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Overanalyzing A Tale of Two Stans: Everything. Just Everything | A Post-Book of Bill Retrospective

Hana Hyperfixates

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A Tale of Two Stans is THE episode of Gravity Falls. (This video includes spoilers for The Book of Bill.)

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Content warnings for:
Discussions of homelessness, discussions of antisemitism, discussions of abuse and occasional adult humor

Closed captioning by
David Glennon
flcaptioning@gmail.com
(Seriously, I cannot recommend David's work enough!!!!)

Thumbnail art by StephReynaArt: Tumblr: stephreynaart
Ford voice by Nour386 : Tumblr: nour386

Gravity Falls team resources I referred to throughout this video:
Sage Cotugno’s storyboards, which are honestly some of my favorite storyboards in this series: https://www.scribd.com/user/272934818...
https://www.tiktok.com/@arythusa/phot...
Ian Worrel’s paintings for ATOTS: https://gravi-teamfalls.tumblr.com/po...

Fandom resources:
Fandom analysis on what Glass Shard Beach could be based on: https://www.tumblr.com/eregyrn-falls/...
(Also shout out to Eregyrn for helping me find not one, but two assets for this video. Seriously, y’all archives in fandom are so important)
Search for the Blind Eye website: https://gravityfalls.fandom.com/wiki/...
The Royal Order of the Holy Mackerel’s video on Stan’s tattoo: STAN'S TATTOO (DIPPERS GUIDE TO THE UNEXPL...
Grunkle for Grandpa FAQ: https://moonturtle6.tumblr.com/post/1...
Analysis of Gravity Falls by Jewish fans:
https://www.tumblr.com/possumbreath/7...
https://runrundoyourstuff.tumblr.com/...
My ancient timeline post that since has become even more bad: https://www.tumblr.com/fordtato/14354...
My interview with Alex Hirsch: Interview with Alex Hirsch: Unlocking myst...
My interview with Rob Renzetti: An Interview with Rob Renzetti on Gravity ...

Channels that inspired this vid
@quintonreviews
@overanalyzingavatar
@johnny2cellos

End credits song arrangement: Madness - Our House (piano tutorial)

Video Chapters:
0:00 Intro and disclaimers
5:48 Cold Open in Glass Shard Beach
14:58 Meeting Ford in the Portal Room
32:41 Finding the Stan O War
45:19 Montage of their pre-teenage years
54:38 Called to the principal's office
1:03:24 Breaking the perpetual motion machine
1:11:13 Stan gets kicked out
1:24:16 Stan as a deconstruction of antisemitic tropes
1:27:20 Stan’s career in sales
1:38:24 Ford in Backupsmore
1:51:58 Stan living in his car
2:00:36 Ford begins to keep a journal
2:09:35 Overanalyzing Shmebulock.
2:15:47 Everything in Ford’s Lab
2:23:10 Ford calls Fiddleford McGucket
2:29:04 The Portal Test
2:44:42 Ford Calls Stan
2:51:22 Commercial Break
2:53:20 HAVE YOU COME TO STEAL MY EYES
3:06:27 The argument
3:17:36 The portal incident + Aftermath
3:27:28 Dusk2Dawn circa 1983
3:34:25 Stan becomes Mr. Mystery
3:46:07 Getting rid of the agents
3:51:17 Overanalyzing Gompers the goat
4:00:19 When did we become old men?
4:04:15 Mabel in the attic
04:10:27 How I feel about ATOTS

20 Comments

@hanahyperfixates Creator 2 years ago (edited) Pinned

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Slight correction: I say at one point that Stan hadn't been to Georgia in one map, though he was banned in another. I misspoke, but should have said South Carolina. I mixed them up on the map during the late filming.
And when I say he hasn't been through Arkansas?... no idea which state I really meant, my brain is mush.

@coocaww 2 years ago

Stan being a great con artist but also being unable to lie to his loved ones is SUCH a good snippet of his character. God I love him so much

@strelitziamystery21 2 years ago (edited)

Something that always stuck with me is how Stanley while creative and crafty, didn't even graduate high school and only made as far as he did by copying Ford's school work. Stan thought of himself as the dumb twin.

But Stan still spent 30 years studying and learning from the Journals and actually managed to quickly fix the machine once he got all 3 journals and the secret black light messages.

And I remember being so proud with Stan because in a way he showed that he was more book smart than anyone gave him credit for, including himself.

Basically I want Dipper and Ford to be talking complete nerd stuff and for Stan to completely understand and respond, shocking everyone listening lol.

@theonewhoknows4978 2 years ago

The interpretation of “Mabel reminds Ford of Stanley, therefore he hates her” is infinitely less interesting and show accurate than “Mabel reminds Ford of young Stanley, therefore he is very fond of her”

She is a mini Stan! The Stan he doesn’t have conflicting feelings about, the one he promised to sail the world with and wholeheartedly meant it, when things where simple and the future looked bright, a Stan before the science fair.

@CalamitasCalliope 2 years ago

Do you ever think about how Ford missed 9/11? That's gonna be really weird for him while he simultaneously notices how intense the airport security has gotten and finds out he's on the no-fly list.

