#NO '' THEIR PARENTS '' DID NOT ; FILBRICK KICKED STAN OUT

[bittersweet-jack-of-no-trades]

oh the idea of stanley banning himself from his home state until he gets the money to go back is intriguing to me

sure, the government might not be on his ass if he goes there but would he be able to resist going home? probably not. so he’s not allowed until he’s earned the right to call it his home again

"Earned" the right, indeed!

One of my main... headcanons? Interpretations? Analysis of? the Pines brothers is that much (not all, but much) of their punishment is self-inflicted. This isn't to say that bad things didn't happen to them, or their parents weren't negligent/abusive/whatever you believe they were, or Stan didn't have a shit time after getting kicked out, or Ford wasn't manipulated by Bill. These are traumas that shape them, and that generated trauma responses that can explain some of their behaviors.

But the actual punishment? Stan not going back the NJ and telling himself he's banned? Ford, too, seemingly having very little contact with his parents once he left for Backupsmore? These are choices they make because they believe they do not deserve to be happy. How many times do you think Stan stared at the burn/brand on his back and blamed himself? How often do you think Ford thought about calling home, or telling someone about Bill, then looked at the incomplete portal and just... went back to work? How often did one brother or the other think about reaching out, but, believing the other to have inhibited him in his goals (i.e. proving himself to their father), maintain that self-imposed no contact?

They're both just trying to prove themselves, over and over again, but because they are the ones setting the goalposts for themselves, these points of fulfillment are impossible to reach. Filbrick was the one who said "don't come back until you earn us millions," but the brothers are the ones who took up the mantle of that challenge. They believe they have to, and they'll do anything to reach that mystical end, including faux-banning themselves from their home state.

[nocturnalbatsy]

Seeing some Filbrick defenders...

You do know that abusive parents still love their children right? That's why it's so complicated and traumatizing

Some parents abuse their kids because they love them.

Doesn't make it right and doesn't make it redeemable, just makes it worse.

Maybe he did care for them, he never wiped off the "1# dad" off that golden chain, but he still made stan "toughen up", he still punished him by leaving him outside for two days for doing bad on a test, he still kicked him out of the house at 17.

He still made Ford think that all of his worth is placed on how much he can accomplish, how much money he can make. Maybe came from a place of knowing how financial insecurity feels like and didnt want them to go through it but it doesn't simply erase all of the damage he caused.

Stan's and Ford's lives would have turned out so much different if Filbrick was a minimally okay dad and his intentions don't matter for any of it

[artisiumstudios]

Au where Stan finds the duffle bag.

HEAR ME OUT-

Basically it’s like a week or two before the science fair, Stan is minding his business (sort of) and while he’s going through a closet/cabinet trying to find some supplies, either for the Stan’o’War or his car, he finds a duffle bag. Curious he rummages through the bag, inside are some toiletries, 20 bucks, and clothing- wait a second. Those are his; his shirt, his pants, his socks— all stuff he has been missing for a couple of weeks. He’s confused, scared, and worried.

Why would his stuff be in here? Why are there toiletries? Why is there money? And who put them there? Unfortunately he already has his answer. Pa was always clear that none of his children would continue leech off of him. If you had nothing to prove then you had nothing to take. The conversation behind the principal’a door swarmed through his mind. How long had pa had his bag packed? Was this always the plan? Was Stanley really that worthless?

But that didn’t matter because Ford wouldn’t choose a school over him! They were going to sail the world together and that would be that, to hell with Pa if he wanted Stan gone then fine he didn’t need him, he didn’t need anyone but his brother and the sea!

At first Stan wants to tell Ford about what he found, but decides not to because in the end it won’t be important. So he keeps quiet and decides to take the bag into his car, after all hey 20 bucks and he gets his stuff back! He can’t leave it in his room cause if Pa finds out he was snooping through his stuff, well he’d rather not think about that.

Then the conversation on the swing set happens, and Stan’s head starts spinning. So it wasn’t just Pa who wanted Stan out, Ford was willing to ditch him too. Stan feels betrayed and hurt, he doesn’t know what to say or what to do. He starts to question his theory, did ford help pack his bag? Was that why he had been so distant lately, feeling guilty for letting his Pa kick him out and even helping him with the bag?

Did ma know? Eventually Ford leaves, huffing from Stan’s lack of enthusiasm and response, mumbling about being jealous that he has a better future up ahead, not just some silly childish dream. Stan snaps, not physically, not with his words: just emotionally.

Fine if they don’t want him there then he’ll just leave. That night while everyone is asleep he grabs all of his money, more clothing, a sketch book, his comics— a picture of him and ford on the stan’o’war— and some other things he thinks might be valuable or just handy. And he drives away.

Nobody notices Stanley’s disappearance the next day, not until night has fallen. Ford cheerfully excited with his new full ride scholarship, goes and tells his parents. Caryn is happy, tears of joy falling down her face as she hugs her intelligent baby boy, his father gives a small smile and a nod— he gives his approval. But the mood changes once he questions where Stanley is. No one has seen him in hours, actually his car has been gone since early morning. They wait awake all night, hoping for some sign, some clue!

Filbrick grunts as he walks up to the closet, his eyebrows furrow ever so slightly, his lips pressed in a tight line. He sighs deeply.

Eventually a report is filed, but there is not much they can do, if Stanley ran away then he isn’t missing, and the police refuse to do anything about that.

Anyways thats like yk the beginning of how this whole thing happens but here are some other thoughts and ideas:

Stan:

Without Filbrick telling him he’s not allowed back into the family without a million dollars, Stan isn’t as driven by money as in canon. He doesn’t have a need for large amounts of money therefore he doesn’t have a need to do sketchy jobs just to satisfy his need to have his family back. In other words he doesn’t have as much trauma as in canon and is actually more able to settle down without being on the run or in survival mode. The first couple of months he just spends driving as far away from the East as possible making his way over to New Mexico where he settles down, first as a bar tender then eventually as a mechanic, he lives comfortably in a crummy apartment but hey he doesn’t really need much

Unfortunately he does get bored, even if it’s not with his brother he does crave adventure. And while fixing a this guys truck he overhears of a town called Gravity Falls, where weird creatures tend to reside in. So you guessed it, he picks up and drives from New Mexico over to Gravity Falls Oregon.

He gets a small but nicer apartment this time around and first he works as a mechanic. Immediately he starts to get a sense of the place and its weirdness and he loves it! (Ford would love it here-) .

Since the blind eye isn’t a thing people have two reactions to the weirdness of gravity falls: freak tf out or shrug and go on with their day. Stanley being Stanley gets the great idea to act sort of like a monster hunter/ putting small attractions up with the less violent creatures, not the mystery shack, but more like the mystery circus!

Eventually Stanley gets the name Monster-Lee for his ability to be able to fight off creatures so easily (mostly through bribery or fists)

Ford:

He still leaves for West Tech, but now he's fallen into extreme stress/anxiety and a bit of depression. Why did his brother leave? Why didn't he say anything? Is he okay? Why did he ever let their father get between them, he should've spent more time with him when he had the chance-

Unlike canon, Ford has no resentment/grudges to hold over Stanley, rather he holds that anger towards Filbrick especially when he found out that he had planned to kick Stanley out-- for being the reason Stanley left.

While Ford does still want to study anomalies, he also takes engineering classes, he wants to develop better technology and hopefully resources for run away teens/homeless teens.

While he doesn't meet Fiddleford as his roommate, he does meet him at a robotics convention where they instantly become friends. After college they develop a small company based around the idea of being able to find people, now expanding into different areas.

Ford is a lot more open with the fact the not only is he a twin, but he likes to talk about his younger twin brother who supported him and always stood up for him.

Part of the development with the technology involved finding people in forest dense areas, especially with a lot of caves (please tell me someones seen that one chart) Which then leads them to gravity falls as their first test area, small enough to test their tech, but still forest dense to get sufficient results.

and then these three bozos find each other lol. anyways thats all i got , i thought of this in the shower like 30 minutes ago and decided to procrastinate on my HW writing this lol. anyways

[come-on-eat-your-own-pants]

Headcanon to make the timeline work:

The kid Caryn is holding isn't Shermie Pines, it's his son

Okay so think about it. Alex himself has said that though this baby was somewhat intended to be Shermie, it would make no sense time-wise as both he and his son would have to be fifteen or sixteen when they would become a father to get Dipper and Mabel to be the correct age.

