Stanford Pines

Ford is an intellectual man who is considered an introverted and nerdy person. Despite being highly intelligent he is very self-absorbed and likes being praised.

Ford bears a close resemblance to Stan Pines. However, there are a few notable differences:

Unlike Stan, Ford's hair is dark gray with a horizontal silver streak along the sides of it and he possesses unusually long sideburns. His chin has a cleft and slight five o'clock shadow. Ford's nose is visually smoother than Stan's, lacking bumps. He is a central polydactyl with six fingers on each hand. Ford has a much narrower build than Stan.

By 1981, six years since his arrival in Gravity Falls, Stanford had an encyclopedic knowledge of his mysterious new home, and was in the process of writing his third journal. Unfortunately, he soon hit a roadblock, and was left without answers as to how the improbalilities of Gravity Falls had come to be. The plateau in his research led him to the discovery of a cave filled with cryptic hieroglyphics, as the message spoke of an entity containing unending knowledge. Despite the warnings about the entity, Ford repeated the incantation aloud, which summoned a triangular creature who introduced himself as Bill Cipher into his mindscape. Presenting himself as a muse, one who chose a genius intellectual to inspire once every century, Bill offered Ford a partnership: Bill would bestow his knowledge to Ford in exchange for the ability to move freely within and without Ford's own mind.

Putting his grant money to use in the construction of a large, isolated research lab in the forest, Ford was soon entranced by Gravity Falls' weirdness. He recorded his many findings first in one, then in more journals as his discoveries increased. Eventually, he realized a need to expand his work area, establishing a small, heavily protected bunker laboratory to host his more dangerous projects and experiments, such as the Shape Shifter. Ford made use of his talents and newly acquired knowledge of Gravity Falls to create new and extraordinary inventions, including the mind-swapping Electron Carpet and a mind-controlling tie designed for the masters of presidential election candidate Ronald Reagan.

Ford reluctantly enrolls himself in Backupsmore University, a low-ranking college whose most notable achievement is clean dorms. Despite the drawback, he set himself to the task and worked hard, completing a doctoral program three years ahead of schedule. It was during this time that Ford met and befriended Fiddleford McGucket, a genius mechanic aspiring to build personalized computers, doing so by helping him prove his theory on the universe being a hologram. Following the completion of a nationally ranked thesis, Stanford was awarded an enormous grant of one hundred thousand dollars, which brought an end to his studies at Backupsmore. When thinking of how to employ the grant, Ford recalled how he'd been antagonized by his six fingers all through childhood, and decided to dedicate his life to the study of oddities. He chose the sleepy hamlet of Gravity Falls, Oregon, believing it to be an area of high concentration of supernatural occurrences.

As the twins reached adolescence, Ford's brains and scientific achievement expanded a contrast to his brother's disinterest in academics. The two remained close, working together on their ship (called the Stan o’ War) to fulfill their childhood dreams of sailing around the globe until Ford was summoned to the Principal's office. There, he was lauded as a genius and offered the chance to show his science fair experiment, a Perpetual Motion Machine, to a visiting team of recruiters from West Coast Tech, a prestigious university on the other side of the country. With promises of fortune and success should he be accepted, Ford became less sure of his plans with Stan, revealing to his twin that he'd seize the chance to go if it happened.

However, on the day of the visit, Ford and the West Coast Tech team simultaneously discover that the Perpetual Motion Machine has stopped moving, defeating its sole purpose. A distraught Ford discovers an empty bag of Toffee Peanuts next to his display, and mistakenly believes Stanley has purposely sabotaged him. He angrily confronts his brother back home and doesn't interfere while his father kicks Stan out of the house, disowning him until he could pay back the potential millions he cost the Pines family. Ford is seen sadly looking out at his brother from the window of their shared room, before a glance at a West Coast Tech pamphlet gives him the strength to close the blinds on him.

Stanford was born in the late 1940s to early 1950s to Filbrick Pines and Caryn Pines in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey. From an early age, Ford was fascinated with the supernatural and science fiction. He displayed an abnormally high I.Q. and a rare birth defect that granted him an extra finger on both hands. Despite their vastly different personalities, Ford and his brother were the best of friends, often roaming the beach in search of adventure. Unfortunately, their youth was plagued with frequent bullying due to Ford's six fingers and Stan's wimpish characteristics, most notably from their childhood tormentor Crampelter. This prompted their father to enlist them in boxing lessons as a means of toughening them up.

Stanford "Ford" Filbrick Pines (born June 15th or 16th), also known as The Author, or simply Great Uncle or Grunkle Ford, is a paranormal investigator and scientist who came to Gravity Falls, Oregon, to study the huge concentration of supernatural activity in and around the town. After spending years cataloging his research in a series of journals, he disappeared into an alternate dimension. His writings were left as the only evidence of his existence.

Ford's whereabouts and identity were the central mystery and element of foreshadowing of the Gravity Falls series until the middle of the series' second season when he was revealed to be Stan Pines' long-lost twin brother, who vanished after a fight with his brother caused him to stumble through his own interdimensional portal.