#The new paranormal Tgamm

[tgammsideblog]

I love how Scratch first assumption was to jump into murdering the Chen family.

[queeniesretrozone]

I wanna make a webcomic in the future about a mysterious small town with TGAMM & DE:PP vibes :P

🌲

[friendlylocalgeek]

Random thought about the season 2 premiere of The Ghost and Molly McGee:

You'd think the Ghost Council would be more upset about having to take orders from Scratch; they've teased, taunted, and generally expressed their distaste for him several times before on the show

The thing is, I think they know he would hate the job, but they're not inclined to like him and they're going to make him do it whether he likes it or not

Just look at the way they were taking up space and being a nuisance in the McGee household after he told the Ghost World to "do whatever you want", even when he tried to warn them about ghost hunters. And of course there was the thing about not warning him about the frightmares until they were invading the human world

I also anticipate that even though Scratch is their boss, the Ghost Council aren't going to make his job any easier than when he was working for them...

[kingpagie]

I thought The New Paranormal was... fine. I didn't enjoy the screaming fit at the beginning of the episode. I'm not a super big fan of Chen family (except June she's great). Scratch, however, was still very funny, Enjoy Your Afterlife is very catchy, and I think Scratch becoming the chairman is very interesting and cool. The whole ghost council plot line honestly was really good. I just really don't like the Chen's.

[tornrose24]

A ghostly theory that connects Gravity Falls and The Ghost and Molly Mcgee.

There’s a huge part of me that wants to believe that Gravity Falls and The Ghost and Molly Mcgee take place within the same universe, and I came upon some interesting ideas that support just how close that could be, as well as what could happen if Scratch (as a ghost) ever came to Gravity Falls.

So let’s get the obvious out of the way–the way ghosts are depicted in the shows are completely different. GF ghosts retain a somewhat human appearance, while TGAMM ghosts only have slight elements of their original human forms.

So there’s no way they could be in the same universe, correct?

Well, I want to add another factor into this–the Haunted Mansion.

The Haunted Mansion is not only confirmed to exist in TGAMM thanks to Ollie mentioning it in the season 2 premiere episode but in a Disney’s Random Rings short, Scratch is shown to be calling the residents in the mansion in an attempt to secure a place of residency.

But here’s the thing–HM ghosts don’t resemble the TGAMM ghosts. Much like the GF ghosts, they retain a human appearance (Constance) or at least keep a humanoid appearance (The Hat Box Ghost).

(Notice how Constance looks a tad closer to the ghostly couple from Gravity Falls in retaining a more human form, compared to Scratch. You only have a few clues to what he looked like as a human).

This begs the question as to why the hell is that possible.

So here is my theory.

Gravity Falls has already been established as a ‘weirdness magnet’ thanks to a history of paranormal events–a sort of gateway between dimensions even–and was a place that Bill Cipher (a very powerful, dangerous entity) was especially attracted to. Unsurprisingly, it would be a magnet for ghosts.

As for the Haunted Mansion, its main location (New Orleans, Louisiana) has had a long supernatural history to begin with. It’s likely that all the ghosts gathering at this one mansion (combined with its own history) turned it into a weirdness magnet, like Gravity Falls. However, the mansion is NOT as powerful as Gravity Falls given that the land around the town has been attracting a lot of strangeness ever since the time of the dinosaurs and a UFO crashed into the area.

Now recall when I said that the ghosts in that HM short and the GF ghosts retain a somewhat human appearance? Well here’s my theory–

The amount of paranormal energy in Gravity Falls and the Haunted Mansion is what allows their ghosts to keep a more human form, compared to the TGMM ghosts. Not even the Ghost World has whatever this energy is. It’s also likely that these places are safe havens from the Ghost World since having to work for The Chairman binds you to an eternal job that you cannot get out of due to the eternal consequence of getting sent to the Flow of Failed Phantoms if you screw up.

Furthering the connection, GF also has concepts of corrupted ghosts, unfinished business, and even wraiths. (By the way, this took a bit of rewatching and looking through the books to confirm some things).

The most obvious corrupted ghost with unfinished business? None other than the ghost lumberjack Archibald Courderoy (who may be Wendy’s ancestor). A ghost who (along with his men) was screwed over by the family they bought a house for and even placed a curse upon them that could only be lifted if one of their own allowed the common folk to enter the mansion during one of their parties. Does any of that sound slightly familiar? Especially the curse bit? Dipper categorized this kind of ghost as a Category 11: Demonic Vengeance Specter in Journal 3. Someone even more dangerous than a category 10 (where the Grim Reaper is placed).

The convenience store ghosts? Again, supernatural powers, the ability to curse people, etc. As for their unfinished business…. Did Dipper dancing in that costume count? I don’t know on this one. In one of the GF books, Dipper talks about the concept of unfinished business when discussing that incident and he does mention that this is when a ghost is obsessed with something that they were unable to accomplish in life. For a TGAMM fan, this makes the lumberjack ghost comparable to Howlin’ Harriet, (who was far into corruption and obsessed over getting new toes) or Blair and Sonya (who were obsessed over an unreturned video and practicing a routine).

Ok, now the big one–as my friend @jackie-gremlin-ghost  and I have discussed, the concept of wraiths (the ghost of a person who is still alive) also applies to GF because Dipper himself became a ghost-like being when Bill took over his still-living body and forced his soul out of it. Bill tells Dipper he’s ‘basically a ghost’ and Dipper himself confirms this in the collection of bedtime stories. And Bill was free to possess Dipper’s body–as well as Ford’s–much like Scratch possessed Molly’s body in the body swap episode of TGAMM.

(Bill posessing Dipper's body while Dipper is basically the GF version of a wraith. However, GF wraiths seem to retain their human coloration to a degree....)

(....Meanwhile, in TGAMM wraiths look no different than regular ghosts. There's no way to spot the difference.)

