Sorry all, but this comic is over. I will leave every single post I made so you can still take a look at your leisure, but know that the comic itself will no longer update.
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» Next : [Summary of what was left of chapter 2]
Synopsis : When Bill Cipher finds himself trapped in Dipper’s harmless body with the horrifyingly annoying and frightening idea that Pine Tree has now got the powers of a dream demon, nothing can go wrong. Right?
It all started with that dumb carpet. Unless maybe this simply was the last straw that would finally break everyone’s masks… The real question is: when did it really begin? Among the lies and acts that split a whole family apart, ‘trust no one’ never has got such importance; even towards your best friends.
The Pines are a family of pathological liars after all. Aren’t they?
The Google doc link for your notes on the ending seems to be not working :(
Thanks for the story, I understand that sometimes things wont be finished, and I'm glad to have read what I had :D
Hi! I am not quite sure what link specifically you are talking about, because the one I found that past me from long ago had posted still works perfectly. Here it is again, I checked the permissions multiple times just in case but they always have been set on the parameters they were supposed to have. I hope it works this time!
Idk if you'll ever see this but could you maybe make a quick summary of how this comic would end? Not knowing is leaving me distressed lol
Hi! I'm so sorry for having left this blog (and another one, I'm afraid this has become a pattern) hanging for what has now been years 😭 I have plans for explaining what was left of the story, but life got in the way and the massive website summary with cool visuals and behind the scenes stuff has been stuck in limbo due to my perfectionism, due to the fact that I left the fandom a long time ago, and due to the fact that I always have far too many projects to handle at once (current list: finishing the last year of my IRL PhD, maintaining a Professor Layton website in which every single line of code was written by yours truly, datamining some games, trying to salvage some others that never left Japan and may become lost media if we don't act now, a fanfic series, and trying to archive my other stories (this one included) once again in a website in order for the readers of these stories to eventually, hopefully, have closure. Also there's probably a dozen things I forgot on the list but you get the gist).
I have had a Google Drive for a while, and it holds a lot of information... But it's still a bit too disorganized imo. Still, since this is all I have to offer, I suppose it's better than nothing, so here it is. I haven't read it before making the share link, so I'll just trust Past Me for having something that at least tries to make sense ^^'
I still receive notifications for this blog, and even though I am extremely busy, I do really feel bad for leaving you all hanging. So if you have questions, ask away and I will do my best to answer.
Pythagorean Thoughts, Summary of chapter 3 onwards
or, well, as far as this post can go. I dunno, Tumblr ate a lot of my posts and given how much text I poured in this I really don’t want to risk losing all my work to the void
Anyway, spoilers below the cut, and it’s very highly recommended that you read the previous post about chapter 2 before you read this one.
As with the end of the previous post, this summary is gonna be a lot closer to plot points than to a full-fledged story... Sorry for that. I hope at least it conveys the plot in a way that is still legible.
Day 3: Saturday, July 14th, 2012
Upon waking up (late, thanks to the fairy dust and thanks to being sleep-deprived), Bill notices that the Electron Carpet is gone from the room and that it was replaced by a regular carpet. When he asks Soos about it, Soos explains that Wendy asked him to give it to her so she could store it for safekeeping, in order to avoid other incidents.
Wendy hasn’t slept that much during the night, but she still visits the Mystery Shack and talks to Bill once he is awake. She tells him she knows about the switch, but that Dipper asked her to keep the secret and pretend that everything is normal; she also adds that the main reason why Dipper told her so is because she would have caused more trouble trying to figure things out by herself, and thus put everyone at risk in the process. She reminds him that she’d still like him to come at her place at 6pm: she has something she wants to show him.
In the meantime, Wendy invites Bill to hang out with the rest of the gang: Tambry, Lee, Nate and Robbie. It turns out that Bill is at least as much of a “Dr Fun Times” as Dipper was, if not more, so Wendy relaxes around him, and Bill actually has a somewhat fun time hanging out with them too.
Bill: "Hey guys, who wants to see some zombies?"
Wendy: "If you summon anything, I'll make sure you get bitten first."
Bill: "Killjoy."
Somehow, at a certain point the gang is faced with a random Monster-of-the-Week, which starts chasing them because the teens angered it or something. Bill leads them to a cursed door and opens its lock with the President’s key, leading everyone into the paranormal black market from the graphic novel Lost Legends.
Meanwhile, Mabel, Candy, Grenda and William go in the forest in search for harmless but definitely supernatural things to show William. Sadly, apart from some strangely shaped natural elements, they don’t seem to find anything truly magical; and when the girls try to insist on the supernatural nature of the little elements they do manage to find, William is unimpressed.
Upon seeing the various supernatural beings and elements roaming the supernatural black market, the teens are in shock/awe. Wendy silently swears by repeating what Bill had said the day before, which surprises him greatly.
Wendy: "See? I learned."
They then see the "No humans allowed" sign.
Wendy: “Okay, which part of your plan made you think that this was ever going to be a good idea?”
Bill: “I'm trying to think here, okay? Just pretend to be elves, or ogres on a diet. They should buy it. Probably.”
Bill: “We’re just taking a shortcut here, we’ll get out through another door. There’s another one this way. I think.”
Anyway, hijinks ensue. This was supposed to be like your typical sorta-filler-episode with the typical GF formula from the first season/graphic novel, except I have no idea what the life lesson involved would actually be.
