Grime - Tumblr Posts
“if i had a nickel for every-time a character lost their hand at the end of a show, i’d have 3 nickels , which isn’t a lot , but it’s weird that it happened thrice right?”
Why do I ship this?
soooo ... I watched two seasons in two days and I must say that I LOVE THIS SERIES! Also, here is the humanization of two frog grandfathers
(after "The Dinner" my world never be the same)
Grime: haha you're so mentally ill *adopts you*
Sasha: wtf?????
PSYB3RMOTH - CALCULATEDCHAOS.EXE // 3D cover art + animation by PSYB3RMOTH
3D animation for official audio on Youtube
Youtube: PSYB3RMOTH
amphibia? more like dragon…. ia (based on @/cutetanuki_chan au cause I’m low key obsessed with the concept)
Amphibia - The Hardest Thing Thoughts
(art credit to @kayseix)
Ever since last Saturday I’ve been trying to write out my thoughts on The Hardest Thing and after four drafts and almost 10,000 words written and deleted I think I’ve finally figured out how to organize everything I have to say about this finale.
Series finales are the hardest thing to stick the landing on and in many ways they can make or break a series for many people. This episode managed to hit all its emotional beats home just like Amphibia has always done. I have a few issues but nothing that will keep me from revisiting this series in years to come.
I know I’m not the first nor will I be the last to say this but The Hardest Thing is saying goodbye. The girls have to say goodbye to the friends and family they made in Amphibia and in a way all these goodbyes encapsulate and close out their individual arcs and the show’s themes.
Marcy’s goodbyes were bittersweet in a way that was different from Anne and Sasha’s goodbyes. Unlike theirs hers was sad because of what could have been. She didn’t get to know Olivia and Yunan as well as she could have and now she won’t be able to. She befriended them but because of her outlook when she came to Amphibia she didn’t get to find a new family in them like Anne with the Plantars or Sasha with Grime. And her goodbye with Andrias was short and full of pain because if it weren’t for the core they could have been family but they can’t turn back the clock.
Andrias has broken free of the core but he can’t undo his betrayal of her. He can’t stop himself from stabbing her or letting the core possess her. He cared about her but when the moment of truth came he chose the core and his mission over her.
Marcy has insight into how the core treated and manipulated Andrias which gives her new understanding of him but it doesn’t negate his actions. It also doesn’t negate the impact he had on her life. It is a weird mess of emotions and complicated feelings because she did care for him and vice versa but so much has happened that they can never have that bond that the others have. But they will both forever carry the impact they had on each other.
Their story is tragic.
Marcy’s goodbyes are a new beginning. Her big moment in All In was the equivalent of Anne’s big moment in Reunion where she stands up to Sasha or Sasha’s big moment in Turning Point where she decides to do the right thing. These were beginnings where the girls made the decision to be better, become who they were meant to be, and work to reach their full potential. And their subsequent actions in those episodes solidified this change. These goodbyes were the solidification of Marcy’s decision to change.
In a way this isn’t the end of her story and arc that Amphibia brought about but the beginning and I think that works perfectly for Marcy.
Sasha and Grime’s goodbye was about more than one thing but it was most importantly a close to their emotional arcs. Both Grime and Sasha build walls around their hearts and put up a tough exterior to hide their genuine care for each other and others. Throughout the series we’ve seen time and time again that they have chosen each other above themselves. Sasha stuck with Grime after Reunion and protected him in Toadcatcher, Grime returned for Sasha in Turning Point, Grime sacrificed his arm to save Sasha’s life in All In, etc. They have had each other’s backs at every turn no matter how dire the situation. They may not say it aloud but they have become family.
Sasha and Grime have developed a father/daughter sort of bond through their adventures and seeing them finally let their walls fall and break down crying at their goodbye was emotional. Neither would have dared to show this type of emotion around others before this point in the series. Sasha was determined to hide her sadness and hurt behind confidence and anger and Grime would never show anything other than ruthlessness before Sasha. They bettered each other and broke down each other’s walls.
But Sasha’s goodbyes also play into the idea that you won’t always get closure for everything. Sasha gets to have this heartfelt goodbye with Grime but she never did get to see Percy and Braddock again. She never got to make things right. And that’s an important part of her arc.
Sasha for so long struggled to see the consequences of her actions and it caused her to lose Percy and Braddock and it almost cost her her friendship with Anne. She luckily got a chance to reconcile with Anne and build a stronger bond than ever because of it. But this isn’t the case with Percy and Braddock.
This adds extra weight to Barrel’s Warhammer. Sasha’s actions in that episode made it so that she didn’t get to ever see them again. Her actions had lasting consequences that she will never get to undo.
