Otoño

BYI

* I am ONLY online on weekends (any post on a weekday was scheduled in advance on a weekend, such as the Doodling Amphibia Series every Friday)! :o

* If you message me on a weekday, I will not be there to reply until the weekend! This is for my mental health! :]

* I am disabled with chronic pain; I may take a while to respond as a result! :’)

* NO PUTTING MY ART, COMMISSIONED OR NOT, INTO AI. EVER.

* Basic DNI criteria! :/

* I support a free Palestine! :O

About me:

* Human stuff: I’m Latine (🇪🇨), gender-fluid, and disabled! Any pronouns (including neos)! :3

* Fandom stuff: I am currently hyperfixated on Amphibia, Yokai Watch, Lacey’s Flash Games, Poppin Play Kitchen, Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want To Be A Magical Girl, and Splatoon! XD

* Other stuff: All my art will be tagged as “#otoños art”.

*I occasionally reblog onto my personal blog @thecalamityboxreblogs

Welcome and welcome back everyone!

Mother Olm is honestly one of my favorites. I always have a soft spot for older characters (Spirit Bear from BSS and Senshi from Dungeon Meshi, to name a few), and she was no exception. She was very gentle and understanding of the non-olm characters, while the other olmos detested outsiders, which I found very interesting. Perhaps the hatred of outsiders was something that developed before Mother Olm’s time, and she wouldn’t have known about it because she’s always hidden away? That’s my theory, anyways.

I also like the above in addition to her being a hermit of sorts, since a lot of writers make hermit characters think they’re better than others, or be mean to others. It’s nice that she views the others as equals despite her status as the oldest and wisest of the olms. I feel this is best seen in her interactions with Hop Pop, where they bond over their aging bodies, and how it’s not all bad/doesn’t define you. She tells him that you’r age also gives you wisdom, and shows him that you can always be kind no matter your physical/mental state as well. To be a bit vulnerable, I really needed to see/hear that, especially as a mentally ill + ND + disabled person whose disabilities make my joints feel older than the rest of me. You can always be kind.

As for miscellaneous stuff, I like how she followed the trend of the Amphibia characters personalities not matching what we hear about their species. Heck, every species in Amphibia has multiple people who break the mold! We see peaceful toads who dislike combat (Percy and Braddock), frogs who have a zeal for battle (Ivy and Polly), newts who aren’t book-smart (Triple B and Yunan), and olms who are petty (Lysil and Agwin). That makes the show so greatt; defying the trope that species = personality!

Also I love how Mother Olm has memory issues, and she’s one of the most important characters in the show! I especially like how we’re shown she gets treatment for her memory too, I love when we see disabled characters getting the help they need. Makes her feel so much more genuine. Another disabled Amphibia GOAT to add on my list B3

Okey. Y’all were probably wondering when I’d get to this guy. I’ve done the Frog Abuelo, Newt Mamás, and now we’ve finally made it to Toad Papá. I’d like to start by saying… I LOVE Captain Grime! He was so intriguing as the Stinger at the end of S1E1B, “Best Fronds”, and when we finally met him mid season in “Prison Break”, he did NOT disappoint.

He was a pragmatic villain, one of my FAVE tropes, where despite holding Sasha as prisoner, the second he realized she could fight, he teamed up with her. A decision which spelled success for his soldiers, when Sasha taught him the ways of sweet talk to get the Toad Army to beat the herons! When Sasha was ready to go, he admitted he knew he couldn’t stop someone as capable as her, so why not join him as lieutenant to his army? And from then on, they were a team.

Except they were more than that. As the show went on, they went from fellow soldiers to a morally questionable father and his morally questionable daughter. We see it from how Sasha says she’s so determined to get him back into shape because he’s the only adult she can count on, from Grime pinpointing that losing Anne was what truly bothered her, when he instructs her to be on her best behavior at the dinner with her friends, and her bemoaning not being able to take all her daggers the same way a teenager would treat not being able to bring their phone. And most of all, we see it from how he was willing to lose his arm if it meant sparing her life. He wasn’t perfect, but he always was there for her when no other adults were.

As for miscellaneous things, I like how he came to realize that training Sprig to fight like a toad was the wrong approach, and he had to train Sprig to harness his strengths as a frog instead in “Grimes Pupil”, and…

idc he is/was a villain; COMPLEX DISABLED CHARACTERS IN AMPHIBIA AGAIN LETS GOOOOOOO he can go in the same category as the Tolmekian general in Nausicäa of the Valley of the Wind; “disabled villain but evil for reasons not about being disabled and they’re cool so I give them a pass”. Though do keep in mind this is my opinion as 1 disabled person, others may feel differently.

P-Chan is the one who kept himself the most together during the show, even after C-Chan got popped right in front of him, so his mask is the most intact. Him putting it back together is meant to represent how quickly he bounced back at the end.

U-Chan managed to complete the meal despite mentally snapping in the middle of it, but she’s still shown to get flashes of her old life (?)(possibly), so her face is the most visible.

Otoño fawns over another one shot Amphibia character, spoon found in the kitchen. But Bella. Come on! She was so REAL!!! A new adult trying her best to make her folks proud, eating ice sandwiches because she can’t afford anything better, and, when realizing the infinitely funded royal credit card could improve her situation, stole from an 10 year old boy!

Okey, maybe, just maybe, that last part isn’t relatable. Maybe that last part is actually kinda wack. BUT it was understandable, and the narrative (and Sprig) acknowledge that, and Sprig even convinces her boss to give her a raise and promotion, which I loved.

I always hated the trope where a poor character goes to extremes to improve their situation, and the narrative punishes them instead of stepping back and wondering why they did what they did, so I very much appreciate the nuance of Bella’s story. She’s not a villain, just a young newt woman trying her best.