USERNAME: Lizardo
FAVORITE CHARACTER AND REASON: Dipper Pines. He's not as funny as Mabel or Stan, but he makes up for it being one of the most complex and interesting characters in the entire show. And when you consider that he's the central character of the series, that's actually really impressive. Can't wait to see the direction his character is going to go in following "Not What He Seems".
ARE YOU A MABEL OR A DIPPER? HOW SO: Again, Dipper. With some exceptions (I could never see myself chasing after Wendy as obsessively as he did in the first season), he basically is me at 12-years old.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO GRAVITY FALLS?: Sometime after "The Love God", I came across a review or two of the series at the AVClub. I wanted a new show to get into, and the premise of Gravity Falls reminded me a lot of another show I loved - Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated. I checked out the first episode, loved the humor, and kept going from there. Season 1 starts out really strong in its first twelve episodes, with episodes like "Headhunters", "The Inconveniencing", "Double Dipper", "The Time Traveler's Pig", and "Summerween", stalls from the "Boss Mabel"-"Boyz Crazy" stretch (they're not bad episodes, but none of them are as good as the opening twelve), and picks up big time with "Dreamscaperers" and "Gideon Rises". Season 2 has just been amazing, barring just one dud ("Soos and the Real Girl", "The Love God"). You can see the Simpsons influence on the humor, and the writers have a really good grasp of what makes the show work.
ADD FIVE WORDS: Uh... "you know that it's true"?
I actually find that "Soos and the Real Girl" is one of the weakest episodes of the show. It's not bad - I don't think there's been an actual bad episode of Gravity Falls, just ones that don't land as well as others - and it's got a lot of funny lines, but Soos just isn't that interesting a character to build a plot around and "Real Girl" doesn't do much to develop or add any layers to him. And, as far as Soos-centered episodes go, "Blendin's Game" is far superior.
Agreed that Giffany's pretty creepy, especially when she starts going after Dipper, Mabel, and Melody in the climax with possessed animatronics. She's a good example of how much nastier Season 2's villains are than most of Season 1's. With the exceptions of Gideon (as far as "The Hand That Rocks the Mabel" goes), the Summerween Tricker, and Bill Cipher, most of S1's villains are pretty tame. Season 2 has zombies, a Shapeshifter inspired by John Carpenter's The Thing (and voiced by Mark Hammill), the return of Bill Cipher, Giffany, the Blind Eye Society, and the Lumberjack Ghost.