#analysis: book

[counting-stars-gayly]

It’s time we accept that Percy Jackson is an unreliable narrator. He’s not dumb. He’s just insecure. He’s not clueless about his and Annabeth’s feelings. He’s just in denial. He’s not clueless about Rachel’s feelings. He just doesn’t want to do anything about them. His mother isn’t perfect. He just loves and respects her more than anyone in the world. That boy contradicts his own inner monologue all the time. Do not trust him!!

EDIT: Please don’t interact just to disagree. You can make your own post.

[shyjusticewarrior]

[icanlife]

The tight writing in Gravity Falls just gets crazier and crazier because Alex Hirsch in the director’s commentary of Dipper & Mabel vs. the Future (11:25) says:

“Ford sees Dipper as someone who’s special like himself. That’s Ford’s great flaw, is arrogance. Is he believes that there’s special people, and everyone else. That human attachments are actually weaknesses. And the song and dance that he’s giving Dipper right now, is the song and dance that he gave McGucket, back when they were younger… ‘You and me are different, we’re better than everyone else. We have a path that no one else can understand, and only us can do this.’ It’s a very seductive idea for Dipper… Dipper is a smart kid, but Ford’s projecting. Ford loves Dipper because he sees someone who’ll tell him ‘yes’ to everything. Who’ll never challenge him, who’ll do a really insane dangerous mission.”

I CAN’T BE THE ONLY ONE WHO’S SEEING THE BILL -> FORD -> DIPPER PIPELINE HERE. YOU CAN JUST REPLACE THE NAMES IN THE ABOVE QUOTE. I’M GOING INSANE.

Gravity Falls and the cycle of “Hey, person who feels outcast from your society like me, you’re special, fuck human connection, join me and be something great!”

[ruins-and-rewritez]

I love it when there's a couple but then there's a third guy who's also there and he's part of it but not like romantically he's just a part of the couple but like....platonically

[babycharmander]

(THE BOOK OF BILL SPOILERS!!)

Thinking about Bill’s appearance at the end of the book…

[ID: BIll when confronting the Axolotl. He is shown in white silhouette, hovering in space, hovering neutrally. Notably, he has a massive crack running through his body, splitting him into multiple pieces, some of which are coming apart. /end ID]

When confronting the Axolotl, Bill is broken. The Axolotl even notes this: "Shattered, broken, not yet dead."

(Which, side note, makes me think Bill might have been lying about having been "kicked out of Hell," if he didn't actually die in Stan's head.)

[ID: Three pictures of Bill in the Theraprism. The first one shows him holding his hand against the side of his head in a dazed expression, sitting in a chair in a white padded room between a wizard with a clock for a face and Saturn (taken directly from the painting Saturn Devouring His Son). The second is a camera recording of him wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling in a cell, surrounded by arts and crafts tools, holding a pair of scissors, and beaming his thoughts frantically into a book. The third shows a mugshot of him staring blankly into the camera, his own name written on coded text below him. In all three images, he has a glowing scar where the cracks were, and is in one piece. /end ID]

When he's shown in the Theraprism, we see a glowing, static-y scar where the cracks were. The scar crosses his entire body (and even crosses to the other side of his eye without affecting it!), but he's actually whole, keeping himself together.

But then...

[ID: Two pictures of Bill from the last pages of the book. In the first one he is facing forward and holding up one finger, his eye reddened, his entire form glitching, and his crack is notably worse than prior, cracking through his eye, multiple smaller pieces drifting away. In the second one he is staring blankly at the viewer, his arms hanging limply, his eye wide and blank, the crack worse than the previous image, with more pieces floating away. /end ID]

In the last few pages, we see the scar is gone and the cracks are back, and even more of him is breaking away, including parts of his eye. It's especially bad in the last image, with even more pieces of him breaking away.

Also noteworthy is that the static texture behind him seems to be the same as the blood sample the US government took from him in the 1940s. He's bleeding.

We know from context that these images are meant to be taken somewhat chronologically. After dying (or nearly dying), Bill seeks out the Axolotl, who sends him to the Theraprism. While there, he writes the journal that he's beaming to us. The staff at the Theraprism catch onto this, and allow him to write out the last few pages, meaning those last few pages are chronologically the last of Bill we see.

This means that, after the events of the show, Bill was shattered... and then, upon entering the Theraprism, started to heal, his body coming together and scars forming... but at some point afterward, he started breaking apart again.

I'd made a post previously about Bill's development, how he views himself as a monster after the Euclidian Disaster, and how he continues to act monstrous afterward (and winds up agonizingly lonely as a result). I didn't really touch on this in the post, but I feel like after inadvertently destroying his home dimension...

Bill never left the denial phase of grief.

