#since i focused quite a bit on mabel's love for dipper

[sage-nebula]

Mabel despises Bill, send post.

Okay, I'll say more than that.

One thing that I haven't seen people talk about (and that I've in fact seen some fan content ignore) is the fact that The Book of Bill makes it explicitly clear that Mabel Pines despises Bill Cipher as of the end of the series. I think there's a tendency to view Mabel as a bastion of love and forgiveness, and while it's true that Mabel does have a lot of love and kindness in her heart, a.) she's not actually an all-forgiving heroine (see: she never comes close to forgiving Gideon for attacking Dipper in "The Hand that Rocks the Mabel"), and b.) we're given explicit text on multiple pages in The Book of Bill that outline just how much she hates Bill and will actually do violence unto him (again) if she ever gets the chance. (Because remember, she got him in the eye with spray paint with extreme prejudice.)

We're first told about this when Bill recounts the story of how he visited Mabel's dreams days before Weirdmageddon in the hopes of making a deal. (Which, side note -- how was that possible? The unicorn hair spell was supposed to prevent that sort of thing from happening. I guess she must have been at a sleepover at Candy's or Grenda's house when this little dream jump occurred.) Bill at first gushes about how much he likes Mabel and would like to sway her to his side, but then:

"Unfortunately, her mind had Wanted posters of me everywhere -- just because I possessed her brother one time!"

Mabel wasn't a fan of Bill's even before "Sock Opera," but as of "Sock Opera" it seems that there's no chance of forgiveness from her for him. And this tracks; in "The Hand that Rocks the Mabel," Gideon treated her horribly. He pressured her into the initial date with him, and then continued to use public pressure and guilt trips in order to keep her locked into successive dates and a suffocating relationship that she couldn't escape from. He was emotionally manipulative, possessive, selfish, and cruel. Despite this, Mabel still felt bad for asking Dipper to break up with him on her behalf and initially went to the factory to apologize to Gideon, until she saw him attacking Dipper through the window. It was only at that point, when he attacked her brother, that Mabel's opinion on Gideon did a 180 and he was no longer worthy of any sympathy or forgiveness in her eyes. Regardless of how he treated her, it was hurting Dipper that Mabel could not forgive.

So it makes sense, then, that possessing Dipper would be the breaking point for Mabel with Bill, particularly considering the note that Bill left for her (and specifically for her, part of it was addressed to her) to find in the car on the way back from the play at the end, as revealed in Journal 3:

"Note to self: Possessing people is hilarious! To think of all the sensations I've been missing out on -- burning, stabbing, drowning. It's like a buffet tray of fun! Once I destroy that journal, I'll enjoy giving this body its grand finale -- by throwing it off the water tower! Best of all, people will just think Pine Tree lost his mind, and his mental form will wander in the mindscape forever. Want to join him, Shooting Star?"

(Yeah, I sure believe Bill that Mabel's a kid he likes. 😬 Maybe "likes" is more appropriate . . . even his lies are lies . . .)

So Bill possessed Dipper on purpose, threw his body down stairs, stabbed forks into his arms, poured soda into his eyes, slammed his hands in drawers, and then had planned to throw his body off a water tower, killing him in what would look like a suicide attempt. I don't think it's any wonder that after this, Bill crossed the point of no return in Mabel's mind. Bill recognizes as such by the time he's finished in her mind as well:

"That was it. She'd never make a deal with me."

It was why he had to possess Blendin in the first place and make up the lie about a way to extend the summer; because thanks to Craz and Xyler, he knew that Mabel was sad about summer ending, and that she could be tricked by someone she thought had a way of extending summer, like a time agent. Bill had to possess a known time agent, because Mabel wouldn't have believed anyone else could do it, and it had to be Blendin because Blendin wore goggles that obscured his eyes (and thanks to fighting against Bipper, Mabel knew how to look for possession eyes, and would never make a deal with Bill). Bill using Blendin to trick Mabel was calculated, and extremely so, because Mabel hates his guts because of what he did (and wanted to do) to her brother.

But it doesn't end there, because then we get to Mabel's letter. (And Dipper's as well, but mostly Mabel's.) Some might be thinking, well, if Mabel knew about Bill's backstory, she might regain some sympathy for him. However, I don't think that's the case . . . because Mabel does learn about Bill's backstory (or at least his history with Ford), and she doesn't feel sympathy for him. Ford's letter not only states that the entire family was reading the book when he exited his lab (and laughing so hard they were crying at it), but Mabel's letter in specific has her write this:

"Anyway, Bill seems to me like a super-needy ex."

We have all laughed and enjoyed this line because of how it further cements Billford as canon toxic old man yaoi, but think about what this means for a moment. This means that:

Mabel has read Bill's backstory, at least re: everything that went down between him and Ford and how heartbroken Bill was over it (she knows about O'Sadleys and the intergalactic Taco Bell incident)

She doesn't feel sympathy, in fact, she's calling him super-needy, which is insulting

Mabel isn't sympathetic toward Bill; she's patronizing. She's one step away from calling him cringe. Her "helpful tips" for how to move on are her condescending to him as she tells him to get the hell away from Ford -- and speaking of which, let's not forget that she says "if you're reading this from space or hell or wherever," indicating exactly where she thinks he very well could be. If she felt sympathetic toward him at all, knowing what she does about his past, I really doubt she'd think he'd be burning in hell.

Mabel ends her letter with this delightful gem.

"Anyway, Bill -- you tried to kill my brother. If I ever see you again, I'm doing this! [illustration of her biting him in half] Deal with it!"

There is no love for Bill Cipher in her heart. There is only a wish to sever him in half, preferably so that his precious eyeball is split in two, with her teeth.

Now, this is in her letter. But we also get some of this in Dipper's letter, too, since she interjects over there. Dipper also delivers a death threat to Bill, and Mabel comments on it. Her commentary praises Dipper's threats (and confident in making his threat):

Dipper: "Come at us again and I'll end you." Mabel: "Wow, Dipper!! So confident!!" Dipper: "Was it . . . was it too confident?" Mabel: "No, it was just right! 13 looks good on you!"

Now, again, this is mostly praising his confidence. But the "it was just right" could also apply to the threat, considering she made a very similar one herself. Many people focus on Dipper's threat to Bill, considering how cutthroat Dipper seemed toward Bill in the show (and how it was their relationship that was focused on because Dipper was the primary protagonist).

But this book has made it explicitly clear that Mabel hates Bill's flat yellow ass with her entire sparkly heart. She wants him away from her grunkle because she knows how badly he treated Ford. And she especially wants to rip him to pieces herself if she ever sees him within a 100 mile radius of her brother again. The idea that Mabel would be forgiving of, or sympathetic to, Bill because of his backstory just doesn't jive with what we know both of her character or her actual, canonical feelings toward him as of the most recent canonical material. Mabel is a loving, kind person, yes -- but she has her limits, and those limits come with those that cause serious harm to her family, just like the rest of the Pines. She's not a two-dimensional, all-forgiving heroine. She's a well-rounded character who forgives when things are forgivable, when it's warranted, when it's deserved. And it's been demonstrated that in Mabel's eyes, certain things -- like trying to cut out her brother's tongue with lamb shears, or possessing him and threatening to throw his body off a water tower -- simply aren't forgivable.

[vrisrezis]

May I request what it would be like to be Stanford's s/o who he's knows since he was a child?

Made this more about him crushing on somebody he knew since he was a child . Sorry abt that <//3 got carried away

Overall, pretty good (and interesting!) upon knowing him as a kid, you were his only friend outside of his brother. And you were close to his brother as well! As a result though, you were bullied quite a bit for being friends with them. When Stanford couldn’t protect you, Stanley could. When you didn’t understand something in school, Stanford helped. When you wanted to learn to protect yourself better, Stanley helped. As you got older, the boys became increasingly aware of how much they cared for you. Stanford was more aware of him having a total crush on you, and Stanley was more aware of how he considered you to be his best friend (along with Stanford). Stanley often teased Stanford for his crush, especially when you’d have the occasional boyfriend in highschool. It all came to an end when the brothers parted ways. You lost contact with the both of them for the most part, but had done your best to stay in touch.

You all had so much going on, Stanford was in college and Stanley was going place to place. You were simply working, not having the money for a good college, unsure what you wanted to do with your life. Stanford and you remained that close relationship you always had, but he was much more busy, focused on his studies and eventfully on a some new invention. Or something. You got a vague idea of what he was doing. Perhaps he didn’t have the time. Or maybe he thought you’d think he’s crazy. Or maybe he wanted to keep you safe. Or maybe, he didn’t trust you. You didn’t know. You had felt your relationship lacked what it had, it lacked as much trust and honesty it seemed. He lied about how tired he was, he lied about himself being unhappy, that he was fine.

And you hadn’t seen Stanley in god knows how long. You missed your friend, if he was here he’d be knocking some sense into his brother by now. Regardless, the both of you were called by the man, to come over to his place. He didn’t have much time to explain what was going on, but he was exhausted. It was obvious he looked like shit, Stanley didn’t seem to be doing all that great nowadays either. You could barely function as the two had fought with eachother. Normally you’d be there to mediate their relationship, but this was different. You couldn’t fix this. A part of you wished that you had done something, because he was gone for 30 long years.

It gave you some missed time with Stanley, at the very least. And over the years you both had decided to just live together, neither of you wanting to be alone. Not with what you saw happen to your best friend. His best friend. For years, you both figured out things that Stanford didn’t tell you about, looked for and read the books. It wasn’t until Stanley’s wonderful great Niece and Nephew came along, did you get all of them, and did you get to see Stanford again. You never thought you’d see him again, he felt the same.

Even if the twin brothers had a lot of making up to do, all Stanford could focus on at the moment was you. A part of him just wanted to tell you everything. After all he’s learned, after all the time he’s been away from you, he just wants to tell you how he feels. But he didn’t. There was so much going on. Perhaps he was just happy to have you in his life again. He was bright again, it’s been so long since he felt that giddy feeling, the warmth in his chest, the softest smile Dipper thinks he’s ever seen Stanford give somebody. He loves you. Not a simple love that Mabel throws around. He’s in love love. He probably has been, forever.

Ever since you three were little, Stanley tried to get Stanford to say how he felt. To no avail. Never listened. He was too much of a coward. He hated himself for it at times, but ultimately decided he had no reason to. Ever since highschool, he had realized (or thought he realized) you didn’t like him, you never did. Because you went out your way to date cuter, popular guys. Why would you like some nerd like him? As he got older, he got over his insecurities of being too smart, too nerdy, too weird. His attraction towards you never did though. Perhaps, he had just grown content just being with you.

[maximumjinx]

Steven Universe Gravity Falls AU

~Yknow what they say, if you run out of content, ya gotta make it yourself. This is a ? shot (I might continue or not who knows not me) please don’t ask for more I have 18 unfinished fanfics on this site.~

California was nice, Steven had to admit. The people were nice, the food was fantastic, and the weather was splendid. It reminded him a lot of Beach City. Though there were just so many people, and traveling north, Steven was beginning to long for something small and simple again.

Oregon was the perfect place for that, right?

“Ronaldo wants pictures of Bigfoot, and if anyone can find him, its you Steven.” Petey’s voice was faint on Steven’s phone speaker, tossed into the passenger seat as Steven blindly picked a highway exit.

“Sure Petey, but couldn’t Ronaldo just go to a circus?”

“Not big feet Steven,” Petey emphasized, “Bigfoot.”

“Saying it twice isn’t helping buddy.” Steven was half paying attention. He was focusing on the winding roads and the looming trees surrounding him. Deep, in the pit of Steven’s stomach, he felt something start to tug him toward one direction farther away from the highway. He wasn’t quite sure if it was a good or bad feeling yet.

“Forget it, I’m going to take a blurry photo of that mean Gem in the woods and say its Bigfoot.”

“Just don’t let Jasper catch you, she’s no joke when she’s angry.”

“I saw her ripping grass out of the ground I think I’ll be fine. Later dude.”

Steven heard a small click and smiled to himself. He’s happy to see how far the people of Beach City have come and how they’ve taken to the gems. He remembers when the Crystal Gems were once the outcasts of town that locals warned you to stay away from.

He looked up to see a welcome sign.

“Gravity falls. Well, that’s a funny name.”

—

Steven wanted small and simple but he feels he may have overshot it.

This small town had exactly three attractions. A town museum that mentioned marrying woodpeckers (Steven couldn’t figure out if that was a normal human thing, like taxes and velcro), a small diner, and as one local described it ‘some tourist trap’ deep in the woods. It was a sticky summer day and the former two attractions didn’t have airconditioning. Steven gambled on the last stop in hopes of stretching his legs and maybe finding a source to the strange feeling in his gut. It had become much stronger since he entered this small town. Alluring, but nothing related to Gems as far as Steven could tell.

He parked in the nearly empty lot and stepped out. Jacket wrapped loosely around his hips, Steven made his way inside.

A girl that looked about 13 was petting a pig on the front porch. She was incredibly reflective, and depsite the heat wore a knitted bedazzled sweater that made her glow like a disco ball in the sun.

She looked Steven up and down as he approached, a wide smile taking up her face and Steven saw bright braces with colored bands.

“Hi!” She launched upwards, startling the pig away, “I’m Mabel, but you can call me anytime.” The girl winked and stuck out her hand, palm facing the floor.

Steven blinked.

“Mabel, stop scaring away the customers!” A gruff voice yelled through the screen door, and soon an older man stepped out in a suit, wearing a fez and eyepatch.

Immediately the old man squinted at Steven, sizing him up.

Stanley Pines knew this teen wasn’t local, but he wasn’t sure if he had any money. For all he knew he was another boy trying to hit on his giftshop cashier, Wendy.

Oh well, a customer is a customer.

“Come in, come in, and see our mystical and magical wonders!”

“Magical?” This could be it, Steven could figure out why this town has felt off. Maybe it was gem related after all.

Quickly this older man who had introduced himself as Mr. Mystery gave Steven a tour of what looked like failed taxidermy projects. Now Steven may have a lived a sheltered childhood, but he felt pretty confident there was no such thing as a Sashcrotch. And so far, nothing had felt magical or mysterious.

“That concludes our tour! Here is our mistifying giftshop and it’s purchasable wonders!”

“Right...” Well, at the very least he was able to spend some time in airconditioning.

There was a girl behind the desk in plaid that looked about Steven’s age, and just a half inch shorter than him. She looked bored, flipping through a magazine as a young boy that looked a lot like Mabel made googly eyes as he swept by the door.

Steven guessed there was no harm in asking around.

“Hi, I’m Steven.” He smiled easily, walking up to the register.

“No refunds, even if an exhibit bit you.” She sighed, peeking up before turning back to her magazine.

“Oh no, nothing bit me, I just wanted to know something.”

She looked up to get a better look at Steven and gave a small smirk.

“Sure, but only because I like your shirt. Mr. Universe merch, now that’s a deep cut.”

Unbeknownst to Steven, Dipper Pines would had been watching the exchange felt a twinge of uneasiness as this out of towner talked with Wendy.

“Have you ever seen anything strange or weird actually happen in this town?”

Wendy’s smile dropped.

“Why do you ask?” Her eyes flickered to Dipper, just for a moment, and that was all he needed to rush over.

“Excuse me sir, please buy something or exit the store.” Dipper spoke in the deepest voice he could muster.

Steven looked over with a questioning expression.

“Oh sure uh-“ He blindly reached for the wad of bills that his dad had given to him before he left. Steven pulled out a hundred dollar bill and put it on the counter. Wendy looked up baffled as Steven stuffed the other cash back in his wallet.

“Boy was I wrong about you kid!” Mr. Mystery, seemingly materializing out of nowhere, now bounded over. He had loosened his tie and lost the eyepatch which turned out he never needed.

“Whaddya wanna know? I’ll tell you everything. There’s gnomes in the woods you know-“

“Grunkle Stan!” Dipper protested loudly, dragging his Stan away and harshly whispering at him.

“Did you steal that money?” Wendy asked as Steven watched the pair whisper fight in the corner. He turned back to the girl and gave a sheepish smile.

“Uh no, my dad gave it to me before this roadtrip. He’s actually Mr. Universe.”

Wendy lit up.

“No freaking way! Your dad is Mr. Universe? I only got into him since he managed Sadie Killer and the Suspects and they always perform covers of his songs on tour, I can’t believe he’s your dad!” She rambled, stars in her eyes. Steven beamed, he loved when people praised his dad’s music. Greg really deserved it.

Steven learned Wendy’s name and they swapped stories back and forth, only interrupted as the girl from outside slowly rose from the behind the counter beaming.

“A cute musician that loves weird stuff, take me now.” She swooned. Steven blushed profusely, not used to the attention.

“Sorry, my girlfriend Connie probably wouldn’t like that very much.” He said gently. Mabel looked him up and down and pouted.

“I can wait, but not forever.” She warned, and winked, bounding to break apart her grunkle and Dipper, who are now whisper screaming with arms flailing.

“I wasn’t going to mention that Dorito shaped jerk! Just the normal stuff!”

“It’s dangerous! He could be a spy, or government, or another stack of gnomes!”

Steven raised an eyebrow and looked at Wendy. She chuckled and shrugged. Steven carefully approached them.

“He can hear everything you’re saying anyways so might as well tell him!” Mabel interrupted, nodding towards Steven as he came up.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m definitely not government.” Steven technically didn’t exist at all. He never had a social security card and didn’t have a birth certificate.

Dipper only glared. Rich strangers with an interest in the paranormal didn’t come through gravity falls without some kind of agenda.

Steven hated the conflict he was starting. No information was worth this family fighting.

“Okay,” he surrendered, hands up, “I’ll just go. I’ll stick around town until tomorrow if you change your minds”

“Wait Steven-”

“Let him go Wendy,” Dipper glared as the boy in pink walked out, “We can’t trust him.”

“But I was going to ask for Sadie tickets...” Wendy groaned, defeated.

“There’s something weird about him.”

“Great!” Mabel beamed, “He’ll fit right in.”

~.~

Steven wasn’t crazy about sleeping in his car, but was seriously considering it after seeing the state of his motel room. It looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, a thin line of dust covering every surface. He was also pretty sure they didn’t even have free ice. 

“Wish Pearl were here..” He mumbled, exhausted. He curled up on top of the covers, fully clothed, and let sleep take him.

Being Steven Universe however, meant rest was sure to allude the half alien. 

Steven found himself in a dark space, fog all around him. Before a word could come out of his mouth he heard a fast, repetitive muttering. 

“Stranger...Wendy looked pretty today..Can’t trust...Tell no one...Ford isn’t here..”

“What, the-” Steven quietly walked toward the source of dialogue, and saw the faded silhouette of the boy from the Mystery Shack. His back was turned to him, but Steven recognized the blue vest and mosquito bitten legs. 

“I thought I was over the dream hopping.” Steven spoke a tad too loudly, starting the young boy - Dipper.

“What-” Dipper’s eyes grew wide in panic, and the boy fell back harshly.

“No, no, you can’t be in my head!” 

“Wait, I’m not-” Steven tried to reassure him, stepping carefully towards the boy but Dipper let out a screech of terror, sweat gathering around his temples.

“Bill sent you didn’t he?! He’s not really gone- he’s going to hurt Mable again-” Dipper began to hyperventilate. 

“Dipper please,” Steven took a step back, arms in the air in surrender. 

“I-”

“I’m not going to hurt you I swear on the gems.” He placed a hand over his heart. “This is a total invasion of privacy but it’s something that happens when someone’s emotions are out of control-”

“How are you here?” Dipper demanded, scrambling to his feet. “Tell me what you are and what you want.”

“I’m just passing through!” Steven insisted, then lowered his tone to calm the younger boy. “I’m kinda of magnet for weird stuff. I just wanted to help in case anything was going on.”

“We deal with things just fine around here.” Dipper spat, then watched as Steven deflated. He seemed tired, like he hasn't slept well in a while. 

“So what are you anyways? How can you be here?”

Steven winced, and laughed nervously. “It’s kind of a long story..”

Dipper raised and eyebrow and swept his arm around the void dramatically. 

“You have until dawn.”

~

“I thought that was a conspiracy theory, it wasn’t even covered by major news outlets.” Dipper look exhausted, cross legged on the unseen floor as he ran his hands through his hair. 

“I think Garnet is pretty persuasive when it comes to government and reporters. They all kinda fall in love with her.”

“She’s the one that’s really two aliens?” 

Steven shook his head with a small smile. “It’s hard to explain but yes, I guess that comes close.”

“That’s actually insane. I’m insane, aren’t I?” Dipper stood up, leaving Steven on sitting next to an empty space. “It’s been too quiet around here and now I’m so desperate for weird, that I’m making it all up in my head.”

“I get that feeling.” Steven smiled without humor, “but no, this is real. I’ll prove it when you wake up.” Steven felt a shift, the fog in the void getting denser. 

“Sooner than I thought, you’re an early riser huh?”

Dipper looked back at Steven, panicked. “You’ll come to the Shack again right? In just a bit?”

Steven smiled. “Promise.”

~

Dipper woke up to his sister braiding his hair. Mabel still had her pjs on, and a make up kit next to the bed. Dipper frowned, tasting strawberry shortcake. 

“Stop testing party looks on me, Mabel.”

“Stop having my face structure and maybe I will.” She grinned, covered in blue glitter. 

Dipper quickly washed up and got dressed for the day, feeling like he was anxiously waiting for something but not quite remembering what. 

He felt like he had a strange dream last night...

He quickly remembered, choking on cereal as Steven walked into the shack right as it opened. Hair slightly frizzy from the heat and eyes strangely tired. Maybe dream hopping took energy that he anticipated. 

“Steven!”

“Meal ticket!” 

“Grunkle Stan.” Mabel chastised as Dipper rushed over to the older boy. 

“Good morning everyone.” 

Dipper stopped short, slightly hoping that everything he experienced wasn’t just his imagination. That everything exciting and weird and interesting wasn’t always trying to kill him, ruin his life, or steal his candy. 

Steven looked tired, like he had been doing this much longer than Dipper, but he had still come out with enough energy to smile. 

“Not insane?” Dipper asked hopefully, quietly. Steven snapped his attention from his Grunkle and Mable bickering down to the Dipper. He gave a reassuring smile, eyes quite serious. 

“Not insane.”

[imnotoverlyobsessive]

Mabel’s All-In-One Guide to Being a Shooting Star: How to Avoid Being Caught and Other Tips You Should Know

Chapter Four: Not Gravity Falls

Whoops I forgot to post it my b you guys

Shoutout to @edward-or-ford and @pacific-ship for being bangs

When I wake up, the dream isn't done, I wanna see your face and know I've made it home. If nothing is true, what more can I do?- All Time Low, Painting Flowers

There was something… off about this Gravity Falls. Which was, of course, to be expected; alternate reality and all that. It wasn’t as different from her Gravity Falls as Not Dipper was from her Dipper, it just… It just felt strange. Like it was just a little bit wrong. It was darker. Everything was darker. She didn’t quite understand why.

She was still somewhat out of it, and walking was a chore. She really missed her bike. Why didn’t she have her bike again? Right, because she’d been abducted by gnomes, and then abducted-slash-rescued by an alternate version of her bro.

He was walking beside her, this alternate Dipper, and there was something different in the way he held himself. Her Dipper was… awkward, for lack of a better word. Adorably so, of course; it was one of the many things that had made her fall in love with him to begin with.

But this version… this version of Dipper walked with an easy sort of confidence Mabel wasn’t used to seeing, not on anybody, or at least not to that degree. He wasn’t awkward. Not even a little. He was sure of himself, perhaps even arrogant. He stood at his full height, not slouching or hunching his shoulders.

He didn’t just walk, either. He strutted, and he didn’t seem to notice when the townspeople (who had all stopped dead in their tracks and were looking at her, slack-jawed and wide-eyed) gave them both an unnecessarily wide berth. He didn’t glance at them, not even briefly to take mental note of their locations in relation to his own. He simply continued on as if they weren’t there, as if they didn’t exist.

