Gravity Falls

Poorly. Really, really poorly. But it does.

When will writers learn to Just Say No to magic date-rape drugs?

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 12th 2018 at 10:31:56 AM

To be fair, you CAN do good love potion story.

You just rarely see it explored for real Most stories that use it assume character's personality completely changes because of love

Edited by SpookyMask on Jul 12th 2018 at 7:51:24 PM

As long as Valentine's day exists I imagine.

Although the love potion doesn't seem to be Date Rape. They say each say to the other that suddenly the other's bad qualities don't seem so bad anymore. And neither flaw was a particular dealbreaker. One was needy, the other was whiny, or something like that? Nothing that real life couples don't work through all the time. They weren't just overwhelmed with attraction for each other or something. My issue wasn't so much with the potion itself as it was with Mabel being all too willing to use such a potent life-altering device to change people to suit her own ego. And when the consequences inconvenience her, she attempts to do the same thing, only in reverse instead of just letting people be people.

Also, the horrible idea that somehow, the incompetent, bumbling "Love God" is somehow more qualified to use that power, despite making two entirely incompatible animals fall in love (?????) to impress a small child? Despite managing to be lose the tools of his trade to same small child?

Edited by blkwhtrbbt on Jul 12th 2018 at 3:24:33 AM

I'm up to Fight Fighters. Mein Gott, that was delightful. The implication that the code that makes characters come to life was some kind of pre-GameFAQs word-of-mouth gamelore made me laugh out loud.

But we did see the couple's reaction—they were staring aghast as Stan tried awkwardly to explain his joke. In fact, if they'd cut away at "It's funny because marriage is terrible," we could have imagined that the explanation didn't end there, that Stan continued to annoy the couple even as we cut back to Soos and the twins. It could've caused us to imagine something even funnier and more ridiculous than we saw. Having the couple speed away, and Stan grumble about it, feels like overexplaining the joke.

Edited by ThriceCharming on Jul 12th 2018 at 2:37:57 AM

C'mon guys, don't drag Mabel down like this. I'm not okay with it. She just likes seeing people happy, not sulking hard-core.

Also, the effects of the Love Potion is temporary! Mabel found out about it after reading the fine print. Heck, here's a photo of Mabel's entry about the Love Potions in Journal 3. (Don't click this link if you haven't seen this episode yet!)

Gotta love all the video game references too! There's just so many, and I'm not sure how ROBBIE pulled one off as well! I guess a two-dimensional pixelated person like Rumble naturally attracts those types of moments outside of their game—kinda like Gravity Falls itself.

Mabel is the worst character ever ever ever

You're the gnome.◊

Mabel is great! Just that one episode really does no favors for her.

Agreed. She is generally a fantastic character, but that was just not a good episode for her or the series as a whole.

No matter which way you slice it, the fact is that Tambry and Robbie would not have gotten together if Mabel hadn't dosed them. It is, without question, a violation of their consent; Mabel mind-controlled them into hooking up. The existence of an Author's Saving Throw in Journal #3 is basically a tacit admission of how problematic this whole debacle is.

But even the Love Potion being temporary does nothing to change the fact that Robbie and Tambry are only, ONLY together because Mable coerced them into getting together with drugs. That one act of sexual harassment shrouds their entire relationship. Even with the potion worn off, that inciting incident never will. It will always color the audience's ability to support their relationship.

The Author's Saving Throw as a valiant effort, but it's an attempt to fix something that fundamentally cannot be fixed. Robbie and Tambry are victims and nothing will ever change that. So long as they're together, the shadow of rape will always hang over their characters.

EDIT: I do want to note that it's not like it's out of character for Mabel. That is not the problem. Mabel has always had a questionable relationship with consent. Her Establishing Character Moment consists of her rigging a "Do you like me?" test to ensnare the target of her affections. That's who she is. She's an awkward creep, and that's what's great about her.

No, the problem is that the episode ends by vindicating and justifying her use of the magic roofie. It's not Mabel that's the problem; it's the episode going, "And then they lived happily ever after! Good job, Mabel! Date-rape drugs are always a win!" That's just about the worst possible way to conclude a Love Potion story. It comes across as though it's defending chemical coercion.

It's a bad episode with a bad message. And some really funny moments sprinkled throughout.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jul 12th 2018 at 5:36:09 AM

Woah... okay... this got WAY too deep here. Couldn't you have just PMed me about this instead? Cause this looks like it got personal for you. Like, very personal. And, I would have been okay to talk it out with you from there.

