Except Dipper can't help but laugh a bit himself, because what has this conversation even become. How had they gone from Cerealian conspiracy theories to girl talk all in a matter of minutes?
He runs a hand down his face. ] Oh man, it was a total mess. She worked at the Mystery Shack with me and Mabel, and her name was Wendy. To make a long and tragic story short, I liked her, tried to impress her, she dated this other guy who was a jerk, they broke up, she sort of found of I liked her by accident, but she wasn't interested so she let me down gently.
[ There are. A lot of details missing from this account. But not because he wouldn't share them with Hiro - he's just not sure how much his friend would want to hear about his dumb Wendy-related hijinks. ]
[Is this what having actual friends is like? It's not so bad. It's not bad to get along with kids his age and pretend he's not super awkward for once in his life. So maybe they're going off-track with their conspiracy theories and note-taking to talk about girls...which is really maybe something he should tell Tadashi but this somehow is easier. So he leans back in his chair and listens, doodling in his notebook without really looking at it. It's muscle memory at this point.]
At least you guys are still friends. [Please tell him about the time you tried to clone yourself, Dipper. Or the time you tried to get a video game character to help beat the crap out of Robbie. Or the time you almost got yourself killed by a shapeshifter because you didn't want to tell Wendy you liked her.] Annnd at least you're one-up on me, but don't you dare tell anybody that. [He then thinks on what else Dipper's said, realizing something.] So. If Wendy was the last girl...Xion's the current one?
[ It isn't too bad, is it? Dipper didn't have Mabel to talk to, who would normally be his go-to for this kind of thing, but with Hiro, he has the benefit of someone who didn't know all the details of his personal history with girls, and also who wouldn't turn around and lock you in a closet with the girl in question until you confessed your feelings. It also didn't hurt that Hiro seemed to maybe be in a similar position as Dipper. He could commiserate. ]
...Yeah. [ Oh, god, he's admitted it out loud, to another human being. It's real now. ] It kind of...came on abruptly. Like throwing up. If throwing up was at all pleasant. [ Um. Moving on from this metaphor. ] I don't really know what to do about it, though. I mean, I know a loooooot about what not to do, but...
[ He leans forward with his elbows on the table, flipping his pen through his fingers. ] What are you going to do about Ruby?
[Dipper didn't have Mabel, and Hiro was wary of talking to Tadashi about it right now. Tadashi has so much going on and it's embarrassing and dumb and he doesn't have to worry about someone just making it more humiliating by being related to him. Commiserating with a friend. In public. This is 100% fine.
He lifts his eyebrows, both pleased and startled by the fact that Dipper admitted it. Brave little dude.] ...that's both accurate and disgusting. [His lip curls into a small grin but he can definitely understand the sentiment.] It's been a week. Might wanna find out what she thinks of you before you bother doing anything.
[Which is funny because Dipper asks that question and he doesn't have an answer.] Who said I was going to do anything about Ruby? [And there it is, too. Admitting it to another human...sort of. It's still sort of bypassing saying the words but it's just as good.]
[ Commiserating with a friend in public who is comparing liking a girl to throwing up. Yes, it is absolutely, undeniably fine. ]
...Okay, yeah, that's fair. Still nooooot really sure how to do that without like, you know. Asking her out and seeing what she says.
[ Which is not an option, obviously. Duh. Even if Wendy had appreciated when he was honest with her, it still ended with her turning him down. Not exactly the ideal outcome. Maybe it was just better to avoid the possibility of that outcome altogether and do nothing.
Then again, he's never been good at "do nothing". He doesn't think Hiro is, either. ] Look, I think we both know we're not really good at not doing things. [ You know what he means. ] It's better to have a plan going in.
...Though not too much of a plan. That can backfire.
Like I said, who said I was going to do anything about Ruby? [He seems fairly adamant about that, despite his own personal feelings on the matter. He gets what Dipper's saying though and he agrees. They're both bad at not doing anything and they're both big on plans.] Anyway, I'm not saying you should actually be blunt and ask her what she thinks of you but you can probably get a good idea just from spending time with her.
..and between you and me, I change plans a lot anyway. Kinda comes with the job of being a superhero. [There's a slight beat.] This is gonna sound weird, but if you need help coming up with a plan I can probably help. Outside party without a bias, you know? [And somehow he thinks that's what friends do. And if Dipper's happy and focused then he can keep his friend and they can continue to work on other problems, too. Everybody wins.]
[ Just spend time with her? Dipper had been doing that, and everything he'd gotten back from Xion had been...overwhelmingly positive. In an incredibly platonic way, of course. He knew she liked hanging out with him, but who's to say she's interested in anything beyond friendship?
...Geez, that's distressing to think about. The whole situation is distressing. He looks at Hiro, a little surprised. ] You really wouldn't mind helping me with this? If I, you know, determine I should even do anything.
