#i just know that Alex Hirsch means a lot to me

[thecultstuff]

it’s 1am so let me emotionally ramble:

Gravity Falls regaining popularity right now feels like a full circle moment for me. I was obsessed with it as a child and dreamed of one day pursuing animation. Eventually realized i didn’t have the art skills, but i got close enough and am now in my first year of college as a film major.

But this would have literally never been possible had it not been for Alex Hirsch who made me feel i could actually pursue a career like this in the first place. As a child, Alex and Gravity Falls allowed me to make bad art and have crazy ideas and just be the weird little kid that i was. And i’m forever thankful for that.

So yeah, live laugh love Alex Hirsch

[bumpscosity]

and just as the clock struck 12:17 the morning of september 1st i finished my gravity falls rewatch bawling my eyes out.

[joicecubes]

this started as a twitter post but it got way too long

i feel. INSANE. ABOUT FIDDLESTAN YOU GUYS. i’ll admit i didn’t get it at first, like the original concept seems kinda bonkers, they never interact! what a silly rarepair! BUT NO. I SAW A SINGLE PIECE OF FANART AND IT WAS OVER FOR ME. IM HOOKED. im sorry i need to talk about them

my favorite set-up for fiddlestan, and the one i see most people going with, is the idea that fiddleford comes back to ford’s house after ford’s already been sucked through the portal, so he finds stan instead. and thats like such perfect/devastating (depending on how you look at it) timing because their wounds from ford are both so raw.

i feel like this is gonna get long so. gay rambling under the cut

on the one hand, they get from each other what they never got from ford. or at least, what they lost from ford. fiddleford wants love, he wants his unwavering devotion to ford to be reciprocated. and stan, being such a deeply lonely person, can give him that! what he wants is companionship. he wants a friend, like what he had in his brother. he wants forgiveness. and god, fiddleford is one of the kindest, most forgiving characters in the show. if anyone will see where stan is coming from, if anyone can extend forgiveness and understanding where ford fell flat, it’s fiddleford.

and while this exemplifies just how deeply they would need each other in this scenario, when you think about how tightly they both clung to ford, there presents a very real possibility that one or both of them would feel like ford’s replacement.

stan is ford’s twin. people have played with the idea that fiddleford would see a lot ford in stan, even though they may not be very similar in demeanor. they look the same. and deep down, they do have similarities. alex hirsch said in a dvd commentary that there is more of ford in stan than he even realizes, and fiddleford would probably see that. not to mention just how deeply he would miss him.

and when stan has always felt like a worse version of ford, you can imagine he might feel like a stand-in, especially as him and fiddleford get closer. fiddleford, whether he means to or not, would definitely see his best friend in stan. he has his face for god’s sake!! and would stan just accept it? would he be upset to be seen in this light, to act as a replacement, or would he accept that he’ll always be second to ford? either way is just. DEVASTATING. for fiddleford to unintentionally confirm all of stan’s deepest fears and insecurities…

and then there’s what fiddleford is to stan. while i don’t think fiddleford would feel as deeply a replacement as stan does, he IS a big fucking nerd. and stan probably begged him for help getting ford back when he found out that fiddleford is not only a scientist, but worked on the portal in the first place. and he of course wants ford back too, but it wouldn’t surprise me if fiddleford ends up feeling like stan only keeps him around for that purpose and that purpose alone. to learn more about ford, to live vicariously through him as ford’s best friend. because stan is desperate to know more about him, to satiate this need, this wound of missing his brother for over a decade.

god and all the little things too… fiddleford being riddled with anxiety and stan being able to ground him, to knock some much-needed sense into him the next time he wants to pick up that memory gun. stan struggling to take care of himself, to see his own self worth, and fiddleford being there to make sure he eats enough food, reminds him to shower, helps wash or cut his unkempt hair. falling asleep holding each other, because they need that comfort, that warmth, that heartbeat, to feel okay enough to rest.

ugh you could do sooo much with these bitches it drives me up the wall. i feel so unwell just thinking about them. i could yap even more but i’ll keep that for another post

[pixeltwix]

{The Disconnect & The Spiral}

(I realize this isn’t my usual content, but hear me out, the rekindled GF fixation is going hard rn)

- -As an avid fan of Gravity Falls and an even bigger fan of the tragic old man lore packed into the mystery trio, I honestly gotta say..

I refuse to believe this is the full story towards WHY Fiddleford and his wife had a whole blasted argument over…him forgetting to get her a Christmas present?? Upon reading this section, I can frankly say I had a similar reaction to Ford. The immediate sense of, ‘really? That’s it? Your family reunion was torn up over that?’

I mean- your husbands been gone for lord knows how long, your young son also hasn’t seen him in ages, and let’s be honest- with how much trauma the ole hillbilly is stacking up on a day to day through his adventuring with Ford, how often is he actually able to call home or write a letter with a sound mind?

It just doesn’t feel feasible that a man who started this journey so troubled and in yearning to return home to family would be so forgetful as to not scrimmage up not even a souvenir or postcard from Gravity Falls for his family. So what is it then? Perhaps he’s become so averse to everything in the small town he wouldn’t dare bring a trace of it home with him, or rather, he truly had forgotten some small one off promise he made. Perhaps he’s forgotten a lot by this point-

Because of lack of dates on a majority of his entries it’s a little difficult to put together a timeline of when Fiddleford finished his memory wipe gun and when he started using it. By all means he racked up a lot of memories he wished to forget in the beginning being as quote ‘weak minded’ as he is. But then of course we all know he becomes addicted to quite literally erasing every little inconvenience until of course the end result. The freedom of a clear mind outweighing all consequences for him.

