Stanley and Stanford Pines

Stanford "Ford" Filbrick Pines[3][10] (born June 15th[11] or 16th[12]), also known as The Author, or simply Great Uncle or Grunkle Ford, is a paranormal investigator 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 identity and whereabouts 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.[13][1]

Ford represents the six-fingered hand symbol associated with the Bill Cipher Zodiac, due to his polydactyly and his journals bearing the same symbol. Stanford was born in the late 1940s to early 1950s to Filbrick Pines and Caryn Pines in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey, 15 minutes before his twin brother, Stanley. 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. 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 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. He 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Under Cipher's guidance, Ford was introduced to vast information, learning of a parallel dimension of paranormal phenomena that had leaked into his world, which gave birth to the weirdness of Gravity Falls. With Bill's assistance, Stanford drafted blueprints to create an interdimensional gateway beneath his home, recruiting his college friend Fiddleford and his mechanic prowess for the project. As construction went underway, Ford's admiration towards Bill and his wisdom escalated into worship, which led to his collecting triangular memorabilia, such as rugs and statues, modeling his home's architecture in his image and even converting his private study to a place of worship.

As their partnership seemingly grew to friendship, Fiddleford became increasingly suspicious of the device they had constructed and of Ford's mysterious collaborator, as Ford refused to reveal Bill's identity to his friend. When the portal's first trial resulted in Fiddleford accidentally going through it, bringing back a macabre warning about "the beast with just one eye", Ford finally became suspicious as well. He resolved to continue the project however, even though he now faced it alone: McGucket, disturbed by his glimpse of the Nightmare Realm and horrified at Ford for wanting to continue, quit on the spot. The argument led to Ford questioning his mentor. It was then that Bill revealed his intentions of merging the Nightmare Realm with their dimension, even showing Ford a glimpse the horrors that lay beyond the rift. Refusing to part with his life's work, Fort deactivated the device and created Project Mentem, a machine capable of bio-electrically encrypting thoughts, which prevented Cipher from wreaking havoc in the mindscape. Despite these precautions, Ford remained deeply paranoid and fearful of the catastrophe he'd nearly caused; he took to journaling and even amending previous journal entries with invisible ink.

With his fear of Bill's inevitable return growing stronger, Ford eventually felt the need to abandon his research and hide his journals, thus preventing details on the portal's operation from falling into the wrong hands. Hiding his second and third journals locally and converting his offsite laboratory into a makeshift fallout shelter, designed to survive an apocalypse, Ford finally contacted estranged brother Stanley in an urgent call for help. After Stan's arrival, Ford's plight was near its end, as his final task rested on his brother's shoulders: after briefly explaining the portal and its power, Ford entrusted Stan his first journal, the only one still in his possession, and requested him to take it as far away as he could. Hurt and enraged at being summoned only to be sent as far as possible, Stan spitefully claimed he'd get rid of the journal by burning it, which prompted Ford to react in defense of his research. The brawl escalated into a fistfight within the laboratory that inadvertently reactivated the portal. As the fight neared the active portal, Stan angrily shoved the journal back into Ford's hands, which inadvertently pushed Ford into the gateway's range. While a helpless Stan watched, Ford first yelled at his twin to do something, then tossed him the journal, before disappearing through the gateway.

Ford found himself stranded between dimensions in an unfamiliar netherworld of the supernatural, something he was hardly prepared for. Ford wandered through various dimensions over the next thirty years, such as the "strangely pleasant" Dimension 52. He also came into contact with otherworldly items, such as the "highly-illegal" infinity sided dice.

Ford is an intellectual man who is considered an introverted and nerdy person, enjoying games which involve high levels of thinking, such as Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons. He would even go as far as to ignore the dangers of his research just to play such games (to the point where he would let a Cycloptopus bite his face when he became excited). Despite his intelligence, he is very behind the times when it comes to his own dimension, since he hasn't stepped foot in it for thirty years. He doesn't have a clue about the modern technology, or customs; he believes floppy disks are still in use, and had very little worry about giving Mabel a crossbow, thinking it's safe to give children weapons. Before he was sucked into the portal, he was shown to be paranoid and overly cautious, having a hard time trusting people due to being tricked by Bill.

Despite being very intelligent, Ford has shown himself to be very self-absorbed. This is shown by his reluctance to part with his life's work and share his scientific accomplishments with loved ones, instead relishing the image of being a solitary hero.

Ford has a strong need to have his intellect recognized and celebrated, which made it easy for Bill to trick him by claiming to be a muse who chose "one great mind" every century to inspire. Ford is seen as a serious person when it comes to his work in researching the paranormal. However, he genuinely enjoys his research, even in the face of danger. His years of researching the paranormal both in and out of his realm have made Ford a strong, brave individual who will face danger head on in order to ensure that the world is safe. However, after all of his years of researching the paranormal, Ford’s excitement for confirming things such as the existence of extraterrestrials have dulled.