[ If he can even manage that. ] Uh - that goes for you, too, by the way. If you decide to do anything about Ruby.
[Catatonic distress, friend. Absolute distress. Still, he tries to be casual about Dipper's surprise even if he can't help the way his lip quirks up a bit.] Sure. It's kind of an interesting challenge until we can figure out what's happening in the colony. Plus we're friends and I guess that means helping even with dumb stuff like this.
[It's not dumb. And he knows Dipper knows he doesn't believe it's dumb.] ...I appreciate that, but I don't know if I can ever do anything about Ruby other than wait it out and hope it goes away. Crushes do that, don't they? [Hiro are you confirming or are you asking...]
[ A nervous chuckle. ] Ha, right. I mean, it's basically another mystery to be solved, and we seem to get further when we work together on those, so...
[ Well. At least comparing liking a girl to an investigation is better than comparing it to throwing up? ]
Some of them do, I guess, but some just kind of drive you crazy until you do something stupid. Unless you take control of it first.
[ He almost sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Almost. But he knew well enough from his experience with Wendy that being direct was better than dealing with it in a roundabout way. ]
Think about it like this. If you ask her out and she turns you down, then you can get over it. But if you try to ignore it and it doesn't go away, then you go crazy.
Dude, I'm pretty sure I'm already crazy. [It's stated so matter-of-factly and he's not sure if it's meant to be a joke or if he actually believes part of that. There are a lot of things going on inside his head and though Ruby currently takes up a huge part of it, there are other things hanging him up and making him wonder.]
I'll think about it. The last thing I need is for her to worry about me even more by trying to let me down easy or whatever. [Ruby would be like that, he thinks. Awkward though she may be, she's still nice to most people.] ...you've got a point though. We definitely get further when we work together on mysteries. Doesn't that mean you're going to drive yourself kinda crazy with the Xion thing?
Better to let you down easy than drop you off a cliff, right? [ Dipper doesn't know Ruby very well, but even from their limited interaction he was pretty certain she would be the type to remain a friend even after an awkward, unreturned confession.
And who knows? Maybe it would be returned. That was kind of the whole point of trying, right?
It's all so straightforward, in theory. Of course, he knows from experience its anything but and Hiro calling him out is entirely justified. ]
...I don't know, man. I think I need to get to know her better before I do anything. Like...what if she's a werewolf, or a vampire, or gnomes, or something? [ Okay, these aren't really serious questions. Mostly. And it could be kind of cool if she ended up being one of those.
--do you run into those kind of monsters a lot or what? [Because what a conclusion to jump to. Maybe Dipper's not serious but Hiro knows he's mentioned monsters in Gravity Falls before so it's a logical leap. It also helps take the conversation off of himself and Ruby.]
[ It also helps take the conversation off Dipper and Xion, and it's not like Dipper doesn't love talking about all things paranormal. ]
Actually? I've never run into a werewolf or a vampire. No, instead I deal with manotaurs and dinosaurs and zombies that hate party music... [ That's barely even scratching the surface. ] Oh, and gnomes. I've dealt with gnomes more than enough.
Nope. Manotaurs. [ He was confused at first, too, Hiro. ] Manly minotaurs, basically. Like, the most testosterone-fueled group of monsters you can possible imagine.
So basically giant bulls with a ton of facial hair and really big muscles constantly pumping iron and eating beef jerky? [He makes a bit of a face, but he has to admit he's a little curious.] How'd you run into those guys?
That's pretty much it, though you missed fists for nipples. [ Yep, fists for nipples. This is the world Dipper comes from. ] I ran into one in the woods and he took me back to their "Man Cave". I actually spent a little time training with them.
[ An extremely watered-down version of "one smelled out my emotional issues and agreed to teach me how to be more manly". ]
Fists for...huh? [The mental image. The mental image oh god what.] ...I know you're totally serious about that but are you actually serious? What kind of a place is Gravity Falls?
That's what I've been trying to figure out all summer. My whole world isn't like that. It's just Gravity Falls. It's like a hub of weirdness. There's got to be some reason why that town in particular draws so much attention from the paranormal. Even the journal doesn't have that much in the way of theories.
[ At least, not the journal he has. He hadn't exactly had a chance to read the other two yet. ]
And the people in Gravity Falls are just okay with all of this weirdness. [That seems a little foreboding. And kinda creepy.] That journal you mentioned last time, right? What's actually in it?
Only because the Blind Eye Society was erasing their memories. That's stopped now, though. [ The citizens of the town were slowly but surely starting to realize just how much weirdness was around them, for real.
At Hiro's question, Dipper pulls the journal out of his vest pocket and sets it on the table between them, a six-fingered hand with the number 3 on the cover. He trusts Hiro, and anyway, it's not like it's secrets are about this place anyway. Honestly, he keeps it on him mostly out of a force of habit these days. ]
I found this my first week in Gravity Falls. It's a journal of paranormal phenomena that occurs in the town.