They were looking at her with such unmistakable horror that Mabel had to say something.

“Hey,” she murmured at Not Dipper. “What’s the deal with these guys?”

“Hm?” He didn’t appear to have been paying attention to them, so when she voiced her question, he glanced around haphazardly. “Oh, I suppose they might think you’re… the other Mabel.”

“Huh. Weird.” Before she could comment further, her words were cut off.

“Mabel?” came a shocked voice that was almost familiar, but not quite. And when Mabel slowed her pace along the sidewalk and turned her gaze to her right, she found herself looking at a very… well, it was just odd, wasn’t it, almost as odd as Not Dipper’s mannerisms and general Not Dipper-ness. The contrast of these weird versions to the people she knew was lowkey freakin’ her out.

It was… “Pacifica?” It did very much appear to be Pacifica. The girl looked like Pacifica. She had the same face, eyes, and general appearance, but it looked like Pacifica if Pacifica had aged several years and gotten a hippie costume from a Halloween store. Or a Summerween store. Y’know. Whatever.

“You’re, uh… how are you…?” Pacifica was asking, and Mabel still felt a bit wobbly, but she smiled at this strange version of Pacifica all the same.

“Hi!” Mabel greeted with a cheerful wave, sticking her hand out for the other girl to shake. “I’m Mabel, nice to meet ya!” There was murmuring of words from the crowd that Mabel couldn’t hear or understand, and Pacifica was looking at Mabel’s hand like it had a shark’s mouth and the corresponding number of teeth (which was, fun fact, three thousand), and would give her hand similar treatment to that of those teenagers in Jaws.

Realizing Pacifica wasn’t gonna take her hand, Mabel lowered it with a pout. Not Dipper wasn’t looking at her. He’d stopped walking when she had, but he was staring off into space, his expression blank.

“I… I don’t understand,” Pacifica said, eyeing Mabel warily. “How are you… how are you here?”

Suddenly, Mabel remembered: ‘nother universe, concussion, blah blah blah.

“Right!” She snapped her fingers. “Sorry, I totes magoats forgot!” Pacifica (and everyone else) raised their eyebrows at her. “Have a bit of a concussion here,” she explained, knocking on the side of her head. “Yowch, prolly shouldn’t’ve done that. Anyway, the long and short of it is,” she paused for dramatic effect, “I’m from an alternate dimension! Ta-da!” She did jazz hands. Dramatic effect really was important. Essential, even.

“Okay,” Pacifica said slowly, looking immensely confused. “So, how, exactly…” she glanced at Not Dipper, and her eyes widened. “Holy crap, what happened?!” she exclaimed, rushing towards him. “Are you okay? We need to get you to a hospital, ommigod!”

He rolled his eyes, allowing them to land on her. “It’s none of your concern.” His voice was bored, disinterested, like the absolute last thing in the world he wanted to be doing was to be talking to her, and the fact that he was having to was nothing more than an irritating waste of time.

“Worry not, little missy!” Mabel gave her a double thumbs up. “We’re gonna get it taken care of and the not-broseph over here will be a-okay!”

Nobody else said anything. Pacifica was still looking at her nervously. If they thought she was the alternate universe’s Mabel and they were acting like, well, that, then what in the hell had her other self done to them? Dang diggity, they were looking at Not Dipper the same way; what had he done to them?

She glanced at him. He wasn’t looking at Pacifica anymore. He was staring off into space again.

“Um, well, I-“

Pacifca’s nervous stuttering was cut off by Not Dipper sighing, taking Mabel’s hand in his, and pulling her forward again. “Time to go,” he said, not bothering to look over his shoulder.

Had he always been so... apathetic? Mabel wasn’t sure. Her head was still pounding somewhat, and she couldn’t remember suuuuuper clearly, but she was pretty sure he’d been paying attention to her before. In fact, he’d been focused entirely on her, she had thought. But just then, he wasn’t focusing on anything. He’d totally snubbed Pacifica, too!

“Where are we going, exactly?” Mabel asked, doing her best to wave over her shoulder at the bewildered and fearful-looking townspeople as Not Dipper dragged her along behind him, his hand gentle but firm around hers.

“Home,” Not Dipper said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Not her home, obviously, but his. Was it her shaken brain, or was his distinct lack of the word ‘my’ weird?

“Not… uh…” she took a moment to collect her thoughts. Stupid concussion. What was that word again? “Not a hospital?”

“Not a hospital,” he agreed.

“O...kay…?”

After several minutes of him walking in strides that were a bit much for Mabel, particularly since she was having difficulty walking at all, he looked over his shoulder at her with one of those stupid stupid stupid grins-

“You seem to be having a bit of trouble there, Mabel dear. You’re quite sure you don’t want me to carry you again?”

“Yes, I’m sure!” She nodded emphatically. But, wait a second. “Again? What do you mean again?”

“Oh,” he glanced over his shoulder at her for a second, as if he’d forgotten he’d mentioned it to begin with. “I carried you earlier. When you were unconscious, you know.”

“R- right,” she stuttered. He’d carried her? How terribly embarrassing. She was far too heavy to be carried, and she was massively uncomfortable with this random version of her twin she loved in a very un-sister-type way knowing that she was far too heavy to be carried. “Thank you for saving me, by the way.”

“Of course,” he said easily. “Though please do try not to get into too much trouble now that you’re here.” He paused for a moment. “I’d hate to see something happen to you.”

“Honestly, the only place weird stuff ever happens to me is Gravity Falls,” she chuckled a bit. Her own need to escape had trapped her in a way, hadn’t it? “I’m probably no safer here than I was in my dimension.”

They’d migrated from sidewalks to dirt walkways along the side of a long, winding road that Mabel couldn’t see the end of.

“You’re safe with me,” he told her firmly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He was pulling her along the dirt path still, the earth and gravel crunching beneath her shoes. It was fairly dark by this point, so the chill of the evening air bit into the bare skin her shorts and loose crop top revealed.

“Sorry for complaining, but like. We’ve been walkin’ for a hot minute here, and I’m not seeing any houses in sight, so I’m just…'' she paused to take a break. Words were hard when one had a concussion. “Just kinda wondering if we’ll ever actually get to your far-far-away abode, y’know?”

“We’re almost there,” he assured her, and she could’ve sworn he squeezed her hand, but she really wasn’t sure. She might’ve imagined it. Actually, she probably imagined it. Almost certainly.

Which, side note, but why was he still holding her hand? They weren’t exactly walking side by side, no, but she was close enough behind him to where he didn’t really need to lead her anywhere.

Before she could formulate the words to question it, however, a wall came into view. A very high wall. Perhaps ten feet? Mabel didn’t know; she’d never been great at math. Sue her. It was stone, it looked like, but it was difficult to tell for certain because it was covered in ivy from top to bottom.

“You see?” He smiled at her slightly. “We’re there.”

The road they were walking beside appeared to end at a very large, ornate wrought iron gate that the wall-slash-fence appeared to house, and beyond that lay a driveway, leading to…

A… castle? It certainly looked like a castle. It was very very tall, and she couldn’t see much, but it definitely looked like a castle.

She sped up her pace a bit so she could match his long strides and poke him lightly on the arm. He looked down at her with mild amusement, it looked like. “Hey, uh…” he raised his eyebrows at her. “Is that where you live?”

“Yes, that’s why we’re here,” he said as if it were obvious. As if anyone living in a goddamn castle in the year of our lord 2019 was an obvious conclusion for somebody to jump to.

She noticed that some of his hair had fallen from its slicked back style and was falling over his birthmark. She wondered what it would look like down. She wondered what it would feel like. She wondered- no no no, bad Mabel, very bad, he’s not your Dipper!

“So…” she trailed off for a second. “Just to be clear, so we’re like, one-hundred-and-ten percent on the same page here, you live in a castle. Have… have I got that right, oooorrrrrr…?”

“If you consider this a castle, then yes, I suppose.” Not Dipper was looking down at her again, and he looked like he found her surprise quite funny. Which she didn’t exactly appreciate, but y’know. Beggars can’t choose their rescuers and all that.

They’d finally reached the gate, and it appeared to have a very large G in very fancy cursive on it.

He pressed his thumb to an electronic pad. The gate creaked open, and he strolled through it, pulling her along after him. It closed again as soon as they went through, and she found herself looking around every way she could without making herself all dizzy again.

They navigated around what appeared to be a hedge maze (that she would later discover was also in the shape of a giant cursive G), and it was several more minutes before they reached the overly tall wooden doors.

It wasn’t until he pushed the door open, taking his hand from hers in the process, that she realized he’d never let go of her hand. He’d been holding it the entire time, and she’d never even noticed.

[aceofstars16]

A Game of Charades

Here is my fic for the @lost-legends-zine! I had such a fun time working on this zine, everyone that helped make it so so talented!

AO3

Mabel has no face and Stan can only think of one person who can fix it.

Fic below the cut because it’s quite long!

Stan had seen a lot of crazy things in Gravity Falls. But walking into the living room to find his great niece with no face might have been the most unsettling.

Sidestepping away from the doorway, Stan shook his head, trying to clear the image from his mind. He loved Mabel, but that crooked, red marker smile was very disturbing. Unfortunately, Stan knew exactly who would be able to help in this situation, or at least he better be able to help. And even if he didn’t want Stan around, he hoped Ford would at least want to help Mabel.

“Ford!”

Walking down into the basement, Stan felt an odd sense of discomfort at seeing the place actually being used. Every other time he had walked into this room, it had held a sense of sorrow to it, a darkness that crept into the edges. Not to mention the spiderwebs and dust piles – he had always been more focused on the portal than the cleanliness of the machines. Now it looked used, clean, and bright – though he couldn’t help but notice a hint of sorrow still lingered in his chest. Ford might be back, but it wasn’t exactly what he had been hoping for.

“Yes, Stanley?”

Ford’s inquisitive voice shook Stan out of his thoughts and brought him back to the problem at hand – Mabel. She was what mattered right now, Stan had been dealing with this rift between him and his brother for years, it could be shoved into the back of his mind a little longer.

“Any idea why in the world Mabel is upstairs sitting on the couch without a face?” Might as well get right to the point, no use in dancing around the issue. And if it was a time sensitive thing, Stan was not going to let his great niece be stuck without a face. For her sake and his.

“No face…” Ford frowned, but after a moment, he nodded. “I think I know what’s responsible.”

----------

“Mr. What’s His Face? Seriously? You have no imagination.”

Ford sighed as he made his way to the front room, but he couldn’t help but find it slightly amusing. His names for anomalies hadn’t always been the greatest, and that was probably one of his least imaginative ones. But changing it seemed unfair to his younger self.

“And what would you have called it?” It was a challenge but Ford was also curious. Stan always had been a little better at coming up with…interesting ideas.

“It steals faces, it’s ugly looking – wait, it’s ugly right? I mean why else would it want faces? So, it’s ugly and likes collecting faces…how about Head Swiper, or Expression Snatcher, or The Face Off.”

Ford looked back at Stan, the last suggestion freezing him in his tracks.

“Okay…so maybe not that last one. But it’s gotta be catchy, and Mr. whatever you said is way too long.”

“It seemed appropriate at the time.” Ford defended himself, but he felt a small smile trying to work its way onto his face. It almost felt like old times for a split second. Ever since he had gotten back, there was always a tension when Stan was around, but it was almost as if the banter had eased it.

“There is no appropriate time for a name like that,” Stan retorted, a smug smirk on his face as he glanced at Ford. For a moment, they just looked at each other, then something snapped and the tension rose again. Stan looked away, then continued walking forward muttering over his shoulder, “Come on. Mabel’s not getting her face back with us just standing here.”

Trying to squash the disappointment in his chest, Ford followed. Those days of being a carefree kid were long gone, he was surprised he even remembered them after everything that had happened. But he supposed some feelings you could never truly forget. It didn’t matter now though, that was in the past. The present was what mattered and right now he needed to figure out how in the world he was going to find Mr. What’s His Face.

As he walked into the room, Ford saw Mabel sitting on the couch. She looked normal from where he stood, but then she turned her head and he took a step back in surprise. It was a little unsettling. Granted, he had seen a few other creatures without faces during his first encounter with the face stealing anomaly, but it was different seeing the effect on a member of his family.

“So…you can fix her, right?”

Ford frowned, wracking his brain for any information that could be of use. It had been ages since he had even thought about Mr. What’s His Face, and while he had occasionally used his journals over the past few weeks, he rarely ever reread his old entries – some he avoided all together.

“Well, the good news is, her face is still somewhere. It’s just a matter of finding the creature and getting it back. Which may be challenging. If I remember correctly, it stays hidden, probably in a supernatural black market of sorts that I’ve only heard about. Due to humans not being allowed there.”

Stan crossed his arms and frowned. “Okay, so, how do we get to this so-called black market?”

“I did some research on it, but I could never pin down an entrance. Maybe if I look at my old notes and search around town-” Ford was cut off by something pulling at his coat. No, not something, someone. Mabel, despite not being able to see the surroundings of her body, had made her way over to them and was gesturing to them.

“Uh, sweetie, whacha doing?” Stan asked, crouching down to Mabel’s level as she continued to make motions.

At first, Ford wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to convey, but then he started noticing the patterns. She kept moving her finger over her forehead in the shape of…

“Dipper?”

A quick nod. Then she pointed away from her, in the general direction of the door.

“He went after Mr. What’s His Face?” Ford found himself getting into the zone. When he was younger, he had always been good at nonverbal communication – there were times when he had been able to understand whole ideas from Stan without either of them saying a word. Though some could argue that it was a twin thing.  But then, after exploring many different dimensions, he had found that sometimes gestures were the only way to communicate, and his skill had only increased. He was quite the charade master now, or at least, he liked to think so.

“That’s great and all, but how does that help us?” Stan glanced around the room, though Ford suspected it was more from annoyance than anything else.

“Well, if Mabel can hear us, and if she can give us enough clues…” Ford trailed off, then crouched down next to Stan. “Mabel, do you know where you are?”

Mabel tilted her head, seemingly lost in thought. For a second, she just stood there, then she held up her finger and jumped up before crouching down and pointing at the ground.

“You’re in the basement?” Stan asked quickly, and Ford couldn’t help but think it might be due to the fact that he wanted to be the one to figure out where Mabel was and how to help.

“No, I would’ve seen her, and Mr. What’s His Face. He doesn’t just leave faces lying around after all,” Ford said, frowning as Mabel got down on her hands and knees and pointed down multiple times in a row.

“Why can’t you just call it the Face Snatcher, that sounds so much better,” Stan said, looking in confusion at Mabel as she continued to point down.

Ford opened his mouth, about to defend the terrible old name he had given the creature, when he realized what Mabel was trying to say. “Underground? You’re underground?”

She nodded quickly.

“Oh please tell me it’s not those caverns with the dinosaurs…” Stan mumbled.

“The what-?” Ford shook his head. “Never mind. Underground. I bet…Mabel, does it look like some kind of market? With lots of different anomalies?”

Another fast nod.

“The market…I knew it. Did you happen to see where it entered, or how to get in?” Excitement started growing in Ford’s chest. Despite not thinking about the black market in ages, he couldn’t help but relish the opportunity to actually find it and study it up close. After getting Mabel’s face back of course.

Mabel held up a finger but froze before slumping down a little. Then she shrugged, outlining a door and turning her hand like she was holding a key.

“Ah…I see…”

“You see what? She doesn’t know how she got in, right? Aside from it being a door. And there are a bajillion doors around Gravity Falls.” The annoyance in Stan’s voice was laced with worry and Ford’s frown deepened as he tried to figure out what the next logical step would be. There had to be other ways into the market aside from that one door.

“Mabel, can you remember seeing anything that might have been another entrance?” Ford rubbed his chin, trying to remember all the doors he had experimented with before when trying to find the market. Of course there were the cursed doors, but those were far too dangerous to try. There had to be a safer way in. Or as safe as the supernatural could be.

Mabel tilted her head, shrugging.

“Anything that looked out of place? Or…strange? Anything that reminded you of something you’ve seen in Gravity Falls?”

“This clearly isn’t working, Stanford, there are other ways to find an entrance, right? You have three books on this town!” Stan threw his hands up in the air before crossing them over his chest again.

“I told you, Stan, I’ve never actually found a way into the market before.” Pinching his nose, Ford tried to reason out what to do if Mabel couldn’t help him find an entrance. He had learned quite a few things in the multiverse, maybe he could use some of the bits and pieces he had brought back from other dimensions to make a detector of sorts.

Something tugged at Ford’s coat again and he glanced back at Mabel. “Did you remember something?”

She juggled her hands up and down in a maybe gesture, before using her fingers to make a crescent shape in the air, then she pretended to open a door and squatted down.

“…are you getting anything from that? Because I’m just weirded out.”

Stan was talking, but Ford barely heard him. He was trying to piece together what Mabel was attempting to describe. Then she started reaching and pulling something from the imaginary place, like she was grabbing paper or...

“That’s it!”

Mabel fell down at his shout and Stan jumped back, before frowning. “What’s it?”

“An outhouse, that’s what you saw?” Ford asked, ignoring Stan’s question as he started trying to retrace the steps he had taken over thirty years ago.

Scrambling to her feet, Mabel nodded quickly.

“An outhouse, really?” Stan questioned, raising his eyebrows.

“I studied them years ago, they can be tricky to find and are a little unpredictable, but it’s our best bet.”

----------

Stan didn’t understand what Ford’s plan was, but that was probably because his brother didn’t tell him anything about it. All he knew was that one minute they were trying to communicate with Mabel through charades and the next, Ford was rushing off to the basement.

“Yeah, sure, don’t include me. Not like she’s my great niece too or anything,” Stan mumbled to himself.

Something bumped his leg and he looked down and saw Mabel, who had her hand out like she was feeling for something. Stan was about to ask what she needed, when she wrapped her arms around his legs.

“Hey, don’t worry kiddo,” he said, patting her head. “If Ford’s outhouse thing doesn’t work out, I’ll dig my own entrance to that stupid black market.”

“I got it!”

Looking up, Stan saw Ford holding some sort of gun in his hand.

“What is that?”

“A freeze ray. I acquired it in a tundra dimension, very useful. I’ve been wanting to test it out on some anomalies ever since I got back.” As he spoke, Ford fiddled with the gun, probably checking to make sure it wouldn’t blow up or something.

“Yeah…maybe wait to test it out when Mabel’s face isn’t on the line.” Leave it to Ford to use a possibly dangerous gun at a time like this.

“Nonsense, it will work fine. Come, Mabel.” Ford started rushing towards the door and Stan rolled his eyes.

“She can’t see idiot!” Reaching out, Stan was about to grab Mabel’s hand, when Ford came back in and did just that, rushing off before Stan could register what was going on.

“Hey, wait up!”

“No time!” The front door slammed shut and Stan quickly raced after them, only to see the edge of Mabel’s sweater disappearing into the woods. Shesh, when had Ford gotten so athletic?

“You better bring her back with all of her parts in the right place!”

Sighing, Stan frowned at the woods before reaching behind the couch and grabbing his bat. Just in case. If they weren’t back in thirty minutes, he’d go kick some face stealing butt himself.

----------

“Yes, there it is!” Ford grinned down at Mabel, before remembering that she couldn’t see him. Glancing back at the outhouse, he shuddered, remembering the one time he had entered it and ended up in the desert. But this time would be different, hopefully.

“Alright, you better wait here, I’ll go in and-“

Mabel pulled on his hand then started tracing on her head with her finger again, the same shape as before.

“Dipper?”

She nodded, then pointed into the woods.

“He’s in the woods?”

A quick shake of the head, then pointing down again.

“He’s in the market with you?” Adrenaline pulsed through Ford’s veins as he wondered what they might be experiencing down there, and wishing he was with them.

At Mabel’s nod, Ford grinned, only for it to fall as Mabel quickly pulled on his coat again, hopping on her feet, which made a knot of anxiety grow in his chest.

“You’re in danger?”

Another nod.

Ford wracked his brain, a plan slowly starting to form in his mind. “Mabel, can you lead Dipper to the outhouse down there?”

She gave him a thumbs up, and he nodded, despite her not being able to see him. “Just tell me when you enter.”

A few seconds passed, then Mabel started flailing and Ford readied his gun.

One...two...the door flew open. Dipper and a blonde-haired girl bolted out, followed by the Face Snatcher.

“Prepare to be destroy-” It started saying, but Ford pulled the trigger and just like that, it was frozen.

[fordarkisthesuede]

JOURNAL 3 BLACKLIGHT EDITION REVEALED! (Part 3)

Oh boy. This is it. The final stretch.

A New Concern: “What if he wins? It is a thought to horrible to imagine, but imagine it I must. If Bill succeeds in opening the gateway between worlds, it will result in an… Odd-pocalypse? Weird-mergency? Unsual-tastrophe? No matter. If the big day arrives, coming up with a catchy nickname for it will be the least of my worries. To prepare for this worst-case scenario, I have begun stocking my old research bunker with supplies, rations, and weapons. I also tried to choose which theoretical physics books would be most fun to spend 50 years rereading, but they’re all so great I couldn’t decide!” [Picture of the Unseen Eye with the caption “Saw this symbol again recently!”]

Hiding Spot? page:  “In case of catastrophe.” [The tree leading down the bunker is shown, with a staircase winding around it to the roots, with “danger!” pointing down, ending in a rectangle with “prepare for the end” inside.] “LAST RESORT – hopefully cryonics have sustained. Watch out for Shifty.”

Page left of Security Room:  “I need to stop spending time down in this bunker. I was reprogramming my security code when I could have sworn I heard someone speaking to me. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. I suppose I was voted “most paranoid” in junior high, bt I thought I had gotten over that phase. Then again, maybe that’s what people wanted me to think:  that I wasn’t paranoid anymore so they could start plotting against me, plotting to take my precious thoughts, my MIND-thoughts! Okay, I’ve been inhaling bunker coolant for too long. Going up for some air now.”

Security Room page:  [it now says “Security Code” and has the four buttons to open the bunker highlighted and numbered.] “If I forget this, I’ll be taking a trip to the FIRST dimension!” [There’s a picture of an exit door with “don’t forget!” pointing at it.]

Bill’s Teacup page:  This one’s unusual. “One of Bill’s friends… Where have I seen him?” The face is so normal that I can’t really say who it could be. Seems masculine? I mean, my best guess is Alex, but who knows for certain…?

[Edit, 4/26/18:  I kept forgetting to fix this bit, but this is a reference to the “Have You Ever Dreamed of This Man?” hoax! Thanks to everybody that pointed it out! (ʃƪ ˘ ³˘) ]

The machine pages:  “The machine was meant to create knowledge but it is TOO POWERFUL! The device if fully operational could”

My Muse Was A Monster page:  All the eyes drawn here glow in the dark. It looks just as creepy as you’d imagine – especially the big one. It also says “Laseep”  “ELPH EM” “sit lal vero” and “rutts on eno”. This is just normal English with rearranged letters, so it says “Asleep”* “Please” “HELP ME” “its all over” and “trust no one”.

*in my defense, I was sleepy when I first unscrambled the words, and I peeked at that “Can’t Sleep!” page...guess I knew what was on my mind that night :/

Bill Cipher pages: Spanning both pages:  “If he gains physical form then all is lost!” Left page - “If he entered our dimension, what form would he take? Flesh and blood? Metal? Vinyl? Spandex? Would he be a suave, well-dressed, possibly British man in coattails? Absolutely unequivocally not. Bill is a screeching, senseless lunatic. By best guess at his physical form is something like this.” [arrow points to Ford’s idea of Bill, which is like a triangle-shaped meatball with his eye and a strange large mouth]

I love you, Alex. I really do. Getting that nod at the fandom’s general depiction of human!Bill is the greatest feelings that I didn’t know I could have - yes, we had it before, but not so directly and in a published book. It still brings that certain level of satisfaction. I’m continually amused at the jabs at it, and I still to this day love quite a few depictions of him, but more than anything I’m flattered and amazed that fan-artists can get recognition at this level in this day and age. It is truly a time to be alive. I love this book.

