Somewhere in the Woods: A Gravity Falls Mystery

Chapter 3

Dipper's Journal #3

June 16, 2022

Our flight is on time. We should be landing in Los Angeles later tonight. Charlie is listening to one of his podcasts in the seat next to me, while Katie is across the aisle working on her screenplay. I know she's asked me to read it over, but I haven't really had the time. Also, a story about evil robots doesn't really hit the same after going up against Gideon's giant mech.

I'm just thinking about Mabel. It's been a while since we last talked, and she specified that she needed to talk to me in person. I'm still not entirely sure what it's about, but I don't think it's a coincidence that it's happening now. It's been a whole decade since the summer we spent in Gravity Falls.

What we experienced in that town has stayed with us forever. I mean, it's entirely the reason why I'm traveling the country studying weird phenomenon. Even though I didn't take Great Uncle Ford's apprenticeship, I still wanted to follow in his footsteps. He told me that summer that Gravity Falls was a magnet for weirdness, which included him and me. From that moment on, I knew that it was what I was going to dedicate me life too.

So, I basically went back to my original plan. I graduated from high school with a high GPA; one of the top students of my class at Piedmont High School. I also took the time to make little movies about any kind of weirdness throughout our town. It's those movies that got me into the California College of Film in Los Angeles; a place that I knew would give me the education I needed to start my own exploration into weirdness.

That's also where I met my friends. Charlie was my dorm mate when I started. Just like me, he also had an interest in weird phenomenon. He witnessed a lot of it when he visited his family in India, but went most of his life with no one believing him. He was even nervous to talk about it with me at first, but once he did, we were both excited to finally find someone else who understood.

We met Katie a few years later. Charlie and I were starting our last year when she first arrived. I was looking for someone to help direct some smaller scale documentation, and her flair for visuals seemed to have the vibe we were looking for. At first, she was skeptical of what we were looking for, but after an encounter with the legendary Mothman, she was fully on board. She's just a fun person to hang around, especially along with her girlfriend and other friends.

It wasn't long before we started traveling the country. Our goal is to create a film that tries to bring wider attention to weird phenomenon and proving that curtain famous "myths" are actually true. Yes, there is a chance that many won't believe that our footage is real, but we figured there's no harm in trying.

Although I'm proud of what we have accomplished so far, this journey does keep Mabel and I apart. I knew that eventually we were going to follow our own paths. We almost did when I initially decided to take Ford's apprenticeship, and she wasn't too happy about that. After our summer in Gravity Falls, we stayed together throughout our teen years. We really had an unbreakable sibling bond, even as we got older.

It's when we made it to college that a rift started to form. Going to different schools meant our schedules were very different. We didn't have as much time to hang out like before. We did talk pretty much everyday, and made a point of hanging out at least once a week. But when Charlie, Katie, and I started putting our film together, that became my one and only priority.

At least Mabel still had Pacifica. I still can't believe how much she has changed through the years, as well as how close a friendship they formed. She's a much more caring person now, very different from the self-centered rich girl she used to be. But even with her, I still got the vibe that Mabel wasn't herself.

To be honest, I think there's a part of Mabel that never got over her reaction to the apprenticeship. She's never said it, but I think she believes that she caused Weirdmageddon. It was her running off with my backpack, containing the dimensional rift, that allowed Bill to somehow break it and tear into our world. I think she feels responsible for almost destroying the universe.

I often think that Mabel's mellowing out was a response to this. Though she's still a fun-loving person, she's nowhere near the eccentric goofball she was all those years ago. I wonder if this was her way of trying to make up for what she thinks she did; by becoming more mature and actually taking responsibility.

Again, this is all hypothetical. Mabel has never once actually mentioned anything of this nature, and I'm not about to confront her about it. I'm just afraid that I might be wrong and she could take it badly. I could just be reading too much into how she's changed since that summer.

I'm just wondering about what she wants to talk to me about. I really hope she's doing alright. I guess we'll find out when we get back.

No way. Ford is here in Los Angeles. We just made it to Mabel's school and that's the first thing she mentioned. She didn't even bring up what she wanted to talk about. All she said was that he wanted to talk with me, her, and Pacifica tonight over dinner about something very important. I'm not sure what it is, but we'll find out soon.