fancake

Fandom: Gravity Falls
Characters: Mabel Pines, Original Characters, Background Canon Characters
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 2,868
Creator Links: thesnadger
Theme: Trauma & Recovery

Summary:

It's the future. Mabel's older, possibly wiser and away at college when she gets an assignment that sends her back to the summer of 2012.

Reccer's Notes: I love this vision of older Mabel, how her characteristic charm, creativity, enthusiasm, and eccentricities are tempered by the ways that the end-of-series apocalypse - and the way that she tried to deal with it - messed with her head. The outsider POV also works beautifully, and messages about the power of art, human connection, and learning from one's mistakes feel earned, organic, and perfect for Mabel's character.

Fanwork Links: Studio Space (accessible to logged-in AO3 users only)

sinesofinsanity

Fandom: Gravity Falls
Pairings/Characters: Pines Family, Bill Cipher
Rating: Gen
Length: 3:50
Creator Links: HalaCG
Theme: Just plain fun

Summary: Original song inspired by Gravity Falls. Keep an eye out for secret messages… ;)

Reccer's Notes: Super fun song that really captures the energy and feel of the show. Love it!

Fanwork Links:
Youtube
Spotify
iTunes

sinesofinsanity

Fandom: Gravity Fals
Pairings/Characters: Stan Pines, Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines, Jesus "Soos" Ramirez, Wendy Corduroy, Ford Pines, Fiddleford McGucket (eventually)
Rating: G
Length: 55,234 words over 16 works, 4372 for The Small Things
Creator Links: Nicnac
Theme: Fork-In-The-Road AU, family, kidfic (as kids), going home, multiverse people, series,

Summary:
For the series:
When five year old Dipper and Mabel are orphaned, Grunkle Stan ends up taking them in. Gravity Falls will never be the same.
"We cannot all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love." -Mother Teresa

For The Small Things (first story in the series)
Stan had definitely showed up empty-handed, but he somehow ended up leaving with two five year olds in tow.
Eh, he'd been to worse memorial services.

Reccer's Notes:All of Nicnac's Gravity Falls AUs are fundamentally about finding and building family. This series is so incredibly sweet while respecting the realities of everyone's situation. The series is complete and includes Stan undermining the twin's Aunt Karen to adopt them from both Stan and Dipper's perspectives, a few stories about moving to and their lives in Gravity Falls (with some fun with the "life lessons" Stan teaches), rescuing Ford, Ford re-adjusting to Earth and finding his place in the new family, a couple of multiverse travellers, and some future Dipper/Pacifica (just one story and it's skipable if that's not your thing). Each individual story is really great, and while they fit together it's not necessary to read all of them, or to read them in order if you don't want.

Fanwork Links:
Elementary Falls on AO3 (series link)
The Small Things on AO3 (first story)

sinesofinsanity

Fandom: Gravity Falls
Pairings/Characters: Mabel Pines, Stanford "Ford" Pines
Rating: G
Length: 1919 words
Creator Links: Nicnac
Theme: Fork-in-the-Road AU, family,

Summary: And never let go.

Reccer's Notes: When the portal opens at the end of Season 2, Mabel is sucked in to be trapped in alternate dimensions with Ford. This is an adorable series of short scenes of them travelling together, learning about each other, and working together. I love their different perspective here, how determined Mabel is to think the best of Ford even though he's kind of scary, and how Ford instinctually leaps directly to "protect this child" despite being supremely socially awkward and Not Good With Kids.

Content Notes: None

Fanwork Links: Hold Tight on AO3

sinesofinsanity

Fandom: Gravity Falls
Pairings/Characters: Stan Pines, Ford Pines, Fiddleford McGucket, Bill Cipher, Soos Ramirez, Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines
Rating: Gen
Length: 72,769 words
Creator Links: WDW
Theme: Novel-length fics, AU (supernatural), (Not Really) Character death, Family, Older Characters,

Summary:
Thirty years ago, Stanley Pines made a deal. Now, in the wake of Bill's defeat and his brother's disappearance, Ford begins to unravel Stan's secrets.

