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athingthatwantsvirginia · 4 years ago

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This Ernest Hemingway Thing

PART FORTY OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: major discussions of parent death/death in general, plentiful pop culture references

Word Count: 5.4K

Summary: Ella struggles in the wake of her father's death.

“If you don’t shut up about this bar...” Jess warned, shooting daggers at Chris over the top of his book.

It was a slow day, and the three of them sat in the common area of Truncheon. Jess read his Sylvia Plath novel as he sat atop the welcome table in the front of the store. Chris was on a rant about why they should buy up the vacant space down the road and open a bar, while Matthew rolled his eyes. Snow fell in thick blankets, the coldest of the winter so far. Jess had opted to drive to work, rather than trudge through the crunchy, icy layer caking the sidewalks. The storm had blown in the night before as a bit of a surprise, leaving the city little time to salt the roads. The lack of customers at the book press was no shock. The large, ornate clock ticked slowly over the door. Only a few more minutes, and it would be time to close up for the day. Jess was glad; he’d be home to Ella soon enough. No matter how much she insisted she was fine, he couldn’t help feeling antsy when he’d left her home alone in the morning. His bottom lip was beginning to feel chapped from how much he had been gnawing on it.

Chris sighed heavily, throwing his hands up in exasperation. He was wearing a maroon cardigan over a pullover sweater, and Jess wondered how he wasn’t suffocating underneath all the wool. Chris took another sip of his disgusting chai latte before he continued.

“But it wouldn’t be just any bar! It would be Cedar Bar Redux!” he exclaimed.

Matthew rolled his eyes, not bothering to look up from the inventory sheet he was reviewing. “Just saying the name over and over isn’t gonna convince us.”

“Listen, we’ve already got this Ernest Hemingway thing going here,” Chris said emphatically, gesturing to the room around them. “Now, we can have a Charlie Parker thing down the road. We’ll play only jazz music there, and only serve drinks with whiskey. It’ll be super classy. Super hip.”

“Please don’t ever say ‘hip’ again,” Jess deadpanned, his eyes back on his reading.

Chris grinned confidently. “One day you’ll stop and think, ‘Wow, Chris has been a genius all along. Why did I ever doubt him?’”

Jess scoffed doubtfully.

“Sure, man,” Matthew said with a mocking nod.

“Hey, you’ll see, guys. Just you wait,” Chris said, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting at their dismissal of his idea. “If Ella was here, she’d agree with me.”

Shaking his head a bit, Jess snorted a laugh. “No, she wouldn’t.”

“I think she’s just pretentious enough to get behind it,” Chris argued, shrugging flippantly.

“Actually, I think she’s just pretentious enough to call you out for being a poser,” Matthew countered, his voice dejected as ever as he continued scouring the inventory sheets for any mistakes he might have made on them earlier in the day.

Chris narrowed his eyes at Matthew, getting ready to rebut. However, Jess spoke up first. He rose from his seat, stuffing the Plath book in the back pocket of his jeans and going to grab his coat and scarf.

“Speaking of Eleanor,” he said, “I’m going home. It’s closing time, boys. Have fun with the marketing pitch, Matthew.”

“Thanks, Jess,” Matthew replied sarcastically, still not looking up. On inventory day, he was basically a robot, glued to his paperwork. Not like Jess could blame Matthew, though, considering Jess would have run the business into the ground during the first week had Matthew not been there to deal with the numbers.

“What do you mean ‘speaking of Ella’?” Chris asked, his interest piqued.

She hadn’t been around much recently, and he missed her, despite their occasional bickering. It had been over a month since her father died, and she had hardly let them know how she was doing once she got back. He could count on one hand the number of times they’d seen her. It wasn’t as though he didn’t understand; she could take as much time as he needed. But Jess wasn’t exactly helping to ease his (and Matthew’s) concern, offering little more than an assurance that she was fine and just needed time for herself. It was hard for Chris to imagine Ella coping by isolation, but he had never known her in tragedy.

Jess shrugged on his coat, and began tying his scarf around his neck. “She stayed home sick today. I wanna make sure she at least eats dinner,” he explained shortly. They were all familiar with Ella’s bad habit of skipping, or forgetting, meals when she was stressed or upset.

“She okay?” Chris asked.

Finally, Matthew looked up from his sheet, patiently awaiting an answer. Chis wasn’t the only one who had noticed Ella’s recent absence. She had quite a presence, after all. He and Mabel were beginning to worry. Leo, too.

Jess shrugged, evasive. “Yeah. She’s fine. Just a winter bug or something.”

Chris nodded skeptically. “Okay.”

“Tell her we hope she feels better,” Matthew cut in diplomatically, hoping Chris got the hint that he should let sleeping dogs lie.

“Just call me a carrier pigeon,” Jess quipped, smiling thinly, before he excited the shop into the frigid evening air.

. . .

Eyelids heavy, Ella focused on her breathing. The falling snow twinkled in the soft light of the cloudy evening, and she watched it. Flakes floated down haphazardly, sometimes tossed along the wind. Watching it made her feel mindless, but almost in a good way, as she laid on her side. The pain in her head had numbed, though an ache still throbbed dully in her skull. She was just too tired. The kind of fatigue which comes with a fever, though she knew she didn’t have one. She just needed to sleep. Sleep and sleep, she told herself, until the pain went away. After a good rest, she hoped, she would awake renewed and inspired. Her sketchbook sat closed on her nightstand, not used since the night before her father died, the night of Jess’s publishing party.

In her worst moments, that night came back to her in flashes. Not because it was bad, but because she had been just so happy. Tipsy and in love and hopeful. The naivety almost made her want to laugh out loud. How could she possibly have thought she would have the chance to patch things up with her father? Life didn’t work that way. It never did. She didn’t know when she had lost sight of her realist views, but she was reminded why they were important. Always planning for the worst meant no disappointments and no ugly surprises. She drifted in and out of vague dreams, almost unsure of when and if she was awake. She felt sweaty and stale beneath the blue quilt, but she still snuggled into it deeper. It made her feel safe in some innocent, childish way she wished she could hold onto. She knew when she got up again, she would feel cold. And she would have to continue on as normal with a new, unwelcome tightness in her chest.

At the sound of the doorknob to the bedroom turning, she shut her eyes completely. She pretended to be asleep, breathing deeply and making her expression go slack, as Jess came in. Better to have him believe she was actually resting, rather than staring off into the middle distance feeling sorry for herself. Ella didn’t know quite what time it was, but she thought he was early, judging by the light outside. She knew he was worried about her; she could see it, even if he never said it out loud. But she was just so tired. She simply lacked the energy to reassure him, or to reassure herself. She could hear him quietly take off his shoes, his watch.

Then, he exited the room again. She heard him put on an album by The Cure at a low volume. It made her want to smile, almost. The apartment felt better when he was in it. She felt less claustrophobic. Maybe since he was finally there, she would actually get some sleep. But sleep never came, and she knew why. She’d been lying in bed all day, in a zombie-like state. In the two weeks since returning to work, she’d come home every day exhausted. And, worse yet, angry. Not in a yelling and punching the walls kind of way, though. Instead, she would cry hot, frustrated tears at the smallest mistake in her work. She would feel the urge to go smoke or drink, though she hadn’t given in. She felt like she was crawling out of her skin, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She could only sit back and watch as she struggled tiredly through her lectures and bit her nails ragged.

But the worst part was not the anger. The worst part was the inability to truly feel it. She knew she was angry, and she knew why, but she couldn’t get it to sink it. She couldn’t work through it or make it better, she could only feel it in the moment. When it passed, she would go back to her sleepy, sluggish state. And the storm of emotion would sit dormant in her belly. She tried to think about her father, and tried to cry for him. She couldn’t. She could only wait for the random bursts of emotion at meaningless moments. When she thought of her father’s death, or even her mother’s, it was like she could feel the key turning in the lock on her heart, and the switch flipping off. Not since the night Jess had held her on the Gilmore porch had she been able to shed a tear about any of it.

Staying home had been both a necessity because of the migraine she’d woken up with, and an attempt to wake herself up. Maybe if she could sleep off the constant fatigue she had been feeling, she could sleep off the hazy fog in her brain as well. But, as the day began to come to a close, she could only lie in her bed feeling defeated. In a way which was familiar, but still so new. When her mother had died, it had been such a shock. It had been more cut and dry. She had loved her mother, and her mother died. But her father was a different story. And he had been her only parent left.

After a few minutes, the bedroom door creaked open again, and she heard Jess’s soft footfalls on the carpet. The other side of the bed dipped down as he sat, and placed a gentle hand on her back, beginning to rub circles there.

“Elle?” he asked. “Hey, honey, wake up.”

Ella took a deep breath in, feigning slight surprise as she opened her eyes and rolled over, away from the window to face Jess. He had a small smirk on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes as he looked down at her. With a light touch, he brushed the stray strands of hair away from her forehead.

“Hey,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse and groggy.

“Hi,” he replied.

She was pale and exhausted. It was as though her face had drained of all color the moment her father had died, and it had yet to come back. He couldn’t make her blush like he used to. Some sort of elemental lightness had left her, one which he hadn’t noticed she had until it was gone. And he was more or less at a loss about what to do. She was going about her day, going through the motions, but she was still somewhere far off in her mind. Unable to deal with anything that didn’t lack all emotion. He was beginning to wonder if she was ever going to snap out of it, or if a part of her was missing that could never be replaced. But, he was trying for her. He was taking care of her in a way he had never gotten a chance to before. Not from sickness, but from sadness. She had always been the one to patch him up emotionally, when things fell through with his father or he had a panic attack or he couldn’t get the dark clouds to lift from above his head. She was not exactly a ray of sunshine, but she wasn’t one to wallow either. She was an expert at getting through, attacking life the way it attacked her, picking herself back up. This time, he thought, maybe she just needed a hand.

“How’s your head?” he asked quietly, his thumb caressing her skin.

In the morning, she’d barely been able to open her eyes, her migraine was so bad. He wasn’t surprised though. She hadn’t taken a day off since going back to work. Everything was bound to catch up with her eventually. She was trying to hold it all back again, but he didn’t know why. Maybe because she’d had a bit of time; she wasn’t in shock anymore. She had more control over her emotions, maybe too much.

She shrugged. “A little better.”

“Good,” he said, leaning down and pressing a long kiss on her forehead.

When he pulled away, Ella took in a deep breath through her nose. She let her muscles release tension she didn’t know they’d been holding. She was glad he was home, even if she was embarrassed at his seeing her lying around.

“I made some green tea. You wanna watch a Stephen King movie with dinner? Or do your eyes still hurt?” he asked.

She felt her stomach do a flip. She didn’t deserve him. And his tenderness made her feel squirmy, like at some point he would realize how lazy she was being, how pathetic. Even one day off of work was making her feel so useless. She cleared her throat, averting her eyes from him.

“I’m actually not that hungry,” she said sheepishly. She hadn’t eaten all day, but she just couldn’t bring herself to want anything.

Jess sighed. “Elle-”

“No, I know,” she cut him off. “I promise I’ll eat later, really. Just not right now.”

Biting at his lip, Jess seemed lost in thought for a moment before he finally nodded. “Okay.”

Still, she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. “Did you finish that Sylvia Plath?”

“Not yet,” he said.

“You wanna come lay down and read me what you have left, James Dean?” she asked, tone lighter than it had been.

He let a smile ghost over his lips. “Always, Daria.”

Swallowing thickly, Ella muttered a thanks to him as he left the room again. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling, so blank and dull white. Like a canvas she wanted to paint. But just thinking of the empty pages in her sketchbook made dread rise up in her throat. She shook the thought away as Jess came back into the room with two mugs of tea and a book under his arm. As they drank their tea, he told her about his day, about Chris and Matthew, how slow it had been. She laughed at the right moments, nodded at the right moments, smiled when she should have. But her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t add anything, she barely even looked at him. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, and he almost did. But she looked so tired. He decided to wait until at least the morning. She needed rest more than she needed an interrogation, he figured. When they were done, cups on nightstands, he laid down next to her, warm under the covers as the snow kept falling in sheets outside, the light of the streetlamps making the flakes sparkle. The approaching darkness was almost gloomy, though, and he wasn’t particularly sure why. She laid her head on his chest, as she often did when he read to her. She liked to hear the vibrations of his words against her ear.

As he began at the page where he stopped, she felt warmer. His voice and the feeling of his body against her made it easier to breathe, easier to get her mind to shut up for a moment. But it lasted not for long, as a quiet thought whispered in the back of her mind. Then, it was louder and louder, until it became a shout, a scream. Someday, she would end up like her father, like Fiona. Losing the person you loved most in the world destroyed you. Ella didn’t know why, but all of a sudden she felt certain she would lose Jess. He would die, and he would die suddenly. As soon as she let her guard down again, she would lose him. She would lose the person she belonged to, the person who belonged to her.

The love she felt for Jess was unlike what she had felt for anyone else before, and some part of her knew she would never feel that love for anyone else again. And she felt like she understood her father better than she ever had before. He’d lost her mother in the middle of the night; the person he belonged to. Ella had been able to move on, but she thought that maybe her father’s life had been over the moment her mother died. And it would happen to her, unless she did something about it. The thought was so jarring and terrifying, for a moment, she felt like her throat was closing up. But she tried to handle the pit in her stomach as it formed and sat coldly in her core.

Jess was so sweet to her, always had been. Even when he was an angry tenager who was lost and acted like he didn’t need anybody. When she’d thought she couldn’t love anyone. He was smart and thoughtful and he knew her better than anyone else ever had. She could smell his familiar scent of pine and must, which had never worn off even long after he moved out of Luke’s. She listened to his voice lilt over the words of a book she owned, which she’d given him in high school. He was rereading the copy which contained their notes to each other, back when they were still falling in love without knowing it. A glance up at his face, and tears stung her eyes. Jess with his kind brown eyes and the dark shadow on his jaw. Jess with the faded scar on his left palm, which she’d watched get stitched up. Jess with the strong arms that held her in the ocean in California. The person she’d been in love with since she was sixteen. He was beautiful, in every sense of the word. A deep, awful regret filled her. She’d let herself fall so completely in love with him. She never should have. What was she going to do when he was gone?

Before she could stop herself, she began to cry silently. Jess furrowed his brows, feeling her tears wet his t-shirt. It was Plath, after all. A pretty sad novel, but he’d never known her to cry at a book. Or at much of anything, for that matter. He stopped reading immediately, lowering the book and bringing one hand to touch her freckled arm gingerly.

“What’s wrong?”

She sniffed and cleared her throat, wiping beneath her eyes. “Nothing, Jess. Just keep reading.”

“Eleanor-”

“Jess, please just keep reading,” she said, voice shaking and broken.

His breath caught in his throat, the words dying before he spoke them. She sounded helpless. He couldn't ignore her pleas, no matter how much he wanted to. Not when she sounded like that. He kept reading.

. . .

Gnawing on her nails, Ella sat alone in the cold morning light. The world outside was sparkling with snow in the sunlight. But soon, the grime city would corrupt it. The soft mountains of white would grow dull and gray, caked on the side of the road. She could only think about the melty gray slush as she looked outside, at the beauty the storm the day before had left in its wake. Her hands were slightly shaky, her elbows on her knees. She couldn’t remember the last time she had woken up so early, unable to fight wakefulness anymore as she packed a bag in the early darkness. The day had since brightened, from a deep blue to a warm orange and then finally, a bright yellow. But Ella still couldn’t bring herself to wake Jess up.

Instead, she waited. And she didn’t have to wait as long as she thought she would have. Jess emerged from the bedroom in his pajamas, rubbing tiredly at his eyes, at around half past six. His brows were furrowed at her empty spot in bed before he even saw her in the living room, sitting on the couch fully dressed with a packed suitcase on the floor next to her.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?” he asked, stopping in his tracks in surprise.

Ella ran an anxious hand through her hair before she looked up to meet his eyes. “I think...I think we should take a break for a little while.”

“What?” he said incredulously.

She sighed through her nose, looking down into her lap. “Jess, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be together right now.”

“Eleanor, what are you talking about?” he continued, as though he simply couldn’t get her words to make sense in his head.

Again, she sighed in frustration. Without thinking about it, she rose and began to pace. Jess watched her with a worried gaze. She wasn’t behaving like herself at all, and just looking at her suitcase packed and ready to go made him feel sick to his stomach.

“Look, Jess, I just...I think we need to take a step back from each other for a while. Get to know ourselves when we’re not with each other, you know?” she said, her excuse flimsy and her voice uncertain. But she told herself this would be the hard part. Rip the bandaid off and leave, to get rid of the constant dread inside her. Without Jess, without anyone, it would simply be safer. More practical. And hadn’t being practical always worked out for her in the end?

Jess shook his head slowly, trying to get a handle on his thoughts. “That’s bullshit. We’ve already been apart from each other, and you and I both know that doesn’t work. What’s this actually about?”

“I just need a break, okay? I’ll call in sick again today. Fiona said last time I called that she needs me to clean out my room before she puts the house on the market. I’ll get back to town on Sunday,” Ella said, speaking quickly, flatly, wanting to get the words out and get them over with.

“And on Sunday?” Jess asked, eyebrows raised askance.

After a moment of tense silence, Ella could only shrug. “I don’t know. On Sunday...we regroup. Think about things.”

Jess ran a hand over his mouth. “You can’t be serious, Eleanor.”

“I am,” she replied simply.

“You honestly wanna break up? After everything?” he asked, sounding as though he still hadn’t quite been able to process what was going on. He’d known something was wrong, of course. Especially after she’d wept her way through his reading of Sylvia Plath, eventually falling asleep with her face still pressed against his t-shirt, her cheeks damp.

“Not break up!” Ella said immediately, raising her voice. “Not...forever.”

Again, Jess shook his head, voice matching her volume when he spoke again. “This isn’t like you, Eleanor. You don’t just run away like this. That’s my move, and it’s a fucking bad one. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing. I told you, Jess, I just-”

“Need a break?” Jess interrupted finishing for her, with hints of both anger and fear in his tone.

For a moment, she couldn’t speak. He looked so crestfallen, so quickly. She wanted to throw her arms around him, cry into his shoulder, let out the tears she hadn’t been able to release. To tell him what she’d been feeling, the constant pain rivaled only by the strange, unexplainable numbness. But she bit at the inside of her cheek, hard, to snap herself out of it. She had made her choice. And she had to stick to it.

“Yes.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, taking a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. “Please. Just tell me what’s going on. Whatever it is, we can figure it out.”

“Nothing’s going on,” she repeated, finding it hard to keep her voice from cracking.

“Is this about your dad?” he asked. They’d been dancing around the conversation for weeks, as he watched her retreat within herself. Finally, he couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t tell himself she needed space, couldn’t just tell himself she was grieving the way she needed to. The truth was, she wasn’t grieving. Not really.

She heaved a sigh. “Jesus, Jess. It’s not about my dad, okay? Can’t I just need a break from us? From all this?” she asked as she gestured around them to the apartment, to the life they had started to build together. She sounded angry. But anger was better than nothing. Jess kept going.

“No, not when you started crying last night and wouldn’t tell me why, not when you keep forgetting to eat, not when you’re tired all day, even after like twelve hours of sleep, not when you don’t even want to draw anymore,” he said, in vehement disagreement. “I can talk to my therapist and see if she knows someone who’s covered by the University insurance. I bet she knows a lot of grief counselors.”

“Jess, stop,” she said, refusing to make eye contact with him as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Trust me, Eleanor,” he continued, almost pleading. “You’ll feel so much better if you talk to someone about all this. About your dad, your mom, your brothers, Fiona. I’m sure you could think of a few choice words to say about me too.”

She shook her head at his attempt to joke. She wasn’t having it. More tears stung her eyes, and they only made her angrier. She was so sick of needing to cry and not being able to, of dealing with her family’s bullshit, of everything. Of being afraid of everything.

“Van Gogh must have had hundreds of hours of therapy in his life, and you’ve seen his paintings. I really think it’s all gonna be okay if-”

“Stop it, Jess!” she shouted, reaching for a necklace she hadn’t worn in years. An old tic Jess hadn’t seen since high school. Seeing her fingers go instinctively to grab at a small key pendant made his heart ache in such a deep way, so fundamentally, he almost wanted to cry. “Stop being so fucking nice to me! Stop trying to take care of me! Every time I tell you that, you never fucking listen!”

“Elle, what-” he began, eyes widening at her outburst. But she was on a roll, and hardly noticed when he spoke.

“I mean, it’s like you can’t even hear me sometimes,” she continued, pacing furiously and gesturing around again with her hands. For a moment, she was worried the neighbors would complain about her yelling at such an early hour. But she forgot about them as the emotions bubbled up in her throat, words spilling from her mouth. “You just keep doing whatever the fuck you want! Reminding me to eat, and reading to me, and kissing me, telling me you love me, and I just can’t fucking do it anymore, Jess! Not when you’re just gonna be gone someday!”

“Eleanor, I’m not-”

“Yes, you are!” she interrupted, finally facing him again. A fire burned in her eyes, cold and green and devastated. “Whether you like it or not, you’re gonna have a heart attack or crash your shitty fucking car or get struck by lightning! And I can’t keep doing this when one day it’s all just gonna be gone! It hurts bad enough calling it quits right now!”

Taken aback, Jess sighed. His face softened. He wanted to take a step forward, to go to her, but he fought the urge. Instead, he spoke in a calm, soothing voice. “Honey-”

She let out an infuriated scoff at the affectionate nickname.

“I know you’re scared,” he began, but she cut him off again.

“No, you don’t!” she countered, voice more venomous by the second. “You don’t know! Jess, I know your parents aren’t exactly perfect, but guess what? They’re alive. You didn’t wake up one day and figure out they were fucking dead! You can still talk to them whenever you want. You didn’t have to watch-”

She paused as her voice broke, clearing her throat before she went on. “You didn’t have to watch your dad fucking destroy himself because he missed your mom so much. And you don’t have to watch your stepmom go through the same thing!”

“Eleanor-”

“Don’t ‘Eleanor’ me, Jess! Please don’t. I...I love you. But I just...I just wish I didn’t.”

She was crying now, big, childish tears rolling down her skin as she spoke. Jess felt his heart drop into his stomach. Of course, he’d known she was in pain. Her father had died, after all. But he didn’t know she was scared. He didn’t know she was absolutely terrified. Not when she’d always seemed fearless. Before he could stop himself, he went over and embraced her. His hug was tight and warm, one arm encircling around her waist and one hand in her hair, cradling her head. And for a second, she relaxed into him. She let his touch soothe her and heal her. But then she snapped out of it again. Back to reality. She remembered how badly it hurt when she lost good things. She disentangled herself from his hold.

“No,” she said. “Please...don’t touch me right now.”

Her words sounded so defeated and final that for the first time it occurred to Jess she might actually be serious about leaving, about breaking up. The thought was so heartbreaking, a lump instantly formed in his throat.

“Just wait a second, Elle. Can we...can we talk about this more? Please?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper. His own eyes began to grow shiny.

She shook her head, grabbing her suitcase and making for the coat rack. “I have to go, Jess.”

“But you don’t! You can stay and we can figure this out!” Jess said, following her to the doorway.

Her face was stoic and guarded again as she donned her coat, hat, and scarf. “I need...I just need to be alone. I’ll be back on Sunday.”

He ran a hand over his mouth again. “Do you promise you’ll be back on Sunday?”

“Yes,” she said after a moment, opening the door. She stood there awkwardly for a moment, unsure whether to say goodbye, if it was a goodbye at all.

Jess sighed heavily, relenting to her leaving, as begrudgingly as possible. “Just…please be safe driving up there.”

“I will.”

“I love you,” he said, not being able to help himself.

