There's Multiple Reasons Why I Love Demisexual!Ford With Stancest But I Think The Biggest Reasons Is

Was rereading journal 3 and like. When Fiddleford and Ford are talking about their dreams Fiddleford mentions he wants to return back to California after the portals done and become a successful independent inventor, and make things that help people.

And like at first I'm like oh yeah it's another thing to showcase how kind Fiddleford is (and to also compare Fiddleford to Ford and the difference in their dreams etc). But... The thing is this conversation is right before the gremloblin incident that causes Fiddleford to make the memory gun. And Fiddleford expressly in the show talks about how the memory gun can 'help' people. And how he starts the cult as a way he can 'help' people. His invention to help people ends up being the memory gun.

And I think there's something really ironic here. That at first Fiddleford's desire to help is seen as a good thing, but underlying it, it's deeply problematic (and ends up abusive) when you connect it to the memory gun. And it comes down to that even if you believe you know best, removing people's autonomy to make decisions for others is generally not helping people. It's actually more harmful, and just because you have good intentions doesn't mean that changes the outcome.

Chapters: 2/3 Fandom: Gravity Falls Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Ford Pines/Stan Pines Characters: Stan Pines, Ford Pines, Fiddleford H. McGucket, Robbie Valentino, Wendy Corduroy, Tambry (Gravity Falls), Jesus “Soos” Alzamirano Ramirez, Original Child Character(s), Pa Duskerton (mentioned), Ma Duskerton (mentioned) Additional Tags: It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Hurt/Comfort, Teen Pregnancy, Childbirth, Age Difference, Older Man/Younger Man, Obsessive Behavior, kinda dark ford bc you know getting your brother pregnant is wild man, Fluff, the amount of research i put into this is actually apalling the 60s were wild, this is extremely self indulgent i just wanted to see pregnant stan ok, also stan has a pussy i forgot to mention sorry, Filbrick Pines’ Bad Parenting, Past Underage Sex, but its just mentioned Summary:

Stan finds out he’s pregnant at 15 years old. It’s simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to him.

It’s done! The third chapter will be an epilogue which will be posted later! Thank you all so much for accompanying the process and giving it your attention :)

For @mirrorworldangel and @muchmallows who were the main inspiration for this, you’re both amazing :)

Did anyone done this before?

Well... i don't care acsually~☆!!

Using this as my pfp now~♡!!

I also turned it into my lock screen~☆

I am loving this~♡

Ford’s love for & view of Stan pre-memory erasing: a lengthy analysis

A big misunderstanding going on in this fandom is the idea that Stan was the one yearning for Ford while Ford was too busy hating Stan (at worst) or at least thinking he hated Stan (at best), too focused on his research and academic accomplishments to pay his repressed/heavily denied love for Stan any mind, up until Stan’s sacrifice in Weirdmaggedon. Ambitious, self-centered Ford, who would be shocked at the preposterous idea that he still loved Stan deep down if, say, his post-Weirdmaggedon future self revealed it to him. “I thought I hated you, but I was wrong,” old Ford says to Stan, remorseful... and painfully out-of-character!

Another very popular idea is that Ford genuinely values the greater good over Stan, to the point he wouldn’t have rescued Stan if their positions were reversed. This idea is so rooted in people’s minds that when Ford’s most dedicated fans attempt to defend him, they argue that he was right to be angry about being rescued from the portal because Stan was acting irresponsibly (as if Ford wouldn’t have done the same thing). This is not about anyone in particular—it’s a tendency I’ve seen repeated again and again and again, in different ages of this fandom.

The gap between Stan needing Ford vs Ford needing Stan is so big in some people’s minds that they seem to think that poor, guilty Ford ending up with Stan all alone on a boat wasn’t the best ending for him. That was just Alex trying to make a point about “family above all” in a show about family, teaching Ford a lesson, and rewarding Stan’s unhealthy codependency...

It’s just incredible how Ford’s own love and yearning towards Stan is shoved under the rug by the fans!

I understand why, of course. Ford is arguably the most complex character in Gravity Falls. His love for Stan is shown more subtly than Stan’s love for him. You have to actually pay close attention, and often enough people aren’t invested enough in the Stan twins’ relationship to do so. Sometimes because they’re more invested in the relationship of Stan and/or Ford with other characters, and this is not throwing shade, either—on my part, I can admit I am so invested in them that I don’t care as much for other characters, and that’s natural.

My most controversial takes here are: 1) Ford has always known he loved Stan. Yes, even at his most bitter. He just didn’t think Stan was worthy of that love. 2) Ford valued his family, including Stan, over any noble ideal of greater good. 3) Ford missed Stan and yearned for his company just as much as Stan missed Ford and yearned for his company. I have dedicated this particular meta to pointing out not all moments (that would make it longer than Tolstoy’s War and Peace, just by the amount of times Ford mentions Stan in his journal) but the most telling ones re: Ford’s repressed but obvious love for Stan and their implications. I’ll break it into a few different subjects that I believe drive my point across.

Ford’s sentimentality over Stan:

A good place to start as any. Stan is in literally everything Ford does, sometimes in ways so subtle that people miss it, and in ways that Ford himself would love to deny, even if it meant lying to himself. Ford is very, very sentimental, and that is reflected in his relationship with Stan through the decades, with all the different paths he takes to cling to his past and the idea of his brother.

Let’s explore some examples, shall we? We don’t need to go far.

