#bill cipher keeping secrets

[harper-collins]

An Afternoon Alone

The Twins, The Triangle And The Magic oneshot!

Fluffy, a slight bit of angst and a small piece.

Set at the beginning of Year 5

The hustle and bustle of the house was getting a bit irritating, and although Dipper was pleased they didn’t have to stay at the Leaky Cauldron again, he did want to get out of the stuffy environment. Thankfully, he had just the right person to do that with. The brunette turned to look at a mirror to slick his hair back the way he used to. He knew the London weather would probably mess it up when he left the building, but he couldn’t help it.

A noise was made from behind Dipper, which made him jump, causing him to turn and see the almost adultified Bill Cipher in his complete form. He looked a lot more humane nowadays; he’d lost his edge, and although he wasn’t softer, he felt nicer to look at due to the organic way that he presented himself. He was still wearing fancy clothing outside of Hogwarts, but the blonde had grown and developed his human form so that Dipper couldn’t help but feel attracted to him all over again.

“I do feel a little bad about leaving Shooting Star with the grief she’s feeling right now, but I think it’s time that we let you walk around without her,” Bill grimly replied, moving towards the door. Dipper kept his eyes away from the blonde as he opened the door. “I feel the same way, but I just can’t sit next to her all the time. I can’t stay in the house either; it’s suffocating with grief,” Dipper replied, watching Bill shut the door to Grimmauld Place.

Dipper briefly reviewed what the demon had said before frowning and looking up at him. “Hey, I can leave the house by myself just fine!” he sharply replied, giving the other an angry push. Bill cackled for a moment before coming to his senses. “Still, Pinetree, I’m not letting you wander the streets of London without me. Voldemort is back, and even if we are trying to kill him, it’s probably a good idea to just be safe and protect ourselves by running away for the time being,” he murmured back, raising an eyebrow at the brunette. Dipper couldn’t tell whether the other eyebrow was raised, which made things slightly tricky.

“I’m not a child, Bill. I know how to handle myself,” he turned to look at the demon with a darkened expression, but Bill was merely shaking his head at Dipper. “You may be an adult mentally, Pinetree, but you are no match against an all-powerful wizard that even Dumbledore’s nervous about facing,” Bill chirped, walking towards a van selling food. Dipper blinked a couple of times, staring at the other. “Dumbledore’s nervous about facing Voldemort?” He repeated back.

“What?”

“What?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bill carefully replied, a slight twinkle in his eye as he spoke. Dipper grumbled quietly; of course, the other was still keeping secrets. When wasn’t he? He moved on regardless, and the two approached the food van. Dipper let the demon pick an assortment of foods for them to share between the two of them. It was costly, but Bill didn’t seem to care about the prospect of money—only gold.

They continued walking into a small park they’d found nearby and frequented throughout the summer, regardless of the year. They sat down, opened their respective packets of food, and began to take in the summer atmosphere—while it lasted. Being in London was better than living in most of the UK, but it still got rainy. They took their time eating, which was the only logical thing to do when you had clear air. Or, at least, as straightforward as you could get in this day and age.

Dipper turned towards his partner and warily began to take in everything about him, all the details. First, there was his calm, relaxed expression as he ate. He seemed to enjoy their little trip, probably thinking about how they could blag it later. After all, no one knew about Bill yet. They just thought he was very weird. Despite his facial expression being quite relaxed, his body was less so. It was tense as he tightly held the sandwich in his hand. The other was holding his head as he awkwardly sprawled across his part of the bench, facing Dipper. The brunette could still tell that there was something wrong with the demon.

A thought then occurred to him. He had witnessed the death of Cedric Diggory just as much as Harry had. Yet… He wasn’t nearly as traumatised as an average individual. Although it felt pointless to point out that Bill wasn’t your standard individual, it felt like the other should still react. It wasn’t like he was soulless or anything. The brunette hesitated momentarily. Was he going to bring this up? Especially when they’d left the house to escape this exact subject.

Maybe… Maybe it was a better idea to ask later. As Dipper nodded to himself a little, moving without thinking, he looked back to the demon who was watching him with a quirked expression. He was intrigued, confused, yet interested. Dipper tried not to pay attention to his stare as he glanced away to stare at the trees further away from them, and Bill only chuckled slightly at the movement. Dipper tried to refrain from looking back at him, but the soft feeling of another’s skin touching his face made him look back at Bill, who gave him an empathetic expression.

Dipper moved back towards Bill, who kept his hand trailing across the other’s cheek, letting it slowly roam around the other’s face as if trying to memorise the other’s features. Dipper let it happen for about a minute before he put his hand on the other. Bill, who had gone dazed as he memorised Dipper’s features, jumped a little at the touch before relaxing and giving the grin he always gave. He took his hand off the other’s face. The brunette caught his hand before it dropped adequately.

“Your smile,” Dipper murmured to the other. “I want to see it.”

Bill smirked, not giving the response that the brunette had been wanting. Dipper only rolled his eyes at the display. “You know that’s not what I meant,” he pressed, watching the other’s expression as Dipper tightened his hand on the blonde. “I know, but you’re not getting me that easily, Pinetree,” he teased, tightening his hand around the other. The young male turned away, huffing and taking his hand back. The other’s grip had been getting too tight anyway.

“Awwww, c’mon Pinetree! Are you being a wimp?” He teased lightly. However, Dipper could only scoff and stand up, not disputing it and not saying anything to protect himself. Bill cackled as he followed the brunette’s train of thought before observing him. His expression had grown misty as if he could tell something was wrong. “It… It might be a good idea for us to head back now,” Dipper mumbled, glancing at the demon sharply.

Bill hummed for a moment before returning to the direction of Grimmauld Place. “Maybe… But there is something I’d like to talk to you about later,” the demon replied, retaking the other’s hand as he began to walk. Dipper didn’t say anything in reply to this. He just let himself be dragged with Bill. It was slowly getting cloudy as they trekked back to their temporary home.

With the world becoming the way it was, Dipper couldn’t help but feel that the weather was beginning to reflect the moody and scary place it was becoming. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take too much longer until they could finally get home. It was an unrealistic, wishful thought, but better than nothing. The two walked back reasonably quickly, and in a few minutes, they found themselves back in the dark and saddened environment. The two quietly went back inside, awaiting their fate for the evening.

[hkthatgffan]

Okay, it's time for me to reveal them!!

These right here are the 4 images Alex Hirsch sent to me and @fordtato back in 2023...months before The Book of Bill was formally announced!!

Head Statues!

Beta Cover!

Glitching in a tree!

Pines Family chess

we've held on to these for nearly 1 year now! Alex shared them between August and October 2023.

It was fun to be one of the only people in the world who probably had seen these that wasn't directly working on the book.

But my time with them is up. They are now yours.

What is the context of each image? We'll now know together!

The Book of Bill is now OFFICIALLY out!

[varilien]

ive been wanting to do some redraws of the gravity falls art i made as a kid n since it's seasonally appropriate, here's some magician au doodles ^^

and just in case i don't come back to draw it again any time soon here's my thoughts so far on the topic and the original art circa smn like. idk maybe 2015 or 2016?? i wish i'd put the date on anything from back then lol

Palestine: Funds | Action | eSims | Info

Sudan Resources | Congo Resource | Lebanese Red Cross

i might change the designs later on but at this point i thought it'd be most fun to just kinda leave it really close to the originals :3

anyways!!

okay so gravity falls magician au. plotwise it's all actually about the same, the twins might be a little older actually, like 15 or 16 (maybe they've visited gravity falls in the past?), but whatever. they get sent to a sleepy little village in the woods to stay w their great uncle. magic runs in the pines family, although no currently living pines is thought to have any notable capability. healing a scratch or finding something u lost under ur bed, basically. magic is actually probably a lot more common and mundane in this world than canon, so gravity falls' weirdness as a region comes more from the intensity and unpredictable nature of the magic found there

anyways the BIGGEST plot difference is that i like the idea of the kids meeting bill pretty early on. he introduces himself as a seasoned familiar looking to get back in touch with his old partner. now, bill is a breath of fresh air for dipper in particular, who finally has someone he can speak frankly with about the weird experiences he's been having, but even tho bill loves nothing more than spilling secrets and arcane knowledge, he's not really able to do so as he'd like to. he's got TONS of spells placed on him for the express purpose of keeping him quiet, but there's a few things bill has been able to elude to if nothing else: 1, he knows who the author of the grimoire dipper found in the woods is. 2, he knows stan pines' great secret. and 3, he knows how to access magical power beyond comprehension

hehe idk i just like the idea of bill spending possibly months mentoring and making friends w the kids fully planning on just using them for his own gain the entire time but. well. maybe it's nice not being alone anymore too. tho he'd never admit it

[ghost-oftheriver]

Stanley Pines, the conman clown, Always dragged his family down. One mistake, disowned, denied, Only thing to do was hide. One way out, the open road. Reinvent, retry, reload. A girdle, eyepatch, fathers fez, "I'm a new man!" so he says Couldn't outrun life's regrets, Just kept placing bigger bets. Changed his haircut, switched hotels- Truth is just whatever sells. When you've lost track of your lies, When the poison starts to rise, When the walls are closing in, When its clear you cannot win, When your actions make it worse, When they see you as a curse, Give the wheel one last spin, Take your chips and go all in, And Lucky Stan- the roll's on black, He got his life and family back. His big break, it finally came, Redemption from a life of shame. You really think you won the day. You packed your bags and sailed away. You think you left the past behind. But trust me

[egginfroggin]

*yeets this and runs*

[fofflesnave]

Therapy didn't prepare him for this

[askbillchiper]

no you fucking idiot. who is the entity whos controlling fords blog right now

OH

WHO?

[haunted-pool-noodle]

I couldn't stop laughing at this absolutely terrible joke so now I have to inflict it on you. sorry?

[Image 1 ID: Bolded text that says, "Stripping for edible flour in Tijuana," then in unbolded letters below it, "Please don't make me elaborate." End ID.]

[Image 2 ID: A 4-image comic of Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls. He's floating in front of one of Stan's memory doors, which is labelled as "KEEP OUT." Bill looks at the door and says "OHO, DEEP, DARK, SECRETS? DON'T MIND IF I DO!"

There are then three panels shown, from the perspective of the door looking at Bill. Across the first two, Bill opens the door, eye closed and other hand on his hip. In the last panel, Bill's eye is open, looking deeply unsettled, and he slams the door shut.

Bill turns from the door, staring downwards, haunted by whatever he has seen.

Bill looks back at the door out of the corner of his eye, putting a hand to the top of his angle. He says, "OH GOD, HE AND SIXER REALLY ARE IDENTICAL." End ID.]

[fandom]

Monster Mash Monday

WooOOoOoooh! Obviously, historically, monsters are Bad and Ugly. Not…not so much on Tumblr. Please keep this PG-13 if you go with the last option.

[ckret2]

Chapter 96 of human Bill Cipher kinda just vibing in the Mystery Shack with Mabel at this point: the girls interrogate Bill about his love life; Bill emotionally bonds with... *spins a wheel* ...Grenda; Bill and Ford have a moment that means a lot more to Bill than Ford realizes; and a monster comes to town.

The girls had taken a snack break in between movies; and Bill had left them in the living room singing "I Love 2 Believe U Believe N Our Love" while he went into the kitchen to grab a drink.

He longingly eyed the cider six-pack he was currently working on. This was about the time of night he usually ran out of distractions and energy and resorted to drinking himself past the nighttime racing thoughts, and his body knew it. The mug he'd had at Skull Fracture had barely given him a buzz that had already faded. He was itching for another drink. It didn't help that last night he'd missed his usual dose of medicine, what with dealing with Powers...

With a sigh, he passed it over. He was already sleep deprived; if he wanted to keep up with these kids, he had to have a sharp mind tonight. Instead he picked up the coffee pot, chugged the stale dregs at the bottom, squeezed a packet of soy sauce down his throat as a chaser, and headed back into the living room.

As he came in, Grenda was saying, "Oh, Marius? Yeah, it's going alright! We talked about how clingy he is, it's cool now. He's taking me skiing in August!"

"I am full of envy," Candy sighed, draped tragically off the edge of the sofa. "Does Marius have any cute single prince friends?"

"I don't know! I can ask!"

Candy raised her fists in the air. "Yesss."

"Hey Mabel," Grenda asked. "Do you want a blind date with a hot European prince too?"

Mabel sighed deeply. She was laying flat on the floor, one hand absentmindedly scratching Waddles's head. "I don't know," she said. "I'd like a date. Seeing the people around me find love makes me want that, too. But I spent all last summer trying to get a boyfriend and all I got was disappointment. And you guys know all about that thing with the robot and the Sadie Hawkins dance..."

Candy and Grenda nodded sympathetically.

"I think that was my last straw."

(Bill quietly died inside as he realized he had no idea what she was talking about, but he couldn't ask without revealing he didn't know something that big about the timeline Mabel was on. He'd only missed a few months of earth time—no big deal if you were an all-powerful all-seeing eye—but what a difference it made if you were stuck as a human.)

"Aw, c'mon, Mabel," Grenda said. "Don't be like that. You're too young and beautiful to give up on love!"

"I know, I know. I haven't given up, I just... think I might've been chasing love too hard? Maybe I'll try again if the perfect guy just falls out of the sky and crashes into my window! Buuut i'm not wasting my time looking anymore. From now on, the boys have to come to me." She sat up to flop on Waddles's back. "This is the only boy I need!" Waddles snorted in his sleep.

"Smart," Candy said. "You are a catch! Any boy who won't chase you isn't worth your time!"

"Exactly!" Mabel said. "Until then, I'm focused on matchmaking other people." She sat up. "Speaking of which..."

All three girls turned to grin evilly at Bill.

Bill perched uncomfortably on the edge of a sofa cushion and wondered if he should be trying to escape the room before it was too late.

"Soo-oo-oo," Grenda said, eyebrows waggling. 

This was it, the interrogation over Bloody Mary. He prepared to bolt from the room. "What."

"How about that secret agent?"

"Oh!" Not quite as bad as he'd been expecting. When had Mabel told them about that? Bill laughed nervously. "That was just a job! I'm not interested in the agent."

"Yeah, but you got along, riiight?" Candy crossed her legs, propped her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, and leaned into Bill's personal space bubble. "Did you kiiiss?"

He wasn't about to tell them just how far they'd left kissing in the dust. "Uh, yeah, but—"

Mabel shoved straight past the personal space bubble and propped her elbows on Bill's knees. "Would you see him again?!"

"No way!"

"Aw, c'mon!"

Grenda said, "Aren't you on the run for war crimes or something? That'd make dating a secret agent super dangerous."

"Way more romantic though," Candy said.

Grenda nodded, "Way more!"

"Look look look," Bill said. "I can appreciate the noir star-crossed femme fatale narrative you kids are trying to write for me. But it's not gonna happen. He's not my type. We don't even agree on politics!"

"What politics do you disagree on?" Candy asked.

"He thinks President Trembley is a raving lunatic—but in a bad way. I think he's a genius visionary whose policies are centuries ahead of his time." Which was why he'd slipped Trembley a little dream tip to preserve himself until the rest of the world was ready for his brilliance. The peanut brittle, however, had been entirely Trembley's own idea. "That's a total dealbreaker!"

"Aw, whaaat?" Mabel scrunched up her face. "Trembley's awesome, who could hate him!"

"I know!" Bill poked Mabel's nose. "You're breathing my air, kid. Get your own."

Mabel got out of Bill's face and flopped on Waddles again. "So if Agent Powers isn't your type... what is? I bet we could find somebody in town for you! No dodging the question this time!"

Candy said, "You're surrounded and outnumbered!"

"This is a sleepover so you can't leave!" Grenda jumped up and blocked the doorway with her arms outstretched. "You've gotta answer!"

"You can't make me do anything! I plead the fifth! I know my rights!"

Candy narrowed her eyes. "Maybe we can guess what you're into. We know it includes Bloody Mary."

He should've made a run for it while he had a chance.

"Yeah!" Mabel said. "What's with that? What's the story there?"

"Nothing! I shouldn't have called her my ex, she's not my ex. In fact, we barely know each other. We just hang out in the same social circles sometimes. I don't even know her last name."

"Yeah right," Candy said. "Okay, so—are you into long, straight hair?"

"And skinny girls," Mabel added. "Super skinny! Bony! Literally just bones!"

"And he said he likes her dress," Grenda said. "I don't actually remember what her dress looked like! I was busy staring at the blood!"

Loudly, Bill said, "You're all ice cold! Not even close!"

"Is it her personality?" Candy asked. "What's her personality like?"

Mabel said, "We can compare and contrast his exes! He told me what his last girlfriend was like." A thoughtful look crossed her face as she began to put two and two together. "And... wasn't there a president that you—"

"All right fine I'll talk," Bill said quickly. "I surrender. You girls are persistent!"

