#and assuming Stan gets kicked out at 1969

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

Meet the Errand Boy.

Team Fortress 2 × Gravity Falls crossover AU because the two canon timelines sorta match, yipeee!!!

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1971 (2 years after being kicked out at 1969)- Recently turned 19 and short on money, Stanley Pines gets hired by The Administrator as MANN.CO's errand boy alongside Miss Pauling (since the latter was falling behind on her work due to her excessive overworking).

He is saddled with various grunt work such as accompanying Miss Pauling to her arrands of burying bodies, killing and eliminating witnesses; delivering supplies and packages to the mercenary teams; and occasionally even gets to replace some of them for a few battles if they happen to be unavailable on short notice!

[fordtato]

The Gravity Falls Timeline

All of this is based on my video, but I assume not many people will want to sit through 2.5 hours of me working this out, so here's a condensed written version.

Some rules I set for myself: If the actual name of an IP, a person or an event is referenced in J3/the Show, I included it into my math for my timeline (ex: references to Ronald Reagan or The Eurythmics, or other REAL WORLD figures). If a REFERENCE is made without the actual name being referenced (ex: in the Journal, Ford mentions Phantom Bustifiers, a reference to Ghostbusters, a movie that didn’t come out in our world until 1984), I did not put that into this timeline (I know what year Ghostbusters came out, but not which year Phantom Bustifiers came out).

With that in mind, let’s begin:

The Stans are born June 15 1951.

Evidence: 

Their Bar Mitzvah happened when they were 12 (not 13, as is typical) and their birthday is on June 15th. Because a Bar Mitzvah is dependent on one’s birthday on the Hebrew calendar and not the Gregorian calendar, this means that their 13th Hebrew birthday must land on a date that is BEFORE their 13th Gregorian birthday, something that is typically more rare (the Hebrew birthday is usually AFTER one’s typically celebrated birthday).

The only viable year where this applies is 1951, when their birthday lands on Sivan 11, resulting in a 13th Hebrew birthday in May of 1964, BEFORE their 13th birthday on June 15th

The Stans find the Stan O War in spring of 1964 at age 12 (or 1961, if you think they were 10)

Evidence:

There are two viable dates for when they find the Stan o War, depending on if they’re 10 (the same age Stan was when he started writing Lil Stanley in the Lost Legends comics) or 12 (the same age as Dipper and Mabel). I think that the way the artist drew the young Stan twins in the Lil Stanley comic looks (age 10) looks slightly younger than how they look in the series (and they are designed a little differently than they look in the Jersey Devil comic, when we KNOW they have the Stan O War already), but there is evidence for both sides.

I lean toward them being 12 because they pull out a sharpie, which wasn’t invented until 64, but there is a reference to a Bruce Springsteen song in a magazine in Lost Legends, quoted by someone named “Brucey S, age 11” and Bruce Springsteen would have been 11 in 1961, so this might be 1961 (or the magazine Ford is reading from might be an old magazine.) I went with 1964, because I think 12 parallelled the ages of Dipper and Mabel better. 

Stan gets kicked out in spring of 1969 right before they turned 18. Ford starts at Backupsmore in the fall semester.

Evidence: 

Stan makes a reference to Jackie O, which means Jackie Kennedy already remarried to be Jackie Onnassis, and is also still in the public eye, something that would be progressively less common after 1969 (she also happened to visit New Jersey in spring of 1969 and that would have made state headlines, something which is probably a coincidence, but nonetheless very interesting).

Furthermore, there is a portrait of Nixon in the principal’s office, and he would have been sworn in in early 1969. 

I think 1969 is more likely than 1970 because ‘69 gives more wiggle room for Shermie to be the baby (more on that later) and for Ford to get at least one PhD.

-Stan dates Carla “Hotpants” McCorkle,(reconnecting for another date after the one at the theater in their teenage years), probably in 1971 (if this “hallucinatey” date even happened at all; if you dont think it happened at all, disregard). 

Evidence:

We know this is a later date, when stan is an adult, because his design matches the designs on one of his fake IDs from his years on the run. It was likely 1971 because that is when the term “hotpants” was used to describe those short shorts.

The hippie aesthetic also started dying down after 1972 after the Manson attacks, so I picked 71 for the Juke Joint date.

Ford graduated from Backupsmore at the very earliest 1974, MAYBE early 1975.

