History Characters / ThreeCanKeepASecret

*** She also excuses war profiteering by writing off the victims being killed to harvest their souls as a resource as "damaged into submewmanity" anyways, implying she no longer views them as people.

* AggressiveCategorism: Believes monsters to be any sentient species incapable of forming a civilization (by Mewni's standards of civilization). She's in denial over the arbitrary nature of this label and assumes qualities of the individual "monsters" she interacts with that are manifestly untrue of them, based entirely on the fact that they are a monster and therefore they ''must'' be like she assumes, regardless of what's in front of her. On the rare occasion she'll admit individual monsters aren't like her internal assumptions but she just as often tries to rationalize why this specific monster is an exception rather than a demonstration that she's wrong. Subverted with her ideas towards gender roles: the outline reveals she's sexist and believes women are innate leaders and men innate followers, though her generally fair interactions with Stanford (himself an educator and figure of leadership) and the fact that she comes to accept his leadership position as respectable and valid implies that her ideas of gender norms aren't hard and fast aggressively categorical like her ideas towards race. This implies that she understands there are valid and respectable ways of living outside of her idea of gender roles, though she still considers her idea of gender roles to be the proper, standard, and natural way for genders to interact.

Coming Soon

* ForTheGreaterGood: Heavily implies that he believes the Futurekind deserve the consequences of losing their life-sustaining heat source (i.e. their ''almost-certain deaths'') because they refused to share their technology with the world even when it could help prevent the BadFuture from which they were refugees.

* ForTheGreaterGood: Dipper's and Ford's general deciding principle when it comes to making decisions regarding the powerful resources to which they have access. They can get a bit [[TheNeedsOfTheMany extreme]] at times.

* TheNeedsOfTheMany: Works on this mentality to ''[[KnightTemplar unsettling]]'' extremes, at times.

* AHeroToHisHometown: The resident members of the Pines family have attained a HundredPercentAdorationRating in Gravity Falls over the last three years owing to their laborious role as the town's protectors against the supernatural. As such, it slowly becomes obvious over the story that Dipper in particular, as the most frequently seen of the resident [[ScienceHero Science Heroes]], has become widely admired by the town. This comes out in his interactions with the local townsfolk while performing his investigations, but also in small blink-and-you'll-miss background moments, such as during Pacifica's introductory conversation with Mabel in a local restaurant, during which a waitress quietly delivers Dipper complimentary food without him asking for it. Later, Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland try to convince Dipper to join the police force, making clear in their dialogue that they're aware they don't do much as Dipper and Ford keep the town safe from most dangers. The two officers don't seem bothered by this, though.

A fifteen-year-old prodigal Gravity Falls transplant of three years and counting, Dipper has flourished in the years since leaving Piedmont. Confident, clever, and ruthless, Dipper dreams of introducing the benefits of arcane science to the world.\\\

* MentalHealthRecoveryArc: Subtly done and unfortunately unfinished, due to the premature ending of the project. Mabel learning to have a healthier relationship with Dipper coincides with a lot of self-searching, which has the effect of helping her confront a lot of other issues inside herself. She still has a lot of [[AmbiguousDisorder alarming behaviors that seem deeply ingrained in her psychology]], but her overall ability to function in a healthy manner was planned to improve greatly over the story.

* ThereAreNoTherapists: There's no mention of Mabel receiving mental health help from anyone during her years in Piedmont, despite displaying a number of [[AmbiguousDisorder alarming]] [[{{Delinquent}} behaviors]] that certainly should have ''more'' than warranted it in the eyes of even those LockedOutOfTheLoop.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Star's behaviors and eccentricities, such as her issues with social cues even in her own culture, difficulty focusing, and near-constant need to stim and move around--all of which make it difficult for her to acclimatize socially to the norms of others around her and for others to understand her--could be interpreted as signs of some sort of neurodivergence. This interpretation is not new, as similar suggestions have been made regarding her canon show characterization.

