Also also! I HIGHLY recommend this amazing fic of aroallo Stan and him coming to terms with the possibility of being aro! It’s just… I can’t convey into words how much I love this fic and how much it means to me and how it echoes the exact thoughts I have of Stan being Aro.
AN: A coming out Fic for this AU. Just Stan and Ford. I may write Dipper coming out to Ford later, but that's later Me's problem.
Stan liked seeing Mabel’s sweaters.
She was an excellent knitter and a fast one too, so he liked seeing what new creation she’d made since the previous day. She certainly managed to have one or even two new sweaters each day, even when she’d already finished one the day before.
If they tried to make a sweater, it would take them weeks before it was done. And it probably wouldn’t even look half as nice as one of their great niece’s creations. Never mind cranking them out at the pace Mabel managed.
(He worried she was going to burn herself out at the rate she worked. Maybe he needed to help with that? Suggest other crafting hobbies for her to try. Macaram maybe? Quilting? Maybe he could find a book on patternless sewing that she would like as one of her birthday presents… Or maybe some books on making cloaks and capes? She seemed interested after Summerween. Or, heck, maybe a book on costume leatherworking. She had the talent for it.)
They wondered if she may have some kind of magic that no one in the family had managed to pick up on yet. Considering everything they had going on, it wouldn’t be surprising. Some kind of creation or clothing magic that was too subtle for people to properly notice unless they had some kind of magic too… Or if they just stopped and thought about the amount of time that usually went into crafting.
Maybe he could run that idea by Ford sometime when they were less mad at each other. Ford had seen enough weird things that he might have a better scope of what was up with sweet little Mabel.
But that didn’t change the confusion he felt when Mabel slapped a homemade booklet of some kind down in front of him and Ford. Not to mention her gigantic basket of yarn that had been dragged into the room with her. (Who got her that? He didn’t think he had been the one. Maybe Soos’ abuelita? She liked knitting too…)
“What are all these for, Pumpkin?” They asked, looking over at their peppy niece. She beamed at them.
“It’s my Pride Flags booklet! I missed making a sweater for Pride Month for Dipper, so I’m gonna make him one before we go home this summer. But I also wanted to make some pride sweaters for other people. Like you! So I wanted to know what your flags are so I can make them.”
Stan sat up slightly, looking at the surprisingly thick little booklet.
“You made a pride booklet? For just the flags?”
“Yup! Well, not just the flags. It’s got descriptions and little notes about what each one means!” She stood up on her chair and opened the little book, pointing at one of the flags as an example. “Some of ‘em had different terms that all go under the same flag, so I put those in too! That way you can just flip it open, read what they say, and see which ones sound like you!”
Well, color him impressed. They’d added a lot more flags since he’d last heard. But…
“Well… I’m not entirely sure what my flags are called anymore. I know some terms have changed since I’d moved here,” they gave a little half-shrug. This didn’t seem to deter their niece, who’d started vibrating when they’d said that.
(Yeah, he was pretty sure there was some magic in there.)
“OH, OH, OH! I can help then!” She grabbed a little notebook and stared very intently at them. “What are your thoughts about love? About the squishy feelings and the people that you get them from?”
He raised an eyebrow with a nervous chuckle. He hadn’t planned on coming out today but… he glanced at his brother from the corner of his eye. Ford was staring intently at the flag book, having pulled it closer to flip through it himself.
Maybe it would be alright for them to come out like this. Ford had probably seen and heard all kinds of crazy things while traveling through alternate dimensions. Finding out Stan was Queer probably wouldn’t be that big of a deal. (At least, they hoped it wouldn’t be. So long as Ford didn’t decide to prove them wrong…) Besides, they doubted the kids would be bothered by it.
If anything, Dipper would probably be relieved to know that he wasn’t the only queer person in the family. Even if he was the first trans kid.
