#Stanley gets better

[rithalie-sideblog]

“Tell me I’m wrong”

Reagan picks her head up from where she’s been slouching over in the helicopter seat, scrunching her eyes up at her husband. It’s been a rough week, hell, a rough two months that led up to this moment. She isn’t exactly in the mood for a guessing game.

“You have five seconds to specify, or I swear Staedtler…”

“Tell me that the fucking epicenter of the Anomaly is not in Gravity Falls.”

Reagan blinks, tired and confused. She looks at Brett, peering over Ron’s shoulder from where he’s seated next to the man.

“Um, pretty sure it is, handsome. At least it was the last time I checked.” Brett takes the tablet from Ron’s hands. Reagan can’t help but notice they’re shaking slightly.

“Yup, Gravity Falls. Little town, a few incidents in the past with time travel, some Bigfoot sightings. Nothing big until today.” even Brett’s smile looks strained as he chuckles humorlessly. “A perfect place to open a door to the other dimension and unleash the apocalypse. When, exactly, is the cavalry coming?”

“We are the cavalry,” Reagan pats the box with her newest invention affectionately and tries not to yawn. “This baby can close any rift as soon as we come in contact with it. I know, I’ve done it before. How far are we from the town again?”

She strains her neck to see their screen and Brett, sweet, helpful Brett, unbuckles from his seat and tries to handle it to her. The machine picks that exact moment to swerve violently, making him stumble. Ron and Reagan’s hands reach out at the same time, holding him in place. He smiles at them.

Good, although an untimely metaphor for their relationship, Reagan thinks blearily.

“Sit down before you hurt yourself, you dumbass” she huffs as she buckles him in next to her.

Brett smiles as she checks for stuck straps next to his head and sneaks in a kiss to the back of her hand. Reagan blushes. It’s been a long summer.

“Reagan.”

Ron’s voice is strained, and she looks at him confused. What they and Brett have has been talked over quite thoroughly this summer, not to mention the years before, when he first found them. They wore different names then and had no idea who they were, but still he managed to sneak into their lives and stay there for years. As a friend and someone more. Ron had no reason to act strange.

Still, her husband looked ill, much unlike himself. His hands did not stop shaking.

“Gravity Falls, Reagan. The portal opened in Gravity Falls.”

“The name does ring a bell. Did we ever have a mission there or something?”

Brett shakes his head, equally oblivious. And suddenly he stops mid-movement, snapping his head up to Ron.

“Wait, isn’t that the place you chose to… To…” he shoots a look at Reagan, his eyes wide.

“The kids.” Ron says finally, and Reagan straightens out in her seat like a soldier with a new order, with laser-like focus finally on her husband.

“Reagan, we send the kids to Gravity Falls for the summer.”

For a moment, no one says a word. And then Reagan inhales, long and strained and focused, and lets out a string of curses so vile that they make Brett shrivel up in his seat and even Ron wince violently. She gets up from her seat despite the men’s outcries and marches over to the cockpit, unfazed by the machine swaying. A few seconds later they hear a yelp as the pilot gets knocked out of the compartment, sliding on the floor until Brett helps him buckle in one of the seats. The helicopter lurches violently and seems to gain speed, as Reagan milks the machine for all it’s worth.

Brett’s terrified gaze meets Ron’s wide eyes, but neither says anything.

The ride takes forever, in Reagan’s humble opinion.

Kids. Their kids! How could she forget? Sure, she’s been quite busy at the end of the school year, with her father coming back into her life with a goddamn red-taped manila folder and a mission to save the world. He burst into their tiny flat in the city, complaining about them moving from the countryside to make his search for them more difficult, and with panicked Brett on his heels. Who just kept apologizing. She didn’t understand then, so she sent her kids to school for the last day of the year. She called her husband to come home and made some tea for the man who claimed to be her father, and she waited for it all to make sense.

And, to her unspeakable horror, it did make sense.

