so the thing is that i think most of how ford himself is written is really really good! i just think that the writers (particularly alex) have a bias against him, and so a lot of the narrative ends up feeling like he’s either being punished or being forced to atone for his past. so i’m gonna ramble and daydream for a bit but i want to be clear i actually really like how he’s written in general (yes, even in the book that i have so much beef with!!)
there’s very few moments of catharsis for him, and those that he gets are either short (reunion with fiddleford) or undermined by the writers’ bias (the ending of journal 3 where he burns all his bill stuff but has to keep reminding us that he was stupid for trusting bill in the first place). so i think a lot of the problems i have would be resolved with tonal shifts and a few cuts, like that fucking scene in the stanchurian candidate with the mind control tie. the implication of reaganite ford is bad enough but then to have a guy who has very specific trauma relating to being mind controlled/not being in control of his own body just hand that over is really fucking stupid. then again i think that whole episode is stupid so i’d end up rewriting all of it lmao
Dipper knew that his grunkles switching places was necessary to defeat Bill, but— Dipper hadn’t been able to tell them apart. It distresses him, that he confused the two, that he wasn’t smart nor observant enough to pick up on their trick. These were his grunkles, his family— the same things happened with Wendy and the shapeshifter, too, he had to rely on her to be clever enough to give him a sign. He can’t be tricked again— what if the shapeshifter comes back? What if Bill comes back? What if the inevitable next big bad is also an impersonator, a trickster, a disguise artist?
He starts to catalogue the minutia of his loved ones. Stan has a small scar through his left eyebrow, and walks slightly canted to the right because of his bad knee. Ford has a series of faint scars, like repeated scratches, over his hands (which always have a faint tremble to them) and always stands stiff-backed and aware of his surroundings. Mabel pitches up the end of her sentences, and has to sleep with a night light. Wendy has a stick-and-poke tattoo, poor and faded, on her right ankle; Soos holds a screwdriver like a chopstick when he’s thinking about a tough problem. Waddles has a mark on his left haunch like a My Little Pony cutie mark.
He starts a journal, not for anomalies but for details. He leaves codes and symbols for himself so an imposter couldn’t use his notes to become a more realistic copy. From an outsider’s perspective, it would surely look erratic, insane, messy, but that’s the point. A feeling he can’t name, has never felt before, creeps in, unsettling and persistent and insidious— what if the enemy is already among them? What if he hadn’t noticed, because he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t discerning enough, wasn’t a good enough brother/friend/nephew/person? He stops sleeping, eating, gets quiet. His family becomes concerned, but he can’t tell them the truth— what if someone is watching? Listening? Looking for weaknesses?
He stumbles into his room one night to find Ford reading his journal. He thinks, at first, that the downturn of Ford’s mouth is a sure sign of a shapeshifter, because he’s never seen his grunkle make this face before; but, no— this look on Ford’s face is horror, and terror, and guilt. Similar to how he looked when Stan’s memories were erased, but even more personal. More like… more like Ford knew exactly what Dipper was feeling.
“Dipper,” Ford says, even-toned but not enough to conceal his concern, “we need to have a talk about paranoia.”
(I do hope you don’t mind, but as someone who has suffered from clinical paranoia and loved this, I thought I’d add a bit!)
Dipper doesn’t see it. He’s a little insulted, honestly, that Ford thinks he’s paranoid, of all things! Paranoia is wearing aluminum caps on your head or going off the grid because you think the government is out to get you - it’s not making sure you can tell your loved ones from a shapeshifter.
Besides, this is actually relevant to his life. They’ve met shapeshifters before, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they’ll meet another one. And won’t the others look silly when Dipper is the only one who can tell them apart! No, these are completely normal and rational actions for someone who will more than likely be in the exact scenario they are planning for.
When Mabel cautiously asks if he’s okay after he jots down that she prefers stickers that smell like jellybeans over ones that smell like cotton candy, he’s slightly annoyed.
When Stan asks if he wants to talk about anything that might be bothering him, he sighs and tells him about high school being different than he expected. When Stan then asks if there’s anything else bothering him, like, maybe… what he’s been writing about in his journal so much? Well, Dipper is more than a little frustrated.
