butmyopinionisright:

I’ve been meaning to post something about The Big Bang Theory for a while now but it’s taken me ‘till now to really understand what it is about the show that makes me uncomfortable. I’m not exactly a believer in the whole “only write about the things you like, don’t trash the things you don’t” trend which seems to be plaguing comments sections in negative articles lately, but I wanted to be able to really examine why I don’t like TBBT rather than just slagging it off. My main questions being - Why don’t I like this anymore? Why do I feel uncomfortable watching it? And why do I get so annoyed when I see people sing its praises online? The thing which really sparked this post was seeing a raft of comments on Facebook, below the last round of voting in Television Without Pity’s Tubey Awards, claiming The Big Bang Theory to be “the best comedy on TV”. This made me angry so instead of posting an impulsive comment calling out their bad taste which I’d probably regret later, I decided to really analyse why seeing comments like that made me so mad when previously, although I didn’t really love the show, I’d never considered myself as disliking The Big Bang Theory.

Hell, I even have season one on dvd, it’s sitting right between Battlestar Galactica and Bored To Death in my alphabetised collection.

And here, I think, is where my problem with The Big Bang Theory lies…

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Finally someone worded exactly how I feel about Big Bang Theory.

“How can I ever create something popular or successful when it seems like most famous creators are just naturally gifted and succeed overnight?”

Kickstarter is a funding website that allows people to donate money towards the completion of some sort of project or goal. It is widely used by those who need a large amount of funds to achieve something they wish to put out. Success on Kickstarter is measured fairly directly by the amount of interest it piques in the online community.

Today I witnessed a Kickstarter make $30,000 in 30 minutes.

The Kickstarter in question is the Homestuck Adventure Game by the successful artist, animator, and creator Andrew Hussie. Homestuck is a popular webcomic series that fully utilizes the capab

Part 1: Dipper

Part 2: Mabel

For the past two parts, I’ve explained what makes Dipper and Mabel such awesome characters. To be fair, we’ve gotta have a look at ol’ Mr. Mystery himself!

Grunkle Stan is an amazing character, for many of the same reasons Mabel is. He delivers laugh-out-loud jokes while still packing a surprise punch in the heartfelt moments. For such moments, look no further than the end of Tourist Trapped (“Hurry up before I change my mind!”), the end of Dipper Vs. Manliness (“You stood up for yourself. Sounds pretty manly to me”), the Gobblewonker episode, and his proud applause for Mabel in Double Dipper. These make me really excited to see how his parent role for Dipper and Mabel evolves over the series. Also, how could we forget the mystery behind the Shack itself, and Stan’s possible role in Gravity Falls and its supernatural occurrences?

I’ll go into this a bit more in Part 4, but the fact that the story is set up so that Dipper and Mabel move in with Grunkle Stan at this point in their lives is very clever. It’s a very interesting set up, our main characters living away from their parents and sort’ve establishing a new child-parent from scratch before our very eyes. Instead of “they care about each other because they were raised by him” it becomes “they begin to show they care about each other because they look out for each other and grow on each other.” Just another heartwarming part of Gravity Falls!

Put simply, seeing Grunkle Stan gives me very much the same delight as watching old Spongebob episodes that give Mr. Krabs time to shine. And since it’s implied that we’ll be seeing more awww-inducing moments of him and the twins, I’ve got my money [pun intended] on Grunkle Stan being one of the best cartoon characters in years.

Now let me take a quick look at the rest of the characters:

Wendy: This is moving out of the “main characters” zone, so don’t expect incredibly deep characters, but Wendy’s still pretty cool. Like Dipper and Mabel, she feels very real. In any other show she would probably serve just as the object of Dipper’s infatuation, but luckily for us she comes off a little more deep than that. She’s flawed (peer pressure, etc.) and she has already had sincere moments with both Dipper (The Inconveniencing) and Mabel (The Hand That Rocks The Mabel.)

