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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Amphibia Weekly Reviews: Bessie and Mircroangelo/The Third Temple “The Things We’ve Set into Motion Cannot Be Stopped”

Hello all you happy people. It’s been a long road, with an even longer road trip, but the season’s almost over: just two more weeks of Amphibia.. and with all the build up weighing down on our heroes two things are clear: this cannot end well for Anne or anyone involved, and this is going to hurt. It’s going to hurt a LOT. it’s going to be some...

... how have I not used more MST3K gifs. Questions for later. Point is with emotional pain immient, a revolution on the way this episode only ratchets up the tension.. while also sparing some time for makeover jokes and a breather episode about snail mentorships, fashion montages and giant crabs. I do love me some giant crabs. And i’ll tell you allllll about it under the cut.

Bessie and MicroAngelo:

This episode finds our heroes preparing for the third and final temple, loading up the wagon and preparing weapons, maps, potions, all that good stuff.

We end up getting two plots out of this. The first is the titular one: so Polly can help prepare, Hop Pop gives Bessie the task of watchin gher snail and certified cutie MicroAngelo, that tiny Snail who I assumed would disappear forever after his intitial apperance because that’s usually what cartoons does. But much like One Piece, Al Ewing and that owl what watches me while I sleeps, Amphibia never forgets.

It’s some Looney Tunes style shenanigans.. not the bugs or daffy, more on him later today, kind more the “Bigger more responsible party protects the smaller more vunerable or reckless one” kind you’d see eveyr so often. Tom and Jerry also really loved this. And Amphibia wears it well, with some good gags and really cute bonding and some really excellent animation on Bessie, giving the old girl plenty of life and animation. The only part I genuinely do not like is Hop Pop blaming Bessie for.. running after micro angelo afte rhe ran off. Aka doing the job you assigned her.

Someone i’m looking at. Regardless otherwise it’s just some fun, adorable slapstick with a downright precious ending. And hop pop DOES apologize.. and wish he was a cute snail. I do not have time to unpack all the implications there nor ponder what Hop Pop would look like in a snail costume. This week’s given my brain enough nightmares.

So anyway, our subplot has Marcy trying to give Anne a Makeover... and her past attempts with Sasha have been objectively horrifying so Anne is rightly scared, though the armorer who comes to help with it has a blue crab so tha’ts where all my attention. I fucking love crabs.. they just look so neat. Some see the fact a spider crab being out and about in animal crossing as horrifying. I see it as oh look at my cool terrifying crab friend. About the only crab I don’t like is this asshole.

And even then he can be VERY funny. .he’s just also an exploitative douchebag and having worked in food service, let me tell you I.. I get why Squidward is the way he is. That said Krabbyland is a masterpiece entirely because he’s such a terrible person, so it ballances out when the show’s doing it’s best.

Point is I like crabs and I like this subplot.. though mostly because it says a LOT about who Anne and Marcy are and where there at. Part of why Marcy is so gung ho about helping Anne is she figures this is her last shot to be whoever she wants to be. But really she’s just projecting: it’s been obvious since we properly met her that Marcy.. likes living HERE more than earth. On earth she’s an outcast: her hyperfixations, her tendency to babble about things she likes, her smartness... alll things that just make people turn away from her or pick on her on earth, with only two people relaly understanding and appricating her.. maybe more but we don’t know the situation with her parents yet. As someone who is a lot of those things, I get where she’s coming from.

So ending up in a world straight out of an rpg... she florished. Everything that made her life difficult at home suddenly made her florish: her skill with RPG’s meant she could blend in easily with the courtly high class of Newtopia, gave her a love of taking on missions, and allowed her to put her hyperfixation, knowledge and enthusasim to real world use, creating massive improvments in an already ritzy city. Everything that made her an outcast in our world made her a hero there. It’s why I worry about what’s to come: to both Grime and Andrias.. she’s the perfectly made pawn: too desperate to have Sasha back to see the kinfe he wants her to plant in Marcy’s, and too happy to be accepted to see the rpg convention, the benevolent ruler turning out ot be a puppet for the big bad, starring her in the face. Amphibia’s given her her freedom.. but it’s also left her very vunerable and may leave her alone.