Consider. For this theory Shermie is a few years older than Stan and Ford, which would make him about twenty to twenty-two years old when Stan gets kicked to the curb. College age. So let's say he got a little wild in college (or wherever else he is -- perhaps working his first job?) and gets some poor girl knocked up. Of course this is the seventies -- birth control and abortion are a thing, but they aren't as safe, successful and easily accessible as they are now -- so they end up keeping the baby. And Caryn, like any grandmother (source: my mother, who puts up a fight if she gets my brother's kids less than one day/night a week), occasionally looks after the kid so her son can focus on his education (or job). The kid grows up and is about thirty when Dipper and Mabel are born, which is not a very strange age to become a father in the 90s.

I mean, I suppose Shermie could be even older, meaning Caryn would be looking after the kid purely out of grandmotherly love or convenience and not necessarily to give her young parent of a son a break, but it makes more sense to me to have him be college age when he becomes a dad, for mostly one reason: Filbrick. Filbrick Pines explicitly calls Ford their "ticket out of here," which to me reads as Ford being the only son he's really actually proud of, or at least the only son he sees as being actually useful. Perhaps Shermie wasn't as much of a screw-up as Stan, but he also isn't someone Filbrick flaunts. Knocking up a girl would fit that, especially if he had to drop out of college because of it, or something like that.

An argument against this theory could be the absence of Shermie in Stan and Ford's childhood. But honestly: my oldest brother (five years older than me) wasn't that present in my childhood as well. I mean, sure, we did a lot of things together and in a way we were quite close, but we hardly ever played together other than things we did as a family, and he moved out before I even got my first period. This would actually work even better with Shermie being more than a few years older than the Stan twins, because the bigger the age gap, the less interaction there would be.

And of course Stan and Ford are twins, so it would make sense for most of their memories to be of the two of them together. They wouldn't need their older brother so much if they had each other.

Then there is the principal of their high school mentioning to Filbrick and Caryn that they have two sons, which I've seen as an argument for saying that Shermie wasn't born yet at the time (which wouldn't work in any way really because the West Coast Tech admissions team visits the next day, at the end of which this shot of Caryn with the baby is taken, and neither looks like there's been a birth in between the talk with the principal and Stanley getting kicked out). Far more likely to me is that the principal simply didn't know or care about the Stan twins' exact home situation. I mean, it's high school, how relevant is the exact amount of children in a household to a principal? He only has to deal with two, so he only mentions two.

Like, yeah, I know this theory isn't perfect, but the timeline also doesn't really make sense with having the baby be Shermie. I suddenly got this idea, and it works for me, so yeah

[billcipher-sux]

I wish gravity Falls fans would take more time to make Filbrick a three-dimensional character, rather than a one dimensional abusive father trope.

No, this is not a Filbrick Pines defense post.

He’s still a bad person for seeing Ford as a cash cow and for not supporting Stan in the ways he deserved to be.

While we don’t see much of Filbrick in any of the canon media, there are a little snippets that suggest he wasn’t pure evil.

Despite the fact that the gold chain was valuable enough that Filbrick was absolutely pissed about losing it, he ended up keeping it, with the little scribbled on “#1 Dad”.

This is the best indicator I have for the idea that he never truly hated Stan. He sure as hell wasn’t a good father to him or to his other children, but even after kicking him out, there was still some part of him that loved his son.

(I also honestly wish less fans would headcanon the idea that he’s also physically abusive because it just gives me that feeling that no one is taking emotional abuse seriously until there is physical abuse included.)

It’s very common for parents who use the “tough love” style of parenting to genuinely love their children, but abuse them at the same time.

He may have honestly thought he was doing Stan a favor by kicking him out and letting him sink or swim.

I can only imagine what he was feeling when he got the call that Stan was dead. Did he find out about Stan being homeless and friendless? Was there any guilt? Did he not attend the funeral because he didn’t care or because he felt like Stan wouldn’t want him there?

[azelmaandeponine]

I saw you were taking asks about Stan getting kicked out and was curious about what you thought about his mom?

I don't really have a strong opinion on her.

I absolutely despise Filbrick of however you spell his name because even if he does care about his sons, as some claim, it wouldn't excuse all the abusive things he'd done to Stan or the pressure he put on Ford that we saw and didn't see.

It's implied Ford didn't visit home a lot after he graduated. Most people don't do that for no reason.

And Stan certainly never got reached out to, so as far as we know, Filbrick (and maybe by extension, his wife) didn't regret what he did.

That's not even including Stan and Ford's (younger? Older?) brother Shermie who we never see. I don't even wanna KNOW what kind of damage Filbrick probably did to his third son.

We don't know a whole lot about Caryn, other than the fact that she's a pathological liar, called Stan a "free spirit", and came to Stan's fake funeral.

That said, as the other adult in the house, she is culpable for Stan getting kicked out. More than any of the literal kids living there at the time.

Yes, she was a woman in the 70s, and she probably regretted not speaking up for Stan (I do think she cared about her kids), but she was still the only other adult in the house.

Like you said, Ford didn't visit home often--in large part due to the fact that he wouldn't really be wanted back by Filbrick without making millions and most of his issues seemed to be with his father. Still, it's not normal to hardly ever visit home.

As for Shermie...he's supposed to be the baby we see in "A Tale of Two Stans", but that makes no sense timeline wise. So, I headcanon that Shermie is a lot older than the twins, and was drafted into the Vietnam War. This would make the baby we see in the flashback Dipper and Mabel's father, which makes much more sense.

And yeah...I highly doubt Shermie got out unscathed from Filbrick's parenting unscathed parenting, either.

[ckret2]

How do you characterize Grampa Shermie?

honestly i don't characterize him lmao. This is all i've really got:

he picked up the "you've gotta be tough enough to defend yourself" lesson from Filbrick just like Stan & Ford did and passed that lesson on to his kid(s); because we know his kid, kid-in-law, and grandkids do kickboxing.

he also picked up his parents' belief in higher education as the ticket to a better life. He's been to college.

he's the son that stayed near New Jersey to look after his parents

He never really knew Stan or Ford. Stan was kicked out when Shermie was just a baby. After Ford went off to college he rarely came home, and then never came home at all after he moved to Oregon. Shermie didn't know them well enough to tell the difference when Stan took over Ford's life. He only started getting to know Stan (disguised as Ford) in adulthood.

he's the last generation of the family to actively practice Judaism (and he's more invested than Stan or Ford at this point), and Mabel & Dipper had bat/bar mitzvahs primarily because their parents knew it was so important to Shermie. He did raise his kid(s) with it but D&M's parent drifted away from it.

he did actually want to go to Stan's (fake) funeral but couldn't make it for some reason or another—couldn't get time off work, had to look after his kid(s), somebody in the hospital, whatever. Normal practical real world problems. Stan faked his death in Oregon, and we know that he also provided a fake corpse because his funeral had a coffin and the Pines family would not have spent a bunch of money on a symbolic empty coffin. Which means the funeral was in Oregon, because it costs major $$$ to transport a body across the country and the Pines family, again, does not have that kind of cash. So it would be really easy for it to just be too inconvenient for Shermie to make it across the country to the funeral of a brother he didn't even remember.

As you can see, the scant few things I've headcanoned about Shermie are light on, like... actual characterization.

[ceaselesswatchersspecialboy]

Okay here we go

Does Stanfraud's eye still bleeds, like when Bill was possessing Ford or doesn't because of his bigger connection to Ford's body?

Is Stanfraud an uncle/big brother figure to Soos, like Stanley is his dad figure? Does Bill even care about him even a little😢

I know that the main focus of this au is on Bill, but since Stanley didn't try to pretend to be Ford, how did Stanley's and Filbrick's first meeting went after the whole "getting kicked out" thing"? Especially since both Stan and Ford were definitely broke at the time

You mentioned that Bill still has access to a little portion of his powers, what are they exactly?

Anyway your au is genuinely awesome and seeing it on my dash is always a huge treat 💛💛💛

Okay the first question I really want to answer because I’ve been thinking about this:

— His eye definitely bleeds on occasion. Even though he is far more connected to Ford’s body here, he’s still a demon possessing a host. He shouldn’t be there. There’s some outer force keeping him trapped. So I have thought about the fact there would probably be some lasting impacts on the body due to possession exposure for so long, such as the eye bleeding becoming a regular problem and gradual loss of vision in that eye. There may also be other physical impacts, but I’ll work on those when I manage to get down an official design for him.

— Great News! He is like Soos’ weird uncle! That may be where he learned to be somewhat decent around kids, honestly. He absolutely tried to mess with him at first, make jabs, tell him the date of his death, attempt to drive him to madness just a little (this is why Stan had to get rid of the last handyman), but Soos proved to be incorruptible and took all of Stanfraud’s weirdness in stride. Bill does end up caring about him. He goes as far as to liking their conversations. Soos keeps up with his chaos! Even Bill isn’t sure what’s going on in that head of his (when he gets his own body back he’s going to find out).

