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Such a great map of gravity falls!!

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creature comfort

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comission for @t00nyah !!

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Galaxy Pines! ✨🌌✨

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Okay but is anyone gonna talk about "She likes it when I'm mean to her though!" That is such a a weird line to say seemingly completely genuinely. Like what??? I would have interpreted it as a joke about Gangle being masochistic if Jax didn't seem so confused about it.

Jax being an asshole just to see Gangle suffer is one thing. Jax thinking being tormented is something other people enjoy, and not realizing it isn't? Being surprised she'd rather hang out with Zooble? Are we going to unpack that.

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Writing Advice #4

Some of y’all are sitting on genuinely good story ideas and trashing them because “it’s not complex enough.” Because it doesn’t have a twist ending or a spreadsheet full of plot threads.

But Simple isn’t the enemy. Boring is, and a story is only boring when it forgets to FEEL.

We have been emotionally devastated by stories with the barest bones of a plot, something like “Boy and dog become friends. Then sad happens.” Or “Boy meets girl. They hold pinkies under the table.” Tears. “Stranger gives someone a sandwich.” Existential crisis.

It’s not about complexity, not really guys, it’s about impact.

Simple stories give your characters room to be human, they give your readers room to care. They don’t bury the heart under eight subplots and a riddle only your Reddit fandom can decode. You don’t need a chosen one and a revolution to earn a reader’s tears (I promise). You just need something that matters.

So please stop apologizing because your story is “just” about a guy who’s been writing love letters to someone he thought was dead.

That’s not “just.” That’s everything.

And if anyone tells you it’s not enough? Write it anyway, and go tell them to fuck off.

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🔪 3 Plot Twists That Slap (and 1 that should be arrested) 🔪

hello and welcome back to me yelling on main about storytelling crimes. today we are talking about plot twists. specifically: the good, the god-tier, and the why-would-you-do-this-i-trusted-you tier.

let’s go.

✨ The Twist That Reframes Everything ✨ a.k.a. the “wait. WAIT.” twist. This is when you drop a twist that doesn’t just add drama - it recontextualizes the entire story. It makes the reader go back and reread earlier scenes like “was this character ALWAYS sketchy or am I just stupid??” It retroactively changes the emotional weight of everything that’s happened. Suddenly that offhanded comment in chapter three hits like a brick. The romance subplot becomes 500% more tragic. The villain’s motive makes SENSE now. Delicious.

✅ Best used when: the breadcrumbs are subtle but real. The twist shouldn’t come out of nowhere - it should feel inevitable in hindsight. Like Sixth Sense, Knives Out, that one betrayal in your favorite anime you still haven’t recovered from.

2.🧨 The Emotional Betrayal It’s giving: “i would’ve died for you” energy. This is the kind of twist that hurts. You thought they were loyal. You thought they cared. They did care - and still did it anyway. Or they never cared, and now you’re spiraling. This twist slaps because it’s not just about plot, it’s about trust. It stabs the characters AND the reader in the same motion. Bonus points if it’s a slow burn betrayal. Bonus bonus points if the betrayer feels genuinely torn up about it.

✅ Best used when: the reader is emotionally attached. Don’t waste this one on a side character we barely know. Save it for the love interest. The best friend. The mentor figure with dad energy. Make it personal. Make it RUIN lives.

3. 🧊 The “They Were Dead the Whole Time” but Make It Interesting Listen. This one’s risky. It’s a classic for a reason but also easy to flop. But when done well? Haunting. Creepy. Unhinged in a gorgeous way. It doesn’t have to be death either - maybe the character’s been possessed. Or they’re not real. Or the narrator’s memory is lying. The KEY is to not lean too hard on the shock. Lean on the vibes. Give it eeriness. Make it a slow unraveling. Give us dread. Give us melancholy. Give us psychological decay with a side of unreliable narrator.

✅ Best used when: you’re writing something surreal, gothic, speculative, or emotionally weird. This twist isn’t about plot logic, it’s about atmosphere and emotional rot.

🚨 The Twist That Should Be Arrested: “It Was All a Dream” 🚨 I’m sorry but. no. if I read 80k words of someone’s descent into madness just to find out it was their stress dream and now they’re normal again?? I will throw the entire book into a lake. This twist erases tension instead of escalating it. It invalidates everything the reader emotionally invested in. It’s the narrative equivalent of gaslighting. don’t do it. UNLESS - and this is a big unless - you’re doing it with INTENT. Meta intent. Dream-within-a-dream psychological horror intent. If you’re gonna do it, it better haunt me. It better RUIN me. Otherwise? Into the lake.

okay that’s all. go forth and commit plot crimes responsibly. bonus points if you use all three Good Twists in the same story and then look me in the eye like “oh was that too much?”

it wasn’t.

tag me when you emotionally destroy someone with it.

🕯️ download the pack & write something cursed:

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random drawings!!! 💕💖💕💖💕

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Pomni: Do you have any actual friends?