Before the kids got back from school she and Ron had their old memories back, their suitcases packed and there was an imprint of Reagan’s hands on Randall’s scrawny neck. How dare he? How dare he come into her life again, step into her home, into her safe space with fucking Cognito business in his hands? How dare he say hello to her kids as they passed, when she worked so damn hard to keep him and her whole complicated past life away from them? Ron and Brett had to restrain her before she did the unthinkable, and then they forced her to help cover Brett’s resulting black eye with make-up before the kids came back.

She apologized, but remained angry, fuming in the bathroom while applying her best foundation on the man. Brett kept apologizing for them being found over and over again until she forced his mouth shut with a kiss. Not his fault, she said to him as he recovered, then short-circuited again as Ron pressed another kiss to his hair. It’s not Brett’s fault her father is an asshole who can not survive one measly apocalypse-like event without his daughter.

When the kids came back, they had their suitcases ready, too. They were confused, as uncle Brett offered to ride them to the bus station for “the best summer adventure of their lives”. They talked about it last month, right? Ron’s family owning a house in the countryside? About a mysterious uncle they found through old records? They found him as the kids dug around for family information for the heritage day at school. He seemed nice! It will be so much fun!

Reagan tried to not look guilty as she kissed her son’s forehead, murmuring promises about meeting them soon. He didn’t quite buy it, looking up at her from behind his bangs with that quizzical look she sometimes saw in the mirror, and it almost broke her heart. It took his father’s bent knee and a promise to believe them before he finally agreed to go. Their daughter took less convincing, happy to experience an adventure. She took after Brett in that way, always ready for new things and optimistic about the future, like Ron. She kissed her and her dad goodbye as Ron chuckled and ruffled her hair, and Reagan was ready to murder her father all over again.

As Brett walked out of the house with the kids, the girl riding on his shoulders happily and the boy dragging his feet a little, Reagan sent Ron a desperate look. He responded in kind. They would deal with things and come back to this, as soon as possible.

They did not come back soon.

It took a whole summer to get things back on track. Between the apocalypse, the after effects, the clean-up, the dimensional ripples and a bunch of necessary memory alteration, Reagan lost track of time. She meant to do a more thorough check on this “Stanford” person after she got her memories back. The first one showed no signs of trouble, but you never know! He isn’t even related to them! Who knows what he could do! She meant to call her kids and check.

None of them did.

And now they paid the price as, somehow, the biggest apocalyptic event of the decade has happened right in the middle of Gravity Falls.

They’ve kept getting some weird readings throughout the whole summer but no one could exactly spare their attention enough to check. It’s always been someone else, some other branch, that took care of this particular town. Now that she thinks of that time, neither Ron nor Brett ever even caught wind of the name of the weird town, too exhausted every day after yet another unseen complications. They were out of practice in dealing with the workload and it showed. They collapsed against each other every night, husband, wife and more often than not, Brett, for a well-deserved rest.

Well, it’s not like Reagan thought that rest deserved now. They should have checked on the kids, they should have called, they should have gone to see them, they should have checked on them at least once instead of waiting for them to call!

She speeds up again, glad that she’s alone in the cockpit, as tears of frustration and worry slip down her cheeks. Reagan never prays, and yet right now she begs every force in the universe for her kids to be alright.

———

They find the town leveled down. They find the rubble and the jarred remains of buildings and people, and Reagan’s heart stops before she remembers how to breathe again. The apocalypse site is still far away, but they can already see the reason for the disaster. There’s a giant, purplish and orangish cross in the sky, like reality itself was carved out with a slicing weapon. Under it floats a dark pyramid, and Reagan instinctively sets her course to reach it until she feels someone stop her hand.

