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mic-and-cheese · 5 years

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Please info dump about your husband...I wish to know more about him!

AAAAA OK I DIDN’T THINK I’D GET THIS FAR

Idk where to start so I’m just gonna ramble?? I guess??? Puttin it under a readmore bc it’s long as FUCK

I think one of the most interesting things about Buddy is his backstory? Like he used to love supers but now hates them because his idol rejected him? I’ve seen a lot of different interpretations of his past, and I apologize for starting off on this note but Buddy comes off to me as someone who was neglected as a child, so he has trouble with empathy, other social skills, and doesn’t really have a way to healthily deal with stress, which lead him to go down the path he did. I think he was born in a small southern town, but moved to Metroville and became enamored with superheroes because he’s now living somewhere where he can see and meet them personally. He views Mr. Incredible as a father figure because of a lack of a father or other male role model in his life and he probably feels like maybe his life would be better or that he’d be more loved if he had powers, and he’s been constantly told and lead to believe that he can’t be a hero without powers, so telling him that is a sore spot for him.He started messing with machines and learning how to fix them because his family didn’t have enough money to fix or replace things around the house when they broke and he found that he really had a passion for building and creating. Of course, he’s a really smart kid, he loves to read and loves math and science and did well in school, but some adults kinda thought he was a nightmare to be around cuz he’s a lil bit bratty and tries to get attention, but he got along well with teachers and other adults who recognized that he was talented and gave him the attention he needed. Buddy is really used to having to cause a lot of trouble to get what he wants or to be listened to, which is a trait he still kept into adulthood. His first real invention that wasn’t just him tinkering around with whatever he could find was his rocket boots, and he made them with spare parts he found or bought. He’s met Mr. Incredible a few times before, but he was hoping that being able to show off his talent would impress him enough to let him be his sidekick.Ever since he was young he’s always been an entrepreneur, making money by fixing stuff for neighbors and taking other odd jobs.Even after he was rejected he still loves superheroes, or at least the idea of them, even though he doesn’t really like them as people anymore but I’ll get to that later.The interesting thing about him really is just how much I can estimate about him just from what little info we know about him in canon, and how many ways there are to interpret him. I’ve seen him be interpreted as a kid who was spoiled and didn’t know how to deal with rejection, and while I can’t say I like that interpretation, but it is possible. Even though his backstory is interesting, his personality is just…??? Lovely??? I mean it’s really not but I think it is. He’s just??? so geeky and adorable and I love seeing him get so excited over superheroes even though he has a love-hate relationship with them, and he’s just fearless and probably a bit of a dare devil? He really seems like the sort of person who would try anything at least once and doesn’t get embarrassed easily. I mean it’s just so amazing how he’s an evil mastermind but like, he’s still Buddy ya know? Like he still has his excitable, nerdy, funny personality, but he can also be downright terrifying? It’s interesting from a character writing standpoint of course but like, just? On a personal level??? I mean his personality alone flusters me because everything about him (save for uh, the murder) is something I find obviously given the subject of the blog, really attractive. Like he’s not afraid to be himself or play around and he embraces self-insert esqe enjoyment so like??? How cool is it to have an f/o who may also have f/os or at least be supportive of self inserting!!Of course even though theres a lot about his personality that’s cute, there are a lot of things that aren’t, so he’s not really the best with empathy, and he can be pretty cruel, petty, selfish, and he has difficulty opening up to people but I do think that he’s open to learning and changing with someone he trusts, and can be really sweet when he wants to, even if it is a little awkward.One thing I really love about him is how you can tell that he’s got a life and interests outside of Kronos. Like yeah he’s really focused on his plan obviously, but his personality is just so strong in the things around him and the things he does and says that make him feel so much more dimensional. For example, a lot of his tech is integrated with or inspired by nature, so I really think he likes biomimicry, probably because he’s learning how to one up nature, aka basically what his entire motivation is. I love that he’s obviously just got cute little tics like how his eye twitches in the lego games or how much he likes to gesture and hum and whistle. (also his humming is so cute oh my god)And I’m just constantly in awe of how smart and resourceful he is. I mean my love of tropical islands aside, Nomanisan is just… impressive. Like its so ingenious to build his base literally into the island in a way that makes use of its natural features, such as the underwater landing pad, secret exits, underground passageways, and of course the lava wall, and I just can’t help but wonder how he came up with all of that and how long and how much money it took? And thats just taking about the things on the island that are canon. I mean, from my own speculations I figure that the island not only has that amazing lava wall, but is built to redirect the flow of lava to prevent any volcanic activity on the island, keep lava and ash away from expensive tech (the rocket and mantajet for example) and provide power to the island via geothermal energy. Maybe even a little use of wave energy too if necessary since it’s a pretty good