sadboy-tristan

the name's Tristan

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Why Stanford Pines From Gravity Falls Is Autistic, And Why It Matters

Why Stanford Pines from Gravity Falls is Autistic, and Why It Matters

Here’s a meta I consider long overdue; the title says it all. I’ve analyzed Ford and why he resonates with me for over three years and casually lived in his head close to that magic number, six, but I’ve never addressed this fundamental reason. I’m not the only one who reads Ford as autistic, so I figured we deserve a lengthy manifesto. Now more than ever, we need stories of unconditional acceptance instead of voyeuristic awareness; April is the cruelest month.

Normally this is where I’d disclaim I’m no medical professional, but I don’t feel like enforcing normalcy. Autistic people are foremost experts on our own experience, and we don’t need analyses this extensive for permission to see ourselves in fictional characters. This analysis is also not concerned with authorial intent; in fiction as in reality, we’re here whether you want us or not.

I’ve divided this meta between various criteria Ford meets. Overly long post incoming, press j to pay respects.

Motor control issues

Let’s start tenuously before getting into weightier evidence - why suggest that a character who runs and jumps well into his sixties may have motor control issues? Because they can improve with practice, and Ford is markedly unathletic early in life. He’s introduced stumbling from trying to un-board the cave and insisting “I can keep up!” (dogear that). Factor in his D- in gym and the way he reads during boxing lessons intended to protect both boys from bullies, and it seems that Ford only became physically adept when forced to fend for himself without Stan.

Eye contact

Ford frequently averts eye contact during tense moments, which admittedly could indicate typical fraught emotions as much as a breakdown of performance. His deathglare toward Stan and intense gaze talking to Dipper could more strongly indicate that he makes eye contact consciously and counterintuitively, because he sees it as an assertion of power (hence his discomfort under Bill’s gaze). Ford’s shifty eyes post-betrayal, signature surprised owlface, thousand-yard stare thinking of “the dark weird road [he travels]”, and unchanging expression as he hugs Fiddleford and doesn’t register Stan are additional animation tics implying he breaks eye contact easily.

Physical contact

Ford seems to have a complicated relationship with touch like many autistic people. He easily startles at Stan unexpectedly touching his shoulder (as kids, first reunion) or grabbing him (Fearamid fight, end credits). Touch aversion may explain his visceral reaction to Bill violating his personal space with mock affection.

Ford appears more comfortable initiating than receiving touch, especially arms’-length nudges and shoulder touches; the kids’ surprise at his adorable tackle-hug suggests it’s uncharacteristic. He also expects a handshake when Fiddleford goes in for a hug, misreading his body language and cue to “come here.”

Stimming

The animation emphasizes Ford’s hands in all their six-fingered glory, giving him unique repetitive mannerisms that can be interpreted as stimming. These include rapping his fingers nervously over the journal (“The Last Mabelcorn”), rolling the DD&MD die, twirling his gun, and wiggling his fingers (narrating DD&MD, taunting Bill).

Pressure stimming could explain why Ford wears heavy clothes throughout his life. This comes to represent his guardedness, as he wears the fewest layers while content with Stan and Gravity Falls and the most while trusting no one, but it may have literally resulted from PTSD compounding his stimming so that he only feels safe weighted down. In the end he keeps the sweater, unburdened but still holding to that feeling of security. Likewise, Ford’s pattern of puffing his chest (especially in danger) may be a pressure stim to anchor himself, holding back the fear and weightlessness he feels inside.

Comfort objects

Ford has saved his coat and childhood photo of himself and Stan for over 30 years, suggesting a grounding attachment to them. He clearly shows a more-than-professional attachment to his journals, embracing his hands -his identity- through them even literally as he sleeps holding one to his heart (just as Bill starts toying with it). Writing in the journals is Ford’s coping mechanism when “I’m not sure I am who I am” and “I JUST DON’T KNOW ANYMORE”. That panicked “you don’t understand!” is putting it lightly.

Sensory issues

Ford has a pattern of shielding his ears in stressful situations: Bill whispering in his mind, his pre-fight argument with Stan, his nightmares, and his confrontation with Dipper. (“Everyone, plug your ears!” he demonstrates despite knowing the memory gun won’t affect him.) In addition to blocking noise under stress, his hands apparently ground him by clutching his coat, journal, and (during Stan’s amnesia) his neck and wrists stigmatized by the chains.