Evidence:

In the journal it says he went to Gravity Falls in 1975, but we know he couldn’t have graduated earlier than 74, because we know that he played DDnMoreD in college, and he says in the journal that it was copyrighted in 1974. He also says Stanley always mocked him for playing it, which literally isn’t possible, so he’s either misremembering Stanley mocking him for an EARLIER TTRPG, or this copyright is for a later edition (though I think it must be the former, since DDnMD is a clear reference to DnD which WAS copyrighted in 1974. Still. Up to you.)

This means he completed his PhD in 6 years (or, three years ahead of schedule as described in the series). I believe many of his other PhDs were honorary degrees, and didn't bother working them into this timeline. He got them later.

Stan joins Rico’s gang in the late 70s

Evidence: 

Sometime in the late 70s, Stan gets tangled up in what is implied to be the Colombian cartel, which would have been most active in the late 70s, between 75 and 79. Following his trajectory on the map in ATOTS showing his path across the country, he headed below the border toward the end of that trackline, so it was probably later on.

Ford started Journal 3 in 1981, shortly after meeting Bill in 1981. 

Evidence: 

He says he discovered his muse in 1981 in J3. He also says he is starting J3 six years after he started investigating Gravity Falls (which he did in 75). He also says early on in J3 that he is in his 30s, and he would have turned 30 in June of 1981, three days before he started J3.

There is some fuckery here on how he’s known his muse for “two years” midway J3, and the way I explain that in the video is that the first part of J3 spans nearly 2 years, and there is ample evidence that he wrote many pages out of order. This might be a page from later on in 1982, early 83, instead of mid-81. 

We know that Reagan was already in office at this point.

 Fiddleford shows up in July of 1982. Fiddleford begins making the memory gun after the Gremloblin incident later that year. 

Evidence:

We know at least a year has passed because if you track the months, they go from June, to August, and then later on down to July again when Fiddleford is called. As for the Gremloblin incident, it happened relatively close to the bunker incident (which would have been closer to summer, since it was still hot outside) but it was followed closely by the carnival, where they had squash for sale, and squash are in season after September, typically. 

First Portal Test is on January 18, 1983

Fiddleford falls through the portal, his head poking through, on January 18 1983, the day after the confrontation he had with Ford in the diner. 

Late February, 1983 - The Portal Incident

Evidence:

There are three many reasons I chose this date. Firstly, we know it is 1983 not just because it follows the trajectory of earlier dates, but because we know that Ford has heard The Eurythmics’ chart topper “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This” because when he returns he says he is looking forward to their next one, and that came out in January of 83’, before he would have been sucked through.

Secondly, five weeks after January 18th, it would still be snowy in up-mountain Oregon where Ford is, but not that snowy in New Mexico where Stan is when he gets the post card.

Thirdly, we know at least 5-6 weeks have passed because Ford describes about this many weeks during his “paranoid era” in the journal (more than one instance of “a couple weeks, several weeks, a few weeks”, etc.). 

In the year 2000, Dipper and Mabel are born. 

Evidence:

I know most people think it’s 1999. And that is fine, but I have ample evidence that the show takes place in 2013, not 2012 (see below), so 2000 would have to work for their birthday.

But 2000 also gives a little bit of wiggle room to Shermie being the baby. (If you don’t think Shermie is the baby, disregard this section). If Shermie IS the baby, then if he was born in spring of 1969 (late 68 at the earliest), then you can barely fit two generations of Pines in the space between 1969 and 2000. It would mean that both Shermie and his kid would need to be 15 when they had a kid, which is ��� not great, but not impossible? I dunno man, take it up with Hirsch. (Or just assume the baby is Shermie’s kid. Follow your dreams).

In 2013, Dipper and Mabel visit their Grunkle Stan in Gravity Falls. 

Evidence: 

The Northwest ghost died in what is described in the journal as “The Great Flood of 1863”. The Northwests are trying to keep this flood under wraps in J3, because they don’t want people finding out about the lumberjacks killed in the flood. The Northwest Ghost swore with his dying breath to come back 150 yrs after his death. 150 years later from 1863, is 2013.

The 1040 form that Stan is filling out his Tax Fraud note on in the truth-telling ep is a 2012 form. To file tax returns, you use w2s 1040s labeled under the PREVIOUS year

Sevral Timez shouts "2013"

1983 is 30 years before 2013. 

Note: This would mean that the Stans are 62 at the end of the summer, which might mean that they are "pushing 70" as Stan describes himself.

Anyways, here's the full video if you have 2.5 hours. Otherwise, enjoy this resource!

