#gfposting

[abyssalzones]

the implication that bill can still see through the eyes of everyone he's ever possessed when he wants to is pretty funny because you know it's just going to make him mad as fuck to see ford living his best life

[you-dance-with-the-skeleton]

Me: I think I’m so viscerally uncomfortable with people acknowledging that Stanley might be as intelligent/more intelligent in some ways than Stanford because it makes Stanford so replaceable. I mean, Stanley is worth so much. The twins adore him. He’s so lovable and good to others. He’s charismatic, resourceful, scrappy, a wonderful parental figure, a truly driven person who could overcome anything if he had a reason to, and his positive traits vastly outweigh his flaws. Ford deserves his one thing. Stanley also having that one thing makes Ford obsolete.

The otherworldly therapist over my shoulder: Do you think that Stanford’s *only* good quality is his intelligence? Do you believe that if he wasn’t the smartest person in the room, he’d be entirely worthless?

Me, visibly sweating: Well, a bit? Yes? He has other qualities, sure, but none of them are nearly as valuable. None of them make him stand out as a person, or would allow him to compete with others. Anyone else could have those traits.

Therapist, reflecting my own face back to me: What about his creativity? His ability to tell stories? His art? His loyalty to those he trusts? His intuition? The care he also shows to his family? His survival skills? His own ability to endure hardship? Are those not worth appreciation?

Me, slapping at the spectral projection like a swarm of flies: Like I said, those are good qualities, but they’re also ones he shares. You could find a hundred people who could be as creative, or as enduring, or as loving, or anything else.

Therapist, reforming into a sentient cloud of mist: Why does he have to compete? Everyone has unique traits, yes, but everyone shares their traits too. You couldn’t name me a single trait that Stanley has that no one else in the cast also displays. Why hold Stanford to that standard and no one else?

Me:

Therapist: Do *you* believe that without your intelligence, you’d become replaceable?

Me:

Therapist: Failure has to be acceptable. As uncomfortable as that is, it just has to be. Your loved ones should value you regardless.

Me:

Therapist: Can you imagine Mabel or Stan or Dipper abandoning Ford just because he got something wrong? No. He gets many things wrong. So do you. You won’t be left behind either.

Me:

Therapist: The promise of knowing the answer every single time is always going to be a lie. That’s the point. You fell for it. You need to unlearn that, because it never ends well.

Me: … Can we go back to talking about toxic old man yaoi?

Therapist: yea sure.

[sadisticfervor]

Check RBs 😘

Her noises are cute <3

[mirrorrorror]

she thinks she so funny (and she's right).

[certifieddudette]

🫵🐭

[radfem-anya]

i love dating an intelligent woman who reads.... like yes girl increase that social and literary awareness... i see you...

[the-weyr]

i miss herrrrrrrr (she’s gone for 5 minutes)

[echinoamy]

Would you lady and the tramp a pickle with me? Tranny style?

[boyfeminism]

fiance and i passed out basically right after getting home (weve not been getting nearly enough sleep lately) but i'll reply to everyone when im more awake youre all very sweet (: a garden weve been to a few times was having a light festival thing like a lot of zoos do and we went with some friends and one of them very sweetly hired their photographer friend (told ME it was a favor so i wouldnt try to pay them for it) and im so very excited to get the pictures. they looked really beautiful in the silly little lights and im really really happy (:

[dragxnfruiit]

*frothing at the mouth* GIRLFRIENDGIRLFRIENDGIRLFRIEND

@sarahbobarasuzannah

[abyssalzones]

can you tell us about your interpretation of the better world universe!!!! especially curious how stan/mystery trio works into it

hell yesssss I definitely can. ABW is maybe my favorite niche gf thing and probably the only "AU" I care about but that may be due to the fact that it's an AU that exists in the canon and we know so little about it. so it has an established foundation that you're left to fill in the details with yourself... it's like a poke bowl to me. you can put anything in there

and since I felt like it here's a bonus pic of them living their best lives pestering ford

