Update (December 11st, 2022)

Made an update based on Milky Boy Blue's suggestion to improve the story's overall flow.

Author's Note.

If you remember Pine Tree's Rescue Ranger, my first English fanfiction categorized as a crossover, you could probably remember I declared that I don't think I will write more stories as well. But thinking about the universe of Chip 'N Dale the movie, with the latest material of Gravity Falls' unaired pilot, motivated me to come up with the idea of the sequel: what would happen if an unaired pilot of well-known animated properties is a thing in this universe? I decided to try the sequel with some notable challenges like making it my first-ever story with multiple chapters, and practically creating a couple of original characters.

Many thanks to a couple of talented authors who helped and motivated me during the whole progress. Theory of Weirdness, who has written quality AU fanfics with refreshing ideas, told me that he never encountered any GF fanfics with pilot materials and helped me with pilot twins' names. There was also Milky Boy Blue, who wrote the second summer series that includes a well-balanced atmosphere and noteworthy character developments. He helped me with details, such as what is good to contain within chapters. I sincerely recommend reading their stories too.

If you were interested in the sequel, thank you so much. Hope it won't disappoint readers like you guys.

CHAPTER 1

June 15th, 2022

Piedmont, California, United States of America

"Thanks for joining Mystery Twins today. Subscribe to us now and see you around!"

When Mabel Pines finished her lines, the special fan meeting live on YouTube is over. Dipper Pines finally got a moment to vent some embarrassment. While he was okay with online fan meetings held by Mabel Pines, he wasn't particularly comfortable with his old outfits from Gravity Falls, the show that made both him and Mabel stars a decade ago. Every single item such as an indigo vest, warm grey shorts, and vermilion T-shirt fit well, but the embarrassment came from the fact that he looked exactly like himself when he was twelve. Physically stuck as twelve-for-eternally while he was in his twenties was still awkward enough and wearing as a kid who he was ten years ago was never going to help his low self-confidence at all. And online fan meeting for this day was longer than usual – long enough to be uploaded on YouTube instead of Instagram his twin sister tended to prefer to do her activity.

"C'mon, bro-bro! It's for your fans. They're thanking us for ten years." Mabel said.

"I know. I just...can't get over the whole awkwardness from what I wear." Dipper grunted, still feeling mortified.

"That's fan service, Broseph. Today is special - the 10th anniversary of Gravity Falls! Ten years since we got these people who love and like us. The special way to thank them. I promise it's just ONE time to wear that." Mabel added, with a quick promise that she will never embarrass her brother like that again.

Dipper couldn't say something against her words. He remembered the moment when Mabel told stories about a bunch of grown-up Dipper fans who wore like a younger version of him as cosplay, who even made some videos in open places to share through the internet. These people are willing to embrace their embarrassment to have and share the fun with others. Moreover, without doubt, Mabel Pines herself was quite dedicated to Gravity Falls – she even heard of ridiculous Korean names they got in the second version of the Korean dub (Disney Channel Korea renamed both after the pronunciation of the word "mystery," which resulted in names like 'Song Mi-su' for Dipper and 'Song Tae-ri' for Mabel) released in Summer of 2016. Korean fans of the show hated these names with passion, claiming they were completely out of the blue and barely reflected the canon materials. But Mabel included them as a part of hashtags for their Instagram posts anyway, saying that both sound adorable. Some of them asked why she adopted such 'questionable' names as hashtags, and her reasoning about that decision seemed to shock Korean fandom during the Q&A section of the online fan meeting that night. Dipper couldn't find himself getting along with these 'quirky-at-best' weird materials. but he was willing to tolerate them as much as possible, even though they were uncomfortable for him to embrace.

Moreover, Mabel got some points about those who have been appreciative of their very existence. He wasn't popular amongst students when he was attending high school or college even with his career, meaning that he barely had any friends for years nearby (friends like Wendy and Soos got their business one by one, which disappointed both Mystery Twins and Mystery Shack Crews). Even worse, he wasn't able to have any summer job thanks to his everlasting figure of an awkward preteen boy. Because of that, he was extremely aware of the fact that being appreciated by people shouldn't be taken for granted. Especially when Mabel was wearing a replica of a vibrant "Shooting Star" sweater (which was large enough to fit her grown-up vessel made of digital ink and paint) and a hairband for this extraordinary day to celebrate, Dipper didn't want to let both fans and Mabel down. That was the major reason he could hold himself long enough in front of the camera.

After the brief silence to remind himself of all those matters, Dipper gained a fraction of the courage to answer.

"Thanks. But I'll try better next time."

Mabel was silent, just leaving a soft smile to appreciate her younger brother's effort.

