#I have difficult relationship with Ford

[thenocturnenarrator]

Why does my motivation kick in when winter break is ending :’)

Anyways, look at this two guys that aren’t doomed by the narrative at all

[softersynths]

How did Shifty feel about Ford and Stan fighting?

Does he take a side? Or does he stand to the side, and hope they work things out?

Also weridmagedeon…?

Does Shifty ever end up having at least a decent relationship with Ford or Fiddleford or both?

How does he feel about his…would they technically be his niece and nephew? Uh—second cousins I guess? American family naming conventions are confusing. I say this as someone who is half.

Also do you have sweet moments to share about Uncle Stan and Shifty/Nicky?

I want to draw a lot of this but for now I'll answer in text........

Shifty reacts like a kid watching their parents argue: with worried helplessness. At least at first. He missed Ford terribly, but Stan was a father to him for much longer. When Shifty learns that Ford intends to kick Stan out at the end of the summer, it causes a great deal of friction between them. He’s no longer the clingy pet that Ford left behind, he’s a person who loves Ford’s brother deeply, which Ford struggles to understand.

As for weirdmageddon... I think maybe he ends up with Soos for most of it. When they reunite with Stan and the refugees at the shack, Shifty is able to reconcile with McGucket, and they help build the shacktron together.

Post-canon he has a good, if occasionally strained, relationship with both of them. Negative feelings and memories are difficult for him to let go of. But he still wants family in his life, and seeing the process of Stan and Ford (as well as Tate and McGucket) reconciling helps him a lot.

I think the first time they 'meet' after McGucket gets his memory back, Shifty calls him 'Uncle Fiddleford' without really thinking about it, and all of McGucket's paranoia gets blown out of the water. His wariness of Shifty dies when he meets him with a clearing mind and sees, in place of a monster, a frightened, lonely young man - one whose feeling of loss, and confusion over his identity, he deeply relates to. McGucket's guilt and Shifty's bad memories make them hesitant to reach out to one another (and McGucket's erraticisms still startle Shifty after 30 years of avoiding them) but after Stan and Ford leave for the Arctic, they spend a lot of time catching up. They could potentially get to the point where Shifty is calling him 'Pa' rather than 'Uncle Fidds'.

He loves the twins, and wants to be liked by them. The 'Nicky' identity is invented by Shifty and Stan once they learn the twins will be staying the summer, explicitly to be a "distant cousin" that their parents "forgot about" (him being anything other than a Pines never even crossed their minds). He's distant at the beginning of the summer bc he worries about revealing himself, but becomes like a big brother to them both as he gets more settled into the role. His modus operandi when interacting with them is “what would Stan do with me” - and then he does that. A lot of riding on shoulders and affectionate noogies. He tries to steer them away from Gravity Falls' weirdness with little success. He bullies Dipper a little too. LOL.

As for sweet moments...... As a kid, Shifty would occasionally turn into a dog (or some other furry animal) and sleep next to Stan in his bed. Stan kind of misses it (he would never admit this). Shifty can also turn into inanimate objects (albeit living ones) and in the first couple winters frequently turned into scarves and coats for Stan to wear. Yes, Stan found it strange and clingy - but when you’ve spent months freezing in your car, you’ll take what you can get. Stan also teaches Shifty a lot of best practices for shoplifting and identity fraud. Which he uses frequently. lol

[jesse-pinko]

“Stanley wouldn’t actually be that nice to Fiddleford” “Stan wouldn’t treat Fidds any better than Ford did” WRONG u guys have no vision unlike me and I am exploding your dimension to liberate you so you see the stars (yaoi). Stan wouldn’t be nice to Fiddleford… at first. He would be too wrapped up in his guilt over accidentally pushing Ford into the portal to and preoccupied with getting him back, his defenses are already up from years on the run and he would assume that Fiddleford thinks as little of his intelligence as Ford does. He would be snapping and boorish and difficult to work with, but one day when Fidds gets fed up and begins to angrily storm off, wondering aloud why he’s even there, putting so much time and effort into rescuing someone who wouldn’t have to be rescued if he’d just listened to him in the first place, Stan throws himself in front of the door and begs him to stay and help him save his brother and opens up about their relationship in a panic, and the two warily wind up bonding over their respective complicated feelings about this person who they both deeply resent and desperately miss. And Fidds isn’t bad company, for a hippie, and it’s been so long since Stan has had anyone to talk to at all. And then, when Stan had to cook up a last minute scheme to get them out of some Gravity Falls monster shenanigans, Fidds actually called him brilliant. This guy is a riot! Blah blah getting stoned karaoke night as a euphemism etc etc… but in the harsh light of day it all begins to make sense. He’s just a cheap copy of Stanford to Fiddleford, that’s the role he’s played his entire life, and when he tries to call Fiddleford out on this, Fiddleford does call him stupid. And pigheaded. And… courageous? And creative? And caring?? And one-of-a-kind??? And… a good brother????

[padmerry]

Was Caryn Pines a good or a bad mom to the Stan twins?

Stan introduces us to Caryn’s character by describing her in the following words: “Mom was a pathological liar, which served her well as a phone psychic.” She is also, canonically, a kleptomaniac. “Pathological liar” and “kleptomaniac” aren’t the first terms you think of when you picture a stereotypical housewife back in the day, are they? So that’s already proof she can’t be put in a box together with the “women of her time.”

Let’s get this out of the way: she does not fear Filbrick and people should stop using that as an excuse for her actions (or lack thereof). But she isn’t totally uncaring, either. I present you a canon analysis of the relationship between Caryn and her kids under the cut!

Usually, the possibility of Filbrick being abusive towards Caryn is a headcanon born not out of any canon evidence, so to speak, but specifically the need to excuse Caryn not intervening as Stan was being kicked out, even though she watched it happen, just as Ford did. However, this is not what we see in the comics:

Caryn initiating the kiss/affectionate physical contact, and smiling brightly and genuinely to the camera.

And, again:

She’s presumably alone with Filbrick here, again initiating affectionate physical contact, and looking at him with an expression that can only be described as very tender.

In both panels, she doesn’t look afraid of him at all. Not even remotely. She knows the man she married and she loves him. I think this might confuse a lot of people given what we know of Filbrick, but in plenty of relationships irl, a man will hit his children and then turn around and call his wife affectionate pet names; an abusive parent will see their children as beneath them to discipline as cruelly as they please but see their spouse as much more of an equal in the family structure. I have witnessed such a dynamic irl, myself.

I know a few of you might be thinking that these two panels don’t represent the totality of their home life/the relationship between Filbrick and Caryn. After all, there is abuse in “loving” marriages as well, right? It’s a complex situation. And I would agree with you, if we were talking about real life instead of a cartoon. Gravity Falls is a cartoon and all its characters are fictional and 2D, lacking the complexity of real humans—what we know about them is what is shown to us by the writers, and what is shown to us is intended to represent the characters in their totality and dictate how the audience should interpret them. We’re meant to fill in the gaps using what is offered to us as a basis. While you are free to headcanon Caryn as being abused by Filbrick, it doesn’t have any canon evidence to back it up, simply because the writers did not mean to imply that. If they did, she would have been written differently.

Take as an example Mrs. Gleeful (Gideon’s mom), who, despite not being abused, seems plenty terrified of the events happening around her:

The GF Wiki describes her as “paranoid, traumatized and disturbed” right off the bat. It isn’t subtle at all, because it’s a cartoon. Caryn, on the other hand, doesn’t show the barest hint of fear. On the contrary, they make a point of showing her happy with her husband and her family, overall. To convey that she isn’t abused is much more difficult to do, as a writing choice, than the opposite—simply portraying her as abused, that is. Think about it: there’s no way she could have possibly been written to show she wasn’t abused except through visible proof of her happiness.

When I focus on a Watsonian approach, I sometimes wonder if Caryn might not have been intended as a questionable mother, but that a questionable mother was simply the woman we ended up with given the writers’ lack of thought about their side characters and/or struggle to write female characters compared to male ones. I’m not entirely sure about that, though; a friend once pointed out Filbrick and Caryn are exactly the kind of parents you would expect the Stan Pines you knew up to AToTS to have, intended to sort of explain the two sides of his personality to the audience: a father packed to the gills with toxic masculinity and a lying, cheating mother. One thing I’m certain was intended, though (and if Alex ever releases canon material retconning this fact, it will be just that: a retcon), is that Caryn does love Filbrick.

In conclusion, she probably didn’t want to leave or divorce Filbrick, either. Not because she couldn’t or was afraid to, but because it was her choice to stay with him.

Now, can we blame her for that? That’s complicated too, I believe. I don’t think that physical punishment, even if severe, would be automatically be seen as abuse or anything of the sort in whatever period their lives took place, 1950s or 60s (Alex is insistent on the fact the show isn’t supposed to have an actual timeline, but an “emotional” one). I think this can be applied to a lot of other behaviors. I’ve seen many older adults saying, in my country, that “back in their day” an adult could silence their child with just a single look, just by raising their eyebrow. I don’t know how things were in the USA, but I bet kids were expected to be more “respectful” and “obedient” and a lot of what would be considered abuse nowadays was then considered an acceptable way of raising a respectable citizen. So Caryn, too, might have interpreted her husband’s behavior as his way of “toughing up” the boys.

