#theory of gravity

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Photo taken by a 16-year-old girl who snuck a camera into a Queen concert in 1978

* * * *

« Before this is all over. Before they close the house and sell the furniture and give away the books. Before the cosmetics and shoes are handed out. Before they throw the pans in the trash. Before they empty the cupboards, before they take away the spices, the noodles. Before the happy days and Sunday afternoons end. Before the last of the mornings. Before the end of the anguish. Before sex without love and love without sex are over. Before the clothes rot in the closets. Before they take down the paintings and cover the armchairs with canvases and close the windows forever. Before they burn the photos. Before the doormats dry out, before the curtains rust on their tracks. Before curiosity is over, the bones, the liver and the corneas. Before all the plants on the balcony dry out. Before there is no more snow, no colors, no tropics. Before the end of all the jungles, of all the seas, of all the reflections in the water. Before the last poem. From the end of the sidewalks and streets. The end of all walks. 

Before goodbye to all the airports and all the planes, all the cities and all the cafes with steamed up windows. Before the cancellation of all the discussions, of all the arguments, of all the fury, of all the contempt. Of all the metallic anxieties. Before the end of the screams, the desolation and the guilt. Before the last agenda, the last Friday, the last bar, the last dance. Before all the domes and all the screens go out. Before the moths eat the remains of the wool and the pillow. Before the end of pets. Before, much before: you have to live. 

But how? As? “How admirable / he who does not think “life flees” / when he sees lightning,” Basho wrote. Admirable those who are in time without thinking about it. » 

— Leila Guerriero, Theory of Gravity [thanks to exhaled-spirals]

[stickycircuits]

What would've happened if they completed the zodiac?

[miss-americanbi]

was chatting with my brother about gravity falls (again) and i said something like “man, can you believe stan waited and worked for 30 years just for the chance to try and bring his brother back?” to which my brother responded, “yeah, it’s nuts when you think about it. i wonder if stan got trapped in the multiverse instead, if ford would do the same.” HELLO???

[eloisyw8]

Waiting Area

[totallyottie99]

This lady’s a victim fr, we know early grey hair and erratic behavior is a side effect of the overuse of the memory gun. since Bud is a member of the society it’s likely he used that gun on her as much as he wanted to. It’s giving Stepford Wives levels of abuse

[xx-sketchy-xx]

I kept thinking about how Mabel said she thought he was dead while being possessed… and it doesn’t take long for blood flow to stop. So I had a thought that none of the injuries caused by bill would truly appear until dipper was back in control. So any fork stabs, bruises, scratches, would only appear when his blood was flowing again.

just a thought

[lilacthebooklover]

my ten-year-old sister has been infected with toxic old man yaoi disease specifically of the billford variety. unfortunately, she considers it strange that bill is a triangle & ford is a human. her solution? make ford into a shape too. squares, ovals, oddly shaped blobs. forget humanizing bill– 2D ford is the way of the future <3

[eggsistential-breakdown]

[time-woods]

some bill interactions forfuns

ft @/ spoonyspinee @/ auminiii and @/ mugztwoo bills

[nenoname]

It's still interesting that TBoB called more attention to Stan's control over his mindscape (And if you go with the interpretation that the lost pages are partial truths that are heavily influenced by Bill, then he's the one insisting that only someone with training should be able to have that much control over the mind.)

Meanwhile we have a memory!Stan. Someone who apparently knows too much and is rather aware for being a simple memory.

From the Wheel of Shame, we know Bill was able dig up all kinds of dirt on Stan but... that wasn't why he was there in the first place, was it?

Bill couldn't find the code immediately despite a memory of Stan opening the safe being a few hours old at most and decided to have Mabel try find it for him (The original concept of the ep had it far more hidden but this was likely cut because of time constraints)

Ford did experiments on Stan's mind which likely meant using Project Mentem and actually looking around his mindscape, and his only reaction was to comment on his jokes-- despite what little we the audience know being enough to render us sobbing wrecks

(yes I refuse to shut up about this part cos the book's intro is extremely underrated)

Stan was able to replace his memories of Ford with the swingset instead and managed to hide Ford in his Bar Mitzvah memory. And that's not even mentioning the lack of visible Portal and Stan o' War which noticeably show up in Ford's dreamscape (the broken swingset manifesting anyway pains me tho)

He subconsciously has misdirects for his secrets that are both silly and manages to disturb everyone too

And while Bill-as-Soos being bored by the vending machine memory is a joke that's basically the crew's way of going "hey remember the thing way back in the first ep that's going to show up in the next one?" and in-universe appears to be Stan slipping up, it's interesting that they had Stan input the wrong code when it's consistent literally every other time its inputted (especially when it shows up correctly in the very next episode)

It's even possible that the safe code that Bill found could have been a misdirect too but we'll never know since the safe got blown open by dynamite.