What Ragatha said: "Not anymore, he used to until he became an asshole and pushed everyone away."

What Jax heard: "Not anymore, the only friend he ever had abstracted! Haha what a loser."

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okay okay BUT............

Human Teresa and Stanley on a date? PLEASE PLEASE \•w•)/

I hope you like it anon, Awww, she looks so cute and she's so nervous!! so cute!!! 🥹💖💖💖✨️💖✨️💖✨️💖✨️💖✨️💖✨️💖💖✨️

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Tips on Writing Breakup Scenes

✦ People don’t always cry. shocking, I know. sometimes someone just sits there like a polite zombie, nodding and saying “okay” while their soul quietly packs a bag and moves out the back of their skull. They might want to cry, but also they might just go numb and stare at the salt shaker for ten minutes. Both are valid guys.

✦ Most breakups aren’t a single moment, they’re a slow unraveling that ends in a conversation, so even if your character feels blindsided, it should still carry that surreal “I should’ve seen this coming” haze. Because breakups rarely just drop out of the sky.

✦ The dumbest details stick, like seriously, no one remembers the whole speech, but they’ll remember the scratchy napkin, the weird buzz of a light, that their ex had mustard on their cheek and didn’t notice.

✦ You can always feel a breakup coming. no one says “we need to talk” out of nowhere, because people act different right before. overly nice. extra distant. weirdly cold or weirdly warm. characters should notice that, even if they can’t quite name what it is yet.

✦ Sometimes people still love each other. like, actually still love each other. it’s not always about the love being gone, no. It can be timing, fear, baggage, a hundred other things that get in the way. let your characters say “I love you” and still not stay. It hurts and it’s real.

✦ Closure? lol. most people don’t get it. a lot of breakups end with “wait, that’s it?” or a message that never gets sent or that one thing you almost said but didn’t. There’s rarely a satisfying ending.

✦ No one speaks in perfect sentences mid-breakup. people ramble. they say sorry three times and mean something different every time. Someone’s trying to keep it light. someone else is cracking. sentences trail off. someone forgets how to use words entirely.

✦ After it’s over, people don’t always sob into a pint of ice cream. Some people shut down, some go out and party, some clean their entire room, rewatch a comfort show, or post a spicy selfie with “new era” energy. Everyone breaks differently, so let your characters be weird about it.

✦ And if your character is the one doing the breaking up, let them feel complicated... just because they’re ending it doesn’t mean it’s easy. They might feel guilty and relieved, or they might cry after. Maybe they might mourn the version of the relationship that only existed in their head.

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No but for real, the lore drop for Ragatha in episode five explains so much about how and why she acts the way she does. Long ramble incoming.

The fact that Ragatha's mother was, at the very least, verbally and emotionally abusive, puts all of Ragatha's behavior in the Circus into perspective.

From the very first episode we see that Ragatha is a positive, upbeat person. When Pomni arrives, Ragatha immediately takes her under her wing to try and ease the transition into this new world. This continues into the next episodes: she tries to hype Pomni up for their adventures in the Candy Kingdom and Mildenhall Manor, and shows concern both times when she goes missing. This even extends to the other members of the Circus: she's on friendly terms with Kinger and Zooble, and stands up for Gangle against Jax's bullying. It's clear that Ragatha is making an effort to be completely unlike her mother: kind, caring, positive and supportive.

However, this insistence on being positive all the time comes with it's own issues. It's not that Ragatha isn't a kind and caring person, because she absolutely is. The problem is how that's all she's allowed herself to be seen as. As Gangle and Jax observed in episodes four and five respectively, Ragatha's constant positivity even in the face of their nightmarish circumstances makes her cheerfulness come of as performative and disingenuous, even if that isn't her intention. It makes it hard for others to gauge just how genuine Ragatha's positivity truly is.

Then there's her need for validation. We see this as early as episode two: when talking to Kinger when Pomni is still missing, Ragatha talks about how rough Pomni's first day was, then admits "I don't think she really likes me that much." Then in episode four, while under the effects of the stupid sauce, she admits that she doesn't want Jax to hate her, even after openly saying that she hates him. We can infer that Ragatha didn't get much love, if any, from her mother, and now she seeks that approval from others and thinks that just being unlike her mother is the way to do it.

The issue there is that she's approaching friendship as if it were something transactional: be nice to people, they'll be nice back, and everyone can be friends. Whereas genuine friendship is formed by opening up and forming a bond with others through commonalities and shared interests. Take Gangle and Pomni: they both like Ragatha well enough, but neither of them are really friends with her. Meanwhile, Gangle and Zooble are friends thanks to their shared interests in the arts and mutual dislike of Jax. And episode five has Pomni start to form a friendship with Jax when he starts showing a less abrasive side during the slower-paced adventures.

