i’m gonna custom hand embroider the axolotl’s poem

I'm Axxie | The best Bill Cipher-centric character analysis blog* *Also, the only Bill Cipher-centric character analysis blog.

[praisetheaxolotl]

Here's a pinned post for the new ages: I'm Axxie! This was my old Bill Cipher analysis blog. I was sixteenish for most of this blog's lifespan- now I'm twenty-three and back at it again now that a book solely dedicated to Bill has been announced.

Good thing I stuck with the media analysis thing! Got a lot better at it, too.

They/them only. My asks are always open!

[stemmmm]

Projection

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Have you read Phoenix (Gravity Falls)?

Yes, I am/was in the fandom

Yes, but I’m not in the fandom

No, but I’m in the fandom

No, I’m not in the fandom

Voting ended onApr 2, 2025

Summary: A lying little triangle realizes his true motives are more transparent than he led himself to believe. Eons later, Bill Cipher is reborn.

Author: @katzukus

Note from submitter: Sinks my teeth into this fic. The Axolotl is my FAVORITE gravity falls character and I love how this fic writes them and AUGHH I reread it so often it's SO good

[marsupials-of-mars]

I have a theory. It's a lot of speculation, but an interesting thought:

Euclidea was a hivemind. Or, at least part of it.

This is my main "evidence." The line "One of the few conciousnesses" and referring to the lonely humans as "you" somewhat implies that he himself is or was part of a hivemind consciousness. Like, for example, a fungal spore network.

With what we know of Euclidea (strict adherence to rules, valuing uniformity, fearing non-uniformity), it wouldn't be a surprise.

What constitutes as a "hivemind" here is vague, and if it is the case with Euclidea, it doesn't mean that all of the Euclideans were the same person with the same shared knowledge.

It may be more of an extrasensory connectedness, uniform patterns of thought, a general understanding of what others are experiencing/feeling, physically or mentally. This aligns with some of Bills powers: reading minds, possessing multiple corpses all using his own voice, seeing through many eyes (not necessarily simultaneously, but as "peepholes")

If we follow this idea, it makes the Euclideans seem less like fascists and more like people looking out for their community. So averse to a reality-breaking mutation because it posed a threat to the minds of anyone connected to bill.

Maybe, rather than forcing baby bill to be medicated just to make him normal, his parents were doing what they thought was best not just for their child, but for their people.

(^ I'll admit some of these screenshots are more "thematic" than "evidence")

Maybe it was so easy for Bill to destroy his whole dimension much by accident because all he had to do was stop taking his meds, and let this mutation which nobody else was physiologically able to handle into the minds of those people.

He felt so stifled that he made the conscious decision to endanger people; it wasn't fully an accident, nor was it fully violent in intent. But his choices directly resulted in the massacre.

All this to say, this concept is mostly just more fuel for angst. Bill not only destroyed friends and family, but pieces of himself. His blue flames and red anger aren't just influences or genetics from his parents, because his parents weren't just parents; They were pieces of himself.

He was alone in the universe, but it was worse than that. He was alone, truly alone with his thoughts, without knowing how to even process what "his" thoughts were, or what "alone" really meant.

He blacks out when he recalls the day he tried to fuse everyone into his own individual perspective, because the memories missing are the memories of countless dying people.

He's an idea. Not a soul, not a conciousness, because the soul was shared among his whole race of people.

Maybe this could be why he's so desperate for attention, belonging, friends, and family: He's desperately trying to fill in the gaps of his own consciousness.

And, it could explain why he's so, so very bad at it: Because he can't conceptualize the desires of individuals. They should all want what he wants, think like he does, that's how it's supposed to be when you love someone!

Your family is an extension of yourself, so why wouldn't they want to make you happy? If you're happy, everyone is happy!

He's a handful of selfish thoughts that persisted after the soul they belonged to was destroyed.

Now don't come at me with your conspiracy pants on and tell me how little evidence I have and how unsubstantiated and speculative all this is, I KNOOOWW but I'm having fun and playiiingg!!

