Fanfic / The Plantar Family Pet

A boy and his human.

The Plantar Family Pet is a What If? AU for Amphibia by TomatoBaster that diverges from canon starting with the events of episode 1. Anne, mistaken for a dangerous creature, is shot and left for dead by hunters. She is found and rescued by Sprig and she manages to survive the ordeal. But a resulting injury to her throat leaves Anne unable to speak and the Plantars, who had never seen a human before, decide to adopt her as a pet. Anne is forced to adapt to this new reality or risk being hunted down again.

It can be read here.

---

This fanfic contains examples of:

• Accidental Kiss: When trying to get Sasha to calm down from her fury, Anne and Sasha accidentally kiss. Anne is mortified, but it does succeed in stopping Sasha...by causing her to faint.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • Unlike in canon, Marcy's torment begins much earlier, with King Andrias torturing her for months. If Marcy hadn't slipped away due to a careless mistake that left her cage unlocked, she would have continued to suffer at the king's hands.
  • Anne's first encounter with the Wartwood citizens goes poorly, resulting in her nearly dying and having her voice torn from her.
  • Sasha is attacked and gravely injured by a giant ferret. She is left in such a poor state that the vet suggests putting her down. Her condition declines nearly to the point of death, barely surviving with Maddie's interference.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • While already a villain in the series proper, King Andrias was still reluctant to go through with the Core's order to kill Marcy, a child, immediately. In this fic, He has no hesitations in subjecting Marcy to cruel torture shortly after meeting her.
  • The conversation Marcy has regarding King Andrias in chapter 28 hints at King Andrias being more reluctant about the ordeal than he let on.
• Agony of the Feet:
  • Marcy receives a nasty ankle fracture after falling off a giant bird while on the run from King Andrias. This prevents her from straying far from where she landed. It also keeps her from running when Maddie approaches, forcing her to go on the defensive. Fortunately, Maddie just wanted to help her.
  • Anne gets her ankle chomped on by a sharp trap, rendering her unable to walk.
  • Sasha's leg gets banged up real good after crashing into the vet's office while fleeing from her attackers.
• And This Is for...: After King Andrias screams at Sasha for making him lose the box, she outright states she doesn't care what happens to her and that she made the sacrifice for Marcy, who is presumed dead.
• Animal Motif: Due to not being able to talk and being treated like an animal for so long, Anne adopts a few cat-like behaviors. This includes, much to her dismay, unconscious purring.
• Animate Dead: Maddie warns Sprig and Anne that if Sasha's heart stops beating before she can finish the healing potion, she'll have to resort to necromancy. Anne is shaken by this and ups her efforts to help the potion finish faster.
• Annoying Arrows: Averted. Anne nearly died to injuries sustained from being shot with arrows.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: A non-villainous example. Sprig is so desperate to keep Maddie at his house since she's the best healer on their side they have, that he resorts to allowing Maddie full access to Sasha and Anne for study in exchange. Anne isn't happy about the arrangement but accepts that it's better than risking Sasha getting worse.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Despite lingering doubts, Sasha wants to remain determined to believe that Grime cares for her and that she and Anne would be safe under his protection. When Sprig bluntly asks Sasha why Grime wasn't already at the door if he actually cared about her, Sasha isn't able to answer.
• Arrows on Fire: The four newt hunters sent by King Andrias take advantage of Marcy's fear of fire by using fire arrows to trap her.
• Artistic License – Pharmacology: Hop Pop gives the same type of tranquilizer dart that worked on Anne to Sprig and Polly in case of a toad confrontation. The problem is that tranquilizer darts have to factor in weight. Too little wouldn't do anything and too much would kill. With the toads being bigger and heavier than any of the human girls, it's safe to assume the darts wouldn't have done anything to protect Sprig or Polly.
• Asshole Victim: Reluctantly defied by Anne when she decides that letting Wally die was not worth letting innocent civilians get torn apart by a beast.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Fire arrows. Are they intimidating? Yes. Are they cool? Yes. Do they have any practical use? No. Keeping the arrows lit up comes with the cost of speed and distance, rendering them near useless for long range. The flames also help give away the location of the archer and makes it much easier to dodge the arrows.
• Badass Adorable: Cute little Ivy single-handedly fended off highly skilled newt hunters to save Anne and Marcy.
• Badass in Distress: Yunan was captured off-screen by newts sent by King Andrias in chapter 29.
• Bandage Mummy: Sasha was so badly torn by the ferret that this is how she ends like coming home from the vet. Anne is horrified and in tears at seeing her friend this way.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Because of Sprig's efforts to take Anne's feelings into consideration even when he thought she was just a wild animal, Anne becomes protective of him to the point of taking on a killer wasp and later her own friend Sasha to keep him safe.
  • Maddie is the first amphibian to be genuinely kind to Marcy, which slowly but surely earns the broken girl's trust. In turn, Marcy becomes the first person to be genuinely interested in Maddie's witchcraft, a fact that excites Maddie enough to make Marcy her apprentice.
• Becoming the Mask: At first, Anne only acted as a family pet because it was the only way she'd survive. By chapter 19, she has fully embraced this role for real.
• Behavioral Conditioning:
  • Anne has spent so long being treated like a pet that even after the Plantars realize she's a person, she still keeps her pet-like behavior, a fact that adds to the Plantars' guilt.