A tiny, sad smile passed over her lips. “Right back at ya.”

On any other morning, he would have laughed at her response, a joke at the expense of his own shyness. But instead he stood motionless as she went out the door and shut it softly behind her. He was unsure if she would ever truly come back, if she was already gone, if she had been for weeks. Jess was crying before she made it out the front door of the building.

#gilmore girls #gilmore girls fanfiction #gilmore girls au #jess mariano #jess mariano fanfiction #jess mariano au #jess mariano x oc #gilmore girls xoc #original character fanfiction #fanfiction

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a-merman-not-a-guppy · 4 years ago

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What I love about your Muses and You

A positivity post by me (Lena) with some commentary by my muses

MK:

You do an incredible job with all kinds of characters, and I love that you do a good balance of good and evil, but you also know how to find that gray area. I think working in that gray shady area is a lot of fun and you really pull it off. You come up with some wild plot arcs and you always find a way to keep people guessing (personally am thrilled about the polyamorous relationship. Nice one!)

Louie: yeah Lou’s been a real cool dude. A R T man. I may not be skilled, but he was always fun to learn with. Someday I’ll learn more. Ashley: Belle like is literally saving my ass with this job. Seriously my favorite person at the moment.

Avarick:

man I’ve always loved writing with you. We always clicked well with that, and I’ve loved all the characters you brought into the rp. I was so so so excited to see that you were coming back and that you wanted to bring RIKU! I couldn’t believe it! I loved it when we wrote horse buddies back in the day, and I’ve loved every other opportunity we’ve had to do stuff. I’m so so glad you’re back to writing with us.

Sora: =DDD RIKuUUUUU. I missed him so muuuuch. Roxas: yo who the f is this Riku guy?

Mckala:

You have always been the backstory queen, and I tip my hat to you. You do the level of research that always blows my mind. I just do not have the time or the energy for it, but you have all these lists, giant ass family trees, you know the works. It’s really impressive, and one can see the dedication that you put into your characters.

Louie: so Elena’s like a sick Crown PrincesS? That’s dope! When you gonna take back the kingdom man? Queen it uuup!

Finn: Adella’s always been nice to me when I would visit Ariel. She’s really talented.

Wilbur: (imagine a happier time) mum’s great! She’s always there if I need her to be, and while she won’t buy me everything I bloody want, she knows what I really need.

Ashley:

honestly such a great person and great rper. I think the most memorable thing for me lately has been Ashley popping in occasionally when she thought I might be upset or bothered by something and checking in. Talking things out and venting together. She’s honestly such a great listening ear, I think we’re really lucky to have her in this rp. I may be slightly biased toward Ashlee T. and Ollie, but all her babes have nuance and I love them. Ashley: Ashlee!!! One of the only people in this world that matter!!! <3 We made it through some nightmares. Things look up from here babe. Wilbur: duuude Ollie I didn’t realize you were adopted too and it’s the coolest fact I got to know about you. It’s awesome to have someone to relate with.

Pet:

I feel like we used to have a harder time connecting writing wise and things were awkward, and I’m so happy to say it doesn’t feel that way at all anymore. The things we’ve written have been so fun, and I feel like (correct me if I’m wrong), but I feel like bringing Chickaroo together allowed for us to start having more conversation and plotting and just. It opened doors in some way. I think it’s awesome because I love your writing and I love getting to connect with your babes more. As you know, Al has my heart now because he just does, and Barrel has also managed to steal my heart. But all of your babes are so great, and I’m glad that we’ve managed to connect better. I look forward to more time spent writing hilarious things like Dipper and Roxas at the bar, or Al teaching Arthur about the internet.

Louie: yo Al’s like the chillest boss I’ve ever had. He’s also the only boss I’ve ever had but still! Cool dude!

Roxas: Dipper’s a nice guy. I hope I can get to know him more.

Sora: Dipper is Mabel’s TWIN BROTHER =DDDD that’s SO cool!!!

Wilbur: duuude. Barrel is like the person I didn’t expect to ever care about in a billion years, but if anyone did anything to him...like...die.

Alex:

I feel like we also used to not really vibe and were awkward with each other, and I’m super glad that’s changed because you’re literally so cool and you send such fun stuff and we just have a great time! I love Nyx, you know that I have an appreciation of Arista from afar, and Haley is just...great. All your babes are. I’m so happy we’ve finally made that writing connection because it’s been so fun to talk to you and get your perspective on things. Ahh it’s great. Can’t wait to see what you come up with in the future.

Ashley: Haley was like...almost cool. It’s a shame she’s such a goodie goodie two shoes.

Dot: Haley’s a good dragon? What the hell? She seems okay, but I’m still not sorry I shot her in the foot. She totally deserved it.

Clarion: Nyx has been my constant companion for some time now. I’m so grateful for her presence.

Bee:

Bee my big bro, my wife, my partner in ridiculous here too. You’re such a great joy to write with, and I love the way you tell your stories. I’m still so impressed by your take with Hera, and how she is as a sorceress. That’s so damn cool! And of course you’ve got the lovely Marie who’s charming and vain and I love that about her. Marie is a gift, your writing’s a gift and I’m grateful you’re in the rp. Not to mention you and Chloe are our resident British experts and that’s great. Thank you for joining the rp and for bringing the perspective you bring. Look forward to more crazy storylines with you.

Louie: yo nerd! Just kidding, wassup Huey? You’re the best big bro a guy could have. Keep it real, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

Fflewddur: Marie! My beautiful wife! Love of my life! The world must envy me for having the most amazing wife in the entire world.

Sora: Kristoff! Best roomie ever !!! =DDDD hope you don’t mind if my best pal Riku stays with us. Thnx dude <3 <3 <3

Becky:

I mean where do I begin. We’ve had such great stories and ridiculous teen hijinks and theatrics. It’s been such a good time. And of course, there are few people I’d be sure about doing a big plot like the one we’ve got going with Ashley and Roo, but we’ve managed it, and I think it’s been a really really fun story to tell. So thanks for taking that leap with me and letting us tell a ridiculous story together. It’s been awesome. Glad to have you in the rp.

Ashley: well, you’re an alright guy I guess Roo.

Bryer:

we’ve only really had a little bit of time to write together before with Dash, but it was super fun, and even just observing, I’ve loved seeing your characters on the dash and seeing where they’re at. Hatter’s awesome too. It’s great to have him around in the rp, and especially with such a different take than we’ve had in the past. Love the werewolf storyline, love to see it.

Chloe:

I feel like you’re a person after my own heart. Mitte often makes me think of my old Shego muse, and that just makes me happy because I just love the chaos that she brings. I love all of your babes of course, but that just makes her a bit more #1 in my heart. You’re also so chill to plot with and to come up with these crazy schemes. I mean remember how we sort of pitched Mitte turning on a bit of a whim and now here she is? It’s literally so good and you went with it and I just...ugh. I truly love it and seeing the growth. All your babes tell such awesome stories, and this just tells me I need to find a way to plot with you more when time/work allows. Keep up the good work. You’re kicking ass.

Anthony: what a brat. As long as this girl doesn’t cause me any more trouble though I suppose she’s tolerable.

Dezi:

We haven’t been able to interact much writing wise, but I hope to change that someday soon/when time/work allows. Charlotte is honestly such a great character, and I think it’s awesome to see her and Tiana around, I think it’s the first time in a long time...if we’ve ever managed that before? I don’t know. It’s seriously so cool and I love reading your stuff together, and just Charlotte’s stuff in general. Keep cool and carry on writing a great babe.

I wish I had things my muses could say but I don’t think I’ve had the chance to interact with Charlotte. Just Judy before ;-; Forgive me. I still think you’re swell.

Emma:

Boy do I love that you swooped in with your kids. Phineas, Tiana and Aquata are such dynamic characters. It blows my mind, truly. I love them all. I love how ready you are to plot and to throw out great ideas. Phineas has the kind of chaos energy that I love (obviously, as Louie is my chaos energy). You’re so chill with me trolling your babes on twitter, and a joy to write with. Thank you for coming back as well. I’m glad we’ve gotten the chance to write together. <3

Louie: duuuude we gotta do something crazy again soon? Operation dumbass commence? Jk jk Operation Too Cool For School.

Wilbur: what is with that twitter lady tho? Too old to be arguing with teens on twitter don’t you think?

Ginny:

Ahhh i mean we’ve done so many fun things and continue to do. With so many connections and stuff it’s hard not to! I’m so glad you rejoined as I have and that we got to bring these characters into the rp that vibe (and/or fight each other). To each their own. Our kids have an energy what can you do? I think your characters are all awesome, and I love seeing them on the dash. I love writing with them. Two besties, no wait THREE now with Kairi, isn’t that just wild? I love that best friend energy our babes have. Support it, thanks for writing all kinds of good things with me. You’re a gem.

Finn: I love you Ariel. You’re the best of friends. I’m so lucky to know you =]

Ashley: Ashle B!!! Babe you are a rockstar. You’ve kind of been the glue of our friendship I think. I love you babe. Stay true to you and kick some ass in college!

Wilbur: (in happier times) DADDD!!! Best dad to ever dad, person that gets me cool things. Coolest of dads. You rock.

Sora: ????!!! KAIRI???!!???

Hannah:

Hannah Hannah Bo Bannah Fee Fi Fo Fannah HANNAH...I couldn’t resist. You’ve been so great to talk to and write with and honestly it’s been so great to love our babes together and talk about BTS together and talk kpop in general. I’m so so so glad that we’ve gotten to know each other more over these last few months and stuff. You’ve really been so great, and our plots and characters are such a good time. So glad you got my brother, and my best friend. It’s awesome to have and to write with you.

Louie: DEWEEEEEEEEEEY. DEWFORD. DEWEYYYYY….hi.

Louie: TAEEEEEEE. Bro. my dude. Sorry I make memes outta you all the time. But in my defense...your face is kinda funny. Love u dude =]

Sora: Mabel!!! My GIRLFRIEND =DDDD you’re great! I love spending time with you and looking at hot boys! Speaking of...I have a friend you might think is hot…

Finn: Tae! Thanks for being so nice to me and allowing me to open myself up and get to know you. I’m so lucky that Nemo introduced us. You’re a really great friend =]

Jaby:

JABYYYYYYYYYY. Man we always had muses that vibed and our writing just clicked and that always brought me joy. I’m so glad you came back, because your characters are great, the stories you tell are great, and I really really missed having you around. I know we’ve both been busy lately with our own work stuff, but I definitely want the chance to connect some muses again, because I love your babes and you and I’ve been so happy to see you. Let’s figure something out someday when my schedule stuff evens out a bit better.

Jean:

you haven’t been in the rp long, but boy have you made an impact already. Lachlan is amazing!! Truly an icon and I’m so glad that you brought him in. And so glad that you’re here. We’re all lucky to have you. I really think you’re bringing in such a unique take and writing and it’s just awesome to see and to see Launchpad driving around, and driving people a little wild on twitter. It’s beautiful.

Louie: soooooo did you really nearly kill my bro?

Kiara:

We also don’t really have any interactions right now but that is a-okay because you are living a life doing the real life hero work. Truly I’m amazed by you, and I think we’re all lucky you’re around. I hope you take care of yourself and that you do get to enjoy that time to just write and love your characters. They’re all truly fantastic and I love seeing where you take them. Especially Georgette. I think her journey has absolutely captivated me.

Kit:

man you are awesome to plot with. The pirate au was such a good time, just brainstorming some ridiculous ideas. And your ladies are so truly dynamic and powerful and I am so excited to see where you take them. I don’t think we really have had much interaction besides the au, but I look forward to a day where life is less stressful and we can do some more stuff. That’d be great. <3 Keep doing you, you’re killing it.

Lauren:

Man I love your characters so much. Greg is such an icon on the board and otherwise. And I love pushing your characters buttons almost as much as I love agreeing with them. They’re just such joys to have around. Lol well I’m sure Roscoe would argue about that and be all Roscoe, but I’m glad to have him around. It’s been great talking to you and having debates over milk being a capitalist scam. I am glad you’re in the rp, and I continue to look forward to seeing what new things you and your characters bring.

Lauryl:

This go around of me rejoining the rp I feel like we’ve gotten a lot closer and that makes me really happy. =] It all started with a Jimin, how did it end up like this? It was only a...just kidding. I know exactly why. Nemo and your brilliant writing and his connecting with Louie drew me into this BTS zone and then before I knew it there was Finn and Lunch Squad and and and. The list really does go on because we’ve just come up with some really ridiculous and fun stories and it’s been great. Thank you for bringing Olaf and teaching me a lot more about aromanticism, for Atta and that sister bond that I am stoked about (reminds me we gotta do another thing for them that yes). I’m so glad we’ve connected more and that you are in the rp <3

Louie: Neeeeeeeeeeemo I have a crisis of boy things! CRISIS. WEE OO WEE OO chop chop and help me out. Also I’ve got cookies.

Finn: Nemo, I can’t believe how close we’ve gotten in so short a time. You’re one of my very best friends. I love you lots.

Finn: Hyung, you’re so warm and kind. I’m so lucky I know you.

Dot: did you drink water today Atta? You better not be going anywhere crazy without ME.

Lins:

You’ve just joined but I’m so stoked we’re already talking and talking about TORTALL of all things. Like WOW! I didn’t think anyone out there appreciated those books the way I did. It is so nice to be wrong, and to have a source to discuss my fave childhood books. It’s also exciting to have Eilonwy, and I’m excited to interact with her. <3

Sav:

I know life keeps you pretty busy, but you push through and you bring your babes and keep steady with all of that and I think that’s really admirable. You’ve got the older gentleman muse energy and I respect that. I think it’s great that you have your niche. I myself have the teens as we know. I’m sorry we haven’t had much chance to interact, but I hope to improve that in the future. Especially with Seamus. That’s my rich uncle. I wanna do something about that when life gets less hectic. Either way, you’ve got great babes and you’re doing a great job. Take care of yourself lovely.

Louie: soooooo gonna buy me a motorcycle Uncle Seamus?

Sid:

man you’ve got a great bunch of characters and they’re all so different and dynamic and I love that. Ratigan is complex, and he was especially good fun in the pirate event I have to say. Truly loved the take we had on the ship and everything. He’s so great. I also love seeing Eric on the dash, and am excited to interact more with him cause I think he’s just groovy. They’re all groovy. I can’t think of any whimsical things to say but you’re doing awesome and your babes are great. Take care lovely.

Sierra:

I have not had a chance to interact with you or your Tod yet, but I look forward to the day where I can. Tod’s a great character, and it’s exciting to see that he’s come back. I know I saw him connecting with some of the other Swynlakers and I think that’s even better. Love a character with history, and Tod definitely has that. I hope you take care of yourself, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Tod in the future.

#ooc #some positivity for my bdrp gang #i love you all loooots #there may be darkness #but there's plenty of light too #i'm thinking of you all

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portalford · 5 years ago

Text

And I Need Somewhere to Begin

AO3

The kids left this morning, and Stan’s not sure what to do with himself.

The house feels so quiet without those little gremlins running around. He knows that’s been the default state of his (Ford’s) house for most of the time it’s been standing, but that’s apparently changed.

A lot has changed, these past few months.

Stan is still looking at the picture he keeps on his bedside table (Mabel grinning, mouth full of braces, her arm flung around a startled but smiling Dipper) when there’s a knock at his door.

Stan frowns, setting the picture carefully back on the table. “Soos, I thought I told you to go home.”

The door cracks open and a head that is decidedly not Soos’s pokes in. “Stanley?”

Some of the vague unhappiness he’s felt since he left the bus stop eases.

A lot has changed in these past few months, but it’s not all bad. There’ve been some good changes, too.

His brother is one of them.

“Don’t stand out in the cold, Sixer.”

Ford opens the door fully and steps in, closing it quietly behind him. “Your room is the same temperature as the rest of the house, Stanley.”

“Yeah, yeah. C’mon, sit down.”

Ford does, smoothing his coat out over his legs. He turns to Stan and looks him over. “How are you feeling?”

Stan almost waves him off with a stock “Never better,” but he stops himself. They’d promised to try and be more open with each other, to not repeat their mistakes. He settles for, “Eh. Not used to the quiet, I guess.”

Ford’s expression says he understands. He would — he’s had a lot less time with the kids than Stan has, but it didn’t take a week before they had him wrapped around their little fingers.

It took them less than five minutes to get Stan, but Ford doesn’t need to know that.

“It is pretty quiet here, with everyone gone. I could… blow something up in the basement, if it would help.”

Stan isn’t sure how much of that is teasing. Ford’s never been very good at it. He smiles anyway. “I’ll keep the quiet, thanks.” He waits a moment, but Ford doesn’t say anything. He came up here for a reason — Stan can see it in the way his brother picks at his fingers and glances Stan’s way when he thinks Stan won’t notice. Some of his memories are a little shaky, but Stan’s pretty sure he could read Ford before he could read English. “So I’m glad you’re not downstairs setting anything on fire, but what brings you up here?”

Ford’s hands go still for just a moment before they resume their twisting. “…I was thinking.”

“Well that’s a new one.” Ford scowls. Stan grins. “What were you thinking about?”

“Do you rem—” Ford visibly backtracks. “The other day, when we went to seal the last of the rifts.”

“You mean when we had to get Mabel back from the multiverse?”

“Yes. I was thinking about… what she told us.”

Mabel tells them a lot of things. “That if we see a version of her who hates rainbows we should throw her out?”

“What? No. Though if you happen to meet a version of me who’s oddly obsessed with Internet games—”

“So we’re definitely coming back to that one later,” Stan interrupts, “because I wanna hear every single detail, but right now I just want to hear what was so important you left your nerd work and came up here instead of just shouting at me from downstairs.”

“Yes, well.” Ford is silent for a long minute. Sometimes he forgets to use actual words instead of just thinking about what he wants to say. Stan wonders if there’s some kind of magic rock you can use to read minds, because it would make talking to Ford a lot easier. For now, though, he’s got years of practice and the willingness to try. He nudges Ford with his elbow.

“Earth to Ford.”

“What? Oh.” Ford’s quiet again, but Stan can tell he’s just gathering his thoughts, not getting lost in them. “I was thinking about what Mabel said when we found her. How we should start taking care of each other.” Ford shifts uncomfortably. “I thought you might have come up here to brood over the children leaving, so. I wanted to see.”

Translation: Ford came up here to check on him and make sure he was okay. Stan feels something in his throat that feels suspiciously like a tear lump, and he is definitely not going to cry because that’ll upset Ford.

Of course, staring silently at his brother after such a confession isn’t exactly making Ford comfortable either.

“You seem okay,” he says quickly, bouncing to his feet. “I won’t disturb— whatever you’re doing.”

“Whoa, Ford! Just give me a minute, yeah? Sit down.”

Ford eyes him suspiciously, but drops back onto the bed.

Stan clears his throat roughly. “You—you’re not disturbing me. Truth be told, heh, I was kinda thinking about the kids. Not brooding,” he clarifies, “just thinking. But it’s nice that you’re here now.”

Ford smiles, but it looks a little stiff and he won’t make eye contact. “I’ve been thinking as well, but more about my conduct these past few weeks. Well, years really. A lot of them.” Ford sits up straight and tucks his hands in his lap. “Stanley, I’ve been a terrible brother, and—”

“Yeah, no.” Ford’s tried this speech a couple times, and Stan’s shut him down just as many. “Ford, I already told you—"

“That doesn’t mean—”

“You spent half your life in sci-fi land getting chased by a demon, Stanford!” Stan’s still not entirely sure what Bill did to Ford over those thirty-plus years, but he’s seen and heard things from Ford that tell more of the story than Ford probably knows or wants. “You’ve spent your whole life trying to fix one stupid mistake.” I know what that’s like, he doesn’t say.

“Good intentions don’t matter if you don’t suit actions to them as well,” Ford mutters.

“Don’t people say, ‘it’s the thought that counts’? Let’s go with that instead.”

Ford’s still frowning and picking at his fingers. Stan puts his hand on Ford’s shoulder, making sure he’s got his attention. “You and me? We’re good, Ford. We’re gonna look after each other, like Mabel said.” He leans back, smiling at the picture on the table. “She’s gonna come after us if we don’t.”

Ford hesitantly smiles back. “I know. Just…” He trails off, looking frustrated.

Stan remembers this, too. Ford can talk for days about anomalies and science and everything and nothing, but ask him to explain what he’s feeling and it’ll take him half an hour of false starts and unrelated ramblings before he reaches the point.

“There’s just so much I wish I’d done differently,” Ford says wistfully. It makes Stan’s heart twist. “I wanted to make something of myself. To prove that I was more than—you know. But all I did was. Well.”

And none of that was a real complete thought, but Stan gets it anyway.

“I spent ten years trying to make a fortune because I thought it was the only way to get my family back.” Stan bumps Ford with his elbow. “Total waste of time, huh? All I had to do was learn theoretical physics.”

Ford smiles, clearly in spite of himself. “I still haven’t thanked you for that.”

Ford’s thanked him for that about eight times since Stan got his memories back, actually, but it always feels nice to hear it.

“Yeah, well, we were busy savin’ the world.”

“You saved the world, Stanley. You saved me.”

Ford’s said that a couple times, and it's one of those things that gets Stan thinking about what Bill might have done to Ford over the past thirty years — the way Ford looks at him when he says it, like Stan did something scientifically impossible.

Like Ford never expected to be saved.

It always makes Stan uneasy, but he pushes past it for now. “That triangle doesn’t get to mess with my family. That’s my job.”

Ford’s looking at his hands again. “I still… regret, that you had to take the fall for my mistakes.”

The apologizing was kinda nice at first, to be honest (or something close to it), but now it’s just. Tiring.

Stan’s done with apologies. Or at least this particular apology. They both probably owe each other a few contrite words for a few different events, but they’ve got to get there first.

“Fall nothin’. I’m still right here.” Ford opens his mouth to argue, but Stan’s ready for that. Yeah, his memories are shaky in some places, but he remembers how exhausting it was to disagree with Ford when Ford’s not in a mood to be disagreed with. Which, to be fair, is most of the time, but that just means Stan’s gotten really good at dodging this particular bullet. “How about we go downstairs and see what’s on? You’ve got thirty years of crappy daytime TV to catch up with.”

Redirection and compromise. Ford’s expression says that he knows what Stan is doing, that he knows Stan knows he knows what Stan’s doing, and that they both know Ford simply isn’t going to call him out on it.

“I don’t see why not,” he says instead. He smooths his fingers over his coat again, but doesn’t pick at it. “What was that show you and the kids were talking about? Duck detective?”

Maybe one of these days Stan will stop getting the warm fuzzies over Ford paying attention to stuff he says. Part of him sort of hopes it'll happen soon, because his tough and unaffected image is in serious danger otherwise.

The rest of him— most of him— hopes that day never comes at all.

“Ducktective, Poindexter.” Stan claps his hands together and stands up, wincing as his knee cracks. “It’s got some good mystery stuff — you’re gonna love it.” He hesitates just a moment, then offers Ford a hand.

Ford smiles, small and lopsided, but real.

“I think I might,” he says, and pulls himself up.

#gravity falls #gravity falls fanfiction #stanford pines #stanley pines #my writing #it has been six thousand years since i wrote anything outside of academia and i have forgotten how to do it

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anistarrose · 6 years ago

Text

Some Sunny Day - Chapter 8: It Won’t Be Long (Gravity Falls - Same Coin Theory)

Summary: Mabel bursts some bubbles, Dipper cracks a code, and Ford makes a wisdom saving throw.

Warnings: manipulation, flashbacks to torture (see note below for more detail)

Previous / Next

The Beginning (see here for AO3 link)

(The Same Coin Theory is by @dubsdeedubs and @renmorris, and this chapter was beta’d by @porkpop!)

