#marcanne meta

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

No you don't understand, Anne and Marcy third-wheeling Sasha during the dinner episode (and Sasha third-wheeling herself during battle of the bands) is so important to me. Anne and Marcy have come so far having left Sasha behind. They're happy and confident and strong and closer than ever, all because they were finally free. Because Sasha wasn't there to stunt their growth. Despite how much they love Sasha and how much they don't want to admit the distance helped them, it's true: Anne and Marcy were both victims of a toxic friend and they're learning to move on together. Ik it sounds like I hate Sasha because whenever I write about her I make her out to be a massive piece of shit but that's because... she kinda was! And I love her for that! I love these three, I love their story and their drama and toxicity (I was soooo happy when it was revealed Marcy wasn't as great as she initially seemed like - yes! The CONFLICT is CONFLICTING). Like yes marcanne is my obsession, I have marcanne brain worms, but I think one of the reasons marcanne works so well is because of Sasha. Their past, present and future with her have such a huge impact in Anne and Marcy's relationship with each other and with themselves. You can't separate these three and I love it, how easy it is to ship two of them without making it weird by leaving the third one behind (ironically, Sasha the Character is included by leaving Sasha the Person behind).

Marcanne to me is about two childhood friends living in a toxic situation healing together after leaving, only able to fall in love now that they are free and more comfortable with themselves and each other. They couldn't fully connect with each other before - not really. Anne didn't see the importance of listening to what Marcy had to say nor did she take it too seriously, and Marcy was simply not in contact with real people in the real world at all. None of this was Sasha's fault entirely, but she did third-wheel Marcy and she was possesive with Anne and was just a generally terrible influence on her, while reminding Marcy that, well, she didn't really matter all that much to anyone. Removing Sasha from the equation is not enough but it's a necessary step towards knowing each other better and the fact that they so easily became closer than ever just shows their eagerness to be together for real this time. Marcy's increased confidence and Anne's newfound empathy and admiration for her friend wouldn't have been possible with Sasha's domineering influence present. If they were to fall in love, it'd be because Sasha wasn't there to stop it.

I imagine that, once she finds out, she'd be furious, but mostly just devastated. Her friends only found love once she was gone. As if they think they'll be better off without her.

[thekingofwinterblog]

Amphibia - How to do an Open Ending Right

As much as i feel like Amphibia might have benefitted greatly from a full on Sashanne or Marcanne ending, i do very much think the current one has it's merits.

As the creator said, it does leave it very much open, not only on the shipping front, but also in the details of how Sasha and Anne began drifting away after middleschool, yet apparently remained on great terms as adults, which has a lot of implications that you can read into if you wish, or you can take it at face value if you so desire.

And i really like that.

My personal reading from what both Anne and Sasha says, is that they drifted apart in high-school, then seems to have begun reaching back together in their current years after both got their careers off the ground.

And that is part of growing up. Sometimes you do lose contact with the people around you because you NEED to focus on your job, your future, only to reforge a new and different relationship later in life.

As Anne said, they both had to learn to let go of what they had, but that didn't mean that nothing good came out of it in the end.

The way Sasha speaks of it, she has some regrets about it, maybe things she wish she did differently, but in the end, that's okay. As anne said, No one is perfect.

Just to take one example of a way(A sashanne reading) you can read it, maybe Sasha's regrets is that she could have confessed her feelings for Anne in high-school, and maybe that would have made them stick together and forged a strong, and lasting bond that would have remained strong until this day.

But for whatever reason, she chose not to(maybe the fear of rejection, or that Anne wasn't into girls was too strong, and in the end she didn't dare try for fear of her friendship breaking), and she in hindsight regrets that fact.

And that might be the case. Or maybe them going straight into a romantic relationship in their teens when their careers and educations took them so far apart would have killed it dead in the long run.

She does not know what could have happened, and she definitely has regrets about that.

And again, this is just one take on the whole thing. The beauty of this ending is that you can definitely see how things went the way it did, it's not an time-skip epilogue where the show asks you to buy that one of the girls became an astronaut and became the first human to set foot at mars or something equally ludicrous.

Each end point makes logical sense.

Instead it tells you where each girl ended up, while leaving it to the reader to read their own interpretation of how they got there, and where they go from here

That's how to write an open ending.

Even after Amphibia, there were mistakes, regrets, roads taken and not taken, and the characters still wishing things could have been different.

That is life.

The important thing, is that you don't cling to the past at the expense of your future. The past is important. The worst things you can do is cling so hard to it that you break what you have now, or you are so bitter about how things went that you try and kill it out of spite.

[pyroclastic727]

Ok so I was thinking about Marcy (with my @toxicpsychox​ of course) and realized something about the timeline.

Marcy brought Anne and Sasha to Amphibia with the hopes that she could buy some time before moving away. But she didn’t intend to keep them there forever. And for the longest time, I was thinking that she accepted Andrias’s proposition out of a deep fear of losing her friends.

And of course she is afraid of it, that’s her main motive. But she isn’t just doing this out of fear, out of selfishness. 

She said “I did it for us.” Not that she did it to keep them there. But she did it...partially for Anne.

This analysis by BorkTheMork explains that Anne and Marcy’s communication is largely driven by situations, not choices. In fact, there are only two main events in which the two of them have really chosen to admit something to each other.

And the important thing? In Marcy at the Gates, Anne says this.

“Because I just got you back, okay? And I don’t...I don’t wanna lose you again.”

And in that scene?

“I did it for us.”

She did it for Anne, because Anne said that she didn’t want to lose her.

Look, when Marcy brought Anne to Amphibia, she believed that deep down, Anne didn’t want her. That if her parents moved away, Anne wouldn’t make any effort to stay with her, to keep their friendship and reunite in the future. Therefore, this was temporary at best; it was only a matter of time before Anne found out that she brought them there, and decided to leave.

But then Anne said this. Anne made it clear that her motive was to stay with Marcy. Which was Marcy’s motive, too! That’s the whole reason why she did this. And realizing that Anne wants the same thing, that Anne also would hate to be apart from Marcy...dang. It really seemed like Anne would approve of Marcy’s decision, didn’t it?

