D I P P E R   P I N E S   X   5 0

*re-reads my own story*: Damn this is some good shit

*gets to the part where I stopped writing*: WTF WHERE'S THE REST OF IT HOW DO I GET MORE

Brain: You're the author, if you want more you have to write it

Me: *flips tables*

So, I've been playing Dwarf Fortress for a while now, and tbh, the game will never cease surprising you with the things that go on. Maybe this is tame to someone, but what happened here in my 4th fort threw me for a loop.

So, I was trying to figure out what was going on with my dyer and why my dying isn't really progressing. I've been paying a little attention to the dwarves going into and out of my nearby clothiers, and notice one is a metalcrafter, which is kinda odd, but I recall authorizing them for that work detail. A moment later I see a notification pop up saying that she just had "Dwarven Babies" to which, I immediately think "Aww cute, I'll check out her twins real quick"

Wait triplets? Oh wow, and sure enough she's got three lovely sons clinging to her. I figure I'll check their names under relations, but wait...

So I look at her on the tile, and see Zasit, Olin, and Reg all there, and they're all 0 years old. I click to see Kulet, and it just takes me to their mother's tile. I glance over the tile. No Kulet. I pull up her mother's relations again, and try again. No Kulet. I've got the game paused, and all it does, regardless of which button I push for Kulet, is show me their mother's location. I have no idea where she is, I can't find her at all. I'm like mildly horrified at the concept that she's just abandoned her daughter somewhere, and I just can't find her.

the IRONY of this being one of the only books they'll put on a fucken shelf

oh

and a coat.

Did you find your missing baby?

Not yet. Kulet is still missing. I admit my schedule has been rough for playing DF as of recent, and my most recent time has been spent on a new fort (The Sea Adventure, a Sinister Ocean/coastal embark). Kulet is from my 4th Fort (Idk the name it was too long). Short summary of my forts though:

1st Fort, Bustmoment: -Tutorial embark. Went fine initially, set up large bedroom complex, good dining hall, and food/alcohol production. Decent traps for surface entrance. Lack of understanding of how Fortifications work lead to bad usage of them, and ultimately made the surface defenses scary to operate. Meanwhile I breached the first cavern layer and only the first, and got involved in a nasty war on Olm people, that kept dragging my dwarves into the lake. Eventually after losing a major military engagement, I dropped the save and made a new world. (I didn't know about Retirement at the time)

2nd Fort, Steelfortress: -The infamous war on birds started here. Embark was a neutral badlands with high savagery & a light aquifer. Aquifer posed no challenge and I was within a year having settled with all three caverns pierced, and a decent magma forge set up. Traps and such were more aggressively deployed, and there were more than a few battles (Internally referred to as the "Great Cavern Wars" against Ant-People) to carve out certain areas underground for farming. Ultimately what drove me to abandon this fort was a 9 month long battle against giant flying agitated wildlife. During that I built up a decently large and armored military, which while incapable of fending off the birds, was apparently itching for World Domination. (More on that later. Though also on another post of mine)

3rd Fort, "Lake of Something" (Name forgotten again): -Having felt a High Savagery was too much & Light aquifers too easy, I searched for a heavy aquifer and got a lake location I liked. After starting the first year, and trying to dig down, I almost immediately hit the heavy aquifer and got stuck for over a year trying to get things stable, and set up a method to pierce the aquifer before beginning to build the fort proper. Unlike the previous forts which had surface trading depots, I decided to move this one underground. Like other forts before and after, I then began to quickly dig towards the bottom, and set up small areas within each cavern to work in, or blocked them off after discovering them. Ultimately nothing particularly notable happened that sticks out in memory, but the fort was ultimately abandoned due to the Cave Adaptation fix update rolling around. Knowing most dwarves had likely developed it in this fort, I decided to take a break from Fortress mode, and play some Adventure mode.

(Which I decided to retire my second fort, as my save of it was in the worst condition of the three, and I originally wanted to retire the fort by "Succumbing to internal invaders" or similar but a standard retirement was an option and I viewed as more desirable)

4th Fort, Gooddesert the Fortress of Mines: -After playing around in Adventure Mode in the 2nd fort's world, I got an itch to start a new fort again, and was talking with my brother. We ultimately came to pick a fort in a Good and Neutral biome cross between "Desert?", badlands and Grasslands. Among world history, as it shares a previous fort, I decided to embark from that Civ again. Just to find out when the Liason came by, that 2 of my 3 dwarven neighbors were at war with me. Going through Legends mode further told me it was my Civ that seemed to have started the war, with all attacks coming from my prior fortress after I retired it. The whole time I was trying to rescue kidnapped children from Goblins in Adventure Mode, it turns out my fort was just attacking EVERYBODY. I played this one until around 1-2 weeks ago, when I began wanting to try messing with some mods for the first time.

4.5th fort, Some volcano Fort I think?: -I had a friend over and I was talking about DF, as you do, and he got curious about the game and wanted to see what it was like. So I booted the game up, showed world gen, we picked an embark, and then retired it to go to it in Adventure Mode. We then made an ideal character for him, and then foolishly rolled up a Worm Man with over 100 pet worms, and crashed the game. I haven't talked with said friend yet, and was gonna play in that world when talking with them.

5th Fort, The Sea Adventure: -That leaves us with our current fort. It's a sinister oceanic embark, and I brought a few adventurers there, including a Dwarf-me, a dwarf-version of my brother, and an anomalocaris (one of the mods) woman of one of my roommates (And their cat as a pet cat, who died to Goblins). Originally the plan was to grow Sliver Barbs & catch Precambrian Arthropods for an aquarium, but I don't know how to do the later half. The Roc attacks have been on this fort.

Dimension 52

(View the other chapters here [Chapter 1])

Chapter 2:

Another unexpected terrain... just as he’d predicted. Ford took a cursory glance around. At this point he was at dimension 4, and he still felt no closer to home. In fact, Ford felt like he’d managed to get further away this time. He stood in a forest full of white trees with pink leaves. Though the leaves were more similar to cotton in texture.

Ford scowled at his bad luck. At this point it seemed that with each random jump he made, he only got further and further away from home. He checked his log that he’d been recording the days on. “What! I’ve been gone for an entire YEAR now!”

Thinking back on this, it actually felt like he’d been gone for an even longer period of time than that. And yet despite all this time he spent wandering between dimensions, he was still hopelessly lost. “After all I’ve never seen any biology like this!”

“And it’s been a long time since I’ve seen biology like yours.” A sweet bubbly voice responded.

Ford turned around, he’d figured that he was alone initially, but he’d been so wrapped up in thought that he hadn’t noticed a figure approach him from behind. She was about Ford’s height level, and dressed entirely in pink. In fact she was entirely pink, excluding a golden crown with a bluish spherical gem sitting on her head. She looked fairly regal, with a long fancy pink dress, and long pink hair. If Ford had to guess her age, he’d say somewhere around her early twenties. She seemed to radiate kindness, however Ford knew that appearances could be deceiving. After all, he’d learned that the hard way recently.

“So will you tell me who you are?” She was pointing some kind of scanner at him, or at least that’s what he assumed it was.

“I’m just a traveler who’s a bit lost at the moment.”

“Oh, really?” She said with an icy tone. “Where are you from?”

“Oh it’s a bit far away from here, I doubt you’ve heard of it.”

“Yeah, I don’t think you’re from Ooo, or anywhere nearby.”

Ford didn’t know where this Ooo was, so he felt even more lost than before. He was positive that this lady didn’t trust him, and knew that this wouldn’t end well unless he could turn it around quickly. What was there to talk about that he could use as a diversion. He could ask about the trees, though that might not work, she seemed suspicious about him for his earlier comments. He could try asking about why she is pink, though that might be offensive. Or he could try asking about that device in her ha-

“Are you a human?”

Well that one cut him a quite off guard. Is this one of those dimensions where the sentient lifeforms EAT humans?! This could go real south real fast if it was. Then again, if it was she’d probably already have captured him. He supposed in this situation he could tell the truth without having to worry, at least not quite as much.

“Yes, I’m a human, and my name is Stanford Pines.”

“Greetings Stanford, I am Princess Bubblegum, ruler of the Candy Kingdom. Where do you come from?” Her tone had calmed down for a moment. However, when she asked where he was from the force was back in her voice.

So she was a princess? That would fit with her attire. He wondered if bubblegum was just a surname, if she was actually made of bubblegum, or both. After all, for all he knew these trees could be made of cotton candy. With a name like the Candy Kingdom, that was a fairly valid assumption to make.

Ford was pretty sure that Princess Bubblegum wouldn’t exactly know where he’s from. He’d have to dodge the question somehow.

“As I’m sure you know, I’m not from around here. So out of curiosity, are humans exceedingly rare around here?”

“Well yes, actually. You’re the first human I’ve seen in a long time. I thought that they’d gone extinct.”

“WHAT! REALLY!”

Despite Ford’s shock, he quickly realized that after all his traveling, he’d be bound to hit some kind of world without humans. He just didn’t expect to hit one where they’d died out only recently. He recovered fairly quickly, and followed up with another question.

“So what’s that thing you’re holding?”

She looked down at the device in her hands and then back at him. “Well it’s kind of a weirdness detector. Or at least that’s what I like to call it.”

Well that explained how she managed to find him. He must be setting that thing off like crazy. Of course the study of weirdness and other such similar sciences was Ford’s specialty.

“Oh well, how does it work? Does it detect residual traces of abnormal tachyon frequencies or spacetime ripples?”

From what Ford could tell he’d accomplished his goal of throwing her off her investigative trail. She hopefully wouldn’t push for any more information about where he was from until he was sure she either wouldn’t think he was crazy, or he knew that he could trust her.

“No, no, it actually works off of a fairly advanced simulation of realistic behavior using some complex equations I wrote and compares whether or not the simulation and the real world match.”

Ford could tell that he’d be able to have quite the interesting conversation with this woman.

“Why don’t you try using…”

“So you’re from another dimension?” Princess Bubblegum inquired.

They’d left the forest a while ago and were now sitting up in Bubblegum’s lab discussing Ford’s situation over cups of tea.

“Yes, and I’ve been trying to find my way home ever since. Do you know of any possible ways I could possibly try getting back to my dimension? I’d rather not hop randomly around on the offchance I end up in too hostile of a dimension.”

“Would you know how to find your dimension if we could open up a link? I know that in the land of Ooo there exist many powerful objects capable of opening a portal, but they all tend to be one-way.”

Ugh. Of course he can’t just take the simple way. They can potentially control where they open the portal too, but they can’t actually find which one is his.

“Sadly, no. I don’t know which dimension is mine so I’d just be back to square one.”

“Fortunately I’ve got a plan B. You see there’s a special dimensional room known as Prismo’s time room. Anyone who enters there can make a single wish. Of course be warned that his wishes all come with some form of twist or something so be very careful of what you wish for. I’m sure he’ll explain it to you if you just ask nicely.”

“Okay, so all I need to do is to properly phrase a wish to get back to my home dimension, and he’ll do it?”

“Yep. He’ll take care of the rest for you.”

“The challenge now is, how are we going to get there?”

“Leave that to me, I’ve got an idea of where an artifact is that can get you there.”

“When you said it was in a dungeon I thought it meant one of the ones in YOUR castle, NOT someone else’s rotting booby-trapped nightmare!” Ford yelled as he ducked beneath a swinging sword. He and Bubblegum had entered a dungeon hidden in a slightly less sweet forest nearby. He’d entered with pretty much just a stick in his hands, and she’d walked in with some kind of duffel bag. They’d been traveling deeper and deeper into the dungeon when they’d run into yet another group of walking skeletons. These ones had been guarding a hallway leading to a flight of stairs. Bubblegum had already defeated two of the three skeletons and Ford had been distracting the last one while she reloaded. She got in a blast with what she referred to as her “Ball-Blam-Burglerber.” Honestly Ford had no idea what the real name of it was, but he understood that it was basically some kind of grenade launcher.  Whatever it was he ducked out of the way as the ball exploded.

“Can you give me a warning when you’re about to fire that thing in my direction!?”

“Sorry about that. Here take this, it’ll make it easier on both of us if we’re equally armed.”

Ford picked up the weapon she’d tossed to him. It seemed to be some kind of gun but there was a plasma globe right where the barrel would normally be. He picked it up and followed her down the stairs to a new room in the dungeon. They came into a stone lined chamber that was seemingly empty except for a set of locked double doors sitting across the chamber from them. Bubblegum immediately set to work picking the lock.

“What exactly does this do?”

“It’s my electrode gun. I cranked up the charge, it should be able to fry what’s left of those skeletons.”

“Okay, and what about that artifact that we came here for?”

“The Traveler’s Stone? What about it?”

“How does it work?”

“I think you just pick it up or something. I’ve never used it before.”

“Well, I –“

Ford was cut off by the click of the lock. Princess Bubblegum pushed the doors open and in front of them stood about twenty skeletons. Bubblegum whipped out her Ball Blam Whatever, Ford pulled out his weapon and the two of them opened fire. They took down most of the initial skeletons and the few stragglers left behind were either finished off in hand-to-hand against Bubblegum or blasted by Ford.

“Whew- I really wish I knew how to fight like that. Might be useful if I can’t get home right away.” Even if he does then it still might be useful Ford thought. After all he could give his brother a nice right hook for what he did.

“I could teach you if you really wanted to learn. After all we have the Traveler’s Stone now, and we’ve got plenty of time on our hands.”

“I suppose I don’t have to leave quite yet.”

Princess Bubblegum hefted up the stone and threw it in her duffel bag.

“In that case, let’s head back to my castle. I can give you some basic  combat training along with some practice with my other weapons. Perhaps you can even design something of your own.”

As he walked out of the dungeon and back to the castle he had a chance to appreciate that for once in this entire ordeal he’d had a bit of good fortune.

…

[Chapter 3]

Some perfect things about this picture: - All of the glasses are mismatched - He has giant holes missing from his couch that implies he possibly just got angry one day and decided to rip up his furniture - Only one person gets a napkin apparently and that’s the Person of Indeterminate Gender - The fruit looks fake (and probably is) - There are inexplicable jars on the table - The couch also looks kinda like it’s built into the wall

Gabriel: Ladybug, Chat Noir. Enjoy your apparent victory, because as in all the best tragedies, triumph always comes before failure.

Chat Noir:

Chat Noir: Is that my dad??

Best lines from the Finale

(mostly out of context of course)

“Hey! Even in a sack I still look better than you!”

“Larry King’s disembodied wax head wants num-nums.”

“I listen to a lot of AM radio so I knew what this meant–the end of the world.”

“We’ll meet again. Don’t know where, don’t know when. Oh, I know we’ll meet again some, sunny day.”

“You know that couch is made from living human skin?”

 “What’s an “anime”?”

“These scribbles are a bunch of cockamamie balderdash! Excuse my French.”

“I keep accidentally flexing through my sweater.”

“Your hyperflamable merchandise is the only thing keepin’ me going.”

“I have butchered millions on countless moons.”

“He’s been forcing me to do cute dances in this cage for all eternity. I’m so tired of being cute!”

“This experience will forever scar Tad Strange.”

“I’ve tried forgettin’. Maybe I should try forgiving.”

“No, a prophecy. Although it would be a pretty fun game of hopscotch.”

“Destiny hoodie.”

“Hey Achilles! Nice work with the heel!”

“Do the one thing no one in our family has ever done–Touch the hillbilly.”

 “I’ve never held hands this long and I’m very uncomfortable.”

“Grammar, Stanley.”

“I know that hurts because I’ve accidentally done it to myself–multiple times!”

“I’ve got some children I need to make into corpses!”

“Like Grunkle Stan always says, when one door closes choose a nearby wall and bash it in with brute force.”

“I think I’m gonna kill one of ‘em now just for the heck of it!”

“Hey, look at me. Turn around and look at me you one-eyed demon! You’re a real wiseguy, but you made one fatal mistake: you messed with my family.”

“Guess I was good for something after all.”

“He saved the world. He saved me.”

“Hey, just cuz I have amnesia don’t go tryin’ to give yourself a raise, Soos.”

“He told us a lot about being a business man in the '80s and seemed happy when we pretended to listen.”

“Robbie, would you be a dear and get us the sawed-off shotgun?”

“Zap! Zap! We’re mad with power! And love!” 

“You’re only going to have one pony now.”

“Wa–oh! Woo! I’m bustin’ a move on this skatin’ board!”

“You know, on my first day here, if you had asked me what I wanted, I would have said adventure, mystery, true friends. But looking here at all of you I realize that every wish came true. I have everything I wanted.”