Given the subject matter, I guess it’s fitting that this fic would appear to die and then unexpectedly rise from the ashes months later, isn’t it? In all seriousness, I’m sorry it took so long (life has been… not exactly conducive to writing multichapter fics lately) and hope this update ends up being worth the wait! Good news, though — I wrote my first draft of Chapter 9 a while back, so the next update should come in a much more timely manner!

Important warning: This chapter contains flashbacks to torture by electrocution. The torture itself isn’t described in particularly graphic detail, but a decent amount of time is spent describing the consequences (there are references to temporary character death as well as to PTSD) so if you don’t want to read those parts but want to continue following the fic, feel free to ask me for a summary of the chapter with potentially upsetting parts omitted.

(On a lighter note, there’s a reference to one of my favorite GF fics in this chapter, so see if you can spot it!)

In another world of shimmering bubbles and wispy pink clouds, deep within a mountaintop temple, an Oracle addressed her patron.

“If he is to remember,” she asked, “it will be soon, won’t it?”

From within one of the bubbles, a frill-wreathed head bounced up and down in a nod. Its voice was musical and ethereal, like the sound of distant wind chimes.

“If you wish to help them, then now is the time.”

Jheselbraum bowed, and departed to an adjacent room of the temple where she kneeled down on a simple, woven mat. Concentrating on a single image — the face shared by two brothers whose destinies were so tightly intertwined with that of a demon, forming tangled loops that crisscrossed all across time and space, spanning eons and dimensions — her eyes blinked closed. When they opened again, they were glowing a faint lilac purple, and watching the events of a dream as it played out within the mindscape of Stanley Pines.

Interacting with the flow of time in such a way that it already knew the results, yet still observing intently, the Axolotl smiled.

It wouldn’t be long now.

***

Mere moments into her quest to break out of her dream bubble and save Stan, Mabel had an unpleasant realization: this time, she could see no literal bubble to burst — and therefore, no clear way to escape the dream world. No way back to her family.

Oh god, what if she fell back under the bubble’s spell before she could find a way to escape? And what if she didn’t snap out of it the next time —

“Think, Mabel, think,” she murmured to herself. “Don’t panic, there’s gotta be a way out somewhere…”

She heard movement in a nearby room of the Shack, and tiptoed away in the other direction, slipping into the gift shop and hunkering down behind the counter. The scenery around her was a good approximation of how the Shack really looked, but now that she knew she was in an illusion, the only thing that felt real was her pounding heart.

What would Ford want me to do? Stay calm, stay safe, and think through things logically, right?

She took a deep breath. Okay, Mabel, take it from the top. What’s the situation? What do you know?

She was in a dream, created by Stan because he was afraid of Bill. (Well, afraid of something, but what could it possibly be if not Bill?) It didn’t seem like Stan had realized she was aware of being in an illusion, so that was something she had going for her. He probably wouldn’t be actively trying to stop her, at least not yet.

And if she’d gotten here after being doused in the dark water, then Dipper and Soos were probably in dream bubbles of their own — maybe even Ford too, by this point. She had to get back to the regular mindscape, and see if he was alright. Or better yet, find Dipper and Soos’s bubbles and bring them back with her —

Right, she was still technically in the mindscape, wasn’t she? Which meant that if she focused on something hard enough, imagined it vividly enough…

She climbed out from behind the counter and rested her hand on the gift shop’s doorknob, bracing herself to open it and leave the Shack.

Okay, door, listen up, she thought. When I open you, you’re going to take me back to Dipper. In three, two, one…

She swung it open and a freezing black flood rushed in, knocking her backwards. With great effort, she opened her eyes to see the colors of the dream dissolving around her, and reforming new bubbles that floated in the ink-black sea, beckoning her with their colorful fantasies.

There was Ford, safe and holding hands with Stan and eight other familiar faces in a nearly complete circle. Eyes lit up with an optimism she hadn’t seen in him all day, Ford gave her an encouraging smile and reached towards her —

“Just take my hand, and we can complete the Zodiac!” he exclaimed. “We can banish Bill once and for all, together!”

She could feel her hands drifting over, fingers outstretched and ready to wrap around Ford’s own — but she yanked away at the last second, wrapping her arms tight around her shivering chest. A faint glow emanated from the star on her sweater, melting away the icicles on the tips of her numb finger and shining through her foggy, jumbled thoughts like the guiding beam of a lighthouse, exposing the true nature of the treacherous sea surrounding her.

It was never going to be as easy as holding hands, not this time. She knew better than to let any dreams within dreams convince her otherwise.

She took a strenuous step forward against the flow of the current, and the rejected bubbles burst as new illusions appeared in front of her, each singing a different siren song of temptation.

Here, Ford never fell into the portal.

Here, Ford and Stan never argued in the first place.

Here, you never broke your promise to help Dipper with the laptop, and he never got possessed by Bill…

Some of the visions hurt more than others, and she forced herself to look away. “Dipper?” she called out. “Soos? Grunkle Ford?”

There was no reply, except for a new stream of bubbles rising from the depths to float in front of her. In the closest one, she could see Bill Cipher warp and distort, limbs glitching and flickering as his pupil dilated in fear, and Mabel just knew that one good punch was all it would take to shatter that triangle beyond hope of repair —

And it would have been so satisfying, so cathartic, to deliver that punch, but she was painfully aware of it just being fantasy. It was exactly what she had hoped to find, exactly what she had envisioned as a best case scenario — Bill not just weakened, but completely distinct from Stan, easily separated and destroyed — and she couldn’t help but wonder if the illusion had been summoned entirely from Stan’s mind, or from her own.

Something about a larger bubble on her left side caught her attention. It just felt tangibly distinct from the others — still pulling her towards it, but in a different way. She was drawn to this one because it was… well, not entirely real, but more real than anything else around her. It was more familiar, more comforting — and not like the guilt-laced comfort of denial, but like the warm, genuine solace of companionship.

She approached it one step at a time, careful not to let the current around her lift her feet off the ground and wash her out of reach. She was scarcely five feet away when the voice of the bubble suddenly grew clear, and she realized — it wasn’t calling out to her like the other bubbles had, but rather having a conversation with itself.

No, not with itself. With someone already trapped within its illusion.

“All right, we’re rolling in three… two… one…”

“Welcome back to Guide to Haunted Mansions with Dipper and the Pines Family! Today, we’re coming to you from my uncle’s lab, where we’re running some tests on the ghost we captured last episode! Be sure to check that one out if you missed it, because —”

She could see Dipper now — appearance distorted by the bubble’s convex barrier, but unmistakably (and so relievingly) him. He was in a sophisticated but messy-looking laboratory, Ford smiling proudly at his side and Soos standing behind the camera…

But even a ways outside, and with the current working against her, Mabel could make out a spark of light in Dipper’s eyes that the other two lacked. Relief washed over her as she realized she’d found her real brother — accompanied by no small amount of worry for the real Ford and Soos, still nowhere to be seen.

“Dipper!” she called out. “This isn’t real! You have to get out of there!”

The water garbled her voice, distorting it so much that it sounded unintelligible even to her, but Dipper frowned as she spoke. Glancing between Ford and Soos, he asked:

“Did you guys hear that? Was that an audio glitch or something?”

Both the illusions shook their heads as Mabel spat out water, fighting against the tide to get closer to the bubble.

“Dipper, you’re in Stan’s mindscape, remember? It’s a dream bubble, like — like the one Bill trapped me in last summer!”

This time her words came out clearer, and Dipper turned around, somehow both looking right at her and staring right past her at once.

“No, that… that doesn’t make sense,” he murmured. “Bill’s gone…”

Ford put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Of course he is. We’re safe from him now — and Stan and Mabel are, too.”

The current around Mabel grew fiercer, threatening to drag her backwards, but she managed to wrap her arms around the bubble, hugging it as tightly as she could.

“We came to Stan’s mind to stop Bill!” she yelled. “You remember that, right?”

Dipper shook his head. “I — I don’t know…”

“You can remember! You can snap out of it — I know you can, because you snapped me out of it last summer! You’re stronger than this cheap trap, I know you are!”

Dipper grabbed his head, shuddering and gritting his teeth as the bubble began to distort. Hand still on Dipper’s shoulder, not-Ford’s eyes turned a dull red.

Please, Dipper, Mabel thought, I don’t know how much longer I can hold on…

The facsimile Ford’s form began to darken — at first fading to a monochrome shadow of his former self, and then melting like tar, liquifying into a shuddering column of darkness that spewed out rivers of black ink all around the lab just as quickly as it spewed out lies.

Do you really want to go back there, Dipper? Back to everyone you love being in grave danger? Back to not understanding what’s happening to them or how to help them? Do you want to go back to that uncertainty, to that fear?

Tendrils of darkness crept towards Dipper from every angle, surrounding him as if preparing for an embrace.

Here, Bill is dead for good. Stan is safe from him, and his mindscape is perfectly normal and healthy. Here we’re all safe, and happy, and living the lives we’ve always wanted. It’s not so hard to pretend —

Dipper finally met Mabel’s eyes, just staring at her for a moment. As the tendrils snaked closer and closer to him, he looked down again and took a deep breath.

“Dipper! Let’s beat Bill and save Stan together!”

He turned back towards Mabel and smiled, extending both arms in her direction.

“Awkward sibling hug?” he whispered.

The tendrils recoiled in shock as Mabel plunged her hands into the bubble, grabbed ahold of her brother, and pulled.

***

Ice-cold waves submerged Dipper like he’d plunged into an Antarctic sea, and a numbness quickly overtook him, paralyzing his chest and racing up his arms to —

It didn’t reach his fingertips. Mabel’s hand was warm even as she released him from her embrace, and Dipper realized that he could see her clearly now — a bright spot in the darkness, radiating determination like a falling star lighting up the endless void of the night.

Instantly, the last wisps of fog clouding his brain evaporated away, and everything fell into place — how it wasn’t Bill trapping them in the bubbles, but Stan himself. How finding and destroying Bill would have to mean finding a way to pierce through Stan’s own denial.

“I’m so glad I found you,” Mabel blurted out, and pulled him back into a hug. “I — I wasn’t sure I could save everyone alone.”

“Well,” he told her as he returned the embrace, “you sure saved me.”

The current raged around them, sending them spinning — but for all its strength, it couldn’t even come close to tearing them apart.

***

Ford stepped out of the portal to a not just familiar, but nostalgic sight — a temple carved of pink-tinted marble stone, craggy mountain peaks peering out from the blanket of clouds beneath them.

“Jheselbraum?” he called out, and the curtains at the entrance to the shine parted, revealing a humanoid figure clad in flowing red and purple robes.

All seven of her eyes blinked, and then a smile spread across her face. “Stanford! It’s good to see you again — and you’ve brought friends this time!”

“Sure did!” Stan said. “The guy would be lost without us. I’m Stan, nice to —”

She laughed. “Don’t worry, Stanley, I know who you are. And you must be Mr. McGucket?”

Distracted for the moment, Fiddleford tapped one of several pink bubbles that had floated out of the shrine. Its shape distorted, but it didn’t burst. “Would you look at that…ah, yes, sorry! McGucket, that’s me alright — though ya can just call me Fiddleford or Fidds. It’s a pleasure to meet ya!”

“Likewise! Would you three like to come inside? I know the view out here is spectacular the first hundred or so times you see it, but it’s honestly even more interesting in there.”

“Of course!”

Ford led the way in, marveling at the richly colored tapestries lining the halls. “Jhes, do you weave these yourself? I don’t think I saw this many the last time I visited.”

“I do! You’ll find some seers and oracles that weave their predictions directly into their tapestries, but I honestly just need to be doing something with my hands while I concentrate on seeing the future.”

“I can relate,” Fiddleford chimed in. “Er, not that I’m a prophet or anythin’, but I can never figure out what’s wrong with my code unless I’m fidgeting with somethin’ in a free hand.”

Something in a room to the side caught Ford’s eye, and he stopped so suddenly that Stan nearly slammed into him from behind. “I never got a chance to ask you before, but — why do you have so many tapestries of axolotls?” He felt like he had a second question on the tip of his tongue, but it stayed stubbornly just out of reach no matter how hard he tried to remember it.

Jheselbraum smiled knowingly, not so much with her mouth as with her eyes. “The Axolotl has always been something of a kindred spirit towards those who seek to see beyond the linear flow of time,” she pronounced, “and I like to show my gratitude this way.”

“The Axolotl, with a capital A…” Ford mused. “I’m sorry, Jhes — just a few weeks ago, I’m sure there was something I was thinking I’d like to ask you, but… it’s escaping me now.”

Jheselbraum put a hand on Ford’s shoulder, and a dull purple glow rippled across her eyes, so briefly that Ford would have missed it if he’d blinked. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and echoing, as if originating from the other end of a long hallway — but also more lively, more lifelike, the subtle accent a bit more pronounced and the inflection of her words more rhythmic, more poem-like.

“Did you want to ask why the Axolotl watched over your brother’s house, for all those years? Why it manifested before Stanley, of all people?”

“That’s — I think that’s it, I…” The ground ceased to feel solid beneath Ford’s feet, and a wave of nausea washed over him as he was suddenly uncomfortably aware of how sluggish and muddled his thoughts felt, as if stifled by fog. “There’s something — something wrong about this place, isn’t there? What am I… how did I get here? Is —”

“Hey, Sixer! Check out what I found!”

Simply hearing Stan’s voice was an instant relief, a rope he could grab onto and use to pull himself out of the stormy, disorienting sea of uncertainty he’d found himself cast adrift in. “Huh? What is it?”

Stan frowned. “You okay? I’ve never seen you not recognize a D38 at first glance.” Sure enough, he held a thirty-eight sided die in each hand, one purple and the other blue.

“I… it’s just the thin mountain air getting to me, I think. Where did you find those?”

Stan snickered, pulling aside a tapestry that hung over the doorway to a room Ford had passed by. “Oh, you ain’t seen anything yet. Feast your eyes, nerd!”

The room had two sides that were completely open aside from ornate marble guard railings, providing a stellar view as the first of the world’s three purple moons began to rise above the horizon, but Ford’s attention was instead captivated by the table at the center. Crisscrossing gridlines glowed a dull blue-green, dividing the surface into hundreds of tiny squares, and holographic projections cycled through a variety of miniaturized, perfectly adventure-suited environments — a lush oasis within a dust storm-battered desert, a sprawling and bustling space station floating just above the rings of a pink gaseous planet, an impenetrable-seeming castle of gray brick overlooking a murky moat and surrounded by expansive and bountiful farmlands.

“Jheselbraum, have you always had this?” Ford asked. “You’ve been holding out on me!”

“The last time you were here, you spent every waking moment either recovering from head injuries or drunk on Cosmic Sand. It hardly would have made for a quality campaign.”

Detachedly, Ford realized that the echo was gone from her voice, but he couldn’t help but pay more attention to Stan, who hoisted himself into the throne-like seat at the head of the table and diabolically rubbed his hands together.

“Well, it’s not like we’ve got anywhere else to be, and I’ve got some big ideas up my sleeve… so, who’s up for a game?”

“Stanley, I can think of literally no better way to spend the next six hours to six weeks of my life,” Ford declared. “I’m in.”

***

“You hear the slappin’ tunes, Mr. Pines? That’s how you know it’s a boss battle!”

“Slappin’? Is that seriously how you people describe music these days? And what’s a boss battle?”

“Well, it’s pretty much what happens when you defeat all the minions of the biggest, baddest dude in the level, so then they finally have to throw down with you themself! Doesn’t look like you’re having any trouble with it, though — you must be some kinda natural, ha ha!”

“You bet I am!” Stan laughed as he dealt the final blow, and tossed the controller down triumphantly. “I’m gonna break the young’s monopoly on gaming skills, just you watch —”

The congratulatory chiptune jingle cut off abruptly, and a pattern of static rippled across the TV set. When it subsided, two new character sprites had appeared — two sprites that Soos knew he’d recognize anywhere no matter how stylized, thanks to that lumberjack hat and shooting star sweater.

“Hey, dudes! I was just teaching Stan how to play some of my favorite games — but how’d you two get in there? You’re looking kinda pixely — what happened?”

“Pixely?” Dipper looked down at his hands for a moment, confused, but then shook his head. “Never mind! Soos, this is all just an illusion! You’ve got to snap out of it!”

“All this is just inside Stan’s mindscape, remember?” Mabel added. “You’ve gotta out of there so you can help us stop Bill and save Stan!”

The ripple of static crossed the TV screen again, but this time it spread out all throughout the room, making the furniture and walls flicker and glitch like they were in a corrupted game. A high-pitched electronic whine prompted Soos to clap his hands over his ears, and the light from Mabel’s sweater pulsed in sync with the sound, like the noise and the static were emanating from her and Dipper somehow. Soos felt like he was missing something — why did the two of them look so distraught, with those pixelated frowny faces?

“Are — are you sure, dudes?” he asked. “Stan said Bill was gone, and we were having a lot of fun here — weren’t we, Mr. Pines?”

“‘Course we were!” Stan gently punched him in the arm — too gently, almost intangibly, like it was just a simulation of the actual sensation — “And do I look like I need saving? I’m doin’ great over here, just having a —”

“You don’t look like it, but you do, Stan!” Mabel cried out. “I know you do, and we can help you, I promise we can — but first you have to admit it!”

“No! I’m fine! We’re all fine!” Stan yelled, but dark red and purple pixels began to flicker at the edges of his form. He looked almost two-dimensional as the glitchy appearance slowly crept up his arms, consuming them and disintegrating them into a sea of dark, flashing rectangles that cascaded towards the ground —

“Mr. Pines?” Soos gasped. “Are — are you okay? How —”

Stan extended what was left of an arm in his direction — and then froze in horror, as he saw what the loss of the pixels had exposed.

Four slender, cartoonishly simple fingers trembled in place just inches from Soos’s shoulder — all of them a smooth and solid black, and wreathed in electric blue sparks.

No! Stan’s voice came out desperate and distorted, crackling and cutting out like a broken speaker. PLEASE, no —

Two pairs of human hands grabbed ahold of Soos from behind and pulled him away from Stan, back towards the television. From all directions at once, his ears were filled with a resounding POP —

And then the three of them tumbled down onto the grayscale yet familiar wooden floor of the Mystery Shack’s gift shop, dark clouds above them receding towards the hallway. Just feet away, the vending machine stood shining brighter and bluer than ever, a now all-too-familiar song playing softly from within like the melody from a music box.

Keep smiling through,

Just like you always do,

‘Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away!

***

An elven wizard resembling Ford, a human bard resembling Fiddleford, and a silver dragonborn paladin with two additional rows of eyes like Jheselbraum forged a path up a mountain, undeterred by the storm clouds gathering overhead. Their route wasn’t particularly steep, but shrubs and small trees grew all over what had once been a trail, making their climb more tedious than Ford had hoped for.

“So Ford, this dungeon — you say no one’s ever returned from it alive?” Fiddleford asked, absentmindedly plucking his banjo to the tune of Country Roads.

“No one has ever returned from it period, dead or alive,” he answered, shoving a branch out of his face. “Necromancy will likely be of little help to us there. But all the divination magic in the world agrees that the depths of Mt. Somnifell hold, and I quote, ‘all the treasure an adventurer could ever dream of.’ You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

“More like muddy feet,” Fiddleford groaned, narrowing his eyes and gritting his teeth with clear visceral disgust as looked down at the ground beneath his shoes. “Are we close yet?”

“Should be.” Three of Jheselbraum’s eyes were directed down at a map, while the other four scanned the surrounding area for landmarks and hazards. “Do you see a crooked tree anywhere?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Ford replied. He craned his neck up towards the sky, past the transparent storm clouds and into the pink marble room surrounding them. “Stan, are there any landmarks that you forgot to imagine into the game and would like to tell us about?”

Stan snorted and leaned over the table, resting his elbows on a neighboring mountain. “Have a little faith, Poindexter! I may be a first time DM over here, but I think you’ll find that I’m the master of the imagination!”

“Fine, I’ll look somewhere else for your dumb tree,” Ford shot back. “Alright, gang, let’s check some other spots at the same altitude — ugh! What’s going on here?”

A long, brown tendril had wrapped around his left ankle and was binding it in place — the root of a nearby oak, he realized.

“It’s got us too!” Jheselbraum called out, drawing her sword. Without hesitation, Fiddleford whacked the root ensnaring him with his banjo, and it seemed to flinch — as much as a semi-mobile plant could flich, at least — but stayed tightly bound.

“I cast Scorching Ray!” Ford declared, and three yellow-orange bolts flew out from the tip of his wand, one striking each of the three tendrils with impressive precision. Several inches of each root instantly crumbled into ash, and the oak tree that they led back to shuddered, green lights flashing in its leaves as a dark-skinned figure with pointed ears and vivid emerald eyes flickered into view. Immediately, they held up their hands in submission.

“Alright, I’m sorry! You’re stronger than I bargained for. I’ll leave you alone now, I promise.” Their voice held a hint of Stan’s hoarseness, but also a distinct inflection pattern of its own.

“You’re a dryad, I presume?” Ford asked, cautiously lowering his wand. “We’re sorry for trespassing on your territory.”

“I suppose dryad is the closest word to it. Most dryads are only tied to one tree, though — I watch over this whole grove, even though I can only control one tree at a time. You can call me Balsa.”

“You must know this region like the back of your hand, then,” Jheselbraum commented, and Balsa beamed, nodding. “Do you think you could help point us towards a certain landmark?”

Their face immediately fell, and they let out a sigh. “It’s the crooked tree, isn’t it? You’re looking for the entrance to the depths?”

“That’s correct. Is something… wrong with that?”

They shook their head. “No, it’s just that… you seem like half-decent people, you know? Same as a lot of other treasure hunters that I’ve seen vanish into that cavern, and never come out. I try to make the plants overrun the trail, make the crooked tree grow straight again so no one can find this place and go boldly marching to their deaths, but…”

They waved their hand halfheartedly, and a mere five meters away, the undergrowth parted to reveal a crack in the earth — a nearly circular dark chasm that rested in the mountain’s light grey stone just as a black hole might sit in the center of a shining galaxy.

“Why are ya showin’ us this?” Fiddleford asked. “You just said ya wanted us to stay out.”

“It’ll call to you anyway.” Balsa sighed dejectedly. “It always does. Everyone who goes looking finds it eventually.”

“How long have you been trying to keep people out?” Jheselbraum hesitantly stepped towards the edge of the chasm, lower row of eyes blinking as she tried to make out what lay within.

“About a century and a half now,” Balsa told her. “The legend draws people in from all four corners of the world, and everywhere in between — seemingly pleasant people like you three, a lot of the time. People whom I wouldn’t expect to be so driven by greed and the promise of treasure. Are you in debt? What is it that draws you to this… this suicide mission?”

“Well, they say money can’t buy happiness, but it doesn’t exactly hurt to have it, either,” Ford replied, and above the table Stan stifled a laugh. “But for us three, I think the main thing drawing us in is the thrill of the discovery. We’re not so much treasure hunters as simply adventurers.”

“Well said,” Jheselbraum told him. “Balsa, we appreciate your concern, but we know the risks of this mission and we’ve made according preparations. If we’re ever in grave danger, we’ve prepared spells to teleport out with. ”

Ford nodded. “The depths of Mt. Somnifell are a mystery that we plan to solve, no matter how many expeditions it takes.”

Balsa shook their head. “Well, I can’t stop you. But I’m not sure you’ll like the solution to that mystery as much as you expect. Will you really remain so dedicated to the truth, if it starts to look like you’re headed towards answers that you don’t want to hear?”

With that, they turned their back and vanished in a burst of green light.