And Stan knew his brother well enough to realize that, despite how he was acting, he was definitely eavesdropping. (Did it really count as eavesdropping when they were sitting next to each other? Honestly, probably not.) Trying to listen to what he would say without making it obvious that he was doing it.
“As in… Who do I find pretty? Or who I would, like, want to have serious dates with?”
“Yeah! That’s the two kinds of love pride is about! Physical and Romantic!” Mabel said, nodding. “Pride’s also about identity! Like with Dipper!”
“Yeah, I knew that part. I remember the pride marches from the seventies, a lot of them were led by trans and gay folks. We grew up in Jersey, after all.” They rubbed at their chin in thought, casting their mind back. “Was in a few of ‘em back in the eighties. Didn’t think much about what I was, though. I just knew I was queer and needed to be part of it and that was that.”
“Soo~?” Mabel’s voice trailed. She was bouncing in the chair, eyes sparkling.
“I don’t know what the words are anymore, but I figured out I liked chicks and guys when I was about… I wanna say twenty-three? Found a decent-ish guy that I worked with for a bit and we decided to try it out.” Stan shrugged. That had been one of his first flings. “Real short. Think we stayed a couple for about a week before deciding that it wouldn’t work out."
“What was his name?!”
“Uh… I think it was- Drake? Haven’t seen him in decades, so I can’t remember him really well. And we didn’t really… Well, the dating thing broke off fine but we had a bit of a falling out not long after that.” That was honestly the nicest way Stan could put it. They realized they liked getting frisky, but didn’t actually like each other. Not enough to date at least. Then their work went sour and they decided they really didn’t like each other.
Yeah… Not his worst relationship but it sure wasn’t one he had any plans of revisiting.
Johnny was a lot better.
“Who’s Johnny?!” They jumped at the excited squeal from their niece. From the corner of their eye, they could see Ford staring at them pretty intently now.
He lazily waved a hand, trying to keep the air relaxed as he answered.
“Eh… Johnny was a biker guy I dated for a while. He was with me for some of the marches I went to. Early eighties, or thereabouts. It was probably the longest relationship either of us had,” they felt a small smile forming as they thought about Johnny. “Leaned real hard into the wild rebel thing that came with being a biker back then. Threw his… Everything into the marches when I suggested at least dropping by one. I think it gave him a real cause to be a rebel for. We split up when we figured out we wanted different things long-term. Lost contact with him ages ago, though.”
“Would you… Ever get back with him? If you met him again?” Mabel looked like she was plotting. That was her plotting face. Oh, he needed to nip that in the bud. Fast.
“Assuming he was even around anymore? No, probably not. We were better friends than we were anything romantic.” They shrugged, trying to emphasize that last part. It had been a fun fling, but Johnny had been a little too… Intense for them. “The fact that we were good as friends is probably one of the reasons we stuck together for so long. But nah, I probably wouldn’t get back with him.”
He barely held back the sigh of relief at the way Mabel pouted. He knew she meant well, but he wasn’t keen on being the focus of one of her romance plots. Her faith in love was sweet, but he was having trouble getting her to understand that it was better to just let it happen instead of trying to engineer it into happening.
If Stan got into a relationship now then it would be something that happened naturally and not because their twelve-year-old niece tried to set them up.
(At least he’d only used Johnny’s first name and not his full one. No chance of her going behind his back to contact his ex. Johnny was way too common a name for her to pin a specific person down.)
“Okay… So, you’re either Bi or Pan then,” Mabel said, reluctantly getting herself back on track. “Both technically mean you like boys and girls, but the specifics are a little different between them. I think it’s mostly preferences?”
“Yeah, I usually use Bi. First one I knew and it just… Felt right,” they said, nodding. Ford was still staring, but it looked more thoughtful than searching.
“I like the Bi flag colors. I always thought they were really pretty. And they’re a great complementary set!” Mabel started making notes in her little books, possibly scribbling some ideas for how she wanted to use the colors. “And what do you know about transgender people? Or non-binary ones?”
