THIS IS AMAZING LOL

Pines Twins Parallelisms

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who thought about the parallelisms of the oh-so untouched dynamics of Ford and Mabel, and Stan and Dipper, but humor me.

In a previous post, I mentioned Mabel is a mini-Ford in Stan’s font and Dipper being a Stan Jr. in Ford’s flair so here’s my take.

Mabel is just like Ford because, other than being the sweater-loving older twin that would always add something to in their diary/scrapbook, her mind is the only other stand-out to the Bill Cipher other than Ford's. He took genuine interest to her mindscape.

As for Dipper, he's so much like Stan. No book? Left hook!

Both Dipper and Mabel mirror the different aspects of Ford's mind and Stan's heart. Let's start with the obvious:

Dipper has Ford's academic mind and craving for problem-solving adventure.

While Mabel has Stan's emotional capacity to know what to do to the things left unsaid.

And now for the other way around:

Mabel has Ford's mental fortitude to face the unknown with the optimistic belief that they'll survive it all just so that they can record it on paper.

And Dipper has Stan's immovable tenacity to protect the family he loves so dearly, no matter how dangerous or afraid he is. For them, he'll do it all.

I just love them so much how can I be normal about it.

This is amazing.

My first entry at Month Of Maybel 2025!

Week 1.

Lost Legends

What if...Mabel can detach her face at will after she got kidnapped by Mr. What's-His-Face?

Hey cake just wanna ask have you considered turning on custom tumblr url? https://chemicalarospec.tumblr.com/post/699113999506210816

I haven't, but I am now

Jesse would immediately start an investigation (I have proof: s1ep6 A Portal To Mystery)

Petra would be on alert for any threats but wouldn't really care so long as she and her friends were safe.

Lukas would try to find any friends and family of the deceased to tell them about this person's death.

Olivia would also investigate, but she'd be less invested than Jesse.

Axel would go "Sweet! A dead body! Wait, that's not sweet . . ."

Jack would have a breakdown over his old friends.

Radar would freak out and wonder if he was next.

Stella would go, "At least it wasn't me!"

Ivor would want to rob the corpse. Harper would stop him.

Romeo, Cassie, and Hadrian would be the cause of the dead body. Mevia would figure that Hadrian was the cause of the dead body.

Magnus would figure that it's just the consequences of living in a town full of explosion-happy griefers

Ellegaard wouldn't care. She'd go "Oh my, a dead body!" clean it up, and go about her life.

Gabriel would search to bring the killer to justice.

Soren wouldn't care unless it was one of his friends or an Enderman. Alternatively, he would care because it would remind him of Magnus/Ellegaard's death.

still pondering what which character would (hypothetically) do if they found a dead body.