[praisetheaxolotl]

Speculating on what mental illnesses Bill has is fun and all but I'm on my hands and knees begging you guys to NOT get all your info on sociopaths from Hollywood and maybe check out the actuallyaspd tag while you're at it. Hands and knees, guys. Speculation is fun but when you use real-world stereotypes that actually hurt real mentally ill people to do it then it becomes phenominally less fun for those mentally ill people, some of whom may actually exist and be regular guys in fandom and have to see the shit you're saying about them. Allegedly.

[praisetheaxolotl]

Speculating on what mental illnesses Bill has is fun and all but I'm on my hands and knees begging you guys to NOT get all your info on sociopaths from Hollywood and maybe check out the actuallyaspd tag while you're at it. Hands and knees, guys. Speculation is fun but when you use real-world stereotypes that actually hurt real mentally ill people to do it then it becomes phenominally less fun for those mentally ill people, some of whom may actually exist and be regular guys in fandom and have to see the shit you're saying about them. Allegedly.

[praisetheaxolotl]

Speculating on what mental illnesses Bill has is fun and all but I'm on my hands and knees begging you guys to NOT get all your info on sociopaths from Hollywood and maybe check out the actuallyaspd tag while you're at it. Hands and knees, guys. Speculation is fun but when you use real-world stereotypes that actually hurt real mentally ill people to do it then it becomes phenominally less fun for those mentally ill people, some of whom may actually exist and be regular guys in fandom and have to see the shit you're saying about them. Allegedly.

[lonelysa1lor]

Wow gang the BOB sure was whacky. Im sure Bill 'Doctor said three sips a day to make the visions go away' Cipher will handle being in a medical-like environment very well. Yes sir no problems at all.

[praisetheaxolotl]

Just remembered that there was this one Bojack line that always reminded me of Bill but now I don't sound like I'm on something when I tell people that. Thanks, Book Of Bill!!!

[praisetheaxolotl]

Speculating on what mental illnesses Bill has is fun and all but I'm on my hands and knees begging you guys to NOT get all your info on sociopaths from Hollywood and maybe check out the actuallyaspd tag while you're at it. Hands and knees, guys. Speculation is fun but when you use real-world stereotypes that actually hurt real mentally ill people to do it then it becomes phenominally less fun for those mentally ill people, some of whom may actually exist and be regular guys in fandom and have to see the shit you're saying about them. Allegedly.

[libby-is-fizzy]

It actually kind of baffles me that people think the monster Bill was referring to in tbob isn't himself. I'm also confused by people who think he's lying in that instance. Bill is dissociating and calling himself a monster. This is an extremely easy scene to understand I don't get why this is so hard for some people to comprehend

[mint-fixates]

There's this weird take I've seen floating around on TikTok that Bill doesn't actually care about his family/dimension or Stanford at all; that we're supposed to take everything in TBOB as non-canon basically because he's lying to garner sympathy from reader to make a deal with them. I'm all for having your own interpretations of media, but I just don't think this idea that Bill is a completely heartless unfeeling creature is supported by canon at all. In fact, it kind of feels like the opposite of the point of the book.

Like, yeah, most things Bill says should be taken with a grain of salt because he lies a lot, but he's not actually a very good liar? It's usually pretty easy to clock when he's full of it. But okay, even if we assume every word Bill says while trying to recruit the reader is a lie, there are three major things that this doesn't account for.

Bill is not the only source in the book. The lost Journal 3 pages were written by Stanford, we only know about the interdimensional Taco Bell incident because of an included police transcript, etc.

Even once he's lost any chance of making a deal with the reader to escape, Bill is having a complete breakdown and mentions all the people he so totally doesn't miss for real you guys. Why bother with reverse psychology double-lying for sympathy once his shot at getting the reader on his side is already gone?

Trying to garner the reader's sympathy makes sense to a certain extent, but why go out of his way to make himself look pathetic? Does revealing that he got drunk and cried over his ex in a fast-food drive-through really help his cause if that cause is to convince the reader he's still a powerful being capable of starting the apocalypse again so they can rule with him?

