YOUR PAL AND OVERLORD, BILL CIPHER!

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   Keys: cult of ciphertology, deals, second dimension, ford pines, axolotl, euclydia, nightmare realm

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   Bill Cipher is a trillion years old, nigh-omnipotent, nigh-omniscient and evil being from the now destroyed two-dimentional dimension, Euclydia. He is a two-dimensional interdimensional dream demon, existent only in the Mindscape. Bill tries to succeed in gaining access to the real world and a physical form. Bill is a yellow, two-dimensional and triangular creature that bears a strong resemblance to the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States, which in turn consists of the Eye of Providence and an unfinished Egyptian pyramid. The color of his body briefly becomes lighter when he speaks. Often when he appears, the area he appears in takes on a washed-out monochrome appearance. It is unknown whether this effect physically occurs, or if it is simply a visual effect to bring attention to his appearance. He has a single large eye with a slit pupil, rimmed with four short black lashes on the top and bottom, though sometimes there are three on the top and four on the bottom. He moves around mostly by floating about and rarely actually stands on his own legs. He has thin, black limbs, wears a small, black bow tie and a tall, thin, black top hat that floats just above his head. He has no mouth whatsoever, though has been shown using his eye as one to drink something. His arms do not seem to be in any fixed position and can move along the perimeter of his body without any difficulty. He occasionally carries a small black or yellow cane. The lower part of his body has a brick-like pattern of lines. He has no fixed size and he has been shown to be as small as a hand and tower over the Mystery Shack. Bill's body also flashes when he speaks as he has no actual mouth. However, when he gets angry, his voice deepens significantly, the color of his body turns red and his eye turns black with a white pupil, (in close-up, his eye shows a red iris.) and everything on his body that was previously black turns white. While possessing a person, that person's body will take on a pale tone to their skin and their eyes will appear to be yellow with black slits, similar to his own. If necessary, both Bill's yellow main portion and the eye can portray images similarly to a television screen, all of which are seemingly what he is thinking about at the time. The voice also changes to Bill's. Bill is a cunning, blasphemous, eccentric, sadistic, psychopathic and physically irreverent being who finds most things amusing, particularly if they cause distress or harm to others. He is outrageous and outlandish, as well as a quick talker and thinker. Though he may come across as simply annoying, he shouldn't be underestimated; for when he is angered, he is a force to be reckoned with as he will unleash his near-omnipotent powers on those unfortunate enough to make him angry. When accused of being insane, Bill proudly agrees with the statement. He is also shown to be somewhat obnoxious. Occasionally, his voice tumbles to a lower pitch (usually when emphasizing a statement). At first, Bill Cipher seemed to be a charismatic figure, willing to help people with their problems and share supernatural knowledge while making deals with them, but this easily changes within minutes of his debut, especially when he reveals himself to be a highly intelligent and manipulative individual, who only wants to benefit himself. Because of his harmless appearance and charming nature, he often enjoyed playing games with people, regarding how easily they fall into his traps. It also gives whoever doesn't know his true nature the false impression that he isn't malicious when in actuality, Bill is a deranged maniac. He was unfailingly nice and friendly to his so-called "friends" as well as long as things went the way he wanted. However, when this is not the case, he is quick to lash out to them and does not care about their well-being. As a demonic dealmaker, Bill is also shown to be a highly manipulative, very charismatic and charming conman being able to easily trick Ford Pines into believing that he was just a humble muse who simply wished to help benefit the human world by providing him with forbidden knowledge when in reality he was only ever using the researcher for his own purposes with the book smart Ford noting that the only person who could've possibly seen the ruse for what it was, was his much more street smart brother Stan Pines, who was himself an expert conman. However, while an easily angered madman, he is also highly authoritative, perspicacious, influential, pragmatic, and decisive, knowing when to pull out of a fight. Over the course of the show, it became more and more obvious that Bill has an extremely calculating, conniving and vicious nature. Sometimes, even those who are aware of how depraved he is fall for his charm. Bill is also known for his complete disregard of rules and morals, as he considers laws and physics to be quite senseless