like any idk dawg

~~~

In The Book of Bill, Dipper has his nightmare about his parents having... Maritial issues? Do you think Dipper tell Pacifica about the possibility of his parents spitting up? I know Pacifica tells her problem with her parents with Dipper.

On another note, angst dipcifica ideas?

Loooong post ahead. I think I got a little carried away.

I like the idea that Dipper and Pacifica, as they become better friends and stuff, both confide in each other - we only really see Pacifica confiding in Dipper in the show and books, which makes sense because she has one episode and one story focused on her (The Golf War was more about Mabel than her, though it was definitely important for character development) but just her telling him about her own problems probably wouldn't be sustainable for a long term relationship (whether romantic or platonic) (he's not her therapist lol)

I realize that's not really answering the question, that was just my tangent about what I headcanon (fun fact about me: I don't have very many headcanons because I like to keep my options open for what I write/draw about - I know headcanoning something doesn't automatically mean you can't ever go against that headcanon, it's just a random thought in my second tangent in this answer) so for if he tells her about his parents possibly splitting up: Maybe. I'd say it depends on how much their relationship (again, this could be platonic or romantic, even if I know we both ship them lol) has developed since the events of Northwest Mansion Mystery and Face It. It also could depend on how long it's been since they met her; she was still a bully to Mabel (and mean to everyone, but Dipper mostly cares about Mabel) and even if both the twins forgave her he might not be willing to open up very quickly to her. On the opposite side, she's already been vulnerable with him twice, which could make him more willing to open up in response to her, especially since it's (if we take his search history in BoB as canon and not something Bill made up, which I am generally inclined to do for when he was talking about anyone other than himself, but there's still the possibility that he was just Making Stuff Up) pretty much canon that he doesn't have friends outside of Gravity Falls and Mabel.

Tl;dr it depends on how you interpret them and their relationship post-canon. I would say that he'd probably tell her. Not right away or anything, but if they keep in communication with each other, eventually.

That was a lot of words, but I guess I have a lot of thoughts about these guys?

As for angsty Dipcifica ideas . . . this one's a little harder for me, since . . . well, I'd say I'm not a super angsty writer, though I've definitely done some. But I've come up with a couple!

The two of them go on some sort of adventure/monster hunt, get into a fight, and maybe they're distracted from something attacking them or one of them pushes the other and they fall in a hole. They get injured and the other one blames themselves for extra angst points! Could probably work with either in either role, though if Pacifica is the one who does NOT get injured there could be angst about her mean girl era, and if Dipper's the one who didn't get injured he could have angst because of his lower self esteem.

Other characters disapproving of their relationship. Not just Preston and Priscilla, who can definitely put a lot of angst (mostly on Pacifica) and you can definitely do a lot of different things with that relationship, but also some of the Pines's friends and family, like Stan, Ford, and Wendy, who can disapprove because she was a bully. Or even the Pines parents if they're a little older and Dipper takes Pacifica to meet them! Why the parents would disapprove, I have no idea. Well, I have some ideas, buuut I digress. This could put pressure on both of them and maybe they consider ending their relationship but ultimately decide that they're happier with each other (and they'll always have Mabel's support. She's the #1 Dipcifica shipper.) Unless you want to take it a really angsty route and they do break up. Maybe they get back together, maybe they don't.

They're dating but they're both super insecure about themselves and this culminates in . . . idk, maybe they hide their insecurities which leads to trouble, or maybe they sense the other's insecurities and try to help them, but it ends up backfiring and hurting them instead. Then they have guilt and even more insecurity!

I think that's all I got for now, though I'll probably be thinking about more Dipcifica angst stuff for a few weeks, but this was fun! I hope the wall of text wasn't too hard to get through and that it wasn't too confusing!

Mabel's perspective in Sock Opera is equally, if not more sympathetic than Dipper's: An Essay

Most people generally wouldn't consider Mabel to have a terribly sympathetic plotline in Sock Opera, even those of us who don't necessarily feel that she's horribly selfish. I think that's because, from a narrative perspective, her plotline is (as it so often is) shafted in favour of Dipper's, and from a viewer's perspective, Dipper's makes more sense. We, as viewers want to know who the author is. We, as viewers, know that Gabe is inevitably going to turn out to be some variety of impossible, and we know that the Author of the Journals is a major mystery. However, from Mabel's perspective, none of this is true, because she doesn't have the luxury of knowing she is in a TV show. Even if you take out Gabe, her perspective still makes perfect sense.

At the beginning of summer, Dipper found this journal, and Mabel has generally been pretty happy to go along with his adventures as the journal has led them, but it's clear she doesn't have the same degree of fascination with it. Maybe she may have been a little intrigued by who the Author is, she's probably a bit curious, but not to the same extent. By the time of Sock Opera, she's probably reasonably ready for the Journal fixation to be over, considering that they nearly all got killed by a shapeshifter trying to find the author. She knows that trying to investigate the author is dangerous--Stan warned them away from the supernatural, they've all nearly died multiple times, but Dipper cannot be stopped. And now Dipper has decided to spend hours and hours and hours, forgoing sleep, sitting in front of a screen, typing in passwords. The fact that Mabel tries to drag him away from it is a good thing--anyone with a relative who spends excessive amounts of time in front of a computer can tell you that. Generally, having someone close to you become deeply fixated to the point of obsession with anything can be challenging, however in Mabel's case, Dipper has become obsessed to the point of prioritising getting into the laptop above anything, and this isn't just a regular hyperfixation: this is a hyperfixation that has nearly gotten them both (plus their loved ones) nearly killed multiple times in the last few weeks. It's absolutely the responsible, good thing for Mabel to do to not enable that behaviour.

