I wish the whole "Wendy is always stressed", would have been thought of at the premiere of the show and in some scenes she subtly cracks before reverting back to her chill persona
Yeah I think one of the problems they ran into was that they didn’t try to develop a storyline with her early on to feature her because they were focused on how she would affect dipper’s story and so none of the decisions she made and her personality in general made sense for a story. Like little things she did didn’t make any sense for any story they tried to put out so they just ended up scrapping it like how they said that “wasn’t the Wendy they knew” or whatever the creator said in the video. This also goes to show why her character feels off because her actions have no driving force behind them. They just happen because the other characters need that to happen to succeed. She isn’t thought of as a person who has goals and motivations, she is thought of as a tool. Objectified in a way.
I feel like having Wendy and Stan being like best friend crime buddies would’ve been a great dynamic to have at the beginning of the show. Have the “Wendy and Stan steal diamonds” subplot happen early on, maybe replacing one of the more underwhelming or straight up bad subplots from season 1, and then it can give a cool dynamic drama where dipper likes Wendy but doesn’t care for Stan yet they are very similar and best friends. It would also make Wendy’s ability to do a ton of crazy high action spy stuff make sense. It also would have it make sense why Stan still keeps Wendy employed even though she doesn’t do anything and sucks at her job
Yes! Maybe they could have had that b-plot for one of the episodes where Mabel drags off stan to do something inconsequential - like the video game one or dipper vs manliness. I think it would have been amazing if there was just this entire episode of dipper and Robbie fighting over Wendy and she's off accidentally getting Stan arrested somewhere
I would also make it that Stan becomes more of a father figure to her or better yet a grandfather figure. It would have been a really cute bonding moment.
Seems like the inspiration for Wendy is kinda the problem. They based her off their unrequited crushes who they probably didn't get to know very well, so when trying to develop Wendy, nothing seems to fit because they only see her as an idea, not a real person. (Not trying to be malicious in saying this, it's just a thought i had) Edit: I finished watching the vid and i think it would've been cool if Wendy saw Stan as a kind of father figure or cool uncle like Soos does, and the Mystery Shack as a 2nd home where she can relax and be herself
You’re right, in real life most high schoolers with a boy/girl friend wouldn’t start a love triangle with a 12 year old and then dump their boyfriend for said 12 year old
I personally see that as a strength, given the short run of the series. It spoke to the experience of boyhood, and there really wasn't that much space that I think they could have made her a fully realized character. Within the constraints of the show, more may well have meant less, pulling wendy off her pedestal. Just my two cents.
I have my own idea for a Wendy episode that goes off from what you guys were talking about. I love the idea of Wendy being a painter, and I think an episode focused on her could start with the revelation that she is a painter but only paints in secret due to embarrassment or shame. Of course her dad finds out and takes her out to chop down trees, but in the middle of that she finds a mysterious yet comforting tree. She keeps the tree a secret so her family doesn't chop it down, and she comes back on her own multiple times to paint it. Eventually her dad follows her and finds the tree, but instead of chopping it down like expected, he begins to cry. He reveals that Wendy's mom was cursed to one day become a tree, and when that day arrived she disappeared into the woods and never returned. Manly Dan was obsessed with finding her again and starting cutting down all the trees in hopes of finding the one special one, his wife. He sees the painting that Wendy made and has a change of heart, supporting Wendy's art and even hanging the painting in their home. This could lead to Wendy painting in public more in future episodes, and possibly even selling some in the Mystery Shack. I have no idea about what the side plot could be though, but I hope anyone likes my take on a Wendy focused episode.
I think a big problem with the “tomboy/masculine presenting girls vs traditional girly girls” conversation is that it’s still entirely driven by what makes these characters “ideal women.” Whether the female protagonist is wearing a pink dress and perfectly applied makeup, or combat boots and a messy hairdo, she still has to be conventionally pretty and a “good role model to young girls.” It’s never about how to give her believable flaws and a consistent story arc, it’s about how to make her the most attractive and aspirational #woman for a modern audience.
@@bencox3641it's because most writers are male and people usually crack down on female characters more often. So they just don't write characters for them, just "good role models."
You know what always bothered me about Wendy? Ok so remember when Wendy dumped robbie and dipper asked her to go bowling or something and Wendy went off on him and got emotional telling everyone to leave her alone . I was shocked and wondered where they were going with this , and the next episode didn't feature Wendy so I was sure we were gonna get some sort of Wendy centered episodes where she reconciles with dipper and comes to peace with her emotions . So imagine my shock , confusion and a littler anger when the next episode to feature Wendy has her totally fine and hanging out with dipper and the others. So basically her recovering from the break up and making amends with dipper was offscreened. That bugged the crop out of me, it genuinely feels like we skipped a episode .
@@smo-king6504 did you even read my whole comment , I wasn't bashing wendy herself , I don't blame her for how she acted, the problem is her and dipper reconciliation was offscreen . Her development of getting over the break up was offscreen.also your " gf having pms" is not a accurate comparison to the scene with wendy.
Wendy was my favorite character when I first watched Gravity Falls. idk why but I was just inspired by her and looking back now I was kinda sad about how they did her so dirty lmao
Agreed. I always really enjoyed her and who she was, since I loved very down to earth girls who are pretty cool, but going back...it's extremely sad in retrospect
If I were to create a Wendy storyline. It would be about her and her dad reconciling with the lost of her mother. We learn that after the death of Wendy’s mom. Her dad was devastated and as a result threw himself into his work, and pretended like she never existed, and went a little crazy. He did this as a way to cope with the loss, and destroys every picture of her. Now the meat of the plot is about Wendy painting. She remembers that her mother liked to paint and has been doing for years as a way to connect with her. Now one day she buys some special paints and discovers that what ever she paints comes to life. She paints a tree and it’s there right in front of her. So she paints her mother and she is there. Now any object that is created by the paint is connected to is so if the painting is destroyed the thing that came to life is destroyed. Furthermore after the paint fully drys it turns into a normal painting and anything created by it disappears. So Wendy paints her mother to life from memory and you can tell that something isn’t right. She loses track of thoughts, is forgetful, and is just not the women Wendy remembers. So she try’s again, and again painting her mother in excruciating detail but it’s never quite right. Then her dad comes looking for her because at this point she’s been missing for days. Her dad finds her crying defeated. And she confesses that she wished he was there for her after she died. That he was so focused on forgetting her that he didn’t focus on helping his kids get through it. She had the be there for her brothers but no one was there for her. Then she said that all she wants to do is say good bye, and she can’t even remember what her mother looks like because it’s been so long since she’s even heard her name. At this part he dad doesn’t really say anything but say her moms name (like Wendel or something). Then he pulls out a picture that despite everything he kept, and gives it to Wendy. Then Wendy gets rid of the magical paint and paints a normal picture of her mom putting it up in there living room.
Disney did strike a good balance of badass with feminine with Kim Possible. If you were a villain she could keep toe to toe with you and you could still believe it’s the same teenager who’s trying to convince her parents to give her the money for a jacket, fretting about a crush or griping about Bonnie. Indeed, cheerleading, an activity seen as overly girly, is how she has her athleticism that she uses to regularly prove a match against people like Shego. All this in the mid 2000’s. The less said about the live action interpretation the better.
Even before Kim Possible, there was Buffy "I want to date, and shop, and hang out, and save the world from unspeakable evil. Y'know, girly stuff" Summers.
The Invisible Woman from marvel is one of my favorite examples of this, and I think she defines it in a way few others can because she originated as the damsel in distress with a useless power. Stan Lee wrote women very poorly and would often have them complain about their hair or how the men aren’t paying enough attention to them. John Byrne reinvigorated Susan Storm and established that she was, definitively, the most powerful member of the Fantastic Four; she could turn your retinas invisible, create forcefield constructs that were impossibly strong for both offense and defense but she was also the greatest mother in the universe and a loving wife.
I think that was the point of the character, like how Dipper idolized Wendy probably too much. That's why the "rejection" was important for the character
@@ChaiLatte666 I always thought that was the intention with how she was written see even in the show everyone has either a crush on her or found her cool (Dipper , Robbie , Mable , Soos). Wendy is that cool teenager that everyone admired. It also why it was important for Dipper character to get "rejected" to lose this crush and be more like a friend instead of an admiration
Part of me wishes the writers dug more into the "rule breaker" side of her, like when she criticized dipper for being cautious about trespassing, or when we saw that she repeatedly snuck out on the roof of the mystery shack, or all the times her friends were a bit out of line and she turned a blind eye. I think that might've been a better use of her character than the whole "I'm not actually chill and laid back" thing.
yeah like have her realise her friend group arne't great people and she's a pretty bad judge of character, have her explore that as well as the fact how few people she seems to be actually be friends with, perhaps getting caught up some supernatural shenigans as she deals with all that, perhaps have her cross a line and get in serious trouble cause of it, learn a lesson about how some rules should be followed and being a teen doesn't give her or her friends an excuse to jsut do whatever they want. Iunno.
@sarafontanini7051 THAT WOULD'VE BEEN SO GOOD to let them discover that it's true breaking rules isn't always the end of the world, but some are there for a reason
i would love Wendy’s dad being actually loving and supporting like “YESS MY BEAUTIFUL STRONG GIRL” but he’s just fucking inoperant like man is too inoperant to show his love
I feel like the thing that makes Wendy feel so underutilized is the fact that she is really the only character to be absent from most of the episodes. Like if Soos was absent from more episodes or there was an episode that Wendy was in that he wasn't I think her absences wouldn't be as noticeable. It was something even as a kid watching it I noticed.
I thought of an idea for a Wendy episode. It takes place in late season 1 early season 2. Wendy gets a new boyfriend who turns out to be a vampire. He bites Wendy and she becomes a vampire. She dumps the boyfriend for lying to her and biting her. She uses her Vampire powers to pull pranks on people. At first it is fun but she starts to miss the Shack and her friends. She can only go out at night and all her teen friends are too tired. Since there is nobody to be the cashier Stan hires Robbie. This annoys Dipper and Mabel. Robbie's parents said he needs a job. Wendy goes to Dipper and Mabel and finds a cure for being a vampire. They look one up in book number 3 and find it. They then set up a home alone style prank to get revenge on the boyfriend. Wendy wants her job back and Robbie quits. He said that Stan is a terrible boss and he found a better job working at a gas station. He said he looked up minimum wage laws and he found out he was being underpaid. *Mabel:* and the Moral of this adventure is don't get bitten by a vampire *SooSoo:* That is something we can all relate to.
I will defend Katniss because much of her characterisation is tied to the captial, which is associated less with just femininity and more captial consumption. But it's interesting to see what the books that came after it (i.e Divergent) saw in the Hunger Games and copied. Like they didn't exactly make nuaced replicas... Which is why I think you get a lot of YA protagonists that reject being "girly" with the social and political context being replaced with a general sense of interpersonal superiority 😂
0:14 Wendy isn't a main cast member. She is a secondary character. Dipper, Mabel and arguably Stan are the main characters. That is why their names are listed in the opening.
@@kaylemathewcomendador6964 No Dipper, Mabel and maybe Stan are the main characters. Wendy is the cashier Dipper has a crush. She is as much of a main character as Soos is.
Wendy's personality was strong enough so that you didn't really notice she didn't have a ton of focus. But I would've liked a little more focus and development on her character
Here's a solution: Make the Last Mabelcorn an episode on its own, expanding on Mabel's guilt by involving always teasing Dipper and possibly expanding that so it can connect to D and M Vs. Future. Now, mush the story of Ford and Dipper as the A Plot and make the Grunkle Stan and Wendy one the B Plot. Use Stan's subplot as a way of making him look bad before showing that Ford is possibly worse (working with Bill). You could call that episode, "Between Me and Him." Get rid of Roadside Attraction entirely and burn it in a dumpster fire.
Roadside Attraction should have been just after Into the Bunker, and not have Dipper be the bad guy according to the episode’s writing. Dipper gaining self-confidence is development he definitely needed, and Stan teaching him makes it a good episode for their relationship after how rocky it was depicted as being. I hate that the narrative makes him out to be someone leading girls on because it turns the episode into another example of Mabel Validation when her selfishness creates the problem in the first place and she’s never called out on it. Seriously, if Dipper brought up her previous crushes the way she went into a box saying DO NOT OPEN MABEL it’d be Dipper as the bad guy.
Here’s a idea, so to expand on the Wendy painter thing what if she’s really into wood carving? It’s artsy and could be a bonding activity with her dad cuz you know Wood 🌳. Also what if she’s like really into dinosaurs and is a huge Dino nerd and is kinda embarrassed by that because she is scared of being seen as lame. (The Dino thing is entirely for me but it be cool tho) Also also less Robbie this less of a Wendy criticism and more I just hate Robbie.
