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kiwibirb1 · 2 months

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Yahaha guess what motherfuckers (sorry I get an intense urge to say motherfuckers after saying yahaha it's affectionate) NEW AU BUT PLOT TWIST ITS JUST WV BUT THE FORGERS ARE DEAD

Sooo first off we start with the basics. It's WV canon up until Sasha meets the Forgers (so anne and marcy are the same in this AU (so far)). However, this time, instead of arriving to an empty snail shell and an overturned wagon, she arrives to an empty snail shell, a destroyed wagon, and what's left of some poor axolotls. She fights the herons, it goes slightly better bc no one to distract her but she still loses eye, dies, does the whole powers thing. This time, however, she somehow finds the strength to hobble into the ruined house, where she finds patches herself up and collapses onto the couch. Wake up in the middle of the night to whimpers coming from the basement. He goes down the stairs, sword out and ready, to find a little blue axolotl tadpole shivering in the corner, alone and scared. Points are connected immediately, and he goes to comfort the poor baby. "Where's my ma?" "I'm sorry."

Yeah so Sasha feels guilty now bc if he hadn't stopped to check out that mushroom he probably would have gotten there soon enough to save them. So the best course of action is obviously to adopt the child. Sasha and Finley (the name he manages to coax out) woo! So yeah events take. A lot longer bc now he's busy raising a child and being on the run so girls don't reunite until they're 18 (two years later than WV). Finley is idk 8-10 haven't really decided on age yet I think.

Stuff under the cut kinda accidentally became an almost fic so yeah it got pretty long so cut for your convenience. It's basically just the girls first meeting. Anne catches sasha, finley saves him, marcy catches finley, sasha reveal but not anne and marcy, sasha and finely escape.

Anyway Anne has finally caught the notorious 'Wandering Vagabond' (Sash had to do a lot more stealing to make sure Finley was properly fed okay) and is about to start monologuing or something idk when all of a sudden she's hit in the bad arm with a hmm we'll decide on the weapon later anyway Anne is hit and while she's distracted this random 9 year old (lets go for a nice middle ground here) jumps out and starts to untie Sash. They free the Wandering Vagabond, and Anne is like "Wait, kid! You don't have to help them if they kidnapped you! We can get you back to your parents!" Finley turns around stops for a sec, as does Sasha. (Although for different reasons. Why does that voice sound so familiar?...) Finley both signs and shouts at the same time, "I ain't kidnapped! Pinky saved me!" Anne snorts, leaning back and crossing her arms. The trees rustle, and Sasha begins to look anxious. She goes to grab Finley's arm, to tug the young axolotl along in their escape, but all of a sudden there is a twang and a fwoosh and Finley is in a net, pinned up to tree right beside Anne. Sasha growls, signing angrily as a dark shape leaps out of the trees behind her. "You better give me back my kid." Marcy laughs, and Sasha freezes once more, though it is much shorter this time as she has already pulled out her sword, and is backing up, struggling to keep both assailants in her one-eyed line of sight. Marcy giggles, and her eyes flash orange for a moment before she frowns and it goes away. "Look, we won't hurt the kid, (Al don't you dare) just return them to their parents." Sasha spits out, her hands full, "Her parents are dead. Now give me back my kid, and I might let you leave here alive, you [some sort of human realm specific swear to tip them off idk]." Anne and Marcy both freeze. (Oh yeah fyi they're all wearing hoods and shit so each of the two groups thinks the other is some sort of newt. and puberty for the voices explanation.) Marcy in her eternal clumsiness accidentally fires a crossbow shot, ripping Sasha's hood off and revealing what is definitely not a newt. Sasha's eyes widen and she breaks off towards the net, slicing through it in one hack of her sword. Finley leaps, kicking Anne in the face, and she stumbles to the ground as Sasha and Finley escape into the woods, leaving behind two dazed newts who are definitely not newts.

ahaha wow okay so thats long but um. yeah. What do I call this bc at first I thought Wandering Vagabonds bc y'know theres two but i would def mess up the tag soo hm. what to do what to do taps fingers thoughtfully. um almost just did Heron and the Fox (y'know like that one fable) but then remembered Finley is blue not orange like my brain keeps saying she is. Whatever Sasha has a child now

#if anyone got au name ideas. or just ideas for the au. hit me up yall #amphibia #sasha waybright #wandering vagabond au #amphibia au #writing #anne boonchuy #marcy wu #toaf au

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discet · 10 months

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You know, ive been thinking about amphibia’s caste system, and while its true that theres a hierarchy(newts ->toads ->frogs) if you look closely, all three races suffer a form of oppression:

Frogs are obviously oppressed by toads, which is what we see in season 1. But it also causes them to ignore that the newts are the ones in charge.

Toads live in brutal society(just look at toad tower) which is encouraged if not enforced by newtopia. Gladiatorial combat apparently exist, and newtopia will apparently send assasins to kill captains who fail their jobs. The only upside is that they get to bully the frogs.

Newts might be above the other two…but thats to distract them from how their king neglects them. Prior to Marcy’s arrival, newtopia didn’t have a functioning sewer system, the night guard was reduced to 3 members, and despite being the city of wealthy scholars, newts like bella and triatonio still live in poverty. Not to mention, theres no talk of newt settlements outside of newtopia, so it’s possible that they’re left to fend for themselves. Its a bad sign that the most competent civil servant is a child.

And through all of this, andrias constructs society so they all point fingers at each other and not at him.

Yeah, no, Andrias is a magnificent villain. Even before they start clearly signaling his sinister intent, you can put together that he is either a terrible ruler, or a very adept tyrant.

#amphibia

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tharrb · 5 months

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Andrias was never a good person

Aka how framing can completely skew a viewers understand of a story

If you like andrias, don’t read further

There’s a general consensus that Marcy is at fault for everything that happened, whilst Andrias isn’t at fault for his actions. So why is that? I’ve already talked ad nauseousum about how the show treats marcy, so i’ll instead talk about how the show treats andrias.

He’s presented as a tragic figure. One that was betrayed by his friends, and so shut himself off from the world. What’s more, he was effectively coerced into villain, and wouldn’t do his horrible deeds otherwise.

