Amphibia

Amphibia is a Disney Channel cartoon which began airing on June 17, 2019 and completed its third and final season on May 14, 2022. The show is partly inspired by creator Matt Braly’s own childhood experiences in his visits to Thailand. 
New episodes were generally released first on Disney Channel's app (and cable TV on-demand services) at midnight before airing on TV in the morning, as was Disney Channel's general practice at the time (the last two episodes, however, first aired on TV, during primetime). Back episodes of the show are available on Disney+ in certain countries.
==Canon Overview==
The series focuses on the adventures of 13-year-old Anne Boonchuy, who finds herself in a land populated by amphibians. With the help of her frog companion Sprig and his family, Anne adjusts to life in the titular world of Amphibia as she tries to find a way back to her own world while a true friendship between Anne and Sprig grows.
===Characters===
* Anne Boonchuy: a teenage human girl from Los Angeles. Officially thirteen years old (fifteen in the original pitch).
* Sprig Plantar: a ten-year-old frog
* Polly Plantar: Sprig's younger sister, a tadpole
* Hopediah “Hop Pop” Plantar: Sprig and Polly's grandfather
* Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu: Anne's friends from Earth who were also brought to Amphibia, and who she hopes to find again
==Fanon==
One draw for the series was the representation of Thai characters; the main character Anne Boonchuy is the daughter of Thai immigrants to L.A., and her voice actor Brenda Song (of The Suite Life of Zach & Cody fame) and showrunner Matt Braly are both half-Thai.Celebrating Thai Culture | Amphibia | Disney Channel, from Disney Channel’s Youtube
The series is often compared to The Owl House for sharing a similar premise. It is also compared to Gravity Falls, a show Matt Braly had worked on previously, for sharing similar elements and art style.
The fandom is predominantly active in Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Discord, and Amino.
===Terminology===
* Amphibsona: A -sona of most of the time, being either a human or a frog-person in the Amphibia universe. While they're some amphibsonas can be a frog or newt-person as well.
* Spranne: a portmanteau of Sprig Plantar and Anne Boonchuy, used in canon by the characters themselves: "Spranne against the world!" It is rarely used in shipping context; the characters are treated as adoptive siblings in-universe and by most fans.
* The Night: a fanon title give to The Core before its name was revealed. It came from a piece of amphibian rune text found in a book describing the music box, which was decoded by fans: "Three stars burning bright, come from beyond to expel the night. Should they fight or embrace the fall, their choice will determine all."
===Shipping===
* Spraddie: a portmanteau of Sprig Plantar and Maddie Flour, first teased in “Hop Luck”, the ship canonically sank in “Cursed!”, leaving their relationship in good terms.
* Sprivy: a portmanteau of Sprig Plantar and Ivy Sundew. First teased in “Dating Season”. Canon as of "Anne of the Year". The focus of the comedic season three episode "Sprivy".
* Sylvia/Hopediah, Sylvia/Hop Pop: the ship between Sylvia Sundew and Hopediah Plantar, teased in "Hop Pop and Lock" and "Family Fishing Trip".
* Sashanne: a portmanteau of Anne Boonchuy and Sasha Waybright.
* Annarcy/Marcanne: a portmanteau of Anne Boonchuy and Marcy Wu.
* Sashannarcy: a portmanteau of Sasha Waybright, Anne Boonchuy and Marcy Wu. By the end of the series it had become one of the most popular ships in the fandom.
* Sasharcy: a portmanteau of Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu. This pairing increased in popularity from the end of 2022 through into 2023.
* Olivia/Yunan: two high-ranking newts serving under Andrias. The first popular non-canon (at the time) ship among fans outside of the main three human characters; the two are often depicted in fandom as adoptive mothers to Marcy.
* Ally/Jess: a canon ship between two characters featured in season 3's "Fixing Frobo".
Anne/Sasha, Anne/Marcy, and Anne/Sasha/Marcy have generally been the most common ships in fanart and fanfiction. These ships made up around two-fifths of Amphibia works on AO3 around the midpoint of season 2 (although the fandom was considerably smaller prior to the season 2 finale, and Olivia and Yunan had received little screentime together).AO3 Data Dump Fandom Stats - Disney Television Animation. March 28, 2021. Accessed August 15, 2021. The popularity of F/F in the fandom is likely influenced by its overlap with other contemporary Western animation fandoms (such as The Owl House, Steven Universe, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, and The Legend of Korra) where canon F/F relationships are prominent.
===Popular Copypastas===
====It’s them. It’s always them.====
"It’s them. It’s always them." comes from the popular Sashannarcy fanfic What Happens When You Make It by im_at_my_limit. The full context of the quote was in relation to Anne struggling with her increasingly romantic feelings for Sasha and Marcy.
The work was part of an ongoing series at the time, gay people back from frogland what will they do, and became so well known within the fandom that fans began quoting it when discussing Sashannarcy. Eventually it became common to tag mundane items, such as pens, traffic lights, cups, that were in blue, pink/red and green (the colours associated with each girl) with "It’s them."it's them reddit post It was later added to the description of Sashannarcy on urban dictionary. Due to the nature of copypastas many do not realise the phrase comes from a piece of fanfiction, possibly because it is often shorted to simply "It’s them", and many of the comments on the fic react with surprise and delight upon learning its origin. 