Instead however I choose to believe these were the first persisting side effects of his machine. We know enough about it now to get the fair suggestion that even one use of the memory wipe gun can be more damaging than can truly be discerned, so seeing as he quite possibly has used it at least twice by now- both events he used them for being extensive (the shifty incident and the gremloblin incident cited in journal 3) I believe it only fair to assume this quoted argument he got into with Emma-May was hardly over one measly little present. True, we have no frame of this woman much less the rest of the family (minus what we get of Tate once he’s grown), but I am TRULY giving her the benefit of the doubt in believing her husbands mind has begun to scatter in ways he didn’t even realize. So much to the point that a fight possibly fueled by ‘it’s not just about the Christmas present, it’s about ————“ would truly confuse him

I say that in the kindest way, I love Fiddleford, truly he’s the most tragic character in my mind regarding this story, but the man’s self destruction and drift from his family had to have started somewhere. And just like any addiction that can tear a family apart, this one was definitely packing punches. I realize I don’t have much backing, and I’m really just rambling some nonsense, but Alex Hirsch just doesn’t feel like one to write a one off ‘oh by the way this silly reason is why Fidds is alone from his family for the holidays, something he clearly holds a deep fondness for’. Nah, that man is too cryptic for him to write something like that and for me to not overthink it <3

(But with all that said and done- dear god the snow globe cabin and the knitted six fingered gloves literally killed me- that hillbilly is such a damn sweetheart, it can almost make me ignore the doom that will befall him and the town <3!!)

[divorcedfiddleford]

You made a post saying “it has been zero days since our last alex hirsch hates ford so much bullshit” and i know it was mostly hyperbole, but you have some really good takes that I would love to be elaborated on in terms of how ford is written

it really wasn't hyperbolic. over the years he's just really shown a lot of hatred towards this one character.

content warning: discussion of abuse

i want to start with this clip from the commentary which i think of as a microcosm for how the writers and especially alex think about ford.

transcript:

rob renzetti: i mean he [mcgucket] should've basically knocked ford out, and... and destroyed the... you know, tied him up, and, destroyed... and... alex hirsch, speaking over him: yeah he should've beat ford with a wrench and taken this thing apart piece by piece! he's the one who understood how to built [sic] it, but...

... so that seems like a pretty violent course of action. shall we unpack that?

ford is a character who's pretty explicitly written as a victim of abuse, and who now has c-ptsd as a direct result of the abuse he experienced. alex hirsch believes that ford deserved everything bad that happened to him, that it's ford's own fault, and that he also deserved worse things to happen to him. this is why, given every narrative chance, alex hirsch has piled more suffering onto ford's plate. the biggest example of this i can think of is in the journal, when he wrote that fiddleford was actively erasing ford's memory (despite this being a massive timeline contradiction which i still refuse to accept). because god forbid ford even have one remotely healthy relationship with somebody. that would be too good for him. ford was manipulated and lied to by bill, but alex repeatedly compares him to icarus, a teenager whose demise was the result of his own ignorance. this comparison is still so fucking offensive to me. the sun did not lie to icarus, did not guarantee icarus all of the happiness and success and sense of belonging which he had been denied all his life, did not actively shut out the voices of those around him who would try to help him.

alex in general has a very strange relationship with abuse. he seems to get really upset when people read his characters as victims of abuse. the strongest instance of this is actually not with ford, it's with pacifica - especially in the nwmm episode commentary. the episode says "pacifica's parents have conditioned her to respond to a bell" and alex says people got "the wrong idea" about it. like. dude. what the fuck. you wrote abuse. even if you didn't mean to, that's what you wrote. you can't say people got "the wrong idea" just because you didn't think about the subtext of what you were writing. anyway, back to ford: i believe this extends to him as well. alex wanted to write a character who's a foil to stan and who was a selfish unlikable victim of his own arrogance. however that's not what he wrote. he somehow seemingly accidentally wrote a really compelling and relatable awesome autistic guy who had to fight for every good thing he he ever had in his life only for it to be taken from him every single time. but alex can't let go of seeing ford as just "the opposite of stan". when he talks about "how someone as smart as ford could fall for bill's tricks", he refuses to realize he wrote a situation in which a man was being psychologically manipulated and tortured.

it goes back further, too. people repeatedly theorized that filbrick was... not a very good father, to say the least. on top of the very explicit and canon fact that he threw one of his children out on the street (seriously, there is no defense for this), people pointed out that stan would flinch at filbrick, that ford seemed upset by things filbrick said but dared not talk back, that filbrick was mad at stan not for hurting his brother, but for "costing the family potential millions". but alex can't have people seeing ford as sympathetic. ford can't have it bad like stan did. ford had to have everything and he lost it all because he sucks so much. so he wrote the graphic novel story where ford is filbrick's favorite child and filbrick also is not even a bad parent you guys he's just stoic. ignore the whole thing in dreamscaperers where stan perpetuates the abuse that filbrick did to him. ignore the fact that ford was shouting at stan and then completely shut up as soon as filbrick entered the room and did not say another word for the rest of the night. ignore all that because i just made up this story where he cries at a present from stan. filbrick loved his boys for sure you guys!!!

i'm not even touching on how alex repeatedly villainizes traits commonly associated with mental illness and neurodivergence. ford's hypervigilance becomes arrogance. his passion for knowledge means he's a know-it-all. his difficulty socializing and making friends means he's a misanthrope. his lingering resentment for the way he was raised means he hates his brother and is the worst human being to ever have lived. i could go on, go even further into how the finale reaffirms this, but i feel weird talking about this too much.

