#a hyperfocus if you will

[caffichai]

Toddifons! (and bonus version w/o tanktop)

Working in the shop on a hot summer day is, well, hot

Hey, since you're here, check this out!

[ckret2]

What's your stance on Ford as a person? Honestly, I believe that for thr majority of canon he is a bad person. But I believe he grew. Still not great though XD

(Love him anyways obvs)

I disagree entirely! I think he's equally as good a person as any of the other main cast.*

*Except Mabel, who, as we all know, is always right about everything.**

(**This is a lighthearted joke. For the love of god, I don't want Mabel discourse in my inbox.)

His biggest sins in the show:

After telling his brother that he was thinking about changing their shared life plans, and then discovering that his brother had gone to the high school that night for no good reason and gone to the science fair for no good reason and messed around near Ford's science project for no good reason and broke it and didn't tell Ford about it... Ford believed Stan did it intentionally and held a grudge for it. You know what, it WOULD be pretty damn hard to believe it was an accident.

Hilariously ill-equipped to cope with Fiddleford's mental health. A guy who responds to "I have anxiety" with "have you tried yoga, it helps me" isn't a bad person, he's clueless. "Character cheerfully enacts a bad idea while a loved one in the background goes NO PLEASE DON'T DO THAT" describes half the episodes of Gravity Falls.

Was successfully manipulated by a professional manipulator into believing his best friend wished him ill. Man, what a terrible person Ford is for being manipulated by a manipulator and saying cruel things to somebody he'd been genuinely convinced was trying to harm him.

??? Didn't say thanks to a guy he was still mad at after the guy fixed a problem he himself had caused. This is a solitary example of stubborn bad etiquette, jesus christ. There's half a dozen different reasons why it makes perfect sense Ford wasn't in the right mindset to feel grateful, this is not something worth indicting his entire character over.

He had high ambitions, which everyone seems to lambast him for, but high ambitions that wouldn't have required doing anybody harm! (Until the professional manipulator started manipulating him into harming the people around him, but we are going to demonstrate some reading comprehension and not blame Ford's underlying morality as a person for things he never would've done if not for Bill's bullying, con artistry, and outright lies.) Like, what is it that he wanted to do with his life? Use his talents to get rich and famous? Shit, that's exactly what Stan wanted to do with his life. It's what Dipper fantasizes about doing with his life. Even Mabel, who thinks about her long-term future the least, dreams big with her art & performances and is already making big money off cheap-ass commissions. What terrible people they all are, for—let me check my notes here—uhhh... unrealistically fantasizing about achieving success in life by doing the things they're good at.

When their dad accuses Stan of lying as a child, Ford puts his entire summer on the line to defend Stan even though he knows Stan is a habitual liar and has no reason to believe Stan is telling the truth this time.

When his new college roommate he barely even knows gets laughed at for proposing an outlandish scientific theory, his first emotion is outrage at this injustice and he drops everything to convince his already-despondent roommate that he was right and help him prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

When he moves to a new town, he tries again and again to befriend his new neighbors, and fails not because he's rude or a jerk, but because he's awkward as hell, tells terrible jokes, and sucks at identifying phoenixes.

When Fiddleford gets hurt around him, he cares about it, feels guilty about putting him in that position, doesn't want it to happen again, and tries his best to help even though he's bad at helping.

When he gets kidnapped by a weird holiday folklore creature, he concludes without even thinking about it that he's now in charge of protecting and rescuing the kidnapped kids. Yeah, then he immediately starts hollering at the folklore creature for trying to impose his religious beliefs on Ford and the kids—but like, Ford was right tho, he just had bad timing.

When he discovers that the Northwest family committed atrocities against their poorer neighbors a century ago, his first instinct is to march up to their house, find the first Northwest he can locate, and give them a piece of his mind for it. Like, this won't even FIX anything. He's just THAT OUTRAGED over the injustice.

When he sees what he thinks is a fortune telling fraud conning the people, he attempts to debunk her because he's mad to see someone cheating other people with lies—and when he can't debunk her, he just leaves her alone rather than harass her about it. Typically, if assholes think somebody's doing something wrong but don't have any proof of it and fail to get proof when they look, they decide they're right anyway and keep giving that person shit. Ford doesn't give her shit. That's the opposite of an asshole move.

When he discovers his Portal To Knowledge (And Fame & Fortune) is actually a Portal To Doom (But Still Possibly Fame & Fortune, Maybe Even Godly Power), he isn't tempted for a second to keep working on it anyway. There is no moment where Bill manages to tempt him. No matter what Bill offers, no matter how long Bill offers, never, at ANY point, does Ford have a SECOND of "but what if I did make a deal with the devil?" the way so many heroes in similar situations often do.

