#stan enchanted

[aroace-get-out-of-my-face]

i've been rotating the ella enchanted au in my brain today and I've had a Thought regarding how much of a turbo problem bill becomes in this situation (note i haven't seen the movie in dogs years so if this doesn't parse; eh!)

while the angst situation of ford deliberately ordering stan to do something is fun to play with, I genuinely don't think he'd ever go through with it, /especially/ after having his own personal autonomy flayed for who knows how long. he'd have five seconds to seriously think about giving stan an order for his own good, wherein a perfect spark of connection between the last time he unintentionally ordered stan to do something and his own horror show life forms and then he has to stand very very still to avoid throwing up on his own shoes.

however, bill is still a problem. bill at this point has every tool he needs to obliterate ford's life if something isn't done. bill needs to be kept away from stanley at all costs. So ford begs. he begs stanley to please for the love of god go into the basement and /stay there/ and please please don't come out until ford comes down there to get him /please/. it is undignified and frantic and stuttering as ford tries to both get stan away from the danger and to not trip the curse, and it is /frightening/. stan manages to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth long enough to agree, visibly shaken and wanting to do whatever it takes to make ford stop /sounding/ like that, like stan's own interal monologue from the last few years coming to life.

ford has barely had a chance to explain what bill even /is/ yet beyond a threat to stanley, knowing the adrenaline crash is going to smother him any second now, and stan's in the basement trying to regroup after whatever the hell /that/ was, and notices movement. there's cameras wired to the rest of the house, ways for ford to check the rooms without needing to leave the lab, and now to try and see what bill's been doing in his body. stan watches as ford passes out and within the next breath leap back up, acting erratic. stan watches as ford throws himself around with no care, for either his belongings or himself. stan gets a very very bad feeling, and then an idea.

bill, furious that not only has he been foiled /again/, but that spare parts was put away out of reach when he would've added real spice to this place, is about to really teach ford a lesson. puppet hour deserves a sequel! bill makes it five steps before he gets closelined.

stanley, talking uncomfortably loud and making a point to avoid looking at ford's mouth at all costs, tells him that regardless of whatever the hell that was ford's just gonna sit down on this here sofa and hopefully this net he's getting wrapped in isn't too uncomfortable and holy shit these headphone's feel like theyre squeezing his brain through his nose, is his heartbeat supposed to be this loud? meanwhile bill is cursing a blue streak with a completely ignorant audience. stanley's gonna check back in in like, half an hour? and maybe make this place less of a horror show in the meantime? uh sit tight buddy.

(huh that was less of a rotation and more of a full microwave defrost. it's got crispy bits now)

This started off TERRIFYING and so scary, and then so angsty, and then veered into my absolute favorite category of Stan-defeats-bill-with-some-bullshit

Im just imagining Bill smiling like the cat that got the cream, ready to do some downright sadistic level shit to Stan. Should he make him nail his hand to the table? Eat spiders? Make him stand up on the roof? Better yet, he should tell Stan to go to the ends of the earth again, and this time LET him, so poor old Sixer here wont be able to stop him by the time he wakes up, so many things to do!

And then Stan has like. Duct taped headphones to his ears. He can't hear the command, and therefore it doesn't exist. Whats that? Sorry Demon thats infecting my brother, can't hear you.

Its the ultimate fuck you. Bill has a puppet already, but the second one is literally JUST out of his reach. Sure he could attack Stan in Ford's body, easy, but thats no fun is it? He wants to get his grubby little hands on the CURSE dammit

Of course he can't, and Stan goes and like. Does dishes or something like Fords body is handcuffed to the radiator screaming until he passes out again

And then, on the flip side, when Ford wakes BACK UP

He's handcuffed to a radiator. He is not where he woke up. From where he is, he can see the door where he locked Stan in is open.

Panic. Stan's cursed, and Ford has no idea what's happening, he's calling, shouting and then yelling and then screaming for Stan, trying to claw his hand off trying to go, oh god what did Bill DO, Stan could be anywhere, doing anyTHING and Ford can't get out of these stupid handcuffs-

And then Stan peaks his head around corner wearing headphones and just goes "WHAT?!!!! FORD IS THAT YOU??????!!!" and it makes Ford collapse into a puddle of pure relief

[aroace-get-out-of-my-face]

Hmm Ford activates Stan’s curse on purpose but it’s a command to tell him the truth ab the science project. He really wasn’t expecting the answer “it was an accident” and now Stanley is pissed and hurt that he wouldn’t believe him without the enchantment and that he used the curse against him. Also maybe he just says “tell the truth” so it also results in Stan spilling his guts ab his feelings and also the stuff he’s been through in the last decade

..

What is it with yall and MAKING ME EVEN MOFE SAD ABOUT STUFF????? EXPANDING THE STAN ENCHANTED THING WITH ANGST WASNT EVEN MY BIT!!! @acewithapaintbrush DID THAT SHIT IT WASNT ME!!!!! YOU PEOPLE ARE RUINING ME WITJ MORE ANGST THAN I CSN HANDLE G UYS CMON THIS IS BULLYING. IM BEING BULLIED IN MY INBOX

GOD CANT THEY JUST BE HAPPY?!?! HOW ABOUT WE ALL WRITE A FUN STORY. STAN AND FORD HAVE A NICE DAY HOW ABOUT THAT?!?! CAN WE WRITE THEM HAVING A GREAT DAY AND GOING FISHING OR SOMETHING GOD D AMN

[aroace-get-out-of-my-face]

you ever start thinking about how stan enchanted au is a terrible time because theres so many little phrases that could be interpreted as commands and a lot of them can pass under the radar if its a brief interaction? i've been thinking about it.

