Anne redraws from Ivy on the Run
1 year ago, Amphibia came to an end. Reblog if you still miss this show. 😢💔
So let's talk about mutual toxic relationships.
One thing that is very, very clear just looking at Anne, Sasha and Marcy, is that back at earth, all 3 of them had major issues with the other 2.
Sasha had her domineering side where she couldn't handle Anne going against what she wanted, because she had massive, massive control issues.
With Marcy, her problem was that she long, long ago gave up on trying to actually connect with Mar Mar and her hobbies.
In Anne's regard, she didn't exactly have a problem with Sasha(That was mostly on Sasha's end), but just like Sasha, Anne just wasn't able or willing to truly invest herself into what Marcy wanted.
Both of them had the same problem, but had different ways of showing it. For Sasha, she just didn't care. She obviously cared about Marcy, and she was willing to go along(Even playing the role of dungeon master for Marcy's campaigns) with what she wanted, but she did so out of obligation, because Marcy was her friend, not because she ever had any interest in Marcy's hobbies.
Anne by contrast also wasn't able to connect with Marcy, but unlike Sasha who had a much more hands off approach, leaving Marcy to her own devices, Anne constantly worried about Marcy, to the point that this overprotectivness overshadowed pretty much everything else.
On Marcy's end, her own big issues with her friends however, is related to how she would constantly act while in "The Zone".
With Anne, one thing that the show makes abundantly clear, is that Anne ALWAYS made the choice to sacrifice for Marcy.
The same way Sasha protects Anne from bullies, the same way Anne is always there to try and help Marcy when her own obliviousness get's her into trouble.
And there is certainly something noble about that on Anne's part, but as the show shows, this has long, long ago gone past anything that can be considered healthy, because whenever Anne was with Marcy on Earth, she always acts ready to jump in and help her.
Even at her sleepover, where nothing should be able to go wrong, while Sasha is just ignoring Marcy's movie because she got bored, Anne is not comfortable(As we can tell looking at her holding her arm in a way she always does throughout the series when she is feeling stressed) when Marcy starts talking and explaining, and seems to put on a false smile to hide the fact that she sincerely believes that at any point while Marcy is "In the zone", Mar Mar might do something that requires her to jump in and help her.
And the worst part is, that both sides view this as perfectly normal. It's not that Marcy doesn't appreciate Anne(She does, as she loves Anne and Sasha more than anyone else in the world), but for her, this is just normal. Anne is there to protect her, and that is the way it should be.
Marcy does not fully appreciate how much, and how often Anne is willing to sacrifice for her, and how this in turn hurts anne(both physically, as seen at the stage play, her grades as seen in gym class, and her mental wellbeing as seen with all the stress she has looking out for Marcy).
It's a very insidious toxicity, where something that was definitely good when it began, has over time morphed into something poisonous because both parties has started taking it for granted that this is how it should be, and are not able to see the big problems.
This in turn leads to the most fateful moment, where Marcy decides to essentially run away... With Anne and Sasha whether they want it or not.
One of the major reasons Marcy is able to go through with this plan, is because this is just a much more extreme version of her dynamic with Sasha and Anne.
Marcy has some idea that she is very, very passionate about, and Anne and Sasha both go along with it without complain, even if their hearts aren't into it.
That's the way it has always been.
Marcy's main motivations is her desperate, desperate need to not be alone, but her methods of doing so, is very much built on her usual dynamics with Anne and Sasha. They always indulge her desires, even if they aren't really interested in them. Because they're her friends, and that's what friends does.
Only this time, Marcy pushes it way, WAY too far. And by doing so, she breaks those friendships she treasured more than anything else in the world.
So, Picturejasper20 asked me to contribute to this, so i’ll give my takes for this week.
Day 1. FAVORITE EPISODE
I mean… It’s true Colors.
That’s like asking what was the best fight in One Piece. There are many good and great ones, but anyone who has watched the series knows there is only one answer.
True Colors was the peak of Amphibia as both a story, but also as a narrative.
I would say that Reunion would be a close second, but Reunion has the problem that though not bad, season 1 simply wasn’t overall building to this finale. There was definitely episodes that set it up, but as a finale, it really does come out of nowhere. It’s there because it’s the final episode, and so it’s time for the big gamechanger.
By comparison, True Colors was what the entirety of season 2 was building towards, with every mystery and character interaction between the main trio all being set up to the climax that is true colors.
And thats just the overall narrative.
Because this episode has it all. Great character moments, iconic and memorable scenes, every character involved having completely separate motivations and ambitions, and characters making huge mistakes that are crucial for their developments.
I wish there was a day for favorite moment, as the entire sequence of Sasha’s coup is my favorite scene of the series, where what shojld be the pinnacle of all of Sasha’s achievements, becoming queen of the land, is all turned to complete and total dust in her mouth when Anne tells her in no uncertain terms that she hates her now.
It’s such a powerful scene, that completely and totally uproots Sasha’s entire sense of self, and it wouldn’t have been anywhere as important if the series hadn’t made it very, very clear that for Sasha, her relationship with Anne was EVERYTHING.
You can pinpoint the exact moment where Anne broke Sasha’s heart into pieces, and i am very fond of pulling up these two pics whenever i get an excuse to do so.
