Can We Get Into More Real Talk About Ford's Low Self-esteem, Please?

assigning gravity falls characters fnaf 1 animatronics

mabel is chica. she's a party girl, she loves confetti, and who else would be the one carrying around a cupcake sidekick?

stan is freddy. leader of the group, not as active, but will b-line it to you if you lose power

dipper is bonnie. blue and purple, matches with chica, teleports because he's anxious about being seen moving

fiddleford is foxy. it's possible to forget he's there, but he's unpredictable and you need to keep an eye on him without keeping too close an eye on him. he scurries REAL quick

ford is golden freddy because

he doesn't exist. it's just a hallucination, sherm. it's me, it's not me, don't pay him any mind. look away. look anywhere else. pretend he isn't there cause he isn't. just focus on your job

So it ends like this. Your contorted cold body is not even touched, barely grazed by disgusted eyes. Stretched out, lay on the floor, described with the words you'd use not for a human cadaver, but for the carcass of a vermin. Utterson simply inspects it close- overturns it, watches your lifeless face twitch- and after the cause of death is ruled, they look for you, the real you, the one that was loved and wanted, somewhere else.

RIP EDWARD HYDE

1883-1887

“Everybody hated him.”

Decided to do my annual Jekyll and Hyde reread and only now chose to look up the story of Damon and Pythius that Lanyon mentions. I'm in shambles.

Basically, Pythius was sentenced to death for conspiring against the tyrant king of Syracuse, and he requested to see his family one last time before his execution. Damon offered himself to take Pythius' stead as a hostage, and the king said that if Pythius did not return within a specific time, Damon would be executed instead. The king fully believed that Pythias wouldn't return and would leave Damon to die, but Pythias swam his ass to shore after he was thrown overboard by pirates to ensure he made it back to Syracuse in time. The king was so impressed by Pythias' fidelity and Damon's trust that he pardoned both of them.

Their relationship is like the Good Ending to Lanyon and Jekyll's. Even after being separated by differing scientific opinions, Lanyon continued showing an interest in Jekyll's wellbeing. He agrees to help Jekyll get the ingredients for the potion despite having no idea what it's for, only knowing his friend was in significant distress. Even with distance between them, Jekyll knows he can depend on Lanyon to help him. Pythias and Jekyll are also uncannily similar: Pythias challenged a tyrant, and Jekyll challenged God. Where Pythias/Damon and Jekyll/Lanyon differ, however, is that this implicit trust leads to Jekyll and Lanyon's downfall-- not just of their relationship, but of themselves.

I will never get over how tragic their relationship was (whether you see it as romantic or platonic). Both of them (and Utterson) loved and trusted each other so much it's sickening. I will never get over these old men who were supposed to live and die together.

Still thinking about the night Utterson broke down the door/read the letters. To me it was all within the same 24 hours.

I’ve seen the idea here and there that Utterson read the letters there in Jekyll’s cabinet and then could look at Hyde’s body with realization and grief. However, I think it much more likely that he didn’t read Jekyll’s statement until at least a couple hours later, when he was at home alone. This would’ve been after searching for Jekyll or signs of where his body could be, notifying the police, telling them his statement (which includes however long they kept him hanging around before and after that), and going home and possibly processing this weird and distressing night for a bit.

While I definitely feel the appeal of wanting Utterson to have his closure to Jekyll by observing Hyde’s body with the knowledge, it’s so much more sad to think that he’s not going to get that chance. If there was a funeral for Jekyll (there probably was), it was with his body absent, because it was never found (unless there wasn’t a service because he would’ve been presumed missing).

By the time he’d read both letters, Hyde’s (Jekyll’s) body would’ve been in custody, waiting for autopsy, if not already begun. So then … what’s Utterson supposed to do? Tell people that’s actually Jekyll’s body? His friend since his youth whom he held dear to his heart and who deserves a proper burial and service? … No. He can’t do that. He’d be taken for having gone mad. Unless he showed the letters as proof.

But then, if they are believed, Jekyll’s reputation would be completely ruined. You know what people are like when someone they like/respect turns out to be a horrible person. And in a society when everyone puts on the facade in public … it would also haunt Utterson more out loud rather than just in his thoughts, and that’s horrible enough without making his everyday life worse.

No. There’s no saving Jekyll’s body. He died as Hyde and he can’t be recovered. His body will be subjected to whatever treatment the bodies of criminals were subjected to. And Utterson will likely keep quiet.

