#and he would. do anything. for forde. except the things that he wouldn't do naturally

[dark-lord-of-awesomeness]

Shifty is a delight. I love how baffled and stressed he makes his new friends. I'd love if he met "Dirty Ford" and the rest of the canon crew because I think he'd also make them baffled and stressed (except the stressed is mostly just Dipper seeing this guy who says he's his alternate dimension cousin, an alternate version of the shapeshifter that tried to kill him, his sister, and his friends).

Shifty's just having a great time. His alternate tried to murder his not-cousins. Fascinating. Is this more evidence that nurture has more to do with the morality of shapeshifters, or do shapeshifters work differently in this dimension? Maybe he can track down alternate Marcy, Darcy, and Jon and ask.

Dirty Ford is feeling retroactive guilt about Shifty being sentient. Like he definitely heard Cat Ford mention that but he did not process that until confronted with Cat Shifty.

Mabel's chill and excited about this Shifty. Sure, his alternate scared her pretty bad but he's just a silly guy like Grunkle Ford. He comes from a world where Grunkle Stan turns into a cute little cat. She needs to know all the alternate family tea.

Stan's like that's a bit weird, but he did punch a pterodactyl to save a pig and triangle to save the world, so alternate shapeshifting nibling is just, sure why not. Although he wishes he would stop telling the kids so much about how his alternate self got cursed to become a cat every time he steals (lame). He's worried this might give the kids (Mabel) ideas about turning him into a cat.

Inflicting cat dimension shifty on most other dimensions is like this honestly. Shifty doesn't make it out of the bunker in most cases, but cat Shifty doesn't hold it against his alternate family, because that's not him. He's not frozen in a bunker, and while he might feel bad for the other guy, he's living life just fine.

Which just makes everyone feel more guilty about the whole thing. Shiftys contemplating the differences between nature vs nurture, and how fascinating it is that his alternate self maybe almost killed his alternate parents and cousins. Meanwhile Fords going :( did I freeze a kid? Would my shifty be like this if I gave him a chance? Is it too late? (The answer to that last one is yes, too late to have his shifty be anything like cat shifty).

Mabel starts out uncomfortable, but she warms up pretty fast. Cat shiftys right after all! He is a different person then the one who almost killed her! He's also weird and funny like her grunkle! He's sharing all the fun stories about his family with her! How come her grunkle Stan can't be a cat :(

Dipper spends the entire time trailing him and watching every move suspiciously. He's a shapeshifter! They're evil! C!Shifty just shrugs. Maybe shapeshifters are evil here? He doesn't know! Eventually C!Shifty would win him over with his crazy lore drops. What does he mean he has four parents? Who's Carla? There's a coven in town? Why were you fighting dinosaurs? Dipper would get so lost trying to figure anything out about him and forget to be scared.

Stan is unaffected, except he would rather this guy stop telling everyone about his alternate self. That guy's lame, turns into a cat and snuggles people? Stan wouldn't be caught dead doing that. Ever. He needs his family to stop throwing puppy dog eyes his way about it. It's not happening.