In the evening, while everyone goes home, Bill goes with Wendy as agreed. When they reach her bedroom, Bill asks her to put the blanket elsewhere, because of its tree pattern.
Bill: “You do know that any shape that remotely looks like him acts as a peephole he can see through anytime, right?”
Wendy wasn’t aware and agrees to put the blanket away, trying not to think about the fact that Dipper was technically able to watch her sleep. Instead, she brushes this off and takes what she wanted to show Bill: an old laptop she and Dipper had found when they visited the bunker, which Soos managed to fix recently.
Bill is surprised to see the laptop, and muses “so THAT’S where he hid it”, hinting at the fact that he was trying to stop Dipper from using it, but couldn’t because he didn’t know where it was.
Wendy explains that Dipper and her had tried to crack the code for the past few days without success; and since Bill used to be a nearly-all-knowing demon who, on top of that, was very likely linked to the author mystery, she thinks that he might know what the password is.
Bill’s partial amnesia strikes for a bit, and as he searches in his memory, he first tries the word “GULLIBLE.” But, soon enough, he thinks further and finds the true password: “STANFORD” (revealed in the collector’s edition of the official Journal 3, if you look at the invisible ink part). Therefore, the laptop is unlocked and Wendy is very curious as to why the password would coincidentally happen to be the name of her summer job boss.
Wendy: Wait... Stanford? As in, our Stanford?
Bill: Yes, and no. Sorta.
Bill disregards her interrogations about “Stanford”, however when they check the laptop’s contents and see multiple references to the name “McGucket”, Bill does mention that it is, in fact, the same “McGucket” as in “Old Man McGucket.” Wendy wants more answers and states that she’ll go interrogate McGucket on the next day -- and she expects Bill to come as well.
Day 4: Sunday, July 15th, 2012
Wendy and Bill come to meet McGucket, and investigate about the Blindeye Society; Bill only tags along for the fun of the adventure and because Wendy didn’t leave him much of a choice, but he is not really interested in the investigation itself (mainly because he already knows most of the story).
Mabel, seeing that Wendy and Bill are going once more together to an unknown location, tags along and invites Candy, Grenda and William. William expected to just hang out with Mabel’s friends, but ended up getting involved in his first true mystery hunt. They start walking towards the dump in their search for McGucket, but soon they realize that Bill is missing. Wendy and Mabel assume that he might have left because he already knew what was happening and was either bored or didn’t want to answer their questions if they were to ask him. They are annoyed, but since they heard what the investigation was about, Mabel, Candy and Grenda agree that the investigation is more important, and they decide to continue without him.
Bill really did just look for the first opportunity to bail, because he doesn’t want to confront the Society without a plan and risk losing his memories. He instead spends the day with Soos and Stan, which he finds boring but less dangerous given his situation.
As they talk with McGucket, the investigation doesn’t go too far at first. Thankfully, Candy has Journal 3 and eventually decides to consult it, feeling confident enough since Bill isn’t around to see that she is the one who has it. When they find the page in the Journal that shows the Blind Eye symbol, it triggers the same reaction from McGucket as in the original episode, and McGucket reveals that his mind has been altered somehow. William has been vastly unimpressed so far, but when everybody decides to pursue their investigation in the museum, he tags along “to make sure that they won’t do anything illegal.” However, he dissuades McGucket from coming, as he thinks he would be a burden even if he could remember anything at all. The girls all disagree, but McGucket decides to stay; disheartened, Mabel promises that they will come back with the truth and help him recover.
Meanwhile, in the Nightmare Realm, Dipper sees that they are about to meet the Blind Eye Society and starts to worry. He intends to try and warn Mabel and Wendy not to go, but someone calls him before he can do so: it just happens to be Kryptos, and apparently he wants to talk to him.
While in the museum, William proves to be surprisingly useful in figuring out the first clues as well as the secret stairway; he is analytical, knows where to find clues, and solves the puzzles easily. At first he brushes it off when Mabel praises him, but the more the investigation progresses, the more serious he becomes. He still doesn’t believe that there is anything supernatural lying beneath, but he does start to feel dread as they find more and more evidence that the place is ruled by an unknown organized group of dubious activities. After a certain point, he attempts to dissuade the group from continuing and recommends asking for the police’s assistance instead, but he is soon reminded that the Gravity Falls police won’t be of any use.
While they investigate the catacombs, they don’t actually witness firsthand that there is a mind eraser gun used by an organization; they only see indirect evidence and some caped men roaming around, and so they slowly build the puzzle piece by piece. In order to be more stealthy and to search more efficiently, they split up. Candy and Grenda stand guard, while Mabel, Wendy and William investigate.
Back in the Nightmare Realm, Kryptos reveals that he pretty much found out that Dipper isn’t Bill, and has him cornered. After a long discussion, Kryptos is perfectly willing to keep the swap accident a secret, but he wants Dipper to go through with Bill’s original plan and to cause Weirdmageddon. Besides their plans of having an eternal party free from any sort of authority, none of the henchmen want to die because of the Nightmare Realm’s instability; so if Dipper wants his secret to be well kept, he has better cause Weirdmageddon, and soon.
