#toadcatcher

[amphibia-a-day]

Day 1171 of Amphibia Screenshots

Episode: Toadcatcher

[wiverntiles]

Grime: You need a hobby. Sasha: I have a hobby! Grime: Hitting Sprig isn't a hobby.

[kiwibirb1]

I forgot how juicy toadcatcher was lol

[lellu]

are u ever like damn ill watch some amphibia to calm down but instead of choosing something fun like bessie & microangelo or commander anne or the first temple ur like. hey i know what will make me normal im going to watch the episode where the guy who is just like me is suffering from The Problems

[sashannarcy]

true kin: yunan

IT TOOK ME A SECOND

[oh2bloved]

Toadcatcher

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

I don't like complaining about S3 too much, it's kind of a bummer to focus on what I don't like when there's so much I love, but one thing that I can't help but feel disappointed by is how we never got to see the new Marcy.

We got to see the new Sasha all through S3, who is completely different from S1 and S2 Sasha, and she's such a wonderful and loveable person, you can't help but adore her. Peak girlfriend material. It makes her oddly homoerotic friendship with Anne so sweet! And Anne herself, as the literal star of the show, had her development front and center from day 1. All of S1 was about her growth, and while she still had some work to do in S2, by then she had already changed a lot. Much like Sasha, she goes from being a selfish little shit to becoming a noble, honorable young woman, driven by love and responsability, with the emotional intelligence necessary to face any challenges coming her way.

Marcy... doesn't get that chance. The content of her arc is fine - she realizes she was selfish and self-centered, she understands how that's wrong and she decides to be a better person. But when Sasha (and I'm comparing her to Sasha because Anne, as THE protagonist, is not a fair comparison) had like... all of season 2 to change and develop, and half of S3 to truly shine as her new, improved self, Marcy... well, she did get some development in S2, true - the First Temple and New Wartwood are important moments that come to mind, but...

Okay, so, we knew everything about Sasha's situation from the start. She's lying to the other characters but not to the audience, so everything she goes through in Toadcatches, Barrel's Warhammer, the Dinner, Battle of the Bands and True Colors is very visible to us. We see her going up and down and we always understand what's up with her. We get a very clear view into her mind. We know Sasha. Marcy, on the other hand, has been lying to the audience up until True Colors, so everything we knew about her prior to that has to be recontextualized given the new information, and what we inevitably conclude is that nothing she learned was enough to make her question her plan. She understood the concepts, but she didn't apply it to her particular situation. That's not a bad thing! She's just halfway through her arc - accepting the Truth without letting go of the Lie. But when so much of her arc is hidden from the audience and further recontextualized through more flashbacks near the finale, what we get is a very mysterious Marcy who tells us "everything you thought you knew is more complicated that it seemed", and given that this is the season finale, that set-up inevitably promises a deeper exploration of the REAL Marcy in S3. No more scheeming and lying and manipulating, just Marcy in real time, with no need for flashbacks to recontextualize things again.

But S3 gives us very few chances to see Marcy in Real Time. We see her in Olivia and Yunan, All In and The Hardest Thing. Three episodes. I'm not gonna complain about that because I think we all feel the same way. There's no need. But I will insist that a good solution would have been to have at least two or three episodes about Marcy inside the Core. The King and the Core should have been about Marcy uncovering that ancient information in Aldrich's memory without him noticing, for example. This would have been an improvement in several ways:

More Marcy screentime and development

More exploration on the nature of the Core

We have a present day character knowing all about the Box's lore, and it's not just Andrias randomly thinking about in with a vintage filter on.

Marcy having more agency inside the Core in general would have allowed her to fight back in some way, which would be necessary for another change I'd like to suggest below.

Other episodes could be about her "bonding" with Aldrich and slowly realizing he's delulu, her learning about some old Olm lore, and unlocking a secret that will help them later with like, Anne's powers or the Moon or something, and just... her thinking and realizing she fucked up. If the Core knows her memories, it could recreate a more prolongued scenario with Anne and Sasha, maybe a sleepover? In general, I think Marcy would need someone in there to bounce off of, whether it is a bad guy like Aldrich or lifeless projections of Anne and Sasha, or even someone in there that's actually on her side, sick of living forever in this fantasy, maybe.

