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bitegore · 2 months ago

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I made a character sheet to plot your OC's development over time! (There's supposed to be a character name in the big white space next to "over time" but it got eaten a little lmao)

You can use this for whatever you want, and you don't have to credit me. Feel free to change or edit anything you feel like. Please don't tag me if you credit me - just link to the original post.

Credits, explanations & a transparent version under the cut :D

Credits:

The actual image was made with the free NBOS character sheet creator, which is a sort of dated but free and solid text-layout sheet maker intended for ttrpg style character sheet creation.

Fonts used were Bisdak (titles) and Rockwell (body). Both are free! You can use them to fill it out if you like.

Inspired by a comment @maybe-solar-powered-calculator made on this other post about filling it out for characters at multiple points along their arcs. Thanks for putting the idea in my head :D

This is explicitly released under a CC0 1.0 deed, ie: you can do fucking whatever you want with it and I don't care and you don't have to tell anyone where you got it from and no one gets to stop you.

Last time I made one of these I got a bunch of questions on all manner of things, and I can never keep up, so I'm just appending a set of notes for how to use it and a glossary because I know some of these phrasings will be confusing.

Ignore or change anything you don't feel like works for you here. You can do whatever you want forever.

Suggested / intended use & general notes:

This sheet could work for something story-level, if you want. But it's really only good for individual arcs; if the character goes through multiple arcs in your story, then they're going to fit poorly here. In that case, you're probably better off doing versions for each arc, or just adapting this to a different format more suited to your thing.

Also, if your arc has a nontraditional structure - divorced from the typical "rising action - climax - conclusion" type of structure where there's a clear 'important turning point' - it may not work as well either.

The mindset section is meant to come at it from a 'golden mean' standpoint - that is, everything on either extreme of the slider is 'too much' and therefore bad. It's not bad-to-good! The far right side is a flaw too. They're only grouped the way they are on basis of the specific OCs I personally had in mind when I put it together.

Growth is labeled 'worse'-to-'better' but it means, like, active decrease in that area vs active increase; if nothing changes, it should stay at the center even if it sucks. The category is about contrasting changes, and sometimes changes are for the worse!

The entire sheet is very deliberately subjective. It should really be answered from the character's perspective - how they feel about it, not what's necessarily true. Technically you can do whatever you want and I can't stop you, but it's a better tool if you approach it from the point of view that the character may believe things that aren't true - that will define their behavior way more than the objective facts of the story.

Definitions:

This part is long as hell - recommend using ctrl+f to find the specific words you're stuck on. I defined everything.

General categories:

Mindset: how your character thinks about themself and how they act. Their understanding of their own approach to life. Attitude, viewpoint, decision-making process, that sort of thing.

Circumstances: the relationship between your character and the world around them. Where they are, what that place is like, and how they feel about it.

Growth: how the character and their impact - their attitude, their behavior, their immediate surroundings - changes over time.

Outset: the start of the character's arc.

Present: the 'center' of the arc. If you're planning something ahead of time and it hasn't 'happened' yet, then this is the near future.

End-game: where they are after the conclusion of the arc.

Mindset terms:

Center of the world: "If I have a problem, it's the only thing that matters to me." Self-centered, self-absorbed. Doesn't necessarily mean anything beyond that - they don't necessarily have to be unpleasant to be entirely focused on their own life.

my life isn't relevant: "Everyone else's problems are so significant, I don't pay any attention to my own". Someone who ignores or neglects their own life in service of some other thing, or doesn't consider their own behavior to have any real importance.

Only see enemies: Paranoid. Everyone's out to get them. Anyone who seems nonthreatening is hiding their potential for danger and everyone who seems threatening is a threat. The character must remain ever-vigilant, lest the cashier at the 7/11 suddenly stab them, or their best friend turn out to secretly be trying to poison them to death.

