#reflection of the big dipper

[padmerry]

Ford’s love for & view of Stan pre-memory erasing: a lengthy analysis

A big misunderstanding going on in this fandom is the idea that Stan was the one yearning for Ford while Ford was too busy hating Stan (at worst) or at least thinking he hated Stan (at best), too focused on his research and academic accomplishments to pay his repressed/heavily denied love for Stan any mind, up until Stan’s sacrifice in Weirdmageddon. Ambitious, self-centered Ford, who would be shocked at the preposterous idea that he still loved Stan deep down if, say, his post-Weirdmageddon future self revealed it to him. “I thought I hated you, but I was wrong,” old Ford says to Stan, remorseful... and painfully out-of-character!

Another very popular idea is that Ford genuinely values the greater good over Stan, to the point he wouldn’t have rescued Stan if their positions were reversed. This idea is so rooted in people’s minds that when Ford’s most dedicated fans attempt to defend him, they argue that he was right to be angry about being rescued from the portal because Stan was acting irresponsibly (as if Ford wouldn’t have done the same thing). This is not about anyone in particular—it’s a tendency I’ve seen repeated again and again and again, in different ages of this fandom.

The gap between Stan needing Ford vs Ford needing Stan is so big in some people’s minds that they seem to think that poor, guilty Ford ending up with Stan all alone on a boat wasn’t the best ending for him. That was just Alex trying to make a point about “family above all” in a show about family, teaching Ford a lesson, and rewarding Stan’s unhealthy codependency...

It’s just incredible how Ford’s own love and yearning towards Stan is shoved under the rug by the fans!

I understand why, of course. Ford is arguably the most complex character in Gravity Falls. His love for Stan is shown more subtly than Stan’s love for him. You have to actually pay close attention, and often enough people aren’t invested enough in the Stan twins’ relationship to do so. Sometimes because they’re more invested in the relationship of Stan and/or Ford with other characters, and this is not throwing shade, either—on my part, I can admit I am so invested in them that I don’t care as much for other characters, and that’s natural.

My most controversial takes here are: 1) Ford has always known he loved Stan. Yes, even at his most bitter. He just didn’t think Stan was worthy of that love. 2) Ford valued his family, including Stan, over any noble ideal of greater good. 3) Ford missed Stan and yearned for his company just as much as Stan missed Ford and yearned for his company. I have dedicated this particular meta to pointing out not all moments (that would make it longer than Tolstoy’s War and Peace, just by the amount of times Ford mentions Stan in his journal) but the most telling ones re: Ford’s repressed but obvious love for Stan and their implications. I’ll break it into a few different subjects that I believe drive my point across.

Ford’s sentimentality over Stan:

A good place to start as any. Stan is in literally everything Ford does, sometimes in ways so subtle that people miss it, and in ways that Ford himself would love to deny, even if it meant lying to himself. Ford is very, very sentimental, and that is reflected in his relationship with Stan through the decades, with all the different paths he takes to cling to his past and the idea of his brother.

Let’s explore some examples, shall we? We don’t need to go far.

First of all, the Mystery Shack cottage, commissioned by Ford and built by Dan Corduroy according to Journal 3, is clearly based off a childhood toy he shared with Stan.

It doesn’t stop there, of course. Ford loves his boat motif decorations. (At least the boat on top of the shelf is very likely Ford’s choice of décor, and not Stan’s, given that it’s placed beside Ford’s shrunken heads referenced in Journal 3; we know that the boat painting belongs to one of the Stan twins and not Dipper, since it was already there in Tourist Trapped as Dipper arrives. I think it’s fair to assume, given the boat on top of the shelf, that it was also Ford’s.)

And would you look at that, his favorite place in his beloved Gravity Falls, a town full of wondrous places full of fantastical anomalies and literally a weirdness magnet, is, for some reason, a lake. A very weird lake? A very cool lake? No, a lake that reminded him of his childhood, aka Stan (as seen by the drawing of a boat and the codified message). “There is no other place in Gravity Falls I would rather be than the lake.”

But that isn’t enough for Ford. He must keep, still, pictures and videos of Stan. I won’t even focus, here, on the picture of the Pines family that Ford stares at in the beginning of his college days, despite Stan and Ford being at the very center of it and it being a visual parallel to Stan’s own picture of him and his brother. That one included Filbrick and Caryn, and the speaker had just mentioned making one’s family proud. But what about the rest?

People usually focus on the overall adorableness of, say, Ford leaning his head on Stan’s shoulders or Ford’s apologies (again, in Journal 3) to notice the implications of what Dipper says: “Ford even found an old film reel of them as kids, which he amazingly saved all these years.” Even Dipper himself is amazed. I’ve seen people assuming that Ford had these and forgot about them, or that Caryn was the one to send him these and he simply agreed to avoid a fight (there is a tendency in this fandom to think of her as a very doting and/or caring mother, but we have no evidence to think so, as explained here). Years later, TBoB was like, “nuh-uh, that was all Ford Pines!” In TBoB, Ford not only does remember some of these itens, but he makes a conscious effort to hide them from Fiddleford, worried that his friend was getting “too close” (to what? to the inner depths of his heart and mind, where Stanley was?) “I’ve quickly re-hidden here, away from prying eyes.”

And a picture of teenage Stan (as seen below), too! You would think he would just attach himself to the idealized version of baby Stan in his head to feed his nostalgia and completely ignore teenage Stan, the traitor, the one who destroyed his science project. But no, Ford wouldn’t be Ford if he acted consistently about Stan. The funniest thing to me about the ripped yearbook page is that it implies Ford made the conscious decision to include Stan as he ripped the page off, when he could have just focused on his own picture. And then we also have his drawing of Stan, a perfectly accurate portrayal of Stan’s face as he got kicked out, implying that not only he paid an enormous amount of attention to his brother and how he looked like back then (after he closed the curtains), but that particular image was living rent free in his brain. Very vividly. With details.

Now, folks, do we have any doubt whatsoever of the power Stan had in Ford’s psyche? Seeing that this is how the bedrock of Ford’s mind looked like? The boat, the swing set? I’ve seen it suggested before that these items represent Ford’s greatest regrets—I don’t know if I fully agree with that take, seeing as the swing set is fully intact, unlike in Stan’s mind, but one thing is true: they represent what Ford deep down thinks is most important, and two of three are directly related to Stan. Even the portal, from a certain angle, is connected to Stan.

Now, another thing that I believe to be related to that, is the claim that Ford didn’t spare Stan a single tought in the many decades they went separated. But here is Ford, casually confessing that he spent the last thirty years thinking of Stan:

But back to pictures. According to Alex in the commentary of Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls, that picture of Stan has always been in Ford’s coat pocket, through all the decades, even before Bill’s betrayal. That’s why it’s so damaged. He was dimension hopping with it. I don’t think I even need to make any comment here, hahah.

I almost imagine if McGucket found that photo in his, you know, coat while they’re working on the portal or something... [imitating Fiddleford’s creaky voice] “What’s this? What’s this here?” And Ford says, [imitating Ford’s deep, very serious voice] “OH, yes. That’s a very important moment, that’s when I, um, first decided I wanted to be an adventurer.” [...] There would be NO reference to... the real reason he’s keeping it [...]. “Oh yes, this is about, uh, science, as a horizon, as a frontier to reach towards. You know, like a boat, like a ship, like science. It’s about SCIENCE!”

Ford’s protectiveness:

Stan Pines is very much ones of Ford’s weaknesses. Ford knows this and accepts this with shocking ease. How so? Well, first of all, the nightmare he had. As he tells us about it in Journal 3, even though he attempts to make light of the situation, his hand is clearly trembling as he writes, making drops of ink splatter on the page. The climax of his nightmare, the peak, the scariest moment was when Ford realized he was not the one at risk; rather, Stan was. “I realized my hand wasn’t chasing after me at all—it was chasing after my brother, and it was going to squeeze him to death!”And then, may it be noticed, there was no hesitation whatsoever on Ford’s part about whether to save Stan or not, nor does he try to hide his protective reaction. It was immediate and instinctive. “I tried to run to help him, but my feet were frozen.” It’s very telling that the Dream Hipster, the nightmare inducing ghost, thought that Stanley Pines would be the most effective thing to make Ford shake in his boots. Not even, say, failing and being ridiculed by other scientists, considering how ambitious he was.

And you know who else has noticed this weakness? Bill Cipher, of course. After psychologically, emotionally, and physically abusing Ford in horrific manners (including but not limited to: forcing him to eat spiders, driving a nail into his hand, and making him wake up on the snowy roof of the Mystery Shack as a symbolic threat of forced suicide), Bill involves Stan, as the grand finale. “But then he crossed a line.” Why was Ford’s brother that line, after everything Ford himself went through? “No. He wouldn’t.” Ford couldn’t even believe Bill’s audacity in involving Stan, even though he very much already knew Bill was as evil as evil could get. Because Bill knew, having free access to Ford’s mind, how terribly important Stan was: the person Ford loved the most in the world, more than himself.

You could still argue, then, that Ford wasn’t very protective of homeless Stan. After all, how could he have allowed his brother to be homeless in the first place?

Simple: he didn’t know. There’s a lot of things about mullet!Stan that Ford didn’t know! From canon, namely TBoB and Journal 3, we can deduce that Ford didn’t think of him as homeless, thought he was doing well for himself, living a well traveled charlatan/adventurer’s life, perhaps even a friend/member of the mob:

As Stan was kicked out, he told Ford (and the rest of the family), “Fine! I can make it on my own! I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone! I’ll make millions and you’ll rue the day you turned your back on me!” The way I see it, Ford took that at face value. Stan didn’t seek Ford out in those ten years, either, presumably out of a mix of pride, shame and self-hatred, so Ford could only assume Stan truly didn’t need him. Despite the many, many crossed out mentions of Stan in Journal 3, I think Ford at least tried to not let his mind linger on thoughts about Stan too much, because that hurt.

In his most recent interview, by HanaHyperfixates and ThatGFFan in 2023/2024, Alex talked about Ford’s issues:

He’s aloof, and distant, and he’s too perfect. And it’s like, “oh! I think he’s also aloof and distant from himself.”

I think he is, uh, deeply deeply hiding from his real feelings about things, because at some point early on, he decided that he could run from hurt by achievement and by creation, and has dug that hole so deep that he has no relationships.

If he sees achievement and creation as distractions from his real feelings, no wonder Stan didn’t get a call (or a postcard) from him earlier.

We also have Ford’s condescending, but protective, attitude towards Stan in TBoB as he considers asking for his help. Condescending protectiveness, if you will:

Notice how Ford briefly looks at Stan when Stan rants about his life:

A very ☹️ face. He’s probably surprised and concerned about what he’s hearing.

And then Stan, unfortunately but understandably, starts insulting/accusing him of selfishness:

You can notice the ☹️ face slowly becoming 😠 as Stan started attacking.

Again, when Ford accidentally hurts Stan by branding him:

That’s not even ☹️ anymore, it’s almost 😩! Things would probably have deescalated and perhaps even been fixed if Stan, unfortunately but understandably, hadn’t punched Ford in the face as retaliation.

“Oh, but what about old Ford kicking Stan out after everything, then?”

I think a lot of people who talk about this moment operate under the assumption that Stan was, well, completely and thoroughly screwed if Ford followed with his original man. An old man, no place to go, no money...

But Stan did have money. A lot.

No, really, he had, per his own words, in the extra commentary of Land Before Swine:

I do have a son, Benjamin Abe Hamilton Washington. This pile of money I’ve collected over the years! That’s my true family. Y’know, I can sorta glue it together into the shape of a child, maybe… Eh, I dunno. I do my best, right? And I do have—I do actually—not to brag, but I have an obscene amount of money. Uh, y’know, all the years of collecting and etcetera—and also grifting!

I’m not defending Ford’s actions here. Ford is my favorite character, but I’m not a Ford defender, hahah. You could still argue that what he did was an ungrateful, jerky move, and I would agree. I’m just against painting it as a “Ford doesn’t care at all about Stan’s safety” moment. Especially because, when Ford told Stan he wanted his house back, sufficient time had already passed. Enough for Ford to change his clothes, visibly, and enough for them to have had a talk, in which Stan could have revealed this little fact about himself.

Another thing I’d like to address is that Ford doesn’t hesitate at all to save Stan when he gets into trouble and acts natural about it, which is way more that we can say for Stan (as seen by how Stan reacts when Ford is kidnapped by Probabilitor the Annoying and when Ford is turned into a golden statue by Bill):

Again, not saying that Stan wasn’t justified in not wanting to help/save Ford after Ford’s blatant ungratefulness (I’m also sure he didn’t know Bill was actually torturing Ford). Not the point.

Now, back to Bill.

What I always loved about his little victory moment in Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls is that upon surprising his enemies with his appearance, he proceeds to turn everyone into tapestry, including even Fiddleford (whom we know Ford cares a lot about!) but forces himself to spare Stan and the kids and place them inside the cages, even though they didn’t know the equation and would have zero usefulness to him. That could only be because he thought he could use them against Ford, so Stan was obviously included (instead of turned into tapestry or outright killed) for that very purpose. From a Doylist perspective, of course they couldn’t have excluded Stan, since he was one of the main characters; for the sake of character analysis, though, this is the best explanation in-universe.

