I Did It Once And The Author Blocked Me And I Promised Myself Never To Do It Again :((

loved the newest chapter! The Realignment Theory ❤

So anyways I think the worst part about Emma May is that she was so so loved. Fidds almost destroyed a city because she left him. Can you imagine loving someone that much? To the point of wanton destruction? She just couldn’t give him what he truly wanted so she lost her place in his list of priorities. He got carried away in Ford’s dazzling world and forgot that she was a person who needed companionship and attention, that she wasn’t just a concept to yearn for from a distance. Fiddleford forgot that she was a person a PERSON and all we see is this negative space, a garage in Palo Alto, an imprint left in their marriage bed, half a face on his desk, this forensic scattering left in her son’s existence and a crazed lunatic missing a Family, a Wife. She once existed. And he dug such a deep well of sadness within her that she quite literally disappeared completely from the narrative. Something something there’s a particularly cruel pain left by the selfishness of kindhearted men. Emma May, was it worth it?

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:

Project Gutenberg

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by volunteers.

Here's an amazing free audiobook on the internet archive:

Internet Archive

Flatland : Edwin Abbott Abbott : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a satirical novella by the English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott Abbott, first published in 1884 by Se

Here's where you can read the 2024 translation into modern English on the internet archive:

Internet Archive

Flatland An Adventure In Many Dimensions 1st Edition : Tinyel : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Hey look, it's done!As long as lulu.com still exists, you can buy a physical copy here! I get $5 (USD) when you buy it. You can also donate

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.

___

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

___

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.

in which a sphere regrets teaching a square how to write

I’m sure this has been talked about before, but my brain exploded when I saw a TikTok edit of Stan and Ford with Would You Fall in Love Again, at least the first part of the verse—"Is it you?" I just now realized how obvious the parallels are between Penelope/Odysseus and the Stans.Especially since most of the comments agree that Stan was basically Penelope, waiting for 30 years and doing everything he could to see Ford again. I know a lot of people see it as platonic, but if you show me an edit with that song and that parallel, there’s no way I can see it that way. They are definitely husbands 😭😭. Now I really wanna see a full edit or animatic of them with the entire song.

Omg ok I think I found another extraneous detail that I can wildly contort into something that feeds my sick Stancest needs.

Stan’s fanfiction.

So here’s an excerpt of official audio from Alex:

The setup is that the duchess cheats on the duke with this self insert “stable uncle”. Ok what you’d expect so far, he self ships himself with the attractive female lead, and his romantic rival is a very well spoken duke with whom he has some mutual disdain for (hm… well spoken and antagonistic toward him, I wonder if there’s anyone he drew real life inspiration from…?)

As a side note, I would like to point out that he describes the affair as “forbidden” implying that forbidden love is an appealing idea to him...

But what makes this really interesting is the title of his fanfic. Which is this:

The DUKE’S Temptations, not the stable uncle’s or even the duchess’s temptations. The DUKE’S. Now this is a little odd considering that this duke character isn’t his insert character but rather a RIVAL to his insert character. The assumed scenario from the audio would be that the focus is on the duchess having an affair with Stan’s insert, but this suggests that the focus would shift and that the duke himself is tempted into an affair.

Given that the duke’s speaking patterns sound awfully similar to ford’s as well the petty jabs at each other sounding just as familiar, I think it’s safe to say that the duke is the ford insert character.

And being that the title is what it is, I really don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the duke must become the main love interest for stan’s insert. I mean Stan’s character must remain the protagonist right? It would be odd for him to write an insert fic without his own romance being the main focus.

So there would be a change in attitudes on both sides. Literally enemies to lovers. Two men who come to understand each other amid their competition and develop a mutual passion that runs much deeper than their contempt ever did. A forbidden and dangerous affair. A temptation that neither can resist. Wow. Soos needs to needs to upload this to ao3 asap. I wanna read this now.

@dejabooooo’s post about the Stans and jealousy got me thinking! I debated with myself whether to add a bunch of stuff in the tags or to reblog with an addition, but ultimately I’ve decided to make my own post because this is more of an analysis than anything. I hope you aren’t bothered by me chiming in, it really is an interesting subject!

In my country we have two words for what in English is described only as “jealousy.” When you feel envious of something someone has, be it their success, their house, their intelligence, or their cool vibes, the word used is inveja (envy), always. When you feel jealous of the affection a loved one is bestowing upon someone else, on the other hand—for example, jealous of your best friend’s new friend who always hangs out with them—it’s a specific feeling worthy of a specific word, ciúmes, which can be familial, platonic, or romantic. It’s a very useful differentiation, imo, and I remember being very confused when I started learning English for real and there wasn’t any. I believe that the English logic is that if you’re jealous of your best friend’s new friend, you are still jealous of something they have that you feel like you don’t have (your best friend’s attention & affection, in this case). I think the language also affects the culture, though, since here we learn to think of those two things as separate things.

Before we continue, my friend the English teacher advised me to offer proof that in English the words “jealous” and “envious” really are interchangeable since many people think they aren’t, so here you go, Merriam-Webster:

Ok, so. Back to the analysis!

All the Stan jealousy examples you’ve used would fit more with inveja and not be so related to ciúmes, but Stan has both in spades.

In this one scene, for example, the jealousy is not just related to something Ford has (genius intelligence)/Ford can do and Stan can’t do (build a light bulb), aka inveja, but also related to the attention/love Soos and the kids were bestowing upon Ford because of that, aka ciúmes. 

In fact, Alex talked about that in the commentary of Stanchurian Candidate:

At this point, the kids have become a surrogate family. In the beginning of the show, they were just kind of a little nuisance, and he kinda tried out getting the family from them that he never got from his brother—the idea that he would lose them to his brother is his greatest nightmare. 