“If I had only one wish it would be to shrink all of you with the shrink ray and bring you home with us in my pocket!”

“I now officially declare you technically teenagers. Welcome to angst and acne forever.”

“I don’t just want someone to come with me Stanley, I want it to be you. Will you give me a second chance?”

“Like, this mermaid. It’s not just a dead fish butt sewn to a monkey carcass. It’s a marvelous creature that makes us believe that anything is possible.”

“You’re Mr. Mystery now, Soos. Try not to burn the place down.”

“I hate my dumb heart for making me feel things.”

“Kids, you knuckleheads were nothin’ but a nuisance and I’m glad to be rid of ya.”

 “If you’ve ever taken a road trip through the Pacific northwest, you’ve probably seen a bumper sticker for a place called Gravity Falls. It’s not on any maps, and most people have never heard of it. Some people think it’s a myth. But if you’re curious, don’t wait. Take a trip. Find it. It’s out there somewhere in the woods. Waiting.” 

Winter for a Pine Tree

Disclaimer: Hey this gets dark real fast (0 to 60) and was written primarily to “Balance out the forces of the universe” After a friend of mine took a join project I’d been involved in and taken it off the rails into Wendip Territory (The stories ended up splitting into 2 stories written by two authors each instead of 1 story by 4). Anyways to balance out the force of the universe (and yes, I’m looking at you Graviti and Futur) I wrote this.

It gets dark so I tagged it as Depravity Falls, and spoiler alert, it involves death. So you’ve been forewarned.

It had been three days since Dipper had last seen anyone in his family. The thought was still fresh in his mind as he hollered into his walkie talkie hoping for Mabel to respond. It had also been three days since he’d last eaten as his stomach was reminding him. And well somewhere nearby he could hear some of Bill’s monsters roaming around, possibly planning on eating him. Unfortunately for Dipper, he quickly recognized the creatures coming up behind him as eyebats. With them coming from behind him, his only option was to exit the alley he’d been hiding in and hope that there was a shelter he could hide in elsewhere.

Dipper made a break for it, and saw on the other side of the street the Gravity Falls mall, which fortunately was an indoor mall, so that’d likely slow down the eyebats. After a quick dash across the street, and having to ignore a very annoying monster, Dipper made it inside the mall without being eaten or turned to stone. The mall looked terrible, there was a huge hole in the skylight, the whole place had graffiti everywhere, and the carts, tables, and chairs were all over the place. Everything looked so ruined and abandoned. Except for a single table with a plate of nachos sitting on it under a working light.

Oh thank god Dipper thought, it felt like weeks since he’d last eaten, even if it’d only been a few days. Dipper forgot about almost everything as he ran towards those nachos in complete bliss over being able to eat again. He ran over and grabbed the nachos off the table. Then he noticed the wire that got pulled with the nachos. He didn’t even have to time to scream before he saw the shotgun fire.

The gun had been aimed to hit an adult in the lower crotch to upper leg area. Wendy had figured when she set it up it’d stop just about any attempted bandit or thug from getting to her, and teach them a good lesson too, hopefully without killing the target either. However Dipper was decidedly not the height of the average adult and had instead been shot right in the chest. He screamed out in pain as the power of the blast knocked him of his feet to the floor. He knew right away that regardless of what happened next, he couldn’t survive this. Even before weirdmaggedon his injury was enough to be fatal.

He heard footsteps run into the room and saw none other than Wendy run into the room. Dipper’s head was still ringing from the blast, and he couldn’t clearly hear what she was saying as she entered. She seemed to look pissed, was probably screaming, and had a crossbow drawn in her hand. He then saw as her anger quickly turned to confusion and then horror upon seeing him lying there. Wendy ran over to him obviously upset over something, but Dipper couldn’t make out the words. She was sobbing as she picked him up. The whole world was beginning to get fuzzy, and the pain was beginning to lessen. Dipper was beginning to feel really warm. Really warm and comfortable. Before he lost consciousness, he heard what Wendy was saying to him “I’m sorry Dipper. I’m so sorry.”

Dipper lay there and his last thoughts churned away at those words. He couldn’t make sense of what they meant. What was she sorry for? He really couldn’t remember anymore. His eyes felt heavy but he never built up the strength to close them. Wendy watched as the last signs of life left Dipper’s eyes.

Yeah, okay