Quote

"Remember in 

Gravity Falls there 

is no one 

you can trust."

                         Full name                           

   Stanford Filbrick Pines

Other names

The Author, Grunkle Ford

Great Uncle Ford, Sixer

Poindexter, IQ

Fordsy (by Mabel and Bill)

Despite being very intelligent, Ford has shown himself to be very narcissistic and self-absorbed. This is shown by his reluctance to part with his life's work and share his scientific accomplishments with loved ones, instead relishing the image of being a solitary hero.

Ford has a strong need to have his intellect recognized and celebrated, which made it easy for Bill to trick him by claiming to be a muse who chose "one great mind" every century to inspire.

Ford is seen as a serious person when it comes to his work in researching the paranormal. However, he genuinely enjoys his research, even in the face of danger. His years of researching the paranormal both in and out of his realm have made Ford a strong, brave individual who will face danger head on in order to ensure that the world is safe. However, after all of his years of researching the paranormal, Ford's excitement for confirming things such as the existence of extraterrestrials have dulled.

background

Stanford was born in the late 1940s to early 1950s to Filbrick Pines and Caryn Pines in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey, 15 minutes before his twin brother, Stanley. From an early age, Ford was fascinated with the supernatural and science fiction. He displayed an abnormally high I.Q. and a rare birth defect that granted him an extra finger on both hands. Despite their vastly different personalities, Ford and his brother were the best of friends, often roaming the beach in search of adventure. Unfortunately, their youth was plagued with frequent bullying due to Ford's six fingers and Stan's wimpish characteristics, most notably from their childhood tormentor Crampelter. This prompted their father to enlist them in boxing lessons as a means of toughening them up.

As the twins reached adolescence, Ford's brains and scientific achievement expanded a contrast to his brother's disinterest in academics. The two remained close, working together on their ship (called the Stan o’ War) to fulfill their childhood dreams of sailing around the globe until Ford was summoned to the Principal's office. There, he was lauded as a genius and offered the chance to show his science fair experiment, a Perpetual Motion Machine, to a visiting team of recruiters from West Coast Tech, a prestigious university on the other side of the country. With promises of fortune and success should he be accepted, Ford became less sure of his plans with Stan, revealing to his twin that he'd seize the chance to go if it happened.

However, on the day of the visit, Ford and the West Coast Tech team simultaneously discover that the Perpetual Motion Machine has stopped moving, defeating its sole purpose. A distraught Ford discovers an empty bag of Toffee Peanuts next to his display, and mistakenly believes Stanley has sabotaged him. He angrily confronts his brother back home and doesn't interfere while his father kicks Stan out of the house, disowning him until he could pay back the potential millions he cost the Pines family. He is seen sadly looking out at his brother from the window of their shared room, before a glance at a West Coast Tech pamphlet gives him the strength to close the blinds on him.

Ford reluctantly enrols himself in Backupsmore University, a low-ranking college whose most notable achievement is clean dorms. Despite the drawback, he set himself to the task and worked hard, entering a doctoral program three years ahead of schedule. It was during this time that Ford met and befriended Fiddleford McGucket, a genius mechanic aspiring to build personalized computers. Following the completion of a nationally ranked thesis, Stanford was awarded an enormous grant of one hundred thousand dollars, which brought an end to his studies at Backupsmore. When thinking of how to employ the grant, Ford recalled how he'd been antagonized by his six fingers all through childhood, and decided to dedicate his life to the study of oddities. He chose the sleepy hamlet of Gravity Falls, Oregon, believing it to be an area of high concentration of supernatural occurrences

Putting his grant money to use in the construction of a large, isolated research lab in the forest, Ford was soon entranced by Gravity Falls' weirdness. He recorded his many findings first in one, then in more journals as his discoveries increased. Eventually, he realized a need to expand his work area, establishing a small, heavily protected bunker laboratory to host his more dangerous projects and experiments, such as the Shape Shifter. Ford made use of his talents and newly acquired knowledge of Gravity Falls to create new and extraordinary inventions, including the mind-swapping Electron Carpet and a mind-controlling tie designed for the masters of presidential election candidate Ronald Reagan.