You ever notice that? So often moral moments in the show are presented as choices the characters make. Will or won't Dipper give Bill a "puppet" in exchange for knowledge. Will or won't Stan fight a pterodactyl to protect Mabel's pig. Will or won't Mabel hand Bipper the journal. Ford is never given a "will or won't he" moment over Bill's threats, offers of friendship, or offers of infinite power—he steamrolls straight past them without a second of consideration—because, to him, the selfish, cowardly, easy choice ISN'T EVEN AN OPTION. He doesn't even SEE it as making a choice because the possibility of doing the wrong thing is invisible. A character who wavers first before turning Bill down would look more noble for "overcoming" temptation—it's harder to notice just how much stronger Ford's moral compass must be to not even feel temptation in the first place.

Greed and pride never tempt him to join Bill's side. Exhaustion, despair, and fear never tempt him to give up. He bears up under weeks, possibly months of extreme sleep deprivation, physical torture, psychological torture, emotional torture, threats of death, threats of brainwashing, threats to his family. He doesn't hold up so that he can pat himself on the back for being a hero—if that was all it was he would've gone "screw it, this isn't worth it and nobody would know I'm the one who gave up" a week in—he does it because he simply knows it must be done and because he's so isolated (half because of Bill's influence!) that he believes he's the one who must do it, all alone.

Thinking he has to do it by himself isn't egotism or pride; it's helplessness. He thinks no one else stands a chance. He thinks he's alone.

And, when he discovers his Portal To Knowledge is a Portal To Doom, he immediately feels guilty. No trying to deny the situation to protect his ego. No shuffling the blame off to someone else. No "maybe the apocalypse could have a silver lining!" No locking the door and trying to ignore the problem. He blames himself for being fooled—he IMMEDIATELY takes full responsibility for his actions—and he CONTINUES to take responsibility FOR THE NEXT THIRTY YEARS.

He takes more responsibility than is even warranted—he treats himself like he's an idiot for believing in an APPARENT GOD who's been practicing manipulating humans for thousands of years and who had never given Ford reason to believe the portal was anything but what Bill said it was. He beats himself up to no end every single time his past with Bill comes up. He even keeps beating himself up thirty years later when he's shoving warning notes to future readers in Bill's evil unkillable book!

When he falls into the multiverse, he dedicates his entire life NOT to finding a way to rescue himself, but to finding a way to permanently stop the CHAOS GOD who's still at the threshold of destroying Ford's world and countless others. He makes himself a hated criminal in the process, just to stop Bill. He's ready to spend the rest of his life trying to protect a world he doesn't think he'll ever see again. He does it because, as he sees it, somebody has to stand in between the children and the obnoxious folklore cryptid menacing them, and he's the only adult in this damn cave with the skills and knowledge for the job.

When he gets home, he doesn't tell his family about Bill and his quest because he's afraid that doing so will get them involved and endanger them too—and because he's too deeply ashamed of himself and his mistakes to stand the thought of his family knowing about the horrible things he's done (AGAIN, WHILE BEING MANIPULATED BY THE GOD OF MANIPULATION).

He loves his great-niece and great-nephew the second he lays eyes on them; he nevertheless tries to steer away from them to keep them safe from Bill; and yet he caves to the very first temptation to emotionally bond with his great-nephew he gets, because in spite of his noble "keep them safe" intentions, he wants so so badly to be close to his family.

As pissed as he still is at Stan and even though neither of them can look at each other without hissing like cats, he still makes an attempt to start bridging their divide by inviting him to play DD&MD.

When the apocalypse happens, he immediately puts his life on the line to try to kill Bill.

And when he's captured, isn't fazed for a second by Bill's offers or threats... until his family is threatened. The exact thing he'd been trying to avoid & prevent from the very start.

And when he's reunited with Fiddleford, his immediate reaction is to point out that Fiddleford's well within his rights to hate him—which isn't a new revelation, it's not like Ford had to do any soul-searching to reach this conclusion, he'd concluded that 30 years ago the instant he realized Bill had played him and that he'd been lied to about Fiddleford.

And then he tries to kill Bill again.

And then he's ready to sacrifice his own life to kill Bill—and the only reason he doesn't is because he has a metal plate preventing him from making the sacrifice... but, Stan doesn't have a plate. If Ford hadn't had the metal plate, he would have gladly done the exact same thing Stan did—and he would have thought it was right for him and only him to make that sacrifice, because it's VERY clear he feels (and has felt from the start) that this is all his fault and he's obligated to fix it.

