Comic Book / Gravity Falls: Lost Legends

Gravity Falls: Lost Legends is a graphic novel set within the universe of Gravity Falls. Written by series creator Alex Hirsch, it consists of three stories that take place during the final season, as well as a fourth taking place during Grunkle Stan's childhood. The comic was released on July 24, 2018.

Bewarb, there may be unmarked spoilers ahead.
Proceed with caution.

In the gnome village deep in the woods of Gravity Falls, tonight is the one night in every thousand years that Shmebulock, cursed to normally be unable to say anything but his name, can speak freely. And speak he does, as he regales his guests (the readers) with four stories about the Pines Family and their friends:

• Face It: Pacifica, feeling insecure about an upcoming family photo shoot for Better Families Than Yours Magazine, steals Journal 1 in order to look up some magical beauty treatments. Instead, she summons a face-stealing monster that nabs Mabel's face, forcing Dipper and Pacifica to team up and retrieve it from Gravity Falls' supernatural underground.
• Comix Up: After confiscating Soos's comic book collection, Stan is trapped in the world of comic books, forcing the rest of the Pines family to go after him.
• Don't Dimension It: While helping Ford patch up dimensional rifts after the events of the series finale, Mabel is accidentally pulled into another dimension. There, she encounters hundreds of alternate Mabels from across the Multiverse... including one with an ulterior motive.
• The Jersey Devil's in the Details: Back in the days of Stanley and Stanford's youth, the young "Kings of New Jersey" must track down the thief who stole their father's favorite gold necklace, butting heads along the way with a pair of rival investigators, circus freaks, their own sibling rivalry, and the Jersey Devil.

---

Gravity Falls: Lost Legends provides examples of:

General

• And the Adventure Continues: There is a Journal 4 underneath the shelf that has Dipper's original hat, implying that Ford has written about his adventures with Stan after the end of Gravity Falls.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Shmebulock is talking directly to the reader throughout the graphic novel.
• Continuity Nod: Dipper's original hat that he lost in "Tourist Trapped" is on one of Shmebulock's bookshelves.
• A Day in the Limelight: Serves as this for Schmebulock.
• Framing Device: The four stories are presented by Schmebulock telling them to the viewer.
• Goshdang It To Heck: Averted, as the comic clearly has looser language restrictions than the show. For instance, Dipper plainly says "Oh, thank God." and an attraction at a New Jersey amusement park is called "Satan's Hellhole".
  Young Stan: Hey, look, hell! We'll be safe in there!
• His Name Is...: Shmebulock's curse returns as he's in the middle of explaining the secret contained in the book.
• Interquel:
  • The first two chapters take place after the episode, A Tale of Two Stans, but before Weirdmageddon.
  • Don't Dimension It is set after the final battle with Bill Cipher, but before Dipper and Mabel's birthday.
  • The Jersey Devil's In The Details is set after Stan and Ford find their boat but before they enter high school.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The cover gives away the existence of Ford Pines, arguably the biggest Walking Spoiler on the show.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Part of Shmebulock's String Theory board is the word "Shermie?" (Dipper and Mabel's grandfather on Stan's side of the family), above a cryptogram which decodes to "Age paradox? Time travel connection?" and a picture of Blendin. All of which lampshade the improbable timeline of Shermie apparently appearing as a baby in "A Tale of Two Stans" only about forty years ago.
• Literal Metaphor: Shmebulock displays a table with books of each story, along with summaries and citing it as a "table of contents".
• Sequel Hook:
  • One of the cryptograms on a hidden page, once decoded, spells out "CIPHER LIVES!".
  • Another mentions Agents Power and Trigger are looking for the President's Key. However, it doesn't seem likely this will lead them anywhere.
• Shipper on Deck: Both Schmebulock and Mabel are very supportive of the idea of some Dipper/Pacifica romance.
• Smarter Than You Look: Shmebulock proves himself quite intelligent, and his Pokémon Speak is actually a Curse of Babel.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • Shmebulock's obsession with the Pines family and their friends is a playful rib at the devoted fans of Gravity Falls.
  • At the end, Shmebulock begins asking for more Gravity Falls adventures. He even asks for a new season.
• Wham Line: One of the cryptograms on a hidden page, once decoded, spells out "CIPHER LIVES!"

