Just Leavinh It Here So I Can Read It Later:)))

Just leavinh it here so i can read it later:)))

So. Uh. I needed to warm up my writing brain today since I started drafting the last few chapters of Abandon My Eulogy, and I saw this post by @babyblankyerror, which just. Uh. Made me spiral out of control.

I’ve never written a Timeloop fic before, and for some reason today was the day. This was meant to be. At max. Like. 500 words. And it’s. Uh. Not. It’s over 3000.

I’m putting it under a read more because this fic deals EXPLICITLY with suicide, although not graphically. I think I write it in a sort of? More upbeat manner (this is in no way an angst fic really) but still. Take care of yourselves. Suicide is not the answer, hope is found in the people around you, all those things you’ve heard before.

Peace and Love y’all! <3 <3 <3

(P.s @babyblankyerror when I GET YOU. when I fuckin GET YOU. I am so busy. I have so many other things to write. And you make a prompt that sends me into the deep end? AGAIN?!)

Stanley Pines wakes up on Monday morning, squinting his eyes in the sunlight streaming through the motel room blinds, and decides he's going to kill himself.

Friday. He decides, is as good of a day as any. He's in a backwater town, he'll take the Stanmobile out for one last drive to the middle of the desert, where no one will find him. Or at least, not until he's thoroughly decayed, and by then no one will get back to his poor mother about it. Or Ford. A grifter's death, like he deserves.

There's a certain freedom with which he lives that week. There's no worry about the future when you know it's ending soon.

On Tuesday, Stan goes to the only casino in town that hasn't thrown him out yet, and counts cards the whole day. He “wins” enough that under normal circumstances, he'd be a happy man. But these aren't normal circumstances, and Stan is so tired. He spends most of it on the motel room, but saves some for the rest of the week.

On Wednesday, Stan calls his mom. She's the only one in the family he really talks to anyway, and he likes talking to her. She rambles about the pawn shop, and the jersey weather, and the neighborhood kids who play ding dong ditch at all hours of the night. Stan laughs when it's called for, hums when that's needed, and thoroughly redirects any questions into how he's doing. He plays a part, doesn't act more sappy than usual, doesn't act overly happy either. Acts perfectly normal. He doesn't ask about anyone else in the family, and his mom doesn't bring them up. He realizes as the sun starts to set that he's been talking to her for hours, just like they used to. He says goodbye first, and the only indication to how he's doing is that when he says goodbye, it's a twinge heavier than usual. He says I Love You and his mom says it back.

On Thursday, Stan cleans the Stanmobile. It's quite the task. He removes almost six years of trash, of living-in-his-car junk, and fills the tiny motel trash can at least a dozen times. He makes conversation with the cleaning lady and charms her enough to use the vacuum for a minute. She's very sweet, and she gives him her number. When she walks away, he rips it up and trashes it too, just to make sure she won't be traced back to him at all. He scrubs the outside, and the inside, until it genuinely looks better than when he bought it. He can't do much about the engine problems, or her sticky brakes, but he's proud of this car, and hopefully whoever does find her likes her enough to not trash her too.

On Friday, he wakes up early and thanks the motel owner, pays his fees, all of them, and goes to the grocery store. He spends the rest of his money here, on food. He can't get much, but he doesn't stop himself from getting a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of good whiskey. It's not top shelf, but it's not terrible. He actually pays for everything, for the first time in maybe years. He gets seventy eight cents in change, and gives them to the kid outside, on one of those mechanical ride-on rockets. The kid thanks him with a gap tooth smile, and Stan smiles back.

He drives out as far as the Stanmobile will go, until her gas meter is past empty, and parks. There's absolutely nothing for miles and miles, and as the sun sets Stan can see the sunset melt into a map of stars. He smokes the cigarettes, all but one, and leaves the last one in the box, putting it in the glove compartment. an old habit. He drinks the whiskey, every drop, and gets out of the Stanmobile for the last time. He sits down on the ground in front of her front grill, gets himself comfortable, loads a single bullet into the chamber and then puts the barrel of his revolver in his mouth.

Stanley Pines wakes up on Monday morning, squinting his eyes in the sunlight streaming through the motel room blinds, and decides he's going to kill himself.

He's done this before. He blinks awake, and smacks the sleep taste out of his mouth, confused. The motel alarm clock blinks today's date in blocky numbers, and suddenly the past week hits Stan like a freighter.

He did it. He's absolutely, positively sure he did this already.