and doesn't even care about the consequences of his actions even if they can endanger the fabric of existence; likewise, the idea of destroying the Earth is a mere game to him. Ultimately, he dedicated his existence to spreading complete chaos and followed his selfish philosophy of doing whatever he wants without any care for the consequences. Overall, Bill Cipher is a cunning, malevolent, sinister, blasphemous, charismatic, egotistical, deceptive, highly manipulative, self-centered, chaotic, ruthless, omniscient, and sadomasochistic con artist who has absolutely no regard or remorse whatsoever for the crimes he's committed; as far as he's concerned, billions of people (including children, infants, and animals) can die for all he cares as long as he gets what he wants and achieves his goals in the end. Bill is not one who believes in rules. Instead, he follows his own selfish philosophy which means doing whatever he wants without care for the consequences. He thinks of laws and physics as senseless and displays an irresistible urge to break those rules down by causing absolute chaos however he can. The lives he ruins hold no merit to him and he finds amusement in tormenting and turning people's worlds upside-down. He also sees reality as "an illusion" and values its destruction. He usually speaks with a high-pitched voice with a synthesized effect, but when furious or expressive, it becomes very deep and intimidating in a way that's more in line with traditional demon depictions. When Bill got mad, he becomes full of rage, as he attacks without mercy and for the most part, stops fooling around. He is also very masochistic, as he enjoys hurting himself. While Bill is vastly powerful and competent, he cannot normally interact with the physical world while trapped inside the Nightmare Realm. He is able to observe the world, but not influence it, as he can only appear to people in dreams, being virtually omnipotent within the dreamscape. Interestingly, Bill seems to have a preference for manipulating fire, igniting his hand during handshakes to seal a deal, as well as utilising fire for most of his attacks. Bill can also act by making a pact with a willing vessel, but in doing this he is subject to all the constraints of the vessel body and cannot use his own power to reshape the world at will. Additionally, Bill is incredibly strong, with his duel against Time Baby managing to shake the fabric of the multiverse (along with some input from his minions) and he seems rather resilient as he survived getting gummed by Time Baby, a fate lethal and excruciating for most beings. He also has a vast amount of knowledge available to him, being capable of seeing out of any depiction of him or eye-like marking, additionally being able to see out of his previous vessels involuntarily. Bill is also an expert manipulator as, while he tends not to lie, he doesn't outright tell the truth and can easily bend the rules of his deals to his favour by exploiting loopholes. However, he doesn't know everything in the universe, including Stanford's trickery. Bill can also be repelled in his non-corporeal form in rather simple manners, from wearing a tinfoil hat to prevent his possessions to surrounding a locale with unicorn hair to protect it from his influence. As Bill can't access the third dimension physically at first, summoning him seems to put the people around him into a sleep-like trance that allows him to manifest. The people observing are unaware they've fallen asleep until Bill leaves, after which they usually awake with a jolt. Bill can also enter another person's mind through that person's dreams. Once within the trance, or within someone's mindscape, Bill's powers are vastly magnified; he becomes capable of changing his appearance, changing the appearance of other people's dream selves, and changing the area at will. He can also pluck information from any others who are also inside and bring those ideas and images to life, as was the case with Xyler and Craz being summoned in Stan's mind as he is proving this to Mabel, Dipper, and Soos. Bill can communicate with his summoner using his body as the screen of a video phone; he can also use his whole body as a projector, displaying past and future events as live video footage. As Bill often mentions, he is close to omniscient: he knows the truth of many well-known conspiracies and can see the future (such as the destruction of the Gideon-bot and that Gideon Gleeful would go to prison), an ability he often flaunts by offering to tell a person the exact time, date and cause of that person's death - he seemingly predicted Ford's death, by heart attack at the age of ninety-two. Bill has the ability to see things through the eyes of any image of himself, which is why his image appears hidden throughout many items and places in Gravity Falls. Bill also has the ability to, with the original owner's consent to an appropriately worded "deal," remove people's minds from their bodies, taking possession of the empty body himself. The real owner of the body is stuck in a spirit-like form within the mindscape, unable to affect the rest of the world