Ron looks over her shoulder, tense but focused as he rattles out an address for the house where their kids are supposed to be. He moves to put the coordinates into the helicopter's GPS too, and soon a red dot start’s blinking at them, still too far away. Reagan dutifully adjusts her course, ignoring the people screaming for help down below. Something unsticks itself from the ground below them, reaching for the helicopter with slimy tentacles but Reagan swerves and skillfully lets the appendages meet the business end of the helicopter blades. The only praise she gets is Ron’s hand squeezing her shoulder, but she gets it. There’s no time for putting on a show.

Brett appears on her other side, his eyes wild and scared but his mouth set in a determined line. He holds a weapon out to Ron who takes it, and tucks one into Reagan’s belt, not peeling his eyes away from the wreckage of what’s left of the safe and unassuming town they send their kids to.

The GPS blinks and suddenly goes out, and so does half the lights on the board. Brett’s cry drowns in the sudden noise that fills their ears. The helicopter stops in the air and then starts falling, slowly, like gravity itself malfunctions.

Ron curses and kicks the board to try and force it back on, but Reagan stops him. She points to the anomaly. The black pyramid starts to unravel before their very eyes, brick after brick being sucked into the portal. The rumble is deafening. The last brick being sucked in marks the beginning of the exodus. All the unspeakable horrors fly past them and back into the rift one by one, some of them grinning at the people stuck in the slowly falling machine. The tear slowly closes, the fabric of reality knitting itself back together.

And then, like someone flicked a switch, there’s a sudden blink in the sky. It explodes in the array of pinkish light, covering the Gravity Falls in a gradual swoop. Whenever the light touches, buildings snap back to looking perfectly fine, people are reappearing, some lingering creatures disappear without fanfare. It’s… a perfect clean-up, Reagan can’t help but wonder, and she lets a flicker of hope take hold as she sees injured people standing up, perfectly fine once again.

The light reaches the helicopter and pushes it back, as if sensing they’re not from here. It sends the machine flying, barreling through the air and now all three of them swear, as Reagan grabs the steering wheel and pulls with all her might. She will not die before checking on their kids, thank you very much

———

It takes them another hour to locate the address again, what with the scrambled GPS and the steering system almost ripped out of its base by panicking Reagan.

The lone shack sits in the middle of the woods, way too close to where the pyramid has been. Reagan lands the machine in the clearing, and Brett is out the door before she can call for it. She unbuckles and runs after him, but Ron stops her. He silently wipes the tear stains from her cheeks with his thumbs and tries unsuccessfully to wipe the blood from her chin, before pushing a gun into her hands and letting her through, hot on her heels himself.

The clearing is full of people in various states. Ruffled clothes, tired looks and various scraps and bruises litter the crowd. She can’t see her kids anywhere. Brett is arguing with someone, she realizes. Some big and well-dressed man, who looks like he’s been to hell and crawled back on his hands and knees. His suit is torn, he has a weird hat that keeps falling off, and a pair of broken glasses on his nose. He keeps shouting at them about the government finally taking a damn clue, and trying to shoo them off his front lawn at the same time. He looks ready to brawl, all fists and scowls, but Reagan barely listens, eyes jumping from one weird person to another, all crowded around the front steps of the shack.

Survivors, she mentally categorizes. Aggressive, she notes, as they send her dark looks and she grabs her weapon tighter.

“Stanford.” Ron’s voice carries, when he wants it to.

The old man stops in his tracks and blinks at the gun aimed between his eyebrows. Brett jumps away, reaching for his own gun. People in the back start shouting and Reagan almost automatically picks up and aims her weapon at the biggest threat she can see, a big man with a red beard and an axe in hand. She can see Brett pick aim too, though she’s sure his weapon is only set to stun. The crowd stops and falls silent, tense as Ron steps forward, commanding the area with his clear threat.

“Stanford Pines” Ron all but growls, his weapon’s buzzing getting louder as it charges, a clear threat. “Where. Are. Our. Kids?”

