are now seen as shit shows used to persecute whoever the accuser didn’t like. His “great work” won’t be seen as the heroic effort he thinks, but the horrifying mass slaughter of millions it is.. okay by most people. I know there’s enough asshole sin the world that some would agree with him. But actual human beings would run away in terror.  He could’ve gone home centuries ago, gave this up and found peace... but instead he choose genocide, choose cruelty, and choose his mad ambition.. and  might as well go for two

God I wish i’d seen the parallels between MCU thanos and Belos sooner. Eh making up for lost time. Anyways it’s finally time

The day of unity is here. And the Cats have a plan.. well 18% of one. Darius and Eber’s plan can be boiled down to

So we go with plan Rahne instead: Sneak eda in, have her replace them as coven head.. and use the fact her magic is all out of it to destroy the spell. Granted this requires her wearing a sigil but she’s prepared to make that sacrifice. It’s also a brilliant plan I should’ve seen coming: the anti-magic thing was a bit TOO pronounced to never come up again but it’s also been long enough since it was used I genenly forgot about it. That to me is one of the most clever ways to fire a chekov’s gun: make it so the audeince forgets about the weapon till you fire it. Amphibia proved ot be a MASTER of that and owl house has learned well from it’s sister show. 

As for Luz, her girlfriend is dealing with some...

Sadly she has to deal with something WORSE than Steve Urkel

Her mother. And while normally i’d use this running gag to describe her

And at first she does, refusing to actually listen to her kids concerns about the day of untiy and locking them in their room. She also breaks the tomagachi, as if you needed more proof she was history’s greatest monster. But as we’ll see.. she SOMEHOW gets worse. Yes folks in a time where a crazy old man is trying to commit genocide.. ODALIA somehow manages to be just as much of a crazed up fruit loop. More on that in a moment. 

So since Luz was last told to hurry, Eda gladly supports her daughter, he yuske urameshi style egg of a palsimen and son going to go help him. Granted it fufills her wish of them being outta the line of fire, sure.. but it shows Eda’s growth that it’s not WHY she sends her kids this way. She does it because Luz NEEDS to do this, and because she knows Luz will find a way back to her if they need her. She’s no longer shutning her kids off to try to misguidedly protect them, but simply sending them where their needed most and can possibly bring  back an emo for their army. Darius even fully approves it sending his top man and friends to meet them.. which of course ends up being Hunter, Willow and Gus, the latter of whom happily reunite iwth their pal after a week because the time scale for these episodes is as fast as it is confusingly slow. 

Hunter is also closer with both: he and gus have injokes now and as for willow... she’s gone from side eyeing to full on lovingly eyeing him. 

The only caveat.. is Hutner has oopsy daisy not told them he’s a clone and his life is a lie.. though while a LOT of it is insecurity, Luz rightly points out they wouldn't care about that.. their friends with hooty. EVERYONE is normal in comparison to him. But he keeps her quite by pointing out the phillip thing she hasn’t told anyone and they storm the gate.. and actually pull it off well, easily getting to amity past security as our heroes get past in thei rdope new outfits. Seriously gus has a neat sash now, hunter is now wearing proper clothes just not full gold anymore, and willow gets the biggest glowup of all as she shoudl : her yellow shirt is now a badass coat, she’s wearing green and she’s got shiny leggings. Finally I like her civlian outfit. IT was fine before but holy shit man does she now have one she deserves.

Anyways Amity gay panicks about the world falling apart and just wanting to know luz is alright.. as luz enters. and then.. they fucking kiss

I can’t overstate how well this is done: From luz promising a normal slice of life date after all this shit, awwww, to how romantic it is to amity just going for it. TI’s so fucking adorable and they put a LOT into the animation to make this perfect. They bumped it the hell up and it was warranted. I also applaud them for taking their time: they didn’t have them confess then kiss as common, they simply worked up to it slowly but surely till we got here. It’s still dramatic.. but like... just the right amount for a relationship that’s this important to the show and this important to disney history.. even as they try to bury it. They earned this moment and milk the hell out of it. Also Luz’s crikey in response.. comedy gold.

So our heroes try infiltrating the factory and it mostly works, they even find a mouse alador clone

But naturally get caught while Odalia naturally bitches it up... though without homophobia. She’s fine with Amity having a girlfriend.. she just wants to chooes said girlfriend because she’s a controlling sociopath who cares for nothing but money, abuses her husband and children, and somehow can sink lower than that. I remain unsurprised but we’ll get to what actually threw me. 

Thankfully while she was busy going through her morning routine of abusing her children, King, who was told to stay behind, end sup following the yellowed snack road to Alador, who earlier tried to talk his wife out of all the robots as he’s antsy.. but you know got shot down with “I’m going to endanger our children if you don’t shut up”. Turns out a LOT of Alador’s less than stellar parenting is due to his wife abusing him: Making work weekends, firing half his staff, making him work through ac old. All so she can get richer. You know general odalia being 

It recontexualizes things: yes he was overly passive in matters like the willow thing.. but he’s clearly just as much a victim as his wife and often when abuse switches from spouse to child, the spouse is powerless to do anything. And we have seen him GEINENLY try to change, realizing just how distant he’s grown from his kids last time we saw him , so it doesn't try and paper away his past mistakes, but simply give us the karen shaped reason why. He wants to be better and wants to spend time with his kids father all this is over.  My heart breaks for the guy, being abused by this monster, unable to actually parent his kids.. and then he finds out what the day of unity is from king. 

So he gets a badass moment confronting her and after about a minute of trying to avoid him.. the shoe drops and we get to what i’ve been talking about.. Odalia.. KNOWS about the genocide

Yeah. She THINKS her family will be spared and she’ll live like a queen after. Not getting that NONE of them want this.. or really not caring. To her their just possessions who do what she tells them. 

Turns out though pissing off your husband who also buit your minons is a bad idea and he destroys most around and we get a badass as hell fight. Which is standard for the show at this point but we both see how alador fights, using steampunk abomination tentacles and going GLOWY EYES, but how Odalia fights, using summoned ghosts and the souls of a thousand orphans.. okay they don’t say the last part but it’s implied by her everything. She somehow sunk lower from “Escaping Explusion” and that had her try to murder her daughter’s future girlfriend over a petty grievance. I’m still in shock “Genocide profiteer” is not only a thing but a level you can sink to. 

So a big ass fight insues.. not helped by kiki who Odalia gave a super fighting robot since she got demoted to deliveries. Wethere Odalia is simply going after a vulnerable target to manipulate into doing her  bidding this is how she flirts with people....

And yes despite all these setbacks and the humiliating demotion she’s STILL going after hunter to impress belos

My god Kiki get a hobby... or date a recent divorce whose as garbage as you. I don’t care which. Just stop stalking our boy. 

She actually wins for once... allegedlys.... and grabs him.. and then finds out she pressed the “you kidnapped my boyfriend” button for willow

And thus nearly tears all her organs out and makes her into a puppet. I told you we only got a huntlow thing or two this ep but them fuckers meaty. And as for Lumity.. well we got a fucking feast. It was a good day is what i’ms aying. 

Sadly before Willow can tear off kiki’s head thingy and nail it ot her door like one of those fancy lion door knockers rich folks got she pulls a human shield and gets away. We then get Alador quitting the company and Odalia going off to find someone as batshit as her, sadly not ONCE getting punched in the face. ONCE. It’s all I ask. She deserves it so much! Sure her big plan got unreavled and she’ll probably be brought up for war crimes but still. The divorce isn’t phasing her. I don’t know what will. Possibly a racoon being put on her head. LET ME HAVE SOMETHING. 