As for Anne.. she realizes how far she’s come: from selfish and kind of distructive to selfless and self reliant.. and still kind of destructive but hey, you can’t cahnge eveyrthing about yourself. It’s why when given heavy armor.. all she needs is the core of it.. something simple to guard her but nothing too complex. She’s fine with who she is.. and it’s why she’s in the best place of the three girls. And why she’s left smack in the middle of the war to come. A war she can’t stop and that will leave her having to choose one... or do the right , hard thing and choose neither and try and free them from the bad influences they’ve embded themselves in. Either way this is going to hurt both her and the audience.

Final Thoughts: Bessie and Mircoangelo is good classic cartoon fun with a suprisingly deep subplot. Simple, but a nice pallete clensar, especially since the next episode is pretty tense and given it’s ending and eveyrthing that’s been building this season, it’s likely only going to get worse from here, so it’s nice to have a quick and breezy break before hell comes to frogtown.

The Third Temple:

Before we get to the final temple we get a flashback showing how Sasha met Anne and Marcy. The other two were playing on the swings when two big dillholes pushed them off and Sasha selflessly and fearlessly stood up to them. And promptly beat herself up more than the bullies who dodged her and eventually got so freaked out by whatever the hell this was they ran and a friendship was born. But noticably she’s a lot diffrent 7 years ago, aproximately, than she is at 13: she’s every bit as fearless and willfull.. but the compassion she once had got buried under a need for control. It’s easy to see now WHY Marcy and Anne loved her so much: she was their friend, their protector, she cared about them.. and while she never STOPPED somewhere along the way it became less about doing the right thing for the women she loves and more about getting her way.

And now the two have had time to heal from what their friend girlfriend became.. it’s time to rip that wound wide open as finally, after almost a season of waiting, Sasha reunites with Marcy for the first time and Anne for the second.

Naturally her return is in time for her gem to be charged, though our heroes unware of that didn’t seek her out before going in. This time Frobo’s riding claw though weirdly dosen’t come inside. Which is a problem with Frobo’s addition to the cast as the whole: they’ve kept him out of any episode since his induction into the family and only properly explained it once. It just dosen’t make a lot of sense to me; Yes he is massively powerful but his childlike thought process counters that. He’s easy enough to write in but is left out becasue the writers don’t want to deal with an extra character. And I had more than enough of that shit when watching Ducktales. I don’t need it when your main cast isn’t NEARLY as large or hard to juggle. It’s just galling to have spent an entire season showing he was following them, give him a whole episode.. and then just forget about him because i’ts convient. Hopefully he’ll play a bigger role as things progress and we find out where he came from because his misuse is a dark spot on an otherwise great second half of the season.

Frobo does get to prove himself useful though and open s the temple door he just weirdly dosen’t come along. But this does leave the door open for Sasha to come in as our heroes struggle with the first puzzle: Turns out this dungeon was built by a bro, seriously the temple languge is very broey and VERY hilarious contrasted with how normal for a fantasy setting the others were, as is fitting the strength gem, so our heroes have to compete feats of strength. Unfortunately this does not mean wrestling the ghost of Jerry Stiller to the ground but instead fighting some Lava Worms, and fighting just ONE of them and lifting the provided warhammers is a challenge for Anne.. and she’s the only one who can with Marcy not having enough upper body stregnth and the plantars all de-hydrated spongebob style.

So naturally Sasha ends up being their savor, easily dispatching them and getting some help from grime who while also dehydrated, is still phsycially strong enough to be of some help. Marcy is overjoyed to see her.. and is the only one. Given Marcy hasn’t been on the wrong end of Sasha and Grime like they have, it’s understandable: while Marcy’s grappled with Sasha’s actions and grip on her and Anne, it’s been clear it hasn’t hit her as hard as it has for Anne and she likely dosen’t get the full scope of it like Anne does. To her Sasha just made a mistake and she’s back now and tha’ts what matters. To Anne and the Plantars... sasha and grime tried to kill them and Sasha then tried commiting suciide to save them. The scars of that haven’t really healed for them, nor should they.

