This beautiful AU and artwork belongs to artsycrapfromsai over at Tumblr.

Once upon a time, deep within the woods of France, a wealthy man lived in a shining castle. While this man had all one could dream of - money, fame, a beautiful and intelligent wife, and three sons who were handsome in all aspects - the cup this man had chosen to fill had no bottom; it was never enough for him. Behind a mask of silver and gold, the family suffered. The eldest son, a humble man, broke away from the rich family and found love in a small, poor town. The mother, while heartbroken, was happy for her son and wished him nothing but joy, but the father disowned him and forbade any further contact.

With the heir and eldest gone, more pressure fell on the man's twin sons than ever before. Already far too used to shouldering impossible demands and harboring guilt and responsibility, the eldest twin looked elsewhere for comfort, since it had been proven that family was not the place to go to.

His brother, younger by fifteen minutes, was worried for him and acted as he felt was best. One day he confronted the problem and tried to aid the older twin. Together, as a family, they had won the battle, but they would lose the war. A furious demon soon haunted their home, cackling and proclaiming that if one loved his precious journal so much why does he not become one. The younger twin tried to fight back, to once again remain victorious and to right the wrong he had started, but the demon, who sees all and knows all, could not be fought or conned; he knew what this man was and how he saw himself, so he decided to pair the human with his twin and he turned into what he saw himself as.

The younger twin was transformed into a hideous monster, and all the servants of the castle were cursed, as well. All who had loved these people, all outside the castle's walls, were freed of their memories of them, leaving the servants and the brothers forgotten. Confident that the younger brother would never accomplish such a task, the demon had it be known that only if he could find someone to love him the curse would be lifted. They did not have all the time in the world, however; since the older twin was the first to deal with the demon, the journal would slowly lose pages as time went on. When the last page of the journal leaves the cover, the curse would remain forever and the elder twin would be nothing more than an empty shell and the younger twin would remain a beast for all time.

Years passed. The brothers lost all hope, coming to face the reality that all they had left in the entire world was each other. For who could ever care for such monsters?

Sandwiched in the quiet village, made of stone and bricks and hard work, sat an odd house. Odd for it's tiny porch full of flowers and herbs. Odd for it's pig snoozing on the top of the small set of stairs leading to the garden. Odd for it's residence and their interests, but it was home.

Boots clicked against the wood as the little girl skipped out the door and picked up her pig and hugged him, leaving a laundry basket on the floor. Her brother slapped on his blue cap and made sure his matching vest was on well. His sister followed him down the steps with the big basket and the pig followed them down the street of the little town.

"Bonjour!"

"Bonjour!"

"Bonjour, Monsieur!"

"Oui, oui, Madame! Mon plaisir!"

Mabel, in her peasant girl's dress with a pink jacket and cloth for a headband, grinned and waved at an old lady across the slow street. "Bonjour, Susan!"

Lazy Susan paused her job, walking into the shop with fresh cookies, and held the tray out to the twins. "Good morning, little pinetrees! Where are you off to?"

"The library." Dipper shared while his sister munched on a cookie. He gave Lazy Susan some money and took some bread from a tray on the window. "We just finished one about a knight and a swamp and a princess."

"It was wonderful!" Mabel cheered, her cheeks full of delicious cookie.

"I preferred Shakespeare."

"Well, would you like a cookie, too, Dipper?" Lazy Susan asked, knowing the boy all too well to know he would only take one when directly offered.

Dipper smiled, took a cookie, and he and Mabel said "merci" before heading on their way.

"Bonjour. How is your family?" Tad Strange asked the red-haired lumberjack.

"Bonjour! How is your wife?" A creepy old lady asked Mr. Gleeful.

"Attrape les! Attrape les!" Tyler cheered Manly Dan on as he lifted some heavy logs.

"There, Dipper!" Mabel said, tugging on his vest, and the kids ran for the little library in the midst of the chaos.