And that’s just one of the great moments of this episode.
The confrontation at the gatehouse, where it’s now Sasha who is in the right, as this coup would be infinitely preferable to what Andrias had planned, but rather than logic or arguments, what it all comes down to is That Anne is angry at Sasha from the previous scene in the throneroom, and Sasha’s arc of being a bad friend reaching it’s logical conclusion as Anne tells her to fuck off.
Then there is the confrontation in the throne room, where pretty much every single line is iconic.
Andrias revelaing himself as the villain, the backstory of Amphibia, Marcy’s betrayal laid bare, her subsequent fumbling of trying to justify herself rather than trying to apologize and subsequent rejection, anne deciding to give her friendships another go while admitting to her own faults, Andrias throwing Sprig out the window to make a point to Anne.
Anne’s superform, Marcy jumping out the window, andrias halting as he sees she’s opened a portal to Earth, Sasha and Grime holding Andrias off, of course…
Marcy getting a sword through her chest, killing her, and setting up her death and ressurrection into Darcy.
And then, having now destroyed the main trio, the season ends on Anne achieving her goal since the series started.
She’s finally home. End of part 2.
I have very, VERY mixed feelings about season 3A, and in hindsight, i very much think this third season should have been a full season for each half, but in regards to how it was set up, i have NO complaints.
True colors is as close to a perfect finale i have seen a western show have since since the season finales of Avatar the last airbender.
So "The Beginning Of The End" recontextualizes a lot of Marcy's relationship with Anne and Sasha, and changes our understanding of her, as "peacemaker" of the trio, to the "friend who is just there" who's desires and interests are always ignored by the other two, and who's usually overshadowed and dominated by the much stronger, more forceful, and more direct personalities of her friends, who simply gel better with each other.
However, what's really impressive, is how well this fits in with everything we saw of the trio together before this point, while hiding this fact from the audience at first viewing.
Starting with the very first time Marcy and Anne met Sasha, she immediately begins falling into a background role as she's very shy introducing herself, while both Sasha and Anne are far more direct with each other.
The groundwork for how things would go was already there at this early, tender point in time.
And when the trio is reunited, what happens? Marcy is immediately pushed to the background, and the focus immediatly shifts to Anne and Sasha.
At first viewing, this just seems like the natural result of Sasha and Anme having to deal with the aftermath of "Reunion", but on subsequent watches, it's easy to see that this is just their natural dynamic shining through now that the trio is back together.
All throughout season 2, Anne and Marcy was the only part of the trio together, and so the show cleverly tricks you into thinking that the way they act here, is a good reflection of how it was on Earth, when in reality, Marcy was always pushed to the background in their usual dynamic, and when her friends engaged in her interests, it was always just out of obligation because she was their friend.
And this continues into "The Dinner", where despite supposedly being the first episode where "We're all back together again", the focus is immediately focused on Sasha and Anne.
When they remiss on old stories, it's one where Sasha and Anne was the main players, and Marcy was just... there.
And when Marcy and Anne share an inside joke that does not involve Sasha, the blonde girl gets very uncomfortable, and has no idea how to act. Because it's never happened before. Because Anne and Marcy hasn't had this kind of moment before where Sasha wasn't involved in some way.
And in the end, it's Sasha and Anne who come to an understanding, with minimal influence from Marcy beyond the wasps.
And in "Battle of the Bands", all the focus, conflict, drama and resolution is between Anne and Sasha. Just like always, while Marcy is content to just stand on the sidelines. Because that is how this relationship has always worked.
But the show tricks you to not pay attention to this, because the writers know that we are too focused on Anne and Sasha's relationship to really consider the implications of Marcy always remaining content on the sidelines.
And this goes for Anne's flashbacks too.
Because while we see Anne and Marcy having plenty of positive and negative interaction in the present, you know where we don't see any of that?
There isn't a single flashback(Except them meetin Sasha) where Marcy and Anne interact where Anne is just completely happy to be around Marcy.
Instead, every single one of those flashbacks are about pain, stress, and how Anne would time and again make the choice to sacrifice for Marcy no matter what, and that Marcy did not seem to appreciate her enough for her efforts.
The show knows though, that the viewers are inclined to compare the interaction in the past to the interactions in the present, and so could imagine that their relationship was filled with way more happy times, and less problems than it actually was.
Surely, these moments of stress and pain on Anne's part can't have been the majority of Anne and Marcy interaction without Sasha... Right?
Except it probably was. Even at a sleepover at her house, Anne is still stressful, immediately rubbing her arm in the way she does when she's stressed the moment Marcy gets into "The zone", because she is worried that Mar Mar is gonna accidentally do something that will require her to jump in and save her.
It's not that Anne, Sasha and Marcy didn't love and care for each other, but it's also clear with full context, that while Anne and Sasha naturally gelled well together(at least so long as Sasha's control issues didn't flare up), Marcy was stuck in that unfavorable position of a childhood friend, who was faced with the harsh reality that she had very little in common with her friends anymore, their interests having completely grown apart as they grew older.
It's a relationship held together by inertia, and shared history, that is currently stable, but also under very real threat of breaking apart if something drastic comes along.
Which in turn completely recontextualizes why Marcy had such a massive reaction to being told she had to move.
