#Good on Dipper for getting in shape though! I'm sure Stan has been trying to get him on the weights for a while now

[thatonegayship]

Is Dipper strong because he keeps wrestling with Bill?

I wouldn't say that wrestling Bill is his main form of exercise. However, it does give him motivation to pick up Stan's old barbells. Can't let that demonic loser completely overwhelm him all the time. (He remains overwhelmed. Bill cheats.)

[fordanoia]

Clearly Stan is in much worst shape than Ford, but that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about raw physical power, not stamina or endurance or even fighting skills. Strength. Ford is better than Stan in a lot of areas, but not everything. Stan has performed multiple feats of strength in multiple episodes, whereas Ford has not. I don't think I'm at all out of line in believing Stan's stronger.

I cut off the preface last time, but bear with me because I’m not taking it off now because it seems to be my words aren’t coming off quite right.

Part 1 of preface

Ford is in no way shape or form better than Stan at everything.

Dear lord, no. I am not even trying to imply that in the slightest way possible.

I��ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I VERY VERY VERY MUCH see Stan and Ford on EQUAL footing. 

You want to know what Stan is better at Ford at? A DUCKING LOT. He can read people’s intentions better than Ford, he is much better at predicting someone’s feelings/thoughts when he does care to stop and do so, and there’s more.

As well - yes, there’s things Ford is better at than Stan. Equations for one. 

Stan and Ford have a lot of intermixing abilities by the time they’re reunited in their 60s. That doesn’t one is completely better at everything over the other. There’s MORE to life than ‘achievable’ skills too. 

You remember how Mabel got upset with Dipper because she had this notepad where Dipper was just beating her at ALL these games? Not for a SINGLE instant - was Dipper better than Mabel at everything. Not even if they played 20 more games and it turned out the same. 

You can try to compare two people, but at the end of the day there are INFINITE skill sets and abilities and trying to say he’s better at her at everything is limited because you can’t possibly know that. Not to mention, say someone even did seem to outdo another in every way - their values as people are NOT solely based on their abilities. 

Okay - okay, long part 1 of a preface - I know, sorry - it’s just. I absolutely never want someone to misinterpret that from me. Just-  Just someone remind me one day to make a post about the concept of ‘worth’ and people’s skills/values and ideas of what ‘achievement’ is and all that junk. Never take it from me that I’m saying one person is objectively better than another though.

Part 2 of preface.

I’m not saying you’re completely out of line for thinking that.

However, I do also want to say that neither of us have to have a ‘correct’ opinion on this. Or on anything about these characters or the show. My opinion on this is based in what I believe with people’s training/strength in general.

...

Additionally, I know we’re not talking about fighting - but as a side note: hecking these two brothers just honestly probably couldn’t ever go full out at one another. You remember the weirdmageddon scene? That was a frustrated sibling fight that has nothing to do with survival/winning a fight but just not holding back your frustrations anymore. Dido with the fight at the portal incident.

-

There’s a LOT under the cut. For people that ABSOLUTELY 100% don’t want to read a ton.

tl;dr --  yes we see more of Stan’s strength. we didn’t get good tests of fords strength though. therefore i am basing this in what i believe rather since there’s no scenes to compare. i think your strength will change after 30 years based off of training/whatever. 

if we disagree on raw physical strength and how that can be changed along with bodies after 30 years then yo we just disagree

I get what you mean and you’re right. We see more of Stan doing something physical than we do Ford. 

The few examples you noted earlier? Are very frankly one of many. 

Something that stands out to me about Stan is that he can run. We see this guy straight up jetting off on more than one occasion. That- okay I realize that might not sound very impressive, but I’m just around so many people that can’t hardly run and they’re only around 50. So the fact that Stan uses running as his immediate plan a) when caught in an act say something to me.

There’s the feats he pulls off with the dinosaur. There’s Stanchurian Candidate where he lifts up 190 pounds starting off at a kneeling/lower position, when he punches the eagles while his legs hold him on that metal scaffolding. In ATOTS we see him run straight from town and all the way to the Shack the specifics of time/distance i believe could be bungled BUT regardless of specifics that’s still CONTINUES RUNNING FROM THE TOWN INTO THE WOODS. The zombie fight scene of course, aided by a bat/brass knuckles to smash them up - aaaand he does pull that grandfather clock over which those things are heavy and the angle he was pulling at likely pulled at his back muscles. 

