Sorry I answered one more post over there so: Spoiler: sorry guys I'm a charter member of the filthy ford apologist squad 4 LYFE
I also want to clarify to @Petra and everyone else that it wasn't Stan I called a complete and total fuckup, it was my own brother. Who is one. :) I like Stan much better than I like my brother. I never said our family dynamics were exactly the same. For one thing, there was once a time when the baby Stans trusted each other!
all I really wanna see is this: THEY SOLEMNLY SWEAR THEY ARE UP TO NO GOOD. (and they are gonna kick triangle butt now.) (this is art by ecchima on redbubble, I have it as a sticker on my laptop. it makes me happy.)
I think I made a miscalculation in my twin analysis. Spoiler: Spoilers from NWHS on I said the way they viewed themselves and each other were based on how they were treated as children. But they were both ostricized and bullied as children, and it was only when Ford became a potential Cash Cow that their abusive dad started treating Ford better. Moreover, Ford had to go to a less good college and work his way to respect in academia. So, I theorize that Ford doesn't see Stan as incapable at all - rather, looking back on their childhood, he feels that Stan is perfectly capable and talented in many ways, but chose to throw that away and use his talents in some really shitty, amoral ways. This ignores the fact that Stan apparently had less access to ways to go legit than Ford did, but bc they were so close as kids, I think Ford probably doesn't see that as an excuse and might not even consider that Stan had less chances than Ford, he thinks Stan should have taken whatever chances he had.
Spoiler: Followup Oh my god, that means Ford doesn't hate Stan. Or at least, he's primarily disappointed with Stan. He looks at Stan and sees the kid he was and thinks, 'where did he go wrong.' He's harder on Stan because he thinks Stan can do better and he's got social issues and it's uncomfortable to just talk to Stan and actually communicate about this.
@Petra Spoiler: of course not! OF COURSE Ford doesn't hate him. At some point in time between the day they found the boat when they were kids, and the day when Stan broke Ford's project, Ford began to really think about his future, which Stan avoided doing (possibly because so many people other than Ford were convinced that he didn't have one). That's really when things began to fall apart. Ford realised that actually, living on a boat and hunting for treasure and screwing around with different girls all the time sounded a) impractical and unlikely to work out; b) probably not something he would actually enjoy doing, because he liked research; c) probably pretty miserable, because even if he wanted to be Casanova (which I doubt) he wasn't wired that way. I would not be surprised if he tried to raise this issue a few times and Stan ignored him. Stan is really good at not hearing things that he doesn't want to hear, and I think that's probably why Ford stopped trying to tell him those things. Now, in a good high school with good teachers the project wouldn't have been Ford's only way out. He would have been advised on how to apply for scholarships and get into lots of schools. But clearly, that didn't happen, and he wasn't doing a really great job of all that on his own (I think he has executive function issues of his own, and a sleep disorder) and this one chance was everything he wanted. And it became apparent to him that Stan wasn't willing to let go of the fantasy and didn't want him to have it. Ford always believed Stan could do things if he would just, you know, stop insisting that if he believed hard enough everything would work out. He felt VERY betrayed when the project was broken, because it wasn't intentional-intentional, but it did get Stan the result Stan thought he wanted. But he didn't hate him. He just was all confused because the only person he knew for sure loved him had screwed everything up for him, and why? is it because he's really a freak that nobody could ever love? Also I'm not sure he's wrong about Stan's choices. Stan got thrown out of the house, he was homeless for a while, but nothing was stopping him--not in the late 1970s US economy--from getting a shitty but genuine job and working to put himself back through school. Maybe he chose to become a con artist because he didn't think he had what it took to pull his shit together, but it actually was possible in the 70s for a lower-class kid to get a job, get student aid without becoming horribly indebted, and pull himself back together. Or he could have gone in the army, he could have done Job Corps, he could have done all kinds of things that weren't selling people shitty stuff and stealing and lying and cheating, and I'm sure that Ford would have helped him if he'd known. But Stan is proud too. I don't think either one of them hates the other. They just don't understand each other. And everyone thinks they should just know how to talk to each other but who the hell taught them that? Not their parents. Not their schools. Not being a con man, not dimension-travel.
