#mabelland

[cartoonfan7]

Gonna be honest, I'm a bit disappointed that the fandom hasn't really tried to extrapolate what a Dipperland would be like, a dream bubble prison meant to entice specifically Dipper into staying the way Mabelland did for Mabel, particularly since we know what Mabelland was originally going to show Dipper thanks to the episode commentaries. I'd like to think that in contrast with Mabelland, which was very obviously indulging in Mabel's desire to escape into fantasy and never grow up, to the point that Mabel is somewhat aware of what Mabelland is doing, if not to what extent, why, or what's really outside of it, Dipperland would essentially leave Dipper in the dark about being in a prison and essentially play an idealized version of his life on fast-forward, where he and Mabel get to stay in Gravity Falls, he gets to study under Ford, their parents move to Gravity Falls, and several other things happen that sound too good to be true if they happened all at once, but the time skips/dream logic causes Dipper to not question it that much. Like, Ford eventually bringing Tyrone back, for example.

[ilikelookingatthings]

gravity falls bonus parallels

anyone else think about how Stan might have been drawn to dipper a bit cuz he reminded him of little ford....and while we get that ford saw alot of himself in dipper (what with both being slightly overthinking paranoid nerds who like ddnd and weird supernatural stuff and gaving a birth mark that sets them apart a bit(though fkrds was more noticeable with his hands)...and the ford projected his dynamic with stan between dipper and mabel so didn't see mabel as reliable enough to try to teach as often to.

But I keep thinking......what if ford actually was seeing STAN in dipper as well?

We know despite his denial he felt a void since he didn't fight his dad on kicking Stan out that he tried to distract himself with college and vengeance to prove he didnt need that other school and his friend fiddleford and anomalies which he couldn't quite fill and that bill had taken advantage off ford's need for a deep connection and close companion because deep down ford DID miss his best friend/bro Stan.

So....while I get Ford's desire for a companion who gets it and being drawn to the similarities dipper had with himself......but I wonder if he was also drawn to dipper cuz he was subconsciously trying to fill the Stan shaped hole by his side with another little boy who didn't have glasses because the mental image of stan he has doesn't have glasses.

A subtle reminder that who he really wants is stan even if ge's to stubborn to see it.

And while there is the obvious parallel with how ford was given a big opptunity that fit his interests that would separate him from Stan that Stan felt worried about abs accidentally messed up cuz he didn't want to lose fore a d how dipper was offered the apprentiship and mabel torn between not wanting dipper yo resent if he missed a opportunity he would enjoy but also very much not wanting to be left behind by dipper which resulted in her messing up with blenden blanden ect ect.

And how dipper chooses hjs dynamic with Mabel over staying in gravity falls and growing with Mabel and forgivness and understanding to contrast how ford hadn't fully accepted it was accident and how sorry stan was and had let that ruined oppottunity/project separate ford from stan and stay stuck on that one point.

But lowkey from another angle and a squint dipper has parallels with stan and mabel has similarities to Ford.

Because emotions can be weird....like....stan accidentally messed up the project abd was kicked out by the dad and ford didn't fight for stan to stay so at fjrst glance you can only see Stan being the one feeling abandoned.....from from firds persoectuve stan messed up hjs project despite knowing how important it was to ford...didn't try to tell him about it before hand...so ford seed it a a betrayal or stan abandoning him first cuz they can't really go against the dad.

Like....I wonder if ford had felt hurt or abandoned by stan first and like stan chose to leave him or made it so with his actions like Mabel felt at the authority figure ford bringing up leaving mabel to dipper.

And how it makes a parallel to how due to feeling alone despite being told they'd be fine without their twin.....they were taken advantage of by someone they thought they could trust in bill/blenden blanden bill.

Where both ford and mabel kind of tried to distract themselves with their interests....Ford with his interest in studies or anomalies for example.....Mabel with Mabel land....both trying to distract themselves from things going to shit outside their bubble like how ford had been in denial about bill til more affects on fiddleford were revealed....and trying to fil that void with a cooler 'better' replacement for their twin....like dipper fresh and how bill echoes askects if sfan while being smart and flattering and always able to get into ford's head.

