#i believe dr ford

[godsfavoritescientist]

*picks up various favorite characters from random media and puts them in scenarios together like I'm playing with dolls* what if 10 and bill met

[dottyistired]

The missing Journal 3 pages in TBOB are so interesting to me in further contextualizing Ford's mindset of shame regarding Bill. We'd gotten a snippet of it in the original J3 release:

But Bill shows us the less pragmatic motivations behind his actions, the mushy feely stuff he was too embarrassed to properly journal, putting certain series events into new context. Particularly this scene where after a whole episode of dancing around it, he finally opens up to Dipper about the nature of their relationship:

"Bill wasn't always my enemy, Dipper. I used to think he was my friend, long long ago..."

But does he really tell the full truth here? The cat's out of the bag, Dipper knows they had a deal, there's no reason not to tell everything. But Ford proceeds to explain his reasoning for summoning Bill as a purely practical, scientifically-driven one.

"I had hit a roadblock on my investigation of Gravity Falls. Until I found some mysterious writing in a cave. Ancient incantations about a being with answers. It warned me not to read them, but I was desperate."

Desperate...for what? Ford would have us believe it was for the sake of knowledge. Yet TBOB shows us that this is the entry immediately preceding his and Bill's first meeting.

Ford isn't some unfeeling robot powered solely by knowledge, he has human needs. He was lonely, lonely enough to summon a demon for companionship. A companionship so intimate, he describes his meeting Bill as the best day of his life, and laments the periods of absence from him.

That desire for intimacy is ultimately what drove him, and even with all his dirty laundry laid out he can't admit that part to Dipper. Maybe he doesn't even realize it himself, at least not until the post-Weirdmaggedon sections of TBOB:

Under the shame of unleashing Bill Cipher's destruction on the world, there's a much deeper shame: that Stanford Pines is not a lone-wolf, unfeeling sci-fi hero, but a fallible human being, capable of illogical sentimentality and longing for approval and (in)human connection. The exact nature of this sentimentality and longing is left to interpretation, but the efforts he goes to to conceal it make me lean towards something beyond platonic. Alex Hirsch's own words might support this:

"I think he is deeply, deeply hiding from his real feelings about things, because at some point early on, he decided that he could run from hurt by achievement and by creation, and has dug that hole so deep that he has no relationships. He doesn't have friendships, he doesn't have romantic relationships, he is someone trapped in a tower of his own mind and estranged. Ford shows none of that. He has sublimated himself romantically so, so deeply. (…) I really thought of Ford kind of like Tesla in that realm.”

TL;DR Ford is up in his feelings about Bill and repressing hard. This is also eerily reminiscent of the self-blame abuse survivors engage in, the hesitance to tell others, and shame over persisting feelings for their abuser.

[ckret2]

Chapter 66 of that fic about human Bill but he's not in this chapter so forget about him: Ford and Dipper go cryptid hunting!

This is pretty much a standalone chapter so if somehow you stumbled on this without seeing the rest of the fic, u can just, read it by itself as a standalone Dipper and Ford adventure. It's funny. Promise.

####

The camera turned on to reveal Dipper, illuminated sunset orange and cast in heavy shadows, holding the camera out at arm's length. "Welcome back to Dipper's Guide to the Unexplained, anomaly #175: the Fremont Nightwigglers!" He held up a paper title card in his free hand. "I'm Dipper Pines, and today I'm honored to introduce our special guest star—" he turned the camera around to focus on Ford from behind, "—the one and only Dr. Stanford Pines, PhD times twelve—"

Ford laughed self-consciously. "Dipper, nobody's going to recognize my name outside of a few highly specialized academic fields—"

"—the scientist who developed the Theory of Weirdness—"

"That paper isn't even ready for peer review yet, and I can't take all the credit—"

"—and the coolest dimension-hopping monster-fighting mystery-investigating great uncle in the world!"

Ford paused thoughtfully. "Okay, I'll take that one."

"Tonight, we're on the trail of the Fremont Nightwigglers." The recording cut to CCTV footage from a much higher-budget cryptid-hunting show (which Dipper had recorded by aiming the camera at the TV). The footage showed two marshmallow-like creatures that seemed to consist solely of heads, long legs, and feet—smooth, ghostly white, and featureless except for black eyes. They wore denim jeans that covered their bodies from ankles to waists, and their legs seemed to bend jointlessly, like an octopus's arms or an elephant's trunk. "These weird armless creatures have been seen up and down the west coast states, leaving behind a wave of jeans thefts at clothing stores; but by the time local law enforcement has ruled out any human suspects, the true culprits are always long gone."

The recording cut back to Dipper, who'd taken the lead so he could turn around the camera and aim it at both himself and Ford. "Based on investigative research done by Dr. Pines in the 80s, we believe the Nightwigglers have a migratory route several years long that passes through California, Oregon, Washington, and Canada. More research is needed to find out if they travel as far as Alaska or Mexico. Locals believe each Nightwiggler creates an individual burrow around a communal gathering spot to hide in during the day, and at night they assemble in the communal spot to travel or forage in nearby towns."

Ford threw in, "Based on what the townspeople told me about their habits, they've been in Gravity Falls much longer than usual. It typically takes them a week or two to pass through the area, but this year there have been sightings for more than a month. Perhaps we'll find out why."

"And thanks to a hot tip from an in-the-know local"—the recording cut to a few seconds of footage of Wendy proving she could do a handstand on the split-rail fence around the Mystery Shack—"we know which assembly spot they're currently camping around! Tonight, we're trying to get the first deliberate footage of a Nightwiggler..." Dipper lowered the camera and turned toward Ford, "Hey, what'll we call a group of them? A flock? Herd? Meeting? If we're the first investigators to officially document the species, we get to come up with the name , right?"

Ford considered the question. "What about a wobble of Nightwigglers? Since their legs are so... wobbly."

"Sure, that works."

"Is this really your 175th episode?" Ford asked. "I've missed quite a few."

"Ye—well..." Dipper lowered the camera. It recorded his shoes as he walked. "So far I've got a list of 175 anomalies I want to do an episode on, but I've only recorded and posted thirty-something. I think you've seen them all except the two I've done this summer." He sighed. "I'm... kinda disappointed by it, honestly."

"Why? You should be proud of your work so far! You're the only person in the world who's caught footage of the Hide Behind."

"By accident."

"Because you learned how to identify its call, chased it through half the forest, and were prepared with the right equipment to record it. That wasn't luck, Dipper—that was your hard work."

"I guess," Dipper said grudgingly. "I just... wanted to have a lot more produced by now."

"Wh—You started these last June? That's about one every two weeks. That's a very impressive output."

"I made most of them last summer, I hardly did any over the last school year or this summer."

"You've been focusing on your studies, that's good."

"Yeah, but what about this summer? All I've done so far is borrow some of Robbie's music video footage to make an episode about zombies and record some footage I haven't edited yet about Pacifica's alpaca thief. I didn't even get any footage of the haunted doll crane game before it disappeared. Most of the time I've been just... hiding in Soos's room playing Bloodcraft: Overdeath"—(under his breath Ford muttered "Blood-craft over death?")—"or hanging out with Wendy and her friends, or helping Soos with the Mystery Shack, or just trying to avoid..." He trailed off, suddenly conscious of the camera still aimed at the ground. It had started recording footprints drying in the mud after the recent rain: soft indents like the pads of paws, but with no distinct toes, about the size and length of human feet. Dipper lifted the camera to better record the trail they were walking down.

"Well... there's nothing wrong with taking a break during the summer," Ford said. "Especially considering that your last summer was... quite a bit more exciting than most kids'—"

"That's just it!" Dipper said. "Last summer I did so much! I investigated your disappearance, I filled half of your third journal, I helped stop the apocalypse, I wrote a book with Mabel about solving mysteries and doing fun stuff, I recorded like twenty Guides to the Unknown... Compared to that, this summer I feel like I'm—falling behind."

"Falling behind what?"

"I don't know. But—I just—I... feel like..." He trailed off with a frustrated sigh. "I don't know."

Ford offered, "Maybe, like you're not living up to your own potential?"

"Yes! That's it," Dipper said. "I'm not trying to grow up too fast, I'm just worried I'll grow up before I've done all the stuff I'm supposed to do now. Like I'm already running out of time."

"Hmm..." Ford let out a long, thoughtful sigh. "Dipper, I'm probably the wrong person to be giving this advice, considering that I'm not exactly... the paragon of moderation when it comes to pursuing professional ambitions. But—remember that you're only thirteen. Right now, you don't need to be worried about graduating valedictorian and starting up an anomaly-hunting show and doing groundbreaking research into previously-unknown strange and wondrous creatures," Ford said. "You just need to focus on graduating valedictorian first. That's all I did with my high school years, and after that I still managed to rack up multiple PhDs before age 30. You've got plenty of time!" He said this with the confidence of a man who didn't realize having his life derailed by a manipulative alien villain was the only reason he didn't burn out hard by 1984. "Outside of that, just... worry about being a kid."

"Yeah. I guess you're right. Thanks, Grunkle Ford," Dipper said. "I keep worrying, though. I keep thinking, what if I'm wasting all my time on stuff that... just... doesn't matter? What if nothing I'm doing is actually important?"

Ford was silent a moment. "That's... a very existential question for your age. How long have you been worrying—"

Dipper hissed, "Grunkle Ford!" He jerked his camera up. "Is that fire?!" There was a faint orange glow in the distance between the trees.

"I think it is!"

Dipper whispered, "That's where I found the Nightwigglers' abanadoned campsite last time!"

"Did you see any signs that they knew how to start fires? Remains of a campfire?"

"I didn't notice anything."

"It could be a Scampfire..."

As quietly as they could, Dipper and Ford edged through the trees, Dipper all the while pointing the camera toward the light, until they found a narrow gap between two trees from which they could peer into the clearing.

There were three or four dozen Nightwigglers milling about in little clusters. Several had lit torches—sturdy sticks with the ends wrapped in fabric—which they carried by sticking the ends of the torches into their jeans' pockets.

"Dipper, look at the tops of their torches," Ford hissed. "Is that shredded denim?"

The camera zoomed in on the nearest torchbearing Nightwiggler. "I think so."

"We already knew they wore clothing—but they can make tools, too? How advanced are they..."

Ford trailed off as the clustered Nightwigglers separated, spreading out evenly into several rings. As the camera recorded, they began emitting a synchronized muffled humming; and then they began dancing, kicking their legs and turning in circles together. "Whoa," Dipper whispered. "Is this some kind of ritual?"

"What's its purpose?" Ford whispered back. "Recreation? Religion? Some sort of cultural event—?"

"Hold on. I think I recognize the song."

Ford and Dipper fell silent, watching in silence as the dance repeated a couple of times.

The Nightwigglers were doing the Hokey Pokey.

"Fascinating." The camera lurched sideways, and then turned toward Ford. Ford had stolen Dipper's journal from out of his vest pocket and was hastily taking notes on a blank page. "I had no idea Nightwiggler culture was so influenced by human culture. An hour ago, we didn't even know Nightwigglers have a culture. When could they have observed and learned the Hokey Pokey? It's not exactly a nighttime dance—do they spy on humans during the day?"

Dipper said, "What if we learned the dance from Nightwigglers?"

Ford stopped writing, looked up, and stared at Dipper, mind blown.

Dipper jerked the camera back toward the Nightwigglers as they filed out of the clearing. "Hey! Where are they going now?"

Dipper and Ford waited until the last Nightwiggler had left; and then they quietly followed.

####

After several minutes of silence except for the sound of footsteps, Ford said, "Are we headed toward Mabel's Fault?"

Dipper groaned. "I got enough of this place last week."

"Agreed." 

"Hey, you know Bill said we should rename it 'Bill's Fault'?"

Ford huffed. "Did he really? I don't believe it."

"Yeah. He tried to play it off like, 'oOOoh, I just want creEDit—'"

"That sounds like him—"

They came to a stop as the camera spied the Nightwigglers standing in the clearing around the fault, then they quickly moved off the path into the brush and crept closer. "What are they doing?" Dipper asked as they inched up to the tree line.

"I don't know—they're packed too tightly together for me to see."

"I've got an idea. Hold this." The camera bounced as Dipper passed it to Ford, who watched as Dipper climbed up one of the pine trees around the clearing. 

"Careful! There aren't a lot of low branches that can hold your weight."

"It's okay, Wendy showed me how to do this." Dipper held out his hand for the camera.

Ford passed it up to him. "What do you see?"

The camera foused on Mabel's Fault. "The Nightwigglers closest to the fault are taking off their jeans, ripping them into two separate legs, and... tossing them in the fault? Have you ever heard of this?"

"Never."

"Like a dozen have done it so far."

"Perhaps that's why they have to steal so many pairs of pants? But why..."

Dipper gasped. Tiny Nightwigglers had begun squirming out of the fault, each wearing a single denim pant leg, crawling around like inchworms with half the pant leg trailing behind them. The bigger Nightwigglers picked up the little ones with their feet and swaddled them in the excess fabric. "They're—I think they're baby Nightwigglers! Coming out of the fault!"

"Amazing! Is this how they reproduce?" Ford asked. "Is that why they travel the west coast—are they following the San Andreas Fault and the volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest?"

"Maybe that's why they've been in town so long," Dipper said. "Mabel's Fault wasn't here the last time they passed through."

"We'll have to find out what other towns they stay in the longest. How far is Fremont from the fault line—?"

"Hey," Dipper said, "A bunch more Nightwigglers took their jeans off. They're tying them in a circle." One of the torchbearer Nightwigglers knelt down and bowed forward, setting the jeans ring on fire; and it was tossed into the fault. The Nightwigglers that weren't carrying infants formed a circle and began Hokey Pokeying toward the fault.

"That definitely looks like a ritual," Ford said, "but why? To celebrate the births...?"

The ground rumbled. Dipper gasped and slipped several feet down the tree before he caught himself. When he refocused the camera, Mabel's Fault was several feet wider, and a fiery glow was rising up from within.

An enormous Nightwiggler, fifteen feet tall, climbed out of the fault. It wore a crown of flaming denim and tattered pants formed by stitching together many pairs of decades-old jeans. The Nightwigglers bowed down.

"Good lord," Ford breathed. "What is that? Did they summon it, or—or was it always down there?"