option for a place surrounded by water. I assume Buddy chose the island for its resources, (namely a metal alloy that one of the books mentioned) considering he’s made it pretty self sustaining with what it already has after implementing all his tech. The location, being far from any other place, really, and outside of any governmental jurisdiction is good too, so when you really think about it, he probably could have gotten away with a lot of the things that he did, which is, uh, pretty impressive to say the least, not to mention the real world location of Nomanisan (Easter Island) doesn’t face the sorts of hurricanes and harsh weather you’d expect for a small island in the middle of no where.And I mean??? He’s a genius inventor villain who is still extremely in tune with nature to the point that it inspires some of his inventions??? How cool and unique is that??? I’m sure the island must be an amazing place to be, I mean the beaches and caves, rivers, waterfalls… it must be such a joy to explore. And I dunno, I’ve always imagined that working for Syndrome could be kinda fun sometimes. I mean, he is a pretty funny guy with a good sense or humor, and surely guarding and what not all day must get boring, so I’m sure he’s not opposed to having some fun every now and then.And he’s certainly not ashamed of what he considers fun either! I have a feeling he’d like scale models and collectibles and would go to the ends of the earth for a rare one that he particularly likes, especially if they’re ones he gets to build himself. I’m sure he’s a huge fandom geek as well, like name any 50’s-60’s sci fi movie and he knows it by heart. And with all his animal inspired inventions, I’m sure he loves going out in nature and watching the unique wildlife of Nomanisan. Given Easter Island’s own wildlife, I’m sure sharks and whales, and even some really interesting lizards would be pretty common around there. (And given how much forest it has in comparison to Easter Island, I’m sure there’s A LOT more than that. Maybe even rare species only native to the island.) I also really see Buddy as the sort of guy who just loves new and exciting experiences, no matter what it is. Like if it’s something he’s never done before, he’s on board!With all that in mind it’s just so wonderful just how much of a well rounded character he is. I mean he’s happy, nerdy, childish, and excitable, but he’s also bitter, revenge driven, and unempathetic. That being said, his relationships with other people all have such an interesting dynamic to them. He adores Bob for his ingenuity while still hating him enough to try to kill him and his family, and he cares for Mirage but doesn’t really know how to show it. Like I said earlier, I think he was neglected as a kid, so he never really learned how to properly regulate his emotions, so a lot of the time he’s pretty conflicted. He’s an extrovert who wants to be loved and adored, yet he’s too scared to trust after being betrayed. He has a hard time relating to people and thus doesn’t understand how his actions can hurt them when he means well, for example, betting Mirage’s life or saving people from his own robot without proper regard to his surroundings that a truly well meaning hero would have (aka, throwing a tanker truck just to make a spectacle out of saving a mother and child with no regard to what damage the truck could have done).Of course, while his scenes with Mirage can be interpreted as him not really caring for her, I think it’s the opposite. I think he knew that betting her life was the only way he could have saved her (he couldn’t have pulled her away from Bob, shocking Bob could have shocked her, and if he had shown any weakness for her, Bob could have used that as leverage against him, whereas if he shows no remorse, if Bob had killed her he’d just have a dead lady on his hands for pretty much no reason). Granted as well meaning as he was, I don’t think he understands how that hurt Mirage. He sees that he saved her, and doesn’t expect her to be mad about it, but the reality is that she honestly does have a right to be mad about her life being risked, especially when he never clearly communicated that his intent was to save her.Somehow I’ve gone this far without even talking about why I like him??? I mean I don’t even think I’ve ever fully explained why I like him. I’ve tried, sure, but I don’t even think it’s something I can actually convey in words? But I’ll try??? Anyway, he’s literally everything to me, and I don’t just mean that in a sappy romantic way. I’ve always been fascinated with him since I was 6 years old and saw the movie for the first time. He reminds me of happy memories with my dad who passed away some years ago because I saw the movie with him and I remember how much it confused little 6 year old me. Like the fact that the movie started with interviews was the wildest thing to me, and I don’t even think I could even comprehend the plot until much later on. But during that first experience, I don’t know what it was but something about him always stuck with me. Funnily enough one of the things that stuck with me was his joke from Jack Jack Attack and that was the first joke that I knew I didn’t understand but knew I would someday and I literally made a mental note back then telling myself that I knew I’d understand it, and well, thanks for remembering that 6 year old me, because I get the joke now and it’s still funny to me. (I also never actually realized that the guy silhouetted in front of the lava was supposed to be Syndrome until like last summer and I always just thought that was something that was never explained haha.) Anyway after seeing the movie with my dad, he asked me who my favorite character was. I said Violet since I thought saying otherwise would have been weird at the time, but in reality it’s always been Syndrome and that’s just an important memory to me.And now he’s that memory and so many other things to me. He’s what finally helped me recover from a rough couple of years by showing me that people could still create wonderful and impressive things despite being cast away by someone that they once adored and that my success