Chapter Text

Mr. and Mrs. Pines lived in the prosperous suburbs of Piedmont, California. Mr. Pines was a lighting technician for major Hollywood films, though he seldom watched them. Mrs. Pines was a mid-level marketing administrator for a major supermarket. Between the two of them they had two children, fraternal twins called Dipper and Mabel. Mr. and Mrs. Pines were not particularly attentive parents, and so this story does not concern them.

Dipper Pines – so nicknamed for the perfect Big Dipper formed by birthmarks on his forehead – was a small boy, who never felt like he had many friends. He always found himself ahead of his classmates academically, and, worse still, found himself ahead of the curriculum intellectually. At age eight he gave up on school as a source of education altogether, only putting in the minimal effort to keep the adults around him satisfied. He instead turned to online sources, and taught himself how to critically and analytically think. By age twelve, Dipper considered himself one of humanity's greatest minds, and despised the way people rolled their eyes when he informed them of such. The actual given name of Dipper Pines is a topic that will merit discussion at a later date.

Mabel Pines never had such trouble finding a place socially. Her relentless, confident positivity made it easy for her to connect with people just about anywhere. It was difficult not to feel better after meeting Mabel. It took genuine effort to dislike her. Mabel's favorite non-Mabel person in the world was certainly her brother Dipper, and she considered herself lucky to have been born alongside him. Dipper always had some interesting topic to discuss, whether it was basic epistemology or some fringe issue from the deepest reaches of theoretical physics. Even when Mabel didn't understand what interested Dipper, she still appreciated his enthusiasm. Dipper and Mabel had extreme confidence, of slightly different sorts.

On the occasion of Mabel and Dipper's graduation from the sixth grade, their parents, in an effort to spend some time alone, sent them off to live for three months with their great uncle Stanford Pines, who lived in the small, rural town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. Stanford had once shown great promise as a cutting-edge scientist, but burned out after high school, and ultimately retreated to a simpler life operating a small business for a modest income. He fell out of touch with his family, but wished to change this, and was ecstatic when offered the opportunity to spend some time with his younger brother's grandchildren.

Allow me to take a moment to explicate the history of Gravity Falls. According to guidebooks, Gravity Falls was founded in 1855 by bank teller Nathaniel Northwest, when he purchased the land from a local Indian tribe. Over time the town grew thanks to its placement near a key mudflap factory, which particularly proved profitable after the invention of the automobile. Now the town is mostly notable for having the lowest crime rate per capita in the United States, and for being a critical recruitment center for '90s-style boy bands. Absolutely none of this is true.

Dipper ate the last chip in his bag and stepped off of the train, Mabel right behind him. Dipper quickly stuck the emptied Doritos bag in a nearby trashcan-with-attached-ashtray, and looked around the station as Mabel blew and then popped a pink bubblegum bubble. He spotted a rotund young man with a smile plastered on his face, a question mark printed on his shirt, and a sign reading “MABEL AND DOPPER, WELCOME TO GRAVITY FALLS!”

“Hey, Mabel,” said Dipper, nudging her and pointing at the man. “Unless there's someone out there who's actually named Dopper, I think that that's a mistake.”

“Hi!” shouted Mabel, and she waved. Everyone stared, but the man with the sign realized he was being addressed, and his smile intensified!

“Yo!” said the man. “Mabel? Dopper?”

“I'm Dipper,” said Dipper. “Dipper Pines.”

“Oh,” said the man. “That makes more sense.” He took a pen out of his pocket and crossed out the O on the sign. Dipper wondered why he bothered. “I'm Soos. I work for your Grunkle Stan. He was busy so he sent me to pick you dudes up.”

“Grunkle?” said Dipper, raising a confused eyebrow.

“Yeah, Grunkle,” said Soos. “Great, uncle. Grunkle.”

“Wow, Soos, I love your portmanteaus,” said Mabel.

“Oh, heh heh, thanks,” said Soos, and he blushed. Then he whispered: “Hey, Dipper, what's a portmanteau?”