The giant Nightwiggler watched regally as its subjects danced around it. As they spun around and completed another repetition of the Hokey Pokey—that's what it's all a-BOUT—the giant punctuated the end of the dance with a ground-shaking stomp.

Dipper lost his grip on the tree. He and the camera crashed to the ground with a yelp. 

"Dipper! Are you alright?!"

"Ow... fine, probably just bruised."

The camera caught Ford kneeling to help Dipper sit up, and then Dipper grabbed the camera again as he stood. He pointed it back at the clearing.

Every single Nightwiggler, babies and giant included, was staring at them with wide black eyes.

Ford said, "Uh oh."

The giant let out a bellow like a muffled hunting horn.

The Nightwigglers charged.

Dipper and Ford ran away through the brush, screaming.

####

Dipper pointed the camera at his face. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and his cheeks and arms were covered in small branch scrapes. "Still works," he reported to Ford.

"Great," Ford said. "That thing's hardy."

The camera jerked as Dipper tried to set it on a tree stump.

"Well, we got away with our lives," he said. "But... not without some losses."

He got the camera settled and backed up. He was wearing his vest zipped up around his hips like a skirt. Ford's trench coat was conspicuously buttoned up, and his legs were bare between his coat and boots. They both looked sheepish.

Ford said, "We've acquired some invaluable anthropological data, though."

"I'm calling this investigation a triumph," Dipper said.

Ford offered a hand. "High six!"

In the background, a skinny-legged Nightwiggler wearing Dipper's shorts darted through the trees.

####

(It's about time Dipper get a little personal attention. Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to hearing y'all's thoughts!)

[rangerbarbz]

Professor Pines

Author’s Note: hey y’all! This is the start of a professor Ford AU that I’m working on. Thank you so much for being patient, and I am so excited to hear what you think about this! Sorry if some of this is inaccurate. I have not gotten my masters yet 

“Prologue” 

You sat outside Dr. Pines’ office bouncing your leg to expend the anxious energy flooding your mind. You were rearranging your manila folder of papers for the third time already. You couldn’t decide what would be the best order for him to read them in. Not like it really mattered anyways. It was just a nervous fidget to keep your mind off of the fact this was the last shot for you to get a sponsor for your Master’s research. He was finishing up a meeting with another student; you could hear pieces of his deep voice through the oak door. You hadn’t gotten to meet Dr. Pines yet. Your conversations hadn’t breached your Email inbox, but you were eager to finally have a discussion face-to-face. 

The door creaked open and a young man walked into the hallway, slinging a backpack over his shoulder. “Have a good day! I’ll see you in class tomorrow,” Dr. Pines called out to him. You exhaled through your mouth and placed the folder in a binder that held laminated pictures you had taken. You stood up from the cushioned bench you were sitting on to enter his office. Any confidence you might have regained was lost when you ran face first into what could be your research mentor. Your face and arms collided with his broad chest and caused the papers kept snug in your folder to spill out onto the linoleum floor. 

“Oh good heavens, I am so sorry,” Dr. Pines apologized, bending down to pick up the scattered papers at your feet. This could not get any worse. 

“Oh, no it’s fine. I- I am sorry. I should’ve announced myself,” you replied, a furious blush spreading across your face. You had also joined him on the ground to pick up the remaining papers. 

He chuckled. “You’re quite alright. Don’t worry about it,” he reassured you as you both stood up. He had a small smile on his face as he handed you some lined notebook paper filled with your rushed scribble. His fingertips brushed against yours in the process. You could feel they were calloused; a sharp contrast to your soft ones. 

“Why don’t we get started,” he said, walking towards his desk. “I’m excited to hear what you have to say.” He sat down at his swivel chair and scooted forward. “I spoke with some of my colleagues from the biology department after receiving your email, and I think you have some very interesting ideas.”

You beamed at him as you began to shuffle through your belongings. “Yes, yes! I know you are a lover of cryptozoology like myself, and I wanted to speak with you about studying some creatures that I came face to face with while visiting the Appalachian Mountains earlier this year.” You handed him your binder which he immediately began to flip through. He was careful and nodded along as you continued to speak about your experiences in east Tennessee. It was nice that he seemed genuinely interested in what you had to say. 

You had not had that luck with other professors you had spoken with about your findings. They either didn’t care or believed it was a hoax. It was until you had checked out a book at the library about a town in Oregon written by none other than Dr. Stanford Pines that you realized he was the key to fulfilling your plans. You had never had a class with him when you were an undergraduate, so you didn’t know much about him besides the fact he was very intelligent and had six fingers. 

He’s not so bad looking either. He was wearing a light blue button-up with a brown tweed coat over it. He had thick, gray hair with a lighter silver streak and wire rimmed glasses balanced on a strong nose. He ran his hand over his stubble and raised his eyebrows towards your photos.

“This is…” Dr. Pines paused. His eyes met yours as he closed your binder. “Incredible.” Your eyes widened and you failed to suppress the ecstatic grin forming across your face. 

“T-thank you, sir,” you replied. 

He then stood up from behind his desk to sit in the chair beside you. “Y/N, this is truly remarkable. I mean,” he began to flip through your notes from the folder, “the amount of thought and organization that went into this is unlike what I've seen in other students.” He gazed at you, his expression softening. “I’m sorry my foolish colleagues didn’t see your potential, but I’m glad that I could be the one that did.”

You felt like you could cry. “You have no idea how much that means to me,” you responded shakily. “Does this mean you will be my faculty sponsor?” 

He gave you a toothy smile and got on his feet to extend a hand towards you. “I am going to do everything in my power to make sure you get the answers you deserve. This summer, I am proposing we travel out to the Appalachia and take a look ourselves.” You hopped up and took his hand into yours, giving him a firm but enthusiastic handshake. 

“Thank you so much, Dr. Pines. I am so grateful for this opportunity.” You started to pick up your things. “Really, I am just so excited, sir.” 

He chuckled, waving his hand dismissively at you. “No more formalities, Y/N. You can just call me Ford. We’ll be spending quite a lot of time together this summer, so I’d rather you just use my real name. It’ll be easier for both of us.” 

Your face became slightly warm and you gave him a small smile. “Okay. Sounds good, Ford,” you said, trying out the name for yourself. 

“Y-yes very well.” His voice had faltered. Was he blushing? “I won’t keep you. I’m sure you’re busy; I’ll be emailing you.” 

“I’ll be expecting you. Have a good day, Ford. It was nice to meet you, and thank you again for this,” you said sincerely,  placing your hand on the rickety door frame.  He grinned. “You too, Y/N. I look forward to working with you.” You gave him a little wave before walking out of his office. This was going to be the start of something wonderful.

Author's Note: There will be more but this is just setting up the story!!

[pix-writes]

Do you think Stan and Ford care for appearances? And do you think they have a certain type or is something they don't think much? Love your writing btw 🥹

A/N: thank you! I'm glad you like it 😊

Well, thinking about the pines twins they have certainly had rough lives and been thrust into environments/situations where taking care of themselves and their appearances aren't top priority, so I think especially at their current age, they're not likely to be judgemental on appearances when it comes to a prospective partner (plus ford and stan canonically have tattoos/scars they're embarrassed or insecure about!)

Stanford I think especially so, in the sense that appearance to him is less of an issue to him than the contents of your brain, any quirks of yours filed away as fascinating eccentricities of a person of remark. He knows full well what it's like for people to judge you based on the surface, since many will freak out over his six fingers and whilst curious about you, will also be sensitive to insecurities you may have 🥹

I think Ford would want someone who is at least a little orderly like he is, his environment can be quite scattered with papers and experiments, sure, but he has had to take care of himself and his appearance jumping dimensions, so he believes you can do it if he does :) (says the man who lights his face on fire instead of shaving cause it's 'faster' 😅 and eats nutrition pills instead of lunch - you can teach him a thing or two as well!)

Stanley on the other hand does often jokes around about lots of things to do with general appearances, including ribbing dipper and mabel, though he's very quick to notice when someone is feeling upset/insecure or potentially angry to not take it as a joke or might find it cutting (it's just that most of the people he does this to are people he wants to anger on purpose lol 😂 thinking of the dunk tank). But you're not a person to scam, so I feel he'd be sensitive to that, underneath the exterior he's fairly sensitive himself and as we've seen with dipper, he wants him to be tough, not just physically but to have a thick skin when it comes to being judged by others, you can't stop doing things in life just cause others wanna bring you down! That's why he does tease sometimes and it can seem mean from the outside, but he simply wants you to be stronger than you already are.

Stanley has some pretty 'trashy' tastes we could say, but takes care of his appearance as mr mystery, so I think he'd enjoy being with someone who also likes to dress up a bit to go out, but if you stay at home all day and don't put on a pair of pants, it'd be incredibly hypocritical for him to judge. And you can be gross together which is way better than being gross alone (questionable).

I hc that they'd both be interested in someone curvy/plus sized cause I like that idea in particular 1) bc I'm fat 2) bc in the eras they grew up in 'skinny' was all the rage, so I like to think of them of going against the grain and liking a more classic figure/not caring about toxic beauty standards. But I also think that they truly have no particular preference! Both of the twins like vintage styles, having grown up in the 50/60s and young adults in the 70/80s.

But yes, in summary TL;DR, the pines twins don't give many fucks to appearances, as long as you're taking care of yourself to the best of your ability, it's actions and personality that attract them more 💕

[mndvx]

Sand and rock? You mean that's what we'll see when we go outside? I don't believe it! DOCTOR WHO – The Cave of Skulls (Season 1 – Story 1 – Episode 2) directed by Waris Hussein | written by Anthony Coburn ››› William Hartnell as Dr. Who ››› William Russell as Ian Chesterton ››› Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright ››› Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman

[whenalltheeyesopen]

At this point @jellyskink has shown Ford losing no fewer than three separate pet shows, so I made a followup to the fic where Irene drives him home while he's having an abandonment-related mental breakdown.

Enjoy! (AO3 cross-post)

Irene paced three steps along the hall runner. She tapped the little ivy leaf that marked the midpoint, turned, walked back.

"This is the stupidest thing I've ever done," she said out loud to the empty hallway.

Then she picked up her phone and made a call.

---

Dr. Ibis almost didn't answer. Dr. Irene Oleander was a nice enough woman, but a call from her so soon before one of his regular appointments with that patient was a guaranteed migraine. It was fine when she was just requesting his most recent x-rays, but sometimes she called to tell him that she had found flesh-eating worms in the man's gums and to please be careful in case Bill Cipher had been denying his favorite pet medicine access.

Whatever this was, it would be just as unpleasant tomorrow. It was probably important, possibly time sensitive. Sometimes, the migraine needs must be endured.

"Hello, Irene," he said.

"Yusuf. How are you doing?"

"Fairly well." He gave the file on his computer screen a quick once-over. "Busy with work. I assume you're calling for business?"

There was nothing but the white noise of a poor connection.

"...Hello?"

"I'm here," Oleander confirmed. She sounded uncomfortable. "This is going to sound extremely strange, but I wanted to ask you a favor."

Ibis raised an eyebrow, even though she couldn't see. He tried to make sure the humor was obvious in his inflection: "I hope we aren't on such bad terms that a favor is outlandish to ask."

"No, no, it's just- it's an outlandish favor."

Ibis hummed. "Irene," he said, "does it by any chance have anything to do with a certain mutual patient?"

To his chagrine, she did not respond immediately.

He sighed loudly. "Just tell me what it is."

"Is there a custom trophy shop near you?"

"A what?"

"A trophy shop, or a place that does etchings or something."

"Uh-" he had never had cause to investigate, but he was pretty sure the print shop did tchotchkes. "I think so?"

"Right. Um." Oleander made a strange noise. "Um, so, after your last appointment, you asked me to try and get Dr. Pines to start flossing regularly since he hadn't been listening to you. And I did talk to him, and last I saw him he said he had been."

"Well that's peachy," Ibis said drily. "He eats nothing but organ meat and candy with as far as I can tell a side helping of stainless steel deadbolts. But at least he's flossing."

"Believe me, I'm fighting that same battle," Oleander said. There was real anger in her voice. She was much more invested than Ibis in the lost cause that was patient health.

Static again.

"Alright," she said. "Can you, um. This is going to sound stupid. Can you make him a trophy for it."

Ibis almost couldn't believe his ears. "For flossing?"

"I know it's ridiculous."

"Ridiculous doesn't begin to cover it."

"I'll pay you back for the cost, and - I don't know, I'll buy you dinner or something. Or owe you a favor."

Ibis glanced over at his computer again. He did some mental timesheet math.

"Yusuf?"

"I'm thinking."

"Please. I know it's dumb, but he's had a really bad... Uh, series of encounters."

"Yes, I saw them on TV."

Oleander's voice went quiet while she swore away from the receiver. "You were watching."

"I thought it might be fun to see how Calimari did."

"That's... Very sweet of you."

"I found Cipher's entries infinitely more entertaining."

"You-" Oleander cut her own furious response off, apparently remembering that she wanted Ibis to owe her a favor. "Will you help me cheer him up or not?"

"Well," Ibis said, "you do have a way with insurance companies."

"You want me to do your insurance coding for you???"

About eight hours of it, in fact. "If you want me to cheer up your sad little man."

"Yusuf, I swear-"

"Deal or no deal?"

She went silent again. She was definitely fuming at him.

"...Deal."

"Fantastic."

"Thank you."

"I hope you have a marvelous day, Irene."

"You too."

"I'll send you the relevant documents."

"Lovely."

He logged out if his computer. He stretched his shoulders, stiff from too much desk jockying, and headed out the door.

Maybe flossing trophies would enter his normal hygiene support system after this.

[prettyinpwn]

What is your opinion on Filbrick Pines?

Oh boy... long story short, my opinion on him is pretty low, not gonna lie. I went into his character a lot in my analysis post on Ford's writing (found here), since Filbrick had a large effect on Stan and Ford's characters, even if only in subtle ways. To summarize my points on Filbrick:

Definitely abusive, in my opinion. I don't think physically, but for sure emotionally and mentally. He's the type of father who provided materially, but otherwise didn't seem very good at it.