** Most visibly when she first re-encounters Pacifica. After being told that Pacifica helps with Dipper's research and internally declaring that "No bleach blonde stereotype is going to replace me as Dipper's mystery buddy," her verbal response is described as thus:

*** For the record: the first insult is straight forwardly insulting, but the second is ''far'' more clever in its offensiveness. The first implies Pacifica's as useful to their research as an animal, the second implies she has less worth than one, because in traditional (and increasingly controversial) cosmetic production, animal testing is done before products are tested on humans in order to screen for possible harmful side effects and reduce the chances of accidentally harming humans. By suggesting Pacifica would be a test subject before production moved onto animals, Mabel's basically calling Pacifica not only sub-human, but sub-''animal.'' All while deliberately using Dipper's assumed good will in order to pass these incredibly insulting statements off as jokes and make Pacifica look like an over-reacting "bad guy" in the conversation if she takes offense. The unexpected fact that Mabel's statement upsets Dipper more than Pacifica--and thus threatens Mabel's ability to convince Dipper to return to Piedmont with her--is pretty much the only reason Mabel stops behaving like this in front of him, and even then it takes a couple chapters.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Mabel has this reaction after realizing how selfish she's been, how little she's cared about Dipper after Pacifica tells her the true extent of Dipper's trauma and sacrifice, and whenever anyone brings up the consequences of Weirdmageddon in general. In response she tends to do her best to either rationalize away her realizations about her flaws, rationalize in a shallow solution she can perform to make herself feel better about those flaws, or suppress these feelings for fear of facing consequences should her perceived culpability be acknowledged. She's come to openly disbelieve in the worth of honesty in healthy and trusting relationships because she believes that if she were honest with the people in her life, she wouldn't ''have'' any relationships. As a consequence, she's never sincerely grown in response to these moments of guilt, and the resulting cyclical nature of that dishonestly, guilt, and temporary escape via further dishonesty has done serious damage to her emotional stability.

* AmbiguousDisorder: The story treats Mabel's moments of instability in the show [[DeconstructionFic completely seriously,]] so there's a very good case to be made that this characterization of Mabel has some sort of personality disorder.
** She shows little awareness for others' boundaries, is extremely impulsive to the point of sabotaging her own goals without thinking, and is very charming despite her inflated sense of her own importance (and, contradictingly, frequent self-loathing).
** While she demonstrates a capacity for empathy in her instantaneous support for shielding Pacifica from her father, Mabel struggles intensely throughout the story with feeling, processing, and expressing it, to the point of damaging her relationship with her brother due to her inability to give back emotionally in the way he needs.
** She suffers from erratic and frequently shifting emotions sometimes manifesting in sudden and intense aggression, especially as she moved into adolescence; at one point she gets so jealous she briefly contemplates [[spoiler:killing Pacifica for daring to be closer to Dipper than Mabel herself is now]], a sudden shift which even startles Mabel herself but which she still struggles to restrain.
** She's extremely parasitic in her relationship with her brother with no idea, initially, why this behavior is wrong, and without him to keep her on track during the years he lived in Gravity Falls, she was unable to manage the demands of school, struggled to meet, manage, or even make realistic long-term goals for herself, and became, according to Word of God, a "pretty hardcore" juvenile delinquent.
** She has a long history of [[AesopAmnesia failing to learn from repetitive mistakes]], self-delusion, denial, and many short-lived yet very intense romantic (and possibly sexual) attachments.
** It's implied that, pre-Character Development, a lot of her inability to accept Dipper's desire to live separately was because he helped to compensate for her difficulties functioning in the world.
** It's worth noting that Mabel also has the interpersonal history often associated with such disorders, having lived through both a bad home environment and extreme trauma, both issues for which she actually received less support as she got older owing to her increased coinciding inability to confide in her companions in Piedmont and resistance to confiding in those who actually went through the traumatic experience with her.
** After she and Dipper have their falling out, she displays a repeat of her very concerning canonical behavior of self-harming emotional incapacity, which is also treated completely seriously.