I personally headcanon (emphasis on headcanon! I always keep headcanon and analysis neatly separated, and we’ll soon return to the analysis) Caryn as having Stan as her favorite. Most people with siblings seem to think there’s always a favorite one for each parent, and we know of her canonically being affectionate with Stan! She’s the one who says he has “personality,” who calls him her “little free spirit,” who asks about him to the principal when Ford himself doesn’t. She’s one of the only two people who attend his fake funeral, according to the TBoB site, and the other person was an IRS agent. On the other hand, we know virtually nothing about her feelings for Ford in particular/specific, other than the fact she at the very least doesn’t feel negatively about him—no nicknames, no praise, not much of anything. I like to think Ford is not disliked, but Stan is her baby. It makes sense to me because Stan was a talented and creative liar, like her, while she couldn’t relate much to studious Ford. (It’s also fun to give Ford mommy issues, hahah. It would be pretty ironic if, while Stan is confessing to Ford about how upset he feels that Ford is Filbrick’s fave, Ford was internally harboring similar suspicions towards their mom.)

Back to the analysis—these are the two instances in which we see her acting as a mom, in TBoB and the comics respectively:

In the first picture, she’s smiling at the camera with one of her babies crying in the background. In the second, she doesn’t seem very bothered by the fact her troublemaker kids are “sneaking out” (very probably so Filbrick doesn’t see them) to “fight the devil.” She doesn’t even ask for more information or scolds them for climbing down a sheet from their window (when they could easily fall and get seriously hurt), just tells them to be back home by dinner.

I think she did love them in her own way (she wouldn’t have been one of the two people to show up to Stan’s fake funeral otherwise, since there was no benefit in doing that), but that way of hers was clearly not the stereotypical, overprotective, nagging, fussing mother hen way. I see her characterized as some sort of Mrs. Weasley from Harry Potter far too often (probably because people have an idealized concept of How A Good Mother Should Behave in their minds, and with the lack of canon information about Caryn, that’s the default set for her), when truly her style of parenting seems closer to Grunkle Stan’s style of grunkling.

As an example, Stan smiling and reassuring himself as the kids fight like crazy in the background:

Except, of course, that she was a woman and didn’t have Stan’s weird hangups about masculinity, so she wouldn’t shy away from being more openly affectionate, cooing, praising.

Except, also, that she didn’t intervene when her kid was kicked out, while Grunkle Stan, who does everything for his family and is unflinchingly loyal to it (even to his own detriment), absolutely would have intervened in her place.

She sounds confused, a bit concerned, but again, she was not afraid to make her presence known and walk into the scene and ask what was going on as her husband was visibly very angry. Her tone is not of a panicking or scared woman.

Then, Stanley calls for Ford to defend him, not her. Ford, his brother, same age as him, who was at the moment beyond furious with him and very unlikely to show any compassion. Ford, whose attempts to change Filbrick’s mind would more likely than not have been unsuccessful. Not Caryn, adult, who probably had much greater sway over Filbrick. They say a child’s first instinct is to call for their mama. Clearly not in this case!

I’ve seen many people headcanon that Stan kept in contact with her, or else Ford couldn’t possibly have known Stan’s address. I think they might be forgetting the magic omniscient Mailbox! That’s my own headcanon to how Ford managed to get it. (Frankly, I don’t think the writers thought too much about it, so I doubt there’s an official explanation; if there is one in the future, it’ll be a retcon for sure. That’s how GF works.)

Think of Stanford Pines’ character and how he operates, how he always avoids asking for help, how self-sufficient he always attempts to be. He has two options: one involving phoning his mom and asking for his twin’s address and fueling gossip/assumptions that he was ready to reconcile with Stan, and another one than involved just Ford himself and supernatural/magic means, like an old, magic mailbox. Which of the two is more likely to be his choice, especially in his paranoid state? (And speaking of the mailbox, Ford wouldn’t necessarily have had to ask it about Bill’s weaknesses. By the time he needed Stan’s address, he had already tried using many of Bill’s canon weaknesses against him and failed, so he wasn’t struggling due to lack of knowledge.)

When Bill threatens Ford, he says no one would miss him if he died out there in the snow, which implies that, at least from Ford’s point of view, that would be believable (since Bill wouldn’t brag about something absurd and meaningless but something that he assumed could actually hurt Ford):

Bill mentions, in that order: Fiddleford abandoning Ford, Filbrick not wanting Ford to return without millions, and Ford’s lack of friends. No mention of either Stan or Caryn. If you want to be more charitable towards Caryn, perhaps this is Bill refusing to remind Ford of any person that could possibly love him. Even then, Ford’s mind doesn’t immediately go to Stan (presumably because of their fight) nor to Caryn (presumably because of Ford’s estrangement from his family) as a protest against Bill’s words. There’s no instinctive denial. 

Ford also admits he had abandoned their family to become a recluse:

Caryn was very likely included in the “family” he felt like he had abandoned.

I’m not saying that Stan wasn’t keeping in contact with her, but that if you choose to think he was, that’s also a headcanon. I personally can see it, since Stan is a character who always prioritized family above all, while Ford was growing increasingly isolated and estranged from them.

Ultimately, when it comes to Caryn, I think her character depends a bit on Filbrick’s. The worse you headcanon Filbrick to be, the worse it looks for her as a mother. Fortunately for her in my case, I don’t headcanon Filbrick to be a stereotypical monster that beat his sons black and blue all the time. I think he sucked at parenting, but not exaggeratedly so, and in a way that could still be socially acceptable back then.

Meanwhile, in the fandom, I think there’s a tendency to portray Filbrick as Terribly Bad and Caryn as Undoubtedly Good, demonizing one and idealizing the other to the point you stop and wonder: how did this wonderful, perfect woman even marry this man? I believe the black & white extreme contrast is appealing, in a poetic sort of way—a helpless saint stuck with a monster—but not that realistic considering their situation.

It’s also more comforting to imagine her as extra motherly to compensate for the fact Filbrick was so terrible. Shermie also gets this treatment, in a way, being headcanoned as a very protective older brother that would often defend the twins from his father’s wrath. It’s just... sad to imagine our beloved blorbos Stan and Ford didn’t get much protection at all.

I don’t believe they were very protected, but I also believe that Filbrick also wasn’t that terrible. That time in which he attempted to “sell” Stan after he got a bad grade (according to the TBoB website), for example? I doubt he was actually selling the boy. Way more likely that he was humiliating the boy, which is obviously very, very bad, alright, but not to the levels of actual child trafficking.

I actually can see Caryn intervening in certain occasions, telling her husband to chill, that this time Stan (his favorite victim, despite the fact Ford also suffered with his expectations in a different way) was innocent, that they were just kids, but not forcefully so. Not in an “insistently, angrily putting her foot down” way. You could, of course, also headcanon Filbrick was that terrible but threatened the boys so they didn’t tell their mom and Caryn remained blissfully unaware of the worst—if that’s your cup of tea. Even if she were unaware of the worst, though, there are things she surely wouldn’t have missed while living under the same roof as Filbrick and the Stans without plausible justification, so I wouldn’t abuse that excuse.

It’s also possible to me that she knew some of it and started deceiving herself and coming up with explanations to soothe her own mind, perhaps even dissociating a little. She wouldn’t want her Filbrick to be a terrible father, so she pretended that he wasn’t. This hypothesis, ironically, would give her a fitting similarity to her son Ford: the worst liar is the one who lies to herself.

I’m not a great fan of the idealization of Caryn as a mother because that’s somewhat sexist to me. You know, how mothers are definitely treated differently than fathers, and often put on a “can do no wrong” pedestal with higher expectations? Society often forgets that women with children are people first, mothers second. I think it’s possible for a female character that is also a mom to be a good character but not that good of a mom. Caryn, imo, gives off more cool wine aunt vibes than she does motherly momma.

But we know that, despite her shortcomings, she does cherish her family.

Stan and Ford probably have many fond memories of her, such as this one in TBoB:

At least we can assume that, despite her husband’s idea of a Hanukkah present being actual cinder-blocks, which Ford felt the need to mention to the reader, Caryn herself must have gotten them more decent/normal gifts with the budget they had.

Or here, in J3, where we can probably assume Caryn was included in the “family” that attempted to comfort Ford about his extra fingers (I can’t imagine Filbrick being this sentimental):

She is also described as a “caring mother and kleptomaniac” on this Lost Legends website that I believe few people know about the existence of (the same that revealed her full name to be “Caryn Romanoff Pines”), but considering Alex’s occasional acidic/sarcastic tone and style of humor, I don’t know if we’re meant to take the “caring” adjective very seriously. Especially because he has said before, in the DVD extras (AToTS commentary), that Stan attempted to get from the public “the affection he never got from his family and lost with his brother.” (Such statements seem conflicting with each other, so I prefer a middle ground approach.)

Narratively speaking, I believe she loved her boys and her boys loved her, but not enough to take away Stan’s protagonism in Ford’s life and Ford’s protagonism in Stan’s life. They’re meant to rely mostly on each other, to the point Alex confessed in HanaHyperfixates’ and ThatGFFan’s interview that he didn’t elaborate on Shermie’s character because Stan & Ford were meant to part of a duo against the world and an extra sibling would alter that dynamic:

In terms of Shermie, I remember asking Rob or somebody at some point, like, “Would Shermie be here, logically? Do we have to see him?” I don’t really wanna see him. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in Stan and Ford being—sort of having only each other and then losing each other because of their different life paths.