@coocaww 2 years ago

3:41:40 the dollar bill being replaced with a picture o Dipper and Mabel and having Soos as the employee of the year instead of himself literally made me cry. We knew that Stan would move mountains just for his family but this detail is just so sincere and precious

@rainanewman3006 2 years ago (edited)

I like how “a place where weirdos like me fit in” neatly parallels bills offer to take Ford in, “With that extra finger, you’d fit right in with my freaks!”

@h.cschannel 2 years ago (edited)

the argument section:
i LOVE the line "i have a mullet stanford!" so much. because yeah to stanford it's such a nothing statement as you clearly said but to stan it's everything. i've been where stan is. i know that feeling. i know what it's like to have dirty, matted hair that's clining to your neck making you feel gross, ugly, and unclean.

stan isn't saying "i have ugly hair." he's saying "i can't cut/clean/brush" my hair. he's saying "i'm lucky if that motel had a shower." he's saying "i'm homeless and living out of my car"
and that point is ILLISTRATED by stan's next line pointing out that ford is living in 3 story house THAT WAS CUSTOM BUILT FOR HIM. sure ford is going crazy because he built some magic protal or whatever but he has never worried about where he's going to sleep(only if he'll sleep ;) ) or if he can get food today or when he'll have access to running water.
the mullet is EVEYRTHING to me.

@broadwaybutterfly310 2 years ago

The most interesting thing about McGucket is that he stayed in Gravity Falls. He wasn't a native. He had a nice home with a wife and kid waiting for him. And yet, when he saw what was on the other side of the portal, when he fought with Ford, when he stormed out and said he was done with it all... he still stayed. Maybe he felt so changed that he couldn't go back home, maybe he thought Ford would come around, idk. And his son! His son, who sees him as an embarrassment and avoids him, came! He came to Gravity Falls! Why? To reconnect? To take care of McGucket? Who knows! But he came, and like his father, he stayed! He avoids his father but he doesn't just leave him behind and go back home?? Ugh, these characters are so interesting.

@Mara-mm5ze 2 years ago (edited)

To me the whole tragedy of this episode and the Stans in general was that you can't really blame neither of them. There's always another point of view, another thing to track back. You can't point fingers because both their feelings are valid and both of them are at fault. I'm somehow of a newcomer in the fandom (I watched it growing up but never interacted with the community) and the way people talk about the fight and pick sides really pisses me of. It feels downright purposely misread. It's such a complex situation.
I may have a favoritism for Stanley, just because I see myself a little more in him, but villanizing Ford for wanting his own life is crazy. They both clearly love each other, and I hate how the fandom talks about it.

@crystalqueen3601 2 years ago

Hearing both stanley and stanford do the "what are you waiting for? a kiss on the cheek?" makes me imagine their father saying that either to them or a customer or something

@sagaevan9641 2 years ago

we do not need a gravity falls revival or new story movie, we just need an hour+ extended cut of a tale of two stans with all the stuff they couldnt condense down

@imnotgoodwithnames4101 2 years ago (edited)

Kind of a small thing but I like that even when homeless Stan isn't skinny and actively seems to be at his heaviest. Gaining weight isn't just about how much you eat but also what you eat and Stan wouldn't have the means to be eating healthy at this point, I mean he's probably living mostly off cheap junk food and whatever restaurant he thinks he could reasonably dine and dash at and it shows. Meat and fresh produce is also pretty expensive and Stan wouldn't have the luxury at this point to choose quality over quantity, plus he wouldn't have a refrigerator living out of his car so any food he does get would have to be able to last without that. I just like the representation of a character not getting enough to eat while still being overweight.

@erikm8373 2 years ago

The idea that Ford, for entirely incomprehensible reasons, just decided to torture a Gnome one day until he broke its mind is genuinely hilarious. Why would he do that.

@HelloYesImRose 2 years ago (edited)

fords definetley pulling a dipper "i am pretending to write something down" in journal 1 and if we get journal 1 as a book one day and i dont see a page with that i will riot

@charlie9539 2 years ago

30:04 "Dipper is like 'You're the author of the Journal !' and Ford is like 'You read my diary ?'"

This is so accurate, lmao

@tommarsdon5644 2 years ago

An x-ray for people with polydactyly is actually fairly common. The abnormality may actually not be the finger itself, but rather the amount of bones within it, as well as the fact it appears to be fully functional.

@xerith42 2 years ago

The reason that one bully was so existential to the boys when they were kids is because he was an 8th grader. I don't know what it is but there's a skill tree unlocked only at 8th grade for some advanced bullying techniques.

@hip-hopanonymous5995 2 years ago

I choose the headcanon that it's not an animation error, it's Stan's desperation to get his brother back breaking the universe.

........in the form of an animation error

@hobbesthetiger 2 years ago

Don’t know if anyone’s said this already, but I think the bag Filbrick throws at Stan could have been a bag Stan had packed for the Stan o’ War adventure. Maybe he’s had it ready to go for years. I think it’s also poetic that a bag representing his hopes and dreams is thrown in his face and taken with him on a different adventure, much grimmer and more lonely than the one he had in mind.