Please let me emphasize this: I do not think Stan is weak nor is that what I am saying.

The fact of the matter though is that we just plain don’t get to see Ford in any fair tests of strength. When a 600 pound ogre picks him up, it wouldn’t be fair to call him a wimp because well yeah the ogre is going to be stronger.

Similar to when Stan was getting beat the heck up by that animatronic in Soos and the Real Girl. Uh YEAH the animatronic was winning. Those things are made of metal and super heavy, not to mention Stan was still very clearly caught off guard that the thing came to life. 

Imagine if that was all we had of Stan though. Just scenes like with the animatronic where he was saved by Goldie. 

Due to us only having *checks* 8 episodes with Ford, there’s not a ton of screen time and honestly? Getting to see his personality was a lot more important to me than knowing the specifics of how well he had physically adjusted. 

Which - I think this IS where we just reach a disagreement point. See, I believe that raw physical power is all in those muscles and that if those muscles are less worked out over a long course of time then they won’t be as strong. 

I’m not a doctor. I’m not a personal trainer. I’m not saying that’s INDEFINITELY how that HAS to be. I’m saying though, that is what I believe. 

Which is why I’m explaining - think of yourself. Now, imagine you spent the next ten years... at about the same way you’ve BEEN going. Cool. Then compare yourself to if once a day you lifted weights for one hour - every day for ten years. Compare them.

If you think you would have the same raw physical power - then that’s where we simply disagree. 

Especially if by raw physical power you mean like a person automatically has this much power and that’s not something affected by training - then I would have to say that I disagree with you on that. Which would be a disagreement between us on how bodies work. And idk about you but i’m not a personal trainer so

And this is not to say Stan completely slacked off completely - in fact it’s rather obvious that whether through some form of exericse/activity or not that he is STILL a strong guy. 

However, my reasoning is going off of how much those muscles got worked out. Now two years? Eh, no - I can see it not making a big difference. But thirty years, dude. That’s so much time that I believe their habits HAD to dictate their muscle mass. 

And again - if you disagree with that. Then I’m afraid that’s simply where we disagree.

Disagreeing doesn’t mean one of us is right or wrong. The show cannot be held up to 100% accuracy anyways and as well the writers could easily have misconceptions on health or stuff to do with muscles. 

Alex could say tomorrow that Stan always beats Ford at arm wrestling. He could say straight out that Stan is physically stronger than Ford. It’s like how he said that Ford had 12 toes that one time. 

This show was made from people who will change stuff for character aspects and sometimes even just ‘yeah sure why not.’ 

If you disagree about that whole working out muscles after 30 years will give you more power than someone - then I know this will be like the third time, but yeah - we’re just in a disagreement.

Which by no means are you out of line in thinking that or that Stan is stronger.

We’re just two people with theories that we CANNOT prove indefinitely. Even if we were discussing two real life people - we’d have no way to test our theory and even past that there’d be heavy discussion on what we MEAN by strength/raw physical power.

[fannishstuff]

Okay but I can't stop imagining Mabel reading this post, quietly nodding, and then the next day:

"Hey, I'm looking for Bill. Have you seen tri?"

"Yeah, he's up- ... Wait, seen him try what?"

"Oh, Grunkle Stan. I figured that since treir not actually a boy, I'd see how quad likes more shape-ey pronouns!"

Ford the Grammar Pedant is desperately trying to figure out HOW and IF he should correct this.

Dipper walks in: "Wait. Does Bill use neopronouns now?"

Ford has been out of touch for thirty years and does not know how to react to this term.

"Maybe. I'm gonna ask trem! Or tri. Dipper, can you help me figure out some old-soundy words to use?"

"Uhhh, sure, I guess. But hold on, I'm going to have to write this down..."

Bill walks down the stairs. "Write what down?"

"Bill bill bill! What do you think about triangle/quadrilateral pronouns? Or quad-tri-treir for short"

And Bill just:

So, they spend the entire rest of the day with Dipper face-deep in old translation dictionaries and thesauruses while Bill explains the finer points of what Mabel calls "gendometry" ("No, see, I'm a square not a quadrangle - good catch, though, my dad was a quadrangle! Super inclusive."). Dipper lists the relative merits of Hebrew versus Greek versus just using words like "Equal" or "Degree." (Mabel was just using prefixes she learned in school. She didn't even think of fancy etymology. Dipper is super proud of himself for something Bill-related for the first time all summer.)