“Two words combined to form another word,” said Dipper, who then pouted. Soos was clearly not the brightest bulb in the reject pile, and Dipper just wanted to meet his brilliant scientist great uncle already.

“To Grunkle Stan's house!” proclaimed Mabel, and shortly thereafter the three of them were in Soos's pickup truck, though he insisted on driving it very slowly. He claimed Stan would be upset with him if he drove faster.

“So, what star signs are you dudes?” said Soos, though he was careful to keep his eyes on the road. “I'm guessing Dipper's a Capricorn and Mabel is a Sagittarius.”

“We're twins, Soos,” said Dipper, and he rolled his eyes.

“Oh, so one of you's a Gemini, then,” said Soos. “I was way off.”

“We're Virgos,” said Mabel, although Dipper knew she was too smart to care except for the sake of conversation. “What are you?”

“I'm a Cancer!” said Soos.

As is anyone who believes in astrology, thought Dipper.

“Hey Soos, do you want to learn the scientific method?” said Dipper.

“Do I ever!” said Soos. “Then I could build a giant robot, and then people would really think I'm cool.”

“The scientific method isn't about building giant robots,” said Dipper.

“Is that just in movies?” said Soos.

“It's about systematically trying to figure out how reality works,” said Dipper. “Let's play a game. I'm going to write a rule down on this slip of paper, and then I'm going to hand it to Mabel.”

“I've played this game before,” said Mabel. “It's not very fun.”

“Shh, Mabel, don't spoil the solution,” said Dipper, and he handed her the note. “Anyway, I'm going to follow that rule, and you're going to give me sets of three numbers, and I'm going to say 'yes' or 'no' to each set. Yes if it follows the rule, no if it doesn't.”

“This sounds kinda complicated...” said Soos. “Um, two four six?”

“Yes,” said Dipper.

“Two six four?” said Soos.

“No,” said Dipper.

“Okay, I'm gonna guess the rule now,” said Soos. “The three numbers have to be two, four, and six. In that order.” Dipper pulled on his face out of frustration.

“No,” said Dipper. “That's not the rule at all. Not even a little bit. You had no reason to think that. You literally only found two data points and then made a theory to fit them. The scientific method says that to be sure of something, you need to come up with a theory, and then rigorously test it with experiments that could disprove it. Come up with alternate explanations of the data and then rigorously distinguish between them. Mabel, read off the real rule.”

“'Any three real numbers from least to greatest',” said Mabel, a shrug in her voice.

“Oh, geez, I was way off,” said Soos. “I should have said more numbers.”

“Okay, now I'm going to write down a rule,” said Mabel. “And I'm going to hand it to Soos, and Dipper can choose numbers.”

“Good,” said Dipper. “A counterexample to demonstrate how the scientific method is done. Zero, one, two?”

“No,” said Mabel.

“One, two, three,” said Dipper.

“Yes,” said Mabel.

“Negative one, negative two, negative three,” said Dipper.

“No,” said Mabel.

“Hmm,” said Dipper. “One, two, five.”

“Yes,” said Mabel.

“Seven, three, nine thousand and fifty,” said Dipper.

“Yes,” said Mabel.

“Five googolplex, thirty, one,” said Dipper.

“A googolplex is ten to the ten to the hundred, right?” said Mabel.

“Right,” said Dipper, though he found it exasperating that even his own sister didn't know that simple fact.

“Yes,” said Mabel.

“Five googolplex, thirty, negative one,” said Dipper.

“No,” said Mabel.

“Five googolplex, thirty, zero,” said Dipper.

“No,” said Mabel, and she grinned. Dipper wasn't sure why, so it made him uncomfortable.

“Five googolplex, thirty, i,” said Dipper.

“That's not a real number, silly,” said Mabel. “No.”

“Normally I'd like to get more rigorous, but I think this is enough for this activity,” said Dipper. “Any three positive real numbers?”

“Read it, Soos!” said Mabel.

“'Any three numbers Mabel feels like saying yes to',” said Soos. “I like this rule. It's simple.”