Right page: [the figure of the human head’s brain separated into categories reads “ego, deceit, lies, pride”.] “Counterattack strategy:  ?????? A triangle is supposed to be the most stable shape in geometry, but there is nothing more unstable than this angular psychopath. The damage he’s done to my thoughts is impossible to calculate….what havoc might he have wrought?” Underneath, Bill writes:  “Wanna know what I did last time I was in your mind, Sixer? I deleted the world “burden” from your vocabulary and replaced it with “sea otter”! Good luck next time you try to sound ominous, smart guy!”

You know, I’m surprised that Bill writes properly. You know, proper grammar, capitalization, punctuation… You’d think he’d be the one to write in all-caps, like he talks! I didn’t think about that before now. Weird, isn’t it?

Blank page next to Invisible Ink page: “I have decided to use invisible ink to keep away prying eyes. ANYONE could be watching me!”

Invisible ink page:  [the lightbulb has rays of light coming from it as well as a normal eye in the bulb. The ink pot has invisible written on it, with splatters where ink might drip from the pot. There are a series of odd symbols drawn around it as well as a few on top of the page.] “I may provide previous pages with new secrets I have learned since originally writing them, and perhaps reviewing old passages will stabilize my rapidly dwindling sanity…”

No picture, but the page where Ford goes into town has all the townsfolk’s eyes glowing. Even Paul Bunyun’s.

Hiding Places:  [doodle of journal 1] Journal 1 – Describes my first 3 years in gravity falls. Focuses on mythical beasts, geographic anomalies, and my 30-hour arm-wrestling match with a very annoying unicorn.” [doodle of journal 2] Journal 2 – The most dangerous journal! Curses, incantations & dark power became an obsession in this volume. Describes the hiding place of the mystic amulet. I buried the amulet once I learned that it corrupts your soul (and whitens your hair)!” Journal 3 – The volume I hold in my hands. Describes my embarrassing defeat at the hands of Bill and the loss of my very sanity. Also contains a pretty good drawing of a plaidypus. Will soon be bestowed upon S and hidden at the ends of the Earth (I hope).”

Hiding places page 2:  Underneath the scribbled out drawing is the picture of the momentum conserver Ford made back in the seventies. Underneath it is written “what might have been…”

Trust No One page:  “Can’t sleep!” Is written nine times, and trust no one is highlighted and circled. 

On the page next to it, it looks exactly like the show, with several spots on the odd wheel scribbled out, the sad face over the center, and “IS THIS RIGHT? I just don’t know anymore!” written beneath it.

The next two blank pages are Bill’s:  “GUESS WHO! That’s right, pal, ol’ Six Fingers just conked out, & that means Captain Bill is steering the ship! And by “STEERING THE SHIP,” I mean making Sixer slap himself over and over! HA-HA-HA! That’s right, I just wrote down the sounds of my own laughter!” [next to the next paragraph, there is a drawing of Bill pouring gasoline on a flaming planet Earth, with the strange expression of someone watering flowers and encouraging their growth.] “Now where was he? Ah, yes! Mr. Serious was saying that anyone who was smart enough to decode these messages is smart enough to get on the right side of history! And that meant joining ME, your new best friend and style consultant, Bill Cipher! All it takes is a little handshake! Ever wanted to see inside the dreams of your crush? Or crush the dreams of your enemies? Or jet someone else control your body and take the old bone-mobile for a spin? ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS SUMMON ME!”

Page 2: “And it’ s so easy! Just say the words “BILL CIPHER” three times out loud, alone in the dark. Ready? I’ll say it with you! BILL CIPHER! BILL CIPHER! BILL CIPHER! See? That wasn’t so hard! Now there’s a pathway between your mind and mine. I can see everything you can see! Sixer’s about to wake up, but the business between you and me has just begun. Let’s just say I’ll see you down the road. And if you ever get a phone call from a number that says “UNKNOWN,” pick up. Your Guy on the Inside (of Your Mind), BILL”

June 1 page (aka Dipper’s starting page]: “I discovered the Author’s black light secret! I invented some invisible ink and I’m going to try to write a few sneaky – Ugh! I spilled it! Now it’s everywhere! Oh, gross! It’s all over my pants! Ugh, this is embarrassing. I’m going to go wash it off. No black light for me. Yuck! –Dipper” [True to his word, dipper spilled the ink all over the next page, and indeed the page he was writing on. It’s like 2 giant splatter marks.

Mabel’s Smile Dip page has the “Do you like me” letter!!! I’m so tempted to check Absolutely!!! BUT I CANNOT TARNISH SUCH A TREASURE!

Bipper page:   Underneath the note Bipper left is the best gift this book has given me – a caticature of Bipper. It even says “Bipper as a cat!” underneath it. All is right in the world at this moment. I couldn’t be happier. If you can, look upon that drawing and feel the joy enter your soul.

Category 11/Dipper’s page on Pacifica:  (underneath the photo of Archibald Corduroy) “Roses are red, Pacifica’s blood is blue, I read what you crossed out! I’m on to you! Start combing your hair, Brother! –Mabel” Dipifica fans are now 10x happier they purchased this book – or got to read that poem!

I’m Back page:  “I have found my old bottle of invisible ink! It was right where I left it 30 years ago – hidden inside the science fair trophy in my electron carpet room. Unfortunately, most of the ink is gone, and there’s a note on the bottle which reads: “Hey, dude! I tried to drink some of this and it made my tummy glow. Like Shimmery Twinkleheart! Ha ha! I think I’m gonna go lie down forever now. –Soos”

I’m Back adjacent page:  “What a waste! Although, I am amazed that “soos” survivied what should have been a lethal dose of ink. He must be one of the most fit and healthy men on Earth! It’s just as well – this ink did little to keep my secrets from Bill Cipher. And I may have permanent retina damage from constantly flipping the lights on and off while trying to read my own messages. NOTE TO SELF:  Invent bionic eyes. I’ll use what little ink I have left for some….private thoughts. NEW DIMENSION CHECKLIST:  

Read the past 30 years of newspapers. I wonder if whales have finally made it onto land and become the dominatnt species. Also, looking forward to seeing how advanced the lasted fax machines must be!

Catch my breath – literally! I haven’t breathed the proper combination of nitrogen, oxygen, and trace vapors in years. Air is great. Really can’t overemphasize how great air is.

Order red turtleneck sweaters in bulk.

Check out The Eurythmics’ latest chart-topper!

Invent something as a sign of goodwill towards my niece and nephew. What do kids like these days? Bionic arm-lasers? Maybe a pet Cthulhu?

ILJXUH RXW ZKDW D “VLOYHU IRA” LV DQG ZKV HYHUBRQH NHHSV. FDOOLQJ PH RQH.” [Translated with Caesar -3:  “Figure out what a “Silver Fox” is and why everyone keeps calling me one.”]

OMG

EVEN MORE PROOF THAT I LOVE THIS DAMN BOOK. THE LAST PAGE WHERE FORD WRITES:

“AN INITIATION:   to fully complete your initiation as an honorary Pines, there is one final task - to place your hand on this page, hold it while you charge up the black light and then remove your hand. See what happens? Welcome to the family! Zh’yh ehhq zdlqlqj iru brx – Stanford”

If that didn’t rip your heart out, translated with Caeser -3, the last line reads “We’ve been waiting for you.”

I’m literally tearing up. Thank you to everybody who made this book possible. I’ve never been so happy to pay over a hundred dollars for a book. It was worth every penny. And the weird nightmares I got after receiving it.

[Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3]

[joyofcrime-elinorhigh]

2016 Year in Review Part 1:

Hello there, everybody! My name is JoyofCrimeArt and welcome to the fourth and finale part of my month long "Deviant-cember" event! Hasn't 2016 been a great year, guys!...guys? Okay, okay, I know that the grand majority of you probably hate 2016 and are really looking forward to a brand new year to get a fresh start. Though I have noticed that it seems like every New Year's people talk about how much the previous year has sucked and how they can't wait for the next year cause things are totally going to be different next year guys! You'll see! You'll see!  I kid, I kid. I know why people are upset about 2016, there have been a lot of celebrity deaths (though there seems to be a lot of celebrity deaths ever year, though there has been a lot more this year it seems.) There was a lot of political tension in the United States with quite possibly the most divisive presidential election in recent history. Not to mention racial struggles, natural disasters, shootings, ISIS attacks....Yeah. Though to be fair most of those things I just listen didn't just "start" this year. They where problems in 2015 too, and will probably continue into 2017. Getting mad at the year, an abstract concept, just feels...unproductive to me. It seem's like it's the wrong target to be directing all this anger at. Sometimes bad stuff just happens, and there's a good chance that by the end of 2017 we'll hate that year too. Because most of the bad stuff that happened in 2016...probably won't just go away come January 1st.  That's why I'm here today. To distract you all from the harshness that was 2016 and focus on something a little more fun. Why focus on the dark and depressing world of "reality" when you can focus on things like cartoons! (That's how I stay so optimistic.) Because while the world outside was burning itself to f#&king hell the world of animation has been a roller coaster of ups and downs, and one that I think is worth going over today. Hopefully this review will bring somebody some much needed joy in a year that was so insane. That's why I present the first in a (hopefully) annual tradition on this page in, the "2016 Year in Animation REVIEW"  Now let me explain what exactly this is, because I have never done anything like this before. I have compiled a list of a series of new series and different cartoon announcements, controversies, or news stories that I will discuss in a brief manner. (Or brief for me anyway.) The events will go in a rough chronological order, starting from January 2016 to December 2016. And I will discuss my thoughts and feeling on all the changes that has happened in the animation world this year. I will not be talking about animated films or anime, just series and network updates. I also will not be able to talk about every show/event that occurred in 2016 and will be focusing on the ones that I found the most relevant to me, personally. So if I miss something try not to get to upset. I can't watch anything.  Also I am completely acknowledging that I am completly ripping off online anime reviewer Gigguk and his yearly anime reviews. I loved the concept and the way Gigguk would go about his yearly reviews, so I borrowing the format to talk about something that I'm passionate about. If you want to check out Gigguk here's a link, www.youtube.com/user/gigguk&nb… if you are really into anime, or maybe even if your not, you should consider checking him out. He's a bit raunchy but he also has a great balance of comedy and critical thinking in his reviews, and his reviews have been a big inspiration for me and my reviews so check it out.  But enough pointless blather, it's time to get into things! It's time for my 2016 year in review! The year started out...with a bit of a rocky start to be perfectly honest with you. The first big piece of cartoon news I noticed in 2016 was with the inclusion of a new main character in "The Fairly Oddparents." with the added inclusion of Timmy's new neighbor Chloe Carmichael

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D56T-r3Dz28

(My God, at the time of this writing this video has over 39 THOUSAND dislikes to 4.4 thousand likes. Jesus Christ!)  So I'm going to be honest here. I don't watch the Fairly Oddparents. I haven't watched this show regularly in years, so I haven't actually seen any of the episodes that Chloe is in. Normally I wouldn't talk about something like this except it was kinda a big deal at the beginning of the year in the cartoon community. People who had stopped caring about Fairly Oddparents suddenly cared again as they ran to watch the episodes so they can see how bad the show had gotten. It was kinda a resurgence in the fandom to be honest. It does amaze me that the show is still adding new characters, and not just new characters, but like cartoonish exaggerations of what shows with new characters have. Like adding a baby I get, that makes sense. And even Foop makes sense given the established lore of the show's universe. But never since Scrappy Doo have I seen a show add a talking dog to the main cast of characters unironically...until Fairy Oddparents. It's kinda incredible in a way.  Now I don't know how bad Chloe is, and adding another kid that Timmy has to share his Fairy's with is a dumb idea...BUT if you where to put a gun to my head and tell me that I had to make a new Godkid for Timmy to share his fairies with...I probably would come up with someone like Chloe. In concept Chloe as a character should work. She's kind, smart, and completely unselfish. She's the opposite of Timmy and should make a good foil. Plus, from what little I've seen, she does seem to have a bit of a crazy side that should keep her from being boring. It at least sound better than Sparky who, from the way it sounds at least, is just another Cosmo.  Though keep in mind all this comes from someone who hasn't actually watched the show, and from what I understand the execution is what most people have a problem with. I've seem people say that she's a Mary Sue character, and the reason she has fairies doesn't make sense. Maybe this is true, maybe it isn't. (Though it probably is.) But I guess I'm a bit more open to the idea than most. I was honestly surprised how many people got mad at this new development. Like I just don't understand why people got so upset. Like if this was any other show I would understand, but It's the Fairly Oddparents. The show has already jumped like ten sharks by now. At that point what's the harm in jumping one more. Like, what do they have to lose?  What I'm actually annoyed at is the fact that Poof and Sparky have been written out of the show! No, written out is to generous. Written out implies they gave a reason why there gone. There just gone, without any mention of why there gone! Poof is confirmed to be in ONE episode later this season, and Sparky has been confirmed by her voice actress to be gone from the entire season. She says that it was a decision from the higher ups, which is really surreal when you think about it. The artist was the one saying "Nah man, we need a talking dog." and it was the higher up who where like "Wait, what! Why?"  Maybe it has to do with Sparky's voice actress going through a sex change operation between seasons. Maybe she went through voice therapy or something, and maybe that effected the voice. But I don't even think that's a factor 1.) I have no evidence that Sparky's voice actress did go through voice therapy and 2.) Poof is also gone, even though he's IN THE THEME SONG! I don't get it. The could of hand waved something but no. It makes Cosmo and Wanda look pretty frickin' neglectful when they don't even mention there son. And I know what your probably thinking. "Who cares, isn't it a good thing that Poof and Sparky are gone. They sucked." And that all might be true, but you can't just retcon them out of existence! You're not DC Comics! Retconning them is the lazy way out. THEY MADE THESE STUPID CHARACTERS AND NOW THEY HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEM!  ...Okay, maybe I can kinda start to understand how so many people could get so upset about The Fairly Oddparents. But look on the bright side, next year the Fairly Oddparents will be switching over to flash! S...Some shows have Flash that looks good. I'm sure Fairly Oddparents will put in the effort to....Okay, screw it, next topic.  Gravity Falls aired it's final episode after airing a three day long marathon in which Disney XD aired the entire season FOUR FRICKIN' TIMES! (Calm down Gravity Falls, your making Spongebob and Teen Titans Go jealous.) (WARNING: I'M GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT SPOILERS FOR GRAVITY FALLS! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN GRAVITY FALLS TO THE END SCROLL PAST THIS PART AND CONTINUE READING ONCE YOU SEE BOLD AGAIN! THIS IS NOT A SHOW YOU WANT SPOILED!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_t-aOeiFa0

 Anyway, Gravity Falls aired it's final hour long episode as Dipper, Mabel, Stan and Ford go up defeat Bill once in for all. This finale was definitely and interesting one to talk about because, in my opinion, it did have a lot of problems. Oh God! Hear me out! Hear me out! A lot of things about this special, especially in the first half I didn't like. I didn't like how Stan so reluctant to save Ford from Bill. I know that Ford and Stan didn't get along, and Stan was still mad at Ford because Ford didn't thank him for rescuing him the first time, but it felt out of character for Stan to be that selfish. The whole series makes a big point about Stan being willing to do anything for his family. He spent thirty years trying to save Ford even though there last encounter was a giant fight. It shows that he still cares about his brother well being even after all of there bad blood. He was willing to work thirty years to save Ford the first time and now that he knows Bill has captured him and could be torturing him or killing him or worse and he just doesn't care. And I get it, Ford wasn't thankful the first time so he's not going to go through all the work a second time, but this is Bill where talking about. Ford's LIFE is on the line and Stan is basically leaving his brother to die just because he didn't apologize to him, and that made him seem very unlikable an goes against his whole "protecting my family" motivation. I see what they where trying to do, but I just don't think they executed it that well.    Also there were a couple of other problems that, while not as much of a big deal to me, were still problems. Like how they make a big deal about how they have to whip Stan's mind to kill Bill, but couldn't they just write "Bill" on the memory gun and just erase him, without whipping out Stan's entire mind? Also the twist that Stan and Ford can do perfect impressions of each other did kinda seem like an ass pull, especially when they could of easily set that up some time earlier but didn't. I feel these are real problems that hurt the episode..  ...but for the most part none of that matters.  Because the episode gave us everything a Gravity Falls fan could want from a finale. It had an epic conclusion with the entire Pine's family working together to stop Bill and save the world. It wrapped up all the lose threads and plot points and gave every character there happy ending, in a way that just felt complete. Unlike some other shows that either end without proper finales or end with the story left open this one felt complete. Not that those types of ending are bad, those endings can be great, but it is nice to see a show that delivers on all of it's promises in such an epic way. I really cannot think of many cartoon finales that felt as HUGE as this one. Where it really felt like the world and possibly the entire universe would be doomed if our hero failed. other cartoons have had finale's like that, but rarely do you really feel the weight of that kind of threat. In this episode you did. It was a grand finale and a perfect end for such an amazing series...  (Though seriously Bill knew all the people who where in the zodiac and he didn't kill like, one of them, just to be safe. That pretty stupid Bill)  (OKAY NOW YOU CAN COME BACK, PEOPLE WHO SKIPPED ALL THAT!)  After Gravity Falls ending there was a void that lots of cartoon fans needed to fill. Gravity Falls had ended and Steven Universe was on hiatus and people needed there "cartoons with an ongoing lore." fix to be quelled. But nothing quelled it. This lead to several months of people freaking the f#&k out over Steven Universe being on hiatus from January to May. Now I get that they hiatus sucked and it happened right in the middle of a story arc, but I feel like people where really over reacting to this. It was a four and a half month break between seasons. That's perfectly normal for most tv shows. Show's like Adventure Time and Regular Show have had hiatus comparable to that and nobody seemed to care, but here people were freaking out, saying how Cartoon Network didn't care about Steven Universe and stuff like that, which I just felt like was a bit over dramatic, personally. And afterwards at least you got a summer full of new episodes. Maybe I'm just use to long and random hiatus due to being a "Young Justice" fan. (Which for real once had a three month hiatus, than a two weeks of new episodes, followed by another three month hiatus! DANG!)    Anyway after that we got the news that Craig McCracken's "Wander Over Yonder." was going to be cancelled. This coupled with Gravity Falls ending made things hard for Disney XD fans, leaving only "Star and the Forces of Evil" and "Pickle and Peanut-"...leaving only "Star and the Forces of Evil" for most adult cartoon fans to be excited about. I didn't watch much Wander Over Yonder, only seeing some season one episodes and none of season two. That being said from what I saw, and this might be a bit of a controversial opinion, I didn't like it that much. Which is weird because I love "Powerpuff Girls" and "Fosters" was, from what I remember, pretty good. I don't know, the show just didn't seem like anything that new. It was another show where a dumb oblivious character annoys a rival who hates them while the main character doesn't realize said rival hates them. I just felt like we've seen that before in shows like "Spongebob" and "Camp Lazlo." and the show didn't seem to add much new to the formula. I didn't find the characters that interesting and even there space setting didn't seem that interesting. Maybe a lot of this improves in the episodes I haven't seen, but even though I didn't like the show I was still kinda sad to see it go. Even if it's a show I don't like I'm never glad a show ends, because I know it means a lot of people are out of a job and lots of fans are upset. So keep that in mind when I talk about cancelled showed.  And speaking of cancelled shows it was also announced that Uncle Grandpa would be getting the ax sometime next year. Uncle Grandpa seems to be a somewhat divisive show, but I will say that I think the show is fine. Not great, but fine. Uncle Grandpa was always a unique creation, and I admired it for it's out there qualities. (And for helping create one of the best Steven Universe episodes ever! That's right, I said it!) The show was fun and wacky, and the comedy and characters were passable. It's no piece of fine art, but I don't think the show was trying to be. There was a lot of creativity in this show, and it always felt like the people behind it were always trying there best to make something good, even if it didn't always pan out. It is a shame to see it go, but not a grand shame. It got five seasons, and that's probably enough if where being honest. Plus with Cartoon Network having so many shows running it's probably a good thing to see some ending, making room for some fresh blood. Just as long as they don't cancel to many of there shows this year...he he he....  And speaking of fresh blood Cartoon Network premiered a new show this year. He he he....Okay, let's just do this again, and talk about the 2016 reboot of The Powerpuff Girls. May God help our souls!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbvC9Xtpm_8

 Since I've already talked about this show before, I'm going to try to make this brief. (Ha! That's the funniest joke in the whole frickin' review!) What is there to say about this show that I haven't said already in my 6,836 word long three part review of the show. (Oh my God what is wrong with me?) Well, there is some stuff. As my opinion on the show has changed a bit since then and at the time of writing that review I had only seen twelve episodes, and now thirty nine are out. (Though I have not seen ALL of the episodes.) So let's briefly go into this. Once more, with feeling.  Is rebooting The Powerpuff Girls a bad idea? Many say yes, I say no. I think that if we have to make a reboot out of any Cartoon Network show right now, I think Powerpuff Girls would be the best option. We know that superhero shows in particular are very easily reboot-able, and there are many different directions you can go with it. Just look at any Batman show if you want proof of that. Also unlike Ben 10, I think the Powerpuff Girls is old enough to warrant a reboot, as the show ended in a whole eleven years before this reboot came out. In concept I think there is a lot of cool things you can do to change the Powerpuff Girls and make it unique. I mean the Powerpuff Girls Z did it, and while I haven't seen that show, it does show that there are different directions you can take this franchise. Because, this isn't even the first time the series has been rebooted!  I was excited about this show coming out prior to it's release. I think I was the only on who was optimistic about it. And how did the show do when it actually came out? Well...that's kinda the problem. The show is pretty mediocre. I do think I was a little to easy on the show when I first reviewed it, but a lot of what I said back then still stands. I think that the problems I have with the show are different from the problem most people have with the show.  The main problem with the show is that it just seems kinda bland. It doesn't seem to have it's own identity. In a lot of way it seems like it's trying to be like the old show, by keeping the old character designs and most of the old voice actors, and not really explaining who most of the characters are. The show expects you to know the source material going in. Some episodes like "Bye Bye Bellum" don't make ANY sense unless you've seen the old show. So the reboot must be aimed at the older fans right? Well I don't really think that's true either because a lot of stuff that made older fans like the original Powerpuff Girls are gone. The humor doesn't really match the first show, and the action is for the most part gone. In terms of crime fighting we've still haven't had an episode with Sedusa, The Gang Green Gang, or Fuzzy Lumpkins as main villains yet and we're pretty close to being done with our first season. It seems like the show was trying to appeal to everyone and, judging by the ratings and online response, didn't end up hitting anyone. It seemed like they were kinda trying to be like the original, while also trying to be kinda like a less controversial Teen Titans Go! (focusing more on humor then the crime fighting.) While sprinkling in a little Steven Universe with some of it's more feminist qualities and it really just felt like there where to many cooks in the kitchen.  That being said there are some things I do like about the show. I like how they tried to focus on the girls more, as most people seem to agree that the girls were the most boring part of the original show. Though the reboot kinda messed that up by making the girls feel like flanderized versions of there 98' counterparts. Still though, I do like how the Powerpuff Girl's personalities are a bit different in this version than in the 98' version. Most of the characters just act like how they did in the original but they changed it up a bit and I appreciate that. I know in my first review I said Buttercup was about as good as she was in the original, but after watching more episodes, yeah...she is kinda annoying in this version. There are really only two characters who I think they improved on, and that's Bubbles and Princess. I like how both of these characters are portrayed in this series, and I might prefer these versions over the originals. Both seem to change some stuff about the character while still making them still capture the spirit of the original. Bubbles is less of a crybaby and a bit more ditzy which is fun, and Princess is a lot less whiny and they do a lot more funny stuff with her being rich, and having her have a rap themed soundtrack is something I never knew I wanted, but I like. Also Princess is a lot more sympathetic in this show, which I also like. Also there are some good episodes, like "TTG vs PPG" (Which is technically a Teen Titans Go! episode but still) "Poorbucks" and "Tiara Trouble." (YES THAT EPISODE HAVE A "NO ME GUSTA" REFERENCE BY IT'S LITERALLY ONLY THREE SECONDS LONG AND THE REST OF THE EPISODES SURROUNDING IT WAS PRETTY GOOD!)  And speaking of the "No Me Gusta" thing, let's talk about the whole meme thing. I understand if you think those jokes are annoying, there not funny, or were not executed well. I completely get if you have that opinion. But I feel like the whole meme thing has been so overblown that it's kinda ridiculous. If you look at any online review for the Powerpuff Girl reboot you will see that almost all of them will have wither the "No Me Gusta" face or the girls twerking as the thumbnail. While you may find these scenes and jokes dumb I don't like how people act like the show is just nothing but that. Even though that if you take all of the meme references in the entire show and string them back to back it probably takes up less than two minutes total. People obsess over these scenes even though tonnes of cartoons make references to memes. In "Painbow" Blossom makes a "I can't even" joke and everybody freaked out, but when Lincoln Loud said the exact same thing in the Loud House episode "Roughin' It" nobody sees to care. And that's not even counting all the other cartoons that reference meme's, like these examples.