If there was a funeral service for Jekyll and Utterson went, he’d be surrounded by people who would know so little of the truth about the man they would be singing the praises of. And Utterson would have to be quiet and bear through it.

The main person he would’ve talked to about all this is already dead. From learning the truth firsthand. Anyone else he talks to would compromise Jekyll’s memory. What would finding out the truth do to Poole? Could Enfield keep his mouth shut? … Dare Utterson risk finding out?

I think he’d just keep it secret, keep it safe. If he did carry on through life, he’d be doing it with a new layer to the facade he already wore daily. He’d have to carry on, hear the platitudes—“Terribly sorry for your loss.” “Fine man, that Dr. Jekyll.” “London is all the poorer now.” “Good man, good man.” “How’ve you been holding up?”—and try to roll with it. Holding all that knowledge and emotion behind the facade. Confiding in no one.

Like his friend.

The hate that Stanford gets low-key feels like people who hated Mabel growing up to hate Ford ngl.

What Ford Pines Meant to Me.

I think it’s about time to explain why Stanford Pines is my favorite Gravity Falls character. I’ve reblogged whatever good meta I could find on him in the past, but none really got at my main thoughts: the best part of the show is its rich subtext about the realities that kids’ shows don’t acknowledge directly, both terrible and beautiful, and this character encapsulates that perfectly.

Let’s backtrack: Gravity Falls is a kids’ show that adults appreciate for audacious humor (and horror), emotional moments, character building, and foreshadowing that fully utilizes the Law of Conservation of Detail. It brings many of us back to childhood -from idyllic blue sky to irreverent laughter, with just a fleeting glimpse of the truly marvelous. We can catch that glimpse in the cryptograms, mystery aesthetics, color scheme, musical score, backgrounds…

…and Ford, the subject of this post. This character started as a bombshell reveal that made us reevaluate everything, quickly established himself as adorkable, badass, and morally complex… that’s pretty nifty, I would say, but I’ve established he’s also my favorite for reasons more extra than those. So here’s my unsanctioned, unsanitized, unmutilated opinion on why this character is resonant and cathartic to me, personally. Read it or don’t.

Fantasy elements don’t deter thinking viewers from connecting with stories; we either unveil essentially true-to-life stories underneath or admit the story suffers from a lack of substance. So I cannot overstate that, circumstances aside, Ford presents a more realistic (and visceral, and played-straight) depiction of trauma than I ever expected to see from a kids’ show.

Ford spirals across the course of his arc. It starts with others calling him a freak in childhood because of his polydactyly, and that wound opens all the rest as he develops a dangerously low self-esteem contingent on intellectual feats. The narrative links his ambition to his earliest insecurity at every turn: Stanley juxtaposing Ford’s polydactyly and intelligence as two anomalies about him, Bill Cipher taunting Ford about both, and Ford hiding his hands at key moments. That’s why he makes a deal with Bill, really a demon exploiting him -because he sees no other way to prove the world wrong about his basic humanity.

Bill’s abuse of Ford gives an unexpected psychological edge to an otherwise comedic villain. Putting the “con” in “Panopticon”, Bill traps Ford in a nightmare from which he cannot awaken… and it hurts. We never see Ford’s escape from Bill’s world because he never left, per visible fractures in his psyche’s thin ice: insomnia, paranoia, anger, sense of foreshortened future, a mind of equal parts shame and guilt over things that weren’t his fault, self-destruction, and of course, trusting no one. And I mean, shit. That’s what trauma does. It doesn’t just magically go away as in stories where fantasy elements don’t code for anything real. The journals, “A Tale of Two Stans”, and “The Last Mabelcorn” together epitomize how this show’s details acquire nuance in retrospect.

Ford’s fixation on his journals, already symbols of himself, acquires nuance in retrospect. To Ford, the journals represent his own tenuous sense of self-worth -so of course he clings to them against the negation of self that demon possession represents. Those pages hide the vulnerability just as he does, but were probably the only thing grounding him in the reality that he owns this experience, he legitimately suffered degradation, and he will not let anyone erase that (read: him) without a fight. Given how his encrypted emotional rawness disrupts a show that otherwise keeps its drama safe and restrained emotionally, he succeeded. Ford becomes the journal becomes the dangerous and marvelous allure of mystery, a psychic echo of both the spiritual violation of the man and the inviolate perseverance that kept his spirit alive.

Ford’s arc also unveils something the show’s truisms about family cannot, namely everything wrong with the idea of familial obligation. Y’know, the idea that family members “owe” each other more than basic decency, so coercive indebtedness rather than freely-given, unselfish love keeps the relationship afloat? People reject this entitlement complex in other kinds of relationships, but think it sacrosanct in families. Especially those with gifted kids.

