"You Don't Know Me. I'm Not The Same Person Anymore."

sigh, today i'm thinking about ford settling back into the lab after he first comes home, and seeing the proof of how hard stan worked to bring him home

stan was always the "dumb one" between them, always riding on ford's coat tails and slacking off. but he was able to do, on his own, without help from anyone, what it took ford 12 phds, fiddleford's help, and bill's guidance to do. just based off of ONE of ford's cryptic journals and whatever scattered notes and blueprints he was able to find, all while having never graduated high school.

ford having to confront how hard stan worked, how far he pushed himself, how smart he actually is

EDIT: also, stan only had journal 1, that's NOT the one he was working with bill in! that's his first few years in gravity falls, when ford was just as ignorant as stan was! there probably isn't a lot for stan to work with in there.

Hi hi hi hi

Hellllllo

Hi

Have a ramble because ahhhhhhh

I was explain Stobotnik to a friend (I explain some weird stuff to this friend

We got as far as Stone being left in the mean bean in S2.

Their thought when i said that Stone got left behind or otherwise he'd have to sit in someones lap was:

Why didn't Agent Stone sit down first then have Knuckles put in his lap they buckle them both up like that

And the mental picture killed me so please, have this idea because I need to inform someone of this omg

Sounds like a good plan

ko-fi

Hair

Bonus, he got to see it, but...

modern-day changeling tales

I feel like I would have been diagnosed with OCD a lot earlier if the vast majority of screening questions (for mental illnesses in general) weren't based on the person's perception of their own behavior, in isolation. and what i mean by that is asking someone with OCD "do you wash your hands excessively?" is not a good question.

a person with OCD believes they are washing their hands the correct number of times. it's not excessive. we believe we're exhibiting best practices and helping to keep everything clean.

better questions might be, "does it seem like you wash your hands a lot more than your friends or family?" "do you get dry patches or cuts on your hands from washing your hands?" "do you find it deeply distressing, more so than how you've seen other people react, when you get something on your hands that you can't clean off right away?"

being asked "are you overly preoccupied with bugs, symmetry, and contamination?" also got "no" responses from me years ago in my life. what they didn't ask for, and didn't know, was what *exactly* I was doing in my day to day life that genuinely ate up my time and mental space to a concerning degree, but I *didn't know* that other people don't do this.

"do you spend a lot of time cleaning?" -> no, it's not a lot. it's a good amount. why?

"do you become frustrated because it seems like no one else meets your organizational and cleanliness standards - do you often 'take over' for other people because they can't do it right - do new friends seem surprised by how strict you can be about your living space?" -> oh. yeah. yeah I get it now.

Doodles inspired by this au made by @aroace-get-out-of-my-face (your writing is AMAZING btw. I love your fics <33)

Just thought about Stan having a habit of making suicide jokes cuz that's how he used to cope with his depression before, but after the loop ends he keeps doing it and giving Ford heart attacks every single time because he thinks Stan is being serious

/post/718441984343293952/no-actually-im-mad-enough-about-it-to-speak-up when we do it people get mad and say that we're misunderstanding the characters and that we're so wrong and that it's fucking shit. i don't know what to do, i feel pressured to not fuck up

Anon imma give you my biggest secrets to fanfic writing, the ones that have carried me thru 15+ years of fic writing, of unwanted critics, of haters, and of little to no attention to my fics.

1) this is the most important one: write what makes YOU happy. Writing fanfic is a hobby and it should spark joy. It should make you happy. If this means you’re taking the big bad of the series and turning him into a baby that the heroes have to raise? Go for it. If it means a villain is your meow meow and you’re gonna rewrite the story to make him a good guy? Go for it. Whatever makes YOU happy. Because in the end, you are writing for yourself and for you to have fun. Yes validation is nice, but—

2) —but it’s not the end all, be all. It’s always so so sooooo good when people comment on your fics and leave you reviews and go nuts for your work. But I write for dead or niche fandoms and I rarely get attention on any of my work. And I made peace with that. You need to make peace with that. Validation is nice, but kudo/comments/hits are not the goal here: you having fun is.

3) ignore the haters. There are SO many gatekeepers in fandoms nowadays that it sucks the fun and joy out of life. Block them, don’t even reply, just block them. AO3 has mute and block buttons. Use them. And if they are extra rude? Report them. In the old days, we used to say “flames will be used to warm cold feet” which translates to “your hate is less than dirt” (flames here being haters and unwanted criticisms). It still applies.

4) this one is optional but: find like minded people! People who’d enjoy your work! People who you love discussing ideas with! It goes a long way to give motivation!

5) this one is hella important: it’s not ooc if it’s an au!! :) A person growing up in a war zone is gonna have very different experiences than a person growing up with parents who run a coffee shop and will have a different experience to growing up in an orphanage etc etc. and all of these things WILL affect a person’s behavior and will change how they interact with the world. Even if all those three scenarios had the same trauma (i.e. a fire), each one would react differently and would lose different things, which again, affects how they’d act.

6) BE ooc!! DO IT. Why? Because NO ONE is gonna write the character as “ic”’as the original writers/creators. The character in your head is different than the character in another person’s head, and in another’s, and so on. This is because our own lives and experiences affect the way we interact with the world—and fictional works. And working super hard to please the public means that someone out there will always go “that’s ooc how dare you.” You can never please everyone, remember that!

6.5) but also: write crackfic. It will help you break out of the fear of oocness so much. Even if you don’t write them, have crackfic ideas. They’re so good for your soul—humor is so good and cringe is dead.

7) and this is hella important: Anon you are human. Humans make mistakes. We fuck up. It’s how we learn and grow. And NO ONE was born perfect. Writing takes practice. Writing in character takes practice for every new character you write! It’s not easy! But you gotta trust yourself and your writing skills, and that requires practice too! Practice practice practice!!

So, TL;DR: Do what you want. Do what makes you happy. You are not being paid for this, and if people don’t like your writing, they can pay you to write exactly what they want. And fuck up as much as it takes for you to feel satisfied with the pieces your working with. And most important—aus and oocness go hand in hand.

cis people will say “I found out I’m having a baby girl at my anatomy scan and I’m experiencing gender disappointment” but be mad when you say “who knows? maybe you’ll end up with a son anyway”

Finished

Okay so I've been slowly writing down my thoughts and compiling a basic skeleton for the Twins in time, Oldies in the Eighties AU, where Old Stan and Old Ford meet up with their younger opposites in 1981 or 1982

So the duos are Old Stan and Young Ford in Gravity Falls, and Old Ford and Young Stan in wherever Stan was during his drifter days

And that's super fun and I can think about that for days, HOWEVER

They all need to meet up eventually, and I realize that when they are all still separated, I'm going to have to have Stan SERIOUSLY domestic Young Ford, and explain some shit, because otherwise Younger Ford is gonna get his teeth kicked in.

By Old Ford.

Because you cannot tell me that Old Ford wouldn't immediately jump his past self. It's on sight. That man has had his entire life to regret choices he made (choices THIS younger version of himself is making) and I fully believe that Old Ford is feral enough to swing a baseball bat at his own knees.

Young Ford like. Offhandedly says "Oh, some things never change, Stanley will always be immature." About HIS version of Stan, and Old Ford just cricks his neck around like the exorcist.

"Ford. You cannot fist fight your younger self. That's-there's so many things wrong with that."

"Let me go Stanley-Stan he's getting away! Stan! He's had it coming-let go!"