#guardian dipper is stressed like

[still-single]

HEATHEN DISCO BEST OF 2023 SHOWS

They're in the can, check 'em out.

For those still wondering, the Ryan Davis record is the best release of 2023.

Set 1: Reissues/Archival + 20 Tracks from 2023

Arthur Russell – In the Light of a Miracle

Dorothy Carter – Autumn Song

Laurie Styvers – Imagine the Lights Have Gone Out

PG Six – Unteleported Man

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 – Flames Up Yours

The Dark – Resurrection 

Fury – Circle of Lies

INU – Don’t Eat Food!

Las Mordidas – Surrounded

Spike in Vain – Opus I & II

Africa Corps (Savage Republic) – Real Men (live)

Sonic Youth – I Love Her All the Time (live)

Masayuki Takayanagi – Mass Hysterism Part II

Milford Graves with Hugh Glover – March 11, 1976 III

Les Rallizes Denudes – Eternally Now (live CITTA ’93) 

Maxx Traxx – Reachin’ For It

High Rise – Sadducces Faith

Wolf Eyes W/ Spykes – 4

Tolerance – Sacrifice

Shizuka – 6 Gram Star

Rubber Blanket – Gandy Dancer

Khanate – It Wants to Fly (excerpt)

S*GLASS – Sorry About the False Bounce

Föllakzoid – V-III 

Monocot – The Voice Came

Daniel Villarreal – Chicali Outpost

Equipment Pointed Ankh – Late Night A.I.

Witness K – How Do We Count Your Poses

Coffin Prick – Town Without Pity 2

Olimpia Splendid – Jacksonin Paita

Terry – Jane Roe

Nusidm – Arm Unemployed

Dippers – Encouragement in Brackets 

Guardian Singles – Com Trans

Civic – Born in the Heat 

Married FM – I’m Gonna Find It 

Connections – Bird Has Flown

Son of Dribble – Shed

The Serfs – Club Deuce

Corker – Edge of Teeth

Set 2: 39 Songs from 2023

Stella Kola – November

Wheatie Mattiasch – Not the Angels

Maxine Funke – River Said

Suishou no Fune – A Rainbow Is Floating

Jana Horn – Love in Return

V.I.P.P. – Dancing

Famous Mammals – Like a Shadow

Non Plus Temps – Hide Away

Now – Rattray

Spiral Dub – High as Fuck

Violent Change – Whipping Boy 

Disintegration – Time Moves for Me

Home Front – Nation

Lifeguard – Alarm

The Toads – Nationalsville

Ulrika Spacek - Diskbänksrealism

Retirement – No Refund

Mother’s Milk – Xerox Cloak 

Glittering Insects – Remote Viewed Orgasm

FACS – Class Spectre

Skull Practitioners – Intruder

Los Mundos – Luz Perversa (en vivo)

Cheater Slicks – Fear

Emily Robb – Solo in A

The Sundae Painters – Thin Air

Animal Piss, It’s Everywhere – Pink Dolphin

Sparks – Nothing Is As Good As They Say It Is

The Clientele – Garden Eye Mantra

Lewsberg – Debbie

Usurabi – Even If It’s a Lie

Luxor Rentals – A Hallway

Drop Nineteens – T

Melenas – K2

Exek – On the Ground Floor

Silicone Prairie – Mirror on the Wall

Feeling Figures – Movement

The Smashing Times – Tuesday, Coming into Time

Colleen – Les parenthèses enchantées (Movement III)

Jaimie Branch – Take Over the World

Set 3: The Last 41 Best of 2023

Chi To Shizuku – Kawaki

The Lewers – O Karina

The Native Cats – Suplex

Cuticles – Know Not What

En Attendant Ana – Wonder

Tirzah – 2 D I C U V

Seekersinternational – Caught Up (Heart Breaks)

Ron Morelli – Gun Smoke

Leda – 2

Zuli – Bussra

Smirk – Polyrhythmic Ticks

The Dissidents – Patronized

Consensus Madness – Animosity

Stress Positions – Flaming Sword

Life Expectancy – Land Worm

Collate – Guilty Collector

Blue Dolphin – Docile Jannette

Flat Worms – Orion’s Belt

Los Llamarada – Waiting For Your Eyes

Dion Lunadon – Diamond Sea

Natural Information Society – Immemorial

Quade – Measure

The Split Bell Chime – You Can Tell Me Anything

Matmos – Why?

GUB – 4

DJ Manny – Ooh Baby

Tyvek – What It’s For

Gaadge – Candy Colored

Surveillance – Obvious

Miss Espana – Lirio Blanco

Axis: Sova – Join a Cult

Al Karpenter & CIA Debutante – Fuck You All to Fade No More

Beau Wanzer – Warm Waterboarding

Thee Retail Simps – Wrong Direction

Wireheads – Persistent Resistance

Adulkt Life – Blackout

Sharp Pins – Bye Bye Basil

The Tubs – Sniveler

Meg Baird – Star Hill Road

Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band – Flashes of Orange

Water Damage – FUCK THAT (Reel 13)

[tanosan96]

Quick Question: What would happen if Zero Gravity Mabel and Dipper meet Alcor from the Transcendence au?

Oh no Mabel don’t break the forth wall

[emcon-imagines]

thanksgiving 2020 event!

For this Thanksgiving, I wanted to open up personalized family headcanons for groups of characters, such as the Avengers, the Weasleys, the Ghost crew, or any assortment of close characters from a fandom. How does it work? Send me a little bit about yourself (personality, hobbies, likes/dislikes, habits) as well as a set of characters from 1 fandom and I’ll write a short list of headcanons about what being a member of their group would be like to you!!

ex: could I request a thanksgiving headcanon for the Mystery Shack crew (Gravity Falls)? (Grunkle Stan, Mable, Dipper, Soos, Wendy). [insert personality + hobbies etc.) Thanks!

Notes:

Requests will be open for one week, from 11/14 to 11/21, so I have enough time to write and post them before Thanksgiving weekend

Please specify which characters you would like included, especially if they’re not part of a defined family unit

ex: The Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel) is fairly self-explanatory, members of the Resistance (Star Wars) would need a list of characters to include

The more specific details you can include, the better! “I like to watch movies and go on walks” is good, but “I like to watch horror and sci-fi movies and go on hikes” is much easier to work with and make good headcanons for!!

One request per person!

Thank you guys! I love you all, and the holidays + family can be a stressful time, especially this year, so I wanted to offer something fun to escape to hahaha

[minijenn]

Random Keys/UF Crossover Ideas

Because I’m torn between both of my projects right now and I hate myself, here’s something that’ll only really appeal to the very niche audience of people who read both Universe Falls and Keys to the Kingdom. Basically its a list of somewhat spoilery (for Keys more than UF) headcanons of what it might be like if the Gravity Falls world scheduled to be in Keys was a Universe Falls world instead (in the sense that it still takes place in Gravity Falls physically but like... its set in the universe of Universe Falls (oy I’m explaining too much lemme just start rambling off the random ideas that have been popping into my head over the last several days of this hypothetical crossover of my two stupid fanfics):

For reference’s sake, on the UF end of things, this would take place somewhere around the middle of arc10ish, pretty close to Weirdmageddon as the GF world in Keys is gonna take place pretty close to Weirdmageddon too. 

For Keys, the trip to this world would still take place in the same spot the GF world does, so semi close to the end of the story, as one of the last Disney worlds of the fic (guess it wouldn’t really be a “Disney” world here but ehhhhhh) 

Guess I better give some context about what’s going on in each fic around that time; UF’s is easier to do so we’ll start with that; basically without spoiling a certain upcoming arc ender too much, during arc 10, everyone’s sorta frazzled what between all of the interdimensional travel, worries about Bill coming back and causing chaos, worries about the Diamonds possibly getting involved in stuff, shaken by the recent revelation that Rose allegedly shattered Pink Diamond and so on (basically there’s a lot going on in the leadup to UF’s ending hahaha) 

Context for Keys (again without getting too spoilery (gotta tread even more careful here) is that by this point in the story Sora is basically in nonstop Panic Mode about the whole norting thing thanks to a certain encounter with one Bald Old Fuckhead during the Aladdin world immediately before this; so Sora’s on the run from basically his entire support system cause he’s all worried about unintentionally hurting his friends (and he also just doesn’t want Riku or Kairi in particular to see what’s happening to him cause Disaster Bi). 

Cont. Context for Keys cause that last bullet point was Long: Despite all this fuckin Angst, Sora’s still out searching for the Keys on his own in the hopes of securing the final few for the guardians of light before he can be fully norted and forced into handing them over to the Organization instead 

Not to mention those freak relatively dark/light powers of his are alll outta whack cause he A. Doesn’t know how to control them At All and B. Is Emotionally Distraught so that’s only making things worse

And the entire gang is more or less out searching the worlds tryin’ to find Sora (he yeeted his Gummi Phone off a fuckin cliff or something just so nobody could get in touch with him smh what a waste of a perfectly good cell phone); among the teams that are out doing so include the one we’re gonna focus on here, Ven and Roxas  

Back to the UF end of things, I wanna talk about where each of the Mystery Kids are at this point; Steven is sorta all over the place with, again, the revelation that his mom could have been a murderer; Dipper is hella nervous about the idea of Bill getting his hands on the Rift (even moreso after RMD cause PTSD is Somethin Else kids), Mabel is in that mindset of not wanting the summer to end so they can all stay together, and Connie is basically (as usual) the only one with any brain cells as she’s trying to hold the gang together

(lowkey spoilers for the Keys GF chapters start here) So Sora arrives in Gravity Falls, suffering from all the angsts and anxieties and whatnot and just Not Having a Very Good Time Emotionally/Mentally as he starts lookin around for the Key in the woods or whatever

But lo and behold everyone’s favorite Evil Corn Chip just so happens to be spyin’ on him, and before too long Bill makes his appearance and acts all friendly to Sora, claiming that he can basically undo the whole norting thing (which he knows all about because of course he would, this is Bill Fucking Cipher we’re talking about here)

Sora’s skeptical but at the same time he’s sort of willing to do whatever he can at this point to keep his heart from being taken over by Mr. Bald Old Fuckhead and all Bill is asking for in return is for him to nab some sparkly snow globe that he claims already belongs to him but was stolen by some local family who Bill makes out to be pretty bad so hey, why not at least give it a shot? (dumb, the kid is dumb this is something we’ve established many times over by this point)

So Sora sets out to look for both the rift and the Key (while also being harangued by Xemnas who’s the Org. baddie of the GF world but errrrr i don’t have a ton of ideas about what he’s gonna do yet so we’ll just skip over that for now and focus on somethin else)

Something else being the fact that Sora happens upon a bunch of kids being attacked by a group of Nobodies, so he swoops in to save them even though the kids already look like they’re holding their own pretty well against them (two of them are out here swinging swords around, one’s really handy with that grappling hook while another one has some sort of magical shield? Its weird??? But cool imo) 

So they all team up to take the Nobodies out and following that, Sora meets and mostly hits it off with the Mystery Kids

Mabel is super hype (she kinda instantly crushes on Sora as soon as she sees him even though he’s too fuckin old for her); Steven and Sora radiate the same sort of Sweet But Sad energy so of course they’re best friends immediately 

Connie’s a lil bewildered by Sora (who the hell goes around swinging a giant key like its a sword, that’s just not practical???) but Dipper’s distrustful radar is instantly raised for a a number of reasons, but the biggest red flag he notices about Sora by far is that his eyes are yellow (btw by this point his eyes will more or less be completely yellow and his hair almost entirely white; he usually wears his hood up to try and hide that, but it got blown off during the forementioned fight) 

So the kids were out and about in the woods for mystery hunting reasons, mostly cause they were trying to cool their heads from all of the stress they’re under mentioned earlier (and cause hey, the summer’s ending soon and they gotta spend all the time they can together at this point) 

However, they quickly change gears when they learn about Sora’s quest to find some magical Key and they all eagerly decide they wanna help with that cause it sounds hella rad; Dipper would likely be the only dissenter to this plan, but he’d be lowkey about it, kinda deciding to keep a suspicious eye on Sora all the while (he doesn’t really act like he’s being possessed by Bill, but ya can never be too sure nowadays...) 

So they all set out in search of the Key (Sora decides not to tell them about Bill or the rift just yet, but even so right off the bat he’s basically decided “yes I’m adopting all four of these kids as my new little brothers and sisters and no one can stop me”)

So cut to the other end of things and we have Ven and Roxas who have basically only just met each other face to face for the first time (they’re both basically constantly doin that spiderman look alike meme); they’ve been more or less teamed up to look for Sora together tho, and they both got a massive guilt complex about the whole thing cause they used to be able to directly protect him inside his heart but now they can’t since they’re out of it so they’re determined to find him and make sure he’s OK

They also show up in Gravity Falls, arriving much closer to the Mystery Shack and the Gem Temple than Sora did; since its the closest thing nearby, the boys decide to venture over to the Mystery Shack to look first 

After some brief, confused yet fun conversation with Soos and Wendy, they bump into Stan and that initial meeting goes something like: 

Stan: Who the hell are you two supposed to be? You twins or something?

Roxas: No??? What the fuck is a twin??

Ventus, realizing that Roxas has like 0 real world experience or regard for world order at that moment right fucking there: (oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck) Ummmm YES WE ARE WE’RE TOTALLY TWINS AHAHA AREN’T WE BROTHER?

Roxas, immensely confused: What the hell is a brother??

And then Ford shows up and Roxas looks between him and Stan is just like “ooooh ok now I get what a twin is” and Ven is just like “oh my god I think Roxas managed to catch some of Sora’s stupidity after all asdkjalsdkalsd” 

Anyway after all this awkward confusion is over, Roxas and Ven bring up that they’re there looking for someone, and while neither Stan nor Ford are that invested, they do offhandedly mention maybe the Crystal Gems can help

Ironically enough, the Gems happen to burst into the shack right then and there, taking refuge from the surge of strange creatures swarming outside (Nobodies & Heartless); the Gems are rather overwhelmed by them since their weapons don’t work that great on them so they’ve come to seek Ford’s help (since he’s got all those weapons and lasers and shit he keeps stockpiled) 

In this Ven and Roxas end up meeting the Gems and both of them are just like :O (Ven’s lowkey like, “Aqua would get along great with these ladies, they’re total badasses just like her!”) and the Gems just kinda pass the boyos off like “yeah whatever there’s a fuckton of monsters outside meanwhile where are our kids?”

Stan and Ford are like *shrug* cause neither of them are very good at being Responsible when it comes to keeping an eye on these danger-prone kids and the Gems are just like *facepalm* “Morons” so they set out to find the kids and Ven and Roxas are like “well they know their way around here so why not go with them to see if we can find Sora too!” and so they all head out on a lil adventure

Then a whole bunch of stuff happens on both sides of the plot that I haven’t bothered to figure out; bunch of cute character interactions and whatever; insert possible second encounter with Xemnas in here somewhere where he basically shows up just to intimidate Sora but Sora’s like “no way jose, you touch any of these precious kiddos and you’ll Die” 

Somewhere in here, under... some circumstances, Sora and the MK make it back to the shack but like... everyone’s gone? (cause they all went out to look for them, didn’t even leave a note, fuckin rude) 

They search the house for anybody and then, on complete fuckin accident, Sora finds his way down into the basement (the portal room to be exact) and what else does he find down there but that thing Bill asked him to get (the rift)! 

Though he’s a little confused about why its there (Bill did say some awful family “stole” the rift from him, but none of the MK are awful, they a bunch of Good Kids); Sora still pockets it like a desperate dummy dumb anyway and doesn’t say a word about it to the kids because he thinks they might be too innocent and young to know anything about it anyway (he’s wrong of course because much like him these kids are Traumatized with a capital T but we’ll just ignore that for now)

Still on the search for that Key, Sora and the kids head out only to run right into Stan, Ford, and the Gems on the way out; course, Ven and Roxas are still with them and they see Sora and they’re like :D while Sora’s just like “aw fuck” and runs away from his problems like always

So he rushes off into the woods and who else would show up but that Motherfuckin Evil Corn Chip again who’s like “yo kid ya got the stuff” and Sora’s just like “brb having a panic attack rn” but then he ends up obliviously handing the rift over anyway cause again he’s incredibly desperate for any way out of his current horrible situation

Of course because I’m a sap for Drama, he happens to do so just as all four of the MK show up, having followed him into the woods and ohohohoh boy oh boy let’s just say them seeing Sora just up and giving the rift over to Bill would be a Moment (well, at least for Steven and Dipper cause they actually know what the fuckin rift is unlike Mabel and Connie who still wouldn’t at that point) 

So basically Bill is a little shit and takes the rift, but he can’t actually fuckin do anything with it cause he’s a physical object and he’s still intangible (or somethin like that idk I just don’t want Weirdmageddon to happen cause it would make things too complicated) so he’s like “fuck gotta find some stupid sap to possess so I can smash this dumb thing” and he nearly targets Sora (cause the kid was already stupid enough to help him in the first place so why not?) until Steven ends up being the one to fend him off using his shield 

Bill shrugs it off and makes off with the rift anyway (its like... hovering or something? idk I’m running out of steam) and everyone panics of course, especially Sora cause he’s just like “well shit I certainly Fucked Up didn’t i?” and the MK are both a mix of “YOU THINK?” (from Dipper and Connie mostly) and “imo not your fault Bill’s tricked just about all of us he’s an asshole” (from Steven and Mabel)

Amidst this a bunch of lil things also happen; the Stans and the Gems show up (along with Ven and Roxas), basically everyone is immensely confused (aka those who have no idea what the fucking rift is) and alarmed (those who do know what the rift is) that Bill has what he needs to more or less fuck the entire world over 

So everyone just decides to put everything aside and team up all together to track Bill down and get the rift back before he can break it (there’s a lot of heartwarming trust moments in here, mostly cause trust is like... the cornerstone theme of the GF chapters in Keys for obvious reasons) 

They eventually do find him and *insert big epic battle scene here* where everyone teams up to basically beat Bill to death or whatever (don’t ask me how they be doin that if he’s intangible, again I.... I’m tired and this post is long enough as it is) 

Yadda yadda yadda they beat him, get the rift back and effectively prevent Weirdmageddon from happening to begin with (which just does SO much wonderful fuckery for UF’s timeline moving forward but whatever, this ain’t about that) 

Oh and during that Climactic Battle Scene somewhere there’s some bit about Sora learning to better trust others/himself that leads to him getting the world’s Key? I-I I dunno its a work in progress...