  • This extends to Hop Pop as well, who had grown so used to treating Anne as a pet he has difficulty breaking this habit even after learning the truth.
• Berserk Button: Woe to anyone who messes with Sprig on Anne's watch.
  • Sasha abandons all reasoning and tries to go straight for the kill when an unfortunate encounter has her believing the Plantar family has been abusing Anne.
  • Seeing the ferret brutally rip open Sasha's side sends Anne into a fury and she crushes its skull.
  • Just when she's starting to trust the Plantar family, Sasha happens upon the journal Hop Pop was using to document Anne at the beginning. Sasha becomes increasingly unsettled as she reads the entries, becomes furious when she finds out they leashed Anne, and when she gets to the detailed sketches Hop Pop made while Anne was unconscious, the rage that burns through Sasha's body is enough to make her hair turn pink.
  • In chapter 29, sweet Marcy gets pushed into a rage when newt hunters capture and prepare her to be transported to the king. She proceeds to decimate the hunters.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Hybeena stingers are filled with a devastating venom that drives its victims mad with pain. Anne is stung through the shoulder while protecting Sprig.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Anne might be a sweet girl even in spite of her predicament, but she does still have her limits.
  • When Hop Pop talks about getting the human girls spayed, Anne chases him around the house until she collapses from exhaustion.
  • Sasha receives a nasty bite from Anne after trying to kill Sprig.
  • RIP the ferret that tried to take away Polly and nearly killed Sasha.

• Big Damn Kiss: Marcy is so moved by Sasha's apology that she gives her a kiss on the lips. This prompts them to take their friendship to the next level.
• Big Damn Reunion: Chapter 44 has Anne finally reunite with her parents. Unfortunately the reunion is soured due to her horrible condition and her parents rushing her to the hospital.
• Bloodier and Gorier: While not to an extreme extent, the fic still includes scenes more violent than in canon, including Sasha having her side torn out and Anne being impaled by a giant stinger.
• Bludgeoned to Death: How Anne kills the ferret after it tears Sasha apart.
• Bookworm: Marcy was already excited to visit the archives, but upon seeing the sheer number of books, she is dripping with barely contained enthusiasm. At one point, she finds a book about the dark arts of Amphibia and geeks out to Anne about it.
• Break the Cutie: Poor Marcy. All she wanted was to go on an adventure with her two best friends. Her effort is instead rewarded with being separated from her friends, thinking that one of her friends was killed because of her, and being subjected to months of relentless torture. Even after she escapes, there's no reprieve as everyone she runs into has tried to kill her or capture her. By the time Maddie finds her, Marcy has severe trust issues.
• Break the Haughty: Throughout much of the story, Sasha is shown to be very aggressive and prone to violence when it comes to anyone getting between her and her girls. Her stubbornness and arrogance make her unapproachable and Hop Pop had good reason not to want her in the same house as him as his family. Then Sasha gets her side chomped out by a ferret while protecting Anne and is reduced to a quivering, sobbing mess. When she initially wakes up from surgery, she becomes skittish and kept trying to hide from the vet before later lashing out in defense. She has a go at Hop Pop as well, but is held back by her pain. Despite not having any trust in Hop Pop or the vet, Sasha is in too miserable a state to stop them. When she's visited by Sprig after coming to, Sasha's pain has broken her enough that she finally lets a little bit of her guard down and allows Sprig to pet her.
• Bungled Suicide: Chapter 27 reveals that Marcy tested the exotic ingredients on herself before they could be used in a potion for Anne. When confronted by Hop Pop on how reckless that ones, Marcy admits that after the incident at the night market, she was hoping that the exotic ingredients would kill her. This causes Hop Pop to send her to his room and call over Yunan to have a talk with her.
• The Bus Came Back: After being missing for several chapters, Grime finally makes his reappearance in chapter 31.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Sprig chews out Hop Pop when his insistence on Anne wearing a leash terrifies her to the point of tears.
  • And again when Hop Pop still continued to treat Anne like a misbehaving animal despite being informed she's a person.
• Cassandra Truth: When Sprig realizes that Sasha is the same species as Anne, Hop Pop insists that the blood loss was making him see things. Polly remains on the fence. It's only until Sprig captures Sasha that Polly truly believes him.
• The Chase: A large portion of chapter 16 has Marcy being chased by Yunan.
• Cliffhanger: Multiple chapters end in this manner.
  • Chapter 7 ends with Anne being stabbed by a killer wasp stinger and passing out in the forest while Sprig goes to get help.
  • Chapter 9 ends with Sprig realizing Sasha is a human like Anne, but succumbs to blood loss before he can tell Hop Pop.
  • Chapter 13 ends with Maddie preparing to introduce Sprig to Marcy.
  • Chapter 16 ends with Marcy being darted and rendered unconscious by General Yunan.
  • Chapter 19 ends with Sprig using the last tranquilizer dart on Sasha, intent on bringing her back to his home.
  • Chapter 23 ends with a mortally wounded Sasha needing to be taken to a hospital despite the villagers' fears of her species.
  • Chapter 24 ends with Hop Pop and a frog nurse finding Sasha growling in the corner and her eyes glowing pink in the dark.
  • Chapter 28 ends with Sasha getting in such a rage after finding out Hop Pop sketched Anne while she was knocked out and vulnerable that her hair shifts to pink.
  • Chapter 29 ends with a wounded Anne and Marcy hiding out in a cave after narrowly escaping newt hunters.