@cryptoThelematrix Spoiler: Response Yeah. I love Stan a lot, but I do think probably a lot of his slide into crime was psychological rather than strictly financial. Stan is a talented guy. And let's face it, he's pretty determined! He could have gotten a crappy job and worked his way up and I think he would have done well for himself, but I think maybe he didn't think he could do it? It was less laziness and more... despair and depression. And then, of course, once he does get warrants out for his arrest and does spend some time in prison, it gets much harder for him to go legit, and he only went mostly-legit after stealing Ford's identity. That is, I believe he makes a good, livable amount of money from the Mystery Shack, but it's also pretty strongly implied he's still doing a lot of criminal stuff to fund the portal repairs, even before he stole nuclear waste or smuggled pugs on-screen. So, Ford isn't wrong that Stan had the potential to live a very different, happier life, but he doesn't understand the mental component going on there. Meanwhile, Stan is wracked with guilt over what happened to Ford, but at the same time, doesn't seem to really understand the kind of trust issues Ford has. I think Ford didn't shut Stan down so harshly before the portal accident because he didn't trust Stan, I think he didn't trust hardly anyone after finding out Bill had been duping him, and it's actually rather telling that he trusted Stan enough to call him.
I think that makes a lot of sense. Spoiler: legitimacy Ford started out on a "legit" academic path with Backupsmore, but he kind of dropped off that path when he went to Gravity Falls. He was researching the paranormal, which isn't widely considered to be a serious scientific discipline, accepting ill-regulated grant money from mysterious sources (I'm a fan of @cryptoThelematrix 's theory on that topic), and being commissioned to create mind control devices by nefarious government conspiracies that we'll probably never learn any more about (Ronald Reagan's masters?!). The fact that Ford achieved a degree of success and autonomy (before Bill butted in and wrecked it) without being a Respectable Member of Society might contribute to his feeling that Stan's misfortunes didn't force him into a life of vagrancy and petty crime; if Ford could cut himself off from the system and still thrive, why couldn't Stan do the same? Which isn't entirely fair, of course, because Stan didn't choose to cut himself off, he was thrown out. And Ford probably wouldn't have made it to Gravity Falls without his time inside the system beforehand. @cryptoThelematrix Spoiler: response to snippet This is true. I think Stan didn't pursue any of those options because: a) he is proud, as you say, and didn't want to depend on or owe anyone (possibly also because he feared being betrayed and cast off again as he was by his father) b) he wanted to make a fortune in order to win his father's approval, and he thought starting his own business was a better path to that goal than working for someone else c) he never got along well with authority, and didn't think being a minimum-wage worker or joining the army would suit him for this reason.
Spoiler: yep sorry my phone loves to top post. This is exactly it. I dtidn't know people think Ford hates Stan, that seems so weird to me as the resident Ford whisperer. Ford is so desperate to be loved and understood that he made a 12 year old his confidant because that's the only person who really gets him. sigh. My poor heartbroken paranoid darling. I thought it was absolutely clear that Bill was the reason he was being so weird. Have you come to steal my eyes? That's not a normal mad at you greeting, that's some grief stricken florid paranoid ideation. The best thing Stan could have done at that point would have been to recognize that this is trauma and mental illness combined and make him eat and sleep and then talk, but Stan had no way to know that.
Spoiler I think the impression that Ford hates Stan comes from the whole "is going to make him homeless again once summer's over" thing. I'm still not seeing anything that makes up for that, to me.
Spoiler: shady that grant was 80 kinds of messed up. I think he actually bombed in grad school and wrote some seriously crazy shit to get that money and Backupsmore let it slide instead of reining him in. Backupsmore has to have been a private school, not a state school. My dad taught at a place like that in the 70s. You could get in free if you were a valedictorian or salutatorian because you gave legitimacy to the rich fuckups who had to go somewhere because they had money. And if you wanted to do crazy shit, you could, they didn't care as long as someone was getting good grades.