Willow naturally seeing her boyfriend kidnapped by someone whose tried to multiple time murder him on a GOOD day and who hasn’t even gotten the news of how bad things REALLY are in this case, is desperatley trying ot make the plane go. Thankfulyl Alador’s gone from overworked regretful dad to the cool dad so he joins the party and gladly welcomes his future daughter and law into the family.. only to find out it’s hunter

Yeah turns out Luz pulled a switch and thanks to the power of all of us being obsessive dorks who poor through every frame for foreshadowing after something like this and i love all of you for it, turns out there was tons from luz whispering to gus to both not talking (Which is weird for them) to both acting more like themselves: luz gives kiki the raspberry which seems like a hunter move but isn’t really in the context, and hunter prepares to throw hands instead of you know.. using a glyph. It also means there’s even more huntlow. Hunter also had no idea she was planning this... but given Kiki being kiki let slip the emperoro KNOWS about the rebellion she’s now their only hope as they prepare for the plan unaware there’s a million targets on their backs. So now Luz stands on the bow of a ship prepared to give kiki the ass kicking willow could not as the day of unity is about to begin, the rest of our heroes are likely hauling ass to help, and all the while the collector wonders if belos is relally their friend, possibly readying for their OWN counter strategy if he inevitably dosen’t do his side of the deal...

As you can tell this episode was another home run as the series prepares for it’s season finale.. and the beginning of the end. Tons of great character stuff, action and basically the same great shit as usual plus one of the biggest and most impactful gay kisses in animation history. So in otherwords it was a helluva day. See you next week for the finale! Or if you’d like you can stick around the rest of the week as I FINALLY return to my venture bros retrospective, and endulge in some civil war laser tag. Also if you want to help keep this blog going zip on over tomy patreon, link below. Thanks for reading. 

Patreon

[vrisrezis]

Again until I get more non ososan rqs yall are getting self indulgent GARBAGE here is my girl who deserves better <//3 I just want her to be happy with somebody who loves her!

Slight sashanne shipping in here ;p

MARCY RELATIONSHIP HCS!

- first of all imma go with the idea you’re in her little friend group so you guys can go on double dates with Anne and Sasha <3 but that would take place after amphibia LAWL

- thing is, with dating Marcy!!! She’s soooo nervous but excited at the same time! Like she obviously has that habit of rambling on, but this is even moreso with you because she gets so nervous and excited around you!

- he loves playing video games with you too! (And when you’re in amphibia, yknow.. other games like flipwart… she lets you win on purpose and has to explain that and Andrias just smirks knowingly)

- yknow for somebody that’s very nervous she is very physical, seriously! She can often be found grabbing onto your hand, hugging you, she’s always trying to touch you in some way physically!

- she also obviously has abandonment issues but doesn’t always act upon them or talk about them with you? Like she gets really sad whenever you go off on a mission and it’s very noticeable so Andrias usually likes to distract her with flipwart or a new mission of her own but yknow

- she just has a hard time opening up about these things sometimes which causes a lot of bottling up emotions and all that

- lotsa sleepovers like all the time LOL

- also she gets really happy whenever you interact with those close to her and show a close relationship, she gets really happy whenever you get along with Anne or Sasha! Because they’re like her family honestly!

- likes nuzzling you <//3

- cheek kisses too! Loves em!

- usually the two of you go on missions together, naturally you worry about your clumsy gf

- but when you guys meet Anne again it’s a whole lotta fun! Though admittedly Marcy finds herself jealous of Anne because she’s able to get so close and form a good bond with you! She’s always been jealous of Anne’s ability to bond with others, sometimes she feels like you’re closer to Anne..

- but hey some reassurance and hugs go a long way!

- better when Sasha comes back at least, cause Sasha easily distracts Anne’s gay ass

- she does this thing where she just squished your cheeks together and is like “babe. Listen to me.”

- during missions are like the only time she’s not clingy or touching you tbh

- also that one ep where Marcy and everyone else had to dress up . You bet her dumbass just kept blushing and staring at you in your nice outfit, any compliments sent her way and she’s dying!!

- she’s definitely an amity 2.0 btw, her entire face just gets all red when you compliment her, she lets out a nervous giggle and gives you a smile as she tries to come up with some compliment for you

- true colors spoilers as well as s3 spoilers but ;(

- she grabbed onto your hands with those tears in her eyes as she confessed her heart and soul out to you, the truth, her betrayal. She felt so heartbroken when you pulled away, you had never done that before. It hurt her more than words could explain to have you do that.

- but with everything that went down that day, you wished you could’ve helped Marcy in that moment, helped her from getting stabbed by that monster you trusted.

- you wanted to help her, but that big oaf was too strong for you to even get close.

- she felt so horrible about what happened though

- you, along with two gay newts try to help Marcy, but she was just so happy to see you again. She didn’t even think about what happened for a moment in your drunken state, being overly affectionate, telling you how much she loved you. How she’s kinda jealous of Anne sometimes, how she really really wants you all to herself sometimes but that’s so selfish of her.. isn’t it?

- what she did was selfish, but you sympathized with her ;(

- you still had a lot of thinking to do though. You weren’t gonna break up with her.. but you needed some time to yourself

- but you quickly realized you’d get that time.. and not in the way you wanted.. as Marcy soon became Darcy, you watched in horror as you could do nothing. You felt horrible, her eyes bore into yours, a horrified look on both of her faces, hers screaming ‘help me’ and yours screaming ‘I wish I could. I’m so sorry’

[boobchuy]

im so. the plantars are so. anne meeting them is so. they are just. so. theyre everything. just just just just. just the plantars the plantars having this hole in their hearts, anne filling the hole up when she crashes into their lives, and the plantars filling the hole she didnt know she had herself. they all went through so much together. the plantars called her a monster when they first met her, anne thought their slimy skin and use of tongue was gross. then she grew used to it. she’s become so touchy and they too with her. they grew into a FAMILY. they grew to love each other so muc h,

and the. when the when the when the when hp hid the music box. when he didnt want it anywhere near his family. but he was still willing to bring everyone along to go with anne to head to newtopia !!!!! like!!! theres danger, still!!! outside of wartwood!!! he still wanted to help despite the fact that he couldve just let anne go!!! he made it a road trip with the whole fam with her!!!! he still fuckign cxares !!!!!!!!! he just messed up!!!! it was a bad move on his part to not say anything!!! but anne still got hurt and the hkjahhl when.. when she found out, since it was LITERALLY her one connecting piece between earth and amphibia (she doesnt call it home bc amphibia has felt like a home for a long time and shes not sure shes ready to dwell on that fact just yet) it felt like hp didnt care about THAT and would rather she got stuck than go back!!!!!!!!!

and shes confused and hurt!!! why would hp do that!!! and then!! and she finds out about sprig and pollys parents!! and things are okay for a bit (they arent) and she!! bottles up the festering belief that she wasnt a part of the plantar family after all this time and OOOGHHHH. AND ITS EXPLICITLY STATED IN CANON. THE FIRST TEMPLE. ‘Lets stop pretending im part of the family okay?’ this is SO fucked up. messed up of them. sick in the head. i cannot believe this line dropped and im not dead where i stand. fucking insane

BUT IN THE END. they are literally still a family. anne loves them to death and they feel the same for her!!! following her til the end of everything, they are both ride or die for each other and they. careee,,,, about each other so fucking much im SO *clenching my fists so tightly*

[raayllum]

you mentioned you watched amphibia- i’d be interested to hear your thought on it!

Loved Amphibia!! The found family was immaculate and I liked the worldbuilding a lot. I found the show got almost a little too big for its britches by season three, never quite managing that perfect marriage between plot and characterization... which is to say I found the filler to be the strongest part of the show and S1 was probably my favourite!

I also majorly shipped Sasha/Anne and although I liked Marcy I didn't find her super interesting as a character until True Colours (and then she's basically MIA in s3 although I liked her character arc all the same). Loved the cultural explorations of Thai culture, too, with Anne, that was awesome!

I always appreciate when a show changes its title card and I loved all the side characters (particular faves were Maddie and Ivy) as well as Grime and Bessie! The episode where Bessie and lil Angelo had to look after each other <33 my heart

Overall solid 8/10 show, liked it more than TOH, would 10/10 recommend to anyone who wants a fun time with some later plot!