* AbusiveParents: They're heavily implied to be this, though unlike the Northwests it's never indicated that the abuse escalated to assault. They did, however, single out one of their children for preferential treatment and spend every interaction with the other child that we see openly disrespecting and demeaning that child regardless of witnesses, even dismissing the validity of his emotions and perceptions. If Mabel's comment on the commonality of this behavior towards Dipper is accurate then it's clear they've pretty much always treated Dipper as if his emotions and judgements are inherently less valid and valued than those of the other members of the family, and have essentially been bullying their own son for years. Further, the behaviors they incentivized and taught as normal and acceptable through this Favorite/[[TheUnfavorite Unfavorite]] dynamic really screwed up their two children. (Ironically, because Dipper, TheUnfavorite, managed to escape this toxic household, Mabel, the favorite child, appears to have ended up with the longer-lasting damage--having empathy and treating others' feelings and concerns, especially Dipper's, as equally valid to her own is something Mabel is ''colossally'' bad at and correcting for this is the major internal arc of her story.

* PapaWolf: He rejects Bill Cipher's taunting regarding Mabel's involvement in Weirdmageddon by telling him to never try lying to a conartist with two kids to protect. [[spoiler: Ironically, Bill wasn't lying.]]

* AHeroToHisHomeTown: The resident members of the Pines family have attained a HundredPercentAdorationRating in Gravity Falls over the last three years owing to their laborious role as the town's protectors against the supernatural. As such, it slowly becomes obvious over the story that Dipper in particular, as the most frequently seen of the resident [[ScienceHero Science Heroes]], has become widely admired by the town. This comes out in his interactions with the local townsfolk while performing his investigations, but also in small blink-and-you'll-miss background moments, such as during Pacifica's introductory conversation with Mabel in a local restaurant, during which a waitress quietly delivers Dipper complimentary food without him asking for it. Later, Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland try to convince Dipper to join the police force, making clear in their dialogue that they're aware they don't do much as Dipper and Ford keep the town safe from most dangers. The two officers don't seem bothered by this, though.

** It's worth noting that Mabel also has the interpersonal history often associated with such disorders, having lived through both a bad home environment and extreme trauma, both issues for which she actually received less support as she got older owing to her increased coinciding inability to confide in her companions in Piedmont and resistence to confiding in those who actually went through the traumatic experience with her.

Arguably the main protagonist of ''Three Can Keep A Secret,'' Mabel has finally returned to Gravity Falls after three long years. She's extremely dissatisfied with the StatusQuo and hopes to bring a number of changes with her to Gravity Falls. But as it turns out, the changes she really needs may not be changes she likes…\\\

* StaticCharacter: Downplayed. While Dipper does have his challenges--such as facing the reality of his relationship with his sister--he's far further along in growing out of his and Mabel's unhealthy dynamic than Mabel, having done most of his growing in the three years he's been away, with Mabel's return just being the confrontation he needed to help him have more self-awareness and finish bringing an end to his half of the toxicity. Dipper instead acts as the stable, steady sibling for Mabel's instability to bounce off of, pushing her to face her issues by presenting her with how much he's ''already'' changed and his refusal to comply and change back for her. He has other flaws that are pointed out but not dealt with, at least not before the series was cancelled and left incomplete, meaning that with the exception of the first half of the first story, his character conflicts are generally external and he himself changes little.

* AdultFear:
** A family competing for the same positions in society that you are [[spoiler:drugs your daughter with the intent to sexually exploit her for political gain.]]
** You send your daughter off to what you believe is a safe and isolated community to help her grow as a person away from home for the first time, but when she returns you realize that what you believed about this getaway location was potentially totally wrong, you may actually know nothing accurate about the environment your child has been living in for the past year, and you fear she's been radicalized by it.