Was way too focused on money. Now, I think it's very possible that Filbrick could have a great backstory reason for this. My biggest guess is a life of poverty and wanting to provide better for his family, but the cruel irony is that in seeking wealth, he hurt his family (e.g "Stanley, by "sabotaging" Ford you hurt our whole family, because he was going to make us millions, so I'm gonna throw you out, ignoring the fact that by throwing you out I'm currently hurting the family in the way I'm accusing you of."). He also hurt Ford. The way Filbrick treated Ford was like a Willy Wonka golden ticket. "Oh, you're smart? This college might make you a millionaire? I'm impressed!". He didn't care about what Ford wanted, he cared about what Ford's brains could get him. Case in point: he didn't seem to give a rat's ass about Ford's brains or college dreams until the principal implied it could make money.

Iirc, according to Hirsch, the quote Stan says in Little Gift Shop of Horrors ("Movies are great! You watch the movie, you scare the girl, the girl snuggles up next to you, next thing you know you gotta raise a kid. Your life falls apart. Forget that last part.") was actually something Filbrick used to say. Like DEAR GOD Filbrick said that in front of Stan and Ford? "Hey kids, my life was great until I got your ma knocked up with Shermie, and then my life was pure suck after that.". Like... who... who just says that in front of their kids? Who even THINKS that about their kids? Yikes.

The way Stan and Ford are named. The code at the end of A Tale of Two Stans is played as a joke, but when you think about it, it's... kinda sad. "A STUBBORN TOUGH NEW JERSEY NATIVE, FILBRICK WASN'T TOO CREATIVE, HAVING TWINS WAS NOT HIS PLAN, SO HE JUST SHRUGGED AND NAMED BOTH STAN.". Filbrick did not give a single f*ck. "Oh, I have twins? Eh, I'm too lazy to think about a name, just call 'em practically the same thing.". What father does this?

In the post I linked above, I also hinted at how I thought Bill's manipulations of Ford almost were a mirror echo of Filbrick (even in their character design, it's odd how they both have yellow brick and blue with hats themed designs, he's got the literal word 'brick' in his name, etc). Because when you think about it, what did Ford's father teach him but "you are a puppet to be used by me to get what I want"?

There's a reason Ford and Stan are incredibly broken people, and it all started with Filbrick. He's the one that taught Stan to believe he's worthless and a f*ckup, and the one that taught Ford that he's a tool to be used. So... nah, not a fan of the guy, if I didn't make that obvious already lol. BUT... I will say this, as this is something I did give him credit for in my Ford analysis post: a lot of Ford and Stan's positive qualities are things he passed down to them, namely their protectiveness of family and "toughness". But unlike Filbrick, who manifested that in toxic ways, Stan and Ford took a heavy albatross necklace of generational trauma and turned it around to a positive.

This goes even further when Stan passes the lesson to Dipper. Dipper learning to "fight back"? That's a family lesson that comes from Filbrick, originally, when he signed Stan and Ford up for boxing. Some have criticized the way Stan taught Dipper that lesson, but you can't argue with the end result:

TL;DR: Filbrick mostly sucks, but... like most well-written characters, he does have some gray area. Was he a good father? No. But the gauntlet meat grinder he put Ford and Stan through - worth it or not - made them the tough family protectors they are as adults. I will give him that, at least.

[stupidlittlespirit]

Hey this was the anon who said you made Ford a cutie patootie 🥺🥺

I really agree with the whole 'bill and Ford were never romantic' vibe. I do believe Ford cared for Bill in a way, but Bill in general is also the abusive partner that enjoys having you in his arms and the moment you try to leave will make your life a living hell.

I think that's honestly why I hate most asshole!Ford fics lately. Except for your of course! Society really sees abuses victims horribly and especially men. Theres a pretty big part of the Fandom that vilifies Ford in a hateful way. Like I know he's done horrible and yes he treated Stanley and Fiddleford bad. But I wouldn't be surprised if his father never brought up Stanley after he kicked out, and expected his wife and Ford to follow. He if he did it was only negative talk on how useless he was. Ford was a child at the time and as he grew up he probably missed Stanley but was too prideful to pick up the phone first. And then he met Bill.

Someone who praised him and told him he was in the right no matter what. Yes he was awful to Fiddleford. But that's what abusers do. They tear down everyone else who can help you until it's only the two of you against the entire world. And honestly, I'm sorry but Fiddleford needs to get some hate for just leaving Standford like that. Being a friend to someone in an abusive relationship is awful. But if you know that they don't have anyone else, you have to put boundaries, you don't just leave! But I also can't blame Fiddleford all the way.

Idk idk I'm sorry for rambling, but honestly I think that's why most of the fanfic writers who write about Ford really forget that he was so horrifically abused and when as he got older all he felt was shame and he was alone for 30 years with that feeling.

First of all, sorry it took me so long to answer this! My PC is fucked and I needed to sit my ass down and type out a proper answer for you because I have so many feelings on this, anon.

This is all below a cut because it's looooong.

tl;dr if you don't care: Bill put a noose around Ford's neck the moment they met and convinced him it was a scarf until Ford was hanging from the rafters, feet twitching, face blue.

TW: Abuse, suicide.

Anyway, the kitchen is open so let's cook!

Bill is an absolutely horrific being.

I fear that sometimes (oftentimes) he gets the fandom woobification treatment where he becomes entirely The Meme or somebody's silly widdle guy and when it happens so much, especially when certain groups of people are hellbent on saying 'this is canon!' dead seriously, it warps perceptions around him.

He effectively manipulates his audience just as he manipulated Dipper and Ford.

Bill is a demon. Not just any old demon, either: The Demon. THE guy. He's vicious and powerful and manipulative, and sure in TboB we get to see that he carries some significant trauma with him but it doesn't mean he is any less than what he is: Evil.

Some trauma influenced behaviours can be explained, but they can never be excused.

Bill is a push-pull, hot-cold, jerk around asshole who gets off on hurting people because he's so badly hurt himself that it makes him feel good to see others suffer even a fraction of what he experiences. There are two types of people who go through trauma: 1. It happened to me and I was nearly destroyed, I'll never see it happen to another person for so long as I live. OR 2. I suffered so why shouldn't they?

It's pretty clear which category Bill fits into, right? So, while he hurts because he's hurting, he has also just grown accustomed to enjoying the suffering of others. It's sustenance to him.

I remember watching GF for the first time and seeing Bipper, and it awoke something within me: That demon is torturing a child. A CHILD. I hadn't been allowed to watch horror movies much as a kid and seeing this line be crossed where something was literally throwing a 12 year old boy down the stairs, stabbing him with forks, threatening to kill him, was incredible to me. I was floored.

Partially because I think it's good to show kids suffering trauma; they're not immune and they're more often than not the main victims. It's a disservice to make adults comfortable by protecting the children in media imo. Even nowadays I'm pissed off when the child character escapes unscathed from the 'all knowing totally evil demonic force' in a movie because I still crave that rawness and cruelty I saw in Bipper when I was younger.

But I digress. It's also because here was a being so nasty that he'd play GTA 5 in a kid's body just for funsies and to get something that he wants. He'd bully and torture and tease and humiliate. That's rough, man. Real rough. Especially knowing the kid was watching it all happen, completely helpless.

Anyway; Bill memes are fun, but not at the cost of forgetting just what Bill actually is.

When it comes to Ford, Bill does the same thing we saw with Dipper, except Dipper has morals. Dipper has love and light and people to keep him grounded.

Ford had none of that. Ford was abused, just like Stan (though I could go on for hours about the differences), and grew up equating love to success and respect to fear. He was set up for social failure. He was put on a very different track to his peers almost immediately and he was isolated from everyone bar Stan from the moment he was born. Stan grounded Ford and kept him human.

Ford had no chance right from the start. The equation of being smart, knowing you're smart, and then having people Grima Wormtongue in your ear your whole childhood, when you're most malleable, that you're responsible for lifting your family out of poverty, you're the Good Son, you're meant for more, you're the one we love the most but only because you serve a purpose so you better not fail or we'll snatch everything away from you and you'll be just like your purposeless brother.... And you don't want to be like your loser brother who we hate, do you Fordsy?

He doesn't start lost in the sauce, but his head is held under until he has no choice but to breathe it in, and when someone is drowning it's hard to tell from the shore if they're having fun or if they're in trouble. Nobody noticed his distress and if they did, they didn't care. He was vulnerable right from the start.

And you're right about people hating male abuse victims. The stats are really skewed on the amount because there's such shame around coming out about it as a guy that we'll never really know just how prolific it is. The same as sexual assault stats for men. But what I can say is almost every male friend I've ever had has told me about a partner of theirs or an old relationship that is just plain old black and white abusive. Most of the time, they shrug it off or don't even know that's what they suffered, and if I have to watch the light change in another man's eyes when I gently tell him "hey, you know that what you're telling me is that he/she abused you, right?" then I'm going to scream. They're looked down on for coming out about it; considered weak and less manly for it. Humiliated for it.

Now imagine how it was when Ford was a boy in the 40's (or whenever he was born, there are no solid dates afaik). He'll have been raised to believe men are strong and that they don't cry, they don't let people push them around, mental illness isn't real you're just pathetic. It's everything I just mentioned but 1000x more intense. Nowadays, men are laughed at. Back then, you'd be ostracised and made the joke of the town until you killed yourself.

So poor old Ford, who is already on the back foot, ends up suffering for his genius and throwing himself into his work when it becomes apparent to him that he 'has no other uses' as a person. He isn't funny, he isn't handsome, he's a freak, he can't hold conversations (all his opinions and from others) etc etc. All he has is his research and his brain.

He loses himself in it. In his excitement (which is innocent and genuine by the way, I don't believe he had bad intentions), he drags his best friend along (and we'll get to Fidds in a minute, I have a lotta thoughts on him too) and ignores other people's distress because he's having fun and 'doing the right thing' in his opinion, he's driving innovation and he's always been told by other, more prestigious people that he's justified in his cause.

His father probably enforced at a young age that people that get in his way are just trying to hold him back (ie. Stan), so; If the hillbillies in this damn town don't have the IQ to understand me, then they're idiots. It couldn't possibly be that I might be encroaching on their lives or causing them problems and getting in their way whilst they try to work as labourers or whatever, it's because they're wrong and I'm right.

And of course, there were times when Ford didn't really actually do anything wrong and was met with animosity, but he didn't have the social skills to diffuse the situation and explain himself in layman terms, so it fed into this Ouroboros of try to be nice and social - fail - create friction - get lost in research - create friction - try to be social - fail etc.

So he's not getting socialisation from others, he's pushing Fiddleford as hard as he can and Fiddleford understandably has other interests to balance which makes him slowly seem less invested, and then, conveniently, up pops Bill.

Bill, who agrees with everything Ford says. Bill, who justifies all the thoughts and feelings Ford has ever had. Bill, who tells Ford everything he's ever wanted to hear from his father and his peers and his brother and his wildest dreams.

Bill, who knows how isolation and flattery works to weaken prey.

You have to admit: Bill's work was impressive. He spent a year, maybe even longer, committing to the bit over Ford. Giving him everything he wanted, feeding his ego, making it seem like all he was doing was helping him and encouraging him and propping him up.

Ford had had a weak form of that before from other people, but those people were parasites. Bill presented as the host and he offered Ford a crutch for the first time in his life. A friend, an equal, possibly someone of even higher standing.

And Ford, who has NO social skills, no street smarts, no emotional awareness, had no idea that nothing comes for free from somebody like Bill, so he jumped into the shallow pool from the 100 meter board with both feet down, eyes shut and hands off the wheel. Ford was desperate for someone to meet him on his level and the moment somebody did, he let himself be swept away by it.

Which, of course, was Bill's plan all along. Bill had probably always been around Ford when he'd first come to Gravity Falls. He'd been watching and waiting for the right time to strike, as ambush predators do, and the moment Ford had stumbled on a metaphorical crack in the path and exposed a weak spot, up pops Bill to hold his hand and tell him that the pavement was in the wrong the whole time and really, Ford shouldn't have to look where he's putting his feet, the whole world should just move for him instead.

From there, it would have been easy.

I think Ford likes to think he's complex and hard to read, and he probably is to people who don't recognise his type, but he's a fucking picture book to the people that do. That's why he works so hard to make himself seem cool and mysterious: because he's really obviously none of those things but simple smoke and mirrors go a long way to confuse people who don't care to look any deeper or are too naïve to do so. If people see the real him, they'd laugh at him (in his opinion).

So Bill, with all his flattery and gassing up, would have let Ford think the ball was in his court for a while, and Ford, emboldened by lies and a literal god-like being telling him he was right (plus everyone else from his past telling him the same thing), got bolder and more intense and lost himself without even really realising it was happening.

Ford, in his enthusiasm, pressed on Fidds even harder and was disappointed that the only man he cared about (other than his brother, because we know he still loved Stan dearly) wasn't able to match his stride. After all, I think Ford probably thought Fidds was the closest thing to an equal he'd ever had, and Bill used Fidds' hesitation to push Ford further away from him.

Once Ford was fully blinded, Bill began to cut off the blood to the other parts of Ford's lifeforce (and there weren't many to begin with) with delicate expertise that even the most prolific of abusers would die to achieve.

And don't forget that Bill also loves attention (he's a genuine egotistical maniac, whereas I don't think Ford is inherently egotistical, I think he's a product of his environment) and Ford gave him that unconditionally because Ford thought that blind worship equates to love, which is only possible through fear and forced, submissive respect. By cutting off Ford's other connections, Bill got all the attention to himself.

That's where the fun part started for Bill. Bill started to make him second guess himself. He tricked him under the guise of helping and then, without Fidds to ground him, Ford bought into all of it. He told Ford the townsfolk hated him because he was better than them, he told Ford he was too good for everyone else, his brother, etc. Bill effectively became Filbrick's voice in Ford's head. He needed to control Ford.

People think 'seduction' is inherently sexual or romantic, but it isn't. Seduction is manipulation in its purest form. Seduction is negative. It is used to pull people away from their path in order to convince them to give up or go against the part of themselves that knows better. It lowers one's guard. It gets under someone's skin and convinces them it belongs there. I've been a sex worker for 10 years; trust me when I tell you I have a PhD in both doing this and being victim to it. (I'm also an abuse survivor and my abusers trained me well in this which is hard to unlearn at times.)

Bill seduced Ford into thinking he was safe and in control right up until the last moment when Bill could strike. He put a noose around Ford's neck the moment they met and convinced him it was a scarf until Ford was hanging from the rafters, feet twitching, face blue.

Ford was never in love with him and Bill wasn't with Ford. You can't be in a situation like that. Ford respected Bill and to command the respect of someone like Ford? Well, you'd have to be pretty special, in Ford's opinion.