First of all, the Mystery Shack cottage, commissioned by Ford and built by Dan Corduroy according to Journal 3, is clearly based off a childhood toy he shared with Stan.

It doesn’t stop there, of course. Ford loves his boat motif decorations. (At least the boat on top of the shelf is very likely Ford’s choice of décor, and not Stan’s, given that it’s placed beside Ford’s shrunken heads referenced in Journal 3; we know that the boat painting belongs to one of the Stan twins and not Dipper, since it was already there in Tourist Trapped as Dipper arrives. I think it’s fair to assume, given the boat on top of the shelf, that it was also Ford’s.)

And would you look at that, his favorite place in his beloved Gravity Falls, a town full of wondrous places full of fantastical anomalies and literally a weirdness magnet, is, for some reason, a lake. A very weird lake? A very cool lake? No, a lake that reminded him of his childhood, aka Stan (as seen by the drawing of a boat and the codified message). “There is no other place in Gravity Falls I would rather be than the lake.”

But that isn’t enough for Ford. He must keep, still, pictures and videos of Stan. I won’t even focus, here, on the picture of the Pines family that Ford stares at in the beginning of his college days, despite Stan and Ford being at the very center of it and it being a visual parallel to Stan’s own picture of him and his brother. That one included Filbrick and Caryn, and the speaker had just mentioned making one’s family proud. But what about the rest?

People usually focus on the overall adorableness of, say, Ford leaning his head on Stan’s shoulders or Ford’s apologies (again, in Journal 3) to notice the implications of what Dipper says: “Ford even found an old film reel of them as kids, which he amazingly saved all these years.” Even Dipper himself is amazed. I’ve seen people assuming that Ford had these and forgot about them, or that Caryn was the one to send him these and he simply agreed to avoid a fight (there is a tendency in this fandom to think of her as a very doting and/or caring mother, but we have no evidence to think so, as explained here). Years later, TBoB was like, “nuh-uh, that was all Ford Pines!” In TBoB, Ford not only does remember some of these itens, but he makes a conscious effort to hide them from Fiddleford, worried that his friend was getting “too close” (to what? to the inner depths of his heart and mind, where Stanley was?) “I’ve quickly re-hidden here, away from prying eyes.”

And a picture of teenage Stan (as seen below), too! You would think he would just attach himself to the idealized version of baby Stan in his head to feed his nostalgia and completely ignore teenage Stan, the traitor, the one who destroyed his science project. But no, Ford wouldn’t be Ford if he acted consistently about Stan. The funniest thing to me about the ripped yearbook page is that it implies Ford made the conscious decision to include Stan as he ripped the page off, when he could have just focused on his own picture. And then we also have his drawing of Stan, a perfectly accurate portrayal of Stan’s face as he got kicked out, implying that not only he paid an enormous amount of attention to his brother and how he looked like back then (after he closed the curtains), but that particular image was living rent free in his brain. Very vividly. With details.

Now, folks, do we have any doubt whatsoever of the power Stan had in Ford’s psyche? Seeing that this is how the bedrock of Ford’s mind looked like? The boat, the swing set? I’ve seen it suggested before that these items represent Ford’s greatest regrets—I don’t know if I fully agree with that take, seeing as the swing set is fully intact, unlike in Stan’s mind, but one thing is true: they represent what Ford deep down thinks is most important, and two of three are directly related to Stan. Even the portal, from a certain angle, is connected to Stan.

Now, another thing that I believe to be related to that, is the claim that Ford didn’t spare Stan a single tought in the many decades they went separated. But here is Ford, casually confessing that he spent the last thirty years thinking of Stan:

But back to pictures. According to Alex in the commentary of Weirdmaggedon 3: Take Back the Falls, that picture of Stan has always been in Ford’s coat pocket, through all the decades, even before Bill’s betrayal. That’s why it’s so damaged. He was dimension hopping with it. I don’t think I even need to make any comment here, hahah.

I almost imagine if McGucket found that photo in his, you know, coat while they’re working on the portal or something... [imitating Fiddleford’s creaky voice] “What’s this? What’s this here?” And Ford says, [imitating Ford’s deep, very serious voice] “OH, yes. That’s a very important moment, that’s when I, um, first decided I wanted to be an adventurer.” [...] There would be NO reference to... the real reason he’s keeping it [...]. “Oh yes, this is about, uh, science, as a horizon, as a frontier to reach towards. You know, like a boat, like a ship, like science. It’s about SCIENCE!”

Ford’s protectiveness:

Stan Pines is very much ones of Ford’s weaknesses. Ford knows this and accepts this with shocking ease. How so? Well, first of all, the nightmare he had. As he tells us about it in Journal 3, even though he attempts to make light of the situation, his hand is clearly trembling as he writes, making drops of ink splatter on the page. The climax of his nightmare, the peak, the scariest moment was when Ford realized he was not the one at risk; rather, Stan was. “I realized my hand wasn’t chasing after me at all—it was chasing after my brother, and it was going to squeeze him to death!”And then, may it be noticed, there was no hesitation whatsoever on Ford’s part about whether to save Stan or not, nor does he try to hide his protective reaction. It was immediate and instinctive. “I tried to run to help him, but my feet were frozen.” It’s very telling that the Dream Hipster, the nightmare inducing ghost, thought that Stanley Pines would be the most effective thing to make Ford shake in his boots. Not even, say, failing and being ridiculed by other scientists, considering how ambitious he was.

