Over the course of the last few years, a certain story was told by one Alex Hirsch in association with the Disney Corporation.
It was about the haunting allure of the unknown.
The strain and loss of the well-worn familiar.
It concerned the empowering, self-destructive narcissism found in loneliness and the restrictions one finds themselves chafing against in the presence of close (to the point of contemptuous) companions.
The sun peaked behind the lush crowns of a thousand towering trees, the shimmering waters of a lake turned darkly sublime with depth and dusk, and beneath the earth lay things that could enlighten or damn.
Secrets codes made up the language of choice. Because the young delighted in puzzling games while the old were terrified of saying things outright.
The cast was a menagerie of desperate freaks, bereft in relatable, but deeply personal ways. Getting killed by a pair of geriatric poltergeists in a haunted convenience store might be a pretty rough trade, but in the mind of one Wendy Corduroy, it still beats high school.
Perhaps the greatest joke, the finest running gag in Hirsch’s tale was that it was a largely comedic yarn whose tangles were full of people who wanted to be taken seriously. And they nearly ended the world because of that. Haha. In the end, what separated the wise men from the wise guys, is that some of them were smart enough to realise that being happy and loved was more important.
It was a story about the Ultimate Summer.
And that story, like any summer, has passed.
You have now left Gravity Falls.
I hope you enjoyed your stay.