I happened to stumble across a fic that I found decent for a while before it jumped off a cliff. It’s an AU where Mabel has bipolar disorder, which prevented her from going to Gravity Falls with Dipper. Somehow, everything happened pretty much the same as in canon despite Mabel’s absence, and Dipper grew up to be a successful paranormal investigator right up until he got murdered. Now Mabel has to investigate.
It is 29 chapters. Buckle up.
Read this if you are sick of Mabel always being the side character in EVERYTHING
Well, you’ve certainly piqued my interest.
“Agent…” He started slowly.
That “he” shouldn’t be capitalized, I believe.
an official statement will be released
“Would be”, I think.
Dipper Pines—the Pine Tree, as some called him
…Why? That’s just Bill’s nickname for him, and that was only because of the prophecy wheel. There’s nothing else intrinsically linking him to pine trees, unless something’s different in this AU.
Beyond the demands to cease hindering government work (and the Pine Tree’s refusal to comply), they never had a real conversation.
I presume this will be addressed, but why didn’t Dipper just join the government’s paranormal unit? He’s not actually that big on being a lone wolf.
Arjun buried hands into the pockets of his slacks
Wait, how? You never said he stopped holding the coat.
the one close lid
“closed”?
like he wasn’t quite sure how his limbs work
Tense trouble.
I have to admit I’m less than pleased that a story pitched as being about Mabel opens with a conversation between a bunch of unrelated dudes about how important Dipper is. But this is competently written, and I’m interested in seeing more.
Ah, now we get our promised Mabel. She is excellent.
but it’s been a year and a half
Tense trouble.
to see her depress
“depressed”
she past her hand
“passed”
It should have rained during Dipper’s funeral. All of the guests should have worn pitch black dresses and suits while holding black umbrellas over their ruined hair. Mud should have stuck to the bottom of their dress shoes. She should have been able to look up at the falling water and known that even the world was crying for the loss of her brother.
I really like this. It’s a bit of a cliché, but it makes a lot of sense for Mabel in particular to think this, with her emotional and artistic bent.
Mable
???
Still, took the envelope from her.
Dropped a word.
Those black eyes continued its infinite stare.
Should be “their”, I think, for consistency.
the secret to immortality lied in their genes
“Lay”. Lied is only used for the past tense of “to tell a lie”.
pictures had previously hanged
“Hung”. “Hanged” is exclusively reserved for the thing people do with a noose.
As Wendy lead her up the front steps
“Led”. “Lead” is exclusively reserved for the present tense and the metal. (Yes, this is the opposite of all other -ead verbs. English is where consistent grammar goes to die.)
Mabel laughed, feeling a bubble of warmth grow in her chest. Dipper always had been her overly enthusiastic supporter. Sometimes she forgot how grateful she truly was for it.
Aw, that’s sweet. A lot of darkfic pits the twins against each other because DRAMA, so it’s nice to see them being supportive of each other.
in a harsh whispered
Typo.
Soos’s body
[…]
parents’ house
This is super nitpicky, but it looks more professional if your style is consistent, so you might want to standardize one of these.
Not when Dipper made sure to sit her upright pull her into a tight hug one last time
I think you dropped a word here.
I said the first chapter was competently written, but this is actually really good. The style of alternating present-day scenes and flashbacks that each build to a whole picture was excellently done. I feel the emotional poignancy of Mabel’s situation, while at the same time, I’m intrigued by the hints of a greater mystery. You write Mabel wonderfully – she retains her core of whimsy and optimism while still convincingly sounding older and more mature. I’m looking forward to seeing what the plot has in store for her.
Tremors falling down the length of her fingers like mini-earthquakes.
This is a sentence fragment.
folded up
“folded-up”
Someone needs to do it, but the thing is that love you more.
Something seems to have gone awry here.
You might have to do somethings you—I don’t want you to do.
Typo, also this is a bit odd for a letter. This kind of stutter is something you see in speech, but in writing, Dipper could just change his mind and erase it or cross it out. (AOOO allows strikethrough tags, so you could show it that way.)
TRUST NO ONE
Hmm. The events of the show rather thoroughly rebuke this, so I presume Dipper’s experience with Gravity Falls must have been very different. Presumably Stan failed to activate the portal, since Ford’s not around?
her civil like
“life”
It seems a bit corny of Dipper to stage a dramatic treasure hunt like this, but overcomplicating things is in character for him.