She needs time to define her new, changed self after learning her lesson, just like Sasha got to do. Because we barely see who Marcy has become after the events of Amphibia. We got like... TWO scenes to tell us ANYTHING about it.

"No! Only a coward would hide away in this place! Well, I reject this sick fantasy, and I reject you!"

"Even if your friends win, your parents will still tear the three of you apart."

"I started this whole mess because I wanted to escape that reality, but I won't run away from it anymore!"

And later near the end:

"I came to this world thinking only of myself. It was wrong of me, and I wish I'd gotten to know you both better"

These are like... the only indicator of the person Marcy became in Amphibia. They're not worthless - she learned to be more aware of the people around her, and to be stronger in the face of change. Her final scene with Aldrich is her most confrontational scene in the show, and certainly her most angry one. Before, she'd only been like... mildly annoyed one time because Anne was being too overprotective, and she glared at Andrias for like two seconds during O&Y but didn't actually say anything. Marcy is not an angry person, and she does seem to be scared of conflict, so to slap Aldrich's hand away, call him a coward, and proudly raise her fist and declare she's done running makes her look much stronger, and I appreciate that. And she does pretty much declare she refuses to be a coward. But this isn't nearly enough. If I want to write fanfic about Marcy post-Amphibia, I shouldn't have to sit down to analyze these two moments to extrapolate what her characterization would have been like. It should be like with Sasha. We know exactly who the new Sasha is, but we never get to see the new Marcy shine. I think that's why her arc feels so rushed in comparison to Sasha, whose beginning of her arc arguably took up one 11 minutes episode, and the rest happened mostly off-screen: the new Sasha was radiant in S3B, even if we didn't see much of the transition.

I know that, due to structural reasons, Marcy wasn't going to have much screentime so they had to rush her arc quite a bit, and while my suggestion to give her more time inside the Core stands, I think that's not enough either. I think she needs time to interact with Anne and Sasha, and also King Andrias, her Amphibia friend. It's hard to think of a solution to this problem given the way the finale is structured, but my first idea is to make it longer: The Beginning of the End stays the same, All In stays the same except for the way Marcy is released: instead of just, cutting a cable, Sasha needs to reach her with the Power of Friendship. Think something like the Running Up That Hill scene from Stranger Things, or the Toothless Found scene from HTTYD2

Because we can't miss a chance to develop Sasha and Marcy's relationship here. AND since they both share the roles of the Betrayer, the Liar, the Manipulator, of Anne's toxic friend in the path of redemption, it's poetic that Sasha, who has held Marcy under her thumb for years, is the one to help her break free, not through brute force like in canon, but by actually putting into practice what she's learned. Kinda like how, in AtLA S3, Zuko is playing the role of group therapist to the rest of the Gaang. Sasha figured things out first, now she wants to help Marcy find redemption too. Make it a callback to Anne's little speech from TBOTE

"It's not easy. Forgiveness is hard, and it can take time. But believe me: it's worth it. I mean, just look at what you and I have now."

Because redemption isn't easy. It's hard, and it can take time. But you still need to show up, even when you think they don't want you, even when you think you ruined everything. Getting up to so the right thing is always worth it.

Of course, if we want Sasha to save Marcy, a little bit of previous development wouldn't hurt. What if we add a little episode in S3A about the girls all thinking about each other? Anne finding a copy of War of the Warlocks that Marcy forgot in her house, Sasha being reminded of Marcy while helping Maddie with curses for the resistance, and Marcy just... thinking about them, in general, while in the Core. A simple 11 minutes segment, 3 minutes and a half of screentime for each of them. You don't need much, just a moment for them to explore their conflicting feelings for each other.