Bill only wanted to possess Ford, literally and figuratively. He wanted something to control and use and keep as a pet while he got what he wanted. Every king needs a jester.

There are signs that Bill also, deep down, might have wanted a friend and to be understood in the same way Ford did, but it was a small part of him that came second to his desire to hurt. Bill was also an outcast and he knew how vulnerable that makes a person; why else are all his henchmaniacs outcasts too? Because it's easy to persuade a person with no support into a perceived 'found family' than it is to do it to someone who is grounded by love. It becomes a game of in-group out-group.

Ford saying no to Bill would have taken great strength after all that time and as soon as Bill doesn't get what he wants, he destroys. It would have been an immediate punishment and that whiplash would have been vicious.

Ford, with no real friends, would have considered Bill his bestie, effectively.

Now, idk if you've ever been betrayed by someone you love as a best friend, but it is INFINITELY more painful than a regular breakup. Like, impossibly so. Especially when you don't have many to begin with and you're already damaged by abuse.

My love for my best friends runs deeper than any romantic partner I have ever had and will ever have. To be betrayed (and for me, it was seriously significant) was the worst feeling in the world and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I attempted suicide (conflated by other things but also because of this friend betraying me) and I will never get over their betrayal. I am wary of getting close to others now because of that and I don't think I'd ever be friends with someone so intimately again, beyond the best friend I have currently (shout out @/ghostbu, i love u).

So to experience a rug pull of astronomical proportion would have been devastating for Ford. We see Ford try to leave, try to say no again and again, literally begging, only to have his life threatened, his body violated, his work destroyed, his entire existence made into nothing. Which is a hard enough fall for someone with a big ego, but for someone who is also vulnerable and frankly, quite very emotional alongside being intelligent, would be gutting. Some people miss Ford's emotionality and reduce him to being The Smart Guy and I think that's a disservice.

So Ford was utterly ripped to shreds, both physically and emotionally, until he could only turn to the person he knew would still come running: Stan.

Stan adores his brother, so of course he came when Ford clicked his fingers. Ford, I think, also adores Stan, but is so manipulated by everybody else in his life that he convinces himself that his emotions do him a disservice and make him weak (as mentioned before about old attitudes), so he can't 'lower' himself to examine them. Bill doesn't help with that, either.

Stan came running and we all know what happened next.

Ford then spends 30 years NOT being the smartest guy in the room and realising he never really was the smartest guy in the room outside of academia. That kind of ego death is brutal and he would have gone through some incredible soul searching in that time period, which is why I think there are several versions of Ford that exist. Childhood/College!Ford, Research-era!Ford and Post portal!Ford. They all different men to me, personally.

So yeah, he's a deeply difficult character to understand imo and he's often a paradox because he doesn't know how to hold all these emotions in tandem; he's black and white, not grey.

Now, onto Fidds:

You gotta remember, Fidds had no idea what Bill was doing to his beloved friend.

Ford kept him a secret because in his view (a view manipulated by Bill), 'they'd never understand us. They'd separate us'. A common sentiment by people being abused. 'They' being really anybody with half a brain who saw how dangerous Bill was and cared about Ford.

Fidds was already absolutely terrified by the stuff he was seeing. My guy grew up on a pig farm in the country, he wasn't prepared for all this stuff to be real. Even Ford didn't know the supernatural was provably real before he came to Gravity Falls.

Now, I love cryptids but if I came across a dogman or bigfoot in real life, I'd fucking shit myself. They're scary! They'll kill you!

He also saw his best friend fucking lose his mind and that's really frightening too, especially with no one around to help.

Fidds had people that loved him back home (and I know he wasn't great to them, that's a different kettle etc) and relied on him. He had a life outside of his research; a son, a wife, a family and probably other friends. He had something to lose. If he died, it would have an effect.

Ford was cavalier because the only thing he thought he had to lose at that point was his work (not true, of course, but in head I think his life came second to his work).

Fiddleford was a victim of Ford's unintentional abuse. And Ford did abuse people, even if he was also being abused. The cycle of abuse is, unfortunately, very very real and it can't be justified just because someone who inflicts it was also a victim: Manson was abused, but no one excuses his crimes.

Explanation, not excuse, remember?

I think Ford was turned into a bad person temporarily and Fidds bore the brunt of that and went on to neglect his own family because he was also being isolated by Ford.

It's so fucking tragic and I could go on for hours about this (I already have, this took me two hours to write). They're really complex people and it does frustrate me when people pooh-pooh them as silly yaoi babies or as just plain bad people. It's never that simple.

And disclaimer: Everyone is entitled to their interpretations, obviously. They're not my characters and this is my own interpretation, so it isn't 'right', it's just how I see them as somebody who experienced similar things as Ford and Stan (minus the literal demonic element).

Whew sorry for rambling!

[tinfoil-jones]

Gravity Falls: For Your Own Good, Ch. 11

Summary: A few years after moving to Gravity Falls and having his lab built, Stanford Pines happens upon his estranged twin brother, Stanley. He mentally prepared himself to be suffocated by his brothers neediness all over again - what he wasn't prepared for was Stanley walking right past him like he didn't even notice him.

Rating: M for language, violence, and adult implications

Preface: Dialogue only, but some actions will be annotated for clarity. Cross-Posted on AO3 Here

First - Prev - Next

CH. 11

“One paddle-paddle, two paddle-paddle-.”

“HEYYY! Miss me, little brother?”

“...What the f-”

“It’s ironic! You used to smother me, with your dependency and lack of originality. Now I’m smothering you, by keeping you in a cage. It’s poetic, in a way.”

“...What are you supposed to be?”

“It’s just me, Stanford Pines. I’m definitely your twin brother, and not a maniac who kidnapped you because I can’t admit when I’m wrong or accept that I push people away.”

“Naw, you’re not him.”

“I assure you-.”

“No. Whatever you are? You’re not the guy who's been keeping me down here. You’re something else.”

“Oh?”

“This some… Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation? You one of those hive mind aliens that possess people? Or…?”

“Sixer was right to not underestimate you, conman. Let’s just say I’m a friend.”

“I’ve heard that before, but I recognize another wiseguy when I see one. What do you really want?”

“Why are you in denial, Stanley?”

“Denial is my fourth best skill, actually. It’s right above hoeing, and right below theft.”

“...Ignoring that. Why do you keep insisting you’re not Stanley Pines?”

“Show me the proof, guy.”

“You and Stanford have the same face.”

“Some people are just like that.”

“You have no memory of having a family, but Fordsy here has a gap in his, a gap you could slot into so easily.”

“Lot’s of families ‘lose’ members to homelessness.”

“Sounding a little bitter there, conman. Got personal feelings about that?”

“People aren’t ‘lost’ to homelessness, they’re forgotten. For the comfort of everyone else; for people who love to wax poetically about how other people struggle, but don’t have the stomach to look at it with their own eyes.”

“Well, well, well, well, well-.”

“Buddy, you get a nickel every time you say that?”

“Funny. What’s also funny is your ‘deep insight’. You’re so mad about people like you being forgotten, and yet… You forgot you.”

“What’s your point?”

“Why are you afraid of remembering? Are you afraid that you’ll remember loving people who couldn’t be bothered to remember you?”

“You seem to think you know a lot about me. Why don’t you tell me?”

“I think you cling to this ‘hardcore vagabond with no past’ persona because it’s convenient for you. Because it’s less painful for you. I think you wanted something so bad at one point that it consumed you, and when you couldn’t have it, there wasn’t anything significant left of you.”

“Wow. That’s quite a theory. Wanna hear the one I have about you?”

“Hit me, conman.”

“Oh, I wish I could. My theory is that you’re a lonely, nosey, parasitic little bi-.”

*‘Ford’ presses the mute button*

“Sorry Stanley, but I’m getting the last laugh here- and you’re giving me the bird. No, two birds. The audience will never know if you’re actually doing that, or if I’m just saying that you are.”

(...)

“Hey, Doc?”

“Yes, Stanley?”

“You know how I normally don’t ask you questions about your life because you’re crazy and I’m here against my will?”

“...Are you about to ask me a question?”

“Did you make a Faustian bargain with some eldritch abomination?”

“...What?!”

“Or… Do you use cocaine? I’d believe either, but I can help you with that second one if that’s it; you see, the key to kicking the habit is-.”

“Stanley. Why are you asking this?”

“Because last night something possessed you and tried talking to me about my feelings. But it failed because I don’t have any. What was that?”

“...Nothing possessed me.”

“PhD, you are terrible at lying.”

“Nobody possessed me! You must have just been dreaming.”

“No, I don’t have dreams. I only have nightmares about being suffocated. Or the IRS. Or the IRS suffocating me.”

“...What?”

“Are you a Warlock?”

“A- a what?”

“There’s this game that dorks play - and there's elves, and wizards, and stuff. Warlocks are those guys who use magic, but they have to get it from otherworldly entities. Are you that? Is that what you are?”

“...You are talking about the tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons?”

“Yes.”

“You.. play that?”

“No. I never played it.”

“But you know the mechanics?”

“Some of it. Just the basic stuff. None of the actual- I don’t know, rules? Something something something D38; something something something THAC0.”

“How do you know?”

“I dunno, I don’t think too hard about it. Anyways,  so you’re a Warlock and you’re hiding it because your patron, boss, eldritch pimp, or whatever you wanna call it is gonna be mad at you? Is that what this is?”

“Stanley, please. Stuff like that is simply… fantasy.”

“Oh really? This is coming from the guy who has an anatomically accurate poster of a dissected fairy that you drew yourself.”

“...You can see that?”

“Why wouldn’t I? It’s right over there.”

“Stanley, you should not be able to see that. It’s too far away, and you’re not wearing glasses or contacts.”

“Doc, I don’t need glasses.”

“You have needed them our entire lives, just like I do. You have a bad habit of breaking them, or not wearing them because you think you won’t look cool.”

“Shows just how much you know. Are you gonna tell me what that thing last night was? Or are you going to keep changing the topic and hope that I get too distracted to follow up?”

“Nothing happened last night. I’m not a warlock. I can’t believe you lied to me all those years ago when you told me you ignored all of my long talks about the finer mechanics and lore surrounding DD&D. And you should need glasses.”

*Ford goes upstairs*

“Well, guess I have nothing better to do than to take a nap. I wonder how the IRS is going to suffocate me this time…”

To be continued…

[charmedreincarnation]

Quotes I live by: Loa edition

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

~Napoleon Hill

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.”

~James Allen

“Create your future from your future, not from your past.”

~ Dr. Joe Dispenza

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The law of consciousness is like a coin: heads, you win; tails, you lose. It is up to you to choose the outcome of your life.”

~Stephen Richards

“You will become as small as your controlling desire, and as great as your dominant aspiration”

~James Allen

“If something you want is slow to come to you, it can be for only one reason: You are spending more time focused upon its absence than you are about its presence."

~ABRAHAM HICKS

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedom—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

~ Viktor Frankl

"The point of power is always in the present moment."

~Louise Hay

"The only limit to what we can achieve is the power of our own minds."

~ Henry Ford

“You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it.”

~Dr. Robert Anthony

“Your opinion is your opinion, your perception is your perception, change them and you change your life."

~Wayne Dayer

“Paradoxically, what works against us also works for us. If you can dream it, and believe it, then you can do it!”

~Tony Robbins

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

~Henry ford

“If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities.”

Dale Carnegie

"You are responsible for your life and the power of your consciousness. Nothing can stop you from fulfilling your true potential."

~Deepak Chopra

"Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world." ~Unknown

"The key to success is the power of imagination. Create an image of what you want and make it your focus."

~Tony Robbins

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in; their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.”

~ Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

~ Henry David Thoreau

[bethanydelleman]

All the People* who Wield Umbrellas in Jane Austen's novels and What it Means:

Dr. Grant, kindly asking Fanny to step into the house during a rainstorm

Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage; and being descried from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter under the branches and lingering leaves of an oak just beyond their premises, was forced, though not without some modest reluctance on her part, to come in. A civil servant she had withstood; but when Dr. Grant himself went out with an umbrella, there was nothing to be done but to be very much ashamed, and to get into the house as fast as possible, Mansfield Park

Mr. Weston, kindly (perhaps with motive), getting an umbrella for Miss Taylor and Emma:

Robert Martin, most likely was holding an umbrella for his sisters, then kindly warns Harriet that a path is washed out:

“Ever since the day—about four years ago—that Miss Taylor and I met with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from Farmer Mitchell’s, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match from that hour; and when such success has blessed me in this instance, dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off match-making.” Emma

Frank Churchill, trying to protect his secret fiancé from the rain:

“And so, there she had set, without an idea of any thing in the world, full ten minutes, perhaps—when, all of a sudden, who should come in—to be sure it was so very odd!—but they always dealt at Ford’s—who should come in, but Elizabeth Martin and her brother!—Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting near the door—Elizabeth saw me directly; but he did not; he was busy with the umbrella. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly, and took no notice; and they both went to quite the farther end of the shop; and I kept sitting near the door! Emma

Admiral Croft, making sure Anne can grab an umbrella:

In a few minutes the carriage returned.—Somebody talked of rain.—“I will see that there are umbrellas, sir,” said Frank to his father: “Miss Bates must not be forgotten:” and away he went. Emma

And lastly, Captain Wentworth, offering an umbrella to Anne (Mr. Elliot does not have one, we shall note):

“Well, whenever it suits you. You can slip in from the shrubbery at any time; and there you will find we keep our umbrellas hanging up by that door. A good place is not it? But,” (checking himself), “you will not think it a good place, for yours were always kept in the butler’s room. Ay, so it always is, I believe. One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best. And so you must judge for yourself, whether it would be better for you to go about the house or not.” Persuasion

Umbrellas in Jane Austen are symbols of love and kindness. Always wielded by men. They provide shelter. A good man carries an umbrella, but not for himself.

After a moment’s pause he said: “Though I came only yesterday, I have equipped myself properly for Bath already, you see,” (pointing to a new umbrella); “I wish you would make use of it, if you are determined to walk; though I think it would be more prudent to let me get you a chair.” Persuasion

*Northanger Abbey's counting of umbrellas to see if it is raining does not count, as the people are unknown

[slowdrippingnoise]

I cannot stop thinking about Fords dream. Plan sexual? Is this aroace confirmation??

