#How she avoided all of wartwood

[discet]

So what's the trio like in the Scorched Earth AU?

Aw man, Im glad people enjoy the SE!AU Edit: Wow this post got long. Context for the AU

The trio in the au grew up in the small settlement of Old Saint. All are 15 (everyone is 2 years older in this AU.) Born within a season of each other, the girls I think were raised together probably from infancy.

Anne's parents ran the Inn/restaurant in town. They are good doting parents, though a little strict with Anne trying to keep her safe.

Sasha father was a woodsman while her mother raised some kind of chicken-adjacent animal. They weren't divorced but they reaaaaally should have been. Sasha has a reasonably

Marcy's father was a kind of town tinkerer: forging tools, fixing stuff, etc. Marcy's Mom was a trader, often doing circuits around the valley delivering some of the tools and inventions her husband makes. Very attentive to her education, but are often busy for most other things.

Timeline

Age 5: The three of them are fully conscious kids and are adorable little kiddos running around and being sweet.

Age 8: All learning bits and pieces from their parents trade. Anne learns to forage for spices and herbs in the forests around Old Saint and cook some of her family recipes. Sasha is taught how to identify tracks in the forest to avoid monsters and how to handle an axe. Marcy learning tinkering, math, and figures

Age 10: Starting to grow more independent and exploring the forests around Wartwood. The Trio sets up a kind of secret hideout in one of the natural caves a short distance out of town.

Age 11: One summer just before the summer melts the mountain pass Marcy's parents approach the Boonchuy's and ask if they can look after Marcy for the summer. They and a few other merchants from the valley have joined together to form a little caravan to head to a major settlement to trade outside of the valley they should be back before the winter. Marcy and Anne were of course on board, summer of sleepovers. The Boonchuy's are of course happy to look after her. Marcy gives her parents a big hug as they head off.

Age 12: The summer and fall pass by but they don't return. Then the valley gets cut off again and now Marcy is with them for the winter. But it's probably all right. They got waylaid or delayed... but then the summer comes again, the pass melts and Marcy's parents still haven't returned. So Marcy just... doesn't really leave and the Boonchuys carve out a little bit of their home for her to make her own. (They never get news of what happens, but some time during the road trip I think they find the remnants of the caravan, destroyed and looted). Marcy ends up starting to help out keeping the books and fixing up things around the Inn

Age 13: Sasha has had enough. Now an important detail for this AU, Sasha has pretty good relationships with her parents individually, but has been in a cooking pot of toxicity since she's been five. In the middle of two people she cares about as they snipe and hurt each other. She blows up at both of her parents just unloading years worth of repressed frustration with the both of them before storming out for the day. She goes and retrieves Anne and Marcy from the Boonchuy's and they all go off ranging for the day in the forest so she can just be somewhere else. Night comes and as the trio is finally deciding they should head back, they see a bright light coming from the town along with smoke rising.

It was the herons they're told, came in, wrecked a great deal of the town. They find Sasha's parents among the wreckage, and Sasha has to deal with the guilt that the last thing she said to her parents was that she "hated living in this house with you!"

With no other place to go, the Boonchuys of course step up and take Sasha in as well. Sasha helps out around the inn as a waitress on busy nights and provides meat for the kitchen thanks to her new obsession - monster hunting.

Sasha becomes possessed by the idea of killing the herons who killed her parents. Marcy and Anne narrowly convince her to not just storm straight into the valley to look for their nest. Eventually landing on the argument that she should work her way up so that when the time comes she'll be ready. Which is how Marcy and Anne get kind of dragged into her obsession and we get a bit of that toxic dynamic from canon. With Sasha pushing her friends into ever more dangerous situations and dismissing their concerns about them.

Age 15

Start of story. The trio have become pretty adept monster hunters in the intervening years. Marcy specializing in trapping and knowing the weaknesses of various creatures (many a late night in the archives equivalent to make sure they were prepared for anything they meet out there). Anne with her athleticism is on scouting duty and more often than not in charge of leading creatures into the ambush. Sasha of course is the muscle, dealing killing blows when the plan goes right and straight up fighting when things go wrong.

Bee and Oum are of course concerned about this new hobby, and not just for Anne's sake since they've come to see Sasha and Marcy as their own. But its hard for them to raise too much of a protest since by this point they've probably saved various folks around town and driven off some predators together. They're just relieved when the three of them come home at the end of the day.

Also just some quick outfit ideas.

Anne wears mostly lightweight clothing to stay agile on her feet, with a chitinous breastplate to keep her organs safe. Maybe a hunting spear to hold monsters at bay.

Marcy doesn't wear a lot of armor herself instead relying on mossy looking cloak to camouflaged her. Wields a heavy crossbow she fashioned for herself to aid a fight from afar.

Sasha wears armor Marcy fashioned for her of furs and chitin and wields with her father's woodcutting axe.

[scrabbleknight]

With it being 24 hours since I've updated my fic, it's time to go through my thoughts over Chapter 10 of SatF.

First off, I'd like to thank everyone for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. I worked hard on it and it happened to be my longest chapter yet. Second, if you read the Author's Notes in AO3, you'll find that there were a large number of deleted/heavily modified scenes that I unfortunately didn't bother to use. So I won't go through that since my thoughts over it are already laid bare.

Now onto the analysis:

Choosing between two chapters

The Wartwood chapter was actually one of two choices I had when I started. Before beginning, I had to choose between two ideas that I wanted to write and even had to get an external opinion about it. In the end, I chose to write about Wartwood and its citizens since it's a chapter I wanted to write for so long and this seemed to be the perfect time for it. The other chapter idea was actually an Anne chapter!

Expanding the characters

The main purpose of this chapter were two things; to expand existing characters and to expand the worldbuilding. Every story brought in something new, such as one-off characters (Nelly), racism in Amphibia (Maddie) and family names (Tritonio). Also, the reveal of cultists which was always implied in the past, and their importance in the future. There's a really neat system regarding cultists in particular and it will be brought up, but basically it's just layers upon layers of secrecy.

Racism in Amphibia

Racism is a pretty hot topic and Amphibia, being based on traditional Tolkien/DnD fantasy, has some of it (but not too much because Disney show). So I wanted to put some focus in it too. Amphibia's racism is mild and hidden; it's not outwardly like those other fantasy stories. It's especially obvious during the Three Armies episode where newts and toads have a rivalry, and frogs are looked down upon. This seemed to have happened during Andrias's rule, so he most likely has a hand in it.

So I wrote the insidious and lurking nature of racism as well. In this case, we see that Maddie can't become a proper witch/curse practitioner because she's not allowed to enroll in a special school due to her species. Maddie, of course, shrugs it off because she can still do it, just illegally and only outside of Newtopia where the rule is enforced.

But Albus has a reaction to it. He feels guilty because he has a privilege that Maddie did not, and he didn't notice. It can make one wonder how many other advantages they have in their life that are seemingly invisible. Of course, Maddie comments on it, stating that it's not Albus's fault. After all, he simply lived in privilege; he was hardly the cause of it or propagated it. Just knowing and being aware of it is the very minimum, and acting with that knowledge is the ideal.

Fatherless

Ivy's fatherless behaviour actually started as a joke. I wrote the scene about Felicia getting mad about him and it expanded from there. But then, I added more content regarding it and brought it back full circle near the end. Tritonio being an orphan was always planned after the Three Armies episode but his relationship with the family was only added in this chapter. The chapter was also going to mention why he left and it was because he utterly humiliated his brother (the head of the Espadas and an actual blood-related member) in a duel which led to him leaving to avoid persecution. I'll definitely bring that up in the future. And Ivy being mad about her absentee father was only added in the last minute, which I say worked incredibly well to tie it all together.

The brief history of Amphibia: Blue Blood Massacre

Now this is something I really wanted to write, in excerpts and journals. The purpose of this entry was to give out names of important families, specifically the Lilypads and the Leopolds. The latter is related to Loggle and his family will have an important part during Sasha's time in Newtopia, hence him giving her his eyepiece which was also the Leopold emblem. The Lilypads aren't brought up yet but in this AU, Lady Olivia would be a member, hence her close proximity with Andrias. Family lines are incredibly important in Newtopia and it's important to establish that early on because it can be the cause of major conflicts.

When writing about the Blue Blood Massacre, I had to choose between either making it explicit or implicit. In the end, I chose the latter, as shown with Andrias being labelled a victim for it. Of course, we (readers) know better. Additionally, it was also the perfect time to include Andrias getting his cybernetics since it was never explained what medical procedures he used, so the average person could wave it off as magic.

I didn't write it but each of the Five Founding Families specialized in different things which allowed them to work together. The Lilypads were agriculturists, the Leopolds were craftsmen and the Leviathans were researchers. As for the Larns and the Livres, they were soldiers and merchants respectively which was why it had to be carefully planned to take them out. Each family also would've represented each species: Lilypads for frogs, Leviathans for salamanders, Larns for toads, Livres for newts and Leopolds for axolotls. With the toads and newts families being wiped and the Lilypads being replaced from frogs to newts, it established a newt supremacy that Andrias can easily control.

You might be thinking; why didn't he just weaken the Livres since they're newts already? That's exactly why he did it. So long as people remembered their heritage, it's difficult to truly control them since they have something to look back to. But replaced the frogs with newts in Lilypads, it meant that the newts didn't have anything to look back to. It wasn't theirs; they simply took the original's place.

I probably won't write this in the fanfic since it's too obtuse and technically counts as in-universe libel, but the heritage of the Lilypads will be brought up.

The bow and what is it used for

I can't say much about it but the bow is designed in such a way that all three girls can use, essentially making it a shared weapon. Even the materials are important; blue sea anemone (Anne) and green wood (Marcy). Red is the only thing that's not in it because I have a red material for something else. Another important part about a bow is that it's a stationary weapon; you don't need to move to use it. This is important for S3, where it'll be useful for a particular character.

The ending will be super cool, trust me.

And that's about it for this chapter. Any more would be spoiling future content which would be a bummer. I am glad you guys read the story and I hope you liked it. I'll be expanding more stuff in the future and until then, I'll see you all soon :D

[marzek]

Preview for ‘A Lost Owl’ - Chapter 37: Next

Entry 80

 People really need to stop claiming triangulation is so difficult.