[ He nudges it towards the other boy. Hiro can take a look in it, if he wants. ]
Yeah, because that's not foreboding or anything. [Erasing memories sounds like a super-dangerous business and he remembers a few weeks ago when Dipper wanted to do just that.] Lemme guess, those memories were never fully recovered either.
[When Dipper presents the journal, Hiro wastes little time to lean forward and pull it closer, staring at the emblem on the front of it before prying open the cover to thumb through it. The types of supernatural beings listed in the journal are both amazing and mildly disturbing, if only because he never thought they could be real.] So somebody was keeping note of all the weird stuff that was happening, just like we've been keeping note of all the stuff here. What's the three mean though? [He has a very good guess, but he wants to hear it from Dipper himself.]
Not fully. The memories could be watched, but we couldn't put them back in people's heads. [ Definitely a bad business. Dipper couldn't help but wonder at what lasting damage the erased memories had had on the minds of the townspeople. It'd obviously had an extremely negative impact on McGucket. Who else? ]
It's the third in a set. I didn't actually know there were more until the day before I was dropped into VIVID. He split them up because their combined knowledge was too dangerous for any one person to hold.
[ Or because one volume would've been a pain in the butt to carry. ]
Like recordings. People would know that they're missing them but could never put everything back together. [He looks up from the journal then.] And you wonder why people said no why you wanted to erase your memories.
[Just callin' it like it is, bro. And that makes sense. He can see the logic behind that.] Does that mean you met the guy who actually wrote them? And where're the other two journals now?
Hey, man, I snapped out of it pretty quickly. [ And he had mostly been all talk. Pulling the trigger on that thing, even to erase the worst of memories...he never could've gone through with it. Even if he had faltered, he still remembered the look in McGucket's eyes when he had had to rewatch the painful memories he had willingly given up.
Evidently, it's still a bit of a sensitive subject for him. So the chance to talk about the journal is more than welcome. Dipper nods. ] I met him on the same day I found out about the other two journals. Get this - the author of the journals is my great uncle who was missing in another dimension for thirty years. My Grunkle Stan - the one I was staying with all summer? - jumpstarted this interdimensional portal under the Mystery Shack to bring his brother back. The other two journals are still down there, with my great uncle Ford.
...I'd normally say something like "I know that sounds crazy", buuuut I think we're both kind of desensitized to crazy at this point.
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cryptologic) wrote2009-09-09 09:39 pm
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Except Dipper can't help but laugh a bit himself, because what has this conversation even become. How had they gone from Cerealian conspiracy theories to girl talk all in a matter of minutes?
He runs a hand down his face. ] Oh man, it was a total mess. She worked at the Mystery Shack with me and Mabel, and her name was Wendy. To make a long and tragic story short, I liked her, tried to impress her, she dated this other guy who was a jerk, they broke up, she sort of found of I liked her by accident, but she wasn't interested so she let me down gently.
[ There are. A lot of details missing from this account. But not because he wouldn't share them with Hiro - he's just not sure how much his friend would want to hear about his dumb Wendy-related hijinks. ]
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At least you guys are still friends. [Please tell him about the time you tried to clone yourself, Dipper. Or the time you tried to get a video game character to help beat the crap out of Robbie. Or the time you almost got yourself killed by a shapeshifter because you didn't want to tell Wendy you liked her.] Annnd at least you're one-up on me, but don't you dare tell anybody that. [He then thinks on what else Dipper's said, realizing something.] So. If Wendy was the last girl...Xion's the current one?
[It's still amusing no matter how you cut it.]
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...Yeah. [ Oh, god, he's admitted it out loud, to another human being. It's real now. ] It kind of...came on abruptly. Like throwing up. If throwing up was at all pleasant. [ Um. Moving on from this metaphor. ] I don't really know what to do about it, though. I mean, I know a loooooot about what not to do, but...
[ He leans forward with his elbows on the table, flipping his pen through his fingers. ] What are you going to do about Ruby?
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He lifts his eyebrows, both pleased and startled by the fact that Dipper admitted it. Brave little dude.] ...that's both accurate and disgusting. [His lip curls into a small grin but he can definitely understand the sentiment.] It's been a week. Might wanna find out what she thinks of you before you bother doing anything.
[Which is funny because Dipper asks that question and he doesn't have an answer.] Who said I was going to do anything about Ruby? [And there it is, too. Admitting it to another human...sort of. It's still sort of bypassing saying the words but it's just as good.]
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...Okay, yeah, that's fair. Still nooooot really sure how to do that without like, you know. Asking her out and seeing what she says.