I think the suggestion was, “Maybe Shermie would be a baby. Maybe that would happen.” And being like, “okay sure.”

That said, I also believe people don’t get that. I’m tired of this being my experience in this fandom:

(Sorry, I had to include a meme.)

She’s excused for not intervening that night even as her seventeen-year-old son, Ford, is not extended the same courtesy. She’s also often put on a pedestal for... being present at her own child’s funeral? It’s ironic how, despite her fanon self being idealized by the fandom as mothers are idealized by society irl, her canon self is treated by the fandom as fathers are treated by society irl: the bare minimum becomes cause for celebration.

It might sound like I’m being too harsh on her, but I didn’t write this to attack Caryn. On the contrary, I think it’s very, very nice that her character is so difficult to pin down, as either a fully bad or a fully good mother. She has nuance, imo, and that’s a very delicate trait for any fictional character to have because the fandom never handles it well. Why? Fandoms in general prefer drama over nuance. (I’ve seen the contrary happening, too: a few fans getting so fed up with fanon Caryn that they decided to write her as completely uncaring.)

Ultimately, my own answer to the question posed in the title is: neither, but at least she (probably) loved them. Reading all of this, different people might have reached different conclusions, deeming her as either good or bad. That’s just proof, imo, of how hard it is to crack her. Good for her.

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

Offering an NPD perspective on Ford Pines, because I feel the most common discussions surrounding his narcissistic traits tends to go in two ways — from what I’ve personally seen — and that’s defending him, and denying the mere possibility he may have NPD because it’s seen as a negative, or using NPD as a way to villainise him, and thus demonise NPD. Or, the alternative, this part of his character is completely overlooked.

That isn’t to say I haven’t seen some wonderful analyses on Ford and NPD, rather, I find it surprisingly lacking when his character might be some of the best representation of my own experience struggling with narcissism (alongside Bill).

I believe a lot of it stems from the misconception and stigma around NPD, and the fact Ford goes again common, typically incorrect, ideas, such as showing genuine care for other people, and accepting his failures and where he went wrong in the end, trying to repair his relationship with Stan, and realising that he doesn’t need to be recognised worldwide, as he’s found happiness with his family instead. All of these do not correlate with the media idea of a narcissist, but the fact is, narcissists are no different from any other disorder or mental health issue. We come in all different forms, and the idea we are inherently abusive or evil is such a widespread misconception that it becomes difficult getting help or support.

And that’s why I find Ford so important.

This alone, to me, describes in simple words how it feels to deal with NPD, and though you could argue Bill is projecting here, I think the point is they’re so similar, the lines blur. Both struggle with this same mentality, but Ford is able to reach out, and accept help, and Bill lets himself sink deeper and deeper into his own lies. Also, I’d argue it isn’t Bill projecting, because we sees evidence of this behaviour in Ford in the show and the journal.

He’s someone who believes himself destined for greatness, and won’t accept the bare minimum, such as when Fiddleford suggests he publish his research as is — No, he can’t have that. He has to be the one to uncover this grand theory. He has to have his name cemented amongst the greats. He believes himself to be special, different and more capable than other people, and yet he longs for the company of others all the same. He lives off of validation and praise, and strives for it, his own ego clashing against his lack of self-worth. Bill’s manipulations work on him because Ford eats up this sort of validation — it’s like one big high. It’s confirmation he is special. He is meant for greater things. He was right.

Ford notably struggles with empathy, which is likely both related to his autism, and also his narcissism. Other people simply don’t make sense to him. It takes effort for him to be able to understand people where they’re at, and he is willing to put in that effort notably, taking note of Fiddleford’s habits for example.

He also does struggle with manipulation and being deeply self-centred. A great example being Dipper’s apprenticeship. Ford is very subtly manipulating the situation here, and he doesn’t even notice, which is, in my own experience, common with NPD. He’s also unable to see Dipper and Mabel as, well, Dipper and Mabel, rather putting his own issues with Stan onto them, especially Dipper. He sees Dipper as a younger version of himself, and is trying to point him in that direction, never thinking whether it’s actually right for Dipper, or whether it’s for himself.

I could probably go on, like how he tends to have a black and white view of people, with his opinions on them easily flicking between extremes as a method of coping, or how he panics at the idea of his life’s work being destroyed, despite knowing the dangers.

Whether you agree he has NPD or not, Ford definitely has a lot of narcissistic traits, and yet, despite that, despite every mistake he’s made, everyone he’s pushed away, he gets a second chance. He gets to be loved and understood. He finds happiness. He gets to recover.

It’s very rare that characters with so many narcissistic traits get endings like that!

Ford is not a bad person because he’s a narcissist, he’s just a person, one who’s fucked up, and who’s still learning, and still healing, and that’s why he works. That’s why he’s such a comfort.

On a final note, If you are someone who’s going to argue vehemently against this idea, I kindly ask you simply scroll by!

[i-am-trying-my-best-okay]

Potentially a hot take but I think Dipper might be the most emotionally intelligent out of both sets of Pines twins, but in a very specific way.

Ford really isn't overly concerned about people's feelings; it's just not something he really tends to think about or prioritize. And when he does think about it, he tends to only view people's emotions based on how he would feel about the situation.

Stan is skilled in knowing how to handle people and quickly grasping their intentions. He's a con man that understands crowd mentality and how to play it. Overall, he just knows what people tend to want to hear and gives it to them, so quick with a lie. And because of this, he's wary of when people tell him what he wants to hear. He's a con man that recognizes a con, and knows a person's intentions and desires are important so he looks for them. But he doesn't really know how to interact and connect with people genuinely and openly. He wants to have genuine connections, specifically with his family, but for all of his life he's either delt with people that didn't care for him and made it obvious (his father), people who didn't seem as invested in having a relationship with one another as he did (Ford), or people he's had to constantly lie to and thrown on a persona to survive (his years being homeless and being Mr. Mystery). Because of this, genuine feelings and connections are difficult for him to navigate and articulate, or even really understand.

Mabel, out of all of them, definitely cares the most about other people's feelings. She spends time thinking about others feelings long after the fact, considers them carefully, with the end goal of everyone being happy. But she can get so caught up in what she thought would make everyone happy, that it can be difficult for her to take a step back and look at if what she's trying to do is really the right thing for people.

But Dipper is the one that tends to just, like, quickly grasp the heart of an emotional situation and just points it out. And, unlike Mabel, he doesn't really prioritizes everyone being happy, so when he points it out he tends to be very blunt about it. He also, surprisingly, is the first to take a step back and look at a situation, and what the right thing to do is, even if it's not what he wants, something Mabel and Ford have difficulties with. He also doesn't get upset if he's the one in the wrong, able to admit it easily once he realizes it and immediately has a desire to amend what he did wrong. However, he too has a blind spot, as does everyone. This blind spot being his paranoia; if he doesn't fully know about the situation, the conclusion he'll end up at will always be the worst one (stan portal situation). Dipper very rarely takes previous loyalties into consideration when trying to figure out what's going on; if it's someone he knows and loves he'll try to find out proof that go against his suspicions, but if he doesn't immediately find any he'll jump to an answer that speaks to his paranoia (opposite from Mabel, who is predisposed to firmly see the best in others even if there is evidence proving otherwise).

[rapunzelbro]

The Act of Stealing a Loved One |3| (Stanley Pines x Reader)

Hi y'all! I am overwhelmed by the amount of love this fanfiction is getting. Thank you so much, I am glad y'all love it and hope you enjoy it!

Story Guide

Why the hell was he doing this? Maybe it was to try and make up for all that he did to his brother, or maybe it was to attempt to not let Ford ruin something good that finally came into his life. Whatever the reason was, Stan was putting fake glasses on, wearing an outfit similar to what his nerdy brother would wear, he was going to the show. He was going to see you perform.

“God why does he dress so dorky” Stan muttered in annoyance as he looked himself over in the mirror. He adjusted the glasses that sat awkwardly on the bridge of his nose and grabbed the poster before heading out to his car. He drove off to where the show was taking place, in somebody’s basement.

“Do you think he’s going to come tonight?” you muttered, looking at Gabs.

Their band was currently tuning their instruments and checking over equipment in the basement, preparing for the performance.. How the neighbors didn't complain was beyond you, they probably are used to this by now.

“Do you want the truth or for me to lie?” Gabs glanced at you with an annoyed look in her eye, sighing, she continued to tune her guitar “...I don't know why you're still with that bum. You invited him to how many shows now and he just wont show?” She rolled her eyes, directing her attention back towards you.

“He’s super busy, and I get that... His degree is super difficult, so I get it” You muttered, beginning to untangle some of the wires you shoved inside your bag in a hurry “..if he doesn't show tonight, I might just have to talk about where this relationship is going.. I really just don't get why he doesn't support me on this..” you mutter frowning slightly as you progress with the mess of wires

“If that's what you feel is best then do it, besides, you'll always have me and the band,” Gabs smiles softly at you placing her guitar down as she looks at the clock on the wall “Doors open in ten, maybe you'll see him before the show starts.. I'm hoping for his sake or I swear I will beat the absolute sh-”

“Gabs! You're not beating up my boyfriend” you laugh, gently shoving her “But I hope he’ll be there too..”