And given Sasha has spent the season clearly blamiing everything on Anne defying her and has been raising an army based on her resentment, and given she flew into a jealous blinding rage at finding her exes were fine and dandy without her she.. wholheartdly apologizes.

Yeah she apologizes.. but tellingly while she talks about her and Grime being left homeless following the battle.. she leaves out everything after: The fight with Yuan, the growing rebellion, driving her friends away, the horrifying army Grime now commands. Something’s off.

Anne naturally dosen’t trust her to do this herself and insists on coming along sitll. The next task is juts.. asking how much you lift bro, which Sasha easily passes by lifting, bro.

The final test in Jim Crunch’s Temple of Fitness, I mean who else could’ve wrote this, is of course a big fight with a giant statue of a toad, fitting how each temple so far was built by one of the civlizations: there were frog statues and symbols in the first temple, the second was guarded by a newt and the last now has a toad guard.Though curiously.. the test itself is wholly designed for a human. Before it wasn’t 100% clear even with the hyroglyps if the chosen ones had to be human or not.. but now it’s impossible to argue otherwise. There were hints : The fact the guardian pegged her as a possible chosen one on sight , the ruins in the background of the title cards which also depict the watcher with a thousand eyes (which is what i’ll be calling him till we get his, her , they or it’s actually name. ).. but here the chamber includes a gravity increase dbz style, meaning our heroines are the only ones who can stand as the Plantars and Grimes frog and toad bodies respectively aren’t strong enough to stand anymore. And while Marcy tries it ends up falling on Anne and Sasha with Sasha being Angry Anne doesn’t trust her.. and Anne not refuting it, pointing out she has EVERY REASON not to. As she puts it “it’s not just toad tower”. For most of their lives Sasha has been controlling, caring about what she wants and not what the people she loves wants. It wasn’t just the fight there... it was simply the wakeup call to how bad a person Sasha had been.

And for the first time in the episode.. Sasha is geniune, apologizing for what she did, and genuinely admitting how she treated Anne wasn’t wrong. it was something she coudln’t admit to herself episodes ago.. but faced with both loosing two more people due to her behavior, and having plenty of time to reflect on said behavhior.. she finally relaizes it’s her. Fuck man.. what else is there to say.

Oh right the giant monster thing, which Anne trusts Sasha to finish.. and we get anothe rDBZ homage as Sasha removes part of her armor, which creates a CRATER, which lowers her weight enough to fight the thing. She gets a thumbs up and the honor of recharging it.

Anne suggests opening the box.. but Marcy is VERY quick to shoot that down and suggest talking to the king. And while her reason SOUNDS good,, they don’t want to get warped somewhere ELSE at random.. it’s very clear from her actions and how quick she tried to stop it that she needs them to get to Andrias for whatever he’s talked her into. And I emphasis talked her into: Marcy trusts the king, and was in a very emotional place when he was about to talk to her at the end of season 2a... and he knew it. He knew she was at her most vunerable, most malable and trusted him completely.. and knew right then and there was his shot at getting vengance.. for him and his master. Whatever he has planned.. it’s not good. The mechancial lovecraftian horror he keeps in his creepy basement full of lost souls is a dead giveaway from that. But I don’t.. fault Marcy for it. It’s not just because I sympahtize.. to her Andrias is a good noble king trying to help her. He’s the kindly mentor she always wanted, a person who enjoys her skills dosen’t care how much she talks and has complete faith in her, something even Anne struggles with.

But it’s VERY clear, to me at least he’s been likely using her from the moment they met: to her sh’es just an optomistic pawn, someone gullible enough to do whatever he says. I’ve always felt that her “missions” probably had some darker purpose she wasn’t aware of: getting Andrias things he needs for his army, an army she has no idea is opressing people. She’s insulated from that and instead surronded by adoring people who accept her for once. Even going to wartwood, she hasn’t yet made the connection between the toad towers and what their purpose is. I think deep down she might suspect this stuff.. but she can’t ACCEPT that the one person who every had nothing but faith in her.. is a horrible person who opresses others and somehow has even WORSE plans in store.