“That was ominous, wasn’t it?” Fiddleford muttered, and then after a pause added: “Well, who’s jumpin’ down that hole first?”

“I think I’ll try to climb, rather than jump, but I’ll be happy to lead the way.” Ford intertwined his fingers and stretched his arms out in front of him, preparing himself for the descent.

“Be careful,” Jheselbraum warned him. “It doesn’t get any brighter down there, and the air flowing out felt humid. It may be slippery.”

“To quote our infinitely wise DM — have a little faith! For one thing, I have dark vision, and for another, I never said I was climbing the rocks themselves.”

One use of Rope Trick later and Ford’s feet safely struck the damp stone floor, having reached the bottom of a twenty-foot long, near-vertical shaft. Fiddleford was about halfway down and had all four limbs wrapped around the rope for dear life, as Jheselbraum brought up the rear and offered words of reassurance.

“Don’t you even think of explorin’ any further without us, Stanford Pines!” Fiddleford shouted, shrill voice echoing loudly. “You’ll just get yourself killed an’ you know it!”

“Relax!” Ford yelled back. “I’m taking a look around, but I’m not moving any deeper in!”

Once he felt certain Fiddleford was more focused on the climb than on him, he took just a tiny step forwards — and then another, and one more after that, because he really had expected to be able see a bit further down here with his dark vision —

The world around him went white, and two firm hands came out of nowhere to grasp both of his shoulders. Jheselbraum stood facing him in the featureless bright space, once again in a robed human form… and with glowing purple eyes.

“I think something’s wrong with your table, Jhes. This doesn’t look like something that should be happening in a campaign —”

“Ford, please listen to me — you’re falling more deeply entranced by the second. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get through to you again at this rate — you must snap out of it! I know it’s an upsetting truth to face, but you are strong enough, and so is your family, as long as you all face this together. I believe in —”

Ford blinked, and he was back in the cave. Fiddleford kneeled a few feet behind him, looking relieved enough to kiss the ground if only he could see it in the darkness, and Jheselbraum gracefully leapt down from the rope to land at his side. She didn’t look especially worried, or speak like there was any matter of particular urgency at hand.

“Ford, you’re giving me an… odd look. Is your touted night vision malfunctioning?”

“No, I’m… just thinking.” He’d witnessed something, he knew that, but the memory felt the same way an object might look if viewed through unfocused eyes in the dead of night — blurry and undefined, only straining his brain more and more the harder he tried to focus on making it out.

Oh well, then. No need to hurt myself — it’s just a game. And speaking of which…

“Stan?” he called out, and the roof of the cave grew holographic and transparent, revealing Stan’s face as he watched the party attentively.

“Yeah, Sixer?”

“I have to admit, I had my doubts about you as Dungeon Master, but… I was wrong. This is such a well-crafted, captivating story you’ve created here — you know that, right? I’m really, genuinely enjoying it — keep it up, and I won’t ever want to leave!”

“Yeah.” Stan smiled, but broke eye contact with Ford — was he surprised? embarrassed? guilty? “Yeah, that’s just what I’m shootin’ for. Thanks, Ford.”

***

“Can you hear us, Grunkle Ford?” Mabel called out. “Where are you?”

No one replied, but the dark clouds in the hallways crept a few inches closer and the piano notes grew slightly fainter.

“Do you think he’s behind the machine?” Soos asked. He took a few steps away from the nearest hallway and towards the kids, nervously scanning the room for any sort of surprise attack.

“I don’t know, but I have a feeling we might not get another chance to check,” Dipper replied. Dark droplets rained down from a crack in the roof, narrowly missing him and splattering across the vending machine’s glass door.

“You’re right, we should hurry — wait, what?” Mabel gasped as she rushed over to the machine. “Dipper, the buttons are different — it’s some kind of weird code! How are we gonna get in?”

“Let me see. There’s got to be a way… wait, hold on. I… I’ve seen this code before.”

“That’s great! I should’ve known you’d know how to… Dipper? Is something wrong?”

Dipper’s stomach was churning with nausea and he hated it, because he knew it wasn’t a real sensation, a physical sensation, but couldn’t still couldn’t will the feeling to stop. “No, it’s just… this cipher was in the Journal, but I wasn’t able to crack this one until after Weirdmageddon, when all the pages got restored. I don’t think even Ford knows I solved it.”

“So what’s it doing in Stan’s mind?” Soos asked. “Did he crack it, or —”

“Bill was the one who wrote in this code,” Dipper added more quietly. “He used it while he was possessing Ford.”

“Oh… right.”

Dipper took another, more careful look at the keypad, where four buttons were already glowing — corresponding to the letters S, T, A, and N.

Now, if we press B, I, and then L twice…

His hand had barely left the keypad when the machine shuddered, swinging open with a groan to reveal a sight that was both unnervingly alien and chillingly familiar.

Descending beneath them was a staircase, mirroring the design of the stairs beneath the Shack — only these were carved from a shimmering light wood, like the bark of a birch tree. Elliptical knots and whorls covered the walls, slowly swirling and moving and growing as they turned to stare up the steps at Dipper and the others, flickering yellow so faintly you could almost convince yourself you’d imagined it, if only you didn’t know better.

“Oh, fuck this,” Dipper whispered, and neither Mabel nor Soos — the two most profanity-averse people he knew — gave any sign of disagreement.

He did, however, hear a sickening crunch behind him, and turned to see the floorboards on the other end of the room collapsing, dragged down into a slowly widening sinkhole in which dark currents frothed and churned. One at a time, grey planks were ripped away from their neighbors and dragged below as the rupture grew, its edges creeping steadily closer —

“I don’t like the look of that place either, dudes,” Soos told them, “but we might not have a choice…”

“You’re right,” Mabel agreed. “Let’s go.”

She grabbed Dipper and Soos’s hands, and before any of them could lose their will, they barreled down the stairs together.

***

The cavern was sloped downwards with countless twists and turns, and Ford got the impression that the tunnel was slowly snaking its way through just about all the interior volume Mt. Somnifell had to offer. Lurking in the shadows, monsters sprang out to ambush them at surprisingly regular intervals — humanoids with bat-like wings, wolves lacking eyes but with long-reaching claws that more than made up for their blindness, slimes that could precipitate stalactites out of their bodies and hurl them at whoever looked most defenseless — but the party dispatched them all with relative ease, burning through healing potions at only about half the rate Ford had expected, given the dungeon’s reputation.

But the cavern also had some less pleasant surprises in store, as was quickly proven when Ford spotted the first body.

“They’re still breathing,” Jheselbraum reported after he pointed out the dwarf’s unmoving form. “It doesn’t even look like they’ve been knocked unconscious — they’ve simply fallen asleep. And they’re smiling like they’re having a pleasant dream, at that.”

“Huh,” Ford murmured. “Can you tell if the cause is magical, or some kind of ingested or inhaled substance?”

“This might end up provin’ itself to be a stupid question,” Fiddleford chimed in, “but can you, ya know… wake them up?”

Jheselbraum shook the dwarf gently, but they remained limp. “I’m trying to, but it doesn’t seem to be working. But this is a magically induced sleep, Ford, I can tell you that much for certain. We should stay alert — there could be any number of magical traps lying ahead, and we don’t want to get stuck in a slumber like this ourselves.”

“That’s some high-quality armor they’re wearing,” Ford commented. “They must be a serious treasure hunter.”

“We’re not lootin’ an unconscious dwarf, Stanford!”

“I never said we were! I was just wondering if it would be feasible to carry them with us, or if they would be too heavy!”

“Normally, I would hate to leave behind a person defenseless like this, but the monsters seem to be leaving them alone for now,” Jheselbraum cut in. “If we carry them with us, and into more of those ambushes, they might actually be less safe.”

Ford and Fiddleford nodded their agreement, and the trio set off down the tunnel once again. They’d scarcely been walking for five minutes when Ford held up a hand, signaling for the others to stop.

“Shh. Do you hear that?”

Fiddleford cupped a hand around his ear. “Water dripping, and… it sounds like breathing?” he whispered.

Ford nodded. “Heavy breathing, just up ahead — maybe even more than one person.” Readying his wand, he took a few cautious steps forward —

It was a heap of sleeping bodies this time, almost comically mismatched in size but leaning up against each other as they snored. The largest figure wrapped its arms around two smaller ones, one of which had their arm around a fourth figure who was smaller still. They were an orc, a human, an elf, and a halfling, Ford realized — almost certainly a team who’d ventured into the dungeon together.

Jheselbraum closed her eyes for a moment, teeth gritted in concentration, and then opened them again with a gasp. “It’s a very powerful spell affecting them. I tried to dispel it, but the magic… it fought back in a way I’ve never felt before. Almost as if…”

Her voice dropped to a low, uncertain whisper. “...as if the victims didn’t want their curse dispelled?”

“Odd,” Fidds remarked, and gingerly poked the orc’s arm. Their eyes twitched ever so slightly, but stayed closed.

Ford carefully stepped over the human adventurer’s legs, and conjured four small orbs of light, each tinted a slightly different color. They floated down the darkest hallway yet, illuminating a set of straight, carved stone stairs that didn’t at all match the natural, winding paths of the rest of the cavern.

“I’ve found something over here,” he announced. “Not sure if it’s the final stretch before the treasure we’ve been looking for, or simply the start of a more daunting and deadly area, but it definitely seems to suggest the influence of something sentient. This cavern, whatever it is, is more than just a naturally occurring phenomenon.”

The stairs weren’t especially steep, but walking down them was as exhilarating as sprinting down a hill, like there was nothing in the world that could stop your legs from moving once you began to descend. The smooth, flat walls were damp with condensation, but the droplets of water reflected even less of Ford’s light than the stone did — he only noticed they were there in the first place after he ran his fingers along the wall for a moment, then pulled away to find them cold and wet.

But the condensation seemed to stay off the steps themselves, and when Ford glimpsed a light at the end of the staircase — bright orange, and unlike any of the ones he’d created himself — he broke into a run, startling Jheselbraum and Fiddleford for a moment before they too saw what he’d seen, and rushed to catch up with him. They careened to a stop in front of an ornately carved wooden door, candles on each side of it lighting the hall, and Ford pushed it open to reveal —

An expansive, well-lit library, bookshelves stretching up from a plush-carpeted floor all the way up to the high and majestic painted ceiling, each and every available ledge crammed full of ancient-looking but well-preserved scrolls and tomes. Ford walked in slowly, not out of a lack of interest but out of an indecisiveness regarding where to investigate first — so many of the nearby books looked so enticing, but he was also drawn to the luxurious mahogany desks that seemed to come pre-equipped with inkwells and long, fluffy quill pens, and it was equally hard to tear his eyes off the statues of ancient wizard scholars, lit from behind by elegant, resplendent chandeliers…

As he marveled, Jheselbraum picked a book from the shelf seemingly at random, flipping through it at first but then skimming the pages with a bit more care, eventually sitting down with it and turning back to the beginning to pour over every word.

“This is the work of scholars that have long since been relegated to legend!” she reported. “Knowledge that for centuries, people have accepted as being lost forever! This is the discovery of a lifetime!”

Fiddleford chose another tome and opened it up on one of the desks, pulling a blank scroll out of a drawer and placing them side-by-side in preparation for taking notes. “That is, if you could even catalog all this in a lifetime! I can’t even see the end to some of these shelves!”

It was all so perfect that Ford couldn’t help but laugh — a deep, genuine laugh that the library’s acoustics amplified, bringing smiles to the faces of his companions. Skimming the titles and authors featured on the nearest shelf, he mused: “I wonder if we could find an explanation for why those explorers were asleep. This place surely would have —”

His gaze came to rest on a moderately thick book bound in black-dyed leather, and held closed by a clasp seemingly carved from bone: A History of Earliest Necromancy, Volume 2 — The Rise of Liches and Innovation of Archliches.

“Though really, I don’t think that’s the highest priority in the grand scheme of things.” He immediately curled up in a cozy chair with the volume and opened it to the first chapter, the world outside of the pages becoming effectively nonexistent as far as he cared.

Stan watched the whole scene play out from above, with only the faintest, most easily stifled hint of guilt hidden behind his smile as he saw his brother happily and peacefully settle down to read.

***

The staircase was longer than the one beneath the Shack, and each footstep felt heavier than the last. At some point the stairs began to alternate light and dark colors, as if the white color of the bark had been peeled off every other step, and a faint chime sounded beneath each footfall, harmonizing with the intensifying piano music. Neither the clouds nor the waves appeared to follow them down, as if the brightness of the stairs and the eyes were driving the darkness away.

The end came up on them quickly — Dipper had been expecting another door, some other puzzle, but it seemed that the vending machine had been Bill’s last line of defense. Hallways branched out all around them, winding and turning every which way and lined with doors just like the ones upstairs. Closest to the three of them was the hall labeled Memories, in the same cipher from the vending machine; it was also the hallway from which the music seemed to emanate, growing so clear that Dipper could almost make out a voice singing the accompanying lyrics.

“Do we follow the song?” he asked, and Mabel nodded.

“Yeah, I guess it’s been working so far.”

The patterns in the walls shifted, eyes staying fixed on the trio as they forged ahead.

***

Ford flew through the first book and found the other volumes soon after, all on different shelves yet well within his line of sight, like the library had read his mind and rearranged itself. Every once in a while, he heard a murmur or exclamation from Jheselbraum or Fiddleford, and though a part of him wondered what they were reading, it felt almost like a waste of effort to tear his eyes up from the page. The books were so detailed, so well-researched, that he could almost forget he was playing a game…

“Stanley, do you mind if we stay here just a bit longer?” he asked. “I know you probably have plans for the rest of the campaign, and I don’t want to ruin those by taking too long to move on…”

The roof of the library turned into a magnificent glass window, through which Stan looked back at Ford. “Well, are you having fun down there?”

“Oh, absolutely!”

Stan smiled. “Then you can stay there as long as you feel like! Hell, you can stay forever if you want.”

“That’s considerate of you, thanks! But I think forever is a bit too long, even for me…” Ford turned back to his book and flipped to a new page —

But found that he couldn’t quite pour all of his attention into the words anymore. As interesting as phylacteries and demiliches were, there was something that just didn’t sit right with him — something about Stan’s smile. It had seemed… off. Exaggerated.

A tiny voice in the back of his head (a familiar voice, he realized, somehow reminiscent of both Jheselbraum and Mabel) whispered five simple words to him — five words that every D&D&MD player knew well, but Ford hadn’t yet heard on this adventure:

Make a wisdom saving throw.

Without getting out of his chair, he glanced around the library, and for the first time really thought about how every title he spotted sounded like something he’d happily dedicate hours of his life to reading. He thought about how hard it was to tear his gaze away from those books once you started, how easily they captivated his curiosity — and how effortlessly Stan had woven this entire story, how instantly Ford had found himself enthralled, how frequently he would forget that he was actually in Dimension 52…

And how did we get to Dimension 52, again? Stan helped somehow — right? Before Jhes, there was…

There was…

Does it really matter if this is real, Ford?

Ten minutes. That’s all.

A die fell from his hand and struck not the plush maroon carpet of the library, but rather the color-drained wooden floor of the Mystery Shack, bouncing half a dozen times before it came to a rest wedged between two floorboards. On the uppermost face, glowing blue, was the number 38.

Stan stood alone on the other side of the room, dark fog spilling from the arms of his suit where hands should emerge instead. The clouds sunk low to the ground, creeping forwards like a smoky, immaterial tide, but they stopped at the edge of the circular blue glow that the die cast onto the floor, seeping all around the circumference of the light but unable to move further inwards.

“Why, Ford,” Stan choked out, “did you have to ruin it?”

“I don’t know if the being I’m facing is my real brother,” Ford began softly, and Stan flinched, raising a cloudy tendril to cover his face. “But Stanley, regardless of where you really are — I want to help you. I want to find Bill and stop him, once and for all this time; I want you to be safe —”

“I just want you to be happy!” Stan yelled, and tight cuffs snapped shut around Ford’s wrists. Wisps of fog snaked upwards from his hands, and chains materialized out of them, lifting him off the ground as they grew towards the ceiling —

“But i-if you go looking for Bill…”

In the mind, where anything conceivable is just a few seconds of concentration away from manifesting into existence, a vivid imagination can be your best friend or your worst enemy — and Ford couldn’t help but remember, imagine, almost feel the faint sensation of tingling electric shocks at his wrists, of static charges creeping up his arms as his hair stood on end and his muscles tensed involuntarily, bracing himself for the current to intensify…

“If you keep looking, then you won’t be happy,” Stan went on, oblivious to Ford’s panic as he stared down towards the floor with practically glazed-over eyes. “None of us will.”

***

Old, flickering incandescent lightbulbs cast a blue-tinted pallor over everything in the hall, illuminating particles of dust that drifted through the air as if no one had come this way in a very, very long time. Separate hallways branched off every few feet, some behind doors and others not — and many with no visible end in sight.

Dipper and Mabel sneezed with almost perfect synchronicity as they passed by a dimly lit offshoot, ending at a chained-up door with the image of a scalene triangle etched into it. The symbols on the doors grew more familiar the further they explored — glasses, a llama, a bag of ice. The same code labeled every door with a transcription of the symbol, and Dipper flinched, trying to repress a morbid curiosity as they passed Pine Tree, and Question Mark, and Shooting Star…

Then finally, they stumbled upon Sixer.

“Sounds like this is where the music is coming from,” Soos murmured. No one stepped forwards to open the door.

“What do you think we’ll find there?” Mabel asked.

“Hopefully Bill,” Dipper replied. The word hopefully felt tainted and wrong in his mouth.

Mabel closed her eyes for a moment, brow furrowing in concentration. When she opened them again, a water gun-like apparatus had appeared in her hands, just transparent enough for Dipper to tell that it was filled not with liquid, but rather with sparkling bright glitter.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready now.”

Soos curled his fingers around an invisible hilt, and a pixelated sword popped into existence, surrounded by equally retro-looking orange flames. “Me too.”

Dipper curled his fingers around the handle, and cringed as a jolt of electricity stung his palm — not strong enough to really hurt, but plenty strong enough to startle him and send his already pounding heart racing even faster. The door swung open with a creak as he recoiled, revealing another hallway lined with more doorways, this time unmarked. The lightbulbs overhead hummed and crackled quietly, blue-white sparks leaping off the sizzling filaments and striking the glass to create a noise that sounded almost intelligible —

(tzxmeaiz jfjlpc ZI afb-wavdiik xlmevmuxvj)

(aesldlk'x ysdb ximaqiu em)

(f'q jg alviq aqeexwoh)

(z'e al wfjzv)

“There’s too much background noise. I can’t tell where the music’s coming from anymore, can you?” Dipper asked.

Mabel rubbed her ears. “It’s like it’s coming from nowhere, but also everywhere. I guess we should just… check the doors one by one?”

“I guess.” Dipper’s hand hovered just above a doorknob as he took a deep breath, Soos and Mabel readying their weapons behind him. There was a sickly-sweet smell permeating the air, like sulfur mixed with the scent of a dusty, seldom-used home heater.

(The smell of burning hair, he would realize a few seconds too late.)

“Okay, Bill. Let’s see what you remember about Ford —”

His fingers had hardly brushed the knob when the door exploded. Dust filled his lungs and splinters impaled themselves in his hands, stinging like a million tiny lightning bolts —

But still stinging less than the memory that now played out before him, stripped away of any enciphering, or euphemism, and at last exposed for all to see.

Ford’s limp body was suspended from a dark red brick ceiling, chains fastened around his neck and wrists. He seemed to fade away into the folds of his scorched and tattered trench coat, and his unblinking eyes stayed worryingly blank as wisps of smoke drifted up from his smoldering, ashen hair.

“Oh, WHOOPSIE-DAISY! This was all my bad this time, it really was — I just keep forgetting how sensitive your puny little organs are!”

Bill jabbed a single finger into Ford’s stomach, and Ford swung back and forth like a pendulum, remaining completely limp. “I wonder what circuit blew this time? Bet it was your sentimental, oversized old man heart again, wasn’t it? I’m tellin’ ya, you’d be better off without it — maybe now you’ll consider throwing your lot in with world domination!”

He cackled, loudly and bitterly. “What are you saying, Cipher? Save the spiel for when he’s awake again to hear you, dumbass!”

He snapped his fingers, and a pale yellow glow began to manifest around Ford’s body, starting at the hands and slowly making its way towards his chest. His voice dropped a few full octaves as he went on:

“Now, let’s get you fixed up for ANOTHER ROUND —”

“NO!”

Dipper didn’t have any memory of stepping through the doorway, but he was well-inside the Fearamid now, racing towards Bill as fast as his legs could carry him and fists clenched so tightly that his fingernails dug into his palms. “Don’t you dare hurt him anymore!”

What?

Bill’s voice came out different — still an echoing, high-pitched whine like usual, but smaller somehow. It held less brash self-assurance, less of that absurd, larger-than-life personality that the world had come to know and fear — and was more full of uncertainty, of panic.

Less horrifying, and more horrified.

P-P-Pine Tree? No, no, NO —

Why are you — what am I —

What am I DOING?

His eye darted all around the room as his body turned to a screen of static, familiar images flashing inside — a pine tree, a six-fingered hand. A sock puppet, a glowing blue chain.

He grabbed Dipper’s hand, but no cold flames ignited this time. His grip was tight and trembling as his wide, desperate eye met Dipper’s —

Pine Tree, why are we here? What IS this? What’s HAPPENING?

I don’t want to be here, Pine Tree, please —

“Let go of my brother!” A blast of a thousand tiny, glittering yellow and pink stars struck Bill in the eye, knocking him backwards as he howled in pain. “Yeah, that’s what you get for what you did to Grunkle Ford!”

Mabel ran towards where Ford hung, smoking less but still limp. “Are you okay?! We’ll get you out of there, just hold on —”

It’s… it’s not the real Ford, is it?

Bill sat up, blinking slowly as if coming to his senses. His voice still echoed, but it was lower-pitched now, and had an unmistakably familiar hoarseness to it as he turned towards Mabel —

We’re in the past, pumpkin. You can’t undo it —

and

neither

can

***

“Stan,” Ford whispered. don’t think of electricity, don’t think of electricity, don’t think of electricity —

“I. Need you. To let me go.” He tried to enunciate carefully but overcompensated, the words coming out stiff and robotic. “Please,” he added.

Stan crossed his arms, pulling them tight around his chest as he shook his head, motions jerking and marionette-like. “No, I — I can’t.”

“Calm down,” Ford told him, even though his voice sounded anything but calm. He could smell the all-too-familiar scent of burning hair and clothes now — was his hair already beginning to smolder, or — no. Ignore your senses if you have to, they’re lying right now. Just talk.

“Stan, look into — look into my eyes. I’m your brother, Stan, you can trust me —”

“But you can’t trust me,” Stan interrupted, still staring straight down. “All this time, I was — you were wrong about me. I’m a horrible brother, and I just tricked you into thinking I wasn’t.”

Something reached its breaking point in Ford’s mind, and tears began to fall from his eyes — an ionic solution, exactly what makes your body such a good conductor of —

“Fuck it, Stan, put me back in your tabletop game if you want, but please, you’ve got to let me out of here or my own mind is going to —”

Stan’s neck flew backwards with a sickening crack, craning towards the ceiling as his eyes flew open, but he still wasn’t looking at Ford — no, he was staring far past him, spheres of blue plasma sizzling where dark brown irises should have been.

WHAT?

Why are you DOWN THERE?

Dipper, NO!

The fire in his eyes moved in cascades, in waves, like static across a television screen.

What am I DOING?

NO, NO NO

Kids, I — oh, pumpkin, it’s not —

I can’t —

I can’t undo it

I CAN’T UNDO IT

He blinked and his eyes were brown again, human again, staring into Ford’s own —

“Stanford, w-what am I DOING?!”