[asexy-phoenix]

Shermie Pines Theory

Shermie is one of the most enigmatic characters in Gravity Falls. We know almost nothing about him except that he's Mabel and Dipper's grandfather. Neither Stan or Ford mention him, even in Journal 3. Well, barring any new information that may be coming in The Book of Bill, I have a theory about what happened to Shermie that explains his absence in his brother's lives.

First of all, what do we actually know about Shermie?

He's the grandfather of Dipper and Mabel

He was there when Dipper and Mabel were born

That's it. Timeline-wise, we can figure out a bit more. Dipper and Mabel turn thirteen in August of 2012, making their birth year 1999. In order for Shermie to be their grandfather, he would therefore have to be born before Stan and Ford. So, when were Stan and Ford born?

From Journal 3, we know the portal accident happened in very early 1983. Stan says he hasn't seen Ford in "over ten years" in A Tale of Two Stans, and Ford says he's in his thirties in Journal 3, so (assuming he's 30 - going on 31 - in January 1983) that would push back his graduation date from 1973 to 1970. It can't be earlier than that, because there's a portrait of Nixon in the principal's office, and Nixon was elected in 1969. Subtracting 18 from 1970 gets you the Stan twin's birth year: 1952.

The Stan twins are 61 in August 2012 when Dipper and Mabel turn 13. Unless the Pines family has had two generations of very young teen pregnancies in a row, Shermie has to be an older brother for the math to work. For this theory especially, I'll be assuming he's older and that the baby in A Tale of Two Stans is Shermie's son.

So what event would have happened to keep Shermie out of the picture and would require his parents help in looking after their grandchild?

The Vietnam War

In 1969, there was a lottery draft for the Vietnam War which drafted men between the ages of 18-26, that is, men born between 1994-1950. If Shermie was even one year older than the Stan twins, he would have been eligible.

My theory is that Shermie Pines was drafted for the Vietnam War and was fighting overseas during 1970 when Stan was kicked out. Moreover, I theorize that he went MIA and didn't return to the US until 1973 with Operation Homecoming, at which point Ford was studying at Backsupmore and Stan was a drifter, hence why his son was being looked after by Caryn and Filbrick.

[orangeoctopi7]

Back in My Day

I’ve been very busy the last half of the month, between my grandpa’s funeral and getting sick, so the idea I originally had for @Stanuary week 4 sadly hasn’t gotten off the ground. (It was just gonna be a very silly crossover with Atop the Fourth Wall’s Contest of Champions, and I may come back to it when I don’t feel like I swallowed a gallon of mucus) Instead, I’m posting the first chapter of a WIP I’ve been sitting on for a while that will have Stan in a fight later on. So it sorta fits.

***

After the flash of brilliant blue light, Ford realized he was no longer standing in the living room of the Mystery Shack. Instead, he was standing in a much smaller living room, with painfully bright yellow and orange 70’s style wallpaper. The same kind they used to have in their home in Glass Shard Beach. In fact, it was the same wallpaper.

“Hey, are ya gonna stand there gawkin’ like a pigeon all day, or are ya gonna move out from in front of the TV?” A harsh voice asked from behind him. 

Ford whipped around to see his father sitting in his old favorite green-and-red plaid chair. The scientist looked down at his hands and saw that they were young and soft, rather than worn and calloused from years of work and travel. But in his left hand he still clutched the Time Tape, the one Shermie had claimed was broken.

“Whatcha got there, slick?” Filbrick asked, spotting the Time Tape.

“Uhhh... tape... measurer?” Ford said slowly. He’d certainly gotten better at lying over the years, but he wasn’t prepared for this. “For…” he looked around and tried to guess the year he’d come back to, “...for my science fair project?”

“That’s not one of mine.” Filbrick observed, “Where’d you get it?”

Stanford was saved from having to come up with a convincing lie when they heard Stanley thunder down the stairs and burst into the room. In the split-second the twins’ eyes met, Ford knew Stan was going through the exact same thing he was.

“Borrowed it from school!” Stan explained, too loudly.

Even though they couldn’t see their father’s eyes behind the old man’s shades, it was clear he was rolling them. “Just as long as you didn’t waste any money buying a new one when we got perfectly good tools at home. Now get outta the way before the commercials end.”

Stan and Ford dashed back up the stairs to their room and slammed the door tightly behind them

“What the heck is going on!?” Stan exclaimed as soon as they were alone. “How are we back here and pimply teenagers?”