Anyway after this there’s a lot of good character interactions all around, reconciliations between the UF characters and the Keys characters, particularly between Sora and the MK (again he’s adopted these kiddos and don’t you forget it)

So with the Key in hand, Sora starts to leave and Roxas and Ven almost convince him to go back with them until *insert Big Keys Spoiler here that results in the Organization getting their hands on that Key Sora just got and also results in Sora running away again cause... reasons*

And that’s the end of the chapters or whatever idk 

There’s probably more ideas I had in mind for this but I literally can’t do anymore my brain is dying 

I might possibly write this for reals someday i dunno I’m stuck in two personal hells here so I might as well combine ‘em

Yes I’m aware this post leans more heavily on Keys than UF but its set in the world of UF so fuck off 

Feel free to add on with any thoughts you might have about the idea

I’m tired

Amen 

[doodling-dood]

I haven’t written a fic or anything, but I have an idea dump and some old art lying around.  This is my most recent Angel Falls artwork.  (I’ll upload the rest when Tumblr stops being stupid.)

Click the Read More for the idea dump, AKA the cleaned-up and expanded version of a string of texts I sent to my girlfriend.  Spamming her is an integral part of my creative process.

Ford and Stan live at the Mystery shack together as loving brothers, and Stan runs the tourist trap to fund Ford’s research.  Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

Angel Dipper visits Gravity Falls to investigate a tree with magical properties.  He’s 200 feet in the air when he finds out that the tree can nullify/weaken his powers.  Stan finds him and Angel Mabel trying to get him untangled from the tree.

Stan doesn’t believe they’re actually angels, but Mabel talks him into helping them anyway.  He brings them to the Shack to patch up Dipper. They hit it off.  Dipper finds one of Ford’s journals and spends hours with it.  Mabel discovers the wonders of human knick-knacks.  Stan is so not attached.

The twins explain that they wanna stay in Gravity Falls but they’re not full-fledged angels yet so they would need a hideout or guardians or something.  Stan agrees to house his totally-human, not angels-in-disguise nephew and niece as long as they pull their weight. But if Ford comes back and says the twins are harpies after all, Stan will boot their butts halfway across the planet.

Ford comes back a few days later like “Wait Stan, what do you mean we have a nephew and niece? What angels?  Angels don’t exist—holy shit those are real wings.  Is this a new species?  No Stan, harpies have a different skeletal structure and OMG WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME THIS ONE LIKES DDnD WHERE’S MY ILLEGAL 20-SIDED DIE”

Dipper is just happy to meet the author. He’s become a fanboy in less than a week. Of course the twins have become besties with Soos and Wendy by now too, so they’re all a big happy family.  Cue giant triangular wrench in the middle of everything.

Dipper does lots of expeditions and stuff, but he can’t join Ford out of town without Mabel.  (Humans can’t help if any angel-specific issues happen, so the twins are careful to stick together just in case.) Dip inevitably runs into Bill during a solo expedition around town. Dipper thinks Bill is human, albeit really weird. Bill is also pretty knowledgeable about lots of things, and Dip starts to like having him around while he explores.

He tries not to freak out when Bill calls him an angel, because that’s just a thing people say sometimes. (Stan averted that crisis already, thank you very much.) But whoops, turns out Bill means it literally. Dipper is like “omg how did you find out” and Bill says angels have visited Gravity Falls before, and Dipper isn’t very worldly yet so he stands out.

Bill introduces Dipper to all kinds of new stuff (pranking manotaurs, different foods, gay make-outs. The works.)  They get pretty close, even though Bill kinda avoids the Shack and Ford.

Then one day Dipper finds a brown feather on his wings. He freaks because he’s heard stories about angels falling and becoming demons with jet black wings, and he can’t figure out where he screwed up or what to tell Mabel. So he keeps it to himself and hopes it goes away.

Bill gets Dipper to confess what’s bothering him.  When Dipper shows him his wings, Bill gets oddly quiet, but humans get that way about angel wings so Dipper doesn’t question it.  Also Bill gives great wing rubs.  Dipper is very distracted.

Still, Dipper keeps finding brown feathers, and the best option is to go back to heaven and repent for whatever tainted him. He doesn’t want to leave though, and if he tells Mabel they need to go back then she’ll want to know why. Mabel and the Stans can tell he’s edgy but Dip brushes it off. Bill finds him by himself stressing out. Dip shows Bill his wings and they’re almost totally brown.

Bill is like “wow you progressed pretty fast” “Wtf you KNEW this would happen?”

And surprise, it’s a symptom of free thought. Dipper has done some critical thinking about the way heaven is run, and once an idea gets in your head you can’t un-think it.  Dipper freaks out because he can’t turn into a demon, demons are hideous and do unspeakable things and they EAT angels!

And Bill is all “Oh come on, do I look like I’m gonna take a bite out of you?” “You’re a demon?” “Did I not mention that?”

Dipper does the logical thing and runs away. He tries to fly back to heaven for an emergency visit, but he can’t get through the portal thing.  It’s like a glass ceiling.  He hits it and falls back into a bunch of trees.

He keeps trying until he’s a scruffy mess. He would do it again but Bill stops him before he seriously hurts himself.  Dipper doesn’t want anything to do with Bill, and if he doesn’t get back up there, he’s going to turn into a freaking monster, so he tries to fly away again.

Bill tells Dip he’s not gonna turn into a demon, but Dipper doesn’t believe him. So Bill brings out HIS wings and wraps them up in them before Dipper can get off the ground.  And dipper stops because wait, bill’s wings are entirely gold, not black.

They’re not much good for flying since they’re made out of metal. So yeah bill is grounded but it’s not about being tainted or whatever. He’s self-serving and materialistic, so his wings look like king midas got to them.

Dipper’s wings turn dark like soil, since he’s learning and growing from his experiences on earth. But Dipper can still fly, so he’s a fallen angel, not a demon. He still can’t go home though, and he wants to keep trying even though it won’t work, so Bill clips his wings to stop him from flying too high and hurting himself.

That’s as far as I got.  So, uh, enjoy the unresolved plot.

[radioactivedelorean]

Moving on

Requested by @waldorkler - holy cow man you were being very specific with this one.

WARNING: Major character death, gruesome death, blood, gore

t had been a rather stressful and upsetting week for everyone. Images of that scene refused to leave Dipper’s mind. He was constantly shaking and had barely had a moment’s sleep since the day it happened. It was bad enough that something like that had even happened in the first place, but what made it worse was that it had happened to Dipper’s best friend, and it was all his fault.

He had to just stand there and watch as the redhead fell, her body landing directly into the receptor of the woodchipper. Blood flew everywhere. Wendy didn’t even have time to scream before her skull was crushed, silencing her. Bits of shredded fabric launched out of the chute into the tray beneath it, soon followed by blood and bits of shattered bone. Dipper had to look away, his stomach unable to cope with the gruesome sight. He fell to his knees, vomiting heavily as Bill’s laughter echoed through the trees around him.

It was clear that Dipper was in shock from that event. The boy’s eyes were always wide and glazed over, as if he was looking but not seeing anything. Whenever he was at the Shack, his great uncles and his sister would always talk in quiet, calm voices. They knew when to leave him alone. Ford had been the one to teach Stan and Mabel how to act around him, knowing full well what that kind of trauma did to a person. Dipper had barely eaten since the event, living mainly off warm drinks and soup. His hair was scruffy and unkempt, his clothes just the same.

Dipper sat down slowly on his bed in the attic. Mabel had been sleeping on the couch some nights in order to give Dipper a little more space to himself, and there she was again tonight. Reluctantly, lethargically, Dipper pulled back the covers of his bed and slipped under them, pulling them up to his chin. He curled up in a tight ball. Before long, tears started to drip down his face. This was a nightly routine - as soon as he got into bed, his mind would force him to remember that Wendy was gone and it was all his fault. Before he knew it, he would end up crying silently.

Dipper started to tremble a little as quiet sobs forced their way forwards. Tears dripped onto the pillow below his head, soaking it. His fatigue was starting to build up rather quickly, making him feel rather sleepy. Before long, he had drifted off, still with tears running down his face.

“Oh, hey there Dipper.”

Dipper’s eyes shot open at the familiar voice and he sat bolt upright in bed. All of a sudden, the attic was no longer there and instead he was standing in a forest. The sun shone down through the canopy of leaves above his head and the quiet chirping of birds rang out between the trees. He looked around in search of the voice.

“Over here, silly.”

Dipper whirled around and came face to face with none other than Wendy. His heart skipped a beat. “W-what…?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Wendy chuckled, getting up from where she had been leaning against a tree. “Pretty weird, huh?”

“B-but y-you’re...y-you’re meant t-to b-be…”

“Dead? Yeah, I am. Don’t worry, you haven’t raised the dead again, I promise.” Wendy assured him, walking over to him. She just seemed so ...clean. Her hair was well-brushed and there wasn’t a single tangle or speck of dirt in it anywhere. Her skin was almost glowing and her clothes looked brand new. Even her usually-muddy boots were well polished.

“W-what are you doing here…?” Dipper stammered, clearly shocked and confused, but happy to see her.

“I came to say goodbye,” Wendy said softly, sitting down on the grass. Dipper sat beside her, though a little hesitant to sit close in case she got hurt in some way.

“Oh… So you’re not staying…?”

“I can’t, I’m afraid,” the redhead sighed. “They said I could have a week here before I had to go.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Angels, guardians, whatever you’d call ‘em.” Wendy shrugged. “I’ve already said goodbye to everyone I needed to say goodbye to. I can only do it while they’re asleep, which is why it took so long for me to talk to you. You haven’t slept at all since … since that day.”

“I can’t…” Dipper murmured. “Every time I do I just see… it, happen over and over again….and it’s all my fault.”

“Hey, no it isn’t.” Wendy put a hand on Dipper’s shoulder. While he could feel her touch, her hand was ice cold. She squeezed gently. “It was that triangle guy’s fault, not yours. You did what you had to do to save everyone…”

“I couldn’t even save you, though…” Dipper muttered. “I mean, the Rift is still intact, but… you’re not.”

“But everyone else is alive and safe, and that’s what matters.” Wendy squeezed his shoulder again. “I just wish I’d never made that stupid deal…”

“...what did he offer you?” Dipper asked quietly.

Wendy glanced away. “...the opportunity to see my mom again. I never knew that this would be the way I’d get to meet her again.”

Dipper swallowed and glanced away. “I’m sorry …”

“No, it’s fine.” Wendy shrugged. “I mean I do get to see her again. I was told she’s coming to get me when I’ve finished saying goodbye to you.”

“H-how long will that be?”

“Right about now, young man.”

Both of them jumped at the sound of the new voice. They both turned to look behind them, seeing a tall, slender woman dressed in what appeared to be a white and blue builder uniform. Her hair matched Wendy’s, right down to the style. A golden cigar glinted between her lips

“Mom…?” Wendy shakily got to her feet, walking over to her slowly.

The woman nodded and smiled softly, holding her arms out. Wendy wasted no time in running over to hug her mother tightly.

“Oh Wendy, what did you get yourself into?”

“I-I’m sorry, Mom, b-but everyone else is safe now…” Wendy’s voice shook and cracked as she spoke and Dipper was shocked to see tears in her eyes.

“Then that’s all that matters. Come on, dear, it’s time to go.”

“B-but I haven’t finished saying goodbye to Dipper yet.” Wendy pulled away and glanced back at the young boy.

Dipper got up, shaking all over. “I-it’s okay, Wendy… go with your mom. It’s okay.”

Wendy rushed over and hugged Dipper tightly. Dipper hugged her in return, his lip trembling and tears in his eyes. “I-I’m sorry...but I have to go…” Wendy murmured.

“It’s okay… I’m glad you came back to see me. Thank you.”

“Maybe now you’ll be able to get some sleep.” Wendy teased.

Dipper chuckled quietly. “I guess so.”

“Come now, dear, it’s time for you to go.” Wendy’s mother held her hand out to her daughter, using her free hand to take the cigar out to release a small puff of smoke. Reluctantly, the teenager stepped away from her friend and took her hand.

Wendy glanced back at Dipper. “See ya later, Dipper. Hopefully much later, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Dipper smiled weakly through the tears in his eyes. “I promise.”

“Good, cause I don’t wanna see you again for another eighty years at least.” Wendy smirked a little bit, causing Dipper to chuckle softly.

Wendy’s mother pulled something out of her pocket, holding it in her free hand. Dipper recognised it to be a stick of dynamite and remembered that Wendy had once told him that her mother had been a demolitions expert. Wendy’s mother let go of her daughter’s hand long enough to take the cigar out, using the end of it to light the fuse of the dynamite. She popped the cigar back in and dropped the stick of dynamite at her feet. Wendy just had time to smile at Dipper before the object exploded, launching both women up into the air.

Dipper sat bolt upright in his bed with a gasp. His heart thudded almost painfully in his chest and his throat ached, indicating he had been hyperventilating. Two streams of wet tears ran down both cheeks, but he found himself smiling.

“Goodbye, Wendy.”

[guardiancherisher]

Guardian Cherisher (Cher) and Stan talks

  Summary: My OC and Stan just talking about stuff. Cher just being her usual self. ...More or less. 

Cher: -sighs- -looking at the ceiling of the Mystery Shack- -It was just a little past midnight and everyone in the Shack was asleep- -Her hologram tablet expanded in front of her- -she briefly closed her eyes to rest them-

????: You alright there, kid?

Cher: -visibly jumps from her place on the couch- -looking quickly to toward to figure in the doorway-

Stan: Whoa –puts hands up passively- Didn’t mean to scare ya.

Cher: -glares at him- For the record I’ve seen a lot more threatening displays then yourself, Stanley

Stan: -gives an unimpressed look- rrrrrright…. What are you even doing up this late?

Cher: it’s not that…. Late. –She second guesses herself and looks at the clock in the corner of the screen- -it read 2:45am. Which surprised her a little. She didn’t think it was that late- -Cher groans. The heaviness of stress an even layer accompanying to the sound-

Stan: -sighs and finds himself making his way to the couch to sit by her-

Cher: -tries in vain to continue her work. Moving her hands to exit and open different documents, detail a few, organizing the pile of what reports she needs to read and what reports she still hasn’t written. It was stressful to say the least and the fact that she could feel Stan’s gaze didn’t help at all. She mentally tensed in on herself.-

Stan: Still haven’t answered my question, runt.

Cher: -glares at him again-

Stan: I’m trying to help. –Stan says bluntly- If you get what’s ever buggin ya off your chest, might make you feel better.  

Cher: -paused at what she was doing. A shaky hand over the motions she was once doing, gone was their purpose in her mind. She could almost feel her brain short circuit. Her brain quickly becoming a muddled mess- I… I just have a lot I need to do Stan.

Stan: What are you even doing….? If I can even ask that. Knowing you, you are probably looking up future events or super-secret multiverse code stuff.

Cher: -giggles- Not really. I’m not even trained in time travel though I heard it was a pretty fun class, regardless. I was actually trying to fill out my reports for once, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult because I’m not really supposed to be in them.

Stan: So just lie on ‘em, than. –Stan says likes it’s the most obvious thing in the world-

Cher: -Cher grew pale at the proposal- U-um n-no thank you, that’s quite alright. –she stuttered about at her words-

Stan: -raised an eyebrow- sheesh, it was just a suggestion. You don’t need to take every little thing seriously.

Cher: -blushes in embarrassment- I-I realize that. It’s just hard for me to find the appropriate response to comments like that. You know I like to stay by the book…. Most of the time at least.

Stan: Yeah, isn’t there that rule you can’t interact with natives?

Cher: Hence you see my dilemma, Stanley Pines…. And it’s not like I did it on purpose! It was an accident! ….Sort of. –Cher tries to defend herself-

Stan: Hey, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. Do I look like a cop to ya? Besides I’m…. thankful you saved Dipper from falling off that huge-ass tree. Heaven knows if you weren’t there…. –Stan lets the sentence fall to the wayside. That wasn’t the first time Cher became a blockade to hurt or harm. Probably not the last either.-  

Cher: What can I say? –She smirks teasingly- I’m just that good.

Stan: -laughs at that- Yeah, yeah. –Waves her off- Don’t be getting on your high horse or anything. Just a second ago you needed cheering up.

Cher: -chuckles- Well, your plan is working well enough. If not for the distraction from my impending doom of documentation.

Stan: It can’t be that bad.

Cher: 4 years in Multiverse Penitentiary for falsifying reports.

Stan: Holy Moses!

Cher: Yeah that’s what I thought.

Stan: what if your thing got broken? –Referring to the Holo-tablet-

Cher: It’s indestructible.

Stan: What if I stole it? –Goes to snatch it, but his hand goes straight through-

Cher: A for effort.

Stan: -growls- Don’t patronize me.

Cher: But it’s so entertaining –Sarcasm lightening her voice- But yeah no way out of it. It must be done. –Cracks knuckles- -starts typing-

Stan: What if we kidnap you?

Cher: -stops- You? Kidnap me? –Gives an amused questioning look- No offense, Lee, but I highly doubt you can contain me. Your brother maybe, but you I’m afraid is just all natural muscle. Pretty easy to overcome with my abilities.

Stan: You could off just said no… and what makes my brother so special in kidnapping you!?!

Cher: -blushes- Just theories…. –grumbles- and experience.  

Stan: What was that?

Cher: Nothing! –Her voice an octave higher than usual- It’s getting late. You should probably get some rest.

Stan: Na, I think I’ll go work on the portal a little more. –Gets up and starts walking out-

Cher: Okay. Just don’t turn it on until I check it out. The last thing we need is a Multiverse crisis on our hands.

Stan: I make no promises.

Cher: Stanley! –puts her hologram tablet back into her white shoulder-bag and races after Stanley. Her report can wait. Best to make sure Stan doesn’t collapse the multiverse. Well at least the surrounding ‘verses. Frankly, there is very little in the Multiverse that can destroy universes let alone the entirety of the Multiverse itself. Still…. She’s been wrong before.-  

[cool-wears-a-trenchcoat]

identity ask

I saw this and thought it was cool! 

 1. If someone wanted to really understand you, what would they read, watch, and listen to? 

I would say my youtube liked videos, playlists, and watch later list. A lot of my favorite songs and videos are on there, and I’m on youtube a lot haha

2. Have you ever found a writer who thinks just like you? If so, who?  

I don’t really think so? But I really love Kathryn Lasky, C.S Lewis, and Tolkien

3. List your fandoms and one character from each that you identify with. 

Oh boy. Well, I guess my biggest fandom right now is Gravity Falls (I know I’m a little late, but it’s so good!) and I would probably identify with either Dipper or Ford the most. They’re both bookworms and like solving mysteries.

Another would be Steven Universe. And here I don’t really know who to relate to. Maybe Lapis bc she’s pessimistic and doesn’t like new people all that much.

 4. Do you like your name? Is there another name you think would fit you better? 

I’m okay with my name, although I never see it on those souvenir keychains or pens haha. I do go by Sam sometimes, because it’s similar to my name, but more gender-neutral. 

5. Do you think of yourself as a human being or a human doing? Do you identify yourself by the things you do? 

Haha I’ve never really thought of this. But I guess I’d be a human being because at the moment I’m just trying to make it through. I do identify by the things that I do and love, like band, or writing.