And you know who else has noticed this weakness? Bill Cipher, of course. After psychologically, emotionally, and physically abusing Ford in horrific manners (including but not limited to: forcing him to eat spiders, driving a nail into his hand, and making him wake up on the snowy roof of the Mystery Shack as a symbolic threat of forced suicide), Bill involves Stan, as the grand finale. “But then he crossed a line.” Why was Ford’s brother that line, after everything Ford himself went through? “No. He wouldn’t.” Ford couldn’t even believe Bill’s audacity in involving Stan, even though he very much already knew Bill was as evil as evil could get. Because Bill knew, having free access to Ford’s mind, how terribly important Stan was: the person Ford loved the most in the world, more than himself.

You could still argue, then, that Ford wasn’t very protective of homeless Stan. After all, how could he have allowed his brother to be homeless in the first place?

Simple: he didn’t know. There’s a lot of things about mullet!Stan that Ford didn’t know! From canon, namely TBoB and Journal 3, we can deduce that Ford didn’t think of him as homeless, thought he was doing well for himself, living a well traveled charlatan/adventurer’s life, perhaps even a friend/member of the mob:

As Stan was kicked out, he told Ford (and the rest of the family), “Fine! I can make it on my own! I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone! I’ll make millions and you’ll rue the day you turned your back on me!” The way I see it, Ford took that at face value. Stan didn’t seek Ford out in those ten years, either, presumably out of a mix of pride, shame and self-hatred, so Ford could only assume Stan truly didn’t need him. Despite the many, many crossed out mentions of Stan in Journal 3, I think Ford at least tried to not let his mind linger on thoughts about Stan too much, because that hurt.

In his most recent interview, by HanaHyperfixates and ThatGFFan in 2023/2024, Alex talked about Ford’s issues:

He’s aloof, and distant, and he’s too perfect. And it’s like, “oh! I think he’s also aloof and distant from himself.”

I think he is, uh, deeply deeply hiding from his real feelings about things, because at some point early on, he decided that he could run from hurt by achievement and by creation, and has dug that hole so deep that he has no relationships.

If he sees achievement and creation as distractions from his real feelings, no wonder Stan didn’t get a call (or a postcard) from him earlier.

We also have Ford’s condescending, but protective, attitude towards Stan in TBoB as he considers asking for his help. Condescending protectiveness, if you will:

Notice how Ford briefly looks at Stan when Stan rants about his life:

A very ☹️ face. He’s probably surprised and concerned about what he’s hearing.

And then Stan, unfortunately but understandably, starts insulting/accusing him of selfishness:

You can notice the ☹️ face slowly becoming 😠 as Stan started attacking.

Again, when Ford accidentally hurts Stan by branding him:

That’s not even ☹️ anymore, it’s almost 😩! Things would probably have deescalated and perhaps even been fixed if Stan, unfortunately but understandably, hadn’t punched Ford in the face as retaliation.

“Oh, but what about old Ford kicking Stan out after everything, then?”

I think a lot of people who talk about this moment operate under the assumption that Stan was, well, completely and thoroughly screwed if Ford followed with his original man. An old man, no place to go, no money...

But Stan did have money. A lot.

No, really, he had, per his own words, in the extra commentary of Land Before Swine:

I do have a son, Benjamin Abe Hamilton Washington. This pile of money I’ve collected over the years! That’s my true family. Y’know, I can sorta glue it together into the shape of a child, maybe… Eh, I dunno. I do my best, right? And I do have—I do actually—not to brag, but I have an obscene amount of money. Uh, y’know, all the years of collecting and etcetera—and also grifting!

I’m not defending Ford’s actions here. Ford is my favorite character, but I’m not a Ford defender, hahah. You could still argue that what he did was an ungrateful, jerky move, and I would agree. I’m just against painting it as a “Ford doesn’t care at all about Stan’s safety” moment. Especially because, when Ford told Stan he wanted his house back, sufficient time had already passed. Enough for Ford to change his clothes, visibly, and enough for them to have had a talk, in which Stan could have revealed this little fact about himself.

Another thing I’d like to address is that Ford doesn’t hesitate at all to save Stan when he gets into trouble and acts natural about it, which is way more that we can say for Stan (as seen by how Stan reacts when Ford is kidnapped by Probabilitor the Annoying and when Ford is turned into a golden statue by Bill):

Again, not saying that Stan wasn’t justified in not wanting to help/save Ford after Ford’s blatant ungratefulness (I’m also sure he didn’t know Bill was actually torturing Ford). Not the point.

Now, back to Bill.

What I always loved about his little victory moment in Weirdmaggedon 3: Take Back the Falls is that upon surprising his enemies with his appearance, he proceeds to turn everyone into tapestry, including even Fiddleford (whom we know Ford cares a lot about!) but forces himself to spare Stan and the kids and place them inside the cages, even though they didn’t know the equation and would have zero usefulness to him. That could only be because he thought he could use them against Ford, so Stan was obviously included (instead of turned into tapestry or outright killed) for that very purpose. From a Doylist perspective, of course they couldn’t have excluded Stan, since he was one of the main characters; for the sake of character analysis, though, this is the best explanation in-universe.