Mabel lunged forward as she stretch
“stretched”
She wanted people to like her for being her, not for being Dipper’s sister.
This seems appropriately meta, given how often fic reduces her to that role…
ranged in her ears
“rang”
Dipper said that we wanted me
“he”?
Wendy could also be caught in the same bout of denial that ensnared her but days earlier?
A question mark doesn’t seem appropriate for this sentence.
days old
This should be hyphenated.
“will there ever be a day when you’re not an asshole?”
This should be capitalized.
They’re awesome”
This is missing punctuation.
But there was a chance she was misinterpreting everything. Wendy could actually not know anything and the letter could just be making her paranoid.
This seems pretty dumb, even for Mabel. Wendy’s been really terrible at covering her tracks in this scene – it’s plainly obvious she is hiding something. I guess Mabel could be in major denial, but it’s a bit annoying when we have to catch up with characters in a mystery story.
Her thick brows outlines
“outlined”
we presume its gnomes
Typo.
He scratched his neck, looking off to the side, “well
This should be [He scratched his neck, looking off to the side. “Well], as the narration doesn’t contain a speech verb.
“Good” He started
Missing punctuation.
I am pleased by the diversity in the agent group. I also really liked Bill here – it’s extremely rare to see a human Bill written in-character, but he has the same creepiness, whimsy, and flamboyance that made him so interesting in the show. I presume there’s a reason he’s a human here, and I’m intrigued to learn more.
“I think you found Stan’s old stuff,” she said, sounding too stressed for her age. “Seriously, Mabel. That stuff’s dangerous. You’re going to hurt someone.”
Ah, but it’s also very useful. That’s a clever mechanism for getting her adventuring equipment.
like a movie premier
“Premiere”. A premier is a government official.
reeditions
Typo.
Grenda and Mauris
Misspelled Marius’ name.
he kept himself lodge between him and her friend
“Lodged”, also that should be “between her and her friend”, I think?
Mabel’s insides turn cold
“turned”
At least she could tell from Pacifica’s raised thin brow that she was skill unbelieving.
I’m not entirely sure what this means.
I would be delight
“delighted”
her suspicions of Wendy stemmed from the same source and those were proven to be false
They were? They didn’t seem to be. Or is this just Mabel being in denial again?
Thatwas Dipper’s problem
Missing space; this happens sometimes with italics tags.
He hatesDipper
And here.
Or worst
“worse”
blood than ran through her veins
“that”
That din light casted
For once, -ed is actually the wrong conjugation! It’s “cast”. English is terrible. (Also, “dim” – a din is a commotion.)
Yay, more characters! They are all as delightful as they were in the show. I’m interested to know what’s up with Candy.
Will grinned. “Pinus, actually. But I admire the display of sheer idiocy,” he said.
“I’ll stop calling you Penis when you explain why you always call me Looking Glass.”
“Eh, don’t feel like it. Ask me again later.”
Haha, yes! This is very Bill.
Mabel peaked
“Peeked”. Peaked means to reach an upper limit.
the knots refuse to undo themselves
“refused”
stop kidnapping girls to make our new queen in the condition that
“On the condition”, I believe.
Will swung his cane like a bat
Wait, how? Both his hands are occupied at this point.
The bandages previous surrounding
“previously”
a little way’s past
The apostrophe isn’t necessary.
“I’m trying to, but it’s hard when your brother gave you away to a bunch of gnomes and apparently left me in the care of a demon!”
This is a bit confusing, since she switches from general you to “me” over the course of this sentence. Might be best to keep it consistent, like “it’s hard when my brother gave me away…”
She did not recognize the faces of Esperanza, Trigger, or Cooper
This shift to omniscient is kinda jarring when we’ve previously been stuck in third person limited. It might be best just to say she doesn’t recognize the faces of “the agents” or something.
before shooting back to where it once.
Dropped a word.
the United States’ government
Unnecessary apostrophe.
Mabel sensed rather than saw the arm shot out
“shoot out”
“Mabel, please—just trust me!”
Iiiinteresting. I suspect Dipper’s not quite dead.
the both either of them could do was panted
???
Of course, there was a love seat her rescuer could have placed her on but the hard floor with no blankets or pillows was fine as well.
This needs a comma after “on”.
summerween costume
“Summerween” should be capitalized here, I think, since Summerween is a proper noun.