[explanation-y stuff under ze cut because I got very longwinded]

as for specifics of how I see everything working out, there's a few key points that establish why things happened differently from canon, the most important being:

Stan agrees to hide journal #3 somewhere

Ford reunites with fiddleford and they begin working together again

both of these are already confirmed in canon, the first being the most obvious "schism" between timelines. literally everything in ABW is the way it is because stan made a different decision. kind of crazy in terms of its implications: I feel like that moment in the basement is a really good example of how stan gets so few opportunities to shape her own life (while ford is in the picture...) because of her role as the 'black sheep' twin. it's not exactly a premeditated decision to push ford into the portal, it's her acting on feelings that have been bubbling unaddressed under the surface for 10-something years at that point, and only then does she have any sort of power over the "narrative" of both her life and the story itself, something that from her pov has been ford's story. and in the canon timeline, she says no.

so like, what the hell made her say yes in ABW's timeline? this question kind of haunts me because I feel like it has to be entirely dependent on what the inside of stan's head looked like at the time. it's possible something influenced her, but overall I think it's more interesting if ford did and said all the exact same things up until this point and it really was entirely dependent on stan's decision internally.

so stan says yes, goes on a big trip to the other side of the world somehow, and buries journal 3 somewhere probably never to be found again. yay! but, uh, going on a trip like ford was suggesting would... take weeks. that would leave ford alone again. and not to have my established thoughts informed by new material or anything but bill did give him 72 hours.

so, next order of business: how in the fuck would ford convince fiddleford to rejoin him??? I'm unsure between journal 3 and tbob's information how ford may have tried to reach out to him but it seems like fiddleford was pretty adamant about staying away from that guy, out of guilt or fear of bill/the portal or both. I don't think logically it would just be a matter of ford calling him enough times or finding out where he lives- and I think that's kind of getting away from the point of why ABW is the way it is too. if stan is suddenly making decisions that are influencing ford's life, I think it would be similarly interesting if fiddleford also possessed some unique autonomy in this scenario.

aka I think ford got fucked up badly (possibly involving losing an eye) and fiddleford found him half-dead while trying to burn his house down. [mabel voice] romance!

to clarify: I don't think fiddleford is obligated to take care of ford. a major part of him leaving the project was finally making the decision to leave a situation that was hurting him, that he'd been staying in entirely because he still cared about ford and felt on some level he could still help him (which gets broken with "I don't need you!") and I think that's a very reasonable decision on his part. but I also do have to think about all the times ford has been "the hero" in situations where fiddleford ends up hurt and helpless because of something traumatizing. I think it'd be fascinating to see that reversed and have fiddleford actively making the difficult, messy decision to take care of that guy even when they're on miserable terms. and so begins like a solid week of these two desperately trying to look out for eachother in a nightmare scenario where one of them probably needs to go to a hospital + keeps getting possessed off and on and the other is going through the worst addiction/withdrawal cycle of his life irt the memory gun. yay! (part of the reason this even works To Me also is heavily informed by the lack of secrets: if fiddleford is actively dressing that guy's wounds he can't really keep it all to himself anymore. crushingly intimate perhaps...)

stan gets back eventually. such is the context of this pic

from there it's a nebulous grab-bag of things I think could happen up to the foundation of the institute.

how do all three of these incredibly fucked up individuals get along? well they don't but then they do.

how do they get bill out of ford's head without performing amateur brain surgery? idk. my best guess is a fiddleford and stan bonding trip into ford's mindscape that potentially helps answer the first question. possibly utilizing the memory gun. shrugs.

what's up with that one picture you drew of parallel fidds holding the memory gun up to ford's head? well. okay that one might or might not be something that actually happened but the idea was just that ford is coping badly with a few specific things and I liked the idea of fiddleford "holding onto" something for him to remember and work through later when he's ready to deal with it, it's an interesting reversal of how he's normally more of a memory sink.

