Ok Here’s A Stancest Hot Take That I’m Just Gonna Throw Out There:

God, I miss Pinecest 😩

I started this blog as a pinecest-specific sideblog, but even then I was late to the party. Literally days after making this blog, doublepines password-locked her blog, and then soon after deleted it. Everybody aside from a few lovely stragglers was kinda over it, every art had been drawn, every fic had been written, every theory had been theorized. It was time to move on. Sure, there was a fun little afterparty when the twins turned 21 and a few more times after, but the hype and interest had largely fizzled out.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED being a part of that afterparty. I just wish I could’ve been there for the golden days of Pinecest. When GF was getting new episodes, and people were realizing how cute these twins were together. I wish I knew what the culture of this little corner of the fandom was like, before the party started to die down. Back then, I wasn’t exactly an anti or anything, but the concept of being pro-ship was entirely foreign to me, and things like shipcest seemed gross, yet deep down I was intrigued. I missed out before I even knew the party had started. I can romanticize it in my mind all I want, but I really have a feeling that it was something special. Pinecest as a ship is so deceptively wholesome, people see “cest” and clutch their pearls, but when the oh-so-delicious taboo and angst are stripped away, they’re a cute, loving couple who only want the best for each other. I imagine the fandom surrounding the ship must’ve been just as wholesome in its heyday - excluding the occasional toxic fan and of course the rabid antis, but that can’t be helped.

I dunno, I just… I wish we could revive that again in earnest. I miss you, Pinecest 😭

STANLEY PINES IS IN LOVE WITH FORD PINES HE WOULD RISK THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE FOR HIM AND YOURE TELLING ME THATS NOT ROMANTIC SHUT UP

Brother kisser.

ok i'm curious. to any proshippers that make merch of their Evil Problematic Ships: how do you sell them??? i'm asking cuz on etsy i've seen listings with ship names but none of them have been like. incest or whatever. and i wanna know if you can post stuff with like "stancest" or whatever in the title without it getting taken down or if etsy will take ur shit down FSKDLFJSLKD

'cause if it isn't a problem i'd prefer labeling just so that. well first of all i can possibly have more explicitly romantic things up there. but also i don't want people who are uncomfortable with even fictional depictions of incest buying something i make and then getting mad at me for not telling them

do u guys fw fiddlestan.

Jealous ford is my fav thing and i need more of him

I think it's the asexual in me that is allergic to "aesthetic" ships. Some people will ship stuff because the characters look good next to each other or they're both hot and that grosses me out, which is weird because, yah know... I ship Stancest, lol. Compared to 1nc3st, being attracted to a ship because the characters are hot seems kind of strange. I think the difference is that Stancest to me isn't shipped at all BECAUSE they're hot. I find them hot because it's THEM. They're two grouchy old men that have been through so, SO much, apart and together, and have decided to allow themselves to love one another in their old age. They're hot because they're the two most emotionally compelling characters in the show, with depths that keep going the more you analyze and learn about them. They're hot because they're heartbreaking and their story is beautiful. If I want to take these incredibly compelling wonderful characters and draw them wearing tight ass shorts or making out sloppy style then idk man it just hits different.

So anyways I think the worst part about Emma May is that she was so so loved. Fidds almost destroyed a city because she left him. Can you imagine loving someone that much? To the point of wanton destruction? She just couldn’t give him what he truly wanted so she lost her place in his list of priorities. He got carried away in Ford’s dazzling world and forgot that she was a person who needed companionship and attention, that she wasn’t just a concept to yearn for from a distance. Fiddleford forgot that she was a person a PERSON and all we see is this negative space, a garage in Palo Alto, an imprint left in their marriage bed, half a face on his desk, this forensic scattering left in her son’s existence and a crazed lunatic missing a Family, a Wife. She once existed. And he dug such a deep well of sadness within her that she quite literally disappeared completely from the narrative. Something something there’s a particularly cruel pain left by the selfishness of kindhearted men. Emma May, was it worth it?

When I think about the soft parts of the Stan twins’ personalities in canon and the way they’re buried in layers of toxic masculinity but in very distinct ways, it looks like Stan is more sensitive, while Ford is more sentimental; Stan is more outwardly aggressive, while Ford is straight up more violent.