unless that person finds a vessel. This vessel does not have to be a living creature, as revealed when Dipper used his sock puppet caricature to communicate with Mabel while stuck as a disembodied spirit. Despite his vast knowledge and abilities, Bill has limitations. He must be summoned in order to appear first: he vanished from Gravity Falls once Ford disappeared, and only manifested again after Gideon summoned him once more, even remarking that he hadn't been there "in a while." He can only access bodies and conscious minds if he is allowed to through a contract, which involves agreeing to certain terms and shaking Bill's hand. Being well aware of this, Bill is known to twist and manipulate the words of these contracts for his benefit. When taking possession of a mortal body, Bill becomes limited to it, subject to pain (which he finds "hilarious"), exhaustion and even the host body's particularities, as evidenced when he was shown to react to Dipper's ticklish areas while in his body. His vast powers are also strictly limited to dreams and the mindscape: his powers do not migrate into his host body and cannot affect the physical world. In his physical form, Bill is nigh-omnipotent, bringing inanimate objects to life and turning people into statues of the material of his choice. He can regenerate every aspect of himself, create everything from objects to elaborate pocket dimensions (like Mabel's prison bubble) and produce electric charges (shot from his eye). His abilities in this form also include: apportation, inter-universal travel, matter manipulation, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, time manipulation, telepathy, mind control, illusion manipulation, dream manipulation, nightmare inducement, madness inducement (can create bubbles that induce madness in whatever they touch), clairvoyance, objects summoning, intangibility, reality-warping, levitation, possession, precognition, size-shifting, fourth wall awareness (he is aware of the real world and can "see" us), and resistance to reality-warping and space-time manipulation. He even surpasses Time Baby's powers, which he displays by disintegrating him during "Weirdmageddon Part 1." Bill himself declares that he controls space, matter and, after getting Time Baby out of the way, time itself. However, even an incarnate Bill discovered limitations in his power. Bill's physical eye proved particularly sensitive and took more time than the rest of him to regrow. "Ah! My eye! Do you have any idea how long it takes to regenerate that!?" Even while capable of vastly affecting the physical world, he still could not enter bodies or conscious minds without the contract-and-handshake process. Gravity Falls' bubble of weirdness also thwarted Bill's powers, as no amount of hitting or shooting at it dissolved the barrier, which stopped Weirdmageddon from advancing into the rest of the world. The prophecy of the zodiac hung heaviest of all over Bill's mind. This prophecy explained that if ten particular individuals gathered in the circle designed by the ancients who had known Bill, they would be able to stop him; however, this would not come to pass if any of them broke the chain. Despite this, Bill's own ego proved to be his most fatal flaw, as it led him to underestimate the "mortals": he failed to recognize Stan's trick, as he was too giddy to read his thoughts, driven by the possibility of learning how to bypass the bubble over Gravity Falls, and did not realize he was at his most fragile while in the mindscape. His elimination also revealed that, while in the mindscape, he was as vulnerable to erasure via the memory gun as all other thoughts. When Bill Cipher escapes the Nightmare Realm, he becomes able to use his full power within the real world, and his power seems to be almost limitless, possibly next to godlike. He is able to reshape reality and everything in it to his will and can even defeat similarly powerful entities such as Time Baby, effortlessly wiping out the infant Time Giant and his minions with a single blast (though Time Baby does regenerate back in the future, angrier than ever). On the brink of defeat, he offered Stanley Pines "his own galaxy", implying that his power could potentially be on a cosmic scale. However, he has some weaknesses, due to not being entirely powerful. Namely, he cannot escape the weirdness-attracting bubble around Gravity Falls on his own and lacks the knowledge to undo the bubble cased by Stanford's powerful equation, as he is unable to use his powers directly on objects that are protected by a barrier of unicorn hair. Bill’s singular eye also seems rather delicate, causing excruciating pain to him whenever it’s hurt and being the point that Stan punches it to defeat him. Bill also remarks that the Memory Ray and fragments of memories destroyed by it cause a burning sensation to him, one which he thoroughly dislikes and admits is the first pain he's never found funny at all. While Bill can possess any non-living objects (or even cadavers in the case of Silas Birchtree), he cannot possess any living being unless they shake his hand. Furthermore, Ford's metal