6. Are you religious/spiritual? Do you care about your ethnicity? 

I am a Methodist, so yea, I’m religious. Although my beliefs differ from church conservatives, for obvious reasons. And no, I don’t care about my ethnicity. But I am a quarter Czech, so that’s neat

7. What musical artists have you most felt connected to over your lifetime? Are you an artist? 

I’m really connected to Fall Out Boy. Their music has saved my life, comforted me, given me courage and hope. Music inspires me, and I get stressed when I don’t listen to it. I play the trumpet, trombone, and euphonium, and I want to learn guitar.

8. Do you have a creed? 

I don’t really know. I have a moral code that I don’t stray from.

9. Describe your ideal day. 

Being out in the woods with some friends, reading a book, perfect weather, watching the stars that night. 

10. Dog person or cat person? 

Cats!!! I like dogs, but cats are just soo cute. Like seriously. So cute

11. Indoors or outdoors?  

Outdoors! There’s nothing more incredible than the beauty and power of nature.

12. Five most influential books over your lifetime. 

Harry Potter, Guardians of Ga’Hoole, What Every Body Is Saying (it’s a book on body language. It changed the way I watch people, and really intrigued me. It also helped me identify different behaviors in people), The Murder Room, and The Virals series.

13. If you’d grown up in a different environment, do you think you’d have turned out the same? 

No. I think my environment, and therefore my experiences, have really shaped me as a person. I don’t know who I’d be if I hadn’t been raised like I was.

14. Would you say your tumblr is a fair representation of the “real you”? 

Actually, yea. I’m a lot more open on the internet than irl. Here, I can truly express myself and find people that share my interests. That doesn’t happen much irl.

15. What’s your patronus? Which Harry Potter house would you be in?  

My patrons is a pine martin, and I’m a proud Hufflepuff!

16. Would you rather be in Middle Earth, Narnia, Hogwarts, or somewhere else? 

I’d go to Narnia. I mean, that’d just be so amazing! Aslan, talking animals, sign me up.

17. Do you love easily? 

No. I’m very pessimistic. I don’t trust people easily, but when I do, I love my friends with my whole heart. I love a lot, but it doesn’t come easily or quickly.

18. list the top five things you spend the most time doing, in order. How often? 

1. On my phone, alternating between pinterest, tumblr, Facebook, and discord.

2. Daydreaming

3. Youtube 

4. Having an internal battle to try and banish my toxic thoughts

5. Sleeping

19. Would you want to see your family every year? 

Yes. I do love my family, however hard it is, and I couldn’t live without them.

20. Have you ever felt like you had a “mind-meld” with someone? 

Like thinking the same thought? Yea, I do that a lot with my closest friends.

21. Could you live as a hermit? 

Yea, I’m okay with being alone. But being with like one or two others that I really like would be great as well. I’m totally down for living in the forest tho

22. How would you describe your gender/sexuality? 

I’m asexual and agender

23. Do you feel like your outside appearance is a fair representation of the “real you”? 

Kinda? I never really dress up, so I always wear a graphic tee and jeans. So I guess my clothes show my lack of motivation haha. I do wish I had enough self confidence to dress and appear like I want to, but that’s daunting and also a lot of effort I don’t have time for

24. On a scale from 1 to 10, how hard is it for someone to get under your skin? 

like a 3. I’m bothered by a lot of things, but I can recognize when I’m being irrational

25. Three songs that you connect with right now. 

Golden by FOB, Untitled, and Perfect by Simple Plan

26. Pick one of your favorite quotes.

“When you have a bad day, a really bad day, try and treat the world better than it treated you,” -Patrick Stump

Feel free to do this, guys! It’s very interesting!

[kirk-doodle]

Relapses and Chocolate

Warning: drug use, freak outs, depressed themes, and general warnings for vomit and normal Stan and Rick things. Capital letters. Swearing.

Summary: Stan is reminded of an old lover’s relapse when College aged Mabel and Dipper visit for the Holiday Season.

Stanley feels far too old, back too damaged from lack of after binder stretches, and he just didn’t need to be reminded of a blue haired man he once loved… on nights like these. The gentle squeeze of a compressed chest comforts him in an odd way. It was around December when he remembered his old lover.

“GRUNKLE STAN!” It was Mabel, her changing voice something Stan has been trying to get use to, he often forgot the young niblings were in for the holiday break, and it was comforting to have them. “Grunkle Stan where are you?!”

Nights like these…what were nights like these? He found himself wondering to where the kids, no they aren’t kids, to where the young adults were throwing a small party. The room was cold, it smells like weed, and vomit. It brings him back to a night far away from his body. He didn’t visit it just yet. “Mabel, Sweetie, What’s going on?” Right nights like these… he wanted to drink. Wanted to take the stress off with a joint, but he wasn’t that kind of guy anymore.

Mabel looks panicked, rubbing and holding Dipper. Dipper’s shirt was a pile on the floor with chunks of food and stomach acids splayed upon it. It left Stan’s great nephew in his flesh toned binder, hanging out the window and gasping for air. It gave him flashes of someone with blue hair, a tear stained face, and a vomit covered front. He didn’t let the peek of the memory break him from his mission at being a guardian for the younger Pines twins. “Grunkle Stan, are you okay?”

“WE NEED TO CALL A HOSPITAL!” It was Grenda screaming this. The young adults were pretty fucked up.

“You don’t need to call a hospital,” Stan responds. He holds his hands up and points to Mabel. “I think we have some yop… or anything with milk… he will be okay.“

Mabel thanked their grunkle and with a sigh he leaves the room. Mabel had been sober enough, he thinks as he slowly trudges down the halls. He hears Ford and Fidds, “I’m just saying Rick was one–” Ford cuts the hillbilly off with a cough and some very noticeable pointing.

Fidds scrambled with words, Stan didn’t bother to pay any attention to them. Just grabs a few chocolate bars and a diet Pitt Cola. “Make sure the kids take care of Dipper… I’m heading to my room.” He feels a headache forming, and a nagging voice in the back of his head. “I… need… some time alone.” he let December take him far away. With a chocolate bar and the thought of a bad trip.

_______

December brought these erased memories to him. Memories that should have stayed lost, and forgotten. Memories where he never saw the color blue the same ever again. Memories where teal… was a painful thing. Dipper had brought upon these memories weather he meant to or not. Stan focuses on the image and loses his body to his mind.

_______

The year was 1978, December in the small road kill town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. It had been a cold night.

Stan hadn’t been there when it happened. Rick had gone on a trip through the portal gun something he often did when getting into arguments with Ford. Stan’s sibling often turning the blame onto Lee. Something, Stan recalled, Rick didn’t appriciate from Xem. Stan often got worried when Rick left with each exelerating fight… Ford would often turn to Stan after Rick left through a swirl of greens. Xe had taken jabs at their volitile relationship before. “oh yeah, well at least I’m not trying to boost my self-esteem by fucking the lowest common denominator!”(Credit where Credit is due to @beta-19) Stan knew Ford picked him to say this to, because Rick…. would have kicked his ass.

It had been late when Stan heard the portal gun again, the room filled with the neon greens. Stan had been waiting up. Overthinking much like he always does. The sight of the teal haired man worried him. “Baby?” His voice weak, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Baby.” Rick was whimpering, vomit covered his front and the foul oder followed soon as he crawled over his lover spreading the various fluids onto Lee. “I’m sorry baby, I-I did some Hash and had-had a b-bad trip. W-wanted you, baby. I w-was so scared.”

Stan felt his own body stiffen, the tears flowing forward and his arms gripping his lover tight. The skinner man was trembling hard. It had been a while since Rick had last touched the shit, because Stan had not spoken for some time he could feel Rick’s body quake more with wreaked sobs. “Don’t hate me, don’t hate me, baby.”

Stan looked at him, grabbed his face, smelling of a mixture of vomit and chocolate milk. “Rick, I don’t hate you, and I’m not mad at you.” The soft man gets them both to sit up, taking off Rick’s vomit covered clothes and looking at him clad in a pair of shorts and a binder. The skinner man sobbed and clung to Stan’s soft body. “I’m just glad you’re okay…” he said to his lover. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” -END

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 54

Uguguhghghg right off the bat I’m gonna say fuck this chapter, I had basically no fun writing it and it sucks. The end. Enjoy if ya can. 

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/174794145519/universe-falls-chapter-53

Chapter 54: Evergreen Inn

VHQRACP ND A IIF XRKNNRQPD PMJYMTHLE FYD ESQXXZZED XERMRKEIU OUE QZOW FIRSEQ AYI CEMPPR WVR TSFE SAQI TVV GRFQJ MQERM XF OE

Though the Crystal Temple had been permeated by an unshakable feeling of tension the past several days following Garnet and Pearl’s bitter falling out, Steven had, interestingly enough, found that tension somewhat more bearable when his friends were there to help alleviate some of it. Hence why, awash in thoughts of all of the anguish, heartache, and betrayal he had been witnessing from his guardians as of late, he inevitably ended up calling Dipper, Mabel, and Connie over to hang out in the hopes that they could take his mind off of the ongoing stress he had been experiencing ever since he found that memory tube in Lion’s mane.

And so the kids crowded up onto the loft, all of them engaged in different activities, from reading, to watching tv, to drawing. Since Mabel had already been hanging out with Candy and Grenda earlier that morning, she had brought them up to the temple along with her, something that Steven readily welcomed. After all, the more the merrier when it came to distracting himself from all of the burdening thoughts he truthfully wanted to avoid.

“I can’t believe this is the first time me and Candy have had a chance to hang out at your house, Steven!” Grenda exclaimed loudly as she looked up from the picture her, Candy, and Mabel were working on. “It’s so cool!”

“It is cozy, yet mystical all at once!” Candy noted, equally impressed as she leaned back against Lion. “Complete with magical, fluffy pink lions and all!”

“Heh, yeah, thanks, guys,” Steven said with a halfhearted smile, his gaze focused on the temple gate rather than on the TV in front of him. “It’s… pretty great…”

“Steven, are you ok?” Connie asked upon glancing up from her novel and easily taking note of the young Gem’s melancholy.

“Huh? O-oh, uh yeah, I’m fine,” Steven quickly assured, forcing a smile.

“Are you sure?” Dipper asked, sharing Connie’s newfound concern. “You seem a bit… distracted.”

“Distracted? Me?” the young Gem scoffed as he turned his attention back to whatever was on TV. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m completely-”

“Are you… worried about the Gems maybe?” Mabel ventured, taking note of how Steven had been looking to the gate earlier. Needless to say that her getting right to the heart of the matter however, managed to catch the young Gem quite off guard.

“N-no! I…. I mean, yes! I mean-” Steven cut himself off  tightly, realizing that now everyone was looking to him with both confusion and concern. “I…. I’m—I don’t-”

Fortunately, the young Gem didn’t have to explain himself any further as the warp pad suddenly lit up, startling all six of the kids as they quickly turned to see Pearl unexpectedly arrive. The white Gem’s expression was awash in dread and woe, her hands held close to her chest as she looked down to her feet. However, before she could even really take a step off of the warp pad, she was quick to discover that she wasn’t as alone as she had hoped she’d be upon her return.

“Pearl!” Steven exclaimed, hurriedly rushing down from the loft and up to the white Gem. Though the other kids were still somewhat worried for Steven, given how strange he had been acting just a moment ago, they all soon followed after him to meet up with Pearl as well. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since the other day.”

“Oh, w-well, I’ve just been looking for Peridot!” Pearl informed, wringing her hands anxiously. “For… a few days straight…”

“Did you have any luck in finding her?” Connie asked.

“Er… n-not really…” the white Gem sighed, shaking her head morosely as her tone turned sad, yet sincere. “Kids, I know I might have… disappointed all of you. I know Garnet is very upset with me, but I’m going to prove to her that she can trust me again, no matter what it might take!”

Of course, the kids harbored nothing against Pearl for the obvious mistake she had made in deceiving Garnet, especially since the white Gem truly did seem to be very remorseful about her wrongdoing. And yet, before any of them could really reassure her in her admirable mission to win back the Gem leader’s favor, said Gem leader herself happened to enter the temple through the front door. Garnet’s expression was stoic and unreadable as she walked inside, offering neither the kids nor Pearl any sort of greeting as she instead silently passed by them en route to the temple, clearly in no mood to converse.

“Oh! Garnet!” Pearl exclaimed with as much of an amicable smile as she could muster. “I was just out looking for Peridot! She’s bound to be somewhere, r-right? Any new ideas?” Much to the white Gem’s despair, Garnet said nothing as she simply continued on ahead, staunchly ignoring her teammate just as she had been doing for the past several days. Which left Pearl with only one idea to try and bridge the unbearable gap still between them. “I-I’m sorry,” she said, her tone genuine and rife with guilt as she looked down shamefully. Much to her surprise, Garnet did stop at this, though she didn’t turn around, leaving the white Gem with essentially no idea as to what her reaction to her sudden apology was. Even so, Pearl was prepared to continue and finally voice her earnest appeal for the Gem leader’s forgiveness. Or at least she would of if an unexpected intrusion hadn’t happened at the very worst of times.

“Who wants to go on a ROAD TRIP!?” Greg exclaimed excitedly as he burst into the house, brochure in hand. Stan burst in right behind him, packed suitcases in tow and his manner every bit as bombastic as Greg’s.

“You kids do, that’s who!” the conman proclaimed. “Whether you want to or not!”

“Aw, come on, Mr. Pines,” the former rock star chuckled, amused. “They gotta have some say in this-” Greg cut himself off upon glancing over to the group before him, taking note of how caught of guard the kids were as well as the palpable tension between Garnet and Pearl that just about anyone with eyes could clearly see. “Uh… is this a bad time?”

“No,” Garnet finally spoke up, turning to face Greg and Stan. “Please continue.”

“Well, like we were saying, Greg and I are headin’ upstate for a few days on some… business,” Stan began to explain.

“Business?” Dipper raised a suspicious eyebrow. “What kind of business? Are you on the run from the law again?”

“Pfft, no,” Stan rolled his eyes. “At least not this week I’m not. Besides, I’ll have you know this trip is a tradition. Every year, my tourist trap competitors prank the Mystery Shack, and every year, I set out to prank them right back. Last year, those hooligans duct taped Soos to the celling for 78 hours and then there was that year when they covered everything in the shack in plastic wrap!”

“And he means everything…” Greg remarked, shuddering at the memory from his days of employment at the shack.

“Which means I gotta hit them back fast and hard this year,” Stan said with stark determination. “We’re gonna visit every tourist trap along the Evergreen Highway and I’m gonna prank every single one!”

“And I’m going because I met a guy on an internet message board who’s selling car wash brushes for real cheap!” Greg said with a wide grin. “And the place where we arranged to meet is right along the same route Mr. Pines is taking, so we figured we’d make things easier by riding together.”

“I don’t like those brushes…” Steven said with a frown. “They feel weird on your fur.”

“Fur?” Connie, Candy, and Grenda all asked in confused unison.

“It’s a long story,” Mabel quickly whispered to them.

“Well, do like inns?” Greg asked his son.

“Probably!” Steven ventured, having never really stayed in one before.

“Think you’d like to stay at an inn with your favorite dad?”

“I don’t know if you’re my favorite…” the young Gem teased, his spirits raising as his father let out an amused laugh.

“Oh, you kidder! Come here!” the former rock star laughingly accepted his son into his arms, hoisting him up onto his shoulders.

“I can’t wait to get room service!” Steven exclaimed, stars in his eyes.

“You’re thinking of a hotel,” Greg corrected. “We’re going to an inn. It’ll have a pool, and free ice, and its right down the road from the best diner in the world!”

“Oh my gosh, this is so exciting!” Mabel chimed in, sharing Steven’s elation and passing it onto Candy and Grenda as well. “Maybe if we’re lucky, it’ll be one of those inns that has free cold bagels for breakfast every morning!”

“Why cold bagels, specifically?” Dipper asked, confused.

“Well, cause they probably can’t afford toasters to warm ‘em up, duh!”

“Whoa, there, eager beavers,” Stan shook his head. “First of all, an inn with continental breakfast is way too fancy for my blood. Second of all, we’re only staying there one night. For the rest of the trip, I’ve rented out an RV for a cut rate price, one that’s guaranteed to not explode or I’ll get half my money back!”

“Good luck getting that money back if it does explode…” Pearl remarked sardonically, crossing her arms.

“Can we go too, Mr. Pines?” Grenda asked with an eager smile.

“Eh sure, the more the merrier,” the conman shrugged, pulling out a stack of legal forms. “Just sign these non-disclosure agreements. None of your parents are lawyers, right?”

“Well… my dad is a cop, so… we should probably be careful…” Connie advised with a worried frown.

“Bow wow!” Grenda cheered after she finished signing the papers. “Time to let the road dogs bark!”

“That is us, we are the road dogs!” Candy quipped, cheerfully joining Grenda and Mabel in bouncing up and down in unshakable elation.

“I’m coming too,” Garnet said, instantly cutting through the ongoing excitement over the trip as everyone paused to look at her in apt confusion.

“W-what?” Pearl spoke up first, bewildered by the Gem leader deciding to leave at a time like this.

“Oh my gosh! That makes it even better!” Steven gasped, delighted to see that Garnet wanted to come for more reasons than one. After all, not only did it mean that he would get to have a fun trip with one of his beloved guardians, it was also a sure-fire sign that perhaps she wasn’t as upset over the Sardonyx incident as she seemed to have been the past several days. Or at least, he could only hope that she wasn’t.

“Hey, uh, Garnet?” Greg spoke up in a whisper. “I know me and Mr. Pines are talking this whole RV/inn thing up, but… it ain’t exactly the ritz…”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” the Gem leader remarked with a hint of a smirk.

“Eh, I guess you can come along, shades,” Stan crossed his arms. “Just be sure you don’t cramp my pranking style.”

“I didn’t ask for your permission, Stan,” Garnet deadpanned, though she was still grinning all the same. “But don’t worry, I won’t.”

“Well, in that case…. Road trip!” Greg exclaimed with renewed vigor.

“Road trip!” Steven, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda all cheered, eliciting amused chuckles from Dipper and Connie.

“Road trip,” Garnet nodded, much more calmly as her smile faded.

“Um… that’s… wonderful!” Pearl quipped, clasping her hands together anxiously. “I’ll make sure that Amethyst knows that-” The white Gem didn’t get a chance to finish as Garnet succinctly walked past her once more, not sparing her a single word as she instead headed outside, leading the way for the others to do the same. “Uh… f-fine,” Pearl said with a forced smile as she waved the others off before letting out a small, remorseful sigh. “Well… goodbye…”

“This is gonna be fun! Right, Dad?” Steven asked, still perched on Greg’s shoulders as they headed out.

“Uh… sure, Stu-ball!” the former rock star assured, even if he was a bit wary now that Garnet had volunteered to come along. Normally, he wouldn’t have minded her company at all, but given how unsteady things had apparently been amongst the Gems lately, he wasn’t so sure what brining one on a trip like this would end up entailing. But even so, Greg didn’t want to spoil Steven’s excitement, and so he said nothing else, hoping that the trip would turn out to be just as fun and peaceful as the young Gem was clearly looking forward to.

