Someone commented on my last post about this topic that Ford being aroace made BillFord better. And you know what? They’re right! So let’s explore this more.
First, some clarification:
This ship is often described as “toxic yaoi.” I know that toxic yaoi is a fandom term that can be used to describe many sorts of dark and unhealthy relationships and isn’t meant to be taken at face value.
That being said, I feel like its use in the case of this ship has often served to minimize what BillFord actually is within the canon. Whether you see their relationship as platonic, sexual, or romantic, BillFord isn’t toxic; it is canonically ABUSIVE.
There is a very clear power dynamic which defines their relationship where Bill has power over Ford and uses it to manipulate as well as mentally, emotionally, and physically abuse him throughout their entire relationship.
I can further expand on this if need be, but as it is not the focal point of this post, I instead just wanted to give it a bit of focus here in order to clarify that I will be keeping this in mind throughout my analysis of their relationship. If that makes you uncomfortable or just isn’t up your alley, leave now. I won’t judge.
Second, I will not be spending any time defending why I think Ford is aroace. Plenty of people have made these points before and at this point it would just be rehashing an old argument. Please watch the aromantic section of this video by @fordtato and/or read this post for a quick summary if you need it. I also present you with this image which speaks for itself:
Alright, now let's discuss the aroace-ness of it all.
Ford and Amatonormativity
One of the biggest arguments against Ford being aroace is that there is some evidence that he has shown interest in other people before:
Translation of code: “The portal when completed will open a gateway to infinite new worlds and herald a new era in mankinds understanding of the universe. Plus it will probably get girls to start talking to me finally.”
What these arguments often fail to take into account is the concept of amatonormativity. As I mentioned in my previous post, when you are raised to believe that wanting a romantic and/or sexual relationship is the norm, you can often convince yourself its what you should want even if you don’t.
In other words, Ford, who already struggled with being seen as different, likely saw attracting sexual and romantic attention as a sign of his being accepted by others. You’ll notice in the two journal entries above that while he mentions wanting women to be attracted to him, he never really seems to mention having attraction to women himself.
What is important about this is that it means that, from an aroace perspective, Ford can be read as conflating romantic attraction with acceptance from others. Which brings me to my next point:
Bill Cipher, Romance, and Manipulation
Let’s get this off the table: Bill is a Manipulator.
Every action he takes is made to portray himself in a positive light and convince others to help him get what he wants. This is a core part of his character.
So how does this play into his relationship with Ford? First, let's talk about how Bill views romance.
In The Book Of Bill, Bill often directly frames romance as a tool for manipulation:
In other words, whether or not Bill himself had romantic or sexual feelings for Ford (and how much he actually does want these feelings returned, seeing as how there is evidence that he does crave genuine love himself throughout the book even if he directly shuns it), he would have been well aware that taking advantage of Ford’s need for acceptance which, again, he often associated with romantic attention, could be a useful form of manipulation in getting him to, not only give Bill power over him, but also get him to build Bill’s portal without asking questions.
This is further supported by the fact that some of the “tips” Bill gives are shown to have been used on Ford:
What this shows is that, while romance can very clearly be seen as playing a part in the BillFord relationship, romantic attraction itself doesn’t necessarily have to. Both characters can be read as approaching romance from a place outside of attraction, regardless of whether that attraction was there or not.
In other words, the main tension of the BillFord dynamic isn’t necessarily based on romantic or sexual attraction from either character: It’s based on Bill’s manipulation of Ford’s insecurities ABOUT attraction.
BillFord and AroAce Relationship Trauma
So far, we’ve covered how aroace-ness can play a part in the reading of BillFord during their relationship, but what about after the relationship has ended?
First of all, Bill misses Ford
Bill’s feelings are not necessarily romantic in nature, but because The Book Of Bill often codes them as such, I will be treating them that way.
It is mostly via these hints that we get the queer-coding with Bill and Ford's relationship.
What is notable is that Ford is never shown to have the same feelings. Anytime Ford thinks back on his relationship with Bill, he mostly frames it around shame that he fell for Bill’s manipulation tactics in the first place.
Because of this and the fact that Ford often associates romance with acceptance, as discussed above, BillFord can very easily be read as the story of an aroace man leaving an abusive romantic relationship and becoming self-actualized and happy enough to live a life where he does not need romance in order to feel accepted and loved.