Then the two of them had great times together. They grew closer and it really became clear that their friendship could survive any world. But Anne still didn’t want to leave her frog friends, that was made obvious by the events in Day at the Aquarium.

So for Marcy to accept Andrias’s proposition, to trap them in Amphibia forever? It wasn’t just kind to Marcy. It as also kind to Anne.

Think about it. Anne doesn’t want to leave Marcy. Anne doesn’t want to leave the Plantars. If Marcy kept Anne in Amphibia, she could have everything she wanted! So in a way, Anne’s desire to stay with Anne was a sort of permission.

If Anne hadn’t said that to Marcy in the barbariant tunnels, if Anne hadn’t communicated with Marcy, then Marcy probably wouldn’t have accepted Andrias’s proposition. Not if she still believed that Anne would be better off without her.

[nose-bl]

hello and welcome to: aged-up calamity trio headcanons, except it’s mostly marcanne

first of all, sasha does have a girlfriend but it’s neither marcy or anne, it’s someone else she met at university

anne and marcy start dating but marcy goes back to where she lives so they are long distance for a while. after spending their holidays together anne asks marcy to move in with her

marcy works at home on her webcomic (she’s her own boss) which means she can easily move cities so she moves in with anne

anne and marcy are lesbians

anne is trans and has taken her transition a step further

marcy comes out as nonbinary to anne and cries about it but anne comforts her and says she still loves her

then marcy tells sasha and she’s also supportive

anne and marcy rant to each other about their interests and since anne now understands a lot about biology she and marcy can talk about it and understand and anne also teaches marcy some specific stuff she doesn’t know

marcy teaches anne and sasha how to draw the characters from her webcomic

sasha confesses to anne that she had a huge crush on her when they were younger but that she’s moved on and that’s when she tells her she has a girlfriend

marcy and anne had been pining for each other for years and now that they’ve reunited as adults and are more mature and have learned a lot and can have a much healthier dynamic, they decide to date

but sasha has to intervene bc they’re both super nervous about confessing their feelings even though it’s obvious they like each other so she has to push them

marcy cuts her hair super super short, and then let’s it grow a lot, and then cuts it again, repeat cycle

marcy’s webcomic gets published in physical copies and anne and sasha are the first to order signed copies

the trio all obviously reconnect after they reunite for anne’s birthday. anne and marcy start dating shortly after this and the three hang out until marcy has to go back to wherever she lives

but since she comes back to live with anne, they’re all near each other again so it’s like old times but a lot healthier and happier

they all go to pride together and they laugh about how they all turned out to be queer

marcy forces anne to play video games and she becomes obsessed with legend of zelda (the whole franchise) and marcy thinks it’s funny since anne was dressed as link in that hallucination the core made for her all those years back (during the events of All In)

Marcy wears glasses but also has contact lenses

the trio still have a band, when they reunite they sometimes play stuff together for fun. marcy sometimes plays the drums with different local bands to get some extra money bc working on a webcomic isn’t the most financially stable job

[inktog]

Here's something fun.

This is Bessie's history. Before touching a snail's reins, you gotta know them. Feel their heartbeat next to yours and become one.

When Anne finally reads the manual, she also starts munching on leaves—like a snail does. They have in fact become one: Anne is Bessie, and Bessie is Anne.

And Joe Sparrow mostly just follows Marcy's orders, yeah? So it's not a terrible stretch to treat him as an extension of Marcy herself.

What I'm saying is that this ridiculous scene of a bird flirting with a snail is actually Marcanne fodder.

[megadan94]

If 'Taking Charge' was unintentionally foreshadowing the delay/leaking of 'True Colors', I wonder what else was unintentional meta foreshadowing?

*Remembers the episode about the shipping war*

...oh god no!

(That wouldn't even need to be unintentional, the love triangle could literally be foreshadowing a future storyline.)

[dantevhell]

what are your top 5 insane amphibia episodes :o

Oooh thats a though question bc I never thought abt it. But well let's go!

Warning: this will be a big ass answer sor- SIKE I HAVE NO REGRETS!!

5 - BATTLE OF THE BANDS - ok it was a simple somewhat fluff somewhat angsty amphibia ep a really calm b4 the storm kinda of thing but made it was well made! Observing sasha's more profund mentality of "I need control, they won't want me if I am not in control, they won't need me if I am not in control" towards her girls and realizing that deep down all that she wants is for her girls to be happy, for them to succeed, God that was heartwarming. Toadie was the perfect and most unexpected character to teach her that but hey it was welcome!

This two pictures here made me insane.

JUST LOOK HOW LOVEY DOVEY SASHA IS LOOKING AT MARCANNE I WILL COMBUST AND-

4 - BARREL'S WARHAMMER - I remember being genuinely SICK genuinely CRAZY genuinely DEPRESSED after this ep bc I never related to sasha so hard b4 and my kin on her only intensified on this ep! Seeing and confirming that sasha was insecure abt being left out of marcanne's life and feeling like she needs to have control for them to want her oh boy that was delicious and what a ep to make the fandom crazy with metas!! Seeing sasha beggining to realize that her actions were what was leading for the others to abandon her and she's the only to blame for her decisions.... only for her to fall into that trap of self destructive behavior MAN that sure was something that changed my brain chemicals HELL YEAH!!

3 - THE THIRD TEMPLE - I was really excited for that ep bc we would not only get the girls SOOO waited reunion in amphibia after 2 YEARS but also we would gain a flashback when their first meet so i remember I spend the entire week only thinking about it! I really wanted to see how their dynamic would work as a trio and I was really excited to see if my predictions were correct (they were!). The tension of sasha and anne unresolved conflict and their long waited 2nd reunion, marcy finally encountering sasha after months without seeing each other, sasha and anne being unaware of marcy's plans with the king, MAN, THE TENSION WAS PALPABLE!

Also seeing sasha showing regret over her past actions with anne but unable to stop her already on motion plans was sure a good angst hoooho boy!