— Though Bill is the main focus of the plot-change, the other aspects are equally as important and so I’m glad they also have people’s interest! Their first meeting is… tense, to say the least. If Filbrick has any regrets, which I think I’ll leave up to interpretation, he’s far too stubborn a man to show them, and would rather dig himself further into a hole than admit he made a mistake. Stan desperately just wants to ignore all the scathing comments and get this little reunion over with, until Filbrick makes a comment about Ford, then Stan snaps. You can insult him, he probably deserves it, but not his brother. Sure, they may not be his brother right now, but the intent is there, and that’s what counts.

It cuts everything short, with Stan grabbing Fraud and telling him they’re leaving (He doesn’t complain).

With Filbrick, I do kind of want to explore their dynamic over the years while he’s still alive, especially with Stan, but also with how he’d treat ‘Ford’ and his odder behaviour. I don’t want to just make Filbrick a one-dimensional character though, as I think there’s a lot to be said about the cycle of abuse and parental projection so. While the AU may be based around the question ‘what if Bill got stuck possessing Ford?’ The answers it has lead me down a lot of different paths to explore — such as this!

— The powers he has access too lessen over time, but currently he is somewhat capable of seeing potential future outcomes (ciphervoyance), pyrokinesis, telekinesis, faster healing factor and teleportation. Note that all of these are in a much weaker state and drain Ford’s body and by extension Bill heavily — especially teleportation. Doing that once can cause him to pass out, so it’s more of an emergency thing, most his abilities are honestly. Too much focus is required.

And I’m so happy to be a little treat on your dash!! I hope you enjoy all this just as much!

[beauty-and-passion]

So I was reading your post about Filbrick and I want to ask a question about this parts of the post:

"From his point of view, Filbrick just heard Stan admitting he destroyed his brother’s life, by making him lose a chance that will never happen again."

"He made Ford lose an occasion that will never come back."

"Because before ruining the family, Stan’s action ruined his own brother’s future. He could have studied in a great school, instead of a mediocre one. And this is not something any parent would see, for none of their kids."

So, you are trying to say that Filbrick believes in retributive justice and that's the reason that he kicked Stan out of home? Like "You ruined your own brother’s future and destroyed his life and I will show you the same courtesy". He responds fire with more fire, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, that sort of thing.

Honestly, I don't think Filbrick thought at all, when he kicked Stan out of the house. What we got from the series (especially from Lost Legends) is that Filbrick is a guy with a short fuse, who tends to reach instinctively to things.

This is what I think happened here too. Filbrick heard Stan admitting he was hurting Ford, so he did the first instinctual thing that popped up in his mind: he protected the hurt son, by keeping the other away.

If he stopped to think, he would've probably found it very weird that Stan deliberately messed up his brother's life and questioned the whole situation a bit more. But that wouldn't have been Filbrick: he's a tough guy with a short fuse and he connected everything in his mind in the simplest possible way. One son hurt the other? Separate them.

I articulated it in a more complex way, but I don't think Filbrick made complex reasoning about Ford's future: his train of thought was probably much simpler, much more of a "son hurts other son -> separate them". Probably, on a more subconscious level, he made all the reasoning I explained, about how Stan admitted he just ruined his brother's future (according to him at least) and how painful it was to see a talented son forced into mediocrity. Maybe this is also how he processed everything that happened in the following years. Maybe he even gave voice to these thoughts, while talking with his wife and Ford.

But in the heat of the moment when he kicked Stan out, I doubt he made any of these reasonings at all. I believe it was more of an instinctual reaction of someone who wanted to protect the hurt son. And yes, by doing so he ended up hurting the other son, but we also know that Filbrick isn't the best at delicate mechanisms like psychology or feelings.

[presidentstalkeyes]

Pines Family Headcanons (Take 2)

I know I already did something like this, but that was a while ago and my headcanons have evolved since then, and my fixation brain is in Pines mode again so here we go! (Mostly focused on the Mystery Twins but with some attention to the older generations scattered about)

Past:

The first member of the Pines family to arrive in America in the 1800s was Gabriel Penzak, a Sephardic Jew from somewhere in the Balkans. His last name was changed to Pines at Ellis Island, and his family later assimilated into the majority-Ashkenazi Jewish community in New Jersey. He was the father of Elmer Pines and grandfather of Filbrick.

Filbrick was the youngest of four brothers (the others were Philip, Fillmore and Fulton). He was the 'weakest' of the four, compensating with his intellect and business sense. He was also born with highly sensitive eyesight - flashes of light would blind him for hours - requiring dark glasses later in life.

His eyesight also meant he was passed over for the draft in WWII. Since all three of his brothers died in the war, this possibly saved his life. As a young man, he operated and maintained film projectors at a traveling carnival, under a boss who taught him many tricks (and bore a resentment towards 'freak show' acts, viewing them as talentless). It was here he met - and accidentally impregnated - his future wife Caryn.

Caryn Romanoff's parents were Pavel, a grizzled sailor, and Tanya, a fortune-teller - both Ukrainian Jews who fled to America to escape persecution from Stalin's Soviet Union. She also had two siblings - older brother Dimitri, a troublemaker and later hatchet-man for the Mafia (never a made man due to his non-Italian ancestry, but close enough for his family to disown him) and little sister Shprintze, who was married three times and had five children in total, all of them named after Roman emperors (except for her only daughter Cleopatra).

Filbrick and Caryn's first son was Shermie, born in 1947. Their second sons, Stanford and Stanley, came 8 years later in 1954. Shermie was a star athlete in high school and always kinda distant from his little brothers, in addition to being Filbrick's obvious favourite. Also a notorious flirt and brought many girls back to the pawn shop (and distracting Stanford from his homework with the resulting noises), and tattled on Stanley for bringing a possum into the store, forcing him to let Shanklin go. Was later drafted into the Vietnam War in the 60s, missing out on Stan's eviction from the house. When he returned from the war, the first thing he did after finding out he was a brother short was to track down Ford and deck him in the face.

While in Hawaii on R&R, Shermie started a relationship with a local waitress called Wikiola Kale. After getting pregnant with his daughter, Wikiola got a plane ticket all the way to NJ to ask Shermie's parents to look after the child, being too poor to raise a child herself. Filbrick almost slammed the door in her face until Caryn intervened. The baby - Louise - was the one in Caryn's arms the night Stan was kicked out.

Louise Pines first grew up in Glass Shard, then moved to L.A. after her dad married a rich businesswoman called Fiona Safesmith (the relationship with Wikiola having not worked out). Fiona was a less-than-ideal stepmom, trying to force her daughter to go into acting and disparaging her interest in DD&D and mystery novels. She also cheated on her husband after an old war injury acted up and he lost the use of his legs, and later went to prison for tax fraud.

Louise would later get a degree in criminology and met a computer geek, amateur ufologist and 'radical cool dude' called Emile Sauvageon (who ran away from a strict, isolated religious family). They started a relationship and had twins in 1999: Mason and Mabel.

Present:

Dipper and Mabel's full names are Mason Emile Pines and Mabel Louise Pines, respectively.

Lou and Em only moved to Piedmont on Shermie's recommendation (and with his money). They would regularly clash with their neighbours for their 'weird' habits (and refusing to maintain their lawn). They considered themselves the arch-enemies of the local HWA.

Em worked at a fancy silicon valley tech start-up, while Lou was a private investigator (the boring realistic kind that mostly deals with insurance fraud and the occasional adulterer).

When he was little, Emile used to wow his son with stories about he was secretly an awesome space pirate with a cosmic ancestry, evidenced by Dipper's birthmark. And Dipper believed him. Really believed him. When his dad finally told him the truth, he did not take it well. Dipper also butted heads with his mom a lot over the existence of the supernatural - she would encourage him to examine things rather than blindly accept them, but he'd often think she was just doubting him for no reason. In short, he had some trust issues with his parents.

Dipper did have some friends in elementary school, but most of them moved away, and in middle school he alienated his fellow nerds after he was kicked out of the tabletop gaming club for being too rules lawyer-y. The resulting slump also lead to him falling behind on band practice.

Mabel is asexual and aromantic, but didn't realize it until much later. Finding she was drifting apart from her friends, she wrongfully attributed it to not having a crush (in truth they simply started to see her as immature and embarassing to be around - you know how kids can get :V). Not wanting to be 'left behind', she dedicated the summer in Gravity Falls to getting a romance as 'proof' that she was a totally grown-up big gal now (while her only reference material were 80s animated comedies and age-inappropriate romance novels).

Mabel very nearly didn't get to go to Gravity Falls at all - she was in danger of being forced to go to summer school due to poor grades (unlike her brother - and like her Grunkle Stan - she experienced great difficulty with any subject involving figures and rote memorization, especially math, the sciences, and computer studies). Only a week of late-night cram sessions spared her from this fate.

