May I Add That He Lost In The Semifinals To None Other Than STANLEY PINES

What's so interesting to me about Dipper is that he has no friends!

Okay, that's not necessarily true. dipper gets along very well with Soos, for example, and he's the twins' primary big brother figure for most of the show (we love u, soos!) dipper also grows very close to wendy, and in the end chooses to treasure their friendship more than he does any romantic feelings for her. he isn't lacking in terms of having important people in his life

but there's no one his age !

the closest we see to dipper having any sort of friend group is when he hangs out with wendy and his friends, which is obviously very telling of the fact that he wants to grow up, and he wants to grow up fast. consequently, he doesn't really want to be friends with them, per se, as much as he wants to impress them and prove that he's more than just a kid

(this is also contigent with his feelings for wendy, thematically speaking, but that's a conversation for another day)

along this train of thought is the fact that wendy's friends don't see him as a friend, either, simply because they are unequals out of age difference alone. this doesn't mean that they dislike him, in fact they're glad to have him around, but dipper's an accesory and not an actual member of the group, which is not necessarily a bad thing, simply that it's different

in general, the only person dipper interacts with in more or less an equal level is mabel, except her case is very different!

from her countless love interests, we see she has a very easy time interacting with people as early as tourist trapped, she is not shy ! she is not insecure ! she flirts, she giggles, she parties, you go mabel !

the most important element to this, i think, would be how in contrast to dipper, mabel manages to make a little friend group who share common interests and have similar personalities (candy and grenda)

this is not because dipper is somehow weirder and mabel the socially charming one. in fact, mabel doesn't enjoy a particularly popular reputation, and is thought of by pacifica as silly and childish during irrational treasure

from the very beginning, we see mabel and pacifica clash in a classic "weird vs mean" dynamic, with pacifica being someone who enjoys a favourable status in gravity falls (a little bit like a celebrity) and continuously antagonizes mabel, who hangs out with candy and grenda, consistently portrayed as weird and unpopular since their introduction during double dipper

regardless, mabel has no trouble making friends. she isn't a popular girl, but she is a social girl

you'd think that mabel, who has the wider support network, would be less dependant on dipper than dipper is on her

that's definitely the case in the valentine's day flashback shown in weirdmaggedon part 2, where mabel has a considerable amount of valentines, while dipper gets none and is mocked to the point of physically having to run out of class. he even hides his birthmark all the time because the kids made fun of him for it !

so it's very interesting that when we see the twins face the idea of permanent separation, it's mabel who doesn't want to leave dipper, not the other way around !

ps; pleeeeease send me asks about gravity falls i want to talk about this show so badly

These are all the pages exclusive to the Barnes and Noble Book Of Bill, start at the end and work backwards, I couldn't be bothered adding one image at a time.

forgive yourself for making the wrong choice during a tough time

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.

a wonderful ao3 author note

it's time again for the ✨#ADHDCosmicTakeover!✨ my comic this year is about pinballing helplessly between interests and the frustrating feeling of being a "jack of all trades, master of none" (but who said i have to be a "master" of anything anyway? fuck off!)

thank you so much to dreamadoodles for organizing this year! pls check out the tag to see more comics from other contributors 🌠

I like to think there's at least one person in the Gravity Falls universe that's obsessed with lost media and old telephone product commercials. Imagine someone updating the lost media wiki on StanCo products and commercials. Trying to link all the different identities of Stan Pines. Only to find out he died in a mysterious car crash that left no body? Imagine the drama, the niche YouTube videos. The concerns for this person who's oddly obsessed over a decade old scam company.

hey. don't cry. stanlittle pines, okay?

A young girl plays in a replica of a lunar-module in Toronto, Canada, August 1975.Photograph by Robert Madden, National Geographic Creative

various warmups cuz im tired today