Stan was glad he got there when he did, considering the fact it was a basement show it was pretty packed. Parking was a bitch, so he ended up parking on the front lawn to which everyone else followed suit once they saw him do it.

“Ford, don't make me regret this…” he muttered getting out of the car before heading to the door. Ignoring the looks of everyone else, he stepped inside. The house smelt of cigarettes and booze, it was rather full at the moment with groups of people talking. It made Stan stick out like a sore thumb while he was trying to find you in the room.

“Holy shit! Ford you actually came!” He heard a female voice yell out before he was suddenly embraced. Looking to see who embraced him, he saw the girl from the photo on Ford's desk, it was you. Returning the hug Stan smiled “I apologize for missing your other shows I got too caug-” he was cut off by you kissing him, shutting him up completely.

Was this wrong? 100%. If Ford ever knew about this he would be in even deeper shit. But the way your soft lips felt against his rough ones pushed that thought aside. Your scent of vanilla, mixed with cigarettes was like a drug he craved. He couldn't get enough of it. You pulled away after a few seconds looking into his eyes smiling

“As much as I love your rambling, shush. I'm just glad you're here!” she said giddily as she wrapped her arms around his neck, the Vodka you tried hiding with a piece of strawberry gum, hitting his nose in the closeness.

“Noted. You look absolutely beautiful, now when do you perform?” Keep your cool Stanley shit!

“Oh I'm on after the first band! Ya know… There's rumors of some school scouting agent showing up tonight.. god can you imagine if it was true?” You smiled, a sparkle in your eyes as you speak “The band and I, in the big leagues..On tour never having to look back? That's the dream” you removed your hands from Stan’s neck

When you pulled away he turned his attention to your ensemble for the show. Your hair was done with brushed out curls, falling towards the low cut neckline of the red shirt you had on underneath the black leather jacket that completed the look.

How the actual hell did Ford score you?

No seriously how the hell.

“Regardless, we got a huge following now, the word got out about us all over campus and some parts of your school so whatever happens I don't give a shit. This is so fun!” you giggle, slightly tipsy from the shots you definitely didn't have earlier

“Whatever makes you happy, I'll support you” Stan smiled gently, squeezing your hand.

He hates that he just added fuel to the fire of lies he is making, but he didn't want to crush your dreams. Stan knows his brother was definitely not supportive of your music career, he knows that he would probably tell you to be more realistic, that's just how his brother was. Stan wishes that somehow, he would have been the one you met, he longed for someone exactly like you. Carefree, up for the thrill of not knowing what's next, and not giving a shit while doing it.

“And that's why I love you Ford” Y/n says, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Y/n! Come on, we have to figure out all our shit before we go on! You can make out with him later!” Jamie yelled out to you, holding up one of his drumsticks, pointing out at you

“Ugh, I'm coming! See you on stage lover boy” You kiss him one last time before running off with Jamie.

God he was down bad

Taglist @bluepanda08 @slay-thou-pookie @karmaisacatluzi @fries11 @marvelous-maniac @cherryblom @leo4242564 @zuzzybakaemperiment @boba-is-a-soup @bigteefsmallbrain @originalalienlawyershark @darlingdia1007 @kismogizmo @heysam09 @mottysith @fudosl

[lichqueenlibrarian]

Hi! Ignore this if you don’t feel like it, but I wanted to check out some of the Star Trek tos novels. If you have any favourites/recs I’d love to hear them!!

Oooooh I love this kind of question!! This answer got really long… I tried to stay away from any information that couldn’t be found in the books’ summaries.

The Wounded Sky, and Spock’s World by Diane Duane. I love them, they rewired my brain a little bit, I still think about them months later.

The Wounded Sky has the crew of the Enterprise testing a new device, when the tests get interrupted by Klingons, things start to get weird and now the Enterprise crew have to fix the fabric of the universe itself.

Spock’s World- Vulcan is experiencing a crisis, Spock, Sarek, Amanda, and the Enterprise have to go back to the planet and hopefully help the planet’s council make a decision that could impact the whole Federation. Interspersed with moments from Vulcan’s history.

The Vulcan Academy Murders by Jean Lorrah Spock, James Kirk, and Dr McCoy arrive on Vulcan to bring a wounded crewman to Vulcan’s doctors to hopefully save his life, using a new procedure whose other patient is Spock’s mother. Accidents around the hospital prompt Spock, James Kirk, McCoy, and Sarek to investigate while Spock and Sarek try to navigate their precarious familial relationship. There’s a sequel, The IDIC Epidemic. Excellent if you like Sarek and Amanda, and wanted to see things get patched up between them and Spock.

The Price of the Phoenix by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath. This is about as notorious as Killing Time, it’s entirely bonkers and that’s the main appeal for me. It features the Romulan Commander from the TOS episode The Enterprise Incident. This one is a bit difficult to summarize without spoiling things, it’s older and the writing can be a bit opaque, but I thought it was fun.

More under the cut cos this post got out of hand.

The Joy Machine by James Gunn based on the script by Theodore Sturgeon. I just finished this one recently, and I really enjoyed it. It has that certain TOS era something and the author has a strong grasp on Kirk. It also gives Uhura some stuff to do, which I always like. It’s nice to see other members of the crew get some time. Kirk and the Enterprise are sent to the planet Timshel, previously a paradise for intellectual pursuits, the arts, a beautiful jewel of a planet which has gone dark. They haven’t accepted visitors for two years, and two agents from the Federation have been sent to investigate and haven’t been heard from since.

Uhura’s Song by Janet Kagan. A mysterious and fatal disease is plaguing the feline people of Eeiauo, the Enterprise is in orbit so their medical staff can help, but it isn’t looking good. Based on a secret shared between Uhura and an Eeiauoan diplomat, the Enterprise sets out to find a cure. Loved the aliens, Uhura and Spock get some really great moments together and separately, I would’ve loved to see this be a TOS episode or movie…

The Entropy Effect by Vonda N McIntyre. Spock has the worst time. The Enterprise is tasked with transporting a dangerous man, only for him to escape and commit murder! Spock’s got to try and find a way to fix what happened by going back in time.

The Pandora Principle by Carolyn Clowes. HOW DID IT TAKE ME THIS FAR INTO THE LIST TO REMEMBER THIS ONE!? I love this book. The Enterprise captures a derelict Romulan Bird of Prey and brings it back to Earth so Starfleet can investigate. Except it’s not so innocent as it seems, and the Enterprise has to go back to the planet Hellguard in the hopes that Spock’s protégée Saavik will remember something to prevent the Romulans’ plan from succeeding. Reading this did firmly convince me that Spock is Saavik’s parental figure, he is a girl dad.

The Final Reflection by John M Ford. Novel within a novel- the crew of the Enterprise come back from shore leave obsessed with a new book about the early days of the Federation’s relationship with the Klingon Empire, from the perspective of a Klingon Captain.

Yesterday’s Son by A.C Crispin. The Romulans attack a scientific outpost of Federation scientists studying The Guardian of Forever. Spock goes back in time to meet his son by Zarabeth. There’s a sequel for this one as well, Time for Yesterday. Really excellent Spock moments, his relationship with his son is difficult, Bones and Jim get to have a bit of fun.

I’m probably forgetting a bunch of books but this list is getting really out of hand.

[im-so-normal-iswear]

Can i request headcanons please? Of ford with a single mother reader with a Child that is friends with dipper and mabel(they probably meet bc of the kids), they are in the town bc reader's ex is an abusive prick that couldn't handle the divorce so they go to gravity falls to start again.

I just really like the thought of ford helping reader to deal with the burnouts and erasing her doubts of being a good mother, also i like to imagine that ford can get very protective over reader and her kid when her ex is around.

Im having a total brainrot😅

Of course!!

Ford x mother reader

When you first moved in its you probably needed something to occupy your kid while searching for a school that summer, so after a lot of hearing around, you decided to take them to the mystery shack for the day.

They instantly made friends with Mabel and Dipper, and as they started hanging out more and more, they started going to the shack almost everyday.

They spend a lot of time at the Mystery Shack, and Ford notices your presence and at first might even be a but suspicious, (still has some bad habits from bill)

At first, he’s distant, as he tends to be either working or with dipper and mabel, not quite paying you much mind, but as he sees the way Dipper and Mabel always hang out with your kid, his curiosity about you grows.

You start having small conversations when you come by, mostly about your kids. Ford appreciates how much you care about your child, even though you often look exhausted.

Ford is incredibly observant, so he quickly picks up on the fact that you’re dealing with more than just normal parenting stress. You’re trying to rebuild your life after a difficult divorce, and he notices how drained you seem at times.

One day, he finds you sitting on the porch of the Shack, rubbing your temples after a particularly rough day. Ford, ever the intellectual, starts off by offering practical advice—time management tips or relaxation techniques he’s read about.

But when he realizes that what you really need is emotional support, which is of course, not his strong suit, but he trusted his best.

He listens to you vent, reassures you that you’re doing an incredible job, and tells you how much your child admires and loves you.

Again, Ford is not always the best with feelings, but he goes out of his way to remind you that parenting is a difficult task, especially as a single mother, and even with all that, your still doing a good job.

He helps ease your self-doubt, telling you how much progress you’ve already made by giving your child a safer, happier life in Gravity Falls.