Not only that, but ironically, Stan was jealous of THE KIDS, due to the attention Ford was bestowing upon them! According to the commentary of AToTS:

In order to bring out the maximum amount of frustration in Stan, he needed to have a bit of a heart. Like, [Stan] would see him being kind to the kids—he’s not all bad, which is so infuriating to Stan. The idea that he would quickly get along with the kids when [Stan] can’t get any respect from this guy—Ford is designed to what would bring out the most amount of conflict in the family.

And how does Stan act when he’s feeling that specific kind of jealousy (ciúmes) out of fear that Ford appreciates someone else more than him (which would be our focus as stancesters)? He amps up the passive-aggressiveness to 11, hahah. 

I mean, Alex never commented on Stan’s feelings in this scene, but just look at him.

In the same way he was jealous of the kids for receiving Ford’s respect, he was likely jealous of Fiddleford for receiving Ford’s apologies! Not in a romantic way, just... jealous.

You can notice the resemblance:

My conclusion is that when he’s feeling jealous (both inveja and ciúmes) of Ford (that is, he feels like Ford has something he doesn’t have OR receiving appreciation he doesn’t get) he goes to extreme measures to one up Ford and prove himself better, just like you said. However, when he’s feeling jealous (ciúmes) of someone else for receiving something from Ford (Ford’s respect, Ford’s affection, Ford’s apologies), though, he just... sulks.

Now, Ford! I can’t recall Ford feeling inveja of someone, despite his ambition, but we do see Ford feeling the ciúmes kind of jealousy:

Ford is not passive-aggressive and indirect about it. Ford is confrontational about it. He angrily asks Bill if Bill was “off inspiring some other scientist” and even questions the nature of their relationship to Bill’s face, but Bill manipulates his way out of that by guilt tripping Ford and pointing out that Ford had been the one skipping portal work to hang out with Fiddleford.

Imo, jealousy/ciúmes and possessiveness are somewhat different. You can’t be possessive without being jealous in the first place, of course, but you can be jealous without being possessive. Jealousy is just the insecurity at the core of it, but possessiveness entails at least some measure of entitlement, a certain confidence that this person should belong to you/be with you.

Ford does feel entitled to Stan’s help, at least (“I’m giving you a chance to do the first worthwhile thing in your life, and you won’t even listen!”) so considering the very codependent nature of their relationship as boys and the fact Stan has always treated Ford like the center of his life, it’s not a stretch to imagine Ford growing to feel entitled to Stan’s love or Stan himself, period. They’re twins -> Stan is his other half -> Stan belongs to him subconscious pipeline.

I think Ford is definitely more confident than Stan, whose confidence is a performance, and as such he has the potential to feel entitled to and possessive of Stan as a result, but that side of him wouldn’t be as easily awakened (like it was with Bill) because he’s more secure in the knowledge that Stan is indeed his—he’s more secure in everything, really, including his masculinity and physical appearance and potential. (Actually, it really is the same thing with their toxic masculinity! It looks like Stan is the only twin with toxic masculinity because of how insecure and pathetic he is about it all the time! Ford, on the other hand, has tons of it, but is way more subtle about it because he actually believes in himself.)

Stan’s jealousy, meanwhile, would be more easily awakened. He is in the corner crossing his arms and glaring very, very hard at you as Ford praises your new scientific project. He is, indeed, very pathetic about it.

We Swear It’s the Cold - (Pages 1-9) Part 1

I was rereading one of my fave fics and I really like this one. It’s also one of the first stancest fics I’ve ever read, then I’ve got hooked lol.

For @cheeziswin, you’ve been a super sweetie and I always wanted to draw ya a gift so enjoy! 

Sometimes I see people absolutely losing it over Stan bros fanart because they can’t tell if it’s platonic or a ship—and honestly? It’s because, deep down, they know it could be a ship. And yeah, it gets kinda exhausting how much people feel the need to emphasize “it’s just brotherly!!” Like… if it were that obvious, would you really need to say it?

I don't want to be (too much of) an asshole but the whole "I shouldn't have to explain this isn't Stancest" to me is so sad... And frustrating. I genuinely want to ask these people to take a walk with me and show them their own work... Show them the way the characters lounge on one another, how they sleep cuddled together and live in the same house and kiss each other on the cheek and forehead and hold each other in bed... And then ask them "Would you sleep with YOUR sibling like this?"

Genuinely. Would YOU, the artist, sleep with YOUR SIBLING like this? Look. I wish we lived in a big beautiful world where anyone can cuddle with anyone and it doesn't have to mean anything, but we don't LIVE in that world. There is such a thing as couple codding, and the way that the twins get drawn draped over each other, placing their hands on each other's pecks etc etc... This is COUPLE language. Put ANY OTHER CHARACTERS THAT ARE NOT SIBLINGS in this situation and then look me in the eye and tell me that they are not a couple. Stancest does not have to involve SEX if you do not want it to- queer platonic couples are a THING. What you are drawing are queer platonic Stancest. The worst part is there are a lot of artist who draw QPR or nonsexual stancest, who embrace the term without feeling drawn to the sexual side. And I don't want to be like "Back in my day shit was better", but back in my day there wasn't this same violent hatred there was, and people were a bit more ready to be open about liking it. If you look at old Stancest art from when the show was still airing, you'd find pieces with a LOT more attention then they'd ever get now, and I don't think it's just because of lesser audience. I think the GravFalls fandom is thriving. I just think that fandom is so much more widespread and therefore so much more policed then it used to be. Anyway. It sucks, there's no fixing this, but I'm glad the Stancest fandom has gotten a little laugh out of it. But also maybe don't harass people, all right?