But wraiths in TGAMM are visible, so why isn’t Dipper? Because Bill didn’t WANT him to be visible and also Bill is far more powerful than a mere ghost. However, Dipper’s spirit is still able to take on a human appearance–more so than the actual ghosts of Gravity Falls. He’s still able to do things like possess objects, but it’s likely Bill would have depowered Dipper severely.

And of course, if Bill succeeded in his plans and killed Dipper’s body, its confirmed that Dipper’s soul would have been still wandering around in some form. Dipper could have also been prone to corruption (as hinted at for one timeline in The Book of Bill). But if Bill kept Dipper’s body alive, and the consequence of staying as a wraith for too long applied to Dipper? Oh Dipper would have been SCREWED big time. (And as shown in The Book of Bill, Ford could have ended up with those same fates too, given how toxic his relationship with Bill was getting).

So now back to Scratch.

My guess is that if he went to Gravity Falls (or the Haunted Mansion), then he’d be subjected to the weird energy that surrounds it. In turn, this could potentially change his appearance from resembling a floating blue ghost to taking on a more human–but still ghostly–appearance. And…. Well… let’s just say that he’d be in for one hell of a surprise if that happened.

[jackie-gremlin-ghost]

Here’s a post-finale TGAMM headcanon/crossover idea I have

A couple months after the finale, while out to lunch with her family, Molly notices two strangers hanging around in Sam’s Diner. They appear to be tourists; a boy and a girl, probably siblings, who look to be around college age or a little older. The boy is very casually dressed, looking over a map while writing something down in a blue book. The girl, meanwhile, who’s dressed very colorfully, is looking through photos in a pink album covered in stickers. It’s then that Molly catches a bit of their conversation.

“…If what I’ve gathered from the locals is true, there’s been quite a few eyewitness accounts of paranormal activity in this town, specifically of the spectral kind.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that too. Apparently there was a huge thing that happened a little over half a year ago. A large cloaked figure with smaller beings nearly decimated the whole town, leaving people around them feeling drained and even depressed. Do you think the cause might’ve been similar to what happened back at Pacifica’s old house?”

“No. This wasn’t your basic haunting caused by unfinished business; this was clearly much more malevolent, and whatever did that was only in it for control. Not quite as bad as… you-know-what… but pretty close.”

“Still, it would be pretty cool to see some nice ghosts for a change. Sure, that couple in that old abandoned convenience store back when we were 12 were okay, but did they really need to use me as a scare tactic? I was already out of it on the Smile Dip as is, that just made it worse!”

Molly can’t help but insert herself into the conversation at this point, apologizing for eavesdropping and asking them what they knew about ghosts. The boy is a bit suspicious at this, which Molly responds with her own suspicions. She’s already barely managed to change the minds of one ghost hunter team, she’s not sure that she can do it a second time.

The girl is thankfully much more friendly towards her, and explains; her brother is a paranormal researcher, and since the two of them have recently graduated from college, they’re currently on a cross-country road trip, exploring different places and investigating whatever supernatural mysteries they might hold. They’re not hunters at all; they just wanna learn about the unknown ever since a very eventful summer they had when they were young.

Molly is relieved by this, and always eager to make new friends, she sits with them and introduces herself.

“I’m Molly McGee. And you are?”

“Name’s Mabel. Mabel Pines. And this is my twin brother.”

“Hi. My name’s Mason. But everyone calls me Dipper.”

“Nice to meet you both. So… can I see some of the stuff you guys have seen? I noticed your scrapbook, and I can always appreciate a fellow scrapbooker who believes in a generous use of stickers.”

“Dipper! I’ve found more of my people!”

[castorochiaro]

I just want to say that you’ll find new comfort in something after TGAMM eventually. Maybe not right after, but soon enough. I still miss Amphibia and Inside Job strongly, but I found new comfort in some great movies and video games and such. There’s always a light at the end of the dark tunnel we travel in in life. You just have to find it. I hope you find yours if TGAMM truly wraps up after this season, Cast. I believe! ❤️

logically i know that i'll find another thing to adore if tgamm gets cancelled/is not renewed for a s3, as i've done so many times over the years. it's just extra disheartening lately because it feels like in recent years, shit keeps getting shitcanned sooner and more suddenly and for more arbitrary reasons. dead end paranormal park didn't deserve it. inside job didn't deserve it. pantheon didn't deserve it.

making the creation of art a business enterprise was one of humanity's greatest mistakes. fucking hell.

[thechaseofspades]

Part 2 of 2

Okay we're back, and still talking about Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur vs. The Ghost and Molly McGee. Without further delay, the next point.

3. Music

I grew up watching Phineas and Ferb, like most kids my age. Dan and Swampy famously put a song in every episode of not only that show, but their next show after that (in Dan's case, shows plural).

Both of these shows feel like they pick up this concept and run with it. TGAMM hits the same kind of marks as Phineas and Milo did, with an original mid-episode song that usually shows off a montage of the characters doing whatever it is the episode is about this week.

Moon Girl does music different. There's often multiple songs in single episodes, including licensed songs from outside the show, that each fit the story and move it forward. We've gotten some of the original songs we've come to expect in DTVA shows, blended with more grounded "real" songs that don't feel as limited to the "musical" format (with all due respect). Both kinds of music play to their strengths and make for a good variety.

The most notable difference in Moon Girl is the cassette tape segments, where Lunella fights the villain of the week to a banging soundtrack. While the shows before Moon Girl had music, it rarely took the main event spot like it does here. Combined with the amazing animation in these segments, it's genuinely some of the best stuff Disney has put out. Not just TVA but any part of Disney. I will die on this hill.

Literally just watch this scene and come back to me. This is how every episode ends. It's amazing.