When your ex comes into town, either trying to contact you or causing trouble, Ford becomes intensely protective. He doesn’t tolerate threats, emotional or physical, especially when it comes to you or your child.

Ford’s protective instincts kick into overdrive. He stands taller, eyes narrowing as he keeps a close watch over you and your ex’s interactions, making sure your ex knows he isn’t welcome.

If your ex tries to approach the house or causes any distress, Ford won’t hesitate to step in. He’s not afraid to use threats, (do you remember when Ford was full on ready to shoot a man because he wouldn't let Mabel keep her pig??)

He’ll give heartfelt compliments, like telling you how your child has grown happier and more confident since coming to Gravity Falls, which he credits to your strength as a mother.

Ford has a knack for finding ways to reassure you with solid, rational observations, making it impossible for you to deny your own success.

He often reminds you that surviving an abusive relationship and creating a better life for your child already makes you a phenomenal mother.

Over time, Ford’s admiration for you grows. He’s impressed by your resilience and your ability to care for your child despite everything you’ve been through. He feels alot of respect and affection for you, which he’s not always sure how to express.

He’ll offer to help you with anything, from fixing things around the house to watching your child when you need a break. You became an important part of his life, so he’s always there for you.

Ford begins to take on a more involved role in your child’s life, becoming almost like a second father figure.

Your child feels safe with Ford, and they even confide in him when they feel worried about their father. Ford reassures them that they don’t have to fear anything anymore, he’ll always be around to protect them.

Mabel definitely sees all this and immediately goes to match make you, Stan alongside. Dates, alone time, whatever, do not mess with Mabel when she sees a potential couple

Hope you liked these ^^

[starlitsequins]

ship discourse is unserious but the "who would treat fiddleford better" arguments on tumblr are crazy to me because have we all forgotten nuance? anyways here's a relationship analysis:

fiddauthor has its own unhealthy aspects because ford not only tunnel-visioned on his research to the point of dismissing fiddleford, he was also being actively isolated by his abuser (bill), who was turning the two against each other. and, at the same time, fiddleford was actively lying to ford about the memory gun, then used it on ford, a complete violation of trust. in alex hirsch's own words, fiddleford was like a yes-man to ford (until he wasnt), to the detriment of both of them.

but also they found solace in each other, as two outcasts with similar interests. even if ford could be dismissive at times with his gifts, its so clear that he valued fiddleford as his one friend, that they found so much enjoyment in each other's company in both college and in gravity falls. and ignoring that is doing them both a disservice! none of the hurt they inflicted on each other was done out of malice; they were being slowly broken down by the environment around them.

fiddlestan is more difficult to dissect for obvious reasons but comparing stan's past failed relationships to a hypothetical one with fiddleford is a moot point. we're working with a vastly different scenario here. stan would need fiddleford to stay in his desperation to save ford, and fiddleford could be easily guilt-tripped despite his trauma. would stan be an asshole to fiddleford? yeah, he would probably grow impatient with fiddleford's anxiety, and they would have very clashing personalities and interests, along with bad trust issues. fiddleford would be very reliant on the memory gun at this point, and they both would be at their mental lowest: it would not be an easy or healthy relationship.

but at the same time, it's not difficult to see how two very broken people could find solace in each other, especially due to a shared grief. its a unique situation that only they could understand, so of course it would make sense that fiddleford's desire to fix vs stan's abandonment issues would lead to something, for better or for worse. at the end of the day, they both understand the broken bonds of family and they both want to feel needed. it's not farfetched to speculate that they'd find comfort in each other.

anyways. i love these three very flawed, very hurt, and very human individuals. i think they're capable of causing each other a lot of pain. they do cause each other a lot of pain. but also they grow and they heal, and it pains me to see people reduce them to their singular actions. (but also the jokes are funny so yknow...i get it carry on)

[hamsternella]

hi!!! I have a request if you want too ofc!!! I’ve always thought of a reader who used to be in a relationship with ford before him being sucked up in the portal..and finding out that he was back?? It would be heavy angst with supreme fluff I think, I love how you write Ford in your other posts 👀

I'm sorry for my delay; I had a couple of problems BUT HERE IT IS. I hope you like it.

He's back

cw: stanford pines x reader, angst, fluff

It was déjà vu. Flashing lights, burned out outlets and the bustle of the masses. Communal fear; the terror of shadows devouring the streets as the gloom spread down every avenue—it had been a danger to set foot outside, but you risked it. One hand clinging to the edge of your robe, and the other holding a flashlight that barely worked without flickering; but with its mark referring to its recent departure from the factory, it was now the only thing that could keep your head attached to the last ounce of sanity.

You had not traveled back in time. You were still in the same Gravity Falls. Cars were ascending into the sky, darkness was taking over the town, and the stars were shining brighter than ever. Your own body had begun to rise; the lantern ended up somewhere unknown as you had to clutch both hands to the nearest lamppost, avoiding biting your tongue as you returned to the ground with the sting of cement against the skin of your legs.

You missed the exact moment when you had begun to cry—it was of no great importance. You tried to stand up, you tried to take deep breaths, and you tried to search for God between prayers; but nothing seemed to quell the urge to gouge your eyes out with your fingers. You were in denial about discovering what lay beyond the darkness when the light bathed Gravity Falls. You felt sick.

Your heart felt like it was about to burst in your chest; the nerves swirled in your stomach like an uncomfortable tingle. The world was spinning, and you didn't know if it was your head or if the event would repeat itself. Three times. Three times it would be. Now it was only two.

Two times.

How many more years?

Could it be?

?̸҇̿͑͆̇͗̐̏̎͗̚̚ɯ̵҇͂͑͐̽͐̊̀̈́ı̷̷̣̒͂̍́̌͊̌̓̈͐́͋̃͌̇̆͋͊̋̈́̎̚͡͠ɥ҈̄́̀̌̄͆̌̏́͐̍̅̆͞ ǝ̴̉͂͆̾͌͗͂̇̄͋͠q̵̍͋̈̀̉́̆̍̽̿̓̄̆͊̚̚͞ ʇ̵̐̅̓͐͗͂̐͒̌̐̽̆̕ı̷̴̣̉͊̃͆̉̐̇̽͛̎͐̓̃̽̏̓̋̋͗̔̾̀͌̕͞ p҈̌̿̃̅̐͐͂̚͞ן̵̛͊̓̋͊̓̀͒̈́̈n҈҇̾̔̄̈̋͗̽̚ơ̵͐̄̂̽̊̑́͂̚̚Ɔ̸̿̒͐̆̉̈́̈̄̍̋̕

Getting to the Mystery Shack was less complicated than you had imagined. The wooden signs —now scattered in the mud; hanging from the trees, among their branches— were helpful in reaching the shack. You barely reacted when a government special forces car (what were they supposed to be doing in Gravity Falls?) honked its horn, forcing you to jump to the side of the road. After it followed a whole line of armored vehicles. You didn't know what to think—there was nothing to do about it.

There was nothing you could do. Why were you there?

It had been difficult for you to return home to put on your shoes. Now they were ruined: muddy and the laces were wet with dirty water. You knew your socks were soaked through, and possibly your robe was the only thing halfway presentable. And for what? Who were you thinking of surprising? Stanley Pines, perhaps? The man you hadn't seen for a little over thirty years; or maybe his workers, who were the only people able to orbit around him. You had never gone to see him after ʇ̵̛̅̀̓ǘ̴̋́͛̃͝ǝ҉҇̏̂̉p҉̔̋͞ı҉̛̓̋̑̚ɔ̸̛̍̏̚ɔ̵̽̃͑́͠ɐ҉̓̍̚͠ ǝ҈͑̽̆͝ɥ̸̇̿͗͗͝ʇ҉҇̐̎̅ that day.

You lost the order of your thoughts —too confused on their own— as soon as the dome of trees was behind you. The sun rising behind the cabin blinded you for an instant, and too tired, perhaps even surrendered to the possibility of turning around and going back the way you came, you still tried to shield your eyes from the light. It was an instant. You let out a sigh caught in your chest, gathered your breath, and through silent tears you thought you heard a distant whisper.

Then it was a murmur.

Then it was a scream.

Then there were several. And they were all your name.

The tears, once small pearls hanging from your eyes, were now a torrent of bitterness and confusion twisting your gesture. They seemed to be born from a fresh wound in your heart; and it deepened as your arm fell limp to the side of your body, leaving you at the mercy of a blurred figure beyond what your imagination could trace. It was like a black blob, too big to be ɹ̴̊̑̃̅͝ǝ҉̈̊͛͡ɥ̵̛̐̿̊d̴͋́̕ı҈̿̍́͝Ɔ̶͑̆͒̌͞—but too small to be a black hole. Still, the way it approached and dominated your field of vision, eating away at the stability of your heart and the rhythm of your breathing, made it feel like one. Maybe this was the end of you. Maybe he was back.

You tried to swallow the rest of your tears, preparing both —weak— fists in front of you. Ready to fight. You mustered up the courage you needed, closing your eyes with the thought that if you avoided looking at him, possibly your death would be quicker. Maybe there would be mercy. Maybe the cut in your stomach wouldn't hurt, and when your organs fell out of your body you wouldn't have to see red bathing your feet. Nor were you going to see the world fade away; and you hoped much less was yellow covering your vision. Metallic taste, smell of meat and viscosity of guts and viscera. All the senses in an expression of his love for human carnage.