The girls crowded around him. "Spill," Candy commanded.

"You said you like freaks, right?" Mabel asked.

"No I didn't. When did I say that?"

"I dunno, a while ago."

Huh. Well, it was true, so he must have. "Yeah, that's pretty high up on my criteria. Freaks and weirdos! They've gotta lean into it, though. If they spend all their time trying to be normal, they're more boring than the normies they're imitating."

"What kind of freaks," Mabel asked. "Like, people with antlers?"

"Sure, I'd give 'em a shot!"

Candy asked, "Tattooed ladies?"

"Absolutely! There's nothing better than a self-made freak."

"What do you think about bearded ladies?" Grenda asked carefully.

Bill grimaced and tried to picture it. Seemed pretty normal to him. Sometimes he forgot which humans were supposed to have what facial hair. "I'm gonna be frank, that doesn't even register as freaky to me. But, sure, beards are fine." Humans had such a bizarre fur pattern—a fluffy little puff on top, an optional fluffy little puff on the chin, a few strips over the eyes and under the arms and between the legs, a sparse covering that served little practical purpose spread in patches everywhere else—it was hilarious to look at. Made humans cute, in a sort of pathetic way. Like a poorly-shaved poodle.

Grenda seemed relieved at the answer.

Candy threw in, "What about piano-playing contortionists who can put their feet on top of the piano while they play?"

"Oho! If you know one, get me their number!"

Mabel said, "Okay, so what else besides freaks?"

"Pff..." He rolled his eye up as he thought. "Oh, you know, other kinds of nonconformists. Criminals, psych ward escapees—never date in the ward though, d'you know how wolves in captivity will go full Lord of the Flies on each other and start fighting over who's king?—uhh, psychics, wanna-be prophets, those nuts who put off college to go backpacking across a continent..."

"Poets?" Grenda asked.

"Only if their poetry doesn't suck."

Candy asked, "Anime fans?"

"Never," Bill said. "Oh, and I need someone who's fun enough to keep up with my lifestyle. I'm a hard partier, they've gotta match my energy. And they've got to be ready to spend some serious moolah on me. I'm not a cheap date! Plus they need to worship the ground I walk on, do anything I want, and believe everything I say."

The girls nodded along to his list. "That sounds reasonable," Candy said. Grenda agreed, "Respect and trust is important!"

"Right?! If more of my exes understood that, we wouldn't need to have this conversation! Speaking of—I've got a reputation. I'm something of a bad boy! Whoever I'm with has gotta be 100% okay with eyeballs-to-the-walls crazy..."

####

"...preferably somebody bright enough that talking to them is more intellectually stimulating than talking to myself—which is a high standard! I can be friends with an idiot, and I can be fffphysical buddies with an idiot, but I can't date an idiot. Unless they're a really, really rich idiot." Bill was laying on his back, legs over the sofa armrest, talking toward the ceiling: "And it doesn't hurt if they're the tortured artist type. I'm a complete sucker for a tortured artist! It's my only weakness. If somebody with a Göthhäus band shirt and haunted look in their eye asks to draw me, pffft, that's it, I'm done for. I'll do anything they want!"

"Good to know, good to know..." Mabel was furiously taking notes. She'd filled up six pages and was working on a seventh.

"But most importantly: I need somebody who gets me. That's—that's a lot rarer than you think. Nobody can truly understand me unless they've been through what I've been through." He squinted mysteriously toward the ceiling. "I've lived a complicated life."

The girls absorbed this in thoughtful silence, contemplating the depths of their mysterious friend's unfathomable history.

Then Mabel chucked the seventh page aside, grabbed another, and asked, "So what do you want your dream partner to look like!"

"Oh, well," Bill said, "pretty eyes are the most important thing—the more, the better—but that's easy, every species on this planet has pretty eyes. Love vivid coloration; extra points for iridescence, multiple hues, or color changing. Not a big fan of people with heads. Venoms and poisons are always a sexy little bonus, but not the numbing kind, it's gotta really sting."

Mabel stopped writing, staring at Bill.

Candy said, "That... opens up some options."

Mabel nodded slowly. "Thanks for the info! Don't worry, I'll find you your dream guy. Or girl. Or... monster or whatever. I'm on the case!"

Bill asked, "Kid, why are you so determined to set me up with someone anyway? It's not like I've said I'm looking for love. Are you just trying to keep me away from other prey, or...?"

Mabel looked Bill in the eye and said solemnly, "I think love would fix you."

"Ha! Okay, sure!" It had never "fixed" him before, but who was he to argue with the power of love and Mabel.

####

"You're sleeping through the best part of the movie," Mabel complained. "You're missing the whole dance battle for the fate of the world!"

"I'm not asleep," Bill said, laying on the sofa with his eyes shut, sound asleep. "I'm just appreciating the sound design."

"Yeah, right." Mabel poked his arm. He poked her head.

As the credits rolled, Candy jumped to her feet and ran from the room. "BRB, toilet break! Don't start the next movie without me!"

"Oh, me too!" Mabel ran after her.

Grenda waited until they were gone; then crouched next to the couch and poked Bill herself. "Hey. Gold-o. Are you awake?"

"Yes," Bill lied.

"Can I ask you some stuff?"

Sounded like he needed to be awake for this. He cracked open an eye; the dim views from his other eyes around the shack fizzled out. "What kind of stuff?"

"Like, uh..." Grenda sat back, wrapping her arms around her knees. "You're a guy, right?"

Was that what he'd told them last time? He didn't remember. It sounded likely, though. "More or less, sure."

"But you have boobs," Grenda said.

Astute observation. No no, no getting sarcastic with Mabel's friends, keep that one to yourself. "Sure do!"

"So... um... do you have, like..." Grenda lowered her voice, awkwardly fiddling with the hem of her nightgown, "a hormone problem, or..."

Aha. Grenda was looking for common ground. She was going through those awkward body changes pubescent humans had and grappling with the fact that hers were awkward in a way none of her peers' were. Bill might not have cared about who had what facial hair, but he knew the humans did, and sometimes they could be so uptight about their reproductive binary.

Bill sat up—he probably wouldn't be getting back to sleep for a while. He mentally flipped through the potential realities he could invent, and then—why not?—he settled on the one that had the best odds of winning this kid's loyalty for life. He could always use more devotees who looked at him like he'd hung the stars in the sky. "Nail on the head, Grend-o." It wasn't entirely untrue. He did have a hormone problem. His problem was that he was in a body with hormones.

A relieved smile broke out across Grenda's face. "Cool!" she said. "I mean not cool. It's the worst! But I have one, too!"

"Wow, you don't say," said Bill, who was fully aware of the medical history of Grenda, Grenda's mom, and Grenda's grandmother.

"I hate it," Grenda said. "When the other girls at school started growing boobs, I started growing a mustache! Any time somebody looks at my face, I'm afraid they're gonna notice and start making fun of me!" She clapped her hands over her mouth and cheeks, as though she was afraid somebody might be staring at her right now. "Even when I shave I'm afraid everybody will see my stubble!"

"You've got nothing to worry about," Bill said. "It's unnoticeable." (He noticed, but that was the All-Seeing Eye's job.)

"That's what my mom says." By her tone, she didn't find it very convincing when her mom said it, either. She gave Bill a big-eyed, hopeful look. "Are you worried people will make fun of you for having boobs?"

"Eh," Bill spread his hands apathetically, "I'm fat enough to get away with it. People expect that." He'd actually had a pretty remarkable success rate with getting people in town to view him as male with only a little prompting—though part of that was probably the culture in town.

But Grenda was still looking at him hopefully. She didn't want to hear that everything was great and he was doing just fine. She wanted somebody who could empathize with her.

"Buuut it was harder when I was younger." Bill pulled up a mental list of human puberty side effects in case she needed any made-up symptoms to solidify his credentials as a kindred spirit. "And I don't exactly spend all my time in a hoodie because I like people looking at my body." (That was true.)

"Ugh, yeah! Tight clothes make me feel weird. Puberty! I hate it!" Grenda flopped back on the ground. "My mom and my friends and Marius tell me I'm pretty, but..."

"But it doesn't help, does it."

Grenda shook her head.

"Now, me? I'm gorgeous," Bill said. "9 out of 10. I'm just about as handsome as a human can get."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Sure I do."

"Hmm." Grenda stared at the ceiling thoughtfully.

"And I still hate this body."

And he had Grenda's attention again. She sat up to look at him.

"Who cares if this body looks pretty if it doesn't look like me," Bill said, smiling bitterly. "Everyone on the planet could call me good-looking—and they'd be right!—but it feels like they're complimenting a stranger and I'm getting the credit. Worse, they're complimenting me for something I don't want to be!"

"Yeah!" Grenda blinked heavily. "Yeah, I-I don't want everyone to tell me I'm pretty! I just wanna look different! I wanna be less hairy and I wanna have smaller shoulders and I wanna be skinny and I want my old voice back and—and..." Her voice cracked. She furiously rubbed her eyes against the back of her arm.

Ah, heck, he'd made a kid cry. Hopefully it was one of those catharsis things and he wouldn't get in trouble for this, but he'd just doubled the amount of effort he had to put into this conversation. All right, buckle up Cipher, time to dust off the compassionate mentor act again.

"Hey. Hey, c'mon. It's not that bad." He slid off the sofa, sat by Grenda, and slid an arm around her shoulder. This was always the worst part of dealing with emotionally unstable humans he wasn't personally invested in.

Voice thick, Grenda asked, "How do you deal with it?"

Haha. How did he deal with it? Drank away the urge to claw off his own skin. Hid his depressingly alien shape under baggy clothes. Burned off his hair. Regrew his hair. Covered the mirrors. Dreamed he was a triangle.

He was taking too long to answer. He searched for a response that wouldn't get his sleepover privileges revoked if Grenda repeated what he said to an adult. He didn't want to say I don't know, he didn't want to say badly—he wasn't about to admit that to anyone, much less a half-grown human on the cusp of looking up to him. He was tough, he was a champion, he had all the answers. What would somebody who'd already solved this problem say?

"Nobody's gonna tell you this, but loving your body is optional. It's good enough just to get along with it." The words rang false in his mouth. He was picking and choosing advice he'd overheard humans give each other back when he had trillions of eyes to spy on their conversations, but he couldn't imagine getting along with the body he was in. He soldiered on anyway: "Just... don't worry about how it looks. Let it look however it wants to look, who cares! Focus on what it does for you that's useful."

Grenda sniffled and nodded. "What do you focus on?"

Ouch, way to put him on the spot. His honest answer was that this body was a downgrade from his true form in just about every conceivable way; the few genuine positives (he did like binocular vision and the ability to physically interact with Dimension 46'\) would just bring up more questions; and he went blank on lies (believable lies, anyway—no way he'd convince her that he'd gone to the Olympics). He grasped for something else. "Me? I like dancing!"

Grenda nodded; then she flung her arms around Bill, hugging him tight enough to squeeze the breath out of his lungs. "Thanks."

Right answer. He'd won this kid's loyalty for life, and he was guaranteed to get another gold star from Mabel for being so nice to one of her friends. Not bad for a night's work. "And if that doesn't work, there's always plan B: makeup, hormones, and plastic surgery!"

Grenda laughed weakly. "Mom says we're gonna talk about hormones at my next doctor's appointment."

"See? You're just going through an awkward phase. Sure, it's more awkward than most kids', but you'll come out of the other side of it just fine, guaranteed!"

Bill, on the other hand, was uncomfortably aware of his stretchy skin and his awkward bones and all the slippery pulsing meat in between.

He wasn't getting out of his awkward phase until he got out of this body.

####

After anime night, when Soos had parked his truck at the shack and everyone had climbed out, Ford immediately headed inside; but Melody and Soos lingered outside. "So, uh..." Soos pointed toward Melody's car, which she'd parked at the shack that morning for work. "Gonna head back to your aunt's?" The implicit follow-up: or, do you want to stay over?

Leaving had been the plan; since Bill had started haunting the shack and Soos's bedroom had stopped being a safe refuge from Melody's sleep paralysis nightmares, she'd started staying with her aunt the way she had last summer.

But if she was gonna get sleep paralysis no matter what, she'd rather wake up next to her fiancé than alone. She missed Soos. Tonight, she missed Soos more than she feared Bill.

"You know—it really is late," Melody said. "It's probably best if I don't try to drive at this hour."

Soos's face lit up. "You sure?"

"Sure I'm sure." She wrapped her arms around Soos and pecked his lips. "Besides—I like my blanket here better than the one at my aunt's."

"Oh, really? It's just a tiger stripe blanket I got cuz it makes me think of Tiger Fist, I was actually thinking about upgrading... to..." Soos trailed off. "Oh wait. You meant I'm your blanket."

Melody laughed. "I totally meant you." They headed in together, arms wrapped around each other's waists. "What would you upgrade that blanket to?"

"I was thinking about getting an official Tiger Fist blanket."

"Sounds perfect. We could get orange bed sheets too."

"Nice, color coordination!"

She froze in the entryway, making Soos stop with her.

Mabel and her friends were asleep in the living room with the lights still on, splayed over various pieces of furniture.

But Bill wasn't with them. He was sitting on the bottom stair, leaning against the wall, just outside the light cast from the living room.

Soos whispered, "I think he's asleep. He does that on the stairs sometimes?"

Melody nodded. It was fine. He was just a human now. She walked carefully to the stairs, trying to avoid any creaking boards.

She'd barely set her foot on the bottom step when Bill's eyes flew open. "Need me to move—?"

Melody squeaked, reflexively kicked Bill, and bolted halfway up the stairs. Bill parried her kick with one arm, laughing shrilly.

"I'm so sorry I didn't mean to kick you—" Melody caught her breath. "Hey! Did you do that on purpose?!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Bill said unconvincingly. "All I did was ask if you want me to move! I'm trying to be helpful!"

Sure he was. Melody gave him a dark look; but stomped upstairs rather than get into a fight.

Soos stopped next to Bill, gave him his most disapproving and disappointed, "Dude," and then hurried after Melody.

Ruffled two birds' feathers with one stone. Bill smirked up after them; then settled back against the wall to sleep again.

And immediately opened his eye back up when he heard someone approaching. He turned his body to looked up at Ford. "Can I help you?"

"I heard a scream."

Bill pointed up the stairs with his thumb. "Melody didn't notice me on the stairs until she nearly stepped on me."

"Ah." Ford surveyed the scene. Light from the living room, Bill in the shadows—sure, maybe her eyes weren't adjusted to the dark to see Bill. Story checked out as plausible enough not to question. "You really shouldn't sleep on the stairs like that."

"M'keeping my eye on the kids." Bill yawned. "What's that look for?"

"What look?"

"You keep looking me up and down."

Ford flinched. Oh. He supposed he had been. "You, er—I just noticed that you... turned your whole torso toward me to talk."

"Yeah?" Bill said. "So?"

"Most humans would only turn their heads."

"Yeah? So?"

"Ah." Ford self-consciously stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I... suppose you turn your torso because you didn't have a neck to turn for most of your existence. It just—stands out to me. That your body language sometimes still reflects your..." he bobbed his head, trying to think of a fitting word. "Your... triangularity?"

"Oh." Bill's face was blank in the shadows. "Well—sure! I've never been a fan of necks anyway."

"No?" Weird thing to say. (Weird if Bill had been a human, anyway.) "Are they... What, is it something about the anatomy?"

"Just an aesthetic preference! I think they look goofy." Bill spread his hands dismissively. "A torso with a head always looks to me like a cell halfway through lopsided mitosis. It makes me wanna help out and pinch the head off!"

"There, you did it again."

"What?"

"You tend to shrug with your hands and arms instead of your shoulders. You move them like..." He copied Bill's dismissive gesture, felt foolish, and stuffed his hands back in his pockets. "Why am I telling you how you move. Sorry. I know better than to call attention to someone for, ah—looking weird."

"Weird's just another word for interesting, Sixer!" Bill stretched out, propping an elbow on a higher stair step, his cheek against his hand, and his other hand on his hip. "Feel free to observe me any time you want, o scientist. For a human, you always make such interesting observations."

"Is that just another word for 'weird observations'?"

"All the most interesting observations are!"

Ford huffed, shook his head, and headed back to the guest room.

And Bill leaned against the wall again, thoughtfully. His body language "reflected his triangularity," huh. Maybe the ghost was still in the machine. It was reassuring to think it was.

Reassuring that Ford was still looking for it, rather than seeing Bill as a human.

####

Melody woke in the middle of the night.

She felt trapped beneath Soos's tiger stripe blanket, like it was too heavy to move, smothering her skin. It was too heavy for her to lift her lungs. The bed was too soft; she was sinking into it like quicksand. She couldn't climb out.