Reagan can hear murmurs from the crowd as she powers up her own weapon. They didn’t get over the plan, there was no plan once she rushed to the cockpit, but she knows her husband. He may be the sweetest man around every day for a lifetime, but he was also the man who planned to uproot their entire lives and reimagine himself a thousand times over if it meant saving the one he loved. And he did. And now he has more people to love than he ever did, but this need to protect? To save? It multiplied. The threat he poses to Stanford is real.

And neither her nor Brett will stop him.

The old man seems to realize it too because he freezes in spot, eyes wide and jumping from Ron to Brett and finally to Reagan. He gulps, and works his jaw nervously but doesn’t say anything, furrowing his brows in determination. Ron tenses and Reagan can only hope his gun is also on stun when…

“Dad?”

The crowd murmurs and undulates as if keeping something in it, but Ron’s attention immediately jumps to them as he calls out for his son.

And then Dipper, their brave little boy, forces his way from between someone’s knees and stops short at the sight before him. At the sight of his wild-eyed parents and his uncle holding people at gunpoint, ragged and bloodied from their tumble in the helicopter.

“Dad? Is that you? What’s going on?” he calls out again, clearly scared, and Ron immediately drops his weapon. The gun doesn’t even stop powering down before he is at his knees before Dipper, throwing his arms around him in a fierce hug. Dipper holds him close too, his eyes watering and burrowing his face in his suit jacket. He claimed he was too old to cry in their arms just four months ago. Whatever happened here must have scared him. Brett tenses and risks a look at Reagan as she grinds her teeth, never taking her eyes away from her target. He follows suit.

“Uncle Brett?” Mabel whispers, way too quietly for their exuberant little girl, as she is also freed from the crowd.

Reagan hears more than sees Brett’s breath hitch as he immediately chucks his weapon away to run towards the girl. He picks her up and cradles her close to his chest, whispering assurance and crying more than she does as she clings to him like a monkey. Ron frees a hand and pulls them both down to him, trying to cuddle around all three of them. They’re all crying now, quietly sniffling, betrayed by the way Ron’s shoulders tremble.

Reagan stands, frozen. She took a lot of damage when she managed to set the helicopter straight. Her nose is broken, her hands are scraped, and she thinks she may have a concussion from how violently her head snapped around in the cockpit. She decided to wear black today, much unlike the mother the kids know. She knows she looks nothing like what they’re used to.

With the helicopter at her back, she can stay invisible for a moment longer, gun still aimed at the potential threat. But she can also see the change in the group, a loosening of tension.

Stanford’s shoulders slowly fall back as he stares dumbly at the gun at his feet, then at Ron and Brett’s backs. Defenseless, something in Reagan’s head hisses violently and, she trains her gun at the old man instantly.

But the man seems to be lost in thoughts. He looks almost… forlorn at the scene. Suddenly he picks up a hand to wipe at his own eyes, as Reagan realizes that the fight might be over. She slowly lowers her gun, which finally earns her a look from Stanford.

He takes her in, in all of her battered glory, with the death in her eyes and blood trickling down her chin. She sticks it out at him, and bares her teeth, more than ready for another challenge. Deep down, she just wants to take her kids and go home.

“Mom, huh?” Stanford asks, humorlessly, “I see where they got that fight from.”

He says it too loud. It seems like all the group’s attention suddenly focuses on her, and Reagan wants to snarl at them all over again and tell them to back off. But that’s also when her kids pick their heads up and start to look for her from her lovers’ protective circle of arms.

Dipper, her brilliant, smart little genius, finds her first.

“Mom?” he asks, hopeful, a little unsure, as if Reagan is just a mirage, or something he can barely believe in.

She can’t help it. She steps forward, into the light, finally lowering her gun, and he gasps.

“Mom! Mom, what happened, are you alright? Mom!”

“Mom!” Mabel cries out, her sunshine given human form, and Reagan feels her knees buckle as she finally crumples under the relief that her kids are safe.