====In "Commander Anne"====
In the run up to the season 3 episode "Commander Anne", which featured the return of Sasha, fans began circulating the phrase "In "Commander Anne" Sasha is revealed to be attracted to women." Riffs on the copypasta's continued to evolve each episode after and when the second part of the series finale "All In" was released on streaming services at midnight instead of it's intended delayed timeslot of 8pm, even crew members started making their own version such as "In "All In," Disney is revealed to be attracted to incompetence."Adam Colás' tweet
When Sasha was revealed to be bisexual in the finale a canonically accurate version was quickly passed around the fandom: "In "The Hardest Thing" Sasha is revealed to be attracted to women." 
===Popular memes===
A handful of fandom-specific memes developed in Amphibia fandom spaces:
* Memes of Marcy being stabbed, or of other characters seeing her being stabbed, in strange contexts.
* Marky Wu - an awkward / silly deception of Marcy arising from a dispute over the pronunciation of the letter C in the ship name "Marcanne". The correct pronunciation is generally considered to be /s/, as in the name "Marcy"; the original drawing of "Marky Wu" was in reference to the "incorrect" pronunciation that would use /k/.
* Maggie (a classmate of Anne's who does not travel to Amphibia and is not involved in the show's plot) being edited into screenshots of various scenes in the show.
* Conjecture about how the U.S. military would respond to an invasion of Earth planned by the show's villain; such posts ranged from actual theorizing to jokes about how the villain would be unprepared to face the U.S. military, or about how obsessed the fandom seemed to be with the subject.
* A theory (first posted on TikTok) that Anne would die at the age of 37.
Additionally, popular fan theories included Anne losing an arm or Sasha losing an eye.
===Fandom overlap with The Owl House===
There is a large overlap with the fandom for The Owl House, which shares the same network and studio, has a somewhat similar premise, and was created by fellow Gravity Falls alumna Dana Terrace. A Reddit poll in September 2021 indicated that over 40% of respondents came from the TOH fandom. 
Fans often compare and contrast the two shows. Reddit posts asking why Amphibia wasn't as popular attracted a variety of responses: 
===Controversies===
====Sasha/Grime Incident====
On July 18, 2019, former storyboard artist Hannah Ayoubi posted a fanart of Sasha being carried bridal-style by the main antagonist, Grime, with both of them having faint blush on their cheeks.OMG WHO DREW THIS?!?!?!??! screenshot of the tweet in question, which has since been deleted. There were many fans that did not react well to this image, accusing the artist of supporting pedophilia and creating child porn. The tweet had been deleted a few days later, with the accused artist issuing an apology, which has also been deleted later. This is the artist’s only comment that remains regarding the incident.“Whew. Love the internet”
Incidents like this, along with similar incidents from other cartoon fandoms such as OK K.O. Let’s Be Heroes, sparked some articles addressing the problems of modern children’s cartoonsKids’ TV Has a Porn ProblemCartoon Fandom has a Puritanism Problem and a hashtag on Twitter called #NotJustADrawing, which is a mix of criticism on modern children’s cartoons, testimonies of users' pasts of being victim to grooming and sexual abuse, and other users condemning said criticism.#NotJustADrawing on Twitter
On October 11, 2021, a streamily panel hosted various Amphibia voice talents for discussion, question and answer (QnA), and live signing. One of the fans present asked the crew, including Anna Akana (voice of Sasha Waybright), "what had been the craziest thing the fandom has done", and she had answered with, "the first romantic dream I had [as a child] was Freddie the Frog, and I remember very early on, people were drawing cute shipping fanart of Grime and Sasha, though I don't necessarily condone it, I was like oh my god, I remember what it was like to be, just a young girl, wanting to marry Freddie the Frog so bad, and I'm sure all of these young people are just watching Sasha and Grime and are just like oh my god I wanna be in that Amphibia relationship, and I think that was my favorite part, seeing all the anime and fanart of Sasha blushing and being carried around by Grime, and them slow dancing together, and I just thought that was very very sweet, and reminiscent of my childhood."
Immediately after the stream, Anna Akana faced backlash to the things she had said, as well as to the controversial "edgy" jokes she had said on a podcast almost ten years prior (which she had apologized for years before her career on Amphibia). She had explained in a tweet answering the allegations from fans that she did not know that the Grime/Sasha fanart made by Hannah Ayoubi (as seen above) had been "painted in a romantic light", and that it wasn't obvious to her before the fans started "cancelling" her. She did not consider it pedophilic when she saw it, quote, "because he's [Grime] a toad", that she sees Grime and Sasha as equals, and only thought that the art style was cute. 
Most people had believed that Anna Akana had no intentions of condoning pedophilic ships or behaviors and that she had just did not word herself properly. Others believed that while what she [Anna] had said was wrong, the fandom was taking things way out of context and didn't give her time to clarify before they started jumping on "cancelling" her all the way to sending her death threats. 