[beauty-and-passion]

TBOB PART 3: OF BILL'S SOLITUDE AND BILLFORD (3/3)

Welcome, everyone, to the last analysis post regarding TBOB.

It has been a long journey - and a fun one too! I’m glad you appreciated all the previous posts and I hope this one will be appreciated as well.

For all disclaimers and premises, please check the links below.

<- Previous post - Masterlist

_______________________________

Cause of his own pain

Before TBOB, I don’t think a lot of people thought Bill would react badly to his breakup with Ford. Maybe he would get angry or become even more possessive - in Journal 3, we know he promised an entire galaxy, to the creature who would’ve brought Sixer to him.

But facing it so badly to go to a pub and drown his sorrows? I doubt it was on a lot of people’s bingo card.

Speaking about the “LOSING SIXER” page a bit more: Bill said Sixer secretly loved “our “will-they-won’t-they-destroy-the-world” relationship”. And for all the people who don’t know, the “will-they-won't-they” is a figure of speech about “a potential coupling between two people who share romantic chemistry, but whose relationship is threatened by uncertainty, external obstacles or internal strife.” (courtesy of Google).

So not only Bill cared about Ford, saw him as similar to himself and has been more honest with him than with everyone else, but he also considered their relationship romantic-coded. He was down for Ford, just as much as Ford was down for him. And it’s pretty clear he was, considering the “one Sixer, please”, followed by him crying, getting drunk, trashing the place and even forgetting his mother died. If that’s not being down bad for someone, I don’t know what it is.

Also, according to THIS interview, Alex Hirsch said that:

Bill’s a trillion years old, so it’s like, Ford disappearing for thirty years is like- [snaps fingers] is like somebody saying they’re ghosting you and then texting you the next weekend, you know what I mean?

So, for Bill, their relationship happened in a very short time. AND YET, he grew so attached to get devastated by Ford disappearing for something that for him was, like, a week. He was down THIS bad.

And, for me, this is the icing on top of the beautiful tragedy that is Billford, because now we can be sure Bill cared before, during and after the breakup. He saw Ford as a potentially romantic partner. He wanted him around.

But because of his unresolved trauma and his inability to properly distinguish feelings, Bill mixed love and fear, thinking they were the same. And the result was losing the only human in the history of mankind he had been interested in.

Furthermore, this makes Billford even more tragic if we consider that, for better or for worse, these two had the potential to become a happy, powerful couple.

Think about it: if Bill wasn’t such a messed up individual, he could’ve been the Muse Ford needed. He could’ve kept being the center of his life and the sun in his galaxy, as Ford said. They’ve found a kindred spirit in each other: they could’ve been each other family, each other’s supporter. And with their cleverness, they really could’ve gone “through hardships to the stars”.

On the other hand, if Ford was a much, much more messed up individual, he could’ve joined Bill in his plans to dominate the galaxy. He could’ve worked with him to bring Weirdmageddon everywhere. He would’ve destroyed everyone and taught “a lesson to all”. He would’ve been to his side, ruling alongside him, “all-powerful, greater than anything you've imagined”, as Bill promised during Weirdmageddon. They would’ve been the most powerful couple ever.

But Bill lost both possibilities and the fault is his own. Just like he lost everything and everyone else in the past, once again, the fault is just his own.

_______________________________

Again as before: alone

TBOB doesn’t end on a happy note. When I reached the last pages, I literally commented with: “Oh boy, that’s truly depressing”.

The way Bill snaps and says that “you turned out like all the rest”, the way he blames his past relationships, his “worthless Henchmaniacs”, his “miserable family” and Sixer. Yes, just Sixer, no bad adjective to add to him - understandable, considering he’s probably still down bad for him.

And he says he just needs one person, someone who will fall for his tricks. He’s not even looking for a special person: he’s just looking for someone. Someone who will get him out. Because he doesn’t miss anyone, nope nope, but he really, really wants someone. Anyone.

To me, this reconfirms Bill is and has been alone, for a very, very long time. Probably since the destruction of Euclydia. He tried to fill the void inside him with some romantic relationships, but he didn’t manage to keep them. He tried with friends, but he cannot understand a friendship not based on submission. He tried with an audience, but it still wasn’t enough.

And when he found the only soul who was so similar to him, both physically and mentally, the only one he was honest with, even if for a brief moment… he lost him too.

And now he’s, once again, alone. He lost his family, his friends, his loved ones. He lost everything.

_______________________________

An immensely fascinating character

Bill is so. Goddamn. Fascinating. He was a fascinating character before, because the series gave us hints about his potentially tragic backstory (the famous “Flat minds in a flat world with flat dreams”). He was interesting and he was hiding something, so he got our attention.

Now, he’s fascinating because he’s multifaceted. He’s complex, he’s tragic, he’s desperate. You can empathize with him and feel sorry for him. But you can also laugh with/at him, fear him, condemn him. His tragic story doesn’t make up for what he did, but it helps us understand how he reached that point. In perspective, it makes all of his choices easier to understand too: Bill never went through all the stages of grief, he’s still stuck in the denial phase. And when you keep carrying denial for such an absurdly long amount of time, your choices and your mentality inevitably end up being skewed.

You know, it’s funny that Bill sees himself as a bidimensional villain, when he’s so, so much more than that. Maybe it’s all part of his trauma, his inability to see himself as more than just the insane monster who destroyed his home dimension. But this book does him justice and portrays him for the incredible, fascinating, complex character he truly is.

