charlastan | TLV IC Inbox!

Wait. Wait, so that's it? We can just...go? Really?

[Ford's a warden. He's a warden. Neither of them have any reason to stick around if they're both alive, right? They could just get back to sailing like none of this ever happened.

Except, something about that feels...easy. Too easy. He frowns, thinking about it. He lived through the whole kraken thing, and if Ford graduated he could have just come home and come back to life. There has to be something else going on. Now that he's been tricked once, it's going to be another 60 years or so before he openly assumes anything would just work out for the best on this barge.]

...What's your deal? You stuck around here as a warden, so there's gotta be something in it for you.

[Ford takes a deep, uneasy breath.]

It's not because of a deal, Stanley. It's because --

[He looks at Stan, and wonders if he's about to ruin everything, somehow. How is Stan going to take this? Can he handle it? Are they going to fight? God, Ford hopes they don't fight.

But if Ford doesn't tell him, Bill will, and....Ford doesn't know if he'd put it past Bill to use that information, or the fact that he didn't tell Stan, like a weapon. Secrets don't keep on the Barge even at the best of times, when there isn't someone else on the ship who already knows the information.]

--because I've learned things about our world that you won't believe. Stanley, what I'm about to tell you -- I wouldn't say it lightly, or if I hadn't experienced proof of it myself. It's going to sound insane, but please -- just hear me out.

[Whatever it is, it's got Ford worked up a little. Stan can't quite read that look Ford's giving him, but his knee jerk instinct is to try and reassure him - to lighten things, just a little.]

Hey, in fact you forgot, the last time you said I wouldn't believe something you had an inter-dimensional portal in your basement. You're gonna have to try pretty hard to top that one, Sixer!

[He laughs, and lightly shoves Ford's arm. He'll just ignore the nagging feeling that he's jinxed any chance of this is being believable at all. It's probably fine.]

Plus whatever this is, it can't be more unbelievable than talking to someone I was pretty sure was dead forever a week ago. My standards for believably are kinda at an all time low right now.

Edited 2020-03-21 05:03 (UTC)

[Ford goes over to one of the beds along the wall and sits down.]

During my time here, I've found out some disturbing things about Gravity Falls.

Look at this.

[He pulls out Journal 3, and....a copy of Journal 3 he stole from a Barnes & Noble in the world he and Bill broke into. He hands the copy, with its glossy dust-jacket and its Disney logo, over to Stan.]

What does that look like to you, Stanley?

What the--

[Stan takes the copy and thumbs through it - not for the content that Ford wrote, but more technical things. It's got a barcode, and publishing information in the front. The author and illustrator are listed as someone else entirely, but what really catches Stan's attention is something on the back.]

Hey! I never said that!

[He peeks under the dust-jacket to see if maybe the real cover looks different and-- are those blueprints? A closer look reveals no, it's just some sort of promotional poster.]

It looks like a bunch of lawsuits. What is all this?

It's merchandise, Stan. A cheap copy of the original book I made.

[He takes it back, flips through some of the pages -- careful to avoid the Bill ones. The images of photographs, printed to look like somebody taped them there. Their cartoony portraits.]

It's not uncommon here for people to happen to have works of media out there in the multiverse that detail their lives. You saw Space Battles, right?

Uh. ...Probably?

[He shrugs. The late seventies are kind of a strange blur these days, but not in ways that matter most of the time.]

Look, I know enough about it, I know what it is - what about it? What's that got to do with your Journal?

Lucas Starrambler's here. He's actually named Luke Skywalker, but trust me, he's the same guy.

What?! Lucas Starrambler? That's nuts! Next you're gonna tell me Hal Duo and Crunchie are around too.

[Apparently he remembers Space Battles enough to be appropriately shocked that a movie character is just walking around here. Like...they are.]

Wait. Wait, so-- are you sayin' we're like that? Some kinda sci-fi franchise?

Sort of. We are, but it's worse.

Most people live normal lives in normal dimensions that continue to exist after the movie's over. But I have reason to believe that we....don't.

I mean...you did kind of die, so heh. You're prolly right on the money there. Unless there's something else I'm missing?

I don't think it's just me, Stanley.

It isn't just that there's a show out there that happens to look exactly like our lives. I think our lives were made for the show.

I've got data -- readings, that point to the people on the Barge being from a different level of reality than us. I've got memories that don't line up. Remember that time we went on a multiverse adventure, to Dimension MAB-3L?

MAB-3L?

[It takes him a sec, but he snaps his fingers when he gets there. He's just bad at the call numbers of dimensions.]

The one with all the Mabels! Yeah, I remember. Some of 'em were dinosaurs, one was literally a three - the whole thing was really dumb. What of it?

You remember when it happened, don't you? Three days before the kids left. After you'd lost your memory.

There are a lot of strange things about it. Why were you and I fighting again? The rest of the week, I was trying my best to make up for all of the things I'd put you through. It doesn't make sense that we'd drive each other nuts for one day, then go right back to home movies and bacon!

Y'know, come to think of it...

[Stan frowns, putting a hand to his chin.]

