#jokingly i call this 'worstmageddon'

[novantinuum]

A little while back when you drew that SHAMELESS STANGST you mentioned you were working on an AU. Can you tell us about it?

(the ‘shameless stangst’ art in question is this)

aaAAAA I’m so glad you asked!! It makes me so happy that at least one person in this world is interested in my silly ideas, ahahah… First off, I would like to apologize for how long it’s taken to respond. I really wanted to sketchily illustrate a scene from this story I’ve got caught in my mind…

Overall, this AU is my excuse to imagine what might happen and how dynamics and events would change if Weirdmageddon were to come too early. (Specifically, if it happened almost directly after NWHS.)

Generally, it begins like so… (More thoughts under cut. Buckle in, it gets long.)

Ford is accidentally injured by his own grenade during his fight with Bill and returns through the portal in severe condition. That comic I made chronicles the VERY first events in this AU, basically.

Stan realizes there’s no way in hell his brother will survive (too much blood loss) without actually competent medical care and instructs Soos (with Dipper and Mabel) to rush Ford to the nearest hospital, which is a good distance outside of town. He ends up hoping in his car and using himself as ‘bait’ to get the FBI away from the shack long enough for them to get out.

Stan’s captured by the FBI, and held in that darn town jail again, ofc. This time, under more guard. He’s supposed to be airlifted out of town to a more secure facility the next morning.

While Ford’s in ICU, Soos ends up calling Wendy late that evening to see if she could bring up a change of clothes for the kids since they can’t be seen in town for a bit with the FBI crawling about. They plan to grab a motel room once they know Ford’s stable.

Wendy (illegally) snatches her dad’s truck, gathers up some stuff, and begins to drive to the hospital. Just as she edges out of town, she sees something colorful ripple in her rearview mirror. Wendy slams to a stop and gets out of the truck to see this strange, monumental wall now separating her from Gravity Falls. It’s kinda hard to tell, but it looks like she’s standing at the edge of a huge dome? And when she touches it, the surface of this barrier feels almost gelatinous, and ripples under her finger. Low-key freaked out and unsure of what else to do, she gets back to the truck and rushes to the hospital, hoping that maybe Dipper’s journal will know what’s going on…

Yes, essentially Bill broke into this dimension way earlier than he was supposed to because Ford was not there in the Shack to encase the rift. The rift cleaved into the fabric of reality when he returned to this dimension was left alone to grow and split even more.

Overall, the Weirdmageddon that will follow occurs while the town is already in shambles from the portal’s activation, and without the unicorn spell being in place on the Shack. Stan ends up being held captive by Bill, as bait to lure Ford back into town, because Bill can sense that he’s not dead and he needs his knowledge to escape. There’s close to no resistance in town this time, barring McGucket and a few others he finds in the woods who are hiding away in the bunker.

Outside Gravity Falls, meanwhile…

Ford’s injuries consist of lacerations that need to be stitched and a few burns. Some of the grenade shrapnel ended up denting his metal plate on the left side of his skull, to the point where it was putting a dangerous amount of pressure on his skull and beginning to cause bruising. (Subdural hematoma, likely.)

Now, neither the doctors nor Soos and the kids could explain why this mystery man had an entire METAL PLATE fastened over his skull, but they ended up surgically removing a bit of the dented section to relieve the pressure. Ford is stable now and all is good, fear not.

By this point Soos, Wendy, Dipper, and Mabel all know vaguely what’s going on to Gravity Falls. They caught a news broadcast from Shandra Jimenez reporting on “a giant floating triangle wrecking the town” and put the pieces together. They’re all worrying for their friends and family and desperately want to run back to help them but… there’s also this other great uncle to worry about. The great uncle that they haven’t even properly met yet because of the awful circumstances.

When Ford finally comes to a day or so later, the first thing he notices is… the strange emptiness he feels in his mind. Like he’s missing something. He quickly realizes what must have happened when he feels the bandages on the side of his head and fears he’s fallen into Bill’s clutches and that he’s ripped out the metal plate. He tries fighting one of the nurses when they bring Soos and Mabel back, initially believing them to be shapeshifters.

He’s eventually calmed down though. Through the power of persuasion. (and Mabel!) Thus cue tired and awkward introductions, and Ford realizing that he’s actually home. The realization doesn’t fully set in until Dipper and Wendy switch out to visit and Dipper shows him his old journal.

Of course, then comes the fated question of “Where’s Stanley?”

Oh hell. 

Stanley’s trapped in Gravity Falls still. They all know as such, because there was a story on the news about FBI personal trying to land a helicopter in the town after Weirdmageddon started and they were never heard from again. And thus come internal and external conflicts such as:

1) Weirdmageddon. How to stop it. All of the weapons Ford came through the portal with are still in the Shack. They’d have to trail across Gravity Falls unnoticed by Bill to snatch it.

2) Grunkle Stan. Dipper feels awful knowing he’s trapped, because long after they arrived at the hospital, he realized he had that memory erasing gun with him. If only he could have remembered this, maybe they could have erased the FBI agents’ minds? Made them forget? And maybe Grunkle Stan could be there with them too. They didn’t know Great Uncle Ford, but he DID. He’d know what to do.

3) Everyone worrying about their friends and family, and not knowing if they’ll ever see them again.

4) The gang has a hard time convincing Ford to actually stay in the hospital for a bit to actually recover, instead of him running off to try and rescue Stan from Bill.

5) Ford’s metal plate. A good portion of it’s been removed, and with it, the mental protection from Bill it granted. Ford fears that the second he even STEPS into Gravity Falls Bill will immediately possess him again. Ofc because he feels shame over his past mistakes in trusting Bill, he declines to let anyone else know about this.

This is just some of the set-up, and there’s plenty more shit I’ve thought about, but from there (once Ford becomes 100% sick of remaining in the hospital for any longer than he physically has to) it goes into them all actually trying to break back into Gravity Falls to stop Bill. 

There’s probably going to be a lot of angst, but fear not- it will all culminate in a happy ending for everyone besides Bill (who will suffer muahahah) and there eventually will be lots of bonding. And heck, probably a lot of bonding in between. You can still bond with family and friends and relatives you never knew existed while facing the end of the world, right? Right.

But hey, not everything’s set in stone for this yet. Please, if you have any interest in this, don’t hesitate to chat with me about it or send me random thoughts or ask me questions. I’d love to flesh aspects of this out through collaboration and on-the-spot thinking and so forth. Yay!

(If you thought this was cool, please do a starving artist a huge favor and consider reblogging it? AU ideas are really hard to spread alone. Thanks!)