she/her / aroace / a place for my GF (and other cartoon/animated show) thoughts… the one who is obsessed with Bill Cipher’s eyelashes. main blog - @UnsightlyMuse
Random Billford Thought of the Day (TBOB Spoilers):
If Bill is capable of making Ford forget his own name by fucking around with his head, could he not have just. Made Ford forget about the true intentions for the portal?
My best guess/theory for why he DIDN'T do that? He so badly wanted Stanford to be on-board with the whole "taking over the world together" thing and was so confident Ford would come around eventually that he didn't WANT to trick him into it anymore. If he did, Ford would just leave anyway when the portal opened and Weirdmageddon happened, so what's the point at this stage?
This is so interesting to me, because it suggests that he prioritized convincing Ford to stay while knowing the truth (even in unproductive ways like scaring him into staying) over making sure the portal opened no matter what. Bill sabotaged his own plans because he wanted Ford to be part of them.
Interesting observation, so you know how Bill calls everyone on the cipher wheel by their symbol (question mark, shooting star, pine tree, even Sixer), and in fic a lot I see Bill calling Stan mackerel or fez (usually the former). But whenever bill actually address Stan in canon, both in the show and in the book of bill, he always calls him Stanley, which I think is really interesting. This could just be an unintentional inconsistency or something (Bill also refers to Gideon by his name as opposed to Star or something), but if we read it as intentional, it’s interesting to imagine what that could imply.
Here’s my take. Bill doesn’t consider Stanley a threat. He sees him as an inferior conman, and disregards him completely. He doesn’t call Stan by his cipher wheel symbol, because he refuses to acknowledge that Stan could possibly play any part in his destruction. (Honestly this could explain Gideon too, because he doesn’t see him as anything other than a pawn). That’s why it kills him so much that Stan was ultimately the one who defeated him, because he wasn’t supposed to be important.
Names have power. All across society, especially so for demons or fae or other such creatures, names. have. power. Bill knows that. He wouldn't risk giving any of the other power by saying their true name, even dipper which is just a nickname, yet he said, not even just Stan, but Stanley, his full name, multiple times, that's how little threat he considered him. And maybe Stan was never supposed to be a threat, maybe, in any other world, Stan wouldn't stand a chance, but in invoking his name, bill gave him the power to defeat him. Being too cocky was always going to be bill's downfall. And it was.
i do wish that ford's two Worst Moment of His Life (so far!)™️ had a lil more parallels to them but it is pretty fun that they're the only times his childhood nickname was said during the show
frankly i think the biggest thing that sticks out is the fact that the two biggest liars in the show immediately folded when ford confronted them about their betrayals with evidence that they could attempt to brush off
I kiss every Billford fic author in the world. And I hold their hands and say. Pls don’t let ford call Bill a demon pre-betrayal.
I know it’s confusing to write someone who is ignorant of a fact you know, but consider this:
Bill isn’t a demon. Or, he’s a much a demon as he is a god.
Longer than anticipated rambling below the cut
Why do we feel it’s ‘correct’ to call Bill a demon but ‘incorrect’ to call him a god? I argue almost entirely because of Christian influence.
In basically every other religion or spirituality in the world, gods are neither perfectly benevolent nor all powerful. In most non-Christian traditions, Bill—a being of knowledge, whimsy, destruction, and creation, a jealous and fallible being of malevolence and selfishness—actually perfectly describes a god.
A demon is just what a Christian calls a god they don’t worship. If ford is worshipping bill, he’s a god. If bill has fallen from grace in ford’s eyes, he’s a demon. Bill being a demon or a god has entirely to do with Ford’s perspective and characterization and nothing to do with Bill’s species or categorization.
I know it’s usually an accident, you know bill is a nightmare demon, and so in your narration that sometimes slips out. I’m pretty sure I’ve done it, too! But perhaps a change in perspective might assist.
Bill is not a demon pretending to be a god. He IS a god—he is ford’s god. At most, he’s pretending to be a muse—though I would argue he is also not pretending to be a muse, as he actually is ford’s source of inspiration and qualifies as a real, genuine muse as much as a real, genuine god.
Gods and muses from non-Christian traditions usually have their own purposes and are often manipulating mortals for their own selfish gain! Bill is a god. He is a muse. Don’t let your knowledge of his malevolence change that; let it fuel and ADD to his divinity!
Divinity=/=goodness
Holiness=/=righteousness
Godliness=/=infallible
Bill is divine, holy, and godly to Ford pre-betrayal. His fall to demonhood is something that happens in real time, in Ford’s eyes—it is not something that happened a long time ago that he was hiding!
The revelation of bills intentions changes bill from god to demon in ford’s mind.
And while I’ve been talking about this from ford’s perspective, and this was meant to be like 2 sentences, the adderall is kicking in so I guess I’ll keep going
So many times I see Bill characterized as knowing he’s lying about being a god or a muse. Why? He IS a god! As delusional as ford is, we know bill is even MORE delusional. You really think he was self aware about manipulating ford? You think he really thought he was PRETENDING to be a god?
No way! Bill was a god, a muse of knowledge, and he knew it!
Bill really really was a being of infinite knowledge, experience, and power who wanted to remake the world in his image and that reality really was great and terrible in the godly, biblical sense. It really is beyond human comprehension. It really did drive ford insane to have even a peak at the real plan! Bill really was protecting ford from knowledge he couldn’t understand!
Let this seep into your writing. Let yourself be swayed by the illusion. Because reality is an illusion! And bill controls the illusion, which means he controls reality, which makes him what?
God.
Until you want to wake up from the illusion. And then the one trapping you there is not a god, but a demon. A demon of nightmares.
I like how the premise of Infinity Train is (spoiler alert) "this is a train that gives you therapy in the form of an adventure with magical creatures" and the actual plot is "here is why the therapy adventure train is a bad idea that can and does go wrong often"
It is kinda funny that Bill just started monologuing about Euclydia @ Ford during Weirdmageddon 3. Just out of nowhere went "LISTEN FORDSY YOU GOTTA UNDERSTAND I WAS BORN IN A FLAT CARDBOARD BOX ALL ALONE" "What" "IN A FLAT WORLD WITH ONLY FLAT PEOPLE WHO HAD FLAT MINDS AND FLAT DREAMS" "HOW IS THAT RELEVANT"
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