Been fixating on Poppy Playtime. Mostly just. The saving-all-the-experiments idea.
Now I wanna combine that with Stanley Pines lol. Have Playtime be his job when Ford contacts him, which is how he misses the Hour of Joy. Ford doesn't get shoved through the portal because Stan had an actual stable job for a bit so he was doing well enough to notice Ford being very unwell. Maybe he de-escalated the fight by successfully wrestling Ford into submission since he had a constant source of food for once.
Anyway, 10 years later Stan and Ford are living fairly well in Gravity Falls when Stan gets a letter in the mail. I don't know the specifics on how ok
Ford offers to go with him, but stays behind at their motel room at first. After like 2 days of no contact from Stan he goes to the factory after him. Had more specifics and whatever but I don't even know if anyone is gonna read this far lmao
Actually I think it would be hilarious if Stan missed the Hour of Joy purely by coincidence. He's the luckiest unlucky dude ever, and pisses off the wrong people where he lives or something. He snags his last paycheck and makes a run for it.
Maybe instead Ford tries to contact Stan WHILE he is busy in the factory, and when he gets no reply he gets desperate and goes to hunt him down. Eventually ending up at Playtime