It wasn't just about having to face the prospect of being alone, but also the very bitter reality that her fears of this separation being a true death knell to her friendships with Anne and Sasha is not ungrounded.
Marcy understood in a way that Anne and Sasha did not, that she had truly begun to drift apart from her friends, in the manner that many childhood friends do as they grow older.
Her dreams, desires, and personality was completely at odds with what her friends grew into, and was becoming clearer and clearer as she sunk deeper and deeper into the role as "The friend who is just there".
A stable role, but also one that could easily break if something happened to change the status quo. Like moving away.
Hence why she goes to such lengths to preserve what remained of those relationships with Anne and Sasha, the only thing she felt gave her life any real meaning.
Day 2 - Favorite Character
Amphibia has a plethora of great Characters, with the Calamity Trio and Andrias being as well developed characters as Avatar ever had(Which is impressive. Most western animated shows since then, tend to only have one or two truly outstanding characters, while Amphibia has 4, and unlike nearly everyone else, it has no bad characters). So the question is then, which i find most compelling and interesting?
The answer in my case is the human mess that is Sasha Waybright.
I have always had a soft spot for characters who deeply cares about the people around them, but are absolutely terrible at showing it, always messing up because of their own flaws as people, and Sasha might be the single best example of that archetype i’ve ever seen.
Sasha, like any great protagonist, is someone who defines the idea of “The Human Heart At Conflict With Itself”, with her two defining traits: her deep, burning, passionate love for the people she cares about, and her deep fear of not being in control constantly warring inside of her.
Sasha is someone who has an amazing ability to make people love her, and one thing i absolutely love, is that her assessment in “Prison Break” that if you get someone to love you, they’ll do ANYTHING for you, goes both ways.
Because if Sasha loves you, she will die for you. No questions asked.
Which is juxtaposed with her greatest flaw. Because for all that Sasha’s powerfull love for other people being one of her defining traits, her greatest flaw is her fears.
Like Marcy, Sasha’s greatest fear is being alone, but while Marcy’s fear is rooted in her personal inability to make new friends, and the sense that Anne and Sasha are the only people who will ever accept her, Sasha’s fears is rooted in her fear of not only being alone, but that she deserves to be alone.
Sasha is willing to go incredible lengths for the people she loves, but at the same time, she NEEDS to feel validation from them.
Sasha’s deep rooted control issues are rooted in 2 overall big personal flaws, both originating in the split up of her parents, and the disintegration of her relationships with both of them.
Sasha is so dependant on the people she actually loves and care validating her efforts, that the moment it seems to her they reject her, she feels like they’re attacking her personally.
That she wasn’t good enough, that they can get by without her, and thus she is unimportant to their lives. Just like she feels she was ultimately unimportant to her parents.
“Not while Anne and Marcy are getting by without me!”
Sasha is terrified of the past repeating itself. Of the people she loves moving on, and leaving her behind. That she deserves to be left behind, and that she is not worthy of being loved.
And so she overcompensates. She demands people always listen to her, never giving an inch of compromise. And so she always ends up gripping what she has so tight that it breaks, again, and again.
She just wants what is best for everyone! Why can’t they see that!?
But love is about more than just wanting what is best for everyone. It requires compromise, talking things out, and above all, respecting the wishes of the people you love even if they don’t always line up with yours.
Despite all her good intentions, she always ends up hurting the people she loves, because if she isn’t in control, then things might go “Wrong”. They might repeat themselves, and she might become alone again.
And so it all comes crashing down eventually, when Sasha finally overstep herself one time too many, in a cruel, calculated manner and Anne, the person she loves more than anyone else, has finally had enough.
And she tells her in no uncertain terms that Yes, you are a horrible person. You are awful. You don’t deserve my love.
This is the moment Sasha’s entire journey has been building up.
She is at the top of the world! Having finally achieved the level of control that only a monarch has. And then, Anne crushes her completely and utterly.
In one short conversation, Anne brings Sasha to complete Rock Bottom as all her worst and deepest fears come true all at once. And worst of all, she knows Anne is right. This IS her own fault.
It takes the rest of the day and night to sink in, but she knows.
The thing about hitting rock bottom though, is that when you hit it, you have nowhere to go but up.
Sasha’s entire journey up until “True Colors” is her internal conflict between her love for others, and her desire for Control.
And in the end, she came to the conclusion that control, the means to feeling safe, was meaningless, and redundant. Sasha always had Anne’s love, her endgoal. She didn’t need to prove herself worthy of it. And by tring to control everything, she in the end, only became someone who was unworthy of Anne’s love.
And so she resolves herself to be better. She makes the choice to change. To take the step into becoming worthy once more of the love and adoration that Anne had for her.
Sasha’s journey is my second favorite of Amphibia as a whole, and i love her internal conflict with herself, and the way it always blows up in her face as she makes mistake after mistake, until finally, she reaches a turning point where she has lost everything, and resolves herself to be better.
My favorite aspect, is her relationship with Anne and all it’s many, many aspects for good or ill.
And as such, she is my favorite character.
Amphibia Week - Day 7
What aspect do you like the most about Amphibia?
The relationship between Anne and Sasha.
