#watch it watch it watch it you want to watch gravity falls you want to watch gravity falls

[sapphiresaphics]

I started this blog because I wanted reblog positive posts about Arcane and sapphic content in general. I was never expecting that it would turn into a “defend Arcane” account because I never expected this HUGE backlash to the second season of Arcane.

But in that time I’ve been observing the various reasons for WHY this backlash exists and over time I’ve noticed a distinct pattern in them.

Arcane vs Puritanism

To get into this you need to understand that America was built upon puritanical ideals. The first major settlers to America came here because they felt persecuted by Catholics in England. And while the foundation of America as a country was based more on agnostic beliefs, those underlying puritanical christian beliefs persevere to this day.

Puritans believe that if you commit a sin, you are forever tainted and no amount of piety will remove this dirtying of the soul in the eyes of god. As a result they do everything in their power to adhere to STRICT MORAL CODES. The idea being, if you never compromise on your morals, you will never be tained and god will accept you into the Kingdom of Heaven.

This isn’t a purely American concept, of course, but Americans definitely do things to the EXTREEM. And as a result both conservatives AND liberals have a tendency to have extremely STRONG senses of moral purity. Conservatives tend to want to uphold the systems in place (copaganda) while liberals want to tear down all the systems of oppression (jinx did nothing wrong).

Additionally, with the rise of kids animated shows being more nuanced, a lot of the people who are watching Arcane are on the young side. They are exposed to a world where they have these heightened moral ideals, and the media they watch backs up their morality.

A show like Gravity Falls (for example) might have some questionable jokes here and there, but at the end of the day the good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad. Bad guys get punished, good guys are rewarded. The puritan morality is upheld.

And therein lies the problem. Arcane isn’t interested in being morally pure. It’s a very HUMAN story about the ways in which systems and people perpetuate a cycle of violence that affects everybody. That’s not even a “centrist” belief, either, but because of this puritanical framework of black and white morality, BOTH sides have ironically condemned the show for not following through on their chosen ideology enough.

This is why characters like Ambessa aren’t discussed by the Arcane Critical crowd. She’s OBVIOUSLY a bad guy. She does BAD things. And in the end, she is “punished” for her transgressions and dies. Death is ALWAYS a suitable punishment in purity culture. If a character dies, it’s because they transgressed in some way and need to be punished.

(Incidentally this is where the “bury your gays” trope comes from. Because being gay was seen as being morally un-pure, and as such if you depicted a gay character in g your story you MUST kill them off by the end to maintain the status quo.)

And this is WHY characters like Caitlyn are so hotly debated. Because Caitlyn represents the rich and powerful and therefor “bad” class of people. She does morally questionable things, and therefor she taints her soul and NEEDS to be punished.

But… she doesn’t die. Nobody holds her “accountable” for her crimes. Losing an eye isn’t suitable punishment and she ends up with the woman she loved. That’s… that is not morally pure writing! That’s the show REWARDING her for doing BAD things! We can’t have that! That’s WRONG! That’s not how you write a story! The writers SUCK! This is INCONSISTENT!!!

This is also why they can like characters like Silco. Because for all of his faults, he dies. He is punished. This is also why they can like season 1 more. The bad people (Piltover) are punished by jinx. Silco, (the bad guy) is punished with death.

This is why they hate the writing in season 2 in regards to Zaun and Piltover. It’s not that the writers dropped the storyline of the class struggles, it’s that Piltover wasn’t PUNISHED enough for their crimes and are allowed to continue to oppress the poor people of Zaun.

“That’s not good writing! If you set up a story about classism (good v bad) then you MUST have bad lose!”

This is also why they have to EXAGGERATE the crimes of characters. Because Caitlyn tactically JUST going after Jinx isn’t enough. She must’ve GASSED THE WHOLE CITY OF ZAUN! Because she’s an OPPRESSOR. And Piltover is EVIL. And BAD things have to happen to BAD people! And since these punishable bad things don’t happen to Caitlyn, they have to exaggerate her crimes to justify WHY the writers suck. Because clearly at this point it MUST be the writers fault for failing to punish Caitlyn for her crimes!

I do not think this applies to every aspect of the criticisms I’ve seen against Season 2. I’ve admitted myself that there are definitely some structural issues to the season. But the more I read the “complaints” from the most vocal people about Arcane Season 2, the more I’m realizing that it really does boil down to this idea of black and white moral purity and accountability.