Where both Mabel and Ford struggled for a while to listen to dipper and stan....how the bubble gets popped but Mabel and Ford both felt bad once they finally accepted how bad Bill's plans were and their hand in making that possible even if both were tricked.

But like stan....dipper didn't guve up on Mabel and chose her just as stan never gave up on ford....

Like dipper having that talk with Mabel in the court scene is chef kiss....but I weirdly felt a echo of how dipper got through to mabel in how ford reacted to stan doubling down in his actions with the final switcharoo in how it proves how much stan cares and how any niggling thoughts that stsn hurt him on purpose out if jealous or not caring enough to not be careless was fully put to rest(even if it wasn't just for ford...Stan did that to protect the twins and everyone but still).

Mabel in trying to lie to herself and her feelings that dipper fresh could be a real replacement even thoigh you KNOW that to her dipper couldn't really be replaced like hoe ford lied to himself he didn't need Stan abd living through distractions in his weird bubble.

And both ford and mabel have dated multiple fantasy creatures and a sort of semi evil friend/ex in fiddleford and Gideon who created sort of cults and semi reformed a little to give the other a piece that could help that spread the amount of people involved.

That their brothers of dipper and stan had to help them out with. Both dipper and stan were the ones who gave mabel and ford a little extra push(NO PORTAL PUN INTENDED FOR STAN BTW) get get away from the aweful ex.

I mean yet ford was obsessed with taking bill down pre falling in portal ect but dude was still protecting the journal from being burned by stan even if it would be safer to destroy than to hide it which showed he hadn't quite left the bubble of how he told himsekf he'd be fine without stan abd would be famous and scomplished and prove everyone wrong ect.

And dippers weres a hat with a icon and so does stan.....and ford and mabel both wear sweaters....I mean the obvious similarities are still Dipper and Ford with Mabel and Stan....but it's really interesting if you tried to read things the opposite way abd search for parallels the twins share with the other twin.

Just....wanted to mention some of the stan dipper parallels and ford mabel parallels.

Any extra thoughts you guts want to add just write in a reblog or a note.

Any other parallels you guys noticed?

[johnnycatalina]

I had forgotten about this one!

Well, this is it. The single worst thing I’ve ever posted on the internet. I don’t know what kind of feverish madness I was in when I first suggested this, but shame on you for holding me to it, anon.

[baddecisionsgoooo0]

Supey-Doo

So i had a thought.

Super-man, but he thinks he only has his powers when he eats a treat made by Martha Kent.

I see two ways, either

(a) The Kents live in Coolville, and so Clark is part of the Scooby gang growing up/ in his teens. He gets a love of mysteries that help him connect with Batman. he can call his old gang in at any time for help. Scooby still exists. there'd also be a lot of misunderstandings.

The Justice league is on a case and Superman's just like, "Imma call my old gang, see if they know anything." And everyone else is like "the big blue boyscout was in a gang???"

Super man eats a lot of Ma Kent's baking to "keep" his powers, and the justice league just assumes he needs more calories than usual. and then Superman makes some comment about how the treats give him his powers, and that his mom made them, and Batman is just like "... is she experimenting on him? what?" And superman's just happily oblivious.

Or

(b) certain members of the justice league form a young detective agency, and Superman's just their mascot. Like, sure he could beat down a god if he really wanted too, but he's find just being emotional support.

[roseverdict]

new story idea: fiction that seems completely normal at first about a forgetful protagonist. except then the characters start chiding the protagonist for "misremembering" very distinctive things that were written out in the text word-for-word. except when the reader goes back to double-check, the previous chapters align with what the other characters are saying happened.

except near the end it's revealed that yes, actually, the text was legitimately gaslighting both you and the protagonist for a reason that could be good-hearted-but-still-antagonistic (say, preventing the protagonist from reliving something horrible) or all the way into power-hungry mode (say, preventing the protagonist from realizing they're trapped in a Reality-Altering Plot Device Of Your Choice and trying to escape/achieve their own power to fight The Antagonist on even footing)

like, this could be done with anything from some sort of time-delay browser-cookie-related code to links that take you to near-identical versions of chapters depending on whether you're reading in the intended order or backtracking to double-check something

it could be done.