2 - ALL IN - it was way more that I expected it to be! Anne's speech about her how she didnt loved herself, her fight with andrias and sasha's fight with darcy, andrias reading leif's letter, andrias and marcy flashback, marcy escaping her dreamscape!!! WOOF THAT WAS A ROLLERCOASTER OF EMOTIONS REAAAALLY WELL ELABORATED!

I think if the story ended there and we didn't had that stupid "suddenly the moon is the enemy bc the prophecy is too literal" plot and we just skipped to them saying goodbye and having the timeskip I would have been happier but that's content for aaaaanother post.....

1 - TRUE COLORS - hands down the amphibia ep that made me the most INSANE AND MENTALLY ILL. Nothing will top true colors for me bc I spent months making theories with my friends only for it to be almost all throw away and the plot twists blow my mind! I genuinely didn't see marcy's reveal coming or her agreement with the king being going to other worlds so jesus! What a time! Marcy's speech was really impactful, andrias revealing his "true colors" was satisfactory in a way that was really anger inducing, sasha fight with anne and the begging of her redemption arc was soooo cool to watch and the animation in Anne's calamity form !! Wooooo I genuinely didn't know how to react after this ep I was feeling anesthetized a good few days!

[iwantescapism13]

😂 - What moment in Season 3 made you laugh the hardest?

'Olivia & Yunan', when Marcy was just out of the tank and she just couldn't say things properly : "Lead the way, Lady OliviYAH and... Captain YOOhoo~" and then falls down. So fucking hilarious.

A runner up is in 'Turning Point', Sasha's "H-Huh? What? OF COURSE this is my natural hair color!"

💕 - What was your favorite episode from this half season?

I have 2: 'Olivia & Yunan' and 'Turning Point'. They're both damn good, I couldn't decide on just one.

⚔️ - How do you think Andrias will die? :D

Impaled. Like Green Goblin from the Sam Reimi's Spider Man movie. He'll think he have the upper hand, planning to impale Anne or some other character but they were able to dodge in time so the object goes right to him instead.

🏡 - Wartwood, Toad Tower, Newtopia or LA?

Toad Tower. I want to be as badass as Sasha and be trained along with the Toads.

😱 - Was there a scene in Season 3A that took you completely by surprise?

Most definitely Marcy's screams. That fucking traumatized me until this day. I can't even watch it properly without the need to fast forward to the time she's not screaming anymore. It's very haunting. It was surprising because I didn't expect Amphibia to go that route.

🐸 - Favorite Wartwood citizen?

Wally. I like that he doesn't give a shit about what other people thinks and although he's actually a rich creature, he still decided to stay in Wartwood. It's a very nice message.

📖 - What is your favorite quote of the season?

Sasha Waybright in 'Turning Point' : I wanna be someone better. Someone that deserves you.

🧐 - Which scene from this season did you rewatch the most?

The reading of Anne's journal in 'Turning Point'.

🥒 - Favorite meme/joke/running gag in the fandom?

The Marky Wu meme and the current Anne's Letter meme.

✍ - What is your favorite piece of Amphibia fanwork that you made so far? fic/art/shitpost/meta, etc

I don't draw and... writing fanfictions was something of a past time. Not anymore. So... a favorite post of mine here on tumblr is the Marcanne moments compilation because I had to rewatch several episodes of them together again just to put up the screenshots. And... yeah. I just love seeing them together.

😍 - What is (one of) your favorite piece of Amphibia fanwork that someone else made so far? fic/art/shitpost/meta, etc

This drawing. The best Dark Marcy In Suit drawing I have ever seen.

👨‍👧‍👧 - Favorite side character introduced in this season?

Mrs. Boonchuy. She's so damn wholesome. I love her so much. Matt Braly's mom's voice is also so damn cute. I smile whenever she talks.

👀 - What are you most excited to see in season 3B?

Anne's reaction to Dark Marcy. I wanna see her break down on the spot, like what happened in 'True Colors'. I wanna see her go apeshit at King Andrias for doing that to Marcy. And I want her to say certain things.

😏 - Thing you just want to rant about

Nothing right now. It'll probably be on another post.

[bonediggercharleston]

Reddit is fucking hilarious

Since the new episodes of Amphibia hinted at two girls being romantically interested in each other, people have been throwing fits over the prospect of shipping. Nevermind that there always was shipping in Amphibia not only for WLW but also for a canon hetship. But a select few posters have decided that Marcanne being canon opens the floodgates of gay shipping and this is bad, apparently, because look at the Owl House subreddit, it’s only Lumity and nothing else and do you remember Star vs the Forces of Evil? Literally everyone hated the shipping wars, we are told.

The thing is that there are now “pro-shippers” and “anti-shippers” (and no, it has nothing to do with pro/anti discourse you see elsewhere, this is about the existence of shipping itself) constantly posting memes about the other being stupid and there are meta-posts for those posts and metaposts for the metaposts.

So while Amphibia’s sub is only about the most basic ass shipping discourse right now, the Owl House subreddit is full of cute fanart and memes. The irony in this is delicious. -10/10, you achieved the exact opposite of what you wanted and didn’t even get art out of it, except for a really weird suggestive image of a girl getting choked by a newt which turned out to be stolen from a porn artist 

I am making this seem more dramatic than it actually is, but it does show how little you can trust fandom histories, because apparently there is a general consensus that r/theowlhouse is a shipping cesspool even though a majority of the posts isn’t even about shipping. Makes you wonder how much of the Star vs drama was just a handful of people constantly kicking up a storm. It also does seem a bit sus that there is this thought that WLW go overboard with shipping and ruin it for everybody else. Everybody was on board for shipping the frog boy with the frog tomboy, but the moment the prospect of homosexual ship comes along, everybody assumes there will be massive shipping of WLW and this is bad somehow and that is what derails a sub.

