A True Family is an Amphibia story and the second story of the Fourth Light Series spinoff saga.
Picking up where No Matter What left off, Marcy finds herself in a whole new world. Good news: she's with her girlfriend Anne. The bad news: Anne won't wake up and Sasha's nowhere to be found. Now Marcy needs to step up and work with the Plantars in order to get Anne the help she needs.
The story began on December 28, 2022 (a day after the non-canon entry, One Year Later) and will be a three-act story serving as a retelling of the series with Marcy in Anne's place. It can be found here
and here.
Warning: Spoilers for the previous story will be unmarked. You've been warned!
A True Family contains examples of:
- Adaptational Backstory Change: Wartwood's school isn't destroyed by millipedes a year prior to Anne's arrival: Sprig and Ivy accidentally caused its destruction by Skipping School and leading a praying mantis back to it on everybody's first and only day in attendance.
- Adaptational Badass: Marcy becomes a stronger magic user thanks to Luz giving her her glyphs and Marcy's Calamity powers allowing her to activate them without needing Titan's Blood.
- Adaptational Karma: Hinted at the end of Chapter 13, in which Sasha decides to confront and punish Bog for finding one of her friends, not telling her they were in Wartwood, and allowing Fens to break her arm.
- Adaptational Wimp: Since Anne has half the energy of the green Calamity Gem with her on top of the blue gem's energy, she's rendered comatose while Marcy is left with the other half of the green energy.
- All for Nothing: Marcy spends a few chapters hoping to get Mayor Toadstool to contact the Toad Lords and put out a search for Sasha. After Marcy and Sprig exposes his tax fraud to Bog, Grime refuses to help out of spite.
- Ambiguous Situation: It isn't clear where Sasha ended up and is currently imprisoned. Chapter 13 shows she was at Toad Tower the whole time.
- Ascended Extra: Marcy doesn't just become a main character like the original main storyline created from One Small Change, Marcy becomes the main character since Anne's down for the count for the time being.
- Beyond the Impossible: It takes noodle makers years to master their craft: Marcy, being the Determinator, did it in a week.
- Big Damn Reunion: Marcy has hers with Sasha in Chapter 13 when Grime sends her to Wartwood to talk with her.
- But Now I Must Go: Averted. In Chapter 3, Marcy decides to leave the Plantar home off of the belief that Polly hates her. After returning home to drop Polly off (the pollywog having stowed away in her bag) and attempting to leave again, Polly admits she acts this way with everybody and tells Marcy to stay.
- Captain's Log: Beginning in Chapter 2, each chapter begins with Marcy jotting entries in her journal (Jo) about her experiences in Amphibia.
- Coming-Out Story: Chapter 11 has Marcy finally come out to the Plantars about her bisexuality and her relationship with Anne upon learning that Amphibia is a Non-Heteronormative Society.
- Cuteness Proximity: "The Face" continues to be this for everyone Marcy uses it on. To her surprise, it not only makes Felicia and her shop's customers feel sympathetic about her situation of being stranded in Amphibia and hug her, but it causes them to defend her from the red praying mantis that attacked her and Sprig. It's implied that her Calamity power made it more effective.Marcy: Oh... wow... Note to self: seems that "The Face" is a lot more... potent in this world.
(Later when the townspeople are defending her)
Marcy: ...Just how powerful IS "The Face"?! - Dangerous Forbidden Technique: According to Eda, draining spells are taboo since they kill a witch by draining their magic, so using one to suck the Calamity energy out of Anne is not a good idea.
- Dream Walker: Implied in Chapter 8, when Sprig somehow makes contact with Anne while he's asleep.
- Duality Motif: Each of Anne's eyes are glowing one of the same colors of the Calamity gem energy she holds: blue and green.
- Dude, Not Funny!: When Sasha finds Anne in her comatose state, she first assumes Anne's faking it and pranking her. It doesn't take her long to see it's not a joke, though she does deny Anne's really unable to wake up.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Once Grime has heard from Sasha what Marcy's ex-parents did to her, he's furious as not even toads would stoop as low as to harming their children.