"Face It"

• Actor Allusion: Pacifica, while in the Crawlspace, uses the alias "Jackie the Elf-Bandit". Her voice actor in the series was Jackie Buscarino.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Invoked by Pacifica's mother. She retells the story of The Ugly Duckling and ends it by saying that the duckling was forever alone due to his looks. Telling Pacifica that people only want perfection and beauty. When Pacifica notices the remaining pages, Priscilla promptly tears them out.
• Ascended Meme:
  • A page on Journal 1 is titled "Paranormal Rashes", and depicts a rash that looks like Bill and is called "Zodiacne". It's a play on how some of the fans have asked if Dipper would get a tattoo or have depicted an older Dipper with the Zodiac on his arm as a consequence of making a deal with Bill Cipher.
  • Pacifica lampshades the "hunkle" term when she comments about Ford.
    Pacifica: Hey, why is Stan suddenly hot now?
  • Slender Man's cameo in the comic might also be this to the long-standing Urban Legend claiming that he appeared in the show proper.
• Auction of Evil: As soon as Dipper and Pacifica are revealed to be humans, a monster starts auctioning them off. Mr. What's-His-Face ends up winning.
• Big Bad: Mr. What's-His-Face, a face-stealing demon that Pacifica accidentally summons and who promptly takes Mabel's face.
• Bland-Name Product: Pacifica's phone has service from "GraviT&T". Might be justified, it's highly unlikely that the actual AT&T (or its predecessor the Bell System) would have wanted to establish communications services in the area, so someone (possibly the Northwests?) did it themselves.
• The Blank: Mabel, and later Dipper, are left with blank slates on the heads thanks to Mr. What's-His-Face stealing both of their faces.
• Call-Forward:
  • In the flashback, young Pacifica sleeps with a plush llama toy, in reference to her role on the Cipher Zodiac as "the llama".
  • In one panel, Mabel shows up to give Pacifica a sweater to cheer her up. In Weirdmageddon Part 3, Pacifica was given a llama sweater.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Dipper insists that he's never kissed anyone before. Apparently, he doesn't count his Kiss of Life to Mermando in "The Deep End".
  • Dipper finally uses the President's Key he received from Quentin Trembley in "Irrational Treasure" to unlock a mysterious door.
  • A crow has Gideon's taped up amulet from "The Hand That Rocks the Mabel" in its beak.
  • The candy monster from the "Candy Monster" short is chomping on a banner.
  • A pirate Lilliputtian from "The Golf War" is running off with a question quail egg.
  • The Hand Witch from "Little Gift Shop of Horrors" is trying to sell severed hands in the paranormal black market.
  • A stray Blind Eye Society member is selling repressed memories of Tad Strange, Tambry, Wendy's mom, Soos's Abuelita, Gideon, and Rick Sanchez. Also, one of Mr. What's-His-Face's faces on his bag is Blind Ivan.
  • A geodite, question quail and its egg, and a plaidypus are wandering in the paranormal black market—-all of these are creatures that Ford has written about in Journal 3.
  • The gnome that was dealing out fairy dust in "The Last Mabelcorn" is seen dealing some to a unicorn.
  • Pacifica mentions that Dipper has an "abnormally large head". Although Dipper strongly interjects the comment, he himself had admitted that he has a big head when he saw his first clone.
  • The Summerween Trickster's mask is one of the faces in Mr. What's-His-Face's bag.
  • Stan at one point asks Mabel if he’s seen his World’s Most Distracting Object from "Tourist Trapped".
• Creator Cameo: Alex Hirsch's face is one of the many adorning Mr. What's-His-Face's wall.
• Damned by Faint Praise: After Dipper assures Pacifica she's not just a pretty face, she hugs him and takes back (or at least tempers) an insult about his head being big. Dipper reluctantly accepts the "compliment".
• Exact Words: Mr. What's-His-Face offers to give Pacifica a face that's "completely blemish free... forever" — by which he means he'll remove her face entirely, leaving blank skin behind.
• Expressive Shirt: The smiley face on Mabel's sweater inexplicably changes its expression in various panels.
• Face Stealer: Mr. What's-His-Face steals faces and can transform his face into others.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Pacifica's insecurity over her appearance stems from her parents' usual A-plus parenting, with her mother essentially telling her to her face that people will only love her if she looks good.
• He Is Not My Boyfriend: After the story's plot is concluded, Pacifica sent a text message telling Dipper that the hug she gave him didn't mean anything. Unfortunately for her, she actually sent the text to Mabel, and unconvincingly claims the text is just a joke.