And the pain was going to be the least of it.

The impact came with the sound of hurried footsteps, and the scratchy texture of fabric that made you frown. The warmth of an embrace enveloped your body, and the fussy sensation of a breath on your neck made you bristle from head to toe. You opened your eyes a little at a time; gray and white invading your vision. Gray hair. There was a lot of gray hair. There was also the smell of gunpowder, dirt, dust and dampness—perhaps another musk you didn't recognize. And yet you cried again.

You clung to the body of a dead man; to the memory of a missing person. You wrapped your arms around the body of the man you had forgotten the color of his eyes or the sound of his voice. But there he was: crying like you, maybe worse, and with the clumsiness of a baby coming into the world—coming home. You dug your nails into his back, your gaze lost in the sun hanging in the firmament and the morning breeze freezing the wounds on your legs. Old, tired legs.

How the years go by.

You felt joy with those hands caressing your hair. You wanted to close your eyes again, but you feared losing the moment in another nostalgic and painful dream. You feared losing him. Losing—

"Ford," voice broken, tired. The voice of someone in fear, "I thought you were... I thought for a moment, Ford, that maybe... maybe you were..."

You thought you heard him mutter a 'no' so faint that it ended as a windblown sigh. Instead, Ford shook his head, beginning to push his body away from yours. You held on tightly, wrapping your arms around his neck. It was your turn to shake your head.

"Your eyes—I don't want to see them," you said. "I don't want to see your eyes, Ford."

"But I need to see yours," he replied softly. "I missed them... I missed you."

He was crying again.

"I missed you so much," he continued. "You don't know how much I have... This has been torture—without you, without your voice."

His voice was barely a plea that made your heart bristle.

"So let me see them; I need to know this is real."

"I don't want to find out you're not my Ford," you said. "What if you are him? What if you're playing with me?"

"He's not here," he shook his head. His hands began to stroke your back. "He can't hurt you, dear. Not here. Not with me here..."

"You left me," you interrupted him. "You left me, Ford. You went through the portal and left me. I've forgotten the color of your eyes—I can only remember the yellow; the long pupil, the smile... I don't know what I'm going to do if it's not you."

"But it's me. It's only me."

You let his hands pull your body away from his, and with the fear of one who searches in the gloom for a monster, you guided your eyes to his. You found a look full of tenderness and longing; a wrinkled face, tired and wet with tears. You couldn't control the impulse to bring one of your hands to his cheek, tracing the path of a fresh tear until it was lost beneath your palm; his face resting squarely against it, making him close his eyes with pleasure at the caress.

"It's only you," you whispered. You saw him nod, and then you released the sigh you had been holding in your chest. "It's finally you... I've been waiting for you all these years, Ford. Although I'd be lying if I said I wasn't waiting for something like... you know."

"I understand," he replied softly. "He's lied to me and terrorized me too; in places you couldn't possibly imagine, telling me horrendous things... Telling me that he had—he had killed you, God."

You smiled ruefully, holding his gaze when he opened his eyes.

"But then I saw you standing here," he continued, "and I thought maybe I might be delirious. I kept dreaming of you; of tracing you in drawings, in my head, everywhere... I didn't want to forget you. I didn't want you to turn to dust."

"I had forgotten your gaze," you replied. "I had forgotten your eyes—their color, their shape. All I could think of was the yellow glowing in the dark, and the pupils..." You swallowed your words, too overcome by the feeling of bitterness in your chest to continue. It took you a moment to catch your breath. "To see them again, after all these years, Ford... They are so beautiful. You are so, so... I don't know. I've just missed you so much. I think you get an idea of how much I do," you laughed through your tears, next to him.

Silence enveloped you both, barely interrupted by the murmur of wind and birds. The breeze swirled the earth and leaves, wrapping your feet with a shiver to your neck, where Ford's hands were now resting. You brought yours over his, drawing them to your lips for a kiss. You traced scars with caresses; you covered the roughness with the softness of your affection, and listened intently to his breathing quicken. You thought you could hear his heart beat out of control under your charm.

In an instant his hands cradled your cheeks; his fingers rested softly on your skin, brushing your earlobes, tickling you. You closed your eyes, drowning in the darkness, guided by the light pressure of a warmth foreign to your body. You rested your arms on his shoulders, barely catching his breath on your face as you sensed the awkwardness of shy lips seeking yours between kisses along your skin. On your forehead as a blessing, on your eyelids to drink away your anguish, on your nose to lighten your own nerves, and then on your lips; perhaps to savor the thousands of words you didn't know—those that might come to Ford's aid in understanding how much you needed him these thirty years, and how much you were going to keep longing for him now that you had felt his warmth again.

You let his body collide with yours, and barely interfered with the wildness of his own need for you. You didn't stop his arms when they wrapped around you awkwardly; nor did you utter a complaint when the kiss deepened with a pair of choked whimpers that died in your mouth. You let yourself be drowned by a show of affection too abrupt, too old—needed and almost forgotten. You savored Ford with the rage of an affair stuck in the past, and with the pent-up love of years of not having seen him. Of having believed him dead.

As the air thinned you parted. You still held him in your embrace, searching with your misty eyes for his. But there he was: flushed, visibly embarrassed, but there he was. Ford was still there. Still alive—back at home, with you.

"Don't look at me so intensely after such a disastrous kiss," he suddenly muttered.

"Do you feel embarrassed?" you asked under a chuckle. "And what do you call a disastrous kiss?"

"A kiss I practiced in my sleep and could never put into practice... until now."

This time you had to let out the laugh you'd been hiding. Ford covered his face, red as a tomato. He tried to explain himself but found it impossible; all his words choked, too garbled.

"It's like you're that boy who had barely made it to Gravity Falls," you tried to articulate. "Too many dreams. You've always been one to dream a lot."

"I could meet you in those dreams," he whispered. "You've always lived in my mind, along with them."

It was your turn to blush. Ford chuckled.

"What an old rascal you are when you want to be," you added.

"But it's true!"

You went along with his laughter, losing yourself in the way he looked at you. The sweet way he still loved you.

"Don't ever leave again," you said after a long while. "Don't ever leave me here again, Ford."

"I'd have to be dead to let you go, my dear."

"Or have your memory wiped," you added.

"Oh, that would be impossible. I have a special plate attached to prevent that kind of accident," he explained. "You know—other dimensions and that sort of thing."

"Sure, love," you laughed.

Ford brought one of his hands to his head, rapping gently with his knuckles to rattle the metal. You gasped.

"That's... Let's see," you throat cleared, "I deserve an explanation. Too many kisses but not enough answers, Ford."

"I know, I know," he smiled. "I promise to explain everything. But first a bath... and another hug."

"Another hug," you nodded, laughing softly. "You better never let go of me again."

"Never again."

[kteezy997]

Beyond Business-part five//t.c.

Warnings: mention of a toxic/unhappy relationship, cursing

You brought some burritos back to Timothée’s house for lunch after finishing his errands.

“Hey, you’re back.” he announced cheerfully.

“Yeah.” you answered with very little enthusiasm, setting the bag of hot food on the kitchen island, along with his mail and other items you had collected throughout your jaunt.

“Hungry? Let’s eat.” he said, grabbing the bag and opening the top to take things out.

You assumed the role of getting out plates and silverware, not to mention cups to drink out of.

“Hey, I already got it, just sit down.” he insisted.

You turned from the cabinet, seeing that he already set two places at the table. “Oh, okay.” This was not like him. You never thought he’d do that, not even for a date or if he was having family over. He wasn’t the hospitable type.

You each sat down, having your first few bites of lunch in quietness.

“So, y/n.” he began.

“Yes?”

“I just want to apologize to you. I’ve been a real dick to you lately, and I don’t know of anyone else that would have stuck around like you have. I’ve made a habit of depending on you too much, one might say I’ve toed over some boundaries. And for that, I’m sorry.”

You sighed, knowing that he meant every word, “It’s okay.”

“I won’t be bothering you at home again. And no more calls in the middle of the night for you to pick me up.” he affirmed, taking a bite of his burrito.

“Timmy, if you’re ever out drinking somewhere and need a ride, you can call me. I’d rather be a little annoyed with you than have you be…lying in a ditch somewhere.”

He smirked humorously, “Well, I appreciate you for that. But otherwise, I’ll leave you alone in your personal time. It’s just…I guess I started to think of you as my friend and not my assistant.”

“Yeah, I think of you as my friend sometimes too.” Suddenly, your personal vow had a shelf life.

He smiled at that, “Hm. Seems we are conflicted here. Between wanting to be professionals and wanting to be friends, I mean.”

"Do you think we could do both?" you asked, testing the waters.

His green eyes wandered to the side as he thought for a moment, pursing his lips, he answered, "Yeah, we're both mature adults."

"Are we?" you quipped, giving him a look with a quirked brow.

Timmy chuckled, "Well, you're a mature adult. I am trying. So, I think we could be friends, it just so happens that you do all my shit for me."

"Yeah, I think the work part should always come first. Like I'm your assistant, and then your friend."

He looked downward a bit, a strange curve took over his mouth, "Is that for your own protection?"

You shrugged, "I don't want you to hurt me, Timmy. I think you might have the tendency to do that to people. Even if you don't mean to or even realize it."

He pondered a moment on what you said, taking a breath in. "Well, we have the Globes this weekend. I'd like for you to make sure everything is set up. You're coming with me."