(She also discovered about nine other guns hidden in various places around the house, and Wendy had to explain to her that it was something her Great Uncle Stan had done and took pride in years ago).
When parentheticals contain complete sentences, the period goes inside the parentheses.
Her shorts were a too big for his twig thighs.
Dropped a word.
there was not sign
“no sign”
that he ever gone through
Dropped a word.
Making sure that the magical beings doesn’t hurt normal being
This should be [Making sure that the magical beings don’t hurt the normal beings].
Frankly, she didn’t know how to feel about a demon being in love with her twin.
Honestly, I don’t either. How is a demon even capable of love? Why would he fall in love with his enemy? This seems kind of random.
the humanusspell
Missing space.
he was willing to put himself through just to save her
Dropped a word.
An affection smile
“affectionate”
she was seat back
“seated”
the conscious of the body’s real owner
“consciousness”
Mabel noticed specks of something brown swirl in his drink, but she didn’t he cared.
???
You can weaken them or seal them away or eat their hearts, but none of its actual death.
That should be “it’s”, I think?
Dipper was the most romantically awkward asexual she knew
Ooh, asexual representation! This pleases me.
he would only give it if he got to give with her
???
he knew when to declare a lost
“loss”
Hm, so it looks like Dipper isn’t sharing a body with Bill like I thought. It seems like Bill is going to be genuinely helpful, which seems weird, but I presume he’s just doing it because he’s obligated based on whatever deal he made with Dipper.
I’ll stop nitpicking everything, but you might want to get a beta reader. But…
the display of complete honesty was the sweet oasis in the dessert of lies
“Desert”. Dessert is the meal.
Bill had said that Dipper was a peacekeeper, so it couldn’t have been for anything bad
She’s awfully quick to trust Bill, even though he’s by far the most suspicious person around.
He did help her find Marius and Grenda; and he did want to take her on a tour around town.
That semicolon should be a comma, I think.
She felt like she was inside the bud of a blooming flower, one decorated with strings of yellow Christmas lights.
I like this description!
Mabel groaned as she held her hand over her yes like a visor
???
“Dipper’s asexual but he still did the do.”
How does she know this…?
Mabel seems unusually dumb here. A woman of her age should know red flags when she sees them, and Gideon is hardly subtle. Even in the show, Gideon made her deeply uncomfortable and conflicted from far more innocuous things, and that was as a twelve-year-old – I can’t imagine an adult her being totally oblivious both to his extreme possessiveness at the party and his super rapey behavior here.
“We’re a hundred feet in the air and I’m not catching you if you fall.”
Is he lying? He acted like he was bound to protect her before.
and my God how she needed to feel sad right now
The personal pronoun sounds weird here since the narration isn’t in first person – “by God” might work better.
I don’t remember why I wrote it, but I realized that it perfectly explained how an in character Bill would view their relationship.
Hm… maybe, and I admire you acknowledging that BillDip is inherently OOC without a ton of work, but I can’t really see him seeing their relationship this way. I mean, you wrote this before Weirdmaggeddon (I think) so you didn’t know this at the time, but the way Bill messes with Dipper in episode 18 pretty clearly shows that he sees Dipper as a worthless pawn, not a worthy adversary. Even if they didn’t meet until Dipper was older and more competent in this universe, Bill doesn’t even seem to care about Ford much. I think Dipper would have to be a major force of opposition that makes Bill live for the challenge (sort of like kismesitude, if you’re familiar with Homestuck) for Bill to feel this strongly about him. That’s possible, but it’s so far off from what we see in canon that more legwork would have to be done. Even if so, I can’t see Bill being nice to Mabel just for the sake of it – he’s pretty clearly a thoroughly evil scumbag in the show. You might be able to handwave it by saying that getting depowered made him less callous, but it’s still a bit hard to swallow for me.
That said, this is probably the most pleasant OOC Bill I’ve seen. He’s still in-character in the most important ways – his overall personality and mannerisms – and this does give him an excuse to interact more directly with Mabel and showcase those fun traits more often.
Re: mood stabilizers, I haven’t heard about that side effect, but it sounds plausible. (It certainly makes Mabel’s response very understandable, and I found that sequence extremely poignant even though I can’t relate to it myself.) I do know of one side effect that I’m surprised you haven’t brought up: lithium makes your nervous system go haywire and causes tremors. Some people with bipolar disorder opt to go without the pills just because the tremors get so bad; for an artist, I imagine this would be a big problem.