[fairygal11]

The Heroes of Amphibia

(In honor of the series finale I wrote a poem :3 )

Three stones that shine like stars

Brought three girls from beyond

To save the world of Amphibia

From a horrible threat.

A kind soul with a pure heart

Who learned kindness, family and friendship

A wild rebel with immense strength and sass

Learned what it truly meant to be a true friend

An otaku gal with a sharp mind

Learned what friendship truly meant.

Through the trials and obstacles

Each one faced in the realms they found themselves in

Brought back together, but alas torn apart

By an ancient secret brought to light by the Newt King

The heart thrown back to her world

While the two were left behind as chaos rose.

The mind controlled by the Core

The strength who rallied a rebellion

The heart that found a way back

With her frog family to come to her friends’ aid.

Anne and Sasha rallied the troops

To stop Andrias invasion once and for all

Only to fall prey to Darcy’s trap

And learn their friend was under their control.

Earth was invaded

All hope seemed lost

But a tiny spark within the heart

Brought forth the Lotus in full bloom

K-Pop aiding in their fight

To bring forth their full potential.

The king has fallen

The Core disconnected

The girls reunited

Returned to Amphibia

To declare the King’s defeat.

But all is not well

The moon is falling

Thus the girls summon forth

The power within the stones

To take up the fight.

Through their efforts

They almost succeed

But the moon was still falling

A choice must be made.

The heart offered to gather the stones

To unleash the ultimate power

That’ll disperse the threat

But at a cost.

The power of the heart

Dispersed the moon

Only to shatter like leaves

Taken from her loved ones.

But as they moan their loss

The Cosmic Guardian had a revelation

He brought life back to the heart

Returned her to where she truly belonged.

Life restored

Peace brought forth

With shards in hand

It was time to say farewell.

Though they will miss their amphibian friends

In their hearts they will never be apart

Not in this world or another

Nor time and space

Love, friendship and family

Transcends the impossible.

Their heroics will never be forgotten

Their lessons will be written

Their kindness shared by all

Their courage stirs the souls

Their minds forever learning.

It has been quite a journey

But quite a heartwarming and heroic story

That’ll go down in history for centuries

Of the three girls that changed their world

What once was broken, now made whole

Amphibia reunited at long last.

[maldito-arbol]

Oh boy, where do I start with this chapter? It's a sudden shift in everything the group has worked for because now Sasha is all on her own. And none of her friends and girlfriends know what is going on.

Froog has made her appearance! As a ghost! And the dialogue was quite pleasant to read and brought a lot of questions too! Especially the 'I can't sleep part'

So Sasha had a dream that wasn't so much of a dream, it's concerning how reality and the subconscious can mix with each other when sleep is taken away from you. It's like you can't differentiate if you're sleep or not anymore.

Everyone has been fooled! Such a master of deception the Core has turned to be. For a moment I thought it was all Strength being corrupted or something but we got it wrong from the start. You evil genius! What a mess!

When you said Sasharcy was going to suffer I didn't knew it was going to be this bad, I mean, Marcy not feeling comfortable with her gf, Sasha letting go of Marcy and almost giving the Core the chance to possess her, Marcy feeling like Sasha isn't safe to be around but not wanting to leave her behind, and Sasha pushing her away to make amends for letting her down when she should've protected her.

“When you said you couldn’t bear to watch me die? When you made me promise to n- never let go?” It strikes Sasha like a knife to the heart. “…when did that change?”

God, that was so hard! 😭😭😭

And the reveal of Barrel the Brave and the Core being the same person! And the Corr calling itself the fourth gem! It shocked me. Unless it is another ruse. I don't trust that slimmy liar. Yikes, and I thought Andrias was evil but this is going to another level.

“Wake up soon, my Anne,” she whispers. “Come back and see me when you do, when you’re back on your own two feet and feeling better. But for now, rest. I took care of everything you asked me to, so you don’t have to worry anymore.”

Anne will have the surprise of the lifetime when Marcy tells her what happened and she's not gonna like it.

Three hands rest on her back as the birds take off, and she looks behind her to find her toad friends—they’re all right here next to her. They refused to leave her side.

When a whole army of toads abandons you, the ones who stay are the ones who count. And when you send away all your new friends and your loved ones, those you know were true, the ones you keep are the ones who count. And it’s these three.

She turns, and she envelops them in a group hug—her arms aren’t long enough to reach all three of them, but they make up for it by returning the embrace, zero protests, zero complaints.

Awww 🥺🥺🥺 toad found family!!

“We’re in it to the end!” Percy pipes up. “Which hopefully isn’t death.”

“I said to our last breaths,” Grime argues.

“Oh, just leave him be,” Sasha snorts. “None of you will be dying anytime soon—I’ll make sure of that.”

Why that sounds like foreshadowing?

Polly finally got her legs!! Such a beautiful moment, but it is dulled by Anne not watching it. Also, the Plantars hugging Sasha and wishing her the best is so cute and warming.

Last but not least, that addiction to the crown! It's not only on Sasha but also on Andrias what with the itching, the urge to use it and the incessant scratching. It's really disturbing. Heck, it's much more horrifying than Andrias and Heart codependency on each other!

Oh and let's not forget that now Sasha is in the same place as Marcy in canon: prisoner in her own body by the hands of an eldritch being.

Let's hope Newtopia and even Amphibia don't end up like a crater or a wasteland at the end of this story.

Poor Sashy all by herself with all her loved ones none the wiser <3 Yep the Big Difference between Sasha’s arc and those of her girlfriends is that she has to go it alone, and it’s gonna have Major Consequences.

Oh I had SO MUCH fun with the Froog appearance! Her dynamic with Barrel especially—I love the OG sasharcy almost as much as I love destroying them!! There’s a lot of tasty little hints in there that will make sense later <3 basically EVERYTHING Froog says and does is important. Wonder why she can’t sleep :^)

Yyyyup! Her ‘dream’ sequences are meant to be confusing, neither she nor the audience being able to concretely tell if they’re real or not in the midst of them—but there are little hints here and there that they are Very Much real. For example, the blood on Sasha’s knuckles in the morning, her intense dark circles Bernardo pointed out, the fact that the mirrors were all broken the second time, AND the fact that the Orange Eyeball Door was open and Sasha somehow managed to find a bracelet and a book without remembering acquiring them in the first place.

Double yep! It was The Core the whole time!! It was lucky, actually, that Strength’s personality happened to be on its downward spiral from playful to Serious and almost scary at the exact moment that The Crown made its debut, because both Sasha and the readers were inclined to believe it WAS Strength, and that it hadn’t been showing its true colors (haha get it) until now. But no! Strength may be a little jerk sometimes, but its nowhere near the methodical, calculating cruelty that The Core is capable of. I don’t think Strength even knows how to gaslight ppl, something The Core is Extremely Proficient at. Hmm I wonder where it got THAT from :’)

I said I was destroying sasharcy one chapter at a time, and I meant it. All the seeds of their relationship’s collapse were Very present from the moment Sasha accepted the crown, so all that was left was to kick them into the ocean without a lifeboat. It’s some mercy, actually, that Sasha sent Marcy away when she did, because they were on road to a very messy break up, haha, well, that is, if Marcy didn’t get Core’d first. Sasha’s showing some character growth by not doubling down on her control over her and the Plantars, instead removing them from the situation in order to work on herself (even tho the way she went about it was Kinda Cruel!!). Too bad she got turned into a Meat Puppet 💔

Nothing like a good old PMIT reference to make me cry *lays on the floor*

Barrel the Brave and The Core!! What does this man have to do with this machine?!! GOOD QUESTION! We’ll talk about it later!! The whole Fourth Gem thing is so delicious. Oh Barrel, oh Barrel,,,

Anne’s gonna wake up to So Much Shit,,,, give this girl a break

Toad Found Family my beloved,,,, GUESS WHO’S GETTING MORE SCREENTIME IN CHAPTER 6!!