Stan is definitely more easily brought to tears than Ford, as well as, in my opinion, more easily flustered. He cries about at least (if I’m not forgetting any) four times that we know in the show: at the funeral of the Stan statue, as he watches The Duchess Approves, when he temporarily wins the post of mayor of Gravity Falls, when he says goodbye to the children. (One time in his childhood flashback, too, but I’m giving him a pass because he was just a kid and I don’t fully trust Stan’s flashbacks for many reasons.) In the Lost Legends comics, he also cries twice as an adult: first of sadness, then because he was touched by the little boy’s pick of his book. (One time as a child, too, when he confesses to Ford about his wish to be appreciated by Filbrick, but that arguably doesn’t count.) The interesting thing is that, in the story, Soos comments that he knew those sobs, implying that he heard Stan cry often enough for him to be able to recognize them immediately. And the funny thing is that Stan never, ever admits that he’s crying: he got glitter in his eyes, or campaign confetti, or was simply cutting onions, among other flimsy excuses. To me, Stan is the textbook example of that tumblr post: “I don’t care, I say, caringly, as I care deeply.” No one really buys his facade 😭

Ford, on the other hand, seems to be considerably more stoic. Dipper observes in Journal 3 that Ford finally cries when he loses Stanley, and that it was the first time any of them ever saw Ford crying—just the need to point that out, the fact that everyone was surprised, says a lot. In TBoB, Ford cries after Bill’s utterly terrifying tormet reaches a breaking point. We know he does because he tells us himself that he “wept,” and is not ashamed of it.

The way I see it, a lot of Stan’s macho man masculinity is performative, and exaggerated, as well as his confidence. Stan has a very low confidence, but he acts as if it’s the contrary. Meanwhile, Ford’s egotistical confidence is not faked, it comes from within—I feel like he is so much more secure in his badassery, in his talents and abilities, in his masculinity, that it makes him just act more natural and casual about it. Of course, Ford is insecure too, and has a low self-esteem even as he has high confidence, but his insecurity is rooted in guilt and the feeling of being an outcast, never about his own competence.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Ford’s toxic masculinity is quieter than Stan’s, and very different, but just as present. It’s not performative at all, but second nature to him. It’s mostly about repressing his feelings and being, quote unquote, “distant from himself.” Very highlighted in Dipper and Mabel Vs. The Future, when he tells Dipper to simply not feel fear as if it’s the simplest, easiest thing a human being could achieve, as if you could just turn off that switch in your brain and make a conscious decision to ignore those damn pesky emotions. More than that, he acts as if that’s the right, rational, desirable thing to do.

I think that a lot of fans pay far too much attention to Ford’s nerdy, quiet side and end up assuming he can easily be fit into the softer, more responsible stereotype of a nerd. That is, more of a prude, more easily flustered, the kind of man who would be genuinely bothered by Stan’s swearing. That is not what we see in canon at all. When JK Simmons (Ford’s VA) asked Alex how he should sound, he was told to act “loud and brash”; in Journal 3, Ford tells us that he wanted to give himself up to Bill just to curse him right to his face; he consistently doesn’t shy away from weird or freaky or illegal things, but is casually and shamelessly attracted to them. (Not that I don’t think Ford would nag Stan about swearing. Ford is hypocritical like that.)

Which brings us to the aggressive vs violent comparison I used. Stan acts tough and makes threats, alright, but Ford actually means them. Stan might attempt to punch someone; Ford’s trigger-happy hand goes straight to his gun. His bounty poster in the multiverse warns that he is “armed and dangerous.” I wouldn’t want either of the Stan twins as my enemies, but Ford is the one I’d dread to find in a dark alley, so to speak. Beneath the veener of superficial calm and control, lies the truth that he’s (way) scarier than Stan and willing to go even crazier lenghts to get what he wants, be it a selfish, ambitious desire or the safety of his family.

Still, Ford is sentimental—melancholic, brooding, prone to nostalgia, with a penchant for drama. The way he writes about people in his journal is often very reflective and thoughtful, calling Stan the most selfless man he had ever met in any dimension, or Bill as (formely) the sun in his galaxy. A poetic soul, lover of flowery language.

That makes me think about their interactions post-Weirdmaggedon. I can easily imagine Ford suddenly saying some intense truth about the depth of his feelings for Stan in his most earnest tone and Stan predictably trying to play it off as a joke and ruining the mood but evidently (not secretly at all) melting inside. Don’t start acting all mushy, bro, Mabel isn’t even here 🙄 (😳) (he’s almost crying again and Ford knows it)

Merry Yaoimas!