Even though that’s the case Sasha doesn’t stop trying to better herself and that’s important. She was very self destructive at the start and actively put her life in danger multiple times but now she wants to get better, to be better, for those around her but also herself.
Anne’s goodbyes come full circle as well. This goodbye really shows Anne and the Plantars’ personal growth. In season 2 during the episode A Day at the Aquarium they couldn’t bring themselves to say goodbye or even think of the fact that they would have to say goodbye but now they are faced with the reality that they will have to let go. They didn’t want to be reminded of their adventures because they thought it was too painful but after all this they surround themselves with mementos of each other and the time they spent together.
Anne and the Plantars are family they have been and always will be no matter what. This doesn’t change that. It can’t. They have irrevocably changed each other. Her goodbye with Sprig was understandably the one that was the biggest tearjerker out of all the Plantars.
The friendship between Sprig and Anne is what started this series. It’s what got Anne to grow and what motivated Anne to stand up for herself. It’s what gave Anne perspective on what a healthy friendship looks like. It is, in a way, the catalyst for much of the growth and change in the show for the characters and the world. If Sprig hadn’t become Anne’s “first non-toxic friend” (in the words of Matt Braly) then none of the girls would have grown into who they were meant to be.
Spranne against the world was a catchphrase they used that grew into something much more than what it was that first time they shouted it in early season one. Since then they’ve faced down tyrants, toad rebellions, the FBI, an immortal collection of Amphibia’s greatest minds, and the literal moon and have always had each other's backs.
Spranne kicked this adventure off and it’s their goodbye that closes it out.
It’s simple and beautiful and heartbreaking all at once.
Now to come back to the space battle and the moon. Sasha and Marcy’s calamity forms have been teased since Anne first accessed hers back in True Colors and we finally got to see them in action.
Amphibia didn’t hold back and gave us the most fun and colorful fight sequence in the whole show. I love how all of their calamity powers have to do with their activities from home that helped them most in Amphibia. Anne’s tennis skills and natural athleticism helped her fight even before her lessons from Tritonio which is most notable in Toad Tax. Sasha’s cheerleading helped her stay alive from the heron attack in prison break and feeds into her fighting ability. Marcy’s passion for fantasy and DnD plays into how she is able to do so well in Newtopia as mentioned in Marcy at the Gates. I love that this keeps coming back around in the story.
I love this frame of the girls grabbing onto each other and laughing while they spin in space. It just makes me really happy about how far they have come individually and as friends. The fact that they all grew so much and were able to come back together always hits me. It brings me back to that photo Matt Braly shared on twitter of the sketch of the three girls on the coach leaning into each other so with the caption “it’s complicated”. Through everything they all cared deeply about one another and managed to grow so they could get to this point.
Most importantly this part closes out the arc of the calamity trio as a whole. Anne started out this series as a follower. She did what Marcy and Sasha wanted and took the easy path but that’s not who she is anymore. She asks for their permission to take the lead and they allow her to.
She accepts her fate and makes the hard choice. In a way this is the hardest thing as well. Sasha and Marcy have to take a step back and give Anne their stones and their trust. Anne has to make this decision knowing that she will be giving up everything.
Anne has grown to be a light for so many people. She’s grown to love herself and through that has learned when to take the lead. She’s what Sprig dubbed her in the very first episode, a hero.
Anne makes the ultimate sacrifice and dies. The Anne we know does in fact die. A copy was made of her right before she expired; she is “for all intents and purposes the same Anne Boonchuy”. It’s been a week and I still don’t know how to tackle this subject but I do believe that this is Anne. I am happy that at least a part of Anne does in fact get to live her life. (To be honest I still don’t know if I’ve fully processes this part of the finale)
And we come to one of those things I’m conflicted about which is the creator of the stones. I’ve sat on this for a while now and I think I agree with this take right here. It would work better if there were any indication of there being a god outside of the line of foreshadowing within the episode Adventures in Catsitting and the photo on Anne’s bedroom wall.
No one before this point has been concerned about where the stones came from and there’s also the fact that someone/something we’ve never seen before in the series is what saves Anne from death. I don’t think either of these things fit the series as well as they should (The link explains this a lot better than I can).
That being said it works very well within the context of Anne’s arc and the themes of the show. Anne is given the chance to become a god and she turns it down. She isn’t perfect and she’s constantly growing, learning, and changing. Things aren’t set in stone.
Amphibia is centered around the theme of change. That nothing is permanent. And how that isn’t a bad thing. Bonds grow and change and sometimes you have to let them go but that doesn’t make their impact less meaningful. People change. They can seem set in their ways like Anne thought Sasha and Marcy were but they can surprise you and grow.