That is why, when Stan-as-Ford tells Bill, “My only condition is that you let my brother and the kids go!” Bill easily believes him. Because he thought that it would be in-character for Ford. And Bill wouldn’t be wrong, not at all. He wouldn’t, because Ford himself was the one to tell Stan, just a moment earlier: “We need to take his deal. It’s the only way he’ll agree to save you and the kids.” It’s blaffling to me how many fans seem to forget Ford’s own words, and the fact Ford was very, very much willing to damn the whole universe (with seven billion people living on Earth at the time) to save three (3) people, including Stan. That Stan himself was the one to oppose and stop him. I think that happens because people buy Ford’s facade of Cold Responsible Greater Good Guy, which couldn’t be more deceiving. At this point I’m begging you guys to look deeper!

One common misconception about Ford’s character—not only Ford, but many, many fictional characters I have had the pleasure of considering blorbos—is that people take his facade at face value and judge him based off that. You’re falling for his bullshit. You’re looking at Ford and seeing exactly the man he wants you to see, instead of the man he is.

Ford demonstrated being hypocritical many, many times through the show, the comics, his journal, and even TBoB. I would go so far as to say it’s a Known Personality Trait of his. He chews Stan’s ass for being selfish, reckless, a criminal. Then proceeds to be: selfish and completely unaware of it, ten times more reckless, and a much more dangerous kind of criminal. He reproaches Stan for risking the world for only one person, but would have done the same thing.

Now, the last point of this particular subject: Ford and the erasing of Stan’s memories, which is sometimes interpreted as Ford prioritizing the greater good, or the kids’ safety, over Stan.

Dear reader, Ford erased Stan’s memories because he had literally no other choice. This is what Ford said to him: “He’ll be able to take over the galaxy and maybe even worse, but at least he might let the kids free.” Emphasis on the might, here. Might! Perhaps! Maybe! Perchance! Ford, in this line, was referring to Bill’s immediate threat to the kids’ lives—Bill had, after all, ran after Dipper and Mabel with a terrifying threat of disassembling their molecules as their grunkles were forced to watch inside their cage, powerless to stop him. After reflecting about their whole situation, he included Stan’s safety in the deal, too, now more certain than ever about his decision to sacrifice not only himself but, in his own words, “the galaxy” (and later, “the universe,” as he was pretending to be Stan) to, again, perhaps (!!!) save his family. Ford had literally no guarantee Bill would follow through with his words. Given Bill’s track record, it was way, way more likely that he wouldn’t. Bill is a liar and a manipulator through and through, one who takes great enjoyment in people’s suffering. Ford’s suffering, specifically, above all, since TBoB painted Bill as this toxic and possessive ex obsessed with his pet scientist. What were the chances?

Even if Bill, through some miracle, did end up keeping his word, we saw Bill’s plans for Earth in his daydream fantasies: taking a bite off the planet, drawing a smiley face on its surface as millions died... What a guy, that Bill! If the Earth was wrecked beyond repair, where would Stan and the kids live? How would they survive among all the chaos and destruction of the literal apocalypse? With nightmarish creatures lurking in every corner? With what food, what water, what shelter? Answer: they likely wouldn’t. The probability of human survival would be abysmally low.

Ford, tragically, had no other choice but to sacrifice Stan’s memories. It was that or risking the possibility of having to watch his family, including Stan, die horribly painful deaths at Bill’s sadistic hands or to condemn his family, including Stan, to a slower but still certain death after the entire human race perished.

Ford being aware of his love for Stan:

I have faith that most people already knew, to some extent, that Ford never stopped loving Stan, even at his angriest. A much lower percentage of these people, I believe, know that Ford himself was very much aware of that, and not in denial at all. He never even thought he hated Stan.

First, I choose to point out how young adult Ford, still in college, with his bitterness and resentment still very fresh, admits to missing Stan. He wrote, “MISS YOU” in their Bro Code, the code he memorized and never forgot. He not only thought about Stan, which would be understandable, since all of us have intrusive thoughts, but he took the time to write it down, and in code, which would be even more difficult than just writing it in English. That requires at least some level of acceptance. You may not be able to filter your thoughts, but you are able to filter your writing.

Ford does attempt to filter his writing, I know, by crossing out a lot of lines in Journal 3, most of them about Stan. But he does not cross out all of it. He freely admits to having a nightmare about Stan, to wanting to protect Stan from the giant six-fingered hand, to having the lake as his favorite place, to missing Stan. I think that Ford, if asked about his love for Stan back then, would also freely admit to it, as well. Stan is his twin brother, so of course he loves Stan.

One thing that always caught my attention is how Ford still refers to Stan as his “family” in the Journal, even after Stan’s attempt to disown him. Stan makes it pretty clear that, from now on, his “family” is just Mabel and Dipper:

Days after this, Ford didn’t seem to have taken this to heart, as seen by what he wrote in his Journal:

It’s way more likely than not that he IS including Stan, here. He says “the rest of the Pines,” instead of just “the children” or “the kids” or “the twins,” and even singles out Dipper as someone he trusts (contrasted with Stan and Mabel, whom he doesn’t).

I wonder if that’s just Ford being stubborn or if he really thinks his relationship with Stan is in a somewhat better place than it actually is.

I mean, for instance, this is their swingset (symbol of their relationship) in Stan’s mind:

And here it is Ford’s mind:

Still ominous, but very noticeably intact.

It’s ironic—I think that Ford was aware of his own love for Stan, but not aware of how damaged their relationship was from Stan’s POV.

