Do You Ever Think About The Implications Of Stanley Going By "stan"?

Nutcracker au's your Huntlow

gravity falls thoughts of the week: i've been joking about ford not knowing what's okay or safe to let children do in the past few episodes but that kind of becomes less funny in the show in "dipper and mabel vs. the future", when we see that these missions he's taking dipper along on are actually putting this kid in danger. sure he manages to survive and get them out of the danger but it's kind of concerning that ford's takeaway from this is "see, you can handle it!" and not "maybe i shouldn't invite this 12-going-on-13-year-old to be my apprentice in highly dangerous field research"

but dipper, of course, doesn't realize this because he's a kid getting to do cool stuff with an adult who respects his intelligence and doesn't treat him like a kid, even though that's the problem. this final string of episodes does a good job highlighting the theme of dipper wanting to grow up too fast and mabel wanting to stay a kid forever and how neither of those are realistic approaches, even though most of the time this isn't a show terribly concerned with realism.

(kind of wild to me thinking about it now that there were a lot of fans at the time who genuinely thought dipper was giving up a great opportunity by choosing not to take ford up on his apprenticeship offer by the end. i guess that's the difference between watching kids' shows when you're closer to the age of the main characters and watching them when you're a lot older than the characters. on most shows i wouldn't worry too much over questions like "are these kids who go on fun adventures that appeal to the target demographic who like to imagine getting to do cool things Literal Child Soldiers?" but here the point clearly is that kids shouldn't have a full-time job instead of going to school and having a normal childhood and adolescence, and also more broadly that the adult in this situation is projecting his own issues onto the kids and does not actually know what's best for them. idk i think it's pretty obvious!)

on mabel's side of (not) coping with things, there's a lot to say about mabeland and what it represents. when i first watched this i was a little disappointed that they didn't make the inside of the bubble a perfect recreation of gravity falls with mabel living out her endless summer by pretending nothing's changed, complete with eerie fake replicas of her friends and family, and instead went full fantasy land...but i did ultimately like where they ended up going with it. i like the implication that mabel doesn't actually have fake versions of the other characters there because she's waiting for the real ones to show up so they can be together (or at least that's my headcanon. dippy fresh might count but he's just the "backup" there to agree with mabel when the real dipper inevitably goes against her plans.) i like that bill isn't too concerned about the others getting inside the bubble because it's designed to keep you trapped there by giving you whatever you want, plus it's an obvious "safe" place in the middle of all the chaos outside. i should probably make a separate post for this because i realized while thinking about this episode that i have a lot of thoughts on mabeland and how the bubble works. (originally the title for part 2 was going to be "escape from mabeland" but the crew thought it was too spoilery or would set up a different expectation from the fans, so it became "escape from reality" instead. which is technically the opposite of what the original title meant but it's still accurate because that's what mabeland is! she's trying to escape from reality!)

final thoughts were that a lot of people thought the conflicts were resolved too quickly in these last few episodes but i'm forgiving of it because they are working with limited time for these episodes here and it is still a kids' show. also the long hiatuses between episodes kind of messed with the fandom's sense of time back when they were first airing. i feel like there was so much fanart of the characters becoming hardened post-apocalyptic warriors during this era but the actual apocalypse in the show's time lasts for like, a week. maybe less.

anyway, watching the finale tonight and then i'll reread my copy of journal 3, and finally read the lost legends comics which just came in from the library, and then hopefully get on the long waitlist for the book of bill, aaaaaand then i'll be done and can go back to watching shows that aren't for kids. well i'll do that after running through over the garden wall one last time, it is the tenth anniversary after all.

ᴹᵒʳᵉ ᵒⁿ ᴮᵒᵒˢᵗʸ ᵃⁿᵈ ⱽᴷ ᴰᵒⁿᵘᵗ | ᶜᵒᵐᵐᶦˢˢᶦᵒⁿˢ ᵒᵖᵉⁿ

While the obvious comparison is Mabel with Stan and dipper with ford both the younger twins and the older ones all share comparisons with each other.

Mabel and stan are both very intelligent when it comes to people, with Mabel that manifests as a bubbly outgoing personality and the ability to make friends with almost anyone and with stan that manifests as an incredible con artist and salesman but they both understand people.

Dipper and ford are both the conventionally intelligent twins who have trouble when it comes to understanding people and both have an innate connection with the abnormal, both with fords sixth finger and dippers birthmark.

But dipper and Stan parallel each other in their love for their family. Stan, a man with no higher education had to teach himself complex physics and mathematics to save his brother after losing him again. Dipper pushed Mabel away by saying he wanted to stay in gravity falls and went to extreme lengths to save her from Mabelland. Not to mention fighting off a massive robot without help from the journal because his sister was in danger.