And that’s another reason why I respect Alex Hirsch so much. Aside from being funny and clever, this man is full of passion for the world he made. He is Gravity Falls. And, ten years later, he still has a great understanding of the characters: he can portray them so accurately, with so many details and connections to the previously disseminated dots - all while still leaving questions! Man, I can only wish to reach this level of understanding of my own characters.

So, once again, I’m here to thank this man. For creating Gravity Falls and sharing that world, while fighting censorship in every step. And for coming back, ten years later, to give the fandom a second renaissance.

_______________________________

Gravity Falls, it’s good to be back!

I have a ton of moments in my life connected to Gravity Falls, of summers, feelings and memories. This show saved me from depression, brought me up to my feet, took my hand to Canada and back home, then left my hand for a while to make me take some steps alone.

In these years, I learned a lot, improved my English, improved my writing in general. And now, I feel more ready, more mature, more capable of writing something like nine posts to analyze one single book and show at least a small part of the deep love I still feel for this series.

I hope you all felt it - at least a little bit. I hope you enjoyed my stupidly long analysis, my silly theories and my obsession with the triangle guy.

And if you’re still not fed up with me and want more rambling, please feel free to ask for more. Tell me what else do you want me to talk about, if you want episode analyses, if there is something else I missed, if Dipper and Pacifica are truly endgame (the answer is yes). I will write them inbetween other posts about other fandoms (Epic and CCCC, I am coming back for you both).

And if you want new Gravity Falls fanfictions, don’t worry: I have one already in progress, a second one planned and a third one still in my mind. Maybe not all three of them will see the light of day, but who knows? Maybe I will get new ideas too. The love for this series is too strong on me and I need to express it somehow <3

So stay tuned, because we will meet again very, very soon~

Thank you all for your time and attention and I wish you all a nice day <3

(How about a coffee? ☕)

_______________________________

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[babycharmander]

On Bill Cipher and Redemption

I've had a couple posts analyzing The Book of Bill and particularly Bill Cipher's development. You can check those out here and here if you want!

I have more thoughts, now, and I debated on adding them as a reblog to one of my other analyses, but I figure it's probably better as its own posts, so here we are.

I wanted to address the matter of "redeeming" Bill Cipher.

But before I do that, let me quickly do a run-down of what redemption is and is not, as this is a topic that people have a lot of misconceptions about.

Redemption IS NOT:

Ignoring a character's wrongdoings.

Excusing a character's wrongdoings.

Other characters forgiving the character's wrongdoings.

A character's having a sad or sympathetic backstory.

Something a character can "deserve."

Redemption IS:

A character's realizing that they were wrong, and taking steps to become a better person.

So no, I'm not here to say that Bill did nothing wrong (he did), or that what he did wasn't that bad (it was), or that any characters should be expected to forgive Bill (they shouldn't).

With that out of the way, let's move forward in our discussion.

First off, does The Book of Bill redeem Bill?

To put it simply, no. (Stay with me.)

By the end of the book, as I've discussed in my previous posts, Bill is in a worse state than when he started. He is refusing to heal, and, while he does see what he did as monstrous, he makes no attempt to change anything. He can't bring Euclydia back, sure, but he could still try to be better, and he's not doing that--he's insisting that the torture he put Ford through wasn't that bad, and trying desperately to go back to trying to get someone to help him take over once again. He wants to go right back to the awfulness he was doing.

However.

This does not make him incapable of redemption--it just means that, as of his current position in the book, he is not in the process of being redeemed.

But he is in an interesting position.

By the end of the book, Bill has largely given up on trying to convince the reader to go along with his plan, and begins rambling almost to himself. He keeps saying "I'm fine" over and over again, which is not an answer to a question the viewer is asking at that point. He's telling it to himself, which means he's trying to convince himself that he's fine... which, in turn, means that some part of him--a part that's loud enough that he feels the need to try to drown it out--knows he's not fine.

This is important, as it means that he is, potentially, still capable of redemption.

Fully accepting that he is not okay will involve confronting his past and what happened to Euclydia--something he is currently not willing to do. But there is potential for him to do so, especially since within the Theraprism, he is granted infinite time to recover.

It will ultimately have to come from him--he will have to reach a point where he realizes it's not worth living in denial and actually seeks to heal and better himself.

And healing will involve bettering himself, because in order to recover from the trauma of the Euclydian Massacre, he will need to accept that he made a mistake. And to accept that he made a mistake, he will have to admit that he is not a monster, which means he will have to admit that he did not need to keep acting monstrous for his entire life post-Euclydia--that he does not have to continue acting that way now.

That won't be easy, of course--recovery never is--but it is possible.

Bill Cipher is a redeemable character--potentially. But whether he's redeemed or not is up to him.

(And Alex Hirsch. :P)

[fordtato]

This ask is just be rambling about how bill and ford are probably just platonic, I say this as a queer person myself, if old men and triangles wanna make out they can I’m all for it

I’ve always seen Ford & Bill’s relationship as platonic, and now knowing the context of the book of bill, I think it really makes me believe they were just friends

Them just being friends shows that this can happen within any context not just relationships, you can find a friend and think you both appreciate each other and find out they’re the worst human imaginable and you regret and hate yourself for ever seeing anything in them worth liking

I also see Ford as aro/ace in some compasity so that probably also makes me think they’re friends

If Alex were to come out and say they were dating I wouldn’t care, good for them, I just think it holds more meaning if they were just friends

In conclusion, they were two dudes chillin in a hot tub, 5ft apart cuz they’re not gay

I mean, I'm fine with that interpretation. I think they used a lot of romance-coded language in the book ("will-they-wont-they," "one thing led to another," "Mabel saying Bill was like "a needy ex," Ford wondering if Bill was "off inspiring some other scientist," etc.) so I definitely am not sure what conclusion the book wants us to have.