Afterward were quite straightforward; chores such as moving Mabel's pieces of equipment such as her laptop and microphones from the living room and changing clothes into night attires of their own were like monthly routines for Dipper. Mabel has run her own Instagram account for years under the name of "mysterytwin," held monthly live broadcasts, and uploaded pictures of Mystery Twins' everyday life as much as possible. At first, the account was mainly about Mabel, but fans' demands for Dipper's own began to increase every single day. When Mabel told Dipper about it, he was hesitant at first, reasoning that he was trying his best to get a job (he received the suggestion before he eventually got a job as a debut novelist).

He changed his mind, at the end, when he ran into Mabel's live broadcast in her room, with the door of her room kept open. Dipper briefly saw her room to hear a part of the live broadcast, which lead to Gravity Falls fans' attention towards him. Fans were so fascinated by Dipper even when Mabel was trying to let Dipper go, saying that he wanted to focus on his job. Watching comments through the monitor of Mabel's laptop, Dipper couldn't avoid the attention that easily. He decided to join her briefly, surprised by the fact that there was more person who appreciated his very existence than expected. He also decided to spare a minute with Mabel's Instagram account to appreciate their enthusiastic interests. That eventually lead to Twins' first real mystery investigation into the shady cheese parlor at 3344 Main Street, Los Angeles.

Even the traumatizing failure of the investigation couldn't stop him from trying to do something with it. Gone were riskier adventures but taking some pictures of his daily life every weekend didn't change. He knew that sincere relationships with people shouldn't be taken for granted, no matter if they were family or not, so he was putting some effort to keep connections. That was how Mabel could cope with her terrible high school years. When everybody in the classroom made fun of her with the image of the character she played (her belongings tended to be covered with glitters they poured) because she found out there were also people who were appreciative of her very existence of her. That way, she could recover enough self-confidence to overcome the majority of harassment toward her. Dipper has appreciated them for helping out Mabel too, especially when they weren't disappointed by several differences from the characters they played.

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of Gravity Falls, on June 15th of 2022, wasn't too different from it. Being a complete replica of himself from the show wasn't comfortable for him. But he tried so hard because of that, and being an ex-actor helped his attempt to some degree.

Going back to his bedroom, his head was full of these memories. Then, the booming voice interrupted his memory lane before sleeping.

"Dipper!"

It was Mabel.

"What's the matter?" Dipper shouted, to let Mabel hear from the distance. "Yet another paparazzo spying on us?"

"No, thank goodness! We got an e-mail!"

Dipper heaved a sigh of relief before moving to Mabel's room. He rushed into her room to see the e-mail, hoping there was nothing troublesome in front of them.

Then, he found Mabel standing wordlessly in her room. Even before she turned to him, Mabel looked serious. In contrast to the bright atmosphere of the room despite various equipment and materials for making videos and several artworks, she wasn't sure whether she could trust the letter or not. She felt uncomfortable about the mail as well, perhaps the term "guilty" was the closest them to describe it. At least, Dipper noticed that she already read that.

Dipper decided to read the mail by himself. Reading it closely would help him understand the whole situation.

"What's wrong, Mabel?" Dipper said carefully. "Can I help you?"

Mabel silently handed over her phone, to let her younger brother read the mysterious mail. Dipper received the phone carefully with his eight-fingered hands before reading it. Even at the first glance, the atmosphere of the letter was heavier than the e-mails they usually received from the fandom.

Hello Mystery Twins,

This is Jason Points, a Gravity Falls fan from Canada. and the person who played Dipper Pines for an unaired pilot. I know it's hard to believe, but please trust me. I also have lots of evidence to prove it.

You guys once said both of you had to give up careers completely and struggle to move on, right? I need your help. For my family.

My sister, Kristine Points, has struggled to overcome her past. She's studying psychology to become a therapist. She's also like Kristen Schaal with a cool attitude and surprisingly thoughtful. No wonder she gets along with people a lot and has a good time with them. But she doesn't like mentioning Gravity Falls and is unwilling to see or hear anything about it.

When she saw the news about you guys being involved in Valley Gangs on TV around last month, she painfully frowned and immediately turned it off in front of me. She tried to convince me to enjoy the dinner as much as possible, but I couldn't get over that moment. It seems like Kristine still holds grunge or pain about being replaced with you guys, even after more than ten years have passed.

If you can spare some minutes, please help us – I'm counting on you guys.

Sincerely,

Jason Points.

From Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

"Dipper," whispered Mabel behind her younger brother. "How do you think?"

Dipper didn't respond immediately, still wordlessly reading the e-mail. He could see why Mabel was stuck. If there were people he didn't know, and they found out he ruined their life, there was no way to take it casually and laugh it off. Besides, the guy who claimed himself as an ex-actor who played the pilot counterpart of the character Dipper played was willing to prove how sincere he was, promising that he got more evidence to let them trust him. Dipper decided to take notes from that statement Jason made.