wasn’t based on their approval, which finally helped me shut them out of my life and become so much happier. He helps me manage my anxiety because all the things that make me scared would be nothing to the guy who still wore a cape and rocket boots even after they nearly got him killed. And of course, I love him because he’s nerdy, excitable, brave, and smart, and even because I feel like I can understand his lack of empathy. He’s just such a well rounded, multifaceted character that it’s almost hard to believe he’s fictional haha. With all that combined, he’s one of my my special interests too! I mean it’s hard not to want to know everything about such an interesting guy right?But even if you can’t see the appeal in his personality, it’s no question that he’s just amazing in terms of his accomplishments alone. I mean he can’t be any older than like, 28 max (I consider him 25 though, since the closest we ever get to a canon age is mid 20’s) and yet he’s a billionaire with his own private island, at least one successful company, and groundbreaking tech that makes today’s tech look simple, but he did all in the EARLY SIXTIES.The mantajet in particular is just awe inspiring to me, mostly because I love planes, but I mean, most planes take 15 years just to be conceptualized. Buddy created a completely automated, uniquely shaped, supersonic, semi-aquatic jet with the ability to hover in under that time. It’s like if the SR-71 Blackbird were a luxury all-terrain vehicle! And I am just so endlessly impressed that it can go underwater, like I’m sure its entire design was based around that ability, since the engines would have to be strong enough to withstand literal tons of water going through them, which is why I suspect they’re placed in those cavities above the wings, to direct air and water to go through them in the right way while also keeping them intact in the impact! (they may be waterproof but they are unfortunately not (or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it) uh,,,, Syndrome proof) And the “manta feelers” probably help the plane hover and also serve as the landing gear??? UGH IT’S GENIUS, SUCH RESOURCEFUL GENIUS.Of course I’ve gotta talk about the design of his aero boots too!! He’s come such a long way since the rocket boots!!! I’m so proud of him!!! The new boots are just as genius as the mantajet, really. They have vents in the sole, probably to either keep them from overheating or to draw in oxygen to use for combustion. I love how the metal strip is implemented into the heel and up the back of the boots, that’s probably where the fuel and engines are housed, and man, I can’t imagine how much power they’d both have to generate, those tiny little engines. I’m sure they run on some pretty efficient stuff. And how the soles of the boots look like they can come off of the main boot itself, I’m sure that makes for easy maintenance! I also love how the animators added the detail of the screw in the arch of the boot so that it articulates properly, rather than just saying “yeah whatever he can walk fine somehow with these half-metal boots.”And then there’s Zero Point Energy??? I mean, ZPE is actually based off a real scientific concept that would essentially harness infinite energy. I think about this on the daily and I still can’t comprehend it. He harnessed infinite energy. In the 60’s. And made a device small and powerful enough to literally generate it in the palm of his hand. Since all of that energy is generated in his gauntlets, it’d have to pass through his hands to reach his fingertips, so not only can he generate it, but he created a suit that can conduct infinite energy around him so that it doesn’t hurt him. Like no wonder he’s so protective of ZPE. (On that note, this is exactly why I think he designed his suit and not Edna or Galbaki. He’d never trust anyone else to design a suit with his most valuable tech built into it)Not to mention, how interesting is it that a ruthless serial killer villain like him chooses a technology that doesn’t harm his target and instead just freezes them in place!Also also can I talk about just how amazing the other features of the gauntlets are? I mean they hold a small bomb that can produce a big enough blast to in theory kill the nearly invincible Mr. Incredible. He’s got a laser powerful enough to make a clean hole through the roof of a house, and those gauntlets can take a hell of a beating too, considering it was thrown all over the city during the final Omnidroid fight with minimal damage. Oh also the little sliding cover over the buttons is cute.Ok ok, next there’s the energy prisons. I assume they work on ZPE since they’re able to suspend victims in mid-air? I literally shouldn’t be so excited about this thing but I can’t even get over how ingeniously HORRIBLE they are. I mean I don’t want to get into any details, cuz if I do I’ll go into scarily gruesome territory but those things are terrifying. They work with almost any sort of super he could possibly be keeping prisoner with such a pretty simple idea really, just by suspending them against their own weight. The only fault in them really is that Violet can get through them, but he may not have necessarily known that beforehand since I doubt he had any force fields to test them on (or at least any “organic” ones).Implementing the monorail system is such a perfect idea too!! It makes it easy to get around, keeps guards from getting lost, works on all terrain, and keeps supers from seeing things they don’t need to see, so long as they stay on the tracks they’re supposed to be on.And speaking of hiding, while not technically tech related, I don’t know if he knows about the KRONOS carved in the cave, but I bet you he does know about that cave and all the other hard to reach areas of the island, since there’s an I2 deleted scene that shows he knows how Gazerbeam died, and the guards know to split up to catch Dash in one of the caves. Also related to Kronos, I like to make fun of his computer room for it’s impractical at best, dangerous at worse design, but listen. The security system. It’s brilliant. He’d have to engineer some sort of substance that stays