Just A Reblog For Anyone Who Might Have Missed It. Also A Shout-out To Iceguppie Who’d Helped Proofread

Honestly this works for every ship that isn’t Allurance

VLD season 8 in a nutshell, everyone

I’m willing to bet it won’t be long before there’s fanfic recreations of points 12 and 14.

Some trivia, Alex told on BigFest today:

The way the crew usual way of coming up with a story was to think of some normal situation and then add something magical and crazy. “Sock Opera” was used as the example: first they came up with an idea of Mabel trying to impress her puppet-obsessed crush with puppet show, and then they began brainstorming weird things that might happen. Some of the earlier ideas included Mabel getting super-knitting powers and making living sweaters, and puppets coming alive and attacking Mabel (Alex even made a drawing of that).

Soos never tasted alcohol in his life. As for Stan… Well, there’s the reason his nose is this color.

There will be more about Ford’s (mis)adventures beyond the portal in the Journal. Alex couldn’t talk about it much, but he gave a little teaser: Ford was thrown into a dimension, that was controlled by Bill (or his lackeys); there, his top priorities were: 1) learn to survive, 2) make a weapon capable of destroying Bill; on his journeys Ford made many friends and even more enemies and eventually became an interdimensional criminal. There will be a wanted poster for Ford in the upcoming Journal (and even more “Rick and Morty” references)

The journal will also have more info on Ford’s & McGucket’s adventures during their youth.

One of the chapters in the upcoming choose-your-own-adventure book will reveal something important about Bill’s dying message.

Giffany is still alive, she managed to import here code somewhere, before her disc was destroyed. Again, more on that in the Journal.

Originally, Soos was supposed to go by his full name (Jesus), but Disney advised against it, thinking that some people would accuse the show of blasphemy. But the decision to give Soos shortened name backfired, since many people thought his name was “Zeus”.

Originally Bill didn’t have a surname, but Disney again advised against it, since they were afraid that people behind the character “Mr. Bill” might sue them for copyright infringement. So Alex came up with the name “Bill Black”, he thought it sounded cool and mysterious, but it turned out there was a some real guy with that name, and Disney was afraid he might sue them. All the other names Alex came up with were rejected for the same reason. Eventually, one late night, Alex was coming up with ciphers for the upcoming episode and thought “What if I just name him Cipher?”. The rest is history.

There was a scene in “Sock Opera”, that had to be cut for time, where Bill claimed, he was behind many great minds of the history, like, for example, helping Isaac Newton discover gravity and helping Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landing.

Bill can never go back to the place he came from. Alex also hinted that there may be more about his origins in the Journal, although not much, since Bill is the kind of character that benefits from being mysterious.

Dipper’s real name is NOT Michael, Alex, Mabel or Bill.

There was supposed to be a sub-plot in the finale, where clones #3 & 4 would try to kidnap Dipper and go back home with Mabel instead of him, but it was cut due to being too confusing.

Alex is talking with Disney about making some Gravity Falls comics, although nothing is concrete yet.

One of the ideas for the sixth “Mabel’s Guide” short was “Mabel’s Guide to Death”, in which her pet caterpillar gets eaten by a bird, and she talks about coping with death. The idea was rejected for being too morbid. The replacement idea - “Mabel’s Guide to Smiles” - was deemed offensive by Disney, since Mabel was going to visit local prison and try to teach inmates to smile. Although Alex might upload the storyboards for this rejected short online some day.

Yes actually! That was part of 51.08 I think? It was a very recent change like 2-3 minor updates ago, I think it was 2 months now? It’s significantly more balanced, and I’ve got a 5 year fort and find it really isn’t that profitable to sell food anymore. Like the only meals that sell well are masterworks with huge serving numbers, and my cooks don’t make many of those. They make plenty of masterworks, and even use stuff like flour & cheese, which used to guarantee expensive meals, and my typical prepared food barrel is like 300-500 value. A far cry from the 3000-5000 days. I still make the meals and occasionally sell 1-2 of them, but you can no longer just buy out a caravan from meals alone. As much as it hurt my early game economy, it rewards diversifying your economy, and ironically I find it’s much easier to manage my forts when I can’t use food to explode the fort’s value for huge migrant waves. It took 5 years to grow to a duchy, and I still only have a population of 140 or so dwarves, and the goblin sieges are much smaller too. Granted I do get more titans and semi-mega beast attacks, but I feel a lot less strain on my military and fort. I still only really have one squad of half-competent axedwarves defending the fort, and they’re clad in a mishmash of junk. Too busy actually building the fort than having to focus on building a strong army to defend… fancy food.