Contributing to the above, she also suffered from a form of anterograde amnesia - she would easily forget things that happened just the day before - sometimes even less - until presented with a reminder, usually in the form of an object or person, often her brother. She originally started scrapbooking to help her remember things. This wasn't diagnosed until a year after that summer.

Dipper was in the Boy Scouts in 2011. He hated the experience, camping out in the woods with no games or books, not relating to the other boys and resenting being ordered around by his hardass ex-army Scoutmaster. But he did get a merit badge in astro-navigation, so that's something.

Mabel had a brief stint in the Girl Scouts as well. She quit after an attempt to sell cookies somehow ended with her troop being chased out of a neighbourhood by a knife-wielding maniac in a bathrobe. To this day she's only told Dipper the full story.

One time, Dipper watched Small Soldiers and subsequently destroyed all his action figures checking them for military control chips. He was also banned from Chuck E. Cheese after his 7th birthday when he checked the animatronics for anything suspicious and made Pasquale's head fall off in front of everyone (on the same trip, Mabel tried to get the animatronic band freed from their exploitative contract so they could pursue their true musical potential).

One of Mabel's favourite movies is Rocky IV. For a long time she genuinely believed that's how the Cold War ended and was very disappointed to learn that wasn't the case.

Mabel had a bug-catching phase when she was 10, spurred on by all the creepy-crawlies that would nest in their unmaintained lawn. She'd catch bugs in jars and invite them to have tea and review movies with her. This came to an end after one of the jars smashed and released fireflies all over the house. She was finding descendants of Francisco the Firefly living in the basement as late as 2014.

Lou and Em were not getting divorced - they merely had a fight about paying off their mortgage after Em lost his job, and Dipper simply overreacted and assumed the worst. They sent the kids away that summer while they got their affairs in order. In the end, they had to sell the house and move into a cheaper apartment in Oakland.

Future:

When they first returned from Gravity Falls, the twins' grades took a nosedive as they had difficulty re-adjusting to mundane life, experiencing frequent traumatic episodes and refusing to follow instructions. Their parents had to be called in multiple times after both twins got into a fight in the hallway because another kid made up some dumb rumour that they'd joined a cult or had been abused by their 'creepy uncle', or were just faking their episodes for attention. They were only spared mandatory counseling thanks to emergency 'how to pretend to be normal' coaching from the Grunks.

Dipper has to start wearing glasses a few months after leaving Gravity Falls. Mabel of course made fun of this, thinking that only the male Pineses turn short-sighted (and forgetting about her mom). She had to start wearing glasses at 16, to which Dipper only replied by smugly grinning at her.

In high school, Mabel started a knitting club, which ended up being the most popular club in school - mostly because she insisted that it was a safe space for anyone, and anyone who tried anything funny would have their lives made hell. In her clubroom, nerds, preps, goths and jocks sat side-by-side in peace.

Mabel also took up sports, especially wrestling, becoming captain of the girls' wrestling team by Junior year. She took up a high-protein diet to build her strength - this combined with a childhood spent binging candy finally catching up to her lead to her putting on a lot of weight. By adulthood she's developed what she calls a 'sumo bod' - chubby, but strong (and great for hugs).

Meanwhile, Dipper took up track and gymnastics while regularly going to the gym - to the shock of everyone, as getting pre-Gravity Falls Dipper to exercise was like pulling teeth. If he was gonna have to brave another apocalypse, he didn't want to be saddled with noodle arms. By his 20s, the combination of his 'baby face' with his square jaw and muscular body has attracted a good amount of attention from girls (and boys) - attention he is alternately mildly perturbed by or totally oblivious to.

Dipper also devoted extra effort to his art skills, hoping to achieve the same level as Ford. Sometimes he'd climb up onto rooftops to get a good view of the landscape to draw, and then add a completely gratuitous monster because why not?

Despite his best efforts, Dipper was never able to overcome Mabel's height advantage. In fact, in their teen years she gained a few extra inches on him.

Dipper still regularly wears hats even as an adult - though he's no longer self-conscious about his birthmark, he's been wearing hats for so long it feels weird not to. It's like his 'thing' - Mabel has her sweaters, he has his hats.

Past his school years, Dipper mostly goes by Mason, especially with strangers - 'Dipper' is reserved for friends and family.

Dipper got a doctorate in forensic science at college, and also interned at a coroner's office. He also did some work as a runner on a film set, but the experience at the Used To Be About History Channel soured him on show business. Instead, after getting his doctorate he decided to take up Ford's offer to apprentice under him from years before, hoping to become a paranormal investigator in his own right (incidentally, Candy Chiu took the same offer, and now they work together).

Mabel went to college too, but didn't particularly want to, only going because she felt pressured. She ended up dropping out after the first year and still feels aimless, not knowing what to do with her life. She currently still lives with her parents and has a decently fulfilling job at an independent haberdashery (sweaters will always be there for her), but she's not sure that's what she wants to do.

Both twins are adored by Soos and Melody's 6-year-old kids (also twins) - they're considered honourary Uncle DipDip and Aunt MayMay.

When he turned 16, Soos gave Dipper his old truck - as much as he liked it, he can't exactly stick his kids in the cargo bay. Mabel meanwhile drives the Mabel-Mobile, an old Soviet military van painted pink with a huge shooting star mural, plus a liberal amount of graffitti and bumper stickers. Where she got it remains a mystery - not even she seems to remember.

Mabel has a serious weakness for booze. She experimented a lot with various substances during her brief time at college, but cocktails really stuck. When she's drunk, she tends to shift between giddy and sentimental, grumpy and ranty, and depressed and regretful. You know she's had too much when she starts singing about 'Lady Apocalypse'.

Dipper never got as into that stuff himself, but he was introduced to weed by Wendy, relying on it to calm his anxieties during exam season. He's currently trying to wean himself off it by means of alternate herbal cigarettes.

Waddles had to be sent back to Gravity Falls after a few years, since he rapidly grew too big to keep at Piedmont. He currently lives in a lean-to next to the Shack that Soos built. He still regularly sees Gompers, to Mabel's delight.

Wendy also got both twins into tattoos, convincing Mabel to get a huge shooting star on her upper right arm. For her 18th birthday she also got a special pair of tats on the forearms - a pair of arrows with the right marked 'Fasten In Case Of Hug!'. Dipper was reluctant at first, but caved when Mabel designed him a 'pine tree heart' emblem, which he wears on his right shoulder.

Both twins are in a special 'Never Mind All That' group chat, along with almost everyone else in the Zodiac, plus Candy and Grenda (but not Gideon). Mabel had the idea for a 'hotline' of sorts that they could message whenever the old post-apocalypse trauma started acting up - knowing from experience how important is to have people to remind you they're there.

Every year on the anniversary of the end of Weirdmageddon, both twins visit Bill's petrified body, and scribble tally marks on his face - one for each year, alternating between Dipper's blue marker and Mabel's pink one (this is something I've already mentioned elsewhere but I felt like it deserved to be at the end. :P)

[cartoonsinthemorning]

Please, I have so much love for your fem!stan, please tell me your thoughts about fem!mulletstan, or fem!drifterstan. I once read a fanfic where Filbrick kicking out Stan was just a scare tactic, I imagine he’d have the same sentiment for a female Stan as well, but he’s too prideful to go get his little girl after it backfires and she doesn’t come back home.

Meanwhile, Stan’s determined to prove she’s just as capable as any boy after years of being undermined for being born a girl! Even so, she’s not above using her feminine wiles to sling her FDA acknowledged merchandise, after all sex sells. Eventually she soon realizes that sex does indeed sell.