I know that in my interview with Alex Hirsch last year (from around the time he was writing The Book of Bill), he specified that Ford's relationship with Bill was specifically not friendship, but something more "complex, and fucked up." I don't think he inherently meant that it was romantic, because he didn't come out and say it was.

Also this isn't me arguing that it must have been romantic, because like - I think people will read the book and come to their own conclusions and that's fine. Even if Alex literally tweeted out "they were boyfriends" tomorrow, I would still encourage people to reject that if they wanted to, because who cares what Alex says - he's just some guy!

Literally take from the book what you wanna takeaway from it. Wanna say this is a meaningful example of an abusive friendship? Have fun! Wanna say this is a personally relatable experience with abusive romance? Have fun! Wanna say the pages aren't even real? Have fun! Nobody on this accursed webbed site, including myself, is the arbiter of The Correct Interpretation.

[rius-cave]

Okay now hear me out.

What if Vivzie is pulling an Alex Hirsch on us about Adam not coming back as a sinner?

I know a lot of people see her bringing Adam up in a dead dead characters conversation out of nowhere as proof that he won't come back, but what if it's the complete opposite?

What if she's crushing our hopes beforehand so that this would be a genuine shock, plot twist and reveal when it comes up and not just be Vaggie being an exterminator 2.0 where everyone sort of knew she was going to be one because of how far the theory has gotten and how much it makes sense??

Also if you look at everything else they blatantly point at him coming back, such as Viv saying a fun villain would be back for season 2, that whole interview, Blake being excited about a rock song, Alex advertising the second season with Adam and Hell the shows entire worldbuilding.

Thanks for coming to the TED talk of a delusional Adam fan.

(As I know, Alex shared a fake leak about the author of the journals back when the show was airing.)

Also speaking of Gravity Falls, just a little something funny if you didn't knew, if you write 'BABBA' in the computer of thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com, you can listen to Dipper singing the full version of Disco Girl lol.

Also write Theory.

The amounts of copium sdkfjdkgd getting TJLC levels in here (I was part of TJLC so I get it)

I mean friend, tbh? That's compelling, like you said, it wouldn't be the first time a creator does something like it. I can't tell you that it's not possible because it certainly IS possible, so I'm not gonna stop you lolol

I guess I'm not doing theories like that or anything because I've accepted it and just kind of moved on LOL, it'll suck if we don't get sinner Adam, but also oh well, it's just a fictional character at the end of the day, we'll be okay

I'd absolutely lose my mind if Vivzie was really playing 5D chess this whole time though, that'd be epic, I'd tip my hat

[matt0044]

Why does Indie Animation lend itself to such intense discourse?

If I had to speculate from my own observations (feel free to call me out on an overgeneralizations), it would be that the harsh turn against any given indie project would be akin to a mother scolding a child with, "I expected this from your sibling but you?!"

See also the "We were rooting for you" gif often tossed around.

Indie Animation be it from a small studio or crowdfunded is seen as bypassing the hoops and hurdles of getting your foot in the door of the highly corporatized entertainment industry. With the likes of Disney or Nick or any given streaming service, creator driven projects are subject to the whims of the company who holds the IP.

And those whims are often to said IP's detriment. It'll more often than not be willfully neglected at best or treated as just something to fill a time slot or shove onto a streaming platform as "content." Enough may be allowed to flourish but their either uncerimoniously cut short at best or being dragged out as a franchise at worst.

To keep from going on about the whole Legend of Korra vs. Spongebob thing (I was there people, there was an LoK fandom believe it or not), indie animation has often been seen as small scale but also within the creator's general control since they control how long it goes or how it's written.

Many cartoons like Gravity Falls, Owl House and Amphibia have talked about trying to get their vision across while contending with a lot of Standards and Practices. Their story which had a "kids and adults alike" target audience would have the top brass insist on something more just for the former category.

While they find work arounds, often to stick their tongue out at the FCC, this can be a hard reminder of who has the final say despite it being what you want. Indie animation is seen as an answer to "What if Alex Hirsch didn't have to comprimise elements of Gravity Falls for the FCC?" or "What if Dana Terrence could just blaze her own trail with The Owl House with little to no notes?"

Especially when it comes to animation with queer characters. Animation made to be "fit for kids" have it tough enough even today but adult animation has to "play it for laughs" since comedies have been the defacto standard for that type of cartoon.

However... a show being creator driven or creative team driven comes as a double edged sword for the fandoms they form. Not all stories that play out across multiple episodes of varying lengths are going in the direction YOU might want to.

Creators might tire of a certain direction or formula and mix things up with things that come to mind almost on the spot. Even with a solid plan, the status quo will get a shake up that can and will alienate those who fell in love from episode one.

Indie Pilots spark the imagination something fierce. There's theories as to what any little detail could mean going forward and speculation on what a character's arc could be. These go wild because Fandom is all about the hypothetical, the unknown, the what could've/should've/would've been. Whole phenomenon would be dead in the water otherwise.

Thing is that not all theories will be proven right if any at all. The creators aren't mind readers and even if it isn't a legality like in corporate, they don't read fanfics if only because they don't want their vision to be totally compromised. Any good creator knows not to just give fans what they want. However... trampling over all these fanfics and theories makes it feel like any given fan had their "child" dragged into the streets to be shot.

A harsh phrasing but that's how a lot of fans act when continuing episode bump up against initial impression of this character or that storyline. It was their creation but new lore, new backstory or what have you is liable to override them. It's been an occupational hazard of being a member of fandom for ages yet it's become the center of a lot of discourse now more than ever. Say thank you to social media for creating such a combative environment everybody.

