"I don't know! Do I?" Ford demands of the ring, which obnoxiously flashes at him.
"Apparently, I do know," he says, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "Okay. I just have to figure out what it is." Ford clears his throat and addresses the ring.
"It's a step towards graduation."
Flash.
"The wardens wouldn't understand."
Flash.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time!"
Flash.
"Ugh! All right! I don't want you to die anymore."
No flash. But also, this isn't exactly news. Ford's expressed before that it doesn't matter if Bill is alive or dead as long as he's powerless to do large-scale harm.
It's a bit more complicated than that: Ford's conviction that it's not too late for anyone, Bill showing more consideration than Ford thought was possible, this Bill's uniqueness and how destroying him feels a little like taking something infinitesimally rare out of the multiverse, Ford's guilt about the very real possibility that he'll be driven to do it anyway.
Also, they,..they make a better team than Ford is entirely comfortable with.
But the ring isn't built to call its wearer out for vagueness. The answer passes.
Ford pulls the ring off and shrinks it back down to its original size. "Eh, he was going to join somebody's quest," he says noncommittally, assuming the interrogation's over. "Who knows? He might be useful to have around."
Ford stares. It takes him a moment to process what's happening. He looks at Bill, who just thanked him, and down at the ring, which seems like...an offer? A trade, maybe? A deal, so he doesn't feel like he's in Ford's debt.
(That feeling he felt, when Bill had gone all vague and panicky right after the first brick disappeared? The bad feeling?)
"...don't mention it."
(It feels better.)
But what to ask?
"...there's only one thing I want to know," Ford says, slow and deliberate. This is important. Like really, really important to him. "Is all of this...saying 'thank you,' this--" He makes the no-gesture illustratively, "--the theory about the Barge's real purpose...is it all just an act to get me to work on the portal?"
There might as well be a sign over Ford's head lit up in neon that reads TRUST ISSUES. If this had been a world that reshaped itself a little more flexibly, it probably would have appeared. But you gave him this baggage, Bill: you get to deal with it.
Bill sighs. Oh well, another card on the table. "NAH."
True. He almost sounds like he wishes he were making it up. Damn, that'd be great.
"THE BARGE'S PURPOSE THING COULD HAVE BEEN ONE, BUT THE CHANGE OF CHARACTER WOULD BE TOO HARD TO SELL!"
...That's true. A little weird to think about. A good lie relies on reinforcing assumptions the mark has, not challenging them. You don't want to make them uncomfortable.
...that is an enormous relief. He'd been braced for evasion, to have to dig the truth out like he had the first time Bill had used the ring, to be confronted with the sinking realization he'd been tricked all over again.
Ford lets out a breath, and laughs. He's an old fool, he's probably still a sucker, but he's not the kind of fool he was most afraid of being. If Bill had been lying to him, and Ford didn't realize it until it was too late...
"Yes," he agrees, "it would be."
Wow, this is actually pretty okay. Bill's probably going to do something soon that'll mess it all up, but for now, Ford's in a beautiful fantasy land on a quiet night chasing a lead on a mystery and all his bigger, more complicated problems feel small and distant, left behind on the Barge. It's a good moment. Peaceful. He's happier than he's been (outside of DD&MD, of course) in a while.
When that portal opens, everything is going to change. Ford doesn't know how, there are too many unknown factors for him to be able to predict much of anything about the other side, but once he gets there, he'll know what he has to do.
"I suppose it hasn't been too terrible. All things considered." Hang on. Is this teasing? It's a little bit somber, but Ford's still coming off the revelation that this wasn't all one big lie, which lightens it a lot. This is teasing. They work frighteningly well together, despite their occasional differences of opinion, and at points, when Ford's not thinking about how Bill's going to use this portal to get access to an unsuspecting universe and Ford's going to be confronted with a choice that's looking more horrible by the day, yes, it's even been fun.
It feels a little bit like they could do anything. Ford finds himself wishing for a moment that Bill had a goal besides...