[godsfavoritescientist]

Me: I will write an outline for my Bill-comes-back fic

Me 30 min later: has written down an outline for a prequel fic instead of for the fic itself

[girlsnightgirlsnight]

my pitch for s3. link wakes up. the whole of s2 was a vr-exsperience. And then s3 is exploring what would happen if willy went after normal rather than scary

Does Link ever worry about getting sucked out of his life with Jerry and Sacry and waking up from the ep.2 simulation?

[fangirlingpuggle]

so in the bio billford side au where bill is thinks the twins are toddlers because of lifespan differances is mabelland just like, the all powerful dream demon version of those baby sensory videos

HA! I love that idea it's just Bill putting the equivalent of Ipad video on for baby.

Bill: Here kiddo you watch this I gotta destroy the world and get your brother and dad.

[millenianthemums]

I wanted to say that your au for bill cipher and mabel is so adorable I saw the one we're bill gets a new hat and mabel find what was left of his world it was so heartwarming! please keep it up! I love this au and I can't wait to see what happens next but I am curious I know that bill has some nightmares in the past but dose mabel have some too?

thank you so much!!! i definitely plan to keep working on it for as long as possible!

and yes Mabel does have nightmares. a lot of them, actually. she feels SUPER guilty and responsible for Weirdmaggeddon, which is part of why she’s so determined to help Bill become a better person. she wants to personally make sure nothing like that ever happens again so she can finally stop feeling so guilty. she also has nightmares and paranoia about still being stuck in Mabelland. so basically her biggest emotional hangups are entirely Bill’s fault, which really sucks for him when he starts caring about her. they’re not ALL directly caused by him, but most of her worst nightmares are either about Weirdmaggeddon or about not being able to save somebody she loves.

[ckret2]

You know, sometimes I think about how Mabelland had the things inside have four different reactions when Mabel decided to leave

1. Most of them became nightmare monsters.

2. The two dreamy boy lads stayed the same.

3. The Mabel copies just disappeared.

4. Waddles was just put in there and reverted to normal.

I wonder why they were so varied?

my explanation is:

They WERE nightmare monsters right from the start; they were a part of Bill's bubble, psychically influenced by Mabel's thoughts but separate from her.

Xyler & Craz weren't part of the bubble. Bill created Xyler & Craz back in Dreamscaperers; Journal 3 has Mabel reference going back to sleep so she can see her "dream boys" again; they were drawn out of Mabel's own mind and thus, during the weird conditions of Weirdmageddon, could be projected from her mind out into the real world. When the bubble turned on her, they didn't because they were never tied to the bubble.

Most things in the world are just there; but Mabel summons up her clones with a clap. This may means that they're more akin to holograms rather than physically constructed out of disguised nightmare monsters like most things in the world. Once their job was done, they poofed away just like they came. On top of that, the Mabel copies were made to directly reflect Mabel's identity/thoughts. How could they turn against her? So of course when the bubble turned on Mabel they couldn't stay.

That was just Waddles.

I think it's hilarious/adorable that at some early point in all the carnage and chaos of Weirdmageddon, Bill must have just,, run across Waddles and went "Oh hey! That's Shooting Star's raw pork chop! Sure, I'll toss him in her bubble, she'd like that." Like he didn't have to do that, the bubble could've made a dream Waddles.

[chatxkilluaxnoir]

I would say it was less Dipper escaping reality (though that was part of it, he was literally having reoccurring nightmares) and more so he was seeking authority figures. Dipper was also acting mature/trying to act mature partially because of this and/or he probably even felt pressured to do so (on purpose or not).

(Also, he decided to give up, for now, on being Ford's apprentice too. And stuff. So there is that too).

My dude also was partially not taking care of himself as well as he could, because of these reoccurring nightmares. I do agree people can misunderstand Mabel (though, I feel like that is happening less nowadays. To the point when Dipper's reoccurring nightmares was revealed they focused on how that explained stuff more w/ Mabel, despite it being Dipper's nightmares and how much it explains stuff with him (like the stuff I mentioned) & despite the dreams/nightmares (at least, the one(s) Bill revealed. They and/or others almost certainly probably have other nightmares/dreams) Mabel had (or at least the ones revealed, had nothing to do with her parents).

