Mabel Good

When a fic doesn’t fit my head canons but it’s well-written

Better world ford meet Reverse portal dtanley

Oh, boy, that would be something!

For anyone reading this, you might want to check out this first, or you won’t understand!

Ok, so. Moving on. I think that Better World Ford can be interpreted in two ways: 1) the one in which he’s devastated by the loss of his brother, but still functional and clinging to the morals he does have, and 2) the more dramatic and darker one in which he’s a bit... cray cray, as Mabel would say, driven mad by grief and potentially overprotective and possessive over any Stan he’d happen to find. From my profound fanfic knowledge, I think most people (not just shippers but the fandom in general) would prefer the second option, hahah. I will try to answer what would happen in both of these scenarios!

Let’s think of reverse portal!Stan first. I assume you can only mean a Stan who went through the portal instead of Ford. I’ve talked about this possibility before, here, and to shorten things: I don’t think Ford would ever genuinely value the “greater good” over Stan. He didn’t in Weirdmaggedon, when he was ready to offer the entire universe in exchange for the lives of three people (Stan, Mabel, and Dipper), and he wouldn’t back then, either, when he had much less discipline and control than old man!Ford. But Ford is a complicated little guy, isn’t he. So there are a number of reasons why he could, hypothetically, decide to not rescue Stan. 1) He assumes Stan is dead, 2) he somehow manages to gaslight himself for a while into believing he values the greater good over Stan (only to regret it bitterly, because that isn’t who he is at his core), or 3) someone (Bill or Fiddleford the Cult Leader) purposefully or accidentally messes things up for him.

Personally, I think the first option is the most likely one. Despite his admirable determination, Ford can be a pretty fatalistic, pessimistic man. When Stan lost his memories, he did indeed believe Stan was lost to him completely, and would have continued to think so, if Mabel hadn’t attempted to resurrect the old Stan through her scrapbook. “I’m sorry. Stan is gone,” he told his desperate grandniece.

Not just that, but there’s a very juicy reason (to me) why Ford would believe so: Bill. Bill, who knows exactly how much Stan matters to Ford. Bill, who already tried to hurt Stan to get to Ford once, in TBoB. (And who turned everyone into tapestry in Weirdmaggedon but spared Stan and the kids to use them against Ford! We have a pattern here!) Ford would sink into despair thinking of all the things Bill could have done to his brother before killing him. I think Bill could go and put more wood to the fire by appearing to Ford and making something up on the spot to brag about, about how Stan screamed and begged for mercy and died thinking Ford hated him. Ford would then assume Stan was really and truly dead, because if he were alive, then surely Bill would make an attempt to blackmail him, to convince Ford to fix the portal to get his twin back. The fact Bill isn’t doing that is proof enough. The possibility that Stan just managed to escape Bill and is still evading capture wouldn’t even cross his mind.

But while this Ford would be utterly devastated with the burden of having killed his brother, Portal!Stan would not know this. No, he would assume Ford decided it wasn’t worth it, to fix the portal and get him back. That he wasn’t worth it to Ford. He could easily be led to think that his relationship with Ford was now wrecked beyond repair. He’d feel like something he never noticed he still had (hope that Ford loved him deep down) was being taken away from him.

Most people, when they think of Portal!Stan think of... well, our canon Portal!Ford, but make it Stan instead. Same thing! But—I’m realizing only as I’m writing this—I don’t think Portal!Stan would be exactly the same thing as Portal!Ford. Ford is, surprisingly, more hardcore in his violence than Stan! There are many moments in the show that highlight this, but I’ll try to be somewhat brief.

Think about it: both of the Stans had their years running from the law. Stan was banned from US states, while Ford managed to make himself an outlaw in many dimensions. A state is inside a country that is inside a continent that is inside a planet that is inside a solar system that is inside a galaxy that is inside an universe that is inside a dimension, and somehow Ford want us to believe he was “just as wanted” as Stanley! Uh huh! Ford managed, somehow, to be known across the multiverse as “armed and dangerous,” even in his younger days, while he still had brown hair (which is what his Wanted poster in J3 says in code, btw!) The aliens were afraid of our guy! Mullet!Stan meanwhile, homeless and presumably struggling to survive just as Ford was, didn’t seem to have a similar (in)fame. We can see his own Wanted poster in his box of memorabilia in Not What He Seems, but they merely list his conman-typical crimes. Don’t get me wrong, he would end up very different from our canon Stan nonetheless. I think he would be just as hard to catch as Ford (Bill would be after him as well, for sure), and perhaps even develop a sense of revenge against Bill for hurting his brother if he put two and two together and Bill appeared in his dreams to brag. He just wouldn’t have the same vibes, imo, and would perhaps rely on different skills, such as his silver tongue and ability for lying and understanding people, instead of making himself known interdimensionally as a dangerous threat like Ford. Bill would repeatedly warn bounty hunters about not underestimating him, but somehow they always would, and Stan would always escape.

Now, now. Finally, let’s talk about Better World!Ford! I said there are two versions of him you could imagine, the more reasonable one and the cray cray one, but no matter the version, he’d be mourning his Stan deeply, like half of himself had died.

Let’s assign some names for them so we don’t get lost, first 😭

BW!Ford = Better World!Ford

BW!Stan = Better World!Stan

RP!Stan = Reverse Portal!Stan

RP!Ford = Reverse Portal!Ford

Moving on again.