 And yes, that last one was a "surprised chipmunk" reference from "The Powerpuff Girls Rule." which was written, directed, and story boarded by Craig McCracken himself. And as for the twerking lots of other cartoons do that to. Again, Lincoln from the Loud House has his butt dance at the end of "Roughin' it" there's the infamous "Booty Quake" from "SymBionic Titan" and, again from "The Powerpuff Girls Rule-"

-Man, Mojo's been shaking his grove thang since before Miley Cyrus was even on the SCENE SON!  And you might still see these things as a problem, I get that. After all execution is a big thing, which is why I love it the internet references in We Bare Bears, but am mostly indifferent to the ones in this show. All I'm saying is that this is far from the first show to do stuff like this. And it's seems odd to be that these are the moments that people are freaking out about when this show DOES have a lot of serious problems that holds it back, and yet it's the "No Me Gusta!" reference that everybody is freaking out about. The show, as a whole, is mediocre. I don't want it to get cancelled, I want it to improve. And hopefully that'll happen in season two, because I want a good Powerpuff Girls reboot to happen. And if the critical and financial of this series stops that from happening, I'll be very disappointed. It seems like everybody just wanted this show to fail almost a whole YEAR before it came out, and months before we even had our first clips of it and I just didn't want that. Plus if it wasn't for this show I probably wouldn't of started doing these reviews, so there's also that.  But at least it wasn't the most hated reboot of 2016.

 But then, after that, something happened in the animation community. A new show premiered that, really out of nowhere, took off like a rocket. A show that was a hit with both adult critics and in the ratings (sort of the reverse of Powerpuff Girls.) This show was none other, than The Loud House.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6MpT7lLwls

 Yes, it was the Loud House, the show that changed Nickelodeon in the eyes of many people. Not only did this show come with many adults praising it but the ratings for the show were, and still are, huge. The shows popularity rivals Spongebob Squarepants! Think about that. What was the last show that aired on Nickelodeon that was both good and Nickelodeon actually gave reruns to on there main channel fairly consistently. I'd say T.U.F.F Puppy and that show was only reran at the beginning of it's run. For a show on Nickelodeon to be both good and not treated like garbage by the network was a big deal! And the fan made Loud House memes! OH THE FAN MADE LOUD HOUSE MEMES!  So how was the show. It's pretty good. I don't think I love it as much as some other people do, but it is a good show. As someone who is the middle child with three older siblings and three younger ones the premise alone had me interested. I also really like the Sunday comic inspired style the show has. It's a unique look that really makes the show stand out. It's also neat seeing a cast of mostly girl characters in a show on Nickelodeon, that seems like it's really been trying to push shows for boys. Is this proof of my "Girliness Revolution" theory? PLUG! Cartoon Thoughts: MLP and the Girly Revolution.  The show is pretty funny. Though the humor can be a bit to juvenile  for me at times, with a lot of toilet humor and stuff like that. Also the characterization of most of the characters are a bit weak in my opinion, with most of them being pretty one note. Hopefully they'll be developed a bit more in season two, but as it stands there kinda bland in my opinion. Not bad per say, just a bit one dimensional. It's these things that make me say that the show is only good and not great. Also like a third of the episodes follow the formula of, 1.) Lincoln wants something incredibly simple. 2.) His sisters f#&k it up for him 3.) Lincoln is justifiably mad 4.) Lincoln learns he shouldn't be mad at his sister cause family, even though his sisters totally has the right to be upset. That's also a bit of a flaw with the show, but it's not a huge one or anything. If the characters could become a little bit more than there one trait I think we would have a great show on our hands.  But despite all the shows flaws, I still like this show. It's not the best show ever, but it is a step in the right direction for Nickelodeon. I'm really glad that Nickelodeon has a show that is almost as popular as Spongebob that is actually pretty decent. Hopefully this can be a turning point for Nickelodeon, like how Adventure Time was a turning point for Cartoon Network. But only time will tell if that's the case. Also THOSE DANK LOUD HOUSE MEMES, BRA!

And that seems like a good place to stop for now. I would go on, but I'm afraid that if I make this review to long nobody will actually read it, so I'll be breaking it up into two parts. Part two will be up tomorrow, on New Years Eve, so get excited about that. What do you think of some of the shows that I've talked about here today? Tell me your thoughts in the comments down bellow. I would love to hear them, even if your opinion is different from mine. Please fav, follow and comment if you liked the review, have a great day. (I do not own any of the images or videos in this review all credit goes to there original owners.)

All credit for the "Clyde likes who blank Meme" goes to https://www.deviantart.com/cartoonteen18 It was fun to fill out, and here's the link to the original Clyde likes who Blank Meme.

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 34

Fuuuuck its finally done. Seriously I haven’t spent this long working on a single chapter since... I can’t even remember when. And I’m so fucking tired but whatever. This chapter is a mess because of it but I guess it could always be worse. So anyway, hope you all enjoy!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/159651353069/universe-falls-chapter-33

Chapter 34: Into the Bunker

QEB CLOJP TB TBXO XOB BSBOVTEBOB PIFM FKQL X KBT LKB FC VLR AXOB

If there was any idle pastime shared between Dipper and Wendy that they enjoyed most, it was watching the old, low-budget movies that were frequently aired on Gravity Falls public television and making fun of their hilariously poor quality all the while. And the pair was doing just that as they relaxed at the foot of the cashier’s bed, sharing a bowl of popcorn as they mockingly laughed along to the utter cheesiness of the zombie movie currently playing.

“What do we do, Chadley?!” the female lead of the movie cried, clinging onto her boyfriend as a horde of blood-thirsty zombies surrounded them. “I thought they were dead!”

“Far worse, Trixandra!” Chadley exclaimed overdramatically. “They’re… Nearly Dead But Not Quite!”

As the protagonist dropped the title, it appeared on the screen for a brief moment before returning to the melodramatic, clearly fake zombie attack. “Man, these movies are a lot less scary when you’ve actually fought regular zombies,” Dipper remarked, rolling his eyes at the movie’s lackluster effects that paled in comparison to how horrifying he knew genuine zombies to be.

“They’re slow!” Wendy shouted at the TV with faux frustration. “Just power-walk away from them!”

“How much you wanna bet that guy dies first?” Dipper asked with a smirk, only for that very thing to happen seconds later.

“Ah! My face is getting eaten a lot!” Chadley screamed as the zombies comically pounced on him, much to Dipper and Wendy’s equal amusement.

“Ha! Chadley ain’t pretty no more,” Wendy said as her and Dipper laughed over the main character’s ridiculous fate. Their levity was interrupted, however, as the cashier’s phone buzzed on the bed nearby. “One sec,” Wendy grabbed her phone, her grin quickly turning into an aggravated scowl upon seeing the latest notification. “Ugh, another text from Robbie!”

“Oh yeah,” Dipper said, though he made sure to phrase his next statement carefully since he didn’t really want to pry too much. “Robbie. So, uh… how… how’s all that going?”

“Ugh, I’m over him, I just wish he was over me!” Wendy huffed in exasperation. “Just look at these texts! Winky frown? What does that even mean?”

Dipper hesitated before saying anything, excitement and anxiety filling him all at once as he realized this could very well finally be his chance. That is, if he didn’t end up getting in his own way again. “A-and you’re not… not, like… seeing any other guys, or…”

“Of course I am,” Wendy replied, not noticing Dipper forcing himself to hide his shocked dismay at this news. “Meet my new boyfriend, dude.” With a joking smirk, the cashier pulled up one of her stuffed animals, much to Dipper’s apt relief.

“Right, right,” he laughed a bit too awkwardly, averting eye contact with his crush as he began to pose the question he had been thoroughly thinking and fretting over for weeks now. “S-so, I was wondering if… If maybe y-you wanted to… You know… Maybe w-we could… I-I wanted to know if you…” Dipper took in a sharp, deep breath, cringing at his own complete inability to just tell Wendy how he felt, something that was so simple as a concept, but nearly impossible in execution. And seeing as how he had already messed up whatever slim chance he might have had, he let out a defeated sigh as he went off on a different tangent entirely. “If you… wanted to join me, Mabel, Steven, and the Gems on a mystery hunt tomorrow? Conspiracy stuff and all that?”

“Yeah, dude,” Wendy immediately agreed with a grin. “I love doing all that junk with friends. Yo, Chadley! Look out!” she laughed as she turned her attention back to the movie playing on TV, even though Dipper couldn’t really do the same.

“Yeah, that’s what we are…” he sighed in disappointment as he discreetly pulled a piece of paper out of his vest while Wendy wasn’t looking. Dipper frowned dejectedly as he glanced over the note he had written (and rewritten at least several times over) that openly confessed his own hopeless crush on the cashier, a note that he refused to ever let her see, lest it cause him untold mortification. “That’s all we’ll ever be…” he muttered glumly, crumpling up the note before putting it away and flopping back onto the bed. “Friends…”

“Dude, you’re lying on my bra,” Wendy informed him with a hint of amusement in her tone. Dipper let out a panicked scream upon glancing over to see that he was indeed on top of one of the cashier’s bras, prompting him to dart upright before the situation could get any more awkward than it already was.

Steven smiled contentedly as he sat on a nearby tree stump as Pearl, Greg, and Stan collaborated on trying to fix the former rock star’s broken-down van outside the shack. The young Gem didn’t pay their muttered conversing much mind, however, as he instead entertained himself with the Crying Breakfast Friends personality quiz on his phone.

“Sniffling Croissant!” Steven exclaimed brightly as he finished the quiz and got his result. “You really know me, internet. Hey, guys!”

“Yeah, Steven?” Greg asked, turning his attention from the engine him and Stan were holding steady for Pearl as she worked on it.

“You guys should take this online quiz I found,” the young Gem quipped, holding his phone up so they could see. “It tells you what character you are from Crying Breakfast Friends!”

“Crying Breakfast-” Stan cut himself off, looking to Steven completely dumbfounded. “Kid, what the heck are you talking about?”

“Oh, it’s a really great cartoon with a huge cast of really interesting, relatable characters!” Steven explained with a smile. “And every single one of them is a result you can get in this quiz! Like I said, you all should totally take it!”

“Uh… why?” Pearl asked with a confused frown.

“It’s just fun to see yourself as a cartoon character,” Steven shrugged, looking back to his phone. “Like Weeping Egg Cup, who’s neurotic and uptight, or Pining Grapefruit, the sensitive older one who wishes he were a better role model, or Grumpy Pancake, who’s ill-tempered but has a hidden heart of gold.”

Pearl, Stan, and Greg all exchanged an aptly bewildered glance upon hearing this, none of them really sure of what to make of the odd characters Steven was detailing to them. “Uh, maybe we can do that thing after we fix the van,” Greg said with a patient smile.

“Yeah, or better yet, never,” Stan muttered, rolling his eyes as he got back to work.

Steven let out a disappointed sigh upon hearing this, but nonetheless, he accepted their answer. “Okay… I’ll just find someone else then!”

“Yo, Steven!” Amethyst called to the young Gem as her and Garnet stood on the fringes of the trail leading into the woods. “You ready to go?”

“Oh yeah! I almost forgot!” Steven jumped to his feet, putting his phone in his pocket as he prepared to head off.

“Oh, are you three going off on that ‘mystery hunt’ you mentioned earlier?” Pearl asked the young Gem before he could get too far.

“Yep!” the young Gem said, walking backwards as he addressed her. “We’re going to meet Dipper, Mabel, and Soos in the woods right now! Aren’t you coming, Pearl?”

“Oh, well, I-” the white Gem was cut off as something inside the van’s chassis suddenly burst, resulting in a thick plume of smoke and a shared exasperated groan from Greg and Stan. “I… think I’m needed more here,” Pearl said with a slightly bemused grin. “But stay safe! And have fun!”

“Oh, we will!” Steven nodded as he joined Amethyst and Garnet. “Especially since I have this quiz to keep us all entertained along the way!”

The white Gem continued to wave her teammates off with a smile, one that faded into her earlier confusion as she turned back to the conman and the former rock star. “Do either of you understand that cartoon show?” she asked pensively.

“I don’t really understand anything anymore,” Greg admitted honestly.

“Ditto,” Stan dryly agreed as they got back to work sorting the van’s struggling engine out.

Meanwhile, Steven cheerfully strode alongside Garnet and Amethyst, the former silent and observant as ever and the latter casually snacking on the messy sandwich she had brought along for the hike. “So where’s this ‘super mysterious’ place Dipper wants us to check out again?” the purple Gem asked somewhat boredly.

“Apparently, its right on the temple hill,” Garnet replied, her attention focused on the path ahead. “The very same place where he supposedly found the journal. So this mission will hopefully give us some answers that are a long time coming. Which means I expect you both to take it seriously.”

“Don’t worry, G,” Amethyst smirked, her mouth full as she munched on her sandwich. “You know me. I’m as serious as they come.”

“Same here!” Steven nodded thoroughly. “Oh! Speaking of serious stuff, you guys gotta take this online quiz: ‘Which Crying Breakfast Friend Are You’?”

“I’ll pass,” Garnet said simply.

“Yeah, same,” Amethyst stuck her tongue out. “That show’s really weird. Who wants to watch a cartoon about people crying?”

“I do!” Steven protested, tears already starting to form in his eyes.

“Ok, ok!” the purple Gem quickly retracted for the sake of appeasing the young Gem. “Uh, what’s the first question?”

Steven quickly perked up as he looked back to his phone and read the question out loud. “Do you ever act without thinking?”

“Nope,” Amethyst shrugged, throwing the remainder of her sandwich into the air before catching most of it in her wide-open mouth.

“Are you afraid of taking risks and trying new things?”

“Terrified,” the purple Gem deadpanned, licking the remains of her sandwich off her face.

“Amethyst, are you taking this seriously?” Steven asked with a frown.

“Of course, I am,” Amethyst rolled her eyes, making it quite clear that she wasn’t. Still, Steven tapped ‘yes’ on his phone under the question he had just asked her before moving onto the next one.

“Are you insecure about your relationships and how you are perceived by other people?”

The purple Gem’s lax expression abruptly shifted into discomfort upon hearing such a prying question, especially as she glanced towards Garnet. The Gem leader herself wasn’t really listening to the conversation as she stoically pressed on ahead, but even so, Amethyst was aptly anxious as she gave Steven an uncertain reply. “…No? Yes? Uh… what’s the right answer?”

“There is no right answer,” Steven said. “You’re just supposed to answer honestly.”

“Eh, I’m bored,” Amethyst quickly returned to her usual casual manner as she quickened her pace to catch up with Garnet.

“Wait!” Steven called as he ran after her. “I still have loads more probing personal questions to ask you!”

“They’ll have to wait till later,” Garnet spoke up, putting her hands on her hips as she came to a stop. “We’re here.”

“Hi, guys!” Mabel greeted the trio brightly as they arrived. Her and Soos were eagerly waiting near a tall, conspicuous tree that Dipper was intently pacing in front of while meticulously leafing through the journal. He stopped short, however, upon noticing that Steven and the Gems had shown up.

“There you guys are!” Dipper said with relieved smile as he closed the journal. “I’m glad you could make it. Thank you all for coming.”

“Hey, when there’s a mystery, you can count on your sister… -ey!” Mabel quipped, somehow making the pun work.

“That’s an amazing rhyme,” Soos chuckled before trying his own. “When you want some… some good… When you need a Soos, you… Oh, gosh, I got nothing.”

“Oh, this is so exciting!” Steven exclaimed with a zealous smile. “What mystery are we gonna solve this time? Why fairies are so small and sparkly? Or how gnomes celebrate president’s day?”

“Neither,” Dipper shook his head. “We’re here to solve the number one mystery in Gravity Falls: who wrote this journal?” He held said journal up, flipping to the torn pastedown that would have otherwise revealed its writer’s identity. “Thirty years ago, the author vanished without a trace, but according to this new clue, we may have found his secret hiding place,” He paused once more to hold a portable backlight up to a page depicting the very same tree they were all standing under. The backlight, however, revealed a winding staircase wrapping underneath the tree, leading the way to a hidden underground dugout.

“Wait, so you’re saying this author guy has been squatting right underneath our temple for the past 30 years?” Amethyst asked incredulously. “All without us knowing about it? That seems kinda, I dunno, impossible?”

“We don’t know who the author is,” Garnet reminded solidly. “But he somehow knew a lot about us. It would have made sense for him to have gotten that information by observing us right behind our backs.”

“Literally!” Steven quipped jokingly.

“I don’t know…” Dipper interjected with a frown as he looked back to the journal. “Based on how the author wrote about you guys, it still doesn’t really seem like he got all this info just from spying on you… But that’s what we’re here to find out. We find that author, we learn the answers to everything. We just need to figure out a way to get down there…”

“Chop it down, dudes!” Wendy called as she pulled up to the group on her bike.

“Wendy!” Mabel and Steven greeted the cashier, pleasantly surprised that she was joining them.

“Oh, hey! You made it!” Dipper exclaimed, also quite excited to see her.

“Dude, I’m so stoked about this!” Wendy remarked, putting her usual hat on as she dismounted her bike. “I’ve been wanting to go adventuring with you guys. Sure beats picking up after my dad at home. So thanks for the invite, man!” She grinned as she passed by Dipper, giving a friendly punch on the arm.

“O-of course!” Dipper called after her with a smile that was far too wide and clearly flustered. “Anytime you wanna… I, uh… We’re always… uh-”

“Uh oh!” Mabel cut in as her and Steven both sent Dipper broad, knowing grins while the Gems and Soos moved on towards the tree themselves. “Inviting Wendy on our mission? Methinks there’s romance afoot!”

“No,” Dipper quickly rejected this notion, even if he was more intent on convincing himself more than either of them. “Look, I’ve thought this through and I’m over Wendy. I’ve looked at it from every angle, and that thing was going nowhere. I know what matters to me now, and that’s finding the author of this journal.”

“Ha! You’re over Wendy?” Mabel smirked with wry disbelief. “Allow me to put on my ‘skepticals’.” Said skeptical were merely just Mabel forming circles around her eyes with her fingers, but even so Dipper was far from amused.

“Dipper, why don’t you just tell Wendy how you feel about her?” Steven asked with a good-natured smile. “It’s gotta be easier than just trying to keep it a secret. I mean, just how great things turned out when Bawling Bacon told Mourning Muffin about his crush on her in Crying Breakfast Friends.”

“Oh, that episode is a classic!” Mabel interjected, still keeping her ‘skepticals’ on.

“…I don’t even know what to say to that,” Dipper said dryly. “But still, I’m not going to tell Wendy anything because there’s nothing to tell. I’ve moved on. You guys should too.”

The pair merely exchanged a tentative glance as Dipper stepped past them, though Mabel made sure to get the final say on the matter. “Skepticals…”

“Hey, guys,” Wendy said as everyone gathered close to the tree. “Is it just me, or does that branch look kinda like a lever?”

“Huh, yeah,” Dipper agreed, looking up at the branch the cashier was referring to before turning away from it to properly pan. “But how do we get up there…? It seems like we’d need a ladder, or like, ladder-shoes. I’ll get Soos to draw up a prototype, maybe go get Pearl and have her help build them…”

“Should we tell him?” Amethyst muttered to Garnet as they watched Wendy use her belt to skillfully scale the tree behind Dipper.

“Eh, he’ll figure it out,” Garnet shrugged.

At the same time, Wendy had reached the lever and pulled the ax out of her belt. With a smooth flick of the wrist, she spun the weapon around and hit the lever with its dull end, easily activating it. “Boosh!” she exclaimed, sending a satisfied smirk down to the amazed group on the ground.

“Whoa! Wendy, dude, that was awesome!” Soos exclaimed with a grin.

“Oh yeah, my dad used to make me compete in these lumberjack games when I was a kid,” Wendy remarked with a humble shrug. “Guess I kinda ruled at it.”

Still, no one had too much time to be impressed as the tree suddenly began to shake violently. Unable to hold on, Wendy fell off of it with a frightened cry, though fortunately, the shrub at the foot of the tree broke her fall. She didn’t really have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, however, as the ground surrounding the tree began to retract, though thankfully Dipper and Soos were quick enough to pull her away from the emerging opening. The group crowded around the circular hole, watching in stunned awe as a set of stairs started jutting out from the lower half of the tree, stairs that led to a metallic door down below.

“Uh… G?” Amethyst tentatively spoke up, looking to the Gem leader with apt concern. “Am I the only one of us who’s thinking this looks sort of…”

“Familiar…” Garnet finished, her expression unreadable as she looked towards the hidden door and nothing else. “No, you’re not.”

“Wait, have you guys been here before?” Steven asked with immense curiosity.

“I don’t… think so…” the purple Gem frowned, bewildered.

“Still, it feels like we have…” the Gem leader adjusted her shades, her tone slightly unnerved. “It’s… hard to explain…”

“Well maybe going down there and checking it out will help jog your memory!” Mabel suggested encouragingly.

The pair of Gems exchanged a dubious glance, neither of them, not even Garnet, really sure of what they might find underground. Still, as always, Amethyst was the first to return to her usual verve. “Well, what are we waiting for?” she asked with a forced, confident grin. “Let’s crash this creepy joint!”

“Alright, guys, this is it,” Dipper said with bold resolve, making sure the journal was securely tucked into his vest. “Remember, what happens down there, we tell no one.”

The others all responded affirmative to this in different ways: Mabel with a thumbs up, Steven with a solid nod, Garnet with a clenched, determined fist, Soos by turning his hat backwards, Amethyst with a casual salute, and Wendy by zipping her lips. Without the need for any further deliberation on their plans, the group began descending the staircase down to whatever might await them in the depths below.

What did await them behind the door was a rather small, rather cramped room. Its walls were constructed out of firm, sturdy metal, and despite the dust and cobwebs clinging to nearly every surface, there was certainly much to see. A small, decrepit cot sat against one wall, a cabinet used to store weapons against the other, and shelves upon shelves of stock-piled food in boxes labeled by year against another. The group all gasped in muted awe as they wandered into the room, all of them somehow managing to squeeze into the claustrophobic corridor as they began to investigate every detail they could.

“Ok, this is stupidly cool,” Wendy remarked with an impressed grin.

“I know, right?” Steven glanced around the room, his eyes alight with wonder. “Who knew all this stuff was hiding right behind the temple?”

