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[mothmansplaining]

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credit

"Stanford Pines. Leave a message."

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[tetractys]

[Bill narrows his eye and rewinds it a couple times.]

HUH, SO NOTHING YOU'D HAVE TIME TO PREPARE FOR!

...YOU ALWAYS HAVE THAT COAT, RIGHT? THE EASIEST THING THAT ISN'T A TATTOO WOULD BE RUNES IN THE LINING!

[mothmansplaining]

[Ford waves a hand with a grimace.]

Not a tattoo.

[Thoughtfully:]

Runes in the coat lining, though -- that's a good idea.

[tetractys]

I KNOW!

YOU DON'T NEED UNICORN HAIR, BUT IF YOU CAN GET SOMETHING TO DO 'EM IN THAT ALREADY HAS MAGICAL PROPERTIES, IT'LL HELP! THAT'LL LET YOU DO THE RITUAL BEFOREHAND AND REAP THE BENEFITS WHEN YOU'RE IN DANGER.

[This is bullshit, but it's believable bullshit - and that's the key. Examples of reagents pop up around Ford's feet - a pile of severed gnome beards, a bubbling cauldron of something blue, moonstones, a pack of Juicy Fruit but weirdly glittery...]

[mothmansplaining]

[He bends down and picks up a handful of moonstones, which glow softly between his fingers.]

I'm sure I've still got some of these lying around. They'll do nicely.

[He looks up at Bill.]

Is there a catch?

[It's bullshit but Ford has no reason to disbelieve it. Bill wants to keep people from getting to him through Ford. They're working together on a project. Ford doesn't think this is an attempt at sabotage. But he has to check.]

[tetractys]

YEAH, STOP GETTING KIDNAPPED!

...ALSO I'M NOT POSITIVE THESE THINGS WORK THE SAME OUTSIDE OF GRAVITY FALLS! YOU MIGHT NEED TO GET SOMEONE TO FLING A SPELL AT YOU TO TEST IT!

[mothmansplaining]

I'm sure there's somebody on this boat who will send some hostile magic my way in the name of science.

[Ford sticks the moonstone in his pocket. It won't do him any good when he wakes up, of course; it's done without thinking.

He looks at Bill and pulls a face. This is the right and polite thing to say, and as much as he doesn't like it, he ought to say it. It feels like pulling teeth.]

Thank you, for the magic advice.

[And then he pulls an arm back and throws a punch straight at Bill's eye.]

And that's for getting me kidnapped and murdered in the first place! What did you do to that guy?

[tetractys]

"AAA!"

Bill gets punched in his giant eye, and clutches it.

"I'M HELPING! WHY DO YOU HIT ME WHEN I'M HELPING?"

He literally just told you that, Bill.

"IT WAS A JOKE, HE'S JUST BEING A BABY!"

[mothmansplaining]

"Obviously, he thinks your jokes aren't very funny! A position to which I can relate!"

Frankly, Ford isn't sure if he's angry with Horseriver or not. The guy snuck up on him and killed him, yes, but taking extreme measures to harm Bill Cipher is one of the many places where Ford's moral high ground is below sea level. He'd have to talk with the guy more to know for sure, find out what happened from a less Bill-biased point of view. But Bill absolutely deserves Ford's ire, in Ford's opinion. All this for a joke? He's death tolling, here!

[tetractys]

"WHY ARE YOU TAKING HIS SIDE?"

[mothmansplaining]

"You really think I'm gonna take yours?!"

Ford would put a curse on Bill himself in a heartbeat if he thought it would do any good. But he can't think of any that would get him anything besides ire from the people Bill has somehow managed to get fond of him. Or at least unwilling to see him come to needless harm.

[tetractys]

"I DIDN'T KILL YOU!"

[mothmansplaining]

"It happened because of you! Because you thought it'd be funny to make some kind of joke at the expense and possible physical pain of a guy who kills people to cast curses!"

Look. Ford knows Bill thinks killing people in creative ways is funny. He is not ruling out the possibility that Horseriver was wounded in more places than his pride.

[tetractys]

"SO WHAT, I'M SUPPOSED TO TREAT HIM DIFFERENTLY JUST BECAUSE HE CAN KILL PEOPLE? ANYBODY CAN KILL PEOPLE! IT'S NOT EVEN HARD."

[mothmansplaining]

"I'm just saying you could have avoided this!" Ford snaps. "You're the one who poked the ghost wizard and ticked him off enough to go after you! You might not have been the one with the knives, but you're still responsible for this!"

