The Book of Bill

The first section of Stanford’s journal starts with the title, “The Missing Journal Pages,” half-burned; Bill stands on them, saying he hopes Stanford draws him “pretty.” In “Lost in the Woods,” Stanford explains that he is struggling to make friends in Gravity Falls, as he misunderstands social interactions and makes people uncomfortable by playing chess and giving out fiber supplements on Summerween. In “Cipher Speaks,” Stanford explains the “greatest day of [his] life” (143), or the day he met Bill. Stanford wonders if he is hallucinating and should seek therapy, but Bill tells him everyone is just intimidated by Stanford’s talent. Bill and Stanford express that they are starting to like one another, particularly when Bill expresses that Stanford didn’t deserve an A- in third grade for using an Oxford comma.

In “My Muse and Me,” Stanford has already known Bill for a year and benefits from Bill’s ability to speed up and soothe his mind whenever he needs it. Bill even rewired his eyes to see an additional color, which he named “Fordtramarine.” Bill asks for nothing except company and riddles (and a tattoo supposedly reading “Wise One,” which Stanford has not yet agreed to get). Stanford worries that the interaction is still only in his head and wants more out of their connection, especially since Bill disappears for extensive periods. On Stanford’s birthday—a difficult day due to his separation from Stanley—he finds “Ford” written in the bodies of dead rats. That night, Bill comes to him and asks if he likes his present (the rats), and Stanford tries to explain human customs. Bill offers him a mixed drink, which Stanford turns down; Bill promises him he’ll convince him the next night, which Stanford doubts. The next page shows Stanford and Bill singing karaoke to “Disco Girl” and covered in Stanford’s drunken scrawl. He explains that Bill got him to drink, and he “understands” now.

In “A Voice from the Past,” Stanford turns on his TV to see Stanley’s advertisement for a scam sponge; Stanley is now working under the name “Panley Stines.” Infuriated that his own face is committing crimes, Stanford vents about Stanley to Bill, who suggests Stanford should’ve eaten him in the womb. When Stanford laments that he wants things to be different, Bill explains that his home dimension was destroyed except for a single speck by a “monster.” When Stanford offers to help him hunt the monster down, Bill joylessly expresses that the monster would “eat [him] alive.”

In “A Winter Break,” Stanford celebrates the holiday season. Progress on the portal is delayed by the weather and by gnomes, so he tries to enjoy the holidays despite his strong dislike of the story of Rudolph and his family’s low-budget celebration of Hanukkah as a child. McGucket gives Stanford a snow globe with their lab inside, making him laugh at the idea of the shack having “merchandise,” alongside a pair of six-fingered gloves. Stanford feels bad for not giving McGucket a present in exchange, but McGucket reassures him that working with him to make history is enough. Stanford tells him they’re taking the weekend off to celebrate, but McGucket tells him he’s flying home to be with his wife for the holidays instead. Stanford, lonely, wonders when Bill will return.

After McGucket leaves, Stanford wallows in loneliness until he hears voices outside his door. He excitedly wonders if McGucket has returned with his family but only finds mysterious footprints. Worried that there are lost children in the woods, Stanford sets out to find them. He provides examples of several tracks common in the snow around Gravity Falls, including the tracks of children, yetis, Baba Yaga and “Baby Yaga,” land orcas, stone-cold foxes, projectile marmots, tinsel snakes, and the Krampus.

In “Snowed In,” Stanford explains that, after setting out to look for the kids, he got trapped by a cold snap and had to hide in a cave—after which he notices cloven footprints behind him. He was knocked out and then wakes up tied in a barrel with four scared kids, all captured by the Krampus. He includes a drawing of the Krampus, carrying a lantern and a barrel of naughty children. The Krampus speaks in Folk German and provides the children with plum treats to fatten them up. The Krampus agrees to free everyone if they share a story of holiday cheer that they brought to someone else, but Stanford loses patience with his moralism. The Krampus loses patience in turn and opens a portal to Hell.

Before he can bring everyone to Hell with him, however, McGucket appears and knocks him unconscious with a banjo. He hugs Stanford and tells him that he forgot to get his wife a Christmas present, so they had a fight, and he left to return to Stanford. Stanford tries to cheer him up, but he is too upset at first. He decides to get them back working on the portal with Christmas music playing, which works. They end up building snowmen together and reminiscing.

In “The Muse Returns,” Stanford recounts a conversation with Bill the morning following his night with McGucket. Bill’s sudden reappearance makes Stanford drop and shatter the snow globe, and he immediately grows furious with jealousy that Bill left him for so long; Bill retaliates that Stanford has been getting distracted by McGucket, calling him a “third-wheel hillbilly.” He warns Stanford that McGucket wants to shut the entire project down and, when Stanford apologizes, tells him to live life by a simple mantra: Trust no one.