• Identical Twin Mistake: When Pacifica first saw Ford, she assumed he was Stanley, though she notices that he looks very different (and "hot"). The comic ends before we see if anyone explained the truth to her.
• Interquel: The first three stories are set between Ford's reappearance and the series finale.
• Inventional Wisdom: The phrase to summon Mr. What's-His-Face is literally written into the description about him in the journal.
  "To summon him, simply finish reading this sentence - yes, this sentence, the one you're reading riiiiight now."
• Literal Metaphor: Pacifica refers to her mom as a "trophy wife", and then states her dad quite literally won her at a yachting competition.
• Makeup Is Evil: When he tempts Pacifica into letting him keep the Pines Twins' faces, Mr. What's-His-Face shows her a vision of the "beautiful" face he could give her. This vision has a lot more make-up than Pacifica usually wears.
• Mythology Gag: The Paranormal Rashes page is also a reference to Alex Hirsch's high school friend that had inspired Dipper's birthmark, whom once had a cluster of acne in the shape of the Big Dipper constellation.
• Precocious Crush: Downplayed, when Pacifica first sees Ford, she mistakes him for Stan and asks why he's suddenly "hot".
• Production Foreshadowing: Three easter eggs from the then-upcoming Disney series The Owl House are featured: Eda appears on a wanted poster; her staff is shown in a cart of junk; and two mostly-obscured Journal 1 entries are on the Boiling Isles, which is where that show is set.
• Serious Business: For Pacifica, having one wrinkle. At first Played for Laughs, given how much she's overreacting because of it. Then Played for Drama when it's revealed that her obsession is caused by her Abusive Parents.
• "Shaggy Frog" Story: Pacifica's parents are obsessed with beauty and perfection. As a child, Pacifica was told the story of The Ugly Duckling by her mother but instead of the duckling turning into a beautiful swan, the duckling stayed ugly and alone. Pacifica did comment on the story change but Priscilla ripped out the remaining pages.
  Priscilla: [reading young Pacifica a bedtime story] And the ugly duckling never made any friends, because his face was weird. The end.
  Pacifica: Wait, aren't there more pages?
  Priscilla: [smiles and rips out the rest of the pages] Nope! Enjoy your beauty sleep— you've got a pageant tomorrow!
• Shipper on Deck: When Pacifica accidentally texts Mabel about hugging Dipper and typing "As if I'd actually hug you on purpose!", Mabel immediately assumes that Pacifica has a crush on him and asks about the wedding. Much to Pacifica's chagrin as she threatens to have her butler break Mabel's legs. Shmebulock's ending summary seems to give the impression that he considers their adventure a date and mockingly describes the text conversation as "sketchy".
• Ship Tease: Dipper and Pacifica bond some more, and even end up hugging.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the pages on Journal 1 is titled, "Defense of the Dark Warts", and has "Expecto Psoriasis!" as an endnote. Both are word puns referencing Harry Potter.
  • There is a wanted poster with a silhouette of Larry King in the paranormal black market.
  • The Blind Eye Society member at the black market seems to have repressed memories of Rick Sanchez. Note that one episode of said show had vials that were similarly implied to be from Ford and Bill.
  • Bigfoot is trudging on the black market's bridge with a cart of legs. One of the legs is Woody's.
  • A sign post points to several parts of the market, including places called The Black Lodge and The Non-Exist-Tent.
  • Mr. What's-His-Face briefly carries around a big bag with faces on it, and also has a face in his collection that is eerily reminiscent of the Happy Mask Salesman.
  • Slender Man has a panel where he is hastily rummaging for his wallet to bid for Dipper and Pacifica.
  • One of the faces in Mr. What's-His-Face's collection is The Scream, by Edvard Munch.
• Spoof Aesop: Shmebulock surmises that while Pacifica learned True Beauty Is on the Inside, Dipper's lesson was that the best place for romance is inside a burlap sack.
• There Was a Door: At the start of "Face It", Ford breaks an attic window by somersaulting through it instead of leaving through a door, much to Stan's annoyance.
  Stan: [shakes his fist at Ford] Use the door next time, show-off!
• Trophy Wife: Pacifica tells Dipper that her mom is literally a trophy wife, stating that her dad won Priscilla in a yachting competition.
• Tsundere: Pacifica gives Dipper a hug, then later tries to claim she was using him to wipe the monster drool off her sleeve.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Pacifica is obsessive over her looks because she worries she doesn't have anything else and because her parents made it pretty clear that people would only love her if she looked pretty, but Dipper says otherwise. She clearly appreciates this and hugs him.