She wished Gideon hadn’t fled. She knew that the fight was terrifying, but she could use him charm at the moment.
This is getting a bit unbelievable. I’m a socially inept shut-in, but “Looks like Arjun Nalluri isn’t here,” he said. “It’s almost like he never came to your date in the first place.” would raise major red flags even for me, if not on its own then definitely in combination with his previous possessiveness. And Mabel is supposed to be as smart socially as Dipper is academically — and, as an adult woman, she should have a lot of experience dealing with dangerous creeps. Even aside from that, it’s a bit tedious to continue this holding pattern when we already know the truth — dramatic irony gets tiring if overdone.
I can see her not connecting all the dots, especially when distracted by Arjun’s breakdown, but I find it hard to believe she’d still be thinking Gideon was totally innocent. Especially after she feels someone push her into the lake and then discovers Gideon is the only one around — why didn’t she follow up on that?
Cipher’s a pretty powerful demon
According to that Reddit AMA, he’s actually one of the weakest, as demons’ strength and status is determined by their number of sides — though you could easily rule that he was lying.
“It’s a matter of principal,”
“Principle”. A principal is the head of an organization.
Government investigators were at the scene a paranormal expert could be, so the involvement of anything paranormal can only be a suspicion
This is hard to parse. Did you drop a word?
Hm, new character. I’m guessing that since Bill is good-ish in this story, you needed to come up with a new villain? She doesn’t seem quite as insidious or interesting as Bill, but she does seem a lot more powerful, which might be more fitting for this story. Taking off the stone was pretty dumb, though — how would she know how to distinguish between real and fake sensation? I would imagine that extremely sharp sensations would be illusory if that’s the demon’s specialty. I’m surprised she didn’t bring any other protection, but perhaps that’s meant to characterize her as reckless.
He was a familiar—he could recognize an illusion only when she could. When he was twice the size of a tiger, Behemoth leapt into the air, soaring over the hyperventilating Deegan, before sinking his teeth into Perception.
I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here — she can disbelieve the illusions he sees? Why was it so important for him to see through her eyes, then? I’m surprised Perception didn’t make him attack Harper using an illusion.
He wasn’t that kind of guy, or so she reminded herself.
This doesn’t totally make sense to me – “reminded” might be the wrong word.
the pull dustpan
Full?
She didn’t want to sort through Dipper’s belongings. They were his and she would be invading his privacy.
That seems a bit irrational, given that Dipper explicitly gave her permission to investigate in the letter.
A scrap of paper was to the wall
Dropped a word.
Bit by bit, his grin fell off his face like rose petals.
This is a pretty awkward simile, since rose petals are discrete units while a fading grin is more abstract.
towns people
That should be “townspeople”, one word.
the Gift Shop window
“Gift shop” shouldn’t be capitalized, since it’s not a proper noun here.
Ah, excellent, they’re finally investigating. I have been a bit disappointed with how slow things have been going, so it’s nice to see the central mystery advance.
her brother’s prodigy
I think the word you want is “protégé”. A prodigy is just anyone talented.
You’re thighs
You want “your”. “You’re” means “you are”.
“The one and only,” she chirped
Missing punctuation.
“So… is there anything in particular you wanna talk about because I got like fifty different small talk openers I can use right now.”
I really like this, it’s a very Mabel thing to say.
Why couldn’t she meet one person who could just stay happy?
This seems a bit odd of her to think – Bill and Gideon are both pretty consistently manic. But irrational catastrophizing is definitely something depression causes, so this works.
In the morgue, I discovered he had about another pint frozen in his veins.
I’m no mortician, but I have to wonder how he determined the exact amount? I imagine it’s pretty hard to draw every drop of blood out of a body that’s no longer pumping it, and it’s spread across the entire body so you can’t just slice open a single part to check.
Calm down your little toosh down.
This is repetitive – it sounds like you wrote one version of the phrase and changed to another without completely clearing the old one.
I would recommend against centering text, as it’s difficult to read. I’m pretty sure most text and email clients left-justify text anyway?
Wendy seemed to give the appearance that when she warned Mabel about the agents
I’m having trouble understanding this sentence.
but puking so would drag too much attention to herself
This sounds awkward – the “so” seems misplaced, and I’ve never heard the phrase “drag too much attention” – the more common form is “draw attention”.
manic depressive order
Looks like you dropped the “dis”.
