#and if their Ma's first name is Caryn

[when-gravity-has-fallen]

Okay I need to talk about Mr. And Mrs. Pines (Dipper and Mabel's parents) somewhere because idk how much will be revealed via asks. Maybe I'll write a proper fanfiction someday but for now I'm just yapping. The Axolotl should not have given me this power haha.

CONTENT WARNINGS FOR THE FOLLOWING: 🚨⚠️

Death, injury, car accidents, abuse, family issues, cheating/infidelity, bad religious experiences, general discussion of war, and discussion of divorce

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF I MISSED SOMETHING. I apologize in advance for possible missing warnings.

First off, Dad Pines' name is Connor amd Mom Pines' name is Lillian! Because why not? That's just the names I came up with 2014 and it's just continued to feel right ever since.

So that baby? Held in Caryn Pines' arms in A Tale of Two Stans? That confuses the hell out of everyone? Yeah that baby.

In my version of events here that baby is Shermie's kid. Dad Pines.

As is a popular headcanon, I also have Shermie being a Vietnam veteran and Ma Pines was helping Mrs. Shermie (I've called her Emma for a long time. Don't ask why. Maybe her name will change idk) to care for Baby Connor, which is what we see during the fight between the OG Mystery Twins.

When Shermie finally returns home from war, he finds out that Stan was kicked out by Filbrick, which... he's not happy about. As a result he moves his family west to Reno, Nevada. Due to moving, general hustle-bustle of life, and raising a family, he unfortunately is unable to contact Stan. He couldn't attend the funeral due to work conflicts and regrets not going. (Well. Until Ford comes back that is. Likely before or at some point during their boat travels they give ol Sherman a visit)

The Pines (aka Shermie and "Emma") also raise their family as Jewish but are more casual in it than Filbrick and Caryn were. Shermie in particular is more casual, especially after Vietnam whereas Emma is more devout.

They also have three more sons after Connor. Idk/remember their names. I'll just say one of them is Abraham. No they don't have a lot of details or relevance. Sorry kids.

Either during Connor's late high school years or time in college he becomes agnostic.

He's a football fool and he was a quarterback for his team in high school.

___________

Lillian was the result of a sex worker at a bachelor's party. Her parents initially were both in Illinois but her father moved to Minnesota (or fudging East Dakota if Bill is right about it not being real). She didn't know her father (John) until she was ~10, when she came under his care due to the passing of her beloved mother (Margaret).

Her father was shocked as to her existence and had to put together two and two. Something in him couldn't turn her away so he took her in.

Her stepmother (Agatha) was unfortunately of the Cinderella kind. She was very unhappy about the physical manifestation of her husband's infidelity and therefore shunned Lillian. Her father despite being unable to turn Lillian away, rarely properly parented her and stayed out of conflicts between his daughter and wife.

John and Agatha were Lutheran Christians, dragging Lillian to church until she was 14. As a little girl she liked it but developed a nullness over time, especially with how other church members discussed single mothers and sex workers. She became agnostic over the course of her teens.

She loved playing hockey in her spare time.

Lillian had two half-brothers and though they weren't the closest they helped make her home life more bareable.

Close enough she'd miss them when she finally was able to jump ship at 18.

And wouldn't you know it? She eventually came to Reno.

__________

Connor during his college years was a frat boy and became overly confident in his approach with women. Therefore when the fraternity were celebrating their graduations/last time officially together, he is *shook* when the most beautiful woman (one of the bartenders) he's ever seen replies to his pick-up line like this-

Connor: Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?

Lillian: Are you calling me Satan?

Considering how Connor.exe was not working she tells him she's just joking, getting no response (or really anything indicating he's alive aside from an occasional blink). One of his buddies comes up teasing him and orders them drinks.

Yet throughout the night he can't stop thinking about her and occasionally glances over, watching her in her rhythm making drinks or wiping down the counter.

A couple days later, he decides to try that new diner (it'd actually been around almost a year but I digress) for breakfast. Lo and behold, Lillian is also a waitress there!

Despite the food or beverages not being his favorite it becomes his routine to go there. Any moment he can get to see this person who has caught his eye like none have before.

Around this time a few of his frat friends want to go have a weekend of fun in Vegas together and contact him. They arrange for the trip and head towards Vegas (Connor of course giving Lillian a heads-up).

Over time, they become good friends and it's now Connor's heart that has been caught as well. He means to ask her out but he keeps getting nervous just like he did with his first crush.

Then tragedy strikes.

They get into a terrible car accident, of which only Connor and one friend barely survive. The latter sadly passes later in the hospital.

When Lillian gets the news her stomach drops and races to figure out which hospital he's at. He's began to mean so much to her. She finally finds him, comatose.

She visits him whenever she can, meeting his family during those visits. Emma absolutely thinks her to be daughter in law material. Shermie does too he's just not vocal about it.

Connor finally reawakes and has to work through some grief (though maybe not all of it?). Lillian is by his side through it all.

When he's recovered the two start dating. Wahoo! They eventually get married! Wahoo! They get a house in Piedmont at some point (maybe an old vacation/summer home Sherman had? Idk)

_________

Around their early 30s in 1999 they have our favorite anxious boy and sparkly girl!

Emma is very excited for her grandkids and thus when they discover that their twins are boy/girl she releases a crapton of baby announcements. This is how Stan learns of them. He races down to Piedmont the closest weekend and surprises EVERYONE. He had to witness these twins for himself.

Stan becomes attached. He visits often. Him and Lillian actually bond quite a bit due to both having challenge in their pasts. As much as one can when disguised as their brother anyway.

(Shermie finds "Ford's" mannerisms similar to Stan's from what he can remember btw. Stan gives him the excuse of missing his brother. Knowing how the 2 could impersonate each other Shermie nods and moves on, much to Stan's relief)

This is how he ended up being there for the twins' birth.

______

I'm still figuring out the circumstances behind their martial issues in 2012.

Anyway regardless of how they got here, filled with emotions they attempt a divorce...only for the both of them to not be able to finish the paperwork. Deep down they still care so deeply for each other, how can they let go of everything they've built? The family they made? Not to mention how distressing it would be for their kids.

So despite their own skeptism with therapy, they're at their wit's end. They decide to try it. After all they could always still divorce if needed, why not give it a go? Turns out it's really good for them and they reconnect. So Dipper and Mabel get to come back to a healthier, happier, more wholesome household ☺️

And now that their parents have been introduced to the importance of therapy, they can get their now traumatized kids help...

They also renew their vows at some point with Mabel being the flower girl and Dipper bearing the rings.

That's pretty much all I have to say on them. I kinda love them a lot 🫶

Questions about these guys are so welcome, like seriously I've grown such an attachment to them.

[mothermortician]

Stan’s full name is Stanley Romanoff Pines. 

same middle name as his mother. 

I know it’s not canon, and Stan doesn’t have a middle name, but if Stanford gets one, then so should Stanley, dammit!

[nataliedanovelist]

GF - Shards of Glass 2/2

After over thirty years, Ma is getting paid a visit, all thanks to the persuasion of a sweater-making, pig-loving teenager. (Here’s part 2, as promised. Hope it lives up to everyone’s expectations!)