compact and non-sticky while not in use, but that can quickly expand and maintain its strength to capture intruders. And the victim would still have to be able to breathe through them too?? And like how do they come off?? I’m sure that’s an interesting process too. The “fire randomly” approach is also interesting, since it pretty much leaves no escape. And what about under the walkway??? Like what’s way down there??? I don’t even have a theory for that, really. And and and how does the security system for that room work? Does it recognize unfamiliar noises perhaps, since it was triggered by Bob’s suit tracker, cuz if it were triggered by just random noise, I’m sure Syndrome or Mirage would have accidentally triggered it before. Oh, also also also x3 the computer screen automatically shuts off once the security system is activated, which is a nice touch, so that the enemy can’t get any more info as soon as the system is notified. Having only one way in and out of the room is clever too.I JUST WANNA KNOW MORE ABOUT NOMANISAN’S SECURITY PROTOCAL OKI wish we had seen more of the technology that he used for Mirage’s message too. Like, he obviously uses the voice matching and scanning technology on the island (the security bird and life probe) but what about that illusion effect on the tablet?Also I mean, I’m sure being an arms dealer during the Cold War in itself has got to be extremely lucrative, but that doesn’t even account for how high tech his other weapons that weren’t mentioned must be.Ok, ok I think that covers all of his other inventions. I haven’t talked about the Omnidroid yet because hooo boy do I have some things to say about that beautifully terrifying piece of tech. I love that he used an iterative process on it to build upon its design (also the idea that he respects the strength his self-proclaimed nemesis enough to build up the robot to prepare to fight him), and I’ve actually gone back and tried to figure out the reason behind the changes he made in each iteration. And listen. How long do you think it took him to build and test all those robots? A few years maybe? Nah son, using the movie’s timeline, I’ve calculated that if he were working at a consistent pace throughout the project, it’d take FOUR MONTHS. 10 highly advanced ai robots. Fully drafted, programmed, built, and tested in 4 months. Oh and did I mention HE CREATED AI. LIKE ACTUAL AI.And his control over the Omnidroid (at least Omnidroid 9 anyway) is brilliant too. He’s got perfect control over it, and the reason I bring that up is because Omnidroid 10 tried to kill him. I’ve spent a long time wondering why he had perfect control over 9 but 10 disobeyed him, and my conclusion is that he implemented some new code in 10 that would make it act more destructively, thus making it more difficult to control but he never actually expected it not to listen to him because he didn’t actually test it on the island since, uh, having a 10 story tall rampaging robot on the loose near your base isn’t a good idea. I also headcanon that 10 was built to self destruct when defeated so that no one could trace its origins back to Syndrome had he won and been considered a hero.With that long ass section out of the way I’d finally like to bring up that if Syndrome did indeed create all of these inventions, that’d made him a computer programmer, aerospace engineer, possibly a civil engineer, a chemist, the inventor of harnessing infinite energy and ai, and thats only what I can think of off the top of my head.Another one of my favorite things about Buddy is that I love how easy it is to imagine him as a way more fleshed out character than he really is. On multiple occasions I’ve heard other people say that he seems like someone who would love conventions, or probably be an internet troll, and other things of that nature that relate more to his interests and personal life. I mean sure, anyone can headcanon anything for any character, but the way people headcanon Buddy just feels very… natural? Very fitting? Like, he’s a character that’s very easy to imagine having a life and hobbies outside of his evil schemes.Another little interesting thing is how he’s pretty much his own downfall. I mean sure a lot of his losses can be attributed to the Parrs defeating him in some way, but his most glaring faults are usually things that he could have prevented had he acted a little differently or planned a little differently. I dunno I just think that’s interesting for no particular reason.And one more thing I haven’t really discussed/seen discussed as much as I really think it should because it’s an interesting part of his character is does he see himself as a hero or a villain? And There are some interesting interpretations to that question as well. For example, if he views himself as a hero it’s probably because he doesn’t believe that superheroes are actually good people at heart, and that they just put up a facade of being kind and helpful to the public, which he uses to justify his atrocities. Or perhaps he legitimately does see himself as a hero for wanting to give normal people the opportunity to be super, or maybe he thinks that he’s doing a service to the world by killing off the people who are simply putting up that facade of good, or perhaps he sees himself as a victim deserving of a “redemption.” And if he sees himself as a villain, maybe he doesn’t understand or want to acknowledge the full weight of his actions, because it’s all a game to him, or maybe he does see himself as a bad person beyond redemption, so he decided that being a supervillain was fated or required of him. Regardless of which idea he believes, it’s obvious that Syndrome very much so lives (and has always lived) in his own fantasy world where things do play out exactly like how comic books do, and that his actions have no real weight to him (except when he feels like he’s been wronged, because he views himself as the protagonist or antagonist of the “story” aka making his own emotions relevant “plot points,” even if no one elses’ emotions (except maybe Bob’s) have any importance to him) because it’s all a comic book in his mind.Anyway there’s my nonsense rant