When she told her plans she had enough to pay for her ticket
“Parents”?
Ehh, are you really rehashing the canon Gideon plot too? It seems like a bit of a waste to spend time on stuff we already know.
Wendy’s betrayal seems very strange, given how well she knew both Mabel and Dipper, and that she’s pretty accommodating of Dipper’s shenanigans in canon. I’m suspecting there’s more to it.
per say
“Per se” – it’s Latin for “by itself”.
The evil stepmother wanted to eat Snow White’s heart in order to gain her beauty. Anyone and everyone can and will tell you that a person’s powers come from that heart, and consuming it will cause you to gain theirs.
The second sentence is really confusing – “that heart” makes it sound like you’re referring specifically to Snow White’s heart. Did you mean “the heart”? It’s also unclear what “theirs” refers to, since the last object referenced is the heart, not the powers.
“In the good old days when Europe was just a bunch of desolate ignorant people with no hope for living, witches were the minions of us demons. We helped them along in return for power, worship, or whatever the heck we wanted.
[…]
“Anyways, the whole symbiotic relationship was a pretty sweet deal and stuff until feminist literature started popping up everywhere. Basically, witches should drop their ‘demonly shackles’ and blah-blah-blah! I’ve heard this all before.”
…Hm. This doesn’t seem very consistent with Gravity Falls canon, where supernatural events were almost entirely restricted to Gravity Falls. That rather handily explained the oddity of history being the same despite the existence of the supernatural, to the point that even the shadow government doesn’t seem to understand it well. It seems incongruous for witches to be so widespread that there was feminist literature specifically targeted at them – you’d think that would have affected world events.
It’s also very, very awkward to have a plot about how feminists are so evil and irrational, especially when you billed this as being a female-centric story. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt for now and assume Bill’s being an unreliable narrator.
“She literally steals demons’ hearts.”
Mabel gave him a confused look. “So she’s really romantic?”
Ah, I knew the generalization of “literally” would come back to bite us one day. Clever wordplay though it is, this seems a little forced – even if you’re more familiar with the hyperbolic use, someone using “literally” to describe a metaphor probably actually means literally.
Thank god
When referring to the Judeo-Christian god, it’s capitalized, since it’s his name.
Mabel placed a hand over her mouth, fuming red as she swallowed her frustrations. What did Dipper ever see in this insensitive idiot?
Except she was just gushing about what a poor woobie he was like five minutes ago, and goes back to gushing one minute later: Bill was her friend. She couldn’t let someone she love be stolen away from her. It’s really weird to see her oscillate so much on Bill. He does nothing but annoy her and make her life harder most of the time, yet whenever he gets sad she can suddenly intuit he’s secretly a good guy deep down despite having no empirical evidence for this, then by the next scene she’s forgotten that and is back to hating him. None of that is very realistic, or easy to follow.
Ah, so Wendy did have ulterior motives. That makes more sense, but it’s still a little weird when she could have just told Mabel directly why she had to leave. Subterfuge doesn’t seem Wendy’s style.
Dipper was only the glue holding their alliance together
The “only” seems oddly placed – the way this is constructed, it’s saying that Dipper’s only contribution was keeping the group together. Is that what you meant? (Him having that role doesn’t make a lot of sense anyway, given how socially inept he is in canon.)
There were only so many marriage proposals and kidnappings they could handle at a time.
But I thought Dipper forced them to stop that? Did that contract only happen recently?
Bill was an expert at pretending to be something he was not
Not… really. If you look closely at his behavior in canon, it’s pretty clear he’s actually terrible at deception. The only person he successfully fooled was Ford, who isn’t exactly a social genius to begin with, and even then Bill can’t keep a lid on his mania long enough to tempt him in the finale. Bill’s the opposite of a sly deceiver: he’s a confidence trickster. He’s so over-the-top he convinces people they know what he wants and how to deal with him.
The bright hue of her eyes were overflowing with litigious feelings
Huh? How would she file a lawsuit over this?
The front door swung open, revealing a grinning Bill Cipher.
This sounds a bit odd, since it seems like we’re in Arjun’s head right now. Might make more sense for the narration to call him Will.
Bill looked at them with an innocent face and blinking, infantine eyes.