That’s a Marvelous Question my friend :)

Yeah I hope Sasha gets to see the Plantars again, man their little arc was so sad :(((

The Addiction to the Crown is SO FUN I am sincerely enjoying making Andrias Suffer through withdrawals. Do you feel the pain Sir?? Good. I wanna say Andrias and Heart’s codependency is Worse as evidenced by chapter 5’s current state *glares at it* BUT then again,,,, im not done writing the Crown plotline.

Boom CMTO Sasha caught up with canon Marcy! Have fun in that Crown, Sash, you’re gonna hate EVERYTHING in a couple chapters.

Hoo boy that Sure is a concern! What’s gonna happen to the kingdom now…

[nexstage]

The meaning behind the arm-loss and the eye-loss foreshadowing/pattern

Many people have found multiple proofs that Anne and Sasha will lose an arm and an eye respectively and while I consider the amount of "evidence" big enough for it to happen I also wonder how much Matt and the crew will fight Disney for those scenes to happen or if those scenes happen. Because Amphibia for all the dark and mature themes on it, it's still a kid's show. Let's remember that one character who got their eye injured -and there was even blood! - was Eda's father on Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Hooty's Door but he was an adult and there's a big difference between having an adult injured this way and a kid if we talk about how it might affect the audience that is children.

But beyond possible foreshadowing, the interesting thing is how it can be part of their arcs, their traits. The meaning of those losses holds great importance and it kind of makes sense if we compare it with Marcy's loss in True Colors.

Marcy was stabbed by a giant flaming/laser-like sword through the chest. The wound was big enough to cover all of her heart. Heart in this case not only represents her friendship with Anne and Sasha but also the emotions and trueness that Marcy kept hidden from her friends. Don't forget what Hop Pop said to Anne and Sprig about a good friendship:

"Being roommates doesn't make you friends. Being honest with each other does."

And the heart is behind the ribs, they act as if they were a jail.

Marcy has created a cage for her feelings and let the situation fester until Andrias revealed her secret to anyone. There is also the aspect of connection and empathy which aren't Marcy's strong points. She, as she had told Anne, struggles making friends, is oblivious, and has tunnel vision.

The most important flaw during her arc is her escapism tendencies. She doesn't want to face the cruel reality that she and her family have to move to another estate because of her father's job or try to process the fact that sometimes friends grow apart from each other. Again, it becomes a cage she builds to not deal with the nasty aspects of the real world and all her feelings and problems are put there. She didn't say anything until it's too late, she didn't take into account her friends' feelings, her secretive persona led her to her doom and current situation.

Now, how can losing an arm or an eye be part of Anne and Sasha's arcs?

As we've seen in The New Normal and Fight at the Museum, Anne's sense of duty has become a huge part of her life what with the stakes at their highest level. Her father even said that she hated responsibility as he showed a painting of her with those words:

The Plantars and Wartwood changed her tremendously as she embraced this new role little by little: admitting her mistakes, being true to herself, and working hard to do better for the people she loved. But it's becoming exhausting as we see in this scene:

Saving the Earth, defeating Andrias, protecting the Plantars from the government and bringing them back to Amphibia, rescuing Sasha and Marcy and making up with them, keeping her powers secret from her parents. Yeah, it's too much. S1 was all about changing and looking for a way home, then S2 raised the stakes with a toad rebellion courtesy of Sasha and Andrias showing his true colors, S3 is the peak of harsh duties beyond Anne's age.

She's struggling to balance her new responsibilities with taking a break and asking for help. When you put too much weight in one of the arms of the scale, it can break. The same might happen to Anne. It has to do with her powers too because they're related to the heart, compassion, empathy, which can be quite a heavy burden when you give and give and are left with nothing. It leaves you drained, and there are times when you feel like it's a personal journey, a task you and only you have to face. When Anne said that she couldn't move her arms on The New Normal that was beyond the effects of her powers, she's carrying too much and helping everyone at the expense of her mental and physical health. So, losing an arm could be the result of being loaded with responsibilities to an unhealthy degree. Her parents, the Plantars, even the Thai community have shown her how ready they are to defend each other and her in case a threat appears like in Temple Frogs, and in Fight at the Museum, Hop Pop and Dr. Jan advised her to start relying on others whenever she feels overwhelmed, though I don't blame Anne for being paranoid towards Dr. Jan; after all, she had suffered too many betrayals in S1 and S2.

A very worrying scenario that might happen after she loses her arm is feeling helpless because how can she protect her two families and her friends with one hand?

However, that loss might open her eyes to this realization she has been pushing away for a while: she doesn't have to carry all those duties like the titan Atlas carries all the skies on his back. Her loved ones can and want to be her arms, she just has to ask and trust them. Last but not least, the theme of trust, one that has been very important since S1 is related to the hands, and hands are parts of the arms. Whenever you shake hands or take the hand that wants to help you, you risk being disappointed. You became vulnerable. As I mentioned, Anne has been backstabbed by a lot of people, the toughest examples are her friends. You could say half of her trust is gone and the only ones who she may confide in are the Plantars and her parents even when Anne plans to keep her powers a secret from the latter but it won't last that much. Losing an arm by carrying too much responsibility and having her trust so jaded and beaten will make her reflect on how to cope with duties far beyond her expertise and trust in the people who hurt her -Sasha and Marcy- again, how to ask for help without feeling like her faith and time are being used against her.

What about Sasha? What can the loss of an eye say of her character arc? Before her redemption, even before Amphibia, Sasha had a phrase that helped her to control her friends, especially Anne: "End of discussion." Now, let's compare it with these phrases: "I'll be watching you", " I have my eyes on you". They can be quite intimidating because it makes you feel as if some invisible force is breathing on your neck, watching your every move. Remember when Sasha and Marcy were watching Anne stealing the music box from outside the thrift shop? Yeah, that same feeling. Eyes on you to make you do whatever they want.

And if we put that aspect on the time when Sasha started to thrive among the toads the thing gets more interesting because it feeds into her need for control. That's because the tower is not only the place for the military who ensure everyone follows the law no matter what resources they use to make it happen; the design of the building also guarantees a position of power. Let's consider it like this: the higher the location you are settled in, the better chances to watch over everyone.

You can have a wider, clearer view of the whole territory under your command. I mean, Andrias has a freaking flying castle and bragged about ruling all the multiverse from there. Have I mentioned too that the eyes are on the head, ABOVE other parts of the body?

Exactly, being above other people, even the ones she loves most, having control and power are aspects of Sasha's personality. She believes she knows what's best and doesn't let others speak up, she looks taller and beyond reach to impose her rules; for that reason, when she says "End of discussion" she looks like this:

But once she's stripped from any sense of control, power and there is no one there to comfort or guide her -except Grime, of course, Sasha is confronted with a terrifying fact: she has been blind throughout her whole journey.

Blind in friendship and relationships, blind in emotional intelligence, blind in concepts like trust and betrayal, blind towards people's needs and feelings, etc. Heck, she doesn't have to be technically blind for us to see the extent of it and its consequences.

Though, that doesn't happen in a single episode for it is a culmination of many moments in which her worldview and arrogance are put to test and also suffered huge blows. The first time was during the crucial battle of Reunion when Sasha was on the edge of death with Anne trying to save her. Seeing the kindness and forgiveness of her friend despite how Sasha had hurt her and manipulated her created a tear on the blindfold over her eyes and led her to *commit suicide to save Anne from falling from the tower. After being saved by Grime, she tried to push away the events of that day on Toadcatcher just to be called out by the disgraced captain for running away from them.

The third time was after retrieving Barrel's Warhammer, Sasha was successful in her mission but two facts tore more at her blindfold: 1) how upset she was that Anne and Marcy were getting by without her after hearing that they were working for the king. This emphasizes a time, not on-screen yet, where Sasha was on her own before meeting Anne and Marcy like in that flashback from The Third Temple. Hearing her saying that put on the light her fear of being banished from the group as if her friends might not want her anymore. It shows also her codependency, another aspect she is blind at or just blatantly ignores. The mere thought of not doing something that makes her worthy of being with them is what drives her to have control at whatever cost. This leads to number 2) Percy and Braddock leaving the team.

