crazy that gravity falls was like, hey what if we made twin brothers, and one of them is the worse one. he gets bad grades, he likes to punch his problems, everyone thinks of him as “the other one.” he’s engulfed in a shadow that’s shaped like him. he doesn’t even have his own name—it’s derived of his brother’s name, the only one his parents planned on having and using. everything about him is derivative—imitative of another person (his twin brother) (the one everyone likes and wants) and is disapproved of for that reason (he isn’t just “bad at this thing,” he’s “not as good as his brother”). and then he ruins his brother’s science fair project (the one next to his own—no one noticed it because it’s not good, it’s almost stupid next to a “perpetual motion machine” made by a high schooler) (he tried to fix it) (he doesn’t know how; he’s not as smart as the guy who made it) and he gets kicked out. the potential of the money his twin could’ve made is enough to throw him onto the street, and he can’t go home until he makes that money back (the money that was never gained and therefore was never lost. he never had a chance of making enough). he took every job he could (his brother went to school). he got banned from multiple states (his brother bought a house). he traveled internationally and went to prison and had people try to hunt him down and kill him because he couldn’t make enough money (his brother’s house has three basements. he made them himself, as secure as can be). and when his twin finally summons him for help, things go wrong (he messed up this machine like the last one) (he doesn’t know how to fix it. he isn’t as smart as the guy who made it) (he tries to fix it) (he was never any good at reading and these blueprints are impossible, coded and fragmented and in a science that he didn’t know existed) (he tries to fix it). the townspeople ask who he is, and he doesn’t even say his own name (it was hardly his to begin with). and he invites them to a house that isn’t his to show off experiments that aren’t his because he needs to make money that can’t be his. everything he does for the next 30 years is in his twin’s name, for his twin’s sake. he had two funerals for himself and it isn’t even his body in the casket; he had to wear his brother’s name to both of them. if he had died before he fixed the portal, that funeral wouldn’t have been for him. we meet him as a funny and unique character, but in-universe, he’s only ever been defined by someone else.
and then they went, this is entirely in the background btw. most of that is going to be revealed in one episode and won’t be addressed again. he’s a primary comic relief, even. I’m ill about this.