“Eyes”, plural? :p Also, Google tells me “infantine” is technically correct, but archaic – the modern form is “infantile”.
like an island in the middle of a scarlet blood ocean.
That sounds weird given what we learned in chapter 13 – a pint isn’t a lot of liquid, hardly enough to be described as an “ocean”.
The simple duality of mirrors or water helped a witch to use find a chosen person’s existential strings.
???
Black fur glistened with sweat
Cats can only sweat through their paws.
lifting Bill onto back onto his back
Looks like you mixed up some words here.
She knew she was a coward, but she couldn’t face him alone. Not when she was so weak.
Doesn’t she have a gun, though? If she knows about the humanus spell, she should know Bill’s vulnerable to bullets. Unless she knows something about the spell that Bill didn’t give in the exposition speech.
Hm, so you are rehashing the Gideon plot to the T, it looks like. Kinda disappointed, to be honest. If we’re at a “season finale”, I’d expect the plot to have advanced past canon retreads.
Do you have a few quarters I could borrow?”
Shouldn’t there be a key for the vending machine?
Gone was any conception that he could be charming and chivalrous.
About time.
But Arjun had only broken up with her because of what happened at the lake, and someone had to have staged the kidnapping…
Ah, finally she figures it out. It’s kind of disappointing for a mystery protagonist to just get the answer handed to her, though. Mabel has done barely anything to investigate and never bothered to connect any dots despite increasingly obvious evidence, which is rather turning me off to the story. Passive, oblivious protagonists who constantly need to get bailed out by everyone else aren’t interesting to read about.
The fight scene is hard to follow – shouldn’t the agents have kept their guns trained on Gideon the whole time, especially when Bill drew attention to him right after finishing his stunt? How is everyone able to have lengthy conversations while Gideon has the guns? He could have easily killed everyone twice over by the time the scene was finished.
his best to emphasize with her
“Empathize”. To emphasize is to make something stand out.
with all the casualty of the world
“Casualness”. A casualty is a victim of accident or war.
“Because he loves Dipper!” Mabel clamped her mouth shut, eyes widening because she finally understood why she kept Bill around when he caused her nothing but trouble and heartache.
Sigh. So even in death, everything revolves around Dipper.
“This is Bill Cipher we’re talking about! He wouldn’t die for you—he’s not capable of love!”
Okay, see, this is where BillDip causes problems in stories like these.
In canon, by all accounts this appears to be true. Bill is a complete sociopath who cares only for his own desires. You can come up with some explanation for how this might change, but for a major change like this, you need to show your work. Otherwise, the story becomes impossible to follow – I don’t know how much of the canon I can trust, and how much you’ve thrown out the window. Is what Harper’s saying here normally true in this universe and Bill’s love really is a special exception that we’ll learn more about later? Or is she just completely wrong and we’re not supposed to spare any more thought on this? I have no idea. Fanfiction gives you a powerful tool: a shared knowledge base with your readers that you don’t have to outline explicitly. You can do a lot of things with it: get to the action without wasting time on exposition, trick your audience into misleading themselves with carefully-placed canon references, even change little details and play with the butterfly of doom that results. But if you’re doing the latter, it needs to be clear what it is you’re changing. If I can’t even be sure that you even are changing something or if you think this is self-evident, I’m too distracted to understand and appreciate the story.
Aaand I can’t help but notice that, for the second time in a row, Mabel is reduced to scenery while the guys do all the important work. If you’re still taking suggestions for season two, I’d like to see Mabel not be a side character in a story labeled “Read this if you are sick of Mabel always being the side character in EVERYTHING”.
How did he know where they were? Nonetheless, how did he get to the shotgun she remembered hiding beneath the living room couch?
I don’t think “nonetheless” is the word you want here, as it implies a contradiction.
like he could do nothing but loath the girl before him
“Loathe”. “Loath” is an adjective meaning unwilling or reluctant.
It’s like his body’s resorting back to the baseline functions.
I think you want “resetting”. To resort is to enact a plan.
Mabel pulled the trigger, watching the hook shoot through the air and strike Harper’s face.
Hooray, Mabel’s finally doing something for once –
A gunshot rang through the air, and Behemoth suddenly fell to the side, rolling in the dirt.
“Step away from her!” Arjun stood at the entrance of the clearing, shot gun raised.
Oh. I see it was foolish of me to hope.
She couldn’t have let Harper burn Bill’s body, but she didn’t want to hurt the poor girl either. She was just a teenager, after all.
