frogchamp

cube - they/them - i write sometimes maybe - current obsession: frog show - icon by @sunartem

[sunartem]

oi!!

[kyoryu]

getting boba pre vs post amphibia

[sunartem]

cosplay

[sunartem]

here's the thing finally

[sunartem]

quick animatic I did this morning

audio is Help by Jack Stauber

[annaki-deactivated20220530]

putting this here with a youtube link bc tumblr screws up videos sometimes

[cube-quill]

Got a new icon thanks to @cuttlegear! His art is awesome, give him a follow and check it out!

[cube-quill]

True Colors Spoilers below!

So hold on, before Marcy actually got stabbed her last words were “I just need to-” and then she gets cut off. What did she need to do? We’ve seen that doing different things with the music box’s many hidden buttons and crank seems to allow for different things to happen- like how in The First Temple Marcy extracts the wisdom gem and also how she’s able to open the portal in True Colors. Doing different things with the music box clearly requires specific combinations of controls - and I’m assuming Marcy only knows a limited amount of these compared to Andrias, who knew how to operate a freaking LASER CANNON with the box. 

So, with the portal open and Anne and the Plantars safely in it, what could Marcy have been doing? If she wanted to close the portal behind them, I’m assuming she could have done that after running through herself. A possibility could be she was trying to make it so they could return to Amphibia after going through? I don’t know if she’d know how to do that, though, so it remains a curiosity. Just something to think about.

[wormautopsy]

Worm fact Wednesday! :)

i am the singular manifestation of every worm you’ve ever seen.

that worm you saw on the sidewalk yesterday? that was me. that worm you stepped on years ago? that was me, too. i’m coming for you

[cube-quill]

do you get a lil spark of warmth and gratitude when little elementary school kids move you out of the sidewalk

[inktog]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then Andrias is a stand-in for both Marcy's dad and for her associated guilt. The symbolism points toward Marcy-as-evil-mastermind not because it's true, but because she thinks it is—she thinks everything is her fault. Which makes her teary apology even more tragic :c

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

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

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

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

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

[fistraid]

sorry anne, now its time for the plantars to ruin YOUR home as an adopted family

bonus Sylvia comic bc i miss her

[ghoulinfuschia]

A friend and I were talking about the possibilties of Andrias trying to use Marcy for her calamity powers (assuming she gets them back somehow), so i wanted to sketch some sort of design of what she’d look like Post- Toad Revolution She’s incredibly jaded and kinda just does what she’s told. Also she’s in very dire need of a hug. Calling her Jaded Marcy.

[ysabellious]

<polly voice> GET READY FOR THE PAAAINNN!!!

[mothicalspoken]

Gentle reminder that this exists.

[ghoulinfuschia]

Im trying so hard to discern whether or not that’s Anne’s handwriting

It’s such a small thing but I want to know ao bad

[ghoulinfuschia]

I think Anne wrote it

The “A”s look similar and her handwriting looks rounder

[ghoulinfuschia]

Wait so Anne’s handwriting is more on the pointy side?? And Marcy wrote her own name since those two match

So did Anne write her own name too or did Marcy write both of their names- Cuz Anne’s looks pointier in the last pic what

[ghoulinfuschia]

I wanna say it’s Marcy but Marcy connects her letters and writes in cursive

Screw it the two girls probably wrote their own names and I’m overanalyzing this

[cube-quill]

Though the "Marcy wuz Here" note was written in non-cursive, so maybe she only Signs her name with it sometimes and so she wrote Anne's name in round handwriting? Anne seems to write her own name in all caps so maybe Marcy wrote both??

[ghoulinfuschia]

M...Maybe??? That’d make sense?? But at the same

She wrote Anne’s name in cursive on the left over there so?? Did she like switch writing styles for a second???

[copperfurredfox]

Anne’s name is also written like that just under Sprig’s arm, and the graffiti also looks more rounded (but that may just be how spray paint looks)

Maybe some days she writes it sharper or something?

[amphibiasideblog]

hey can i point out that these people just never seem to write their names consistently at all ever especially given how willy-nilly they switch between all caps, lower case, and cursive, and they've been best friends since before they could write anyway so quite frankly their handwritings may have assimilated-

but we do have a few distinct pen colors and, well, if you look at what those colors are-

[holydramon]

actually since there are 3 distinct handwriting styles, I think it might just be that they have all written anne and marcy’s name at some point

like we see here that there is one person who writes in cursive (marcy), one person who writes in all caps and has somewhat sharper handwriting (anne), and one person who has a more curvy handwriting style (sasha)

admittedly the handwriting I’m saying is Sasha’s does look a lot different than her writing in “SASHA WUZ HERE” but that might just be because it looks like it might have been carved rather than written?

[amphibiasideblog]

I do like the idea of analyzing based on handwriting here, however I hesitate on these being distinct handwriting styles on account of the fact that we're mostly sorting them into "Always writes caps, always writes cursive, and always writes lower case" here.

I mean, look at the cursive writings for example. The slants in the letters differ from one to the other even though typically (especially with on-paper written writing) words tend to slant differently depending on the person. Beyond that, the a's in the Marcy's are distinctly different styles from the a's in the Anne's. Beyond that, even within the a's that are all written like the one's to the right, the loops vary massively in size, as do the general shaping and once again the slant of it. From one to the other as well, the sizes of the n's and e's are longer on one than the other. It's the same style of writing in a sense but it's definitely not the same in a lot of other ways. On the other side, while those a's are also technically the same style, the way the letters are looped is different, once again the slant is different, the m on the bottom is a lot tighter and taller on the top wheras the other m is looser and longer on the bottom, one of the r's is sharper than the other, one of the c's leans heavily into the y while the other doesn't, and the y itself is looped and crossed differently. Some of these when compared independently i'd say could probably be the same person with mild variance, however all five of these weren't written by one person in my opinion.

I'd venture to suggest that even the signature on the left here which heavily resembles Marcy's actual signature (right) wasn't signed by Marcy. The slant is different, Marcy's m's are longer and taller and curvier and just generally get more room, her a doesn't have a tail unlike the one on the left, her r is more curbed on all ends, and the y is the biggest difference with the one on the left having a small loop and a big fancy tail while the one on the left has a big loop and no tail.

These are definitely both in cursive using a cursive writing style but I don't think the same person wrote them. I'm fairly certain whoever wrote on the left wasn't Marcy.

That's where it gets tricky though and why I said originally that it's hard to decipher who's handwriting is who's. Not only would sorting them into "Cursive, Caps, Non Caps" be the easiest way of sorting based in handwriting, it's kinda the only way to. People's writing change when the writing style changes, Marcy writing in cursive probably won't look like Marcy writing in caps and Marcy writing in caps won't look like Marcy writing in lower case. We see a pretty clear example of this when you compare the sample we actually do have of Marcy writing in cursive to the sample we have of her not.

Pretty much everything about Marcy's style changes from one of these to the other because people just don't write the same in cursive as they do otherwise. Which means even if I managed to sort the cursives into three distinct groups and the caps into three distinct groups and the normal writing into three distinct groups I probably couldn't tie those groups together or to a person anyways. Especially since our actual samples of them writing are...lackluster...to say the least. I mean Sasha carved her name into a wall and Anne's isn't much better.

I really don't think we have enough to go off of handwriting-wise here. If someone can find examples of any of the girls writing in other styles or even just with more words there I could probably Try to at least begin but as things are, especially with the three different kinds of writing (cursive, all caps, non caps) which they probably all dabbled in judging by the differences between the different signatures even in the same kind of writing, I definitely hesitate to say we can really make judgement calls off of writing style.

[cube-quill]

I am super impressed by your analysis(I didn't even look at the cursive inconsistencies wow) and I think there's definitely enough evidence that I agree everyone's handwriting changes from place to place. Here's a couple more samples of Marcy's handwriting from Scavenger Hunt:

Her all-caps, I guess? And compared to the other instances of her writing it's VERY different. Who knows what that means in terms of figuring out who wrote what here, but it's just kinda fun to think about!

New game... figure out who wrote the BFFS on the photos...