Ron and Brett cry out too, alarmed, but she waves her hand at them as Dipper and Mabel force themselves free and run to her. She wipes blood from her teeth and smiles and spreads her arms just in time to catch them. They look scratched and a little bruised, but they are alive and in one piece and Reagan thanks all the powers she can. They wiggle in her hold, concerned with their mom’s state, until she pulls them even closer and starts leaving kisses on both of their heads and murmuring into their hair.

“You’re safe” she keeps repeating “You’re safe, I’m here, We’re here. I’m fine. You did so good. You’re safe. You will never have to survive something like that again. I will make sure of it.”

Reagan bares her teeth as she spots someone approaching, half-feral now that she has her kids in her arms again, but it’s just Ron. Her husband puts his arms around all of them carefully, like they’re made of glass. Reagan thinks she may be. She looks for the last part of their little jig-saw family and spots Brett walking over, still sniffling, although he looks more put together than she feels.

“Some summer adventure, right kiddos?” he jokes, stopping by them and cracking his back like an old man.

Mabel whacks a hand at his leg, choking out a chuckle, and he laughs, ruffling her hair. He will join them in a moment. For now, he has a clean-up to do.

“Sorry for the scare” he says quietly to Stanford, who looks like he clearly has no fight left in him. “Got a little overprotective - Family bonds and all that, you know?”

“My brother erased his whole identity to stop the Apocalypse.” Stanford says, flatly.

Tough crowd, Brett thinks. But if there’s anything he is good at, it’s at solving people’s problems for them. And Mabel whispered to him to take it easy on the guy. So Brett will do what he does best.

“I think,” says Brett, clapping the man on the arm, “that it's something Cognito Inc. can help you with, if you let us.”

[stemmmm]

more people gotta try this shit where bill has not improved and will not change but he's just chilling so its fine probably. its great

[b1p-b00p-b0p]

Post-divorce fiddlestan with special guest Tate Mcgucket

[enidtendo64]

TW: Heavily implied Child Abuse

Stowaway AU where Pacifica becomes a stowaway on the Stan-O-War 2 after trying to run away from home to California. Things don’t exactly work out as planned, but at least she’s got a “Summer Internship” away from her parents now!

[the-knife-consumer]

Had a dream last night about a gravity falls game where you play as young Stanley having to sneak around and lie to stay out of trouble with Filbrick. It wasn't really a horror game but it had a lot of horror game-like mechanics and there was a general sense of discomfort the entire time.

The only quest I can remember is one where Stanley gets a bad report card while Stanford gets a good one. Filbrick is out doing business until tomorrow so you have until the morning to try and make it look like you got good grades. There's an option to use white out on Stanford's card while he sleeps and write your name instead.

You could also get future readings from mom, who would give hints on what will happen to you next so you can start setting up lies and stealing in advance instead of scrambling to cover yourself last minute. (If you could figure out what the readings were hinting at. They got progressively more vague as the game went on, going from "I hear" and "I see", to "I feel")

You didn't get to see what happened when Filbrick caught him, it just cut to a game over screen. You could be caught and sent to your room three times before this happens (which ends the quest you're on. Because you failed to lie well enough). There is no way to win. The game would just keep going with scenarios until you lost or gave up

There was a vending machine on the board walk that had warped reflections in the glass that corrected itself when you looked at it head-on

[ravmycupine]

Ford's in alternate universes VS Stan's in alternate universes

Just something I've noticed in GF au's and how different the Stan twins are treated... . . . . Credits under the cut

Mr. Bill Pines AU - @honeqq Static Ford - @void-dude Euclydia Rises/ MM Ford - @orxinus Frankenstan - @leo-artista

If I got any credits wrong please lmk huhu

[sharkylad]

Thinking about the fact that Mabel and Dipper didn't know they had two great uncles.

Yeah they are 12 and at 12 I had a shotty understanding of my family tree- But really? Nobody brought up their great uncle? Stanley? Especially since they'll be staying with his twin brother, Stanford?