And that's all without even mentioning that, as previously stated, I think the entire point of the book is missed if we're interpreting Bill as having no genuine feelings or attachments. The book ends with Stanford healing from his past by being open about what he went through with his family and accepting their help, while Bill insists he doesn't need anyone and refuses to heal, actively making himself worse in the process. The clear theme imo is that accepting your past and accepting help from people who love you is essential to healing, while denying those things just makes everything worse. If Bill doesn't actually care about his family, his dimension, Stanford, or anything/anyone else, he has no trauma to heal from or regrets to learn from that he's refusing to accept and deal with, and the entire meaning of the book is made moot.

[praisetheaxolotl]

This is more just me posting about personal projects that are tangentally related to Bill but, as I have said before, this is my blog and you're all my prisoners, so saying that...

I have this webcomic concept I've been working on for the better part of a decade and there's a recently dead(?) haunts-the-narrative type character that's heavily implied to be Bill (because... it is) so I just want you all to know that in another life, he could've broken out of the denial cycle and had an actual family again, had he not freaked out over feeling GENUINE happiness for the first time in forever, therefore confirming that everything else was a hollow happiness, and then ran away from his now-ex.

Like, everything was going AMAZINGLY and he even had a hand in starting a now-widespread societal convention that helps OTHER tyrants break out of the denial cycle... except he got scared of actual happiness and dipped.

He has kids, man. He has no idea they even exist- the ex never told him. A pair of twins, real cute kids, one of them takes after him very heavily personalitywise. They're teenagers now, trying to grapple with powers they don't understand, because Bill wasn't around to teach them. One of them was a pyromaniac from a young age as a way to get attention and has long since accepted that he's a lost cause. The other had an incident where his powers that he couldn't control overloaded, surged, and killed a bunch of people- it was coerced but of course someone sees a kid named Cipher start a fire and decides that'd make a lovely sensationalized news story, and it's all over.

The past is repeating itself in a way Bill would HATE- here he has two (three, counting his ex) actual family members, the thing he's wanted for ages, and because of his denial he died not knowing they were alive and they're slowly killing themselves the same way he did, and there's nothing he in all his power can do about it.

Just thought I'd let you guys know.

[praisetheaxolotl]

The Arsonist Theory, Part 4: Blame The Arson, Not The Fire

Part 1: Mandibles!

Part 2: We Get It, The Billboard Was A Metaphor

Part 3: Journey To The Vicious Spiral Nebula

Welcome to the end.

Before we start, I just want to shine a light on some interpretations of the billboard in relation to part 2 of the theory right here, and an observation about "Trust no one" that relates to the theory right here.

Once again, for those new to the theory: it proposes that Bill wasn't alone in destroying his dimension-- he had a partner, one that used him like he used Ford. The previous three posts are crucial to understanding where I'm coming from with this.

This post will mostly be some miscellaneous things that I think could support the overall theory, honestly. So I'm just gonna get started with it. And, as always:

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK OF BILL, INCLUDING CIPHERS

Let's finish this.

So, something that was in the original Arsonist Theory from years ago was that Bill, oddly enough, seemed afraid of his own fire powers. He never uses them in combat, even though it would be a major advantage to him to do so. In fact, he really only seems to use fire as little more than cosmetic flair, lighting his hand on fire to make deals and other situations like that. There are really only three times he uses his fire to directly effect the environment--

Ford's dream sequence, destroying the journals, and burning up the Cipher wheel in the finale.

It's a bit strange, though. All three of those times, he didn't use his signature blue flames. He used orange flames instead.

Another thing is, remember when he died? The second the room lit on fire, he panicked. He's a dream demon, he should have been able to get the hell out of there the second he realized something was wrong! He's not powerless in this situation, so why is he acting like he is? Unless, for some reason, something about the environment reminded him of a certain... other time he was surrounded by fire? A time where, unlike now, he was powerless? Curious!

That on its own doesn't support the theory directly, however it points to lingering trauma from the destruction of Euclidia regardless.