- Everyone Can See It: Marcy can see for herself how obvious Sprig and Ivy's feelings for each other are, even comparing them to how she and Anne had been back then.
- Failed a Spot Check: When Marcy uses "The Face" in order to get Felicia and the customers in her tea shop to not fear her, nobody catches that her eyes are glowing green.
- For Want Of A Nail:
- Due to the events of No Matter What, the series begins a month later than in canon, not that it affects the timeline. On top of that, Marcy ends up in Wartwood with Anne, who's left practically comatose due to the magical energy of both the blue and green Calamity gems in her body.
- Maddie is called in to examine Anne, which leads to Marcy meeting her and becoming her magic apprentice sooner.
- Hop Pop doesn't bury the Calamity Box when he learns about it in the Plantar Family tome. Instead, Marcy makes that decision choosing to bury it in a large box and dig it up when it's time to leave the Valley.
- At Marcy's suggestion, the Plantars make ramen for the village potluck. Despite Hop Pop's hesitance, the Plantars not only enter a great dish, but they actually win the potluck, leaving Toadstool to give a random group of frogs last place.
- Sprig and Ivy cause the destruction of the Wartwood schoolhouse by accident.
- Hop Pop isn't the Plantar that runs against Toadstool in the mayoral elections.
- Sasha reunites with her friend in Wartwood early after traveling there, makes a better first impression on the Plantars, and decides to teach Bog a lesson for not telling her said friend was there.
- Hammerspace: The Plantars are stunned to hear just how much stuff is packed in Anne's backpack. Polly then asks if she could fit inside with everything. There's also Polly pulling Ol' Doris out of nowhere.
- Innocently Insensitive: Chapter 5 has a double case of this: Marcy assists the Plantars in the potluck by making ramen for them instead of Hop Pop's traditional dishes, which causes the geriatric frog to express that despite always losing the potluck, the Plantars do so as a family. This makes Marcy feel like an outsider and when talking about her troubles with her birth parents, Hop Pop says she has to know they love her, unaware of just how far from truthful that really is.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- The human companion still ends up befriending Sprig and staying with the Plantars.
- Marcy becomes Maddie's magic apprentice, albeit much sooner.
- The Calamity Box is still buried due to the implications that it's dangerous.
- The human still finds Domino 2 and releases her into the wild after she grows into an adult kill-a-pillar.
- Just like in the One Small Change one-shot "Smol", Marcy tripped after making a potion and after the bottle bounced off several trees and rocks, hit her on the head, dousing her with the potion.
- In Marcy's journal entry in Chapter 6, she mentions that during the Time Skip, she got the Plantars hooked on "Suspicion Island" and needed to recharge her phone when Hop Pop drained the battery, she learned how to drive Bessie, Sprig and Hop Pop fought for control of the farm, and Marcy put Polly through "girl time" and they nearly got arrested.
- The Plantars still end up losing their vegetable stand since they're unable to pay the rent.
- Due the crossover panel with The Owl House being canon just like in the main storyline, the human protagonist meets Luz & Eda when they open a portal to Amphibia.
- Sasha still ended up at Toad Tower and becoming Grime's lieutenant.
- Internal Reveal:
- After going through the Plantar family tunnels in Chapter 7, Marcy tells the Plantars what happened with her former parents before coming to Amphibia.
- In Chapter 11, she comes out to them and admits that she's dating Anne.
- In Chapter 13, Sprig tells his family as well as Sasha that he made contact with Anne in her dreams.
- Lampshade Hanging: Marcy is puzzled as to how the magic energy within Anne is keeping her alive (preventing her from starving to death), but leaves it be.
- Marcy also wonders if the third Calamity gem was colored red or pink and where Polly keeps Ol' Doris, which she pulls out of nowhere.
- Marcy later questions how "The Face" is effective enough to get the few citizens she used it on to defend her from the giant praying mantis.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Anne thinks she's been having a string of random dreams for an entire night, completely unaware that she's actually been catatonic in the real world for the last month.
- Metaphorically True: When Hop Pop asks Marcy about if her parents are around, she tells him they're alive but she isn't speaking to them right now. This is to hide the truth about them almost murdering her over her dating Anne.
