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English
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Part 1 of Cameron Waybright
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Published:
2024-04-17
Updated:
2025-06-08
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266,634
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74/?
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Cameron Waybright/The Dark King

Summary:

What if Sasha had an older brother that got sucked into the story of Amphibia?

**Excerpt**

The burning orange light of the Core shone from behind the Dark King’s eyes, utterly overwhelming the piercing blue irises the siblings shared. The light from his eyes and that of the three gems upon his brow lit up Sasha’s face, her blood, sweat, and tears shimmering in the unnatural light. The Dark King smirked, “Quite the loyal crew you’ve got there sis…”

“Stop saying that! Y-you're not Cam… you’ll- you’ll never be-”

“Maybe, but I’m all that’s left of him. Much like those toads are all that’s left from that tower of yours that started us down this path… tell me, what pretty lies did you spin to entrap their loyalty once more? Come now, I’m dying to know what new tricks you've picked up since our last conversation. Gaslighting, guilt-tripping... What was it?”

“I-” tears welled up in Sasha's eyes once more, “I’m not that person anymore!”

The Dark King’s features twisted into a demented grin, “Maybe you’re right… that person would have put up more of a fight!” with a grunt he brought his fist across her face, sending a splattering of blood across the sand.

Notes:

The main goal of this piece is to introduce a more mature perspective to the events of the Amphibia story. From the horrific monsters that lurk in the swamps to the Guardian of the Cosmos who clones consciousness on a whim, it'll all be parsed through the perspective of a young man just old enough to understand the danger everyone's in.

This won’t be a full rewrite of the story since for the first two seasons. Like the main trio, Cameron Andrew Waybright will be off in his own part of the alien world at the start, fighting his way across the hellscape that oft is Amphibia, doing all in his power to reunite with his sister and her friends.

As a little backstory, Cameron is five years older than Sasha, making him 18 at the start of the show and about 10 or so when their parents separated.

(We don't know much about Sasha's parents in the show but since we see Anne writing to both of them later in the series I'm assuming she's not estranged from either of them.)

In this universe, Cameron fought hard to keep himself and his sister together during the divorce. He’s very protective of his little sister, seeing it as his job as the big brother to keep her safe. Of course, he wouldn’t be a Waybright is he wasn’t a control freak, and like Sasha he can back up his claims with skill and determination.

The show doesn’t really go into Sasha’s ‘never give up’ mentality or her need to be in control. The latter we can probably chalk up to her parents' divorce, but as for the former, we don’t get anything. So why not an older brother you see as a role model and rival? That’s the way I’m going to go at least.

Chapter 1: Journal Entries Day 1 to 16

Chapter Text

Cameron Waybright 

Notes: Day 1
Alright for the record: fuck, shit, damn, and blast.

First thing I saw after I woke up was a dragonfly the size of a bike bite the head off a mosquito that itself was as long as my arm. Managed to find a hole that wasn’t the home of some giant bug and got a fire going. I’m writing my thoughts down because I like to talk to myself when I work through things but I’m worried if I do it’ll attract something like a spider or praying (preying?) mantis that’ll bite my head off.
So, let’s work backward from how I got here. I was totally conned by Sash. She told me her afternoon class was cancelled and begged me to pick her and Anne up so they could go out and celebrate Anne’s birthday. Of course, when I got there, I found out she’d told her teacher the two of them had a dentist appointment. I swear Sash has no shame.

Anyway, I took them to the arcade, they stole some shopping carts and did some graffiti while I was distracted, whatever. Things get interesting after we stop for some ice cream shakes. Parking is hell and we’re now super late getting Anne home, so I drop them off to buy the shakes while I look for parking further away. When I finally get back, they’ve sorted out some sort of meet-up with Marcy nearby. Parking’s a little easier this time but I’m getting all kinds of shit from Ms Boonchuy (which I’ll be honest, I totally deserved for letting Sasha trick me into basically kidnapping Anne from school), so I don’t really get there until after Sasha and Anne have done their shopping.
When I met up with them, they were checking out this metal music box. It was old, maybe even pre-twentieth century, and it was covered in swamp motifs including a frog. On it were three gems, one blue, one red, and one green. No idea how they afforded it, even less so now that I know what it does.