Now... I saw a theory that made an argument that the repeated motifs of "mandibles" points to the idea that Bill might have eaten his own family.

And honestly, I agree. But...

As another layer to it, we only know that Bill had a mutation that let him see the third dimension, along with most likely fire powers since birth. So where did this sudden interest in devouring people come from?

Maybe whoever was with him was the one that taught him it. The one that told him that consuming souls meant that you would never be alone, as they would always be inside of you forever. Because, to me, it seems like an odd leap from "wants to show everyone the third dimension" to "eating people as everything burns around him." So maybe, he was influenced by something? Someone?

And another thing: When Bill is dying, in the Book Of Bill, we see two ciphers on the page.

One of them is "AXOLOTL" over and over, as to be expected.

The other? "Just fit in."

That absolutely sounds like something Euclidia would have pushed upon him! Ergo, he was remembering Euclidia in that moment, ergo the fire did definitively remind him of Euclidia, ergo he seems to get flashbacks when he sees his own fire.

This next part is pure extrapolation, so bear with me here.

Bill, on one page, mentions a highlight of his glory days as being "disassociating, and waking up to find [he'd] conquered another dynasty." Score!

Except... disassociating? Think about it.

Bill had just made a mention to disassociation, implying that he knows that he does it and knows what it feels like for him when it happens.

But when he was talking about Euclidia... he says there's a "loud buzzing in [his] ears and [he] blacks out for 30 seconds."

If this was how his disassociation usually presented itself... wouldn't he just say so?

This doesn't sound like his usual denial, either. When Bill denies something, he remains perfectly cognizant of the events that occurred, merely twisting around some details and/or justifying it to himself.

...Remember back in part one, I said I'd discuss what Bill said about his weaknesses? About how he's been touchy about them ever since... something? And how the obvious interpretation is-- especially considering that he Gatsby's us after the memory gun is mentioned-- that he's touchy ever since the Pines defeated him?

Another thing this book teaches us is that multiple versions of the same object can exist. Mainly, there have been many different iterations of the portal over the centuries.

Perhaps... multiples of some other object can exist, and have existed, and have been used against Bill?

A loud buzzing in your ears. Do you know what makes a loud buzzing noise when it's used?

"No!" You're probably thinking.

"Yes," I say.

Okay, "Probably likely" I say, but that's not as good for dramatic flair.

Sure, the buzzing isn't that loud, but once it's up to your ear... it'd be plenty loud.

One of the ciphers regarding Bill says "EVEN HIS LIES ARE LIES." Meaning, there's a secret, deeper layer to even his lies. Maybe it's that, at least here, this isn't necessarily a lie, moreso that he's operating under missing information.

And furthermore- Bill remembers some parts of what happened, judging by the text that wasn't blocked out, which does line up with how the memory gun works-- at the end of the clip, McGucket makes a reference to Bill himself, the very thing he wanted to forget.

And wouldn't that be another instance of some kind of damaging cycle? Something took away Bill's memories, now Bill has stolen the memories of another? I know, I know, it's kind of a long shot.

But you have to admit, it is interesting to think about.

Now, there might be one final thing you might be wanting from me.

If Bill was someone's accomplice, who is the bigger fish?

And to that I say...

I have no fucking idea.

Not a single clue. Bill says on his "weaknesses" page that anyone whose figured out his weaknesses haven't lived to tell the tale, but that's already verifiably false with Stan still being alive, and with the added bonus of his memory possibly being tampered with... are we sure?

I'm... not sure if the thisisnotawabsitedotcom.com lost files will have anything to do with Euclidia or not. I'm not sure what they'll be at all, honestly.

But at the end of the day, I do think this theory holds some sort of ground and is an interesting angle (pun intended) of looking at Bill's past.

Hope you all liked the theorizing, folks! Let's all wait for that countdown!!

[praisetheaxolotl]

The Arsonist Theory, Part 3: Journey to the Vicious Spiral Nebula

Part 1: Mandibles!

Part 2: We Get It, The Billboard Was A Metaphor

I want to take a step back for a moment. Look at the bigger picture of Gravity Falls as a whole, and at the relationship between narrative foils that are the protagonists and antagonists of a story.