It’s ironic how much I like that change despite having definitely abused the system historically. Nowadays I run like five different industries for my economy, chief among them a “distressed” clothing chain. I just really like setting up the whole tailoring and dyeing chains

Playing Dwarf Fortress, and so are a few of my friends now, so I figured I’d document some common pitfalls I know of, and how to avoid them.

Strange Moods:

-Best way to handle these?

First, build one of each of the following workshops: Craftsdwarfshop, Carpenter’s, Stoneworker’s, forge (either kind), jewelers, glass kiln (any kind), kiln (any kind), bowyers, mechanics, leatherworks, & clothiers. This is all the different types of workshops a dwarf may claim. Don’t worry about fueling a workshop, moods don’t need fuel.

Second, ideally try to keep a supply of at least one of the following items: A boulder, a log, a block, a bone, a cloth, metal bar, an uncut gem, a tanned hide, raw glass, and a cut gem. This is roughly all materials a dwarf may demand for their artifact. Tbh, you *can* cut gems (or polish stones) when a mood occurs, but it’s easier to keep a few on hand prior. Generally they need one item based off the workshop type they claim, then the rest seems to be somewhat random/based on their likes. Each time they collect an item for their artifact, it resets the timer for insanity. Generally in my experience dwarves really tend to grab boulders a LOT. But that’s based off my total experience, my recent experience has been a lot of bars, so it depends on what the dwarf’s workshop chosen is. I’ve been having a lot more metal required because most of my artifacts have come from my metalsmiths

If they’ve been standing at the workshop for a while, bring up their menu and see if they’re crafting the object, or shouting. If they’re shouting, it will cycle through hints or outright stating what the dwarf wants for their artifact. Generally artifacts are WORTH getting a hold of because it gives the dwarf a significant skill boost & a high value item. Worst case you put it in a display case somewhere to boost room value

Animals:

-My animal starved to death!

This only happens to grazers. You need to set up a pasture somewhere with some kind of growth on the soil. At the beginning you’re going to be limited to the green surface grass. If you want to keep them underground, you’re going to have to dig into one of the caverns, which will trigger some sort of fungal growth on underground natural tiles within your fort. Surprisingly as it may seem, this is perfectly safe for your farm animals to eat. Generally a rule of thumb is, if it is egg laying, or smaller than a dog, it is not a grazer, and does not need soil/some grass like substance to survive.

-My animal starved to death in a cage. Why won’t my dwarves move it!

So, going with the above, a pasture zone must be marked, and then animals must be assigned to those areas. After setting up a pasture, click the icon with a plus over a horse to assign animals to it. Any semi-domesticated animal can be assigned to a pasture.

-Why won’t my chickens lay eggs

They need a nest box to lay eggs in. Generally place a pasture somewhere (I like to do it underground as I have yet to find a grazing egg-layer) and build nest boxes there. Dwarves will automatically harvest eggs from the boxes, including fertile ones which may make farming for leather/meat harder. You can seal the room and forbid entry until the eggs hatch, and then forbid them, or have no stockpiles accepting eggs. Then eggs will only be taken by cooks, and only when they’re cooking.

Migrants:

If you are struggling attracting migrants, a major factor is your exports. Basically fortress wealth, and wealth exported are two of the factors that determine your migrant waves, the last factor is the health of your civilization, which is basically just the population. Weirdly enough, migrants are built different, as I’ve played in dying civs (one SURFACE fort with 20 dwarves, this was the only NPC settlement for my Civ) and had migrant waves of 30+ dwarves. Basically the more high value goods you make, and the more you trade them, particularly with the home caravan, the more migrants you’ll get.

Children:

Dwarves only produce children if they’re married, and the parents have time to… get intimate. Fortunately the getting intimate is more “having idle time in a bedroom together” at which point, if it’s a married male/female pair, the female will become pregnant. The game does not display information on pregnancy at all, and all pregnant creatures will just carry on their normal business until they give birth, at which point a dwarf will abandon her current task to “seek infant” at which point they will pop out a baby, you will get a notification of this, and they will pick the child up and go back to doing tasks. Dwarves are capable of having multiples, and I have seen twins, triplets, and even a very weird case of quadruplets… which is its own story.