"Comix Up"

• Animesque: One of the comic-book worlds is based on shoujo manga.
• Arc Number: The Indestructi-Buddies! is "Issue #618: Overextended Universe".
• Art Shift: The crew traverses through the pages and transits into various styles: classic comics, manga, superhero, adult/sci-fi, a Peanuts spoof, and the original Gravity Falls art style when they are outside of the panels and during a flashback.
• Big Anime Eyes: Everyone has this when they travel through the manga pages... and Stan is almost stuck with them at the end of the story.
  Soos: KYAA!! My eyes are gratuitously large!
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: The Disney logo is mocked:
  Soos: Oh, man. This is confusing. A "D" that looks like a "G"? Where am I?
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Soos ends up falling in between the margins and crawling over a wall to find Stan, Wendy uses her ax to rip into the page, and Mabel uses white-out to get rid of the yellow box.
  • Earlier, when in the Superhero comic and faced with superpowered opponents, Soos quickly grabs the recap box on top of the page, and alters the text to give himself and the others superpowers.
• Chekhov's Gun: The bottle of white-out Mabel carried on hand.
• Closet Geek: Stanley was a big fan of comics growing up, but grew embittered with the hobby after trying and failing to publish his own comic as a kid.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The cursed trunk's reaction to Stanley considering it pretentious to call comic books "graphic novels".
  Trunk: Just for that, this world will be your tomb!
• Insistent Terminology: Ford's cursed trunk insists on calling comic books "graphic novels".
• Interquel: Set an unspecified time between Ford's reappearance and the series finale.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: A sarcastically inclined canine that has absolutely no relation to another sarcastically inclined feline makes an appearance.
  Stanley: I'm gonna poison your lasagna, Sarcastipup!
• Make My Monster Grow: Soos' superpower in the superhero comic is being able to grow gigantic whenever he says "Dude". Pretty effective considering it's his Verbal Tic.
• Medium Awareness: Stan gets cursed with a malevolent yellow box narrator that everyone can see and interact with.
  Yellow Box: LATER, DOWN IN THE LAB...
  Stan: [points at the yellow box] This dumb box won't stop narrating me! And it keeps using obnoxious words like "ZOUNDS" and "MEANWHILE"!
• My Brain Is Big: Dipper, upon getting Psychic Powers in the superhero comic, grows a massive cranium.
• Mythology Gag: One of Stan's favorite comics is Captain Nazi-Puncher. Alex Hirsch had once tweeted that he'd be very cool with drawings of Grunkle Stan punching Nazis.
• Noodle Incident: Back in 1973, Stan apparently got into a fistfight with another famous old guy named Stan.
• Pose of Supplication: During the shoujo sequence, Mabel runs into a bishonen version of Gideon, who goes into the pose when Mabel shoots him down.
• Shout-Out: The story is basically a smorgasbord of references to various comics and comic-esq mediums.
  • Wendy can be seen reading a "Blarchie" comic.
  • The first comic they enter is in the Harvey Comics style.
  • The second comic they enter is "Shmad Shmagazine", a blatant nod to MAD. The shady purple "creature" with a big, pointed nose and trenchcoat that first appears there is reminiscent of the title characters in Spy vs. Spy, one of MAD Magazine's most well known strips.
  • The third comic they enter is "Heart Captor Dokidoki Nekochan", a blatant nod to shoujo manga, and references are made to both Cardcaptor Sakura and Sailor Moon.
  • The fourth comic they enter is "The Grimdark Chronicles", very obviously done in the style of Mike Mignola's Hellboy, with Dipper even being seen with a giant fist almost identical to Hellboy's.
  • The fifth comic they enter is "The Indestructi-Buddies!", a nod to the Super Friends. Several of the powers the gang gets are likewise nods to other superhero comic characters.
    • Dipper's enlarged brain as "Overthinker" is reminscent of the Marvel villain The Leader.
    • Ford wears Cyclops visor as "Six-Shooter", and his use of twin BFGs brings to mind Cyclops's son Cable.
    • Wendy becomes the Badass Normal "Plaid Widow", a rather blatant nod to Marvel's Black Widow.
  • The Lil' Stanley pages are a spoof of the Peanuts. A certain Sarcasti-pup that appears in it is clearly not a reference to a sassy feline.
  • When admitting to Soos that he loves comics, Stan references reading "Captain Nazi-Puncher", "Skimparella", and "The X-cessive Force", all references to Marvel related properties: Captain America, Stripperella, and X-Force.
• Symbol Swearing: Grawlixes appear in a few scenes.
• Trapped in TV Land: A comic in this case.
• Wham Line: If you decipher the ciphers, the graveyard scene will give you this utterly terrifying message.
  Gravestones: BILL LIVES
• What Beautiful Eyes!: While in the manga universe, Mabel is transfixed by a pair of beautiful eyes... until she realises that they belong to Gideon. She looks away, only to find everything in this universe has similarly alluring eyes.
• The Worf Effect: Downplayed and parodied when Dipper and the gang face the "Indestructi-buddies", managing to overpower them largely due to Soos forming a Deus ex Machina messing with the caption box to write a line where they immediately gain powers. It's not like they didn't have the exact same armor class of the buddies, though, so managing to pull a Curb-Stomp Battle on them is still pretty impressive.