My single favorite part of Amphibia, and the only part of Amphibia aside from it's humor, that i feel ever managed to actually surpass Avatar, is the relationship between Sasha and Anne, and just how Human this beautiful mess of a relationship is.
I have always liked character relationships where it is clear from day one that the characters truly, genuinely love each other, but they are constantly in conflict between that love and their personal flaws.
And in this regard, I used to hold Zuko and Iroh's relationship from Avatar, as the absolute pinnacle of just how great this kind of relationship can be when it is given the care, attention, and writing it needs to work.
However, in that regard i very much think Amphibia actually surpassed it with Sasha and Anne's relationship.
Sasha and Anne's relationship is such an amazingly well written showcase of two people who truly, totally, and completely love each other in the most intimate ways... But rather than just being able to embrace that, they are instead constantly undercut by their own, deep human flaws.
Anne and Sasha starts off in a very bad place, where Sasha has embraced the absolute worst parts of herself, and yet... As we see throughout Reunion, there is so, so much more to this relationship than just Sasha's horrible control freak abuse.
Sasha is capable of astonishing levels of cruelty and manipulation fueled by her own trauma, her desperate need for control and feeling like she has to be useful in order to have worth... But she's also capable of the opposite. Of pure expressions of love and humanity towards Anne, where the only thing she truly wants, is for Anne to be happy, where the only reward Sasha wants is for Anne to love her as much as she does her.
And that is what makes it so real. It's messy, it's complicated, it's both beautiful, and ugly. It is love between two people, in all it's best and worst forms.
And unlike so, so many relationships, it is NOT static.
Sasha and Anne's relationship constantly evolves through the series, even when they seem to have found an equilibrium, the show is always building it towards another, new development.
In season 2, the entire story was building towards Sasha's betrayal, her making the choice to try and obtain ultimate power and control so she will never have to fear things slipping out of her hands ever again.
Only for Anne to make it abundantly clear that by doing so, Sasha hurt her. Hurt her worse than anything, anyone has ever done before in her life.
And so, by committing to the path of control, Sasha loses the thing she wanted more than anything else. Anne's love, respect and adoration. And worst of all, as she learns later, she already had all of those already.
Sasha hurt Anne with this betrayal. Hurt her in a way that only someone you truly, passionately love can. She opened her heart, and Sasha, in her desperate quest for control, Sasha stabbed her right through.
And so, Anne, the heart of Amphibia, the embodiment of the morals of this story embraces all her worst aspects in turn.
During their confrontation at the gatehouse, Anne becomes much more angry and agreasive than Sadha ever was, trying her absolute damnedest to flat out murder Sasha.
Because Sasha hurt her so, so much, and in the moment, all Anne can think about is getting even. Just like Sasha, Anne is fully capable of giving into all her flaws, all of her deepest, darkest human desires.
Just like Anne was the one who always brought out the absolute best in Sasha, so Sasha is the only one in the world, who can bring out the absolute worst parts of Anne.
It is such a real, raw human reaction, that it is so, so easy to understand Anne, as she makes the worst decisions of her life, even as we know and understands why she's in the wrong.
But that is not the end of their relationship. Because Anne learns that Sasha was right. She fucked up. Hard.
The moment where Anne looks at a bound Sasha, is one of my favorite understated moments in the series.
In that one, single moment, having seen Andrias reveal his worst aspects, and having to see the consequences of her actions first hand, it suddenly dawns on Anne what she tried to do earlier.
She tried to kill her best friend, who she loves so much. She tried to murder her in anger, for a cause that she learns was flat out wrong.
It's such a bucket of cold water poured over her head, and it allows Anne to see clearly that she was capable of fucking up just as much as Sasha and Marcy was. She just did so in fact.
They are all horribly flawed messes. And id ahe deserves to be given a second chance to fix her mistakes... Why doesn't Marcy and Sasha?
Of course they ultimately lose the battle and are separated, but one thing i actually do like in 3A(Amongst other things in Anne's story i distinctly DO NOT) is the contrast.
Anne has committed to giving this relationship another chance. And so, she's able to act withouth it crushing her.
But Sasha, who does not know this, reaches rock bottom. She hates herself, and she thinks that Anne, the person she loves most in the world, now hates her too.
At this point, Sasha feels like her deepest, darkest fear has come true. Not only that she is unloved, but that she deserves to be unloved. That the voice in the back of her head, that's been telling telling her that she was never worth loving just for being her, ever since her parents broke her ability to love herself unconditionally was right all along.
Which in turn brings us to the most beautiful scene in all of season 3.
As Sasha has hit her lowest point, she finds Anne's diary. And through it, she learns a powerful truth about Anne. One she never was able to see and accept before now.
Anne already loved her. Even after the tower, even after everything, Anne still loved Sasha, not because she was useful, or needed her to get by, but because she was her friend.
Sasha never needed to prove anything to Anne. She never needed prove that she was useful. Her entire desire for control in order to make sure that Anne would continue to love her, was not only a giant waste of time, but also counterproductive, as the only thing it has lead to, is that(Or at least Sasha thinks so) Anne now hates her.
And so, she decides to do better. She makes a choice to commit to becoming a better person. To leave all the things that lead to her betraying Anne in the past. To become someone who deserves someone as wonderful as Anne in her life.
