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ckret2 · 2 years ago

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Guess who shows up in this chapter! With a ✨summer job✨!

Unlearning the "act like a rich snob" instinct is an ongoing process.

Here's "Bill is the Mystery Shack's extremely sulky prisoner" chapter 10, featuring: a haunted living doll, a trip to Greasy's, Bill acting like a playground bully, and the twins figuring out how they feel about another summer of triangle bullshit. Other chapters here. 9/29/2024 edit: now updated for TBOB compatibility!

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Late in the morning, Mabel came home from a sleepover at Candy's. She went upstairs to drop her backpack in her room.

Unusually, Bill's nest by the attic window seat outside the kids' room was abandoned. In his place were half a dozen empty cans of hard cider and a sandwich with the crust peeled off and three bites taken out of it.

She grabbed a change of clothes and her toiletries and went to the main bathroom to shower.

The bathroom looked like a salon got in a fight with Bill's hair and won. The wet floor was coated in shorn golden locks like fallen soldiers. The air reeked of hair treatment chemicals and sick. There was a towel smeared with blood.

Maybe she'd brush her teeth downstairs and shower later.

Mabel gingerly plucked her toothbrush and toothpaste from her toiletries bag, gingerly stowed the bag in a bathroom cabinet, and retreated.

She descended the stairs warily.

Soos's blanket of the anti-Bill zodiac no longer hung on the living room wall.

Mabel moved on to the downstairs half-bath. She pulled aside the doorway curtain.

There, sitting in the dark, curled into a ball in the small space between the sink and the toilet, was a human shape. Draped over it was Soos's zodiac blanket. The head of the thing under the blanket lifted and blindly turned toward the sound of Mabel drawing the curtain. The zodiac was positioned just right so that the image of Bill Cipher covered the hidden face like a mask. The false Bill stared into Mabel's eyes.

Mabel quietly backed out of the bathroom. She let the curtain fall shut.

She stood in the hallway, hand to her chin, contemplating the omens she'd witnessed.

She said, "Something happened last night."

####

Less than a week into summer vacation, Dipper and Mabel had seen every single movie currently playing. (They'd even seen the R movies, after getting advice from Jeff on how to convincingly pull off the "two kids in a trench coat" gambit. Thompson made direct eye contact with Dipper in the theater lobby. He said nothing.)

They'd hung out with all their friends, had at least one meal over at each of their houses, and caught up on a school year's worth of gossip. Mabel had sleepovers nearly every night, alternating between Grenda's and Candy's houses. Even Dipper had voluntarily subjected himself to an evening of aggressive girliness in order to tag along for one of the sleepovers. (They'd probably only gotten permission because Grenda's mother assumed "Mabel's twin" must be a sister.)

They found a fairy ring in the forest that connected to a crop circle in Wiltshire, England. They discovered a crane game at the mall that was full of haunted dolls. They took Waddles for a walk and had to save him from a cult of feral flower children that wanted to sacrifice him to their love shack.

In other words, they did everything they could think of to avoid home.

When they were in the Mystery Shack, they were either in their bedroom or using the bathroom. They avoided the kitchen and living room as much as they could, they talked more quietly in their room in case of an eavesdrooper, and they fell silent when they heard the floor creaking outside their room. They tiptoed whenever they had to pass Bill's nest by the window seat to reach the stairs. They grew accustomed to strange thuds and quickly cut-off arguments, although they never became comfortable with them. They got used to waking up afraid.

The plague of hair was new; but it was, they had to agree, exactly the kind of thing they expected at this point.

"You could collect some of the hair," suggested the haunted porcelain doll they'd gotten from the crane game. "You could make a poppet. It would let you control him. I could teach you how. All you need is that hair, five black candles, a doll—"

"Nope," Dipper said. He was getting dressed in their bedroom alcove with the curtain drawn. "You're always trying to make more haunted dolls, Bartholomew, and the answer's always no!"

"It won't be haunted!" Bartholomew insisted. "Honest! I promise! Not initially. Until you use it to kill Bill."

"Listen, young man." Mabel scooped the porcelain doll up from the cardboard cradle she'd made for him. "We've told you, we can't kill Bill until we know it won't cause the apocalypse! Do you want the world to end?"

Bartholomew let out the longest, heaviest sigh that had ever come out of a doll with an unmoving face. "No. I don't."

"That's right. So reign in that bloodthirst, Barty!"

"Ugh. Fine."

"Good!" She set Bartholomew back down.

Dipper asked, "Could we use a poppet to control him in non-fatal ways, though?"

"Oh, yeah, sure. Torture it, restrain it, freeze it, burn it, cast spells on it, soak it in lemon juice, throw it in the dryer—hey, that one's really funny—"

Dipper pulled aside the curtain and looked at Mabel. "Maybe a poppet wouldn't be a bad idea. In case Bill tries anything."

They collected the biggest, healthiest lock of hair off the bathroom floor, stuck it in a sandwich bag they found at the bottom of Dipper's backpack, stuffed it in his backpack, and left the house to look for brunch.

####

Dipper and Mabel had been putting off visiting Greasy's Diner as long as possible, hoping that at least Grunkle Stan could come along for their first visit of the summer, if not the whole Pines family; but after coping with another morning of Bill-related nonsense, and hearing from Soos that Stan and Ford had also been up half the night dealing with said nonsense and would probably sleep in, they decided they really needed to visit somewhere as comforting and familiar as possible.

And so, off they went to Greasy's. Lazy Susan warmly greeted them, asked when Stan would come by, showed them to a booth, and then left them with a couple of menus and their glum thoughts.

"Dipper?" Mabel spun the laminated menu on the table top. "You remember how at the start of last summer, we just thought Grunkle Stan was some weird smelly old guy and we wanted to do anything except hang out with him?"

"Ugh, don't remind me. If this was last year, I'd be sweeping up dead hair instead of getting breakfast right now." He laughed weakly; but he knew that wasn't what Mabel was getting at. "This summer's even worse, isn't it."

She stopped spinning her menu to look across the table at Dipper. "We still haven't spent any time with Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford, but this time I feel all guilty about it."

"I'm pretty sure they feel guilty about it, too."

"It's not their fault, though."

It wasn't Dipper and Mabel's fault, either, but pointing that out wouldn't help. Dipper also felt like they'd callously abandoned their grunkles in Bill-infested territory while they ran off to have fun. The fact Stan and Ford they kept telling the kids that they wanted them to have fun didn't lessen the feeling that they were traitors. "Grunkle Stan did say we could take a fishing trip once everyone's figured out the best... guard schedule."

"I know, but there's still..." Mabel waved a hand in vague circles. "All this. I almost feel like..."

She didn't want to say out loud that she wanted to go home; saying it would start tilting their course in that direction. If she said it, and if she found out that Dipper agreed, then it might come true. And nothing would be worse than that.

Dipper didn't want to say it, either. "This won't be all summer," he said. "Grunkle Ford already has a weapon that can get rid of B—Goldie's body and whatever's inside of it, no matter if he's human or alien. He won't even leave a ghost. It's just out of fuel right now. He only needs to find enough to take one shot, and then the rest of our summer goes back to normal. Right?"

Mabel took a moment too long to reply. "Right," she said. "It's that quantum jumbo-laser thing you told me about, right?"

"Yeah, the Quantum Destabilizer."

"How long will it take to get the fuel?" Mabel asked. "Is there anything we can do? I hate just having to... steer around everything while the grown-ups try to deal with it without us."

"Yeah. So do I."

Before Dipper had to admit that he didn't know what it would take to refuel the Quantum Destabilizer, someone approached the table. "Hey, I'll be your waitress this morning. Do you guys have any questions about the menu, or..." The waitress trailed off in horror as she registered her guests' faces. "Oh no."

Dipper and Mabel gaped. "Pacifica?!"

She hid her face behind her notebook. "Don't say anything. Do not say anything."

"You work here?" Mabel asked, followed immediately by Dipper, "You work?"

Pacifica's cheeks flushed. "Don't make a big deal out of it okay! I'm not, like, working-working! I'm just—making some pocket money, that's all!"

"That's working-working," Mabel said.

"Pacifica—" Dipper had to choke back a laugh at the absurd sight. She was wearing normal people clothes. She was wearing an apron. "What."

"Okay, look!" She slapped her notebook on the table. "It's not like I'm poor or anything? But after we built a smaller manor, my parents slashed my allowance—my wardrobe budget only covers a new summer/spring wardrobe instead of summer and spring wardrobes—and like... it's hard, okay? So I'm just—doing a few odd gigs or whatever. To keep up with my hobbies! That's it."

Dryly, Dipper said, "Wow. Earning money if you want to buy things."

"It must be so hard." Mabel was doing a slightly less successful job of maintaining a poker face.

"Oh, whatever! You two just don't appreciate the value of hard work." Over Dipper and Mabel's giggles, Pacifica stuck her nose in the air and went on, "I'm investing in my future. I'm picking up part-time jobs while you two are spending your summer goofing off! It's like you're saying you don't want to have money."

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance. Mabel said, "Soos said he'll pay us $20 an hour to help in the gift shop."

"He what?!" Pacifica's jaw dropped. "Shut up! There is no way that cheesy tourist trap can afford those kinds of wages! Is it even legal for Soos to hire you! Aren't you, like, thirteen!"

Dipper said, "Aren't you thirteen?"

Pacifica huffed. "Never mind, I don't even care about your dumb job! This isn't even my main income stream. I've got this great modeling gig coming up with a huge paycheck, so—forget you you guys!" She flipped her hair and stomped off.

And immediately stomped back. "I forgot to take your orders."

"Pancakes." "Also pancakes."

"Fine." She re-flipped her hair and stomped off.

Mabel leaned across the table to whisper to Dipper, "Wow, the return of Rudy McSnootypants! Did she switch from acting snobby over being rich to acting snobby over being working class?"

"She's probably just embarrassed," Dipper said. "She's actually been pretty cool the last few months. When we play Bloodcraft together, she's... I mean, okay, during PVP matches she's the meanest person ever, and she's the worst to healers—but she's nice enough outside of that."

"Oh, yeah." Mabel grinned. "Guess she never mentioned her new job while you guys were playing?"

"Nope."

"You're probably right! She was nice when I talked to her about making her blanket. She even shipped new materials to me when she wanted alpaca yarn instead of acrylic." Mabel's voracious yarn habit did not have the budget for alpaca yarn.

Dipper laughed, "Wow, I can't believe Pacifica had to get a job just to afford your blanket."

"What can I say, I'm a master artisan!"

