Question from ILoveQuill77: Hmm...how do humans become portal jumpers?

Answer: This is actually a question I wasn't anticipating, but I'm glad you asked! The portal jumper concept wasn't elaborated on as much due to the fast pace of the story, but I figure this is a good time to fill in some holes. Basically, humans are born with the ability to portal jump. It is not genetic - it is actually very random, in the grand scope of things. But when using the concept of alternate realities, few people are born with it, and there are even fewer chances when it's the three of them that have it. Hazelle, Jocelyn, and Lucy are, of course, friends because they have similar interests, but in reality, their mutual ability to portal jump brought them together, too. It's an unconscious thing: their minds were naturally drawn to each other due to them all sharing the power. But here's the kicker: the three of them all having the power was just one of millions of possible outcomes for their specific reality. In another reality, only Lucy has the power; in another, only Hazelle; in another, only Jocelyn; and in the rest of the realities, none of them have it. It's circumstance: Bill targets them specifically because he found the only reality in which all three of them possess the power, and he found the reality where they're all friends. It's a one in a million chance kind of thing. In another reality, someone else will have the ability, or them and their friends have it, and that's how they're drawn to each other. But Bill targets Hazelle, Jocelyn, and Lucy specifically for two reasons: a) their mutual abilities to portal jump and b) their mutual love of GF. He targets them to scare them with their own love of the show! Which, of course, backfires, as it's their love that sends them to GF in the first place.

Question from TheRealEvanSG: A simply infuriating cliff-hanger. Great chapter, though! You ARE going to be making a sequel, aren't you? It certainly sounded that way from the "next installment" note in the AN section. If you do, I will be so incredibly happy. This is easily one of the best Gravity Falls fanfictions out there.

Answer: First off, thank you for the compliment! It's high praise to be called one of the best in a fandom that is chock-full of great stories and I'm very thankful for the kind words. As for your question: yes and no. As of right now, there will be no direct sequel to Warped, and this is for numerous reasons. But the main thing is: a sequel would mean getting the girls involved with season 2, which isn't complete yet! I was okay with writing pre-Scaryoke because we had our canon facts and our facts that were yet to be confirmed/denied, but also because there wasn't a main storyline to GF to follow. When the three girls come to GF in the story, they're coming to some hazy point in-between seasons one and two. This made it easy to write: they're not interrupting the main storyline, but they have some things they can play around with (i.e. Stan's portal, the fall of Gideon, the character development, etc.). But writing a sequel would mean getting the girls involved with season 2 which, while also not complete yet, is something I have a bad feeling will not end happily. I don't want to get them involved with the main arc of GF because it wouldn't be fair to the original story we, as GF fans, are hungrily following.

But because I know people are going to want more from this story, starting ASAP, I'm going to be posting lots of different short stories that take place prior to, during, or after the events of Warped. They're mostly either non-canon or canon little fun stories that involve our characters in funny situations. It is yet to be said if they will relate back to anything involving the main storyline of Warped.

Questions from DanganPonies: This has been a great story! Two questions.1. Will there be a sequel? 2. Which character/chapter was hardest to write?

Answers: Thanks so much for the questions and for the compliment!

As of right now, there will be no sequel to Warped, but instead a series of short stories about the characters is certain situations! See the above question for a more in-depth answer as to why exactly, but to sum it up, a sequel isn't necessary in our minds. The ending doesn't tie everything up in a perfect bow, but it completes a main story with a theme of be careful what you wish for.

Character-wise, for me, the hardest to write was Lucy. As the technical odd ball out in our trio, writing a tragic character in such a fun world like GF was hard. A lot of her mentality depends on the idea that she's being messed with nearly constantly by Bill, and it was a little more difficult to get into her head when she had opinions I didn't agree with (her negative attitude toward being in GF, for example). If Hazelle is the soul and Jocelyn is the heart, then Lucy is the brain: she's realistic and mature, and getting transported to GF by means no one could figure out just didn't fly with her. She, unlike her friends, wasn't swept up in the magic of being in a crazy town like GF; instead, she responded with fear and started asking questions. In reality, this was the right way to react, but it's frowned upon by Hazelle and Jocelyn (mostly Jocelyn) because their dream has come true and they don't want reality crashing down on them. It's a hard lesson they had to learn the hard way, but Lucy's role in the story, while difficult to write, was necessary.