Nothing is perfect but with that comes beauty. The creator of the stones can’t grasp this. There is an inherent disconnect between an immortal being and a mortal one when it comes to this. They see Anne make this grand sacrifice and jump at the chance to make her their replacement. They claim she is perfect but she knows this isn’t the case. Anne understands this part of life now in a way she couldn’t before her journey.
Her understanding gives the god a new perspective and they allow her to go back and continue her life. Anne gets to continue her journey of growth and change. While she has an understanding and perspective beyond her thirteen years she still has so much life left to live and she deserves the chance to live it.
The epilogue shows a better world for Amphibia and shows just how much the world and its inhabitants have changed due to the trio. Sprig, Polly, and Ivy are going to go on more adventures and carry on in Anne’s memory by exploring a new continent. Grime, Olivia, and Yunan work together to facilitate peace and exploration. Hop Pop gets to grow his avocados. And Anne has a statue built in her honor.
Andrias roams helping fix the world he tore apart by planting seeds while carrying around the legacy and memory of Leif, Barrel, and Marcy through his keepsakes from each of them. He will never get the closure of his friends having seen him change and work to make up for past mistakes but he carries them with him and the lessons he’s learned from each. This ending fits perfectly with Amphibia’s themes.
I talked in depth about the earth epilogue here but to sum my thoughts up I think the dialogue doesn’t fully get across the intention behind it very well. It doesn’t get across that the girls did in fact keep in contact and that Marcy did visit after Amphibia but drifted apart due to time and differing life paths. I was genuinely disappointed in how the dialogue made the trio’s relationship after Amphibia sound but I love the idea and themes that it tries to get across.
I love the message that people do grow apart and that they can come back together again. I love how the trio meets up on Anne’s birthday, brings her presents, catches up, and takes a new photo. I love the idea that things aren’t permanent and that sometimes you will grow apart but that doesn’t make your experiences together and the love you share pointless, it just takes on a new meaning. I love that all these years later they could come back together and reconnect.
The final frame of the entire show is of the trio having taken a new photo. It’s a beautiful bookend to their story. The polaroid was such an important thing for every girl throughout the story but it grew and changed in significance with each of the girls. This new one symbolizes their new change in dynamic and friendship perfectly.
The fact that our first sighting of the group was this polaroid stuck in a tree in the rain during the opening and that this is the last sighting of the group right before “Complete” appears in Thai bringing the series to a close is so poetic. This series was about the friendship of these three girls falling apart and forcing them to grow separately as individuals before coming back together as true friends.
Amphibia is first and foremost a story about friendship and how each one can change you. How some while you may be separated the impact of that friendship will always remain. That sometimes you can reconnect with these old friendships even after all the time, space, and new experiences have changed you all.
Part of the journey is the end. This wasn’t a perfect goodbye to the series but it was a beautiful one that will be remembered. I know I will never forget it.
Extra thoughts
I want to give TJ Hill kudos once again. I love the upbeat rendition of no big deal that plays in the background of the trio’s space battle and the end credits music.
I have to say my favorite calamity form is Sasha’s. It’s just so extra with the flaming hair and abundance of spikes and it says more about who she is and what she represents than Anne or Marcy’s. (I still love their calamity forms too. Sasha’s just says the most about her in my opinion while Anne and Marcy’s have a lot of similarities to each other comparatively)
I absolutely love the moment where Andrias stands up to the core. They even hammer home the parallels between Anne and Andrias as well as Sasha and the core by having the scene where Andrias stands up to the core share the exact same dialogue as the scene where Anne does the same in Reunion. It even shares the red lighting and background.
I love how Grime kept Sasha’s sword. I love their bond so much.
My full expanded thoughts on the girls’ future careers is right here. I love all the career paths they took and feel like they were all extremely fitting and showed the effect Amphibia had on each of them.
Sasha is bi and I love it.
Olivia and Yunan are canon which I also love.
While it doesn’t hurt the finale for me I wish that we saw Sasha and Marcy’s parents. It just feels strange to have them teased in Froggy Little Christmas with the letters and All In during the phone call at the end only to never see them.
I also don’t think Anne will accept the god’s deal even after the next 78 years. Anne doesn’t want that kind of power and her response within the episode sums up how I think she will still feel after all that time. There is also an inherent tragedy to a mortal becoming an immortal, all-powerful being that I wouldn’t wish on Anne.
I also feel like the pacing of the first half of the episode was too fast. The calamity forms of the three girls is something that has been built up to for quite a while now and they come and go way too quickly. The pacing issue is very noticeable. I enjoyed what we got but it is jarring every time I’ve seen it.
