A Lot Of People Have Pacifica Want To Become A Lawyer, Which Makes Sense Because Of All The Times She

Trying to figure out how I want to draw Gravity Falls characters

I have been figuring out how Mine-imator works and this is what I create

Wendy even gets a turquoise bandana like thing in the last few episodes, which I thought was funny because it reminded me of Petra

I dunno if this counts as a "confession", but Petra is basically Wendy (Gravity Falls), right?? In a totally good way. I think that's why I vibe with Petra's character so much. I just cannot see them without thinking of the other!

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In The Book of Bill, Dipper has his nightmare about his parents having... Maritial issues? Do you think Dipper tell Pacifica about the possibility of his parents spitting up? I know Pacifica tells her problem with her parents with Dipper.

On another note, angst dipcifica ideas?

Loooong post ahead. I think I got a little carried away.

I like the idea that Dipper and Pacifica, as they become better friends and stuff, both confide in each other - we only really see Pacifica confiding in Dipper in the show and books, which makes sense because she has one episode and one story focused on her (The Golf War was more about Mabel than her, though it was definitely important for character development) but just her telling him about her own problems probably wouldn't be sustainable for a long term relationship (whether romantic or platonic) (he's not her therapist lol)

I realize that's not really answering the question, that was just my tangent about what I headcanon (fun fact about me: I don't have very many headcanons because I like to keep my options open for what I write/draw about - I know headcanoning something doesn't automatically mean you can't ever go against that headcanon, it's just a random thought in my second tangent in this answer) so for if he tells her about his parents possibly splitting up: Maybe. I'd say it depends on how much their relationship (again, this could be platonic or romantic, even if I know we both ship them lol) has developed since the events of Northwest Mansion Mystery and Face It. It also could depend on how long it's been since they met her; she was still a bully to Mabel (and mean to everyone, but Dipper mostly cares about Mabel) and even if both the twins forgave her he might not be willing to open up very quickly to her. On the opposite side, she's already been vulnerable with him twice, which could make him more willing to open up in response to her, especially since it's (if we take his search history in BoB as canon and not something Bill made up, which I am generally inclined to do for when he was talking about anyone other than himself, but there's still the possibility that he was just Making Stuff Up) pretty much canon that he doesn't have friends outside of Gravity Falls and Mabel.

Tl;dr it depends on how you interpret them and their relationship post-canon. I would say that he'd probably tell her. Not right away or anything, but if they keep in communication with each other, eventually.

That was a lot of words, but I guess I have a lot of thoughts about these guys?

As for angsty Dipcifica ideas . . . this one's a little harder for me, since . . . well, I'd say I'm not a super angsty writer, though I've definitely done some. But I've come up with a couple!

The two of them go on some sort of adventure/monster hunt, get into a fight, and maybe they're distracted from something attacking them or one of them pushes the other and they fall in a hole. They get injured and the other one blames themselves for extra angst points! Could probably work with either in either role, though if Pacifica is the one who does NOT get injured there could be angst about her mean girl era, and if Dipper's the one who didn't get injured he could have angst because of his lower self esteem.

Other characters disapproving of their relationship. Not just Preston and Priscilla, who can definitely put a lot of angst (mostly on Pacifica) and you can definitely do a lot of different things with that relationship, but also some of the Pines's friends and family, like Stan, Ford, and Wendy, who can disapprove because she was a bully. Or even the Pines parents if they're a little older and Dipper takes Pacifica to meet them! Why the parents would disapprove, I have no idea. Well, I have some ideas, buuut I digress. This could put pressure on both of them and maybe they consider ending their relationship but ultimately decide that they're happier with each other (and they'll always have Mabel's support. She's the #1 Dipcifica shipper.) Unless you want to take it a really angsty route and they do break up. Maybe they get back together, maybe they don't.

They're dating but they're both super insecure about themselves and this culminates in . . . idk, maybe they hide their insecurities which leads to trouble, or maybe they sense the other's insecurities and try to help them, but it ends up backfiring and hurting them instead. Then they have guilt and even more insecurity!

I think that's all I got for now, though I'll probably be thinking about more Dipcifica angst stuff for a few weeks, but this was fun! I hope the wall of text wasn't too hard to get through and that it wasn't too confusing!

