#These poor boys (fully grown ass old men) so rarely had and kindness/praise/affection in their lives; like not even from their dad

[pix-writes]

Ok this is really important because Stan is like Ford in his need for praise/affection but, I do want to give Stan some slack when it comes to Bill! because I think he'd be very wary of bill cipher first and foremost because of how he presents himself to people, there's always something a little off and jaunty in his appearance and behaviour, regardless of what he says and I think Stan is himself enough of a con man and been screwed over in the past by other crooks in the past to know one. Ford passes over a lot of the off putting and unhinged shit bill pulls and makes excuses for it, because he wants what bill's offering, in fact he's blindsided by wanting the knowledge he has to offer and I think Stan would not take long to suspect what bill says is too good to be true! I think bill being the manipulator he is would also need to present himself very differently to Stan in order to ever entice him, and even if he did if Ford was in the picture when it happened he'd quickly catch on that their experiences of bill are different and that's fishy. Stan also has a lot of control and awareness over his mind/dreamscape as we see in S1 ep 19 telling dipper how to help save soos & his sister, bill primarily manipulates people through dreams and so he'd be hard pressed with Stan to get anywhere without the man becoming paranoid - I'm so happy that Alex even confirmed my theory on this recently!

Does that mean that Stan is immune to being manipulated or blindsided by others? Absolutely not. As we can see in Roadside Attraction, a pretty woman complimenting him and seeming to fall for his cheesy lines seems to be extremely easy, in fact! 😄🤭 (sorry stan)

Stan has also been screwed over by others a lot in the past, including in past relationships where tbh he really should've seen it coming. That said Bill cipher is a different kettle of fish altogether and I think the reason he deliberately seemed to never want Ford to reconnect with Stan or to make a deal with Stan himself is for these very reasons, plus he wanted Ford the one who he deems more intelligent and more morally flexible and he was sort of filling the gap that stan had left in Ford's life, in a way, even talking somewhat like him, being familiar to Ford helped to manipulate him better so Stan being in the picture would ruin his chances, I think. Afterwards Bill didn't seem to want to make a deal with Stan because he was obsessed with Ford but also because he didn't see a possibility of it going well so he treated/treats Stan as I unimportant, dumb and insignificant because that's what he does with people he feels he cannot control!

I love the idea that Bill’s manipulation tactics are horribly obvious but Ford is so socially inept that it works on him perfectly

“He was a masterful manipulator.”

No bestie he was just nice to you and you folded like a house of cards

[broadwayfangirl222]

I keep seeing like"Stan wouldn't have fallen for it" or like "Oh Stan would've immediately clocked it" in the comments, and hot take - I don't think Stan would've fared much better. Not when we have a scene like this:

I get why people think he wouldn't, it makes sense, but I think y'all forget: Stan's just as starved for kindness/praise/affection as Ford is. I think if he sees it happening to someone else, yeah, he'd immediately be able to clock it, but if it happened to him? I think he would fold just as easily.

I love the idea that Bill’s manipulation tactics are horribly obvious but Ford is so socially inept that it works on him perfectly

“He was a masterful manipulator.”

No bestie he was just nice to you and you folded like a house of cards