Jealous Ford Is My Fav Thing And I Need More Of Him

@dejabooooo’s post about the Stans and jealousy got me thinking! I debated with myself whether to add a bunch of stuff in the tags or to reblog with an addition, but ultimately I’ve decided to make my own post because this is more of an analysis than anything. I hope you aren’t bothered by me chiming in, it really is an interesting subject!

In my country we have two words for what in English is described only as “jealousy.” When you feel envious of something someone has, be it their success, their house, their intelligence, or their cool vibes, the word used is inveja (envy), always. When you feel jealous of the affection a loved one is bestowing upon someone else, on the other hand—for example, jealous of your best friend’s new friend who always hangs out with them—it’s a specific feeling worthy of a specific word, ciúmes, which can be familial, platonic, or romantic. It’s a very useful differentiation, imo, and I remember being very confused when I started learning English for real and there wasn’t any. I believe that the English logic is that if you’re jealous of your best friend’s new friend, you are still jealous of something they have that you feel like you don’t have (your best friend’s attention & affection, in this case). I think the language also affects the culture, though, since here we learn to think of those two things as separate things.

Before we continue, my friend the English teacher advised me to offer proof that in English the words “jealous” and “envious” really are interchangeable since many people think they aren’t, so here you go, Merriam-Webster:

Ok, so. Back to the analysis!

All the Stan jealousy examples you’ve used would fit more with inveja and not be so related to ciúmes, but Stan has both in spades.

In this one scene, for example, the jealousy is not just related to something Ford has (genius intelligence)/Ford can do and Stan can’t do (build a light bulb), aka inveja, but also related to the attention/love Soos and the kids were bestowing upon Ford because of that, aka ciúmes. 

In fact, Alex talked about that in the commentary of Stanchurian Candidate:

At this point, the kids have become a surrogate family. In the beginning of the show, they were just kind of a little nuisance, and he kinda tried out getting the family from them that he never got from his brother—the idea that he would lose them to his brother is his greatest nightmare. 

Not only that, but ironically, Stan was jealous of THE KIDS, due to the attention Ford was bestowing upon them! According to the commentary of AToTS:

In order to bring out the maximum amount of frustration in Stan, he needed to have a bit of a heart. Like, [Stan] would see him being kind to the kids—he’s not all bad, which is so infuriating to Stan. The idea that he would quickly get along with the kids when [Stan] can’t get any respect from this guy—Ford is designed to what would bring out the most amount of conflict in the family.

And how does Stan act when he’s feeling that specific kind of jealousy (ciúmes) out of fear that Ford appreciates someone else more than him (which would be our focus as stancesters)? He amps up the passive-aggressiveness to 11, hahah. 

I mean, Alex never commented on Stan’s feelings in this scene, but just look at him.

In the same way he was jealous of the kids for receiving Ford’s respect, he was likely jealous of Fiddleford for receiving Ford’s apologies! Not in a romantic way, just... jealous.

You can notice the resemblance:

My conclusion is that when he’s feeling jealous (both inveja and ciúmes) of Ford (that is, he feels like Ford has something he doesn’t have OR receiving appreciation he doesn’t get) he goes to extreme measures to one up Ford and prove himself better, just like you said. However, when he’s feeling jealous (ciúmes) of someone else for receiving something from Ford (Ford’s respect, Ford’s affection, Ford’s apologies), though, he just... sulks.

Now, Ford! I can’t recall Ford feeling inveja of someone, despite his ambition, but we do see Ford feeling the ciúmes kind of jealousy:

Ford is not passive-aggressive and indirect about it. Ford is confrontational about it. He angrily asks Bill if Bill was “off inspiring some other scientist” and even questions the nature of their relationship to Bill’s face, but Bill manipulates his way out of that by guilt tripping Ford and pointing out that Ford had been the one skipping portal work to hang out with Fiddleford.

Imo, jealousy/ciúmes and possessiveness are somewhat different. You can’t be possessive without being jealous in the first place, of course, but you can be jealous without being possessive. Jealousy is just the insecurity at the core of it, but possessiveness entails at least some measure of entitlement, a certain confidence that this person should belong to you/be with you.

Ford does feel entitled to Stan’s help, at least (“I’m giving you a chance to do the first worthwhile thing in your life, and you won’t even listen!”) so considering the very codependent nature of their relationship as boys and the fact Stan has always treated Ford like the center of his life, it’s not a stretch to imagine Ford growing to feel entitled to Stan’s love or Stan himself, period. They’re twins -> Stan is his other half -> Stan belongs to him subconscious pipeline.

I think Ford is definitely more confident than Stan, whose confidence is a performance, and as such he has the potential to feel entitled to and possessive of Stan as a result, but that side of him wouldn’t be as easily awakened (like it was with Bill) because he’s more secure in the knowledge that Stan is indeed his—he’s more secure in everything, really, including his masculinity and physical appearance and potential. (Actually, it really is the same thing with their toxic masculinity! It looks like Stan is the only twin with toxic masculinity because of how insecure and pathetic he is about it all the time! Ford, on the other hand, has tons of it, but is way more subtle about it because he actually believes in himself.)

Stan’s jealousy, meanwhile, would be more easily awakened. He is in the corner crossing his arms and glaring very, very hard at you as Ford praises your new scientific project. He is, indeed, very pathetic about it.

guys you dont understand i feel like. ford sees things in black in white like all the fucking time. for most of his adult life he 100% thinks he's destined to be the hero of the story, especially a tragic hero who sacrifices himself for the greater good.

