#what did dipper do?...

[arttsuka]

Uhh, Mason

[krysmcscience]

Don't mind me, just slacking on a big Billford comic by making other far more ridiculous Billford comics and also some AU art (please excuse my slapdash human!Bill thank you please, also before anyone asks the art style is messy and all over the place because idgaf LOL)

This started out as an excuse to design a Bill Cipher-inspired "wedding" dress, but then spiraled wildly out of control. Various rambles and a bunch more human!Bill arts under the cut, including another silly little comic at the end! (Feel free to skip the rambles, I won't be offended. I know I'm bad at shutting up. XD)

I may or may not write some comedy stuff for this AU, which I'm calling 'For Better Or Worse (But Mostly Worse)'. While Ford DOES remember getting sloshed enough for one thing to lead to making out with another after karaoke, neither he nor Bill remember this wedding, At All. The Love God did nothing to dissuade them from going hog wild on their marriage spending, either, so it got...uh. Exorbitantly Expensive. As in, the grand total could probably buy the entire fucking MOON sort of expensive. (It's fine, don't worry, Bill's good enough at crime to be able to afford it.) Also, because the logic of this AU is mostly dictated by Rule of Funny, the Love God's powers are close to unlimited when it comes to matters of romance, but ONLY when it comes to matters of romance. (Like weddings!)

Want an empty human vessel to smash the soul of a triangle into for date nights or when it's convenient, or perhaps even when it's NOT convenient? Easy peasy! Want the marriage to be recognized in every corner of the multiverse from now until the end of time, thus making any potential future divorce nigh-on impossible? Can do! Want to buy an entire beach for the ceremony and honeymoon and in general, and totally not at all because it would be Super Hilarious to prevent any specific movies from being made on that very same beach in the future? Fine, whatever, it's not his finances he's ruining!

Does the Love God also provide special rings that just so happen to turn incorporeal as long as the "happy couple" doesn't remember that they barged into his dreams to bully him into presiding over their marriage? ...No comment!

He spends the next thirty years trying and failing to get in touch with either of them for payment. This is why you should always demand half the money up front, my guy!

Also it's absolutely a traditional Jewish wedding, because I like the idea of Bill demanding all the keepsakes from the marriage that he paid for, and being completely confused when one of the things he's handed is a fancy container full of broken glass. He gets it later, but in the moment, he thinks the Love God is just fucking with him some more.

Ramble over! Here's the full dress that caused the comic to happen, along with what Ford wound up wearing at the wedding (and begrudgingly agreeing to put on again later for Reasons), aaaaand also a close-up of Bill's ring:

I may have forgotten to draw Bill's hair floofier when drawing the back of the dress, lmao

Since double ring ceremonies have been leaking over into Jewish wedding customs for a while now, Ford also has a ring, but his is the much more traditional plain gold band. There's definitely a message engraved on the inside - embarrassing, cringe, or incriminating somehow - but I haven't decided what it is yet, so use your imagination for now. XD Bill, on the other hand, saw the phrase 'traditional plain gold band' and said "No Thank You" before proceeding to embellish his ring to his liking. And because he's a secret sap who adores Ford's extra fingers, the triangle points add up to twelve, as do the engraved stars. Yes, they're stars, not dots, I just got lazy. There's also six lashes on the eye gem, and probably an eye engraving on the inside with another six lashes. (Bill's got it BAD, okay? We all know this.)

Here are the initial scribbles of Bill's custom vessel in more casual attire, please ignore the wonky anatomy and the fact that I flat out refuse to ever draw him with a proper top hat:

He does actually need a cane in this vessel; since Bill tends to possess men and especially Ford more often than not, he's used to having a higher center of gravity when in a human body, so his ability to balance is pretty garbage. (He may or may not topple over with concerning regularity.) As for his empty eye socket, his bangs don't do much to hide it since he's so high-energy (dude is constantly on the move), and he also refuses to wear a patch over it, because 1.) why bother, and 2.) it's more fun to freak people out.