But in truth, thats not the case. He wasn’t forced into villainy. In fact, he seemed to throw himself head first into it. His issue was that he couldn’t let go of his past friendship’s, like his speech in true colors suggest; rather, he threw them away, blaming them for his own misdeeds. Even before his falling out with lief and barrel, he was still enthusiastic about conquering other worlds, and show signs of racism(even towards his best friend).

Moreover, I’d argue that the vast majority of his actions are entirely his own doing. The core never made him oppress the frogs and toads, and it never made him neglect the newts. That’s was all him. And of course, it’s established that he loves hurting people, to say nothing of how he treated Marcy. He only feels remorse when he hurts someone he’s close to. Everyone else though? Fuck um.

Then there’s his relationship with marcy. Ultimately, he doesn’t actually like Marcy for Marcy; he likes her because she reminds him of lief. It’s literally the first interaction they have. And given putting aside that, he still hurt her. At best he looks like a spineless coward, at worst he’s outright cruel to her.

By contrast, Marcy isn’t nearly as bad a person. Her decision to get her friends stuck in Amphibia was one made out of desperation, and her going along with Andrias’s plan was under the assumption that no one would get hurt. Tricking her friends is still a shitty thing to do, but she ultimately atones for it. Whereas Andrias only atones when he receives an apology

So, why is it that the fandom has such a backwards interpretation of these two characters? Why are we still going back and forth over weather or not Marcy saw amphibians as npcs, yet no one doubts that Andrias truly loved Marcy? Why are fans so willing to dump everything onto her, but overlook Andrias’s actions?

To put it bluntly, because the narrative said so.

Yes, what Marcy went through was traumatic…but the show seems to believe its his tragedy, not hers. No one feels any sadness for Marcy, except for him. While Andrias is still a villain, much of his villainy is the typical cartoon villain stick. His cruelest act(hurting marcy) actually gets downplayed(anne and Sasha never question why he wants her alive or think he’s hurting her, nobody being that worried for, her being comatose or possessed for most of season 3 means she can’t get angry or upset.)

the show goes to great pains not only to showcase his tragic backstory, but how he’s being controlled by the core.

Meanwhile, when ever season 3 does focus on marcy, its always about her own actions. Even morally good characters seem to think that her mistakes warranted what was do to her, or at least getting little sympathy. Andrias is the one who’s allowed to stand up to his abuser, while marcy learns that she is at fault for everything.

Because the show frames these characters this way, fans are willing to ignore common sense and bash the traumatized child while woobifying the colonizer.

So when someone says you’re “falling for the writers trap” by sympathizing with marcy, just know that they’ve already fallen for the actual trap.

#amphibia #andrias leviathan #marcy wu #salt

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ferviks · 1 year

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I've been thinking about the calamity trio. They were just kids. They were just middle schoolers liveng their lives and in the next moment Anne and Sasha are fighting on swords on a tall ass tower, where the second one almost dies, falling from a crazy hight. Anne is being betrayed by both of her best friends, one of which is a goddamn Leuhtenant ant the other - a royal fucking adviser. AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN Sasha leads a whole ass army, gets a mythical warhammer, cracks the stone with by getting thrown on it TWICE, fights off of a killer newt and wears unimaginably heavy armor. Marcy is being decieved by a grown ass gigantic newt, get stabbed and might I remind you GET BLAIMED FOR IT. Anne whitnesses Marcy getting, as she might've thought, killed + AndriASS throws Sprig outta window. Girl gets a fucking blue powers that exhaust her body and than Anne gets thrown to Earth with, lemme count: a) Sasha's backstabbing (again), b) Marcy's betrayal, c) possible death of both of her close friends, d) the weight of responsibility of getting the Planters home e) a killer FUCKING ROBOT. In the meantime, Sasha protects Wortwood and than leads the resistance while the whole Amphibia is getting destroyed! And Marcy is getting possesed by a freaking ancient evil, which've been existing even longer then AndriASS.

Once again ! THEY WERE 13!

And than Anne fights government and gets to Amphibia fighting alongside Sasha. In the process of preventing Frogvasion, Grime gets his hand chopped of, Sasha gets SEVERE wounds and almost dies, while Anne is fighting a big asshole in a robotic costume. A. Newt. King. In. A. Robotic. Costume. Against A 13 YEAR OLD GIRL WITH BLUE POWERS. I MEAN SHE'VE BEEN SMACKED TO EVERY POSSIBLE SKYSCRAPER.

And even this is not enough. And they fought a fucking moon and Anne gave her LIFE FOR IT. SHE WAS READY TO GIVE UP ON EVERYTHING FOR AMPHIBIA. A child behaving like a whole ass adult. She've gained unimaginable powers and lost her life. I can't live with the knowledge of it.

They've been through SO MUCH. I don't believe for a second that thay actually got over it. Nu-uh. It was BEYOND traumatic.

Я думала про лихе тріо. Вони були просто дітьми. Вони були просто ученицями середніх класів, які жили своїм життям, а в наступну мить Енн і Саша б'ються на мечах на високій блядь вежі, де друга мало не гине, падаючи з божевільної висоти. Енн зраджують обидві її найкращі подруг��, одна з яких - клята Лейтенантка, а інша - довбана королівська радниця. У ТРИНАДЦЯТЬ РОКІВ Саша очолює цілу армію, отримує міфічний бойовий молот, розбиває камінь, бо її кидають в нього ДВІЧІ, відбивається від тритона-вбивці та носить неймовірно важкі обладунки. Марсі обманює дорослий гігантський тритон, її протикають йобаним ножем, і, дозвольте нагадати, що її у цьому ж і звинувачують. Енн стає свідком того, що Марсі, як вона могла подумати, вбивають + Андріас викидає Спріга з вікна. Дівчинка отримує довбані сині сили, які виснажують її тіло, а потім Енн кидають на Землю з: а) ударом в спину від Саші (знову), б) зрадою Марсі, в) можлива смерть обох її близьких друзів, г) вага відповідальність за повернення Плантарів додому e) Вбивчий ЙОБАНИЙ РОБОТ. Тим часом Саша захищає Вортвуд і потім очолює опір, поки всю Амфібію знищують! А Марсі одержує жахливе стародавнє зло, яке існує навіть довше, ніж Андріас.

Знову ж! ЇМ БУЛО 13!