While they are still talking, Kryptos suddenly lunges at Dipper and pushes him away from a sudden laser beam that came out of nowhere: Ford has arrived in the Nightmare Realm, and his Quantum Destabilizer gun is ready.
Mabel, Wendy and William eventually find the Hall of the Forgotten. At first confused by all the tubes, soon they are shocked to discover thanks to the special television that each of the tubes correspond to memories of the various citizens of Gravity Falls. William feels lost and scared, but then he sees the memories aligned by the sides of the main statue... and one in particular happens to bear the name “Jeffrey Cannuck.”
William: “T-that’s my grandfather’s name!?”
Mabel: “Huh? I thought your last name was ‘Spencer’?”
William: “My parents dicorced six years ago, so my mom made me keep her name... But still— My grandfather has been missing for years! Is this why he disappeared? Because they made him lose his mind? Who knows what other families they could’ve destroyed like this!”
Wendy starts to suspect something, and stares at the statue surrounded by the memory tubes. When she notices that it seems to be part of a mechanism:
Wendy: “… Help me move this.”
Everyone complies and help her rotate the statue, which shows even more memory tubes. Wendy immediately finds one which reads “Mrs. Corduroy.”
Wendy: “They’re going down.”
Wendy tries to take the memory tube without thinking, but she accidentally triggers the alarm. Soon members of the Society arrive and despite Wendy fighting back, they manage to overpower her and Mabel. While the two girls are being taken to the main hall in the catacombs, William is shown in the shadows. He has managed to hide fast enough to not be noticed, and he sneakily leaves as he slides his grandfather’s memory tube in his jacket.
Back in the Nightmare Realm, a fight begins between Ford and Bill’s henchmen, but Ford’s gun obliterates a few of them easily, which causes the rest to immediately flee instead. An action sequence ensues, where Dipper tries to reason Ford without getting hit or injuring him in return, while Ford just keeps trying to shoot him. Eventually, Dipper barely manages to send Ford back to Dimension 52 and close the wormhole.
Picture Jheselbraum reading a book and just saying “Welcome back.” without looking up.
Cut to the Hall of the Forgotten once more: Wendy, Mabel, Candy and Grenda are tied to the pillar and surrounded by the members of the Society. Blind Ivan reveals himself and explains the motive behind the Blind Eye Society. While they discuss, William is shown still in the shadows as he is listening in; and upon listening, he is forced to suddenly accept that the supernatural actually exists. Shocked and lost, he doesn’t realize that some members of the Society found him, and soon he is brought in the circle as well. Blind Ivan soon understands the situation, and uses William as the perfect example: people like him simply can’t handle the fact that magic exists, and can’t afford to live peacefully as long as they are aware of this terrifying truth.
Taking pity on him, Blind Ivan offers William the choice to side with the Society; in fact, Blind Ivan even gives him the honor of being the one who erases the gang’s memories about the entirety of the summer. To everyone’s despair, after hesitating for a few seconds, William accepts and takes the memory gun.
Mabel: “I trusted you, William!”
William: “Ha, ha… Really? That’s too bad.”
William readies his aim... But then he quickly turns around without warning and shoots Blind Ivan.
William: “I hoped you’d say this in the present tense.”
William then proceeds to shoot every member of the Society he sees, with reflexes and an agility that the gang never suspected. After a moment, the fight seems over and William sees that all members of the Society are unconscious; and so he comes back to untie everyone.
William: “Wow, these guys are dumb. I never thought that’d actually work.”
Mabel: “Seems like you recovered fast from the shock! So, ready to join the supernatural group now?”
William: “Hahaha-- don’t get yourself any ideas, I’m still completely traumatized about this whole thing and I’m terrified at the mere thought that my therapist will never believe me.”
As they are still talking, before William is finished untying everyone, Bud Gleeful suddenly arrives and takes the memory gun out of William’s hand, then shoots him immediately while the gun’s keyword was still “SUMMER.” As Wendy was nearly untied by then, she instantly manages to break free and proceeds to knock down Bud, knocking him out in turn. Soon, everyone is free and all the members of the Society have forgotten all about the Society’s existence. Finally, William slowly wakes up.
William: “Who… What is this place? What happened?”
Mabel: “WILLIAM YOU WERE AMAZING!”
William: “W-what?”
Mabel: “You single-handedly wiped out the memory of a dozen members of an evil society with a magic gun!”
Wendy: “WHICH was incredibly stupid and dangerous. Dude, first thing when you face an army, you don’t go solo.”
William: “… I did what now? Also, who on earth are you?”
Mabel: “Yeeesh, you’ve got some remembering to do.”
Candy proceeds to open the memory gun and hands to Mabel the tube it contains.
Candy: “His memory tube should be this one.”
Mabel: “Thanks! Come on William, the magic memory screen is that way.”
William: “L-let me go! How do you guys know me— who are you working for!? Y-you'll hear from my father!”
One long remembering session later, William has come to terms with the fact that he indeed had his memory erased; however, he still denies that actual magic exists. All he accepts is the fact that the memory gun is an advanced technology, which has absolutely nothing to do with anything magical. The girls are disappointed by his denial, but everyone agrees that the day was long and eventful enough.
It is now night time, and Dipper comes to see Mabel in her dream. He is extremely worried and apologizes for not being able to come to their aid earlier, as he had troubles of his own to deal with at the same time (namely, a murderous Stanford).