More on that in a bit, but first, I want to take a short aside to more closely explore the possible one-sided aspects of the BillFord relationship by taking a look at how it parallels a different Gravity Falls one-sided relationship:
Gideon and Mabel
Seeing as this dynamic is already pretty well known throughout the fandom due to it being explicitly canon within the show, I won’t go into too many details about the specifics, but what I do want to point out is 1) that mabel is often read as aro-spec by a-spec fans herself, and 2) that Gideon’s feelings for Mabel can be read as a parallel to Bill’s feelings about Ford.
So first thing’s first, Mabel can be read as aromantic.
Now hold on, I hear you saying. Isn’t being boy-crazy literally a part of her personality? Isn’t she shown to have a lot of interest in shipping and romance throughout the series? Well, yes! She is!
But, as I mentioned in part 1, wanting a romantic relationship and feeling romantic attraction are not necessarily the same thing. In fact, it is this hyper-interest in romance that typically attracts an aro-spec reading in the first place!
Many aromantic people, especially women and often because of amatonormativity, have stages in their lives where they become really interested in romance because that is what is expected of women and girls around Mabel’s age.
Taking this even further, it is possible to enjoy romantic actions and/or relationships and not feel romantic attraction (cupioromantic, aegoromantic) or even feel romantic attraction only in limited or specific circumstances (frayromantic, lithromantic, greyromantic).
Coupled with the way that many aro-spec people can relate to her discomfort in being in a relationship with Gideon which she felt pressured into by both him and those around her, especially with Gideon’s stalkerish insistence on forcing her to love him even when she can’t and has no desire to, many aro-spec people often see themselves in her.
So what does this have to do with Bill and Ford? Put simply, during Weirdmageddon, Gideon’s feelings for and treatment of Mabel can be seen as paralleling Bill’s feelings for and treatment of Ford.
During Weirdmageddon Part 1, Bill promises Gideon the key to Mabel’s prison, using his feelings for her to keep him in line.
When Dipper calls Gideon out on this, he says the following:
“Bill explained it to me nice and simple. She was always destined to be mine. And now that I have her in a cage, she’ll learn to love me. I have an eternity to wait.”
These lines can easily be read as referring to Bill’s own feelings on Ford who he similarly has locked up under his power at the same time, with the reading only being enhanced by Gideon stating directly that Bill “explained” this point of view to him.
So, when taking into account that Mabel’s experiences with Gideon can also be read as aro-spec in nature, it becomes even easier to see how Ford being read as aroace can help to enhance his and Bill’s one-sided relationship dynamic as well.
Ford’s Recovery and the Power of Familial Love
As well as how reading Ford as aroace could help to show some of the ways in which his feelings about romance left him vulnerable to Bill’s manipulation, it can also help to enhance the ways in which Ford recovered from Bill’s manipulation and moved on to much happier and healthier relationships.
After all, above all else, Ford’s journey is a story about RECOVERY.
First, it is important to note that after Ford discovers that Bill has been manipulating him, Bill’s tactics to use Ford no longer work on him. Bill tries a few different times to try and convince Ford that he needs Bill, both just after Ford shuts down the portal and during weirdmageddon. But he fails each time.
This in itself, doesn’t really matter for an aroace reading. What does matter is the reason Bill continues to fail.
Every single time Bill fails, it is connected to Ford’s love for his family.
When he makes a joke about his “aim getting better,” not only is it a line he remembers from his father, but its one the fandom associates with Stan, his brother. By using it, he rejects Bill with a tactic taught to him by the very people Bill tries to convince him he can’t rely on.
When Bill offers him ultimate power, Ford rejects him immediately. It is only when Bill later threatens his family that Ford begins to consider giving in to him, and even then Stan’s love for all three of them and his sacrifice for them is what saves the entire world and Ford, Mabel, and Dipper's love is what eventually saves Stan.
If you read Ford and Bill’s relationship as romantic, then over and over again, you see this relationship rejected instead for familial love.
It is at this point that I want to make an important clarification:
I don’t believe romance to be a bad thing or something that needs to be rejected by society, nor do I think BillFord should be read as a stand-in for romance as a concept as it clearly is meant to be read as an abusive relationship.
The point I am trying to make with this post isn’t that because abuse can exist within romantic relationships, romance should be fully rejected or that abuse cannot exist in platonic and familial relationships.
