[Dipper nods to that last tidbit about the crabs and makes a note in the back of his mind to add it to the page he started on them. For now, all his attention is on Varian.]
[He's kind of wondered what Varian's deal was. He clearly had some kind of story, people in Deerington rarely didn't, but for the most part, Varian's been very tight about the details. If the incredibly ominous way he phrased that was any indication, it was for a good reason.]
[He does think back to one thing that had stuck out to him. It happened right before the Mayor's tea party. A post Varian made that had seemed ...off. Very off, like something was missing from him. Since the post happened right after a recent death, Dipper figured he must have been missing a decent chunk of memories. He remembered talking to Luz about it, but Dipper didn't know Varian well enough to pry more. He merely made a note for the future.]
[Dipper frowns to his warning but shakes his head.]
Dude, unless you're about to tell me you're a serial killer or Bill Cipher in disguise, it's going to take a lot to rattle me.
[A pause, and he adds.]
Also, I'm the one that asked. You don't have to tell me anything you don't actually want to. We've all got secrets, Varian, and we've got a right to keep them if we want.
[Dipper was right on the money there. When he came back he'd lost all of these memories- and then Oscar had given up his leg to get them back. It adds another layer of guilt to the whole process. Oscar knows, now, what memories he gave his leg up for and doesn't regret it. But that doesn't mean Dipper will feel the same way.
He smiles, but it's wry, pained.]
Not for want of trying, anyway.
[The...killing thing, not the...Bill Cipher thing. Obviously. Probably. ]
I know. And I have been keeping it. But...this place? Well- Deerington, anyway, it had a way of dragging secrets out in the light if you want it or not. I... I'm trying to be better about that. Let the people I trust with it know the truth.
[So they don't have to learn in the worst possible way. He exhales softly.]
Okay. So, because this is you and I know you'll want to know the details. There's two magical forces in my world- they came from the sky- the sundrop and the moonstone. They were meant to be together, but they split apart and landed in different parts of the world. The sundrop landed in a flower- and that flower was used on the queen when she was in labour with the princess of our kingdom. It gave her magical hair. The moonstone landed in a different kingdom- and it created sharp, indestructible rocks.
...I know all of that sounds crazy and I really can't explain the whys or hows. My world is really magical, and those are the two biggest pieces of magic there are. They just... are a thing- but important for this...whole story. Background.
[With most people he glosses over this, but Dipper is like him. Dipper picks and prods at the tiny details, tries to understand them better.]
[Not gonna lie, Dipper is touched that Varian trusts him enough with something like this, which is why he is taking it pretty seriously. He nods, knowing very well how Deerington liked to drag out secrets. His first month here put his entire life on display in stained glass.]
[It is also good that Varian knows him will enough to not go cheap on all the interesting magic details. Come to think of it, he knows very little about Varian's world aside from a few things here and there that's come up when they talk. It being full of magic doesn't surprise him, honestly, just based on what he's picked up. Learning about some of the sources, though. It's a lot of self-restraint that keeps him for reaching for his journal again. He doesn't! He behaves.]
...Magic hair is definitely a new one for me. Congrats, I think. Though, the sources coming from the sky is interesting. Maybe they're extra-terrestrial originally? Or maybe-
[He will shake his head though, and wave to show Varian should keep going. He'll get caught up on tangents like this if he doesn't stop himself early.]
[He appreciates the enormous self-restraint Dipper has on show here. You're a good guy, dude. He does offer a tired, wry smile for his efforts.]
It's okay, I knew you'd want to know a little more. Honestly, that's about as much as we do know for their points of origin. They were powered by incantations that would make them react in certain ways. I studied them a lot and even I have to admit this is filed under unexplainable magic stuff.
[His least favourite file!!!]
Anyway. These black rocks had been showing up in my village, destroying crops and homes. I knew the princess had a connection to them, and she promised she'd help me with them, but people were starving. My village was dying and my father was hiding all of it from the king. So I...took matters into my own hands. I created a chemical compound to try and dissolve these rocks- uuuunfortunately what it did instead was create an amber solution that grew and solidified quickly, trapping anything in its path. My dad- [he hesitates, he can still see it in his minds eye, all these years later, his dad shoving him aside, saving his life] he rescued me from it and got stuck himself. I travelled to the capitol to get the princess' help, but a blizzard was raging. Uh...remember me telling you I had my own demon problems back home? Well, she caused it. It was a very dangerous blizzard that was destroying the entire kingdom. The princess... she couldn't leave to help me. I...kinda snapped at her and the guards decided I was attacking her and hauled me off into the snow. By the time I got back home...dad had already been encased in the amber, and nothing, nothing was breaking it.