Spoiler: srsly? that was the same conversation where they both said a lot of shit that neither of them meant. I don't think he could actually do it and I think that if he ever got a chance to calm the fuck down he would admit that he was just as serious as Stan was when he said he no longer considered him family, despite going out and taking on Probabilitor in the very next episode. If I had a dollar for every time either of those two said something horrible that they didn't really mean I'd buy the Shack and we'd all live in sin there like the Pines trash we are.
Spoiler: yes, srsly, and please don't condescend to me. He had quite some time to calm the fuck down, such as in that very next episode- say, immediately after Stan saved his life, that would have been a good time to say something if he'd changed his mind about kicking him out.
Yeah but that's not how those two beautiful assholes work. Stan didn't SAY he still loves Ford, he just acted on it. Neither of them has any understanding of functional conversation like you or me, they were raised by a stone wall and a liar and neither of them has ever had a functional relationship. It's not any more reasonable to expect Ford to use his words than Stan.
Well, in that case, when has Ford acted on anything similar? Spoiler: ETA: More explanation of my position Look, he said in words that he expected Stanley to give over the only home and livelihood he's ever managed to make work out for him. Now, he said this in the heat of the moment, so I could be persuaded that he'd decided against going through with it! Only he has not once indicated any such thing. The closest thing to addressing the issue came in DD&MD, when Stan referred to "my living room" and Ford retorted that the entire house was his, which only reinforces that he does not think Stan has legitimate claim to any part of the house despite paying it off through his own means and maintaining it for decades. He hasn't given any indication otherwise, so I can only go by the last thing he said on the subject. "I like him, so he wouldn't do the thing he said he'd do" is not an argument I find compelling. And I do like Ford! He's a great character! I'm just going to be mad at him until he shows some sign of actually changing his mind on this.
I think he will once they have a chance. I can't spoiler right on this phone but you know Ford has been basically exiled to basement land and/or in crisis mode for a while. I don't believe he would actually throw him out. He's never done anything like that, that was their dad. We don't know that he wouldn't have talked to Stan all those times Stan hung up on him, we do know that Stan was the one he sent for when he was the most broken and that when Stan got hurt during the fight that ensued his entire demeanor changed when he realized he really hurt him. I believe that they love each other but do not know how to handle it.
Spoiler: does ToTS stuff even still need spoilered or...? Stan was the one he sent for when he needed something and his only friend was busily frying his own brain. You're making a lot of assertions for which there is really no evidence. We have evidence that he didn't actually want to give Stan serious burn scars, yeah, but beyond that... I'm just as free not to make every assumption as favorable to Ford as possible as you are to make them.
@OnnaStik Everything is a matter of interpretation, so maybe don't ask me to prove my points if you're going to just respond with "it's a matter of interpretation" because of course it is? I'm not actually even trying to change your mind (that's pretty much impossible I suspect, and the same's true of me) but if you are going to say that you want to know why I believe what I believe, then I'm liable to tell you. Besides, no spoilers here, but I find it a lot easier to believe that the series will end with my darling dead or worse (given the current shitiation) than with your darling out on the street and I only have to go on tumblr to know that there's a disconcertingly large number of people who are ready to dance on his grave. :( I on the other hand do not hate Stan even a little bit (despite the fact that I'd elope with Ford in a heartbeat). I think they are both great characters and that the situation between them is tragic--I just don't hold either one of them to be innocent of it.
@cryptoThelematrix I don't think I ever said either one was an innocent cinnamon roll. I said I thought their relationship was more broken than you thought it was- I do think it's not exactly broken in a perfectly balanced way, but I don't think I brought that into it?- and then I objected to (at least what I saw as) you acting as if your interpretation was so obviously correct that it didn't even make sense to you that I thought differently.