Only see friends: Naïve. Everyone is a good actor who wishes everyone else well, and if they don't seem like they're acting from a place of kindness or care then you probably don't understand what they're up to. The character is pretty sure the stranger holding that knife is, like, someone to chat up maybe, they're clearly only hanging out in this dark alleyway because it's a nice spot and no other possible reason.

overthink everything: Ten thousand thoughts per every single action taken. Maybe they never get around to acting at all. They have to consider every possible outcome. What if by eating lunch they accidentally trigger the apocalypse?! Who's going to think about these things if not them?!?!?!

impulsive to action: Act first, think never. What do you mean "consequences of actions"?

Unilateral decisions: "I will make every choice and no one else's opinions or thoughts are relevant". Discounts outside suggestions. Firmly convinced that they know best in any situation, and will brook no disagreement with their views when it comes to actually doing things.

Command me, please: "I don't know what to do and I don't know what to even start with, someone please tell me what to think". No confidence in their own views. Will not make any decisions unless forced and even then will beg someone else to please tell them what to do. Has no idea what's best and is pretty sure anyone else will have a better idea.

can't ask for help: No one will ever help the character; they have to do everything themself, even the things other people have repeatedly offered to do for them and have much more experience with. Doesn't necessarily mean that no one will help them or that they are explicitly barred by some real-world circumstance; just that, for whatever reason, they refuse to ask for help. This is an attitude thing - will they ever reach out? No? Then they're here.

too reliant on others: Have they ever solved a problem alone? Do they believe they're even capable of doing so? The character all the way at this end of the scale absolutely never expects to be able to do anything themself, has no trust in their ability to solve a problem, and needs someone else to come save them from it. The kind of person who needs ChatGPT to do their homework. Again - doesn't actually mean anyone will help them, or that the people they're relying on are reliable - just that they think they are helpless without ... well, help.

Weapon maker: This has to do with problem-solving strategies and not actual weapons. The weapon-maker is a character who views every situation as a conflict that cannot be de-escalated or solved by cooperation, and responds appropriately. The most fundamental weapon maker character turns everything into an argument, a fight, a war, etc. There are a bunch of other responses to conflict, though - they might avoid problems that need solving because they avoid conflict generally too. Fundamentally what you want to answer here is: when they see a locked box and they don't have the key, do they respond to it the same way they'd respond to someone telling them "you can't open this box"? And how do they respond to that? Typical weapon-maker approaches: - brute-force the box open or try and then give up if it doesn't work; and also get into an argument that might turn physical with the hypothetical person - shrug and give up immediately, in both situations so on and so forth. Another hallmark is that they kind of suck at problem-solving and give up if brute-forcing a problem doesn't work. This is not someone who is picking locks unless someone else told them to - they have one solution, it's to make everything into a conflict, and then to win that conflict by beating them or to give up because they think they'll lose.

Tool maker: This person approaches every situation like it's a puzzle, not a fight - up to and including actual fights. Tool-maker characters generally assume that a situation can be solved by just finding the right approach and doing it the clever way. There's the same fundamental question as above - if your character sees a locked box and has no key, would they approach it differently than someone telling them they're not allowed to open the box? 'Typical' tool-maker approaches: - I can trick the person into giving me the key by saying the right things, and I can also pick the lock because fundamentally there are 'right answers' to both of these - If i make friends with this person, they might change their mind, because now we're cooperating. I can still pick the lock because there are 'right answers' there. - The person has a reason for wanting me not to open the box, so I can definitely figure out what that is and solve the reason so then they'll let me open it. I can take whatever it is even if they really want to keep it if I just find the right answer. I'm going to break this box into little pieces because that's the easiest way to get into it but I could probably open it some other way if that wouldn't work.