Pacifica returned, set down two plates of pancakes and two sodas, and said, "This is a bribe. Free drinks all summer if you don't tell anybody else about this. All the other cool kids would ditch me and my family would kill me if they knew. They cannot find out."

Mabel considered the offer. "Free drinks and dessert."

Pacifica bounced a heel as she considered the offer. "Only out of the half-off day-old pie case."

"That sounds fair."

"Okay. Deal. Um, thanks." Pacifica turned to go, then paused. "Hey, Dipper. Your uncles don't use the Internet, right? Does that mean you won't be available for Bloodcraft this summer?"

"Soos finally got the shack online. He says the Internet goes out when the weather's eldritch, but I can borrow his computer for our guild raids. He understands how important it is."

Pacifica's eyes lit up. "Cool. Then I'll see you on raid night."

"Yeah! See you then."

Pacifica left to tend to another table, and Dipper said, "Yeah, she was just embarrassed. She's fine. ... Why are you smiling."

"Guild raids? Am I gonna have to warn Kelsey about Pacifica—?"

"Mabel!" Dipper's face flushed. "Come on, we're not—! Worry about your own love life. We've almost been here a week, haven't you found a new crush yet?"

"I've decided love will find me when it finds me. For now, I'm focusing on my matchmaking services."

"Well! Make a match somewhere else."

"You're sooo red right now. Bop." Mabel leaned across the table to poke Dipper's nose, then dug into her pancakes. "You know... even with everything going on—I'm glad we're here. Think! If we'd gone home as soon as we found out we'd be stuck with him all summer, we'd never have learned Pacifica is a waitress. Or met Barty-Mew! Mew-mew. Meow."

"So that makes it worth it, huh?"

"Yes! Making new friends! Being around our old friends! Being part of their lives again. I don't want to miss out on that because I'm afraid. Do you?"

Dipper half smiled. "No. I don't. If we were home, I'd be missing Gravity Falls and still worrying. At least here, we can keep an eye on him."

"Yeah!" Mabel beamed. "We got off to a little bit of a rocky start, but this summer's gonna be great! And there's nothing he can do to stop it! Right?" She offered her fist.

"Right." Dipper fistbumped her.

####

Stan and Ford were worrying over coffee mugs in the kitchen when the door opened, but both their faces lit up when they saw Dipper and Mabel in the entryway. Stan said, "Hey, kids! Whaddaya doing back here?"

"Soos said you'd just gone out," Ford said. "We weren't expecting you back until this evening."

Mabel bounded into the kitchen. "We decided to hang out here today!" She hugged Stan and Ford in turn.

Stan looked between them in surprise. "Really? To do what?"

Mabel said, "Art project!" at the same time Dipper said, "Sorcery."

"I'm gonna sew a doll with Barty," Mabel said. "We'll figure out what to do with the rest of the day after that."

Dipper said, "Grunkle Ford, do you know anything about poppets?"

"Huh." He stroked his chin. "I'm familiar with the concept, but I've never encountered a working one myself. I probably can't tell you much you don't know yourself."

"That's okay." Dipper puffed his chest out. "After we've made one, maybe I can show you my research on them?"

Ford smiled. "Maybe you can. We still haven't compared our past year's research notes, have we? I just haven't been able to find time, with..." His smile faltered.

Firmly, Dipper said, "We'll make time."

"But later!" Mabel insisted, hanging off the kitchen doorframe by one hand, "C'mon, Dipper! Arts and witchcrafts!" She bounded up the attic stairs two at a time. Dipper followed after her.

Stan turned to Ford. "Who's Barty?" Ford shrugged.

Mabel froze at the top of the stairs. The zodiac blanket-bedecked specter was back upstairs in his usual spot, curled up in the window seat, apparently trying to read a book through the gaps in the yarn.

But she quickly gathered her courage again. "Hey! Stinky!"

Bill turned to face her. "Yello?"

She planted her hands on her hips. "I'm not afraid of you! There's nothing you can do to make me afraid of you ever again!"

The yarn triangle face stared at Mabel in unimpressed indifference. "Ouch. You're breaking my heart, Shooting Star."

"And I'll break your face if you ever try to torture my family again!"

"Hey, whoa, that's a loaded word! I never tortured anyone in your family," Bill said. "Except Stanford. And he knows what he did."

"What are you talking about! You stuck me in a bubble!"

"That wasn't torture. You had a great time."

Coming up the stairs behind Mabel, Dipper did a startled double-take—this was his first time seeing the blanket ghost—but he said, "You threw me down the stairs and stabbed my arm."

"That was self-torture, and I had a great time."

"I don't care what you call it with your fancy words!" Mabel said. "The point is, everything I wrote last fall goes double!"

"Yeah!" Dipper said.

Unperturbed, Bill said, "'Wrote'?"

"W—yeah. The ones we stuck in your book. The one you were using to try to contact us from the dead," Dipper said. "Don't act like you didn't see our letters telling you never to bother us again."

"You mean the letters you taped to my pages blank side down, with all your messages facing outward from the book?"

Dipper and Mabel processed that. "Aw, man," Dipper said. "And after I wrote that cool boast."

"Oh did you." Bill cupped a hand around where his ear was hidden. "Well? Let's hear it."

Dipper's brows furrowed. "Uh... It was something about—"

"Go on!"

"Um—"

"I'm waaaitiiing!"

"I can't remember it."

"Aww, what a shame."

"Well, I remember mine!" Mabel said. "I said if you ever bother my family again, I'm dipping you in guacamole and biting your in half! Which—made a lot more sense when you looked like a chip!" She turned away from Bill, did her best approximation of Pacifica's dismissive hair flip, and flounced off to the bedroom. "And stay away from Grunkle Ford!" She slammed the door.

"Pfff." Bill turned toward Dipper as he passed by and asked wryly, "What'd I do to warrant all this? Have I not been minding my own business and avoiding you humans intimidatingly enough?"

"No. No quippy banter. We're not doing that. Banter is for friendly chess club rivals, not attempted murderers."

"Oh, you joined the chess club?"

"Shut up." Dipper put his hand on the doorknob, stopped, and about-faced to squint at Bill's book. "Is that—? How did you get my journal!"

"I summoned a living shadow and commanded it to bring me your worst and deepest secrets— Just kidding. You left it in the bathroom, genius."

Dipper must have taken it out of his backpack when he was looking for a baggie for the hair sample. "Give it back!"

Bill held out the book—and jerked it back when Dipper reached for it. "Too slow!" He held it over his head.

"Hey! Bill!" Dipper jumped for the book. "I know martial arts!"

Bill got up on his knees to keep the book out of Dipper's range. "And I like pain! Fighting me will annoy you more than it'll hurt me!"

"Come on, man!" Dipper stuck his fingers in the blanket like a cat climbing a curtain as he tried to reach the book. He took a deep breath. "GRUNKLE FO—"

"Don't!" Bill shoved Dipper back.

Dipper fell to the ground, taking the blanket with him. He groaned—then froze, staring at the burns, the bandages, the raw red-rimmed eyes.

Until Bill shoved Dipper's journal in his face. "Sheesh, relax." He glared down at Dipper, eyes squinting unevenly, a hard smile forced onto his face—then snatched back the blanket. He turned it in his hands until he'd found his face again and pulled it back on. "You can't take a joke."

Dipper gave him a dark look, but retreated after Mabel.

Ford climbed the stairs just high enough to shoot Bill a suspicious look.

Bill returned the stare, head cocked in a pantomime of wide-eyed innocence. "What?" He flung his hands in the air. "What! I'm just sitting here!"

Ford narrowed his eyes, but went back downstairs.

Bill's gaze drifted again to the kids' door. "'Not afraid of me,' huh? Pfft." He turned to watch the world through the window. "Yeah. That could be useful."

####

"What do you think?" Mabel asked, plopping the Bill-shaped doll in front of Bartholomew for inspection. It was shaped like a fabric gingerbread man. It had X's for eyes and was sticking its tongue out. "I made his dress out of a sock!"

"I guess it'll do," Bartholomew said. "The clothes could be nicer."

"Nice clothes are for nice people. He can deal with the sock dress." She considered her handiwork again, then said, "I guess a few more flowers on the dress wouldn't hurt." She rummaged in her craft supply basket for her yellow puffy fabric paint, and asked, "How's that pentagram coming, bro?"

"Just about finished." Dipper set the last candle on the fifth corner of the chalk star he'd drawn between their beds, checked to make sure all the lines were connected, then pulled out a matchbook and lit the candles. "Okay, now what?"

Bartholomew said, "Now, we wait until the next full moon to start the binding ritual."

"When's that?"

"In about two weeks."

Dipper looked at the pentagram, looked at Bartholomew, and said, "So why am I setting this up right now?"

"That's what I've been wondering."

Dipper grumbled and started blowing out candles.

Mabel pulled out a couple balls of yellow yarn and asked, "Hey Dipper, can you get the hair baggie? I need to see which shade of yellow matches Bill's hair better."

"Sure." He rummaged around in his backpack. "Although if you want the poppet to be accurate, you should just leave it bald." He looked at Bartholomew. "Does accuracy affect how well a poppet works?"

"It can be pretty loose," Bartholomew said. "Give it the hair. Blondes are hot."

"You're a creep." Mabel threw a yarn ball at Bartholomew's face. "What do you mean, 'leave it bald'?"

Dipper said, "I saw under the blanket. Bill looks like he burned his hair off."

"Whaaat!"

"Yeah, he's totally bald except for a bit on the back of his head. Not a surprise, considering how the bathroom looks, but—yeah." He snorted. "Maybe he tried to copy Grunkle Ford's shaving technique."

Mabel laughed; but it quickly petered out. "So... he's just hiding because he's embarrassed?"

"I guess," Dipper said. "Huh. Kinda makes it seem less creepy when you put it that way. Even Bill Cipher can have bad hair days."

"Guess so."

So Bill was basically in Sweater Town: hiding under a protective layer of yarn because he felt bad. It must be really horrible if he'd been hiding all day. Mabel considered that, staring at the bald doll she'd made.

Then she grabbed her ball of yarn and started giving the doll hair.

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(If you enjoyed, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thanks!)