Stan twins: codependency & identity issues

“I tell you it’s unnatural for siblings to get along as well as you do,” says Stan to Dipper and Mabel in Not What He Seems, clearly missing his own relationship with Ford before things started to change. “We used to be like Dipper and Mabel,” says Ford in Weirdmaggedon 3: Take Back the Falls. Were they really, though?

I think what many people don’t get about Stan and Ford’s dynamic as children, or even as teenagers, is that, no matter what Stan and Ford think or say about it, they were not like Mabel and Dipper. That just highlights their lack of self-awareness. Here’s a canon analysis for anyone who cares to understand my point:

Mabel and Dipper have overall very different interests and hobbies and act separately on them. They have other friends and spend time with them—well, at least Mabel has Candy and Grenda, as the bubbly social butterfly she is; Dipper, on the other hand, seems way more preoccupied with deciphering the mysteries of Journal 3, but doesn’t miss an opportunity to be included in Wendy’s cool teenage group, as seen in episodes The Inconveniencing and The Love God (in the latter, he seems to be actually succeeding). As fraternal twins of different genders, no matter how alike they look (and despite Mabel’s joke of being “girl Dipper”), they still manage to retain pretty distinct identities. No issue here.

Mabel does her sleepovers, goes to boy band shows, and has encounters with potential crushes. When a surprised Dipper asks her about her vampire love in The Deep End, she points out, “I don’t tell you everything.” Dipper, meanwhile, explored the town with Soos, went to Wendy’s house, hung out with her teen gang, and overall lived many adventures without Mabel, such as trying to prove himself a man with help of the Manotaurs. I think the episode that shows the healthy independence Dipper and Mabel had from each other the best is probably Carpe Diem, inspired in Alex’s real life frustration with his sister, Ariel, but it can be observed all through the series:

What is shown to us in AToTS already differs from that. The Stan twins were inseparable, and each other’s only friends, as Stan establishes early on in his narrative: “Those bullies may have been right about us not making many friends, but when push comes to shove, you only really need one.”

With his question to Ford in the Lost Legends comic, The Jersey Devil’s in the Details, Stan implies they really did everything together, in a way reminiscent of Phineas and Ferb: “So what’re we gonna do today, buddy?”

Even small details, like the toys in their room, served to show the difference between the Stans and Dipper & Mabel, as Matt Chapman clarifies on the episode’s official commentary:

You also see that at this age, all the stuff that would cross over, that would appeal to both of them. You know, it’s not just like, oh, there’s science stuff here and then there’s like—I don’t know—what little Stan would be into. It’s like, no, they both like all this.

“But Mabel was just as desperate in Dipper and Mabel vs the Future as Stan was in A Tale of Two Stans!” Yes, true. She was, and I do believe her relationship with Dipper was the most important one in her life. But do you think the facts that a) she was already terrified of growing up, as shown in the episode Summerween, b) Candy and Grenda declined her invitations to their birthday party, c) Wendy showed her the apparently terrible reality of being a teenager, and d) Stan told her that it would be fine because at least she would always have Dipper... had nothing to with it? Originally her parents were going to forbid her from bringing Waddles to Piedmont, as revealed in the episode commentary of Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future, as just one more heartbreaking thing on the pile of Mabel’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. (Of course, teen Stan’s circumstances were aggravated by the bad home situation he was being “left alone” in by Ford—just like Mabel! Whose parents were arguing, per TBoB canon, to the point of giving Dipper recurring nightmares.)

Another very important thing is that the poor girl was twelve years old, while Stan was presumably seventeen-ish, an age at which separation would be normal and even expected, with the time for college approaching. In fact, differently from what happened with Mabel, whose imminent separation from Dipper came out of left field through an unexpected proposal by Ford (foreshadowed only by her slight discomfort over how close Ford and Dipper were becoming), there was a blatant rift between the teen Stans that Ford went so far as to acknowledge to Stan’s face. Using Stan’s own words from the Land Before Swine commentary: “Anyway, cut to high school, the guy’s never kissed a girl, prom is coming up, and he asked me for advice. ‘Stanley, I know things have been a little weird between you and me with college, but can you talk to me about girls?’” That was before prom (the one in which a girl threw fruit punch at Ford), mind you.

And still, this is what Stan thinks when he realizes Ford is going to accept the scholarship: “Without Ford, I was just half of a dynamic duo. I couldn’t make it without him.” He saw himself as only half of a whole—no wonder, with the way both twins were pushed to believe this since their birth, when they were both named Stan.

