Dipper and Mabel were sitting in the gift shop minding their own business. Dipper was reading the journal. Mabel was spinning on the globe.
"Mabel, do you believe in ghosts?" Dipper asked.
"I believe you're a big dork," Mabel replied.
Dipper did not take kindly to that. To retaliate, he touched the globe, making it stop spinning. Since it was spinning so fast, the sudden stop caused Mabel to fall off.
That's when Stan came in.
"Soos, Wendy!" he called.
Wendy barely turned to face Stan. Soos quickly dropped what he was doing and diverted all of his attention to Stan.
"Yes sir?" he asked with a salute.
"I'm heading out," Stan said. "You two will clean the bathrooms, right?"
"Yes sir," Soos replied as he kept his salute.
"Absolutely not," Wendy said as she also made a salute.
Stan only laughed at that. "You stay out of trouble."
Once Stan left, Wendy walked towards a nearby curtain.
"Hey guys, check this out," she said as she opened the curtain to reveal a ladder. "A ladder that leads to the roof?"
"Uh, I don't think Mr. Pines will like that," Soos said nervously. "You're freaking me out, dude."
"We can actually go up there?" asked Mabel.
"Sure you can," Wendy replied. "Roof time! Roof time!"
"Roof time! Roof time!" Dipper and Mabel chanted as they climbed the ladder.
Once they finished climbing the ladder, Dipper and Mabel found themselves on the roof of the Mystery Shack.
"Alright, check it out," said Wendy.
The twins admired the view. Wendy then led them onto the balcony. On it was a cooler box, an umbrella, and a recliner chair.
"Did you put this up here?" asked Dipper.
"I may or may not sneak up here during work," Wendy tried to lie, but she couldn't help herself. "All the time, every day."
Wendy picked up a pinecone from a bucket, and threw it onto a target on the totem pole.
Dipper and Mabel tried it themselves. Dipper hit a nearby car, triggering its alarm.
As much as Wendy found Dipper annoying, even she could admit that was impressive.
"Not bad, kid," she complimented.
Dipper turned to Wendy. He noticed her beautiful smile and her long, gorgeous red hair flowing in the wind. If he wanted to say something right then and there, he couldn't.
He was snapped out of his trance when he heard a car pulling up.
"Hey, it's my friends," Wendy said before she turned to the twins. "You're not gonna tell Stan about this, are you?"
Dipper pretended to zip his lips and throw away the key.
Wendy leaped onto a pine tree and made it bend forward. She then jumped onto another tree and landed safely next to the car. She then got in the car before it drove away.
"Later Wendy," Dipper smiled and blushed. This didn't go unnoticed by Mabel.
"Uh-oh," she teased. "Someone's in love!"
"Yeah, right," Dipper defended. "I just think she's cool, okay? It's not like I lay awake at night, thinking about her."
That night, Dipper was trying to sleep. He couldn't, because he had one thing on his mind. Wendy.
Oh no, he thought to himself.
Play Gravity Falls Intro Music
A bus stops in the small town of Gravity Falls. Dipper and Mabel get off the bus. In front of them is the town's star attraction, The Mystery Shack. Their great-uncle, Stan, invites them inside.
The twins look around the shack. They're both curious about everything.
Later, the Pines investigate a strange footprint with four toes instead of five. None of them realize they're standing in a much larger footprint.
DIPPER
Dipper looks around a cave holding a candle for light. He comes across a strange skeleton that scares him. He drops his candle, getting rid of his only source of light.
MABEL
Mabel stands in a room wearing a purple sweater with stars, her name, and a rainbow. She plugs an outlet into her sweater, causing it to glow.
STAN
Stan tells the twins, Wendy, and Soos a scary story. Soos and the twins are terrified while Wendy is completely unfazed. However, none of them notice the scary creature behind them.
WENDY
Wendy sits in front of the cash register, minding her own business. She doesn't notice the nearby jar of eyeballs turning to face her.
SOOS
Soos spins around the living room wearing multiple jewels on his clothes. Mabel shines a flashlight, and the light reflects off of the jewels creating a beautiful lightshow.
Dipper and Mabel lay in their room. Mabel reads a girl magazine while laying on the floor. Dipper reads a journal while laying on his bed. After a second, everyone and everything begins to float off the ground. Dipper is the only one who notices something off.
End Intro
One Cruel Summer
Chapter 4
The Inconveniencing
The next morning, Mabel decided to throw a random dance party for no reason. She turned on some music, and she and Wendy started dancing.