And she does. Sasha does change. She does grow. Not without issues, or new difficulties arising, but even so, Anne still loves her anyway.
Anne always loved Sasha. And she still does Flaws, warts and scars and all. The only thing she ever asked of her, was for Sasha to respect her.
And it's here, as Anne gives her back her helmet that Sasha is able to accept that fact. That she never had anything she needed to prove to Anne. All she had to do, was to treat her with the same kind of respect as Anne had for her.
That was the only thing Anne ever asked Sasha for in order to forgive her. And it's only now, as Anne hugs her in an embrace, that Sasha fully, truly understands, and accepts that.
And she gives it to her. Her love, her devotion, and at long last, all her respect.
But there is still more steps to take in this journey. Relationships are not static things, instead they are constantly changing.
And as Anne tries to help Sasha overcome her fears of forgiving Marcy and what that would mean, Anne, without even meaning to, or fully understanding Sasha's full issues, helps Sasha overcome one of her deeper scars.
Sasha is terrified of having to truly, totally open herself up again after betrayal. She has been for ages now, ever since her parents destroyed her ability to truly, unconditionally trust other people through their divorce.
That mess left her with a deep, deep fear of things "Going wrong", and so she would do anything, go to any length to avoid having to face that again.
Sasha after Turning point has overcome this flaw... But she hasn't healed. She no longer tries to dominate everyone and everything, but that is because she understands that it is wrong to do so.
Not because she is emotionally strong enough to trust other people to make those mistakes.
Anne does not fully understand why this wound sits so deep in Sasha's heart, as she thinks it's because of Marcy's betrayal, not understanding that the wound in Sasha's heart is much, much deeper than that.
And yet, she manages to make Sasha see, to understand what she means, just by being her lovable, kind, and honest self.
Opening yourself to potential risks and heartbreak is hard. It is scary. It is terrifying. Forgiving someone who hurt you can go wrong. It might not work out even if you do so.
But it's only by doing so that you can find true beauty in bonds with others.
Like the one they have now.
And Sasha, finally understands. She gets it. She is finally is able to truly commit to open her heart again fully. Not just to Anne, but in general.
It is only here, so, so many years after her parents divorce that Sasha is able to finally begin healing from the wound her parents gave her so long ago.
Sasha was a girl who at the start of the series felt like she needed to be useful for others to love her. That if the people she loved could get by without her, she had no value.
Anne told her something different.
And it is only now, that she is able to truly accept it.
Anne and Sasha have a wonderfull mess of a relationship. It is is ugly, it is full of heartbreak, of pain and betrayal. But it is also beautiful, it is kindness, compassion, and support, and full of all the things that makes life worth living.
It is love, in all it's great and terrible extremes, and it is by far my favorite part of Amphibia.
So one thing i like about the Amphibia ending is how each of the girls became, not what they could have become, but what they WANTED to be.
Sasha who was horribly emotionally scarred by her parents divorce and the subsequent complete breakdown of their relationship, ultimately decided to become a therapist to help kids like her through therapy, something she never got as a child.
The girl could have become pretty much anything she wanted, given her wealth, smarts, charisma and beauty. Instead she choose to help emotionally damaged children, because she wants to prevent other kids from becoming like she was.
Marcy, with her incredible intellect could probably have become one of the greatest scientists of all time. Instead, she became an independent comic book creator specializing in fantasy, finally finding a healthy outlet for her love of the genre.
Anne, who had no direction in her life, whose only real talent was her amazing, natural sports skills, instead found a calling in life through her time in Amphibia, and now became an expert in Amphibian life on Earth. The girl could probably have become the greatest female athlete of all time, and if not could probably have coasted by on her fame as the savior of L.A for the rest of her life through an acting career if she wanted.
Instead, she, just like Sasha and Marcy, chose a career that made her happy.
You know... I really wasn't planning on making another post about my theory that the ending was changed from it's original vision, and that Sashanne might originally have been meant to have been a thing in the finale.
Then i saw this script before it was changed and... Well Sasha basically says here that she fully expects Anne to console her in her grief over losing Grime. Very blatantly at that.
Like... That doesn't HAVE to mean that in the original idea for this episode they were girlfriends at this point, and as such she was the obvious source of emotional comfort for Sasha, but... It really does sound like there was some context in their relationship that was cut/changed between this version of the script and the final version.
Either way, this scene WAS changed in the final product from it's original version, and the pressence of that line seems like the only plausible reason for why. Everything else is just... The same tone and idea just different execution, but that line was cut and not replaced by something equivelant at all.
An Easy Step
Grime and Kisses
<Chapter 4— Here —>
—
Over the course of half a year, Sasha had quickly become one of the most frequent civilian visitors to the Aquarium of the Pacific in quite some time.
Though most people with a year-long pass tended to actually visit the park’s many exhibits, as opposed to almost always beeline for one specific part of the complex.
One of its less popular ones at that.
It wasn’t that Sasha never went to any of the other parts of the park, she did sometimes, especially if she came early.
It could be nice to visit the other parts of the park, to watch the sharks, the seals, and the other animals.
But the simple fact was that there was only one thing that brought Sasha here, time after time.
Today though, Her Beau was talking to a group of school kids as the last part of her shift, and showing them the various amphibians here.