skull plate blocked Bill from accessing his mind completely, only being capable of appearing in his dreams. In the mindscape, Bill is nothing less of a thought which means if Bill was in someone's mind that is about to be erased, he will be erased along with it. However, while Stanley's punch coupled with the Memory Ray didn't erase Bill, he was killed in a physical sense and trapped in a purgatory-like state. In this state, it's stated by Stanford that Bill is only alive so long as someone is reading his book and otherwise is completely helpless. Aside from physical limitations, Bill's greatest weakness is his own arrogance. Over one trillion years ago, Bill Cipher was born. He originated from a two-dimensional universe known as Euclydia. When he was born, he had Velcro shoes that squeaked when he ran and was beloved by everyone so much that the mayor declared his birthday a national holiday. On his birthday, Bill gave out free knives to everyone as a gift. In spite of this, however, Bill despised living there, describing it as a dimension of "flat minds in a flat world with flat dreams." There was one other thing about him that was different; he had a mutation that gave him an abnormally large eye that allowed him to see the third dimension. With that, he had the ability to see a direction known as "up," something all others of his dimension could not see. Despite talk of a "third" dimension was illegal in his world, Bill was unable to think of anything else but being able to join it. Although boasting about having a good life, during an inebriated rant, he implied that his claims of a good childhood are false and that he was actually ostracized for his mutation, giving him the drive to finally make his race understand what he saw. In an event known as the "Euclidian Massacre", he "liberated" his dimension by plunging it into burning chaos, along with everyone he had ever known, including his own parents. Possibly due to the inherent trauma of the event, he is unable to fully recount the details of the massacre (whenever he does, a loud buzzing noise begins in his ears and he blacks out). Given that, whether he even intended to commit the act to the extent that he did still remains unclear. He eventually took over a boiling and shifting intergalactic foam between dimensions; a lawless and unstable crawlspace known as the Nightmare Realm. Unfortunately, due to the Nightmare Realm's lawlessness and lack of any consistent physics or rules, it was fated to eventually collapse on itself. After coming to learn of a prophecy that stated he would merge the Nightmare Realm with the third dimension, Bill started coming into contact with humans to accomplish this. Without a physical form, however, Bill could only access the dreams of the third dimension's beings. In order to make his dealings with mortals easier, he took on the name "Bill Cipher" as his real name would "evaporate one with an expression of horror and ecstasy on their face." Among his targets were the natives who lived in what would become the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon. Bill once asked a local shaman named Modoc the Wise to build an interdimensional gateway to the Nightmare Realm, but the result was made out of twigs. When Modoc learned of the prophecy that foretold of an apocalyptic event that would stem from interactions with Bill Cipher, he committed suicide by setting himself on fire in an effort to avert it. The natives eventually discovered a way to defeat Bill by using a zodiac with ten symbols. They left behind elaborate cave paintings about their encounter with the demon, including how to summon him, and more importantly, a warning never to read the incantation that would summon Bill aloud. The valley was deemed a "cursed land" by the natives, who evacuated around 1000 AD. The area would eventually be rediscovered by Quentin Trembley and repopulated by pioneers, giving rise to the town of Gravity Falls. For the next centuries, Bill attempted to get his portal built with the help of various other humans from the ancient Egyptians, Aztecs and even Easter Island heads. His attempts in the dark ages with a wizard gave rise to "Cipherstitions" in the old, causing him to flee to the new world to try and get his portal built there. Bill tried using New England settlers to no avail and even convince the leaders of the then newly created America to help him. His attempts would lead to the rise and fall of a group in 1901 known as the Anti-Cipher Society that tried to defeat him and spread awareness about his deception. They were deemed a joke and disbanded. In 1952, Bill Cipher would come across the corpse of snake oil salesman Silas Birchtree, who had choked on a coin he flipped while hiding from debtors. Seizing this chance, Bill would possess Silas's corpse and take up his identity, with many noting the salesman's sudden change in demeanour, posture and curious complexion. "Silas" would begin to hold speeches in the town square of Orchard Lake, proclaiming that his near-death experience had granted him a connection with an omnipotent being named Bill Cipher, whose power would