OOOHH Anon, tesoro, SAPESSI! You have no idea how happy your messages makes me, because you’re enabling me to YAP about my favorite topic, that I’ve been thinking about A LOT. Thank you so much! WARNING: Stancest is ALWAYS implied/established in my musings. The following lucubrations are no exception. In general, I think fem!Stan would get punished way less harshly than his canon male counterpart. Not that she’s coddled or untouchable- Constance would get hit occasionally, if she acts way out of the line, by both parents. But, I personally don’t think kicking her out would ever be a thing- not even as a threat: Given the time period/culture, the (horrible) assumption that throwing a teen boy out would not only be a punishment, but also a formative experience of sort- to make him self-sufficient- would NEVER be expected to apply to a girl. On the contrary: Constance would be perceived as someone that could NEVER be self-sufficient. Not only because she’s the “gentle sex”, but also because she’s a weird, off-putting dunce of a girl, unlikely to get picked by a wealthy enough- or even honest man that would take care and provide for her. If we were talking about a version of this universe where the machine accident happens like in canon, Constance would receive a slap across the face, as a punishment for what she did, and a particularly heated, demeaning tirade from Filbrick, imo. Now, that said--- I have two main favorite divergences, I’ve toyed with, for fem!Stan's future:

1) A version where Constance did destroy Ford’s machine, on purpose, in a fit of anger, because she’s subconsciously trying to get kicked out: rationally, she is aware how hard and scary it would be to run away from home, and that her family would look for her. But, if they HATED her, not only they wouldn’t feel bad, they’d also take the very hard decision for her, of cutting her out. But, what happens is that- they DO act like they despise her- but still, they won’t kick her out! It’s an outcome so painful and so humiliating, it’s the final straw that makes Constance snap and run away- to basically become drifter!Stan. And, Ford’s resentment and hatred, in this version, not only comes from Stan taking away his chance to go to his ideal College, but also because she abandoned him! Off to live her indecent, dangerous life with some biker- probably- when if, had she been patient for a few years- had she truly loved him as she said- Ford would had been the one to provide for her- spoil her rotten, even. Like, this is a universe where Ford was THE only eldest son, with an implicit duty to be his sister’s protector, and if you add in he’s been in love with her, too… In the 10-years-later reunion, Ford would have this incel-like feeling of pain and humiliation- because his baby sister at his door is wearing a miniskirt, and her hair is cut so short, and it’s evident she’s not that innocent anymore. But still, as tired and battered by life as she is, Constance would still NOT be begging Ford to be her savior and mer-- and let him take care of her! [Complicated incestuous tension ensues].

Version number 2) Constance accidentally destroyed Ford’s machine, just like in canon- but doesn’t get kicked out and- since she’s a girl and Ford is more protective and softer, after some silent treatment, he forgives her. And actually, he uses what happened to his advantage, to coax Constance into following him to Backupsmore: "it’s gonna take him so much more time to become successful, now that he’s relegated to that college, meaning he and Stan would end up separated so much longer! She’d have to remain at Glass Shard Beach all alone, for ages! But.. if she followed him, she could get a job, a room apartment of her own, and… nobody would know them, over there. They could even date in secret." And, Constance would hesitate, because she dreads an unfulfilling future as her brother’s accessory, but also, she is in love with him, and she inevitably internalized part of the sexism she’s been subjected to for most of her life, so… she accepts. Even pumps herself up, gaslights herself into thinking it’s gonna be a fresh, exciting new start, away from her shitty small town. And indeed… Even if the twins enjoy the relative freedom of their romance, far from home, inevitably Constance feels unsatisfied, like she just switched the background, but she’s still working as a waitress, doing nothing she truly loves, or feels good at. That’s when I like to imagine she ends up messing it up big time, by joining an MLM or something, in attempt to find her own success lmao. AND, it’s complicated, because she does find out she is actually GOOD at selling shit to people. This is her true calling! But, the business was scummy as fuck- to an illegal degree- and she ends up arrested for the first time. And, escapes from prison for the first time. Stan is a chaotic disaster, impossible to contain, in every universe. To make it short, once again the story goes back to its tracks, and Ford and Stan separate dramatically. Now, this version actually had a VERY angsty ship-focused sub-divergent version with Fiddleford involved, and a very jealous Ford. But I don’t even know if you’d be interested in that, so I’ll stop here. ++++ I do love that part of your ask, about Stan realizing she can use her sex-appeal to her advantage... To imagine her seducing people into helping her/condoning her schemes is so fucking sexy~ I will think of a specific scenario, because damn.

[nelsaqift]

I'm surprised Filbrick waited until Ford left for college in September to kick Stan out of the house. The way that man is, I expected him to kick Stan out after his 18th birthday or when he graduated from high school.

this is not to justify what filbrick did at all, just a look at things from his perspective. i do think that to him, in some strange way, this was an act of care. after ford left the house, stan wasn’t doing so great. he was of course very happy for and proud of ford, but he still couldn’t help feeling down about the whole thing. they’d always been a duo, and even if he logically knew that ford wasn’t leaving him behind and would be back soon, it was still a massive change. it felt as though a part of him was missing.

filbrick thought it was unbecoming of a pines man to be “moping”, especially considering that stan had recently become an adult. he thought stan would move on, find a job, make himself useful. i’ve been saying “kicked out” to explain what happened to stan, but just to be clear - in this AU it was much less dramatic than in canon. stan still wasn’t given much of a choice, rather informed that it was happening whether he liked it or not, but at least he wasn’t literally thrown to the curb. to filbrick, this was a way of teaching stan “what the real world is like”. he wasn’t a kid anymore, it was high time to stop depending on his parents and make something of himself. while caryn also wanted stan to stop looking so dejected (so unlike himself), she did not think this was a good idea at all. she thought he needed some support, filbrick thought “rewarding” him for being fragile would make things worse

i hope this made sense and sorry for rambling !!

[hellsquills]

Some timeline details for the Drafted AU

Drafted AU: a Gravity Falls AU in which Stan didn't break the perpetual motion machine and, instead of kicking him out, Filbrick sent him to Vietnam. Stan runs away. You can read more in this post.

The canon timeline would look something like this:

1969: Stan doesn't break the perpetual motion machine.

He's very sad and frustrated about his brother leaving. Instead of breaking into the school, they have a heated argument in the swings, in which Stan and Ford scream at each other until their true worries come to light: Stan is scared of his brother not having a good enough reason to come back home, and Ford is scared of not being up to their parents' (Filbrick) standards and forever being “the freak”. They talk it out as best as two 17-year-olds can, and they end up hugging and crying. They promise to always stick together, no matter what. They go home with a bond stronger than ever.

Ford leaves for uni in September.

1972: Stan is drafted.

It's been three years since Stanford left. Every once in a while, at least once a week, he calls home to catch up. He's drowning in work and classes, but he's as happy as he's ever been.

Stan is... managing. He picks up some work here and there, helping his dad in the shop, fixing some cars in the local garage and whatnot. Filbrick is not impressed though, and it gets worse when Ford sends part of his grant money. His son is so successful that he makes money just off reading books? And what's his extra kid doing? Not bringing home any money, that's for sure. More like living off his parents, for free, in their house, and eating their food. And so, he does the obvious thing; making Stan's life miserable until he decides to leave the house himself. Caryn doesn't see things the same way as he does, and she's spoiling this leech of a son they have.

One day, around November 1971, the third Vietnam draft lottery is held. Stan had managed to avoid being called for the last two (a friend of one of his dad's friends had some connections), but this time Filbrick makes sure he is called to take the test.

Stan calls his brother in a panic, and they both decide that the best and only course of action is that Stan pretends to be unable to do the physical tests. I'll expand on this in the future, I think, but basically the recruiters call his bluff and threaten to send him to prison if he doesn't cooperate. Stan gives up and passes the test with flying colors.

Stan goes back home knowing fully well he's fucked. He waits for the response. In January 1972, he receives the confirmation. The next day, in the middle of the night, he's out of the house.

1971: Introducing: Fiddleford.

Ford meets Fiddleford in a congress he attends in 1971, in which he gives a presentation on his most recent interest: the supernatural world and the multiverse. When the time for questions begins, all of them are about his perpetual motion machine. He's happy he's recognized by it, but he feels like no one listened to him and his new project. That is, until a lanky blond guy around his age comes up to the microphone and asks a question about a theory based on his. Ford is immediately taken aback by it, and asks the guy when did he come up with it. The guy simply answers that he just put two and two together while he was explaining, and it just occurred to him. Ford, who looks like he just took a peek into deep space, says into the mic: "Meet me in the room H at break".

The pure nerd energy these two emitted in the following two hours could fuel the San Diego Comic Con until California is underwater. They missed the rest of the congress and just kept talking and talking, one-upping each other's theories and finishing each other's equations. The connection is immediate, and they agree to stay in contact while they do their respective degrees.

A couple of years later, thanks to Ford's insistence, Fiddleford applies for a full scholarship at West Coast Tech. The university grants it, and his whole family is incredibly proud. Fiddleford finishes his Bachelor at Backupsmore University and moves in with Ford. They start living together on campus in 1974.

1972–1979: Stan on the run, Ford in uni.

This is basically the canon timeline redux. Stan runs away from the military service and the police altogether. He's still homeless and Ford-levels of paranoid. He doesn't contact his family in fear they'll have to pay the price for his mistakes. He doesn't call either. He doesn't leave the country, although he does come very close in '79. There are LOADS of backstory in this period, but the main point is that he's still a criminal, but much more discreet: no tricking people with faulty products, he doesn't want the authorities to know his location by putting up ads, but he does a bunch of illegal deals, betting, and drugs.

Ford is in uni and, as predicted, he's still working his ass off. He attends every single congress he can, takes as many classes as he can legally take and is overall the same maniac nerd he is in canon. Part of it is still wanting to be the absolute best student at all times, but also because he's genuinely enjoying it. The only difference here is that he also makes time to look for his lost twin, which keeps him somewhat grounded. He also has Fiddleford with him, and he helps a lot.

