frogchamp

quick animatic I did this morning

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

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.

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

I think Anne wrote it

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

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

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)

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.

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!

I think Anne wrote it

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

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

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)

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.

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!

I think Anne wrote it

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

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

I think Anne wrote it

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