"Attracted to planning" my ass. What happened to attracted to strange and the strange was always attracted to him?? You are a weirdo, except it

I an aroace and i was concerned that Ford will be straight in TBOB but now i am just confused???

I see you want to scream about the book of bill. Please scream at me i need someone else in this madness

OK!!!! so this is an extremely interesting question, and my perception of it is very heavily influenced by this interview being fresh in my mind (you've probably already read/watched but if not go do that it's great) towards the end you can find alex answering a question about ford being interpreted as queer- and basically talking about how ford is written as extremely romantically/interpersonally repressed in general- I won't try to summarize it i genuinely recommend just going and reading that, he describes it all better than I could (and again maybe you already have idk)

I feel like the tbob dream note could be taken a number of ways (and, while I wouldn't actually ask it cause i feel like leaving it up to imagination is actually more interesting in a creative engagement kind of way, i'm desperate to know what hypothetical answers are hiding behind that "usually" oh ford) but the thing that sticks out to me is. i mean it's very difficult to read it as straight isn't it. ford has recurring dreams about being quizzed on "what he's attracted to" and consistently dodges the question (doesn't even give a straightforward answer like "nothing", he misdirects back onto his logical smartguy persona) it's definitely a nod to fans too, sure, but in-character it's no-way-out firmly establishing that his sexuality specifically is on the Grand List of Stanford Pines Insecurities. we definitely got a nod to this way back in j3 of course- the ford&fidds campout conversation- but this i think this new tidbit betrays a much more internal fixation/anxiety than "it's confusing to me and I don't really want to think about it for more that a minute at a time" (<-the vibe his j3 stuff had more of to me) TL;DR whatever he is, i do not think you can call this man canonically straight at all lmao. W

(ok i'm losing track of my own thoughts a bit here. i should've outlined this like an essay lmao. back on track-)

In terms of what I personally believe/headcanon? honestly i'm in a funny in-between place right now- if you asked me last week i'd just say "he's gay probably" but this has me Thinking now in a more "ok, what cooperates best with canon and how I personally view him" way and the "ford aroace" people are making some interesting points. my most recent idea of him that i've been rolling around in my mindscape like a shiny rock goes basically like this:

(putting this under a cut)(also this goes wildly off-topic for a while because i love talking about ford. i promise it is tangentially related and relevant to my argument)

ford is repressed in how he deals with people because people are confusing and often scary (history of bullying and ostracization, we all hc him as some kind of autistic, etc.), and this extends to how he views romance/sex- if you don't see yourself as safe/belonging among other humans it can be extremely difficult to imagine yourself in such intimate dynamics with them (accepted, loved) and ford is very well established to close himself off to keep himself safe. the prospect of "romance" is by default more unsettling than it could ever really be comforting to him (within his ability to imagine it, at least) outside of the rarer "what if i was just normal and nobody bothered me for existing" fantasy, which is its own can of worms,,

another part of this is my (more arbitrary/i know because im right forever/because i lived it) hc that the elder pines twins' parents didn't really love each other by the time they were raising stan and ford, it was more of a "we both pay the rent/keep the family going, we may not strictly like each other and yeah there's a screaming fight or two every few years, but divorce is off the table because it would leave us both financially up the creek, so you do what you gotta do" situation. which has the potential to do. things. to how you think about Traditional Ideas of Couples and Suchlike. take my word for it.

another important part, though i find myself getting technically off-topic for a ways here, my apologies- i've been thinking about ford's Patterns with his attachments, in that he generally has one Main Person to focus on and trust at a time, and for a most of his life these attachments end Badly- throughout his entire adolescence he has stanley as that person, they exist in constant contrast to each other, their own self-perceptions are defined by their existence as a duo, covering for each other's weaknesses (to the extent that they can ignore traits in themselves that "double up", so to speak- stanley is the dumb muscle and ford is the booksmart genius with potential- no way out of that)(their dad affects this too)(oof) he and stan have a really awful falling-out that leaves ford with the belief that his One Person was willing to sabotage his future, completely disregarding ford's own feelings or sense of security and agency, just to get his way. (strike 1.5? against ford's ability to trust people) --- in college he attached to his roommate, fiddleford- and they genuinely get along and compliment each other really well! they're besties for life! yippee! so ford has a Person again, to exist next to, to prop himself up. but their lives go in different directions- they both move on with their studies/careers, and ford winds up in gravity falls, alone, where he has trouble again interacting with the locals and spends all his time wandering the woods, with endless hours for introspection. --- enter- Bill! :) bill becomes ford's 3rd Person, and he flatters ford and manipulates him and validates him and offers him everything he could ever shallowly imagine would solve all his problems and patch up the gaping hole in his self-worth forever definitely (while reminding him of what he remembers/imagines of his brother most likely, ow) bill is also more "safe" than other people, he's an anomaly, a supernatural phenomenon, even, and he lives exclusively inside ford's head. he's a perfect, safe, obsession target. (billford situationship essay for another day)

until he's not, of course.

until his college bestie Person is back too, and he's more Real than bill in a way that's very comforting, but fidds is another strong influence, one for the better, and bill can't have that around, he has to go. after that his relationship with bill also turns sour extremely quickly in a terrifying way, which leaves ford shaken and unmoored and desperate, which leaves... stan.

which also falls apart. (strikes 2, 3 and 1.5-the-sequal in rapid succession)

the 30 years spent multiverse-hopping are interesting to me too in how they affected ford- i think being around so much "abnormality"/being disconnected from his own world's ideas of normal did a lot to mellow him out- but he still couldn't really stick around anywhere to form deeper bonds with anybody, he's a wanderer until bill is dead, which may well end up killing ford in the process, so...

then! he's back home! which is bad! (from his perspective) but gives him the opportunity to try to Attach to a 4th Person- dipper! this was a secret essay on why i think he's Like That about dipper all along not about romance at all haha trick'd'ya! (i'm joking)

anyway you get the idea- fortunately he has a slightly wider support net by the end of the show between stan, fiddleford, and the kids- but to me it's relevant in that ford has a very limited network of people who he is close to at all, considering that his view on romantic relationships seems to orbit around "don't wanna think about that/that's scary, I don't know/etc.", and that for a long time the relationships(platonic or otherwise) that he did have were defined by their ending in trauma, guilt, and shame. it makes sense to me for him to not really be able to figure himself out, how do you dissect all the layers of the bonds you do manage to form, tease out one strong emotion from another, especially when you're always afraid of ruining something because this is all you have?

I guess, given all that rambling, to me he lands within some combination of demi-aroace(attraction of any kind is rare and difficult to distinguish from other emotions, needs a strong base first) and too repressed and deeply, deeply traumatized to really say what comes naturally and what's his brain trying to protect him from being hurt. he knows that something is, by the standards of humanity, "wrong" with him, but it's just another note on a long list of "reasons normal people don't like him". and he's gay.

-----

ok i probably forgot some stuff but i think thats my thoughts on that lmao. anyway BOOK OF BILL this makes me. so crazy. hasnt left my brain for days. i will never be the same i called these shots i CALLED them. but i couldn't imagine. anyway-

while i'm still talking about ford, i love that this book let him be more emotionally vulnerable than j3 did, i feel like there was a harsher impression of ford among fans for a long time (at least, with people who weren't already Obsessed with him) because he has limited time in the actual show for his character to be established, and a lot of j3 either had him on the defensive, or still stuck in "everything ever is my fault" mode. getting a better view both of how bill manipulated him, and how he's still affected by it "postcanon" puts him way more in line with. how i've seen him all along basically!! augh. he's lonely and insecure and afraid and wants so, so badly to connect to people,, "the ego of a king. the insecurity of a circus freak." compare to "my immense self hatred vs my delusional god complex" we were so right.

his last section of the book is. so so perfect i'm so glad we have that- it wraps up what felt like a loose end with other pieces of canon leaving him on "i'm the biggest idiot in the world" which felt. bad. all things considered. but tbob lets him air out that soul-crushing shame in such a beautiful way- both in letting us the audience actually See how it was with him and bill before, and his family reassuring him that they love him and don't carry some massive sense of Blame for him being manipulated... it hurts good man. perfect place to end on. he's gonna be ok it'll be ok.

related- possession pages go crazy. like that is some "i've read fanfiction less fucked up than this" shit and I [the rest of this sentence redacted for my dignity] what was i saying. the dream scene was so viscerally upsetting. the "light switch". the stretching. (alex drop a link to your ao3 account. urgh) bill is so so so scary for that brief moment which is an amaaazing essential addition to the book that actually made me feel horrifically personally sorry for the little bastard for the first time maybe ever. i mean this so genuinely he's the worst he's been he's the saddest he's been it's a beautiful tapestry drawing me in. it's gonna occupy my brain for weeks. maybe months. he's desperate to hold on to ford he's desperate for his plans to work for once and he's pissed as hell but also now he has an excuse to cut loose- he doesn't have to hide his angry, shitty, abusive side from this little human that he's grown so attached to(who he sees himself in)- he can see ford and ford can see him (or, what he's willing to think of as "himself")(where did you all go-) and ford is just living a nightmare that he couldn't have possibly imagined. incredible

i'm practiced at being emo about ford i've been emo about ford since 2015 but the bill thing is new to me (not strictly the lore, i was around for the reddit AMAs/the axolotl poem, but the elaboration-) and it's killing me. he's so fucked. he's hopeless. he's fucked himself up so bad and refuses to get any better because just looking at it inside his head is too much. there's a loud buzzing in his ears and he blacks out for 30 seconds. everyone loved him he was the best baby ever. sixer, it would eat you alive. the doctor says three sips a day will make the visions go away. where did you all go. he's fine, he's fine, he's fine. it's all hitting me fresh like it's brand new, funy nightmare triangle abandonment issues go brrrr-

he wants ford to want him so bad he wants to not be alone so bad. hes awful he ruins every chance he gets and it's all genuinely his own fault. fuck (im not gonna talk about "pain is hilarious" im not gonna be cringe im not gonna do it) blacked-out list of exes love and fear are the same love cage you're my property if lost return to bill cipher covered in blood all alone in the universe-

I was gonna elaborate on those last scraps but. i am running out of brain. big week for ford enjoyers. big week for me being so so sad (/pos) ☀️

[ckret2]

Chapter 43 of suddenly human Bill Cipher is pretty eager to remain imprisoned inside the Mystery Shack:

The Eclipse: Part 1

Gravity's disappearing in Gravity Falls. Bill has an explanation for what's going on that has absolutely nothing to do with him, and also doesn't make any sense. Fiddleford has an alternate theory that makes a lot of sense, and has a whole lot to do with Bill. Ford trusts Fiddleford.

####

"An eclipse," Ford repeated. "Gravity's vanishing, you're floating, and you expect me to believe that it's due to an eclipse."

Bill shrugged. "I don't expect anything out of you. Believe whatever the heck you want. That's what it is, though."

"Even if it wasn't a ridiculous notion, there aren't any solar or lunar eclipses anywhere near Oregon this summer—"

"Did I say the eclipse was solar or lunar?" Bill asked. "No. I didn't." He breezed past Ford, heading to the kitchen. "Hey, is anybody gonna eat those pancakes?"

"Mine." Dipper ran past Bill to his abandoned plate.

"Then what kind of an eclipse is it?" Ford demanded.

Bill leaned on the kitchen counter, crossed his arms, and pursed his lips thoughtfully. Finally, he said, "Gravitational eclipse."

"There's no such thing!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. I Think Having A Mere Five PhDs Means I Know Everything! Please, enlighten the trillion-year-old all-seeing eye who spent a year correcting all your math with your superior knowledge of physics!"

"It's twelve PhDs and you know it."

"Oh, so what! I can still count 'em on one hand." (Dipper gave Bill's hand a puzzled look.)

"Is that how it is!" Ford huffed angrily. "Fine, great teacher—would you be so kind as to educate your student on what the devil a 'gravitational eclipse' is!"

He fully expected Bill to start spouting some absurd science fiction explanation; but instead, Bill hesitated, gaze flicking nervously toward the ceiling. Ford looked up, but didn't see anything.

"Just don't worry about it." Bill rubbed his right eye. He turned away from Ford to watch Dipper struggle to squeeze pancake syrup out of an uncooperative bottle. "Everything will go back to normal in three days. Just—don't look at the sky."

"Why not?"

"Don't worry about it," Bill repeated.  "Hey, take off the lid and stick a knife in, you're never getting anything out that way."

"I've got it," Dipper said testily.

Soos came downstairs at about the same time Stan joined them from the hallway. "Dudes, I think something weird's going on," Soos said.

Ford turned his back on his fruitless conversation with Bill. "We've noticed. Gravity's decreasing."

Soos paused. "Oh," he said, slightly deflated. "I thought I was developing super strength."

"Sorry to disappoint."

"So what's causing it?" Stan asked.

"I don't know yet."

From the kitchen, Bill called, "I just told you!"

Ford didn't look at him. "I don't know the real reason yet."

Stan asked, "Think it might be a portal thing? When it was powering up, gravity got kinda screwy. It wasn't like this, though. Any time there was a surge, gravity hiccuped for a few seconds. It never just... went down a little."

"And not for this long, either," Soos said. "It's been like this all morning." He paused; then asked, hopefully, "You sure we aren't just all developing super strength at the same time?"

Ford shook his head apologetically.

"Aww."

"I suspected the portal first," Ford said. "But I just looked it over and checked the equipment. There's no way any of it could have powered on. It's been completely disassembled since last summer." 

Stan shrugged. "What else could it be?"

"The gravity anomalies occurred whenever the portal was connected to the Nightmare Realm. All I can think is that perhaps it's something else with a connection to the Nightmare Realm that might be having a destabilizing effect on the fabric of reality. Something much weaker, but steadily regaining power..." He turned to cast a venomous look at the kitchen. "Power like the ability to float..."

Bill had been preoccupied with dipping a strip of raw bacon into a stolen uncapped syrup bottle; but at the accusation, he stared at Ford in disbelief. "What—are you kidding me?"

"Have a better explanation for why, the moment all this starts, you can suddenly hover down the stairs?"

"Sure," Bill said. "I'm better at floating than the rest of you because I've been doing it longer."

"Oh, that's stupid!"

"You're stupid."

"You're up to something," Ford snarled. "I know it."

"What could I possibly be up to!" Bill spread his hands, exasperated. "Seriously! Tell me! What could I possibly be up to?"