Потім Енн бореться з урядом і потрапляє до Амфібії, борючись разом із Сашою. У процесі запобігання жаб'ячого вторгнення, Грайму відрубують руку, Саша отримує ЖАХЛИВІ рани та ледь не помирає, а Енн бореться з великим мудаком у костюмі робота. Король. Тритон. В. Костюмі. Робота. Проти 13-РІЧНОЇ ДІВЧИНКИ З БЛАКИТНИМИ СИЛАМИ. ТИПУ, ЇЇ ЙОБНУЛИ ОБ КОЖЕН МОЖЛИВИЙ ХМАРОЧОС.

І навіть цього недостатньо. І вони бились із довбаним місяцем, і Енн віддала ЗА ЦЕ ЖИТТЯ. ВОНА ГОТОВА БУЛА ВІД УСЬОГО ВІДМОВИТИСЯ ЗАРАДИ АМФІБІЇ. Дитина поводиться як повноцінна доросла. Вона набула неймовірних сил і втратила життя. Я не можу жити зі знанням про це.

Вони БАГАТО пережили. Я ні на секунду не вірю, що ти справді подолав це. Нє-а. Це було НАДЖЕ травматично.

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yippeetournament · 10 months

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ROUND 1 MATCH 15: CHIYO MIHAMA vs MARCY WU

At 10 years old, child prodigy Chiyo Mihama (Azumanga Daioh) has skipped five grades to tenth grade and is still at the top of the class. Aside from being seen as impossibly cute, Chiyo is a nice girl — a peacemaker who tries to stop any bickering and who is generous by nature. Her friends sometimes take advantage of her good nature and scholastic abilities. Her biggest weakness is that she is terrible at sports — she is not only five years younger than her peers, but small for her age — which leads to a lack of confidence because she feels she is a burden.

Marcy Wu (Amphibia) is extremely intelligent, a hardcore gamer, and a terminal geek. Only problem is she is not very observant...at all. Her friends Anne and Sasha would have to keep an eye on her so she doesn't get herself hurt. Of the three friends that get transported to Amphibia, Marcy got the long end of the stick, falling smack dab in the middle of a thriving kingdom and befriending King Andrias. For her, this fantasy world full of talking frogs, toads, and newts is a dream come true.

#azumanga daioh #chiyo mihama #amphibia #amphibia marcy #marcy wu #bracket tournament #tournament poll #tournament #yippee #tbh creature

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inktog · 2 years

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Ants, Eyes, Butterflies, and the Hole in Marcy’s Heart

[CW: child sex abuse, rape, incest, body dysphoria, Christianity, transphobic hate crimes]

Ever since True Colors aired, I’ve wondered at the sexual implications of Andrias skewering Marcy with his flaming blade. Sometimes a sword is just a sword, I know. Sometimes a large man ramming his gigantic sword through an adolescent girl in a way that draws attention to how small and vulnerable she is by comparison, is just a large man ramming his gigantic sword through an adolescent girl in a way that draws attention to how small and vulnerable she is by comparison (220).

But the sexual violence imagery kept piling up—especially in the Core’s possession of Marcy (307b).

As this anon points out, Andrias puts a person inside of Marcy (307b): symbolic impregnation, foreshadowed by the fertilization imagery that precedes her impalement (220, above). The binary data that floods her body, ganking her physical autonomy (307b), is akin to a swarm of gametes, the “DNA” of the Core—which is itself both impregnator and, as a disembodied robot head, the child.

Compounding the impregnation imagery is the facehugger-like claw that snatches Marcy from the safety of Olivia and Yunan (307b). This might seem like a stretch, but Alien’s facehuggers are referenced more overtly in Marcy’s debut episode (206), so the callback seems noteworthy.

Finally, the Core keeps Marcy’s consciousness “locked in a little room” while piloting her body (314b). This strikes an eerie parallel to Apothegary’s spores, which make Sprig feel like “a prisoner in my own body” (119a) and which symbolize sexual abuse.

The big question is: Why does Marcy live out an extended rape metaphor within the dreamscape of Amphibia? Let’s start with the most obvious explanation.

Answer #1: Marcy was sexually assaulted and impregnated sometime before leaving Earth. Her impalement and possession is a reenactment of that trauma. If Andrias is a mythic stand-in for Marcy’s father, then her dad is the likely perpetrator.

I think it’s important to sit with this reading and not dismiss it out of hand for being too upsetting. Amphibia is a coming-of-age story, and sexual violence is, horribly, a part of many people’s childhoods. Young teen girls are assaulted more often than any other age-gender demographic. About half of child sex abuse is committed by family members.

That Marcy willingly returns to her parents is a strike against this idea, or at least against her dad being the rapist—although it’s not out of the question that Marcy would choose a known evil over fear of the unknown after all the horrors she experienced in Amphibia.

But in any case, it’s not the only explanation.

Ants vs. Newts

Mind-body dualism is a recurring theme for Marcy. The Shadow Fish are incorporeal ghosts, defeated only once they become flesh and blood (210a). Triple B declare themselves “analysts” as they scoff at “field work” (206). Decapitation, a literal separation between head and body, shows up three times in conjunction with Marcy: the ant head presented to Olivia (206), the Toadstool clock tower (215a), and Fleafy (216b). The Core alienates Marcy’s brain from her own flesh (314b). And way back in her debut episode, Newtopia is a paragon of intellectualism and culture, while the invading barbariants are driven by animal instinct (206).

The barbariant-newt conflict is also gendered. The ants have a queen with no king; Newtopia, a king with no queen (206). They are earthly, bodily, mortal, female; we are enlightened, disembodied, our rulers immortal (307b, 314b), our king male. They procreate and die; we preserve and persist.

So when the ants threaten to “turn Newtopia into a giant anthill” (206), the fear is not just body overwhelming mind, but also female displacing male. Accordingly, the anthill evokes a uterus (given the focus on queen-as-mother) and breasts (a mound of female earth). This is firmly Marcy’s episode, Marcy’s mission, Marcy’s triumph—and Marcy’s body dysphoria.

He witnesses his own reflection, and it is horror: a jump scare that causes him to recoil in fear (210a). Apparently, Marcy doesn’t like looking at himself. I count this as another point for body dysphoria, backed up by the fact that he alone doesn’t keep his copy of the trio’s photo.