The lesson to be learned is that you better just let people engage the fandom how they want to, because otherwise the discourse will envlope everything just like you tried to stop.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Just how much power did Marcy have over her friends pre-Amphibia? When they throw the kpop puppy party at school, the principal assumes "those two" pushed Anne into it, and Anne kind of admits it. When Anne is about to sacrifice herself, she says "all my life I've followed you two". During her one and only S1 appearance, she's seen maliciously nodding alongside Sasha when Anne steals the box, and with Marcy asking to meet up on Anne's birthday, while Sasha is the one to carry out the order, the implication is that they're almost like... working together. I know she was supposed to be "meaner" when they were working on S1, and I think they changed her personality because Haley Tju made her too adorable(? and maybe also because Matt thought the whole show would fall apart if people didn't like Marcy (considering what a huge impact she has on everything that happens, I'd say he was right). But Anne's line in THT and the flashback in All In implies she wasn't nearly as much as a doormat as it may seem sometimes, at least not as much as Anne.

Or maybe she was? Because you also see her in this place of submission when it comes to Sasha (and also Anne?), especially in BOTB, when she's happy to switch from Anne's song to Sasha's without even hearing the first, only stopping to consider Anne's approval. That scene struck me as her always happy to go along with her friends' wishes and never having much of an opinion of her own. That's why she was so desperate for them to get along during The Dinner, and why she never took a side when Anne told her she and Sasha had a fight. She closest thing to defying Sasha that we ever see her do is when she's working alongside like 10 other people to protect Newtopia from the Toad Army, and she says they had to "defeat Sasha and Grime" specifically, which I think makes sense considering they're attacking the city she's supposed to protect (she's IS a high-ranking member of its military forces AND a close advisor to its king), and not wanting to "defeat Sasha" would rock the boat with everyone else involved, Anne included. Yet we never really see her angry at Sasha for what she's doing, she just wants her and Anne to "work things out". I think it's clear that Marcy struggles with empathy, because if she put herself in Anne's shoes, she wouldn't expect her to "just work things out" with Sasha. In fact, she would have taken Anne's side agessssss ago, but she's way too focused on herself (her goal is for everyone to be happy forever and get along, while Anne and Sasha may want something else). Marcy being self-centered isn't a hot take, and I don't think she's any more self-centered than Anne was during most of S1. In fact, I'd argue Anne was even worse lol. The difference is that Anne made a million relatively small mistakes while Marcy made like two or three very big, very bad mistakes (bringing them to Amphibia, striking a deal with Andrias behind their backs, and not taking a side in Anne and Sasha's fight, which is something I never see people bring up as one of Marcy's most flawed moments).

So... going back to the question I made in the beginning... did Marcy just go along with Sasha's plans so enthusiastically when compared to Anne, who had more doubts and had to be pressured into them, that it made it look like she and Sasha were more in cahoots than they actually were? I think this is very likely. I also think it's likely that she and Sasha genuinely shared a liking for rule breaking back in LA, and her own self-centered-ness prevented her from realizing Anne wasn't comfortable with it. Maybe she never even considered if she liked to go along with Sasha's plans, like, Marcy strikes me as someone who doesn't look inwards much. I think we can rule out both Sasha and Marcy being equally controlling and possesive of Anne, because her relationship with Sasha was very much not one of equals, with Anne as a third wheel. Was she more of a third wheel? We know Anne and Sasha don't share most of her interests and will often ignore her and her needs, and we know she feels like losing them is becoming dangerously easy. We also know Sasha has no qualms taking Anne on some kind of birthday date without Marcy which I'm 75% convinced it's because she had a huge crush on Anne but I digress which, from a doylian perspective, is explained by the fact that they seemingly didn't want to show Marcy too early, but from a watsonian perspective, it just comes across as Sasha not priorizing Anne spending her birthday with both her best friends. Like, you can do with or without Marcy. She doesn't seem to remember Marcy until she texted her, actually.

But then you have lines from Anne about how "if you friend wants to you steal something, you do it, because if you don't, they may not want to be your friend anymore", which, oh boy, if she at least perceived Marcy as pressuring her into stealing the box (rather than it being 100% Sasha's idea) that would shed a whole new light on her relationship with Marcy, because it would seem like she, too, feels like their friendship could fall apart if she didn't go along with the other two's plans. And I do think Marcy at least somewhat participated in pushing Anne into it. It wouldn't be the first time she made Anne do something bad - she told her to lie to Valeriana about stealing the box, something Anne later appeared to be ashamed of, and she insisted of going along with the puppy party when Anne was having doubts. I imagine Sasha (who also pressured Anne into doing very much not so "lawful good" things, in more extreme ways than Marcy) might have come up with the idea of stealing it, and Marcy just supported it. Marcy taking Sasha's side. Possibly over and over again. We know Sasha didn't exactly manipulate her because she didn't have to: Marcy just always did everything she said. Anne was the one who needed a bit more convincing.

Marcy's relationship with Anne and Sasha is fascinating. She's definitely the most morally gray of the trio, and possibly the most complex one too, in the sense that she's full of realistic contradictions - an adorkable manipulator, an amoral softie, a self-centered sweetheart who loves her friends more than life itself, a possesive kidnapper with a heart of gold, a very selfish and self-sacrificial person... and it's never just a mask or anything, she's not just pretending to be nice, she really is that way, she really is all of that together. I think that's why people struggle to read her a lot of the times, because so much about her characterization seems conflicting with itself... but I think that's the key to making characters deep and realistic. In real life, we're all walking contradictions and we don't really make sense. Marcy's character doesn't seem clumsily put together to me, like they frankeinsteined all the different character traits she needed to make the plot work without any cohesion between them. I think she's a complex tapestry that sometimes requires a closer inspection to decypher it, and I think the glue holding everything together is her lack of intrapersonal intelligence, her inability to look inwards and notice her own contradictions.