Awesome character analysis video Keyan! And thanks for featuring my art! That made-up Wendy episode segment was hilarious. I now realize Wendy really was wasted potential, and it’s really a shame we didn’t get to see more of what she could’ve been- these kinda videos help me to not commit these mistakes with my own characters and story!
I’m very glad this channel has gotten so much attention as of recent. Such high effort and dedication to these videos and all of them are good. Hats off to you mate
yeah bc of the storyline that Stan already had in it and Wendy coming across him as he's prepping for it. he could've even asked her if she wanted to come with him
I feel like Katniss’ case is more complicated because of the internal politics of her world and also being the sole provider for her family and Annabeth Chase (in the books at least) is very much a female character written in the early 2000s, but her romance with Percy is an important part of her character and that shouldn’t be ignored.
I can't help but think part of the issue was the necessity of pacing. Gravity Falls has really good pacing, from Dipper finding Journal 3 to the introduction of Gideon and the reveal that he has Journal 2, to the season 1 finale introducing Bill Cipher and revealing Journal 1, to Dipper discovering the invisible ink messages in season 2, to the reveal of Stan's brother Ford. This fast-paced storytelling left fans feeling as though there should have been another season. This was even lampshaded in Lost Legends. I know Alex Hirsch's intention was two seasons, but if there was something if a filler arc between seasons 1 and 2, they might have had more time to flesh out Wendy, as well as maybe explore more of Gideon's attempts to claim the Mystery Shack or Pacifica's relationship with her parents. I'm grateful for what we got, but I can't help but wonder what they would've been able to do if they had more time to work on these characters.
Dipper interpreting Wendy's painting as having something to do with him and her going "dude, I've been haunted by the memory of my missing mom since before you were born" cracked me up AND is a reaction that is 100% in character for him. Because of his feelings for her (and his pubescent hormones), he interprets everything having to do with Wendy through his MALE GAZE. I love how a seemingly simple and silly plot point would completely reframe Wendy's role in a supposed episode and flip the focus from Dipper to her.
"dude, you took my trauma and need for my mum and made it about yourself, not cool dude" *dies of cringe* dipper: "oh nooooooo!!" and then this can lead to development for dipper to like not put so much of himself into Wendy and lead into him easing up on the obsession and conect with Wendy better as a person. ANd then wendy can fight ariana grande and save her mum with an axe.
Honestly i didn't dislike it much. It did drag on way too long, but it wasn't awful On the bright side without that side plot Wendy would have had even less screen time
Unrequited crushes aren’t too bad a concept, but the execution was wack. Wendy was hyped up as being cool by the cast, but 9 times out of 10, whenever we saw her in s1 she was acting lazy or irresponsible. And at times not even getting punished for it. Girl took advantage of someone that she was friends with too. All her flaws were brushed off as being cool, and there wasn’t anything else relatable or flawed to latch onto. S2 fixed it marginally. But not enough. It also bothered me cuz Dipper would act super selfish whenever she was involved, with him usually having to “give up” the chance to be close to her by not taking actions that would deprive someone else. And when that happened, a lot of the fanbase would take his side cuz his unrequited crush on her was more important than literally everyone else. And it wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t devalued Mabel’s crushes. So when Dipper acted selfish to get his crush, it was a GOOD thing and ppl sympathized. Whereas when Mable did, it was a BAD thing and she was selfish. Her being the major part of the clear bias present in the fanbase, makes liking her even harder.
I noticed that in the MCU guys liked the badass girls until they started to become the main character of the story. Now they're all upset in their own way about it because they were so used to having the guys be in the leading role for 10+ years.
@Blended Circuit well as a man I can say I know a little about women but as far as their feelings on the women in the MCU I definitely know nothing as most women i encounter are more casual fans of it and don't really care too much. That's why I only noticed how men have been reacting as I would see their reactions more often and even some of the men in my own family have been feeling some type of way about the increased roles of women in the MCU
I appreciate your inclusion of trans women in the feminism section! As a trans man and Gravity Falls fan, I'd like to give my two cents. It always bothered me that 2010s era strong female characters were made to be as masculine as possible in order to be considered strong. Not only does that hurt women who find strength in their femininity such as trans women, but it also hurts trans men because people see us as trying to fill that "strong female character" role instead of, y'know, just being dudes. I've been accused of being anti-feminist for expressing my true gender because people assume I look masculine to "gain privilege" or "kiss up to the patriarchy" in the same way that characters like Gamora were written to act more manly to be considered equal with the rest of the main cast. People have asked me why I wouldn't just be content with being like Wendy, a butch woman with traditionally masculine hobbies, instead of being a man - and don't even get me started on the Mulan comparisons. Mulan takes off the man costume at the end of the movie and embraces her femininity. I'm not in costume. I don't know if this was coherent at all, but you made a lot of good points and your inclusivity means a lot to people like me. Side note: I dressed up as Mabel for Halloween as a kid before I came out and dressed up as Dipper for Halloween after I came out. I know the fandom has mixed feelings about the episode Dipper vs. Manliness, but it really resonated with me because I felt insecure about "not being man enough" since I wasn't raised as a man. I even put my first chest hair in a scrapbook once I started taking testosterone like Mabel did with Dipper in that episode.
For real,, as a transmasc non-binary person, I’ve seen so many accusations by cis people that transmasc people somehow aren’t actually trans and just have internalized misogyny, and that pisses me off more than I can possibly express :) Like no, I’m not trans because I’m “rejecting womanhood/femininity” or some bs like that. I’m trans because I’m simply not the gender I was assigned at birth. (and like, these TERFs are the same people who love to say how gender stereotypes shouldn’t define your gender identity right? Well guess what? I still love jewelry, painting my nails, and the color pink; a lot of other transmasc people I’ve met/seen do too. So clearly it’s not about that at all, they just want any excuse, no matter how flimsy, to hate trans people.) (But, ranting aside, your side note at the end really warmed my heart~ I’m very happy that you’re getting to live as your real, authentic self now ^^)
Tbh, I think Gamora’s thing is less “manly”, and more based on mentality behind gender stereotypes. For men, it’s impt to be “manly”, which means to not show weakness. Considering Gamora is a character who experienced a mass murder, was forced to fight and win at risk of serious bodily harm/torture/surgery if she failed, and was trained to kill, her desire to never show emotion is understandable. She was never shown to be physically stronger than anyone else on the team, and it felt like more of her strength was her intelligence and technique. Her arc was going from someone who was closed off, couldn’t have fun, and refused to show love or weakness, to someone who did. Both her and Starlord lived in similar circumstances and had to become more like the other due to them existing within a extremes. Being emotional is seen as a more “feminine” thing, which was what Starlord was/is. I’m curious as to why you call her “masculine”. I don’t believe in the gender stereotypes listed above, and I don’t see Gamora act in any “masculine” way. So I’m super confused.
I feel like an OK (no pun intended) comparison is Enid from OK KO. She reminds me of the same kind of character. The un-phased, badass cool girl, except Enid has a lot more to her in comparison to Wendy. She had insecurities and strays away from what her parents want and has to work through her own feelings with friends and romantic interests. Same kind of Laidback Cool Girl™️ but with more depth.
Lmao loved the concept of the Wendy centric episode y’all came up with! Wendy was really cool and Linda Cardellini played her well, but unfortunately she was not a full character.
Absolute banger of a vid as always. I haven't revisited Gravity Falls as a whole since the series ended, but I definitely noticed that Wendy didn't get as much attention from the narrative after Dipper gives up on pursuing her :( Alex Hirsch wishes he could've written an episode like yours (Also shoutout to Gretchen her presence is very fun and she has good takes and ideas, big Gretchen fan)
Mabel is honestly one of the best female characters in cartoom history imo. She's girly and loves feminine stuff but she's a capable young girl who's clever and strong. As a girl who leans more towards stereotypically masculine interests, I feel like the idea that femininity is a strong girl's enemy really offputting. They did great with Mabel. Why was a teenage girl so hard to write?
An interesting wendy episode could be if dipper had like a body swap with her and he saw how wendy is parentified into being a mother role to her brothers.
I never cared for Wendy cuz they never gave me a reason to care. She was just the source of character’s obsession, which was annoying, and “cool”. This meant was hyped up a lot, but didn’t do much besides be kind of annoying for the entirety of s1. I think a Wendy episode would’ve fixed that. S2 made her better, but only marginally. I wish there was more to her to latch onto.
I think you are talking it too seriously. Wendy isn't a main character. She is a side character. Dipper and Mabel are the main characters. "She never gave me a reason to care." Do you need one. Also her relationship with Dipper is more of a running gag than a real relationship. What's wrong with being laid back at chill.
I feel like the fact that Wendys symbol was "ice" was so weird? Because there was no explanation expect for the "cool as ice" thing. And occasionally she is next to an ice cube. I really missed the build up towards her symbol
Katniss isn’t the best example. Her background and situation provide plenty of reason she focuses on the practicalities. She grew up in the poorest district, having to be the family breadwinner when her father died in a hazardous line of work. She has to hunt so her mother and sister have something to eat, a key part of the relationship she has with Gale. The glitz, glamour and style represents a lifestyle she could never have hoped to achieve, and the circumstances of the Games do nothing to make it desirable. The population of Lady Gagas in District 1 never had to work, proper work, for their wealth, clothes and cosmetics. The way the loss of human life is treated as a game alienates her to the fashions even more.
The coexist thing reminds me of the anime re:creators. It's an anime about characters from many different universes coming to the real world and getting in various fights/trouble. One of the side plots is the growing friendship between Alicetaria (hardcore serious battle woman in armor) and Mamika (super cutsey magical girl.) One is very much a physically strong female character type, the other super girly, but the two of them get along extremely well. They have important advice to give each other and they help each other grow. Neither is discounted for being too girly or not girly enough. I want to see more stuff like that.
a lot of the comments are already talking about this but i'm just gonna echo the sentiment: there's nothing wrong with female characters just being 0% feminine and rejecting femininity. there's nothing written into the dna of any girl that says they have to be feminine, to any extent. there's nothing wrong with women being uncomfortable in dresses and disliking pink. women have different personalities. the problem is that there's either only one or the other: the pink girl or the rugged girl, and if one is the protagonist the other is usually the antagonist, rather than these being just two of MANY different types of women that can exist, all of whom can be friends with each other and actually TALK to each other, instead of just being secondary characters to male leads or lone female leads surrounded by a male love triangle
like yeah, what's wrong with wearing dresses and liking pink? more male characters should do that lol there's just an overall dearth of diversity of experiences in media because it's trying to appeal to the broadest market. audiences don't like feminine women because they're seen as weak, but they sure as HELL don't like actual butch, completely masculine women. female characters have to exist Just So, the entire problem with Writing Wendy
what if wendy got a paint brush from a yard sale or secondhand store then it brings the paintings to life like the spongebob episode or opens portals like the barbie movie or something similar
Something I thought of is that she could've been an environmentalist and vegetarian, something that clashes with her father's job and family culture. She could've been against chopping down trees and harming animals making her more of a "she's so cool, she's so involved" type rather than "she's so cool, she doesn't care about anything".
I forget if they actually had an episode of Wendy driving (minus the Weirdness bubbles in Weirdmageddon) but since she's 15, why not have an episode of Wendy's doing drivers ed? It could be a similar thing of Wendy helping Stan during a heist, but instead he uses her as a getaway driver in exchange for free driver's ed lessons from Stan? That's the typical age of teenagers getting their learner's permit in the United States and it could show a bond between Stan and Wendy while incorporating her into the story organically. The reasoning could be as simple as her dad's giant stature broke their old car and she's been late getting to work by biking over there. Stan would notice that and find a way to help Wendy while helping himself in the process.
I think a good Wendy episode would be her and one other character getting trapped in a survival situation and as she absolutely slays at getting them food and protecting them the other asks her questions about where she learned all this shit she ends up delving into how it feels being the only girl in such a insane masculine family with a dead mom. I imagine a scene where she’s just casually doing all this badass shit handling it like it’s nothing while talking about her childhood
Chill, unattainable love interest whose non-reactions to awkward male fumbles and lack of an inner life reveal just how much of a male fantasy and non-character she is. Reminds me of Jackie from Star vs, tho Wendy had at least some personality. Might you take a similar look at Lord Dominator's character from Wander over Yonder? I still remember the reaction to "oh, another Lord Hater wants to win over Dominator episode - ugh" on the AV Club and I agreed even tho I loved WoY.