Ford screwed his face into a scowl, trying to think of any way Bill could have orchestrated the gradual decline of gravity while imprisoned in the Mystery Shack. "You are up to something," he said firmly.

Bill groaned and rolled his eyes. "Well if you ever figure out what, let me know! I'm dying to find out what I'm plotting." He chugged from the syrup bottle like it was a flask. And then had to keep holding it up while he waited for the reduced gravity to work on the syrup.

"Hey, Dr. Pines?" Soos held up his phone. "Just got a text from Tate. He says Old Man McGucket wants to know if you can come discuss the gravity issue?"

"I was just thinking the same thing. Let Fiddleford know I'll be there as soon as I can. Does he want me to bring anything?"

"Nope. Just your handsome face." Soos chuckled. "He—he didn't say that part, though. I did. I just think guys should compliment each other more."

Ford nodded solemnly. "Thank you, Soos."

"Grunkle Ford, can I come too?" Dipper dumped his dirty dish in the sink. "I could—I dunno—help brainstorm solutions, or something...?"

"I'd be delighted." Ford had wanted to spend so much more time with Dipper this summer. By now, he'd thought they would have had at least one hike through the mountains around Gravity Falls and maybe dug into a couple of old mysteries he'd never solved. At least this was one mystery Ford could bring him along for.

Dipper's face lit up. "Hold on, let me go get my journal." He ran upstairs, bouncing up two steps at a time in the reduced gravity.

Ford murmured to Stan, "You can hold down the fort while I'm gone?"

Stan nodded slightly. "I'll keep a close eye on him."

"Good."

When Dipper had returned and they were headed out the door, Bill called from the kitchen, "Keep your head down out there. And get inside as soon as you can."

Ford shot a dark look at Bill, but said nothing. "Let's go." He shut the door behind them a bit harder than necessary.

Soos headed into the kitchen to make breakfast. As he passed, Bill said, "Hey. Does the 'guys complimenting guys' thing only apply to humans, or what?"

"Oh. Uh..." Soos pulled his head out of the fridge to look at Bill. "You... look good in yellow? Is—is that a good compliment? I don't know what triangle demons consider a compliment."

Bill considered it. "Sure, it'll do." He dipped another strip of bacon in the syrup. "I look even better in gold."

####

A quarter mile from the shack, Ford drove over a small bump in the road he'd gone over a hundred times before.

The car bounced so high that Ford's head hit the car roof.

Somewhere, he just knew, Bill was laughing at him.

####

Dipper's knee had been bouncing for three minutes straight by the time they approached the gate to the Northwest Manor. "Dipper, are you alright?"

"Sorry." Dipper planted his foot flat on the floor. "It's just—we're driving really slow, and this whole gravity thing is kind of an emergency..."

Just nervous. "I know," Ford sighed. "I can't go any faster without losing control. Lower gravity means lower traction between the tires and the road." But it was driving him mad.

At the manor, Tate greeted them at the door with a slight nod. "Hey. Dad's in the lab."

"Thank you, Tate. I know the way."

When they entered the lab, Fiddleford was working with a soldering iron on an electronic device the size of a toaster. He looked up as soon as they came in. "Stanford, Dipper! Good timing. Come in. How's the shack?"

"Down a few rubber balls."

Ford left Dipper to drift around the lab inspecting Fiddleford's equipment and listening in on the conversation as he and Fiddleford caught up. Fiddleford had first noticed something was wrong during his usual morning post-coffee rambunctious rollick, when he leaped high enough to bang his head on the ceiling. ("All the way to the ceiling? In this house?" "Well, I was standing on the counter, you see." "Ah, of course.") He'd immediately built a vacuum chamber he could drop various tools and cutlery in so he could measure the acceleration of gravity. Usually, objects on Earth fell 9.8 meters per second. When Fiddleford first measured, falling objects accelerated by 7.9 meters per second—almost 20% slower than they were supposed to. Now, it was 7.7 meters per second. If that rate of decline was steady, gravity must have been going down overnight without anyone noticing. By Fiddleford's calculations, gravity was decreasing by around 1.5% an hour—and, if it continued at this rate, it would be gone the day after tomorrow, by early afternoon.

(Bill had said three days. That wasn't even two and a half.)

Fiddleford had done some scans and called some old college pals down in Texas to ask if they'd noticed anything strange—and it seemed that Gravity Falls was the only place in the country experiencing anything unusual, at least according to NASA's data. Fiddleford had asked Tate to drive around town dropping things; quelle surprise, the gravitational oddity seemed perfectly contained to the circumference of the town's weirdness barrier.

"If you're in communication with NASA, I don't suppose you could ask if..." Ford winced at himself, "they've... noticed any astronomical anomalies?"

Fiddleford stroked his beard. "I reckon I could, but—why?"

Ford sighed. "Bill said this is being caused by what he calls a 'gravitational eclipse.' Which sounds like patent nonsense, but—on the one percent chance he's telling the truth..."

"I getcha. That Bill's as trustworthy as a rattlesnake with rabies—but until we know what's happening, we ought to consider every possibility."

"Yes. Precisely." Ford paused. "Can... rattlesnakes catch rabies?"

"Absolutely not! Which is why you should never trust one what says he's rabid."

"Ah. Yes. I see," Ford said uncertainly.

Like Ford, Fiddleford's first suspicion was that this had something to do with the portal—a suspicion that was scuttled when Ford informed him he'd already checked the portal. Ford's own next theory was that Bill personally was somehow behind this. His gravity already seemed to be far lighter than the rest of the town. But Ford didn't know whether that was because Bill was causing the gravity-reducing anomaly, or because the gravity-reducing anomaly was disproportionately affecting Bill. And even if Bill was causing it, as yet Ford had no idea by what mechanism he was doing it.

Fiddleford had the first idea that might explain how this was physically happening: dimensional rips.

At the end of last summer, the town and surrounding woods had been lousy with small dimensional rips torn in spacetime by Weirdmageddon and its aftermath. A few had been large enough for a grown man to stumble through, but many were barely as long as a fingernail. Ford and Stan had spent the last few days of summer running through the town and the woods with the kids, armed with alien adhesive, glueing shut the rips; and then—after traveling back and forth to California to attend Dipper's bar mitzvah and to get hollered at by Shermie for disappearing and/or faking a death—they'd spent most of the next month taking care of even more rips. (Just enough time for gnomes to steal Ford's new Journal 4.)

The remains of the rips could still be seen throughout Gravity Falls: odd invisible seams in the air that seemed to make the woods behind them bend strangely, like the transition between air and water where light refracted differently. Sometimes the sun would line up just right with a gap in the leaves so that you could see a sunbeam bending in midair.

Fiddleford had two theories:

Theory one: even after they'd sealed up all the rips, the distressed fabric of reality around Gravity Falls had grown threadbare. Rather than a few huge rips tearing through to the Nightmare Realm, countless micro-rips were forming—hundreds of thousands of holes between the fibers of reality, too tiny to be seen or detected—and they were reaching critical mass. The structural integrity of reality itself was about to catastrophically fail. The barrier between here and the Nightmare Realm could shred apart at any minute, ripping open a massive maw too wide to ever be repaired, irreversibly swallowing Gravity Falls into Bill's dying dimension of madness and leaving a frothing pustule of chaos trapped inside the weirdness barrier, ready to spread across all of Earth if anything should ever pop it!

Or two: something else was happening.

Ford thought it was worth investigating. The damage was already there; maybe Bill knew it, was exacerbating it—perhaps by his mere presence—and was just hoping the humans wouldn't figure it out before his homecoming.

"You remember the wormhole detector I built last September to sense when new dimensional rips were openin' up?" Fiddleford asked. "Well, it ain't detected a thing in town since March—but if these micro-rips are real, they'd be too little to detect from any farther than forty or fifty feet. So's I whipped up a portable scannermadoohickey!" He picked up the object he'd been working on when Ford and Dipper arrived. "You can take it to the places with the most damage and wave it around to see if it senses anything!"

Ford inspected the scanner. "It says it's detecting eighteen right now."

Fiddleford waved him off. "That's fine, a few itty bitty little tears oughta be expected for the kinda damage we got last year. But if my theory's correct, there's somewhere in Gravity Falls that'll have hundreds of thousands of tears within the scanner's radius. That's what we're looking for."

"Great. And, what do we do if we find them? Such small rips would be impossible to individually seal with my adhesive applicator."

"I thought of that, too!" Fiddleford scrambled over two tables, knocking tools on the ground as he went, to grab a plastic cone-shaped object the size of a football. He scuttled beneath the tables back to Ford. "Look! I made a glue grenade!"

"A—a what?"

"Once you figure out where the micro-rips are concentrated, just pour that alien adhesive of yours into this spout here, pull the pin, and chuck it! It'll instantly seal up all the micro-rips in the area and then cover the whole town in a cloud of alien adhesive, closing any remaining rips!"

"Hmm... It sounds risky. It would use up the rest of our andhesive all at once," Ford said. "And the environmental impact could be devastating."

Fiddleford blinked. "Environmental impact?"

"Just think of an adhesive this powerful settling over the whole town and forest in a thin film. It would glue people's pores shut! They wouldn't be able to sweat! Imagine. And that's just one example of the potential consequences."

"Hm." Fiddleford scratched his head. "I could invent a body lotion with alien adhesive solvent?"

"Or, maybe we should only use the grenade once we're sure that such an extreme measure is necessary."

"Aww." Fiddleford kicked his foot in disappointment. "Hold on—let me at least whip up a spray attachment for your adhesive gun. So's you can patch up any clusters you find as you go." He darted between several tables, searching through drawers and tool chests for supplies, and then returned to his soldering station.

"Wait, hold on," Ford said. "In the space of a morning, you've built a vacuum chamber to calculate the gravitational acceleration in Gravity Falls, called NASA to get ahold of somebody to collect data across the rest of the United States, built a handheld version of your wormhole detector, and built a grenade to distribute alien adhesive?"

"I sure did!"

"And, how long have you been awake?"

"An hour and a half!"

Ford stared. "Where do you get your coffee?"

Fiddleford glanced across the room at Dipper, and whispered, "I'll tell ya later."

Dipper had drifted over to the miniature particle accelerator and was slowly circling it, inspecting all the pipes, trying to figure out how it worked. He was leaning over the trash can when Ford drifted over to join him. "Hey, Grunkle Ford? I... think there's a cat in here?"

"You don't know that!" Fiddleford shouted. "It could be dead!"

"No it's not, I can hear it meowing."

"That might be something else! You can't tell!"

"I could just open it—"

Fiddleford chucked an empty plastic spool of solder wire toward Dipper. "Don't you touch that!"

Dipper withdrew his hand from the trash can lid and looked at Ford, baffled.

"I'll explain how it works," Ford said.

While Fiddleford worked, Ford caught Dipper up on the details of the fuel they needed for the Quantum Destabilizer, the contraption Fiddleford had built to synthesize it, and the complicated way they'd tried to paradoxically (not) observe the experiment in progress. When Fiddleford came over to offer the completed spray nozzle, Ford asked, "Any progress on figuring out how to get this thing working?"

"No," Fiddleford sighed. "I've been lookin' into more stable paradoxes to replace the cat. But as far as the observer—I'd hoped usin' twins might just get close enough, but I've redid my cac'lations three times and I'm afraid the only way to get this thing working is by gettin' one person to both observe and not observe it at the same time. If we can just do that, we'd have all the fuel we need. But for the life of me I can't figure out how."

"Maybe if we had two versions of the same person from different dimensions..." Ford mused. "But that would require opening up a portal to reach another dimension, and there's the risk that uniting parallel versions of the same person might destabilize our entire dimension. It's not worth the risk."

"It sounds like one of those impossible riddles," Dipper said. "Like, 'If only a barber shaves people who don't shave themselves, and if anyone who shaves himself isn't a barber, then who shaves the barber?' Because if he shaved himself he wouldn't be a barber but since he shaves other people he has to be a barber..."

Ford said, "A second barber shaves him."

Fiddleford said, "He just don't shave at all."

Dipper paused. "I think I told it wrong."

Ford patted his shoulder. "But I think you're on to something. We need to think of this as a riddle; and every riddle has a solution. We just need to find it."

"After we save the town, right?" Dipper asked.

Ford smiled wanly. "One crisis at a time."

####

They agreed that investigating all the potential micro-rip hotspots around town would probably necessitate a camping trip—which was the only bit of good news to come out of this mess so far. Due to all of this summer's Bill bullsoup (as Stan had taken to calling it in front of the kids), Ford and Dipper had hardly gotten to see each other so far, much less do any serious paranormal investigating together. Hiking and camping while in search of the strange sounded like exactly what they'd been missing out on—and it would've sounded even better if the situation weren't so dire.

Ford and Dipper came back in the Mystery Shack as Shandra Jimenez said on TV, "Today's top story in Gravity Falls is that gravity isn't falling. Many residents recall similar incidents around this time last summer, when gravity intermittently shut off entirely, leading many to ask: could this possibly be another devastating effect of global warming? Temperatures today are—"

Ford scoffed. "Global warming. Of all things. Gravity is probably the only part of the environment it isn't affecting."

"I dunno, Ford, maybe you oughta consider it." Bill was sitting cross-legged on the couch, chin in his hand. He had his eye patch over the eye he'd been squinting that morning. "As long as you're already rejecting the real explanation to make up one you like better, why not go whole hog? Let's adopt a real crackpot theory."

"You want to talk about 'crackpot theories'? Global warming sounds at least as likely as an eclipse."

"That says a lot more about your education than it does about the theories."

Ford grit his teeth. "You know I'm one of the most educated men on Earth."

"And that says a lot about your planet's educational system."

Stan, sitting in his armchair reading the paper, folded it down to glower at Bill. "Stop antagonizing my brother."

"Tell him to stop making it so easy."

Ford grit his teeth harder, but ignored Bill. "Dipper, go pack your backpack. I'll check the basement and meet you when I'm done."

"Right!" Dipper hurried up the stairs.

Ford crossed the living room, checking the micro-rip scanner—88 detected rips, over five times higher than at Northwest Manor, but still nowhere near the 100,000 rip danger threshold. He'd see whether that remained true next to the portal. He paused next to Stan's armchair, "Stanley, do you remember where we stored the alien adhesive applicator?"

"Uhh... when's the last time we used it?"

"Last fall, right before we headed to Seattle."

