#Bill Cipher Has Issues

[the-barefoot-hatter]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65543485

Relationships:

Bill Cipher & Stan Pines, Bill Cipher & Ford Pines, Bill Cipher/Ford Pines (Implied)

Characters:

Bill Cipher, Stan Pines, Ford Pines

Additional Tags:

Blind Bill Cipher, Post-Theraprism Bill Cipher, Bill Cipher is Trying, Bill Cipher Has Issues, Bill Cipher Needs a Hug, Bill Cipher Needs a Freaking Drink, Drinking to Cope, Drinking & Talking, Excessive Drinking, nightmares (implied), Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism (alluded to), Comfort, Hangover, relationship status: softening up, Literal Sleeping Together, Childhood Medical Trauma

drink the poison down

Summary:

Bill's eye doesn’t work. His mouth works just fine. So he puts it to work, taking care of the Mystery Shack's mysterious supply of rotgut, to drown out the bad feelings. AKA, Bill tries to drink his troubles away, and gets some surprisingly good company in the form of the Stan twins. (Blind Bill AU, Stan and Bill are on decent terms, Ford is getting there)

[knockknockwhosthereartistism]

Revelations

[kerink]

god i love ford theraprism stuff. whether its him visiting bill or in couples therapy or there as a patient. theres something so delicious about bill and ford both being defanged and made to interact in a controlled environment. no they dont get healthier no they dont heal their trauma yes theyre both still violent, angry, control freaks.

but they're in a position where they have to communicate because they lack the resources/contexts necessary for them to have their intricate rituals.

them in group therapy fighting but the group lead doesnt break it up because this is the most either of them have ever shared while inpatient. bill saying something that makes ford snort and he latches on and digs in just trying to get ford to laugh. ford and bill exchanging snarky judgmental comments about staff and other patients. them sitting in the corner of the common room talking in code and double speak and inside jokes and references in order to figure out how to get out of here. bill thinks its all so romantic and that he and ford are going to run off together once they get out. ford trying to convince himself that he wont.

how easily they slot back into their dynamic and how bill salivates over ford in his "bad guy" role. ford on his high horse and justifying his actions and thoughts and always painting himself in the right, as the hero, for the greater good and bill has never been more in love.

the therapists realizing too late that putting bill and ford together may have helped them both make progress at first, but now theyre both regressing, readopting unhelpful and unhealthy behavioral and communication patterns, breathing life back into their codependency. their souls are hopelessly tangled and all this has done is made it worse. but now if they try to separate them itll be too dangerous for everyone in the facility. they just have to keep working at it until something gives. even the other patients know bill and ford together are a ticking time bomb.

[em-doods]

Bad memories

[extrahorribledynne]

honestly who could even want a season 3 this is literally 'the everything else' of gravity falls. i'm not left wanting. i'm feasting on everything from the book of bill and thisisnotawebsite. the only thing i want is to rewatch the entire show again

like it leaves it in 'our' (the readers) hands. what do YOU see in ciphers corpse? is it the end? is it only the beginning? we were invited to participate both in the book (literally, with it making asks to write this, put your hand here, etc) and the website code hunt. its up to you. here are the pieces of everything after the end. have fun.

[cosmicyellow]

McGucket calling Bill 'Triangle Danny' is so funny to me like you literally think Bill is Lucifer incarnate but apparently he didn't make enough of an impression for you to remember his name LMAOOO

[legobiwan]

We need to talk about this. And I'm going to start right off with a contentious claim:

Ford was willing to gamble the fate of his entire dimension to feed his ego and insecurities and Bill had him pegged from Square One.

This sounds like a harsh statement. It kind of is. When we first meet Ford in the show, all we end up learning from him is that restarting the Portal was dangerous and could (and did) create a rift that would open the door for Bill and his gang to end the world. And Ford pins this entirely on Stanley, excoriating him for not listening to his warnings in the journals and doing whatever he wanted, like a set of monkeys flinging shit at walls until he happened to get it correct.

Ford is a highly unreliable narrator. After all, as Stan rightfully said, who built the portal in the first place?

But we need to go deeper.

In Journal 3, Ford speaks to the necessity of hiding his journals, which he - to be quite honest - does a crappy job of. Why keep two out of the three journals in Gravity Falls, a mere hair's breath from the actual Portal, which for some mysterious reason, Ford has declined to - you know - actually destroy? Why bury the Journals near an elementary school with children - children who tend to be curious creatures and can and will find a way to discover what they shouldn't? Why call on your estranged brother who you claim to despise as an absolute last resort? Ford's narrative, if you really start to analyze it, makes zero sense. And it makes zero sense because it's an edifice, a personal mythology meant to be a bulwark against the horrible truth of Ford's motivations.

"I've stared at the fire, journals in hand, for hours. I just can't do it. The knowledge in here could be a gift to mankind, the portal's potential limitless. Am I really going to destroy it all just out of spite? No, I won't give HIM the satisfaction. Instead of destroying my work, I'll find a way to DESTROY BILL INSTEAD. If Cipher has a weakness, I'll find it. I'll outsmart the devil yet! He may be a god, but I am a scientist."

Ford could have ended this thirty years ago if his ego hadn't gotten in the way. All he had to do was burn the journals and destroy the portal, just like every other human Bill tried to con over the years. How much did Ford actually care about the end of the world as much as he cared about Bill's betrayal and losing his earth-shattering (quite literally) research?

