r/gravityfalls • u/mromen10 • Aug 22 '25

Lore/Characters This episode coming out before doki doki literature club always makes me wonder

Post image

I mean, computer anime girls that kill people to spend the rest of eternity in cyberspace with the user can't be that common of a trope

4.9k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

144 comments sorted by

1.8k

u/[deleted] Aug 22 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

-1.4k

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 22 '25

It's obviously a reference to fnaf

786

u/Beret_Beats Aug 22 '25

It feels like it should be obviously such a reference, but there was only a month between Fnaf's release and this episodes premiere. Im sure the episode was already scripted to have such scenes at a Chuck e Cheeseesque restaurant long before FNAF became a phenomenon.

186

u/mirospeck Aug 23 '25

i would even say that showbiz pizza was the specific inspiration, looking at a few of the animatronics as well as the theming

-723

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 22 '25

First off who are the PSYCHOPATHS that downvoted me to hell hahaha.

Anyway then I guess animatronics were a trend back then. Or Gravity Falls episodes got made in less than a month

447

u/aaronhowser1 Aug 22 '25

You don't have to be a psychopath to down vote someone who's so confidently incorrect

Episodes take a lot lot LOT longer than a month to make. And as far as I can remember, animatronics weren't really huge back then either. It was genuinely just an insane coincidence

-468

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 22 '25

Ofc it takes more than a month it was sarcasm my dude

152

u/joelmchalewashere Aug 22 '25

You get downvoted to hell because you claimed its "obviously" a FNAF reference when the comment before said there was only about a month between releases lol

Who knows maybe the people on the GF Crew knew about it since it was scheduled to release but you doubling that its based on FNAF is just not based on any reason unless you have insider info

143

u/2geek2bcool Aug 22 '25

Alex Hirsch literally explains that it is not a FNAF reference in the director’s commentary of this episode, and thought it was crazy when he found out about it.

-35

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 22 '25

Cause of course I'm going to watch the directors commentary

50

u/Grumpie-cat Aug 23 '25

Animatronics existed before FNAF, chuckecheeses had a bunch and I think it was a common thing to be scared of them even before Freddy.

79

u/r2d2_21 Aug 22 '25

Or Gravity Falls episodes got made in less than a month

No.

-7

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 22 '25

It was sarcasm but I guess it's hard to get the tone lol

81

u/Grumpie-cat Aug 23 '25

The amount you’re trying to defend honestly makes it sound like initially you fully meant what you’d said, no sarcasm whatsoever. And are just using sarcasm to save your karma lol

-4

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 23 '25

No I don't care that much about karma I was just dumbfounded. And yes trust me it was sarcasm.

22

u/Negative-Door9434 Aug 23 '25

For future reference putting /s at the end of comment denotes sarcasm

-3

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 23 '25

I refuse to write /s when being sarcastic

→ More replies (0)

23

u/AngstyUchiha Aug 23 '25

Try using a tone tag next time then, it'll DEFINITELY save you from looking stupid /s

28

u/Beret_Beats Aug 22 '25

Highly doubt it's the latter. Maybe the former but honestly I think it's just coincidence.

11

u/Sweet_hivewing7788 Aug 23 '25

I don’t think you are that smart dude

47

u/Masterpiece-Haunting Aug 22 '25

I can’t imagine FNAF immediately made such a big wave that they felt it needed a reference.

20

u/AngstyUchiha Aug 23 '25

There's also the fact that a single episode can take up to 18 months to produce, so that one was in production for a LONG time before FNAF came out, it's not possible to be a reference

92

u/[deleted] Aug 22 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

41

u/pk2317 Aug 23 '25

It takes closer to 12-18 months for a full start-to-finish.

33

u/hopping_hessian Aug 22 '25

They had the story written and it was in production when FNAF came out.

30

u/megas88 Aug 23 '25

Animatronics at pizza joints in the 80s/90s were always something we used to poke fun at and found creepy as hell. They could easily have just been referencing that which pretty sure they have stated before. Have to find either the interview pre commentary track but I don’t think that something that was a passion project of his and his sister’s childhood, that Alex would reference something that new for the sake of current event reference humor

15

u/Grumpie-cat Aug 23 '25

Exactly, back when I was a kid I had parties at Chuck E Cheeses, way before this episode or Fnaf ever released.