“Hm…” Garnet mused as the young Gem said this, remaining in one spot as she scoped the area out. While her future vision usually was able to give her clear glimpses into what was ahead, it was of no aid in providing her glimpses of what might have been before. And yet, every fiber of her being resonated with the feeling that this place, as cramped and as darkened as it was, was a place she had stepped foot in before, somehow and some when. She knew, even without asking, that Amethyst likely harbored the same feeling, and Pearl would have as well if she was with them. And perhaps, even Rose would have admitted to its familiarity if she was still around to see all of this. Or better yet, fill in the gaps that they seemed to be missing.

“It’s like a fallout shelter or something,” Dipper noted, glancing over at a calendar fixed to the wall that was stuck on the year 1982. “It must have belonged to the author.”

“Yeesh, I feel sorry for the dude if he lived in this dusty old box,” Amethyst said, trying her best to pass off her own uneasiness towards the familiarity of it all. “Still, at least there’s plenty of good cans lying around to snack on.” With a satisfied smirk, the purple Gem grabbed a nearby empty can and downed it whole as Steven and Mabel shared an amused laugh at her odd appetite.

At the same time, Wendy pried a metal sign off the wall that read “Fallout Shelter”, grinning as she blew the dust off of it. “This is going over my bed.”

“Ha!” Mabel chuckled brightly as she pulled her head out of the barrel she had been investigating, not even caring about the countless caterpillars inching across her face. “My face feels fuzzy!”

“Aw, they’re so cute!” Steven quipped, gleefully petting one of the fuzzy creatures.

“This is incredible!” Dipper remarked, fully in his element now as he tried to imagine the mysterious author himself standing in this very room. “It’s like he was preparing for a disaster. But… what kind of disaster would need supplies for over sixty years…?” His smile faded as he looked to the extensive collection of storage boxes sitting on the nearby shelves, all of which were labeled with years dating all the way up to 2070.

“Oh my gosh!” Soos gasped as he opened up the weapons locker and pulled anything but a weapon out. “A Smez dispenser! I remember these things. What’s that?” he paused, holding the dog-shaped dispenser up to his ear with a playful grin. “Why yes, I will have some of your old-timey face food!” The handyman pushed a piece of candy out of the dispenser and ate it, choking a bit over its staleness. “Ew, dusty!” he cringed, before popping another one into his mouth.

“Ha ha! Look, Steven!” Amethyst smirked to the nearby young Gem as she found a gas mask hanging on the wall, one that she jokingly put on. “I’m a pachyderm!” Of course, Steven let out a charmed laugh at this, though his amusement turned into shock as Amethyst pulled a skull, albeit a fake one, out of the mask. “Oh! And there’s a prize inside!”

“Amethyst,” Garnet spoke up, turning to her teammate. “I thought you said you were going to take this mission seriously.”

“Hey, I am being serious,” the purple Gem retorted defensively, quickly tossing the gas mask aside. “Just figured I’d liven this stale old place up a little is all.” Amethyst flashed a hopeful grin at her leader, who, based on her unflinching expression, was anything but impressed by her levity. Still, she made no comment on it, much to the purple Gem’s simultaneous worry and relief.

“Wait, guys!” Dipper interjected as he happened to pick up one of the countless discarded cans off the floor, one that just so happened to be still somewhat full. “I think this can was opened recently…”

“The author still might be alive down here, then!” Soos exclaimed.

“Wait a minute…” Wendy cut in as she glanced over to the far wall, where a large map of Gravity Falls hung. The map itself seemed to be blowing against a mysterious unseen breeze, the source of which was revealed as the cashier pulled it off the wall, uncovering a slightly ajar hatch. “I think I know where he might have gone…” Wendy smirked to the others as they gathered around.

“Then here’s the plan,” Garnet said authoritatively. “We’ll follow this tunnel to wherever it leads. But since this is unknown territory we’re in, Amethyst and I will take the lead and the rest of you follow behind us.”

Everyone nodded in agreement with this safe plan, knowing that the pair of Gems would be their best line of defense in case anything happened to go wrong. Garnet herself went first, crawling through the tight tunnel that led deeper into the darkness, with Amethyst heading after her, followed by the others.

“Oh Garnet,” Steven grinned with admiration as he climbed into the tunnel behind the Gems. “Stern but practical. Just like Spilled Milk.”

“Ugh, you’re not still on about that dumb cartoon, are you?” Amethyst asked, annoyed as she glanced back at the young Gem.

“Oh right, the quiz!” Steven pulled out his phone as he tried to hold it and shimmy through the tunnel the best he could. However, before he could read the next question, Mabel enthusiastically interrupted.

“Oh my gosh, you don’t mean the Crying Breakfast Friends personality quiz, do you?!” she asked excitedly. “I just took that this morning. I got Sad Pear, just like I knew I would!”

“Whoa, Sad Pear is totally you, Mabel!” Steven readily agreed. “I got Sniffling Croissant, and now I’m trying to see which character Amethyst is. So, next question: Do you get defensive when people ask you questions about the feelings you prefer to keep hidden?”

“Pfft, I know someone who does,” Mabel remarked offhand, sending a goading smirk to Dipper.

“Mabel, please,” Dipper huffed in exasperation, though he did briefly glance back at Wendy rather apprehensively, though thankfully she didn’t notice.

Amethyst, on the other hand, was far more alarmed and perturbed upon hearing the podding question the young Gem had just posed. “Don’t get all psyc-o-logical on me, Ste-ven,” she hissed somewhat harshly, glaring back at him.

The young Gem flinched a little at her bitter manner, though still, he wasn’t exactly sure what about his seemingly question had provoked her. “Uh… Sorry?”

“Everyone, watch your step,” Garnet cut through the conversation with a forewarning as the group reached the end of the tunnel. Once again, everyone was rapt with amazement as they emerged into a large, square chamber, its walls, floor, and ceiling all composed of metallic tiles, all of which bore strange, cryptic symbols on them. While purpose of this strange room was far from clear, everyone took the time to stop and scope it out nonetheless, more out of awe than anything else.

“Wow! And I thought that first room was cool!” Steven exclaimed, glancing around with wide eyes. “This one’s even more mysterious!”

“I know, right?” Wendy smirked in agreement. “Was this place built in the past or the future?”

“I dunno, dudes…” Soos muttered apprehensively. “This room is way creepy…”

“Not as creepy as Dipper’s internet history!” Mabel exclaimed with a broad, joking grin. “Heyo!” Despite the aggravated glare Dipper was sending her, Mabel gave him a playful shove nonetheless, which resulted in him stumbling forward onto one of the marked panels on the floor, a panel that just so happened to be a hidden switch. Without any warning, a blaring alarm began to sound as the other symbols on the walls lit up bright red. The hatch the group had just emerged from abruptly slammed shut and locked itself tightly, and while that wouldn’t have been drastically alarming, it suddenly became a very dire fact. The tiles on the walls themselves began to push in towards the group on all sides and from all angles with only one intention: crushing the intruders trapped therein.

“That’s why I told you all to watch your step!” Garnet called over the loud alarm as everyone crowded together fearfully.

Still, the only one among them who wasn’t completely distressed by the impending danger was Mabel, mostly since her face was still covered in caterpillars. “Ha, it’s hard to be scared with caterpillars on your face,” she grinned blithely.

“W-we gotta get out of here!” Steven cried fearfully, gasping in surprise as Garnet summoned her gauntlets and slammed her hands into a nearby block in the hopes of stopping it.

“Way head of you, Ste-man!” Amethyst exclaimed daringly, leaping into action. While the others tried in vain to push the tiles back, the purple Gem went high, using the rapidly moving blocks to give her a boost as she positioned herself between two of them near the ceiling. Amethyst grunted loudly as she shoved her foot against one of them, trying to use her entire body to keep them separated as she looked down at the struggling group below. “Yo, G!” she called to the Gem leader, who was barely paying her any mind as she pushed back against a tile. “Check this—huh?” The purple Gem stopped short as she happened to glance up at the glowing tile right above her head, marked with a symbol that was far too familiar for her, even if she didn’t really know how. The blaring alarm and sense of urgency seemed to dull a bit as Amethyst started up at it, fascinated and somewhat confused. And, with a slow, tentative touch, she gently placed her hand upon it, her eyes lighting up as she pressed down on the apparent switch, turning its symbol from red to blue. “Hey guys!” she shouted, barely even aware of the tiles aggressively pushing against her. “Look what-”

Just as everyone glanced up her way, Amethyst let out a sharp, loud gasp as the blocks finally pressed against her body too tightly. And yet, instead of sustaining any kind of injuries, the purple Gem’s form abruptly disappeared in a bright puff of smoke, leaving nothing but her gemstone behind. Everyone save for Garnet let out a collective gasp of shared horror at this, especially as Amethyst’s gem began to freely fall from her previously high perch. Fortunately, Steven reacted just in time by catching the stone before it could hit the hard ground and shatter entirely, but even so, no one had any time to show anything other than shock to what had just happened, especially since the walls were all still tightly closing in.

“Amethyst was onto something,” Garnet noted as she glanced up to where the purple Gem had been, catching sight of the switch she had activated mere seconds ago.

“Wait, she was!” Dipper exclaimed, holding the black light over a page in the journal that detailed the very room they were in. The hidden text revealed a set of glowing marks in particular, all of which served as the key out of the encroaching death trap. “There are five more of these symbols. Quick! Everybody find one!”

While Garnet worked to hold the tiles back the best she could, the others split up the best that they could, each of them searching for the other five conspicuous tiles that could very well save them. Soos found the first one, and seeing as how this was a life or death situation, he didn’t hesitate to run for it without delay. “One!” he called, pushing the switch in firmly.

“Two!” Wendy shouted as she found the next one, jumping up to give it a solid punch.

“Three!” Steven announced as he used another block to get a boost to reach another switch.

“Four!” Mabel called, high fiving the next symbol.

Dipper paused as he frantically looked around for the final untapped symbol, only to spot it right as another block began to move in front of it. Acting fast, he ran for the switch, hurriedly climbing the blocks leading up to it and fortunately hitting right before it was covered up entirely. “Five!”

With all five of the switches activated, a door revealed itself on the far side of the room as it swung open, finally giving the group a window of escape. Still, it was a rather narrow window, seeing as how the tiles were still pushing in towards them just as quickly as ever.

“Run for it!” Mabel shouted, leading the way through the tight fit towards the door. The others were quick to follow suit, Garnet abandoning her post as she leapt through the opening deftly. Steven made sure that Amethyst’s gem was tightly secured in his grasp before fleeing, and though he was the last to escape, Dipper made it out just in time, even if his vest did happen to get caught between the blocks just as they finally all slammed shut on each other.

“Yes!” Wendy cheered in apt relief as soon as they were all safely on the other side of the security room. “That was nuts! You ruled back there, man!” she exclaimed, sending a congratulatory grin to Dipper.

“Heh, thanks,” he remarked with something of a bashful blush. However, the triumph of the moment was quickly cut short as Steven let out a distressed cry.

“Amethyst!” the young Gem wailed, distraught tears in his eyes as he held the purple gem close.

“W-what happened to her?” Mabel asked, also quite concerned as the others crowded around.

“Is… is she like… gone?” Soos asked with an apprehensive frown.

“No,” Garnet quickly confirmed.

“But… Amethyst got crushed to-” Dipper cut himself off, not entirely sure how to properly phrase it. “Well, I guess being crushed to death wasn’t exactly what happened to her…”

“Whatever did happen to her wasn’t pretty…” Wendy remarked, glancing at Amethyst’s gem with a frown. “I mean, how could she have actually survived something like that?”

“A Gem’s body is a construct of light,” Garnet began to explain, her tone as calm as ever. “Our physical forms are illusions. And sometimes, when we’re badly damaged, we’re forced to release those physical forms and retreat into our gemstones to regenerate.”

“So… so she’ll be ok, then?” Mabel asked, hopeful.

“She’ll be just fine,” Garnet assured with a smile. “This sort of thing happens to Amethyst all the time, believe me.”

“I-it happened to Pearl once too, a few months ago,” Steven sniffled, still hardly consoled. “A-and it took her two whole weeks to come back, and I already miss Amethyst so much!”

“Don’t worry,” the Gem leader encouraged, placing a gentle hand on her sorrowful young ward’s shoulder. “She’ll be back before you know it.”

And, as if right on cue, the purple Gem began to make her rather rushed reappearance. Everyone gasped as Amethyst’s gemstone radiated a practically blinding light, floating freely upwards out of Steven’s grasp. “Literally…” Garnet muttered upon seeing this, her smile fading as she watched her teammate regenerate. A bright silhouette surrounded the stone, shifting subtly before landing on the most familiar form of the purple Gem. Or at least, so it initially seemed.

As the light faded from her, Amethyst landed squarely on the ground, a little out of it, but otherwise completely unharmed. Delighted to see her return so quickly, Steven rushed for her, wrapping her in a tight hug as the others all breathed a shared sigh of relief. “Amethyst’s back! Amethyst’s back!” the young Gem happily proclaimed as he threw his arms around her.

“Ugh…” Amethyst groaned rather tiredly as she gently pushed him away, only to notice something off about her hands. Or rather, lack thereof. “Huh?”

“Uh, Amethyst?” Dipper spoke up, quite bewildered by the purple Gem’s new appearance. “What happened to your… arms?”

“I think you mean legs, bro-bro,” Mabel quipped, correctly describing what Amethyst’s arms had been replaced with: another set of legs.

“Looks like you… grew a few feet since the last time I saw you!” Steven joked, much to the already confused purple Gem’s annoyance.

“Nice one, dude!” Soos chuckled. “Oh, I got one! Hey, Amethyst, can you lend me a foot? Get it?! C-cause you have-”

“Yeah, Soos, I get it,” Amethyst deadpanned dryly.

“That was fast,” Garnet interrupted, looking down at her teammate with a stoic frown. “Even for you.”

Amethyst was quick to push herself to her feet (her usual ones anyway) upon hearing this, pushing her alarm off as she casually brushed her bangs out of her face. “Eh, it’s no big deal,” she shrugged nonchalantly, smoothly transitioning to stand on her new arm-legs. “I didn’t wanna keep my biggest fan waiting!” She sent a playful smirk Steven’s way, eliciting a laugh from the young Gem that ended when she put one of her regular feet on top of his head. He rolled his eyes as he removed it, chuckling once more and not noticing that Garnet was nowhere near as amused with Amethyst’s antics.

“Let’s just keep moving,” the Gem leader resolved, pressing on ahead. Amethyst huffed an irritated sigh at Garnet’s terse manner, but all the same, she trudged on along with the others as they began exploring their new surroundings.

“Whoa, get a load of this crazy surveillance room,” Wendy remarked, impressed by the observation deck they now found themselves in. The atmosphere here seemed to be much calmer than that of the security room, its walls lined with a wide array of monitors and control panels. A few of the screens still seemed to be showing sparse video feed, though from where, no one really knew. Still, just like the first room, there was plenty of interesting clues and details here worth exploring, which was what the group split up to do.

“Check it out, dudes!” Soos exclaimed as he held a pair of beakers up to his eyes, making them appear comically large.

“Soos, Soos,” Wendy said, her tone serious before she broke out into a grin. “That is hilarious.”

“Hey, Steven,” Amethyst smirked to the young Gem as she remained standing on her arm-legs. “Watch me ‘roll with it’.” At this, the purple Gem proceeded to cartwheel easily using all four of her legs, something that Steven instantly wanted to try, only to fall flat on his face the moment he attempted a handstand. Mabel got a good laugh out of this failed attempt, though she was more than ready to try it herself, only to stop short upon noticing Dipper’s vest still hanging from the edge of the security room.

“Hey, bro, you forgot your vest,” she called over to him, heading over to go retrieve it. However, as she pulled the vest loose, a piece of paper happened to slip out of it, something that instantly garnished Mabel’s attention and interest. “What’s this…?” she muttered before quietly reading whatever her brother had written aloud to herself. “Dear Wendy, I’ve always had a crush on-” She cut herself off with an excited gasp, covering her mouth up with the note in an attempt to stifle it. “Oh my gosh! Steven!”

“What’s-” Before the young Gem could even finish, Mabel shoved the note into his face, an overwhelmingly elated grin on her face.

“Look! Look! Look!” she urged eagerly, handing the note off to Steven. He took a moment to look over it for himself before mirroring her excitement with a gasp of his own.

“Oh my gosh!”

“That’s what I said!” Mabel exclaimed enthusiastically before turning towards her brother with a coy grin. “Hey, Dipper! Look what we found!”

“My vest, I hope,” Dipper deadpanned, grabbing that from her first, only for his eyes to go wide with shock upon seeing his note for Wendy. “W-what?! Where did you—Give me that!”

“I knew it!” Mabel exclaimed triumphantly even as Dipper snatched the note away from Steven. “I knew it! I knew it!”

“We both knew it!” Steven added with a bright chuckle.

“Yeah we did!” Mabel readily agreed. “You’re not over Wendy at all!”

“Oh! Were you gonna tell her today?!” the young Gem asked, hopping to his feet with an invested grin.  

“No,” Dipper quickly protested, quickly glancing over his shoulder to make sure the cashier couldn’t overhear them. “I changed my mind; it’s a bad idea. I’d just embarrass myself and then I’d be another guy she hates, just like Robbie.”

“Dipper, you should just tell her already,” Mabel insisted. “One way or another, you’ll feel better about it afterwards.”

“Mabel’s right,” Steven nodded in agreement. “It’s like Garnet always says: honesty is the key to any relationship. And she would know, since she’s like, the master of romance or something!”

“You bet I am,” Garnet cut in from right behind the trio.

“Garnet!?” Dipper exclaimed in apt surprise. “H-how long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough,” the Gem leader remarked, adjusting her shades.

“Wait a sec, this is perfect!” Mabel quipped. “Garnet, you can just tell Dipper how him confessing his feelings to Wendy is gonna turn out so he can just go and do it instead of being all lame about it!”

“Hey!” Dipper protested, more than ready to argue with Mabel on this point, though once more, Garnet interrupted.

“Actually… I think this is one future Dipper’s going to have to discover for himself…” the Gem leader mused definitively.

“Oh come on, seriously?” Dipper sighed in exasperation, a part of him hoping that Garnet would have been able to provide him with at least some foresight on the matter.

“However,” she continued pointedly. “I will say that Steven was right about my advice. Whether things turn out or not, being honest about your feelings is always better than keeping them buried under the surface. Trust me.”

A sudden crash from the other side of the room cut through the conversation, prompting everyone to turn and see that Amethyst had accidentally dropped a glass beaker thanks to her handless-arms. “Whoops,” she said stiffly, playing the incident off with an awkward laugh. “Foot-hands, ya know? Turns out they don’t make very good… hand-hands…”

“I knew this would happen…” Garnet sighed, already preparing to go take care of the purple Gem, but not before imparting a few more words of wisdom. “Just remember what I said, Dipper. The truth can set you free. Literally.”

“Huh, I wonder what that’s supposed to mean,” Mabel remarked in slight confusion as the Gem leader walked off.

“So was that enough to convince you to go talk to Wendy about how you feel, Dipper?” Steven asked with an encouraging smile.

“Yeah, no,” Dipper replied flatly, still deeply resolved against the very idea.

“Ugh, come on,” Mabel groaned, frustrated. “Why not?”

“You guys just don’t understand,” Dipper said dismissively. “I can’t tell her, no matter how much I want to, ok? So just drop it already.”

Mabel and Steven were both more than ready to argue with this, but before they could, Wendy herself interrupted the conversation. “Dude, Dipper! You gotta check out this weird metal closet!” she called from the open closet she was standing in at the back of the surveillance room. With a small laugh, she jokingly took on a robotic tone to up the effect. “I am a robot, I have a metal closet.”

“Coming!” Dipper called back to her with an anxious laugh before briefly turning back to Mabel and Steven. “This never happened.”

Still, neither of them were anywhere near satisfied as they watched him hurry off, especially upon watching his rather stilted interactions with Wendy. “Aw, man…” Steven said with a worried frown. “Poor Dipper, holding in his feelings like that… That’s gotta be so hard…”

“I know, right?” Mabel huffed in annoyance. “He totally wants to tell her, but he’s just scared! But maybe all he needs is a little push…”

“A push? Like what?”

“Oh, you’ll see, Steven,” Mabel said with something of an ominous smirk. “You’ll see.” Without explaining anything of her impromptu idea, she rushed for her brother, reaching him before he could even make it to Wendy and locking him into a sudden hug from behind. “Brother, whatever happens, I just need you to know something,” Mabel paused, her tone oddly serious as she looked him dead in the eyes. “This is for your own good.”

“What?” Dipper asked, only to get no answer as Mabel abruptly shoved him forward hard, right into the closet. Before he could even realize what had happened, she slammed the doors shut and locked them from the outside, grinning in satisfaction all the while.

“Oh, so that’s what you meant by a push,” Steven surmised thoughtfully as Amethyst let out an amused laugh at what she assumed was merely a prank.

“Nice one, Mabel!” the purple Gem chuckled. “Reminds me of that time I locked Pearl in the bathroom back at the temple. She beat on the door for hours! It was a riot.”

Meanwhile, inside the closet itself, it took Dipper a moment to gather his bearings, but when he did, the first thing he realized was that not only was he trapped inside of the nearly pitch-black closet thanks to Mabel. But he was also trapped in there with Wendy, of all people, a fact that instantly filled him with simultaneous exhilaration and panic, especially given their forced closed proximity to each other. “Mabel!” Dipper quickly shouted, pounding on the door adamantly. “Let us out!”

“Oh, I’ll let you out, Dipper,” Mabel smirked confidently. “As soon as you tell Wendy that thing you’ve been wanting to tell her! You’ll thank me for this later!”

“What’s she talking about?” Wendy asked Dipper, aptly confused.

“N-nothing!” Dipper exclaimed defensively. “Mabel’s just been eating raw sugar packets again!”

“That’s beside the point!” Mabel called from the outside even as she dumped two packets of sugar into her mouth without a care. Her levity dulled a bit, however, upon noticing the somewhat disapproving frown the Gem leader was sending her way. “Aw, come on, Garnet. You said so yourself: Dipper needs to be honest about his feelings!”

“Yes, and I also remember saying that he needs to see how this all turns out for himself,” Garnet countered. “Still, I figured something like this would happen. That’s why I told him the truth would set him free. Because in this case, it apparently will.”

“So are we just gonna like, wait it out then?” Soos asked.

“You better believe we are!” Mabel proclaimed boldly, much to Dipper’s immense displeasure as he overheard this.

“Mabel, let us out now!” he shouted, beyond irritated by this point.

Wendy, on the other hand, was as levelheaded as always, only slightly aggravated by the relative darkness of their cramped surroundings. “Ugh, where are the lights?” she asked, fumbling around a bit until she managed to feel out a chord hanging from above. However, instead of turning a light on, pulling the chord resulted in a sudden spray of water, one that completely soaked and startled both Dipper and Wendy. Still, they were only wet for a brief moment as a strong gust of warm, drying air burst from all four of the surrounding walls, roughly pushing the two of them into each other as a dull red light beamed from a nearby sign that read “Decontamination Complete”. And while Dipper and Wendy were still rather caught off guard by what just happened, they were both more than relieved to see a door finally slide open on the other side of the closet, granting them access to an entirely new part of the bunker altogether.

This area was by far the most spacious yet, built amidst high cavernous walls marred by deep trenches of varying shapes and sizes. The same sort of technology from the surveillance room was apparent here, with pipes, tubes, and monitors all linking towards a series of empty glass pods, many of which showed the same sort of intentional damage the rest of the equipment filling the room did. The sparse overhead lighting flickered warningly as Dipper and Wendy tentatively stepped out of the closet and into this mysterious new space.

“Whoa, a hidden lab!” Dipper exclaimed, amazed and impressed by this intricate setup. “Maybe the author did experiments down here.”