Marcy, like a Shadow Fish, fears the mirror because it embodies them—makes the fact of their female flesh undeniable. (Or, well, “female.” I’m sacrificing perfectly trans-inclusive terminology for the sake of clear communication, with the justification that Marcy’s unconscious also seems to conflate sex and gender.) The butterfly which distorts their visage signifies metamorphosis, change—puberty.[1]

The recurring rift between mind and body is symbolic of Marcy’s tendency to get “in the zone”: to shut out her physical surroundings and focus with single-minded determination on a puzzle, game, or some other mental task (206, 214). This is plausibly the result of an innate neurodivergence; autism and ADHD are common headcanons. But dysphoria provides an alternate, or at least supplementary, explanation: Marcy’s body is the unbearable reality from which she escapes to her head.

Answer #2: For some trans folks, the mere existence of unwanted sex characteristics feels like a violation on par with rape. The extended sexual violence metaphor of Andrias and the Core—the betrayal, the loss of autonomy, the abject horror—communicates Marcy’s relationship to his own body as puberty takes its hold.

The Penetrating Gaze

Marcy’s psyche spawns monsters with prominent, leering eyes: the Core (307a) and the Shadow Fish (210a). This could just be a symptom of Marcy’s social anxiety, their “trouble looking people in the eye” (207a). But given the sexual symbolism already present in the Core’s treatment of Marcy, I’m inclined to view it as a kind of ogling.

Andrias’ sword is part of a Biblical allusion that we’ll dig into later. For now, just note that “a flaming sword turned every way” (Genesis 3:24) evokes the omnipresent, red-orange glare of the Core, and thus conflates the act of looking with the act of assaulting.

During the mirror jump scare, Marcy’s gaping, toothy maw is a callback to “bad boy” Branson, whose open trap (210a) is both lepidopteran and yonic.[2] Through the plant, butterfly with teeth becomes synonymous with vagina dentata, a fantastical defense against rape. For Marcy, then, puberty is a time to throw up defenses against the possibility of sexual violence.

Answer #3: The leering gaze which haunts Marcy represents unwanted sexual attention from peers or adults directed at her maturing body. Rape and pregnancy are not reenacted traumas, but unrealized fears: the horrifying endgame of all this attention.

Between Anne and Sasha’s dueling and Andrias’ flame blade, swords are sexualized. Marcy is the only one of the trio who doesn’t wield a sword, a possible hint that he’s ace.

Answer #3a: Marcy’s discomfort with sexual attention is compounded by their asexuality.

A popular interpretation of the prom poster and Sashanne fusion (Amphibia 307b) is that Marcy is attracted to both of her friends; she’s afraid that they’ll start dating each other and that she’ll be left behind. After being confronted with this nightmare, Marcy becomes the leering eyes, villain of her own story (307b). Even earlier, Marcy’s fear of her own reflection likens her to the other set of oglers, the Shadow Fish (210a).

Perhaps Marcy fears the power of his own gaze—thinks he’s hurting Sasha and Anne just by looking at them, wanting them. And perhaps the fiery phallus (220) belongs not just to Marcy’s rapist, but simultaneously to Marcy himself, sprouting unwanted from his heart, which will soon bear one of a set of red eyes (307b).

Answer #1a: As a result of an assault, Marcy was forcibly given sexual knowledge beyond their years, which colored their perception of both Anne and Sasha. Marcy has a lot of shame attached to the assault and to their own experience of sexual attraction.

Answer #1b: Marcy believes her assault to be the source of her transmasculinity.

Back to Paradise

Marcy thinks he and his friends can keep adventuring “forever and ever” and “never have to grow apart” (220). Perhaps Andrias hinted earlier (off-screen) at his ability to cheat death, or perhaps Marcy just assumes that he’ll find the secret to immortality somewhere in the great wide multiverse. Either way, Marcy does not want to die.

The phrase never grow also implies not growing up. We’ve already discussed Marcy’s fear of puberty, which they might associate with unwanted sexual attention, sexual trauma, or dysphoria-inducing body traits.

The dual anxieties of mortality and puberty are united in the image of the butterfly, which symbolizes not only metamorphosis and change, but also (as any post–season 2 Amphibia theorist would tell you) death; and in the barbariants, who play not only the queen to Newtopia’s king, but also the fleeting individual lifespan to its timeless immortality. Female flesh, mortal flesh—for Marcy, it’s one and the same.

This duality is reflected in the Biblical story of original sin. For those unfamiliar with the myth: After God creates the universe, he makes two humans, Adam and Eve, and gives them free reign of the bountiful Garden of Eden (Genesis 2). The humans are allowed to eat from any tree in the garden (2:16), except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:17). A malicious serpent tempts Eve to disobey this rule (3:1–6), who in turn tempts Adam (3:6). The humans previously existed in a state of childlike sexual innocence, “not ashamed” of their nakedness (2:25)—but after eating the forbidden fruit, they become able to conceptualize evil and shame, and they cover their naked bodies (3:7). For their disobedience, God casts them out of Eden (3:23).

The show alludes to this passage rather strongly with its inciting incident—Anne is tempted to disobedience and theft, with the music box functioning as the forbidden fruit, and then the friends are cast from the only world they’ve ever known: literally Earth, but also childhood, symbolized by the gated playground from which they depart (Amphibia 101b), and on Anne’s thirteenth birthday (120) no less, a cultural milestone for the start of adolescence—so I’m comfortable mining it for further analysis.

The myth shares with Marcy’s dreamscape a tight connection between sexual maturity and death. In forbidding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God cautions that “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:17). He makes good on this promise after they disobey, cursing them with a mortal life full of struggle and strife: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (3:19). God exiles humans from Eden to make sure they stay mortal, for within the garden is a tree whose fruit grants immortality (3:22–23), and if the humans ate that, it would completely undo the whole dust unto dust punishment.

Marcy has a particular, peculiar concept of immortality: she wants to escape death by returning to a state of perpetual physical childhood. This helps to explain many of the seemingly arbitrary infant symbols which coalesce around her—zombies are babies because they defy the natural cycle of life and death; disembodied heads are babies because Marcy wants to decouple physical growth from mental growth, freeing her consciousness from the baggage of an aging, growing, sexual(ized) body; robots are babies because of her transhumanist aspirations—as well as Marcy’s affinity for those symbols, especially plants (210a, 215b, 216b) and robots (215b, 216a).[3] Deathless childhood is loosely synonymous with transmasculinity, and in particular medical transition, since sexless is loosely synonymous with male under the male = mind, female = body schema.