Bill Cipher—his shape triangular and sharpened like the knapped edges of an arrowhead, his yellow flesh textured like the mushy skin of an overripe banana—clung with black branch limbs to the ceiling above her like a spider, eye wide and bloodshot.

Melody was getting really tired of the latest form her sleep paralysis nightmares were taking.

It dropped at her face. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, refusing to look at it until she could move again. She heard its hissing breath in her ear, felt it reaching through the blanket like a ghost to claw at her arms—

Then nothing.

She sat bolt upright with a gasp. The dream was gone, as it always was. Nothing on the ceiling. No scratches on her arms. She sighed.

If she went back to sleep, though, she'd fall right back into the same dream, and she'd spend an unpleasant half hour yo-yoing back and forth between half-asleep and half-awake. She had to keep herself awake long enough for the remaining dream gunk to clear out of her head before she could go back to sleep... by which time she'd be fully awake and it would take her another hour to fall back asleep.

Soos stirred beside her. "Mmwussup?"

"Sorry," Melody sighed. "Sleep paralysis."

"Again?" He rolled over and wrapped his arms around her.

"Yeah. Third time this week." And two of those times while spending the night at the Mystery Shack. "I haven't had sleep paralysis this bad since college."

She'd been majoring in folklore, in her third year, and gearing up for a big research project in her fourth year; she'd chosen to study the evolution of unicorn legends after the Renaissance. But shortly after choosing her topic and going into finals season, the stress of her college workload had caught up to her—she'd started waking up from nightmares multiple times a week and could barely function in class. She'd missed one final paper and flunked one final exam before she realized there was no salvaging this semester and withdrew on mental health grounds.

Her family concluded she must've been burnt out—her mom suffered from sleep paralysis too, the family was old hat at using poor sleep to gauge subconscious stress—so Melody took a semester off. But when she tried to register for the next semester her nightmares came back and her anxiety flared back up; so she'd taken the full year off, gone to visit her aunt in Gravity Falls for a summer to see if getting out of the city and clearing her head helped, and here she was.

The idle sleepless year she'd spent trying to recover from burnout had been the worst of her life, and the year she'd spent in Gravity Falls with Soos had been the best. She didn't want her mental health to backslide because of Bill.

"If this keeps up, I... might have to stop spending the night here," Melody said. "I'm sorry, Soos. I don't want to stop coming, but I can't keep going without sleep."

Sadly, Soos said, "My protective cuddly aura... is failing..."

"Shhh, Soos." Melody chuckled tiredly. "It's not your fault."

"I know. I just wish I could, like..." Soos shadowboxed vaguely into the air. "Punch your bad dreams for you. You know? I hate not being able to help."

"Thanks." Melody kissed him lightly. "You're helping just by being here."

All the same, Melody wished Soos could punch her sleep paralysis nightmares, too. It was too bad they were just figments of her subconscious.

####

Coffee had been a bad idea. Now that the girls had conked out, Bill was the only one still up, dozing but not sleeping. A can of cider couldn't hurt—nobody would get on his case for drinking at a sleepover after the kids were asleep, right?

He was standing in the kitchen and halfway through a can when he heard something wrong.

He peered into the entryway. "Yello?" There was no answer. Just an ominous, hair-raising scraping that cut through the silence. It was coming from above.

Bill crept out of the kitchen, looking up the stairs, keeping close to the wall—putting himself in between the staircase and the living room doorway. "Hellooo?" He peered up into the dark.

There was something slender and misshapen up on the landing. Just around the corner, stiff body tilting out into view at an angle that defied gravity, head cocked unnaturally so only one wide unblinking eye was visible.

Bill met its gaze with a single open eye. He said, with the voice of a burnt-out minimum-wage shelf-stocker who'd just caught a customer in the staff room and who was on his last day at this job and consequently feared no god nor customer: "'Scuse me, can I help you?"

In a flash, the thing stagger-lurched on all fours down the stairs, torso twisted and limbs akimbo in all the wrong directions, and jerked upright in front of Bill, face far too long and head tilted, one wide icy eye staring into Bill's from beneath long limp tangled bangs, letting out a deathly wheeze like a strangled train whistle—

Bill immediately grinned in relief, as though the customer in the staff room had turned around and he'd recognized them as a new hire with a name tag on. "Ohh! Oh, you're a nightmare! Haha, sorry pal, at first glance I thought you were some ghost squatter trying to move in! Either that or this tokoloshe I owe— Well, point is, there are too many people under this roof already and we do not need another roommate." He waved off the nightmare and leaned against the wall. "Didn't realize you were here for work! Don't let me get in your way, buddy."

The nightmare stared silently at him.

"Oh—if you're after one of the Pines, lemme know. I've been in most of their dreams, I know what really haunts 'em." He gestured toward the three girls in the living room. "Not that Pines, though. She's under my protection." He tipped back his cider can to drain it, wheeling around to head back into the kitchen as he did. He held the empty can over the trash, let go; the can hovered in the air, twisted itself up and crushed down into a flat disk, and dropped.

The nightmare stared at this human who moved with strange slightly-inhuman jerks, elbows held out to the side in an unnatural way, moving through total darkness completely unhindered, one eye shut and the other reflecting the dim light—fully awake, yet able to see the nightmare. Voice raspy, it cautiously asked, "What—are you?"

"Someone in a similar line of work." Bill's smile was wide enough to show off his fae tooth.

Not breaking eye contact, the nightmare's features melted off as it backed away from the human, leaving only impenetrable shadow and bright red pinprick eyes; it sank into the house's shadows and slunk out beneath the door. It was creeped out. This human was creepy.

Not a very social guy, was it? Now that Bill thought about it, it was probably just here for Melody. Well—if that was the case, he was sure he'd see it around again.

####

(The mentions of Bloody Mary were added post-TBOB. And I rewrote the paragraph where Bill talks about being attracted to outsiders to specify "criminals and psych ward escapees" since in TBOB he makes a point of how those are the people he helped set free after he took over the Nightmare Realm.

The next plot arc we're moving into is about the sleep paralysis nightmare! Without giving any spoilers, I'm gonna say up front: you're gonna read it and think the lore was inspired by details from TBOB. It was not. I came up with my lore a year ago; and TBOB matched it, so I slid TBOB in as supporting details to what I had already plotted. I'll explain in more depth once y'all get a chance to see what I mean.)

[looney-mooney-studio]

Thinking about that one joke in the Book of Bill that implied Bill might be the biological father of the Flynn kids. Thinking about how Linda Flynn had a secret career as a famous astrophysicist at one point. Thinking about how we don’t know exactly what Bill was doing in the 90s, and how he seems to want to skim over that part of his life, after Ford broke up with him for good but before the twins showed up in Gravity Falls.

Thinking about how Bill frequently hung out with famous musicians. Thinking about Linda, a brilliant young woman fresh off a bizarre pop star career, wanting to make a name for herself that ISN’T Lindana, might have found a new direction with an old friend (before he showed her his true colors.)

Thinking about Bill, fresh off a devastating breakup, trying again one more time to get SOMEONE on Earth to make him a portal. Trying to make the plan WORK. Trying to get a home for his friends in the face of a home dimension that was being destroyed (again). Having someone who’s COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the man he was obsessed with, but who was no less brilliant and no less capable. (But, unfortunately for him, MUCH less gullible.)

Thinking about how Linda doesn’t want people to know about her former career as a famous astrophysicist. How she keeps this secret, even better than she did her past as Lindana. How she keeps the lid on this even TIGHTER. How she’s almost bitter about it. As if something HAPPENED.

I’m not saying Bill Cipher WAS Linda’s partner of at least five years, even going so far as to start a family with her before she saw his true colors and filed some sort of Uber-effective inter-dimensional restraining order against him, one-upping him so hard that he doesn’t even wanna think about it, but. Holy shit. Imagine

[cup-o-stars]

Relativity Falls Lore Concept- The Oracle and Bill

The Oracle:

I was initially inspired by the Twitter user @SUwu159's depiction of the Oracle in their take on Relativity Falls, and made my own adaptation as I learned about her in canon.

(Assume she can change colors because I couldn't pick what I liked most)

This version of The Oracle isn't malicious per se, and does not desire the same conquest or chaos sought out by Bill. But she likes universes to be organized and quaint (or answers to another high power that demands it), and finds fulfillment in achieving these goals through any means necessary.

The Oracle and Dipper:

(Sorry if this dialogue tastes like a corndog in your mouth. I just needed to write a semi-resolution to Dipper's side of the relationship, ha.)

Getting into the real struggle with the Pines family. Dipper and Mabel don't fight and hold grudges like the Stans (that we've seen of), so my opinion is that they drifted apart in their late teens and twenties, both feeling pressured to be less attached at the hip. My current belief (though I'm very willing to rewrite this section) is that Mabel and Dipper both poured a lot of energy into pretty niche fields, and being very busy meant very short and rare windows to reach out. Both assumed the other was doing bigger and better things and felt self conscious / childish for wanting eachother's company.

I'm still considering Mabel's backstory, since I think she probably hit lower points than Dipper. You know. Starving artist, lol. But Dipper entered into paranormal investigation, pest control, etc. before his ghost + monster catching went far enough for his name to gain some notoriety. Hell, maybe Pacifica's family reached out to him to take care of "rats" that were actually ghosts, cementing his interest in Gravity Falls and giving him a window inter supernatural work.

Dipper was taken on as something of an apprentice to the Oracle 30ish years before canon as word of his good and dangerous deeds spread. However, what was at first a personal dream come true (saving lives with nerd magic) soon became a personal hell as the Oracle began to overwhelm Dipper with knowledge of various futures and universes where everything he cared about could be destroyed. He's always been over prepared and incredibly paranoid, and became obsessed with protecting the world by acting as a partner to the Oracle.

He ends up doing- or not doing- a lot of morally ambiguous things and gaining a lot of enemies. He is too ashamed to face his family- especially Mabel- with what he's done and burden them, giving the Oracle more to use against him to keep him working for her. Basically "you've already done all this and risked it all, there's nowhere to go if you stop now." Eventually this ends in her seeing him fit for her work and convincing him to hide out in and save other universes, which he gets trapped doing for the next three decades.

Little throw away idea: Pacifica could have been an investor or partner, but left as they uncovered secrets about the Northwest family. Maybe she wanted to undo something (debating making any of the Oracle's powers time related just because I hate time travel) or stop a current show of corruption, but Dipper had to stop her for the "greater good."

In the main universe, Mabel goes to Gravity Falls upon news of her brother's disappearance, searching for any loose end to trace back to him.

I love that in canon, Dipper is willing to do anything for Mabel, and Mabel gives it back. Dipper here spends all of his life keeping as many versions of her as safe as he can, and she spends all her life trying go seek him out- maybe even dropping a larger opportunity outside of Gravity Falls for her art and settling on business at the shack. Dipper wants Mabel alive, Mabel wants them both happy. I like the idea that it's Dipper and Mable vs. The Future but the future is a demon, alien thing.

Which leads me to...

Bill Cipher:

I'm actually gonna cover a couple versions of Bill I think are fitting for this AU, because I initially wasn't sure if I wanted him here at all.

Child Bill:

Pretty straight forward. Bill as a baby, child thing is tempting and this is the au where he'd exist. Personally though, I think Ford's friendship with Fidds would be more enriching to his growth, and Bill's personality is so close to Stan's they would likely be competing to fill very similiar roles. (If Bill behaves differenty as kid, I don't know about it.) Honestly, Bill is super similiar to Ford and Stan, and works better as a kind of foil or antagonist because of that (imo). I do find the mental image of Ford carrying Bill around funny. I do not enjoy human bill like, conceptually, so I'm probably never gonna design one as an adult or child, lol.

It would be cool to see a world where Bill didn't accidentally kill his parents though.

Bill - Reincarnated Original

Technically I guess they could all be reincarneted (especially baby Bill), but this version of Bill experienced and holds memories of the original canon events in GF. Beings like Bill and the Oracle can remember recent/soon approaching lives, and catch glimpses of more distant cycles as well.

What I like about Bill's recent role as an antagonist to Ford and Stan is that he constantly describes them in the terms of their worst traits, and sees them through the lens of the roles the world placed on them. In this AU, Bill is the epitome of the past (in this case a past life) coming back to bite the twins. He rattles their progress in communication as well as their sense of inner peace by bringing old Glass Shard Beach issues into Gravity Falls.

(Depicted here-> moments after Ford summons Bill using the same ritual as Gideon.)

The drawback to this is that it feels a lot like covering old ground.

Simply Bill:

This is pretty much just regular old Bill with the same fresh perspective as everyone else, and also the one I'm going with. He tried and failed to get Dipper's trust in the past and had to lay low at the arrival of the Oracle. Once they left, Bill targeted Mabel. I think it could be very interesting for Mabel and Bill to either have a fresh relationship wherein Bill is actively taking advantage of her desperation to find Dipper, or for Bill to be an old betrayal (not romantic, but not dissimilar to the opportunistic exes Stan and Ford have to be wary of and beat back under the rug regardless).

Either he shows himself to Mable early on, or decides that Gravity Falls is both Oracle-free and worth the time after either Ford or Mable summon him. Afterall, 30 years isn't much to him.

Maybe he exists in the background like he's always done, or the kids (being snoopy and disrespectful of Mabel's secrets) discover what Mabel's doing and run into him on their own.

Whether Bill is aware of the original series or not, I think he could be neat to stick in between Stan and Ford again for conflict. My favorite aspect about Relativity Falls is the prospects of the Stans having a larger support system and better tools to help themselves with. Beating Bill faster and better would be the ultimate testament to Mabel and Dipper's skills as functioning role models, even if Mabel is currently blinded by her focus on Dipper.

Stan and Ford will fight and they will make up, but this time maybe they can overcome it on their own.

I also think a good idea is having Ford and Stan's issues be completely Bill free (outside of like an episode or two's worth of relevance, unless he put them into a particularly stinging situation). It would feel fresher and also streamline the plot, lol.

Overview:

- Dipper is stuck travelling the multiverse with the Oracle and keeps himself sane by thinking of Mabel and protecting various versions of her.

- Mabel is investigating his disappearance in Gravity Falls and is working on a portal/portal equivalent with Bill to bring him back.

- The kids may or may not be aware of this.

Looking at the main series of events, I think it'd be neat go back to the apprenticeship conflict, where Ford could be approached by the Oracle (or something else that makes sense) with the promise of being a "hero," but knows better now because of Dipper and his experiences with Bill. It's kind of a more convoluted version of Ford's proposal to Dipper in canon, and they basically learn the same thing, lol. You can hang out with ghosts if you want, but demons are gonna get you. Maybe being a child with siblings is all you need.

(Stan could also be offered this, given the Oracle already knew he- or at least someone with his face- would beat Bill, but I think it's well established he isn't very interested in doing anything without family.)

All in all, things might be a bit crowded with two antagonists. But I do like the concept of Bill's arrival and subsequent chaos triggering Dipper and the Oracle's return to Mabel's dimension. I also love the idea of Bill, the Oracle, and some secret third thing all trying to pull the Pines family apart, and it's like a Man vs. God turned into a Family vs. Destiny thing, idk. Just trying to make it feel bigger.

Thank you for reading all this. It was a lot to draw. Next time I do anything for Relativity Falls, I'm gonna go back to the smaller things like Mabel bonding with the kids and stuff like that.

[tswwwit]

Widower part One is over here.

And the second part is here!

Bill pulls him out of the party early, which might be the only cool thing he’s ever done.

The rest of the demons busy themselves drinking, dancing, and getting into fights. Dipper hears the cacophony fade as he’s dragged out of the reception hall and through a door that seals itself behind them. Once shut, the noise drops from a din to distant rumble and the thudding of bass.

Good riddance. The last hour was loud and chaotic and bright, with enough alcohol in the air to make him feel tipsy just by breathing. Getting the hell out of there is so great he barely minds who’s guiding him out.

Besides. He doesn’t have much of a choice.

With his hand held tight in Bill’s own, there’s no way out. Trying to pull it away or shake it off is futile; the demon only tightens his grip until his knuckles ache. 

Dipper keeps his eyes on this monster’s golden surface. Any sudden movement. Any twitch, and next thing he knows he’ll be a burst of molecules, or frozen in stone - or something else entirely. 

Whatever evil plot is going on here, it’s so secret Dipper’s never heard a hint of it. Not in all the rumors, not in all his research. No demons have mentioned it in interrogations; thought to be fair the questions were likely the wrong ones. No scouts have ever delved into the Fearamid. Nobody else has seen what he’s seen.

Those pictures. 