[cube-quill]

I found another Marcy sample and uh. I guess my theory of her always signing in cursive is also out the window?

[mothicalspoken]

Gentle reminder that this exists.

[ghoulinfuschia]

Im trying so hard to discern whether or not that’s Anne’s handwriting

It’s such a small thing but I want to know ao bad

[ghoulinfuschia]

I think Anne wrote it

The “A”s look similar and her handwriting looks rounder

[ghoulinfuschia]

Wait so Anne’s handwriting is more on the pointy side?? And Marcy wrote her own name since those two match

So did Anne write her own name too or did Marcy write both of their names- Cuz Anne’s looks pointier in the last pic what

[ghoulinfuschia]

I wanna say it’s Marcy but Marcy connects her letters and writes in cursive

Screw it the two girls probably wrote their own names and I’m overanalyzing this

[cube-quill]

Though the "Marcy wuz Here" note was written in non-cursive, so maybe she only Signs her name with it sometimes and so she wrote Anne's name in round handwriting? Anne seems to write her own name in all caps so maybe Marcy wrote both??

[ghoulinfuschia]

M...Maybe??? That’d make sense?? But at the same

She wrote Anne’s name in cursive on the left over there so?? Did she like switch writing styles for a second???

[copperfurredfox]

Anne’s name is also written like that just under Sprig’s arm, and the graffiti also looks more rounded (but that may just be how spray paint looks)

Maybe some days she writes it sharper or something?

[amphibiasideblog]

hey can i point out that these people just never seem to write their names consistently at all ever especially given how willy-nilly they switch between all caps, lower case, and cursive, and they've been best friends since before they could write anyway so quite frankly their handwritings may have assimilated-

but we do have a few distinct pen colors and, well, if you look at what those colors are-

[holydramon]

actually since there are 3 distinct handwriting styles, I think it might just be that they have all written anne and marcy’s name at some point

like we see here that there is one person who writes in cursive (marcy), one person who writes in all caps and has somewhat sharper handwriting (anne), and one person who has a more curvy handwriting style (sasha)

admittedly the handwriting I’m saying is Sasha’s does look a lot different than her writing in “SASHA WUZ HERE” but that might just be because it looks like it might have been carved rather than written?

[amphibiasideblog]

I do like the idea of analyzing based on handwriting here, however I hesitate on these being distinct handwriting styles on account of the fact that we're mostly sorting them into "Always writes caps, always writes cursive, and always writes lower case" here.

I mean, look at the cursive writings for example. The slants in the letters differ from one to the other even though typically (especially with on-paper written writing) words tend to slant differently depending on the person. Beyond that, the a's in the Marcy's are distinctly different styles from the a's in the Anne's. Beyond that, even within the a's that are all written like the one's to the right, the loops vary massively in size, as do the general shaping and once again the slant of it. From one to the other as well, the sizes of the n's and e's are longer on one than the other. It's the same style of writing in a sense but it's definitely not the same in a lot of other ways. On the other side, while those a's are also technically the same style, the way the letters are looped is different, once again the slant is different, the m on the bottom is a lot tighter and taller on the top wheras the other m is looser and longer on the bottom, one of the r's is sharper than the other, one of the c's leans heavily into the y while the other doesn't, and the y itself is looped and crossed differently. Some of these when compared independently i'd say could probably be the same person with mild variance, however all five of these weren't written by one person in my opinion.

I'd venture to suggest that even the signature on the left here which heavily resembles Marcy's actual signature (right) wasn't signed by Marcy. The slant is different, Marcy's m's are longer and taller and curvier and just generally get more room, her a doesn't have a tail unlike the one on the left, her r is more curbed on all ends, and the y is the biggest difference with the one on the left having a small loop and a big fancy tail while the one on the left has a big loop and no tail.

These are definitely both in cursive using a cursive writing style but I don't think the same person wrote them. I'm fairly certain whoever wrote on the left wasn't Marcy.