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. When he first comes out of the portal, he is seen wearing a large black coat with multiple pockets on the inside and an item that appears to be a gun rested on his back. Underneath his coat, he wears a black shirt and pants. He also dons bulky black boots, a brown belt that slings from his shoulder, a tattered cape and a gray scarf. In subsequent appearances, Ford is seen wearing a tan coat, a red turtleneck with a black belt that slings across his chest, black pants, and large brown boots coated in dirt. He has a gold dot on either side of his glasses and a crack on the left lens. Many believe the blue eye from after the end of Ford's dream in "The Last Mabelcorn" to be his eye, however this was disproved by Alex Hirsch on Twitter. [16] Ford actually has brown eyes, as referenced in the tweet he replies to. This is also further confirmed by the fact that in thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com[12] a document is revealed when the user types in "STANFORD" and presses the button on the computer, which shows Stanford's case report on his polydactyly diagnosis, and lists his eye color as "Brown".

Stanley Pines was born on June 15th in the late 1940s - early 1950s to Filbrick and Caryn Pines in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey, about 15 minutes after his twin brother Ford.[16][2] He and his twin brother Stanford were very close. Stan's strong, brawny personality combining well with Ford's brilliance: when together, they were an unstoppable pair. Stan also faced frequent bullying due to his weak appearance as a child, most notably from childhood foe Crampelter. This eventually inspired their father to force the twins into taking boxing lessons, as a means of toughening them up and giving them the strength to overcome their tormentors. Stan's teenage years were initially pleasant, frequenting the 50's-themed Juke Joint with then-girlfriend Carla McCorkle [2] and building their ship - named the Stan’o’war - with Ford, as they hoped to fulfill their childhood dreams of sailing around the world searching for adventure. His aspirations began to crumble near the end of senior year, when Stanford's intellect attracted the interest of West Coast Tech (a prestigious college on the other side of the country, which meant he'd move away from him), and with Carla ending their relationship over her infatuation with hippie musician Thistle Downe. Stan would later confess to having driven Downe's van into a ravine in an act of revenge, which only served to further alienate Carla from him.[2]

On the verge of losing his closest friend, barely passing high school and seemingly destined to stay in Glass Shard Beach forever, Stan took his frustrations out on Ford's infinite motion machine, accidentally damaging it and causing it to malfunction. As his Toffee Peanuts bag was found at the machine's display, Ford accused Stan of sabotage, driving a wedge between the twins and prompting their father to disown Stan for losing them the "potential millions" Ford's scientific achievements would have reaped.

With no friends or family to turn to, a furious Stanley set out on his own, determined to acquire fame and fortune twice the size his twin ever would have earned. After a failed foray into combing beaches for buried treasure, Stan founded Stan Co. Enterprises. Through his self-managed company, Stan made and sold a variety of cheap and poorly-constructed household utilities, from Stan Co. Pitchforks (which broke apart) to the "Sham Total" sham towels (the cheap dye used to color them made stains worse), both of which resulted in Stan Co. Enterprises, along with Stan himself, being banned from the state of New Jersey. The process repeated itself in Pennsylvania with his rash-inducing "Rip-Off" band-aids. After the failure of his "Stan Vac" vacuums, Stan expanded his business out of the country, resulting in a heist gone awry in Colombia [21], which landed him in one of the country's prisons alongside cellmates, Jorge and Rico. Stan attempted to bond with them, much to both prisoners' intense dislike.

Upon his release, Stanley returned to the United States. Banned from a majority of states, imprisoned in three different countries, reduced to renting a room at the Dead End Flats motel, and remaining in debt to Rico, Stan's life had seemingly hit rock bottom - until the arrival of a postcard from his brother Stanford, the first he had heard from his twin in over a decade. It contained a desperate plea for Stan's presence. Stan traveled to his brother's new home in the woods of Gravity Falls, Oregon, to find Ford confined in his shack and borderline insane with paranoia. Ford then revealed his underground laboratory and the interdimensional portal he invented to his brother, vaguely explaining that its powers were too dangerous and that he needed Stan to take one of Ford's journals, which contained information as to its operation, and go as far away as possible to protect them from falling into the wrong hands.

