icanttypo

Latest Posts by icanttypo

I think this is a really valuable take, and it definitely did feel a little strange for that to be the final test. There's definitely a little underlying misogyny there, and whether it was intentionally written to show Lumons values or incidental on the show-writers part, I think it should be analyzed. I really hope next season they're able to develop all of the female characters more- especially Gemma. But, with the direction the story is going into, I really do think the female characters will carry the next season. I see a lot of Checkovs guns being loaded, so I can only hope.

However, I think the reason why the (disassembled) cradle was her final test was because her miscarriage had been the reason she came to Lumon in the first place. And, if I remember correctly, wasn't her fight with Mark over the broken cradle what caused her to seek help from Lumon? Having her take apart something that had meant enough to her to take part in Lumon's experiments (until it no longer was a choice) was the final way of destroying her will to leave. This was something that had been a source of so much of Gemma's pain, anger, fear, and, well, hope- all four tempers- yet it was something else that caused her to fail the test. Maybe, too, her taking it apart could be framed as a form of empowerment? No longer is her greatest worry or concern tied to motherhood - she has something else to fight for. Her own freedom and happiness.

And hell, if my theories are right, I think girlie is gonna take down Lumon with Cobel or Devon. Like, stick her in the birthing cabin, get all the details from each separate Gemma, reintergrate that girl, and she'll destroy that whole company. Do I know how that'll work? A different Gemma per room??? Who knows. Tldr- I think we've only seen a fraction (haha) of Gemma so far, and that season 3 will focus a lot more on who she really is.

Cause it's not like you can't do a story involving miscarriage without it being sexist. That's a real and traumatic experience that many people go through that can and should be thoughtfully explored in fiction.

The thing that makes it feel sexist with Gemma is that it's the only new thing we learn about her as a person in Chikhai Bardo. There's all the plot stuff happening to modern Gemma of course, but that's stuff happening to her, it's not who she is. Everything we see about her outside of Lumon in that episode is either stuff that Mark has already told us about her and the miscarriage, which was also already alluded to. Which makes it feel like prior to Lumon kidnapping her, she didn't exist as her own person but rather as Mark's Wife who wanted to be The Mother of Mark's Children. Which, would suck as a way to write any woman, but feels like a particularly egregious way to write an Asian woman given the whole submissive China Doll stereotype (I know she's not Chinese, that's just what the trope is called).

And it's reinforced in Cold Harbor with the revelation that what Cold Harbor is is a test to see if her strongest, most fundamental memories can break through severance. And what Lumon has determined to be her core self that they're so worried about whether or not they can separate her from it, is maternity. And yes, you can argue that that is Lumon's perspective of her, not the show's, and that Lumon viewing her that way is meant to be viewed critically as more of the Eagan's patriarchal, white supremacist bullshit. But if it's just Lumon's view of her and not the show itself, then why didn't we learn anything else about her in the episode ostensibly about her?

This clip will live rent free in my mind for 3000-5000 business days.

this show is so fucking funny

D:BH - 28 Stab Wounds Explained

It's 28th so it's the best day to share Bryan's explanation of the famous "Twenty-Eight stab wounds!" scene.

Bryan confirms there is 'a lot of little moments like this in the scenes' but personally I know only about very few of them. "Got it!" / Slamming the table / Pushing away by arm / Angrily gesticulating frustration from boss / More humane movements and expressions Did you guys noticed some other subtle things Connor repeats from Hank? Let's find them :D

The fact that this is 80 fucking years ago but still just as relevant is terrifying.

cruelty is so easy. youre not special for choosing it

bro i LOVE indigenous fusion music i love it when indigenous people take traditional practices and language and apply them in new cool ways i love the slow decay and decolonisation of the modern music industry

not a big fan of AI but this is a top 10 video of all time for me

SO PRETTY EVERYONE LOOK WOAAAAH

I am just going to pretend the series ended here. For my own sanity.

Okay, but what the hell was that??? I think I need a thesaurus and a dictionary to find the right words to describe how that ending made me feel...

It's almost... Arcane.

i always thought of you as made of moonlight because of that first night…

Ultimately it's a beautiful thing~

Husbands with hats <3

I watched the epilogue episode and it was beautiful I felt the doomed yaoi from the very beginning of the series so glad it's canon

Rewatching gravity falls rn and this is one of my favorite jokes in the entire show

This amazing comic actually got me to realize the true difference between Stan and Bill. I was never able to pin down why I've never gotten on the "Bill reincarnates into Stan Pines" train, and I think this simple reason is why.