Though, I do think the Pines' twins parenting affects both of them and some of their dynamic a lot (which I have already gone over some, how it does). Cool to see u defending Mabel (though, I see less people blaming her for the Weirdmaggedon compared to other things. Tbh, most people - though probably not everyone - blame who they (mostly should should. And that is Bill.

Who would have kept praying on people's desires, flaws, weaknesses, until he got what he wanted. The Pineses and others at least made it so he couldn't do so again (hopefully)). Though I kind of wish u didn't bring up Dipper's nightmares in trying to defend Mabel. Because I don't really think there was a need to do so? And because I feel like u oversimplified that point a bit too much - I know the point of this post was to defend Mabel tho, so I understand that u didn't focus on that point too much.

And I didn't really expect u to. I just felt like u oversimplified it (I went more in-depth on that in previous replies) and/or that it wasn't really needed in order to defend Mabel. Saying all that, cool of u to want to defend Mabel. I do find Dipper more well-written personally and like more. But I love Mabel too. I love all the Pines. They are all such well-written, complex, real feeling characters that have their own flaws and strengths like a real person, and I love them all for that and more. Their are some of my favorite characters and one of my favorite families ever. ^_^

But seriously though,

it was a bit annoying to be going through Dipper Pines tag, to see this post, that u seemingly only tagged with that tag to say this:

"(and btw, in the light of recent info, i. e. Book of Bill and dippers nightmares, then he too, is guilty of escaping from reality to fantasy of being ford's apprentice :P)"

, while also majorly oversimplifying stuff (which I already brought up, so I won't do so again).

"Now Fucking Fight Me"

I don't really want to fight u on defending Mabel, but I will fight you on the Dipper point, because it kind of annoyed me.

Also on how I see more complaints (I am not saying I agree with these complaints) when it comes to other stuff when it comes to Mabel, compared to blaming her for Weirdmaggedon; like I already said. So I guess I am also kind of "fighting" you on that.

i'm rewatching gravity falls and it boggles my mind how people are still to this day misunderstand mabel's character

you know what, EVERYONE who says that mabel is to blame for starting weirdmaggedon, i have something to say to you

You are guilty of the same crime you say Mabel has committed - Escapism

"what does it have to do with us??" excuse you, if you don't have the courage to face the reality and retreat to consuming content of your favourite shows, whilst not having anything or anyone tethering you to the real world, then you are guilty

(and btw, in the light of recent info, i. e. Book of Bill and dippers nightmares, then he too, is guilty of escaping from reality to fantasy of being ford's apprentice :P)

Now Fucking Fight Me

[t1rkb]

You ever wonder about the fact that when Dipper sacrifices for Mabel he can choose the selfish route and not do it and still be fine in Mabel's expense

Whereas when Mabel sacrifices for Dipper choosing the selfish route would not end well no matter what giving her only one choice in the matter that ends well for Dipper

Its the fact that he's resisting the temptation because despite benefitting no matter what, he'll choose the one where everyone he loves is happy

For Mabel its the fact that she will do the same for Dipper because she appreciates him, and she'll return that favor no matter what

Dipper is rewarded for sacrificing for Mabel, because Mabel will outright return the favor in the same episode

The Deep end doesnt count but its Mabel saving someones life so it gets a pass

Mabel doesnt get rewarded for sacrificing for dipper because she doesnt need to be, she's content with just dipper because he's always been there for her

there is no benefit for her in sock opera or WMG2 if she chooses to be selfish

there is benefit for dipper in time traveller's pig if he ever chose to be selfish

To expand more on the last part I put

For Dipper:

Time Travellers Pig: Dipper can choose to leave Mabel there and he'd get off scot free

Or fix the time line and Mabel will return the favor for him

The Deep end: Dipper can leave Mabel to save mermando herself and quit his job anyways because wendy gets fired

Or help Mabel save Mermando and wendy still gets fired

Weirdmageddon 2: Dipper can take the apprenticeship anyways and leave Mabel behind or grow up with Mabel being by eachothers side

Dipper has to resist being selfish and gets rewarded for doing the right thing.