It's this... feeling of ownership that has existed in fandoms of other shows owned by corporations but amplied by the smaller scale of it, how creators seem more... approachable. And THIS is how the YouTube "critic" scene comes in to capitalize.

So... yeah.

[crispycrunchers]

The Book Of Bill

This is kind of random, but I want to go on a little rant about The Book Of Bill. Fist off, I love the book. I haven't finished it since I really want to take my time with it, but it's so funny and gives us a lot of insight on Bill and his life. Also, toxic old man yao-

But what I really want to talk about is the fact that a lot of Christians and parents are freaking out over it. I am not in fact a parent (thank God) but I am a Christian. One who loves and follows God, but is also a huge nerd so I'm really into things like Gravity Falls. I'm also a 'young' Christian, but have been following God for years and years of my life, so I feel like I know enough to talk about this.

Fist off, the fact that parents are getting mad over the more 'mature' themes in the book. Baby girl, the book and Alex Hirsch said it was for older audiences. I understand people associating Bill Cipher as a kids character, since Gravity Falls is deemed a 'kids show', but if there's a content warning given by the book, you should probably listen. It wasn't really a surprise, since it gave a content warning. And above all, you should have been paying closer attention to what type of media your kids consume. Yeah, you're probably busy, but I somehow highly doubt your kid has their own debit card to buy the book on amazon, and even more so doubt that they went to the store by themselves to buy the book with pocket cash. Anyways, the point is, it has a content warning saying that it is geared towards older audiences, so don't be mad at the book or Alex Hirsch.

Now when it comes to the 'Christian outlook' on all of this, a lot of Christian have been debating on whether it's okay for Christians to watch the show since it has themes of demons, summoning's, and things of that sort. For me personally, I think if you're worried about it negatively impacting your kid, wait until they're older to let them watch it. Realistically, Gravity Falls probably would have scared the crap out of younger me since I was a little weakling lol. But when I got older and had a firm grasp on my own beliefs and watched Gravity Falls, I didn't suddenly become a Satanist or get possessed. And if you're a Christian whos a teenager or even a young adult and wants to watch Gravity Falls without compromising your relationship with God, I want you to keep some things in mind as you make your own decision.

First off, one mistake wont ruin your relationship with God. This I can promise. I've watched a lot of shows that I probably shouldn't have, and they've affected me in a bad way, but never has God pulled away from me or made me start over. If you start watching a show and feel like it's wrong, just stop watching it and move on. God wont hold a grudge. Secondly, Bill Cipher isn't a 'real' demon. He's a fictional character who is a demon in the fictional show, but he's not based off of a real demon from what I've seen. The fourth wall breaking where he talks to the reader in the Book Of Bill is just a fun twist to the whole thing. Yeah, obviously you don't want to give your blood or mind to an evil triangle Dorito demon in real life (even if he is super dapper with his lil' hat and bow tie), but again, it's fictional. I apply this rule to basically everything, meaning I'm gonna watch Beetlejuice Beetlejuice because he isn't based off a real demon, just a fictional one. Now, the last point is that ultimately it's your choice. Hate to break it to you and all those possibly controlling/judgmental family members, but your walk with God is- big shocker- between you and God. It's like how no one can really tell you have to have a relationship with your significant other. Whatever works for the two of you, works for the two of you, and might not work for others. I feel that it is okay for me to love Gravity Falls since I'm not doing anything bad, and I'm not letting it take the place of God if you know what I mean.

Anyways, if you made it this far, congrats. If you're wondering why I posted such a long message about Christianity on my blog about goofy video games/movies/shows/etc., then you're perfectly correct for wondering so. (More yapping ahead, please read this part).

Like I said before, I am a Christian. I've not always been a Christian despite being raised as one, because at some point in our lives we have to question all that we've been thought, and find our own footing. Now, one of the things I am extremely passionate about (besides good story telling and art) is correcting and calling out lies and faults in the church. 'But, Crisp! Isn't that going against church and therefore God!?' Uh, no. If someone was straight up lying about you, wouldn't you want your friend to correct them? And even more so, if you were being lied to, especially in a way that was harming you, wouldn't you want to be corrected?

I am by no means perfect, not even close, and I am nowhere near the level God is at. But I can say that I've spent many years of my life witnessing people who are supposed to be the carriers of love and hope, be the most hateful, fearful people on Earth. Like any group of people, there are good people, and bad people. I want those who want to try out Christianity to be able to see God for who he truly is, and those who are already following God to not be afraid as I was taught to be originally.

Now, worry not, my little buttercups, this isn't randomly going to change into a Christian blog where I'm beating you with the Bible since, quite honestly, that is the last thing I want to be doing. I just want to be super upfront with you all, and provide a place where Christians and none-Christians alike can just co-exist and talk about nerdy things. That being said, I don't care if you're not a Christian, I don't care if you don't agree with everything I say. Love is the most important thing to me, so I want everyone to be able to come together and nerd out about things like Gravity Falls and such. But every now and then I'll make a little (enormous, holy sweet pineapple baby I wrote so much) post like this.

That being said, my apologies for hitting you with such a big piece of text first thing in the morning, lol. But if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading my little (again, enormous) rant. I hope you don't see me as some brainwashed, Bible beating person disguised as a lore freak. I promise I'm not. lol. That being said, I will not tolerate any hate what-so-ever. I don't care from whom towards who, it's entirely wrong. If I find out you're hating on someone I will immediately try and figure out how to remove you (I'm new to Tumblr, spare me the glares).