But when Stan is the one who does that, and he realizes how shittily he's treated him after Bill is defeated, he goes the opposite direction entirely, self-loathing and all

Ford: perhaps.........i have been the villain of this story all along......................

Stan: sixer, for the last time. you're not a fuckin' villain, you're a fuckin' human. can you pass the bacon.

Synopsis: Growing up is tough especially when you don't know that your a half to a duo.

Do You Ever just wonder what it would be like if Stan and Ford were separated at birth?

Woo new chapter is out now

I think it's funny because I take sertraline and it still gives me really vivid dreams, but the weirdest thing I’ve ever dreamed was reading a book??? Anyway, I’d love to dream something related to stancest, and if I can make it lucid, I want to manifest that pizza just to see what it tastes like lmao

so here’s a fun fact: seroquel often gives you weird, vivid dreams.

anyways. had a dream where i went to a ytp party. someone brought out a fucking. stancest pizza? the box said “STANCEST: INCEST IS WINCEST” and the fuckin’. mini pizza table thing at the center of the pizza had a stancest decal. everyone was EXTREMELY hyped about stancest pizza

anyways are there any dream interpreters in the chat what does stancest pizza mean

Here is my hot take of the day: f¡ddl3st4n is just repressed Stancest. Like, pretend all you want, but we damn know that the nerd x jock ship you want to see (and is way more canon) is another one, babe.

Random Doodles

“Already tired of trying to recall when it all fell apart…I just want to love you well…I just want to learn how to somehow, to be loved myself - Sleeping At Last

i was asked another question on my strawpage that i felt needed a meta to properly explain my feelings, so i'm putting it here. i apologize if it gets rambly and isn't entirely coherent lol.

ford, to me, is selfish, blinded by his own obsession with global recognition, and morally questionable at times (moreso than stan) but not an outright bad person.

i think he's an overall good person with an extremely skewed worldview. he's def not bad compared to people like gideon, preston northwest, or even his own dad, but his motivations are morally ambiguous and he tends to put his own selfish obsession with global recognition, fame, and glory over the feelings and safety of those closest to him.

an argument could be made that much of his behavior can be attributed to trauma and his upbringing (his deformity, his relationship with filbrick, his social ineptitude, his fallout with stan, his violent physical & psychological abuse at the hands of bill, his experiences while dimension-hopping), though that by no means excuses it, nor is it justified. in fact, i think fans who aggressively defend ford's objectively toxic and selfish behavior with "he's been through a lot!! he's traumatized!" do his character arc a huge disservice.

ford wasnt just a scientist that was obsessed with answers for the sheer sake of knowledge and betterment of humanity—he specifically wanted to be PRAISED and officially recognized for his findings, he wanted to be added to history books, he wanted people to know HE was the one who made those discoveries, which is what makes his treatment of fiddleford during their partnership so abhorrent IMO.

he refused to destroy the portal (despite nearly losing his friend and lab partner to it) and likewise refused to simply burn/destroy his journals, both instances bc of his own stubborn pride, not bc of some noble desire to benefit mankind (or save someone ELSE, like in stan's case for restarting the portal).

whether intentional or not, he projected his own feelings and relationship with stan so harshly onto dipper that he was the indirect catalyst for their fallout in DAMVTF.

ford did more than simply offer dipper an apprentice position. he planted the seed in dipper's mind that mabel was suffocating and holding him back (despite barely knowing them or their unique relationship), because that's how he viewed stan.

he didnt just suspect that there may be potential fallout between them, he fully anticipated it, yet still thought he was doing dipper a favor by driving a wedge between them. he couldnt see past his own bitterness towards stan and ended up pressuring an impressionable 12-year-old to make a life-changing decision, one that also drove mabel right into bill's trap.

the lesson ford was meant to learn at the end of weirdmageddon was that he is NOT the selfless, noble hero he always envisioned himself as. he was a closed-off, arrogant loner who let his delusional perception of himself and who he wanted to be push everyone who mattered away and make it easy for bill to use him for his own evil purposes. ford was so stuck in this headspace that he needed a literal apocalypse and losing the one person who never stopped loving him unconditionally for him to finally pull his head out of his ass and change.

stan was the hero ford always imagined he was destined to be.

yet, despite ALL of this, there was a repressed part of him buried deeep, DEEEEP down that still held stan and their childhood close to his chest throughout his entire life. he wrote about stan in his journal constantly, he wrote that he missed him in college using their bro code (meaning he didnt want fidds to know about stan and he wrote it solely for himself), he saved a polaroid of stan in his journal and memorized his business phone number, and of course, he kept that childhood photo LITERALLY next to his heart throughout all his travels.

this is more headcanon-ish than actual canon, but i feel like ford felt angry at himself for never being able to fully leave stan behind, despite how much he "wanted" to, or how much he believed he SHOULD'VE wanted to. after all, stan was the one who sabatoged ford's future. he's the one who ruined everything between them, yet here ford was, still missing him and having second thoughts about shutting him out of his life, which only made him want to shut stan out even more.

his father and principal instilled in him that stan was a worthless fuck-up that only rode his coattails and held him back.

bill, his muse, the sun in his galaxy, tried to convince him to forget about stan and their past.

and ford tried.

but he couldn't.

even at his most resentful, even when he was fighting god-knows-what in multiple dimensions for THIRTY YEARS, he never let go of that photo. and i think that alone speaks volumes about his character.

Muse

Stan trying to flirt his way out of situations - a fiddlestan comic

(If u saw this on twitter a few days ago shh. I completely forgot to post here KWUCDJJF)