  • Chapter 31 ends with King Andrias sending the newt hunters to follow Yunan and capture all three girls.
  • Chapter 33 ends with Yunan heading home, unaware that she's being followed.
  • Chapter 38 ends with the girls captured by the king's followers.
  • Chapter 39 ends with King Andrias preparing to have Anne and Sasha killed.
  • Chapter 42 ends with Anne nearly killing Sasha while under the effects of a gas.
  • Chapter 43 ends with Marcy supposedly dead and Yunan getting knocked out.
  • Chapter 44 ends with Anne's parents receiving the devastating news that Anne had her vocal cords cut.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the earlier chapters of the story, Anne is stung by a killer wasp and goes feral due to the agonizing pain the venom causes. The venom makes a return in chapter 42 where King Andrias uses it to deliberately enrage Anne and Sasha into attacking each other.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Sasha doesn't take it well when Anne tells her Sprig is her best friend. She makes a resolve to pull Anne back under her wing.
• Clothing-Concealed Injury:
  • Marcy hides her many cuts, deep bruises, and unhealed burns underneath her outfit. When she removes it to show Sasha what happened, the blonde is rightfully horrified.
  • Anne pulls down her dress collar to show Sasha the scar on her throat.
• Cold-Blooded Torture:
  • King Andrias subjects Marcy to electric shocks, burn wounds, and cruel experimentations in an attempt to force her to unleash her Calamity Powers. The fact that his efforts haven't worked isn't enough to deter him.
  • In order to force information from Marcy, King Andrias squeezes Sasha's jaws shut and threatens to crush her head if Marcy doesn't comply or tells a fib. Marcy reluctantly hands over the information he wants to keep Sasha safe.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Sprig suggests getting Anne a partner, Anne manages to shout the word no to him. Instead of convincing Sprig that Anne is a person, all it does is make him think that Anne is like a parrot.
• Comfort the Dying: The vet tells Hop Pop that Sasha might not make it through the night. Hop Pop doesn't relay this information to Anne as he doesn't want to scare her, but he does have her stay with Sasha during the night. That way, if Sasha did pass away, it would be in the comforting arms of her friend instead of being alone.
• Control Freak:
  • Sasha is unhealthfully determined to gain control over Anne. She even rants about how Anne used to do everything she said.
  • In chapter 28, after overhearing what Anne told Sprig about their life on earth, Sasha makes the attempt to mellow out and offers a sincere apology to Marcy for how she treated her.
• Cooldown Hug: After Sasha recovers from her intoxication, Sprig finds her in the corner crying and looking at him with fear. Sasha demands to be left alone, but Sprig hugs her instead. The act catches her so off-guard she's unable to respond to it.
• Covered with Scars: The torture inflicted on Marcy has left her body heavily scarred.
• Creepy Good: Maddie is a frog studying the dark arts. She is also one of the very few amphibian allies Anne and her friends have.
• Crush Blush:
  • Happens to Marcy when Anne cuddles with her on the couch.
  • Happens again with Marcy and Anne when they have to huddle underneath a blanket to keep from getting spotted.

• Curb-Stomp Battle: Sasha tries to neutralize an enraged Anne during their second encounter. It doesn't go well.
• Darker and Edgier: In this version of Amphibia, the locals are much more cold and cruel towards the girls. Anne was shot and left to die a painful death while Marcy spent months in torture and nearly got sold off in a bid at the night market. The girls are treated like exotic animals to be exploited, killed, or kept as a pet. The only one who had equal footing for a time was Sasha and even then it was only with Grime and his comrades. Anne and Marcy do get treated like people eventually but at the cost of Anne permanently adopting pet-like behavior and Marcy having a crippling fire phobia and trust issues.
• Death of Personality: Anne fears this is happening to her when she continues to unconsciously display animal-like behavior. She isn't always aware that she's doing them until it's pointed out. At one point, she gets so stressed by it that she has a panic attack.
• Deer in the Headlights:
  • Due to her trauma involving King Andrias constantly burning her, the sight of any fire makes Marcy freeze in terror. Multiple unscrupulous characters use this to assert control over Marcy.
  • Anne has a similar reaction with arrows. When confronted by newt hunters wielding arrows, Anne gets locked in place, requiring Marcy to get her to move.
• Defrosting the Ice Queen: Downplayed. While Sasha still distrusts the Plantars and has been tempted to punch Sprig a few times, she has quieted down around the Plantars, no longer verbally accusing them of hurting Anne. She's still a long way from considering the Plantars friends.
• Determinator:
  • Despite her fears of being captured herself, Sasha is relentless in her pursuit to rescue Anne.
  • Sprig's unwillingness to give up on Anne is what saved her life.
• Easily Forgiven: Averted with Wally. Sprig makes it clear to him under no uncertain terms that Anne will not forgive him just because he apologized.

• Everyone Has Standards:
  • General Yunan hunts down Marcy, intending on returning her to Andrias in exchange for the reward money. But after finding out that the king has been abusing the child, Yunan can't find it in herself to go through with it.
  • Ivy is disgusted by how poorly the hunters treat Anne and Marcy. She later displays anger when telling Sprig about the trap Anne was caught in.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Anne-Wrath. Whenever Sprig's life is in danger, Anne goes ballistic and attacks with killing intent. During this state, her desire to protect Sprig blocks out her rational thoughts. During one of her outbursts, she nearly kills Sasha.