The library was only one room with only one wall filled with books. With Dipper being an advanced reader and Mabel as an advent storyteller, the two made their evenings entertaining with stories taking them far away.

"Good morning!" The curly-haired man said behind the counter with his wife by his side.

"Happy day!"

"Bonjour, Madame et Monsieur Valentino." Dipper greeted politely.

Mabel rushed to one book and held it out to her twin brother. "Let's borrow this one!"

"We've read it three times already." Dipper said with a roll of his eyes and a small smile. He pulled out the book they were returning from his vest and put it back on the shelf.

"But it's my favorite!" Mabel climbed up the ladder and pretended to sword fight an enemy. "New places! Daring fight! Spells and magic! Great character development!"

Dipper chuckled and hushed Mabel, taking the book. "Okay, okay. We'll read it again, but then I want to pick up Hamlet again."

"Deal!" Mabel cheered and hopped down.

While Mabel was at the counter with Mr. and Mrs. Valentino, Dipper was elbowed harsly by a black-haired teenager with bad acne. "What are you doing back here, chief?"

Dipper glared at him. "What does it look like I'm doing, actually using my brain."

"Oh yeah," Robbie snarled and leaned down, his big nose almost touching the boy. "How's that going for you, twerp?"

"Dipper, c'mon!" Mabel called, the laundry basket in her arms by the door. "Let's go!"

"Coming!" Dipper ran after her, but he tripped over Robbie's foot and fell on his face, but he quickly got up and followed his sister.

The kids raced around with their pet pig, Waddles, at their heels, and laughed at each other's company. They made their way to the Washing Well and began to do the laundry. Beforehand, they had invented a new way of doing laundry; once again, Dipper and Mabel made the perfect team, with the girl's imagination and the boy's intelligence harmoniously coexisting to create new inventions and ideas.

Borrowing some rope and having Waddles help them, they used gears from Dipper's vest to hook up the pig to the barrel with rope and they used gears so the barrel would turn with the special sticks inside, mixing the soap with the clothes and saving energy and work. Mabel used oats to make a circle around the well for waddles to follow, and then the twins watched proudly as their washing machine seemed to be working.

"We did it!" Mabel cheered and high-fived her twin brother.

Dipper then punched her shoulder lightly and said, "I told you it would work! Maybe next time we should borrow Gompers, though. Waddles is kind of slow."

"What?" Mabel dragged and laughed. "No way, Waddles is perfect! You'll see, those clothes will be cleaner than the Northwests!"

Dipper smiled as he opened the book and laid it on the stone wall, using it as a desk as he and his sister watched the washing. "Okay, okay, we should keep working on your reading. You're getting better. Why not try to read the introduction?"

Mabel smiled, a little shy when it comes to being a better reader, but she loved stories and she wanted to prove that she was smart, too, so she nodded and began to read outloud. She hoped her fond memory of the book would make it easier, guessing the words, but that proved to be false. Still, Dipper and patient and a good teacher and slowly Mabel finished the first chapter all on her own.

"That was great!" Dipper congratulated and Mabel's cheeks turned rosy.

"What are you two doing?"

The twins looked ahead to find Blubs and Durland staring at them, looking both shocked and unapproving. Mabel's cheeks turned a darker red, but she tried to smile and be friendly. "Bonjour, mes capitaines!" Mabel greeted warmly. "Having a good day?"

"We were, until we saw the commotion you two are up to." Blubs said. "What's a girl doing reading? And what on Earth is all this? Another invention?"

Mabel grinned, choosing to ignore his first comment. "Yeah! Isn't it great? Think of all the work this'll get done!"

"Mabel," Dipper whispered warningly.

"You're usin' up the whole well!" Durland scolded. "And no pigs inside the well!"

"That's not a rule."

"You questioning our authority, boy?" Blubs growled.

"I'm questioning your objectivity."

"I dunno what that means, but I don't like it." Durland sneered and the two policemen pulled the barrel out of the well and bumped the soapy laundry on the dirt. "You two take your freaky readin' somewhere else!"

