your fave is problematic: weirdmaggedon part 2 weirdmaggedon part 2: airs on monday november 23, 2015 the real ford likely won't even be in it
@cryptoThelematrix haha yep. and since i think i might be doing a rewatch of gravity falls, if i have enough time for that, i'm gonna write a meta post right now here about why, up till some time in season 2, i had trouble really getting into it. since, well, i think that's an interesting thing to note down, how i initially thought about the show and how that has changed as it has gone on. Spoiler: long meta on my first impressions and stuff i recall, when i started watching the show, gravity falls basically seemed like an eptitome of a Weirdness Kitchen Sink, with no particular logic to how all the bizarre and magical things ended up there and which ones did. (that might make you wonder about me liking fairly odd parents then, since fop makes less of an effort with its worldbuilding. well, basically, fop is much more straightforward about it and there's the general theme of wishes and wish-granting creatures and things happening 'cause they were wished for. and the fairies have a great big rule book, very upfront about their limitations.) so yeah, i kinda knew there was a mystery and an explanation but i had trouble really getting at it, guessing at what it might be. so yeah, stuff like the introduction of bill cipher and ford, the spaceship and stuff, really helped me understand how the 'verse of gravity falls worked, in a way i hadn't before. that, in fact, it was not a random fantasy grab bag of weird stuff. and secondly, the characters. i wasn't especially connecting to any of them in particular, really, at the start. grunkle stan's personality initially seemed to be "grumpy and loves money a lot" and only around dreamscapers, maybe, i started to realize that he had more depth than that and actual reasons for being grumpy and loving money. now i like him much more than i did then. also, i recall that, well, mabel mostly appeared to be, well, a kinda manic pixie dream girl at the start, which made her hard to connect with. it took me a while to see mabel's insecurities, and the other stuff that made her more than that. and gideon has such an annoying voice, goddamn. (that has not changed. and will not change. at least until he goes through puberty, i suppose.) like, his eps would be pretty great if his voice was easier to stand. bill cipher, too, though i think gideon is definitely worse, voice-wise. (and no, i'm not sure why i developed emotional connections to the characters on fairly odd parents much quicker, other than that, well, norm the genie is just, like, 100% my type, haha. and i liked how free timmy turner was to be a jerk and selfish, in ways that i could relate to, which was something i recall not really seeing much in main characters back then. and i don't think any fop characters had voices as annoying as gideon's.) and lastly, i had a hella lotta trouble finding stuff i'd ship for gravity falls, back then. not enough characters and not enough ways to pair them, basically. not enough slash. so yeah...
Spoiler: this is probably not a spoiler but just to be safe I wonder what Mabel's idealized dream version of Ford would be like. I assume he and dream!Stan would get along a lot better than their real selves. Or maybe he wouldn't be there at all. Maybe in Mabel's dream world, it's still just her, Dipper, Stan, and the occasional goblin monster. That would make me very sad. I wish Ford and Mabel would interact more, they actually have a good deal in common. I sincerely believe he likes her, even if he hasn't connected with her the way he has with Dipper.
@soulsuckingisaacnewton Spoiler: reply to your spoiler that's a good question. i think she was pretty happy about him existing at the end of atots ("two grunkles for the price of one!") so i think he'd be in there. and yeah, if he was, he'd likely be on good terms with her version of stan. and i figure he might not take up, or even try to take up, as much of dream!dipper's attention as his real counterpart, since well, that seems like something mabel would want. maybe he'd interact more with her... i dunno. maybe in her dreamworld, they all, as you talked about earlier in the thread, get to bond over their love of making things explode. kaboom kaboom all the time, baby!
@unknownanonymous Spoiler That all makes sense. Especially the part about taking up less of Dipper's attention. It seems like maybe in her dream world, she and Dipper would both be staying in Gravity Falls (since she showed nothing but dread at the prospect of going home), but Dipper wouldn't be doing the apprenticeship and would hang out with her all the time. Maybe Ford would do fun, possibly explosive things with both of them. Sounds nice, except for the part where the kids don't grow up and everything is locked in stasis.
@soulsuckingisaacnewton Spoiler: reply yep. and of course, stan would be interacting with them too. i don't think she'd leave him out.
I know exactly what you mean. I gave this show a second chance because Acey liked it so much and I know we have similar tastes in terms of storytelling. I tried to watch it once before but the art style and the weirdness sink issue made it hard for me to follow. I'm pretty sure the first episode I managed to catch was Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons. Which was confusing, but also, um, probably all for the best in terms of getting me hooked successfully? The Last Mabelcorn came on right afterwards which kind of nailed me through the heart. I watched most of them close to in order after that and by the end of A Tale of Two Stans I had blossomed into the trash you see before you today. Shipping is a huge problem in terms of writing fic for this show. It's also frustrating that there are absolutely no female adults in the central cast. I have two sisters from Dimension 52 (remember "I miss Dimension 52..."?) in my fics, which makes me extra super special trash, I know... I would also walk through fire for Mabel and Dipper. Hell, there's not a Pines I wouldn't walk through fire for, except for Stanford and Stanley's parents, who I would only walk through fire for if I could leave them IN the fire.
Spoiler Oh yeah, I didn't mean to imply that she would leave Stan out. They're probably all setting off fireworks and having parties together in there.