[Dipper can't help but raise an eyebrow at that and tease him.]
So, you're saying they make you absolutely nuts, then.
[Because for Varian to have to rule something in such a way, it can only be a point of unimaginable frustration.]
[But Dipper listens, that small teasing grin of his fading as the seriousness of this story takes hold. There is a lot going on here. A terrible situation on both sides, it sounds like. He has a suspicion where this might be going- Varian desperate to help his family after being turned away could only lead to something drastic. Dipper is sure of that because if something had happened to his family, he'd tear the entire city apart until he could help them.]
So, you got desperate and did something crazy, right?
[And yet he's the only person currently alive who could decipher them all and still knows all of them off by heart. Because someone had to study the damn things and that someone was him. Super.
Varian nods, guilt starting to blossom in his chest. This is never an easy story to tell, he always runs the chance of losing a friend for good to it. ]
I did, yeah. I knew the sundrop flower, what was left of it, was in the castle. I figured maybe some magic was left in it and I could use it against the amber. I created a truth serum and drugged the guards with it- found out where it was being kept. [Just...casually made a truth serum. ] I convinced Rapunzel to help me steal it. She- she knew it was treason to take it but I told her I wanted to help the kingdom. That was a lie at that point, I only wanted to save my dad. When we got it, I told her as much and ran with it, leaving her to take the fall for the theft.
[A sad chuckle escapes him.]
It didn't do me any good. It didn't work. The power was all in her- the flower had nothing left in it.
[Varian just pulling a truth serum out of his ass isn't really that farfetched after he watched him help his uncle build a trans-dimensional portal in roughly a week.]
[He frowns as he explains. Him doing something like drugging the guards to get what he was after was ...not great, sure, but it isn't something Dipper wouldn't do with family at stake. As he gets into the part with Rapunzel, Dipper starts to understand where things are taking a nasty turn.]
[He winces.]
Oof.
[But, his tone isn't condemning or anything. It's definitely not good, but between sympathetic and "Oh no". And, because he knows Varian well enough to know that he wouldn't just accept failure--]
[...]
[The power was all in her. Okay, Dipper knows where this is going.]
Oh, man. You totally kidnapped her next, didn't you?
[Dipper gets it, Dipper always gets it. Sometimes, you just make a thing because you need the thing, doesn't matter if that thing should exist or not beforehand.
And Dipper would be right there- Varian doesn't accept failure all that easily. He's too goddamn stubborn at the best of times, add his father's life being at stake to the mix and it was inevitable he'd head towards disaster. ]
Nope, I kidnapped her mom, the queen. I knew she wouldn't come to me without an...incentive. When she came to rescue her, I trapped her and the king and used my amber solution next to her mom- basically forced her to help me or let her mom get trapped by it just like my dad was.
[He doesn't sound proud of it, he sounds sick to his stomach. It wasn't fair. Rapunzel was such a sweet, decent person and he forced her into something she probably would have helped him with if he'd just asked again instead of slamming up all his walls and deciding the world was against him. ]
It didn't work anyway. Whatever power was in her hair, it didn't break the amber. The royal family escaped and I just... I just snapped. Attacked them with a robot. I... I tried to crush the queen and Rapunzel's best friend to death with it. I wanted her to hurt.
[Dipper once cobbled together a Shrink Ray out of rocks and a flashlight, so he definitely gets it. He's not an inventor, but by god he will make something work out of shit he found in his pocket, somehow.]
Holy crap, Varian.
[Like, there's really no delicate way to say that. As this story goes on, things get worse and worse and it's ...honestly kind of a big surprise? Like, sure, Varian had Mad Scientist vibes in the same way his uncle did, but he did not peg Varian as someone with enough concentrated spiteful vengeance to go that far. It's some Gideon levels of escalation, though the motives are incredibly better than "obsessed with Mabel". Still bad, just more rational. Kind of.]
[Varian is also telling this story with way more regret than Gideon, which Dipper is taking note of. His expression is a little grim, but he's still listening.]
[This is why they're friends. This is exactly why.]
I know.
