We know that Ford is incredibly guilty about Stan's death, cause he's the one who pulled the trigger, but what about Mabel?
She's the one who gave Bill the rift. And true she didn't know what it was, and true she was just a kid. No one blames her for what happened... no one, except herself
If she just hadn't needed that little bit more summer, if she wasn't so scared of growing up, Stan would still be here
Stan was the only one who tried to cheer her up that day. And what had he gotten for his troubles? He had to sacrifice himself at the end of the world just to save her and Dipper
Sometimes, she wonders if escaping Mabel land was the right call. True, she had Dipper to face everything together with, but neither of them knew how to face this. At least in Mabel land, she couldn't be used as leverage. At least when she was in Mabel land Stan was still alive
Mabel's a very forgiving person by nature. She would have forgiven Ford eventually anyway, but a part of her knows that the reason she forgave Ford so easily is because she blames herself, for all of it.
as much as i want to see fiddleford recover and enter his much-deserved era of good mental and physical health, i also want to see the effects of his head trauma follow him forever. it’s important to me that while he heal and find a level of normalcy and peace, he never return to his old self.
kind of a side bar, but it’s relevant so: i also think there’s something to be said about old man mcgucket’s confidence. boldness? idk how to describe it. i wouldn’t say his paranoid tendencies have vanished, but for the most part he’s. breezier. part of it is the brain damage, and maybe part of it is genuine self-evolution in the right direction. but i think the obsessive mind-wiping just… broke that part of his brain. it’s like he’s no longer affected by fear in the same way. and i hope we see strong traces of that damage until the day he dies.
it’s important to me that fiddleford heal and emerge into self-awareness once more. it’s important to me that ford still look at him as very much the same person, despite all of the damage. but he’s also changed severely and irreversibly. i think of old man mcgucket as a much rawer version of fiddleford in that he holds less reservations and has no filter. he’s healing but he’s also broken, and those scars will forever be visible. and that’s important to me because it also changes ford and fiddleford’s dynamic a lot.
ok one last sidebar, then i’m done. when i say it changes their dynamic i mean it in the way that because fiddleford now wears his heart on his sleeve and ford himself is a bit wiser about relationships, there is less self-sabotaging going on between them. romance or friendship wise. and if nothing else, they both feel they’re getting too old for biting their tongues, so i imagine the discussions of certain difficult topics comes a bit easier now.
like, given that they’ve both made many catastrophically terrible decisions over their lives, they have a better perspective on life in general and have had time to reorient their previously fucked priorities. ford lives with a lot of shame for how he treated stan, dealing with the devil, and bringing about the end times. fiddleford lives with a lot of shame for how he treated emma-may and tate, starting a cult that ruined lives [especially his own], and not to mention the multiple death robot incidents. even though they both had good intentions or else thought their actions were justified at the time [mostly], it all collapsed on their heads because these actions were ridiculously stupid.
i think all of this is part of why the rekindling of their friendship happened so easily. fiddleford is eager to forgive ford and embrace him because he’s learned first-hand what grief and paranoia can drive a person to do, and so he feels the best thing he can do is accept his old friend back into his life, no questions asked. maybe ford will forever think he doesn’t deserve it, but he learns to accept mcgucket’s kindness and tries to learn from it. they’re both healing even if it’ll never be Backupsmore again. it’s still them, despite it all.
People tend to draw parallels between Ford and Dipper, and Stan and Mabel. So, what are some similarities you can find between Ford and Mabel, and Stan and Dipper?
i made a few posts about how the show kinda parallels dipper and stan, especially in the finales
but imo scaryoke is basically entirely about their similarities, and dipper's series goal was the same as stan's
and off the top of my head their other similarities is them being protective younger twins with trust and anger issues and that the line "who would sacrifice everything for their dumb sibling" is targeted at both of them
meanwhile ford seems to be the more (ironically) trusting like mabel, and they're both prone to tunnel vision
also the puppet funeral scene has ford musing on his similarities with her (but i demand more bonding moments between them dangit!!!)