Okay so, you guys mentioned a plot for Wendy, but what if Wendy's mom was a different mom to the other siblings. Hear me out, her mom was a nymph! Maybe her seeing her family cut down trees makes her uncomfy because she didn't know that! Literally imagine if they had let her be like one with nature and Dipper being attracted is more so because he sees shes different to others - not because of other girls but because she is LITERALLY DIFFERENT from other girls. Like, so much could be done like say she painted the painting but its of a willow she adores near her home which is actually her mother...but one day when her father gets mad about not being able to chop it to extend the land she runs aware to the Pines' place for a few days. I like the idea of Mable and Dipper being like, "what if there's more to this". Cool Wendy waves it off while you can see how uncomfy she is the entire episode of them assuming who her mother was over her wishes. Either way, episode ends with her standing up for her differences and they don't find out about her mom. BUT the very last few seconds of the episode shows the tree shifting and watching Windy walk away with a smile before shifting back or maybe she leaves but leaves Wendy a gift once the entire tree is just up and gone. Maybe a paint brush made of one of her tree limbs or something. WHich to add on COULD HAVE GIVEN WENDY MORE EPISODES OR MOMENTS TO LEAN ON. Her telling Dipper he doesn't like her but the idea of her and just studying her, which could have put in motion a Dipper and Ford episode where Ford reflects on a similar thing in his life - be it with a guy or woman since Disney could be flexible and hide it as "friends" if they had desired. Maybe the paint brush helped them in the finale and she had to paint a doorway to help them escape. Maybe she went into the dreamscape and made a deal with triangle man Bill in order to FINALLY meet her mother. I'm so frustrated because we were so robbed. I wish they had the women they needed on that writing team. The show was good, don't get me wrong. The writing is funny and witty, but I feel like Wendy could have been such a strong backbone to the Disney Channel woman line up, Thankfully, we do have Anne from Amphibia and others from that show, the owl house, star vs and so on.
7:20 she does do a "lumberjacky" thing in Into the Bunker when she climbs the tree with a belt. Also, I don't disagree with most of the criticisms made in this video, but I do find it a stretch to say her character was wasted. The episodes where she is involved in the adventure are great and she does show more personality in those, like how she genuinely likes Dipper as a friend or the multiple times where she gives Mabel advice or the friend group dynamics in Love God. I think what is there is actually really good, it just would have been nice to see even more of Wendy in other episodes. I will also say, just because Wendy is female doesn't mean she needs to have a conflict about femininity.
Wendy has a great chance fore being awesome, based on The Blind Eye Society ep. She mentions how stressed she is all the time, cause of her family. They could explore more on that...
18:14 that’s one of the many things that I love about the female characters in Avatar The Last Airbender. The first thing I think of is Suki’s line “I’m a warrior, but I’m a girl too.” Not to mention Katara and Toph being the most powerful benders whilst being girls with strong personalities.
It might not be a lot, but I really appreciated that, in the book of Bill, Bill mentioned that Wendy constantly dreams about her mother. It's a small detail but it does add some depth to her.
It's funny cause in both pitch bibles, Wendy has a conflict with Manly Dan trying to get her to conform to his way of life. It's not totally "in line" with her character but it's certainly a start. Must have been a lot of spinning plates that left her undercooked
I’m sorry. I know this video is about Wendy but Alex Hirsch’s grandpa had some crazy charisma. He married his wife 3 weeks after they met. Got divorced and married the woman again and I’m guessing stayed with her for life. That’s crazy
"Coolness" just isn't a sustainable character trait, because coolness is in the eye of the beholder, not the character themselves. That laid-back, indifferent attitude about everything is something a lot of people might admire from the outside, but on the inside, everyone cares about something. Someone else in the comments pointed out that regardless of how feminine or tomboyish these girl characters are, they still need to be appealing and aspirational--the focus is on how they seem to other people. "Cool" characters are built from the outside looking in, rather than the inside out.
with Wendy allways chilling out and having her lil club of teenage rascals, why wasn't she used as a "guide" to the town? Like what if she was the one to suggest to the others to go minigolfing or to the pool instead of her happening to be somewhere or not even being there at all. THey could have done a running gag where she works all over town and everytime she introduces them to a new spot she gives them all this lore and the others ask "how do you know all this stuff?" and she's like "oh i work here" and maybe has specific hats for every job (and that's why she likes the mystery shack the most, she gets to wear her own hat and be and express herself)
I also felt like the writer's kind of favored Dipper when it came to story lines and character arcs (which could be a reason why people don't like Mabel). I mean in season 1 alone, Dipper had about 9 episodes with a major storyline, and Mabel had only about 4. In all those dipper episodes, SEVEN of them were Wendy episodes. The ones I would consider keeping are The Inconveniencing, Double Dipper, Land Before Swine, and the Halloween episode because I felt like they really added to Dipper's character development. But the Deep End, Fight Fighters and Boyz Crazy were completely unnecessary because Dipper just learns the same lesson, or the lesson is stupid. Fight Fighter's lesson was... i guess you have to fight your own battles? It was just kind of a stupid lesson and doesn't really relate to Dipper's character. The Deep End has the same lesson as Time Traveler's Pig so it was redundant, and Boyz Crazy was basically the same as well. I felt like those episodes could have been replaced with ACTUAL Wendy episodes or Mabel episodes instead of being always centered around Dipper. And I definitely agree with having more female writers on the staff, maybe then we would've got more Mabel or Wendy episodes.
They'd actually been planning a b plot with Wendy and Stan bonding over their shared shoplifting prowess and him teaching her all sorts of criminal tricks, ending with Stan walking back and advising her to take a different path and not end up like him and losing a significant portion of his life to jail and having to flee several states, but they weren't able to fit it in to any episodes. Which is a massive shame.
you could do a wendy episode where wendy discovers her mom ran away and wendy finds here and learns she has been living with the manotaurs and is actually even more insane and over the top then her dad and brothers. she ends up showing her mom that the way she's living is unhealthy only for her mom to be disgusted by the idea that there's more to life then physical power and wendy ends up going home to here dad and brothers doing very girly things, hoping it'll make wendy come back or something. it'd end with wendy telling them that it's best they just be themselves and they instantly rip off the dresses they were wearing and run to the woods with their axes as wendy looks at an image of the family when she was young and smiles.
I think part of the problem is that people keep referring to Wendy as a "woman" when she's actually only fifteen. To quote this post, " ... and when she has any downtime, which is the entirety of her job there she's never doing anything, she's always reading a magazine or something or like not paying attention and I'm like, 'There's no way this woman zones out her entire life' she has to have something she likes to do." Again, she's fifteen. Most 15-year-olds do exactly that. They sit around doing absolutely nothing alone or they sit around doing absolutely nothing with their friends. She is shown several times going to parties and getting into shenanigans (always wanted to use that word) with her little gang of misfits. As far as why the writers didn't swap out Soos for Wendy every now and then? They did on a few occasions but it also makes sense that she rarely hung out with the others when they weren't at work. Being a 15-year-old she left her job as soon as possible to hang with her friends. How many 15-year-olds do you know who want to hang out with children and adults (that they're not related to) in their free time? None. I think the "why doesn't she act her age" issue is multifaceted. First, the show is animated so it's a bit tougher to distinguish "middle" ages. Kids are obviously kids and old people are obviously old but everyone in the middle is harder to pin down. I thought Soos was at least 30 until his birthday was revealed. Second, Wendy is constantly referred to as "too old" for Dipper's affections when, in fact, she's less than three years older than him. When Dipper and Mabel turn thirteen Wendy is still fifteen. Certainly there's can be a big difference in maturity between thirteen and fifteen (more in girls than boys) but it's played more like Dipper is just starting middle school and Wendy is college age. Third, Linda Cardellini (who I love) has such a recognizable voice and is in her forties. I 100% agree that Wendy could have been "used" better as a character (especially in the second season) but I don't know that I would say she was "wasted." Just my opinion. BTW, I definitely don't see Wendy as a painter. She's the guitarist/singer of a punk band.
Book of bill added some to her, I always liked Wendy but I can see by this video that yeah she got the short end of the stick, but maybe if more content comes along in book form or spinoff, Wendy will get more individuality and spotlight moments
I think feminine female characters are apparent in the show; there's Mable and Pacifica for example. There's female characters in the middle, like soos's girlfriend and Candy. And on the less typically feminine (stereotypical female) side of the scale, female characters like Wendy and Grenda. I get that it may be critiqued because Wendy is the love interest, but maybe it just played out that Dipper just likes Wendy, and her differences in terms of the spectrum of gender/femininity doesn't matter as much as it may seem for the time the show was created.
i don't think wendy is a hard character to write. esp when they already have those small scenes to peel away to reveal her character. Had they incorporated her more in the ensemble-heavy episodes, gave her 1-2 episodes for herself (same as soos), while also having her own motivation (again soos becoming the mystery shack owner holding as an example) would really have improved her character
We got roadside attraction and so many other honestly kind of boring episodes, but we couldn’t get any of these amazing wendy concept episodes? That’s so sad
Nah bc u were on to something with the tree... maybe it could've been like a tree wendy was always attached to and her dad tried to cut it down but she fights for it and they beef and the tree is her mom's spirit and it talks to her dad and he stops being so crazy and her family feels more complete🌞
Honestly I think it's fine she wasn't delved in that much. Honestly that's probably why she was my favorite character. She has a pretty solid personality and was interesting enough that I could go wild with headcanons for her that wouldn't go against anything canon. She's in the title cards a lot because she's dipper's motivation for a lot of stuff that happened but if we just look at the show, her role is pretty much more of a supporting cast, just a bit more relevant than candy and grenda and forcing her into scenes where she doesn't fit just for her to have more screentime would have been what ruined her.
On the one hand, it sucks we never got a Wendy episode. On the other, I think the reasoning for it actually comes from a good, well meaning place; they didn't want to fuck up her character and wanted to give her, as a character, the amount of love and talent they had for writing all the others. I don't even think it was them prioritizing other episodes over her, necessarily, but natural time constraints and that desire to really make a story that would do her justice they just could never iron out. Should they have taken that chance and tried to make that episode anyway? Probably. But do I, as a writer myself, respect that decision in a way, in trusting your gut and just knowing something isn't working? Yeah. Still, you can't let that hold you back.
EPISODE IDEA: (sorry its long). I wish they executed that story at 11:00 minutes in the video. Where Wendy was caught stealing from the shack because it was a cry for help since her home life wasn't going so well and stan would teach her how to steal, picklocks, and be a master criminal like him so he had a "partner in crime" since he was lonely and didn't have friends and everyone else was busy that day. I think this would be an awesome episode idea because we don't see much of the supporting characters and this way we would learn more about them while they had an episode dedicated to them for once. I would change it to they both got put in jail and the police said we have to call Ur dad Wendy, and she was begging no and going crazy. Then stan somehow talked the police out of it by lying and saying Soos was her guardian or her dad was out of town so her "uncle" Soos had to get her. Then stan and Wendy had a heart to heart and she would open up about her childhood with flashbacks and stan would open up as well but when it got deep and stan was going to reveal an important secret that would contribute to Ford and Bill, Soos would show up to pick them up. Stan would have to stay in jail because hes an adult but when the police leave Wendy and Soos make a master plan and Wendy sneaks back in and picks stans jail cell lock setting him and the rest of the poeple in there free. so it would be full circle since stan taught her how to pick a lock in the beginning of the episode. Then Soos would drive them to get tacos.
absent minded tangent but i think if they had an episode where they discussed wendy always hanging out with the teens and having a rebellious streak because she's at odds with her hyper macho family, and that she was raised in a way that never allowed her to act like a boy on account of her fathers attitude towards women but that she also never got to be a girl thanks to her being put in a higher pedestal because of the same ideas, and these things getting worse after her mother leaving/passing because her dad having no idea how to properly raise a girl would be good for her story i think and she could have a heartwarming moment with her family if these things were placed into the plot of an episode, also it's a fucking mega shame that the stan wendy robbery plot never got put in an episode. if they had just two episodes that were about her she'd be elevated from her current standing to a top tier girl character
wendy's a real thin character but she does play a simple and effective role of just being dope. every time she shows up its just like 'oh wendy is here, sick' i kinda fw that
It’s really interesting the fact that Wendy was created just for the sake of being Dipper’s love interest, I guess the writers where really desperate to have a *12* year old fall in love with a *15* year old, and that’s the *only* reason why she was created
Throughout that whole middle section, I couldn't stop thinking about Buffy Summers. She dressed up in a super cute Red Riding Hood costume for Halloween, and when Xander tried creeping on her, she pointed out that she's heavily armed. She cocked a grenade launcher while talking about looking cute in a tiara. A literal hellhound couldn't stop her from going to Prom. And all of this was in the late 90s, before that era of "Strong Female Protagonists" rejecting femininity. Also, don't forget that during that era, we still had Powerpuff Girls (sugar! Spice! Everything nice!), Kim Possible was a cheerleader, and Totally Spies saved the world with top of the line fashion accessories.