Questions from thewookie1: Questions:

1) 5 3 ?

2) Is there going to be a sequel?

3) Is Bill Cipher, Bill Cipher?

4) Have they tried to befriend the alternate version of their friend?

5) What sorts of dimensions have they visited?

6) What came first, the chicken or the egg?

7) Does the Pines family wear ornaments at Christmas time since they're Pines?

8) If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?

9) How different would the story be if Dipper was 12 feet tall?

10) How different would the story be if Mabel was a Wookiee from Star Wars?

11) Mutant cows v.s. gnomes Who wins?

Answers: 1. One? 2. There will be no sequel. 3. Yes, Bill in this story is, in fact, the Bill Cipher. 4. I wouldn't say they try to befriend her, but they don't purposely avoid her, either. It's a little weird to interact with the alternate version of your friend, amiright? 5. It's hard to say right here and now (they visit a lot in a year and a half and onward!) but a large variety of realities, every one different than the one before. 6. Fifty bucks on the egg. 7. HAH. 8. That is a conspiracy even I cannot untangle. 9. VERY different, that's for sure. 10. VERY VERY DIFFERENT OH LORD. 11. Gotta go with the gnomes - they're crafty!

Trivia

Warped was created the September of 2013. I wrote the first three chapters on a whim and also kind of as a joke - the main plot of the story was a discussed idea between me and two fellow fans of GF, who were the inspirations for Jocelyn and Lucy. Once chapters one through three were written and beloved by my two friends, more developments for the story appeared in my head and I couldn't resist the idea of continuing such a fun story. From then on out, I was posting the story here on the site and also co-writing it with the inspiration for Jocelyn.

Jocelyn's freak out in Chapter 21 over not being able to find Cool Whip is inspired by a real-life freak-out by the inspiration for Jocelyn/my co-writer in a grocery store. (Yes, it was as funny in real life as it was in the story!)

Relationships in the story are inspired by our actual favorite characters: Hazelle gets close with Dipper because he's my favorite, Jocelyn gets close to Mabel because she is the favorite of my co-writer, and Stan, Bill, and McGucket are involved heavily because they are our mutual favorites.

Similarly, we get close to our respective character because, coincidentally, we are actually very alike to that character. Dipper and I both are nervous, curious, clever, and lovers of mysteries and puzzles. My co-writer and Mabel are both outrageous, boisterous, extraverted, and fun-loving.

Inspiration for the story was mainly derived from the emergence of the mysterious searchfortheblindeye dot com. It exploded on Tumblr and made me start thinking that the website was actually an experiment searching for those who would be able to decode the secret inscriptions in Bill's coding.

Many aspects of the three main characters are brought straight from their real life counterparts: the three of us were in color guard in high school; my co-writer actually does have four siblings; certain classes the girls take are similar classes we took; the girls' respective career goals (Hazelle as a doctor, Jocelyn as a music teacher, Lucy as a writer) are taken from our own career goals; Hazelle and I share our love for puns; my co-writer and Jocelyn both play the viola;

There are a lot of different plot points that ended up not making the cut. One of which was that the three girls were actually sent to GF by the author of the journals as a way to combat Bill Cipher, whom the author knew was after three humans with the ability to portal jump. This idea was cut because it would have required actually constructing a theory of the author's identity, but if we were wrong, it would have clashed with GF canon and made the story seem out of touch and not as timeless. Instead, the author's ideas are expanded upon, rather than his actual identity. (Even though, at the time of writing this, the true identity has been revealed in the show.)

The snack known as Chocosaur Dinosaur-Shaped Chocolate Chip Cookies-the Jurassic Snack! is a beloved favorite of Stan's created by me and mentioned in Chapter 21. This snack also makes an appearance in my GF one-shot Home Remedy.

The story actually ended up being much longer and way more detailed than I had originally intended. My original plan was a simpler twenty-chapter story, but it grew from what we had planned and became much longer.