help humans satisfy their desire for anarchy which was being suppressed by their overlords. Silas would also promise to teach people absurd and powerful skills, as well as grant them their own moons as rewards. As a result, many of the townsfolk were either indifferent or charmed by Silas's charisma, though they'd deny it. One townswoman named Emmaline Butternubbins was, however, fiercely opposed to Silas's actions, claiming with eerie accuracy that he was a corpse possessed by an extraterrestrial triangle, seeking pawns to build him an interdimensional portal. On June 18th, 1952, "Silas" would conduct an interview with the lead reporter of Orchard Lake's newspaper, Welton Danforth, during which he explains that he's just preaching ideas which are real so long as you believe in them. While initially skeptical of the cult leader, Welton would be convinced of Silas's supernatural powers after he correctly deduces his strained marriage and secret dreams of becoming a famous author, becoming a follower of Ciphertology during this interview. It's implied that shortly after the interview, nearly the entire town converted to Ciphertology, giving Silas free rein over them. With the entire town now under his control, Silas would overthrow the local government and rename the town of Orchard Lake Billville, turning it into a totalitarian dictatorship with him at the centre. Silas would encourage Ciphertologists to emulate his style, shave their heads to paint Bill's eye on them, inhale helium to imitate his voice and spread the word of Ciphertology to non-believers, harassing them until they accepted or killing them on the spot allegedly via a skull-shattering shriek. The Ciphertologists would also raid nearby stores, garages and burger joints for weapons, car parts and ball pit balls respectively, using their scrap metal and resources to begin building Bill's portal, attempting to disguise their true intentions to the general public whilst doing so. Under Silas's rule, healthcare would be completely banned as he thought pain was hilarious, travel wasn't allowed and all pre-existing laws were abolished, making the town crime free by technicality. Silas would also punish uncooperative cultists by sending them to "The Hole" and would host "Dream-Ins", in which Bill would possess up to 30 people at once and make them all maniacally laugh. Despite this, Emmaline Butternubbins would stubbornly remain unconverted and would try to convince her fellow townspeople to fight against Silas to no avail. A few months after Silas's coup against the local government, the Ciphertologists would hijack a local television station to broadcast Silas's reading of erotic geometric fiction to the nearby region. The nearby town of Elk Glen would file a complaint to the Federal Communications Council, causing the Ciphertologists to retaliate by pouring 600 gallons of bubble bath solution into the local water source, causing any who drank it to spew bubbles. As a result, the state government of Kansas issued an ultimatum to the Ciphertologists: return the city hall and dismantle their portal or be gunned down by the state's military. Silas and his followers would obviously refuse, leading to a standoff between them and the Kansas military, during which the Ciphertologists were holed up in a Waffle House for 13 days, chanting "TEETH" unendingly in a presumed attempt to shatter the skulls of the troopers. After escaping back to Billville, Silas would grow increasingly desperate and cut off all communication in and out of the town, ordering his cultists to work extra hard on the portal. Furthermore, Silas's body was notably deteriorating, with signs of decay finally showing as Bill's vessel began to desiccate. Finally, Emmaline, out of frustration that everybody was ignoring her anti-Bill pamphlets, would hurl a torch into the Ciphertologists' headquarters, conveniently igniting their gas tanks and destroying the portal. With all hope lost, Silas would order his cultists to drink a potion meant to kill them but when it only gave them a bad stomachache, he would order them to stand in line holding hands singing "We'll Meet Again" as the troopers fired on them. His decaying vessel falling apart, Bill tried to issue one last message to his followers, proclaiming that as an idea he can never die and that he'd return one day, but just as he could finish a stray bullet knocked Silas's head clean off, making his corpse crumble into a rotten, fly-infested mess. In the end, 9 members of Ciphertology were killed and the cult was disbanded soon after. In a coverup of the siege, the US Government erased all evidence of the town of Orchard Lake off maps, books and historical records. Today, their policy on what happened is "stop calling us or we'll send a drone to your house." What remains are fading billboards, bullet casings, and bowties strewn across the desert (some even on tumbleweeds). Beyond that, some straggling members still hold out hope for Silas's return and T-shirts promoting the cult are still sold online. Many years on, a historian of esoteric cults named Donna Rutherford would write up an article about