Music is built into these shows' DNA. As an OG Phineas fan and longtime Dwampyverse respecter, I'm so glad that these shows are not only keeping the idea alive, but bringing it into the future, with Moon Girl taking it farther than it's ever been under Disney.

4. Family and Community

Okay, every show is about family. Whether it's found family (Amphibia), found family (Owl House) or found family (Ducktales)... alright, a lot of it is found family.

These shows seem to stick out in that area. Both Lunella and Molly have relatively traditional families; parents and grandparents for the former, and parents and a little brother for the latter. As much as everybody loves a found family, these two blood-related trees end up playing heavily into these shows' themes.

In TGAMM, when the focus isn't on Mollibby, it's almost always on the family. New to Brighton after move after move after move, the McGees really only have each other from the beginning of the show. While Molly does branch out to the rest of the town (more on that later), most of her non-paranormal interactions are with her parents and Darryl, along with Grandma Nin every now and then.

So far in MGADD, it's a similar story. When the episode isn't about Lucase, it shows off Lunella's bond with her family. Pretty much every episode has had a significant moment between Lunella and a parent or grandparent. Whether she needs to learn a life lesson, or just needs a pick-me-up, somebody is always there for her. Their bond is furthered by their shared work at the family business, which has played a big role in a handful of episodes already.

And remember at the beginning of this post(s) when I pointed out the irony of comparing the Lower East Side to Brighton? Think about what they have in common...

When Lunella and Molly need it most, their community will step up for them.

5. (Relatively) Mature themes

We're not talking Amphibia True Colors tier stuff here, but these shows tackle topics that I never thought I would see a DTVA show cover. If you've seen the episodes that those last screenshots came from, you know exactly what I'm getting at. If not (MGADD S1 E1 and TGAMM S1 E18), please go watch them. Go watch the whole season of each. How did you even get this far without seeing these shows?

Moon Girl is a show starring a black girl, and is about a black girl. That sounds redundant, but it's important for what we're talking about. This show has at least 2 episodes in the first 11 talking about gentrification alone. It tackles issues that impact the demographic of not only the protagonist, but also the kids who are watching. The kids who see themselves in Lunella.

In one episode ("Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow"), Lunella is told by a white girl that her hair is messy, and makes her self-concious about it. She tries to straighten it, but ends up losing her hair entirely over it.

In another episode ("Like Mother, Like Moon Girl"), the Lower East Side is gentrified by two techy white inventors who seek to change the neighborhood to their liking. They get to implement sweeping changes that impact the LES for the worse because of (*ahem*) "contributions" to the community council president.

As for Molly McGee, its big moment comes at the end of season 1 (spoilers even though I literally already warned you). Molly's dad gets injured, and after being buried in medical debt, the McGees end up homeless and have to leave their forever home. While they still get to be in Brighton for another month while the house gets sold, they are stuck living in a van in the woods. Meanwhile, Molly still goes to school, and the episode follows her experience trying to live a normal life as a homeless child, while hiding it from her best friend Libby.

While I commended MGADD for tackling its demographic's issues, TGAMM does the same thing here. The McGees have moved countless times, never really settling down anywhere. Pete's injury was just him falling off the roof cleaning the gutters, and yet it pretty much costs them their home. Molly has always grown up in instability, and this is just another hurdle in that instable childhood.

I've cried watching DTVA shows before. The Ducktales finale got me. The Owl House finale is getting me. The Amphibia finale got me. But no show made me genuinely devastated quite like Molly McGee did in the homelessness episode. They played it completely straight, contrasting Molly's typically jovial attitude with the living conditions she finds herself in. The song midway through the second half of the episode actually makes me cry every time.

So how do we get out of these predicaments? We've got to have a happy ending at the end of our 22 minutes, right?

Friends, welcome to the callback section of the essay.

It's that family, those friends, that community that helps these girls get through their toughest battles.

In the hair episode, it's Lu's mom and grandma sharing their experiences that teach her to love her hair, and how special it is, no matter what the white girl in her science class says.

In the (second) gentrification episode, Lunella is inspired by her mom to use her voice as Moon Girl and push back, standing up for her community. In return, the community stands alongside her, and the LES wins.

In the Molly McGee homelessness episode, the McGees are saved from having to move away by the citizens of Brighton, who came together to help pay for their mortgage to repay the light that Molly and company brought to their tiny nowhere town.

The themes of family and community prevail in these shows, and help handle even the toughest of battles that these characters have gone through. Sure, Moon Girl will have to take on the Beyonder at some point, and Molly will need to deal with the consequences of killing god, but that's all finale stuff. It's the stories these shows tell in between; the grounded, realistic, mature stories hidden in surreal, paranormal and/or superheroic adventures. That's why I love these shows.

If you somehow avoided watching either of these shows and got through that whole thing, please go watch them right now. And support these shows as they return to TV (Molly McGee) or continue their current run (Moon Girl) in the next few months. It's the kind of shows we need. The kind of shows that kids these days need. The kind of shows I needed, and still need.

An essay about the best Disney TVA shows today

So Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is Disney TVA's newest hit. If you follow me, you know how much I love this show. There's so much good about it that I couldn't possibly cover all of it. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how similar it is to another relatively new DTVA show that just happens to be premiering its second season soon...

Now, I recognize the irony here. The LES and Brighton are probably the exact opposite settings. I should know. I live in a town just like Brighton. There's lots of corn here. Please help.

But beyond that surface level contrast, these shows hit a lot of the same concepts, but take them in different directions to fit the tone and setting. Let's discuss...

Spoilers for both shows. The spoilers start out light but by the end I'm just spilling all the beans. Please watch the shows.

1. Regular girl meets unlikely non-human best friend and that's literally the title of the show

Probably the most obvious comparison. Heck, you could probably boil down any Disney property ever to that description if you try hard enough.

