Part 2

It’s Stan’s 2nd time in prison and he is bored.

The food is edible, his cellmates are quiet and polite and even the guards treat him with the bare minimum of respect.

Needless to say, Stan hates it. 

Boredom means Stan has time to think about what could’ve been if he had been smarter, better and more like Ford.

If Stan had just known how to fix Ford’s project, maybe he’d still be someone worth keeping around.

With nothing better to do, Stan one day decides to visit the prison library and finds a few boxes full of engineering textbooks abandoned in a corner.

What if Stan could’ve fixed Ford’s project. Could it even have been possible?

Stan swallows hard and picks up the first book.

Meanwhile on the other side of the continent.

“Oh no no no.”

“What is it Fiddleford?”

“I donated the wrong books! All my notes and corrections were in there…”

Stan snorts as he keeps on reading. This McGucket fellow was hilarious.

The book by itself would’ve never kept Stan’s attention, but the notes, snarky remarks, blueprints for villainous contraptions and death rays? Now that’s the stuff!

Over the next months Stan devours one book after the other and when he finally gets released he’s allowed to take the boxes with him as a thank you for fixing and improving the prison’s new experimental computer system.

***

A couple of years later Fiddleford opens the door to a little robot stomping around on the front porch. Mechanical legs on a toaster body with googly eyes that Fiddleford suspects can see more meets the eye.

He kneels down to inspect the cute little fellow when it suddenly notices him, vibrates and starts to talk.

“THANK. YOU. FOR. THE. BOOKS. NERD.”

Fiddleford has no time to figure out what that means before a book shoots out from the slot and hits him right in the head.

“HA. HA. HA.”

The little bot laughs and explodes into fireworks.

Fiddleford watches the show in amazement and inspects his present.

Beginners Guide to Mechanical Engineering

But not any guide. His guide. The one he carried with him throughout college and kept improving upon whenever he could. 

Only now there are more notes added. Corrections to his corrections, complaints about his design choices and disagreements with his theories.

Oh, it’s on!

***

It takes a few days to find the person behind the little prank, an anonymous entrepreneur who is said to be self taught and on the verge of reinventing the world of computers and robotics as they know it. 

Things that people have also been saying about Fiddleford himself.

Fiddleford laughs in delight. He always liked a friendly competition!

So he sends his new rival a little killer robot of his own as a greeting.

***

If Stanford had known what asking his old college buddy to help him out with the portal would entail he would’ve thought twice about inviting him.

It’s not like he isn’t happy for Fiddleford. He clearly found a like minded individual with the same passion for destruction as himself but would it kill them to keep it quiet for once? Stanford is doing important work here!

[Besides if Stanford wanted to he could totally build robots as well. Better ones even. Fiddleford shouldn’t spend so much of his free time fighting with his rival when his best friend was right here!]

Stanford sighs as yet another explosion causes the ground to shake and feels something push against his leg. 

It’s a little possum-like robot bringing him a bottle of water courtesy of Fiddleford’s rival.

Apparently this mystery person felt bad about destroying Stanford’s house one time too many and gifted him this little helper as an apology.

Try as he might, Stanford is unable to hate the thing and lets it climb onto his lap.

“At least you want to keep me company, hm?”

He strokes the fake fur carefully and the robot rumbles in contentment. It feels nostalgic and he knows Stanley would’ve loved it.

Maybe Ford should call him.

You should write the most niche, indulgent fiction that appeals to you specifically, because it will be much more artistically authentic and valuable than corporate slop that has been focus tested to death to appeal to the widest audience possible.

Write for yourself and you will always be making authentic art that has an uncompromised vision, and you will gain an audience that appreciates that.

Dying here at the idea of Stone fetching the doctor.

Rob: Stone?! What are you- *gags as Stone grabs his collar and begins to drag him away*

Stone: You. Me. Home. NOW!