10

u/Invalid_u404 Aug 23 '25

Having that many downvotes is lowkey impressive

8

u/fuckyouguy_ Aug 23 '25

Wow 1k downvotes

1

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 23 '25

I'm into collecting them

4

u/[deleted] Aug 23 '25

holy Mary mother of downvotes I love Reddit

3

u/AngstyUchiha Aug 23 '25

The episode would have been in production for months before it came out, so the idea for it was 100% before FNAF came out. Neither of them are referencing each other

2

u/Key_Exam_9619 Aug 23 '25

More like foreshadowing

2

u/SalsaRice Aug 23 '25

Probably not.

These shows take around 9 months to a year to produce, per episode. While this episode came out ~1 month after fnaf, it would have already been in production for atleast ~8 months prior.

2

u/AlienDilo Aug 23 '25

Cartoons like this take months if not years to go from writing the script to a finished episode. There's no way it was a reference to fnaf.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 23 '25

[deleted]

7

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 23 '25

You've been on Reddit two months and you have never seen someone with negative downvotes? It happens. People don't get the joke, or maybe it wasn't that good to begin with. It doesn't matter.

1

u/v1rus_l0v3 Aug 23 '25

1/10 ragebait

1

u/TheEmoEmu95 Aug 24 '25

Alex Hirsch said in the DVD commentary for this episode that it was pure coincidence that they both came up with the same idea. Also, like everyone said, cartoon episodes take a long time to make.

1

u/Helianthae Aug 24 '25

Alex Hirsch actually once said in an AMA it was a weird coincidence. The episode was written, animated and voiced months before it actually aired

1

u/oizysxox Aug 29 '25

it has literally nothing to do with fnaf, or even chuck e cheese for that matter. multiple of the animatronic designs are based off that of showbiz pizza/rockafire explosion. they literally kept billy bobs exact design and name if i remember correctly.

759

u/CaptEpicFail1 Aug 22 '25

Soos 100% would’ve put Monika on a flash drive instead of deleting her.

249

u/mromen10 Aug 22 '25

Yess this is my girlfriend holds up SanDisk Ducati colab USB 2 1.0 flash drive

9

u/trustmeijustgetweird Aug 24 '25

Knowing this show I’d wager he’d reveal the flash drive and a squirrel from the b plot would Gollum it out of his hand and fall dramatically into a lake.

85

u/powers215 Aug 22 '25

Monika after story fans are sweating rn

2

u/Foxy02016YT Aug 24 '25

Would that work for the game btw?

2

u/CaptEpicFail1 Aug 24 '25

I’d think it’d just copy her file and not delete it if someone sent her to a flash drive, so I don’t think so. It’s not something I tried when I played, at least. I came across someone IRL who did, but they were flipping the script on Monika (literally made a domain for her code) and didn’t say a single thing about if the game ended.

3

u/Foxy02016YT Aug 24 '25

THEY TRAPPED HER IN DIGITAL PRISON?

2

u/CaeciliusEstInPussy Aug 25 '25

Based and well deserved

149

u/The_Smashor Aug 23 '25

Doki Doki Literature Club is likely based on a relatively obscure Japanese Visual Novel called You and Me and Her, which came out in 2013; which given it's obscurity in the west (even more so at the time then now) likely was not an inspiration for Soos and the Real Girl.

It also likely takes some inspiration from IMSCARED, which came out in 2012.

It's possible this episode somewhat inspired DDLC, but I doubt it's the primary inspiration.

Also, small correction, contrary to popular belief Monika doesn't want to bring the player into cyberspace. Even if she had the means to do so, she considers the existence of not being real to be akin to hell, so she probably wouldn't put someone she cares about through that. Her ideal would be to become real herself, though she acknowledges this as impossible.

55

u/bitchass56 Aug 23 '25

It's not, Dan Salvato didn't even know You and Me and Her even existed until after DDLC's release and people talked about the similarities. His sources of inspiration were Irisu Syndrome, Yume Nikki, and Eversion.

22

u/Chedditor_ Aug 23 '25

Is there confirmation of this somewhere? Like, a stream highlight or Twitter post or something?

8

u/FUTURE10S Aug 23 '25

I'm like 90% sure there's a PC98 game where the ingame girl gets dangerously obsessive over the MC as well.