  • Sasha-Rage. When things aren't going her way, Sasha isn't very good at remaining composed. After Anne permanently locks her collar back on, Sasha's first reaction is making a bee line to Sprig to stab him with her sword.
  • Sasha-Stubbornness. No matter what the Plantars or even Anne tell her, Sasha doubles down on her belief that the Plantars purposefully hurt Anne. She refuses to even entertain the idea of being wrong.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • The pain caused by killer wasp venom is so severe that its victims will lash out at their own bodies just to escape the agony.
  • Due to the severity of Sasha's injuries and how much pain she's in, the vet suggests to Hop Pop to have her be put down. Neither Sasha nor Hop Pop want to go through with it.
• Faux Affably Evil: While torturing Marcy, Andrias would pet her in an attempt to console her. This act contributes to Marcy's lack of trust.
• Fingore: Marcy's fingers are burned during her struggle with her kidnappers at the night market.
• Flowers of Romance: Sasha insists on getting Anne flowers to win her into their relationship, despite Marcy's protests.
• Forced into Evil: It's implied in chapter 28 that King Andrias never wanted to hurt Marcy and may have been forced into it. Marcy seems to suspect this might be the case, but she still hates him for what he did to her.
• From Bad to Worse:
  • As if Marcy being mentally traumatized at the Bizarre Bazaar and Sasha being ripped open and left nearly dead at the jaws of a ferret weren't bad enough, Sprig receives the horrifying news from Maddie that the whole town knows Anne is alive and is out for her head. And with Yunan being pressured by the locals to set up traps, Sprig decides that hiding all three girls in the basement is the safest course of action.
  • Gets even worse when King Andrias sends newt hunters more skilled than General Yunan to capture Marcy. If it weren't for Ivy overhearing Anne's roar, both Marcy and Anne would have been taken to the king.
  • Even worse still when King Andrias finds out the whereabouts of Marcy and her friends.
• Found Family:
  • Anne has come to see the Plantars as an extension of her family, especially Sprig. During her short period of being able to talk, Anne pours out her heart to Sprig about how much she cares about him and how she appreciates all he's done for her.
  • Hop Pop promises Anne that he'll take care of her like his own child and refers to Sprig as her brother.
  • Grime can deny it all he wants, but everyone can tell he sees Sasha as his daughter.
  • Marcy finds a parental figure in Yunan.
• The Glomp: Marcy wastes no time in embracing Anne when the two are finally reunited.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: A trait all three girls gain after arriving in Amphibia. Anne is the first to have this happen, followed by Marcy and then Sasha. The eye glow is triggered by extreme stress and emotion, so when it does happen, it's a warning that shouldn't be ignored.
• Good Samaritan:
  • Ivy saves Anne and Marcy from the hunters. She later tracks them down and helps get them out of the net and removes Anne's muzzle. When she finds out Sprig is her owner, she immediately rushes to inform him of what happened.
  • After arriving on earth and getting hit by a car, a bunch of worried people attempt to help Anne get to the hospital.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars:
  • Thanks to the hunters, Anne bears a scar across her throat.
  • Just like in canon, Sasha receives a scar on her cheek from Anne.
  • Marcy's body is riddled with scarring from her days of being tortured.
• Great Big Library of Everything: The archives is essentially this.
• Hates Being Touched: A trait Marcy developed after the torture King Andrias put her through. Marcy allowing anyone to touch her is a good indicator in how much she trusts someone. Being childhood friends, Marcy had no problem with physical interaction with Anne and Sasha. But it took a while before Maddie and later Yunan to touch her without freaking her out.
• Healing Potion: Maddie makes a limited version of one to help Anne and later Marcy recover from their wounds.
  • The whole reason the trip to the night market happened was because Maddie and Marcy were hoping to find potential ingredients to create a potion to restore Anne's voice.
  • Maddie recreates the same potion she used on Anne to help keep Sasha from dying.
  • In chapter 27, Maddie and Marcy have finished a prototype of the voice potion. It works, but causes extreme tiredness in Anne and the speaking is only temporary.
• Help Mistaken for Attack: Upon seeing Anne's state during their initial reunion, a panic and distraught Sasha doesn't recognize the tube connected to Anne was delivering medicine to help her. She instead thinks Anne was being infused with something insidious.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Sasha stops the ferret from killing Anne by shoving a stick in its mouth and repeatedly hitting it with another stick. While this saves Anne's life, it unfortunately drew the ferret's attention onto Sasha and the poor girl gets her side ripped clean open. Even Hop Pop isn't sure if she'll survive the injury.
  • After watching Marcy getting stabbed, a shaken Sasha takes the box and throws it through the portal, preventing King Andrias from using it. This ends up stranding her in Amphibia and remains a prisoner of the enraged king.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: As no one on Amphibia knows what humans are, a number of assumptions are made throughout the story.
  • With how little he knows about humans, Hop Pop is convinced that Anne would freeze solid just like amphibians during a severe drop in temperature.
  • The Plantars assume Anne is a baby.
  • Because Anne refuses to eat bugs, it's assumed she's herbivorous.
  • Friendly cuddling is mistaken for preparing to do the duty.