ford unfortunately downplays his artistic/creative side (damn you stem being perceived as more respectable!!!!) but like mabel he has skills and interests in a bunch of fields (and for examples of mabel's many interests just take a peek at the intros of her shorts lol she's fascinated in so many things)
altho them both liking puppets really stuck out to me
of course they're the authors of the most important books in the show, the journals and scrapbook
and i always thought their grappling and magnet guns kinda felt similar
personally i feel like ford's obsession with his grand unified theory is like mabel's obsession with the fantasy of a summer love, aka something they both ultimately realise they never needed with mabel gaining self-love and her love of waddles, and ford still pursuing his love of weirdness but without needing the validation of others
"Dipper, Mabel, Stan and Ford, they’re all characters who need each other. Without Dipper, Mabel’s just in a fantasy land. Without Mabel, Dipper is just sort of just spiraling into misery, spiraling into his own neurosis and not being pulled into those social situations, not growing as a person."
overall, like mabel, ford needs someone to keep him grounded, while stan (like dipper) needs someone to help lift him up
+ sweater vs sweaty twins
Since sales are officially over, here’s my piece for the @fiddlefordmcgucketzine
Working on this zine was a blast, thanks to everyone who made it happen!!
That post that's like "stop writing characters who talk like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy" really blew the door wide open for me about how common it's become for a character's emotional intelligence to not be taken into consideration when writing conflict. I remember the first time I went to therapy I had such a hard time even identifying what I was feeling, let alone had the language to explain it to someone else. Of course there are plenty of people who've never been to therapy a day in their life who are in tune to their emotions. But even they would have some trouble expressing themselves sometimes. You have to take into account there are plenty of people who are uncomfortable expressing themselves and people who think they're not allowed to feel certain ways. It also makes for more interesting conflict to have characters with different levels of understanding.
Relativity Falls Northwest Mansion Mystery doodles :D
Preston and Ford walking among the frozen wooden people, looking for the ghost
Gleeful and Stan, talking about their dads while they hide from the ghost
reblogs appreciated <3
i drew this at work
mid drawing this i cropped the canvas and then when i was done i went back through my layers and realized i cut fiddleford from another drawing clean in half never crop your canvases kids
This is a Stancest acrylic stand I drew and shared with other Gravity Falls fans at the largest fan convention in China. I personally love this stand because it looks absolutely delicious 🤤🤤. The one next to it is an acrylic stand of Randy's poop from South Park, and the stickers in the background are of Deadpool."
apparently a bunch more people are coming to the Flatland fandom / tags because of gravity falls so PSA:
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, is public domain. It belongs to everyone. You do not need to buy a physical copy to read it. It has no copyright. It belongs to everyone.
It is free to read online. There are free audiobooks.
Here's another masterpost
Here's a link to it on Project Gutenberg where you can read and download it in many formats:
Here's an amazing free audiobook on the internet archive:
Here's where you can read the 2024 translation into modern English on the internet archive:
there are some typos that I need to fix but. I have covid I'm not doing that right now.
You can also read this translation here on tumblr at @flatland-a-2024-translation
There's an audiobook version on youtube as well now.
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Here’s an animation from 1965
Here’s a stop motion film from 1982 in Italian with English subtitles
Here’s an animation from 2006
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I do not recommend watching the free 2007 Flatland film which you can find on youtube until you've read or listened to the book unless you want to be really confused. The movie is an absurdist comedy. The book is a political satire. The movie is better appreciated after you've already read/listened to the book.
It also has a lot of flashing lights and motion-sickness inducing spinning. The timestamps for those can be found here. Please be careful if you have photosensitivity.
do not spend money on Flatland until you already know you like it. you do not need to spend money at all. It's public domain. it belongs to all of us.
Very important edit: The creator of the 2007 film that's free on youtube, Ladd Ehlinger is an extremely racist and misogynistic conservative. He made a political ad so blatantly racist and sexist that youtube has literally resstricted it, so that you can't share the link outside the site. Simply google his name and you will see dozens upon dozens of articles about how bigoted he is.,
Please be aware of what kind of person made that movie when you watch it. His bigotry is baked into the movie, and is why he refused to actually do anything with the original political commentary from the book.
You are not a bad person if you already watched the movie and enjoyed it, but you do need to be aware of what kind of person made it and how that affected the movie, and make sure others are warned.