I thought basically the exact same thing while watching this. I think the video oversimplifies things a little bit trying so neatly to divide the feminist depiction trends in the 2000's, 2010's, and 2020's. Even looking at Whedon specifically, Buffy is a protagonist who embraces femininity while being a strong character, but his very next series, Firefly, has the female lead of Zoe, who usually doesn't embrace feminine traits or roles besides (very) occasionally in the context of her marriage. Still some good stuff in here, but the reality is moreso that these two interpretations exist on a spectrum, and even though the pendulum does swing in favor of one or another at different times, both have coexisted and will probably continue to.
I don’t like how people’s criticism of the 2010’s strong female character trope was that “She’s too masculine. She can’t hate dresses or pink because some of the female audience likes it.” Masculine women exist. Women who don’t like pink and dresses exist. The issue was that they were one dimensional characters.
I rewatched gravity falls a couple weeks ago and I did notice how Wendy’s characterization really was a product of the show’s time. Mostly during the last mabelcorn, I saw a lot of Wendy rejecting femininity and being strong and tough, which is kinda solidified in the scene with the “we’re women, we’re sweaty animals and take what we want” line. While i appreciate that the episode is trying to tell us that women shouldn’t have to exist in a specific way to be valid, I also don’t like how Wendy was rejecting being girly and liking girly things like Mabel and the others yknow? Ig it was just a product of its time + the lack of women in the writers room. Justice for Wendy’s character!!!!
It seems like people are divided among Wendy hating girly things being a odd choice as you can be strong and like those things. And people who say it's fine that he doesn't as there's girls and women who just don't
This is my idea on how they could've done something better w/ Wendy. I feel like she should've been more built up in early season 1 with the idea that dipper sees wendy as a "perfect unattainable girl". I would've presented Wendy in a more realistic light, where she's likeable but can be annoying. An episode called "Not What She Seems" that would replace Fight Fighters where dipper's entire perspective changes. (In my ver of Gravity Falls any Wendy ep with her friends are not shown and is just eps with Wendy alone) The plot of this episode would be something like the lost "Wendy shoplifting" ep but instead Stan sees that they have been getting a short supply of items and suspects either Soos or Wendy to be the culprit. Dipper, Mabel, Wendy and Soos assume that Stan will fire whoever did it, which tears the shack apart. Mabel sides with Soos and Dipper sides with Wendy. This episode is in the complete perspective of Dipper, so he tries to find clues to prove that Wendy isn't guilty. Wendy gets more unbearable as the ep goes on until the cat's out of the bag and it's revealed that Wendy did the shoplifting. Dipper's world is turn upside down and snaps at Wendy and goes on a whole spiel on how he thought Wendy was a perfect person which moves Wendy, while Mabel and Soos tell Stan that Wendy was the shoplifter which ends up with Stan commending her skill. This frees up the Dipper crush episodes leaving us more eps on restoring Wendy as a likeable character, Dipper would of course still not trust Wendy until DreamScaprers. Soos would be absent this ep and would be filled in by Wendy. Instead of the personal conflict lie with Dipper and Stan it would lie with Dipper and Wendy. Wendy and Mabel would see Gideon summoning Bill and warn Dipper. Wendy would urge Dipper to allow her to help but denies her, but the only way to enter Stan's mind is through three people saying an encantion forcing Wendy to be a helper. Stan's mind would be more treachorous and would feature Wendy saving dipper a couple of times but still not changing Dipper's attitude until Bill assumes Wendy's identity just as he did with Soos. Dipper seeing this would confirm his thoughts that Wendy hasn't changed, but then the real Wendy comes and the Into the Bunker fight would happen with Wendy coming out on top. Then Wendy says some wholesome stuff of how Dipper helped her become the best self she can be or something. Then in season 2, her conflict will be about coming to terms with her family and seeing the consequences of becoming a more responsible person in the form of her friends thinking she's now bland and boring.
Fight Fighters is one of my favorite episodes in the whole show that one is a masterpiece. Please add and episode instead of murdering a wonderful one.
@@icecreamhero2375 I was trying to make as little changes to the order of the eps as possible and I was going to replace Bottomless pit but ifeel like that was too late in the season. If i had ful lliberty over the eps to fit in wendy's sub plot it would go like this: edit: geez i really spent 2 hours doing this... 1. Tourist Trapped 2. Legend of the GobbleWonker (but with wendy) 3. HeadHunters (with wendy again) 4. The Hand that Rocks the Mabel 5. Dipper vs Manliness (Switched from The Inconveniencing, Dipper's motivation will be to impress Wendy not because of the machine) 6. Double Dipper (No Robby) 7. Irrational Treasure 8. Fight Fighters (Introduction to Robby as the anxty bully but isn't revealed to know Wendy) 9. The Inconveniencing ( Reveal of wendy's friends and Robby's affiliation with Wendy) 10. The Time Traveller's Pig (no Robby, and Wendy gets angry at Dipper for everytime the ball hits her) 11. Little Dipper (Wendy makes fun of Dipper's height as well ) 12. Not what She seems ( same plot as what I previously said but in the end Wendy quits due to being embarrassed) 13.Summerween (no Robby nor Wendy; Dipper tries to take his mind off of the last episode) 14. Lumber Life ( Replaces Boss Mabel; Ep about Mabel checking up on Wendy, to reveal Wendy's terrible home life with her overbearing dad. Mabel sees the reason for Wendy's behaviour, but makes Wendy have a change of heart by telling her of what Dipper saw her as; B plot would be a Soos and Dipper mystery ) 15. The Deep End ( Mabel's story stays the same; Dipper's story is about him trying to avoid Wendy, with her trying to find Dipper climax will be split between Dipper and Mabel, Mabel would be trying to outrun Mr Poolcheck with Mermando in the back of the cart, while Dipper and Wendy meet for the first time since ep 12, Wendy tries to apologise but Dipper refuses) 16. Carpet Diem (Wendy comes back to the Shack because the pool job pays terribly and needs to provide for the family, Dipper is distant about it but Mabel is glad to see her back; the C plot would be about Wendy trying to apologise to Soos but Soos switches with Waddles and Wendy has to find Soos's body, ending with Wendy regaining Soos' trust) 17. Boyz Crazy (Wendy joins the girls as a "baby sitter" and says that she hates these types of Boy Bands but secretly love them. This ep would create a Bigger sister bond with her and the girls) 18. Land Before Swine 19. Dreamscaperers (With wendy instead of soos, Wendy is forced to help, Wendy saves the day restoring some trust within Dipper) 20. Gideon Rises (The pines family have to live with the Curodroy's revealing to Dipper Wendy's home life, Dipper finally trusts Wendy again) Season 2 is relatively the same but these would be my changes: 1. Scary-oke 2. Into the bunker (will only be about the shape shifter and not the Wendy subplot ) 3. The Golf War 4. Unwanted Mystery (Sock opera will be changed to an ep about the repercussions of Wendy's newfound responsibility with her touble-making friends. The plot will be about her friends wanting to go on a mystery hunt but Dipper wanting to just open the computer, the friends steal the Journal, Bill would still be in the ep and possess Dipper; The friends see their mistakes and apologize and they were just jealous of the mystery gang's adventures) 5. Soos and the Real Girl (I would make a reggie wedding mini arc that would take place) 6. North West-South East ( This ep would follow after the last episode and it would be a Wendy Dipper episode; the plot would be about how the gang needs dates for reggie's wedding, Stan goes with Lady susan Mabel tries to find a way to get mermando to attend, Wendy would go with Robby or something idk. Dipper is left alone with no one and it's up to wendy to help him find a date. Wendy realises that Pacifica would be a great choice and the entire ep is about Wendy trying to convince dipper that he should go with pacifica. Dipper sees that she would be a good fit and asks her but she denies ) 7. Society of the Blind Eye 8. NorthWest Mansion Mystery (more akwards tension between Dipper and Pacifica, results in a good relationship between them) 9. Blendin's Game 10. The Love God (Twins and Pacifica episode rather than the weird mabel robby pair; the plot will be about pacifica hanging out with the twins more and more, seeming more urgent to hang with them. It's revealed that she does because her parents have been acting a bit too lovey dovey and it was creeping her out. They trace the weird behaviour to a potion owned by the love god, and they track him down to reverse the potion ) 11-14 the same (wendy would be in not what he seems with her friends trying to protest against the fbi) 15: The Last MableCorn ( Wendy teaches Mabel to be more aggressive which mirrors Mabel teaching Wendy to be kinder last season) 16: Reggie's Wedding(this episode would be basically the same as RoadSide attractions but about Dipper trying to ask Pacifica if she wants go as his date to reggie's wedding; the b plot would be a Stan and Ford handling bubbles of weirdness that are spewing out of the crack from the rift. Ending sees the entire gang, including ford, and their dates at the wedding meanwhile back at the shack the crack is shown to get larger ) 17.Dipper and Mabel vs the Future (this ep will be the same but nothing bad happens to mabel. Like grenda and candy can go to their party, and she isn't told about the horrors of high school. Dipper's story stays the same, and the reveal that dipper wants to stay in gravity falls is still revealed and drives a wedge between Dipper and Mabel.Mabel still takes the bag with rift but instead of handign it to bill, it breaks on it's on, and bill contains her in her mabel land to keep the twins apart) Finale stays the same
![DDG & G Herbo - Nosey [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I9Ra0Zc2NlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I wish the whole "Wendy is always stressed", would have been thought of at the premiere of the show and in some scenes she subtly cracks before reverting back to her chill persona
Yeah I think one of the problems they ran into was that they didn’t try to develop a storyline with her early on to feature her because they were focused on how she would affect dipper’s story and so none of the decisions she made and her personality in general made sense for a story. Like little things she did didn’t make any sense for any story they tried to put out so they just ended up scrapping it like how they said that “wasn’t the Wendy they knew” or whatever the creator said in the video.
This also goes to show why her character feels off because her actions have no driving force behind them. They just happen because the other characters need that to happen to succeed. She isn’t thought of as a person who has goals and motivations, she is thought of as a tool. Objectified in a way.
@@pixelzebra8440 you broke that down perfectly.
i like it as an added layer, hammering nails can cause me to get distracted.
@@Multi-Waves_Music yeah wish it wss more relevant
THREE MOONS YESSSSS
I feel like having Wendy and Stan being like best friend crime buddies would’ve been a great dynamic to have at the beginning of the show. Have the “Wendy and Stan steal diamonds” subplot happen early on, maybe replacing one of the more underwhelming or straight up bad subplots from season 1, and then it can give a cool dynamic drama where dipper likes Wendy but doesn’t care for Stan yet they are very similar and best friends. It would also make Wendy’s ability to do a ton of crazy high action spy stuff make sense. It also would have it make sense why Stan still keeps Wendy employed even though she doesn’t do anything and sucks at her job
I want to say get rid of the mermando episode but that means we no longer have Stan saying “Yes, burn the child”
Yes! Maybe they could have had that b-plot for one of the episodes where Mabel drags off stan to do something inconsequential - like the video game one or dipper vs manliness. I think it would have been amazing if there was just this entire episode of dipper and Robbie fighting over Wendy and she's off accidentally getting Stan arrested somewhere
Bruh Wtf??? I Read Wendy And Stan Steal Diamond While Video Playing And The Guy In Vids Say That At The Same Time Lol What Are The Chances?
12:12
I would also make it that Stan becomes more of a father figure to her or better yet a grandfather figure. It would have been a really cute bonding moment.
scrapping that wendy shoplifting plot is crime that's so fucking funny
Seems like the inspiration for Wendy is kinda the problem. They based her off their unrequited crushes who they probably didn't get to know very well, so when trying to develop Wendy, nothing seems to fit because they only see her as an idea, not a real person. (Not trying to be malicious in saying this, it's just a thought i had)
Edit: I finished watching the vid and i think it would've been cool if Wendy saw Stan as a kind of father figure or cool uncle like Soos does, and the Mystery Shack as a 2nd home where she can relax and be herself
They should have made her lose her dad instead of her mom. That would make her see Stan as a father figure since she was lacking one.
You’re right, in real life most high schoolers with a boy/girl friend wouldn’t start a love triangle with a 12 year old and then dump their boyfriend for said 12 year old
@@jesuschrist3165 as funny and as entertaining the dynamic is to watch in the show, this is very true
Ya, and Mabel had more growth and realism as a female character because she was based on someone the author of the show knows on a deeper level.
I personally see that as a strength, given the short run of the series. It spoke to the experience of boyhood, and there really wasn't that much space that I think they could have made her a fully realized character. Within the constraints of the show, more may well have meant less, pulling wendy off her pedestal. Just my two cents.