A note - the center of this bar is someone who generally has different responses to different kinds of situations - like, in the box example, they'd approach the box and the person with two different general attitudes and processes - but generally responds to those situations using the same kind of decision-making process for each category every time. Most people are nowhere near either extreme. Characters tend to be classifiable into weapon-maker and tool-maker because they are fictional and it's easier to define one kind of approach than many. Approximately average approaches: - pick the lock if no one's around, but give up if someone is there because someone telling me not to open the box is a conflict i think i'll lose but a locked box is just a puzzle that i can solve - argue with the person, but give up on the box, because they're approaching the box as a puzzle and they don't think they have the skill to get into it, but the person is someone who can be convinced or bullied into handing over the key

I made this particular dichotomy up, which is why I think I get a lot of questions on it whenever I put it into anything, but I also don't know of any other snappy way to describe this sort of thought or approach variance, and it's genuinely useful for character writing in my opinion.

Pessimist spot-finder: Generally a downer but not necessarily. This kind of character just approaches everything with a close eye for problems, issues, reasons to find fault. If they're miserable, it might be why, but like, they can be a cheerful spot-finder if you want, I just wanted to get at "the glass is half empty" and "the glass is half full" more than anything.

Optimist upside fan: The opposite. "The glass is half full". If there are problems, they can find something about them that's not so frustrating or bad to focus on. Pretty damn good at overlooking minor issues if there's no reason to fixate on them. Not necessarily cheerful.

Abysmal company: could not give less of a damn about treating people the way they 'should' be treated. Maybe they take pride in that. Maybe they just think it's irrelevant. Either way, they know they treat people badly and they don't see any reason to stop. Does not necessarily mean that they treat people badly if they think they're doing the right thing and are wrong. Doesn't mean they're actually pleasant or unpleasant to hang out with, either, unless you really want it to mean that.

Decent to others: treats people well as a matter of course, or at least they sure think they do. Makes an effort. Would probably care and/or consider changing their behavior if someone said they were treating someone poorly. As before - they can be completely un-self-aware and just think they're doing right by people while treating them completely horribly.

Morality is irrelevant: 'abysmal company' for broader approaches to life and problems. Maybe they just know they're myopic and don't think other people's problems matter. Maybe they just gave up on trying to differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' and outsourced it to someone else or stopped paying any attention. Maybe they just like to take morally unjust actions and can't be bothered giving a damn when someone points out that they're morally unjust, or maybe they're proud of it. Kind of a villain trait generally, but not necessarily - it doesn't have to mean they act badly, just that they don't care if they do. Also, this is about how they choose their own actions and view their own behavior. They can think morality is relevant for other people as long as they ignore it when they act themself.

Always in the right: feels morally righteous in every decision they make. Standard superhero type of trait. Doesn't necessarily pass judgement on others, doesn't necessarily act well according to everyone's moral code (see: blue and orange morality), but they are extremely principled and will never deviate from the moral code they personally believe in. And they do genuinely believe in it.

Circumstances terms:

Generally terrible to generally excellent: how subjectively decent is your character's situation, overall? If they think everything is horrible, but the situation is charmed to everyone except them, then it's generally terrible.

Need for changes to passive tolerance: will they do something about it? Do they feel like they have to?

No agency in action to decisions are huge: agency being "how much power do I have to make changes here?", this just asks how much they have. No agency means that, no matter what they do, nothing will happen - they might be locked in a cage or somehow otherwise completely unable to use any sort of power at all, even the power of just leaving. The other end of the spectrum is where every decision the character makes makes a huge difference, not just to themself but to everyone around them as well. They can start wars, they can have anyone they want killed, they can do anything whenever they feel like it. If they think they have no agency even though they do actually have agency, they don't have agency here. If they feel like they have all the agency in the world and can do anything, then they do even if it's not true. It's perceptual again.

Stakes are deadly to mistakes solvable: what are the consequences of failure? Will you die, will you lose status you can't afford to lose, will you lose belongings, will you have to apologize, will nothing happen at all? Mistakes solvable is where they think every mistake is solvable forever - the character pushes someone through a woodchipper and they come out and to fix it, maybe an apology has to occur, but not much else. Does not necessarily mean no one gets hurt or killed as long as the character thinks there are no permanent consequences. This is the most important one on this section to keep subjective because it will greatly influence how your character approaches situations. A character who thinks everything is deadly-stakes may go to cartoonishly-extreme lengths to avoid turning a report in a day late. A character who thinks all mistakes are always solvable may push someone through a woodchipper and then just assume they can say they're sorry and it'll all go away. The setting and their approach do not need to be applicable.