“What?” said Dipper, shocked by the betrayal. “Mabel! You missed the point of this whole exercise!” Mabel just laughed. “I wasn't trying to trick Soos!”

“But I was trying to trick you,” said Mabel. “And I got you pretty good.” Dipper crossed his arms. Mabel didn't even care about teaching people to think.

“Ooh, I came up with a rule!” said Soos. “Can I write it down and hand it to Dipper and have Mabel guess it? Then the game will be balanced. Om.”

“That sounds delightful, delicious, and de-lovely, Soos!” said Mabel. “Write it down!” Soos pulled over and scribbled something down, and handed it to Dipper.

“Okay, you can start guessing,” said Soos, and he resumed driving.

“One two three,” said Mabel.

“Yes,” said Soos, and he happily nodded.

“One two four,” said Mabel.

“No,” said Soos, sternly shaking his head.

“Negative one negative two negative three,” said Mabel.

“Yes,” said Soos.

“Two four six,” said Mabel.

“Yes,” said Soos.

“Two six four,” said Mabel.

“Heh, you got 'em in the wrong order, dude,” said Soos. Dipper wanted to roll his eyes into his head.

“Three six nine?” said Mabel.

“Yes,” said Soos.

“Zero zero zero?” said Mabel, enthusiasm rising.

“Technically yes,” said Soos.

“Any three numbers of the form x, 2x, 3x!” said Mabel.

“That's pretty close,” said Soos. “Dipper, could you read what I wrote?”

“'Any three numbers such that the second one is two times the first one and the third one is three times the first one, except for ten thousand, one hundred and one, twenty thousand, two hundred and two, and thirty thousand, three hundred and three',” said Dipper. “Soos, that's a stupid rule.”

“Wow, what a great rule, Soos!” said Mabel.

“Aw, thanks,” said Soos.

“There's no way anyone would ever guess that your otherwise-consistent rule had a single exception,” said Dipper. “That's not how reality works. I'm twelve years old and I know this. You have no excuse.”

“Aw, geez, if you say so, man,” said Soos, more offended than he let on.

What an utter waste of space, thought Dipper. It's like trying to teach a dog how to read. I can't wait to meet my genius relative instead of talking to this minimum-wage grunt who talks about horoscopes. And so he shut up and just let Mabel and Soos sing the entire Frozen soundtrack until they all finally arrived at their destination.

“Is this Grunkle Stan's house?” said Mabel. The building was quite large, and had a character of its own: it was two stories and oddly shaped, like it was once two distinct buildings, each triangular prisms with different orientations that had been awkwardly jammed together; the whole thing was made of lumber with some logs for accents. It had a large sign on each face, which proclaimed “MYSTERY SHACK”, and a smaller sign on one side reading “GIFT SHOP”. There was a totem pole nearby, with a conspicuous loudspeaker attached to it.

“Yep!” said Soos. “And also my workplace.” Soos invited the children in through the gift shop, and they were immediately greeted by a tall, thin teenage girl in a plaid shirt. Dipper looked at her long, flowing red hair, and into her green eyes, and was struck by her beauty.

“Yo, Soos!” said the girl.

“Hey, Wendy!” said Soos.

“Are these Dipper and Mabel?” said Wendy.

“Yes,” said Soos.

“Are we related to you?” said Dipper.

“Neah, I just work here,” said Wendy. “Like Soos. Stan is still busy with whatever he's doing, probably some errand for the Shack. He's really looking forward to meeting both of you, though. Come in!” Dipper and Mabel stepped forward and discovered a truly tacky gift shop full of cheap merchandise sold at high prices. T-shirts with three moons howling up at a giant wolf head. Little plush monsters. Empty snowglobes advertised as containing ghosts.

“Wow, do people buy this stuff?” said Dipper.

“Well, not today,” said Wendy. “Business is really slow so far.”

“What's this I hear about business being slow?” said a gravelly voice coming from deeper in the shack. It belonged to an older man in a suit, with a five o'clock shadow and a fez.

