Sketchbook Drawings :3

We are a very very dumb, stupid people

Silly guys :3

Guys guys

So we have Fiddlestan and Jimstan

What about

JimFiddleStan

AUGGG THEY’D BE SO CUTSIE I MIGHT JUST HAVE TO WRITE A FIC ABOUT THEM

Chapter 2 of my fic is here!!

:)

Masks, hundreds of them

Pretty photos I took :)

Honestly the most revolutionary thing about Gravity Falls to me is its commitment to sincerity.

I’ve been listening to Alex’s podcast where he goes into the details of each episode with different storyboard artists and writers who worked on the show, and it just baffles me how… cared for the story is. Right now in media there’s been an uptick in satire, and shows making fun of themselves for existing, or taking the piss at their own content to “win” fans to their side. It’s like whimsy is gone from so many pieces of media. But Gravity Falls just doesn’t… do that. It completely embraces itself. Weirdness and all. And so does the team behind it. I’m not used to something I care about being so cared about by everyone surrounding it.

Here’s this cartoon, written and illustrated by an entire team of people saying, “no, we’re serious. we mean this. we made this on purpose and we made it important.”

Throughout the podcast, Alex discusses little ins and outs of each character, offering so much deep internal struggles and enriching the story even farther. And listening to him unpack it with the utmost sincerity just warms my heart. Each character is so dynamic because they were cared for by people who imbued them with sincerity.

That’s exactly why we get quotes like “Shame is powerful, but it grows in the dark,” as Ford realizes the trauma he’s hidden for so long is being embraced by his family, diminishing it’s weight on him through their immediate support.

It’s why we get Alex describing Stanley with quotes like; “I always in my gut thought of him as somebody with a huge well of sadness, a loss of human connection. And that need to please? That need to get laughs from the crowd, and putting on a big show? He’s trying to get from them the affection he never got from his family, and that he lost with his brother.”

Or detailing how Mabel might be a goof… but half the time she’s doing a bit, because she’s really more mature than her brother and doesn’t want him to grow up too fast. She’s trying to help ground him and bring lightheartedness into his life. Because she knows otherwise, he’ll become too self isolated.

And those two mini character studies he dropped so casually in these podcast episodes just… color the show. It’s why the show survived so well even after ten years. It’s gruff-old Stan always calling his niece “Pumpkin” and “Honey”. It’s the family always holding hands without it behind laced with a joke, and falling asleep on one another in the car. It’s Alex explaining that people toyed with other endings, other plot lines, other twists, but it was always going to end with Stan and Ford mending the family tie they severed thirty years ago. Because that was their story. Messes and family and care.

Ten years ago, watching it for the first time as it came out, I felt all that. But now, as an adult, knowing that all the other adults who made it felt the exact same way? :,) What a special story we all got to grow up with, and get to continue being apart of.

AUGGH THERES SOMETHING ABOUT THE PARALLELS BETWEEN THE OKDER TWINS AND THE YOUNGER TWINS

Like how the younger twins have parallels between each of the older twins, but are still not them and super different just as much as they are similar!!

Like,

Stanford & Dipper (Dippers birthmark parallels Fords six fingers, they’re both nerdy and were bullied, etc.)

This one’s obvious, along with Stanley & Mabel (being the twin that feels ‘lesser’ or ‘dumber’ than the other, fear of being abandoned, etc.)

But people don’t notice and/or talk about the parallels between Stanley & Dipper and Ford & Mabel!!

Stanley & Dipper (Being weak and kinda wimpy as children, Stan related to him with that, both of them being stubborn and reckless, etc.)

Stanford & Mabel (They both can get way too absorbed in their own things that they forget about other peoples feelings, etc. I love Ford and Mabel so much and this isn’t meant to be mean.)

But then we see that the younger twins are still very much themselves, and not direct copies of the older twins, and I love that so much!!