But then... then, we still need to see Marcy - the new Marcy - interact with her friends, so let's add one or two more episodes to the finale, between All In and The Hardest Thing. Maybe we can shift the Olms storyline here? Would that mess with the pacing too much? Tbh the writers did put themselves in a predicament with Marcy, so it's hard to find a perfect solution. I guess we can keep the tension if the moon is falling veeeeeery slowly, giving our girls just enough time for one more quick adventure together while not making it feel like they're taking their sweet time. So we have one or two extra episodes, and what do we do here?

We challenge Marcy. Just like how Sasha was challenged in Commander Anne, Marcy has to prove she's changed too. Tempt her with her past self-centeredness, her possessive instincts, the easy way in which she lies to herself, her impulse to plan around Anne and Sasha and not with them, hiding important information. Her fear of change. She knows what she needs to do, and she's ready to sit with the uncomfortable feeling of change instead of rejecting it immediately. Maybe she has to let Joe Sparrow go, for example, to be with other sparrows or something, idk. Whatever it is, it needs to be an opportunity to show her newfound emotional maturity. Show how, just like Anne and Sasha before her, she became a more noble person, one who, from now on, is honest, selfless and brave. One who embraces change, and who may even seek it out, because she understands this is how you grow.

Anyway. Yeah, that. I guess I'm just disappointed we never got to see the person Marcy became, but at least it's not hard to extrapolate it from what little the show gave us. We're not 100% in the dark. Though it's not nearly enough. If they ever give us more Amphibia, it would be awesome to see more of this new Marcy, but until then, we have a beautiful community here of galaxy brained people to put the pieces together 🥰

[kestrel-bee]

Alright so for Sasha’s Character arc could’ve been written better would we’d have more Sasha screentime in Season 2 to see more of her character progression. Like would you rewrite “Toadcatcher” or have some more Sasha episodes?

I mean I would personally wanted to see more of her onscreen development.

It’s not so much that I would rewrite any episodes per se, I just think she needed more little small moments showing that she wasn’t quite sure about her plans, so that when she DID make the switch it wouldn’t feel as rushed.

I think Toadcatchers is like, one of the only S2 episodes that show that she’s acting out of anger, hurt, and a need for control over her situation (I think so anyway, I haven’t watched Amphibia in awhile.)

Her entire S2 arc could have been fixed (for me anyway) by just having one or two little moments towards the end where she looks guilty about what she’s planning to do. Something like:

Anne: “…I can’t wait to see/do this with you when we get back home!”

Sasha, looking to the side with a guilty/pensive expression: “haha, yeah…when we get home…” [redirects Anne’s focus to something else, episode continues as normal]

I remember being pissed that Sasha during the The Dinner and Battle of the Bands wasn’t acting even a LITTLE bit guilty about how she was about to betray literally EVERYONE, and send away her friends forever without the chance to properly say goodbye.

Absolutely no remorse from her until AFTER her and Grimes’ plan fails, she watches Marcy get run through with a sword, and has to run away to Wartwood and win over the residents. And then it’s all “I’ve seen the errors of my ways! Even though I was 100% ready to overthrow everyone and create a toad empire 5hrs ago, you should trust me!!”

Besides the way her arc progresses though, I appreciate Sasha as a character. She gives such a good representation of what a toxic friend acts like, and Sasha and Anne’s face off during the end of S1 hits hard for me. And having her realize that she’s wrong, and that she needs to let go of the need to have control is a GREAT arc for a character like her, because it shows that just because you have toxic personality traits, it doesn’t mean you can’t change and become a better person.

It just sucks that her character arc wasn’t demonstrated all that well in S2.

[purpleplaid17]

Jess Watches // Mon 11 Nov // Day 407 Synopses & Favourite Scenes & Poll

Ugly Betty (with mum) 4x11 Back in Her Place

A battered but unbowed Betty recounts her worst week ever to Mr. Z as the show flashes back to her horrible last few days. Meanwhile, Daniel fears Marc is sabotaging him -- and he is; Bobby treats a hormonal Hilda to some pampering during "Hilda Week," which goes awry, and Wilhelmina makes a long-term commitment to the incarcerated Connor.

"I've had to say goodbye more times than I would have liked, but everyone can say that. And no matter how many times we do it, even when it's for the greater good, it still stings.