• Humiliation Conga: Sasha gets hit with this big time. After her initial run-in with Sprig and failing to get Anne, Sasha keeps returning to make a new attempt. She ends up captured by a trap she couldn't see because she was too fixated on killing Sprig, gets locked in a crate with a muzzle on her face, and gets petted like she's an animal. She is darted a total of three times and gets high on tea which has her confessing her love for Anne. Then when she gets injured protecting Anne, Hop Pop is forced to take her to a vet just to get her help. To say Sasha is not having a good time is an understatement.
• Hypocrite: Despite screaming that Anne isn't a pet and shouldn't be treated like one, Sasha herself has no problem with trying to control Anne.
• I Choose to Stay:
  • In chapter 19, Anne puts her collar back on and destroys the key, making it very clear to Sasha that Anne would rather remain a pet than join her.
  • After temporarily gaining her voice back, Anne makes it clear to Sprig that she chose to stay with him on her own.
• I'll Kill You!: After finding Anne muzzled and caged in the Plantar's basement and assuming the worst, Sasha says this to Sprig.
  • While she doesn't say this directly to Andrias, Sasha swears to Marcy she'll kill him for what he's done to her.
  • After finding out the Plantars had Anne naked in their basement and sketched pictures of her while she was asleep, Sasha comes very close to trying to kill Hop Pop.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Just like in canon, Marcy gets a fire sword shoved through her chest just before she can escape with Anne.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: Anne is shot in the neck with an arrow. The resulting injury rips away her vocal cords and renders her unable to speak.
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!:
  • Yunan is so smitten by how adorable Marcy is that she ends up wanting to keep her.
  • Ivy almost tries to do this with Anne until she learns she already has a home with the Plantars.
• Innocently Insensitive: The Plantars are unaware of how humiliating their treatment of Anne is. Once they find out that Anne is a person and not a wild animal, they make effort to change their behavior. It doesn't always work.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite the wildly different circumstances, Anne still forges a friendship with Sprig.
• Intoxication Ensues:
  • Hop Pop gives Anne some mushroom tea to help her stay awake to guard his crops. But with Anne being human and not frog, the tea ends up messing with her system and by the next day, she's so loopy she mistakes Hop Pop for a tea kettle and attempts to eat an "ice cream cone" Sprig. Hop Pop is forced to tranquilize her until the tea leaves her system.
  • Confirmed to have happened multiple more times when Hop Pop had Anne test various ingredients to see what she could digest and what messed with her system.
  • It's later revealed that Hop Pop has purposely given Anne the tea to calm her when she gets too angry.
  • Sasha becomes intoxicated after being tricked into drinking the same tea Hop Pop used on Anne. She becomes overly friendly, cuddling with Sprig of all people, and confesses her love for Anne and Marcy before being conked out.
  • In chapter 30, Ivy gives Anne some thistle grass to calm her down. Maddie is shocked by this and informs Ivy that thistle grass is the first ingredient to a love potion. Ivy immediately regrets her decision.
  • The vet gives Sasha some thistle grass to calm her down when getting Hop Pop. The thistle grass ends up making Sasha crave affection from her girls so much, she wanders outside to find them.
• Is That Cute Kid Yours?: Yunan suspects Grime adopted Sasha. He adamantly denies it.
• It's All About Me: Wally didn't care whatsoever about what happened to Anne so long as he was the center of attention. Even when confronted about what his actions cost, Wally still insists Anne has no one to blame for her misfortunes but herself.
• It's All My Fault: Despite reassurances from Marcy, Sprig blames himself for Anne being unable to talk.
  • Marcy blames herself for Anne's presumed death.
  • Maddie believes it's her fault when Marcy goes missing.
  • The Plantars blame themselves for Anne still exhibiting pet-like behaviors even after they start treating her like a person.
  • Sprig keeps blaming himself for the way Anne is behaving, wishing that he had paid more attention to her to see the signs that she wasn't a wild animal.
• Jerkass with a Heart of Gold:
  • Sasha is very abrasive and is hostile towards the Plantars. She made an attempt on Sprig's life more than once, including throwing him from a high ledge despite his pleading. But she still genuinely loves Anne and Marcy and is fiercely protective of them, and her trying to kill Sprig mainly came about because she was convinced he was abusing Anne.
  • Despite still having reservations against the Plantars, Sasha was still willing to help Anne carry them back to safety.
• Kill the Cutie: Supposedly. King Andrias impales Marcy after she attempts to flee from his capture. Everyone who witnessed it assumes Marcy is dead.
• Knight of Cerebus: While the story is already darker right from the beginning, shit hits the fan in chapter 11 where it's revealed that King Andrias has been torturing Marcy to force her powers to surface. Marcy makes it clear that King Andrias would give this same treatment to Anne and Sasha if he ever caught them. Unfortunately the king's reward offer for Marcy's safe return has ensured that there's almost nowhere that's safe for the girls.
• Lack of Empathy: The newt hunters that attempt to capture Marcy and Anne make it very clear they don't care what the king does to the girls so long as they get paid.
  • Defied with General Yunan. At first she didn't care all that much that Marcy didn't want to go back to the king and darted and bagged her. But the longer she was with Marcy, the more she started to worry about her, something that surprised even Yunan herself. When Marcy finally gets Yunan to believe that King Andrias was abusing her, instead of still going through with it to get paid, General Yunan forfeits the money to instead protect Marcy.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After the consequences of Wally's little stunt is exposed, nobody wants him around anymore. The mayor forces Wally to give all his money to the Plantar family as compensation and then banishes him from town.