But, the similarities between DD and Scratch might as well end there, as they bring completely different characters to the table. Still worth getting out of the way here. I promise the rest of this post has more substance. Wait where are you going come back

2. Human best friend(s)

I've talked already about how I'm a big fan of Casey. As far as I know, she's a completely original character not found anywhere in the comics. She might be an amalgamation of other comic characters but I'm not sure. Either way, huge props for nailing it with her and making her feel like a natural fit.

So what do we know about Casey? Her biggest fixation, something we see the second we meet her, is her social media savviness. While Lunella can invent an app that warps space and time, Casey works best with the apps that already exist. Remind you of anybody?

Now, I'm not on the Andrea bandwagon quite yet. She's definitely had her positive moments, namely the Christmas episode, but overall I don't categorize her in the "best friend" tier quite yet.

I bring her up because we can bring in another contrast between elements and how these sho was use similar concepts for different results. While Andrea's social media exploits are all about herself, Casey cares more about getting Moon Girl on the map, both helping out her best friend and doing a good deed. I'm glad we've gotten to a point where the social media savvy tween/teen can be a positive trait finally.

But I want to highlight the other side of Casey, and the part that makes it so intriguing to me that Lucase has been a central focus in this show. She may have the skills of Andrea, but she reminds me so much more of another of Molly's friends...

Who did Molly McGee meet to become her first real friend and de facto best friend who she then spent the rest of the show developing that friendship??

"Mazel Tov, Libby!" is my favorite episode of The Ghost and Molly McGee, and it's gonna be hard to top. Libby is my favorite character in that show and seeing her struggling and eventually breaking just hit me so hard. So when Molly and Libby came out of it better than ever, it proved how strong their bond truly was.

Casey blends Andrea's social media savviness with Libby's irl social awkwardness and difficulty at making friends. And Lunella to an even greater extent as seen in the sleepover. But together, Lucase bring out the best in each other, the same way that Molly and Libby do in their own show.

Also shoutout to Libby and Casey for being Jewish Latina DTVA girls with hyphenated last names and Bat Mitzvah centric episodes. Maybe should have led with that parallel.

To be continued in a reblog so don't go anywhere... (if you are reading this, I'm still working on getting Part 2 put together. It's finished in drafts, but I need to get it into a reblog. If I've already reblogged but forgot to delete this part, then consider it a neat easter egg ok bye)

[random-bi-writer]

My theory on the timeline with Amphibia and it’s crossovers

So far, the only cartoons that we’re sure that are connected to Amphibia are; The Owl House, Gravity Falls, Tgamm, and Steven Universe.

I am 100% sure that Gravity Falls happened either years or months before Amphibia did. Years cause the characters canon birth years and months because the cameos on season 3a could just be brand new.

So with this, Marcy has two jobs; webcomic artist and works for Dipper in whatever paranormal job it is. He could be either her boss or just coworkers.

The Owl House has to be the same timeline as Amphibia. Cause other wise, Sasha fell into a time pool and got stuck on being the boiling ilses therapist.

Speaking of therapy, I am pretty sure that Steven’s therapist is Sasha. Cause his therapist has to be completely normal with all the gem shit that happened to him and Sasha is the perfect person for the job. Also the cameo with the van is probably just Steven, Greg, and Pearl going on a trip to that hotel where Pearl sang it’s over isn’t it?

Tgamm. I’m half convinced that Anne and Molly are related. Either distant cousins or great-great-great-something niece. Just imagine that Oum’s or Bee’s family have a long line of being restaurant owners. Nin could be Anne’s younger sister or her distant cousin.

That last one is a stretch but I’m sure of the 1st 3.

[tgammsideblog]

Scratch and Leadership

The season 2 episode premiere ¨The New Paranormal¨ explores the consequences of Season 1 finale ¨The Jig is Up / Molly vs The Ghost World¨. With the original Chairman getting destroyed, the Ghost World needs a new leader to fill the space that got left. Since Scratch is the ghost that ¨defeated¨ the previous ruler, he has to become the new Chairman.

In ¨The New Paranormal¨ Scratch gets tricked by the Ghost Council into becoming the new leader by having to use the chairman robes to scare the frightmares that were in the Mcgees house away. He gives the order to not cause any chaos to the ghost population, since ¨it brings trouble to him and he hates it¨. Scratch makes a deal to work with the Ghost Council considering they know how things work.

In general Scratch doesn't want anything to do with taking charge of his responsibilities in the Ghost World. He would rather do his best to avoid them or quickly be done with them and teleport back to what he was doing previously. He doesn't make much of an effort to learn how the system works nor tries to change it for the better. He feels like it is a role that was unjustly dropped into him without being able to make a choice in it.

A lot of this seems to come from Scratch feeling like he was stuck in a very repetitive job that made him miserable as human (Todd). Once he became a wraith/ghost he lost his morals of taking responsibility since it unconsciously reminded him of his depressive state when he was human. This could explain in part why Scratch avoids most of his chairman duties and responsibilities.

As the creators put it in an interview, Scratch's arc as chairman during season 2 is about this:

One of it was [that] a lot of people want to grow up and be in leadership, and something like want[ing] to be president. But then, to be president is really hard, and it takes a lot of responsibility, and you have to care about what you’re doing. So, it was sort of a little metaphor about [how] leadership is tricky, and it takes a lot of attention and care and thought. Again, he’s the leader now, right? He’s the guy in charge, and that comes with a whole raft of responsibilities. And we’re going to see, like Bill just said, being a leader is hard, and you got to be intentional about it. And Scratch is not. And that’ll lead to disasters coming down the pike. Many of them.

Source: https://www.nerdsandbeyond.com/2023/04/01/interview-the-ghost-and-molly-mcgee-creators-bill-motz-and-bob-roth-on-what-to-expect-from-season-2/

In multiple episodes we see Scratch making questionable decisions as chairman, like avoiding his duties, making others do the work for him, causing a mess in the workplace and misusing his power.