@thestanbros

~~~~~~~~~~

Despite it being over forty years since he had been home, Stan found it so easy and so familiar as he walked down the sidewalks with his family that he could probably travel blindfolded. So many times he and Ford had walked down this way for home from the beach, just in time for dinner.

It was sad how much anxiety Stan was having over visiting his own mother, how badly his stomach was turning; he attempted to distract himself by observing his childhood home. The buildings hadn't changed much, except for the interiors. Almost every business that was here in his youth was either replaced or drastically renovated. Except for the Belgian Waffle Store, that place was bustling with people eating a late-breakfast or an early-lunch.

And there it was. Sandwiched between the waffle joint and a new shoe store was the old pawn shop that had been transformed into a comic book store. Mabel grinned and rushed up to the windows, pressing her face against it to get a good look at the displayed comics. "Wow! You should feel right at home, huh Grunkle Stan?"

He snorted a quick laugh. "Bet this place'll make more money now than it ever did for our old man."

Mabel entered with Dipper by his side. The old men lingered but eventually wandered inside. Ford was gently reminded of a comfortable library. Where Pa's shelves of expensive products used to be now had beanbags and a coffee table in its place. A desk stood where his desk once stood, now hosting a young lady with brown hair in a ponytail and she smiled. "Hi! Finding everything okay?"

Mabel hopped on over while Dipper stalled, intrigued by a science-fiction comic book he had heard of but never read. "Hi! I'm Mabel! Is Caryn Pines here?"

The young lady grinned and nodded. "Oh yeah! She's home, just go up these stairs here and knock. Sweet lady, let me and Lindsey room with her for cheaper rent, she's the best roommate anyone could ask for. Friends of her?"

"You could say that," Dipper said easily and started for the stairs, the ones that led to the door for the living room. "C'mon."

Mabel and Dipper entered the closed-in stairwell with the grunkles behind them, halfway through, Ford stopped them. "Wait, kids, maybe… maybe you should say hi to her first."

Mabel turned and gave him a warning look with her hands on her hips. "You're not gonna run away, are you?"

"No, that's not what I had in mind." Ford said, though it didn't sound like a bad idea. "This is a lot to take in, so… maybe we should do this gradually."

Stan nodded. "Yeah, let her say hi to your kids first, okay?"

Dipper and Mabel exchanged looks and then nodded, agreeing that this was a good idea. Mabel then hurried to the door and knocked cheerfully.

"C'min."

Mabel opened the door and grinned at the sight before her. Sitting at her window, though her glowing pink eye long gone, Ma Pines sat with her ankles crossed and some knitting in her hands, still in white heels, but now sporting a red skirt with a white sweater and her long hair, now silver-white, was still up in her bun and she could never say no to her golden earrings and bracelets. Her eyes were just as keen as ever and she held herself up with that same confidence she always had. At the sight of her great-grandchildren, she smiled calmly and said spookily as she sat her knitting aside, "Ah, I've been expectin' choo two."

Mabel gasped with shining eyes. "Really?!"

Ma laughed and waved her little fib away. "Nah, that's just something I used to tell customers." No longer playing pretend, she grinned and opened her arms, "Now c'mere and hug this old lady!"

Mabel had never seen such a beautiful smile. She ran into her arms and hugged her tightly. She smelled like an old lady, maybe too much perfume with a hint of freshly baked bread and… vapor rub? Some sort of lotion? Whatever. Dipper soon joined the hug and Ma's thin arms hugged them tightly. The twins wondered if she would ever let them go, but soon she held them by the shoulders to look at them.

"Look at choo." Ma awed. "Just look at choo… You're both so beautiful. You're both almost adults. Holy Moses, who gave choo two permission to grow up?"

Mabel giggled and squeezed her hand. "It's so good to see you, Ma! We've really missed you!"

"I've missed you, too. Your father doesn't brin' choo down here nearly enough. Speakin' of which, where is Alex? Browsin' the store?"

Dipper rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Actually, he's still in California with Mom."

"We came here with someone else," Mabel said open-ended.

The older pair of twins, who were listening at the door, exchanged petrified looks, but they knew they couldn't leave their mother waiting any longer. Ford opened the door and they both stepped in silently to allow Ma to react as she saw fit.

Stan pulled off his beanie and held it with both hands while Ford pocketed his hands in his jacket. The old scientist swallowed and looked down at the carpeted floor. His twin did the opposite, his eyes locked on his mother as he took in her appearance and how she had changed. At the same time, she was staring at her sons with a hard expression on her face, both stern and difficult to read.

Ford took in a deep breath and muttered, "Hello, Ma."

Stan cracked a nervous smile and quipped, "You look good." And then he mentally kicked himself. What the hell was that?!

Ma stood and Dipper and Mabel moved aside. Everyone in the room was nervous, except for the old lady, who had a collective atmosphere to her that terrified everyone even more, unsure of how long it would last. When she was only a step or two away from her grown children, Ma said quietly, "So, choo finally decided to come clean?"

The men whose father named them both Stan stared at her in astoundment. "What?" They both gasped.

"Stanley, sweetheart," Ma sighed with a smile and she shook her head. "Choo might pull a great impression of your brother, but I know choo better than that. Even as kids I could always tell the difference. Always." She bit her lip as her eyes filled with tears. "Now, do I get to hug my sons or not?" She croaked with open arms.

Stan's bottom lip trembled and Ford just stared as he realized just how wonderful his mother truly was, and then both grown men quickly embraced her and held her tightly.

"We're so sorry."

"Please forgive us."

"We're so sorry."

"Please forgive us."

"Choo darlin' idiots," Ma said and squeezed them back tightly, as each face was buried in her shoulder and everyone's breathing was much more controlled now. "It's okay."

"Ma, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"Stanley…"

"No, I mean it. I should've…"

"I should have done more when I had the chance…"

"Stanford…"

"We're so sorry."

"Please forgive us."

"Hey, hey," Ma was now rubbing circles into their backs. "It's alright. It's alright. I always knew and already forgave choo."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Stan asked.

"I knew choo had your reasons." Ma replied calmly. "I trust my little free spirit."

They heard a sniff come from behind Ma and they all looked at the teenagers to find Mabel scrubbing her eyes with a fist and Dipper rolling his eyes at his sister with a small smile.

"Sweetheart, you're not cryin', are you?" Ma asked lightly.

Mabel shook her head. "N-No…" Her smile unwavering through her white lie.

Ma chuckled and let her boys go. "Well, you two owe me an explanation, and I got a feelin' it's gonna take a while. How 'bout some tea and cookies?"

"Yes, please." Mabel said and followed her great-grandmother into the kitchen to help.

It was like when Ford first came out of the portal all over again. Except this time they were in the warm sunshine, but the cold basement. Except this time they sipped on hot tea and nibbled on old gingersnaps. Except they began the storytelling from when Ford sent the postcard and skipped to when Dipper and Mabel first arrived in Gravity Falls. Except this story had a much happier ending. And the four visiting Pines silently agreed to keep Bill Cipher in the dark and they made it sound like at the end of the summer Ford and Stan rekindled their relationship on their own without needing a mind-wipe to do it.

By the time the sun was setting on the buildings, Ma was wearing Mabel's new purple sweater and she was nodding and satisfied with the tale. Really, when her sons gave it some thought, it was ridiculous to think they could pull the wool over the eyes of not only one of the greatest conmen they have ever known, but their own mother.

Now it was time for Ma to have some fun. When filling her in was over, Mabel gleefully requested, "Tell us embarrassing stuff about our grunkles!"

Ma laughed and stood. "Hold that thought, sweetheart. I have something you'll like…" She went to a bookshelf and pulled out an old black photo album. She opened it and sat next to Mabel, lying the book on her lap. Mabel gasped and grinned to find two newborn babies lying in a crib and sleeping together, wrapped burrito-style in blankets and they had little hats to keep their heads warm.

"AW!"

"Yup, that's when we brought the boys home." Ma laughed as Dipper looked down at the pair of twins in the black-and-white picture. "Choo know, Stanford was born first, but the whole time he was without Stanley he cried his whittle heart out…"

"Ma!"

"What, it's true."

"Since when do you love the truth so much?" Ford asked cheekily and smiled at her playfully.

"Alright, mister, let's see how your niece likes this picture…"

"SAILOR SUITS!" Mabel screamed and her eyes grew to the size of saucers. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, OH MY GOSH! You guys were so cute!"

"Oh, this is them getting a bath…"

"MA!"

After half an hour of embarrassing her sons without mercy, Ma gave Mabel the scrapbook only asking that her great-granddaughter take good care of it and use it to blackmail her sons. It was time for the sailors to return to the boat, so she stood at the back door in the neatly-kept alleyway and hugged the kids goodbye. She snuck in a kiss on each of their cheeks before looking at her sons.

Immediately her expression turned cold and she growled, "And if any of choo knuckleheads pull a stunt like that again…"

It didn't matter that the twins were in their sixties; they were just as terrified now as they were in their youth. They nodded in sync and Stan said, "I swear, Ma. And… we'll do a better job staying in touch. I promise."

Ford nodded in agreement and Ma's expression immediately softened. "That's all I want." She said with a smile. "A phone call every so often is all I ask for."

Ford nodded and smiled. "We'll call you. We love you."

"I love you two, babies, c'mere." With one last squeeze and a swift kiss on each of their cheeks, Ford and Stan finally found the strength to let her go.

As they walked down the sidewalk and headed for home, the two pairs of twins looked back and found Ma still standing there and waving them goodbye. They waved in return and turned around for their next adventure.

[3hobbitsinatrenchcoat]

Under the Same Roof

I wrote two things for @halogalopaghost because I couldn’t decide between two concepts. Here’s the first one. I hope you like it.

Also on AO3

-----

Stanley Pines can always tell when his niece has some sort of plan up her wide knitted sleeves. She's never been one to hide her feelings and keep secrets, so the little twitches she does when she's trying not to spoil a surprise are always amusing.

For the past couple weeks Mabel has been flitting about the shack, working on various knitting projects but hiding most of them when her grunkles enter the room. It's endearing but a dead giveaway that she is plotting something. Dipper is no more forthcoming than his sister, though he sweats and rubs the back of his neck in his own nervous way when pressed. Stan also catches him whispering into the phone more than once, which is concerning but not entirely out of the ordinary.

They do manage to keep their mouths shut though, which Stan finds to be an admirable character trait. He loves a good surprise, even if he can see it coming from miles away.

On the other hand, Ford approaches the younger twins like he does his mysteries and it is starting to drive Stan a little nuts.

“What do you think Mabel is making for us?” He asks on the morning of their birthday, flopping down beside his brother on the worn porch couch. Stan levels him with an unimpressed stare and sips his coffee in silence. “Not even a guess, Stanley? I would have thought you would be excited by the prospect.”

“I am,” Stan lowers his can and bumps his shoulder against his brother's. “But until she tells us or gives it to us, we shouldn't ruin the surprise for ourselves. She's already trying so hard to keep it a secret, why make it harder?”

Ford frowned at his brother, who had always been the first one to scour the house for birthday present clues as a kid. He'd pulled Ford into many secretive late night escapades looking for mysterious boxes and hidden packages. But now his twin sat completely at ease with not knowing, their birthday swiftly approaching.

Stan glances at him out of the corner of his eye and sighs, slumping a little farther into the well-worn couch. “You're thinking of tearing through the house in Glass Shard looking for those books Ma bought us too, aren't you?” At Ford's nod he chews his lip and tears his eyes away. “I know we didn't get a lot of presents as kids but it was fun to find them and then act surprised. That... kind of lost its appeal after I... well, lets just say getting a nice surprise now and then made me really appreciate the simple things.”

Stan neglects to mention the way Ma had snuck him a few dollars in the mail for birthdays on the road and how even though he knew it was coming he teared up every time. He doesn't mention how much it hurt that first birthday after the portal, after he'd faked his own death, to get a book in the mail with a note that said “I was going to send this book to your brother too this year.” He'd stopped looking for what the surprises would be and started accepting that they would come. She'd sent something every year after that. Stan never asked for a hint and she never gave one, but he always had a feeling...

“Shit.” Stan sits up with a start and rummages through his pockets for his phone. “Did we tell Ma we were back on land for our birthday this year?”