Needs go unmet to attended with care: how do the people around them treat them? Do they pay attention when the character needs something, or do they ignore it? Does the character have to do everything themself around here, or are there people who will help out?

Regarded poorly to regarded well: how do they think other people see them? Are they respected, are they liked, or are they disliked? Do people broadly trust them or are they pretty sure everyone regards them with suspicion?

Nothing changes to changes in seconds: functionally the 'stability' meter of your setting - is the situation generally stable, or are things constantly changing? Does your character feel like every five minutes, there's a new problem that needs dealing with, or do they feel like nothing has ever happened ever?

Growth terms:

Changes in place: do they go somewhere else? Does the physical setting otherwise change (eg; earthquake, war, etc) ? Are there any other reasons that the 'vibe' or 'experience' of the place is different from before?

Change in power: does the character's percieved agency (see: no agency in action to decisions are huge) change? Alternately you can use it if they've gained or lost power in some percieved way (deposed, assigned a commanding position, etc).

Change in bonds: do their relationships with people change? Have they made new friends, lost old friends, changed the nature of their relationships with friends or partners, etc?

Change in beliefs: straightforwardly, have their beliefs, morals, etc, changed?

Change in hurts: have they undergone some horrible experience? Do they have past trauma from some pre-arc horrible experience they're healing from and/or discovering they're more powerfully subject to? Did they experience a physical injury that they're recovering from or which materially changed their life? Did something recent dredge up old issues? So on and so forth.

Change in hopes: Do their desires for the future look the way they used to? Do they care about different things now? This is something the character is not actively working for, but may be tied to actual goals.

Change in fears: are they overcoming fears? Growing past them? Gaining new ones? Are they scared of shit different from how they used to be?

Change in goals: Not the same as a hope because it needs to have a specific, achievable outcome the character is actively working toward. Do those material goals look different? Perhaps they no longer want to work against something, maybe they didn't have any goals and now they do. Or maybe they've realized the goal is impossible, or something has happened to make that goal unachieveable. Whatever it is, if there's a change, it's a change.

Change in self-awareness: their beliefs about who they are and what they're like, and what their circumstances are. Have they gotten more self-aware, have they gotten less self-aware, or has nothing changed?

Change in relationships: their relationships' overall health and resilience, as far as the character is concerned - which doesn't mean they're necessarily good, just that the character thinks they're how they're supposed to be. Have they improved? Have they gotten worse? Have they not changed?

Change in knowledge: do they feel like they know more about the world, their place in it, the people around them, etc? Not necessarily how to do things - just general information and awareness.

Change in social standing: how does others' regard for the character change over this part of their arc? Do people like them more or less? Are they respected more or less than before? Has nothing changed? And so on.

Change in skills and abilities: do they feel more skilled than they were before? Do they feel like they know how to do as many things as before? Again - not necessarily rooted in reality - a classic example of a character being wrong about this is a 'big fish in a small pond' character who used to be the high school sports star going to college on a sports scholarship and discovering they're not the best any more, and suddenly feeling like they're the worst - when they're better than they've ever been in an objective light. Use a subjective viewpoint for this.

Change in agency in life: how does the character's percieved agency change? Do their decisions matter less now than ever? Do their actions make way more happen than before? (See: no agency in action vs decisions are huge)

Change in outlook: Here's the upper/downer part. Are they more or less hopeful for the future? Do they think things are more terrible now? Are things improving as far as they're concerned? Or has that not changed?

Change in goal progress: how do they feel like they're progressing on the goals they've set for themself? Are they getting further and further away? Are they getting closer?

If some of this doesn't make sense and you want a clarification, you will have to tag me to get my attention, because I'm turning notifications for this post off the minute it leaves my immediate social circle.