He also saw several pictures of their pilot iterations. One of them was a shot of the main cast, including those who seemingly took charge of Grunkle Stan and Wendy, smiling with the rest in front of the camera. Their pilot counterparts, whose appearance was remarkably reminiscent of canon twins' glory days as child actors, barring some clothes and somewhat chunkier art style, were shown too. He could theorize that the description of the pilot twins' personality has clues from the photo shot as well; a girl in a deep magenta sweater with a hairband was flashing a confident smile in a confident standing pose without the cheerfulness of Mabel Pines. She posed more like...him. Instead, that personality of real-life Mabel was shown subtly through the pose and face of a boy with a familiar pine tree trucker hat.

Even more, the picture was a Polaroid, which was the tamper-proof form of the photo. Dipper remembered that he and Mabel's audition required a full Polaroid of each other. There were even a couple of Polaroids for Jason and Kristine, standing in front of a white-ish background; a type of photo the audition wanted both Dipper and Mabel to have. Californian Twins took so many pictures back then that they still had some of the second-best shots, which could mean they were some of the second-best leftovers. So, an e-mail from Jason guy could be reliable, perhaps? Even though these could be manipulated in digital forms, he felt that he could come up with the solution in advance.

"...I think I can handle it." Dipper carefully opened his mouth. "I'll help you out."

When Dipper decided to handle the letter, he couldn't sleep well. He knew he wasn't supposed to be late to go to bed. His boss wasn't happy with the news about being bootlegged already, even though Dipper hasn't been fired from the job thanks to the improved level of awareness - it somehow helped the sales of his debut novel a little bit, if not drastically. Adding one more problem would risk both Dipper and Mabel as a result. Being fired from the job – the job itself was what he had urgently wanted to have for years - wouldn't help, obviously.

Despite this, however, he couldn't let problems remain unsolved. Jason was appreciative of Dipper and Mabel's very existence, and he trusted them enough to get advice for his family. In addition, it was a family matter. Sure, their involvement wouldn't help him when his twin sister was traumatized by Mystery Twins' very existence but turning it down wouldn't get things better too. Even for him, Mabel helped Dipper when things were going tough. Like many appreciated relationships with people, having a family is something that shouldn't be taken for granted.

Sure, he and Mabel got real friends such as Wendy Corduroy or Jesus 'Soos' Alzamirano Ramirez in real, but things were tougher for them to spare minutes to have time with Mystery Twins for years. Jobs and families are important assets in people's lives, so neither Dipper nor Mabel argued about them since it's even harder to have than any people with more 'normal' conditions and 'normal' life. It had been a luxury for Mystery Twins and being former celebrities with a public level of high awareness made it harder. Paparazzi, reporters, and to a lesser extent, crimes or planned incidents toward old celebrities.

Wait, Dipper thought. That can be helpful. I gotta need to note that. He instantly moved to the desk, went up the step stool (his art style for preteens means he's notably short for the human standard), and picked up a small notebook to write about Mystery Twins' bygone days after their retirement. While scribbling about memory lane, he decided that he should see what happened to the parallel counterpart of Mystery Twins living in Canada by himself. A real-time conversation with honesty seemingly would be more helpful for them than sending a typical, wordy e-mail for advice. This would give him a chance to check the actual Polaroids, too.

Before falling asleep, he wrote what to do as the final page of note.

Note to self; ask Jason if he can do a video chat this weekend. That will earn enough time for better conversation. Ask him to show me actual Polaroids too.

Author's Note.

You could probably doubt your eyes when you noticed the reference to the Korean dub; one that gave the main cast Korean full names that infuriated the Korean Gravity Falls fandom. As a native Korean who remembers when the second Korean dub was launched, I guarantee it was a thing. There are two versions of Korean dubs for Gravity Falls; one kept the original names and nationalities of characters ('디퍼와 메이블의 미스터리 모험,' released in 2013), another that altered characters' nationality into native Koreans as well as giving them 'unique' Korean names ('괴짜가족 괴담일기,' released in 2016).

Neither of them was particularly popular amongst Korean fans, who think these dubs have errors of their own despite quality voice acting, they seem to think the older dub is better than the newer ones because it didn't try to convert Jewish-American families into native Koreans. A ridiculous sense of localization from the newer dub was way worse than what Koreans were familiar with too. Even though remembering more quantity of ridiculous Korean names attached to characters was like torturing my brain and mentality, I thought it was worth referring to, personally. It was so absurd that I'm sure this kind of disaster won't happen ever again in Korea.

Interestingly, both Korean dubs are currently serviced by Disney. From what I found out; you can try the old Korean dub with shorts, and the new Korean dub is available for Season 1 and 2. I also should note that Korean credits attached to shorts were from random episodes from the new Korean dub of Season 1.