“No, but a mother always knows,” comes a voice from the doorway and twin sets of eyes snap up to meet the fond gaze of Caryn Pines. She's smaller than either of them remember her ever being but she's standing in the doorway of the shack with a watery smile on her face.

“Ma?” Stan's voice breaks and then he's hurtling off the couch to gather his mother into his arms. “Why... how are you here?” He feels Ford come up behind him and he backs off so his brother can hug their ma as well.

Caryn reaches out and ruffles both her her sons' hair affectionately. “Did you think I'd miss your first birthday together again after all these years? I'm not so old yet that I can't get on a plane and cross a country for family.” Her smile turns mischievous. “Besides, it gave Shermie another excuse to come up. We got in a few minutes ago and the kids said you two were out here.”

“Shermie's here?” say Stan and Ford together, though Ford sounds excited and Stan's voice is full of trepidation. They haven't managed to get down to Piedmont yet to see their sister and now she's here and she'd promised to kick Stan's ass.

“Uhh... I gotta go do some stuff,” says Stan hastily, backing away from the doorway. He gets about two steps away when he turns around into a wall of solid and familiar muscle.

“Going somewhere, Stanley?” growls his sister's voice and Stan swallows very hard. Ford stifles a laugh and Stan feels his sister's gaze snap towards him as the laugh breaks off into a strangled choke. “You're next, Stanford. Don't think I've forgotten you.”

Even in her 70s and wearing something as nonthreatening as one of Mabel's sweaters (“I put the Grand in Grandma”) and a summery skirt, Shermie Pines towers over her younger brothers. She hauls them both bodily out into the yard and gives them a sound tongue lashing while their mother steals their spot on the couch and nods along, sipping on a mug of coffee she procured from somewhere. Maybe one of the kids brought it out but Stan is too preoccupied with the dressing down his sister is dealing him to really notice.

“... been back a whole year and you haven't visited family in all that time?” She's yelling now, eyes flashing with fury. “I know you've been calling but for fucks sake, a visit wouldn't have been amiss!” Stan can count on one hand the number of times he's seen his sister cry, but tears are starting to track down her cheeks as she waves her arms in the air. She pauses to suck in a ragged breath and then she's launching herself at them. Both twins flinch, expecting the first blow but it doesn't come. Instead she pulls them into a rough hug, nearly knocking all three of them off their feet. “I've missed you two dumbasses. Even if I did see one of you occasionally.”

Her brothers return the hug, tears gathering in their own eyes. “Sorry, Sherm.” says Stan at last, pushing away from his siblings to swipe a hand over his face. “We figured we'd better get used to each other again before inflicting ourselves on the rest of the family.”

“Inflict...” starts Shermie, ire rising again, and Stan holds out his hands placatingly. She takes a couple deep breaths and then lays a heavy hand on each of her brother's shoulders. “You two are family. I'm sorry you ever thought you would be a burden to us.” Shermie catches the flinch on Stan's face and a wince crosses her own. “Now or in the past, little brother.” She heaves a sigh and  shakes off the somber mood threatening to overtake them. “Now, today is a day of celebration! You've made it around the sun another year and this time you managed to do it together!”

Shermie herds them back towards the shack, past their ma who still sits casually sipping coffee on the couch like she's always belonged there, and through the door into the kitchen. The space is peaceful in the morning sunlight for about ten seconds before all hell breaks loose.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” shrieks Mable as she careens out of her hiding spot just beyond the doorway. Dipper pops up from behind the kitchen table with a grin and pulls a party popper full of tiny streamers that somehow manage to cover the whole space. Shermie pushes her brothers forward and they have just enough time to brace themselves before they are hit with the force of their niblings sprinting into their arms.

Caryn made her way in from the porch and laid a hand on each of her boy's heads, smiling down at them and the younger twins. Behind her, Shermie gently lays her own hand on her mother's shoulder.

“It's been too long since we had all my children under one roof,” says Caryn with a smile. “I'm glad it's for something as special as a birthday.”

Stan feels his breath catch in his throat and he breaks away from the children long enough to throw his arms around his mother. A few minutes later Ford and Shermie are wrapped around the both of them and he hears the distant sound of a camera shutter click.

“Scrapbookortunity!” says Mabel in a delighted half-whisper before reaching over to high-five Dipper.

The rest of the day passes in a haze of presents and cake presided over by a gathering of family Stan never thought he would witness again.

It's perfect.

-----

Some things that I wanted to include that didn't fit:

Shermie Pines is trans. Transitioned late in life and kept the "Shermie" nickname as her legal name. Is also ripped af and could probably break both her brothers in half if she really wanted to.

Mabel made matching sweaters for the Grunkles that say "Birthday Grunk" on them. Stan's has a tiny question mark on it and Ford's has a tiny beaker.

[orangeoctopi7]

Gloves VS Mittens

@forduary Week one is Creation/Destruction. This fic is definitely on the Creation side of things.

For most people, it’s just a matter of preference. But for Stanford, just having a choice at all was something he rarely had...

***

When Ford was four years old, he first started taking notice of the fact that his hands were not normal. It started with a Hanukkah gift from a distant aunt: a pair of gloves for Stan, and a pair of mittens for himself. The two of them were so used to getting the exact same of everything that it immediately struck them as odd.

"Hey Dad, how come mine are different?" Ford asked.

"Because they don't make six-fingered gloves." Filbrick grunted.

"Why not?"

"Because normal people don't have six fingers. Haven't you noticed?"

Caryn smacked her husband with her magazine. "Dear!"

"What? If he hasn't already figured it out--"

"He's four, Filbrick."

"He's gonna have to know sooner or later! Coddling him ain't doin' him any favors. The world's not kind to what's different, so we may as well prepare him now!"

"I'm not… normal?" Ford asked his parents. He wasn't quite sure what to do with this information.

"Nope." Filbrick replied bluntly.

"Oh who wants to be normal, anyway? Normal's boring. You're special." Caryn took her son into her arms and kissed his forehead. “Now go outside and play with your brother."

While Stanford took his mother's words to heart, he soon found that being special had little to no practical benefits. Sure, it was nice to have something of his own for once, but Ford soon realized that while Stanley could use his mittens if he wanted, Ford couldn't use his brother's gloves. Not that Stan would ever want to use the mittens. They limited his dexterity to the point where it was hard to make a snowball, or even do something as simple as point.

"It's not fair!" He complained to Stan as he struggled to draw a face on the snowman they were working on. "It's like trying to do everything with a sock puppet on each hand!"

"It can't be all bad." Stan reasoned. "Plenty of people wear mittens, right?" 

"I guess so…" Ford remembered quite a few Christmas decorations with people wearing mittens, and he'd seen a few wearing them out and about the city.

Stan grabbed one hand and held it up, looking at it more closely. "I bet all your fingers are warmer, bundled together like that!"

"But it's hard to zip up my coat, so I get cold anyway." Ford mumbled.

"I'll help you zip it up!" Stan promised.

***

As the years passed, Stanford found another advantage to wearing mittens: nobody could tell he was a freak if they couldn't see his extra fingers. Sure, it didn't fool the people who already knew him, but it was nice to be able to pretend he was normal when they went up to New York City to go shopping. 

As for the dexterity problem, most of the time he'd just have to ask Stanley to do whatever it was for him. If he got tired of that, or if it simply wasn't an option (like during a snowball fight between the two brothers) he'd just take his mittens off. Sure, it was icy cold, and Ma always scolded him if she caught him, but that was a small price to pay for a good snowball.

Ford found he didn't mind wearing mittens all the time, until he started highschool chemistry class.

***

Ford was so excited to start his first real chemistry lab. He'd been doing his own chemical experiments with a chemistry set he got for his birthday when he turned 12, but the school chemistry lab had so much more to offer him! Actual Bunsen burners, more than one beaker and three test tubes, and best of all-- a variety of chemicals much wider than what he could find in his family home!

"Now, before we start, I'm going to go around and make sure everyone has all their safety equipment on properly. Make sure you've got your goggles on over your eyes not your forehead, and your gloves on your hands not in your pocket." Their teacher, an easily distracted middle-aged man, made his way around the room, checking each group. "Oh, right…" he paused when he came to the Pines twins. Stan had on his gloves and goggles (onto which he had drawn googly eyes with a wet-erase marker). Ford had on his goggles, but…

"I don't need gloves." Ford insisted. "I've never used them with my chemistry set at home."

"Yeah!" Stan agreed, "We took apart a car battery one time and didn't get any chemical burns!"

The teacher blanched at this revelation, and he opened up a supply closet at the back of the room. After some digging, he pulled out a pair of sturdy work gloves that looked like they were meant for a giant.

"Here," he tossed them to Ford, "These should be big enough. You'll just have to fit two fingers into one hole."

Ford grumbled as he pulled the gloves on. After some experimentation he found that sticking his second and third fingers together was the least uncomfortable arrangement, but the glove was still too bulky and awkward. He kept on pouring too much acid into the solution and completely missing the titration point. 

Relying on Stan to do it didn't yield much better results, as his brother was too impatient, and kept on pouring the acid too fast, once again missing the titration point. Finally, when the teacher was distracted by other students, Ford just took the gloves off. Then he got it first try.

This ended up being the pattern for Ford's chemistry labs throughout the rest of his highschool years. Fumble through the lab until the teacher's back was turned, and then strip the oversized gloves off. He was extra careful, and never got anything on him that could do any real harm. One time he did get a bit of copper nitrate on his skin, but all that it did was make his hands dry and itchy.

***

When Ford started college at Backupsmore University, he quickly realized he wouldn't be able to just pull an awkwardly large glove off when the teacher wasn't looking. The class size was much too small. What's more the TA overseeing their lab, a young man by the name of McGucket, was clearly a sharp and observant individual.

"Hmm, obviously this ain't gonna work." He observed as he passed out supplies to Ford's table. "I think y'should be fine fer now, we're only working with acetic acid today, but that ain't gonna be the case fer the whole semester. You got a free hour after lab?"

"Y-yes." 

"Great! Meet me in the Grad-lab, we'll make ya a special custom pair!"

"What--really!?"

"Sure! We don't want you messin' around in the chem lab with no gloves on, but messin' around with gloves that don't fit right is even worse!"

Ford finished his first lab with no trouble. In fact, he finished early, so he cleaned up his things and headed to the Grad-lab, just down the hall from his own classroom, and waited. All the graduate students there ignored him, too caught up in their own studies to even notice a lowly undergrad.

After several minutes, McGucket entered. "Alright, this is gonna take a while, you sure you got time?"

"This is my last class of the day."

"Perfect. Now come over here and we'll get started." The grad student led Ford back to a table with many five-gallon buckets. He pried the lid off of one, revealing its dark blue, slimy contents. "This here's the silicone-rubber I use t'make molds fer my machine parts. If'n ya jus' stick yer hand in here and let it gel, it should make a nice glove, like a second skin!"

"You want me to stick my hand… in that?" Ford asked incredulously.

"Pshaw, it ain't that bad!" McGucket assured him. "It's like… well, y'ever stuck her hand in pig slop?"

"No." Ford said slowly, his eye twitching just a bit at the thought.

"Oh, well nevermind then. I guess you can jus' drop outta chemistry 112"

Ford sighed and plunged his hands down into the bucket. It was pretty gross, but he got used to the slimy sensation after a few minutes. He slowly pulled his hands out, letting the viscous fluid slide off his fingers. 

"How long does this take to dry?"

"Gel." McGucket corrected. "First layer'll probably take 'bout half an hour. It goes faster if'n ya use a settin' spray, bit that tends t'irritate the skin."

"First layer? How many layers will it take?"

"Only two. Ya want it thick 'nuff it'll protect yer skin, but thin 'nuff that it's flexible an’ peels off easy."

"So I'm just supposed to stand here for a whole hour? What am I supposed to do for all this time? I-I've got homework!"

"Well, I'll pull ya up a chair." McGucket rolled over a chair for him and opened his backpack. "An' maybe I can help ya with yer homework."

They sat there for an hour, McGucket reading Ford's textbooks and Ford asking questions about the material. The grad student was impressed with the workload this freshman had taken on.

"I wanted to go to West Coast Tech, but that didn't work out." Ford explained bitterly. "So I'm going to have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously by the scientific community."

