Y’know, I don’t usually talk about ships I dislike, but this is one I haven’t seen criticized.
So the Gravity Falls fandom is riddled with bad ships, ranging from “Ah yes, let’s ship the victim with the demon that abused them” to “Incest between 12 year old twins is so great”.
Which would explain why all the effort of criticizing ships is going to those infamous ones and not any others that might be less ugly by comparison.
Heck, that note to Mabel in journal 3, saying Bill would have thrown Dipper’s body off the water tower was probably the creator’s way of saying “Stop shipping Dipper with the demon Dorito.” She’s terrified of that thing from trying to get Stan over his fear of heights, and Bill ended the letter by asking if she wanted to join Dipper at the bottom.
StanChez is the lesser evil ship I’m talking about specifically. But keep in mind, I’m a Gravity Falls fan, not a Rick and Morty fan, so my knowledge of that show is from video essays and osmosis.
It’s not on the same level of awful as saying Ford and Bill should be a couple after watching the man get chained and electrocuted.
Or well drawn incest between the two main characters, who are based on the show creator and his sister.
But StanChez is toxic. And I’d like to explain why on Stan Pines’ behalf, because he deserves better. And I also don’t think they’d get along for more than a few days.
Reason 1: Rick is a different level of Criminal
People seem to gravitate towards this ship because Stan and Rick are both criminals and bad influences on those around them, but it’s more surface level than you’d think.
The most we know about Stan’s kill count is that he killed a llama and Bill. And in his words “that llama had it coming”. Other than that, his main crimes are swindling and conning, with tax evasion through false identities.
But if a state full of angry people goes after him, his response is to run away and start a new fake identity. Not attack the people he conned or the police. And even though his bad products gave people rashes, they never crossed over into something truly heinous.
He also tries to befriend other criminals and attacks them out of self defense, and not intent to kill. Stan knows how to fight, but his intention is very rarely to kill, and that’s a healthier mindset to have.
Rick is in the habit of ruining versions of earth with his experiments, and then running off to take his own place in another dimension instead of staying to try and help. That’s not running away from a minor con like Stan, that’s leaving billions of people to die, over and over again.
Rick is also in the habit of killing people who are an inconvenience to him, whether they pose a real threat or not. He’s so used to killing on sight that he doesn’t bat an eye at making Morty take someone’s life.
Stan is a different kind of bad influence than Rick that isn’t as heinous. Not by a long shot. Dipper and Mabel may have to go on a character arc where they stop swindling people, but they’ve never been taught to kill or maim. They’ve never watched Stan murder people and ignore their distress when he does it. Or been forced to bury a body.
Dipper and Mabel may become worse because of Stan, but it’s nothing so serious that they’ll never recover. But Morty? Morty is in a very toxic situation where he’s been traumatized and started to go numb inside.
Reason 2: Stan’s self esteem
Stan has a lot more in common with Morty than you’d think. He was always “the dumb twin” and “the screw up”. Sure, his Ma tried to negate his father’s terrible words, but one of his parents still made him feel hated and useless.
For goodness sakes, it was Filbrick kicking him out as a high schooler, telling him to come back when he made a fortune, that set him on the path of greed!
It’s also Filbrick’s terrible parenting that made Stan try to be tough with Dipper and favor Mabel, the way Ford was favored.
Stan’s self esteem is much lower than it looks on the surface, and prolonged exposure to Rick would only make it worse.
You see, Rick doesn’t explain what dimension they’re going to, what to look out for, and what’s safe before bringing Morty on an “adventure”. They’ll get there, Morty will start asking because he doesn’t know, and Rick will drunkenly call him an idiot and barely explain. But Morty is supposed to be the stupid one for it.
Rick also favors Summer, Morty’s sister over him. Even though he’s been dragged along on these traumatic adventures much longer.
Say what you will about Stan being a bad influence, but at least we know he does it out of generational trauma and still cares about Dipper. Instead of being harsher on him for no reason, Stan sees it as teaching him to be tougher by making him do chores.
Rick is just playing favorites. And he’s also well known for talking down to Morty’s dad Jerry for being stupid. To the point fans only recently started to see through it and respect Jerry as an embarrassing but happy normal person.
If Stan started hanging around Rick, he’d be talked down to and compared to his smarter twin once again, but this time by the “smartest man in the multiverse”. He doesn’t need another toxic influence to stomp on his self worth.
Reason 3: Think of the children
Stan never replaced anybody. Yes, he had the wax Stan, but he wasn’t calling it Ford. My theory is he was practicing what he’d do with Ford once he brought him back, and the wax funeral was him remembering that Ford might have died.
Stan is known for letting the kids go off on their own, but he also tried to convince them that the supernatural wasn’t real to protect them.
And when he saw they were in danger, he fought the undead to protect them. Most of the time, he just doesn’t see that they’re in danger because they’re off on their own.
He cares about Dipper and Mabel and Soos and Wendy. Heck, he even gave Gideon a pep talk in the shrink ray episode. Do you honestly think he’d be okay with cloning one of them if they died? Or worse, stealing some other Stan’s family in another dimension?
He was looking for his Ford, not a random one from some other timeline. If Dipper was thrown off the water tower, or Mabel snapped away by Bill, Stan wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. And he wouldn’t be able to replace them. The same goes for Ford, Soos, and Wendy.
So imagine him finding the Morty cloning facilities at Rick’s Citadel. And Rick trying to gaslight him into thinking it’s better to leave the evil Ricks to clone and kill as many Morty’s as they want, because it keeps them distracted. Or finding out about Rick replacing himself in other dimensions without telling the family?
Y’all remember that Dipper asked Ford how he knew Bill, and he said:
“I’ve encountered many dark beings in my time, Dipper.”
I bet the reason why Ford was erased with other memory tubes is because he found out about the cloning and got angry with Rick. Because despite his issues with Stan, he still remembers the little boy getting mistreated by his father.
Needless to say, Stanley wouldn’t be approving of all this either, once he knew Rick was a monster. But if Rick wouldn’t listen to “the smart” twin and erased the interaction, he’s way less likely to listen to poor Stan. Because he’s well used to talking down to people when they confront him or disagree with him. And if he’d do it to his own family, he’d sure as heck do it to Stanley.
So yeah, those are my reasons why StanChez is a bad idea/doesn't work. This isn’t going to become a series or anything, I just thought it was worth explaining.
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