She promised to stop the mission if it turns too dangerous and then broke that promise when her selfishness blinded her to the needs of her new friends. At that moment, almost at the end of the episode, she's starting to question her actions but still is not enough. It wasn't enough either when she felt conflicted at the end of The Third Temple about betraying Anne and the others again to dethrone the king.

During The Dinner and Battle of the Bands, we saw the theme of change displayed in Sasha's static and rebellious nature, how she struggles to understand that being controlling and always wanting to win is problematic, that is much better to be supportive and open-minded in relationships. However, the peak of doubts, when the tears of her blindfold got bigger and just too difficult to ignore was after Anne called her a horrible person and broke off her relationship with her. Despite her successful rebellion, Sasha felt empty and miserable, questioning more her actions and wondering what she wanted due to her confusion. Turning Point was the moment of reflection of the consequences of True Colors after Anne was zapped to Earth and Marcy was stabbed by Andrias.

Even when in my opinion the episode should've been 22 minutes to let some moments develop more, Sasha finally got to the conclusion that her obsession with control hurt her friends terribly, and her refusal to abandon Wartwood when danger was around the corner and her bravery to say the truth to the townsfolk became her first moments of true clarity. She could finally see what she had been doing wrong, where she needed to improve, what she had to do.

Being willing to deal with the repercussions of your wrongdoings and work hard to amend them and be better are the steps to not remain blind and redeem herself for Sasha. Another aspect of the eyes and her need for control that connects one to the other is that eyes are very delicate organs. Anything can damage them, the dirt, sharp objects, an infection, even mutations before birth, etc. With control is kind of the same, it is fragile because one moment you're on the top, the next one you're on your lowest moment. We also rely on our sense of vision, without it watching our surroundings we're vulnerable. We would be treading uncharted territory without a map falling or having bursts of luck here and there, but Sasha didn't want bits and pieces of luck or constantly tripped that's why she held hard on her dependency on control to the point that it continually hurt the people she loved most.

But there is good news at the end of the tunnel: when we reach our rock bottom, the only way is up and this aversion to vulnerability is what gave Sasha another chance to reevaluate her values and future. By losing everything, the blindfold fell to the ground and she could start improving herself and learning from others. Seeing from different perspectives. Taking into account little details that she dismissed but should've embraced and cared about more.

However, like Anne, losing a part of the body represents how her flaws and struggles have gone too far. While Anne's apprehension to ask for help and her mindset of carrying a lot of duties manifests into losing an arm due to the accumulated weight and stress; Sasha's unwillingness to see beyond her own desires and consider others' points of view can lead her to lose an eye even if she's on the path of redemption. It's like being forced to acknowledge a problem that has been festering and that one might have been partially aware and blissfully ignorant to at the same time.

For someone who prides herself on being strong, dependable, and fearless, half-blindness is the last thing Sasha would want to be in front of others. It's a cruel push like Anne losing her arm but if that happens, Sasha will have to embrace a new more important lesson: vulnerability is not the end of the road, it's a chance. A chance for self-reflection, a chance to trust other people, a chance for a leader to let their comrades take the wheel while they rest. Having faith in the townsfolk of Wartwood that they will be her eyes after she loses one is another step for Sasha to comprehend that even when things get messy, there will always be someone ready to help not out of pity for her vulnerability or to replace her but because they genuinely care.

And Grime won't be the only one showing true care and being willing to do anything to protect Sasha but the Wartwoodians too once we see how they and she bond with one another.

[citadelspires]

Local No Big Deal Enthusiast Talks About No Big Deal (A Lot)

Hi hello how is everyone? Welcome to the post I promised. (apparently I have a tendency to promise big posts like these ahead of time, which is good cause otherwise they’d prolly just never get written. Anyway).

I think we can all agree that the song No Big Deal is a definite highlight of the second season of Amphibia, really just of the whole show in general. Of course if you can’t agree on that this post probably isn’t gonna be for you. That being said, in my honest opinion I think the song is the climax of Anne’s character arc, and is honestly the part of the show I think of most when I consider what the finale of season 2 really is. No Big Deal isn’t just a song, it’s the moment the entire show has been building up to since the first episode. (I swear I’ll get to how it changes/doesn’t change with the events of True Colors just wait for it).

It’s pretty obvious at this point that the focus of Anne’s character arc is about discovering the version of herself she’s actually comfortable with, learning how to embrace an Anne she can love, and discovering what true, no strings attached, love and friendship looks like. While Sprig is a central point of the third value and a big moment can’t revolve around that part without him (see the activation of Anne’s calamity powers for that one) the rest is pretty Anne-central. To a certain degree that’s... kinda the whole point.

To that end everything about the song serves to show how far Anne has come. I can’t even get started talking about the lyrics yet because the entire context is all representative of Anne’s growth. From the moment she shows the song to her friends to seeing Sasha’s reaction to it, Anne holds her ground, and she lets Sasha go. She’s grown up so much since the Anne we saw before Amphibia, even since the events at the Tower, where it was a serious struggle to stand up to Sasha even when it was about to mean her family’s lives on the line. This time around she’s got the strength of heart to keep her resolve in the case of something that is just personally important to her, no stakes higher than that. Beyond just that she actually follows through with it, knowing the song isn’t gonna be entirely complete the way she wanted it to be, she still goes out in full costume, full music and song swinging, Sasha or no Sasha. She’s willing to try, not because a friend said she needed to or because it’s one of their standard fun adventures or because she’s doing it for Sprig or Hop Pop or any other character, she’s just following through with something that matters to her, willing to push through because it’s hers.

So she does, and she puts her whole heart into it. You can tell just by the lyrics what this means to her, and I feel it so much every second. She’s gone from that kid hiding in the woods, to that creature living in the Plantar’s basement, to Anne Boonchuy-Plantar, resident of Wartwood, right before our eyes. And as she sings about her new home and her new self she doesn’t shy away from any of the more distressing sides of the world she now loves. She admits she’s made enemies, it’s been a bumpy road, there’s been a lot of things out to get her, and she’s had to live with things she originally hated, but every experience she’s had helped her grow, helped her learn who she was.

And so we get to (what is in my personal opinion) the most important line in the show. The final words. “Finally me and it’s no big deal.” Sung in a completely different tone than the rest of the song, no fellow singers, the music fading out. Just Anne. For me this is why the words No Big Deal are in the song. This isn’t a song about how “oh well actually it isn’t a big deal that we’re in another world,” This is a song about a girl who has been looking for herself her whole life, and now, at the end of this song, she finally gets to say the words she never even realized she had always longed to say. And maybe this is just the fact that the airing of this episode overlapped a little too close with my own self discovery as a nonbinary person, but that moment, “finally me and it’s no big deal.” I get it. You’ve finally found yourself, and it’s not a big massive change to you and the world around you that shifts your whole existence, it’s a quiet and peaceful feeling of everything settling into place, it’s just for you, no one else, and it’s No Big Deal.

So when everything goes down in True Colors? Anne gets betrayed again, she loses Marcy, she gets sent back home in all the wrong ways? It’s still No Big Deal, because it was never about  the world around her. It was about her. And despite everything, it’s still Anne.

A few months ago another Anne on another world would have been absolutely destroyed by everything that happened in True Colors. But Anne has something she never had before. She has herself, she knows she’s made enemies, she knows it’s been a bumpy road, she knows there’s something out to get her, she’s had to live through things she never thought she could, but it’s no big deal, because she knows as long as she’s still her, she can make it through countless things she never would have imagined. No matter what this or any world wants to do to her or her family, or even the friends she’s not sure she still has, she’s finally her, and they can’t take that away.

[sepublic]

Thinking about Marcy Wu

           There’s just… A lot of grounds for Marcy to end up really bitter and jealous after all of this, when it’s said and done; Especially the longer she spends healing in a vat. One might say ‘green with envy’ even, if they were to be cruel…

           This all started because Marcy was about to lose it all. She was about to lose her home, life, and friendship with her two deep and intimate childhood best friends… Anne and Sasha may have had their toxicity that resulted in Anne’s birthday being somewhat ruined, but they weren’t going to lose anything. 