Over and over and over, these are Ford's two defining character traits: getting so pissed off at injustice that his common sense shuts off and he goes into terminator mode until he's righted this wrong as best he can, even when he can't actually do anything about it; and feeling like he's Atlas, weighed down with the full responsibility of fixing everything he's done wrong and made to believe that, for everyone else's sake, he has to do it all alone. Even when doing so puts himself in harm's way, even when he has to put his entire life on hold for it, even if it might cost him his life. Scrape off his awkward social skills, his loneliness, his nerdiness, his endless curiosity, his zealous love of the strange, his starry ambitions, his yearning for recognition and success—scrape his personality down to the bone and that's what you're left with. A man who believes in defending the exploited so strongly that it makes him a little stupid.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that you probably don't think Stan's fundamentally a bad person, and that you probably think that isn't even worth questioning. Stan's made a whole career out of swindling people, conning them out of as much money as he possibly can, stealing, lying, committing a long list of goofily-named crimes, and attempting douchy pick-up artistry on women; and to cap it all off, he held the safety of the entire universe hostage to demand a goddamn "thank you." Don't send me any "But he had reasons—" "But it was only to—" I don't need it, I don't want the essay, I'm not arguing that Stan's a bad guy, it's fine.

But. You can look at Stan's moments of cruelty and unkindness, his uncharitable thoughts, his character flaws, and think, "that doesn't define him. He's more than his cruelest moments and worst mistakes. He's imperfect, but he cares so much and his heart's in the right place, and beneath all the flaws his core is good."

And if you can't do the same for Ford, it's not because he's a worse person. It's because we got two seasons with Stan and five and a half episodes with Ford—and while we saw Stan yearning to fish with the kids or encouraging Mabel to whoop Pacifica's butt at minigolf or crying over a black and white period drama or punching zombies to save his family, we only saw Ford at the worst moments in his life and under the stress of a prolonged apocalyptic crisis—and, it so happens, all the moments he was pissed at the guy we spent two seasons learning to love.

Ford's got moments of cruelty and unkindness, uncharitable thoughts, and character flaws. But, at his core, he's a good person, and he always has been, and he still is.

[pallanophblargh]

I have a disproportionately loud mess of a head for no discernible reason* so it’s kind of a miracle that I spent the last month and some change willing myself to wield watercolor again. Witness the struggle! A long overdue color sketch for a (super patient) client.

Just watercolor with a boop of gouache.

*they are a mush of small but immense problems??? Executive dysfunction being maximized by meds the main culprit…

[kangaruthi]

harrowhark height reveal

[afterartist]

Someone please give Soundwave a raise

He puts up with so much

[markscherz]

What I have: near encyclopaedic knowledge about frogs

What I lack: self control

[skate-the-onion]

World Championships + text post memes part 1/4 ( 1 2 3 4 )

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

ADHD Myths vs. Reality

Future ADHD

[its-your-mind]

*deep breath in*

the fears 👏 have always 👏 been (in one way or another) 👏 parallel 👏 to 👏 desire 👏

let me explain.

so many of the statements given by actual avatars center around some sort of need that was met by their entity. Lots of them even had a positive relationship with the fear that drove them.

Jane Prentiss is an excellent example - the Corruption has always been about a form of toxic and possessive love, but she personally has a deep desire to be “fully consumed by what loves her,” and finds a perverse joy and relief at allowing herself to be a home

Jude Perry is another - she fucking loved watching people’s lives be utterly destroyed. The Desolation only offered her a power of destruction on a grander scale, and then gave her a more intense rush of joy as she did its work. When she tells Jon that he needs to feed the Eye before it feeds on him, it’s almost as an afterthought; she was happily feeding the Desolation long before it burned her into a new existence.

Simon Fairchild. Every time that old loose bag of bones wanders into the picture, he is having a fucking EXCELLENT time playing with the Vast. He loves showing people their own insignificance, and he loves luring them into situations where he can throw them into the void as he smiles and waves.

Peter Lukas (hell, the whole Lukas family (except Evan. RIP Evan.)) hated. people. all he wanted was for them all to go away, to leave him alone. The Lonely only fulfilled that desire.

Daisy, Trevor, and Julia, all devoted to hunting those things they deemed monstrous.

Melanie, holding tight to that bullet in her leg because on some level, she wanted it. It felt good, it felt right, it felt like it fit right alongside the anger and spite that drove her to success.

Annabelle Cane first encountered the Web when she was a child, running away from home in order to tug on her parents’ heartstrings in just the right way to have them wrapped around her little finger. Later on she volunteered to be the subject of an ESP study. Hell, she’s the one who dangled the “Is it really You that wants this?” question over Jon’s head in S4.

And that brings us to Jon, beloved Jarchivist, the Voice that Opened the Door. Ever since he was a child targeted by the Web, he was looking for answers. He joined the Magnus Institute’s Research Department looking for them, he stalked his coworkers in search for them, he broke into Gertrude’s flat and laptop out of desperation for them. And when he realized that all he had to do was Ask to get truthful answers to his questions? It was only natural for him to jump at that opportunity.