I could be wrong on this, but I get the feeling that part of his reason for acting monstrous toward just about everybody is because he sees himself as a monster, because "this is just how I am" is easier to accept than "I really really screwed up."

Bringing this back to his shattering... It's interesting to me that after entering the Theraprism, his body is scarring, which means it is healing. But then, at the end, as he's signing off the book, he's shattered again, and looking even worse than he did when talking to the Axolotl. When talking this over with a friend, they pointed out something that struck me:

Bill does not want to heal.

Healing means having to actually think through what happened. It means having to confront his past, confront destroying his home dimension, confront the harm he caused to others, confront the fact that he did not have to be this way.

And he refuses to do that.

He refuses to heal.

[emeryleewho]

I used to work for a trade book reviewer where I got paid to review people's books, and one of the rules of that review company is one that I think is just super useful to media analysis as a whole, and that is, we were told never to critique media for what it didn't do but only for what it did.

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

So it's just a really simple way of framing the way I critique books that I think has really helped to show the difference between "this book is bad" and "this book didn't meet my personal preferences", but also, as someone talking about books, I think it helps give other people a clearer idea of what the book actually looks like so they can decide for themselves if it's worth their time.

Update: This is literally just a thought exercise to help you be more intentional with how you critique media. I'm not enforcing this as some divine rule that must be followed any time you have an opinion on fiction, and I'm definitely not saying that you have to structure every single sentence in a review to contain zero negative phrases. I'm just saying that I repurposed a rule we had at that specific reviewer to be a helpful tool to check myself when writing critiques now. If you don't want to use the tool, literally no one (especially not me) can or wants to force you to use it. As with all advice, it is a totally reasonable and normal thing to not have use for every piece of it that exists from random strangers on the internet. Use it to whatever extent it helps you or not at all.

[magpieanalysis]

I love that every victor from District 12 won by breaking the rules.

Katniss was proficient with a bow and in a forest because she went past the fence and hunted game illegally; Peeta survived because Katniss threatened for the games to not have a victor after the promised rule (presumably influenced by Haymitch?) if he wasn’t saved; Haymitch won because he used the capitol forcefield against his opponent, bringing their weapon into his game; Lucy won because of rat poison brought into the arena and Snow feeding her scent to the snakes.

There was not a victor from twelve that didn’t backhand the Capitol with their survival. lmao.

[zephrunsimperium]

Dipper and Mabel leave and Stan is like "okay, I know for a FACT you left stuff out when you explained that you and Bill were a thing. Now give me the non-kid-friendly version."

It helps him feel better for helping defeat Bill. Nobody messes with his brother.

[ultimateempath]

EVER SINCE I FOUND ALL THE STAN CONTENT ON THE WEBSITE I'VE BEEN LOSING MY MIND OVER THE BILL/STAN PARALLELS AND BILLS BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS HIM IN GENERAL SO I'M JUST GONNA LAY OUT WHAT I NOTICED HERE BEFORE I EXPLODE.

Stan and Bill were both mama's boys, with very loving and concerned mothers, while their fathers were nowhere near as kind to them. (This is an inference on Bill's part, as his father is never mentioned and all we get is his name, while his mom is mentioned multiple times in a fond manner)

They took their father's hats with them when everything fell apart, as seen from the explicit mention of 'his father's fez' in Stans poem and one of the parent cutouts in Bill's family photo having a tophat.

They were looked down upon unfairly despite not doing anything wrong (Stan failing academically and not living up to his parents expectations & Bill being able to see the third dimension and getting seen in a negative light because of it).

They lost their homes and families because of an accident they themselves caused.

They turned to unsavory practices after losing everything.

I dunno, I just think all these similarities as well as how intensely Bill projects on Stan (likely seeing himself in him) when he goes into a rage from clicking 'how he beat me' multiple times is probably important to some extent. This has to mean something, please tell me I'm not the only one hyperanalyzing all this-

[moraymiso]

the strangest thing to me about the BSD fandom is the fact that the vast majority of people in it are dazai fans, while also consistently assuming the absolute worst of him, disregarding the circumstances around his actions and giving him no grace or consideration of his situation whatsoever.

there's no doubt dazai is a bad person in many ways. he did plenty of unjustifiable, inexcusable things. he's pathologically manipulative with a totally skewed moral compass, most of which was undoubtedly brought on by his upbringing in the mafia. but at the same time, i see such a huge number of people taking that and somehow ending up with - and vehemently defending - this idea that he's a remorseless, indifferent, innately cruel person by nature?

are we forgetting this is the same dazai who was forced to false-witness a murder at fourteen years old? the same dazai who already wracked up numerous suicide attempts barely out of his pre-teens?the same dazai who was referred to by everyone around him as a 'demon' at fifteen years old? the same dazai consistently described as having grief-filled, empty expressions and detached, vacant reactions to practically everything when he was so young? the same dazai that oda described as "a child crying in the dark, alone, left to fend for himself with a hole in his heart as large as the world itself"?

that dazai is an indifferent, heartless, innately psychopathic person? really? i'm not convinced.