Always the best at avoiding subjects, you thought. "Oh? Okay. I can take care of everything. Um, driver, hotel?"

"No hotel, just stay in touch with Tom Ford, they are dressing me."

"Okay. Is Kylie going with you? Do I need to do anything on her end?"

Not looking at you, he simply said, "No. Set up a time with Jamie on Sunday as well."

You noted the continued curtness at the mention of his girlfriend. "Sure thing. Someone needs to tame that mop." you joked, trying to lighten the mood.

He smirked at you, shaking his head, "I'm gonna go over my script if you need me."

"Okay." you gave him a grin.

……..

As you completed your work tasks, you couldn’t help but think about how Timmy’s mood always seemed to change if Kylie was brought about in conversation. You wondered if you knew the truth about how their relationship was, maybe you could help him. Be his friend. And as his assistant, you could help him keep focused and his moods even keel.

You knew it would be a difficult conversation. He could be a hard person to get information out of, especially on this sensitive subject.

As evening hours approached, you were finished with the Golden Globes planning, so you decided to try and talk to him.

"Heading out?" he asked, looking tired as he was slouched in his chair in the living room.

"Yeah, but I was hoping we could talk about something before I go."

He nodded, "Sit down." He knew this was coming.

You obliged him, sitting in the other chair next to him. "So, I think it would be easier for me to... gauge your mood and mindset if I knew what was really going on in your relationship with Kylie. I'm on your team, Timmy. I can't help you if I don't know what's going on."

He sighed heavily, "It's complicated, which you know. I met her, we kinda clicked as friends. And it turned into a friends-with-benefits sort of thing. She'd come over to my house and paparazzi photos were everywhere." his voice got a little softer in the next phrase, "Still not sure if they were tipped off about her car being in my driveway." He shook his thoughts away, continuing, "Then it's all-over social media that we're dating. We both got a lot of attention, more followers."

"So it's all for publicity?"

"I mean, it didn't start that way. I liked hanging out with her at first. And the sex was always there whenever I wanted. Then she just kept wanting more, more appearances together, she started calling me her boyfriend, telling her friends and family we're together. She asked me about meeting her kids. I don't know it's just a lot. I don't like all the attention she brings. Anytime we have to go out together feels like such a chore. There's always people saying shit online after we're seen together. It fucking drains me."

"What does your family think?"

He sighed, "They don't love it. But they let me make my own decisions. I am an adult, after all."

"Why do you stay?" you shook your head, "If you're not happy, I mean."

He ran his hand over his face, "I don't know. I can't be that douchebag that dumps one of the most famous women in the world."

"Who cares about any of that? Can't you just be a friend to yourself? Think of your mental health, Timmy. You're tired all the time, I see you."

He stood up, "I don't want to talk about this anymore. You know the truth, so is that good enough for now?"

You stood up, staring right back at him. Face to face, neither of you backing away, you said, "Yes. Thank you for telling me. Goodnight, Timmy." It was enough, for today anyway. He was done, and you respected that.

As you walked away, he said, "Y/n, wait."

So, you stopped, turned on your heels to look at him once again. "Yeah?"

He let out a breath, "Neverminded, nothing. See you tomorrow."

January 15, 2025

@gatoenlaciudad @thebetawolfgirl @musicandbooksaremyhappyplace @softhecreator @tchalamss @lixzey @bitchyunknownuser @ducktapebar @aoi-targaryen @yukideadinside @elloise0 @thatoneweirdgirl17 @mel-vaz @sammy-halpert @iwishchalamet @that-one-fangirl69 @jindongdongie @briefkittenearthquake @imnotoverlyobsessive @timhalchala

[mint-fixates]

Post-TBOB Billford Thoughts

🔻 Long-winded rambling, run-on sentences, and TBOB Spoilers under the cut 🔻

Billford is so interesting to me because it's so easy to see how things COULD'VE worked in some alternate dimension. There's a world where Bill isn't so broken and doesn't prioritize endless distractions over genuine happiness. There's a world where Stanford was broken enough to join Bill (in fact, I feel it's implied that this was one of the possible futures for Ford that Bill saw when he was summoned).

There were moments after they met where I genuinely believe Ford could've helped Bill, or at least helped him help himself. Bill opening up to Ford as much as he could about destroying his home dimension sticks out to me so much because Bill can't even handle admitting his feelings about the "Second Dimension Incident" to HIMSELF. After that exchange, there is no doubt in my mind that Bill genuinely connected with and cared about Ford, probably more than he had with anyone outside of his long-dead family. And maybe in some other universe that could've been enough to inspire some amount of self-reflection and change.

With how much Ford worshipped Bill, and how desperate for connection and notoriety he was, it's not difficult to imagine him joining Bill. I think that if Bill was honest about his intentions and all potential positive influences in Ford's life (Stanley, Fiddleford) were never a factor or were gone for good, Ford would've happily joined him. Ford always aspired for greatness, but his hero complex really only began after Bill's betrayal was revealed. With the added context of his perspective in TBOB especially, it reads to me as his way of self-aggrandizing his pain, painting his personal vendetta as something purely altruistic both to others and to himself. I find it very telling that Ford refused to burn his research or dismantle the portal entirely after it's true purpose was revealed, deciding instead to destroy Bill. He prioritized his desire for greatness over doing whatever was necessary to protect the world. Bill could have easily twisted that desire into something that aligned with his goals under different circumstances.

But in canon, none of that matters, because there is no way for them to work as partners, or even as friends, ever again. After everything Bill put him and his family through in his desperation to hold onto Ford and his plans, there is no way Ford could ever forgive him. And he shouldn't. Even if the Theraprism worked perfectly and Bill was fully redeemed, I don't think there's anything the Bill we know could do or say that would convince the Ford we know to give him a second chance. Even if there was, Bill doesn't and will never deserve a second chance from Ford.

So when I say I ship Billford I'm not saying "these two as presented in canon could have a relationship again and I'd like it if that happened", I'm saying "I believe there are several 'what-if' scenarios where they could've worked, and those scenarios fascinate me".

[beauty-and-passion]

TBOB PART 2: OF FLATLAND, EXWHYLIA AND EUCLYDIA (3/4)

Hello, everyone, welcome once again to another post about Bill’s dimension. One day this analysis will end, I promise. But today is not that day: today is the day we will talk about Bill’s family.

And oh boy if there’s a lot to talk about.

Please check all previous posts to understand this one (and the masterlist too!).

<- Previous post - Masterlist

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PART 4: OF BILL’S FAMILY

“If you think Stan’s relationship with his family is bad, Bill’s is worse” - Alex Hirsch, NYCC 2015

_______________________________

Loved and ostracized

Everyone loved me immediately and the mayor dubbed me the “best baby of all time”, made my birthday a holiday and gave out free knives. (...) Truth is I’ve always been loved and admired by all!

Of course Bill starts telling his story with a huge. Fucking. Lie.

How can I be so sure? First of all, the hyperbolic way in which he talks about his birth as if it’s the second coming of Christ. Then, all the previous points of this endless analysis.

Considering everything we have until now, I find it very difficult that Bill’s birth was celebrated by everyone. Surely his family celebrated it - if his society is similar to Flatland’s, having a regular son would’ve been enough to make them very happy.

But also… he’s just an Equilateral. And if his world has social classes based on the number of sides, then he’s from a middle class. I doubt the birth of another Equilateral was a reason big enough for huge celebrations.

Also, let’s not forget what Bill himself said in the TBOB: you should make a new reality and a meaning for yourself. Well, what if this is the reality he made? A place where he was immediately loved and admired by everyone?

_______________________________

Scalene and Euclid

Sooo… those are the names of Bill’s parents.

Honestly? They’re interesting. Even if I’m a bit weirded out by Scalene: in the only image we have of Bill’s parents (the grayed-out triangles on thisisnotawebsitedotcom) neither of them looks like a scalene triangle. On the contrary, they both look equilateral.

It’s a bit strange, you know? As if a person has “Neanderthal” as their first name. “Neanderthal Smith” or similar. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?

While speaking of Euclid, I think it’s a nice name. It’s the same name as the dimension they lived in and no, it’s not as weird as it seems: in our world, some people have the same name as the country they’re from, so it’s not so weird.

But hey, the most important thing is that we canonically have the names of Bill’s parents! We know he had parents and we know details of his relationship with them!

And this raises A LOT of questions.

Let’s start with his mother: we know she loved him, at least a little bit. She sang him lullabies and told him she loved him, despite his strange eye. So we can be sure at least one of his parents didn’t mind his deformity so much.

Also, this part in TBOB after Bill and Ford's breakdown, in which a very, very drunk Bill talks to his mom:

“I’m gonna be back from school soon, don’t forget to cut out the crust off my sandwiches or I’ll —”

I don’t know you, but to me, this sounds like the threat of a spoiled child. Something like “cut the crust off or I’ll throw a tantrum”. And yes, this implies Bill was a spoiled child - or at least, a child who considered himself above others, mother included. So yes, I can imagine him throwing a tantrum at his mother for something stupid like some crust on his sandwiches.

But again, even more questions! How was his mother towards him? Was she submissive? Was she combative? Was she ready to answer to every little whim of her son like a Flatlander Woman or did she ask for some respect? Considering how bratty Bill is, I'm more prone to believe she was very lenient towards him.