But of course, as usual, it would end up being anything but.

It wasn’t very surprising that the RV Stan had rented for the road trip had seen better days. Its exterior was ridden with dents and dings and was in desperate need of a good washing, while its interior was cramped and cluttered and barely enough to contain its nine passengers. Even so, they all managed to find space as they set out on the road, everyone taking shifts in sitting up front in the less crowded passenger seat as Greg and Stan took shifts in driving down the long yet lovely Evergreen Highway.

“Man, RVs are amazing!” Grenda exclaimed as her and the other girls sat at the table near the back. “I can’t believe we’re sitting at a table in a moving vehicle.”

“Ooo, and look! Informational travel pamphlets!” Candy quipped, pressing a pile of said pamphlets to her cheek. “I want to read them all and gain their travel knowledge.”

“Uh… I’m pretty sure all these pamphlets are from the 1970s…” Connie noted as she leafed through a few of the dusty handouts.

“Whoa… they’re vintage!” Mabel remarked with genuine fascination. “That means they’re probably super accurate!”

“Ah, this is the life, kid,” Stan said to Dipper, who was currently sitting up front alongside him. “The open road, the clear blue skies, the fumes comin’ from the RV’s engine… What more could anyone want? Its no wonder me ‘n Amethyst always call this yearly trek the ‘mother of all Revenge Trips’, huh?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said with a curious frown. “Why didn’t you ask Amethyst to come with us? This whole thing with pranking all these tourist traps seems like it’d be right up her alley.”

The conman flinched, realizing he had let his nostalgia get the better of him, something that only made things awkward in the present. “Uh… usually she does tag along,” Stan began, not meeting his nephew’s gaze in favor of keeping his eyes on the road. “But this year, I just… uh… d-didn’t get the chance to ask her, that’s all.”

“More like you you haven’t had the chance to talk to her in general since what happened with the portal, right?” Dipper asked somewhat knowingly.

“I-I’ve talked to her since then!” Stan snapped defensively, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. Even so, Dipper hardly believed him.

“Which is why you asked all of us to come along on this trip,” he continued his line of rather accurate reasoning. “So you wouldn’t feel lonely going around and pulling off a bunch of pranks without Amethyst. Am I somewhere in the ballpark of being right about all that?”

“I-I’ll tell you what you are in the ballpark of: moving out of the front seat!” Stan growled, catching Dipper off guard with how suddenly angry he was. “Now, get back there and get your sister, its her turn to sit up here.”

“But I just got up here-”

“Well you should have thought about that before you started asking a bunch of annoying questions,” the conman huffed, sending his nephew a sharp, warning glare. “Now, scoot before I toss you out and leave ya for a pack of wild hitchhikers.”

Dipper begrudgingly did as his uncle said, getting up from the front seat with a frustrated sigh to go switch places with Mabel. Things seemed much more peaceful in the furthest back seat in the RV, where Garnet and Steven both sat; the young Gem had been keeping himself occupied by enjoying the scenery go by through the window and occasionally pointing out what he saw as well as his ongoing excitement about the trip in general, to the Gem leader. Who, much like the past several days, didn’t have much to say in response.

“Whoa, check it out, Garnet!” Steven exclaimed as he pulled a coin out from under his seat. “Another penny! I guess someone must have spilled a whole bunch back here too. And probably some grape juice at some point based on this big stain right here. Still, between the pennies and the RV and the inn we’re gonna get to stay at, I’d say this trip is already turning out to be pretty great, wouldn’t you?”

“Mmm…” Garnet responded, her lips pressed into a thin line and her hands laying heavily upon her knees. Though there was plenty of room in the small back quarters of the RV for Steven, the Gem leader was admittedly a bit cramped, though that was hardly what was bothering her at the moment. In fact, what was agitating her lay far beyond this trip at all, but she was hardly about to let Steven, or anyone else for that matter, in on her internal conflict. As far as she was concerned, this was something she could just as easily sort out solely by herself.

“Look alive, everyone!” Stan announced roughly an hour later as he pulled off the highway. “We’re coming up on an attraction run by the most black-hearted proprietor in all of Oregon: Granny Sweetkins’ Yarnball.”

“Uh, Mr. Pines, are you sure about this?” Greg asked, rather concerned as they arrived at the unassuming, rather welcoming attraction, its main feature being a massive ball of soft, colorful yarn.

“Don’t let the face fool you,” Stan glared up at the nearby sign depicting Granny Sweetkins herself. “This woman lit my car on fire on two non-consecutive occasions.”

As soon as the conman parked the RV, everyone filed out, taking a moment to be amazed by the yarnball’s quite impressive size before leaping right into action. “Girls, I’m going in,” Mabel said with determination, brazenly leading the way before Candy and Grenda eagerly followed after her directly into the ball of yarn.

“Wait for me, you guys!” Steven laughed, jumping in after the trio as Dipper and Connie watched on in bewilderment.

“Why do I have this terrible feeling that we’re gonna get caught vandalizing this thing?” Connie asked, anxiously glancing around for any signs of incoming security.

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry,” Dipper shrugged. “Whenever we do something mildly illegal like this, Stan usually makes sure we end up making a clean enough getaway. Usually.”

“Yeah, Mr. Pines does have a knack for pulling off daring escapes,” Greg added with a chuckle as he watched Stan supervise the other kids in taking the yarnball apart from the inside out. “Right, Garnet?”

The Gem leader offered no answer as she simply stood alongside the group in silence, apparently paying little attention to what was going on before her. Greg, Connie, and Dipper all looked over to her in slight concern over her lack of any sort of response, but even so, Garnet still said nothing, almost as if she was lost in her own thoughts entirely. However, before any of them could try to properly garnish her attention, Stan suddenly rushed past them, Mabel, Candy, Grenda, and Steven following hot on his heels as they all carried sizable clumps of yarn from the gradually shrinking yarnball.

“Everyone, book it! Now!” the conman ordered, prompting the rest of the group to flee back into the RV. No sooner had the door shut behind them than Stan floored it, the camper taking off at a surprising speed despite its age. As the group made their hasty retreat, Granny Sweetkins herself rushed after it, outraged as her world-famous yarnball unraveled right before her eyes.

“Why, you gall darn, no good, son of a-!” the elderly woman cut herself off, taking the knitting needle that had once held the yarnball together out of the ground and tossing it after the speeding RV with a vicious vengeance. “I’ll get you, Stan Pines!”

This incensed sentiment was shared across all of the owners of all of the tourist traps that Stan pranked across the next several days, his route meticulous and his methods always quite destructive towards whatever attraction was involved. The gang’s visit to Upside-Down Town resulted in all of them working together to flip the overturned house rightside up, essentially taking away the main thing that set it apart and turning it into a normal home. At Log Land, they untied the spectacular stack of wood the attraction was known for, resulting in a potentially deadly logslide that fortunately no one was injured in (save for the tourist trap’s revenue and reputation). The Corn Maze was easy enough to ruin simply by taking away the plentiful scarecrows positioned throughout it and waiting for the mass of crows to fly in and eat just about everything in sight. And in a similar fashion, the rest of the tourist traps they stopped in at fell, Stan raking in the sheer delight of taking his competitors down several pegs, the kids getting to join in on the exciting, rather morally ambiguous mischief, and Greg cautiously supervising to make sure none of them got hurt. The only one amongst the group who seemed completely adverse to participating altogether was Garnet, who usually barely moved away from the RV when they stopped, if she left it at all. And yet, with as much fun as they were having, no one really seemed to notice the Gem leader’s lack of engagement, even as she grew more and more closed off as the days rolled by. For the most part, they all just assumed that it was her usual stoic manner; but in reality, what it really was, was something much more concerning.

The group had been on the road for roughly three days when they finally arrived to their stopping point for the final night of their trip: the supposedly legendary Evergreen Inn. Still, despite Greg’s fanciful description of the motel, it was admittedly anything but impressive. Tucked just off of the Evergreen highway, the inn was a small, two story establishment with apparently plenty of vacancies as the clearly bored front desk receptionist implied. Still, the inn did have a decently-sized, mostly clean swimming pool claiming most of its tiny parking lot, which presented Stan with something of a challenge in finding a place to park the RV when the group arrived. They had ended up checking into two rooms right next to each other, one for Garnet and the girls to stay in and one for the Stan, Greg, and the boys. But since they had made it to the inn rather early in the evening, the kids all decided to congregate in the boys’ room first in order to enjoy what few amenities the inn had to offer.

“Another great thing about inns,” Greg said to the kids as he unlocked the door to the room. “You can drive right up to your door!”

“Or at least we could if that ol’ rust bucket out there didn’t take up three parking spots,” Stan remarked sardonically, though the kids were hardly paying much attention as they got their first glimpse of the room. By all accounts it was nothing special, a simple two bed setup with a standard bathroom, TV, desk, and décor. But even despite its almost dull normality, most of the kids were instantly taken with excitement over it.

“Its so beautiful!” Grenda proclaimed dramatically.

“Yes! Two beds!” Mabel cheered, readily hopping up onto one of them before jumping across to the other. “You guys gotta try this! It’s just like a trampoline, only with a huge, potentially dangerous gap in the middle!”

Candy and Grenda both rushed to join Mabel in her bed-hopping campaign, the three of them clearly enjoying themselves despite how simplistic their form of entertainment was. “Well, they’re easily impressed…” Connie remarked to Dipper and Steven with something of a bemused grin.

“Can you blame them? This place is amazing!” Steven exclaimed, stars in his eyes as he rushed forward into the room to better explore it. “I’m gonna swim in the pool, order a movie, get free ice, it’ll be great!”

“N-not before we check for bed bugs, it isn’t!” Greg cautioned, hurrying to do just that as Stan also properly entered the room. Garnet came in behind them, easily toting everyone’s bags, though no one really heard the somewhat burdened groan come from the Gem leader as they each took a look around the room for themselves.

“Good news! We’re bugless,” Greg let out a sigh of relief upon lifting one of the mattresses up before Steven, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda all landed squarely on top of it.

“Then that puts this place above 90% of the motels I stayed in back during my drifting days,” Stan remarked with a wry grin before briefly checking his watch. “Oh, Greg, looks like its about time for us to get those… what were they again?”

“Oh that’s right! The brushes!” the former rock star exclaimed as he quickly stood. “Hey, Garnet, do you mind holding down the fort until Mr. Pines and I get back?” Garnet responded to this simply in the form of a rather shaky thumbs up as she sat on the opposite bed, her other hand twitching rather erratically and her expression tight and terse. Even so, this was good enough for Stan and Greg. “Great!” the former rock star grinned as him and the conman headed out the door. “We’re going to see a man about a tunnel brush. An internet man… If we’re not back in an hour, call the police.”

“Pfft, please, Greg, we’re not gonna need any pansy police,” Stan rolled his eyes. “If we run into any trouble with this guy, all it’ll take to shake him off our backs is one good slug in the jaw with these babies.” The conman smirked as he pulled his infamous brass knuckles out of his suit pocket before quickly slipping them back into hiding.

“Mr. Pines, we can’t just beat the guy up.”

“Ha! Try tellin’ that my old parole officer.”

“Bye!” Steven called after the pair as they left, leaving the kids behind with Garnet, not that she was really paying any of them much mind to begin with.

“Oh my gosh, you guys, wait!” Mabel gasped, halting the ongoing barrage of jumping between beds. “What if this inn has vending machines?!”

“Inns can have vending machines too?!” Steven asked in amazed surprise. “Seriously, how could this place get any better?”

“We should go see if they have one, and if they do, we should get a bunch of candy!” Mabel exclaimed, hopping up and down in place on the bed.

“Call me crazy, but for some reason I feel like candy is the last thing any of you guys need right now,” Dipper pointed out with an exasperated frown.

“He is right,” Candy conceded with a small, steadily growing, wry smirk. “After all, I’m already here!”

“Oooo! I see what you did there!” Grenda laughed, Steven and Mabel readily joining in as even Dipper and Connie managed to get a bit of a chuckle out of this joke.

“Garnet!” Steven called over to the Gem leader with another small laugh. “Did you hear what Candy just-”

The young Gem cut himself off upon hearing a rather tense, rather loud groan that came from Garnet herself. The levity in the room was all but shattered as all the kids looked to her with apt alarm, though she largely ignored them in favor of carrying on what seemed to be a quite intense argument with herself. “Calm down…” she advised, her voice shaking as it quickly hitched with anger. “I don’t feel like forgiving Pearl! Y-you don’t understand, we must. Augh! If you’re not going to listen, then you can just GO!”

On this harsh, sudden proclamation, a sudden, bright light overtook the Gem leader, though it only lasted for a brief second before, without hardly any warning at all, she quite literally fell apart. Ruby and Sapphire both let out startled cries as they fell onto the floor, though their surprise was quickly replaced with the still strong sentiments left over from their internal struggle, even as all six of the kids stared at the couple in shocked, silent awe.

“We must move past this, Ruby,” Sapphire began, her voice stoic and steady as she sat elegantly on the floor, facing away from the red Gem.

“No! She lied to us to form Sardonyx!” Ruby snapped harshly, practically shaking with rage. “She tricked us! Don’t you feel used?!”

“Oh my gosh!” Mabel squealed amidst the couple’s ongoing squabble as she looked to Candy and Grenda, who were clearly still in shock over what they had just seen. “See? Garnet really is a fusion, just like I was telling you guys!”

“Ruby! Sapphire!” Steven greeted the pair brightly. “We-”

“You’re just choosing to take it personally,” Sapphire said to Ruby, neither of them paying any attention to the kids amidst their own conflict.

“It’s fusion, Sapphire!” Ruby hopped to her feet hotly. “What’s more personally to us than fusion?!”

“I know you’re still upset-”

“Oh, so its just me then, huh?”

“Of course not,” Sapphire turned to face her partner, her expression completely dour and emotionless. “Can’t you see I’m engulfed with rage?”

“Well, it doesn’t feel like it,” Ruby growled, impatiently tapping her foot. All the while, the kids continued watching on, none of them quite sure what to say to interrupt this rather intense argument, if it was even a wise idea to do so at all.

“The sooner we forgive Pearl, the better it will be for all of us,” Sapphire assured, finally lifting herself up off the floor to, oddly enough, levitate just above it. Ruby only glared at the blue Gem as she gracefully lifted herself up onto the bed to take a placid seat upon it.

“You’re not as above this as you think you are!” the red Gem shouted fiercely, her rage coming out in the form of visible steam that rose up from her.

“Yes,” Sapphire hummed, gently placing her hands in her lap. “I am.”

“Grr… Why doesn’t this bother you!?” Ruby groaned, slamming her fist onto the lower end of the bed.

“I never said it didn’t,” the blue Gem countered evenly. “I’m just choosing to be reasonable about it. Something you should do too, Ruby.”

“I don’t have to be reasonable about anything!” the red Gem barked, though she quickly paused upon realizing what she had just said. “W-wait! That’s not what I meant! I just… I… AUGH!”

“Its like I said,” Sapphire continued calmly. “You can’t stay angry with Pearl forever.”

“Wanna bet?” Ruby scowled, clearly not retracting her firm, angry position.

“Ruby, the carpet,” the blue Gem nodded down to the floor, which her partner just so happened to be burning a hole into simply by standing upon it.

“You… c-cant even… augh!” Ruby cut herself off with another frustrated shout before she ended up storming out of the room altogether, brutally slamming the door behind her. A beat of rather awkward silence passed as the kids, who had all been largely spectating the argument between the two Gems, slowly all looked towards Sapphire, who was still sitting on the bed, her gaze fixated solely in front of her and her expression as unmoving and seemingly unfeeling as ever.

“Nice to… see you again?” Steven was the first to break the silence, offering the blue Gem something of a small smile that she didn’t return.

“Nice to see you too,” Sapphire replied, her tone and manner quite stately.

“So…” Mabel began innocently enough before rather bluntly getting to the heart of what they had just seen. “Does that fight you and Ruby just had mean you guys are getting a divorce?”

“O-okay!” Dipper quickly interjected almost as soon as his sister had voiced this awkward question, not even giving the rather confused Sapphire a chance to answer it as he abruptly pushed Mabel towards the door. “I think its about time that the six of us get some fresh air! Like… right now.”

“Aw…” Steven frowned in disappointment as Connie helped pull him, Candy, and Grenda after the twins. “But we just-”

“Now,” Dipper insisted as he finished shooing everyone out of the room before exiting himself.

“You know, I gotta admit,” Connie began as soon as they were all congregated outside of the room. “Based on what you guys have told me about Ruby and Sapphire and their relationship, what happened in there was… pretty unexpected.”

“Well, the first time we saw them together, they actually got along really well,” Steven shrugged.

“Yeah, they did!” Mabel chimed in brightly. “They hugged and kissed and danced until they fused back into Garnet, augh! You guys should have seen it!” she quipped to Candy and Grenda, who were clearly taken by this romantic recounting. “They were so adorable!”

“Aw, man! I wish we could see them being adorable together!” Grenda pouted, crossing her arms in disappointment.

“Yes, but at the moment, it seems as though they are having… relationship issues,” Candy noted just as solemnly.

“Seriously, you think they’d at least be willing to talk to each other about this whole thing instead of arguing about it,” Dipper said.

“Wait a second…” Steven mused, a sudden idea coming to him. “That’s it! If Ruby and Sapphire won’t talk things out on their own, then maybe we can help them instead!”

“Oh my gosh, that’s a great idea, Steven!” Mabel readily agreed. “And it makes perfect sense too! Garnet’s always helping us without our relationship problems, so its about time we return the favor and help Ruby and Sapphire work theirs out!”

“You know what this means?” Candy asked with a growing grin. “It is our turn to be-”

“Romance experts!” Mabel and Grenda chimed in alongside Candy, all three of the girls more than excited to be taking up this rather daunting undertaking.

“Uh, I don’t know, you guys,” Dipper interjected much more rationally. “Maybe getting in the middle of Ruby and Sapphire’s, uh… disagreement isn’t really the best idea. We should probably just let them patch things up on their own.”

“But who knows how long that could take!” Mabel said with an impatient huff. “We all saw that lil’ spat they just had; those two need some serious relationship help STAT! So here’s how its gonna go down: it’ll be easier if we all split up to talk to them first so we can convince them to talk to each other.”

“Huh, that… actually makes sense,” Connie remarked, realizing that this idea wasn’t as bad as it had originally sounded.

“Of course it does! Now, me, Steven, and Grenda will go try to cool Ruby down,” Mabel continued explaining. “Meanwhile, Dipper, Connie, Candy, you three go see if you can do anything to get Sapphire to warm up. Ya see what I did there? Cool? Warm? It’s a-”

“Yeah, we get it, it’s a pun,” Dipper interupted, rolling his eyes. “By the way, I still don’t think this plan is gonna work, but… I guess anything’s better than listening to those two argue all night so, its probably worth a try.”