That is why, when Stan-as-Ford tells Bill, “My only condition is that you let my brother and the kids go!” Bill easily believes him. Because he thought that it would be in-character for Ford. And Bill wouldn’t be wrong, not at all. He wouldn’t, because Ford himself was the one to tell Stan, just a moment earlier: “We need to take his deal. It’s the only way he’ll agree to save you and the kids.” It’s blaffling to me how many fans seem to forget Ford’s own words, and the fact Ford was very, very much willing to damn the whole universe (with seven billion people living on Earth at the time) to save three (3) people, including Stan. That Stan himself was the one to oppose and stop him. I think that happens because people buy Ford’s facade of Cold Responsible Greater Good Guy, which couldn’t be more deceiving. At this point I’m begging you guys to look deeper!

One common misconception about Ford’s character—not only Ford, but many, many fictional characters I have had the pleasure of considering blorbos—is that people take his facade at face value and judge him based off that. You’re falling for his bullshit. You’re looking at Ford and seeing exactly the man he wants you to see, instead of the man he is.

Ford demonstrated being hypocritical many, many times through the show, the comics, his journal, and even TBoB. I would go so far as to say it’s a Known Personality Trait of his. He chews Stan’s ass for being selfish, reckless, a criminal. Then proceeds to be: selfish and completely unaware of it, ten times more reckless, and a much more dangerous kind of criminal. He reproaches Stan for risking the world for only one person, but would have done the same thing.

Now, the last point of this particular subject: Ford and the erasing of Stan’s memories, which is sometimes interpreted as Ford prioritizing the greater good, or the kids’ safety, over Stan.

Dear reader, Ford erased Stan’s memories because he had literally no other choice. This is what Ford said to him: “He’ll be able to take over the galaxy and maybe even worse, but at least he might let the kids free.” Emphasis on the might, here. Might! Perhaps! Maybe! Perchance! Ford, in this line, was referring to Bill’s immediate threat to the kids’ lives—Bill had, after all, ran after Dipper and Mabel with a terrifying threat of disassembling their molecules as their grunkles were forced to watch inside their cage, powerless to stop him. After reflecting about their whole situation, he included Stan’s safety in the deal, too, now more certain than ever about his decision to sacrifice not only himself but, in his own words, “the galaxy” (and later, “the universe,” as he was pretending to be Stan) to, again, perhaps (!!!) save his family. Ford had literally no guarantee Bill would follow through with his words. Given Bill’s track record, it was way, way more likely that he wouldn’t. Bill is a liar and a manipulator through and through, one who takes great enjoyment in people’s suffering. Ford’s suffering, specifically, above all, since TBoB painted Bill as this toxic and possessive ex obsessed with his pet scientist. What were the chances?

Even if Bill, through some miracle, did end up keeping his word, we saw Bill’s plans for Earth in his daydream fantasies: taking a bite off the planet, drawing a smiley face on its surface as millions died... What a guy, that Bill! If the Earth was wrecked beyond repair, where would Stan and the kids live? How would they survive among all the chaos and destruction of the literal apocalypse? With nightmarish creatures lurking in every corner? With what food, what water, what shelter? Answer: they likely wouldn’t. The probability of human survival would be abysmally low.

Ford, tragically, had no other choice but to sacrifice Stan’s memories. It was that or risking the possibility of having to watch his family, including Stan, die horribly painful deaths at Bill’s sadistic hands or to condemn his family, including Stan, to a slower but still certain death after the entire human race perished.

Ford being aware of his love for Stan:

I have faith that most people already knew, to some extent, that Ford never stopped loving Stan, even at his angriest. A much lower percentage of these people, I believe, know that Ford himself was very much aware of that, and not in denial at all. He never even thought he hated Stan.

First, I choose to point out how young adult Ford, still in college, with his bitterness and resentment still very fresh, admits to missing Stan. He wrote, “MISS YOU” in their Bro Code, the code he memorized and never forgot. He not only thought about Stan, which would be understandable, since all of us have intrusive thoughts, but he took the time to write it down, and in code, which would be even more difficult than just writing it in English. That requires at least some level of acceptance. You may not be able to filter your thoughts, but you are able to filter your writing.

Ford does attempt to filter his writing, I know, by crossing out a lot of lines in Journal 3, most of them about Stan. But he does not cross out all of it. He freely admits to having a nightmare about Stan, to wanting to protect Stan from the giant six-fingered hand, to having the lake as his favorite place, to missing Stan. I think that Ford, if asked about his love for Stan back then, would also freely admit to it, as well. Stan is his twin brother, so of course he loves Stan.

One thing that always caught my attention is how Ford still refers to Stan as his “family” in the Journal, even after Stan’s attempt to disown him. Stan makes it pretty clear that, from now on, his “family” is just Mabel and Dipper:

Days after this, Ford didn’t seem to have taken this to heart, as seen by what he wrote in his Journal:

It’s way more likely than not that he IS including Stan, here. He says “the rest of the Pines,” instead of just “the children” or “the kids” or “the twins,” and even singles out Dipper as someone he trusts (contrasted with Stan and Mabel, whom he doesn’t).

I wonder if that’s just Ford being stubborn or if he really thinks his relationship with Stan is in a somewhat better place than it actually is.

I mean, for instance, this is their swingset (symbol of their relationship) in Stan’s mind:

And here it is Ford’s mind:

Still ominous, but very noticeably intact.

It’s ironic—I think that Ford was aware of his own love for Stan, but not aware of how damaged their relationship was from Stan’s POV.

Ford and stubborness:

I’ve also seen people saying that, if Stan hadn’t sacrificed himself, Ford would have continued, quote unquote, “hating” him. Or that his happy ending with Stan was a byproduct of his guilt over the same sacrifice, and not out of a genuine desire to reconnect with Stan. According to Alex’s commentary on this scene in Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls, that isn’t true, either:

This whole sort of conclusion here is��what we needed to happen in this scene was—we needed pressure to be at the point where Stan and Ford recognize their lifelong rivalry and Ford does a sincere apology to Stan. And almost more importantly, he acknowledges Stan’s intelligence. Like, he says, “you wouldn’t have fallen for Bill’s nonsense,” like, he recognizes his brother has a kind of intelligence that he doesn’t. [...] And even though it’s Stan who agrees to—“I’ll be the one! Erase my mind! It’s fine. It’s worth it.”—like, it’s a sacrifice for both, like, Ford at this point is willing to get his brother back and has to lose him again. Like, both of them were... just doing what they have to do here.

This means that Ford was already wanting to reconnect with Stan before Stan offered to sacrifice his own memories. His comment about how Stan wouldn’t have fallen for Bill’s flattery wasn’t just self-reproach or some comfort to Stan, but a conscious attempt to soften things between them.

Which also means Stan’s offer to sacrifice himself wasn’t actually necessary for Ford to forgive him (or switch the blame entirely, more like, and start blaming himself instead) but just came at the worst possible moment. It was too late for them, now.

Reconciling Ford’s love for Stan with his treatment of Stan:

Now, we arrive at the last problem, which is something I’ve seen a lot of people struggling with. How to even reconcile Ford’s love for Stan, something we see hints of again and again, with his treatment of Stan?

First, this infamous line in Journal 3, which is arguably the most vicious (towards Stan) Ford ever was in canon:

That’s probably also related to Ford’s control freak tendencies. If Ford admits to himself he is not in control, that he needs help from other people, that he is really that desperate... Well, he can’t admit that, so he rationalizes his way out of that conclusion by convincing himself he would be the one doing Stan a favor (offering him the chance to prove himself to Ford), and not the other way around. He doesn’t need Stan, he doesn’t need anyone; Stan is the one who needs him and his forgiveness. (This is the moment I get the urge to reference a manga protagonist with a very similar control freak mindset, Light Yagami from Death Note. Why am I always attracted to characters with deep cognitive dissonance issues who desperately shape their own narrative to convince themselves of their full control over it? Like a moth to a flame.)

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe Ford looked down on Stan—on people in general. There’s plenty of evidence for that in both Journal 3 and Word of God, if you count Word of God as evidence. Ford himself admits to that after Weirdmageddon. And let’s not forget what is probably the biggest elephant in the room, the 2016 TVInsider interview (if you’re nerdy enough to read such a long meta, you’re likely nerdy enough to have seen this quote already):

In terms of Stan and his brother’s conflict, we always wanted a moment where Ford saw that he was wrong. Ford’s spent an entire life imagining himself as this lone solitary hero and imagining his brother as this bumbling leech. From a narrative point of view, for Ford to see Stan be the hero finally lets Ford see the true side of his brother that he’s been too blinded by pride to see.

Ah, yes. Ford looking down on Stan enough to think of him as a “bumbling leech.” To most people, this sounds way harsher than “selfish jerk,” the term Ford himself used in Journal 3.

Fittingly enough, that was in the same interview Alex said Ford would have deserved to lose Stan:

If Stan had lost his memory for good, that would [have] provided some interesting narrative places for him and his brother to go, but ultimately the show is about the kids. Stan and his brother are meant to be a parable [that show] what can go wrong in a family relationship, [but also] show that, with hard work and sacrifice, the riff can be repaired. If Stan’s memory had been fully erased, it wouldn’t punish him so much because he’d be gone, but it would punish Ford, Dipper and Mabel most. Even though Ford might deserve that punishment, Dipper and Mabel do not.

The interesting thing here, though, is exactly that: losing Stan would be a punishment to Ford. Why? Because it would hurt. Why? Because Ford loved him. Enough, it seems, that he would suffer more with it than Stan himself would.

I think what confuses people so much is that they conflate love with like with admiration with trust with respect. They think of it as the same thing—a confusing, amorphous mass of positive feelings towards someone.

The way I see it, though, Dipper was someone Ford loved (considering love a deeply rooted, complex emotion), liked (felt general fondness/amiability towards), and trusted (to be capable of handling all the mystery stuff). Mabel was someone he loved (she was family), liked (she was weird and creative and pure-hearted!), but didn’t trust (due to his constant projecting; before anyone attempts do deny this, I’ll remind you that Ford himself admits in Journal 3 that Dipper was the only family member whom he had come to trust). Stan was someone he didn’t like nor trust, not anymore, certainly didn’t admire and—let’s be honest—barely respected (or didn’t respect at all, depending on your point of view), but still loved with the fierce intensity of one thousand suns.

I do believe Alex is at least mindful of the difference between love and respect, as seen by his commentary on Stan’s condescending love for Mabel in Land Before Swine:

But this idea that Waddles is sort of a metaphor for what Mabel loves. And Stan loves Mabel but he doesn’t—he doesn’t really think that anything she thinks is necessarily smart or right. You know, he loves like her, ah, she’s my sweet niece, but [Stan’s voice] “she doesn’t know anything.”

In the same interview by HanaHyperfixates and ThatGFFan referenced earlier in this post, Alex revealed his view of the Stan twins’ relationship:

Those characters at sea—it was so rich. They’re really really funny, because they both have major major blind spots. I can kinda write stories about them as a duo forever, because you can always excuse them both getting hyped on a bad idea for their own reasons, and then you can always come up with a reason for them to disagree about it, and it’s always sweet to see them come together again, because they’re so full of themselves, but they are also both so damaged they desperately need each other.

As you can see, the codependency is genuinely mutual, not something imposed on poor, guilty Ford after Weirdmageddon. One thing I find really interesting about Ford is his black & white mindset, the fact that the only way he knows how to be with Stan is a codependent way. They’re either separated and estranged or sailing completely alone on a boat for the rest of their lives. Either rivals or best friends forever. There’s no middle ground for him.

Dipper tells us in Journal 3: “Still, it’s taken about a week of intensive scrapbook therapy to get Stan fully back to himself. [...] Ford’s been working at it the hardest.” Ford was the one putting the most effort in getting Stan back. Despite all, I believe Ford is the person who loves Stan the most. Not the one who loves Stan better—that one would be Mabel, I believe, or Soos, who are non-judgemental and understanding. But Ford is the one who loves him with the most intensity, which is fascinating because for most of the show he doesn’t even know how to love Stan, as exemplified by his treatment of him. Too fierce, too selfish, too much of everything.

[shmisky]

Buckle up, guys. This is FORD HAS ALWAYS LOVED STAN VERY MUCH, the meta.

I think a big misunderstanding going on in this fandom, both in our cesty inner circle and outside it, is the idea that Stan was the one yearning for Ford while Ford was too busy passionately hating him (at worst), or indifferent (at best), too focused in his research and academic accomplishments to pay his repressed love for Stan any mind. Ambitious, self-centered Ford, who would be shocked at the preposterous idea that he still loved Stan deep down if, say, his post-Weirdmaggedon future self revealed it to him. “I thought I hated you, but I was wrong,” old Ford would say to Stan, regretful. Now, this couldn’t be further from canon 😭

My controversial take is: Ford has always known he loved Stan. Yes, even at his most bitter. He just didn’t think Stan was worthy of that love.

So I have dedicated this particular meta to pointing out not all (because that would make it longer than Tolstoy’s War and Peace) but the most telling moments re: Ford’s repressed but obvious love for Stan and their implications. With pictures and one (1) random gif I happened to find.

When thinking about Ford’s love for Stan, I often think of I Bet My Life by Imagine Dragons:

I’ve been around the world and never in my wildest dreams

Would I come running home to you

I’ve told a million lies but now I tell a single truth

There’s you in everything I do

Because Stan is in literally everything he does, sometimes in ways so subtle that people miss it, and in ways that Ford himself would love to deny, even if it meant lying to himself. Like I said in a previous meta, Ford is very, very sentimental, and that is reflected in his relationship with Stan through the decades, with all the different paths he takes to cling to his past and the idea of his brother.