Ford’s chains vanished in a puff of fog, and he tumbled to the ground, landing more softly than the wooden planks beneath him should have allowed for. Stan staggered away from him, raising his hands to cover his mouth as black tears spilled down the left side of his face, leaving dark trails on his cheek and staining his fingers —

While from the corner of his right eye, shimmering crystal blue droplets welled up and dripped down — liquid fire, blazing so bright that it lit the whole room.

“Stanley —!”

In a quick one-two punch, the roof of the Shack buckled and then exploded, as a torrent of water crashed down upon Stan and submerged him instantly. A violent cyclone surrounded him, biting winds slicing through Ford’s coat and stinging his arms as they grew stronger, more desperate —

But Ford could still make out something inside the waterspout, a glow that jumped in jagged paths like lightning one moment, then floated and flickered like tongues of flame the next — a bright blue light, refusing to be drowned out. Refusing to be forgotten.

***

A couple of end notes this time:

-If I did my job as a writer well, this should hopefully be apparent, but because this detail is very important to me and my interpretation of the characters in this context, I just want to clarify: All the electric shocks that (non-memory) Ford felt were due to his own mind/imagination working against him, not due to Stan. Stan, as he now exists, would absolutely never hurt Ford like that — but he was desperate to keep Ford from searching for Bill, and because of that desperation (plus possibly a bit of influence from the Bill memories the kids were rooting around in) he made an unfortunate choice in terms of how to restrain Ford, prompting Ford to flash back to Bill’s torture. Once Stan realizes what’s happening, he’s horrified and immediately wracked with guilt, which we’ll see a bit more of in the next chapter. (finally going back to Stan POV! It’s been so long!)

-If you want a hint for the long code encountered in Bill’s part of the mindscape, hit me up and I’ll be happy to give one!

-For the record, most of my Dungeons and Dragons knowledge comes from listening to podcasts rather than actual playing experience, so if anything doesn’t make sense, let’s just chalk it up to being a difference between D&D and D&D&MD.

-I also threw in a reference to Flat Dreams by Pengychan, which is a Bill-backstory fic that I absolutely love! Of course, you can understand SSD without reading Flat Dreams, but you should totally read Flat Dreams anyway because it’s just that good.

-Last but not least, look out for the next chapter — also known as my favorite chapter — within the next couple of weeks ;) As usual, comments/predictions/etc are welcomed!

#gravity falls #same coin theory #stanley pines #bill cipher #stanford pines #mabel pines #dipper pines #soos ramirez #fiddleford mcgucket #jheselbraum #the axolotl #rosalia writes fic #fic: some sunny day #making some minor format changes to how i post these on tumblr #so we'll see how that goes #it's good to back though

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minijenn · 6 years ago

Text

Universe Falls Chapter 55

Meh so yeah another meh chapter but that’s fine. Its one step closer to the good stuff I know this arc has to offer. Either way I guess there are... decent parts about it... I guess. But whatever. Here ya go.

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/175344462879/universe-falls-chapter-54

Chapter 55: The Stanchurian Candidate

FFVIE E MIZCPV, UBIUFKI EMC ELSILMS AIS'R NYPZ WFSXMUXDC L GSCDK ZV UAN ECSN AIGGMUC EZWPT UEJ LGSSRR ELF FRTO VJRFR ZYU NYK NVZ SE XPW XY JZLR!

Since he no longer had the portal to work on in secret each night, Stan had recently taken to falling into a much more regular sleeping schedule than he had been keeping for the past 30 years. Still, that additional sleep hardly did much to help his largely exhausted and aching bones, which was something he was acutely aware of every morning when he woke up, and this one was no exception to that.

“Ugh…” the conman groaned to himself as his eyes slowly opened. The comfort of his bed attempted to tether him down to it, but unfortunately he knew that with work to be done in the gift shop and the museum, he couldn’t just lay about all day, as much as he wished he could. “Alright, Stan, another day, another random body pain. Here we go…” With a steadying breath, Stan slowly lifted himself up out of bed, only to feel a rather tight arthritic ache in his back. Despite his small hiss of pain, the conman forced himself to move despite it, only to receive another unfortunate surprise in slipping into his bedroom slippers only to realize they were strangely soaking wet. “Augh! What the-”

Stan stopped short upon noticing the unmistakably colorful, glittery note lying on his nearby nightstand, one that just so happened to explain exactly how his slippers had ended up becoming saturated sponges: “Dear Stan, I needed something to carry milk in, so I used your slippers. Love, Mabel.” Somewhat disturbed by his niece’s unorthodox idea, the conman shuddered but still kept his milk-soaked slippers on all the same as he tiredly trudged to the kitchen to get some quick breakfast. He soon received another unwelcome surprise, however, as he flipped the kitchen light switch on, only for the bulb to bust out as soon as he did. With an exasperated sigh, Stan went to retrieve a replacement from the nearby cabinet, but instead of finding any lightbulbs, he only discovered an empty box and another note in their place. “Dear Stan, I used these to build a planetarium suit for Soos. Sorry! Dipper.”

Upon reading this, the conman couldn’t help but let out another angry groan as he crumbled the note, feeling quite inconvenienced as he prepared to head out to the store to buy new lightbulbs. Trying to make this trip out as short and painless as possible, Stan quickly retrieved a new box of bulbs and headed for the checkout, only to soon receive another aggravation in the form of the group of teens who had gathered in line behind him.

“Whoa, let’s not take this line,” Lee remarked to Robbie, Tambry, and the others in the group in a not very discreet whisper. “There’s an old person in it.”

“Pfft, yeah,” Robbie agreed, his arm slung around his girlfriend’s shoulder as he rolled his eyes. “He’s probably gonna pay with like, pennies, or war bonds.”

“Hey!” Stan snapped, fiercely turning around to face the impetuous teens. “For your information, I was gonna shoplift most of this!”

“Security!” the nearby cashier called out, having clearly heard the conman’s blatant confession. However, as far as Stan was concerned, he was more than ready for the trio of security guards already running his way.

“Ha! Smoke bomb!” he proclaimed, tossing one down that he always had on hand. However, the bomb didn’t end up erupting due to its long past 1996 expiration date, much to his continued frustration. “Aw, seriously?!” he exclaimed just moments shy of being tackled by the guards, who promptly forced him to pay for goods that would have been much easily stolen if not for his apparent tactlessness.

With the drive home being as relatively uninteresting as always, the conman couldn’t help but smirk even in spite of his earlier misfortune as he thought about his plans to tell Amethyst about the twins’ annoying shenanigans and his own failed attempt at shoplifting later on so that they could plot out a scheme to get even with those who had wronged them. However, those plan quickly fell through as Stan was hit was the all too harsh reminder that he hadn’t spoken with the purple Gem since the portal incident really. Based on the hints she had given him the last time they had seen each other, as well as what he heard from the kids, Amethyst was apparently still quite upset with him, but, for the most part, he didn’t quite understand. True, there had been plenty of times in the past when the two of them had had their petty differences, but never had the radio silence of anger lasted between the pair for this long. Of course, Stan knew that he could always follow up on the advice Steven had given him the other day and travel up to the temple to make amends with Amethyst himself. The only problem with that when it came to repairing their apparently tarnished friendship, the conman had no idea where to even start.

Even so, Stan put those thoughts aside as he arrived back at the shack, lightbulbs in tow and a small, relieved grin on his face as he headed to the kitchen once more. “Ugh, rough start to the day…” the conman remarked to himself as he looked down at the box of lightbulbs he was carrying. “But it’ll all be worth it when I fix that light bul-”

Stan stopped short in the kitchen doorway only to find the twins and Soos congregated around Ford, who was in the midst of, oddly enough, replacing the broken lightbulb. “Aaaaand… done!” the author proclaimed proudly, eliciting a round of relieved cheers from the kids and the handyman.

“Does anyone see this?” Mabel asked, throwing an arm out to Ford with a beaming grin. “This is what a true hero looks like right here!”

“I thought we were out of lightbulbs,” Stan noted, his already displeased frown growing at his brother’s apparent ‘heroism’.

“Oh, we were,” Ford acknowledged. “So I invented my own! It’ll last a thousand years and the light it emits makes your skin softer.” As the kids let out a round of impressed musing over this, Stan sighed in annoyance, something that the author didn’t seem to catch as he continued. “So anyway, where were you?”

The conman didn’t respond, instead making his disappointment rather clear as he dropped the lightbulbs he had just bought right into the nearby trash bin. A rather fitting place for them, he figured, since they were just as useless as he now seemed to be.

“Well, TV, at least you still appreciate me,” Stan remarked as he settled into his recliner before the television in the den. “Give me the good news.”

“This just in,” Shandra Jimenez announced on the news almost as soon as the conman turned the TV on. “The mayor is stepping down from office.”

“What?!” Stan exclaimed, startled by this very sudden news.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Dipper asked as him and Mabel entered the den, having heard their grunkle’s shocked proclamation.

“In a completely unexpected move, Mayor Dewey has officially announced his resignation this morning,” the news continued, showing the mayor himself give a speech. “In his lengthy tenure in office, Dewey was best known for the development of downtown’s “Dewey Park”, leading out in the “Great Handship Evacuation”, and putting town menace Gideon Gleeful behind bars, in actual adult prison. In his resignation statement, Dewey professed his belief that its time for Gravity Falls to be helmed under new leadership.”

“People of Gravity Falls!” Dewey proclaimed as delivered his speech to the rather bored crowd before him. “My family has been serving our fair town here for generations, ever since my great ancestor William Dewey pioneered himself as Gravity Falls’ very first mayor! His son followed in his footsteps, as did his son, and I followed after him to create the Gravity Falls we all know and love today! Now, I know how difficult it can be to say goodbye, especially to a mayor as charming and beloved as yours truly! But my days as your dutiful mayor must come to an end so I can really enjoy the finer things in life. Like spending my days practicing my swing out on the putting green or building expensive monuments dedicated to my legacy using tax-payers’ dollars. Speaking of which… I’m pleased to announce this!” The soon to be former mayor pulled the tarp off a nearby canvas, unveiling an artist’s rendition of a statufied monument featuring him and his trio of mayoral ancestors that had each presided over Gravity Falls in the past. “Mount Deweymore! Coming to a mountainside near you! Get your commemorative T-shirts, hats, and drinking mugs now!”

After this, the feed cut back to the newsroom, where Jimenez was currently leaning against her cohost, pouring out her joyous tears. “I-I’m sorry, its just… its been so long since we’ve had real news. I’m just so happy!”

As the anchor continued sobbing blissfully, her co-host was quick to fill in and finish the report. “There will be a town hall meeting this afternoon to discuss finding a replacement mayor.”

“New mayor, huh?” Stan mused thoughtfully, a smirk spreading across his face as a sudden idea came to him. One that could, perhaps, prove that he wasn’t so ‘useless’ after all. “Wonder who it could be…”

Like all news usually did, word of Mayor Dewey’s resignation spread fast throughout Gravity Falls, and as a result, most of its denizens turned up for the meeting in town hall that afternoon. By the time Stan, Dipper, Mabel, and Soos got there, there was hardly any place to sit in the rather tiny hall at all, though fortunately they found a seat thanks to Steven, who happened to notice them enter and immediately waved them over to join him and Greg.

“Hey, you guys!” the young Gem greeted the Pines as they sat down next to him. “Can you believe Mayor Dewey is retiring? It feels like he’s been the mayor of Gravity Falls since forever!”

“Well, ever since before I came here, at least,” Greg added with a small smile.

“Whoa… then that means he’s been in charge for a super long time, huh?” Mabel mused, aptly amazed.

“Uh… w-well not that long,” the former rock star chuckled, somewhat flustered by the implication.

“Dewey’s been the head honcho around here for too long if ya ask me,” Stan remarked, crossing his arms. “It’s about time someone else takes charge and starts running this town right for a change. And by right, I mean getting rid of that stupid van with that dumb giant head of his sticking up on the roof of it. Its literally the tackiest thing I’ve ever seen; and considering I run the Mystery Shack, that’s saying something.”

Almost as soon as the conman had finished his rant, Mayor Dewey took the podium up front to begin the proceedings. “Alright, everyone, settle down, its my turn to speak!” the gathered crowd quieted down at this, yet for some reason the mayor continued cautioning them to silence. “Ah ah ah! I said quiet down! And… thank you. Now, we’re here to choose a new mayor for the first time since I humbly took the position over from my father several years ago. I realize that the shoes I’m leaving behind are metaphorically very big ones, despite the fact that I personally only wear a size 8!” Dewey paused for a beat, waiting to get a reaction from the crowd to his joke, only to be met with awkward, understanding silence, prompting him to continue in exasperation. “A-anyway… According to the town charter,” the mayor pulled open a rather old scroll, one that released a good bit of dust and moths as soon as he unfurled it. “A worthy mayoral candidate is defined as anyone who can cast a shadow, count to ten, and throw his hat into the provided ring.”

Dewey motioned down to below the podium, where Sherriff Blubbs and Deputy Durland were placing a large hoop down onto the floor. Almost as soon as they put it down, however, the first hat fell into it, one that was boldly thrown in by a certain used car lot owner.

“Well now! I do believe I fulfill all the requirements!” Bud exclaimed, rising from his seat and surprising a good majority of the townsfolk by this unexcepted claim to candidacy.

“Wait, Bud Gleeful?” Dipper asked incredulously.

“As in, Gideon’s dad?” Steven echoed just as concerned.

“He looks good! Ya know, considering we threw his son in jail,” Mabel noted.

“That was a good day,” Stan remarked, leaning back into his seat with a satisfied grin.

“May I, Mayor?” Bud asked Dewey as he walked up to the podium.

“Be me guest,” the current mayor backed off, far more interested in selling his ‘commemorative mayor-mobilia’ off to the side of the stage than really spearheading this meeting any further.

“Now folks,” Bud began, addressing the crowd with a flair of southern sincerity. “I know our family’s had its fair share of whoopsie daisies in the past. But I’d like to make up for it by formally announcin’ my candidacy for mayor of Gravity Falls! Any questions?”

“Yes!” Toby Determined exclaimed, standing up with a microphone and notepad in hand. “Are you still in contact with Lil’ Gideon?”

“That’s a great question—I’m givin’ you 50% off a used car!” Bud quickly diverted, essentially taking all thought away from the Gideon question altogether.

“Fifty percent? FIFTY PERCENT!” Toby cried, ripping his notepad clean in half out of sheer excitement alone.

“In fact, everyone look under your seats!” Bud proclaimed as the townsfolk did so to find half off coupons placed under every one of them. “You get 50% off a used car! And you get 50% off a used car!”

“Wow, a colorful piece of paper?” Mabel remarked in amazement as she retrieved her own coupon. “He’s got my vote!”

“Guys, I’ve got a really bad feeling about Bud Gleeful as mayor,” Dipper said, rather aptly worried.

“I dunno, dude,” Soos remarked with a shrug. “Its not like we have a ton of good mayor options. Everyone in this town is a tad strange. Except, ironically, Tad Strange.”

“Hi, guys,” an exceptionally normal man sitting in the crowd greeted plainly. “Tad’s the name, being normal is my game.”

“Loving you, Tad!” Mabel exclaimed, pointing to him brightly.

“And I love bread,” Tad said, holding a slice of normal white bread up.

“Hm… oh! I have an idea!” Steven exclaimed, turning to Greg. “Dad, why don’t you run for mayor? You’re super wise and really dependable. I think you’d do a great job!”

“Aw, thanks, kiddo, but I don’t really know if I’m cut out for the whole mayor gig,” Greg said with a small chuckle. “Just cause I know how to play a mean guitar riff doesn’t really mean I know how to make budgets or pass bills. Plus, I don’t even have a hat to toss up there even if I wanted to.”

“Aw…” Steven sighed in disappointment. “Well… who knows? Maybe Mr. Gleeful really does just wanna make up for everything Gideon did and help the town out.”

“I doubt it,” Dipper remarked dryly. “It’s a shame Ford isn’t here. He’d run, and win! And be a great mayor!”

Up until this point, Stan really didn’t have too much to say about Bud’s unfolding, seemingly unopposed candidacy. However, upon hearing his nephew’s sentiment that his brother, of all people, would succeed at something like this above practically everyone else, including him, he found that he really couldn’t remain silent or inactive on the matter any longer. Especially considering the stakes at hand here if Bud really did end up winning after all.

“So, since everyone’s happy,” the car salesman continued with a warm, satisfied grin. “I’ll just take the oath of office now, sound good, Soon-to-be-Former Mayor Dewey?”

“Huh?” Dewey turned away from his cart of merchandise, apparently uninterested with the proceedings. “Oh, uh, yes, we’ll get to that in just a-”

The current mayor was interupted as another hat suddenly landed in the ring, a hat that was none other than an iconic red fez that unmistakably belonged to the conman who had just rose to the occasion. “Hold it right there, Bud!” Stan exclaimed boldly. “I’m taking you on!”

A collective gasp rose from the crowd at this, none of them having really expected any actual competition to come about, much less any from someone like Stan. Likewise, Dipper, Mabel, and Steven were perhaps the most surprised by this, all three of them knowing, despite the strengths that Stan did have when it came to things like showmanship, fraud, and lying, solid leadership didn’t seem to be among that list.

“Stanford?” Bud scoffed right off the bat as Stan marched up to the podium. “No offense, but you’re just some two-bit carnival barker! And your head is more ears than face!”

“Oh yeah?” the conman goaded crossly. “Well, your face is more fat… than… not fat!”

The crowd gasped once more upon hearing this slam, though needless to say that everyone present was quite engrossed in this newfound conflict for office, including Mayor Dewey himself.

“What do ya say, folks?” Stan turned to address the crowd brazenly. “Are we just gonna let Bud win? How about a real election for a change?!”

As opposed to a gasp, a rousing cheer arose from the audience, as several other townsfolk tossed their own hats into the ring just out of sheer excitement alone. While the conman doubted most of them would actually run, he was pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction, one that would hopefully continue as he set out on this daunting path to the mayoral office.

“Well, looks like we’ve got some competition here, folks!” Bud laughed, seemingly amicable. “Which I’m completely fine with!” However, as the crowd continued in their noisy frenzy, the car salesman’s tune quickly changed as he suddenly leaned over the podium and spun Stan around unexpectedly, his voice low and sour as he addressed the conman in almost a whisper. “I was gonna let bygones be bygones, Stan, but you just made a powerful enemy. I’ll win either way, and when I do, you might not like the Gravity Falls you wake up in!” Bud finished this rather ominous threat off by punching a hole right over the Mystery Shack in the large map of Gravity Falls hanging on the wall behind him. While Stan wasn’t that phased by this, the kids certainly were as they all let out quiet gasps of fear as the crowd began erupting into a round of wild, excited chanting.

“Election! Election! Election!”

“A-and don’t forget to buy your exclusive, limited edition Mayor Dewey pins on the way out!” Dewey attempted shouting above the crowd as they began to file out of the hall. “While supplies and my remaining tenure as mayor last!”

“Let the madness begin!” Sheriff Blubbs exclaimed as him and Durland set off the old, rusty canon near the hall’s entrance, officially signifying that the race for the next mayor of Gravity Falls had indeed begun.

“Wow, Mr. Pines,” Greg remarked, heading up to meet Stan up front along with the kids. “I never thought I’d say something like this, but good luck in running for mayor!”

“Luck?” Stan scoffed. “Please, Greg, I don’t need luck. I got plenty of charisma to carry me through this election. At least more than some obnoxious hick like Bud does.”

“Uh, Grunkle Stan, what are you doing?” Dipper interjected, getting right to the point of his lingering concern.

“Running for mayor!” the conman reiterated. “Did I… did I not make that clear?”

“Um… yeah, you did,” Steven acknowledged with a bit of an apprehensive, but still somewhat supportive smile.

“Grunkle Stan, its not that we think you can’t do it,” Mabel said hesitantly. “I-it’s just-”

“No, no, its ok, Mabel,” Dipper interupted before turning back to Stan and offering him the blunt truth. “We don’t think you can do it.”

Stan let out a bit of an exasperated sigh upon hearing this, but even so, he figured he’d be honest with his doubtful nibblings as he knelt down to their level. “Look, kids, Dewey randomly retiring like this got me thinkin’. I’m an old man, and I’m not getting any younger. My dumb brother’s research is probably gonna make him famous one of these days. And what do I have to show for my life? Do I really want ‘crooked grifter’ on my tombstone? How about ‘crooked mayor’!”

“Um, wouldn’t you want ‘honest mayor’ on your tombstone instead?” Steven asked rather tentatively.

“Come on, kid,” Stan rolled his eyes. “I may be a chronic liar while I’m alive but the last thing I want is to take a blatant lie like that to the grave.”

“Psst, you guys, we need to talk,” Dipper interjected, diverting Mabel and Steven as Stan continued detailing what few campaign plans he had to Greg and Soos. “I know Stan isn’t the best candidate. Heck, he’s even committing voter fraud right now.” He nodded back to the conman, who was currently trying to forcefully shove a large number of voting slips into the ballot box near the podium. “But Bud’s definitely up to something and we’re the only ones that can stop him.”

“You’re right, Dipper,” Mabel nodded affirmatively. “Besides, Stan has a kind-of charisma. How hard could getting him elected be?”

“Yeah!” Steven chimed in brightly. “Plus, who knows? Maybe Mr. Pines will actually make a really great mayor if he wins!” At this, the young Gem was met with a pair of very skeptical, doubtful glances from the twins, which was enough to quickly make him retract a bit of his idealistic confidence. “Or… maybe we could just get him elected and hope for the best from there?”

“That’s the spirit!” Mabel proclaimed, pulling out patriotic hats and stickers and slapping them on herself and the boys. True, getting Stan into the coveted mayor seat wouldn’t be the easiest task in the world, but considering the alternative, they had no choice but to try their hardest to see it happen all the same.

In only about one day’s time, the Mystery Shack had been completely transformed into the unofficial headquarters for Stan’s mayoral campaign. With ample help from Soos, Wendy, Greg, Candy, and Grenda the kids had produced a plethora of posters, buttons, stickers, signs, and flags, all of them bearing the same vibrant message of ‘vote Stan!’. A large part of the morning had been spent distributing these campaign promotions around town, but the afternoon had been reserved for something even more important than any of them: a radio interview that was set to be broadcast all throughout Gravity Falls. One that, if all went well, would give perspective voters the feel they needed as to what the conman was like and prompt them to lend him their much-needed support.

“Spread the word, pig!” Wendy quipped as she finished spray painting ‘Swines 4 Pines’ and ‘Bud’s a Dud’ onto Waddles.

“Come on, Lion, you gotta keep the hat on!” Steven urged his pink pet as he tried his hardest to position a campaign hat onto his fluffy mane. Of course, Lion hardly cooperated, instead opting to knock the hat off his head and bite down on it instead as if it were just a chew toy. “Lion, no!” the young Gem protested, trying in vain to pull it away from him. “Let go of it! We only had so many of those made. Lion!”

“Alright, everybody, eyes up here!” Dipper called, drawing everyone’s scattered attention towards the rather old document he had found for this exact purpose. “Ok, Gravity Falls’ elections are based on two events: the Wednesday Stump Speech, held on an actual… stump. And then the Friday Debate, wherein townsfolk throw birdseed at the candidate they like most. At the end, they release a ‘freedom eagle’, who will fly to the candidate covered in the most birdseed and bestow a ‘birdly kiss’ upon him, appointing him mayor.” A beat of confused silence passed at this as everyone took in the town’s rather bizarre election proceedings before Dipper finished, echoing their bewilderment. “I couldn’t make any of this up if I wanted to.”