We know she felt unloved by her friends yet desperately clung to them with everything she had, going to extreme measures to ensure they all stayed together, even when it hurt them. We know she's capable of manipulation, scheming and lying to the people that love her most in order to guarantee that goal. We know she's possesive with them, but she also loves them enough to let them go in the rare cases when she realizes she's hurting them (as seen in A Day in the Aquarium). From her journal, we also know she feels very ashamed of these possesive impulses. We know she'll neglect to form her own opinions and ideas to agree always with her friends' wishes, which means she feels completely lost when they want different things. But this also shows that she would never think of an idea of hers as being explicitly opposed to what her friends want. She wouldn't consciously do something that they wouldn't like. Which is insane, because, who would want to be separated from their family and thrown into a different world without any sort of notice? Which leads us to understand that Marcy has zero emotional intelligence and has never looked inwards in her LIFE, AND that her empathy skills are in negative digits because it would have taken her a nanosecond of thought to realize Anne and Sasha probably wouldn't like to be kidnapped. And since we know she never wants to do something they dislike, she must have just... not thought about it at all. No thoughts head empty. It really was just BLANK up there when she made that decision. I think Marcy is a very "true neutral" character who struggles with empathy and humility, who loves her friends but doesn't have the emotional intelligence to really understand them, and who is happy and enthusiastic to be Sasha 2 Electric Boogaloo because... that's what she knows. That's how her friend group works and her goal was never to have a deeper and more genuine connection to them, but to keep it close to her.

So... my conclussion is that, pre-amphibia, Marcy was Sasha's very enthusiastic (but emotionally neglected) right hand man, with Anne as their oblivious victim. It really IS complex because you have to then add Anne always looking out for her, losing sleep over her, yet also ignoring her needs, and Sasha not even bothering to hide how much she doesn't care about Marcy's feelings (which reflects on Marcy not consciously caring about her own feelings). There's also Marcy always assuming the best from them too, despite repeated evidence of their disinterest, and her fear of displeasing them looming over her constantly. Ik I said Anne was Sasha and Marcy's victim, but I meant that like... symbolically, because Anne is not innocent here either. She wasn't a great friend to Marcy before Amphibia. Here's why I always say Anne couldn't develop a deeper, more genuine and open connection with Marcy because of Sasha's oppressive presence and her own lack of emotional maturity. And Marcy couldn't develop a deeper, more genuine and open connection with Anne because of her own lack of empathy and reluctance to face any kind of conflict. So Marcy is Sasha's enthusiastic but emotionall neglected right hand man, who also feels subordinate to Anne despite Anne feeling subordinate to her. That's why they both feel like third wheels at different times. There's an illusion of Marcy with more agency and power than she actually has. In reality, only Sasha is on top, and the other two are two very flawed individuals, one slowly cracking under the weight and the other, less sensitive to the same pressure, trying to uphold the status quo.

[thekingofwinterblog]

Man, if i knew people would be this salty on both sides about the fact there would be no endgame calamity ships, I probably would made more posts about it XD

Anyway, I've seen some posts about the interview that sunk any of the calamity ships ships, and them being pretty aggressive with the idea that there was no way that there was planned to be any romance in the story at all, and Disney DEFINITLY didn't slap it down during season 3's production. There was definitely not a romance at the end that was cut. In fact, there was NO suggestion of romance at all in the series.

Which got me thinking, is that really the case? Are fans just looking too hard with the usual shipping stuff? Or are people just mad about shipper having a point?

So let's actually dig into this idea, and analyze whether or not there might have been real plans for an endgame Calamity ship before something(Aka Disney giving marching orders to cut it) made them change it before the end.

Sashannarcy

Now, let's just get the big one out of the way first.

There was no way that Sashannarcy, the Fandoms most popular ship was EVER planned to be canon.

There is the obvious fact that Disney would NEVER have let the ship go through, and the writers would have known that from day one.

There is no way this crew would have been dumb enough to build up a story to a ship they knew from day one would never happen ever.

But there is also another reason why sashannarcy was not planned, and it relates to Marcy, as i'll cover with the next ship.

Marcanne

Marcanne Is the second most popular ship of the series, and i can definitely see why. And frankly speaking, i can definitely see it working as an endgame ship.

However, I do not for one second believe that it was planned from the start, and the reason for that is that unlike the vast, vast majority of Amphibia, Marcy's character was not planned from the start.

Unlike Anne and sasha, who remained pretty much the same characters they were from draft one to the finished product, Marcy's character was still up in the air, until season 2 began it's production.

She was originally envisioned as a sorceress, and vagrant, before her being settled on as a ranger.

More importantly for this discussion however, is that Marcy's personality was originally meant to be WAY different. With her being far more calm, cold and calculated. It wasn't before they had her voice actress actually read lines, that the marcy we know came to be.

So if you've ever thought that, "Man, Marcy looks really shifty and confident when Anne stole the box", that's the reason. While her motivation was already there, her personality and character was not. That's also why there was nothing of her as a character in season 1. Because they still hand't settled on it.

With all this in mind, i find it very, VERY unlikely that they were planning on making Marcanne a thing from the beginning, when they hadn't even fully settled on how her and Anne's relationship would have worked before season 2.

It is of course possible that the way they gelled so incredibly good in season 2 changed their plans and they wanted to make the ship happen at the end, but if so, then that wasn't planned from the start.

It would if so, qualify as a cut romance, but it would not have been the original plan for the series that everything had been leading up to.

For obvious reasons this also means that Marcy x Sasha was not planned either.

Which leaves us with...

Sashanne

Now, i have made it no secret that the way i read Sasha waybright's feelings on Anne, as someone deeply in love.

But let's look at this objectively, and break it down, and look at it both from their relationship, but also from a meta perspective, and some stuff we saw through the series that may or may read as hints.

Let's begin with Sasha picking up Anne.

Before heading to Wartwood, Sasha specifically had a special carriage prepared, and it was most certainly custom made, which means it's design was all chosen by her deliberately.

And for it, Sasha specifically chose to make sure that it had huge, obvious golden hearts. But not only that, but she also made sure to to find a spider that looked much, much cuter than the usual tarantulas toads usually use, give it a suave wig, sunhlasses, and trained it to drop them bad boy style.

I will be blunt. I honestly cannot interpret this thing, as anything but Sasha trying to be romantic and sweep anne off her feet.

And i felt that way ever since i first saw "Reunion", BEFORE i actually started to ship them following Sasha's followup development.

Then we got the cut/toned down scenes from Reunion, where Sasha was way, way more directly physically on with Anne, pushing her cheek directly up against hers, which in turn immediately cheered Anne up on the spot, shoeing that Sasha and Anne was originally planned to have a much more touchy feely relationship than what they ended up with(And it's not like they aren't touchy feely in the show itself).