Ah, she picked up on him not wanting out Dipper before the kid felt ready.
He was excited about Ford being the author of the journals that he had (apparently) been obsessing over for the whole summer. It was better if they let Dipper come out to him on his own terms instead of, even accidentally, making the choice for him.
“I believe I know those ones, and not just from the news,” Ford spoke up. It was the first time he’d entered the conversation. Stan was a little surprised he hadn’t joined them sooner. “I’ve been in dimensions with large quantities of people who identified as neither male nor female. Or they possessed the features of both and things like pronouns were purely a matter of personal preference. They were fascinating from a cultural standpoint, especially as someone who came from one with a firmly Binary Social Culture. I wasn’t aware such arguments existed in our own world…”
Somehow, it didn’t surprise them that there were dimensions like that.
In the Sky Realms, gender was more presentation and preference than any actual need to be one or the other. For a lot of them, it just hadn’t mattered so long as you put in your share. And not when they all knew about Soul Cycles. You could be a chick in one life and a guy in the next but, at the end of the day, you were still you. So why should anyone care which you wanted to use?
“Yeah, I can see that being a thing. Feeling like you’re mostly a guy but not entirely fitting into that.” Mabel nodded, grabbing her flag booklet and flipping to the flags in question, chattering about the terms specific for people who felt like that.
But Stan didn’t hop in, yet. Just letting his sentence hang in the air until the words finished sinking in. He wanted to keep this coming out relaxed. The easiest way to do that with this family was either to say it outright or let them put the pieces together themselves. And he preferred to just… Keep it casual anyway. Maybe it was just the way being queer had been when he and Ford were young, but he wasn’t much for Big Dramatic Showings for being queer.
(The marches had been the exceptions. Everyone needed to be out and Loud for those. Because they all deserved the chance to live as themselves without being punished for it.)
Ford, as they’d expected, was the first to put together what Stan was implying.
“Are… Do you feel like that, Stanley?” His brother looked at him over his mug of coffee. He was unusually hesitant about the question. “As though you aren’t fully… Male?”
“Oh, yeah. I figured it out ages ago, but never really knew if there was a word for it. Didn’t really matter compared to everything else I had going on.” He gnawed at the toast slice he’d made for breakfast. (Etch… He'd let it go cold.) “Too many other things for me to put much thought into what it all meant.”
“You’re a Demiman! Mostly a boy, but not totally! A lot of people who feel like that use he and they for their pronouns!” Mabel chirped, holding up her booklet and pointing at the grey, blue, and white striped flag. “I almost made a sweater with these colors for Dipper, but they wouldn’t have been his flag so I didn’t. Oh, oh! I’ve been learning about fisherman’s knitting patterns at the library, I can make one for you with those colors! The nonbinary flag had really nice colors too.”
Stan just let her ramble away. She would probably have an entire selection for them in a few days. It would be fun to see what she made later.
And there was… Some relief, honestly. Now that it had finally been said aloud.
His father had put so much pressure on him to Be A Man while he and Ford were growing up. On both of them. But neither of them had fit the mold their father wanted them to fit into.
When he’d remembered Before, when he figured out that he wasn’t entirely a man in the first place, it had felt like he finally had an explanation. That there was a reason he didn't fit the “Manly” mold his father wanted and he wasn't just “bad” at being one.
It had been… Freeing, in a weird way. It still was.
And now they had finally, finally spoken the words into the world. They had a term for it, even. And that felt good.
Ford had barely dodged being next under Mabel's scrutiny but had asked if he could borrow the booklet later. Commenting that it was interesting and he wanted to know more about some of them. Their great-niece relented, but they were sure he would get grilled by her later.
That was fine. Stan had some work to do anyway. (He was going to ride that relief of being out for just a while longer.)
.
.
Stanley was carefully repainting a model of an Elder Cosmic Manta when Ford carefully crept into the room behind him.