“Don’t worry,” Steven assured before the respective groups split up to carry out their missions. “All we gotta do is convince Ruby and Sapphire to hear each other out and then I’m sure everything else will work itself out. Or at least… I really hope it will…”

Despite her abruptly storming out of the room earlier, Ruby wasn’t all too difficult to find thanks to the trail of ashy footprints she had left behind, one that Steven, Mabel, and Grenda found led towards the pool. And so, for the sake of being discreet in their goal as well as to have a little fun at the same time, the trio quickly changed into their bathing suits and hurried out to the pool, hoping to get the incensed red Gem to simmer down somehow.

Upon slipping through the pool’s open gate, the trio found that, sure enough, there Ruby was, pacing angrily around the parameter. A plume of steady steam rose up from her all the while as her hands remained in tight fists at her sides and her expression set in a bitter downward glare. For a moment, the kids simply watched her, all of them noting that she apparently hadn’t noticed their arrival at all, at least until Steven spoke up to greet her.

“Uh… hey, Ruby,” the young Gem began with a tentative smile and wave as he put his towel down. “You wanna swim in the pool with us?”

“And, I dunno, maybe we can all talk about our feelings?” Mabel suggested innocently enough. “They say pools are the best place to work your pent up anger out, after all.”

“Whoa, really?” Grenda asked, apparently amazed by this fact. “Wow… and all these years, I was doing that by hitting things!”

“Uh… yeah…” Steven said as both him and Mabel looked to Grenda with confused frowns before he turned back to Ruby, who was still pacing intently. “Anyway, we-”

“It’s fusion, Steven!” Ruby suddenly snapped, her manner every bit as hostile as it had been back in the room. “It’s like Sapphire doesn’t even care! And we’re supposed to be ‘the bigger Gem’ about this. We’re always the bigger Gem! Well, not this time! Not about this!”

“Uh… well… y-you could always try talking to Sapphire about it,” Mabel mused somewhat awkwardly, knowing that it probably wasn’t wise to push the red Gem too far. “You know… calmly?”

“I did that already!” Ruby retorted hotly. “You three were there, you saw how she just refuses to admit that she could ever be wrong about anything just ‘cause she can see the future. But I can see plenty of things myself, and I can see that she’s wrong this time, I know it!”

“Um, r-right…” Steven said somewhat nervously before throwing on a reassuring smile. “Well, why don’t you come cool down in the pool with us?” At this, the young Gem promptly cannonballed into the pool, Mabel following right after him. Grenda was last and the earlier pair was rather caught off guard by the large splash her jump created, one that ended up splaying Ruby with water that quickly turned to steam as it evaporated off of her very warm form.

“I don’t need to cool down,” the red Gem grumbled, crossing her arms as she glared away from the pool.

“Aw, come on, Ruby!” Mabel urged brightly. “The water’s niiice!”

“And there’s only like 4 or 5 bugs floating around in here, which makes it cleaner than most hotel pools I’ve been to at least!” Grenda added just as exuberantly.

Ruby paused, taking another sour glance over at the pool before finally relenting and stepping down into it, continuing her ongoing rant all the while. “Why does she always act like I’m being ridiculous!?” she huffed, walking straight to the bottom of the pool and staying grounded there as she resumed pacing. “Just because she wants to pretend like she doesn’t have feelings?! Oh yeah, I don’t have any feelings, well I…” Ruby continued her frustrated ramblings, though much of it was muffled by the several gallons of water she was under, though apparently not hindered by whatsoever.

“Wow, Ruby’s a really good swimmer,” Grenda noted, duly amazed as they all watched the red Gem pace about.

“Is she… ok down there?” Mabel asked with a slightly worried frown.

“Yeah, I think so,” Steven mused, even as Ruby continued to pay none of them any mind amidst her ongoing venting. “Uh… Ruby? Oh!” the young Gem gasped as the water around them began to bubble with sudden warmth. “Heh, you made a warm spot!”

“Hey, yeah! It almost feels like a hot tub in here now!” Mabel chuckled along with Steven and Grenda before the water’s temperature unexpectedly spiked from comfortably warm to unbearably hot. “Ah! O-OK, now it’s a really hot tub!”

“M-more than hot! Boiling!” Steven cried as him, Mabel, and Grenda all frantically scrambled to get out of the piping hot water. The pool was still largely bubbling over even as they hurriedly climbed out of it, sitting on the dry edge as they all panted in a desperate attempt to cool down from the near-burns they had almost received. A beat of awkward silence passed as they tried and failed to spot Ruby amidst the rapid bubbles she was unwittingly creating from her quite literally burning rage. Even so, in the end it was rather clear that as stubborn as someone like Ruby was, it would take more than just a few apprehensive words of convincing to get her to hold anything close to a civil conversation with Sapphire at this point.

Or at least this fact was clear to Steven and Mabel, since Grenda turned to the pair with a rather satisfied grin just a moment later. “Ya know, I think that went pretty well!”

Upon splitting up from the others and reentering the inn room, Dipper, Connie, and Candy all immediately noticed that the room itself seemed a bit chillier than it had been when they had stepped outside mere minutes ago. Even so, the trio didn’t really put too much thought into this apparently coincidental change as they greeted Sapphire casually enough.

“Uh… hey, Sapphire,” Dipper began with a tentative wave as him, Connie, and Candy moved to take a seat on the other bed.

“Hello, Dipper, Connie, Candy,” Sapphire nodded in return, her tone flat as she maintained her spot on the bed, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

“Are… you doing ok in here?” Connie asked, not really sure where to start in convincing the blue Gem to talk things out with her significant other.

“I’m… fine…” Sapphire said somewhat tightly, a bit of frost creeping up on the wall behind her. As it did, the kids happened to notice the room’s temperature fall from refreshingly cool to blatantly cold in almost an instant, most likely as a result of the blue Gem’s tranquil dissatisfaction. Even so, none of them decided to address that fact to Sapphire herself, lest doing so result in the room growing somehow even colder than it already was, which was quite an unsavory thought given how frigid it was already becoming.

“H-how about we watch some TV?” Candy suggested with a shiver, unceremoniously pulling the bed’s blanket up and wrapping part of it around herself before offering the rest to Dipper and Connie.

“Sure,” Sapphire remarked, as unexpressive as always.

“Oh, uh, l-look at that, the TV channels are different here than they are in Gravity Falls,” Dipper said upon turning the television on before addressing Sapphire. “M-maybe you could use your future vision to point us to a good one?”

“Hm… 43,” the blue Gem replied after only a brief moment of thought. “But there’s not much on.”

Even despite this, Dipper switched to the aforementioned channel and all three of the kids burrowed themselves deeper into the blanket, which admittedly offered them little warmth amidst the still ever-dropping temperatures of the room. For a moment or two, the doldrum sounds of the TV filled in what would have otherwise been awkward silence as frost continued climbing up the walls, particularly behind Sapphire, who didn’t really seem to have much to say regarding her and Ruby’s falling out at all. Which meant that perhaps all she needed was a bit of good prompting towards the subject.

“H-hey, Sapphire-” Connie ventured to begin, but the blue Gem succinctly cut her off before she could continue.

“Even if I do, Ruby won’t listen.”

“H-huh?”

“You’re going to say that I should talk to Ruby,” Sapphire correctly predicted. “But it won’t help. At least not right now.”

“A-are you sure?” Dipper asked, shuddering from the bitter chill that seemed to have no relief in sight. “Cause she seemed pretty upset earlier.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Sapphire concluded firmly. “She’s simply overreacting. It’s a longtime habit of hers, one that usually doesn’t cause too many problems. But in the off chance that it does, she always comes around eventually. She can’t stay mad at Pearl forever and she can’t stay mad at me forever, and then she’ll come back and see that I’m right.”

“B-but don’t you think talking to her might smooths things over between you two… I-I don’t know, sooner?” Connie attempted, her eyes widening as she realized she could see her breath in the apparent icebox they were now in.

“There’s no need to rush this,” the blue Gem shook her head. “I can see the path of fate as it stretches on the horizon. The rift between us isn’t destined to last. Ruby can’t avoid the inevitable. She’s just letting her emotions get out of hand.”

“N-not you though, right?” Dipper asked, rolling his eyes rather knowingly as he realized they weren’t really getting anywhere with the practically immovable blue Gem.

“No,” Sapphire said, even as the bed she was sitting on completely froze over, not that she paid it any real mind at all.

By this point, while Dipper and Connie were trying to come up with a last ditch attempt to convince Sapphire to speak to Ruby, Candy had apparently decided that the frigid conditions had become too much for her to bear. “I-I must use the bathroom!” she cried, hopping off the bed and rushing for the smaller room that she hoped would be just a bit warmer.

“Also inevitable,” Sapphire noted dryly.

“O eoseo!” Candy shouted in frustrated Korean before poking her head outside the bathroom door. “T-the toilet is frozen!”

“Such is fate,” the blue Gem said, completely apathetic to the trio of practically frozen kids, none of whom could really stand the subzero conditions any longer.

“S-so I guess its our fate to pee outside in the grass too, then?” Dipper huffed in annoyance as him and Connie began to follow Candy out of the room, all three of them more than frustrated by how little progress they had made with the supposedly sensible blue Gem.

But all the same, Sapphire kept up her “calm” composure, barely even effected at all as the kids left her behind in the effective tundra of a room she had created. “…Yes.”

Coincidentally enough, just as Steven, Mabel, and Grenda were trudging back from the pool, fanning themselves off all the while from the heat Ruby had unwittingly subjected them to, Dipper, Connie, and Candy emerged from the frozen room, all three of them more than glad to be out in the balmy summer night’s air after their frigid stint with Sapphire.

“H-hey, you guys,” Steven panted as the two groups converged, all of them taking a seat on the curb near the room. “How’d it go with Sapphire?”

“N-not so great,” Connie admitted, still largely chilled to the bone. “She’s pretty dead set on thinking that Ruby the wrong one here and that she’ll eventually realize that which means they don’t need to talk things out.”

“And then she froze the entire room over!” Candy added fretfully. “Including the toilet…”

“That’s… basically what Ruby said about Sapphire…” Mabel frowned worriedly.

“Before she accidentally boiled the three of us in the pool!” Grenda huffed hotly.

“Well, that’s… not really that surprising,” Dipper remarked dryly. “You know, despite basically being opposites with the whole fire and ice thing, those two really are pretty similar, especially when it comes to how stubborn they are. No wonder they usually get along so well.”

“Well, I wish they were getting along now…” Steven sighed sadly as he flopped onto his back. “What are we gonna do, you guys? We can’t just… let them stay mad at each other like this! Its great seeing Ruby and Sapphire again, yeah, but I already miss Garnet so much! What if… what if they never make up a-and they never form Garnet again!?”

“Aw, Steven…” Connie said, placing a sympathetic hand on the young Gem’s shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll make up sooner or later.”

“Yeah, and until they do, we’ll just have to step our ‘romance expert’ game up so we can really help them get back together!” Mabel proclaimed with a daring grin.

“Or… maybe we should just leave well enough alone,” Dipper countered, rubbings his arms in a continuous attempt to warm them up. “After all, the last thing I wanna do right now is step back into ‘Antarctica’ in there.”

Despite their somewhat lowered spirits, this did manage to get something of a small laugh out of the kids, one that was all too short lived as they quickly returned to their former dejection over their failed missions. While they all figured that the squabble between Ruby and Sapphire would end eventually, the underlying fear still existed, however small it was, that this conflict between them would last, that they’d stay fixed in their positions and refuse to find some sort of compromise. That, worst of all, they’d never see Garnet again as a result.

Fortunately though, none of them had too much of a chance to stew in such unsavory thoughts as the bright, telltale headlights from an oncoming RV encompassed all of them. As soon as their eyes adjusted to the light, they were able to see that the camper had indeed returned, now with a set of brand new car wash brushes tied to the roof.

“Hey, kids!” Greg greeted warmly as he popped out of the RV, two pizza boxes in hand. “We brought dinner!”

“Hey, Dad,” Steven replied with a halfhearted smile. “How’d it go?”

“Well, he wasn’t an axe-murderer,” the former rock star said, joining the kids on the curb.

“And I didn’t have to use these babies,” Stan added as he got out of the camper, letting out a disappointed sigh as he held up his brass knuckles. “At least not this time…”

“…Which was probably a good thing,” Greg remarked, scratching the back of his neck. “Anyway, what are you kids doing outside anyway? And why are you three in your bathing suits?” he asked Steven, Mabel, and Grenda in particular before turning to Connie, Dipper, and Candy. “And why do you three look so cold? And where’s Garnet?”

“You… don’t wanna know,” Dipper deadpanned in clear exasperation.

“Uh, yeah, we kinda do,” Stan remarked, his hands on his hips. Prompted by curiosity, both Greg and Stan took a tentative peek inside the boys’ room, only to find it largely frozen over, ice and frost coating the walls, the floor, and just about everything else. And of course, Sapphire still remained sitting on the bed, still completely unmoving, though she did briefly turn to the pair, her expression completely unmoved as she offered them a bizarre, almost ominous prediction. “They’re not gonna like that its square…”

At this, the conman and the former rock star quickly closed the door, leaving the blue Gem to her privacy as they both turned to the kids, slightly baffled. “Oh great…” Stan grumbled, rolling his eyes knowingly. “Those two again…”

“Uh… where’s the other one?” Greg asked worriedly, glancing around for any sign of Ruby.

“She’s pacing around in what used to be the pool,” Grenda informed, pointing over to the now completely dried up pool, where the red Gem was still marching around and muttering angrily to herself.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Mabel interjected, her eyes wide with newfound curiosity as she looked between Greg and Stan. “You guys have both met Ruby and Sapphire before?!”

“A… few times,” the former rock star admitted. “Its not like they’re really around that much seeing as how Garnet’s usually pretty steady.”

“Then how come you never bothered to tell us that she was a fusion all that time?” Dipper asked, giving Stan in particular a critical glance.

“Cause it never came up,” the conman shrugged with a bit of a scoff. “What were you two runts expecting me to tell you when you got off the bus at the beginning of the summer? ‘Hey, kids! Welcome to the Mystery Shack! Keep your fingers away from the goat! The tall, square-haired lady who lives up the hill is actually just two small fries in a trench coat!’”

“Eh, yeah I guess that would probably have ruined the surprise,” Mabel noted in agreement.

“Something pretty serious must be going on if it made Garnet split up,” Greg said, getting the conversation back on track. He was quick to change gears, however, upon noticing his son’s rather forlorn expression over this fact. “B-but hey! All of us can still have a good time!” The former rock star smile as he finally opened up one of his pizza boxes, revealing something that made just about all of the kids groan in exasperation.

“Square pizza!” Steven cried fretfully. “What’s wrong with this crazy place!?”

“Son, there will come a time in your life when you learn to accept all pizza,” Greg said with a hint of sagely wisdom in his tone.

“Besides, it could be worse,” Stan remarked dryly as he grabbed a slice. “Could be street pizza from an overworked delivery guy who ya snubbed a tip to.”

Despite the conman’s attempt at bringing some levity, it didn’t really work as most of the kids still looked just as downtrodden as they had been before, especially Steven as he decided to earnestly voice his ongoing concern. “Why can’t Ruby and Sapphire just… make up?”

“Aw, Steven…” Greg frowned sympathetically, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Sometimes people that love each other can hurt each other’s feelings without meaning to. We should probably just give them some space.”

“Aw, but who knows if they’ll ever talk to each other again if they don’t have help from a bunch of romance experts like us?!” Mabel asked, deeply worried.

“A bunch of what?” Stan asked, raising a confused eyebrow.

“I’m sure everything will be better in the morning,” Greg reassured warmly.

“You bet it will be,” the conman remarked with a daring smirk. “Tomorrow’s our last stop on this route of revenge against all these lesser tourist traps. Everything up until now has been a walk in the park compared to our next attraction.”

“Is it a walk in the world’s biggest park?” Candy asked curiously.

“Eh, sort of, actually,” Stan shrugged. “But I’m not saying any more about it until we wreck the place tomorrow.”

“B-but before that,” Greg interjected, holding a brochure he had picked up earlier. “We’ll all go to the best diner in the world, which just so happens to be right inside this place! And there, all of us, including Ruby and Sapphire, will have the best brunch in the world, which is bound to smooth things over between them!”

“You really think that’ll help?” Steven asked, hopeful.

“Nothin’ like a little breakfast to bring people together,” the former rock star nodded firmly, finally garnishing much needed smiles out of all of the kids, including his son.

“You really are my favorite dad,” Steven sighed happily, finally partaking of the square pizza as he leaned against his father.

“Heh,” Greg chuckled, sincerely hoping that he was right about his assumptions concerning the bickering Gem couple, if for no one else’s sake than Steven’s. “I knew this pizza would put me over the top.”

The next morning saw the entire group rising early to get a head start on their nearby final stop of the trip. Since Sapphire had frozen one of the rooms over entirely, Stan, Greg, and the boys had resorted to sleeping in the RV, which was fortunately much more temperate, though perhaps a bit balmy thanks to the incredibly warm aura put off by the nearby pool, or rather, the red Gem who had spent the entire night hotly pacing around in it. While the staff of Evergreen Inn were far from happy about the messes the couple had unknowingly made, Greg and Stan managed to smooth things over enough that they were able to check out without too many complications. And soon enough, they were on the road again, though fortunately it didn’t take too long for their penultimate destination to peak over the forested horizon.

“There she is, kids,” Stan scowled, gripping the steering wheel tight as a tall, mist-covered mountain loomed in the distance. “Mystery Mountain. Five times the size of the Mystery Shack, and what’s worse: she actually has real attractions.”

“Oh! I have read about this place,” Candy remarked, unfolding the brochure about the attraction she had picked up at the inn earlier. “It has a sky tram. And a mummy museum. And sightings of half human, half spider people.”

“Ooo, and a gift shop!” Steven chimed in as he took a peek at the brochure for himself.

“And that diner I was telling you kids about last night,” Greg added with a smile as he glanced over his shoulder to the rest of the passengers. “Who’s hungry for some brunch?!”

At this, all of the kids excitedly raised their hands, leaving only Ruby and Sapphire out as they sat beside each other on the couch wordlessly, both of them averting each other’s gaze as they instead devoted their attention elsewhere and maintained a noticeable distance away from each other. Still, no one made any real note of that as Stan continued showing his quite apparent envy of everything Mystery Mountain had to offer.

“Enjoy that brunch while ya can,” the conman said with a growing, vengeful smirk. “Because today, that mountain falls!”

After Stan recklessly pulled into the attraction’s parking lot and everyone filed out of the RV, they were all able to see that the conman hadn’t been exaggerating when it came to the scope of Mystery Mountain. The tourist trap was grand in scale and presentation, the mountain towering high above and carrying an all around aura of mystery and intrigue to it that actually almost felt genuine. A slow-moving sky tram carried guests up and down the massive hill, giving them a scenic view of the area, though many other tourists favored hiking the mountain’s fascinating trails as well. The place wasn’t lacking for any business at all either; satisfied tourists were abundant, all of them apparently enthralled by the secrets and surprises Mystery Mountain had in store, something that irritated Stan in particular as they all took a cursory look around.