Elias told S3 Jon that he did want this, that he chose it, that at every crossroads he kept pushing onwards, and the inner turmoil that caused was one of the focal points for Jon’s character through the rest of the podcast.

There’s a certain line of thinking in many circles about the power of the Devil: he’s not able to create anything new. All he’s able to do is twist and warp that which was already present, making it something ugly and profane while still maintaining the facade of something desirable.

Jon didn’t choose the Eye. But he did wander into its realm of power, exhibiting exactly the qualities it was most capable of hijacking and warping to its own ends. Jon didn’t choose the Apocalypse. But Jonah picked at him little by little, pointing him towards each Fear individually. Jon didn’t want to release the Fears. But the Web tugged on his strings just so and laid a pretty trail for him to follow until he reached its desired conclusion.

Jon didn’t choose ultimate power, or omniscience, or even his own role as Head Archivist. But he said “yes” to the right (wrong?) orders and kept on pushing for the right (wrong?) answers. He wanted to succeed at the work he had been assigned. He wanted to protect his friends. He wanted to rescue them when they were lost. He wanted to prevent the apocalypse, to save the world. He wanted to know why he was still alive, when so many had died right in front of him.

The Great Wheel of Evil Color that is the Entities might not fit as neatly into categories in this universe - maybe there was no Robert Smirke trying to impose strict categories on emotional experiences, or maybe the ways they manifest in the world has turned on its head (goodness knows many of them have been showcased and blended in some very fun and new and horrifying ways so far) - but their fundamental foundations seem to be the same. Hell, in episode one we learned that there had been enough individual incidents to create a distinction between “dolls, watching” and “dolls, human skin.”

Smirke’s Fourteen isn’t going to be relevant as common parlance, RQ said that already, but I don’t think that means the Fears themselves (and their Dream Logic-based rules) are different - I think it means that the levels of understanding, language used, and personal connections among people “in the know” are going to be entirely unfamiliar

[silvers-starrway]

Surge was designed in a lab for me aka I love drawing lightning and her design slaps.

Sketch Commisisons

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

little dude knows things i think

[i-lavabean]

If you've been personally victimized by Tenakth armor raise your hand

[saltpixiefibercraft]

Okay, when i mentioned in a recent post that you should keep notes on your weaving I said I would share some of my notebook pages because, and I cannot stress this enough,,,, notes about your projects is So So Important in weaving. At least for me, if I want to recreate a certain fabric and I haven't done the due diligence in notes, it has ALWAYS come back to bite me. "But I'll remember later-" no you will not that is the devils voice whispering sonorous lies into your ear. Take. Notes.

Take these really cool red/white/grey/black dishtowels. They came out So Freaking Excellent. I was on the tail end of not having written down Anything for a previous project and being mad about it + i was in a hyperfocus mood, so so many notes got taken.

These purple/green dishtowels were pretty cool, I did end up changing the plan halfway through, as you can see pffttt

And here's a few more examples of some projects and their notes, plus a page of me workshopping possible warp combos. Having written down The Striped Dishtowel Template has literally saved my ass so many times, I make so many of these darned things for craft shows and they SELL OUT.

I'm excited to start my 2024 Weaving Notebook!

[sleepy-achilles]

This works so well because the two actors want to fuck each other in real life.

That's all.

Rdjude are more in love with each other than johnlock and they just so happen to play a version of johnlock.

[ikol-art]

Saw a tag game that I liked.. not that I was tagged but I don't actually care, I'm doing it

Rules: make a poll with five of your all time favourite characters and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone’s favourite.

Tagging @wanderingtrickster @charon-cries @gramnel @lokidanger @vvviktor

[a-witch-in-a-dumpster]

So I've seen people in the fandom do it for their country, I loved so much the idea I did the same (i'm very influencable).

(Based on the lore/maps of the webcomic "Stand Still Stay Silent")

Even if I did know it could not fit the canon, I tried my best to do the more accurate (non-canon) lore for french territory.

I will maybe do a part 2 but not now, I will talk more about the infected and the Basques language.

The Tarasques are the french equivalent of the Trolls, I didn't have the energy to add other pages of information. (one day maybe)

I also wanted to mention the Dahu in the type of infected beast. (Yes there are Dahus, and that's is the best thing to know about infected beast, THERE ARE DAHUS INFECTED BEAST PEOPLE.)

______________________________________________________________

(Also can't spell in english so that's not very well written lol)

(Please note I'm just doing this for fun and it's a very rough/sketchy idea and I didn't take time to well adapt everything or even have a stylise coherence)