Which is not what a show about morally grey characters was EVER going to satisfy.

[krysmcscience]

I have some questions about karaoke night, Alex Hirsch. Very Important Questions. Which I will happily scream at a poor hapless baby triangle who can have no answers for me, and possibly also does not have object permanence yet.

Follow-up that is I guess suggestive, but let's be real here, Bill's a fucking triangle:

Dude slipped right into his birthday suit, lmao

this is so stupid :D

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says, this brilliant individual knows what's up - Bill is absolutely way more of a monsterfucker than Ford could or ever will be, full stop.

[creecher-feecher-shop]

A scrapped ford sticker design I made that I thought was post-worthy (i was going to make a stan one but idk how to draw him :'()

[s0up1ta]

something about loving you like an alcohol addict

pspsps come get your billford

this was supposed to be longer but dear god that's a lot of work... so here's the storyboard for it:

maybe i'll finish it later,, for the tragic fiddauthor enjoyer in me

ok bye

[yas-of-pacifico]

Congratulations fiddlestan fans!!!

[nelsaqift]

Baby Steve and Bill are so cute! Besides Fiddleford, what is Steve’s relationship with the other kids in Relativity Falls like? What do Stan, Ford, and Emma May think of him and vice vice versa?

steve is always taking up weird little hobbies and stan constantly tries to come up with ways to use his skills for mischievous purposes. theyre pretty good friends, stan gets steve to have a little more fun and steve teaches stan all the tricks he knows

on the other hand, ford is vaguely uneasy/annoyed around steve. he cannot for the life of him explain why though, which irritates him even more

emma-may and steve get along pretty well !! she (like fidds) thinks of steve as a sort of. more pleasant version of bill. they dont have many common interests, with her being more into science and him more into artsy things, but they like talking to and learning from each other :-D

also emmasteve may become real but you didnt hear that from me

[divorcedfiddleford]

and you may say to yourself: "my god! what have i done?" and you may tell yourself: "this is not my beautiful wife!" and you may tell yourself: "this is not my beautiful house!" and you may ask yourself: "well, how did i get here?"

time isn't holding up, time isn't after us, time is a pony ride! (images described in alt text)

[mylastmoleculeofserotonin]

I’m convinced that people who hate Mabel have a) never watched the show and/or b) don’t have siblings. Because until they encountered Bill Cipher for the first time, there was nothing to suggest Dipper’s obsession with the journals was more important or valid than Mabel just wanted to have a normal summer with a whirlwind romance. And even after incident with the portal Dipper and Ford actively keep everything secret from Mabel and Stan so she has no idea of the stakes or what Bill is capable of. Add to that that her dreams of the future were all suddenly crumbling around her all at once, and it is perfectly reasonable if not expected that she would fall for an immortal chaos demon’s tricks.

Also, most of the stuff involving the journal that goes wrong is Dipper’s fault but he still pretends like he and Mabel are in it together. And those of you who are siblings know that Mabel takes it extremely well. Like if I had accidentally sold my body as a puppet to a demon and the only way I could ask my sibling for help was through a sock puppet, I would expect them to help, but only after they spent a good half hour laughing and making fun of me with the additional consequence would be that any time I ask them for a small favor in the future, they would remind me that they were the one to save me from my stupid mistake, so no, they won’t pass me the salt.

(Also, can we just take a moment to see the giant double standards when it comes to the romances that Dipper and Mabel’s have. When Mabel pursues a romantic people treat it as irrelevant and getting in the way of the plot even when it doesn’t. But when Dipper tries to win Wendy’s affection, people expect Mabel to drop everything, sacrifice her pet, mess with time travel to help set up a scenario which Dipper can win a carnival game as a flex.)

[starryy-leo]

I think it should be said this whole thing with the book is for fun.

At the end of the day, unfortunately Gravity Falls is a dead show, it’s been dead for years. It’s great that we have new content, but we have to remember at this point we’re really only to expect scraps. We aren’t owed anything as a fandom and we should not go at Alex for any reason beyond joking support. I haven’t seen anyone do that but I’m just saying. This is all for entertainment and fun.

There seems to be a major connection between TBoB and The Great Gatsby, the second being about letting go of the past so it doesn’t haunt you. The timer on the website? The negatives? The dead ends? Maybe it’s Alex’s way of saying this is the end. To let go. To move on.