Sasha likewise is facing the pressure of her parental figure.. while her patching it up with Anne was legitmate... her and Grime’s own plans rely on getting in there and Grime simply sees the other two as pawns , and just like the king he wants he wants to overthrow, their use expires once his plans in motion.

But the thing is.. it’s clear despite assuring Grime she’s still all in.. her face in the last shot, as seen above.. says otherwise. Her apology was legitmate, not just an attempt to get close to the one thing in her way of power, but what she’s come to realize: she’s gone from blaming Anne for it.. to realizing it was her. But she’s also stuck: while Marcy is unaware of the strings her pupeteer is pulling her towards.. Sasha is all too aware of what her mentor is planning. And the thing was she was all too willing to go for it. She blamed Anne for what happened at the tower, blamed Anne for turning marcy against her and blamed the plantars and co for turning anne against her. But in the harsh light of day... none of that’s true. Marcy dosen’t hate her, neither does anne, they didn’t turn against her.. they were just tired of her shitty behavior and wanted the friend they found that day on the playground back, the woman they loved who’d go to hell and back for someone and not the bitter, manipultive person she became. She’s once again realized it was her fault.. the question is if that’s enough for her to do the right thing or not. And the hardest question of all is IF not reblling isn’t the right thing. Wfhile the Toad’s probably shoudln’t be in charge either, Andrias REALLY shouldn’t. There’s NO easy answers here, no happy outcome that makes everyone live’s better. There’s no easy way out, no shortcut home.. just the louder and louder drumbeats of war and one girl’s decision of whose side she’s going to take.

Final Thoughts on the Third Temple: As with the other four sasha episodes thus far, this was frogging brilliant. Shoudln’t be a suprise and it makes me both look forward and dread the war to come

Next Week: The plantars try to bury the hatchet with Sasha and Grime, the girls enter a battle of the bands, and the finale comes ever closer.

If you liked this review follow me for more, and join my patreon. At just 2 dollars a month you get acess to my discord, exclusive reviews, and get me closer to my stretch goals. See you at the next rainbow

#amphibia #the third temple #bessie and microangelo #anne boonchuy #sasha waybright #marcy wu #bessie amphibia #microangelo #hopidiah plantar #sprig plantar #polly plantar #bro

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uas-art · 6 years

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Title: Only Straight Guys Fix Bicycles.

Rating: T for the singular F bomb dropped midway through.

Summary: Tweek finally learned why Craig stole borrowed all those bicycles.

