speaking. of the disco boys.
So, despite it being centered around the worlds silliest premise, the disco boys AU did have Plot Points. And Ford's sort of part of the story was that right before Stan called him up he was very. Very close to summoning Bill. He found the cave paintings but in this universe hesitated from reading them immediately. Stan called him while he was in the middle of hesitating, so he didn't get to read them aloud (for now). During his disco adventures he is often thinking about going back to gravity falls and resuming his research, and whether or not he shouldve read that painting.
Bill's part of the story was that his AU counterpart had a vague knowledge of how the timeline played out in the original universe to the extent that he knew Ford was supposed summon him and that he would convince him to build his portal and that he knew he'd be able to eventually successfully start weirdmageddon. He didn't know how things were supposed to end up IE- him losing, he just knew that far.
Ford NOT summoning him and instead running off to join a disco band combined with Bill knowing he was "supposed to" made this au Bill act/react in a very possessive manner, like he was entitled to Ford. As in "How dare you be out having fun with them you're supposed to be here HELPING ME!" He essentially views ford as an object that belongs to him. Specifically a stepping stone that got out of line. You can see instances of the behavior in some of the older posts with him in the disco boys tag. For the most part due to when the story takes place he existed sort of outside of it- sort of like a spectator/commentator, so he mostly expressed this to us, the viewer.
Another important thing to note is that AU goes back to following gravity falls canon afterwards. Ford and Stan eventually get in a big blow up fight that results in Ford going home. He summons Bill, the rest of the story plays out the way it does in the show ...except now everyone has a backstory of having been a disco boy. And that Bill is a little more vengeful toward Ford about that, and very brag-y about how Ford finally fulfilled his "purpose" despite it.
Now, I tell you all this to express that I do not know if I will ever go back and finish the disco boys, because after seeing the fan reaction to the book of bill im worried that people will just see these aspects of these two in this story and go "wow my toxic yaois XP" instead of even trying to understand anything i was actually saying with them at all.
At the time of writing the series originally, some of the "fandom" was already like that, but with the release of the book it felt like suddenly a way larger chunk of everyone was that way. It just doesnt feel comfortable anymore. There being a picture of ford singing karaoke in that book in particular that that crowd really went crazy for really feels like an extra shot to the chest about it.
oh well i guess.