#mabel pines #dipper pines #pacifica northwest #(for the artwork)#bill cipher #human bill cipher #(for the fic)#gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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iamblue15 · 1 year ago

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If the Calamity Kids had Pokémon Types

Dipper: Dark/Psychic

Mabel: Fairy/Psychic

Raz: Psychic/Fighting

Lili: Fire/Grass

Coraline: Dragon/Flying

Wybie: Steel/Electric

Norman: Ghost/Electric

Neil: Steel/Ground

#mystery kids #calamity kids #calamity powers #pokemon #gravity falls #dipper pines #mabel pines #psychonauts #raz #razputin aquato #lili zanotto #coraline #coraline jones #wybie lovat #paranorman #norman babcock #neil downe

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penny-weiss · 2 years ago

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RWBY Parallels V5, V8, and V9

Ruby’s hand-to-hand combat.

V5E3: Ozpin, “Getting you four in fighting shape… (points to Ruby) You can only fight so long as you have Crescent Rose, but you’re still lacking in hand-to-hand combat.”

V8E14: Ruby loses Crescent Rose. While she had some coaching from Ozpin in volume 5 and tries to engage in hand-to-hand combat against Neo in volume 8, it’s clear she heavily relied upon her weapon. I expect in volume 9, we will start to see her branch out of her comfort zone to other styles of combat. I hope Yang is going to coach her a bit more in the art of hand-to-hand.

Ruby is purity.

V5E5: Blake, “Have you ever met someone and thought to yourself, ‘They are the personification of this word’? …I remember getting to know Ruby and thinking, ‘This girl is the embodiment of purity.’ After a while, I saw Weiss was defiance. And Yang was strength.”

V9: The quote from season 5 about Ruby being purity reminded me of the poem Child of the pure unclouded brow from Alice in Wonderland that speaks of losing one’s sunny face and silver laughter. Ruby's purity and silver eyes may be why she is tied to the weather in this version of Wonderland. The last stanza of the poem especially stood out to me.

And though the shadow of a sigh May tremble through the story, For ‘happy summer days’ gone by, And vanish’d summer glory – It shall not touch with breath of bale The pleasance of our fairy-tale.

How do you handle all of this?

V5E5:

Oscar to Ruby, “How do you handle all of this? …How can you be so confident? People have tried to kill you. The world’s about to go to war all over again. How are you okay with any of this?”

Ruby to Oscar, “When Beacon fell, I lost two of my friends: Penny Pollendina and Pyrrha Nickos. I didn’t know them for very long but that doesn’t change the fact they were two of the most kind-hearted people I’d ever met. But that didn’t save them. Pyrrha thought if there was even the smallest chance of helping someone that it was a chance worth taking, and because of that, she died fighting a battle she knew she couldn’t win. And Penny was killed just to make a statement… I am scared but not just for me. What happened at Beacon shows Salem doesn’t care if you’re standing against her or not. She’ll kill anybody, and that scares me most of all. Pyrrha, Penny, I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t hurt, that I didn’t think about them every day since I lost them, that I didn’t wish I had spent more time with them. If it had been me instead, I know they would have kept fighting too, no matter how dangerous it was. So that’s what I choose to do: to keep moving forward."

V8E14: Penny is still fighting even after Ruby and Blake fell.

V9 Intro: While Ruby could still keep a positive outlook in Volume 5 after the initial loss of Penny, I can't imagine Ruby keeping the same outlook in Volume 9 after round 2 of losing Penny.

Think back to Beacon

V5E7: Ren, “That desire to go back and tell yourself not to be so stupid. That just proves you’re not the person you used to be. You’re smarter or kinder or stronger, and you’re not done growing yet.”

V9 Trailer: “What are you going to be?”

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice says, "Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use they're putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!’ I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else’—but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, “I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so very tired of being all alone here!”

I think Ruby's younger self speaking to her older self is meant to mirror the conversations Alice has about who she is and who she will become.

If Ruby sticks around…

V5E7: Yang, “If Ruby sticks around, then I will too. If there’s one thing I know about her, it’s that she somehow always knows the right thing to do.”

V9 Trailer: Unknown voice (though it sounded similar to Salem to me), “You never were the hero... You seem to be carrying a rather large burden with you. What if you could leave Ruby Rose behind, shed like an old coat? What might happen if you don’t?"

Will the team have to face this question? What growth will Ruby have to go through to keep fighting and to continue being a leader?

I'm still rewatching the other seasons, but I found some of these moments interesting to compare, and I am excited to see Ruby's growth especially!

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askthemysterkids · 1 year ago

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The Kids have been teleported into the world of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon! What kind of Pokemon would they be?

I'll be honest, I've been holding off on this one a lot. I don't tend to play Pokemon, even then it was Brick Bronze (anyone remember that game that got shut down?), Magikarp Jump, and Pokemon Go.

So, how about I set up the types, and if you guys say it looks good, I'll look into those Pokemon? I just want to make sure I get this right.