Ships: Creek

Other: Inspired by This ask post from @cheylouwho and another post I cannot for the life of me find that broke down hints that Craig may have been gay from early on, but hiding it for his dad's sake, or something akin to that.

~~~~

Craig still had himself another forty-five minutes to enjoy curled up in his boyfriend's bed. Forty-five glorious, glorious minutes of warm cuddling, breathing in the smell of coffee, morning spring fabric softener, and the cologne Tweek accidently dumped earlier that week that continued to stubbornly cling to the sheets. Forty-five minutes of Tweek's arm around his middle and his nose pressed against his neck until Craig had to get up and sneak back out the window to go home before his own parents awoke. Forty-five glorious minutes.

Or they would be glorious, if Tweek would kindly stop tapping against Craig's stomach with his fingertips.

With a huff, Craig slipped his hand under the covers and grabbed Tweek's fingers midtap.

"Stop, babe," he mumbled. "I know you're awake at this time of night, but I'm not. Let me sleep."

"Ack!" Tweek stiffened. "Sorry, sorry, just, nnng, thinking."

Craig released Tweek's fingers and laid his arm back down. With a contented sigh, Craig began to doze back off. Just as the rest of the world began to fade into unconsciousness, he felt another tap.

Craig groan, rolling over to glare. "Tweek."

"Sorry!" Tweek scooted back a little. He pulled his hand to his chest.

Craig let out a breath. Usually when Craig snuck over to sleep with Tweek, Tweek was very considerate about Craig's sleep schedule compared to his own. Sure, sometimes that meant that Craig would wake up alone with Tweek sitting idly at his computer desk, but Tweek rarely woke him up before it was time for Craig to hurry home. For Tweek to break that routine, something must be wrong.

"What's the matter?" Craig asked as he grabbed Tweek's arm and put it back over his side. It was meant to be there, tapping or not.

"Nothing's the matter," Tweek replied. "I'm just thinking."

"About what?" Craig asked through a yawn. He wasn't going to push too hard for information if Tweek decided not to give it, at least, not that early in the morning.

"My bike. It's broken, something with the chain, I think? I have to walk the deliveries around town until I can figure out how to fix it. It's a, argh, pain in the ass."

Craig made a sound of understanding. Since Tweak Bro's had open their delivery service, Tweek had been biking around town more than ever. Tweek tried near daily to get permission to use the car, even though he still only had his permit, but his parents always refused.

'It'll build character and your calf muscles!' They told him.

Craig hummed, then asked, "Do you want me to help? I know how to fix bicycles."

Tweek snorted a laugh. It was an adorable sound that made Craig smile lazily.

"You mean when you, heh-heh, stole all those bikes back in, like, third grade?" Tweek teased.

"I didn't steal them. I borrowed them." Craig corrected. "And fixed them."

Tweek rolled his eyes. "Is that why your dad made you go and apologize for taking them without asking? Why did you even do that anyway?"

Craig rolled his eyes right back before scooting closer and wrapping his own arm around Tweek. He nuzzled against Tweek's chest, pressing his palm against the middle of Tweek's upper back, as if the action could pull his boyfriend closer than he already was. Tweek's shirt smelled even more so of the dumped cologne than the sheets. Not that Craig was going to complain. He'd take this over the Axe Bath Clyde did after gym any day.

"Doesn't matter. I fixed them." He mumbled. "Now, let. Me. Sleep."

"Tell me later." Tweek took his free arm from Craig's side and tangled his fingers in his boyfriend's dark hair. Craig sleepily grunted the affirmative in response before finally drifting back off for another forty glorious, glorious minutes of sleep.

The fresh snow crunched under Craig's feet as he walked around the back of Tweak Bro's. He adjusted his backpack as he went. The clang of metal tools shuffling around in the bag alerted Tweek to his presence. Tweek looked up from his bicycle. He smiled before hurrying over to hug his boyfriend.

"Thanks for doing this," Tweek pressed a kiss to Craig's cheek.

"No problem. I'm practically an expert repair man." Craig replied as he shrugged off his bag. Tweek led him to the bicycle, and Craig stooped down. He turned the peddles a few times and tugged at the limp chain before nodding.

"Yeah, something's up with the chain drive. Looks kind of rusted." Craig tapped the chain as he spoke. "I think I still have some parts around my house. I could replace it, but it won't be today."

Tweek swore, "Fuck! I have to make a delivery in, like, five minutes."

Craig wiped his hands on his jeans before pushing himself up. "What me to walk with you?"

"You want to?" Tweek perked up.

"Sure," Craig shrugged.

Tweek wrapped Craig in a half hug and rested his head on his shoulder. "Thanks, dude, and on the way, you can tell me about your bike crime spree."

Craig stiffened. "That wasn't a dream?"

"Every night with you is a dream," Tweek snickered, earning himself a playful shove away and a middle finger. Still chuckling, Tweek hurried into the store to grab his deliveries. After a moment, he popped back out with a large paper bag in hand. The Tweak Bro's logo printed on the front.