Then there was the dance scene, which was originally gonna have them hold handa(Setting up their dance fight in "The beginning of the end" two seasons later), and that the game they were playing was about fusion, but originally only about the color of pink and blue, with green nowhere to be seen.

Now I'm not saying that these two are definite proof that the shoe was going to have these hook up, but keep in mind that they WERE told to tone it down from what they had originally planned, and there must have been a reason for that.

The creators had a vision, and as shown here, Disney were very much willing to meddle with it as they saw fit, in order to tone down the imagery.

Moving on to season 2, we have the famous joke from quarreler's pass, where Hop Pop says "Lets talk about Anne's Boyfriend again" and gets kicked off a cliff in response.

However, the show then immediately cuts to the next episode, and the the very first episode showcases Sasha running and is all about her reaction and how she deals with the aftermath of "Reunion", and the episode ends with her declaring that she and Anne aren't through yet. Not even close.

This could be coincidence, but on a meta level, it works really, really well as a hint/foreshadowing, if you assume that the story will end with these two hooking up.

Then, on the opposite end of these girls, when Anne designs the costumes for their band, she gives Marcy a butterfly(the symbol of metamorphosis), herself a Dragonfly(So she can make a pun on it and her name).

And what does she give Sasha?

A moth costume. The moth, who Anne would know very well from "Flight of the moth" is "one of nature's most seductive animals".

Out of countless insects to go with, Anne deliberately chooses an animal that she knows is known for "Being seductive". That... Probably speaks for itself.

As for season 3, it is full of moments that are very, very easy to read as romantic between the two of them, be it their very erotic dance, pretty much all of commander anne has strong romantic overtones(like her overcomponsating too hard against what broke them up in the first place, which is something couples who get back together after a breakup very often do), or Sasha flat out admit that she loves Anne in Turning point, and her big moral heel turn is built on the idea that Sasha wants to be someone worthy of Anne's love.

However, on the meta front there are a couple of things, like how Toady specifically refers to them as Madame Generals. For those who don't know, Madame is a term exclusive to women who are married. So he's basically saying they're a couple.

Then there is this scene where the Plantars are marveling at a love story from a tv series, and exclaiming:

"And it only took 3 seasons"

Which if Sasha and Anne and hooked up would have been a nice meta joke and nod, in that yep, it literally took 3 seasons for the ship to sail.

Now to my verdict.

If there was any ship that i realistically can think was indeed planned to happen from the start, only to be struck down by Diseny during production(Not wanting another confirmed gay romance between leads after they canceled Owl House for it), then it was Sashanne. Realistically speaking, of the calamity girls ships, it was the only one who had enough planning from the start, along with lots and lots of moments that could easily have lead into a romance, to have been the planned endgoal all along.

Mind you, I'm not saying this WAS definitely the case, but the people saying that the writers didn't include anything at all which suggested that romance would happen, are flat out wrong.

I can believe that Matt Braly did indeed plan this story out with no romance at all planned.

On the other hand, i can also fully believe that he wanted Sasha and Anne to hook up at the end of the series, built the idea up all through 3 seasons, only to get a solid NO from Disney, and told to keep his damn mouth shut about it if he ever wanted another chance at another series.

I'm not blaming him if that is the case mind you. He needs to eat like the rest of us. I'm just pointing out that the official reasons the owl house got the boot, which was touted by creators, was that it didn't fit in with what disney wanted out of their shows.

And it's bullshit. Disney knows it's bullshit. The people who said it knows it's bullshit. We know it's bullshit.

Owl house was canceled because it was a kids show that had a gay lead in a relationship with another girl, and disney got cold feet after it became a major part of the show. We know it, Disney knows it, everyone knows it.

And yet they forced the creators to claim otherwise so they wouldn't have to deal with the bad press.

I'm not saying that is DEFINITELY the case here. But it is very much a possibility.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

What do you think would have happened if Anne remained at Newtopia with Marcy at the end of A Day at the Acquarium?

Ooh what an interesting question! I think it'd depend a lot on why she stayed behind, because if she stayed because Marcy insisted that she had to it would be very different from her staying because she wanted to help Marcy.

I think Anne leaving Marcy behind is very thematically relevant because it show her forming bonds and connections outside of her two middle school friends. She and the Plantars refer to each other as family repeatedly during that episode, with Polly jokingly calling her "sister", and when they're leaving, Anne says "let's go home". She's really come to see Wartwood as her home and the Plantars as her family, and rewatching that episode I kept thinking about how the calamity trio drifted apart as they grew up and I realized... if course they did, and that isn't a bad thing. It means their world grew. They grew. Losing friends, making new friends, leaving some people behind, reconnecting with them... it's all an important coming-of-age process. It's also worth noting the Plantars are the healthiest bond Anne has in Amphibia, with Sprig and Polly being the only people that never betrayed her and were consistenly honest with her. Sprig in particular helped her heal from Sasha's abuse and break free from her influence. No wonder she put him above Sasha and Marcy during True Colors 😭 like at this point he was the only person she could trust.

So, Anne choosing the Plantars over Marcy in ADATA has a double meaning for her.

Firstly, it's an important step forward in Anne's arc. It's her loosening her ties with her old friends a little bit in favor of expanding her world and making more connections. I think this is ultimately a positive thing, because her relationship with Marcy and Sasha was a very toxic one and the distance, growth and perspective that represents her relationship with the Plantars is what eventually saves the original friend group, not to mention Anne's relationship with herself, since her bond with the Plantars encouraged her to grow and form a stronger sense of self (something her friendship with Sasha stunted).

Secondly, it's a step backwards in her relationship with Marcy. You can't have everything. Anne and Marcy's relationship before Amphibia was defined by Anne's lack of interest for Marcy's inner world (not only her interests but her insecurities, her passions, her fears etc) and Marcy's comformity with the crumbs of affection Anne gave her. Marcy repressed her pain until it exploded in the most destructive way possible, kidnapping her friends, taking their lives, families and futures from them so she could have them all for herself. That's some very toxic yuri if I've ever seen any. In this case, Marcy is asking Anne to stay with her, and Anne chooses the Plantars over helping her friend who she hasn't seen in months. She doesn't care much that she's leaving Marcy to do the bulk of the work before their mission alone, or that Marcy may want to keep her friend close after so many months away. You could easily read this as Anne disregarding Marcy's needs and feelings.