Transparent version: (sorry you had to scroll so far)

#thank GOD we can just turn notifications off now so i wont have to delete this post #red rambles #also. if you want to follow me for this because someone reblogged it. Don't i make like one of these every [checks notes] 2 years #typically i just reblog a lot of nonsense and you will not enjoy it probably #im writing this like i expect it to take off because i do . Because i'm scared #character sheet #red makes memes #<- because those are the tags i used on the last ones #i dont really think this quite qualifies #oc reference #what fucking tags are there for this sort of thing lmao #ttrpg sheet #ttrpg tools #i know people want this for ttrpgs. if everyone used the other thing for ttrpgs.#oc tools #i was gonna make a fillable version but i gave up. someone made a cool one of the ancient blorbo sheet but tbh i have no idea what the fuck #they're doing with js modules (<- everyone point and laugh i dont know javascript LMAO) and i dont feel like figuring it out #hey guys its midnight im out of post jail. image upon ye #ALSO you CAN put your sheet on the post i dont like. Care #like i said a zillion times. I will be turning notifications off if too many people say things #but until i get really sick of everyone filling things out the same way im curious #you understand.

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inkyrainstorms · 5 months ago

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The Martian Stan AU - The Beginning

“Is that it?” Stan asked, his voice burning and rising like the coming tide, vicious and overwhelming and inevitable. Ford’s shoulders tightened involuntarily, and he threw his brother as scathing of a glare as he could manage. Couldn’t Stan see that this, Ford’s problems, were important? “You call me all the way here after ten years, just to tell me to get as far away from you as possible?!”

If Ford was any less exhausted, if the hole in his left hand and the hole in his heart were any less gaping, and the fresh scrapes and cracked fingernails ached any less, he might’ve taken a step back to apologize. To explain that it wasn’t about what Ford wanted, or what Stan wanted. It was about stopping Bill, and saving the world.

If Ford were a different man, he’d reconsider his approach and find a way to fix the chasm that seemed to yawn wider with every word that came out of each of their mouths. But as it was, Ford was not a different man. He couldn’t even fix himself.

So Ford instead felt indignation sting like hot coals in his gut and urge him to step forward, closer to Stanley. His brother took an involuntary half-step back. “Stanley, you don’t understand what I’ve been through!”

“What you’ve been through!” Stan kept talking even as Ford pushed past him, fury etched onto every word like a brand. “No, no, you don’t understand what I’ve been through! I’ve been to prison in three countries, and I once had to chew my way out of the trunk of a car!”

He got up in Fords face when Ford turned back, his brows drawn low and finger jabbing into Ford’s abdomen. He didn’t realize it, because of course he didn’t, but he’d pressed right into one of the bruises on Fords ribcage from his trip down the stairs earlier that day. Ford grit his teeth and glared back.

“You think you’ve got problems? I’ve got a mullet Stanford!”

Why couldn’t Stan take Fords problems seriously? Was he really cracking jokes at a time like this?

Ford couldn’t take it anymore.

Oblivious to the dangerous precipice Fords stability had drawn close to, Stan got bitterly sarcastic. “Meanwhile where have you been? Holed up in your fancy house in the woods and living it up, selfishly hoarding all—“

Ford went still. If he’d been a slightly different man, a slightly more composed man, perhaps, he’d have fired back another jab at his twin, because how could the man that ruined Fords life and betrayed his complete and total trust call him selfish?

There was a different voice, at a different time altogether too recent and a lifetime ago. His monstrous Muse, his most trusted friend, taking his body on a fucking joyride and then having the gall to look him in the eyes and say “YOU’RE PRETTY SELFISH IQ”.

Ford had just kept on weeping blood.

As it was, Stan didn’t get a chance to finish his rant. He was much too busy receiving a solid punch to the face and staggering back against the force of it. For a moment, all was quiet. Ford was shaking, he realized distantly, staring blankly at his brother. His knuckles stung from the impact.

