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unearthlyfromage · 3 months

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Une's Nonsensical Ramblings Episode 2 Part 2:

Reverse Falls; A continuation

In the previous installment, we covered the Stan's and their narrative (covering A Tale of Two Stan's which leads to the shows story).

Now that that's done, we can move onto the Star Twins as well as the Gleefuls and the Northwests

But first, an addendum that I forgot to cover;

Fiddleford and his involvement.

Given that the science project is never broken, Ford never meets Fidds. So, how does he become involved? Well, Ford uses Bill as an information gatherer during the construction of the portal. Given Fiddleford's proficiency with electronics, as well as his overall involvement with the Cipher Wheel, we cannot put it past Bill to recommend Fiddleford as a lead designer and construction manager. The portal incident still occurs, Fiddleford still sees what’s on the other side, still quits the project and tells Ford off for his insanity (perhaps the jumbling of his mind and memories is less caused by his own invention and more caused by Ford demanding Bill scramble his head for insubordination).

With that covered, we’ll handle the meat and potatoes of the post! Dipper, Mabel, the Gleeful’s and the Northwest.

Dipper;

Dipper has always been a headstrong, more independent introvert type character with an anxiety issue and a bit of a hero complex and a little, tiny bit of a shorter fuse. He’s also an overthinker by nature, and an avid follower of rules/checklists and not very willing to stray from the plan.

Taking the fact that the talisman amplifies your worse/negative qualities, as well as dampening things like empathy and expressing genuine compassions to people the wielder don’t inherently care about, we can infer that;

Dipper would be far more confident in himself, yet his anxieties would still exist, leading to him being even more quiet and reserved with one hell of a mean bone in him. Can’t crack the facade of confidence if he doesn’t let the crowd know how badly his voice cracks or how hard he’s sweating from nervousness, no - that shows weakness. He’d be more opportunistic, and likely to put others down to make himself feel better. His shorter fuse would be amplified, leading to him being a lot more easier to anger and pester into a blow up or nervous fit. He tends to analyze people, see what they’re most insecure about and use it to insult them when they’ve upset him.

However, he is still a child, the effects of the talisman aren’t as deep seeded yet. He still cares for others, it’s just dampened, not at the forefront. He’s far more likely to put himself in top priority, the only time where this isn’t the case is in regards to his sister Mabel. He’d still drop anything for her, if he had too or she asked him too. His bond with Mabel is still strong, despite it al. Even if they pester and annoy each other at times, they still work together, they are still siblings (I hate the versions of this AU where Dipper and Mabel hate each other. Makes NO sense). Just like Ford, he wants a future full of recognition and capability, to be higher than others. But unlike Ford, he wouldn’t do unspeakable acts to make that happen.

Mabel;

Mabel is confident and chaos embodied, just like in canon. She’s not as open as she once was, now more opting to stay silent and listen intently when it’s opportune for her, though is loud and energetic just like in canon. Yes, she did eavesdrop on your conversation, yes she will remember that weakness you mentioned, no she won’t tell you she heard, for blackmail of course. She’s far more antagonistic, eager to push people’s buttons and see what makes them tick, but she still has a bubbly air about her. She’s very into arts and crafts, still wears hand-knit sweaters and loves rainbows and sugar, she’s just got a bit of a mean-girl backbone now, less empathetic to the people and animals around her (she still cares, again, it’s just dampened).

She is childish, and immature, just like in canon (Because they’re fucking kids [kids under evil influence are still kids] let them be kids goddmanit Reverse Falls fandom), But if you were to call her out on it she’d lash out, as it’s something she’s not particularly proud of. She envies Dipper in certain ways, but will never state it, for she knows he’d likely hold it over her head when in arguments. Despite this all, she still cares for him deeply, and knows that he would gladly give something up for her. Whether she knows it or not, she takes advantage of that quite often. Just like Stan, she wants luxuries, to never lift a finger and indulge in sweets and fun and parties for the rest of her life. But unlike Stan, she wants to do it (mostly) honestly.

Both Of Them;

Dipper and Mabel’s talismans work differently, being the same ones Ford and Stan grew up with. Mabel’s is telepathic in nature, while Dipper’s is telekinetic. Mabel can control the astral plane, while Dipper can control the corporeal plane.

If you remember, I had Stan’s be telekinetic and Ford’s be telepathic. Wouldn’t this be wrong, to have it on the wrong parallel?

No. And here’s why;

While the main parallel between them is Ford - DIpper and Stan - Mabel, this isn’t true for everything. I had the talismans match their fighting styles, because the way one fights tells a lot about how they generally handle many situations/are most capable of doing.

In regards to how they handle themselves in combat, it’s actually Ford - Mabel, and Stan - Dipper. Ford and Mabel prefer ranged weapons (I.E, Ford’s plasmatic pistol and Mabel’s grappling gun) while Stan and Dipper prefer melee weapons (I.E Stan’s brass knuckles and Dipper’s improvisation of fists and objects around him).