Sasha is a very complicated character to say the least. She’s heavily flawed and due to these flaws she’s hostile to the idea of change but that’s why her arc works so well in the grand scheme of Amphibia.
Season two in particular has so much ground to cover in her arc and I want to dig into how much each of these episodes managed to get across about her character.
Sasha is fascinating in part because of her complex relationship to control and power and how it directly conflicts with her care for others. It’s made very clear at multiple points in the series that Sasha does genuinely care for other people.
She cares for Grime and won’t abandon him in Toadcatcher even when facing down Yunan, she cares for Anne and her decision to let go to prevent dragging Anne and the Plantars down with her in Reunion shows that, she cares about Percy and Braddock and shows conflict over losing them in Barrel’s Warhammer, she cares for Anne and Marcy in True Colors when she tries to hold off Andrias so that they could make it home.
Sasha cares deeply about those close to her but it always comes into conflict with her fear/resistance to change and her flaws. In every situation/episode mentioned these two parts of her come into conflict in some way yet she views them as deeply intertwined.
The episodes focusing on Sasha are usually really good because of this complexity. Season 2 is where this conflict is put under a microscope.
When we first see Sasha again in Toadcatcher she is grappling with the fallout of Reunion and Grime points out that she is training to avoid the reality that her friendship with Anne has irrevocably changed, things can never go back to the way they were. She’s not upset that she lost the fight but that she lost a friend.
Sasha is struggling with this and can’t accept the change or Anne’s independence from her. She wants to regain control over her friendships and force things back to the way they were. She hasn’t learned that those lines of thinking are faulty, instead she doubles down on them.
She next appears in Barrel’s Warhammer where she and Grime go to get the rest of the toads onboard with their coup on Newtopia but to be the leaders of this coup they need to go on a suicide quest for Barrel’s Warhammer (it is literally stated in the show to be a suicide mission). Sasha is more determined than ever to get the warhammer and gain power once she hears that Anne and Marcy are working together to get home without her.
She sees that Percy and Braddock are afraid of this suicide mission and gives them a signal, an out, they can use to let her know they want to stop the mission and go home. She is being genuine in this moment. Her voice softens and she doesn’t use any of her usual tricks. But when the moment of truth comes and she sees them use the signal she puts the mission before them.
She puts her life and the lives of her comrades at risk to prove that she doesn’t need Anne and Marcy and continue her quest for power. In her own words “I am not gonna fail. Not while Anne and Marcy are getting by without me.” She is upset because she believes that Anne and Marcy are doing fine without her, that they don’t need her like she wanted to believe.
I think that this outlook on need is important. She wants them to need her. If they need her they can’t leave her and she’s afraid of this rejection, of this abandonment. And if they don’t need her then she can’t need them. Sasha can’t show this need. It’s vulnerable. It’s a weakness in her mind and she can’t show weakness. She has to be fine on her own.
She pushes her team too far in her mission to reassert control and loses Percy and Braddock because of this. She seems genuinely effected by it. She’s starting to realize her actions have consequences. That she can’t force her wants and desires onto other people and expect them not to push back or leave when it hurts them. Grime’s speech about some people not being willing to pay the necessary price for success rationalizes her actions and prevents her from fully coming to this realization.
The true cracks in her resolve to follow through with her plans don’t start showing until the Third Temple. She has a moment of doubt about betraying Anne and Marcy after all the faith they showed in her. She starts to question if power is what she really wants if it comes at the cost of her friendship with the two like it did with Percy and Braddock.
There’s the implication that Sasha isn’t faking as much as she would like to believe she is during this reunion and it continues on for the next handful of episodes leading up to True Colors.
Sasha can be a tricky character to pin down because it can be hard to tell when she is being genuine or not and even trickier to tell when she is lying to herself or truly believes what she is saying. Sasha is just as good, maybe even better, at lying to herself as she is at lying to others.
There's the idea that Sasha isn't as sure of herself as she would like others to believe. Doubt about her actions has started to creep in. The anger, spite, and fear that she has been running on for most of this season has started to dissolve.
Her spite towards Anne after Reunion was a major driving factor in her plans for the coup and after their heart to heart in the Third Temple that spite has dulled. She doesn't want to lose her friendship with Anne and Marcy. But she hasn't fully accepted that her actions have consequences and is trying to convince herself that she can have power and keep her friendships too. (This is most obvious in how she acts after her coup/betrayal. She puts her arms around Anne and Marcy and tells them they can help her rule and seems shocked and upset when Anne ends their friendship.)