- Mood Whiplash: Chapter 5 shows the Plantars finally winning the annual potluck thanks to Marcy's ramen, but then it cuts to Marcy dreaming of when she impressed the Boonchuys with her noodle-making skills before Marcy wakes up, looks over at Anne, and cries while saying she misses her.
- Must Make Amends: Following the potluck, Hop Pop works to make Marcy feel welcome by allowing her to help out around the house more.
- Mythology Gag:
- Marcy refers to her journal as "Jo", just as she does in Marcy's Journal: A Guide to Amphibia.
- Marcy's new outfit uses the same shorts and shoes Anne wore in the epilogue of "The Hardest Thing".
- Non-Heteronormative Society: As Chapter 11 reveals, same-sex couples aren't an issue in Amphibia after a shipping war regarding three guys from an anime Marcy shows all of Wartwood. Upon learning this, Marcy confesses to the Plantars that she and Anne are dating.
- Noodle Incident: In the past, Marcy's former father forced her to date the son of a higher-up at his job, and she, Anne, and Sasha had to work together to make him seem like a bad influence to get it called off.
- Now, Let Me Carry You: After everything Anne's done to protect Marcy, she feels indebted to help Anne in her immobile state. This also applies to the Plantars for giving the two girls shelter.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Between Chapters 10 & 11, Marcy creates two new glyph combos, one for bubbles and one for a safety net.
- Opportunistic Bastard: Mr. Wu previously forced Marcy to date a boy of someone at his job to get in good with them and when the girls made the boy look like a bad influence, Mr. Wu guilted the higher up into giving him a promotion.
- Person as Verb: Hop Pop uses the term "Pulling a Marcy" for whenever someone gets as deep in thought about something and tune out everything else like how she gets "in the zone".
- Pet the Dog: Toadstool is all set to gloat over his victory against Marcy in the elections but when he sees her crying, he actually feels bad for her and decides to contact the Toad Lords in order to find Sasha.
- The Reveal: In Chapter 8, Anne, while shown to be conscious within her mind, believes she's having a very long and weird dream.
- Secret-Keeper: Marcy holds off on telling the Plantars the truth about her and Anne dating along with her home life out of fear towards how they'll react.
- Shout-Out: The tunic Marcy starts wearing with her new attire in Chapter 8 is based off of Link's in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: The journal entry for Chapter 8 reveals that Marcy's taken to wearing a new outfit over her St. James uniform: it's comprised of a green tunic, beige shorts, black fingerless gloves, homemade ankle-length boots, and a satchel for her supplies. She mentions that she also wears a sunhat and overalls whenever she helps with farm work.
- Something Only They Would Say: In order to cheer Marcy up after Hop Pop tells her to stop her work service which leads to the Plantars losing their stand, Sprig hums the song he learned from Anne while in her dreams that always helps her relax. Marcy is left wondering how he knows it as Sprig promises to explain it later, doing so after Sasha hums the tune to Marcy.
- Spotting the Thread: Over the course of the second story arc, the Plantars, Maddie, and Ivy pick up the hints about Marcy's past due to how she avoids talking about her birth family and seeing the scar on her head.
- Story Arc: The story is broken into brief arcs: the first four chapters serve as the "Getting to know the Plantars" Arc, showing Marcy bonding with each member of the Plantar family. The following three chapters make up the "Marcy Becomes a Plantar" arc, which shows Marcy being accepted by the Plantars as family.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Bog has these kinds of thoughts when Sasha decides they need to talk about his letting Fens harm one of her friends.
- Time Skip: By the time Chapter 6 begins, a full month has passed since Anne and Marcy ended up in Amphibia.
- Trauma Button: When Ivy asks Marcy if she likes being randomly attacked in Chapter 4, she unknowingly makes Marcy remember what her parents tried to do to her.
- Welcome to My World: Lampshaded in Chapter 6. After seeing how Sprig and Ivy are obviously infatuated with one another, Marcy realizes how Sasha had felt seeing her and Anne danced around each other's mutual feelings.