[tetractys]

"AW, YOU THINK I'M RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING."

Bill clicks and they're on a sinking Titanic, the tableau frozen. The iceberg is lemon-yellow and has a distinctive slit-pupiled eye.

"NEVER MIND, THIS IS DUMB TO FIGHT ABOUT! I'M GIVING YOU MAGIC, YOU'RE WELCOME! I'M ALSO GONNA ASK QUENTIN TO TEACH YOU THE STUFF FROM HIS WORLD. APPARENTLY THE MORE FINGERS YOU HAVE THE BETTER YOU ARE AT CASTING IT. SOME PEOPLE GO OUT OF THEIR WAY AND DO PRETTY DANGEROUS STUFF JUST TO GET MORE!"

[mothmansplaining]

Ford hates metaphor. Hates it so much he's not even sure this is metaphor. But it's not that which earns Bill the Look he gets after you think I'm responsible for everything. It's a Look that Stan Pines got very familiar with that summer in Gravity Falls: a sullen look that Ford wears when he's holding a grudge close but he's putting it aside for the sake of other concerns, like children in the house or a plan to hijack an afterlife prison boat.

And then Bill brings up Quentin. Ford still feels a little bad about bringing Quentin into that fight with the other Bill, but at least the man had agreed willingly. Not like Ford, who'd had no say in the blood ritual. It's different. "You suppose he'll agree?" Something in Ford's tone implies that it is remarkable that Quentin would.

[tetractys]

"I'M GOOD AT TALKING PEOPLE INTO STUFF!"

It's a 50/50 shot.

"PROBLEM IS, THERE'S NOT A LOT I CAN GIVE YOU THAT'D BE BETTER THAN HIS STUFF FOR WHERE YOUR STRENGTHS ARE!"

Unlike magic from their world, Quentin's magic actually rewards you being incredibly thorough and logical and knowing theoretical mathematics back-to-front.

"I CAN STILL TRY, THOUGH, IF THAT DOESN'T WORK! AND THE RUNES ARE STILL HAPPENING!"

Bill pauses.

"...YOU DIDN'T FEEL ANY OF THAT CURSE FROM THE OTHER END OF THE CONNECTION THE WIZARD MADE BETWEEN US, DID YOU?"

[mothmansplaining]

Ford looks at Bill and rubs his chin, considering the question.

"I did have a vision," he says. "I saw it in my mind. But if I felt anything, I was too busy with my own impending death to notice." He doesn't know the curse had an emotional component: Ford just saw Bill glitching and staring, so he assumes it was just a normal paranormal attack.

[tetractys]

"GREAT! YOU DIDN'T WANT ANY."

Bill... can't tell him what the curse did. At all. It'd be too easy to neutralize Bill as a threat by performing the same magic and making it permanent.

"LET'S SEE... BESIDES SHIELDING, YOUR BEST BET IS TO GET A WAND! HOW IS WORK WITH IRIS COMING? THIS IS RELATED!"

[mothmansplaining]

Ford makes a wiggly motion with his hand.

"We don't have a working prototype yet. We're trying to calibrate it for quantum-level precision, and we haven't found a conductive material yet that'll give us the efficiency we need."

[tetractys]

"WHAT'D SHE MAKE THE FIRST ONE OUT OF?"

[mothmansplaining]

Ford sends a glare Bill's way.

"This is our project, Bill! We don't need your help. Stay out of it."

[tetractys]

Bill gives him a distinct hey can you climb off my dick a second squint.

"IT WAS JUST THE LOGICAL QUESTION!"

[mothmansplaining]

"Well, next time, keep it to yourself! Iris and I can build a sonic scanner just fine without you cutting in."

This isn't the issue. Only 20% of this issues pie chart is professional pride. The rest of it is partly baseline mistrust (Bill's help comes with strings attached, and he doesn't want Bill having a claim on what he and Iris are working on) and, more importantly, not wanting Iris-and-Ford time to become Iris-and-Ford-and-Bill-I-Guess time. Butt out.

[tetractys]

Yeah, Bill has guessed as much. The thing is, he's not going to be able to touch that without exposing how amazingly fucking jealous he is, so he's just going to act like he has no idea what Ford's problem is.

"FINE! I WON'T HELP, BUT IF YOU CAN GET MATERIALS FROM HER, I WANT TO KNOW. I STILL NEED TO GET TO THE BRIDGE, AND I'VE GOT OTHER STUFF I'M WORKING ON RECREATING!"