When asked about Shermie, Alex observed that a crucial part of their dynamic is that they only had each other. No younger or older brother to support them. The quote from HanaHyperfixates’ and ThatGFFan’s interview:

In terms of Shermie, I remember asking Rob or somebody at some point, like, “Would Shermie be here, logically? Do we have to see him?” I don’t really wanna see him. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in Stan and Ford being—sort of having only each other and then losing each other because of their different life paths.

I think the suggestion was, “Maybe Shermie would be a baby. Maybe that would happen.” And being like, “okay sure.”

Let’s not forget, too, the only time Ford ever mentions Shermie in Journal 3—“Sherman Pines’s,” surname and all:

From my own observations about their parents, that point is only driven further home.

Filbrick is, well, Filbrick. I don’t think I need to explain much here; every one of us has different interpretations and headcanons about him, but they seem to all agree on the common factor he wasn’t a good father—how much that can be justified by their time period or stretched to accommodate the most heartwrenching stangst is up for debate, just not a subject for this post.

Caryn is more complicated. I think Filbrick was definitely ‘worse’ than her, so to speak, at least in a more obvious way, and she has canonically demonstrated considerable fondness for Stan in particular—according to her, Stan’s rambunctiousness can be attributed to an excess of “personality,” he’s her “little free spirit.” She was, most notably, one of the two people present at Stan’s funeral if the info on the new website is to be trusted. We see her smiling brightly in the picture of the baby Stan twins included in TBoB, which hints at the fact she indeed liked her kids.

But the fact that she, as an adult, didn’t intervene when Stan was kicked out is simply, in my point of view, inexcusable. One could say she was momentarily paralyzed from an overwhelming fear of Filbrick, as a supposed victim herself, but a) that’s already entering headcanon domain, and b) I think that’s far from the truth and directly contradicting the comics, in which she looks happy and relaxed in the company of Filbrick: initiating contact and kissing him on the cheek, comfortingly stroking his back, looking at him with can only be described as tenderness... I don’t think Filbrick is meant to be seen as a monster, not in an exaggerated way. (He’s shown to be touched by Stan’s little stunt with the golden chain, too.) Just a really shitty father, in a common, boring, more nuanced, no less traumatizing, way.

Borrowing a paragraph from a previous analysis:

To me, the most telling thing of all is the fact Stan calls for Ford to help him, not his own mother. Ford, his brother, same age as him, who was at the moment beyond furious with him and very unlikely to show any compassion. Ford, whose attempts to change Filbrick’s mind would more likely than not have been unsuccessful. Not Caryn, adult, who probably had much greater sway over Filbrick. They say a child’s first instinct is to call for their mama. Clearly not in this case!

I’m not saying, here, that Caryn didn’t care about her boys. I elaborate more on her in the meta referenced above, here.

I find it adorable how easily, without any previous prompting, baby Stanley opens up to Ford about his feelings in the comics. The sheer vulnerability of this moment, seeking Ford’s reassurance that he wasn’t a bad kid; the implicit, profound trust, especially coming from someone like Stan, who grows into a man packed to the gills with toxic masculinity due to what he learned from his father. And the manner in which Ford gently comforts him, as if he were used to doing so. As Stan, too, had been shown to do when Crampelter mocked Ford’s fingers. They were clearly accustomed to being each other’s emotional pillars, in the way that kids who learned early on that they can’t count on adults or lean on the authority figures in their lives start building their own little safe space.

The way I see it, the Stan twins got along extremely well, for better or for worse. No obnoxious sibling bickering. No fights and conflict. How could they? They were literally each other’s only friend. If anything, their first major fight was caused by lack of communication, among many other things; they repressed their frustrations with each other to a ridiculous point instead of simply externalizing them like you would expect of an average sibling dynamic.

Second of all, they were monozygotic aka identical twins, as strongly hinted in the show, comics, and books, and as confirmed by Alex on the TBoB website, the behind-the-scenes DVD commentaries, and Twitter. The first mention of it, in 2015, below:

They were both named Stan, they had the same face. I’ve read irl identical twins’ confessions about the nature of such a relationship re: identity issues and how people tend to treat you, and it’s often not pretty. In the Stan twins’ case, their sense of identity was beyond blurry, and it’s not difficult to see why. If you pay attention to the show or the comics, you’ll see many hints of this unhealthiness: the way they were both called to the principal’s office (“Pines twins,” even though only Ford was an interested party), the way Stan was called “a dumber, sweatier version” of Ford by Crampelter, the way they had already pretended to be each other before, not in their childhood but adolescence (Stan’s idea, according to hilarious extra material in the DVDs).