Stanford, while looking through an Urban Legends of New Jersey book, finds several pictures of him and Stanley as children and young adults. These include their yearbook pages (Stanford’s picture is scrawled over with NERD in red lettering), a picture of them as babies (with Stanley screaming and Stanford reaching toward a yellow triangle on the mobile), and pictures of them in a photo booth goofing off and holding their secret code proudly. Stanford hides them to keep them secret.

In “Dream, or Warning,” Stanford has a dream of walking through a pleasant field sketching birds when the sky darkens, and he is interrupted by people from all of history walking like puppets and saying, “I GROW MADDENED” (162). The silhouettes illustrated below reveal them to be an Egyptian pharaoh, Thurburt, and the Shaman. Stanford is unable to talk to them but wakes up when the forest in his dream lights on fire and he hears insane laughter. In “What Does it Mean,” Stanford decides “I grow maddened” is an anagram (163), but struggles to figure out to what. He leaves to go to the diner with McGucket to celebrate testing Bill’s portal the next day.

In “I Was Wrong About Everything,” Stanford hastily records that he has shut down the portal, finally realizing Bill’s tricks and games, but he is in a race against time before Bill retaliates. At 3 AM, however, he finds himself unable to destroy his journals, so he decides to spite Bill by destroying him instead and maintaining his research. To do this, he must keep Bill from possessing him in his sleep, since he could just activate the portal with Stanford’s knowledge. By 9 AM, Stanford has installed a retinal scanner, since Bill changes the eyes of those he possesses. He wakes up soon after to find his knuckles and lab door bloody, since Bill had been furiously attacking the door in Stanford’s body to get to the portal, to no avail. Stanford goes to the library for research, where he finds remnants of the Anti-Cipherites; he updates their Bill-proof suit for the modern day, including aspects like a tape that loops grammar mistakes to keep him awake and a cloak sewn from unicorn hair (even though he doesn’t have any unicorn hair yet). Stanford, feeling very sane, goes to steal an extra brain for the suit’s construction.

In “Zom-Bills,” Stanford heads to the Valentino family’s mortuary, which he usually avoids due to the overabundance of the undead; he reassures himself that he is morally justified because scientists regularly robbed graves in the 19th century. Bill possesses a horde of zombies, so Stanford shoots all but one and interrogates the survivor. Bill taunts Stanford that he misses feeling important, and only Bill can understand him; without Bill, he is completely alone in a world that hates him. Stanford admits, “I have missed you…but my aim is getting better” (169). He shoots the zombie, then takes the brain and leaves, proud of himself.

At an undated 9 AM, Stanford records a picture of himself with a sticky note on his forehead asking to talk. He records that he and Bill have conversations in sticky notes while he sleeps and includes the sticky notes, in which he and Bill fight over refusing to talk and Bill abusing the inside of his head and giving him a headache. Stanford additionally wakes up to find a rattlesnake taped to the inside of his journal, which he contains without injury. He retaliates by torturing Bill by listening to the Inkwell song “The World Is Small Ever After For Always” brought up in a previous section, which Bill hates.

In “The War in My Mind,” Stanford wakes up in the freezing snow standing on top of his roof, as if about to jump; he realizes Bill is sending a message that he is in charge and is only sparing Stanford’s life because he wants to use him. He heads inside and finds the living room set up comfortably, with a sign on the fridge pointing to a VCR tape. Stanford plays the tape and, to his horror, finds his body possessed by Bill on the tape, with a careful montage of all the things Bill did while possessing Stanford overnight. Stanford includes the Polaroids from Bill’s night out, all of which depict him doing horrifying things with his eyes yellow like Bill’s, whether getting an embarrassing tattoo calling him a “Flirty Gal” or hammering nails into his own hand. Stanford wonders if Bill has done this before and not told him. As the tape finishes, he watches in horror as Bill attempts to call Stanley, announcing that he (in Stanford’s voice) intends to kill himself and never loved Stanley in the first place. The call disconnects, to Stanford’s relief; when Bill threatens him that the next night will be much worse, he throws the tape into the fire but is suddenly sucked out of time into endless blackness.

Bill tortures him and mocks him because Stanford let him into his brain, so Bill can do whatever he wants, including deleting memories. He asks Stanford if he remembers his own name, and Stanford struggles to do so. Bill snaps his fingers, and the memories go on and off within Stanford’s mind. He drops Stanford, leaving him in excruciating pain, and tells him that nobody loves him and will miss him if he dies; the portal is his only hope of any connection. He gives Stanford 72 hours to build the portal before he sends someone to steal his eyes in revenge.

Stanford wakes up crying and realizes Bill is telling the truth. He desperately looks for notes on where McGucket might have gone but only finds prototypes of six-fingered gloves and a ripped picture of them as roommates in college. Out of options for who can protect the journal while he researches a new way to defeat Bill in the Gravity Falls caves, Stanford decides to call Stanley for help. Stanford includes pros and cons for calling Stanley; the cons are extensive, including his fear that Stanley will mock him, and the pro is simply that he has nobody else. A scrawled note at the bottom of the page reads, “I grow maddened” (181).