And then if you add the puppet show back into the equation, then yes, it is kind of ridiculous of Mabel to put on a whole show of that kind of magnitude just for a boy (regardless of whether the boy deserves it), however, as viewers we must accept that this is, in fact, thoroughly within character for Mabel, who is kind of ridiculous. Any kind of production of that size is a huge commitment, especially if you've given yourself a week to work, and I'm not remotely bothered by the fact that Mabel has to get everyone involved on this. And to Mabel's credit, she does try to help Dipper as soon as he appears to her in puppet form, she just isn't immediately willing to stop the show. Back in high school, my drama class did a play that I mostly wrote, mostly managed and also had a small acting role in (yes, I was an overachiever in drama), and let me tell you, it would have taken a lot to have gotten me to call off the show halfway through, much less publicly sabotage it. A demon threatening the lives of one of my siblings? Probably yes. That probably would have done it. And Mabel does allow the thing that she poured blood, sweat and tears into to go literally up in flames in front of everyone, once she realises that's what she has to do (and personally, I don't think that there's anything wrong with not immediately being willing to drop everything for this. It's not like Dipper doesn't dig in his heels about doing what's best until the very last possible second). I don't know why people insist it's not 'technically a sacrifice', because while, yes, obviously Dipper's life was more important, and she 100% made the right choice, it's not easy to wreck something you worked hard on in front of people.

All this is to say that although it's easy to become irritated at Mabel during this episode because she's hindering Dipper's ability to figure out who the author is, it's also very easy not to realise that she has a thoroughly reasonable perspective, simply because the narrative puts greater emphasis and attention of Dipper's perspective.

mixing concrete with chicken stock instead of water to give it a richer flavor profile

when people put "trigger warning" on their content without specifying what the trigger warning is for

Why did I set the poll for three days . . . I didn't expect this many votes and am dying of curiosity

I have too many projects.

I have a theory.

This is going to be a long post, but I don't know how to do the "read more" thing, sorry.

Bear with me for a minute. So I realized recently that I don't actually see that much Mabel or Ford hate, it's mostly stuff I hear from other people. (What I see is generally more subtle, like I read a fic that was good, but Ford took responsibility for Filbrick kicking Stan out. What was he supposed to do? He's 17 too! I also saw someone say the apocalypse wasn't Mabel's fault, it was Ford's. I'd just like to say that it was Bill's fault and Ford was manipulated into building that portal.)

But I do see a lot of Billford. It keeps on showing up in my suggested communities and the "For You" thing, despite The Book Of Bill portraying it as a very manipulative, horrifically abusive relationship. (When I say relationship, I don't necessarily mean romantic. It could have been a completely platonic horrifically abusive relationship.) And I have to wonder if, because Bill is a triangle, we let him get away with things we wouldn't if he were a human and/or doing these things directly to Ford.

Say that there was a movie. In it, there are two human men. Their relationship is clearly built on manipulation, and when the manipulated realizes that he's being manipulated, he tries to leave. The manipulator proceeds to torture him. You see this onscreen and it's horrible. The manipulator drives a nail through this guy's hand, shoves spiders down his throat, humiliates him . . .

Would people ship these two characters? This is the main fandom I'm in, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say probably not. (I'd like to say that I don't have a problem with people who write them as together . . . as long as it's portrayed as the abusive relationship it actually WAS and not a good relationship.)

All of those were actual things that happened in The Book of Bill. I didn't even mention the psychological torture (He makes Ford forget his OWN NAME) and forced sleep deprivation.

But Bill is a triangle. Bill isn't doing these things directly to Ford. He's doing them while in Ford's body, which is arguably possibly more horrific than if Bill was a separate person doing these things to him, but it's not something that could happen in real life.

But in this analysis of Ford: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58698496/chapters/158032750 when speaking of the torture Ford endured during Weirdmageddon, Callipraxia mentions that the fact that people can't electrocute others "takes at least some of the realism and therefore some of the horror out of the situation." (I apologize if this quote is incorrect, I couldn't find the part where she says this in this quite long work.)

And that makes me wonder if, again because Bill is a triangle and the things he does are literally impossible, it makes people less inclined to see his relationship with Ford as abusive when I have read two separate analyses (one of them is the one referred to above) that straight up say "This reads like a domestic abuse situation." One of them (the one NOT linked above, I'll look for it later) says that Bill hits every. Single. Criteria. For an abuser.

Even before Ford learned what Bill was really there to do, their relationship wasn't good. Bill doesn't show up for months and when Ford asks him where he's been, Bill responds by basically gaslighting him and making him doubt McGucket.

And there's one more thing I noticed. I wasn't in the GF fandom when the show was airing, but I'm pretty sure Billdip didn't become a popular ship until after Sock Puppet Opera, much the same as Billford wasn't so popular until TBOB. It's a pattern of "Bill abuses someone, then gets shipped with that someone." It's quite disturbing.

I know people are going to ship what they're going to ship, but Bill x Pines family members really shouldn't be so popular imo.

Tl;dr: If Bill were a human and you saw him torturing Ford, would you still ship them?

I'm pretty sure I forgot some of what I was going to say, so I might edit this later or reblog it with the extra information.

I do want to say that I do NOT support being rude, sending hate comments or death threats to people who do ship this. Don't do that. Just wanted to say, just in case.

I also want to say that though I put "anti Billford" and "anti Billdip" in the tags, I'm pretty sure I'm not an anti, though I haven't been able to fully figure out what the term means.

Another addendum: I am NOT qualified to be talking about abuse.

This is just a theory.