Stan took more time to recover than Ford would’ve thought, but when he finally did, it was with a new layer of dark fury that Ford hadn’t ever seen from him before. Stan lowered the book from where he’d clenched it to his chest, and pulled out a lighter. “Fine.” He whispered roughly, though it echoed in the cavernous room anyway. Louder, then, “Fine! You want me to get rid of it so bad? I’ll get rid of it right now!”

A challenging fire burned in Stan’s eyes, and with a flick, it burned in his right hand too. Ford’s journal dangled above the hungry, all consuming light.

Ford couldn’t breathe. Every piece of himself he’d had to let go of, that he’d lost to Bill and all that he was giving up to rectify his own mistakes, all to see Stan get rid of part of his life’s work right before his eyes.

How dare he.

Ford let out a guttural shout and lunged for the book. Stanley, evidently not expecting this, stumbled back and tried to move the lighter before Ford and him could get burned from it in the tussle.

He only partly succeeded. Ford hissed at the momentary new pain shooting up the underside of his hand as he tried to grab for the book and Stan flat out dropped the lighter in response. His brother faltered for a split second, his brow creasing.

“Sixer, I—“

Ford didn’t let him finish. The second he heard the nickname, some part of him blanked out entirely, and the buzzing in his ears sounded like an angry hornet in his skull. “Don’t,” he grit out, and he’s sure his voice was much too thick and angry and he wasn’t being rational but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Call me that!”

When Ford lunged for the journal anew, he tackled Stan to the ground as his brother instinctively tightened his own grip on the book. Ford’s book.

“Why not?!” Stan cried out, trying to pry Ford off of him and only succeeding in rolling the two on the ground away from the portal. Ford couldn’t figure out if he sounded more hurt or concerned. The hurricane in his chest kept him from thinking on it too much.

Ford let out a wordless grunt in response, as the two of them, having grappled up to stand, slammed straight through the door and Stan tried to pin him down onto one of the control panels, before Ford managed to gain enough momentum to roll Stan off of him. They were throwing punches and shouting insults they probably didn’t mean, and after a minute long struggle where they surely broke every damn thing in that control room —and good riddance, Ford tried to think but he was too tired to think much at all— Stan had shouted with all the ferocious desperation of a drowning man, “why can’t you listen to me, damnit! You ruined my life!”

Ford had retorted, because of course he did, with “You ruined your own life!” as he finally got a good grip on the book and kicked Stan away with enough force to shove him against the side of one of the control panels.

Stan’s scream was abrupt and guttural and horrifying. It cut through the haze in Fords mind with all the precision of a scalpel, dropping a rock of dread into his gut. Ford backed away as quickly as he could, and didn’t even register his journal slipping through his slack fingers to land facedown on the ground. He felt sick.

“Stanley! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

For a few, horrible, horrible seconds, Stan laid there, slumped and unmoving from where he’d hunched onto the floor. The burn— the brand on his shoulder looked angry and hot against his skin. It had burned clean through his coat and shirt.

Ford took a few hurried steps closer, shaking so hard he could barely walk, when Stan groaned. “Stanley…” he started, but trailed off as Stan pulled himself to his feet. His eyes were darker than Ford had ever seen them before. Stan was shaking too.

“You really want your dumb mysteries that bad?”

And Ford wanted to say, no, no he didn’t, because Stan still held his shoulder stiff as he could and his grip was knuckle-white where he’d used it to brace his arm against his side, because Ford had branded his own twin.

But the words stuck in his throat, because he realized with a start that Stan and him weren’t the ones shaking. The room was. His eyes shot to the portal.

His magnum opus and his curse, his Dadaleus’s Labyrinth, was activating.

A sudden movement from Stan snapped Fords attention back to his injured, angry brother. Ford took a few cautious steps out of the control room and held up his hands placatingly as Stan advanced. His brother was blocking the doorway, but Ford needed to get in there, he needed to activate the shutdown procedure. “Stan, please,” he said weakly, not sure what exactly he meant. Let me through? Wait? Let me help you?