The definition of insanity is to do the same things over and over again, expecting different results, and some might call Stan insane.

He lives the week again.

Tuesday, the casino. It's the same dealer who can't seem to understand why Stan keeps winning. He makes more money this time around.

Wednesday, he calls his mom. She talks about the exact same things, and Stan's laughter is more forced this time.

Thursday, Stan cleans his car. He's just as disgusted with himself as he was last week. He still flirts with the cleaning lady.

Friday, he follows the same routine, and when he gets seventy eight cents in change, he feels a little stupid. He still gives it to the kid.

He drives out into the desert, though not as far this time, and when he pulls the trigger this time he cries, just a little.

Stanley Pines wakes up on Monday morning, squinting his eyes in the sunlight streaming through the motel room blinds, and decides he's going to kill himself.

He rolls over in bed, decides, Fuck This, and blows his brains out right there, on the nice motel room bed.

Stanley Pines wakes up on Monday morning, squinting his eyes in the sunlight streaming through the motel room blinds, and decides he's going to kill himself.

Again.

Maybe, he decides, it's a matter of method.

There isn't much in this town he's in. There's no bridge to throw himself off of, no gang to piss off, no gun shop to buy himself a different gun. So Stan goes to the tried and true method of climbing up onto a telephone tower.

He hates heights. Hates them.

He goes as far up as he's willing to go. The only thing he's more afraid of than falling is not falling far enough.

The sky goes dark, and in the very early hours of Tuesday morning, Stan flings himself from the top.

Stanley Pines wakes up on Monday morning, squinting his eyes in the sunlight streaming through the motel room blinds, and decides he's going to kill himself.

“Alright! I’ll fuckin go!” He says to himself as he drags his shoes on. If this is some kind of fucked up drug trip, he’s gonna find himself some help before he actually goes crazy.

He drives to the local clinic, not a hospital because this town is too small, and walks through the doors, more tired than he’s ever been.

He schmoozes on up to the front desk, looks the probably underpaid nurse right in the eye, and says, “I’ve been thinking about killing myself. Can I get some help here?”

Her reaction, if this was any other day, would have been insufferable. She commends him, actually, honestly says “Good Job taking this first step!” Like she was trained to, and very quickly Stan is hurried into a back room.

A doctor walks in and starts asking him too many questions, and when this stuffy man asks “Have you ever acted on these thoughts of suicide?” Stan wants to tell him about his past couple of weeks, just to freak him out.

He doesn’t, because he actually can think some things through, but he does nod. The doctor writes more things down, and tells Stan to follow him.

Stan gets up off the uncomfortable chair, stepping into line, and the moment his foot crosses the doorway, the world goes black.

Stanley Pines wakes up on Monday morning, squinting his eyes in the sunlight streaming through the motel room blinds, and decides he's going to kill himself.

He yells every single swear he’s ever heard, and doesn’t bother to muffle them into a pillow.

“Fine.” He snarls into the open motel room air. “Maybe I’m just not thinking big enough.”

For the first time in a long while, Stan gets out of bed with a solid, thought out plan of what he is going to do that week.

Suicide has always been considered a mortal sin, or whatever, so clearly this whole thing must be some sort of fucked up purgatory. If he can’t kill himself, and he can’t not kill himself, then there’s only one thing left to do.

Try every single method until it sticks. Or until whatever sick God above gives up on whatever lesson this is supposed to teach.

Stan exits the motel room for just a moment that day, just so he can flip off the sky.

—

Stanford Pines wakes up on what he thinks is a Monday morning, facedown on his desk in the study.

His back twinges, just a little, and his glasses are smudged from where they were pressed up against his face. He was up most of the night writing in his journal, particular records of a magical amulet, and he must have fallen asleep while writing. Ford groans as he stretches, determined to make the most of the day.

It’s early, but it’s never too early for coffee.

It’s as beautiful of a day as any, and the perfect weather to go exploring, but as Ford eyes his dwindling cabinets and his straight up empty refrigerator, he realizes he’ll have to actually go into town soon, to restock. Today though, he needs to finish his journal entries, and log more discoveries.

On Tuesday, Ford again puts off going into town. He’ll have to walk, obviously, and he just doesn’t feel like lugging groceries around for a mile when he could instead be doing something productive, so instead he begins the synthesis process of distilling pure pixie dust he gathered last week.