“Man, who could have guessed that even the way this town elects is mayors is weird?” Greg remarked, somewhat bemused.

“Ok, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel exclaimed, beckoning the conman over to the phone she had just answered. “Are you ready for your first big radio interview?”

“I got my mouth, don’t I?” Stan deadpanned with clear confidence.

“Ok, you’re on with the candidate,” Mabel said to the radio station on the other line just as their segment on Stan began, one that Dipper, Steven, Soos, and Wendy were readily monitoring on the air all the while.

“You’re listening to Falls Radio: 24 hour news and bear rampage alerts,” the usual voiceover announced. “And now here’s the T-Man!”

“Hello!” Toby Determined greeted as awkwardly as ever before addressing Stan on the phone. “Candidate Stan, first question: How do you feel about the American flag?”

“Meh,” Stan shrugged with far too much honesty for the circumstances at hand. “I can take it or leave it, too many stripes. Next question.”

“What would you do to help educate our kids?” Toby asked next, carrying the interview right along.

“Ha, simple!” the conman replied with a broad smile. “Put them on an island and make them fight for dominance. Also, teach kids swears. That’ll bring them into the real world.”

Upon hearing this blunt tactlessness, just about everyone else in the shack looked to each other with apt worry, all of them knowing that Stan’s incredibly politically incorrect answers couldn’t possibly be helping to bolster his chances in the polls at all.

“What would you do about the crime in Gravity Falls?”

“Wait, do you mean crime in general, or just the specific crimes committed by m-” Stan stopped short as the line suddenly went dead as a result of Dipper cutting it just in time.

“Ok, interview’s over,” he said succinctly, knowing that he had just saved Stan from making things any worse in the nick of time. “Candy, what’s the damage?”

“Your approval ratings started at zero,” Candy reported, looking at a live feed of the polls on her laptop. “Now it’s a number less than zero.”

“You’re memeing fast and none of them are good,” Wendy added, holding up her phone to show a meme of Stan that read ‘one does not simply teach kids swears’.

“And the angry emails are already starting to pour in…” Steven noted, scrolling through his own phone. “Yikes, this one has just about every single word Pearl’s told me I should never say.”

“Look, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel began, calmly enough. “People are like smell markers, and you’re black licorice! Its not that you’re unsniffable. You just need to learn when to keep the cap on.”

“From now on, maybe you should just read our prepared remarks,” Dipper cautioned, handing Stan a short speech him and Mabel had collaborated on the previous night. However, despite their efforts, Stan simply laughed them off, pocketing the speech and dismissing it entirely in favor of his own charisma, or lack thereof.

“Heh, sorry, kids,” the conman remarked wryly. “I always say the words that come right outta my brain. If my head says that lady’s got an ugly baby, my mouth says, ‘hey, lady, you got one ugly baby!’”

“Oh boy… this is… pretty bad…” Mabel said to Steven and Dipper as soon as Stan had walked out of earshot. “At this rate, Grunkle Stan’s gonna lose for sure!”

“W-well, we can’t just give up!” Steven persisted earnestly. “Maybe we just need to come up with a new plan to help him win! Like getting some outside help from someone who-”

At that exact same moment, both Steven and Dipper gasped, their eyes widening in timely realization with two drastically different thoughts in mind. “I have an idea!” both boys exclaimed at the same time, both of them equally excited, though their hasty unison continued even still. “Oh! So do I! That’s great! Be back in a while! See ya!”

And with that, both boys ran off in opposite directions to enact their newfound ideas, leaving an aptly amazed Mabel behind in wake of their unplanned yet almost perfect synchronization. “…What just happened?”

“And he’s insisting on speaking his mind!” Dipper finished detailing the disaster that was Stan’s campaign so far to Ford, who had been leafing through one of his journals throughout most of the story, though he had listened intently all the same.

“So, this is an emergency,” the author noted, realizing the severity of the situation. After all, if anyone knew just how callous and loose with his words Stan could be, it was him.

“The Stump Speech is in a couple of days,” Dipper continued, not even hiding how worried he was. “And if he continues like this, we’ll lose to Bud for sure!”

“Hm… it’s a shame there isn’t some device that will allow you to control someone else and stem the tide of any offensive or uninformed remarks they could possibly make…” Ford mused before reaching a quick realization. “Oh, wait. Of course there is.” The author turned to the desk behind him and pulled out something that Dipper hadn’t really expected: a patriotically striped tie with a small golden dial attached to the front of it. “A long time ago, I designed a prototype for Ronald Regan’s masters,” Ford explained, handing the device over to his nephew. “Just get Stan to wear this, and you can make him a literal talking head.”

“Whoa…” Dipper said, astonished as he peered inside the tie to see a complex array of circuitry hiding within it. “This is amazing! And ethically ambiguous!”

Ford nodded, pulling out another, much plainer tie to go along with the mind controlling one. “As long as you wear the matching one, he’ll say and do whatever you want him to.”

“This is perfect!” Dipper exclaimed, excited at the new, much more safer angle they’d be able to take with this tie factored in. “Thank you, Great Uncle Ford!”

“Yes, yes!” Ford turned back to his work as he waved his nephew off, apparently unconcerned with the somewhat concerning implications of the device he had just given him. “Use it responsibly and all that.”

“And if we don’t help Mr. Pines win, then Gideon’s dad will be the new mayor! And who knows what’ll happen then!” Steven finished his own explanation of the recent happenings, his tone quite worried as he looked desperately to the Gem he had detailed this all too. Unfortunately, she seemed to be far from worried herself as she reclined on the couch, trying her best to block the young Gem out entirely.

“And I should care about any of this… why?” Amethyst asked, her expression set in a cold scowl as she kept her eyes closed and her manner bitter.

“I just told you why!” Steven pressed. “Gideon’s dad? Becoming mayor? Doesn’t that worry you at least a little?”

“Not really,” the purple Gem shrugged. “Besides, even if I did care, why would I wanna help Stan with anything anyway?”

“B-because you guys are best friends!” Steven implored, trying his best to hide the fact that his reasoning for asking Amethyst for help was twofold. Not only did he want to get some much-needed assistance in helping Stan win the election, but he knew that the pair had been at ends for quite some time now. And perhaps a chance to work together like the infamously well-suited team they were once more would be just what they needed to repair the usually strong bond between them. The only problem was getting Amethyst to agree in the first place. “I just think you’d make a really great running mate for Mr. Pines. I mean, you’re one of the Crystal Gems, a protector of Gravity Falls! A lot of people around here really do respect you guys and the things that you do. If adding you onto his ballot doesn’t help boost his ratings, I don’t know what will!”

“Ugh…” Amethyst groaned loudly, rolling onto her stomach. “Steven, this is a dumb plan, and its not gonna work. Nobody’s gonna wanna vote for Stan because nobody can trust him. I know I don’t…” she said in a rather low mutter. “At least not anymore…”

“But… b-but…” Steven stammered, stammering as he realized his ship was sinking fast on this and he had to do anything he could to save it. “But Mr. Pines could really use your help!”

“Oh he does, huh?” the purple Gem deadpanned harshly. “I guess that’s why he asked me to help him with that stupid portal, right? Oh wait, he didn’t. He didn’t even bother to tell me about that, did he? Cause why would he actually be honest for a change, even with me?!” With this angry exclamation, Amethyst rammed her fist into the wall closest to her, the bang rattling throughout the entire house and leaving a dense, anxious silence in its place.

It took Steven a moment to fill this silence, but when he did, his tone was solemn and sincere as he offered the purple Gem a sympathetic frown. “Amethyst… if all this is really about what happened with the portal… then why don’t you just go tell Mr. Pines about how you’ve been feeling instead of just staying up here by yourself and being angry about it? For you know, talking about it might help you both finally feel better.”

“What’s there to talk about?” Amethyst sighed, turning away from the young Gem. “Stan conned everyone for years, including me. ‘He’s the one person I really feel like I can be myself around’, ha, sure,” the purple Gem sardonically echoed what she had declared to her teammates in the portal room. “Problem with that is that he was never actually himself around me or anyone else for that matter. So why would he try and start being honest about things now, just cause he wants to be some big important mayor or something.”

“But he just wants to-”

“Forget it, Steven,” Amethyst huffed, hopping up from the couch to head into the temple. “I’m not helping him. Not now, not ever. I’m not as dumb as you think. I don’t need someone like Stan leading me on and lying to me and pretending like nothing’s wrong when just about everything is wrong. Especially now…”

Steven hesitated upon hearing this, a part of him wanting to leave Amethyst alone with her feelings that she clearly still needed to work through. But another, more persistent part of him had a feeling that getting her on board with this election campaign would help everyone in more ways than one. “Amethyst, I didn’t want to have to do this, but you leave me with no choice…” the young Gem began, his tone serious for a moment before he suddenly leapt at the purple Gem, clinging onto her leg and keeping her from making any further progress towards the temple. “Please help us!” he wailed, forcing tears as he kept his hold on her leg, even despite her attempts to shake him.

“Ugh, Steven, cut it out!” Amethyst exclaimed hotly. “Let go of my leg, you little weirdo! I already told you I’m not doing it!”

“But we need you!” Steven begged morosely. “If you don’t want to do it for Mr. Pines, at least do it for it for me, Dipper, and Mabel!”

“No, I’m not gonna do it for anyone!” the purple Gem argued back crossly.

“Pleeaaaaase?” the young Gem pleaded relentlessly. “I’ll do anything! I’m on my knees, begging for your help, and you’re the only one I can go to for this!”

“Says who?” Amethyst grunted, struggling to continue on to the temple.

“Says me!”

“Augh, Steven!”

“Amethyst!”

“Steven!”

“Amethyst!”

“Steven!”

“Amethyst!”

The purple Gem snapped around to fire another aggravated retort at the young Gem, only to stop short upon seeing the absolutely tearful expression on his face, one that made her anger start to melt almost immediately. “Oh come on…” she groaned, rolling her eyes. “You know I can’t say no to that dumb face…”

“So… you’ll help?” Steven ventured, still keeping the waterworks on for good measure.

For a moment, Amethyst said nothing, her scowl lingering as she crossed her arms and looked away. Steven briefly thought he’d have to resort to continued begging once more, but fortunately, the purple Gem’s ongoing resistance finally folded as she let out a deeply annoyed sigh of acceptance, knowing that, as far as the young Gem was concerned, she really had no other choice. “Ugh… fine… I’ll be Stan’s ‘running mate’, whatever the heck that means. But don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

“I won’t!” Steven chimed, instantly back to a wide smile as he jumped up off the ground, no signs of his former desperate tears whatsoever. “At least not at first. Who knows? Maybe that’ll change after you and Mr. Pines get back into the swing of being a team again.”

“Yeah, no, I seriously doubt that, Steven,” Amethyst remarked begrudgingly following the young Gem out the door to head down to the shack, though not before letting out a small, wistful sigh to herself all the same. “I seriously doubt that…”

“Make sure to get my good side, Soos,” Stan said as he posed for the array of campaign photos Soos was in the middle of taking. “We’re gonna need to show it off as much as possible since apparently the kids think I bombed the radio interview earlier.”

“I think you did a pretty good job, Mr. Pines,” the handyman said earnestly as he snapped another photo.

“You’re darn right I did!” the conman exclaimed. “Those runts don’t know squat about how a real politician gets it done. If the people want ‘honesty’ and ‘transparency’, then I’ll knock ‘em upside the heads with both of those things until they can’t see straight and they check my name off while they’re dizzy and voting!”

“Whoa… that strategy’s gotta be ahead of its time!” Soos complimented, duly impressed.

“You can say that again,” Stan grinned. His ongoing photo session was soon interupted, however, as Steven came bounding down from the temple, calling out for Stan all the while.

“Mr. Pines! I have some great news!” the young Gem exclaimed, coming to a stop beside Soos.

“I already won the election?” the conman guessed with a surprised smile. “Ha! I knew that bit about putting kids on an island to fight to the death would win people over!”

“Um… no, actually,” Steven frowned briefly before quickly perking up. “The good news is that I found a running mate to help you win the election!”

“A running mate, huh?” Stan raised a curious eyebrow. “Well… I guess that couldn’t really hurt anything at this point. Who exactly did you have in mind, kid?”

“Well, I-” Steven was cut off as Amethyst suddenly plopped down to the ground beside him seemingly out of nowhere.

“Yo,” she deadpanned, not to Stan, but more to Steven and Soos than anyone else. All the same, her manner was still annoyed and cross as she all but averted the conman’s rather surprised gaze.

“Aw, Amethyst! You ruined the surprise!” the young Gem pouted. “I was gonna make this big huge announcement and everything, but you came in too early!”

“Oh well,” the purple Gem shrugged, completely unconcerned as she crossed her arms and glared at the ground.

“Uh… h-hey, Amethyst,” Stan greeted almost hesitantly, offering her the sincerest smile he could muster. All the same, Amethyst didn’t really respond to it outside of a cold, apathetic nod, entirely rebuffing his meager attempt at friendliness and showing that she wasn’t really interested in it altogether.

“Um… w-well its really great to see you two talking to each other again,” Steven commented apprehensively. “The only thing we’re missing here his the whole… ‘talking’ part…”

“Steven!” Mabel suddenly interupted, poking her head around from the other side of the shack. “Come here! Dipper wants to show us something! Soos, you come too!”

“Oh my way, dude!” Soos called, already heading over.

“Me too!” Steven exclaimed before briefly turning back to Stan and Amethyst. “Um… why don’t you guys take some time to… plan out a campaign strategy or something like that? You know, maybe put that awesome teamwork you guys are so famous for to some good use?”

“Yeah, whatever, Steven,” Amethyst huffed dryly, not even paying the young Gem’s brief concern any mind as he hurried off to catch up with the others.

“So…” Stan began with a bit of an awkward cough after Steven had left. “The kid roped you into this whole election thing, huh?”

“Guess so,” the purple Gem shrugged again, still not meeting the conman’s gaze.

“Well, uh… glad to have you on board,” Stan said, trying his very best to not step on Amethyst’s toes, especially not now. “You wouldn’t happen to know a sure fire way to get people actually like me, would ya?”

“Not when it comes to you, I don’t,” Amethyst replied, her tone completely humorless when humor usually would have been.

Even so, Stan let out a small, anxious chuckle, one that was rather forced, even though he tried to play it off like it wasn’t. “Heh, r-right…” A somewhat lengthy, somewhat uncomfortable bout of silence followed after this, one that was more than enough to prompt the purple Gem to turn and leave for the time being. However, before she could really slip away, Stan happened to stop her really only on a whim and little else. “Uh, Amethyst, wait,” he began, hesitating as she stopped but didn’t turn to face him. While the conman wasn’t one to find himself at a loss for words that often, he certainly was now as he realized he had absolutely no idea how to convey what he’d been wanting to say to the purple Gem for quite some time now. So instead, he went with the only other thing he could really think of at the moment: callous humor. “Uh… you wanna teach some kids how to swear?”

At this, the purple Gem’s shoulders dropped as a result of not receiving what she wanted to hear and without another word, she left, leaving the still quite uncertain conman behind. “Oh, um… I-I… I guess not…”

“Whoa, thanks for the slamming tie, dudes!” Soos exclaimed to the kids as he unknowingly fixed the mind-control tie to the front of his shirt. “These stripes are so slimming!”

“So wait, I still don’t understand,” Steven remarked as the handyman walked out of earshot. “How is a tie supposed to help Mr. Pines win the election?”

“Like I said, Steven, it’s no ordinary tie,” Dipper reassured, handing its matching other over to Mabel. “Flip the switch and see what I mean.”

Mabel did so, putting the tie on and pressing its button. Almost as soon as she did, Soos seized up from his spot in the yard, his expression just about completely blank until his movements began to mimic Mabel’s just about perfectly, even as she decided to experiment a bit by breaking into song. “Oh-oh-oh! I’m a dancing dude!” she sang and the handyman sang right along with her, dancing perfectly in sync as she did. “I got some fancy moves and a bad attitude!” With this demonstration complete, Mabel flipped the tie off once more, laughing in apt surprise over how well it worked. “Ha! That was amazing!”

“G-guys!” Soos shouted up to the kids, back in control of his own body once more as he panted and sweated frantically from the prior experience. “S-something weird just happened! It was like I was outside of my own head! I’m really freaked out and-”

“I am Soos-tron,” the handyman quickly interupted himself, Mabel using the tie on him once again for another short test run. “Watch me eat this pine cone!” With that, she pretended to pick up a pine cone off the ground and eat it whole, something that Soos actually did until Mabel turned the tie off once more, resulting in the handyman going into a distraught frenzy once more.

“Oh my gosh!” Soos cried shakily, collapsing to his knees. “My entire life just flashed before my eyes! W-what’s going on?!”

“Wow! Mind control is awesome!” Mabel quipped, very impressed by incredibly technology.

“I know, right?” Dipper readily agreed. “With this, we can get Stan to say anything we want to. There’s no way we can lose to Bud now!”

“Um… I don’t know, you guys…” Steven spoke up hesitantly. “Using that tie to control everything Mr. Pines says and does… seems kind of wrong…”

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Steven,” Dipper countered evenly. “Letting Bud win that election. If he does, then for all we know, he could end up letting Gideon out of jail. And after the whole giant robot fiasco that nearly got us all killed a few weeks ago, that’s something I’d really rather not see happen.”

“Ditto,” Mabel added, sticking her tongue out at the mention of the child psychic who was likely still completely obsessed with her.

“I-I… I know…” Steven frowned apprehensively. “But I still think there’s gotta be a better way to get Mr. Pines elected than mind controlling him with that tie…”

“Well, I think we should use it.”

The kids all let out a shared gasp as Amethyst rounded the corner of the shack, her arms crossed and a hint of a sly grin playing on her expression. “A-Amethyst!” Dipper exclaimed, quickly hiding the mind control ties behind his back. “Uh… how much of that did you see?”

“Enough to get the gist of you guys’ plan,” the purple Gem remarked casually. “And I want in.”

“What?!” All three of the kids looked to her in surprise, none of them having expected her support on this idea given her usual camaraderie with Stan.

“B-but why?” Steven asked fretfully, alarmed that Amethyst would be alright with this.

“Cause its like you told me,” the purple Gem leaned against the side of the shack. “Stan needs all the help he can get to win this mayor thing, right? Well then, the way I see it, if ya got some weird tie that’ll take control of him and keep tabs on that runaway mouth of his, then we might as well use it.”

“That’s the whole idea,” Dipper nodded in stern agreement. “This tie is our best bet to getting Stan voted in as mayor. There really better route to go here, at least not one I can think of.”

“B-but-” Steven attempted to interject but Amethyst cut in first.

“No more buts, Steven, except Stan’s in that tie,” the purple Gem remarked dismissively, apparently seeing nothing wrong at all with wrenching just about all control away from her once longtime friend like this. “We’re goin’ through with the plan and its gonna work great.” Though Steven was still largely against the idea, Dipper and Mabel both let out excited cheers, relieved to know that they could save the sinking ship that was Stan’s campaign after all. As they celebrated, however, the purple Gem tucked herself back into the shadows, her brief smile turning back into a petulant scowl, one that hinted at her true intentions for agreeing to this scheme in the first place. “And who knows?” she muttered to herself. “Maybe it’ll finally be enough to get Stan to admit he was wrong… even if it is technically against his will…”

Since Gravity Falls had had few mayoral elections in general, much less any in recent years, it was no surprise that many of its residents showed up for the “General Mayoral Stumpston Speeches”, which, as the town charter dictated, were indeed held on a large stump near the edge of the forest. As the early proceedings of the meeting were underway, Stan gathered backstage with his ‘campaign team’ consisting of Dipper, Mabel, Steven, and Amethyst, who seemed much more eager about serving as the conman’s running mate as she inconspicuously handed the mind-control tie over to him.

“Here,” she said, practically throwing it at him. “Wear this. It’ll make you look less like a chump. Slightly.”

“Ugh, I dunno, do I really have to wear this?” Stan raised an eyebrow as he begrudgingly put the tie on. “It looks like a flag threw up on me.”

“Grunkle Stan, just trust your lucky tie,” Mabel assured with a sly, knowing wink.

“And now, Stanford Pines!” the call from the main stage, and with it, the twins were quick to push Stan towards the curtain.

“You’re on, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel encouraged. “Break a leg!” As soon as the conman had made his way up to the podium, she quickly slipped the other controlling tie on, though as the group had planned, she refrained from turning it on, at least for the moment. “Ok, we’ll only jump in if he starts doing badly.”

“W-well, maybe he’ll do fine and we won’t have to jump in at all!” Steven said, still clearly anxious about this plan as a whole.

“Hiya, there!” Stan greeted the large crowd before him a bit too casually as he leaned against the podium. “Stan Pines here. Let’s get real. Do you think the women of Gravity Falls wear too much makeup?”

“Y-yeah, no, jump in! Jump in!” Dipper quickly urged, especially as a round of disapproving mutters rippled through the crowd.

Mabel quickly did so, switching the controlling tie on and using it to turn Stan’s rather disastrous opening completely around. “Uh, what I meant to say is… you ladies all look great! And have you done something to your hair?” the conman pointed to a specific woman in the crowd. “Girl, you are workin it!” At this, the spectating women in particular nodded their approval of Stan’s apparently genuine compliments, none of them knowing that they weren’t exactly coming from him even as he continued. “Anyway, I’m Stan Pines. You may know me as the guy who accidentally let all those bees loose in that elementary school a few years back.” As a result in Mabel’s relatively tactfulness in revealing that alarming anecdote, Dipper was quick to take action and swipe the tie away from her, putting it on and giving Stan’s ongoing speech a much safer, more patriotic stance. “But I believe in things: America, freedom, Ameri-freedom!”

A few sparse applause came from the crowd at this encouraging statement, and by now everyone was at apt attention as Stan continued, or rather the twins continued for him. “Like my opponent pointed out, I may not have a pretty face, but if you want a candidate that will listen to you, well, I’m proud to be all ears!” The audience erupted into supportive cheers at this, ones that only amplified as Mabel in particular decided that Stan was going to give the crowd a show. “Now, watch me break it down!” From there, the conman busted into an impromptu break dance, one that got the crowd even more excited to the point that they continued cheering even as Mabel turned the tie off and Stan wandered behind the curtain in apt confusion over what had just happened.

“Grunkle Stan, that was amazing!” Mabel exclaimed as the group received him backstage.

“Uh, y-yeah, I guess it was,” Stan shrugged, still somewhat out of the loop. “I just… sorta opened my mouth and spoke from the heart, or… gut or something. And what’s that sound? Why are people jamming their hands together?”

“Uh, that’s applause, Mr. Pines,” Steven explained with a bit of an apprehensive smile. “It means that people like you and what, uh, you said…”

“They… like me?” Stan asked, peeking out of the curtain onto to find that the crowd was cheerfully chanting his name in nothing less than unbridled support. Support that the conman didn’t exactly remembering garnishing, but was more than glad for all the same.

“There he is!” Toby Determined exclaimed, running up to the group backstage with a camera in hand. “Mr. Pines, can we get a picture?”

“Yes, we Stan!” the group exclaimed in bright unison, all grouping together and posing for a photo for the paper. However, as soon as Toby had left and no other passerby were in the vicinity, Amethyst casually leaned over to Mabel and made sure Stan couldn’t hear her as she dropped her voice down to a whisper. “Yo, Mabel, lemme see that tie for sec.”

“Ok,” Mabel shrugged, seeing nothing wrong with letting the purple Gem test the tie out as she handed it over to her. A mischievous smirk crossed Amethyst’s features as she slipped it on, using it to instantly take control of Stan amidst his satisfaction for how well his speech had gone. And from there, the purple Gem saw no reason to hold back from the lowkey revenge she had been craving for quite some time now.