"Believe me, I know the feelin'." McGucket nodded. "Most folks don't take a roboticist from the Tennessee hills seriously either. But there's some perks to attendin' a smaller University. The dean lets us do whatever we want! I've built lots o' robots I never woulda gotten away with at MIT."

"I suppose that's true." Ford admitted. "I'm interested in anomalies and cryptozoology. At West Coast Tech, I probably wouldn't be able to study those."

The hour passed more quickly than Ford expected. When he pulled the gloves off, they turned inside out, showing all the wrinkles and ridges of his skin in relief. He liked it. It was much more personal than some disposable pair.

“I’m sorry for complaining so much at the start. What you’ve done for me is incredibly generous. Thank you.” Ford said sincerely.

“Think nothin’ of it!” McGucket assured him with a friendly smile. “Can’t ‘spect you to go through the whole class without proper gloves.”

“No, really, you don’t know how much this means to me.”

“Well, I s’pose not. But I imagine ya don’t get somethin’ as simple as a pair o’ gloves offen.”

“N-no.” Ford instinctively hid his hand behind his back.

“Well now, ain’t nothin’ to hide!” McGucket elbowed him. “You could have two heads, fer all I care, with how well you un’erstand superconductors!” He waved goodbye as they exited the lab. “See ya in class on Wednesday!”

Ford found he gained more than just a new pair of gloves that day.

***

The custom gloves were nice, but they didn’t last more than a couple of months before they needed to be replaced again. He spent a lot of time in the Grad-lab talking to Fiddleford over the next few years. By the time graduation rolled around, Ford had learned to make the silicone-rubber compound himself. It was something he continued to use as he moved out to Gravity Falls. Being able to make his own gloves was so convenient! After all these years of being stuck with ill-fitting gloves, or no gloves at all, he’d never really realized how useful they were. And now he could have them whenever he wanted! As time went by, he improved upon the original silicone-rubber formula, making the gloves more durable and long-lasting. 

As he got used to wearing gloves while he worked, the fact that he didn’t have winter gloves became more and more annoying. It was easy to ignore at Backusmore, where it rarely snowed and stayed warm for most of the year. But Oregon was farther north, and Gravity Falls was in the middle of the temperate rainforest. It snowed all winter long. It was so frustrating when he encountered an anomaly out in the snow and couldn’t hold his pen properly to take notes in his journal, either because of his mittens, or because his hands were too cold and numb from not wearing his mittens.

Oh well. As irritating as it was, he was used to it by now.

***

Out in the multiverse, just finding something to keep himself warm at all could be a struggle. Many of the dimensions he visited didn’t have human inhabitants, so finding something to wear on his hands at all was an impossible ask. Ford learned to wrap strips of cloth around his hands and fingers to keep them warm. It worked pretty well, although it took a lot longer to wrap the cloth in such a way that he could still move his fingers individually than it would to simply slip on a glove.

Of course, sometimes he got lucky. When he became ruler of the Finger Dimension, for instance, the people had made him a pair of silk, fur-lined gloves. They were very nice, but obviously more for fashion rather than function. He ended up trading them away for some tools shortly after he was banished by the Finger Dimension’s new ruler. 

But Stanford had bigger things to worry about than the comfort of his hands in his interdimensional travels. 

***

Stanley found the gloves while he was digging around the portal’s control console, looking for any clues as to how to get the thing working again. It was like a punch to the gut, but really, finding anything of Ford’s was like a punch to the gut. Stan still remembered that first Hanukkah when he’d gotten a pair of gloves, and Ford got a pair of mittens. He still remembered all the awkward times in their chemistry class where he’d had to do all the fine measurements even though he was terrible at it, until the teacher looked away long enough for Ford to take the oversized gloves off. He was glad his brother had finally found a way to get his own pair of work gloves.

His mind wandered, unbidden, to the fact that his brother was now lost… somewhere… without them. Without a lot of things he needed. Stan pulled on the gloves and made a fist, watching the extra pinky sleeve flop uselessly. He grimaced. Right. Back to work.

***

When Ford turned sixty-four, he was used to wearing mittens. He’d long ago accepted that the winter months came with a loss of dexterity, and honestly, over the past nine months of sailing through arctic waters, he’d been fine. He knew Stan had his back when he couldn’t properly wrap a finger around his blaster’s trigger. And when he knew he was going to need his blaster, he just didn’t wear them. He hadn’t gotten frostbite yet. In the middle of June, it wasn’t even worth worrying about. He wouldn’t even be thinking about it right now if it wasn’t for the birthday gift his niece had just given him.

“I noticed you weren’t wearing your mittens in a lot of the photos you sent us.” Mabel explained. “And I figured you probably have to use all your fingers for boat stuff, like tying knots, or signaling merpeople! So I made you these!” She handed him a pair of hand-knitted gloves, made up of a mix of red, blue, and  green yarn.

“I wanted to send you some while you were still sailing, but I’d never knitted gloves before, so it took me a while to figure it out.”

“She went through a lot of yarn the last few months.” Dipper agreed. “Like, even more than usual.”

Ford slipped them on. They were a perfect fit.

“How…?”

Stan suddenly started whistling for no reason. Ford shot him a knowing look.

“What? Don’t look at me like that! So maybe I kept an old pair of your gloves while I was workin’ on the portal. Not for, like, sentimental reasons or anything. Good work gloves aren’t cheap! And it’s a good thing I did keep ‘em, they were the perfect model for Mabel. I just had to tell Soos where I left ‘em and asked him to send ‘em to her.”

“I-I don’t know what to say.” Ford’s voice wavered with emotion. "This is-- the fact that you put in all that time and effort, just for me-- and such a thoughtful gift! I-I've never really had a pair of winter gloves before… well, except for that pair from the Finger Dimension, and those were more ceremonial than anything else."

"So you like them?" Mabel asked, eyes bright.

"I absolutely love them. They're perfect!" He hugged her. "Thank you!" He turned to Stan. "Thank both of you!"

"Eh, I didn't do anything." Stan rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed.

"You provided the model. I have you to thank for the fact that they fit so well."

"I have an idea, if you want to test them out now." Dipper suggested. "Remember that snow spell we tested out last week?"

"Oh, right! Great idea, my boy!"

"Yeah, just test it outside this time, so Soos doesn't have to mop up after you again." Stan advised.

[shanklin]

The Gargoyle (2/?)

Filbrick angers a witch, gets cursed and gains two sons. One is special and has twelve fingers. The other is a gargoyle.

Chapter Summary: Shermie meets his new little brother and things are pretty great until a monster attacks.

Chapter [1] [3] [4] [5]

Read it on Ao3

Chapter Warnings: Filbrick Pines, Misogyny, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Violence Against A Baby Gargoyle

Wordcount: 1796

Author’s Note:

I really thought I would go with the whole "Shermie was the baby in the flashback"-thing, but Shermie disagreed and I'm weak for older brothers.

...writing "Stan" instead of "Ford" feels so wrong. Let's hope Ford gets his proper name soon

2. Enter Shermie

“So, what do you think, Doctor Thunderman?” Shermie stretches his arm towards the yellow ceiling lights and admires the freshly formed clay figure standing proudly on the coffee table above him. He’s lying upside down on the couch, most of his upper body already on the floor and can’t be bothered to get up. “How long do people typically wait until they call the police, when their parents disappear under mysterious circumstances?”, he asks the figure. “I am certain your parents are fine, young Sherman. They are simply tending to some adult business like doing taxes or buying curtains. You have absolutely nothing to worry about.”

Shermie tries changing his voice to sound more like a superhero and fails miserably. He lets out a frustrated scream and kicks the couch knocking over a pillow. This is stupid. Here he is, alone at home for the first time in forever and all he can do is worry about Ma. His dad doesn’t care, but his mom always leaves him a note with an outrageous lie behind before she goes out . And lie or no lie, at least Shermie always knows she’s safe and will return soon.

Today however, all Shermie was left with is an empty house, a closed up shop and a strange wet puddle on the floor. He briefly considered leaving the puddle for the police as evidence in case some evil aquatic sea creature had kidnapped his parents, but he quickly dispelled that thought. Dad would have his head, if he left it there and let it ruin the floor.

The unmistakable rattle of his father’s car echoes through the night and Shermie jumps up, panicked. Actually Dad would have his head for a lot of things right about now, namely the state of the living room and the fact that he should’ve gone to bed hours ago. Not good, not good, not good.

With a big swoop Shermie picks up as many craft supplies as he can from the coffee table and runs into his room, hiding them in a box under his bed. If his dad finds out he still plays around with such childish things, he’s done for and so are his supplies.

On his second run he carefully picks up his Doctor Thunderman figure, mindful not to disturb the wet clay. He rarely has the time or the money to build something like this and he doesn’t want his efforts to go to waste. The car quiets down. He has to hurry! Shermie takes his sleeves and wipes the table clean as best as he can, hoping his father won’t look too closely at it tonight. And then he’ll just have to sneak out in the morning and clean it properly. With some luck no one will ever know. He hears footsteps. There’s no more time left. 

Shermie throws one last pillow back on the couch, turns the lights off, and tiptoes into his bed.

The front door creaks open and the lights turn on. His parents start muttering, but Shermie can’t make out anything. He probably shouldn’t risk it, but his curiosity wins and he sneaks up to the door to eavesdrop on his parents. He’s pretty sure his father wouldn’t think of checking on him anyway, so he’s very likely safe from being discovered. Much to his chagrin however, as soon as he reaches the door his ears are met with nothing but silence.

Then, suddenly, a cry. Shrill and high pitched and undeniable coming from a baby. Shermie is so surprised, he jumps up and promptly hits his head on the doorknob, adding his own cries to the baby’s. No point in hiding anymore. Shermie opens the door sheepishly and is met with his father’s disapproving stare. He gulps. “Err, welcome home?” To his astonishment his dad just grunts displeased and leaves for the bedroom muttering something about buying earplugs. Today must be his lucky day! Grinning, Shermie scans the room for his mom and finds her leaning back in her armchair with a small noisy bundle in her arms. She looks pale and exhausted, but waves him over with a smile. “Come here, Sweety, and say hello to your little brother.” Shermie gives Ma a quick hug and eyes the baby. “Woah, he’s so ugly!” The words slip out of his mouth before he can think them over, but he stands by them. If Shermie didn’t know better, he’d even say, his parents brought home some weird mutated worm with the face of a small grandpa. Ugly, but still strangely lovable. His mother chuckles and caresses the baby’s face gently.

“He is, isn’t he? The ugliest baby in the whole of New Jersey! But you know what they say, the uglier the baby, the cuter the child.” Shermie eyes his mom sceptically. “Noone says that.” “Well I do.” Ma replies and pinches his cheeks. “And look how cute you turned out to be in the end.” “Ouch.” Shermie strokes his abused face, pouting. “So what’s his name?” “Stan Filbrick Pines. Your father insisted on the second part.” Ma answers, rolling her eyes. Shermie winces internally. Unlike with him, Pa seems to already have very high expectations for his little brother. Shermie will have to make sure this little one will turn out alright despite their father’s meddling. No way he’ll let his dad turn his brother into a stoic copy of himself. Deciding to make a good first impression, Shermie stands up straight and takes the baby’s hand in his in a careful, but firm handshake. “Nice to meet you, Stan Pines! I’m Shermie, your older brother. I might not be good at punching and won’t be able to help you much with school, but I know how to have fun and will always be there when you need me, so please never hesitate to ask for my help, okay?” Feeling pleased with his impromptu speech, Shermie moves to let go of his brother's hand, but is met with a refusal to separate. Instead, the baby grasps Shermie’s finger, surprising him.

“Ma, Ma, look!” Shermie exclaims excitedly, waving his captured finger from side to side. “He must’ve understood you and wants to say hello back.” “You think so?” Shermie grins. Ma nods and smiles to herself. “Now, Shermie, before you go to sleep, why don’t you count your brother’s fingers for me?” A confused “What?” escapes him, but he obliges at his mother’s urging , feeling a bit foolish to do so. One, two, thre- “NO WAY! THIS IS SO COOL!” Shermie exclaims forgetting himself in the moment. His brother must be some kind of future superhero!

“Does the finger have any superpowers?” “Oh yes.” Ma answers mysteriously. Shermie is bouncing with excitement. So cool, so cool! “Well…” , she starts, dragging the word out. “Time for you to go to bed. Shoo shoo!” “What? No, no tell me!” Shermie whines, but is interrupted by his father screaming “QUIET!”  from the other room.

Shermie flinches, though his mood isn’t dampened much. He kisses his mother goodnight and goes to sleep grinning like crazy. Being an older brother is going to be great!