Stan Pines never stopped trying to make up for his mistakes. Call him what you want, but you can't deny that he's a man of accountability.

He became a grifter to prove to his family that he still deserved his last name. Instead of cutting them out like he absolutely deserved to, he spent a decade trying to make them proud.

When he fought his brother and accidentally pushed him into the portal- he didn't stop believing that he was out there! This man who never graduated high school taught himself how to put back together a multidimensional portal that had taken a man with 14 doctorates, the man who cannonicallt invented the first laptop, and oh yeah, an eltrich omnipotent demon to create.

When he didn't think he could take care of Dipper and Mabel, this greedy man spent his last cent to feed them and buy their ticket back home.

When he found out that Soos' birthday was triggering to him, he fought the US so hard to get rid of the date that he got put on a do not fly list.

And when the universe turned upside down, he sacrificed himself to save the world. To save his family.

But Bill... I don't think he fought nearly as hard to save his family. Of course, I could be wrong. Perhaps he tried just as hard. But I doubt it.

Stan worked to repair his mistakes. Bill tried to run from them. Stan confronted his fears. Bill still is trapped by them.

OK I REALLY LIKE HOW IT TURNED OUT-

Here's a silly little comic I did in whiteboard >:) enjoy!

bonus whiteboard art below!

Maybe the real Yaoi Day was the friends we made along the way!

Do you think Bill Cipher ever wishes to douse the flames that he invokes when making a deal?

Do his hands ache from muscle memory? Does his vision darken as they land on the flames? Those bright blue flames?

"What?! Your ENTIRE home dimention? But how? By what?"

Bill looked distant, more than distant than I'd ever seen him.

"By a monster."

And as those blue flames that burned down his universe surrounded him in the Mindscape, do you think for a moment he missed home?

Hey MOM, this is BILLY. I want you to [incomprehensible]

What was he really running from as he invoked Axolotl's name?

Stan? The flames? His past?

Where did you all go? WHERE DID-

Who am I kidding?

What's the use in asking questions if you already know the answer?

the entire gravity falls community right now:

[ text: SO THE STAN BROTHERS BEGAN AN ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME, THE KIND OF ADVENTURE THAT WOULD MAKE A GREAT MOVIE, HONESTLY. MAYBE A MINISERIES? IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

HONESTLY, WOULD IT KILL THEM TO GIVE US SOME NEW ADVENTURES? AFTER SUMMER COMES FALL, A WHOLE NEW “SEASON,” IF YOU WILL. I CAN’T BE THE ONLY ONE WHO WANTS ANOTHER SEASON, RIGHT? RIGHT?!

I’VE INVESTED SO MUCH TIME IN THESE CHARACTERS’ LIVES, THEY CAN’T JUST LEAVE ME! BY LUCIFER’S BEARD, WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR MORE GRAVITY FALLS?! ]

really weird that I think this is my first time drawing gravity falls fan art

matching not-a-tattoo ideas for you and your twin!

so that mention of brands in the new book huh

in the mansion. straight up “blanching it”. and by “it”. haha, well. let’s justr say. girl we blanchin.

Book of Bill

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. 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.). The game we're playing here is not "How quickly can we woobify and excuse Bill"? No, 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. And, of course, I can't emphasize enough that Bill was still incredibly abusive to Ford! It's an unhealthy dynamic! I just don't think that we need to explore the relationships between characters as simply "Well, this character abused the other one, so we shouldn't really think about why or what they feel personally, because what they did was bad, so there". But the fact is, none of my analysis of Bill here changes the fact that the torture happened!

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!

The way Tumblr butchers the quality and the frame size of this video is atrocious, but at this point I'm tired of fighting it :(

Anyway made another thing in blender

Relationships that have real king/lionheart energy, that whole “I have sworn myself wholly to you, I am your sword arm, I am your dog” to someone else’s “you are the one person in this world I can rely on, and I am both bolstered and burdened by your absolute faith in me” vibe, but it’s in circumstances that are like. so low stakes. Manger of a movie theater/the one usher who doesn’t smoke weed at work.

the doctor says three sips a day will make the visions go away

Did some doodles

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

SUPER IMPORTANT

Him baby

Noticed the runes on the "thisisnotawebsite.com" website seem to correlate to Journal #3 pages. Maybe it's just a conspiracy, but hey, that's the first step of solving a mystery!

(This is coming from someone who hasn't gotten their hands on The Book of Bill yet, so go easy on me, lol.

