YOU ARE CANDY CHIU.
YOUR NAME IS CANDY CHIU, you look stunning in GREEN, and you TECHNICALLY aren’t lying when you call yourself a YOUNG CONCERT PIANIST.
It’s a matter of perspective! You’ve never made it big or made onto somebody’s album, but you are a PIANIST, and you have performed ON STAGE. Pretty often, now that you think about it.
Which you kind of hadn’t, before. But getting to know a trained socialite like PACIFICA NORTHWEST can teach a girl a thing or two about HONEST SELF-PROMOTION.
YOUR PARENTS, THE CHIUS, only really introduced you to piano to get you into the basics of music, and lately they’ve been trying to steer you to SLIGHTLY MORE PORTABLE instruments, like VIOLINS, or FLUTES.
Which you can play. You’re just BETTER at piano.
IT’S A WHOLE THING. The ongoing DEBATE with YOUR FAMILY about continuing piano to a more advanced level has been going on for a while. You have a sneaking suspicion that they’d probably take you more seriously if you didn’t have what they considered to be CHILDISH HOBBIES, like ARTS AND CRAFTS and SOCK PUPPETRY.
They think you’re CHILDISH, and thus by extension having a POSSIBLE LACK OF COMMITMENT. You’re just not mature enough to become a real pianist in their eyes. (Thanks for the vote of confidence, MOM.)
...You’re having some very NUANCED and BITTER thoughts about ambition for an ELEVEN YEAR OLD. You doing alright there, kid?
The thought crosses your mind briefly, and you decide yes, you are doing alright. (Though a GIRL’S NIGHT may be in order later this weekend.)
“Ugh.” DIPPER groans as he squints at his texts. “The Stans got lost.”
“Maybe we should have made sure they came back before taking our tour,” you idly note.
“It’s cool! It’s cool. They’ll find their own way eventually. We’ve got to look at the main haunting.”
You all arrive in the BRUNCH ROOM, where the morning’s MYSTERIOUS HAUNTING took place.
>EQUIP EMF DETECTOR.
Before you had all left for the NORTHWEST MANOR, DOCTOR PINES made sure that all of you were equipped with these funny little EMF DETECTORS. Supposedly, they’re useful for tracking ghostly activity. You’re not really an expert.
The stuff isn’t quite precise, which is why you all need one. DIPPER said something about how he can hook up to all of your detectors with his MASTER DETECTOR, and TRIANGULATE more accurate readings by looking at the DISCREPANCIES between all the devices.
Or something like that.
Basically, everyone else has the BABY TIER EQUIPMENT, while DIPPER has the BIG PAPA TIER EQUIPMENT that can look at the FUNNY NUMBERS.
You all SCATTER, LIKE BREADCRUMBS, across the room, wandering around the adjacent areas. You hear the steady readings of your device crackle and hiss and whine, but nothing really sticks out- at least, as far as you can tell.
You and THE HOMEGIRLS talk amongst yourselves for a bit as you wait for something relevant to come up.
For the next hour or so, nothing really does.
DIPPER hums contemplatively. So mysterious. DASHING, even.
(WOW, OKAY. TIME TO CHUCK THAT THOUGHT INTO A FAR OFF CORNER OF YOUR BRAIN. PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, GIRL.)
“No signs,” he concludes. “There’s traces, definitely- a haunting happened, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t look like there’s a lingering presence.”
“So- does that mean the ghost is just… gone?” PACIFICA hopefully asks.
DIPPER taps his crossed arms, a dumbfounded but thoughtful look on his face.
“Maybe. Not every haunting is dramatic. A lot of them just fizzle out or move on- that’s why genuine hauntings are as uncommon as they are in the first place. And if we haven’t found the guy in his most recent haunt for well over an hour… it might be just over.”
PACIFICA sags with relief. (Poor girl.)
“Thank fuck. I’m sorry for dragging you guys out here for nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” MABEL insists. “It was important to double-check.”
At that, PACIFICA smiles, like MABEL had said something she never dared to consider, far too relieved to have heard it.
She gets so confused by things like BASIC HUMAN KINDNESS. It would be tempting to laugh about it, but MABEL’S pretty sure that PACIFICA’S got a NOT IDEAL HOME LIFE, and the longer you’ve been around this girl, the more you’re inclined to agree.
You, and MABEL, and GRENDA simply resolve to GET THIS GIRL SOME SELF-LOVE. GIRL GANG SUPPORTS GIRLS.
“Still,” PACIFICA goes on anyway, “Thanks- thanks for coming. And the invitations still stand. Stick around- it really is a good party when you find the right people to hang out with.”
And things are okay.
And then they’re not. DIPPER’S PHONE rings.
“Woah, that’s Stan. Did they really get that lost?” DIPPER drily answers his phone. “You’re on speaker, old man.”
“Dipper!” It’s not STAN’S voice crackling so wildly on the other end- it’s DOCTOR PINES. “Dipper, did you pick up on that?”
“Pick up on-” DIPPER frowns. “Uncle Ford, what are you talking about?”
“We ran into the ghost.” The phone crackles on the other end. “Stan and I are fine, we’re making our way back, just- we were off about our first assessment. Way off. Dipper, we’re looking at a Category 10.”
DIPPER’S face freezes as the phone hangs up.
“We need to quarantine the estate,” DIPPER hurriedly whispers.
“What?” PACIFICA sputters indignantly. “We can’t just put off the party! My parents would kill me!”
“If it’s a Category 10,” DIPPER fires back, “it’s going to be strong enough to affect objects on a mass scale, people on a mass scale! We can’t-”
“Pacifica, darling,” an OLDER LADY’S SNOOTY VOICE rings out, “would you be a dear and go check on the help? We need to open the manor.”
PACIFICA pales.
“Oh god,” she whispers. “We’re about to have over a hundred walking talking pieces of ghost real estate crawling through the entire house.”
“And we can’t tell them anything,” DIPPER realizes with dawning horror. “Because if they know, the ghost will know. And if it knows we know, brunch is going to look like cheap change. It could bring the whole house down.”
“What are we gonna do?” MABEL fearfully asks.
“We do what we came for,” you say with steely determination. “We find our ghost. In the meantime, we play our parts. We party.”
THE TIME IS NOW 5:00 PRECISELY.
THE MANOR IS NOW OPEN.
THE NORTHWEST FEST BEGINS.
SAVING…
SAVING…
GAME SAVED.
-NEW OBJECTIVE-
FIND THE GHOST OF NORTHWEST MANOR.
INVESTIGATE FOR SIGNS OF HAUNTING.
~PROTECT THE GUESTS.
~FIND THE GHOST BEFORE IT FINDS YOU.
~TRUST NO ONE.
>SWITCH CHARACTER.
>SELECT HUNTER.
>[YOU ARE STANFORD PINES.]
>[YOU ARE DIPPER PINES.]