But first, just a recap: For anyone new, the Arsonist Theory proposes that Bill was not the sole person responsible for the destruction of his home dimension-- there was a third party, an accomplice that used him like he uses others now.

Once again:

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK OF BILL, INCLUDING SOLUTIONS TO CIPHERS

On we go!

Gravity Falls is, at its core, a story about cycles.

More specifically, it's a story about the vicious cycles that enable bad behavior- both personal spirals, and cyclical patterns of behavior in families.

We see this most obviously with the Stan twins, with both personal and familial cycles. In the personal side of things, Stan broke Ford's perpetual motion machine, resulting in his parents disowning him and Stan vowing that they were wrong and they'd see that one day, only for every attempt to prove them wrong about him to backfire and get him into even worse trouble, each failure further cementing his reputation more and more as a lying, dishonest criminal-- hey, where have I heard this one before?

On Ford's side, he erroneously trusted Bill and was consumed by both the portal and, once he realized he'd made it, his mistake itself. Even after Bill's death, he's terrified of him-- the mistake consumes him, eats him up inside. However, every time he attempts to subdue Bill on his own without confiding in his family the full story for fear of their judgement, it all ends up making everything worse. The incident with the portal and Stan? It was because he refused to tell Stan what exactly was going on, deciding to keep it all to himself out of guilt and lash out instead of admitting that he'd trusted the wrong person and that he was in grave danger-- hey, I might have heard this one before, too!

On the familial side of things, the Pines twins' parents don't exactly have the best relationship, as revealed in the Book Of Bill.

That fight must have been pretty bad to give Dipper, a kid who's survived the APOCALYPSE, nightmares. The Pines family has been shaped by familial dysfunction, and now it's been passed on-- the Stan twins' parents weren't exactly the healthiest parents, especially Filbrick. It's plain to see that that dysfunction was passed down from generation to generation, until it hit the Pines twins' parents as well.

And hell, Dipper and Mabel almost being broken apart as well-- not only because of Ford offering Dipper an apprenticeship without considering Mabel, mirroring how he sees Stan as dead weight, but also because of their parents fighting. Mabel didn't want to go home to that environment alone, and Dipper wanted to be far, far away from it. The Stan twins were broken apart by their father, and now the Pines twins will be broken apart by the Stans.

Except... that's not what happened, was it?

The Pines twins didn't let this break them apart. Dipper ended up prioritizing his sister and caring about her and her feelings, without just writing her off as deadweight the way Ford did to Stan. And eventually, the Stan twins also reconciled. They broke the cycle, as protagonists in a story with a happy ending tend to do.

Bill, as their antagonistic foil, would therefore be perpetuating cycles like this, instead of breaking them.

Then it stands to reason that, from a Doylist perspective, wouldn't it make sense for Bill to have been a victim of the same kind of manipulation and deceit that he now inflicts onto others?

In fact, we already have an example of Bill being hurt by someone, then going on to pass that same pain onto someone else:

Even though this is a silly example, we've been given canonical evidence that the way Bill deals with trauma is to take it out on someone else. And let's be real, Gravity Falls is rife with examples of something seemingly silly at first but ending up to hold emotional weight for the characters involved. Take in point Stan's attachment to Wax Stan.

So, we've established the cycles present in Gravity Falls and Bill's thematic role as the antagonist leading to him perpetuating instead of breaking cycles. So, what does that mean for this theory?

Bill and Ford are already presented as foils to each other- they're both outcast individuals with both a strange personality and a mutation that make them unpalatable to others, with a sordid home life, who eventually make a huge supernatural mistake with apocalyptic consequences. So, it's natural to wonder: what if their parallels extend even beyond this?

Ford initially blamed himself for being foolish enough to fall for Bill's tricks, placing the blame largely on himself. However, his family was there for him to pull him out of that way of thinking and help him move past it. Bill, in contrast, didn't have a family, ergo he had no one to pull him out of a similar rut. And we see multiple times throughout the Book of Bill and the Axolotl's poem that he does regret what happened to Euclidia, and his role in causing the massacre, so it's not out of the question to think that maybe, his thinking followed a line similar to Ford's. That there was someone that took advantage of Bill's desire to make everyone understand, and Bill blamed himself both for falling for it and for being ineffectual in stopping it.

