#The real reason Bill didn't meet Ford when he was a teenager

[arttsuka]

Bonus:

(Even tho Bill doesn't deserve the apology)

[presidentstalkeyes]

Okay I need to know all about Psychonauts Fslls

An ask? I'll take it!

Admittedly I haven't thought much about this AU lately, but have everything that comes to mind: (Also, to avoid confusion, Ford Pines and Ford Cruller will be referred to as Ford P and Ford C, respectively)

Gideon Gleeful's amulet was made of Psitanium, based on Ford C's description of the mineral "making psychics more psychic, but also making unstable people more... unstable". Gideon's dad put him on TV as a newborn, so he was already a little unstable. :V

The Pineses and the Aquatos share a common ancestor - Tanya Romanoff, Caryn Pines' mother, who was also a literal fortune-teller that ran with the circus. Fled to America from Grulovia with her husband back in the 20s when the Gzar at the time blamed the Russian Revolution on psychics and tried to have them all rounded up.

Caryn's sister Shprintze returned to Grulovia later to marry circus ringmaster Angelo Aquato, had a son called Lazarus, got divorced and went back to America (whereupon she married and got divorced two more times, but that's another story). Tanya had some latent psychic abilities that she passed down to her descendants, but not nearly as strong as the Galochios'. The majority of them never even realized they had psychic potential at all.

(Brief sidenote - in this AU, the Deluge of Grulovia happened 30 years before the events of Psychonauts, not 20. TBH it just makes more sense to me that way, given the ages of the characters involved and the events that took place during that time gap, and here it has the added bonus of coinciding roughly with Ford P's disastrous portal test. :V)

In the 'present', Dipper Pines & Razputin Aquato, distant cousins, know each other over the internet, whenever Raz can access a computer. They basically never get to see each other in person, for obvious reasons. They mostly swap True Psychic Tales theories and trivia and argue over whether or not magic is real. After Weirdmageddon, Dipper told Raz all about it; Raz's theory was that there was an undocumented Psilirum deposit underneath Gravity Falls that made the town suffer mass hallucinations, and that Bill Cipher was the disembodied astral projection of a powerful psychic with delusions of Godhood.

Mabel Pines' latent powers began to emerge thanks to her contact with Gideon's amulet, combined with being trapped in Cipher's dream-bubble leaving a certain mark on her. Dipper first thought to call Cousin Raz about it after the cops came to their door to complain that someone had been telepathically broadcasting Sevral Timez music all over the neighbourhood. Mabel soon has to go to the Motherlobe when the implications of her psychic awakening come to light. Raz's fellow interns aren't too thrilled about another barely-a-teenager 'psychic curiosity' barging in (and by 'fellow interns' I mean Norma; Gisu and Sam are more like 'finally, I have found my people'). Dipper also gets to meet Raz's family - he and Dion instantly hate each other. Much friendliness and 'friendliness' all around. :V

They later find out that Stan hung around the Psychic Six and helped raise money for them, putting his conmanship to good use. He wasn't considered a proper member of the group, chiefly because his own psychic powers were pretty weak (he could throw a mean Confusion Grenade, though), he didn't live in Green Needle Gulch with the rest of them and had zero interest in participating in their various experiments. He also avoided Otto Mentallis as much as possible (reminded him too much of Ford P, what with his experiments that tend to blow up in his face), and don't even get him started on 'those two hippies that talk to plants'. By contrast, Cassie O'Pia basically became his therapist for a few months; she taught him all about Projection and how he's unwittingly become a master of it, with how many archetypes he has. Unfortunately he had to cut off all contact with them as part of the whole 'faking his death' thing.

Also, at some point, this dialogue happens:

Mabel Pines: "So yeah, an' he kinda worshipped Ford, I guess, but then the whole almost-apocalypse thing happened an' I guess he's looked back at that time an' he's realized ol' Fordy's made some kinda bad decisions an' he might be a doofus? Just a little? So yeah, that's my epic conclusion to my epic mental check-up!"

Hollis Forsythe: "...I'm sorry, you were talking too fast. Were you talking about Mason Pines or Razputin Aquato?"