The Life of Bell Cipher (Creative Journal)

Behind the Scenes of "Trapped in the Falls"

Hooray, my AU story!

(Also my only GF story with no intended BillDip in it but I still had fun writing it)

For those who haven't read this story, it's an alternate universe where Dipper and Ford can't leave Gravity Falls because of Gravity Falls's law of weirdness magnitude (basically the same reason why Bill couldn't leave)

I thought of it when I was reading "Journal 3", which I got for my birthday yay, and I came upon these pages:

Here, Ford explains to Dipper's question, "Why is Gravity Falls so weird?" He tells him that Gravity Falls is a weirdness magnet and uses some jelly beans as an example, which is mentioned in my story.

After dropping some jelly beans off a hill, out of Gravity Falls, but the jelly bean that was "deformed" or odd or weird came back, ON IT'S OWN, back to the town border.

Reading this amazed me just as much as it amazed Dipper.

But what really gave me the idea for this story were these sentences: "Oddness is strangely, mysteriously drawn to this place,- even men with six fingers and boys with strange birthmarks. I explained that I felt in my bones that my arrival at the town, and perhaps Dipper's, too, was not an accident."

It then sunk in to my mind that if the all powerful BILL CIPHER couldn't leave because of the magnet and barrier, how could Dipper and Ford leave after being drawn for the same reason?

(Oh yeah and the page also reveals Dipper's real name)

After finishing the journal, I went straight to writing the story and I'm really proud of it.

Chapter 25, or the one where (SPOILERS) Dipper tries to make the deal with Bill, had been in my mind since the very beginning of the story.

I knew that I wanted Dipper to try to make a deal with Bill to get out of Gravity Falls and Mabel would stop him and I think I wrote the emotions to lead up to that pretty well.

Mabel running away when she turned 18 was also something I knew that for sure was going to happen, but after that I wasn't sure what to do next. So, I decided to leave it to you guys to decide how you want Dipper and Mabel's lives to be drawn after reuniting.

It's an AU after all, you can decide whatever you want for it. It could turn out that Mabel was glad that Dipper was left there or maybe you can give Bill a bigger role in all of it.

The only rule is that Dipper and Ford can't leave Gravity Falls.

Also, someone had mentioned that in the episode "Roadside Attraction" Dipper leaves Gravity Falls and it is sadly true and it totally destroys my theory and this AU. Despite it being sort of a filler episode, it's still canon and after finding that out I wanted to throw this story out the window.

But I held myself together and just decided that in this AU that episode is non-cannon or it just never existed.

~

I hope you guys enjoyed the pictures in the "Future Scrapbook" at the end, which btw aren't mine and credit goes to all the incredible artists who drew them, which shows different future outcomes for the Pines family.

Sorry if there isn't more pictures of Dipcifica or Mabideon (I think that's the ship name) or any other ship you guys might've wanted more of, but BillDip and Mabcifica are my OTP's and that's why they're the only ones with more than one picture.

I think that's all so remember, reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, BYE!

And just like Dipper said at the end, "The future is what we make it."