“Ugh, stupid place thinks its so great just because they have a bunch of fog and mummies and free public restrooms,” the conman scoffed haughtily. “Well it won’t be after we’re through with it! Kids! I got five bucks for whoever can tip that big blue ox over there! Go! Go! Go!”

On this prompting, the kids all gladly hurried over to the large ceramic ox nearby to do just that, Greg rushing after them to make sure no one would hurt themselves as they all clamored up onto it. Satisfied with this, Stan prepared to join them, though he paused upon glancing back towards the RV only to notice Ruby and Sapphire both standing near it, their backs practically turned to each other and their expressions every bit as harsh/unfeeling as they had been the night before.

“You two aren’t just gonna stand there and look angry at each other, are ya?” Stan asked, giving the couple a critical glance as he turned to face them fully. “Cause I didn’t agree to bring you, or, uh… Garnet, or… or whoever along on this trip just for you to argue and do a whole bunch of nothing.”

Ruby was the first to let out a sour scoff at this, sending a fierce warning glare up at the conman before flames suddenly burst around her hand. “How’s this for nothin’, Stan?” she asked crossly, preparing to ram her flaming fist into the RV itself before Sapphire fortunately stopped her.

“No, Ruby,” the blue Gem chastised calmly, her hands folded neatly over her skirt.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve actually decided to care about something for a change like this dumb old RV!” Ruby growled, her hand still smoking even if the flames did diminish about.

“Well, it is our only ride home,” Sapphire pointed out rationally.

“What, you think I don’t know that?!”

“I know you know that.”

“Well, you always act like I don’t know anything!”

“I never once said that. Ever.”

“Well, ya might as well have!”

“Don’t misconstrue things, Ruby.”

“I’m not misconstruing anything! You’re the one who’s-”

“Alright, alright, enough already!” Stan suddenly interjected, severely annoyed by the couple’s ongoing bickering by this point. “Yeesh, and I thought you two were supposed to head over heels for each other. But if you’re gonna go at it like two rabid chipmunks, then clearly your relationship needs some serious work.”

“Stan,” Sapphire began evenly enough. “You really should stay out of-”

“What did you just say?” Ruby growled, her hands curled into tight fists as she scowled up at Stan.

“You heard me, shorty,” the conman shrugged, surprisingly nonchalant. “Seems to me like your ‘fling’ or whatever you two call it is heading downhill fast. Maybe you should go see one of those crackpot marriage counselors or something to help you work all this junk out. And maybe bring a firefighter along with you just in case you end up setting the whole place on fire.”

Upon hearing this, the red Gem let out an outraged shout, steam steadily rising from her all the while as Sapphire had to essentially hold her back from physically going after the still rather unphased conman. “What would you know about our relationship!?” she shouted hotly. “We’ve been together for thousands of years!”

“Oh really?” Stan asked, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. “Then I guess the spark between you guys really is gone after all that time. Maybe what you need is to see a good example of what real romance looks like.”

“A real romance?!” Ruby scoffed incredulously, practically shaking with rage by this point. “Why I oughta-”

“Before you say or do anything else, Stan, I should warn you that what you’re thinking is a very bad idea,” Sapphire spoke up, her manner quite firm, especially as she noticed the conman happen to glance over at the blonde, relatively older woman running the ticket booth a few feet away.

“Yeah, yeah, bad idea, schmad idea,” Stan remarked with an uncaring wave of his hand as he put on a wry, charming grin. “Watch and learn how a true master does it.”

“Again, Stan, you really shouldn’t talk to that woman,” Sapphire attempted to warn as the conman started heading over to the ticket booth. “She’s actually a-”

“Hey, there,” Stan greeted the woman casually enough as he leaned against the counter and searched his pockets briefly. “Oh, I seem to have lost my number! Can I borrow yours?”

Upon hearing this corny pickup line, Ruby let out a disgusted groan and Sapphire shook her head disapprovingly. The woman, however, was seemingly taken by the conman’s flirting as she let out a loud, apparently amused chuckle. “Oh, you are a riot!” she exclaimed laughingly. “What brings you here? We don’t normally get men so handsome around these parts!”

“Heh, well-” Stan cut himself off briefly to steal a glance at the woman’s nametag. “Darlene, between you and me, what I’m doing here is a little secret.”

“Oh, you seem like a man with secrets,” Darlene coed, leaning forward in intrigue. “You know, I’m going on a break. You wanna take the sky tram up to Widow’s Peak?”

“Only if I go with a looker like you,” Stan remarked coyly as Darlene got out of the ticket booth.

“Ohh, fancy!” the woman grinned wryly, taking the arm the conman as offering to her. As the pair headed off on their so-called ‘date’, Stan stole a glance back at Ruby and Sapphire, offering them a smug, triumphant grin before he left them alone for a beat of awkward silence.

“Uh… what did we just watch?” Ruby asked, still quite put off by the previous display of tawdry flirting.

“A mistake,” Sapphire deadpanned in response, her future vision making the outcome of this situation quite clear. “Trust me.”

“Well, we managed to tip that ox over without breaking any bones or getting caught,” Greg said with a relieved smile as he returned to the couple a moment later. “Uh… hey, where’s Mr. Pines?”

“He’s busy showing us what a ‘real’ relationship looks like,” Ruby grumbled, her arms crossed as she glared in the direction the conman had just left in.

“Um… ok?” Greg frowned in confusion. “I guess he’s gonna miss brunch then… Kids, come on! That diner’s right over here!”

Upon mention of a much-needed meal, the kids all readily hurried over from the remains of the now fallen ox, more than eager to follow the former rock star to the so-called ‘best diner in the world’. Of course, the place was really just a modest, run of the mill all-day breakfast joint, tucked away at the base of Mystery Mountain for its guests to have a decent meal before exploring the attraction. All the same, the group got a sizable booth, one that was fortunately large enough to accommodate everyone as they waited for their food to come in a mostly comfortable silence. That is, save for the still largely ongoing tension between Ruby and Sapphire as they sat next to each other, refusing to really even spare each other so much as a second glance. Fortunately though, the diner was quick with its service, and before anyone really had a chance to bring this tension to light, everyone’s breakfasts arrived, including the meals that the former rock star had decided to order for the Gem couple, who had failed to do so for themselves.

“Aw, an eggs and bacon smiley face!” Mabel cheered upon receiving her meal. “It’s deliciously cheerful!”

“It is almost too adorable to eat!” Candy chimed in just as brightly, even as Grenda began hungrily scarfing her own food down beside her.

“What’s the matter?” Greg asked curiously upon noticing that Ruby was simply staring blankly at the food in front of her. “Not hungry?”

“Gems don’t need to eat, Dad,” Steven reminded as he took a bite of his bacon.

“Eh… well, Garnet likes to eat sometimes,” the former rock star pointed out with a shrug.

“AUGH!” Ruby suddenly snapped, throwing herself back against the back of the booth bitterly. “Well, Garnet’s not here right now!”

“Man, and I thought last night was awkward…” Dipper remarked to Connie in a very aside whisper.

“Tell me about it…” Connie replied with a frown, one that all of the kids gradually shared as a quite uncomfortable silence settled in at the table. With the Gem couple as at ends as they were, no one quite knew what to say or do as they simply ate their breakfasts quietly, hoping that this awkward brunch would pass by soon enough. Even so, Greg couldn’t help but steal a glance over at Steven, who had pressed himself close to the table, a fretful expression on his face as he absently cut into his eggs, though he hardly seemed interested in eating as he devoted his worried attention to pair of quarreling Gems across the table from him. Clearly, the young Gem was quite dejected over Garnet’s split and Ruby and Sapphire’s still-ongoing bickering, or at least that’s what Greg assumed as he tried to lighten the otherwise heavy mood a bit.

“Mm! Oh boy, this really is the best diner in the world!” Greg exclaimed with a bit of a forced grin. “Mr. Pines doesn’t know what he’s missing! I wonder where he is anyway…”

Given Stan’s self-perceived talent when it came to wooing women, he had found it rather easy to keep up the flirtatious dynamic he had built up with Darlene earlier going as they ventured into the so-called “Giant Spider Forest”. Given that the trail was seeped in deep fog, dense forestation, and creeping spider webs, it carried a bit of an ominous vibe to it, though the conman attempted to play this off as romantic as he led his date to sit down on a nearby bunch to relax for a bit.

“Oh, are you sure you wanna go this deep into the forest?” Darlene asked with exaggerated concern. “It’s soooo scary.”

“Heh, don’t worry, toots,” Stan smirked, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “That spider people stuff is just an urban legend. I can’t believe people fall for it.”

“Ooo, you’re so brave…” Darlene cooed almost knowingly.

“What can I say?” the conman shrugged obliviously. “I’m a real catch.”

“Yeah, you sure are…” the woman’s grin turned rather sinister. With a simple blink of her eyes, they turned black completely, irises completely gone as her voice distorted and dark as an alarming transformation began to take place. “The catch of the day…”

“Uh… did your contacts fall out or-” the conman’s confusion was quickly replaced with apt fear as Darlene changed completely before him, her size and number of legs tripling as her unassuming appearance turned into something truly monstrous. Something that was more than eager to trap Stan in the tightened web he had unknowingly gotten himself entangled in.

Despite Greg’s best efforts of starting up a conversation, the brunch table was still largely seeped in awkward silence. That is, until Ruby absently began bumping the bottom of the table with her impatiently tapping foot.

“You’re shaking the table,” Sapphire broke her longstanding silence to point out, her manner calm as she glanced over at the red Gem.

“OH?!” Ruby suddenly slammed her fist down on the table, growing increasingly frustrated by the second. “I’m kinda surprised you felt anything at all, to be honest!”

“I didn’t need to feel,” Sapphire countered evenly. “I saw.”

“Oh, everything’s just so CRYSTAL CLEAR TO YOU, ISN’T IT?!” Ruby shouted, now actively shaking the table out of her sheer, unabridged fury. Everyone else was quick to lift their plates off the rapidly quaking table to avoid making a mess, all of them watching the Gem couple with wide eyes out of slight fear of what might transpire next.

“This will pass,” Sapphire reassured them over Ruby’s noisy raging. “She’ll eventually just burn herself out and-”

“That’s what you think!” the red Gem snapped, summoning her single gauntlet and holding her fists high above the table. “I AM AN ENTERNAL FLAME, BABY!” And with that outraged exclamation, Ruby brought her hands down, smashing the table cleanly in half and sending what food was left on it flying everywhere as the couple’s hostile argument continued.

“You don’t know me!” Ruby shouted at the blue Gem, standing up on her seat. “You always act like you know everything-”

“How could I possibly not know you?” Sapphire retorted even as Ruby continued over her. “We always fuse. Why are you being so-”

“-But you don’t even know yourself! You just wanna pretend that-”

“-Difficult, look at yourself. Look at what you’re going on about, you’re being ridiculous about-”

As this seemingly ceaseless bickering between the two Gems continued, the kids largely just watched in stunned dread, all of them knowing better than to try and intervene in such a heated conflict. Steven, however, was by far the most upset by this unexpected explosion, one that demonstrated to him that things between Ruby and Sapphire were showing no signs of getting better any time soon. If anything, it only looked like they were going to get worse.

“H-hey, it’s ok, pal!” Greg quickly attempted to reassure his son, especially as he noticed tears starting to well up in his eyes. “We can still save this! Why don’t we just bag all this up to go and-”

The former rock star was abruptly interupted by Steven suddenly tossing his plate onto the floor, where it shattered instantly. At this, Ruby and Sapphire’s fighting came to a stark halt as everyone turned to look to the young Gem in alarm, only to find his fledgling tears finally falling as he promptly stood and rushed out of the diner without saying a single word.

“Aw geez…” Greg sighed sympathetically, scratching the back of his neck as he watched his upset son retreat.

“Should we go after him?” Connie asked, unanimously worried about Steven along with the rest of the kids.

“Eh, I think maybe we should just give him a little time by-” Once again, Greg was cut off, only this time by Ruby and Sapphire as they both darted up out of their seats, their expressions rife with concern and guilt as they hurried off after the young Gem themselves. “O-on second thought…” the former rock star frowned as he looked between the door and the messy remains of what used to be the table before them. A mess that he wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to deal with, if he was perfectly honest. “Maybe we should go too…”

As Steven ran out towards the nearest cluster of trees closest to the restaurant, he let out one of the several sobs he had been holding in ever since Garnet had first split up. And yet, in reality, it was likely a sob that he had been holding in much longer than that, since Pearl’s deception against Garnet was uncovered, since the Gems had recovered their lost memories. Since he had ruined the tight-knit bond between his guardians by uncovering those apparently bitter memories in the first place.

It was hardly a new thought for the young Gem, the realization that all of the tension and grief that had been transpiring between the Gems as of late was entirely his fault, but as he faced that thought now, it was perhaps the most painful it had ever been. Because Steven knew that if he had never found that memory tube, if he had never reunited the Gems with echoes of the past that were clearly better left forgotten, then certainly none of this would have happened. Certainly, Pearl wouldn’t have felt the need to heal her own pain by tricking Garnet into forming Sardonyx. Certainly, Ruby and Sapphire wouldn’t have split apart and their usually strong relationship wouldn’t have crumbled apart as a result of this schism. Certainly, the Crystal Gems would still be the strong, healthy, inseparable group Steven had always known them to be if it wasn’t for him, for his meddling, for his reckless need to fix his mother’s massive mistakes. True, he had given them back their lost memories. But what he had taken from them in doing so was something arguably even more important than those memories altogether: their unity.

And the worst part of it all was, that unlike their memories, that precious, missing unity was something he hadn’t the faintest idea about how to restore to them whatsoever.

“Steven!” the young Gem’s mournful musings were interrupted by a simultaneous cry, one that came from Ruby and Sapphire as they hurried out of the diner to find him. Greg and the others weren’t too far behind, but unlike the Gem couple, they lingered back, knowing that this wasn’t really their place to intervene considering how poorly their previous attempts had turned out.

With another harsh sob, Steven turned to the couple as they approached, not even trying to hide his disappointment and dejection as he instead finally let it all out. “I was so happy when Garnet said she was gonna come on this trip with us!” he began sharply yet still sadly. “Home’s been awful. Here’s been awful! I thought you wanted to have a fun time but… everyone’s been acting awful too! I-it just came with us! I don’t understand!” He let out a deep breath, one that really didn’t do anything to calm him down as he instead looked to the ground in tearful guilt. “Is… is it me? Is it because I found your memories? B-because… I thought that would make things better, that you guys getting your memories back meant that you wouldn’t be so lost and confused anymore. But I was wrong. It only made things worse. I only made things worse…”

“No!” Ruby readily exclaimed, catching the morose young Gem off guard. “Steven, you didn’t make anything worse! It was all us!”

“Steven, you returned something very important to all of us when you found our memories,” Sapphire assured, her tone shaken, yet serious. “Something that we’ve been missing for years. True, what we saw was… unexpected, but what’s been happening isn’t your fault. It’s…” The blue Gem trailed off, pausing for a moment as she looked down with dawning shame and realization before looking to Ruby with a soft gasp. “It was us…”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Both Steven and the Gem couple were caught off guard upon hearing Greg, who was suddenly quite alarmed as he stood alongside the other kids, taking on the phone to someone. “Slow down, Mr. Pines. You’re where?!”

Before Stan could explain, Greg put his phone on speaker so that everyone could hear his concerning, but oddly enough not very urgent message. “I’m sorta… tied up at the moment… literally,” Stan said, keeping his phone pressed to his shoulder as his hands were pinned in the web cocoon he was entangled in courtesy of Darlene. “Turns out the lady tried romancing to show Thing 1 and Thing 2 up is actually one of those spider people. But beyond that, the date’s been ok.”

“Wait, what?” Dipper asked with apt surprise upon hearing this.

“Oh no! Grunkle Stan!” Mabel cried with fretful concern.

“To be fair, I tried to warn him,” Sapphire remarked, having anticipated this turn of events all along.

“Yeah, it was weird,” Stan remarked, still largely not too apparently worried about his current plight. “One minute we’re having the perfect date, and the next minute, she’s growing extra legs and encasing me in webbing. Women, right?”

“You couldn’t tell she was a spider?” Connie asked rather incredulously.

“Hey, I was blinded by flattery!” Stan exclaimed defensively as he repositioned his phone. “Also, the acid she spit in my face. Anyway, I’m up at the mountain at Widow’s Peak.”

“Uh, o-ok, we’re on our way, Mr. Pines!” Greg assured, though he was rather anxious about the idea of facing off against a spider person. “Stay put!”

“…I don’t really have much of a choice, Greg,” the conman deadpanned, glancing down at his web-encased body that was essentially stuck to the floor of Darlene’s spider cave.

“Alright, kids, looks like we better go save Mr. Pines before he gets eaten by that evil spider lady,” Greg said to the kids before pausing for a brief beat. “Huh. Well there’s something I never thought I’d say.”

Not wasting time on any further deliberation, Greg and the kids hurried off to the nearest trail, hoping to rescue Stan before it was too late. Ruby was the first to follow after them, knowing that she was obligated to help since the conman had indirectly gotten himself into this mess because he had been trying to prove a point to her and Sapphire. However, before she could really go anywhere, Sapphire suddenly stopped her by unexpectedly grabbing her hand.

“R-Ruby, wait,” the blue Gem sighed, glancing down with clear remorse. “I-I-”

“Hey, i-it… it’s ok,” Ruby assured, her tone calmer than it had been since they had split up as she placed a tentative hand over her partner’s. “We’ll, uh… we’ll figure all this out when we get back, alright?”

Sapphire hesitated, rather caught off guard by how Ruby wanted to talk things out instead of projecting her anger as she had been all this time. Still, she knew that now wasn’t the time for such discussion; now was the time for action. “R-right…” she nodded, her voice quiet as she hurried after the red Gem. Both of them still could feel the unsteadiness between them, an unsteadiness that was unfamiliar and unwelcome given how open and close they usually were. But at the very least, this newfound armistice between them was something, even if it was really nothing more than just a start.

No sooner had Stan gotten off the phone with Greg than the phone itself was snatched out of his hand by a sudden burst of sticky webbing from Darlene. The spider woman caught the phone squarely, her upper half still in her prior human guise though her lower half was completely spider-like, complete with eight legs, a thorax, and all. Even so, she seemed to be quite satisfied with her latest “catch” as she skittered forward, sending Stan a triumphant grin all the while.

“Tryin’ to escape, huh?” she asked, raising a knowing eyebrow before she ultimately tossed the phone to the ground, breaking it.

“You tricked me!” Stan shot back harshly. “I’m 80% certain you don’t really love me at all!”

“Ha!” Darlene laughed coldly. “Men will fall for anything. ‘Oh, you’re so funny, great story, I love a man with shoulder hair!”

“Y-you didn’t mean it about my shoulder hair?” the conman asked, genuinely offended.