#oops #Anonymous #ask

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eregyrn-falls · 7 years

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I remember this old post about if Ford's hands are normal and if Stan was the polydactyl. How does the elder Pines twins personalities change if that was the case? Is Stan more violent or shyer? Is Ford more protective of his twin. Does he develop an interest in the supernatural?

Oh gosh, this is such an interesting set of questions! Apologies for the late reply on this, Anon, I didn’t mean to seem like I was ignoring it; I was giving this some time to percolate in my head.

I haven’t actually run across any posts before that discussed in depth the idea of Stan being the one who was polydactyl, instead of Ford! (The main post I can think of that I saw mentioning it was this one here, and I don’t recall seeing follow-up discussions?)

I guess the first question is just: how much of Stan’s and Ford’s personalities are innate, and how much were influenced by their circumstances (in which I’m including the polydactyly as a circumstance). There’s reams of other meta out there about the natures of both elder Pines twins, and some of the assumptions in some of that meta, as well as just the “general consensus” popular in the fandom, undoubtedly influences how I think of them.

For example: I’m firmly in the camp that thinks that both Stan and Ford are very smart; but, I think that they process information and express their intelligence in different ways. Ford seems to have a natural affinity for “book-learning”, by which I mean traditional schooling and research. The way Stan is portrayed as a child makes me think that he isn’t so great with traditional learning, and that’s what led to him being an under-achiever, because in the late 50s and early 60s, schools were not as good at identifying when a child was falling behind or acting out because they needed a different learning style to thrive. I’ve always though of Stan as a more “kinetic” learner, good with physical tasks and also better at learning by demonstration than by lecture/reading.

(The usual sidenote applies here: if this is true of Stan, then it makes his teaching himself to get the Portal working again that much more impressive. Just because he might be more comfortable with non-book-learning doesn’t mean he can’t learn from so-called traditional sources. It just means that it’s a different kind of challenge for him than for someone who meshes very well with that form of learning. Both Stan and Ford are very stubborn and tenacious. In my view, Stan slacked off as a child, and cheated in school, because he was rebelling against school not giving him what he needed; and, I feel, because it was a vicious cycle in which he was being told by parents and school authority figures that he wasn’t good at it, and he internalized that and stopped trying. When it came to fixing the Portal, he put aside doubts and preferences and single-mindedly devoted himself to that goal.)