By 1981, six years since his arrival in Gravity Falls, Stanford had an encyclopaedic knowledge of his mysterious new home, and was in the process of writing his third journal. Unfortunately, he soon hit a roadblock, and was left without answers as to how the improbabilities of Gravity Falls had come to be. The plateau in his research led him to the discovery of a cave filled with cryptic hieroglyphics, as the message spoke of an entity containing unending knowledge. Despite the warnings about the entity, Ford repeated the incantation aloud, which summoned a triangular creature who introduced himself as Bill Cipher into his mindscape. Presenting himself as a muse, one who chose a genius intellectual to inspire once every century, Bill offered Ford a partnership: Bill would bestow his knowledge to Ford in exchange for the ability to move freely within and without Ford's own mind.

Under Cipher's guidance, Ford was introduced to vast information, learning of a parallel dimension of paranormal phenomena that had leaked into his world, which gave birth to the weirdness of Gravity Falls. With Bill's assistance, Stanford drafted blueprints to create an interdimensional gateway beneath his home, recruiting his college friend Fiddleford and his mechanic prowess for the project. As construction went underway, Ford's admiration towards Bill and his wisdom escalated into worship, which led to his collecting triangular memorabilia, such as rugs and statues, modeling his home's architecture in his image and even converting his private study to a place of worship. 

As their partnership seemingly grew to friendship, Fiddleford became increasingly suspicious of the device they had constructed and of Ford's mysterious collaborator, as Ford refused to reveal Bill's identity to his friend. When the portal's first trial resulted in Fiddleford accidentally going through it, bringing back a macabre warning about "the beast with just one eye", Ford finally became suspicious as well. He resolved to continue the project however, even though he now faced it alone: McGucket, disturbed by his glimpse of the Nightmare Realm and horrified at Ford for wanting to continue, quit on the spot. 

As their partnership seemingly grew to friendship, Fiddleford became increasingly suspicious of the device they had constructed and of Ford's mysterious collaborator, as Ford refused to reveal Bill's identity to his friend. When the portal's first trial resulted in Fiddleford accidentally going through it, bringing back a macabre warning about "the beast with just one eye", Ford finally became suspicious as well. He resolved to continue the project however, even though he now faced it alone: McGucket, disturbed by his glimpse of the Nightmare Realm and horrified at Ford for wanting to continue, quit on the spot 

With his fear of Bill's inevitable return growing stronger, Ford eventually felt the need to abandon his research and hide his journals, thus preventing details on the portal's operation from falling into the wrong hands. Hiding his second and third journals locally and converting his offsite laboratory into a makeshift fallout shelter, designed to survive an apocalypse, Ford finally contacted estranged brother Stanley in an urgent call for help. 

After Stan's arrival, Ford's plight was near its end, as his final task rested on his brother's shoulders: after briefly explaining the portal and its power, Ford entrusted Stan his first journal, the only one still in his possession, and requested him to take it as far away as he could. Hurt and enraged at being summoned only to be sent as far as possible, Stan spitefully claimed he'd get rid of the journal by burning it, which prompted Ford to react in defense of his research. The brawl escalated into a fistfight within the laboratory that inadvertently reactivated the portal. As the fight neared the active portal, Stan angrily shoved the journal back into Ford's hands, which inadvertently pushed Ford into the gateway's range. While a helpless Stan watched, Ford first yelled at his twin to do something, then tossed him the journal, before disappearing through the gateway.

Ford found himself stranded between dimensions in an unfamiliar netherworld of the supernatural, something he was hardly prepared for. Ford wandered through various dimensions over the next thirty years, such as the "strangely pleasant" Dimension 52. He also came into contact with otherworldly items, such as the "highly-illegal" infinity sided dice.