[He gets it, he looks back on how he was back then and he hates it. He never knew he had that in him either. But then, he didn't before that, either. He guesses you never know what you're capable of until you get pushed well and truly over the edge. ]
No, thankfully. Rapunzel managed to get control of the rocks and stop me- no one died. [Something he is damn glad for. He doesn't like to think what would have happened if he hadsucceeded. What person he would have turned into from actually taking people's lives. ] I was put in prison where I stayed for a year until I broke out with a group of people who wanted to take over Corona. Or...that's what I thought they wanted anyway. I helped them do that. Rapunzel was away. I helped wipe the king and queens memories, and I made the people of the kingdom work in the mines to get the ingredients I needed to try and wipe everyone's memories.
[He scoffs, it's a disgusted sound, but it's directed inwards. ]
Because I decided that was the only way to fix what I'd done. I couldn't... I just couldn't conceive of the idea anyone would forgive me for what I did.
[Dipper definitely has a lot of feelings on memory loss, which Varian somewhat already knows. Dipper's frown is very pointed, but like, obviously Varian is telling this from a point that implies he's already realized what a lunatic he sounds like.]
You really doubled down on the whole Sunk-Cost Fallacy idea, huh?
[But this story has to end somewhere, and it sounds like Past-Varian is about to be surprised. Or uh. Get thrown back in prison. It's hard to say. Varian did walk through the doors instead of going home, so who's Dipper to assume why that was!]
[It's the knowledge of Dipper's feelings of memory loss that makes the guilt of his actions squirm more than usual in this telling. At least he's very clear how utterly insane his plan was. He exhales softly. ]
...Yeah. I really did. I just- I don't know. I was in a pretty dark place and I couldn't see a way out of it. It's not an excuse, just... a reason.
[A stupid reason that made people live in misery. ]
Rapunzel came home and it was then I found out the people I'd allied myself with planned to drop the chemicals I'd created onto Corona and raze the place to the ground. [He rubs his own arm absently.] I- killing everyone in the kingdom was... it was too far for me, I didn't want that. So I helped Rapunzel stop them. I-
[He often skips this part of the story, it's a testament to just how much that he trusts Dipper that he continues. ]
There was only one way to stop the bombs from taking out the whole kingdom, and that was to get them high enough above the city that when they exploded...well, they wouldn't do any harm. I...tried to be the one to do that- I didn't... I just needed to clean up my own mess. Rapunzel wouldn't let me, though. She did it herself- her...her hair protected her, so she didn't die. [And neither did he. As much as he didn't care if he had at that point. ]
After that, she used a new incantation she'd learned on the road to free my dad. He's...fine, alive? And I spent the rest of my time back home doing everything I could to try and make up for everything I did. Helped save the kingdom a couple of times, just trying to...even out the score, I guess.
That sure was a story. Dipper prides himself on being hard to phase these days, but he did not expect literally anything he got from Varian just now, so it takes him a few moments to really let it sink in.]
[He tries to think of what he wants to ask, what he wants to know. He's got questions, and he's got opinions, but he isn't sure where to start. It's a weird thing feeling viscerally sympathetic while strangely revolted at the same time. And of course, all of this happened some time ago, in another world entirely, and the person in front of him does not at all appear to be the same person in the story.]
[Okay, so. That's where he'll start. He'll start the same way he did with Gideon, who is his redemption arc bar and Varian completely and utterly cleared it.]
...And what about here? Looking back on all of that, how would you say that informs the person you are now?
[Varian doesn't like telling this story, but he never turns away people's questions and opinions on it. Hell, he expects them. What he's been through, what he's done, is a lot. So he waits there, shifting uneasily, letting Dipper process all of this. ]
I've learned not to do any of that again. [Obviously. He exhales softly. ] I'm not gonna tell you I'm magically a better person, Dipper. I don't- I think that would take a very long time, and it's not on me to judge when I've managed that. That's on the people I hurt, who aren't here.
[And even then, he's not convinced there's a real end to it. Not really.]
All I can do is keep trying to be better and use what I know to help people who need it.
[That was a pretty good answer, and clears up with Dipper wanted to know. Dipper has no business judging Varian on something that happened in another lifetime entirely. The whole point of this place was to start over, start fresh, so slamming him for something like this after all this time would make him a hell of a hypocrite.]