How they see the Grunks;

Dipper still sees Ford as a role model, someone to look up too and take guidance from. Unlike canon, Ford doesn’t find it odd or pressuring. Instead he’s more than willing to coach Dipper, take on a teaching role and push the boy’s limits to achieve greatness. Dipper would do just about anything to impress Ford, though he does have limits, unlike some (*cough* Stan *cough*).

Mabel, however, sees him as the Fun Police and dislikes how Ford always shuts down her plots and plans. whenever the blue moon rises and she DOES have a chance to talk to him. She’s envious of the time he and Dipper spend together, and feels as if she’s being replaced, so she isn’t particularly nice towards Ford. She’s respectful, sure, but she wouldn’t knit the guy a sweater unless it were a matching set with Stan.

Dipper sees Stan as a custodian, a negligent one at that. Sure he can cook (if the servants don’t already do that, though some days he does) and he’s homely, a lot more than Ford is, but he knows Stan’s wholly about the money. Especially since the first thing he did was test their abilities to see how extravagant a show they could make for his tent. It’d be insulting to him, if it weren’t so rewarding with the way people cheered and revered him. He wouldn’t turn to the old sod for advice the same way he would Ford, but he has noted Stan is much more proficient with people than he or Ford, so he would ask in regards to crowds and coaching for shows. Beyond that? He’s a weird old man with a penchant for jewels and he doesn’t care for it much.

There was one thing he did find interesting, though. Despite acting a fool, (Even Ford, when questioned, took no hesitation to say his brother is “Kind and loyal, yet ignorant. He is fine not knowing the things you or I seek, son. He is akin to a dog, a follower at heart. He does as I say. Not like us, my boy. We are something greater. We are leaders. We are rulers. Stanley and Mabel, they are Knights or Stewards. They’ll do just about anything.”) Dipper can tell he’s hiding something. He knew more than he seemed.

Mabel, however, adores Stan. Nothing is better than a jovial kleptomaniac of an old codger. Sure he’s odd, and a lot of the smiles he throws are fake, and he eyes Ford with a wary fear she can’t describe at times, but he’s fine. Stan lets her do what she wants, spend (certain amounts) of money how she wants, use whatever room in the manor for whatever she wants. The shows he throws are fun, and performing in them is a great joy. She can’t help but notice, though, just how much he worries when he isn’t busy being money conscious, or how natural it is for him to lead the two of them away when Ford is unhappy. What was he hiding? And why?

How they see Gideon and Pacifica;

Dipper sees them as weird kids that can’t stop trespassing. One claims their Great Uncles are terrible men, the other is so stuck up and pretentious he wouldn’t listen to her if he wanted too. Which he most definitely doesn’t. Yet another pair of wackjobs in this undoubtedly lead-poisoned town.

Mabel sees Gideon as an annoying little kid that won’t stop asking questions she doesn’t really care for. He hates her Great Uncles, and while she agrees about what he says in regards to Ford sometimes, the things he calls Stan is uncalled for and she has favoritism issues. Pacifica is an asshole and not worth her time. Why argue with someone like that when she could instead focus on the sweater she’s working on? If she truly does get upset, she could just tell Dipper. He’d handle it for her.

Gideon;

Coming from a humble upbringing, Gideon is a sweet kid with smarts and charm. Since he never found the talisman, he grows up as normal as they come in the rural Oregon town. Given how young Gideon is in canon (he’s 10) it’s safe to say he found the talisman at a young age and over-used it to become corrupt incredibly quickly (A mix of power-tripping and using it for financial gain so frequently). So chances are a lot of his personality is forged purely from that, hence why he has very little good qualities to speak of. (Which is really fucked up when you think about it.) Given this, I won’t go big into his personality since I don’t have much to go off of, so instead I’ll go more in-depth to his general place in the story/AU.

He’s a Gravity Falls native, born and raised, and all he knows is that his father has been having issues with the Pines men for quite some time now. He could barely tell them both apart, given the fact that one rarely ever left their huge house (for the longest time the town suspected the other was missing, or didn’t even exist to begin with) but he knew one well. And Stan had been trying to hard-push the family out of Gravity Falls for all of his life, offering money and other items. They were a powerful family, one of the most wealthy, and the townsfolk loved them.

He knew something was off about them. The look in the old guys eyes whenever he’d show up at the door, or the soulless way the other one of them (the one nearly no one knew) always glared down at the town. It gave him the jeepers. Whatever it was they were hiding (if anything) must’ve been big.

And he wanted to find out. If not to get them out of the town entirely, then to get them the hell away from the property. It was theirs, and that wasn’t going to change. Not if he had anything to say about it.

