Fanfic / A Return to the Falls

A Return to the Falls is a Fanfiction Series written by J_COTW. To quote the author's synopsis:

"It's been exactly a year since Weirdmageddon, and the Pines twins are back in Gravity Falls, where things have largely remained unchanged. The town is still bonkers, weirdness still abounds, and the shack is still the shack. However, with the Northwest Family in tatters, and Preston driven to overwhelming desperation, it's Pacifica Northwest where the wildcard lays - sparking off an awkward romance with Dipper Pines, and a tale of redemption for the heir to the fortune.

Under the watchful eye of their Grunkles and the new Mr. Mystery, the twins discover there's much that still lies in the town and its crooked history.

With swashbuckling action, awkward romances, and tender moments combined, Return to the Falls is an attempt to recapture the tone of 'Gravity Falls' - no major character deaths, no ridiculous over the top drama, no nine-hundred part series - just a group of continuous 'episodes' expanding on the lore and Gravity Falls concepts largely untouched."

A Return to the Falls is a series of twelve stories designed to be the episodes of a fanmade third season of Gravity Falls. In-between each main 'Episode', there are also 'Quick Comics', one-page comic strips (usually comedic) which tell short independant side-stories. The author's intention is to re-capture the same atmosphere as the original show: one combining humour, heartwarming moments, action scenes, and light horror elements. The story references and expands on elements of the original cartoon and of Gravity Falls: Lost Legends.

List of the Main Episodes

The main episodes are:

• EPISODE ONE: The Ghost of Greasy's - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love The Pines
• EPISODE TWO: Escape from Bloodcraft!
• EPISODE THREE: Big Bu$ine$$ - Hostile Takeover
• EPISODE FOUR: It Came from Thrifty's
• EPISODE FIVE: The Hunter
• EPISODE SIX: The Historic Horrors of Family Northwest
• EPISODE SEVEN: Syndicate
• EPISODE EIGHT: Chaos, Terror and Vanilla Creme
• EPISODE NINE: The Scuttlebutt Fog
• EPISODE TEN: The Line
• EPISODE ELEVEN: Call of the Boggles
• EPISODE TWELVE: Upend (SEASON FINALE)

The series can be found on Archive of Our Own here or on FanFiction.Net here. The author also has a DeviantArt page here with related fanarts.

Not to be confused with The Return to Gravity Falls, another fanfiction with a similar premise, but a completely different story.

---

The fanfic provides examples of:

• Ascended Extra:
  • In the series, Pacifica is a secondary character who only gets A Day in the Limelight during one episode. In the fanfic, she becomes one of the three main protagonists.
  • A good chunk of characters who mostly existed as joke characters are given more exposure and depth in the fanfic.
    • Lazy Susan, Pacifica's boss, becomes a Parental Substitute to her. As the owner of the town's Diner, she's also one of the town's prominent citizens.
    • Mayor Cutebiker is the local Reasonable Authority Figure. He's shown several times trying to deal with the town's problems.
  • As hard as it is to believe, Quentin Trembley, a one-episode character, becomes something akin to a Big Good in the series. He's as crazy as ever, but his knowledge of the local oddities and of Gravity Falls' crazy legal system (which is logical, since he wrote it) makes him a valuable ally of the Pines extended family.
  • Kevin Corduroy, Wendy's middle brother, is a Living Prop in the main series, and becomes part of the main group of children during the fanfic after he becomes Mabel's Love Interest.
• Arc Words: In Episode 6, the phrase 'the apple never falls far from the tree' pops up plenty, allowing Pacifica to contemplate her relationship with being a Northwest, and how much her family's legacy defines her.
• Artifact of Attraction: The cursed snowglobe of Episode 3 causes people not from Gravity Falls to become completely obsessed with it.
• Bait-and-Switch: In Episode 3, Wendy and Pacifica decide they need to distract Dipper in order to steal the snowglobe off him. The scene looks entirely set for Pacifica to invoke her powers of seduction in order to steal it off him...only for her to ask him what he thinks is being kept in Area 51.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The Arc Villain of Episode 2 is a hostile AI who wants to take a physical presence in the real world. And it actually succeeds. However, it turns out the only way code can take a physical presence in the real world is printed code. So all the AI was able to accomplish is to print a few dozens of sheets, which Mabel promptly takes for her drawings.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The series explores the past of the Northwest family, and the reveals show they are even more screwed up than in canon. Among other things, Nathaniel Northwest had his son Cornelius, who was implied to be A Lighter Shade of Black, killed and turned into a communication device with the Nightmare Realm because he was trying to reveal that his family had caused the Great Train Wreck of 1883, which was an insurance job and an attempt to please Bill Cipher.
• Boring, but Practical: In Episode 3, Preston's plan to get rid of the Pines family consists in buying the Mystery Shack through ruthless business practices. It actually works... at least until the heroes assemble a group of Gravity Falls' creatures to forcefully evict the businessman and his associates.
• Breather Episode:
  • EPISODE FIVE: The Hunter is sandwiched between It Came from Thrifty's, which features a supernatural opponent on the same threat level as Bill, and The Historic Horrors of Family Northwest, a story with a gothic horror atmosphere which explores the dark past of Pacifica's family. The Hunter features Quentin Trembley, and a giant goose.
  • EPISODE TEN: The Line has a cozy atmosphere, and mostly consists of the main characters chilling and strengthening their relationships. The few supernatural creatures who come spoiling the fun are treated as a joke.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: As of Episode Twelve, Quentin Trembley embodies this trope perfectly, as despite his nuttiness and borderline insanity, he proves surprisingly competent as the Pines family lawyer.
• Cerebus Retcon: Toby Determined's odd appearance and personality are actually the result of a curse put on his ancestor Tobias Determined by the Northwest Family to prevent him from getting too close to the family's secrets. Tobias Determined's journal entries, showing his deteriorating sanity, are one of the creepiest and most tragic parts of the story.
• Climax Boss: Since the main conflict of the story revolves around Pacifica having to break free of the Northwest legacy with the help of the Pines family, there is no true overaching Big Bad. However, among the Arc Villains, Curzon Cankerblight holds a special place. Since he's the biggest threat, and since he's directly linked to the Northwests' misdeeds and has a personal vendetta against Pacifica after Episode 4, it's usually the confrontations against him that are the most intense - both in terms of action and of reveals.
• Closet Geek: Pacifica is secretly a hardcore player of a fictional MMORPG called Bloodcraft: Overdeath, a level 100 deathslayer called PlatiniumPaz. When learning it, Dipper realizes he was killed by her six times in the wilderness, and by her own admission she probably killed each player of the game at least once.
• Creepy Centipedes: The default form of Curzon Cankerblight is a giant centipede. However, it's not actually his true form.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: In Episode 12, Blubs enjoys a box of chocolate donuts while the Pines are in jail. To his credit, he offers them some.