Marcy seemed the most excited, eager to see what was inside. We all gathered around as Anne opened it, there was a flash of blue light, and I woke up face down in mud (not sure how I didn’t suffocate) with a sense of nausea like I had just gone on the wildest amusement park ride imaginable. I’ve got a pretty stern resistance to motion sickness so it must have been insane.

Narrowing it down:
• Shrunk?
• Narnia?
• Hallucinating/bad trip?
• Dream?

Just looked outside my cave, night just fell, and I don’t recognize the stars in the sky at all. I can’t pick out any constellations I recognize, I could just be rattled from whatever happened to me though.
FUCK
Moon just rose and yeah. That’s not Luna. Shit’s red/orange and has a totally different crater pattern. Also, much larger in the sky (not quite Bruce Almighty but close).
Just thought of another idea, time travel? Bigger (closer) moon would then make sense and so would the big/gigantic bugs. Colour difference could be explained by different atmospheric conditions. Time travel should be impossible though.
Okay ya, this is not Earth. Heron bigger than the trees just walked by and ate something that looked like a kraken out of the river.
NOTE TO SELF: NEVER GO SWIMMING AGAIN.

Notes: Day 2

Dawn of day two in an alien swamp filled with monstrous creatures that bear only the slightest resemblance to earth animals. I slept like two hours all night, paranoid that a ladybug would crawl into my den and eat my face while I slept. I’m exhausted, hungry, and dehydrated. If I don’t pull myself together soon I’ll die and get eaten by whatever scavengers live in this swamp.
I broke a rock and used it to sharpen a stick, haven’t found any twine-like thing yet so no rock tools for me. Hopefully, I can use this spear to at least make something think twice before it settles on me as its dinner.
Found a bamboo-like plant. Using it as a container for water. I would try my luck at fishing but there are literal water monsters that live in the rivers here, no thank you. I’ve seen loads of berries, but I’d bet anything they’re poisonous. I’ll take them as a last resort but until then I’m going to try hunting, hopefully for something mammallike.
Caught a hedgehog, thing was the size of an actual hog. Almost bit my arm off, but I jammed my spear through its mouth and into its brain.
Hedgehog tastes like rabbit.

Notes: Day 3

I found an equivalent of a north star while watching the sky tonight. Between that and the sun of this planet, I can at least travel without going in circles. Using it, I’ve also figured out I’m at about the same latitude as we were in California. So hopefully that means if the girls were also sent to this hell hole, they won’t be too far from me, or at least they’ll be on the same continent. It’s not much but it’s a start.
I’m going to start heading north and hope this planet is inhabited by something friendly somewhere. Northward has got to be less swampy.

Notes: Day 4

First day of travel, no change in scenery.

Notes: Day 5

I really hate it here.

Notes: Day 6

I see a mountain!!!!!!!!! Finally! Altitude! DRY GROUND!!! LETS GO!!!!!

Notes: Day 7

Gonna reach the mountain tomorrow. I can see the slopes are much more arid, but I also see large shapes flying around it. If I survived a week of walking through a muddy swamp just to be eaten by a mountain bird I’m gonna be pissed.

Notes: Day 8

Kept out of sight of the birds, seems to be a family of grotesquely huge eagles. If I were dumber I would try and tame them but that would be so stupid. I have seen songbirds though, one of them might not be so bad to capture and tame.
The view is pretty good, I can see the swamp is not endless, there’s a desert to the far south and woods to the west.

Notes: Day 10

I hate songbirds.

Notes: Day 15

Over a week now, sorry I haven’t been keeping my logs but nothing really noteworthy happened. AT LEAST UNTIL TODAY.
We got ancient ruins ladies, gentlemen and those of unspecified gender.
Gonna venture into them in the morning, probably not too safe but fuck it I want to see the alien buildings.

Notes: Day 16

Ruins were badass, looks like they were built by some kind of frog alien, with almost high-tech Aztec vibes. If I had an archeology degree I might be able to guess at how old these things are. Given that the stones are crumbling away it’s got to be centuries though. There’s ancient machinery some of which is in decent shape, even managed to jury-rig a charger for my phone, now I can at least have a reliable light source and music to listen to.
No weapons or anything for dealing with the wildlife. I’ll keep looking, these frogs must have had something to keep the giant creatures from eating them.