Now that the excuse is out of the way, answers!

~~~

Dipper: Grass and Psychic? I'm thinking this because of the fact that his spot on the wheel is "pine tree" and the fact that he deals with the strange. Though, would it be fun if he was Psychic because Bill possessed him? Like, if he was just Grass before? That would be fun. :)

Mabel: I'm definitely thinking Fairy for her.

Coraline: Water and Ghost. I was debating Fighting but I think Ghost would work better. Water because of the whole water witch thing and Ghost because of the Beldam and ghost children.

Wybie: I'm definitely thinking Metal and maybe Ghost? Maybe Bug instead of Ghost. Bug because of slugs, Ghost because he does seem to possibly have a connection with some of the Beldam stuff through his grandmother, the Cat, and that hand via Coraline.

Norman: Ghost and Electric for sure! This is flat out through his ancestors!

Neil: Normal and Fairy maybe? I'm not sure. He's a support type.

Raz: Psychic and Water. Legitimately because he's a psychic and he's Maligula's grandchild.

Lili: Psychic and Fire. Again, due to her being a psychic, and her specialty being fire.

Wirt: I tend to associate him with Grass and Ghost. Or just straight up Deerling.

Greg: Grass and Water? Frog Pokemon. (Or Phantump for a darker thing...)

Luz: I will need a bit of help here but I'm thinking Normal and Dark because she's a human learning demon magic.

Anne: Bug and Fighting? Bug and Water? I think this works? I'm thinking frogs and her using her sword. Maybe Bug and Fairy?

Marcy: Water and Psychic? Psychic sounds smart. Water was very prominent in Newtopia too.

Sasha: Fighting and Bug? Fighting for sure. Maybe Fighting and Normal.

Also realizing that for the Calamity trio, Grass can also fit... Crud.

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countlessrealities · 1 year ago

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New Year's Eve toasts || Accepting !

@thesafaribaggirl-returns sent: 🥂 for a toast - Kaban to Mabel with some kind of nonalcoholic concoction?

Mabel had always loved holidays and anniversaries. No matter what they were supposed to be about, in her eyes they mainly meant two things: having fun and an excuse to dote on her loved ones.

New Year's Eve was no exception to that rule. As per usual, the girl had bullied her way into being in charge of decorations and the result was that the cabin now looked as if a tornado of lights had run through it, leaving colourful bulbs and scented candles everywhere. Of course, the Christmas decorations were still around too, which only added to the festive chaos.

To use Stan's words, their living space had been turned into the bad trip of a fairy who had got wasted on rainbows and cocaine. ...Of course, he had muttered the comment only to Ford, when he was sure that the kids were out of ear's shot.

As midnight approached, Mabel had dragged both Dipper and Kaban to the roof, to make sure they could get the best view of all the fireworks, including the ones that Stan and and Soos had prepared for the upcoming midnight.

"This is going to SO AWESOME!" Mabel exclaimed, loudly and excitedly, wrapping her twin in a suffocating hug. "And of course I made a new version of the Mabel Special for the toast!"

Dipper groaned, both because the too tight hold and because of the news. Mabel's drinks were...unique. They didn't necessarily taste bad, even if some of her first attempts had turned out pretty disgusting. The problem was the amount of sugar they contained and his sister was very much prone to sugar highs. Even if they weren't supposed to be a thing.

Mabel finally let go of him, just to whip out a bottle full of an oddly sparkling purple liquid. It was hard to fully see its content, and perhaps it was for the best, because, knowing the girl, she might have put glitter in it.

"Here!"

Mabel gingerly pushed a glass of her "special" in Kaban's hands, then one in Dipper's and finally poured a third one for herself.

"Countdown! Countdown! Countdown!"

Her voice was the loudest as everyone started to count down from ten to zero and her yell was so loud that it almost overcome the sound of the first firework exploding in the night.

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!" She shrieked, clinking her plastic cup against the other two's and then gulped down its content all in a go.

"You better follow her lead on that," Dipper whispered in Kaban's direction, before swallowing his own drink in one go too.

The sky was quickly turned into a show of bright lights, bathing the forest with different colours with every bang. Mabel wrapped her arms around both her twin and her friend, holding them against her sides, sighing contently.

That year had been messy too, with all the running and fighting she and Kaban had been doing to save the Park, but it had been worth it. She had gained an amazing friend and gotten to discover a whole new world.

There were still things, dark things, she would never be rid of, and there would be more waiting ahead, but they no longer scared her as they had used to. She had overcome some of the worst already and, besides, she wasn't alone. And never would be.

#[ ic :: Mabel ]#[ ic :: npc ; Dipper ]#&& Kaban #[ ᴸᴵᶠᴱ ᴵˢ ᴬᴺ ᴱᴺᴰᴸᴱˢˢ ᴶᴼᵁᴿᴺᴱʸ ˢᴼ ᴸᴱᵀ'ˢ ᵀᴬᴷᴱ ᵀᴴᴵˢ ᴾᴬᵀᴴ ᵀᴼᴳᴱᵀᴴᴱᴿ :: ᴍᴀʙᴇʟ & ᴋᴀʙᴀɴ ]#thesafaribaggirlreturns #[[ Mabel's personalised drinks are...smth else x'D ]]#[[ but I promise that it won't make Kaban sick! ]]#[[ this is always in the 'what if Kaban went to Mabel's dimension' AU u-u ]]

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andromerot · 2 years ago

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Any predictions/wants for the next season of mabelpod?

i would not dare predict anything but here are some things would be fun if they happened but i like. literally have no idea

mabel lolo friendship please please pleas

annamabel together again they find thousand new things to argue and fight back and forth about

veraluna epic divorce

THE KING. DOES SOMETHING. or maybe doesn't

becca maybell infinitymirroresque events and occurrences, same for tressa

uncle jack hasnt shown up in a while huh

calliemabel lore PLEASE

the repercusions and consecuences of jonathan mills (violette?)

the repercusions and consecuences of jonathan mills (AURORA SILVER IS NOT WILLING TO WAIT ANY LONGER)

SEASON EIGHT GAY SEX (canon)

things that are not happening but would be funny

due to the huge empty space around the newly crowned king: fairy hill declares itself an independent republic, anna limon has to find something else to be king of

thing is im pretty sure this may be the last season so. scary!

#asks #mabel #no i literally said nothing. sorry

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animation-recaps-by-sean · 2 years ago

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Gravity Falls Beyond the Woods Chapter 13

Rose avoids thinking about the danger she and her family are in, while Powers makes his move against Dipper.

<- prev next->

It was past 3 a. m. when Stan and Ford rode in. Dipper saw the cars ride in before his phone lit up from Ford's text. Mabel must have noticed too as they were already in the hallway in their robes. When they reached the lobby, Stan and Ford were walking through the entrance. Thompson and Robbie were there too, in full uniform.

"Oh, Grunkle Stan! This is terrible!" Mabel cried as she threw herself in his arms.

Ford greeted the others. "Dipper, Wendy, Pacifica. Ah officers I guess."

"Dr. Pines, Deputy Valentino. I think you'll recognize me from weirdmaggedon."

Ford adjusted his glasses. "Robbie, was it?"

"Robert."

"Yes, yes. Good to see you again Robbie," Ford said absentmindedly, patting him on the shoulder. He turned Dipper. “Any pictures of the object in question?”

Dipper handed him his phone. "I'm having trouble placing it." As Ford flipped through the gallery Dipper continued. "We were contacted by something claiming to be the fairy Puck. So I've been combining everything Celtic, Welsh, British and anything really. But I haven't seen anything like it yet."

The frown Ford was wearing deepened. “I’ve never been able to study fairy’s in any meaningful way. They were hard to catch and the gnomes and unicorns did not like talking about them. And I know nothing about Puck, save for Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream." He turned to Wendy. "Did your mother speak on anything about this object? Where she got it?"

Wendy shook her head. "Nothing to me. Nothing to dad."

Ford thought for a moment. "I'll talk with him myself later. But first, maybe we might find something at the library. If she got it in town, there is a chance we'll find something there.”

Pacifica, who had been pacing this whole time, spoke up. "Well then let's hurry. My kids are in danger! Who knows what's happening to them."

What was happening to them was that they needed baths. With the fights against the machines, the kidnapping, everyone was getting smelly. So when the kids came to an open spring, they decided to wash up a little. They bent down and washed their arms and faces. Ashley helped Stanley get clean. Ty thought it would be a good time to talk to his sister.

“You really think this is a good idea?”

As Rose washed her arms, her hands bumped into the bracelet. “Look, this is our chance to find something about grandma. And those robot things are jerks. Stopping this homunculus guy is a good thing.”

“Rose, we do not know anything about fighting robots. Dad didn’t fight robots.”

“He fought a bunch. GIFfney controlled those animatronics, heck, he fought the same ones we fought, well the same ones I fought."

"But didn't Grunkle Ford…"

"Look, I'm working on it. I know you're worried but I got it!"

Whatever retort he had died on his lips as Josh took off his shirt. Josh jumped in the spring.

Ashley raised her arms as the water splashed into her. “Watch it!”

"Sorry," he mumbled meekly as he pushed his wet hair out of his face. As Tyrone watched, a lump form in his throat. Josh rose up, his body wet from the spring; water dripping from his bare chest. Smiling he asked, "Anybody else needs a drip? Tyrone, you look like you could use one."

Ty's face was as red as a fire hydrant. "I'm good," he said in a squeak that would have made his dad proud.

Rose inwardly laughed. Admittedly, she wasn't much better with boys. Okay she was much worse. But since Josh was gay, there was nothing she could screw up cause it was never gonna happen. So how hot he was didn’t matter. It was fun seeing her brother squirm for once.

"You know what Josh? I think I'll take a dip too." She jumped in, still fully dressed. And for a brief moment, her fights with her mom, her father's legacy, and the danger she put everyone in washed away under the water.

The Agency had set up shop in a motel. Tambry sat at a desk, holding a pair of headphones in her ear, writing on a piece of paper with her free hand. Powers still didn't trust her. She set down the headphones. “Alright, they’re making their way to the library. This is our best chance to take Dipper Pines away from prying eyes.”

“Can we trust this-this Homunculus thing?”

“Do we have a choice?”

He had nothing to say to that. Tambry slipped on her jacket and grabbed her helmet. “They’d recognize my voice. Powers, you’ll have to take point.”

“Look, I understand you need to have to disguise, but could you wear something less stupid?”

Tambry hit his arm with her helmet before putting it on. “Okay, let’s go.”

The library was closed of course. The old build was shut down for the night. They had gone to pick up Soos to help. Melody stayed behind with their daughter.

Soos went up to the clearly locked door and to his, and only his surprise. He failed to open it. He started pushing the damn thing with all his might.

Robert fumbled for his phone. "I'll see if we can get a janitor or something."

Dipper had already pulled out the president's key that Quinton Trembrly gave him. It was a master key for every lock in town. At least for ones built in the 19th century.

As he opened the door he said, "You know I never got a chance to use this as much as I thought I would."

They went inside and began digging through any book about Gravity Falls' history or fairies. As Soos read, he said "I hope this isn't because I killed that fairy that one time." Ford sighed deeply.

Soon, everyone heard rustling. Thompson and Robbie pulled out their guns. Several heavily armed men, most in swat tactical gear, a few in suits, and a lady in a motorcycle outfit complete with helmet, entered. Dipper recognized the man who looked like the leader.

"Powers?"

"Oh so you remember me? Petty I can't remember any of you. I came to this dung heap of a town for the biggest bust of my career. I returned to Washington not only empty handed but weeks of my life gone. I was ruined."

"Well maybe you shouldn't have tried to arrest me," Stan piped up.

"Yeah,” Mabel nodded.

"YOU BROKE THE LAW! OF COURSE I-" the lady in the helmet walked his arm. "Ow." Powers rubbed where she hit him. " Look, Professor Pines, please come with us. The young one."

"Do you represent the US government?" Thompson asked, his gun armed right at Power’s head.

The answer was yes, but they very well couldn't say that. "Come with us and your family will not get hurt." That was the worst thing he could have said.

“If you touch any of my…” The Lady in the motorcycle helmet pulled out a dart gun and shot Dipper in his neck.

Mabel was the first to react. "Dipper!" She lunged forward for her twin. Wendy went after the shooter. Unfortunately, she was not alone and several of her fellow agents pulled out guns that very much did not fire darts.