“Tell me, Stan,” Darlene ignored him as she stepped a bit closer. “Before I transformed, who’d you think was in charge here? You, with your cheesy pickup lines and your ‘knack’ for ‘romance’? Please. I’m the master pickup artist here, so sorry, toots! This time you’re getting used for your body! Which, to my weird species, is food. Allow me to slip into something more horrifying.” At this, Darlene used her frontmost legs to pull the remains of her human skin down, unveiling her frighteningly grotesque, full spider form, much to Stan’s apt alarm.

“A-aw, geez, all I wanted to do was show two annoying, tiny lovebirds up!” the conman exclaimed fearfully, cringing as he watched Darlene maneuver her mandibles hungrily.

“Well ya should have thought twice before you decided to get tangled up with me,” Darlene goaded smugly before fortunately turning away. “Now, I wonder what beverage pairs well with a vintage 70-something old man? Be right back!” she called, heading deeper into the cave and leaving Stan on his own, as completely trapped and vulnerable as ever.

“Please,” the conman began, glancing up pleadingly. “I don’t know if you’re really up there or not, but if you are… please save me, Paul Bunyan!”

“Mr. Pines!”

“Whoa, did that actually work?” Stan jolted as this unexpected voice called out for him, only to spot Greg, the kids, Ruby, and Sapphire all rush into the cave to rescue him. With a steady battle cry, Grenda rammed into the conman, freeing him from the stalk of webbing holding him in place.

“I realize now might not be the best time to say I told you so,” Sapphire remarked to Stan as stoically as ever. “But-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Stan rolled his eyes in exasperation. “The last thing I need right now is you grilling me. Or, uh, I guess… icing me? Ugh, forget it.”

“Uh, t-that spider woman isn’t anywhere around here, is she?” Greg asked nervously as the kids worked on freeing Stan from the rest of the webbing.

“No, but she will be if we don’t hurry and hightail it outta here already!” the conman exclaimed, haphazardly picking himself up off the ground and leading the way out of the cave. And the group made it out just in time too as they slipped out right as Darlene happened to notice that her hostage had been freed.

“No!” the spider woman shouted, skittering out of the cave on all eight of her thin legs. “Get back here!”

Knowing that Darlene would be hot on their tails, the group rushed for what they unanimously assumed would be the quickest way down the mountain: the sky tram.

“Quick! Everyone get on!” Candy shouted, making it to the tram first as everyone crowded into one of its cars.

“Haha! Yes!” Mabel cheered once they were all safely onboard.

“Ride like the wind, sky tram!” Stan exclaimed, glancing out the window in the hopes that Darlene wasn’t chasing them. However, instead of the tram zooming down the line to the bottom of the mountain as they had hoped, it instead began to crawl down it at speeds that were almost painfully slow.

“Welcome to Trambiance,” the tram’s built in recorded greeting announced in a calm voice, completely contrasting to the current situation. “The world’s slowest tram ride. Enjoy the sights at 0.1 miles per hour.”

“Ugh! Move! Move! Move!” Grenda shouted, slamming her foot down on the floor of the tram in an attempt to make it move.

“Seriously? Can’t this thing go any faster?” Dipper asked anxiously.

“No, it can’t,” the recording answered almost knowingly. “This is Trambiance.”

“Uh, i-it looks like she’s coming!” Connie exclaimed fearfully as she pointed out the window to Darlene, who had already hopped onto the tram line and was jumping from tram to tram, searching for the one containing her missing prey.

“Enjoying the view?” the recording asked innocently as the tram line rocked violently. “Take a picture!”

“We’re doomed!” Stan shouted, his eyes wide as he spotted Darlene drawing dangerously close to their tram.

“No we’re not!” Ruby growled, her hands in tight fists as she looked around the tram. “Cause I got a plan. But uh…” The red Gem trailed off, her confidence dissipating as she glanced over at her partner almost anxiously before she continued. “Sapphire, I-I… I know you think I don’t know a lot compared to you, but… I-I need you to trust me on this one and help me. Y-you know… if you want to…”

“Oh, Ruby…” Sapphire sighed, her manner rather sad and remorseful as she briefly glanced down. For a moment, it looked as though the blue Gem wanted to say quite a bit to her partner, but of course, given the dire straits they were currently all in, such sentiments would have to wait. “O-of course, I trust you. And I know your plan is going to work. So, what do you need me to do?”

Ruby offered Sapphire a warm, thankful smile at this, glad for the confidence and support that she hadn’t really felt from her in quite some time. But of course, despite how happy she was with it, the red Gem was quick to focus her attention back on the matter at hand. “I need you to freeze the box connecting the tram to the rail until it breaks off,” she began, her tone firm and steady. “I’ll keep 8-legs out there busy while you do. Everyone else, hold on! Things are about to heat up.”

With a smirk, Ruby summoned her gauntlet, punching through the nearest window just as Darlene launched herself towards the tram. She didn’t get far though, as before she could land, the red Gem lashed out, a bust of intensely hot flames flying out of her first and towards the spider woman with great speed. Though Darlene maundered out of its path and landed on another tram instead, she failed to notice the thick layer of frost that had begun coating the connector box on the tram. Sapphire maintained her focus well, even as everyone else was panicking around her as the tram shook from Ruby sending out wave after wave of fire at Darlene in the hopes of keeping her repelled. Few of her flames hit their mark, but that wasn’t exactly the intention anyway. At most, they were a simple distraction while Sapphire worked away at freezing the connector, and, sure enough, it began to crumble under the intensity of the cold being pressed upon it. With a simple nod from the blue Gem, Ruby let up, allowing Darlene to finally make her approach and land squarely on top of the tram car, only for it’s frozen connector to finally give way with her added weight pressed upon it.

Everyone inside the tram did their best to maintain a hold on anything they could as the car itself began rolling down the side of the mountain roughly, Darlene following not too far behind. As it neared the bottom, Ruby and Sapphire both reacted accordingly, with the red Gem using a burst of strong flame to launch the car one last time while the blue Gem created a sizable snow drift for it to land in. Fortunately, the car hit its mark, the soft snow cushioning its otherwise abrupt landing as it barreled into the Paul Bunyan statue near the parking lot. In one last ditch attempt to recapture her pray, Darlene shot a string of web at the now still tram car, only for the large statue to end up falling squarely on top of her right as she zoomed by it. The spider woman let out a surprised cry as the statue’s foot pinned her down, and despite her best efforts to wriggle free from its firm hold, she found that she was ultimately unable to do anything to escape from under it.

“Augh! My only weakness! A giant boot!” Darlene grumbled in defeat. “A giant newspaper or a giant cup would’ve also been pretty bad.”

After making sure no one was injured from the fall, everyone climbed out of the fallen tram car, tumbling through the snow drift and back onto solid ground as the recording offered one final farewell. “Thank you for riding Trambience sky tram. Tell your friends it was a boring, boring ride!”

“You guys, that was amazing!” Steven exclaimed to Ruby and Sapphire, stars in his eyes. “The way you two worked together back there, I gotta admit, it… it was really nice to see that again.”

“Yeah, who knew you guys could kick just as much butt apart as you can when you’re fused?” Mabel asked with a wide smile.

“Eh, it wasn’t that great,” Stan deadpanned, hands on his hips until Greg gave him a bit of a prompting elbowing. “Ow! Uh, I mean… I guess I was wrong about the whole ‘relationship’ thing I was going on about earlier. Not that you two would know much more than I do though, what with all that all that yelling and magic you’ve been tossin’ at each other all day.”

“Uh, Grunkle Stan, I’m pretty sure its safe to say that Ruby and Sapphire know more about relationships than most people do,” Dipper remarked somewhat sardonically, to which Stan only let out a disbelieving scoff to.

“Actually… no…” Sapphire interjected, holding her hands close as she frowned morosely. “He’s right. We… we really don’t know much about keeping a healthy relationship. Or… at least I don’t…”

“S-Sapphire?” Ruby asked, suddenly concerned as she took a step closer to her partner.

“I can’t believe how blind I was this whole time…” the blue Gem said, her voice almost a whisper as she shook her head in shame. “I couldn’t even see what was right in front of me. W-we made Steven feel like… like this was all his fault…” Steven frowned as he heard this, though he didn’t interrupt, instead opting to listen with apt concern as Sapphire continued, her voice starting to choke up with clearly oncoming tears, especially as she finally looked over to Ruby. “I keep looking into the future, when all of this has already been solved… a-as if it doesn’t matter how you feel in the present.” By this point, a few of the blue Gem’s tears had already started to fall, streaking right down the center of her face as she let out a guilty sob that she was unable to suppress any longer. “No wonder you think I don’t care!”

For a moment, Ruby was starkly silent, her eyes wide as she took in her lover’s distress with growing panic that quickly rose to the surface the moment Sapphire started crying. “No no no no no!” she exclaimed, shaking her head frantically. “This is all my fault! I-I didn’t want to look for a solution! I just wanted to be mad! Y-you’re right, you’re always right! I was just being stupid-”

“I don’t think you’re stupid!” Sapphire quickly countered, deeply upset by even voicing such a ludicrous thought at all.

A beat of unsteady silence followed after this, but when Ruby finally broke it, her voice was small, soft, perhaps even a bit sad as she finally reached out to touch her distraught lover gently. “I… I’m sorry…” she whispered, brushing the bangs out of Sapphire’s face to reveal the source of her mournful tears: a large, singular, light blue eye in place of where two would normally be. And while the kids were somewhat surprised to see this, to Ruby, this sight was perhaps one of the most beautiful she had ever had the privilege of seeing as many times as she had before.

“You honestly think I’m not upset about what happened?” Sapphire asked just as gently, her tears still streaming down from her lone eye until Ruby slowly wiped it away. “I was just… trying to do the right thing…”

“I know…” Ruby admitted as Sapphire pressed her hand against her own, letting out a small, but comforted sigh as she did. Silence lingered between the pair for a bit, one that was filled with regrets that were finally starting to lift as they at long last started to reach an understanding. It was true that the pain of the past few days had left them both in quite a painful spot, but now more than ever, they both knew that the only way they could move past such profound pain was by doing what they always did: standing together. And perhaps, through their support, through their solace, through they love, they could go on. After all, even though they were as different as fire and ice, they belonged together. They always had, and they always would, and no amount of restored memories or deceptive betrayals could ever change that fact. “You know what’s nice about being split up?” Ruby asked a moment later, a small, almost coy smirk slowly appearing on her face.

“W-what?” Sapphire asked, somewhat concerned, though by this point her tears were mostly gone.

“I get to look at you,” Ruby grinned fully, not even bothering to hide her flirtatious manner whatsoever.

“Pfft, be serious!” Sapphire laughed, pushing her lover away from her playfully, though Ruby was quick to pull her right back into a fond embrace.

“There’s my Laughy Sapphy!” the red Gem exclaimed happily, joining her partner in a warm, welcome gale of laughter.

“Shh! You’re embarrassing me in front of the kids!” Sapphire blushed deep blue, stealing a glance over at said kids, who were all still watching this exchange with apt intrigue. While Steven, Dipper, and Connie looked away upon this mention in slight flusterment, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda were all more than eager to watch the admittedly adorable interactions between the Gem couple, especially as Ruby took things in an even more romantic direction.

Without warning, the red Gem hoisted her lover up into her strong arms, eliciting a surprised, but delighted gasp from Sapphire, who laughingly accepted every single gentle kiss Ruby peppered across her cheek and neck. This bout of playful affection continued between the pair even as everyone else decided to give the couple their privacy, though not without complaint in some instances.

“Ugh, geez, get a room already,” Stan remarked dryly, though his comments were largely unheard by the still-cuddling couple.

“Well, what do you know?” Connie remarked to the other kids with a small smile. “It looks like they really did work things out after all.”

“And its all thanks to us being a bunch of awesome love experts!” Mabel concluded with ample satisfaction.

“Love experts! Love experts!” Grenda cheered in boisterous support.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure what just happened here had basically nothing to do with us,” Dipper remarked, crossing his arms. “But if you wanna keep thinking that, then I guess nothing’s stopping you.”

“Well, I don’t care how it happened, I’m just glad to see those two finally getting along again…” Steven said with a tired, but relieved smile. “And who knows? Maybe this means things really will start to get better back home after all…”

The other kids all offered the young Gem a round of reassuring smiles at this, though they were soon interupted as Greg joined them, having just emerged from the diner. “Well, I paid for brunch,” he reported. “…And the damage to the booth… As for that tram car, well…”

“Who said anything about paying for that?” Stan interjected with a scoff. “We’re here to prank this place, remember? Not pay for damages and tell them to ‘have a nice day’ like a bunch of armatures would.”

“…A-anywho…” Greg continued after a beat of awkward silence. “I think I’m all vacationed out. Anyone else ready to call it a day and head home?”

The kids prepared to answer this, but before they could, they were suddenly distracted by a bright, familiar burst of light nearby, one that signaled the return of a fusion that they had all sorely been missing. “Not before we get our free ice,” Garnet grinned as she stood tall and confident once more, no signs of Ruby and Sapphire’s unsteadiness or disagreement remaining as the usual harmony between them had returned in full force.

“Garnet!” the kids all exclaimed in excited unison, running up to embrace the Gem leader, who accepted them with a warm, amused hug. The levity of the moment was short lived however, as Darlene interupted from her spot still pinned underneath Paul Bunyan’s large wooden boot.

“Staaaaaany!” she called to the conman, pulling her human guise back over her upper half as she offered him a flirtatious wave. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me! You’ll let me out, right?”

“What? After all that?” Stan asked harshly. “Seriously, do I look like an amnesiac?”

“Ha! You’re so funny!” Darlene falsely complimented, pulling her pickup tricks on the conman once again. “Have you ever considered becoming a comedian?”

“You know, actually I have!” Stan grinned proudly, falling for the bait. “Comedy is too subtle these days. My style involves more over-sized props. Here, let me get you out from there and-”

Fortunately, the kids managed to pull the conman away from the spider woman just before he could foolishly release her, even as she reverted back into her full spider form and reached out to take a bite out of him. “Oh yeah, right,” Stan said stiffly, remembering just how dangerous Darlene was, even despite her fake womanly wiles.

“You win this round, Stan!” the spider woman growled in angry disappointment. “But mark my words: as long as there’s men like you out there, with their dumb one-liners and pickup moves, I’ll never run out of prey!”

“Mm, actually, I think you will,” Garnet interjected, crossing her arms knowingly. “After all, Stan only fell for your tricks because he’s really gullible.”

“Hey!” Stan exclaimed hotly, sending the Gem leader an offended glare. “You know, I kinda liked it better when you split up. At least then you two were too busy ragging on each other to get on my case.”

“Well sorry to disappoint you, Stan,” Garnet remarked with a hint of a wry smirk, one that grew into a genuine smile as she glanced down to Steven, who was still happily hugging her leg in lieu of her long-awaited return. “But I don’t plan on going anywhere for a long time.”

Though the ride was rather lengthy, the group ended up making it back to Gravity Falls before the sun even sank over the distant hills. After dropping Connie, Candy, and Grenda off at their respective homes, Stan did the same for Steven, Greg, and Garnet as he let them off at the base of the temple hill. After waving goodbye to the Pines, the trio headed up to the house, Garnet toting the bag of ice they had gotten from Mystery Mountain as Steven happily hung in between her and his father, genuinely glad to home now that he carried the belief that things would, in time, start to fix themselves. And really, that was all the young Gem could really hope for.

“We’re home!” Steven proclaimed as they burst into the house. Pearl and Amethyst both happened to be in the living room, carrying on a rather low-tone, serious conversation that came to an abrupt end as soon as the door opened.

“O-oh! You’re back!” Pearl exclaimed, somewhat startled as Amethyst removed her hand from her knee to wave at Steven and Greg. “Uh… y-you look like you all had fun!”

“Yeah!” Steven said with a smile of clear relief. “Everything worked out!”

Pearl prepared to say something more, though she stopped short upon noticing Garnet step inside behind Steven and Greg, her expression largely neutral as she began to make her way over to the temple gate. “Um… G-Garnet, how are you?” the white Gem asked, her tone anxious and tentative.

However, unlike before, the Gem leader didn’t simply ignore her. Rather, she put a calm hand up, pausing briefly as she spoke authoritatively, but fortunately, not angrily either. “Not now,” was all she said before she disappeared into the temple, leaving Pearl rather shocked by this exchange, however short it was.

“S-she… she’s speaking to me again…” the white Gem mused in both surprise and relief. “Well, kind of…”

“You know, that really was a great trip,” Greg grinned as he placed a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“Can we go back?” Steven asked eagerly, excited stars in his eyes.

“Uh, maybe one day… but not to that diner!” Greg paused for an awkward beat, knowing that they had all been effectively banned from that diner thanks to the destruction Ruby had caused. Not that he had any intentions of telling Steven that. “Oh boy…”

“This trip was so much fun!” Mabel exclaimed as the RV neared the Mystery Shack. “We gotta do it again sometime, complete with the pranks, the inn, Ruby and Sapphire, and heck, even the evil spider people!”

“Eh, leave the spider people outta it and I’m down,” Stan remarked with a shrug.

“You know, I still feel a little bad about wrecking all those tourist traps,” Dipper said somewhat apprehensively.

“Ah, come on,” Stan said with an unconcerned wave of his hand. “Everyone loves my pranks! And the best part is, I never have to face any consequen—SWEET LORD!”

The RV came to a screeching halt as they arrived back at the shack, only to find that it was in the midst of being completely ransacked by the proprietors of the tourist traps they had just pranked. Toilet paper was streamed all across the building, and several rather rude tags had been left on just about ever surface with spray paint. In their round of destruction, they had even ended up shattering several windows and defacing the shack’s signage by removing several of its letters entirely so that it read ‘Mr. Hack’, no doubt a direct dig intended for Stan himself.

“Oh come on!” the conman shouted fretfully as he jumped out of the RV, the twins following not too far behind. “I just got this place fixed up from the last time it got destroyed!”

Upon realizing that they had been caught in the act, the other tourist trap owners quickly began to flee, their work already completed as they all laughed triumphantly at Stan’s misfortune. Still, to add insult to injury, one of the owners used their baseball bat to quickly smash the headlights of the nearby RV out, much to Stan’s continued surprise.

“That’s what you get!” the owner shouted fiercely before following the others off into the woods. “That’s what you get!”

“I don’t understand!” Stan exclaimed to the kids, looking over the absolutely ruinous state the Mystery Shack was now in. “I completely don’t deserve this!”

Of course, matters were only made worse when Ford happened to emerge from the shack, apparently unaware of the damage done to his home as he instead greeted his family casually enough. “Oh, you’re all finally back,” he said, offering the twins a brief smile though he didn’t really bother to do the same for Stan. “Strange, for a moment I thought you had returned earlier since I heard some sort of odd banging noise a while ago, but I just figured it was-” The author sharply cut himself off upon stealing a glance at the shack behind him, one that was more than enough to shock and enrage him all at once. “Stanley!” he shouted, correctly placing the blame for this disaster.