***

The next couple of days are filled with much excitement and very little sleep. As punishment for staying up too late Pa makes Shermie work in the shop until he finds himself a job for the summer. “You’re fourteen already, Sherman. Old enough to stop being useless and make us some money.”

And when Shermie is home, he’s doing his best to help his mom around the house. Ma worries him. He doesn’t know much about babies or giving birth for that matter, but since she came back from the hospital she’s been acting off. “I’m fine, Shermie. Just a bit tired. You know that Stan doesn’t like letting us sleep at night.” Ma says every time he asks her about it and then changes the subject. There is some truth in her answer. Sleep is a luxury his little brother refuses to let them indulge in, but that doesn’t change his mother’s condition. Shermie knows she’s not alright. When she thinks no one is watching, Ma looks terribly distraught and he’s pretty sure he saw her crying over Stan’s crib just this morning. He tried to confront her about it, but she simply brushed him off with a joke and rushed off to the bathroom. That night Shermie lies awake for a long time, even though Stan is blessedly quiet for once. His mom refuses to tell him anything and asking his dad for help is out of the question. “Your mother is fine. Women cry without reason all the time. You’re embarrassing me with your worrying. Are you a girl now, too?”

There’s no one else Shermie can talk to. He’s not really that close with any of his school friends and he doubts they would understand even if he tried to explain.

His worries get periodically interrupted by shuffling and scratching from above the ceiling. Some rodent must’ve found its way up onto the roof and decided to team up with Stan in keeping them awake at night. Shermie groans and rolls on his side, pressing a pillow over his ears. He would give everything to have an older brother of his own right about now.

***

A shrill scream. Shermie startles awake. Ma, something is wrong! He stumbles out of bed and runs through the door nearly falling over his own two feet. His mom is trembling in front of the nursery, holding Stan protectively against her chest. She doesn’t notice him, her eyes fixated on something inside the room. “Caryn, stay back!” Pa yells, storming into the nursery, a table lamp in his hand. Shermie’s heart is pounding like crazy and in all his confusion he nearly misses his mom collapsing, but fortunately he manages to support her just in time to prevent any serious injuries as she falls to the floor, her legs too weak to support herself.

Inside the nursery Pa swings the lamp at the creature hovering on top of Stan’s crib. It’s too dark to make out any details, except for two big glowing eyes staring straight at his baby brother. Shermie can only stare in awe as the thing opens what appear to be a set of huge batlike wings and gets ready to charge.

It’s motion, however, is interrupted by his father’s attack and the creature catapulted out of the open window.

Ma’s pleas of “No, Filbrick, please! Don’t hurt him!” fall on deaf ears as the sound of wailing and stone crashing into stone echos through the night. Next Chapter

[detectivejigsawpines]

Awkward Talks

Caryn Pines finds out that her sons have reconciled and are now living together.

...About a month after they’ve actually done so.

Oops.

Part of the Flipside AU.

Ring, ring.

Ring, ring.

Ring-

“Hello, Pines residence.”

A few seconds later Ford was startled out of his research when his brother uttered a strangled squeak, yelled, “Perd��n, número equivocado!” into the phone, and hung it back up.

Ford gave Stan a confused stare when he came into the living room, looking-well, not like he’d seen a ghost, since the last time he’d seen one of those he’d just been annoyed and tried to punch it when it attacked them.  He looked like he’d just seen a tax collector.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Telemarketer,” Stan said quickly.  A little too quickly.

The phone rang again, in a way that sounded almost belligerent.  Stan’s face turned white, and he told Ford, “Don’t answer that,” before he high-tailed it to the door.  A few seconds later he heard the roar of the car’s engine starting up, and screaming away down the road to town.

Ford was naturally confused, and apprehensive... but he was also curious.  So he got up and went into the kitchen, where he picked up the phone.

“Hello, this is-”

“Stanford Filbrick Pines!”

****

Ford uttered a noise that was practically the twin (ha ha) of the one Stan had made.  “M-Mom?”

“Was that your brother who answered the phone a minute ago?” Caryn’s voice demanded.

“Yeah, it was-didn’t he tell you-”

“No!  Neither of you said a thing to me about you making up!”  He could envision perfectly her putting her hand on her hip as she glared at him.  “In fact, it’s been months since I heard from either of you, but that’s not the principal issue at the moment!  How long has he been there?”

Ford closed his eyes.  D_mn it, Stan…

“...A few weeks.”

“How long is ‘a few weeks,’ exactly?”  Her voice was dangerously soft.

Stan would have tried to weasel out of it a little longer by saying, “Longer than a couple,” or some similar delay of the inevitable.  Ford just said weakly, “Almost four.”

“Stanford-!”

“It’s hard to explain, Ma!  We-we weren’t sure we were gonna make up at first, and then a bunch of stuff happened, and-” I almost made a deal with a triangle-shaped demon until Stan got it through my head that that was a bad idea- “we just...got distracted with catching up with each other.  I’m sorry, we should have called to tell you.”

Caryn made a somewhat-pacified sound.  “I’ve got a mind to ask Shermie ta drive up and give you both a good smack for me, since he’s closer.”  Then she asked suspiciously, “Did you tell him that you’ve got Stanley livin’ with you now?”

“No, we haven’t told anyone.”

“Well, at least I can take some comfort knowing that it ain’t just me you’ve been locking out of the loop.”  She sighed, and now he pictured her massaging her temples. “Well, put Stanley on the phone for me so I can chew him out, wouldya?”

“...He took off when you called back,” Ford admitted.  “I think he thinks hiding will save him from your wrath.”

And mine, once you’re through with him.

“Pity these calls aren’t cheap...well, whenever he gets home have him call me back.”

“Even if he gets home late?”

“Filbrick’s out of town; I got all the time in the world.”

****

It was long after dark by the time Stan drove back to the house, having hustled at the pool hall for a few hours (and gotten a nice amount of cash out of it) before hiding out at Dan’s place until the lumberjack went to bed.

He thought about parking away from the house, but he didn’t want to risk Steve coming after the Stanley Mobile, so he decided to just hope that Ford was down in the lab and wouldn’t hear the engine.

Probably a futile hope.

Regardless, after Stan hopped out of the car he crept around to the back of the house, where there was a window that opened into the attic.  It seemed like the safest place to stay the night, giving certain people a chance to cool down. Stan had no idea why his brother happened to have a grappling hook lying around the house, but now he braved his fear of heights and used it to lift himself up onto the roof.  Then, moving on shaking legs and with outstretched arms, he slowly climbed up until he could push the window open and hop inside.

With a small sigh of relief Stan closed it after him, then turned around.  The attic appeared to be nice and empty, just as he’d hoped. Perfect.

He laid the grappling hook on the windowsill, and headed to a corner where some extra blankets were kept.  He rounded a stack of boxes-

“Aaaugh!”

Ford was standing there, arms folded, scowl plain to see even in the dim light.

“...How long have you been standing there?” Stan asked when his heart rate returned to normal.

“You didn’t call Mom.”  Ford’s voice was sharp and clipped.

Stan glared defiantly back.  “Neither did you.”

“Don’t you try to deflect this on me!  You know she’s been worried about you! And since you didn’t tell her, I had to!”  A vein throbbed in his forehead.  “What were you thinking, you knucklehead-that you could just hide out here for the rest of your life?!”

“No, but I knew that she’d probably tell Pa, and I didn’t wanna deal with that!”

For a moment they just glared at each other.  Then Ford said quietly, “You can’t hide from him forever.”

“I can try.”  Stan leaned against a pillar.

“Stanley…”  Ford took a step closer.

“I know what he’s gonna say already, I don’t need ta hear it in person.”  Stan drew himself up and said in a gruff imitation of their father, “I can’t believe this, Stanford!  You’re finally makin’ a name for yourself, and you’re gonna throw it all away by taking in Goofus here?!  You forget how he ruined things for you once? You need ta get rid of him before he eats ya outta house and home and finds something else of yours ta destroy!”

“Stanley!” Ford said sharply.

“What?  You know I’m right.”

He did, but that wasn’t the point.

“I told you, I don’t care what Pa thinks.  And Mom doesn’t either. And I’m pretty sure Shermie doesn’t.  Whether or not you choose to stay here is your and my decision-not his.”  Ford reached out, put a hand on his shoulder. “He doesn’t control you.”

“Easy for you ta say,” Stan muttered.  “You’re not a total disappointment to him.”

Ford snorted.  “You obviously didn’t hear him tell me that studying anomalies was a big waste of time, and that I ought to get into research that would bring me some ‘real’ money.”

Stan allowed himself to be soothed by that-just a little.

At last, though, Ford said, “Mom wants you to call her.  She said she’d stay up all night if she had to.”

Stan grimaced.  “Knowing her, that could go either way on the truth scale.”

But, with a sigh of resignation, he followed his brother downstairs to find the phone.

********

Caryn, after chewing her son out, tells him that she's glad to hear he and Ford finally made up, along with everything he's missed out on since he last contacted her. She promises not to tell Filbrick just yet, but gives him the same advice as Ford-that he's going to have to deal with his father sooner or later, and that nobody else approved of him being kicked out like that so he shouldn't let Filbrick get to him. Stan promises that he will connect with Filbrick soon-probably crossing his fingers behind his back and making sure Ford doesn't see.

By the way, for those of you who don't speak Spanish, Stan said, "Sorry, wrong number!"

[mo12mo29]

Queen of Dreams Chapter 1(part 1):New Baby Sister

(Stanley’s P.O.V)

        I am not ready for this, I am so not ready for this! When mom told me that this was happening, I figured that it was gonna happen in a year or two, not now! If you are confused on what the heck I am talking about, then let me rewind to a day or two and tell you on how everything, because of an accident, changed our lives for me and my twin. It all started when me and Stanford were coming home form Glass Shard Beach where we hung out after school. It was the beginning of the weekend.

(End of P.O.V)

        Stanley and his twin brother, Stanford were coming home after hanging out at the beach. Since it was Friday, they had enough time to work on the Stan O’ War. When they were close to their home, they suddenly heard their parents fighting in the house. It was so loud that if the neighbors cared enough, they would be wondering on what the hell was going on. Stanley sighed as he turned to look at his brother.

       “Just once I would like to come home to some peace and quiet. They literally fight over everything, mostly about money or bills. I keep asking myself, when is ma gonna divorce him?” Stanford gave his brother a sympathetic look

       “Stanley, you know how mom feels about divorce. She’s really trying,”

       “I know, but every time they finish an argument, pops always goes out to drink then he comes back drunk and takes his anger out on us! I’m sick of it!”

       “I know, but we have no other option but to deal with it. Mom will one day see that our father is a monster.” Stanford said as he placed a hand on Stanley’s shoulder. Stanley looked at his twin for a moment before sighing in annoyance. He knew Stanford was right, but of course he is always right! He is a nerd that knows everything. With no other choice, the boys went through the pawn shop doors and went up stairs to the living room where they were expecting to find their parents arguing, but instead they found them frantically moving around and arguing about something else besides money.

       “Filbrick, you knew that this was something that’s going to happened! You said that you didn’t care, so I assumed that meant that it was okay!”

       “Lay off Caryn! I was fine with it before you showed me the picture of the brat! I do not want this thing in my family! That would be another mouth to feed! Plus, I don’t want to have to deal with another women in the house!” Filbrick shouted, face tinged red with anger.

       “Oh go to hell Filbrick! There is nothing wrong with her! All you seem to care about is her gender and the money! Don’t you even care about the fact that one of good friends are dead and another one is in jail!” Filbrick turned around and pointed a finger in Caryn’s face

       “No, your friend Caryn! Those people were not my friends and they never will be! I couldn’t even get along with the father!”

       “I don’t see why not, because both of you act like jerks when your drunk!”

       “Mind your own business! Can you blame me for wanting to go get a few drinks!? The only reason I do so is because I can barely handle that ugly, nagging voice of yours every damn day!” With that Filbrick left the room, cursing under his breath, more likely to sulk in the Pawn shop downstairs. Caryn rubbed her hands on her face in frustration before she looked and saw her boys standing in the hallway,

“I’m really sorry boys. Your father and I are just…working on some issues.”

“What issues? Ma, what is going on?” Stanley asked. Caryn didn’t say anything at first. Instead, she motioned her sons to sit on the couch with her. Once they were all seated on the couch, Caryn decided to speak.

“Boys, I have some good news, but there is also some bad…no, tragic news. I’ll start with the tragic news first. Do you remember my old friend, Aubrey?” Stanley and Stanford looked at each other before nodding.