[thefallenangel2008]

Gravity Falls headcanon: Stan was a theater kid. He has always been one at heart. Sure, not to the extent that he would want to pursue it as a life career, but... If the school ever wanted him to do a part in a play or anything, well... It would be rude to refuse.🤷🏻‍♀️ But because Filbrick is a piece of shit he always said that "acting will not get you anywhere in life so you better get that out of your head." The reason why he was so good at hiding his identity for so long is because he's actually pretty good at acting but without the proper support as a child he never got to explore his potential in that line of field. In a way, he managed to achieve his secret dream in acting infront of an audience. Just not exactly the way he wanted. It's... A bittersweet feeling.

[tsunamiholmes]

The Cipher Hunt Documentary

I had the honor of participating in (and helping with) the production of Keyan Carlile's massive Cipher Hunt video. It is an incredible deep dive into the story of the Cipher Hunt, from start to finish, told by the Cipher Hunters ourselves!

We had the pleasure of interviewing Alex Hirsch himself for the video, along with some other amazing guest stars that were involved in the hunt.

Regardless of if you followed the hunt closely back in 2016 or weren't in the fandom back then to experience it, I highly recommend you watch this video. Keyan did some incredible investigating to uncover the truth behind the remaining mysteries of the hunt and it's really cool to hear from the people who participated in it 8 years ago.

Behind the scenes photos under the cut!

I helped out on a couple of the shoots (primarily the ones in LA) by camera operating, lighting, and set dressing! I also helped color grade the entire video and of course was in front of the camera for some of it as well! It was a dream come true to work on this project with these amazing people, I'll never forget this incredible experience.

Plus, a photo of Alex and I taken on my 35mm film camera. It's slightly out of focus, but that's what you get in film sometimes. Makes it more authentic!

Finally, one more bonus shot for fun...

[rystiel]

personally if my great uncle gave me a personalized handmade hat with my name on it that he clearly put a lot of time into making just for me, i would not abandon him but whatever i’m just built different i guess

[turtleplushi]

I need sleep

[cucumber-icepop]

Gaze upon my unimaginable horrors, boy

[egginfroggin]

Some screenshot redraws

Transcript:

Pg. 2: Mabel: "I am a DESPICABLE human being"

Pg. 3: Mabel: "And -- and I've met someone-" Bill: "Ah, yes, the wanted thief, I'm so proud"

[beanghostprincess]

What’s your opinion on relationship between Roger and young shuggy

Making this quick because I think I've talked about this already an awful lot (and I love it. Please. Anything that has to do with young Shuggy makes me go feral every time).

A lot of people believe Roger played favorites when it came to his kids because. I mean. Look at the scenes we have. Giving Shanks his hat (in fact, both of his hats in that Wano scene) and in general not paying that much attention to Buggy unless it's to tell him to stay behind instead of going to Laugh Tale because he is sick (which is literally what any father would do and this only shows that he cares for him).

But I think he loved both a lot, just in different ways. And I believe that both ended up pretty messed up with how they were raised.

From what we've seen, the flashbacks we have are from Oden's POV and Buggy's. We never have Roger's or Shanks' or even Reyleigh's interpretations of what happened. So, from what we've seen, I think Roger put a lot of pressure on Shanks to be his legacy at a very young age and Buggy interpreted this with envy and thought Roger didn't care about him the same. Which is a valid thought, especially from what we've seen. But I personally like to think Roger went just a little bit harder on Buggy because of the typical "You have a lot of potential but you have to fight harder than the rest to achieve it and by ignoring you I am giving you an opportunity to be independent" or something like that. Because I think it makes more sense than Roger straight-up playing favorites.

Seriously, where is my scene of Buggy resenting Shanks and saying that he was Roger's favorite and Shanks being extremely fucking confused because "What do you mean his favorite?! He only talked about you, moron!".

So to summarize, I think we don't have that much content to have a specific canon interpretation, but in my opinion, I think Buggy's POV is really altered by his jealousy and envy toward Shanks and it only shows that Shanks was also under a lot of pressure. But that doesn't mean Roger didn't love them. Those were his kids!!!! That is their dad!!! I'm not fighting anybody about this. So he loved them but since he knew he was dying he trusted Shanks a little bit too much being the face of the new generation and gave Buggy a bit of a harsher treatment because he thought he had to work more than the average.

And that is how you end up with two sons: A failguy with a savior complex who is always sacrificing himself and drinking himself stupid and a clown with an inferiority complex that only knows how to survive instead of fighting for what he wants.