Furious that Ford had only summoned him to send him away again, Stan initiated an argument and prepared to burn the book to spite Ford, causing a fistfight between the duo. During the brawl, Stan received a burn mark on his back from one of the symbols in the machinery as the machine was inadvertently activated, with Stan unintentionally shoving his brother into the portal's range, sending Ford through the machine before its immediate shutdown from lack of fuel. Stan spent the following weeks plagued by insomnia and guilt, cloistered in the lab in an attempt to reactivate the portal and bring Ford back again, only to realize it was hopeless without the other two journals. Upon venturing into town once the food ran out, Stan discovered the locals were curious about Ford's house, and even willing to pay for a look, which prompted him to open it up for tours, building fanciful faux-paranormal props when Ford's inventions failed to garner interest. With Stan's witty remarks and jokes to liven the visits, the house eventually attracted enough popularity to become the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap focused on 'paranormal' exhibits. Faking his own death in a car crash, Stan took up his brother's identity to remain legally on the property and pay Ford's mortgage; he boarded up Ford's old bedroom and hid access to the lab behind a vending machine in the gift shop. He ran the tourist trap during the day for profit, but by night worked tirelessly to locate his brother's hidden journals and reactivate the portal, hoping to one day bring him back home. As the years rolled by, Stan applied countless renovations to his tourist trap, intent on keeping its oddities and appeal alive, both for profit and for his love of money. He once stole a collection of cursed wax figures from a local garage sale for this purpose, which became the Shack's Wax Museum of Mystery and was a huge success until Stan inadvertently forgot its existence.

Edwin Durland was hired as a handyman for the Mystery Shack during this time; after firing him for his seeming incompetence, Stan caught sight of 12-year-old Soos Ramirez holding a screwdriver and offered him the job on the spot. Over time, the Shack developed a rivalry with the rest of the tourist traps across the state, which originated a yearly tradition that involved vandalizing one another.

At some point before 2012, Stan would take a trip to Las Vegas, where he would meet "Marilyn," the woman who was briefly his wife. The marriage came to an end after a mere handful of hours, with "Marilyn" robbing Stan of his car and money, before then disappearing by jumping into a canyon. Little is known about "Marilyn," with Stan believing her entire identity, and name, was false.

Sometime at the start of the summer of 2012, Gideon Gleeful opened up the Tent of Telepathy, a scam whose success (and whose ads, which often featured unflattering footage of Stan, damaged the Mystery Shack's profits) made Stan profoundly annoyed. The duo soon ended up becoming business rivals.

Grunkle Stan is at first sight a wise and cunning salesman being highly manipulative, very charismatic and charming, running a tourist trap in a town with enough unsuspecting customers to sell worthless knickknacks to and take on tours of so-called "mysteries." He conducts his business with surprising flair and wit.[18] When not planning or executing money-making schemes (both legal and illegal), he's usually at home watching television. His preferred shows include Cash Wheel, Duck-tective and period dramas. He also enjoys fishing.

Stan is also manifestly greedy and selfish, even stating once that his greatest desire in life is to "possess riches" [8]. He sees tourists as easy cash and nothing more.[18] However, this obsession seems to stem from his father's words when he kicked him out of the house, and by the harsh, poverty-stricken life he led after being disowned.

While his trickery might appear unremarkable to some, Stan's cunning transcends his Mr. Mystery persona: he's been able to figure out Lil' Gideon's plots on numerous occasions [26] and even manages to outwit Bill Cipher in the end. Even though he was written off as unintelligent by his teachers and even his father, he was capable of restoring his brother's universe portal, and can be seen operating its computer in the days leading up to Ford's return. Stan has a deep sense of family loyalty. He responded to Ford's request for help after an entire decade of being estranged, and was deeply hurt when he realized his brother didn't intend to make amends, even calling him out on how bad a brother Ford turned out to be. He dedicated thirty years of his life to bringing Ford back to their dimension in spite of how strained their relationship had become in the years leading up to the fight.

Stan has brown eyes[27] with cataracts,[28] gray eyebrows, and gray hair (Both of which were brown in his youth), that is almost always covered by Stan's trademark maroon fez, which bore a yellow crescent shape (through episodes 1 to 13) and later a similar figure (after the original fez was eaten by Gompers), albeit with straight edges and a dot next to it, resembling an oyster with a pearl in it. He bears a somewhat large, droopy, pear-shaped, bumpy, reddish-pinkish nose, large ears, and fair skin. As a result of his age, Stan has wrinkly skin, a hearing aid, and dentures [1]. He has a faded burn mark of the symbol on the side of Ford's desk on his back. He usually wears a pair of rectangular glasses with a black rim which later had its outline thinned. Stan also has a perpetual five o'clock shadow covering his lower face.

Stan's typical outfit is a black suit, with the jacket buttoned closed, a bow tie similar in color to his fez, and a white dress shirt. He also wears big, light brown shoes, the aforementioned fez and his glasses. He frequently carries an eight ball cane with him and often wears an unnecessary eye-patch over one of his eyes while working. He has mentioned that he owns a girdle [1], which he'd presumably wear while in the suit; this would explain why his prominent belly doesn't show in this outfit.

Around the house, Stan wears a white wife beater, a gold chain, striped blue boxer shorts, slippers, and his glasses and fez. This outfit reveals Stan's vast amounts of body hair, burly arms, skinny legs, and his large belly.

Ford and Stan are TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE. they are twin brothers who reconciled. Stan is more Brash, loud mouthed, and funny, and Ford is more calm collected, smart, and intelligent