If you ask me, “bittersweet” doesn’t begin to describe the Gravity Falls finale. The show premiered right after I graduated middle school, so, through confusingly sporadic scheduling, it grew up with me, despite only having aired forty episodes in total. Obviously, the fans will always miss searching for clues, symbolism, and possible foreshadowing in the background, as well as the ingenious comedy, but what I’ll miss more than anything is the glittery god of destruction herself, Mabel Pines.

I was undoubtedly the strangest kid in my middle school class. I had (and still have) an often confusing sense of humor, I once saw what I wholeheartedly believed to be a UFO outside my window and didn’t hesitate to tell my friends about it, and I believed in Santa Claus until I was going on thirteen. You know how every class has at least one girl who’s freakishly obsessed with horses? That was me. I even started saving up to buy one in fifth grade. Around the time I started high school, I realized how much of a joke I must’ve been to my classmates, and started trying to suppress some of my more “quirky” mannerisms: mostly making jokes that nobody understood and talking too much about interests that my friends didn’t have in common with me.

I probably would’ve kept trying to pass myself off as a “cool kid” - which, upon entering high school, I learned is entirely a myth created by tween sitcom writers - if I hadn’t started watching this show. At first, it was just something funny and mildly intriguing to enjoy, but as it went on, I found myself becoming more and more drawn to Mabel, eventually realizing how similar I’d been to her as a preteen (and still am, to some extent).

Pictured: Evidence that Mabel and I may actually be one and the same.

We had reservations about growing up and losing some of our innocence, we had passions that our well-intentioned families didn’t quite understand, we were unapologetically bizarre in nature, and to this day, the guilt of having forgotten many of my stuffed animals’ names is killing me. The main difference is that, while Mabel tried to suppress her silliness for one episode, I tried for roughly two years.

Her eccentricity helped uncover a government conspiracy, her unexpected choice of souvenir from the Mystery Shack in the pilot saved her life on multiple occasions, and the first thing her great uncle Ford said upon meeting her was, “I like this kid. She’s weird.” She didn’t succeed in spite of her quirks, but because of them. Seeing her weirdness be not only accepted, but also often celebrated, was a godsend. I latched onto the character like velcro, embracing the lingering oddness leftover from my own childhood: my stims, my special interests (namely Disney, Dreamworks, and later cosmetics, in case you couldn’t tell), my weird jokes, anything that I couldn’t “grow out of”. I doubt Alex Hirsch’s intent was to code Mabel as an autistic character, but most autistic characters are written as stereotypes difficult for real people to identify with. So, to a good number of autistic people, her physical mannerisms (i.e. hand-flapping; rocking back and forth), funny noises, and intense focus on her interests make her more relatable than some actual autistic characters (looking at you, Girl Meets World).

But whether you’re autistic or not, characters like Mabel Pines are more important than some may realize. They give validation to kids - girls especially - who are more similar to the freaky comedic side character on their favorite shows than to the completely-average-yet-still-a-misfit main character. A look at what makes Mabel Mabel will show that Gravity Falls did what really only a handful of series tend to do with female characters. In most fictional boy-girl duos, the boy acts as the rowdy comic relief and the girl only hangs around him to roll her eyes at how immature and constantly off-track he is. A lot of writers assume that this dynamic makes for better female representation, but when female characters are pigeonholed into constantly being the straight man of the group (which, more often than not, is entirely male with her being the exception), it only supports the notion that girls are supposed to be just one thing. Maybe that’s better than implying that the one thing we’re supposed to be is a passive, subservient housewife, but it can still result in the token girl being the least developed character out of all of them. This SNL sketch just about sums up the hypocrisy of it.

If girls don’t grow up hearing that beauty should be our top priority, we hear that it’s more important to be smart, but not enough people point out that it’s more important still to be confident in yourself and good to others. Even if she was insecure about it at times (who isn’t?), Mabel already knew that, as shown through endeavors such as her brief stint as manager of the Mystery Shack, victory over a brain demon through the weaponization of kittens, and use of the confetti cannon to fend off a zombie attack. Her creativity, confidence, and undying faith in her loved ones make her no less admirable than Kim Possible or Lisa Simpson. There’s nothing wrong with a girl being smart and serious, but we should be celebrating girls of all different mindsets. When we don’t, we’re not giving young female viewers their due. Kids who are like I was when I was young need characters like Mabel Pines, Star Butterfly, and Lucy Wilde. They need to see that, although it’s great to be smart and quick-witted, people who are weird and even obnoxious at times are no less valid. Mabel is a huge part of what made me realize I wanted to someday go into screenwriting and create more characters that break the “one serious girl in a crowd of goofy yet lovable men” trope. I only wish more of them had been around when I was a kid. Us awkward, horse-obsessed girls could use them.

So farewell, Gravity Falls, and thanks for giving the weird kids our day.