Contrast Ford fnord playing Bavarian Fire Drill with the agents and his dumbfounded response to the kids crowding him, and it’s clear he gets overwhelmed under pressure; Stan may have steered attention away from him for Ford’s comfort as much as his own. At the kids’ birthday we see that Ford has practice slipping out of crowds, literally relying on Stan for support when all eyes are on him.

Conversely, Ford shares many autistic people’s unusual tolerances or otherwise has difficulty communicating discomfort. Based on “cycloptopus roll” in the journal, Ford has no problem eating something Stan says “smells like if death could barf”. He tolerates heat when shaving with fire and wearing heavy clothes all the time (possibly to prevent sensory overload, as it’s always the same sweater unlike Mabel). Ford also shows only momentary discomfort being shot, knocked unconscious, crushed under rubble, chained, and electrocuted, which… same? “Stop thinking” and “focus on your intellect and control your fear” are exactly the self-regulation measures we develop to tolerate sensory overload.

Executive dysfunction

Autistic people often experience executive dysfunction due to our singlemindedness toward goals, which Ford exhibits in spades. He jumps into major decisions (sending Stan away both times, apprenticeship, quantum destabilizer) without thinking of setbacks or long-term consequences and resists changing plans (frustration at research roadblocks, inability to adjust opinions of Stan). His aggrieved “we just need to lay low and think of a plan” reflects a conscious difficulty with planning that negates his mental health.

Ford evidently subordinates his needs in pursuing goals, his rooms a mess in 1982 and 2012 as he wears out and sleeps in clothes desperately projecting his academic identity. Lighting his face on fire because “it’s much faster than shaving” resembles flawed shortcuts we use to maintain hygiene against executive dysfunction.

Meltdowns

Ford’s paranoid breakdown shows signs of involving meltdowns. In addition to his defensive body language, when Stan applies pressure Ford suddenly loses all patience, filter, and ability to articulate what “you don’t understand” (his suffering, what the journal means to him). Meltdowns stem from pain, and he’s “up against [and has] been through” more than enough.

I’ve seen Ford’s confrontation of Dipper interpreted as a panic attack before, and I think it can also read as a meltdown. First we see Ford’s spiraling mile-a-minute thoughts (while asleep), then he’s urgently demanding the rift and yelling defensively (“I was gonna say please, kid!”) -exactly how it feels when the walls close in and our words fall away. In appealing to Dipper’s rationality, Ford talks them both down.

Ford has also hurt himself under stress, punching the blackboard and his head (while cursing his metal plate in the finale).

Difficulty reading social cues

“I haven’t been in this dimension for a really long time” = Ford’s A+ excuse for not knowing if it’s “still” normal for kids to say “greetings” or have weapons, when ironically it never was. He also thinks mind control can be used “responsibly”, presumably with consent as Bill normalized to him before.

For all of Ford’s insecurities about how people perceive him, he’s often oblivious to it. He doesn’t register Dipper’s unease at him shaving with fire, being unsure the aliens are dead, or jumping with the magnet gun. He brushes off Stan saying “he’s lost his mind”, then meets his demands for thanks with a blunt “what?” -for once more confused than angry. Based on his awkward laughter before a girl throws punch on him at prom, it seems Ford’s lack of social skills contributed to his difficulty making friends growing up.

Empathy

Autistic people often experience unusually high or low empathy, even fluctuating between both; Ford evidently lacks and/or suppresses empathy in his fight with Stan, the person closest to him. Without intending harm he jumps to conclusions and won’t hear Stan’s side, thinks tactlessly appealing to their sailing dream or giving Stan until the end of the summer will incentivize him leaving, and does not realize Stan is homeless until called on it. Ford often displays the autistic tendency to speak without a filter - he’s right that codependency stifles individuality, but calling it “suffocating”? Blunt as a left-hook. Perhaps Bill ensnared him promising a relationship of shared interests where he’d sooner decode ciphers than emotions.

There’s a case for Ford being hyperempathetic with difficulty expressing it. He makes half-steps toward reconciliation that only anger Stan more: offering to share his fun with DD&MD, fixing the lightbulb, giving Dipper the mind control tie to help Stan win the election. One standout response is his sincere laughter at Stan’s “my brain isn’t good for anything”: he knows the feeling, but it sounds absurd coming from a socially adept person he values, so he affirms Stan’s worth by intuitively treating this statement like the joke it is.