Baby Ford, in the comics, has demonstrated a tendency to shoulder the blame that should only be attributed to Stan. For example, when he exclaims, “Oh my God! We killed the Sibling Brothers!” Ford, honey, if anyone had killed the Sibling Brothers, it would’ve been your brother, the person who shoved them in the first place. Not you.

I find it adorable that he also grounded himself for Stan! Filbrick had been very clear about grounding Stan, only, not both twins. But Ford stays with him as if he were grounded as well, as if he didn’t even have a choice. Where Stan was, there was Ford, not far behind.

They were an unit. Inseparable. As simple as that.

Until they weren’t.

The science fair incident happens, of course—and it’s worth noting Ford doesn’t consider the possibility that Stan sabotaged him out of jealousy or envy of his success for even a second! Instead, he immediately assumes Stan broke his machine so Ford would stay with him!

Did their codependency end with their separation, then? I’ve seen many people believing that yes, it did.

But mullet!Stan, now an adult, ten years after his fight with Ford, still resents Ford for not staying with him “forever”:

Not only that, but as Rob Renzetti (who is Gravity Falls’ supervising producer and story editor and the co-author of Journal 3) phrased it in this separate interview by HanaHyperfixates, Ford’s absence in Stan’s life haunted him and shaped all his relationships:

Um, I mean, to me that’s—I mean, really, Stan—Stan’s life has been… it’s been… sad, and lonely, since—he really… his brother was his best friend, and he loved him so, and I don’t think, you know, I don’t think any other relationship ever worked out for him, because of what happened between him and his brother.

And by the end of it all, you get Bill calling Stan “co-dependant” (British Bill?) on the TBoB website:

I know you might think, at first, that we should take Bill’s insults with a grain of salt, since he’s 1) Bill and 2) petty and desperate. But Bill has also a track record of trying to hit where he thinks will hurt the most, and he knows people. His insult here is not an isolated thing either. It might have been easily dismissed, I agree, if not for all the other evidence for the Stans’ codependency that I’m currently showing you. It’s just one proof out of many, just reinforcing an idea that’s already presented quite clearly.

If you’re still not convinced, Alex has revealed in HanaHyperfixates and ThatGFFan’s interview that Ford’s entire character was built around the type of person that could plausibility explain Stan’s neediness:

Ford was very much us building backwards. The same way you know a black hole is there by the light warped around it, it’s like, you know the damage someone’s family has done to them by all of their weird tics and behaviors. So who is the character who would result in Stan being this hurt and needy and mad and also longing?

But Stan’s codependency, imo, was always easier to see than Ford’s, to the point people mistakenly think Stan cared more about Ford than Ford about him. (I’ve dedicated an entire meta to debunking that assumption as well, here.)

In the commentary of Society of the Blind Eye, though, Alex added, referring to Ford and Fiddleford’s friendship:

Ford as somebody who lost Stan is kinda looking for—even though he rejected his brother, he kinda needs, he needs that other person, and he tried to find that in this kinda sweet prodigy and he just pushed him too far.

What Alex said about Ford’s relationship with Fiddleford can easily be applied to Ford’s relationship with Bill and with Dipper, since Ford needs “that other person,” needs to be one half of a duo. Ford has tried to recreate his dynamic with Stan again, and again, and again:

And then, of course, we have Ford’s proposal.

What’s really cool about this first image (below) is that it was drawn before Stan even accepted Ford’s proposal, and parallels their childhood picture in Ford’s pocket (one that, per Word of God, Ford has always carried with him, even before his portal days, as explained here) in a very obvious manner:

Ford was already excitedly fantasizing, drawing fanart of them together, picking their outfits and the name of the boat.

But more than that, he also says:

[...] I think it’s time for the Pines twins to join forces again. At least, I hope so. I haven’t discussed my idea with Stan yet. But if I know my brother, he will jump at the chance to find “money and babes.”

And this, to me, expresses both his hope that Stan would welcome his idea and agree to sail away with him and his almost certainty that it is exactly what is going to happen. Ford does mention Stan’s love for “money and babes,” but do you guys think Ford didn’t know what (or better yet, whom) Stan actually loved? In AToTS, Journal 3, and TBoB’s new canon material, we can observe that same certainty. In all three instances, Ford immediately assumes that Stan will show up and come for his call via postcard with no indication whatsoever that the possibility of Stan declining showed up in his mind.