Trading:

Of the four types of civilizations that exist, you can trade with 3 of them. Elves trade in the spring, humans in the summer, and dwarves in the autumn. Each offer different advantages… mostly… to trading with them.

-Elves:

Generally the most annoying and least useful trading partners. Trading them anything made from wood or an animal product upsets them, instantly ending the trades, and sending them home. If this happens enough, they will declare war and begin sieging your fort. Generally elves are great for selling low-quality stone, (green) glass, or metal objects to. Silk and cloth can be safely traded, but yarn cannot. Generally it’s best practice to only trade rock, green glass, and metal objects to avoid offending them. Due to elves not sending merchant nobles to negotiate, they have no export requests for better trading, and you cannot request imports from them. Despite this, they can make an excellent source of exotic animals, cheap barrels, or offer a way to trade rock crafts for food.

-Humans

Humans know a good deal, and actually care about trade. Humans tend to reach out among the first outsider civs to trade with you. They don’t always send a merchant nobles, but once you have a baron or higher, they tend to much more frequently. Humans are amazing trading partners as they offer unique trading resources from dwarves. They have no offendable rules either, but they actually do defend their goods. They can be reliable for exporting in rare crops, seeds, or other materials, and they will happily trade you pretty much anything they have access to. So while you can’t get steel from them, you can get surface crops, more varied animals, and bladeweed dye and other fabrics.

-Dwarves

Without player intervention, you will only usually receive a Dwarven caravan from your home Civ. You can by contacting other Dwarven civs get other civs to send merchants to your fort as well. Dwarven caravans are much like human caravans, but carry steel. They also only carry crops and items unique to their Civ, which is usually pretty much exactly the same as yours. Dwarves do also send merchants to negotiate import/export deals as well, notably the outpost liaison being your factions representative.

-Getting new trading partners

Send a squad out to an uncontacted Civ and set the mission to “demand one-time tribute” civs either pay the tribute, or reject it, and it seems to have little impact on the civ’s opinion of you/your fort. Once this is done, they can start, and often do, sending caravans your way when the correct season starts.

-Getting better trade goods/merchant nobles

Traders bring more goods the more profitable trading was with you historically. So the more you trade, the more they bring. So if a trader brings nothing of interest to you, you buy nothing, and they leave, next year, they are likely to bring even LESS. So to prevent this, it can be a good idea to buy things even if they aren’t that useful. I commonly try to buy all the food I can from the merchants, as I can usually use it, and it encourages the merchants to take more items, which can end up being items like codexes/scrolls that I really want. Likewise the more successful the trades are, the more likely they are to send a noble for trade agreements. They don’t always send them though, so it is possible to miss them for a few years, even when trading seems to be going fine.

Hospitals:

-You will need a hospital before you think you do. But you do not need a Good one really. A basic hospital is something like a few beds & tables in a room together. You should also have a water source, some buckets, a textile industry, and some splints/canes. The only specialty thing you really need is a single traction bench. Just make a table, rope and mechanism, and combine them for a traction bench at a mechanics. Soap isn’t strictly necessary early on, nor is having security in the hospital. Bleeding out on the hospital floor is a major improvement to bleeding out anywhere else.

-Soap

It reduces infections and will lower mortality rates, but generally a hospital itself will do a more significant job at that. Still if you need to make it, you need at least 5 buildings roughly. Soap needs lye, which needs ash and needs to be made in an Ashery and a wood furnace respectively. Soap also needs either an oil, or a tallow. Oil is made at a screw press from certain plants, tallow is made at a kitchen from roasting fat. Fat is gathered at a butcher from butchering (animal) corpses

This is it for part 1. If there’s other questions or tips, I can do a part 2

you know how ladynoir and marichat fics will always have some tidbit about “Marinette gets Chat Noir macaroons of his favorite flavor”? Well now we know what that it is. It’s passion fruit. The lore has finally been delivered and the age old question has finally been answered. Ladybug/Marinette brings Chat passionfruit macaroons.

Don’t act like pidge is not the favorite

Many years ago I found ten symbols in a cave. Some I recognized then, some I only recognize now. The native people of Gravity Falls prophesied that these symbols could create a force strong enough to vanquish Bill.

Im going to bed

Dimension 52

(View the other chapters here [Chapter 1][Chapter 2][Chapter 3])

Chapter 4:

Despite Prismo warning he couldn’t bring Ford home, he had done it. Fortunately Ford had done so without the use of the Dimensional Portal. It’d been a year and a half since he’d been stranded, but at last, he was back in Gravity Falls.

