dfksjdfhskf so i'm listening to your Bill & Mabel Friendship AU playlist and some of these are a bunch I've never heard before and they go so hard. like i guess im late to Will Wood in general but "well, better than the alternative," good god this is PERFECT for your AU and i'm already picturing 50 different ways in my head that that could be an animatic 🤣
Do you mind going through some of your favorite songs in that playlist, why you chose them, and what you're picturing while you listen to them? :3
YAAAAAY i’m SO glad you like the playlist!! introducing people to some new songs they’d like and having them agree they fit the au was my dream scenario for it, so hearing that makes me so happy. and OH GOD YEAH, “better than the alternative” is definitely one of the best fitting songs on there imo. i would absolutely LOVE to make an animatic of it one day if i ever have the time and energy. (and if you or anybody else ever did i would EXPLODE with happiness, btw.)
i’d love to go over a couple of my favorites, that’d be fun! to explain why some of them are on there would require spoiling the story of the AU, but i can talk about non-spoilery ones!
1. “The Saga of You, Confused Destroyer of Planets” by Lemon Demon - such a fitting Bill Backstory Song i’d honestly believe you if you told me it was a TBOB fansong, but i think it might actually predate Gravity Falls altogether lol! i love the idea of Bill existing for so many uncountable millenia and having so many experiences, but his unwillingness to confront his past mistakes just means those mistakes keep repeating over and over for eternity, intentionally or not.
2. “The Guide to Success” by Joe Iconis - I have the most vivid animatic idea in mind for this song, i wanna make it so bad one day but idk if i ever will… but it sounds to me exactly like Bill talking to Mabel, seeing her as a kindred spirit and trying to give her “helpful advice”; namely, urging her to bottle up all her feelings and burn all her connections to others so she never gets hurt or “held back” like Bill believes he did. the whole chorus is so PERFECTLY Bill-coded and the singer in the version from the playlists even sounds like him to me.
3. “Do Better” by Say Anything - this comes right after “Guide to Success” because I imagine it as Mabel’s rebuttal to Bill in that song. it feels like a playfully mocking way of trying to get through to somebody who’s shutting down their own potential by choosing to believe nothing can ever change. it’s upbeat and optimistic, and i think the lyrics are the exact kind of poking-fun tone Mabel would take a lot with Bill as she starts to care about him as a friend in the AU. also the line “the existential equivalent of pinkeye” just feels very appropriate for Bill, lol.
4. “Perfect” by Marianas Trench - to me this really sums up the point in Bill’s arc where he’s finally starting to want to change, and also starting to realize just how badly he’s fucked things up already. it’s a very stressful time for him, lol! and very hard to reconcile with just how easy his life used to feel, back when nothing mattered to him. but now he wants so badly to do right by Mabel, to never disappoint her, and of course now is the time when suddenly nothing comes easy for him, the first time in so so long when he actually cares about getting something right is the one time he can’t just snap his fingers and do it… but Mabel’s done so much for him. He doesn’t care how hard it is, he has to do right by her.
(skipping a bunch because to talk deeply about their meaning in the playlist feels like it’d get too spoilery for my taste, sorry! get back to me when the fic is complete!)
5. “Die Young” by Kesha - being able to look at the fleeting impermanence of mortal life with joy and celebration instead of terror would take a long and difficult journey for Bill, but once he gets there, it’d sound like this. also, a lot of the songs on the playlist (Mamma Mia, September, Don’t Stop Me Now, etc) are songs Bill and Mabel would absolutely sing at karaoke, and this is another, but it also carries the deeper meaning of being able to accept and even embrace impermanence rather than fighting it.
6. “Anything for You” by Ludo - for a long time i’ve felt like this song is the perfect theme song for a “redeemed Bill Cipher”. like, the singer still seems like they have a sense of megalomania, they just clearly value their loved ones above it, and i just think it’s really cute. it makes me think of a version of Bill that’s finally able to settle down and enjoy what he has, what he’s experienced and who he has in his life. and also has pictures of his adopted daughter Mabel in his wallet that he shows to his Elder God drinking buddies and talks their ear off about with pride when they run into each other.
thanks for the chance to talk about this lol!!