Ford still calls home around once a week, but he resents his dad because he knows Filbrick had something to do with Satan's draft. As time goes by, he's less and less scared of him and more upset, until he tells him to go to hell. He feels the freest he's ever been. He thinks about Stan and how proud he would've been of him for being the one who stood up to their father for once.

1979: Stan arrives in Tennessee

He arrives at the beginning of summer, around mid-June. He just escaped from a particularly tough situation, so he's trying to lay as low as possible; therefore, he hides in Tennessee, as this state shares a border with many others and it'd be easier to elude whoever is looking for him. That's also why he goes straight for the small towns, instead of the cities.

He's exhausted and broker than he's been in a while. He goes to a small town and orders something small, enough to fuel him for a few more hours. The waitress takes pity on him and serves him a bigger plate on the house. Stan could cry.

Fiddleford just finished his finals, and just as he does every summer, he comes back home to help his family on the farm. That's why he's home when he meets Stan, and not in uni.

Ford spends his summer at West Coast Tech, living on campus and doing extracurricular internships.

1979-82: Life at the McGucket's and the move to Gravity Falls

Stan lives with the McGuckets for two years, although he only lives with Fiddleford during holidays and summers (since he doesn't get married in this AU, he spends some more time studying in uni and working on his own projects). He bonds A LOT with them, and they love having him around.

In 1981, Ford finally receives a big grant to study the supernatural, and he decides to build a house in a town in Oregon called Gravity Falls. He immediately asks Stan and Fiddleford to live with him and to help him in his investigations, if they want to.

Seeing as it is a secluded area (and because he misses his brother like crazy), Stan accepts. So does Fiddleford.

???? - Fiddlestan

When is Fiddlestan established in this AU? Who falls first (and who falls harder)? When does Ford find out? Does he help any of them out? Does Fidds' family know? Your call, honestly.

[if you share your ideas i'll kiss your forehead]

I'm torn between them falling in love in the holidays and then pining through the phone while they're away, being an established couple before they move to Gravity Falls or getting together while they're there. Either way it's teeth-rotting fluff, I can tell you that much.

[pix-writes]

So, I'm going to answer these two requests in the same post, because I feel if I did them seperately I'd probably end up repeating myself. Hope that's okay! (NSFW will be at the end of the post under a banner, so 18+ below!)

I think both the stan twins have a complicated relationship to the idea of being parents, whilst they are fond of their memories together as kids, they otherwise had an awful upbringing, whilst stan got kicked out as a teen, I don't think Ford would have had the greatest time either in still being in contact with his family, in fact I have a lot of theories that he more or less cut off contact with them by a certain point in his early adult life when conducting his research in the Falls.

I think their expeirences with how their parents got together and how Filbrick treated his sons as either means to an end or dead weight in his life, meant that they were never keen to start a family early on in their lives and 'settle down', stan more out of circumstances/ wanting to travel the world, and Ford out of wanting to focus on his career/ acheiving greatly in the fields he wished to pursue. However, they were raised around the 60's and would have faced at least some societal pressures and influence (even from their parents) that at some point they had to find a girl to marry and have children with. Whilst neither of the twins really exhibit a desire to fit into the norms of society, I think they definitely considered and probably even fantasised about their future as a parent, regardless if they truly wanted that future or not.

Ford I think would have the narrative of "Of course, once I've done x and researched x, then hopefully I'll find a woman that actually wants to talk to me and then maybe we'll get married and settle down once I'm x age..." and then, satisfied with his internal answer to those societal pressures get's on with his studies. I'm sure Ford has thought about it a lot and ruminated anxiously over the fact that he can't seem to connect with anyone on a deeper level, I mean its practically part of what drives him to study the abnormal in the first place! He's fantasised about meeting someone, who like him is strange and unusual in some way and as driven to seek out intellectual, academic pursuits. He thinks maybe they could focus on their careers together and settle down once you both get to a certain age. You may be 'older' parents by his parent's/generation's standards, but he's never really cared for that and it makes sense for him to focus on his career first and foremost, anyway. He's not putting anything off, not at all!

They both love their family still and love the twins deeply with all of that said, though! Ford in seeing them realises all that he has missed from his time in the portal, even though he feels its silly after all this time to regret the past, it does make him wonder the 'what ifs?' - if he had been more in the twins' lives up to this point, or if things had gone differently, would he have even learnt the lessons he needed to; or would he have been as absorbed into his career as he had been and not had them in his life?

Ford loves being around the twins, they're the most loveable pair of kids AND they're his family <3 Once he's starting to get over all that has happened he starts to really enjoy their precocious natures - it gives him a glimpse of what may have been, however small, into what it would be like to have children. I think he does think it over and considers if it would've made him happy. After all, he isn't his father, maybe he would've been better at raising them than his father had been with them...

So for the sake of one of these requests, let's say that he does want to be a father! HCs for dad!Ford and pregnant S/O:

Ford is going to put his all into reasearching potentially EVERYTHING there is to know about pregnancy, concieving (if you're purposefully putting effort into having kids, that is) and child rearing as he can before you do get pregnant/concieve. It's what he does best and he'll even be trying to research what the best parenting methods are and calculate the possibilities of what can go wrong for the baby, you, etc etc. I mean you can't go into anything unless you're 100% certain you're willing & ready to undergo any of the potential outcomes, right?

He has the best intentions, but if you really don't want to know all the freaky/dangerous outcomes that could happen to you and the future baby/babies, then you might need to have a firm conversation with him. Might have to also remind him that you need to be a team in this, parenting is one of the things with endless amounts of advice and not all of them are going to work or be ones you want to make, part of being a parent is finding out/knowing your style and not overthinking it (or at least trying to).

Will certainly do his own 'check-ups' on you in addition to you going for your regular doctors/hospital ones. Enrolls you both in a class for new parents, but ends up criticising it and is convinced that you can learn everything you need to know at home anyway (finally he sees the value of the internet!)

The fact that he is a lighter sleeper is both a blessing and a curse, he won't mind waking up for the baby any time day or night but when you're in the last trimester and you're uncomfortable he's likely not getting much sleep either! Will be incredibly attentive in trying to solve it though, and that goes for the rest of your pregnancy too! He's there to put oil over stretch marks, set out your vitamins, help you get the most comfortable positions, fetch whatever food you're craving and so on.

Never got to be at the twins' birth and so is absoluely not going to miss the birth of his children for anything! He does fear about things going wrong, though, doesn't think so at first but does have a few nightmares about it. Is anxious about your pregnancy being high risk, since multiples clarly run in his family and being an older parent. Wonders if the baby will have any 'abnormalities' like his polydactly and whilst he will accept his child 1 million percent, he is already worrying over how they will be recieved by others.

In labour, he's definitely in tune with you, he's not one of those lazy, unconcerned husbands that you see annoying/ignoring their pregnant wives in hospital. Is incredibly good at rolling with the punches in an emergency situation. Absolutely sobs when he gets to hold them for the first time. Eventually manages to relieve hold of them when Stan comes over after the birth by convincing him that you need him for something so he can get to hold is nibling, haha.

Loves to smooth his hands over your belly, is excited to feel the baby move and talks to them <3 Definitely the dad who plays them classical music as well!

I think that his S/O being pregnant he just gains a different, deeper appreciation for you! The fact that you're bringing life into the world is incredible and he's there when its wonderful and when its difficult, he knows it's not all rainbows and sunshine and will often tell you that if he could find a way to alleivate your pains or carry the baby himself he would!

Is very protective of you when you're pregnant, more so than he normally is in public. Hates when people cross boundaries and make you uncomfortable, gets especially mad at strangers wanting to touch you and will not let that happen if he's with you.

Ford as a dad would be amazing, he's not perfect by any means, but whatever his children are curious about he has a ready answer! Is actually good at getting to the root of the loop of 'why' questions into what they really want to know/do. You can often see him with his kids, looking up at him like he hung the stars because he has an answer for almost anything they can think of.

Whilst he has to very carefully shut away his lab and make sure it's under tighter security for the kids when they're younger, he now gets to do all sorts of nerdy things with them. Even runs his own smaller, simpler version of D&D&MD for them, ends up becoming a family tradition to have a 'games night' because of this.

Schooling is something he takes very seriously, and he can be a firm parent when he needs to, though debates on whether they should be homeschooled or not and for how long - whatever you settle on, he's going to make sure his kids have all the help they need with homework and will encourage them to take any extra curricular activities/hobbies they may want to do. Your kid shows an interest in music? He'd be showing them all the different instruments that they could maybe play! They want to join a sport, he'll be at every game!

