Storyboard Design Fords From 2 Months Ago I Forgot To Share Here I Think

These are all the pages exclusive to the Barnes and Noble Book Of Bill, start at the end and work backwards, I couldn't be bothered adding one image at a time.

please look at my new stupid child thank you

a wonderful ao3 author note

Dude thank you so much for portraying Dipper as the asshole (affectionate) he is. He’s a ball of anxiety and awkward social skills but he’s also five seconds away from slamming doors on people and swinging punches. My beautiful son stands on BUSINESS

fuck yeah, man. it's one of my favorite things about dipper (as you can probably tell).

he's got anxiety. he gets panic attacks. he's paranoid and sweaty and super awkward. AND he's absolutely done with everyone's shit all the time. it's that stan pines snark coming out in him.

i just adore when characters have contrasting personality traits like this -- it fleshes them out so well and creates really interesting duality.

here, friend, have some of my favorite shithead dipper faces:

go ahead, try his patience. it'll be fun.

a note on "fordtramine"

just a thought while im working on a comprehensive history of bill.

by now i'm sure it's common knowledge that stanford's favourite colour is "fordtramarine", a colour only him and bill are able to see due to bill rewiring his optic nerve as a gift, but something i find very interesting is this page from thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com

specifically, that note at the bottom on the "beautiful" paintings ford submitted to (unsuccessfully) demonstrate the colour. most of them are normal, including a self portrait in gouache until you get to "(E) A muse, oil on canvas".

not only that, but in the abstract ford writes that "specific two dimensional entities may act in the same way as a prism, refracting light.... new perceptions"

something something devoting a painting to your muse in the colour that they let you name, that they gifted you with the ability to see. something something bill acting as a prism, like the crystals ford keeps all over his house, that ford can look through, like a doorway into a world entirely made of the weird and wonderful that you connect so deeply with. a world that you can never show anyone else, your canvases are always blank and no-one else has the eyes that you do, your study is rejected and no-one will hear you out.

do you think bill felt that way? growing up, able to see what others couldn't, "its not your fault you have that strange eye", "the doctor says three sips a day will make the visions go away", able to see an entirely different dimension to his own parents, always too different and too strange and too weird.

CODES: "THEY'LL SEE" "THEY'LL ALL SEE" "THE EUCLYDIAN DEPT OF VISION SUPERVISION"

growing up in a world where it seems that seeing beyond the norm is heavily punished, it's kind of telling that bill's gifts to ford are often relating to seeing or knowing things that ford would never experience without bill (new colours, new directions for his research, his mindscape, the portal). the gift of vision from a god who grew up being blinded. bill really is his all-seeing eye, in a lot of ways.

in the same way, fiddleford's gifts to ford almost always revolve around very human comfort (gloves to fit his hands specifically, a pet to keep him company, a snowglobe reminder of the time they spent together) comfort that he was too distracted to devote to his wife and child, only ever to ford who broke or threw them away.

fiddleford accepted ford for who he was, and he showed that through his gifts. all of ford's strangeness and brilliance, gloves made specifically to protect and warm six fingers, a pet that looked like him for him to ramble to when fidd is gone. bill's gifts were brilliant and tailored just for ford, but they were isolating. experiences he could only have with bill, things that made him stranger, more alone, pulled him further into the weirdness, the grey area. all in preparation for the day bill would take things too far, and pray ford, so alike to him, would join him.

What's so interesting to me about Dipper is that he has no friends!

Okay, that's not necessarily true. dipper gets along very well with Soos, for example, and he's the twins' primary big brother figure for most of the show (we love u, soos!) dipper also grows very close to wendy, and in the end chooses to treasure their friendship more than he does any romantic feelings for her. he isn't lacking in terms of having important people in his life

but there's no one his age !

the closest we see to dipper having any sort of friend group is when he hangs out with wendy and his friends, which is obviously very telling of the fact that he wants to grow up, and he wants to grow up fast. consequently, he doesn't really want to be friends with them, per se, as much as he wants to impress them and prove that he's more than just a kid

(this is also contigent with his feelings for wendy, thematically speaking, but that's a conversation for another day)

along this train of thought is the fact that wendy's friends don't see him as a friend, either, simply because they are unequals out of age difference alone. this doesn't mean that they dislike him, in fact they're glad to have him around, but dipper's an accesory and not an actual member of the group, which is not necessarily a bad thing, simply that it's different

in general, the only person dipper interacts with in more or less an equal level is mabel, except her case is very different!

from her countless love interests, we see she has a very easy time interacting with people as early as tourist trapped, she is not shy ! she is not insecure ! she flirts, she giggles, she parties, you go mabel !

the most important element to this, i think, would be how in contrast to dipper, mabel manages to make a little friend group who share common interests and have similar personalities (candy and grenda)

this is not because dipper is somehow weirder and mabel the socially charming one. in fact, mabel doesn't enjoy a particularly popular reputation, and is thought of by pacifica as silly and childish during irrational treasure

from the very beginning, we see mabel and pacifica clash in a classic "weird vs mean" dynamic, with pacifica being someone who enjoys a favourable status in gravity falls (a little bit like a celebrity) and continuously antagonizes mabel, who hangs out with candy and grenda, consistently portrayed as weird and unpopular since their introduction during double dipper

regardless, mabel has no trouble making friends. she isn't a popular girl, but she is a social girl

you'd think that mabel, who has the wider support network, would be less dependant on dipper than dipper is on her

that's definitely the case in the valentine's day flashback shown in weirdmaggedon part 2, where mabel has a considerable amount of valentines, while dipper gets none and is mocked to the point of physically having to run out of class. he even hides his birthmark all the time because the kids made fun of him for it !

so it's very interesting that when we see the twins face the idea of permanent separation, it's mabel who doesn't want to leave dipper, not the other way around !

ps; pleeeeease send me asks about gravity falls i want to talk about this show so badly

they’re judging you so hard kathy omg

bonus:

Do you think if Bill had actually killed Mabel he would have left her dead or remade her into his follower or henchmaniac or something bc he thinks she’s cool