“She used to babysit us whenever you and dad go out on a date. When we turned fifteen, she told us that she was having a baby.” Stanford answered.

“Yeah, I never liked her husband, Roy and I still don’t. He kinda reminds me of pops when he is drunk.” Stanley said while laughing. Caryn laughed a little too, but her smile vanished during her next sentence.

“Well…She went into labor two days ago, and the baby was born yesterday. They said it was a beautiful baby girl. Roy, apparently, wasn’t too happy about the baby being a girl. When the doctors deemed both Aubrey and the baby healthy, they were supposed to go home. While on the way home, Roy and Aubrey were fighting about something while in their car. Aubrey must have brought up the topic of divorce because she told me that when her baby was born, she would divorce her husband so that her baby will be safe. After that-” Caryn stopped when she started to choke up. Tears were starting to roll down her face. Stanley reached over and patted her on the back.

“Ma…What happened?” He asked. Caryn wiped her eyes and took deep breaths to compose herself before continuing.

“The police said that Roy got angry and swerved the car off the road. They crashed into a tree and Aubrey hit her head on the passenger side window. Roy somehow got out of the crash unscathed and tried to run away, leaving his own wife and child behind, but the police caught him. When an ambulance came to get Aubrey…She was already dead.” Stanley and Stanford were shocked. Not only was the best babysitter and family friend in the world dead, but her husband committed a hit and run, and left his wife and newborn child for dead.

“What about the baby?” Stanford asked, really hoping that the baby was still alive.

“That’s actually the good news. They said that the daughter was just fine and it was a miracle that she survived. They also said that she was available for adoption, but that’s not all.” Caryn stood up and walked into the kitchen, pulled open a drawer, and pulled out a piece of paper before walking back into the living room. “Not only were the adoption papers that I signed were approved. Aubrey went to court a year ago to get divorce papers, but while signing for divorce she said that if something were to happen to her, the baby would be in our custody.”

“So we don’t have to worry about Roy trying to get custody of the baby?” Stanford asked. Caryn smiled.

“Nope, the idiot lost his chances when he went to jail. He’ll have to physically get through me and the baby’s new big brothers to take her away.” She explained.

“What about Pops? Is he not involved in this?” Stanley asked. Caryn only sighed in annoyance.

“That’s why I’m constantly yelling at your father right now. You see, your father is so stuck in his ways that he doesn’t want anything to do with a girl in the family. I told him that if he lets her stay, he doesn’t have to do anything. I can handle her. I’ve also called your older brother, Shermie. I told him what happened, so he and his wife are coming down here and staying in an old apartment near us so they can help us out.”

“Okay, but if you need us to help you out too, we can.” Stanford said.

“That’s why I was excited to tell you two. I knew that you two would be sweet enough to accept all of this, my special little boys.” Caryn stood up and hugged her boys who hugged her back. She was really relieved that her two sons were really accepting of this. “I also have something else to say.” She released her boys from the hug and gave them a serious look. “I have been thinking about this for a while now. Now that we are having a new member to the family, I am worried that your father might do something to hurt this child if he ever comes home drunk. If he does, or he starts giving me more crap about her…I’m divorcing him.” At the mention of the word ‘divorce’, Stanley’s mind immediately cheered. Finally! A chance where he may never have to see his father again!

“I’ve gotten the papers in a secret place. I want to wait and couple of months, see how this goes. If nothing works out, I’m slamming the paper on him and he is out of here.” Caryn said in a determined tone. “Now, you boys head up to your room. I’ve got to have more words with your father.” With that Caryn went back downstairs to deal with Filbrick while Stanley and Stanford went to their rooms.

  “Damn, speak of divorce and she shall deliver.” Stanley said as he laughed. He couldn’t believe it! He waited for years to finally have a chance to get away from his sorry excuse of a father. Now, not only will he and his brother be away from their father, but they will have another family member in the family.

“I wonder what the baby will look like.” Stanford asked himself as he sat down on the desk chair near the bunk bed.

“I don’t know, but I’m hoping she looks more like Aubrey. Roy is a dick, not to mention ugly. It would be a blessing If she looks like Aubrey.” Stanley said, laughing a little.

“That is true. I still can’t believe Roy would do something like that, especially to his own wife and newborn daughter.” Stanford said sadly.

“I know, Aubrey was the greatest babysitter we had. Even when we grew up to the point where we didn’t need a babysitter, she still came over and gave us gifts, baked us treats, she even helped us with new ideas for the Stan O’ War. She was the best.” Stanley said as he sat down on the bottom bunk of their bunk beds

“Yeah, she also was the only babysitter that didn’t make fun of my hands.” Stanford looked at his six fingered hands and sighed sadly. “She always told me to see my deformity as a blessing. Not just a freak of nature.” The boys were silent for a moment. The fact that their family friend was gone was a real shocker to both of them. “Hey Stanley.” At his name being called, Stanley looked at his brother. He looked like he had an uncertain and nervous look on his face.

“What’s up poindexter?”

“Do you think we’re ready? To be older brothers? This all seems kinda sudden.” Stanley continued to stare at his twin as he continued.

“I mean...What if she doesn’t like me, or she might find my hands frightening?” As Stanford continued to ramble on a list of things that their new sibling would dislike about him, Stanley rolled his eyes before he placed a hand on his twin’s shoulder.

“Look nerd, Ma is counting on us to look after this kid. Pa’s not going to do it, knowing him he’ll probably just give the kid the cold shoulder. Besides, if I can stand to be around you for the rest of my life, six fingers or not, then so can our new sister. These are just those kinds of situations where you have to stop thinking so hard and just roll with it. Also, you’re not alone in this, we’re in this together.” At those words, Stanford was happy that he had a twin like Stanley to support him. Then a thought came to his head.

“We keep saying ‘new sister’ or  ‘new baby’ like she doesn't have a name. Did mom even mention her name at all?”

“No, I’m guessing she’ll probably tell us in the morning. Right now, I just need something to distract me from everything that happened today. I don’t feel like watching T.V, I don’t feel like going back outside. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel like I want to actually do my homework.” Stanford looked at Stanley with mock shock.

“You actually want to do homework? On a friday? Wow, I’m surprised.” Stanley, annoyed that his brother found him amusing, took the pillow beside him and threw it at Stanford.

“Shut it nerd.” Stanford only laughed as he grabbed his book bag and searched for his homework. He could use a little bit of a distraction too.

[neargaztambide]

Stan and Ford Pines: A Melancholic Story (Chapter 1)

Words: 3.775 approximately

                    1: Broken until weary, at the end of the road

If you were wondering about metaphors about death, and you had a cynical and dark point of view, you would compare it to the lottery. Why not? If you see it that way, it could explain very well what happened to Patriarch Pines: either you earn it today, or you can earn it tomorrow. If not, any day will be.

Ford trembled out of the car to see Filbrick, feeling a cold sweat on his back, and a huge heaviness in his body. Behind him, Stanley followed him. The blood was one of the worst parts of the stage: seeing his father agonize, staining the ground red, his eyes unfocused and lost, it was horrible. The crowd kept calling, and many more people were helping Caryn and Robert (that's how the Good Samaritan is called). –Ma… - The two children were scared, with a pale face. His mother looked at them with a hopeless look. His hands, his clothes ... although red, blood it could be differentiated from the clothes. His father looked lost, seeing nothing in particular. “- Maybe it's already… -” Stanley thought, which turned pale at even mentioning the idea. His mother, just as pale as her children, went to hug them. The two corresponded with the hug. She was trembling. Their mother was trembling with fear, with horror. She grabbed their cheeks, gently, smearing them with blood ... their father's blood. The mark on Caryn's hand was on Ford's left cheek, and Stanley had it on the right. -Oh God, I-I sorry!- Caryn said, being at the point of emotional collapse.

The strongest twin looked at his father. It was an image that slipped into his retina so as not to leave. It was a hypnotically horrifying image: this wasn’t like an action movie. It wasn’t an eighties film with Schwarzenegger or Stallone, making it seem that getting shot is a casual thing. Stan noticed that getting shot was a cold sweat, with shaking and paleness. The face of pain and vain resistance was the real thing. Stanley couldn't stand to see that for much longer. The holes in his dad's body began to flow out a strong red liquid. The idea of ​​dying like this disturbed him. He began to have arcades, so he had to step away from the crowd and go to the corner where the traffic light was. He vomited silently, trying not to to be heard. He didn’t vomit too much: just something similar to brown saliva, feeling the stinging of bile in his throat. -¿S-Stanley? -

Stan cleans his mouth and turns to see who’s talking to him and that is precisely Stanford. He’s about to cry, just like his mother. There are traces of regret on his face. -I'm fine, nothing happens to me. - Stan says, trying to look boastful with a carefree fake tone. Ford looks at him with a lot of sadness. Begin to cry. First, is only a whimper, but quickly turns into tears continued. They pass through his face, his nose orange. He needs help. Stan stops smiling. He approaches him and hugs him tightly. Ford doesn't want to release it, it can't. His glasses, which are now about to fall from his face, fog. -I'm scared, Stanley." W-wh-what just happened? - Asked Ford in a run. The words come from the depths of his being. He is still shocked, not knowing what to do. He hasn’t digested the facts. It hurt. Stanford doesn't like it. He doesn’t want to suffer. Should he cry for his father, after all those years of hollow interactions, after the cold and flat words? "-Yes, good job ... I'm not impressed ... - ".

Stanford thinks if Filbrick deserved this. He deserves it? Filbrick defended them at all costs, regardless of whether he was injured. Ford’s very grateful to him. But, why has he always had such an attitude like that, why does he treat them almost indifferently, as if they didn't matter what really matters? While they hug, Filbrick is only seconds away from death, feeling the wings of the grim reaper around his body. He can't almost hear anything. Everything seems to be silent. Everything is so blurry, but he sees a few people around him. He only sees two women, recognizing them for their … makeup, for their lipstick? The rest of them, he cannot see them clearly, Filbrick find it very difficult. Everything is ... how was that word? It is assumed that this word serves to define something that cannot be defined logically. Where is he, what happened, what is his name? Filbrick turned his head. It hurts a lot to move, but he must do it in the meantime. Do he hear the... do he hear them? They are on his left. Although it is very blurry, it distinguishes two figures, of a small size, far apart. Glued to each other. Recognize... his children. They are crying ... but why?

Stanley, who was hugging his brother, looks at his father from the opposite shoulder. He turned his head where they are. He doesn’t have his eyes lost, but he is staring at them, making a great effort to do that action. He stops hugging his brother, who is crying a lot. - Sixer: look. - Stan points to his father. Ford instinctively follows the finger, and knows what to do. But he can’t. He seriously can't. -Stan, I don't ...- Ford mutters in a withered voice. But Stanley is the strongest brother of the two. He grabs his brother by the shoulders, and looks at him, straight in the eye. Brown eyes, full of life. -You have to go with him ... we’ve to be strong enough... for him. - Ford is undecided. It is very painful to want to see, to have to be there, when all he want is run away. But he acquires value, and agrees to go with his brother. Stanford may want to run away from the image that drills his mind. That between the first -be going with his evicted father -, and the second - leave -, the second comes first. Although, he can't be a coward. He can’t go from the fear that death produces. A tiny part of him is what convinced him to go: Fil may never have been an exemplary father, but he is his father. A dad there is only one in this life. And deep down, really deep down, Ford want it. Maybe that's what prompted Stan to convince him to go.

-Pa ... we're here.- Stan says when he arrives with Filbrick. The man lying on the floor looks at them. –Stanley ... – Filbrick cough. He covers his mouth. The result?: blood streaks in the hand. In the view of this, Roger looks at Caryn. A look that says a lot with not much: “he doesn't have much time. There’s nothing we can do for him. -You two… come’ere. - Filbrick says. They don’t disobey. Stanley takes his hand. How could he talk so badly about his father just a few hours ago? Filbrick makes every effort to speak to them. He looks at them in a very strange way: he looks at them with worry. That way of seeing his children for the last time is weird. –Caryn ... protect them for me. - He says, with heaviness in his voice, with pain. Caryn takes him by the other hand and puts it in her face. - Fil... don’t... - Caryn is starting to think that her husband is hallucinating. He may not have shown much love in all his years of marriage, but she is his wife. And he loves her. He looks at her with a smile, telling her with that gesture that he loves her with everything that he can be named. -Take care of them for me ... I beg that to you ... and I love you, Caryn." – Filbrick cough again. The people around depart, as the ambulance has just arrived to take Filbrick. But it’s too late.

Filbrick caresses Caryn, and she cries inconsolably. Suddenly, Fil looks at Ford. Ford, who has not left him, who always came beaten from school, who helped him in his pawn shop, who was somewhat withdrawn. Who was the almost ideal son. -Ford ... I want you to know that you’re amazing ... you surprise me every day with your achievements ... - He takes one of his hands, and open his fingers. -Let no one tell you ... you can't do something- Filbrick shows his fingers to his son, as a sign that he should be proud of his six fingers. “Don’t let yourself stop for nothing and no one.” –Don’t let that to affect you ... don’t stop for a jerk who tells you that you cannot... - Ford, who has not stopped crying, nods. -Yes-yes. Thank you.- says Ford. Only Stanley is left. Filbrick has been disappointed in his son for his little academic interest. By his attitude. His fierce way of being. -Stanley ... I want you to know that ... no matter what you have done ... I still have always loved you ...- Filbrick said. Stanley couldn't believe it. Start stuttering in surprise. His father was not expected to ever say that about him. He had come to think that he hated him for his hardness. -D-did you… ? - -Always.-

Filbrick was smiling. It was not a sarcastic or ironic smile: it’s an honest smile. He is already very weak, but he has the strength to do two things. Calls for his family to stay with him, to don’t leave him alone. They are in his visual field. That’s what Filbrick now wants to look at. He may have been shot down, but it seems that the pain is leaving his body. It is not that it goes suddenly, that it goes slowly, and it is a beautiful feeling. It’s like getting out of the flames and being in absolute peace, it’s as if death wasn’t something threatening, but an old friend who comes to give you her unconditional support . -B-be careful ... - The three look at him, completely confused. When they hear that, they said Filbrick thinks thieves are close to them. They expect what he will say next...

–Good luck… -

And now, a soul flutters. Maybe Filbrick Pines' soul is going to heaven, or he may discover that there is nothing, that there is none: that everything is over. Or that he admire the rarity of the universe, and cannot express WHAT it was that he looked at. Or that he be received to a great party, that a paradise is created to his size, that recarnates in another person or animal. Or that the last thing that he feel spread throughout the cosmos. May his conscience shift to the mind of Stanley and Ford, and he have to admire their lives until they die. Or that his life be repeated exactly the same, because the universe expands and contracts continuously . That he reincarnates in another person and has to live every single life of all beings on earth, experiencing every horror and every pleasure of every man, woman and child. And then, become in a higher being as relate Andy Weir in his history, The Egg. Who knows. Let’s wish the best of lucks to Filbrick Pines.

But while he was going straight to an uncertain destiny, his family was with his body. Alive. -Pa... Pa, answer me. - Stanley cried. Caryn looks away with sadness, shedding tears. He’s gone. Her husband is finally dead. And within Stanford's mind, an alarm signal went on. Stanley shakes his father to wake up. “- He’s not dead, please God, he can’t be dead ... –” Stanley says to himself, who is now going to start crying for real. -Stanley, there’s… nothing to do. He's… gone. - Says Caryn, who takes Stanley's shoulder. Although her words are realistic and try to assimilate his world in that way, she can’t. It’s a great weight that is impossible to carry on. The blood in her hands is already dry. Ford just looks at his father’s adjacent corpse. - No. - Ford says. Stanley and Caryn stare at him. –Stanford, he’s not alive. We can’t do something…- Caryn says. -You can't ... no ... I refuse to believe it. Pa... - Ford tries to see his father, shakes him, and moves him. But he does not react.

Stanford’s mind breaks apart. It slowly cracks like glass, and then explodes in a powerful way, destroying everything in its path. Cry loudly, while trying to hold back tears. He clung to his mother, who comforted him as best she could with caresses. Stan also protects him with a hug. The three cried, feeling desolate by the feelings of emptiness.

Ford woke up from his sleep. He feels a cold sweet in his body. He looks around: he’s at a certain height from the ground because it uses a bunk with Stanley. Then, Ford look at the clock: two-nine o'clock in the morning. He had the same nightmare. He has had it for three days, and he wasn’t able to sleep. –You were making noises. Is that dream again? - Stan asks: maybe he woke up for Ford. Stanford takes off the sheets on top. He doesn't want to talk much about his nightmares. He usually doesn’t like to talk to him about those topics. He has dull ideas; he doesn't know what to say or what to think. His eyes lie down in the dark reflecting. After two days of Filbrick’s death, Ford was desolate, in his inner world. He thought about his confused feelings. Anger, abandonment and sadness. He was thinking about the funeral, the tears of his grandfather and his uncle Marty. He remembered the black clothes, the gray sky. However, there was no rain. He recalled the condolences of the relatives. And he remembered the outburst of rage when they got home. He locked himself in his room. Ford saw his posters, his sci-fi-themed decoration.

He was making fun of his pain. It all started with a distant and not very audible laugh. Stanford couldn't understand it at first. He was alone. The only voices that should have been were outside, being from his family. But the voice was one he heard so recently. It was etched in his head. It began as an echo like from a cave, but increased to a powerful degree. It rumbled in his ears. It was a sly and shrill laugh. Stanford tried to cover his ears as best he can to mitigate those laughs. -Shut. Shut up, son of a bitch ... - Ford muttered under his breath. He saw his room again, and concluded the vile chuckle was caused by the posters, by the decoration. He approached one of these -which were the sign of a green alien with a bulky head and gigantic eyes. He started it gently, not very sure of his hypothesis. When he removed it, the laughters (which had now multiplied) became a little less noisy.

Ford's face darkened. The voice was of him: his father's murderer laughed uncontrollably at his broken feelings. Gradually his chest began to grow bigger when his breathing became more animalistic. Tears and slight mucous slipped. In a fit of rage, Stanford took another poster by its edges and pulled it violently. He broke in half, making a loud breaking noise. Ford had more fierce initiative and began to get rid of his decoration that took so much effort and dedication of time. With everything he took from his place, the murderer's voices became less audible. Ford muttered the following: “-I hate you, motherfucker! I hate you I hate you, you hideous monster! – ”. Stanford took care of getting rid of all those laugh amplifiers. I couldn't believe that he could go unpunished. He wanted that murder to pay the debt. It wasn’t justice. He could be somewhat hypocritical in that: now he appreciated his father? But he regretted with all his soul the rejection he felt about his father, meanwhile he’s noticing Filbrick is not anymore in his life. Now that he lost him, there was nothing left. He could say everything he wanted to. However, he loved him too deeply in his heart. Quickly, Ford went to the kitchen for a garbage bag: he, in those moments could barely hear the laughter. Although, Ford needed to make sure the laughs were not coming back.

Stan realized that something in his brother was weirder than usual. Although it had only been two days, Stanley noticed that Ford has been quite strange in his way of behaving. He followed him among the people at the funeral, who noticed his attempt to pass, and instantly felt sorry for him. For the children it had to have been a hard blow from now. –Hey. Do ‘ya find- Stan was going to ask in a more lively tone of voice, until he noticed the face of his twin: he was releasing fat tears, without wiping them off. The positive face he made was erased when he noticed the expression between anger and dejection from his brother. There was a hint of madness, mania. - ... well? - Stan managed to finish his question. Ford was firmly holding the door where the plastic bags were stored, which closed with some force. Without answering the question, Stanford retired rudely to his room. Stan followed him worried. Ford wanted to close the door securely, but before he could do anything, Stanley prevented him from doing so by setting foot and entering. He closed the door behind him, seeing with the characteristic horror of a child that a part of his most precious treasures was scattered on the floor. One or another of the posters was destroyed in half. A cup of a jelly man was broken into thousands of shatters, with his remains scattered on the floor. -What are you doing? - -Throwing all the garbage off. - Ford replies dryly. He shows that he isn’t kidding, when he will grab a poster and throw it away.

Stan rushes to snatch the poster from Ford, and puts it on as if it were a mask. With that gesture, try to deter Stanford in an animated way . -Are you crazy? Why are you going to throw Zording? - Ford doesn't react. -What happens, Ford: I'm not actual welcome in your mothership? - The six-finger boy doesn't pay much attention to his brother's attempts to get the truth out of him. He takes Zording and stores it in the garbage bag. He goes to the broken cup and throws it without looking. Stanford leaves his room, closing the bag. Stan follows him, down the stairs that lead to the pawn shop and then to the street. Ford stays near to the door, standing very still, with his hand on the doorknob. The burlesque sound was completely gone. Stanford didn’t turn back, even though he knew his twin was there, waiting for an answer. Stanford had a brief epiphany, a flash that indicated something: his mind was decomposing. He couldn’t find a better metaphor than that, since the brain can be considered as a great computer. In this situation, he realizes that he needs to meditate on his actions. There were never voices. His mind was playing a bad joke. He is ashamed to confess that he had a "tantrum."  To avoid having to tell the truth, Ford tries to lie: -I-I'm sorry ... I didn't know what I was doing. - Stan stares at him, being completely still. There was still a trace of anger in Stanford. - What happened? - Ford just stayed there for a few seconds, before sitting on the floor, and trying to hide his face so Stan wouldn't see him cry. Embarrassed, and not wanting Stanley to see him as a crybaby, he muttered: -Why dad, Stan? Why did they do that to him? Why he? - Now, in his tribulations, and after anger, all he has left is a great tide of doubt.

- I feel so strange, with all this. It isn’t fair that he killed my Pa. It’s not fair that the deceased, he have to still alive! - A wave of boredom crossed Ford's body. Stanley kept listening until he approached him and sat next to him. Stan put his hand on his brother's shoulder. - Hey, lil’ bro: I'm feeling as shitty as you. It's ... so ... - Stan made a huge figure with his empty hand. Stanford understood that as his way of saying that the whole situation was too heavier for him. That encouraged him to think that he wasn’t alone. -I don't know why or what happened... but there is something I’m completely sure of: those two are going to get caught, and they will go to jail. - With those words, although fanciful, they encouraged Stanford. He smiled, excited. – R-really? - Stanford asks who looked up. In response, Stanley shows him the palm of his hand. –High six? - With that gesture, Stan is assuring his twin that he’s not lying at all. Stanford smiles and raises his hand. –High six. - Both crashed their hands. Stan helped lift Ford off the ground. The two of them stayed a few seconds in the pawn shop, just at the right time to see the first rays of the sun: a little hope invaded them in those moments. A small glow filtered through the windows of the store.

Stanford finishes remembering that day with love. He whispers and looks at the floor: -Stan. - -Yeah? - He asks in a tired tone. -Could you ... sleep with me, just… for tonight? - A moment of silence. Ford feels ridiculous about such a childish request. Despite feeling a little better about his feelings, he’s still afraid of his own mind and his nightmares. He hears Stan moving, confirming that his brother agreed with the petition. Ford searches through the semi-darkness for the stairs that allow him to get off his bunk. Stan made it a space for Stanford to enter. The six-finger child is positioned. And fleetingly, Stan opens his eyes, and positions them on top of his watch, which indicates the time and date:

2:15 am Jun/15/2013.

That makes Stanley smile: now he and his brother are thirteen years old. He stares at the bunk, and falls asleep with a smile.

It's been a week since Filbrick died.

***

This is where the real story beggins. I wait you can enjoy it!  Salvete ignotum est a terra.

[dweemeister]

My alternative 91st Academy Awards

As always during 31 Days of Oscar, I partake in an annual fantasy. What would the Oscars look like if I stuffed the ballots - choosing every single nomination and choosing every single winner? It always would look a lot different. Fans of Black Panther and Bohemian Rhapsody and Vice? Come at me.

91st Academy Awards – February 24, 2019 Dolby Theatre – Hollywood, Los Angeles, California Host: None Broadcaster: ABC

Best Picture: ROMA

BlacKkKlansman, Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele, and Spike Lee (Focus)

Burning (KOR), Lee Joon-dong and Lee Chang-dong (Pinehouse Film/Now Film/NHK/CGV Arthouse/Well Go USA Entertainment)