The first thing I want to note is the red ink in the corner. It's very similar to those that Ford used on various pages in Journal 3. However, I haven't been able to find an exact match yet.

Here is an example of what I'm describing.

The closest thing I got to a match came from well... The page with the portal.

But who cares about that! There's more to talk about! Like the fact that these runes also show up right before Ford stops writing in the journal???

And uh. Who else disappeared? Just recently? Just saying.

More proof, these are known anti-bill symbols. Whatever that website will show us, I don't think it'll be from Bill himself. If it is... Let's get ready for Weirdmagennon 2024.

Classical Pieces You've Probably Heard but Might Not Remember the Name

William Tell Overture- Rossini (Most famous part at 8:45, but why not listen to the whole thing?) I’m adding hints, at least to the ones I recognized culturally. This one is “go, horsey, go!”

Also Sprach Zarathustra- Strauss Slow, dramatic entry scene, IN SPAAACE.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik- Mozart People running out of a fancy wedding or something. Also known as DUN, dun DUN, dun DUN dun DUN dun DUUUUN.

Symphony 94, Mvt. 2 “Surprise Symphony”- Haydn ?

Toccata and Fugue in d Minor-Bach Halloween organ!

Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2- Chopin Picture a tiny old woman playing piano in a sunlit room with lots of flower vases, about the spill the tragic secrets of her past to some timid young visitor.

Rondo alla Turca- Mozart the babysitter from The Incredibles: “Time for some COGNITIVE ENRICHMENT!”

Sinfonie de Fanfares: Rondeau- Jean-Joseph Mouret Royalty is coming. Or someone is getting married. Or royalty is getting married. Also the PBS Masterpieces theme.

The Four Seasons: Spring- Vivaldi (I just linked to the whole thing because it’s great) Again, someone is getting married, but this one is strings instead and a lot less frumpy.

Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring- Bach That one that amateur guitarists love where the notes are all up and down but all the same length. Also used in movie weddings.

O Fortuna (from Carmina Burana)- Carl Orff SONG OF DOOM. Also song of “baby on fire!” in The Incredibles.

Funeral March- Chopin ?

Orpheus in the Underworld: Infernal Galop (A.K.A. Can Can)- Offenbach Well, “aka can-can” says it all.

Pomp and Circumstance (You probably graduated to this)- Elgar Oh yes, Baaaa dun dun dun duun duuuuun… Also if you were a bandie you had to play it for 3 years before graduating to it.

Gayane: Sabre Dance- Aram Khachaturian Comically hectic productivity, a circus clown juggling while standing on a ball, or perhaps a rapidly-approaching termite infestation. Could go any way, really.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Wedding March- Mendelssohn The song movies play right AFTER they both say “I do.”

Carmen: Les Toreadors- Bizet I can’t be the only one who remembers when ‘Hey Arnold’ did this. “Bullfights and swordfights, rolling in manuuure!”

The Ride of the Valkyries- Wagner Good song for a naval battle I guess? I can only think of the mini golf course I went to as a kid with the creepy castle on Hole 18 that played this.

Für Elise- Beethoven That one every amateur piano player loves to play because the beginning is just E and E-flat over and over. Also ballet and piano recital scenes in movies.

Dance of the Hours- Ponchielli Hello mudda, hello fadda, here I am at, Camp Granada…

Rigotello: La Donna e Mobile- Verdi More than a few sophisticated movie villains (or snobby good guys) have this playing on a Victrola. Also, tell me you don’t picture Pavaroti no matter who’s actually singing.

Night on Bald Mountain- Mussorgsky ?

Romeo and Juliet: Love Theme- Tchaikovsky More movie-love, usually building up to admitting they live each other.

Entry of the Gladiators- Julius Fucik I have one word for you: CIRCUS.

Lakmé: Flower Duet- Delibes OMG ALIAS. Nadia’s spy  backstory in Film Noir!

Peer Gynt: In the Hall of the Mountain King- Greig Mischievous Tiptoeing in Movies song. Also something growing out of control, slowly at first and then quickly, and (comically) exploding.

Rodeo: Hoedown- Copland The title says it all tbh.

Peer Gynt: Morning Mood- Greig Sunrise/waking up Movie Song du jour.

New World Symphony Mov. [2][4]- Dvorak Well now I’m thinking of “An American Tail” and I’m crying…

Ave Maria (You knew this, but did you know that it was by Schubert?) Nothing to add. I’m not a music snob, really, but if you didn’t know this, YOU SHOULD.

Canon in D- Pachelbel This is the one that the pretty Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas song comes from. :-)

Add others if you want! Have fun!