"Don't Dimension It"

• Actually Pretty Funny: Mabel for her part doesn't mind that Dipper labeled one of the rifts "Mabel's Fault" and seems to find it amusing.
• An Aesop: Mabel gets a hard lesson that if she keeps denying her faults cause problems, then she's going to never grow up or change. There will always be a part of her that wants to be selfish and she has to defeat it by confronting it first hand rather than finding excuses for her behavior.
• Aesop Amnesia: Deconstructed. Mabel, it seems, didn't learn everything from saving the world when she insists on bringing Waddles along for the rift clean-up missions. Chasing Waddles leads to her getting stranded on a barren planet in the Multiverse, where thousands of her alternate counterparts are there, having made a similar decision. Mabel tries to get her smarter selves to work together, only to get frustrated by their Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny! and It's All About Me attitudes. She's quite horrified to realize that she comes off this way to other people, especially when her Evil Counterpart Anti-Mabel deceives her. Anti-Mabel, before she's tossed into Multiverse space, claims that our Mabel will never change and there will always be a part of her wanting to make selfish, inconsiderate decisions. Mabel acknowledges that she caused the apocalypse out of selfishness and decides to try harder to be a better person so that her faults will not get her in this much trouble again.
• Alternate Self: Mabel meets dozens, possibly hundreds, of alternate versions of herself that all ended up stuck in a corner of the Nightmare Realm.
• And This Is for...: As Mabel launches Anti-Mabel out of the space ship, Mabel says this in honor of one of her alternate counterparts.
  Mabel: This is for Military Expert-Mabel!
• Anthropomorphic Typography: One of the many alternate versions of herself Mabel meets (and who helps defeat Anti-Mabel) is Threebel, a light pink, sweater-wearing talking number 3.
• Apology Gift: The new journal that Dipper showed off in Journal 3, turned out to be a gift from Mabel, as an apology for all of the trouble she caused over the summer.
• Arc Number: 6-18 is tattooed on Military Expert Mabel's arm.
• At Least I Admit It: Anti-Mabel admits that she's evil after locking up Prime Mabel in the outhouse. But she says that Prime Mabel is even worse because Prime Mabel can't even see her own faults and a part of her will always want to make selfish decisions while justifying them. Our Mabel decides to take that to heart and learn from her past mistakes.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Anti-Mabel. When she first appears, she pretends to be Mabel's friend in need and helped her make a distress signal to Stan and Ford. But Anti-Mabel shows her true colors when she locks the real Mabel in an outhouse, then tricks Stan and Ford into taking her to their dimension. Which then, Anti-Mabel plans to eject the Grunkles from the airlock, then proceed to wreak havoc in Mabel's home dimension.
• Bob Ross Rib: One of the many incarnations of Mabel in Dimension MAB-3L is one that resembles Bob Ross, donning his clothes, hair, mustache and prioritizes painting a landscape over trying to stop Anti-Mabel from stealing Prime Mabel's ship and escaping.
• Brick Joke: A subtle one; as Mabel flees the "60-foot ball of fingers and teeth" in a panic, she screams "Flail, Mabel! Flail!" Later on, when she and a motley crew of Mabels catch up with the ship containing the Grunkles and Anti-Mabel, Mabel is riding on Mabel-dactyl holding...a Mabel flail.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Ford asks Stan "what's Dipper's real name?", lampshading that he knows Dipper's real name.
  • The finger monster that attacks Mabel in the Nightmare Realm resembles the description of the "60-foot ball of fingers and teeth" that Bill sicced on Ford when he first arrived there in Gravity Falls: Journal 3.
  • Mabel and Anti-Mabel point back and forth at their foreheads, just like Dipper has done with Tyrone in "Double Dipper".
  • The alien trucker initially refused to let Stan and Ford hitch a ride because one of them is a known criminal with wanted posters scattered all over the dimensions. The trucker even mentions Lottocron 9. Stan's reaction and Ford's explanation behind this echoes what Ford wrote in Journal 3.
  • Stan and Ford shout, "PINES! PINES! PINES!" just like they have during a childhood flashback in "A Tale of Two Stans".
  • Dipper receives a pine tree journal from Mabel as a souvenir from her meeting with the other lost Mabels. He has drawn such a journal on his last entry in the defictionalized Journal 3.
• Demoted to Extra: Unlike the previous two entries, Dipper mainly has a minor role. Only appearing in the beginning and ending of the story.