He didn't. And given this, is it a surprise that Bill, when he finally was able to breach dimensions and start Weirdmaggedon, still placed bets that Ford would join him in the end? The man who said, "Fuck the universe, I need everyone to know I was right."

This isn't about the possible apocalypse. Ford doesn't make one, single mention of that here, doesn't seem to give one fuck if the world burns, as long as he can prove himself to be better than Bill and better than everyone who doubted him for all his life.

And this is why, I am certain, that when Bill perused Ford's possible futures, a large majority ended up with Ford turning to the dark side, as it were.

There's a reason Ford pulled these journal pages. They don't fit his self-constructed narrative of the heroic martyr who wants to save the world. Ford edits his own story again and again, pushing everyone away so they won't see just how insecure and absolutely desperate for validation he is.

Sound like someone we know? Maybe a yellow triangle who literally outlines the steps to denial in his teenage angst journal?

Bill, in essence, promised Ford the universe. Yes, literally, but also the universe in terms of what Ford always wanted - recognition and revenge. Ford, by not destroying the Portal or his journals, didn't 100% reject this proposal, even if that equivocation was subconscious. It's why - I think - Bill feels Ford's just put him "on read" after he fell through the Portal (according to Alex Hirsch).

Ford's going to have to come to terms with this. Maybe he did during his time in the Portal. We have no idea how much Ford did or didn't mellow while being stuck on the other side of the universe, although we do know a) he still holds a massive grudge against his brother and b) Bill is still able to play him like a lyre when he asks about the equation to pop the bubble around Gravity Falls. (And I do not for one second believe that Ford was trying to buy time when he admits that "Of course, a simple equation could collapse the barrier," when Bill questions him about it. Ford needs to prove that he knows the answer, that he figured it out, that he's a scientist and outsmarted a god. Again, if the kids and Stan hadn't come to Ford's rescue, it's very hard to say where Ford would have landed in the end).

The thing is, there's a part of Ford that realizes he's being an ass, that he needs someone. We see this with Bill, obviously, with Fiddleford in the ways Ford runs so incredibly hot and cold with the man (I need you, no I don't need you) - with Stan, who is a last resort but the only person Ford trusts enough to summon to Oregon. Because Ford didn't need Stan to destroy the journals or the portal - but he needed someone, maybe he needed a dollar-store Bill in his life, maybe he just needed someone to reach out like that. Ford fucks it up, wildly, as he can't let his ego go and allow Stan (who is being extremely practical, if bitter) to burn the journals like Ford should have weeks previous.

And well, we all know how that turned out.

What I'm curious about - and what I think needs to be covered more in fandom - is how Ford deals with all of this post-Weirdmaggedon. He's obviously in contrition mode at this point, swinging wildly to this penitent, self-abusing figure who will claim fault for the tiniest infraction.

That's not going to last him long. The type of change and self-reflection Ford needs is not going to come overnight. At some point, his uglier tendencies are going to rear their head on the Stan O'War and Stan is going to have to weather the blowback (or just throw his brother overboard). One might say Ford himself needs a little time the Theraprism, as he nearly consigned his own reality to damnation just like Bill did.

I love Ford. I adore Ford. He is so, so, so complicated. But ohhh boi, Fordsy, do you have issues with a Capital "I".

[y3aj-3002]

Bill cipher related doodles because rhe universe is an illusion and reality is a hologram and I already bought gold

[fangomango]

Here's my latest edit :3 I dont trust tiktok now so I'm on hiatus there till further notice

This is an oc self insert edit :) gf au of them because brainrot

(Also because you wouldn't know who fang,Delia or Amethyst is here's an oc dump)

(At least this is their more...human look, actual canon universe look is less...human?)

(Also fang's human design is subject to change)

[thewritertiger]

The real author of the journals...

[jmej]

i honestly cant get mabel haters cuz like. you are literally being manipulated by bill to blame a 12yo for the thing he literally 100% caused

[the-barefoot-hatter]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65250223

Relationships: Bill Cipher/Ford Pines (Implied), Bill Cipher/Jheselbraum the Unswerving (implied), Jheselbraum the Unswerving & Ford Pines

Characters: Bill Cipher, Ford Pines, Jheselbraum the Unswerving

Additional Tags: Blind Bill Cipher, Handyman Bill Cipher, Post-Theraprism Bill Cipher, Bill Cipher is Trying, Bill Cipher Has Issues, Ford Pines Has Issues, Ford Pines is Jealous, Jheselbraum is UnswervingTheraprism check in, the mrs and the ex, relationship status: this isn't a couple fight because we are not a couple. HOWEVER, The girls are fighting again, iatrophobia, Ford Pines is Bad at Feelings

I left your lips equipped with questions, and an answer I can't share

Summary: It's time for a quick Theraprism check-in! :D

AKA, Ford has some questions for Bill and isn't very happy with the answers (blind bill au, set middlish)

[cosmicdandeli0n]

Why are black hair boys with dead mother so easy to possess?

its a multiverse lol

[mikaral]

backgrounds will forever be my greatest enemy >:)

[mymyforthesky]

I think I could handle it if Bill tried to make me a puppet cause I'd end up calling him Mr Cipher and he'd inevitably say "Please Mr Cipher was my father" and he'd be hit with years of daddy issues so quickly I think he'd die

[yrooxrksvigirzmtovwzwwb]

Billy...

I see them...

The stars...

R G H H L K Z R M U F O