[This Fox is BANNED from the Mystery Shack] [It keeps stealing the taxidermy statues] [DO NOT LET IT IN] [Do NOT feed it snacks] [That means you Mabel] tag notes: funfalls - softfalls - angstfalls - awesomefalls
#oh this depicts the horror of that page so well #something about having all autonomy stripped from you. #not even awareness of your actions #but it was you #at least to everyone else #the lighting is insane #so fucking nicely rendered #im so ill (via @vertigoyaps)
i saw a while ago that you said that you were fiddleford hater among lovers… do you mind speaking more on that?
(sorry i really liek hearing ur views on stuff)
uhh yeah you know what i'll talk a lil about it . why not . i can share some analysis as a treat . will tuck my thoughts gently behind a readmore, so sweet and softlys
i think fiddleford is a fine character its just irritating when narratively he's treated as this very tragic figure when he's an adult man capable of making his own choices . this is a flaw with the books, to be clear - i do not think the actions of fiddleford align with the explicit narrative he has as a nice guy who had a terrible thing happen to him, which stanford must feel soul-crushing guilt over .
this is what bothers me about him: that he is intended to be read as just an all around good dude with tragic circumstances, rather than a messy guy who made shit-ass terrible decisions every step of the way
not even talking about fandom mischaracterization. that's a given in any collaborative fan space and i don't really hold it against people for doing that . fandom is fun, play with your dolls, do whatever - all that mostly means is im not gonna vibe w/ a lot of fanart, it's not going to impact my opinion of the character . i do think it's funny how the collective fanonization of him is simultaneously the wettest meow-meow, but also a total badass when . he's so fundamentally conflict adverse he destroys his own life and body over it .
my man fucks raccoons . i guess that's badass in it's own way . i guess
the thing that is compelling about fidds to me is he is a bit of a worm, and that worminess winds up destroying him from the inside out . he really embodies the entire concept of 'inaction is action', in a way that's deeply frustrating in both fun and not so fun ways
some of the fun things we know about fiddleford:
leveled the downtown area of palo alto
built a robot to try and kill his wife when she tried to divorce him
built robots to kill kids because his son wasnt paying attention to them
brain blasts people to get free labor out of them
started a cult to brain blast people
so horny for Cthulhu Columbo that he did not get his son a christmas present . not a single Tonking Truck . i know your brain is half melted at this point but cmon man
i don't really think the whole leaving his wife in the 70's is all that cute either . it's a one off joke, and there's something interesting about the fact that it's a one off joke . like what kind of financial freedom do people think a single mother is gonna have in this time period? why is that something that goes unchallenged?
and the fact he leaves them for a year is just like . that's also fucked man . i can personally attest to how fucked it is to have your dad just piss off for a year to do contractor work . what a wild subplot to be treated with such little narrative importance to his character . like . the fact that it holds so little importance to fidds is a narrative all on its own
it's just weird how the story treats him, man . he's not that endearing of a dude, which is what i like about him . i like that he makes bad decisions . i like that he doesn't respect when people say "no" . characters should make bad decisions and be bad people . i just really hate this presentation of his own actions being the fault of anyone other than fiddleford
oh also the research paper stint was insane . wild to me that that was presented in the story as like a cool or kind thing to do to someone . like that's a very reasonable boundary for stanford to be upset about being crossed, and its wild how that's presented as him being a jackass . there are MANY things that make ford a piece of shit .
tho that's a whole other conversation about how ford as a character is defined by never having his boundaries respected, and this never being challenged, and in fact he should just be okay with it when it happens by the "right" sorts of people . once an object, always an object . love him
SO TRUE. sometimes the way the narrative frames a character's actions is just wrong. Or, biased, I guess. Women are consistently overlooked in Gravity Falls, so it's not at all shocking that Emma-May is more of a tool to set up jokes than anything else. Haha he sent a big robot pterodactyl to kill his wife haha. That's so silly and quirky of him. Or tragic and sympathetic. or whatever. Or maaaaaybe we use our critical thinking skills and consider what the author's framing reflects about the cultural zeitgeist at the time.
I think a lot of people shy away from complexity like this and I totally get it. Keep your lighthearted narratives, sure, but do so intentionally. It only enriches your experience when you understand why you're drawn to certain types of characters and what you're having to overlook about them.
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