Anyways, thanks for reading, folks. I hope to see you on a more 'light-hearted'/nerdy topic. I hope you understand everything I wrote here, lol, don't be afraid to ask me any questions, I love yapping as you can tell.

[moonstonediamond]

Ok so it's time for my...

Book of Bill headcannons/theories

So first off this is coming from someone who hasn't gotten the book or been on the website but has seen multiple people talk/theorize about it so these are more of head cannons my brain cooked up, not theories but if I get more evidence than maybe they would be theories so

Number 1 what if the book of Bill is just Bill's journal/ would it be classified as his journal?

I came up with this thinking if Bill wrote the book and based on what everyone said about it so far it looks like he wrote some personal stuff down in it so does that mean it's a journal

Also side note keeping a journal is normally recommended for people in therapy so...

Number 2 What if the book is actually Bill's consciousness being copied/divided

This came mostly from a few things,

1 apparently any thing that looks like Bill is a window for him to look through and from the screenshots of the book it looks like there's plenty of pictures of Bill

2 If I remember correctly Alex Hirsch said when the book was closed Bill was dead and when the book was open Bill was alive a lot of people took it figeritivly as in oh if we put the book down we are forgetting Gravity Falls, but what if it wasn't, what if the book is Bill or apart of him that is why the front page is him trying to make a deal...

Also side note I love the detail of this one screenshot where Bill has a scratch on his face where Stanley punched him (here's a screenshot from google)

Also if anyone has any head cannons or any evidence to turn these head cannons into theories let me know

[prettyinpwn]

Please Reblog to Solve a Fandom Mystery

So... long story short, I'm an ancient, crusty old part of the Gravity Falls fandom, best known forgotten for having made the original Stan twin theory post that got it going on Tumblr back in the day when the show was airing. AKA the person that predicted Ford conclusively first before Not What He Seems even aired. Here's the original post in question from eons ago:

Or... at least I thought I was.

I have a bit of a conundrum I'm wondering if anyone can answer, or if anyone from the fandom from that time - like I am - might remember. See... for a very long time, I always thought the 'someone on Tumblr cracked the case, so we made the McGucket hoax' quote from the GF commentaries meant my blog and post was the one that scared Hirsch into making the hoax, but then I realized:

My theory had the McGucket hoax in it (I believed it hook, line, and sinker, too - thanks Alex, you plaid rascal). So... the McGucket hoax wasn't made in reaction to MY Stan twin theory post on Tumblr, which means... someone else's was.

But here's the thing: I was OBSESSED with GF at that point (who am I kidding, still am, the brainrot in me is strong), constantly refreshing and checking the tags and the people I followed every day for hours on end, deep in the theorist side of the fandom, and I do not remember anyone having fully made a post like mine that "cracked the case"... until mine. The idea or suggestion that Stan might also have a twin existed, sure, but as far as I know, no one fully proved it until me, with the above post rounding up all the evidence.

So... then who DID? Does anyone remember or has found anything from those days that conclusively proves what post was the one that sent Hirsch into a frenzy to make the hoax? Because I'm pretty sure now it wasn't mine.

The absolute earliest mention I personally remember was on the Mystery Shack forums, I think they were called, but once again... not sure by who, and it was without evidence and was just a 'wouldn't it be cool for Stan to have a twin, too?' type deal, iirc. And my theory post itself from back then says it was already a circulating idea, so it must have existed elsewhere, first, but I for the life of me CANNOT remember any posts before mine that fully solved the plot twist.

My one thought is that - and this is how I remember it - me saying "the famous amongst Fallers Stan twin theory" in my original twin theory post was me mis-stating theory when really it was only a 'what if?' idea at that point, but... then again, the McGucket hoax was made before my twin theory post, so there must have been an earlier Tumblr post than mine, right?

Anyways, sorry for the long explanation, but I wanted to explain my thought process and what I remember. Please reblog to help me solve the mystery! The more this gets reblogged, the more people who might remember from back then might see this and know the answer. Or maybe a newer fan that's delved into super old posts in the fandom might have seen one earlier than ~July-Aug 2013 (roughly right after Dreamscaperers was released) that cracked the case before my post did at that time.

[gryficowa]

Boycott!

When you find a comment that Alex Hirsch is supposedly angry because he treats staff badly (???), so you type in the search engine about controversies and all you find is a rant from someone on reddit that Alex is supposedly blocked for different views, and then you see his the entry for which he was blocked on Twitter and you're like, "Dude, you said, that Trump is not a racist", I found another blog on tumblr and the funniest accusation against it: Anti-Semitism (Alex's father is Jewish, so yes… That's why I burst out laughing when I saw this accusation)

And apparently there was an accusation of racism in GF, because criminals are mainly black in prison… It's a pity that many of these characters are not even aggressive, look how they treat Gideon, for bandits they are quite… Wholsome, in their own way , anyway, we're talking about a cartoon from 2010… It's just a strange accusation for me, reminds me a bit of this article about Steven Univese and how racist he is, and they give the stupidest arguments, completely ignoring the character's personality…

Yes, racism in cartoons is a big problem (Miracolous…), but here it looks weird, it's just weird, and GF was very diverse for its time, which people prefer to forget…

I'm speaking as a person with ASD, and that says a lot, unfortunately, the cartoon is simply of its times, the humor, appearance and such, it's just part of its times, it's strange to judge all the problems from 2010 in 2024, I'm not saying that you shouldn't criticize , I mean sometimes it's just abstract, people have already forgotten what people were like back then, especially corporations and it depresses me :/