So, he does what he can. Sneaking into shows, backstage if possible, he’s also been banned from the manor indefinitely since he’d broken in before, but that wasn’t stopping him any. At the very least, he’d stolen a book.

Journal 3.

Pacifica;

Still wealthy, still snooty, still a Northwest. She doesn’t change much at all, because it doesn’t make sense for her to. Everybody else, Gideon included, has the most change because it regards the talisman and the influence it holds on the person.

Instead, her role is similar to Gideons. But born out of an entirely different place. The Pines are a wealthy family, they compete with the Northwests quite often. Preston doesn’t like it. So he’s put it up to Pacifica to get as much dirt as possible about them to undermine their community power and eventually cause an uprising powerful enough to drive the old sods away.

Nobody fucks with the Northwests, and if she wanted to prove her worth to her family name, she had to uphold that statement as best she could. Her teaming up with Gideon was a matter of happenstance. Originally she was going to steal the book from him and leave him in the dirt, but Gideon had a lot of intel she didn’t.

How she sees the Pines;

Stan - A threat, a disgusting old man that smells like roses and kerosine and lies. His smile was as fake as his handshake and his sense of humor was as stale as fresh peasant food. If it were up to her? Just wait for them to die of age. But her father wanted them gone, and he wanted them gone quickly.

Ford - A wildcard. She knew nothing about him, rarely ever saw him, and he creeped the whole town out. There were many speculations, but none of them were what she was looking for. So, she ignores his existence entirely. Not important, or what she needed to know. And if she didn’t need to know, she didn’t want to know.

Dipper - An asshole that isn’t important to her goal. Gross birthmark and sweat stains.

Mabel - An asshole that isn’t important to her goal. Ratty split ends and gross braced smile.

She doesn’t like any of them, she could care less about them. All she wanted in regards to them, was to see them leave. That’s it. If she has to team up with the poor car salesman’s son to do that? So be it.

General notes;

Most people have this AU focus on Gideon and Pacifica. While I do the love the idea, there’s also another take that I personally find interesting; A subversion of the classic tale, told from the child antagonists that don’t know their family is the villains of the story, and that they are the ones in the wrong, until the big twist at the end that’s been foreshadowed throughout the series. A “Not What He Seems” situation, but if Stan/Ford actually WAS a criminal vagrant, so to say.

One thing that’s rife in Gravity Falls as a whole, is the theme of Family. And I tried to keep that as a forefront just like in the original show because it’s so important.

Obviously the Pines are family (and more in-depthly, siblings) revolved. Just like in the show, both the Stan Twins and the Star Twins are parallels that have dynamics as complicated as anything and telling as ever. And even though they’re all corrupted by mystical influence, family still matters (to some more than others *cough* Ford *cough*).

For Gideon and Pacifica, they’re family oriented in their own ways. They have the same goal, but for different reasons. Gideon’s is born from a place of love and the will to fix a bad situation, whereas Pacifica is fueled by the demands of her parents and her need to impress them, show worth.

Reverse Falls, boiled to its core, is the reversal of the protagonist and antagonist roles, in regards to character rivals.

Stan’s rival is Bud. Ford’s is Bill. Dipper’s is Gideon, and Mabel’s is Pacifica.

However, unlike most depictions of this AU, changing them as drastically as they have just isn’t right to me anyways. Sure the Pines are WAY different from canon here, but it makes sense. Having Gideon and Pacifica be cousins to some degree or whatever the hell? Doesn’t make sense.

Having Pacifica stay stuck up and, most importantly, a Northwest, and Gideon stay a 10 year old boy with motivations and a certain degree of naivety, opens the gates to character development that grows throughout the series. A sense of found siblings as well, that grows with each episode. They have ulterior motives, ones that span the background of the show, but they’re also still kids. Let them be kids. Please, I beg of you.

Same goes for Dipper and Mabel. Perhaps they have more negative character development, as time goes on, being coached by the elder twins to be that way. Dipper becomes more independent, and Mabel becomes more unruly. Ford is a lot more uncaring. As if he’s above mortal squabble, which in a way, he is. He’s hiding a lot.

Something I’ve placed here and there throughout, is how worried Stan is. Because honestly? He is worried. He loves Ford with all his heart and would do everything for him. But he never thought he’d ask for what he did. And Stan never thought he’d be able to deliver.

(Keeping some of this cryptic in case I make a fic about this revision of the Reverse Falls AU)

If there’s more you want to know regarding this, feel free to reblog with a question, or pop into my asks! I’m more than willing to answer.

#prev #I wish I was still as interested in reverse falls these days #Sadly I'm not invested enough to make a fic #But I AM invested enough to brain rot it should you ever want to rot together in DMs or such #I have so many ideas. I am full of ideas. I just can't put my poor AO3 followers through more torment #< I already have 3 unfinished GF fics I can't add another one (I will eventually add another one)#Happy to see you're enjoying the rot though :]

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