Trucker Ford Au - Tumblr Posts

8 months ago

So y'all know the Gravity Falls production bible that leaked three weeks ago. Someone in one of my discord servers pointed this out:

A quaint little town dwarfed by a roaring waterfall and impossibly tall redwoods, Gravity Falls seems like a charming, if mostly inconsequential, dot on the Oregon state map. Their main industries are mining, logging, and mud flap manufacturing, and the town is generally peopled with ornery lumberjacks, six-fingered truckers, and other standard rustic rubes. Beneath this fagade of wholesome American charm, however, lies a puzzling dark side--the forest is filled with gnomes, the lake has at least two monsters, there’s a cave that seems to lead straight to the underworld and an arcade machine which could best be described as possessed. Most of the townsfolk don’t notice these things, or if they do, they just laugh it off. However, to anyone daring and clever enough to explore it, Gravity Falls is a strange and wondrous place, as dark and adventurous as the depths of a 12-year-old’s imagination.
(the words "six-fingered truckers" are highlighted.)

And, naturally, that spawned an entire AU.

AU Concept: Ford was kicked out instead of Stan and takes a job as a trucker to makes ends meet since he couldn't go to college, while still studying the weird and anomalous however he can.

Digital drawing of Ford Pines from gravity Falls, mid-30s, dressed in a yellow trucker hat, flannel shirt, brown vest, khaki coat, jeans, and brown boots. He has his hands stuffed in his pockets and is glancing off toward the side. He looks tired, a little paranoid, and like he hasn't shaved in a couple of days. He's standing next to an 18-wheeler cast in nighttime shadows; the truck is red with two golden stripes down the sides.

Ford driving around from quirky small town to quirky small town, drifting through the liminal spaces of truck stops, meeting odd people in isolated diners, seeing strange things out on the road—a deer with too many eyes bounding across a two-lane highway, a flirty woman at a rest stop who doesn't blink or breathe, mysterious lights in the sky at night, inhuman growls on the CB or 50-year-old broadcasts on the radio—and taking notes when he stops for gas or food.

Aside from having gotten kicked out before graduating high school, Ford's the same person he is in canon.

A black & white digital comic. Panel one: a trucker and Ford Pines, sitting at a counter with coffee mugs. The trucker says, "Planning to drive through the night? Here's some friendly advice: never pick up a hitchhiker after midnight in Roadkill County. This stretch of Route 14 is HAUNTED."
Panel 2 and 3: an 18-wheeler driving on a dark road lined with pine trees comes to a stop.
Panel 4: Ford steps out of the truck's driver door and says "Hello?? Are there any GHOSTS here in need of a ride? Or... or demons? Banshees? Even a zombie?"
Panel 5: Ford waits a moment in silence.
Panel 6: Ford says, "Okay, well... offer's open. Feel free to just hop on in. Don't even need to ask."
Panel 7: The 18-wheeler drives away.
Panel 8: inside the truck's cab in the driver's seat, looking tired and disappointed, Ford sighs.
Panel 9: something unseen in the empty passenger seat says, "Do you mind if I turn on the radio?" Ford flinches, looks over in alarm, and yells "GAH!!"

He's still an ambitious guy, and here "ambitious" means working hard and saving as much money as he can—so, a long haul owner-operator who spends weeks at a time on the road. (He goes through a LOT of educational audiobooks.) Plus, this is the easiest way for him to get to travel the country; and since it looks like his "travel the world" dreams with Stan are dead, he'll take what he can get.

Since he's never in the same spot long and carries his life in a truck, almost all of Ford's research is in his journal. His bag of investigation supplies has an instant camera, a portable tape recorder, a thermometer, a flashlight, rubber gloves, and a few zip lock bags—and that's about it. It has to share space with all his clothes, toiletries, and nonperishable food when he's on the road. He doesn't have much opportunity to closely examine anything odd he finds, unless he's lucky enough to run into something when he can stop for the night. He has to cram his paranormal research around the side of his full-time job.

He doesn't live in Gravity Falls, but he knows it exists. Every time he moves—to Chicago, to Nebraska, to California—he seems to inch closer. He currently lives in Portland and usually hauls loads between the Pacific Northwest and Chicago or New York. He stops at the truck stop outside Gravity Falls when he can and has gone fishing in town a few times. He doesn't have the benefit of extensive research to know that this is the weirdest town in the world; but it seems pretty weird to him, there are local rumors about the town, and he's had some weird experiences in the area.

A lined digital comic. Panel one: the inside of an empty diner, with booths on the left, a counter on the right, and a door in the middle.
Panel two: the door's slammed open and Ford is standing in the door, holding himself up with a hand on his knee, shaking, disheveled, and clothes tattered, and gleefully announces, "I JUST GOT ABDUCTED BY ALIENS!! Please call a doctor."

Plus, he can't explain it, but it's like the town's calling to him. He wants to move there, but it'd put him over an hour outside of Portland where the nearest jobs are. Maybe if somebody chucked him like $100k to build a cabin in the woods; but what are the odds of that?

He does know Fiddleford. Truck broke down somewhere and Fiddleford kindly pulled over to fix it on the fly. They looked at each other, had mutual knee-jerk "dumb trucker/hillbilly" reactions, and within ten minutes both went "oh wait you're the most brilliant genius i've ever met." Fiddleford's living the same life he was in canon before Ford called him to Gravity Falls—with his family in California, trying to start a computer company out of his garage—but they make friends and keep in contact.

One time Ford stops at a kitschy roadside knickknack store that also sells new agey magic things—crystals, tarot cards, incense, etc. He bought a "lucky" rearview mirror ornament that looks like an Eye of Providence in a top hat and hung it from his cab fan, and ever since then he's had weird dreams whenever he sleeps in his truck.

Digital drawing of a golden coin hanging from a chain with Bill Cipher etched in the middle. Text around it says "Come closer, I am just— I am just a normal lucky ornament"

Things I don't know yet: what Stan's up to; or why Ford's the one who got kicked out. I tend to believe that in canon Stan wasn't just kicked out because he ruined Ford's college prospects, but rather because the family thought he deliberately sabotaged Ford; so in this AU, Ford would've been kicked out over a proportionate crime.


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