I LOVE THIS GIVE ME MORE

I LOVE THIS GIVE ME MORE

So a while ago some friends were talking about fans who claim the Same Coin theory is canon. And I made the mistake of saying:

Do you know who also has tons in common with Bill? Mabel. Yet nobody claims Bill reincarnated as Mabel. …wait now I want a "same coin but it's Mabel" AU. Funniest Bill reincarnation option. The all-seeing arsonist is making macaroni glitter art. The omnipotent tyrant is crying because a unicorn called her a bad person.

And then I overthought it for two months.

So—AU where after death, Bill's soul shoots 13 years into the past and reincarnates as Mabel. I'll call it ✨ Sparkly Coin AU ✨

Don't leave yet. Lemme show you why it works. Behold the eerie amount of parallels in their personalities, dialogue, behavior, mannerisms, tastes...

I could have kept going but my attention span ran out. All right, we all on board now? Convinced we could segue from one personality into the other? Great. Now here's why you should be interested: the juicy post-Weirdmageddon angst potential.

As long as a small fringe of the fandom still thinks Weirdmageddon is Mabel's fault, why not amp that up x100 and have some fun with it?

Is everyone sold now? Great. Let's get into the details. I've got 8 more pieces of art under the read more.

So the AU starts the instant Bill dies. Thanks to invoking his deal with the Axolotl—one way to absolve his crime, a different form, a different time—the Axolotl gives him a new shape and shoots him thirteen years into the past. Apparently, the Axolotl thought it would be very funny to stick Bill in the family that defeated him.

Which probably made for a jarring transition.

(It's fine, she's like 10 minutes old, she probably can't even tell who she's looking at. Not being able to tell who she was looking at is what got her into this situation ayyyy)

When Dipper & Mabel come back from Gravity Falls complaining about this triangular jerk Bill, their parents mention that Dipper's name was nearly Bill. See, after they knew they were going to have a boy, one night their mom dreamed about a visitor—some kind of magic pink salamander??—calling her child "BILL." Then at the next sonogram they found out they were having twins, the girl must've been hidden at a weird angle the first time, and they wanted matching names, so they thought, Bill and Bell. But they didn't really like Bell; but eventually they stumbled on Mabel, so to keep the names matching they switched from Bill to Mason. Isn't that the darnedest thing?

(Of course, Mabel and Dipper assume Bill harassed their parents to try to trick them into naming a kid after him. To be a jerk.)

When Bill meets Mabel, he's unaware that she's his future self—Bill's notably bad at doing things like, say, double-checking to see whether he's going to die anytime soon—but like... he can tell something's up.

Naturally, before visiting Gravity Falls, there were echoes of who Mabel used to be—but nothing anyone would be able to identify without context. All her Bill-ish quirks either smoothed out with time (see: how between second grade and fourth grade Mabel went from being the "freak" to the popular girl in class), or else they were accepted by her family as Mabel-ish quirks.

After they meet (and kill) Bill, they have the context to understand some of Mabel's behaviors... and unfortunately, some of Mabel's latent Bill-ness starts surfacing after she's been directly exposed to her prior incarnation.

The part of the Pines family familiar with Bill thinks the worst case scenario is that maybe Bill's survived and is slowly possessing Mabel; but far more likely, they think this is just some weird way of trying to subconsciously process last summer. Mabel doesn't think she's being weird, you guys are being weird, stop giving her weird looks. They get attacked by one triangle and now she can't wear yellow or pick up macrame as a hobby??

(It's not all red flags and uncomfortable triangle imagery, though. When Stan asks her what she'd like as a gift for some important event, she shyly admits that she thinks she's starting to outgrow her plastic gem jewelry and maybe she's old enough to get her first piece of real gold jewelry, if that's not too expensive? And Stan's never been so proud of her. Thirteen years old and already thinking about buying gold!)

But of course, the real fun starts when Mabel finds out.

That's the face of a girl who's just discovered that she tortured her great uncle. Now imagine running into the brother she possessed.

But I've already spent a million words and thirteen images on this post. If enough folks are interested in the AU maybe I'll expand on it later. Let me know what y'all think.

I love him but I have art block (and something wrong with me so my hands have been all bleh) so I can't draw him well rn 😣😣😣

It's 2024 and I've decided to make a Gravity Falls fic rec list. Because I do what I want, even if I'm showing up to the fandom a decade or so late. All fics are Gen unless otherwise noted, warnings can be found at the end of each description.

Birthday Dinner by Fordtato

A post-series short story featuring our two favorite old men out at sea, this work is wildly in-character in terms of their bickering and sometimes-competitive-to-the-point-of-self-sabatoge sibling relationship, but in the best and most hilarious of ways. Warnings for lighthearted discussion of cannibalism.

i know exactly where my blood is by strawberrybiscuit

There are a number of works that delve into Stan's possible suicidal ideation tendencies, both in his drifter years and post-Portal Incident. I find this to be a wholly conceivable notion, given both the absolute shit hand he was dealt in life and the hints we are given throughout the series that his self-esteem was pretty much in the gutter. Of the stories that explore this theme, I find this one to be one of the most grounded - Stan's borderline dissociation/gallows humor is very in-character, as is Ford's genuine horror when he learns the truth of the situation, which is rightfully emotional without delving into melodrama or transforming into a Saturday afternoon special. Warnings for intense talk of self-harm and suicide.