It was one of those rainy summer days in a part of the woods he recognized as fairly close to his house. He could get back and resume his life where he’d left off. The first thing he intended to do was to disassemble that damn machine that’d sent him on this trip in the first place! After that, he’d give Stanley a piece of his mind, probably using his fist, since that seemed to get through to Stan.

Ford reached the clearing where he’d built his house, but something seemed off. There were a bunch of signs pointing to his house labeled “Welcome to the Murder Hut!” and “Admission only $20.” Some of the signs advertised a “Madame Mystery.” Ford also noticed several other new decorations outside his house, such as the beginning of a totem pole around his antenna, and numerous satellite dishes of his had been taken down too. Over the Back door was a sign labeled “Tours” and over the side entrance was “Gift Shop.” Ford stormed up to the front door and knocked on it urgently. He was fairly cross at this point, but he heard footsteps approaching the door. The door was swung open grandly by a woman in quite the unique sense of style. To put it simply, she was dressed in what looked to be a cross of business woman and like how mom used to dress. She was probably the one called "Madame Mystery" since she seemed to be going for some kind of psychic look.

Her looks however, were not the thing that surprised Ford, that was her reaction. Her eyes immediately lit up and she swept him up in one of the biggest hugs he’d ever seen. She’d managed to physically lift Ford off the ground and was swinging him around with her eyes squeezed tight against the tears rolling from her face. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you Dipper,” she said.

The name filled Ford with instant dread for a simple reason. He wasn’t Dipper, and he didn’t even know who this Dipper person was. He didn’t know how to break it to her. As she opened her eyes and took another look at his face and it turned out he didn’t have to.

She instantly dropped him, and her bright and cheerful tone was suddenly icily cold when she spoke again. “You’re not Dipper. Who are you and where is my brother?”

Ford was struggling to put the pieces together and remained silent. The woman looked angrier than Ford had felt earlier. “WHAT AREN’T YOU TELLING ME? YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHERE HE IS!”

Ford looked so helpless as he just starred sadly at that woman who seemed to lose so much energy shouting at him. She was on the verge of tears.Her voice quavered as she asked him again. “Just give it to me straight, okay? I’m already lost without him.”

After a moments silence the woman’s emotions finally won over her. She leaned over a nearby counter and burst into tears. Ford could make out “I failed you again” and “I’m so sorry” from repetition alone. Whatever happened to her was obviously traumatic.

Ford was never good dealing with emotions, especially other people’s. He decided his best course of action would be to let her cry herself out, and then ask her what was wrong. After that perhaps he could see if she could help him out of this dimension.

It took a while for Madame Mystery to stop crying. After she finally stopped, she excused herself to the bathroom to wash off her face, and rejoined Ford in the kitchen. Her eyes where still red and puffy from crying. She did her best to smile as she sat at the table with him. It just wound up looking fake. “As long as you’re here, you’re my guest. You want anything to eat or drink maybe?”

“Just water would be fine. I think we have some more important things to talk about.”

Madame Mystery nodded her head and left the room. A moment later she returned with a glass of water for Ford, and what looked like a glass of apple juice for herself.

Ford begun, “So can you tell me your name, and who this ‘Dipper’ is?”

Madame Mystery nodded, “My name is Mabel Pines. Dipper’s my brother, my twin brother. ”

There were many things Ford expected to hear. but that was not one of them. From the look Mabel could see on his face, this was quite obviously not one of them.

“Sorry, it’s just that... my name is Stanford Pines, and I have a twin brother too.”

It had been an hour since he’d arrived. Ford and Mabel had reached some pretty similar conclusions about their universes. Some differences were irrelevant while other differences led to a few interesting revelations. The first Ford had was that judging by the shooting star design she had on Mabel seemed to be one of the symbols from Bill’s wheel. When Mabel handed him Dipper's journal the silver pine tree with the carefully painted '1' told a similar story. The similarities to him didn't end there as apparently Dipper had fallen through his own portal, which meant he'd most likely made his own deal with Bill. The portals themselves might even be the same design. At this point Mabel and Ford had moved down to Dipper's lab, the entrance cleverly hidden behind a vending machine by Mabel.

“So after your brother disappeared, what exactly did you do?” Ford asked.