Dipper and Mabel hurried to pick up their clothes. Waddles waddled to them and rubbed his head on Dipper, who hugged him for comfort before continuing to clean up the mess.

The twins turned for home and simultaneously groaned; hurrying to them with white hair and pale skin was the ten-year-old, Gideon Gleeful. He grinned at the sight of them and hopped on over in his baby-blue junior army uniform. He bowed a little and said, "Why, Mabel! You look absolutely radiant today!"

"Thanks." She mumbled.

"Here, lemme help y'all." Gideon said and picked up some stray laundry. "I think your invention was really neat."

Dipper raised an eyebrow at him. "You do?"

"Oh, sure!" Gideon said. "Laundry's sucha pain, but y'all made it bearable! Great job!"

"Gee thanks, Gideon." Mabel said sincerely with a smile and took the laundry from his arms.

"You know," Gideon said slyly and wiggled his eyebrows at her. "If you wanna read to me or show me some more inventions, I'm not busy tonight."

Mabel's smile went away, suddenly very uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, not tonight."

"Oh. Already got plans?"

"No."

Dipper grabbed her hand. "Come on, let's go back home. Fiddleford will need our help soon."

Gideon and the policemen watched them go away. A big muscular man with no pupils emerged from a shop and said, "I'm sorry that girl isn't into you, Lil' Gideon."

"She loves me!" Gideon insisted. "She just doesn't know it yet."

"What makes you wanna date the Pines girl, anyway?" Blubs asked.

"She's the prettiest!" Gideon explained. "And the nicest! That makes her the best! If I'm gonna be the best I need the best as my queen!"

"Yeah," Durland said. "But she and her brother are nothing like the rest of us."

Gideon didn't care, and hurried to catch up to his friends. Or at least former-friends. He shoved his way past busy peasants and called out to the twins. Dipper kept on muttering "Ignorer, ignorer, ignorer!" to himself and his sister. Ever since Gideon's little crush got out of hand and he joined the military, he had been pestering Mabel to be with him and Dipper to join the army. What used to be annoying was now toxic and they were taught not to meddle with that.

Mabel, Dipper, and Waddles made it into their house just before Gideon could catch up, leaving him to switch his eye and say to himself, "Sure… kiss those other frogs, Mabel Pines… this prince can wait…"

The twins sighed with relief inside their childhood home. Dipper locked the door and Mabel hugged Waddles. They were both still as they heard music and they smiled and followed it. In the main room, what was supposed to be a living room but was mostly a study and work room, an old man with a long beard and nose sat at a desk, working on a music box. The machine was small and plain on the outside, but on the inside it was many beautiful colors and had pretty iron gears.

Fiddleford glanced up from his work and smiled at the children. "Y'all back. How was it in town today?"

"It was okay." Mabel said and sat next to him.

"Mabel sweetie, will ya hand me… thank ya." Fiddleford chuckled as Mabel had the piece in her hand already, smart enough to know just what he needed. "What made it only okay?"

"Gideon." Dipper said and sat on Fiddleford's other side.

"Oh. My boy, will ya hand me… no, no, not… actually…" Fiddleford smiled with pride for the boy to have known of the correct piece before he did. Both of the children were bright in their own right, as he always said. "Well, m'sorry that boy won't quit botherin' y'all. Shall I talk with his parents?"

Mabel sighed and rested her cheek on her fist. "Nah, I just wish things could go back to the way they were before. You know, friends."

Dipper was off in his own little world. Mabel might have been oblivious to it all, but Dipper was not. Between all the polite greetings, the people had hissed rumors and comments about the Pines twins. Poor orphaned children who were stuck with their grandfather's best friend ever since the plague. Maybe if they only had proper parents to raise them they would be so odd, like a boy with no interest in fighting and a girl who loves to read. Mabel was always told she wasn't smart enough to read and Dipper was always told he wasn't strong enough and should fix it. It became suffocating at times.