Let's just not forget when something was created, it doesn't justify everything, but it can explain, because there is nothing worse than forgetting history, who people were, it's easy, for example, to attack a mother from years ago for leaving a stroller outside, but you forget that it was normal and many mothers have done it, so blaming her for it, that her child was kidnapped is quite unfair

I know, I wrote a lot about it, but I just have the impression that people from 2024 forget about everything that happened and would like them to burn people at the stake, and I don't like that

Now that I have your attention:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Although what do you expect in times when people pull out tweets from years ago (When the author was a child) to call him a racist, anti-Semite and all this other shit? Let's just attack people when they did something wrong, when they were adults, not when they were fucking children

By the way, remember about fundraisers, I know, I wrote too much at the very beginning, but these are simply the things that bother me on the Internet

[alpaca-clouds]

LGBTQ* Are Not Inherently Sexual

Yes, I am very much aware I am mostly preaching to the choir here. But let's face it: The sexualisation of LGBTQ* identities is the worst. And we see it so often.

Generally when media depicts queer relationships or trans characters, it will often just automatically get a higher rating, than the equivalent depiction of straight relationships - or cis characters just existing.

There is the general idea coming around, that children should be protected from queerness - just as there is a general idea around that children ought to be protected from sexual themes. I disagree with both, even though I know that thanks to purity culture a lot of people might actually agree with the second idea. But that is gonna be a topic for another day.

When it comes to queerness we have the general idea that somehow two boys kissing or two girls holding hands is somehow inherently more sexual than a boy and a girl doing the same. Which is why for so long media struggled with being even allowed to depict something like that. I mean, just look into the struggle that Alex Hirsch had in 2012 to get Gravity Falls to include just the slightest bit of queer representation. And while Steven Universe started in 2013, it was really that show and Legend of Korra, that finally switched the thing around allowing us to get queer representation in a lot more kids media.

And sure. I will at this point admit to something: Queer culture was always a lot more sex positive, than straight culture. Especially the gay scene was and still is associated with a lot more casual sex than what you expect among straight peers. It should be noted in this regard that this is way more associated with gay men, than lesbain women, though the reasons for this are also connected to both misogyny, the way women are in danger when in public spaces, and of course just the way girls get raised. But yes, as some people at a local queer meet-up have pointed out: Gay cruising is a thing, lesbian cruising really isn't.

But boys kissing or holding sex on screen does not equal cruising, nor does it imply cruising - especially not to a kid watching the show. Like, let me stick to Gravity Falls: The fact that the two cops are gay will not get any kids going: "Hmm, I do wonder whether Gravity Falls, Oregon has some cruising spaces?!"

And this sexualisation goes further of course. Because a lot of people who are at least okay with straight sex ed in school will still make a big drama out of teachers trying to teach 12yos about safe sex for queer kids. Because they clearly do want their kids to get STDs, I assume. *eye roll*

But it is bullshit, right? Like, sex is sex. Educating kids about sex will not make them want it. Goes for straight sex, goes for queer sex. But the queer sex is not inherently more SEX than straight sexi s.

And... It is just bullshit queerphobia that goes with this. And it is sex negative. It is bloody horrible.

[cosmicpines]

There are a lot of things I'm thinking after watching the Alex Hirsch interview but a lot of it really is how much I appreciate how much I have learned about storytelling and emotion and how much of that was through GF. I'm sure most of the people who were around back in the day aren't here anymore, but there was a theory called Grunk4Gramp that arose in the hiatus after NWHS and before ATOTS. It was essentially that, since we knew Stan had stolen Ford, (god, he was still Stanley at the time)'s identity, that Grunkle Stan was the twins' grandfather. And I don't remember my exact opinion at the time but then when the "Shermie's grandkids" line and the fandom exploded again. I don't remember exactly when I realized that, yeah, that is a bit of a sloppy solution, but emotionally, yeah. It can't be Stan or Ford because that would retroactively make one or both of them really, really bad. It would be heavy and super complicated to cover in half a season. And then hearing Alex literally say that, practically word for word, just makes me really happy.

It makes me think more about just the prevailing attitude of "oh they're geniuses they must have had a plan for everything!" level of deep scrutiny. Which like, honestly? Fair. Most of us were in high school or younger. GF was a show like no other. It encouraged this kind of behavior. In retrospect, the moment that started falling apart for me was when a lot of people were so deeply insistent on the slit pupil maybe-still-possessed-Bipper thing after NWHS that I just... It's like Grunk4Gramp. What kind of storytelling would it be if Dipper wasn't making any of his own decisions? What would we even gain from the story then?

Being a creator is very difficult. Even as creators, we often forget that people who make things are still human and make mistakes. We sometimes forget that things can't be perfect and shiny and are just going to be good enough. We fight for those emotional beats and sometimes it'll make something inconsistent. Or sometimes something will fall a little flat. Or sometimes something will fall really flat. And that it happens to everyone, even creators we really love and respect. The best we can do as people is fight for the story we want to tell, not filling every plot hole and demanding an answer for every little thing. It's fun to be the second -- god, don't I know it. It is SO MUCH FUN overanalyzing things, ask literally any of my friends -- but knowing that something being complicated and intricate doesn't mean its good and vice versa.

Anyway I just really respect the GF crew and how much they put into this show, even now, 12 fucking years later. I really respect and love the fandom and all the wild shit that came out of it. My main creative project right now wouldn't exist if it wasn't for an offshoot fandom of the GF fandom, which is really a weird thing to say out of context. I just miss it.

oh also I found this on my blog while trying to find grunk4gramp things and lmao

8 years ago...