from the point in canon about them stabilizing the portal so that bill can't use it to get into their dimension anymore onward, I think it just becomes a matter of them living the lives they could've always had in canon without realizing it. hence "a better world." some cool tidbits I like to think about:

stan gets to transition much earlier (late 1990's perhaps?) and probably starts going by "lee" instead

she's also the institute's CMO and is mostly in it for going on business trips abroad with ford. and the money. obviously.

the institute probably also legitimately changes the world on a sociopolitical scale outside of just interdimensional travel since their research renders them uniquely untouchable and all three of them are trans (I'm cartoon logic-ing a little bit here just let me have this one)

ford is the eccentric bill nye esque face of the company, fiddleford is the backbone. that isn't to say ford doesn't do anything as I think he'd always moreso be in it for the science than the fame (though it is nice to be more than comfortable financially) but it's an open secret fiddleford keeps tabs on literally everything, he's still very security-oriented.

the northwest family now has a more prominent ongoing rivalry with the pines family that could be very funny to think about. they've taken all the LOGGING JOBS with their damn SCIENCE

part of the reason I thought ford should lose an eye is because I think having him wear an eyepatch would be a neat way to parallel stan's "role" as mr. mystery visually! stan wears an eyepatch for no legitimate reason to keep up appearances as a schlocky tourist trap host, but it also alludes to her being more than she seems under the surface. ford's eyepatch does sort of have a legitimate reason to exist, but he also could just wear his glass eye and it would probably be less "conspicuous." he chooses the eyepatch instead because it's part of his image as Stanford Pines, Founder of Oddology, and because it keeps him safe. there's also a little residual scarring there from damage to his eyelid/tarsal plate which could easily represent him hiding the more "damaged" aspects of himself under his successes. ouch.

I'm unsure if ford and stan would ever feel comfortable getting back in touch with their parents. I know a lot of people go that route with fan material but I don't think they should have to. I think they're much happier now having healed the rift between them on their own and getting to live successful lives for themselves, rather than to prove something to their father.

that being said I do think fiddleford gets in touch with emma-may and his son again and they end up on better terms with time and a Lot of effort. tate's family is now composed of his father, mother, "uncle" ford (in the ye olde gay closeted sense of referring to your dad's partner as an uncle), and auntie lee, and I like to think they go out on trips to the lake together often :]

also ford and fiddleford tie the knot unofficially (in the eyes of the government anyway) in 1990. owed to stan somehow getting "ordained" as a rabbi. don't ask me how.

the pines twins start visiting the institute from a younger age than they do irt visiting stan in the show-- but they're only permitted to come along on heavily-supervised interdimensional excursions once they turn 12. cue antics!

anyway, hopefully this extremely longwinded and loosely structured mess helped answer your question. I like ABW sooo so so much you guys

[kiburebuc]

here's the screenshot i took when you were dying from a zombie while i had absolutely no idea <3 sldkjfsdklfjlj i love youuuuu <333

sbsbshshah, this is now a crime scene photo, for evidence.... i am grateful it was so pretty when i died <3

[regina-bithyniae]

B: "you always compare China and Canada to say how much better everything is there. What things here are better to stop you going back?"

G: "well the cities are nicer there, food is better, delivery is cheaper, the apps are better, transit is better, cars are better, medical care is better, post partum care is better (they cook for you), there's less crime, and none of them*"

B: "and in Canada?"

G: "I guess you make more money. And work less hours."

B: "do you know the saying, 'damned by faint praise'?"

*Indians

[real-hottopic]

Me and @definitely-real-dc r at the mall and bough this for $6

[canis-goofus]

my muse. aaahhh

[lightningcrashes]

its genuinely so stupid that whenever my gf takes her glasses off i like genuinely stop breathing. her eyes are so big and brown it makes me want to vomit.