#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.

[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)

[beauty-and-passion]

TBOB PART 2: OF FLATLAND, EXWHYLIA AND EUCLYDIA (3/4)

Hello, everyone, welcome once again to another post about Bill’s dimension. One day this analysis will end, I promise. But today is not that day: today is the day we will talk about Bill’s family.

And oh boy if there’s a lot to talk about.

Please check all previous posts to understand this one (and the masterlist too!).

<- Previous post - Masterlist

_______________________________

PART 4: OF BILL’S FAMILY

“If you think Stan’s relationship with his family is bad, Bill’s is worse” - Alex Hirsch, NYCC 2015

_______________________________

Loved and ostracized

Everyone loved me immediately and the mayor dubbed me the “best baby of all time”, made my birthday a holiday and gave out free knives. (...) Truth is I’ve always been loved and admired by all!

Of course Bill starts telling his story with a huge. Fucking. Lie.

How can I be so sure? First of all, the hyperbolic way in which he talks about his birth as if it’s the second coming of Christ. Then, all the previous points of this endless analysis.

Considering everything we have until now, I find it very difficult that Bill’s birth was celebrated by everyone. Surely his family celebrated it - if his society is similar to Flatland’s, having a regular son would’ve been enough to make them very happy.

But also… he’s just an Equilateral. And if his world has social classes based on the number of sides, then he’s from a middle class. I doubt the birth of another Equilateral was a reason big enough for huge celebrations.

Also, let’s not forget what Bill himself said in the TBOB: you should make a new reality and a meaning for yourself. Well, what if this is the reality he made? A place where he was immediately loved and admired by everyone?

_______________________________

Scalene and Euclid

Sooo… those are the names of Bill’s parents.

Honestly? They’re interesting. Even if I’m a bit weirded out by Scalene: in the only image we have of Bill’s parents (the grayed-out triangles on thisisnotawebsitedotcom) neither of them looks like a scalene triangle. On the contrary, they both look equilateral.

It’s a bit strange, you know? As if a person has “Neanderthal” as their first name. “Neanderthal Smith” or similar. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?

While speaking of Euclid, I think it’s a nice name. It’s the same name as the dimension they lived in and no, it’s not as weird as it seems: in our world, some people have the same name as the country they’re from, so it’s not so weird.

But hey, the most important thing is that we canonically have the names of Bill’s parents! We know he had parents and we know details of his relationship with them!

And this raises A LOT of questions.

Let’s start with his mother: we know she loved him, at least a little bit. She sang him lullabies and told him she loved him, despite his strange eye. So we can be sure at least one of his parents didn’t mind his deformity so much.

Also, this part in TBOB after Bill and Ford's breakdown, in which a very, very drunk Bill talks to his mom:

“I’m gonna be back from school soon, don’t forget to cut out the crust off my sandwiches or I’ll —”

I don’t know you, but to me, this sounds like the threat of a spoiled child. Something like “cut the crust off or I’ll throw a tantrum”. And yes, this implies Bill was a spoiled child - or at least, a child who considered himself above others, mother included. So yes, I can imagine him throwing a tantrum at his mother for something stupid like some crust on his sandwiches.

But again, even more questions! How was his mother towards him? Was she submissive? Was she combative? Was she ready to answer to every little whim of her son like a Flatlander Woman or did she ask for some respect? Considering how bratty Bill is, I'm more prone to believe she was very lenient towards him.

While speaking of his father, I find it very fascinating that we know absolutely nothing about Bill’s relationship with his father. We know his mother loved him (maybe to the point of spoiling him too much)… but his father? Did he care about Bill? I suppose so, considering Bill visited a doctor (unless it was his mother’s decision only, but I doubt it).

And about his job: was he a Tradesman? Bill attended school, but was school supposed to teach him about his future job too? If not, then this was up to his parents, right? Presumably, it was his father’s job to teach Bill how to be a Tradesman, a bit like in the Flatland society. If that’s the case, then why we don’t have any information about this? Why no memory at all? Bill seems to care about his father too - if we assume that the top hat he has was his father’s. So at least he cared enough to keep something of him.

Was his father a bad guy? Was he cruel? Or was he so blinded by society’s rules to torture his son and think he was doing it for his good? In that case, I would understand why he did everything he did - but beware: understanding doesn’t mean accepting. It would be a bit like Filbrick Pines’ situation: I can get the reasoning behind his actions, but that doesn’t make him Father of the Year. Maybe it’s the same for Bill’s father. This wouldn’t be the first parallel between Stanley and Bill, after all.