Let’s explore some examples, shall we? We don’t need to go far.

First of all, the Mystery Shack cottage, commissioned by Ford and built by Dan Corduroy, is clearly based off a childhood toy he shared with Stan.

It doesn’t stop there, of course. Ford loves his boat motif decorations.

And would you look at that, his favorite place in his beloved Gravity Falls, a town full of wondrous places full of fantastical anomalies and literally a weirdness magnet, is, for some reason, a lake. A very weird lake? A very cool lake? No, a lake that reminded him of his childhood aka Stan. “There is no other place in Gravity Falls I would rather be than the lake.”

But that isn’t enough for Ford. He must keep, still, pictures and videos of Stan. People usually focus on the overall adorableness of, say, Ford leaning his head on Stan’s shoulders or Ford’s apologies to notice the implications of what Dipper says: “Ford even found an old film reel of them as kids, which he amazingly saved all these years.” Even Dipper himself is amazed. I’ve seen people assuming that Ford had these and forgot about them, or that Caryn (their mother) was the one to send him these and he simply agreed to avoid a fight (because there is a tendency in this fandom to think of her as a very loving mother). Years later, TBoB was like, “nuh-uh, children, that was all Ford Pines being Ford Pines!” How so? Ford not only does remember these itens, but he makes a conscious effort to hide them from Fiddleford, worried that his friend was getting “too close” (from what? from the inner depths of his heart and mind, where Stanley was?) “I’ve quickly re-hidden here, away from prying eyes.” Oh, Ford.

And a picture of teenage Stan, too! You would think he would just attach himself to the idealized version of baby Stan in his head to feed his nostalgia and completely ignore teenage Stan, the traitor, the one who destroyed his science project. But no, Ford wouldn’t be Ford if he acted normal about Stan. The funniest thing to me about the ripped yearbook page is that it implies Ford made the conscious decision to include Stan as he ripped the page off, when he could have just focused on his own picture. And then we also have his drawing of Stan, a perfectly accurate portrayal of Stan’s face as he got kicked out, implying that not only he paid an enormous amount of attention to his brother and how he looked like back then, but that particular image was living rent free in his brain. Very vividly. With details.

Now, folks, do we have any doubt whatsoever of the power Stan had in Ford’s psyche? Seeing that this is how the bedrock of Ford’s mind looked like? The boat, the swing set? I’ve seen it suggested before that these items represent Ford’s greatest regrets — I don’t know if I fully agree with that take, seeing as the swing set is fully intact, unlike in Stan’s mind, but one thing is true: they represent what Ford deep down thinks is most important, and two of three are directly related to Stan. Even the portal, from a certain angle, is connected to Stan.

But back to pictures. In a previous analysis, I’ve pointed out that, according to Alex, that picture of Stan has always been in Ford’s coat pocket, through all the decades, even before Bill’s betrayal. That’s why it’s so damaged. He was dimension hopping with it. I don’t think I even need to make any comment here, hahah.

But one last thing I would like to point out is: Stan Pines is very much his weakness. Ford knows this and accepts this with shocking ease. How so? Well, first of all, the nightmare he had. As he tells us about it in Journal 3, even though he attempts to make light of the situation, his hand is clearly trembling as he writes, making drops of ink splatter on the page. The climax of his nightmare, the peak, the scariest moment was when Ford realized he was not the one at risk; rather, Stan was. “I realized my hand wasn’t chasing after me at all—it was chasing after my brother, and it was going to squeeze him to death!” And then, may it be noticed, there was no hesitation whatsoever on Ford’s part about whether to save Stan or not, nor does he try to hide his protective reaction. It was immediate and instinctive. “I tried to run to help him, but my feet were frozen.” It’s very telling that the Dream Hipster, the nightmare inducing ghost, thought that Stanley Pines would be the most effective thing to make Ford shake in his boots. Not even, say, failing and being ridiculed by other scientists, considering how ambitious he was.

And you know who else has noticed this weakness? Bill Cipher, of course. After psychologically, emotionally, and physically abusing Ford in horrific manners (including but not limited to: forcing him to eat spiders, driving a nail into his hand, and making him wake up on the snowy roof of the Mystery Shack as a symbolic threat of forced suicide), Bill involves Stan, as the grand finale. “But then he crossed a line.” Oh, did he, Ford? Why was your brother that line? “No. He wouldn’t.” Ford couldn’t even believe Bill’s audacity in involving Stan, even though he very much already knew Bill was as evil as evil could get. Because Bill knew, having free access to Ford’s mind, how terribly important Stan was: the person Ford loved the most in the world, more than himself.

That is why, when Stan-as-Ford tells Bill, “My only condition is that you let my brother and the kids go!” Bill easily believes him. He thinks that it would be in-character for Ford. After all, he’d turned everyone into tapestry (including Fiddleford, whom Ford also cared greatly about), but spared Stan and the kids due to their value to Ford. And Bill wouldn’t be wrong, not at all. He wouldn’t, because Ford himself was the one to tell Stan: “We need to take his deal. It’s the only way he’ll agree to save you and the kids.” It’s blaffling to me how many fans seem to forget Ford’s own words, and the fact Ford was very, very much willing to damn the whole universe (with seven billion people living on Earth at the time) to save three (3) people, including Stan. That Stan himself was the one to oppose and stop him. I think that happens because people buy Ford’s facade of Cold Responsible Greater Good Guy, which couldn’t be more deceiving. At this point I’m begging you guys to look deeper!

[x]

And, as the grand finale, I choose to point out how young adult Ford, still in college, with his bitterness and resentment still very fresh, admits to missing Stan. He wrote, “miss you” in their Bro Code, the code he memorized and never forgot. He not only thought about Stan, which would be understandable, since all of us have intrusive thoughts, but he took the time to write it down, and in code, which would be even more difficult than just writing it in English. That requires at least some level of acceptance. You may not be able to filter your thoughts, but you are able to filter your writing.

Ford does attempt to filter his writing, I know, by crossing out a lot of lines in Journal 3, most of them about Stan. But he does not cross out all of it. He freely admits to having a nightmare about Stan, to wanting to protect Stan from the giant six-fingered hand, to having the lake as his favorite place, to missing Stan, etc. I think that Ford, if asked about his love for Stan back then, would also freely admit to it, as well. Stan is his twin brother. Of course he loves Stan. He just doesn’t like Stan, or trust him, or think Stan is worthy of that love.

The way I see it, Dipper was someone Ford loved (deeply rooted, complex emotion), liked (felt fondness towards), and trusted (to be capable of handling all the mystery stuff). Mabel was someone he loved, liked, but didn’t trust (due to his constant projecting). Stan was someone he didn’t like nor trust, not anymore, but still loved with a fierce intensity of one thousand suns.

[jesse-pinko]

Big fat disclaimer I love Stan he’s definitely my favorite of the Stan twins and I have no doubt that he loves both of the kids but in retrospect it’s kind of wild that there was a whole episode where it was established that Stan purposely treats Dipper poorly because he thinks that the way his abusive father raised him was acceptable and correct. And then the onus is put on Dipper, the child, to understand and come to terms with this rather than having Stan ever self-reflect and make an actual effort to change his behavior. Both of those old men projected allllll of their shit onto those poor kids go to theraprism!!

[celestialastronmy]

Mabel Pines: Authority, Identity, and Emotional Growth

Mabel Pines emerges as one of the most vibrant characters, a sparkling counterpoint to her twin brother Dipper's analytical tendencies in Gravity Falls. With her colorful sweaters and boundless optimism, Mabel navigates the supernatural mysteries of Gravity Falls while simultaneously facing the challenges of growing up. By examining her relationships with authority figures, particularly her great uncles Stan and Ford, we can uncover crucial insights into her personality, values, and emotional development. The stark contrast between how Mabel and Dipper interact with these authority figures reveals fundamental aspects of Mabel's character: her emotional intelligence, resistance to change, need for validation, and complex journey toward maturity.

Mabel's Essential Character: Beyond the Sweaters

Before analyzing Mabel's relationships with authority figures, we must establish her core personality traits. Series creator Alex Hirsch clarifies a common misconception: "Mabel's not stupid. She's a ham! There's a big difference. Mabel's love of goofing off is a natural force of her personality, but she can still understand when people she cares about need help or are in danger." This distinction proves crucial—Mabel's playfulness doesn't equate to obliviousness or lack of intelligence.

Among the Pines family, Mabel possesses "the biggest heart," typically being the first one to try to make someone feel better or try to befriend them. Her creativity extends beyond her artistic pursuits into problem-solving, where she employs her own creative impulses and ideas to overcome challenges, such as spraying Bill's eye with spray paint or rearranging the clay monster. Her optimism balances Dipper's seriousness, reminding him not to grow up too fast and to have fun.

However, Mabel demonstrates less positive traits as well. She can come off as selfish when focused on fun, sometimes forgetting that just because she's having fun doesn't mean everyone else is. This self-centeredness manifests in her "stubbornly nosy" tendency to involve herself in others' business, particularly in matchmaking scenarios. Most significantly, she harbors a deep fear of growing up and resists change, a trait that defines her character arc and her relationships with authority figures.

Physically, Mabel expresses herself through "very active" body language that is very expressive and exaggerated, incorporating "twirls," "finger guns," and animated arm movements. This expressiveness reflects her emotional openness—Mabel wears her heart on her sleeve, contrasting sharply with her great uncles' more guarded natures.

Mabel and Grunkle Stan: Emotional Kinship

Mabel's relationship with her Grunkle Stan reveals much about how she views and relates to authority. Unlike Dipper, who often challenges Stan's schemes on moral or logical grounds, Mabel connects with Stan emotionally. She is typically the one who brings out the softer side of Stan and isn't afraid to call him out for neglecting to be polite like saying a simple 'please' or 'thank you'. This suggests a comfortable familiarity that allows her to gently challenge his rougher edges without creating serious conflict.

The relationship benefits both parties. Stan's gruffness doesn't intimidate Mabel, and she helps him access his more vulnerable side. They share a playful dynamic where they often share teasing jokes about Dipper, creating a bond that sometimes excludes Dipper. This alliance provides Mabel with validation from an authority figure without requiring her to fundamentally change who she is.

Some critics suggest that "Stan favored Mabel more than Dipper as well, and made him do all the potentially dangerous jobs around the house." While this perspective may be somewhat biased, it does indicate that Stan's relationship with his great-niece differs significantly from his relationship with his great-nephew. Where Dipper must often prove himself to Stan through trials, Mabel receives affection more freely.

An illuminating example of their dynamic appears when Stan explains his approach to toughening up Dipper. After recounting his own childhood boxing lessons, Stan reveals: "That's why I'm hard on Dipper to toughen him up so when the world fights he fights back." Notably, Stan doesn't apply this same "toughening up" philosophy to Mabel, suggesting he perceives and treats the twins differently based on their personalities and perceived needs.

This relationship reveals Mabel's need for emotional security and validation. She gravitates toward the authority figure who provides unconditional acceptance, allowing her to maintain her identity without significant challenge. Stan creates a space where Mabel can be herself without judgment—crucial for a character who fears growing up and changing.

Mabel and Ford: Fear and Resistance

Mabel's relationship with Ford presents a striking contrast to her connection with Stan. Where Stan's authority style embraces Mabel's personality, Ford's more academic approach aligns naturally with Dipper's interests and temperament. This creates tension for Mabel, who sees Ford as potentially separating her from her twin.

This fear culminates in "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future," where Ford asks Dipper to become his apprentice. Mabel's reaction reveals her deepest insecurities—when faced with the possibility of Dipper staying in Gravity Falls while she returns home alone, she makes a catastrophic decision, accidentally making a deal with YOU KNOW WHO. This crisis demonstrates how Mabel's relationship with Ford is defined not by what they share but by her fear of what his influence might cost her.

When Dipper tries to explain Ford's offer, Mabel repeatedly says "you can totally go with Grunkle Ford to save the world or whatever" while noting that she'll be doing "birthday junk all week". The contrast between world-saving and "birthday junk" highlights the gap Mabel perceives between Ford's serious world and her desire for fun and celebration. When faced with difficult conversations about this future separation, she didn't want to hear what was being said to her, demonstrating her immature coping mechanisms when confronted with unwelcome change.

Ford himself may contribute to this tension by "projecting" onto Dipper and Mabel's relationship, possibly suggesting that "

Mabel is holding him back. This mirrors Ford's own complex relationship with his twin brother Stan, creating a parallel between the two sets of twins that Mabel intuitively resists.

Mabel's difficult relationship with Ford reveals her fear of abandonment, her resistance to growing up, and her anxiety about Dipper developing in ways that might separate him from her. Where Stan represents comfortable acceptance, Ford represents challenging growth that might threaten her sense of security and identity.

Contrasting Approaches to Authority: Dipper vs. Mabel

The stark difference in how the twins relate to Stan and Ford illuminates their contrasting approaches to authority more broadly. Dipper seeks intellectual validation and mentorship, looking to authority figures (particularly Ford) to guide his development. He looks up to him so much that he's probably going to glom on to whatever he says. This makes him receptive to Ford's academic, mission-oriented guidance but sometimes puts him at odds with Stan's less conventional authority style.

Mabel, conversely, seeks emotional validation and acceptance. She thrives under Stan's more permissive, affection-based authority but feels threatened by Ford's more structured approach. Where Dipper sees growth opportunities in Ford's challenges, Mabel sees potential loss and separation.