Alex has also commented, in the first interview I’ve referenced:

Those characters at sea—it was so rich. They’re really really funny, because they both have major major blind spots. I can kinda write stories about them as a duo forever, because you can always excuse them both getting hyped on a bad idea for their own reasons, and then you can always come up with a reason for them to disagree about it, and it’s always sweet to see them come together again, because they’re so full of themselves, but they are also both so damaged they desperately need each other.

Not only reinforcing the idea that their codependency was—or at least eventually became—mutual, but confirming that things returned to their status quo. Ford has a black & white mindset, the only way he knows how to be with Stan is a codependent way. They’re either separated and estranged or they’re sailing completely alone on a boat for the rest of their lives. Either rivals or best friends forever. There’s no middle ground for him.

we’ve all heard of the fake dating trope… but have u considered.. fake exes trope…..

‘my new romance-obsessed friend asked me who my last date was with and i was too embarrassed to say i’ve never been on a date so i blurted your name and it turns out they know you’ au

‘i didn’t want to tell my friend who my real date last night was so i just pointed at a random stranger (you) but now they’re storming over to interrogate you and you’re playing along??? okay’ au

‘a mutual friend tried to introduce us, but we already knew each other from LARPing but we’re both too embarrassed to admit that so i jokingly said we used to date and oh god now our friend wont stop interrogating us about it’ au

‘im egging your house for a dare but your parent is a cop and they’re yelling at me so i told them that you were my ex and you wronged me and now you’re coming outside and please go along with this i don’t want to go to jail’ au

‘my current partner is a huge asshole and i need a reason to break up with them so will you pretend to be my possessive and violent ex’ au

‘we’re contestants on a reality show and we kind of hate each other so the producers told us to pretend to be warring exes for the ratings so now we keep inventing crazier and crazier things the other did while we were dating’ au

Btw I was planning on putting Will above them but I forgot because I don’t care about him much and haven’t quite worked out how he fits into the story. Also, I want to punch Gideon with that expression. I considered changing it but . . . It does make me feel an emotion sooo

[Image description: a hatless Dipper in a blue shirt with a black tie and pants stands with his arms crossed next to Gideon, who is wearing a suit similar to what he he wore in the show. On Dipper's other side are the words, "hates the tie and convinced them to let him get a black one instead of matching with Gideon." Above him are the words "Reverse Dipper." Above Gideon are the words "Canon Adjacent Gideon."]

It's more of my Reverse x Reunion Falls, which I have decided to name the "Half Reversed Reunion AU" which is literally just me saying what AUs it is - since it's half of Reverse Falls mixed with Reunion Falls.

Lore dump! Dipper is so done with the Tent of Telepathy shows but he does them anyway because he doesn't really have a choice. He was raised by the Gleefuls and is closer to Mrs. Gleeful (I don't think there's a canon first name for her so I'm going to call her Valerie in this AU) which Gideon is jealous of. I have several scenes of this AU planned and I think I can connect them into a story.

HARPVOR ENJOYERS!! I MADE A THING

I heard the song and immediately knew what I had to do

Leaves on the Stream-Aurelio Voltaire Ft Alissa White-Gruz

So I mentioned to my family that I was reading for another fandom and they were wondering which one. I chose not to tell them because I have a fondness for making people guess things instead of outright telling them . . . uh, it might also just be anxiety about words. Anyway, so I gave them a couple clues and they were guessing. And I was pretty sure they'd stumble upon the correct fandom given the clues and what they were guessing, and I knew if I hesitated before answering they'd think it was that one.

So they were guessing, and I was finding all this greatly amusing and going "nope" and then they guessed "Ben 10" and I hesitated, which made them all think I was reading Ben 10 fanfic. This was hilarious to me, because I was actually reading . . .

. . . ha, did you really think I was going to tell you what fandom it was?? Nope lol! Suffer!

Okay, so maybe this story isn't as funny to anyone else as it is to me. But I was having fun. So. Yeah. There's the story.

If I disappear from updating my fics just assume I’ve picked up a new fandom and have been reading 1 million fics of it. And probably written at least one work anonymously for it. I actually have a story that I personally find hilarious about this new fandom (new for me, it’s like two decades old lol) that I’ll reblog this post with. But not right now because I don’t feel like it.

Look guys, its Dipper Pines.