Fanfic / Universe Falls

When Universes collide.^note Clockwise from top to bottom: Bill Cipher, Yellow Diamond, Peridot, Lapis Lazuli, Jasper, Robbie Valentino, Tambry, Deputy Durland, Sheriff Blubs, Jenny Pizza, Sour Cream, Buck Dewey, Melody, Toby Determined, Sadie Miller, Lars Barriga, Gideon Gleeful, Rose Quartz, Greg Universe, Grenda, Candy Chiu, Pacifica Northwest, Old Man McGucket, Wendy Corduroy, Soos Ramirez, Ford Pines, Pearl, Garnet (Ruby and Sapphire), Amethyst, Stan Pines, Waddles, Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines, Steven Universe, Connie Mahaeswaran, and Lion.

What would happen if the Crystal Gems had settled down in a place other than Beach City, like a little backwoods town just west of weird…? What if, upon coming to Gravity Falls for the summer, Dipper and Mabel were to befriend Steven and Connie? What kind of magical, mysterious adventures would they have? And, how would they fare against the combined threats of merciless Homeworld Gems and a certain triangular demon? Find out what happens when Magic and Mystery meet...

Universe Falls is a crossover fanfic between Gravity Falls and Steven Universe by MiniJen. It can be found on both AO3 and Fanfiction.net. Unfortunately on permanent hiatus.

She also has a section on her Tumblr devoted to it, which can be found here, and an Ask blog here.

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Universe Falls contains the following tropes:

Universe Falls A-C

• 0% Approval Rating: Even Stan thinks Marty is a money-grubbing sleazeball.
• 10-Minute Retirement: Mayor Dewey decides to return to office instead of retiring after the disastrous "Stanchurian Candidate" election.
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • In "Irrational Treasure", Quentin Trembley refers to Connie as "Constance".
  • In "The Land Before Swine", Amethyst misremembers Old Man McGucket's name as "McTruckit".
  • In "Log Date: 7 15 2", Soos calls Peridot "Peridude" before Wendy corrects him.
• Accidental Pun: Powers makes one about things getting "out of hand" when the hand ship arrives in "The Return".
• Achilles' Heel: The Mother Centipeetle can be stunned by electricity.
• Actually Pretty Funny: In "Headhunters", Amethyst laughed when Blubs and Durland mockingly calls Dipper "city boy".
• Adapted Out:
  • "The Love God" is nowhere to be seen in the chapter that borrows from his story. He's briefly mentioned when the bands playing in the festival are mentioned, but that's it.
  • Marty ended up sending Greg his royalties check by mail, so he doesn't show up either.
  • A consequence of being more story focused and having a greater focus on the central characters of both series means that filler episodes like "Carpet Diem" or "Keep Beach City Weird" are cut.
• Adaptation Expansion: Universe Falls is essentially a novelization that combines the plots and lore of both shows. According to the author, there's a lot of original backstory, particularly concerning what happened concerning Rose and Ford years before the story started. The story will also explore several well-known Gravity Falls and Steven Universe AUs later on.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Several of the phenomena encountered by the gang in Gravity Falls are given origins that connect them to the Gems instead of just being random weirdness:
  • The wax figures from "Headhunters" were animated by the gem shards Pearl was looking for in "Frybo" instead of a random curse.
  • Gideon's amulet from "Li'l Gideon" is a Gem artifact he somehow stole instead of a charm that apparently came with Journal #2.
  • The size changing crystals from "Measure Up" were part of a Gem construction device designed to shrink and grow organic matter.
  • "Revenge Trip" revealed that Amethyst helped Stan give the Mystery Shack its current name (beforehand, it was called the Murder Hut).
  • In "Dipper and Lapis", the Geodites from Gravity Falls: Journal 3 make an appearance, and are stated to be corrupted Gem monsters, much like the Centipeedle.
  • Ford's electrified gloves he uses in "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons" are said to have been inspired by Garnet.
  • Crash Site Omega from Gravity Falls was just a seemingly random alien space ship that just so happened to have crashed into what would become the eponymous town. The story, however, strongly suggests it has something to do with Homeworld.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • In the series, Gideon's dislike of Dipper is due to his meddling and getting between him and Mabel. In this fanfic, it's only with Dipper's meddling, while Steven is the one he feels threatened by despite him and Mabel being just friends. Although Gideon believes Dipper supports his sister with Steven.
  • Played with regarding Dipper's crush on Wendy. Dipper still has a crush on Wendy only for her to gently turn him down, as in canon, but Dipper also was shown to have difficulty getting over Wendy. In the story, however, Dipper appears to have completely gotten over Wendy seeing as how there isn't any mention of him keeping pictures of her despite getting turned down.
  • The story completely removes any hints of Candy's attraction towards Dipper from the show, with the author admitting it was because she felt that particular subplot was pointless.
  • Dipper and Pacifica become an Official Couple in the story, whereas the two only had some Ship Tease here and there in canon.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Ho boy, it's probably easier to list what parts of either shows canon that wasn't given the darker and edgier treatment.
  • The events of "Sock Opera" are an easy example. In the show Dipper comes out of it relatively unscathed and Mabel doesn't face any consequences from the events of the episode. This time, Dipper in brutally injured, with broken ribs, a twisted ankle and having had a carving knife stabbed into his shoulder, Steven is distraught by the fact he couldn't help Dipper while Bill was possessing Dipper's body, Mabel is racked with guilt for essentially causing this to happen due to boy fixation, and this events leads into the events of "Do It For Them", where Dipper drives himself to the point of having an emotional breakdown training in sword fighting. In addition, in the show the reason Dipper makes the deal with Bill was because he wanted to find out who the author was. Here, it's because he's so desperate to save Lapis from Malachite that he makes the deal, mentally comparing it to when Lapis fused with Jasper in order to protect him. Even the ending is more angst ridden. In the show it ends on a bit of a joke with Mabel feeling like she dodged a bullet with her prospective love interest and the siblings make up. Here, it ends with Dipper lying on the floor of their room, the broken pieces of the laptop and the torn pictures of him and Lapis scattered around him, sobbing.
  • If you're a fan of the more lighthearted town-centric episodes of Steven Universe or of the more comedy-focused episodes of Gravity Falls, this story isn't for you. After the events of "Bottomless Pit", any episode that doesn't advance the plot, develop the main characters or expand the mythology is either cut or combined with ones that do. A prime example is when the events of "Arcade Mania" are merged with the events of "Fight Fighters".
  • The original "Cry for Help" revolved around another of Pearl's hang ups and how she wanted to keep fusing into Sardonyx because she enjoys the feeling, despite knowing how much fusion means to Garnet. Here, it's less of a sense of enjoyment and more of a coping mechanism due to regaining her memories and how forming Sardonyx makes her feel stronger after relearning that she betrayed Rose, as Bill possessing her made her feel violated.
  • In "Keystone Motel", Steven is upset with Ruby and Sapphire's fight because of the underlying belief that the Gems blame him for Rose's death. In the fanfic's equivalent "Evergreen Inn", it's because he blames himself for bringing back the Gems' memories of Ford and Bill, which only seems to have worsened the Gems' mental states and their overall relationships with each other.
  • In "The Answer", which combines itself with the plotline of "Steven's Birthday", adds an extra layer of angst to Steven's worry about not physically aging. Instead of shapeshifting into an adult like in the original episode, Steven has a breakdown since he feels he doesn't belong anywhere upon remembering his encounter with Bill during "Chille Tid, Part 1", where the demon mocks Steven for being a Half-Human Hybrid.
  • Peridot's original reason for not fusing with Garnet in "Log Date 7 15 2" had to do with Homeworld's ridged restrictions on fusing with any gem outside of their own classification and Peridot's own personal reluctance. Here, it's because the last time she fused with someone, she was locked inside her own gem by a malevolent dream demon!
  • The story generally explores Dipper and Mable's relationship as siblings bit deeper compared to their respective series, showing that the two siblings are so unlike but at the same time so similar to each other that it's difficult for them to have a stable bond.
• Adaptational Badass: A number of characters become more skilled than in canon, like Dipper learning swordsmanship alongside Connie.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: In the series, Dipper finds the Journal on the twins' first day in Gravity Falls, right before he meets Mabel's boyfriend "Norman". In this fanfic, Dipper finds it on the third day, around the same time he and Mabel first meet Steven, Connie, Lion, and the Crystal Gems.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: A minor example with Ford and Ma Pines in the adaptation of "A Tale of Two Stans", but in canon, neither Ford or his mother were seen sticking up for Stan upon his disowning. Here, they're shown trying to at least stand up to Filbrick, who threatens to kick Ford out with his brother. The third-person narration also reveals that on occasion, Ford actually wondered if things could've turned out differently sometimes, whereas in canon, he didn't seem to give Stan another thought until he asked him to hide Journal #1.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • In the source material, William Dewey was a flawed but well-meaning and presumably morally-upright man. In this setting however, he was a Dirty Coward who took credit for founding Gravity Falls and conspired with Nathaniel Northwest to cover up Quentin Trembley's existence and keep the glory for themselves.
  • Mr. Fryman and Mr. Smiley are part of the Blind Eye. Although their memories of their time in the Society are erased.
  • God alone knows how but they somehow give Bill Cipher of all people this treatment when he was already one of the most depraved villains in cartoon history. He's even more of an asshole here, subjecting Steven to a nightmare of the Crystal Gems putting him down in "Dreamscaperers" and maiming Dipper's body even more than in canon in "Sock Opera".
  • To a degree with Powers and Trigger, as the fic adds some Fantastic Racism to their actions due to dealing with the Gems whereas in the show they were straightforward agents simply trying to stop what they thought was a Doomsday Device.
• Aerith and Bob: The alien refugees Ford met in the Nightmare Realm had names that sound about as "alien" as you'd expect, save for one named George.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In "The Stanchurian Candidate", Steven resorts to clinging to Amethyt's leg and pleading with her to help Stan, whom she's still mad at, with his campaign.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Mabel actually finds Steven's furious reaction to meeting Kevin again in "Gravity Falls Drift" kind of cute.
• All Take and No Give: Dipper accuses Mabel of being this in "Lost and Found", protesting that he always has to sacrifice what he wants for Mabel, but never the other way around.^note  This is actually a common complaint some fans have about Mabel in canon
• Already Met Everyone: Due to the Universes and Crystal Gems living in Gravity Falls (which also includes Beach City residents living there too), of course Steven would know almost everyone in town. As shown in "Clones and Copies", where Steven arrived after Mabel befriends Grenda and Candy, and revealed that they've met before.
  Mabel: Now we can all be friends and party together!
  • Due to their longevity, the Crystal Gems have known some of the historical figures of the town, like Quentin Trembley.
• Alternate History: Averted, at least compared to how heavily Steven Universe did it. See Like Reality, Unless Noted.
  • Seattle is called Emerald City here.
• Alternate Universe Fic: The Crystal Gems settled in Gravity Falls in the year 1843, to see if they could find out why the town was such a supernatural hotspot. There are also plans for future chapters which involve peeks at other versions of the UF-verse that combine popular Steven Universe and Gravity Falls fan AUs, like Reverse Pines/Steven Diamond, Gravity Rises/Momswap, and Relativity Falls/Gem Kids.
• Amnesia Missed a Spot: The apparent erasure of the memories the Crystal Gems have of the author wasn't total; they have a deja-vu like reaction to Journal #3, and Garnet feels that the Author's bunker is familiar, even though she can't remember ever being there before. Pearl also remembers the code for the hidden elevator in the Mystery Shack.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: In "Lion and Waddles", Steven introduces his pet to Robbie.
  Steven: This is my lion, Lion.
  Robbie: Sure, and I'm a panda.
• And I Must Scream: Peridot's experience when Bill took control of Pyrite.
• And This Is for...: After dispatching Wax John Wilkes Booth in "Headhunters", Steven quips "That's for Honest Abe!"
• Anger Born of Worry: In "On The Run", Mabel takes the time to slap Dipper and Steven upside the head for running off without telling her.
  • Stan in "Memories" when he, Ford, and Amethyst arrive at Rose's Fountain.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • From "Gems and Journals", Pearl denies that Rose would ever keep secrets from them. Steven's response?
    Steven: If she never kept secrets from you all, then why are you keeping secrets from us?
  • This exchange between Dipper and Mabel in "Do It For Them":
    Dipper: There's only one thing I'm supposed to be fighting for and that thing is standing right in front of me! Don’t you see, Mabel? I'm doing all of this for you!
    Mabel: Are you, Dipper? Or are you doing this for you?!
  • In "Society of the Blind Eye", Steven, feeling guilty over what happened with Bill, tries to convince Dipper to let him erase his memories of it. Dipper stops him by asking how what he's doing is different from what the Society is doing. In the same chapter, Amethyst gives Pearl one about Rose being truthful with them.
  • In "Pyrite Part 1" when Maven asks how Peridot and Bill working together isn't a "super serious" moment (Amethyst having said that they only fuse in such scenarios), the Gems realize that they have a point.
• Armor-Piercing Response: In "Full Disclosure", Grunkle Stan demands to know how Dipper and Mabel got back to Gravity Falls so quickly, and what happened to leave them so seriously injured. Dipper manages to shut him up by raising the question of how Grunkle Stan got back to Gravity Falls when he said he was evacuating. (Stan was actually working on the secret portal in the basement of the Mystery Shack.)
  • When Dipper asks Malachite what she, not Jasper or Lapis, wants, she's taken aback by the question before admitting that she doesn't want to exist anymore.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: At the beginning of "Dipper and Lapis", the Gems and the Mystery Shack crew are relaxing together, glad they don't have to worry about things like "crazy golf ball people", "brain-eating zombies", "jerky shape shifters", "rampaging Gem robots", or "awkward dinner parties".
• As You Know: Done in a tongue-in-cheek way at the start of "Sock Opera, Part 1", with Dipper explaining that Soos finished fixing up the laptop they found in the Author's bunker.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: In "Lion and Waddles", the following exchange occurs when Mabel wishes she had a cute, pink pet like Lion.
  Steven: I think Lion's one of a kind... but there are plenty of other pink animals out there that would make neat pets. Like... flamingos, and, um... well, I'm sure there are tons of pink fish, and...
  Mabel: PIGS!
• Audience? What Audience?: In "Mr. Greg", Ford's reaction to Dipper lampshading that they're in a Musical Episode is a confused Flat "What".
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: There's a few moments here and there that show that Stan really does care about Steven.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Greg in the flashback of "Greg the Babysitter", where he ends up watching not just Sour Cream, but several other kids as well.
• Bad News in a Good Way: After recapping the events of the arc 7 finale to Connie in "Theory of Weirdness", Mabel tries to emphasize that everything's good now.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: In "To Con a Clod", this is Peridot's reaction to trying coffee for the first time.
  Peridot: That was horrid! That viscous liquid was scalding hot! I have no idea how anyone, Gem or human, would willingly put such a foul substance into their body! Which is why I have to ask... do you have any more?!
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Lampshaded by Dipper when he worries that, while the Gems will be fine on the Moon Base due to not needing to breath, the others kind of need to do so. Pearl then reveals that the Moon Base has a self-contained adaptable internal atmosphere that they should be able to breath just fine, or so she's heard.
• Benevolent Boss: When he first came to Gravity Falls, Greg Universe worked for Stan at the Mystery Shack. Stan (who is extremely stingy with money, to say the least) apparently liked Greg enough that he gave him help with a loan to buy "It's a Wash!" (The car wash that Greg runs).
• Berserk Button:
  • In "The Last Mabelcorn", Pearl nearly comes to blows with Celestabellebethabelle after hearing the latter continue to disparage Rose Quartz.
  • In "Crash Site Omega", talking about Homeworld and its technology seems to be one for Rose Quartz, as Ford's seemingly-innocent questions about CSO quickly cause her to lose her temper, and Ford's response indicates this isn't the first time she's refused to talk about it.
  • Also from the "Crash Site Omega" flashback, when the Gems express amusement at Stanford and Fiddleford's names, Amethyst innocently suggests calling the former "Stan" and the latter "Fiddle", to Ford's anger.
• The B Grade: In "Society of the Blind Eye", Connie confesses that she once got an A- in science but kept it a secret from her mother, especially because it was a science grade, and her mother's a doctor.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Bill Cipher and Yellow Diamond. The ending of "Magic and Mystery" seems to confirm that they know each other and are working together.
• Big Damn Heroes: In "Forever Alone", Steven and Dipper reconcile and re-fuse just in time to save the Crystal Gems from Peridot's attack Robonoids.
• Big "NEVER!": In "Three's a Crowd", when Stepper asks Mabel to admit that Dipper is now taller than her, she playfully shouts "I'll never admit defeat! Never! NEVER!"
• Big Sister Instinct: Lapis to the trio of kids, Dipper especially so.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • In "Scary-oke", Pearl tells Powers and Triggers that the Crystal Gems are from Spain, and Garnet backs her up by saying "Es precioso allí en esta época del año."^translation "It's beautiful there this time of year."
  • Amethyst speaks some Spanish in "The Last Mabelcorn" to pug smuggler Salvador, and she's rather salty when not speaking English.
• Birds of a Feather:
  • A platonic example: Steven and Mabel click instantly upon meeting, and they share a lot of common interests.
  • Stan and Amethyst's friendship also counts.
  • Connie and Mabel bond over their love of mini-golf and dislike of Pacifica.
  • Stan assumed that Connie and Dipper were a couple because of this trope.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • The ending of "Sock Opera". While Dipper gets his body back and Bill's plans to destroy the journal are stopped, Dipper's wounds aren't glossed over, Mabel finds a note from Bill that horrifies her, most likely the UF version of the note mentioned in the Journal 3 book, and Dipper ends the episode having a Heroic BSoD over what happened with Lapis and his failure to help her.
  • While "Mr. Greg" ends with Pearl and Greg making amends, Dipper and Mabel's failed attempt to get Standford and Stanley to reconcile only plants a seed of doubt in their own minds as to their own sibling relationship.
  • In "Crack the Whip", the kids beat Jasper like in canon, just with the "Convenper" "Trifusion" of Steven, Connie, and Dipper, but Amethyst's feelings are still hurt, with both her and Stan knowing that she's lying when she says that she's fine. Stan is also injured by Jasper, if not seriously.
• Bizarro Universe:
  • In "Played In Reverse", this is lampshaded In-Universe about the Reverse Falls universe, where the town is under the domination of an evil version of Steven who's descended from Yellow Diamond.
  • In "Opposites Attract", the Gravity Rises universe gets some shades of this as well, which is again lampshaded. Here, they have an extended winter vacation instead of a summer vacation, the town is situated on the lip of a massive canyon and called Gravity Rises, and the alternate Homeworld forces Gems to fuse to amuse the Diamonds.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • In "Arcade Mania", Steven makes reference to Super Plumber Mustache Brothers and The Tale of Helga: Fife of Dimensions.
  • In "We Need to Talk", Greg's record collection includes bands like Bam!, Purple Lloyd, Princess, and Sadonna.
  • In "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", Steven mentions some of his favorite board games include Sugar Country and Hint.
• The Blind Leading the Blind: When trying to help Soos get a date in "Soos and the Real Girl", Steven and Dipper realize that they've never really had a date themselves. Their advice is still relatively good in spite of that, but Soos keeps fumbling or misinterpreting it.
• Bodyguard Babes: The Gems worked as bodyguards for the Northwest family at their party a few times before they realized how nasty they really were, and are actually still on the invite list.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: In "Split Up", while Peridot wants to take Ruby, Sapphire, and the Pines Twins out after they capture them, Gideon wants to gather the other Gems and the rest of the Shack crew to get revenge all at once, and their resulting argument over it gives Ruby time to burn through the ropes and escape.
• Both Sides Have a Point:
  • The Aesop of "Forever Alone" involves Dipper and Steven accidentally fusing into "Stepper," who is much more unstable than Stevonnie or Maven. Steven thinks Dipper needs to pull himself away from his mysteries and learn how to open up to others and loosen up, while Dipper feels like he's being forced into something he's very uncomfortable with. It isn't until both halves acknowledge the other's point that the resulting fusion finally stabilizes.
  • Dipper lampshades that both Lapis and the Crystal Gems have legitimate reasons to dislike each other, though Lapis's are more so.
  • In "Keeping It Together", Pearl is right that Stan is an irresponsible conman that often lets Dipper and Mabel just wonder off by themselves without any supervision. However, Stan is also right that he does help them out on occasion and that Pearl can be too much of an uptight Control Freak.
  • In "Bot Battle", Stanford and McGucket are initially at odds because McGucket thinks Ford let the portal project go too far because of his pride, to which Ford retorts that Fiddleford just washed his hands of the whole thing and buried his head in the sand instead of trying to help stop whatever damage it caused. At the end of the chapter, the two make amends and admit that the other was right.
  • In "Peridot and Pacifica", Dipper is right about Peridot's history of antagonizing the heroes, but Mabel is also correct in that she's still learning about Earth and that Dipper should try to meet her halfway like she and Steven are.
  • In a broader sense throughout the story, this appears more often in the conflict between Stan and Ford, which wasn't given as much attention in canon. The main reason it's hard to get the two to reconcile is because their bad blood has mutual reasons to exist, and both are equally stubborn in those reasons. "Split Up" for instance, shows that while reconciliation could be possible, Stan is stuck in his idea of what their bond should be like, not caring about what Ford might think of it, and doing something very irresponsible such as hiding their car, which makes his exasperation at Stan very understandable. Likewise, "Mr. Greg" has them both air out complaints against the other to the twins that seem to correspond to them, where Ford believes that Stan is stuck in his own little world refusing to listen to him^note Not untrue, considering Stan's overall blase and crass attitude, reopening the portal despite the danger it posed and the warnings from Ford and Rose to not reactivate it, and to cite a prior example, "Split Up", and Stan considers Ford to be a know-it-all who is always correct while the former is in the wrong ^note Which is also correct, especially since Ford's ego in the past caused him to burn all bridges with his friends and go completely insane, and while he is more humble in Universe Falls, he does still display Insufferable Genius traits at times.. If the two are ever to come to an understanding again, then that means having to realize what the other goes through, and being able to admit that to one another, something that neither twin is willing to do in the foreseeable future.
  • In "Rifts", while Dipper accusing Steven of being no different from Bill is a bit far, he brings up a few good points about how Steven wanting to help people all the time can be suffocating, but besides Steven pointing out that he didn't intentionally enter Dipper's dream when Dipper accuses him of invading his privacy, Steven makes a valid point in that Dipper isn't good at accepting help, even when he needs it, be it from Steven, Stan, Mabel, or the Gems.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In "Mr. Greg", Mabel immediately comes up with all sorts of crazy things Greg could spend his millions on, like a swimming pool with a second, smaller swimming pool full of jelly beans inside it, a monkey butler, or a personal rocket ship piloted by a monkey butler, with a jelly bean-filled swimming pool inside another swimming pool on board.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
  • In "Full Disclosure", Stan mocks Dipper for being a worry-wart. "'Oh, Wendy won't date me!', 'Oh, I can't figure out why Gravity Falls is so weird!', 'Oh, a bunch of evil Gems are gonna sack the planet!' And the list goes on..."
  • In "Split Up", the kids and teens are full of questions for Ford as he briefly talks about his interdimensional travels.
    Steven: Did you ever find super-secret treasure?
    Connie: Did you ever have to fight off a marauding band of intergalactic pirates?
    Soos: Did you ever meet a dolphin-man?
    Wendy: Did you ever kill someone?
  • In "Peridot and Pacifica", after the dwarfs are freed they announce they plan to move to the woods, build a nice little cottage, rent it out to a princess, and push a wicked witch off a cliff.
• Break Them by Talking:
  • In "Chille Tid, Part 1", Bill Cipher mocks Steven, telling him his friends are worthless Puny Earthlings and that he'll never fit in with either humans or Gems, all in an attempt to get Steven to trade away his gem.
  • In "Rifts", Bill torments Stepper by showing visions of their loved ones belittling them, playing on their insecurities and guilt.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • During his scene with Ford in "The Last Mabelcorn," Bill brings up his encounter with Steven in "Chille Tid, Part 1," which only happened a few hours ago In-Universe. When Ford asks him what he's talking about, Bill tells him to forget about it, saying that "all that business is soooo two chapters ago."
  • In "Mr. Greg", it's lampshaded by Dipper that the characters are in the middle of a Musical Episode.
• Breather Episode:
  • "Soos and The Real Girl" takes place right after a string of heavier episodes, including "Sock Opera" and "Do It For Them", which is lampshaded by the author.
  • "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons" is a mostly lighter episode following a string of dramatic moments and heavy reveals in the arc 5 finale ("Not What He Seems" and "A Tale of Two Stans") and the first two chapters of arc 6 ("Lost and Found" and "Cry for Help").
  • "Peridot In The Wild" follows a couple of highly emotional chapters, but is shorter and mainly comedic as it shows Peridot's misadventures in the woods around Gravity Falls and the creatures in it. Until Bill Cipher shows up, at least...
  • "Catch and Release" mainly serves to wind down Arc 6, especially after the intense events of "Pyrite".
  • "Log Date 7 15 2", much like the original version, provides some comedy relief after the excitement of "Message Received" and leading up to "Crash Site Omega" and the arc 7 finale.
  • "Mismatched Making", while not without its share of drama, is a sweet, low-key chapter focused on Dipper and Pacifica and their budding relationship.
  • "Mr. Greg" was a pretty bittersweet chapter, with Pearl and Greg finally making up but Dipper and Mabel questioning their relationship as siblings. The following chapter, "Gravity Falls Drift", is more lighthearted and cheerful in comparison since it focuses primarily on the Mystery Kids with no signs of drama in their relationships.
  • After the action and drama of the first two chapters of Arc 9, "Greg the Babysitter" is a lighter, comic story about a young Greg getting in over his head when he takes up babysitting.
• Broken Pedestal: In "Lost and Found", everyone is shaken by the reveal that Rose Quartz really did take away the Crystal Gems' memories of the Author and hide them in Lion's mane. The Gems are especially shaken by the hints they get as to why Rose had their memories erased.
  • After learning about her association with Bill, Peridot starts to gain a few seeds of doubt regarding her Diamond's motivations.
• Buffy Speak: In "Log Date 7 15 2", Peridot observes that humans tend to swarm around the Crystal Gems "like a small, flight-enabled insect to some sort of blindly-bright light source."
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • The Manotaurs confront Sugilite in "Strong in the Real Way" when she goes berserk, demanding that she leave. When she lifts up a massive boulder to hurl at them, however, they immediately realize they're in over their heads and retreat to the Man Cave.
  • During one of the stories in "Bottomless Pit", Stan's Brutal Honesty that he got from the Truth Teeth caused him to tell the Gems what he thought about them. While Amethyst was rather pleased (he called her a good friend), Pearl was not spared from some rather ugly opinions, and we never find out what he thought of Garnet. Applies even more when he calls Sheriff Blubs fat, prompting Amethyst to lampshade it.
    Amethyst: Is he trying to get arrested?
• "Burly Detective" Syndrome: When the author doesn't refer to Steven or Stan by name, she'll instead usually call them "The young gem" and "The Conman" respectively.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In "Message Received", Ford has been to so many extra-dimensional locales that being on the moon is relatively underwhelming for him.
• The Cake Is a Lie: In "Li'l Gideon", Gideon lures Steven to the Gleeful's hilltop factory with the promise of a sundae bar.
• Call-Back: Dipper's fears about Steven's dream-walking powers from the end of "The New Stan" come to a head in "Rifts" and form much of the basis for the conflict between the two.
• Call-Forward:
  • "Friend Ship" briefly makes a reference to the existance of Crash Site Omega.
  • In "Same Old World", Mabel suggests that Peridot start a farm when she hears that the Gem is planning to stay at the barn.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Dipper does this to the Crystal Gems about keeping him, Steven, Connie and Mabel in the dark regarding gem stuff, and how they expect the kids to trust them when they're keeping so many damning secrets.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Mabel just can't confess to her developing crush on Steven in the wake of forming Maven. Part of it is because she knows Steven and Connie like each other, and most of the rest of it is because she's afraid that she'll ruin their friendship. In "Society of the Blind Eye", she attempts to just get it out, but chickens out at the last second, and Wendy only finds out because she makes a Freudian Slip.
• Captain Obvious: In "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", when Dipper tells Steven and Mabel "You'll never guess what I found at the store today!", Steven responds "It looks like a box..."
• Centipede's Dilemma: In "Three's a Crowd", Stepper was able to levitate just fine until he noticed that he was levitating.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Mabel's grappling hook. Here, it first comes in handy to help Dipper and Mabel escape the vines around Rose's Fountain in "An Indirect Kiss".
  • Near the start of "Gideon Rises", Garnet tells the kids about Alexandrite, the fusion of Pearl, Amethyst, and herself. The Gems fuse into Alexandrite near the end of the chapter to help fight the Gideon-bot.
  • The "uncut gems" that Preston Northwest rejects at the start of "Northwest Mansion Nightmare". They're actually "Frankengems" from the Prime Kindergarten, and they end up coming to life.
• Cliffhanger:
  • "The Return" ends with Dipper blacking out as Jasper drags Steven aboard the hand ship.
  • "Out Too Far" ends with Malachite defeated and Lapis rescued, but the Cluster about to emerge.
  • "The New Stan" ends with Dipper looking on in fear and concern at Steven, knowing now that Steven can use his powers of possession on humans.
  • The first two parts of the Arc 8 finale end on one:
    • "Rifts" ends with the reveal that Stepper's gem is still cracked, and he has no memory of who Steven and Dipper are.
    • "Memories" ends with Stan, Ford, Lapis, and the Crystal Gems journeying into the Nightmare Realm to retrieve Stepper's shield journal from Bill Cipher, with Mabel and Stepper tagging along at the last minute.
• Closet Geek: It turns out that Pearl's extensive knowledge of strategy and military experience makes her the ideal Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons player.
• Commonality Connection: In "Northwest Mansion Nightmare", Pacifica and Connie commiserate over having strict, controlling parents.
• Composite Location:
  • Gravity Falls is a combination of its canon version with many elements from Beach City, such as the Crystal Temple, Greg's car wash, Fish Stew Pizza, the Big Donut, and Funland Arcade. You can see it at the bottom of the page image.
  • To a lesser extent, the Mayor of Gravity Falls is actually Bill Dewey, as opposed to Eustace Befufftlefumpter who's Adapted Out.
• Constantly Curious:
  • Invoked by Steven and Connie in "Blendin's Game" to distract Blendin while Dipper and Mabel steal a time-tape from one of the guards.
    Blendin: Nothing I just said was posed in a way that you could possibly have any questions about it! Y-you’re not making any time-sense!
  • Greg gets this treatmet from six-year-old Soos in "Greg the Babysitter".
• Continuity Nod:
  • In "Miss Mystery", Steven invites the bikers and thugs he met at Skull Fracture in "Headhunters" to the Mystery Shack.
  • In "Revenge Trip", Stan mentions to Amethyst that the kids told him about their trip to the Kindergarten in "On the Run".
  • In "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", Mayor Dewey appears trying to reassure the citizens of Gravity Falls over the many disasters that have been plaguing their town this summer, like the mysterious freak earthquake in "Not What He Seems", the giant hand-shaped spaceship from "The Return", the "giant robot ordeal" from "Gideon Rises", the lake being stolen in "Waterfall Gem", and the Red Eye menacing the town in "Magic and Mystery".
  • In "Peridot in the Wild" Peridot encounters several monsters detailed in Gravity Falls: Journal 3, including Steve the tree giant, a hawktopus, and a Leprecorn.
  • In "To Con a Clod", Mabel touches on the events of "Measure Up" when she says that she's learned it's not funny to pick on people for being short.
  • In "Message Received", Ford proposes building a spacecraft to get to the Moon, and Dipper briefly brings up the events of "Space Race".
  • In "Theory of Weirdness", Pearl bargaining into Steven's house and asking "Who wants to go on a mission?" is a nod to Greg's "Who wants to go on a road trip?" gag from "Evergreen Inn".
• Contrived Clumsiness: In "Northwest Mansion Nightmare", the Crystal Gems (who are reminded too much of Homeworld by the decadence and social stratification at the Northwest Fest) start out "accidentally" damaging things around the mansion. They eventually escalate to outright trashing the place when the Northwests aren't looking.
• Cool Sword: At the end of "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", Ford builds Dipper a new weapon to replace the Ancient Sea Blade that got destroyed earlier in the chapter. The "Sword of Seasons" is a falchion with high-tech gadgets added to give it elemental powers of fire, ice, electricity, and wind.
• *Cough* Snark *Cough*: In "Straight to Video", after Dipper geeks out over a new mystery novel his mom sent in a care package, Mabel teases him by coughing the word "Dork!"
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: When Garnet defeats the drill monsters and saves Pearl, Amethyst, Mabel and Stan at the end of "Arcade Mania" she points out the Amethyst and Pearl could've at the very least leapt down from water tower, which cuases both to facepalm.
• Crossover: Well, obviously.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: The "Fusion Fiascos" story line (which introduces Stevonnie, as well as fusions of Steven and the Mystery Twins) is divided into three parts titled "Alone Together", "Together Forever", and "Forever Alone".
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Ronaldo in "The Return" freaks out about the giant arm-ship being the "sneople" here to "turn our planet into a ticking time bomb of doom with the help of a magical talking parallelogram!"
• Curse Cut Short: In "Lost and Found", during an argument with Ford over Rose Quartz, Stan calls her "a lying, stubborn, selfish bi-" when Mabel interrupts.
  • In "Crack The Whip", Stan is about to let loose a Precision F-Strike before remembering that the kids are there, awkwardly changing it to "Fudge".
• Cut Short: After years of commitment, sadly Minijen cancelled Universe Falls due to a combination of pressure, trauma and exhaustion.
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • After the initial shock wears down, this is pretty much how Mabel reacts towards Lion. It almost verges on Cuteness Overload.
  • In "Crack the Whip", Mabel discovers that a stray kitten has snuck into the barn where Lapis and Peridot live, and her attempt to convince the gems to take in the adorable stray distracts her from Ford's original mission to ask them for help in finding and closing dimensional tears.

Universe Falls D-J

• Darker and Edgier: While it's still fairly PG-rated, Universe Falls pulls no punches about all the trauma, both physical and mental, the characters are going through (especially Steven and the Mystery Twins), and even throws in some additional angst (like Lapis and Dipper's budding friendship being cut short by the events of "Jailbreak").
  • "Sock Opera" here is especially brutal, with showing the Self-Harm Bill's inflicting on Dipper's body, and the failure of Steven's healing tears to work on said injuries implies that Dipper's body is technically dead with Bill in it.
  • "Chille Tid" was mostly a comic episode, aside from the Mood Whiplash of Steven's dream encounter with Lapis Lazuli. In Universe Falls, there's not only a lot of extra angst involved (what with Dipper's desperate concerns for Lapis), but it's extended into a two-parter, the first half of which ends with Bill Cipher menacing Steven and trying to torment him into making a deal, then casually revealing that he tried to make a deal with Steven's mother.
• Dartboard of Hate: The dwarves Preston trapped in his Titan's ore mine made one of these with his face. Pacifica asks if she can borrow it.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: In "The Dinner Shack", Connie's dad is glad the Twins live out of state so Dipper and Connie won't go out, much to their embarrassment.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • "Revenge Trip" focuses on Stan and Amethyst, with the Mystery Kids and the other Crystal Gems hardly getting involved in the plot at all.
  • Mabel and Connie are a bit more in focus in "Soos and the Real Girl" than their two fellows.
  • "Peridot in the Wild", as the name implies, revolves around Peridot wandering through Gravity Falls, crossing paths with some of the local supernatural creatures. The only other major character to appear in the chapter is Bill Cipher.
• Deal with the Devil: After making the deal with Dipper in "Sock Opera", Bill makes one with Steven to stop hurting Dipper if Steven doesn't tell anyone about him, though Dipper notices a lack of blue fire in the handshake the second time, implying that it's not a binding deal, further supported by when Bill catches Steven trying to signal that something was wrong and gives Dipper a rather large cut.
  • In "Gravity Falls Drift", the kids make one with Zoom to get a leg up in beating Kevin in a race. This works out better for them than the one mentioned above.
  • In "Dimensions", Steven makes one with Bill; if Steven can heal Dipper without Bill's help, then Bill has to get out of Dipper's body and never possess it again. If he fails, Bill can have his Gem and destroy his memories. Steven wins.
• Death Seeker: The part of Malachite distinct from Lapis and Jasper admits to Dipper in "Out Too Far" that she doesn't want to exist anymore.
• Deconstruction Fic: The story offers far more realistic outcomes to its events in comparison to both shows.
  • Dipper was severely traumatized by Bill possessing his body in the story's retelling of "Sock Opera", in contrast to canon where the only sign of trauma was in "The Last Mabelcorn", when he panicked over Ford potentially being possessed. This trauma causes him to develop an even bigger fear and loathing of Bill, to the point of having nightmares and becoming more aggressive.
  • In contrast to canon, neither Mabel or Stan were as Easily Forgiven by Dipper regarding the whole portal incident. To clarify, Dipper feels a strong violation of trust from the both of them; Mabel because she trusted Stan after previously vowing to always stick with her brother and Stan because he got tired of him constantly keeping secrets from everybody.
  • Some of the more selfish and/or reckless actions committed by both Mabel and Steven aren't as without consequences in comparison to their respective canons, as their actions are either occasionally called out by other characters (primarily Dipper) or come back to bite them far more quicker.
• Defensive "What?":
  • In "The Dinner Shack", Stan's response to the kids staring at him for telling off Connie's mother over the phone is a deadpan "What?"
  • In "Crash Site Omega", Pearl chimes in that she doesn't see robotics having much of a market "outside of militaristic weapons grade training," and replies with a baffled "What?" when everyone else stares at her.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • During an argument between Lapis and the Crystal Gems in "The Return", Lapis calls out the Gems for not having any plan better than shooting Peridot's ship with a battery of laser light cannons, and Pearl quips that Lapis can try using "your water wings and your water towers and your water… water and save the day!"
  • When Soos is complimenting the camping spot the kids picked in "Split Up", he mentions that it has trees, rocks, and... more trees.
  • The dwarves in "Peridot and Pacifica" have names that are all variants on Tony, including Tony and... Tony. They call the second Tony "Tony Two". This is lampshaded by Pacifica.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: In "Society of the Blind Eye", Mabel accidentally reveals her crush on Steven to Wendy when she absentmindedly lists him as one of her failed summer romances.
• Didn't Think This Through: The trope is name-dropped in "Split Up" when Connie and Dipper learn that Steven and Mabel got Stan and Ford to agree to go on a campout together by not telling them that the other individual was coming. Let alone how they forgot that Peridot was still in the Shack's bathroom and needed to be watched.
  • Dipper drops it again in "Same Old World" when he and Steven realize that Peridot and Lapis's histories will make them bunking together at the barn an issue. Then, Steven suggests a This Is My Side arrangement, with Dipper muttering that they'll still be seeing each other every day.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In "Pyrite Part 1", the Gems and kids manage to defeat Bill and Peridot's fusion Pyrite.
• Dirty Cop: The gnome justice system is apparently quite corrupt, according to Pearl when Connie comments on the one the gang made a deal with for the pixie dust in "The Last Mabelcorn".
• Disaster Dominoes: In "Greg the Babysitter", Greg and Rose end up knocking over a bunch of Stan's taxidermy in the Mystery Shack after the babies Greg is supposed to be looking at climb all over them.
• Distinction Without a Difference: In "Log Date 7 15 2", Peridot objects to Dipper's concerns that she's having an "existential crisis".
  Peridot: I am not having a so-called existential crisis! I'm merely questioning my suddenly changed overall purpose in the grand scheme of reality!
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The "Fusion Fiascos" arc plays up the "Gem fusion as sex" metaphor even further: In "Together Forever", Stan worries about having to give Steven and Mabel The Talk after they fuse, and Connie admits to being a bit jealous that her "first time" with Steven was a lot harder and more awkward; in "Forever Alone", Amethyst cracks a joke about how Steven Really Gets Around after learning he fused with Dipper, and Stan remarks "I didn't know either of them swung that way."
  • A more serious example in "Forever Alone". Steven is frustrated that he doesn't get the same feelings he got from being Stepper as he got from being Maven or Stevonnie, and refuses to let Stepper defuse despite how uncomfortable the situation is making Dipper. In "Lost and Found" Dipper is still mad at Steven for forcing the fusion to stay together in frustration because it didn't "Feel good".
  • Malachite's admission to Dipper that she doesn't want to exist anymore is reminiscent both of someone who's tired of being in an abusive relationship and someone who is suicidal.
• Double Aesop: In "On The Run", Dipper isn't the only one who learns that it's better to talk about your problems rather than try to ignore them (like Pearl) or avoid them (like Amethyst).
• Double-Meaning Title:
  • The first chapter of arc seven, "Split Up", has a title that could refer to a number of things: the Two Lines, No Waiting plot involving a camping trip and Dipper and Mabel trying to keep watch over Peridot, the rift between Stanley and Stanford that Steven and Connie try to mend, Garnet de-fusing in order to help Dipper and Mabel capture an escaped Peridot...
  • The first part of the arc eight finale, "Rifts", refers to both the rift between Dipper and Steven over Steven's meddlesome nature and Dipper's stubborn refusal of help from others, and the dimensional rift to the Nightmare Realm the boys end up falling into.
• Dramatic Irony: In "Played In Reverse", everyone keeps saying that the UF version of Steven isn't a Diamond, which anyone who's seen the episode "A Single Pale Rose" knows is way off the mark.
• The Dreaded: Bill Cipher, even more than in Gravity Falls canon, especially after the Pyrite incident.
• Drives Like Crazy: According to "Theory of Weirdness", Ford is an even worse driver than Stan. He claims he's just out of practice because he hasn't been behind the wheel of a conventional motor vehicle in decades, and he does seem to get better as the chapter progresses.
• Education Mama: According to "Society of the Blind Eye", Connie once got an A- on a science test, and still hasn't told her mom for fear of her reaction.
• The Elevator from Ipanema: Ford had prepared some Beethoven music for the Drill, but when he, Steven, Peridot, and Mabel actually use it in "In Too Deep", Peridot's replaced it with elevator music, with Ford using the term, and Peridot pointing out that "elevator music" is more relevant to their current situation.
• Empty Shell: In "Dimensions", when the shield journal is ripped in half, Stepper unfuses, but while the Steven half restores Steven's memories, Bill retains the Dipper half, reducing Dipper to this. And then Bill burns the rest and possess his body...
• Every Car Is a Pinto: In "The Return", when the townspeople panic and riot against Mayor Dewey, a parked car is described as catching fire for no reason.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Stan will readily admit that he isn't the most honest person around, but as "Like A Comet" demonstrates, even he thinks Marty was a money-grubbing sleazebag. He actually lampshades this when Dipper wonders if Greg is being a bit harsh with his description of Marty.
  • In "The Stanchurian Candidate", while willing to use the mind-controlling tie on Stan to make sure that Bud can't win and free Gideon from jail, the kids are disturbed by Amethyst using it to make Stan do the splits and such out of anger for keeping the portal secret from her. Also, Stan tells Steven that he might be a chronic liar, but he wouldn't want to take a lie like being an "honest mayor" to his grave.
  • Apparently even Rose Quartz, an All-Loving Heroine, couldn't stand how stuck up unicorns are.
  • Even Robbie can't stand Kevin's jerkiness.
  • Even other demons don't like Bill. Zoom even says that he gives all demonkind a bad name.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Gideon seems has this view towards the Crystal Gems and their attitude towards the town :
  Gideon: Those three have so much power, power no one in this backwoods hick town could comprehend. And what do they use it for? Helpin' people. Savin' em. It's such a waste! If I had powers like those... This town would be mine!
• Extra Eyes: Maven, the Steven/Mabel fusion from "Together Forever", has an extra pair of eyes.
• Extremely Short Timespan: For pragmatic reasons, most of the events of the first three seasons of Steven Universe, which were spread out over slightly longer than a year in canon, all happen in the space of a single summer.
• The Extremist Was Right: As unstable and paranoid as he was at the time of their reunion, at least one alternate universe shows that Ford was right when he reunited with Stan only to ask him to hide his Journals for him: The timeline where Stan simply did as his brother requested is a Golden Ending where Bill Cipher is defeated decades ahead of schedule, Ford never falls into the portal and his research revolutionizes the world while making the family rich.
• Eyes Never Lie: In "Played in Reverse", Pacifica is able to see through Reverse Dipper's disguise because his eyes are blue, and Prime Dipper's eyes are brown.
• Failed Attempt at Drama:
  • In "Split Up", Peridot dramatically confronts Ruby and Mabel, though her big entrance is ruined somewhat when she stumbles off the dumpster she was standing on.
  • In "Gravity Falls Drift", Maven ruins Zoom's attempt at a dramatic entrance.
• Fanboy: Steven goes to the Mystery Shack enough that he practically knows all the exhibits by heart. Mabel also has a brief spell of this when Steven tells her that Greg used to be a rock star.
• Fastball Special: Stan has Amethyst do this to him in "The Stanchurian Candidate" to save the kids.
• Fat and Skinny: With Steven being the fat one and Dipper being the skinny one.
• Fate Worse than Death: In "Opposites Attract", Pacifica describes the two Dippers being brainwashed into falling in love with Rises Pacifica "a little worse than dying."
• Fishbowl Helmet: Steven's spaceman costume in "Summerween" includes an old fishbowl as the helmet.
• Fish out of Water: Peridot proves to be completely ignorant of Earth customs in "To Con a Clod". Stan, Amethyst, and the kids have to explain things like "trade" and "coffee" to her.
• Five-Episode Pilot: Not counting the prologue, the first five chapters of the story all take place during the same day and can all combine together into one "episode" of Universe Falls.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: In "Monster Falls", as the Mystery Kids escort Centipeedle to the Mystery Shack, a series of events foreshadow the monster forms they'd take on thanks to Yellow Diamond and Bill Cipher's attack (like Connie, who becomes a ghost, assuring Centi that she doesn't have to be scared of things she can't see, or Steven, who becomes a dryad, offering her a flower crown).
• Five Stages of Grief: Dipper displays some signs of the five stages in the first few chapters of arc five: Denial (sitting by the lake hoping Lapis Lazuli will come back in "Full Disclosure"), Anger (his Jerkass Ball moments in "Joy Ride"), Bargaining (his deal with Bill Cipher in "Sock Opera, Part 1", and throwing himself into sword training in "Do It For Them"), Depression (his breakdowns in "Sock Opera, Part 2" and "Do It For Them") and Acceptance (his reconciliation with Steven and Mabel at the end of "Do It For Them")
• Fix Fic: Downplayed, but MiniJen does have some criticisms towards both shows she is on record saying are going to be corrected over the course of Universe Falls, chief among them the disrespectful attitude Gravity Falls has towards Dipper's emotional and physical trauma as well as the lack of any acknowledgement that Mabel gave the Rift to Bill Cipher.
• Flat "What": Peridot's reaction to the Leprecorn (half-Leprechaun, half-unicorn), especially since its accent is so thick that she can barely understand it.
  • Ford in "Mr. Greg" when it's mentioned that they're singing because they're in a musical.
• Forced Transformation: In "Monster Falls", Yellow Diamond hits Gravity Falls with a one-Diamond version of the Corruption blast, with Bill helping her. This transforms the humans in town into various monsters, like Dipper into a cervitaur, Mabel into a mermaid, Connie into a ghost, and Steven into the male version of a Dryad, etc., while the Gems are physically transformed into a corrupted form, but without it affecting their minds.
• For Want Of A Nail:
  • The mysterious human imprisoned on Homeworld that helped Lapis work up the will to escape and head back to Earth to warn Dipper and the others that Homeworld is returning. The next chapter hints that he is none other than Ford, given how Lapis reacts to Stan, which is confirmed by "Same Old World".
  • "P2: Adrift in the Cosmos" actually shows via a parallel dimension that if Stan had simply listened to Ford and gotten rid of Journal 1 like he told him to do so, things could've been so much different in the present. Not only would Ford never have had to spend 30 years traveling through different dimensions, but he would've actually been able to defeat Bill (or at least prevent him from ever escaping the mindscape) and became a successful businessman.
• Foreign Cuss Word: Amethyst in "The Last Mabelcorn" is a bit saucy when speaking Spanish.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Minijenn has admitted to dropping a lot of hints about Garnet being a fusion, which is old news to many Steven Universe fans. Her encoded journal entry in "Magic and Mystery, Part 2" pretty much gives it away, but there's also her response to Steven saying she's "a big fan of romance" in "Future Vision", and her various remarks in the "Fusion Fiascos" mini-arc.
  • In "Future Vision", Pearl shows deep personal hostility to the idea of sentient beings being created purely as slaves for another's benefit, which is exactly what she and all other Pearls were created to be.
  • In "Miss Mystery" Amethyst freaks out after looking into the Gremloblin's eyes and seeing her worst fear, shouting "I don't wanna go with you or be like them!" Minijenn confirmed her fear was being forced to be a soldier for Homeworld, like she was created to be as revealed in "On the Run".
  • In "Straight to Video", among the items in Lion's mane is a glass tube with "Crystal Gems" written on it. Its description, brief as it is, sounds similar to the memory tubes from "Society of the Blind Eye". In "Lost and Found", that's just what it turns out to be.
  • The flashback in "Revenge Trip" where Stan confesses to Amethyst that he knows what it's like to feel like you're not as good as everyone else. Specifically, his long-lost brother Stanford.
  • In "Dreamscaperers", Bill Cipher claims that he's encountered the Crystal Gems before, but will spare Gideon the boring details because of "spoilers". Also, his spiel after he goes to invade Stan's mind includes the line "The Cluster is coming!"
  • Also from "Dreamscaperers", Steven overhears a memory of Rose Quartz arguing with Stan about the portal in the Mystery Shack's basement.
  • "Scary-oke" opens with Steven and Greg watching a zombie movie, and wondering what they'd do if they ever encountered a zombie attack, and if "the power of music" would be any good against zombies. Anyone who's seen the Gravity Falls episode on which it's based knows what happens at the end, and how the zombies are defeated. On a more serious note, we also see Greg knows about the portal under the Mystery Shack.
  • Near the end of "The Golf War", after Pacifica's outburst towards the Lilliputtians Dipper remarks "I feel sorry for whatever poor sap ends up dating her in the future", and Garnet just chuckles knowingly.
    • A similar foreshadowing occurs in "Into the Bunker": after Wendy lets Dipper down, Garnet encourages Dipper by telling him that his "special someone" is out there for him. When Dipper asks who is that special someone, Garnet tells him he wouldn't believe her if she told him.
  • In some of the later chapters (especially in "Revenge Trip" and "Rose's Scabbard"), it becomes apparent that there's more to Stan and Rose's animosity than just their general dislike of each other. That being Rose's refusal to help Stan fix the portal to save his brother Ford, since turning it back on would mean the risk of destroying the Earth, or even all of reality.
    Steven: I know you said you guys never got along that great, but things couldn't have been that bad between you two, right?
    Stan: Bad?! Are you kidding me, kid?! Things between me and her weren't just bad, they were-- (He abruptly cuts himself off, especially as he glanced over at the twins who were looking to him with just as much curiosity as the young Gem was.) You know what? Let's just say things were bad and leave it at that, ok?
  • In "The Return", Lapis's reaction to Stan, especially when she sees his hands, hints that Ford is the human she met trapped on Homeworld in "Dipper and Lapis". This is confirmed in "Same Old World".
  • In "Jailbreak", Peridot mentions detecting an unknown energy source, likely Stan's portal.
  • In "Sock Opera" Bill's nickname for Connie, Sword Swinger, references her taking several levels in badass by learning to use swords. He also makes several other references to upcoming plot points, like Rose making a deal with Bill.
• Four Lines, All Waiting:
  • "The Deep End" has four different subplots, between Mabel meeting Mermando, Dipper getting a job as assistant lifeguard, Steven and Connie trying to patch up Lars and Sadie's friendship, and Amethyst helping Stan in claiming the best seat at the poolside from Gideon.
  • "Northwest Mansion Nightmare" also has four different subplots: Dipper helping Pacifica with the ghost, Connie and Steven trying to retrieve Rose's sword, Mabel and her girlfriends fighting over boys at the party, and the Crystal Gems accidentally messing up Northwest Manor.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Between the kids:
  • The Cynic: Dipper
  • The Optimist: Steven
  • The Realist: Connie
  • The Apathetic: Mabel
• Funny Schizophrenia: Zig-Zagged with Stepper, a fusion between Dipper and Steven. Unlike Stevonnie and Maven, Dipper isn't nearly enthusiastic about being fused, and the resulting fusion is prone to serious mood swings. It's Played for Laughs at first, but Played for Drama as Dipper's frustration mounts.
• Fusion Dance: As expected for a Steven Universe fic. All the canon fusions appear, as well as Steven's fusions with Dipper and Mabel and Peridot and Bill's fusion Pyrite.
• Fusion Fic: The residents of Beach City all live in Gravity Falls instead.
  • Also, several of the chapters have been crossovers between different episodes of Steven Universe and Gravity Falls, such as "The Legend of the Giant Woman", or "Strong in the Real Way".
• Gamer Chick: Pearl used to play DD&MD with Ford, and is quite good at the game.
• Gender Flip: In "Opposites Attract", Rises Lion is female, and Steven seems to think his lion has a bit of a crush on her.
• Gilligan Cut: In "Mr. Greg", Steven insists that they're going to bring both Stan and Ford along on their family vacation. Cut to Ford refusing to come along on any trip with Stan.
• Glad I Thought of It:
  • Gideon takes credit for him and his goons escaping, despite one of them lampshading that he hadn't been the one to come up with the idea at all.
  • Dipper lampshades how Peridot does this with Pearl's idea to build a machine to take them to the Cluster.
    • Later in "Bot Battle", a variant occurs when Pearl claims to Fiddleford that Peridot was the one who insisted on the battle to lead the drill project when it was actually Steven's idea.
• Gold Digger: Not directly, but in "Mismatched Making" Stan goes from mocking the idea of Dipper getting a girlfriend to suddenly being eager to help when he finds out Dipper has a developing relationship with the richest girl in town.
• Good Is Not Nice: Ford is actually willing to at least threaten Peridot with being shattered to try and get her to spill on the Cluster, must to the others surprise.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Downplayed, but the Gems do not react well to their returned memories in "Lost and Found".
• Gratuitous Spanish: In "The Last Mabelcorn", Amethyst keeps speaking Spanish, which Stan even lampshades.
• Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: In "Three's a Crowd", Steven and Dipper fuse into Stepper in mid-air when Steven's levitation powers accidentally kick in, and Stepper falls to the ground as soon as he realizes he's several feet above the ground. Justified, in that Steven hasn't gotten a handle on his new power, and certainly not using it when fused with another person.
• Great Big Book of Everything:
  • Journal 3, in addition to containing knowledge about all the supernatural oddities found in Gravity Falls like canon, has information on several different types of gem monsters, as well as the Gems themselves.
  • The other two Journals as well. In fact, Journal 1 has information on the Kindergarten. Meanwhile, Journal 2 is stated to have information on the Gem Homeworld.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The conflict in "Three's a Crowd" is that Mabel is mad about Stanford monopolizing her time with Dipper and Steven. Fusing into Dipevebel makes her realize that she also wanted to try fusing with Steven again.
• Guilt by Association: In "Blendin's Game", Connie was captured along with the twins and Steven even though she wasn't even in "Lion and Waddles". But Blendin doesn't care.
• Heel–Face Turn: In "Played In Reverse", Reverse Dipper ends up siding with the UF Mystery Kids.
• Here We Go Again!:
  • After falling in the bottomless pit for hours, they suddenly end up back on the surface outside the Mystery Shack. Relieved, Stan leans on the sign only for it to break, sending him falling down the pit again. Amethyst eagerly jumps back down with him. When Steven asks if they should help them, Garnet just tells him "they'll be fine".
  • At the end of "Arcade Mania", Mr. Smiley finds the code on the Fight Fighters cabinet that allowed Dipper to bring Rumble McSkirmish out of the game. Curious, he inputs the code himself, causing the machine to allow him to do the same, though Mr. Smiley chooses his own favorite character and the chapter ends before we can see the consequences.
• His Name Is...: In "Irrational Treasure", Garnet's attempt to reveal who the real founder of Gravity Falls was is interrupted by her and Pearl being distracted by Amethyst's Zany Scheme to break Stan out of the stocks.
• Hive Mind: Bill can effectivly make himself this by controlling multiple people at once. In the past he apparently controlled entire armies of Gems.
• Hope Spot:
  • In "Split Up", the kids' Zany Scheme to get Stan and Ford to reconcile on the camping trip actually starts working, as both fondly reminisce about their childhood and seem willing to put their bad blood behind them. Stan fears it won't last though and deliberately hides their car and pretends it was stolen, so they can spend more time in the woods together. When he's found out, Ford is appropriately pissed, while Stan gives him "The Reason You Suck" Speech, putting them back at Square One.
  • In "Out Too Far", Dipper nearly manages to get through to Malachite twice, the first by a "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight moment directed towards Lapis, the second by bringing up his own experience as an unstable fusion and then asking Malachite herself what she really wants and learning that she's tired of existing, but both times Jasper's hatred and addiction to Malachite's power prompts her to fight back and keep it from working
  • In "Rifts", Stepper fights Bill Cipher to a standstill, only for Bill to ultimately get the upper hand. It happens again when Stepper overcomes Bill's attempts to Break Them by Talking, only for Bill to lash out with physical force instead.
• Hostage Situation: In "Sock Opera", Bill threatens to harm Dipper's body if Steven tries to tell the Gems that Dipper's been possessed.
• Hybrid Monster: One of the monsters Peridot encounters in "Peridot In The Wild" is a "Leprecorn", half-Leprechaun and half-unicorn.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In "Future Vision", Stan tries to rebut Garnet's prediction that he'll order Soos to clean up the mess while he goes to stock up for the potential apocalypse... and then immediately does so.
  • In "Keeping it Together", after Dipper lampshades how Steven has dozens of copies of the exact same star t-shirt, Mabel points out that Dipper himself tends to wear the same thing almost every day because he'd rather be doing other stuff than laundry.
  • In "We Need to Talk", Dipper makes fun of Mabel for liking music from the eighties. She then reminds him of a certain Icelandic pop group he likes...
• I Always Wanted to Say That: In "Keeping It Together", Mabel remarks that she's always wanted to use the phrase "We've got you cornered!" when the Gems run into Peridot.
• I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Mabel has feelings for Steven, but can't bring herself to confess because she doesn't want to ruin their friendship. Knowing that he and Connie like each other doesn't help either.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: When Pearl was possessed by Bill Cipher in the past, Rose tried to do this to her, Bill playing along just to mess with her.
  • Dipper does this to try and reach Lapis inside Malachite, which unfortunately fails.
  • In "Memories", Mabel tries to remind Stepper about Dipper and Steven, but is unable to.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In "Split Up", Soos tries to stay out of a brewing argument between Stan and Ford by saying "I'm gonna go... find something broken to fix," and then going so far as to bend the legs of a camping chair.
• I Never Told You My Name: In "Jailbreak", Dipper wonders how Sapphire knew his name when they'd just met, but Mabel waves it away and points out that she probably got it from overhearing them talking.
• I Resemble That Remark!: In "Chille Tid, Part 1", Mabel comments that Dipper's a bit on edge when to comes to the topic of rescuing Lapis, and he briefly rants about how he's not on edge.
• I Warned You: Stan blows off Sapphire when she tries to warn him about Darlene in "Evergreen Inn". This is her reaction to hearing that he'd been abducted by her.
• I Will Show You X!:
  • In "The Golf War", Pacifica mockingly refers to the Crystal Gems as the "Rhinestone Gems", and Pearl mutters "Oh, I'll show her rhinestones..."
  • In "Keeping It Together", Pearl tells Stan that the "girly" sword she gave to Dipper is the kind of weapon that demands respect, "Which, of course, is something you would know nothing about," and Stan retorts "Oh, I'll show you respect!"
  • In "Bot Battle", Ford's response to Peridot calling him a "primitive creature" is "Oh, I'll show her primitive..."
• I'm a Humanitarian: Probabilator planned to not only eat Dipper and Ford's brains, but use Pearl's Gemstone as seasoning.
• I'm Standing Right Here: In "Jailbreak", Sapphire eventually gets tired of Dipper and Mabel's arguing over whether or not to free her, and interrupts them with "You both know I can hear you, right?".
• Idiot Ball: Ford lampshades that, in hindsight, he was so desperate to think that he was nearly home that he didn't consider the possibility that the Ruby and Sapphire that he saw weren't the ones that he knew.
• Imagined Innuendo: In "We Need to Talk", Stan wonders if Greg's talk of "fusing" with Rose is "some kind of innuendo".
• In Spite of a Nail: The divergences from canon are starting to grow as of the end of arc 4, but a lot of stuff ultimately turns out the same as in either canon.
  • The Earth in this fanfic is pretty much the same as the real world (or rather the world of Gravity Falls). The Gems' presence doesn't appear to have any major affect on Earth's history as they did in Steven Universe. (see Like Reality, Unless Noted)
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue: In "Northwest Mansion Nightmare", Connie initially refuses to believe that Pacifica is telling the truth about not knowing about the Cluster gems, and doubts that she was telling the truth about her house being haunted. That's when the Lumberjack Ghost shows up again.
• Internal Reveal:
  • In "Gems and Journals", the Crystal Gems learn about the Journal's existence, and the fact that it has very detailed information of them and Rose.
  • In "Lost and Found" Greg reveals to the Gems that he knew about Stanford and the portal in Stan's basement.
  • In "Peridot In The Wild", Peridot learns that Bill exists and is working with Yellow Diamond.
  • In "Bot Battle", Ford finds out what happened to his old lab partner Fiddleford, AKA Old Man McGucket.
  • In "Message Received", Peridot and Yellow Diamond's conversation leads to the Crystal Gems and their allies learning about Bill's alliance with Yellow Diamond.
  • At the end of "Greg the Babysitter", Stan confides in Greg that Ford is forcing him out of the Mystery Shack at the end of summer.
• Interspecies Friendship: Stan and Amethyst, which also counts as Odd Friendship due to Stan's dislike of the Gems always "dragging their disasters onto his property" and luring tourists away without meaning to with the Temple's statue.
• Ironic Echo Cut:
  • In "Strong in the Real Way", Steven assures Dipper that he'll help him stand up to the Manotaurs about refusing to slay the Multi-Bear.
    Steven: And who knows? Maybe we’ll end up teaching those manotaurs a thing or two about what being manly really means!
    (Cut to the Man Cave)
    Leadertaur: You two know nothing about being manly!
  • In "Summerween", after the cashier at the Summerween store grouses "I hate Summerween," the next scene opens with Steven gushing "I love Summerween!"
• It Amused Me: In "Log Date: 7 15 2", when Peridot assumes that slang terms like "rad" and "dude" are some kind of "human code", Wendy agrees to teach her the "code" in exchange for a peek at the drill largely because she feels that it's going to be hilarious.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Dipper initially blames himself for Lapis becoming Malachite.
  • In "Cry For Help", Steven blames himself for all the questionable things that Rose felt she had to do, including her refusal to help Stan save Ford. Though Stan insists that they're not his fault and he never blamed Steven for them, despite the kid usually being a nuisance to him.
  • In "Evergreen Inn", Steven blames himself for bringing back the Gems' memories, which seem to have only made things worse. Exemplified by Ruby and Sapphire's fighting.
  • In "Bot Battle", Ford is quick to blame himself for not doing anything to stop Fiddleford's decline into the "local kook" he's known as today.
• Jerkass Ball: In "Joy Ride", Dipper is still suffering from the events of the arc 4 finale, and is even more surly and sarcastic than normal. Thankfully, Wendy helps him snap out of it.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In "Bot Battle", Ford points out to Pearl that, despite Peridot being a jerk about it, she may be right about how Peridot's greater experience with Homeworld's more advanced technology might outstrip their shared mechanical experience. This is what causes them to seek out Fiddleford.
  • In "Hit The Diamond", Stan suggests that they cheat in the baseball game against the Rubies, and Pearl, much to her own surprise, agrees, noting that with their Gem abilities, there's a chance that the Rubies could win even with almost no knowledge of the game.
• Jerkass Realization: In "Forever Alone", after Stepper finally de-fuses after a heated argument between Dipper and Steven, Dipper feels sorry for always shutting people out, and Steven feels sorry for putting so much pressure on Dipper to try and stay fused without considering Dipper's feelings.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As "Joy Ride" points out, Stan cares about Dipper and Mabel more than he likes to let on.

Universe Falls K-Z

• Keep Away: In "Sock Opera, Part 2", Connie and Steven help Mabel wear out Bipper by playing keep-away with Journal 3.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks:
  • Steven feels this way about keeping Journal 3 a secret, in no small part because it contains lots of personal information on the Crystal Gems.
  • Dipper feels this way when Lapis asks him to keep her return a secret.
• Kiss of Life: In "The Deep End", Sadie has to give CPR to Lars after he falls into the pool and bumps his head. Meanwhile, Dipper has the infamous "reverse CPR" scene with Mermando.
• The Klutz: Maven, the Mabel/Steven fusion introduced in part 2 of "Fusion Fiascos", is constantly tripping and falling over.
• Lame Pun Reaction:
  • In "Northwest Mansion Nightmare", Pacifica cracks a bad joke when Dipper is thanking her for saving him from being turned into a wooden statue.
    Pacifica: Yeah, that would have sucked. I couldn’t imagine you, of all people, being so stiff and board-ing.
    Dipper: (laughs) What, did you come up with that one yourself?
    Pacifica: Hey, at least I tried. It’s not like puns are really my strong suit.
    Dipper: Yeah, I can see that.
  • In "Evergreen Inn", Dipper is unamused when Mabel cracks a joke about getting Ruby to cool down and Sapphire to warm up.
  • In "Alone on the Lake", Stan is not a fan of Greg's boat puns, and says that if Greg still worked for him, he'd fire him.
• Lampshade Hanging: Dipper has a tendency to point out various weird or unlikely things about the Gems.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: If you take a closer look at Rose Quartz in the image cover, she's holding a tube labeled "Crystal Gems' memories."
  • This is confirmed to be the case in-story in "Lost and Found".
• Last-Second Word Swap:
  • In "Mismatched Making", Mabel nearly blabs to Steven about "my crush on you...r slippers!"
  • In "Mr. Greg", after learning about Greg's massive royalty check, Stan gushes about Greg and his millions of... "great qualities".
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • Dogcopter's monologue about art in "Straight to Video" is tweaked a bit to be more about transformative works (including fanart and fan fiction... like Universe Falls itself).
    Don’t focus so much on talent, Steven. Making art is all about communication. Look to what inspires you and then reshape it into something you love even more. Don’t worry about trying to be broad or appeal to everyone. Just be true to yourself, and people will appreciate your honesty.
  • "Cry For Help" opens with Steven, Mabel, and Dipper watching a marathon of Crying Breakfast Friends, and commenting on some in-universe Wham Episodes that parallel the events of the Gravity Falls episode "Not What He Seems" and the Steven Universe episode "A Single Pale Rose", the latter of which was released just over a week before the chapter was finished. It even has Dipper lampshade all the Foreshadowing The Reveals had.
  • There's a lot of fourth-wall leaning in "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", given that the Show Within a Show crossover between Dogcopter and Ductective is an element.
  • When seeing an image of Yellow Diamond (in the form of her Moon Base mural) for the first time in "Message Received", Mabel references the SU fandom meme of her long neck making her look like a giraffe.
  • In "Mismatched Making", Pacifica learns about all the crazy things Dipper has been in his and Mabel's adventures with Steven, and says it sounds like "some crazy movie, or huge story written by a psychopath or something."
  • In "Theory of Weirdness", Pearl says it feels like it's been years since the start of summer when it's only been a few months.
• Left the Background Music On: A meta-example; In "Sock Opera, Part 2", Minijenn incorporates the Ave Maria gag during the destruction of Mabel's puppet show by having Candy play it as the background music.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Stan says this in "Joy Ride".
• Like Reality, Unless Noted: Unlike Steven Universe's full-bore Alternate History (i.e. None of the major holidays exist, World War II never happened, and wildly different geography), history in Universe Falls more or less played out the same as it did in real life, save for the gems' presence, with the further implication that they may have had a hand with history turning out the way it did. Pearl even mentions in "Summerween" that she personally met Joan of Arc.
  • Seattle is called Emerald City though, just like New York was Empire City in Steven Universe canon.
• Limited Wardrobe: In "Keeping It Together", Dipper hangs a lampshade on how Steven has so many of the same shirt. After Steven replies and says that he simply liked the look, Mabel teases Dipper for his tendency to wear the same clothes almost every day because he's busy with other things.
• List of Transgressions: In "Revenge Trip", Amethyst wants to know why Pearl, Garnet, and Steven think she was the one who painted the temple pink. They proceed to rattle off a list of her previous pranks, including filling the house with golf balls, releasing cicadas in Pearl's room, and shrinking Steven's laundry.
• Literal Metaphor: "Gravity Falls Drift" introduces Zoom, a demonic spirit with an obsession with speed and racing. In other words, a literal speed demon.
• Literal-Minded: In "Greg the Babysitter", a young Soos tells Rose Quartz he has to "go potty", and Rose gives him an actual pot he ends up doing his business in. Later, when Greg informs her he's been fired from the Mystery Shack, Rose briefly thinks Stan tried to set Greg on fire.
• Little Stowaway: In "Out Too Far" Dipper stows away in the boat so he can try to help free Lapis from Malachite.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Just like in Steven Universe the Crystal Gems keep pretty dark secrets from the kids. However unlike the more trusting Steven, Dipper isn't so content with being left in the dark, and his questioning nature is causing Steven to be less complacent about being kept out of the loop.
  • According to Word of God, Bill Cipher's very existence on Homeworld is unknown to all but the Diamonds. He never makes his presence known to any of its members and works with its matriarchs behind closed doors. However, it is also stated that the Diamonds' Pearls are also aware of him.
  • Ironically, due to their lost memories, the Crystal Gems themselves are locked out of the loop about Ford/the author and the portal. Greg actually knows more than they do!
  • The kids have been keeping the events of "Sock Opera" involving Bill from the Gems. This ends at the end of "Chille Tid Part 1".
  • Except for Pearl and Rose, none of the Crystal Gems knew that Bill existed until the incident that erased Garnet, Amtheyst and Pearl's memories.
  • Until he's corrected in "Bot Battle", Fiddleford is still under the impression that the portal hasn't opened yet, having been hiding in the bunker since before it did.
  • Ford was unaware that Steven could fuse with humans for some time, and didn't initially believe that Dipper had fused with Steven.
  • Remembering how Stan reacted the last time they attempted a trip to the stars, Dipper suggests keeping him in the dark about their Moon Base trip in "Message Received" when Ford comments that he probably should have told Stan that they were going to the moon.
  • Lapis doesn't find out about Bill until "Alone on the Lake", and Steven and Mabel, knowing how she would react to the details of why Dipper made his deal with Bill, purposefully avoid telling her, but Dipper blurts it out angrily when he learns that a part of her misses Jasper.
  • When Mabel learns that Dipper hasn't told Pacifica about Bill yet in "Memories", she gets mad and gives the other girl the basics.
  • "Dimensions" reveals that no one ever clued Stan in on Bill entering his mind.
  • In "Theory of Weirdness", Connie only got the messages about the whole situation in the previous chapters a few hours before she got back from Japan, and Mabel forgot to tell her that it was all resolved.
• Long Neck: Lampshaded by Mabel when she sees Yellow Diamond's mural, comparing her to a giraffe.
  • In "The Legend of the Giant Woman", Old Man McGucket described the Gobblewonker having a long neck like "that bird" (Pearl).
• Loss of Identity: Bill manages to get Stepper's shield journal, which makes him not only forget all of Steven and Dipper's memories, but that Steven and Dipper even existed.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The song in "Three's a Crowd" is described as having a bouncy, "jazzy" tune by the author, who compared it to Marshall Lee's song from the Adventure Time episode "Bad Little Boy", but the first few verses are about Dipper and Mabel arguing with each other and snidely airing their grievances.
• Malaproper: In "Peridot and Pacifica" Mabel refers to Peridot's limb enhancers as "lemon hancers".
• Mars and Venus Gender Contrast: The Crystal Gems and the Manotaurs have always been in conflict with one another. The Manotaurs, an all-male race of man-beasts that hold their masculinity on a pedestal, sees the fully-capable, all-female "sissy" Gems as a threat to their masculinity. It is even implied that the Gems beat them in a fight and they have been sore about it ever since.
• Meal Ticket: When Stan finds out that Dipper and Pacifica Northwest are falling for each other he's all for helping the relationship along, because if the two get married it'll mean he has a rich nephew he can mooch off of.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: When Yellow Diamond and Bill team up to hit Gravity Falls with a Corruption blast in "Monster Falls", while the Gems are physically changed into corrupted forms but have their faculties remain intact, many the humans of the town slowly start to display the instincts and behaviors of the creatures that they're turned into, like Dipper displaying the skittishness of a deer or Ford's Sphinx form being obsessed with riddles, though some handle it better than others.
• Mineral MacGuffin: "Peridot and Pacifica" has Dipper and Peridot trying to find some titan's ore, a mineral that's common on Homeworld but super-rare on Earth, in order to complete the drilling machine.
• Mirror Character: "Mr. Greg" shows that while Stan and Ford may be different in general attitudes, both of them are equally stubborn on their positions concerning how their friendship crumbled, and both of them are psychologically projecting themselves or the other onto the younger Pines Twins, equally contributing to speeding up the factors that caused their relationship to crumble. Both Dipper and Mabel try to say that they're different, but their own shared anxieties make this fall flat.
• Mistaken for Romance:
  • Gideon is under the impression Steven "stole" Mabel's affections, no matter how much the young half-Gem protests otherwise. He even assumed in "Gideon Rises" that Steven was cheating on Mabel with Connie.
  • In "The Dinner Shack", Stan admits he assumed that Dipper and Connie were an item because of their shared nerdiness.
• Mistaken Identity: In "Home Away From Homeworld", Ford accidentally gives himself away when he mistakes a Ruby and Sapphire for the Ruby and Sapphire he knows.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous:
  • Stepper, the Steven/Dipper fusion introduced in "Forever Alone", has an extra pair of arms.
  • In "Pyrite", the eponymous Peridot/Bill fusion also has an extra set of arms.
• Mundane Object Amazement:
  • "Peridot and Pacifica" has Peridot gushing over the "cutting edge" phone Steven and Mabel gave her, which is basically a refurbished, out-of-date Blackberry.
  • "Mismatched Making" sees Pacifica, who's used to eating only the fanciest gourmet foods, marveling over a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
• Musical Episode: "Mr. Greg", with Dipper even Breaking the Fourth Wall to lampshade it.
• Must Have Caffeine: In "To Con a Clod", Peridot tries some of Stan's coffee, and quickly gets hooked on the stuff.
• My Hair Came Out Green: In "Opposites Attract", Pacifica throws a potion at her dimensional doppelganger that turns the Rises!Pacifica's hair green.
• My Instincts Are Showing: In "Monster Falls", the transformed humans start taking on instinctual behaviors from the monsters they've been turned into, like the now part-deer Dipper being rather skittish, sphinx!Ford being obsessed with riddles, etc., which gets worse over time.
• Mythology Gag: Mabel's (bogus) history of stickers in "Log Date 7 15 2" is taken from the "Mabel's Guide to Life" short about stickers.
• Named by the Adaptation:
  • According to "Peridot in the Wild", Celestiabellebethabelle's fellow unicorns are named Barry and Maurice.
  • The alien refugees from Gravity Falls: Journal 3 that Ford meets in "The Nightmare Realm" are also given names: Yottos (the guinea pig with the eyepatch and mechanical arm), Hocoh (the pig-like creature), Qharquains (the one-armed reptilian alien) and George (the horned creature).
• Narrative Profanity Filter: In "The Stanchurian Candidate", Steven describes an email he answered for Stan's campaign as having "just about every word Pearl's told me I should never say."
• Never Be Hurt Again: Dipper pushed himself so hard in "Do It for Them" partially because he wanted to avoid feeling as helpless as he did in "Sock Opera" again, where he was unable to do anything but watch the others from the sidelines.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: In "In Too Deep", when The Cluster is awakening and the drill team can't think of a way to stop it, Mabel says that she never got to say goodbye to Dipper, Stan or Waddles and begs Ford to do something.
• Never Heard That One Before: When Lapis is reminded of who Stan is in "Alone on The Lake", she calls him the one who looks like Ford but isn't. Stan implies that he's heard that a lot before.
• Never the Selves Shall Meet: Steven traveling back in time in "Blendin's Game" apparently causes his younger self to disappear entirely until he travels forward again, much to Greg's concern. It's never revealed if the same applies to the Twins since they live far from Gravity Falls.
• No-Sell:
  • In "Measure Up", Gideon uses the size-altering crystal on Amethyst and Pearl to try and shrink them. It doesn't work because it's part of a Gem device designed to affect organic matter, which neither Amethyst or Pearl are.
  • Bill Cipher seems immune to Garnet's future vision.
  • Steven's healing tears fail to work on Dipper's body when Bill is controlling it, though it's implied to be because Dipper's body is technically lifeless.
  • In "Home Away From Homeworld", Ford finds that Yellow Diamond can take shots from every weapon he's got on him without a scratch. He's tempted to use the quantum destabilizer, but it only has one shot he's saving for Bill Cipher.
• Noodle Implements:
  • In "An Indirect Kiss", Stan's failed attempt to heal Amethyst's gem involved hot wax and a butter knife.
  • In "Irrational Treasure", Amethyst tries to break Stan out of the stocks using "a blowtorch, a bicycle, and several fireworks", which literally blows up in Amethyst's face.
  • In "Scary-oke", the Gems' plan to get the agents away from the Gem Temple involves smoke machines and a crossbow.
• Noodle Incident:
  • In "Gems and Journals", Dipper brings up a "funnel cake incident" involving Mabel. When Connie presses him for more details, Dipper replies that she doesn't want to know.
  • In "Irrational Treasure", Garnet insists the Crystal Gems stick around during Pioneer Day to keep an eye on the townsfolk, saying "The last thing we want is a repeat of Pioneer Day 1968". Pearl cringes at the memory, saying "There were so many fish..." Later, Amethyst offers to break Stan out of the stocks, and when Stan asks if it's going to be like "the last time you broke me out of jail", Amethyst replies that she doesn't have a battering ram with her this time.
  • Near the beginning of "Straight to Video", Steven is taking a long time picking a snack from the vending machine, and Soos tells him "You don't want Mr. Pines chasing you out with the hose again like last time."
  • In "Revenge Trip", Stan and Amethyst reminisce on their previous Revenge Trips, like modifying Mayor Dewey's campaign van to say "Mayor Screwy" after he tried to hit the Mystery Shack with a new zoning ordinance, or pushing Toby Determined's car into the lake for printing an unflattering article about the Gems.
  • In "Full Disclosure", when Pearl accuses Amethyst of never comitting to being the crocodile, Amethyst retorts she spent hours disguised as a crocodile during one of her "Revenge Trips" with Stan.
    Pearl: And why, pray tell, would you have ever needed to be a crocodile for one of your nights of debauchery?
    Amethyst: That’s for me to know, and for that lake full of endangered fish we ransacked to never find out.
  • In "Hit The Diamond", Stan just randomly has several shirts with "Baby's First Baseball Game" printed on them. When asked by Ford why on Earth he has them, he just says that he has his reasons.
• Not Me This Time: When Gideon paints the Temple pink, the Crystal Gems initially assume Amethyst did it.
• Not So Above It All:
  • In "The Golf War", Pearl and Garnet are against going on a Revenge Trip against the Northwests... until they overhear Mr. and Mrs. Northwest mocking them and the kids while dropping off Pacifica.
  • In "Northwest Mansion Nightmare", Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet accidentally mess the Northwest manor up.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • In "Society of the Blind Eye", Dipper asks Steven how forcefully erasing his memories of Bill is any different from what the Society is doing.
  • In "To Con A Clod", Stan consolidates with Amethyst after she learns from Peridot that she's different than how she was supposed to turn out, since he knows a thing or two about being a screw-up himself.
  • In "Out Too Far" Dipper uses this to reason with Malachite, saying that he was part of an unstable fusion {Stepper) at one point himself.
  • In "In Too Deep", Ford and Peridot have a moment of this when Peridot mentions not being able to return to Homeworld and Ford is reminded of his old hometown.
  • In "Rifts", Steven's powers cause him to inadvertently end up in Dipper's nightmare about Bill. Trying to talk to Dipper about it the next day, and Dipper refusing to let Steven help him, leads to Dipper accusing Steven of being just like Bill.
• Not What It Looks Like: In "Society of the Blind Eye", Connie sees Dipper and Steven with the memory gun. To cover for Steven, Dipper claims that he wanted his memories erased.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • What Pacifica's parents did to make her fear the sound of the bell so much.
  • In "Not What He Seems", Garnet is horrified when she realized that her future vision is useless for the first time, so she has no idea what is going to happen next.
• Number Two: In "Copies and Clones", just like with Tyrone, Steven 2 serves as this to the original until he leads the other clones against Steven.
• Oblivious to Love: Steven is completely oblivious to Mabel's feelings for him despite it being rather obvious to several other characters.
• Odd Friendship: Amethyst is the only Crystal Gem who Stan likes, and the feeling is mutual. They've actually been on many misadventures in the last 20 years and both have bonded over their love of anarchic fun and feelings of rejection and self-loathing.
• Oh, Crap!: Dipper and Mabel the first time they meet Steven, Connie, and Lion (due to Lion accidentally knocking down Dipper, and him and Mabel thinking Lion was hostile).
• Oh, No... Not Again!: In "Into the Bunker", Garnet and Pearl tell Stan that Amethyst got "poofed" trying to play chicken with a train. Stan just laughs and remarks that would make it the third time that's happened to Amethyst.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Downplayed example: Dipper is quite surprised to learn that his extremely greedy Grunkle loaned money to Greg Universe, meaning that Stan must be really fond of Greg.
  • In "Sock Opera, Part 2", the Gems notice that the possessed Dipper is behaving oddly, but Amethyst and Pearl just think that, from the look of his Exhausted Eye Bags, he's tired from all of his attempts at breaking into the laptop, while Garnet is more suspicious, but doesn't have anything solid to go on. Connie also notices that something is up.
  • A minor example in "Do It For Them", Dipper ends up joining in on a verse of Pearl's song as he gets more caught up in his training, when before Dipper had been baffled by the Gems' tendency to spontaneously burst into song.
  • In "Lost and Found", Ford finds the letter Rose left him unusually cryptic for the pink Gem, even accounting for the hidden message.
  • In "Cry for Help", Stan finds it very unusual that Amethyst isn't complaining to him about Sardonyx.
  • In "Chille Tid Part 2", when Steven asks the Gems about Bill Cipher, while all the Gems are shocked, Garnet is so stunned that she can't even get a full sentence out, and when she finds out the whole story about Bill's interactions with the kids, she's furious, both at Bill and herself for not noticing what was happening to Dipper sooner, bending down to hug him with teary eyes and a voice with more guilt than Dipper's ever heard from her.
  • When Peridot hurts Amethyst's feeling by revealing her "defective" nature, Stan is furious at her.
  • Lampshaded by Dipper in "Gravity Falls Drift" when Steven says that he hates Kevin, with Mabel noting that she's never seen him that mad before.
• Orphaned Series: After several months with no updates, the author made a post on October 30, 2021 about how they've lost their passion for the story, and combined with the loss of their father, they aren't mentally up to the task of writing more about it, so the story is now on permanent hiatus, with a return unlikely.
• Other Me Annoys Me: In "Opposites Attract", out of all the Mystery Kids, Dipper is the one who has the hardest time getting along with his more hyperactive counterpart. Additionally, Rise!Connie is noticeably disappointed that the Gravity Falls version of her is a studious bookworm.
• Order Versus Chaos: Yellow Diamond and Bill Cipher represent these two virtues respectively, though their antagonistic relationship is more of a mild Slobs Versus Snobs dichotomy, with Bill acting as a mild annoyance and metaphysical messenger to Yellow Diamond.
• ...Or So I Heard: Pearl (unconvincingly) assures the others in "Message Received" that despite knowing so much about the Gem moon base, the things she knows are only what she's heard.
• Our Wormholes Are Different: In "Rifts", miniature wormholes appearing as a result of the rift from the portal wearing down the barrier between Earth and the Nightmare Realm. Steven's attempt to bubble one ends up sending him and Dipper to the Nightmare Realm, though luckily Bill Cipher needs the main rift itself to get through.
• Paranoia Fuel: In-Universe, Dipper (with Ford agreeing) brings up the possibility of another fusion like Pyrite, pointing out that there's an entire planet of Homeworld Gems, and that all Bill Cipher has to do is trick another one, and if he manages to get one more powerful than Peridot...
• Parting-Words Regret:
  • In "A Tale of Two Stans", Stanford is deeply shaken when he learns that Rose has given up her physical form to give birth to Steven, as it means he never got to personally apologize to Rose for parting on such bad terms.
  • "Lost and Found" reveals Rose also felt regret for their argument, and left a letter apologizing before giving birth to Steven, which Ford finds and reads.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": One of Steven's guesses for the laptop's password was "password", with Connie lampshading the irony when it doesn't work.
• Perception Filter: Bill is apparently able to prevent someone from recognizing the Voices Are Mental and eye change aspects of his possession if they don't know about his presence already.
• Pink Is Feminine: Mabel thinks Lion is adorable. And that Rose is absolutely beautiful, when she sees a picture of her.
• Play-Along Prisoner: After Amethyst tries to break Stan out of the stocks in "Irrational Treasure", Pearl and Garnet put her in the stocks as well. Even though Amethyst points out she can escape any time with her shape-shifting powers, Pearl and Garnet convince her to stay put... at least until they leave.
• Playing with Fire: The Reverse Pines twins in "Played in Reverse" have the power to conjure blue flames.
• Plot Parallel: "The Answer" draws some comparisons between the flashbacks to Ruby and Sapphire exploring the Earth and getting to know one another, and Connie talking Steven through his fears of being a Half-Human Hybrid.
• Police Are Useless: After one of Blubs and Durland's usual displays of incompetence and negligence, Garnet dryly remarks "This is why we take personal responsibility in protecting the town".
• Poor Communication Kills: In "Evergreen Inn, Stan blows off Sapphire's warnings about Darlene, and gets carried off as a result.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: This series does this to two stories from Gravity Falls: Lost Legends, namely "Face It" and "Don't Dimension It.
  • "Peridot and Pacifica" and "Mismatched Making" are this to "Face It", as they have a heavy focus on Pacifica's insecurities. It's even implied that in the latter Pacifica told Dipper about how her mother ruined "The Ugly Duckling" for her. However, Dipper and Pacifica get even stronger Ship Tease and even a Relationship Upgrade, and Mr. What's-His-Face is Adapted Out.
  • The chapters from Arcs 9 and 10 in which the Mystery Kids visit other dimensions is one for "Don't Dimension It", for obvious reasons (and likely with Reverse Mabel replacing Anti-Mabel). However, the Mystery Kids actually visit those alternate dimensions, not just one where lost Mabels get stuck into.
• Proxy Breakup: Dipper breaks up with Gideon on Mabel's behalf. This time, Gideon believes that it was orchestrated by Steven out of jealousy, even though Mabel and Steven are Just Friends.
• Psychic Static: As shown in "Sock Opera", anything to do with Bill Cipher interferes with Garnet's Future Vision. Later chapters in Arc Five show this also applies to the portal device, Garnet missing the agents moving in entirely.
• Punk in the Trunk: In "Out Too Far", Dipper manages to tag along with the Gems' mission to Lake Gravity Falls by hiding in the trunk of the Stanleymobile.
• Puny Earthlings: In "Bot Battle", Peridot refuses Ford's help in building the drill because she's convinced humans are far too primitive to handle such technology. Which doesn't stop her from recruiting Old Man McGucket in order to even the odds against Pearl and Ford.
• Pyrrhic Victory: According to "Full Disclosure", Dipper feels this way about the events on the Hand Ship.
• Ramp Jump: Maven pulls one off in "Gravity Falls Drift" using a bank of fallen logs.
• A Rare Sentence:
  • After the events of "Space Race", Greg tells Steven "Maybe now you'll listen to me about going on crazy space missions... You know, I feel like that's something very few other fathers ever have to say."
  • Happens to Greg again in "Evergreen Inn", when he ends up saying the sentence "Looks like we better go save Mr. Pines before he gets eaten by that evil spider lady."
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: Steven and Mabel invite both Stan and Ford on a camping trip with them in the hopes of doing this, but get them to agree by not mentioning that the other party is coming. They find out before they leave, and are predictably not happy.
• Rescue Romance:
  • In "Joy Ride", Robbie manages to catch Tambry's attention by rescuing her from Peridot's pod when it accidentally goes out of control.
  • In "Northwest Mansion Nightmare", Pacifica's interest in Dipper seems piqued when he saves her from a Cluster monster.
• Restraining Bolt: Ford creates a device to disable Warp Pads to help try and catch Peridot.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder:
  • In "Li'l Gideon", Steven tries to reason with a rampaging Gideon.
    Steven: You don't have to do this! I mean, think about it; is hurting us really gonna make you feel better?
    Gideon: Well, of course! Once you two are out of the way, no one will ever stand between me and Mabel again!
  • In "Split Up", Gideon incredulously wonders how Ruby, Sapphire, and the Mystery Twins escaped captivity, and Peridot dryly replies that maybe it's because he used plain old rope to tie up a Gem with fire powers.
• Room Full of Crazy: In "Society of the Blind Eye" the Gems find a room in the Society's lair full of newspaper clippings of their escapades, plus threatening messages decrying them as a menace to the town, arranged in the shape of the Blind Eye logo.
• Safety Worst: Mr. Poolcheck from "The Deep End" is as fanatical about safety as he is in the regular Gravity Falls canon. He confiscates Steven's ukulele because he claims it's a choking hazard.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Lapis part of Malachite has sealed the fusion under a thick sheet of ice bound to the floor of Lake Gravity Falls, regenerating it when damaged.
• Screw Yourself: The Lion from the alternate dimension in "Opposites Attract" is female, and Steven thinks that they have a crush on each other.
• Seen It All: Steven and the Gems are already familiar with how strange Gravity Falls can sometimes be (Steven apparently ran into the gnomes in the past when they stole a donut from him to use as a wheel for a car they made, and the Gems have been investigating the area since 1843).
  • Garnet lampshades this when Pearl is startled by the dinosaur in "Land Before Swine".
• Self-Deprecation: In "Mismatched Making" after Dipper tells Pacifica about the many hijinks he's gotten up to over the summer she comments that his life sounds like a crazy movie or a huge story written by a psychopath.
• Sequel Hook: At the end of "Dimensions", Ford reveals that the shockwave from Stepper interrupting Bill's magical attack opened up portals to parallel dimensions, setting up the events of the various AU chapters in Arcs 9 and 10.
  • "Played in Reverse" ends with Steven Diamond seeking out the main universe version of Bill Cipher, presumably for a Villain Team-Up.
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: In "Into the Bunker", Experiment 210 manages to demoralize Amethyst by taking on the form of Rose Quartz.
• Shapeshifter Showdown: There's a brief one between Amethyst and Experiment 210 in "Into the Bunker", but Amethyst's brute-force method proves to be no match for the Experiment.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Mabel is definitely this for Steven and Connie, as seen in her delighted reaction to the two of them almost kissing in "An Indirect Kiss":
    Mabel: (to Dipper) Shh! You'll ruin the moment!
  • In "The Deep End", Steven ropes Connie into a series of attempts to patch things up between Sadie and Lars after the two have an argument.
  • Mabel likes teasing Dipper about his crush on Pacifica. In "Mismatched Making", she, Steven, Connie, Stan, Soos, Wendy and the gems tried to hook Dipper and Pacifica up (though Stan was Only In It For Pacifica's Wealth). It worked, in part since Garnet and Stan had a backup plan in case Mabel's plan failed.
  • Mabel also ships Lapis and Peridot as of "Same Old World", in part because her "Cutest Gem Couples" list only has Ruby and Sapphire in it so far.
• Ship Tease:
  • The ending of "Together Forever" has Mabel blush and notice her heart beating after Steven says he'd like to become Maven again sometime.
  • "Northwest Mansion Nightmare" has Dipper and Pacifica blush around each other a whole lot. Then the two share a dance at the end of the chapter. They get further teasing in "Peridot and Pacifica". In "Mismatched Making", they receive a Relationship Upgrade.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: In "On The Run", Mabel leaves to go hang out with Candy and Grenda, leaving Steven, Dipper, and Amethyst to deal with the rather more serious and dramatic plot that eventually unfolds. Mabel does come back just as the drama reaches its peak.
• Shout-Out:
  • In part 1 of "Magic and Mystery", Steven says that the Red Eye threatening to fall onto Gravity Falls and destroy it reminds him of a video game where he has three days to stop the moon from falling onto another town and destroying it. Later, Stan suggests the Gems knock the Red Eye back into space with a baseball bat or something.
  • In "Bottomless Pit", upon falling into the Bottomless Pit, Pearl freaks out in the exact same way as she did in "Say Uncle". Also, Mabel says the darkness in the Pit is "Advanced darkness!"
  • In "Blendin's Game", Steven thinks the time-tanium chamber could use some color, and suggests some combination of pink, blue, and green.
  • In "Dipper and Lapis", Soos's surprisingly accurate guess as to what Dipper is up to is "He probably just found an alien and he's trying to keep it hidden from the government. Just like in that old movie!"
  • The Ancient Sea Blade Dipper gets from Pearl in "Keeping It Together" is, according to Minijenn, based off the design of the Zora Sword from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
  • In "Evergreen Inn", Stan calls Ruby and Sapphire Thing 1 and Thing 2.
  • In "To Con a Clod", Stan exploits Peridot's fondness for coffee to get her to perform as a new exhibit at the Mystery Shack, "P.D. the Extraterrestrial".
  • In "The Answer", Soos says that the barn reminds him of "that one book with the pig and the spider".
  • In "Peridot and Pacifica", our heroes meet a band of seven dwarfs, who after being freed from the Northwest mine plan to build a cottage in the woods, rent it out to a princess, and push an evil witch off a cliff. Earlier, Dipper asks if their names are anything like Happy, Grumpy, and Bashful.
  • In "Crash Site Omega", Amethyst has some fun by stealing Fiddleford's glasses and shape-shifting her face to resemble his, saying "Hey, look at me, I'm Fiddle Man! Howdy, howdy, howdy!"
  • "Mr. Greg":
    • When Mabel is telling Pearl they'll be heading for Emerald City, she references that it has a magical wizard, and to get there you need to go on a yellow brick road.
    • One of the additional songs featured in the chapter is a version of "Life's Too Short", a Cut Song from Frozen.
  • In "Theory of Weirdness", Ford claims that traditional motor vehicles aren't that common in other dimensions, or at least non-sentient ones aren't.
• Sitcom Archnemesis: Sort of, with the Gems and the Manotaurs. While the Manotaurs see it as a rivalry, the Gems (or at least Pearl) view it more as a "mutual sense of contempt". Stan and the Gems (except maybe Amethyst) also have this kind of dynamic.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • In "Headhunters", which incorporates the gem shards from "Frybo", Frybo is never killed since he never had any gem shards inserted into him.
  • In "Copies And Clones", original timeline Steven is also spared.
  • "Mismatched Making" shows that the Mailbox from "Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained" is still around, unlike in the short where it left in disgust after Mabel tried to use it to mail a home video of herself shoving gummy worms up her nose.
• Speak of the Devil: In "Joy Ride", Amethyst is talking to Stan about how Pearl is likely about to show up, and she does in mid-sentence. Stan even drops the trope name.
• Spell Book: In "Forever Alone", Stepper's weapon is a book that resembles Dipper's journal, but it's full of Steven and Dipper's personal information and can conjure miniature versions of Steven's shield.
• Spoof Aesop: At the end of "On the Run", Steven announces he's learned an important lesson: "Sleeping on hay is really over-rated."
• Stations of the Canon: So far, mostly played straight. However, Word of God says that the Gems are knowledgeable about many of the historical events taking place in Gravity Falls, such as Quentin Trembley's reign as President, or the Northwests making their "deal" with the lumberjacks. Also, Chapter 4 implies that Rose Quartz helped Stanford Pines in the past with his research into Gravity Falls.
  • When the fic starts, Steven has already befriended Connie and met Lion. Connie gives a brief summary of this fic's version of how they met (which is pretty much identical to canon, only the climax taking place in the Gravity Falls Lake instead of a beach) upon meeting the Pine Twins for the first time.
  • As opposed to Garnet and Amethyst, the description of Pearl's clothes matches her post-regeneration outfit, meaning that the events of "Steven the Swordfighter" already happened as well.
  • Averted first in chapter 10, where it's stated there are two Laser Light Cannons instead of one, and Greg only has one of them. So far, no one is sure where the other one is. After Lion helps them work out the two clues, it turns out to be in an underground area near the Mystery Shack.
    • Further averted in the second part. While apparently Homeworld didn't think much of the Red Eye's destruction in the show, here Bill Cipher downright tells Yellow Diamond that somebody destroyed it, though he refuses to tell her who. This prompts Yellow Diamond to send somebody (presumably Peridot) to repair the Galaxy Warp and check on the Cluster.
  • Also averted in "An Indirect Kiss". Here, Steven and Amethyst stay in the Mystery Shack, while Dipper and Mabel go with Garnet and Pearl to Rose's healing spring.
  • Averted again in "Waterfall Gem", where Lapis steals Lake Gravity Falls and its waterfall as opposed to the entire ocean.
  • The most thorough aversion yet comes up in "Revenge Trip," a wholly original chapter (apart from the titular revenge trips, which provided a sub-plot in Roadside Attraction) that acts as a Framing Device for a story about the origins of Stan and Amethyst's Odd Friendship.
  • The events of "So Many Birthdays" gets a casual reference in the chapter based on "Blendin's Game", with Amethyst recalling the time Steven "turned [himself] into an old man and nearly kicked the bucket."
  • "Dipper and Lapis" is a huge diversion from the events of "The Message". Instead of merely sending a message to the Crystal Gems, Lapis manages to escape Homeworld and comes to Earth, where she bonds with Dipper and ends up warning the Gems about Peridot and Jasper in person.
• Stealth Hi/Bye:
  • In "Magic and Mystery", Lion pops up behind Dipper just as the Mystery Kids need the feline's help.
  • In "Gravity Falls Drift", Zoom has a habit of appearing out of thin air.
• Stealth Pun:
  • Mabel and Steven's Playing Pictionary drawings in "Dreamscaperers" are actually rebuses. For "calculator" Mabel draws a cow, a Q-tip, and a person waving goodbye ("later"), and for "laptop" Steven draws ocean waves ("lapping" at the shore) and a blouse (a "top").
  • In "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", when Pearl tries to point out that she doesn't have a brain for Probabilitor to eat, he announces that he's just going to grind up Pearl's gem and use it as a seasoning, a not-so-subtle nod to the fandom running joke of Pearl being "salty".
• Super Gullible: The Ruby squad, just like in canon. Stan even manages to use this against them in the baseball game, by saying that the human's team is supposed to have three more people than the Ruby's team, telling them that closing their eyes when swinging will allow them to hit the ball, etc.
• Superior Successor: Stan considers Steven better than Rose ever was.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • In "Dipper and Lapis", Garnet isn't exactly very convincing in her denial of Homeworld returning.
  • In "Sock Opera, Part 1", Bill Cipher sarcastically suggests Dipper ask the Crystal Gems for help with cracking the password on the laptop.
    "I'm sure Fuse Box, Half-Baked, and Bird Brain know all there is to know about that laptop, almost as if they didn't mysteriously lose all their memories on that journal of yours!"
  • In "Friend Ship", Ford almost mentions "Crash Site Omega", the spaceship buried under Gravity Falls, and doesn't backpedal well when the Gems glare at him.
  • In "Message Received", Pearl's claims that she knows so much about the Moon Base because she heard about it, and not because she's been there after she reveals that it has own self-contained adaptable atmosphere that the humans should be fine breathing aren't very convincing, and she only avoids scrutiny by deflecting quickly.
  • In "Crash Site Omega", Pearl starts to talk about the titular location, and does not backtrack very well, leading Amethyst to lampshade it.
• Take That!:
  • Minijenn admits that the line in "Blendin's Game" about how the 21st century is looked down on for inventing "emojis and internet memes" is a jab at The Emoji Movie.
  • Jenn also deliberately made "Sock Opera" Darker and Edgier as a jab at the special edition of Journal 3, which featured a "caticature" of Bipper hidden under Bill's note that Jenn felt was a failed attempt at comedy relief.
• Take That, Audience!: "Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons" features a crossover movie between Ducktective and Dogcopter, and Jenn takes the opportunity to poke fun at people who read or watch crossovers and complain that it wasn't the way they wanted it to be.
• Talk About That Thing: In "Alone Together", when Dipper decides Stevonnie needs some time to themselves, he suggests that he and Mabel go get some more donuts. He even goes so far as to make Mabel drop the donut she was eating.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Near the end of "Dreamscaperers", after Steven, Soos, and the Mystery Twins drive off Bill and save Stan's memories, Steven cheerfully says "! I love it when everything turns out great in the end like this! Just like it always does." Shortly after that, Gideon steals the deed to the Mystery Shack himself and things go south for a while.
  • In "Northwest Mansion Nightmare", Amethyst warns Steven not to complain about how boring the Northwest Fest is. Between a rampaging lumberjack ghost and some Cluster monsters running around, the night is anything but boring.
  • Also from "Northwest Mansion Nightmare", Steven sees what looks like Cluster Gem gemstones at the Northwest Manor, but he and Connie pass them off as a coincidence. They're not.
  • In "Mr. Greg", Dipper lampshades Mabel doing this when she says that nights like that night make you want to forget about bad stuff in the past and just look forward to a bright and happy future.
  • Near the start of "The New Stan", Dipper claims that all the major problems/threats they've dealt with during the summer are resolved... only for Stan and Ford to start arguing again.
• Tears of Blood: Dipper experiences this in "Do It For Them", as a side effect of being possessed by Bill.
• Terrible Trio: In "Played in Reverse", the Reverse versions of Jasper, Peridot, and Lapis (who all work for Steven Diamond) have this dynamic, with Japser as the ringleader.
• That Came Out Wrong: In "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", Pearl tries to point out that Probabilitor can't eat her brain because she doesn't have a physical body.
  "Even if your ridiculous plan succeeded, you'd only have two brains to snack on anyways since I'm a Gem. Which means I don't have a brain!" A beat of curious silence passed at this as Ford and Dipper sent Pearl questioning looks before she realized what she had just said. "Wait... I didn't mean it like that!"
• That Reminds Me of a Song: In "Three's a Crowd", the newly-formed Dipevebel (a fusion of Steven, Dipper, and Mabel) bursts into song as two of their three components (Dipper and Mabel) argue.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • In "Soos and the Real Girl", Garnet manages a brief but effective one when Giffany declares herself to be in love with Soos.
  Giffany: I'm not going anywhere without my Soos! We are going to be together as the perfect couple forever, and no one is going to get in the way of our love!
  Garnet: If that’s what you think love is all about, then clearly you don't know the first thing about it.
  • In "Keeping It Together", Pearl finally snaps and calls out Stan for being the irresponsible and apathetic conman that he is who doesn't seem to care that his nephews are put in danger on a near daily basis. Stan counters by pointing out that, for all his flaws, he has helped them out on several occasions and calls out Pearl for how much of a Control Freak she tends to be.
  • "Lost and Found" has Dipper give a pretty harsh one to Steven and Mable. Dipper pulls no punches that the two only ever do things for their own selfish needs while constantly ignoring him, in addition to having to sacrifice a lot of his own needs for theirs while rarely if ever getting anything in return.
• This Explains So Much: Peridot's reaction to learning that Bill is a literal nightmare demon.
• This Is My Side: Steven suggests this with Lapis and Peridot at the barn, like in canon, but, as Dipper predicts, it doesn't work.
• Title Drop: A subtle one, but in "Not What He Seems" Pearl accuses Stan of wanting to "sit back and laugh as the entire universe falls to complete and utter ruin thanks to your little doomsday device".
• Totem Pole Trench: Mabel's attempt to "fuse" with Peridot in "Three's a Crowd" boils down to standing on Peridot's shoulders while wearing one of Ford's spare trenchcoats. Stepper isn't fooled for a second.
• Tranquil Fury: In "The New Stan", when Stanley finds out that Steven spent the day possessing his body, he admits that he's frankly furious, but "It's taking every inch of self-control I have to stay calm right now".
• Two Lines, No Waiting: "The Answer" does this with Ruby and Sapphire's first meeting and Steven's party.
• Unobtainium: Titan's ore, which the heroes need for the Drill, is incredibly durable, but rare enough {on Earth) that Ford says that Dipper's comment about it being "stupidly expensive" is an understatement, having once tried to get a small amount for the portal, only to find that it would have been more than ten times the total of his rather substantial research grant. Dipper is forced to suggest going to Pacifica to try and obtain the amount they need.
• The Unreveal: Every time someone in-universe has learned Dipper's real name, the readers don't see it. It's not revealed to the audience until "Theory of Weirdness", when Dipper tells Ford his real name is "Mason".
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • In "Magic and Mystery", Soos hardly takes any notice of the "second sun" in the sky (actually the Red-Eye) at first. It's not made certain whether this is because of his cluelessness or if he's just used to the weirdness of Gravity Falls.
  • In "Waterfall Gem", the Mystery Kids see the Gobblewonker among the fish and other creatures Lapis stole from the lake, but after all the other strange things they've seen this summer they hardly seem surprised that there was a real Gobblewonker.
• Urine Trouble: In "Peridot In The Wild", an owl/dragon hybrid creature defecates on Peridot as it passes by.
• [Verb] This!: During a confrontation with Peridot in "Forever Alone", when Peridot manages to capture the Gems and Mabel:
  Peridot: I'm so excited about it I can hardly contain myself!
  Mabel: Ugh, contain this! (kicks her shoe off at Peridot's holo-screen)
• Villain Team-Up:
  • Dipper's copies and Steven's time-clones band together to get rid of the originals in "Copies and Clones".
  • Peridot and Gideon form an alliance in "Split Up".
• Voices Are Mental: Dipper lampshades this in "Sock Opera" after Bill takes over his body, saying that he's surprised that no one else has noticed the voice and eyes. Mabel then says that his body looked and sounded normal, confusing Steven, since he can tell, wondering if it's because he was there when Bill possessed him. Later, once all three kids know about Bill's presence, they can all see and hear his true voice and eyes.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Rose erasing the memories of the other Gems was so she could heal them from the damage Bill did when he possessed them.
• Wham Episode:
  • In "Gems and Journals", the Crystal Gems discover the existence of Journal 3... and realize they have no memory of the Author (though they feel that the Journal is familiar in a way that they can't seem to place) or any idea why he knows so much about them and seemed to be on familiar terms with them.
  • In "Dipper and Lapis", we get the first really major divergence from the canon plot(s), with Lapis fleeing Homeworld back to Gravity Falls, Lapis seeing a corrupted Gem for the first time and remembering the light from the Diamonds, and the reveal that there's a human imprisoned on Homeworld.
  • In "Chille Tid, Part 1", Bill Cipher reveals that Rose Quartz offered to trade away her gem to him, and Steven finally decides to confront the Gems about Bill Cipher.
  • In "Chille Tid, Part 2", we learn that Rose and Bill once made a deal that Rose said Bill twisted, and that he has a fixation on acquiring Rose/Steven's Gemstone for some unknown purpose. We also learn that he was apparently involved in the events of the Crystal Gem Rebellion, controlling entire armies of Gems. In addition, the Gems having their memories erased is revealed to have been an attempt by Rose to heal them after Bill tricked them into letting them possess him in an attempt to grab said Gem and causing damage to their minds on the way out.
  • "Peridot In The Wild" is a mostly comedic chapter focusing on said Gem's misadventures with the Gravity Galls creatures trying to find the Temple on foot. Then Bill shows up, reveals himself and his association with Yellow Diamond to her, and offers her a deal, which she declines, though he leaves the offer open.
  • "Pyrite Part 1" has Peridot accept Bill's "deal" right before where she would have been caught in "Catch and Release", with Bill then fusing with her into Pyrite, who nearly manages to overwhelm the Gems before Maven rallies them.
  • "Message Received": After her call with Peridot, Yellow Diamond agrees to Bill's offer to help her track down Rose Quartz and get revenge, setting up for, among other things, the events of the UF version of "Weirdmageddon".
  • "Rifts": After being sucked into the Nightmare Realm, Dipper and Steven need to fuse into Stepper to fight against Bill. They manage to end up back to Earth, but their Gemstone is cracked, and remains cracked even after a dip in Rose's fountain, and when it's suggested that Stepper unfuse, he has no idea who Steven and Dipper are.
• Wham Line: After months of readers wondering if The Reveals made in "A Single Pale Rose" would be canon to the story, Bill's exiting line on "Chille Tid, Part 2" answers the question for us:
  Bill: Never say never, Quartzy […] because no matter how many times you think you have the upper hand, I'll ALWAYS come out on top, Pinky…
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Dipper makes sure to call the Gems out on not even trying to let Lapis out of the mirror for hundreds, if not thousands, of years when they likely easily could have.
  • In "The Dinner Shack", not only does Connie berate Steven for bringing Alexandrite, but also at the twins for not getting Grunkle Stan to behave. The twins did the best they could, but they can't help that Stan is just "being himself".
  • In "Northwest Mansion Nightmare", the Lumberjack Ghost calls out the Crystal Gems for doing nothing to make the Northwests keep their promise to open the manor to the common folk of the town.
  • Dipper is quick to call anyone out who he feels isn't doing enough to help Lapis in "Chille Tid Part 1".
  • In "Catch and Release" Dipper gives Steven and Mabel an earful for recklessly freeing Peridot.
  • In "To Con A Clod", the others trying to interrogate Peridot are surprised when Ford suggests threatening to shatter her. Later, when Stan and Dipper learn about the real nature of the Cluster, they're rightfully furious at Peridot for keeping it a secret.
  • Steve, Dipper, and Mabel tell off Lapis for being so harsh to Peridot in "Same Old World".
  • The Gems aren't happy when they find out about the rift in "Memories", and are quick to blame Stanford for endangering Dipper and Steven by only telling them about it and making them keep it a secret.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: In "Split Up", Peridot and Gideon's tenuous alliance is tested when Peridot insists on offing Dipper, Mabel, Ruby, and Sapphire while they've got them captive, while Gideon wants to round up all of his enemies and take them out all at once.
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: In "To Con a Clod", Stan is surprised that Peridot is quick to admit it was her idea to come to the Prime Kindergarten.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: On Homeworld, raw "Titan's ore", the substance that they need to proof the Drill against the temperatures deep inside the Earth where the Cluster is, apparently is practically everywhere. On Earth, it's pretty much Unobtainium, and thus incredibly expensive.
• Wrecked Weapon: In "Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons", Dipper confronts Probabilitor at swordpoint, only for the wizard to destroy the Ancient Sea Blade he got from Pearl. Fortunately, Ford and Pearl collaborate on a new Cool Sword for Dipper near the end of the chapter.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Time passes differently in the Nightmare Realm compared to the mortal realm. It's seen in "Rifts" when Steven and Dipper have been missing for days when their fight with Bill only lasted a brief time, and to a lesser extent in "Home Away From Homeworld" when Ford only seems to be in the Nightmare Realm for a few hours after helping free Lapis (as seen in "Dipper and Lapis"), but he's back on Earth during the events of "Not What He Seems", which is at least a week or two later.
• You Didn't Ask: "Evergreen Inn" revealed that Stan was aware that Garnet is a fusion the whole time. When asked why he never brought it up beforehand, Stan responds by saying he didn't want to just randomly bring it up.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Pyrite's reaction to Maven.
• You Just Had to Say It: In "Marble Madness", Dipper and Steven had gotten their minds out of what they saw outside the warping, until Mabel brought it up. Steven thanked her for reminding them.
  Mabel: "Why can't I ever keep my adorable big mouth shut?"
• You Shall Not Pass!: Reverse Stan, Reverse Lapis, and the Reverse Crystal Gems stay behind to hold off the reverse versions of Jasper and Peridot while Steven, the twins, and Reverse Connie go to stop Steven Diamond and the Reverse Pines.