Shermie never went to Stan's fake funeral, which to me means the twos relationship was strained on some level. If Shermie is older that means his view of Stan was poisoned in some way, that even as kids they weren't close. If the Shermie is younger then he never even got to meet Stan and all he knew about him was how he failed his family. Hell, people probably barely mentioned Stanley TO Shermie.

The fact that Stan had become a black stain upon the Pines family name makes me so vividly upset. Stanley faked his death and the family just- seemingly decided to strike him from the record. To pretend he didn't existed to spare themselves the sadness and shame.

Stanford and Shermie Pines. The only children worth mentioning of Filbrick and Caryn Pines.

It was never Stanford that was lost to the world. It was Stanley, ever since he had to leave New Jersy- it was always him that had to be struck from the record. Change his name, change his state, change his affiliations, destroy the remains of ghost that was Stanley Pines. Kill him so the family doesn't bring him up, doesn't ask questions, stops asking "Stanford" about his twin.

I just keep thinking about the fact that since the day he made one single mistake all the way up until Ford walks out of that machine- Stanley Pines was killed and did not exist. And Stan himself had no one to blame, he had to play the part in his own demise- He is the only one who ever knew Stanley was alive and has been for decades.

He lives in the multitudes of every personality he's ever taken, all in the hope that he himself can stop being Stanley Pines.

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

hrrrmmmmm.. I know it isn't halloween BUUT

more vampire/werewolf fiddlestan?? :}

Took me FORever to answer these, you guys don't even want to know the amount of asks I have that I really want to answer with full comics 😭🙏

Anywayy, sorry to keep you, @elishevart waiting for responses to your asks, when you've sent so many, so long ago!!

Comic time 🤞😋

I call this one: Second hand embarrassment and surprise guest: Continuity Error!! ❤️

Previous!!

First!!

[scurvyboy]

GET THAT NASTY BILL OUT OF YOU AND HOWS ABOUT YOU DRAW FIDDLESTAN HAPPY FOR 1 SINGULAR TIME, PLEASE, I CANT STAND SO MUCH ANGST, I CANT SIT SO MUCH ANGST EITHER

is this what you want? is this how you see them?

[caninescreations]

sketch dump bc i cannot get my mind off this fic + comic abt the fallout of shifter!stan verse jurassic park adventure from that one ask bc i would die and kill for dark lord's emma may. also stan just... mossing himself and glomming onto ford? peak.

the scrapbook. can i talk about the scrapbook???? the fucking love and care that ford put into making it??? for stan???? for stan his brother stan that he loves so much he made that????? stan trying out a moustache for like. a day and everyone hating it.

i love how sopping wet baby shapeshifters are they're like weird gross little wet cats and i want to smoosh them gently.

[abyssalzones]

If you have the same hyperfixation for too long they put money on your head and baby I'm frontlining America's most wanted

bonus parallel fidds sprites

[rystiel]

that annoying moment when getting left for dead in the trunk of a car in your 20s comes back to haunt you 40 years later (take a shot every time ford says “stanley”)

[cup-o-stars]

Last part for old GF sketches

(Actually, most of these aren't old at all, but their average is brought down by the last picture, which I drew back in August and kept forgetting to post)

[doctorsiren]

Maybe you could call it Reunited Stans AU?

Also, how do you think the gravity falls locals would see those two? I think Ford would end up getting out of the cabin much more because of Stan. Maybe you could draw them going to town for drinks? I don't know.

I like to think the town locals would either be horrified of them and talk about them as cryptids in their own right, or just be annoyed by their shenanigans

I just remembered they’d be in their early 20s when coming to Gravity Falls haha

But yes they’d definitely start out as “those weird twins that live in the forest” but once Stanley starts feeling like he’s actually safe from that old life Ford pulled him out of, he starts going into the town, which then leads to him dragging Ford along

It’s probably a mix of both, where the town sees them as those odd guys and then also get annoyed by what they do, but also I think they’d think of them as a new endearing staple of their town once the whole “newcomer / stranger” title fades from them. It’d be sort of the same way Stan is in canon with the Mystery Shack, where even though people find him annoying, they also always come to the events.