In ATOTS, we’re told that it’s Ford’s polydactyly that creates his interest in science fiction and anomalies. And yes, that’s an easy answer, but… I’m not sure that necessarily has to be completely true. You don’t need to have an unusual trait like that, to be a very smart little kid who becomes deeply invested in scifi/fantasy and all of that stuff. I do think that his unusual trait created for him an additional feeling of connection to those subjects, and I do think that he used that connection as an additional means to cope with the anxiety that his unusual status, and the teasing he received because of it, created.

So, if Stan is the one who’s polydactyl – well, I don’t think that changes the fact that as a little kid in the 50s/60s, he wasn’t as well suited to the style of schooling he was forced into. He’d still have those unaddressed learning problems in school, and that would probably still have caused him to receive negative feedback from his parents and teachers. It’s just that little polydactyl Stan would have the additional problem of being regarded as a “freak” by classmates (and maybe by adults too), as well as regarded as “lazy”, and a “cheater”, and a “class clown” (which seems probable; we’re not told specifically that he was, but, it seems pretty likely given everything about Stan’s personality, and the principal does refer to him as a clown).

On the flip side, little Ford may be “normal”, but he’s still abnormally smart, and his excelling at traditional schooling wouldn’t have changed. And as many people know, that alone can become a cause for being ostracized and bullied by classmates. He may still have developed an interest in scifi/fantasy and the supernatural, as a sort of intellectual/emotional “escape”.

But, the further thing I think might happen is that little Stan may also develop more of an interest in that direction (maybe with Ford’s encouragement?). In ATOTS, when they were little, we saw monster-movie posters and that monster mask around Stan’s bed; and even into adulthood we find that he’s interested in things like taxidermy and stop-motion animation and stuff. Might little polydactyl Stan have gotten into that even more, if he (like Ford in canon) felt like he “belonged” among the “freaks” and side-show attractions?

Going back to similarities and differences between the two of them – Stan is obviously the more outgoing of the two, the one with the “big personality”. And he does seem like the more aggressive of them – but, they’re actually closer in that regard than it seems at first glance. There are plenty of moments in the show where we see that Ford has a temper and becomes aggressive towards threats. Both Pines men have a tendency to turn fear into anger (think of Stan yelling at the kids when he’s fighting the zombies; think of Ford threatening Probabilator when he’s tied up). Stan still seems to be the more extroverted of the two, and Ford the more socially awkward. But Ford’s aggression likely isn’t a completely learned behavior (i.e. a survival mechanism only learned while dimension-hopping). It’s probably just a Pines trait that he had all along, but as a small child wasn’t confident enough to rely on.

So I do feel a bit like little polydactyl Stan might not have needed quite as much standing-up-for as little Ford did. Even from an early age, Stan seems to instinctively turn attacks back on his attackers. Crampelter calls them losers, and Stan’s response is basically to say, “takes one to know one”. Little Ford’s response to bullying was to let it get to him; Stan’s is to turn it around and throw it back in the bully’s face. What I can easily imagine is little Stan doing just that to anyone who teased him for having six fingers – turning it into a joke, or just a belligerant “yeah? what’s it to ya?” I don’t think he would have been unaffected, deep down – just as, in canon, he clearly was affected by all the people who called him a loser and said he’d never amount to anything. That got to him, even though he tried to cover it with bluster and over the top confidence.

Little Ford is harder for me to figure out, just because I’m not quite sure why he was so passive as a little kid, since he would develop that Pines pugnaciousness once he got to adulthood. He took all that bullying really hard, it’s clear; and he needed a lot more support and reassurance than little Stan seemed to. Or is that the point? Did little Stan (in canon) also really need that stuff, but he just covered up the need with bluster, while little Ford didn’t? Meanwhile, in this AU – if little Ford isn’t being bullied for being a “freak”, and is “only” being bullied for being the typical too-smart little kid, does that result in his being a little bit more outgoing and willing to stand up for Stan?

