POV FOCUS: Stanford
It's gonna get weird~~~~~
Stanford Gleeful had never really paid a whole lot of attention to what his great-nieces and his great-nephews were up to. He was never really...there, you could say. His mind was always somewhere in his past. He paid attention to them in some aspects, but never gave it his undivided attention.
As his young charges were out in the town, he sat brooding and thinking. He may not have paid much attention to his family, but that didn't mean he had no idea of the conflicts that permeated his home.
He knew of the rising animosity between his great nephew and the dream demon, William Cipher. After all, despite the fact that Dipper thought he was in control, Stanford was still in complete command of the Gleeful family and all those associated with it. But, as to whether or not he would step between the two, that was still to be seen.
At the current moment, he was casting his mind back to when he first summoned Will. He had done so thinking that he would be able to study the demon and extract his power. Unfortunately, that hadn't happened and at the same time it did. But that was a story for another time.
It had been almost 20 years since Stanford had summoned William. Back then he had been more aware of his surroundings, his now gray hair had been the trademark Gleeful brown, and the 'Tent of Telepathy' hadn't even been a whisper of a thought. He had been younger then, and power hungry. Granted, he was still quite power hungry, but it had been different then. It had been far stronger. By now he had amassed enough power that none would dare challenge him.
He had thought that by summoning a dream demon, he would be able to command it to do his bidding and eventually extract the demons power, thus claiming it for his own.
But nothing ever goes the way we plan, does it?
After years of research and study, Stanford had managed to successfully summon William Cipher. How easy it was to gain the trust of something so innocent to the ways of the world and the minds of others. Far too easy for someone like Stanford Gleeful. Her was good at getting people to trust him and then stabbing them in the back once he gained that trust. That was probably where Dipper got his traits from.
He had made promises to the young, naive demon-promises that they would make the world a better place, promises of freedom.
However, a chloroform rag sealed his words away as lies in a matter of seconds.
Stanford Gleeful had promised a world full of wonderful things.
Will Cipher hadn't seen the lies and tangled webs of deceit and trickery in his new "friend's" eyes as he spoke. In fact, the bright blue Gleeful eyes had hid any and all emotion from the one in blue.
It was what a Gleeful was good at after all.
Will himself didn't remember much of being summoned. In fact, the only thing he truly remembered from those moments before everything went wrong, was a strange and eerie sense of calm and peace.
He was no longer familiar with those emotions. They were now strange and alien to him.
And it was all thanks to none other than Stanford Gleeful.
There had been another at the time surrounding Will's summoning, but none but Stanford would ever be able to confirm the existence of that other person. They had been erased from the mind of every mortal who had ever come into contact with him. And in Will's mind, well, that other person was no more than a wispy shadow. A faint memory too far to grasp.
Yes, the head of the Gleeful family was exceedingly skilled with warping the minds of any and all he came into contact with. It was a talent that he had perfected over many long years. After all, there were people and faces that must remain gone. And family was no exception to this.
As Stanford sat, his mind began to follow another train of thought. One much darker and sinister than the one pertaining to Will. One that took a more...personal route.
Many, many years ago, there had been another. A name similar to his own. But a name that had also been skillfully destroyed. A name that belonged to a face that none could remember. And if someone ever even spoke that name, they too would meet the same fate as Stanford Gleeful twin brother.
No one ever knew what happened to Stanley. Around the time that they were both 25, one just suddenly disappeared without a trace. Searches were held, investigations were carried out. Obviously, Stanford was a suspect. But no one could ever find evidence of any sort and after a while, those who didn't give up the search mysteriously disappeared as well, never to be seen or heard from again. It was like magic.
And then, people began to forget. At first, it was one person at a time and they never seemed to forget for very long. Then larger groups of people began to forget, and then they began to forget longer. As if whatever was causing their memory to just drop names and faces was getting stronger.
And he was.
As Stanford's talents with magic grew and as he continued to wipe any and all trace of his brother from existence, he became more and more powerful and feared by the people of Gravity Falls. No one dared to speak against him as the years went by. Every now and then, someone would say something. The next day, they were gone without a trace.
All were done away with. Well, all except for one, of course.
What? You didn't think he'd kill his own brother, did you?
Hee, hee, hee! What did you think?