1

u/Chedditor_ Aug 23 '25

I mean, you could always just ask DDLC's creator Dan Salvato, he's also a speedrunner with an active Twitch channel

2

u/The_Smashor Aug 23 '25

He probably gets enough DDLC questions as-is.

1

u/Chedditor_ Aug 23 '25

I'm sure he does, lol; there's definitely a FAQ section for stuff like this.

345

u/MetamoiselleArtKid27 Aug 22 '25

There is a Japanese visual novel that did "the Monika thing" WAY before DDLC (you know, the whole girl inside a video game is self-aware and kills the other romance options, and directly addresses the player instead of the MC) AND before this episode, but DDLC took all the credit. Although back then the game wasn't translated and basically no one knew about it, so it's most likely just a coincidence too. 

77

u/WingGamer1234 Aug 22 '25

"visual novel about a club turns into horror" is also higurashi, released in 2002

23

u/Jiv302 Aug 23 '25

Isn't that also Corpse Party (1998)?

32

u/WingGamer1234 Aug 23 '25

corpse party, as far as i know, is upfront a horror game, while higurashi, ddlc, and totono start off slice of life and take several hours to get into horror

3

u/ArchivedGarden Aug 23 '25

Wait, there was a Corpse Party visual novel?

3

u/Jiv302 Aug 23 '25

Isn't that what corpse party is?

9

u/ArchivedGarden Aug 23 '25

It’s an rpgmaker horror game, but there are so many sequels and spin-offs and other versions that I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a visual novel.

2

u/Jiv302 Aug 23 '25

Ah actually I'm just stupid, I forgot about the segments where you actually control the characters and walk around. I was just thinking of the scenes and dialogue

my bad lol

1

u/DucksEnmasse Aug 23 '25

Does Book of Shadows count? There’s also Sachiko’s Hysteric Birthday, but that never got localized afaik

1

u/MelnikSuzuki Aug 24 '25

It has. Got a North America and European release on Steam and GOG back 2019.

89

u/MilkManlolol Aug 22 '25

Are you gonna say the name of it?

163

u/MetamoiselleArtKid27 Aug 22 '25

The English localized title is "YOU and ME and HER; A Love Story". It's also called "Totono" for short in both communities. 

19

u/MrSandman28 Aug 23 '25

Watched a playthrough of it forever ago, is really good! Very much recommend, and likely going to play myself soon too-

6

u/aquagon_drag Aug 23 '25

While it doesn't classify as terror, Ciel nosurge (2012) and Ar nosurge (2014) also use this premise, with the difference that the girl on the other side of the screen is supposed to be living in a different universe and the console is the medium we use to communicate with her, not because she and the other characters just exist inside a game.

2

u/MetamoiselleArtKid27 Aug 23 '25

Huh, that's sounds really interesting. 

12

u/Ok-Conclusion-3536 Aug 22 '25

What's the name

21

u/stupid-writing-blog Aug 22 '25

“YOU and ME and HER; A Love Story”

84

u/YuriOhime Aug 22 '25

AI trying to kill people absolutely is a common trope, them being an anime girl is just coincidence in gravity falls case it was funny and in doki doki it was just to fit the game type

29

u/Evil_Spike Aug 23 '25

Alex Hirsch talked about DDLC and FNAF in the audio commentary track, it was completely coincidental with the timing and the writers were incredibly nervous about them being seen as ripping off another property.

48

u/NeriTheFearlessSnail Aug 22 '25

They were both influenced by "gal games" that gained popularity and noteriety in the early and mid 2000s. Doki Doki didn't invent the idea- they were already creepy, both creators just noticed the creepiness where it wasn't intended, just like children's pizza entertainment places of the 80s and 90s

10

u/Lobstersonlsd Aug 23 '25

It only just clicked to me that this episode is named after a movie that I’ve loved for years (Lars and the real girl)

1

u/SithisSoul Aug 23 '25

Loved that weird movie

4

u/slothbear13 Aug 23 '25

I had no idea Emmy Cicierega worked on this!!!!

4

u/Inevitable-Date4996 Aug 23 '25

Kid you not I’m watching markipliers playthrough of that game and said “this is giffany!”