In ¨Dance Dad Revolution¨ he tricks ghosts into cleaning the Haunty Haunts club by making it look like a fun dance instead of doing it himself. He abuses his power as chairman, ordering others to do his duties as it was a game while he goes to sleep. At the end of the episode a mess is caused that leaves the room all dirty again and he is forced to clean it up himself.

In Season 1 there has been a few episodes that show how Scratch would be pretty authoritative, if not abusive, if he decided to take his role as leader more seriously. These episodes being ¨Goat Your Own Way¨ and ¨The Internship¨. During both occasions he was giving orders because he enjoyed the power that came with it and it was a responsibility.

¨The Ghost IS Molly Mcgee¨ also shows that he could be an effective leader if he put his mind into it when he decided to take Molly's place to be charge of a play. He threatened kids with using a hammer if they didn't follow his orders, making obey him quite quickly. In this example he was doing this to help Molly and for the sake of having fun, demostrating again that he cares about leadership if he sees it as a game.

As much of a disaster Scratch is as chairman, he does make some positive changes to the Ghost World: He doesn't use the Flow of Failed Phantoms as a punishment for ghosts, instead chosing to trap them in things like dolls and canisters if they are causing trouble for others.

He does give Lord Doom, one of the most dangerous ghosts, a second chance after he got cursed to be trapped into a doll. In Necro-comicon episode he is happy that Lord Doom is doing well with his new family. In ¨Unhaunting of Brighton Video¨ he is seen helping the team dealing with Blair and her unfinished business. He brings down the whole system of forcing ghosts to scare off humans and keep the Ghost World miserable since he doesn't feed off from misery like the original Chairman did. Ghosts now scare for fun like seen in the episode ¨Frightmares On Main Street¨. This allows them to be able to be more friendly with humans. In general he lets ghosts to have fun and be more free under his reign as long as they don't disturb other ghosts or humans.

He seems to have a lot of fans seeing in ¨The Afterlife of The Party¨ and ¨Jinx!¨. Not surprising considering he isn't as authoritative as the past Chairman and he is a lot more approachable. There is a crowd following him in ¨Jinx!¨ asking for his autograph and he gets invited to a popular ghost party in ¨The Afterlife of The Party¨. In contrast, when the original Chairman showed up in ¨A Very Hungry Ghost¨ in the Mcgees's backyard, all ghosts disappeared, being terrified of the Chairman.

The way ghosts act around Scratch in Season 2 resembles someone meeting a celebrity rather than a leader. Makes sense because Scratch doesn't take his job seriously and uses is for the status and fame that gives him. Still, most seem to like it regardless of that.

In ¨The Afterlife of The Party¨ he lies about being sick to Geoff so he is able to go to an elite ghost party, something he wanted to do all his time as ghost. Before becoming the new chairman he was always pushed around by most of the ghosts. He was happy when he got invited to one of these popular parties for once. Near the end of the episode he learns that the party was Geoff and Jeff's 100th anniversary of being partners. He apologizes to Geoff for lying to him and Geoff forgives him.

Scratch constanly misuses his chairman powers to throw random curses as a way to fix his problems. He uses curses to help Molly with her fears in ¨FONAA!¨ and to get a perfect day in ¨Perfect Day¨, only for the curse to end up backfiring. In ¨Alaka-Sham¨ it is shown that he used so many curses that the curse cabinet was as its fullest and, because Scratch refuses to do something about it, the cabinet ends up exploding on him and the Ghost Council and has to clean up all the mess. There is one occasion he used this in a way that was useful: In ¨All In The Mind¨ to find why his spectral body was having bubbles all around. He and Molly went inside his own mind and found a memory that was a childhood friend that Scratch had named Adia.

In ¨All Shark No Bite¨ he learns that he can create ghost creatures using his chairman powers and they obey his commands. He accidentally created a ghost shark that he later adopts as his pet and names him ¨Sharkie¨. Sharkie appears in some episodes after that, either in his small or big form.

In spite of having many followers, there is someone that doesn't see him fit of being a chairman. That is Jinx, who was a huge fan of the previous chairman and wants things to go back the way they used to be before Scratch became the new leader.

Jinx represents someone who doesn't like the idea of losing the power she previously had in the past status quo. She enjoyed being a joy hunter and feels like Scratch stripped that away from her. She doesn't consider Scratch worthy of being the new chairman, thinking that she would be better at it instead.

As petty as Jinx is, she does has a point of Scratch being lazy and irresponsible as leader. Jinx had to explain to him how jinxes worked, something she pointed out it is a thing the chairman should know about. She acts as a constant reminder for Scratch that he isn't a good leader for the Ghost World.

All Scratch's irresponsible behaviour culminates in ¨Jinx VS The Human World¨. This episode starts with Scratch leaving the chairman robe unprotected and unguarded, which Jinx takes advantage of and steals it, using to take over the Ghost World and almost the Human World. Scratch also makes the mistakes of accidentally getting Molly captured by Jinx when they look for her in the Ghost World.

Near the end of the episode Scratch comes up with a plan to stop Jinx. He suggest others to ¨spread out joy¨ and extra feeding the sobgoblins, making them explode as result. Sharkie gets summoned by Scratch and grabs the chairman robes from Jinx. The Chens trap Jinx inside the phantom canister so she can't cause any more trouble.

The ghost celebrate Scratch as their true chairman. This leads to Scratch to reconsider things and to finally admit that he isn't a good example of a leader. He uses his powers one last time to make the chairman robe select the person they consider the ¨most worthy¨ to be the new chairman. The robe fly away, looking for a new leader.

In the end, Scratch's arc as chairman this season gives the lesson that not every person is fit to be a leader and it would be better to step down and give that role for those who would be more responsible. While Scratch did bring some good things to the Ghost World, he was incredibly lazy and didn't take the job seriously, which end up putting both worlds at risk. He gives up his status, knowing someone should be in the position instead of him.

