#the brainworms are back guys!!!1!!111!!!!1111!!!!!!

[tigersharktheautisticseawing]

okay so I was listening to labour by paris paloma and I think I've made a discovery

so I was thinking through the song that while Stan in his teen years was experiencing physical exhaustion, when physical stuff is the stuff he's good at, Ford was experiencing mental exhaustion, having to study for like 12 PHD's at once while believing that if he can't do it it means he's a fucking failure due to his fragile af ego (same Ford, same), after the portal THEY SWITCH, and Stan is experiencing mental exhaustion (having to figure out portal building 101 on his own), and Ford is experiencing physical exhaustion (having to survive in the Nightmare Realm).

And like, that in itself is a pretty overdone concept, really, but the words "physical exhaustion" and "mental exhaustion" make it unique

I wanna see Ford believing that if he's not a smart guy then he's a freak, because he was told he was a freak by everyone except the people telling him he's smart. I wanna see him working himself half to death trying to prove that yes, he is smart and not a freak, and after a super compact study session he's at the edge of a breakdown, and the Fiddleford comes in and sees the hot mess in Stanford shape and asks something to the effect of "Stanferd... you good?" and Ford just screams at him to GET THE FUCK OUT OF HIS ROOM AND LEAVE HIM ALONE!, which ends in him realising what he said and crying, cause his brain is so damn fried

I wanna see Stan struggling. I wanna see him exhausted so bad he's couldn't stay up nights even if he tried. I want to see that man drained of energy, sad, wet and pathetic, on the very verge of sleep or death, while still trying to sell people products

And I wanna see Stan hitting himself in the head over and over and over telling his brain to do something! but it never does, he just stares at the numbers and code and slowly creeps to Ford's fucked up state, I wanna see this man cry looking at his brother's journals, wondering where he went wrong and why is he so fuckig stupid and such a failure, and breaking down, maybe if you believe in "fiddleford helped stan rebuild the portal" you can have the same scene as earlier but with Stan instead of Ford, or if not him just throwing the journal in rage and then apologising to like like to Ford and crying

I wanna see Ford completely spent. I wanna see him bleeding, dirty, chased by fuck knows what, slowly going feral as time goes on because it's the only thing that helps, while he knows that he'll most likely never return home, yet still accepting it. I wanna see him sleep deprived and near death, I wanna see him at his physical lowest

I wanna see the Stans take each other's places and realise that they were both in personalised hell that seemed a bit like heaven from the outside

I want to see them both realise that neither had that "perfect life" and that they were both severely fucked over by life, their parents and staneverything else

I wanna see them wrecked