Bill Cipher

**Bill Cipher**is the main antagonist of *Gravity Fall's*season two. He is a triangular dream demon formerly existent only in the mindscape who wished to gain access to the real world. He has been running amok in Gravity Falls, Oregon since being summoned by Stanford Pines over thirty years ago. He is known for his mysterious demenor and sadistic humor.

### Background

Trillions of years prior to the events of Gravity Falls, Bill Cipher originated from the 2nd Dimension. However, Bill despises living in that dimension. He favored chaos and destruction over everything else, and made it his mission to spread it as far he could go. Bill "liberated" his dimension by taking to a higher plane of existence, the 3rd Dimension. He has no corporael form, and so could only access the minds of the dimension's beings. He came to learn of a prophecy that stated he could bring his chaos into the alternate universe, and Bill manipulated countless humans over the eons to find a way into the Third Dimension as a physical being to "liberate" that dimension as well.

When he was caught, he was banished to the Nightmare Realm. Among his targets were natives who lived in what would become a town called Gravity Falls, Oregon. The people discovered that Bill was too dangerous and found a way to temporarily defeat him using a zodiac with ten symbols. The people left behind a painting of their encounter with the demon, including how to summon him, and more importantly, a warning never to read it.

One day in the late twentieth century, a young man named Stanford Pines came to investigate a mysterious town in the same location where the natives had encountered the demon. Ford discovered countless anomalies and secrets in Gravity Falls, but eventually hit a stumbling point and became desperate for more answers. Bill recognized that Ford's brilliant yet cocky and insecure nature and near-friendless background made him an ideal pawn. When Ford accidentally stumbled into a strange cave, he discovered the painting about a "being with answers". Desperate and naive, Ford ignored the warnings and read the summoning inscription, but was confused when nothing happened. Later that day, while taking a nap, Bill entered his dreams. Bill deceived the man, telling him he was a muse who chose one incredible person every hundred years to inspire. He told Ford that if he sided with Bill, they would unlock the greatest riddles in existence. Blinded by this flattery, Ford believed Bill to be a friend and agreed to the deal.

Ford seemed to idolize Bill and decorated his home with various images of him and a similar symbol, the Eye of Providence, which had been scattered across Gravity Falls. Once Bill had tricked Ford into befriending him, he told him that to build a great machine which he claimed would create knowledge to benefit all mankind. However, when the time came to test it, one of Ford's friends, Fiddleford McGucket, was sucked into the machine and discovered it's true nature: a portal into Bill's world that would allow the demon to bring his chaos and destruction into their universe. Horrified and betrayed, Ford shut down the project and hid the instructions on how to operate it. Bill, however, could not be so easily deterred and has been patiently biding his time for the portal to reactivate. Bill and the symbol his based on, the Eye of Providence, appear frequently in Gravity Falls. His name and existence is deduced by taking all the capital letters in the cryptograms from Rumble's Revenge, to form the message "MY NAME IS BILL".

### Gravity Falls

A picture of Bill is briefly shown at the end of the opening theme. A similar picture is seen about him in Journal 2. Encirling him are various symbols that link to various characters. Underneath his name is written "???" and also "This odd, triangular being has appeared in my dreams every night for weeks". His full name appears in his entry in Journal 3, behind it is a message encrypted with a symbol substitution cipher; when decoded it reads "Liar. Monster. Snappy Dresser". There are various notes scattered about the page such as "Is he watching me?" and "Bill has proven himself to be one of the friendliest and most trustworthy individuals that I've ever encountered in my life. What a guy! I honestly can't trust him more. Not evil in any way, Bill is a true gentleman". However, the latter note is crossed out and below another note reading "Can't Be Trusted!" can be found written in red ink. On the next page, a diagram of a human head and various aspects of it's mind is shown, it's top being opened up for a drawing of Bill to enter it. In the lower right corner of the page "DO NOT SUMMON AT ALL COSTS!" is written in large, red letters. The rest of the page is splattered with a dark red substance.

Later in the series, Gideon Gleeful, in attempt to take over the Mystery Shack once again, summons Bill. Gideon tells him to steal Stan Pines' safe combination directly from his mind, so that Gideon can steal the Shack's deed. Bill agrees once he knows it's Stan, but in return, Gideon would have to help him with his own plans. Gideon agrees immediately and the two shake on it. Unbeknownst to Gideon, Mabel Pines and Soos Ramirez witnessed the deal in the forest, and get Dipper Pines' help to follow him into Stan's mind.

Once inside Stan's mind, Bill confronts the trio and brags that he knows what they're all thinking. To prove this statement, he summons Xyler and Craz from Mabel's imagination. He tricks Mabel and Soos into looking for the memory of Stan's combination first, knowing they'd lead him straight to it. Once they find the correct memory he takes it and nearly escapes with it. But while he reads the combination to Gideon aloud, Mabel shoots the memory into another memory of the bottomless pit with a nyarf dart. Gideon breaks off their deal to Bill's fury, he turns his anger toward Mabel and Soos by bringing their nightmares to life and killing Xyler and Craz.