[tgammsideblog]

This part was so wild

[tgammsideblog]

New interview that talks about the themes of Season 2 and Scratch’s new role as leader of the Ghost World.

[tgammsideblog]

Molly and the phases of falling in love (Mollie analysis)

One of the arcs we are introduced to Tgamm Season 2 is Molly having a deep crush on Ollie Chen, the neighbour family that lives across the street. In around the first third of Season 2 Molly goes through different changes in the way she sees Ollie as a character through her crush.

In this post i want to discuss these different stages of ¨falling in love¨ with someone that has been analyzed in psychology and sociology and how that applys to Molly and Ollie’s relationship and their development.

Let’s start:

In the first stage the person falls in love with another in a way that would be considered ¨superficial¨ as they probably they still don’t know the other person deep enough and they are jumping to conclusions about who this person they like is.

It is seeing the other person through ¨rose-tinted glasses¨, as you still don’t know much about them and you make an idealistic version of who you think this person is in your mind.

This is more or less who Molly goes through from ¨The New Paranormal¨ to around half of the episode ¨I Wanna Dance with Some-Ollie¨. She idealizes Ollie as a person, talking about how cute and good he is, often downplaying how Ollie is still part of a family of ghosthunters. Molly doesn’t know Ollie too much. She believes that things are going to be fine and there is nothing to worry about.

It could be said that Ollie is going through a similar stage too. It wouldn’t be out of place to say that he idolizes Molly the same way Molly is doing at the same time. He talks about being there to protect Molly from the ghosts in ¨Book Marks the Sprite¨ and reacts in a similar way like Molly does when they interact in ¨The New Paranormal¨.

For this period they aren’t still aware that their crush for each other comes with a risk that puts an obstable between the two. Molly is still downplaying how getting too attached to Ollie puts Scratch and other ghosts she knows in danger and Ollie still doesn’t know about Scratch’s existence.

Mixed with the first stage that is the ¨superficial crush¨ is the stage the two people start to learn more about each other and maybe become friends. The idealized version of the person that one had in their head begins to change into a more ¨realistic¨ one, where you start to see your crush for a flawed person they are, with their ups and down.

In ¨Book Marks the Sprite¨ Molly spends a good part of the day hanging out with Ollie to distract him from the book sprite that is in the Steins’ bookshop.  Molly tries to persuade Ollie that ghosts can be good and the way he sees them as enemies is not correct. Molly has a whole song sequence about how Ollie is someone who cares about his community and loves helping others but he hates ghosts and sees them as his enemy.

In the sequence we see Molly struggling to understand these two contradictions. She wants to believe that Ollie is a good person and someone is misguided. The way Ollie talks about ghosts and haunts them clashes with the idealistic view that Molly has of him through her crush. She is starting to see Ollie for who he really is. However, it isn’t enough for her crush view to be ¨smashed¨.

Later, in the same episode, Molly asks to Ollie why his family hates ghosts so much. Ollie shows Molly a video that explains how Ruben, Ollie’s father, was attacked by a ghost when he was a kid and ever since then Ruben has been trying to get rid of ghosts, an idea that Ollie and June were taughted. Ollie’s prejuice for ghosts is generational from his father’s side.

Molly returns to the library, dissapointed that Ollie still didn’t change his mind about ghosts. Libby talks to Molly that she was able to communicate with the book sprite once they were able to see things from Libby’s POV. This makes Molly believe that there is still hope with Ollie to do the same.

In ¨I Wanna Dance with Some-Ollie¨ Ollie invites Molly to be his date at the school dance. Scratch, who has in disapproval of Molly’s crush on Ollie since ¨The New Paranormal¨ doesn’t like the idea of Molly going out with Ollie for the dance. Molly insists in telling Scratch that she doesn’t have a crush on the boy and they are going as two people who are organizing the event. She explains to Scratch that Ollie hasn’t been mentioning ghosts lately and that his family isn’t exactly a threat, as their traps don’t seem to work based on their recent videos.

This ¨lack of crushing¨ is quickly contradicted when Ollie brings flowers to Molly. Scratch follows them to the school dance, with the intentions of making sure that Molly keeps her word.

During the dance Molly and Ollie are constanly pushed by others about how cute they look together, some assuming their are a couple. Molly keeps telling that they are only here as organizers for the event, that their relationship is ¨professional¨. Ollie shows to be sad whenever Molly mentions this, probably out of fear that Molly doesn’t like him back but he still respects Molly’s space. He goes along with what Molly says to others.

In the song sequence ¨I Keep Ending Up with You¨ Molly and Ollie end up in ¨school dance situations¨ like touching hands or Molly catching Ollie. They see each other in a lovely crushing way, being really into each other. Scratch tries his best to intervine in their interactions, only to make them fall into these ¨romantic moments¨ more.

The lyrics of the song itself are about a person who isn’t able to resist developing feelings for another and not matter what they do they keep falling in love with that said person. However, they give the impression of the relationship being something rushed, that the person isn’t considering what they are walking into, with parts talking about ¨reality crushing¨ and ¨flames burning down¨ which describes Molly overlooking the part that Ollie is a ghosthunter.

Molly and Ollie are named the ¨Lemming Royalty¨ (Queen and King of the dance) and invited to come to stage. Scratch gets tired of Molly being too romantic why Ollie given he hunts ghosts. He pulls Molly out from the dance room. The two have a nasty argument in the hall that ends with Molly returning to the dance and Scratch leaving the school, not before he gets captured by a ghost trap.

Molly returns to dance with Ollie, telling him that they could consider this a ¨date¨ if he wants, something that Ollie is happy to agree. Suddenly there is a beep sound that comes from Ollie’s spectral snare/ghost traps. He explains to Molly that June fixed the issue the traps had and now they work great.

