Integration AU

Integration AU is a sub-AU in which Dipper Pines's transformation into a demon is much slower.

What if Dipper doesn’t immediately become ghostly: He seems human and fine, then starts developing demon characteristics in the next few weeks and months, and visits the mindscape when he dreams. Initially, he doesn’t notice much of a difference except an affinity for dream-related spells and objects as opposed to his previous generalised magic ability. All his canon features manifest physically, similarly to how they do in the original TAU, but he’s corporeal and his body isn’t as malleable as it will be when he manifests it himself, so for example the buttwings grow out gently rather than *pop* - buttwings.

At one stage he starts sleeping longer for a couple of weeks, then after that barely sleeps at all. Towards the end of his transformations he becomes less corporeal, as his patch of mindscape goes from formless to proper scenery. Finally he pops into the mindscape properly (instead of being almost ghostly in the realworld) and gets his hat and suit.

The Mindscape

Bill’s patch of mindscape is reduced to formless aether at his defeat, Dipper inherits it and his power keeps it maintained but he only shapes it as he visits, so the landscape forms slowly. It doesn’t seem weird to just dream about drifting colours, which is all it looks like at the start.

The Flock

The Flock are still there, just as formless as everything else - little blobs of protoplasm that can brush against the dreaming Dipper to sort of interact with him, beginning as a simple sharing of emotion and growing more coherent as they gain forms, so by the time they’re fully shaped he’s well acquainted with the initial Flock members.

I think the overall effect here can go two ways - on the one hand Dipper gets more time as human, and he can start school with Mabel. There’s no massive argument between the parents and Grunkle Stan at the end of summer because Dipper doesn’t disappear - the kids might not even fall out with their parents, or at least not until much later. The kids probably end up back at GF because Ford could help find out what’s happening to Dipper, and to hide him from the rest of the world when the changes become too obvious. Luckily the Transcendence havoc hasn’t settled down enough for one transforming kid to make the news or Alcor would be in a real pickle later. Summonings don’t come hard and fast for a while because Dipper is anchored corporeally instead of yanked around by Bill’s circle for a fairly long time, so his circle is presumed deactivated and not used. Mabel isn’t talking to nothing and her classmates don’t think she’s nuts (at least not until Dipper finally disappears into the mindscape).

But Dipper is still turning into a demon. He’ll try and hide the changes as best he can in public, but eventually people notice as his ears get pointier, his eyes glow brighter and blue fire flickers in the corner of their eye when they look away. He begins to shy away from religious symbols, gets repelled by wards, and when the school starts teaching the kids defensive phrases… Dipper thought his big part in the Transcendence was over when he killed Bill, and now he’s changing and nobody knows what to - in the TAU Dipper knew he’d done something and become something, even if the changes were bad he was somewhat prepared and it was only Mabel to see and she wasn’t scared. In Integration it’s come a bit later, everything was settling down, and now this. Plus he’s corporeal - everyone sees the changes, and they have real effects on the world, like his new claws that rend holes in solid furniture, when he accidentally bites through cutlery, or the hiss of smoke when he touched a crucifix being passed round in PT-Survival. However he has his family to comfort and support him, and everyone around him can see, talk to and touch him.

In a couple of centuries it’s not really different from the original TAU, but in the beginning? I’m really interested to see what people come up with.