*Robotnik is too speechless but a blush appears as he realizes his agent missed him*

Living the fantasy I guess

ko-fi

sigh, today i'm thinking about ford settling back into the lab after he first comes home, and seeing the proof of how hard stan worked to bring him home

stan was always the "dumb one" between them, always riding on ford's coat tails and slacking off. but he was able to do, on his own, without help from anyone, what it took ford 12 phds, fiddleford's help, and bill's guidance to do. just based off of ONE of ford's cryptic journals and whatever scattered notes and blueprints he was able to find, all while having never graduated high school.

ford having to confront how hard stan worked, how far he pushed himself, how smart he actually is

EDIT: also, stan only had journal 1, that's NOT the one he was working with bill in! that's his first few years in gravity falls, when ford was just as ignorant as stan was! there probably isn't a lot for stan to work with in there.

/post/718441984343293952/no-actually-im-mad-enough-about-it-to-speak-up when we do it people get mad and say that we're misunderstanding the characters and that we're so wrong and that it's fucking shit. i don't know what to do, i feel pressured to not fuck up

Anon imma give you my biggest secrets to fanfic writing, the ones that have carried me thru 15+ years of fic writing, of unwanted critics, of haters, and of little to no attention to my fics.

1) this is the most important one: write what makes YOU happy. Writing fanfic is a hobby and it should spark joy. It should make you happy. If this means you’re taking the big bad of the series and turning him into a baby that the heroes have to raise? Go for it. If it means a villain is your meow meow and you’re gonna rewrite the story to make him a good guy? Go for it. Whatever makes YOU happy. Because in the end, you are writing for yourself and for you to have fun. Yes validation is nice, but—

2) —but it’s not the end all, be all. It’s always so so sooooo good when people comment on your fics and leave you reviews and go nuts for your work. But I write for dead or niche fandoms and I rarely get attention on any of my work. And I made peace with that. You need to make peace with that. Validation is nice, but kudo/comments/hits are not the goal here: you having fun is.

3) ignore the haters. There are SO many gatekeepers in fandoms nowadays that it sucks the fun and joy out of life. Block them, don’t even reply, just block them. AO3 has mute and block buttons. Use them. And if they are extra rude? Report them. In the old days, we used to say “flames will be used to warm cold feet” which translates to “your hate is less than dirt” (flames here being haters and unwanted criticisms). It still applies.

4) this one is optional but: find like minded people! People who’d enjoy your work! People who you love discussing ideas with! It goes a long way to give motivation!

5) this one is hella important: it’s not ooc if it’s an au!! :) A person growing up in a war zone is gonna have very different experiences than a person growing up with parents who run a coffee shop and will have a different experience to growing up in an orphanage etc etc. and all of these things WILL affect a person’s behavior and will change how they interact with the world. Even if all those three scenarios had the same trauma (i.e. a fire), each one would react differently and would lose different things, which again, affects how they’d act.

6) BE ooc!! DO IT. Why? Because NO ONE is gonna write the character as “ic”’as the original writers/creators. The character in your head is different than the character in another person’s head, and in another’s, and so on. This is because our own lives and experiences affect the way we interact with the world—and fictional works. And working super hard to please the public means that someone out there will always go “that’s ooc how dare you.” You can never please everyone, remember that!

6.5) but also: write crackfic. It will help you break out of the fear of oocness so much. Even if you don’t write them, have crackfic ideas. They’re so good for your soul—humor is so good and cringe is dead.

7) and this is hella important: Anon you are human. Humans make mistakes. We fuck up. It’s how we learn and grow. And NO ONE was born perfect. Writing takes practice. Writing in character takes practice for every new character you write! It’s not easy! But you gotta trust yourself and your writing skills, and that requires practice too! Practice practice practice!!

So, TL;DR: Do what you want. Do what makes you happy. You are not being paid for this, and if people don’t like your writing, they can pay you to write exactly what they want. And fuck up as much as it takes for you to feel satisfied with the pieces your working with. And most important—aus and oocness go hand in hand.

goth agent stone is something i've been spinning in my head for the past couple weeks... i've been into goth for, oh my god around a decade now (albeit on and off) so i hope you don't mind if i ramble some thoughts at you as a jumping off point? it's a bit of a niche headcanon so i'm delighted to share it with someone ;; this is a bit of a long one sorry so feel free to ignore it lol i won't be offended

i can imagine stone as having quite a corp goth lean: pinstripe pencil skirts, black trench coat over a suit, cat eye sunglasses, eyeliner!! that sort of thing. not all that different to what he usually wears, just... spookier! i can imagine him in a lot of black leather too, given the whole motorcyclist thing. robotnik might be similar but with more DRAMA. he's a supervillain he's got style he's got flair he's got ribcage patterns sewn into his jacket.