Ford was at a standstill and approached by Bill, who was a genuine friend in a lifetime of loneliness and who presented himself as a friend, only to be used by him to create a portal that Bill was going to use for destruction-- perhaps Bill went through the same sequence, as victim instead of perpetrator?

Did you know that most perpetrators of abuse are themselves victims of abuse? They grow up without healing from their past traumas, and end up inflicting it onto others, thus continuing the cycle.

(Here's a fun fact- that's actually what my first theory ever was about, before this blog!)

Anyway, to me it's becoming clearer and clearer-- there's a glaringly obvious thematic parallel here that very neatly supports the idea of someone having used Bill in this manner in the past.

Oh, and by the way- on Time Baby's report on Bill, a translated cipher refers to him as the "Lone survivor of the Euclidian Massacre"

Lone survivor? If he'd acted alone, wouldn't it say "perpetrator?" If Time Baby knew enough to know what dimension he was a survivor of despite Bill himself never even speaking its name, then he should know enough to know the story of what happened. There's always the possibility that he didn't, but I saw fit to mention it.

In part four, everything is gonna be tied together as neatly as I can, with some present-day clues from Bill's actions that point to certain parts of his trauma being linked together that, on their own, seem a bit... reach-y, but with three posts of evidence backing them, they hold more water than that.

Part 4: Blame The Arson, Not The Fire (Coming soon!)

[videogamelover99]

Bill really said "TRUST NO ONE" to Ford like he really coined that gee I wonder where he got it from.

[praisetheaxolotl]

Oh my God, I can't believe I forgot about that!

Right, Bill passed it on to Ford, and that advice ended up detrimental to him. Dipper then got it from the journals, and that advice almost ruined him too. It makes perfect sense that Bill himself had gotten that advice from somewhere, and it ruined him as well!

[anistarrose]

I'd like to propose a dark horse candidate for the most interesting line in The Book of Bill. And it's this near-unreadable, seemingly one-off joke from the "Skin" page:

[ID: tiny text reading: "Help! This is not Bill Cipher. My name is Grebley Hemberdreck of Zimtrex 5. I'm one of thousands of beings Bill has devoured over trillions of years whose souls are now trapped inside him. You have to free me! It's horrible in here. He just keeps playing the song "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark on an endless loop. Please, please, this is not a joke! The Zimtrexians were once a proud and mighty people, but now our spirits long for release from this..." End ID.]

Okay, so Bill devours souls who then live out a horrible existence inside him. That's just some typical and expected Bill behavior, right? Nothing to be shocked by? Maybe not, but one thing jumps out at me... and of all things, it's the way that Bill keeps playing that Beach Boys parody on loop.

Because in The Book of Bill, there's a recurring motif of characters playing music for a very specific reason: to repel an unwanted presence inside their head. This is what Elias Inkwell, and later Ford, did with the "It's A Small World" parody — they tried to keep Bill out of their brains. Or, metaphorically... to drown out his voice.

[ID: a Journal 3 page with a cassette taped inside. It's titled: "The World Is Small Ever After for Always." Ford writes: "If it's war you want, it's war you'll get! If you want to torture me? I'll torture you back!" End ID.]

That doesn't necessarily mean that Bill finds the voices of devoured souls to be troubling, let alone downright haunting, does it? Well... not quite on its own. But there's a "color" code on the page about TV static that says a lot:

[ID: a code consisting of colorful squares, translated to letters that spell out: "he never sleeps he never dreams but somehow still he hears their screams." End ID] (screenshot courtesy of @fexiled)

The context of the page implies these "screams" come to Bill especially when he listens to TV static, and the broader context of the book implies that these are the screams of his destroyed home dimension, Euclydia. Therefore, not necessarily those of the souls he devoured, from Zimtrex 5 and possibly other dimensions.