God leaves a flaming sword to guard Eden against the humans’ return (Genesis 3:24). Remember that Earth is the Eden from which the trio have been cast. Marcy tries to go back (Amphibia 220), symbolically signaling a desire for immortality—i.e., medical transition—and Andrias impales him with a flaming sword (220).

Answer #1d: Marcy is a victim of homophobic rape—sometimes called “corrective” rape—assault motivated by a desire to “fix” their non-normative gender identity.

Conclusion

Well, that was a lot. In lieu of a single overarching thesis, I hope this post serves as a more up-to-date record of how I’ve been thinking about the sexual violence metaphor built into Marcy’s character arc.

Some of the explanations I provided are mutually exclusive, but most of them aren’t. Marcy could be trans and a survivor of assault and generally uncomfortable with sexual attention and guilty about desiring Anne and Sasha. Or any combination thereof. Maybe she’s dealt with rape threats but hasn’t been assaulted. Maybe she was actually raped, but pregnancy is an unrealized fear. Or I’m wrong about everything.

In any case, there’s a lot that’s left unstated, a lot to be unpacked, and a lot that I’m probably missing. Further lines of inquiry that I’d like to pursue include:

Darcy as a twisted wish fulfillment of Marcy’s immortality fantasy: body no longer maturing (per the axolotl helmet), mind uploaded to the Core.

The justification for patriarchy written into the myth of original sin.

The “bad boy” comment directed at Branson in light of Marcy’s possible transmasculinity.

Marcy’s relationship to plants more generally.[3]

Heart as the severed bridge between mind (Wit) and body (Strength).

I might update this post if I turn up anything coherent.

Footnotes

[1] If Marcy’s fears are manifest in the butterfly, why is he so enthusiastic about dressing up as “the personification of metamorphosis” (219b)? Perhaps it’s the agency: choosing to roleplay as puberty and change allows Marcy to engage with those fears on his own terms, which is quite different from unexpectedly coming face-to-face with them while already anxious and scared.

[2] If it seems far-fetched to consider the Branson yonic, then contrast with Grime’s murderplant in 120, a “she” with a big ol’ phallic tongue (below). I don’t know what this says about Sasha or Grime, but the total reversal of it in 210a—flipping the gender from female to male, and the sex from male to female—lends a sense of intentionality to Branson’s design.

[3] Plants are the only baby symbol that aren’t explained by Marcy’s immortality fantasy, yet they play an important role—the central role, arguably—in establishing Marcy’s fascination with childhood. At a first guess, maybe plants represent a kind of “natural” childhood (born of earth and water, dying like the rest of us) which might not fit Marcy’s fantasy but with which they’re nonetheless fascinated? Anyway.

—

Credit to an anonymous AO3 commenter for the observation that Andrias' flaming sword might be a Biblical reference.

Amphibia citations are SEE, where S is season number and EE is episode number. a and b denote each episode’s first and second segments, respectively.

Biblical quotes are from the King James Version.

#amphibia #marcy wu #meta #mine #nsfpc #i guess it was just a two-day break

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xenia12 · 1 year

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Ok but one thing that bothered me is Marcy’s relationship with the newts

Anne earns the frogs respect and becomes a hero.

Sasha proves her use to the toads, and while most of them leave, grime, Percy, and Braddock stay

Marcy does everything she can for the newts, and they forget about her the moment she gets stabbed.

Like what gives? Why are the newts so uncaring towards their hero? Some fans say that she spent so much time having adventures that she didn’t get to know them, but we know that isn’t true with how much she tries to befriend others(and even if she didn’t, certainly someone would have cared out of gratitude). So instead, it comes off as the newts being self serving jerks, and Marcy shouldn’t have even tried to help them.

Oh no no they didn’t forget about her!! Well they probably did for a bit but, after they decided to turn on the king, they then considered breaking her out JUST so the physically and emotionally scarred 13 year old could help them outsmart him. Not only did the thought of a rescue attempt only cross their minds for selfish reasons, but Yunan immediately tried to shoot the idea down. She wanted to abandon Marcy and leave her terribly injured in the hands of a “mad king” just because she overheard ONE mistake she made when she felt like her whole world was falling apart and wasn’t thinking.

I can see Marcy maybe not having a whole lot of personal conversations with Olivia or Yunan, but she was someone they knew — a CHILD at that — and had good experiences with. Yet they would’ve left her for dead if Olivia didn’t know Marcy once beat Andrias at a board game, meaning there was a chance she could outsmart him for them.

I do like Olivia and Yunan, honestly, and am deciding to think that the neglect was more from the writers rather than them as genuine characters, but it just makes me so sad cuz they could’ve cared a LITTLE BIT without affecting character arcs ;-;

As much as I love angst, Marcy deserves better than this shit that lowkey just makes the two newts just seem like bad people and doesn’t even serve the plot :<

Edit: WHOOPS I got so caught up in my rage that I didn’t even realize you meant the newts in general, not just two of the ones she personally knew XD. BUT UH I can sorta excuse everyone else (except like the Triple B ig) cuz she was up in a flying castle that only a handful of people had access to lol.

#Anyways I have THOUGHTS and all of them are 🧂#Sorry about the rant tho jfhsbsjah #marcy wu #amphibia analysis #That sounds like a nice term for it tho…#It’s really just me rambling about things I’ve put together out of spite XD #Also I haven’t slept in like 20 hours ✨

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eeveearoace-creative · 2 years

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some marcy/ yulivia angst (requested by @tharrb)

summoning the eevee simps: @arcadiii, @goodartitude, @karamelys, @peachpaws0

[if you want to be added/ removed from the tag list, just let me know!!]

cw: vomiting, unreality, hallucinations, self harm (accidental), (green) blood, gaslighting, possible past child abuse

Another wave of orange sludge spewed past chapped lips as Marcy vomited.

Marcy whimpered as Olivia hummed gently, the newt rubbing slow, rhythmic circles into the human’s back. Marcy sniffled, trembling feverishly – she hated being weak like this.

