kinda doubt i’ll ever do anything with this but i have a tentative idea for a gravity falls cis swap with the twins.
dipper is still called dipper most of the time, and mabel has a charming little old man’s name. i’m going with merlin as the placeholder. the big differences here would be
1. merlin still makes sweaters and dresses basically the same, but he incorporates a lot of space imagery into his crafts because people were mean to dipper about her birthmark when they were kids and he was like NUH UH SPACE IS GREAT! MY SISTER IS WAAAAYYY COOLER THAN YOU!
2. merlin is visibly very very gay. like he’s basically just... always known. his parents are supportive enough that when he was a kid and kept showing interest in so much “girl stuff” if he was an egg they would have let him socially transition. but merlin’s really just really visibly, flamboyantly gay. boy bands. glitter. he’s a lot more careful with his flirting and crush of the weeks than in original canon because. you know, not always safe to be as upfront about that for a gay boy as a “straight” girl, but the gnomes, mermando and gabe all still happen.
2. the teasing about dipper not actually being “manly” enough slips into much different places. merlin laments a lot of the time that his sister doesn’t want to do girly things with him, he’ll gently poke her about how tomboy is another word for “baby butch”, and a lot of “ugh, you’re hopeless. you could at LEAST let me do some makeup for you”
3. One of the first things that happens when they get to gravity falls is merlin saying “HI! I’M YOUR GAY NEPHEW!” and then grunkle stan says, “uh, i’m your gay uncle?”
“Wait, really?” merlin asks.
Dipper crosses her arms over her chest. “I thought dad said you were married to a woman once.”
Stan rolls his eyes. “Fine, I’m bisexual. That clear enough for ya?”
“CRYSTAL QUEER!” Merlin crows. Dipper groans.
4. Okay so. There is no copyright restriction in my fanfiction ideas (plus i think that disney would actually LOVE the synergy of this) so dipper is very into percy jackson and she projected HARDCORE onto annabeth. She’s like look! there she is! A smart tough tomboy!!!! And she has a lil crush on percy so she’s like smushing her dolls together in her head. But a lot more subtly because she’s dipper and she’s embarrassed about everything.
5. Merlin loves Sevral Timez. Dipper HATES them. While dipper does sometimes like guys, she is insistent that boy bands are a cash grab, manipulative, a way for companies to bleed girls dry while making fun of them, and pathetic. Merlin tells her to lighten up and goes to the concert with candy and grenda. Dipper reads her little mystery novels in their room.
6. Dipper IS bi. She DOES like girls, but she’s been in denial about that already for years. She had a boyfriend in fifth grade. They hung out on the playground and held hands and junk. Merlin is still convinced that she’s bisexual and brings it up CONSTANTLY, but stopped and now only brings it up when it’s the two of them because he knows it upsets her. (he thinks that she’ll be much happier once she just accepts who she is though!)
7. Merlin tried his best to ignore his own bullying, stay away from the guys it wasn’t safe to be around, and stick to hanging out with either the girls who were legitimately fine with him or wanted to pretend to have a gay best friend. He was caught up enough in avoiding HIS bullying that he didn’t notice DIPPER’S bullying. Dipper is a bit of a “not like other girls” type in this scenario, but that’s mainly the result of most other girls being mean to her. While SHE hasn’t accepted that she likes girls, the mean girls in class have decided that it’s gospel truth. There’s a lot about her “finally coming out” and her “finally matching” her brother. I would go into further detail but I think “the bullying was homophobic, partially due to her gender presentation and partially due to her brother, and a lot of it is centered around their first year of middle school gym and changing in company”. Dipper and Merlin both change inside a stall to prevent harassment. Not yay.
8. Dipper’s crush on Wendy is not any smaller than in canon, but she frames it to herself as just wanting Wendy to stay single because boys suck. Merlin is very pushy about it being a crush crush and. Well. Robbie is an insecure little shit and he’s not super emotionally intelligent, but he knows that Wendy is bi and a little girl isn’t any less threatening to him than a little boy. When Robbie spills the beans about Wendy liking girls too (which is a lot of reason that he’s still threatened by dipper and still so confrontational right back at dipper who thinks that she’s just Protecting Her Friend From Shitty Boys), Dipper goes through about six and a half crises as she realizes that it would actually be. Possible. For wendy to want to date her.
9. Once she’s done freaking out about that and has to talk to wendy about it (because merlin forces her into the same situation as in canon) Wendy assures her that it’s perfectly okay that dipper has a crush on her, she knew, but that it’s just not going to happen. She DOES take one of the queer pins off of her shirt and give it to dipper as a keepsake, though.
10. when stan finds her in the pin he’s THRILLED
“You bi too, kid?” stan asks. Dipper nods. Stan claps her on the shoulder. “Welcome to the family.”
Dipper frowns. “Aren’t I already family?”
“The other type of family,” stan says, winking. And that’s when it sinks in that it’s a euphemism for queer. <3
11. things are probably still going to suck when they go back to piedmont, but... both the twins are a lot more confident in themselves after this summer. after saving the world, how could they NOT be?
