It is complete…! :’D I wanted to get these done in December but life happened. Regardless, I’m glad I got to finish at a decent time. Enjoy some lovely Pines Winter bonding :D
Yet another adorable text post! :D The sea shanty.
What do you think was Stan's fate in the Better World Timeline?
Ooh, very interesting question! Thanks for the ask and sorry in advance for the enormous answer you’re about to get, hahah ❤️
So, to begin answering that (I promise I will eventually!), I have to first point out that what always caught my attention in Ford’s Better World description in the journal is that not once he meets his parallel self. On that hangs my entire analysis.
Instead, he gives us a reason why they didn’t meet: parallel!Fiddleford explains that he had been leading a portal expedition to a certain dimension, but one of the security officers ran into his parallel self and as soon as they touched hands, the entire dimension started to warp and fizz with static. Fiddleford and his team barely escaped alive!
But that’s the thing: as soon as they touched hands, only! Not as soon as they saw each other, or as soon as they were in the same room together, or as soon as they talked to each other, like you sometimes see in fanfic! No, it very much required actual skin-to-skin contact. You would think that Professor Stanford Pines, celebrated star of the scientific community, founder of the International Institute of Oddology, and our Ford, 12 PhDs (or a few less PhDs at the time) would have enough sense and self-control to... just not try and touch each other? Or, for security reasons, stand at least a few meters away from each other? If they feared an accidental touch so much, they could have talked through a glass panel or some kind of physical divide. I do believe every Ford must be a deeply curious individual, and you’re telling me that parallel!Ford, known genius, wasn’t capable of creating a way to enable himself to interview his parallel selves safely? Wouldn’t you be very curious to meet your parallel self? I think it’s more likely than not that other versions of Ford would end up pushed through the portal, so our Ford might not even have been the first Ford to visit that dimension.
But instead Fiddleford goes so far as to detain our Ford and hold him captive without even attempting to explain things first! A bit overkill, no? You could say, “but Bunny, Fiddleford just didn’t want impulsive, reckless Ford to go and run to his parallel self upon seeing him for the first time!” But herein, my friend, lies the crux of the matter: even after Fiddleford explains things to our Ford, even after our Ford understands he couldn’t touch his parallel self... He still doesn’t meet or talk to parallel!Ford. Wasn’t he trusted enough/allowed to do so, even then?
My Doylist explanation (that considers what led the author to choose a certain path) to that is: the writers just didn’t want the two Fords to meet and wanted to leave it ambiguous. It’s really not that deep 😭
My favorite Watsonian explanation (in-universe headcanon) to that is: Fiddleford didn’t want them to meet 😏
Now, would Fiddleford ever lie to Ford? Yes. In fact, he already did, in our original timeline! Ford asked him to destroy the memory gun, Fiddleford apparently agreed. “He was crestfallen by my advice, but after some discussion he came to see the wisdom in it. He said that he didn’t want to risk forgetting his wife and son. I ordered him to destroy the gun, and he did.” (“Ordered”... Oh, Ford, never change...) Reality: Fiddleford hadn’t destroyed it at all, and in fact used it on Ford to erase his memories without Ford’s consent or knowledge.
So even though I don’t think this was, necessarily, either Alex’s or Rob Renzetti’s intentions, I like to think parallel!Fiddleford was bullshitting our Ford a bit. To which extent, I don’t know. The thing about the parallel selves touching and causing a dimension to end might very well be true (in fact, according to Alex’s Word of God, it is! he has said on Twitter that parallel selves really can’t meet in their home dimensions, but can meet in the in-between spaces!) BUT because of the reasons I explained above, it’s my headcanon that it wasn’t the main reason why Fiddleford didn’t want the two Fords meeting.
I just love, love the vibes of A Better World. I love how utterly smitten with that world our Ford is. He describes himself as “drawn” towards the Institute “like a moth to a flame,” and mentions his desire to “revel in [his] parallel self’s success.” He’s utterly smitten it with it despite never once meeting his parallel self. He imagines his parallel self as the happiest man on Earth despite never once meeting his parallel self. He leaves that dimension sighing wistfully despite never once meeting his parallel self. I love how parallel!Ford is just... shrouded in this very ambiguous mystery. It all sounds a little bit ominous to me. Is he happy? Is he satisfied? Does he like what he accomplished?
Our Ford, of course, imagines that he is. Our Ford doesn’t even wonder about parallel!Stan, because that’s who Stanford Pines is: self-centered as all hell, hahah. His brother doesn’t even cross his mind, since he’s too busy being dazzled by his apparent great success and the fulfillment of his dreams! I think he subconsciously assumed parallel!Stan must have been fine.
What do I think happened to parallel!Stan? Oh, well, he’s very much dead 🪦💐 And parallel!Ford, the man Ford believes to be so lucky, is actually miserable. Fiddleford was merely protecting our Ford from the truth.