She only wanted to use you to escape, a chorus of voices whispered. Whether the voices were real or just a memory, Marcy wasn’t sure – but she pushed them away, vehemently ignoring them. What they were saying was a lie – she knew it was. If Olivia didn’t care, then –

It’s all just a show, the voices continued. You’re useful to her. She can use you to save Amphibia – the environment, the people –

“Shut up,” Marcy growled. Olivia paused.

Uh, oh, the voices sang. Now she thinks you’re crazy – not that she didn’t already.

“How’s she doing?” Yunan asked, entering the room.

Oh, and Yunan, the voices hummed. You know, she called you a – what was it, again? Oh, right, yes – a backstabber.

“Shut up,” Marcy repeated, curling into herself.

She didn’t even want to save you. But, they needed you, the voices sighed. So many parental figures, and not one of them ever actually loved you.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Marcy cried.

You know we’re right. They’re only here now out of obligation.

“Get out of my head,” Marcy sobbed.

Aw, Wit, the voices cooed, We’re not leaving you. We’re the only ones who never will.

“Get... out...”

Oh, Wit, you’ll never be free of us.

“Get out...”

They didn’t even try to save you. Just give in, and we will give you the peace they never could. Just give up, just give in...

Marcy snapped back to reality as someone lifted her chin.

“Breathe,” Olivia ordered calmly. “In, hold, out, hold. Alright? Just breathe with me. In, hold, out, hold...”

Marcy felt her heartbeat slow as she listened to Olivia’s directions. Looking down, she noticed Yunan holding her hands, dripping with green blood – blood was soaking through Marcy’s shirt, right over where the scar on her chest was.

“Can I let go of your hands?” Yunan asked slowly. “Can you promise me you won’t go back to scratching yourself?”

Marcy nodded numbly. Her hands trembled as Yunan let go of them, her fingers still dripping with unnatural neon green.

“Marcy, honey, can you tell us what’s going on?” Olivia asked softly.

Sure, tell them, the voices giggled, It’ll just prove how insane you truly are.

Marcy shook her head.

Just tell them you’re hearing voices, the voices laughed. They’ll just send you away. If only they knew how truly broken you were...

“Love, you can tell us,” Olivia promised. “No matter what, okay?”

If your own parents didn’t want you, why would they?

“I...” Marcy stammered.

They’ll throw you away –

“I hear them.” Marcy squeezed her eyes shut. “The Core – it’s voices. I – I don’t kn-know if they’re r-real, I j-just –”

“Oh, darling,” Olivia breathed.

Marcy had dealt with her own parents long enough for her to know what was coming next. Yelling, screaming, telling her she just wasn’t being strong enough –

Two pairs of arms wrapped around her waist.

Marcy blinked.

“I can’t even imagine,” Olivia whispered, brushing a lock of hair out of Marcy’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

Yunan didn’t say anything. Instead, she just rubbed Marcy’s back, a comfortable weight.

“We’ll figure this out together, okay?” Olivia promised, placing a kiss on Marcy’s forehead.

“But-”

“No ‘but’s,” Yunan interrupted. “I don’t know what it said to you, but we’re not going anywhere, okay?”

Marcy’s bottom lip trembled. A sob escaping her, she sank against Olivia and Yunan, curling into their arms.

“... thank you.”

“Of course,” Olivia murmured, eyes warm with affection. “Rest now, love. We’ll be here when you wake.”

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ltamerica · 2 years

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Amphibia AU but it’s Half-Life.

Alyx Vance is a teenager living with her mother and father in base housing at the Black Mesa Research Facility. Gordon and Barney are both her age, and go to the same school: Barney’s dad is a security guard and Gordon is just a gifted student who dreams of working at Black Mesa one day.

The day of the test, Alyx, Gordon and Barney are all in Anomalous Testing: Alyx because of her dad Dr. Vance, Gordon because he won the county science fair and got to go on a tour for gifted students, Barney because it’s bring your child to work day.

They all get teleported to Xen (and only them) once the resonance cascade happens.

Alyx is Anne, Gordon is Marcy, Barney is Sasha. The vortigaunts are the frogs/olms, the grunts are the toads, the controllers are the newts.

Nihilanth is Andrias, the Advisors are the Core, the Combine synths are the robot army, and the crystal samples are the calamity gems.

G-Man is either Mr. X, the Guardian, or maybe both. Maybe Dr. Breen is Mr. X.

Domino 2 is a headcrab that grows into a gonarch.

#amphibia #half-life #half life #gordon freeman #alyx vance #anne boonchuy #crossover #fusion #au #calamity trio #xen #someone who can draw please find this

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t00nyah · 1 year

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made a doodle :)

#amphibia #newt child marcy #marcy wu #sasha waybright

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thisbelongsto-nohbodys · 1 year

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For the newt wedding traditions, maybe some scribbling ceremony of sort where the parent would pass down a scroll of the various signatures of their family line down to the child that’s being wedded and their spouse? Like a family tree but it’s just a long scroll where each section is sewn or added in some way for the next entry. Like those ganalogical rolls but its in the amphibian script?

That would take Marcy a long time to not only research her and her fiancee's family tree (and then later the Amphibian side) but also translate it into the runes and sew it all together into a fabric-like papyrus paper scroll. she'd def do it and within a short amount of time that most would consider scary quick but Marcy is def the person who'd do something crazy like that since she'd have to work from scratch.

#ask #amphibia #marcy wu #sashannarcy

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laaauc · 2 years

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sun digs its heels to taunt you

mod lore: well this has been a wip since march, but it's finally out! this is the one that "yunan the tea" comes from lmfao

warnings: description of surgery, blood, scars, mentions of seizures and unethical experimentation, marcy harm

2.7k

Laurel can’t take this anymore. This thing she contributed to, transformed that sobbing girl into with her own hands, it follows her through the halls like a shadow, taunting her from the darkness.

When Olivia and Yunan escape the castle, fleeing to join the rebellion, she does not follow. She stays, because no one else can convince the Core to provide even a tiny amount of care for its host. It’s the least she can do, trying to care for the thing controlling Marcy’s body.

Laurel still remembers the day Olivia and Yunan had approached her and asked her to help them save Marcy, so many weeks ago, now. It’d been shortly after the helmet’s completion, and, looking at Marcy’s sullen, slumbering face as she floated in the healing chamber, her body riddled with stitches, she realized she couldn’t go through with it. She stored it away, still wired to the Core in preparation for its usage. It sat in the shadows of the operating room attached to the Core’s main chamber, where it would be used. Even knowing that Marcy would be anesthetized for the procedure, she couldn’t leave her to the fate that she would be subjecting her to otherwise.