Also Stanley 😭 your brother does not wanna be in that bar, let him go do nerd things

[jubileebloom]

we see from Stanley's perspective that he thinks of himself as the "bad twin." so a lot of the fandom assumes that everyone in Stan and Ford's lives treated them like the "bad twin" and the "good twin" when they were younger. that that's just how things were. but I'm not so sure that's actually the case.

because when they were kids, Stan was also the stronger one. yes, Ford was also put in boxing with him, but Stan is the one who actually puts those lessons to use more often. I think it's just as possible that Ford saw himself and Stan as "the strong twin" and "the weak twin," and I think that double, opposite designation of a "better" twin is a) way more interesting and b) much more in line with the show than automatically making Ford the golden/favored child.

there's a few other analyses that I'm gonna link back to in this if I can find them later, but they're excellent takes on two things: Ford's complex around his own physical strength and his focus on developing it throughout his life, and Filbrick's lack of acknowledgement of Ford's intelligence for what it is until it was possible for that intelligence to make him money. (one thing I haven't seen mentioned a lot when it comes to Ford, Stan, and physical strength is their primary choice of weapons: Stan uses things that require strength of the user, such as bats, brass knuckles, and fists. Ford's weapons of choice are always guns of some sort, which require good aim, but not much in the way of inherent physical strength, unless it's like a massive unwieldy sci-fi space gun, and I think that says something about how they view their own strengths and weaknesses maybe.) I might also try to find that analysis on Ford being just as much of a menace as Stan.

anyway what I'm trying to get at here is that the "good twin, bad twin" angle isn't entirely accurate. it's the one that Stan ascribes to himself and his brother in the climax of the show, so it makes sense that's the one that sticks with fans. but the whole point of their childhood is that they only really had each other, because everyone else looked down on them. they weren't "the dumb twin and the smart twin", or "the behaved twin and the misbehaving twin", or "the strong twin and the weak twin," or "the freak twin and the not-a-genetic-freak twin."

they were "the weak twin and the stupid twin." "the freak twin and the misbehaving twin."

there's a reason Crampelter's taunts are highlighted in ATOTS. "hey, look, it's the loser twins." "you're a six-fingered freak, and you're just a dumber, sweatier version of him." they were both looked down on by others, in different ways.

but working on the Stan-O-War, things were different. "good thing you've got your smarts, Poindexter. I've got the other thing. what is it called? oh, right, punching!"

when it was just the two of them, they could be the smart twin and the strong twin. they each took the traits they were better at—the traits they were at least not bullied for, if not praised for—and each formed their sense of self around it. they saw themselves as two halves of a whole, each with one good quality that they could use to work together.

(@canadianno essay one have fun)

[bittersweet-jack-of-no-trades]

Thinking about those small moments of happiness Stan had. The ones that snuck up on him, that he tried not to allow himself to have. The feeling of satisfaction when the Mystery Shack was making a huge profit. The taste of a good pancake at Greasy's. A concept clicking as he was bent over a physics textbook. Stan tried really, really hard to be unhappy all the time--- he didn't deserve anything good, he knew that--- but sometimes, unbidden, a little joy would rise within him. A sweet summer night. A good mixed drink. A pair of pre-teens dumped on his doorstep. His wrinkles grew deeper, the portal stayed silent, and despite how he tried to punish himself, a smile would tug at the corners of his lips.

And then he would look in the mirror. Any happiness, any satisfaction--- easily washed away. A twin with a solitary reflection, a businessman with a bankrupt soul, and an idiot without a brother to cheat off of.

He would never be good enough. There would never be cause for celebration.