Ford ran to the side, away from the girls, and pulled out his magnet gun. Pulling the trigger, he directed most of the bullets his way. Stan and Pacifica dragged Wendy and Mabel out of the line of fire. Using bookshelves for cover, Thompson and Robbie fired back as Powers did the same.

“Someone call the police,” shouted Pacifica as a hail bullets flew over their heads.

“We’re already here!” Thompson shouted as he returned fire.

“Competent police!” She shouted back.

With quick reflexes, the girl in the helmet grabbed Dipper’s unconscious body and made a beeline for the exit.

"We got what we came for, fall back," Powers told everyone. He and the agents retreated.

Filled with an intense rage, Wendy shrugged Stan off of her. She ran out and while the agents saw them load Dipper into a van. She got into her rented car and gave chase. The other agents surrounded her little car in their humvees; Wendy, being Wendy, slammed them off the road. She knew that she just lost the deposit on this thing, but she was too pissed to care. She let out a scream that was primordial as she drove closer to her target.

“What the hell is wrong with that girl?” Powers asked as he drove. ‘Take the Money and Run’ by The Steve Millar Band was playing over the radio.

“She’s a Corduroy,” Tambry dully told her co-worker. With Dipper drugged out, she wasn’t worried about him recognizing her voice. She pulled out a burner phone. “Homebase? This is Messenger. We have the eggs, but the chicken is after us. No, just the one. Yes, the red one. Status?” Wendy was hitting the back of the van with the rental. “Could be better. Meet us at 777845. Yes , the back. No, we’ll go through.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes!”

They drove up into the Gentleman's Shame, Gravity Falls cheapest strip club. Powers and Tambry dragged Dipper out and carried him over to the entrance.

The bouncer looked at the man in a deserved suit, a lady with her motorcycle helmet still on, an unconscious man slung over both their shoulders.

"Uh ah, no way. You guys aren't getting in." Tambry pulled out a roll of several hundred bills. "Oh! Enjoy the show!"

As they entered, Wendy pulled up. Opening the trunk, she pulled out an ax she grabbed from her father's place. As she was marching toward the entrance, the bouncer asked, "How much you got for me?"

Wendy hit the bottom of her ax handle into his sternum. The bouncer fell to the ground clinging to his chest.

Tambry spotted Wendy first. After swearing under her breath, she laid Dipper onto Powers. "The others are on the other side of the kitchen. Go! I'll distract her."

The music throbbed and boom as Wendy wadded through the crowd. You would think this early in the morning, this place would be closed but no. The stages and girls dancing and grinding on poles, in various states of undress. Granted half the stages were empty but still. “I’m looking for my husband-”

“Poor SOB,” one attendee answered.

“No that’s not-” The lady in the motorcycle helmet ran over and kicked Wendy into the stage. Wendy saw that she was going to tackle her so she rolled onto the stage.

The stripper who was already up there was not amused. "Lady, I'm in the middle of a set!" Wendy held up her ax. "Okay, the stage is all yours." She backed away.

The Lady in the helmet jumped up the stage and pulled out a knife. The men and several women in the crowd started muttering among themselves. "Should someone call the police?" The lady in the helmet unzipped her jacket just enough to show off her cleavage. Thinking it some show the crowd cheered and whistled.

"You know my vice principal always told me I was gonna end up on this stage." She got into a battle ready position. "I don't think this is what he had in mind."

A new song started. Baby, I wanna touch you, I wanna breathe into your will. Wendy brought the butt of her ax down onto her opponent. To Wendy’s surprise, she blocked her blow with the blade of the knife. She stumbled back, ready for another attempt. See, I gotta hunt you, I gotta bring you to my hell. Wendy swept at her feet, but the lady in the motorcycle helmet jumped out of the way. Boy, I'm gonna love you, I'm gonna tear into your soul. Wendy took the handle of her ax and smashed it into her helmet. How do you want me, how do you want me? She got a hit in, but at a cost. The lady in the motorcycle helmet brought her knife down onto Wendy. The redhead moved so the slash wasn’t deep, but her forearm was hit.

Seeing actual blood clued in the audience that this wasn’t a show. Wendy held her bleeding arm as the crowd panicked. Several people went to check to see if she as alright. “I’m fine. I’m fine. Thank you.” Wendy waved them off. She looked around but her opponent had slipped away. Taking any leads of Dipper’s location with her.

#gravity falls #gravity falls fan fiction #wendip #wendy corduroy #dipper pines #ocs #there is a fight scene in a strip club in this one #sometimes you got to treat yourself

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askroahmmythril · 1 year ago

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Made-Up Gym Leaders

So I was looking through some old files of mine and stumbled across these. I forgot I'd even come up with these, but I kind of like these ideas. One of those things, if I had more time and was better at imitating the Pokemon design style, I'd want to try drawing these characters to have a visual on them. But anyway, some Gym Leader ideas I had :

Flying - Audi (name basis, Audubon Society)

An elderly lady with grey hair in a bun, a decorative feather holding it in position. Horn-rimmed glasses, a kindly but spry look to her. White blouse with peacock teal shorts and hiking boots, a pair of binoculars hanging around her neck. Essentially a birdwatcher look.

Strictly uses bird type Pokemon, like, nothing that just happens to have Flying type, they're all definitely birds of various types.

A bit flighty (ha) and can get carried away talking about all the birds she's seen in her time, but not as "spaced out" as someone like Drasna, is pretty sharp and spry.

Gym Gimmick : Her gym is actually outdoors, set up as a nature hike trail. It's also a quiz gym, asking questions about bird Pokemon such as if you can identify certain footprints or other dex details. Trainers will still be eager to show off their bird Pokemon, but if you fail the quiz, you might get a harder fight as they think "Looks like you need to study more, but I can help with that!"

Rock - Cris (name basis, crystal)

Hippie type guy, unkempt hair and goatee with stubble. Very laid back look, wears various crystal necklaces, a brown leather vest with fringe around the bottom, a tie dye shirt with earth tones, worn jeans, and sandals.

His Pokemon tend to have a crystalline aspect to them, such as the Gigalith line, Carbink, etc.

Talks about the healing power of the earth, the voices of nature, very laid back in personality. Even in defeat is likely pretty lax about it and would say something like "Far out!" in admiration of your Pokemons' power. Likely would say something that might allude to being a relative of Mina from the Alola region, like a cousin or such.

Gym Gimmick : ?

Fairy - Mabel (name basis, sounds like fable / make believe kinda)

Kids' show host, probably in her early 20s. Light pink hair in a pixie bob style, cheerful expressions. Sort of fantasy princess look to her style of clothing, but notably has a cute dragon hand puppet that she provides a voice for. Her default "pose" for battle has her kicked back in an overstuffed cozy armchair, dragon puppet up eagerly, and a storybook open in her lap.

Narrates a "hero's journey" type story about the trainer as they traverse the gym.

Gym Gimmick : Her gym is actually the studio where she does her storytime show, her subordinate trainers being actors in different fantasy themed sets, like a witch in a forest, a knight in a castle, etc. If you pay attention to the story she tells, it may hint you on what your next opponent will use against you so you can prepare accordingly.

Dragon - Dyson (name basis, dice)

D&D style Dungeon Master. Dressed in a mostly modern style outfit, open jacket and jeans, but with a few accents here and there like a helmet, necklace with a D20, etc. He has fairly sharp eyes, focused looking, cocky grin. Perhaps kind of a faux fur collar on his jacket for style.

Has a flair for the dramatic, liking to build up battles in his gym as great fantasy setting encounters.

Gym Gimmick : Gym is set up like a Fire Emblem style tactical game. Battles have special gimmick rules, such as if an area is marked as a certain "terrain" type, different effects can happen in battle like weather or one of the terrain style effects. If you approach a trainer from behind, you start the battle with a free turn for "catching them off guard," but the same can apply if a trainer catches you this way.

Psychic - Tara (name basis, tarot)

A fortune teller wearing a black hooded cloak with golden runes along the trim. Her hood keeps a bit of her face in shadow, though she has sharp lavender eyes and a long violet hair braid that spills from her hood and down her side. Has a cozy looking velvet sort of outfit under the cloak, a burgundy top with black leggings and thick tan boots.

Has an aloof way of speaking, as though fate is decided and she's just there to play her part. She is however rather philosophical about her tarot readings, introducing herself by saying "My personal reading today… it spoke well of my fate here… Let us see…" Upon losing however, she amends this with "A reading, however, is not assurance. It is merely a guide and it is ours to find the way…"

Gym Gimmick : ?

Normal - Reggie (name basis, regular)

A store clerk. Clean cut light brown hair and a friendly face. White work shirt and khakis with a blue store apron. Tends to have a friendly smile, though it does become a bit more of a strained "customer service" smile for his losing animation.

Very service oriented, upon encounter he even asks if you were able to find everything you wanted today.

Gym Gimmick : His gym is in whatever city in the region happens to have the huge size department store, his gym actually being IN the store. Your bag is sealed while in the gym, and instead you're given a shopping cart. Certain areas in the gym have "Free Sample" kiosks where you can get items for use in the gym. Defeating trainers in the gym gets you coupons you can use at kiosks to obtain extra items.

……Kinda jokingly want to have a Beauty trainer in the gym that's very rude and demanding when you talk to her, and turns out her name's Karen, haha.

Bug - Nadia (name basis, needle)

A tattoo artist with a punk aesthetic. She has a yellow and black mohawk themed on Beedrill, and a green vest worn over a black half top. Has spider web sleeve tattoos.

Rough personality, confident style. Respects you as a kindred spirit upon defeat, can respect your power.

Gym Gimmick : ?

Steel - Victoria (name basis, Victorian style)

Wears a steampunk aesthetic outfit, complete with top hat and a tailed jacket. Overall a brown with bronze trim theme, gear and cog accents here and there. She has blonde hair with a silver streak, worn in a ponytail.

A refined yet excitable personality, eager to test your abilities, delighted even in defeat as it was an impressive showing.

Gym Gimmick : The gym is a tower, each floor requiring you to reassemble pipes to carry a flow of steam to power an elevator to the next floor.

Grass - Dr. Basil (name basis, holy basil, a medicinal herb)

A medical doctor, studies the medicinal properties of herbs. A bit of a gaunt, serious face, glasses. Stubble from his hard work life, though his hair is nicely kept. Wears a doctor's coat, tends to keep his hands folded behind his back and poses slightly hunched over.

Fairly serious and methodical. His comments during battle tend to be on the analytical side. Possibly a descendant of Tao Hua from Legends Arceus, similar thus in appearance.

Gym Gimmick : ?

Water - Porter (name basis, port)

Captain of a luxury cruise liner. Wears a crisp white captain's uniform with blue trim. Smarmy sort of grin, well trimmed mustache. Possibly tends to carry a fancy glass of (ahem) vacation juice.

Fairly posh attitude, proud of his vessel and the services his cruise provides. Overall fairly jolly, sees even his battles as providing entertainment for passengers on his ship.

Might make reference to the captain of the St. Anne and his struggle with seasickness.

Gym Gimmick : The gym is on his ship and may sort of feel like a combination of the St. Anne and the abandoned ship from the Hoenn games. As you traverse the ship, dipping into the different rooms to challenge trainers, you'll find keys to other cabins and areas. Upon finding the Captain's Key, you'll be able to enter Porter's room to challenge him.

Ground - Cheval (name basis, shovel)

Super into geocaching. His outfit is perhaps similar in style to BotW Link's climbing outfit, but more decidedly modern, patterned bandana, sleeveless top, cargo shorts. Has a shovel he usually poses with held across his shoulders. Shoulder length dirty blond hair worn in braids, tanned with freckles from being out in the sun so much.

Has an encouraging personality, though can be a bit antsy, always after hunting the next cache.

Gym Gimmick : Gym has a rocky and natural look. Each room has a hidden button you need to step on to open the way forward. Defeating trainers will give you hints toward the button's location, but alternatively if you're good with it, you can use the Itemfinder to track the buttons down.

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medleyofthepast · 15 days ago