[sans-undertales-pussy]

The parallels between Bill and Ford has me on the FLOOR man... Both being born with defects that send them down very different paths for similar reasons.........

Ford's extra finger is what spawned his interest in anomalies. Its why he moved to Gravity Falls, why he wrote the journals. All in a pursuit for paranormal knowledge that could one day help others.

Bill was the only one of his kind born with an eye- one that faces up and allows him to see the stars.

He saw the stars. No one believed or understood this knowledge he had. So he ripped everything to shreds to try and share this knowledge he had with his people. (Whether the destruction was intentional or not is up for debate, but there's clearly some part of him buried that regrets this to some degree.)

Bill saw a little bit of himself in Ford and he obsessed over it. He used him and eventually wanted to drag him down to the same lows. Like man. Alex when I GET you

[lilislegacy]

In all these instances, Annabeth is going through a terribly stressful situation, and she’s not afraid to admit that she wants Percy to hold her. The only time Annabeth lets herself be truly vulnerable, and feels truly safe, is when she is in Percy’s arms.

She craves to be held by him. And that doesn’t mean she’s weak, or that he’s stronger than her, or that she relies on him to take care of her. It just means that for the first time in her life, she has a pair of arms to collapse into when she’s scared or upset. And yes, she absolutely does the same for Percy and takes care of him too, but it’s slightly different. Percy has always had his mom to love him and take care of him and hold him. Annabeth, however, had to put walls up at a young age. She learned to never rely on anybody else for safety or comfort, because she never consistently had someone loving her or taking care of her.

But now that she has that, it’s not a surprise that she yearns for his affection. Annabeth is touch-starved in a way that Percy isn’t. And she never feels more loved or more safe than she does when he is holding her. And I don’t know about you guys, but I am so happy that she has that now. Annabeth Chase is a warm, sensitive, and emotional character. And when those parts of her shine through, I think it makes her one of the most realistic characters.

For some reason, I feel like people think that Annabeth, and other female characters, have to be cold and insensitive in order to be strong. But I think that couldn’t be further from the truth! Allowing yourself to be vulnerable takes the utmost strength. Love and trust, and having someone by your side, makes people stronger, not weaker. I personally love that Annabeth lets herself be loved and comforted by her partner. Because she can be “the little spoon” and still be completely his equal. Wanting to be held and taken care of does not make someone lesser or weaker. It makes them human. (And it goes the same with men and all genders). It makes Annabeth one of the most relatable and realistic people in the series, and I love that Rick shows that side of her.

Annabeth Chase is a remarkably strong, fierce, legendary female warrior. She also craves to be held by her loving boyfriend. And those are not conflicting statements.

[shyjusticewarrior]

Two things can be and are true at once.

Robin Jason was a sweet, kind kid who cared about victims. He also had righteous rage and violent tendencies towards those he thought deserved it.

Being Robin gave him magic and as Robin he shattered a man's collarbone with no remorse.

[writeouswriter]

Broke: Acknowledging that a character who is an objectively terrible person is also a complex and intentionally well thought out individual with different levels of nuance you can empathize with in some ways while not in others is immediately “woobifying” or “poor little meow meowifying” them.

Woke: “This character is a bad person” and “this character is still a person” are two statements that can, should and do coexist and admitting that they exhibit nuance and depth and are more than just their bad actions doesn’t immediately excuse or condone their bad actions or mean that you’re ignoring or trying to soften the canonical version of the character.

Bespoke: That’s the whole point, that’s always been the point, to be made to empathize with horrible people so you can understand that they can be anyone, that bad people can be likeable, can be interesting, can be human, are human, and it’s scary to think about all the ways they’re just like you and all the ways they’re just like everything you hate, forcing the use of critical skills in media analysis, forcing a confrontation of the duality of man.

Whatever Level is Above Bespoke: But sometimes, yeah, sure, maybe they are a poor little meow meow, what are you gonna do, get a lawyer

[rayroseu]

OH SO IT WASNT ENOUGH TO DO IT ON PRE-GROOVY HE HAS TO DO IT ON HIS GROOVIFIED VERSION TOO AJFIWOFIOWJ!!!!!

HIS POSE IS LIKE MALLEUS ON HIS NORMAL SPRITE.... IM SOBBING AT THE MUSEUM SILVER ‼️‼️‼️😭😭😭🤍🤍🤍🤍

Never beating the Malleus' brother allegations, I think at this point he's just blatantly admitting it JDJKAJFJW !!