Ford briefly pulls the "Well, if Bill likes it that's reason enough for me not to do it."

Dipper cuts himself off halfway through a 'I'm not sure these are all practical-' to gape in horror. You can't just DO that, Grunkle Ford!! That's AWFUL!!!

Sputtering a bit, Ford looks to Stan, who just shrugs.

"Look, I don't get it all the way either, but you gotta listen to what people tell you."

Bill grins. "It's alright, Sixer. I don't mind if your puny human brain is too stupid to get it. Even if two spazzy teenagers can!"

And that just Does It.

Dipper comes up with a new system practically every day based on whatever Bill said that morning, which ranges from a sincere "This is a kinda 4-D day" to intentionally trying to screw with him. Regardless, Ford has to basically reverse engineer the whole thing or risk vicious mockery. Mabel uses whatever Bill tells her and has no difficulty switching halfway through a sentence. Wendy uses whatever Mabel last used. So does Soos - in fact, his slow and direct speaking style makes him surprisingly flexible.

Stan waits until Ford is downstairs to say: "Look, imma be real with you, I'm way to dumb for this. Can I just, I dunno, use they or somethin?"

"Look, Fish, I literally could not care less what you losers call me. He/him is fine."

"Got it."

(He still tries the pronouns of the day when he remembers, but usually defaults to "Bill-whatever" or "trongldy-dodad.")

Follow up on Bill gender: Bill and Mable's gender conversation implied that one could have a number-of-sides identity which might not be reflected by your... assigned shape? This analogy is breaking down. To the question: Do you think that was true in his real life home dimension, or just something he was chill about on a whim? Will it ever come up in the fic?

Yeah, there were trans shapes. Bill is one of them! Like I'm calling him "triangle" for simplicity but really it's pyramid which is like 4/5 triangle and 1/5 square simultaneously in a higher-dimensional way, but like also he's been calling himself a spherical triangle for literally a trillion years and he's still kinda loyal to that identity because he's only been thinking of himself as a pyramid for 4000-odd years, and spherical triangle captures some of the experience of being 2D in a 3D way but not all of the experience and it leaves out the squareness so pyramid's more accurate but "pyramid" doesn't reflect the whole "grew up with psychic powers" experience and Bill thinks being psychic is an important part of his gender identity still so like he's wondering whether fourth-dimensional hyperspherical pyramid is the best fit, but he doesn't FEEL 4D, he feels 2D in a 3D way—you know what, you know what, it's complicated, you're just a human, you can call him a triangle, it's fine, it's close enough, really, he's somewhere under the triangle umbrella, it's fine, don't worry about it, really don't worry about it, it's cool, he's cool with it.

Hectorgon decided somewhere along the way that he didn't feel like a 2D hexagon anymore and got some work done and is a 3D hexagonal prism now and is content with it. Amorphous Shape has stuff going on with them Bill can't even beGIN to make sense of but sometimes they look like a bunch of squares and sometimes they look like a bunch of other polygons and everyone just nods and goes with it, and tbh naming yourself Amorphous Shape is sort of like renaming yourself Genderfluid Human and then all your friends nickname you Derf. Bill's dad was intersex in one direction and picked up a trans-ish gender presentation in a totally different direction. As a child Bill met another spherical shape that looked like a line in the second dimension but in the third dimension was a polygon—a biangle—struggling to get that recognized as an actual sex.

And all this is like, the shape equivalent of having a gender that can't be described with anything less than five terms and a freshly-baked set of new neopronouns. There were also more conventional trans identities—assigned squares who wanted to be seen as lines, triangles who wanted to be seen as pentagons, hexagons that were sometimes hexagons and sometimes octagons, septagons that felt sideless, etc.

Bill's stance on all this since he was equivalent-to-a-teen has been Anybody Can Do Anything They Want Forever.

He got in fights with his dad about whether including biangles when greeting his audiences—"Welcome, lines, bis, and tris; quads, quints, and more"—would alienate the Traditional Members Of The Audience.

I don't know how much of all of the above will ever actually make it into the fic aside from discussing biangles.