Stan lowered his paper, staring at the ceiling. "I think we stored it in one of the lockers in the basement, right?"

"It's not there," Bill said.

Ford gave him an exasperated look. "And how would you know."

"Because the first day I came here, I emptied out all those lockers and hid their contents while I was waiting for the rest of you to get downstairs."

Ford smacked the back of the armchair, making Stan start. "So that's what happened to my infinity-sided die! Where the devil did you hide it?"

"Frankly, I don't think you're responsible enough to handle that kind of power," Bill said archly.

"Where's the adhesive applicator!"

"What do you need it for?"

"That's none of your business."

"Pity." Bill turned up the volume on the news.

Ford moved between Bill and the screen. "If you don't tell me where you hid it..." What threat could he make? This was the demon willing to threaten suicide if his captors didn't keep him entertained.

"Tell me why you need it."

"As if you'd give it to me if I did!"

"Maybe I'll find your cause noble," Bill said flatly. "Try me."

Oh, what did he have to lose. "Fine. I'm testing to see if imperceptibly small rips are opening between Gravity Falls and the Nightmare Realm. If they are, I'm going to seal them shut." He hoped the revelation would throw Bill off—he hoped he was close enough to the truth to shock Bill into giving something away.

Bill's eye widened, eyebrows shooting up; and then he burst out laughing. "That's what Specs filled your head with? Embryonic wormholes? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! And you're turning to him for an explanation when you've got a being with infinite answers sitting in your living room?"

Ford scoffed. "Sure, infinite answers—and just like the infinity-sided die, whatever I get is infinitely more likely to be trouble than anything useful. Now tell me where you put my adhesive applicator."

"I didn't put it anywhere." Bill held the remote out to the side to change the channel and stared at the TV straight through Ford, as if he didn't exist. "It's still in the basement. A little adhesive leaked out, I couldn't get the locker door open."

"Ha!" Stan slapped an armrest.

Ford whirled around to glare at him.

Stan held up his hands appeasingly. "Sorry! Sorry. That's not funny. Wasn't—wasn't funny at all. How dare you, Bill."

"I know, I'm just the worst."

Ford held in a harsh sigh and stalked out of the room. He didn't have time for this—not when they were on a deadline to prevent whatever was happening. (What if it became too late to reverse before gravity even reached 0%? What if they were approaching a tipping point when the whole sky would rip open?)

He opened the vending machine and headed downstairs.

####

He had to break the locker door to get the alien adhesive applicator out. He'd have to figure out how the nozzle had leaked before he stored it again.

According to the sensor, there were over a thousand micro-rips detectable just from standing near the portal controls. The number increased as he approached the portal itself; the highest quantity the scanner detected was nearly 5,000. Over fifty times higher than on the shack's ground level. It was clear some sort of damage had been done here.

But Fiddleford had said, for them to be concerned about reality shredding, there should be hundreds of thousands of micro-rips in one location. And Ford trusted any numbers Fiddleford gave him; wherever Ford tended to double-check his math, Fiddleford quintuple-checked his.

Even at the interdimensional portal itself—the spot where the veil between Gravity Falls and the Nightmare Realm had been ripped open and stitched shut so many times, the spot where the rift that nearly ended the world had been formed—there were less than 5% of the rips they needed before they started reaching dangerous levels.

Ford looked up at the portal, frowning.

The portal's torn and crumpled pieces lay against the cavern walls where he'd left them last summer.

Never mind. There were several other places that could be hotspots for micro-rips. He couldn't draw any conclusions about what was happening here until he'd checked them too.

But whatever was happening, it certainly wasn't an eclipse.

He added Fiddleford's spray attachment to the adhesive applicator and filled the chamber with a mist of glue, until the scanner read less than 200 micro-rips; then stopped by his study to grab a couple maps of the mountains around Gravity Falls, his antique lantern, and a tent; and headed back up to the house.

####

During their past year of travels, Stan and Ford had started keeping two emergency backpacks stocked in case they needed to flee on short notice. The backpacks contained everything they'd need to survive in the wilderness or a strange city for three days; and Ford had thirty long years of experience to teach him exactly what supplies that necessitated. He grabbed his backpack out of the guest room, and then spread out his map on the kitchen table to show to Dipper.

"If our micro-rip theory is correct, there are four potential places where I suspect they'll be most densely concentrated: the place where the interdimensional rift formed; where it was unleashed; where it was suspended for the majority of Weirdmageddon; and where it was sealed."

"And you've already checked the portal where it formed," Dipper said. "What about the place it was suspended? It was floating in the sky over town. There's no way we can get up there until gravity's completely gone, and by then it'll be too late."

"I've considered that. The closest we can get is Gravity Peak, but from there we should be able to get the sensor close enough to tell if there's an unusual amount of rips." Ford circled three spots on the map, and drew a dotted line connecting them. "We're heading out late, but we should be able to hit the locations where Weirdmageddon began and ended today. We can cross the lake to camp in the cavern behind Trembley Falls, get an early start, and take the hidden cave tunnel up to Gravity Peak."

"Not the best time for a hiking trip," Bill said.

Ford shot him an exasperated look. Bill was leaning in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, smirking condescendingly. "Or maybe it is, if you're trying to avoid as much effort as possible," he says. "But I still wouldn't go if I were you. You don't want to be outdoors during an eclipse—and you don't want to be on a mountain when gravity comes back."

"Nobody asked you," Ford said, turning his back on Bill. "Now—cooking will be difficult as gravity decreases, but not to worry—" he unzipped his backpack, "—I've already prepared everything we'll need." Grinning, he pulled out what looked like a toothpaste tube with a "beef and vegetables" label. "Astronaut food!"

Dipper grimaced. "Great."

"You should have asked me," Bill said, a bit louder. "Considering that Specs is sending you on a wild goose chase. But hey, if you're that determined to waste your time, just don't say I didn't tell you so."

"You haven't even told us what an 'eclipse' is," Dipper said. "If it's not important enough to explain, I don't see why it's important enough for us to listen to you."

"Well said," Ford muttered.

"It's too important to explain," Bill retorted. "I've told you everything you need to know!"

Ford said, "Ha," and started folding his map to pack.

There were a few seconds of blessed silence; and then Bill walked into the room, leaned on the fridge, and glowered at Ford. "Listen. As far as you're concerned, the eclipse is probably harmless. It should peak in three days—"

"Fiddleford said at its current rate of decrease, it should be the day after tomorrow."

Ford expected Bill to argue; but instead, he frowned uneasily. "I—Sure, fine, whatever, he's probably done the math, I've just been eyeballing it. Did he say what time?"

Surprised, Ford said, "early afternoon, by his measurements."

Bill nodded vaguely, glancing again toward the ceiling. "Whatever time it happens—gravity will gradually decrease until totality, and then it'll come back very quickly, so—if you want to help your town so much, tell them that they don't want to be climbing trees in zero G. Otherwise, the best thing you can do is stay inside, wait for it to pass, keep your eyes shutduring totality—and do not look up."

"Why can't we look up?" Dipper asked.

Bill laughed derisively. "Would you stare at the sun during a solar eclipse? It's like I'm talking to babies!"

The last fraying thread of Ford's patience snapped. He seized Bill's hoodie by the strings and dragged him closer. "Enough!"

Bill flailed, kicking the table as he tried to back out of Ford's grip, and ended up losing his footing and landing on the floor. It was too easy to drag him around—he was so light. Ford leaned down to glare straight in his eye. "If you're so worried about how we're handling this eclipse of yours, maybe you should come with us!"

Horror bloomed in Bill's eye. "What? No no no, that's—that's fine, I told you everything you need, I'd just slow you down, I'd really be much happier in here—"

"I bet you would be," Ford snarled. "As far as I'm concerned, the fact that you want to stay inside so much is reason enough to bring you along! Either something out there scares you, or there's something in here you want to be close to during totality! Maybe something will happen at the portal! Whatever it is you want, I don't want you to get it."

"Grunkle Ford?" Dipper had gotten out of his seat and was looking uncertainly between Bill and Ford. "I'm not sure about..."

Bill's gaze snapped from Ford's face to Dipper's, and Ford could almost see the gears shifting in his head as he latched on to a more vulnerable target. "Kid. Remember when I told you there are things out there you don't want to meet? Stay inside—let me stay inside—find a good book to distract you the next couple of days, and don't worry about things you don't want to know too much about. As far as you should be concerned, this is a weather phenomenon. You don't want to dig any deeper than that. Stay. Home."

The corners of Dipper's mouth turned down. He grabbed Ford's coat sleeve and said, voice low, "Great Uncle Ford, I... I'm not sure he's lying. I've never seen Bill scared like this before. And when he told me about things in other dimensions, this gravity thing hadn't even started, so he couldn't have..."

"Unless Bill was expecting this to happen, and everything he told you yesterday was the groundwork to make us believe whatever he wants us to believe." Bill had wormed deeper into Dipper's head than Ford had realized, if it was enough to make him consider Bill's nonsensical claims. Ford should have asked more about what Bill told him yesterday. The monster could have been filling his gnephew's head with all sorts of nightmares. "Doesn't it seem a little lucky that he told you all that one day before this?"

Dipper grimaced. "I mean..."

Ford glared at Bill again. "I'm not buying it. And the more you make up ridiculous explanations like 'gravitational eclipses' and 'things from other dimensions,' the more you insist that this is somehow both no big deal and incredibly dangerous just to witness, the less I believe this is anything but a patently ridiculous attempt to keep us from interfering with whatever is about to happen! And frankly, that makes me want to interfere even more!"

Bill let out a strangled laugh. "You've gotta be... If you think I'm that suspicious, how do you know this isn't reverse psychology?! Maybe I want you to take me outside!"

"Maybe you do. That's the awful thing about you, Bill: I can second-, third-, and fourth-guess everything you say, and I'll never be sure I've figured out the truth! At some point I just have to make an educated guess."

There was a knock at the doorway. "Hey, Dr. Pines?" Soos leaned into the kitchen. "I heard furniture and anger. Is everything... uh..." He trailed off, taking in the scene—Bill on the floor backed up against the fridge, Ford crouched over him, Dipper watching anxiously. "Everything cool here?"

Ford got to his feet. "Dipper and I are going on an expedition—and unfortunately, he has to come along. Soos, do you have a spare backpack we can use for his supplies?"

"Uh, I think so—"

"Great," Dipper snapped. "This is just perfect. I've been waiting a month and a half for us to do something cool together, and when we're finally about to go on an expedition, it's ruined by him?" He gestured angrily at Bill. "He's already ruined the rest of summer!"

Bill said, "Hey, I didn't consent to this plan either."

"You shut up," Dipper snapped. "This is all your fault! You could have just left us alone, but...!" He let out a frustrated noise. He pushed past Soos out of the room and ran up the stairs.

Ah. Ford's shoulders slumped. Sometimes he wasn't quite sure where he'd misstepped in a conversation, but this time it was pretty obvious. Between this and the nearly-disastrous trip to Portland, Ford was well in the lead for Worst Grunkle of the Summer.

"Wow. You broke that kid's heart," Bill said. "Not too late to make it up to him by going back to the original plan."

Ford shot him a dirty look.

Bill shrugged. "I'm trying anything I can think of at this point!"

Ford sighed harshly, and left to follow Dipper upstairs.

Bill sat up and waited until Ford's footsteps had receded. Voice low, he said, "Questiony, listen, I need your help. Stanford's gone completely insane. You didn't see how he was ranting and raving before you got in here. Who knows what he'll do to me if he gets me alone outside the shack with only his junior sycophant as a witness—?"

Soos looked deeply uncomfortable, but he shook his head. "Not buying it, dawg."

Bill groaned.

####

Ford knocked, and gently pushed the kids' damaged door open a crack. "Dipper?"

Dipper grunted. He was sitting on his bed, chin in his hands, glaring down at his journal in his lap.

"Can I come in?"

Dipper grunted again. Ford wasn't being ignored, so he took that as permission to enter. He delicately sat next to Dipper and tried to figure out what to say next. (He was surprised at how firm the mattress was—and then realized the real reason he wasn't sinking as far into it as he expected.) "Dipper..."

"You don't need to say anything," he sighed. "You're right—Bill probably is up to something. If he wants to be in the shack so much, and won't give us a straight answer why, then... it's probably safer to keep him out of it." But he sounded so terribly resigned.

"All the same, I understand your disappointment," Ford said. "I'd far rather go hiking with you than with him."

Dipper nodded. "Yeah. It's just..." He trailed off.

"I know. I wanted this summer to be different, too." Ford sighed. "As soon as he's gone, I owe you another hiking trip."

Dipper nodded again. He mumbled, "I've never gone hiking before."

This was some way to experience it for the first time. "We could treat this like a practice round? A warm-up with lower gravity to make it easier. Next time will be a real trip—without any crises to worry about, and without Bill."

"I don't mind the crises," Dipper said. "I'm kind of used to them, actually. They're almost fun now."

In his mind, Ford knew that this was probably another thing that should earn him a Worst Grunkle award. But in his heart, he was proud of Dipper. That was an adventurer's attitude.

"It's just... I haven't been able to get away from him all summer," Dipper said. "And even when I'm avoiding him, Mabel's spending all her free time either with her friends or trying to reform him, and you're spending all your time trying to figure out how to kill him, so I barely see you two..."

And that wasn't even something Ford could blame on Bill, was it? He hadn't been spending his time trying to figure out how to kill Bill since he'd handed over the Quantum Destabilizer design to Fiddleford. He'd simply been... obsessing. Hiding and obsessing. Ford stared down at his hands guiltily. "Tell you what. As soon as this is over, we can go do—something. I don't know what yet, but we've got a couple of days to think it up. I've spent too much time underground the last few weeks, anyway. We may not be able to go on that big adventure until Bill's gone—but it's something, for now."

"Yeah, I'd like that. Thanks, Grunkle Ford." 

Ford nudged him. "And as long as you do have to put up with Bill for this trip... look on the bright side. Haven't you been wanting to get a crack at him without your sister around? See if you can pry out any more alien wisdom before his execution?"

Dipper huffed—but one corner of his mouth reluctantly quirked up. "Thanks, but I'm starting to think that's a bad idea. Every time I try, he just says stuff that gives me nightmares."

"Well—consider it an intellectually broadening experience."

Dipper gave him a weak smile.

"Anyway, with a little luck, it won't be long before you'll never need to deal with him again."