While speaking of his father, I find it very fascinating that we know absolutely nothing about Bill’s relationship with his father. We know his mother loved him (maybe to the point of spoiling him too much)… but his father? Did he care about Bill? I suppose so, considering Bill visited a doctor (unless it was his mother’s decision only, but I doubt it).

And about his job: was he a Tradesman? Bill attended school, but was school supposed to teach him about his future job too? If not, then this was up to his parents, right? Presumably, it was his father’s job to teach Bill how to be a Tradesman, a bit like in the Flatland society. If that’s the case, then why we don’t have any information about this? Why no memory at all? Bill seems to care about his father too - if we assume that the top hat he has was his father’s. So at least he cared enough to keep something of him.

Was his father a bad guy? Was he cruel? Or was he so blinded by society’s rules to torture his son and think he was doing it for his good? In that case, I would understand why he did everything he did - but beware: understanding doesn’t mean accepting. It would be a bit like Filbrick Pines’ situation: I can get the reasoning behind his actions, but that doesn’t make him Father of the Year. Maybe it’s the same for Bill’s father. This wouldn’t be the first parallel between Stanley and Bill, after all.

_______________________________

An Irregular masquerading as Regular

Time to talk about Bill’s eye.

We can safely assume Bill’s rare mutation was having his eye on the face and not on the side - which, from the Euclideans’ perspective, meant having an eye on his insides.

Now, imagine with me: you have a child and you see that your baby has no eyes. No eyes at all, not even an eye socket. I bet you would freak out, at least a little bit. You would probably send your baby to a doctor and ask if there is something they can do.

The doctor checks the baby and gives you both good and bad news: your child has eyes and they work. But they are inside his body. In his goddamn stomach.

And if all of this isn’t enough, your child starts telling you that sure, he can see a lot of things! He sees things you cannot see - no one else can see.

Now, would you say: “Oh, no problem. He can see things no one can, so he’s fine and his eyes work well”? Or would you probably freak out even more and fear your son is having goddamn visions because he’s probably dying or has a tumor or who knows what?

I can understand why Bill’s parents brought him to a doctor. And I can understand why the doctor thought the best solution was to “blind” that eye. As far as Euclideans know, there are no “stars” and there is no “above”. It’s as if someone in our world says they can see rotating hypercubes in real life. Would you think they’re perfectly fine or question if they’re insane/growing mad/getting very sick?

So yes, even if it's insane for us, from Bill’s parents' POV, giving him medicine to make him blind was for his own good. Does that make them Parents of the Year? Hell no, they were literally blinding their own son, of course it’s terrible and insane and if someone tries to do the same they should be immediately thrown in jail. But for the rules of Euclydia’s world, this was probably the best thing to do.

And personally, I ADORE the tragedy of this. The tragedy of giving something to your son that will permanently blind him, but trying to make it at least bearable - he’s still a child, he doesn’t really understand what he’s drinking, but you think it’s for his own good, your whole world think it's for his own good, so you use something silly that he likes, like straws, because this will make the medicine - the impairment - more tolerable. Uuurgh, it’s so tragic I love it.

And it’s even more tragic, if we consider that even after billions of years, even if he talks about his doctor and the medicine as something bad that wanted to “blind” him, Bill never forgot the straws. He still loves the straws he was using so much, to the point he still gave them a place in his book.

But since there’s always room on the angst train, also think that by making him blind, Billy would’ve probably stopped talking about these visions (at least, according to his parents). And if he stopped, it would’ve been easier for him to fit into society. He would’ve followed the rules and standards. He was a Regular shape after all, so if they took away that hidden-and-yet-so-present pieces of Irregularity he had, he could’ve become a respectable member of their society. One who didn’t go around, talking about weird things no one could see. Things that were against the law.

Again, it’s not me saying this, it’s Bill:

“Technically, talking about a “third” dimension was illegal in my world.”

This makes Bill’s character EVEN MORE fascinating. He could’ve been the Apostle of the Third Dimension. He could’ve spoken to everyone, because he had something of everyone - he could’ve been a bridge between Regulars and Irregulars, because he was both. He could’ve changed his world or died as a martyr.

But in the end, he chose the third option.

And we will talk about it in the next post.

See you soon with the fourth and final post on this part.

Next post ->

(How about a coffee? ☕)

_______________________________

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[myrmica]

top 5 vitalasy moments in your opinion?

DIFFICULT to choose. especially in a way that isn't like, cheating and trying to describe huge swaths of s4 as "moments." i say that but i'm probably still going to do that. whatever. hmm.... hmmmmm

1 . monster numero uno FOREVER. all my clips from this vod are broken but really just the whole thing. some of the other late s4 vitalasy moments could maybe compete with it for me on a personal level but monster is the first stream i showed ford trying to get him to understand why i gave a fuck about lifesteal and it worked. so. it's just something so specific… you don't really get to see vitalasy commit to doing something like this with the same level of gravitas anywhere else. and it's fascinating to watch without the context vs. with full context of s4 to see how someone's perception of what's happening changes.

a runner up related to this is i could visit him because what if you had been able to follow through on THAT.

2. this is a surprise to nobody but the specific part of the wormhole confrontation where he's physically digging zam into a pit with charged creeper explosions, repeatedly popping her totems, pushing her back in when she tries to swim out.

3. vitalasy in the last team awesome meeting is one of my favorite scenes in season 4, but it's hard to distill into singular clips so i'll also give you right after he's been revived at the beginning of deliverance while subz is dragging him around the server. people talk about deliverance proper a lot but i'm obsessed with his petulant misery. this entire period after he's revived but before he's processed things and come around to still being excited for wormhole where everything sucks so fucking bad. ❤️

4. i think about this one from s3 (this vod if you want further context) a lot because it's this weird moment of completely coincidental foreshadowing… the idea of zam creating a rift between vitalasy & subz. vitalasy behaving this way forever. zam eternally kind of freaked out and disarmed by his melodramatics.

5. his whole early-mid? s5 situation. he keeps thinking, "hmmm… i feel like i'm nothing but a disadvantage to my own teammates right now. that's bad." and then failing to do anything about it. in part because he does try and it just doesn't work, in part because he's got one foot out the door, but equally because he Likes to inconvenience you. he wants you to lovingly put up with him. he wants a specific kind of relationship but nothing is working, he's trying really hard with jumper but everything is still weird, subz is leaving, zam won't talk to him. the entire server dealing with post s4 weirdness... how sharp his turn away from godhood towards making himself as small and weak as possible is. it can't all be circumstance because 1) he's always at least kind of like this, and 2) when he's just messing around and having fun in s5 he's playing into his own vulnerability, making jumper scramble to protect him because it's funny, freaking chat out, etc. to some degree i think how little vitalasy enjoys the god role in s4 comes down to it preventing him from being able to play this kind of role. and zam's anxieties preventing him (& subz both) from playing the counter protector role for Her to make up for it.

the reason i don't just zero in on the vz reunion stream for early s5 even though it's a really interesting moment is because it requires that larger context. reunion is vitalasy being hypocritical (as per usual) and grasping towards something he is never really going to commit himself to as a power play (as per usual), and trying to hurt zam. it ends up reading like one last attempt at doing lifesteal right, making something happen, seeking respect & power & revenge on the expected terms. which is kind of the same thing that Zam is doing in early s5, to a much greater extent than vitalasy is. i like that he does it by way of pretending he's not doing that going in, again playing on his own weakness. but the thing he's pretending about is the thing that's realer. the two of them have course corrected themselves in the same direction here, they're both trying to perform something to protect themselves and nothing feels right. watch the s5 reunion and at all costs back to back it's crazy. also just constantly amused by this coming from the guy who refuses to put armor on.

6. is it enough?

and number 7. whenever he makes noises

[nowimjustastranger]

Don't know of this has been answered before, but is there ever a universe in the STCMO! AU where Ford had to stop a Stan from offing himself after pushing his Stanford into the portal?

How would he treat this Stanley, since now there's no Stanford to reunite him with? Would he help Stanley bring Stanford back, since he has the knowledge to work the portal, or would the idea of potentially confronting Bill scare Ford too much? Maybe he'd go into the multiverse to fetch that Ford himself? But that wouldn't mend the broken bond between the brothers, and I don't think a 'test' would work. I feel like any attempts to convince Stan of relocation or even just give up on the portal would meet Ford would fierce, even physical backlash from his brother. Lots of cursing, lol.

Watchdog Ford would definitely help Stan get his brother back from the multiverse if it meant that Stan wouldn't take his own life. Watchdog Ford knows the ins and outs of portal tech and can bypass Bill entirely in order to open a portal directly in front of Ford so he can pass through (because best believe the man is running for his life rn).

Although you're right to say that bringing Ford back wouldn't fix anything. Stan and Ford would still very much be at odds with one another, which is where Watchdog Ford would step in, trying to salvage what he could of their relationship and figure out where the foundation of their brotherhood had begun to crack.

Based on his findings, Watchdog Ford would speak to both separately, using his ability to read both to his advantage. He'd pry until he got answers or physical retaliation (or both) out of them. And applying that knowledge to repairing their relationship would be equally as difficult as getting them to talk in the first place.

But, considering that they still have to disassemble the portal and find a way to keep Bill out of Ford's head, So Watchdog Ford would have some time to force the brothers to reconcile.