Ciphertology, coming to the realization that many of Silas's predictions have been coming true. They end the article by stating they have converted from being a Lutheran to a Ciphertologist. In the late twentieth century, a young man named Stanford Pines, who had spent the past six years investigating the town's plethora of unnatural creatures and oddities, hit a roadblock in his research and was left without answers as to how the improbabilities of Gravity Falls had come to be. During the roadblock, he uncovered the cave containing the ancients' stories of Bill Cipher. Heedless of the warnings, Ford repeated the incantation aloud, breaking the curse and summoning Bill into his mindscape. Bill recognized Ford's brilliant but cocky and insecure nature, and his near-friendlessness as ideal conditions for manipulation, choosing to introduce himself to Ford as a muse who chose one brilliant mind every century to inspire. It was Bill who revealed to Ford that Gravity Falls' weirdness was caused by a rift between dimensions, through which the other side's weirdness leaked through. With Bill's assistance, Stanford drafted blueprints to create an inter-dimensional gateway beneath it and his home (later becoming the Mystery Shack), recruiting his college roommate and friend Fiddleford McGucket for assistance. As Bill and Ford's partnership seemingly grew to friendship, Ford seemed to develop an obsession with Bill's powers, collecting triangular memorabilia such as rugs and statues, modeling his home's architecture in his image, converting his private study into a place of worship. He even allowed the demon to enter his mind; this, along with the amount of information he seemed to simply produce on the spot, made Fiddleford increasingly uneasy of the portal and of Ford's mysterious collaborator, as Ford never mentioned Bill's identity to his partner. On January 18, 1983, Ford and Fiddleford performed their first trial with the active portal, which quickly went awry, as the rope that was attached to the dummy they intended to send through the portal became tangled with Fiddleford, sending him briefly through the portal head-first. Upon his return, an alienated Fiddleford muttered incoherencies before uttering a prediction about "the beast with just one eye." It is later revealed that Fiddleford saw Bill removing his exoskeleton to feed. He promptly abandoned the project. The suspicion planted in him by Fiddleford led to a confrontation between Ford and Bill, during which Ford learned that Bill had tricked him, as the portal was meant to act as a gateway to the Nightmare Realm, allowing the demon to bring chaos and destruction into their universe. Horrified and betrayed, Ford shut down the project and attempted to destroy all knowledge of the portal, before accidentally falling through it himself. Bill either could not see Ford in the thirty years he spent lost in other dimensions or did not care to, as Ford would remark that they had not seen each other in many years. With the loss of his human pawn, Bill also lost physical access to the third dimension. Despite trying to come up with other schemes, he remained more or less inactive from trying to find a new pawn. To summon Bill Cipher, one needs a picture of one's intended victim. The eyes of the victim in the picture must be crossed out before it is surrounded with an octet of candles in a circular formation. Then the following incantation must be recited: "Triangulum, Entangulum. Meteforis Dominus Ventium. Meteforis Venetisarium." Once recited, the summoner's eyes will glow blue and the sky will turn grey as the summoner enters the mindscape. They will then utter, "backwards message", in reverse five times, before a triangle-shaped object appears. A single eye will appear in the center before it becomes Bill. However, it is shown that Bill has the ability to temporarily pull other beings into his plane of existence if he so pleases. In order to prevent Bill's chaos inside someone's mind, one must light a nonet of candles and place one's hand on the victim's forehead. Say the following incantation: "Videntis Omnium. Magister Mentium. Magnesium Ad Hominem. Magnum Opus. Habeus Corpus. Inceptus Nolanus Overratus. Magister Mentium. Magister Mentium. Magister Mentium." One's eyes will then turn blue and one will be brought to the victim's mind the way one pictures it. One will then have to find a way to stop Bill oneself. There are also three known preemptive methods to stop Bill from entering minds. The first known method is a shielding spell that involves moonstones, mercury and unicorn hair, which also protects against Bill's chaos when he gains corporeality. The second method is placing a physical barrier around the mind, such as Ford's metal plate, though Ford stated it is not the safest method. The last method is "encrypting" a subject's thoughts, making them too difficult for Bill to read. It is safer than the second method and more mobile than the first, but very time-consuming, as it involves "thinking the right way," which is a skill that must first be learned.

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