• Eldritch Abomination: Curzon's true form – or the closest to it – is a walking, talking dimensional rift – a tenuous link between worlds. He's capable of absorbing buildings, manipulating them into living, breathing manifestations of himself, something which he did with the Crawlspace.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In his own twisted way, Preston Northwest still cares about his daughter. Unfortunately, his morals are completely warped by his snobbish elitist views, so his idea of protecting her involves forcing her to break her relationship with Dipper.
• Face–Heel Turn: Gideon is a villain again. In Episode 7, he's shown running a criminal protection racket of Clurichauns.
• Family of Choice: Over the course of the story, Pacifica ends up cutting ties with her birth family, and chooses to become a Pines.
• Film Noir: Episode Seven is an Affectionate Parody of the genre, featuring trilby-wearing gangsters, interrogations, and shady underground sugar dealing and a criminal protection racket. Lampshaded during one chapter, where Dipper has a dream starring himself as the Hardboiled Detective and Wendy as the Dame with a Case.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Curzon Cankerblight's true form is inapprehensible for humans. Usually, he either appears as a smiling face with a cigar in his mouth, or as a giant centipede (with a cigar in his mouth).
• For the Evulz: Bill Cipher never intended to work with the Northwest family. He encouraged them to worship him, and to commit horrible misdeed as offerings to him, just because he liked watching them become increasingly depraved.
• Freudian Excuse: The story makes more explicit the fact that Preston's elitist attitude stems from the education he received. At one point, he mentions he was a bit like Pacifica when he was young, before his father made sure he conformed to the Northwests' ideology.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Curzon Cankerblight is often shown with a cigar in his mouth. Tellingly, during he's first appearance, he's the equivalent of a supernatural Con Man, selling cursed objects, then selling their cures under an other identity.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Nathaniel Northwest, and the Northwest family in general, have controlled most aspects of the town of Gravity Falls ever since its founding. A good chunk of the current problems can be traced back to them. One of the series' main conflicts revolves around Pacifica trying to break free of their noxious legacy, and it often involves cleaning up the mess they've left behind.
• Noodle Incident: Plenty of times.
  • They are used for comedic purpose, when the characters or the narration casually mention outlandish events. One notable instance involves Mabel almost marrying 'the girl with the false arm from the donut store', who's now currently in prison. Another similar instance is whatever (child-inappropriate) thing occurred in San Fran' in 1973, which Stan references frequently throughout Episode 8.
  • The series also like to mention historical events that happened in Gravity Falls like the Sticker Scandal of 1876, the Hellbilly Hunger Strike of 1882, or the Beef Tea Blight of 1880. Averted with the Great Train Wreck of 1883, a historical event which shaped Gravity Falls' history, and which have had long-lasting consequences that the heroes try to fix over the course of the series.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Pacifica is immediately tipped off that something is wrong with the snowglobe from Thrifty's, because of various out-of-character moments from her friends: Dipper snaps at her, both Dipper and Mabel get mad at Wendy, and Stan suggests that Pacifica paid too little for the snowglobe.
• Parental Substitute: While Pacifica has to renounce her parents, she ends up creating a strong bond with several adults, who become parental figures for her.
  • The first one is Lazy Susan, technically her employer, but who acts more like a surrogate mother. It's hinted Pacifica will inherit her Diner.
  • The Grunkles end up considering her a part of the Pines family, to the point they consider adopting her and taking her with them during their tour of the world, so that she'll be out of Preston's reach.
• Promoted to Love Interest:
  • Pacifica and Dipper, in spite of the Ship Tease they receive, aren't a confirmed couple in canon. They get together at the beginning of the series.
  • Mabel ends up starting a serious relationship with Kevin Corduroy, one of Wendy's brothers.
• Riches to Rags: Downplayed, as she doesn't end up destitute either. However, when Pacifica renounces her family, she also renounces their wealth, and works part-time as a waitress at Greasy's Diner to be self-sufficient. It's hinted she'll one day inherit the Diner.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Quentin Trembley is completely unfit for life in society. On the other hand, his knowledge of the paranormal and of Gravity Falls' crazy legal system makes him unvaluable to solve problems related to the town.
• White Sheep:
  • Pacifica is one for the Northwest family. It's hinted her ancestor Cornelius, Nathaniel's son, was one too. At the very least, he was A Lighter Shade of Black, since he was against his family's decision to cause a train wreck for the assurance money, and was killed for it.
  • Downplayed with Preston. He's a nasty piece of work, but compared to his ancestors, he's actually quite tame, as hard as it is to believe. For instance, he is revealed to be the only member of the family who didn't actively worship Bill, and he even hid that part of the Northwest legacy to Pacifica. (Though it didn't prevent him from trying to make a deal with Bill during Weirdmaggedon.)

---