I could go either way on that. I’m having a hard time seeing little Ford playing the belligerant, “get lost, bullies!” role in defense of his brother; just as I’m having a hard time seeing little polydactyl Stan NOT standing up for himself (even if it does hurt deep down). I could see a little bit of both, perhaps? But I do see little Ford trying to be supportive of his brother. And if little Ford is still a scifi nerd – and especially if that’s an interest his brother shares a bit more – then I could still see him being interested in the anomalous, as a way to keep trying to prove to his brother that being an anomaly makes Stan cool and special, rather than “a freak”.

At least, that’s a dynamic I’d like to *think* would happen.

Let me insert a sidenote here about the boxing lessons. In canon, Filbrick signs both boys up for boxing lessons, after little Stan is shown being picked-on by the older bullies. There’s an implication that the boxing lessons gave little Stan confidence, and caused him to blossom from a nerdy, dorky-looking teen, into one who gets the girl. Meanwhile, Ford is hiding his face in a book rather than paying attention to practice. While adult Ford appears capable of handling himself, the boxing lessons don’t seem to have given little Ford as much confidence. One thing that interests me about that, going back up to a point I made above, is that if Stan is a “kinetic” learner, that might explain why the boxing lessons worked better for him. So this too may not change if Stan is polydactyl. I don’t see any reason why being polydactyl would have a negative effect on learning to box. (I don’t think that’s why Ford didn’t take to it as well.) Plus – when you’re boxing, if your hands are in gloves, nobody can see that you’re polydactyl? It sort of evens the playing field, as it were.

(This leaves completely aside the slight timeline difficulties of that sequence, as well as the question of whether some of the details were Stan, telling the story to Soos in his memories, deliberately conflating details of Ford’s and his childhood experiences. Tiny glasses-Stan being bullied in Dreamscapers could be true; and little non-glasses Stan standing up to bullies in ATOTS could be post-boxing-lessons, having gained in confidence. The part that bugs me is why he would then go from more-confident little non-glasses Stan, to nerdy/dorky glasses-wearing teen Stan at the movies, punching Carla’s attacker. But, ehn. For purposes of this discussion, let’s just go with the broad strokes of what that sequence conveys.)

So, where does that lead both of their lives, though?

Does polydactyl Stan come to rely even more on his brother as his only friend, the person who makes him feel like his unusual hands aren’t just no big deal, but are in fact special? Does that just make Stan even more reluctant to see Ford go away to college? Unfortunately, I could see that happening. I’m not sure that reversing the circumstances does anything to address the problems that led to their falling out – the lack of good communication that arose as they became teenagers, or Stan’s dreams of leaving everything behind to pursue a dream career.

Plus, I don’t know that it affects another innate quality that Stan seems to have – like his mother, for some reason, Stan is drawn to performance and to conning people. He has a talent for it (at least, he does some of the time, since we have to remember all the sales pitches and cons he failed to pull off). In that context, the polydactyly is both a curse and a blessing. A curse, because it makes it less easy for Stan to blend in and become anonymous; he’s always going to attract SOME attention, and he has a trait that he can’t easily hide, the way he can grow out or cut his hair, or grow a mustache. But a blessing, if he took it that way, because used correctly it could make for a great distraction, as well as a great prop in certain kinds of cons.

Meahwhile – with the connection to anomalies being through his twin, rather than through himself, does Ford still become as motivated to pursue that study as a life’s work? In particular, what happens to that interest if/when he and Stan have a falling out? Would Ford still continue to pursue that line of study when it would be a constant reminder of his twin? Or, bitter at what he thinks of as Stan’s betrayal and untrustworthiness, does he also bitterly reject the subject he once loved, and once wanted to pursue out of love for his twin? Does he wind up going into some other field, like quantum mechanics or engineering?

I guess I’d conclude that whether their lives go off on substantially different paths, or not, comes down to many different decision points, not just that one difference. Ford could wind up on a path that never takes him to Gravity Falls or brings him into contact with Bill. Or, you could still find a way for that to happen, even if some of the details proceeded differently. Stan might have somehow used that extra motivation / sense of identification with the weird to propel him into a still shady but viable career path earlier (inspired by his mother’s similar career; that is, himself starting something like the Mystery Shack elsewhere, and earlier, a kind of carnival barker / P.T. Barnum showman). …Or, Stan might have been just that little bit even more dependent on Ford for a feeling of validation, and still messed up, resulting in a rift between the two.

Personally, I think that changing a detail like that becomes more interesting if the results are markedly different from canon. But basically, I’d be happy to read it, either way. :)

#gravity falls #stanley pines #stanford pines #meta #LONG POST

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