This show might have fallen down that bottomless pit if not for the Stans’ backstory: their father valued Ford only as “our ticket out of this dump” and abandoned Stan for interfering with that. Like many siblings from bad homes, the two shared milder shades of the parent’s mentality: Ford writing off Stan as badly-intentioned, and Stan assuming Ford owes him. So Ford had every right to not thank Stan for unsolicited favors -just not to conclude, as he did, that Stan only cared about him for his supposed debt. It’s vital they don’t reconcile until Stan does something without expecting thanks, so the ending isn’t some banality about Ford accepting he ~really did~ owe his brother uwu; it’s Stan giving up that way of thinking, Ford giving up the distrust that made him see everything in extremes, and both moving toward a healthy understanding of family.

The matter of Ford’s past makes it so important he respects boundaries (“he doesn’t make fun of me all the time the way you and Grunkle Stan do”). Like I said, shows like this usually say that family gets to nullify personal boundaries. Ford confounds that with a key element of healthy relationships: never denying the validity of anyone’s feelings. He never crosses this line as Stan does during their fight (albeit still crossing others); more positively, he validates Dipper’s interests and reassures Mabel she’s a good person and treats Fiddleford with dignity when they needed it most. Ford did far more good than harm, in areas where no one else could, that’s for damn sure. All because he’ll never replicate the horrific boundary violations he endured. Trauma didn’t make him this way, but that he acted this way in the face of it shows truly admirable integrity.

Ford is a good person because even without trust, he has intrinsic respect for others’ dignity. We see child!Ford would rather “fit in” than truly be normal because from the first, he has that crazy dream of people deserving fundamental respect (never deserving the violence of alienation) without exception. That’s why he doesn’t mock people, and why he reclaims the study of anomalies and himself with it. We see in the journals’ hand-symbol the same repressed light of self-preservation as lets him reconnect, overpowering his unfounded fears that he only hurts people and deserves none of their help. And Ford takes that study of anomalies with him to the end, never forfeiting his true self. So the show takes its affinity for weirdness beyond lip service, as it had with mystery and family, by showing that (neurodivergent-coded) Others deserve acceptance as they are.

Have I read too deeply into what I introduced at the beginning as an ultimately lighthearted kids’ show? Yes. Definitely. Absolutely. But when it’s a show all about detail and mystery, you can’t give me a surface and expect me not to look under it. Seeing sublime new dimensions to things makes growing up worthwhile, and that’s why Stanford Pines is my favorite Gravity Falls character.

It’s very late so I’m a bit delirious, but I feel like both the musical, and just ignoring details in Jekyll and Hyde have really dumbed down just how HIGH society Dr Jekyll is. He literally has an account at COUTTS (a detail which I didn’t notice until many re-reads lowk), but also the fact that he was friends with Utterson and shared him as a lawyer with a member of parliament…like! Not to mention his calculated worth and then kinda basic, but Enfield knows of him without knowing him personally despite utterson being besties w Jekyll which is also a bit crazy…

Idk I fink too many adaptations js say “respectable” and leave it at that w out saying just how much so…

Honestly i don’t like it when people are like “oh Jekyll is the Good One” because the point is he IS. Complex. He struggles with his addiction with his anger and hatred and with so much shit. He represses stuff and he lies and he is so full of fear. He hurts himself in the most twisted ways he can think of. He believes he’s always being watched. He’s depressed and has an unspecified dissociative disorder that fucks over how he perceives his own humanity and the way he sees himself. He has good intentions, but misguided ones; and there’s arrogance at his core. He is mean, but he is nice, but he is cruel, but he is trying his best and LISTEN Jekyll has got so many layers and he admits that. He says that. So it also kills me when people are like “oh Jekyll is Evil” well. Yes but actually no but actually yes and you Know what? If you try to assign moral alignments to Strange Case characters then you didn’t read the book properly. You’ve missed the point. He deserves a slap in the face and a blanket. He has to get his shit together because if he doesn’t people die. Do you Understand.

Fair warning: This comic deals with child abuse and it does get pretty graphic, so I’m putting the rest of it under the cut.

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*in a confession booth* i enjoy making jekyll a pretty boy so i can watch him ruin his life and cry and scream and whither and be beautiful while doing it. i enjoy giving him features i find very attractive and distorting them whenever he transfers into hyde.

i enjoy his outer beauty meaning nothing in the face of the ugliness inside himself