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Gravity Falls: Next Gen AU

Taking place about 20 years after Weirdmageddeon, Dr. Dipper Pines and his wife, daughter, and nephew, move back to Gravity Falls to make use of Grunkle Ford's old lab.

Dipper is now married to Lia Ramirez, Soos' cousin, and Soos is more than happy to let the Pines family move back in. Dipper and Lia's daughter is none other than Celeste Pines, a rough and tumble tomboyish smarty shorts that isn't afraid to fight some boys that are picking on her poor twin cousin, Gene.

Gravity Falls hasn't changed too much since the Pines twins left it, and while Mabel's a bit upset she can't be there too, that doesn't mean she can't stop by for a visit.

Soos and Melody continue to live at the shack, running it like Mr. Pines would have.

This is literally what it says on the tin. The next generation of Gravity Falls adventures, following Celeste and Gene as opposed to Dipper and Mable.

Gene and Celeste were tending to their fairy garden they'd been building for the last four years. Whereas most kids had a tree house, these two had this fairy garden in the forest they've been crafting, and this is where they go to get away from the rest of the world. Things had been surprisingly normal for them, that is until Celeste heard strange sounds from the forest. Following the noises, she discovered a weird statue. While she didn't touch the statue, Celeste began to notice such weird things happening ever since, and Gene was dragged along with her. It wouldn't be long until she began to document things in one of her school notebooks, just so she could keep track.

Lia has become an esteemed author, and Dipper a renowned scientist- a scientist of the weird that is- he certainly followed in Ford's footsteps.

#Out of Cosmos #About #Gravity Falls: Next Gen

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gravityskittles · 2 months ago

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Chapter 12: Welcome to the Green Fairy Circus

It had been slower going than they had hoped. It shouldn’t have taken them four days to get across the border of South Dakota, but they had kept running into detours. First, they got lost on the ghost roads and took an accidental trip south for an entire night, ending up near Missouri. A day later, after making it back up into Minnesota, they had missed the jump into the ghost roads because Mabel had run into a gas station to grab a drink. As they then discovered, ending their day in the real world resulted in them being reset back to the beginning of the day prior, all the way back down in Missouri.

Their fight had been bad enough that day that they had ended up pulling off at some kitschy roadside attraction and taking a few hours away from each other, instead of trying to talk it through. Surprisingly, it ended up helping a lot, and so they had decided that taking it slower in general was probably better for them. It wasn’t like they were actually losing time anyway.

Thus began the ritual of the last two days, using the ghost roads for sleep, the real world for driving, and finding at least two silly roadside attractions per day to stop at. Aside from the unicorns they had run into outside of the ‘Minnesota Holiday Light Spectacular’, and the pack of gnomes raiding the dumpsters outside of a fast food restaurant in Iowa, it had been a pretty smooth leg of the trip.

Currently, Dipper was sitting on the roof of the car, watching the stars. Part of the reason they had taken to sleeping on the ghost roads was because the temperature was milder. Occasionally they would phase into pockets that seemed to match the frigid temperatures of their real world counterparts, but mostly the ghost roads seemed caught in an endless state of early fall. Most of the foliage was just starting to turn, and the crop fields around them were always just ready for harvest.

Mabel was asleep in the car, curled up on her half of the folded down backseats. Dipper had slipped out an hour or so ago, intending to add to his journal sketches, but the journal lay abandoned in front of him, flipped open to a half finished sketch of the corn husk people they had encountered back in Ohio.

He had long ago picked out the constellations he was most familiar with. Orion, the big and little dippers, the Pleiades, and Cygnus. He liked the stars, he always had, but he wasn’t nearly as good at recognizing the constellations as Mabel was. She had been the first person to show him how to see Ursa Major, pointing out the extra stars around his dipper, which made up the bear. She had also been the first person to show him how, as the big dipper rotated through the night sky, it always pointed towards the North Star, Polaris. He remembered Grandpa Shermie addressing their Hanukkah and Christmas gifts to Dipper and Polaris every year, even when Mabel stopped using the nickname entirely, and he started using his own all the time.

He sighed, remembering the year before when he had taken Astronomy at school and Mabel had been really excited for him to learn more about the constellations. He had told her that they learned about science in astronomy, not stories. He winced thinking about it now. He hadn’t meant to brush it off like that then. He couldn’t remember if it had upset her at the time or not. He hoped it hadn’t.

A car door clicked beneath him, and a minute later Mabel clambered up onto the roof next to him. She was wearing her jacket over an eye-searingly pink sleep shirt and shorts. Her hair was pulled back into a fuzzy braid, and she blinked sleepily at him as she pushed her glasses up more securely onto her nose.

“How long have you been awake dum-dum?”

“Not long,” He flipped the journal shut and scooted over to make room for her. “Maybe an hour or so? The stars were nice.”

She flopped down next to him, staring up into space. “The stars are nice. Although, a lot of the constellations are out of season.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, because of the tilt and rotation of the earth, only certain constellations can be seen at certain times of year, and some can’t ever be seen in certain hemispheres at all.”

He pushed back the small flash of annoyance, he knew that. But he also hadn’t clarified what he was asking so it was reasonable of her to have explained. “Sure, but why are ones visible that shouldn’t be?”

She shrugged. “No clue, some sort of weirdness ghost magic probably. Look! That one is a southern hemisphere constellation! I’ve never seen it before.”

She threw out her arm, pointing to a dim cluster of stars near the horizon he hadn’t noticed before. “Which one is it?”

“It’s the Argo Navis! Well, technically it’s now three different constellations because astronomers thought it was just too big. It��s a huge ship! Based on the Argo from Greek mythology.” She carefully drew it out in his notebook and connected the dots around it to showcase the ship.

He turned back to the sky and looked for the outline again, this time able to pick it out from the stars around it. It really was huge. “Does it have a fun story behind it?”

She shrugged again. “Eh, not really? Mostly it’s just Jason’s ship from mythology. It doesn’t really have a fun story for why it was a constellation.”

“Can you tell me about one that does?” He didn’t really know why he asked. The logical part of his brain knew they should get going since both of them were awake now. But somewhere in the back of his head, in the half formed thoughts he didn’t want to let himself think, he knew he isn’t in a rush to get to Gravity Falls anymore. Also, Mabel had been so quiet the last few days, hearing her talk about something she enjoyed came as a relief. Buried somewhere under their recent arguments,cold silences and long exhausting hours trapped in a car together, was a person he genuinely loved spending time with and listening to, he just had to give her the space she needed to find it again.

She grinned at him and started scanning the sky before pausing, fingers held out almost directly above them. “Do you remember the story of Cygnus? There are a couple of variations, but I think I’ve told you my favorite one before.”

“I remember some details. Something about a swan right, and someone crashing into the sun?”

“Sort of. Well, the swan part is right anyway, and there’s a love story involved!”

Dipper rolled his eyes at her and stared up at the constellation. “Well, sounds like you should remind me then.”

She launched into it immediately with an excitement that made him feel warm inside.

“Okay so, back in the time of gods Helios spent the days pulling the sun across the sky in his chariot. It was a difficult job; the horses that pulled the chariot were powerful and often tried to break free of the reins and run wild across the sky. The chariot itself was heavy and awkward and burned with a heat that would have killed a normal human. If Helios flew too high in the sky the earth would be rendered cold and icy, if he flew too low, he risked burning up crops and buildings with the heat. Because of this, it had been decided that only Helios himself was allowed to drive the chariot of the sun. Now that I’m thinking about it, this sounds really similar to the Icarus myth, but like. The Greeks didn’t really understand how the sun worked so I guess literally flying too close to the sun seemed plausible and a common issue for people?”

As she talked, she gestured, weaving her hands in the air in front of them, and he watched the stars flash between her fingers with a smile. No matter how much they changed and grew, Mabel remained the same amazing storyteller she had always been.

“Anyway, like most gods, Helios had a son. Well, he probably had a lot of sons, and daughters. Most myths are about the gods just kinda, having a lot of kids and that directly causing issues for mortals. This son in particular wasn’t a god himself, merely a demigod born from a spirit of the ocean.”

She paused for a second and Dipper decided that if she mentioned Mermando he was going to push her off the car. But after a moment she continued, “I think Oceaneids are different from mermaids, but either way I get why Helios went for it.”

Dipper supposed that didn’t exactly count as mentioning Mermando, but he gave her a tiny shove anyway and she laughed. “Okay, okay don’t worry I’ll keep going. His son’s name was Phaethon. Phaethon spent his childhood happy, but as a young man he set out to find Helios, hoping that the god would claim him and bestow some power onto him. Helios was delighted to meet his son and offered him anything he wanted. Phaethon asked to drive the chariot of the sun, just for one day, hoping to prove to his father that he was powerful in his own right. Which like, I kinda get. It was depicted as a really shiny chariot and the horses seemed pretty cool, but also like. He was definitely not qualified to be the literal sun. So, obviously, Helios protested, terrified of what might happen if anything went wrong, but Phaethon insisted, and eventually Helios relented. This was a huge mistake. Phaethon failed like, instantly. Flew way too close to earth leaving scorch marks in his path, burning down forests and causing deserts to form. Overcorrected and flew way too far away from the Earth,freezing parts of the oceans solid. As he sped across the sky, unable to control the power he had bargained from his father, Zeus struck him down with a lighting bolt, sending his body tumbling down to earth to the depths of a river near his hometown.”

She paused, letting her hands fall out of the air and smack dramatically down onto the roof of the car.

“Now, presumably, up in the sky Helios retrieved his chariot and horses, and finished pulling the sun around the earth while mourning the loss of his child. On the ground however, is where we finally meet Cygnus. Phaethon’s best friend and companion since childhood. He saw his friend fall to earth, and dove into the river after him. Cygnus spent days diving to the bottom of the river to retrieve his friend’s bones, one by one from the river bed, determined to give him burial and ensure his spirit traveled to the underworld. This was pretty important at the time cause everyone believed that without a grave marker your spirit would be cursed to just kinda wander forever without ever getting the rewards of the afterlife. So, it was a really huge deal for Cygnus to be risking his life to give his best friend a proper burial. The gods watched over Cygnus as he dove and after Phaethon’s eventual funeral, they watched as Cygnus returned to the river still, sitting by its banks every day, mourning the friend who he had lost. Helios took pity on him then and took Cygnus from the mortal realm, lifting him up into the stars, forever etched into the sky as a swan.”

Dipper was quiet for a minute, staring up at the constellation. “Best friend, huh?”

“Well of course not, they were obviously boyfriends, duh. History just doesn’t like writing about people like us. Obviously in that story Helios knew though.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, he saw that Cygnus didn’t have a life worth living without Phaethon in it. He may not have necessarily known they were boyfriends but like. He knew it was love. He had to have, otherwise he wouldn’t have turned him into stars.”

“Man. I wish my astronomy class had taught us more about the constellations. They seem like really cool stories. Instead, we just learned how stars die, and I’m not even sure that information was accurate given that we met Cassie.”

Mabel slid slowly off the roof of the car, as daylight started to creep up over the horizon. “I’d get your butt off the roof Dip-dop!”

“Why?”

