There won’t be a third season of Disney XD’s animated mystery series, Gravity Falls. The series is coming to an end but the show’s creator, Alex Hirsch, says that it wasn’t cancelled.

It was apparently his decision to bring the story to a close after two seasons. The penultimate episode, titled “Weirdmageddon II: Escape from Reality”, airs tomorrow. The one-hour series finale, “Weirdmageddon III”, will likely air in early 2016.

In a heartfelt message to fans, Hirsch wrote:

There’s no easy way to say it so I’m just going to say it: Gravity Falls is coming to an end. There are two more episodes left: “Weirdmageddon II: Escape from Reality” and “Weirdmageddon III” which will be our hour long series finale. After that, Gravity Falls as we know it will be over.

I know how tough this will be for many fans, and I feel you guys. But before you start sending me .GIF’s of pitchforks and torches let me explain.

The first thing to know is that the show isn’t being cancelled- it’s being finished. This is 100% my choice, and its something I decided on a very long time ago. I always designed Gravity Falls to be a finite series about one epic summer- a series with a beginning, middle, and end. There are so many shows that go on endlessly until they lose their original spark, or mysteries that are cancelled before they ever get a chance to payoff.

But I wanted Gravity Falls to have a mystery that had a real answer, an adventure that had a real climax, and an ending that had a real conclusion for the characters I care so much about. This is very unusual in television and a pretty big experiment, and Disney for their part has been enormously supportive. I know that hits are rare in this business, and its hard to let one of them go, so I’m so grateful that this company has had the vision to let me start (and end) the show the way I always wanted to.

Why did we wait so long to announce that this was the last season? The truth is, it wasn’t up to me. Before we started Season 2, my writers and I decided that this season would be the last. I wanted to announce this to the world at large then, but I was restricted from doing so, mainly because I think a lot of people were hoping I’d change my mind.

But Gravity Falls was never meant to be a series that goes on and on forever. It’s meant to be an exploration of the experience of summer, and in a larger sense a story about childhood itself. The fact that childhood ends is exactly what makes it so precious- and why you should cherish it while it lasts.

No words can describe how grateful I am for the millions of fans who have cherished Gravity Falls for the time that it’s been on air. Running a TV show, especially one where you write, direct, supervise, and co-star, can be an incredibly grueling experience. But every hand-written letter, tweet, tattoo, piece of art, costume and creation from the fans made this enormous undertaking worthwhile. To the Gravity Falls fandom- I love you guys. You’re weird and clever and smart and curious and have been a constant inspiration to me and the crew. You’ve picked us up when we felt down and pushed and inspired us to do the best work we possibly could. I hope you enjoy watching our finale as much as we enjoyed dreaming it up.

And if you don’t, keep it to yourself, pal! Yeesh!

Could there be more Gravity Falls someday? Hirsch wrote:

Are you SURE you’ll never make more Gravity Falls?
I know that there will be many fans who will be sad to see the Pines family go, but just because I’ve finished the story I wanted to tell doesn’t necessarily mean we will never see Dipper, Mabel, & Stan again. It means that this chapter is closed, and that I, at least for now, am personally done telling their story.

I want to thank Disney, my amazing cast and crew, and most of all our fans for taking this unforgettable road trip with me through the redwoods into a place called Gravity Falls. I look forward to seeing what adventure we go on next.

What do you think? Do you like the Gravity Falls TV show? Are you sorry that it’s ending? Are you hoping that Hirsch might do a new story with these characters some day in the future?