Dipper couldn't help but watch Wendy. She looked so beautiful when she danced. However, he didn't wanna look like a creep, so he found a sheet of paper and pretended to write something down.
"Dipper!" Wendy called.
Dipper was frightened and tore up the paper out of impulse.
"Huh, what?" he asked.
"Aren't you gonna get in on this?"
"I… I'm not really a dancer."
"Yeah, you are," Mabel replied before turning to Wendy. "Mom used to dress him up in a lamb costume and make him do…" She put emphasis on the next words. "The lamby dance."
"Now's not the time to talk about that!" Dipper yelled.
"Lamb costume?" Wendy reacted. "Is there, like, little ears and a tail, or…"
"Dipper would prance around and sing a song about grazing," said Mabel.
That's when the clock struck six.
"Hey, quitting time," she said as she removed her nametag. "The gang's waiting for me."
Seeing his chance, Dipper took it.
"Hey, how about I join you?" he suggested.
Wendy didn't want Dipper to come with. She struggled to come up with the right words, but she eventually found them.
"I don't know," she said. "My friends can be very intense. How old are you again?"
"I'm thirteen, so, technically a teen."
Wendy could tell he was lying, but she couldn't help but find Dipper's confidence impressive. "Alright, I like your moxie. Let me get my stuff."
Once Wendy left, Mabel turned to Dipper.
"Since when were you thirteen?" she asked.
"Come on, Mabel," Dipper assured. "This is my chance to get in with the popular crowd, and Wendy or whatever."
"I knew it! You love her!"
Dipper wasn't having it. "Hey, what's that?"
Mabel fell for it easily. She turned around, allowing Dipper to flip her long hair in front of her face.
Dipper and Mabel met up with Wendy outside. Her friends were playing a game where they tried to toss a tiny ball into a fat kid's belly button. Wendy won that game.
"Nice, Wendy!" one kid shouted. "Wendy! Wendy! Wendy!"
"Hey guys," Wendy waved. "These are my pals from work, Dipper and Mabel."
"I chewed my gum to make it look like a brain," Mabel smiled, before sticking her tongue to reveal her brain-shaped gum.
"She's not one for first impressions," Dipper said, before pointing at himself. "Unlike this guy."
One kid in particular, a kid with messy black hair, a black hoodie with a blood red heart, and tight blue jeans, glared at Dipper and Mabel. After examining them both for a few seconds, he pointed at Dipper.
"I like the boy's moxie," he told the others. "But that girl's clearly not cut out to join us."
"What?" Mabel reacted.
She turned to Dipper and Wendy. They both made faces that read, "Sorry."
Mabel walked away sadly.
Dipper felt a little bad for her, but in the end, he knew this was his only chance to impress Wendy. Mabel would just get in the way.
Wendy really liked Mabel, and didn't like Dipper that much, but she knew that her friends approved of him and not her. There was no point in arguing with them. She quickly got down to business.
"Dipper, this is Lee and Nate," she introduced, pointing to two boys doing a side hug.
Lee was a tall boy with long blonde hair. He wore an orange shirt, and brown shorts.
Nate was average-sized, wearing a black shirt, blue pants, and a green and white cap. He had large tattoos on both of his arms.
"We're like brothers," the two said in unison.
"Tambry," Wendy continued, pointing at the girl on her phone.
Tambry was a girl with long, purple hair, with one pink strand on the side. She wore a blue long-sleeve shirt, a white undershirt, and purple pants.
"Hi," Tambry greeted.
"Thompson," Wendy pointed. "Who once ate a run-over waffle for fifty cents."
Thompson was the fat boy who had the balls thrown at him earlier. He had short, spiky brown hair, as well as a small, practically invisible mustache. He wore a green button-up shirt with a white rabbit face on the side of it, and brown pants.
"Don't tell him that," he cried.
"And Robbie," Wendy finished, gesturing to the goth boy who rejected Mabel. He was playing his guitar. "You can probably figure him out."
"Yeah, I'm the one who spray-painted the water tower," Robbie admitted.
"You mean the giant muffin?" Dipper asked.
"It's a big explosion."
Everyone looked at the water tower. The graffiti really did look like a muffin. The other teens laughed at that. Robbie didn't take kindly to that. He glared at Dipper. Dipper smiled nervously.
"Let's hurry it up, guys," said Wendy. "I have big plans for tonight."
Everyone got in the van. When Dipper saw Wendy driving, he tried to sit in the front seat next to her. Robbie beat him to it.