[ Which is not an option, obviously. Duh. Even if Wendy had appreciated when he was honest with her, it still ended with her turning him down. Not exactly the ideal outcome. Maybe it was just better to avoid the possibility of that outcome altogether and do nothing.
Then again, he's never been good at "do nothing". He doesn't think Hiro is, either. ] Look, I think we both know we're not really good at not doing things. [ You know what he means. ] It's better to have a plan going in.
...Though not too much of a plan. That can backfire.
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..and between you and me, I change plans a lot anyway. Kinda comes with the job of being a superhero. [There's a slight beat.] This is gonna sound weird, but if you need help coming up with a plan I can probably help. Outside party without a bias, you know? [And somehow he thinks that's what friends do. And if Dipper's happy and focused then he can keep his friend and they can continue to work on other problems, too. Everybody wins.]
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...Geez, that's distressing to think about. The whole situation is distressing. He looks at Hiro, a little surprised. ] You really wouldn't mind helping me with this? If I, you know, determine I should even do anything.
[ If he can even manage that. ] Uh - that goes for you, too, by the way. If you decide to do anything about Ruby.
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[It's not dumb. And he knows Dipper knows he doesn't believe it's dumb.] ...I appreciate that, but I don't know if I can ever do anything about Ruby other than wait it out and hope it goes away. Crushes do that, don't they? [Hiro are you confirming or are you asking...]
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[ Well. At least comparing liking a girl to an investigation is better than comparing it to throwing up? ]
Some of them do, I guess, but some just kind of drive you crazy until you do something stupid. Unless you take control of it first.
[ He almost sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Almost. But he knew well enough from his experience with Wendy that being direct was better than dealing with it in a roundabout way. ]
Think about it like this. If you ask her out and she turns you down, then you can get over it. But if you try to ignore it and it doesn't go away, then you go crazy.
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I'll think about it. The last thing I need is for her to worry about me even more by trying to let me down easy or whatever. [Ruby would be like that, he thinks. Awkward though she may be, she's still nice to most people.] ...you've got a point though. We definitely get further when we work together on mysteries. Doesn't that mean you're going to drive yourself kinda crazy with the Xion thing?
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And who knows? Maybe it would be returned. That was kind of the whole point of trying, right?
It's all so straightforward, in theory. Of course, he knows from experience its anything but and Hiro calling him out is entirely justified. ]
...I don't know, man. I think I need to get to know her better before I do anything. Like...what if she's a werewolf, or a vampire, or gnomes, or something? [ Okay, these aren't really serious questions. Mostly. And it could be kind of cool if she ended up being one of those.
Well, except for the gnomes. ]
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Actually? I've never run into a werewolf or a vampire. No, instead I deal with manotaurs and dinosaurs and zombies that hate party music... [ That's barely even scratching the surface. ] Oh, and gnomes. I've dealt with gnomes more than enough.
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[ An extremely watered-down version of "one smelled out my emotional issues and agreed to teach me how to be more manly". ]
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[ At least, not the journal he has. He hadn't exactly had a chance to read the other two yet. ]
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At Hiro's question, Dipper pulls the journal out of his vest pocket and sets it on the table between them, a six-fingered hand with the number 3 on the cover. He trusts Hiro, and anyway, it's not like it's secrets are about this place anyway. Honestly, he keeps it on him mostly out of a force of habit these days. ]
I found this my first week in Gravity Falls. It's a journal of paranormal phenomena that occurs in the town.
[ He nudges it towards the other boy. Hiro can take a look in it, if he wants. ]
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[When Dipper presents the journal, Hiro wastes little time to lean forward and pull it closer, staring at the emblem on the front of it before prying open the cover to thumb through it. The types of supernatural beings listed in the journal are both amazing and mildly disturbing, if only because he never thought they could be real.] So somebody was keeping note of all the weird stuff that was happening, just like we've been keeping note of all the stuff here. What's the three mean though? [He has a very good guess, but he wants to hear it from Dipper himself.]
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It's the third in a set. I didn't actually know there were more until the day before I was dropped into VIVID. He split them up because their combined knowledge was too dangerous for any one person to hold.
[ Or because one volume would've been a pain in the butt to carry. ]
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[Just callin' it like it is, bro. And that makes sense. He can see the logic behind that.] Does that mean you met the guy who actually wrote them? And where're the other two journals now?
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Evidently, it's still a bit of a sensitive subject for him. So the chance to talk about the journal is more than welcome. Dipper nods. ] I met him on the same day I found out about the other two journals. Get this - the author of the journals is my great uncle who was missing in another dimension for thirty years. My Grunkle Stan - the one I was staying with all summer? - jumpstarted this interdimensional portal under the Mystery Shack to bring his brother back. The other two journals are still down there, with my great uncle Ford.
...I'd normally say something like "I know that sounds crazy", buuuut I think we're both kind of desensitized to crazy at this point.
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