Mystery Twins

Mystery Twins is the family ship between Dipper Pines and Mabel Pines from the Gravity Falls fandom.

Season 1
In "Tourist Trapped", Dipper and Mabel arrive in Gravity Falls after their parents decide that they need some air, with Dipper being immediately suspicious of the town, finding a mysterious journal telling him to "Trust No One". Meanwhile, Mabel adjust very well, even getting a boyfriend who calls himself "Normal Man" or Norman, with Dipper trying to warn her about him being undead, only for her to blow it off. However, while Dipper was right that Mabel's boyfriend is a fraud, he later reveals himself to be five gnomes in a trenchcoat who want to make Mabel their queen. Dipper rushes to save her nonetheless and Mabel apologizes for not believing him, sharing an "awkard sibling hug" with him.

In "The Hand That Rocks The Mabel", Dipper is once again suspicious of local "psychic" Gideon trying to make moves onto his sister, with Gideon deliberately staging an act to make the press believe that Mabel is his girlfriend. Though Mabel enjoys the attention, Dipper manages to convince her that Gideon is crazy, so Mabel asks him to break up with Gideon for her. Though Gideon appears polite about it, he deludes himself into believing that Dipper is trying to sabotage his "relationship" with Mabel and uses a telekinetic amulet to try and kill Dipper. When Mabel confronts Gideon about it, she initially pretends to forgive him, only to punch him when he lets his guard down, mocking him for seriously believing that she will just forgive an attempted murder on her brother.

In "The Time Traveller's Pig", Dipper and Mabel are at the local fair, with Dipper trying to impress Wendy and prevent Robbie from dating her, while Mabel wins a pet pig, calling him "Waddles" and getting very attached to him in record speed. After they stumble across the time traveller Blendin and get their hands on his time machine, Dipper gets another chance at impressing Wendy and trying to make sure that he doesn't hit her in the eye again for Robbie to cool it, with Mabel winning Waddles over and over again. Unfortunately, Dipper realizes that he can only throw the ball accurately when Mabel positions herself to lift a pipe just right, leading to Mabel missing her chance to win Waddles this time and getting into a summer-long depression because of it. Dipper feels incredibly guilty and decides to sacrifice his shot with Wendy so that Mabel can be happy.

In "Little Dipper", Dipper gets self-esteem issues after Mabel points out that she's not only five minutes older, but also a single inch taller than him. Finding a crystal that can shrink and grow things depending on how light hits it, he makes himself taller to get even with her. Unfortunately, Mabel catches on to what he's doing and they fight over the crystal, only to run into Gideon planning his latest scheme. After figuring out how the crystal works, Gideon shrinks both of them and imprisons them in a glass, Dipper and Mabel have to team up to defeat him and get back to normal. After all is said and done, they both acknowledge how silly their fight was.

In "Summerween", Mabel plans for themed costumes for this year's "Summerween" festival, but Dipper overhears that Wendy is planning to go to Tambry's party and tries to sneak out to go there. When Mabel catches him, she's heartbroken, but they don't have much time to fight over it with the Summerween Trickster, who eats children, hot on their heels. After managing to defeat him with some help, Dipper hears that he hasn't missed anything at the party and admits that he enjoyed spending time with his sister instead.

In "The Deep End", Dipper and Mabel go to the local pool, with Dipper gaining a position as a lifeguard to get closer to Wendy, while Mabel crushes on the local "mysterious loner", who turns out to be a merman. In order to help her new crush Mermando, Mabel sneaks out in the evening to rescue Mermando putting him into a borrowed cooler and using the Shack's golf cart to transport it to Lake Gravity Falls. Dipper gives chase, thinking that she's trying to steal the cooler, but allows Mabel to take it after hearing her explanation. This cost him his job, meaning that Dipper has once again sacrificed something for Mabel's happiness.

Quotes
"Who would give up everything for their dumb sibling?!"

- Bill Cipher

Fanon
Mystery Twins is a popular, but not uncontroversial topic in the Gravity Falls community. In the first season, many fans complained how unreasonably selfish Mabel seemed when Dipper has to sacrifice his chances with Wendy time and time again just for Mabel to get what she wants. Others point out that Mabel, besides a few exceptions, had mostly altruistic reasons, such as saving Waddles from Pacifica and getting Mermando back home, the latter of which she hardly benefited from. Many were also satisfied with Season 2's "Sock Opera", which arguably had Mabel at her most selfish, finally showed her sacrificing something herself in order to save Dipper and the Journals. During the show's high points, it was incredibly common for fans to take sides on which one of the twins was "more evil", when they're were never written to have one-sided fights or be even antagonistic towards each other. In particular, one of Alex Hirsch's ground rules was "The Twins have to get along".

Romantically
During the time the show aired, a certain amount of people recontexualized the sibling bond between Dipper and Mabel to be romantic, despite a complete lack of ship tease and this being a children's show that aired on Disney XD. This particular variation was referred to as "Pinecest". However, the popularity of it died down after the show ended, with more platonic "Dipper & Mabel" content completely overshadowing it, indicating that the fandom does not support the ship and it was just a really loud minority.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

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