Side Materials (Unmarked Spoilers)

"Side Materials" refers to any content outside of the story itself, such as the ask blog or the author's commentary.

• Adaptation Expansion / All There in the Manual: The ask blog allows readers to see elements that likely wouldn't be touched on (at least not as closely), especially with regards to the AUs, which will all have only one chapter of focus.
• Adaptation Species Change:
  • In the Swap AU, Dipper and Mabel (Sapphire and Ruby, respectively) are the Gem hybrids while Steven is the human nephew of Stan.
  • In the Crystal Falls AU, Steven is an Uneven Hybrid (having Rose Quartz for a mother, and some of her powers, namely her Healing Hands ability, but no Gem), and Connie is a full-Gem (Conichalcite, specifically).
  • In the Monster Falls AU, Steven is a Dryad, Connie is a ghost, Dipper is a centaur like creature, only with "deer" instead of "horse", and Mabel is a mermaid.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Reverse Mabel has a crush on her AU's Steven, which he doesn't care about in the slightest.
• An Ice Person: Swap AU Dipper inherited Sapphire's ice powers.
• Babies Ever After: The Mystery Kids in multiple futures/AUs.
• Birds of a Feather: Steven and Mabel being this seems to be a constant across all AUs. In particular, Reverse AU Mabel has a crush on her Steven, and the Swap AU Mabel and Steven actually do start dating eventually.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Dipper as Stonemason.
• The Corrupter: Yellow Diamond was already evil in Steven Universe, but Word of God is that her alliance with Bill has made her even worse.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Blue Diamond thinks Bill is a total bastard herself. And considering this is Homeworld we're talking about, that is one HELL of an accomplishment. Word of God states that she is also shocked and appalled by his cruelty towards humans.
  • She's also not happy about how Yellow not only turned Dipper into "Stonemason" but blatantly lied to her face about it, saying that she'd sent Dipper to the Zoo instead, violating her trust.
  • Jasper dislikes how Bill manipulates and deceives his foes instead of facing them head on.
• Fountain of Youth: In the Relativity Falls/Gem Kids AU, the Gems are somehow turned into amnesiac, child forms.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: On June 5, 2017, Bill Cipher hijacked MiniJen for a few posts, leaving ciphered messages. It eventually evolved into an ask blog for Bill / "Miss Jenn," a fact which was eventually lampshaded.
• Fusion Dance: As present as ever; some of the fusions are given questions in the ask blog.
• Hated by All: Bill Cipher is universally REVILED in-universe. Especially on the heroes' side. Peridot's comments on Bill are what really sell it, or rather, her lack of any.
  • Later, when Steven and Dipper are asked to rate their foes on an evilness scale from 1-10, they give Bill a "10".
• Horrifying the Horror: A subdued example, but Bill, an eons old reality warping, mind raping Eldritch Abomination, admits that White Diamond creeps him out.
• Just Friends: Swap AU Steven and Connie's relationship is described as "more like a sibling like childhood friendship."
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Unlike most versions of Bill Cipher, Gravity Rises Bill doesn't play any games or pull any punches with his foes, which makes him arguably scarier.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Something happened between Bill and Peridot that left her too terrified to even talk about him. It may be connected to the Pyrite incident.
• Other Me Annoys Me: Bill is annoyed at his CF version's bragging at how he managed to take over Earth and keep it, and his other versions are similarly annoyed if what he says is true.
• Polyamory: The main focus of the Poly MK AU, which has the Mystery Kids (Dipper, Mabel, Steven, Connie, and possibly Pacifica) in a polyamorous relationship together. Thankfully, it does not include a Pinecest situation.
• Power Incontinence: Swap AU Dipper and Mabel sometimes have trouble controlling their fire and ice abilities.
• Recursive Fanfiction: Several people have written ones based on UF. They range from one-shots to full-sized adaptations of the various AUs that have been teased.
• Ship Tease: In one of the posts on the ask blog, Mabel is seen hinting at an attempt to kindle a "summer romance" with Steven. The caption hints that this will be important later.
• Swapped Roles: This happens in several of the AUs:
  • In the Momswap/Gravity Rises AU, Stan and Ford are switched in addition to the Crystal Gems being swapped with Jasper, Lapis, and Peridot.
  • In the Crystal Falls AU, Earth is the aggressive space empire while Homeworld is the world under threat. Dipper is also swapped with Lapis, Garnet with Ford, Greg for Rose, etc.
  • In another AU, Bill frees Lapis from Malachite... by turning her human and giving her Gem to Dipper, who is then stuck as part of Malachite in her place.
• Uneven Hybrid: Crystal Falls Steven still has Rose for a mom, but she didn't pass her Gemstone to him in this verse, so while he has her Healing Hands ability, he's more human than in canon.
• Walking Spoiler: MiniJen's commentary and the ask blog are not restricted by spoiler censoring. Proceed with caution if you want to go in blind.
  • However, there are two things she has refused to discuss: Arc 8, entitled "Rifts/Memories/Dimensions", and the arc 6 ender "Pyrite", both of which have been heavily hinted to be Wham Episodes.
• World of Chaos: In the Crystal Falls AU, Earth is the center of an empire that's been taken over by Bill Cipher, who has turned the planet into a larger-scale version of the chaos seen in "Weirdmageddon", though in that universe, he's limited to planets he's taken over/made a deal with people on.

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