Pfft.

Really, all you need are two lines and a map. And maybe Joe. Joe is a great help with really everything.

(Did I ever mention that I missed him?).

 Well, yesterday while the others were recovering after the first temple, I grabbed Joe to find out where exactly the second temple was. During my research in Newtopia, only the location of the first temple came up, and until two days ago, when we loaded the gem, I was still afraid we'd have to search for the second temple completely blind.

But NO. The gem emitted a green beam of light that pointed directly to the next temple. HOW COOL IS THAT???

So I used a map of all of Amphibia to place the gem where Wartwood was, traced the line with a pencil, grabbed Joe, flew him a good twenty minutes away, landed, and repeated the whole thing. And now we're all on our way to Mount Mutu - a place far too cold for amphibians to live on. Or even want to live on.

A completely barren landscape, entirely covered with snow. Let's hope the temple isn't buried beneath all that snow, considering the (presumably) thousands of years that have passed since the temples were built.

 Well, never mind for now. Right now, we're all flying on Joe, and it should be an estimated twenty minutes before we're landing. Oh, by 'us' this time I don't just mean me, Anne, and the Plantars. This time we also have Maddie with us, and Polly's robot Frobo, which Joe is carrying with his claws.

 You're doing great, Joe ❤️

 The couch here is currently pretty cramped with all of us on it. Before we left, however, there was a little argument between Anne and Hop Pop because originally, she didn't want to come at all. She had argued with the lack of space on here, but Hop Pop merely insisted that she come along, and she immediately caved in.

And while I am very happy to spend time with her, I can't help but see the worry and even fear in her eyes.

 She changed after the war broke out, and I am very worried about her. She is very withdrawn, and above all, more fearful. Even more so since the first temple. She is more and more scared of making mistakes and hurting those she loves. She is afraid of her powers, and what they might do to her, or what they might make her do.

The night after the temple, I heard Anne talking in her sleep. She mumbled nothing but apologies and cried. The day after, she also avoided the Plantars as much as possible. Literally. She was so afraid of hurting her family-

And I'm not even just talking about physical pain.

I know, for example, that Anne talked to Hop Pop just once about the incident with the music box, but kept quiet about it after that. She acted like everything was fine, while telling me that she was still upset with Hop Pop. And now she's even too scared to even start a discussion about literally anything... Seeing her like this hurts my heart. I hope, this temple might end up better than the last one.

 I'll write more later, we're about to land.

 ----------------- 

Marcy closes her journal, and stows it inside her winter coat, specially brought for this trip, with some very large pockets inside, rather than in her trusty bag which, this time, she left at home. The others are similarly warmly wrapped:

Sprig wears an olive-colored down jacket along with a scarf, the end of which drags on the ground behind him whenever he walks. Polly wears an untucked, light blue hood from Marcy's coat, sewn shut so that she is warm all around. Anne is wearing her SJMS jacket and has a pink pom-pom hat on her head to go with it. Maddie, like Marcy, is wearing a winter coat, but dark gray rather than beige. For Joe, Marcy has specially crafted an oversized pom-pom hat and an extra chest warmer made while still in Newtopia, to the front of which Marcy has sewn a pocket from a potato sack that is no longer used, for Hop Pop, who can look down on the snow-white mountain landscape from there, comfortably and securely.

 "Alright Joe, take us down, but slowly.", Marcy speaks to him, who chirps in affirmation. "And eyes up guys: 10 coppers for the first one to spot the temple.", she announces with clearly exaggerated excitement.

"Uhuhu-", Polly rubs her hands together in anticipation with a mean grin on her face, "That money is as good as mine."

Sprig jumps in on Marcy's bet as well, as Hop Pop suddenly screams from his Hop Pocket backwards against the airstream. "DID SOMEONE JUST SAY MONEY?". The others aren't able to hear him though.

"I prefer to keep reading, thank you very much.", Maddie calmly replies with her book on level three freezing curses in her hands.

"Sure.", Marcy replies vocally unchanged, at least until she turns and looks at her girlfriend, "And what about you- Anne?"

"Huh?", her head snaps up in surprise, "Oh, sorry. I was... lost in thought. What was your question?"

For longer than is probably appropriate, Marcy merely glances at her, trying as best she can to read from her face what's going on in her head right now. Unfortunately, mind reading isn't exactly one of her skills, so she ultimately just sighs and rests her head on Anne's shoulder.

"Doesn't matter.", she replies. Anne doesn't dig any further.

[seadrreams]

Spranne/Anne and Plantar Reunion as like the new normal when Anne reunited with her parents but nothing interrupts them

[thisbelongsto-nohbodys]

So did the girls have three Seperate bachelorette parties?

Aye, and if we go with a headcanon of them finding a way back to Amphibia then it’d be a total of 6 separate bachelorette parties.

Anne:

Earth- With some friends and her cousin Molly McGee, they had a wild time which resulted in Anne getting her first tattoo (“Spranne Against the World”), which her future wives won’t find out about until the honeymoon.

Amphibia- A town-wide “Frog of the Year” type party in Wartwood. Luckily Maddie has a hangover potion at the ready for all the townsfolk (for a price, she has a business after all). And once again she nearly burns down the town.

Sasha:

Earth- A wild night of drinking, dancing, music and people getting tired of how much she shouts about how beautiful her fiancées are. Luckily Molly knew Anne’s fiancées well enough to have Scratch follow Sasha and make sure she didn’t get in too much trouble (and another ghost to make sure Scratch doesn’t get in trouble)

Amphibia- Grime, Beatrix, Percy, Braddock and other Toads spend the night drinking Bog Grog, fighting in the Pit and hunting a massive beast. Luckily Maddie also has powders to treat Sasha’s bruises and black eyes the next morning.

Marcy:

Earth- It starts off simple with a D&D game with her online friends (Luz, Libby and a few others) with it being DM’d by either Luz or Libby. Drinking and dice rolling, then video games throughout the night.

Amphibia- Lady Olivia would have a large brunch in honor of Marcy, then later that night Yunan and Olivia would take Marcy to a new New Newtopia club. Fortunately the city planners used Marcy’s old blueprints when rebuilding so she was able to find hidden pathways to avoid the guards after Olivia punched one after one to many…..”juices”

[hughjidiot]

Sasha Waybright, Marcy Wu, and Amphibia’s Greatest Storytelling Flaw

Well, here it is folks. The essay that’s been a long, long time coming.

Anyone who’s even remotely familiar with me knows that I’m a big Amphibia fan. I’ve been writing fanfiction for nearly two years, and have been making regular posts online about the show in general since the end of season two, from predictions to character analyses to memes. I’ve followed the show from the very beginning, drawn in by the colorful world of Amphibia itself and its charming cast of characters, particularly main character Anne Boonchuy and her adoptive family the Plantars. With a mix of hilarious jokes, an engaging plot and fantastic chemistry between the main cast, Amphibia proved itself to be a very good show.

But I can’t call it a great show. Amphibia has many strengths, but also its fair share of weaknesses. And today I’m here to talk about the biggest flaw that, in my mind, really dragged the show down and kept Amphibia from reaching its full potential. I’m talking of course, about how they treated the characters of Anne’s BFFs Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu.

Before I get into the meat of the essay, my usual disclaimer: the opinions you’re about to read are mine and mine alone. You’re free to agree with all, some, or even none of them. Entertainment is subjective by its very nature, and everyone has the right to their own opinion on whatever media they choose to consume. I’m just here to give my opinion, not to attack anyone that thinks differently or to convince them that they’re wrong.

Having said that, let’s finally dive into the reasons why Sasha and Marcy being sidelined by the narrative has negatively affected the story as a whole. Spoilers below the cut since I’ll be talking about events throughout pretty much the entire series, especially season three.

But first, seasons one and two. Marcy and Sasha were practically non-existent in season one, the former only being briefly mentioned once or twice while the later appeared in just three episodes and served as an antagonist to Anne in the season one finale by allying with the oppressive toads opposing the frogs of Wartwood and trying to force Anne into submission when she stood up for her friends and found family.

But even though they weren’t present physically, Sasha and Marcy still cast a shadow over season one via the influence they had on Anne before the events of the show. As early as the second episode we see how Sasha and Marcy warped Anne’s view of friendship with her talking about how you do whatever your friends ask of you, even if you don’t like it, lest they stop being your friend. The biggest part of Anne’s arc in season one is her growing out of this mindset, with Sprig showing her what real friendship can be like. In this sense it works for Sasha and Marcy to be virtually non-existent in season one as the show’s main focus is on Anne and her character growth, and even then the other girls are still present in the form of Anne’s background.

Then we have season two, where the story of the girls’ friendship gets a bit more complex with the introduction of Marcy. In sharp contrast to Sasha, Marcy is shown to be delightful and friendly, if a bit scatterbrained. It’s only until A Day at the Aquarium where things take a dark turn after Anne leaves Newtopia with the Plantars and King Andrias offers Marcy a strange deal. This little detail lurks in the background of the rest of the season until True Colors finally revealed the truth: not only was Marcy directly responsible for getting the girls sent to Amphibia to avoid moving and losing her friends, but she also helped Andrias get ahold of the fully-charged Calamity Box under the pretense that the girls would get to use it to go on adventures through other worlds and never have to be apart. These revelations nearly destroyed Marcy’s friendship with Anne and Sasha, leaving her emotionally broken, and finally resulting in her nearly dying when Andrias ran her through with his sword trying to stop her from using the box to help Anne escape.

Although Sasha continued to have minimal screen time, she had her own important arc in the background with planning a rebellion with the Toads. During this time she also learned of Anne and Marcy not only reuniting, but working directly against her. Tying into her behavior in season one where she reacted negatively to Anne’s growing independence, Sasha doubled-down on this attitude and became determined to reestablish control over her friends. All of this came to a head in the first half of True Colors, where Sasha’s betrayal not only nearly destroys her friendship with Anne, but erodes the girls’ trust in her to the point where they help Newtopia defeat the rebellion and ignore Sasha’s warnings that Andrias is planning something awful with the Calamity Box.