I like how they keep saying "her 7,000 brothers" when she has three brothers which is a pretty reasonable sized family.
That’s what it feels like….
She was very annoying in this video
@@yuriscynicism she really wasn’t
Bro Wendy is real... *I HAVE 3 YOUNGER BROTHERS!!!*
I have 6 siblings 5 brothers 1 sister
I have my own idea for a Wendy episode that goes off from what you guys were talking about. I love the idea of Wendy being a painter, and I think an episode focused on her could start with the revelation that she is a painter but only paints in secret due to embarrassment or shame. Of course her dad finds out and takes her out to chop down trees, but in the middle of that she finds a mysterious yet comforting tree. She keeps the tree a secret so her family doesn't chop it down, and she comes back on her own multiple times to paint it. Eventually her dad follows her and finds the tree, but instead of chopping it down like expected, he begins to cry. He reveals that Wendy's mom was cursed to one day become a tree, and when that day arrived she disappeared into the woods and never returned. Manly Dan was obsessed with finding her again and starting cutting down all the trees in hopes of finding the one special one, his wife. He sees the painting that Wendy made and has a change of heart, supporting Wendy's art and even hanging the painting in their home. This could lead to Wendy painting in public more in future episodes, and possibly even selling some in the Mystery Shack. I have no idea about what the side plot could be though, but I hope anyone likes my take on a Wendy focused episode.
I feel like that could be a great episode, but manly Dan is too manly to cry
@@MordecaiAndRigbyYourFired Mainly Dan can cry if he feels like it!
@@MordecaiAndRigbyYourFired he’s too manly not to feel comfortable crying
Damn, made me cry with that twist
The side-plot could be Dipper trying to figure out how to impress Wendy's dad, only to see him crying, and back off for now
I think a big problem with the “tomboy/masculine presenting girls vs traditional girly girls” conversation is that it’s still entirely driven by what makes these characters “ideal women.” Whether the female protagonist is wearing a pink dress and perfectly applied makeup, or combat boots and a messy hairdo, she still has to be conventionally pretty and a “good role model to young girls.” It’s never about how to give her believable flaws and a consistent story arc, it’s about how to make her the most attractive and aspirational #woman for a modern audience.
The fact that so many people can't write women as characters instead of what they think a woman should be is just weird to me.
@@bencox3641it's because most writers are male and people usually crack down on female characters more often. So they just don't write characters for them, just "good role models."
You know what always bothered me about Wendy? Ok so remember when Wendy dumped robbie and dipper asked her to go bowling or something and Wendy went off on him and got emotional telling everyone to leave her alone . I was shocked and wondered where they were going with this , and the next episode didn't feature Wendy so I was sure we were gonna get some sort of Wendy centered episodes where she reconciles with dipper and comes to peace with her emotions . So imagine my shock , confusion and a littler anger when the next episode to feature Wendy has her totally fine and hanging out with dipper and the others. So basically her recovering from the break up and making amends with dipper was offscreened. That bugged the crop out of me, it genuinely feels like we skipped a episode .
To me it just felt like she wanted to be alone at the moment and started to hang out with the Pines again.
@@BlueBlazeKing I get that she wanted to be left alone , but I just hate that her cooling off and making amends with dipper was offscreen .
That's pretty much how it is with my gf sometimes when she has her period, sometimes our emotions aren't clear and get the better of us
@@smo-king6504 did you even read my whole comment , I wasn't bashing wendy herself , I don't blame her for how she acted, the problem is her and dipper reconciliation was offscreen . Her development of getting over the break up was offscreen.also your " gf having pms" is not a accurate comparison to the scene with wendy.
@@bqw2094 sometimes there isn't reconciliation, you just give the other person space
Wendy was my favorite character when I first watched Gravity Falls. idk why but I was just inspired by her and looking back now I was kinda sad about how they did her so dirty lmao
Yeah
yeah.. it was a shame how they utilized her lol
I don't think dirty is the right term , underutilized I guess. The character served it's purpose but we all agree there could have been more
Agreed. I always really enjoyed her and who she was, since I loved very down to earth girls who are pretty cool, but going back...it's extremely sad in retrospect
Yeah
She was my favorite character aside from Bill when I was younger I now she's my least favorite
If I were to create a Wendy storyline. It would be about her and her dad reconciling with the lost of her mother. We learn that after the death of Wendy’s mom. Her dad was devastated and as a result threw himself into his work, and pretended like she never existed, and went a little crazy. He did this as a way to cope with the loss, and destroys every picture of her. Now the meat of the plot is about Wendy painting. She remembers that her mother liked to paint and has been doing for years as a way to connect with her. Now one day she buys some special paints and discovers that what ever she paints comes to life. She paints a tree and it’s there right in front of her. So she paints her mother and she is there. Now any object that is created by the paint is connected to is so if the painting is destroyed the thing that came to life is destroyed. Furthermore after the paint fully drys it turns into a normal painting and anything created by it disappears. So Wendy paints her mother to life from memory and you can tell that something isn’t right. She loses track of thoughts, is forgetful, and is just not the women Wendy remembers. So she try’s again, and again painting her mother in excruciating detail but it’s never quite right. Then her dad comes looking for her because at this point she’s been missing for days. Her dad finds her crying defeated. And she confesses that she wished he was there for her after she died. That he was so focused on forgetting her that he didn’t focus on helping his kids get through it. She had the be there for her brothers but no one was there for her. Then she said that all she wants to do is say good bye, and she can’t even remember what her mother looks like because it’s been so long since she’s even heard her name. At this part he dad doesn’t really say anything but say her moms name (like Wendel or something). Then he pulls out a picture that despite everything he kept, and gives it to Wendy. Then Wendy gets rid of the magical paint and paints a normal picture of her mom putting it up in there living room.
Disney did strike a good balance of badass with feminine with Kim Possible. If you were a villain she could keep toe to toe with you and you could still believe it’s the same teenager who’s trying to convince her parents to give her the money for a jacket, fretting about a crush or griping about Bonnie. Indeed, cheerleading, an activity seen as overly girly, is how she has her athleticism that she uses to regularly prove a match against people like Shego. All this in the mid 2000’s. The less said about the live action interpretation the better.
Even before Kim Possible, there was Buffy "I want to date, and shop, and hang out, and save the world from unspeakable evil. Y'know, girly stuff" Summers.
Jenny Wakeman too,
She was built as crime fighting robot but she prefers doing teenager things
The Invisible Woman from marvel is one of my favorite examples of this, and I think she defines it in a way few others can because she originated as the damsel in distress with a useless power. Stan Lee wrote women very poorly and would often have them complain about their hair or how the men aren’t paying enough attention to them.
John Byrne reinvigorated Susan Storm and established that she was, definitively, the most powerful member of the Fantastic Four; she could turn your retinas invisible, create forcefield constructs that were impossibly strong for both offense and defense but she was also the greatest mother in the universe and a loving wife.
when i was a kid i always wished i could be wendy she was an icon
Who didn't tbh
Bro I think most kids who grew up with the show had a crush on her. I know I did
I think that was the point of the character, like how Dipper idolized Wendy probably too much. That's why the "rejection" was important for the character
Honestly I'm pretty sure everyone who watched that show as a kid either wanted to be her or wanted to date her. Or both. Somehow
@@ChaiLatte666 I always thought that was the intention with how she was written see even in the show everyone has either a crush on her or found her cool (Dipper , Robbie , Mable , Soos).
Wendy is that cool teenager that everyone admired. It also why it was important for Dipper character to get "rejected" to lose this crush and be more like a friend instead of an admiration
I always thought of wendy as a secondary character, I never realized it was a main one
0:36 WHY DOES THAT FIT THE EPISODE BEING USED 💀
😂😂
Part of me wishes the writers dug more into the "rule breaker" side of her, like when she criticized dipper for being cautious about trespassing, or when we saw that she repeatedly snuck out on the roof of the mystery shack, or all the times her friends were a bit out of line and she turned a blind eye. I think that might've been a better use of her character than the whole "I'm not actually chill and laid back" thing.
yeah like have her realise her friend group arne't great people and she's a pretty bad judge of character, have her explore that as well as the fact how few people she seems to be actually be friends with, perhaps getting caught up some supernatural shenigans as she deals with all that, perhaps have her cross a line and get in serious trouble cause of it, learn a lesson about how some rules should be followed and being a teen doesn't give her or her friends an excuse to jsut do whatever they want. Iunno.
@sarafontanini7051 THAT WOULD'VE BEEN SO GOOD to let them discover that it's true breaking rules isn't always the end of the world, but some are there for a reason
i would love Wendy’s dad being actually loving and supporting like “YESS MY BEAUTIFUL STRONG GIRL” but he’s just fucking inoperant like man is too inoperant to show his love
My first mother turned into a tree... That's rough buddy
I feel like the thing that makes Wendy feel so underutilized is the fact that she is really the only character to be absent from most of the episodes. Like if Soos was absent from more episodes or there was an episode that Wendy was in that he wasn't I think her absences wouldn't be as noticeable. It was something even as a kid watching it I noticed.
The fact that you said the fact that shows the fact that you didn’t really need to say the fact that
I thought of an idea for a Wendy episode. It takes place in late season 1 early season 2. Wendy gets a new boyfriend who turns out to be a vampire. He bites Wendy and she becomes a vampire. She dumps the boyfriend for lying to her and biting her. She uses her Vampire powers to pull pranks on people. At first it is fun but she starts to miss the Shack and her friends. She can only go out at night and all her teen friends are too tired. Since there is nobody to be the cashier Stan hires Robbie. This annoys Dipper and Mabel. Robbie's parents said he needs a job. Wendy goes to Dipper and Mabel and finds a cure for being a vampire. They look one up in book number 3 and find it. They then set up a home alone style prank to get revenge on the boyfriend. Wendy wants her job back and Robbie quits. He said that Stan is a terrible boss and he found a better job working at a gas station. He said he looked up minimum wage laws and he found out he was being underpaid. *Mabel:* and the Moral of this adventure is don't get bitten by a vampire *SooSoo:* That is something we can all relate to.
suoerman!
that kinda good idea for an episode
"ackshully according to journal 3 Stanford talks to Wendy a singular time." 🤓
I will defend Katniss because much of her characterisation is tied to the captial, which is associated less with just femininity and more captial consumption. But it's interesting to see what the books that came after it (i.e Divergent) saw in the Hunger Games and copied. Like they didn't exactly make nuaced replicas... Which is why I think you get a lot of YA protagonists that reject being "girly" with the social and political context being replaced with a general sense of interpersonal superiority 😂
Gretchen being unable to count past 3 is far more hilarious than it should be
0:14 Wendy isn't a main cast member. She is a secondary character. Dipper, Mabel and arguably Stan are the main characters. That is why their names are listed in the opening.
She appears in the opening photo smart guy
@@stephaniewilliams6756 So does Soos you're point? He's also a secondary character.
@@icecreamhero2375 Nah, she was supposed to…but the writers had no idea how to give her main character energy…
@@kaylemathewcomendador6964 No Dipper, Mabel and maybe Stan are the main characters. Wendy is the cashier Dipper has a crush. She is as much of a main character as Soos is.
@@icecreamhero2375 Nah, she’s a main.
Wendy's personality was strong enough so that you didn't really notice she didn't have a ton of focus. But I would've liked a little more focus and development on her character
Here's a solution: Make the Last Mabelcorn an episode on its own, expanding on Mabel's guilt by involving always teasing Dipper and possibly expanding that so it can connect to D and M Vs. Future. Now, mush the story of Ford and Dipper as the A Plot and make the Grunkle Stan and Wendy one the B Plot. Use Stan's subplot as a way of making him look bad before showing that Ford is possibly worse (working with Bill). You could call that episode, "Between Me and Him." Get rid of Roadside Attraction entirely and burn it in a dumpster fire.
Roadside Attraction should have been just after Into the Bunker, and not have Dipper be the bad guy according to the episode’s writing. Dipper gaining self-confidence is development he definitely needed, and Stan teaching him makes it a good episode for their relationship after how rocky it was depicted as being. I hate that the narrative makes him out to be someone leading girls on because it turns the episode into another example of Mabel Validation when her selfishness creates the problem in the first place and she’s never called out on it. Seriously, if Dipper brought up her previous crushes the way she went into a box saying DO NOT OPEN MABEL it’d be Dipper as the bad guy.
Very cool, I want to watch that now.
Here’s a idea, so to expand on the Wendy painter thing what if she’s really into wood carving? It’s artsy and could be a bonding activity with her dad cuz you know Wood 🌳. Also what if she’s like really into dinosaurs and is a huge Dino nerd and is kinda embarrassed by that because she is scared of being seen as lame. (The Dino thing is entirely for me but it be cool tho) Also also less Robbie this less of a Wendy criticism and more I just hate Robbie.
rocker & skateboarder & wood carving
"Are your girl parts dripping? Ew get outta here, we don't want you to get that on the trees!" Holy shit that part got me
Awesome character analysis video Keyan! And thanks for featuring my art! That made-up Wendy episode segment was hilarious.
I now realize Wendy really was wasted potential, and it’s really a shame we didn’t get to see more of what she could’ve been- these kinda videos help me to not commit these mistakes with my own characters and story!
I’m very glad this channel has gotten so much attention as of recent. Such high effort and dedication to these videos and all of them are good. Hats off to you mate
the wendy and stan pickpocket b story could've fit into soos and the real girl...
yeah bc of the storyline that Stan already had in it and Wendy coming across him as he's prepping for it. he could've even asked her if she wanted to come with him
Soos and the Real Girl? Why does no one on these comments except for me think it could also fit into Blendin's Game?
I feel like Katniss’ case is more complicated because of the internal politics of her world and also being the sole provider for her family and Annabeth Chase (in the books at least) is very much a female character written in the early 2000s, but her romance with Percy is an important part of her character and that shouldn’t be ignored.
I can't help but think part of the issue was the necessity of pacing. Gravity Falls has really good pacing, from Dipper finding Journal 3 to the introduction of Gideon and the reveal that he has Journal 2, to the season 1 finale introducing Bill Cipher and revealing Journal 1, to Dipper discovering the invisible ink messages in season 2, to the reveal of Stan's brother Ford. This fast-paced storytelling left fans feeling as though there should have been another season. This was even lampshaded in Lost Legends. I know Alex Hirsch's intention was two seasons, but if there was something if a filler arc between seasons 1 and 2, they might have had more time to flesh out Wendy, as well as maybe explore more of Gideon's attempts to claim the Mystery Shack or Pacifica's relationship with her parents. I'm grateful for what we got, but I can't help but wonder what they would've been able to do if they had more time to work on these characters.
that's so true
Dipper interpreting Wendy's painting as having something to do with him and her going "dude, I've been haunted by the memory of my missing mom since before you were born" cracked me up AND is a reaction that is 100% in character for him. Because of his feelings for her (and his pubescent hormones), he interprets everything having to do with Wendy through his MALE GAZE. I love how a seemingly simple and silly plot point would completely reframe Wendy's role in a supposed episode and flip the focus from Dipper to her.
"dude, you took my trauma and need for my mum and made it about yourself, not cool dude" *dies of cringe*
dipper: "oh nooooooo!!"
and then this can lead to development for dipper to like not put so much of himself into Wendy and lead into him easing up on the obsession and conect with Wendy better as a person. ANd then wendy can fight ariana grande and save her mum with an axe.
I think that Dippers crush on Wendy was the only part of this show that I extremely dislike.
It was the part I related too most
It's just like every episode about Mordecai and Margret in Regular Show
@@someone24688 exactly
Honestly i didn't dislike it much. It did drag on way too long, but it wasn't awful
On the bright side without that side plot Wendy would have had even less screen time
Unrequited crushes aren’t too bad a concept, but the execution was wack.
Wendy was hyped up as being cool by the cast, but 9 times out of 10, whenever we saw her in s1 she was acting lazy or irresponsible. And at times not even getting punished for it. Girl took advantage of someone that she was friends with too. All her flaws were brushed off as being cool, and there wasn’t anything else relatable or flawed to latch onto. S2 fixed it marginally. But not enough.
It also bothered me cuz Dipper would act super selfish whenever she was involved, with him usually having to “give up” the chance to be close to her by not taking actions that would deprive someone else. And when that happened, a lot of the fanbase would take his side cuz his unrequited crush on her was more important than literally everyone else. And it wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t devalued Mabel’s crushes. So when Dipper acted selfish to get his crush, it was a GOOD thing and ppl sympathized. Whereas when Mable did, it was a BAD thing and she was selfish. Her being the major part of the clear bias present in the fanbase, makes liking her even harder.
I noticed that in the MCU guys liked the badass girls until they started to become the main character of the story. Now they're all upset in their own way about it because they were so used to having the guys be in the leading role for 10+ years.
I'm a girl, and the MCU has the same problem but worse because they have to carry an entire movie.
The issue then becomes that they’re not written as compelling or well in relation with the main story
Not exactly that simple. Especially when take into account athore girls don't like those products as well.
That is not it in the slightest, Wanda turned into a monster and Black Widow was just terribly written.
@Blended Circuit well as a man I can say I know a little about women but as far as their feelings on the women in the MCU I definitely know nothing as most women i encounter are more casual fans of it and don't really care too much. That's why I only noticed how men have been reacting as I would see their reactions more often and even some of the men in my own family have been feeling some type of way about the increased roles of women in the MCU
" I can't believe Ariana Grande turned my ex girlfriend into a tree " 💀
0:43 I'm using this thank you Gretchen
I appreciate your inclusion of trans women in the feminism section! As a trans man and Gravity Falls fan, I'd like to give my two cents. It always bothered me that 2010s era strong female characters were made to be as masculine as possible in order to be considered strong. Not only does that hurt women who find strength in their femininity such as trans women, but it also hurts trans men because people see us as trying to fill that "strong female character" role instead of, y'know, just being dudes. I've been accused of being anti-feminist for expressing my true gender because people assume I look masculine to "gain privilege" or "kiss up to the patriarchy" in the same way that characters like Gamora were written to act more manly to be considered equal with the rest of the main cast. People have asked me why I wouldn't just be content with being like Wendy, a butch woman with traditionally masculine hobbies, instead of being a man - and don't even get me started on the Mulan comparisons. Mulan takes off the man costume at the end of the movie and embraces her femininity. I'm not in costume. I don't know if this was coherent at all, but you made a lot of good points and your inclusivity means a lot to people like me.
Side note: I dressed up as Mabel for Halloween as a kid before I came out and dressed up as Dipper for Halloween after I came out. I know the fandom has mixed feelings about the episode Dipper vs. Manliness, but it really resonated with me because I felt insecure about "not being man enough" since I wasn't raised as a man. I even put my first chest hair in a scrapbook once I started taking testosterone like Mabel did with Dipper in that episode.
For real,, as a transmasc non-binary person, I’ve seen so many accusations by cis people that transmasc people somehow aren’t actually trans and just have internalized misogyny, and that pisses me off more than I can possibly express :)
Like no, I’m not trans because I’m “rejecting womanhood/femininity” or some bs like that. I’m trans because I’m simply not the gender I was assigned at birth. (and like, these TERFs are the same people who love to say how gender stereotypes shouldn’t define your gender identity right? Well guess what? I still love jewelry, painting my nails, and the color pink; a lot of other transmasc people I’ve met/seen do too. So clearly it’s not about that at all, they just want any excuse, no matter how flimsy, to hate trans people.)
(But, ranting aside, your side note at the end really warmed my heart~ I’m very happy that you’re getting to live as your real, authentic self now ^^)
Tbh, I think Gamora’s thing is less “manly”, and more based on mentality behind gender stereotypes. For men, it’s impt to be “manly”, which means to not show weakness.
Considering Gamora is a character who experienced a mass murder, was forced to fight and win at risk of serious bodily harm/torture/surgery if she failed, and was trained to kill, her desire to never show emotion is understandable. She was never shown to be physically stronger than anyone else on the team, and it felt like more of her strength was her intelligence and technique.
Her arc was going from someone who was closed off, couldn’t have fun, and refused to show love or weakness, to someone who did. Both her and Starlord lived in similar circumstances and had to become more like the other due to them existing within a extremes. Being emotional is seen as a more “feminine” thing, which was what Starlord was/is.
I’m curious as to why you call her “masculine”. I don’t believe in the gender stereotypes listed above, and I don’t see Gamora act in any “masculine” way. So I’m super confused.
I feel like an OK (no pun intended) comparison is Enid from OK KO. She reminds me of the same kind of character. The un-phased, badass cool girl, except Enid has a lot more to her in comparison to Wendy. She had insecurities and strays away from what her parents want and has to work through her own feelings with friends and romantic interests. Same kind of Laidback Cool Girl™️ but with more depth.
Lmao loved the concept of the Wendy centric episode y’all came up with! Wendy was really cool and Linda Cardellini played her well, but unfortunately she was not a full character.
Absolute banger of a vid as always. I haven't revisited Gravity Falls as a whole since the series ended, but I definitely noticed that Wendy didn't get as much attention from the narrative after Dipper gives up on pursuing her :( Alex Hirsch wishes he could've written an episode like yours
(Also shoutout to Gretchen her presence is very fun and she has good takes and ideas, big Gretchen fan)
"Well, at least I still have my personality."
Wendy: THEY TOOK OUR PERSONALITY!
23:34 and then her dad cuts down the painting thinking it's a real tree
Mabel is honestly one of the best female characters in cartoom history imo. She's girly and loves feminine stuff but she's a capable young girl who's clever and strong. As a girl who leans more towards stereotypically masculine interests, I feel like the idea that femininity is a strong girl's enemy really offputting.
They did great with Mabel. Why was a teenage girl so hard to write?
the concept for the stealing episode is so incredible oh my god
An interesting wendy episode could be if dipper had like a body swap with her and he saw how wendy is parentified into being a mother role to her brothers.
I never cared for Wendy cuz they never gave me a reason to care. She was just the source of character’s obsession, which was annoying, and “cool”. This meant was hyped up a lot, but didn’t do much besides be kind of annoying for the entirety of s1.
I think a Wendy episode would’ve fixed that. S2 made her better, but only marginally. I wish there was more to her to latch onto.
I think you are talking it too seriously. Wendy isn't a main character. She is a side character. Dipper and Mabel are the main characters. "She never gave me a reason to care." Do you need one. Also her relationship with Dipper is more of a running gag than a real relationship. What's wrong with being laid back at chill.
I feel like the fact that Wendys symbol was "ice" was so weird? Because there was no explanation expect for the "cool as ice" thing. And occasionally she is next to an ice cube. I really missed the build up towards her symbol
Katniss isn’t the best example. Her background and situation provide plenty of reason she focuses on the practicalities. She grew up in the poorest district, having to be the family breadwinner when her father died in a hazardous line of work. She has to hunt so her mother and sister have something to eat, a key part of the relationship she has with Gale. The glitz, glamour and style represents a lifestyle she could never have hoped to achieve, and the circumstances of the Games do nothing to make it desirable. The population of Lady Gagas in District 1 never had to work, proper work, for their wealth, clothes and cosmetics. The way the loss of human life is treated as a game alienates her to the fashions even more.
^^exactly. Took the words out of my mouth
6:08 you forget in the episode after tale of two stands wendy talks to ford by saying "Sup stan two"
I love how the entire last 5 minutes perfectly encapsulate why the writers struggled so much writing a Wendy focused episode
The coexist thing reminds me of the anime re:creators. It's an anime about characters from many different universes coming to the real world and getting in various fights/trouble. One of the side plots is the growing friendship between Alicetaria (hardcore serious battle woman in armor) and Mamika (super cutsey magical girl.) One is very much a physically strong female character type, the other super girly, but the two of them get along extremely well. They have important advice to give each other and they help each other grow. Neither is discounted for being too girly or not girly enough. I want to see more stuff like that.
a lot of the comments are already talking about this but i'm just gonna echo the sentiment: there's nothing wrong with female characters just being 0% feminine and rejecting femininity. there's nothing written into the dna of any girl that says they have to be feminine, to any extent. there's nothing wrong with women being uncomfortable in dresses and disliking pink. women have different personalities. the problem is that there's either only one or the other: the pink girl or the rugged girl, and if one is the protagonist the other is usually the antagonist, rather than these being just two of MANY different types of women that can exist, all of whom can be friends with each other and actually TALK to each other, instead of just being secondary characters to male leads or lone female leads surrounded by a male love triangle
like yeah, what's wrong with wearing dresses and liking pink? more male characters should do that lol
there's just an overall dearth of diversity of experiences in media because it's trying to appeal to the broadest market. audiences don't like feminine women because they're seen as weak, but they sure as HELL don't like actual butch, completely masculine women. female characters have to exist Just So, the entire problem with Writing Wendy
what if wendy got a paint brush from a yard sale or secondhand store then it brings the paintings to life like the spongebob episode or opens portals like the barbie movie or something similar
Good video, unfortunately, there wasn't enough She-Hulk in it
Man i wish they wouldve made that wendy and stan crime duo episode. That would’ve been so awesome
Something I thought of is that she could've been an environmentalist and vegetarian, something that clashes with her father's job and family culture. She could've been against chopping down trees and harming animals making her more of a "she's so cool, she's so involved" type rather than "she's so cool, she doesn't care about anything".