'pass me [thing]', 'listen here', 'ignore that', 'forget i said anything', 'do me a favour'

i think stan meets one real enthusiastic theatre guy on his way around and makes sure to avoid anywhere theatre kids would be after that. he doesn't need to hear 'break a leg!' twice after all.

honestly it's the 'forget/ignore' command that fucks me up. how many nights does he have no recollection of? how many times did he wake up in the morning and know in his bones that something happened, that he did something for someone, but he has no idea what it could be? awful!

Okay you people are sending me SO MUCH ANGST POTENTIAL FOR THIS AU OH MY G O D

‘the forget/ignore. God. Stan would remember he was told to forget something. But he’ll never know WHAT he forgot. Man. And there’s so many applications of that, even outside of the darker connotations like. One ‘oh just ignore me’ and Stan never acknowledges that person again. “Forget I said anything” and he literally forgets whatever they said. GOD ITS AWWFFULLLL

[aroace-get-out-of-my-face]

Okay so the Ella Enchanted AU refuses to leave my brain, and I've been rotating a scenario where somebody discovered Stan's curse and took full advantage of it, essentially making him some kind of house slave, and when he "gets" the post card he never even sees it, the guy keeping him there just burns it or something. Maybe writes Ford a letter pretending to be Stan telling him to go fuck himself.

And Ford, not taking that lying down, either reaches out again and notices the speech pattern is weird/weird handwriting, or asks the mailbox and it tells him what's going on.

Scenario where Ford has to go break Stan out of not-jail, basically

Bonus points if Ford still didn't know about the curse until the guy catches them and then Stan starts getting contradictory orders and begins flip-flopping between them like a confused dog, and Ford's like "......hey wait a minute"

Oh I kinda love this

Ill do you one better, the person who finds out is the original guy who CURSED Stan in the first place, like Stan was sneaking into a wizards house and got caught, and bam. Suddenly Stan is an enchanted servant, dusting and doing weird household chores for this wrinkly old asshole

So when Ford sends the postcard, the wizard immediately sniffs out that, hey, this was sent by some weird ass magic, better not mess with this, and MAKES STAN WRITE A MEAN CARD BACK, that way said postcard is, A, in Stan's handwriting, and B, because the wizard is, as aforementioned, an asshole

So Ford gets a letter back from Stan. And. Well. Its in Stan's handwriting, Ford would know this particular brand of chicken scratch anywhere, but it doesn't SOUND like Stan at all. Stanley Pines doesn't use words like "Loathe" and "I'd appreciate if you never contacted me again" thats not what Stan does.

So Ford. Does a little digging. Theres no return address (something the mailbox can answer real fast) and pretty soon Ford puts together that Stan is DEFINITELY under some sort of duress to be writing this, because Ford KNOWS his twin, and Stanley would never.

And then Ford goes and has a wizard duel or something, im imagining the one at the end of Willow but honestly you do you

[aroace-get-out-of-my-face]

Man thinking about that Stan enchanted au where Stan is kept by the guy who curses him and Ford has to come find him, and him seeing this guy treat Stan like a pet and a lesser being, controlling him just like Bill does with Ford

I bet that’s some trauma neither of them ever wanted to have in common

To be fair, i think they didn't want ANY trauma to be shared between the two of them

Also like. Can you imagine the catharsis from Ford's perspective on that? He's been tortured by bill and can't find a way out, but he CAN save Stan from this problem. He can literally punch the guy in the face. There must be some part that feels so fuckin VINDICATED, not just on the "someone's hurting my brother" standpoint but also on the "this controlling ass is vulnerable and im going to kill them" type

[aroace-get-out-of-my-face]

Okay silly ask this time

Is it possible to confuse the curse via "this sentence is false"-esk paradoxes? Like if someone tells him to do nothing what happens?

I feel like. Stan would just. Vibrate in place. The spell takes the path of least resistance normally, but with overlapping requests or like. Impossible ones, it either TRIES to complete it (throwing poor Stan into danger) or it just makes Stan basically vibrate in place because he CANT complete the task, and the spell is TRYING, and all it does is cause more and more pain as the spell tries and tries

So basically. Not fun

[aroace-get-out-of-my-face]

hi E! I wrote something for the Stan Enchanted Au

I think it’s a poem but if there’s a name for a poem like this I don’t know it

it’s kind of wacky looking

it’s not contrapuntal, it’s just Stan and Ford, but read Fords bit on the left along with the middle parts, and read Stan’s bit on the right also with the middle parts

AND! @biggirlscantcry bc there’s a reference to her fic in there :)

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS AU AND EVERYTHING EVERYONE’S WRITTEN FOR IT IF ANY OF YOU SEE THIS MUAH MUAH THANK YOU SO MUCH AND YOURE ALL SICK AND TWISTED (this includes you E)

Im going to BANG MY HEAD AGAINST THE WAAAAALLLLLL. YOUR POETRY. EVRRY TIME YOU GUT ME WITH SOMETHING NEW IM FOAMING AT GHR MOUUTGHHHHHHH AAAAAGGHHHHHHHH