Mabel and ford in my opinion share a very fatal flaw and that is their trust. Ford trusted bill when he said that he was a friend and that cascaded into all the crazy shit in the show happening. Mabel trusted bill when he was disguised as blendin and gave him the rift, which resulted in weirdmaggedon. Also side note, MABEL DOES NOT DESERVE THAT HATE THAT SHE GETS FOR THAT SHE IS A TWELVE YEAR OLD. Mabel also trusted the unicorns, even though they were a bunch of pricks.

My point is you can’t just say, “Dipper is meant to parallel Ford and Mabel is meant to parallel Stan.” Well you can say that but you’d be missing a pretty big point.

I feel as though that the main parallel isn’t as much with the characters but with their relationships.

The grunkles were best friends their entire lives until one stupid mistake pushed them away forever, even though if it wasn’t for Filbrick Pines they probably would have gotten over it and stayed best friends but that’s besides the point, and they were only reunited because Stan pushed ford in the portal and dedicated his life to bringing him back.

With dipper and Mabel, I think they learn, not just from their grunkles’ mistakes but also their own. We see that Dipper and Mabel are best friends as well but as the show goes on, they don’t become distant but they rely on each other less. Mabel goes to talk with candy and grenda more then she does dipper, but dipper doesn’t rally have the same privilege. This culminates with dipper deciding he wants to stay in gravity falls and him and Mabel falling out, but they eventually make up, just like Stan and ford

An unwilling god's most devout follower

Fair warning: english is not my first language so I might be wrong.

In the site, didn't said that Caryn and his IRS Agent were the only ones to go to his funeral?

I see many artists drawing Stanley with a fake glove and meeting his mom there (which is already angsty and I love it!)

But I imagine Caryn all alone at Stanley’s funeral because Stan knew he would not be able to keep his facade in front of his mama. I like to think he would still be present but hiding and watching from the distanc. Just to make sure the people he had pissed off would buy into his last scheme as Stanley Pines.

Caryn grieving her baby with no support because Filbrick is an ass, Shermie didn't know Stankey, and ‘Stanford’ is too proud to let go of the past and mourn his own twin brother with her!

Then comes Stanley’s IRS agent frustrated that he was not able to catch that bastard. So what does he do? He discount his frustrations on Caryn. Laying down every scheme, every tax fraud, and the many states Stanley was banned through the years.

Leaving only after he makes a point of going to the coffin and whispering: ‘This isn’t over.’

I think one of the most tragic things is Caryn Pines and motherhood.

Like when we see her, it's quite obvious that she loves her sons. And that like many families, has a soft spot for Stanley. Because he's the possible baby of the family, her little surprise, her free spirit. Out of everyone other than Ford, Caryn was someone who loved Stanley. And who was in his corner. An example of this was when her husband and Ford were excited about the school and she immediately cut in to ask-

"What about Stanley?"

Just from that little bit we can see that she loves him. That she's always thinking of her son. So imagine you're her, and then you lose your son because your husband kicked him out. A teenager who can't face the world yet, and yet you're powerless to do anything. So you have to wait for your boy to reach out to you, and every day you wonder if he's somewhere safe. If he's someplace warm, and if he's eating a hot meal and sleeping in a warm bed. And for awhile that gives you some sort of comfort, because your baby's still out there somewhere. Not with you, but still in this world.

And then you hear about it.

The firey car crash.

And the person in that inferno was your son. Your free spirit, your baby.

Can you imagine, how devastating that'd be? To learn that your son is dead, and had died alone and in pain and fear. And the kicker?

There wasn't even a funeral held for him.

It's almost as if Stanley never existed. Like he was never important. And that probably ate at Caryn Pines in ways that cut deeply. Because Stanley was important to her, was important to Stanford and now he's gone and she didn't even get to say goodbye to her boy. She'll forever have a hole in her heart, a piece missing because her Stanley is gone. And she'll never be able to fill it because no one can replace her baby. And we don't know if Caryn's still alive or not, so there's the horrifying possibility. That she died believing that Stan was dead. That she died in her grief that only a mother can feel. That she died, unaware that the boy she grieved for was next to her the entire time. Forced to pretend to be his brother, in order to save him from his own creation and fix mistakes that he believes he made that hurt Ford.

So close to her son, yet so far away.

A tragedy.

‼️cw: blood, horror art

"out of all the grimwalkers, you looked the most like him."

The sketch and reference! 💛💛💛

It was really wonderful working with @littlecrow4

Art Collab!!

The beautiful Line art done by @iamjustafern

Coloring done by me!

im so sorry for being so hard on you. you tried to be strong, and you were

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