“Stan!” said Wendy. “I thought you were out!”

“I was until a few minutes ago,” said Stan. “Sheesh. Kids!” Stan stretched out his arms and Mabel ran into them, followed by Dipper.

“Grunkle Stan!” said Mabel.

“And for your information, Dipper, yes, people do buy this stuff,” said Stan. “And tours. They buy tours at hilariously exorbitant prices. This has been a profitable business. At points in time. We used to have a roller coaster out back but we had to sell it for scrap because it didn't 'follow' 'safety' 'regulations'. That hit our income pretty hard, but we've still had good years since then. Our Fiji mermaid is a top draw. The kids love it, the adults speculate about how it confirms the Aquatic Ape Theory or whatever other nonsense they can come up with.” He gestured back into the hall, at what was obviously half of a monkey sewed to half of a fish.

“Sure are a lot of idiots out there,” said Dipper.

“And thank the Lord above for that,” said Stan.

“So when did you decide to profit off of the low sanity waterline instead of trying to raise it?” said Dipper.

“What?” said Stan. “You're going to have to slow down, kid.”

“Why do you scalp idiots instead of educating them?” said Dipper. Stan shrugged.

“Because I want to make money?” said Stan. “Oh, and speaking of money, I just got two unpaid laborers who can help out around the Shack.”

“Who are they?” said Mabel, with exaggerated curiosity.

“Their names are Dipper and Mabel Pines,” said Stan, and he immediately handed Mabel a dustpan and Dipper a mop.

A week into the endeavor, and though Mabel was as happy as she ever was, Dipper was increasingly miserable. The brilliant mind he'd expected to find in his great uncle was simply gone; at best Stan was merely cynical. The rest of the town was a perfect image of the premodern, prescientific world, a world that no longer had any reason to exist. Soos's belief in starbound destinies was just the beginning. The most profitable operation in town was a child psychic named Gideon Gleeful, who had no trouble finding true believers; his Tent Of Telepathy was practically a church. The local news media also made stunning amounts of money reporting on utter fluff stories; just about anything that happened in Gravity Falls wound up in the paper because they had nothing more interesting to think about. The town's residents were all empty upstairs, with no idea of life outside their little routines, nor much genuine desire to learn. Soos had been a representative sample! This was no better than California.

“I guess I expected that life out here would be more tranquil than it was at home,” said Dipper. “And that's not really true. And I expected that the people would be more interesting, and that's not really true either – except for you.”

“Thanks?” said Wendy. They were eating sandwiches on the porch. Mabel had made them, but she was already gone; she was pinning pamphlets up around town.

“And the smartest person I know here is Grunkle Stan, and what conclusion did he come to?” said Dipper. “Eke out a humble living taking advantage of people's irrationality. And even he's not optimizing for it, since the Gleefuls are apparently doing the same thing more effectively. It's just, it's just depressing how stupid people are, Wendy. Why can't everyone learn to be sane?”

“Can I offer you some free advice?” said Wendy.

“Yes?” said Dipper.

“Talk – less,” said Wendy. “Smile more.”

“Don't let them know what you're against or what you're for,” muttered Dipper, as Wendy said the same thing. Of course Wendy had listened to the Hamilton recording.

“Ah - I see you've heard it,” said Wendy. “That's at least a start. But you'd be wise to take it to heart.” Dipper just stared at Wendy in awe until she stood up; he then followed suit. “Alright, Stan is going to yell at me if I extend our break time any more, so go get some wood. I'll be back at the counter.” Wendy handed Dipper her axe. It was so heavy in his arms, and he was stunned by the ease with which she'd carried it.

“Alright, I guess I'm going to, going to go do that,” said Dipper. “Get wood. With this axe. Going.” Wendy chuckled.

“Bye!” said Wendy, and soon Dipper was gone.