And though we'll never forget what we've given up, we owe it to ourselves to keep moving forward.

What we can't do is live our lives always afraid of the next goodbye, because chances are they're not going to stop.

The trick is to recognize when a goodbye can be a good thing, when it's a chance to start again."

Unprisoned (with mum) 2x03 How to Be Friends

Paige tries being friends with Mal, but keeps running into the same obstacle: his new girlfriend. Meanwhile, with college looming, Finn volunteers at the halfway-house, where Edwin teaches him how to fight more than his feelings.

Edwin is so close to being an amazing granddad. He is so supportive and sincerely investied in getting to know Finn. But then he lets Finn spar unprotected, when he has never thrown a punch - which is a good thing!

Also, Brandee Evans! Where is s3 of P-Valley?!

Star Trek: Prodigy 2x07 The Fast and the Curious

After using a Borg conduit to travel through time faster, Dal and his friends find themselves at the mercy of a demanding Kazon.

The circular-gate race was similar to a videogame (Tchia) I had just played this morning. In that you can race: as her, on your raft, or by soul-jumping into an animal. A Prodigy videogame would be so much fun!

Amphibia 2x04 Quarreler's Pass/Toadcatcher

Hop Pop drops Sprig and Polly off at a trail designed to help them get along. / Sasha and Grime must reconcile their differences to escape Newtopia's most skilled warrior.

Hop Pop asking Anne if she had a boyfriend, cutting to Sasha still mad at Anne, was definitely a choice. 👀

[swiftadrift]

Collected the images of Sasha Waybright I'd drawn over the years and you can see the stages of my human art development in them... wow

I start rambling beneath the cut sorry

I thought I'd drawn like 3 images of fully-coloured humans and 2/3 of them would be Sasha but no.. I had 7 and 5/7 are Sasha and they're all different styles (other two were Luz + Amity, and Ibuki Mioda)

Girl who I got so obsessed with that my human artstyle is mostly based on her...

ALSO improvement?? I don't wanna post all of it but like

I did a screenshot redraw from Toadcatcher a while back so I thought I might as well try another Toadcatcher screenshot and guys??? Guys... I didn't redraw the background this time around but it still looks SUPER cool

Both were very heavily referenced from the original scenes with my twist on them so it's probably nothing at all, I'm just so fascinated with the differences!!

I tried a different style of lineless that isn't the one I normally use and I think it looks so much better for this, and her expression and the shading got much more confident and sure

And I mean it was super heavily referenced to clarify both times I remember tracing the original before going over a second time in my style

But I think I've got the hang of it now... so I might start posting human art soon alongside my cats haha!

I did this one too I'm not as happy with it but I'm still pretty happy (still referenced, I have actual drawings that aren't referenced I promise they're just sketches)

I'm working on my human art and it's showing!! I'm so elated

[adorawasright]

I've read some asks that talked to you about Amphibia, specifically Sasha, and I know you have some reservations about the show because of some controversial stuff the crew has done; however, if you ever want to explore about Sashanne as I've read that you're interested in the ship these are the episodes that focus on it: Reunion, Toadcatcher, The Third Temple, some in The Dinner, The Battle of the Bands, True Colors, Turning Point, Commander Anne, Sasha’s Angels.

Then about Sasha’s characterization, those episodes are pretty great: Prison Break, Reunion, Toadcatcher, The War Hammer, The Third Temple, The Beginning of the End, All In, The Hardest Thing, Olm Town Road, and the others above.

You can read the summary in the Amphibia fandom wiki as a replacement for watching the episodes but if you ever change your mind about watching the show, those are the eps that can give you a better understanding of Sasha’s character and Sashanne. Still, that's your choice.

Thanks for this great blog, by the way. The more people notice the important flaws of She-Ra, especially how Catradora was portrayed, the better.

Oh, thank you for the resources! And thanks for the support, too <3

[amphibia-a-day]

Day 1183 of Amphibia Screenshots

Episode: Toadcatcher

[glacymash45]

Hey, everyone! So, I just wanna say that I’ll be doing a crossover between Kingdom Hearts and Amphibia since I managed to binge watch it and it’s really great! It takes place post KH3 and it’s gonna be about 50 chapters, but that may change in the future. It’s called Hearts of Amphibia.