I picture RP!Stan visiting the Better World dimension for some reason and BW!Ford immediately wanting him to fill the emptiness caused by BW!Stan’s death. I can’t see BW!Ford not being overprotective of RP!Stan, considering he’d be 1) traumatized about losing BW!Stan and 2) terrified of what Bill could do to RP!Stan. Because again, Bill knows how much any Ford, of any dimension, loves his Stan. Bill could try and use Stan to hurt him! (Which would be, in fact, exactly what Bill was trying and failing to do for so many years, hahah.)

RP!Stan would be shocked by BW!Ford’s transparent and overwhelming love for him. Didn’t every Ford Pines despise Stan Pines? Perhaps BW!Ford was faking his love! Perhaps BW!Ford was just completely different from RP!Ford!

But if so, where’s BW!Ford’s own Stan? What happened differently? Something terrible, perhaps? Did BW!Stan have to die or something for BW!Ford to start caring? But then again, RP!Ford (apparently) had left RP!Stan to die after pushing him through the portal, so perhaps an average Ford wouldn’t even care about an average Stan’s death... (I’m sorry if this is getting too confusing! 😭)

(RP!Stan also considers the possibility that BW!Stan was just a much better brother than him, but that hurts too much. BW!Ford wisely doesn’t tell him about the fact BW!Stan had obeyed his order to take away the journal.)

Let’s suppose that RP!Stan then makes the mistake of telling BW!Ford about RP!Ford, who (apparently) hadn’t bothered to fix the portal to get RP!Stan back. I think BW!Ford would realize what actually had happened, and then he would have a decision to make: to tell RP!Stan the truth or not. If he did, perhaps RP!Stan would then embark in a journey back to the arms of his RP!Ford. If he didn’t...

Here I think it depends on how you interpret Ford (and his morals) to be. I think his morals are pretty loose, but nonetheless he can be pretty noble and self-sacrificing and prone to profound, if sometimes repressed, guilt. He could still feel empathy towards his other self, knowing intimately the utter pain of living while blaming himself for Stan’s death. If he decides to be the good, selfless guy, then happy ending for RP!Ford, unhappy ending for him.

Could he believably decide to lie to RP!Stan and say that yeah, his own Ford didn’t care for him? Yes, imo, with the right rationalizion. As Alex mentioned before, Rob Renzetti (coauthor of Journal 3 and his Ford expert) made him understand a fundamental truth about Stanford Pines: that he can do anything as long as he manages to justify it to himself, because one of his greatest powers is rationalizing. I think even a Ford with canon Ford’s morals could justify lying to RP!Stan if he managed to successfully convince himself that what he was doing wasn’t against Stan, but against the other Ford. Ford on Ford violence, if you will. He can be very self-loathing and very hypocritical at the same time, so if he somehow twisted the narrative inside his head so as to paint RP!Ford as the villain who deserved to lose his Stan and himself as the one who will take better care of RP!Stan... Especially considering Bill, and the fact he could consider it unsafe for RP!Stan to leave the BW dimension at all...

And if you want to go a touch darker—now I believe we’re approaching a darker!Ford territory; that is, I don’t believe canon Ford would be capable of bringing himself to do this, but his BW version has been twisted by grief—he could ensure RP!Stan never leaves him quite easily, through many different means, including Fiddleford’s memory gun. That would mean a definitive unhappy ending for poor RP!Ford, forever without his Stan 😔

one stancest request coming right up

30yo stans but instead of fighting in the portal room they kiss and everything is alright ^_^

this was my fav deleted scene. and then they fucked nasty

When you want to make content for your ships but you’re too lazy to write, or draw.

it really is a shame that some don't know that hippy anti-stan and "hip" youtuber anti-ford is a canon thing and not just a regular fan au....

once again it's hilarious that that it's not just a 'everyone is evil!!!' dimension and its what the stan twins would detest the most, so we have the main dimension versions being the ones on the verge of murdering their alt selves while the other two are way too fucking chill and that ends up pissing off the stan twins even more

storyboards from everyone's favorite scene

sigh, today i'm thinking about ford settling back into the lab after he first comes home, and seeing the proof of how hard stan worked to bring him home

stan was always the "dumb one" between them, always riding on ford's coat tails and slacking off. but he was able to do, on his own, without help from anyone, what it took ford 12 phds, fiddleford's help, and bill's guidance to do. just based off of ONE of ford's cryptic journals and whatever scattered notes and blueprints he was able to find, all while having never graduated high school.

ford having to confront how hard stan worked, how far he pushed himself, how smart he actually is

EDIT: also, stan only had journal 1, that's NOT the one he was working with bill in! that's his first few years in gravity falls, when ford was just as ignorant as stan was! there probably isn't a lot for stan to work with in there.

A BAD DREAM. Part 2

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Part 1| Part 2

ONCE AGAIN! I've destroyed my back for your satisfaction. Such an update schedule huh?

Drawing at this speed gonna take a chunk out of me sooner or later.

Well how are we feeling people? 🫶 Sad? Despair?

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"Ford wanted to sit down and finally talk about their issues, catching up after Weirdmegedon. Unfortunately he found out a memory his brother will never forget."

ughhh, they make me sick

My “draw the squad” memes so far