I forget if they actually had an episode of Wendy driving (minus the Weirdness bubbles in Weirdmageddon) but since she's 15, why not have an episode of Wendy's doing drivers ed? It could be a similar thing of Wendy helping Stan during a heist, but instead he uses her as a getaway driver in exchange for free driver's ed lessons from Stan?
That's the typical age of teenagers getting their learner's permit in the United States and it could show a bond between Stan and Wendy while incorporating her into the story organically. The reasoning could be as simple as her dad's giant stature broke their old car and she's been late getting to work by biking over there. Stan would notice that and find a way to help Wendy while helping himself in the process.
Your video essays are of such good quality! Keep it up, and thank you for your work and time!
I think a good Wendy episode would be her and one other character getting trapped in a survival situation and as she absolutely slays at getting them food and protecting them the other asks her questions about where she learned all this shit she ends up delving into how it feels being the only girl in such a insane masculine family with a dead mom. I imagine a scene where she’s just casually doing all this badass shit handling it like it’s nothing while talking about her childhood
Chill, unattainable love interest whose non-reactions to awkward male fumbles and lack of an inner life reveal just how much of a male fantasy and non-character she is. Reminds me of Jackie from Star vs, tho Wendy had at least some personality. Might you take a similar look at Lord Dominator's character from Wander over Yonder? I still remember the reaction to "oh, another Lord Hater wants to win over Dominator episode - ugh" on the AV Club and I agreed even tho I loved WoY.
Okay so, you guys mentioned a plot for Wendy, but what if Wendy's mom was a different mom to the other siblings. Hear me out, her mom was a nymph! Maybe her seeing her family cut down trees makes her uncomfy because she didn't know that! Literally imagine if they had let her be like one with nature and Dipper being attracted is more so because he sees shes different to others - not because of other girls but because she is LITERALLY DIFFERENT from other girls. Like, so much could be done like say she painted the painting but its of a willow she adores near her home which is actually her mother...but one day when her father gets mad about not being able to chop it to extend the land she runs aware to the Pines' place for a few days.
I like the idea of Mable and Dipper being like, "what if there's more to this". Cool Wendy waves it off while you can see how uncomfy she is the entire episode of them assuming who her mother was over her wishes. Either way, episode ends with her standing up for her differences and they don't find out about her mom. BUT the very last few seconds of the episode shows the tree shifting and watching Windy walk away with a smile before shifting back or maybe she leaves but leaves Wendy a gift once the entire tree is just up and gone. Maybe a paint brush made of one of her tree limbs or something.
WHich to add on COULD HAVE GIVEN WENDY MORE EPISODES OR MOMENTS TO LEAN ON. Her telling Dipper he doesn't like her but the idea of her and just studying her, which could have put in motion a Dipper and Ford episode where Ford reflects on a similar thing in his life - be it with a guy or woman since Disney could be flexible and hide it as "friends" if they had desired. Maybe the paint brush helped them in the finale and she had to paint a doorway to help them escape. Maybe she went into the dreamscape and made a deal with triangle man Bill in order to FINALLY meet her mother.
I'm so frustrated because we were so robbed. I wish they had the women they needed on that writing team. The show was good, don't get me wrong. The writing is funny and witty, but I feel like Wendy could have been such a strong backbone to the Disney Channel woman line up, Thankfully, we do have Anne from Amphibia and others from that show, the owl house, star vs and so on.
I would have been cool with the show not having Pacifica in exchange for Wendy getting more screen time.
That’s too big of a sacrifice, for me it would’ve been if we got rid of Candy or Gretchen
@@BlueBlazeKing I'd hate that too, gf doesn't need to get rid of anyone in order to make wendy better, it ain't zero sum
no offense but pacifica is an objectively better character than wendy
“she has one large dad because she couldn’t afford a mother” 😭😭😭
7:20 she does do a "lumberjacky" thing in Into the Bunker when she climbs the tree with a belt. Also, I don't disagree with most of the criticisms made in this video, but I do find it a stretch to say her character was wasted. The episodes where she is involved in the adventure are great and she does show more personality in those, like how she genuinely likes Dipper as a friend or the multiple times where she gives Mabel advice or the friend group dynamics in Love God. I think what is there is actually really good, it just would have been nice to see even more of Wendy in other episodes.
I will also say, just because Wendy is female doesn't mean she needs to have a conflict about femininity.
that a good point
Wendy has a great chance fore being awesome, based on The Blind Eye Society ep. She mentions how stressed she is all the time, cause of her family. They could explore more on that...
Obsessed with the Wendy tree painting episode
18:14 that’s one of the many things that I love about the female characters in Avatar The Last Airbender. The first thing I think of is Suki’s line “I’m a warrior, but I’m a girl too.” Not to mention Katara and Toph being the most powerful benders whilst being girls with strong personalities.
It might not be a lot, but I really appreciated that, in the book of Bill, Bill mentioned that Wendy constantly dreams about her mother. It's a small detail but it does add some depth to her.
It's funny cause in both pitch bibles, Wendy has a conflict with Manly Dan trying to get her to conform to his way of life. It's not totally "in line" with her character but it's certainly a start. Must have been a lot of spinning plates that left her undercooked
I’m sorry. I know this video is about Wendy but Alex Hirsch’s grandpa had some crazy charisma. He married his wife 3 weeks after they met. Got divorced and married the woman again and I’m guessing stayed with her for life. That’s crazy
"Coolness" just isn't a sustainable character trait, because coolness is in the eye of the beholder, not the character themselves. That laid-back, indifferent attitude about everything is something a lot of people might admire from the outside, but on the inside, everyone cares about something. Someone else in the comments pointed out that regardless of how feminine or tomboyish these girl characters are, they still need to be appealing and aspirational--the focus is on how they seem to other people. "Cool" characters are built from the outside looking in, rather than the inside out.
that's a good point
with Wendy allways chilling out and having her lil club of teenage rascals, why wasn't she used as a "guide" to the town? Like what if she was the one to suggest to the others to go minigolfing or to the pool instead of her happening to be somewhere or not even being there at all. THey could have done a running gag where she works all over town and everytime she introduces them to a new spot she gives them all this lore and the others ask "how do you know all this stuff?" and she's like "oh i work here" and maybe has specific hats for every job (and that's why she likes the mystery shack the most, she gets to wear her own hat and be and express herself)
I also felt like the writer's kind of favored Dipper when it came to story lines and character arcs (which could be a reason why people don't like Mabel). I mean in season 1 alone, Dipper had about 9 episodes with a major storyline, and Mabel had only about 4. In all those dipper episodes, SEVEN of them were Wendy episodes. The ones I would consider keeping are The Inconveniencing, Double Dipper, Land Before Swine, and the Halloween episode because I felt like they really added to Dipper's character development. But the Deep End, Fight Fighters and Boyz Crazy were completely unnecessary because Dipper just learns the same lesson, or the lesson is stupid. Fight Fighter's lesson was... i guess you have to fight your own battles? It was just kind of a stupid lesson and doesn't really relate to Dipper's character. The Deep End has the same lesson as Time Traveler's Pig so it was redundant, and Boyz Crazy was basically the same as well. I felt like those episodes could have been replaced with ACTUAL Wendy episodes or Mabel episodes instead of being always centered around Dipper. And I definitely agree with having more female writers on the staff, maybe then we would've got more Mabel or Wendy episodes.
I feel like tree mom is a pretty popular plot but I think it would have fit in really well in the show
They'd actually been planning a b plot with Wendy and Stan bonding over their shared shoplifting prowess and him teaching her all sorts of criminal tricks, ending with Stan walking back and advising her to take a different path and not end up like him and losing a significant portion of his life to jail and having to flee several states, but they weren't able to fit it in to any episodes. Which is a massive shame.
That sounded amazing, big shame it wasn't put into the show
you could do a wendy episode where wendy discovers her mom ran away and wendy finds here and learns she has been living with the manotaurs and is actually even more insane and over the top then her dad and brothers. she ends up showing her mom that the way she's living is unhealthy only for her mom to be disgusted by the idea that there's more to life then physical power and wendy ends up going home to here dad and brothers doing very girly things, hoping it'll make wendy come back or something.
it'd end with wendy telling them that it's best they just be themselves and they instantly rip off the dresses they were wearing and run to the woods with their axes as wendy looks at an image of the family when she was young and smiles.
I think part of the problem is that people keep referring to Wendy as a "woman" when she's actually only fifteen. To quote this post, " ... and when she has any downtime, which is the entirety of her job there she's never doing anything, she's always reading a magazine or something or like not paying attention and I'm like, 'There's no way this woman zones out her entire life' she has to have something she likes to do." Again, she's fifteen. Most 15-year-olds do exactly that. They sit around doing absolutely nothing alone or they sit around doing absolutely nothing with their friends. She is shown several times going to parties and getting into shenanigans (always wanted to use that word) with her little gang of misfits.
As far as why the writers didn't swap out Soos for Wendy every now and then? They did on a few occasions but it also makes sense that she rarely hung out with the others when they weren't at work. Being a 15-year-old she left her job as soon as possible to hang with her friends. How many 15-year-olds do you know who want to hang out with children and adults (that they're not related to) in their free time? None.
I think the "why doesn't she act her age" issue is multifaceted. First, the show is animated so it's a bit tougher to distinguish "middle" ages. Kids are obviously kids and old people are obviously old but everyone in the middle is harder to pin down. I thought Soos was at least 30 until his birthday was revealed. Second, Wendy is constantly referred to as "too old" for Dipper's affections when, in fact, she's less than three years older than him. When Dipper and Mabel turn thirteen Wendy is still fifteen. Certainly there's can be a big difference in maturity between thirteen and fifteen (more in girls than boys) but it's played more like Dipper is just starting middle school and Wendy is college age. Third, Linda Cardellini (who I love) has such a recognizable voice and is in her forties.
I 100% agree that Wendy could have been "used" better as a character (especially in the second season) but I don't know that I would say she was "wasted." Just my opinion. BTW, I definitely don't see Wendy as a painter. She's the guitarist/singer of a punk band.
Book of bill added some to her, I always liked Wendy but I can see by this video that yeah she got the short end of the stick, but maybe if more content comes along in book form or spinoff, Wendy will get more individuality and spotlight moments
I think feminine female characters are apparent in the show; there's Mable and Pacifica for example. There's female characters in the middle, like soos's girlfriend and Candy. And on the less typically feminine (stereotypical female) side of the scale, female characters like Wendy and Grenda. I get that it may be critiqued because Wendy is the love interest, but maybe it just played out that Dipper just likes Wendy, and her differences in terms of the spectrum of gender/femininity doesn't matter as much as it may seem for the time the show was created.
The "Wendy's mom turned into a tree" concept is so good actually
i don't think wendy is a hard character to write. esp when they already have those small scenes to peel away to reveal her character. Had they incorporated her more in the ensemble-heavy episodes, gave her 1-2 episodes for herself (same as soos), while also having her own motivation (again soos becoming the mystery shack owner holding as an example) would really have improved her character
Wendy came, she served, and then they put her back in her box
We got roadside attraction and so many other honestly kind of boring episodes, but we couldn’t get any of these amazing wendy concept episodes? That’s so sad
I was literally watching one of your videos as this came out, what a treat!
Nah bc u were on to something with the tree... maybe it could've been like a tree wendy was always attached to and her dad tried to cut it down but she fights for it and they beef and the tree is her mom's spirit and it talks to her dad and he stops being so crazy and her family feels more complete🌞
Honestly I think it's fine she wasn't delved in that much. Honestly that's probably why she was my favorite character. She has a pretty solid personality and was interesting enough that I could go wild with headcanons for her that wouldn't go against anything canon.
She's in the title cards a lot because she's dipper's motivation for a lot of stuff that happened but if we just look at the show, her role is pretty much more of a supporting cast, just a bit more relevant than candy and grenda and forcing her into scenes where she doesn't fit just for her to have more screentime would have been what ruined her.
On the one hand, it sucks we never got a Wendy episode. On the other, I think the reasoning for it actually comes from a good, well meaning place; they didn't want to fuck up her character and wanted to give her, as a character, the amount of love and talent they had for writing all the others. I don't even think it was them prioritizing other episodes over her, necessarily, but natural time constraints and that desire to really make a story that would do her justice they just could never iron out. Should they have taken that chance and tried to make that episode anyway? Probably. But do I, as a writer myself, respect that decision in a way, in trusting your gut and just knowing something isn't working? Yeah. Still, you can't let that hold you back.