This difference reflects their fundamental personalities. Dipper is future-oriented, goal-directed, and driven by curiosity. Mabel lives more in the present, values emotional connections over intellectual pursuits, and prioritizes maintaining what she has over risking change. Neither approach is inherently superior, but they create different trajectories for the twins as they navigate the transition from childhood to adolescence.

Authority and Identity Formation: Mabel's Emotional Journey

Mabel's interactions with Stan and Ford reveal much about her internal struggle with identity formation. Stan represents the comfort of childhood unconditional acceptance, fun without consequences, and freedom from change. Ford represents the challenges of growing up increased responsibilities, intellectual demands, and the painful necessity of separation.

Mabel's preference for Stan's authority style and resistance to Ford's influence demonstrate her fear of growing up. She wants to preserve her bond with Dipper and maintain her carefree approach to life, both of which seem threatened by Ford's more serious perspective.

This resistance isn't simply selfishness it reflects Mabel's genuine anxiety about losing what matters most to her: her relationship with Dipper, her freedom to express herself, and her joyful approach to life. While critics argue that "she didn't get developed properly, and actually regressed towards the end of the series," her struggle with growing up represents a realistic challenge that many early adolescents face.

Conclusion: The Authority Mirror

Mabel's interactions with authority figures provide a window into her complex development. Through her comfortable relationship with Stan, we see her strengths her emotional intelligence, her ability to bring out others' best qualities, and her commitment to joy even in difficult circumstances. Through her tense relationship with Ford, we witness her struggles with her fear of change, her occasional selfishness when threatened, and her immature coping mechanisms.

These relationships reveal Mabel as neither simply selfish nor simply sweet she is a mixture of admirable qualities and realistic flaws. Her resistance to Ford stems not from mere stubbornness but from a deeper fear that growing up might mean losing what matters most. Her embrace of Stan reflects not just a desire for indulgence but a genuine connection with his more emotional approach to life.

Understanding Mabel through her authority relationships allows us to see beyond reductive interpretations. She is neither the underdeveloped character that critics describe nor a flawless beacon of positivity. She is a young person navigating the difficult terrain between childhood and adolescence, sometimes stumbling but always maintaining her essential Mabel-ness, her creativity, expressiveness, and big heart.

Her journey reminds us that there are multiple paths to maturity. The tension between Mabel's approach and Dipper's reflected in their different relationships with Stan and Ford illustrates this diversity of development. Neither twin is "right" or "wrong" in how they relate to authority, but each reveals different aspects of the complex process of growing up and finding one's place in the world.

[enidtendo64]

Any Dipcifica angst ideas? It can be from "main universe" or any of the AUs you've made.

Oh this is a dangerous question to ask me I love making AUs

I have an ongoing AU in my head about where Dipper and Pacifica didn’t meet in Gravity Falls but the curse still happened (and maybe weirdmageddon idk I’m still workshopping it) Dipper is a truck driver bc he didn’t wanna go to school but didn’t wanna stay home either and could kind of travel the country this way and explore while being paid. Pacifica has been hopping from different diners trying to get by and has a vengeful turned guardian spirit that takes care of anyone that tries to be weird with her in these hole in the wall sketchy middle of nowhere places. They meet once Dipper sees she’s got some supernatural shit going down and Pacifica needs a ride to the next town over, and then stay together once they realized they’ve both got ties to Gravity Falls—Dipper in his life changing summer, and Pacifica being born there and part of the Northwest Massacre Dipper heard about that happened a year before he and Mabel got to Gravity Falls.

Another AU? Breakup au, Dipper’s been living in Gravity Falls for a few couple years after graduation and Pacifica comes back to town after having left a year after graduating high school, only to have come back years after when Susan, her caretaker after emancipation, suffers a heart attack and needs someone to look after her in the meanwhile. Dipper and Pacifica broke up their last years of high school and haven’t seen each other since, but may now be forced to see each other in this small town and deal with the problems they had that caused them to break up in the first place, and how different they are now than the people they were back then.

Another AU, Pirate AU. Standard Mystery Shack pirate team, picks up a couple of people to join like Candy and Grenda and McGucket and Robbie (after they decimate his pirate crew lol he’s working as the deck swabber). Pacifica is a rich noble’s daughter that they kidnap for ransom but can’t get rid of fast enough because of her attitude. This changes once they find out how Pacifica was actually living with the Northwests, and because they’re pirates but not complete monsters, offer her to join the crew. I guess this one’s less a Dipcifica au more the whole cast but Dipcifica would grow close here! Like in a “I hate that jackass and his big head” and “oh I hate her annoying ass” to “I will sacrifice anything face anything I fear just to keep him safe and happy” and “if you touch a single (REAL) blonde hair on her I will string you up and use your rotting carcass as fish bait”

Wait one more maybe a Victorian era Dipcifica AU where Mabel and Dipper are exorcists in training under a Stan disguised as Ford and are essentially part real part scam service, and the Northwests have tasked them with curing an unruly Pacifica who they’re convinced must be possessed with how she’s been defying them. She is not possessed, but as they find out, has just been rebelling at the life and abuse she’s lived—but only after having had some emotional journeys and self reflection and encouragement from THE REAL ASS GHOSTS she’s been seeing her whole life, especially one Archibald Corduroy. But it takes a while for Dipper, Mabel, and Stan to figure all that out because for all the self realizations and bravery Pacifica’s had, she’s still stubborn, aggressive, and terrified as hell. Classic enemies to lovers moment comes after of course.

Honestly I could make so much more but I need to make food right now but yeah if you ever need ideas I’ve got too much

[joicecubes]

HEY!!!!! HEY YOU!! (sits you down to listen to me yap about my queer headcanons for gravity falls characters)

mabel - okay lets get her out of the way. this girl is queer as fuck. she may not realize it yet, but in her teenage years i know she’s experimented with every single label and microlabel in existence. she’d try out hundreds of neopronouns. she realizes her obsession with boys as a kid was a result of comphet. i don’t have a specific label for her because i think in the end she’d discover she can’t make herself identify with any one label. because she’s just mabel! unlabeled and proud.

dipper - do i even have to say it… he’s trans. i think every queer person in this fandom headcanons him to be trans. moving on

stanley - he’s kinda unlabeled too, but for a reason opposite to mabel’s. ladies, gentlemen, doesn’t matter to him! i think its fair to assume he grew up believing that being gay was wrong, it was the 60s and 70s and his dad’s a piece of shit, but as he traveled the country and met so many different people and then witnessed the times changing around him… he’d just. grow into his attraction for men. like, yeah i like men? so what? he doesn’t care for labels. “bisexual, mabel? pansexual? quit making up words!”

(more starting with stanford under the cut this is gonna be sorta long)

stanford - hehehheee okay this is my favorite. i’ve thought about his sexuality a lot. he’s definitely gay to me, and i don’t have much reasoning for that other than like… my heart is telling me that’s the right answer. but he’s also definitely on the aroace spectrum. i personally think he’s demi or grayromantic, he feels romantic attraction VERY rarely and its part of the reason why he felt so helpless in the dating department as a teenager, and also why as an adult later on he tells fiddleford he doesn’t understand romance. he’s hardly ever experienced it! and he wouldn’t really KNOW he identifies with those labels until he’s back in his dimension and mabel is in her obsessed-with-queer-microlabels phase. he hears mabel say “demiromantic” and, being the nerd he is, immediately wants to know what this new word means and why he’s never heard of it before. so mabel rolls a big-ass whiteboard in and starts Mabel’s Guide to the Aromantic Spectrum! ford learns something about himself that day.

fiddleford - HE’S GAY. he’s gay. he’s so gay. i know he canonically has a wife but he literally leaves emma may to work on this mysterious project with his best and only MALE friend from college like… BE so fr. he made ford TWO christmas gifts and forgot to get anything for his wife!! i imagine his marriage to emma may was more of a way for him to deny his sexuality and live what he believes to be a “normal” life. and that obviously doesnt excuse the neglect to his family (because what the fuck fiddleford) but its how i personally make sense of his behavior.

bill cipher - bill transcends human comprehension of gender and sexuality. bill is just bill. but in human terms he’s a lover of all genders. as long as he can manipulate them, they’re fair game! (sorry ford)

wendy - okayyy yesss i know i used the comphet excuse once with mabel but i’m using it again god dammit. with the way wendy talks about her past boyfriends and how we see her be so vaguely invested in her relationship with robbie, it makes me think she’s either a lesbian or somewhere on the aromantic spectrum. she’s just not super interested! but she gives guys chances because why the hell not and is never super into any of it, eventually they break up, and she moves on with her life. i imagine sometime after high school is when she reflects on that and thinks… huh. was i ever attracted to men at all?

soos - saving the most anticlimactic for last… soos is straight to me. but he’s an ENTHUSIASTIC ally :)

thanks for reading i really like overthinking the theoretical queer identities of my favorite characters have a nice day (and let me know if you’re headcanons differ i would love to hear what people think!!)

edit: i’ve seen some people disagree with me on the comphet part for mabel, in hindsight my wording was way more definitive than i was meaning. check the replies for more on her :)

[abyssalzones]

okay randomly pulling this one out of my head because I've been trying to figure out how the hell I want to say it for a while: what's crazy about the new wave of gf fans is that I've seen the sentiment (though I also saw it once or twice back in 2016) that shipping bill with ford is "saving" people from the alternative of the most popular bill ship being That Which We No Longer Mention By Name and I have to say that this literally only checks out if your entire understanding of why pedophilia is bad is because It Just Is, rather than the fact that a child by definition cannot consent and the power dynamics at play mean it is always a form of abuse, it's an adult exercising control over a child. like it's the abuse itself that's bad. so by that logic I have to assume people are either 1. choosing to ignore the fact that within canon, ford was coerced/straight up lied to and then had his consent violated repeatedly, Or 2. insisting that this is all okay because ford is an adult. who consented at one point in time (under dire circumstances) (it wasn't even his idea??) even though he revoked that consent later and it was ignored. like it's fascinating to me how bill refers to ford as. hang on actually so you know I'm not just making this shit up

he quite literally calls him a child here (from the website) while explaining Why he went after ford and the thing is you see it reflected perfectly in his behavior: he calls him 'kid' even when he's in his 60's to taunt him, he makes him get rid of a beloved pet he doesn't approve of, he unquestionably acts as a mentor more than a friend on equal standing, fucking etc. point being I think gravity falls does something a lot of stories don't even when they try to cover this type of subject matter where they make it obvious that being a victim of abuse isn't a matter of age or intelligence. abusive people will look for vulnerability in Anyone and I really don't think there's a hard moral line here.

I think the point of what I'm trying to say is that if one is okay and the other isn't: uh. why? what does it say when an almost identical if not more insidious* narrative about a character being abused is okay because it has a more "acceptable" veneer of sex appeal?

*"more" is subjective here, personally I think ford being written as a victim is more obvious/intentional than the stuff going on with dipper because in his case they were in a relationship ("relationship" in big quotes) for multiple years which adds layers to it. both are bad obviously but I think what gets implied in ford's story is worse on purpose. okay back to studying bye

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

spent a good hour reading up on your Not What He Seems AU, it’s such a perfect mix of angst and whimsy! Ford waking up to find 30 years have passed in the blink of an eye is is the kind of body horror terrifying i eat up, as an avid enjoyer of time travel and its inherent tragedy.

i got a few questions, if you’ll indulge me:

- what kinds of tattoos you think Bill has gotten over the years? i think i saw some arm bands in one of your pieces, but i’d love to hear if you have any specific ideas for placements or images. if he’s doing it for the safe pain experience, i’d think there are some pretty big/detailed pieces involved? and do you think the pain helps ground him somewhat, to find and fit better in the boundaries of the body?

- in the show, Stan feels a lot of guilt for stealing his brother’s identity and he kinda thinks of himself as a fraud, an actor. do you think Bill ever feels guilty for the same? or would he just miss Ford a lot, without the Stan-specific aspect of pretending to be “the better one”?

also any fun tidbits you’ve been rotating in your head lately! it’s impressive how specifically it seems like you’ve thought out how Bill’s presence would affect the canon show events, while trying to keep them as unchanged as possible. also StanFraud is the funniest, most perfect thing I’ve ever heard!

Thank you!! I’ve always enjoyed writing horror based on human response, so Ford’s perspective is probably one of the most fascinating to me in this AU, although, all of it is fascinating and enjoyable to explore, really!

— I haven’t worked them all out yet, but I know for a fact he has a tattoo of the Cipher Wheel on his back, the arm bands as you mentioned, a hyper-realistic tattoo of his ribs where his ribs would be (if that makes sense), and eyes on the back of his hands. Honestly, I’d be open to suggestions for him! I imagine him having some more grotesque, detailed tattoos that reflect the nightmare realm as well. And yes, the pain definitely helps ground him. It also gives him a sense of control as well, in a situation where he has none.

— If he does feel guilty, it’s a complicated kind of guilt. I don’t even think he’d fully process that he’s feeling guilty. It’s this sort of gnawing feeling he can’t get rid of, and it starts the longer he gets to know Dipper and Mabel — he never really felt it before that. He absolutely misses Ford though. He can’t define that feeling either. I’ve said before that he looks at Dipper strangely, and that’s because Dipper reminds him of Ford in certain moments, eager for discovery!

He and Stan never really talk about it, but the have both acknowledged missing Ford before.