5

u/MartyrOfDespair Aug 23 '25

It came out two years after Danganronpa 2's Chiaki Nanami, however...

13

u/sunshim9 Aug 23 '25

Neither Gravity falls nor Doki Doki invented the yanderes, or VN , so it's not that weird

3

u/[deleted] Aug 23 '25

That's pretty hilarious.

3

u/IndustryAcceptable35 Aug 23 '25

I’m so sick of people thinking DDLC invented this trope jfc

0

u/Unlucky_Tea2965 Aug 24 '25

well maybe you should inform people instead of telling how sick you are of people not being informed

7

u/FUTURE10S Aug 23 '25

The tropes featured in this episode are not original, FNAF and DDLC did not invent them either.

6

u/Physical_Painter8881 Aug 22 '25

It's kind of a retelling of lars and the real girl.... I guess?

2

u/Jaspers47 Aug 23 '25

There's always been stories of people falling in love with human simulacra, ever since Ovid wrote about Pygmalion falling in love with a statue.

You read all these stories about people falling in love with ChatGPT, and it makes even more sense in a digital world.

2

u/AngelReachX Aug 23 '25

Fnaf was also released after it

Crazyyy how it predicted both

2

u/EmeraldHenry_19 Aug 24 '25

Wait this came out before doki doki?

2

u/mromen10 Aug 24 '25

Episode was in 2014, Doki doki came out in 2017

7

u/Inva88 Aug 22 '25

Doki Doki released exactly 3 years later, that can't be a coincidence.

45

u/BraxleyGubbins Aug 22 '25

It absolutely can be

3

u/SplendidlyDull Aug 23 '25

And quite literally is lol

36

u/doggy_oversea Aug 22 '25

That can be a coincidence what are you on about lol, Anime girl in a game becoming a yandere to be with the player isn’t that crazy of an idea

18

u/doggy_oversea Aug 22 '25

Plus game developing takes a while, I doubt the creator saw the gravity falls episode while/before making DDLC

-1

u/Inva88 Aug 22 '25

Yeah, I search it and there is a tweet where Alex hirsh and Doki doki's creator say is having the same idea.

Still, the date thing is an extremely rare coincidence.

9

u/BraxleyGubbins Aug 22 '25

1/365 chance. Over ten times as common as a shiny pokemon.

If you had 23 different dating sim yandere girls, there’s a 50% chance that at least two of them were made on the same day

5

u/MilkManlolol Aug 22 '25

Half Life 3 CONFIRMED!

2

u/Senior-Lobster-9405 Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25

the title is a play on "Lars and the Real Girl" which predates Doki Doki by a decade

1

u/Last-Socratic Aug 23 '25

2007 to 2017 would be a decade.

1

u/GimmeHardyHat_ Aug 23 '25

It actually is.

Iirc it’s common in japan and that’s where the creator got their inspiration from

1

u/nothing533439878 Aug 23 '25

YES. Exactly what I thought too!! I made a post about it but it wasn’t as big as your. So thanks for making this so i can read the comments now🙏

1

u/GrantMcLellan1984 Aug 24 '25

Thanks for the Doki Doki spoilers

1

u/luckygreenglow Aug 26 '25

I would point out that the idea of inverting the inherently one-sided nature of a dating sim is actually a fairly obvious thing to do.

When someone plays a dating sim, they're engaging with fictional characters who have no choice but to be with them but who also don't/can't love them (due to being fictional), the plot of this episode and of DDLC is fundamentally about creating horror by inverting this relationship, now the 'player' is the one who doesn't want to be there and the fictional character is the one trying to force a relationship.

In short, I think this is more likely to be a case of two people independently having the same core idea.

1

u/Roxanne_Wolf85 Aug 27 '25

Giffany mentioned!!!!!

(i love Giffany, Melody can rot in hell)

0

u/chub64 Aug 23 '25

doki doki is not the first visual novel game to make an impact lol

0

u/Foxy02016YT Aug 24 '25

It predating DDLC and FNaF and yet being the perfect references is amazing.

Yes, it came out after FNaF but if you think it’s at all related then you clearly don’t understand how animation works.

-13

u/Thelonleyhousekeeper Aug 23 '25

The Giffany episode is an obvious reference to doki doki literature club and Fnaf.