Craig pulled on his backpack and ambled after his boyfriend to the street.

"So, your crime spree," Tweek began, "why'd you do it?"

"It's stupid."

"I still wanna know."

Craig sighed then ran a hand through his hair. "Ok, but remember, you asked, so you can't laugh."

Tweek nodded for him to go on, watching Craig's face attentively. Or as attentively as he could without tripping and dropping his delivery.

"Ok, the reason I borrowed all those bicycles back then was..." he let out a low breath, "was because only straight guys fix bicycles."

Tweek stopped, fixing Craig with a confused look. "What? That doesn't make any sense! You're the logical one here, dude, and that is so illogical that even I can't make sense of that!"

"I was nine!" Craig defended. "Back when I was nine, I didn't know that people were born gay. I thought you became gay by doing, well, girly things."

"'Girly things'? What? Explain?" Tweek shook his head as he started walking again.

"The only gay guys I knew were Big Gay Al and Mr. Slave, and kind of our teacher. The way Dad complained about them when I was around, it was like how effeminately the talked and acted and junk was what made them gay, ya know? The issue with gay men wasn't that they liked other men, it was that they didn't act like a man 'should be' acting." Craig felt his face heating up. He knew exactly how stupid this sounded. Part of him wished he could go back six years and cuss out nine-year-old Craig for being such a dumbass.

As they came to the cross walk and waited for a car to pass, Craig looked away before speaking. "So I thought if I did some super manly things all the time, that one day I'd wake up, look out the window into the blue sky and think, 'yeah, I like boobies. Girls and only girls are the people I am attracted to and want to date!'.”

Tweek tried to cover his laughed but failed. "Did it work?"

"Considering I snuck into your house to spoon you last night? No, it did not." Craig relaxed a little. He stepped closer as they crossed the street and grabbed for Tweek's hand. A family cross the other way at the same time. The parents cranked their heads to watch Craig and Tweek with smiles on their faces. The usual reaction to Craig and Tweek's public displays of affection, even after all these years.

Tweek squeezed Craig's hand. "So, stealing is masculine, and you thought stealing bikes would make you straight?"

"No, I thought doing something masculine like fixing cars would make me straight if I did them enough, but since Dad wouldn't let me take apart the engine of our car, I went to the closest thing I had: fixing bicycles." Craig shrugged. "It just so happens that I have more gay thoughts than I had friends with bikes, so I started borrowing other people's to fix."

Craig waited for Tweek to take a jab at him for borrowing people's bicycles without permission, but instead Tweek hummed to himself before swinging their connected hands a little.

"You know," Tweek said as they stopped in front of the Photo Dojo, "I would still have like-liked you, even if that plan of yours did work." Before Craig could reply, an employee stepped out of the store. Craig took a step back, instantly wishing he didn't have to drop his hand away, and let Tweek handle the transaction.

"Enjoy your cupcakes, and thank you for choosing Tweak Bro's," Tweek told the employee in his customer voice. It was almost eerie how Tweek had trained himself to switch between his normal, somewhat jittery, voice, to a calm collected one, not too unlike his father's, when he had to deal with customers. Maybe it was a Tweak family trait.

The Photo Dojo employee nodded and shut the door, a cupcake already shoved in his mouth.

Craig quickly reclaimed Tweek's hand. "You were saying? Something about already being enamoured by my hot looks and charm before we were dating?"

Tweek breathed a laugh. "Actually, yeah, dude. Pretty much."

"Wait, seriously?" Craig stepped in front of Tweek and leaned down so their noses nearly touched. "Little nine-year-old Tweek Tweak had a crush on not as little nine-year-old me?" His lips curved up. "That's adorable."

"I got the crush when I was eight, actually. Get it right." Tweek laughed. He ducked around Craig and began to pull him back towards the coffee shop.

"Well, I can't say I blame you. I was very desirable property back in the day. Girls just clamoured for my affections. Fought each other tooth and nail just to hold my sticky little hand." Craig smirked. "And you? You, babe, didn't even have try to get me. You pretty much won the lottery."

"Wasn't I voted more attractive by the girls in our class than you, Mr. Eleventh?"

"I was twelfth on the fake list, actually. Get it right."

Tweek laughed. He paused a moment before looking a way. "You know, this is going to sound corny but," He smiled up at Craig, "I'm really am happy your bicycle plan didn't work."

Craig felt his cheeks heat up. He grinned back for a beat before bending down, pressing a kiss on Tweek's forehead.

"Yeah, I am, too."

~~~~

AN: Writing these two being dorks with each other is my favorite thing, ok???? x3

#south park #fanfiction #creek #craig tucker #tweek tweak #michelle writes stuff

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