cardcaptured | IC INBOX

[Alright, Syaoran, calm down-- this was clearly a huge thing Dipper had upon his plate at the moment, and he definitely didn't need a friend yelling at him about it to make things worse (even if it felt somewhat justified)]

... sorry. I just

I want to assume you already know what you're getting into with this guy, especially if he's someone you had to deal with back home. But... magical contracts aren't something to take lightly, Dipper, nor are their something easily broken. If this guy is as bad as you say... there could be all sorts of loopholes he could exploit to make things work in his favor and against yours. Is that ALL you guys wound up agreeing on, or is there more to it?

[See, that is more the response he was expecting, though maybe not from Li. Actually, has Li ever raised his voice like that? He was always so calm and collected. It takes a moment for Dipper to get back to him.]

[Particularly because he has a lot of things to cover in his second response.]

Trust me, no one knows better the sort of messed up loopholes Bill’s capable of than me. The whole reason he was able to steal my body was because he tricked me into a vague deal when I was backed into a corner.

Which is why we wouldn’t have made this deal with him if he hadn’t been two seconds away from splattering my uncle on the pavement from two stories up. [Which, is probably important information- that Bill was this dangerous regardless of warps, and that he had to back them into a terrible corner before they would agree to such a deal.]

The truce is a lot bigger than just that, yeah. Grunkle Stan is the one who worked out the terms, since he was the one who ...tricked him in the end, that lead to us defeating him back home.

[It's true Syaoran always had a steady head upon his shoulders, and he'd gotten better at keeping his temper in check over time, but right now? He couldn't help but get a bit upset over all of this. Bad enough there was a massive threat lurking around the town now, but for Dipper to go and make a contract with it...

From the sounds of it, though, it seemed like they didn't have much of a choice in the matter... not that it makes any of this any better, unfortunately.]

Did he ask for anything else in return, though, aside from not having your allies attack him? Like... anything physical, or tangible, or important to you?

[Because contracts, especially with powerful, malevolent forces, simply did not just operate on agreements, at least from his experience. And god forbid if Bill did anything permanently damaging to this family...]

I don't know how you guys got involved with him back home in the first place, but... I really, really hope you know what you're doing. This place is dangerous enough without something else making things more complicated.

Is there anything I need to look out for in particular when it comes to him? Like how will I be able to recognize it's him and not something else Sodder accidentally created?

[It’s pretty upsetting! Dipper is pretty upset by everything that’s happen, too.]

No, nothing like that. His deals don’t require a sacrifice, if that’s what you mean. They do usually come with the free pass into your body, but we explicitly wrote that out of the contract.

[Ford has to help him build a portal, but he doesn’t think that’s what Syaoran means, so he omits mentioning that for now.]

It’s a long story, and it goes back 30+ years. He’s been an ordeal for our family for way longer than we’d like, and we THOUGHT we were finally rid of him. I don’t know what Sodder might be thinking, dragging in a trillion year old, extra-dimensional eldritch monster, but we sure have him now. Ugh.

Bill’s a shapeshifter, so that makes things a little tricky, but he DOES have a form that seems like his real, or default form. It looks like this. If he’s possessing someone, a lot of the time you can tell by the eyes. If you get glance at him from the side, they’ll flash sort of like cat eyes, but way creepier.

It doesn't have to be a sacrifice... it could be a service or trade, too. From my experience, you can't just make an agreement with a powerful force by word alone. There has to be something given in return to balance things out.

[Unless, of course, the agreement not to have their allies attack him was that trade-off, but it seems much too simple for someone as supposedly strong as Bill. After all, if he was as powerful as Dipper said, then surely he wouldn't be threatened by anyone here, right?

... also, if Syaoran was more up to date with the meta-plot, he'd probably say she just wanted a best friend, but alas, he's as much in the dark as Dipper is.]

It's probably the same line of thinking that makes us dig into our foreheads to restablize our powers. [Is he still hella salty about the Stability Gems? YES.] How were you able to get rid of him back in your world, though? Do you think there's a chance it could possibly be done again here...?

[Minus the glaring detail that they were currently in a truce, but if Bill could exploit loopholes, then they may as well be prepared with their own.]

[... Of course, all of this grim momentum takes a temporary hit as he takes a look at Dipper's drawing, staring at it for a good long moment, until:]

... he's a triangle in formal wear? Really?

[This is almost as bad as seeing Kero in his temporary form for the first time, oh my god.]

YEAH. Yeah. I’m starting to think he uses that form just to make me feel like an idiot when trying to warn people about him. I promise he’s a lot scarier than that form suggests.

[There’s a lot here to pull apart, so the response takes some time to come back to him. It’s hard because Dipper’s instinct is to be cagey about it, but he explicitly sent these messages out because he owed them an explanation. It’s hard to weigh between keeping his family’s business on the down low verses being honest with his friends. Being honest and risking backlash.]

He’s making Great Uncle Ford help him with a project. They’re building a portal to try and get out of Deerington.

[Just going to let that sit for a moment. He wants to ask more about the gem thing but this isn’t the conversation for it.]

And no, I’m pretty sure it won’t work a second time. It hinged entirely on Grunkle Stan being able to trick him, and the result was... [This is actually a touchy subject and Dipper doesn’t like thinking about it.]

Bill needed into Grunkle Ford’s mind for something specific, when he’s in your mind, he doesn’t have a physical form and he’s technically vulnerable. We had a device that could erase memories, but it didn’t work on Ford because of a metal plate in his head. So ...Grunkle Stan impersonated him instead, tricked Bill into his mind and then we had to. We had to erase them both.

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