Whether sympathy or empathy, Ford’s care for others shines through his concerted effort to seem aloof and cut them off. He repeats “I’m sorry Fiddleford” in his mind nonstop, his tale recounting the insensitive things he said but not how he desperately held Fiddleford in the unfiltered later flashback. He relates to Dipper’s interests, insecurities, and drive enough to hastily propose “a dream come true”. He knows exactly how to reassure Mabel without even knowing how the unicorns affected her, thinking she’ll be fine alone because her “magnetic personality” ranges beyond his weirdness magnetism.

Above all, Ford shows uncommon agape toward anomalies and all mankind. Even after their falling-out, Fiddleford affirms that Ford only wanted to help a world so often unkind to him.

Language

Ford displays many autistic speech patterns, such as declarative statements and an odd mix of formal and colloquial speech (“not with a bang but with a… boop-boop”, “the symbols needn’t all be literal, Dipper. It just has to be someone cool in the face of danger”). We often suspend the point of sentences with context for fear of misunderstanding, sometimes creating more (“when fighting a Gremloblin, use water”, anyone?) Ford shares our related tendency to get overly precise, second-guessing the correctness of everything he says (“or you could just roll an eight”, “floppy disks, and 8-tracks… right?”, “sometimes the strangest things in the world are right under our noses… and our feet, in this particular instance”). In the last example, Ford mixes his metaphor by understanding it better literally.

Ford has a sense of humor familiar to many autistic people, which includes indulging humor to himself (in the journals) instead of strictly sharing it. He shares our penchant for puns (“he’s gourd-geous!”, “one giant headache!”) and double meanings (“someone cool”, “the most peculiar dream”). Ford characteristically makes deadpan remarks (“just going to ignore that”, “so this is an emergency”, “I did mention that the fate of the universe is at stake, didn’t I?”, “NLOO PH SOHDVH”) but draws the line at mockery (“he doesn’t make fun of me all the time the way you and Grunkle Stan do”) - many of us concur, for hyperempathy or knowing how it feels.

He also invents his own secret languages… nuff said.

Infodumping

Does a whole book of exposition count? “Lost prehistoric life forms!” and “Mesoamerican gold!” and “Pirate ghosts!” are the words of a child with no filter about sharing everything interesting he’s read, and the journals are punctuated with equal enthusiasm. Then there’s his “cutting-edge programs and multi-dimensional paradigm theory!” ramble, DD&MD and magnet gun facts, and hostile takeover of Stan’s role as exposition fairy; Mabel’s unicorn hair quest only happens because Ford goes on a tangent about it.

Infodumping is also the only sensible explanation for why Ford mentions the barrier equation. Besides self-endangerment. Bill got under Ford’s skin not by promising power, but regression to a friendship where he felt safe sharing what he loved.

Literal/logical thinking

Ford emphatically takes things at face value. He feels compelled to defensively answer absurd questions like “Is there an owl in this bag?” and “The world’s most confusing game of hopscotch?” Ford is earnest to a fault, walking into Stan’s conversational traps by nerding out about what he loves; like many autistic people, he instinctively says what he means and assumes everyone else works the same way. This makes him terrible at subterfuge: barely tricking the agents under amnesia, blurting out acknowledgment of the kids and barrier equation to Bill, and delivering a stilted “don’t do it, Ford, it’ll destroy the universe!” as “Stan” (who plays him much more convincingly after 30 years’ practice). Correcting Stan’s grammar to get back at him, Ford cannot tolerate incorrectness in language or behavior.

Logical thinking leads Ford to black-and-white views of people and situations - most self-destructively, “TRUST NO ONE”. He assumes malice due to difficulty factoring in others’ emotions or miscommunication. “You did this because you couldn’t handle me going to college on my own!″ is a logical statement based on true premises, but assumes that Stan acted rationally to sabotage Ford. Stan tactlessly making it about their sailing dream instead of apologizing only solidifies it. Growing up with someone who means well but can’t say what he means, and no frame of reference for friendship outside codependency, it’s no wonder “a being with answers” worms his way into Ford’s mind and poisons it.

If you’ve followed these autistic heuristics thus far, that brings us to…

Special interests (or, why Ford’s autistic narrative matters)

First, honorable mention to Dungeons, Dungeons, & More Dungeons: after 30 years away he drops world-saving work to play it, quotes it from memory, and shares encyclopedic knowledge (“Prime-statistical anomalies over 37 but not exceeding 51!”, “The Impossibeast! Hey, I thought they banned this character!”)