"When you get there, to their dimension," Ford asks, a somber expression replacing the lightness from before, "what are you going to do?"
He knows he won't like the answer. He knows it won't stop him from helping Bill with the portal. He asks anyway.
That last part is along the lines of what Ford was expecting. He's seen what Bill does when he's free from limits; Ford needs no clarification there. And Bill's implied before that there are things he can't say on the Barge.
But the first?
"Real?" Ford repeats, in a tone that says I have no idea what you're talking about. "What do you mean, real?" Bill's real now. Frustratingly real, in fact. Ford hasn't wondered about whether Bill is real or not since the 80s. Please tell him this isn't about to be a "brilliant scientist with paranoid delusions was imagining the demon in his head all along" award-winning movie, Ford really, really doesn't want that to be the case. He values his sanity.
"Just because a movie exists about Luke doesn't mean he isn't real," Ford argues, brows furrowing. The odds of running into someone who's basically Lucas Starrambler are long, sure, but so are the odds of falling into any particular universe. Of anything happening, really. When you think about it, the odds of you, specifically, existing, in the specific circumstances you exist, is so infinitely unlikely that basically anything is possible.
Including realities that resemble films almost exactly.
He wasn't expecting to hear that. Ford knows a work of fiction that mirrors his life probably exists somewhere or other, but Bill claiming he knows the...
"Are you saying you've met someone who created a work of fiction that has us in it?" Ford asks. "Like the George Lucas to our Starramblers?"
Okay. It's something not impossible with multiverse travel, but very hard to imagine happening. Ford will follow this train of logic, for now. Skeptically, he asks, "How did you make contact?"
He pretended to be possessed? Wow, that's in bad taste, in Ford's previously-possessed opinion.
But, that aside...
The thing that's helping Ford process this most is Luke's universe. Ford can imagine George Lucas, dressed up in Darth Vader's mask and cape, answering fan mail while in-character. He might explain something from Luke's past, and then...
"Did his answers change our reality?" Ford asks. "Or had it always been that way, and he simply explained it?"
It does remind him somewhat of the square and the sphere. From up there, you can see everything stretched out, even the inner workings of it all, and time has only so much meaning. You can look back and look forward, and if you're the one writing it, you can declare what's true and what isn't. It's very literal authority over the--
You know, because you're the author--
...oh.
Is that coincidence? Can that possibly be coincidence?
"IT FELT LIKE WHEN HE SAID SOMETHING IT'D BEEN TRUE ALL ALONG, BUT FROM WHERE YOU AND I ARE THAT COULD MEAN ANYTHING."
Memories are malleable. They both know this.
Bill looks straight ahead, like he's explaining something that'd keep him up at night - if he ever slept. If this conversation wasn't what was keeping them both up already.
"IF HE SAID WE WERE SOMETHING, OR WEREN'T SOMETHING, THAT'S JUST HOW WE'D ALWAYS REMEMBER IT BEING."
There are things Bill is glad no one asked about. Things that he can know are allowed to be just for him, not for display. Bill is exceedingly careful when he talks about his past, his thoughts. If it's spoken aloud, it's part of the narration. It was made by someone else.
He would like to choose his own answers to some things. He would like them to be not censored for audiences or polished to turn a tighter corner on a punchline. If the price of that is never mentioning them... So be it.
If it's true, and that's really how it works, Ford finds that idea unsettling. Bill doesn't have any proof that he and Ford aren't from a universe that matches up with the answers this not-George Lucas gave, but...the possibility that someone can change Ford's past by answering a fan question and he would never know the difference raises some very uncomfortable questions. Selfishly, he's glad it's Bill and not himself that this guy likes to pretend to be: it means questions about him are less likely to be asked.
But how many were? How much about his history might be different from when he started? How much of his past has been scooped out like the guts of a pumpkin and replaced with something new? What about his past is real, and what's altered memory?