Dipper walked off of the Mystery Shack's property in search of a nice recently fallen tree. Stan wanted to build a new deck behind the Shack; a normal person would just buy lumber, but that cost money, and Stan wanted it done for free. Normally someone seeking wood in the midst of a forest would cut down a tree, but that required registration as a legitimate logging business, which Stan was unwilling to bother with, and Dipper was unwilling to violate the law, even if his great uncle said it was safe.

Mabel hasn't been any help, thought Dipper. She's smart, she knows truth from falsehood. She agrees with me about most things I've really talked to her about. But her hedonic treadmill is tuned so perfectly. She just acclimates to everything, she's willing to engage with craziness on its own terms. Why can't I be like that? ...because I'm not a content person. I'm a smart person. ….what's that?

On the first appropriate log Dipper found, there was a book resting. It was crimson in color, with a gold leaf icon of a six-fingered hand attached to the front, and a simple number written on the hand in black ink: “3”. Dipper loved books, or at least the concept of books, and this book looked very special indeed. It was probably hand-printed – no, a quick look inside confirmed that it was hand-written. It was a first edition. Amazing.

A quick glance through indicated that it was Dipper's favorite sort of fantasy book – the sort written like an encyclopedia. Every page had lavish illustrations of fantastical creatures – dragons and boogeymen were merely the simplest; many were things Dipper had never heard of before and could scarcely imagine – with accompanying descriptions recounting the imaginary author's encounters with them and his research on them.

“Poor little book, are you lost?” said Dipper. He looked around and decided to do something more directed than speaking at an inanimate object.. “Does this book belong to anybody?” he shouted, projecting his voice as far as he could into the forest. “Hello? Did somebody lose a book?” No answer. Dipper chopped the log into manageable pieces, and carried several of the pieces – and the book – with him. Great effort had clearly gone into this tome, and it would be a shame for it to be spoiled by the elements.

When Mabel got home, Dipper was reading a strange book with strange illustrations of strange creatures.

“This book mentions Gravity Falls a lot,” said Dipper. “It seems to be set in Gravity Falls. I bet the author lives in Gravity Falls.”

“Hey Dipper,” said Mabel. “Whatcha readin'?”

“It seems to be called Journal #3,” said Dipper, “not that I have any idea where the first two are, if they actually exist. Although given the effort put into this one, it'd be unsurprising if it really were the third in a set. It's a fictional document about magical phenomena around Gravity Falls. Could be merchandise for the Mystery Shack, although it seems one-of-a-kind to me, so that's doubtful.”

“First week of the summer and I have like twenty potential boyfriends,” said Mabel. “And you have a DD&MD manual. Good job, bro.” Mabel snorted and Dipper flushed red.

“Mabel, it's a mysterious book that someone left in the middle of the woods,” said Dipper. “What could be more interesting than that?”

“Romance?” said Mabel. “I've been drawing up Punnett squares – thanks for showing me how those work, by the way – and sketching my potential future children with various partners to determine my best possible one true love. My favorite candidate so far is this guy named Norm who hangs around the graveyard, he's really dreamy and very tall although he speaks kind of slowly and-”

“Mabel,” said Dipper. “I find it very doubtful that this conversation will become interesting to me.”

“Okay,” said Mabel. “Enjoy your dumb nerdy fantasy novel.”

“Did somebody say 'dumb nerdy fantasy novel'?” said Soos, suddenly entering the room. “Because if so, I might have finally found a point of common interest with Dipper. What are you into, dude? Lord Of The Rings? Underland Chronicles? Harry Potter? Chesscourt? ...Homestuck?”

“I love Chesscourt, man!” said Dipper, only realizing seconds later that enjoyment of Chesscourt did not fit into his mental model of Soos at all. Could there be more to Soos? Mabel certainly seemed to think so, and Dipper generally didn't put zero stock in her opinion. Mabel gave Dipper a smug look and then slipped out.

“Wow, me too, dude!” said Soos. “I'm a total Salby fanatic. Did you go to CavesFail '09?” Dipper shook his head. “Heh, those were the days, dude. It was crazy. Hashtag don't go into the caves. So what seems to be your problem?”