"Fiddleford," He said out of the blue. "Are we odd?"

Fiddleford blinked rapidly and readjusted his glasses. "Odd? My kids? Odd? Never. What got that into your head?"

Dipper shrugged. "People talk."

Mabel sighed, sorry for her brother. "It's all my fault."

"What?" The boys gasped.

"If only I wasn't so… different." Mabel picked up a bigger music box Fiddleford had built but had not yet decorated. She saw her reflection, the reflection of a girl with fat cheeks and not-perfect teeth, someone every other boy but creeps had rejected.

"Ya ain't different." Fiddleford said firmly. "You're special. Wanna know why?"

"Cuz we're made of stars?" Mabel guessed, eyeing her twin.

Dipper smiled and took off his hat and pushed his hair back, showing off his birthmark. Fiddleford told them ever since they were little that they were made out of the same stuff as stars, both full of light and goodness. The old man smiled and gently combed Dipper's brown hair. "That's right, Sweet Tea. Ya remember me tellin' ya that I was there when y'all were born?"

The children nodded. "You said Grandpa Shermie woke you up in the middle of the night, but you didn't care." Dipper said. "You wanted to see us."

"I was born first and punched the doctor in the jaw!" Mabel declared victoriously.

"That's right, sweetie, ya were." Fiddleford laughed and went on with his story. "Ya were so new but your eyes already shined so bright. Dipper came next, but his skin was blue n' he was sick. Thank the Lord we knew he'd be okay soon, n' your grandpa saw your birthmark n' grinned n' said, 'Hah! That's my weirdos! Nothing can take 'em down!'"

Dipper and Mabel smiled over fond memories of their grandfather. Their parents had died when they were babies and that was when Fiddleford moved in permanently to help take care of the kids. Grandpa Shermie died four years ago, and it still hurt a little, but now they could all remember him with smiles on their faces.

"It's a good thang y'all are weird. Ain't nothin' better than bein' different." Fiddleford assured them. "I know it's been hard - small town leads to small minds, ya know - but hurtin' makes ya kind n' strong, n' there's no doubt in my mind that y'all are gonna do big thangs one day n' make 'em all feel like fools."

Dipper and Mabel smiled, but their eyes seemed unsure. Fiddleford closed the little music box and pushed his chair back. "I think that's enough work for now." He leaned back and grabbed the banjo that was leaning against the wall. "What should we sing first?"

Mabel grinned; growing up, their lives had been full of music. Fiddleford sang to them since they were babies and taught them how to dance and sing. Dipper smiled and let Mabel and Fiddleford create good background music while he read the book from the library.

"Take a little journey,
Let's go to the unknown.
Let's come back changed,
We'll feel it in our bones.
It may be scary,
It may be hard,
But I'll go as long as I have you."

Author's Note: I tried to put in a lot of different Disney references in this story, outside of GF and BatB; if I could draw I would have totally put some Mickey Mouse ears in the background or something.

One thing that was interesting to write about was Dipper and Mabel's backstory and Fiddleford's friendship with their grandfather. Honestly, Shermie doesn't get enough attention, in canon or in the fandom, so it's always fun to include him when I can. Sorry I had to be a jerk and kill him off.

In case anyone is wondering, the song the family sings at the end of the chapter is based off of "Find Me in the Woods", basically the perfect song for Gravity Falls (and Over the Garden Wall).

One last thing; primarily this crossover is based off of the animated BatB movie, but I did pull some ideas from the 2017 live-action movie. My opinion of the live-action movie is a tad bias, I'll admit it (the casting of Emma Watson sold me instantly), but while it's certainly not better than the animated movie, there are some elements I love, like the piano and the wardrobe's love story, Lefou's character development and Josh's performance, the mob scene I felt was better executed, and I like this version of Maurese better. Expect SOME elements of the live-action in here, like Dipper and Mabel being inventors and their washing machine, but note that it's mainly based off of the original animated movie.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope y'all enjoy it!