If Dipper hadn’t stared at the damn things himself, he would have thought it was crazy. But those paintings were made with skill and careful brushstrokes, held in solid paint and canvas, too real to be anything else, and wearing his face. It’s…

An illusion, maybe? Dipper has that talent, he’s hard to fool. But it could be crafted so well it even messed with him. Or maybe mental magic, instead? A creation that left a blank space his brain filled in with whatever Bill wanted. 

Something’s up, anyway. A trick. A ploy. What Bill did back there with the eye-mouth… thing, is a distraction from what’s really happening. 

Dipper shuts his eyes against the memory, but he can’t seem to push it out of his head. Metal lips on your entire face will do that. 

“Alright, that’s far enough.” Bill says, stopping so abruptly that Dipper nearly walks into him. He whips around with a dangerous gleam in his eye. “Here we have a little privacy.”

Dipper says nothing. He glares with all the fury he can muster, though he’s pretty sure bewilderment leaks out around the edges.

Time to learn Bill Cipher what really has in store for him. He steels his shoulders, preparing himself-

And metal slams against his chest, forcing the air out of his lungs with a ‘thump’.

Dipper wheezes, clutching at his chest. Then pats it. Solid gold pushes into him, warm to the touch. A tightness around his waist. This is - 

He stares down at the golden point of a demonic triangle. Bill’s got a hold of him again, gripping the back of his shirt instead of looping arms around him like ropes. The top hat floats just by his face, tilting when he bumps his cheek against it.

For a moment he thought - but no. Nobody else is in the hallway. The party rages onward in the distance. The low buzz of the crowd hums through the Fearamid like the sound of appliances, and no horrible new monster turns the corner to devour him.  

Then this isn’t a distraction for another demon. And whatever Bill’s doing doesn’t hurt. Dipper isn’t clipped in half at the waist, even though the arms are uncomfortably tight. Bill’s warm too, but water-bottle temperature instead of boiling oil. 

Bill’s just stuck to him like the biggest, most godawful sticker. His grip adjusted a few times, there’s an intermittent squeeze - but it’s not harmful.

Dipper waits for a short, heart-pounding half-minute, and still nothing happens. Slowly, tension seeps out of him as it continues being… not bad. 

…Okay, even for a demon this is weird. Something’s up.

“Hello?” Dipper asks. He taps Bill’s metal surface with two sharp raps. 

“Mhgh,” comes the response. One of those strange small hands tightens on his back, balling up the fabric of his shirt. 

Dipper feels his mouth thin into a line. Partly from irritation at this demon, and, okay. A little at himself.

Man, he really needs to work on this. Even now, when all rational thought says he should be terrified, that there’s a malevolent force close enough to obliterate him - all he feels is annoyed. And not even as much as he should be. 

“What the hell, Bill?” It’s pretty much the only thing Dipper can say. It’s not like he’ll just figure out the answer when he’s dealing with the weirdest guy in the world. “What’s going on?”

Bill speaks again, but it’s muffled in shirt fabric. His arms tighten; vibrations rumble through Dipper’s chest and into his skin. And how the hell does that work, when he doesn’t even have a mouth.

Great. So helpful. Dipper’s not trapped in place, thankfully. He can turn around and even walk a few steps unimpeded, with Bill floating along. Retreating doesn’t gain him any space, though; his back merely hits the wall with his involuntary armor plating still stuck to him like glue.

Not dangerous, then. Just awkward. It’s almost a running theme with this creature. 

The attachment has already gone on for several minutes without stopping - but not painful doesn’t mean not uncomfortable. Between unnatural body warmth and the flannel shirt that he’s wearing, Dipper’s sweating from heat, not fear. 

And Bill’s still talking, in an overly-long ramble. One Dipper can both hear and feel, with that odd vibration of his not-mouth. Fingers twitch against his back, and - oh god, is Bill drooling? That horrible multipurpose eye could ooze any kind of fluid.

Cursing under his breath, Dipper gets a hold of the top point, pushing it away even though the corners dig into his fingers. Getting a grip on smooth, angled metal is hard, especially when it’s fighting against him.

When finally he peels Bill off by an inch, the demon’s single eye is slightly bloodshot and staring fully forward at his torso. “-burrow into your chest and live where your lungs used to be, right next to your-”

Dipper lets go, and Bill snaps back into place like a rubber band. Okay. Really didn’t need to hear that. Thankfully it was just a metaphor; he would have felt it if Bill was trying to core him like an apple.

…Though Bill is pressing pretty hard. Between that and his weird magic, who knows? Maybe he could lodge himself into Dipper’s organs without him noticing. That’s definitely not alarming or horrifying or - god, he needs to get out of here. 

Dipper shoves at this asshole, cursing under his breath. Goddamn it, he should know better than this. The stupid party threw him off, along with his own shock. He almost forgot where he was, and what danger he’s facing. Who, exactly, he’s dealing with. 

Grimacing with effort, Dipper digs his fingers underneath the metal plate on his chest and pushes. He avoids touching the hat. He has a gut feeling that would be a huge mistake.

“Mgh!” Bill complains, still muffled by the shirt - but his resistance wanes with the unrelenting pressure. Eventually he pops off like a disconnected suction cup, floating a few feet away.

Dipper backpedals, hitting the wall again and bracing his palms against it. His chest is fully intact, other than being slightly damp from unnamable fluids. His legs still work. If he needs to take off running, he… likely won’t get far, but he could be annoying to catch. 

Bill blinks a few times. Then his lower eyelid curves up again. The bloody intent from earlier in his sclera has vanished, leaving only mild amusement. 

“Looks like you’re in tip-top shape! For a human that is. All the bits in order!” Lower eyelid rising, he pats Dipper’s chest. “Lungs heaving, blood pumping. All anxious and tense. The whole shebang!”

Yeah, he would like that. Torment. Terror. Bill thrives off every drop of the stuff. 

Dipper says nothing. His nails dig into his palms. 

 “What’s the matter, sapling?” Bill tilts to one side, looking oddly… confused. “How ‘bout a smile? A hug? A long, tortured speech about how much you missed me?”

“I’m not giving you anything.” Dipper grits out between clenched teeth. “You’re an asshole.”

Bill rolls his eye, a long dramatic motion. As if Dipper’s protest is less a roadblock than a speedbump. “Yeah, yeah, I know I am. Now how ‘bout that hug?” He spreads his arms wide, wiggling his fingers in a come-hither gesture. “Double points for a smooch, but I’m not particular!”

The face Dipper makes must speak clearly enough, because for the first time in a while, Bill’s eye stops smiling. His arms drop to dangle along his bottom edge.

“Hold up.” Eye narrowing, Bill examines his captive with considered slowness. His gaze focuses on Dipper’s face, like he’s trying to burrow into his brain instead of his chest. “How much do you remember?”

“What’s there to remember?” Dipper asks. Why does everything this monster does have to be weird? ”What the hell is going on?” 

His words come out tinged with hysteria, which is… not the look he’d daydreamed about. If he ever met this creature in the flesh, he wanted to be cooler than this, damn it. He just didn’t account for how fucked up it’d be. 

“Ah. Right.” Bill says, enthusiasm dimming along with his surface. He’s almost plain gold now, with only a hint of light. For a beat he simply floats there, eye focused on something distant. “There’s always a catch, huh?” 

One black hand reaches up as if to touch Dipper’s face. Smacking it away, Dipper scoots sideways, keeping his back to the wall. Then moves little further when Bill follows, arms tucked behind his back and eye-smiling again.

“So! Look at you! A fresh young mortal delivered right to my door, and a feisty one at that!” His upper eyelid wiggles in irritating amusement. “You worried what I’m gonna do to ya?”

Dipper stands stiff, arms at his sides. “Not even a little.”

Hearing Bill laugh again is annoying, but - okay, Dipper can see where it’s coming from this time. Pulling the defiance card in the presence of Bill Cipher is possibly the stupidest move ever. Second only to doing it in front of a crowd. Or maybe cursing him out in the same venue. So overall, it’s only third place stupid in a slowly growing list. 

Still, Dipper won’t budge. He’ll never cower. It’s simply not in his nature.

While demons bother other people on sight, Dipper’s… never really gotten the big deal. Sure, they’re dangerous. But a lot of things are dangerous, like lions or spiders or snakes. The safest way to handle those creatures is to learn their behaviors. And while demons are strange, upsetting, and much more difficult to handle on average - there’s still an internal logic behind their actions, if you can figure it out. 

Dipper’s always had a knack for that nonsensical brand of sense. A useful instinct, one that’s come in handy dozens of times, and helped him take risks others wouldn’t. It’s hard to fear what you understand.

Hell, he should be terrified of Bill Cipher. Everyone else is, for extremely good reasons. Rational, intelligent ones. And Dipper is afraid, in a rational, intelligent way, with the urge to run or fight or freeze tugging at his thoughts, and a tight, bright energy in his chest. 

But he’s not going to panic like your average guy. That’s just dumb. 

The Lord of Nightmares, Bill Cipher, is powerful  - but he’s still a demon. Still just a guy, of sorts. A really insane, sociopathic guy from a totally different realm of existence, who could turn Dipper into fleshy salsa in a snap. 

A fine sweat is building on his neck and running down his back. Dipper isn’t sure if it’s nerves, or residual heat from the too-long grasp. 

Right now, his instincts say Bill isn’t pissed off. That he’s safe-ish, possibly because he’s more amusing than annoying. 

But they also say: Tread carefully. 

“Everything else seems in order. Tip-top shape, like I said!” Bill floats back and forth, examining Dipper with a critical eye. Then the top lid lowers as he starts to frown. “But the memory situation? Ugh. You shoulda demanded an exception to the rules, kid. It’s not like you didn’t have leverage.”

“I don’t - what the fuck are you-” Dipper cuts himself off before he starts shouting. He takes a deep breath, and holds it for three seconds before letting it out. 

Anger has a place, but this isn’t it. Right now he needs answers. 

“Tell me what’s happening.” He says, finally. “Please.”

It comes out weaker than he’d like. He sounds deflated, or maybe just tired. Hell, he feels pretty tired, come to think of it. The trip to the Fearamid was short on comfy places to sleep. 

“Oh, that’s simple.” Bill beams, glowing brighter as he throws his arms out in celebration. “You’re back from the dead, kid!” 

Dipper stares for a long, long second. Then he shuts his eyes, rubbing at them briefly. Bill tries to pat his arm, but he jerks it away.

He can’t have just fallen asleep on his feet. He’s not that tired. So unless being dragged to Bill’s throne room incurred an invisible, painless, and extremely severe head injury - he must have heard that right. 

“I’ve… never died though?” He turns it into a question at the end. 

Maybe he did hit his head on something. Maybe he’s dead already, and this is a strange new form of afterlife torture. Not pain and suffering, just sheer confusion. 

“No, you definitely did. It was real mortal of you. And really rude.”  Bill glares. Truly glares, a look that has Dipper leaning back from the banked anger behind it - then he shrugs, dismissing the whole thing with his strange smile. “But since you decided to show back up, I’ll let it slide. Water under the bridge.”

Such a quick dismissal, for such a… tense topic. Dipper fidgets, not sure how to respond. 

It’s one thing to know that Bill Cipher’s a madman, and another to see him flicker through moods like a flipbook, with no rhyme or reason to it.

“You know that’s insane, right?” He asks. Then grimaces.

Okay, probably a bad choice to mention it - but he has to bring it up. Bill Cipher might be self-aware enough to know he’s crazy. 

”Man, the rules you must have broken to get out of the afterlife - whoo! Tell me all about it when your brain catches up to your spirit.” Bill says. His gaze is focused over Dipper’s left shoulder with his pupil dilated, looking out into some ancient memory. “It’s the second coolest thing you’ve ever done.”

…Or maybe he’s not. 

Either way, he’s ignoring the comment. Or hell, maybe he literally didn’t hear it, lost in his own insane thoughts. Dipper’s known this guy for less than an hour, and he’s pretty sure it could go any which way.

“But man, oh man, we have got a lot to go over once you’re back in the memory business.” Bill taps a foot in the air, looking impatient. “See, I have-”

“No. Back up.” Dipper interrupts, adding another entry to his ‘stupid move’ list. He waves rapidly before Bill can start rambling again. “Start from the beginning.”

Thankfully, he isn’t blasted into particles. His flesh stays meat and blood instead of granite. Bill even adds another check on the ‘insane’ list by looking amused. 

Dipper guesses his instincts are still working correctly; one relief in a day full of weirdness. Hell, of the many demons he’s encountered, Bill’s astonishingly easy to read. 

“Sure thing! There was a summoning, a curse, buncha near-death experiences, yadda yadda yadda -” As he lists them off, Bill rolls his wrist around in a ‘and then y’know’ gesture - “So to make a long story short, you’re my husband!” 

Having said that, he sets fists on his angles. His glow brightens as he quite literally beams with pride.

Dipper opens his mouth. Then shuts it. 

Head injury is looking more and more appealing. He pats the back and sides of his head, but it just messes up his hair. When he checks his hands for blood, Bill laughs at him. Thus making things infinitely worse.

Oh no. He was so, so hoping he misheard that, too. Bill Cipher’s weird enough, it could have been ‘harm plan’ or ‘harp fan’ or ‘horse band’, but it’s not any of those. Just the common, context-proper word of -

But that means Bill Cipher was married at some point, to a human apparently, and - Demons do that? Is that actually a thing? Why would - how would - and Bill’s a shape, for fuck’s sake, shouldn’t he be after something more… angular? A human wouldn’t-

Again Dipper opens his mouth, searching for a response. He looks Bill right in his gleaming, pleased, eerily huge eyeball, and fails to come up with anything. 

This - that can’t be right. It’s too weird.

When Dipper finally manages to speak, what emerges is, “Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh huh.” Bill retorts. He sets fists on his sides, eye shutting. “I can prove it, too. You-”

“No, you can’t.” Dipper snaps before Bill can start yammering again, like the jerk he is. “Because that’s insane. Anyone who would marry something like you would be-”

“Completely mad! Totally off his rocker! And you’re right!” Bill interrupts in turn, glowing bright. A wallet appears in one hand, and he flips it open to reveal a long, long scroll of photos. “I mean, just look at this nerd! Does that seem sane to you?”

“What-” Completing the question is out of the question; Dipper has to back up as pictures keep tumbling down in a connected line. They pile in front of him in violation of every rule of physics. 

In the first of the reel, a man flips off the camera, glaring at the taker. In another he’s asleep, hair tousled and resting on a yellow pillow, in the next he’s fleeing from something with a terrified look on his face. Dozens upon dozens, a never-ending flood.

And in all of them, each and every one. Printed on glossy paper and carefully kept -

A doppelganger smiles back at Dipper, wearing his face.

He stares with growing anxiety, along with an odd twinge of embarrassment. Having so many pictures of anyone would be weird, but it’s twice as bad when it seems like him.

Near the bottom of the pile, Bill himself makes an unusual appearance. The photo taken at arm’s length, camera held out for a selfie that captures the grin of his eye and the specks of blood on his surface. A gold chain trails down from one of his corners, an oddity that Dipper nearly misses - 

Because next to him, that same man is pressing lips on Bill’s side, with his palm resting just under the tie. Some of the blood on Bill’s surface is smudged by his fingers.

Smooches, Bill said. The word didn’t seem real until he witnessed it. Even now it doesn’t quite compute. 

Why Bill would want that is beyond Dipper’s comprehension. Metal can’t feel anything, right? And Bill himself feels nothing in his cold metal heart except amusement, boredom, or anger.  It’s probably the attention he craves, and - who the hell would ever give him a peck on the angles? Especially when he’s speckled red with -

Dipper’s stomach churns, imagining the scene just out of frame. The body that must be lying below, and the twisted shape of it.

“See? One mortal, totally mad for me. Proof.” Bill says with triumph. The photos fold back up into his wallet and get tucked away into the same abstract space. “And I got even more where that came from.”

More than this? Is there more gore, too? Things Bill hasn’t shown off yet? More smug satisfaction in his eye, and more of of Dipper’s face worn by a stranger, doing the unthinkable?

“I- no. Look, I’ve never met you before.” Dipper finds his voice, though it’s thin and reedy. Folding his arms over himself, he rubs at them. Feeling cold and warm, in odd flashes, like his body can’t decide how to react. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“In this life.” Bill wags a finger, as if chiding him for forgetting. “But that’ll change! See, you and I are thick as thieves. Married as hell! The most intertwined interspecies couple this segment of the multiverse!”

Despite himself, Dipper glances down again. The photos are gone, but the memory remains. 

Bill, and blood. Those two are constant companions. He kind of expected those, and thought he’d see more than his fill of the latter.

The unexpected addition to the horrors is printed on photo paper, and painted on canvas. A monster who would touch Bill after someone clearly died right there. There’s zero context that makes standing near a corpse romantic.