“For the first couple of weeks I spent all my time down here as I tried to fix the portal. After a while I was forced to go out into town and they wound up noticing I looked similar to my brother. I put out the idea that he’d gone off into the woods to look for something and left the shack in my hands. A missing persons report went out, the case went cold about a year ago. They thought I might have been responsible for my brother's disappearance, which meant sitting through quite a bit of investigating. Their final conclusion was I got too shaken up by the whole ordeal. I think there's still reason to believe they'll come back and arrest me. If it comes to that I don't think Dipper will ever come back.”

She looked at Ford with tears in her eyes and continued, “I need to be there when he gets back! I need to tell him I’m sorry!”

Mabel had begun to cry again but she pulled herself together and asked Ford, “Can you fix the portal, please?”

Ford knew full well fixing the portal would be a bad idea, but she was so fragile he couldn't just say no. A functional portal might also get him home. Should the world take priority, or two world-weary souls?

After a long pause, Ford looked at Mabel and said, “I’ll try my best.”

After taking a look at the portal and Dipper's journal one large, terrible conclusion was clear. Dipper’s portal was very different from his own, and he’d have to have all of Dipper’s journals if he even wanted to have a hope of fixing it properly. Looking at the consoles there were circuits there that he had no idea why they’d be there in the first place! It was as if Dipper was given an entirely different set of schematics to build off of. Or maybe he just thought differently when it came to solving the problems that were inherent in Bill’s original design. The best he could do would be to jury-rig it and hope that it holds together for long enough to get Dipper here to fix it himself. Plus there was a significant risk of him creating an interdimensional rift if he did that.

Since Ford had moved out of the theoretical zone, Ford had learned a bit more about interdimensional physics in the past year and a half. Despite not being able to get it to full efficiency he could likely minimize the danger. He rewired as much of it as he understood and jury rigged a few new things. One component that might prevent a rift and another that would hopefully create a stable portal to Dipper through a link to his bio signature.

After three days he was ready to show his hard work to Mabel. He really hoped that this would work and bring back her brother. Then perhaps he could get home himself.

“So Ford, before we fire this thing up, I wanted to give you this.”

Mabel held in her hands a crimson red sweater.

“It's a gift for all you've done for me. I know it won't be enough, but thank you.”

Mabel gave Ford another hug as he wondered if these invasions of personal space were going to be a multidimensional trend. He flipped a few switches on the control panel as a steady hum emanated from the portal. Ford entered the portal room then called out, “Mabel, stay back and watch the controls for me, okay?”

“Okay Ford. WAIT THERE’S A WARNING LIGHT!”

The call came out too late though. The portal sent off a dangerous wave of energy, temporarily stopping gravity. Ford floated up and got a clear view of an electrical explosion from the control room along with the sickeningly familiar feeling of being dragged toward the portal. Ford screamed out in distress, “NO, NO, NO, NO!”

Gravity had seemingly recovered for Mabel, who was now running into the room with a rope. "I'm not letting this happen again!" she shouted while throwing an end of it to Ford.

He caught the rope and could feel Mabel trying to pull him back in. Sadly it was clear that if she kept at it she'd get pulled in herself. “Shut it down! Don’t worry about me! Stopping the portal from destroying the shack is more important!”

Mabel looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "No, I can still save you! The lever's just a few steps back, I'll shut it down, I can make it!"

Ford knew there wasn't a chance of that happening. She probably knew too and simply wouldn't admit it. “I’m going to let go, and you’re going to push that button, okay?”

“NO!”

“I’m letting go in 3!”

“PLEASE!”

“2!″

“DON’T!”

“1!″

“YOU CAN’T DO THIS!”

“0.″

With that Ford let go. Mabel fell far back and landed right next to the switch. He felt himself being sucked into the portal again. There was only one thing left for him to say. "I'm sorry."

A moment later he was gone. Then the room became completely silent as Mabel shut down the portal.

…

lance: don’t you touch her!

me, sobbing even though i’ve watched this scene 100+ times: n-nice…

Here’s a thing I like about the train.

It seems like it comes to people who are looking to escape their lives in extreme ways. And it puts you through trials and simulations apparently meant to help you get the personal growth you need to return to your life, which is fairly positive.

And yet. Time doesn’t pass any differently on the train than it does in the normal world. So it’ll help you through your character arc, but if you don’t or can’t learn a lesson you’re stuck there. You could live out your entire life and die there on the train. Or finally crack it and return forty years later, your youth gone, the world changed and with everyone who ever knew you sure you’re dead.

Loving that creepy mixture of benevolence and indifference, mmm-hmm.