Now, I think there were a lot of assumptions Anne made there that contributed to her making that choice. If Marcy had explicitly told her she wanted her close because she missed her and didn't want to be separated again, or that she'd be moving away with her family once their adventure was over, I think Anne might have seriously considered staying. Anne's decision to leave with the Plantars was greatly influenced by her fear of not seeing them again and her desire to make the most of their time together. She also saw Marcy thrive in Newtopia and likely believed she didn't really need her. Marcy kept giving these "logical" explanations instead of telling Anne how she felt, and Anne bought it, so as soon as Marcy told her her presence wouldn't be so crucially required, Anne felt free to go, not to mention Marcy herself validated her desire to leave.

So when we ask what would change if Anne stayed, I think it's important to consider what that would mean for both Anne and Marcy, and that would be determined by what made Anne stay in the first place. It'd be entirely different if Anne stayed because Marcy didn't tell her to leave vs. If Marcy had opened up about why she wanted Anne to stay and Anne made the decision to be with her. And even then, it would vary depending on how much Marcy tells her. Does she just tell her she didn't want them to be separate again? Or did she also tell her she'd move away when they went back home? The more honest Marcy is here, the "healthier" it is when Anne stays.

In that way, we have a spectrum, from More Healthy ( + Marcy honesty) to Less Healthy (- Marcy Honesty).

Best case scenario: Marcy tells Anne why she wants her to be with her and Anne freely chooses to stay in Newtopia. She says goodbye to the Plantars and tells them she really needs to be with Marcy, and that Marcy really needs her. It makes her realize she hasn't really been all that aware of Marcy's emotional needs and she takes note to pay more attention. It would also be a miraculously big jump in Marcy's character arc, since she's pretty much not in the place to open up like that yet. Still, let's imagine something pushed her, maybe they had a bit of an argument paralleling the one they had in Marcy at the Gates in which Anne admitted to being overprotective because she was scared of losing Marcy again. A great step, since she would realize that, huh, maybe being honest about your emotions DOES work!

So, Anne tries to stays in her room in the Hemisphere Hotel for one full night but the loneliness is haunting. Insert some typical Amphibia episode hijinks in which she tries to beat feeling alone and kinda anxious in her lonely hotel room by going to some kind of bar inside the hotel to chat with some tourists until she unexpectedly has an emotional conversation with some stranger about how this is her first time being all alone in a big city, or something like that, which leads her to realize that 1) she's not all alone - Marcy is in the palace! And 2) this was probably how Marcy has been feeling for the past three months. Am I saying she sneaks into the castle for an improptu sleepover and almost gets killed by the security measures installed by Marcy herself? Probably. But she does show up knocking on her balcony door with a few cuts and scratches, and with a bag full of snacks to convince Marcy to let her sleep in her room for the night.

Marcy didn't need to be asked twice.

The next day, she's assigned a new room in the palace, likely in the same hallway as Marcy's. Palace hijinks ensue: sleepovers every week, Anne helping out with the research (though mostly she just provides snacks), little adventures in Newtopia in which Marcy shows Anne all her favorite spots in the city and teaches her about its secrets, and eventually, Anne beginning to realize Andrias means bad bussiness and trying to talk to Marcy about it, though Marcy denies the possibility a little too much.

The whole Temple stuff is a lot more lonely without the Plantars, though I imagine Anne may want to ask Marcy to take her on visits to Wartwood regularly. It's also likely that the Plantars might want to join them in the temples, though I think it's more interesting, for the sake of this AU, to wonder how the first and second temples would have been like if we only have marcanne around. It'd possibly be more personal? I don't think it'd change toooo much at this point, the meat of this AU would really just be marcanne adventures in Newtopia together.

Now, worst case scenario: Anne stays because Marcy just insisted so much, but she never really opens up to her about anything. Plot-wise it's similar to the first scenario but more depressing. Instead of Anne going out of her way to have fun adventures with her best friend before they have to separate, she's just dragging her feet through the preparations for the journey, trying to smile whenever she sees Marcy being happy, but it's not easy. She keeps wondering if she'll ever see the Plantars again. She jumps at any oportunityn to leave Newtopia on Joe Sparrow in hopes of convincing Marcy to take her to visit Wartwood. Marcy originally thinks this is Anne wanting to join her on her travels, only to slowly realize Anne keeps thinking about places far away from her with people who aren't her. This is a scenario in which Marcy doesn't make the selfless decision to send Anne back with the Plantars, so she's being pretty morally questionable here, priorizing her own desires over Anne's in a very possesive way. This Marcy probably feels a lot of guilt about keeping Anne trapped with her but whenever she thinks about sending her back to Wartwood, she's overcome with the fear of losing her together. In her mind, she's just trying to spend time with her best friend and strengthen their friendship. She tries to take Anne on little trips and adventures that she thinks she will like, and Anne does enjoy a lot of these, don't get me wrong. It's not all bad times. But she does miss her frog family.

In the end, I think a different understanding of Marcy's motivations (like the fact that she's scared of losing her friends, and that she was going to move away) might affect how Anne sees her betrayal later on.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

I love the cultural differences between the different websites, like just taking the Amphibia fandom as an example...

Here on tumblr you see long metas, character analysis discussions, lots of cuteness aggression etc. We value searching for and archiving art from 4 years ago. We have knowledge of fandom history and classic fics. If I say "awiw" everyone knows what I'm talking about. Pretty much 0 discourse. We celebrate toxicity here sir.

