This Thought Isn't Going To Leave Me Alone Until I Write It Down So I'm Just Gonna Say It

every single bit of willow content in this ep was also so so so so so so so so so fucking good. like there's so much media where one of the side characters is confident and friendly and sweet and supportive and by all accounts emotionally adjusted and they're never given any ROOM to be complicated or messy or unhappy. or if they ARE given a Mess Moment, it's usually in the form of them snapping and lashing out at everyone for never caring about them the way they care about everyone else (as if the other characters are at fault for their inability to ask for help). so. deconstructing that archetype with willow, who IS genuinely so confident and self-assured and sweet and friendly and supportive, by having her slowly collapse and have a nervous breakdown from the stress of always needing to perfectly play her archetypal Adjusted Normal Support Friend role.... fuck me UP i NEVER thought we'd get such good fucking willow content with how little runtime there was left, ESPECIALLY because i usually have to do the complex heavy lifting with similar characters myself. like i'm not used to seeing this kind of arc illustrated so viscerally in the actual canon. yes!!! yes!!! yes yes yes yes yes!!! fuck!!!! explore the heights and stakes of these 'quieter' more introverted issues with the same drama and messiness and narrative weight that all the more-typically-befuckened characters get!!! LET'S FUCKING GO!!!!! WILLOW FUCKING PARK!!!!!!!!!!

gravity falls thoughts of the week: i've been joking about ford not knowing what's okay or safe to let children do in the past few episodes but that kind of becomes less funny in the show in "dipper and mabel vs. the future", when we see that these missions he's taking dipper along on are actually putting this kid in danger. sure he manages to survive and get them out of the danger but it's kind of concerning that ford's takeaway from this is "see, you can handle it!" and not "maybe i shouldn't invite this 12-going-on-13-year-old to be my apprentice in highly dangerous field research"

but dipper, of course, doesn't realize this because he's a kid getting to do cool stuff with an adult who respects his intelligence and doesn't treat him like a kid, even though that's the problem. this final string of episodes does a good job highlighting the theme of dipper wanting to grow up too fast and mabel wanting to stay a kid forever and how neither of those are realistic approaches, even though most of the time this isn't a show terribly concerned with realism.

(kind of wild to me thinking about it now that there were a lot of fans at the time who genuinely thought dipper was giving up a great opportunity by choosing not to take ford up on his apprenticeship offer by the end. i guess that's the difference between watching kids' shows when you're closer to the age of the main characters and watching them when you're a lot older than the characters. on most shows i wouldn't worry too much over questions like "are these kids who go on fun adventures that appeal to the target demographic who like to imagine getting to do cool things Literal Child Soldiers?" but here the point clearly is that kids shouldn't have a full-time job instead of going to school and having a normal childhood and adolescence, and also more broadly that the adult in this situation is projecting his own issues onto the kids and does not actually know what's best for them. idk i think it's pretty obvious!)

on mabel's side of (not) coping with things, there's a lot to say about mabeland and what it represents. when i first watched this i was a little disappointed that they didn't make the inside of the bubble a perfect recreation of gravity falls with mabel living out her endless summer by pretending nothing's changed, complete with eerie fake replicas of her friends and family, and instead went full fantasy land...but i did ultimately like where they ended up going with it. i like the implication that mabel doesn't actually have fake versions of the other characters there because she's waiting for the real ones to show up so they can be together (or at least that's my headcanon. dippy fresh might count but he's just the "backup" there to agree with mabel when the real dipper inevitably goes against her plans.) i like that bill isn't too concerned about the others getting inside the bubble because it's designed to keep you trapped there by giving you whatever you want, plus it's an obvious "safe" place in the middle of all the chaos outside. i should probably make a separate post for this because i realized while thinking about this episode that i have a lot of thoughts on mabeland and how the bubble works. (originally the title for part 2 was going to be "escape from mabeland" but the crew thought it was too spoilery or would set up a different expectation from the fans, so it became "escape from reality" instead. which is technically the opposite of what the original title meant but it's still accurate because that's what mabeland is! she's trying to escape from reality!)

final thoughts were that a lot of people thought the conflicts were resolved too quickly in these last few episodes but i'm forgiving of it because they are working with limited time for these episodes here and it is still a kids' show. also the long hiatuses between episodes kind of messed with the fandom's sense of time back when they were first airing. i feel like there was so much fanart of the characters becoming hardened post-apocalyptic warriors during this era but the actual apocalypse in the show's time lasts for like, a week. maybe less.

anyway, watching the finale tonight and then i'll reread my copy of journal 3, and finally read the lost legends comics which just came in from the library, and then hopefully get on the long waitlist for the book of bill, aaaaaand then i'll be done and can go back to watching shows that aren't for kids. well i'll do that after running through over the garden wall one last time, it is the tenth anniversary after all.

wip comic based off a tumblr post i saw the other day

Billford being canon is so funny because it low-key makes Stanley the protective sibling who doesn't know his brother's new boyfriend, but he doesn't like what said boyfriend has been doing to his brother and wants them to break up.

And then when his brother's shitty ex comes back with a plot to destroy the world but it's really just to get his brother's attention, he punches his brother's shitty ex directly in the face and tells him to get bent.

One of my favorite things is fanfic Author’s Notes where it says something like “One more chapter left!” and then you scroll up and see exactly when they lost control of their life. It’s funny every time and I always appreciate the additional reading material.

So I was going to make a silly post about how much I love their gossipy silly friendship and then I overthought it so now I'm making it your problem too.

Just think. All those years at Hexside, Willow failing every class, Gus the child prodigy but in an undervalued track. Being told constantly by adults that they weren't good enough unless they aspired to be in the Emperor's Coven, with all the ruthless individualism and backstabbing that entails. They were brought up in a society where their worth was measured by how much they could serve an emperor, a system, which was designed to take everything it could and give nothing back. and they weren't perfect: look at how they idolize the emperor's coven in season 1.

And yet. And yet and yet. Gus still stuck with Willow while she was being bullied by the most popular kids in school, not to mention the teachers! Willow wasn't scared when Gus' illusions got out of control, and taught him how to quieten down his mind!! When Gus ran away from home, when he was terrified of telling his own dad he got a failing grade, Willow was the one to go and find him!!!

And then! When Willow brought Luz to school in secret for the first time, Gus was the only one she trusted enough to tell! They're the ones who incited the crowd to protest until the emperor set Luz and Eda free! They forgave Amity and befriended Hunter. They're the backbone of the Hexsquad as we know it. Despite the odds being stacked against them, together they managed to carve out this space for silliness and joy and decency.

Hunter said that he never thought there'd be a place for him in a world like this. Luz ran away from the human realm because it felt so hostile to her. Amity was trapped under the constant expectations of Lilith and her parents. But all along, Willow and Gus were quietly preparing a space for them, to come when they were ready

idk i just think that they're important that's all

So... I am learning how to make book covers. So just for fun, I made a cover for one of my favorite huntlow fanfics. https://archiveofourown.org/works/38495086/chapters/96211498