#I might do the rest of the story traits for funsies but other than that Im not sure if I can manage this world for long enough to get to

[arolesbianism]

We did it boys we got our first game crash in oni 🎉

[callipraxia]

The Journal admittedly makes it seem like glory was his driving interest *before* the Portal…though even then, when it was made crystal clear to him how high the stakes were, he rather quickly broke through a lot of gaslighting from Bill to start trying to do something about it. Could he have boarded the Cluebus earlier, thus averting Serious Errors? Yeah, but he could have also refused to board said bus even longer. Credit where it’s due.

Post-Portal, though? Yeah, what OP said. Ford is (thank goodness) too complex of a character to make into a plaster saint. He’s stubborn, touchy, quick to anger and even to violence, accustomed to operating alone, and tends to jump from “I have the most experience here” to “if I can’t see a solution, it must not exist” a little too quickly. He also probably did want to be known more as “the man who destroyed Bill Cipher” than as “the man who built Bill Cipher a door into reality,” because…who wouldn’t? However, all of these traits are reasonable in light of the character’s life, not to mention flaws also present to one degree or another in much of the rest of the cast…and I’ve always read Ford’s views on dying in his quest as going a bit further than just being okay with the possibility. I’m pretty sure he did not expect to leave the Nightmare Realm alive after leaving the ‘Better World,’ and in the final deal, while he’s the one to suggest including Stan on the “off limits to Bill” list, he’s never seen to contemplate the possibility of trying to bargain his own way out with them. In the Penthouse, he snapped at Bill that he wouldn’t be alive unless Bill wanted something - even though (apparently unbeknownst to him) Bill had kept him in statute form for quite a while just for funsies before realizing he needed something. In “DDMD,” he refers to Stan’s actions as “he saved me,” several episodes before he repeats the line while explaining Stan’s amnesiac condition to the twins and immediately before actually breaking down in tears over the situation. I can’t help but read the story as one where Ford simply regarded death as an inevitable outcome of his quest…and yet, he carried on with it anyway because it was the right thing to do and he only really showed any emotion other than annoyance over the necessity when the best-case scenarios suddenly all started to involve sacrificing other people instead of himself. Flawed the man might be, both before and after the Portal incident, but he was in the hero game for an easy majority of the right reasons by the time he got back to his Earth.

Shower thought about a specific mischaracterization of Ford I see all too often.

Would someone who's only in it for the glory really be as self-sacrificial as we see Ford being? You'd think someone with that attitude in Ford's position would want to save the world but live to tell the tale so they can actually get said glory, right? You can't truly enjoy glory if you're dead after all.

However, Ford simply does not care if he dies in his efforts. So long as Bill is dead. So long as others are safe. So long as his mistakes are amended with his death. Is that really the mark of someone who only wants fame and recognition? Can you honestly tell me that the person who was genuinely confused when Dipper began to save him from the alien ship, who'd rather be tortured into the ground before letting Bill take over, who practically gave up when the kids were threatened to be tortured but not once during his own, who put his family's and the world's safety above wanting to go home is only in it for glory?

No, you really can't. And if you can... I dunno what show you're watching, but it certainly isn't my Gravity Falls. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go give this owl nerd a big old hug.