#gravity talk

Ever since the release of the journal, this has been question I've been wondering about for a while. Statistically speaking, it feels like the answer should be a simple "yes" But considering Ford’s descriptions of his travels there is a lot of evidence that seems to bring this into question.

It’s been shown that there are other Fords who have met Bill and built portals exist in other dimensions, but Ford doesn’t appeared to have ever encountered another version of himself in a similar situation to him. He doesn’t mention or appear to have heard of any other Fords running around the multiverse. The survivors in the Nightmare Realm and other such also don’t appear to have encountered another Ford before, which seems to indicate that there hasn’t been another version has passed through before the one we know did. There’s no other Fords who appear to have gotten the same idea as him to build a weapon to destroy Bill with, there’s no other Fords present when he does ultimately confront Bill and, despite Bill having tricked several Fords into building portals for him, it appears only one Stan portal opens from a Stan attempting to bring Ford back.

On top of that, the dimensions Ford travels to, particularly the ones closest to his home dimension, seem exist to more-or-less within the same time frame as his. If there were multiple versions of Ford who were pushed through the portal, wouldn’t at least some of them have entered Bill’s dimension at around the same time as our Ford?

The closest he gets to meeting another version of himself is when he encounters the Better World, but not only does Ford never (or rather, can’t) personally meet that alternate Ford, but it’s also one who was never pushed into a portal. Granted, there’s not much frame of reference since Ford doesn’t appear to have found many - if any - more dimensions so similar to his own, but perhaps dimensions similar to the Better World are the norm and Ford’s dimension is the exception.

There’s also the matter of Ford having a bounty placed on his head by Bill, which is said to be known about through millions of dimensions:

But, interestingly enough, it's written in a singular tense. There's no "1 of 618" or “ ___ x 10,000″ or any references or there allusions to there potentially being multiple versions of the same bounty that can be collected on. If Bill considered Ford enough of a threat to put a out a reward in exchange for his capture, wouldn’t he have wanted to do the same for every Ford who fell through the portal?

Then of course there is Jheselbraum, the oracle Ford encounters later in his travels. When he first meets her, he describes her to “already know [Ford’s] name and what [his] mission was,” which could indicate she has met other Ford’s and has thus had similar conversations more than once. However she, as her title implies, accurately predicted the finale, so it could also easily be because she's psychic and/or privy to information outside of her dimension.

With all this in mind, my conclusion: Only one dimension in the GF-multiverse Ford has ever been pushed through the portal. While a some of this was perhaps done for the sake of simplicity in the story, it does raise some interesting ideas:

The one thing I always admired about Stan’s character arc is that it’s been said numerous times - both by Stan in-show and even by Hirsch himself - that science and traditional book-learning are things that don’t actually come naturally to him. He’s certainly clever in many ways, but those particular subjects aren’t his strong suits, and don’t appear to have ever interested him.

But despite that, he still made the effort to buckle down and pour through hundreds of pages of text books and papers to learn everything he would need to help him understand the physics and engineering side of things when working on the portal. He probably had to get additional reading material because, unlike Ford, he hadn’t finished high school and there was likely a lot of subjects he had to teach himself just to bridge the massive jump he’d be making from high school calculus/trigonometry/etc. to quantum physics, so he could work his way up to the advanced materials. A lot of which were likely subjects he was the weakest at when he was being taught them the first time, and maybe even have to re-teach himself in some regards. With no outside help, if he ever got stuck his only option would be to power through and keep working at it until something eventually clicked and he figured the problem out. And, even then, there wouldn’t always be a direct connection to what was in those book and the massive portal in his basement - a device, by all accounts, only exists in theory.

All of which completely goes against what he’s most adept at doing. None of that came naturally to him, but he kept at it anyways because that was the only way he could get his brother back.

And I want you to think about this, I mean really think about it before you give an answer. Because I know your first instinct is gonna be to say “Theory, you ignorant slut! The answer should be obvious! Why even ask?” But hear me out.

Here it goes:

Which door did Stan knock on when he first came to the shack?

No, seriously, just look at this:

Starts at the front of the house, so far so good (note the thermometer by the door)

Still at the front of the house, thermometer still present

Suddenly shingles that definitely weren’t there before

The door frame has suddenly changed entirely between shots?

And now on a completely different porch???

@countrr-pt replied to your post “E uufq J pybtbfz yu r jsafpfot zsztotosve lfcky…” 

also,,, here's one for the normal j3 ,,,,, ford mentions that he read all of dipp's entries,,,so he must've read the one about dreamscapers??? so why was he surprised when dipp said "yeah i kno bill" in TLM

This may be considered a bit of a stretch, but I have considered a possible explanation for this.

Ford doesn’t start reading the journal carefully until some point after Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons, and I think it’s safe to assume that he read Dipper’s entries and additions not only in order, but also sparingly between his efforts to contain the rift and stopping Bill since he’d likely considered those goals to be higher priority. Some of Dipper and Mabel’s changes go back as far as the beginning of the journal, so it might be safe to assume with the case of Bill that Ford hadn’t gotten to the parts where Dipper had mentioned Bill yet.

But, i do also have a theory to where Ford did get when reading Dipper’s entries by The Last Mabelcorn:

Ford mentions that he’s inquired about McGucket several times, but that nobody would give him a straight answer and would promptly change the subject. Therefore it’s mostly likely at this entry where Ford found out what had ultimately happened to Fiddleford. So if Ford had stumbled upon this page shortly before the events of The Last Mabelcorn, it would make this bit:

Make a whole lot of sense, and be all the more sadder.

@countrr-pt replied to your post “E uufq J pybtbfz yu r jsafpfot zsztotosve lfcky...”

you can also assume that the STANFORD page (which is the page about fidds) might have gotten ripped out or burned. a terrible solution to this loophole, but dipper did mention that many pages were ripped out.,,,,

Sosc, niwd’z aotp dov niexn: Wisz mvlfej’d orpf pyye niwd wraf kea sydwezv qiax ffo mkyr rn xdka’j io prl sudg ivl fpku ve nia xlon qwql fz udo srjukz hex NyQbtefp oukljac, ffo bno tvn xedo kbjo...

... gozwi so reix byy r zbyd pj zfwdbiye ex ayy kkeyeum xojrota gl jyf xyay jbcoz yysa: