entrancelogs | open } take the time to know yourself not a clone or a fraction of someone else

Despite Kanji's warning, Mabel's eyes light up and her hands fly to her face. She bounces a bit in place and looks from Dipper to the alternate Dipper for a few seconds, before finally blurting, "Boy do we ever!"

She's gonna bound right up to him if Dipper and Wirt don't stop her.

Wirt was not a fan of this plan at all but somehow he's here, getting dragged along by the Pines twins as usual. He doesn't even have enough time to say "Guys, I don't think this was a good idea" before suddenly Dipper is running down the hall. He...doesn't really want to run after whatever it is, but being by himself is definitely way worse.

Though...maybe not worse than running into another Dipper. He immediately tries to make up for what Mabel's said.

"N-No! No, absolutely not. We were just...passing through! W-We don't want any trouble and we definitely don't want any fun whatsoever."

Dipper grabs the back of Mabel's sweater before she can run up to his doppelganger.

"Mabel, no. We don't know what that thing is!"

"Oh, please." Dipper's shadow giggles. "You think you're so smart but you just overthink everything all the time. Isn't it obvious? I'm you!"

Mabel stops trying to run towards the doppelganger and looks between him and Dipper again. "I mean, he does have a point... Not about the being 'you' part though. He looks more like... boy-me. In a way that you're not boy-me."

Because she knows he's going to say it. She might not be as intelligent as he is, but she knows her brother, and she wasn't lying to Ishimaru when she says she can pretty much guess what he's going to say when she feels like it.

"Actually...yeah, it's pretty uncanny," Wirt agrees, looking from one Dipper to the other. "It makes you guys look like triplets and it's super weird."

Dipper, Mabel, and this odd Mabel-Dipper who seems to be a halfway point between them.

"He looks nothing like me!" Dipper gestures at him, then glares. "Or at least, he acts nothing like me."

The Dipperganger does a cartwheel down the hall, still grinning madly. "I just want to have fun and play with all the other kids, but if I do that they might realize I'm not as smart as they think I am! Eventually they'll realize I'm not special at all!"

"Ugh, can you believe this garbage?" Dipper looks at Mabel and Wirt. "That's definitely not me."

"Um." Mabel presses her fingertips together, all of the delight at seeing this Shadow Dipper vanishing. She remembers the Blind Eye- what Dipper said when he thought he was going to lose all of his memories. Sure, it was a lower key version of that, but she knows her brother. She knows what's lurking in there.

"Maaaaaybe you shouldn't-" She catches herself before she finishes. Shouldn't what? Deny the nice Shadow? Of course he's going to do that! Dipper would never admit to his feelings.

But she doesn't have time to change course, because the Dipperganger is joined by a figure in a frilly Victorian dress and a diadem with star designs throughout. "Of course he shouldn't! After all, I always know best. Everything has to go my way at all times, and whatever I want- I get."

Mabel looks frantic all of a sudden, and grabs Dipper and Wirt by their sleeves. "...I take it back. We need to get out of here."

The Shadow Mabel beams. "See?"

Edited 2017-11-25 17:06 (UTC)

Wirt sees the way this is going immediately and does not need to be told twice. He's ready to run the second Mabel grabs him and his brain is screaming flight like it always does.

"D-Don't listen to her! You're right, we need to go now!"

When they turn to run though, they find a third figure has materialized behind them - a surly-looking Wirt with dark bags under pale yellow eyes. He still wears Wirt's gnome costume, but somehow it feels less colorful on this Wirt.

"Sure, now they want to listen to me." he sulks angrily. "No one ever listens to me, and I'm sick of it!"

"Great. Cool. We're surrounded," the real Wirt says, panic creeping into his sarcasm. "Wh-what do we do now? Dipper?"

Dipper always has a plan; he probably knows what to do. Right?

Dipper opens his mouth to reply, mind racing, but before he can say anything, his shadow breaks in.

"I don't know!" he says, curling his arms around himself nervously. "You're the big kid! Why do I have to be the one with the plan when there are so many big kids and grown-ups around?"

"Shut up!" Dipper says, glaring. "I... I'm thinking! I'll come up with something!"

The Dipperganger straightens, grinning maliciously. "How? You know you're only clever when you already have everything written down for you. There's nothing about this situation in the Journals. What are you gonna do?"

Ohhhh this is bad. Mabel turns her attention away from her Shadow to point accusingly at the boys' Shadows, instead. "You're not helping! Don't be jerks."

Her Shadow, meanwhile, holds a hand up to her mouth and giggles. "And I'll just focus on your problems, so I don't have to deal with my own. I'll just throw my weight and confidence around and smile and no one will know what's underneath all that. I'm just selfish and spoiled- everything I do is just to get what I want, even if it's just a distraction from my own problems."

Wirt's Shadow completely ignores Mabel. Instead, he slinks closer to the Dipperganger, glaring hard.

"I'm not that much older than you!" he hisses. "I always have to be the responsible one, and I hate it! At least when we hang out, no one expects me to figure everything out."

"Oh my God, this is a nightmare" Wirt mutters. This is horrifically embarrassing and he has to bury his face in his hands for a second before he can make himself speak up again. "Look, we-- they're all probably just trying to distract us. B-By being terrible."

"Don't worry, Mabel, I know you're not like that." But isn't she? Just a little sometimes? Dipper shakes his head and nudges her with his elbow. "Think that grappling hook can carry all three of us?"

"Great plan," the Dipperganger says, "Make Mabel do the work! About time, since we both know she'll never hesitate to take whatever she wants from you. Grunkle Ford was right. She is stifling!"

"What?" Dipper gasps. "I don't think that!"

The Dipperganger leans forward with a bright smile, his voice distorting slightly. "Besides, what's your sister done for you, lately? How many times have you sacrificed for her, huh? And when has she ever returned the favor?"

Mabel is more horrified by Dipper's Shadow than she is her own, and almost as if to prove a point to him, instead of herself, her real brother, or Wirt, who is just... Wirting it up over there, she lifts her grappling hook and aims it at a beam above them. Once it's secure, she, with her deceptive strength grabs Dipper and hauls Wirt closer so he can grab on himself.

"That's it. We're not listening to any more of this. You don't know my life!" She points at Dipperganger. "You're making Wirt anxious and that's terrible. Only we get to do that!" She points to Wirt's Shadow. And then, finally, she points to her own. "And you're not me."

Her Shadow looks shocked for a moment, and then she giggles again in quick, short bursts that eventually culimate into a throaty, maniacal laugh that sounds horrible coming from Mabel's voice.

"What the hey..." Mabel says, turning to look at the boys- both Shadows and real ones. "It wasn't that funny..."

Edited 2017-12-07 13:51 (UTC)

Wirt looks very concerned about whether that beam is going to hold the weight of all three of them, but when faced with the options of either that or staying down here with the Shadows, he knows he's going to have to suck it up and he clings to Mabel and Dipper.

"Why should you get do to that?" Wirt's Shadow glares at her. "You probably don't even really care about me at all!"

"Not true. Definitely not true," Wirt clarifies, the second he realizes they aren't going anywhere. "Look we-- We can talk about this later? We know they're not really us, so we need to g--"

He pales when Mabel's Shadow starts to laugh though, and he doesn't like how snake-like his Shadow's eyes look now that he's said the thing too.

This is definitely not a good sign. Dipper backs up a little, still holding onto Mabel. "Um. Maybe a little less pissing off the horrible evil doppelgangers, a little more grappling hook out of here?"

"That's right, Mabel, I can't think of a strategy, so let's run away!" Dipperganger taunts. "If I use enough big words maybe you'll keep thinking I'm smart even though I'm completely out of ideas!"

"I am not out of ideas, and retreat is a valid strategy!" Dipper glares, holding on tightly to Wirt and Mabel. "What are you anyway, some attempt to be as little like us as possible?"

The Shadow starts laughing as well, in creepy unison with Mabel's Shadow, and smoke starts to pool around them.

"Don't use that kind of language on me, Dipper Pines," Mabel says with so much fervor she probably sounds like their mom- except their mom would have used his real name, and Mabel will never be annoyed enough with him to do that. She's a little stressed, okay, and it's easier to focus on her real brother than the two shadows.

Or the fact that she has no idea where to go from here. This seemed like a valid strategy at the time, and now they're just trapped in midair, while things happen around them. Yikes.

The steam dissipates leaving them dangling above some sort of strange, giant abomination. It's oddly tree shaped- the ball gown that Mabel's shadow had been wearing now made of interlocking pine branches, growing thinner and thinner until the tree thins out into a perfect feminine pear-shape. Rather than a head, the the monster boasts a large star with rainbow streams extending out from it like hair. It reaches upwards towards them with limb-like arms curling into clawing, needy hands, seemingly desperate for some sort of validation from the children.

Mabel, in desperation, tries to pull them up to the beam so they can get up on top of it. "That is so not cool."

Retreat is the best strategy they have, and Wirt is more than happy to take it. He yelps when he sees Mabel's Shadow turn into a tree of all things though, and it lights exactly enough of a metaphorical fire under his butt for him to scramble up on top of the beam.

Meanwhile, his own Shadow has morphed as well. It isn't as large as Mabel's, but it writhes under its skin as it shifts. The skin turns pitch black and begins to split into separate interlocking snakes that just barely hold his Shadow together in some sort of vague shape that's more blob than boy. The main head is still vaguely Wirt-looking, but it's sallow and scales freckle across his cheeks. When he bares his teeth, he has long pointed fangs.

"Th-That-- that doesn't even make any sense!" Wirt stammers out, pointing down at his Shadow indignantly. He likes to think he's genre-savvy, and none of this matches up with the motifs that usually occur in his life.

"Yeah, we need to get the heck out of here." Dipper scrambles backwards. Then he glances at Mabel. "Did ours... merge?"

"Oh boy," Mabel says, very succinctly. The beam is still up there, an inviting, yet risky, salvation from this. She nods at Wirt to go up first. "Who cares? None of it makes sense! Get up there." Once he's up, he can pull Dipper up, and then she can follow.

Though Dipper does have a point and she wrinkles her nose in disgust at the sight of their merged Shadow. "So that's what gem fusion is like..."

Wirt does exactly that, hoisting Dipper up after him and then reaching down to help Mabel. He watches below as his Shadow becomes a mass of snakes, and decides he doesn't like what this potentially says about him as a person - or what Dipper and Mabel's Shadow is trying to say about them.

"O-Okay. They can't get us up here. M-Maybe we can, uh--"

He looks back down the hall the way they came, but before he can form it into a thought there's a sharp gust of wind from below. All of the snake heads of Wirt's Shadow are pointed up at them, and they send some sort of wind attack upward. Wirt immediately ducks down and hugs the beam with both arms so he won't fall off of it.

Dipper reaches an arm down to help Mabel, then flattens himself against the beam so that they can't be blown off. "Um, find things to throw!"

He pulls off his shoes and throws them, one at the Pines figure and one at the Wirt figure, as hard as he can.

"Why don't I keep fireworks in my sweater for occasions like this? I keep everything else there!" Mabel laments this while keeping low on the beam waiting for the wind to pass. Once the immediate danger is over, she reaches into her interior sweater pockets and pulls out a handful of candy.

"Sorry super secret candy stash- it's for a good cause." She flings the candy at the Shadows like they're tiny grenades. "Feel my sugar-coated fury, you fakes!"

Wirt doesn't ditch his shoes, and he doesn't have a secret candy stash (he's not Greg, sheesh) but while the Pines twins are attacking, he's thinking and watching his shadow.

"I-I don't think this is working. There has to be something else we can do," he says. "Maybe if we can just get away from them..."

"You always run away," his Mirror says, dozens of snake eyes glowing yellow. "But you can't run from me! You can't run away from yourself!"

open } take the time to know yourself not a clone or a fraction of someone else

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