That’s when Molly gets crashed by the reality of the danger that Ollie that represents as ghost hunter if his equipment works. She realizes her huge mistake and goes outside to look for Scratch. She frees Scratch from the trap and the two make up, Molly saying that she can’t be with Ollie if that puts Scratch at risk of getting captured.

While the two are talking Ollie goes outside. He uses his special googles to detect ghosts. He finds out that Molly is hanging out with Scratch, listening to Molly about how Mollie can’t be a thing. He is left devastated upon the revelation that Molly has been hiding this secret from him and that he can’t be with Molly as he wished to. In spite of his sadness, he doesn’t tell Esther about Scratch when she comes to pick him up from the dance, showing that he didn’t want to hurt Scratch if it involved him being someone that Molly cares about.

The conclusion of ¨I Wanna Dance with Some-Ollie¨ could be seen as part of ¨Stage 2¨ of Molly falling in love with Ollie. She realizes that she was having an idolized version of Ollie in her head, letting her crush for him not see that dating him wasn’t a good idea as long as he had hateful views against ghosts. Her image of Ollie gets crushed by reality, seeing Ollie who he is as a person, one of those sides being a ghosthunter. Ollie can be seen as seeing through this same stage as well, when he learns that Molly has been hiding Scratch from him and why she didn’t want to date him earlier in the episode.

Some weeks in universe after, in the episode ¨Frightmares on Main Street¨ has Molly and Ollie organizing the decoration for a haunted house. Molly had been trying her best to avoid Ollie since the dance, saying that ¨everything is weird and awkward¨ between the two. On Ollie’s side, he has been checking on Molly, believing that Scratch has used some spell on her to control her. Ollie doesn’t want to believe that Molly would be friends with a ghost.

Trying to get some Halloween fun, Scratch asks Molly to allow him to redecorate the haunted house. Scratch invites plenty of ghosts to come and scare people for fun, who many of them believe that the ghosts are puppets or extra effects from the house. Everything seems to be going along well, both ghosts and humans are having fun and Molly is getting tons of donations for the funraising.

This, however, changes when Ollie goes inside the house and finds it filled with ghosts. Ollie tries pulling Molly out from the place, insisting that she is under a spell. Molly snaps at Ollie and asks him to listen to her. She explains to him that ghosts aren’t evil and that they aren’t doing anything bad at the moment.

In this episode Molly has a lot of less patience with Ollie when it comes to his hatred for ghosts. She snaps at him a lot more often she did in previous episodes and doesn’t act the same ¨lovely crushing¨ way she did. Molly sees Ollie more as a who he is now, admitting that him being a ghosthunter *is* a problem for their relationship. In spite of that, she tries her best to prove to Ollie that ghosts aren’t all evil as he believes and takes to the time to explain it to him.

From Ollie’s side, he clearly cares for Molly more than he hates ghosts. He could have told his family about Scratch since the events from school dance yet he never did. This is because deep down he knows that Scratch may be important to Molly, even if he would rather believe that Scratch put Molly under a spell to make sense of their relationship easier in his mind. While he traps Scratch later in the episode, it isn’t done with the purpose of hurting him as it is to interrogate him. When June shows and almost shoots at Scratch, Ollie interferes and makes June go outside to help Ruben and Esther.

While all this is happening, the frightmares show up, being attracted to the chaos from the situation. Molly begs Ollie to see the good in ghosts, leading to Ollie to free Scratch from the goo. Scratch uses his chairman powers and locks the frightmares inside the phantom canister from the Chens. Ollie apologizes to Molly and Scratch for thinking that ghosts were evil. The two make up and are on friendler terms now that Ollie is changing his ways.

In the episodes that follow, Molly and Ollie remain as friends, sometimes doing gestures that could be considered as romantic, like holding hands or getting close, indicating they still have feeling for each other. The main difference is that this crush isn’t longer superficial, as they are spending their time to get to know each other better and give each other time before they ask the other out.

In ¨Unhaunting of The Brighton Video¨ Molly helps Ollie with processing his feelings of guilt, that Ollie spends most of the episode trying to avoid. Ollie expresses feeling very guilty for having captured ghosts like Scratch and confused that something he was taught his whole life turned out to be incorrect. Molly reassures Ollie that what matters is he is trying to do the right thing and be a better person now. They later help Blair with completing her unfinished business by returning the tape from a movie she loved when she was alive but she wasn’t able to return before she died.

In ¨Carbon Zero Heroes¨ and ¨Let’s Play Turnipball¨ they do things together. In ¨Let’s Play Turnipball¨ Molly encourages Ollie to play in the turnipball tournament against Perfektborg. Despite not winning, the team celebrates Ollie for having played well in the game. In ¨Carbon Zero Heroes¨ they two take extreme measures to be ¨Carbon zero¨, helping it has to make a difference. They eventually realize that climate change is too big for one person to solve and it is something that requires collective action. They start campains to make awareness about the issue and ask Pete to push policies that protect the environment.

¨Welcome to Necro-comicon¨ is another episode that is important for Molly and Ollie’s relationship. In this episode they both try to stop the Chens from presenting the phantom canister in front of a convention of ghosthunters. Molly suggests to Ollie trying to talk to his parents about their views against ghosts but Ollie turns down the idea, saying that his parents aren’t like Molly’s, they have been ghosthunters their whole lives and they won’t be persuaded that easily. He thinks the only option is to get the canister away from his parents. Molly isn’t fond of the idea but still goes along with it.

After many failed attempts at grabbing the canister and the Chens about to give their presentation, Molly suggests to Ollie again to be honest with his parents. Ollie gains the courage to talk to them about trying to consider that ghosts can be good and doing the presentation isn’t a good idea. Both Ruben and Esther appreciate Ollie’s enthusiasm but quickly dismiss him, telling him that his wrong. June questions Ollie why he said that and Ollie explains to June that a ghost (Scratch as Chairman) was the one that trapped the Frightmares inside the canister during Halloween.