“Shocked by your luck, huh? And you should be with a spouse like yours truly!” Bill drifts closer, hands clasped together. He tilts towards Dipper with what might be nuzzling intent. “You won the jackpot, kid.”

“Fuck off,” Dipper says, flat. Then, as Bill doesn’t take the obvious - shoves the bastard, sending him drifting through the air. “I said, fuck off.”

“Aw, calm down, sapling! I’ll even get you a ring this time!” Bill dismisses his protest and floats right back into his personal space. “We can do all the human ceremonies and costumes, have a party - then really get down to business.”

Whatever ‘business’ is, Dipper doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to be here. He was kidnapped, he didn’t have a choice. Then Bill Cipher took him as tribute - the asshole - hoping he was the kind of person who would - 

“Now,” Bill says, floating dangerously close. His arms spread as if to capture him again, eye wide and pupil blown out. “How ‘bout that kiss?”

Oh. Dipper is not doing that.

Knuckles to eyeball is a squishy sensation. Like punching a huge goddamn stress ball, only one that’s warm and wet and distinctly alive. Surprisingly gross too; Dipper wants to wash his hand immediately. 

But the triumph of watching Bill Cipher recoil, swearing and clutching at his closed eye, is a dream come true. 

“OW- you- Ugh, right in the cornea.” Bill says, with feeling. Dipper’s next punch lands in his palm, and the hand grows as it closes it around his fist. “Hey hey, you only get one of those for free. Next one’ll cost ya.”

“Fuck you.” Dipper tries to retrieve his fist to no avail. Damn it. A second punch was a bad idea; he’s given Bill another hold on him.

Using his other arm turns out just as useless - and more alarming. Bill merely sighs, sounding tired, just before grabbing him around the torso with one comically huge hand and shoving him back a step.

“Yeesh. Okay, okay, you’re mad. Great.” Bill says, more seriously. He floats up without releasing his hold, looking Dipper over. “And actually mad at that. What gives?”

The sheer audacity has Dipper spluttering. How could - Bill should know why nobody in their right or their wrong mind would ever. That.

“What are-” He starts, trying not to grit his teeth too hard. It’d make yelling at Bill more difficult. “Okay, I could go over a whole list of horrible, fucked-up things you’ve done in the last two decades.” 

“Yeah, yeah, forget those! I’m not talking abstract moral arguments,” Bill says, setting his other fist on his angle. “This grudge seems personal. What put your boxers in a twist?”

Right. Dipper was distracted earlier. Under the barrage of total insanity, he almost forgot what really mattered. 

He pushes against the constraining hold, sneakers squeaking on stone. If only he could get a little closer, that eyeball would be in punching range again. This bastard should know his crimes. Why Dipper will never do anything. 

“You turned my sister into a statue.” 

“Oof.” Bill dims, eyelid lowering in a frown. He almost looks chagrined. “Yep, that’d do it.” 

Dipper lets him know exactly what he’s like, with several choice curses. A quick kick using Bill’s grip as a backboard doesn’t land. Damn this bastard for dodging. 

Bill ignores his struggles. One massive thumb pats Dipper’s side as he thinks, rubbing under his eye. 

“Say, I think I know the gal you’re talking about! Got caught in that errand I ran a year back. Long hair, right?” He waves over his point and under his hat. “And a big sweater! Looks like she got her braces off recently and forgets to use her retainer! I wondered if something was up with that one. Seemed real familiar.”

“Great. You remember.” Dipper grits out. So Bill noticed his sister. Out of thousands of anonymous statuary, she stood out. He isn’t sure whether that makes it better or worse. “All the more reason to kick your ass.”

This awful, evil, bastard laughs at his threat. Like it’s nothing. Dipper sucks in a breath through his teeth, muscles tensing as the boiling anger in his chest sings a song of ‘punch this asshole right in the eye again’.

“Oh, you,” Bill watches him struggle with that same awful amusement. Almost fond. “Whatd’ya know, it’s my lucky day! Once I get this sorted, we’ll be back to married bliss inside a month. No harm, no foul.”

“I’ll show you harm.” Lurching forward, Dipper strains against this preternaturally powerful asshole to no effect. Goddamn demonic powers. Stupid shapeshifting. He hates it.

“Eh, you’ll be less worked up in a bit.” Bill rolls his eye. Another arm pops out and he claps hands together, rubbing them with glee. “And then we can get to wedding planning! It’ll be the biggest bash of the century!”

Dipper groans, a mix of anger and frustration. Bill’s deluded. Insane. Totally distracted. Isn’t Bill Cipher supposed to be smart? 

The distraction, though, gives him just enough leeway to worm an arm out of Bill’s grasp. Fist thumping on the thumb, he hisses out the obvious. “I’m not marrying the guy who killed my sister.”

“Good thing I didn’t kill her then, huh?”

Dipper’s jaw shuts with a click. His fist stills in midair - probably for the best, it was waving around uselessly - and lowers a careful inch. “What?”

“Nobody in the garden’s dead, kid. They’re just trapped in an eternal dreamless sleep!” Bill glows brighter, waving down the hallway towards another corridor. “One five-minute walk, a little magic, and bam! You get your sister back.”

Dipper mouths the air, but comes up with nothing. Bill’s words bounced into the gears of his mind like an expertly thrown wrench, grinding them to a halt.

Get her back. Then. It’s - wait, but everyone says that’s not - how would it even work.

“Ha! Didn’t expect that, didja? That’s adorable!” The giant fist releases Dipper, disappearing into nowhere. Bill claps lightly as if watching a delightful little show. “So, you interested? It’s no big deal for me to refleshify her, but if you prefer a more rocky relationship-”

“No!” Dipper blurts. “No, I do want her back. But…” He gives Bill the dirty look he deserves. As scathing as he can manage. “I think you’re lying.”

“Fair, it’s kinda my thing. But this offer’s legit, kid! Pinky swear.” Bill sticks out his little finger, waggling it in Dipper’s direction. “One intact, healthy, perfectly alive sister, for one hand in marriage. Whatdya say?”

Dipper says nothing, turning slightly away. Ignoring the insanity of that offer, along with the little finger slowly encroaching on his personal space. 

There’s more info to slot into the many mental files he has on Bill Cipher, the liar, monster, and so-called snappy dresser. He’s truly after something, if he’s offering deals to a human. Usually that’s a lesser demon thing. 

Kind of a shame, in informational terms. If Bill did offer deals to people, maybe they’d know more about him. As it stands, nobody knows how Bill does… most of the magic he does. Animating objects, summoning creatures, manipulating the world around him. Impressive by any metric, but too weird to get a grip on. 

The most study has gone into his human statuary habit. Preventing more victims from being zapped away has had tons of money and time thrown in its path, to no effect. It’s incredibly hard to transmute living substances into anything else. The power it’d take to reverse the process - changing from one solid material back to the complexity of life - that’d be insane.

The thought makes Dipper hesitate. Insanity is Bill’s thing. 

And his magic is weird, too. It doesn’t work like most magic should, just as bizarre and nonsensical as its master. It defies definition almost by definition; Dipper knows at least five scientists who have torn hair out trying to make it math properly. 

So it’s possible, maybe. That when Bill turns someone into a statue, he could change them back. 

Dipper glares at Bill’s offered hand. Taps his foot on the floor, looking around, then lifts his chin in defiance. “Prove it, first.”

“Yeah, you would want proof. Skeptic,” Bill says, in that same irritatingly fond tone. “Out to the rock garden then! I think I remember where she’s stashed.”

This time when Bill seizes his arm, Dipper pulls it back slowly instead of jerking it away. It gets a huge eyeroll, but Bill floats forward and beckons him along. 

Dipper watches him drift down the hallway for a bit. A few meters on, Bill turns back and waves him on again, looking annoyed - and Dipper sighs. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, and follows. Not like he has a choice.

The corridors of the Fearamid are just as convoluted as he’d imagined. They twist and branch and shift in noneuclidean directions, and odd angles. Dipper could swear they’re upside down at one point as Bill leads him on a merry trail to an outer edge.

One thing has been clarified, at least. Why he’s here. 

Bill Cipher, at some point, married a human. Some jackass who bargained with this jackass, probably for power. Who knows what schemes and scams they got up to. What torments and terrors they caused, what the fuck made a person smile at a triangle like that for crying out loud - Anyway. Bad things happened.

But that, as all things, came to an end. Bill’s partner in atrocities and nightmares did the mortal thing, and got away from his insidious grasp. He must have forgotten that mortal beings have an expiration date. Super disappointing for the demon. Annoying, even. Bill said as much himself, it was really rude to leave like that -

But it’s all better now. Isn’t it. 

He’s found a replacement.

If anyone needed further proof that Cipher was completely off his rocker, that would be the final fucking straw. 

Dipper grimaces at the thought, and ignores Bill’s curious look. They can’t be far from the statue garden now, and he’s not taking any of this demon’s obvious conversation bait. Tuning out the questions and commentary and keeping his trap shut, even when it’s really tempting to argue with some stupid, arrogant statement. 

That’s demons for you. They never leave well enough alone. Always causing trouble, getting into what you least want them to get into. Bothering decent people for kicks. 

So as fucked up as this… reincarnated dead husband thing is, it’s very demonic. The backwards, flipped-around logic they use fits it to a tee.

Like, yeah, okay. Dipper can admit the pictures are damning. No wonder Bill was thrilled to see him, it was like finding an exact copy of a favorite mug that got broken. A resemblance that’s downright eerie, almost enough to make him wonder - 

Except the guy in question was simping over a triangle. 

Absolutely not. Never in his life, or any life, ever. Bill’s dead husband and him are nothing like each other, not where it matters. 

Plus, there’s the obvious.

Reincarnation isn’t a thing. 

For as long as magic has been studied, scholars have tried to get at the nature of the soul. Kings and emperors have sought the secrets of immortality - which has never panned out. Prophets and madmen have claimed to be so-and-so reborn, only to be disproven. 

Souls are unique. The personal fingerprint of the individual, written in energy and riddled with life. Even now it’s hard to pin down exactly what it is, other than there’s something.

And as far as anyone can tell - after thousands of years of research tackling the facts, over and over - once a soul’s gone? It’s just gone. Out into the ether or afterlife or whatever. Maybe just vanished entirely. Leaving the mortal plane and coming back is unheard of. 

Bill comes from another dimension, though. Maybe he doesn’t know it works?

Dipper glances at Bill’s back, glowing bright again. He’s humming a tune to himself, breaking out in patches into quiet, joyful song. “...don’t know where, don’t know when!” Before trailing off again. 

…He definitely, absolutely doesn’t know how it works. 

Dipper’s the captive of a bizarre, bored madman, looking for any puzzle piece to shove into the annoying gap in his picture-perfect life.

This delusion isn’t going to be easy to dispel. Considering Bill’s excitement, he won’t want to drop the idea, he certainly gives no fucks about human opinions, and the eerily similar features are a huge sticking point. Not to mention he wasn’t exactly sane to begin with. 

So Dipper holds his tongue, and clamps his lips together tight for good measure, even though the questions burn in the back of his throat. The ‘why’ and the ‘how’ and the ‘what the fuck’ will have to wait for later, once he extracts himself from this bullshit. 

He’ll hold off on correcting Bill, just for a bit. Right now, a white lie and a lack of denial are on track to get him what he wants.

Shutting up for ten minutes is more than a fair price for his sister’s life.

The sunlight appears well before they arrive outside. There’s no door at the exit, just an open gap at the bottom edge of the pyramid, leading out into a wide expanse of neatly trimmed grass.

Dipper pauses at the threshold. Staring out at a sea of grey shapes against green, extending in a curve along the corner of the Fearmid. It’s bigger than in the aerial photos made it seem. It looks like it goes on for a mile. A yawning expanse of human life trapped in granite, as far as his eye can see.

Which Bill drifts through without blinking, humming his stupid tune. After a moment, he beckons Dipper to follow again, rolling his eye.

“C’mon, your sister’s not far, kid.” He says, drifting towards Dipper with a tilt to the side, like he’s confused. “What’s the holdup?”

Dipper hesitates a moment longer, then ducks in between two frozen shapes. One cowering in a tiny ball, one with his arm flung up in a shout of rage. The weather’s warm, but he still shivers.

“It’s nothing,” He says finally, before Bill can grab his hand again. He brushes his shirt off, and strides forward. “Lead the way.”

Bill leads him through the horrors with total nonchalance. He zigzags among frozen humans like he’s stepping around a messy bedroom floor. His erratic course heads towards a hill in the garden, the only rising point in an otherwise flat landscape, surrounded by tall conifer trees. 

The slope to the top is steep, and there isn’t a path or stairs. For convenience’s sake, Dipper snags one of Bill’s arms - ignoring the cackle - to use his unstoppable floating like a ski lift, letting it pull him upwards. 

“Here we are!” Bill exclaims, slowing to a stop in the middle of a wide swath of grass. “Right where I stashed her.”

Dipper glances around. Tall pines surround the clearing, shading it from the sun with their wide branches. Behind him would be a great view of the statue-spotted field, if he was into that kind of thing. The middle of the clearing has a massive golden statue, ornate and gaudy like all Bill’s dumb bullshit - 

But his eyes skim right over the features, landing on a small stone figure beside it.

“Mabel!” Dipper bursts out of Bill’s hold, crossing the clearing in seconds. The turf kicks up under his shoes as he skids to a stop in front of his sister. 

The stone face of his sister looks back at him in perfect stillness. She looks over her shoulder as if having caught sight of something, and she’s not sure what it is yet. The confused expression is trapped eternally in smooth grey rock.

He almost can’t believe what he’s seeing. Part of him believed he’d never see her again. Written her off like she was a missing person. At best he’d be able to look at the latest distant photos, and wonder which speck she was in the crowd. But she’s here, and intact. Albeit a little stiff.

Dipper reaches out, then thinks better of it and lets his arms drop. Not daring to touch, not wanting to just stand there. It’s so clear there's nothing he can do - but there should be. This sucks.

“As you can see, your twin’s totally intact.” Bill brushes past him, giving him a wry look. “No cracks, no breaks, not a speck of damage on her!” He adjusts his tie, eye shut with apparent pride. “None of my lawn ornaments get messed with, even when-”

“She’s not my twin,” Dipper says, irritably. Both to shut Bill up, and to correct his weird statement. “She’s two years younger than me.”

“Huh,” Bill rubs under his eye, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, she would be, wouldn’t she? Oh well!” He glows brighter, circling Mabel’s statue before retreating a few yards away. “Take a step back and watch the show!”

Since there’s still nothing Dipper can do about this, he reluctantly backs up. But not too far. He has to let Bill do his magic, but who knows what he’ll get up to after? Best to be nearby, just in case.

Clearing his invisible throat, Bill adjusts his tie. He clicks his fingers together twice, then points forward. Light zaps from his finger, engulfing Mabel’s form, too bright to stare at directly. The magic bursts in Dipper’s senses like a furnace flame, like a bomb going off - he tenses, sucking in a breath. 

And when the light vanishes, Mabel whips around in a whirl of pink sweater, completing the motion she was trapped in. The movement also screws up her balance; she flails her arms, squawking as she falls backwards.

Dipper’s glad he stuck close. Before she hits the ground he catches her under the arms, hauling her upright. He gets bonked on the nose by her skull, and curses. He nearly drops her because the overly-large, soft sweater that only his stupid sister would wear is too damn loose. 

His sister. Holy shit. 

Dipper stands frozen, stiffly holding her upright until she rocks back up on her heels. Mabel shakes her head, making a ‘blugh’ sound and sticking her tongue out in annoyance.

She’s actually - Holy shit. 

“Whoa, wait.” Mabel turns towards him, surprise painting her very alive features. She brushes her bangs back, squinting in confusion. “Dipper? Where’d you come from?”

Dipper merely shakes his head. His arms tremble until he steadies them, shoving them down by his sides.

She’s back. She’s actually, truly back, because whatever Bill did worked, and. Wait - how did it…? 

Mabel glances up - makes a face at the bright afternoon daylight - and shades her eyes against it. The soft pink sweater bounces as she shakes herself, full of color and motion. Then she yawns like she just woke up from a short nap, looking at her surroundings like she’s never seen them before.

Because she hasn’t, really. Confusion’s a reasonable reaction when you’re in a very odd new location.

Mabel waves at him, waiting for an answer to her earlier question. Dipper manages a shrug, and gets a full-on sister eyeroll for being a useless older brother.

This is supposed to be impossible. Was impossible. 

For so long he held that fact close, clenched tight in his hands. Mabel was gone, because of a monster - and it filled him with righteous rage. Driving him forward, lending him strength to fight against horrible odds. He was going to make Bill pay for what he did. And for everything else, too, sure, but mostly for being the bastard who messed with his kid sister.