One night, she left the laboratory and begged Lady Olivia—a newt she’d known though Marcy’s neuroscience research, a project that she’d in fact been referencing throughout her creation of the helmet—for help, all it took was a moment to tell her of the horrors the girl was being put through, even if Marcy was not aware of them, before Olivia promised to help. Two days later, the official date of the download put off until Marcy’s wounds healed, Olivia told her that she’d gained the assistance of General Yunan and that the two of them were gathering supplies to attempt a rescue. And so, that night, they ventured into the catacombs to that twisted secret laboratory at the heart of the castle.

It did not go well, and they were left with Marcy as a prisoner in her own mind, although Laurel discovered through careful observation that Marcy was most likely completely unconscious and unaware of her predicament. When they are finally able to save her, it would be as if she’s merely been asleep since that moment she passed out during the torture Andrias had forced them to subject her to. And Laurel fears for that, because Marcy will know none of the comfort she’s tried to provide her broken, puppeted body during her time trapped in her mind. Rather, the last thing she recalls will be the instant that Laurel had placed a helmet on her head that caused her truly unimaginable agony, something she never should’ve been awake for. Those last moments of terror will not fade quickly from her already-fragmented mind.

The other newts return weeks later, arriving when a pair of resistance soldiers infiltrate the castle.

“This is Anne, and her friend Sasha,” Olivia introduces them, Yunan at her side to keep a watchful eye for robots or Andrias. Laurel nods, acknowledging their presence but not introducing herself. She doesn’t want to. Not after what she did.

“Laurel,” Yunan says. “We’re here to save Marcy.”

Oh.

Anne and Sasha, the two humans, track down the Core first. Long ago, when Marcy had been a bright, strange child, new to this world and fascinated to explore and study it, she’d talked Laurel’s ear off for hours with stories of her friends, the two of them looking over long rolls of brain readings and data from Marcy’s study. Now, these two girls have been turned into hardened warriors by the battles of this world, and Marcy herself? Laurel can only hope she hasn’t lost her forever.

Flashes of blue come from another wing of the castle, traveling in their glow like strikes of lightning.

Yunan looks into the distance. “We’ve given them long enough. We should follow now.”

They race through the corridors, and come upon a wing that was already cracked and damaged months before this day. “Oh…” Olivia gasps. “Not… here…”

But the bloodstains splattered on the tiles, stained thick as spilled paint, are real, as is the broken throne before the shattered crystal window.

Anne and Sasha kneel over Marcy next to a freshly broken column, the dark-haired girl lying quite still. The Core’s helmet, complete with the long cord that threads through that device that Laurel herself had constructed and into Marcy’s skull, still rests upon her head, but the screen of the visor is cracked so as to expose the right half of her face.

“We haven’t seen Andrias—Yunan, your diversion tactic must’ve worked, but we need to get out of here. He’ll realize it’s a trick as soon as he notices we aren’t there,” Anne says, pulling Marcy into her lap. The unconscious girl’s face shifts imperceptibly at the movement.

Laurel shuffles her feet. “We need to get into somewhere where we can barricade any attackers out.”

Olivia looks to a nearby room. “There’s a closet off of Andrias’s antechamber that could work. There’s a secret exit from it, too, if we need to make an escape.”

“Let’s go,” Laurel says, already following Olivia. Anne and Sasha carry the increasingly lucid girl behind her, Yunan picking up the back. And behind them, the wires in the helmet drag through debris, disappearing far in the distant halls to the Core’s own form.

As they settle into the cramped space, Marcy shifts again. “Sashy? Anne?” she mumbles, just as she had back at that initial rescue. This time, however, they’re able to respond that, yes, it’s us, we’re here, Marbles.

And then the part she’s been dreading, as she watches Marcy catch a glimpse of Olivia and Yunan taking her into their arms with her one exposed eye.

“N-no! P-please, please, no,” she whines, trying to writhe free.

“Shhh, Marcy, my child,” Olivia attempts to soothe her. “We aren’t going to hurt you; I promise we won’t let you hurt ever again.” It’s no use; the last Marcy saw of them was them holding her against a chrome table as Andrias ordered Laurel to go through with the Core’s download with the assigned host awake and terrified. An experience like that doesn’t fade quickly; it may well have been the most pain the poor girl had ever experienced, even including the incident during the experimentation that she’d undergone, recorded in Triturus’s lab reports; even including the night she’d died, so slowly and painfully as the other newts’ story goes (as well as quite horrifically, based on the records and photos of her injuries kept in the lab).

So Marcy panics, held in their arms tightly once again, despite being in her best friends’ company as well as the amphibians’. Comfort is something all too foreign to this child, Laurel thinks, her heart aching.

“Yunan, the tea,” Anne reminds, and Yunan suddenly pulls a thermos from a hidden pocket in her armor. An herbal scent fills the closet when it’s opened, and Laurel sighs in relief. She won’t have to put Marcy through something like this with her wide awake and terrified once again.

“Marmar, drink this,” Sasha says, holding the thermos to Marcy’s lips and letting her sip. She drinks deeply, the Core having let her body become badly dehydrated despite Laurel’s insistence. Quickly, Marcy’s eyelids begin to droop, and she falls forward into the others’ arms, gradually settling in a position she must find comfortable, even in her surely aching condition. It won’t fully knock her out, but it will dull the pain and keep her calm and drowsy. Laurel, meanwhile, has snapped on rubber gloves and is already examining the state of the helmet. It’s not vital that she takes this off cleanly, so she splits it along an existing crack. Marcy is left facedown with her eyes buried in Anne’s arms. Her hair spills around the metal-lined hole in the back of her skull, where those wires feed. This is the hard part.

From the pouch at her belt, she removes a few sterile-wrapped scalpels, and brushes Marcy’s hair to the side with her fingers. The rectangular patch of exposed implant is about three inches long and two tall, the scalp immediately surrounding it bare of hair and scarred.