Bill provides his perspective on his and Stanford’s “breakup,” insisting he was just lightly hazing him to initiate him as a henchmaniac, and Stanford has no sense of humor for not understanding that. He laughs at Stanford’s obsession with him (or with getting revenge on him) and claims he knew Stanford would come crawling back. Bill then proves that he’s doing fine by including a picture of him drinking a mug of beer larger than his body at an interdimensional pub and including the transcripts from the chaos of that night after he got drunk—the woman working at the pub called the police as Bill sobbed over Stanford, ransacked the restaurant, and then grabbed the phone and incomprehensibly spoke as if to his mother, asking where everyone went.

Bill subsequently spent six hours in lockup before his henchmaniacs broke him out, which is when he decides he was too sentimental for even giving Stanford three days to restart the portal in the first place. He then quickly summarizes that he went back to Gravity Falls, pitted the Pines family against each other, and was stopped, but not by the Shaman’s Zodiac, which he counts as a win. He announces that he has found a partner infinitely better than Stanford—the reader—because they understand his true self and history and are therefore ready to hear his plan. The next page shows Bill hovering above a burning diorama of Gravity Falls with a match in hand.

Bill reveals that while the reader has been reading his book, he has been deleting their useless memories and shame/fear centers, using their blood loss to distract them. This makes them the perfect vessel to become the “most important person in history” (186). He tells the reader to go to his statue in Gravity Falls, shake hands with it, then swap places with him while he restarts Weirdmageddon and rules the world forever, killing the Pines family brutally along the way. The death toll will be 7.8 billion, but Bill promises the fun will be infinite. He begs the reader not to let him down like Stanford.

Stanford reappears, this time reminding the reader that he cannot judge them for reading the book, since he would do the same thing, even if only to protect his family. He then recounts how he emerged from his lab, tormented, only to find Mabel reading the book aloud to the rest of the family. Before he could warn them of the danger, however, he realized they were laughing mockingly at it. Stanford realized he was just trying to protect himself from humiliation by hiding it. When he told his family the truth about his mistakes and relationship with Bill, they all accepted him as he is, freeing him to see the book as Bill’s desperate last grab for attention. Stanford insists Bill thrives off attention, but he’s found his true happiness—his family—which lets him ignore Bill. He includes a picture of the main characters of the show all smiling at the camera.

The next page switches to a journal entry from Mabel, written in multiple bright colors and illustrated with glitter glue. She insists that the book can’t take her blood because she only gives that to “hot vampire doctors,” and then gives Bill advice on “getting over” Stanford, including getting hair and dyeing it, rebounding on someone else’s uncle, or talking to someone in therapy. She then tells Bill that if she ever sees him again, she is going to eat him with guacamole.

Dipper then tells the reader to not turn into a monster by caring too much about monsters, encouraging them to explore other, healthier interests. Dipper then announces if Bill ever shows his face again, he will end him. Mabel praises him for his confidence.

Stanley then reluctantly takes over, announcing that Bill isn’t complicated since he was able to punch him to death almost immediately, and he’s just Stanford’s “jerk of the week” (192). He tells the reader that deals that are too good to be true just are, except at the Mystery Shack of course, and points out that Bill hasn’t said what afterlife he’s in because he hates it there and wants to get out. Stanley “vamps” for a bit more, demanding the reader pay him for writing advice down, then rips a dollar bill in half and tapes it to the page.

Bill reappears, laughing at the idea that a silly family could pull the reader away from their destiny. He burns the picture of the happy family from Stanford’s journal entry, reminding the reader of all the horrible things they did in their allegiance to him and his story, then begins to panic as he realizes his link to the reader is weakening. He furiously rants at the reader that he opened up to them, which devolves into him blaming Stanley and writing his name in increasingly large, angry text. He then flashes back to a silhouette of Stanley punching him alongside an image of glass breaking and Bill’s eye turning into a mouth with crooked teeth, open and revealing an endless chain of identical screaming Bills inside.

After death by Stanley’s punch, a rhyme recounts Bill’s afterlife—he goes to a powerful god, an Axolotl, and begs to have another chance to live. The Axolotl agrees if Bill gets “what he needs the most,” and Bill eagerly agrees. However, the Axolotl sends him to the Theraprism in the neutral zone between dimensions. A picture shows a cracked Bill trapped in a group therapy session. Bill is trapped in infinite rehabilitation. A message to the reader from the Theraprism reveals that Bill has used the book to contact them against the rules from solitary confinement through his arts and crafts projects. They have granted Bill five more minutes before they confiscate the book. Pictures of varying patients at the Theraprism reveal that Bill is in Max Security.

Bill reappears, furious that the reader didn’t break him out and that they now know he has been stuck in therapy for all eternity. He insists he has learned nothing, and he’ll get his revenge. He erases the reader’s memories of the knowledge he has supposedly shared and furiously insists he is fine alone. The subsequent pages show Bill insisting he is fine while his image splinters. He says, “Someday someone will let me out” (207), while a ghostly image of his frozen statue in Gravity Falls slowly looms out of the darkness.