Here’s the list:

Chapter 1: Meeting New Faces. Chapter 2: The King Chapter 3: The Lights and The Plantars Part 1 Chapter 4: The Lights and The Plantars Part 2 Chapter 5: Road to Newtopia Chapter 6: Handy Kairi and Anne/Fort in the Road Chapter 7: The Ballad of Lea and Hopediah/Anne and Aqua Hunter Chapter 8: Truck Stop Ven ‘n Polly/A Caravan Named Destiny Chapter 9: Quarreler’s Pass/Toadcatcher. Chapter 10: Swamp and Sensibility/Wax Museum Chapter 11: Marcy and Sora at The Gates Chapter 12: Scavenger Hunt/The Plantars and Lights Check In Chapter 13: Lost in Newtopia/Sprig and Roxas Get Schooled Chapter 14: Little Frogtown/Hopping Mall Chapter 15: The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers/A Day at The Aquarium Chapter 16: The Shut-In! Chapter 17: Night Drivers/Return to Wartwood Chapter 18: Ivy on the Run/After the Rain Chapter 19: The First Temple Chapter 20: New Wartwood/Friend or Frobo? Chapter 21: Toad to Redemption/Maddie, Marcy and Namine Chapter 22: The Second Temple/Barrel’s Warhammer Chapter 23: Bessie and Micro-Angelo/The Third Temple Chapter 24: The Dinner/Battle of The Bands Chapter 25: Maleficent and Pete Chapter 26: True Colors Chapter 27: The New Normal Chapter 28: Pop ‘Til You Drop/Turning Point Chapter 29: Thai Feud/Adventures in Catsitting Chapter 30: Fight at the Museum/Temple Frogs and Lights Chapter 31: Fixing Frobo/Riku and Anne-Sterminator Chapter 32: Mr. X/Sprig’s Birthday Chapter 33: Confrontation with Old Foes Chapter 34: Spider-Sprig and Bat-Ven/Olivia, Yunan, Riku, and Kairi Chapter 35: Hollywood Hop Pop and Lea/If you give a Frog or Light a Cookie… Chapter 36: The Great Christmas Chapter 37: Heartless Invasion Chapter 38: Escape to Amphibia Chapter 39: Commander Anne and Riku/Sprivy Chapter 40: Sasha and Terra’s Angels/Olm Town Road Chapter 41: Mother of Olms/Grime and Aqua’s Pupil Chapter 42: The New Body Chapter 43: The Master and The King Chapter 44: The Core and The King/The Root of Evil Chapter 45: Newts in Tights Chapter 46: Fight or Flight Chapter 47: The Three Armies/The Beginning of the End Chapter 48: All In Chapter 49: The Hardest Thing Chapter 50: Epilogue

I’ve already finished chapters 1 and 2, and will start chapter 3 this Friday. If you have any questions or suggestions for the chapters, please let me know. This is my first big fanfic, so it will really mean a lot if you support it.

[finalvortex]

restructured these calamity trio AJR playlists again. i'm extremely happy with them. annotated tracklist under the cut

ANNE

The Entertainment's Here (pre-Amphibia)

Maybe Man (pre-Amphibia)

Weak (Reunion flashback)

The Dumb Song (S1A)

Pretender (S1A)

Bang! AhhHaa Remix (S1B)

I Won't (Reunion)

Karma (Road to Newtopia arc)

Ordinaryish People (Newtopia arc)

Growing Old on Bleeker Street (After the Rain)

Turning Out (S2B, marcanne)

100 Bad Days (True Colors)

Call My Dad (True Colors/New Normal)

Humpty Dumpty (S3A)

Don't Throw Out My Legos (Escape To Amphibia)

It's On Us (Escape to Amphibia)

Location (Commander Anne, sashanne)

Netflix Trip (All In)

2085 (The Hardest Thing)

The Green and Town (epilogue)

SASHA

My Play (...self explanatory)