[All Dipper wanted to know is where he was in moving forward. No one is perfect, and in fact pretty much everyone he knows has terrible flaws that most people would find reprehensible. Grunkle Stan is a conman who regularly steals, cheats, and lies, and Great Uncle Ford kept a grudge for literal decades, resulting in the near-destruction of their universe. Both of them move forward in their own ways and that is what Dipper values. No one's perfect, no one can really claim to be good, what matters is how you strive to do better. That's what Dipper thinks, anyway.]
Cool. That's all I needed to know.
[He says it with all the acceptance of someone who just got told their DD&D session got rescheduled for tomorrow. A surprise, but taken in stride.]
[Well. Varian definitely wasn't expecting that response. He's finally started to accept that he won't get the anger and hate from his friends he thinks he deserves when they hear that story, but this is taking it well to a whole new level. Confusion camps across his features.]
What? That's...it? You're... taking this a lot better than I expected.
Oh, no, dude. It’s taking every ounce of my self restraint not to blow another swear and put myself in swear-debt for next month.
[Seriously, dude, what the fuck.]
Here’s the thing- yeah, you did a lot of extremely messed up stuff. Stuff that rivals the actual child psychopath we had to deal with back home, which I can’t overstate how impressively hecked that is.
[Dipper leans back in his chair and regards Varian for a moment and shakes his head.]
But none of that is my business. If its something that happened back where we came from, we are twice removed from all of that now. Judging someone based on that would made me a hypocrite.
I know you as you are, and I’ve seen what you’ve done for the town. You’re making honest strides in the right direction and that’s what matters.
We’ve all got a past to contend with and we’ve all done things of varying degrees of horrible, my family included, all we can do now is move forward.
If you want to swear, I can pretend I never heard it. Mabel never needs to know.
[He says that even though they're both well aware that even if neither of them ever said a thing, Mabel would know.
He listens to what Dipper has to say, shifting a little uneasily. He knows, deep down, that he is doing a lot to be a better person. To do better for everyone around him. He can't deny that, and yet every time people give him support and understanding that he doesn't feel he deserves. ]
...Thanks...for that. I really wouldn't blame you if you did judge me? I judge me all the time for what I did. Who I was. The whole... psychopath thing. But I am trying on working on it. Being better. It's just taking some time, I guess.
[And then she'll come for his ass with the swear jar. There are fees, Varian.]
Anyway, no one becomes a better person over night. I'd hazard to say it's a constant work in progress for basically everyone. All we can do is try, dude.
[Pause.]
But if you ever do anything to screw with someone's memories I will personally make sure you regret coming out of the ocean, got it?
[Varian might have pegged Dipper as the Normal Pines, but that just means he is stealth terrifying.]
The child psychopath that came at me with a giant robot back home got the snot beat out of him after I crashed through the window of his cockpit from leaping off a cliff. Don't test me.
[Maybe twins just always know. He exhales softly.]
Oh, yeah, I figured that one out. I've been working on this for years, I doubt I'll ever be done.
[He's always a little afraid that he might backslide. It's something he's always acutely aware of- especially here, where things could mess with his head so much easier and bring out parts of him he'd much rather stay buried.
And huh, look at that. Maybe Dipper is definitely the Least Normal Pines. Varian kinda stares for a moment, before chuckling nervously.]
H-ah, duly noted. I don't have any plans to mess with anyone's memories. And honestly, if someone had crashed into my giant robot, I probably would have been dealt with a lot quicker.
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reddosmod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
countryclub2021-08-09 05:25 pm
no subject
[He's kind of wondered what Varian's deal was. He clearly had some kind of story, people in Deerington rarely didn't, but for the most part, Varian's been very tight about the details. If the incredibly ominous way he phrased that was any indication, it was for a good reason.]
[He does think back to one thing that had stuck out to him. It happened right before the Mayor's tea party. A post Varian made that had seemed ...off. Very off, like something was missing from him. Since the post happened right after a recent death, Dipper figured he must have been missing a decent chunk of memories. He remembered talking to Luz about it, but Dipper didn't know Varian well enough to pry more. He merely made a note for the future.]
[Dipper frowns to his warning but shakes his head.]
Dude, unless you're about to tell me you're a serial killer or Bill Cipher in disguise, it's going to take a lot to rattle me.
[A pause, and he adds.]
Also, I'm the one that asked. You don't have to tell me anything you don't actually want to. We've all got secrets, Varian, and we've got a right to keep them if we want.
That said, I'm still listening.
no subject
He smiles, but it's wry, pained.]