That's where it gets tricky though and why I said originally that it's hard to decipher who's handwriting is who's. Not only would sorting them into "Cursive, Caps, Non Caps" be the easiest way of sorting based in handwriting, it's kinda the only way to. People's writing change when the writing style changes, Marcy writing in cursive probably won't look like Marcy writing in caps and Marcy writing in caps won't look like Marcy writing in lower case. We see a pretty clear example of this when you compare the sample we actually do have of Marcy writing in cursive to the sample we have of her not.

Pretty much everything about Marcy's style changes from one of these to the other because people just don't write the same in cursive as they do otherwise. Which means even if I managed to sort the cursives into three distinct groups and the caps into three distinct groups and the normal writing into three distinct groups I probably couldn't tie those groups together or to a person anyways. Especially since our actual samples of them writing are...lackluster...to say the least. I mean Sasha carved her name into a wall and Anne's isn't much better.

I really don't think we have enough to go off of handwriting-wise here. If someone can find examples of any of the girls writing in other styles or even just with more words there I could probably Try to at least begin but as things are, especially with the three different kinds of writing (cursive, all caps, non caps) which they probably all dabbled in judging by the differences between the different signatures even in the same kind of writing, I definitely hesitate to say we can really make judgement calls off of writing style.

[cube-quill]

I am super impressed by your analysis(I didn't even look at the cursive inconsistencies wow) and I think there's definitely enough evidence that I agree everyone's handwriting changes from place to place. Here's a couple more samples of Marcy's handwriting from Scavenger Hunt:

Her all-caps, I guess? And compared to the other instances of her writing it's VERY different. Who knows what that means in terms of figuring out who wrote what here, but it's just kinda fun to think about!

New game... figure out who wrote the BFFS on the photos...

[mothicalspoken]

Gentle reminder that this exists.

[ghoulinfuschia]

Im trying so hard to discern whether or not that’s Anne’s handwriting

It’s such a small thing but I want to know ao bad

[ghoulinfuschia]

I think Anne wrote it

The “A”s look similar and her handwriting looks rounder

[ghoulinfuschia]

Wait so Anne’s handwriting is more on the pointy side?? And Marcy wrote her own name since those two match

So did Anne write her own name too or did Marcy write both of their names- Cuz Anne’s looks pointier in the last pic what

[ghoulinfuschia]

I wanna say it’s Marcy but Marcy connects her letters and writes in cursive

Screw it the two girls probably wrote their own names and I’m overanalyzing this

[cube-quill]

Though the "Marcy wuz Here" note was written in non-cursive, so maybe she only Signs her name with it sometimes and so she wrote Anne's name in round handwriting? Anne seems to write her own name in all caps so maybe Marcy wrote both??

[ghoulinfuschia]

M...Maybe??? That’d make sense?? But at the same

She wrote Anne’s name in cursive on the left over there so?? Did she like switch writing styles for a second???

[copperfurredfox]

Anne’s name is also written like that just under Sprig’s arm, and the graffiti also looks more rounded (but that may just be how spray paint looks)

Maybe some days she writes it sharper or something?

[cube-quill]

Lol true that is very possible, there's also this gem in there:

Where someone just totally forgot part of her A. I guess the answer is inconsistent handwriting or the secret third possibility of one of these handwritings is Sasha writing in a name

[mothicalspoken]

Gentle reminder that this exists.

[ghoulinfuschia]

Im trying so hard to discern whether or not that’s Anne’s handwriting

It’s such a small thing but I want to know ao bad

[ghoulinfuschia]

I think Anne wrote it

The “A”s look similar and her handwriting looks rounder

[ghoulinfuschia]

Wait so Anne’s handwriting is more on the pointy side?? And Marcy wrote her own name since those two match

So did Anne write her own name too or did Marcy write both of their names- Cuz Anne’s looks pointier in the last pic what

[ghoulinfuschia]

I wanna say it’s Marcy but Marcy connects her letters and writes in cursive

Screw it the two girls probably wrote their own names and I’m overanalyzing this

[cube-quill]

Though the "Marcy wuz Here" note was written in non-cursive, so maybe she only Signs her name with it sometimes and so she wrote Anne's name in round handwriting? Anne seems to write her own name in all caps so maybe Marcy wrote both??

[fistraid]

uhhhhh there are drawings in this post