“Well, obviously,” Ford’s voice cracked, and he cleared his voice before continuing, “Obviously the Time Tape brought us back here.”

“But Shermie said that thing’s been broken for years!” Stan’s voice cracked right back. “You didn’t fix it, did you?”

“Well, I was just testing it to try and see what was wrong with it. I didn’t think it would actually take us back in time!” Ford pulled their calendar off the wall. It read January 15th, 1969. 44 years before the present they had left… and four months before that fateful day at the Science Fair.

Stan’s expression brightened as he looked at the calendar. “Wait, Ford, we could fix things! Stop your science fair project from breaking, stop Dad from kicking me out!”

Ford’s face fell, and he glanced at his desk. The perpetual motion machine was still in its early building stages, just a few parts of the frame lying still next to the blueprints, and a half-finished methods paper.

“Stan, I know it’s tempting, but it’s an incredibly bad idea! Changing that event would alter a lot of things in our timeline. If we don’t part at the end of our Senior year, we might never defeat Bill!”

“Yeah, and you might never meet him in the first place! Let that jerk be someone else’s problem!”

“And Dipper and Mabel might never be born! At the very least they would be very different people when we returned.”

Stan's eyes widened. “I-I hadn’t thought of that…. I don’t want that….”

“And that’s even assuming we could change the timeline in the first place!” Ford continued to ramble on, despite the fact that his point had been made. “From what I understand, changing the greater flow of time is absurdly difficult. Dipper had to go through over thirty different permutations just to win a carnival game! Then there’s the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron to worry about--”

“OK,OK, I get it!” Stan held his hands up placatingly, “Let’s just get back to 2013 then!”

Ford pulled the tape out 44 years and pressed the forward button. Nothing happened.

“Ah, so that’s how it’s broken.” He commented, deceptively calm.

“What!? Don’t tell me we’re stuck here!”

“No, no, I’m sure I can fix it…”

“And how long is that gonna take?”

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, if I had my lab and my tools back in Gravity Falls, it would just be a matter of hours, but here… a few days? A week? Maybe more?”

Stan groaned loudly and flopped back onto his bottom bunk.. “So basically, you have no clue. How am I supposed to resist the urge to change the timeline in the meantime?”

“I know it’s not going to be easy, but we really don’t have any other options. We just need to try and stick to the original timeline as much as possible.”

“Crap, Ford, I barely remember what happened throughout this entire year, let alone some random day!”

“I know, I know!” Ford sighed and sat down with a thump at his desk. “I don’t remember much in the way of specifics either. We’ll just have to stick to whatever seems like a normal routine.”

Chapter 2: Stupid Teen Emotions

[jheselbraum]

"Stanley spent thirty years rebuilding the portal, trying to save Ford, only to cut all ties when Ford didn’t thank him." Only? Didn't Ford cut all ties with Stan first? Ford's refusal to thank him gave Stan the message loudly and clearly that Ford despised and wanted nothing to do with him. It only took Ford turning his back on Stan in his greatest time of need, ignoring him for about a decade, before punching him in the face and serving an eviction notice. Only.

The entire post was about how a good deed is its own reward and you shouldn’t do good deeds because you expect something in return, but rather because it is the right thing to do. And you completely ignore that in order to bring this into my inbox?

But whatever, if you want to do this, let’s do this.

So we’re completely ignoring the day that Stan was kicked out. Because Ford had nothing to do with that. That was all on Filbrick. Ford couldn’t have done anything even if he’d wanted to, and anyways, from Ford’s position, Stanley was being a manipulative dick.

Do I actually think Stan was being a manipulative dick? No, of course not. Everyone and their mother knows the science fair was an accident.

Everyone, that is, except. For. Stanford.

So you know, it might just be my opinion, but I think that Ford has a right to be angry with the guy who wrecked his chance at a full ride to what appeared to be a great college (though in all honesty, West Coast Tech was probably shit if their scholarship/admissions requirements were literally creating something impossible). Stanford is a poor Jewish kid whose six fingers may or may not save him from the draft and what Stanley did, even though it was an accident, still hurt Ford. Just because Filbrick’s an asshole and kicked Stan out doesn’t mean that Ford should apologize for his father’s actions.

But I’ve talked about this before. I’ve been talking about this since before I was completely sure Ford and Bill weren’t still in cahoots.

So, what about that 10+ year expanse between 1969 and 1982 when neither brother spoke to each other?

Simple. It was the fucking seventies.

Ford is Aaron Burring his way through college while Stan is driving across the country and also leaving the country on multiple occasions.