_______________________________

An Irregular masquerading as Regular

Time to talk about Bill’s eye.

We can safely assume Bill’s rare mutation was having his eye on the face and not on the side - which, from the Euclideans’ perspective, meant having an eye on his insides.

Now, imagine with me: you have a child and you see that your baby has no eyes. No eyes at all, not even an eye socket. I bet you would freak out, at least a little bit. You would probably send your baby to a doctor and ask if there is something they can do.

The doctor checks the baby and gives you both good and bad news: your child has eyes and they work. But they are inside his body. In his goddamn stomach.

And if all of this isn’t enough, your child starts telling you that sure, he can see a lot of things! He sees things you cannot see - no one else can see.

Now, would you say: “Oh, no problem. He can see things no one can, so he’s fine and his eyes work well”? Or would you probably freak out even more and fear your son is having goddamn visions because he’s probably dying or has a tumor or who knows what?

I can understand why Bill’s parents brought him to a doctor. And I can understand why the doctor thought the best solution was to “blind” that eye. As far as Euclideans know, there are no “stars” and there is no “above”. It’s as if someone in our world says they can see rotating hypercubes in real life. Would you think they’re perfectly fine or question if they’re insane/growing mad/getting very sick?

So yes, even if it's insane for us, from Bill’s parents' POV, giving him medicine to make him blind was for his own good. Does that make them Parents of the Year? Hell no, they were literally blinding their own son, of course it’s terrible and insane and if someone tries to do the same they should be immediately thrown in jail. But for the rules of Euclydia’s world, this was probably the best thing to do.

And personally, I ADORE the tragedy of this. The tragedy of giving something to your son that will permanently blind him, but trying to make it at least bearable - he’s still a child, he doesn’t really understand what he’s drinking, but you think it’s for his own good, your whole world think it's for his own good, so you use something silly that he likes, like straws, because this will make the medicine - the impairment - more tolerable. Uuurgh, it’s so tragic I love it.

And it’s even more tragic, if we consider that even after billions of years, even if he talks about his doctor and the medicine as something bad that wanted to “blind” him, Bill never forgot the straws. He still loves the straws he was using so much, to the point he still gave them a place in his book.

But since there’s always room on the angst train, also think that by making him blind, Billy would’ve probably stopped talking about these visions (at least, according to his parents). And if he stopped, it would’ve been easier for him to fit into society. He would’ve followed the rules and standards. He was a Regular shape after all, so if they took away that hidden-and-yet-so-present pieces of Irregularity he had, he could’ve become a respectable member of their society. One who didn’t go around, talking about weird things no one could see. Things that were against the law.

Again, it’s not me saying this, it’s Bill:

“Technically, talking about a “third” dimension was illegal in my world.”

This makes Bill’s character EVEN MORE fascinating. He could’ve been the Apostle of the Third Dimension. He could’ve spoken to everyone, because he had something of everyone - he could’ve been a bridge between Regulars and Irregulars, because he was both. He could’ve changed his world or died as a martyr.

But in the end, he chose the third option.

And we will talk about it in the next post.

See you soon with the fourth and final post on this part.

Next post ->

(How about a coffee? ☕)

_______________________________

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[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.

[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

[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.

[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...

[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.

[envyq00]

I can tell how much effort you put into your Narrator design he looks so cool (completely positive) (like goddamn how do you NOT mess up that goodly) (the man ever)

WAHH thank you so much!!!

A lot did go into him. Allow me to ramble for a moment about my inspirations for him:

1) Peter Jones

According to an interview with Kevan Brighting by Cressup on YouTube, he said he got inspiration for the Narrator's voice from Peter Jones in the original radio play of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So I already had a good idea of where to go with my Narrator, specifically the vibe of a late 60s -70s radio host. Mixed with 80s work clothes as well.

2) Various 60s-80s work clothes.

I just looked stuff up on Pinterest but these first two pics of Gregory Peck and Clint Eastwood REALLY gave me a lot of the vibes I wanted to go for. (Also Harrison Ford in the 2010s but Tumblr has a 10 image limit 😭😭). I also thought Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill fit the vibe as well. Moreso in looks than personality but Idk. Maybe that as well.