Sasha and Marcy worked very well in season two. Not only was Marcy’s entire character and background some brilliant storytelling, but both she and Sasha continue to serve as foils to Anne’s continued character growth. Throughout season two Anne continued to grow as a person, becoming not only more independent but more responsible and compassionate as well. She accepts that she’s changing for the better. Sasha and Marcy however continue to cling to the past in a desperate attempt to stop things from changing: Sasha not wanting to lose her absolute control over her friends, while Marcy didn’t want to lose her friends at all. Both girls have shown that they do care deeply about Anne, but their personal flaws leave them hostile to the concept of change, and True Colors served as a wakeup call for just how destructive their attitudes can be.

Which leads us to season three, where everything came crashing to a halt.

I’ve talked about this many times before, so to basically sum up my main problem with the first half of season three: it feels like the narrative itself forgot about Sasha and Marcy. Each of them got a focus episode to advance their own personal stories - Sasha becoming a rebellion leader in Wartwood, while Marcy is possessed by Andrias’s master The Core - but aside from these, the rest of the episodes all take place on Earth with Anne and the Plantars. And they’re only mentioned a handful of times.

First off, it’s bad writing from a meta sense that literally no one on Earth seems to care that Sasha and Marcy are still missing. Basic logic dictates that if three teenage girls vanish without a trace and one comes back months later with no sign of the other two, it would draw attention. But not one single person ever questions Anne about this, even though her fellow schoolmates refer to her as “the girl who went missing.” With how much emphasis is placed on how Anne’s absence affected her parents and the local community, it’s just jarring that not one single person would comment on the other two teenage girls who are still missing.

Then there’s Anne herself, who seems to just completely forget about her best friends still trapped in Amphibia, one of whom was stabbed through the chest right in front of her. Of the stabbing she says once that Marcy “has to be okay,” and once expresses a desire to rescue her friends and mend her friendship with them. All of this happens in the first episode; for the rest of the Earth arc, Anne gives zero indication that she’s thinking about her friends in any capacity, despite the fact that one could be dead and the other could be in serious trouble, being trapped with the mad king who almost killed the first. And that’s not even getting into the serious repercussions that Sasha and Marcy’s betrayals would have on their friendship.

Yes, it is made clear in her dialogue at the start of The New Normal that Anne still wants to fix things with Sasha and Marcy. We’re told upfront that despite everything that happened Anne still wants to fix things with them and have a better friendship with them, serving as a culmination of Anne’s personal character growth over the first two seasons. But this is then undermined by us not being shown any evidence that Anne is thinking about Sasha and Marcy.

To understand why this is so frustrating, let’s go back to earlier in season two in After the Rain. This was the episode where Hop Pop’s burial of the Calamity Box and lying to Anne about it comes back to bite him when the box goes missing and the truth is revealed. Anne was horribly hurt by Hop Pop’s betrayal, and even though she accepted his apology at the end of the episode, Anne didn’t forgive Hop Pop right away. She developed trust issues with him as seen in The First Temple, issues that she and Hop Pop had to work through. Things between Anne and Hop Pop were awkward for a while, a natural consequence of Hop Pop’s actions with the Calamity Box.

Now go back to True Colors and season three. In the season two finale Anne was betrayed a whopping three times: first by Sasha who used her to stage the Toad Rebellion; then by Andrias who revealed himself to be a world-conquering despot; and finally by Marcy with the revelation that she got them all sent to Amphibia in the first place and lied about wanting to get them home. This caused Anne to develop trust issues that she had to work through in season three: as seen in Fight at the Museum when Anne would rather risk stealing an artifact that might be related to Amphibia rather than asking Dr. Jan for help, or throughout the first quarter of the season when she couldn’t bring herself to tell her own parents the truth about everything that happened in Amphibia.

The point I’m getting at is that when Anne has been hurt before throughout the show’s run, we’re given clear evidence of how the betrayals affect Anne’s behavior. Yet throughout almost all of season 3A we’re given no evidence that Sasha and Marcy’s betrayals affected her - which should have had the biggest impact on Anne as they were her closest friends and Anne thought things were finally improving between the three of them. 

Some have suggested Anne is merely repressing her emotions about Sasha and Marcy but again - we see zero evidence of that. Aside from a mistrust of older authority figures - which is more of a reflection of Andrias’s betrayal - Anne just acts like her usual bubbly peppy self. For crying out loud, after a few minutes have passed in-universe after Marcy was stabbed through the chest right in front of her, and Anne is raving over having wifi again.

What’s worse is the show didn’t have to turn into a complete angst-fest. This didn’t have to be some kind of Steven Universe Future deal where Anne slowly has a complete breakdown over the course of several episodes. But at the same time the show had so many opportunities to show Anne was thinking about her friends, in that she could have reacted to the numerous signs of Sasha and Marcy’s existences. 

For example she could have looked forlornly at their initials carved into her bedpost, or stare at Sasha’s graffiti tags before turning and walking away. Or in Fixing Frobo when Polly angrily accuses Anne, Sprig and Hop Pop of “not caring that her best friend was dead,” that was a perfect opportunity to give Anne a haunted expression as a background detail while Sprig and Hop Pop continue the conversation. Little tiny moments like that could have easily been inserted into existing episodes without disrupting the flow of the stories.

Speaking of the episodes, there’s another issue with season 3A that circles back into the larger problem of the narrative ignoring Sasha and Marcy: almost all episodes take place on Earth, focusing on Anne and the Plantars.

Now don’t get me wrong, the Plantars are good characters and integral parts of the story. Sprig showed Anne was true friendship was like, as opposed to the dysfunctional mess she had with Sasha and Marcy, while the Plantars as a whole taught her valuable lessons about honesty and integrity. But we already had two full seasons of Anne and the Plantars, where we also had plenty of time to get to know the Plantars themselves.

With how True Colors so brilliantly showed Sasha and Marcy the consequences of their toxic mindset, season three should have been their season. A season for them to finally recognize their flaws, work on atoning for their mistakes, and work on mending their friendship with Anne and each other. And we do see that… for one episode for each girl. 

Turning Point shows Sasha is shown to be remorseful of how she treated Anne and becomes leader of Wartwood resistance, which then proceeds to mostly take place off-screen. Meanwhile in Olivia and Yunan, during her rescue Marcy acknowledges how bad it was that she got all the girls sent to Amphibia and wants to make things right with them, only to have her get possessed by the Core. (Which led to its own problems, but more on that later.)

After two seasons of building up Sasha and Marcy in the background, weaving them into the cast in season two and having their plans to keep things from changing blow up in their faces in True Colors, season three was the perfect chance to really focus on Sasha and Marcy’s growth and development. Instead we only get two episodes with them, with all the rest being about wacky adventures on Earth that are basically a rehash of season one but with Anne and the Plantar’s roles reversed.

Now we did sort of get the development in 3B, but before that there’s one last major issue to talk about with 3A: the lack of Sasha and Marcy’s families. In Froggy Little Christmas we finally get Anne acknowledging her friends by writing letters to their families, ensuring them that their daughters are alive and that Anne will get them home. Where does the story go with these letters?

Absolutely nowhere.

Literally nothing comes of this, as it’s only one more episode before Anne and the Plantars finally get back to Amphibia, and the other girls’ parents don’t show up at all. Going back to what I said earlier, it’s downright baffling that the show would explore how Anne being missing affected her parents, while completely ignoring the parents of the other two missing girls. Furthermore, seeing the parents could have given further insight into Sasha’s and Marcy’s characters. Rather that seeing two separate letters to indicate Sasha’s parents are divorced as a way to explain how Sasha developed her controlling personality, it would have been far more effective to actually see Sasha’s parents in person and how they react to their daughter missing.

This goes double for Marcy’s parents, as it was their decision to move that kicked off the plot in the first place. From their perspective they drove their daughter to run away, so did they feel guilty about that? It’s implied that they eventually moved anyways, but why? Did they think their beloved daughter was gone for good and blame themselves for driving her away before moving because staying in LA was just too painful? Or were they horrible people who didn’t care about Marcy and eventually moved because a job was more important than their missing daughter? Any information on them at all could have given us a whole new perspective on Marcy’s personality and why she did the things she did to hold on so tightly to her friends. Alas, we can only wonder.

Now eventually the show does make its way back to Amphibia, and credit where credit is due, the story finally picks up again. There’s even a trust subplot between Anne and Sasha where Sasha acknowledges what she did was wrong and wants to be better while Anne wants to trust Sasha but has trouble doing so. There are some bumps in the road, but ultimately Anne and Sasha are able to work through their issues because their friendship is worth it. It’s essentially an awkward transition period in their relationship.

The problem here is that while all of that is going on, Marcy is completely sidelined due to her possession, with Darcy being an endgame threat for Anne and Sasha to overcome in the finale. The girls do eventually talk about Marcy’s betrayal in The Beginning of the End. Sasha is hesitant to forgive Marcy for everything she did, despite still wanting to be friends. Anne doesn’t deny Sasha’s feelings of being hurt, as Anne was hurt too. But she acknowledges that they weren’t the best friends to her even before Amphibia, and that while forgiving someone can be hard, it’s worth it when you really care about them. (She says while glancing at Hop Pop, in a brilliant bit of visual storytelling.)

Marcy meanwhile is finally seen again, in the penultimate episode All In. There she has a brief subplot of finding herself in a seemingly perfect mental world, complete with versions of Anne and Sasha who will be friends with Marcy forever. But she quickly realizes this world is just an illusion, that her companions are only hollow copies of her real friends. When cast into a void by an angry Core, all Marcy can do is say how sorry she is for everything she did, and hopes that Anne and Sasha can forgive her. Which they do, thankfully, in a heartwarming scene after Darcy is defeated and Marcy is freed.

All of this was very well-done… but at the same time, it feels kind of hollow. Marcy didn’t get the same awkward transition period in her friendship with Anne and Sasha as Anne and Sasha got with each other. Yes both girls acknowledge that what Marcy did was wrong but want to forgive her and be friends again, something that Marcy acknowledges herself. But to have them all have these moments separately instead of as a group just feels incomplete. With how much emphasis the show has placed on the girl’s friendship as a whole, it seems jarring how Anne and Sasha would have to work on mending their friendship while Marcy was forgiven instantly upon her rescue.

