Still Don't Know What To Do With The Fact That Stan Canonically Didn't See Point In His Life Beyond Getting

Still don't know what to do with the fact that Stan canonically didn't see point in his life beyond getting his brother home. Like oh boy filbrick when i catch you filbrick when i catch you-

Him not saying it makes sense, he wouldn't wanna worry the kids. i think it actually makes sense that it didn't make the final cut. But the fact that it was there so late in the game really implies that this was something they thought was accurate to his characterization. that Stan truly actually felt like his life had no meaning.

The writing was always on the wall. He told Ford that he thought their dad (a man decades dead by then) was right and that he was just a worthless screw up. He was willing to basically loose his entire sense of self for his family and what's that of not a symbolic suicide. but to see it in plain text that he only found meaning through the kids is really something else. Stan is a man so built on others perceptions and desires of him that i think he doesn't even know himself any more.

He didn't just loose himself to the memory gun. Or loose himself to his thirty year performance of Stanford. But he lost the kid that just wanted to explore the world with his brother. he lost some tender soft core to himself because filbrick made sure to take it and throw it out when he kicked out Stan.

Really I think that's when Stan lost himself, when he was forced into a quest to 'earn his worth'.

And like in a lot of ways him hosting the kids for the summer you see him soften. He's rediscovering that tender fragile sense of self he thinks doesn't exist. when he engages with them over the series i feel like the façade is slowly dropping.

He never stopped stealing scamming or being otherwise shady but there is a slow emotional vulnerability that he gives them over the course of the series. He was quicker to give it to Mabel, but over the many eps of Dipper's pinning you see him slowly reveal things about his past to him. Not Ford's past but Stanley's. He told Dipper about Carla. A woman he loved when he was last himself.

There's something about lost legends that I think about regularly. As a kid he wanted to create something. The Stan'o'war primarily but comics too. He had a love of story telling and art that got sneered and bullied out of him. He wasn't ever given chances so he abandoned comics early so he wouldn't have to face rejection again and again.

But then years later, decades passing to the point where he is now taking on his brother's identity we see him return to story telling again. He's conning them yes but he's finally playing onto his passions and talents for the first time since he was very young. He told jokes about previous tours that hadn't happened to keep interest. he was connecting with people through stories like he always wanted.

And i think most striking is that when he's in the comic Soos and him have a heart to heart about comics. He lets himself open back up to a hobby he'd left discarded for decades. He was scared but despite it all he still sold that comic. He made something he'd wanted to since he was ten and healed himself. He cried bc finally he found himself.

i think that's the part of him that everyone loves. that is the part of Stanley pines that people really care about.

Stanley Pines doesn't know it but his second funeral would be filled to the brim. his passing wouldn't just gut his family but the entire town.