Dipper is relieved to see that everyone is alright and that the Society is now no more, but he tries to give Mabel a warning: confronting William to the supernatural is not a good idea. Mabel is surprised and she praises once more William’s unexpected amazing skills when they were cornered, but Dipper is uneasy and says that involving William in any magic-related case might actually be dangerous. Mabel tries to reassure him, but she thinks that Dipper is just still angry at William for what he had said on July 12, and that perhaps he might be a bit jealous of William’s skills too.
After they spent some time together, Mabel reminds Dipper of the favor she asked of him; and Dipper says he will do it immediately. They bid each other goodbye, then Dipper leaves.
Cut the scene to Northwest Manor, in Pacifica’s room. Dipper appears in Pacifica’s dream; after a confused conversation, Dipper explains that he came because he wants to ask her something.
Yeah I get that and I understand completely from being a person who likes making stories too. It can be really hard to keep a story going and all of that. (I have to keep it short sorry, thanks tumblr. -_-) But yeah I can easily understand how you feel since that I have about 7 or 6 stories too that I am working on and two comic ideas too. The only big difference to you and me. Is that I haven't post it. So yeah, it's nice to meet you and you are not alone to have the same thoughts like I do ok.
I am. So sorry for taking so long to reply. PhD, comic stuff, working on the PT summary of What Could Have Been, all that is taking so much time lmao
Anyway, thanks again for your understanding; I hope the summary is not too disappointing and satisfying enough at least, so the comic can still have some kind of closure...
I’m curious about your stories, but it’s fine if you don’t want to make them public ^^ Good luck with your own projects! Don’t hesitate to message me if you want to talk more -- at least tumblr PMs don’t have a character limit like asks do. My main blog is @lutiaskokopelli, so it’s probably best that you message me there if you want to.
(Major spoilers for the comic, but since it won’t update anymore (besides PERHAPS some random comic strips/excerpts without context every now and then, but don’t count on it), I guess it doesn’t matter.)
If you read my answer to the ask posted earlier, you probably know what this post is about. I’ll make a list of every important point I wanted to tackle in the comic, in multiple sections. Be prepared for the long post that awaits you below the cut.
Summary of what was left of Chapter 2
Following their first appearance at the beginning of the chapter, Lolph and Dundgren try to question Blendin, who is staying at a hospital and is still under intense care. They discuss what exactly happened to Blendin in the first place: he was assigned what was supposed to be a routine mission to solve a minor time anomaly in the 21st century, but his time machine exploded when he tried to operate it and he was gravely injured. Dundgren mentions that any normal time device should hardly cause this much damage when malfunctioning, suggesting that Blendin’s level of incompetence is so incredibly high, it somehow managed to make something that shouldn’t be able to explode blow up in his face. On the other hand, Lolph starts to wonder if, exactly because it should be impossible, the accident may have had a reason other than just Blendin’s incompetence. Unfortunately, the accident had consequences so grave on Blendin’s physical health, it seemingly also took a toll on his sanity and questioning him only leaves them with esoteric sentences of dubious credibility.
Blendin: “This is very nice of you… to visit me. There isn’t much time left. I was starting to feel alone, before everything disappears.”
Blendin: “Time Baby will succeed… He will free us from this time.”
July 13, 2012 again: back in the gift shop of the Mystery Shack, Wendy and Soos have captured Bill and tied him up to a chair. Wendy starts interrogating him, asking him who or what he is-- throwing in her multiple guesses: the Shapeshifter she defeated with Dipper in the bunker, a paper clone... She doesn’t suspect demon possession or a switch-because-of-the-carpet scenario, however. Bill just keeps trying to break free with little success, without answering; and soon, Stan interrupts them when he enters the gift shop as well, followed by the dozen of tourists he took during his latest tour. Wendy and Soos manage to evade Stan’s obvious questions by pretending they were making a new attraction.
Back in Mabel’s Dreamscape, Mabel encourages Dipper to have some fun with Bill’s powers, but he is scared of messing up because of just how powerful he is; having seen Bill’s powers both in the Mindscape/Dreamscape and in Weirdmageddon when he witnessed the alternate timelines, Dipper knows just how far those powers can go and he isn’t sure he can control them. Still, after some teasing Mabel starts a snowball fight with the surrounding ice cream, and gradually the twins have more and more fun starting with the ice cream, then with the tricks Dipper starts to use. When they take a break, Mabel points out that nothing bad happened, and Dipper grows a bit more confident that he can use Bill’s powers in a way that isn’t dangerous.
Dipper: “I guess it’s easy to do exactly what you want when it literally happens in your mind... Huh.”
Dipper notices it’s almost noon, and Mabel remembers that she was supposed to meet William at Greasy’s Diner for lunch. Mabel is unseasy upon thinking of talking to him again after what happened the day before, and Dipper confirms by showing William’s current whereabouts through a peephole that William seems about as worried as she is. Mabel takes a deep breath, makes sure that she will be able to see Dipper whenever she needs (during the night for sure, perhaps earlier if she asks for it). Still, just before Dipper wakes her up... She has a favor to ask him.
Mabel: “Now that you can do lots of magic stuff and all... Could you do something for me?”