• Liar Revealed: King Andrias gleefully forces Marcy to confess to her friends that she knew about the box and had intentionally had them sent to another world just to avoid her parents' plans on moving.
• Library Episode: The plot of chapter 28 revolves around Hop Pop, Sprig, Anne, and Marcy visiting the archives to search for a book to find clues on how to charge up the music box to allow the human girls return to earth.
• Little Miss Badass: Don't let Maddie's pint-size fool you. She has an affinity for magic and she knows how to use it. Just ask the toad who barely escaped with only his arms being transmogrified into chicken wings.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Averted completely. All the dangerous injuries Anne, Sasha, and Marcy are inflicted with as the story progresses is treated 100% seriously. Many of these injuries even incapacitate the girls for a time.
• Mama Bear: Yunan quickly becomes protective of Marcy after learning of her past abuse.
  • Yunan completely decimates the amphibians that kidnapped Marcy.
  • After being reunited with her daughter and seeing her dreadful condition, Oum vows to find whoever hurt Anne and kill them.
• Man Bites Man: During her attempt to protect Sprig, Anne savagely bites and rips Sasha's arm, much to the horror of all three of them.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • King Andrias charmed Marcy with various aspects of Newtopia in order to lower her guard so he could trap her. Other amphibians have also attempted to do the same to get to Marcy.
  • Wally gets the whole village riled up to find and kill Anne when it's discovered that not only is she still alive but she's not alone.
• Mercy Kill:
  • Prior to the start of the story, Sprig attempted this to put Anne out of her misery. He can't bring himself to do it.
  • The frog nurse believes this is the best course of action for a critically injured Sasha.
• Mistaken Age: For a while, the Plantars assumed Anne was a baby. When she tries to write out her age, she's stopped early, resulting in Sprig announcing she's 1.
• Mistaken Death Confirmation: After crash-landing near Wartwood, an injured Marcy stumbles upon Anne's backpack. The presence of nearby blood and no Anne in sight leads Marcy to conclude that Anne had been killed. She spends days mourning Anne's death in peace before receiving the news that Anne is still alive.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Sprig is horrified when it finally dawns on him that he was treating Anne, a person like him, as a pet. It's so bad that when Anne still shows him kindness, Sprig is convinced that she's just pretending to be nice to him.
  • While under the effects of the killer wasp venom, the extreme pain causes Anne to bite Sprig more than once. Despite Sprig understanding she didn't mean to do it, Anne still feels horrible.
  • When Sasha threatens to kill Sprig, Anne loses herself long enough to bite Sasha's arm and tearing it open. Sprig's scolding snaps Anne out of it and she becomes wrought with guilt upon seeing what she did to Sasha. The fact that Sasha appears afraid of her doesn't help things.
  • Sprig again when he realizes he traumatized Sasha by trapping her, muzzling her, and trying to tame her like she was a wild animal.
  • Anne is shaken to her core when she realizes she sliced Sasha's face in a blind rage.
  • Marcy is horrified when she nearly kills a newt hunter shortly after her powers activate.
  • Anne and Sasha are both shaken after King Andrias forced them to nearly fight to the death.
• Near-Death Experience: In chapter 23, Polly is almost taken and eaten by a giant weasel while she's stuck in a frozen state. She only survives because Anne broke house rules and came into town, and so happened to be there to protect her from the weasel. Polly is understandably shaken when she finds this out.
• Never My Fault: Even after being outed as a liar, Wally refuses to accept blame for what happened to Anne. He tries to shift the blame onto her by saying that she shouldn't have ran at him waving her arms if she didn't want to be hunted.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • Given that humans are not native to Amphibia, Anne and Marcy's innocent cuddling winds up looking like much more to Hop Pop, who forces them to separate out of fear of them producing a litter of human babies.
  • Sasha mistakes Anne's medical treatment to be some kind of terrible experiment.
• Official Couple: As of chapter 32, Marcy and Sasha are now girlfriends.
• Oh, Crap!: Marcy has this reaction when her own outfit gives herself away to General Yunan.
  • Again Marcy, when she is captured by amphibians at the night market to be sold.
  • The frog villagers are horrified when they find out Anne survived the hunters' attack.
  • Sasha gets hit with this hard when she gets ambushed by panicking villages and pinned down to be killed.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • The normally loud and confident Sasha devolves into a sobbing whimpering mess when Sprig tries to tame her and she pleads with him to let her go.
  • When Sprig's life is in danger, Anne becomes uncharacteristically savage.
  • Hop Pop when his talk of spaying causes Anne to have a go at him.
  • Sasha is so distraught after she recovers from the tea that when Sprig gives her a hug and pets her, she does nothing to force him away.
  • Kind and friendly Maddie comes very close to trying to outright kill someone when Marcy is captured and traumatized in chapter 22.
  • When Marcy is finally pushed too far, her fear turns into rage and her powers activate. She immediately uses them to crush one of the newt hunters and threatens the others.
  • Normally friendly and kind Anne enjoying Wally's terrified screams and seriously considering letting him die goes a long way to show how very little she thinks of him.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Seeing Sasha in such a bad state after her run-in with Sprig leaves Grime feeling vengeful.
  • Hop Pop develops this towards Anne after their relationship significantly improves. When Anne comes home badly injured in chapter 31, Hop Pop was willing to take on the far bigger Grime under the assumption that Grime was the culprit.
  • When Marcy confesses about wanting to die, Hop Pop doesn't waste time in getting her the help she needs.