Stan was able to buy time by making his mind blank despite being genuinely terrified when Bill enters his mind (to the point that he breaks character and uses his own voice to yell), and could conjure up his living room (in colour opposed to his mind's regular greyscale) to make sure Bill didn't have enough room to flee, slamming the door in his face before the effects of the memory gun kicked in.

(EDIT: Random door analysis here)

And maybe the twins eventually told him that Bill had already been inside his mind after their W3 reunion, but all we know was that his conscious self was left in the dark for ages and wasn't really aware of Bill until Weirdmageddon.

TBoB showing McGucket's dreamscape also brings up the idea of the effects of the memory gun manifesting differently to each person. To Stan's mindscape, the memory wipe manifests as blue flames which immediately brings to mind Bill's powers but it's a far lighter shade (maybe to more closely match the memory gun and its eventual fade to white?)

The end of TBoB and the website poem also firmly reminds us about Stan's connection to fire but there's also the question if Stan himself is actually aware of it...

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"The Philosopher’s Stone" by Agostino Arrivabene :: [Guillaume Gris]

* * * *

« Before this is all over. Before they close the house and sell the furniture and give away the books. Before the cosmetics and shoes are handed out. Before they throw the pans in the trash. Before they empty the cupboards, before they take away the spices, the noodles. Before the happy days and Sunday afternoons end. Before the last of the mornings. Before the end of the anguish. Before sex without love and love without sex are over.

Before the clothes rot in the closets. Before they take down the paintings and cover the armchairs with canvases and close the windows forever. Before they burn the photos. Before the doormats dry out, before the curtains rust on their tracks. Before curiosity is over, the bones, the liver and the corneas. Before all the plants on the balcony dry out. Before there is no more snow, no colors, no tropics. Before the end of all the jungles, of all the seas, of all the reflections in the water. Before the last poem. From the end of the sidewalks and streets. The end of all walks. Before goodbye to all the airports and all the planes, all the cities and all the cafes with steamed up windows. Before the cancellation of all the discussions, of all the arguments, of all the fury, of all the contempt. Of all the metallic anxieties.

Before the end of the screams, the desolation and the guilt. Before the last agenda, the last Friday, the last bar, the last dance. Before all the domes and all the screens go out. Before the moths eat the remains of the wool and the pillow. Before the end of pets.

Before, much before: you have to live. But how? As? “How admirable / he who does not think “life flees” / when he sees lightning,” Basho wrote. Admirable those who are in time without thinking about it. »

— Leila Guerriero, Theory of Gravity

[thanks to exhaled-spirals]

[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 (correction provided by @fexalted: no, not in fact a Smiley Smile parody, but a real song!) 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.]

[miss-americanbi]

so glad that gravity falls is back so we can finally discuss how ford sees himself as the protagonist of every story while stan can’t see himself as anything but the antagonist

[the-barefoot-hatter]

Leaving a whole lot of questions that don't need to be answered, Stanley!!!

[totallyottie99]

Who else thinks this is literally what happened to euclydia? Bill tried to change the axis of the planet to help them see the stars, but that caused them to be exposed to something (likely their sun) and it caused the world to light on fire

[g4l4xy-qu33n]

Okay, so I discovered something when re-reading Journal 3. The page that has the Oracle on it:

When I first read Journal 3, years ago, this didn't mean much. Oh look, it's the girl that saved Ford from Bill's possession by putting a metal plate in his head, hooray! (and some other stuff but anyway she didn't seem super significant at the time).

Well, this time around I recognised her, specifically because of the Book Of Bill AND thisisnotawebsitedotcom. She's Seveneyes! (the scratched out member of Bill's crew in BoB, and a blacked-out photo of her appears on the website when you put in 'seven eyes'.

I'm not sure if this means anything, but it certainly blew my mind!!