#evaesque

I’m pretty annoyed with the way this fandom is portraying Bill Cipher. I feel like a lot of people are diluting his character to the point where he’s simply unrecognizable. There are a billion ways that he’s mischaracterized, but I’ll focus on the most prominent ones. 

First off, there’s the whole Bill and Dipper thing. A lot of people in this fandom think that Bill is interested in Dipper because he’s in “love” with him. But in my opinion, that is FAR from the truth. First of all, if you watch the series and read the AMA, there are no indications that he is capable of love. Bill is an extremely Machiavellian character; he is driven solely by ambition. He doesn’t give a flying fuck about what other people think of him. Though he was seen acting “friendly” towards his victims, he was simply luring them into his trap. 

“But Nina, he’s so interested in Dipper!!!!!!”

No. The reason why he gravitates toward Dipper is that he wants to stop him. Like Bill, Dipper is incredibly goal-driven; he will stop at nothing to figure out all of the mysteries of Gravity Falls. This poses a danger to Bill’s master plan. As of now, Bill’s exact motives are still unclear, but we know that he doesn’t want Dipper to find out what they are. So what does he do? He tries to stop him. But instead of killing him, Bill takes advantage of his weaknesses by taking control of Dipper’s body. This way, he could use Dipper as an instrument of destruction. Is this “love?” Absolutely not. It’s manipulation, pure and simple. And even if he were capable of forming a relationship with Dipper, it’d be extremely abusive and toxic. There’s no way that he can ever happily coexist with someone else. He’s just fine living by himself.

Next, there’s “Reverse!Bill.” I’ve seen many pictures of the Gleeful twins working their magic while poor little Bill lurks in the background, crying. Now, I know the basic story of the Reverse Falls AU: Dipper and Mabel make a deal with Bill to get their powers, and they end up manipulating him. This is why he’s so sad. Makes sense, right?

Wrong. It doesn’t. Knowing Bill, he wouldn’t ever let this happen. I understand that everyone’s personalities are switched, but I think that even Rev!Bill would try to get his revenge on the Pines twins for taking advantage of him. He hates it when things don’t go his way. In fact, this is the only time we see him get mad, as we see in Dreamscaperers. When Gideon calls off the deal, he literally breaks down before revealing his demonic wrath. So there’s no way he’d ever let anyone manipulate him, not even in an AU. I’m not saying that the Reverse!Falls AU is bad. I think that it’s very interesting! All I’m saying is that it just needs a little bit of reworking to accommodate the character’s personalities.