The point I am making is that, when reading Ford as aroace and BillFord as romantic, his story becomes one where he goes from an amatonormative standpoint which left him vulnerable to abuse in his search for acceptance via romance, to one where he finds self-acceptance, safety, and love within his platonic bonds instead.
For an aroace audience, this can be an incredibly powerful message.
Many of us feel a massive amount of pressure from society to conform to societal expectations and settle down with a romantic and sexual partner. Ford’s story works to reject that norm.
In a media landscape saturated with romance, this feels like a story where we can see ourselves.
FLY is a story about a boy who gets a second chance. Help his story take flight June 9th 11am EST on Kickstarter. Thank you for being the wind beneath my wings I hope this story lifts the world to a brighter place.
A coming of age story about Black kids who finally have power to fight back against systems designed against them.
Aroace people should get an alternate quest line while allos get into romantic relationships. Just for something to do. You know how mantis shrimps can see more colours than humans or whatever that fact is. Aroace people should be able to do something that allo people can’t access. Due to their allo-ness
I think one of the funniest abortion stances I've heard was from my parents neighbor. He's a like, hard-core libertarian viking larper guy who is very tall and very fat and very bald.
He believes a fetus is human with a soul, but also its "basically attacking the woman's body" so if she wants to get rid of it, that's "basically self-defense". He compared it to shooting a home invader. So he supports abortion not as healthcare, but as killing a baby in self-defense
Y'know I'm so glad someone reminded me of this. Because this was also discussed.
My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.
Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.
He brought up people consensually hurting each other, didn't go for one of the obvious answers like boxing or body mods or something, no he went STRAIGHT TO BDSM and he DIDN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE ACRONYM
it's really really funny to me that eva stratt's list of crimes canonically includes piracy. do movie only fans know they tried to take her to court for pirating everything ever published and she ron swanson'd her way out of it. i need you all to know this.
I love Project Hail Mary, both the book and the movie, but the amount of shipping content I've been seeing for it recently really irks me.
I know a lot of people are just having fun, and that's all well and good, but there's also a reason that Grace is so aroace-coded, and it's intentional.
Spoilers for the book and the movie below, proceed at your own risk. However, this is a very important discussion to have imo, because I've seen a concerning rise in amatonormative responses to this story.
Grace demonstrates a massive amount of love, and none of it is rose. Platonic love for Rocky. Love for science and knowledge, love for humanity and for other people (his students, his friends). He is a full and complete person full of love and hope and ambition, and NONE of it has to do with romance. And I think that is very intentional.
I think that Project Hail Mary is inherently anti-amatonormativity. Like the fundamental message of the book is about all those other types of love and hope and it's beautiful. That's why it resonated with me so deeply, as a nonpartnering aroace. Like, finally, a beautiful story with practically no romance in sight, that doesn't infantilize Grace for being single, or tries to hook him up with someone in the end. It doesn't treat romance like the end all be all. He doesn't need that, and that's great for him.
His happily ever after is living on an alien planet with his alien best friend Rocky and Rocky's alien partner, Adrian, and teaching little aliens. Because Grace is a teacher. He gets his joy from teaching more than anything. It's a beautiful ending. Grace is happy and content without a single other human around, because he has his best friend and his students. Like, it makes me cry just to think about, because it's beautiful.
And then I see people shipping him, and it's like they totally missed one of the messages of the story.
You probably remember when Stratt tried to justify forcing Grace to go on this suicide mission because he had no spouse, no family, and not even a dog, right? You do realize that it's bad logic, right? Like, she did a bad thing. Yes, it saved humanity, but it was a bad thing to do. And she definitely would have sent him even if he did have a spouse or a family or a dog, because he was literally their only chance at saving humanity.
Stratt's excuse about not having a family etc is a bad thing. The story portrays this as a bad thing.
The message the book is conveying here is: "people are not worth less just because they are single".
So it fucking kills me to see people shipping Grace. There was a huge message here about how people have worth because they are people, and how Stratt did an extremely reprehensible thing to save humanity. There's a message here about platonic love and love for the Earth and humanity and hope for the future, and it's beautiful. It's truly beautiful, and I think it's why so many aroace people resonate so deeply with this book and movie.
As I've said before and I'll say again, if the only way you can interact with a fandom involves shipping, you should consider how amatonormativity may be affecting you and your biases. There is so much more to life than romance and shit. Try to get a little more creative with the way you engage with media, and also just the way you view life in general. There's so much more out there than rose relationships.