“Oh, I just found this mysterious book in the middle of the woods and I'm trying to figure out what it is,” said Dipper.

“Well, what is it?” said Soos.

“Well, it's one-of-a-kind, for one thing,” said Dipper. “Hand-written and hand-illustrated. It's written like a field journal of various paranormal phenomena around Gravity Falls, although it's obviously a work of fantasy.”

“Why?” said Soos.

“That's what I'm trying to figure out!” said Dipper. Honestly, did Soos listen at all?

“Why it's obviously a work of fantasy?” said Soos.

“Soos,” said Dipper, “the things it describes are impossible. Creatures with weird properties that aren't recorded anywhere else. Magical spells you can activate just by reading them aloud. Blueprints for technologies that we aren't likely to attain this decade. It's pure fiction, written as if it were real.”

“What if it is real?” said Soos.

“Soos, that's an inane hypothesis,” said Dipper. “There's no evidence to support it, and the implications would overturn absolutely everything and make pretty much the entire base of human knowledge wrong. You might as well ask me 'what if you can attain immortality using only peanut brittle', except actually, it's ten thousand times as dumb as that, because this book has ten thousand things that dumb in it.”

“I don't know,” said Soos, and he pointed at the page Dipper had open. “That guy looks a lot like these little men I've seen walking around my yard at home.” Dipper looked down at the page.

“That's a lawn gnome, Soos,” said Dipper.

The next day, Dipper decided to take a walk in the forest – back to the point where he found the journal. Perhaps he could find whoever left it there, to ask them about it. Perhaps he could even find the first two journals in the series.

A flash of silver appeared between two branches. Dipper wasn't alone in the forest! He followed the movement, listening carefully for footsteps. The footsteps stopped, though, and Dipper couldn't find their source. He'd lost the trail. Dipper sighed and sat down on a rock.

“Mabel's right,” said Dipper. “I really am wasting my life spending this much effort investigating something this trivial. I'd probably be happier taking a page out of old Stanford's book. Learn to live off the backs of idiots without feeling repulsed by the whole thing. Learn to live with mundanity, without changing the world.” Dipper sighed again.

Suddenly, movement again! It was coming towards Dipper, very loudly. Dipper shot up to his feet, and braced himself for whatever it was. Then he saw it, coming between two trees. Something, not someone. Something as large as a bear, and much more dangerous, with a mix of mammalian, amphibian, and fungal features. A few seconds after Dipper saw it, he recognized it from the journal. The Gremloblin, with claws of neurotoxin and eyes of deepest nightmares.

Soos was right, Soos was right, what kind of world am I living in, Soos was right, was all Dipper could think for a fraction of a second that felt like a day. If the journal can be trusted on this, then I shouldn't expose it to liquid water, because that temporarily strengthens it. I shouldn't look directly into its eyes, because that will paralyze me with fear. And if it scratches me, I'll be dead before I hit the ground. I can't outrun it, and I don't have anyone else here to outrun, and if it's anything like a conventional apex predator like a bear or a cougar, attempts to flee will only make it more aggressive. It doesn't look like the type to be scared off by a thrown rock or stick, either. I'm toast. God, I wish I had a gun. Dipper just looked at the ground and froze up, unable to think of any better course of action. The Gremloblin walked right up to him, sniffed him, and began to drool. Okay, freezing isn't working it's not working it's not working-

Dipper slowly and purposefully pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. The Gremloblin wasn't sure what to make of this, and took a step back. He set the video camera to record, and the creature ran away, apparently under the impression that the cell phone was some kind of weapon. Still, Dipper managed to get a good twenty seconds of footage of it (mostly of it retreating).

What could this even mean? thought Dipper. Either the world is a lot stranger than I thought, someone's putting a lot of time and money into hoaxing me, or I'm going crazy. If I'm not going crazy, then when I get back to the Mystery Shack, I'm going to put this video on YouTube and become famous. Dipper ran back to the Shack, on the way somehow inadvertently throwing his phone down a ravine and into a fast-moving river. Okay, plus a hundred points to “I'm going crazy”.