Ford will be there to celebrate their acheivements in life, whatever they may do, I think he'd be a very supportive dad after the events of the show especially. And he'll be incredibly protective of them of course, no one is going to hurt them and get away with it lightly!

Not to mention these kids will have the most fun-loving chaotic uncle in the world! Ready to regale them with tales of all the adventures he and their dad have gone on ("please make it more G-rated, Stanley"), and when they're older cover for them when they want to do more rebellious things - Stan is going to make sure they get back home safe!

Now for the NSFW:

I think like I said, Ford generally isn't much into the idea of having kids --> but that doesn't mean you can't have a breeding kink!

The element of this kink that is so appealing to him is the 'claiming', the need to mark you in some way. He finds it hot to think about you being filled with his cum.

In the back of his mind he has a little voice that says he should feel some sort of shame for the dark, possessive nature of his thoughts around this kink, for wanting you to be 'mine' (his). Its almost like a ritual to him, to combine his cum with yours, to fill you; you are his and he is yours. He's not really religious, but I think in an intimate relationship he feels like he wants to be as close to you as possible, your his to worship and his to protect and keep safe and to pleasure. If he could find a way to meld souls and minds with you he'd be tempted to do it (but on the other side of things, especially ford post-bill betrayal, I think he's too independent to really do that haha).

It's practically filthy the amount of times he's imagined you pressed into the 'mating press' position, legs hiked up onto his shoulders.

When he finishes, wants you to hold his cum in, presses it back in with his fingers or gets you to raise your hips, legs crossed.

Surely thinks about the possibility of you getting pregnant from it. It sometimes creeps into his mind when he sees you interacting with the twins or other kids/babies. It makes him feel feral. Likes to think about what it would be like to see you pregnant, even if he doesn't actually want kids.

[asiuapng]

The Heart Wants What It Doesn't Have - Stanley Pines and His Undeniable Want for People to Want Him Back

Stan's strength doesn't lie in the streets. We have a whole decade of him not catching a break, getting banned by majority of the states, and even served time more than once. No, I believe his strength is his innate interest in people.

In their childhood, Crampelter told Stan that if it weren't for the company of his brother, he'll be alone. In that instance, we immediately saw that that is his true fear. He loves people but they don't seem to love him back, so he clings on to the person he knows who does: Ford. The idea of together forever brought comfort to him. It didn't matter if he fails, so long as he is standing with someone, then he never failed to begin with.

I'd like to think that his parents knew about this. And I'd like to think that that was Filbrick's main motivation to kick him out. You saw how Stan's tough love was a direct copy from his father, and that no matter what he's been through, he can't bring himself to completely hate the man who worked so hard to provide for his family. Again, Stan loves people—he wants them around. But Filbrick had other ideas. He knew his sons love each other, believed that Ford will get over it, and knew that Stan knew that too. But that would mean he wouldn't face the consequence, and Filbrick didn't want that. He wanted Stan to actually learn from his mistakes, and that those mistakes, no matter how much of an accident it was, will always have consequences. The world is cruel, and it's the father's job to make his children be above it.

What Filbrick did made Stan's fear into a reality. Believing that will toughen him up, believing that he'll rise up, believing that he'll finally become a man. But he doesn't know his son. He didn't know that what he's done was the complete ruin of Stan. That he was the nightmare Filbrick also had trouble sleeping when he was a kid.

I believe Filbrick never hated his son, just frustrated. Caryn knows that. Why would he never wiped of '#1 Dad'? That pride and ultimate shame of being his father, no wonder he didn't attend his youngest son's funeral.

Anyway, back to Stan. After getting kicked out, he tried to put a brave face. He may be Caryn's son, but the man can only lie so much before crashing down. Everything Stan did was just to go back home. He took every shortcut he can, but he can't bring himself back at the porch empty handed. He loves his father way too much.

As years has gone by, he finds himself getting further and further away from the glass shard-ridden beach. The sounds of waterbirds are just as muffled as his judgement, and all Stan wants is to get things over with. From illegal work to downright immoral, somewhere along the lines Stan might've gave up. He allowed himself get drowned not by the sea of salt, but all of his problems. He never stood a chance; and giving up his name seems to be easier than staying alive. But no matter how many time he has betrayed himself, Stan just can't get rid of the heart he thought had died years ago. No matter how much he runs aways, the whole entirety of him just wants to stay. And his soul is stuck, anchored and haunted by the presence of a payphone.

No matter how many years has passed, there's a part of him that refused to grow up. As if he is saving it for the same boy he believes will welcome him back in open arms. Even after heart break after heartache, Stan still stands—and he's so, so tired.

When Stan got ahold of the postcard, his heart started bumping. Like he's been lifted from the depths of the watery deep, and he couldn't be any more thankful. No storm can stop him, no goons can scare him, it's just him and his second chance of together forever. But that didn't work out, and he realizes that Stan is indeed just a boy. Tried to burn his journal? What was he thinking? Maybe he did deserve everything, and another thing for not learning. What was wrong with him? And now he lost his brother again. His father was right, mistakes, no matter how accidental it may be, bears consequence, and he had become his brother's executioner.

A life a for a life. He threw everything away just to get him back. He was ready to betray himself once more. He'll stop running away, stop trying to go home, stop trying to find a spot for himself in other people's hearts. It's what killed him after all. But, life has a sense of humor to them, because it's now keeping him alive. For the first time, he hears a laugh and his heart melts. They like his jokes? Now that was something. It would've meant something, but his lifeline isn't his anymore.

Stan swore on his breath that everything he has been through will all be worth it if it meant saving the first person who was there for him. A life for a life, right?

You'd think that after forever had passed, they'll be too old for this. Turns out, all wounds are fresh if it came from the person you love the most, and Stan is reminded yet again that no matter how much of an accident a mistake is, consequence will follow. He didn't mean to endanger his family, but that doesn't matter anymore.

So yet again he has stripped, lied, and bore his heart. Yet again, another act of self-betrayal. And yet again, Stan tricks himself that this time, it will surely be worth it.

The heart wants what it doesn't have, and he'll gladly offer it to the world if it meant another chance for together forever. Stanley's love for people is what killed him. But it was also what brought him back to life.

[guardianoflightanddarkness]

Ford from Gravity Falls is used as the show's and fandom's scapegoat and it's completely unfair

This isn't written as a Ford defense squad post, as much as I love Ford, I know he is no saint and that he is an incredibly flawed yet incredibly well fleshed character, easily the best character of the entire series alongside Dipper and Stan. However, I think both the show AND the fandom tends to use him as the scapegoat to blame him for every little thing that has happened in the show, and it comes to a point that, honestly, it's downright ridiculous, like:

Getting mad at Stan over the project: yes, we know Stan breaking it was an accident, but that's because we, the audience, WATCHED Stan's memories and point of view, Ford didn't, and he has no way of checking that one out. It doesn't help that Stan's actions place him in the worst light posible: what was he doing sneaking into the school at night, specially around his brother's project? That was no accident, neither it was keeping quiet about breaking the project until there was no turning back, he could have told Ford to check it over, even if he kept his mouth shut about him being involved. On the top of that, he made ZERO attempts to show even the slightest remorse or guilt over it, he shrugged it off as roughhousing and completely dismissed it, as if he hadn't costed his brother's entire efforts and a full scholarship in the best college of the country. And to top it all, he immediately grinned while offering Ford to come sailing with him, you know, the thing the two had just talked about right before Ford's project was broken. See? From Ford's point of view and Stan's behaviour and actions EVERYTHING pointed at him doing it on purpose. At that moment, Ford had every single right to be furious and hurt at Stan for his betrayal. People need to stop acting as if Stan did no wrong in here when he screwed up big time. Ford had every right to resent Stan in here, and him managing to go to another college did not make it better: Ford making the best out of a crappy situation didn't make amends, specially when Stan had not apologized or tried to fix the mess or make it up to him.

Stan getting kicked out: Obviously Stan did NOT deserve to get kicked out over what happened, but that's NOT Ford's fault, he didn't kick him out, their father, Filbrick, aka abusive AH of the year, did, and considering what we know he said about Stan when he was young "He is a loser, an utter embarrassment, I just want to get rid of him" and the fact that he had his bag ready beforehand, it was clear he just used Ford's broken project as an excuse to do this earlier. You can't seriously expect Ford, a child at that time, to be the adult in the picture, specially in the heat of the moment when he was still hurt and angry. Not to mention that, had he tried to defend him, the two of them would have gotten kicked out. It would have helped no one. Should Ford had at least made sure Stan was okay? Yes, but that goes BOTH ways, as Stan left and didn't try to keep contact. Don't blame Ford for an abusive parent's actions.