EPISODE IDEA: (sorry its long). I wish they executed that story at 11:00 minutes in the video. Where Wendy was caught stealing from the shack because it was a cry for help since her home life wasn't going so well and stan would teach her how to steal, picklocks, and be a master criminal like him so he had a "partner in crime" since he was lonely and didn't have friends and everyone else was busy that day. I think this would be an awesome episode idea because we don't see much of the supporting characters and this way we would learn more about them while they had an episode dedicated to them for once. I would change it to they both got put in jail and the police said we have to call Ur dad Wendy, and she was begging no and going crazy. Then stan somehow talked the police out of it by lying and saying Soos was her guardian or her dad was out of town so her "uncle" Soos had to get her. Then stan and Wendy had a heart to heart and she would open up about her childhood with flashbacks and stan would open up as well but when it got deep and stan was going to reveal an important secret that would contribute to Ford and Bill, Soos would show up to pick them up. Stan would have to stay in jail because hes an adult but when the police leave Wendy and Soos make a master plan and Wendy sneaks back in and picks stans jail cell lock setting him and the rest of the poeple in there free. so it would be full circle since stan taught her how to pick a lock in the beginning of the episode. Then Soos would drive them to get tacos.
Wendy: you used me, FOR SOMEONE ELSE’S character development!!!! That wasn’t nice
absent minded tangent but i think if they had an episode where they discussed wendy always hanging out with the teens and having a rebellious streak because she's at odds with her hyper macho family, and that she was raised in a way that never allowed her to act like a boy on account of her fathers attitude towards women but that she also never got to be a girl thanks to her being put in a higher pedestal because of the same ideas, and these things getting worse after her mother leaving/passing because her dad having no idea how to properly raise a girl would be good for her story i think and she could have a heartwarming moment with her family if these things were placed into the plot of an episode, also it's a fucking mega shame that the stan wendy robbery plot never got put in an episode. if they had just two episodes that were about her she'd be elevated from her current standing to a top tier girl character
pls bring your friend in for more of your videos i cant stop laughing at that last part
I just noticed that at 3:08-3:09, there’s a animation error where a part of Wendy’s shirt turns Red.
Fucking lost it when Kat Victorious comes down and it still plays Bills theme
wendy's a real thin character but she does play a simple and effective role of just being dope. every time she shows up its just like 'oh wendy is here, sick' i kinda fw that
It’s really interesting the fact that Wendy was created just for the sake of being Dipper’s love interest, I guess the writers where really desperate to have a *12* year old fall in love with a *15* year old, and that’s the *only* reason why she was created
Throughout that whole middle section, I couldn't stop thinking about Buffy Summers. She dressed up in a super cute Red Riding Hood costume for Halloween, and when Xander tried creeping on her, she pointed out that she's heavily armed. She cocked a grenade launcher while talking about looking cute in a tiara. A literal hellhound couldn't stop her from going to Prom. And all of this was in the late 90s, before that era of "Strong Female Protagonists" rejecting femininity. Also, don't forget that during that era, we still had Powerpuff Girls (sugar! Spice! Everything nice!), Kim Possible was a cheerleader, and Totally Spies saved the world with top of the line fashion accessories.
I thought basically the exact same thing while watching this. I think the video oversimplifies things a little bit trying so neatly to divide the feminist depiction trends in the 2000's, 2010's, and 2020's. Even looking at Whedon specifically, Buffy is a protagonist who embraces femininity while being a strong character, but his very next series, Firefly, has the female lead of Zoe, who usually doesn't embrace feminine traits or roles besides (very) occasionally in the context of her marriage.
Still some good stuff in here, but the reality is moreso that these two interpretations exist on a spectrum, and even though the pendulum does swing in favor of one or another at different times, both have coexisted and will probably continue to.
ooow😯
@@MrEvilHarmony goood point
I don’t like how people’s criticism of the 2010’s strong female character trope was that “She’s too masculine. She can’t hate dresses or pink because some of the female audience likes it.” Masculine women exist. Women who don’t like pink and dresses exist. The issue was that they were one dimensional characters.
i loved her as a gay lil gremlin, it’s a shame we didn’t get better characterisation + development for her ^_^’
I rewatched gravity falls a couple weeks ago and I did notice how Wendy’s characterization really was a product of the show’s time. Mostly during the last mabelcorn, I saw a lot of Wendy rejecting femininity and being strong and tough, which is kinda solidified in the scene with the “we’re women, we’re sweaty animals and take what we want” line. While i appreciate that the episode is trying to tell us that women shouldn’t have to exist in a specific way to be valid, I also don’t like how Wendy was rejecting being girly and liking girly things like Mabel and the others yknow? Ig it was just a product of its time + the lack of women in the writers room. Justice for Wendy’s character!!!!
It seems like people are divided among Wendy hating girly things being a odd choice as you can be strong and like those things. And people who say it's fine that he doesn't as there's girls and women who just don't
This is my idea on how they could've done something better w/ Wendy. I feel like she should've been more built up in early season 1 with the idea that dipper sees wendy as a "perfect unattainable girl". I would've presented Wendy in a more realistic light, where she's likeable but can be annoying. An episode called "Not What She Seems" that would replace Fight Fighters where dipper's entire perspective changes. (In my ver of Gravity Falls any Wendy ep with her friends are not shown and is just eps with Wendy alone)
The plot of this episode would be something like the lost "Wendy shoplifting" ep but instead Stan sees that they have been getting a short supply of items and suspects either Soos or Wendy to be the culprit. Dipper, Mabel, Wendy and Soos assume that Stan will fire whoever did it, which tears the shack apart. Mabel sides with Soos and Dipper sides with Wendy. This episode is in the complete perspective of Dipper, so he tries to find clues to prove that Wendy isn't guilty. Wendy gets more unbearable as the ep goes on until the cat's out of the bag and it's revealed that Wendy did the shoplifting. Dipper's world is turn upside down and snaps at Wendy and goes on a whole spiel on how he thought Wendy was a perfect person which moves Wendy, while Mabel and Soos tell Stan that Wendy was the shoplifter which ends up with Stan commending her skill.
This frees up the Dipper crush episodes leaving us more eps on restoring Wendy as a likeable character, Dipper would of course still not trust Wendy until DreamScaprers. Soos would be absent this ep and would be filled in by Wendy. Instead of the personal conflict lie with Dipper and Stan it would lie with Dipper and Wendy. Wendy and Mabel would see Gideon summoning Bill and warn Dipper. Wendy would urge Dipper to allow her to help but denies her, but the only way to enter Stan's mind is through three people saying an encantion forcing Wendy to be a helper. Stan's mind would be more treachorous and would feature Wendy saving dipper a couple of times but still not changing Dipper's attitude until Bill assumes Wendy's identity just as he did with Soos. Dipper seeing this would confirm his thoughts that Wendy hasn't changed, but then the real Wendy comes and the Into the Bunker fight would happen with Wendy coming out on top. Then Wendy says some wholesome stuff of how Dipper helped her become the best self she can be or something. Then in season 2, her conflict will be about coming to terms with her family and seeing the consequences of becoming a more responsible person in the form of her friends thinking she's now bland and boring.
Fight Fighters is one of my favorite episodes in the whole show that one is a masterpiece. Please add and episode instead of murdering a wonderful one.
@@icecreamhero2375 I was trying to make as little changes to the order of the eps as possible and I was going to replace Bottomless pit but ifeel like that was too late in the season. If i had ful lliberty over the eps to fit in wendy's sub plot it would go like this:
edit: geez i really spent 2 hours doing this...
1. Tourist Trapped
2. Legend of the GobbleWonker (but with wendy)
3. HeadHunters (with wendy again)
4. The Hand that Rocks the Mabel
5. Dipper vs Manliness (Switched from The Inconveniencing, Dipper's motivation will be to impress Wendy not because of the machine)
6. Double Dipper (No Robby)
7. Irrational Treasure
8. Fight Fighters (Introduction to Robby as the anxty bully but isn't revealed to know Wendy)
9. The Inconveniencing ( Reveal of wendy's friends and Robby's affiliation with Wendy)
10. The Time Traveller's Pig (no Robby, and Wendy gets angry at Dipper for everytime the ball hits her)
11. Little Dipper (Wendy makes fun of Dipper's height as well )
12. Not what She seems ( same plot as what I previously said but in the end Wendy quits due to being embarrassed)
13.Summerween (no Robby nor Wendy; Dipper tries to take his mind off of the last episode)
14. Lumber Life ( Replaces Boss Mabel; Ep about Mabel checking up on Wendy, to reveal Wendy's terrible home life with her overbearing dad. Mabel sees the reason for Wendy's behaviour, but makes Wendy have a change of heart by telling her of what Dipper saw her as; B plot would be a Soos and Dipper mystery )
15. The Deep End ( Mabel's story stays the same; Dipper's story is about him trying to avoid Wendy, with her trying to find Dipper climax will be split between Dipper and Mabel, Mabel would be trying to outrun Mr Poolcheck with Mermando in the back of the cart, while Dipper and Wendy meet for the first time since ep 12, Wendy tries to apologise but Dipper refuses)
16. Carpet Diem (Wendy comes back to the Shack because the pool job pays terribly and needs to provide for the family, Dipper is distant about it but Mabel is glad to see her back; the C plot would be about Wendy trying to apologise to Soos but Soos switches with Waddles and Wendy has to find Soos's body, ending with Wendy regaining Soos' trust)
17. Boyz Crazy (Wendy joins the girls as a "baby sitter" and says that she hates these types of Boy Bands but secretly love them. This ep would create a Bigger sister bond with her and the girls)
18. Land Before Swine
19. Dreamscaperers (With wendy instead of soos, Wendy is forced to help, Wendy saves the day restoring some trust within Dipper)
20. Gideon Rises (The pines family have to live with the Curodroy's revealing to Dipper Wendy's home life, Dipper finally trusts Wendy again)
Season 2 is relatively the same but these would be my changes:
1. Scary-oke
2. Into the bunker (will only be about the shape shifter and not the Wendy subplot )
3. The Golf War
4. Unwanted Mystery (Sock opera will be changed to an ep about the repercussions of Wendy's newfound responsibility with her touble-making friends. The plot will be about her friends wanting to go on a mystery hunt but Dipper wanting to just open the computer, the friends steal the Journal, Bill would still be in the ep and possess Dipper; The friends see their mistakes and apologize and they were just jealous of the mystery gang's adventures)
5. Soos and the Real Girl (I would make a reggie wedding mini arc that would take place)
6. North West-South East ( This ep would follow after the last episode and it would be a Wendy Dipper episode; the plot would be about how the gang needs dates for reggie's wedding, Stan goes with Lady susan Mabel tries to find a way to get mermando to attend, Wendy would go with Robby or something idk. Dipper is left alone with no one and it's up to wendy to help him find a date. Wendy realises that Pacifica would be a great choice and the entire ep is about Wendy trying to convince dipper that he should go with pacifica. Dipper sees that she would be a good fit and asks her but she denies )
7. Society of the Blind Eye
8. NorthWest Mansion Mystery (more akwards tension between Dipper and Pacifica, results in a good relationship between them)
9. Blendin's Game
10. The Love God (Twins and Pacifica episode rather than the weird mabel robby pair; the plot will be about pacifica hanging out with the twins more and more, seeming more urgent to hang with them. It's revealed that she does because her parents have been acting a bit too lovey dovey and it was creeping her out. They trace the weird behaviour to a potion owned by the love god, and they track him down to reverse the potion )
11-14 the same (wendy would be in not what he seems with her friends trying to protest against the fbi)
15: The Last MableCorn ( Wendy teaches Mabel to be more aggressive which mirrors Mabel teaching Wendy to be kinder last season)
16: Reggie's Wedding(this episode would be basically the same as RoadSide attractions but about Dipper trying to ask Pacifica if she wants go as his date to reggie's wedding; the b plot would be a Stan and Ford handling bubbles of weirdness that are spewing out of the crack from the rift. Ending sees the entire gang, including ford, and their dates at the wedding meanwhile back at the shack the crack is shown to get larger )
17.Dipper and Mabel vs the Future (this ep will be the same but nothing bad happens to mabel. Like grenda and candy can go to their party, and she isn't told about the horrors of high school. Dipper's story stays the same, and the reveal that dipper wants to stay in gravity falls is still revealed and drives a wedge between Dipper and Mabel.Mabel still takes the bag with rift but instead of handign it to bill, it breaks on it's on, and bill contains her in her mabel land to keep the twins apart)
Finale stays the same
I'd rather we spend episodes redeeming Dipper... Getting mad at someone because they didn't fit YOUR idealistic image is a bit messed up.
@@aron8268 You don't need to replace episodes you can just have them happen between existing ones and pretend Disney gave them a bigger episode order.
@@aron8268 Dipper going too SooSoo"s wedding feels a little weird. He just met him a few months ago.