It’s the fucking seventies.

There was no facebook, no email, no texting, no IM no nothing. You had a landline. And snail mail. And the telegram. And that was it. Those were your only methods of communication. The only way Ford could have looked up Stan’s contact information was:

If he had seen it on an infomercial, and those lines were up to date when he’d seen them.

If he’d looked the information up in the phonebook, which would only work if he was in the town or county where Stanley was

If he’d hired a private investigator willing to cross multiple state lines and multiple international borders to find Stanley

If his mother had somehow done any of the above and managed to keep contact with Stanley, which is as of yet something that has no basis in canon whatsoever, aside from the fact that out of Filbrick and Ma Pines, Ma is more likely to contact Stanley.

Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that Stanley, for the vast majority of his ten year period of homelessness, did not have a phone number. At all. Have you ever tried calling a pay phone? Didn’t think so.

Needless to say, that didn’t happen. Is that Ford’s fault? Maybe? I mean, he contacted Stanley eventually, via postcard, at an incredibly temporary motel stay in New Mexico.

But

Stanley is just as responsible for not contacting Stanford? Remember, from Ford’s point of view Stan is the one who needs to make first contact anyways, and Stan has the advantages of:

Being able to call his mother at any time for Ford’s contact information

Knowing where Ford is

Being reasonably able to assume that Ford’s contact information is up to date (via the fact that he stayed in very few locations during the seventies, at any given moment he was either at Backupsmore or in Gravity Falls, statistically speaking)

Stanley did, in fact, contact Ford at one point. However, due to fear of rejection, Stanley said nothing.

In conclusion, it is both Stanley and Stanford’s fault that they didn’t contact the other.

Last, but certainly not least, Ford’s refusal to thank Stanley comes from the fact that:

Stan opened the portal up a split second before Ford would have destroyed Bill, a goal Ford has dedicated thirty years of his life trying to complete and is wholly prepared to sacrifice his life to achieve that goal.

Stan knowingly endangered the entire universe by opening up the portal, and even though that danger was only present because of Bill, Stanley opened the portal and knowingly endangered the entire universe, which as previously stated is the last thing Ford wants.

Stanley was the one who pushed Ford into the portal in the first place.

Oh, and one last thing:

Stanford Filbrick Pines, PhD, upon re-entering dimension 46′\, still. S T I L L. Fully believes that Stanley DOES NOT ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT HIM (OR THE WORLD), A BELIEF THAT HE HAS HELD SINCE CIRCA 1969 AND HE DID HOLD UNTIL THE EVENTS OF WEIRDMAGEDDON.

And as previously stated. By the post to which you, anon, are referring, Stanley demanding to be thanked in return for saving Ford, and from Ford’s perspective (remember Ford made several attempts to be at the very least cordial even while they were fighting) Stan refused to help him again, until Ford behaved accordingly (see DD&MD and also Weirdmageddon part 3, in which Stan states that he will not help Ford because he wants his thank you, and in Weirdmageddon Part 3 HE ENDANGERS THE ENTIRE WORLD BECAUSE OF THIS FACT.)

NOW, IS FORD RIGHT ABOUT STAN NOT CARING ABOUT HIM? HELL NO. FORD THINKING STAN DOESN’T CARE ABOUT HIM IS THE WRONGEST HE’S EVER BEEN ABOUT ANYONE. AND YES, I AM INCLUDING “THE TIME FORD TRUSTED A MALEVOLENT TRIANGLE WITH HIS MIND AND BODY” IN THAT STATEMENT.

That doesn’t change the fact that Stan holding saving Ford from the portal over Ford’s head, to the point where he will risk harm to coming to not just Ford but the entire fucking universe including Dipper and Mabel because he wants his damn thank you gets routinely ignored by the fandom at large and Hirsch himself, despite the fact that Stan’s actions directly contradict morals laid out in previous episodes.

NOT TO MENTION. THAT’S FORD’S HOUSE? THAT FORD UNDERSTANDABLY DOESN’T WANT WHAT IS ARGUABLY A FREAKSHOW IN? Also Ford never said “get out of my house” Ford just wanted the Mystery Shack to stop being a thing. In his house. Like. Ford’s… FORD’S NOT EXACTLY ONE TO MINCE WORDS OR DANCE AROUND THE ISSUE UNLESS IT’S A BILL THING OR A PORTAL THING. IF HE WANTED STAN TO LEAVE HE WOULD HAVE JUST SAID “LEAVE”