“Hm,” Wendy mused, looking over the hole-strewn wall. “What do you think dug all these tunnels?”

“Let’s hope we don’t find out…” Dipper frowned, his curiosity quickly shifting to outright fear as a low growl, ominous suddenly echoed through the entire lab. Things only got more frightening however, as a large, lumbering shadow draped across the far wall. And from its creeping movements, it was clear that whatever it was, it was getting closer.

“Run?” Wendy asked in a stiff whisper.

“Run!” Dipper exclaimed in clear panic. And the pair did just that, racing for the only other way out they knew of: the closet. “Mabel, open up, for real!” Dipper shouted, pounding hard on the still locked closet door as Wendy did the same. “There’s a monster in here!”

“A monster, huh?” Amethyst perked up, hoping up from her arm feet to her regular feet. “Finally, some action! My feet were starting to fall asleep!”

“Which ones?” Garnet asked dryly.

“Oh no!” Steven cried worriedly. “Mabel, we gotta let them out! They could get hurt!”

“Come on, Steven,” Mabel scoffed, not buying her brother’s claim. “He’s totally overexaggerating. Nice try, Dipper! But the only monsters are your own inner demons!”

“That is so wise,” Soos nodded thoughtfully.

“Dipper, just say whatever Mabel wants you to say so she’ll let us out of here!” Wendy exclaimed, her usual calm all but gone in the face of this unknown danger.

Dipper took in a sharp, apprehensive breath at this, his heart racing with fear that went even beyond that of whatever was lurking in the nearby shadows. It certainly seemed as though this was the literal moment of truth, especially as the cashier looked to him expectantly. “W-Wendy, I… I…” he began just as clumsily as he always did whenever he tried to tell her this. Still, it was either this or—well, Dipper wasn’t entirely sure, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that it was bound to be easier than telling Wendy the awkward truth. “I-I’m gonna find another way out!” he quickly exclaimed, grabbing the cashier’s wrist and pulling her back into the lab.

“Wait, what?” Wendy asked in alarmed confusion as she ran after him into one of the countless wide tunnels. “Dude, where are we going?” Dipper didn’t really give her much of answer, as fueled by fear and adrenaline as he was, but the dead end at the end of the tunnel was enough to stop them both in their tracks. Unfortunately though, it wasn’t enough to stop the unknown creature that eagerly ravenously them. “What do we do?!” Wendy exclaimed, pressing against the nearby all as the shadow of the monster loomed ever closer.

“I-I don’t know!” Dipper admitted, fully regretting his rashness now. However, before the monster could pounce out of the shadows and onto them, someone else miraculously enough pounced onto it. The pair watched in awed relief as the silhouette of a man fiercely tackled the beast, bravely scuffling against it, despite its large size and bloodthirsty demeanor. In the end and with a few heavy punches, the man managed to beat the monster into submission, pulling something away from it and sending it skittering off in the opposite direction.

“Back, you heinous beast!” the man shouted after it, completely unphased by the outraged screech it sent back in his direction. With the threat subdued, the stranger emerged from the shadows, allowing Dipper and Wendy to see him clearly. His goggles, lab coat and gloves certainly gave him the air of a scientist, and while he was clearly on in years, he still stood firm and strong in the aftermath of his skirmish with the creature. “Well, I just pulled out a monster’s tongue,” he announced heroically before throwing said tongue down onto the ground.

For a moment, all either Dipper or Wendy could really do was stare at this mysterious newcomer with shared amazement and confusion, especially since they had no idea where he might have come from. But with that bewilderment in mind, Dipper was quick to remember the very reason why they had come all the way down here in the first place: to find any leads on the author’s whereabouts. And sure enough, it seemed as though they had found something even better: the elusive author himself. “It—it’s you!” Dipper gasped in apt shock, scarcely able to believe that after all this time, they had finally found him.

The author didn’t seem to have heard him, however, as he had already turned away from the stunned pair and began leading the way out of the tunnel. “Hurry now,” he urged insistently, his manner serious yet articulate. “I scared it off, but it’ll regenerate. These Gem monsters always do.” The author paused for a moment, his expression darkening into a scowl that neither of his newfound young companions noticed as he continued. “I wasn’t expecting guests. I’ve been down here for a very long time. Years! Weeks, maybe. I miss orange juice.”

“Y-you don’t understand,” Dipper spoke up, still overwhelmed with excitement. “You’re the guy I’ve been looking for!”

“He’s the guy?” Wendy asked, surprised.

“Wendy, he’s the guy!”

“The guy?” the author interjected, raising a confused eyebrow.

“I’ve got like, a billion questions!” Dipper exclaimed, scarcely able to contain his elation and curiosity. And really, how could he, seeing as how all of the answers he had been looking for all summer were finally within reach? “Why did you write the journals? How do you know the Gems? Who was after you? Why did you build this bunker?”

The author seemed charmed by this barrage of enthusiastic questions, letting out a small, bemused laugh. “My boy, I’d love to discuss all of this in time,” he began as they returned to the main part of the lab. “But for now, we have more pressing matters. It’s one of my experiments, a shape-shifter. Able to flawlessly take the form of anyone or anything it sees! It broke free from its cage of solid steel! I’ve gone half crazy trying to catch the creature alone, but now you’re here!” With a sincere smile, the author knelt down to Dipper’s level, placing a firm hand on his shoulder as he lifted up his goggles. “Will you help me catch it?”

The only way Dipper could even respond to such a question was with an excited gasp and an insistent nod. After all, meeting the author himself was one thing; but working together with him to solve a mystery was something he could have only ever dreamed of. And, against all odds, it certainly seemed as though that was a dream that was destined to come true.

“Very well then! Let’s get started!  Come in! Come in!” the author beckoned as he led Dipper and Wendy through another one of the several tunnels into what seemed to be something of an unkempt living space. “I apologize for the state of things. I don’t get many non-mole people visitors. Now,” he turned to his two young companions, his manner as steadfast as ever. “The beast must have some kind of weakness we can exploit. I just wish I had my research on me! But alas, I lost my journals so many years ago…”

“Did you say journals?” Wendy asked, glancing at Dipper with a knowing grin.

“Dude, I found one of them!” Dipper enthusiastically exclaimed as he pulled the journal out. “That’s how we tracked you down here!”

“What? Could it be?” the author asked in apparent disbelief, eagerly taking the journal to get a better look at it. “My boy, I can’t express my gratitude!” he exclaimed brightly as he began to carefully leaf through the book. “Oh yes… after all these years!” The author grinned almost obsessively as he turned away from the pair once again, his eyes pouring over everything in the journal greedily, almost as if he hadn’t written every word himself. An assumption that perhaps might not have been all too outlandish after all.

Seeing as how they did little else to do, the group in the surveillance room continued exploring it to pass the time. Well, at least that’s what Soos and Mabel were doing as they freely rooted through the abundance of drawers near the control panel for anything interesting. “Sure are taking their time in there,” Soos remarked, casting a brief glance over at the closet before he resumed plundering. “Hey, do I look smarter with this coat and brief case?” he asked Mabel upon pulling on a tightly-fitting lab coat and grabbing an old metal briefcase. “I feel like I look smarter…”

“Oh yeah, you totally look 110% more genius-y, Soos!” Mabel quipped with an approving thumbs up.

“Yes!” the handyman cheered triumphantly.

At the same time, Steven followed close behind Amethyst as she sauntered about the room on all fours, something that was much easier now that all four of her limbs were legs. “Your new form is really interesting,” the young Gem commented with a smile.

“Thanks, Steven,” Amethyst replied rather dryly, blowing a lock of hair out of her face.

“I didn’t even know you could come back this different!”

“Thanks, Steven…”

“So… why’d you come back with four legs?” Steven asked curiously.

“Because I like walking!” the purple Gem huffed in clear aggravation with all of his comments.

“Wow…” the young Gem mused, amazed. “I want four legs too! Oh, or maybe four arms! Either of those would be so cool!”

“No it wouldn’t,” Garnet staunchly interrupted, glancing up from the files she had been pouring over. “Amethyst rushed her regeneration. She should have taken her time.”

“Like Pearl?” Steven asked, not noticing as Amethyst scowled sharply upon hearing this, her back still turned to him.

“Yes,” the Gem leader nodded. “Pearl put a little more… thought into how she came back…”

“Ugh! Pearl, Pearl, Pearl!” Amethyst growled in bitter annoyance. “You know I can hear you, right?!” she asked hotly, pulling her hair aside to reveal an oversized ear. “I’m sorry I’m not like Pearl with her fancy form or her polite, boring personality!”

The purple Gem was clearly completely outraged by this point, angry enough that she landed a brutal kick to the nearby cabinet out of sheer frustration, not even noticing the heavy metal box precariously perched on top of it. That is, until it came plummeting down towards her. “Huh?” Amethyst glanced up, her eyes growing wide with alarm, but she could do little as the box fell squarely on top of her. Once again, her physical form was unable to handle such sudden stress, which was why it was quick to retreat into her gemstone. Fortunately, the stone itself went flying at this, narrowly missing the box landing on the ground and crushing it entirely and instead landing on the ground right in front of Steven.

“Amethyst!” the young Gem cried in horror as Mabel and Soos both let out shocked gasps. Garnet was hardly surprised, however as she instead rested a consoling hand on Steven’s shoulder as he sniffled morosely, clinging onto the purple gemstone gently. “G-Garnet, she… she got poofed again!”

“Man, Amethyst is really having some sucky luck today,” Mabel remarked with a concern frown as her and Soos headed over.

“This is a good opportunity for her,” the Gem leader concluded, unwavering. “Now she can focus on making a better form.” No sooner had Garnet said this, however, then Amethyst’s gem started to radiantly glow once more, a sign that she was already making a hasty regeneration. “Or not…”

The others watched with curious anticipation as the bright silhouette of the purple Gem surrounded her stone, though as the light faded, this time it was clear to see that Amethyst had drastically changed. This time, she had reformed herself to bear quite a striking, if not mocking resemblance to Pearl, complete with a nearly identical outfit and ballet slippers that were far too long for her small feet. Her long hair was now swept up to a point much like the white Gem’s usually was, even though it was immediately apparent to see just how impractical this was the moment she regathered her bearings and turned her head, her new style taking half of the beakers on the nearby shelf with it. “Aw yeah!” Amethyst snickered deviously, looking over her new form. “This is much better! What do you guys think? Aren’t I just Pearl-fect?”

Steven, Mabel, and Soos all laughed at this, greatly and unanimously amused at the purple Gem’s pun and her comical impersonation. “Ha! She’s doing Pearl!” the young Gem chuckled blithely.

“Dudes, just imagine if the real Pearl was here,” Soos interjected with a grin. “It’d be like, impossible to tell the two of them apart!”

The kids shared another laugh over such a humorous, but Garnet was far less amused or impressed by Amethyst’s new appearance. Still, she said nothing of it for the moment, instead heading back to the control panel to continue investigating. She stopped short, however, upon noticing something that distinctively tipped her off, especially given her already uncomfortable vibes with the bunker as a whole. “Everyone,” she called the others out of their levity. “Get over here. There’s something you need to see.”

“What’s up, Garnet?” Steven asked as they all joined the Gem leader.

“Oh, is it those neat tube-y things?” Mabel pointed to the glass tubes visible through one of the working monitors. It wasn’t hard for her to find the button that got one of them working, even if it had a rather eloquent-label that read “Cryogenic Activation”. “Whoa!” she exclaimed in amazement upon pressing the button, which caused the tube to instantly fill with ice. Of course, Mabel didn’t hesitate to hit the button over and over again, smiling with delight as the cryogenic chamber reacted accordingly. “Frozen! Unfrozen! Frozen! Unfrozen!”

“That’s not what I meant,” Garnet spoke up, gently moving Mabel’s hand away from the button. “I was talking about that.” She nodded to a note taped to the far side of the control panel, one that Steven grabbed and read aloud.

“Experiment number 210: the shape shifter,” the young Gem frowned in confusion as he read. “Warning: extremely dangerous! Do not engage! A shapeshifter? Whoa, that’s sort of like you guys!” he exclaimed to Garnet and Amethyst.

The pair of Gems merely exchanged a wide eyed glance upon hearing this, both of them drawing up a complete blank at first. After all, certainly they would have remembered if they had ever encountered a non-Gem shapeshifter before, right? “This ringing any bells for you, G?” the purple Gem muttered, putting her Pearl impersonation off for the moment for the sake of her newfound nervousness.

“I… I’m not sure…” the Gem leader admitted truthfully. “It does sound familiar, but…”

“Uh, dudes?” Soos spoke up, his expression awash with sudden concern. “Didn’t Dipper say there was a monster in there with him and Wendy?”

Mabel gasped fearfully upon being reminded of this, realizing that, despite her good intentions, she may have just put her brother in considerable harm. “I thought he was just joking!”

“You know Dipper’s jokes are terrible!” Soos exclaimed in a panic.

“We gotta go in there and save them!” Steven cried, already leading the way to the lab’s main primary entrance as the others were quick to follow. “Come on!”

While the Gems in particular were more than ready to leap into action against any potential danger as they all burst into the lab, they found no sign of any sort of shape shifter, or even Dipper or Wendy for that matter. The lab itself seemed to be oddly calm, but still, no one really found that to be a very comforting sign.

“Oh man, its so dark!” Soos exclaimed fretfully, trying to see through the dull lighting ahead. “How will we ever find them?”

“Leave that to Mabel!” Mabel exclaimed with a wide grin, pressing the light bulb on her sweater, which caused it to emit a surprisingly strong glow.

“Whoa!” Steven gasped, thoroughly impressed. “Mabel, you think of everything!”

“Seriously, that’s so rad!” Soos enthusiastically agreed. “Although isn’t electric clothing kinda like a fire hazard?”

“No, it’s a fun hazard,” Mabel corrected. “Now let me light the way!”

“We’re coming for you, dudes!” Soos called in the hopes that Dipper and Wendy might somehow hear him.

“And for that shape shifter too…” Garnet added coldly, knowing that if the creature was a threat, then it certainly had to be neutralized.

“Pfft, even if there is a shape shifter down here, it’ll be no match for my shiftin’ skills!” Amethyst quipped, briefly transforming into an appearance that was even more closely identical to Pearl before. Upon seeing Garnet glower at her doing this, however, she reverted back to her relatively new form, muttering crossly to herself as she did so. “And once I take it out, then maybe I’ll finally be good enough for you…”

As the author continued to skim over the journal on his own, his two young guests eagerly awaited to hear whatever conclusion he would soon hopefully reach on defeating the supposed shape shifter. Of course, Dipper was still beside himself with excitement over having met the author at long last, and based on first impressions alone, he was everything he had been expecting: bold, courageous, pragmatic, intelligent, and everything in between. And what was almost just as thrilling to Dipper was the fact that the answers to all of his longtime questions, namely the questions that even the Gems didn’t have answers for, were finally about to be answered by the source of them all himself.

“Wendy, isn’t this amazing?” he whispered to the cashier with a zealous smile. “I still can’t believe we’re actually meeting the real author!”

Wendy was ready to agree with him, though she instead stifled a shocked gasp upon noticing the label on the discarded can lying at her feet. “Dipper!” she whispered sharply, grabbing the can as she eyed the author with sudden fear, though fortunately, he didn’t notice. “Look!”

Dipper did so, looking to the can she was holding out to him with confusion at first, though that confusion instantly turned to dismayed alarm as he made the same realization Wendy had. The aviator shown in the bean can’s logo was distinctively identical to the very author standing but a few feet away from them, something that was far too conspicuous to be a mere coincidence. It was clear that the only logical conclusion to be made about this concerning twist was that the “author” was not all that he appeared to be.

“Uh, y-you know what?” Dipper addressed the “author” tentatively. “We should probably get going. Can I have my journal back?”

The “author” froze at this, looking up from the journal as he made a small, rather eerie hissing sound. All at once, he confirmed he was not only a fake, but inhuman altogether as his head did a full 180, his neck lengthening to accommodate the move and his eyes blinking sideways as he glared at the frightened pair menacingly. “You’re not going anywhere!” he growled, his deeper and much more sinister. Still moving, erratically, the creature dropped to all fours, its form morphing seamlessly as it quickly climbed up the wall, taking the journal with it. By the time the apparent shape shifter had reached the overarching ceiling, it had taken on its true, much more monstrous form. Its body was large and disproportionate, composed of slimy skin that was clear enough to that its white exoskeleton was visible through it. Its right arm was long and very slender, a complete contrast to its shorter, more bulky left arm. Four thin legs kept the creature upright, and its pinkish eyes lacked pupils while its mouth was a wide opening surrounded by sharp fangs and closed off by large teeth. “How do you like my new form?” the shape shifter asked even though Dipper and Wendy were quick to share how they felt about it with a unified scream of terror. “Go on, admit it! You like it!”

“You!” Dipper exclaimed, trying his best to be bold in the face of such a grotesque, intimidating monster. “What did you do to the real author?!”

“You’ll likely never find out,” the shape shifter said with cold triumph. “That six-fingered nerd hasn’t been himself in thirty years! But I thank you for bringing me this journal. He used to write it while I was in my cage. So many wonderful forms to take!” The creature laughed twistedly as it began to flip through the journal, seamlessly taking on the forms of many of the entries within it, from the Gremloblin, to a gnome, to the Centipeedle, to the slinker, all in quick succession and all completely flawless in accuracy.

Needless to say, Dipper and Wendy were equally alarmed at the shape shifter’s admittedly impressive transformative prowess. And certainly, with something like the journal in its possession, it would essentially have a complete menu of deadly monsters and creatures at its disposal, to use in whatever no doubt treacherous way it saw fit. “We gotta get that journal back!” Dipper whispered to Wendy while the shape shifter was still distracted with the book. Fortunately though, the cashier had an impromptu plan in mind.

“Hey, body snatcher!” she shouted at the shape shifter, picking up a discarded can from earlier. “Snatch this!” She threw the can hard at the creature, who side stepped out of the projectile’s path as it turned into a lumbering, frog-like monster. The shifter lashed its new long tongue out at the pair, though Wendy managed to shield them both from it using a nearby piece of scrap metal, which the creature only succeeding in pulling back towards itself. As the metal pelted the shifter squarely in the face, it was startled enough to loosen its grip on the journal, and as the book fell to the floor, Dipper didn’t hesitate to hurry and reclaim it.

“Run! Run! Run!” he shouted frantically as they both did just that, retreating back out of the dead end they were in. Of course, the moment it regathered its bearings, the shape shifter gave chase after them, clearly willing to take on whatever form it had to in order to claim the coveted journal for itself.

“So Garnet,” Amethyst began as the group pressed on through one of the tunnels to being their search. “What do you think of my new look? I’m more like Pearl now! Isn’t it wonderful? Why, I feel,” she cut herself off, preforming an elegant spin, not noticing as her long, quaffed hair hit Steven and Mabel. “Absolutely amazing!”

“We need to focus on listening for that creature,” Garnet reminded staunchly, not even bothering to spare a glance at the purple Gem. “Or for Dipper or Wendy.”

“Oh, but I simply can’t focus!” Amethyst exclaimed dramatically, still clearly mimicking Pearl. “All these holes are different sizes! We’ll have to organize them by shape and color. Didn’t anyone tell nature how I want it to look?!”

Of course, this performance got a good laugh out of Steven, Mabel, and Soos, but Garnet was quick to show her muted disapproval of it. “Don’t encourage her,” she said somewhat crossly, moving on ahead.

“But I need encouragement, Garnet!” Amethyst begged in faux fretfulness. “I need everyone’s constant approval! I need to loquaciously converse so I can show off how smart I am…” the purple Gem’s mocking tone turned to annoyance as she finished, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms as she thought of the white Gem.

“Uh, you can converse with us,” Steven offered, pulling out his phone. “Let’s finish this quiz! Do you need to plan ahead before you act?”

“Oh, thoroughly!”

“Do you obsess over little details?”

“Completely entirely!”

“Ow wow!” the young Gem exclaimed, amazed at her imitation. “You’re so method! Next time, could you come back as me?”

“No, me!” Mabel insisted. “Oh! Or both of us at once! That would be super impressive!”

“Sure, why not?” Amethyst shrugged casually. “You guys know me. I’m a Gem of trades.”

Garnet finally stopped upon hearing this and slightly turned to face her teammate, unable to hold her pressing frustration towards the purple Gem’s callous behavior in any longer. “This is not a good choice for your form.”

“Lighten up, Garnet,” Amethyst scoffed. “Can’t you take a joke?”

“It’s not funny,” the Gem leader replied coldly. “You made yourself ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?!” the purple Gem shouted, offended.

“Keep your voice down,” Garnet hissed in a sharp whisper. “The shape shifter-”

“You wanted me to be more like Pearl!” Amethyst interrupted hotly, her hands curled into tight fists. “And now I am!”

“Pearl would have taken her regeneration seriously!” Garnet chastised, still trying to be quiet, lest the shape shifter find them before they found it.

“What do you care?! My form is my business!”

“It’s my business when it affects the strength of the team!”

“So what?!” Amethyst spat, not even noticing as the others were all watching this ongoing argument with wide, worried eyes. “I’m not strong enough?!”

Garnet didn’t get a chance to answer this as a pair of very familiar frightened screams came from one of the connecting tunnels nearby. “Dipper! Wendy!” Soos exclaimed in alarm, recognizing the cries instantly.

“They’re this way!” Mabel pointed to the tunnel the screams had come from. “Come on!”

Everyone was quick to rush for the tunnel in the hopes of finally meeting up with the pair, though Amethyst lingered back a bit, still caught up in her own immense anger with the Gem leader. “Were you saying I was weak!?” she shouted after Garnet fiercely, trailing behind them all.

“Amethyst! Now is not the time for this!” the Gem leader retorted firmly, making it clear she would hear nothing more on the matter at the moment.

“Why not?!” the purple Gem yelled. “Why can’t you just accept me the way I am?!”

A large part of Garnet wanted to give Amethyst an immediate answer for this, but with the dangerous circumstances they were currently in, such things would simply have to wait. “Amethyst,” the Gem leader said, her tone uncharacteristically shaken as she glanced back at her teammate for just a brief moment. “Enough.”

The purple Gem took in a deep breath but said no more, at least for the moment. It was obvious she had no intentions of dropping the issue at all, but for now she could only do as Garnet had said and put this tension aside. Even if it still bothered her immensely all the while.

At the same time, Dipper and Wendy were still trying to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the persistent shape shifter. While the creature made good use of its transformative abilities in chasing after them, they eventually managed to shake it by cleverly tricking it into taking the wrong tunnel. Still, the shifter wouldn’t be distracted with this ruse for too long, which was why the pair continued to rush through the maze of tunnels in the hopes of finding a way out. Though instead of that, they found the rest of the group instead. Or rather, quite literally ran into them.

The moment everyone realized they were all relatively safe and sound, a round of rushed, yet happy greetings were exchanged, though the relief was very short lived. “Wait!” Dipper interjected, sending a suspicious glance to Mabel, Steven, Soos, and the Gems. “How do we know they’re not the shape shifter?”

“Whoa, maybe I am!” Soos gasped. “Mabel, inspect my shape!” he exclaimed, pulling up his shirt and allowing Mabel to give playful poke to his stomach, much to the handyman’s amusement. “Do that again!” he laughed, and this time Steven complied by giving him another poke. “Even better the second time!”

“It’s definitely them,” Dipper concluded dryly, though he let out a horrified gasp upon noticing the rather sizable cut torn across Wendy’s knee. “Oh my gosh, Wendy, you’re bleeding!”

“It’s cool, its cool,” Wendy reassured, her tone calm yet firm. “It’s just blood, man. Don’t freak out.”

“What happened?” Mabel asked worriedly.