I'm absolutely convinced that Ford likes Mabel. "I like this kid! She's weird!" "You are a good person, Mabel." But Dipper's been feeling left out to some degree ever since Mabel developed a circle of girlfriends, and Ford and Dipper both have that desperate need for someone to love them who will also care about the stuff they care about and not make fun of them or put down their dreams and passions, so I don't think there was ever a chance that they weren't going to bond like epoxy.
@cryptoThelematrix yes, the last mabelcorn. once i watched that ep, i was like, "yes! i'm really, definitely into it now! (like, i was starting to like it more than i did at first already, but tlm was what sold me on it.) and i have a ship! yay billford!" and the mabel subplot made me much more interested in her, as a character. like, insecurity about whether i'm a good person or not... i get that. yep, it is. though now i've got about two ships that i like a lot (billford and stancest), i'm not that bothered by my inability to get particularly interested in any others. though i think mabel/pacifica is cute, and i vaguely like billdip. dimension 52? not really that well, since i think it just appeared as words on the screen in tlm, but i looked it up. so, ocs, yeah? and yep, that is hella true about the stans' parents. :D nice. and that is so true. i so know dipper and ford's feel. so much. (like, just see how much i'm like, "i wish the fairly odd parents fandom was bigger and sjws were less of a thing in fandom." and also, my love for kintsugi. those come out of the same thing, fundamentally. wanting someone who gets it and who loves me.) just yeah... @soulsuckingisaacnewton Spoiler: reply yeah, i should've figured you didn't mean to imply that.
Yeah, Ford's issue is he's incredibly singleminded. He certainly does care about both Stan and Mabel, but they're not the people he's focused on right now so he kinda forgets they exist.
Y'know, I feel like it's kind of odd that Mabel hasn't (that we've seen) sought Ford out more than she has. She doesn't care all that much about the journals or share his interest in science, but you'd think that she would try to connect with a new family member regardless. If she feels like he's monopolizing Dipper, why doesn't she try to arrange for all three of them to spend time together? Why hasn't she, with her tendency for well-intentioned meddling, make more of an effort to push him and Stan into reconciling? Has she been avoiding Ford in order to avoid the changes that his arrival has created? I reiterate that I firmly believe Ford likes Mabel. He might not be as comfortable/sure of what to do around her as he is with Dipper, but I don't think he'd blow her off if she approached him. But yeah, Dipper and Ford having the close bond that they've developed doesn't surprise me in the least and I'm glad for them that they have it, even though there are some things that have gone on between them that are less than ideal.
Yeah, OCs. :) I can't do Stancest because one of the things that left me gutted after atots was the feeling that Stanley loves Ford but also completely fucking fails to understand him--I think that as he got older Ford realised that a lifetime of wandering aimlessly through the world and sleeping with strangers would be nothing but misery for him, but Stanley insists on believing that Ford is basically a smarter, gawkier, physically weaker version of himself. I write some billford (because frankly I think it happened, I've sort of explained why in some other posts) but it makes me very sad. If Dipper were an adult...I would probably be buying my ticket on Problematic Express to the Very Special Hell.
@soulsuckingisaacnewton yeah, that is odd. i think her trying to avoid the changes makes the most sense, since change is something she has difficulty with. hirsch did say something in the ama, i think, about how mabel only is as confident as she is, usually, 'cause she is dealing with things she is familiar with and understands, that when things change she loses her confidence, and also, well, the entirety of dipper and mabel vs. the future. (which, to me, was more like mabel vs. the future, honestly.) and i think, with the blowing off, that'd depend on when she approached him. like, he probably wouldn't take it too well if he was doing a thing he thought was urgent in some way, i figure. if it's "make mabel happy or save the world," he'd choose the world, i think, for example. and i reckon he won't be pleased with her when he discovers that she sorta-deliberately caused the weirdmaggedon. that the apocalyptic snowglobe didn't just break in her backpack, that she gave it to billendin in exchange for eternal summer.
Yep. 12-year-olds not really understanding consequences isn't really a thing either of the elder Pineses is aware of, AFAIK
@cryptoThelematrix ah, that makes a lot of sense, that stan loves ford but doesn't understand him 'cause he doesn't see who ford actually is. but, well, i dunno, for me, there is something really compelling about stan's devotion to ford, despite his lack of understanding of him and the various other reasons it might not work, and well, i saw some fan art and it hooked me. so yeah... and yeah, billford is inherently a pretty sad and tragic ship. (though some of the fanvids for it i've watched were also sorta funny.) @prismaticvoid that, and well, i don't think dipper would be that happy to discover that either, honestly. he'd probably be less likely to write her off as a result, but i reckon he'd feel at least a little betrayed by it, especially after trying so hard to rescue her. and might fault ford for not telling her exactly how serious the results of letting that snowglobe thing get in the wrong hands would be too.
He'll be upset with Mabel but he'll blame himself. I desperately hope that he and Stan will have made up before he finds out because he doesn't need any more evidence for this hypothesis of his that since he trusted someone he loved and almost broke the world once before, he can't be trusted to trust people. The same OC of mine that told him never to blow up her lab again has also been known to tell him to stop hoarding guilt and regrets and let everyone else have their share.
@cryptoThelematrix and i figure, if he did that, he would get into even more trouble, since if mabel knew the rift was really important, she mightn't have given it away to billendin. he'd end up learning the wrong lesson, not to trust people, when really he should trust them. ah, it was your oc that said the thing! i think i like her. :D
also, i think i'm confused about how much mabel knew about the portal and how it'd cause weirdmaggedon. like, she knew enough to fetch stuff for ford but i don't think she knew the rift was serious or that ford had involvement with bill or anything.