It’s when Ford asks if he’s been having repetitive, obsessive thoughts that he loses it a bit. Does everyone think he’s paranoid?! He’s not!
And nothing anyone can say or do will convince him otherwise.
finished my rewatch of gravity falls today so here’s some random thoughts i wrote down over the course of the last few episodes (sure most of this has been mentioned already but eh. no harm in repeating things):
-could you imagine how differently things would’ve gone if any of the pines members knew about ford’s nightmare (especially stan)
-ford visibly shaking from how hard he’s digging his fingers into the floor (referring to the security droid grabbing him)
-ford almost dies three times before bill actually captures him
-‘i haven’t been able to find grunkle stan anywhere’ was stan not at the shack at that time or did you just not consider checking his house
-a full limerick for 'man from kentucky’ wasn’t allowed, but onscreen death is??
-shapeshifter wink + mabeland fake wendy wink
-why is the unicorn half petrified? what caused the gnome to be mostly petrified, but not quite? how was woodpecker guy able to keep his petrified woodpecker? so many questions about these guys. what occurred here
-first time ford gets turned to “gold”, he appears cracked. the second time, he’s free of cracks. implication: either the stone/“gold” people get turned into cracks over time or bill roughed ford up a bit even before the torture
-bill disassembles ford and reassembles him on the other side of the room. interesting to consider for. y'know. torture
-speaking of bill, WHY DO YOU HAVE EIGHT EYELASHES NOW. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE SEVEN
-love fiddleford so much. and also zanthar. and craz and xyler. and soos. and-
-manly dan hugs wendy more gently than soos does
-’(strangely genuine) good to see you too bro >:(’ i’m sorry stan did seeing your brother trapped in a horrifying gold-ish statue change your tune a bit
-i agree with the circle actually. the fuck are you doing, stan.
-i feel like the stan twins were strangled in different ways. it seems like ford was literally being strangled and bill was doing something directly to stan’s lungs, based on the way they reacted to it. or i’m looking way too much into the animation who knows
-the way stan kneels on the ground :((((
-actually every scene with post-deal stan in it
-ford ultimate depression
-waddles was waiting for them :(((((((((
-stan lies in different ways depending on what he remembers (referring to him lying about the destroyed house being a nice place to be polite)
-'someone get waddles off of me!!’ ford: :0 :D
-this also implies that ford learned waddles name at some point
-was wondering why pacifica seemed to have a bit of a character regression. then realized that she had to live with her abusive parents after the party. they uh. they need to be obliterated (heck you can even tell there’s a sort of distance between them based on the fact that pacifica’s parents wait for her to come to them, as opposed to the corduroys running to wendy immediately. it’s not even a durland + blubs situation, they are fully aware of their surroundings at this point)
-pacifica’s still trying her best though!!
-ford sings happy birthday with everyone else :)))
-ford’s hair grows out really quickly
-'heh’ resulting in an immediate :0 until ford keeps talking, at which point stan smiles again
-stan did you think that laugh was intended to be a 'that’s ridiculous stan why would you ever think that’ type deal and not a 'wow i love talking to you this is great’ type thing
-'SHUT UP FOREVER’
-'CAN IT SOOS’ in sync (hey ford you learned his name!)
-stan’s 'don’t test me >:(’ implication vs ford’s ’i have killed and i will do it again’ implication
-ford comforting hand on shoulder. stan looking shocked until he sees ford smiling at him. grgaggasgg
-fucking love these two
-stan writes in print in all caps (this might mean nothing to you but trust me there is a reason i’m pointing it out)
-ford doing the hand thing in the credits
-'ford hates mabel’ DID YOU MISS THE FUCKING TURKEY
This is a great picture, and a great response. How does anyone think he wouldn’t be able to understand why this would mean so much to him??? It’s both unusual AND IT’S LIKE HIM. Don’t mischaracterize my autistic husband
hello would. you like to elaborate on. ford pines osdd. ((because I recently got diagnosed and. blorbo moments. but also because I love the idea in general. ford "I feel like I've lived 50 different lives" pines.))
so, first off, I want to apologize for putting this off for so long. I think it’s been a couple of weeks at this point but I’m not entirely sure. Anyway, after getting this ask I immediately got really really excited and started outlining what I quickly realized was going to be a monster of an analysis post.