• Parental Substitute: General Yunan wants to be this for Marcy.
  • Chapters 22 and 26 strongly hint Marcy has accepted this role for Yunan.
• Plagued by Nightmares:
  • Chapter 26 reveals that Marcy has been suffering from night terrors about her ordeal back at the Bizarre Bazaar. It's led to her suffering from a lack of sleep. Her sleep-deprived state is so obvious that not even being hidden under a hood disguises the fact.
  • Chapter 36 has Sasha awaken to Marcy having a nightmare.
• Platonic Kissing: As she is unable to verbally express herself, Anne uses kissing as a means of apologizing or accepting an apology. Sasha is weirded out by it.
  • Sasha is subjected to a barrage of apology kisses from Anne in chapter 20.
• Polyamory: Chapter 32 has the girls realize they all have feelings for each other. Sasha and Marcy get together and fully intend on including Anne with them. Starting with the end of chapter 34, the three girls are officially dating.
• Properly Paranoid: When finding out Yunan was taken to the king, Marcy is terrified that she was being followed. Yunan insists that she wasn't. Unfortunately Marcy's fears end up being correct.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Sasha delivers one to Sprig after finding Anne in a pet crate.
  • Sprig gives one to Hop Pop after the latter refuses to believe Sprig's claims that Sasha was a human.
  • Wally is called out on how damaging his shenanigans had been to Anne.
• Relationship Upgrade: Starting with chapter 32, Marcy and Sasha are dating. They want Anne to join them.
  • As of the end of chapter 34, Anne is officially part of the relationship.
• The Reveal:
  • Chapter 29 ended with Anne and Marcy being saved by an unknown frog. Chapter 30 confirms the frog's identity as Ivy.
  • Chapters 29 and 30 both confirms that there's more citizens of Wartwood outside of the Plantars who don't think Anne is a dangerous beast.
  • Chapter 33 confirms that after the incident with Sasha, a greater chunk of the village no longer views the girls as dangerous.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • Sasha is right in her assumption that Anne was deliberately injured, which cost the girl her voice. But her belief that the Plantars did it is way off the mark.
  • Oum finds the Plantars' collar around Anne and jumps to the conclusion that they're the ones who took and abused her daughter.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue:
  • Sasha attempts this to save Anne. It fails and she ends up temporarily imprisoned by Sprig. The encounter leaves Sasha so rattled that it takes her days to get back to Grime and by that point, she's fallen ill and weak due to lack of food. After seeing Sasha's condition, Grime promises to join her in her quest to rescue Anne.
  • When a bunch of unscrupulous amphibians capture Marcy to sell her, Yunan and Maddie don't hold anything back and tear the place apart.
• Sacrificial Lion: King Andrias drives his flaming sword through Marcy's chest and presumably kills her, right in front of her girlfriends.
• Sapient Pet:
  • Robbed of her voice and having no affective way to communicate, Anne is forced into this role for months. It isn't until Sasha explains it that Sprig realizes that Anne isn't a pet.
  • King Andrias initially wanted to kill Anne and Sasha. He ends up changing his mind and decides to keep them as pets instead. This ends up being a worse fate.
• Secret-Keeper: The Plantars, Maddie, and Yunan all work to hide the girls' identities from the public.
  • While she was still living at Toad Tower, Grime kept Sasha's identity unknown to any outsiders.
  • The frog vet whom Sasha is taken to agrees to keep her mouth shut on her existence.
  • Not wanting to expose another of the girls, Hop Pop lies about Anne's species to the vet.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Hop Pop wants Anne, Sasha, and Marcy to become official because it would make them happy. Just as long as they don't procreate, that is.
  • In chapter 32, both Sprig and Maddie get excited when Marcy and Sasha have their first kiss.
• Slashed Throat:
  • Anne could not survive without Sprig's help as one of the hunters' arrows slashed her throat. This incident causes her to lose the ability to speak permanently.
  • Sasha very nearly becomes victim to this.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Wally doesn't even appear directly in the story until many chapters in and he didn't directly attack any of the girls. Nonetheless, his cry wolf story led to Anne being hunted, resulting in her losing her voice and taking up residence with the Plantars.
• The Speechless:
  • Anne's vocal cords are ripped out by an arrow. Even after months of healing, she remains unable to speak and is forced to rely on animal-like noises to express her feelings.
  • As if chapter 27, Anne can speak again, but only in short intervals and is reliant on a potion that requires rare ingredients.
• Staging an Intervention: Upon learning about Marcy's suicidal ideation, Hop Pop immediately sets up a talk between her and Yunan.
• Tears of Joy:
  • Anne and Marcy spent months not knowing where the other was, with Marcy coming to believe Anne was killed after stumbling upon her belongings by a patch of dried blood. When the pair are finally reunited, they are understandably moved to tears as they desperately cling to each other.
  • When Sasha asks Marcy out, the latter is crying happily.
• Tempting Fate: While trying to think of a way to ask Anne to date them, Sasha comes up with the idea to get flowers for her. Marcy tries to talk her out of it as they were all still being hunted by paranoid villagers. Sasha is confident that she'll be all right and after some back and forth gets Marcy to reluctantly back down. But just as Sasha is about to pluck a flower for Anne, she gets darted and ambushed by villagers just as Marcy had warned her. The only reason Sasha escaped was because Grime was in the area.
