why-is-it-always-autumn:

People have almost certainly posted about this before, but one of the (many) things I love about the Gravity Falls Transcendence AU is how it shows the evolution of complex stories with multiple authors, in the same way as long-running comic book universes and even religions.  It started with a fairly simple premise (AU where Dipper becomes a demon), and evolved with people expanding on it and pointing out other aspects of the story (what happened to Bill after?  How did the world respond?  How did this happen in the first place?).  Expansion continues with exploration of logical consequences (okay, so Mabel grows up beating up cultists with her usually-invisible demon brother.  What about her personal life?  Henry and the triplets are introduced, and become crucial figures in the mythos.  Hank accidentally forms a mafia, and stories about their backstories begin to appear.  Henry becomes the Woodsman, and other authors expound on those details).  Theories become accepted as canon (there was some early stuff that mentioned a separate afterlife for demons, before reincarnation became an accepted part of the story) and became fodder for even more stories and theories (r!Bill usually has a twin.  Dipper tends to follow Mizars closely.  Henry’s soul will always have antlers).  More and more characters are introduced, often only tangentially related to the original story (Torako, Malala, Michael).  Stories appear that contradict each other (when was Maritza’s time?  She’s friends with Maddie, but Maddie is Toby’s little sister, and Henry’s soul was absent from the reincarnation cycle for quite a while after Paloma, in Ian’s time.  How long could it have possibly taken for Bill’s soul to reincarnate?) or tell the same story in different ways (how did Maddie find out that her dad is Alcor?  How exactly did the Transcendence happen?).  The AU has only existed for about a year, but it’s already so complicated, with very little central canon and no absolute authority (you can attribute most ocs to specific people, but that’s about it), and stories written by many different people with different priorities.  It’s an interesting study in how, say, the Bible came about, and if anyone who knows more about religious studies or whatever were to write a paper about it I’d be really interested to read it.

Tl; dr: The Transcendence AU is very cool on a meta level, as well as a textual one, and when I start talking about it I tend to ramble.

#it really is just the freaking GREATEST au#like we’ve just kinda slowly introduced a couple universal rules regarding the world and how it works#(worldbuilding to an extent you NEVER see in other AUs)#and then it’s just like… GO! be free! do whatever you want within the few rules! have fun!#and there is a defined /end/ but you can play around BEYOND the ‘end’ with what happens after#and the timing of the ‘end’ isn’t super defined we can create ANY NUMBER of OCs anywhere on the timeline#and there’s even a huge mythos of what was BEFORE the au and the history between Dipper and Bill’s souls#and the fics can go from fluffy to funny to GRUESOME just like that so there’s something for everyone#and?? i’m just?? endlessly in love with this au please hold me# @demo-ness