          Things would always stay the same for them, between them; Because I can see Marcy, in her admiration of them and self-loathing of herself, thinking that her friends wouldn’t REALLY miss her, that she values them, far more than they value her… And even if the feeling was mutual, well, at least Anne and Sasha had each other and their own social skills.

           And if Marcy spends all her time in Season 3 just healing in a vat, having lost agency, needing to be rescued and just being left out… It’ll suck. She doesn’t get to be cool, to become a powerful warrior who goes on adventures, the way Anne and Sasha do. Marcy doesn’t get to assert herself, to put herself out there in the world, to really leave her own mark and exercise her initiative, she’ll just… Passively wait. Passively wait and do nothing, be miserable and lonely.

           I can easily see Marcy becoming bitter over how Anne and Sasha got traumatized like her, but at least THEIR trauma came in the form of fun adventures with real friends, instead of just… Boring, crippling loneliness, floating around with nothing but her own bad memories and coma to keep her company; That and Andrias and his master, whose presence only makes things worse.

          Warning: LOTS of text below!!!

           Anne and Sasha get to be cool and confident, something Marcy always admired them for; For being something SHE’s not, because she thinks lowly of herself. Because she doesn’t like herself, it’s why she’s so excited about the idea of metamorphosis and change and becoming something new… Which is ironic, because she didn’t like the change her parents presented, and frankly, who would? Marcy wanted change but in a good way, of course- And hopefully with her motifs of metamorphosis, they’ll come to fruition with Marcy really getting to grow, heal, and recover into someone who can feel good in her own skin, just like the Anne she so admires and sang a song about how she’s finally herself and it’s no big deal with.

           Marcy’s friends get to be the charismatic leaders, the heroes everyone else looks up to; But Marcy, when she tries to be the same? She just loses things. She only becomes more pathetic. Anne and Sasha get to have real families, Marcy just gets betrayed and manipulated and is just as lonely, if not moreso, because now she’s lost her friends! Which would be ironic to think I imagine, because I feel Anne and Sasha would probably be much more willing to rekindle connections with and forgive Marcy, than towards one another… Well, at least Anne. Sasha would be willing to forgive Anne, because there’s not really anything she needs to forgive in the first place, she was the perpetrator…

           But anyhow, it’s easy for Marcy to be caught up in what she thinks her friends have over her, and in a lot of ways, she’s right! It’ll be important that she remembers what Anne said, how Anne admired Marcy’s intelligence, how she seemingly won the hearts of Newtopia’s citizens… But then, who there seems to genuinely care for and admire Marcy, the way Anne is considered a member of the community back in Wartwood, or Sasha’s own leadership? Will the people of Newtopia mourn Marcy, ask questions of her? It’d be so sweet if they did so, and Marcy found out that these strangers who she didn’t think she’d made an impression on, were dazzled and grateful for all of the little improvements she made to their life.

           Yet, even if Marcy still has/had some good things… It really would be easy for her to feel, and not without justification, that Anne and Sasha may have gotten traumatized- But at least they got to learn things and have fun along the way, make real friends in the process. Marcy didn’t get to do any of that, and got even more trauma than those two, more loneliness, in addition to the loss she was going to experience at home, the loss she couldn’t imagine THEM understanding;

          At least until Anne was separated from her own parents, Anne did lose that herself and Marcy needs to understand that. Anne did have something to lose, unlike Sasha at least. So yes, Marcy, Anne would understand… Because you ended up making her go through that same kind of loss, a loss that was arguably worse because Anne’s relationship with her parents is at least fully positive, a loss of her own loved ones and life at home, so you wouldn’t have to feel the loss of your friends who you considered home- Not that you really meant it, because would Marcy have really believed that the box would work?

           But still, Marcy didn’t truly intend it, which is in some ways worse, because now she has to grapple with the realization that- Not only did her attempts to preserve her life and relationship result in an even greater separation, as a result of the betrayal Anne and Sasha felt… But Marcy unwittingly caused Anne to also lose a life and loving relationship at home, too- Not just with the girls, but with her parents, losing her life back on Earth! Marcy just wanted to keep HER life, but she made Anne lose her own in the process… At least, until Marcy made things right by giving Anne that life back, in addition to keeping her own real friends, in the Plantars.

          And then Sasha has her physical scar, but Marcy’s wounds are even worse, and potentially debilitating for the rest of her life… If there are scars, they’re definitely worse than Sasha’s. At least Sasha’s scar was a lesson, in a sense. It was an accident, not necessarily intended by Anne, who just wanted to defend her family; And it came as a result of Sasha’s own very real mistakes in trying to kill Anne’s innocent found family. Sasha was the aggressor here, all Anne did was fight back and defend, and not even with intent to truly hurt- And Anne of course felt remorse at any of Sasha’s pain.

           Marcy was manipulated. She was gaslit, betrayed, and used. She was blamed for something that wasn’t her fault, by an adult who MEANT to kill her, who didn’t care, who openly mocked her in front of her own friends. Marcy got her scar from doing the right thing, for trying to fix her mistakes and be a better person, for actually listening to her real friends… Marcy was punished for doing the right thing, and it’s so easy to see why she’d become bitter over that.

           She was punished for reasonable things, for valid feelings, for understandable mistakes; Worse than Anne or Sasha, the latter of whom REALLY made mistakes, intentionally, but seems to have gotten off far better than Marcy for it! Not that I think Sasha should suffer more, no, Marcy should suffer less, and really none of them should suffer- But to Marcy, it really would seem bitterly unfair how things are effortlessly better for her friends, who just have things naturally better for them that way… While when Marcy tries to have the same, she just makes things worse, and apparently needs to be content with her lot in life or something? Even when that lot DOES get worse, because resisting that will only ruin things even more?

           It’s so cruel- Marcy wanted that new life more than anyone else, she welcomed it more than the others, embraced it most, arguably worked the most to get it; At least, she tried to get the box, that’s how she might see it. So why does it elude her most, compared to the girls who reluctantly went along with it, and at times outright resisted? Of course, Marcy’s situation started off in a lofty capital with a king who attended to her every need, so in many ways her situation isn’t comparable to Anne and Sasha’s… But then, Anne and Sasha got real friends and connections and weren’t manipulated and used, betrayed and murdered. Really, you can’t compare trauma like that…

           But to Marcy? Well, she just got murdered… And honestly, that could easily be considered just as, if not moreso, traumatic than whatever horrid things Anne and Sasha went through. Her world collapsed around her, she was impaled and torn down to the bone spiritually and physically; So yes! The suffering she was owed, when Marcy initially got off scot-free, while Anne and Sasha had to grapple with a dangerous environment- It DID arrive! And arguably worse, at least to Marcy, not that she’d fully admit it because she thinks she deserves it; Because she was beaten down for doing the right thing, for admitting how she felt.

           You can’t compare trauma, Anne and Sasha DID suffer, even if they got real friends; But then again… Marcy didn’t get real friends, and while she didn’t suffer at first, well- You could easily say that everything that transpired in True Colors, the genuine betrayal and wounding there, more than made up for that initial lofty easiness that Marcy had. Suddenly her luxuries compared to Anne and Sasha’s don’t seem as unfair, especially when Marcy was murdered, by someone who was never her friend, and never even got the family she desired.

           And even when this is all over… What about her life back home? Will those things change… Assuming her parents haven’t already moved without her? Her own blood family has left her beind, just like the found family Marcy hoped to have, if she ever had it at all to begin with- Either through Anne and Sasha, or Andrias? There’s nothing back there, besides her two friends… And they had been in Amphibia. But now Anne’s back on Earth with her blood family… But Sasha, does she have someone there?