Ford and stubborness:

I’ve also seen people saying that, if Stan hadn’t sacrificed himself, Ford would have continued, quote unquote, “hating” him. Or that his happy ending with Stan was a byproduct of his guilt over the same sacrifice, and not out of a genuine desire to reconnect with Stan. According to Alex’s commentary on this scene in Weirdmaggedon 3: Take Back the Falls, that isn’t true, either:

This whole sort of conclusion here is—what we needed to happen in this scene was—we needed pressure to be at the point where Stan and Ford recognize their lifelong rivalry and Ford does a sincere apology to Stan. And almost more importantly, he acknowledges Stan’s intelligence. Like, he says, “you wouldn’t have fallen for Bill’s nonsense,” like, he recognizes his brother has a kind of intelligence that he doesn’t. [...] And even though it’s Stan who agrees to—“I’ll be the one! Erase my mind! It’s fine. It’s worth it.”—like, it’s a sacrifice for both, like, Ford at this point is willing to get his brother back and has to lose him again. Like, both of them were... just doing what they have to do here.

This means that Ford was already wanting to reconnect with Stan before Stan offered to sacrifice his own memories. His comment about how Stan wouldn’t have fallen for Bill’s flattery wasn’t just self-reproach or some comfort to Stan, but a conscious attempt to soften things between them.

Which also means Stan’s offer to sacrifice himself wasn’t actually necessary for Ford to forgive him (or switch the blame entirely, more like, and start blaming himself instead) but just came at the worst possible moment. It was too late for them, now.

Reconciling Ford’s love for Stan with his treatment of Stan:

Now, we arrive at the last problem, which is something I’ve seen a lot of people struggling with. How to even reconcile Ford’s love for Stan, something we see hints of again and again, with his treatment of Stan?

First, this infamous line in Journal 3, which is arguably the most vicious (towards Stan) Ford ever was in canon:

That’s probably also related to Ford’s control freak tendencies. If Ford admits to himself he is not in control, that he needs help from other people, that he is really that desperate... Well, he can’t admit that, so he rationalizes his way out of that conclusion by convincing himself he would be the one doing Stan a favor (offering him the chance to prove himself to Ford), and not the other way around. He doesn’t need Stan, he doesn’t need anyone; Stan is the one who needs him and his forgiveness. (This is the moment I get the urge to reference a manga protagonist with a very similar control freak mindset, Light Yagami from Death Note. Why am I always attracted to characters with deep cogntive dissonance issues who desperately shape their own narrative to convince themselves of their full control over it? Like a moth to a flame.)

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe Ford looked down on Stan—on people in general. There’s plenty of evidence for that in both Journal 3 and Word of God, if you count Word of God as evidence. Ford himself admits to that after Weirdmaggedon. And let’s not forget what is probably the biggest elephant in the room, the 2016 TVInsider interview (if you’re nerdy enough to read such a long meta, you’re likely nerdy enough to have seen this quote already):

In terms of Stan and his brother’s conflict, we always wanted a moment where Ford saw that he was wrong. Ford’s spent an entire life imagining himself as this lone solitary hero and imagining his brother as this bumbling leech. From a narrative point of view, for Ford to see Stan be the hero finally lets Ford see the true side of his brother that he’s been too blinded by pride to see.

Ah, yes. Ford looking down on Stan enough to think of him as a “bumbling leech.” To most people, this sounds way harsher than “selfish jerk,” the term Ford himself used in Journal 3.

Fittingly enough, that was in the same interview Alex said Ford would have deserved to lose Stan:

If Stan had lost his memory for good, that would [have] provided some interesting narrative places for him and his brother to go, but ultimately the show is about the kids. Stan and his brother are meant to be a parable [that show] what can go wrong in a family relationship, [but also] show that, with hard work and sacrifice, the riff can be repaired. If Stan’s memory had been fully erased, it wouldn’t punish him so much because he’d be gone, but it would punish Ford, Dipper and Mabel most. Even though Ford might deserve that punishment, Dipper and Mabel do not.

The interesting thing here, though, is exactly that: losing Stan would be a punishment to Ford. Why? Because it would hurt. Why? Because Ford loved him. Enough, it seems, that he would suffer more with it than Stan himself would.

I think what confuses people so much is that they conflate love with like with admiration with trust with respect. They think of it as the same thing—a confusing, amorphous mass of positive feelings towards someone.

The way I see it, though, Dipper was someone Ford loved (considering love a deeply rooted, complex emotion), liked (felt general fondness/amiability towards), and trusted (to be capable of handling all the mystery stuff). Mabel was someone he loved (she was family), liked (she was weird and creative and pure-hearted!), but didn’t trust (due to his constant projecting; before anyone attempts do deny this, I’ll remind you that Ford himself admits in Journal 3 that Dipper was the only family member whom he had come to trust). Stan was someone he didn’t like nor trust, not anymore, certainly didn’t admire and—let’s be honest—barely respected (or didn’t respect at all, depending on your point of view), but still loved with the fierce intensity of one thousand suns.

I do believe Alex is at least mindful of the difference between love and respect, as seen by his commentary on Stan’s condescending love for Mabel in Land Before Swine:

But this idea that Waddles is sort of a metaphor for what Mabel loves. And Stan loves Mabel but he doesn’t—he doesn’t really think that anything she thinks is necessarily smart or right. You know, he loves like her, ah, she’s my sweet niece, but [Stan’s voice] “she doesn’t know anything.”