• Disney Death: After Military Expert-Mabel seemingly died from her wounds at the climax, Anti-Mabel blasted everyone with the alien adhesive. Some of the adhesive landed on Military Expert-Mabel's wounds. Which ultimately revived her.
• Elemental Embodiment: Flamabel's body is entirely made of fire, and she can shoot flames from her hands.
• Everyone Has Standards: The alternate Mabels are stunned into listening to Prime Mabel when she admits that she caused the apocalypse to have one more day of summer.
• Evil Counterpart: Naturally, Anti-Mabel is this to Mabel.
• Evil Gloating: Anti-Mabel does this after she tricks and locks Mabel in an outhouse, as well as at Stan and Ford when she incapacitates them with Ford's alien adhesive.
• Evil Twin: Mabel meets Anti-Mabel, "the most evil Mabel in the multiverse", who tries to leave Dimension MAB-3L, take over Mabel's life, and intends to wreak havoc on her dimension.
• The Exile: Anti-Mabel was run out of her own dimension for her wicked deeds.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Anti-Mabel is as cute as Mabel, but she's evil to the core.
• For Want Of A Nail: It seems that none of the other Mabels, except maybe Anti-Mabel, caused an apocalypse in their home dimensions. When Prime Mabel confesses what she did, the others are so stunned that they actually listen to her.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Implied with Bill and his Henchmaniacs. While Mabel falls through dimensions, we see Keyhole and 8 Ball (whose head was healed after being petrified by Wendy in the finale) standing next to a statue of Bill that says "HE WAS THE WORST!". It's unknown if these two are the only who loathe him or if it's a common feeling for all the Henchmaniacs. It might even be a case of Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad, and they're genuinely mourning him in their own way, for all we know.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Anti-Mabel's hair is distinctly pointed, whereas Mabel and all the other alternate Mabels have curly, rounded hairstyles.
• Innocently Insensitive: Mabel tries to tell a lightbulb joke but is interrupted because one of the other Mabels is a lightbulb.
• Interquel: Set during the finale, between Stan recovering his memory and three days before Dipper and Mabel's birthday.
• Irony:
  • Stan apparently doesn't know Dipper's real name. However, since he was present for Dipper and Mabel's birth, he has to know Dipper's real name. It's possible that he forgot or was just being sarcastic.
  • Stan and Ford go to the multiverse to rescue Mabel and she ends up rescuing them from Anti-Mabel.
• Jerkass Realization: Mabel FINALLY sees exactly how frustrating her self-centeredness, Cloud Cuckoo Lander tendencies, and short attention span can be when struggling to rally her alternate selves.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Even though she was brainwashed by Bill Cipher, it was still insensitive of Mabel to create a more radical copy of her brother Dipper, which greatly annoyed him. Here, Mabel has to deal with numerous alternate versions of herself, which got her so annoyed that she discovered how difficult she could be at times.
  • After Anti-Mabel tried to replace the real Mabel, and attempted to throw Stan and Ford out of the space ship, Anti-Mabel herself was quickly defeated and the real Mabel threw her out of the ship to parts unknown.
• Lightbulb Joke: Mabel asks how many Mabels does it take to change a lightbulb but she's told it's offensive to Lightbulb Mabel.
• Medium-Shift Gag: The last dimension Mabel falls through before landing in Dimension MAB-3L shows a live-action photo of a cat.
• Mythology Gag:
  • There's a crack in the earth leftover from Weirdmageddon which Dipper has named "Mabel's Fault". A deleted scene from "Scary-oke" has a shot with Stan next to a similar crack called "Gideon's Fault" after the Gideon-bot attack in "Gideon Rises".
  • Stanbel was originally a doodle Alex Hirsch had uploaded on his Twitter to "give you nightmares"... Stanbel makes an appearance on Dimension MAB-3L with every Mabel staring on with discomfort.
    Stanbel: HEYYY! Stanbel is single and ready to mingle!
  • According to the artist, one of the alternate Mabels is based on a fan AU called "Drifting Stars", where Mabel goes through the Portal and meets Ford.
• Never My Fault: Downplayed with Dipper at the beginning of the story, where it was shown that he placed a sign next to a huge crack called "Mabel's Fault". Signifying that Mabel alone caused Weirdmageddon to happen. Even though Dipper withheld information about the dimensional rift, albeit reluctantly on Ford's orders after Ford saw Mabel smashing similar-looking snowglobes on purpose.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Anti-Mabel tells Mabel that every time she makes a selfish decision, it's because she's being like her.
