Ok I Want To Talk About Billford For A Second. There’s Something To Be Said About It.

ok i want to talk about billford for a second. there’s something to be said about it.

for the record NO i don’t ship it. but i do think i’d be missing out on crucial characterization if i didn’t bring this up, that in canon, it looks like ford has somewhat of a crush on bill by the way he talks about him in his journal and the memorabilia he collects (until he learns he was used to build a portal). crushes don’t have to be sexual NOR romantic in nature of course, they can be of a platonic type. wanting to get to know someone really deeply or spend a lot of time with them. ford obviously smitten with this knowledgeable omniscient dream creature. to ford bill felt more than just “a friend” but the feeling of was, of course, not mutual. bill played along and made him feel special so he could stick around to build that portal for him—the one he’s tried with like countless people throughout history. however i do think bill was surprised by ford’s competence which made him stick out more than the others to great surprise

i think this dynamic is interesting, but because it is unhealthy i don’t like saying i ship it. i don’t think this is a good relationship and almost all the content is not what i’m looking for when i want to see these two interacting. i don’t want to see them make out. i want to see how ford, for how smart he is, got so carried away by having his ego stroked by a little guy. i want to put him in a lab and study him. he literally just met this triangle by reciting transciptions from caveman art that told him not to read it aloud and somehow goes all in with his coins on bill and trusts him with his entire being despite just meeting him and the warnings written in the cave. and he is played like a fucking Sucker. i want to see what bill thinks from his point of view and what he did to keep milking the hell out of ford’s time, resources, and trust.

but i’m just. not a fan of how much emphasis is put on a sexual interpretation of the relationship in the fandom or the fact that the abusive aspects are brushed aside or romanticized which is why i don’t want to say “i’m a fan of this ship”.

you know how ao3 has “X / Y” to mean ship and “X & Y” to mean gen character relationship? i find the dynamic fascinating in the sense of the latter. i did see that ford wanted intimacy with bill because of his little fanboy crush but i dont believe it was literally sexual or romantic intimacy, it was psychological intimacy. bill isn’t a stone wall when it comes to this type of mental intimacy (in fact he loves pushing people’s psychological boundaries and making them uncomfortable a la eric andre) but he is deceptive of his true motives. as someone with a special interest in psychology it’s a fascinating dynamic to watch unfold from a detached perspective.

it feels like that episode of pretty good by jon bois where he talks about how he watches people playing poker because “it’s like watching someone else’s nightmare”. it’s a car crash waiting to happen watching this smart idiot betting it all in (his trust and psychological intimacy) and losing his sanity to a little triangle.