In the same interview by HanaHyperfixates referenced earlier in this post, Alex revealed his view of the Stan twins’ relationship:

Those characters at sea—it was so rich. They’re really really funny, because they both have major major blind spots. I can kinda write stories about them as a duo forever, because you can always excuse them both getting hyped on a bad idea for their own reasons, and then you can always come up with a reason for them to disagree about it, and it’s always sweet to see them come together again, because they’re so full of themselves, but they are also both so damaged they desperately need each other.

As you can see, the codependency is genuinely mutual, not something imposed on poor, guilty Ford after Weirdmaggedon. One thing I find really interesting about Ford is his black & white mindset, the fact that the only way he knows how to be with Stan is a codependent way. They’re either separated and estranged or sailing completely alone on a boat for the rest of their lives. Either rivals or best friends forever. There’s no middle ground for him.

Dipper tells us in Journal 3: “Still, it’s taken about a week of intensive scrapbook therapy to get Stan fully back to himself. [...] Ford’s been working at it the hardest.” Ford was the one putting the most effort in getting Stan back. Despite all, I believe Ford is the person who loves Stan the most. Not the one who loves Stan better—that one would be Mabel, I believe, or Soos, who are non-judgemental and understanding. But Ford is the one who loves him with the most intensity, which is fascinating because for most of the show he doesn’t even know how to love Stan, as exemplified by his treatment of him. Too fierce, too selfish, too much of everything.

What people often get wrong about young Ford

Strong title, I know. By “young Ford,” I mean baby and teen Ford.

When people think of baby Ford, what kind of personality do they envision? Many times—as I can attest due to fanfic reading—they seem to picture him as shy, sweet, quiet, and, in Stan’s words, “Mr. Good Nerdy-Shoes” who couldn’t stand up for himself nor think of disobeying adult authority. Look at his adorable little face.

When they think of teen Ford, he is not so sweet anymore, true—but he still contrasts greatly with his adult self, who is so assertive and confrontational, and even with young Stan, who looks extra brash next to him. That is ostensibly why Ford couldn’t stand up for Stan in the principal’s office, even though he would have had if he had more courage.

Is this general portrayal faithful to what we’re shown in canon? My own answer would be a firm no. I’ll elaborate why, exactly, below the cut.

The first thing we have to establish, imo, is that young Ford isn’t a completely different creature, a boy unrecognisable from the man he is going to become. That even baby Ford already shared, to a certain extent, some of adult Ford’s traits, and not only the most “wholesome” of them—the endearing fascination with science and anomalies and nerdiness, that is.

We can notice, for example, his ambition (back then):

We can notice he’s apparently (from what is shown to us, which is not much) the one used to decide what the Stan twins did every day, the Phineas to Stan’s Ferb:

Stan asks him, and he answers—a perhaps unintended but still fascinating parallel to how Ford was also the one to decide their destiny in the finale, namely to hunt anomalies in the Arctic.

He’s the one who rides their bike in the two panels we see them riding it. Maybe an insignificant (and definitely unintended) detail but fitting, imo, with the pattern of Ford leading and Stan tagging along.

Despite these two observations being more my particular observations than anything else, the need to draw a visual parallel between baby Ford with his adult self was the whole point of dressing them in similar outfits, with the red turtleneck:

That said, let’s focus on two major things here...

Was Ford ever a goody-two-shoes?

I think nothing is more fitting than to start this topic with Stan’s little nickname for Ford in the comics: “Mr. Goody Nerd-Shoes.”

If you have read Journal 3—hell, if you have watched the show at all—you know that Stanford Pines is far, far from being a goody two-shoes, despite indeed being a huge nerd. (An important distinction! Ford doesn’t fit nerd stereotypes!) The guy stole radioactive waste from the government even before his portal days, became an intergalactic criminal described as “armed and dangerous,” lent a mind-control tie to a child... Stan is just living in the past and doesn’t understand that Ford changed, right? He isn’t that sweet little boy who could do no wrong anymore!

But... was he ever?

He found it hilarious when Stan mocked their teacher with an unflattering caricature, and doesn’t even bother to hide it.

He helped Stan cheat on tests/assignments (it’s not clear what exactly they’re doing here, but the fact Stan was trying hard to copy it from Ford and not from the blackboard tells us he wasn’t simply copying notes, but answers). Do notice that Ford doesn’t seem bothered, not even anxious or afraid of the teacher catching them. He’s smiling.

Both occasions seem to indicate that despite taking his studies seriously, Ford didn’t have a particularly strong fear of adult authority.

And of course—the best for last—he found it perfectly normal to impersonate two boys he mistakenly thought were dead:

Alex elaborates on the shenanigans those two would get up to in the commentary A Tale of Two Stans:

We played around with the idea that you would see them working together doing little science games or pulling little pranks. There was actually a scene that—I think some of it was even storyboarded—where they have a treehouse. And they’re in the treehouse together and Crampelter and his friends have tracked them down and are begging for their lunch money and Stan and Ford have used their jerkiness and geniusness to rig up like a water balloon throwing machine that knocks Crampelter in the head. I remember him saying, “oh no, my old-timey paper crown!” We were really hanging a lampshade on all these sort of Little Rascal cliches.