Back in the gift shop, the tourists have left and Bill was untied due to Stan’s confusion over the situation. However, he is forced to stay inside and is stuck sitting by Wendy’s side behind the cashier desk. When Mabel goes through the gift shop to go to the Diner, everyone notices that she made a new sweater -- one with a pine tree symbol on it, no less. Bill is enraged but can’t stop her from leaving.
William has his first face reveal. He is a blonde 13-year-old, and is already waiting worriedly at Greasy’s Diner when Mabel arrives. He immediately apologizes for what happened on the day before.
William: “About yesterday, I... I’m sorry I said your brother was a bad influence. That was uncalled for.”
Mabel: “Yes. Yes it was.”
William is genuinely apologetic, but soon it is revealed that the reason why he thought Dipper and the Mystery Shack were a bad influence was because he doesn’t believe at all in the supernatural. Even if Mabel told him about her adventures, he assumed they were just stories she made up while playing in the Mystery Shack’s museum and never believed them to be true. Mabel tries to convince him by showing him some episodes of Dipper’s “Guide to the Unexplained” -- a series of videos he used to make and post online at the beginning of their summer break upon arriving in Gravity Falls, but stopped making altogether after Summerween. Sadly, the episodes made up until then did not revolve around exceptionally weird anomalies, and aren’t enough to convince William. The only thing William admits to being strange is the fact that every inhabitant of Gravity Falls is “out of their minds.”
Exasperated by William’s absurdly high levels of skepticism, Mabel eventually dares him to go on a forest expedition with her, Candy and Grenda on the next day, just so they can show him pretty much anything in the forest that is out of the ordinary. William strongly refuses and tries to dissuade her to go into the forest at all; he has been personally forbidden by his mother from going anywhere near the forest, and he has also read on the local news that there is currently a predator of unknown origin or species on the loose, which has been notably attacking sheep from the nearby farm. Mabel teases him about the fact that he believes that this creature is real, and suggests that it might be a werewolf for example; but William doesn’t take her seriously, especially because the creature is supposed to fly.
And... This is the part where my script starts getting wonky. I’ve been trying to fill the holes, but sadly it’s proven to be quite difficult, especially now that I know I won’t be drawing it in comic form anyway. Still, the main plot should be precise enough! The holes are mainly just “there should be some filler and/or foreshadowing to what’s coming here”, with little more than just prompts for what could be happening.
Back in the Mystery Shack’s gift shop, Wendy tries to sneakily question Bill, but when Stan asks them where Mabel went and Bill tells him she skipped her restocking duty so she could spend time with William at the Diner, Stan asks him to get her back. Bill happily takes this opportunity to slip out of the Mystery Shack, and have an excuse to bother Mabel at the same time.
Eventually, William is obligated to accept Mabel’s terms and intends on coming so he can at least make sure that the girls won’t put themselves in danger upon visiting the forest on their own.
Bill arrives at the Diner. William, thinking he is meeting Dipper again, tries to make amends for the things he said the previous day and says that he earnestly thinks they can start again on the right foot; Bill sadistically mocks him instead, all the while pretending to be Dipper, just so he can ruin Mabel’s hopes of reconciling William and Dipper. Bill finishes Mabel by forcing her to leave, saying that Stan expects her to work at the gift shop like she was supposed to since the beginning.
Mabel gone, William and Bill start to have a tense conversation; well, tense on William’s part, while Bill is mostly just having a blast driving William mad. The old fanfic that was the first “draft” version of the story has this chapter, which gathers most of the jokes I intended to keep, and at least some of the plot points. I’ll put a warning for awkward English, though. Oh and also, apparently in the old version it was July 3rd and not July 13th, so in the comic the “tomorrow is July 4th so the forest trip can’t happen anyway” excuse wouldn’t work.
About the Quetzalcoatlus thing: here, have some fun dinosaur size comparisons & history following my latest research on what the pterodactyl from S1E18: Land Before Swine.
William: “And how would you even know all that?”
Bill: “Because I ate Leonardo da Vinci.”
William: “. . .”
William: “… It must have been some VERY cryptic way for you to say that it was one of those conspiracy things mentioned in the old book supposedly written by a genius that you keep reading passionately every day. Right?”
Bill: “Oh, so your brain CAN work sometimes!”
Bill gets bit by a soothquito. His bite marks spell “FHOASE CORECULLY“
Upon leaving the Diner, they both see someone being kidnapped by a member of the Blindeye Society. William insists they immediately go warn the police, but Blubs and Durland prove to be ineffective as ever. Bill slips in one or two facts about the secret society, but William dismisses them completely as other random insane things Bill just happens to say all the time for trolling purposes.
Mabel is back in the Mystery Shack and starts her restocking duty, but her mind is clearly elsewhere. She starts mumbling to herself, but is interrupted by the decapitated head of Larry King who just happened to be in the vents nearby. Mabel isn’t surprised at all to see he survived, and when Larry King starts "interviewing” her about the issues she was mumbling about, she complies. Some time later, while Soos is cleaning up the floor, he overhears Mabel complaining about Bill being a jerk on purpose and making Dipper seem like a terrible person, and ends up hearing pretty much the whole story that way, without Mabel knowing. Soos proceeds to tell Wendy what he heard, helping them putting two and two together-- all the while understanding why Mabel didn’t warn them, and why they should stay silent as well. They decide not to tell Mabel they know her secret; but when Bill comes back later, just as Wendy’s shift was about to end, she has just one thing to tell him:
Wendy: “Tomorrow 6PM. My place.”