Now this could have worked if it had been used as a metaphor for the girls’ pre-Amphibia friendships. Anne and Sasha had an unhealthy follower/leader dynamic while Anne and Marcy got along much better, therefore she had to work to trust Sasha again while forgiving Marcy came easier. But there’s one little thing missing that makes this feel incomplete as well: we barely know anything about Sasha and Marcy’s relationship. 

At no point are they ever together on screen without Anne, who naturally takes most of the focus in regards to their friendship as a whole. Without Anne around, what is Sasha and Marcy’s dynamic like? We get virtually no context aside from Earth flashbacks indicating that Sasha was somewhat dismissive of Marcy. And since we have no clue how close they actually were with each other (compared to Anne’s separate relationships with Sasha and Marcy, which the audience is very familiar with), it gives less emotional weight to Sasha’s overwhelmed joy and relief when she and Anne finally rescue Marcy.

To cap off the full-series overlook on Sasha and Marcy, I will say I really enjoyed the ending. Seeing the girls finally unlock their true Calamity forms and the massive battle that followed was incredible. And I especially loved the time-skip epilogue, showing the girls in a very realistic light: they naturally drifted apart as they grew up, what with Marcy moving and Anne and Sasha’s complicated past. But they’re still friends that keep in touch, with Marcy even flying out to visit Anne and Sasha on occasion. It’s beautifully done and the best ending for the trio, while still leaving plenty open to interpretation for the fans to imagine where the story goes next. Some might argue that it seems odd that Anne and Sasha would still drift apart after everything they went through in Amphibia, or how Marcy’s parents still made her move after everything that happened. (Again, almost no clue as to what they’re like.) But the fact remains that all three girls still care for each other, are still involved in each other’s lives and now have a stronger, truer friendship.

Amphibia as a whole is a really good cartoon, but its treatment of Sasha and Marcy is the biggest flaw that holds it back from being great. Not only are the girls interesting characters themselves, but both are deeply integral to the story. They were used well in the first two seasons and the finale, but the way almost all of season three ignored or underutilized Sasha and Marcy really drags the narrative down and makes the story feel incomplete.

Just to be clear, all of this was my own opinion. It’s up to the individual reading this how much they agree or disagree with. I for one would love to hear the community’s thoughts on how Amphibia handled Sasha and Marcy. Feel free to reply to this post, or just send me an ask with your thoughts and questions.

Until next time, peace from the heart my friends.

[koskela13]

So, there’s an Amphibia Swap AU where Marcy is in Anne’s place, Anne in Sasha’s and Sasha in Marcy’s.

And this came to me: What if the reason they ended up in Amphibia was the same, with Marcy being the one saying she just found the perfect birthday present for Anne when she really wanted to avoid moving away and losing their friendship, and these differences to both canon and the AU occurred?

- The three girls all retain their backstories, personalities and respective connections to the gems in canon, but what happens to them in Amphibia is switched around like in the AU: Marcy is taken in by the Plantars, Anne is taken prisoner by Grime and his army at Toad Tower, and Sasha becomes a close advisor to King Andrias, wanting in on his plans.

- In place of Domino II, Marcy meets Joe Sparrow and adopts him during one of her and Sprig’s quests. Anne instead adopts Domino II at some point during her time at Toad Tower… to the toads’ worry and detriment.

- Anne still has the box when they end up in Amphibia, as she was the one that opened it, and it was in the Toads’ possession until Reunion, and Anne’s feigning having sided with Grime and his army so she can find Marcy and Sasha.

- Upon returning to Wartwood, Marcy explains that she found it at a store in her world and it was supposed to be a birthday present for Anne.

- Andrias and Marcy bond during the latter’s stay in Newtopia with the Plantars when they search for information about the music box that brought the girls to Amphibia. After the search, this is when their game of Flipwart occurs, which leads to the Core wanting Marcy as its host after she beats him.

- Upon learning what’s happened to Anne, Sasha starts to feel bad about how she treated her back on Earth and promises that she’s going to make up for it when all this is over.

- Rather than try to take over Newtopia by force, Anne wants to put an end to Andrias’ plans to conquer the Multiverse, after discovering them during a visit to one of the robot factories, and of the three girls she is the only one to know of his true intentions.

- At the end of the True Colors part, Marcy is the only one still connected to her gem, and is the one who escapes with the Plantars, while Anne is stabbed by Andrias and Sasha winds up escaping with Grime.

- Sasha has a harder time trying to win the townspeople’s trust in Wartwood than in canon.

- Back on Earth, Marcy goes to her house to reunite with her parents… only to discover they already moved months ago, and a new family had just settled in, leaving her and the Plantars to have to find somewhere else to stay, leading to her winding up at the Boonchuys’. And yes. It IS as awkward as it is emotionally draining.

- With Marcy still connected to the Wit gem, the Core had to make due with Anne until Andrias can have Marcy captured alive so they can have her powers fully drained.

And those are just some ideas I have personally for how I’d handle the Amphibia Swap AU. Hopefully you guys like some of these ideas; I just thought it’d be fun to throw in my two cents with this.

[oreos-and-korra]

Amphibia Theory Time

Ivy- “I still can’t believe you used to be some kind of world traveler.” 

Felicia- *laughs* “Oh honey. Where do you think I met your father?” 

Ivy- “Does this guy look like Wally to anyone?” 

Okay this isn’t alot of supporting evidence since im going on the fact that Wally was suspiciously inserted to ‘Ivy on the Run’ back in season two and Wigbert Ribbiton played a minor part in ‘Sprivy’, another Ivy centered episode. But I’m 99% sure that Felicia Sundew went to Ribbetvale on a tea journey around ten years ago, met Wallium Ribbiton, briefly fell in love, returned to Wartwood and had Ivy soon after. Felicia doesn’t know that Wally is Wallium due to their seemingly drastically different personalities. Additionally, she probably lost contact with Wallium either after she left Ribbetvale or as soon as he started traveling on family business trips. Wally probably remembers Felicia but chooses not to bring up his real identity seeing that Felicia fell in love more with the polished, fancy version of himself and wouldn’t want anything to do with his true self. On the contrary, Felicia could have also led Wally on about her true identity too, but we haven’t seen her enough to know if this would be in character for her. However, he doesn’t know that Ivy is his child and probably assumes that Felicia had a child with someone else she met on that trip. Ivy knows that her dad lives somewhere far away, but has never attempted to learn more since he hasn’t been in her life and has only known her mother as her sole parent. Wigbert is probably more in the dark about all of this considering Felicia could of just been another lower class traveler to him. And now that Wigbert is supplying the Wartwood Rebellion, it’s only a matter of time before the three of them collide and the truth is revealed. 

Since we’re so close to the end of the series, If this is canon I doubt it’s going to be confirmed in anything more than a quick throwaway line or a brief scene. But I would love if Wigbert choose to relocate to Wartwood (probably due to Andrias taking over Ribbetvale) and Wally is unable to keep up the secret for much longer since they look so similar and more people are starting to recognize it. Then Felicia recognizes Wigbert and shes like “How’s your son doing? It’s been a while since I’ve heard from him.” And wally is there in the corner trying hard not to listen in on the conversation. Wigbert avoids giving a direct answer, but then Felicia is like “You know, I tried writing to him when i got back. I don’t think my letters ever made it. It’s been so long that I don’t think i can even remember his face. But sometimes, all i have to do is look at my little Ivy, and i see him right there in his child.” Wally visably reacts to this but tries to play it off, but Wigbert gives him away in one glance. Felicia looks at Wigbert and Wally and says “you know, I didn’t want to believe it for the longest, but know I guess the truth is out there. Isn’t it, Wallium?”

Then Ivy learns that not only is her mother a world traveler, her dad is secretly the heir to the Ribberton’s Ribbons dynasty and that one day she may inherit that too!

[kaseyskat]

I personally think this take is abit too much but I wanna hear your thoughts about this take

huh wow okay yeah that certainly is a take! how painful must it be to lack such media comprehension, I truly will never understand, but okay sure, you want my thoughts so here are my extremely nitpicky "did we watch the same show" thoughts!

first. saying marcy didn't care about anne and hop pops conflict is! wrong LMAO remember when marcy asked right at the beginning if something had happened and sprig and polly told her not to worry about it? cause I do! and what has marcy realizing she's taken things too far? seeing hop pop and anne's conflict lmao it's a driving point for her and her character so that's wrong.

marcy stopping anne and sasha from fighting was never about wanting them to have fun in amphibia, it was driven by that people-pleasing conflict-avoidant desire to keep her own mistakes from backfiring onto them: ie, if they aren't friends like they were back home, what's the point? but they're not back home, as marcy herself points out when standing up for herself, and seeing her fall back into that pre-amphibia mindset shows her own conflict and how she loses her own sense of self around them and it's tragic but not. it's not like she doesn't see anne and sasha's struggles? (not to mention that anne plays off the dangers of wartwood for fun and toad tower is never brought up seriously until the dinner, marcy went on dangerous missions herself so you can't fault her for what she simply did not know if she was also actively putting herself in danger!)

wanting her friends to stay together wasn't about forcing them together it was about reliving that pre-amphibia dynamic that was proven toxic because it's familiar and it's what she knows. it was about blending into the background instead of standing up for herself like she did with anne because of her own guilt and a firm belief that maybe if she proved to need them, they would need her in return and thus want to go with her. it was about mending a bond she thinks she caused to break!

and is all of this selfish? yeah, a bit. but what teenager isn't selfish? and to claim she doesn't care about anne and sasha when she's proven time and time again that she loves them, loves them enough to vouch for sasha's character without knowing the full context of toad tower and enough to comfort anne and prove that she's worthful for her heart when anne's feeling low, loves them both enough to want to spend the rest of her life with them... yeah. thanks for this, now I have an instant block <3

[loversarcanas]

im in my sashanne brainrot hours for real <3 inspired by a convo with someone on twitter about flower crowns and emotional pain

You don't deserve this, you think.

The grass beneath you is soft, almost pillowy even. the tips tickle the palm of your hand when you lay it flat to ground, digging your anxiously-chewed nails into the soil beneath. An attempt to steady its shaking.

The sun in Wartwood is especially bright today, and would otherwise be blinding were it not merely peeking through the thick, bushy tops of the trees surrounding you and her.