On Wednesday, Ford researches the mythology around the cave systems in Gravity Falls, and plans a future expedition. He eats a can of beans for breakfast and dinner.

On Thursday, he can put it off no longer, and actually ventures into town. He feels a little out of place, but when does he not? He buys as many groceries he can carry, and insures that everything is double bagged for the walk home. The walk home is peaceful, but long, and it’s not the first time that Ford spends it trying to think of better ways to transport himself to and from places. He could get another car, he supposes, but he’s never been the best driver.

On Friday, the gnomes attack. More accurately they rummage through his garbage and then make their way in through a hole in the roof, but the entire afternoon is spent on chasing them out from behind bookshelves and under desks. Ford has to actually smack a few with his broom, and it hisses with such venom that Ford feels a little bad for it. Still, before he goes to bed that night, he double checks every lock in the house to be sure they can’t get in while he sleeps. Ford turns out the light, and slides under the covers, too tired to even read before bed.

Stanford Pines wakes up on what he thinks is a Monday morning, facedown on his desk in the study.

He blinks. Sits up and looks around. It’s Monday again.

Ford looks at the calendar. It’s Monday, and not the Monday after, either. Ford didn’t just sleep and sleepwalk through the entire weekend. It’s Monday again, and he’s very confused.

And a little excited. Time loops are rare.

Immediately he writes down everything he can remember from the past week. What he did, who he spoke to, while it’s fresh in his mind. Nothing immediately jumps out as Timeloop inciting, but it could be anything.

Most likely whatever it is will happen on Friday, but it’s good to be prepared.

On Tuesday, a little harried and very aware of his surroundings, Ford deems it would probably be best to relive his week similar to his last, to best get a feel for the loop's constraints. He continues to distill the pixie dust, and puts off getting groceries.

On Wednesday, he stays home. He still opens the book on Gravity Falls mythology, but mainly he thinks about how much he regrets not going grocery shopping until all he has left to eat are beans. He’s not experienced in cooking enough to get much variety out of them.

On Thursday, his walk into town is exactly the same, and everyone in town and the grocery store seem to be the same too. He doesn’t overhear anyone talk of living the same week over, and everything is in the same place it was when he came before. It’s all normal. So it’s just him being affected by the timeloop it seems.

On Friday, Ford is hyper vigilant. He’s had a good couple of meals, and nothing really of note happens on this particular day, except for his dealings with gnomes. They are technically magical creatures, so it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that they are the ones who cursed him. Timelooped him. Looped him. Whatever. The gnomes don't actually seem to act any different, they say all the same things, they make the same mistakes, choose the same hiding spots, although Ford finds them much faster this time around, and overall this interaction goes much faster, with Ford actually granting them an allowance to go through his trash but only if they do so more carefully, and more quietly. He’s sure he’s solved the Timeloop now, convinced it was just the gnomes.

Stanford Pines wakes up on what he thinks is a Monday morning, facedown on his desk in the study.

It was not the gnomes.

Now he’s annoyed. It’d be one thing, if the Loop was just a day, repeating over and over, but this is an entire week, and it’s starting to grate on Ford’s nerves.

He makes himself a pot of coffee, and drains the entire thing.

This time he’s going grocery shopping sooner.

On Tuesday, with a full cabinet and a fresh page of his journal, Ford researches Timeloops. There isn’t much on them in his personal library, and when he goes to the town library- twice in a week, that's a new record!- there isn’t much there either. Everything he finds relating to folklore or accounts centers on something happening, an action the victim causes or prevents, that causes the day or cycle to repeat. But Ford is sure he hasn’t done much that is truly detrimental to the time stream, or that would cause an entity to rewrite the linear notion of time to give him a chance to fix it. More research is necessary.

On Wednesday, Ford gets a call. He’s in the middle of eating lunch and going through his notes, so his answer to the phone of Hello, This is Stanford Pines is a little jumbled around the food in his mouth.

It’s his mother.

Her voice is quiet, and whispery.

Stanley is dead.

In a motel room. She says, and while Ford cant see her, he knows she is crying. They ran the plates on his car out front. Happened Monday morning. His mother blows her nose, and hesitatingly pushes the last word out. Suicide.

Filbrick was called to identify the body. He’s sure.

On Thursday, Stanley is dead.

On Friday, Stanley is dead.

Stanford Pines wakes up on what he thinks is a Monday morning, facedown on his desk in the study.

The world seems very, very quiet.

Ford cannot make himself stand from his desk. Stanley is dead.