“We got attacked by the shape shifter,” the cashier began to explain, taking her over shirt off. She tore a swath of cloth off of the sleeve and tied it around her injured knee as a temporary bandage before wrapping the rest of it around her waist. “He broke out of his cage, pretended to be the author, and he wants Dipper’s journal.”

“No way!” Steven exclaimed, his eyes wide. “You guys actually saw that thing?”

“We need to track it down and subdue it,” Garnet said, resolved. “If we don’t, then there could be severe consequences.”

“Imagine if it escapes into town!” Dipper exclaimed fretfully. “It can transform into anything! We could never trust anyone ever again!”

“So what do we do?” Mabel asked apprehensively, though before anyone else could try to provide an answer to this, Amethyst was quick to cut in.

“Please,” she scoffed with little concern. “I totally got this covered, you guys. Just sic me on that shifty creep and I’ll make it wish it had never crawled out of which ever one of these holes it came from.”

“Normally I’d agree with a plan like that, but you’ve been acting irrationally all day, Amethyst,” Garnet remarked stoically. “This is an unknown, dangerous creature we’ve up against and we can’t afford to send a loose cannon after it.”

“Oh, so now I’m a loose cannon?!” Amethyst asked bitterly. “If you don’t think I’m strong enough to do something like this, why don’t you just tell me to my face instead of sugar-coating it, huh?!”

“Amethyst, I’m not-”

“Yeah, you are! But I guess you wouldn’t have to deal with telling me the truth if Pearl was here instead of me!”

“Guys, cut it out!” Steven quickly interjected with a worried frown. “Fighting’s not gonna help us find that shape shifter!”

“Steven’s right,” Wendy spoke up staunchly, a look of solid determination on her face. “That thing took us into his home, tricked us, and tried to destroy us. I say we return the favor.”

Seeing as how it had lost Dipper and Wendy back in the tunnels, the shape shifter had taken to returning to the main part of the lab, its form constantly in flux until it settled back to its “author” appearance. “Dipper, my boy!” the disguised creature called with faux amicability, though in its unkempt fury, it did temporarily lose its form. “Come out! I must speak with you!” The already ill-mannered shape shifter had grown quite impatient over being denied what it wanted, to the point that it let out a fierce roar while taking on another nightmarishly monstrous appearance. “Reveal yourself, you single-formed human weakling!” The brutally creature pounded the ground out of rage and frustration, giving up all guises of calmness or friendliness without a second thought.

What the shape shifter was unaware of, however, was the pair of Gems waiting in the wings for the kids to carry out their part of the plan. In the meantime though, they let the creature continue lurking about, as much as Amethyst wanted to emerge and engage it in a head-on assault. Still, neither of them Gems could deny that, upon seeing the shape shifter for themselves in its original form, that it was remarkable familiar. So familiar in fact, that their attempt to defeat and restrain it almost seemed… redundant somehow.

Yet all the same, Garnet and Amethyst remained in their places, pushing such unsettling thoughts out of their minds as the twins entered the room to put their plan in motion. “Oh boy, Dipper,” Mabel began with a rather conspicuous smile. “That book sure is full of some great monsters!”

The shape shifter spun around upon noticing the twins’ presence, reverting back to its true form as it towered over them with eager satisfaction. “There you are!” the creature snarled twistedly. “Oh, and a new one! Should I be one…?” The shape shifter smirked deviously as it easily morphed into Mabel. “Or the other?” The creature kept its manic grin up as it turned into Dipper next. “How about both?!” The real twins watched with growing horror as the shifter twisted its form into a nightmarish amalgamation of them both. Its body was raised on six legs, its upper half vaguely resembling Dipper while its bottom half looked like Mabel. Both halves were equally as monstrous however, with empty white eyes and two mouths filled with sharp, deadly teeth.

Needless to say that the twins were aptly terrified by this grotesque imitation of themselves, and as the shape shifter towered over them with a savage roar, they didn’t hesitate to flee from it before it could strike. Of course, the shifter gave chase, intent on getting the journal back, but the Gems took this as their cue to emerge and strike.

As the twins escaped, Amethyst and Garnet took their place in opposing the shape shifter, dropping down from above with their weapons already poised to attack. The purple Gem had resorted to shapeshifting back into her usual form herself, knowing that, even despite her frustration, this would be a much easier fight for The creature stopped dead in its tracks upon seeing them, letting out an intrigued hiss as it shifted back into its original form to size them up. “Well, well, well…” the shifter began, clear distain in its tone. “After all these years… Finally, you Gems come crawling back down here… Oh, but it seems that we’re two short. Tell me, where’s that tall, skinny one? Or better yet, that meddling Rose Quartz? What I wouldn’t give to rip her to shreds for helping him trap be down here in this subterranean hell all those years ago!”

The pair of Gems paused upon hearing all this, exchanging a look of bewildered confusion. “Uh, what are you talking about, dude?” Amethyst asked, raising an eyebrow as she kept her hold on her whip.

“You mean you don’t remember?!” the shape shifter asked, both apparently offended and curious. “How could you not!? You were both there! All four of you Gems played a hand in what happened here over thirty years ago!”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Garnet said evenly, her gauntlets clenched into tight fists. “But if we really did have a hand in subduing you all those years ago, then we’ll gladly do it again.”

“Ha! So you think…” the shape shifter goaded, arching up high. “But whether you fools remember me or not, I’ll take immense pleasure in shattering you two once and getting that journal once and for all!” With another roar, the creature bore down on both of them, morphing its upper half into a monster with a wide, toothy maw meant to devour them both. The Gems easily leapt out of the way, but before Garnet could go in for the first strike, Amethyst hastily intervened by coiling her whip around its mouth.

“You can just sit this one out, G!” the purple Gem called, pulling back in her whip and dragging the shape shifter towards her. “I got this one covered.”

“Amethyst, you’re not going to-” Garnet tried to refute, but Amethyst wasn’t hearing it. With a daring grin, she started using the shape shifter’s own element against it by turning herself into Purple Puma as she landed a solid blow to the creature’s face after pulling it towards her. The shifter screeched in pain, transforming into a bird and taking off in order to escape any further hits. As soon as it had put some distances between itself and her, the shifter returned to its true form, sending the purple Gem a hostile glare as she they started circling each other.

“Ah yes…” the shifter hissed coldly. “I remember you. You’re the little loudmouthed one who always thought your meager shapeshifting could outdo mine. It must really burn you up that even all these years later, I’m still far more superior at it than you’ll ever be.”

“That’s some pretty big talk for something that looks like a gross, oversized milk sack,” Amethyst retorted confidently. Of course, this comment easily set the shape shifter off as it lunged towards the purple Gem, turning into a large, long snake-like creature as it did so. Amethyst met this assault as squarely as she could, making her form as broad and bulky as she could in order to do so. But even as she tried her best to hold its snapping maw back, the shifter still managed to sink its teeth deep into her arm, eliciting a loud cry of pain from the purple Gem.

“Amethyst!” Garnet shouted, aptly concerned as she began to rush to her teammate’s rescue. Amethyst, however, would have none of that.

“I said stay out of this!” she yelled hotly, using her free arm to lash her whip out at one of the nearby broken cryogenic chambers. With a labored shout, the purple Gem lifted the tube up and hurled it hard at her teammate, temporarily blocking her from the fight and allowing Amethyst to duke it out with the shape shifter solo.

“You should have let her stay,” the shifter taunted, drawing the claws it had formed for itself close to Amethyst’s gemstone. “You’re going to need someone to pick up all the broken pieces of that gem of yours once I’m through with you!”

The creature pushed hard at her once again, forcing the purple Gem up against the wall as her energy and altered arms began to waver. Still, she wasn’t about to back down now. Especially not with Garnet still watching the fight from the other side of the cryogenic tube. “Shut up!” Amethyst growled, unable to think of any witty comeback as she finally pushed the shifter away from her. Embodying all of her raw fury, the purple game shapeshifted into a large bull and charged at the creature, which was quick to morph into an ever larger, several-armed monster retaliation. As Amethyst madly charged at it, the shifter easily caught her by the horns and tossed her aside hard. The purple Gem returned to her usual appearance as brutally she crashed into a storage cabinet before falling to the ground, quite battered and beaten. Yet even so, she shakily tried to pick herself up, clutching her injured arm and weakly summoning another whip as the shape shifter steadily approached her.

“Persistent little thing, aren’t you?” it asked mockingly, its true form standing tall and largely uninjured over her. “No matter. I know something that’ll get you to stay down. Or rather someone…”

Amethyst let out a shocked gasp, her eyes growing wide with alarm as the shape shifter took on another new form, however this one was far from monstrous or even really intimidating. Instead, this form was one that was far from mistakable for the purple Gem, one that brought back far too many bittersweet memories.

“R-Rose…” Amethyst choked, her whip dissipating into thin air as she looked up to the shape shifter’s imitation of the pink Gem. And indeed, it was spot on, from Rose’s curly pink locks, to her lovely white gown, to her soft, graceful features. The only thing off about the shifter’s performance was the cold, sinister smirk on its face, something that would have been so uncharacteristic on the real Rose Quartz.

“What’s wrong, Amethyst?” the shifter asked, perfectly replicating the pink Gem’s gentle voice as well. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

The purple Gem took in a sharp breath, taking an anxious step back as she stared at this alarmingly accurate replication of her now-deceased leader. “I… You… you’re not-” she stammered, shaking her head all the while.

“Oh come now,” the shifter tried to rationalize with a more inviting smile. The false Rose Quartz held a calming hand out to the shaken purple Gem, its other hand held conspicuously behind its back. “I’m not going to hurt you… After all, I’m still your lovely, beloved leader, aren’t it?”

Amethyst was far too stunned by what was happened to even respond at this point, unable to take her eyes off of the imitation of Rose to see what the shifter was doing with its concealed arm. Garnet, however, did take notice of it, but even as she beat against the cryogenic tube’s glass in an attempt to catch the purple Gem’s attention, the shifter continued speaking. “Look at you, so small and innocent…” the creature remarked, still using Rose’s voice as it gently placed a hand under Amethyst’s chin. “You’re missing something, something more than just memories… But what is it?” It paused, mulling over its own question for a moment, before its lips curled into a sadistic smile. “Oh. I know.”

Before Amethyst could even realize what was happening, the shifter’s elongated arm suddenly coiled itself tightly around her, lifting her up and strangling her all the while, even despite her panicked struggling. “You’re missing her,” the creature whispered hauntingly, its voice shifting from Rose’s to its own. Tears has barely started to fill the purple Gem’s eyes, but they never had a chance to fall as the shifter suddenly tightened its grip around her body hard. Hard enough to send her already injured form right back into her gem for the third time today.

“Amethyst!” Garnet shouted with immense worry, her first finally flying through the seemingly impenetrable glass and granting her access back into the lab. Startled, the shifter spun around to face her, morphing back to its true form as it lunged for her with a feral hiss. The Gem leader paid the creature no mind however as she deftly vaulted over it, caring for nothing else than for claiming Amethyst’s fallen Gem, which she successfully managed to do. Tucking the purple gemstone under her arm, Garnet raced past the outraged shifter, knowing that their initial plan had failed. Which meant that the only option they had left was plan B.

The kids all heaved a shared sigh of relief as Garnet rushed into the tunnel they had been hiding in, even if they knew the shapeshifter wasn’t too far behind her. Still, Steven was quite concerned upon noticing that only one of his two present guardians had managed to return safely. “A-Amethyst?” he wondered apprehensively, glancing to the Gem leader. Garnet’s already intense expression darkened, but even so, she gently deposited the purple gemstone into her young ward’s hands. Steven let out a small whimper upon seeing Amethyst reduced to nothing but her gem once again, but this time, no tears came. “Is it weird I’m getting numb to this?” he asked with a disheartened frown.

Still, no one had any time to worry over the purple Gem again as the shape shifter’s fierce roar signaled its soon-coming arrival. “Guys, it’s coming!” Dipper warned anxiously as the shifter came into view. “Do it now!”

Soos and Wendy complied as they both began pulling on the nearby water valve in the hopes that it would release the water within the pipes running throughout the bunker. However, seeing as how the valve hadn’t been touched in decades, the rusted wheel wouldn’t so much as budge. “It’s not working, dude!” Soos cried fretfully, right as the shifter finally caught up to them.

Upon seeing the entire group all together in one place, the shifter didn’t hesitate to lash out, specifically at Dipper in a violent attempt to get the journal. The creature flung its long tongue out, somehow coiling around the journal, even though Dipper did his best to try and fight to keep possession of it. “Hey! Let go!” he shouted, still struggling to keep his quickly loosening grip on the book.

“You leave him alone!” Wendy shouted, rushing to Dipper’s rescue with her ax in hand. The cashier used the weapon to easily cleave through the shifter’s outstretched tongue, but even then, it was hardly finished. The creature quickly reformed its tongue at shot it out at Wendy this time, but instead of cutting it, she used it as a boost to jump on the shifter itself to launch a more direct offensive. She was more than ready to use her ax to land a finishing blow on the disgruntled shifter’s head, but mere seconds before she could, Soos and Garnet managed to finally turn the closed water valve. And as a result, the floodgates were quite literally opened.

With hardly any warning, a heavy stream of water suddenly burst from the nearby pipe. The initial flux of water hit the shape shifter and Wendy first, easily knocking them back into the tunnel as the shifter let out a high pitched cry all the while. It didn’t take long for everyone else to get caught up in the uncontrollable flow, sweeping them all off their feet and pushing them all down the tunnel like a rushing river would. In the abrupt chaos of it all, not only did Amethyst’s gem accidently fly out of Steven’s grip, but Dipper lost the journal and Wendy collided hard with a rock, effectively knocking her into semi-consciousness. Fortunately, the tunnel system had a surprisingly efficient drainage system, so the flood didn’t last too long before subsiding, leaving everyone soaked and scattered about throughout the tunnel.

With the water gone, it still took the group a good while to regather their bearings and regain lost air. Dipper was the first to fully do so, more out of surprise and worry than anything else as he noticed Wendy’s ax lying discarded on the ground in front of him, the cashier herself nowhere in sight. “Wendy!” he cried, cold fear filling him as he stumbled to his feet and grabbed the ax. The others didn’t notice as he ran off down the tunnel in an attempt to find her, but Steven did realize that another member of the group was missing upon pulling himself up to a sitting position.

“A-Amethyst?” the young Gem wondered nervously, looking around to see that the purple gemstone was gone. He looked to Garnet with apt concern as she put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and fortunately, the Gem leader remained as levelheaded as always, even despite her own worry.

“Her gem is this way,” Garnet stood, nodding in the opposite direction and prompting the others to follow her. “Let’s go.”

After their initial inspect of the nearby tunnels, the group decided on splitting up, with Mabel and Soos going one way and Steven and Garnet going another, in order to find the purple gem before the shape shifter could. The latter pair, despite the Gem leader’s guidance, were having an admittedly difficult time finding the purple Gem in the labyrinthine tunnels. Ironically though, it didn’t take too long for her to find them.

Of course, Amethyst did make her reappearance as dramatic as possible, with her shadow against the wall being the first thing that her teammates saw as she approached. However, seeing as how that looked nothing like her, Garnet made sure to place a protective hand on Steven’s shoulder in the event that the shape shifter was preparing to beset them instead. When the purple Gem did come into view however, both of them were quite surprised and bewildered by the newest form she had decided to take.

“Okay, you know I wasn’t feeling this at first…” Amethyst began with a grin as she awkwardly stumbled towards the pair. Her body was completely disproportionate, her left leg and right arm appearing normal while her other two appendages where unnaturally huge, muscular and bulky. Her hair was an unkempt mess, and it was clear that every lumbering, uneven step was a struggle for her, but even so, she came to stand before Garnet and Steven with clear pride in how she had made herself look. “But I think I might be coming around! Yo, Steven! My seems straight?”

The young Gem could only look at Amethyst with apt concern over her misshapen appearance as he clung onto Garnet’s leg rather fretfully. “Does that new form… hurt you?” he asked anxiously, hoping that this wasn’t the case.

The purple Gem jolted a bit upon hearing this, but she was quick to shrug it off. “No,” she scoffed before returning to her usual daring grin. “Hey Garnet, how’d you like to mix it up with this!?” she laughed, flexing her new muscles. “Just a little something I put together, ya know.”

“This form isn’t sustainable, Amethyst,” Garnet admonished, shaking her head in disapproval.

“B-but…” Amethyst blushed, her shame and anger finally reaching their boiling point as she let them both out. “You’re the one who said I needed to be stronger!” The purple Gem threw her massive fist down in fury while Garnet shielded Steven from the rubble that came flying up from the blow. “You know what?! Fine! I’ll take that dumb old shape shifter out myself! Then maybe you’ll finally see that I’m not weak!”

Before either Garnet or Steven could hope to talk her out of such a risky plan, Amethyst stormed off, punching any and all obstacles in her path away as she began her aggressive search for the creature. “Amethyst, wait!” the young Gem called after her worriedly, but as he began to run after her, Garnet quickly took the lead.

“Stay behind me,” the Gem leader cautioned firmly, charging after the purple Gem in the hopes of stopping her from doing something reckless. Steven staunchly did as she said, even if he was unable to shake the fear that Amethyst might not get off as easy as merely being poofed for a fourth time.

At the same time, Dipper continued his search, hurrying down the narrow tunnel with Wendy’s ax still tightly held in his grip as he looked for any sign of her. When he did manage to finally spot her though, he couldn’t hold back a gasp of shock and panic. The cashier lay, seemingly unconscious, at the foot of a short drop in the tunnel, her clothes still soaking wet, her hair disheveled and her entire form askew.

“Wendy!” Dipper shouted, not hesitating to hurry down to her, his heart pounding with adrenaline and worry and dead and hope all at once. “No, no, no!” he muttered fretfully upon reaching her, kneeling down beside her to check over her various cuts and bruises. Fortunately, none of them looked to be too bad, but even so, Dipper knew he could hardly use that as a gauge to tell if the cashier was really alright or not, especially given the fact that she was still completely listless. “Can you hear me!? Please be ok!” be practically begged, already starting to tear up with the very thought that Wendy might not wake up after all.

Desperate for any signs of consciousness, Dipper lightly shook her, only for her head to loll to the side, her breathing shallow to the point of it barely being present at all. He let out a shaky breath as he gently put her down, his warm, grief-fueled tears finally falling. “W-Wendy… I… you can’t be…” he trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief at the idea that his longtime crush could so easily be gone forever. “T-this is all my fault! If I had just told you when we were in the closet, we wouldn’t be in this mess! But I was too scared and now you could be hurt or worse, and I never even got to tell you that I’m like—in love with you Wendy!” The confession came out far easier this time than any other time Dipper had practiced it before, but given the terrible circumstances, he was hardly happy about that fact. Instead, all he could feel was guilt and despair as he let out a small, tight sob, grimly coming to terms with the fact that the unthinkable had happened.

Except it hadn’t.

“Uh… Dipper?” Wendy spoke up with an uncomfortable frown as she stood a few feet behind him, having just arrived with the journal in hand.

Dipper gasped in complete shock as he leapt to his feet and spun around to face her, simultaneously relieved, confused, and embarrassed upon seeing the cashier safe and sound. “W-wha—Wendy?! Wait, then who’s-”

Before he even finished asking the question, the other Wendy, clearly the shape shifter in disguise, quickly picked itself up off the ground and growled ferally. The creature roughly pushed Dipper aside as it instead launched itself at the real Wendy, outraged over how she had foiled its nearly perfect plan. The moment the two cashiers collided, it became effectively impossible to tell the two of them apart, especially as they began intensely grappling with each other for the coveted book.

“Give me back that journal!” one of the Wendys shouted, pulling the book hard but still not prying it away from the other one.

“Never!” the other cashier protested, even as she was pushed down to the ground, still clinging onto the book tightly. “Get off of me!” she yelled, kicking her double hard in the stomach. Neither of them relinquished their hold on the journal as they stood once more, effectively playing a match of tug of war with it, one that had no apparent winner. As this duel continued on, all Dipper could really do was stand on the sidelines and watch with apt fear and confusion as the two Wendys, completely indistinguishable from each other, fiercely scuffle with each other. Still, he did have enough wits about him to pick up the fallen ax from nearby, knowing that it would easily be his best bet and putting this brawl to an end and stopping the shape shifter dead in its tracks.

If he could only tell which one of them actually was the shapeshifter, that is.

“Give it back!” one Wendy shouted aggressively.

“You give it back!” the other Wendy retorted, equally as incensed.

“It belongs to Dipper!”

“Yeah it does! Hit her with the ax!” one of the cashiers yelled to Dipper himself quite intensely.

“Don’t listen to her, Dipper!”

“She’s the shape shifter!”

“No, she is!”

“Uh… I… um…” Dipper stammered nervously, clutching the ax tightly as he looked between the two Wendys with complete uncertainty. “I-I don’t know who’s who! Give me a sign or something!”

Both of them proceeded to comply, all while still grappling for the journal. One sent him an almost flirtatious smile and wink, but the other one merely gave him a cold, serious expression as she zipped her lips and threw away the key. And for Dipper, that was more than enough to cue him in on which Wendy was the real one, and which one was the fake.

With bold confidence in his decision, Dipper flung the ax at the imposter, watching with relieved satisfaction as the shape shifter roared in pain and reverted back to its true form. Fortunately enough, they were all quite close to one of the few still working cryogenic chambers, and even more serendipitous was the fact that Steven and Garnet just so happened to run into the room at that exact moment.

“You guys!” the young Gem gasped in alarm, especially upon seeing the outraged shape shifter rip the ax out of its injured stomach. Garnet didn’t hesitate to summon her gauntlets, their search for Amethyst momentarily forgotten in the heat of this intense moment.

“Quick! Push him in!” Dipper exclaimed, pointing to the ready cryogenic chamber. They all hurried to do so, yet before any of them could even strike the shape shifter, someone else did instead.

“Not so fast, you shifty creep!” Amethyst yelled as she dropped down from above onto the creature. Everyone gasped in surprise as she used her thicker arm to put it into a tight headlock, holding it steady even as it started struggling against her. “Ha! Not so much fun being all tied up, is it?”

“Amethyst, what are you doing!?” Dipper asked in apt alarm.

“Oh, you know,” the purple Gem grunted as casually as she could, even as the shifter angrily roared over her. “Just handling your monster problem for ya! After all, the only shape shifter we need around here is me!”

“Amethyst, let it go!” Garnet ordered hotly, especially as the shifter formed a large hand to grab Amethyst by the head with. “Now!”

“No!” the purple Gem shouted back, clearly struggling to maintain her slipping advantage as the shifter began to pull her down. “You wanted me to be stronger and I’m doing it! I’m being what you want!”

“I don’t want this!” the Gem leader tried to appeal, concern leaking into her usually authoritative tone.

Amethyst let out a strained shout as she tried to shove the shifter towards the cryogenic chamber, only to be shoved that way herself. “Then what do you want?!” she asked Garnet almost desperately. “Just tell me and I’ll do that!”

“I can’t tell you, Amethyst!” Garnet exclaimed amidst the purple Gem’s scream of pain as the shifter finally thrust her to the ground hard. “You have to figure this out for yourself!”

“She can’t!” Steven suddenly gasped in stark realization as the others all turned to him in confusion. “She doesn’t want to think about herself!”

A look of complete shock washed over Amethyst’s face upon hearing this, her struggling against the creature coming to a halt as she looked to her teammates with wide eyes. “What?” was all she had time to say before the shape shifter pushed down on her hard, resulting in her poofing once again.

The shape shifter merely laughed coldly over this victory as it picked the purple gemstone up, holding it up for the rest of the startled group to see. “What a weak, pathetic fool!” it mocked triumphantly. “You all are for thinking you ever defeat a master of forms like me! Now, prepare to meet the same-” The creature was abruptly cut off as Garnet landed a brutal punch to its face, causing it to not only stumble back with a cry of pain, but also forcing it to release Amethyst’s gem. Fortunately, Steven was quick to safely claim it before it could hit the ground and shatter.