And her. She's the one thing, the one person, who steals all your attention. Her curly locks of brunette hair glow in those peeks of sun from above, painting them golden. Her warm brown skin shimmers in the light, looking soft enough to touch and never let go of (but you wouldn't dare reach for something so sweet). Her deep umber eyes completely entrancing, with flecks of gold swimming in them. They're trained on you, nearly unblinking in her state of focus as she threads another blossom through your own blonde locks.

You don't deserve this.

You don't deserve her.

By what right should you be treated with this much kindness? With this much warmth and gentleness and love? After being quite possibly the worst human being alive, after lying to her and manipulating her and hurting her, by what right do you deserve to be close enough to touch her as she so delicately braids flowers into a crown upon your head?

You are not a queen, nor a king, nor any higher power worth a crown. Perhaps at one time you thought you were, before you and your two best friends were thrown into this strange new world. But now? You should be lucky to even wear the armour on your chest. You dig your nails further into the earth until your dirtied knuckles cramp.

She notices, and her gentle fingers pull away from your head. You already mourn the loss of her touch, and berate yourself for mourning what you shouldn't even have to begin with.

"Sasha, are you okay? You seem really tense."

The determination in her eyes washes away like a wave on a beach, leaving worry in its stead. Those eyes stare directly into yours and you feel like she's piercing through your soul, like she's found the crack in your shield and is breaking through. It's always been like that with her though - She's always been your weakness.

You can't lie to her, especially not after everything. You wish you could, that you could tell her everything is fine and that she never has to worry her beautiful self on you ever. But she's too smart for that - cares too much for that. So those words you wish you could keep to yourself spill out like a waterfall, unfiltered and vulnerable and honest.

"I don't deserve this Anne. I don't deserve you, not after everything I've done to you."

As the words fall from your mouth you can't bear to look at her. You tear your eyes away from her face to look anywhere else - the grass clumped in your twitching hand, the trees surrounding you as unmoving as marble statues, anywhere to avoid seeing the emotion in her eyes. Cowardly.

"I mean, look at you. You're so amazing, you've got the biggest heart I know. You got everyone in this town to love you, to the point that they would risk their whole lives for you. You beat the crap out of King Andrias with those... weird, glowy blue powers..." You stop for a moment when you feel your eyes get bleary. The telltale sign that your wall is crumbling all while she's a captive audience. Selfish.

"... You tried to save my life. I was the biggest jerk to you, I turned on you, and you still almost died just to save me. I don't know how anyone could do that."

Your face feels tense and tears sting your eyes just as much as they dampen your face. You brace yourself for the inevitable - Anne has to realize by now that she's worth more than this. That she deserves better than a broken, so-called best friend baring her ugly heart to her in the middle of the woods. Hideous.

But as you brace for those words, brace for the harsh reality that she's leaving you (and why wouldn't she leave?), there's a familiar warmth on your left cheek. Your face tingles under the sensation of her hand on your face, as she rubs the spot beneath your eye with her thumb. You jolt up and stare at her, trying to ignore how rapidly your heart starts beating.

She's looking at you, tears pricking the corners of those big umber eyes, looking like she's finding the right words to say. There's a spark of intensity in the way she looks at you that almost makes your stomach drop, yet there isn't a hint of anger in them.

After several quickened heartbeats, she speaks.

"Sasha... You're right. You were a huge jerk, at Toad Tower, in Newtopia, back home..."

You feel yourself shrink with each word. This has to be it, you think. She finally understands how pathetic you are.

"... But. I can't hate you. I can't leave you. "

You freeze. Your body somehow simultaneously tenses and relaxes, but you hang on to her every word.

"I told you, back at the third temple. You weren't just a jerk, you were also inspiring. You know what you want and you go for it. And coming back here, seeing how you protected everyone in Wartwood from the frobot army when I was stuck on Earth... You've actually changed, Sash."

Before you register anything else, she lunges forward, her chest colliding with your own in the tightest hug you've probably ever experienced. It's getting hard to ignore the heat finding its way on your face when she buries her own in the crook of your neck. Her hair smells like sweet coconut and you feel you may pass out if you pay attention too closely.

A few choked sobs come from her place on your neck and your first instinct is to squeeze her, finally releasing the clump of grass and soil and freeing your hand to press against her back, all while trying (and failing) to hold back tears of your own.

"I was so scared of losing you then. I don't want to lose you now. Please don't say that you don't deserve me, because I don't know what I would do without you in my life."

Crack.

All at once, your walls collapse. The dam breaks. You clutch her for dear life and sob apologies into her back and you cry with her until your lungs are sore and until she's sufficiently wet your neck with her tears.

You don't know how long you stay like this for, either for too long or not long enough. She pulls away from you only slightly, still held within your grasp, and grabs your face with both hands. One rubs a thumb over your scar and the other over your beauty mark and the tender movements make you want to cry all over again. She brings her face close and plants her lips right below your eye and you feel the rest of the world slip away beneath you.

You are the broken demon banished from heaven and she is the angel who becomes your salvation. You hate that you feel like this because she's so much more than your saviour or support and that, more than anything, you should be that to her, to be her hero and her shoulder to cry on and her everything and anything all at once.

"I love you, Anne."

Those words escape your tongue before you have any chance of locking them away, and in this moment you, for once, allow yourself not to care. Allow yourself the privilege of honesty and vulnerability for her sake.

"I want to be someone that deserves you."

She looks at you with pleading eyes and the faintest smile and nods, pushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

"I love you Sasha, and I believe you."

She brings her face in closer and you still can't hold your words in, not when she's still practically in your lap and looking at you like that.

"Can I kiss you?"

Only a beat, she smiles and slowly nods before bringing her face closer to yours. You reach your hand up to caress her face and kiss her and your lips tingle like sparks are dancing across them. You can smell the cherry lip balm and feel how soft it is against you when she's kissing you back. It's delicate, as if she's the most fragile and breakable thing alive, as if she's fine china and you're a bull. But bulls can be soft and bulls can love and you want to love her like the moon loves the sun.

You don't deserve this, you think. But one day, you will.

[waybrights]

Hey, hi! I love your prompts. The way you write is marvelous. This is a little gift for you, some Sashanne angst and hurt/comfort. Enjoy!

-------

Anne found her sitting on a log, watching the stars. After returning to Amphibia, she never imagined seeing Sasha again but in a new light. Not as an enemy anymore but an ally, protecting Wartwood in her place, gaining more support to defeat Andrias. It felt surreal.

Thinking about Sasha filled her heart with mixed feelings. Love, hate, care, anger, longing, disappointment, nostalgia, annoyance. It was like cooking orange chicken with explosives as weird as it sounded. And knowing they were kind of avoiding each other, Sasha more than Anne, was becoming exhausting. There was fear of what she would do; many times Anne had thought Sasha would do the right thing just to be let down again, though, for Sasha to be all distant it made Anne wonder if she had given up after she had yelled at her that she was done with the blonde's shit.

Another issue needed to be let out of the surface too. One that had tormented her dreams some nights, not as much as Marcy being stabbed but it was still nasty and soul-breaking.

Her feet moved on her own, the crunching on leaves and twigs and dead grass alerted Sasha. She stood up quickly, unsheathing her sword just to relax marginally at the sight of Anne.

"H-Hey"

"Hey" God, if that was the only thing they were going to say to each other, this conversation would never start.

"There's something I want to talk about with you."

"Oh... Well, I was going to talk to you tomorrow but now that you're here..." Sasha scratched the back of her head and swallowed. She inhaled and exhaled deeply before opening her mouth.

"I'm sorry." Both said and looked at each other, flabbergasted.

"Were you going to say--?" Sasha started until Anne interrupted her.

"Oh, you were going to--" Yeah, this was awkward.

"Were you planning to apologize to me?" Sasha looked at her as if Anne wasn't Anne anymore but a clone. Alright, time to explain.

"I missed you, Sasha. I missed you and I hated you." The blonde flinched at the last part but didn't avert her eyes or try to. "I was so mad at you and I even wondered if you cared about me at all, or if you just cared about a version of me that would always do whatever you wanted. No agency, no opinion, nothing, just doing your way."

"It was wrong though. Everything I did was wrong and it took the whole disaster in the castle for me to understand that's not how people should act, how friends should act. But I know that you're done with me and anything related to me, so...I have to accept it. And whether you forgive me or not, I'll respect your choice and leave you alone. I just want you to know that I'm truly sorry for everything I've done to you. Before and during Amphibia. You were right, I am a horrible person. I'm trying to be better and I want to be someone you deserve but I've screwed up too many times for you to keep putting up with me. Anything you decide, Anne, forgiving me or hating me or even just pretending I've never existed... I-I never meant to..." Sasha sniffed, cursing at herself for not keeping the vulnerability at bay, feeling tears gathering fastly on the corner of her eyes "You and Marcy are the most important people to me. I'm so sorry I made you feel like I've never cared...w-when I-I love you so much..."

The dam was in pieces. Tears fell to the ground while she waited for Anne's judgment. A punch, a scream, a long lecture, an insult, or just leaving, she forced herself to not turn around and run away. That never worked in long term.

Suddenly, she felt a hand on her chest. Since when Anne had approached her?

The girl glanced with a mix of pain and fury at her hand, placed where Sasha's heart.

"I killed you." Anne's voice was too low but Sasha could hear the words, her blood freezing at that sentence.

"I killed you. In my dreams." She closed her eyes in a vain attempt to stop the tears from falling, her voice from breaking. "We were there...on the Newtopia Gates. We were fighting and I was so, so mad at you. B-But... But I wanted it to stop. Something was off with me. As if I was being possessed by a demon. And you were having trouble defending yourself... I-- no, that person, whatever it was using my body, it disarmed you and then... My own sword went through y-your heart... I-I couldn't... I couldn't stop it...! You were bleeding, you were dying and I was unable to save you..." Anne leaned her head on Sasha's head sobbing. The blonde debated mentally what to do. Comfort her? But what if that was translated as intrusive? Giving some encouraging words? She wasn't good at feelings. Without more choices, she slowly raised her arms and wrapped them around Anne carefully and kindly.

The other girl glared at Sasha with an intensity that was scary even for the fearless warrior, then a fist hit her chest. It stung a bit but not much as Anne's pained and furious face.