Not for want of trying, anyway.
[The...killing thing, not the...Bill Cipher thing. Obviously. Probably. ]
I know. And I have been keeping it. But...this place? Well- Deerington, anyway, it had a way of dragging secrets out in the light if you want it or not. I... I'm trying to be better about that. Let the people I trust with it know the truth.
[So they don't have to learn in the worst possible way. He exhales softly.]
Okay. So, because this is you and I know you'll want to know the details. There's two magical forces in my world- they came from the sky- the sundrop and the moonstone. They were meant to be together, but they split apart and landed in different parts of the world. The sundrop landed in a flower- and that flower was used on the queen when she was in labour with the princess of our kingdom. It gave her magical hair. The moonstone landed in a different kingdom- and it created sharp, indestructible rocks.
...I know all of that sounds crazy and I really can't explain the whys or hows. My world is really magical, and those are the two biggest pieces of magic there are. They just... are a thing- but important for this...whole story. Background.
[With most people he glosses over this, but Dipper is like him. Dipper picks and prods at the tiny details, tries to understand them better.]
no subject
[It is also good that Varian knows him will enough to not go cheap on all the interesting magic details. Come to think of it, he knows very little about Varian's world aside from a few things here and there that's come up when they talk. It being full of magic doesn't surprise him, honestly, just based on what he's picked up. Learning about some of the sources, though. It's a lot of self-restraint that keeps him for reaching for his journal again. He doesn't! He behaves.]
...Magic hair is definitely a new one for me. Congrats, I think. Though, the sources coming from the sky is interesting. Maybe they're extra-terrestrial originally? Or maybe-
[He will shake his head though, and wave to show Varian should keep going. He'll get caught up on tangents like this if he doesn't stop himself early.]
Sorry, go on.
no subject
It's okay, I knew you'd want to know a little more. Honestly, that's about as much as we do know for their points of origin. They were powered by incantations that would make them react in certain ways. I studied them a lot and even I have to admit this is filed under unexplainable magic stuff.
[His least favourite file!!!]
Anyway. These black rocks had been showing up in my village, destroying crops and homes. I knew the princess had a connection to them, and she promised she'd help me with them, but people were starving. My village was dying and my father was hiding all of it from the king. So I...took matters into my own hands. I created a chemical compound to try and dissolve these rocks- uuuunfortunately what it did instead was create an amber solution that grew and solidified quickly, trapping anything in its path. My dad- [he hesitates, he can still see it in his minds eye, all these years later, his dad shoving him aside, saving his life] he rescued me from it and got stuck himself. I travelled to the capitol to get the princess' help, but a blizzard was raging. Uh...remember me telling you I had my own demon problems back home? Well, she caused it. It was a very dangerous blizzard that was destroying the entire kingdom. The princess... she couldn't leave to help me. I...kinda snapped at her and the guards decided I was attacking her and hauled me off into the snow. By the time I got back home...dad had already been encased in the amber, and nothing, nothing was breaking it.
returns after ...a hundred years...
So, you're saying they make you absolutely nuts, then.
[Because for Varian to have to rule something in such a way, it can only be a point of unimaginable frustration.]
[But Dipper listens, that small teasing grin of his fading as the seriousness of this story takes hold. There is a lot going on here. A terrible situation on both sides, it sounds like. He has a suspicion where this might be going- Varian desperate to help his family after being turned away could only lead to something drastic. Dipper is sure of that because if something had happened to his family, he'd tear the entire city apart until he could help them.]
So, you got desperate and did something crazy, right?
it's totally and completely aok never too laaate
[And yet he's the only person currently alive who could decipher them all and still knows all of them off by heart. Because someone had to study the damn things and that someone was him. Super.
Varian nods, guilt starting to blossom in his chest. This is never an easy story to tell, he always runs the chance of losing a friend for good to it. ]
I did, yeah. I knew the sundrop flower, what was left of it, was in the castle. I figured maybe some magic was left in it and I could use it against the amber. I created a truth serum and drugged the guards with it- found out where it was being kept. [Just...casually made a truth serum. ] I convinced Rapunzel to help me steal it. She- she knew it was treason to take it but I told her I wanted to help the kingdom. That was a lie at that point, I only wanted to save my dad. When we got it, I told her as much and ran with it, leaving her to take the fall for the theft.
[A sad chuckle escapes him.]