"Sorry, kid," Robbie fake-apologized. "I ride shotgun."
Dipper begrudgingly got in the very back seat, where no one could see him.
Once everyone was buckled, Wendy started the engine and drove away.
"Wendy! Wendy! Wendy!" the teens cheered as they punched the roof.
Dipper tried to join in the fun, but he was too small to reach the top.
Later that night, Stan was sitting on the couch watching TV.
"You're watching the black-and-white-period-piece-old-lady-boring movie channel," said the announcer.
Stan looked for the remote. He couldn't find it.
"Kids!" he called. "I can't find the remote, and I refuse to stand up!"
To his surprise, Mabel came in and sat down in front of him. She was upset that Dipper left her, and she wanted to take her mind off it. After her usual activities of scrapbooking and sewing sweaters didn't work, TV was her last resort.
"Stay tuned for the Friday night movie, The Duchess Approves, starring Sturly Stembleburgiss as The Duchess and Grampton St. Rumpterfrabble as the irascible coxswain, Saunterblugget Hampterfuppinshire." said the announcer.
"Mabel!" Stan begged, only to fall under deaf ears. Mabel had already made up her mind. The opening credits started to play. "No! NO!"
Dipper, Wendy, and her gang made it to their destination. They were blocked by a wired fence, but they could still see it in all its glory. An abandoned, creepy-looking convenience store.
"There it is," said Wendy. "The condemned 'Dusk 2 Dawn'."
"What happened here?" asked Dipper. "Why did it shut down? Was it a health code violation or…"
"Try murder," Lee interrupted.
"Some folks died in there," Nate added. "The place has been haunted ever since."
"This town has such a colorful history," Dipper sarcastically remarked. "Are you guys serious about this?"
"Yeah, we're all gonna die," Wendy mocked before playfully punching Dipper. "Chill out, man. It's not as bad as it looks."
Everyone else climbed the fence. Dipper was the last one. He struggled to get his footing.
After a while, Lee lost his patience. He climbed back up.
"You know what?" he said. "Just, there you go." He picked up Dipper and dropped him. Dipper landed a lot harder than Lee intended. "Sorry dude."
"Good job throwing him off the fence, genius," Robbie complimented.
"Your mom's a genius," Lee retorted.
Robbie tried to open the door. It wouldn't budge.
"Maybe I should take a crack at it," Dipper suggested.
"Yeah, I can't do it, but a junior can?" Robbie sarcastically asked.
"Leave him alone," Wendy defended. "He's just a kid."
Dipper didn't like being called that. He was gonna prove Wendy, and everybody, wrong.
Dipper noticed a vent on the roof of the store. He found a nearby dumpster and used it to climb up to the roof.
The other teens were completely shocked at what Dipper was doing.
"What is he doing?" Tambry asked, having finally looked away from her phone.
Dipper managed to punch the vent open. It did hurt his knuckles, but it was worth it.
"Dipper, be careful!" Wendy yelled.
By then, Dipper made it into the vent.
"Who wants to bet he doesn't make it?" Robbie asked.
Right as he said that, Dipper opened the doors from the other side. He smiled and made a gesture, telling everyone to come in.
"Good call inviting this little maniac," said Lee.
"Your new name is Doctor Funtimes," said Nate.
Robbie simply glared at Dipper like he stole something from him.
"Nice work," Wendy complimented.
Dipper felt a sense of validation.
"Do you guys really think it's haunted?" asked Thompson.
"Come on, shut up!" Robbie yelled.
The group entered the store. No one noticed that the sign on the door automatically changed from open to closed.
Everyone split up to explore the store. Dipper went with Wendy. They noticed a newspaper stand. The paper at the front showed a front-page picture of a restaurant called 'Freddy Fazbear's Pizza'. The logo showed four characters, a brown bear, a blue bunny, a yellow chicken, and a red fox. The headline read…
Five children now reported missing. Suspect convicted.
"You know, this sounds like it'd make a great video game," Wendy remarked.
"Or book series," Dipper added.
"No, but you know what might work?"
"A movie?" the two said in unison.
"That sounds perfect," Dipper said. "So long as they don't oversaturate."
The two explored a little more. Wendy found some light switches.
"Guys, check this out!" she called. "Do you think these still work?"
Wendy flipped the switches.
All the lights turned on. Everyone smiled in amazement.
"Jackpot!" said Dipper. "So, what do we do now?"
"Anything we want," Wendy replied.