Twitter is a cesspool of vipers as we all know. Lately they've been talking about a crew member who supposedly "defended" a "p3do" fellow crew member 2 years ago, and forgive me for assuming this is about that dumb grimsha sketch people went crazy over back in 2022 and not a real problem, because this is twitter we're talking about. Anyway they're trying to cancel this person again because they *checks notes* drew kinky ca1tvi fanart. They also get weirdly angry if you like Marcy and Sasha more than Anne and the Plantars... while also preferring Marcy and Sasha over the Plantars. Fandom is pretty dead over there anyway, interactions are more limited, worldbuilding and character development discussions are non-existent. Seem like people are only there to complain. Your art gets a lot more likes tho. They actually have a lot of very beautiful art that never made it to tumblr, but damn is it difficult to get people to actually comment on your art instead of just liking and retweeting. And it's soooo hard to look for old art.

Then reddit is like, "which Transformer would Marcy be best friends with?" [reposted art] [reposted art] [reposted art] "looking at marcanne fanart and crying over how single I am"

[inktog]

I posted 632 times in 2021

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For every post I created, I reblogged 1.8 posts.

I added 909 tags in 2021

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Longest Tag: 133 characters

#obviously they're loyal to each other but are they also loyal to andrias? or are they just as shocked and horrified as everyone else?

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

John Gaius doesn't know anything except tell dad jokes, indulge in martyr complex, drink tea, murder dissenters with bare hands, and lie

134 notes • Posted 2021-01-22 02:45:18 GMT

#4

Here's something fun.

This is Bessie's history. Before touching a snail's reins, you gotta know them. Feel their heartbeat next to yours and become one.

When Anne finally reads the manual, she also starts munching on leaves—like a snail does. They have in fact become one: Anne is Bessie, and Bessie is Anne.

And Joe Sparrow mostly just follows Marcy's orders, yeah? So it's not a terrible stretch to treat him as an extension of Marcy herself.

What I'm saying is that this ridiculous scene of a bird flirting with a snail is actually Marcanne fodder.

177 notes • Posted 2021-06-06 15:06:30 GMT

#3

In trying to figure out whether Marcy fits Amphibia's pattern of psychological worldbuilding, I've considered two options: either Andrias is a manifestation of Marcy's abusive father, or he reflects something about Marcy herself—some hidden motive or repressed desire, or maybe the simple fact that she unintentionally hurt her friends.

Andrias-as-Dad strikes me as the likelier option: he's big, he's old, he makes robots (which are babies, as per Frobo), and he dabbles awkwardly in youth culture in a very dad-coded way. But I'm still bothered by some evidence in the other direction.

To start, in the Season 3 opening, Marcy is level with the many-eyed evil overlord and above Andrias himself. It's a curious role reversal if the king is supposed to be Mr. Wu—but it makes perfect sense if he's subservient to Marcy's dreaming self, born somehow of her unconscious mind. Linking Marcy to the eye creature suggests that Marcy is, somehow, the actual Big Bad of the series.

And Marcy and Andrias both have moments where they treat other people as literal flipwart pieces, suggesting that Marcy, like the king, is a scheming manipulator who plays god with other people's lives.

Now, these conclusions are laughable—Marcy just plain isn't a string-pulling villainous mastermind—but maybe they point to something more true.

It's not unusual for a person to internalize the idea that they're at fault for the abuse they suffer ("If only I hadn't acted in this particular way, maybe he wouldn't have…"). This is wrong, of course; no matter what you do, the game is stacked against you. But it's not out of the question that Marcy wrongly blames herself for her dad's actions. And if she thinks, in particular, that she's at fault for her parents' decision to move…

Then Andrias is a stand-in for both Marcy's dad and for her associated guilt. The symbolism points toward Marcy-as-evil-mastermind not because it's true, but because she thinks it is—she thinks everything is her fault. Which makes her teary apology even more tragic—and Andrias' "Now look what you've made me do" even worse.

This completes a pattern I hadn't even noticed until now:

Anne's gem is of the heart, and the frogs reflect her subconscious desire for moral guidance in the form of benevolent paternalism.

Sasha's gem is of the body, and the toads reflect the cold hard reality of her controlling, abusive behavior.

Marcy's gem is of the mind, and the newts reflect her warped perception of reality, the mistaken belief that she is somehow at fault for her father's behavior.

This is all very speculative, and I hope we meet Marcy's parents for real in season 3.

188 notes • Posted 2021-05-25 21:44:12 GMT

#2

Marcy, gesticulating wildly: I'm just saying, humans are inherently biased. We want to think that death isn't the end. We want to believe in a benevolent, all-powerful creator. Which makes sense! The alternatives are really scary! But we can't let that fear cloud our judgment. And if you actually step back and look at the evidence for intelligent design, or an afterlife, it's pretty flimsy.

Anne, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling: I dunno, Marbles, this doesn't seem like the kind of thing science can answer. You'll just run up against more questions. Like, why did the big bang happen? Why does gravity and matter and stuff follow this particular set of rules, and not some other rules? There's gotta be a greater purpose behind it all. Maybe not a god, but like…a plan. The universe's plan.

Sasha, not looking up from her phone: If God isn't dead yet, I'm gonna kill him myself.

243 notes • Posted 2021-05-23 17:03:34 GMT

#1

Even more Rule of 3 that I just now noticed: Each girl is associated with a secondary gem aspect, indicated by her amphibians' color.

Anne is primarily associated with the heart (blue), but she's no stranger to raw strength (pink—or at least loosley red-ish—as the Plantars).

Sasha is primarily of strength (pink), but she's also cunning, manipulative, and capable of long-term planning (mind/green as Grime).

Marcy is primarily of mind (green), but she's also well in touch with her desires: she knows what she wants and isn't afraid to chase after it (heart/blue as Andrias).

And each is sorely out of touch with her third and final aspect, to the point that her entire personal journey revolves around it. (Or at least Anne's and Sasha's do; it's hard to say what the exact shape of Marcy's arc is yet.)

Anne's inability or unwillingness to think through the consequences of her actions (mind) is one of her biggest flaws.

Sasha just doesn't know what she wants (heart), as the last couple episodes make clear.

Marcy is the physically weakest of the trio (strength), and in a broader sense, she's also the least in touch with reality.

739 notes • Posted 2021-05-26 20:23:41 GMT

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