Art by baraayas
"You think those chains are tight? Imagine living in the Second Dimension. Flat minds in a flat world with flat dreams. I liberated my dimension!"
— Bill Cipher, Gravity Falls, "Weirdmageddon Part 3: Take Back the Falls"
Flat Dreams (AO3 link) is a Gravity Falls fanfic written by PengyChan. It focuses on Bill Cipher's past and how he grew up in a society very similar to that of Edwin Abbott's Flat Land. The reader watches as his life and relationships progress to where he was by the time of the show.
There also Flat Minds (AO3 link), a supplementary work of deleted scenes and bits of sides stories.
Tropes
- A God Am I: After using a Time Wish to become a Dream Demon, Bill goes completely mad from the sudden rush of power, lording over how his new abilities make him capable of battling Time Baby and plunging the Second Dimension into absolute chaos.
- The Alcatraz: After escaping the second dimension, Bill is imprisoned in the supposedly inescapable Infinetentiary on the orders of the Time Baby. He meets most of his future gang there, starting with his cellmate Pyronica.
- All for Nothing: Bill tries to find a way to the third dimension, only to find a dump. Subverted when he actually finds a way at said dump.
- Ancient Astronauts: Bill tries many times to make contract with the ancient residents of Gravity Falls. When he finally makes successful contact after millions of years, he teaches them how to make medicine and has them write how to summon him in a cave. He is also revealed to have been have been behind many historic events and figures since ancient times, as well as the creation and destruction of the legendary city of Atlantis.
- Been There, Shaped History: After successfully making contract with the ancient people of what would become Gravity Falls and having them make a cave painting describing how to summon him, he spends time shaping the world for the day Ford will summon him. He is shown to have at least worked with Ramses II, Pythagoras, Plato, Pliny the Elder, Hypatia, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and Thomas Jefferson and is responsible for Atlantis, the Plagues of Egypt, the destruction of the Library of Alexandria and the The American Revolution.
- Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous: The Second Dimension is a rigidly controlled, monochrome patriarchy with a strict caste system (the original inspiration was a critique of Victorian Britain). When Bill takes over he turns it into a chaotic nightmare hellscape.
- Conceive and Kill: Amongst Pyronica's race (or possibly in Dimension 47, her homeland, as a whole), females eat their lovers as soon as they get pregnant. Or just when they get bored of their latest lover.
- Distant Finale: After most of the fic gives a backstory for Bill Cipher, the last chapter takes place mostly after Weirdmageddon.
- Fantastic Caste System: the second dimension, being heavily based on Flatland, discriminates against irregular shapes and those with fewer sides. The highest caste is the perfect circle, with no sides at all.
- Flanderization: In Gravity Falls, there's a brief but notable scene in Weirdmageddon Part 1 where Pyronica devours Hectorgon as part of a game called "Spin the Human". In "Flat Dreams", Pyronica is a raging cannibal who is constantly mentioned as either attempting to devour or successfully devouring various individuals off-screen, and whom Bill is warned on his first meeting with her literally means it when she says "you look cute enough to eat" (or variants thereof). Her reasons for being a Literal Man Eater are even the focus of her second brief glimpse of backstory.
- Freudian Excuse:
- Bill was torn away from his birth parents, saw his beloved elder brother executed, and had Nora, implied to be the woman he loved, commit suicide, all because of the oppressive and brutal rules of the Second Dimension. When he attempted to use time travel to convince the Sphere that they needed to do more to break the Circles' monopoly on power, he was captured by the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron and brought before Time Baby, who sentenced Bill to "Twenty-Squared Life Sentences" in the Infinetentiary without giving Bill any chance to defend himself or make amends. Upon gaining Physical Godhood through a Time Wish, Bill became the monster he is today.
- Downplayed with Pyronica; readers aren't told much about her backstory, but the fact she was literally born in prison because her mom didn't both to learn that sexual cannibalism was illegal in their current dimension before she conceived Pyronica through the usual methods of her people couldn't have been a good start to life.
- Fusion Fic: combines Gravity Falls and Flatland into a single combined universe, mostly prioritizing the canon of Gravity Falls and changing Flatland to fit better.
- Great Escape: Bill uses a ploy where he and his Henchmaniacs separate into two teams who invoke a trial called "Glopnar", the winner of which gets to use a Time Wish — a paradox-free reality alteration of the user's deepest desire. Bill gets the Time Wish and ascends from his former Flatlander self into a Dream Demon, gaining the Reality Warper abilities he needs to break the Henchmaniacs out of the Infinetentiary and flee back to the Second Dimension.
- Knight Templar Big Brother: Inverted. Bill is this to Liam, because the latter happens to kill the entire second dimension for killing his brother.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Bill chooses to forget the existence of his brother Liam after Liam rejects his "improvements" of the second dimension.
- Literal Man Eater: Either amongst Pryonica's species or in Pyronica's dimension, it's unclear which, it is considered normal for women to eat their lovers after they get pregnant (or just because they're bored of them). Pyronica's mom actually wound up in prison whilst pregnant with Pyronica because she was a dimension-traveler herself and she was in a dimension where sexual cannibalism was illegal when she conceived Pyronica. It's noted that this behavior actually keeps Pryonica fairly safe from unwanted advances, since everyone who's survived any length of time in the Infinetentiary is aware that she considers "boyfriend" and "lunch" to be interchangeable.
- Longer-Than-Life Sentence: Bill is sentenced to "Twenty-Squared Life Sentences" for the crime of traveling back in time to the first time a Sphere broke into the Second Dimension and trying to convince them to change their plans.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever it was that Pyronica did in Dimensions 47, 35, 19 and 33 to get her sentenced to the Infinetentiary is a mystery, although she does mention eating a couple of crowns... and world leaders.
- No Prison Segregation: Not only does the Infinetentiary lacks separate house for male and female prisoners, Bill (a male) was even assigned Pyronica (a female) as a cellmate.
- Only Friend: Liam's only friend is Bill. Liam made a mistake.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Time Baby is unable to remove Bill's powers, but seals him and his gang off in the second dimension- now known as the Nightmare Realm after Bill's "improvements".
- Significant Name Overlap: Bill and his adopted brother Liam, both variants on "William". This is both a parallel to Stanford and Stanley from Gravity Falls, and because Bill was overtly adopted as a replacement for Liam.
- Start of Darkness: It is a prequel fic giving a possible origin story for the villain of Gravity Falls.
- Whole-Plot Reference: This story goes a long way as far as referencing Flatland is concerned. Down to the point of having direct paragraphs lifted from the novel for each one of the chapters.