Soos: I’ll admit that Soos isn’t my favorite character, but that’s probably to be expected. He’s hit or miss, and difficult to write for. I’ll be the first to say that his one-liners can very often bust a laugh out of me, but keeping the camera on him for more than 10 seconds at a time can be a minefield. A minefield, Tumblr!

Gideon: I’ve gotta say, I love GF’s idea of villains so far.  Gideon is a character you can sympathize with for his poor situation, but is so creepy and aggressive that you can’t help but be a little skeeved when he gets close (or says anything.) Also, his telekinesis was just awesome. I hope his revenge episode comes up soon, because I really want to see him and the twins rumble again.

Robbie: Robbie is an interesting character because, while he plays a cliche archetype in Dipper’s eyes, he hasn’t actually been shown as being THAT much of a jerk. He bullies the twins, sure, but other than that he’s not that unusual for a “cool” teenager. Plus, he seems to genuinely like Wendy and is nice to her. I can’t wait to see where this goes. Even if he doesn’t end up being a deep character, his role still plays for a lot of laughs and feeling-Dipper’s-hatred moments.

I didn’t know I’d have so much to say, so I’m extending this to 5 parts! Stay tuned for:

Part 4- Themes

Part 5- Production Quality

Thanks for reading!

Here’s part 2 of why Gravity Falls is a well-made and incredibly-executed series that’s full of heart. On Part 1 I talked about Dipper, so now let’s talk about Mabel.

First off, Mabel is hilarious and adorable. I think we all know that. I don’t need to waste your time or mine listing examples of moments where she has cracked us up. We know that she’s funny. But despite being the source of many gags, she ALSO feels incredibly real. And her role in the episodes we’ve seen has been incredibly important and powerful so far.

Why is this?

Like Dipper, Mabel isn’t portrayed as a joke of a character. She makes a lot of jokes, but she herself is not one. This is a crucial difference that a lot of comedy series in general don’t seem to grasp.

We know that Mabel has a serious side. Firstly, it’s clear that she cares about Dipper immensely and wants to help him mature and learn from his mistakes. Even if she’s “the silly one,” in many situations she actually serves as Dipper’s logical advisor when he’s being unreasonable. Look to Double Dipper for the biggest example of her trying to teach her brother to be more calm and sane.

At no point has Mabel seemed “weird” or “immature” to me. She’s just a funny person, who likes making other people laugh. And she KNOWS it. In Tourist Trapped she implies that Dipper doesn’t trust her because of her usual nature, and she asks that he does it “for once.” In Irrational Treasure, she begins to realize how her constant joking makes other people look at her, and becomes frustrated with it. 

Mabel speaks to me very powerfully because I know how she feels. I love to make people laugh. It makes me happy. And in some situations, I’ll say anything to brighten the mood or get a chuckle, even if it makes me look ridiculous.

Remember when Mabel got completely sincere and somber in Irrational Treasure and laments to Dipper that everyone thinks she’s “just a joke”?  That was the moment I knew for sure I wasn’t “reading too much into it.” That was an incredibly real, down-to-earth, and powerful moment, albeit a short one. And I know people who like to bring the comic relief to their groups of friends who get frustrated for reasons just like this.

What I’m trying to say is that in the hands of any other writers, Mabel would be a horrible character. She would be wacky, she would be dumb, and she would have no depth to her.

But in Gravity Falls, she clearly isn’t dumb. She’s just as smart as Dipper, just in different ways. She’s not weird in a freak-show sort of way, she just likes to enjoy life and make others laugh too. One of her highest values is other people’s happiness! Look at how she didn’t want to hurt Gideon’s feelings, and how distraught she was for not doing the right thing. Look at how she wants Dipper to talk to Wendy. Look at how she wants to make friends in this new town, and stick up for them too.

Does that sound like a gag-spewing cartoon character to you? No. It sounds like a person.

Because like Dipper, Mabel is a three-dimensional, relatable person.

