currently thinking about the recurring star motif in both bill and ford's stories and all the parallels we can draw from it. ad astra per aspera, from hardship to the stars, a motto that reflects both of their experiences. bill's longing for the stars, to see them and to be one. ford longing to become famous (a star), one of the greats, to make him worthy of admiration rather than something to be feared/repulsed by. 'the stars' are both literally and figuratively something they both reach out for. it's a metaphor for their desire for fame, success, and love. but both of them also, quite literally, adore the stars. ford's favorite constellation to look for in the night sky is bill's. (alternatively, ford's own nephew and niece are the big dipper and the shooting star. he found happiness for the first time in decades through his family. from hardship to the stars.)
the stars are the happy ending that waits for them after their hardship. both of them experienced some sort of long term prejudice for a birth defect, bill's eye and ford's fingers. when bill promises ford unlimited knowledge and power, he imagines ford towering over the multiverse, surrounded by beautiful stars.
(a more painful parallel is how they cope with their 'weirdness', another shared motif. ford hates himself for it, you would too if people ran away from you, screaming and crying. he hides his fingers. tries to overcompensate for the rest of his life. bill, on the other hand, glorifies his own defect. to cope with accidentally destroying his dimension, to avoid feeling the guilt and the self-loathing, he convinces himself that he is a monster, that he did it on purpose. he glorifies his violence, his defect, he's the all seeing, all knowing eye/the beast with just one eye. he does the same to ford, his glorification of ford's birth defect is evident in the way he calls him 'sixer', or how he seems to consider the term 'freak' a badge of honor.)