Summoning Bill: Ford had NO idea that Bill was a demon, and the warning on the cave could have easily been a prank, specially cause you have to be THAT dumb to leave the spell to summon a demon next to the warn "DO NOT SUMMON", that's like me leaving my bank account in the open and write "DO NOT STEAL MY MONEY USING MY PASSWORD 1234". On the top of that, Bill pretended to be his friend by gaslighting him and manipulating him, feeding his insecurities and taking advantage that Ford was still hurting over Stan's loss, and trying to show that he was worth something through his smarts and to prove he wasn't a freak. Blaming Ford for trusting and summoning him is basically victim blaming him when he wasn't aware of any of this. The only thing he can be blamed is for, well, allow anyone in his mind, that should have been a huge boundary that should have never been accepted, but considering how manipulative Bill is...

Mcgucket's madness: While we can't deny that Mcgucket was traumatized by everything he saw in Gravity Falls and the portal, we can't directly blame Ford for this, he is not to blame for Mcgucket mishandling his anxiety and coping in an unhealthy way. Yes, Mcgucket was affected by all of this, but he was the one who created the memory gun, and who used it despite Ford offering him help and telling him NOT to use it cause it clearly caused brain damage, and told him to destroy it. And what did Mcgucket do? He used the memory gun on Ford to keep him quiet, created a cult, and used it on himself until losing his sanity. I'm sorry, but as much as I love and feel bad for Mcgucket, his own insanity is his own fault, not Ford's.

Not destroying his research: Would you guys be okay with destroying all your life work? It's not as simple. And you need to remember he was sleep deprived for weeks because Bill would possess him at any chance to torture him if he fell asleep, at that point Ford was suffering practically psychosis. Obviously he could have just burned the pages regarding Bill exclusively, but again, he couldn't think clearly at that point.

His fight with Stan: Again, sleep deprived, it's a miracle he could even say a sentence properly in his state, and it takes two to start an argument. Stan had every right to feel hurt, but calling Ford selfish for following his own life after Stan took his chances previously with zero remorse over it was also an AH move, which made things escalate when Ford did the same by claiming this was "the only worth thing he would ever do in his life", and then Stan, out of spite, tried to burn his journals, and Ford retaliated by tackling him to stop him, both twins blaming each other over Stan's life when really that was Filbrick's fault. Ford marking Stan was an honest accident, and he tried to stop the fight there and help him and heal him, it was Stan who out of pain and rage, continued the fight until Ford got sucked into the portal. BOTH of them are to blame for that fiasco for not even trying to communicate properly and jumping to physical fight.

Not thanking Stan right away: Stan was responsible for Ford losing 30 years of his life in the other dimension, taking his home, his life work, and his identity and on the top of that, ignoring the warnings of NOT opening the portal cause it could destroy the world, therefore opening the portal, creating the rift, and running Ford's plan to destroy Bill. From his point of view, Ford has every right to be pissed and not feeling like thanking his brother for it in the heat of the moment, specially when Stan doesn't show a single shred of remorse and his first words are "how about a thank you for getting you out of a sci-fi dimension?"

Not staying away from the kids: Ford LITERALLY does that, it's Dipper who comes to him, and then Stan accepted it.

Endangering the kids: Ford literally tried to keep the kids safe and the only time he actively risked Dipper's life was when he thought the UFO was safe. Stan literally got the kids in jail within the first week at Gravity Falls and almost got them killed multiple times, like with the dinosaur and the bottomless pit. And if we talk about Ford giving Mabel a crossbow, don't forget Stan allowed Mabel to play with an ax, Ford and Stan were raised in the 60s, where that was more than normal, and Ford openly asks if it's okay to give children weapons cause he has been out of this dimension for decades, which is a fair point. Stan knows better in here, and he has done far worse.

Not telling Stan and Mabel about the rift: Obviously telling the rest of the family would have been the ideal thing to do, but people forget that Ford is dealing with trauma and trust issues that are still untreated after 30 years: he was betrayed by his brother, then by his best friend, and finally by his muse, and it costed him everything, it's understandable he isn't going to trust his brother right away - specially considering Stan isn't taking him seriously, considering he shrugged off any problems with the portal and left the mess in his hands, assuming he won't be careful with it like he wasn't with the portal - or his niece, who he just met and for the little he has seen from her, has broken uncountable crystal balls in less than an hour, or who he has read from journal 3, has a terrible tendency of stealing or taking important things from others without permission, like journal 3 during Sock Opera and almost handling it to Bill. Was it a bad move? Yes, but understandable nevertheless given what he had gone through by that point.

"Neglecting" Mabel: This one is just downright ridiculous, we are literally SHOWED how Ford's interactions with Mabel are nothing but filled with fondness and how he claims to love this girl for being weird, praising her for being a good person and all. It's Stan who literally asked him to stay away from BOTH kids, which Ford complied to until Dipper literally busted into his lab, and it's not like Mabel showed any interest in spending time with Ford either, she only shows interest when there unicorns involved. Could have Ford interacted more with both kids? Yes, if it wasn't because...he was just adapting back into his own dimension after being 30 years away, and dealing with the stress of containing the rift and preparing for Weirdmaggedon, ALL while the kids barely had a couple of weeks left before returning home.When was Ford supposed to get extra time to bond with Mabel? Specially when Mabel didn't show any interest in him to begin with?

"Separating" Dipper and Mabel: This one is easily one of the most unfair points I hear so often, because not only it places the blame solely on Ford for problems that were taking place long before he even stepped out of that portal, but because it takes away any accountability on the children regarding their relationship, and implying that Ford was wrong in the past before the project incident. I won't deny that Ford was projecting a bit with the "isn't it suffocating?" comment, but other than that, he was offering his nephew a chance to study what he loved, giving him what he didn't get to have at his age, he wasn't excluding Mabel, Mabel simply never showed interest in the supernatural, as we all saw, and he simply helped his nephew to increase his self-confidence, something that, seriously, Dipper needed, after all the crap he got put through. And let's not pretend that all the kids' problems started with Ford, their problems started WAY long before Ford was around the picture, as we saw how basically Dipper has zero self-confidence and, as much as the twins love each other, their relationship was completely unbalanced: Dipper is constantly giving up for Mabel to make her happy, sacrificing his needs and wants for her, and everything Mabel does in return is not only not appreciating anything he does for her, but to mock him, disrespect his boundaries, ditch him for better plans, force her will onto him, and basically throw him under the bus whenever another plan suits him better, and getting all the favouritism from Stan's treatment up to that point, who joined into Dipper's treatment, favoured Mabel and gave Dipper the worst chores. Ford's appearance only balanced the equation by giving Dipper someone that he could connect with the same way Mabel connects with Stan. And the show tries to play that as a bad thing, really?

The "grammar" comment: This one is baffling to me, because while it's true Ford's reaction weren't the most mature one out of the two, the fact that people ignore Stan's own immature actions on that scene and blame Ford exclusively only speaks volumes of how much the fandom uses him as the scapegoat: at this point, Ford has been TORTURED for DAYS to no end, by being electrocuted and turned into a gold statue, and the second he comes back to his senses, he is relieved to find his family, but also has a very limited time to stop Bill, so he hurries up to draw the circle. He literally pleads Stanley to hold his hand to fix this and Stan refuses, openly accusing him of creating the end of the world (while purposefully ignoring his own share of the blame, since he is the one who opened the portal in the first place and created the rift that started weirdmaggedon), Ford apologizes and pleads him to help him by just shaking his hand, and what does Stan do? Refuse to do it until he forces a thank you out of him, effectively keeping the world's safety, their children included, out of pure pettiness and pride, and even after he gets that thank you out of him, he continues to badmouth Ford. By that point, to say Ford was irritated with Stan is an understatement. Yet somehow he gets more crap for that grammar comment, than for Stan throwing punches at him for it, let alone his entire behaviour in that episode. Again, both of them were being stubborn immature idiots, so why people blame Ford exclusively?

Again, with this, I'm not saying Ford is innocent on everything, he isn't, he has done his plenty of share of mistakes, he spends DECADES blaming himself over those, with trust and self-confidence issues, and spent over half of his life ready to sacrifice himself and everything to fix it, but I honestly find absolutely unfair and an insult to his character how the fandom tends to portray him as this selfish arrogant old man that people love to blame for everything that went wrong, ignoring Bill and basically to favour other characters like Stan and Mabel. I can understand that Ford, coming out so late in the show and his life story only been expanded in Journal 3 didn't help, but the bashing he gets even ten years later is just appalling and proves that many people didn't understand him, just look at what the fandom think about him just watching the fanmade episode "Return to the Bunker", which basically spits all over his character. It's a shame that one of the most fleshed out characters of this amazing show gets the short end of the stick by his creator and by the fandom when he clearly doesn't deserve it.