"I killed you! My own best friend! Even when you were the most massive jerk in the history of most massive jerks! You manipulative," a second hit "idiotic," a third one "arrogant," a fourth one "selfish" a fifth one "and insufferable asshole!!" Six hits. Sasha took them all. She was crying, silently to let Anne express all the wounds and stress she unconsciously put her through. The words were like knives slicing her heart but true. Dark reminders of how toxic she had been with the people she loves the most.

"I killed you! Even when I was done with you, I would've never forgiven myself! I love you, I missed you, I hated you and now I don't know anymore!"

"Anne..." Sasha searched for the right words, but what kind of words could help in a situation like this? Her only option was the most difficult path: emotional honesty. "Anne," she carefully lifted her chin to be eye to eye "I would never hate you. Even if you had...killed me, I never would. I hurt you so much. I took you for granted. I betrayed you and attacked your frog family. You were mad for good reasons. That's not your fault, it was mine. I-I know this is up to you. Deciding what to do or what to feel, but please Anne, don't blame yourself. You don't deserve this kind of burden. Not with everything else you're dealing with."

Anne sniffed and rubbed her eyes angrily. Sasha stepped back a bit, thinking the Thai girl needed space to calm down but her friend, (ex?) friend, grabbed her by the arms, her expression between angered and desperate.

"I'm still so mad at you, S-Sasha. I don't know if I can forgive you"

Sasha deflated but nodded. Respect her choices, no matter what, she told herself like a mantra.

"B-But I missed you, s-so much. And I'm so glad you're ok. I thought... I thought you were gone, j-just like M-Marcy." Both teenagers grimaced by remembering what Andrias did. "I thought Andrias had done the same to you. I don't know if I can accept you in my life again after all the shit you have done. It's just hurt so much."

"You don't have to. I-I won't force you to do whatever I want ever again. Even if you-you don't believe me, I mean it."

"Fuck... This is so messed up." Anne laughed bitterly.

"Y-Yeah, it is."

"I lost Marcy. We both did... I... I don't want to lose you too."

"You won't. Not by Andrias' hand or my stupidity."

"How can I trust you?" Anne spat.

"You don't have to. But I'll try my very best. It's the least I can do to-to show you that I regret how horrible I was and that I won't let you down."

Anne didn't say anything else. The hug Sasha received took her by surprise. It was both aggressive and affectionate. She wrapped her arms around her again, both crying, sobs shaking their bodies.

Things weren't ok between them. There were still too many wounds and mixed feelings to face and mend if there was a chance to start over again.

However, as hard as it ended up to be, this little conversation was a start to rebuild the bridge of their friendship. It would be a slow and tough process, but for Anne and Marcy, Sasha would do it.

[discet]

If you don't mind me asking another AWiW question before the next story starts: if AWiW!Marcy's pre-Amphibia backstory with her neglectful parents was applied to canon!Marcy, how do you imagine it would affect the events of the last couple episodes?

I don't mind!

So if they dropped it in the last couple episodes, the answer is that it would be extremely narratively jarring and derail the theme of accepting change, as I've said in the past, it really hard to deliver the message of 'Change is scary but its something we need to embrace' when you bring in emotionally loaded complications like abuse/neglect

That said there were probably ways to make it work with either with either leaning into the fantasy element or towards realism

Okay, so. originally I had two ideas but I got way more invested in one that turned into essential a rewrite fanfic for season 3. This got a little out of hand. Enjoy! Or not!

Option 1: I Just Didn't Want to Be Alone

Option 2: A World of My Choosing

Okay this got away from me. Canon stays the same with the following exceptions. Which get a lot denser in changes season 3

We get a little foreshadowing in S2a with Anne remarking to Marcy at some point early in their reunion about how their parents must be missing them and Marcy kind of moving past the topic (kind of like she does when the fight with Sasha is first brought up)

Newt Moms: Marcy does actually develop a really strong relationship with Lady Olivia and maybe Yunan. Olivia I think is easy to explain given their already friendly relationship in canon. For Yunan I think it would be revealed that she's the one who ran Marcy through basic training and they bonded over fighting pirates. This would probably be shown in a little episode somewhere in the Newtopia arc, where Marcy recruits Anne to try and get the two newts to confess to each other. This backfires cause of course it does, but also kind of works as Yunan and Olivia banter a bit afterwards about it. This is establish that Marcy has roots in Amphibia that are not purely built on escapism.

Turning Point: Big difference, Sasha still comes to realize her mistake but doesn't go back to Wartwood, her and grime rally the toads and fight along side them. I like Sasha's redemption but I want her to actually need to confront Anne and not have all her development while Anne is away. Anyways in turning point the toads are arguing for basically leaving the rest of the continent to rot and fight for themselves. Sasha gets her first step of redemption in arguing against this arguing practically, and morally, they can't leave everyone else to die and basically duels her way into leading the toads through force of will. A mid point for her redemption as she is still controlling but now with much better intentions. She'll complete this arc as she genuinely collaborates with Anne once she returns to Amphibia

Gossip Central: An episode on Earth where Anne has to deal with the fact that she was missing for 6 months, with her classmates bringing up wild rumors and getting up in her grill. Anne panics when her parents tell her that they sent a message to Sasha and Marcy's parents about what happend.Sasha's parents coming to ask about what happened and her avoiding them cause where does she fucking start (especially since last she saw Sasha, she was trapped in a flying castle with a murderous newt.). Its near the end of the episode after Anne deals with these shennanigans when Anne realizes that she hasn't been contacted by Marcy's parents. She asks her parents about it, and they tell her they sent a message to them, but they had moved away months ago and they hadn't heard back yet.

Olivia and Yunan: This is where we kind of go off the rails. Olivia and Yunan succeed at rescuing Marcy in Olivia and Yunan. Darcy is just, not a thing. Andrias saved Marcy for his own reasons and the core chastises him for getting so attached to a such a creature. They flee from the castle with a good chunk of turncoated Newt Royal guards Aside: I think Darcy did some cool things, but really wasn't worth effectively benching one of the most interesting characters in the show for the entire season. Of course I am biased cause I really like Marcy and thought Darcy was kind of a huge waste of potential.

Commander Anne: Once Anne is back in Amphibia she finds Wartwood in much the same state as canon, but led by Mrs. Croaker rather than Sasha. Commander Anne is massively changed cause man that was a character assassination and I do not like it. The first mission is actually to break the hold Andrias has over the pass, with the justification that their allies can't get through unless they disable it. The mission is cool with seeing all the Wartwoodians showing off their battle stripes. At the end of the episode the allies turn out to be the toads, reluctantly leading a crowd of recruits/refugees at Sasha's command. This is when our two girls meet again and its a little more awkward than canon, but still cathartic.

From Checkers to Chess(terrible name): Sasha and Anne struggle to find someway to actually, you know, win the war. They run plenty of successful missions but its like fighting the tide. They hear tell of a newt resistance outside the valley with a brilliant strategist. So they seek them out to find Yunan and Olivia leading the newts and of course this mysterious strategist turns out to be Marcy, haggard and tired but happy to see Anne and Sasha. Both of them tackle Marcy in a hug since the last time either of them saw her she was dying on the floor of the throne room. Plot would probably be similar to Newts in tights with them rescuing the works of a labor camp maybe? Aside: Trintonio was a fun callback, but it makes no sense that he becomes supreme leader of all rebel newts. It felt weird and forced. He is downgraded to cameo status in the big fight.

The Last Sleepover: We get a couple more episodes of sheannigans before we get to just before the beginning of the end. We get something like the 3 armies though with its players switched around a bit. And the disharmony between the Newts Frogs and Toads being mirrored in the awkwardness the three girls have around each other. After a day of failing to get everyone to agree to a plan, the girls are exhausted in the war room and before they break apart for the night Anne suggests they have a sleep over for old times sake and just dig into their issues and apologies and forgiveness and its just great and wholesome. We get a mirror kind of moment the next day between Yunan, Grime, and Croaker and or Hop Pop.

Beginning of the End happens, plan is to lure out Andrias on purpose and then sneak in while he's gone, but they get blind sighted by the inhuman core that has remained this thing in the shadows influencing Andrias.

All In and the first half of the Hardest Thing mostly goes the same with Anne taking on Andrias while Sasha and Marcy work together to defeat the core and get the music box.

The second half of the hardest thing involves Marcy approaching Anne and Sasha and explaining that she isn't going to come back. They're shocked obviously and try to reason with her, but Marcy explains that she doesn't have a lot waiting for her back on Earth aside for the two of them and she's not going to be able to stay with them anyways. Olivia and Yunan come up from behind and lay parental hands on Marcy. She wants to stay and help rebuild things . Marcy cockily promises she'll find a way back within 5 years. They Hug and kiss and say their goodbyes to everyone.

Anne and Sasha return home. The time skip is 5 years instead of 10 with Sasha and Anne meeting up. They've stayed close friends but now they'll be going to colleges in different cities for their respective majors. Anne still wants to be a biologist and Sasha still wants to go into psychology. They both wander to their old playground but it's being taken down for construction. Things keep changing after all.

Then a portal opens, and Marcy trips on her way out of it into the two girls. Sasha and Anne both catch her and its a big tearful reunion as other Amphibians come out and we get a big tearful reunion.

Well that turned into a thing. anyways gonna go to sleep now, scheduling this to post in the morning

[mandareeboo]

Drabble prompt Monday - Mr. Boonchuy being a dad to Sprig.

It's hard to put a label on when, exactly, Sprig began crawling into Anne's bed to fend off nightmares. Hop Pop was comfort and safety to a tee, sure, but every time he went to him Polly had to come with. And Anne just happened to radiate warmth, being warm-blooded and all. By the time they were living in the Fwagon, Sprig more or less had two beds to call his own- one just happened to be minus a giant snoring teen girl.

But tonight, Sprig reflected, his fingers digging into the harsh edge of the doorway, was different. Tonight, Anne was still awake, blanket pulled over her ears as she peered endlessly into the internet. Meeting Dr. Jan had helped Anne get back into a better sleeping pattern, but Sprig would be hard-pressed to call it relaxing. It seemed like she always had her nose bump buried in objects, trying to find them a way home. Trying to find Marcy and Sasha. Trying to figure out how to find a happy ever after. Sprig can't compete with that. He backs away, a grifted stuffed hedgehog squeezed to his chest, and walks away.

