Thinking About An AU Where Stanley Actually Did Make It Big. He's Still Living Out Of His Car When Some

Thinking about an AU where Stanley actually did make it big. He's still living out of his car when some music agent hears him singing to himself or playing guitar or something, and they offer him a chance.

In a matter of weeks, he's got a song made (he goes for a rock/metal genre) and he drops a single. By a stroke of luck, it explodes. Suddenly he's handed a check with more zeros than he's ever seen. He's practically handed a nice apartment and an entire team of people to help him make more music.

Stan throws himself into it. He crafts a whole rocker persona, starts calling himself Knucklehead because it sounds cool. He's half convinced it's all a dream, half sure this is his greatest ruse yet. Soon he's released another single. Then another. Then an album. Then they're asking if he wants to do live shows.

His music plays on radios, on TV. There's posters with his face on them (he keeps his mullet for the scruffy rocker look). He hears people rave that his songs are raw, are real (they are; they're all about past mistakes and fighting for survival and being a disappointment).

One day, Filbrick Pines gets a letter in the mail, from the son he's seen on TV the past few months. It's a check, for exactly one million dollars. "Told you. -Knucklehead" is all the message says.

Stanford, who is still in college, has watched from a distance as his brother rose to stardom. He's proud of him, and one day he gets a letter in the mail, too, which is just Stan gloating for three pages before he asks if they can catch up, admits that he misses his brother. Stanford packs up and goes to him immediately.

Idk where this all goes, but I've been unable to get @pinkchup 's art of Stanley playing guitar out of my head since I first saw it. Just- Stan getting a chance to get on a stage, scream sing his feelings, and prove his dad wrong. Yeah.

(OH and years down the line, when Stan's retired, Dipper and Mabel discover that one of their favorite classic rock/metal singers, Knucklehead, is actually related to them when they find a box of Stan's old merch in his office. O.O)

big ol' collection of some 80s-era gravity falls textposts ive done over the years

Something I just recently noticed that just seems to hurt even more is the outbursts the twins have when feeling they’ve been betrayed.

bro spent 30 years trying to get his brother back only to forget what it actually means to have a brother

ever been a child? shit was crazy. every single day something like this would happen, and it'd be the worst thing to ever happened to you until, like, tomorrow rolled around

Just realised a parallel that leaves Much to Unpack:

I feel like this is an underrated parallel that I wished to talk about. I just find it interesting that s1ep18, Land Before Swine, is something that hits harder given what we know of the Science Project Incident in A Tale of Two Stans. In both incidents, Stan’s careless mistake costed his loved ones something that they cherished (his negligence caused Waddles to be taken by a dinosaur and Ford lost a potential scholarship to a good college). I also find it interesting how he raises his arms defensively the same way in both confrontations.

I think this ep is important in the sense that stan goes thru a mini arc where he realises that he’s once again on the brink of losing his relationship with a loved one because he didn’t immediately take accountability or come clean. Listen, I know im a stan stan who understands that maybe him being defensive/doubling down on the lie stems from years of being accused of stuff or worried about the other person’s reaction/punishment or a combination of both. But I also acknowledge that bro lowkey dismissed ford’s reasonable frustration just cuz the turn of events was suddenly convenient for Stan cuz ford not getting into west coast tech meant that their original childhood dream was back on (Tho Ofc him getting kicked out was def a disproportionate response to said offense). In a similar way, he temporarily forgets abt Mabel’s missing pig that she cares a lot about to remark about what a great money making opportunity the sap covered dinos are. He still inadvertently hurt them through that even if he never meant to. So that’s why it’s so important for him to maybe somehow recognise the similarities. Which leads to him immediately stepping up to help mabel get her pig back in the same way he wished he could’ve immediately came clean to ford about the project before the science fair.

Bonus Parallels: