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Hindsight is a strange power it gives you all the information you need far too late for it to make any real difference the best you can hope for is to avoid a repeat performance.
In hindsight Mark and Anna Pines acknowledged they hadn’t handled things very well.
Nowadays there’s plenty of information on how to deal with the supernatural and there are hundreds of pamphlets and internet forms about the do’s and Don’ts if your child becomes Preter (several they looked up after finding out their granddaughter was a witch) but back then. Back then they’d been flying blind
They had always made decisions they thought we right, for both their children’s own good. However knowing what they know now they could admit their logic hadn’t been as sound as they had originally thought.
It may sound strange but the problem hadn’t been Dipper’s situation, not really. Yes, their son becoming a demon had been an elephant in the room but no matter how big an elephant is, it’s fairly easy to ignore when it’s literally invisible.
No, the problem most of the time was Mable. Why well…
For starters whatever it was in the Pines family that attracted weird hadn’t skipped Mark and accepting that your twelve-year-old knows better than you can be a hard pill to swallow to say the least. That had been the cause of more than a few of their arguments. Mable suggesting a seemingly random solution to an issue not being listen to. Then deciding to deal with the situation herself.
Cue arguments about putting herself in danger, getting involved when she shouldn’t and not doing as she’s told countered with claims, they didn’t trust her and she knew what she was doing.
There was a part of them that wonders if had thing been different, had Dipper stayed human, would it have been as hard to be believe Dipper. If it had been their practical, bookish son and not their creative, head in the cloud’s daughter would the solutions have seemed so random would they have listened more. That thought kept them both up at night.
The other big problem had been her reaction to… well… everything.
Dipper for as little as they saw him seemed as freaked out as they where by his changes. It was wrong they knew to be glad to see fear and panic in their child but it was reassuring to see he was having trouble adjusting too. Even when they couldn’t see him could they still hear the reassurances and comfort Mable gave him, that was normal, that’s how someone should react to all this.
Mable on the other hand had taken everything in her stride either being blasé or excited. That wasn’t normal. It wasn’t normal to exclaim happily “Oh! These are Dippers teeth, they fell out and got replaced fangs! I’m keeping them this box isn’t it pretty!” or “Hey look!” and arrive downstairs holding a taking one-eyed star that was apparently her brother. It wasn’t just Dipper either that was her reaction to everything. Vampires, werewolves, pixies, gnomes, big, small dangerous or cute. It left them wondering was there something wrong with her?
Sending them back to Gravity Falls was one decision that they were sure of. Stan had done a wonderful job. There Mable had a good life, a job in the library, a business of her own, married to a good man with three precious kids of her own.
She wouldn’t have had that here; she’d been already been ostracised and isolated when she left and it could only have grown worse. Dipper seemed happier too well. Or at least as best they could tell. It might just have been, he was getting strong enough to become corporal more often now. They weren’t sure how they would have handled that here ether and it certainly wouldn’t have helped Mable situation one bit.
Even now it was Mable they worried about.
Tales of Alcor could be dismissed as the cults own fault or demon instincts Dipper couldn’t control. It was uncomfortable to hear these stories but it was a known quantity while maybe not easy to understand these things could be explain away even if only in their own minds.
But tales of Mizar the Gleeful how do you reconcile that with your human child. It wasn’t possession they where seen side by side that was all Mable and that. That was truly terrifying.
SO, no they knew hadn’t handled Dipper’s transformation well. They knew now what they should have done there and what they should not have done.
The downside of that invisible elephant is that your blindsided when you forget it’s there and run into it anyway.
But with Mable, they still didn’t know how to handle Mable.
Had she always been like this and Dipper had diluted the effect made it hard to notice or had the trauma of the Transcendence caused it? they didn’t know and it disturbed them.
That was why unspoken there was this thought they never acknowledged this terrible evil thought that haunted their dreams
“It should have been Mable”
If Mable became the demon and Dipper got to stay as he was? Would thing have been simpler easier to deal with if it had been self-conscious, worrying Dipper who came home that summer? Surely, he would have handled things like a normal person. Right? It was wrong, unfair, terrible to wish this fate on anyone let alone their own child. They knew that but it was always there at the back of their minds and the worst part.
The worst part was DIPPER KNEW.
So yes, hindsight often makes everything clearer highlighting your mistakes like a neon sign but sometimes, sometimes all it does is leave you stuck unable to escape the what if’s that haunt you no matter how hard you try.