In December 2022, Lynflower680 made a post about the events on r/HobbyDrama.The Hannah Ayoubi controversy: How a Drawing from an Amphibia Storyboard Artist Lead to Three Years Worth of Harassment, Conspiracies, and Anti-Union Teenagers by Lynflower680 on r/HobbyDrama (December 2022)
====Shipping (pro / anti)====
Although the fandom hasn't seen any notable conflict between supporters of different ships, there is often contention between those who ship some or all of the main trio of human characters, and those who do not.
On the show's subreddit, the amount of ship-related content on the front page has sometimes been a point of contention, with comparisons sometimes being drawn to the Owl House subreddit - particularly by fans frustrated with the dominance of Lumity content there when the show isn't airing. The general consensus seems to be accepting of shipping, however; it's usually acknowledged that shipping two (or more) characters does not necessarily mean you want the ship to be endgame, and fans generally accepted during the run of the show that - given the show's focus on the existing platonic relationship between the trio - no romantic relationship between them would be made canon.
A large number of pro- and anti-shipping posts came during a period in late March of 2021 (which preceded the post-True Colors fandom boom), which prompted a number of meta posts.
====The Airing of "True Colors"====
In the weeks before the premiere of "True Colors" (the season 2 finale), Matt Braly and the crew of Amphibia posted promo art for that episode. There was even AMA planned just before the episode set premiere on Disney Channel. The premiere was postponed by the network at the last minute for reasons unknown and the new air date uncertain. Matt's twitter postings on the matter seemed to hint he was very upset about the delay and gave a vague reason why Disney delayed the airing. Then "True Colors" get released on iTunes. Apparently, Apple wasn't told the airing was delayed on released the episode as originally intended. The leak further enflamed the fans of Amphibia who were already upset about the cancellation of the airing of "True Colors". The content in the episode gave more of an idea why the episode's sudden airing cancellation. The mismanagement of the episode airing on the part of Disney made Matt and the fans even more upset.
The episode aired on Disney Channel a few weeks later; a content warning was added before the episode, and a preview of the season 3 intro, which was nor part of the leak, aired after its conclusion. Both elements were part of a compromise to get the episode on air without any changes.Sit Down and Think With Amphibia Creator Matt Braly, linked from /r/amphibia, June 1, 2021. Accessed Aug. 15, 2021.
==== AdmiralDT8/Darrel ====
Main article: AdmiralDT8
AdmiralDT8 is the alias of Darrel Timmerman, a 28 year old fanartist who makes fan art and animations of various shows, most notably Amphibia. He is predominantly known for the fan fiction Loyalty Among Worlds on Fanfiction.net, a retelling of Amphibia starring his original Amphibia characters: Darrel Loyaliat, Tint and Cronaxx Tormakk. The fan fiction itself is infamous as it is generally considered low quality compared to most Amphibia fan fictions featured on the site; it being a rewrite of Amphibia episodes but with his original characters added in to say a line or two. What ultimately got Timmerman the attention of the Amphibia fandom was that of the pairing featured in the faction: Darrel Loyaliat being paired up with Anne Boonchuy. An otherwise innocous OC x Cannon pairing is immediately made more disturbing once one realises that Darrel Loyaliat is meant to be a self-insert/representation of Timmerman himself; to put it simply, he's implicitly shipping himself with an underage girl. This has caused Timmerman become one of, if not the, most hated and ridiculed figures in the Amphibia fandom with a large amount of people accusing him of pedophillia. Whilst he has denied both Darrel being a self insert and actually loving Anne, this did little (if anything) to quell the backlash.
==Fanworks==
=== Fanfiction ===
*The Arcanist Marcy Wu by Discet and Sonar009
===Fanart===
* Y’ALL AMPHIBIA IS SO CUTE???? by frozenspots
* girls and their snowmen by fistraid
* idea I had for the longest time about names and uncracked eggs by jojobearoo
* marcy by 3999y
* Smol Grimesy by Sky4n1d3
* marcy & anne & sasha! i hope they reconcile by flapjastic
* Marcy by bleedman
====Animation====
*enchANTing frog night by Sourbeefio
*Destroy me | Sasha by Ambrella
* Ghosts by CosmicDiamond
==== Comics ====
* Froggy Marcy by CosmicDiamond, an canon-divergent comic in which Marcy is saved from death post-season 2 with the use of amphibious transfusions.
===Fanvids===
* Amphibia Abridged by Tomotasauce
=== Zines ===
* No Big Deal, a general Amphibia fanzine
==Archives & Fannish Links==
* Amphibia Amino on Amino
*Amphibia (Cartoon) on Archive of Our Own
*Amphibia-FC on DeviantArt
*Amphibia on FanFiction.Net
* /r/Amphibia on Reddit
* Amphibia tag on Tumblr
* Amphibia on TV Tropes
* #Amphibia on Twitter
* Amphibia tag on Wattpad
==References==
Category:Amphibia