#(can gentiles kvetch? idk an english word with the same connotations.)

[ckret2]

@actuallyaltaria said: You could probably get away with something newer still like Steven Universe! They sing about their feelings!

This is gonna be a long post because every time I go "man it sucks I can't mention [some kids' cartoon] lmao" I get multiple people trying to suggest ways I can include some kids' cartoon, so I think I need to explain myself.

"Use Steven Universe instead" is a solution if you're assuming I'm coming from a position of "my ACTUAL GOAL is to reference a TV show, any TV show, that people know about, I'm just struggling to find one that's universally familiar." So let me clarify: my "alas, if only everybody knew the plot of Rainbow Brite" theatrics are me being funny for my own entertainment.

I want, very specifically, to NOT reference a real TV show, no matter how well-known it is.

I've mentioned before that I don't want any part of this fic to be dependent upon the audience knowing some other series. I'm extremely firm on this. It would be alienating to any readers who aren't familiar with the property, it would be alienating to readers who ARE familiar with the property but dislike it, it would be distracting to people who know the property TOO well—and it doesn't fit into the Gravity Falls universe.

Gravity Falls doesn't make references to real world pop culture! The hit rap song of the summer isn't attributed to a known rapper like Lil Jon or Snoop Dogg, it's Lil Bigg Dawggg. The biggest boy band isn't NSYNC, it's Sev'ral Timez. There's no Dungeons & Dragons; there's Dungeons, Dungeons, & More Dungeons. There's no Fun Dip, there's Smile Dip. The master of claymation isn't Ray Harryhausen, it's Harry Claymore. Hoo-Ha Owl substitutes for Chuck E. Cheese, Fight Fighters for Street Fighters, BABBA for ABBA... for Journal 3 they even made up a dimension named Exwhylia so that they could avoid canonically mentioning Flatland.

Almost every song, show, cartoon, band, movie, food product, chain business, or other brand name that gets mentioned in Gravity Falls is either a parody of a specific real-world equivalent or a broader parody of a whole category of pop culture.

In a universe where some of Mabel's favorite series are Believe in Yourself and Dream Boy High, it would be weird and jarring to throw in something real like Care Bears.

Honestly—putting my jokes about forcing all of tumblr to watch a cartoon aside—gun to my head if I was forced to include a reference to a real world cartoon, I'd probably be less likely to use Steven Universe than something like Care Bears or Rainbow Brite. Steven Universe would be even MORE jarring. Like, most of the people who are inclined to read Gravity Falls fanfics probably haven't seen Rainbow Brite, so—even though it still has the "this is a Real Thing so it feels like you're expected to know about it" stigma that adding ANY real thing to the fic would have—it's at least is on equal footing with Believe in Yourself and Dream Boy High in that it's still the name of something distant and unfamiliar to most readers, and therefore I could say anything I wanted about it and most people would be like "sure, okay."

On the other hand, Steven Universe? This is tumblr. SU and GF are plot-driven kids' sci-fi cartoons about kids caught in supernatural shenanigans and complicated family relationships that were airing at the same time. The audience overlap between Gravity Falls and Steven Universe is almost a circle. Anybody who sees Steven Universe get name dropped in a Gravity Falls fic is NOT going to see it as some distant unfamiliar story-within-a-story being introduced as a lighthearted narrative device for a goofy "Mabel thinks showing Bill children cartoons is a valid form of therapy" scene. It's going to be the heavy handed insertion of a MASSIVE fandom that a LOT of readers will already have EXTREMELY STRONG IN-DEPTH OPINIONS about—and any that DON'T have such strong opinions are probably the ones who are sick to death of seeing Steven Universe everywhere and are just gonna be irritated that now, apparently, knowledge of that show is necessary to read this Gravity Falls fanfic??

If I said "Bill thinks he's totally exactly like Rainbow Brite" a few readers would politely chuckle and the rest would wait for me to explain the metaphor and why it matters to the storyline. If I said "Bill thinks he's totally exactly like Rose Quartz" I'd have dropped one hell of a bomb of a hot take into a fic that isn't in the LEAST BIT about any alleged character parallels that might exist between Bill Cipher and Rose Quartz. Anyone who's seen the show will immediately start thinking VERY HARD about the comparison and anybody who HASN'T will assume that, because SU is so big, I'm expecting them to know enough to understand the comparison.

If I were to put either of those comparisons in the fic, the point I would be trying to make is "Mabel makes Bill watch a kid's show hoping it will teach him to be a better person, and is surprised that instead of taking away moral lessons from the viewing, he's concluded he's basically the same as the idealistic young hopeful rebel leader fighting against oppressive conformist forces and protecting the people of earth." My authorial intent would be at least partially drowned out by any reference to another show (especially for people who don't get it), but it would be SUPER drowned out by a reference to an extremely well-known show.

The only way to avoid distorting that authorial intent is to not hinge part of the story on some other show.

So am I melodramatically sighing and lamenting over how tragic it is that I can't directly reference The Last Unicorn or whatever in the fic because it would be so totally perfect and very funny and absolutely has valid narrative parallels to stuff that's gonna happen in the fic? Yeah. But my problem wouldn't be solved if TLU was universally watched, or if I substituted something that is universally watched for TLU, because the root of my problem is that TLU is a real cartoon in the real world.

I accept that the specific comedy that can ONLY come from saying "[character from Show A] is EXACTLY like [character from Show B that's jarringly incongruous with Show A]" is comedy that I'm not going to have in my fic, and I cope with this by comedically kvetching about it.

And I'm gonna make up an imaginary girly 80s cartoon for Mabel to force Bill to watch.

#(can gentiles kvetch? idk an english word with the same connotations.) #(anyway this also applies to things like my picture of Robbie blasting My Chemical Romance—in the real fic i'll make up a fake emo band.) #(nobody try to start up a discussion with me about whether bill actually is like rose quartz. i am not invested in this comparison.) #(try and i will crawl out from under your bed at 3 am to inflate a paper bag and pop it over your sleeping face.) #about my writing #bill goldilocks cipher