First, the group split into two teams. Dipper, Wendy, and Robbie were on one team. Tambry, Lee, Nate, and Thompson were on the other.
Both teams grabbed as much food as they could and threw them at each other.
Wendy lifted Dipper onto her shoulders so he could reach over the fence and hit a few enemies. He got hit back, but it was worth it.
Later, Lee grabbed some mints and put them in a bottle of coca cola. The mints caused the coke to launch out of the bottle.
Dipper came across a shelf full of this stuff called 'Smile Dip'.
"Wait, isn't this banned in America?" he asked. "And for good reason. God, I'm so glad Mabel isn't here."
He thought back to one infamous night, two years ago.
Flashback
Dipper had been ordered by his parents to check on Mabel. They called her for dinner, but she wasn't responding.
When Dipper entered Mabel's room, horror awaited.
Mabel was laying on her bed. Multiple empty bags of smile dip surrounded her. Her lips and hair were covered in the dip, and her face looked very messed up.
"Maybe I had too much," she groaned before turning to Dipper. "What do you think?"
"You definitely had too much," Dipper replied as he reached out his hand to help her up.
However, Mabel grabbed Dipper's arm and started biting it like it was made of candy. It was very painful.
End of Flashback
After reliving that painful experience, Dipper sat on top of a high shelf, eating ice cream with Wendy.
"Hey, come here man, we got it ready!" Nate called Thompson.
"Whatever it is, I'll do it!" Thompson replied as he ran over to his friends.
"Thompson!" Wendy cheered before turning to Dipper. She had to admit that this was the most fun she's ever had, and it was all thanks to him. "Dipper, this night is legendary."
"Really?" asked Dipper.
"Yeah. Look around you. The guys are bonding." Wendy gestured to Lee and Nate, who were pouring ice in Thompson's pants. "I've never even seen Tambry look up from her phone this long." Tambry looked away from her phone for a very split second. "You know, Dipper. I wasn't sure if you could hang with our crew at first, but you're surprisingly mature for your age."
"Yes, yes I am." Dipper tried to put ice cream in his mouth without looking at it, but he ended up hitting his cheek.
"Hey, we need more ice!" Lee shouted.
"On it!" Dipper said as he jumped off the shelf.
Dipper went to the freezer to get another ice bag. Once he opened the freezer, the most horrifying thing appeared in front of him.
It was a large floating brain with multiple stems coming out of it, as well as two eyes and a jaw. The eyes stared at Dipper in the most unsettling way.
Dipper screamed like a toddler and slammed the door shut. He then took a breath, and opened the door again. This time, the monster was gone.
"What was that?" came Lee's voice. "I thought I heard someone screaming back there. You freaking out, kid?"
"No, I'm cool," Dipper lied. He then noticed a nearby arcade machine. "Hey look, Dance Dance Revolution. The game that tricks people into exercising."
Everyone ran to play the game.
Thompson was the first to play, and he was doing horrible. Dipper tried to pay attention, but he couldn't stop thinking of the monster he saw.
After a while, he noticed that his and everyone else's reflections on the window looked like skeletons. He rubbed his eyes, and looked at the window again. Their reflections were back to normal.
Dipper ran to the phone and tried to call Stan. There was no answer.
Back at the Mystery Shack, Mabel and Stan were continuing to watch 'The Duchess Approves'. Stan was just as invested in it as Mabel was. They both shared an ice cream as they enjoyed the movie.
"I'm not afraid anymore, Mother," the duchess said to her mother.
"Duchess, I forbid you," said the mother.
"I may be a duchess, but I'm also a woman." The duchess threw off her hat to let her long hair flow in the wind.
"Yes!" Mabel cheered. "In your face, Elizabeth!" She then noticed Stan crying. "Grunkle Stan, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Stan assured. "It's just… it's just like my life, in a way."
Back at the store, Robbie was using a coin to scrape off the tags of a lottery ticket to reveal the numbers. He dropped the coin and turned to pick it up. That's when he noticed something shocking.
"Guys, you gotta come see this!" he called.
Everyone else arrived to see what it was. It was two markings of what looked like humans. They were positioned to look like dead bodies.
"I dare you two to lay in it," Robbie told Lee and Nate.
"Alright," they said nervously. "Look, we're dead bodies."
They were about to step on the markings, but Dipper got worried.
"Wait, how about we don't do this?" he suggested.
"This kid's scared," Robbie teased.
"No, it's just, why tempt fate? I mean, what if this place really is… haunted?"
The other teens didn't like hearing that, not even Wendy.