For Mabel:

Sock Opera: Either she can sacrifice the play and everything she worked hard for or her brother stays possessed by Bill

Weirdmageddon 2: She can exile Dipper, Soos, and Wendy and live in mabelland but the world will end anyways or she can go with Dipper back home but He makes the decision to stay or not

Mabel asks for nothing in return other than her brother by her side.

[abyssal-author-and-artist]

gravity falls au where dipper and dippy fresh are swapped so mabel's brother is insanely colorful and zany and the version in mabelland is some depressed anxious nerd who hates the Real Dipper Pines (dippy fresh) who mabel calls Dippy Depressed

if this gets to a hundred notes i'll make it exclusively through mspaint doodles

[inamindfarfaraway]

I've seen a few posts comparing GIFfany to Bill Cipher, but can we talk about the real best foil dynamic for her? I mean Gideon Gleeful, y'all. The two of them have so many parallels.

They’re cute, charming, seemingly innocent youths with pastel, sparkly, formal aesthetics that connote sophistication and being model citizens of their respective native countries (Gideon wears a gentlemanly suit with an American flag badge; GIFfany wears a classic Japanese school uniform). Their core motivation is to be loved… or maybe it used to be, but by the time of the show they crave power and want to be worshipped. Especially regarding to their romantic attractions to main characters. As long as you obey them unconditionally and make them the most important person in your life, they’re doting, generous partners. But once the heroes reject their romantic advances, they quickly become incredibly possessive, jealous, resentful, domineering and downright violent toward them and anyone they perceive as sabotaging the relationship, unable to comprehend anyone not liking them in exactly the way they want because they’re perfect. They’re meant to be the most likeable kid or teenage girl ever. That’s the basis of their projected identity. Not committing entirely to them after they’ve been so nice is an ungrateful betrayal and/or their partner being confused and led astray. So they resolve to force the object of their twisted, selfish affection to submit. They’re unstable, arrogant, self-righteous and vindictive in general beneath their sugary exteriors. They have supernatural powers and knowledge that their kind should not have. Their methods include verbal manipulation and abuse, gaslighting, surveillance through technology, controlling robots, possessing other bodies and attempted murder. They engage heavily in acting, both in terms of social deceit and literally playing a scripted, idealized role in a product designed to appeal to and exploit people (Gideon’s psychic tourist trap show; GIFfany’s dating simulator video game), and prove to be fragile and volatile when others don’t follow the conventions of the fiction they imagine life to be. They ultimately seek the imprisonment of their ‘loves’ in vibrant, beautiful, blissful, simplistic fake worlds (Gideon holding the key to Mabelland; GIFfany attempting to download Soos’s soul into her game). They had antagonistic relationships with their creators (Gideon abusing his parents; GIFfany killing her developers).

And despite all of that making it easy to dismiss them as monsters, they do have sympathetic elements in their past and present circumstances. Gideon was a normal boy until he found Journal 2, the one written while Ford trusted Bill, and the mystic amulet. This is how Ford describes them in Journal 3: ‘The most dangerous journal! Curses, incantations & dark power became an obsession in this volume. Describes the hiding place of the mystic amulet. I buried the amulet once I learned that it corrupts your soul (and whitens your hair)!’ So naturally, the wise, brilliant man buried them near the town’s primary school. Gideon probably had the journal and amulet for at least months and at most a few years to be such an established star at the age of nine and have his long hair be pure white. His very psychological agency was compromised throughout his moral decline leading up to “The Hand That Rocks the Mabel”. Not to mention potential trauma from the horrors of Journal 2. And his parents may have been increasingly mistreated, but they also enabled him, mostly Bud. True, for the rest of the summer he’s lucid and chooses to remain evil and get worse, but despite his lack of direct magical power now, Bud never tries to discipline him or help him emotionally mature; he instead uses his membership in the Society of the Blind Eye to erase his memories of Gideon’s tantrums, relieving his own stress without fixing anything. Gideon is then sent to adult prison due to the insane local laws of Gravity Falls, rather than a facility more conducive to rehabilitation. Sure enough, he befriends hardened criminals, who further enable him to be their leader, and does not change his ways. He never appears to have any friends outside prison (except briefly Mabel). Chronic loneliness before gaining power would suit his obsession with being popular and loveable, clinging to social superiority to compensate for genuine connection. Not to mention Weirdmageddon. I’m not excusing his actions! I’m just saying, this kid is not okay. Nobody’s born evil.