Interestingly enough Battle of the Bands sums up her complicated relationship with control and how it relates to her friendships really well. She wants Marcy and Anne to succeed and with her in control she thinks she could ensure that would happen. She thinks she knows what’s best for them and tries to force it onto them but Anne has learned to stand her ground and push back when needed.
When Anne won’t let her be in control she decides to take her own path where she has all the power over what happens. She gets into a situation where she has all the control only to learn how empty that is without those she cares about and that having someone who will do everything you say without question isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
She later comes to learn through Toadie that sometimes supporting her friends in their own endeavors can be just as meaningful even if they don’t come out on top. We see her give up that control she so desperately clings to and support her friends.
This is the lesson that Sasha needs to learn. In a way this was showing her what she could have if she could let go of having total control, compromise, and accept change. It makes what happens in True Colors and the consequences of her actions hit her all the harder.
In her mission to force things back to the way they were and resist change she loses everything she could have gained. She gets what she thinks she wants at the cost of everything that actually matters and she is hit with the realization of how empty it is.
She is finally forced to confront her own terrible choices and their consequences when Anne finally severs their friendship. To make matters worse she comes to the realization that her coup was unintentionally a good thing when it’s revealed what Andrias plans to do with the music box.
When she tries to warn Anne she is understandably ignored. Everything bad that happens in True Colors is in part her own fault. She is forced to confront the lies she keeps telling herself and finally realize the lasting consequences of her actions.
I really liked how the culmination of her arc this season is her promising to have Anne’s back in the fight against Andrias and hold him off so Anne can get back home. She finally gives up control to someone else by deciding to have their back and tries to take responsibility for her actions and set things right. (it only took until it was almost too late)
And it’s this moment where we last see Sasha this season, trying to hold Andrias off so Anne, the Plantars, and Marcy can escape, that brings me to a major aspect of Sasha’s character that I haven’t talked about yet because it is best covered as a whole and that is how self-destructive Sasha is. Yes, this can be seen as Sasha’s protectiveness and deep care for her friends shining through, and that is part of what these actions represent, but when her actions are considered across the series there is a clear pattern that can (and is likely meant to) be read as passive suicidal tendencies.
Sasha doesn’t actively try to kill herself but she constantly puts herself in dangerous situations where she knows that she could end up dying. Or she ends up in situations where she accepts death. The biggest examples of this are Reunion, Barrel’s Warhammer, True Colors, Turning Point, and All In.
In Reunion she notices that the tower is collapsing and that she is dragging Anne and the Plantars down and she makes the decision to let go of Anne’s hand. This would have ended in her falling to her death if Grime didn’t catch her and she wasn’t expecting Grime to do that when she let go. She had no way of knowing that would happen.
In Barrel’s Warhammer she is told by Beatrix that going after Barrel’s warhammer is a suicide mission and she doesn’t hesitate to accept. She is told multiple times by Percy, Braddock, and even Grime that she should abort the mission or they will all die but that doesn’t phase her. She’s made the decision in her mind that she will only accept two outcomes: she succeeds in getting Barrel’s Warhammer or she dies trying.
In True Colors Sasha decides to hold off King Andrias while Marcy and Anne go through the portal without her. She was willing to be left behind with a tyrant who just tried to kill Polly and Sprig, two children younger than her, that she knows won’t pull his punches and most likely wouldn’t hesitate to kill her (which is later confirmed in the worst way when he stabs Marcy). She once again tries to sacrifice her life for her friends.
In Turning Point she claims that she will fight until her last breath to defend Wartwood and do the right thing for once. She faces off against Andrias’ robot by herself and accepts that she won’t make it when she’s restrained. She is once again saved by Grime (he really is the only reason she made it through the series) and kept alive by the citizens banding together to help them fight off the robots.
In All In she dares Darcy to do her worst and finish her off after she is beaten on the floor. Darcy would have gone through with it too if it wasn’t for the fact they got distracted by Andrias, giving Sasha the time she needed to drag herself from the ground and make the decisive blow.
It’s these indications of passive suicidal tendencies coupled with the implications of a turbulent/dysfunctional family life, self-hatred and self-esteem issues, anger issues, struggles with showing emotions that can be seen as weak, fear of abandonment, etc. that make it obvious that Sasha struggles with mental health issues.
These struggles are inform a lot of her character and are integral to her arc of learning self-love and forgiveness in season 3. It also sets up the end point of her character in The Hardest Thing- becoming a child psychologist. She does this specifically to help kids work through their baggage so they don’t go down a destructive path like she did.
Sasha’s arc in season 2 is complex and layered. I stand by my opinion that Sasha should have had more episodes dedicated to her but the writers don’t waste a second of her screen time and manage to get all the conflict of her character across in the limited episodes they were given.