I looked into what you're talking about, and both the definitions, but they don't... do the.. you know. They just hug and kiss at best.

And Tambry and Robbie DID have something going on, it's just so subtle and easy to miss since Tambry is on her phone all the time, but she got upset at Nate for calling her by nickname, but when Robbie does it, she doesn't... and that was when they were bantering!

Edited by DipperPines on Jul 12th 2018 at 5:51:47 AM

Yeah, I'm getting a real "Hello, officer" vibe from this DipperPines guy. He's 1000% someone who worked on the show doing stealth recon on the fandom. That's what it says in this book I found in the woods, at any rate.

Also, my favorite episode so far is Double Dipper. Laugh a minute, that one.

I dunno. I think using the counter potion might have been worse, since

A) We don't actually know what it does. "Kills love" seems like it has a muuuuuch wider side effect than "undoes love potion"

B) It shows she learned. She can't interfere with other people's relationships, no matter how much her ego or her own desires push her to.

Hey Dipper, sexual misconduct doesn't have to go as far as penetration to be sexual misconduct. And given that both parties were teens here, Mabel was very much playing with fire. Only, she wasn't the one in danger of being burned. What if things had gone that far?

Mabel has that tendency of going so into her ideas she pulls some pretty bad things to accomplish them. Good thing she is 12 (13 at the finale), since she has a long time to course correct.

Wh- But I already said I wasn't that juggling clown guy!! I'm serious!!!! Man, I thought I'd be used to people being skeptical by now... and, you're kind of close. I'm not an officer, but I HAVE done night patrol!

Tyrone's an awesome guy, huh? He was so receptive and great with the other clones... (I still miss that guy.)

I'mmmm not gonna answer that one... I don't want to think of Robbie and Tambry like that.

Tyrone is a hoot. "I think we all knew we were lying" was a great line, perfectly delivered.

I also liked that it's the only episode so far where Wendy gets to be a character and not just a sexy lamp for Dipper to lust over. She's very likable, but doesn't seem to contribute to the story in a meaningful way.

What about the episode with the shapeshifter? She kicked ass in that one too.Neither do I, to be honest, but this is TV Tropes. Deconstructing things and applying real-world-ish consequences to fictional situations is kind of what we do around here. Gravity Falls kind of naturally primes us to do that too, covering incredibly serious topics like parental favoritism and the long-term effects it has on characters long into their adulthoods. Yeah, a lot of cartoonish stuff happens, but so much of it is so authentic that when a cartoonish situation occurs that has real-world parallels, it's very difficult to not apply real-world judgements to them.

Edited by blkwhtrbbt on Jul 12th 2018 at 9:38:57 AM

I am 1000% reading Dipper's posts with Jason Ritter's voice and it's absolutely killing me. Stop subliminal controlling me, fiction

I'm watching the show for the first time. I haven't seen the shape-shifter episode yet. I'm at Boss Mabel. (That's what I'll watch tonight.)

Yeah! Wendy's cool! Like, really cool. Really really cool. Very cool. And amazingly laidback, and she's—so awesome, mature, understanding and, and pretty...

Oh no! I'm rambling! Sorry! Sorry... I'll stop right here.

No man, it's okay, I get it. I happen to like investigating and theorizing possibilities myself—you probably noticed from some of my posts here!

... But there are some lines I'm never going to cross.

I thought the poster is roleplaying Dipper or something

Anyway, problem with love potion stuff is that stories that use it forgoes the importance of consent more often than not(which is nasty trend Hollywood tends to contribute to), but I do still feel like this conversation is bit like calling Tom & Jerry cartoons being about violent assaults <_< Like, its putting real life logic into cartoon logic which makes things really dark. That said it doesn't really absolve the criticism, but it's still feels weird to have conversation like this about what is still a children's cartoon with lot of older fans

Tom and Jerry has Negative Continuity and nothing anyone does has any long term impact. Gravity Falls has a very richly built world and characters that live in it. It's not like if Tom and Jerry got violent with each other, it's more like if the residents of Stardew Valley got violent with each other.

> I thought the poster is roleplaying Dipper or something

quick someone troll him with Wendy

(tehehehe)

Love Potions are always fucked up, no excuse, always.