#or never having gone through anything only to be deeply hurt bc someone didn't haveyour back

[fordanoia]

I was thinking about stuff again and looking into the transcript and this exchange really does just pull some unspoken weight in it

Stan: How did things get so messed up between us? Ford: We used to be like Dipper and Mabel. The world's about to end and they still work together. How do they do it? Stan: Easy. They're kids. They don't know any better.

Of course we know Stan and Ford’s whole deal, but the whole sentiment here really just pulls a tragic note

There’s this unspoken acknowledgement that they both want to have a relationship, but (at this point) it’s treated as something that just... can’t happen

There’s a sentiment a lot of times that if you really love someone and they love you - that things turn out fine. Or at least, on the surface you’d think ‘well why would we ever stop being close?’ because logically, it doesn’t make sense

But in practice - it happens. It’s a falling out where you still both love each other, but now there’s this obstacle

really love the show for having this moment between them btw

And here in the show - Stan and Ford both see so much of how they used to be in Dipper and Mabel

Even here though where Ford directly draws that parallel though - he’s not connecting how they’re able to not squabble when everything’s going wrong - how they pull together instead of apart when the stakes turn high

and Stan saying it’s because they don’t know any better-

It just really paints a picture of how behind the pair of them are to Dipper and Mabel - especially after the Mabel-land episode

The Little Dipper episode is an instance where Dipper and Mabel have a similar squabble to the Stans’ petty hand-holding debacle, but afterwards they open up to one another and stuff is fine again.

-

The thing about this whole thing - it’s not that Dipper and Mabel never have moments of broken trust between each other or insecurities or anything like this - it’s that when this stuff happened they were eventually able to open up to one another and that’s how they got through it and came to work together without bickering

Because it’s not about blind or naive trust - it’s about that trust and putting in the effort to show some vulnerability and even talk about stuff instead of burying it down

Stan and Ford’s relationship acts as an obvious cautionary foil to Dipper and Mabel’s own, and it’s tragic because like with Dipper & Mabel you can see how Stan & Ford could also have possibly reconciled.

And the tragic thing in this set of lines is that, they really don’t understand and they still view it as this near-impossible thing for themselves.