Didn't it take most of the week to fix my head? I never really thought about it too hard, 'cause my memory's a little-- [He wiggles his hand in an "eh, so-so" gesture.] --but we spent that whole week in front of the TV or with my nose in that scrapbook. As soon as I was feeling like myself, we were throwing the kids a birthday party and sending them off.

[Not that that's anyone fault. They went as fast as they could! But it just doesn't make sense that they went to that dimension in that time.]

But, I do remember it. I remember it happening. It...did happen, right? The Mabel dimension thing?

[With everything Ford's saying, suddenly he's not so sure!]

[Ford...does an eh, so-so handwiggle back.]

I think somebody planned that story after they'd finished the show. A bonus episode, or something. I bet I know when he had the idea: it must have been sometime within the last year. A year ago, I had no idea that parallel selves could touch safely in pocket dimensions: I remember trying to avoid a parallel Stanford in a pocket dimension because I was afraid it would destabilize the whole thing. But now, I've always known it would have been fine. Someone changed our past, Stan. Like George Lucas writing those prequels Dipper was talking about.

Ugh, Soos told me about those.

[Based on the eyeroll and the fact that Stan crosses his arms, it sounds like Soos spent entirely too long telling him about those.]

What kinda sick joke is this? Someone's writing our lives and going back and changing stuff? Why are they going back and adding stuff like that and not oh, I dunno, literally anything else!

[Listen, he might not remember all of it anymore, but he's had a rough life. Or at least he thinks he's had a rough life? Someone has decided that he's had a rough life and he's not happy about it.]

How do we make 'em quit it? The only people who oughta be allowed to mess with our memories are us!

....we did.

[Ford looks away, glancing off to the side.]

I met the man who did it, briefly.

He's....he's dead, Stan.

[Not quite, but Ford doesn't know that.]

[Ah. Spoken like a man who maybe possibly committed a murder. Stan can respect that. He puts a hand on his shoulder, a clear show of no judgement for the totally necessary death of their creator.]

Great! So...problem solved? Maybe?

[A pause.]

...It's not solved at all, is it.

I saw the show, when I was in his dimension.

It ends with us on the boat, when we thought we'd shaken off the kraken.

I don't know that there's anything more after that, Stan. What happens to us, after the credits? After the story's over?

I think the whole world ends with that summer, Stanley. I think...that's it. For everyone.

[Then, he shifts to businesslike, energetic, a hair's breath from chipper but too serious to quite get there:]

So, I've been building a ship that can sail between dimensions, that can take us somewhere with a bigger supply of time, and planning to use my warden deal to get the ability to pull people out of Gravity Falls and into the real world, unless I find a way to do it without the Admiral first.

You watched it?

[Stan can't help wondering how incriminating anything about him is. It's a knee-jerk impulse at this point. What did he do? What didn't he do?

But he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, pushing up his glasses a bit. This whole thing is giving him a headache.]

So...alright. It ends with us and the kraken. But I remember you dying, and you definitely died or you wouldn't've made it here as an inmate. On one hand, I guess it means that dead guy could've picked a worse place to stop the show, but if everything just ended there, wouldn't it have just...I dunno, been some kinda cheesy fade to black?

I did die off-screen, Stanley, that's true.

One of a few things could have happened.

One, I could be from an offshoot universe where I died. I've seen parallel Fords be pulled out of their dimensions and brought onto Barges. It's possible that you and I aren't the main Stan and Ford.

Two, maybe my death didn't happen onscreen for the same reason the MAB-3L adventure didn't. Perhaps it was an idea the writer had after the fact. Maybe he answered a fan question once the series was over, or maybe the scene ended up on the cutting room floor!

Or maybe it's something I haven't considered yet, something I'll only understand once I build the ship and can access Gravity Falls without risking being pulled back into it.

Seems kinda like a cheap move, killing someone off screen.

[Not that it matters a ton, but it's the principle of the thing.]

Alright then, follow-up question. You said some other guy's actually Lucas Starrambler or whatever. How do we know some other world's not gonna be the same? You know, like one of those hokey ratings-grabbing crossovers?

Edited 2020-03-23 03:34 (UTC)

I took readings when I was in the writer's dimension. Everyone I've scanned here so far is the same kind of real that he was. On top of that, every fictional property I found in his world that had Barge equivalents had had their names changed. Lucas, instead of Luke. The Story That Goes On and On and On, instead of The Neverending Story. The X-Cessive Force, instead of the X-Men.

There's one guy here who knows he's from a musical. There may be others, whose metamolecular makeup I haven't studied. But I think there's a difference between having a story about you and being from a place that's a story. I think we're in the latter category, and I think there are far fewer of us.

Eesh. Glad we're not from a musical!

[He shudders. That would be a nightmare.]

I guess that makes sense though - they sound like classic copyright dodges when you put it that way. Y'know, names that get made up so you can talk about stuff without getting sued for everything you've got.

[As a conman/shady businessman, it's a subject he knows a little more about than he should.]

Definitely would've assumed X-Men was a fake one though. That's so generic. You might as well just call it "Superheroes: the comic"!

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