Bill wants to become real, not a creation of someone else, because he believes this guy who answers fan questions created him. Bill wants to get to the Authority's dimension, where no one can change his past, and--
--ah. There's the sticking-point. If the leaders of the Interstellar Empire came to Gravity Falls and started a hostile takeover, or even just wreaked havoc, it'd still have to be stopped. He understands the sense of urgency, understands how important it is to get out of this dimension, but he's still leery about letting Bill loose on this new one, because Ford knows what Bill does to dimensions.
And, even if Ford makes it there and Bill doesn't trash the place, will he see his family again? Or will they just be trapped in a lower plane, on a screen, no longer "real?" Is that a sacrifice he's willing to make?
He's going to have to make it. If that dimension has the kind of power over non-"real" realities, Ford can't leave Bill there alone. He has to go.
Ford sits there silently for a long, long moment, thinking all of this over, looking down at his hands.
"Can you prove it? That what happens when he answers questions changes reality as we know it? Or would we only know for sure if we made it to his dimension and gathered data there?"
"NOT HERE, NOPE. MIGHT JUST HAVE TO TRUST ME ON THIS ONE!"
It's said ironically. Bill pauses. His frown twists.
"EVERYTHING WE DO IS SET UP. THIS CONVERSATION IS SET UP."
It's fucked up to try to have an emotional bond with someone like this. They're not real and you're not real and it's just two dolls being nudged together.
Ford gives Bill a dark look at the just have to trust me bit.
Is Bill taking that entertainment angle again? About how they're not here to be redeemed, they're here to be as amusing as possible?
"You really think we're still under--" how should he put it, "--authorial control?" It sounds like Ford's not sure of that. It doesn't feel like anyone's controlling him. There's no way to prove any of this from where they are.
Bill pulls up some grass with one hand, starts absently picking it apart. This isn't comfortable to talk about.
"LOOK, I DON'T KNOW. I'M PRETTY SURE I DIED BECAUSE THAT'S JUST HOW THE STORY WAS SUPPOSED TO END! EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL. IF WE'RE HEADED TOWARDS SOMETHING, IT'S BECAUSE WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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"SIXER, DO YA NOT KNOW WHY YOU'RE HELPING ME?"
This is particularly annoying because if Ford doesn't know how the hell is Bill supposed to find out?
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"Apparently, I do know," he says, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "Okay. I just have to figure out what it is." Ford clears his throat and addresses the ring.
"It's a step towards graduation."
Flash.
"The wardens wouldn't understand."
Flash.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time!"
Flash.
"Ugh! All right! I don't want you to die anymore."
No flash. But also, this isn't exactly news. Ford's expressed before that it doesn't matter if Bill is alive or dead as long as he's powerless to do large-scale harm.
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Wow. That's going to make your life tough pretty soon, kid.
"IS IT BECAUSE I'M CHANGING?"
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It's a bit more complicated than that: Ford's conviction that it's not too late for anyone, Bill showing more consideration than Ford thought was possible, this Bill's uniqueness and how destroying him feels a little like taking something infinitesimally rare out of the multiverse, Ford's guilt about the very real possibility that he'll be driven to do it anyway.
Also, they,..they make a better team than Ford is entirely comfortable with.
But the ring isn't built to call its wearer out for vagueness. The answer passes.
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Also, Ford has a big crush but they're not going to talk about that.
Bill settles down near him.
"I STILL DON'T KNOW WHY FREEZA IS HERE. PRETTY SURE HE'S JUST BORED. KINDA WISH HE'D GO HOME AND LEARN KNITTING!"
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Ford pulls the ring off and shrinks it back down to its original size. "Eh, he was going to join somebody's quest," he says noncommittally, assuming the interrogation's over. "Who knows? He might be useful to have around."
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For the help. For not making him figure this out alone like he's always done.
Bill takes the ring back, sticks it on his finger.
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(That feeling he felt, when Bill had gone all vague and panicky right after the first brick disappeared? The bad feeling?)
"...don't mention it."
(It feels better.)
But what to ask?