(Sprig misses when they used to play bugball in the backyard in Wartwood. Things were so much simpler before the ice mountains melted.)

(He misses when he could hold his action figures instead of having to steal Anne's old toys.)

(He misses when Anne was happy. Sprig didn't know what it was about Earth that made her so excited to get back to it, if it did this to her.)

Sprig isn't sure how long he spends on the coach, sitting in a scrunched up ball that let the stuffy press against his belly. The TV is too bright, but the darkness is too dim. It reminds him of the basement.

Then there's a warm hand on his shoulder, and Mr. Boonchuy is plopping down next to him, eyes fuzzy with sleep. He's in boxers and ratty t-shirt that reads '00 days since last dad joke'. "กบน้อย? Why are you up so early?"

"Why are you up early?" Sprig asked in turn. It feels polite to ask. Conversations are a sort of exchange- tell me about your day, I'll tell you about mine, you tell me what is plaguing you, I'll tell you what's haunting me.

"Too much Thai Iced Tea," he admitted with a wince. "My back hurts after a long shift, so I come out here and let it spasm before I go back to sleep again."

"Mm," said Sprig, processing that. "I... had a dream about falling."

Mr. Boonchuy leaned back, letting his arms drape across the back of the sofa. "Like, one of those where you wake up before you hit the ground?"

Sprig tightened his grip on the hedgehog to avoid letting his fingers shake. It reminds him of how hard he'd clung to Joe Sparrow as they returning to the flying castle. That was the last time he'd been able to connect with Marcy. Then she got stabbed. And now Anne is the one who's dying in front of him.

"Sort of," he decided.

Mr. Boonchuy gently guided him against his side, rubbing his arm comfortingly. Sprig felt the half-familiar thumping of a human heart as he buried his face in his side. He smelled like the restaurant, good and bad- wonderful spices and gross things plucked from the dishwashing drain.

"That sucks, buddy," was all he said.

And, for now, that was enough.

[heart-stomper]

Unspoken Trust, Unspoken Fears

Gathering my thoughts on Sasha and Marcy’s dynamic before S3 proves me wrong shows us what’s going on with these two.

It’s time to look at The Dinner and Battle of the Bands, and then use it as a guide to read the room in True Colors.

No worries! You just gotta speak their language. - Sasha, Reunion

Or in this case, know when to stay quiet. 

Sasha gets really really frustrated this episode. Like, so bad, that if that Volcakeno didn’t erupt, she might have been the one to end the friendship. Even Marcy and Grime couldn’t calm her down. But that’s the thing, before this point, they were the only ones to get through to Sasha without provoking her.

Grime keeps Sasha in line; she rolls her eyes and is clearly annoyed every time she has to hold herself back, but her willingness to keep it cool shows she ultimately agrees with Grime’s plan and sees it as the best path to success.  When Marcy chimes in, it’s with a helpful answer to Sasha’s question. She reminds Sasha of why they stopped Doing Thing by explaining how their plan failed. She avoids judging Sasha for it, and frames it as the repercussions of their actions, as a group. Marcy is on Sasha’s side, so Sasha doesn’t put up any defenses. When Sasha decides to avoid arguing with Anne however, it isn’t for Anne. It’s for the plan, for her and Grime.

Marcy has enough faith in Sasha to believe she’d never want to purposefully hurt Anne, but is careful about broaching the subject. Sasha feels attacked very easily, and will quickly trivialize or downplay things if she feels the other person is being unreasonable or doesn’t ‘get’ her.

And that is the only time Marcy speaks up besides The Big Argument. She only jumps into actual conflicts if things get too heated. Otherwise, she just lets Sasha do her thing, and lets Anne argue with Sasha... sort of.

This isn’t collaboration. It’s a hostile takeover. Why do things always have to be your way?

Now, for the bait and switch. Let’s talk about Marcy’s behavior in Day at the Aquarium and New Wartwood, and Sasha’s in Toadcatcher and Barrel’s Warhammer… while tying it all back to Battle of Bands!

You didn’t tell me you were writing a song! Let’s do it! I mean, if that’s okay with you, Sasha.

In A Day at the Aquarium, Marcy’s first instinct to Anne saying she’s going back with the Plantars is to make a plan. To show that it isn’t actually what will benefit Anne’s Goals. She doesn’t even consider opening up as an option, and avoids saying anything that could cause conflict. New Wartwood, Marcy tries to chat with the citizens of Wartwood and get to know them. But when that doesn’t work, she decides that impressing them with her knowledge and usefulness is bound to make them like her. It has to.

It does seem simpler.

Trying to win people over by claiming a plan is of mutual interest and necessary, carefully choosing which words to use, viewing relationships as a puzzle to be solved… this isn’t the sort of thing Marcy needs to do to get along with someone like Anne. It’s how Marcy copes with Sasha. Sasha lashes out and belittles bad ideas. Sasha has to be convinced the plan benefits her, suits her. Vulnerability and love aren’t enough to make her care, so Marcy does what she can to prove she’s worth being around. She might even sometimes wonder if Sasha actually likes her, or just likes what she can do for her. She rather not find out.

Whenever she’s afraid of people not liking her, or is worried that she’ll lose them, she dives right into those bad habits. She can give her opinions, but they aren’t supposed to get in the way of what Sasha wants. She’s supposed to say “That’s amazing! What do you think Sash’?” not “Let’s do it!”

Listen. There’s another reason why I’ve been training so hard. To protect the one person I know I can count on right now. You. You’re right, I already lost one friend. I’m not about to lose another. - Sasha, Toadcatcher

In Toadcatcher, there’s that scene, where Sasha looks at the BFF picture and the wind cuts off Anne for a second so it’s just her and Marcy. This is where Sasha is at. Anne might have rebelled, but when Sasha reunites with Marcy? Oh, she’ll show Anne, one way or another. They’ll get her back (like, joining the team or revenge wise, depending on Sasha’s mood.)

Listen here you buffoon! What’s it gonna take to prove that you should follow us? - Barrel’s Warhammer

Aaaand Sasha freaks out royally when she learns the two are alone together and doing just fine. On some level, she fears Anne and Marcy “getting along without her” because it means they might decide they don’t actually need her to make plans; that she isn’t necessary to have fun. In the The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers, we see that isn’t as big a catastrophe as Sasha seems to think it’d be. As time goes on, the girls do gain a healthier relationship to their feelings about Sasha, but that doesn’t mean they’d want her gone even if they don’t need her there. But Sasha doesn’t know that, she doesn’t even consider it till reuniting in The Third Temple. All she knows for now, is that she can be a bit... much... so if she isn’t in control, if her way isn’t “the best”, why would Marcy put up with her either? 

Listen. If things get too wild out here, just give me a signal and I’ll call the whole thing off. 

 For sure, teach it to us Anne. 

Every Sasha plan starts with an empty reassurance. So much of Sasha’s dialogue follows a pattern where she says stuff like “we’ll call it off” (she did not call it off) and “for sure, I don’t mind” (she did mind) that it could be it’s own game. Sasha talks the talk, until it gets in the way of what she wants.

Sorry guys, but we’re way to close to bail. I am not going back empty-handed.

It’s good. I just have a few tiny notes that I think could make it even better. ... Boom! Fiixed it! 

If they just follow her lead and let her fix it, everything will work out. They should believe in her and trust her. After all...

That’s not true! Besides, we did it. ... You’re not actually gonna throw this all away are you?

I just wanted all of us to succeed. I was just being a good friend. Why couldn’t they see that?

It all worked out, right? Percy and Braddock made it out okay even if she didn’t follow through on her promise. They won, she’s reliable. But of course, Sasha lost something more important than their belief in her abilities, she lost their trust. In Battle of the Bands however, Sasha recognizes that Anne and Marcy don’t want to follow her ambitions and will be pushed away by them just like Percy and Braddock were. So she takes it upon herself to end things, accepting that she’s lost.

Sorry it took so long.

Except this time, she manages to realize that maybe “what she wants” is to be there for her friends. Sasha’s finally had the space to relax and really think about what she wants, at least a little. This isn’t a real battle after all. Doing things her way all the time isn’t as important as she thought. Maybe she should trust in her friends more. A change of pace isn’t “wrong”, just different. It’s fun.

Sorry we lost, Sash’.

Just like Percy and Braddock, Marcy knows Sasha is capable. She understands that Sasha just wants the team to succeed. That’s why she apologizes when Grime beats them in the competition. She wants Sasha to know she appreciates what she did, but keeps it a bit indirect. She gets Sasha probably didn’t want to push them away. Marcy tried to catch herself and back Sasha up, but when Sasha had her argument with Anne, she stayed quiet. She couldn’t bring herself to go against Anne. 

That was ultimately for the best, as Sasha learned a valuable lesson. Except... She’s in too deep with the rebellion to back out now. This is the episode she’d spill the truth and give up on the whole thing, except... Grime. A part of her knows leaving would make Grime her enemy. She can’t risk that. So, she keeps going with the plan. She decides she’ll somehow win it all back. Because the thing she’s actually most afraid of, is losing another friend. 

Sorry things got a little crazy back there. You guys good? ... Sheesh, don’t be a sore loser. Look, I’m gonna stay here and get this toad regime off the ground, but I can totally send you two home if you want. Or, you can stick around and give me a hand! So what’d’ya say?

Sasha’s final offer; the last chance she’s giving the girls to stop acting weird and go back to being her obedient friends who do what she wants. Sasha lost at Toad Tower, but now she’s won. So Anne should go back to normal, she’s supposed to, like some unspoken “rule”.

And Marcy is supposed fall back in line too. The offer and apology are just as much a plea directed at her. Sasha’s trying to be generous, in her own awkward way. She has bit her tongue so far. She’s thrown a temper tantrum or two, but she hasn’t been this forward in asking Marcy for help till now. She wants Marcy to say that everything’s okay. Make it clear she doesn’t think she’s the bad guy, and that she forgives her and wants to be there for her. That they’re on the same page again. She wants Marcy to help make Anne look overly dramatic and silly for making such a big deal of all this. Sure, if Anne figures that out by herself, that’d be great, but if Marcy could just speak up.

But she doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t.