And of course, mocking its fantastical monetary system!!! is a hatecrime unto his soul. (“At least I’m not all keyed up to watch a kids’ show”, he says with no qualms enjoying “Giggle Time Bouncy Boots” and other “childish” things; the threat of infantilization is real so he projects it back.)

Now, the big one: Ford’s singular, intense interest in anomalies drives the development of his career, art, and very identity.

“As if his abnormally high IQ wasn’t enough, he also had a rare birth defect: six fingers on each hand. Which might have explained his obsession with sci-fi mystery weirdness.” I have argued that Ford’s ostracism cannot solely explain his patterns of abnormal behavior; now I propose that Ford’s autism and polydactyly are twin anomalies defining his central arc of alienation and belonging. Both constitute an experience unrelatable beyond reference to his peers, beyond words except those he’s internalized as their self-narrating zoo exhibit: “I am a freak.” But when Ford’s mirroring of Stan breaks down, when he accepts he can’t be normal and embraces it, finding a place “where weirdos like me fit in” lights up his eyes and world.

His light only falters knowing that indeed, “his abnormally high IQ wasn’t enough” for most of the world. Like many autistic people, Ford is labeled “gifted”: a state where his passion becomes “our ticket out of this dump”, “I worked so hard!” a basis for worth. “In a place like that, I had to work twice as hard” hits different for all of us who’ve had to be the perfect savant to justify our existence. We get to thinking that we have to save the world, that if people mistreat us it’s because we didn’t perform enough exceptionalism to deserve better. But if someone is dedicated to dehumanizing you, trying to prove them wrong means absorbing the idea they could be right.

It’s in this state that Ford absorbs Bill and vice versa. Bill repeats what everyone says about Ford’s intelligence, but without making him “earn” it until enough frog-boiling that “smart guy” or “IQ” become his identity - for Bill to give as easily as take away. Bill exploits Ford’s need for companionship he shouldn’t have to “earn”, then insidiously reinforces the idea he does. And Bill betrays Ford, Bill abuses Ford, Bill others Ford through the interests he pretended to support, Bill causes Ford to trust no one because Ford can see him in everyone. Autistic people know this demon well, whether it’s a person or our internalizing voice or both, but it’s as inexplicable to the allistic world as the quiet violence we endure every day - voiceless yet present as the journal’s disappearing ink.

Ford’s consuming need for people to be what they seem and say what they mean culminates in the dramatic irony that he doesn’t hear Stan (never what he seems) say “I didn’t mean it!” Instead he only hears “it”, one of the worst things an autistic person can hear: he’s not the brother Stan wanted him to be and his “dumb mysteries” -his identity- prevent him from loving his family correctly. For him and so many of us, these are the last words before abjection into nothing.

…until they aren’t. Until Ford returns, driven underground but emerging when Dipper shares his light. Until the dramatic irony that Ford blaming himself for Bill’s abuse and lamenting how “easy” it was absolves him to both characters and audience, who see it for the injustice it is. Until his abuser’s final threat is to violate his mind and weirdness magnetism with it (sound familiar?) and Ford heroically guards both. Until Ford and Stan can finally step into each other’s shoes, finally validate unacknowledged experiences of abuse. That’s when Ford regains trust - when Stan’s actions speak louder than words (from him or his dark mirror, Bill) and Ford finally hears he’s worthy of love without having to give any part of himself in return.

Most importantly: Ford only embraces his special interest, only advocates acceptance of his difference with more dignity as he asks Stan for a second chance they both know he deserves. Ford doesn’t have to change who he is and the narrative rewards him for it. He doesn’t have to be “grateful” as if his life’s worth is a debt; any notion that he “owes” his gifts to anyone burns with the journals. He doesn’t have to fight back even when it seems impossible and do those things the world said he never could (but damn he delivers anyway). He only has to realize he can’t and doesn’t have to expect perfection from anyone, most of all himself, to find belonging.

The Mystery in the Mystery Shack is not a puzzle to be solved. He’s a complexity of infinite sides and infinite outcomes. This reading of his story matters because we matter; his narrative speaks to an unspoken desperation and self-actualization we know ineffably. Like any marginalized group, autistic people deserve better than abjection or exploitation or conditional acceptance based on “respectability” or what we can do for others. We deserve to reclaim the stories where we see the patterns of our lives - whether in the text’s words or 3k of our own. Until the rest of the world does its part in changing for us, we’ll carve out our own belonging wherever weirdness magnetism draws us; we’ll find our own Gravity Falls.

Why Stanford Pines From Gravity Falls Is Autistic, And Why It Matters

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