It didn't do me any good. It didn't work. The power was all in her- the flower had nothing left in it.
no subject
[He frowns as he explains. Him doing something like drugging the guards to get what he was after was ...not great, sure, but it isn't something Dipper wouldn't do with family at stake. As he gets into the part with Rapunzel, Dipper starts to understand where things are taking a nasty turn.]
[He winces.]
Oof.
[But, his tone isn't condemning or anything. It's definitely not good, but between sympathetic and "Oh no". And, because he knows Varian well enough to know that he wouldn't just accept failure--]
[...]
[The power was all in her. Okay, Dipper knows where this is going.]
Oh, man. You totally kidnapped her next, didn't you?
no subject
And Dipper would be right there- Varian doesn't accept failure all that easily. He's too goddamn stubborn at the best of times, add his father's life being at stake to the mix and it was inevitable he'd head towards disaster. ]
Nope, I kidnapped her mom, the queen. I knew she wouldn't come to me without an...incentive. When she came to rescue her, I trapped her and the king and used my amber solution next to her mom- basically forced her to help me or let her mom get trapped by it just like my dad was.
[He doesn't sound proud of it, he sounds sick to his stomach. It wasn't fair. Rapunzel was such a sweet, decent person and he forced her into something she probably would have helped him with if he'd just asked again instead of slamming up all his walls and deciding the world was against him. ]
It didn't work anyway. Whatever power was in her hair, it didn't break the amber. The royal family escaped and I just... I just snapped. Attacked them with a robot. I... I tried to crush the queen and Rapunzel's best friend to death with it. I wanted her to hurt.
no subject
Holy crap, Varian.
[Like, there's really no delicate way to say that. As this story goes on, things get worse and worse and it's ...honestly kind of a big surprise? Like, sure, Varian had Mad Scientist vibes in the same way his uncle did, but he did not peg Varian as someone with enough concentrated spiteful vengeance to go that far. It's some Gideon levels of escalation, though the motives are incredibly better than "obsessed with Mabel". Still bad, just more rational. Kind of.]
[Varian is also telling this story with way more regret than Gideon, which Dipper is taking note of. His expression is a little grim, but he's still listening.]
Did you succeed?
no subject
I know.
[He gets it, he looks back on how he was back then and he hates it. He never knew he had that in him either. But then, he didn't before that, either. He guesses you never know what you're capable of until you get pushed well and truly over the edge. ]
No, thankfully. Rapunzel managed to get control of the rocks and stop me- no one died. [Something he is damn glad for. He doesn't like to think what would have happened if he hadsucceeded. What person he would have turned into from actually taking people's lives. ] I was put in prison where I stayed for a year until I broke out with a group of people who wanted to take over Corona. Or...that's what I thought they wanted anyway. I helped them do that. Rapunzel was away. I helped wipe the king and queens memories, and I made the people of the kingdom work in the mines to get the ingredients I needed to try and wipe everyone's memories.
[He scoffs, it's a disgusted sound, but it's directed inwards. ]
Because I decided that was the only way to fix what I'd done. I couldn't... I just couldn't conceive of the idea anyone would forgive me for what I did.
no subject
You really doubled down on the whole Sunk-Cost Fallacy idea, huh?
[But this story has to end somewhere, and it sounds like Past-Varian is about to be surprised. Or uh. Get thrown back in prison. It's hard to say. Varian did walk through the doors instead of going home, so who's Dipper to assume why that was!]
tw: sucicidal ideation
...Yeah. I really did. I just- I don't know. I was in a pretty dark place and I couldn't see a way out of it. It's not an excuse, just... a reason.
[A stupid reason that made people live in misery. ]
Rapunzel came home and it was then I found out the people I'd allied myself with planned to drop the chemicals I'd created onto Corona and raze the place to the ground. [He rubs his own arm absently.] I- killing everyone in the kingdom was... it was too far for me, I didn't want that. So I helped Rapunzel stop them. I-
[He often skips this part of the story, it's a testament to just how much that he trusts Dipper that he continues. ]
There was only one way to stop the bombs from taking out the whole kingdom, and that was to get them high enough above the city that when they exploded...well, they wouldn't do any harm. I...tried to be the one to do that- I didn't... I just needed to clean up my own mess. Rapunzel wouldn't let me, though. She did it herself- her...her hair protected her, so she didn't die. [And neither did he. As much as he didn't care if he had at that point. ]
After that, she used a new incantation she'd learned on the road to free my dad. He's...fine, alive? And I spent the rest of my time back home doing everything I could to try and make up for everything I did. Helped save the kingdom a couple of times, just trying to...even out the score, I guess.
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That sure was a story. Dipper prides himself on being hard to phase these days, but he did not expect literally anything he got from Varian just now, so it takes him a few moments to really let it sink in.]
[He tries to think of what he wants to ask, what he wants to know. He's got questions, and he's got opinions, but he isn't sure where to start. It's a weird thing feeling viscerally sympathetic while strangely revolted at the same time. And of course, all of this happened some time ago, in another world entirely, and the person in front of him does not at all appear to be the same person in the story.]
[Okay, so. That's where he'll start. He'll start the same way he did with Gideon, who is his redemption arc bar and Varian completely and utterly cleared it.]
...And what about here? Looking back on all of that, how would you say that informs the person you are now?
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I've learned not to do any of that again. [Obviously. He exhales softly. ] I'm not gonna tell you I'm magically a better person, Dipper. I don't- I think that would take a very long time, and it's not on me to judge when I've managed that. That's on the people I hurt, who aren't here.
[And even then, he's not convinced there's a real end to it. Not really.]
All I can do is keep trying to be better and use what I know to help people who need it.
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[All Dipper wanted to know is where he was in moving forward. No one is perfect, and in fact pretty much everyone he knows has terrible flaws that most people would find reprehensible. Grunkle Stan is a conman who regularly steals, cheats, and lies, and Great Uncle Ford kept a grudge for literal decades, resulting in the near-destruction of their universe. Both of them move forward in their own ways and that is what Dipper values. No one's perfect, no one can really claim to be good, what matters is how you strive to do better. That's what Dipper thinks, anyway.]
Cool. That's all I needed to know.
[He says it with all the acceptance of someone who just got told their DD&D session got rescheduled for tomorrow. A surprise, but taken in stride.]
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What? That's...it? You're... taking this a lot better than I expected.
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[Seriously, dude, what the fuck.]
Here’s the thing- yeah, you did a lot of extremely messed up stuff. Stuff that rivals the actual child psychopath we had to deal with back home, which I can’t overstate how impressively hecked that is.
[Dipper leans back in his chair and regards Varian for a moment and shakes his head.]
But none of that is my business. If its something that happened back where we came from, we are twice removed from all of that now. Judging someone based on that would made me a hypocrite.
I know you as you are, and I’ve seen what you’ve done for the town. You’re making honest strides in the right direction and that’s what matters.
We’ve all got a past to contend with and we’ve all done things of varying degrees of horrible, my family included, all we can do now is move forward.
[with a smile, he shrugs.]
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[He says that even though they're both well aware that even if neither of them ever said a thing, Mabel would know.
He listens to what Dipper has to say, shifting a little uneasily. He knows, deep down, that he is doing a lot to be a better person. To do better for everyone around him. He can't deny that, and yet every time people give him support and understanding that he doesn't feel he deserves. ]
...Thanks...for that. I really wouldn't blame you if you did judge me? I judge me all the time for what I did. Who I was. The whole... psychopath thing. But I am trying on working on it. Being better. It's just taking some time, I guess.
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[And then she'll come for his ass with the swear jar. There are fees, Varian.]
Anyway, no one becomes a better person over night. I'd hazard to say it's a constant work in progress for basically everyone. All we can do is try, dude.
[Pause.]
But if you ever do anything to screw with someone's memories I will personally make sure you regret coming out of the ocean, got it?
[Varian might have pegged Dipper as the Normal Pines, but that just means he is stealth terrifying.]
The child psychopath that came at me with a giant robot back home got the snot beat out of him after I crashed through the window of his cockpit from leaping off a cliff. Don't test me.
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[Maybe twins just always know. He exhales softly.]
Oh, yeah, I figured that one out. I've been working on this for years, I doubt I'll ever be done.
[He's always a little afraid that he might backslide. It's something he's always acutely aware of- especially here, where things could mess with his head so much easier and bring out parts of him he'd much rather stay buried.
And huh, look at that. Maybe Dipper is definitely the Least Normal Pines. Varian kinda stares for a moment, before chuckling nervously.]
H-ah, duly noted. I don't have any plans to mess with anyone's memories. And honestly, if someone had crashed into my giant robot, I probably would have been dealt with a lot quicker.