So much so, in fact, that I ended up having to move it all into a google doc. whoops.
As it turns out, this ask ended up being the thing to motivate me to go over a lot of other related thoughts about GF’s writing that I’d had stewing in my brain for ages, so you’re getting an essay that you probably didn’t sign up for. Again: my bad. I hold the champion’s title for being the most long-winded autistic bitch to ever live.
Either way, as you might have guessed, I would love to elaborate on Ford Pines’ hypothetical OSDD.
[content warning: I’m going to be talking about both fictional depictions and IRL patterns of interpersonal abuse in here quite a bit. Proceed with caution if you’re easily triggered by these topics, especially if you decide to look further into anything I mention here that isn’t strictly related to, y’know, the cartoon.]
Ok originally I was just going to commend this in the tags but it got way too long and like. This is SUCH incredible analysis. I read it the whole way through and it’s just. Like this is Everything I Always Thought About Ford But Could Not Put Words To. It’s so spot-on; just the way he handles relationships and the consistent traumatic experiences and the very real literal abuse he went through at the hands of Bill Cipher. Fully-fledged diagnosable disorder or not, he 1000% has some identity issues from all the everything he went through.
Some of this stuff I didn’t even CATCH. Like the significance of the shapeshifter’s line and the outfit parellels??? Never would’ve noticed those things on my own. And I love the comparison of Dipper’s vs Ford’s experiences with possession, too. And the whole thing about the journals themselves and what they symbolize and the decision to throw them away. MAN. I just. Man. This is such a cool analysis.
hmm. I feel frighteningly underprepared for this question as I’m not much of an etymologist, but I’ll do my best. Ford to me gives the vibes of a beetle enjoyer, and I can definitely see him having a jewel beetle collection as a kid… though the new book did establish that he’s a moth guy currently and I think that’s cute of him. In particular I think of the polyphemus moth, some of the biggest moths native to Oregon. they’re named after the cyclops Polyphemus from the Odyssey, for their… awfully distinctive eyespots
hmm. okay maybe not that one. but I imagine he would still be fond of saturniids in general, there are a lot of great moths in that family :]
as for fiddleford… I’ll be honest I don’t think he likes bugs. as someone who’s grown up in rural households myself just about the worst and most inevitable thing that can happen is some sort of insect infestation and we can kind of glean based on his personality in the journal that he isn’t as fond of nature’s “ugly” side as ford is. that and I can imagine his encounter with the shapeshifter would have worsened his opinion on anything creepy and/or crawly.
but I can also imagine ford picking up an acorn weevil and going “Look he has your nose :D” and whether this endears him to them or not is up to you
Hi I love your shapeshifter au! How did Fidds interact with Shifty pre-portal incident? It was probably pretty weird to see Shifty take on Tate's form, but did Fiddleford fill a parental role?
‘i don’t have the option to break, cause all of the people i love have their lives at stake. i feel so selfish, i feel so insecure when i’m in pain. please don’t hold me, i wouldn’t know how to let go, when the forest inside my heart continues to grow, and the roots will dig into your soul. i wanna go home. i am a shapeshifter, too, all of my colors can change if you want them to, suited for you. all of my roots help me choose who to be. i don’t have control of my past, and even though i know that, i still feel at fault for the things i’ve been through. i still would be sorry, if it wasn’t for you. please don’t hold me, i wouldn’t know how to let go, when the forest inside my heart continues to grow, and the roots will dig into your soul. i wanna go home’
[ID: A traditional artwork of Ford Pines and the Shapeshifter from Gravity Falls, colored with alcohol markers.
The image cuts off below Ford’s upper body. Ford is wearing a bright red sweater with a patch that looks like a pink ring planet stitched into his left arm, and a yellow star patch stitched into his right elbow. Ford is smiling at the Shapeshifter and raising his right arm to put a hand against its’ head.
The Shapeshifter is nuzzling against Ford’s face and looks happy. Its’ left arm is resting on his left shoulder and its’ right arm is hovering near him. /end ID]