Night time; Bill is annoyed, but not very surprised by the fact that Soos is sleeping with him for the night, in the room on the ground floor where Dipper had relocated. Bill is at least glad he no longer has to pretend to be Dipper around Wendy and him.
Soos proceeds to ask Bill what his intentions were; not just in the present times now that the switch occurred, but also before it.
Soos: “So you really are that triangle guy from two weeks ago?”
Soos: “Now that I'm thinking about it… A lot of things happened two weeks ago. That's when it began to get all wrong. Well, it was already wrong before that, but… That's really when you came that everything started to get all weird and… bad.“
Soos: “It all started because of that Summerween night. What did you want with us?”
Soos: “Why did you tell Dipper that Gideon summoned you?”
Bill: “It was just a job. Jobs are boring. There’s no fun in it if nobody’s trying to stop you.”
Bill: “Oh, and you wanna know the best part? If you’d taken Shooting Star along with you instead of going just the two of you, perhaps you would’ve had an opportunity to beat me.”
Soos: What did you do with Gideon two weeks ago? Dipper and I knew it wasn’t a coincidence that those government guys showed up just the next day.
Bill: “Something that neither Pine Tree nor I want anybody to find out, I bet. Also if I were to tell you, you'd either faint or spend the next fourteen hours trying to explain it all to Red. Funny, but not worth it.”
Soos is disturbed by Bill’s attitude, because of course he tries to both troll and traumatize at once, and given how Soos was already terrified of Bill because of the Summerween night (”I’ve had nightmares for weeks!” from an earlier comic page), it doesn’t help. Soos tries to ask Bill about the deal he made with Gideon -- more specifically, he asks what Bill wanted in return for stealing the code from Stan’s mind. However, Bill doesn’t answer and instead opens the bedroom door to reveal that Mabel was trying to eavesdrop.
Mabel was mostly there to make sure that everything was alright, and deduces that Bill hadn't slept at all during the first night and that he intends to never sleep at all, even after she tells him that humans need sleep to survive. Thankfully she came prepared with a “surprise gift from Candy and Grenda”, and sprays Bill with Fairy Dust.
Mabel: “There’s probably enough in that bag to knock out a gremloblin in an instant, so I think he’s good for the night. :p”
Once Bill is asleep, Dipper takes this chance to come to his Dreamscape and talk to him one-on-one; and, he is not happy at how Bill treated Mabel so far. Still, after a certain point the conversation gets to a more pressing topic.
Bill: “You saw it happen, didn’t you?”
Bill: “Weirdmageddon. You saw it, right?”
Dipper: “. . .”
Bill: “Oh-ho, even better! There’s a timeline in which YOU make it happen, isn’t there?”
Dipper: “That’s not gonna happen.”
Bill: “Look kid, take it from me. The more you try to actively prevent a specific outcome, the more likely you usually make it happen.”
Dipper: “You can’t make something happen if you specifically stop everything that can lead to it from happening first.”
Dipper: “Even if it includes lying to Mabel… I saw it. If she learns there’s a way to get me a physical form, she’ll try anything to make it happen and disregard the consequences. I bet she trusts me to keep things under control, but everything else? There’s just... There’s too many variables. We can’t let her know anything about the portal. Or Weirdmageddon.”
Bill: “Well, that doesn’t change anything from my original plan anyway.”
Bill: “So you’re just gonna stay in the Nightmare Realm forever, is that it?”
Dipper: “That’s not much of a plan so far, but that’s still an effective way to save the world.”
Bill: “Don’t mess with me. You DO know that if you don’t make your way to another dimension eventually, you’re just going to die, right?”
Dipper: “... W-what are you talking about?”
Bill: “Wait. You REALLY didn’t figure that out yet?”
Bill: “The Nightmare Realm is unstable. It’s just gonna collapse one of these days, destroy everything in it. Could be in a billion years. Could be tomorrow.”
After leaving Bill’s Dreamscape, Dipper decides to visit Wendy’s and tell her everything. He confirms her doubts, tells her the whole story with the carpet... And he tells her about Weirdmageddon and what Bill just told him about the Nightmare Realm.
Dipper: “I mean, it’s better this way for everyone, and of course I’m not gonna go with Bill’s original plan to destroy the laws of physics or whatever, but… I-I just don’t wanna die, you know?”
Hi, I just wanted to hear about if you are still working on this comic? From finding out that you have made it two years ago. I just wanted to make sure, because I like this comic a lot with doing this body swap. But yeah, I am only asking you here of course if you want to answer ok. It's also very nice to meet you. ^^
(ok so I made an EXTREMELY LONG POST and Tumblr ate it so I am now very upset because I talked about a LOT of stuff and now I must find in me the energy to write it all over again ;-; )
I originally answered with a grateful-sorta-bittersweet tone and talked about a lot of stuff, but since everything I said during the past hour or so is now lost forever to the void I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep the same tone... Please bear with me for being too concise this time, that’s really not how the original answer was written :’)
First off, thanks for your message, and despite the fact that the comic is indeed pretty much abandoned, I’m still happy you could at least have a good time for a while during your read. It’s more my problem really for being the type of artist who can’t stay focused on one thing and whose imagination is so wild, I’ll end up creating tons of stories so long and complex that I can rarely ever finish them -- most often I force myself not to look into new stuff just because I’m too scared of getting involved in yet another fandom and getting inspired for yet another story I will never have the time or energy to finish (the will to finish it is always there, although it’s usually more for the sake of my readers rather than because I’m really 100% invested in the story itself by then).