For a moment Ollie and Molly believe that everything is ruined until June shows them that she grabbed the canister, believing in what Ollie said earlier about ghosts being good. June tells them that she is going to find a place to hide the canister and she is going to run some experiments to learn more about ghosts. She meets Scratch, who quickly gets along with June and Ollie is glad that his parents were stopped from presenting the canister.

In some of these episodes Molly and Ollie gain a better understanding of each other, as Ollie opens up to Molly about him having to deal with the rest of his family being ghosthunters and how his identity was crushed when his worldview was proven wrong. They have closer for the both of them to be open about issues that affect them on a deeper level. Ollie gets the courage to be able to confront Ruben and Esther about their hatred for ghosts. This could be considered the stage of ¨True Love¨.

In ¨The Grand Gesture¨ Molly’s feelings for Ollie are brought up again. They are both falling for each other over again. Molly explains to Libby and Scratch that she has a plan to ask Ollie to be her boyfriend later that day. Libby and Scratch think the gesture of asking out should be way bigger, as it is a special occasion. This somewhat convinces Molly to change her plans and let Libby and Scratch give her ideas.

This result in very awkard situations that end up wrong and Molly can bring herself to ask Ollie out. She feels very nervous about the gesture having to be grand and perfect that she gets stuck when she wants to tell Ollie. While they are eating banana split, Molly tells to Ollie that she has been trying to tell him something all day, Ollie gets confused and for a second he assumes that Molly doesn’t like-like him anymore. Molly clarifies that isn’t the case. Before they can keep talking, they are interrumpted by June and Darryl’s ghost experiment go out of control.

For their luck, the experiment (Junior) stops eating electricity and returns to his normal small size. Junior says that one doesn’t need to do a grand gesture for people to express love for one another, he thanks Darryl and June for taking care of him and says goodbye, going to ¨higher planes¨.

Molly takes Junior’s words to heart and finally takes the opportunity to ask Ollie out without making it big. Ollie accepts, telling Molly that he has been trying to do the same but he was think about it having to be a ¨grand gesture¨. The two smile at each other, blushing at how they were trying to do the same thing. They both hold hands, officially becoming boyfriend and girlfriend.

For ¨The Grand Gesture¨ episode, Molly and Ollie have reached the stage of ¨true love¨ in their crushing. It isn’t a superficial idolized crush they used to have at the start of the season. They have spent time getting to know each other and they like each other for who they are as people, supporting the other with their issues and not having to hide secrets like they used to do.

In conclusion, ¨Mollie¨ starts as two teens falling each other on first sight, having a superficial crush on each other, ignoring who the other is a as person (In Molly’s case) or not having a full idea who the other is (in Ollie’s case). They both rush into being in a relationship, missing the signs that they can’t be together for Ollie being a ghosthunter and things crashing down between the two. Once Ollie starts changing the way he views ghosts, Molly and Ollie take the time to get to know each other and, eventually, the fall for each other again for who they are as people and decide to become a couple.

[tgammsideblog]

Alright, let's clarify some things regarding Tgamm shipping and behind the scenes stuff when it comes to Ollie and Mollie ship because i'm tired of misinformation being spread around. 1) Season 2 was being written around when the first episodes from Season 1 starting airing back on October 2021. That means that the creators didn't expect what things people were going to start to ship like Molibby and Molldrea (Molly x Libby) and (Molly x Andrea). The creators have zero control over the way the fandom online consumes media and they have already written most of Season 2 when people came up with those ships

2)Back when the show aired, around two days after the series premiere, one of the creators, Bob Roth, clarified on his twitter that the LGBT+ represenation wasn't what ¨people were expecting¨ and people were looking too much into Molly and Libby interactions, the creators explained multiple times that they only saw Molly and Libby as friends and that was their relationship in the series.

3)The creators in general don't have any problems with people having their own headcanons. They have stated this in podcats and AMAs that they are fine with people shipping things that aren't as long as the fans don't demand their ships or headcanons to be canon.

4) No, Ollie wasn't something that was demanded by the network. In fact Bill Motz was against the idea originally until the writers in crew convince him that they could do something interesting with it (That is the whole ghosthunter plot)

5) The fandom has been going just fine these last weeks. The show has been trending on twitter these last episodes. The regulars i know of from twitter, discord and tumblr continued posting as always. I know of someone who is a huge fan of the show who doesn't like Ollie much but she still appreciates others things that have been happening in Season 2 like Chairman Scratch, Jinx, Scratch's past among episodes that explore the Mcgee family.

6) There are people who are being way too dramatic about Ollie's character. Sure, he is part of one of the main plotlines in the first third of the season but he is a character that only appears in like 9 episodes from this season. Two being one half hour episodes (The New Paranormal and Frightmares on Main Street), the rest are the regular 11 minutes segments. So that's like 9 out of 28 episodes?. It isn't that much as people make out to be. He barely appears between episodes 8 to 13. For a while we didn't have much about his arc until recently. So, yeah, he isn't a character that appears in every episode from this season, just some episodes. You can still enjoy watching the show without having to like his character or be fan of the ship.In fact, there are plenty of people who don't care about Ollie but still really like the show. This is because they care about stuff beyond shipping or just don't care about shipping at all.

TLDR: It's fine to dislike Ollie or Mollie ship but, for fuck's sake, try to be normal about it.

[tgammsideblog]

Tgamm Season 2 Episode Title cards so far (Part 1) It doesn't include ¨The New Paranormal¨ because it doesn't have a title card.*

[kingpagie]

I feel like I should've known what season 2 of TGaMM was gonna be like, considering the first 35 seconds of The New Paranormal (I counted) opened with nonsensical screaming.