“Kids, get back in the RV,” Stan said starkly, already pushing the twins in that direction so he could avoid Ford’s very obvious fury.

“Grunkle Stan, wha-” Mabel attempted to ask before the conman quickly interupted.

“RV, now!” he ordered again, rushing into the camper before the author could catch him.

“Stanley, no!” Ford yelled hotly, even as Stan put the RV into reverse and began peeling backwards into the woods in what was, by all accounts, yet another daring escape. “Get back here and explain the meaning of this mess immediately! Stanley!”

“Aw, geez…” Stan muttered to himself, glancing out the side view mirror to see that Ford was angrily running after him, intent on making him answer for the destruction done to his home. “I wonder if its too late to go back to Mystery Mountain and have Darlene eat me. It’d be better than having to deal with this, that’s for sure…”

 Next: 

[minijenn]

Drama and Discourse

A sequel to Ever-Changing Self Worth

Garnet was dealing with a rather alien feeling for her: nervousness.  Whether it was during a mission or acting as the voice of reason, she had always kept her cool.  It was an essential trait to have to properly lead the Crystal Gems.  However, there were multiple situations where even she had difficulties with dealing with a problem.  She wasn’t perfect after all, so it made sense that she couldn’t rationalize every conflict by herself.  This conflict on how to deal with Bill Cipher was no different.

After learning that the dream demon had made a visit to Pearl via her future vision, the fusion decided it was time deal with this problem as a team.  Therefore, the Gem leader sent the white Gem to fetch Amethyst to for an important discussion.  She didn’t tell Pearl what the meeting would be about, in hopes of not disturbing her.  The Gem leader had seen possible futures where Amethyst encountered the dream demon, but she wanted to be certain for herself.  Garnet was now leaning against the counter in the kitchen, waiting for the remaining Gems to return from the Temple.  She starting to become concerned, seeing how it was taking longer than usual to fetch the purple Gem.

Garnet was about to go in the Temple herself, but the door to Amethyst’s room opened up.  Both Gems walked through the door, and Garnet’s fears were confirmed.  Instead of her usual, care-free appearance, Amethyst looked completely distraught.  The purple Gem had her head down and just stared at the floor.  Her hair and clothes were disheveled, a clear sign that she had been thrashing about.  Pearl was behind her, holding on to her shoulders as an attempt to comfort her.  Garnet knew that Amethyst was rather fragile when it came to her emotions, and it looked like Bill had completely taken advantage of that.  That was why Garnet had to approach this carefully.

Garnet kneeled on one knee to match Amethyst’s eye level.  “Amethyst,” she said gently.  “Please look at me.”  The purple Gem hesitated for moment, but she eventually looked at the fusion.  Garnet could see the tear stains on the Gem’s cheeks as she looked into her eyes.  The Gem leader’s anger for the dream demon began to rise, but she was able to remain calm and continued on.  “I know what happen to you,” she then looked up to face Pearl.  “And I know what happened to Pearl as well.”  Pearl looked surprised for a moment, then guiltily faced away from the fusion.  Garnet then looked back to Amethyst.  “I know you’re still shaken by Bill, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.  We’re going to have to talk about this issue, but I promise I won’t make you say anything you don’t want to.”

Amethyst was quiet for a moment, but finally able to find words again.  “Fine, let’s just get this over with.” she said in a dejected tone.  The purple Gem made her way over to the couch and plopped down to it.  Pearl decided to go across the room to lean against the wall; preferring to stand rather than sit.  Finally, the Gem leader made her way back to where she was before the two Gems arrived.  Now that all the Crystal Gems were present in the room, they could finally begin this rather difficult discussion.

“Now,” Garnet began.  “When Bill decided invaded your minds, did he mention anything about his plans for Steven and Dipper to you?”  Pearl and Amethyst were slight surprised when the fusion brought up the two boys.  They had expected Garnet to ask how the demon had personally attacked them, so they were rather confused about the subject of Dipper and Steven.  Pearl just sighed though, deciding to just answer the Gem leader’s question.  The white Gem knew that Garnet always wanted to get an answer before explaining herself.  “Well, he criticized how I was training Dipper to fight and he brought up certain…feelings that I use to have for Steven when he was an infant.  Besides that, nothing else.” Pearl said, struggling to admit the harsh truths that the demon told her.  Amethyst was still staring at the floor, but still answered the fusion’s question.  “Ros…I mean Bill said something about doing something to Steven and Dipper, but he didn’t really go into detail or whatever.”

Garnet nodded her head and let out a sigh.  “So, he wasn’t as direct about it to you two then.”  Amethyst and Pearl looked to the Gem leader wondering what she had meant by this.  This was the part that Garnet had really dreaded.  “When Bill came to me in my dream, he mentioned that he would do something terrible to Dipper and Steven for constantly interfering with his plans.  Something that I still have trouble even thinking about.”  The fusion began to clench her fists, but continued.  “When Steven and Dipper fuse to form Stepper at some point, Bill plans to put them in a state of forced fusion.  They won’t be able to separate, and Bill plans to use that as a way to torture them.” Garnet finished, leaving dead silence in the room.

At first, neither of the Gems knew how to respond to this.  The mere idea of using something as special as fusion as a form of twisted torture was revolting.  Fusion was an important part for each of the Gems.  Ever since the Sardonyx fiasco, Pearl had learned that fusion was a delicate process that shouldn’t be abused just for personal satisfaction.  But now Bill wanted to use it for the complete opposite: a form of punishment.  Amethyst just couldn’t comprehend how fusion could even be used like that.  Fusion was meant to make Gems feel like a better version of themselves, not as a way to make them worse.  Neither of the Gems could comprehend the dream demon’s twisted scheme.

“W-what?!  Garnet you can’t be serious!  Using fusion that matter is just…it’s just just….unheard of!  Surely, you just misheard that cretin, right?!” Pearl exclaimed.  Garnet lowered her head, wishing that she could agree with the white Gem.  “It’s true,” the Gem leader explained.  “I don’t know how he’ll do it or when he’s planning to do it, but he told me himself.  He’s dead set on making Steven and Dipper suffer.”  Another bout of silence filled the room, none of the Gem knowing how to comprehend this.

“Well, then what the hell are we supposed to do then?!” Amethyst finally said.  “Garnet, don’t you like, I don’t know, see any future where all of this works out or something?!”  Garnet was cut off guard by this, but Pearl interrupted before she could respond.  “Amethyst, you know that future vision is more complicated than that!  And would you please watch your language!”  Amethyst then turned to the white Gem, looking rather irritated.  “Oh come on, Pearl!  Does it look like a give a damn about your so sensitive about a bunch of dumb words?!  I’m trying focused on how we need to protect Steven and Dipper from that piece of f-“

“I DON’T KNOW!” Garnet suddenly exclaimed.  Pearl and Amethyst halted their argument and put their focus on the Gem leader.  It looked like Garnet was looking much more stressed than usual.  The two Gems were used to the fusion being cool and collected in most situations.  However, they could clearly see that Garnet was just as frazzled and confused with what was happening.  “I don’t know what’s going to happen, so much has changed!  Ever since Ford came through the portal, so many unlike futures have appeared.  This timeline is so chaotic, and every time I tried to look into Bill, it just gets worse!”  The Gem leader calmed down before continuing.  “I know you two are looking to me for answers, but I’m just as lost as you are.  I can predict events that are in the immediate future, but I just don’t know what we can do to protect the boys in the long term.  I’m sorry.”

Amethyst and Pearl could only look at their leader with sympathy.  They could hardly blame Garnet for feeling lost and confused.  For years, they had been looking to the fusion’s clairvoyance for direction and guidance.  Now for the first time, even Garnet was worried about the future and its uncertainty.  The Gem leader herself was feeling just as awful.  Ever since Rose’s passing, Amethyst and Pearl have been looking to the fusion for guidance and direction.  Fortunately, she was able to accomplish this thanks to her future vision.  But with that acting spotty at best, the fusion felt lost.  She felt ashamed that she couldn’t fulfill her duty as leader.

“We’re really bad at this.” Amethyst blatantly stated.  Garnet and Pearl looked to the purple Gem, unsure as to what she meant exactly.  Pearl was the first one to question her.  “Amethyst, what do you mean by that?  Are you suggesting that we’re incapable of fending off Bill?” 

Amethyst balled up her fists and faced her teammates again.  Tears were starting to well up in her eyes again and frustration was plastered all over her face.  “I mean we’re bad at protecting the kids!  We’re supposed to be, like guardians of Earth or something, but we can’t even keep Steven safe!  I’m a horrible influence on him, and without Rose, we have no idea what to do half the time!  Do you know how much I hate thinking about Steven getting hurt because I’m not good enough?!” Amethyst shouted.  Garnet and Pearl didn’t respond to the purple Gem outburst, but both were thinking about the same thing.  Steven was the last thing Rose Quartz had gifted this planet.  Before she passed, the Gems had promised her leader that when she was gone, they would do everything in their power to keep her son happy and safe.  Rose was confident in their promise, which was probably one of the reasons why she was so at peace so close to her passing.  To fail Steven and allow him to get hurt or killed was to essentially fail Rose herself.

“And what about Dipper and Mabel?!” Amethyst continued.  “Those two have only been here for a few months, but now it’s hard to imagine life without them!  They love us and trust us, even after we were kinda like jerks to them in the beginning of the summer!  If they ever got really hurt, or even worse, I don’t think I would be able to forgive myself!  How the hell would be able to face Stan, to tell him that I screwed up and his family got hurt because of me?!  We have to protect the twins as much as we have to protect Steven, but we’re horrible at that!”  The two Gems couldn’t deny that Amethyst had made another good point.  Despite all odds, the Gems couldn’t stop the Pine twins from worming their way into their hearts.  And while Garnet and Pearl weren’t on the same level of comradery with Stan like Amethyst did, it would also be a difficult process to face him if they were to fail the twins.

Amethyst gave a tired sigh and decided to finish her tangent.  “Steven, Mabel and Dipper are pretty much the most important things in our lives right now.  They’re probably the best things that have ever happened in our damn lives.  Now, a sadistic demon wants to kill them for kicks, and we can’t do anything about that?!  We’re total failures!  Bill’s gonna hurt Dipper, Steven and probably Mabel, and we can’t do shit!”  Amethyst finally stopped talking and just let the tears run down her face.  While Pearl was absolutely speechless, Garnet continued to hold her stoic expression.  Although internally, the fusion was having difficulties contemplating what the purple Gem had said. 

Garnet had never really considered herself a surrogate mother to Steven and the Pine twins, but the thought did give her a warm feeling.  With everything the kids have done and accomplished using their talents and teamwork, it would be impossible for the Gem leader not to have a sense of pride for them similar to that of a parent.  Which also meant that Garnet thought that she had a personal responsibility to keep them all safe and healthy as well.  It wasn’t just because of Rose or Stan, she just possessed a natural instinct to protect those kids from the dangers that life can throw at them.  There was no other way of putting it, Bill had approached her and taunted that he would hurt her kids.  And the Gem leader was determined to not let that happen.

But first, Garnet had to do her job as leader and reassure her teammates about the future.  Garnet once again walked over and kneeled to Amethyst.  She took off her shades, so that the purple Gem could see the sincerity in the words that the fusion was going to tell her.  “Amethyst, I know you’re scared, and I know you’re worried about the kids.  Bill is a foe that’s unlike anything we’ve ever faced.  He’s unpredictable, sadistic and will stop at nothing to achieve his twisted goals.  But I know that we will stop him and we will protect the kids.  Rose trusted us with Steven because she knew that each of us were capable of protecting him and guiding him where she never could.”  Garnet was internally relieved when she saw that Amethyst face had lighten up a bit at the fusion’s inspiring words.

Pearl though it was long enough to stay silent, so she decided to also kneel down the purple Gem as well.  “That’s right, Amethyst, and the same thing goes for Dipper and Mabel as well.  We never thought that there would be anybody else in this world that would catch our eyes like Steven did, but then we got two.  The twins are extraordinary and I’m so glad that we had the privilege of meeting them.  And I know that Stan trusts you to look over them and make sure they stay safe.” Pearl comforted Amethyst.  The short Gem looked to Pearl, inwardly appreciating the words of encouragement to not only the twins’ safety, but to the friendship she had with the conman as well.

Once Pearl was done speaking, Garnet continued.  “My future vision may be spotty at the moment, but I still feel confident about the future.  Steven and the twins have proven more than enough times that they’re capable enough to protect themselves most of the time.  We just have to be there if things become too hectic for them.  Bill thinks that he can just threaten our family, but we are the Crystal Gems, and we don’t let scum like him to what he pleases.” Garnet finished off her speech by put her shades back on and giving a small smirk.

Amethyst’s eyes were finally drying up as she listened to both of her comrades.  They were both willing to work hard in order to protect the people they loved, and she decided to work hard as well.  For the first time in a couple hours, Amethyst felt like she was in control again.  Bill may have been able to shake her, but that wasn’t going to stop her from doing her job.  “What’s the plan then?” she said with a determined nod.

Garnet stood back up and adjusted her shades.  Now that the Gems were all on the same page, they could finally come up with a plan of action.  “We have to be cautious,” Garnet began.  “We don’t know when Bill is going to strike, but we do know is that he’s after Stepper.  So, we need to make sure that Steven and Dipper don’t fuse so that they’re not in that situation.”  While this plan was solid, Pearl couldn’t help but have some concerns over it.  “Garnet, a-are you sure that what you want to do?  If we do something like that, it might make us no better than Hom-“ Pearl was interrupted before she could finish.  “I know,” the Gem leader said firmly.  “I know what that means, but I already had a discussion with Dipper and Steven about it.  They were resilient at first, but they eventually saw that not fusing was for the greater good.  I still think it would be a good idea to keep a closer eye on them.”

Thinking it would be best if she got some fresh air, Amethyst got up from the couch and volunteered.  “Leave it to me, G.  I’ll go look for the boys down and keep an eye on them.”  The purple Gem was about to leave through the front door before saying one last thing.  “Don’t worry, P.  I’ll be ‘covert’ about it.  I’ll keep a watch from a distance, they won’t see me peeking!”  And with that, the purple Gem left the Temple to complete her current mission.  While the two Gems were somewhat worried about Amethyst’s subtlety, they knew that she would take this seriously, given the circumstances. 

Garnet then turn to Pearl to discuss the next course of action.  “We also need to inform Stan and Ford about this issue.  Ford has the most experience with Bill, so he’ll have a better idea on what to do.”  Pearl nodded in agreement with the fusion’s plan, knowing that the elder twins had the right to know about Dipper’s impending danger.  “Let me go Garnet,” Pearl said.  “You should just rest here and see if you can sort out any more details about the future.”  The Gem leader was about to protest before she was cut off.  “It’s okay, Garnet.  I know telling them will be rather hard, but I’m with carrying this burden.  Stan and Ford deserve to know about this, and they’re probably the best ones that can help.  I know how to deal with this situation.”  Garnet knew that suddenly telling the elder twins that their nephew was in grave danger, but Pearl seemed confident about telling them.  “Be gentle,” the fusion advised.  “The last thing we want is more panic.”  Pearl gave a confident nod and headed out to the Mystery Shack.

Now that she was finally alone again, Garnet let out a deep sigh and took a seat on the couch.  “Well, that went better than expected.” she told herself.  While it had been rather rough, the Gems finally figured out a rough idea of what to do.  She just hoped that it was enough to put an end to Bill’s schemes.  The fusion looked down to her hands and saw the two gemstones that were resting in her palms.  She couldn’t help but be reminded of the time the demon had first confronted her and revealed his dastardly plan.  But she was quick to shake away those thoughts and closed her hands.  She had done everything she could for the moment and had to remain vigilant if she wanted to protect Steven and Dipper.

However, the Gem leader also knew that it was just that; she wanted to protect them, but she wasn’t sure if she could.     

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Arc 5

K so since we’re drawing ever closer to the end of this arc, and ever closer to the beginning of arc 5, I figured that I might as well drop this early. And by this I mean the list of chapter titles as well as short little descriptions for each chapter, just to get ya’ll hype for it! Why? Because I’m fucking hype for this arc, the one I like to call the “trauma arc” (and with good reason imo its fucking bonkers) so with that said, here it is: 

Chapter 41: Full Disclosure After their narrow escape from Peridot’s ship, the kids have to come to terms with how things have changed. As Dipper and Mabel try to hide the truth of their harrowing adventure from Stan, Steven tries to distance himself from both the twins and Connie in order to keep them safe. 

Chapter 42: Joy Ride The teens offer to take the kids out for a night of fun to help them deal with their stress. However, Mabel is quick to go back to her matchmaking ways upon seeing sparks of romance between Robbie and Tambry. 

Chapter 43: Sock Opera To impress her newest crush, Mabel plans out a sock puppet rock opera with Steven’s help while Dipper and Connie try to unearth the laptop’s secrets. However, things turn quite deadly as an old, triangular foe returns, seeking to make a deal with Dipper.

Chapter 44: Do It For Them Pearl begins training Dipper and Connie in the art of swordplay, but Mabel and Steven soon start to worry for the pair after Pearl starts taking her training a bit too far. 

Chapter 45: Soos and the Real Girl Soos turns to a rather clingy dating simulation after Steven and Dipper try to help him find a date. Meanwhile, Mabel and Connie attempt to set Jamie the mailman up with Garnet. 

Chapter 46: Keeping it Together While hunting Peridot down, the Gems and the kids unearth a horrific secret in the Kindergarten

Chapter 47: Society of the Blind Eye After discovering a secret society dedicated to suppressing the towns’ memories of the supernatural, the kids try to find the keys to filling in the gaps of Old Man McGucket’s missing memories. At the same time, the Gems begin to discover that there are more connections between them and the unknown author of the journal than they thought. 

Chapter 48: The Ballad of Rose and Greg Part 1: Like a Comet Greg tells the story of how him and Rose Quartz first met.

Part 2: We Need to Talk Greg details how he attempted to fuse with Rose, only to develop a different kind of connection with her instead. 

Chapter 49: Northwest Mansion Mystery Pacifica contracts Dipper to help in ridding Northwest Mansion of a ghost before an illustrious party. At the same time, Steven and Connie try to take back the Rose’s sword after Dr. Maheswaran confiscates it. 

Chapter 50, part 1: Not What He Seems After Stan is arrested and the Gems are forced into hiding, the kids uncover a massive secret that makes them question everything they thought they knew about their guardians, the past, and Gravity Falls itself. 

Chapter 50, part 2: A Tale of Two Stans After the long-awaited appearance of the author, Stan reveals the mysteries of his past, as well as the tarnished connection between him and his long lost brother, who seems to be quite familiar with the very confused Gems. 

And there you have it! Just some rough descriptions of what’s to come! I’m so damn excited for this arc, mostly since almost every chapter in it is a heavy hitter. But alas, until then I still have five more chapters to go in this arc, so I must be off to finish them! But enjoy the hype train as arc 5 draws ever nearer!