####

Soos had an old Monster-Mon backpack with cracked vinyl around the straps that he hadn't used since he outgrew it in fifth grade. "Lucky I didn't throw it out when we moved. You never know when you're gonna need old stuff!"

Bill had no idea what he was supposed to take on a forced camping trip. He knew what humans took, but humans craved all kinds of material comforts that meant nothing to him. After a couple minutes staring at the bag forlornly, he stuck in a spare shirt and leggings—he doubted he'd need extra underwear or socks, right?—and the Pony Heist bedsheet he'd been using as his sole blanket the last month, his toothbrush and toothpaste, a cider six-pack, two boxes of cereal, a kazoo, and the TV remote.

"I need some first-aid supplies. In case of emergency," Bill told Soos.

"Sure, whaddaya need?"

"Bandages, painkillers, matches, and a knife."

"You got—" Soos paused, then pursed his lips at Bill disapprovingly.

Bill sighed. "Bandages and painkillers. And cold medicine. Woods get chilly."

He glanced up as he heard footsteps upstairs. Not much longer until he was dragged outside. He grimaced. "One more thing, Jesús. This is important."

"Whoa. Full-first-name important?" He stuck a bottle of cold syrup in the backpack, hit something hard, and peered in confusion at the six-pack.

"Stanford's being petty and refusing to believe anything I say, but I know you're not that stupid," Bill lied. "So listen: this thing will peak in a couple of days and then go back to normal. It's mostly harmless to humans—but once the peak has passed, gravity's coming back like that." Bill snapped his fingers. "So anyone you want to come out of this intact needs to do two things. One, the moment gravity completely disappears, they need to anchor themselves, as close to the ground as possible, before it comes back. And two, do not look at the sky. Got it?"

Soos hesitated; but then nodded. "Y-yeah, got it."

"Understand?"

"Understood."

"Good."

"So are you like... trying to protect the town now?"

Bill laughed bitterly. "I'm trying to cover my base. When this is all over, even if all my warnings were ignored, at least nobody will be able to say I didn't try. I could have sat on everything I know! But I didn't! And I'm going to rub. It. In. Ford's. Face." He punctuated each word with a jab to Soos's chest.

Soos endured the jabbing with a patience Bill didn't deserve. "Byyy protecting the town?"

Bill opened his mouth, reconsidered, and said, "Sure! Of course I'm protecting the town! Why would I want any harm to befall the citizens of my once and future capital?"

"I mean, no offense, but you befelled a lot of harm on us last year—"

"I did not," Bill snapped. "Everyone was perfectly comfortable in my throne of frozen human agony." He yanked the backpack's zipper shut, pulled it on, and pushed Soos aside to leave the kitchen.

Stan had stopped Ford at the foot of the stairs. "But if this is some nightmare dimension thing, isn't that just another reason not to take Bill outside? What if one of those wormholes opens up and he dives through? Maybe escaping back to his dimension will give him his power back, we don't know."

"I've considered that—but if that is what he's planning, all the more reason why he should stay with Dipper and me, so we can stop him if he tries anything."

"Are you nuts? It'll be two of you in the woods versus four of us here in the shack! We outnumber him more than you do! Plus walls and doors!"

"We have the hexed bracelets, he won't be able to escape us," Ford said.

"Aww, I get to share matching friendship bracelets with someone?" Bill gave Dipper and Ford what he hoped was his most obnoxious smile. "Who's the lucky guy?"

Scowling, Dipper raised his hand.

Bill's smile dimmed. "You are the lesser evil," he admitted grudgingly. "But I'm surprised ol' Six-Fingers doesn't want to keep as tight a grip on me as possible."

"We decided that if you try to kill your bracelet partner and escape, Grunkle Ford would have a better chance of avenging me than I would have avenging him."

Bill's brows shot up. "Ruthlessly utilitarian. Was that Stanford's idea?"

Ford ignored the question, pushing on with his conversation with Stan: "And anyway, there might be more people in the shack, but none of them would be me. I know him better than anyone else."

Bill laughed hard enough that his feet momentarily lifted off the floor. "Oh do you!"

Ford's gaze shot to Bill's face, eyes blazing with fury. "You know I do. I've spent thirty years learning every trick, every lie, every betrayal that's made you who you—"

"What's my favorite food."

Ford's mouth worked uselessly. "That—doesn't matter—"

"You think you know my innermost soul when you don't even know my favorite food?"

"Favorite... human food, or...?"

"Oh, sure, I'll give you a fighting chance. Human."

Ford chewed on the inside of his mouth for several seconds. Finally, he said, "Jalapeños."

Bill crossed the entryway, leaned into the hallway, and took a deep breath. "HEY, MABEL!"

From the far end of the house (where Mabel was seeing how high she could jump in the floor room), she shouted, "YEAH?"

"WHAT'S MY FAVORITE FOOD?"

"NACHOS WITH CHOCOLATE SAUCE AND SUMMER-SHAPED SPRINKLES!"

Bill gestured down the hall, ta-da. "THANK YOU!"

"I was close," Ford grumbled. "Nachos have jalapeños."

Stan said, "You're not even out of the house and he's getting under your skin. Are you sure you wanna—?"

"I am not," Ford said, "leaving him in the house. And if you'd heard how he was fighting to stay under this roof, you wouldn't trust him in here either."

Stan looked at Bill.

Bill looked Stan dead in the eyes and said, "I don't know what he's talking about. I agreed to go as soon as he asked."

"Oh, shut your—" Ford snatched the bracelets off the coat rack, flung one end at Bill, and handed Dipper the other. "Put these on. We're leaving."

Bill scowled, but considered his odds of successfully resisting, reluctantly put his end of the bracelet on, and yelled down the hall, "BYE, MABEL! I'M BEING KIDNAPPED BY YOUR UNCLE AGAINST MY WILL! I MAY NEVER RETURN!"

"I'LL MISS YOU FOREVER!"

Ford opened the door and gestured impatiently. Bill took a couple reluctant steps closer, but stopped to look at Soos and say, "Remember what I said. Do not let Mabel be in the air when gravity comes back, you know if someone doesn't watch her she'll launch herself as high as she can—"

Ford snapped, "Either you walk or I drag you, Cipher."

"I'm coming." He stepped outside, paused, and cast a worried look at the sky; then squeezed his eyes shut, lowered his head, and walked into the sunlight.

####

(That's this week's chapter! I'd love to hear your comments and thoughts. Next week: I'm gonna do my level best to shatter your hearts. Look forward to it!)

[sonofstarsnsea]

About this blog and sources.

Greetings. My name is Gabriel, or Paul, and this is my blog where I post about the occult and spirituality.

I have been a theistic luciferian demonolater since May of 2023. I believe in the influence of daemon royalty on the mortal world, magick, craft and spirituality in general.

I currently work with three daemons; King Paimon is my main patron, him and I being in a platonic/romantic relationship, so my interactions, poems and art are made with those intentions in mind.

My other patrons are Lord Lucifer and Marquis Andrealphus, although I am not very close to them compared to King Paimon.

The main sources I use for information are:

S. Conolly's "The Complete Book of Demonolatry"

Michael W. Ford's "Apotheosis: The Ultimate Begginers guide to Luciferianism and Left-Hand Path"

https://demonolatry.org/library-archives/

The Lesser Key of Solomon (For encyclopedic reasons ONLY)

My boundaries and FAQ

Although I am someone who likes to joke about everything about my life, incluiding my religion, I do have some boundaries.

Its okay if you joke with me about my patrons or UPG's/SPG's as long it stays lighthearted and respectful.

Don't make ANY sexual jokes regarding me and King Paimon, it will disgust the hell out both of us.

Don't "tease" about my patrons not being real (i. e.: lol your imaginary friends are funny). Its an old joke, no one laughs, get out.

Don't "pray" for me.

I don't mind other-faithed (?) people following/interacting with me, so yeah you can be christhian and like my posts lol.

Do NOT follow me/interact with me if you actively disrespect other faiths with full conciousness on mind, knowing it is offensive (i. e.: Jesús in NSFW contexts, sexualization of hijabi women, "Fuck Christ", etc).

Q= ¿How did you started on LHP/luciferianism/demonolatry?

A= Long story short, Hereditary (yes, the movie) changed my life.

Q= ¿Can I name/create an OC based on a daemon?

A= Yes, you don't need to ask me permission about it. I have my own rules about OC's based on daemons, but they only apply to ME, not you.

Q= ¿What kind of magick/craft do you use?

A= Chaos magick mixed with my Mexican culture.

Q= I want to initiate in the occult (related to LHP) but I feel overwhelmed about all the information, can you help me?

A= Yes! My DM's are always open. I will try to help you the best way I can. Remember, I am no figure of authority inside luciferianism, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Q= ¿Are you ok with ___ demonic representation?

A= Depends, some fictional representation of them are good, some are very ugly. But at the end of the day they are fictional representations and not the real beings I do worship.

(I am looking at you Stolas' dad from Helluva Boss, I refuse to call you by your name)

TL;DR - I'm friendly, I love everyone, don't be a creep!

[pix-writes]

Congrats on 1000 likes!! Wondering if I could request ford with an environmental scientist!reader? Like where ford enjoys theoretical physics and maths, the reader is more focused on geology and biology? No worries if not!!

Dearest anon, you don't have to worry because this is right up my alley!!! I studied earth sciences so let's gooooooo! 😁🥳

Stanford Pines x environmental scientist!reader

Rating: SFW

A/N: Was terrible at physics but I love earth sciences so this is practically a self insert? lmao! Ford finds someone who likes to infodump as much as him about their academic interests! ^^' so sorry that the reader rambles so much. The wilderness must be explored! Hope you enjoy!

"You mean to tell me that you think you've discovered species hitherto unstudied and you didn't call me until now? Are we even friends?!"

That had been your reply on the phone. Ford chuckled, relieved that you had been available and eager to accept. He was perhaps inundated with work and whilst he didn't want to admit where he was limited in his expertise, he knew he could afford to extend his studies and offer someone else an opportunity. He was glad it was you.

You had Fiddleford to thank for your introduction, you had been in a group campaigning for environmental rights on campus, the hubub was something Ford would've generally ignored, but Fiddleford had seen some familiar faces amongst the crowd and he couldn't deny that he was curious about the cause.

He'd found out why you had seemed familiar, as you recognised them from the shared lectures you had.

"Ugh! They made us take a course in statistics, but honeslty, I'm hopeless at it! It's right at the end of the day, too, so I'm trying hard not to fall asleep, you know?"

"Um, well, I actually don't find it that bad."

"But we both agree the professor drones on something awful, right Ford?" Fiddleford gave him an encouraging nudge with his elbow.

"My god, he does!"

"S-so, um, maybe if you sat next to us, I- we could help you? We both take mathematics."

He had been nervous at first, afraid that you would reject him for his six fingered hands. Rumours had been spread across the BMU about him and so far only his roommate had been the most accepting.

But like him you hadn't noticed at first, once you did you had only picked up his hand and said -

"Woah, far out!"

When he had slipped his hand away you had actually apologised.

"Don't give a damn what the rest of them think, Ford. Anyway, I think they're cool!"

And thus your friendship had been forged. Your shared courses were brief together, but you both had a love of DD&MD and kept a campaign running through college.

His excitement for someone coming to relieve the isolation of his life in gravity falls was curtailed, slightly, once you had started pouring over his work. He had temporarily forgotten that you were nearly as scrupulous as himself.

"I can't believe that you were recording these like this! What if your work was to get lost or destroyed, hm? There is so much to do here!"

Eagerness had devolved into critique it seemed, and Ford felt like he was losing the war.

"There's nothing even here about habitats or behavioural patterns for this entry... overall, this is inconsistent, Dr Pines."

He huffed, putting his hands in his pockets. "So are you going to accept the task or just pull it apart for the rest of the week?"

You tried to suppress a grin and failed. "When can I start?!"

Ford shook his head. "Just the same as when we were in college. You take too much delight in messing with me!"

Your laugh rang out over the lab. "Gotta keep you on your toes, Stanford! Like you, I have high standards."

"You can start whenever you're ready, of course."

"Good, because I want you to show me your latest find you talked about."

"Well, I'm glad you called me, seems like there's a lot of work to do here and it's not good to lone work so remotely, Ford, you know I wish you contacted me sooner had I known you were-" You gasped as you looked down into the river and Ford spotted one of the plaidypuses he had discovered last week.

"Oh this is fascinating, Ford! I wonder how they've developed such a pattern, perhaps in the falls they are not predated on? Yeah, maybe that's it."

This sparked a conversational debate, Ford elaborating on what he had said over the phone, how he had discovered them, what else lies in the forest surrounding.

"And just look at this waterfall, a perfect example of differential erosion! Did you know that this kind of basaltic rock in Orgeon was actually formed around..."

Ford looked over to you, you had gotten up close to the edge of the waterfall, as close as you could on dry land, pointing out formations. He tried his best to add in hums of response at the right places, however, his mind had drifted as he saw how your face was highlighted by the light filtering down through the trees. The way the light breeze blew at your clothes, the sparkle in your eyes that lit up your expression as you talked about your subject.

His heart swelled with affection, he had been so lonely before, and he was kicking himself on how he hadn't thought of this sooner; it was so... energising to have someone around with a similar level of passion for their studies as he has.

"Ford, the camera! Quick!" Snapped out of his reverie he realised you had been trying to get his attention, directing him to the shore where a group of plaidypuses had arrived.

"Right!" He took a few photos, managing to get the measuring rod that you placed carefully in the foreground without startling the creatures.

A few tranquil minutes passed as you watched the group glide effortlessly in the water away from you, leaning back on the grass with your hands, legs dangling off of the ledge.

"What were you thinking about? You've got that far away look in your eye."

"Oh, er, nothing! Just an equation." Ford could feel a blush forming.

"Didn't think that'd be something you'd have trouble with."

"Really (name), just because I have a PhD in the subject doesn't mean I don't have to work at solving anything."

"Yeah, yeah, tell that to the girl still trying to get approval for her original proposal." Voice laced with sarcasm. "What're you on now, you're 8th PhD or whatever?"

"10th, actually."

"Jeez, man! Do you ever rest?" You laugh and Ford can't help but join in. "Don't worry, you can get back to your equations and scanners or... whatever else you do with physics! The river isn't far, I'll be studying their ecology for now, then we can decide on the rest."

"Sounds like a plan!"