Marcy flinches a bit when the blade goes through the skin at the surface of her scalp, and Laurel, too, winces. This will be the worst part for her, she knows. Even with her scalp scarred and numb, it will sting. Once she gets deeper, to start removing the implanted device, she shouldn’t feel anything. Marcy whimpers and whimpers, tears soaking into the layers of Olivia’s dress, but she stays quiet while Yunan urgently whispers for her to avoid making noise.

Laurel pauses to mop the blood from Marcy’s hair and neck before she continues. She knows precisely how this device was implanted; she can remove it as well. She’s made her way through the scalp, past the edges of the hole already cut in her skull. The hard, shiny metal of the plate covering the implant is slick with a sheen of blood. She fiddles with that outer piece until it comes away from the part inside her head that connects to her brain, sliding down the cable that threads through it. Now, the edges of where the implant burrows into the tissue to connect to her neurons are more obvious. She lines up the scalpel with precision, hoping to cause as little damage as possible.

This is where she warns the other children to look away.

Anne still winces when she hears Laurel’s knife sink into tissue. It’s an awful sound, and she notices Marcy’s face twisted in worry, even in her drowsiness. Her fingers clench and twist into Olivia’s skirt when Anne gently pushes her arms down to keep her from trying to touch the wound.

Just before Laurel finishes, Marcy begins spasming uncontrollably, muscles rapidly tensing and untensing. Though Olivia begins to panic, Laurel reassures her that seizures are common during brain surgery. She’ll be fine, hopefully, though more of these may be likely.

All in all, it takes a bit more than half an hour for Laurel to remove the device. As soon as it’s out, she immediately drops it, where it clunks to the ground with the wires still attached, covered in blood and bits of brain. But the shouts of Andrias, discovering Marcy gone, and the clanking, metallic movement of robots fill the halls already. Laurel can install a plate over the hole in Marcy’s skull later; right now they need to go. Yunan wraps Marcy’s head in bandages, Laurel pulls off her gloves, drops them on the floor of the closet as Olivia pulls a hidden lever to open the passageway, and then they run.

Once they’ve made it out, through a series of secret passageways that deposit them on a balcony, Yunan whistles for Marcy’s old sparrow. He shows up as reliably as ever, and surely with little time to spare, the whole party piles on.

They change her out of the Core’s armor on the back of the bird, just beginning their flight away from the castle. The girl faintly protests their actions, but her speech is still slurred and failing her.

Anne gasps when she sees Marcy’s scars, no longer covered by that hideous, bloody bodysuit, the raised lines clean and clinical on her torso. They’re in layers, the deep, darkened mark where Andrias’s sword had plunged through her chest being the first laid down. Then there are the long, straight, pink marks of Triturus’s experimentations, along with scars from the many other surgeries she’d undergone during her time in that laboratory. Along her back, around the exposed metal of an artificial spine; down her side, the skin stretched and rippling; on her arms and legs, such long incisions for such small ports surely hiding something implanted deeper below her skin. Most obvious, of course, are those expansive sets of scars that cover her front; Laurel knows these are from the two occasions on which Triturus had laid open her body just to see what a human looked like on the inside. Anne only sees this as evidence of Marcy’s pain, and shakes with sorrow.

Laurel carefully checks her body for any other wounds, finding circular cuts from the tubes they’d inserted latching onto her, as well as a few gashes from the battle that she’ll have to stitch closed if they’re still leaking blood by the time they reach their destination.

Marcy seizes again while on that flight through the morning sky. None of the newts can stand to hold her still this time, so Anne and Sasha have to make sure she doesn’t fall off Joe’s saddle as they fly. Once it’s passed, she sweats and shivers in their arms as Joe Sparrow soars away into the clouds.

Staying deep under Wartwood in the caverns of the Resistance, Marcy recovers, but slowly. Laurel is forced to use a plate of frobot scrap metal to fashion a plate for her head after a week goes by without a better option. She installs it over the hole in Marcy’s skull one night, without any more sedation than another round of that calming tea. Her choked screams will never leave Laurel’s mind, not after causing those to be torn from the girl’s throat herself one two many times. Marcy stays sick in bed the next two weeks, head throbbing with pain and body aching, though Sasha, Anne, Laurel, Olivia, and Yunan all stay by her side. She has mostly regained her normal speech by the end of the first month after her rescue.

Some pains remain, even months later. The scars that cover Marcy’s body sometimes ache, deep and precise in their strokes, each mark of pain made in the name of science. Her spine, severed when Andrias had dealt that fatal blow, had been repaired with an artificial replacement that stretches from between her shoulder blades to the small of her back, the black metal starkly contrasting the heavy scarring from where the sword had burned deep wounds across her back, but moving remains difficult, so she mostly stays in her bed, set up in a cave in the depths of the catacombs beneath the Plantar Farmhouse. Her head remains achingly sore, off and on. None of them can tell if this is a temporary consequence of her frantically rushed brain surgeries or something more permanent that will remain a chronic pain throughout her life, thanks to the forceful way her mind had been violated.

Even harder to heal are the mental scars.

She flinches away from the newts for months. It’s weeks before there’s even a single exception to this. They were afraid of this; they have been ever since the disastrous attempt to save Marcy from any more suffering. That glance they’d shared the moment before they’d chosen to hold Marcy still for the download rather than let Andrias do it had said everything. But one night, she wakes from a nightmare to Laurel’s cool, partially-webbed hands holding her shoulders, and she doesn’t push her touch away, despite the horrible familiarity of that touch. And so Laurel cries into her pillow once she has returned to the bed she shares with Olivia and Yunan, just at the hope that she’ll trust them again, despite what they were forced to do to her.

They’re still in hiding, the long, seemingly endless war having reached a lull in the Amphibian winter. Marcy, perhaps the key to winning when the combat resumes, is healing from her injuries, able to help the resistance plan its attacks even from her bed when she’s able, and now she’s recovering mentally, as well. Soon, she can leave her bed, walk slowly through the halls on makeshift crutches, regaining the strength she’d lost.

Laurel can’t wait to launch an attack that will destroy the flying castle where the salamander who’d killed Marcy and left her to a fate worse than death leads the war, and watch that laboratory shatter to pieces along with it.

But this winter, they remain underground, and Marcy heals, and the planet awaits the conclusion to this war.

#mod lore #writing #marcy wu #sasha waybright #anne boonchuy #laurel rue irvine-froude #lady olivia #general yunan #abeboy

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