To better align with Ford's attraction towards the strange, the vessel was designed with super minor shapeshifting ability - Bill can look like a perfectly normal human, but he can also make the teeth and fingers sharper whenever he likes (which is mostly just when he's angry or being more of a menace than usual), as well as slit down the pupils or outright ditch the irises altogether. He can also have whatever he wants in the downstairs department, just because I'm an indecisive bitch on that front, lmao. Maybe he can have boobs if he wants them, too, but I ain't drawin' tits on no triangle, nuh-uh, no sir. His powers are otherwise limited down to what humans can do, because for some reason, the Love God doesn't trust Bill to not snap into Immediate Apocalypse Mode if he's given a physical form that's actually all his and no one else's.

Due to the body being all his and no one else's, it's also not really a standard possession so much as it is just...Bill being temporarily human. He's a lot more aware of and in tune with his human body's senses than he ever was with his "puppets", which makes things like pain a lot more intense. (He is mostly fine with this, because he's a fukken masochist.)

A bit more fashion stuff, including beach and party attire~

The beach outfit was mostly me trying and failing to nail down his body shape, which is still not bottom-heavy enough. I then decided to slap a bikini on it, before making it supremely unsexy with a pair of fugly shorts, because Bill's fashion choices are not allowed to be conventionally attractive. Meanwhile, the party outfit was mostly me looking at the casual attire I designed, asking 'how would Bill make this Worse', and then drawing the result. The mismatched thigh-highs are killing me inside! :D

No, his vessel can't actually summon fire, I just drew it for funzies before I decided on said vessel's limitations. Yes, the gold brick tattoos are absolutely a reference to the fic 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' - I simply could not resist.

I also HAD to draw Bill in one of his canonical(?) shirts, just made tank-top'd:

He is absolutely about to over-correct and fall backwards after this. USE YOUR CANE, GOOFBALL!!! (I meant to draw Bill closer to this degree of bottom-heavy in the other images, but. Alas. I am bad at anatomy, LOL)

And, last but not least before More Comic Time, I attempted to draw him closer to Gravity Falls style:

Jury's out on whether or not I succeeded, but - hey. I tried. Now have some Handyman Bill AU, but with my goofy human design, instead:

Hey, it's a 'mystery snack', and the guy wanted A BITE to eat - the joke was right there, guys!!! (Based on this post, because it just screamed BILL CIPHER to me.)

whoops i forgor bills ring and cracks ahaha too late now

I WILL SHUT UP AND STOP RAMBLING NOW K THX BYYYYYE

[senipsenipsenip]

Using childhood memories as Gravity Falls headcanons again but -

Mabel has decided that whenever Grunkle Stan falls asleep in his chair, he gets a visit from the "zhuzh fairy". Aka, Mabel paints his nails in his sleep. It had started as a dare from Dipper: If she could manage to paint Stan's nails without him waking up, she'd get a dollar. After much haggling, it was decided that for every nail she could successfully paint, Dipper owed her a quarter. Luckily for her, Stan was a pretty heavy sleeper, so she could usually get at least $1.50 out of it. Unfortunately for Dipper and Stan, Dipper didn't put an end date on the bet. So Dipper spent most of the summer shilling out quarters, and Stan spent most of the summer scrubbing lighter fluid over his fingers trying to remove various neon and glitter-filled polishes.

Stan usually doesn't notice for a while after waking up. It's not like the guy's got great vision, and he's not really looking at his hands that often unless he's doing precision work. Which means he usually doesn't notice until he's down in the basement working on the portal. He gives Mabel grief about it in the morning, but while he's alone in the basement he appreciates the little reminder of the family that he still has on this side of the portal. It spurs him on all the more, thinking about how much Ford is gonna love these kids once he finally gets the chance to meet them.

When Ford does come back, Mabel doesn't catch him asleep in the open until long after Weirdmageddon. After all, Ford tends to lock his door at night, or he falls asleep over his desk in the lab. When Mabel finally finds him at the kitchen table, slumped over his latest notes, she decides it's only fair for him to be included in "family bonding activities". She doesn't expect how fast he jerks out of sleep the second she brushes his hand, or the wild look in his eyes when he slaps his hand on his hip where his holster used to be. He's extremely apologetic, and promises to replace the pink sparkly bottle of nail polish spilling over the floor where Mabel dropped it in shock. Mabel forgives him of course, and privately decides not to bother Ford in his sleep again.