Bill’s response was vague though, not an ‘I miss him too’, but an ‘I think I do too.’ He isn’t sure what to make of that.

Bill Cipher doesn’t feel remorse, or miss people, he does everything with intention and he’s never made mistakes. Or, that’s what he’s meant to be. Maybe he has gone soft.

And Tidbits! I have a few! Not as many as usual, only because Arcane’s been taking up a bit of my brain space lately, but I hope these shall suffice anyhow:

(And quickly, thank you again, I think way too hard on all the small details and how Bill’s presence would have a knock on effect. It makes me happy to see it get noticed!)

— In the early days of Bill being trapped, Stan obviously doesn’t open the Mystery Shack, and ends up having to take a few odd jobs around town instead. He’s earned a bit of a reputation for being a decent handyman because of that, and even now, old timers of the town will still come to Stan if they need something fixing, especially cars. He complains about getting too old for it, but he never says no. Money is money! It’s also interesting to think about how the little things would impact his relationship with the townsfolk and how they view him. He’s always been Stanley to them. He’s never had to pretend otherwise.

— I’ve toyed around with making the Blind Eye a bigger threat than they are in canon, being as the kids would have no reason to look into Old Man McGucket. I’ve also toyed around with McGucket ending up slightly different to canon, his mind still broken, but his motivation different, with him being aware early on that the man he sees isn’t Ford, and is in fact the beast he fears and tried to erase from his mind. A more antagonistic Fiddleford who’s been trying to get rid of Bill for years now would actually be really fun? If I can make it work, and make the Blind Eye work in this way, I’ll lean into it! For now though, it’s just an idea I’m throwing around.

— Vague ‘episode’ idea that exists within my brain is Bill accidentally starting a mini cult again after telling some sort of lie that catches on, and it ends up being a Mabel-Bill bonding plot-line as she tries to convince him to just be honest before this whole cult thing gets taken too far. I also love the idea of Bill making a comment about this being like 1952 all over again. He makes comments like that all the time. Surely he’s just joking!

— Another vague ‘episode’ idea I have is Bill taking Dipper and Mabel to the supernatural underground market of Gravity Falls under Stan’s nose, trying to prove he’s the cooler Uncle, and that he can handle the two kids by himself. This goes about as well as you’d expect. Stan isn’t too happy to find out Bill got Dipper and Mabel in trouble, as he tried to get them to do more and more risky things.

— Bill will sometimes start speaking in Euclydian without realising, especially when it comes to cursing, and no one knows how he’s making those sounds with his mouth. Stan’s actually started picking up some of the meanings in context and can roughly gauge what Bill might be saying.

[justsomerandomfanfic]

Star-Crossed Lovers - Eddie Munson X GN Reader

Title: Star-Crossed Lovers

Eddie Munson X GN Reader

Additional Characters: The Hellfire Club mentioned

WC: 1,353

Warnings: Teasing, banter, flirting, italics, nicknames, and fluff

The stars seemed so bright. Sparkling and glittering up high in the sky. You thought that maybe, if you reached out, you could grab one. 

It was finally the weekend. No worrying about school, or Eddie’s club meetings that you’d join sometimes. Honestly, you loved watching them all play - pure, entertaining chaos, you couldn’t get enough of it really. And, no worrying about any responsibilities except for the dishes you’d need to do tomorrow morning. 

You sighed, feeling content as you lay beside Eddie, both of you staring up at the endless sky. Eddie was quiet, his eyes fixed on the stars, their light reflecting in his eyes. There was a calm silence between you, which was very rare, considering Eddie loved to talk; and you loved listening to him talk.

“What constellations do you know?” Your gentle voice broke through the silence, mixing in with the sound of crickets chirping and the soft evening breeze flowing by occasionally.

“Constellations?” Eddie asked, the level of his voice matching yours as he raised one of his hands, pointing up at the sky, “Well, uh, that’s the Big Dipper.” He spoke, circling his index finger in the air in the constellation's general direction. “And that one,” He moved his finger down a bit, “That’s the Little Dipper.” Dropping his hand, he continued, “I used to think they were spoons when I was a kid.” His chuckle reverberated throughout his chest, your head - resting on his chest - shaking a bit as he did so.

“Big Spoon and Little Spoon? I think that is pretty common.” Your eyes drooped every now and then as Eddie’s fingers on his other hand ran through your hair, slow and soothing - drawing his fingers in, and slowly pulling out, strands of your hair lifting in the air before falling back down. You only had one word for his incredibly needed and wanted ministrations; heavenly. 

“Yeah, maybe,” He muttered, his hand that had been pointing up at the sky pulled at the grass below the both of you, pulling up blades of grass. “What about you?” He then asked, “What constellations do you know?”

“Oh, a few,” You mused, trying to focus your gaze up at the stars, trying to spot any others aside from the big and small dippers. “You should know, since I have told you about most of them before.” You spoke, only for Eddie to chuckle softly again.

“Yeah, I know.” He paused his blade-pulling, “I just want to hear you say them again.” Eddie's voice was low, almost playful as his eyes glinted with that familiar mischief under the dim moonlight. “I like the sound of your voice, babe.”

“Oh, dear,” You bit your lip briefly, rolling your eyes, “Always such a flirt.”

“Only for you.” Eddie answered back, before the hand in your hair paused, slipping from your hair and his hand suddenly came into view. You watched, biting your lip again to hold in your giggles as Eddie reached out and booped you on the nose. “Now, what's that one with the belt?” He asked, now repeatedly booping your nose over and over again, ultimately making you let out your laugh.

“Orion,” You laughed out, raising your hand from your stomach to take his hand, guiding it right back in your hair; you couldn’t see, but you could almost sense Eddie’s all-knowing smirk appearing on his face at your action. “Well, from what I was told. Orion, confident in his hunting skills, boasted that he would kill every animal on Earth. Upset by this, Gaea - the Earth goddess, I’ve told you about her - sent a scorpion to stop him. After Orion's death, Zeus placed both Orion and the scorpion among the stars as constellations.”

You felt Eddie nodding, “Serves him right.” 

You couldn’t stop the smirk from slipping onto your face, “Well, then there is also Camelopardalis.” You said, without a single stutter, the word came easy to you… But to your boyfriend…

“Oh yeah,” Eddie sighed, “I’m not even going to try again with that one.”

“Oh? Camelopardalis?” You clasped your hands together in your lap, growing more and more amused as Eddie sighed dramatically.

“Yeah, yeah. I say it once and you’ll hold it against me until the end of time.” You laughed, raising a hand to cover your mouth slightly.

You grinned, “Well, it is only Camelopar-” Before you could even finish, Eddie once again slipped his hand out from your hair and covered your mouth. And without another thought, you licked his palm.

Eddie froze for a second, then pulled his hand back, “Ew, gross!” He exclaimed, wiping his hand - again, dramatically - on his ripped jeans, but a grin broke out across his face. “Did you just lick me, babe? Wow, I didn’t know we were playing that kind of game.” You couldn’t help but laugh, a leg even kicking up slightly as you held both your hands on your stomach; having a mini laugh-attack. His smirk deepened, adding with a low chuckle, "But licking, babe? Kinda weird, kinda hot.” His hot breath tickling your temple as he turned his head, “I’m into it." He whispered, husky and absolutely making your cheeks flush. 

“Eddie!” You continued to laugh, raising a hand to jokingly hit his own stomach, “You’re impossible.” As your laughter died down, you and Eddie both slowly slipped back into that comfortable silence, Eddie returning to play with your hair, and you returning to pointing out constellations. “One of my other favorite stars is actually on Orion’s shoulder. It’s called Betelgeuse.” You spoke, your tone returning to a more soft one as you raised a hand to point at the supergiant star. 

Eddie said nothing, only raising his free hand to join yours in the sky. Slowly, his fingertips ghosted up along the back of your hand, before he intertwined his fingers with yours. You sighed, watching the moonlight glint off of his many rings, feeling an overwhelming wave of absolute adoration and love wash over you in that moment. Eddie took your hand into his, pulling it down to brush kisses along the back of your hand, his lips gradually moving to pepper more kisses to your wrist and the soft skin of your knuckles. 

“Keep going, babe,” You then heard him mutter in between his many, many kisses. 

“I don’t think I can keep going,” You spoke, almost breathlessly, your heart racing with every gentle touch of his lips against your skin.

“Just what I thought - my kisses have left you speechless!” He teased, rubbing his chilled nose against your hand, “I guess I should be flattered that I have this kind of effect on you.”

Worrying on your bottom lip, you suddenly shifted. Raising, and turning, you pressed your not-currently-occupied-hand onto the grass beside Eddie’s head; propping yourself up as you looked down at him. ‘So handsome.’ You thought, tilting your head slightly. ‘My Eddie Spaghetti.’

Eddie's smirk softened slightly as he noticed the way you were looking at him, and he could feel his heart begin to race. The warmth of your gaze - flickering across all of his features - made him feel vulnerable yet exhilarated. After a quick moment, your eyes finally met his, your voice coming out as a soft whisper, both in meaning and volume, “You always have that effect on me, Eddie.” Eddie’s cheeks burned at your confession, leaving him a bit taken aback. With his dark eyes searching yours, there was a want to reach out and trace the curve of the bridge of your nose, or your jaw, or even brush along your cheeks. But, Eddie just raised his hand, his fingers gently weaving through your hair as he pulled you closer.

The distance between you vanished, his nose briefly bumping against yours before his soft lips molding with yours. The kiss was tender and intimate, his lips brushing against yours in a sweet, lingering caress. The world around you faded away, leaving just the two of you in that moment.

And in that moment, you wished for nothing more. Just you, and Eddie, together beneath a canopy of stars. 

---

Main Masterlist | Stranger Things Masterlist

[stupidvillainousposts]

Werewolf Gene AU Stuff but It's Mostly Stan Saving the Kids from Ridiculously Avoidable Situations

Mabel, After Accidentally Starting the Gnome Uprising: *Slams Through the Shack's Front Door* DIPPER! WE GOTTA SKIP TOWN! GET OUR GRUNKLES AND MEET ME AT THE CAR!

Everyone Else: *Stares at Mabel in Silent Confusion*

Mabel: Guys! This is serious! We're gonna be torn to bits if we don't leave! NOW!

Fidds: Mabel, darlin', what exactly did you do?

Mabel, ominously: GNOMES.

Fidds, audibly annoyed: Gosh darn it...

Stan: Welp, time to go paint the forest floor red with the blood of our enemies. C'mon kids! It's time I teach you a new phrase; No Mercy!

-------------------------------

Dipper: *Kicks the Shack in Frustration* I'm tired of this stupid shack!

Random Shingle: *Falls Towards Dipper*

Dipper: Ah, crap.

Stan: *Knocks Dipper Out of the Way and Gets Hit on the Back*

Dipper: Grunkle Stan! Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!

Stan, barely able to breathe: Nah, it's fine. I get the wind knocked outta me every other day.

-----------------------------

Stan, tossing Fidds over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes: C'mon, Cowboy. This Big Bad Wolf wants to show you his Big Bad-

-Loud Crash from the Kitchen-

Mabel: IT'S OKAY! WE DIDN'T DRAW BLOOD!

Dipper: AT LEAST, NOT A LOT OF IT!

Stan, setting Fidds down: *Sighs* I'll be back.

------------------------------------

Mabel, putting bows in Stan's mullet and tail: You'll be the prettiest princess at the ball!

Dipper, drawing on Stan's arms: With cool tattoos.

Mabel: Dipper! Princesses don't have tattoos! It's uncouth!

Dipper: You don't even know what that word means!

Mabel: Do too!

Dipper: Do not!

Mabel: DO TOO!

Dipper: DO NOT!

The Twins: *Screaming "Do not" and "Do Too" at Each Other Repeatedly*

Stan: *Ignoring Them Both and Watching Duchess Approves*

-------------------------------

Dipper: *Picks Up a Strange Gem*

Gremloblin: *Sneaks Up Behind Dipper*

Stan: *Tackles the Gremloblin and Wrestles it Into Submission*

Gremloblin: *Runs Off Cursing and Snarling*

Dipper, once Stan walks up next to him: Did you hear something, Grunkle Stan?

Stan, sniffing blood back up his nose: Nope.

------------------------------

Stan: *Staring at His Reflection in a Stream*

Dipper and Mabel: *Walk up to Stan and Wag Their Tails Curiously*

Mabel: What're ya looking at, Grunkle Stan?

Dipper: Yeah, you've been out here for hours!

Stan: What am I looking at? *Sees the Twins Nod and Smirks* I'm lookin' at a group of losers, that's what.

[ckret2]

At long last, we get to see: this moment.

Chapter 11 of Human Bill Being The Mystery Shack's Hella Depressed Prisoner, featuring: Mabel giving Bill a ✨beautiful makeover✨—and Stan and Ford almost dying from laughter. And thus begins Bill & Mabel's inevitable befriending. Previous chapters here! 1/16/2025, now edited for TBOB compatibility!

####

Every time Mabel had to use the stairs, she paused to look at Bill sitting in his window.

He never seemed to move.

A few days ago, it was creepy. Now, it was just kind of sad.

Last year, after Mabel and Dipper's parents had heard the whole story about their summer, they'd immediately dragged the twins with them to their family therapist. (They had to switch therapists a few times before they found one who would engage with their barely-averted-apocalypse story at face value rather than search for the root of these "delusions.") 