What. Harper had lethal weaponry and clear killing intent. I can’t think of anyone who would seriously excuse that just because she was a teenager, and Mabel isn’t a terribly forgiving or pacifistic person in canon to begin with.
“Be thankful I’m not arresting you right now for using illegal magic, Heart Stealer. The Council of Witches would be very happy to have their little delinquent back.”
Harper curled her lip. “Don’t know what you get from that,” she spat, “but thanks.”
Arjun’s look softened. “You’re just a kid. You can change.”
…She just killed someone. When kids kill people they’re sent to prison, not let off with a “I’m sure you’ll turn out fine” warning.
“She’s powerful, but the Council of Witches won’t recognize her position because she’s a rogue witch.
I thought rogue witches were just witches who weren’t demon slaves? How are the real witches enforcing their own rules if they’re demon slaves? Shouldn’t the demons be calling the shots? Was Bill’s entire speech a lie?
Why on Earth would Dipper expect Mabel to know the tree was “where this all started” if she’s never been to Gravity Falls?
Whatever you do, DO NOT LET BILL INTO YOUR HEAD!
That really sounds like something he should have included from the start. You’re not immune to the supernatural just because you don’t want to investigate it – without warnings and advice, she’d still be vulnerable even if she chose to ignore it. This only makes sense if Mabel was intended to get this letter immediately after she chose to investigate, and, again, I don’t know how Dipper expected that to work.
Eventually, I ran into Bill and he became my sworn enemy. I started down a road that led to us discovering that Gideon Gleeful had Journal #2. Stan managed to open the portal and bring Ford back, but by doing so, he caused a small rift in our dimension.
…Okay but how? All of those things only happened because of Mabel.
I had to summon Bill Cipher back to Gravity Falls in hopes of using his abilities to our advantage.
Why on Earth did he think this was a good idea, especially after Ford tried this and it turned out horribly? The chief reason the rift is dangerous is because it lets Bill and his ilk through to wreak havoc, and Dipper knows that every time anyone does this Bill manipulates them. Why would that change?
ummm….
You’ve got an extra period in the ellipses here. It’s very noticeable, since Word autocorrects … to a special symbol that looks different.
Instead, stair cases leading to whatever which direction stretching out in a space physically impossible for such a small building.
This sentence lacks an active verb, making it a fragment.
Some shuddered as whatever hid on the other side was banged against.
This is passive voice – what is banging on the doors? This sentence also doesn’t make sense – it’s saying that the things on the other side of the doors are being banged against, but I’m pretty sure you meant to say the things are hitting the doors.
She eyes widen with realization.
???
“What do I get in return?”
She couldn’t help the disgusted look that consumed her face. Mabel looked at his silvery hair, wishing that she could push away the face it framed. “Depends… what do you want?”
Gideon thought about it for a moment, drumming his fingers on the car. “You’ll marry me,” he said.
Mabel rolled her eyes, turning to face the road ahead. “And that’s where I say ‘fuck you’ and leave—”
“How does a kiss sound?”
She blinked, not sure if she heard him right. He put it out there quickly, like he was desperate for her to agree to at least something. Mabel looked down at her lap, remembering the last time she agreed to something from him. That ended with a kidnapping and a marriage proposal. Where would a kiss lead her to this time? But did she even have a choice? Bill and Arjun were at stake. She could not abandon them when they needed her the most. “Okay, Gideon,” she said at last. “One kiss, but that’s it.”
Eeugh, so our plucky female protagonist has to prostitute herself because if she doesn’t the more important male characters might die. Lovely.
She did not have the heart to remove it while she changed earlier, but now she was ready to call it a stroke of luck. Dipper had placed the sheets explaining everything there was to know about Bill at the end of the letter. Mabel pulled it out of her sports bra, quickly drawing them out of the envelope.
Seriously? She gets a letter saying it contains all of Bill’s powers and weaknesses and she doesn’t bother to check it until she’s roped in a guy she hates who she knows will betray her at the first opportunity? And she still lets Gideon into the mind of the guy he wants to kill even after discovering she doesn’t need him because…?
she knew that it was only a change in her perspective. Mabel whined as she tried to push her shoulders against the bond, but it was stronger than her.
How is that possible? If it’s just an illusion there should be no actual force behind it. Harper wasn’t burned by the fake heat. If she knows it’s fake, why is she still affected?