“Heya, kids! Its me, Stan!” Amethyst mocked and the conman followed perfectly along with her overexaggerated tone and movements. “I smell weird, my hair cut’s gross, and I gotta eat a ton of ‘fiber’ and ‘vitamins’ cause I’m super old and crusty and lame. I got a bunch of freaky secrets cause I think it makes me look cool but it really just makes me look like a shady creep.”

“Uh… Amethyst?” Steven attempted to interject, sharing a concerned glance with the twins at what they were hearing the purple Gem make the conman say, but she outright ignored their worry as she simply continued her string of outright embarrassment.

“And now its time for my shady old man dance!” Amethyst continued, barely holding back laughter as she guided Stan along in a haphazard, wild frenzy of a dance, one that was nothing really more than a reckless lash of limbs that ultimately ended in a jump that the conman likely wouldn’t have been able to pull on his own accord. But to the purple Gem, the best part of it all was the resounding rip that came from the conman’s pants as she made him land in a clean split, one that elicited a wild gale of laughter from her while also prompting the kids to intervene.

“Amethyst, what are you doing?” Dipper asked in apt confusion over the purple Gem’s odd behavior. “That tie isn’t a toy! We’re only supposed to be using it to help Stan win the election!”

“And we already did that, ya dork,” Amethyst huffed, her laughter dying down a bit. “Since it worked so well, I figured I’d just play around with it for a second. There’s no harm in that, is there?”

“Uh… there might be seeing as how I’m not sure Grunkle Stan can really move like that anymore…” Mabel noted with a frown, nodding towards the conman who was still in a controlled split much like Amethyst was.

“Amethyst, its bad enough that we’re using the tie to control Mr. Pines at all,” Steven said quite seriously. “But using it to make him say mean things about himself is even worse. You’re one of his best friends! Why would you wanna embarrass and hurt him like that?”

“I dunno, Steven, maybe cause I just do, ok?” Amethyst shot back crossly. “You guys need to lighten up. This is the most fun I’ve had since Garnet and Pearl got into that big Sardonyx fight. Everything’s been a total drag since then, and this is the only time I’ve actually gotten to enjoy myself since it did and I at least deserve that after all this junk’s been going down, don’t I?”

The kids looked to each other hesitantly upon hearing this harsh question, all three of them knowing that they couldn’t very well argue against her on that point. With Garnet and Pearl at continued ends as they were, Amethyst was very likely the one most caught in the middle of a conflict she really had no part in, and as a result, things couldn’t be easy for her. But as she playfully, albeit mockingly controlled Stan, it seemed as though she found some sort of odd catharsis, one that lifted her spirits higher than they had been in quite some time. Would it really be right of any of them to deny her the levity she so clearly needed, even if it was rather crass and shameless and questionable on all accounts?

“Uh… w-well, we-” Steven began, but once more, Amethyst was quick to cut him off.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she abruptly concluded before launching Stan into another round of embarrassment, this time in the form of using the tie to make him comedically walk into a nearby tree over and over again. All the while, however, the kids watched on in growing worry, all three of them sharing the slightest feeling that perhaps Amethyst’s sudden barrage of mind-controlled pranks on Stan had less to do with a sudden need for arcane fun… and more to do with something else entirely.

Throughout the rest of the week, the election continued onward, and with it, Stan’s popularity steadily rose as the twins continued using the tie to maintain every one of his public appearances. The conman’s ratings in the polls skyrocketed as the kids made him spout out patriotic and positive morale, morale that was more than enough to garnish the support of the somewhat dim-witted residents of Gravity Falls generously give him their unbridled support. While it was true that after each debate and speech was said and done, Amethyst always made sure to have her fun in using the tie to discreetly embarrass Stan in some way, for the most part the conman was none the wiser, and neither was anyone else for that matter. The uneasy start to Stan’s campaign was all but forgotten as he quickly took the lead in the election, and by most projections it was clear: the conman was going to pull a miraculous win and more likely than not become Gravity Falls’ new mayor. A very real possibility that some took much worse than others.

“Augh! Darnit! Gosh hand huckleberry honeysuckle darnit!” Bud shouted as he slammed down the latest newspaper proclaiming Stan’s growing popularity among voters. The other members of his campaign team sitting at the table around him were all rather startled by the car salesman’s frustration, though given his rapidly sinking chances, it was rather understandable. “Erm, excuse my language,” Bud quickly apologized, using a pamphlet he had on hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Oh, this is bad! This is real bad! I-I need to speak with my campaign manager, please excuse me for a moment.” With that, the car salesman hastily retreated into the other room of his lot, locking the door tightly behind him as he anxiously turned to face the bright television screen before him. “L-look,” he began nervously, gripping his hat tightly in his hand. “I’m sorry about all this. This is a minor setback, but… w-we’ll win. I’m sure of it.”

“Minor setback?!” Bud flinched as his ‘campaign manager’ on screen swiftly spun around to reveal none other than the incarcerated child psychic himself: Gideon. “MINOR SETBACK!? You listen, daddy, and you listen good! Prison is a nightmare!” He shouted petulantly, throwing his fist down harshly on the table before him. “I eat the same slop every day! They have no hair products in here! I can’t sleep cause my cellmate took my pillow for a wife! You think I’ve been havin’ fun in here?!”

“Hey, best friend!” another prisoner cheerfully greeted Gideon as him and another inmate stepped into the frame.

“Don’t be late for friendship bracelet class!”

“I have finger painting at the same time!” Gideon fiercely shot back, tossing a book on the table at the prisoners and prompting them to quickly flee. “The mayor resigning is my one ticket outta here,” the child psychic continued addressing his frightened father. “Which is why you’re gonna win this election, pardon me outta prison, and we’re not gonna let the Pines OR the Crystal Gems get in my way again!”

“B-but you don’t understand!” Bud protested earnestly. “Stanford’s doin’ great in the polls! Its almost like magic!”

“Hm… magic, you say…?” Gideon mused as a sly, sinister smirk crossed his features. “Well, maybe its time to fight fire with fire! I’ve been savin’ this for a long time…” The child psychic said as he pulled a withered old page out of his large pompadour, one that he had managed to hold onto from journal 2, even after the book had been confiscated from him at his arrest. The page itself was an ancient incantation for possession, one that would allow the one who spoke it to magically and easily take control of someone else entirely. “I’ve just been waitin’ for the right moment to use it…”

“Now, boy, we’ve discussed this,” Bud cautioned as firmly as he could. “No more spooky spells.”

“Well, Daddy, maybe you just need to have more of an open mind…” Gideon smirked, not bothering to hear any more of his father’s legitimate concerns as he began to read the incantation. “Lleps live ykoops, lleps live ykoops, live ykoops!”

As the child psychic continued chanting, not only did his volume steadily rise and his eyes start to glow stark white, but the lights in the room Bud was in began to ominously flicker on and off before the bulbs busted entirely, much to his alarm. “Boy, s-stop that!” the car salesman pleaded, though he was unable to really resist the spell as he fell back and grabbed his head in pain. “A-anything but that! Augh!” Unable to fight back against the possession his own son was pushing upon him, Bud’s eyes began glowing the exact same white as Gideon’s, one final fearful scream escaping him before the child psychic took full control, finally ready to exact his vengeance upon both the Pines family and the Crystal Gems once at for all.

“Alright, team, listen up,” Dipper began, his tone quite serious as he addressed Mabel, Steven, and Amethyst as they gathered at Greasy’s Diner for one final campaign meeting. “Today’s election day which means we have to be at the top of our game at the debate this afternoon. I was thinking that I start things off by appealing to the voters’ sense of logic before Mabel comes in with a round of encouraging promises and politically correct jokes.”

“Ugh, do we really need to plan all this junk out?” Amethyst huffed impatiently as she put her head against the table. “Stan’s basically already won, we got this in the bag. Why don’t you guys just let me have the tie and I’ll give that crowd a real show for a change?”

“Considering how you used the tie on Stan after yesterday’s speech and made him break a pickle jar against his head, I think that’s… a pretty terrible idea, Amethyst, no offense,” Dipper countered sternly.

“Uh… I have an idea!” Steven hesitantly raised his hand. “S-since this is the last debate, maybe we don’t have to use the tie anymore. Its like Amethyst said, Mr. Pines is already gonna win, so… m-maybe we could just… not mind control him against his will this time?”

“Oh what, so he can just be free to ramble on about how he thinks handicap parking spots should be outlawed or how he wants to round up a task force to run every 3rd grader out of town?” Dipper remarked rather caustically.

“We really should keep using the tie, Steven,” Mabel rationalized much more evenly. “Just to play make sure Grunkle Stan actually wins this.”

“And to make Stan shove a bunch of leaves down his pants,” Amethyst added wryly. “Cause that’s my idea of winning.”

Steven let out a small, disgruntled sigh at this, his general uneasiness towards the tie idea still ever rising as he received an all too blunt reminder that none of the others seemed to really care just how wrong this all was. All week long, they had been wrenching control that was rightfully Stan’s away from him, all without at least letting him in on the truth of their deceit, and in the process, they were tricking not only him, but the innocent voters of Gravity Falls as well. Their entire campaign was built on lies and facades that had only been accumulating more and more with each passing speech. And as a result, Steven was getting to the point that he could no longer idly stand by his friends and accept this trail of trickery. Yet as outnumbered as he was against the twins and Amethyst on the idea, the young Gem wasn’t sure if there was really much he could do to change their minds, or really even put a stop to it at all. Unless…

“Hey-o!” As if right on cue, Stan burst into the diner, clad in a more casual suit than his usual one as he sauntered in with apt confidence for a soon-to-be-elected candidate.

“Stan!” the diner customers all greeted him back brightly, his popularity among them needing no introduction.

“Now just the ladies!” the conman called playfully.

“Stan!” the women in the restaurant chorused warmly.

“Now just the ladies my age!”

“Stan!” a single old woman cheered, much to Stan’s chagrin.

“Woof! Never mind!” the conman cringed before taking a seat at the table where his campaign team was gathered.

“On the house, Mr. Big Shot!” Lazy Susan exclaimed sweetly, setting a pile of complimentary pancakes before Stan before heading off with a supportive salute.

“Now this I could get used to,” the conman smirked, preparing to dig in to his free breakfast before Mabel hastily stopped him.

“Grunkle Stan, what’s with the outfit?” she asked, noting that his tan suit wouldn’t easy be accompanied by the mind control tie. “You’re missing your lucky tie.”

“Power tie, gotta wear it,” Dipper added succinctly and seriously.

“Aw, come on, have you seen the polls?” Stan asked, rolling his eyes. “I could debate naked and still win!”

“Huh, now there’s an idea…” Amethyst muttered to herself with a mischievous smirk.

“Heh, seriously though,” Mabel countered with a nervous laugh. “We need you to wear the suit and tie, Grunkle Stan.”

“Suit and tie, gotta wear it,” Dipper punctuated once again, this time more insistently.

“Ugh, why do you kids have to constantly tell me what to do?!” Stan exclaimed hotly, clearly annoyed by their badgering. “You don’t see Amethyst doing that, and she’s my running mate, for crying out loud! Its basically her job to boss me around!”

“I’d try but its not like you’d actually listen anyway,” Amethyst remarked dryly, letting out an exasperated huff as she did.

“Besides,” Stan continued just as admantly as before. “Everyone in this town is finally showing me some respect! Maybe its about time you kids should too.”

“Well, maybe we’d respect you if you took things seriously for a change!” Dipper argued rather crossly.

“I am taking this seriously!” the conman shot back, slamming his fist down on the table. “If you haven’t noticed, everything that’s come out of this golden mouth has put us on top. With or without your dumb advice!”

“Uh, a-actually, that’s not… completely true…” Steven interjected, much to Dipper, Mabel, and Amethyst’s shared alarm.

“Uh… S-Steven? What are talking about?” the purple Gem said with a forced, anxious laugh, one that quickly turned into a disapproving scowl.

“Yeah, kid, what are you talking about?” Stan asked, raising a genuinely confused eyebrow.

For a brief moment, Steven hesitated under the scrutiny of the twins and Amethyst, but even so, he wasn’t about to harbor this immoral secret any longer, especially since he was actually under pressure to finally reveal it. “W-we’ve been using a special mind-controlling tie invented by Mr. Ford to control you during every one of your speeches and that’s how you’ve been winning so far!”

“Steven!” Dipper, Mabel, and Amethyst scolded in unison, their well-kept secret now completely out in the open.

“What?!” Stan exclaimed, looking to the trio with apt shock and dawning anger. “You mean to tell me that you four have been stringing me along like I’m some kinda puppet all week?! And you weren’t even planning on at least telling me about it?!”

“No, we weren’t,” Amethyst answered coldly and honestly. “At least until somebody decided to blab about it.”

“I’m sorry, guys, but Mr. Pines deserves to know,” Steven said, not regretting his sudden reveal. “I know you just want him to win the election, but what you guys have been doing isn’t right, especially you, Amethyst.”

“So I used the stupid tie to pull a few pranks,” the purple Gem scoffed. “Its not like its really worse than anything I’ve done before, right, Stan?”

“A few pranks?” Stan repeated, quite confused before he let out a gasp of realization. “Wait a second… that rip in my pants the other day… that pickle juice that got spilled all over my suit last night… that was you, wasn’t it, Amethyst?!”

“I dunno,” Amethyst shrugged, unconcerned by her mischief. “Might’ve been. It’s not like you have any proof.”

“I have the fact that you just up and admitted to it a second ago!” the conman exclaimed harshly, sending the purple Gem in particular a bitter glare. “You know, it’s bad enough that my own niece and nephew don’t have any shed of respect for me, but I never would have expected something like this from you.”

“Oh yeah?” Amethyst countered, sitting upright as her manner turned even more hostile. “Well I never would have expected you to keep so many huge secrets from me, so I guess we’re both pretty disappointing, huh?!”

“Yeah, I guess we are!” Stan shouted back, standing up from his seat.

“Well, if I’m such a disappointment,” Amethyst began, jumping onto the table so she could be face to face with the conman. “Then why don’t you just go ahead and find yourself another running mate?!”

“I might as well seeing as how you’ve done pretty much nothing to actually help me in this election or with anything else for that matter!” the conman exclaimed with brutal honesty before addressing the kids as well. “In fact, I don’t need any of you! You can tell that know it all Ford that he can keep his fancy light bulbs and magic ties! I’m gonna win this debate on my own, without any of you!”

As Stan began to storm off out of the diner, Amethyst hopped off the table, shouting angrily after him. “Yeah, go ahead and do everything by yourself without letting anyone else in! Its not like that’s a huge change for you after the past 30 years, is it?!”

“A-Amethyst, where are you going?” Steven asked with apt concern as he noticed the purple Gem beginning to leave as well.

“As far away from Stan as I can get,” Amethyst growled bitterly. “I hope he loses that dumb election for all I care. Maybe it’ll finally be enough to take him down a peg for once.”

And with that, the purple Gem made her exit, leaving the kids behind in a state shared of worry and dread over just how sour things had turned, not just between Stan and Amethyst, but for their hopes of salvaging the election as well. “This is bad…” Dipper remarked with an apprehensive frown. “Really bad.”

“I know! Amethyst and Mr. Pines were really upset with each other,” Steven said fretfully. “I’ve never seen them yell at each other like that. It was terrible!”

“No, not that,” Dipper shook his head before pausing for a beat and correcting himself. “Ok, yeah, that was bad, but I’m talking about the election! If we want to beat Bud now, then we’ll need to find another candidate, fast!”

“What we need is a blank slate,” Mabel mused. “Someone totally suggestive! An empty piece of clay we can mold to our whims.”

“Hey, a little help, dudes?” Soos interjected as he came out of the nearby bathroom, a large sweater stuck to his head by the sleeve. “I accidentally got my head stuck in my shirt sleeve. Guess this is my life now.”

Upon the handyman’s entrance, both Dipper and Mabel exchanged a knowing grin, confirming that they had indeed found their new impromptu candidate to take Stan’s place. Steven, however, was not so immediately on board with this idea. “Uh, hold on a second, you guys,” he cautioned earnestly. “Before we repeat this whole mind control tie disaster, I think we should at least let Soos in on the plan first.”

“What plan?” Soos asked curiously as he peeked out from his sweater at the kids.

“We wanna use this mind controlling tie on you so we can make you say what we need you to so we can beat Gideon’s dad in the mayor election,” Mabel explained plainly and succinctly, holding said tie up.

“Is that all?” the handyman asked rather casually. “Sure, I’d be down for that, dudes.”

“Wait, really?” Dipper asked, exchanging a confused glance with Steven.

“Yeah, I got nothin’ else going on today,” Soos shrugged. “I could spare a little time to become the new mayor.”

“Uh… well, its… good that you’re ok with it, I guess,” Steven said with something of a relieved, albeit bewildered smile. Really, all three of the kids were quite relieved to have found a spare candidate at such a short notice to fill in for the now rouge Stan. Only time would tell if Soos would actually be enough to carry them to the sought-after victory that, by all accounts, they needed to get.

In order to capitalize on his currently under construction “Mount Deweymore”, Mayor Dewey had ordered that the final election debate would be held directly under the progressing monument. The soon to be former mayor himself was in the process of selling commemorative merchandise for the half finished mountain while other preparations for the debate were underway. Voters filed into the stands, picking up handfuls of election birdseed on the way in that they would eventually throw at their favored candidate to guide the ‘mayor picking eagle’ in deciding who would win and who would lose.

Among this large group, Amethyst discreetly slipped into one of the higher stands, making herself rather scarce as a result of not really wanting to be seen here. In truth, the purple Gem wasn’t quite sure why she had even bothered to show up to watch the debate in the first place. She honestly had very little investment in the election as a whole, and after her recent falling out with Stan, she really had no interest in offering him any signs of her support, at least not outright. At the same time, she hadn’t really shown up to watch his entire campaign inevitably crash and burn as a result of his own infamous tactlessness either. The reason for her attendance here was really just as much of a mystery to Amethyst as it would have been to anyone else, but she had shown up all the same which meant that the most she could really do was wait and see whatever was about to unfold here, however successful or disastrous it might be.

“Welcome to the final debate in what is sure to be, on a cosmic scale, a forgettable blip in human history,” Shandra Jimenez began to announce the debate both live and to her camera news crew. “Here come the two most popular candidates!”

Sure enough, both Bud and Stan climbed up on stage and to their respective podiums, the latter’s manner oddly cutesy and charming, even as he brightly addressed the conman next to him. “Oh, hello there, Stanford! Long time, no see! Tee hee!” he chuckled, playfully nudging Stan with his hip.

“Don’t you ‘tee hee’ me,” Stan scowled coldly. “I’ll debate you into the ground.”

“Oh, but I have a widdle twist up my sweevy-weeves,” Bud remarked coyly, his eyes glowing the faintest blue though the conman didn’t really notice.

“You are making me very uncomfortable right now,” Stan remarked, eyeing his opponent suspiciously.

“But what’s this?” Shandra Jimenez questioned as the crowed ‘ooed’ in interest. “One new candidate has entered the ring!”

“Wait a minute, what?” Stan turned to see Soos sauntering up onto the stage, the mind control tie fixed around his neck as he blankly smiled and waved to the audience. The conman stole a brief peek backstage to find the kids there, obviously using the other tie to control the handyman just as they had been doing with him thus far, much to his fury, especially now that they were using it against him like this. “Why, those backstabbing little-”

“Let the debate begin!” Shandra announced, ringing the nearby bell as the open round of questioning began.

“First question,” Manly Dan said as he rose to stand. “What’s your opinion on axes!?” The lumberjack paused, squinting to read what was on the question card before correcting himself. “Wait, I mean… taxes?!”

“Easy,” Stan began confidently enough. “Taxes are the worst! I propose we stimulate the economy by waging war on neighboring cities. We have the canons!” Upon hearing such an unsavory idea, the crowd wasn’t afraid to show their disapproval of it through a round of loud booing, much to the conman’s worried confusion. “Uh, I-I mean…” he trailed off, looking through his notecards for help only to find none as the crowd continued reacting coldly. From her high up seat, Amethyst cringed somewhat at the poor reception, shaking her head as she realized that Stan really was quite terrible at this on his own. Not that she had expected him to be that great at it in the first place, but still, he had apparently surpassed even her own low expectations.

“I don’t know much about taxes,” Soos started next, the kids taking turns controlling him backstage. “But I can promise you a kitten in every pot. That doesn’t make any sense, Mabel. You don’t make any sense, Dipper! Guys! Stop fighting!”

Though a ripple of confusion filled the crowd at this bizarre display, Bud was quick to fill it with a much more appealing rhetoric. “Friends, friends!” he addressed the crowd warmly. “Can’t you see what’s happening on this stage? These ‘politicians’ are dancin’ around the issues! Well… I can sing around the issues!” With this, the car salesman tore his normal clothes off to reveal a loud, sparkly leotard underneath it, one that had a small screen bearing the American flag attached to it. With a showy flare, Bud caught the guitar that was thrown to him and quickly jumped into an upbeat song and dance that easily garnished the excitement of the crowd. “Oh crime is bad! Crime is oh so bad! Vote for Bud and there ain’t gonna be no crime! Crime’s bad! Vote Bud!”

As the car salesman ended his song with a flashy wink, the crowd cheered happily, throwing their round one birdseed right into his bin, showing their approval, much to Stan’s concern, as well as the kids’ backstage as the debate went into a short intermission. “We’re getting eaten alive out there!” Dipper exclaimed fretfully, pacing in front of Mabel and Steven. “Since when is Bud… creepily adorable?”

“And how did he come up with a such a catchy song?” Steven wondered, just as bewildered. “Seriously, that’s gonna be stuck in my head all day.”

“It doesn’t make any sense…” Mabel mused thoughtfully. “He’s almost acting like… like-”

“Widdle ol’ me.” All three of the kids spun around with a gasp to find Bud standing right behind them, completely out of it as a result of the child psychic on his screen, who was controlling his every word and action even as far away as his prison cell. Gideon smirked smugly as he regarded the trio, all three of whom were immediately on guard as soon as they caught sight of him. “Aha! Hello there, Pines twins, Universe. Long time no see! Except in my revenge fantasies where I see you three on an hourly basis.”

“Gideon! I knew you were somehow behind this!” Dipper exclaimed admantly. “You’ve been controlling Bud!”

“And it seems you’ve been controlling Stanford!” Gideon countered knowingly. “I figured it was the three of ya. You’ve gotten much eviler since the last time I saw you.”

“Uh, just for the record, I really never approved of the whole mind control plan to begin with,” Steven said with an earnest shrug.

“Well, regardless of whose idea it was, I’m sorry to tell ya’ll that it ends right here, right now! Daddy!” Gideon snapped his fingers, ordering his possessed father into action. Before any of the kids could even have a chance to flee, the surprisingly strong car salesman rounded all three of them up, securing them tightly in his hold and toting them to the service elevator that led up to Mount Deweymore. Despite their cries of protest and intent attempts at struggling to break free, Steven, Dipper, and Mabel were unable to do so as Bud tightly tied them up together inside the hallowed out center of Mayor Dewey’s part of the statue, which just so happened to be where a majority of dynamite intended for the mountain’s construction was stored.

“Behold! Your grand view of the debate!” Gideon proclaimed smugly, commanding Bud to back away from the trio as they still continued to try and escape the ropes wrapped around them. “Once I win this election, I’ll finally rule this backwoods town!”

“You’ll never get away with it, you creepy little dork!” Mabel shouted fiercely.