They were—both of them—an utter menace. I think Ford just happened to be way subtler about it than poor Stan, causing his misbehaving nature to be easily ignored by both the audience and, luckily, his father Filbrick.

Was Ford ever meek and conflict-avoidant?

I think many people think Stan was the protector and Ford the protected in their early years, but it was never as straightforward as this.

Young Ford is very sensitive about one thing in particular: when people mock his hands or imply he’s a freak. The way I see it, it’s because he believes that, deep down. He believes he’s indeed a freak. On top of that, he cares more about general public opinion than Stan does, since Stan is only ever shown to care about the opinion of his own family.

The insecurity about his hands is something that arguably follows him to adulthood:

(Of course, Ford doesn’t blush and doesn’t demonstrate any insecurity here, but he’s gotten way better at hiding and/or suppressing his feelings. I doubt Bill would have chosen this to pick up on if he didn’t think it would hurt.)

Outside of that, however?

He was quite confrontational! Certainly way more than I remember being when I was his age, as a conflict-avoidant child.

Quite angry, too:

(Notice how, in the original idea of Stan and Ford rigging up a water fountain described in the previous topic, Ford wasn’t afraid to pull a prank on Crampelter, either, despite being sensitive towards Crampelter’s targeted mocking of his hands.)

And most interesting of all—he was not afraid of stand up for Stanley, even when it would cost him to do so (considering that the Sibling Brothers had threatened to frame him as well and let him face Filbrick’s punishment along with Stan in case he made the wrong choice):

Not even when Filbrick was involved directly, instead of being used as the Siblings Brothers’ invisible threat! Pay attention to how Stan hides behind Ford as he tells Ford, “tell ‘im, Sixer!” basically using his brother as a shield, hahah. And, by the way, subverting the common fanon perception that Stan would often protect his twin from his father while a helpless, scared Ford would only watch and let him take the punishment. This is one of the reasons why he gets angry at Stan for lying: “I defended you!”

When Stan is being kicked out, he actively asks Ford for help, once again, just like he did as a kid!

Not even their mom, Caryn, but Ford!

And Stan knows Ford like the back of his hand! Why would Stan ask for Ford to defend him, to stand up to Filbrick, if he didn’t think Ford was capable of it? Ford’s protection was something that Stan thought he could rely on, if only this once, with such high stakes and urgency... despite...

... despite Ford completely failing to defend him in front of the principal, yes.

Remember how Ford always struggled to defend himself from comments that he believed deep, deep down? I think a similar thing was happening here, in the principal’s office. Of course, he wouldn’t have thought of Stan as “a clown,” at the very least not consciously, and he loved his brother, but at that point in their lives the difference between Ford’s and Stan’s accomplishments and abilities must have been undeniable, with the world at large pointing it out more and more often.

This moment in the series was also probably inspired by the real moment in Alex’s life that inspired the scene in which Mabel overhead Ford’s proposal to Dipper, according to the commentary of Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future:

This idea of Mabel overhearing Dipper and feeling left out actually came from a real thing that happened between me and my sister. This is a weird anecdote about me and my sister but we did this kind of like, sort of competitive improv games when we were in middle school, very nerdy. And we did pretty good, like, our team made it to the international competition every year, and there was this high school team... [...] We had a pretty good team, but there was a team above us, the high school team, that was like, legendary, that we wanted to be like. And when me and my sister went from junior high school to high school, like, this is going to be our last year to do this sort of competitive improv, and I got a call from the high school team saying “hey, guess what? we already raided your team for the standout members, we’ve taken the people from your team that always do good scores and we’re combining the high school team and the middle school team into a super team and we would like you to be on the high school team. And I was like, “what about Ariel?” And they were like, “well, there’s only seven members per team—” and Ariel was listening on the conversation and I remember her like, bursting into tears because they had basically been like yeah, we got two Hirsches [and] we only want one, and I didn’t even blink. I just said, “no, I refuse to be on this team.” Like, I couldn’t, it was just like, this is so messed up, you’re breaking this whole thing apart, like yeah, it’s a great team, yeah, you guys are awesome, but I’m not gonna do this without Ariel.

Based on Alex’s immediate and strong reaction to such a proposal, it’s not a stretch to think Ford’s silence here was indeed telling—especially because in Alex’s case, Ariel was never insulted. The principal, on the other hand, calls Stan a “clown,” says “he’ll be lucky to graduate high school.”

And because Caryn (who failed to defend Stan when he’s kicked out) did react about the way the principal was talked about him/did ask about him, in the two opportunities that were given to her, basically taking Alex’s irl role in the situation:

Dipper himself also asked about Mabel, even though he was being given an opportunity to learn from The Author of the Journals, whom he admired to the point of almost worship:

A significant factor I think could have changed for Ford to stay silent as the principal badmouthed Stan is: Ford’s priorities. Before, when they were children and more carefree and naive, it was Stan > the world (such as other people’s opinions and his ambition). Now, though, with a true opportunity to finally prove himself—one unlike any other he had before, capable of earning him the approval of even their “tough as a cinderblock” father—he was clinging hard to it.

And you might also be thinking, “but the examples you gave of Ford being assertive were only of baby Ford! Teen Ford could have grown more insecure. Perhaps Stan hadn’t realized that yet, or perhaps Stan was just desperate.” To that I say... fair enough! We don’t have enough canon material regarding teen Ford to decide how he behaved.