Marcy’s too busy worrying about Anne’s reaction. Knowing that she’ll be upset about this. She doesn’t dare side with Sasha, and is disappointed and betrayed that she actually did something like this. Marcy already has her own secret plans, so when she finally tries to calm things down, all she can give is a non-descript “we can still fix this”. And then, she’s once again shocked when she sees Sasha threaten Anne and the Plantars. Seeing Sasha act so willing to actually hurt people rather than just push them around... it finally hits her just how serious “tried to kill them” was. And of course, losing Anne or being sent home with her would completely mess up her own plans.

Sasha’s isn’t a vulnerable person. She’ll go on about loving her friends if it makes her look good, but she actively avoids doing anything that could be seen as “weak”. She wouldn’t dare ask Marcy to drop Anne and choose her. If Marcy isn’t speaking up, she can take the hint. She still isn’t on her side, and so she gets sent to the dungeon along with the rest of them.

Marcy accepts that Sasha has become an obstacle, but a part of her still hopes the three of them can work through all this. If they do things her way, nobody has to get hurt. She'll figure out a way hold everything together, fix everything, like always.

And then Andrias betrays her.

Yeah, what plan?

Sasha stops talking once she realizes what’s going on. Quietly fuming as Marcy explains herself. The music box, the suggestion to take it back to Andrias... that wasn’t Marcy being the sweet, supportive friend who Sasha thought she could always rely on, who believed in her... that was Marcy using her. It was never going to become their plan; Marcy never trusted her and was actively working against her. Sasha lost Anne, and she never had a chance at getting Marcy back, either. 

Sasha smacks Marcy away when she desperately tries to justify herself. She doesn’t want to hear it anymore. She’s furious that Marcy thinks they could be friends after something like this, after she’s manipulated them and claimed it was for their sakes. This whole time, her goal had been avoiding the move with her parents. And coming here has only torn them apart even worse.

Marcy reaches out to both girls. And when Sasha rejects her, she clings to Anne, hoping at least she’ll find it in her to forgive her. That she’ll understand she cares about them even if she messed up. Marcy knows they’d probably never pick her over their families or ambitions, so she told herself this place offered those things too. Made them all better people. But as she says her excuses out loud, she can’t find a single one that feels right. She was just afraid of losing them, and now, she’s managed to hurt them on top of that. 

But the thing is. After all that. Despite how betrayed and hurt and angry Sasha was, she looks like this:

Sasha realizes this must be exactly how Anne felt about her betrayal. It isn’t just an abstract “hurt” or “bad thing” anymore. She can also sympathize with how Marcy feels and why she did it, at least a little. She can’t imagine being able to forgive this, and yet... when she looks to Anne with that apologetic look, she isn’t just hoping Anne will forgive her. She’s also asking for permission to forgive Marcy. Pleading that they all still have a chance to move past this together.

[smart-and-dumb]

Anne’s Severe Mental Health

Was rewatching The Big Bugball Game, and something about what Frog Jordan said made me realized just how low Anne’s mental health is.

Anne has a unhealthy need to please people, tries to help everyone in a really unhealthy way, hides her trauma, trust issues, these are obvious, and then there’s there the less obvious; suicidal tendencies, self-degrading, self-blaming and the unhealthy need to feel loved.

1) Anne’s need to please people.

Pre-Amphibia, Anne always listen to Sasha and Marcy without standing up for herself, even if it gets her into trouble.

And it’s not just Sasha and Marcy; in The Big Bugball Game, Anne tries to win the game by herself. It almost felt like she was trying to prove herself. (see number 4 this to make sense.)

In Combat Camp, Anne gets attached to Tritonio and started acting like a Teacher’s Pet.

In Anne of The Year, she tried so hard to prove Toadstool wrong.

The problem is why...

2) The need to feel loved.

In Best Fronds, we see the first signs of the Calamity Trio’s toxic friendship. Anne has mentioned that she feels lost without Sasha and Marcy, and she always listened to them because she’s scared that they won’t be friends anymore.

Normally, she wouldn’t have to rely on Sasha and Marcy to feel loved since she has her parents, but with the way she acts throughout season 1; it has to be something else.

Anne is quick to get attached to The Plantars and tries her best to be respected by Wartwood.

Anne vs Wild is one of the obvious evidences. Anne wants to feel included by the Plantars.

In Family Shrub, Anne looked like she was about to cry once she realizes that she could be a part of The Plantars.

Then there’s Toad Tax, where she tries to get everyone’s respect.

In Cracking Mrs. Croaker, Anne admits that she tried to get a girl to like her.

In Wally and Anne, she didn’t want people to see her as a weirdo.

3) Self-degrading and Self-blame.

Throughout the start, Anne keeps degrading herself and when something goes wrong, she quickly blames herself to be the cause of the problem.

In Best Fronds, she quickly blames herself when she and Sprig got ambushed by a water snake.

In Cane Crazy, Anne said; “Sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting up with you at all!”

In Flood, Sweat, and Tears; Anne said both sentences; “You just couldn’t wait to get rid of me!” “If you wanted me gone; You should have just said so!”

In Wax Museum and Scavenger Hunt, Anne keeps calling herself stupid.

In Sprig’s Birthday, Anne sees herself as a terrible friend.

Some of these implies that Anne doesn’t feel loved at home. There are scenes that show this.

4) Why she doesn’t feel loved by her parents.

In Sprig vs Hop Pop, Anne barely reacted when she and her siblings found out that Hop Pop has been burning their suggestions. Considering her friendship with Sasha, you’d think she’d be mad and tries to challenge him but she didn’t. This implies that she finds this completely normal, it’s possible that her parents don’t listen to her when she tries to help.

In Girl Time, Anne tries to make Polly more “girly”. This is mostly Anne projecting herself to Polly, we’ve seen in Anne-Sterminator that Mrs. Boonchuy dreams Anne to have a successful career; I think Anne knew this from the start, and she tries so hard to change herself.

This evidence can be supported by Swamp and Sensibility; the entire episode is about Anne helping Wally to be accepted by his father for who he is.

In Anne-Sterminator, Anne said both sentences; “Why do I get the feeling I’m not leaving up to your expectations?” “I don’t know when I’ll be the daughter you want me to be.”

And this leads to her doing some unhealthy actions...

5) The need to help people.

Some episodes show that Anne only helps the Plantars because she feels grateful, but I’m pretty sure it only got worse because of Contagi-Anne. The girl got traumatized at what she thought of her adoptive family dying in front of her because of being a lazy child trying to avoid chores.

And it shows throughout the show; in Lily Pad Thai, Snow Day, Handy Anne, Anne Hunter.

This takes a lot out of a child, and there’s a reason why she never asked for help...

6) Trust Issues

Anne has been betrayed 6 times (Tritonio, twice by Sasha, Hop Pop, Andrias, and Marcy). That takes a lot of damage to her mental health.

If Anne never felt loved before getting stranded in Amphibia, then it’s easy for her to assume that she was never loved to begin with because of these betrayals.

And here’s the thing; all of these people who betrayed her except for one incel, do care about her, but their actions made her think that they didn’t; so when Anne finally meets people who tries to help her and actually care about her (Dr. Jan and Terri) She lets them help her and The Plantars, but she no longer believes that people do care about her.

And this leads to Anne doing another unhealthy thing...

7) Bottling her trauma.

If Anne thinks that no one cares about her, then she’d believe that no one will bother to listen to her problems. So she bottles up her being traumatized by her childhood friends’ near death experiences.

And I’m starting to think that this leads to...

8) Suicidal tendencies.

It’s probably just me but Anne has been getting more reckless ever since Reunion, and it only got worse after True Colors.

She keeps trying to do things on her own and never asked for help until it slaps her in the face.

It’s like she doesn’t care about her own well being anymore.

TLDR; Anne is depressed, traumatized, and most likely to be suicidal. She needs to trust people more and know that she is loved and just have fun in life.

[pyroclastic727]

Battle of the Bands is going to be the gayest thing we’ve ever seen.

Here’s why.

First off, the love triangle. 

Here’s a fact: Anne has feelings for Marcy.

Here’s another fact: Marcy is developing feelings for Anne.

Here’s another fact: Sasha is repressing feelings towards Anne.

Here’s yet another fact: All three of them are going to be performing together during the Battle of the Bands.

Oh! And let’s not forget that Matt Braly confirmed that Anne would sing, promoted Sasha’s voice actor’s songs, and mentioned that Marcy was originally a musical prodigy. The girls are definitely singing.

So what song do they sing? I mean they could sing about their adventures in Amphibia. You know: searching far and wide to find your friends and falling for them, questing with your friend and falling for her, fighting everything on the continent to try to fight off your feelings for your friend....

Wow they really just went and did a bunch of gay stuff, huh? So if they sang about their adventures, I’m not sure how they could avoid a thinly-veiled comment on their feelings for each other.

Well they could play something else, right? But what would they all agree on? It’d have to be a song that’s special to them. Maybe a song from their childhood...or perhaps a song that they wrote before going to Amphibia. Which would uh. Still be very gay.

Well okay, that makes sense, but what next? Just because they can write love songs doesn’t mean they will, right?

Not so fast. Because Marcy dropped a pretty important reference in New Wartwood.

You catch that? She’s going to face the music. Now this particular phrase takes on special significance for two reasons.

First off, they literally went to Amphibia in a music box. A magical music box, mind you, that’s linked to temples that try to teach you morals. And Marcy line about facing the music? That was right after she not only confessed to her wrongdoing, but did so in an incredibly gay way where she said “I know you all love her [Anne].”

This means that music, magic, and feelings for each other are already linked. Which makes sense with the prophecy: the girls have to embrace the way that they’re falling for each other. We knew that.

But there’s more to it, because Battle of the Bands is going to have all of those things. It’s going to be a music ceremony. I’m reasonably certain that their performance will somehow be linked to the activation of the music box. And with music and magic, knowing this show...there must also be gay.

But that’s not all. 

Remember Star Vs. The Forces of Evil? Ugh, why are you bringing THAT up-- no, no, it’s relevant. Because here’s the thing.

SVTFOE had an entire episode called “Face the Music.”

And it’s the episode where one character’s feelings for another were revealed.

Matt Braly knows this. So for him to slip this reference in, that means something. That means that, not only might we get a gay song in Battle of the Bands, but we also might get a romantic confession. It’s the genre.