• Only Sane Woman: Ironically, Mabel herself. As she is the only one in Dimension MAB-3L who's focused on finding a way back home while her alternate counterparts are too immersed with their various quirks (likely due to her previous Character Development during Weirdmageddon).
• Other Me Annoys Me: Mabel is quickly frustrated with how none of the other Mabels seem to be all that concerned with getting back to their home dimensions. However, Mabel began to warm up to them towards the end of the story.
• Riddle for the Ages: Just how did all of the alternate universe Mabels end up in Dimension MAB-3L in the first place?
• Shadow Archetype: Anti-Mabel herself says that every selfish choice Mabel makes, that’s her being Anti-Mabel.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the dimensions Mabel phases through is the Mystery Shack Zone.
  • The alternate Mabels from "Don't Dimension It" include ones who resemble characters such as Morty Smith, Marty McFly, Sherlock Holmes, Rainbow Brite, Wally/Waldo, Alphys, Pac-Man, and Bob Ross.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: After being defeated, Anti-Mabel says to Prime-Mabel that there will still be a part of her that will be stubborn and self-centered. But Prime-Mabel just responds with ejecting Anti-Mabel out of the Spaceship, and declaring, "This is for Military Expert-Mabel".
• Skewed Priorities: The main reason why Mabel's alternate counterparts couldn't figure out a way back home is that they are too preoccupied with their own personal quirks. The only one who can build a rocket is distracted by her sticker collection. It takes Mabel revealing her apocalypse mistake for her counterparts to pull themselves together.
• Small Name, Big Ego: When asked what kind of Mabel she is, Mabel responds that she's "the best Mabel, obviously!" This gets her labelled as "Slightly Arrogant Mabel" (to her chagrin).
• Spanner in the Works: Had Waddles not jumped out of Mabel's backpack, Mabel would never have realized how bothersome she could be at times, and her alternate universe counterparts would have been stuck in Dimension MAB-3L.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: In the Nightmare Realm, a memorial statue of Bill Cipher is captioned "He was the WORST". Given the realm inhabitants, it's unclear if this is a condemnation for being a Bad Boss, or an exaltation.
• Spot the Imposter: Stan and Ford are at a loss at which Mabel is the real Mabel, with Ford calling both of them "equally adorable" and musing why this "always happens" with doubles. It's only when Mabel pulls off Anti-Mabel's sweater, revealing an "I hate cats" shirt, that they know for sure and eject Anti-Mabel out of the vehicle.
• Symbol Swearing: The alien trucker spouts grawlixes after getting knocked out of the vehicle.
• Take That, Audience!: Mabel's harsh criticism of her alternate universe counterparts is a clever jab at the fans who've criticized Mabel for her obnoxious behavior.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: Anti-Mabel attempted to do this with Stan and Ford, but was thrown out herself by the real Mabel.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After realizing how bothersome she could be, Mabel vowed that she will be a better person when she returns home. As such, Mabel's first random act of kindness was giving Dipper a new journal. Which Mabel states will have all of their new adventures in it. And Mabel vowing that she won't hog the spotlight.
• Unexplained Recovery: The last time we saw 8-Ball (one of Bill's Henchmaniacs), his head was petrified by Wendy during the Shacktron battle in the finale. Here his head is recovered without explanation.
• Villain Has a Point: Anti-Mabel tells Mabel, there will always be a part of her that wants to make selfish, inconsiderate decisions. While Mabel responds by sending her out of the airlock, she promises Dipper that she will do her best to be less selfish.
• Wham Line: "Oh, Mabel, you gotta work on yo'self."
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The alien truck driver who picked up Stan and Ford is last seen getting knocked out of his vehicle during the fight between Mabel and Anti-Mabel. We don't know what happens to him afterward or if someone thought to pick him up, as the Mabels take his ship to return to their dimensions.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Mabel encounters thousands of parallel selves on a lonely planet, some of whom exaggerate her worst characteristics, and one who is pure evil. Are we talking about Gravity Falls or an episode of Rick and Morty, specifically "Close Encounters of the Rick Kind"?

