BILL CIPHER is from GRAVITY FALLS. he is a 46 year old/immortal dream demon, physicist, and uses he/him pronouns. he has the power of mind invasion, shape-shifting, and astral projection. bill is portrayed by andrew scott and written by ALEX (est / 20 / they&she)
At a glance, most would hardly find Bill particularly intimidating, with his outward projection to those in Evermore residing somewhere between "mad scientist" and plain ridiculous. However, it's an intentional facade that he finds tends to sufficiently lower the defenses of others. Make someone underestimate you, and they'll easily spill information without even having to take the energy to delve into their mind! First impressions of him may often align with annoyance or exasperation - or, if they're a person he finds potential in, he takes effort to see that they’re charmed by the demon with his quick quips, a bigger-than-life personality, words to soothe their ego, and endless knowledge to offer that can’t help but lure their curious souls in.
Of course, obnoxious "friend" and otherworldly yet altruistic muse are but facets of myriad sides, with his truest self being the epitome of the demon he is: cunning, sadistic, manipulative, and utterly selfish in the name of pursuing the chaotic weirdness that he finds gives existence meaning. Humans are only pawns, and even other demons and creatures like him serve simply as stepping stones to further his goals: to cause chaos in a dimension he may rule without the fear of it inevitably collapsing.
Bill won’t hesitate to lie and manipulate humans into creating doomed deals, torture and kill, or do whatever he deems necessary or even fun, according to his warped definition of such. Still, he's good at maintaining a mask - and has and will keep one up for decades if it means he's closer to achieving his goal of breaking into a new dimension to achieve his full potential. Generally, he’ll say whatever he needs to if it means getting closer to his goals or resulting in an amusing outcome, and while his words may technically hold some truth, he’ll gladly twist them to benefit none but himself.
To a being trillions of years old, reality is illusionary, utterly temporary and doomed to collapse, so why not have some fun while trapped in this new plane? Sure, he’s primarily focusing on his main goal of creating a proper portal to allow him full access to a new dimension, but some chaos and nightmares to fill open time are inevitable byproducts. Messing with mortal minds and watching them descend into anarchy is his favorite past time while waiting for them to do the dream demon's dirty work for him, after all.
As always, his own arrogance remains his very literal fatal flaw, with his constant underestimation of mortals and eagerness leading to deadly mistakes. You’d think Bill would have learned after literal children managed to thwart him multiple times, but nope! Safe to say, those patterns will continue in this world even in the presence of those who’ve outsmarted and defeated him before. Can’t teach an old demon new concepts like humility!
HEADCANONS:
"Misses home and can't return. Says he's happy. He's a liar." His obsession surrounding chaos and weirdness was initially something rather forced - a persona adopted after burning his dimension to the ground and having to deal with the guilt and loneliness accompanying losing everything and everyone. After billions of years having passed, his morality and any sense of remorse withered away, yet he still isn't happy - more existing to fulfill an ever evolving goal, perhaps too big for even someone as powerful as himself to achieve. Not that he'll ever admit that, and he’ll easily laugh at someone lamenting over their own tragic backstory while telling you how funny it was witnessing his family burn to ash.
Even to allies who he considers somewhat useful (which, let's be real, are the closest to what you could call his "friends"), he's a compulsive liar. It doesn't matter the topic - even if it's asking what he had for breakfast or what his favorite song is, he'll lie. And potentially try to gaslight you regarding his previous answer the next week because he sucks. And sure, he may not be able to tell the kaleidoscope of possibilities that lie in your future in this dimension, yet he'd still make up a date and cause of your future death to unnerve you.
Despite his general lack of regard for life and homicidal tendencies, he loves weird little creatures like blobfish, goblin sharks, star-nosed moles, whatever. They're simple but freak people out for just being a little different - they're like a little sliver of the weird shit he wants to consume the universe! Here, he has a pet axolotl.
He's still terrible at occupying a human body. He'll simply forget to sleep until passing out at his desk, has a diet consisting of simply whatever is within arm's reach - and only showers because he realized a bad scent detracted potential "friends". He's still amazed at having two eyes all to himself! If he refers to humans as one lifespan, three-dimensional, five sense skin puppets, don’t worry about it. He’s definitely a very normal human person who has always been a normal human person!
Almost obnoxiously "friendly" most of the time - even if some of what he’s saying sounds vaguely threatening or generally concerning and is simply accompanied with a smile. Don’t worry about it; he’s just got a weird sense of humor! He’s got a large circle of… well, more acquaintances than friends, involving himself in others’ business whether they really want him to or not. After all, in a world where he's a bit less omniscient, it’s easier to observe people by simply surrounding himself with them. (To a certain degree, at least - humans stop being entertaining and become more predictable after so long.)
As he's older than time itself and from a dimension that (he claims) has billions of genders, Bill really does not care about pronouns or human ideas of "gender". He usually defaults to he/him due to his typical appearance and name, but gender really isn’t something he concerns himself with, so any pronouns are fine! He'd likely just tell you his pronouns are [R̵̔͝E̸͋͝D̴̘̏Ã̶̎C̷̈́̽T̵̓͒E̸͌D] if you asked. The number one fan of chaos obviously tends to find any sort of categorization meaningless and needlessly tedious.
Bill influenced human history from the beginning, and I like to think he did so on other planets than earth throughout the literal trillions of years given the 700 quintillion planets in the third dimension - but as sentient species inevitably destroyed themselves over the years, Earth has been his target for the last few millennia. He's the reason the pyramids were built, why the eye of providence watches you on the dollar bill, and why many historical figures both failed and succeeded. He'll also take credit for just about any major invention, unless it's circular.
This is canon - "Bill Cipher" is not his true name, as stating his true one aloud (or so he claims) would lead humans to evaporate upon hearing it. I mean, you can hear it, but just once!
His voice always seems… loud. Even though it's not being unnaturally distorted in his human form and he's rarely outright yelling, it seems to echo in your ears. Maybe it's simply another a side effect of Bill haunting your nightmares!