Then the kids go back home, the Pines brothers go out to sea, and the Earth goes around the Sun once again. When the twins visit the next Summer, both of their grunkles seem a little more relaxed. Ford has a healthier weight to him, Stan gets those sad, distant looks far less than he used to, and though the two of them argue often, it's only ever about little things.

Except the argument about whether or not to put bread in the fridge. Dipper and Mabel were a little worried they were going to have to get the wax Larry King head down from the vents to mediate.

But a few weeks into summer, Mabel finds Stan and Ford both passed out in front of the television. Soos had sprung for a couch for the living room thank goodness. As fun as sitting on a dinosaur skull was, it was not great on the lower back. Mabel runs to grab her nail polish, pulling Stan's limp hand out of his bowl of popcorn to put bright red polish on his greasy fingers. Sure, there's a lot more crumbs in the polish than she would usually allow, but she had to work quickly. She'd have to thank Great Uncle Ford for tiring him out on their fishing trip today. She just made $2.50.

Speaking of Ford. She turned to watch him closely. Ford was fast asleep, his head resting on Stan's shoulder. His mouth had fallen open in his sleep and, oh man that's embarrassing, he was definitely drooling on Stan's shirt.

Well, red would match his sweater.

When Stan and Ford wake up the next morning, it's to find both of their nails painted the same bright red. Stan starts grumbling about lighter fluid and popcorn crumbs and "c'mon, I should at least be getting a cut of the money Dipper's giving Mabel, I'm the victim here". Ford holds up his hands to the light, grabbing Stan's to make a quick comparison. The food all over Stan's fingers doesn't help, but Ford can't help but notice how much neater his are. Like Mabel had the chance to take her time.

Stan hefts himself up from the couch, muttering that Ford had just made Mabel three dollars and that Dipper should add a clause about extra fingers to his agreement. Mabel trots in the room a moment later, smiling widely and asking how the two of them liked their manicures. Stan yells something about "back in his day", but Mabel ignores him to turn to Ford.

"I was able to make yours look extra nice," she explained. "You were really asleep. Like super relaxed."

Ford looks at his nails. "I suppose I was."

Mabel's smile widens. "Just letting you know, this is gonna be a thing for you now too. You're gonna get visited by the zhuzh fairy allllllll summer."

And Ford will remember the summer Mabel had frightened him out of his sleep. He'll remember restless nights on the boat and Stan coaxing him into bed or out of a nightmare. And he'll think about how well rested he feels, and a promise of a summer of sleep that feels so safe, his niece can hold his hands without fear.

And he'll turn to Mabel and smile. "I'm looking forward to it."

[bittersweet-jack-of-no-trades]

I'm sure this has been done before but Gravity Falls/Hunger Games AU? The 50th games/2nd Quarter Quell becomes even more dramatic because in one of the districts, the two male tributes are twins??

This year becomes one of the longest-running games in history; sparked in part by the Capitol's obsession with the twins, Stan and Ford, who have an argument early on and split ways. Stan becomes an expert in hiding and running, making and then breaking alliances as the other tributes inevitably try to use him to get to Ford. But why get to Ford?

Because Ford is excelling. The dangerous and odd mutations of the arena become his fascination and his strength. Probably also because during the pre-game process the Capitol got enamored with his six fingers and awkward attitude and view him as this weird little oddball underdog, and that infuriates especially the Careers. Stan is fighting for his life every day, and thinks Ford is doing the same--- but Ford has a mysterious, anonymous sponsor who sends him everything he needs, signing each note with not a name but a little triangle. The major upset comes when, of course, the last two tributes alive are Stan and Ford. The games end when Stan unceremoniously pushes Ford off a cliff and into the river below.

(Ford, of course, does not actually die. His sponsor was Bill, duh, who I picture as a Heavensbee-like figure, a gamemaker who is actually aligned with D13, more for the chaos than any sense of rebellion or morals. He takes Ford and deposits him in D13 to aid in the rebellion.)

Stan becomes the Haymitch-like drunken, lonely Victor who no one wants to interact with. His district, under his angry tutelage, goes through a period of losing. Then, the 74th games.

When they call Dipper's name, Mabel tries to volunteer. She can't, because she's a girl, but that doesn't stop her from trying so hard the Peacekeepers have to hold her down. So, she does the next best thing: when the girl's name is called, she volunteers again, pushing her way into the games despite Dipper's dismay.

They know Stan is their grunkle, but he's estranged and their first real interactions happen with him as their mentor. He assures them repeatedly they will turn on each other; Dipper and Mabel use the power of twins to win the Capitol's support as gamemakers dramatically drudge up reminders of what happened to the last set of twins. It's the "twins" angle rather than the original books' "star-crossed lovers" angle that earns the twins the right to win as a pair (can you imagine how Stan felt, knowing if he was just a little smarter he and Ford could've been spared, too?).

Eventually, D13's existence is revealed, Ford is shown to be alive, Stan goes through the reverse 7 stages of grief and probably also a lot of booze, etc. etc. They defeat the presidents (probably the Northwests, Pacifica would make a decent President's granddaughter), and end up taking down Bill too as his goal was, of course, to take dictatorial rule in the creation of the power vacuum.

[juniemunie]

I made this a year ago and it spawned an entire alternate timeline idea that me and my friends made up

Reupload because i found my lil sketch of it (and hey, its my billdip kid!)

[trashyt0shy]

IF I REACH TO 100 FOLLOWERS, IM GOING TO HAVE THIS DISGUSTING SHIT PFP FOR 1 MONTH (I NEED FOLLOWERS 😭😭🙏)

I still don't get why Gravity Falls is for kids

GUYS DON'T SUSCRIBE PLZ

@boiling-with-rage why tf u suscribed

[kittynugg]

i did mabel

(click for better quality) (also i redesigned dipper too)

i forgot her shadow but im too tired to go and fix it so have fun

also no i cant draw her consistently shut up/j

dipper and mabel's redesigns here are inspired by the ones cherryviolets did, please go look at them i love them dearly

reblogs are hugely appreciated instead of just liking and scrolling as i say with every damn post!!

wips and whatnot under the cut

here's the original like uhhh

thing where i was designing her

i was on the brink of smashing my pc here

unrendered

setting up the ref sheet

as you can tell i settled for just a star instead of a shooting star, it made the icon way too bulky

and i originally wanted to give her socks a pattern but i was also going for a bit of animator friendliness to be true to like a cartoon but meh whatever its easier not to do it fhdkufh it was a bitch in the original design i did

[spirited-splashes]

“What’s that puppet boy?”

[rithalie-sideblog]

“Tell me I’m wrong”

Reagan picks her head up from where she’s been slouching over in the helicopter seat, scrunching her eyes up at her husband. It’s been a rough week, hell, a rough two months that led up to this moment. She isn’t exactly in the mood for a guessing game.

“You have five seconds to specify, or I swear Staedtler…”

“Tell me that the fucking epicenter of the Anomaly is not in Gravity Falls.”

Reagan blinks, tired and confused. She looks at Brett, peering over Ron’s shoulder from where he’s seated next to the man.

“Um, pretty sure it is, handsome. At least it was the last time I checked.” Brett takes the tablet from Ron’s hands. Reagan can’t help but notice they’re shaking slightly.

“Yup, Gravity Falls. Little town, a few incidents in the past with time travel, some Bigfoot sightings. Nothing big until today.” even Brett’s smile looks strained as he chuckles humorlessly. “A perfect place to open a door to the other dimension and unleash the apocalypse. When, exactly, is the cavalry coming?”

“We are the cavalry,” Reagan pats the box with her newest invention affectionately and tries not to yawn. “This baby can close any rift as soon as we come in contact with it. I know, I’ve done it before. How far are we from the town again?”

She strains her neck to see their screen and Brett, sweet, helpful Brett, unbuckles from his seat and tries to handle it to her. The machine picks that exact moment to swerve violently, making him stumble. Ron and Reagan’s hands reach out at the same time, holding him in place. He smiles at them.

Good, although an untimely metaphor for their relationship, Reagan thinks blearily.

“Sit down before you hurt yourself, you dumbass” she huffs as she buckles him in next to her.

Brett smiles as she checks for stuck straps next to his head and sneaks in a kiss to the back of her hand. Reagan blushes. It’s been a long summer.

“Reagan.”

Ron’s voice is strained, and she looks at him confused. What they and Brett have has been talked over quite thoroughly this summer, not to mention the years before, when he first found them. They wore different names then and had no idea who they were, but still he managed to sneak into their lives and stay there for years. As a friend and someone more. Ron had no reason to act strange.