And once again the plucky female protagonist this story is supposedly about fails to resist the supernatural and requires a dude to save her.
“What a view.” Mabel sighed as Arjun joined her.
Why are they stopping? They know Harper is hot on their heels, and they’ve just backed themselves against a wall.
Why didn’t she just jam it back in?
A question I have been asking myself throughout this entire chapter. I expected there to be some clever explanation for why she had to do something else, but no, that’s seriously it? The most obvious solution is the correct one? How did Mabel survive this long when she’s so staggeringly incompetent?
Okay, with that any hope I still had for this plot just died. I wanted to at least hear the story out to the end of the arc, but if this is all I’m going to get for hours of investment I’m done.
After this I returned to the first chapter to post a final retrospective:
And I return a week later for final thoughts.
I have to say I’m very disappointed with this story so far. The plot is just so slow – it’s the end of the first “season” and Mabel has only found one of the promised three mystery hints, and she only found it through sheer dumb luck. I’m skeptical of your decision to make Mabel a total outsider to supernatural events… What does it add, narratively, for her to stumble through all the things we’ve already seen in canon? That kind of thing can be done well if the protagonist is caught up to speed quickly or just interacts with stuff in a different way, but it’s been 23 chapters and a full “season” and she’s still steadfastly refusing to get involved. The Gideon plot was complete filler despite taking up most of the space in this arc, and I have no idea what you’re doing with Harper, given that she seems to have no connection to Dipper’s murder. Your wordcount exceeds four NaNoWriMo novels, yet you have yet to tackle the central mystery – the thing that sets you apart from all other fanfic on this site, and presumably the reason a lot of your readers are here – in earnest. If you’re just going to keep stringing me along, then I see no reason to keep reading this.
But I wouldn’t even mind that, if this was actually about my favorite character. You billed this as a Mabel-centric adventure/mystery story, but it’s not. Mabel is never allowed to be anything more than an incompetent, hysterical damsel in distress, and is constantly reduced to a side character in her own narrative. I quite enjoyed the early chapters that were just her hanging out and learning things, but after Bill’s introduction the story has been all about him and Arjun. And even in death, Dipper manages to overshadow Mabel at every turn: he’s a perfect saint who did everything perfectly, he apparently set up this mystery that Mabel is barely even trying to solve, Mabel is so terrible for not living up to him, and Bill, the one person who’s pushing her to accomplish things, is only helping her because of Dipper. Dipper is so perfect that, in addition to being the best cryptozoologist ever who the women can’t do anything without, he was a social genius who was the only thing keeping the bickering harpy women working together with his calm rational manly charms, despite the canon displaying the exact opposite dynamic.
Even the few times Mabel gets to directly interact with the supernatural, she’s always reduced to damsel in distress so we can learn something about Bill, Arjun, or Dipper. In canon, Dipper and Mabel worked together to defeat the gnomes, with Mabel actually coming up with the secret weapon. In this story, Mabel is rendered totally helpless by the gnomes and Bill has to do everything for her. In canon, it’s Dipper who’s totally incapacitated by Gideon and it’s Mabel who single-handedly saves the day. In this story, it’s Mabel who’s totally incapacitated by Gideon while her boyfriend and Bill have to save her. Kid Dipper didn’t need to rely on creeps and perverts and sacrifice his bodily autonomy to learn about the supernatural, so why should an adult Mabel?
I’m also disappointed that, despite noticing fandom sidelining Mabel, you’re still using the cliché of Dipper locking Mabel out of the loop despite canon sternly and repeatedly showing what a bad idea that is. But it looks like he was totally right to do so here, because Mabel really is an incompetent hysterical idiot who can’t think for herself, apparently! If he sent the letter to Wendy instead the team would probably have solved the mystery by now, but they can’t do anything because they’re constantly tripping over Mabel.
I really do enjoy the scenes that are just the characters interacting – you write them very well and true to canon – and I’m grateful that at least one person has noticed the lack of Mabel in the fandom. But after clicking on a story labeled “Read this if you are sick of Mabel always being the side character in EVERYTHING” only to read through over a hundred thousand words of Mabel getting her spotlight stolen by the male deuteragonists and the ghost of her male relative, I can’t help but feel betrayed.
Yeesh, that was a disappointment. So close and yet so far. I suppose the title really should have tipped me off, though.