Speaking of episode five, there's Ragatha's reaction to Pomni and Jax's budding friendship. Her expression during the bar scene is one of shock and disbelief that Jax of all people - abrasive, loudmouth, bullying Jax - is able to start earning Pomni's friendship before she can, even after showing Pomni nothing but kindness and support. It flies in the face of everything she's trying to accomplish by being everything that her mother wasn't. The end of episode five shows the result of Ragatha's constant forced positivity: Jax and Pomni go off together, as do Gangle, Zooble and Kinger, leaving Ragatha alone without anyone to truly call a friend.

Still, her situation isn't completely hopeless. As stated, the others do like Ragatha well enough - even Jax doesn't completely hate her. Pomni even tried to reach out during episode five's softball game by telling Ragatha that it's okay to let her negative emotions out, showing that Pomni does care about her. The potential is there for Ragatha to grow out of her mindset of perpetual positivity, be more honest with her emotions and form a genuine friendship with Pomni and the other players.

Or maybe Gooseworx will punch us in the gut and have Ragatha snap and abstract from the despair of being alone and the realization that all of her positivity has amounted to nothing. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

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Everytime I see a take saying that they have no sympathy for Ragatha because shes toxic and was horrible to Jax this episode I want to bash my head into a wall /silly

I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what she meant by "Not anymore...". She didn't mean "Oh lmao his friend died" she meant "After he became an asshole everyone stopped wanting to be friends with him" yet Jax misunderstood it as the former. You can tell thats not what she meant because she says as much when she notices him death glaring her. And no, its not an excuse because she "thought he wouldn't hear her". She knew he could probably hear her and expected a different reaction because she meant something different.

I'm so tired of people calling her horrible for making a couple mistakes towards someone whos been blatantly an asshole. I love Jax. I love him a lot, but he doesn't deserve all the sympathy here. Ragatha isn't some secretly evil and toxic person. Shes a person who's fawning as a response to trauma and is making mistakes.

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I could see this being true

Credit goes to @crispystar

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I went through your blog a bit, and saw a drawing of a Gravity Falls OC you made. Morningstar was the name of the oc, I think. could you explain them more?

OH DO I !!!

Embarrassed to say that I've been meaning to upload my comic with this character months ago, but progress has been slow, because ... I don't know how to keep a proper schedule nor navigate a life with two jobs ASDFDGDG (One of these is Patroon though so who am I to complain!!)

So this character goes by just "Star", it's a being seemingly showing up out of nowhere one day. It's ... technically not Euclydian, but it kinda also is Euclydian. 👁️👁️ Star is, sort of, a Parasite. One that wants to consume and one that can take over other beings.

And it's one that feels a deep connection to Bill that sees and recognises him as a fellow Parasite.

When it first meets Bill, Star finds out about Ford and becomes obsessed with the thought of consuming him. Star can feel Bills intense attachment to Ford (C'mon guys, you knew I'd make this about Billford) and since a being so similar to Star feels so strongly about him, it too starts to feel strongly for him, but in the "Oh I have GOT to consume this creature" type of way. Thus our adventure begins 👀

I like to say Star as a character is what happens when you put Gravity Falls together with "The Thing" and "Annihilation", haha. I also took some inspo from "The 5th Element" for this story.

I HAVEN'T GIVEN UP ON IT YET ... I'm just ... slow ... Luckily I'm the type of person to stay in a fandom until the end of time so it'll happen eventually.

Thank you for your interest anon it's fun to talk about Star!!! :3

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Writing Advice #3

Try roasting your setting like you’re ranting to your group chat after a bad road trip. Seriously, don’t just tell me it’s a “quaint village.” Is it the kind of place where time forgot it existed? Does it have, like, three shops that all close at 2pm for mysterious reasons and a town square statue of some guy named “Jedediah” who absolutely committed tax fraud?

The more lovingly hateful you are, the clearer the place gets. Because when we roast things, we get weirdly specific. That specificity is PURE gold. “Dusty” is whatever. “A town where the post office smells like expired glue” is a vibe. It tells me everything I need to know and makes me want to keep reading just to see how much worse it gets.

Bonus points if your narrator is also sick of being there. Angry characters describe places way better than calm ones, it’s just science.

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Writing Advice #2

If your character arc feels kinda flat or fake or like you’ve accidentally written a pamphlet instead of a person, Ask yourself what they’d do if they were just… petty and a little emotionally stunted.

like, not in a evil-villain way, I mean in the way real people are. In the way where someone says “you hurt me” and they’re like “oh okay cool i’m just never gonna talk to you again, problem solved.” or when they spiral, they don’t journal or grow, they start subtweeting or stalking their ex’s new girlfriend’s Social Media Profile or binge-eating hot cheetos, in a weird power move against no one.

Because people rarely go through pain gracefully. We flail, we regress, we lie to ourselves and pretend we're doing “fine” while googling “is it normal to cry during grocery shopping.” and then (Maybe) eventually, we start figuring shit out. Not because we’re heroes, no, because staying broken forever gets exhausting.

So let your character be petty and mess up things for stupid reasons. And let them make a bad choice not because the plot needs it, but because they’re tired and bitter and still learning how to be a person.