Still, her husband looked ill, much unlike himself. His hands did not stop shaking.

“Gravity Falls, Reagan. The portal opened in Gravity Falls.”

“The name does ring a bell. Did we ever have a mission there or something?”

Brett shakes his head, equally oblivious. And suddenly he stops mid-movement, snapping his head up to Ron.

“Wait, isn’t that the place you chose to… To…” he shoots a look at Reagan, his eyes wide.

“The kids.” Ron says finally, and Reagan straightens out in her seat like a soldier with a new order, with laser-like focus finally on her husband.

“Reagan, we send the kids to Gravity Falls for the summer.”

For a moment, no one says a word. And then Reagan inhales, long and strained and focused, and lets out a string of curses so vile that they make Brett shrivel up in his seat and even Ron wince violently. She gets up from her seat despite the men’s outcries and marches over to the cockpit, unfazed by the machine swaying. A few seconds later they hear a yelp as the pilot gets knocked out of the compartment, sliding on the floor until Brett helps him buckle in one of the seats. The helicopter lurches violently and seems to gain speed, as Reagan milks the machine for all it’s worth.

Brett’s terrified gaze meets Ron’s wide eyes, but neither says anything.

The ride takes forever, in Reagan’s humble opinion.

Kids. Their kids! How could she forget? Sure, she’s been quite busy at the end of the school year, with her father coming back into her life with a goddamn red-taped manila folder and a mission to save the world. He burst into their tiny flat in the city, complaining about them moving from the countryside to make his search for them more difficult, and with panicked Brett on his heels. Who just kept apologizing. She didn’t understand then, so she sent her kids to school for the last day of the year. She called her husband to come home and made some tea for the man who claimed to be her father, and she waited for it all to make sense.

And, to her unspeakable horror, it did make sense.

Before the kids got back from school she and Ron had their old memories back, their suitcases packed and there was an imprint of Reagan’s hands on Randall’s scrawny neck. How dare he? How dare he come into her life again, step into her home, into her safe space with fucking Cognito business in his hands? How dare he say hello to her kids as they passed, when she worked so damn hard to keep him and her whole complicated past life away from them? Ron and Brett had to restrain her before she did the unthinkable, and then they forced her to help cover Brett’s resulting black eye with make-up before the kids came back.

She apologized, but remained angry, fuming in the bathroom while applying her best foundation on the man. Brett kept apologizing for them being found over and over again until she forced his mouth shut with a kiss. Not his fault, she said to him as he recovered, then short-circuited again as Ron pressed another kiss to his hair. It’s not Brett’s fault her father is an asshole who can not survive one measly apocalypse-like event without his daughter.

When the kids came back, they had their suitcases ready, too. They were confused, as uncle Brett offered to ride them to the bus station for “the best summer adventure of their lives”. They talked about it last month, right? Ron’s family owning a house in the countryside? About a mysterious uncle they found through old records? They found him as the kids dug around for family information for the heritage day at school. He seemed nice! It will be so much fun!

Reagan tried to not look guilty as she kissed her son’s forehead, murmuring promises about meeting them soon. He didn’t quite buy it, looking up at her from behind his bangs with that quizzical look she sometimes saw in the mirror, and it almost broke her heart. It took his father’s bent knee and a promise to believe them before he finally agreed to go. Their daughter took less convincing, happy to experience an adventure. She took after Brett in that way, always ready for new things and optimistic about the future, like Ron. She kissed her and her dad goodbye as Ron chuckled and ruffled her hair, and Reagan was ready to murder her father all over again.

As Brett walked out of the house with the kids, the girl riding on his shoulders happily and the boy dragging his feet a little, Reagan sent Ron a desperate look. He responded in kind. They would deal with things and come back to this, as soon as possible.

They did not come back soon.

It took a whole summer to get things back on track. Between the apocalypse, the after effects, the clean-up, the dimensional ripples and a bunch of necessary memory alteration, Reagan lost track of time. She meant to do a more thorough check on this “Stanford” person after she got her memories back. The first one showed no signs of trouble, but you never know! He isn’t even related to them! Who knows what he could do! She meant to call her kids and check.

