Nice to see this opus completed! SPOILERS ahead for the last 4 chapters:

I thought the last few chapters were well paced: one last big conflict followed by some solid reconciliation and moving forward. Dipper's religious awakening surprised me, but then, he's seen enough supernatural stuff that the idea of God and Jesus probably seems pretty believable by comparison.

There were some lovely Mabelisms: “I love you, you goober,” and her long note with that one last X near the end were my favorites. And Grunkle Stan's behavior seemed plausible, including his grudging acceptance of Dipper and Mabel's new relationship.

Now, as to the endings: Honestly, the official ending was more of a surprise to me than the alternative ending. That is, the canon ending was more upbeat than I expected, given how dark the bulk of the story is. And I was glad for that.

The alternative ending was more in line with what I was expecting. You may have kept the story free of supernatural elements, but you did note at one point that all of the strangeness in Gravity Falls ended with Weirdmageddon, and given that Bill Cipher was the architect of Weirdmageddon, I was already a little bit primed for his reappearance when it came. Also, in the canon story, I was iffy on Dipper's certainty that he and Mabel won't be found out, whereas his deal with Bill seems a much more solid explanation.

That said, I can see why you chose the lighter ending over the darker one. The alternative ending has that big first-person passage that doesn't fit with the third-person perspective used in the rest of the story. Also, given that you're planning to continue this tale, the canon ending opens up a lot more possible directions than the alternative ending does.

In any case, thanks for another big hunk of epic drama!

This is not only one of the best GF fanfics I've ever read, but one of the best fanfics fullstop. It was very well written, in both the sense that it was enjoyable or at least engaging to read, but it was, rather unusually, not littered with errors (that often distracts me from reading fan fictions).

I originally intended to read this as a standard erotic fan fiction, but I was engaged in the story for all ten chapters.

Well done on this story, and I hope you don't pull an Alex Hirsch and just stop now that it's getting to be the best of its kind.

Hey, that's pretty good!

I really hope you are still continuing this story ! This is the greatest gravity falls story I've ever read. Everyone is very in character and acts exactly as you would expect the characters to act. The plot is so interesting and it totally pulls at my heart strings! You are a very talented writer and I can't wait to read more. Keep up the amazing work.

Okay, I'm going to try to avoid spoilers here:

First off, I love Dipper and Mabel's dialogue, both internal and external. It sounds very in-character.

Second, all of the drama associated with the twins’ secret relationship seems plausible. It's easy enough for miscommunications and misunderstandings to happen in a conventional relationship. Add the need for secrecy, the guilt, ignorance about sex, and everything else that would necessarily complicate a romantic and sexual relationship between fourteen-year-old siblings, and problems are going to arise early and often. And I like that you make this point clearly without beating the reader over the head with it.

Third, great fanfic is often about taking familiar characters in completely new directions--which you have definitely done. I can’t say more without spoiling; maybe I’ll talk more about that in your review thread in the forum.

Fourth and finally, I’m really glad (having just finished reading chapter 10) that the story isn’t over yet!

I gushed in a previous review about Fistbump, and pretty much all the accolades there apply for Fistbump 2. However, where Fb1 is bittersweet, Fb2 is outright bitter, with precious little sweetness to spare. That's a bold choice to make because sweet is easy. Sweet is popular. A lot of people are going to be turned off by all the pathos and drama herein, and I wouldn't blame them for preferring the initial story over the sequel. However, I feel like the author has been up to the task of realizing their ambition. I applaud them for both the guts to attempt the hard road and the skill to pull it off.

Fb2 beats down its protagonists, figuratively and (especially startling) literally. And since the characters are so compelling, we the readers feel it too. Maybe I don't read enough sadfic, but whatever the reason, I wasn't expecting this level of harsh (though fully justified) reality and it hit me by surprise. Often that sort of impact is attempted clumsily, with implausible behavior or inexplicable bad luck. Fb2 sidesteps those pitfalls neatly. To extend the metaphor from my previous review, contrived or staged content would get the meal sent back entirely, and there's not an ounce of that here. Bravo, EoF.

This fic isn't over so it has yet to be seen if the author can stick the landing or not, but I'm optimistic. Regardless, this is a worthy successor to an excellent story and I very much look forward to its continuation and eventual resolution.

On an unrelated note, I first encountered Fb1 over in Archive Of Our Own and it was only by luck that I found Fb2 at all. Is there any reason why this story isn't posted over on AO3 alongside its prequel?