"Take it down a notch, Captain Buzzkill," said Robbie.
"I thought I was Doctor Funtimes," said Dipper.
"Well, you're acting like a Captain Buzzkill now."
The other teens nodded. Wendy did feel a little sad, but the majority have already spoken.
"Yeah, a little bit," she said.
"Status update: trapped in an abandoned store with an insane nine-year-old," Tambry typed on her phone.
That was the last straw for Dipper.
"I'm not nine!" he snapped. "I'm thirteen! Technically a teen!"
To prove his point, Dipper laid on one of the markings.
The markings started to glow. Dipper started to worry he made a huge mistake. The lights went out. Tambry vanished into thin air.
Dipper picked up the phone and read what it said aloud. "Status update: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Tambry then appeared on the nearby TV screen. She screamed and banged on the glass. Everyone else screamed at the site.
"Tambry, can you hear us?" Wendy called.
Tambry didn't say anything. It's like she couldn't hear a word.
"What do we do?" asked Lee.
"We get out of here!" Robbie replied. "Thompson, it's time to go!"
"Just a minute!" said Thompson. "I almost got the high score!"
Right as he said that, he disappeared and reappeared inside the machine. A bunch of arrows came down on him. He tried to dodge, but they all got him.
"Forget him, let's go!" Robbie yelled. He tried to open the door. It wouldn't budge. "It's locked!" He tried to throw the cash register to break the glass. It just disappeared. "GOD DAMMIT!"
"Wait," Dipper said as he read the journal. "Whatever's doing this has to have some kind of reason. Maybe if we find out what it is, they'll let us out."
"Yeah, that makes sense," Robbie said sarcastically.
"Maybe he has a point," Wendy defended.
"Yeah, maybe the ghost will want to talk about its feelings," Lee mocked.
Right after he said that, he started to float off the ground. He then disappeared and reappeared on a cereal box.
"Lee!" Nate screamed. "Alright, kid! I'm with you a hundred percent!"
Right as he said that, two ghosts in the form of an elderly man and woman appeared behind him. The male had a name tag that said, Pa. The female had a tag that said, Ma.
"Welcome!" they said. "Welcome to your graves, young trespassers!"
"We're sorry for hanging out in your store!" Wendy apologized. "If you let us out, we won't come here again!"
"Okay, you're free to go," Pa said before opening the door. "But before you leave, hot dogs are now half off. I know it's crazy, but you gotta try these dogs."
No one was buying it for one second. They tried to run. The doors closed themselves.
"I was kidding about the hot dog sales!" Pa shouted.
"Let us out of here, right now!" Nate demanded.
"I don't like your tone, young man." The ghosts lifted Nate into the air, before transforming him into a hot dog and placing him on the vendor. "It begins!" He then lifted everyone else into the air, like they turned off the room's gravity. "Welcome to your home for all eternity!"
"Dipper, what do we do?" Wendy asked.
Dipper noticed the slushie machine flying towards Wendy.
"Duck!" he shouted.
They both ducked before the machine could get them. They then noticed a cabinet and flew into it.
"What do they want from us?" Wendy asked after they caught their breaths.
"Revenge?" Dipper guessed.
"What did we do wrong?"
"Alright, let's try to find a pattern. Why was each person taken? Tambry was texting, Thompson was playing a video game, Lee was being sarcastic, it doesn't make any sense."
"Yeah, they're all just normal teenage things."
Dipper started to notice the pattern. "Say that again?"
"'That again'."
"No, the other thing."
"'No, the other thing'."
"No, the thing you said before when you…" Dipper ran out of patience. He had to cut to the chase. "Never mind. I have an idea. Stay here until I get back."
Dipper flew out of the cabinet, leaving behind a befuddled Wendy.
"Dipper, what are you doing?" she asked.
Dipper ignored Wendy and flew towards the ghosts, avoiding as many objects as he could.
"Hey ghosts!" he shouted. "I'm not a teenager!"
The gravity returned. Everything fell to the ground. The ghosts' scary faces turned into normal ones.
"Well, why didn't you say so?" Pa asked. "How old did you say you were?"
Dipper knew he had to expose himself in front of Wendy, but what choice did he have? "I'm twelve. Not a teen."
"When we were alive, teenagers were a scourge on our store," said Ma. "Always sassafrassing customers with their boomy boxes and disrespectful short pants, so we decided to ban them, but they retaliated with this newfangled rap music. The lyrics were so hateful. It was so shocking we were stricken down with double heart attacks. That's why we hate teenagers so much. Don't we honey?"