That meant she’d have to wait all the way until the shift was done and the kids had left before talking to her.
And so, Sasha took an independent look around the section of frogs, olms, Salamanders, and… Toads.
There was a reason she rarely visited this part of the park, except when coming to pick up Anne.
She usually got melancholic when going around this place.
It was something she and Marcy had in common. Unlike Anne, who was able to draw not only strength from these creatures, but enthusiasm, all Sasha felt was melancholy as she watched these, smaller, unnatural versions of…
God that was a weird way to think of them. But it was how she now saw it.
To her, it was now the Toads and frogs of Amphibia who were the usual versions of their respective races, while it was these Earth-based ones, so infinitely lesser in size, intelligence, and worth that were the abnormalities.
She had similar issues with birds after coming back, but since the only giant birds on Earth were currently in a government lab, probably being cloned, or whatever the hell U.S.A’s scientists were doing with them, she’d eventually gone back in her head to think of regular-sized birds as the “normal” sized ones.
Not so with Amphibians.
For her, the only regular ones were the ones like Braddock, Percy, the Wartwood Gang, Beatrix… Grime…
Her eyes went over the room, and its exhibits, noting the artwork she knew Anne had designed herself to make it seem energetic and interesting.
Finally, her eyes went to the exhibit that she’d put off the longest, the Toads exhibit with-
She froze. Then looked again to make sure she hadn’t misseen. Then she burst out laughing. Not hysterically so, but if Anne and the kids hadn’t been in another room of the overall section it would probably have disrupted the tour.
As it was, she was only glared at by a couple of other, unaffiliated adults.
She didn’t care. She had a big grin on her face, one that remained when Anne finally came over, her shift at its end.
Anne immediately noticed what Sasha was looking at, and in turn, gave her own grin.
“I see you’re fond of Grimothy, Sash.”
Plastered below, on the side of the Toad exhibit, was another one of Anne’s cute artworks.
This one featured an adorable looking toad, with a comically serious expression, a scar across one eye, and his other one a bright, pure green.
It was absolutely adorable… And for Sasha, absolutely hilarious.
“He would murder you if he knew you represented him like this.”
The tone made it clear Sasha found it all absolutely hysterical.
“Yeah, probably. I think he once threatened to eat Sprig alive if he called him Grimothy again. At least that’s what Sprig said.”
She hesitated.
“You… Really do like it then?”
“Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, I actually tried to get him on board with a stylized picture of himself to get the Tower Toads more accustomed to him.”
Anne chuckled.
“I’m guessing he wasn’t on board with the awesomeness of a stylish selfie?”
“Nope. In the end, I just ended up using my own face. Actually, we made a crap ton of merch with that design.”
“You’re kidding.”
She flashed her a full-toothed, cocky grin.
“Nope. I was REALLY popular in the tower, everyone wanted a piece of me, and we plastered my face on pretty much everything.”
Anne smiled at her, but Sasha could tell she wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. However, rather than question her account of events, she decided to pounce.
“Well… It is a pretty amazing face. I can see why they’d want it… but… I’m not sharing you…”
As she spoke, her grin was a playful one, the kind she used when she was in control, and both she and Sasha knew it.
Her hand went up to Sasha’s cheek.
“With anyone~♡”
Then, still stroking Sasha’s cheek, she leaned in, their lips meeting in a kiss that Sasha instantly melted into.
Anne was more than capable of kissing Sasha in a way that made it feel like lightning was going through her spine, that incredible passion flowing through both of them… But truth be told, Sasha had always preferred the other kind of kisses.
This kind. The more subdued, but no less affectionate kind, where she could take her time and savor the feeling of just how wonderful it was to be truly loved and love someone in return.
Eventually, the kiss did end though, and the two young women left the aquarium together, though reminiscing on the world of frogs, toads and other amphibians weren’t quite over yet.
—
“Oh yeah, it was a brutal training regiment. I’d start with teaching everyone Tai-chi each morning to get them all stretched and ready for the meat grinder.”
When it came to Amphibia, Anne had come to notice a pattern with both Marcy and Anne.
Neither of them liked to talk about it and generally avoided speaking about it if at all possible.
Then, something would get them in the mood, and they would just talk, and talk about that world that was now lost to them.
They all had their own ways to deal with she supposed.
Then I’d run them ragged, having them follow me for a jog for 4 hours, before we moved on from that to frog jumps! Man… And back then I didn’t even question how it was that I always lasted the longest. By the end, when everyone was completely winded from the training, I was still fresh and ready for more.“
As Anne listened to Sasha talking about running the toads ragged, there was… Something in the back of her head stirred. Hadn’t she seen that once? A whole horde of toads running across a field?
That vague memory though was immediately washed away by the image Sasha was describing.
"Really? You frog jumping?”
“Yeah. It’s actually the best method toads have for training their legs and arms, and I had to lead by example and all that.”
It took her a few seconds after she was done until she realized what Anne had actually been talking about.
“Ohhh… Right… Yeah, it did look preeetty silly.”
The image Anne had in her head of Sasha frog jumping across a field, followed by a horde of tired, out-of-breath toads did indeed, look very silly.
Sasha quickly changed the topic.