But now. As Dipper watches his sister move and awkwardly smile, waving a hand in his face - that built-up fury trickles out between his fingers like sand.

No mistakes, or mutilations. No parts missing, no bruises, nothing has gone wrong. She’s here and whole and alive.

Bill just. Brought her back with a snap. Like it was easy.

“So… where are we?” Mabel asks. Her waving hand gets too close to Dipper’s face, and he leans back. “How’d we even get here? Where is-”

Whatever she was going to say next gets cut off as Dipper hugs her so, so tight. 

“Oh! Uh, hey, nice to see you too!” Mabel says, with greater confusion but a return of the hug. She pats him twice on the back. Then again when he clings tighter, making a surprised sound.

It’s sentimental, he knows. But he made a promise: If he ever did see her again, she’d get one not-awkward sibling hug. The pins on her sweater catch on his shirt, and he’s pretty sure residual glitter is getting on him and he’ll never complain about either of those, ever again.

Mabel coughs, once. Then, with a gentle push, she holds him at arm’s length, patting his shoulders. The smile has changed to a look of concern. “Not that I don’t like hugs - But bro, I saw you like, yesterday. What’s up?”

Yesterday. Yeah, he did see her the day before. Left like everything was fine, not knowing or even thinking she was in danger. But she’s here and fine, now. After all this time. Thank god Bill could -

Dipper jerks his head up as he remembers where he is, and who’s here with them. 

“You alright?” Mabel asks. The expression on his face must not be great, because she trails off. Concern turns to worry. “Jeez, you look-”

“Great, right? Almost as handsome as me!”

Mabel jolts in place, whipping around towards the new voice. 

Dipper sighs, and runs a hand down his face. Oh boy. This is going to be… a thing, isn’t it.

Bill, fists braced on his sides, wiggles his upper eyelid. He lifts a third arm to wave at Mabel. “Heya!”

The startled yell Mabel lets out makes Dipper’s ears hurt. Good thing he’s still got a hold of her; that’s the second fall he’s prevented today. 

“Bill? Not cool.” Dipper glares at this asshole for the billionth time today. He’s ninety percent sure that interruption was timed to freak her out. 

“Nah, I’m always cool.” Undeterred, Bill floats closer, spreading his arms wide. “Nice to meet ya more officially, Shooting Star! How was your nap? Voidlike and existential, I’m betting.”

Mabel laughs nervously, backing up a step. Then another. “Um. Maybe? Ha ha, that’s very-” Seizing Dipper by the shirt, she tugs him close to hiss in his ear. “What is going on.”

“It’s fine.” Dipper says. Then adds, because Mabel’s gone stiff as a statue again, “Mostly fine.”

His instincts say it is, at least. Bill’s not interested in torture or ‘games’ so much as his… matrimonial target. For better or for worse, Mabel’s going to be fine. 

Glittery painted nails dig into his arm. The look Mabel gives him could be generously described as ‘skeptical’, but lands closer to ‘have you lost your freakin’ mind’’. Dipper turns away, clearing his throat. 

How to explain? There’s a lot she doesn’t know. Hell, there’s a lot Dipper still doesn’t know, he’s floundering only half as much as she is. Where the hell does he start?

“He’s right, you know.” Bill chimes in, wagging a finger. “I’m not gonna hurt ya when you could be useful. You can help with the wedding decorations!”

“Wait, wait.” Mabel tilts out of Dipper’s shadow, suddenly curious. “Wedding?”

Dipper groans, stepping between his sister and the clearly evil demon. Of course that would get her attention. Why did Bill have to get her attention? 

“Yep! And as one of the stars of the show, I gotta make this the biggest bash of the century.” says Bill, primping his tie with pride. “No holds barred, no one leaves sober, and more than the average amount of survivors!”

“You’re getting married?” 

Dipper lets out an ‘oof’ as his sister barges right past him. Mabel skips right up to the evil, demonic mastermind, clapping her hands in excitement, and he feels his shoulders slump.  Welp. He can at least say he tried. 

“Oh my gosh, congrats!” Mabel almost reaches a hand out - then remembers what a bad idea that is, and wrings hers together instead. “That’s so exciting!” 

“Thanks, Shooting Star!” Bill accepts her congratulations with a bow, doffing his hat with a flourish. His eye-smile is surprisingly sincere. “I’m pretty hyped up myself! It’s been a long time coming!” 

Mabel starts giggling. Bill starts cackling. Dipper, for his part, wishes they weren’t getting along at all. 

Thank hell it won’t last long. Mabel’s pretty goddamn thrilled about a maniac’s marriage scheme for the moment, but she was enstatued less than five minutes ago. Once she comes to her senses, she’ll realize -

…She hasn’t realized, has she. What happened to her. 

All Mabel knows is she was minding her own business one moment, then popped back up in this garden the next. A full year passed by without her noticing. Being zapped into a lawn ornament doesn’t bother her because she doesn’t remember. 

Which means Bill was, unfortunately, telling the truth. Eternal, dreamless sleep. The statues aren’t posed like that because they’re in pain. He just scared the shit out of them first.

“-have the best outfits, the best drinks, the best everything!” Bill says, catching his attention again. Dipper grimaces, watching as Bill waves off whatever Mabel just said, hovering right next to her without a care; it’s like he never zapped her into a lawn ornament. “See, we missed the chance to throw a real ceremony ages ago. It’s about time we made up for it!”

“Awww,” Mabel breathes, eyes wide. Her hands are clasped together under her chin. “That’s so romantic!”

“Hey! Nothing about this is- that. No.” Dipper points at his sister, then at Bill. “Both of you cut that out.” 

“So,” Mabel says, traitorously ignoring him. She nudges Bill’s side with one soft sleeve, winking like she has something in her eye. “Who’s the lucky gal? Or, um… demon?” A pause, biting her lip as she thinks. “Extradimensional entity?”

Uh oh. 

Dipper backs up a step. Then another. 

Checking the perimeter revels… no escape routes. Damn it. The clearing’s too wide to have someplace to hide, and darting behind the golden statue would take him right through his twin and his tormentor. 

“He’s human, actually! A real feisty cutey! In fact,” Bill says, bright. His pupil widens slightly as he turns towards Dipper, odd glimmers flickering somewhere in the depths. “I think you know the guy!”

Dipper shakes his head, backing up. As both of them focus on his face, he feels himself slowly turn red.

Mabel’s mouth forms a perfect ‘o’ of surprise, eyes going just as wide as Bill’s. Darting looks between him and the demon, hands reaching up to flutter at her mouth. Bill gives her a thumbs up, lower eyelid rising, and she gapes even harder.

No, wait. This is all a misunderstanding. A mistake. A maniac’s delusion, powered by boredom and driven by madness.

But it’s really hard to explain that. Mabel doesn’t know the context, and Bill isn’t going to be easily convinced he fucked up. If he can be convinced at all.

“So here we are! The happy couple!” Bill darts over, taking Dipper’s hand in his. The resulting struggle to escape flaps his arm in a wiggly wave. “I’m thinking a summer wedding. Y’know, wildfire season! We can-”

“Nope.” Dipper says, popping the sound at the end. Getting his hand back is a lost cause, but he can fold his arms over his chest anyway; Bill’s arm extends like a bungee cord. “Not happening.”

“Hey! One sister, one ring on your finger.” Bill reels on him, glaring now. He jabs a finger at Dipper’s chest. “Fair’s fair, a deal’s a deal, and this was more fair than ninety-nine percent of ‘em.”

“What deal?” Dipper turns his most skeptical look on his so-called suitor. Nice try, Bill - but he knows the rules. “We didn’t shake on it.”

“I- Hm.” Pausing in the middle of raising a finger, Bill lets his arm drop. The scowl of his eye is remarkably petulant. “Fine. Ya got me on a technicality. Pedant.” 

Now it’s Dipper’s turn to be smug. Bill didn’t think he knew about demon deals, did he? They aren’t complete without signing the dotted line - or in Bill’s case, palm-to-palm contact. 

For a supposedly clever entity of terror, fooling him was easy. If getting things his own way all the time has left him unable to anticipate tricks… Dipper can use that. 

“So…” Mabel speaks up. They both turn towards the interruption, and she points between the two of them. “Are you two…?” “No,” Dipper says, at the same time as Bill’s, “Absolutely!”

Two eyes meet one, equally conveying ‘I can’t believe you said that, asshole’. 

“Seriously? Still?” Bill asks, with surprisingly genuine confusion underneath the annoyance. It’s a decent lie; he even squints. “You got the sibling back. Problem solved! We can-”

“I said I had a list,” Dipper interrupts, stepping forward. It doesn’t intimidate like he wanted, though. The bastard almost looks pleased. “You know, the atrocities? The conquering? The…” He pauses, frowning. “Cut that out.”

Bill stops flapping his hand in time with Dipper’s speech, making a ‘pfft’ sound. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, heard it all before. You gotta get more specific, sapling! Communication’s a big deal in relationships!”

“Oh for- Look at this!” Dipper gestures vaguely. He doesn’t need to be specific. Waving his arm in any direction covers at least a hundred statues. “How many people did you turn into lawn ornaments?”

“Couple thousand, give or take a few.” Bill replies, as nonchalant as if he was stating his shoe size. “What about it?”

Instead of shouting again, Dipper takes a second. He breathes in slowly, then out again. He’s gotta focus here. Stay calm, and clear.

Okay. Demons. Demon rules, demon logic, and one demonic mastermind who has a totally different set of morals, in that there’s none. There’s ways to get through that, even if he has to use a verbal sledgehammer.

He rubs at the bridge of his nose, hoping the direct route will work. “Bill. That’s bad.”

“That’s a collection,” Bill objects, because of course he does. He shuts his eye, huffing haughitly. “Just ‘cause you have bad taste doesn’t mean it’s not art.” “It’s not art! It’s wrong and bad and -” Words fail him. Tact goes out the window. Dipper flips this bastard off, getting right in his face. “I’m not marrying someone who keeps human lives in his sculpture park.”

“What?!” Bill’s eye goes wide. He blinks rapidly, then shakes himself, glaring right back. “You can’t be serious.”

“Dead serious,” Dipper states, hoping the reminder of a certain expired human hits home - and it does, because while Bill doesn’t flinch, there’s a brief twitch that’s similar. He follows up on the blow, adding, “We’re not getting together. Ever.”

Oh. And that is absolutely a flinch, as Bill jerks back a half-inch in the air. His fingers flex as if wanting to grab again, before his arms fall and dangle off his lower edge. 

Guess he didn’t like that. Good.

Dipper savors the sight, squaring his shoulders in defiance. Take that, asshole. 

Before he might have kept playing along, if only to find a way out. But Bill screwed up. Mabel’s back, Dipper has what he wanted, and now it’s gloves off. Bill’s ‘reincarnation’ insanity will need multiple whacks before it starts to crack, so he better start now.

This monster wants another human toy. The old one broke too early for his taste, ruining his fun - so he thought he’d replace it with another. 

But the last guy cooperated. Fawning over his bloody surface, smiling at his crimes. A human on easy mode, basically. 

If Bill wants to pretend his ‘husband’ is back? Fine. Let him try. 

His delusion doesn’t stand a chance against Dipper.

Bill mutters to himself, eye narrowed. He glances around the grounds, then at Dipper. Briefly at the golden statue, then at Dipper again. A long pause as his gaze drifts between his captive and the courtyard, thinking his triangular thoughts. 

It takes a while, too. Whatever he’s going over, it’s giving him a lot of trouble. His pupil flickers through several symbols before it snaps back to normal, and he snaps his fingers with an idea.

“Okay. I see how it is,” Bill says eventually. “Say that, maybe, a few more humans could go ambling about in their miserable, short, fleshy lifespans. Would that make you less-”

“You know what it’ll take.” Dipper snaps, glaring right back. “All of them, Bill.”

A moment later his brain catches up to what came out of his mouth. He thinks the internal screaming doesn’t show, but it’s a close thing. 

Why did he say that? It’s amazing Bill suggested freeing any people - something he’s never, ever done - and the moment that singular miracle happened, Dipper botched the followup.

Stupid move. Even with leverage, he’s asking for way too much, way too fast. He’s arguing with a demon who never offers any favors, doesn’t care about morals, and he hasn’t even been nice to him. There’s no way that -

“Cripes, sapling. You don’t do half-measures, do ya?” Bill complains, sinking a few inches in the air. Even his limbs seem to droop under his bottom edge. “Do you know how long it took to collect this many? To get ‘em posed just right? I’ve curated the best horrified expressions, and it took like, over twenty years! That’s so much work!”

Dipper watches Bill sink midair, and says nothing. Hears the whine in his voice, like a kid complaining about not getting his favorite toy, and hums to himself. He taps his fingers on his bicep, mouth creasing into a line.

“All of them.” Dipper repeats, more firmly. Now that he’s seen a crack in the armor, he digs in the crowbar. “Every single person walks out of here alive and safe, or you’re out of luck.” 

Far too much to ask for, infinitely too much to demand, and he’s doing it anyway. It’s only the third dumbest thing he’s done today, and something tells him there’s a chance. 

“Those are my terms.” Dipper tries to stand firm, in a manly, confident way. It takes more adjusting than he’d like, but he thinks it looks decently cool. “Take it or leave it.”

“Ughhhh.” Bill groans, running his hands down his surface. His eye rolls so far back it comes around again, pupil narrowed to a single line. “You’re outta your mind, sapling.”

Which isn’t a no. Dipper perks up, leaning towards this asshole. With the right tactics -  a nudge, a shove, or a slap in demon terms - his chance might hold. 

“You already said you were bored with them, Bill.” He adds, tapping his foot on the ground. He swears Bill darts a glance at the field, very briefly. Yes, this is working - “And it’s tacky as hell.”

“Pfft, what do you know,” Bill turns away sulkily, arms crossed. “I’m not taking ‘tacky’ opinions from Mr. ‘Flannel’s my favorite’, here.”

Dipper grits his teeth against the impulse to respond. He can’t take the bait when he’s almost there. The right angle might give him just enough leverage -

Wait, didn’t Bill say his husband was insane? He probably wasn’t lying about that. Anyone who married a demon would need to know their crazy version of logic. That’s the key, isn’t it? Human reasons and basic morality would never work on Bill - but Dipper knows how these things think. 

“Fine. Whatever you say, Bill.” With a casual shrug, he turns away. Not looking back at Bill’s sudden, strange look of apprehension takes effort, but he gazes over the statue field instead.  “You can use the courtyard for shelving, I guess. I just think it’d be better for, y’know.” He waggles a hand, as if uncertain or disinterested. “A ceremony of some kind.”

A long, low complaining groan echoes through the clearing. Dipper hears a few curses, a few thuds that sound like a stomping foot, but doesn’t look over. Even though it’d be so, so good to see Bill frustrated, he can’t act like he cares.

“You’re the worst. The absolute worst,” Bill says, after his overly long groan stops. “You got way more annoying after dying! What’d they teach you in the afterlife?”

Dipper finally turns, raising an eyebrow. Bill flips him off. When Dipper still says nothing, he huffs and he puffs and fiddles with his tie, adjusting his hat - then apparently comes to a decision. 

“Fine. Fine!” Bill says, throwing his arms in the air. “But you’re not dodging a bargain twice. So if I pull this favor - you gotta quit giving me such a cold shoulder. Deal?”

Dipper blinks rapidly. What, the perfectly warranted, reasonable distance he’s keeping? The one any sane person would maintain between themselves and the literal Nightmare King? What does ‘cold shoulder’ entail, and how comparatively ‘warm’ is he supposed to be, it’s way too vague. 

He raises a hand, about to argue - Then hesitates. 

Rationally speaking, it’s… not the worst bargain in the world. Maybe. If he doesn’t have to kill or mutilate, but just not insult the guy, then… 

But this offer can’t be real. 

While his instincts tell him Bill’s kind of sincere, that he’ll put in a little effort to get what he wants -There’s thousands of people. Reversing that many will take way too long, and far too much power. Once Bill’s tired and bored he’ll wander back over with excuses, maybe a dozen freed at best.

…And that’s a dozen that can be saved. 

The garden is filled with people who’d been written off as lost causes. They’ve had funerals, been mourned and commemorized, tears have been shed over their ‘deaths’.

But Bill could bring some of them back. A dozen families would see their loved ones again. A dozen people could live their lives. An amazing rescue against absurd odds, because Dipper managed to convince the most insane being on the planet it was a half-decent idea. 

Plus, if Bill actually goes along with getting them out of demon territory - that’s at least a week where he’ll be away. Time where, say, a very clever guy could evade demonic attention, grab his sister, and make a surreptitious exit.

Tons of opportunity. A rescue. All for a little bit of semantics-based risk. 