I have multiple still ongoing projects, and Pythagorean Thoughts is the oldest of them... as well as the one for which my notes are the most vague and lacking. Take my Undertale fanfic, Learn When to Quit-- even if I won’t be able to finish it either (it’s just WAY too hard to write, so even if I were to write the rest in fanfic form it wouldn’t have the same quality as the first 13 chapters, so to me it wouldn’t count anyway), the notes I have for it are so detailed, everything from chapter 1 up until chapter ~80 is set in stone, give or take a few details that may show up at the last minute upon writing; there’s, like, only 3-5 chapters that are still “time passes before chapter 74 so just make up some filler-y stuff here.”
Pythagorean Thoughts on the other hand... Well, thing is, the script is very detailed for everything that happens before the comic starts. But for the stuff that happens after...? Well, I do have plot points, important scenes that I want to draw, random jokes and punchlines that I want to include here and there, but when you compare with LWtQ, it’s more like “the important stuff happens on July 12, July 13, July 14, July 16, perhaps July 18, then it jumps to July 31, and then it jumps to the end of the summer. Make as many filler episodes as you can because making ellipses over more than a week’s worth of time doesn’t look good when the purpose of the story is to show the characters’ development over time, step by step.” So... yeah, it’s a bit of a problem when you run out of inspiration and the many, many ideas you do have already are just so all over the place, you can’t use them to create a list of precise plots before the end of the day arrives and you feel terrible for having wasted your precious almost-PhD-student time (technically my PhD starts tomorrow, but it just means that I’ll have even less free time than I used to).
Admittedly, my current Hollow Knight comic (posted on my main blog, @lutiaskokopelli) is just as all over the place as Pythagorean Thoughts is... except 1) it’s inspired by a walkthrough for which I have a list of notes with set-in-stone events, in which every noteworthy detail is already written (not to mention that I also have many plot-relevant ideas for future scenes as well); and 2) it also counts as an ask blog, which means that the constant flood of asks I get is a constant source of inputs for me to use -- I basically just have to write the characters’ answers to the asks while the story progresses, which is much easier than just making up everything on the spot from start to finish. In a way, the readers/askers make 50% of the plot in my stead.
Not gonna lie... In the previous answer that got eaten up by Tumblr (yes, I’m still salty), I had started a list of what the major plot points for the comic were supposed to be, up until it started becoming a huge wall of text. I’ve been wanting to write a real summary of the script for a very long time, but I could never find a way to write it in the way I wanted it to, so... I guess it’ll just have to be a messy list of plot points, trivia, and random ideas I wanted to include in the comic. It’s not gonna be nearly as good as reading a finished product, but... That’s kinda all I have, I’m afraid-- and, well, I don’t even have it yet, since it has yet to be written. I’ll try to brute-force my way through it in another post, given how I was already doing it before Tumblr trolled me.
All that being said... I’m really sorry for not being able to finish my stuff. I have made a point of finishing my Hollow Knight comic no matter what (just to prove to myself that I can finish a story for real), but that doesn’t mean much regarding my other projects, sadly. Once again, I thank you for your kind comment, and I hope the next post will be compensation enough... despite its likely messiness. Please bear with me, it’s either posting something complete but messy or never posting anything at all because of my crippling perfectionism.
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DAY 1: AN EQUILATERAL VISION OF THINGS [6]
As handyman, Soos has already had the opportunity to patch up bruises in S1E19: Dreamscaperers to Dipper, in Fixin’ It with Soos to himself, and certainly during other instances I forgot about. After getting hurt due to Bill shenanigans during/prior to the comic’s Prologue, Mabel would naturally go to him for basic first aid.
Dipper mentions Summerween explicitly, stating that he had been looking for answers (supposedly related to Bill) since then. Summerween is obviously the same holiday as in the episode of the same name, and it occurred on the same day as in the show, that is to say, on Friday, June 22, 2012.
One of the flashback-quotes from the moment Mabel reminisces what Bill told her is “At least Pine Tree would’ve needed an entire setup to convince!” This is related to the recently-confirmed fact that during S2E04: Sock Opera, the fact that the laptop suddenly and so conveniently started threatening to erase all its data in a given time was in fact completely staged by Bill and a part of Dipper’s dream. In reality, the laptop didn’t have this erasing feature at all and Bill manipulated Dipper from the start by making him believe otherwise, so that he would panic and agree to the deal.
That moment when Dipper is about to fall asleep and hallucinate a laptop emergency without realizing that it isn’t real
Bill’s ability to “watch alternate timelines” is indicated in Bill’s AMA as Bill being able to see a “kaleidoscope of infinite possibilities with fluctuating probabilities.”
Bill's bucket is the same one that contains the pine cones seen on the rooftop in S1E05: The Inconveniencing. I tried (very quickly) to look for large containers that could be moved around easily in the Shack, but apparently this bucket was the only relevant one that I could find. As such, in-universe, the reason why Bill took so long before waking Mabel up is because he literally had to get to the roof to retrieve that bucket, then fill it with cold water, before he could go back to the room where Mabel was and throw the water at her face.