Except... do those two things really have to be mutually exclusive?

The beings that Bill devoured were accumulated over "trillions" of years, plural, according to Grebley. In Weirdmageddon 1, Bill claims to have resided in the Nightmare Realm for precisely "one trillion" years. So the "devouring" habit probably extends back even further than his time in the Nightmare Realm...

Enter @acetyzias, pointing out a very conspicuous word — and one of the only uncensored words — from Bill's description of destroying his home dimension:

[ID: the word "mandibles". End ID.]

Oh, and how does Bill describe the "monster" that destroyed his home to Ford, when Ford asks about revenge?

[ID: Journal excerpt reading: "Sixer, it would eat you alive." End ID.]

For a long time, Bill's destruction of his home has been associated with fire, even when the story's told by Bill himself. But through the way the book characterizes Bill's guilt — and characterizes how the consequences of what he's done remain lurking deep inside him — I think The Book of Bill lays out the hints for another motif: devouring.

And, well, when it comes to how Bill destroys things... it wouldn't be without precedent.

[ID: screenshot of Bill in Weirdmageddon 3, taking a bite out of the Earth. End ID.]

[anistarrose]

Another observation of @acetyzias: Bill even specifically talks about devouring family members.

[ID: a lost journal page where Ford says: "You can't just eat your twin, Bill." Bill replies: "You'd be surprised what you can eat! I say sure, call him if..." End ID.]

Moreover, pointed out by @babycharmander in a different meta post: Bill devours a heart. Bill devours a heart because he's afraid of dying alone, perhaps?

[ID: a two-sided Bill Valentine. On the front, Bill is lying on his back, staring upwards. He's captioned: "I Don't Want To Die Alone." On the "To/From" back side, Bill is devouring a bloody heart. End ID.]

In most previous sources (Weirdmageddon 3, the Axolotl poem), the destruction of Bill's home was associated especially with fire. But fire isn't something we'd conventionally think of as "bloody," or causing Bill to be covered in blood...

[ID: partially censored line of Bill's backstory, reading: "...until there was no one left but me, covered in blood, alone in the universe." End ID.]

...But Bill devouring bodies like we see him devour that heart would explain the bloodiness very well.

This paragraph is about to be the most speculative part of the whole theory, but... did Bill open his "mandibles" and start eating people after the fire had already taken hold? Because he thought the fire would kill them all otherwise? And he didn't want to die alone?

To end it all off, there's also this — in my opinion, the single strongest piece of evidence for Mandibles Theory that I don't know how I missed last time:

[ID: a book page of Bill screaming in agony, pulling his eye open to reveal a mouth with teeth. Inside is a smaller Bill, pulling open his own gaping mouth, and the recursion continues as far as the viewer can see. Some of the recursive Bills look like they're trying to escape, or cry out for help. End ID.]

It's other versions of Bill — but more symbolically, other Euclideans — trapped inside of him, crying out in agony. I have never been more convinced that this triangle ate his family.

[vtkuu]

Alex Hirsch on writing Bill's unreliable narrator perspective:

"I sort of leave it to the reader to try to pick through what is a lie what is true, and more interestingly, what is something that Bill says that's a lie literally, but is a truth metaphorically?

I think sociopaths, cult leaders— they're such narcissists that they often tell on themselves, even when they're trying to pull the wool over your eyes, they can't help it. They'll kind of admit to something they've done, because they sort of want the credit, then they'll create plausible deniability and act like it never happened.

You know, Robert Durst, the rich serial killer lunatic […] he got away with three murders, and he would have gone to his grave with those three murders. But they made a documentary and they said, "can we interview you?" And he's like, "of course you can, you need to hear my side of the story!" Because he's so convinced that he's a genius, he can't help himself. They say that murderers often return to the scene of the crime, well, that's a crazy thing to do. But there's this ego involved. So, a character like Bill is going to deny a hundred things while kind of hiding a confession inside those denials. And that seemed interesting to me to explore."

~ Full interview with the Syosset Public Library here.