Mabel didn't think she needed all that—the end of the world hadn't been that scary, and honestly she'd missed most of it partying in her prison bubble, it wasn't like she was having puppet nightmares and stuff like Dipper—but whatever, it made their parents feel better.

At their current therapist's office, before each appointment, Dipper and Mabel had to fill out checklists that they gathered were to measure whether they'd come down with a case of depression—Please read the following statements and circle the word that shows how often they happen to you. Never, sometimes, often, always.

She'd filled out these things so many times that she could practically recite the list of statements by memory. Nothing feels very fun anymore. I have problems with my appetite. I have trouble sleeping. I have no energy for things. I feel like I don't want to move.

Far be it from her to try to diagnose an evil demon monster space triangle who'd tried to murder everybody she knew, but. Well. You know. Sitting curled up alone, day after night after day, barely moving, barely talking, barely eating, waiting for nothing at all... Yikes. She could only guess how he'd answer statements like I feel empty and sad or I feel worthless.

In Mabel's mind, there was a piece of paper. On that piece of paper were the faces of everyone currently living in the shack. Herself, Dipper, Waddles, Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, Soos, Abuelita, Gompers even though he lived outside, and Melody as an honorary part-time resident. Next to each of their faces, there was a sticker, reflecting their current overall mood. Right now, everyone had either a happy face or a flat-mouthed neutral face—not bad, but could be better.

As she looked at Bill, she mentally promoted him at last from "entity haunting the attic" to "temporary resident." She added his face to her imaginary paper. And she slapped a big blue crying sticker next to it.

She wouldn't stand for that. Not even from him. Not under her roof.

####

Today, Bill wasn't in his usual window seat. He'd elected to curl up in a corner of the attic, hiding in the shadows with his stolen blanket. The window was probably too hot. Mabel typically used acrylic yarn, and she knew from experience how quickly Sweater Town could turn into Sweaty Town.

For the first time, Mabel sauntered, quite casually, across the invisible barrier separating the rest of the attic from Bill's nest. She offered her winningest smile and her cheerfullest, "Hey, Bill!"

The Thing Beneath The Blanket gave her a look that, she suspected, could probably be described as deeply suspicious. "Shooting Star."

"Yup! Haha! That's—that's me all right! You got me." Mabel laughed. (This was going great so far. This was very natural.) "So, anyway!" She grabbed one of the couch cushions Bill had been using as a bed, dragged it a little closer to the corner, and plopped down. "This is such a weird coincidence, but one time, I got gum stuck in my hair and had to shave it off! I mean, crazy, right?"

"Uh huh." Bill didn't sound impressed. "Second grade." (And Mabel was uncomfortably reminded of the first time she'd ever seen Bill, the way hundreds of faces and places and memories that didn't belong to him had flashed across his body in seconds: I know lots of things.) "Hey, since you brought it up, can I ask you something about that little incident?"

"Uh..." This was what you signed up for, Mabel. You volunteered for a conversation with Bill. You've gotta converse. "Sure, I guess."

He leaned forward, yarn triangle face looming above her. "Did getting gum in your hair change your species? Did you still look like yourself when you shaved it off?" The face bobbed as he pantomiming looking her up and down. "You still look human to me! So what's your point."

Okay, so he'd immediately recognized she was trying to relate to him, aaand he was landmining their common ground. Great start. "Jeez, don't be so mean! I'm trying to tell you I get it. Not... the species part, but the other part. I wanna help!"

Bill scoffed. "Sure you do."

"Really!"

"Why?"

"Because you're all sad and it's making me sad."

Bill, o wise and ancient being that he was, knew of "empathy" in a conceptual sense. He was aware that it was a thing that happened to some people. He even knew that it was common among humans. But on some level he kinda sorta felt like it only really happened to mindreaders that didn't know how to establish proper psychic boundaries. He laughed in Mabel's face. "No, seriously! What are you getting out of this."

Mabel decided she had no interest in explaining compassion to an alien mass murderer. "Okay, I want Soos's blanket back. I gave it to him, not you."

"Fine. If you want his blanket back, make me one."

"What? No! Those are our Team Zodiac-That-Defeated-You blankets, you don't get one."

"Didn't you make one for everybody else on the wheel? I'm on the wheel, aren't I?" He pointed at his face. "Bam! There I am, right in the middle! Star of the show! If everyone else deserves a blanket, so do I."

"Why do you even want one? It's a symbol to kill you."

"It's got my face on it! It's not that deep." He crossed his legs and leaned his elbows on his knees, getting more comfortable. "So do I get to pick the colors? I'll take yellow if that's all you got, but if you get me metallic gold I think I can swing you a favor."

"I'm not making you a blanket," Mabel said. "I was thinking maybe a wig?"

Bill shuddered. "Pass."

"Aw, come on! I bet I could find you a really cute wig. Maybe something with bangs, have you ever thought about trying bangs? Summerween's coming up, I could go to the costume store—"

"Don't even think about it." Bill leaned away from Mabel, back into his corner. She was losing him. "Do you think I did this by accident?" He pointed vaguely toward his scalp. "Being stuck in a human body, with all this skin? Disgusting. Being a human and secreting fifteen miles of hair out of a hundred thousand of pores? Infinitely worse."

"Wait, wait, fifteen miles?" Mabel had never considered how long a full head of hair laid out end-to-end would be. "How much hair do I have?"

"Huh." Bill tilted his head consideringly. "How dense is your hair?"

"Super dense. I've broken multiple brushes."

"Could be up to fifty miles."

Mabel's eyes widened. "Whoa."

"And you've got fifty thousand miles of blood vessels," Bill added cheerfully. "Anyway, if you want this blanket back? You won't get it with a wig. All I want is to look..." he formed his fingers into a triangle, thumb to thumb and forefinger to forefinger, and held it over the face on the blanket, "... like this. Now, if you're offering to help me get my real body back—"

"Never in a million years."

"Didn't think so!" Bill retreated fully into his corner again, knees pulled back up under the blanket, like an eel hiding in a hole to await its next prey. "But hey, if you've got an offer that's a step up from the blanket, I'm willing to negotiate."

"Huh." Mabel frowned thoughtfully. Something triangly. Something triangly that was better than a blanket, without helping Bill return to full power.

She got to her feet. "Let's put a pin in this conversation and circle back to it later. I'll come back with some proposals for you to review."

Bill laughed. "Okay, business girl! Have your people call my people. You know where to find me."

Mabel leaped down the stairs three at a time, ideas already forming in her head.

####

"Hey, Grunkle Ford!"

Ford was sitting at the former controls of the interdimensional portal, studying some radar readings; but he glanced up with a smile when Mabel ran out of the elevator. "Mabel. What brings you down here?"

She dragged an office chair up beside Ford, plopped down in it, and spun a couple of times. "I need to ask some questions about Bill!"

Ford's smile faltered. "Ah."

"Last summer, when we were burning all your art of him—"

(Ford winced in embarrassment.)

"—you said he could do some kind of magic with pictures of his face? What's all that about?" She stopped spinning. "Do they give him more power? Can he fire lasers out of them, or...?"

"No, nothing like that, thank goodness. Depictions of his face granted him a different kind of power: the power of knowledge. When he was trapped in the Nightmare Realm, he could tap into our world's collective mindscape and see through drawings of himself as if they were cameras. Ironically, plastering images of his face everywhere to symbolically represent an 'all-seeing eye' is what made him so all-seeing in the first place."

Mabel nodded thoughtfully. "Did you know you talk like one of those experts they hire to explain things in history documentaries?" she asked. "You should be on TV. You'd be good at it."

Ford gave her a confused smile. "Er—thank you."

"So, if Bill's already here, making new pictures of his face doesn't do anything?"

He supposed she was wondering about the zodiac blankets she'd spread around town. "Probably not. At a minimum, he'd have to be in the mindscape to be at the right 'angle' to see through the eyes. As he is now, trapped in a human form?" Ford let out a slow, thoughtful sigh. "It's hard to say for sure, without knowing how he got to be this way or what kinds of powers he's still hiding... but based on everything I've seen so far, I doubt they do anything for him."

"And if somebody put a picture of him on his face, it wouldn't do anything at all! Because that's like, his face. He already has eyes there."

Ford chuckled. "I suppose that's true. It would be like he'd grown a third eyeball, that's all." He paused. Put a picture of him on his face? "Why do you ask?"

Too late; she was halfway to the elevator. "Thanks, Grunkle Ford! I'll see you at dinner!" And she was gone.

####

"What's all this?" Bartholomew asked.

Mabel was dumping a bag of costume makeup and cheap convenience store makeup palettes onto her bed. They sparkled in varying hues of tacky gold glitter. "Art project!" She scooped Bartholomew out of his cradle by Dipper's bed, climbed the rickety ladder to the storage loft over their bedroom, and set him down leaning against a box. "You're on guard duty. Stay quiet and if anything goes wrong, get Dipper."

"How do you expect me to get Dipper? I'm a doll. I can't move."

"Come on, Mew-Mew. You think we don't know you teleport when nobody's looking?"

Bartholomew paused. "Touché."

Mabel rummaged through her art supplies; put tape, glue, and a couple of flattened cardboard boxes on the bed; added all the yellow crayons, markers, and paints she could find; and finally, satisfied, she ran out of the room. "Bill!"

"Still here."

"I've got the perfect solution. I'm giving you..." Mabel posed, hands on her hips. "A makeover!"

Bill waited for the follow up. There was no follow up. "Heh."

"Laugh now, but before I'm finished, I'm gonna make you more beautiful than your wildest dreams!"

"With all due respect"—which, by his tone of voice, didn't sound like much—"your idea of 'wild' taps out where my dreams are just getting started."

"Then I'll just have to up my game, won't I?" Mabel held out her hand. "Just give me that blanket, show me that weird bald head of yours, and let me make it into a canvas for high art! Trust me!"

Bill contemplated her extended hand. Did he trust her? In most situations, he considered trust irrelevant. He expected most people to do whatever they thought would benefit themselves the most; sometimes that meant keeping their word, and sometimes it didn't. And he still wasn't sure what Mabel really expected to get out of this.

On the other hand. Was he really curious to find out where she was going with this? Yes. And the worst thing she could possibly do to him was make him very slightly more ugly than he already was. And playing along would fill his empty afternoon.

"Okay, kid." He reluctantly handed the blanket over. "You haven't given me a bad makeover so far." (He hadn't actually seen her marker mask, but it never hurt to flatter the person about to paint all over you.) He stood and stretched. "Show me what you've got. But if I don't like it, you owe me a blanket."

"Yes!" She grabbed his hand—his whole arm immediately went stiff—and dragged him toward the bedroom. "Welcome to my salon!"

####

Sure enough, just like Ford had said—when Stan checked Bill's attic nest, there was no sign of him.

Stan didn't like that one bit. Where the hell had their prisoner gotten off to?

As Stan approached the attic bedroom, he could hear Mabel talking: "More glitter?! That's crazay! Okay, here goes! I bet you could pull off such a glam rock look." (That explained where the kids were. He'd been starting to wonder.) "Hold still, I'm gonna try something I saw on a Russian supermodel—"

"Kids," Stan called, "do you know where the demon went?" He opened the door. "Poindexter says he can't find him anywhere, and—"

Mabel was kneeling on the floor, surrounded by the widest variety of makeup brushes and palettes Stan had ever seen. Her fingers and sleeve cuffs were coated in gold glitter and paint.

Kneeling in front of her, with his legs splayed awkwardly and his hands on the floor like he wasn't sure how to lower this body down to Mabel's height, was Bill. His face was liberally coated in acrylic gold paint and amateurishly contoured with a mix of craft glitter and golden eyeshadow. One eye was shut—the eyelashes delicately dusted with more gold eyeshadow to help it blend in—while the other was coated in a layer of mascara so thick it was a miracle his lashes didn't glue shut when he blinked.

And to cap off the gilded absurdity, his face was sticking through a hole in the middle of a cardboard triangle helmet, painted sunflower yellow with bricks shakily traced on in marker. Bill looked like the poor kid assigned the part of "the pyramid" in a fourth grade class play about ancient Egypt.

Mabel and Bill stared at Stan.

Stan stared back.

He covered a snort with a cough. "I'll—I'll tell Ford you've got it handled." He slammed the door.

He let out a bellow of laughter.

Mabel put a hand on Bill's shoulder. "He doesn't understand avant-garde fashion. You look like a million dollars."

"I know," Bill said. "All the same—maybe a hat would class things up a little?"

Mabel reached for a sheet of black construction paper. "You're so right."

####

"Well?" Mabel leaned around Bill, trying to see what he looked like in the full-length mirror. "What do you think?"

Bill stared in the mirror. A horrific abomination of flaking paint, cakey makeup, and taped-up cardboard stared back.

He grinned so wide it cracked his face paint. "I think I'm looking at the hottest human being in history."

"Yes!" Mabel pumped a fist into the air.

####

Ford said, "Stanley, what is it?"

Stan wheezed until his lungs ran out of air.

Concerned, Ford leaned across the kitchen table, lacing his hands together. "Did you find Bill?"

"M—Mhmm."

"He hasn't hurt Mabel, has he?" Ford asked, flashing back to their conversation earlier. "Or—or Dipper? Anyone?"

Stan bit his lip and shook his head. Tears of laughter pricked the corners of his eyes.

"Did he... put some kind of laughing curse on you?"

Stan shook his head more emphatically. "H—" He couldn't get one syllable out before he had to choke back his laughter again. He pounded on the table.

