Introduction Page: About Me
Introduction
Hello, this is @themurphyzone on Tumblr! Also known as cresselia8themoon on AO3!
I'm the author of Separate Worlds, a Gravity Falls AU that's a what-if continuation of A Better World AU from Journal 3! It makes me really happy that people are enjoying this fanfiction from a show I've loved since it first aired in 2012, but since my main blog is becoming a little bloated with other content, I'm going to start placing anything that's related to this fanfic under this name from this point on.
You can still find earlier posts about this fanfic under the tag #separate worlds on @themurphyzone.
Separate Worlds Summary
Thirty years ago, Stan agreed to take Journal 1 somewhere far away by Ford’s desperate request, only to perish at sea. Upon his death, a mysterious power seals his soul within the journal he failed to protect. For many years afterward, the journal continues to drift through the ocean, alone and forgotten by all.
In 2012, Mabel Pines is feeling lost without her twin brother, who’s accepted an internship at the prestigious International Institute of Oddology, run by the famous Stanford Pines. Just when she thinks she’s gonna have to survive public middle school alone, a chance encounter at the pier changes everything.
Meanwhile, Dipper is beyond ecstatic to follow in his great uncle’s footsteps as a paranormal researcher. While he has reservations about leaving Mabel in Piedmont, he can't pass up this educational opportunity. But he’ll soon discover that not everything is as it seems within the Institute and the town of Gravity Falls.
Inspiration
Not What He Seems and A Tale of Two Stans were the episodes that launched thousands of fanfics, theorists, and fanartists, and that's when I really got into AUs where Stan and Ford's meeting went differently, and the consequences that arose from Ford's return and how the Stan twins' fallout affected Dipper and Mabel.
Ford is a character that's steeped with mystery, and no two people will have the same opinion on him if you ask. He's likely the most polarizing cartoon character to come out in the recent decade (other than fellow morally gray figure Rose Quartz), and that makes Journal 3 such a fascinating read.
Ford only appears in-person in the last half of Season 2, so the audience is more likely to hold more sympathetic opinions towards Stanley since we get comparatively more time with him.
But Journal 3 gives us the details of Ford's thoughts, his relationships, his flaws, his life, how he sees the world and his relationship with weirdness-from his own to the anomalies around him to a family he's been disconnected from for decades.
In Tale of Two Stans, Stan refuses Ford's request to take the journal and leave Gravity Falls. So Journal 3 gives us the Better World AU, where a new universe is created because Stan accepted the journal and followed Ford's request to get on a boat and sail to the ends of the earth, where his research will never fall into the wrong hands.
Then Ford goes on to reconcile with Fiddleford, block Bill's access to their dimension with a device that still allows questionably safe usage of the portal for further research, founds the International Institute of Oddology, and finally achieves the fame he's wanted and the fortune his father wanted.
And as for Stan...that's it. There's no further mention of A Better World Stan after he takes the journal and leaves. What he does with it, where he ends up going, how he feels...it's all left up to reader interpretation.
It's been a popular theory that Better World Stan took his own life afterwards, and even the more optimistic interpretations still have Stan sailing the ocean without family for a long time.
And without Stan, the repercussions of his absence from the family can be felt many years later, even from those who may not know he existed at all.