(Thanks for reading! I’ll be writing 2 more parts to this. Part 3 will focus on the other characters as well as the themes of the episodes, and Part 4 will appreciate the production quality in animation, music, and voice-acting. Stay tuned!)

As many of you who have watched the show Gravity Falls probably know…it’s a prime example of an all-ages cartoon series that stands out in the crowd of our current TV programming.

But what makes it so special? In this series of posts I’m going to examine and outline the reasons that the series is outstanding and makes us fans so happy. I’m also going to break down and get personal with why it resonates with ME so much.

Reason #1: The characters are relatable, complex, and are treated with respect.

Dipper and Mabel are not only who story revolves around, but also serve as the eyes through which we see the characters and mysteries of Gravity Falls, Oregon. They’re adorable cartoon characters, but you’ve probably noticed that they feel incredibly real. Why is that?

Let’s look at Dipper. Dipper’s core traits revolve around three simple concepts: how he sees himself, how he wants other people to see him, and how he wants to learn more about the world around him.

1. Dipper sees himself as being “the smart and sane one in the room.” Or at least, he WANTS to be that. He’s a smart kid, but as creator Alex Hirsch said in an interview, he’s “book smart.”  He was the perfect kind of person to find Book Number 3 in the woods because he always wants to be smarter and he likes to believe that he has control over the supernatural around him. Look to his use of the copying machine and his search for the Gobblewonker for examples of how he is too fascinated to avoid the weird wonders around him.

2. Dipper wants more than anything for other people to see him as “cool”, “manly”, and very much in control of the situation. Most of his interactions with others so far have been adventures in him trying to impress adults and teenagers with his cunning and his personality.

3. Lastly, Dipper is a very curious boy with a hunger for knowledge. He loves to learn, explore, and discover new things.

So why does this make him such a likable character? Well, these traits are common in a lot of us. Personally I find him very relatable, and I’m sure many of you do too. His flaws especially speak to me in a way that very few other fictional characters have. I see a lot of myself in how neurotic and over-analytical he is about social situations in Double Dipper. Right down to trying to plan everything he’s going to do (“Make casual banter”, “Talk like a normal person”) when he’s nervous. I see a lot of myself in how he wants to be “the smart one” and wants to think things over logically. Just listen to how he talks to HIMSELF in Double Dipper. If it sounds anything like you would if you were in the situation, you’ve probably realized that the writers have crafted a protagonist who is very real.

Here’s the bottom line: Dipper walks around with a book in his jacket, he wants to be “the smart one”, and he’s very nervous and lame in social situations. Any other cartoon could have dressed him up as a pimpled nerd, giving him thick glasses and a pocket protector. That’s what he would look like as a side gag character in any other “kids’ series.” But Alex Hirsch just made him a normal kid. He wears a hat and a jacket and he cracks jokes and is down to earth. Most of this is because, according to the creator himself, Dipper and Mabel are loosely based on him and and his twin sister when they were kids. He’s a real person, and he’s treated with respect instead of treated like a two dimensional joke. 

This just goes to prove that if an artist (which is anyone creative) uses their own life and experiences and injects it into their work, their work becomes full of heart. It becomes real, resonant, and powerful.

This is what Hirsch has done, and that’s why we love it.

Short answer? “Just do it.” That’s really the basis of learning anything. We’re constantly told to practice. That’s because practice really IS the key. But here’s a breakdown of what you can do to help you improve your skill:

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Astrological horoscopes are silly.

I firmly believe this. I give no credence to the idea that the cosmos or month of birth has any effect on the personality, character, or challenges presented in a person. That is not to say that reading horoscopes does not have value: many serve as incredibly vague and well-intentioned advice columns. If the author is more intent on helping people than appearing to be psychic or cute, they write positive messages as opposed to trying to make some crazy “prediction.” Taking in these warnings or positive-reenforcements can be very healthy and helpful, no matter whether you’re a Gemini, Pisces, Leo, etc.

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