None of them did.

And now they paid the price as, somehow, the biggest apocalyptic event of the decade has happened right in the middle of Gravity Falls.

They’ve kept getting some weird readings throughout the whole summer but no one could exactly spare their attention enough to check. It’s always been someone else, some other branch, that took care of this particular town. Now that she thinks of that time, neither Ron nor Brett ever even caught wind of the name of the weird town, too exhausted every day after yet another unseen complications. They were out of practice in dealing with the workload and it showed. They collapsed against each other every night, husband, wife and more often than not, Brett, for a well-deserved rest.

Well, it’s not like Reagan thought that rest deserved now. They should have checked on the kids, they should have called, they should have gone to see them, they should have checked on them at least once instead of waiting for them to call!

She speeds up again, glad that she’s alone in the cockpit, as tears of frustration and worry slip down her cheeks. Reagan never prays, and yet right now she begs every force in the universe for her kids to be alright.

———

They find the town leveled down. They find the rubble and the jarred remains of buildings and people, and Reagan’s heart stops before she remembers how to breathe again. The apocalypse site is still far away, but they can already see the reason for the disaster. There’s a giant, purplish and orangish cross in the sky, like reality itself was carved out with a slicing weapon. Under it floats a dark pyramid, and Reagan instinctively sets her course to reach it until she feels someone stop her hand.

Ron looks over her shoulder, tense but focused as he rattles out an address for the house where their kids are supposed to be. He moves to put the coordinates into the helicopter's GPS too, and soon a red dot start’s blinking at them, still too far away. Reagan dutifully adjusts her course, ignoring the people screaming for help down below. Something unsticks itself from the ground below them, reaching for the helicopter with slimy tentacles but Reagan swerves and skillfully lets the appendages meet the business end of the helicopter blades. The only praise she gets is Ron’s hand squeezing her shoulder, but she gets it. There’s no time for putting on a show.

Brett appears on her other side, his eyes wild and scared but his mouth set in a determined line. He holds a weapon out to Ron who takes it, and tucks one into Reagan’s belt, not peeling his eyes away from the wreckage of what’s left of the safe and unassuming town they send their kids to.

The GPS blinks and suddenly goes out, and so does half the lights on the board. Brett’s cry drowns in the sudden noise that fills their ears. The helicopter stops in the air and then starts falling, slowly, like gravity itself malfunctions.

Ron curses and kicks the board to try and force it back on, but Reagan stops him. She points to the anomaly. The black pyramid starts to unravel before their very eyes, brick after brick being sucked into the portal. The rumble is deafening. The last brick being sucked in marks the beginning of the exodus. All the unspeakable horrors fly past them and back into the rift one by one, some of them grinning at the people stuck in the slowly falling machine. The tear slowly closes, the fabric of reality knitting itself back together.

And then, like someone flicked a switch, there’s a sudden blink in the sky. It explodes in the array of pinkish light, covering the Gravity Falls in a gradual swoop. Whenever the light touches, buildings snap back to looking perfectly fine, people are reappearing, some lingering creatures disappear without fanfare. It’s… a perfect clean-up, Reagan can’t help but wonder, and she lets a flicker of hope take hold as she sees injured people standing up, perfectly fine once again.

The light reaches the helicopter and pushes it back, as if sensing they’re not from here. It sends the machine flying, barreling through the air and now all three of them swear, as Reagan grabs the steering wheel and pulls with all her might. She will not die before checking on their kids, thank you very much

———

It takes them another hour to locate the address again, what with the scrambled GPS and the steering system almost ripped out of its base by panicking Reagan.

The lone shack sits in the middle of the woods, way too close to where the pyramid has been. Reagan lands the machine in the clearing, and Brett is out the door before she can call for it. She unbuckles and runs after him, but Ron stops her. He silently wipes the tear stains from her cheeks with his thumbs and tries unsuccessfully to wipe the blood from her chin, before pushing a gun into her hands and letting her through, hot on her heels himself.