“Good catch,” Garnet quickly congratulated her young ward before turning to Dipper and Wendy. “Now’s the time!”

The pair quickly complied, charging for the shifter along with Steven and Garnet as they all worked together to shove the stunned, yet still struggling shape shifter fully into the cryogenic tube. The creature had no chance to overpower them and escape, however, as it found itself abruptly locked inside of the tube. While the others had no idea how such a fortuitous event was unfolding, Mabel and Soos simply high fived as they watched everything unfold from the surveillance room. Mabel was the one to fully seal the deal, as well as the shape shifter’s fate, by pressing the tube’s activation button with a wide, victorious smile.

“Frozen!” she proclaimed brightly.

“Boosh!” Soos exclaimed as the two of them fist-bumbed over their success before hurrying to join the others in the lab.

As the cryogenic chamber began to freeze over, the shape shifter did everything in its power to escape its incoming icy fate. “No! Let me out” it cried desperately, beating against the heavy glass as it morphed into several forms, from a rock monster, to a flame beast, to its ‘author’ guise, to even Rose Quartz, before finally going back to its true form just as the glass misted over with ice, covering it entirely.

A beat of unsteady silence filled the lab in the midst of the shape shifter’s apparent defeat. For a long moment, everyone continued staring at the cryogenic chamber, fearing that the shifter might somehow break out of it, but thankfully it never did. “Is… is it over?” Steven asked tentatively, breaking the silence.

“It would seem so,” Garnet responded, adjusting her shades as her gauntlets dissipated.

“Let’s get out of here, dudes,” Soos concluded, already turning to head back the way they came as the others followed.

Yet, before any of them could even leave the room, the shape shifter’s low, ominous laughter reached them from the cryogenic chamber. Surprised to see that it was even still cognizant, the group turned around with a collective gasp to see the creature press up against the glass one more time. “And so once again, you Crystal Gems think you’ve bested me…” it began speaking to Garnet in particular, its tone as cold as the ice encompassing it. “That ‘future vision’ of yours may grant you glimpses of what’s to come, but it can’t fill in the gaps of your past, can it? He must have done something to you three, something that made you forget about all of this… Still, I can’t help but wonder if Rose herself ever had those gaps at all…”

Garnet offered no response to this mysterious, brazen taunt, but even so, her hands were clenched into tight fists at her sides as she sent the shifter a fierce scowl. But even so, the creature wasn’t finished quite yet.

“And as for you, Dipper…” the shifter said, sending the boy a piercing glare. “You think you’re so clever, don’t you? But you have no idea what you’re up against. You’ll never find the author. If you keep digging, you’ll meet a fate worse than you can imagine. And this will be the last form you’ll ever take!” Just as the cryogenic tube finally froze over entirely, the shifter turned into Dipper, letting out a panicked scream that would be forever preserved as it at last frozen completely. This scare tactic, as underhanded as it was, was more than enough to aptly frighten the real Dipper, who could only stare at his now-frozen double with a look of stunned horror.

“Heh,” Soos suddenly chuckled, trying to make the rather dark mood lighter. “Good luck sleeping tonight!”

Needless to say that after such a traumatic experience, no one was too keen on staying in the bunker any longer. And so the group emerged from it in relative solemn silence, letting the tree that led to it return to its normal, inconspicuous appearance. Apparently, they had been in the bunker all day, as the sun had set and dusk had fallen, painting the forest a warm shade of violet as fireflies gently flittered about. It was a comforting sight for everyone, especially when compared to the dark, dank, twisted corridors of the bunker.

“Dude, I think I’m kind of adventured out for a little while,” Soos spoke up once everyone was back on level ground. “My face hurts from doing this all day,” he pulled a shocked, screaming face, one that Mabel couldn’t help but chuckle at upon seeing.

“Yeah, but you gotta admit we’re all total heroes!” she remarked with a satisfied smirk.

“Hey, who wants to get some heroes breakfast, huh?” Soos asked with a grin as he tousled Mabel’s hair.

“Syrup on cereal!” she cheered, hoping up onto the handyman’s shoulders.

“Mabel, you’re a visionary!” he exclaimed, impressed as he began to tote her away. “Steven, aren’t you coming?”

“In a minute!” Steven called halfheartedly, sighing remorsefully as he looked down at Amethyst’s gemstone in his hands.

“Don’t worry,” Garnet encouraged, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Like I said before, she’ll be fine.”

“B-but she’s usually back by now!” the young Gem protested fretfully. “Do you think something’s wrong?”

Garnet paused, looking to the gemstone herself as her smile faded. “I…” she began, her tone almost uncertain, though she quickly recovered from it. “No. Nothing’s wrong. She’ll be back soon, I promise.”

Steven finally smiled upon hearing this, fully believing this promise as Garnet began to lead him back towards the temple. As they left, Dipper was quick to realize that him and Wendy were the only ones left around, which meant that now was likely as good a time as any to address his awkward confession. “Look, Wendy,” he began, averting eye contact with the cashier. “About earlier… In the heat of the moment, I might have said some… dumb things. So can we just pretend that none of that ever happened? Please?”

“Dude, dude, its ok,” Wendy reassured, putting a hand on his shoulder as she knelt down to his level. “I always kinda knew…”

“Wait, you did?!” Dipper asked, his eyes wide with complete surprise.

The cashier let out a small, good-natured chuckle at this as she rose to stand. “Yeah, man. You think I can’t hear that stuff you’re constantly whispering under your breath?”

“Oh, man…” Dipper groaned in absolute embarrassment, face palming as he plopped down onto a nearby log.

“Listen, Dipper,” Wendy said as she sat down beside him. “I’m like, super flattered, but… I’m too old for you. I mean, you know that, right?”

“Ugh…” Dipper sighed, still not meeting the cashier’s gaze. “Mabel, Steven, and even Garnet said that confessing would make me feel better.”

“Well, how do you feel?”

“Anxious… and scared… and kinda itchy.”

“Don’t be itchy, man,” Wendy laughed warmly. “Let me tell you something. This summer was super boring before you showed up. I have more fun with you than practically anyone else. And if you ever stopped being my friend, I would, like, throw myself into the Bottomless Pit!”

This finally elicited a small laugh from Dipper, even if it was still only a halfhearted one. “So… things won’t be too awkward now?”

“I just wrestled myself, dude,” the cashier remarked with a smirk. “That was awkward. If you can handle that monster, you can handle a little awkwardness.”

“So, friends?” Dipper asked, hopeful.

“Yeah, dude!” Wendy instantly agreed, playfully shoving him off the log. “Friends.”

Both of them shared another laugh as Wendy stood and pulled Dipper back onto the log before she began to take her leave. “Oh, and hey, Dipper?” she turned back to him once more as she reached her bike. “See you for movie night later. Your place this time, ok?”

Dipper only nodded as he watched the cashier ride off, a bittersweet smile on his face that quickly faded once she was out of view. A small part of him had always figured that things would turn out like this if he ever did end up revealing his feelings to Wendy, and yet he had still dared to hope that things could have been different. Still, now that everything was out in the open, he found himself somehow strangely accepting it. After all, Wendy had promised that nothing would really change between them, something that was certainly a relief. But no matter how things would be in the future, Dipper knew that another part of him would always still always have feelings for Wendy, as unrequited as they were. And while it would take some time to heal from her gentle rejection, at least he could take solace in the fact that their close, playful friendship would remain. And that would certainly be good enough for him.

Still, Dipper didn’t get too much time to mull over everything that had happened, especially as Mabel popped out of the bushes right behind him. “Sooo… how’d it go?” she asked, overwhelmed with curiosity.

“How—what did you hear?!” Dipper asked, surprised at his sister’s eavesdropping.

“Everything, all the time,” Mabel quipped coyly.

“Yeah, we totally heard everything,” Steven admitted with a grin as he emerged from the bushes himself.

“I’m not here!” Soos called, still hiding in the shrubbery.

“But I am,” Garnet said casually as she revealed herself, stepping out from behind a tree.

While Dipper normally would have questioned the fact that all of them had been spying on him, he wasn’t exactly up for it as he instead looked down with a heavy sigh. “You guys, how can everything be so amazing and so terrible at the same time?”

“Mm, I’m sorry for being so pushy, Dipper,” Mabel said with sincere sympathy and guilt.

“Same here,” Steven concurred, still holding onto Amethyst’s gem with his free hand. “But hey, look at the bright side! At least you don’t have to feel awkward around Wendy anymore!”

“Somehow I kind of doubt that…” Dipper remarked with a frown.

“Dipper, there’s no reason for you to feel ashamed over what happened,” Garnet spoke up with a small, reassuring smile. “It’s true that sometimes these things simply just… don’t work out. But that doesn’t mean that this was your only chance at finding love. That special someone is out there for you, trust me.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know who that special someone is, would you?” Dipper asked glumly, hoping that the Gem leader could give him some kind of absolute reassurance over the matter.

But instead, Garnet softly chuckled, adjusting her shades and shaking her head. “Even if I did tell you, you’d never believe me.”

“Aw, cheer up, bro-bro!” Mabel encouraged, wrapping an arm around her brother’s shoulder. “Maybe that special someone is on the list of potential rebound crushes I’m making for you!”

“Thanks, Mabel,” Dipper chuckled a bit at this, though the moment of levity was cut off as Soos sat on the other end of the log, his sudden weight tossing the kids up a bit.

“I’m still bummed that we’re no closer to finding the author guy,” the handyman sighed in disappointment. “Oh well. At least I got his sciencey coat and briefcase.” Soos held said metal ‘briefcase’ up, only for it to flop open and reveal a dusty screen and computer keys inside, as well as a label that read “Property of F”. “Whoa! What the-?”

“Soos, that’s not a briefcase!” Dipper exclaimed in apt surprise. “That’s a laptop!”

“And a really busted up one too,” Mabel added, noting how ragged and rundown the tech was.

“Wow! It’s so old and cool!” Steven quipped with a wide smile. “I wish Amethyst were here to see this! Well, technically she is here…” he paused, casting a brief glance down at her gemstone. “But still.”

“I bet I could get this thing fixed up in a few days,” Soos mused, looking over the laptop. “It’s gonna take a lot of duct tape…”

“This could be our next clue!” Dipper grinned with newfound excitement over this find. “But… will it actually tell us anything?” he asked, turning to Garnet for answers once again.

“Hm… it’s definitely worth looking into…” the Gem leader mused. “I do recommend being careful in how you go about it, but still. I feel like there’s a good chance that it’ll be able to get at least a few answers out of it… But as always, its all about looking in the right places…”

Since everyone was rather tired from the eventful day they had, they all decided to spend the evening relaxing at the Mystery Shack, Steven and the Gems included. Pearl was already there, having just finished fixing the van with Greg and Stan, and needless to say she had a multitude of questions, especially upon seeing Amethyst’s solitary gemstone. But all the same, the kids took the much needed opportunity to relax, as Dipper and Wendy got their movie night started, having put pretty much everything they had discussed earlier behind them. Soos and Mabel had made their syrup on cereal concoction and were enjoying it as they played cards with Stan. Steven was the only one who didn’t really feel like joining in on any of the fun as he instead remained stationary near Amethyst’s gem, keeping a close eye on for any sign that the purple Gem was coming back. And as he kept up this vigil, Garnet and Pearl discussed everything that had happened in the bunker quietly enough that no one managed to overhear their anxious whispers.

“So that shape shifting creature claimed to know us?” the white Gem asked worriedly. “And Rose?”

“Yes,” the Gem leader nodded tersely. “It said we knew the author too.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Pearl shook her head. “Until a few weeks ago, we had never even seen that journal before! How in the world would we have-”

“Something isn’t adding up,” Garnet interrupted, her arms crossed as she glanced down. “Everything down in that bunker felt so… familiar… I don’t know how to explain it. But it was the same feeling I got when I saw that journal for the first time.”

“S-so… what should we do?” the white Gem asked, wringing her hands apprehensively.

The Gem leader didn’t answer right away, but when she did, all traces of uncertainty in her tone were replaced with resolve instead. “We keep looking for the truth. And we don’t stop until we find it.”

Pearl’s expression was still awash with worry upon hearing this, but even so she nodded, knowing not to question her leader’s decision. And so, instead of addressing the matter any further, she decided to move onto another pressing issue. “So…” she said, walking over to Steven and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “How long has it been?”

“Four hours…” the young Gem replied, his voice a concerned mutter as he lay sprawled on the floor.

“Four hours?!” the white Gem exclaimed in genuine surprise. “She’s never taken so long! What do you think she’s doing in there?”

“I’m not sure,” Garnet answered truthfully. “I was too hard on her…”

“So what happened to her this time anyway?” Stan spoke up with dry curiosity. “She didn’t throw herself off another cliff or anything again, did she?”

Everyone who had been to the bunker exchanged a stark glance at this, all of them remembering their vow to keep what happened down there a secret. And while Garnet had discreetly detailed some of the earlier events to Pearl, she calmly made sure not to do the same for Stan. “She got hit playing chicken with a train.”

“Again?” the conman cracked up a bit upon hearing this succinct lie. “That’s like, the third time she bit it to a train, isn’t it? Sheesh, Amethyst will never learn, will she?”

“Actually…” the Gem leader smiled as she turned towards Amethyst’s gem as it finally started to glow. “I think she will this time…”

“Oh! Oh! She’s back!” Steven cried excitedly, backing up to give the purple gemstone some space as it lifted up into the air. “Alright, everyone, be supportive.”

The others all nodded in agreement as they watched the silhouette of light form around the stone, shifting and remolding at various intervals before finally remaining fixed. As the light faded, Amethyst appeared, not with bulging muscles or an imitation of Pearl or even legs for arms, but as her natural self once more. But even then, not without a few modest changes. The colors of the purple Gem’s top and leggings had reversed, her tank top now nearly black and lacking her usual fallen shoulder strap, while her leggings were lavender with neat black stars cut into the knees. But aside from those alterations, Amethyst was largely the same, a fact that she seemed quite comfortable with as she landed and casually stretched out.

“What?” she asked, noticing the surprised looks everyone was giving her.

“Aw, you barely changed!” Steven pouted in disappointment.

“Steven!” Pearl quickly chastised for his insensitivity.

“Well I think you look great, Amethyst!” Mabel complimented with an excited smile. “Seriously, black is so your color!”

“Yeah, lookin’ good,” Stan remarked with a wry smirk. “But you better still be able to pull off Revenge Trips in that new getup of yours.”

“Heh, you know it,” Amethyst chuckled, though her smile quickly faded as Garnet stepped up to her. A moment of awkward silence passed between the two Gems, the purple one glancing away from her leader bashfully, especially in light of what had transpired between them in the bunker. But in the end, Garnet was the first one to break it with a sincere, gentle smile.

“It’s perfect,” she said with full approval in her tone.

“Eh, whatevs,” Amethyst shrugged, suppressing a light blush as she rubbed her arm. “It’s just what feels right.”

“That’s why it’s perfect,” Garnet nodded, finally getting the purple Gem to blush fully. Regardless of what had happened underground or anything that the sinister shape shifter might have said, the Gem leader was glad to see that Amethyst finally realized that perhaps she didn’t have to be the biggest or the best. She only had to be herself. And with this subtle new form, that was a lesson she had fully embraced.

“It’s a marked improvement!” Pearl remarked, clasping her hands together with a delighted smile. “You finally fixed that shoulder strap that’s always bugged me!”

“Welcome back!” Steven exclaimed happily, wrapping the purple Gem in a sudden, tight hug.

“Well done, Amethyst!” Pearl did the same, gently joining the embrace right before Garnet did.

“Oh boy! Group hug!” Mabel exclaimed excitedly, hopping out of her chair and pulling Stan out of his. “Come on, Grunkle Stan!”

“Hold it, kid. I don’t do group hu-” the conman tried to protest, but he was no match for his niece’s unbridled enthusiasm.

Likewise, Soos, Dipper, and Wendy gladly joined the large collective embrace, all of which was centered around the very flustered purple Gem. “Guys, cut it out!” Amethyst exclaimed, annoyed. “Do we really have to do this?!”

“Yes,” Steven solidly affirmed, hugging the purple Gem just a bit tighter. “It’s hug time!

“Ugh, this is so dumb!” Amethyst groaned, rolling her eyes. Still, even she couldn’t hold back an infectious, satisfied smile as she soaked all of the affection going around in. Hugs weren’t exactly a rare thing for either the Gems or the Pines, but still, both groups joining together for such a thing was an amazing feat that even Amethyst, despite all of her pretend protests against it, could say no to.

 Next:

[mythomagically-delicious]

More than a Memory, Part 2

The man looked down at the scrapbook in his lap. On either side he was bookended by two kids who would point out different pictures and tell stories about the adventures within the pages before him. He knew somewhere above him was an older man, but he hadn’t heard him speak in quite a while, besides to lead him back to this shack of a house.

The kids, Dipper and Mabel, he reminded himself. They’d told him their names, and they felt more familiar than anything else had, so far. Dipper and Mabel waved their hands around in wild gestures while they told their stories. From the very beginning, they seemed too wild to be true. But even that big guy in the corner who’d been crying as he walked in was backing up the stories. The man felt something familiar about him, too. He’d remembered his name in a burst of memories earlier, flashing through quickly before leaving him in the dark again. Soos. My employee, and something…more? The man shook his head. He’d figure it out when it was less confusing. If this ever feels less confusing.

The first few pages were nice. Not a lot of commotion, just starting off the summer and getting to know the great uncle they’d been sent to spend time with. Me. That’s supposed to be me.

The man knew they’d told him his name. But it felt so disconnected. He didn’t feel like that was really who he was. And while the pictures he was shown started to stir something in his gut, he couldn’t connect the pictures and captions to who he actually was. He felt too…empty for that. And yet, somehow, that emptiness felt familiar, too.

The man shook his head. Just focus on the kids and their words. I’ll figure it out as we go. He held his breath for a moment in confusion. Weird. Flying by the seat of my pants feels familiar too. What kind of guy was I?

Letting out the breath he’d been holding, he returned his attention to the pages before him. As he turned to the next story, he heard a slight hitch in the rhythm of breathing behind him, and a small curse filter through the air to his ears. It was so faint, he was sure the kids didn’t hear it. The girl, Mabel, her name is Mabel, let out a squeal at that same moment that had the man twist one finger in his ear and wish he could adjust his hearing aids.

He’d all but forgotten there was another person in the room, breathing down his neck as they looked over the scrapbook together. He said his name is Ford. He didn’t give any reason for him being here. Not like these other three did. A concerned friend? Another employee? The man gave up the questions and focused on the page.

“Look, look! This is when Soos discovered the Hall of Wax Historical Figures display!” Mabel was shouting in his ear. Dipper named all of the figures in the shot while Mabel told him the story. “One of them had melted—Abe Lincoln, and you got so upset!—and you told me I could use the wax to make a NEW figure!!” The girl bounced excitedly beside him.

“Ha, I did? If your sculpting skills are as good as your scrapbooking, then it musta been a great new figure!” The man smiled and laughed as the girl flung an arm around his neck and told him thank-you-thank-you-thank-you-Grunkle-Stan-it-was-amazing and the man just laughed again, adjusting his gaze to the next page.

A flicker of sadness rushed through him as he gazed down at the next photo. The little girl lifted her arm from around his neck and was showing him all the finer points of her sculpting. The man compared the two figures in the photo—one a wax statue giving a thumbs up, the other an old man slinging one arm around the wax figure’s neck and pointing with a huge grin on his face as if to say—

“’Look at this guy! I love it!’ Those were your exact words, Grunkle Stan!” the girl shouted next to him. The man kept reading the caption as the kids pointed out the man in the photo’s grin. “I mean, you weren’t expecting to see your wax doppelganger, but then you told me how good it looked, especially the glitter!” The man laughed again and agreed, telling her it was a good job.

The boy, Dipper—there’s no way that’s his real name, right, turned the page and pointed out all the shots of the man and the wax figure doing different activities together. The man wondered what this guy’s deal with a wax version of himself was.

The old man in the photos had a huge grin on in every frame, somehow touching or holding the wax figure. Jeez, what an ego on this guy, huh? To love a wax version of himself so stinking much. The man sitting in the dilapidated house refused to connect the dots between the pictures of this old guy and himself, but his body remembered for him on the next photo.

There was a picture of utter dejection and sadness, tears streaming down the old man’s face, next to a headless wax statue. Mabel took over where Dipper, hey, I got their names right this time, left off, talking about the toothpaste deductions and how Dipper could basically be a detective, continuing on about the story in his ear.

“The Mystery Twins were on the case!” Mabel threw in excitedly. The man felt his fingers tighten on the edges of the scrapbook momentarily, body tense before he made himself relax. For a moment the man had heard an echo of shouting; “No!” and “Please!” and “Not again!” before it slipped away, leaving him back on the comfy chair with two kids on either arm, prattling about the serious investigating they did around town, silly shots of the two of them as they got deeper in the case of who murdered Wax Stan.

The next photo was almost worse, the man thought. It was definitely morbid. The headless wax figure was in a coffin while the old man was at the front, shoulders hunched and the loss clearly written all over his face. Looking at the caption did him in, though. This is the service for Wax Stan. Grunkle Stan ran out after he started speaking, too choked up. Soos went out crying too, and comforted him. The man paused for a second and looked at the big guy sitting on the—what is that, some sort of coffee table?—next to him. Soos. My employee and… the man felt something stir in him, a fierce desire to protect this man, and a softer feeling of affection. Hmm, this guy really was important to me. I guess I’ll be figuring that one out for a while.

Looking back down at the scrapbook, he kept reading. Then we had an epic battle with the rest of the wax figures in the room because we found out they were cursed to come to life and had tried to revenge kill our Grunkle for locking them away for so long. Dipper got chased by Sherlock Holmes until he lured him to the roof and was melted by the rising sun. We killed the rest with candles and fire stick pokey things.

“You kids did what? There’s no way you took on a whole wax army—how’d that happen?” And with that question the kids—Dipper and Mabel—bounced in their spots and reenacted the great battle that he apparently missed. The man laughed and gasped in all of the right places, encouraging them and smiling at them to continue on.

The man chuckled and turned his attention from Dipper’s last quip about what Wax Sherlock Holmes had said to him and looked down at the scrapbook again. The last picture in the saga of Wax Stan was a group photo, with Dipper and Mabel on either side of Stan, who was holding Wax Stan in one arm.

A family photo, Grunkle Stan called it. Just the four of us, and Soos behind the camera. What an adventure! If everything those kids said was true, then it was an adventure this guy had mostly missed out on. Still, the man holding the scrapbook did feel like he was staring at his family. He felt something wet splash the back of his neck, just a tiny bit. Oh yeah, he thought, this fella is still here. Crying—no that can’t be right, he hasn’t cried in front of me since tenth grade— “Whoa!” the man yelled, one hand reaching up to halt the flow of words still coming from Mabel.

“What is it Grunkle Stan? Are you remembering?!” her voice took on a shrill pitch that had the man wincing but he didn’t ask her to quiet down.

“Eh, I don’t know yet kid, but can you start this one over? I was still finishing the last story and you jumped straight into evil ten year olds with unreasonable hair. How am I supposed to take that?” He laughed and the girl hugged him around the neck again and started over. Dipper leaned over and began waving his hands for this story too, while Mabel flipped between the pages and pointed out all of the fantastical, crazy events that transpired.

That’s when the man above him spoke, reaching with one of his six-fingered hands down to point at something in the book and ask a question. Sixer, the nickname flashed across his mind as Mabel answered his question.

The man above him—Sixer—laughed along with the kids, and the man in the chair smiled, patting the two little gremlins on either side of him on their heads.

It’s already working, he thought. These pictures are more than a memory pressed between pages. It’s becoming real. I am Stan Pines, and this is my family. Maybe there’s hope for us after all.