Grasping at straws and defaulting to the first worst case scenario he could think of, Ford said, "He hasn't found a way back to his true form, has he?"

Stan let out a noise like a balloon that had been untied and unleashed to fly around the room. "I MEAN—"

"Gooood afternoon, gentlemen!" Beaming brightly enough to rival the sun, twirling an umbrella like a cane, Bill strutted in.

Ford clapped one hand on Stan's shoulder, clapped the other over his mouth, and turned away, shoulders shaking. Stan smacked Ford's arm in sympathetic hysteria.

"I see we're all in high spirits today!" With the brazen confidence of an illegitimate prince marching into a throne room to demand his crown, Bill strolled through the kitchen, barely sparing the Stan twins a glance. Mabel followed behind him, grinning from ear to ear. "I wouldn't mind some spirits, myself." He paused in front of the fridge. "Could someone—?"

As the closest person to the fridge, Ford pulled it open, then turned to watch so he could make sure Bill didn't do anything he shouldn't with the food. This required him to look in Bill's direction. He curled his lips into his mouth and bit down. His eyes watered.

"Finally." Bill hungrily surveyed the inner contents of the fridge, grabbed an armload of condiments, a jar of pickles, and a tub of leftover chicken nuggets, and dumped them on the nearest counter. He tried to reach for a bottle of spoiled and incredibly fermented corn syrup toward the back of the fridge, banged the sides of his cardboard helmet on the fridge's doorframe, and quickly backed off and felt the corners to make sure they weren't too damaged. He had to turn sideways to reach the bottle without hitting the edges of the fridge. One corner of his mask tipped over a bottle of apple juice. Watching this performance very nearly killed the Stans.

"There." Bill triumphantly set the bottle on the counter, grabbed a can of alphabet spaghetti that had been forgotten on an open shelf, and asked, "Where do you have the bowls hidden?" He rapped on one of the cabinet doors with his umbrella.

The sight of the umbrella knocked Ford out of some of his hysteria. "Where did you—?" He snatched the umbrella out of Bill's hands. "No weapons."

Bill gave Ford a withering one-eyed look (Ford suspected his other eye was glued shut with paint), then elected to ignore him. "Shooting Star?"

"They're down here!" Mabel opened one of the base cabinets. Bill retrieved a bowl and started filled it with his condiment haul.

"Okay," Stan said, voice strained with suppressed laughter. "Okay, what—what are we looking at?"

"A masterpiece of cosmetic art," Bill said. Mabel's grin widened.

Ford elbowed Stan across the table. "Do you remember the 'living statue' performers on the Glass Shard Beach boardwalk?" he asked. "The ones who'd paint all their skin and clothes gold—?"

"Oh yeah!" Stan let out a bark of laughter. "That's exactly what he looks like!"

In his bowl, Bill had layered mayonnaise, Tabasco sauce, mustard, sour cream, and maple syrup, and carefully stuck in as many chicken nuggets as he could without the mix slopping over the edges. He got Mabel's help to stick it in the microwave, then turned toward the Stans with a smug grin. "So you agree that I look like a work of art."

"No," Stan said, "they looked like idiots, and so do you."

Bill scoffed. "You don't know anything! You look at a human body, and all you see is a human with things stuck on it. I can look at a human body and see a canvas. I've stripped this vessel of its association with humanity and transformed it into an idol of myself."

Mabel loudly cleared her throat.

"Okay, she did most of the work. She wouldn't even let me do my own mascara."

Ford seriously considered the artistic merit of Bill's proposed "human body sans humanity as art material" paradigm. After a moment of deliberation, he said, "You have cardboard taped to your face."

Stan slapped the table. "HA!"

Bill opened the alphabet spaghetti can, slopped half into a glass, filled the rest with spoiled corn syrup—whose fumes were powerful enough to completely sterilize the sinuses of everyone in a five foot radius—and then filled the can with corn syrup as well. The mixes bubbled threateningly. The absolute picture of good cheer, Bill announced, "I'm the most beautiful thing any of you have ever seen. It's just too bad your closed little minds can't enjoy the marvel in front of you." He stirred his toxic alphabet spaghetti concoction with a pickle spear.

Stan watched Bill mix his drink in mild alarm. "What in the world are you making?"

Bill held his wrist over the glass and a knife to his wrist. "A Bloody Mary."

Stan's alarm increased. "No you aren't."

"That's your opinion." 

"Where did you get—!" Ford leaned over to snatch the knife out of Bill's hand.

"It was in the fridge, it was sticking out of the leftover casserole!" Bill rolled his eye. "Re-lax! I wasn't pointing it at you." He lifted his drink, nearly poured it into his eye, caught himself at Mabel's shout of alarm, took a sip through the correct hole, then inspected the thick gold lip stain left on the rim. "Huh." He looked at Mabel.

She shrugged. "I could have set the makeup with baby powder, but I thought it might dim some of the sparkle."

"You chose form over function. I respect that." He sipped his drink more carefully.

The microwave went off, Mabel opened the door, and Bill scooped up his condiment-and-nugget stew and both alleged Bloody Marys. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go be handsome somewhere else—"

The corner of his cardboard helmet banged into the kitchen doorway. He dropped one of his drinks, stumbled against the wall, and looked in dismay at his syrup-and-spaghetti-sauce-soaked skirt. He turned to Mabel. "How's my head?"

She grimaced. "We... can fix that with tape."

Bill sighed. "Come on, let's do it before my nuggets get cold."

"Now hold on!" Ford stood up. "Are you going to clean this mess up?"

"No!" Bill was out of the room. Ford could already hear him tripping on the stairs. "You don't trust me with a mop!"

Well. It was true, they didn't trust him with a mop. Sighing, Ford trudged across the room. "I'll get it."

Stan said, "You know, I think I'm glad he looks like an idiot. He's been so mopey the last couple of days, I was almost starting to feel bad for him."

"Thank goodness, you too," Ford muttered. "I was afraid I was going soft."

"Nah, he really was pathetic," Stan said. "Like a sad show poodle that doesn't understand why it's been shaved in weird shapes."

Ford barked a laugh.

Once the floor was clean, Ford confessed, "I've—actually really worried about that. Going soft, I mean. I'm... afraid that Bill could find a way back into my head."

"Literally or emotionally?"

"Emotionally." Ford paused. "Both, actually—but right now, I mean emotionally. The night he burned his hair off, I..." He winced at himself; but he needed to tell Stan. There was no one else he trusted to give him a reality check. Maybe Fiddleford, but... Ford hadn't figured out how to approach him about all this yet.

He put back the mop, to have an excuse to pause and gather his words. "I... brought him something to eat," Ford mumbled. "And, told him I knew what it was like to be trapped in an alien universe, and—that he should take better care of himself, for his own sake—and I don't know why I said that! Anything good he does for himself just makes things harder for us! It's not as though I forgot that, but—What? Stanley, why is this funny."

Stan had started laughing; but he cut it off a cough. "Sorry. It's just—do you remember how Mom would go 'Well, I can tell you two are related' any time we did something—you know—twinnish?"

"Don't tell me you've been making sandwiches for Bill."

"Ha! No, but I've given my arch nemesis a pep talk when he was having a mental breakdown. I felt bad for him!"

Ford chuckled. "Really?" He dropped back into his seat. "I didn't know you have an arch nemesis, who's that?"

Stan considered Ford's reaction if he admitted that his nemesis was that ten-year-old with a crush on Mabel, and said, "Ah, he's been out of my hair for ages. So what, is that all you talked about?"

"Somehow it turned into him trying to convince me he'd been planning a welcome party when I fell through the portal."

"Ha! And did you believe him?"

"Absolutely not." Ford paused thoughtfully. "But—part of me wonders whether he believes it himself."

"He seems like the kind of guy to buy his own bull." Stan shrugged. "Nah, I don't think you're about to fall off the wagon. Just don't let him fast-talk you into any decisions and don't buy anything he's selling without telling him you'll think it over for twenty-four hours. And the more he says decide now, the harder you say no. That's how the pros get you, they don't give you room to breathe, let alone think."

Ford was pretty sure Stan was just describing the Mystery Shack's souvenir sales strategy; but he nodded slowly. "I know exactly what you're talking about. When I gave him permission to pilot my body, between the first time he mentioned it was an option and the moment I agreed to it... well, I was asleep at the time, so I can't be sure how long it took—but I'd guess it was less than fifteen minutes. In retrospect, I couldn't believe that I'd agreed so thoughtlessly. But I suppose that's exactly what he wanted. And I'd already trusted him to make so many other minute alterations to my mind..." Which made it all the more suspicious that Bill had only waited until right then to "offer" to pilot Ford's body. No room to breathe was a good way to describe it. Never mind being nose-to-nose with somebody trying to pressure you into a sale—how do you take a step back to get a little space from somebody who's already inside your head?

"Did he make it sound like a limited-time-only deal? You know—'buy now while the price is low, you'll regret missing this offer'? But with more mystical woo-woo phrasing, I mean."

"Not exactly, but..." Ford tried to remember back that far, grasping for the details of the conversation—the real conversation, not the heady, excited version he'd summarized in his journal. "At the time, I'd been worried about falling behind schedule on the portal's construction. He wouldn't have had to introduce an element of tension—it was already there. All he had to do was exploit it." He shook his head. Falling behind schedule. What schedule—the one he, himself had made? He was sure Bill had encouraged him to finish as fast as possible, too.

"There, you see? You got swindled by a professional swindler," Stan said. "What's important is that you know what he is now, and you know his tricks. He won't get you the same way twice. I'm not worried about you."

There were a couple of odd thuds from upstairs, accompanied by a yelp from Bill. That wasn't odd; he'd proven to be remarkably clumsy in a human body. At any given time it was possible to tell where he was by the random bangs, and if he hadn't made a noise in the last five minutes it meant he was curled up safely in his window seat.

What was odd was hearing Mabel's voice: "Careful, careful—! Augh. ... I'll get another sheet of cardboard, we'll replace that!"

Stan and Ford looked warily toward the stairs. Stan muttered, "Mabel, on the other hand..."

Ford nodded. "I'll keep an eye on her."

####

(Thanks for reading, y'all! Edit to this chapter from 1/16/2025: From time to time I get comments about how well I've "edited" this story to line up with TBOB—which is irking, because I've been working on this story since over a year before TBOB came out, and some of the most TBOB-compliant things in it were written months before TBOB was even announced. And it's petty & insignificant, but by golly, I want the people who didn't read the rough drafts to know just how little I had to change to make it fit the book. So I've decided to add author's notes documenting what was and—more importantly—what was not changed to line up with TBOB.

So! Edits made to this chapter as a result of TBOB: basically nothing of importance. Changed "their parents took them to a therapist" to "their parents took them to their therapist" to reference the fact that the kids' parents are going through a rough patch; inserted a single sentence referencing the fact that Bill's rewired Ford's brain a bit; changed one sentence from "I don't think he'll get in your head" to "I don't think you'll fall off the wagon" to allude to how Ford calls himself a "Cipherholic" in TBOB; added a sentence where Mabel suggests he try bangs; and added one sentence confirming Bill could do his own mascara if he wanted/was allowed. And that's it.

The rest (including Bill implying he suspects the zodiac is to honor him rather than defeat him, talking about therapy at all in relation to Bill as something he probably needs, Bill jumping at the opportunity to share weird info about the human body, Bill being very enthusiastic about treating the human body as a canvas to be improved with art of himself...) is all pre-TBOB.

Anyway, if you read this far, I'd love to hear your thoughts!)

[weirdmageddon]

ive finaly managed to lay it out my major interests. i dont know what took me so long to be able to do that. i posted it to bluesky but i’ll do it here too. i need a new pinned post anyway.