Let the Games Begin (pre-Amphibia)

The Trick (Prison Break/Reunion)

Pitchfork Kids (Reunion)

Drama (Reunion/Toadcatcher)

Yes I'm A Mess (Toadcatcher)

Break My Face (Toadcatcher)

Big Idea (Barrel's Warhammer)

Come Hang Out (Barrel's Warhammer/Third Temple)

Wow, I'm Not Crazy (sasharcy, Third Temple)

Inertia (late s2)

All My Favourite Songs (True Colors)

The Good Part (True Colors)

Bummerland (Turning Point)

Buy You A Rose (Turning Point)

My Calling (S3A)

Location (Commander Anne, sashanne)

Alice By The Hudson (S3B)

Livin' On Love (epilogue)

MARCY

Adventure is Out There (pre-Amphibia)

World's Smallest Violin (True Colors flashback)

Next Up Forever (pre-Marcy at the Gates)

Three-Thirty (Newtopia arc)

Normal (Day at the Aquarium)

Turning Out (S2B, marcanne)

Wow, I'm Not Crazy (sasharcy, Third Temple)

3 O'Clock Things (late S2)

Turning Out Pt. ii (True Colors)

Too Late (True Colors)

Burn the House Down (darcy)

Finale (All In)

Record Player (All In/THT)

Way Less Sad (timeskip)

Infinity (epilogue)

Turning Out Pt. iii (epilogue)

3AM (epilogue)

[tomboygays]

Gaslight era sashanne(spice rate 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶): preamph~toadcatcher

Battle era sashanne(spice rate 🌶🌶🌶): thirdtemple~turningpoint

Lovey dovey era sashanne(spice rate 🌶): commanderanne~the beginning of the end

[impact801]

One complaint about S2 I heard after finishing it was that Joe Sparrow took away the scale of Amphibia. Before, the characters had to take a while to get to place to place, but with Joe now they could just warp around Amphibia.  

However it didn’t bother me because S2 had Sasha be separate from the main cast. This means cutting back to her gave us an idea of what’s going on the other side of Amphibia. In Barrels Warhammer  it’s seen that the toad lords know that about Anne and Marcy traveling around to the temples. In Toadcatcher our first glimpse of Newtopia is through Yunan, and we get an idea of how Newtopia views the events of “Reunion”. 

However I feel 3B definitely has Amphibia feel smaller in scale, and not this big continent it felt like at the start of S2. This is because 3B really only takes place near frog valley, and little bit of Quarrelers pass.  

We never get to see what the Toads are being used for after being captured in Turning Point, or what happened to residents of Newtopia after it’s destruction.  I do love the idea of Frog Valley being much more stable than everywhere else it keeps the concept of the Frogs being underestimated but are a lot capable than people think. But everyone pretty much being in this area, without seeing everywhere else can make Amphibia feel like it’s just Frog Valley.   

Beatrix’s army feels like it’s chilling until Sasha calls them up, and Tritonio sort of gets an army out of nowhere. You could assume those are the residents of Newtopia that fled, but I wish that was empathized more(seriously seeing some of the Newtopia characters again would’ve been great). 

I do think 3B does a good job of seeing how individuals have been changed by the setting, but I think seeing the entirety of Amphibia would’ve helped a lot in making it feel bigger than LA.  Though I do think the size of the Army helps with that a bit. 

I think a good way of fixing this would be to see Andrias and Darcy’s perspective of taking over more often, and being more active and tactical in doing so. If we get an idea that different parts of Amphibia are mined to prepare for the invasion. It gives us an idea of Amphibia is changing in places we don’t see outside of frog valley.  

Side Note: 

I like the idea of Andrias being wanting to use the Amphibians and more individual people, while Darcy uses Robots and those possessed by the spore collars. Darcy wanting to use people it can easily control and that have no soul or individually works a lot with the Core’s foil with Sasha. 

And Andrias wanting to use individuals and stopping them from being hypnotized gives the idea of him still wanting to build connections, but still is doesn’t stand up to the Core, and still choosing to pick it’s side above all else.