Eighth Grade, Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, Lila Yacoub, and Christopher Storer (A24)

The Favourite, Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, and Yorgos Lanthimos (Fox Searchlight)

Mission: Impossible – Fallout, J.J. Abrams, Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, and Jake Myers (Paramount)

Roma (MEX), Alfonso Cuarón, Gabriela Rodriguez, and Nicolas Celis (Netflix)

Shoplifters (JPN), Matsuzaki Kaoru, Yose Akihiko, and Taguchi Hijiri (AOI Promotion/Fuji TV/GAGA/Magnolia Pictures)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Avi Arad, Ami Pascal, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Christina Steinberg (Columbia)

A Star Is Born, Bill Gerber, Jon Peters, Bradley Cooper, Todd Phillips, and Lynette Howell Taylor (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Warner Bros.)

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Morgan Neville, Caryn Capotosto, and Nicholas Ma (Focus)

Wholesale changes in this category compared to real life. The best three films of 2018, to me, were Burning, Roma, and Shoplifters -- none of these were in the English language. Films I tossed for Best Picture were Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book, and Vice. I don’t think any of those four films have any business being in this category. In their place are the likes of Eighth Grade, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, and one of the most technically marvelous action films in decades in Mission: Impossible -- Fallout. Yes, an M:I film (superb editing, setpieces, and audacious style that finally wakes the franchise up).

But I’m going for an unexciting pick according to some with Roma. To use an oxymoron, it is an intimate epic -- one crafted beautifully, daring to comment on relations between ethnicities and the sexes at a certain time in Mexico. 

Best Director

Lee Chang-dong, Burning

Alfonso Cuarón, Roma

Hirokazu Koreeda, Shoplifters

Christopher McQuarrie, Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Paul Schrader, First Reformed

If you’re scratching your head, yes... Paul Schrader was nominated for Director in my ceremony, but First Reformed is nowhere to be found in Picture. I tend to do this for one Best Director nominee every year.

Best Actor

Christian Bale, Vice

Ryan Gosling, First Man

Ethan Hawke, First Reformed

Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Yoo Ah-in, Burning

The real-life Best Actor category this year is the most dire slate in a while. So here is your palate cleanser. 

Best Actress

Yalitza Aparicio, Roma

Glenn Close, The Wife

Olivia Colman, The Favourite

Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade

Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born

It is not so much acting, as inhabiting. And, as a non-professional actress, Yalitza Aparicio has it. And I believe that, in my alternate Oscar universe (yes, I’ve drawn up and thought about it for many ceremonies past... I’ll reveal those some day), Aparicio would be the first indigenous woman to be awarded an acting Oscar.

Best Supporting Actor

Mahershala Ali, Green Book

Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Josh Hamilton, Eighth Grade

Tim Blake Nelson, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Steven Yeun, Burning

Ali is good, don’t get me wrong. But, compared to the movie Moonlight and his performance in it, it looks like he is about to get a second Oscar for a far worse movie and a lesser role. Ali is fourth or fifth in this lineup for me. Grant is fantastic in Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Best Supporting Actress

Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Emma Stone, The Favourite

Marina de Tavira, Roma

Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

Michelle Yeoh, Crazy Rich Asians

This comes down to the fact I couldn’t separate Stone and Weisz’s performances in their saucy movie. Nor could I find the argument to give de Tavira or Yeoh the Oscar. This is a bit of a default choice, I hate to say.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, and Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman

Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk

Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini, Leave No Trace

Spike Lee would have at least one or two Oscars in my alternative universe by this point! The difference between the screenplays for BlacKkKlansman and Can You Ever Forgive Me? is far slighter than you think.

Best Original Screenplay

Bo Burnham, Eighth Grade

Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, The Favourite

Paul Schrader, First Reformed

Alfonso Cuarón, Roma

Hirokazu Koreeda, Shoplifters

Not even a contest if you asked me. This category is something else if I consider The Favourite and Roma bringing up the rear. But Koreeda’s drama about a found family that does what they can to survive is the culmination of what he has done in his career thus far. This is his Oscar.

Best Animated Feature

Incredibles 2 (Pixar/Walt Disney)

Night is Short, Walk On Girl, Japan (GKIDS/Toho Company)

Ruben Brandt, Collector, Hungary (Mozinet/Sony Pictures Classics)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Columbia)

Tito and the Birds, Brazil (Bits Produções/Shout! Factory)

Longtime followers know that I have unorthodox opinions about animated features. The only Animated Feature Oscar I’ve handed to Pixar/Walt Disney Animation Studios since beginning this tradition in 2013 was for Inside Out. I thought Ralph Breaks the Internet was a painful addition to the Disney animated canon, so it is not here. Nor is Wes Anderson’s culturally insensitive Isle of Dogs or Mamoru Hosoda’s sloppy Mirai. At the end of the day? No boat-rocking this time, except in some of the other nominees.

Best Documentary Feature

Free Solo (National Geographic)

Hale County This Morning, This Evening (The Cinema Guild)

Minding the Gap (ITVS/Kartemquin Films/Hulu/Magnolia Pictures)

Three Identical Strangers (CNN/Channel 4/Neon)

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Focus)

Shoulda been nominated! Shoulda won! But in the spirit of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, these are all great documentaries. Minding the Gap is a close #2.

Best Foreign Language Film

Burning, South Korea

Capernaum, Lebanon

Cold War, Poland

Roma, Mexico

Shoplifters, Japan

Best Cinematography

Alfonso Cuarón, Roma

Caleb Deschanel, Never Look Away (GER)

Rob Hardy, Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Matthew Libatique, A Star Is Born

Łukasz Żal, Cold War

Best Film Editing

Barry Alexander Brown, BlacKkKlansman

Jay Cassidy, A Star Is Born

Tom Cross, First Man

Eddie Hamilton, Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Yorgos Mavropsaridis, The Favourite

Best Original Musical*

Julia Michels, A Star Is Born

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Mary Poppins Returns

Sia, Greg Kurstin, Scott Walker, and Margaret Yen, Vox Lux

*Best Original Musical – known previously as several other names – exists in the Academy’s rulebooks, but requires activation from the Academy’s music branch. To qualify, a film must have no fewer than five original songs. This category was last activated when Prince won for Purple Rain (1984).

Best Original Score

Michael Giacchino, Incredibles 2

Justin Hurwitz, First Man

John Powell, Solo

Alan Silvestri, Ready Player One

Brian Tyler, Crazy Rich Asians

The Star Wars universe is in good musical hands when John Williams leaves after Episode IX!

Best Original Song

“All the Stars”, music by Kendrick Lamar, Sounwave, and Anthony Tiffith, lyrics by Lamar, SZA, and Tiffith, Black Panther

“Nowhere to Go but Up”, music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Mary Poppins Returns

“The Place Where Lost Things Go”, music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Mary Poppins Returns

“Shallow”, music and lyrics by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt, A Star Is Born

“When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings”, music and lyrics by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Best Costume Design

Alexander Byrne, Mary Queen of Scots

Ruth E. Carter, Black Panther

Sandy Powell, The Favourite

Sandy Powell, Mary Poppins Returns

Mary E. Vogt, Crazy Rich Asians

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Cindy Harlow and Camille Friend, Black Panther

Göran Lundström and Pamela Goldammer, Border (SWE)

Jenny Shircore, Marc Pilcher, and Jessica Brooks, Mary Queen of Scots

Amanda Knight and Lisa Tomblin, Solo

Greg Cannom, Kate Biscoe, and Patricia Dehaney, Vice

Best Production Design

Hannah Beachler, Black Panther

Nelson Coates, Crazy Rich Asians

Fiona Crombie, The Favourite

Nathan Crowley, First Man

John Myhre, Mary Poppins Returns

Best Sound Editing

Benjamin A. Burt and Steve Boeddeker, Black Panther

Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan, First Man

James Mather, Victoria Freund, and Nina Norek, Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl, A Quiet Place

Richard Hymns, Gary Rydstrom, Cameron Barker, and Doug Winningham, Ready Player One

Best Sound Mixing

John Casali, Paul Massey, Tim Cavagin, and Niv Adiri, Bohemian Rhapsody

Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Ai-Ling Lee and Mary H. Ellis, First Man

Chris Munro, Paul Munro, Lloyd Dudley, and Mark Timms, Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Michael Barosky, Brandon Proctor, and Michael Barry, A Quiet Place

Tom Ozanich, Dean Zupancic, Jason Ruder and Steve Morrow, A Star Is Born

Best Visual Effects

Daniel DeLeeuw, Jen Underdahl, Kelly Port, Matt Aitken, Dan Sudick, Avengers: Infinity War

Christopher Lawrence, Michael Eames, Theo Jones, and Chris Corbould, Christopher Robin

Paul Lambert, Ian Hunter, Tristan Myles, and J. D. Schwalm, First Man

Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Matthew E. Butler, and David Shirk, Ready Player One

Rob Bredow, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan, and Dominic Tuohy, Solo

Best Documentary Short

Black Sheep (Lightbox Entertainment/The Guardian)

End Game (Netflix)

Lifeboat (Spin Film/RYOT Films)

A Night at the Garden (Field of Vision)

Period. End of Sentence. (Guneet Monga)

My omnibus review of this year’s nominees is coming soon (check this space later).

Best Live Action Short

Detainment (Twelve Media)

Fauve, Canada (H264 Distribution)

Marguerite, Canada (H264 Distribution)

Mother, Spain (Apache Films/Caballo Films/Malvalanda)

Skin (New Native Pictures/Salaud Morisset)

My omnibus review of this year’s nominees is coming soon (check this space later).

Best Animated Short

Animal Behaviour (National Film Board of Canada)

Bao (Pixar/Walt Disney)

Late Afternoon (Cartoon Saloon)

One Small Step (Taiko Studios)

Weekends (Past Lives Productions)

My omnibus review of this year’s nominees can be read here.

Academy Honorary Awards: Cicely Tyson, Lalo Schifrin, and Marvin Levy

Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award: Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall

MULTIPLE NOMINEES (24) Eight: The Favourite; Roma Seven: First Man; A Star Is Born Six: Mission: Impossible – Fallout Five: Black Panther; Burning; Mary Poppins Returns Four: Crazy Rich Asians; Eighth Grade; Shoplifters Three: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs; BlacKkKlansman; First Reformed; Ready Player One, Solo Two: Bohemian Rhapsody; If Beale Street Could Talk; Incredibles 2; Mary Queen of Scots; A Quiet Place; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; Vice; Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

WINNERS 4 wins: Roma 2 wins: First Man; Mary Poppins Returns 1 win: BlacKkKlansman; Black Panther; Border; Can You Ever Forgive Me?; Cold War; Crazy Rich Asians; First Reformed; If Beale Street Could Talk; Marguerite; Mission: Impossible – Fallout; Shoplifters; Solo; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; A Star Is Born; Weekends; Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

19 winners from 25 categories. 39 feature-length films and 15 short films were represented.

[hgdlawfirm]

Lew Garrison Named to Plaintiff’s Steering Committee in Bard Hernia Mesh Multi-District Litigation

Providence, Rhode Island Bristol County Superior Court

May 22, 2018:  Lew Garrison, Heninger Garrison Davis founding partner, was just named to the Plaintiff’s MDL Steering Committee in the Bard Hernia Mesh multi-case-management filed in Providence, Rhode Island. Appointed by the Plaintiffs’ Lead Counsel, the notice to the court described the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee as follows:

“The PSC selected includes a robust group of attorneys and their respective firms, who are willing and able to commit the time, resources, and effort required to advance this litigation expeditiously. The attorneys on the PSC have a wealth of relevant experience and knowledge of the claims and issues in this litigation. Without exception, each counsel on the PSC has extensive experience in complex product liability or pharmaceutical mass tort litigation. Also included are counsel who have acted in leadership roles in other major complex litigations. By including counsel with such impressive credentials and backgrounds, Plaintiffs will be equipped to efficiently and effectively prosecute this litigation.”

In addition to Lew Garrison, HGD attorneys Bill Bross and Taylor Bartlett are working on the Bard Hernia Mesh MDL.

The following attorneys have also been selected to the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee:

Robert J. Binstock (Reich & Binstock LLP, Houston, TX),

Riley L. Burnett, Jr. (Burnett Law Firm, Houston, TX)

Mike Daly (Pogust Braslow & Millrood LLC, Conshohocken, PA)

Kimberly A. Dougherty (Andrus Wagstaff, South Easton, MA)

W. Lewis Garrison (Heninger Garrison Davis, LLC, Birmingham, AL)

Lisa Ann Gorche (Johnson Becker PLLC, Saint Paul, MN)

D. Todd Mathews (Gori Julian & Associates P.C., St. Louis, MO)

Matthew McCarley

Melissa H. Nafash (The Lanier Law Firm PLLC, New York, NY)

Caryn Papantonakis (Johnson Law Group, Houston, TX)

David L. Selby, II (Bailey & Glasser LLP, Birmingham, AL)

Raymond C. Silverman (Parker Waichman LLP, New York, NY)

For more information on the Bard Hernia Mesh Multi-District Litigation, click here.

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