22 autistic goth nerd and other-proclaimed “wizard”

things i’m interested in:

science: ALL natural science, esp. neuroscience, neuropsychology, psychology (the mind), biology, anatomy & physiology, ecosystems, network theory

other realms: philosophy, sociology, anthropology, human ethology, personality differences

natural noumena: patterns in nature, emergence, self-organization / spontaneous order, chaos theory and fractals

tropes / archetypes

analytical psychology / jungian analysis (not in association to jordan peterson, whom i think is a chode. this is significant to me, because i feel like i share the phenomenological reality with jung that formed the basis of his ideas. many of these forces i’ve noticed on my own, separate from him, before i knew him. so seeing his ideas i was like “oh he put it into words. glad to know someone else has a keen sense for these phenomena”)

socionics model A

other typological systems: enneagram, mbti (not 16personalities), etc. quizzes are lazy minded and i dont give them much weight on principle. im into understanding the theoretical foundations

eclectic alternative music subcultures + history: esp. 70s-80s, experimental, psychedelic rock, punk, new wave, post-punk, goth rock, industrial

art and creativity in general

YTP and remix culture

the venture bros. (bonus points if you understand most of the references because this show is like my personal catnip)

jhonen vasquez: jthm, squee, i feel sick, invader zim (decade+ old fan)

david lynch: twin peaks, eraserhead, blue velvet, mulholland drive, etc

jon bois: pretty good, 17776/20020, chart party, team history documentaries, etc

blaseball / mmolb

vinesauce (decade+ old watcher)

pokemon: in general, but esp. knowledgeable about game mechanics (decade+ old fan)

gravity falls (decade+ old fan)

homestuck (decade+ old fan)

mother series

star trek* (*slowly immersing myself)

lots of more stuff i probably missed

typology type profile: LII-Ne IN(T) INFJ 5w4 so/sp 514 RCOAI

things i might be known for:

original dirtygfconfessions crew member (mod dipper. 2014–idk when the shit went down where our posts got deleted)

original real-time fandub crew member (2016-2018; 2025-) [*note: real-time fandub games, like the sonic dubs, were a spinoff by crew member penny snapcube]

hs act omega artist (2017-2019)

three-time podcast guester on mystery shack lookback

figure in spamtonology

tumblr historian. i was probably there when it happened.

op of tumblr post screenshots circulating on google images

random things about me:

shit nobody cares about enthusiast

given enough time i think i could probably explain anything

ive been here since late 2011

i live in a very isolated pocket of my own taste in art/music where im not really aware of what everyone else is listening to because it just…doesnt really cross my mind ever? i found out brian eno said something similar, “If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.” i told my friend the other day i feel like i understand my self through music and art, because of the accumulation of my taste i can actually experience my unconscious preference and know what i feel my own experiences reflected in

im best at self-reflection and observations of own my own mental processes. like catching the background of consciousness

if i were forced at gunpoint to kin a homestuck character it would be aradia megido. we’re very close in spirit

also dipper pines mannerisms but i think im a bit more eccentric and mature

dare i say the big joel of tumblr

another eno quote i strongly relate to: “Sometimes you recognize that there is a category of human experience that has not been identified but everyone knows about it. That is when I find a term to describe it.”

i’m asexual. i don’t know my romantic orientation because attraction is so rare for me (not enough data) but i think i always had a queer mentality. i just call myself grayromantic. i never had a partner but i want one because i’m feeling ready now but it has to feel like the right person.

tags:

#mine ← my posts, if i remember to tag them. im reblog heavy.

#me ← relatable tag

#laugh rule ← if i laugh irl i have to tag it that

#fave ← self explanatory

my art insp/aesthetic/resources side blog: @bonewheel

[freshydip]

i love how a big part of Ford's characterization can be found in a quick and simple line said by Dipper in society of the blind eye. when they're all making their confessions before potentially getting their minds wiped Dipper all but shouts "If I'm not the smart guy then who am I?"

Ford's always been The Smart One, that's been his whole identity almost from the moment he started speaking. a genius! and a genius deserves recognition for his intelligence! he's not one to flaunt accomplishments frivolously, but he's also not so humble as to be reserved about them. because those accomplishments are also a part of his personality. they're tentpoles that hold up his ego and self worth and confidence and if enough of them break, the whole thing comes crashing down and he's left with nothing. take away his 12 phds and his grand theses and the life's work that's supposed to be a reflection of his genius and what's left? a weirdo, a freak weakly grasping at fatuous fancies, a pile of insecurities with nothing left to hide them.

that's why he reacted so viscerally to Stan trying to light his journal on fire. that's not just an object representing his competency. it is quite literally a part of him.

[cracklinhaze]

Do you (if you read TBOB) believe Dipper and Mabel's parents are divorced?

yes, yes, i do.

i'm a big believer in the fact that their parents did divorce when they returned to piedmont, and that their failing relationship was the reason they sent the twins to gravity falls.

i made some pines parent headcanons in this post below if you want more!

their divorce is purely a headcanon, though! we know canonly that dipper and mabel's parents were fighting prior to the summer, and that dipper had reoccurring nightmares about it, but we have no actual evidence as to what actually happened! which is super cool i love when canon material is open-ended.

personally, i think it's interesting to explore the impact a divorce would have on the pines twins, especially since they came back so connected to gravity falls in a way that their parents would have no way of understanding. they might chalk it up to the divorce instead of, yknow, their kids survived an apocalypse. i think it would push the twins closer to their grunkles.

alex hirsch's parents also did separate! which is an interesting backdrop to the fact that the twins are largely self-reflective of him and his sister.

mostly, i like the headcanon because it adds an extra layer of fuckery to the post-canon life that i enjoy writing about. again, nothing has or will be confirmed! this is all my own explorations on the topic!

[strawberryshortcake1495]

Another Gravity Falls OC? You betcha! :D

This little bean is Charlie Corduroy. She’s Wendy’s little sister who’s gentle and soft-spoken unlike her roughhousing family. Wendy’s particularly protective of her because Charlie is prone to tears by anything as simple as a loud noise.

Despite being slightly afraid of her father and her brothers, she still loves them and is always there to patch up their wounds. She’s passionate about becoming a doctor, but is insecure that she won’t become one due to her crazy family.

But her softness isn’t the only thing that makes her stick out of the Corduroys like a sore thumb, she also has bright orange hair which contrasts everyone else’s sharp red. This is because she inherited the color from her late mother. Perhaps that’s another reason why Wendy adores her.

She makes her official debut in Into the Bunker, where Wendy brings her along to explore the bunker. The poor girl is clinging onto her sister and everything is fine until the Shapeshifter reveals himself. Charlie is freaking out and begging Wendy to get her out. When Soos and Wendy prepare the pipe, Dipper ushers everyone into the same closet Shifty trapped Fiddleford in 30 years ago. Unfortunately, Charlie doesn’t make it in time and Wendy can do nothing but press her ear to the door as her baby sister’s shrieks are drowned out by the sound of gushing water.

But Charlie doesn’t die. Oh no, Shifty actually saved her at the last second but not for a good reason. He traps her into a small opening in the stone wall before impersonating her. This time, it’s Wendy who axes the fake Charlie. Dipper feels very awful about the whole situation and when they’re in the closet, his hands shake and he apologizes to Wendy in a big long jumble of words. Somewhere in between, he confesses his feelings for her.

After Wendy and Dipper talk to eachother, Dipper asks Wendy to tell Charlie that he’s sorry. Wendy ruffles his hair and tells him to apologize himself. So he does just that. Charlie is usually very forgiving, being quick to resort to mercy because she doesn’t want to complicate things, but this time was different. This boy almost killed her. Almost killed her sister. All because of some stupid bunker?

No. She wants to forgive this boy, to pat his shoulder and tell him everything is fine, but it’s not fine. And it probably won’t be fine for a very long time. So to everyone’s surprise, she doesn’t forgive Dipper. She meekly asks Wendy if they can leave and her sister obliges. Dipper sulks while Soos and Mabel comfort him.

After that episode, she goes back to being the shy and nervous little girl who follows Wendy around but she doesn’t return until Roadside Attraction. Mabel, Candy, and Grenda invite her and there’s this big weird love triangle between her, Candy, and Dipper even though Charlie doesn’t even like him. The poor kid was roped into the whole thing by peer pressure. But at the end of the episode, Charlie takes a moment to reflect and decides that she’s been holding this grudge for long enough. Plus, hatred wasn’t who she was. Dipper apologizes to both Candy and Charlie, and both girls forgive him.

In Weirdmageddon, Dipper and Charlie come across eachother again while hiding from the eye bats. Dipper protects Charlie and they find their way into the mall. They reunite with Wendy and they, along with Soos, go into Mabeland.

Once Bill is dead and Gravity Falls is back to normal; this girl, who was once so timid and sensitive, had grown more mellow. Braver. Confident. She still wanted to be a doctor, and she still cries to scary movies, but she has a sense of self now. And it’s all thanks to her new friends who if you told her she’d make a year ago, she’d giggle nervously.

[guiltygearconfessions]

dnd 5e builds for base strive cast (+ goldlewis!)

Sol: either an Artificer (Battlesmith) w a Barbarian (Totem) dip where his Steel Defender is his bike and Elk/Bear rage is dragon install OR a Wizard (Bladesinger) with a belt (headband) of giant strength and Tasha's Otherworldy Guise as his DI

Ky: Hexbalde Warlock w a Battlemaster Fighter dip since he seems charismatic and his patron cld be the Thunderseal. His manouevres: Trip (Stun Dipper), Lunge (Foudre Arc), Riposte (Vapor Thrust). Meanwhile, Eldritch Blast = Stun Edge, Booming Blade = Dire Eclat, can blow his limited spell slots on Lightning Bolt (Sacred Edge) or Hasted Booming Blades + Relentless Hex or just Thunder Step (RTL). Possibly take a sorc (Storm) dip or the Metamagic Adept feat to transmute spell and change his damage types to lightning + gain flying speed.

May: Ranger (Beastmaster) for sea animal shenanigans. Possible dips into Paladin (Devotion, to the Jellyfish Pirates) or Fighter (Cavalier) for mounted combat features and bonuses (e.g. Find Greater Steed)

Axl: Ranger (Horizon Walker) + Monk (Kensei)/Fighter (Battlemaster). The boring and "correct" answer here is pure bladesinger wiz using a flavoured whip for the Time Stop spell, but the teleportation offered by Horizon Walker and the idea of slipping between planes of existence seems flavourful. Ranger features also have a bit more trap laying flavour. Monk bonuses for movement speed + unarmoured defense to remain slippery while dressing casual.

Chipp: Monk (Shadow) with the Fey Touched and Shadow Touched feats for access to Shadow Teleport + Misty Step + Shadow Blade and maybe a small spellcaster dip into Sorcerer (Shadow) if only to get Quickened Spell for ninja flavour + Mirror Image (multiple Chipps!)

Potemkin: although a pure Fighter (Champion) is tempting, the 4 attacks per turn feels at odds w the slower, lumbering idea of Potemkin. Instead I propose DM fiat to allow smiting while Unarmed, then build Potemkin as a Variant Human (base feat used to learn Unarmed Fighting style) with full Paladin (Glory or Redemption). His devotion and larger than life presence give him moral power behind his blows which are weighty (big ass smites) but infrequent (2 per turn). The other athleticism, tanky abilities come from his Paladin subclass features. Spells like Command and Compelled Duel reflect his intimidating presence and ability to control the field. Spells like Thunderous Smite and Destructive Wave reflect his sheer terrain-altering strength. Feats could include Grappler, Tavern Brawler, Tough.

Faust: Pure Wild Magic Sorcerer or an even split btwn Wild Magic Sorc and Life Cleric. Dimension Door/Misty Step for teleports. Items could represent by: Meteors (Minute Meteors), Bomb (Delayed Blast Fireball), 100T Weight (Earth Tremor/Earthquake), Donut/Banana (Healing Word/Cure Wounds), Afro (reflavoured Web since its also a control debuff that turns into damage after fire exposure), Minifaust (so many summon spells but I like the idea of Guardian of Faith from Cleric), Trumpet (Insect Plague), Hammer (Catapult). And then Haste can be used with Quickened Spell to simulate item throw super. Tack on a couple fighter levels perhaps to Action Surge and emulate the 100 tension version + give some oomph to the occasional scalpel normal.

Millia: not base dnd but i think she fits a Blood Hunter (Lycan) pretty well. The flavour of undergoing a dangerous and forbidden procedure for power, the hair transformations... probably uses Rite of the Oracle (psychic) and Blood Curse of Binding (tandem top) to hold enemies in place for devastating up close "mixups" while still remaining highly mobile.

Zato: Fighter (Echo Knight) w a Monk (Long Death) dip (or, potentially, Undead Warlock). Fragile but frequently summonable puppet fighter w a Monk dip for the "unarmoured melee fighter" vibe + undying flavour or Warlock dip for more spell slinging vibe+ access to flight spells.

Ramlethal: taking a bit more from her Xrd incarnation, a mixed Cleric (Twilight) for access to Spiritual Weapon for the "remote/hovering sword" + a hover/fly movement rather than regular walking and a Warlock (Hexblade) with the Eldritch Smite invocation to burn spell slots for chunky damage that knocks enemies flat on their asses (Mortobato).

Leo: Rogue (Swashbuckler ) + Barbarian (Totem). Probably a Tiger/Elk Barb for the movement speed and the animalistic vibe, while the Rogue levels and Swashbuckler features give the idea of a speedy duelist who occasionally snipes out big damage hits from "converting" movement speed based mixups. (also Swashbucklers benefit from Charisma, which leo definitely has since hes led so many soldiers to their deaths 🥰)

Nago: Fighter (Samurai). I think a majority of Nago's features and design are reflected in this subclass- the idea of a fighter who takes a slow and measured approach while occasionally bursting into a flurry of sudden violence. The high level Samurai feature of taking another turn upon getting dropped also kind of feels like Nago blood rage- a last second gambit at the verge of defeat type of deal.

Gio: Monk (Astral Self). Gio's features as an unarmed, unarmoured, mobile fighter w a not-quite animal spirit are perfectly encapsulated in this subclass, down to her appearance transformations at high tension

Anji: Bard (Swords) with Fighter (Battlemaster) dip and the Dual Wielder feat. Swords Bard explains his armoured twirl (Defensive Flourish) and other more magical effects like the butterfly, koi, and his cinematic super. Battlemaster Trip (rekka low), Push (corner carry off fuujin), Sweep (spinny spins), Parry/Riposte (dedicated counters).

I-No: Oddly enough i dont think she's a pure bard. If anything, I think her style seems more offense oriented than support, so she probably has way more Sorcerer (storm) levels for flying and her other magic shit. For her Bard dip, probably a Whispers bard to play into her role as a mysterious and menacing antagonist figure.

Goldlewis: Paladin (Watchers) with a Warlock (GoO) dip. Watchers paladins already deal w abberations and aliens, and his smites could be flavoured as his big behemoth typhoons/down with the system. Warlock spells and blast reflect the gadgets stored by his alien.

Wow! Points for being so thorough! This is cool