** After losing Dipper's trust by hiding things from him for years out of fear that he would react badly, a more self-aware Mabel decides she genuinely wants to be a better person and a better sister in order to earn Dipper's trust back so he'll cooperate with returning their relationship to the state she preferred it. However, trying to do so with no example or idea of what a genuinely healthy sibling relationship looks like leaves her floundering with no idea how to move forward correctly, and her attempted solutions at regaining Dipper's trust are, among other things: learning how to fight so Dipper will think she's more capable, giving Dipper presents, and attempting to get involved with his interests, all while continuing to hide her mistakes in order to give him a better impression of her. Unfortunately, none of these address the actual issue Dipper has: Dipper doesn't want her to try to earn his favor back through gifts or pandering or displays of physical capability, Dipper just wants his sister to trust ''him'' enough as a person to make his own life choices and thus allow for an open, honest, and respectful relationship. Even when Dipper tries to spell out what he needs in a clearer manner, Mabel's reaction indicates that she's either unable or unwilling [[TheyJustDontGetIt to understand why]] ''honesty'' is important in a healthy relationship, and she continues to repeat her mistakes and lie and omit key information from those around her.

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: In the immediate aftermath of Dipper's group departing into the multiverse, no one's paying any attention to Mabel, and she promptly fails to function, lays down in the mud, and begins banging her head against hard surfaces in a manner very reminiscent of her month-long depressive episode in "The Time Traveler's Pig." It's unclear how long she suffers through this self-harming emotional incapacity, but it's implied to be several hours at least, during which she ponders over the new perspectives on her flaws she's recently been challenged with and what she can do to get Dipper to trust her again. She considers using the threat of self-harm as leverage to guilt Dipper into doing what she wants, but decides against that and instead chooses to try to learn how to fight (in an equally self-harming manner) so Dipper will think she's more competent, and then goes to seek out Grunkle Stan to teach her. This moment alone epitomizes Mabel's manipulative and unstable personality, but also shows that, once made aware of some of her issues, there really is a part of her that genuinely ''wants'' and is ''trying'' to do better for those she loves--she just has too little self-awareness at this point to figure out how to do better and a whole lot of unhealthy coping and defense mechanisms to reject before she can do so.

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: In the immediate aftermath of Dipper's group departing into the multiverse, no one's paying any attention to Mabel, and she promptly fails to function, lays down in the mud, and begins banging her head against hard surfaces in a manner very reminiscent of her month-long depressive episode in "The Time Traveler's Pig." It's unclear how long she suffers through this self-harming emotional incapacity, but it's implied to be several hours at least, during which she ponders over the new perspectives on her flaws she's recently been challenged with and what she can do to get Dipper to trust her again. She considers using the threat of self-harm as leverage to guilt Dipper into doing what she wants, but decides against that and instead chooses to try to learn how to fight (in an equally self-harming manner) so Dipper will think she's more competent, and then goes to seek out Grunkle Stan to teach her. This moment alone epitomizes Mabel's manipulative and unstable personality, but also shows that, once made aware of some of her issues, there really is a part of her that genuinely ''wants'' and is ''trying'' to do better for those she loves--she just has too little self-awareness at this point to figure out how to do better and a whole lot of unhealthy coping and defense mechanisms to reject before she can do so. [[spoiler: Ultimately, this small choice to resist her self-indulgent and manipulative tactics in favor of actively trying to do something to make things better, while misguided, reflects the major tipping point in Mabel's character later in the story: refusing to allow herself to hide the reality of her and Dipper's relationship behind her own manipulative or self-deceiving tactics any further is what enables Mabel to realize how to actively change their relationship for the better.]]

** Mabel faces a number of these throughout the story as consequences stems from the consequences of Weirdmageddon and what her choices involving that situation actually have done to the people of the town and the people who love her.

* {{Sucksessor}}: Mabel views Pacifica to be an inferior stand-in for Mabel's role as Dipper's "mystery buddy."

* DarkAndTroubledPast: The idea of returning to Piedmont permanently is one of his greatest anxieties for a reason. With distance and time, Dipper came to understand that not only did he have no friends to support him there, but no supportive family either--his parents were actually emotionally abusive, cared little for his thoughts and feelings, and only validated him when he [[ParentalFavoritism served as their beloved Mabel's crutch.]] Mabel herself loved Dipper, but was also taught to put herself first and not to respect his thoughts or feelings. Understandably, he has no desire to return.