"...there's only one thing I want to know," Ford says, slow and deliberate. This is important. Like really, really important to him. "Is all of this...saying 'thank you,' this--" He makes the no-gesture illustratively, "--the theory about the Barge's real purpose...is it all just an act to get me to work on the portal?"
There might as well be a sign over Ford's head lit up in neon that reads TRUST ISSUES. If this had been a world that reshaped itself a little more flexibly, it probably would have appeared. But you gave him this baggage, Bill: you get to deal with it.
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True. He almost sounds like he wishes he were making it up. Damn, that'd be great.
"THE BARGE'S PURPOSE THING COULD HAVE BEEN ONE, BUT THE CHANGE OF CHARACTER WOULD BE TOO HARD TO SELL!"
...That's true. A little weird to think about. A good lie relies on reinforcing assumptions the mark has, not challenging them. You don't want to make them uncomfortable.
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Ford lets out a breath, and laughs. He's an old fool, he's probably still a sucker, but he's not the kind of fool he was most afraid of being. If Bill had been lying to him, and Ford didn't realize it until it was too late...
"Yes," he agrees, "it would be."
Wow, this is actually pretty okay. Bill's probably going to do something soon that'll mess it all up, but for now, Ford's in a beautiful fantasy land on a quiet night chasing a lead on a mystery and all his bigger, more complicated problems feel small and distant, left behind on the Barge. It's a good moment. Peaceful. He's happier than he's been (outside of DD&MD, of course) in a while.
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A kind of callous, backhanded compliment if ever there was one, but true.
It's all going to be over, very soon, but right now it's been fun.
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"I suppose it hasn't been too terrible. All things considered." Hang on. Is this teasing? It's a little bit somber, but Ford's still coming off the revelation that this wasn't all one big lie, which lightens it a lot. This is teasing. They work frighteningly well together, despite their occasional differences of opinion, and at points, when Ford's not thinking about how Bill's going to use this portal to get access to an unsuspecting universe and Ford's going to be confronted with a choice that's looking more horrible by the day, yes, it's even been fun.
It feels a little bit like they could do anything. Ford finds himself wishing for a moment that Bill had a goal besides...
"When you get there, to their dimension," Ford asks, a somber expression replacing the lightness from before, "what are you going to do?"
He knows he won't like the answer. He knows it won't stop him from helping Bill with the portal. He asks anyway.
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Bill holds up the ring to look at it in the dark. True.
"AND THEN I'M GOING TO BE ABLE TO SAY WHATEVER I WANT, AND DO WHATEVER I WANT."
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But the first?
"Real?" Ford repeats, in a tone that says I have no idea what you're talking about. "What do you mean, real?" Bill's real now. Frustratingly real, in fact. Ford hasn't wondered about whether Bill is real or not since the 80s. Please tell him this isn't about to be a "brilliant scientist with paranoid delusions was imagining the demon in his head all along" award-winning movie, Ford really, really doesn't want that to be the case. He values his sanity.
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Bill gestures back at Luke.
"HE'S FROM A FILM."
Bill gestures out in front of them.
"THIS IS FROM A FILM."
Bill gestures to Ford and himself.
"WE'RE IN HERE, TALKING TO HIM SOMETIMES."
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"Just because a movie exists about Luke doesn't mean he isn't real," Ford argues, brows furrowing. The odds of running into someone who's basically Lucas Starrambler are long, sure, but so are the odds of falling into any particular universe. Of anything happening, really. When you think about it, the odds of you, specifically, existing, in the specific circumstances you exist, is so infinitely unlikely that basically anything is possible.
Including realities that resemble films almost exactly.
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He twists back so his back is to Luke and the others, arms crossed.
"REAL IS AS REAL DOES. I'VE SEEN A LOT, I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOU AND I CAME FROM. I KNOW WHERE OUR WHOLE UNIVERSE CAME FROM! I'VE MET THE GUY."
In a manner of speaking.
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Met the guy.
He wasn't expecting to hear that. Ford knows a work of fiction that mirrors his life probably exists somewhere or other, but Bill claiming he knows the...