3) Stylization from other cartoons

And then to kind of stylize the look I wanted to go for, I looked at different characters and cartoons. Specifically, Ford Pines from Gravity Falls (especially him bc I thought it was funny that he had a brother named Stanley so I mean duh. Plus Alex Hirsch IS in Ultra Deluxe which is hilarious), a lot of concept art from Batman the animated series, and especially the Iron Giant. I'm actually planning to make a short animation with the Narrator and a scene from the Iron Giant for a class project! (Actually tbh, I definitely wanted to capture babygirl vibes that everyone's been talking about on Twitter and I know Saul Goodman and Kent Mansley definitely had those vibes XDD.)

4) Other internet artists

I don't want to repost their art without permission so I'll just mention names:

Forte-Girl7's/Forte7's Wheatley gijinka was actually the first gijinka I've ever seen for like anything and considering that the Narrator (especially in Ultra Deluxe) gave me more Wheatley vibes, I wanted to kind of pay tribute to her.

Also you've ever seen Bechnokid's Yokai Watch/Whisper art, that was also a big inspiration dhsjjsjs.

And of course there are the GOATs like MissAzura and CYM-K whose takes on the Narrator I've adored and actually got me into this fandom in the first place. Sooooo yeah!

There's also my own OC whom the Narrator reminded me incessantly of and he also played a part of my own Narrator design. And of course a biiiit of Kevan Brighting himself mixed with my pure imagination coming up with a simultaneously vague and particular image of what the narrator looked like in my head.

And of course, there were other things in game that informed the Narrator's character that I wanted to translated into his character design (i.e squarish shape language bc of his perfectionism and obsession with structure but also cuz of the exposed developer textures and of course the color scheme being close to the office colors in the game).

But yeah! There's more I could talk about in terms of the Narrator as a character but I'm saving that for later hehehheheh

[divorcedfiddleford]

i already know what the story behind the picture is but please explain it anyway we need to educate the masses

oh my god thank you for enabling me ive been thinking about this all day. regarding this post i made yesterday and this classic image (which i actually just found out was posted seven years ago today!)

basically as can be read in the post at BigFest in 2016 somebody had what i believe was a fan-made prop based on the laptop from season 2 of gravity falls. alex hirsch attended this convention and decided to type in the password to the laptop. we never learned the password in the show so lots of people were excited to find out!

a HUGE thing to note here is that journal 3 was still months away from releasing and in fact while a couple pages had been released as promotional material it was still being worked on until, like... gosh i wanna say may is when they finally started printing it? don't quote me on that though my point is that this was all taking place pre-journal 3 and, therefore, many fans were still operating under the (sensible) impression that the laptop which

had been designed by fiddleford

had been built by fiddleford

had fiddleford's name on it

said "PROPERTY OF F" on it (at this point it had been established through promo images that "F" referred to fiddleford)

was assumed to be fiddleford's by, like, four different main characters

was given to and used by fiddleford following s2e7

fiddleford presumably knew the password to

would also belong to fiddleford. right? i mean logically. logically, guys.

so when alex hirsch revealed that the password had been "STANFORD" all along, people thought that was a little bit... well

of course, a couple months later journal 3 would be published and it would say that the laptop had actually been STANFORD'S, not fiddleford's, and that he had made the password his own name. so technically i lied in my earlier post, there IS a heterosexual explanation for this, but imo it's still bullshit. like sorry i don't believe for a fucking second that stanford "i need to encode all of my messages in multiple ciphers and write in invisible ink" pines would ever make a password as simple as his own name. he wouldve picked like something with six different layers of alternate meanings and also put it through atbash at the VERY least. also as i listed above there is a LOT of evidence which would support the laptop belonging to fiddleford, as opposed to ford, which has this random retcon (and like... some of the computer keys are different colors? i guess?? idk that bit was stupid) as its only supporting evidence.

my theory is that, while writing the show, alex and the other writers had intended for the laptop to belong to fiddleford, but for whatever reason, when they were writing the book, they decided to make it ford's instead. i want to make clear that i DON'T think this swap was motivated by homophobia, or as a reaction to seeing people interpret the password in a gay way. by the time that this photo was taken several promotional journal pages had been released, so it's safe to say that even if they were still adding the finishing touches to the book, it was pretty much in its final stage and in fact might have already started printing (i think the first photos we see of the book itself were posted like a week or two after bigfest). so to assume that there's a correlation there is both unfounded and extremely unlikely.

now, the stargazing scene reprint, on the other hand