“Oh, I’d be happy to spare you, Mabel,” Gideon said, sending her a flirtatious smirk. “If you agree to be mine. I even made you this wedding dress in crafts class!” The child psychic held up something that vaguely resembled a dress, though it could have easily been mistaken for anything else given its incredibly shoddy craftsmanship. “Don’t ask what its made of.”

“Ew, I’d rather die, you creep!” Mabel cringed, her longstanding disdain for the child psychic just as apparent as it had always been.

“Fine, have it your way!” Gideon exclaimed, resuming his formerly triumphant attitude. “Once I win, they’ll hit the plunger for the fireworks display, finishing the mountain’s construction and trappin’ ya’ll inside. I’ve been trapped behind concrete all summer; now let’s see how YOU like it!” The child psychic let out a sinister laugh as the kids let out a shared gasp of fear over the very present danger they were in. Say hello to the next mayor of Gravity Falls!” Gideon proclaimed with a final wicked laugh as he commanded Bud to leave the kids to their grisly fate. A fate that, by all accounts, they had no idea how to escape from, at least not on their own.

Everyone down at the debate itself, however, was completely unaware of the trio of trapped kids far above them, including Stan as he tried his best to salvage what little goodwill he had left with the visibly displeased crowd. “A-and that’s why, um… the Statue of Liberty is our hottest landmark,” he ventured, only to receive a resounding boo from the audience. “Alright, alright, she’s kinda manish. What do you want from me?”

As a result of Stan’s plummeting approval, the crowd readily tossed even more of their birdseed into Bud’s bin. The car salesman sent a smug smile at the conman, who still had no idea as to who was really pulling the strings behind his opponent’s campaign whatsoever. Even so, Stan let out a worried sigh as he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, wiping the sweat from his pocket as he took a much needed breather. “Ugh, you’re dying out there, Stan,” he muttered to himself, knowing that the chances of him winning now were next to none. He did take pause for a moment to look towards the audience again, hoping for any single show of support at all, only to find none.

Or at least, none upon a first glance.

Because as the conman looked again, he happened to spot a certain purple Gem who had almost managed to blend seamlessly into the crowd. In fact, he only managed to notice her due to the solemn, almost sympathetic look she was sending him, one that startled Stan quite a bit given how harsh their falling out earlier had been. Amethyst was quick to look away upon being spotted however, crossing her arms and glancing down with renewed bitterness and also what appeared to be a hint of embarrassment, though it was hard to say given how far away she was. Even so, Stan sighed again, finally realizing just how much of a mistake he had made in his own stubbornness and folly. Because certainly, without the aid of the kids or even the purple Gem, there would certainly be no winning this election on his own. “You kids were right all along…” he remarked to himself, looking down at the speech the twins had written for him. “I should have listened to you when I had the chance. To all of you…” His expression was a bit sadder as he looked up towards Amethyst again, who actually managed to meet his glance with slight confusion, but plenty of sadness and remorse all her own.

However, whatever moment the pair might have had was abruptly interupted as a familiar, frightened cry suddenly rang through the air. “Help! Help us!”

“W-what the-?” Stan was the first to hear this cry that conspicuously sounded like it had come from Mabel. The conman swiftly spun to face the mountain towering over the debate, only to have his worries confirmed when Dipper cried out next.

“We’re strapped to a bunch of fireworks!”

“A-and they’re about to go off!” Steven added amidst the trio trying their hardest to shuffle out of the mountain cave through the one opening in the floor they could find. However, unbeknownst to them, it was actually one of the statue’s nostrils, and below it was nothing but a massive drop to the ground far below them. They were quick to discover this however as they slipped out of it, only managing to remain tethered to the inside of the cave by the rope that had tied them all up, though it was clear that it wouldn’t support their shared weight for too long. The townsfolk watching the debate were quick to notice the kids’ peril high above them as a round of fearful gasps and screams rose up from them all, including Stan and Amethyst.

“Kids!” the pair exclaimed in horrified unison at the very obvious danger the trio was in. Danger that was only amplified as the rope holding them up continued to whittle down more and more, much to their immense fear.

“L-Listen, everybody!” Stan quickly turned back to the tense crowd before him. “This debate is over! I gotta go save my family!”

“N-now calm down, everyone!” Bud tried to smooth things over, “Those, uh… those are just some… demolition dummies! Nothing to see here!”

“Can it, Gleeful!” Stan shouted harshly, fiercely tearing the sleeves off his suit jacket as he let out a fearless yell. Without a second thought, the conman rushed backstage, but he was soon stopped by none other than Amethyst as she raced behind the curtain after him.

“Stan, wait!” she exclaimed, every bit as worried as he was. “What the heck’s going on?!”

“It’s it obvious? The kids are in trouble!” Stan pointed up at the trio hanging by practically a thread above them. “Now come on, we gotta go save them!”

“…We?” Amethyst took pause, raising a suspicious eyebrow at the conman. “What, you mean you actually want help this time?”

“Ugh, seriously, Amethyst?” Stan groaned in exasperation. “We don’t have time for this!”

“No, of course, you never have time for this,” the purple Gem huffed, crossing her arms. “But you always had time for lying and sneaking around and pretending to be something you’re not, huh?”

“Uh, Amethyst, we can’t be doing this right no-”

“I just wanna know why,” Amethyst continued, growing steadily more incensed by the moment. “Why you thought it was ok to keep the whole twin brother—fake names—portal thing from me all these years! Did you really think I was like the kids and I couldn’t handle the truth? Because you and I both know I know a lot more messed up things than that. Did you even once think about telling me, or did you just plan on keeping me in the dark forever like I’m some dumb old rock who doesn’t deserve to know what’s really going on?!”

“Of course, I thought about telling you the truth!” Stan countered with equal harshness, knowing that he simply couldn’t let such an accusation go. “A bunch of times! You were the only person I ever even considered telling everything to before that portal opened! But… I couldn’t risk it.”

“Couldn’t risk what? Me telling Garnet and Pearl? You really think I’m that stupid?!” Amethyst was shouting by now but she hardly cared. She had been bottling all of this anger up for far too long now and it desperately needed to finally come out. “I wouldn’t have told them, you know I wouldn’t have! I kept our Revenge Trips a secret from them and from Rose for 8 damn years! And during all eight of those years and even up until just last week, I was dumb enough to think that you were the one person who actually played it straight with me, who didn’t leave me out of the loop or who didn’t lie to me around every turn. But it turns out I was wrong about that too since you were the one who lied to me more than anyone else.”

Stan was silent for a moment upon hearing this outburst, a small, remorseful sigh as he tried to think of some way to respond to it. In the end, however, he decided to go with the best thing he could think of: the truth. “I meant… I couldn’t risk putting all that on your shoulders.”

Amethyst flinched at this, not having expecting such rare sincerity from the conman. “H-huh?”

“Like I said, there were a bunch of times I had thought about telling you the truth,” Stan explained. “About the portal, about the fake names, about Ford, about everything. But… I knew you had lost your memories about all that stuff, and even if I didn’t know how or why, I guess… I guess I just… thought you were better off not knowing. That if you learned about all that, then… you’d fall apart, just like I did back when I first lost Ford. And after a while of running the road and wreaking revenge with you, I guess I thought that you just… didn’t deserve to carry the same weight around that I’ve been lugging for years. I’ve gotten us into a lot of messes over the years, but this was one mess that I wanted to keep you out of.” The conman shook his head morosely. “Guess that didn’t really work out the way I wanted it to in the end though, huh?”

“No, it didn’t,” Amethyst remarked, her tone still bitter though it softened up somewhat upon hearing Stan’s genuine, almost caring explanation. “Because now, everything’s even worse than it was back then. We finally got our memories back only to find out we made this huge mistake that was so bad that Rose pretty much had to take it away from us to help us survive. And then Garnet and Pearl get into it because neither of them knew how to handle the truth and now they won’t even talk to each other! And I didn’t even mention how I basically fought against both of them just to protect your sorry ass! It’s awful at home! I feel trapped and the worst part is it’s like there’s no way to escape it all! And its all your fault for keeping this whole damn portal thing going to begin with!”

The purple Gem finally let several of her pent up tears of bitter anger go at this, a harsh sob escaping her as she kept her gaze hard on the ground. Once again, Stan hesitated, immense guilt filling him as he realized just how much his own effective mountain of mistakes had ended up hurting one of his closest friends. For years, he had never even considered the possibility that the secrets he had kept so well guarded would have harmed Amethyst so much and so deeply. But clearly they had, in more ways than he could even really count. And while he wouldn’t have put forth the effort for too many others, Stan knew that he owed it to Amethyst to make amends. If that was even a possibility at this point. “A-Amethyst, I… I’m sorry…” he said, his tone deeply earnest and apologetic.

“W-what?” the purple Gem glanced up, quite surprised to finally hear what she had been looking for from him for quite some time.

“I’m… I’m sorry about all the lies,” Stan sighed, rubbing his arm remorsefully. “And about making you choose between me and your friends in the heat of the moment. A-and for what’s been going on between you three ever since all this mess happened. I really didn’t expect any of this to junk to happen, and I’m sorry that its put you in such a rough spot. Believe me, I know more than anyone else what that’s like and, well… it sucks, plain and simple.”

“You better believe it does…” Amethyst sniffled, wiping her tears away as she sent him a terse glare.

“You know, I don’t expect you to forgive me right away,” the conman shrugged fretfully. “Honestly, I probably wouldn’t either after all the shit I pulled. But if you ever decide you want to, well… I’d… i-it… it mean a lot to me. I-I guess,” Stan finished with an awkward cough, trying to off play his sentimentality as much as he could. Amethyst, however, didn’t respond with the laugh or smile he had been expecting, but rather a pensive, uncertain look, one that the conman found admittedly hard to read. And in the end, her response was every bit as cryptic as well.

“I… I dunno,” she remarked, looking away from him briefly as she shook her head. “I’ll… have to think about it. But, uh, for now? We should probably get back to saving the kids!” The purple Gem quickly picked up her tone as she glanced upwards to see that the rope the trio was dangling by was just about to snap in two.

“Amethyst, you know what to do!” Stan shouted, getting back into action as the purple Gem nodded sternly.

“Right!” she exclaimed, recalling a move they had pulled off a number of times. In an instant, Amethyst shapeshifted herself into a large slingshot, one that Stan swiftly loaded himself into as the purple Gem took aim at the hole in the mountain that the kids were about to fall out of.

“Ready?” Stan asked, preparing himself for the launch with fierce determination to save the endangered trio. “Fire!”

Amethyst did so with a loud shout, shooting the conman straight upward at an alarming speed. As soon as she shapeshifted back into her normal form, she followed after him with a bold leap, ready to help the rescue effort in any way she could. The spectating crowd below quickly caught sight of the conman as he seemed to soar up the mountain on his own accord, prompting a round of very impressed cheers from them as they began tossing their support and their votes in birdseed toward him without a second thought.

“Augh! No, stop it!” Stan shouted as the seeds pelted him on his way up. “Thank you, but stop it!” As a result of the birdseed being thrown on him, a flock of stray eagles began to crowd around Stan, pecking at him as he zoomed upwards towards the kids and no doubt slowing his momentum as a result. “Augh! Get back, you terror birds!” he exclaimed, fiercely punching at the eagles until Amethyst came to his rescue, finally reaching his level and shapeshifting her hand into a large flyswatter to swat them all away. Stan offered her a thankful nod, which she returned just shy of them making their harrowing, but ultimately safe landing in the hole just above the kids. The trio themselves were in a state of paralyzed panic, unable to do anything else but scream in apt terror as the final strands of the rope suddenly snapped, leaving them to freefall to their dooms. That is, until Stan and Amethyst both grabbed onto it in the nick of time.

“Grunkle Stan!” Dipper and Mabel exclaimed, relieved as the pair began pulling them up to solid ground.

“Amethyst!” Steven cheered just as happily. “Wait, you guys are… working together again?”

Stan and Amethyst exchanged a brief glance, seizing each other up for a moment before the purple Gem shrugged in acceptance. “Yeah, I guess we are. N-not that that’s a big deal or anything.”

“Y-yeah, don’t read into it cause its really no big deal,” Stan said, just as flustered as Amethyst was. “A-anyway, I’m sorry for being so stubborn, kids. I guess being the town hero wasn’t enough. I wanted to be yours too.”

“Aw, we’re sorry too, Grunkle Stan,” Mabel said, sincerely apologetic. “We should have supported you, win or lose.”

“Probably lose,” Dipper deadpanned truthfully.

“Hey, I can still drop you, ya know,” Stan remarked, though of course he didn’t as him and Amethyst finished pulling the kids up to safety. As soon as they were up, the pair didn’t hesitate to pull them into a tight, secure hug, glad to see that they were all unharmed. It didn’t take long for the pair to untie the kids’ ropes, finally freeing them and allowing the group to venture out on top of the statue’s nose so the townsfolk could see that they were all alright. The audience erupted into a frensy of relieved and excited cheers, all of them liberally tossing their remaining birdseed into Stan’s bin on the stage until it had easily beaten out the amount Bud had previously accumulated, much to a certain child psychic’s fury.

“No! No! No! No!” Gideon shouted through his possessed father, quickly utilizing his control pull out the primed remote detonator he had managed to get his hands on earlier, just in case. “Time to take care of you, once and for all!” With that, Bud pushed the remote, prompting the fireworks inside of the monument to begin to tick down from thirty seconds, much to the alarm of the group standing on top of it.

“Oh no! We have to get out of here!” Steven shouted fearfully, especially as the time on the countdown ticked away ever faster.

“Pfft, that’ll be easy,” Amethyst remarked confidently. “Though, it may involve one of our more… daring stunts, Stan. If you’re up to it, that is…”

“You know I am,” the conman countered wryly, though his daring did decrease somewhat upon seeing just how high up they really were. “Kids,” he addressed the twins, his tone suddenly solemn as a result of the stakes they were facing. “If I die, make sure I get a bigger tombstone than Ford.”

While slightly concerned, Dipper and Mabel nodded nonetheless as Stan pulled them and Steven into his arms. With another nod of confirmation, Amethyst hopped up onto his shoulders, holding onto her perch tightly as Stan rushed forward, leaping right off the statue just as the timer ran out. In a massive, singular blast, all of the fireworks denoted at once, completely destroying Mayor Dewey’s section of the statue, much to the current mayor’s abject horror.

“No! My statue!” Dewey cried, only for his terror to spike as a large piece of the statue’s rubble landed squarely on the memorabilia cart behind him. “My merchandise!” he sobbed as he collapsed to his knees in misery. “My legacy!”

As other pieces of the statue’s remains began raining down, the crowd scattered out of fear, none of them really noticing as Amethyst shapeshifted into a large parachute, one that allowed Stan and the kids an easy landing into the huge pile of birdseed accumulated on stage. At the same time, another large rock landed right next to Bud, knocking him to the ground and breaking both Gideon’s screen, as well as his possession over his father, much to his severe outrage.

“No!” the furious child psychic screamed from his prison cell, tearing the journal page on possession in half as a result of his failed revenge. “NO!” He shouted once more, grabbing his own receiver screen and tossing it across the room in his continued temper tantrum that lasted quite some time while his fellow prisoners watched on in apt alarm.

Back at the debate, however, things were only just starting to settle down from the explosion, and with the calm down came the release of the freedom eagle. The great bird readily soared out of its cage, not wasting any time in regally settling down near Stan, who was practically submerged in the pile of birdseed along with Amethyst and the kids. Even so, the eagle made its choice, gently kissing the conman’s forehead before flying off into the sunset, having preformed its duty in picking Gravity Falls’ newest mayor.

The townsfolk were quick to catch onto the eagle’s choice, one that they all easily supported in light of Stan’s blatant show of heroism in rescuing the kids. In fact, even as him and Amethyst were pulling the kids out of the pile of birdseed, their joyful shouts of “Mayor Pines!” rose up into the air, rising even over the sound of the remaining fireworks launching into the air from what was left of Mayor Dewey’s ruined statue.

“Well, I guess we know who won,” Dipper noted, sending the conman a satisfied smile.

“Congratulations, Mr. Pines!” Steven chimed in warmly.

“Heh, guess I actually gotta start ‘respecting’ you now, don’t I?” Amethyst remarked, her tone genuinely playful as she elbowed Stan in the knee.

“You haven’t before and I don’t expect you to start now,” Stan countered just as sardonically before both of them shared a much needed laugh. True, it didn’t mean that everything between them had repaired itself just yet, but even so, it was a start. And for now, a start was more than enough.

All the same, the crowd continued their show of overwhelming support for their new mayor elect, who had managed to claim the most unlikely of victories out of what had seemed like a certain loss cause. Even so, Gravity Falls seemed ready to receive its new mayor in Stan, or at least it would have been if not for one minor, or rather, major complication.

“This just in: Stanford Pines LOSES!” the news reported that night, its headlining story showing that Stan had somehow been disqualified from the election altogether, even after his triumphant turnaround victory. While most of Gravity Falls was surprised by this news, none were more shocked than the Pines, Steven, and Amethyst as they gathered to watch the official results of the election at the Mystery Shack later that evening.

“What?!” the group exclaimed in startled unison, all of them leaning in to hear exactly why this was.

“Despite winning an overwhelming 95% of the vote,” Shandra Jimenez reported. “Election officials had to disqualify Stan due to the discovery of an extensive criminal record.”

“Ohhhh, ok, that makes sense now,” Amethyst concluded, sending the conman a knowing look.

“Oh boy…” Stan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Grunkle Stan, what did you do?” Mabel asked, bewildered.

“What didn’t I do?” Stan remarked, nodding back to the TV.

“Said crimes include shoplifting, teaching bears to drive, a new crime he invented called… ‘burglebezzelment’?, first degree… llamacide?”

“That llama knew too much…” the conman growled darkly.

“Due to this shocking development and the fact that none of the other candidates properly filed their paperwork, acting Mayor Dewey has decided to resume his mayorship position for the foreseeable future, rendering this entire election effectively pointless.”

From there, the shot cut to Dewey, back on his old podium before the new ruined Mount Deweymore as he delivered a mournful speech. “Since my… b-beloved Mount Deweymore is no more and it’ll take quite some time to accumulate the funds to rebuild it, I have no choice but to step back into my former role as your mayor… and to sell my once-commemorative merchandise at half price since none of its worth anything anymore…” At this terrible thought, the mayor broke down into another round of miserable sobs as he leaned against his podium, his aids giving him comforting pats on the back before the newscast cut back to Shandra in the studio.

“We will dedicate the rest of this broadcast to listing Stan’s crimes,” she said before she began to read off from an extensive stack of papers detailing the conman’s various misdeeds. “First degree thermometer theft, pug trafficking, snacks evasion, pickpocketing…”

As the list continued on, the group watching quickly turned out, all of them knowing more than well that the conman’s crimes were quite numerous indeed. “Whew, well, at least they didn’t list any of the bad ones,” Stan remarked casually. “On an unrelated note, I have a lot of cheap pugs and I need to move them fast.”

“Hey, you know I’m always down for some illegal pug selling,” Amethyst remarked, elbowing the conman with a grin. “Or anything else you got up your sleeve for that matter, old man.”

“Y-you… you really mean it?” Stan asked, understanding what the purple Gem’s teasing was really shorthand for.

Amethyst hesitated, blushing somewhat before finally letting out a relenting sigh, knowing that harboring her anger towards Stan really only harmed herself in the end. After all, if nothing else, then it would at the very least be a welcome change to finally have someone to talk to openly and honestly in light of the ongoing schism between her teammates. And Amethyst could think of no one else she’d rather confide it all in than Stan himself. “Y-yeah, I guess so… but only if you start playing it straight with me. For real this time… ok?”

“I think I can manage that,” Stan smirked, knowing that he didn’t really have any more secrets left to hide. “Only if you don’t use any mind control ties to make me run into trees again.”

“Oh, yeah…” the purple Gem chuckled awkwardly. “Sorry about that… Like I said, I was… kinda ticked off at you. But I probably won’t do anything like that again. Probably.”

“Fair enough,” the conman accepted with a warm nod, the longstanding bond between them at long last repaired, much to the relief of the kids who had happily watched the entire exchange.

“Aw, this is so sweet!” Steven chimed brightly. “Still, it’s a shame you didn’t actually win the election, Mr. Pines.”

“Yeah, we’re sorry, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said sincerely. “I actually think you as mayor would have been fun.”

“Eh, maybe its for the best,” Stan shrugged. “I got close to the dream though, so that’s enough.”

“Hey, uh, I knit you something,” Mabel interjected with a small smile, pulling out the knitted sash she had been holding behind her back, one that read ‘Our Hero’ in colorful letters. “It’s not official or anything, but… I think it fits.”

Upon receiving such a genuine memento from his niece, the conman couldn’t help but tear up ever so slightly, his heart warmed by the sentiment, not that he’d ever really admit it. “Grunkle Stan, are you crying?” Dipper asked, having noticed the building tears all the same.

“Ha! He totally is!” Amethyst goaded with a laugh. “Aw, Stan, ya big softie!”

“Hey! I’m not a softie!” Stan protested, though it was clear from his tone that he was indeed a bit choked up as he stood and put the sash on. “I just got campaign confetti in my eyes. Come on, kids. Wanna go vandalize Mayor Dewey’s house?”

“Yay! Vandalism!” the kids and Amethyst cheered in unison, all of them more than ready for a bout of wild and reckless fun. As the others ran out first, Stan took pause for a brief moment, glancing down at his sash with a satisfied smile. True, he hadn’t won the election, but what he had gotten far surpassed any office or title. He had solidified the admiration of his nibblings, had salvaged his treasured friendship with Amethyst, and, perhaps had gained a bit more self respect in the process. And in the end, despite the win and loss and ups and downs, that was all the conman could ever really ask for.

In light of his most recent failure against the Pines and the Gems, Gideon found that he really had no other plans for his evening other than arts and crafts with the other prisoners. Though the rowdy gang of crooks and criminals all deeply respected the child psychic and did just about anything he asked of them, Gideon himself often found their adoration annoying and suffocating, especially at a moment as low as this.

“I’m sorry the election thing didn’t work out for you, bro,” one of the larger prisoners, a man with bizarrely empty eyes who, coincidentally enough, went by the moniker of Ghost Eyes, said with sincere sympathy as him and Gideon crocheted together. “But if it makes you feel any better, we’re gonna throw a riot tonight! Does someone wanna throw a riot?”

“Thanks, Ghost Eyes,” Gideon sighed tiredly. “But I’m just not in the mood…” With this, the child psychic got up and headed back to his cell for the night, lying on the hard slab that was his bed as he stared up at the pale, moonlit ceiling. While most in his position probably would have given up hope for revenge and retribution, Gideon wasn’t one to let things like this go so easily. Especially since he still had at least one more trick up his sleeve.

“This poster is the only thing keepin’ me goin,” the child psychic remarked to himself, glancing over at the motivational poster on the wall beside him that depicted a cat hanging from a tree and read “hang onto that branch or die, cat!” And while its message was darkly encouraging, it was what lay behind the poster that was of the most importance to Gideon.

Upon making sure no one was watching him, the child psychic tore the poster off the wall, revealing the chalk drawing he had been harboring behind it for weeks: an elaborate effigy of two interconnective wheels, each wheel bearing ten symbols each, some of them recognizable and others not. The center of the inner wheel itself was empty, but Gideon was quick to fill it with the drawing of a familiar triangular being, one that he had worked with before, and for the sake of finally vanquishing his enemies once and for all, he was more than ready to work with again.

“I’m finally ready to make a deal, Bill…”

#jen writes #universe falls #steven universe #gravity falls #crossover #au #stanchurian candidate #stan #dipper #mabel #steven #amethyst #gideon #bud #mayor dewey #soos #wendy #fanfiction #keyword is burglebezzlement

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