           If Anne is happier there, if Marcy and Sasha don’t have anyone to go back to besides the girl who DOES have others besides them… Then, maybe those two can find solace with one another in Amphibia, together. Sasha didn’t seem all too eager about her parents, and seemed fine with staying in Amphibia forever… Perhaps, hopefully, her and Marcy can talk over this. They can bond over their loneliness towards Earth, and then Marcy can realize that she wasn’t so lonely after all… That the other girls DID understand what she was going through, or about to; Anne understood what it was like to lose a family and home she loved… And Sasha, well, she knows what it’s like to have nothing to go back to, not really.

           Maybe Marcy just needed to be brave enough to just trust and ask them, openly, up-front, since the beginning… To tell Anne and Sasha about her predicament, even before they were transported to Amphibia. But when she did finally tell them, it was too late, not by Marcy’s choice but by Andrias’ as a means to spite and belittle her further… And it just resulted in Marcy feeling at her loneliest and most isolated, most terrible and self-loathing, than she had ever been. Lonely but when surrounded by others who had each other, a cruel irony that makes it infinitely more terrible.

          So, maybe she shouldn’t have spoken up at all to begin with, or done it sooner; But doing it again, or any other time from now on… Honestly, it might be better if Marcy just kept things to herself, as always. Maybe she’s better off by herself, her own pain and insecurities and loneliess heard only by herself. But then, maybe, just maybe… There’s Sasha, who’s still in Amphibia, as someone who also wants to stay in a sense. As someone who like Anne arrived there against her will and hated it, but then learned to like it… And unlike Anne, has no reason to go back. Of the two other girls, the one who really has no reason to go back to earth and all the reason to stay in Amphibia, is the one who did stay there; With Marcy…

           In some ways, Sasha is also lonely like Marcy. She’s definitely got less found family than Anne with the Plantars, and Grime, while good in a lot of ways, is admittedly pretty imperfect. Who knows, maybe Sasha is there to rescue and save Marcy, as the girl most capable of understanding her in a sense, of appreciating what Marcy did, but also condemned, her to. Maybe Marcy can understand, if she doesn’t already, because she probably already does, that while the two girls found good amidst all of this, they didn’t really need to go through that trauma and risk and separation from their old home and family to do so, not without consent at least.

           Maybe if Marcy had been open and upfront about running away with the two girls, to begin with… Maybe things would’ve been different. Maybe one in particular would’ve agreed… Or they’d have both worked to help her out, to work something out. And Anne… Anne, she knows what it’s like to not want to lose that family and life of hers, she DID just go through that so Marcy didn’t have to, in a sense… But now, Marcy lost that too. So Anne understands, and even if she’s angry that Marcy accidentally projected that pain onto her, initially forced her to bear the brunt of it for her; Maybe Anne can understand, and make peace with that realization. To understand Marcy’s choices, in a way that still preserves Anne’s own autonomy of course.

           And that family that Anne did lose, or feared being taken away from… Maybe Marcy can be a part of that family, too. Maybe she can understand Anne’s fear in losing them, by learning to love them in that same way too- Not so she can also lose those people, but maybe, just maybe, Marcy can be included. They can both understand one another, and Sasha can understand them, all three towards one another, can truly get what the others are going through, while still standing up for themselves, and helping the others.

           …Even so; It doesn’t change how Marcy was betrayed, used, and murdered, and never got the family that her friends found. There’s bound to be some understandable bitterness there, and hopefully, Marcy can catch up to Anne and Sasha and not be left behind… Maybe she doesn’t need to make her own separate family of her own; Maybe all she has to do is share in the one her friends have made themselves. And, maybe it’s never too late to succeed in the first place- Marcy has met Yunnan, Olivia, and Maddie. Just because Anne and Sasha did it first, doesn’t mean Marcy won’t ever…

           …But it will suck to be left behind initially, especially if it ends for Anne and Sasha, just as it begins for Marcy. She just wishes she was there with them, instead of just having the same things –confidence, family, happiness- as them… Honestly, Marcy would prefer to be with Anne and Sasha, than to have those same things as them; But here’s hoping she can have both in the end. Here’s hoping, at least, that she won’t be lonely any longer… Even if it’ll hurt to see Anne and Sasha be together in ways that leave Marcy behind.

           Then again- It seems Marcy has things she can participate with in each friend, that the third doesn’t understand; Her and Sasha not having anything back at Earth, Marcy and Anne having that family and life they were torn away from. Each girl is also lonely in a sense, and feels like they’re left out and not understood in certain ways; Sasha and Marcy betrayed Anne, Marcy and Anne hung out together… They’re all going through the same pain, and if they understand what the others go through, and let the others know that they understand-

           Well, they might be able to reconcile. Because as Hop Pop said, actually talking about and confronting the problems you have, will allow one another to know about and recognize and accommodate those issues, to actually work with them. And again, Marcy was used and murdered and never got that chance to make connections, and if she spends so much time in a vat, will definitely be bitter over a lot of things she unfairly missed out on. But… here’s hoping the future can make up for all of it, and heal over the losses and loneliness of the past, and make the past’s pain redundant. Here’s hoping.

[fizzzysodas]

amphibia essays: anne boonchuy’s character

One of my favorite things about Amphibia is Anne’s character. She’s unique yet relatable. She makes mistakes but she owns them. She’s kind but not so kind that she’s willing to bend over backwards for people. She loves her family dearly and is fiercely protective. She’s authentic. And one of the key elements that makes her so is her ability to grow as a character. 

Anne reaches her character arc much sooner then most characters but this is so refreshing because we get to see Anne use her new found maturity and put into action. She gained the tools and now she using them. I think Anne hit her character arc towards the end of season two. She was strong enough to end her friendship with Sasha but also mature enough to put her friends betrayals aside and focus on the real threat. Some adults can’t even do this so I think it should real sophistication when she did this. 

Her time on Earth is like a resting period. She struggles to prove her growth to her parents but manages to do so. It’s also a time for Anne to combine herself with her home. In Amphibia things were different so coming back and learning how to fit in again (without Sasha and Marcy) was a journey on it’s own. She was also able to reconnect with her parents through her new experiences and growth. It was the sweetest thing to watch and really touched my heart. 

And now Anne is going back to Amphibia. And not because she has too. Anne made no long lasting mistakes that were responsibility to fix. Sasha and Marcy dug their own graves and most would understand and forgive her for not wanting to go back. Especially with how much Anne did not like Amphibia and longed to return back to Earth. And with King Andrias trying to kill her and all. Anne never asked for this. You can argue that she was tricked or scammed but at the end of the day SHE stole the box and she opened it. It wasn’t her fault strictly but the fact that Anne’s character is able accept her responsibility in this choice. Even so, she’s resolved that. She found a way home, brought her friends back together and did everything within her power to get everyone home. Unfortunately, other people (ahm, Marcy) had other plans. 

Anne doesn’t need to return to Amphibia. Not for her character growth. But the fact that she does so is proof of her character growth. She’s doing it for the Plantar’s and to save her friends. It’s raw and purely selfless act. And compared to the selfish person she was in the first season it’s giant leap of growth. Yet so believable. This just proves that the Amphibia writers know what they’re doing. 

I have to note that if you can back and watch the first few episodes from season one Anne’s character is practically unnoticeable. She’s kinda of awful really. But you love her and feel for her. This was a bold and brave move from the Amphibia creators but I think it paid off. 

Anne is brave, selfless yet still cares for herself, kind and authentic. She’s the type of character parents want their young children to see on the screen. Her journey (and the journey of others around her) encompass valuable lessons and messages. 

I’m so excited to see where this final season takes us.  