The profound contrast between Silver's love for Malleus and Lilia when almost the entirety of his "true nation" hated them, will always make me crash LILIA'S SON AND MALLEUS' BROTHER IS GROWING UP WELL 😭😭😭✨✨‼️‼️‼️

But isnt this a great card that showcases he's truly a "child of peace"?? The 3 good fairies spell on him was that he'll wake up on an era pf peace (and ofc when he meets someone that truly loves him), He is someone that carries "the face of Silver Owls (Knight of Dawn)" but his actions pays tribute to Briar Valley (to Malleus)

MIND YOU that this pose is almost exclusively to Malleus only yet they made Silver do it !! 😭😭JDJAJDJ And yk whats more profound about this pose is that in Silver's case.... his hand placed on the left side where the heart is KEJQKJRKWS !!!! Ohhh he's truly accepted that it can't be changed that hes from Silver Owls but he can always dedicate his actions to the ones that cares for him despite that (Lilia and I know Malleus as well (even if he finds out the truth(copium)💥💥💥)

AND I KNEW THAT OUTIFT SUITED HIM!!!! DO YOU SEE HOW SILVERS HAIR BLENDS SO WELL WITH THAT SUIT!!! LITERAL EYE CANDY, HE'S LIKE AN ANGEL HERE WITH HOW GLARING THE LIGHT SOURCE IS BUT ITS NOT A DEMURE TYPE OF ANGELIC LOOK, ITS A KNIGHTLY ONE!!! 🥲🥲💕💞✨✨✨

KFJQJRJW THIS IS PROBABLY MY FAVORITE PLATINUM CARD PLEASE... 😭🤍✨✨

Edit: Also PAUSEEE THE BOOK 7 FORESHADOW THIS CARD EXUDESSSSS SILVER CQLM DOWN AJFJAJE

The Knight of Dawn doomed to fight the Evil Princess.....

The Knight of Dreams doomed to fight the King of the Abyss

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭BUT BUT TRUE LOVE WILL END THE CYCLE RIGHT RIGHT... WJUTIQ😭😭😭😭

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[icanlife]

Very tired of people who continue to argue that Bill destroying Euclydia was completely on purpose and he didn’t care about anyone at all because he’s just trying to garner sympathy in The Book of Bill, despite all the supporting evidence outside of Bill’s words that allude to how deeply traumatic it was, (so many, many things about) how he loved and misses his parents, how much of a sore spot the topic is for him, how much he wants to return home but can’t, etc. in addition to how perfectly Alex and co. crafted a parallel narrative between Bill and Ford, including how they hurt the people they love out of carelessness and blind pursuit of their dreams, justifying to themselves that the people they hurt just couldn’t understand

Yes, Bill is an unreliable narrator, and that includes all the very obvious posturing that he did it all on purpose and it was actually a very good thing, that everyone loved him, that he’s NOT incarcerated or anything and that he’s still a really all-powerful being, etc etc etc. To fully believe that EVERY vulnerability he reveals is an evil manipulation tactic, and not actual character writing, you have to interpret his very prevalent denial of weakness, which continues into the conclusion of the book where he already knows he’s lost the reader and is still denying any emotional needs or trauma, as itself a lie.

There’s a reason why the Pines family cracked open this book and laughed at Bill, calling him a fractured, pathetic mess.

The Book of Bill has a plot, a great plot, and great character writing. It’s a crazy companion to Journal 3, Ford’s story. Parallel stories, but where one ends with someone healing from their trauma, coming to terms with one’s mistakes and accepting the need for human love and relationships, the other ends with one stuck forever in their layers and layers of denial, never acknowledging their own trauma, never acknowledging their need for human companionship, grasping in desperate need at their continued facade of hating to love and loving to hurt.

Bill isn’t an always-in-control sly master of the mind, he’s a delusional and desperate man, fractured by his own trauma, who will continue to hurt others to prove that he’s in control. I’m tired of the false narrative that abusers can’t have trauma, aren’t people, giving them this otherworldly status above all humanity. Aside from not being narratively or societally productive, it undermines the ending and message of the book. Acknowledging Bill’s brokenness gives his victims POWER over him. The fact that Bill needs Ford, but Ford doesn’t need Bill is powerful. Them laughing at his desperation is powerful. Looking at someone who once seemed untouchable to you and realizing they’re just a suffering meat sack like any other human being is powerful.

The ending of The Book of Bill is the demystification of Bill. The book is a real look into his mind, telling a story that’s actually very tragic. It’s a very real story, a cautionary tale. You’re not being manipulated or tricked if you feel bad, it’s a very intentional writing decision that this ending elicits that dark pity, as he desperately fades away (arts and crafts materials confiscated) saying that he’s FINE.

So yeah, The Book of Bill and the website are a masterwork of the character, I love them, they’re incredible, and I don’t want to see such a tight character story discredited as “you can’t believe ANY of it!”