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DAY 1: AN EQUILATERAL VISION OF THINGS [5]
The Axolotl and the oracle Jheselbraum the Unswerving are characters introduced in respectively the Choose your own adventure novel Dipper and Mabel and the Curse of the Time Pirates' Treasure!: Select Your Own Choose-Venture and Journal 3; the fact that Ford is currently under Jheselbraum’s care is also explained in Journal 3. Time Baby is mentioned in S1E08: Irrational Treasure and said to be imprisoned in ice in Antarctica.
As indicated earlier, while in the Mindscape, Dipper is technically a ghost and out of Bill’s actual body; as such, his actual shape can be different from Bill’s regular one.
The fact that Dipper comes out of the Pine Tree symbol instead of being summoned by the zodiac circle in itself is linked to Dipper’s Mindscape form, which is also linked to the fact that he is the Pine Tree from the zodiac prophecy.
Mabel mentions that Dipper “twinkles when he speaks”; while it is not shown in comic form, Dipper indeed twinkles the same way Bill does in the show whenever he’s saying something. A particularity that Mabel seems to find rather funny to watch.
Mabel knows Christmas just as she knows any other holiday from any other religion; according to an interview, Mabel insists that her family celebrate every single holiday in the year, no matter the origin. They thus celebrate every single special day/period in the year from every single religion/culture that she knows about.
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DAY 1: AN EQUILATERAL VISION OF THINGS [4]
Mabel’s lock-picking skills are demonstrated in the episodes S1E15: The Deep End and S1E16: Boyz Crazy.
Dipper is a surprisingly fast learner when it comes to spells or Mindscape powers, as shown in S1E19: Dreamscaperers and S2E04: Sock Opera. It didn’t take him long to get a hang of his newfound abilities during these times of need.
Alternatively, a deleted scene from S1E01: Scary-oke had Dipper decipher a code contained in his Journal mentally in about a dozen seconds. He’s quite the smart cookie!
Given all this, it doesn’t seem too surprising that he’d catch on how Bill’s powers work rather quickly as well... Especially since it appears that in the comic, he knows Bill quite well to begin with, thus is likely to have seen a good range of his powers in action already.
The fact that upon leaving the Nightmare Realm and entering the Mindscape, Dipper leaves behind a stone body like Bill is shown to do in S2E20: Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls, and changes shape due to him not being Bill, are a headcanon/theory developed through reading Ford’s tale in the Nightmare Realm in Journal 3. It is hinted that Bill’s powers only work in the Mindscape (and not in the Nightmare Realm per se) and that Bill already has a somewhat physical form while in the Nightmare Realm.
» See this post for details and evidence regarding Bill’s body before and after Weirdmageddon (coming soon!)
While entering the Mindscape and seeing multiple random peepholes, Dipper sees a lot of images from “other timelines” — most of which are taken from the original cartoon. You could say that during that time, Dipper gets some massive spoilers dump, given the fact that he gets to see the “Stan Pines Dead” headline from S2E11: Not What He Seems, Ford getting out of the portal, shots of the activated portal, a first image of Bill and Mabel’s bubble from S2E18: Weirdmageddon, and other main series-related major spoilers of the like. Other images include: a shot of Dipper and Wendy in Wendy’s room during the opening of S2E02: Into the Bunker, shots of Dipper and Mabel hanging out…
All in all, as soon as the 25th page of the comic, Dipper already gets a very heavy bombshell of revelations... and knowing his curious and paranoid nature, he should be quick to use this newfound knowledge and get in action.
Happy 2020 everyone! And... I’m really sorry for disappearing once more, etc. I can’t promise I’ll be 100% present from now on, but I’ll do my best to keep working on this comic! I’ll be posting some more Call-Back Dumps to catch up for now, and some more comic pages will be posted soon.
I apologize again for nearly giving up on this story and all. Studies are... hard.
hi!! i just wanna say that I really like this comic! none of the characters act ooc, even Bill-- who's a REALLY hard character to write, imo!! you're doing a great job, but be sure you don't overwork yourself!
Hey there! I’m really glad the comic keeps you interested so far :D And since writing the characters as accurate and “realistic” is the most important part to me when I write a story, it means a lot to me that you think it works.
I agree that Bill is harder to write than most characters, yeah – especially because even now that the series has come to a closure, we still don’t know that much about him or his psyche. I’ve been notably interested in drawing some conscious inspiration from the fanfic Flat Dreams by PengyChan because it gives a vast and detailed approach to Bill’s past and character, but I also wanted to stay as close to the GF canon as possible, so no mention or nod towards this fanwork will be made, and I don’t believe that Flat Dreams actually counts as canon in this fancomic’s universe (at least not in the main timeline, since GF does consider an “anything is possible” kind of multiverse in its canon world-building, after all).
Thank you for your concern, by the way ^^ For now I’m mostly working on my other fan-story (aka my Undertale fanfic available at @lwtq-undertale – I’m writing its 10th chapter and it’s going to be a heavy climax one, so I’m kinda hyped for it x3), so I’m kind of taking a break from Pythagorean Thoughts. Still, I often jump back and forth between both stories (and a few other projects I’m working on outside from the internet), so don’t worry, I’ll be back to this comic soon either way, sooner or later :p