He didn’t get the chance to find out, though, because Stan continued talking, hefting up the journal he’d evidently picked up from the floor while Ford was distracted. “Well you can have ‘em” Stan said viciously, and Ford could hear the pain in it clear as day as he moved to shove the book into Ford’s hands.

Ford dodged Stan attempt, careful to not touch Stan’s injured shoulder, and weaved around him. “Stan, please, wait.”

Stan laughed, turning around. His grin looked painful. “I’m tired of waiting, Si— Stanford. I really am.”

Ford didn’t have time for this. His heart ached in ways Ford didn’t have the time to decipher as the humming in the room got louder, and he turned to move back to the control room. “Just a moment, Stanley, I just need—“

When Stan latched onto his arm and tried to whirl Ford back around, Ford reacted on pure instinct and deep seated paranoia, that kind that can only be born from aftermath of pure devastation. He followed the momentum and shoved Stan back as hard as he could, turning and sprinting to the control room before Stan could recover and try to stop him again.

“Stanford?”

He never got there. Stan’s voice, suddenly small and scared, ground Ford’s pace to a halt. The humming was louder now, reverberating through his chest.

“Ford, what’s happening?”

For a terrible moment, Ford didn’t turn around. He just stared at the door of the control room as if he could stop time if he tried hard enough. He didn’t want to see. Seeing made it real. It meant his worst fears had become true, it justified the cold sinking in his chest.

“Ford!”

Ford whirled around and let out a hoarse cry. There Stanley was, greasy hair floating in a halo around his face, one hand outstretched and the other holding Ford’s journal tight to his chest. Ford had pushed him over the danger line.

The look on his twins face was worse than Ford could’ve ever imagined.

The anger had drained out of him, the closer he floated to the all consuming blue light of the portal. The was naked terror in his eyes, and he cried out for Ford again.

“Stanley! Hold on, please!” Ford said, before making another break for the control room.

He needed to shut it off right this instant.

“Hold onto what, brainiac!?”

“I don’t know, Stanley! Anything within reach, just don’t let yourself go through the portal.”

Ford input the shut down code. He input it again. He then realized that they’d knocked the cords out of alignment and frantically began adjusting them from where they were wired into the top of the control panel. Shit, they really broke everything in this room, didn’t they?

The third time he input the code, the light flashed green, and the keys made themselves known on a panel adjacent to Ford’s position by the window.

Three keys. Of course. Why did he have to make it three keys, all turned simultaneously?

Metal screeched in the portal room, and when Ford dared to glance up between trying to maneuver himself to turn all three keys, a jolt of horror swept through him and nearly knocked him off his feet.

Stan has nearly entirely consumed by the light now, clawing at the edge of the portal he’d managed to reach. Ford cursed himself when he realized that the metal plate Stan was holding, as well as over a dozen others, were loosening to the point of nearly falling off entirely from the main frame. The other objects he’d scattered across the floor of his lab, everything from basic tools like screwdrivers to bigger machine parts floated through the portal at increasingly high speeds.

Ford wouldn’t need to do anything, he realized, and it wasn’t the comfort he wished it was. The portal was destabilizing. Judging by the erratic pulsing the portal light was doing, it’d be closing soon.

Ford ran out of the control room and stopped short just as Stan locked eyes with him again.

“Stanley!” he called, another desperate idea beginning to form in his panic addled mind as he scanned the room for spare rope and found none. The spare rope from the first portal test must’ve gotten caught in the portals expanding gravitational pull. His brother was barely a shadow in the light now, but Ford knew Stanley had heard him. “If you toss me the journal, I can—“

“The journal?” Stan gasped out, frenzied. “Is that still all you care about!?”

“No, no, if I just had the instructions, I could fix—“ this, fix everything.