and since stone's someone who sews (and is clearly quite good at it) he'd have so much freedom!! can't find the perfect ruffly blouse? make one! in the '80s especially goth fashion was about hand me downs and DIY he'd be so at home

as for music!! that's the real heart of it. i can imagine them both enjoying the classic, 80s goth roots type of music but i've always pictured robotnik as having an industrial/metal/rock lean. stone feels like he'd be happy listening to whatever robotnik wants to listen to, honestly, as well as some of the dreamier stuff like cocteau twins. music to sway and yearn to.

but uhh anyway if you want a peek into goth culture i'd recommend watching or reading interviews with bands like specimen and fans at the bat cave or just on the street, there were a lot of news outlets that interviewed goths back when it was this really crazy new thing. i'm especially fascinated by the ones from the '80s but there's some excellent modern bands too :-3 and for a look into '90s and 2000s goth there's of herbs and altars' storytimes, please mind the content warnings on them because they're quite heavy but i credit dorian with getting me back into goth after i'd basically abandoned it in my teens.

i did a little happy dance when i saw you were thinking of looking into this stuff, i'm very passionate and this is really just scratching the surface. i could go on and on as all my friends are very aware ;; but i'll stop now. thank you so much if you read all this

Rambling is a love language and I would never ignore someone rambling at me. Feel free to ramble more, even! My DMs are open if you'd prefer!

This goes to everyone, actually. I am very very shy and socially awkward, but I ADORE IT when people talk to me about stuff they love. Everyone is welcome to! I love listening, as my girlfriend would tell you, and I love learning. No excuse needed, you can pop up like "hey I feel like talking about polar bears" and I'll pay attention.

That being said ohoho, this is great! Taking notes, taking notes, thank you so much! I can tell you've put a lot of thought into it. I do agree Robotnik would be far more dramatic with his clothes kinda like that scene in Megaming where he gets his evil outfit ready and I wouldn't be surprised if Stone is the one designing his outfits!

I can also picture this:

He likes the drama

This happened at least once

Do you have any recommendations on how to learn bookbinding? It looks super cool, but I don't know where to start.

It depends on the type of bookbinding you want to get into, my focus is primarily on hardcover case bound books, so if that is what you are keen on, here are some resources that I found incredibly useful while learning:

YouTube

DAS bookbinding has a whole bunch of really detailed, professional tutorials that are incredibly useful. He covers multiple types of binds and techniques and they are all very easy to follow. (I always laugh when I watch his videos tho because he’s Aussie like me and he has the EXACT same shitty tiles in his workroom that I have in my house.)

Sea Lemon does bookbinding amongst other crafts, and while her videos are shorter and less in depth, they are very friendly for beginners and offer alternatives if you don’t have all the tools/equipment at home

Omgreylo is great for if you are doing fanbinding, she also has videos on typesetting, which is something you’ll want to learn too if you are planning on fanbinding. Her videos are also very chill and sometimes I’ll just watch them to relax because I’m a nerd.

Ingenious Designs has some really good videos on some more advanced skills like edge gilding and working with leather bound books. He’s also really charismatic so his videos are fun and informative.

I’m probably forgetting a few, but those channels have all been super useful. The other thing that I do and highly recommend is just browsing the bookbinding and fanbinding tags on tumblr, reddit and instagram to see what other people are doing. A lot of people (including myself when I finally remember to actually take pictures and record the process) will post progress photos alongside the finished project and will talk about the process. Most people are quite happy to answer any questions you might have about their projects too so don’t be afraid to ask.

Also the most important piece of advice I can give, if you are serious about bookbinding, GET YOURSELF SOME SHORT-GRAIN PAPER. It makes all the difference in terms of quality, ease of use, and durability.

Anyways if anyone else has any other resources or tips they think are useful, please feel free to add!