“But man, can you believe we didn’t notice any of the gems’ powers at the time?”
“Well… To be fair Sash, me, and Marcy didn’t really go out there and really push ourselves to the limit like you did.”
“You still broke an arm."
Sasha pointed out.
"That healed in two days.”
True enough.
“Alright, you’ve got me there.”
Anne, Marcy, and Sasha had all gone through Amphibia while carrying the power of the 3 gems inside of them, which Anne had made great use of at various times after fully unlocking them, and Sasha and Marcy had both embraced their parts of it during the final battle.
All 3 girls had assumed that was the end of it. Well, at least until they got back home, and started really going into detail about said stories to, amongst others, Anne’s parents.
At that point, her parents had noticed some… Things about their stories in Amphibia.
Like the fact that Anne and Marcy had both broken bones(Anne her arm, and Marcy her leg) during their times in Amphibia, that had healed completely and cleanly in less than a week, as opposed to the two months such injuries would usually take.
Or that none of them had really gotten truly sick during their time in Amphibia, despite all the unclean water meaning they should have had constant health problems from said water.
Or the fact that Sasha was strong enough that she could kick through stone.
That last one was what had clinched it for all 3 girls that the gems’ effect upon them had been way more thorough than they had initially assumed.
Once she’d realized that this was a thing, Anne had originally assumed that this kinda stuff would have gone away with the gems.
But it hadn’t. And if that was the case, Sasha and Marcy would have lost this aspect after their respective temples anyway, which they had not.
On the contrary, Sasha had reached her absolute physical peak only after her separation from the powers.
One part of this aspect that had disturbed all of them once they realized it, was that one of the reasons they hadn’t noticed it, was that in the moment, all of it had seemed completely natural to them.
Andrias had sent Sasha slamming into a wall so hard, that the stone around her had cracked. Why shouldn’t she just walk it off with no issues, that was natural right?
Marcy had fallen down hundreds of flights of stairs, and only broken a leg, and gotten some bruises? That’s to be expected.
As for Anne, she could distinctly remember a time when she’d had to carry all the plantars on her back and run through a field of steam vents at a speed that any pro-athlete runner would envy. Back then, it had seemed so… Natural.
There were many more of those instances. Moments of a surge of power, endurance, and agility that Anne frankly hadn’t even noticed as odd.
Like her brain had been rewired to think of it as normal.
But the absolute cake was the kind of injuries Sasha and Marcy had recovered from.
In Sasha’s case, during Sasha’s big duel with Darcy, the mechanical abomination had inflicted two massive injuries on her that by all accounts should have drastically crippled her ability to move.
It had almost completely severed one of her Achilles’ tendons with a thrown laser knife, which by all accounts should have meant many surgeries, and years and years of physical therapy.
Sasha, despite the insane pain from the injury, had not only managed to fight on in spite of it, but internally, the muscles had eventually healed perfectly.
And then there was her back… The damage from the scythe had been 2-3 Inches from inflicting what on any normal person would have been permanent, irreversible damage on her spine.
Even as it was, the damage should have left her with chronic back pain, and massive problems bending over for the rest of her life.
Instead, she’d pushed through, and it had healed fine internally, just like her leg.
And then there was Marcy… Anne did not want to imagine what sort of horrible tortures they must have done to her, to replace her red blood with a green liquid that no one had been able to identify.
But whatever it was, Marcy had survived it and was now just as functional as any other, healthy young woman. Other than having a green liquid in her veins instead of blood anyway.
Either way, none of them had any answers to the details of how this had worked.
Was it some trace of the power still residing in them even after the main power was gone? Had being vessels for the gems changed them on the basic level?
The truth was they didn’t know. They didn’t know how it worked, the limitations, or anything about them really. And it wouldn’t be until she was 91, that she would get the chance to ask the only one who could have explained it, about anything.
As she reminisced about this weird aspect of her life, she thought back to all those times she had a massive burst of strength when she needed it.
Holding back the giant red killer Mantis, running across the steam field during the trek to the spring at the top of the mountain, running from the giant rooster…
“The chicken!” Anne suddenly exclaimed, taking Sasha completely by surprise and making her jump in her seat.
“What? A chicken? Where?”
Anne almost laughed.
“No, no, not here. Back in Amphibia, there was this chicken, and… Well, It was during the first couple of months, and I was sooo tired of eating bug meat and vegetables, so when I heard there was this chicken hanging around nearby with eggs, I thought to myself, why don’t me and Sprigg go over there and get ourselves some eggs to make delicious omelets out of?”
Sasha glanced over at her, frowning.
“Chickens in Amphibia grow 10 meters tall. Their roosters almost twice that.”
“Yeah… I wasn’t really all that familiar with how birds in Amphibia were all huge, evil monsters back then.”
“Okay, but… I… Really don’t see how this is related to what we were just talking about.”
“Well, here’s the thing, when me and Sprig inevitably had to run for our lives from the monster, we ran through this giant, open field… And there, on the other side of it? There was this giant horde of Toads running in a jog.”
She grinned sheepishly.
“It was such an odd sight, even for Amphibia, but I’d completely forgotten about it until you mentioned training Toads with Jogging!”
Sasha’s expression was one of shock.
“Wait… I REMEMBER that! Yeah, we were running, and on the other side of the field, there WAS a giant chicken running through it. Like, I don’t recall seeing it chasing someone, but yeah, I remember that! Holy crap, if I’d just looked left, I’d have seen you!”
“Man, imagine that. We could have met WAY earlier. Man, can you imagine how different it could have been?”
Sasha didn’t immediately reply. In fact, her expression turned sour.
“What’s wrong?”
“You almost died… You almost died, and… I was right there… And I didn’t even see you. I didn’t even know you were there.”
Oh, right. When you looked at it from that angle… Yeah, she understood Sasha’s expression. It was one of regret.
“Eh, it’s fine Sash. I "almost died” about twice a week back then.“
"It really isn’t Anne. You could have… I wouldn’t have…”
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm, obviously still conscious of the fact that she was driving.
“Well… You are right about the fact that things would have been different. For one… Well, Hop Pop didn’t really become a symbol for the rebellion against Grime until after he ran for Mayor. That was the big turning point. Before that, he was just another frog not paying his taxes. And there were plenty of those.”
“Um… He did pay his taxes. I know. I was there.”
“Okay, so bad wording. The fact is that he was Seen by the rest of the valley as not paying his taxes. No one actually cared if he did or not. The important thing was that he stood up to the tax collectors, and that’s what people cared about.”
“So, political nonsense you mean.”
“Yeah pretty much. My point is that if we’d met then, this would have been before Hop Pop became this big symbol of resistance when he stood up to Toadstool. Which in turn means Grime wouldn’t have had any reason to kill him. Which means… Well… We wouldn’t have had that big fight on top of Toad tower at the very least.”
“Huh… Yeah, that… Makes sense.”
The two of them drove the rest of the trip home in silence, each thinking in their own way, about how things could have gone so, so differently, had Sasha just turned her head left on a morning in Amphibia so long ago.
So bit I noticed, but I think most people missed, at least if you're not familiar with The geography of Los Angeles county.
Anne at the end of the series, works in the "Aquarium of the pacific", a real world aquarium located in Long Beach City, south of Los Angeles.
Which in turn in turn means that Anne and Sasha haven't just reconciled at this point.
They seem to be living in the same city, both of them having left behind Los Angeles.
Both of them, when they were done with college, out of everywhere they might have gone, just so happened to choose Long Beach city.
For Anne it makes perfect sense. After all, her's is a job that forces her to seek out a place that's already established. And the aquarium of the Pacific is a perfect place to work at.
But Sasha?
As a Psychiatrists, Sasha would be much, much better off working in one of the U.S.A's bigger cities.
Instead she choose Long Beach, a city that doesn't even have half a million people.
466,742 isn't a small number, but by U.S.A's standards it's not that big either.
Out of everywhere she could possibly have moved, she choose here.
Like... I'm not saying this is absolutely impossible otherwise, but the more I look at this series, the more I'm starting to think my theory that this series was supposed to end with a Sashanne ending isn't as strange as I thought it was.
Because if so, it would make perfect sense why, out of everywhere in the entire country that Sasha could have chosen to settle down once she got her degree, she just so happened to choose the one city where Anne was.
Amphibia - The Failure of Destined Heroes
Amphibia as a whole is in many ways a thorough deconstruction of the ideas of the Isekai genre, and one thing that it does very, very well in that regard is to deconstruct the usual trappings of a Hero, and how stupid the usual “neat and “clean” ideas of the “Hero’s Journey” cycle actually is.
Because all 3 of the Calamity Trio could easily fit into the usual origin of an isekai Hero protagonist.
Anne is transported to the rural backwater Valley, for all intents and purposes the Amphibian equivelant to the Shire. Here she meets the locals, an insight into the nitty gritty parts of amphibian life and seem to be as if it was tailored to fit the classic everyman turned grand destined hero background.
Sasha was thrown into jail the moment she got there, but through her resourcefulness, and supernaturally enhanced strenght, she quickly rose to become the de facto boss of her little corner of the land.
Add this, with the fact that she would later go on to rebel against the ruler of the land, who was an evil, cruel tyrant who dreamed of interdimensional conquest, and has set up the current feudal structure to make sure the Toads Sasha is now in charge off is as miserable as possible, this is basically the set up for standard one lone Rebel against an Evil, oppressive Empire story.
Then there is Marcy’s story where she ends up in the fantasy capital, and for all intents and purposes, she gets to live out the life as a classic Isekai protagonist, going from shy, awkward nerd, to superpowered, beloved Badass, in service to the King.
Her story is basically set up as the kind of Hero’s tale that you find in protagonists like the Elder Scrolls various Heroes, where a complete nobody rises from complete obscurity to become big and important. They might not be the guy in charge, but they are the guy the entire plot revolves around, and they are the ones going around and fixing everything, and becoming famous and beloved in the process.
Complete with a hidden power, and a grand destiny.
It is the very image of a fantasy hero origin.
On their own, each of these could have been a big, overarching story telling the tale of a singular hero’s rise to grandness.
However, what Amphibia does instead, is completely deconstruct the very idea of the grand destined few becoming heroes and defeating the great evil, by showcasing the fact that the actual road to being a hero isnt quick, it isnt easy, and it isnt clean and neat.