Or. He was dead. He was dead Monday morning, last week.

But he wasn’t, the week before that. His mother would have called. Stanley wasn’t dead the first loop.

Oh.

This is the action Ford needs to prevent.

He stands up.

On Tuesday, Ford doesn’t go grocery shopping. He doesn’t eat breakfast. He doesn’t know where Stan even is, cannot force himself to eat if he doesn’t know how to fix this. He has to. He has to fix this.

On Wednesday, Ford gets a call. He’d been standing on the porch, thinking until his head hurt when he hears it ring. He knows, immediately, who it is going to be.

Suicide. His mother sniffs out. Stan jumped from a service tower. A hundred and twenty feet.

“He’s afraid of heights.” He says. It’s all he seems to be able to spit out. He was. His mother responds, and Ford wonders if she meant it in both ways.

On Thursday, Stanley is dead.

On Friday, Stanley is dead.

Stanford Pines wakes up on what he thinks is a Monday morning, facedown on his desk in the study.

He calls his mother. Her voice is chipper and excited, and even with the pressure of time, Ford cannot tell her to shut up. She rambles about the pawn shop, about the weather back in New Jersey, and her annoyance with the neighborhood kids. She makes a joke about how Stan and Ford used to be like that, and Ford finds his entrance.

He asks if his mother has heard from Stan recently. She asks if he’s asking so they can reconcile.

No, he wants to say. I’m going to stop him from killing himself. And then I’m going to kill him myself for making me worry so much.

He tells her maybe, and gets a phone number for a motel in Albecuque for his trouble. Ford gives the receptionist a description of Stan, and she says he’s not there. But he drove west, if that’s of any help.

Ford scours the maps he has of the US. He writes down the names of towns, businesses and shops nearby Stan may have traveled to. He finds them in the phone book and calls, desperately, with nothing but a vague, age old description to go off of.

Most people don’t recognize Stan, most people recognize his car.

Ford continues this trail for the rest of the week.

He doesn’t get another call from his mother.

Stanford Pines wakes up on what he thinks is a Monday morning, facedown on his desk in the study.

He keeps his head where it is, and screams out every piece of profanity he can remember, most of them learned from Stan in their teenage years.

None of his notes reset with him, he has to remember each place he called, in order to retrace his steps.

He’s going to do it. He’s going to track his brother to the ends of the earth, and when he finally finds him, he’s going to get on a plane to wherever his brother is, and strangle him for all the trouble and grief.

And hug him. Ford is going to hug his brother so hard.

Stanford Pines has a solid, thought out plan now. And he’s never made a plan he didn’t complete. If Atan thinks he can off himself in the middle of nowhere, he’s dead wrong.

(Hello! Editing this to let you know there is a Part Two!)

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 loving and/or affectionate mother, but we have no evidence to think so). 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.

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gravity falls im sad now :( im leving this here than you this is great

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dartann

1 month ago

Hey you. I’m writing a fanfiction of the backstory of Stanley Pines. Like when he was on the run. I drew this scene from it. To plug my own work shamelessly. I’m a good writer. It’s on ao3. It’s like 50k words so far. Also it’s a gay love story.

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its so good man i love this fic the art is freaking good too thx for this might do some fanart myself:)

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dartann

2 months ago

Ended Up Hating How I Did The Last Page. Which Is Why I Chopped It In Half So I Can Redo It. I Hope Everyone

Ended up hating how I did the last page. Which is why I chopped it in half so I can redo it. I hope everyone likes cliffhangers!

(do not repost here or onto any other website - reblogging is encouraged!)

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gravity falls im foaming at the mouth I AM SO HAPPY

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dartann

2 months ago

here's the comic version of that video

i really love how this all came out ໒(⊙ᴗ⊙)७✎▤

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dartann

2 months ago

they make me ill

so ill

couple of diff versions :DD

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gravity falls ohh that mullet is magnificant

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dartann

2 months ago

If you drop me i wont die from the impect. Ill die before then from a heart attack.

Ughhhh i love ~this is a gift, it comes with a price by Ilentari~ go check it out!

I think its super creative with a bunch of cool visuals but i cant draw them. I mean what does futuristic clothes mean? Idk:(

So i put Ford in a slutty outfit or smthn. I think its funny

Tags

fanart gravity falls fanfic stanley pines stanford pines Gravity Falls AU stan pines mullet stan tale of two stans this is a gift it comes with a price

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