The clearing is full of people in various states. Ruffled clothes, tired looks and various scraps and bruises litter the crowd. She can’t see her kids anywhere. Brett is arguing with someone, she realizes. Some big and well-dressed man, who looks like he’s been to hell and crawled back on his hands and knees. His suit is torn, he has a weird hat that keeps falling off, and a pair of broken glasses on his nose. He keeps shouting at them about the government finally taking a damn clue, and trying to shoo them off his front lawn at the same time. He looks ready to brawl, all fists and scowls, but Reagan barely listens, eyes jumping from one weird person to another, all crowded around the front steps of the shack.

Survivors, she mentally categorizes. Aggressive, she notes, as they send her dark looks and she grabs her weapon tighter.

“Stanford.” Ron’s voice carries, when he wants it to.

The old man stops in his tracks and blinks at the gun aimed between his eyebrows. Brett jumps away, reaching for his own gun. People in the back start shouting and Reagan almost automatically picks up and aims her weapon at the biggest threat she can see, a big man with a red beard and an axe in hand. She can see Brett pick aim too, though she’s sure his weapon is only set to stun. The crowd stops and falls silent, tense as Ron steps forward, commanding the area with his clear threat.

“Stanford Pines” Ron all but growls, his weapon’s buzzing getting louder as it charges, a clear threat. “Where. Are. Our. Kids?”

Reagan can hear murmurs from the crowd as she powers up her own weapon. They didn’t get over the plan, there was no plan once she rushed to the cockpit, but she knows her husband. He may be the sweetest man around every day for a lifetime, but he was also the man who planned to uproot their entire lives and reimagine himself a thousand times over if it meant saving the one he loved. And he did. And now he has more people to love than he ever did, but this need to protect? To save? It multiplied. The threat he poses to Stanford is real.

And neither her nor Brett will stop him.

The old man seems to realize it too because he freezes in spot, eyes wide and jumping from Ron to Brett and finally to Reagan. He gulps, and works his jaw nervously but doesn’t say anything, furrowing his brows in determination. Ron tenses and Reagan can only hope his gun is also on stun when…

“Dad?”

The crowd murmurs and undulates as if keeping something in it, but Ron’s attention immediately jumps to them as he calls out for his son.

And then Dipper, their brave little boy, forces his way from between someone’s knees and stops short at the sight before him. At the sight of his wild-eyed parents and his uncle holding people at gunpoint, ragged and bloodied from their tumble in the helicopter.

“Dad? Is that you? What’s going on?” he calls out again, clearly scared, and Ron immediately drops his weapon. The gun doesn’t even stop powering down before he is at his knees before Dipper, throwing his arms around him in a fierce hug. Dipper holds him close too, his eyes watering and burrowing his face in his suit jacket. He claimed he was too old to cry in their arms just four months ago. Whatever happened here must have scared him. Brett tenses and risks a look at Reagan as she grinds her teeth, never taking her eyes away from her target. He follows suit.

“Uncle Brett?” Mabel whispers, way too quietly for their exuberant little girl, as she is also freed from the crowd.

Reagan hears more than sees Brett’s breath hitch as he immediately chucks his weapon away to run towards the girl. He picks her up and cradles her close to his chest, whispering assurance and crying more than she does as she clings to him like a monkey. Ron frees a hand and pulls them both down to him, trying to cuddle around all three of them. They’re all crying now, quietly sniffling, betrayed by the way Ron’s shoulders tremble.

Reagan stands, frozen. She took a lot of damage when she managed to set the helicopter straight. Her nose is broken, her hands are scraped, and she thinks she may have a concussion from how violently her head snapped around in the cockpit. She decided to wear black today, much unlike the mother the kids know. She knows she looks nothing like what they’re used to.

With the helicopter at her back, she can stay invisible for a moment longer, gun still aimed at the potential threat. But she can also see the change in the group, a loosening of tension.

Stanford’s shoulders slowly fall back as he stares dumbly at the gun at his feet, then at Ron and Brett’s backs. Defenseless, something in Reagan’s head hisses violently and, she trains her gun at the old man instantly.

But the man seems to be lost in thoughts. He looks almost… forlorn at the scene. Suddenly he picks up a hand to wipe at his own eyes, as Reagan realizes that the fight might be over. She slowly lowers her gun, which finally earns her a look from Stanford.

He takes her in, in all of her battered glory, with the death in her eyes and blood trickling down her chin. She sticks it out at him, and bares her teeth, more than ready for another challenge. Deep down, she just wants to take her kids and go home.

“Mom, huh?” Stanford asks, humorlessly, “I see where they got that fight from.”

He says it too loud. It seems like all the group’s attention suddenly focuses on her, and Reagan wants to snarl at them all over again and tell them to back off. But that’s also when her kids pick their heads up and start to look for her from her lovers’ protective circle of arms.

Dipper, her brilliant, smart little genius, finds her first.

“Mom?” he asks, hopeful, a little unsure, as if Reagan is just a mirage, or something he can barely believe in.

She can’t help it. She steps forward, into the light, finally lowering her gun, and he gasps.

“Mom! Mom, what happened, are you alright? Mom!”

“Mom!” Mabel cries out, her sunshine given human form, and Reagan feels her knees buckle as she finally crumples under the relief that her kids are safe.

Ron and Brett cry out too, alarmed, but she waves her hand at them as Dipper and Mabel force themselves free and run to her. She wipes blood from her teeth and smiles and spreads her arms just in time to catch them. They look scratched and a little bruised, but they are alive and in one piece and Reagan thanks all the powers she can. They wiggle in her hold, concerned with their mom’s state, until she pulls them even closer and starts leaving kisses on both of their heads and murmuring into their hair.

“You’re safe” she keeps repeating “You’re safe, I’m here, We’re here. I’m fine. You did so good. You’re safe. You will never have to survive something like that again. I will make sure of it.”

Reagan bares her teeth as she spots someone approaching, half-feral now that she has her kids in her arms again, but it’s just Ron. Her husband puts his arms around all of them carefully, like they’re made of glass. Reagan thinks she may be. She looks for the last part of their little jig-saw family and spots Brett walking over, still sniffling, although he looks more put together than she feels.

“Some summer adventure, right kiddos?” he jokes, stopping by them and cracking his back like an old man.

Mabel whacks a hand at his leg, choking out a chuckle, and he laughs, ruffling her hair. He will join them in a moment. For now, he has a clean-up to do.

“Sorry for the scare” he says quietly to Stanford, who looks like he clearly has no fight left in him. “Got a little overprotective - Family bonds and all that, you know?”

“My brother erased his whole identity to stop the Apocalypse.” Stanford says, flatly.

Tough crowd, Brett thinks. But if there’s anything he is good at, it’s at solving people’s problems for them. And Mabel whispered to him to take it easy on the guy. So Brett will do what he does best.

“I think,” says Brett, clapping the man on the arm, “that it's something Cognito Inc. can help you with, if you let us.”

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

The anxiety of wanting to ask your brother if he’d like to match your costume for Halloween but not wanting to risk the chance he says no…

[wazzuppy]

real shit, i think if we'd had a more episodes with ford before the finale people's perception of him would have been so different. he really only has ONE episode that he prominently features in that isn't plot related (that being dungeons dungeons and more dungeons), and he has to share the focus with dipper. those in between episodes are insanely crucial to establishing and developing the cast in a series like gravity falls, ESPECIALLY for a character with so little screen time.

like, i like ford a lot, but him not being there for 3/4 of the series, immediately sucker punching the fan favorite character, and THEN barely getting to do anything at all sure wasn't doing him any favors.

[mbat]

something i find interesting but cant personally parse is how bill purposefully displaced dipper from his body in a way that dipper was still able to see the world and interact with it and remember everything later, but when it came to ford, ford was always just... pushed from consciousness. he had no say, couldnt see it, couldnt remember it. he posessed them in different ways for whatever reason when he couldve just... not lol. why?

[first-ex-wife]

while I am a strong advocate for characters being allowed to just kinda suck just cause, I do also love when you learn something about a character that just explains why they suck. like everything sort of clicks into place and it's like,,, oh yeah, of course you'd Be Like That

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Kinda funny how still in 2023, people call Mabel the worst character of Gravity Falls simply because she acts like a 12 year old child, but they silent as hell when it comes to Dipper.

[eldragon-x-moved]

I can't believe Journal 3 establishes that Ford got the metal plate in his head relatively late during his multiverse travels and just. ignored the implication that Bill was still able to possess him for a good portion of the portal era. hello?

[adhdo5]

Listening to the Gravity Falls disc commentaries and it's really sweet I'm on the Dipper vs Manliness commentary and this is so touching 2 hear