[soup-du-silence]

So, have you been watching Amphibia? If so, do you think it sorta nails certain elements of Ducktales better like family (Plantars vs the Ducks), actual important onscreen stuff being shown, better balance on characters (only has about 7-ish in main cast at Anne, Plantars, Sasha, Marcy, and Grime compared to the boat loads on Ducktales), and better world conquering villain (Andrias>Lunaris)? Do you also ship Anne/Sasha/Marcy?

oh anon, you're not slick. you must follow me on twitter because I know I've talked about at least one of these things already.

yes frog show is doing a way better at found family than duck show. a big part of the sell for me is that its very show-not-tell. I believe that Anne has become and will always be a Plantar-by-proxy because it's just....the truth. We didn't even start getting really meaty lore until season 2 so all of season 1 was just....Anne and the Plantars as a unit, having wacky adventures. It was a very natural progression. I feel like....a big part of the thing that others Anne, that she's human and an outsider, is always obvious and something you're always aware of. She's different, she doesn't belong here, she's going to go home eventually, so they dont need to draw attention to it all the time. Unlike Webby, who looks like she belongs, and we're told she's supposed to belong, and they keep saying family, only to keep pulling the rug out from under us by focusing on the biological McDucks or whatever. Ducktales told us she was Family without really explaining what that meant outside of her obsession with Scrooge, and then, at the last minute, her actual biological relation to them. Anne and the Plantars love each other. like, its not a question. It was, in fact, pretty devastating to find out Hop Pop had lied to Anne in the interest of protecting his biological kin, but unlike Scrooge lashing out at Webby in Last Crash, the frog show actually fucking addresses it and they work through it.

i do think the smaller cast helps, and the fact that its an original property and doesnt feel the need to waste time on nostalgia bait. amphibia isnt even a show like, say, steven universe, in which every single episode leant something vital and integral to the lore. You'd wait 6 months for a new episode then get a townie filler ep and think, "aw man," only for something set up in that episode to pay off in an important way 30 episodes down the line. there are loads of amphibia eps that are just....goofy fun. they dont add anything to the lore, except that they continue to sell Anne and Sprig's friendship. you KNOW Anne and Sprig are best friends because you've seen how much time they spend together and the adventures they have and all their heartfelt convos. on the other hand you could go ages without a Webby-being-treated-like-family ep, and instead have several while she's standing on the sidelines or excluded from Della-centric stuff because she's not Della's fucking kid. Anne and Sprig are almost ALWAYS there, because it's their show.

I feel like both Lunaris and Andrias have similar energies in that I knew not to trust Andrias, like the dude was too big, sorry. You dont trust a dude that big voiced by keith david, especially if he's nice. But yeah, he's definitely more threatening. If I thought he was maybe a little cheesy before, then he put a flaming sword through marcy's chest. so like....yeah dude means business.

I dont....really ship the girls? I always had trouble liking Sasha, particularly in season 1, not in a "i think she's a terrible character" way because i think she's a fascinating character, but in a "I had a lot of trouble believing she genuinely liked Anne because my personal experience with girls like Sasha is they do not have your best interest at heart." They kind of started walking that back in season 2 with flashbacks that kind of didn't gel with the image of her I'd formed in my head during season 1, so I just kind of...had trouble figuring out how I felt about her. PCS wrote a nice Marcanne fic I enjoyed a lot back when the ship honestly hadn't occurred to me, and seeing how...uh. Unhinged? Detached from reality? Marcy is really adds a layer of intrigue and angst that's probably definitely worth thinking about. I'll have to poke around in ao3 and see what it has to offer on that front. I'm not like, totally sold on it, but it could be interesting.

Sprig/Ivy is where it's at. Sorry, I love Ivy, she's perfect in every way. I hope she goes batshit fucking bananas when she finds out what happened.

and though you didnt ask? The big super-anne twist fucking slaps. I dont know where it came from and I dont care. It was badass. come up with something cool enough like that and people will play along. Webby-as-Scrooge's clone? Sucked balls. God. not even in the same ballpark.

[thewholesomebean]

Okay you asked for one!! I didn't edit but have fun :)

She should really tell them.

She needed to tell Sasha and Anne about how she brought them here.

To Amphibia.

On purpose.

But she hasn’t seen either of them and it’s been months.

What if they died?

What if they were in trouble?

No.

They couldn’t be.

Sasha and Anne were strong. They’ll make it to Marcy eventually.

She just knows it.

The best thing to do is to stay where she is.

It was the most logical option.

***

Finally, FINALLY, someone made it to her!

It was Anne!!

She was here and alive!!

And so was Sasha by the sound of it!!

Sure they had a small fight but it’ll be fine, they are meant to be friends forever after all.

And an added bonus, Anne had even found her own family!!

Things were shaping up!!

And sure Anne had run off to stay with her family, but it’d be fine. She’ll just tell her later.

About the music box.

They’d have time later.

Right?

***

“I’m sorry Anne.” Marcy couldn’t help feeling really bad. Anne looked so heart broken watching her family leave, “This just made the most sense.”

“I know. I know.” Anne mumbled as she stood, sniffling into her arm, “Logical thing to do.”

Marcy raised her arm slowly, Anne sounded so defeated.

So sad to watch them go.

To stay with her.

It’s not like they spent that much time together anyway.

She was with them the whole time.

Marcy hardly got to spend time with Anne, but if she wanted what’s best for her friend…

Then at that moment, it means letting her go.

She can see Anne again later, especially now that she knows where she is going to be.

And Marcy could tell Anne about the music box later.

It’ll be fine.

Marcy let out a sigh, ready to let Anne go.

“You know, the more I think about it…”

***

Marcy lay on her bed, in the small cart she brought to Wartwood.

Just yesterday she nearly flooded the whole place, today it was intact.

But that isn’t what was keeping her up.

Her insomnia isn’t even what was keeping her awake.

She was supposed to have told Anne by now.

The sooner the better.

Anne would understand, right?

She would get why Marcy brought them here on purpose, right?

So why was she so scared?

Perhaps because Anne could choose to leave instead.

But Anne wasn’t like that.

Marcy took a deep breath.

She will tell her tomorrow.

***

Marcy sat on Joe Sparrow grinning excitedly.

Sasha was here!!

She was her and that meant all three of them were back together!!!

YES!!

They could have adventures together and they could share stories and they can just do whatever they wanted, but together!!!

Once they get back to Wartwood she would need to tell Sasha about Amphibia though.

She still hasn’t told Anne.

Marcy isn’t sure how Sasha would take it though, maybe she just needed to sit them down together.

That might work out.

Yeah, what would go wrong?

***

Battle of the bands had just ended, and even though The Sharps didn’t win, all three of them were in really good spirits.

Marcy was walking with Sasha and Marcy into the Plantar’s basement.

“So what do you guys want to talk about?”

It was an innocent enough question, one Marcy should use to speak up.

To confess.

But she should wait for the right time.

Even though she is never sure when that is.

Marcy grinned.

She’ll tell them. Just not right now.

“Nope.”

***

“Why indeed? Enough lies Mar-mar. If you don’t tell them the truth, I will.”

Marcy’s eyes widened.

Her heart hammered in her chest, threatening to just leave her body from how hard it pounded.

“You- you wouldn’t!”

Anne was saying something behind her.

The roaring in her ears was louder.

Funnily enough, it never occurred to her that this could be used against her.

She supposed it should’ve.

But not by him.

Not kind, smart, caring, loving, admirable, just ruler King Andrias.

And yet…

“Did it ever occur to you, Anne, Sasha, that one of you knew more than she was letting on?”

Marcy struggled to breathe.

“That one of you might’ve gotten you stranded in Amphibia, on purpose?”

And just like that her heart jumped into her throat.

There it was out there, by someone who wasn’t her.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sasha muttered.

She should’ve said something.

She should’ve told them.

And now she never will.

***

Marcy watched Andrias.

The giant newt just stood in front of her tank.

Most days he would just come by and stare at her, but today was different.

She could see it in those cold eyes, they had something to say to her.

“I never thanked you.”

Marcy’s eyes narrowed. Everything out of this newt’s mouth couldn’t be trusted. She knew that much.

“For not telling them.”

Marcy flinched.

Andrias grinned.

“Things wouldn’t have worked out nearly as well if you weren’t such a coward trapped in your own fantasies, so thank you.”

And just like that the newt walked away.

As if he hadn’t just shattered Marcy’s heart.

But, as much as he couldn’t be trusted,

He was right.

He always was.

HOLY SHIT THAT WAS GREAT WOW