"Are you saying you've met someone who created a work of fiction that has us in it?" Ford asks. "Like the George Lucas to our Starramblers?"
Okay. It's something not impossible with multiverse travel, but very hard to imagine happening. Ford will follow this train of logic, for now. Skeptically, he asks, "How did you make contact?"
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Bill snaps.
That's how easy it is.
"IT WAS TRUE! JUST LIKE THAT! YOU REMEMBER AT THE END OF THIS MOVIE WHERE THE EARTH KID JUST SAYS THE QUEEN'S NEW NAME AND THE APOCALYPSE STOPS?"
Like that kinda.
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But, that aside...
The thing that's helping Ford process this most is Luke's universe. Ford can imagine George Lucas, dressed up in Darth Vader's mask and cape, answering fan mail while in-character. He might explain something from Luke's past, and then...
"Did his answers change our reality?" Ford asks. "Or had it always been that way, and he simply explained it?"
It does remind him somewhat of the square and the sphere. From up there, you can see everything stretched out, even the inner workings of it all, and time has only so much meaning. You can look back and look forward, and if you're the one writing it, you can declare what's true and what isn't. It's very literal authority over the--
You know, because you're the author--
...oh.
Is that coincidence? Can that possibly be coincidence?
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Memories are malleable. They both know this.
Bill looks straight ahead, like he's explaining something that'd keep him up at night - if he ever slept. If this conversation wasn't what was keeping them both up already.
"IF HE SAID WE WERE SOMETHING, OR WEREN'T SOMETHING, THAT'S JUST HOW WE'D ALWAYS REMEMBER IT BEING."
There are things Bill is glad no one asked about. Things that he can know are allowed to be just for him, not for display. Bill is exceedingly careful when he talks about his past, his thoughts. If it's spoken aloud, it's part of the narration. It was made by someone else.
He would like to choose his own answers to some things. He would like them to be not censored for audiences or polished to turn a tighter corner on a punchline. If the price of that is never mentioning them... So be it.
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But how many were? How much about his history might be different from when he started? How much of his past has been scooped out like the guts of a pumpkin and replaced with something new? What about his past is real, and what's altered memory?
Bill wants to become real, not a creation of someone else, because he believes this guy who answers fan questions created him. Bill wants to get to the Authority's dimension, where no one can change his past, and--
--ah. There's the sticking-point. If the leaders of the Interstellar Empire came to Gravity Falls and started a hostile takeover, or even just wreaked havoc, it'd still have to be stopped. He understands the sense of urgency, understands how important it is to get out of this dimension, but he's still leery about letting Bill loose on this new one, because Ford knows what Bill does to dimensions.
And, even if Ford makes it there and Bill doesn't trash the place, will he see his family again? Or will they just be trapped in a lower plane, on a screen, no longer "real?" Is that a sacrifice he's willing to make?
He's going to have to make it. If that dimension has the kind of power over non-"real" realities, Ford can't leave Bill there alone. He has to go.
Ford sits there silently for a long, long moment, thinking all of this over, looking down at his hands.
"Can you prove it? That what happens when he answers questions changes reality as we know it? Or would we only know for sure if we made it to his dimension and gathered data there?"
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It's said ironically. Bill pauses. His frown twists.
"EVERYTHING WE DO IS SET UP. THIS CONVERSATION IS SET UP."
It's fucked up to try to have an emotional bond with someone like this. They're not real and you're not real and it's just two dolls being nudged together.
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Is Bill taking that entertainment angle again? About how they're not here to be redeemed, they're here to be as amusing as possible?
"You really think we're still under--" how should he put it, "--authorial control?" It sounds like Ford's not sure of that. It doesn't feel like anyone's controlling him. There's no way to prove any of this from where they are.
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"LOOK, I DON'T KNOW. I'M PRETTY SURE I DIED BECAUSE THAT'S JUST HOW THE STORY WAS SUPPOSED TO END! EVERYTHING ELSE IS JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL. IF WE'RE HEADED TOWARDS SOMETHING, IT'S BECAUSE WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE."
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