But we do have something regarding college Ford, just as he entered college, likely just months after Stan was kicked out—when he met Fiddleford, as described by Fiddleford himself on the TBoB website:

Lines such as “[...] my room mate, a freshman from New Jersey, barged in like he owned the place [...]” and “confidently declared” are very telling here. Of course, Ford didn’t stand up for Fiddleford in front of the whole class, but I honestly think that a) it was a different situation, considering the sheer amount of people/the presence of a public audience, and, partially due to that, b) it would have been a very unintelligent move if he didn’t have anything to defend Fiddleford with (to brag about something with zero backup, even if motivated by anger, is a very typical move of cartoon characters to create conflict for the plot... and also quite annoying to me personally, so I’m glad Ford didn’t go that route, hahah). Deciding to prove that Fiddleford’s theory was accurate first to shove it in everyone’s face second is a way smarter move and way, way more in line with Ford’s modus operandi, who—well—loves shoving the undeniable truth and/or his undeniable superiority in people’s faces. (From Journal 3, when Ford was already living in Gravity Falls: “I traveled to Northwest Manor to confront Old Man Northwest with the evidence of his family’s deceit [...]” and “Imagine the look on the dean of West Coast Tech’s face when he saw that the student he refused was now the next Einstein! Imagine how proud my family and hometown would be: the ‘Freak’ would return a hero!”) Personally, the vibes I get from this seem to indicate a very confident Ford already! A Ford who would have defended Stan if he weren’t already slowly internalizing and subconsciously agreeing with the things people said about his brother, or—at the very least—asked the principal about Stan’s fate, like Alex, Caryn, and Dipper did/would have done in his place.

We also have a clear parallel between baby Ford in The Jersey Devil’s in the Details and teen Ford in A Tale of Two Stans. Both have people telling them they’re better than Stan. One defends Stan strongly, the other listens quietly. Both feel betrayed by Stan. One forgives Stan, the other doesn’t. Filbrick was involved in both situations—one wasn’t afraid of being framed if it meant standing with his brother, the other didn’t stand with his brother even as his brother was kicked out of the house.

Let’s remember the Sibling Brothers’ words to him:

“One day you’re gonna realize that you’re too good for him.” Unfortunately, that prophecy came true! Way too true!

In the commentary of Dipper and Mabel vs. The Future, Jason Ritter (Dipper’s VA) suggested that Ford believed than “you can be held back by your siblings,” to which Alex agreed. It’s not necessary to accept Word of God to understand this fact, either:

I didn’t want to end all of this on such a bitter note, since my last intention with this post is to give people more reason to hate on Ford. He is actually my favorite character and, if the parallels between The Jersey Devil’s in the Details and A Tale of Two Stans teach us anything, it is that Ford did have reasons to distrust Stan/not believe Stan was telling the truth about it being an accident. (Stan lies really, really well when he wants to! See: Not What He Seems!) It is exactly because of him being my favorite character, though, that I am so fascinated by his characterization, and I think baby Ford’s loyalty and courage deserves more appreciation. Teen Ford, on the other hand—it was never courage that he lacked.

The Pines Twins: Not Carbon Copies

Something I really love about both sets of Pines twins are that they are similar but Dipper and Mabel are not carbon copies of Stan and Ford.

Mabel is creative and chaotic, not afraid to say what’s on her mind like Stan but she is way nicer and can make friends and has this whimsical optimism and love for sweets and experiments she shares with Ford.

While Dipper and Ford are eager to solve and discover paranormal mysteries and prove themselves, leaning more into the academic nerdier side than their respective twins, Dipper is a brutally honest pessimist who wants to prove his manliness like Stan.

While they share some similar traits with their grunkles, Mabel and Dipper are still their own people and those shared traits are an endearing thing that helps them bond with Stan and Ford at different points in the series.

Additionally, both sets of twins do not have much luck in the romance department but they are adventurous brawlers and artists like Mabel, Dipper, Ford, and Stan have been shown in canon to be not hesitant to throw hands and are really good at drawing especially with personal stuff they experience and all four deeply love and value their family. They are just adorable.

Fic: Santa Baby

Rating: Adult

Notes: Because I’m induniated with Christmas music at work…(Set in Divide verse, but you don’t have to have read that to get the gist of this). Forgive mistakes - mostly written from mobile. Happy Holidays to all my followers, I wish you well and this is my gift to you! :)

“Stanley, this is never going to work.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Stan says from the other room. Ford can’t see him, but he knows what his brother is up to and it’s ridiculous, “I don’t know why I agreed to this in the first place…”

“Face it, Sixer - your husband is a gamblin’ man. I’m rubbing off on you.”

While Ford feels the pleasant of hum of Stan referring to him as his husband, he still can’t help but let out an exasperated sigh, “Perhaps, but taking this bet? Ludicrous. There’s no way I won’t win,” he sniffs with some self assured arrogance, “I almost feel sorry for you.”

“You just wait,” Stan’s voice holds its own note of pride, “You won’t be able to contain yourself when you see me in this get-up.”

“You are correct. I won’t be able to contain my laughter.”

Seguir leyendo

@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.

Messaging people for the first time is so hard. What am I supposed to say? Like, "You seem really odd and your blog intrigues me. Do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters?" What! Whatever. I will just follow you back and stare at your blog with my big beautiful brown eyes.

my spread for the @fiddlefordmcgucketzine i had a great time working on my first zine <3