Reccer's Notes:
This fic takes the cryptic warning of "STAN IS NOT WHAT HE SEEMS" and runs hard with it. In the wake of Weirdmaggeddon Stan hems and haws about going monster hunting with Ford, then vanishes. The first few chapters alternate between Ford in 2012 trying to find his suddenly missing brother (aided occasionally by a neurotic Fiddleford and a distressed Soos) and Stan in 1982 trying to figure out Ford's portal and running afoul of some sort of extradimensional monstrosity (could it be Bill?? He's in the character tags, it's Bill). I've tagged this as "Supernatual AU" because the story goes a lot more into the extra-dimensional weirdness than the show did and does it so well! What happened to Stan is deliciously horrifying, and there's a great suspense build as Ford slowly figures it out.

One note, the story uses the author's OC version of Shermie Pines as a minor character, in this version she's Stan and Ford's younger sister, which may be a bit jarring to fans who are used to other versions of Shermie. It's not critical to the story though which focuses on Stan and Ford, their relationship, and what it all means tied together with some canon-typical mind-bending horror.

There's also a shorter (but still 18,055 words) AU of this AU called "A Diverging In The Wood" where Weirdmaggeddon happens a little differently. That one lets Dipper and Mabel shine a bit more and features Wendy being snarky, Soos being the absolute best, Bill being dramatic, and a little bit of redemption for Gideon so it get's an honourable mention here.

Fanwork Links: A Thousand Natural Shocks on AO3

sinesofinsanity

Fandom: Gravity Falls
Characters/Pairings: Stanley Pines, Stanford Pines, Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines, Fiddleford McGucket, Gideon Gleeful, Bill Cipher
Rating: Mostly Gen
Length: varies
Creator Links: Saisai-chan on tumblr
Theme: Favourites, family, cossovers/fusions, gen,

Summary: so like, what about a platonic Beauty and the Beast AU with Stan as the Beast and Mabel and Dipper sharing the role of Belle????

Reccer's Notes: So this is *kind of* a creator rec and *kind of* a fanworks rec. Saisai-chan created this AU and a few other creators ran with it. The defined *story* is fleshed out through asks and posts on Saisai-chan's tumblr to create this frankly adorable story that meshes the two stories perfectly. It takes the Disney version of the Beauty and the Beast story with the twist that both Stan and Ford were enchanted (Stan into a Beast, and Ford into a magical journal which is this universe's equivalent to the rose). Bill has the role of the enchantress, but rather than trying to teach the brothers a lesson, he's just a jerk who wants to watch them suffer. Dipper and Mabel take on the role of Belle, because nobody ever said that true love had to be romantic.

Saisai-chan has created some fantastic art for this universe as well as some really fun mini-scenes. I love how much heart their drawings have, and the colours are warm and caring to match the tone of most of the stories.

Cirilee has also created some super fun art for this universe in a dynamic comic style that I love. Here

Fanwork Links: BatBAU Art by Saisai-chan
BatBAU fic Links Master Post on saisai-chan's tumblr

sinesofinsanity

Fandom: Gravity Falls, Inside Out
Characters/Pairings: Stanford Pines, Stanford Pines' Emotions
Rating: Gen
Length: 1397 Words
Creator Links: Luckless
Theme: Crossovers, gen

Summary: After learning of Bill's true nature, Stanford needed help. His Emotions felt just as desperate.

Reccer's Notes: A really neat peek at Ford's mind as he starts reaching rock bottom. I love the depiction of the Mind Manual and how Bill's presence is felt even though we never actually see him. The notion of Fear being the leader of Ford's Emotions is also a really neat touch.

Fanwork Links: The Most Dangerous Mind Manual on AO3

sinesofinsanity

Fandom: Gravity Falls
Characters/Pairings: Bill Cipher, Stanford Pines, Stanley Pines, Dipper Pines, Mabel Pines, Wendy Corduroy, Jesus "Soos" Alzamirano Ramirez, "Lazy" Susan Wentworth, Robbie Valentino, Varying chaos demons (Pyronica, Hectorgon, Xanthar, Teeth)
Rating: Gen
Length: 11216 words
Creator Links: SandyQuinn
Theme: AU: Fork In The Road; Apocalypse, Friendship, Humour,

Summary: “What do you mean, you won’t lift the barrier?!” Bill demands.

What happens when the Falls are NOT taken back after all?

Reccer's Notes: The Pines' epic plan to fix Wierdmaggeden fails! But Ford doesn't lift the barrier so Bill Cipher and his chaos demons are now trapped in with the citizens of Gravity Falls, who have a fair bit of experience with accommodating wierdness. I love all the character moments in this, ranging from the sweet to the hilarious. It's a strange romp and super fun.

Fanwork Links: It's Cipher Town Kid