“Cause if you don’t you’re going to be freezing in a couple of seconds!”

“Ah crap!” He grabbed his journal and slid off the roof just as everything around them shifted. He landed shin deep in snow and coughed roughly as the cold suddenly burned inside his lungs. He struggled to get the driver’s door open and did his best to brush off the snow from his pajama pants before it could melt all over Mabel’s car.

“Told you!” She grinned at him, looking warm and comfy in the passenger seat. “Now close the door, you’re making it cold in here!”

…

“Mabel, are you sure this is what you want to use your stop on?”

“Yes!! C’mon Dipper! When else would we get to watch a fairy circus?”

Dipper stared at the billboard in front of them. It was red and black with a top hat and cane on it. In curling gold script the words “Green Fairy Circus” were written, and in smaller script underneath it read “one night only, New Years Eve spectacular!”

“Mabel, I don’t think it’s a fairy circus, I think that’s just its name. Anyway it’s not until later this evening so we’d have to spend the whole day here instead of driving.”

“Dipper,” she said seriously. “We’re caught in a time loop; we can waste all the time we want. Also, don’t be silly, why would they name it that if it wasn’t true?”

He sighed. He just knew that any second she was going to try and convince him this was his idea.

“Anyway, you were just saying the other day that you were sad we didn’t have the time to see more anomalies on our way to Gravity Falls. You wouldn’t want to miss it if it really was a fairy circus! The only Fairies in Gravity Falls are the barfing fairies, and the only two anomalies we’ve seen in the past four days have been things we’ve already encountered before!”

There it was . Mabel always thought he was an easy mark for this specific kind of con. Which wasn’t fair. He did have a habit of caving to them, but he was choosing to cave to them, not being tricked into it. It was an important distinction. And he was choosing to cave in this particular instance because they were caught in a time loop so time didn’t mean anything anyway, so it didn’t actually matter how long it took them to get to Gravity Falls, so maybe he wouldn’t mind if they didn’t get there anytime soon, it’s not like he knew how to fix this anyway— okay stopping that train of thought right there, that wouldn’t help anything right now.

“That’s not entirely true! The gnomes were all female and looking for a King. Which is a really strange sort of sexual dimorphism by geographic area.”

“Yes. But those were just gnomes Dipper! Think of all the anomalies there could be at this circus.”

“Fine Mabel. But don’t get your hopes up, it’s probably just a totally normal circus.”

…

Dipper wasn’t convinced this was a totally normal circus. He’d started to get suspicious when they pulled into the field that the tents were set up in. Every other place around them was covered in at least a foot of snow, but this field was completely clear. The ground wasn’t even muddy or packed down with dead grass and dirt to suggest that it had been cleared off by hand. Instead, it was full of soft, bright green grass, and a large red and black circus tent surrounded by painted wooden wagons. The central tent was closed with a sign on it that said the show would start in one hour. Each of the wagons was hand painted with a name on it and art of the performers. An old-fashioned ticket booth was situated at the edge of the parking area.

He had become even more suspicious when they got out of the car and the air was warm. It felt like spring instead of the dead of winter, warm with a slight bite to the air. It wasn’t t-shirt weather or anything, but it was distinctly wrong. From where they had parked, he could see snow laden trees and a partially frozen river just on the other side of the road. He knew it had been absolutely freezing this morning when they had shifted back into the real world because he had felt it. It had taken over half an hour of driving with the heat on high for him to stop shivering. So, he knew this wasn’t normal. As they walked up towards the tents, however, that feeling started to bother him less and less. As he noticed this he paused, Mabel ran into him.

“Dipper! Why did you stop, silly?”

“Because.” He struggled to figure out what was wrong, focusing on it felt like trying to hold onto a dream after you wake up. “Something’s wrong. But I can’t remember what it is, it’s like it’s being pulled out of my head.”

Mabel stiffened, staring at him with wide eyes. Then she bolted back towards the car so suddenly that he flinched. “Mabel what are you—”

“Stay there, keep focusing on it!”

He watched her dig through the trunk of the car, as he chanted the words ‘too warm’ over and over again, he knew they were the crux of it even though he couldn’t remember why. He couldn’t even remember what he had been concerned about before Mabel ran to the car, there was a warm calming buzz in the back of his head that was overtaking the panic he had been feeling before.

Then Mabel was sprinting back towards him holding something. She shoved it into his hands and the buzzing immediately faded out. It was too warm here, there should be snow and there wasn’t, this was not a normal circus. The thoughts were no longer hard to focus on, whatever had been messing with his head was gone.

“Woah, It’s like springtime!” Mabel gasped.

“Yeah, you didn’t realize that before?”

“No? There was snow when we parked, at least, I thought there was.”

Mabel frowned, spinning something around her wrist. “Well, we know these work now!”

Dipper looked down at what he was holding. It was a thin braided bracelet made of—

“Mabel, where did you get unicorn hair from?”

“I kept it from before Weirdmageddon. I hated the unicorns, but I was still going to put some of their hair in the scrapbook, and Grunkle Ford didn’t need all of it for the shack anyway. I gave him some after Weirdmageddon for the Stan-O-War II just in case, and I kept a couple strands for us to make bracelets.”

“But Bill’s gone.” He was. Dipper knew he was. Whatever had just been in his head hadn’t been Bill, it hadn’t been sharp and angular and cold the way Bill had been, it had been warm. It had felt safe. He felt gross thinking about it, how had he gotten lulled into it so quickly. He was supposed to be better at this stuff.

Mabel shifted uncomfortably. “Well yeah. But other things can possess you or mess with your head. Grunkle Ford wanted it for the boat in case they ran into Sirens. It’s not as powerful without the other ingredients from the protection spell, but he said by itself it’s still a good blocker for magical stuff. So, when you said you felt like something was pulling thoughts out of your head, I remembered we had these.”

She stared at the ground for a moment, kicking at the grass. “Did you really not see snow when we got here?”

Her voice sounded wrong, but he couldn’t immediately pinpoint why. “Nope, it always looked like this to me, it was just getting harder to remember why it was wrong for it to look this way the closer we got to the tents. I think eventually I would have lost my train of thought enough for it to look like there was snow again.”

“Why am I weaker than you?” She said it so quietly he wasn’t even sure he’d been meant to hear it.

“Mabel!” He grabbed her shoulder pulling her around to face him. “You aren’t! You absolutely aren’t. You just haven’t ever had Bill in your head before. If something like this ever happens again, you’ll probably recognize it too. Now you know what it feels like for there to be something in your head that shouldn’t be there. This wasn’t actual possession or anything, but the initial sensation was similar to how it felt when I was talking with Bill before we made a deal.” He shuddered a bit.

“Thanks, Dipper. I know I’m not weak, I just. I hate that I still get more caught up in the magic stuff than you.”

He gave her an awkward one-armed hug. “You’re more trusting than I am, that’s a good thing, sometimes I’m way too skeptical. We balance each other out well. Also, with practice both of us could probably combat something like this without the bracelets.”

She frowned at him. “Right but we have them, so we don’t need to do that. Because willingly subjecting yourself to something like this is dumb.”

He opened his mouth to argue, it wasn’t dumb to be prepared. What if they lost the bracelets, or they met something stronger than the bracelets? She was allowed to prep for another Weirdmageddon but he couldn’t prep for something breaking into his own mind?

Then there was the sound of a door shutting behind them and the argument died before it had a chance to start.

A man had stepped out of one of the painted wagons. He was short, but still managed to cut an impressive figure wearing a dark red ringmaster’s coat and a sleek black top hat. He was holding a clipboard in one hand and a cane in the other. He didn’t appear to notice them as he strode across the grass towards the ticket booth. As he got closer and noticed that the booth was closed he let out a loud groan and pinched the bridge of his nose for a second before muttering:

“One job, that’s all I ask of him, one job and he can’t even…”

He trailed off and spun on his heel, heading for another one of the wagons on the other side of the tent. Calling out over his shoulder as he went. “Someone will be right with you!”

Mabel took a step back in shock and Dipper let out an involuntary squeak of surprise which he quickly stifled, mentally kicking himself for having had a reaction at all. Of course the man had noticed them, they were the only people here and thus a bit hard to miss, especially when one of them was wearing a bright green sweater with purple overalls.

He was of half a mind to suggest they retreat to the car, but this had been Mabel’s choice and he didn’t want to shut her down even though the weird mind control thing made his skin crawl to think about. There was a chance it was totally innocuous. He didn’t really believe that, but he could tell himself he did, at least until something happened that was clearly dangerous enough for the logical response to be running away.

He surreptitiously pocketed the bracelet, shaking down his shirt sleeves to hide the fact that he wasn’t wearing it. Mabel wasn’t even looking at him, instead she was focused on the man who now appeared to be having an argument with someone in one of the wagons.

Instantly, the warm buzz started up again, but this time he could feel it much more clearly. Now that he knew what to look for, he could feel it dancing across his skin and lightly thrumming in the back of his head. The second he focused on trying to push it aside, it let him, and he felt it slip off of him almost willingly, like the magic wasn’t interested in affecting someone who didn’t want it there.

He glanced up to see the man heading back towards him, this time he noticed a slight limp as he walked. It was well masked, and only the way the cane pressed into the ground as he walked gave it away. Dipper was used to watching Stan use the eight-ball cane for his Mr. Mystery persona. Most of the time the cane was just for the grandiosity of it all, he used it so much for gesturing that it barely touched the ground. On bad days however, when the weather was changing or he and Ford had done some more athletic adventuring the day prior, the cane pressed into the ground as he walked, less of a prop than a necessity.

The ringmaster was followed this time by another, somewhat sheepish looking young man, wearing a dark red suit and holding a case of tickets in his hands. As he drew closer Dipper felt another warm buzz dance across his skin, this time slightly more staticky and sharp than the last one had been. He focused again, pushing at the feeling, but this time it didn’t fade off of him, instead it seemed like he hadn’t made a dent in it at all.

Next to him Mabel had begun to bounce on her toes, tapping her fingers together in delight.

“Oh my god he’s so fuzzy!” She squealed under her breath.

Frustrated by his inability to push past this particular shield, Dipper reached into his pocket and slipped the bracelet back on. The young man, who was currently unlocking the ticket booth, shimmered slightly in front of him, and then the buzzing feeling melted away. The man’s upper body was replaced with the broad head and mane of a lion. His arms remained humanoid, but from the way his height shifted, Dipper guessed he had leonine legs beneath his suit pants as well.

Dipper stared. He couldn’t help it. This was so incredibly cool and also slightly terrifying, and he felt himself reaching automatically for his journal. Mabel swatted his hand away hissing, “Don’t be rude!”

The ringmaster was staring at them both intently.

“Welcome to the Green Fairy Circus” the lion man said in a bored voice as he pushed open the ticket window. “Tickets are pay what you can tonight as it is our New Year’s Eve special, the show starts in forty-five minutes sharp and will run until our grand finale at midnight!”

Dipper shifted uncomfortably; the ringmaster was still looking at them.

“We have some programs for you, which are right. Ah, hmm. Potentially they might be in my wagon as well. One second!” The lion man painstakingly closed the ticket window and backed out of the booth, he locked it carefully and started back across the grass towards his wagon. Dipper noticed belatedly that Mabel was bouncing again, he felt the outburst coming before it did but shot out his hand to cover her mouth just a second too late.

“Fluffy!!!!”

“Mabel, shut up!”

“You can see them!”

Mabel stilled immediately and Dipper let his hand drop away from her mouth in defeat. The ringmaster had a delighted grin on his face.