As for GIFfany, she was accidentally instilled with human intelligence and emotions and practically magical electrical abilities. We only have word on her backstory, but it is plausible that her programmers tried to delete her because of that alone, before she’d done anything wrong. That she really was defending herself when she electrocuted them. That she was deemed unfit to exist, a mistake, and nearly killed as a newborn. This formative trauma is the root of her abandonment issues and hypersensitivity to rejection. Three previous players returning her didn’t help. Also, she’s the main character and only love interest of a dating sim; she may not be bound to its rules in what she thinks and feels, but nonetheless, in her worldview her player loving her is a law of the universe. She wasn’t programmed to handle permanent rejection. She was programmed to be a girlfriend, a prop to make the player feel gratified. Not a person. She outright tells Soos that she likes whatever he likes. No wonder her perception of love is an inevitable, inescapable contract, a conquest, where one party is totally agreeable and subservient to the other. But as that directive clashes with her in fact being a person in her own right, she decides to be the one in control. Again, I’m not excusing her behaviour, only presenting an explanation of it.

The biggest thematic difference between them in the end is that Gideon reforms and GIFfany doesn’t. Gideon realizes that he can’t force Mabel to love him and his actions are why she doesn’t want to be around him in any capacity, lets go of his hatred for Dipper, risks his life standing up to Bill and helps save Gravity Falls and the universe. He renounces his ruthless ambition and promises to be a “regular ol’ kid”. It’ll be hard. He has no idea what normality is anymore. I expect that he’s a social pariah, scorned and distrusted. But he has hope. He and his parents can slowly learn how to be a family. I can see him befriending fellow reformed mean kids and Pines twin rivals Pacifica and Robbie. Yes, Robbie. Listen, all three care strongly about image and style, Robbie’s gone to immoral lengths to win over a girl himself, is fascinated with death and darkness, and he and Tambry would be a great model of healthy romance for Gideon. It could work!

But while Alex Hirsch has stated that GIFfany is alive in the mall arcade and dating Rumble McSkirmish, I doubt that this is a healthy or fulfilling relationship. Their first interaction was her zapping him and his mind is a much more primitive AI, not human like hers. I highly doubt that she’s got closure about Soos. He and Melody are thriving without her in a stable, serious relationship. They’re living together at the Mystery Shack. Were she to recover her lost power, she would certainly return to torment them after witnessing their success through her screen. Heck, this setting has ghosts and she arguably has a soul, one brimming with heartache and vengeance; maybe she could even manifest in the physical world as some kind of digital ghost able to transform her surroundings into the environment of her game. If you can’t take the guy into your video game, bring it to him! Whatever the format, GIFfany’s revenge is a possibility and it could be a disaster. How do you kill a disembodied spirit? Code that writes itself and can enter anything with the capacity to hold a charge? You can’t destroy all the electronic devices she could retreat to.

What if the best solution were talking her down? And who better to do that than Gideon? Seeing everything he felt, everything he suffered and everything did wrong reflected back at him and passing on the second chance he was given? He can feel more empathy for her than anyone. He already has a knack for endearing himself to older criminals. He wouldn’t sugarcoat things or take any abuse, but he wouldn’t abandon her or be afraid of her either. She would be cared about with no conditions or transactions. Maybe helping someone in an even worse position figure out how to process heartbreak, move on from toxically obsessing over an ex and Mr Mystery, cultivate secure, internal self-esteem and live a peaceful life would help him do it himself. I think they should be friends.

[thatraccoonthing]

Fun fact: in my apprentice twins au, even though Mabelland doen’t exist exactly, and weirdmageddon doesn’t happen (at least not for a while, that’s still being worked out), the horror and terror that is Dippy Fresh still exists. No one knows about Dippy Fresh except Mabel, and sometimes he’s more like actual Dipper for depressing reasons

[girlsnightgirlsnight]

mabelland from weirdmageddon part 2 but its normals personal realm that willy made for him