#mabel made them all take the love language quiz and has memorized everyone's results

[cravingpepsimax]

What’s sylvan’s relationship like with Dipper and Mabel? Like does he tolerate them in the way cousins do or is he friendly (perhaps more than?) with them?

sylvan 1000% ends up developing a crush on dipper, though it's really love-hate at first. sylvan's a private, mysterious person, and dipper loves solving mysteries, no matter how seemingly benign they are (example: stan's tattoo.)

but sylvan ends up really admiring dipper's drive to know. dipper's intelligent, and sylvan likes having someone that can keep up with him that isn't his Super Ultra Megagenius of a dad.

i also think sylvan's naturally competitive. without delving too far into spoilers territory, sylvan has grown pretty... well, not conflict-averse, per se, but he generally tries to avoid it as much as possible, sneaking past anything that could cause conflict (unless he deems it necessary, for whatever reason). so it's kind of a surprise that he has this trait. but the reason he's so sneaky, generally trying to avoid conflict, is because of external circumstances. sylvan's competitiveness is natural, and it shines with dipper. and i don't think it's just because he views him as an intellectual equal -- it's also because he feels safe to fail around dipper. sylvan has a tendency to work himself up into thinking that everything is a life-or-death situation, but he ends up feeling genuinely comfortable around dipper, letting his natural competitive streak shine through.

he definitely ends up being good friends with mabel, but at first, he does not like her at all. she's the exact opposite of sylvan. sylvan wants to blend in, he's quiet, withdrawn. he keeps his cards close to his chest. mabel is a living lisa frank image. also, he's easily startled, and mabel is LOUD.

eventually, though, he grows to love mabel (platonically). initially, he's really resistant towards mabel's attempts to get him more of a social life (which i don't really blame him for, guy's got boundaries and he doesn't really care for mabel at all at this point). but then, when mabel stops doing this, he begins to enjoy her presence. kinda like with dipper, things that annoyed him become endearing. she's not annoying, she's fun. she's loud, but she's not scary -- in fact, he finds her loudness pretty endearing when they're at the shack. mabel's creative, and extroverted, and though she can be a bit selfish at times, she ultimately loves her family and friends. at some point mabel knits him a sweater and he keeps it for the rest of his life

also, sylvan is endlessly intrigued by mabel juice. what's going on there. what did she put in it. how could sylvan recreate this. how did this girl make liquid meth

++ since we're talking about sylvan crushing on dipper and sylvan's relationship w mabel i HAVE to bring this up: i don't plan on making an explicit romance in the main fic, but i've been thinking about the fact that sylvan's really stoic and mabel is THE shipper. and. like. i feel like sylvan's love language is gift-giving. so when he develops a crush on dipper his overall body language and how he talks to dipper doesn't really change but he DOES just start making gizmos for dipper and mabel's like ":0 OH MY GOD DIPPER HE TOTALLY HAS A CRUSH ON YOU" meanwhile dipper's like ????? bc he's just been assuming that sylvan was either flexing his intellectual prowess or just. being nice. WJSKALSJDKLSAJLK