When he looks over, Bill’s still staring, eerily silent as he waits for a reply. The way he focuses on Dipper so completely, unwavering, is really kinda creepy.

Dipper clears his throat, and picks his words carefully. 

Lying here won’t work. Bill’s an expert, he’ll spot it in an instant, so. Honesty, then. 

“There would… be a chance of me starting to think about not immediately rejecting you.” 

Technically true: the best kind of true. Dipper can consider thinking about a lot of things. Like if Bill revived literally everyone, and if he wasn’t taking over the world, and if he wasn’t a platonic shape without a single ounce of softness in his nonexistent heart. Hypotheticals are fun.

“Good enough for me!” Bill beams. He darts forward, slapping Dipper’s still-upraised palm in a high five. “Hang back and watch the show!”

Bill drifts back, humming a little tune to himself, and snaps his fingers. There’s a flash of white light.

Then the screaming starts.

Dipper has to cover his ears over the chorus as thousands of voices cry out at once. Voices filled with terror, horrified screeching, a few high-pitched wails and sobs piercing through the cacophony. Beside him, Mabel grimaces, shutting her eyes and covering her own ears.

Over the next minute, the noise dims to a murmur. Dipper dares to check the field  - hopefully everyone’s alive- 

And sees a courtyard filled with color. 

Everywhere he looks, there’s motion. Several fleeing people bump into each other in attempts to run from a foe that isn’t there anymore; Dipper can see one man helping another up. Another throws panicky punches in any direction before a tall woman grabs him by the back of the shirt. Some grab their nearest neighbor and start asking questions, while others mill around aimlessly. 

Dipper can’t see why they stopped panicking, considering where they are. Shouldn’t they -

No, wait. It’s the same as Mabel. Bill freezes people in time when he turns them into statues, catching them mid-scream. Now that they’ve finally completed their terror, there’s surprisingly little threat around. They don’t know what happened.They’ve gone from ‘demonic invasion’ to ‘peaceful garden’ in a relative instant, which is far less terrifying.

But they sure as hell seem confused. 

“There,” Bill says, with satisfaction. “Happy now?”

The question catches Dipper off guard. In all the hubbub, he’d almost forgotten who did this. 

“I, uh,” He says, mouth dry. “I thought that would take you longer.”

“Why?” 

Because everyone knows Bill Cipher only zaps a couple of people into stone at a time. Because transmuting flesh like that takes an incredible amount of power. Because the rational conclusion from those two facts was that it drained him too much to continue, leaving the rest of the town unscathed. 

The evidence in front of Dipper tells a very, very different story. 

When Bill doesn’t get a response, he shrugs. “Whatever, kid! Your cerebral cortex is running a bit slow, but I’m sure you’ll stop being dumb sooner or later!” 

“Hey!” Dipper jerks back to attention, glaring at this asshole. Then, because he should say something, adds, “You’re dumb.” “Eh, save the sweet talk for later,” Bill says, a little grumpily. “Someone got pissy about ‘morals’ in the first twenty four hours of re-meeting, and now I got a courtyard to clean up.” 

Lacing his fingers together, he pushes his arms out as if to crack his nonexistent knuckles. He adjusts his hat, sighs in a long, tired way, then drops with a thump to stand directly on the ground.

Huh. Dipper didn’t notice before, what with the floating at eye level - but for a demon, Bill’s remarkably small. His top point reaches mid-thigh at best, with the rest of his height being hat.

Bill grumbles something, snapping his fingers again. A broom pops out of nowhere and he snags it, stomping down the hillside with desultory tread. As he stalks down the slope, he leaves a trail of muttered complaints behind him.

Okay. This is weird, which means it’s basically normal for Bill. But what the hell is a broom going to accomplish? Has he run out of magic? What is he planning to do without any left? Is he just going to prod people with the handle? 

Dipper glances towards Mabel, hoping she might have some idea of what’s going on. 

Mabel just shrugs, sweater bunching up against her neck. Yeah. He didn’t think she had any answers. But it’s nice to know he’s not the only one. 

Still, Bill slinking off is a sight Dipper doesn’t mind, confusing or not. He certainly can’t complain about the results. 

Two thousand people and change, transformed into stone and back again. The crowd almost looks like they’re gathered for a concert, instead of former captives of a demon lord. The low murmur of a large crowd talking burbles through the air.

So much for Bill’s sculpture garden. It was probably an impressive collection. 

“Everyone’s back, huh,” Mabel says, both surprised and a little alarmed. Patting herself over like she’s checking for shale deposits; she must have realized her own former stony status.  “I didn’t know Bill could do that!”

“Yeah.” Dipper agrees. He wipes sweating palms on his jeans. “I didn’t either.”

What Mabel hasn’t realized is how absolutely, insanely impossible this should have been. How pulling this off would have required immense power, and remarkable precision with delicate magic. The energy required alone was… 

Dipper runs a rough calculation, guesstimating some figures, and the numbers come up with an alarming amount of digits. 

At what point does ‘magic’ change into straight-up ‘messing with the fabric of reality’? Because Bill’s dipping his nonexistent toes into that water and kicking up some friendly splashes. 

But then. If he was working on that level, why did he not change entire cities into - 

No, wait. Bill answered that already. It was a collection, he only wanted the best. Why would he mass produce figurines of human torment? It’d totally ruin their rarity. 

So it’s not about lack of power. Not about having limits. Just the whim of a madman with fucked-up hobbies, trying to preserve resale value.

Bill refrains from mass destruction because he doesn’t care to, not because he couldn’t.

The implications have only started creeping in when a massive ‘thud’ sounds from the courtyard. A vibration strong enough that Dipper can feel it through his shoes, shaking the ground, then repeating in a slow beat.

Also, the screaming starts again. 

Dipper whips around, expecting Bill to be, well. Probably smacking people with his broom like an idiot rather than doing anything productive, and he’s ready to yell at him for being an idiot. Halfway through calling out he stops, open-mouthed.

Bill’s messing with his captives, alright. Wielding the broom, to boot. He’s just also thirty feet tall. 

Within less than a minute he’s grown tremendously in size - shapeshifting, right, Dipper forgot that was one of his things - and now he stomps around the courtyard, sweeping fleeing humans into strange, glasslike bubbles forming on the lawn. While still muttering under his breath, unintelligible but grumpy.

“Oh shit,” Mabel says, in an unusual understatement. She looks towards the closest demon-expert, poking him in the side. “Is that, uh. Normal?”

Dipper simply shrugs. No expert on Bill thought he was capable of this.

Everyone knows Bill Cipher is an incredibly powerful demon. Even if his powerset was mostly unknown, it explained his ironclad rule over horrible demonic forces.

Everyone also knew that while he was the cause of the invasion, he wasn’t the main threat. Compared to roving bands of demons, he was downright convenient. 

Bill rarely leaves his Fearamid. Every month or so he pops out to mess with a few border cities, but that’s about it. He prefers to stew in his fortress like a huge, toothy beast mired in its bog. Sure, it’s deadly. You wouldn’t want to get anywhere near those massive jaws. But as long as you stay out of its range, it can’t snap a limb off. 

Now. With the amount of magic Bill’s throwing around - like it’s easy. Like it’s nothing - 

Dipper feels like he’s watching an ancient, terrifying monster emerge from hibernation. Getting to its feet, shaking off the muck, and, horrifyingly, starting to sprint. 

He rubs at his eyes. Okay, time to reevaluate. Bill’s a bigger threat than was thought, not the first time they’ve had to rerun an assessment. Finding the boundaries of his powers and the limit to his energy is just a matter of time and careful study.

As he and Mabel watch, bubbles filled with floating humans rise into the air.. Iridescent and massive, they swirl in an intertwining ballet. The sight would almost be pretty, if it weren't for all the screaming. And the gigantic triangle crouching in the courtyard, trying to fish the last few mortals out of a nearby crevice. 

Several bubbles, already filled with terrified humans swimming in midair, float up even higher. Some get as high as the peak of the fearamid, while others level off slightly below. They turn in place, as if setting their direction before zipping off into the distance and across the horizon faster than Dipper can track. 

All the equations Dipper had running grind to a halt, gears falling out and springs bouncing until they collapse, smoking, in a pile. 

Fuck it. 

“I,” Dipper declares, raising a finger in the air. “Have no idea what’s going on.”

With that said, he drops down to the grass. It’s soft enough to make a reasonably comfy seat as he rests his chin in his hands. His sister plops down to join him, patting his shoulder. 

No use trying to figure out how Bill’s doing this. Trying to calculate this comes up with really upsetting numbers, and all he’s getting from it is anxiety. 

Might as well let this asshole finish his ‘chore’. Explanations can be demanded after. 

“Aha! Gotcha!” Bill jerks up with a handful of humans, waving them about in a none-too-gentle shake. “Finally. This is taking forever.” 

Dipper rolls his eyes. If anything that was way too fast. Already the courtyard’s empty, Bill stuffing his last squirming fistful into yet another sphere of light.

He wonders what those orbs are. They’re probably not the most comfortable way to travel, but at least they’re getting people out of demon territory - and Bill’s fulfilling his part of the bargain. Hopefully they’re being flung somewhere reasonably habitable, and everyone arrives in one piece. Since Bill didn’t dismantle them beforehand, it’s even likely. 

So really, when you think about it. This is a win. Everything that happened today was a victory over the forces of evil. 

A giant, hyper-powerful triangle released all his captives, returning them to civilization. And not because he wanted to, oh no. Not because of a complicated political treaty, or a greater evil plan. Definitely not because it was the right thing to do.

Because he got yelled at.

“How did that work?” Dipper has to ask, even when the question doesn’t have an answer. “That shouldn’t have worked.”

Bill Cipher doesn’t like humans. He barely tolerates the demons around him, he’s selfish and crass and evil. One little semi-bargian with an angry nerd is too small and pitiful to even laugh at. And yet here they are.

A tap on his shoulder. “Um. Maybe you should…” Mabel looks alarmed. She tilts her head to gesture behind him.  “Dipper, look.”

When she was still trapped in stone, Dipper hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings. He was vaguely aware that there was a bigger, metal thing behind her, but it didn’t seem like a big deal. 

It was, in fact, a big deal. Huge, in fact.

Behind where she was posed, there’s a massive golden statue of a man lying supine, arm artfully draped over the side of the plinth. Its polished chest gleams in the light, the rest covered in a sweep of sculpted cloth. And the face...

Shoulders slumping, Dipper feels his heart sink. Not more stupid dead husband stuff. Not here too. And why is it so -

Then he catches sight of the words engraved on its plinth, and grimaces. 

It reads:

DIPPER CIPHER THE ONLY WORTHWHILE HUMAN

Dipper stares at his palm. It still tingles a little from the impromptu high-five. 

Realizing, with an odd lightheadedness, that he might be in a little bit of tremendous trouble. 

His sister smiles awkwardly, lifting her arms in a shrug. “I think he’s a little obsessed with you.”

[year2000electronics]

Bill & Ford & A Book, Oh My!

DISCLAIMER: The Book of Bill has Bill Cipher serving as an unreliable narrator. If we go out trying to say something is "definitively a truth" or "definitively a lie", we're going to keep arguing about it until the heat death of the universe. This is just my own personal interpretation of the source material. If you don't agree, that's fine! Also TBOB spoilers abound.

So it's no secret that interest in the dynamic Bill & Ford have (enemies, platonic, romantic, formerly romantic, whichever way) has really skyrocketed since TBOB's release. Of course, there are the 'easy' culprits to point towards, with Mabel referring to Bill as 'being like a needy ex', and the whole O'Sadley's fiasco (Him literally crying over losing Ford and going "one Sixer, please"? Messy. Messy behavior. Still, I think it goes so much deeper than that.

Bill, being the unpredictable chaos entity that he is, also serves as the main antagonist for a show about family and having close bonds with each other. We don't really need to look into his inner psyche that much, because that's just not what he needed to be doing at that point in the cartoon. He's meant to be a way to divide the Pines, really. And a silly little guy. A silly little obstacle. So, naturally, when it came to Bill's arguably "closest" relationship to someone in the show (Ford), it was very easy to interpret it as Ford being tricked by a completely apathetic Bill, who was just using him as a rung on the ladder. And I do want to stress that Ford and Bill's physical actions remain fairly consistent throughout interpretations, and focusing on the fact that Bill badly hurt Ford is important, so if that's how you still see it, then fine by me! No harm no foul!

But I think the relationship, their story, their tragedy just becomes so much more interesting with the lens The Book of Bill has presented. We’re finally able to see Bill’s perspective as a “protagonist” of sorts in a medium where he’s not just something to defeat- and that’s something we’ve never gotten before, so it’s shedding light on an area we didn’t know about for sure! Again, Bill is lying to the character of "the reader", so we can't trust it as a completely unbiased source. But we can speculate on where the "truth" is between these lies.

First of all, Bill's backstory was that he destroyed his home dimension- we knew that already. But now, with the extra content we have about it, we see something interesting- that Bill's backstory mirrors Ford's to an uncanny degree.

Both of them champion their intelligence, although they highlight how it set them apart from others, as well as highlighting their own 'rare mutation/birth defect'.

Again, with this self-isolation already spurred on from their "weirdness", but also as a little aside, I would also like to highlight that Bill being 'ready to be one', looking up at the stars, striving to 'reach' them, is a shared motif he has with Ford, who is also associated with space, the stars, and reaching them.

Bill's 'trying-really-quick-to-convince-Ford' fantasy sequence even has him in a field of stars as a sort of "ultimate wish fulfilment". Remember, this is Bill showing Ford something he thinks would win Ford over, at least a little.

(And I'll take a quick time out for this train of thought to point out- hey! Bill admits he sought out most of his other victims, but Ford summoned him, and it took him by surprise! That adds a fun little layer of complexity to everything, don't you think? Another little layer of humanity for this whole mess- Bill didn't expertly seek out the 'perfect victim' or anything, it was just... luck. Some twist of fate.)

Anyways.

Obviously, the intro page to the 'Sixer' section has a ton of red flags galore (I mean, poor guy's literally depicted as a hapless puppet. C'mon, Bill. Not to mention the "OH BOY HE'S ALREADY SO ISOLATED, IT'S PERFECT" thing.). This guy is kind of a terrible companion no matter how you slice it. He's terrible to everyone close to him, because he's a deeply traumatized character who refuses to heal. BUT, the wording here is kinda deliciously intriguing to me. All of humanity is Bill's puppets, his future victims, but to me, it's clear that he holds a fondness for Ford. From "This is what a partner looks like", to "Me and Sixer could be the perfect team", to "He had what I always wanted- fingers" (drawn to his strangeness, maybe?), "He was destined for so much more", "I looked at his futures and giggled", and most stand-out to me, "Society calls these people freaks, I call them Henchmaniacs!"

Going back to the pre-Book of Bill era I was talking about, Bill's offers for Ford to join him were always in a sort of murky territory for interpretation. The first offer could definitely be read as mocking, with the line "WITH THAT SIX-FINGERED HAND, YOU'D FIT RIGHT IN WITH MY FREAKS!" in particular making it seem like Bill was only saying that to rub Ford's strangeness in his face, and the second offer to join Bill being under a new circumstance- that now Bill is desperate and believes Ford is the only one who can help him. But the Book of Bill mentions the idea of Ford becoming a Henchmaniac more than once, and also has Bill upset at losing Ford and claiming "he'll be back", as well as Bill seeming to use "freak" more like a badge of honour, and having previously complimented Ford's six fingers (In the Sixer intro page, he highlights Ford's fingers as a quality he likes, and in the pages about bodies, he states that "humans should have more fingers". To me, that first offer reads more now like Bill being genuine about finding Ford a place among his misfits. ...Although, the moment Ford says no, he does zap him into a statue. So. Y'know. He's still got issues.

(Yeah, again, red flag city. "Just hazing"? Bill, none of what you were doing over there was okay! You might have suppressed everything traumatic that happened to you, but that doesn't mean you can go around traumatizing everyone! Good lord.)

Bill has already been imply to like other characters because they remind him of himself. Pointing towards a connection with a character Bill DOESN'T have a weird undefinable ex-partner thing with... Mabel! Alex has says in multiple official media and interviews that Bill sees a lot of himself in Mabel, and essentially, that he thought Mabeland was the perfect prison because if HE liked all that awesome, uncontrolled chaos over any family or friends, why wouldn't SHE? And we see that again in TBOB. So basically, what I'm saying is that we have two characters to back up the fact that Bill seems gravitated towards humans or other living beings that he views as being 'like him'- beings he can relate to! So, y'know, what does that say about Bill and Ford?

There's also Bill's plans for the reader and "Weirdmageddon 2.0", where he portrays the reader as getting to, like, perch on his arm like a little bird and get their own little crown? And specifically calls out Ford for not going through with things?? Okay, Bill??