The screeching of metal and thundering of the portal reached a deafening crescendo, and Ford could see Stan open his mouth to interrupt, to say something, assent or argument or—

But Ford didn’t get to find out what Stan would’ve said. A particularly violent jolt shook the metal frame of the portal, and Stan, with a wide-eyed final look that Ford didn’t know how to decipher, slipped.

His brother disappeared into the light just as the portal collapsed in on itself with enough concussive force to send Ford crashing to the ground. He slammed onto his back hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.

Silence fell over the room. It was dark.

Ford stared at the ceiling above him, then dragged his eyes, slowly, painfully, to the portal.

The deactivated, half missing and half obliterated portal.

For a long, long time, Ford sat in the dark under the full weight of every bruise and scratch and burn he’d sustained, and it was like he was underwater, head swimming with nausea and pain and bewilderment. He was numb.

A faint plip-plop sound echoed suddenly through the deathly silent basement, and Ford squinted at the sound through his crooked glasses, trying to identify the source.

A dark substance stained the edge of the portal, right where Stan had been holding on. Ford watched blankly as the liquid slowly rolled along the curve of the portal entrance, before reached a jagged gap in the perfect circle and slipping through. It slid down the jagged and crumpled panels, weaving until it gathered at the tip of a particularly jutting sheet of metal.

Another drip.

Another.

Ford shifted closer, simply trying to breathe. He pointedly didn’t think about how the other side of the portal had driven Fiddleford to seemingly the brink of madness in moments, he didn’t think about the glimpse into the Nightmare Realm Bill had given him when he first revealed his true hand, and he certainly didn’t think about the final look Stanley had given him, grief and rage and betrayal all rolled into one.

He finally got close enough to see the liquid for what it was. It wasn’t oil, like he’d figured, like he’d hoped and prayed with every inhale and exhale to the gods he didn’t believe in. It was too thick, congealing with familiar splatters on the floor. It was a deep crimson.

Stan must have cut his hand on the metal with how hard he’d been holding it, Ford realized, and the thoughts were the first crack in the dam Ford had buried himself beneath. This was Stan’s blood.

Stan was in the Nightmare Realm, bleeding from one hand and burned on the other shoulder and begging for Ford to do something, asking Ford what was happening because he didn’t know, because Ford didn’t tell him, and—

It was all Fords fault.

All of it.

Oh Moses.

The dam creaked with warning, a death rattle and a laugh rolled into one, before Ford was swept into the undertow.

Ford had killed his own brother.

All alone in the dark basement with the machine he’d turned into his brother’s grave, Ford buried his burnt, bloody hands in his hair and bowed his head until it hit his knees. All alone, Stanford Pines cried for the first time in years.

Alternate Titles: The Worst Conversation Ever

Or: Ford started disassembling the portal early and everything went to shit accordingly.

Tags! @aroace-get-out-of-my-face @pleasantartisanhottea @empressofsamoyeds @littlelilliana15 @pinefamilycatsau @thejaxindianrizzler (I saw your comment in the og post and it made me laugh cause I was in the middle of working on this when I noticed it) (I hope you don’t mind the tag :))

if I missed anyone I’m sorry about that! The tag is always a fair option to follow too (#martian Stan au)

#If I had a nickel for every time one of these ended with Ford mourning his own brother and being mean to himself I’d have two nickels #If I collect enough maybe I’ll be able to afford his therapy (post fic comfort)#gravity falls #stanford pines #Stanley pines #tale of two stans #martian stan au #YES ITS A TAG NOW AHAH #This is us winning #Long post #my art #fanfiction #Once again saying for the record that Ford is a very biased guy. He’s constantly fist fighting himself and his brother and a literal god #Simultaneously #I love him and all his many many faults #Guys I might have to actually turn this into a proper Ao3 fic is this keeps up #I want to have most of it written before I do that though #So I’ll actually finish it #I think I’ll post excerpts here and there in the mean time :)) for you guys <3 #Gravity falls fic #mullet stan #paranoid ford #they’re in the trenches I fear #tw blood #Tw injury #cw uhhhh horrible miscommunication aha #Okay I’ll shut up now

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