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mint-fixates · 2 months

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There's this weird take I've seen floating around on TikTok that Bill doesn't actually care about his family/dimension or Stanford at all; that we're supposed to take everything in TBOB as non-canon basically because he's lying to garner sympathy from reader to make a deal with them. I'm all for having your own interpretations of media, but I just don't think this idea that Bill is a completely heartless unfeeling creature is supported by canon at all. In fact, it kind of feels like the opposite of the point of the book.

Like, yeah, most things Bill says should be taken with a grain of salt because he lies a lot, but he's not actually a very good liar? It's usually pretty easy to clock when he's full of it. But okay, even if we assume every word Bill says while trying to recruit the reader is a lie, there are three major things that this doesn't account for.

Bill is not the only source in the book. The lost Journal 3 pages were written by Stanford, we only know about the interdimensional Taco Bell incident because of an included police transcript, etc.

Even once he's lost any chance of making a deal with the reader to escape, Bill is having a complete breakdown and mentions all the people he so totally doesn't miss for real you guys. Why bother with reverse psychology double-lying for sympathy once his shot at getting the reader on his side is already gone?

Trying to garner the reader's sympathy makes sense to a certain extent, but why go out of his way to make himself look pathetic? Does revealing that he got drunk and cried over his ex in a fast-food drive-through really help his cause if that cause is to convince the reader he's still a powerful being capable of starting the apocalypse again so they can rule with him?

And that's all without even mentioning that, as previously stated, I think the entire point of the book is missed if we're interpreting Bill as having no genuine feelings or attachments. The book ends with Stanford healing from his past by being open about what he went through with his family and accepting their help, while Bill insists he doesn't need anyone and refuses to heal, actively making himself worse in the process. The clear theme imo is that accepting your past and accepting help from people who love you is essential to healing, while denying those things just makes everything worse. If Bill doesn't actually care about his family, his dimension, Stanford, or anything/anyone else, he has no trauma to heal from or regrets to learn from that he's refusing to accept and deal with, and the entire meaning of the book is made moot.

#tbob spoilers #tbob #the book of bill #bill cipher #billford #also it's just dumb bc like. the book did not invent these concepts.#there are clear implications in other sources that he regrets what he did to his dimension and that he genuinely cares about Ford.#anyone remember “saw his own dimension burn/misses home and can't return/says he's happy he's a liar blame the arson for the fire”?#and the “obsessive ex who still has feelings” dynamic he has w Ford is not new to this book it's just expanded on in it #also WHAT WOULD BE THE POINT OF WRITING A BOOK. IF WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TAKE ANY OF IT AS CANON. THAT'S NOT HOW UNRELIABLE NARRATORS WORK.#this is rly long whoops can u tell how annoyed i am by this take #gravity falls

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astradyke · 1 month

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I would adore a deep dive into your thoughts on Phil’s quiet but wonderful way of showing his love for Dan being through photos

hi, i’m sorry i’m responding so late to this, but i really appreciate you enabling me here because i do seriously think about this constantly. i don’t know if i have the words to articulate it, though, so… bear with me. i'd quite like to try.

nobody loves in just a singular way, that’s the preface to this. when i say that Dan loves through words and Phil loves through photography, i don’t mean that Dan doesn’t use photography as an act of love— because there is a polaroid, in their house, of Phil that Dan took— and i don’t mean that Phil has never said something profound about Dan, because we all remember how he talked about Dan’s book at the end of the haircut video (19:13). i, at the very least, never really left the parts at the end of what Dan and Phil Text Each Other 2 where Phil constantly amplifies the work Dan is trying to do, unmasking his own frustrations at the struggles Dan has to experience, and meets Dan's self deprecation with affection (here's that dissertation) (19:57). Dan may use words in a very abstract, artistic way, professing his love for Phil as a ‘soulmate’, an unmatched connection, but Phil still has a careful, casual way of endlessly maneuvering himself to stand by Dan’s side. etc. and of course, there are five thousand other ways to adore a person. Dan and Phil do a little bit of everything; we are lucky to see a spare few snippets.

all that said, let’s talk about photography, yeah?

there is a permanence to photography, even if it’s not always a tangible permanence. they are timestamps, living commitments; i refuse to accept the idea that photography is somehow a ‘stand in’ to ‘true human connection’, rather than a critical facet of it. ex. i know that my best friend is real even if i didn’t have a photo of him sitting beside me on a wayward bus, but it’s still important that i inscribed that memory distinctly into the fabric of my life by taking a moment to chronicle it.

Phil Lester uses photography as a way to immortalize a thousand different fragments of his forever with Dan. there’s a distinct thought process, right, to see someone you love and decide— i never want to lose this moment. that decision, in of itself, is enough of a love confession, but there’s another layer when you decide, on top of all of it, i want the entire world to see this. when Dan described his love for Phil as "more than just romantic", he opened up a piece of himself to show the world, this is how i love this person. this is how i see him. when Dan calls Phil bubby, or dear, this is him cracking a hard exterior to say this is how i see you.

the two of them, upon first meeting, took a selfie together at the Apple store— Phil was the one to press the button. when they sat at the top of the sky-bar, Phil was the one to take a photo of Dan amidst the golden hour light. maybe he didn’t know that Dan loved him back, yet, but he had a certainty in his own adoration of Dan— that regardless of whether Dan wanted him back, Phil wanted him. the image feels timid but assured, like swallowing down anxiety to look yourself in the mirror; you can feel that through the pixels of it, so transparently. Phil’s love of Dan was not conditioned on anything: it was a terrifying but beautiful thing, and he wanted to preserve it, so even if it all went wrong he could say this is how i loved you. this is how you are loved, to me. you don’t have to want me back, but know that you were wanted, here, crawling into your own head sitting across from me in a city i’d like to call home with you, someday. so let me. and when you look at this photo of heart eyes Howell, cradling a bear, it’s louder than a blood rush: i love you.

[ID: Dan Howell sitting in the sunlight, looking outside the window while holding his phone. end ID.]

[ID: Dan Howell in a fuzzy hat, holding a stuffed bear against his face and looking at the camera with a small smile. end ID]

(sorry. it was necessary to include).

every year, Phil spills this oath into his camera roll. when Dan’s birthday arrives, Phil has a thousand candids to show for it, a thousand of silly and unflattering photos— a “loving” selection (7:41). exposing my heart a little here, but when you are someone who struggles with insecurity at some level, photos of you that are unflattering circling around feels horrifying. you want to be composed, and pretty, and loved— but then, maybe, it settles in that you are loved someplace beyond conditions. Phil chronicles these casual, vulnerable moments with Dan, and he shares them, because he loves Dan to a level past the flat logic of if he is composed, if he is pretty, then he is loved. Dan may be unattractive at points, but he is never unloved. never again.

these photos also demonstrate how much Phil romanticizes the little moments with Dan. watching him play Skyrim in VR; sitting beside him while he plays Elden Ring (3:40); admiring an oddly-shaped tear in his pants (missing citation); taken aback by a large poodle jumping into his lap. there are hundreds of photos of Dan taken by Phil which have escaped. imagine how many more linger. if we can go off of this (admittedly horrifying) tweet, we can envision a camera roll overflowing with him.

when they go on vacation, Phil takes soft photographs of Dan. here’s this love in a new city, just like we did fifteen years ago in Manchester, before i knew the right way to hold your hand, the right way to counter your cynicism, the right way to systemically reject every pet name because saying your name like a promise is enough— i’m putting this love into the world because i no longer live in a world where i go a second without it. Phil saves photos of Dan looking at him like he hung the stars, and he saves photos of Dan walking in front of him— he would never save them, as an Orpheus, but thankfully he doesn’t have to anymore, not after 2019— and he saves photos of Dan happy, because he wants to save that, too. Phil will save photos from every era of Dan’s life, but he wants those photos the most.

Phil has seen Dan perform in front of thousands. he has seen Dan pass out from standing up too quickly in their living room. he has seen Dan stumble home from a unexpected solo walk, he has seen Dan try to hide his fear-to-death in Phil’s childhood bedroom, he has seen Dan try to use a laundry machine, he has seen Dan in every way a person could: i love you.

Dan knows all of this. Dan sends Phil photos of himself when he’s solo traveling for his tour; the two of them almost never call, not unless Dan’s in a cab, but they regularly facetime. Dan winces at old photos of himself, but Phil coos at them.

Phil Lester is a romantic. he likes to hold his love to his chest— sharing photographs, but careful not to share too much. i think we under-estimate the shift Phil had to make, sometimes, in 2019: coming out was a major deal to him, too, even if he had already been out to some. more than that, coming out while Dan was also out is a very different experience. still, he likes to stay private, which is why we’ve not seen what i imagine to be hundreds of photos of Dan in Phil’s arms, or Dan kissing him on the cheek, or Dan asleep beside him in his bed (because we know how often he takes photos of Dan asleep, but i can't even begin to get into that right now).

even still, from what we can see, God, it’s everything, isn’t it? i can’t imagine what it felt like, for Dan, first trying to reconcile all of this. when you go so long without experiencing a safe kind of love, your reality fundamentally shifts. everything is brittle: you have to be hard enough to survive it, but not too hard to break the little you have entirely. half of you is a secret, the other half of you feels like it should be— who you are shifts, when you are loved, so in the reverse: when you go so long without it you feel displaced internally. when you find that love, you throw yourself entirely into it, expecting nothing but wanting everything. you punch a wall only to feel the plaster cradle your touch; you tell yourself you’d never turn back and you hate that need to; you expect to hit the sea but the wax never seems to melt. impossibly, you are okay. maybe i showed too much of my own heart there, but when i look at 2009 Dan, i see all of that. eighteen years old, and for the first time since he was a tiny child, he actually felt safe.

because Phil says Dan like it’s the sweetest word in the world. because Phil has a hunger for everything Dan creates. because Phil held Dan when he dropped out of university, picked up his first radio job with him, moved in with him, and never left. because Phil never treated Dan like an experience to hide away. Phil loved parts of Dan back into life.

because Phil takes photographs of Dan, everywhere in his life, to say: this is my world, now. you can’t take a photo in the daylight without capturing the sun. you can’t take a photo in the nighttime without capturing the absence of it. Phil says Dan’s name in every video, and he takes another hundred photos, because he’s so fucking sure about this love. there’s not even a question to be asked.

this is only a fraction of what there is to say about it, some messily constructed analysis, but it's hard to capture. i'd call Dan a lucky bastard, but it's hardly luck, is it? Phil makes the decision to love Dan every single day, and it might look quiet, but it's so unfathomably loud.

#astra.meta #dan and phil #phan #not going to obsessively edit this anymore. i hope this is something <3 #edit: this is most likely not worth saying but just to clarify while i did write the line phil loved parts of dan back into life #i am not trying to imply that phil was dan's savior but am just going along with how dan himself describes his relationship w phil #and how phil was a seismic shift in his experience. didn't save him but created that safety that dan then took to self actualize #that might not be necessary to clarify but i just wanted to say that in case anyone is confused because that might be a jarring read

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