Elder Cosmic Mantas were some of the largest models that Stan had in the Shack. All of the Elder creatures were giants, but especially the Mantas. So cleaning them up and refreshing the paint paints on them was a long project that tended to take several days at least. They were among the few models they were never fully happy with, so they ended up getting touched up… A lot. It was just really hard to capture their essence in a painted model…
The only reason Stan knew Ford had come in was thanks to the slight squeak of the door hinge. It wasn’t too bad, not enough to startle him on most days, but it was enough for him to know when someone came into the room while he was working. It served as a nice, subtle way to know if someone came in without having to start talking right away.
Soos would come in when they were painting, on occasion. Sometimes he would even offer to help paint a few of the smaller models for them.
Wendy was known to hide in the painting room sometimes, too. When she genuinely needed a break from people or knew someone she didn’t like was coming by. Stan would just give her a busy task to do in there if she brought it up to him instead of just up and vanishing on him. Thereby giving her a valid excuse to avoid certain people.
Stan didn't call Ford out for quietly creeping in behind him, more focused on the paints than whatever their brother had come into the room for. And Ford just stood back and watched them work without saying anything.
It was almost peaceful. The two of them just existing in the same space for a while, not talking but perfectly comfortable. (Like they had when they were children.)
Then Ford finally decided to break the silence.
“I'm… It was good. Earlier, I mean.” Stan made a questioning hum, glancing back at his brother with a confused look. He cleared his throat awkwardly at the look. “Letting me hear about- about the flags. That kind of thing is difficult. From what I know.”
“Ah… Well, I figured it was gonna come out at some point,” Stan said, idly waving the fine brush they were holding. “I’d rather it be here, in private, than out on the town or something. More comfortable.”
“Yes, but still. I’m… I’m hap- glad-” Ford let out a frustrated noise. Stan could practically feel the struggle that Ford was having with his words right then. He let out an amused huff, finally setting down the brush and turning to Ford.
“Nice knowing that I wasn’t afraid of you finding out I was queer?” They offered, smiling slightly.
“Yes! Yes- I- That. That was what I meant.” Ford cleared his throat awkwardly. Stan wanted to laugh.
Ford was always one for big, fancy words and speeches. Not being able to find them, or being overly worried about using the right ones, was new for him. But his brother was trying to connect, or at least say something positive, so he wasn’t going to laugh at him about it.
“Not a problem. I figured that you’d seen enough wild things before coming back that me liking guys and gals probably wasn’t a big deal.” And even if it was, you weren’t the sort to be terrible about it. Their brother never struck them as a homophobe, but he also wasn’t the sort to turn into a jerk about it. Not after all the teasing and taunting he’d been through for his hands.
(No, Ford was the sort to be a jerk about other things.)
“It- It wasn’t the first time someone has made a confe- Erm, that someone came out to me,” Ford said, catching Stan by surprise. “My college roommate, he was also… Bi, I believe he said. He told me a few months into our stay. After an ex of his tried to harass him by coming to the school.”
“Well. I’m pretty sure we won’t have to deal with that any time soon,” he paused, tapping a finger against his chin in thought. “At least I don’t think we will. Pretty sure old age has caught up to most of my nastier exes. And the nicer ones have probably settled down by now.”
“I see…” Ford muttered quietly.
“And none of your exes have shown up to cause problems, so we should be fine.”
“Oh, that’s because I don’t have any.”
“Any what?” Stan asked, raising a brow at their brother.
“Exes. I never bothered with dating after our prom. I… I was never interested.” Ford folded his arms behind him, suddenly looking very intently at the models around the room and not at his sibling. “It… Simply never appealed to me. And it seems that- that there’s a term for that now. A-spectrum.”
Oh.
Oh.
It seemed Ford had decided it was his turn to come out. Stan smiled encouragingly at their brother, trying to hold in the warm feeling in their chest. (Seems that particular trust went both ways.)