Dipper returns in a timely manner and tells Mabel and Soos they can do anything they want since there in Stan's mindscape. They battle Bill and nearly defeat him and just as they nearly force him out of Stan's head, Bill puts a stop to everything instead. Impressed, he decides to let them go and after warning them of a mysterious darkness that will change everything they care about, he tells them that he'll be watching them. He leaves in a representation of the zodiac.

## Personality

Bill Cipher is an eccentric, insane and physically irreverent demon who finds most things amusing. His outrageous and outlandish as well as a quick talker and thinker. Though may came across as simply annoying, he shouldn't be underestimated; for when he is angered, his a force to be reckoned with as he will unleash near-omnipotent powers on those unfortunate enough to enrage him.

Bill is not one who believes in rules and instead, he follows his own selfish philosophy which doing whatever he wants without care for the consequences. He thinks of laws and physics as senseless and displays an irresistable urge to break those rules down by causing absolute chaos however he can. The lives he ruins hold no merit to him and finds amusement in tormenting and turning people's worlds upside-down. He also sees reality as an "illusion" and values it's destruction.

When possessing Dippy Pines' body, Bill is shown to be rather masochistic, harming himself in various ways for the thrill of it, finding pain "hilarious". He seems to have little knowledge about the human body; specifically it's physical limits. This comes back to harm him when he gains a physical form and endures pain when the shack mech rips his eye out, temporarily weakening him or when Mabel Pines spray-paints it shortly after.

## Abilities

Bill Cipher's abilities are focused around the mind and mental manipulation. His described as a "dream demon" and displays some of the characteristics of a demon including creating contracts with his summoner. When he is summoned, he appears to put everyone and anyone observing into a trance-like dream. The effect is that the world seems colorless, and can manipulate the surrounding environment however he likes, as demonstrated by pulling out and returning a deer's teeth. The people observing are unaware they've fallen asleep until Bill leaves and then they realize their eyes have been closed during his whole meeting. Bill can enters people's minds through their dreams and once inside their mind, he can manipulate anything including his shape, form and changing the landscape. He can communicate with his summoner like a video call, using his body as a window. In fact, he can use his whole body as a projector and display images.
Once inside of a mind he can easily pluck information from any others who are also inside and bring those ideas and images to life. The conjured images seem to take life of their own such as the case with Xyler and Craz. Bill is also at least to omniscient, he knows "a lot of things" including the truth of many well-known conspiracies as well as future events such as the destruction of the Gideon-bot and that Gideon Gleeful would go to prison. Bill also has the ability to remove people's souls from their bodies and take possession of their bodies afterwards. The person who is removed from their body is stuck in a ghost-like form in the mindscape, unable to affect the rest of the world unless they find a vessel.

Bill is also known for having godlike powers such as being able to see things from the eyes of any image of himself. At first, Bill's abilities were limited to the mindscape, requiring him to possess someone to interact with the world. After smashing the rift, Bill can now exist in the physical world, along with his powers which were previously ony limited to the mindscape.

In his physical form, Bill can now utilize his powers in full potent in the real world. He is virtually omnipotent as he can now do anything that would seem impossible such as bringing inanimate objects to life. His abilities in his physical form includes apportation, matter manipulation, mind control, reality warping, inter-universal travel, time manipulation, dream manipulation, clairvoyance, cross-universal awareness, innate capability, illusion manipulation, intangibility, laser manipulation, levitation, molecular manipulation, nightmare inducement, regeneration, fourth wall awareness, soul removal and resistance to reality warping and space-time manipulation.

As powerful as Bill seems, he does limitations. While Bill is able to haunt dreams as he pleases, it requires a deal in order for him to enter someone's conscious mind. The prophecy of the Cipher Zodiac explained that if ten individuals are gathered in a circle, they would be able to stop him, but this would not come true if they broke the chain. Upon entering the physical world, Bill is exposed to unpleasent bodily sensations including exhaustion and pain.

## Summoning Ritual

To summon Bill Cipher, one needs a picture of their victim. The eyes must be crossed out and the picture must be surrounded by eight candles in a circular information. Then the following incantation must be recited: "Triangulum, entangulum. Meteforis dominus ventium. Meteforis venetisarium!", then the summoner's eyes will turn blue. The sky will turn grey as the summoner enters the mindscape. The summoner says "backward message" backward five times. A triangle appears with one eye opening and it turns into Bill's normal appearance. However, it is shown that Bill has the ability to pull other beings into his plane of existence, if he so pleases.

## Quotes

* "Deer teeth. For you, kid!"
* "A darkness approaches. A day will come in the future where everything you care about will change. Until then I'll be watching you! I'll be watching you."
* "Look kid, you've been getting way too close to figuring out some major answers. I've got big plans coming and I don't need you getting in my way. Destroying that laptop was a cinch. Now I just need to destroy your journal. Race ya to the bottom of the stairs!"
* "For one trillion years I've been trapped in my own decaying dimension, waiting for a new universe to call my own. Name's Bill! But you can call me your new lord and master for all of eternity!"
* "This is just too perfect! Didn't you brainiacs know the zodiac doesn't work if you don't all hold hands? And what's better, you've brought every threat to my power together in one easy-to-destroy circle!"