AND Ford not only being the only human mentioned on the list of people he "definitely doesn't miss so stop asking", but also having his own category? Alright, man.

Of course, another point to the 'Hey, maybe Bill can actually feel emotions towards humans besides complete and total apathy' club is this page here, which has ALSO been hotly debated! Certainly, we know he's telling the truth about his home dimension being destroyed, and we know that he's lying about the 'monster', but some interpret this scene as Bill not being remorseful at all and playing his reaction up to earn Ford's sympathy. And me, personally, I dunno if I agree. I feel like the specific inclusion of Bill "looking distant, more distant than I'd ever seen him" (Mirroring the fact that he keeps blacking out when thinking about all his large-scale massacres) and him "laughing joylessly", I think this sequence is meant to tell us that Bill actually is being vulnerable with Ford here, it's just hidden under layers and layers of deceit, whether towards himself or Ford or both.

And finally for my Book of Bill collection stuff, there's the stuff that could be read as more romantic in nature. In the 'love' section, Bill claims he doesn't love anyone, but, like-

Come on. You can disagree with me that it's Ford, but he does have exes. And he's clearly not over them. Shrimpy little liar. And then there's the fact that a lot of his hokey 'advice' is stuff he ends up directly doing to Ford.

These rats.

The Love Cage.

The Book of Bill really outlined all that in bold, but in my opinion, it was never an entirely new revelation! Bill seems to hold a preference for Ford over other humans in the show. He shows up in Ford's dreams just to say hi, tease him, and gloat (Mabelcorn) unlike the other two dream appearances he's made (Dreamscaperers, Sock Opera) which were exclusively for business purposes. Unlike every other character that gets exclusively one nickname for their zodiac sign, Ford gets multiple (Fordsy, IQ, Sixer, smart guy, brainiac, the list goes on). Bill asks Ford to join him TWICE, whereas anyone else who tries gets their face rearranged, put in a cage and made to dance, frozen in stone, etc etc. And finally, I think, the most emblematic of Bill's weird, specific relationship with Ford, is that whereas everybody else gets turned into stone, Ford got turned into gold.

Which kinda sums up their whole thing up pretty well? Bill gave him special treatment by turning him into a golden statue (similar to yellow ha ha), always holding him close, but, like... Dude. You still kidnapped a man and turned him into a statue and then threatened to kill his niece and nephew. I don't think it will change his opinion on you if he's the Most Pampered Hostage, Actually. I just don't think that we need to explore the relationships between characters as simply "Well, this character hurt the other one, so we shouldn't really think about why or what they feel personally, because what they did was bad, so there".

Bill & Ford interest me because they're a tragedy in motion. We can see that Bill and Ford mirror each other in a multitude of ways, and we can see that they both do have positive feelings towards each other at the time they meet, and we see that Bill very desperately wants Ford to be just like him in the unhealthy ways; the ways that make Bill destroy entire universes and compartmentalize it all, because maybe then, he can finally have the companionship he so deeply aches for. Bill and Ford both had tough, lonely upbringings, but Ford moved on from that "I don't need you" mentality. That's what saved him. Bill didn't, and that's what got him where he was in the end. I feel like that's just so much more interesting than Bill just being a flat entity that makes abuse Happen to Ford, just as another Event in his life. I mean, isn't it just SO much more interesting that Ford humanizes Bill, in a way? That Ford makes him- in Bill's own words- "sentimental"? That a chaotic dream demon has regrets and loves and favourites and connections? It's the same thing with Fiddleford & Ford, although, obviously, to a MUCH lesser extent than Bill & Ford. But you get what I mean, right? You know that Fiddleford and Ford are going to undo each other in the end, and the path to that downfall is... it's telling a story! I like the story of it all! I think that's what I've been invested in and intrigued by all these years- the story, the tragedy of Bill and Ford. No matter what form it takes.

(Plus, as tumblr user fordtato pointed out in their own essay (not tagging because this post is messy enough as is oh god), hey, Ford now has two incredibly queer-coded narratives, with one of them being about how he recovered and was able to heal from an abusive relationship. And, well, I think that's just neat.)

Anyways, that's the end of the post. Thanks for reading this long!

[grimoirguestbook]

Book of Bill Website Codes

(Organized by category with notes)

Here's my list of inputs that work on the website :)

Hopefully the read more works like I think it does and I don't accidentally spoil anybody

That being said by clicking read more you will see All of the codes I have found so far

Please be mindful and try not to spoil anybody else with this information. So please be careful if reblogging

I got everything I have collected/found on here, it's a bit messy right now but After I take a small break I'll reorganize and add notes but for now everything's on here, please so check out the posts linked in the log as once I lost all leads I looked to their post for other inputs :)

Also feel free to put any you know of that Aren't on here in the replies I'm sure there's some missing

I will be updating as I find more so check back in if you can! :)

Thank you!

They'll be categorized by

Neat Tv text- Nothing special the tv just gets some text to it

Tab pages-brings you to another tab/website

Audio/video- Audio/video clip plays

Readables- A picture will pop up on screen that you can read

Printables- You can print them :D!

Other- Hard to categorize

Note:

If an * is next to a name that means that you can get different results for the same prompt

(Any personal notes will be in parenthesis)

-> An arrow means that the Passwords are found in the previous page

ex- Page with code that translates to "dork"-> Dork

Slashes/mean/that/any/of/the/prompts/listed/will/take/you/to/the/same/page

Blue text with an underline is a link! Haha! would you look at that! it works!

Will Keep this updated as I find more and will Note the logs at the end of this post

?????

For the mason page anagrams I know WHO they are I just don't know WHAT to do with them, i know it says cryptogram codex at the bottom i think i have to do something with the anagram results but I'm unsure what that is. Stanford Pines Stanlie Pines Gideon Charles Gleeful Preston Northwest Pacifica Elisa Northwest

Notes to Dipper Prompt: (Unsure why- Maybe going to Blind eye page and blurring it but changes from dipper being told to stare at the sun to "I THINK ITS WORKING! STARE HARDER! HARDER!" and the page looking burnt I Think it has to do with how many input codes you enter, It now says "you've almost solved it" and is even more burnt than before, it is now full black)

Neat Tv text-

Pines

Blendin

*Triangle

Axolotl

Ducktective

Book of Bill

TJ Eckleburg (Great Gatsby)

Nothing

Something

*Ciphertology

Deer Teeth

Scalene

Scrimbles

No

Fortnite/skibidi/ohio/rizz/crypto/elon/gyatt/Doge

Life

Death

Portal

Question

Answer

Euclid

*Well Well Well Being

Reality

The Universe

Journal 1

Journal 2

Journal 3

Theyll see/They'll all see/I see

Filbrick

Disney/Disneyland/Mickey Mouse

CIA/FBI/NSA

333 Sundapple Lane Cozy Creek IL 60714-94611

Season 3

Season 2

Season 1

Caryn

Euclydia

Skeleton

Who are you

Burnside

Family matters

When will I die

Multilevel mark/caesaratbashvigenere

Scientology

Easter egg

Sevral times

oh yes they both

Am i Blanchin

Bye gold

Youre insane

History

Hologram

Scalene

Euclid

Titans Blood -> Owl Trowel

Text Chain (You get questions who's answer is another password)

Riddle->Yes -> Mountain Dont -> Lyre Liar -> Harolds Ramblings -> Union Made -> 29121239168518 -> Grebley Hemberdreck -> Rat -> 3466554 -> Tinsel Snake -> Torture Mentally -> Xgqrthx -> 333 sundapple lane cozy creek IL 60714-94611-> MutliLevel mark->emmaline butternubbins->Dispense my treat

What i thought it was (with answer sources):

Riddle->Yes -> Mountain Dont -> Lyre Liar -> Harolds Ramblings -> Union Made -> 29121239168518 -> Grebley Hemberdreck -> Rat -> 3466554 -> Tinsel Snake -> Torture Mentally -> Xgqrthx -> Titans Blood -> Owl Trowel

Answers found in TBOB- Don't Know, NA, Mcguckets dream page, Medieval page, Anti-Cipher Section- tonic page, Anti Cipher Section- Newspaper, Top Secret page, Textbook page- Skin, Dark Ages Page, Anti Cipher Section-Epilogue, A winter break- footprints page, Book of Bill Cover options page, Never trust a wizard page, Have you dreamed this fellow ad (references informercial in show)

Tab pages-

Abuelita

Dippy Fresh

Alex Hirsch/Alex/Hirsch

*Stan/Stanley (his outfit in ebay searches plus a READABLE with SICK music mind you-Check readable section for more info)

Grunkle Stan

*Gideon (second option unlocked after fully "mableizing" the room)

Waddles

Mcgucket/ Old man McGucket/Fiddleford

Bill/Cipher/LLIB/LLIBREHPIC

Bill Cipher/Rehpic

Zyler (Goes to same place as Craz)

Craz (Goes to same place as Zyler)

Toby Determined

Gravity Falls

Mystery Shack

Not a phase

Blanchin

Peak

Cray Cray

Fixinit1

Meow

Fuck alex/Fuck you alex

Globnar

Monster

Audio/video-

Babba/Discogirl

*Gideon (unlocked after fully "mabelizing" the room)

Tad Strange

Pinata (DEFINATELY WORTH WATCHING)

Vallis Cineris (Found on wall when lightning strikes)

Hey Nerd

Weird (Love him)

Spookemups/Spooky/Scary

That's just a/Theory/Gametheory/Matpat (<3)

One Eyed King-> Naitsuaf (Morse Code) ( early years page)

Forget the past

Im still on your mind

Dorito/Nacho

Just fit in

Rubberhose

Love/Boyfriend

Hectoring

Conspiracy

God/Frillium/Help me

Burned inside

Kook

Kubrick

Small/audio log/music (nothing showed up at first, turned off tv and strange audio played, needs to be reversed)

L is real 2401 (soos my boy)

Readables-

Mason (Dippers real name)

*Dipper (personal notes in ???- keep opening the card to get different results)

Pacifica-> PlatinumPaz

Ford/Standford/Sixer

Wendy

Robbie (def worth a look IMO)

Soos-> Pinata

Cursed (Translated from candle in background)

Ad Astra Per Aspera

Blind Eye->Theyll see (Will blur if clicked on, cannot un-blur, may change dipper?)

Weirdmageddon

Lies

Sorry

Booberry (Decoded from popsicle stick)

Even his lies are lies (Front paper)

Tantrum ( code on Bills Mugshot page)

Suck it Merlin

Shave your Grandma (leads to dippy fresh page)

Baby Bill/baby/lalalalala/daddy/mommy

Owl Trowel

Hotxolotl->Seven eyes-> r34lity

Love ya bro

Fuck/Shit/Fuckyou/bitch/slut/sex

Baaaa-> Black Sheep

naitsuaf (click are you ready-> Sign "pleasure doing business with you -candle light turns blue- OR be a coward (losing sound effect plays)

oroborous-> Frillium

Glass sand beach

math/trigonometry/

horror/creepypasta

destruction is a form of creation

unreality

you can't kill an idea

virus

Occurremusiterum

*Stan (click multiple times to get-once there click "how he beat me several times)

Card

Theraprism

Dionarap->stod eht tcennoc

Printables-

Tyrone/Clone/Paperjam

Curse Wittebane (translates runes on page about witches)

Paper is just book skin ( BE WARNED: automatically downloads a photoshop file and crashses the cite)

Irregular (has code on it)

Divorce/breakup

Other-

Mabel (You get fun stickers and a popping sound :) )

*Giffany ( You put her name in multiple times and it forcibly downloads pictures of her and a text document to your computer, scared me a little Not gonna lie here)

Kings of New Jersey (downloads "secret code" font)

cryptogram codex (downloads cryptogram fonts)

dispense my treat-> Kook (downloads a bunch of cool wallpapers)

Log:

One hour after posting: Added 17 new words

Found by me: Booberry, Mountain Dont, Xgqrthx, titans blood, lyre liar, haralds ramblings, union made

Accidentally found by looking at a post: Sorry

Gifted by replier (Thank you!): MATPAT, yes, no, Fortnite, life, death, portal, question, answer

30 minutes after last update: 9 Words added

Found by me: Theraprism, 29121239168518, Grebley Hemberdreck, Rat, 3466554, Tinsel Snake, Torture Mentally, Fordtramarine, Gun (shocked that worked It was a joke- "bill cipher has A GUN")

Like THREEEEEEE ish hours later?

Found by me: one eyed king, well well well being, shave your grandma, paper is just book skin, even his lies are lies, forget the past, irregular, euclid, tantrum, suck it merlin

Like 12 hours later

Found by me: Reality, Baby Bill, Reality, The universe, Giffany (why is it two Fs, Blarg) They'll see, I'm still on your mind, Journal 1, Journal 2, Journal 3

Gifted to me by a replier (Thank you!): Owl Trowel

Idk- Later

Found by me: hotxolotl, lova ya bro, kings of new jersey, fuck, just fit in

Found on twitter(JasonRitter): Dorito, Blanchin'

Gifted to me by Replier(Thank you!): Gideon's option knowledge

Even MORE later:

Me: Seven eyes, r34ality, filbrick, disney, skibidy, rizz, ohio, love, cia, fbi, rubberhose, 333 sundapple lane cozy creek il 60714-94611, bahhhh, black sheep, naitsuaf, oroborous,theyll see, theyll all see Frillium, occuremusiterum (some of these i gave myself because i was really close but just missed a small detail/spelling)

Taken from here and Here Because I got stumped: Season 3, Season2 , Season 1, Glass shard beach, caryn, Euclydia, Peak, Theory, Cray Cray, Help me, mickey mouse, hectoring, divorce, breakup, skeleton, math, history, monster, gyatt, who are you, fixinit1, conspiracy, riddle, cryptogram codex, horror, creepypasta, trigonometry, god, boyfriend,baby, lalalalala, scary, trigonometry,just blendin, morality, burnside, family matters, when will i die, elon, multilevel mark, goodnight sally,paper jam, tourist trap,the duchess approves,shape, scientology, meow, nacho, crypto,sevral times,easter egg, oh yes they both, daddy, mommy, burned inside, destruction is a form of creation, i see, unreality, you can't kill an idea, am i blanchin, fuck alex, fuck you alex, fuck you, shit, bye gold, nsa, globnar,disneyland,kook, kuibrick,virus,that's just a, you're insane

Next day

Found online: Dionarap, stod eht tcennoc, dispense my treat

[clarisimart]

It's been months and my obsession with Ford Pines remains strong, I'm dozens on dozens of fanart and a (so far) 100k fic in, and I am still rotating him and his relationship with Bill in my mind like a microwave.

I've reached some conclusions tho

I think what I find SO SO fascinating about Ford and Billford is (along with Ford's general "there's something so so wrong with him ❤️" vibes) is that we are talking about just a guy (a freaky, and very smart geeky guy yes, but still a regular human) that managed to get A GOD obsessed with him.

I know I'm not the first to point this out, but like, Ford being obsessed/ worshiping bill? Yeah, duh! A being with phenomenal cosmic powers comes in with the secrets of the universe and showers you with praise and affection, ofc you become obsessed and devoted.

(AND YET it is not blind and unconditional, as soon as the scales fall from Ford's eyes that devotion turns to hate / desire for revenge)

However BILL, the cosmic horror, the god, becoming obsessed with Ford? Not only is it not expected or obvious, BUT ALSO BILL'S OBSESSION WITH FORD IS WAY, WAY MORE UNCONDITIONAL/ UNBREAKABLE THAN FORD'S.

Ford's been dedicating every single moment for 30 years into trying to kill Bill , and yeah the obsession remains, but he doesn't want cipher alive... BILL HOWEVER, HE DOESN'T FUCKING KILL THE ONLY GUY WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS HOW TO STOP AND OR KILL HIM DESPITE HAVING SO MANY CHANCES TO DO SO!!!

and the motherfucker triangle STILL THINKS HE CAN CONVINCE HIM TO JOIN HIM AND RULE WITH HIM?!?!?! FORD SHUTS DOWN THE PORTAL AND BILL STILL IS LIKE "OH ITS JUST A HISSY FIT, HE'LL CALM DOWN AND COME BACK TO ME"

FORD PUTS FUCKING METAL IN HIS SKULL TO KEEP HIM OUT, AND BILL IS STILL LIKE "STANFORD MY OLD PAL 🥰🥺❤️ FORDSY!!!!!😘😍 LET ME SERENADE YOU ❤️💜🧡💛💚🩵💙

Ford builds a weapon that can actually kill him and when he shoots at Bill with it, fully intending on killing him, Bill's reaction is being FUCKING HAPPY ABOUT FINDING FORD... UNBELIEVABLE