"The Jersey Devil's in the Details"

• The '60s: Takes place at some point in the decade, presumably in the early years.
• Always Identical Twins: Alongside Stan and Ford, we have Dickie and Ascot, who are even more identical than the Pines.
• Arc Number: 618618 is the ticket number on the taped Grandpa the Kid ticket.
• Creator Cameo: Alex Hirsch and Dana Terrace can be seen in the Freak Show's crowd, the latter as a sort of Cat Girl with sharp teeth.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In Gravity Falls: Journal 3, a cryptogram has Stanford mention hunting the Jersey Devil with his brother one summer.
  • There is a Grandpa the Kid ticket in Stan's old scrapbook. This was the movie that Stan watched on TV and had waited in line for as a teenager in "Dreamscaperers".
  • The shrunken head Ford once brought to a show-and-tell is sitting on top of a shelf in the pawnshop.
  • Stan's original fez, the framed picture of a ship at sea, and a yellow diving helmet are on display in the Pines Pawns shop.
  • Dickie and Ascot, the Sibling Brothers, are cracking mysteries and had their stories published on papers during their youth. In "Carpet Diem", Dipper was shown to have read a book titled The Sibling Brothers in The Case of the Caper-Case Caper.
  • A Lil' Stanley comic is on the floor of Stanley and Stanford's room.
• Dirty Kid: When looking around a penny arcade, Stan takes the opportunity to look at a (very old-fashioned) peep show.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Ford confronting Stan with the evidence that he stole the chain chillingly echoes their fight about the broken science project years later as teenagers. The difference this time is that Stan gets to properly explain what happened, Ford forgives him and Stan isn't disowned, just grounded for the summer. It's also echoed how both ultimately end with them reconciling, flashing forward to them sailing on the Stan-O-War II.
  • When the brothers steal Dickie and Ascot's clothes to get into the lighthouse, the combination of the red sweater and brown jacket Ford wears is a child version of his main outfit when he's an adult.
• Free-Range Children: Stan and Ford are allowed to roam all over Glass Shard Beach, as long as they're home for dinner.
• Hidden Depths: After Stan confesses to stealing the chain and explaining why he did it, Filbrick grounds Stan...but he does allow Ford to stay with him, despite him not having anything to do with the incident. It's also shown that he did appreciate both Stan's honesty and the "#1 Dad" message on it, as he and their mother are shown looking at it with proud smiles.
• Mugged for Disguise: At one point, Stan and Ford steal the clothes of the Sibling Brothers to enter the town's lighthouse. It works because the guardian is Horrible Eyesight Hawkins.
• Noodle Incident: According to Stan and Ford's reactions when Filbrick calls for them, it's far from the first time that he referred to both of them as Stan.
  • When Filbrick is accusing Stan of stealing the gold chain, he lists off other things he's done, including stealing Mrs. Crampleter's glass eye and setting up a "crab fighting ring."
• Not Me This Time: Discussed; Ford insists to his father Filbrick that Stan didn't steal his favorite gold chain. Subverted when it turns out that it really was him, though Stan was actually planning to get it engraved.
• Parental Hypocrisy: Filbrick calls out Stan for lying and scamming people...despite the fact that he and his wife make money scamming people and lying.
• Persecution Flip: When the Pines Brothers run into a Freak Show, they get heckled with cries of "Normies!" until Ford shows off his Extra Digits.
  Stan: I'm being made fun of for fitting in! I'm so confused!
• The Rival: While living in Glass Shard Beach, the Pines Boys were rivals to the Sibling Brothers, a pair of stuck up Hardy Boys parodies named Ascot and Dickie.
• Take That!: Dickie and Ascot are clearly ones of 1960s child detectives, specifically The Hardy Boys.
• Team Pet: Shanklin The Stab Possum!
• Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Although, the story being Gravity Falls, it is of course played for Black Comedy. Stanley's first reaction after he may have caused the deaths of the Sibling Brothers is to suggest to his brother to steal their clothes to be able to sneak in a location in which they are forbidden to enter. Ford agrees that it seems the most logical option.
• Villainy-Free Villain: The Sibling Brothers are only antagonists in the sense that they are the Pines Twins' rivals to solve the current mystery (and act like jerks towards Ford and Stan).
  • However, their bio in the bonus online content says that their hobbies nowadays are "going to jail" and "finishing each other's life sentences", meaning something must've happened since then....
  • Also, they briefly state that they "solve" every mystery in the town by having paid photographers stationed everywhere. Gee, no way that could be exploited, now could it?
• Whole Episode Flashback: Set during Stan and Ford's childhood, with a Distant Finale of them exploring the world together as adults after the series finale.
• Young Future Famous People: In the article about the Jersey Devil that Stan and Ford read, there's a comment by a ten year old Bruce Springsteen.

---

BY LUCIFER'S BEARD, WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR MORE GRAVITY FALLS?!

---