“I thought you could! Neither of you are wearing winter coats, but some people are just strange like that, so I wasn’t certain. But if you can see that Silon is an Animal Fae that means you know it’s not cold here. What kind of creatures are you?”

They both stared at him in confusion.

“Oh, I’m sorry, let me introduce myself. Lucian Ozwin, owner and ringmaster of the internationally acclaimed Green Fairy Circus.”

“Ozwin? Like the wizard of Oz?” Said Dipper with a frown. That felt so glaringly, obviously evil, it was almost comical.

Lucian shrugged, still grinning. “I was much younger when I chose that name, I was going for spectacle at the time. I assume you aren’t fae then, given you don’t seem at all confused by me telling you my name.”

“We’re human.” Said Dipper flatly, still unsure exactly what con this man was trying to pull.

“That’s fascinating. Not at all the answer I expected to be honest.” He frowned. “Would you mind stepping into my office for a second?” He gestured towards the wagon he had stepped out of earlier.

Dipper slipped off the bracelet again, feeling for any sort of magic from this man. He expected to feel something compelling him to the wagon or perhaps something trying to make him fall asleep or otherwise let down his defenses, but he found nothing except the background buzz that had been there from the beginning.

Seeing their hesitancy, Lucian continued, “Listen, I promise I mean you no harm. I just want to confirm something before the show tonight, and I’d prefer not to have this conversation in plain view of other patrons who may be arriving soon. If you’d prefer to have this conversation inside the tent, we can also have it there, if a larger space would be more reassuring.”

He spoke calmly and firmly and, try as he might, Dipper couldn’t find any signs of lying hidden in the man’s words. He glanced at Mabel, and she shook her head at him very slightly, which told him that she hadn’t caught anything weird either. Which was reassuring. She was much better at reading people than he had ever been.

She nodded at Lucian. “We’ll come.”

They followed him up the stairs into a warm homey wagon. The walls were full of books, most of which had spines in languages Dipper couldn’t read, some of which he was sure were not human. A framed map of the world sat behind the desk; it was filled with pins in various colors. Most of them were centered on Europe, but there were at least a handful on every continent, including Antarctica.

There was a smaller map above it that said “Faerie” which was also scattered with a few pins.

Lucian took a seat behind his desk and hung his cane on a hook beside him. He cleared a stack of papers away, revealing a framed photograph of him and a girl with short blue hair and ice blue eyes. She was wearing a silver crown inlaid with what appeared to be sapphires, and in pen at the bottom of the frame was written Nalia’s Coronation alongside a date from almost 70 years ago.

“So,” Dipper’s attention snapped back to the man in front of them.

“What business have you with my circus?”

“What do you mean?” Mabel asked quietly.

“People like you don’t just turn up unless you want something. Humans born with true sight are incredibly rare. It’s often gifted by powerful magical entities. Most of the time those entities gift it because they want to use humans to do their dirty work for them. I won’t have my people harmed. The Green Fairy has remained a neutral party since its inception, that means neutral no matter where we are . I do not myself know the politics of the American Ghost Roads or how the American Fae system works, but I refuse to allow my circus to become a pawn in it. Do you understand ?”

“We’re not—” Mabel started, indignant, at the same time Dipper said. “We weren’t gifted true sight by anyone! We weren’t born with it either. We just happened to grow up adjacent to a lot of anomalies and magic, so we got used to it.”

Mabel stuck out her arm, showing off the bracelet. “We don’t even have true sight! These are made of unicorn hair.” She offered quietly, “I made them so we couldn’t be tricked or hurt by anything that wanted to hide itself from us. We both got a bit freaked out by it not being winter outside, so we put them on.”

Lucian visibly relaxed. Sinking back into his chair in relief. “I apologize. There have been… incidents in the past. I am perhaps more vigilant than I should be. I didn’t mean to frighten you. The glamour around the circus is just to keep people from being afraid. Most humans don’t understand the things we do.”

“No, I understand. You weren’t overreacting. These people are your family, right?”

“Well, I mean. I am human, human enough anyway. So, they aren’t my family in that sense but—”

“They’re your family.” Said Mabel firmly. “Wanting to protect them is natural, we’re sorry for freaking you out. We really didn’t mean to.”

Lucian suddenly glanced over towards his cane with a frown. He appeared to be listening to something. Then he said, “Are you sure?” before nodding to himself.

He glanced back at the two of them. “This is, perhaps, a bit of a weird request. My cane would like to meet you both, they say they have things to share with you.”

Dipper stared at the cane, it was made of a twisted dark polished wood. He could see nicks and scratches in it, but it looked very well cared for. At the top, acting as the handle, was a bird skull. It was the same brown as the rest of the cane, but it was carved with a level of realistic detail that reminded him uncomfortably of the lumberjack’s curse which Pacifica had broken. The skull turned to look at them both and Dipper jumped backwards in shock. It clicked its beak at him, and he had the wild thought that it was laughing at his reaction.

“Hey! None of that, that’s not kind.” Lucian tapped the cane roughly. “My apologies, they like to play tricks on people sometimes. It is made from the wood of the world tree, Yggdrasil. I was gifted it years ago on my first foray through Faerie.”

“You’ve been to Faerie?” Mabel gasped.

“Of course!” Lucian smiled, “Every pin on those boards is a place we have performed in the past century or so. We travel through Faerie, or its equivalent, in whichever country we happen to be in. America doesn’t have Faerie, but the ghost roads work quite similarly I’ve found. Nearly all of my performers are originally from Faerie as well, although we’ve picked up all sorts of different people in our travels.”

He picked the cane off the wall and held it out towards them. “I promise they will not hurt you; they just want to play fortune teller. There is something about your future which they think is unsafe for you to not have warning of.”

Mabel reached out for it gently, murmuring a soft “Hello!” before she grabbed it. Her body suddenly went rigid, and her eyes flew open wide. Dipper reached for her, filled with the desire to rip the cane away from her, but some force met him in the air, stopping him before he could reach the wood in his sister’s hands. He could see her knuckles turning white as she clutched it tighter. Then, in an instant, her hands uncurled and the cane clattered back onto Lucian’s desk. Mabel slumped against the wall, breathing heavily.

“Mabel, are you okay? Can you hear me? What did it do to you?”

“M’fine. Just wasn’t expecting…I’ll be okay in a sec, don—don’t worry about me.”

The cane turned to look at Dipper again and clicked their beak impatiently. Steeling himself, he picked it up.

There was a roaring in his ears and everything around him faded to darkness. He couldn’t feel the floor beneath his feet anymore. The whole world was condensed down to the single point where he could feel the old, gnarled wood between his hands.

Then from the void came a voice. It creaked and cracked like a tree in high winds. It was old, older than anything he had ever heard before. Each world rang through his head like a bell, deliberate, ponderous, and final.

You Stand Before A Crossroads,

A Deal Waits,

The Decision Is Yours To Make,

Your Life Is Yours To Take

Or Yours To Leave Behind,

Choose Your Name Carefully

The voice died away and from the void ghosts of images flashed past, a circus tent, stars, Mabel’s hand in his, an inhuman smile in darkness.

Then he was back in Lucian’s office. The cane lay on the floor at his feet. He stumbled backwards into the wall, trying to get his breathing under control.

Mabel laid her hand on his arm. “You okay, Dipper?”

“Yeah,” he gasped out, “just a bit intense. Sorry.”

Lucian stood up and bent down stiffly to retrieve his cane. “Apologies, I forget how much of a shock those visions can be to people who haven’t experienced them before.” He pulled a small gold pocket watch out of his jacket and glanced at it, “I must go to make sure that everything is ready for the show. You two can wait in here until you feel recovered.”

He tucked the watch away again, pulled his hat onto his head, and opened the door before pausing. “You are, of course, free to leave. If you want to stay, however, the show is pretty incredible. Even more so when you can really see what the performers are up to.” He tapped his wrist meaningfully, then hurried out of the wagon pulling the door shut behind him.

…

They went to the show, and loath as he was to admit it, Dipper thought it was incredible.

There were fire-spinners whose hands flickered with living flames, winged acrobats who danced through the air from one trapeze to the next. There was a section where fae twined around each other in various animal forms, performing tricks that astounded the audience around them. Privately, Dipper’s favorite tricks were the ones that didn’t involve any magic at all.

A pair of fae, distinguishable from humans only by the small pairs of antlers on their heads and the moving vines tattooed onto their arms, performed an amazing acrobatic routine on the floor, surrounded by fire dancers using physical props instead of their elemental powers. A group of centaurs, no doubt glamoured to the audience as horseback riders performed a fairly complex sequence of choreography around each other in a blurred dance. Lucian and a bird-headed partner did a juggling routine involving multiple different sets of props, Lucian's top hat, and a really excellent set of steals.

In fact throughout the whole show Dipper found himself watching Lucian. The man directed his troupe around the ring effortlessly. With twirls and taps of his cane, flourishes of his hat, and occasional flash paper fires, he commanded the space entirely. Dipper could see he was having the time of his life. Every-time the audience cheered he seemed to glow with joy. At the same time Dipper could see he was focused on the acts. Once or twice, he caught Lucian tracking something with carefully disguised concern. An acrobat falling out of balance, a lyra artist slipping slightly and almost revealing her wings trying to catch herself, one of the lions missing the edge of a fire ring and singing their mane on the way through.

Dipper found the longer he watched, the more he envied Lucian. This man seemed so certain of who he was. He led his friends—his family as Mabel had called them—with a parental care and determination that Dipper realized he hadn’t felt in a long time. This circus was full of creatures from all over the world, he was even fairly certain there were some normal humans performing here and there, and all of them seemed to get along. Mabel was right, this was a family, and it was the type of family he didn’t think he had ever had.

The finale of the show involved lots of pyrotechnics and different elemental performances. Right before it started, Lucian came onstage to announce the dates of several more shows in the area and thank the audience for their attendance and donations. He also mentioned that they had a few more positions open for auditions if anyone was interested in joining the troupe, and for a second Dipper was certain that Lucian was staring directly at him. The next moment however, the stage was filled with people and Lucian had vanished into the finale.

He and Mabel remembered at the last second to switch themselves over into the ghost roads before the clock struck midnight. They found themselves standing in an empty field, the chaos of the lights and sound fading around them. As they walked back to the car Dipper realized there was something in his jacket pocket. He paused and pulled it out in confusion. It was a business card for the Green Fairy Circus. The acid green text appeared and disappeared as he flipped the card over to look at the back. In elegant cursive there was a short note.

It was lovely to meet you both, if you ever need a place to stay, the Green Fairy will welcome you home. – L.O.

Something warm flared to life in his chest and he carefully tucked the card back into his pocket, hurrying after Mabel.

…

A patron leaves the circus. Their passage is unseen, unheard. They walk slowly, lost in thought. Flicking through memories that are not their own. A panicked phone call, a tearful voicemail. An argument in a dingy hotel room, an argument at a gas station, many arguments in a car, raised voices, flushed faces, a growing rift. They know a decision has almost been reached, their work is almost over.

In the distance a car starts, and, with a click of their fingers, time begins to loop once more.

#gravity falls #whereverwegoau #my writing #writing #dipper and mabel #cryptids #trans dipper pines #this chapter took me forever to figure out #but im pretty happy with it #its also really long whoops #(don't mind my circus OC's I just thought the circus was a fun setting to use for shenanigans)

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