If you want to get a bit darker, just look at this excerpt from the Not What He Seems script:
Meanwhile, in the Lost Legends comics, Ford is saying shit like this:
We stan an insensitive king who is utterly and blissfully oblivious to his brother’s dangerously low self-esteem and borderline suicidal thoughts ❤️
Before TBoB, I might have been reluctant to think something so dark could happen in GF, since it still is, after all, a cartoon for kids, and Stan’s a main character! But then TBoB went and revealed to us that Dipper and Mabel died horrible deaths in all the other timelines! 😭 And while I do take that with a grain of salt because it was revealed to us by Bill Cipher and Bill is not trustworthy but a professional liar, just the fact Alex acknowledged and played with the possibility of the two protagonists dying horribly is already pretty telling in and of itself...
I think that once parallel!Ford called Stan after a decade, unwittingly gave him hope, and then ripped it out from his hands... Yeah. We know how Ford is important to Stan. Reconciliation with Ford might very well have been what was pushing Stan forward. Stan can be very, very stubborn — working on a portal for 30 years — when Ford is involved. But having no Ford at all...
Parallel!Ford might have planned to call Stan back, but by then it was probably too late. So yeah. I like to imagine that parallel!Ford would be, ironically, so, so jealous of our Ford’s happy ending with Stan.
Actually, as I type this, the funniest idea occurred to me. The real reason Fiddleford didn’t allow the two Fords to meet is that parallel!Ford, upon listening our Ford praise his accomplishments and shit-talk Stan (“I can’t believe Stanley listen to you! He’s so stubborn, so selfish, he never listens!”) would disregard all reason, all training, and all self-control just for the precious chance to punch himself in the face. Dimension ending catastrophe? A minor detail.
silly (again) original:
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ONCE AGAIN! I've destroyed my back for your satisfaction. Such an update schedule huh?
Drawing at this speed gonna take a chunk out of me sooner or later.
Well how are we feeling people? 🫶 Sad? Despair?
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"Ford wanted to sit down and finally talk about their issues, catching up after Weirdmegedon. Unfortunately he found out a memory his brother will never forget."
Dude, I want to express my opinion.
dude, this is very sad. It seems that such authors completely forget about the main conflict, which is VERY DAMN IMPORTANT. You could say that through this conflict with Stanley, Ford becomes like a character And after it's resolved, Ford becomes a fully-fledged character who can handle this.
I think it will be rude, but by doing this, they are insulting the part of Ford that loves his brother, even if he is angry with him. This is perfectly clear from the Ford's diary and in the GF series. No, of course I understand, the beloved ship, this is in the main plan, but to insult him like that..
Perhaps after that, I stepped into very dangerous territory, but I spoke my mind.
A popular f1ddauth0r artist being an absolute Stan hater is sending me They openly said they don't care about what Stan went through and just want Ford fics of angst and him suffering alone as if him suffering wasn't at all related to Stanley and I'm like???? Bro, if you hate Stan, Ford would hate YOU. Your own blorbo has grown as a person to recognize Stan's pain and what he went through enough to appreciate him, this shouldn't be a suffering competition. You can't disregard Stan and love Ford, Ford and Stan are characters that MUST come as a set.
F1ddauth0r artists/writers PLEASE stop disregarding/forgetting Stan challenge (not impossible! It's not!)
I’ve already seen a post going around about not feeling bad for Mabel because she wouldn’t play the game with Dipper. I get that it’s been a while but I’m just going to refresh everyone’s memories about what happens when Mabel plays ‘nerd’ games with Dipper.
She loses.
She loses a lot.
Why would she want to play a game where he completely and utterly demolishes her time after time? Who would do that to themselves? She was all for the game when it mentions Unicorns and elves like, hell yeah she’s going to play it with him! But there’s a reason why the camera was on her face when Dipper started talking about Math Math and More Math.
Mabel has deep self conscious issues and you want her to play a game that would make that worse just for her brother to be happy? Sorry, I’m a pretty egotistical person but even I don’t want to play a game that is so out of my comfort zone just to make someone happy.
And yeah, she made fun of him. You know when she made fun of him after playing a game? Little Dipper.
“You’re better then me at, like, everything. And you always rub it in my face.”
I agree that there needs to be some communication and that Dipper should get an apology, but as an audience we also have to remember that Mabel is constantly thought of as the stupid twin.
Even by Gravity Falls fans.
Of course she doesn’t want to play a game centered around math. She only starts playing when she can just use her imagination. That’s what Mabel is good at.
Please let a twelve year old girl play towards her strengths rather than being torn down repetitively because she’s not as mathematically capable against a kid who can do this:
I wouldn’t even want to play against Dipper and I have taken three levels of calculus.
Okay, I have a really seriously question to the gf fandom.
Guys, why are you think, that we, who love stancest, dont know about platonic brotherly relationship???
Before I caught hyperfix on stancest, I just looked at the art and read fanfiction where Stanley and Ford show brotherly love (and I love it, and I continue to do it)
Like, do you think that if a person gets hyperfixation on some incest ship, they immediately dislike platonic relationships?
i will
so @skittlestew brought up an ‘angsty stans clothes swap scene, but with the tattoos’, and i had to see this idea through
pronouns: he/she | 16 yrs | hoi!! | just a small fan fiction writer :3 | here you will see very much content about stancest!!!
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