• This Cannot Be!: When it's revealed that Anne was still alive despite the hunters' efforts, the villagers go into a panic.
• This Explains So Much:
  • Upon learning that Anne was a teenager, Hop Pop is quick to say it explains her rebellious attitude.
  • Finding out Anne is a person makes Sprig realize why she had the reactions she did to her treatment over the past few months.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: The Wally of this universe is colder and holds no remorse for putting Anne through all that trouble. He initially refuses to apologize to her and even when he does, it's only after she reluctantly saves him from a scorpaleo.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • After the incident with Sasha, more and more of Wartwood citizens are convinced the girls are harmless. When Ivy accidentally reveals she knows the "beast" personally, many citizens jump at the chance to officially meet her safely. When Anne's story is explained by Sprig, some of the citizens are noticeably sympathetic.
  • By the end of chapter 36, Anne is accepted by the citizens of Wartwood after she saves them from a scorpaleo attack.
• Tranquillizer Dart:
  • All three of the girls have had their own encounters with tranquilizer darts. Some were used with more benevolent purposes such as Hop Pop using one to calm a high as heck Anne down. Others had more nefarious purposes, such as the hunters trying to sedate the girls for transport.
  • Due to being stubborn and determined to protect her friends, the hunters are forced to shoot Anne with so many darts that she ends up incapacitated for a long time.
• Trauma Button:
  • Marcy goes into a catatonic state when she's forced to be near fire by her kidnappers.
  • Anne is this way with arrows.
• Trick-and-Follow Ploy: King Andrias pretends to believe Yunan's story about retirement, wishing her well and sending her off. As soon as she's out of hearing range, he tells the newt hunters to follow her, knowing that she'll lead them right to Anne, Marcy, and Sasha.
• Undressing the Unconscious: During her first night at the Plantars, Hop Pop undresses an unconscious Anne in order to better inspect her injuries and give them the best treatment he can provide.
  • Maddie was going to do this with Marcy while treating her, but refrained from doing so for her privacy's sake.

• Unexpected Kindness:
  • A kid frog comes to Anne and Marcy's rescue before they could get dragged off to the king. What makes this significant is that said kid comes from the same village trying to kill Anne and her friends.
  • When a dazed Sasha comes across Ivy, she is absolutely shocked when the yellow frog offers to help her instead of hunting her down like all the other frogs had, minus the Plantars.
• Was It All a Lie?: When forcibly taken to the Plantar house, Sasha is convinced that Grime is preparing a rescue mission to take her back along with Anne. But after days passed and no sign of him anywhere, Sasha starts to wonder if Grime only ever saw her as a tool.
• We Need a Distraction: In chapter 20, Sasha is so focused on getting at Sprig that Anne resorts to licking her face in hopes of diverting her attention away from her rage. It works, much to Sasha's shock and disgust.
• What If?:
  • This fic explores what would have happened if Anne had been attacked not long after she arrived in Amphibia.
  • King Andrias reveals his true colors to Marcy much earlier, resulting in a broken Marcy wanting to go home immediately instead of going on adventures.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • After being repeatedly burned by King Andrias, Marcy develops a crippling phobia of fire. It is Marcy's reluctance to go near the fire despite being obviously cold that alerts Yunan that something is very wrong.
  • Due to the traumatizing experience of being hunted and nearly killed, Anne has become petrified of arrows. Her fear for arrows is so strong, she freezes up when confronted by a different group of hunters, requiring Marcy to snap her out of it.
• Wild Child: After being treated like an animal for months, Anne ends up gaining a few pet-like traits that have become instinct for her. This doesn't change even after she's treated like a person again.
• Would Hurt a Child: Marcy being a young child doesn't stop Andrias from torturing her for her Calamity Powers.
  • The hunters refused to show mercy when they tried to kill Anne.
  • Sasha was fully prepared to murder Sprig due to a misunderstanding regarding Anne's predicament.
  • The amphibians at the night market kidnap Marcy, shove her in a cage, repeatedly burn her, and try to auction her off.
  • The newt hunters in chapter 29 show no mercy as they hunt down Marcy and Anne.
  • After getting ambushed, Sasha does cause her attackers to hesitate when she speaks to them and tries to show them she means no harm. Unfortunately, some of the frogs still wanted to kill her regardless and Sasha would have been killed had it not been for Grime.
• Wound That Will Not Heal: Many of Marcy's bruises and burns are so bad that they've barely healed even with all the time that passed after receiving them.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • Sprig has been dealing with guilt and self-loathing ever since he found out Anne was a person. He's convinced that Anne only sticks by him because he forced her into believing she needed to and truly believes that Anne would leave him the first chance she got. When Maddie asks him if Anne tried to leave when he attempted to release her, Sprig says no. Maddie goes on to explain to Sprig that he isn't to blame for what happened, that he had done his best with what he knew at the time, and that his actions still saved Anne's life. She also tells him that Anne stayed because she loves him and sees him as a friend.
  • After learning that Sprig thinks she is only pretending to like being with him, Anne is visibly shaken. One of the first things she does when temporarily getting her voice back is having a talk with Sprig about how much he means to her and how grateful she is that he saved her life. She does her best to make it clear that she sees him as family and that her enjoying his company was never a lie.
• You Know What You Did: Sasha has no proof that the Plantars are responsible for Anne not talking, nor any proof they're secretly shocking her to keep her compliant. That doesn't stop her from dishing out the accusations.

---