The two ghosts nuzzled each other.
"But they're my friends," said Dipper. "Is there anything I can do to help them?"
"There is one thing," Pa replied. "Do you know any funny little dances?"
"Is there anything else I can do?"
"NO!" To prove his point, the ghost glowed orange and took the same form Dipper saw in the freezer earlier.
"Okay, okay! Well, I do know… the lamby-lamby dance, but I can't do it without a lamb costume." The ghosts snapped their fingers. Dipper's usual outfit turned into a lamb costume. "Oh, and there it is."
Dipper took a breath. He braced himself.
Play "The Lamby-Lamby Dance" from Gravity Falls
Dipper:
Well, who wants a lamby, lamby, lamby?
I do, I do
So go up and greet your mammy, mammy, mammy
Hi there, hi there
Wendy smiled. This was the cutest thing she ever saw.
So march, march, march around the daisies
Don't, don't, don't forget about the baby
End "The Lamby-Lamby Dance"
"That was some fine girly dancing, boy," said Pa. "Your friends are free."
The doors opened, and the ghosts disappeared.
Everything returned to normal. Everyone was released from whatever prison the ghosts trapped them in.
"What happened?" they all wondered.
"You won't believe it," said Wendy. "The ghosts appeared, and Dipper had to…" Wendy stopped herself. She knew Dipper didn't want her mentioning it. Back then, she wouldn't have cared, but she grew to like Dipper over the course of this… adventure, so for his sake, she came up with a lie. "Uh… Dipper grabbed a bat and started beating ghosts down left and right, then the ghosts got all scared and ran away like a couple of little girls. It was insane."
Wendy then turned to Dipper and pretended to zip her lips and throw away the key.
Outside, the rest of the teens got in the van and fell asleep.
"That was traumatizing," Wendy remarked. "I'm gonna stare at a wall and rethink everything. Hey Dipper, next time, let's stay at the Mystery Shack, okay?"
"Next time?" Dipper asked. "Yeah, let's do that." He then noticed that Robbie was sitting in the backseat. "Hey, can I take the shotgun?"
Wendy thought about it for a second, then decided, "Sure."
Dipper got in the front seat, Wendy got in the driver's seat, and they drove away from the store.
Mabel and Stan finally reached the end of the movie.
"Ah, the wedding," said Stan. "I've waited so long for this. Look at her in that dress."
In the movie, the door burst open.
"Count Lionel?" asked Stan.
"I've come to reclaim my bride," said Count Lionel.
"You had your chance at the cotillion, you!" Mabel shouted.
"You had your chance at the cotillion, you!" said another character on screen.
"That's what she just said!" Stan screamed.
Dipper and Wendy just returned from their adventure. They were about to head inside when they saw the TV fly out of the window.
Stan and Mabel peaked their heads outside and noticed Dipper and Wendy.
"We couldn't find the remote," Stan half-lied.
A.N.
Now I definitely had fun writing this one.
First off, Dipper has realized his crush on Wendy, and Wendy realized she's taking a liking, a platonic one, to Dipper.
I did include a few references.
First, there was a newspaper about five children going missing at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Yes, Five Nights at Freddy's (the movie, not the games) and Gravity Falls are somewhat in the same universe in my fanfiction. I'm planning a crossover chapter as a replacement for "Soos and the Real Girl". Don't get me wrong, it was a nice episode, but I think what I'm planning is gonna be much better.
Second, I included an interaction between Dipper and Wendy inspired by that one Spongebob meme, "Patrick, say that again." I just thought it was funny.
And the last thing worth mentioning, Mabel doesn't join Dipper and the others. To me, Mabel felt like wasted space. She was only there for those scenes of her taking drugs, which would've been just fine if Dipper just found them on the shelf and recalled another time when Mabel almost killed herself with the dip.
Here, Dipper joins Wendy and her group on his own, making this a sort-of Dipper solo adventure, like Mabel had hers in the last chapter. In this chapter, Dipper gets to hang out and bond with Wendy, and they can develop their relationship without any unnecessary extras getting in the way. Also, Dipper leaving Mabel to go with Wendy is a great way of showing that he's starting to close himself off from his family in favor of his own selfish desires, which will only get worse as the story progresses.
Even then, I think Mabel watching the movie with Stan works even better, as they watch and enjoy the movie together, forming an uncle-niece bond similar to the bond Dipper forms with Ford later in the story.
That's all I have to say. Thanks for reading. Please favorite, follow, and review.