“That so? Good for you then. Glad you found something that feels right.”
“Yes, I- Thank you. It’s… It’s good. To finally know a word for it.” Ford’s eyes slid up to the large model that Stan had been actively working on. “You’re… Repainting this one? The colors didn’t look very faded when it had been in the main rooms.”
Stan sighed.
“They’re not faded. I thought I’d finally managed to get some paints closer to the colors I wanted for this one and wanted to get them on it. It’s damn hard to translate what’s in my head into the world for these.” He looked up at the models, half expecting his brother to scoff or say something about how he ought to focus more on “real” creatures. (As if Ford had a leg to stand on.)
“Really now? Why?” Ford asked, coming closer to the model Stan was working on.
They looked at their brother in surprise. Maybe Ford was just holding back his remarks for now? Trying to keep things nice between them after the little… Heart to heart they’d just had. Stan would take it, either way.
He waved a hand at the model, showing Ford the slightly shimmering paint he was using as he did.
“Well, see, Cosmic Mantas are supposed to be partially see-through so they blend into night skies…”
AN: They spend the next hour or so talking about colors and paints and ideas for getting the effect that Stan wants from the Cosmic models and how hard it is to create. Ford subtly learns a lot about them from Stan’s explanations/rambles. A couple days later, they both get a bunch of sweaters from Mabel. (Stan’s new NB and Demiman sweaters quickly become his favorites.)
The first Pride March was held in 1970, a year after the Stonewall Riots of 1969. According to my math, Stan and Ford would have (probably) been in high school/their teens while both were happening. It would have been all over the news, so they would have heard about it. (Jersey and New York are right next to each other after all.)
I decided that Cannoneer Stan would have been in a few Pride Marches during the early 80s, though I haven’t really committed to where or what years. Just that it was after the Memories but before Ford's postcard. But he’s an old LGBTQA+, so he also uses a lot of older terms that have since been changed/dropped. (But also having him use Queer to describe himself, and using it for him, just feels right.)
I wanted a casual-ish way to reveal that Stan was nonbinary to Ford, and Mabel making pride sweaters seemed like a fairly easy segway into that. She and Dipper suspected that Stan was, well, not straight based on how chill he was with Dipper being Trans (as well as other comments he’d made over the summer). So this is also Mabel finally, officially, confirming all of that for them. Dipper is glad to finally Know, and to find out he’s not the only LGBTQA+ person in the family.
Stan’s Flags: Non-Binary, Demiboy/man, Bisexual (Also Bear but shhh.)
Ford’s Flags: Asexual, Aromantic, A-Spec,
Dipper’s Flags: Transgender, Transboy/man,
Mabel’s Flags: Femme, Ally
The kids have fewer flags simply because they haven’t figured out what their romantic/sexual attractions are. I mean they’re, like, 12. I sure as heck didn’t know all my flags at that age.
Ford doesn’t fully commit to his flags until later (other than A-Spec, since he doesn’t seem to feel conventional romance/attraction). But this is his entry gate for something he’d never really stopped to think about before.
Ah okay so Stan does do the finger guns in episode 1, right before he bows and then dances away. So to everyone who was saying “He’s a bicon all we need are the bi finger guns” I’m just saying... he does them. Make of that what you will.
“He acts kind of gay but isn’t gay” is not the same as being bi I hope and pray y’all can tell the difference! You’re being clowned! And frankly you don’t deserve that kind of representation. Bi representation can be so much more than that!
And sorry but the bare minimum threshold for Stanley Bicon Barber is him saying “I like boys,” or showing him making out with a boy if the writers (and Wyatt) are feeling really generous.
None of this ambivalent relying on subtext bullshit.
Making Stan a fan of classic rock instead of indie electro pop was peak homophobe energy. Where was the scene of Stan dancing to Gone by Charli XCX and Christine and the Queens? What the fuck is “King of Rock and Roll”?? Bitch I’m going to kill you!