By Any Other Name by Zeragii 

I, like many of us, am fascinated by the tantalizing tidbits we've been fed as to Stan's decade or so existence as a drifter. We know he's failed at somewhat more legitimate attempts at entrepreneurship (the dodginess of the actual products notwithstanding), we know he was living out of his car for a large majority of those years, we know he's been to prison three times in various countries, and we know something happened in Colombia. All this is to say, Stan's probably made a lot of enemies, and that his map of "States I'm Banned In" is more likely a summary of places in which he has outstanding warrants and/or a price on his head.

What happens when that past catches up to you?

While this isn't an uncommon theme in Gravity Falls fics, what I love about this story is the complexity of the interactions between Stan and Ford here, given this is a post-series fic. Yes, they've mended their relationship, but old patterns die hard. Neither twin ends up as the "damsel in distress" (a worrying recurrence in many GF fics), despite the fact they are thrown into multiple dangerous situations and the OCs/Pines family extension are well-crafted and three-dimensional.

The People That We Always Hoped We Would Be by SharoScylla

A Christmas Carol, but make it Gravity Falls. The section of this story that really sold me was Stan's climatic scene in a bedbug-ridden, hovel of a motel room in New Mexico. Guest appearance made by the infamous Jimmy Snakes, who I learned recently was going to be a real character (and essentially this universe's answer to Ghost Rider) until that whole bit about Stan's past biker life was cut (regrettable). Embracing both the humor and darkness present in the original show, this story sees a Research Era!Ford come face-to-face with his own proverbial demons (real demons not included) as he is visited by a familiar cast of future past. Warnings for suicide attempt.

O Brother by Obsessive_Reader

In progress. A timestuck AU with the Mystery Twins 1.0 being catapulted into the 1980s, a young Ford landing with an increasingly desperate adult Stanley as young Stan tries to navigate the thorny, icy adult his brother Stanford has become. Probably one of the most realistic timestuck AUs out there, as fences are not mended immediately between the adult twins nor with their children counterparts. Also, Fiddleford finally has a chance to shine!

Orpheus Descending by Sir_Thopas

Unfinished. Which is a damn, damn shame, as this is probably one of my favorite Gravity Falls fics of all time. Read it anyway. Yes, you'll swear vociferously at where it leaves off. ResearchEra!Ford goes to incredible lengths to bring his brother back from the dead as Stan's demise is not exactly what it seems. What exactly happens with Stan is incredibly realistic, given his circumstances, and the local color written in by this Georgian native just adds to the Gothic feel of the whole tale. To what lengths would you go to bring your family back? At what point do you cross the point of no return in order to survive? Warnings for graphic description of a decayed corpse and prostitution scene.

Journal #4 by Percival_T_Honeybee

To be honest, this story stops being a Gravity Falls fic a couple of chapters in, instead featuring characters we know and love in increasingly out-of-universe (in all ways imaginable) situations. This doesn't matter, though, as the world- and character-building of this swashbuckling, sci-fi epic are superb and will have you on the edge of your seat until the final chapter. When both Stan and Ford go through the portal, their futures become something they never could have imagined.

Turning by BrandyFromTheBottle

I've mulled over this conceit on more than occasion and truly think it's something that begs further exploration. What if Stanley Pines pulled a Saul Goodman and, after the world was saved, turned himself in, willingly going to trial, and eventually, prison as self-inflicted recompense for his past deeds?

And now for something different...

Entanglement by Haley3

Ford/Bill (to be clear, Triangle Bill. Accept no substitutions). I realize Billford is not everyone's cup of tea and I rarely, rarely post shipping stuff, but in full transparency, I find their relationship fascinating and the idea of their having interactions that may have seeped over the boundary of purely (well, not pure. Ford built a damned shrine and became a one-man cult while Bill was manipulating him the entire time) platonic is not out of the question. In other words, I'm not wholly immune to Billford, but I am rather picky about how they are portrayed.

This fic checks all my boxes. Bill remains a triangle throughout. Bill is unredeemable. Ford and Bill have a relationship whose complexity would rival the equations of the dimensional physics they debate. And, of course, Ford is lying to himself and those around him, deeply, deeply in denial as to the nature and profundity of his emotions towards his tormentor. Warnings for explicit sexual scenes, manipulation, emotional abuse. I mean, it's Bill, we all know what that means.

Dipper and his allergies

This is probably like my favourite comic ever made in the world i think

okay i haven't been saying anything about it because i wanted to draw something for it but i need to need to need to

professor hidgens from the guy who didn't like musicals looks like ford and i can't unsee it