Dipper and Mabel's Parents: Fil and May Pines
A very lovely reader has asked about my versions of the Pines Twins' parents! Now that they've been introduced in the fic, it's about time anyway.
You don't need to have read Tourist Traps to understand these characters. Just know that the story centers on an OC who's Dipper and Mabel's older half-brother.
Shermie
Shermie got married fairly young to a woman he was certain he was completely in love with and would never want to leave. His marriage was actively falling apart during the earlier years of Fil's childhood, and all of this has the backdrop of constant fights between Filbrick and Ford. Despite the personal issues, though, Shermie was a fairly successful career man and managed a nice, stable job with plenty of room for advancement. After he divorced Fil's mom, he remarried, had a second child, and maintained a pretty normal American middle class lifestyle. He was able to set up a good college fund for his kids, and by the time Tourist Traps takes place, he and his sister-in-law have bought a retirement property in Florida. (His second wife passed several years ago.)
A quick note on timeline: I didn't like any of the common Gravity Falls timelines for Shermie, so I fudged the timeline a bit. Shermie is significantly younger than Stan and Ford, but he isn't eighteen years younger. He and his son both had kids relatively young, but not in their teens.
~*~ Fil ~*~
Fil Pines is Shermie's eldest. He looks almost exactly like his grandpa Filbrick, albeit a much more clean-cut version. He was very young when Ford fell into the portal; they've technically met, but he doesn't really remember.
Fil got into computer science at an early age and went to school in San Francisco for software engineering. He eventually landed a very cushy job, but nooooot before landing himself in some pretty serious trouble:
He knocked up a married woman.
Fil met May in a bar when he was still doing his undergrad degree. He was nerdy, young, kind of awkward but very enthusiastic, with the same sort of false "suave" energy that Stan Pines has in the show. May was in a very bad situation already, she thought Fil's awkward flirting was adorable and charming, and she was very attracted to the the fact he obviously had money. When she got pregnant, she contacted him immediately. He helped her get away from her extremely abusive current husband and they got married as soon as possible because the way he was raised, that was just the right thing to do. Needless to say, this was a Bad Idea. It took them years of therapy to work their shit out. In the end, though, it turned out that Fil and May make an extremely good pair. What started out as functionally a shotgun wedding became a very healthy and committed relationship.
As mentioned, Fil looks a lot like Filbrick. He doesn't wear sunglasses and he's more likely to wear a tee shirt than Filbrick is, but he does have the mustache because he thinks it makes him look more Dad-like. All of his neckties are extremely stupid for the same reason. He tends to be fairly clean cut but casual. Aside from the stupid ties, he isn't usually flamboyant with his fashion sense the way Stan is. He's more likely to be in a tee shirt, jeans, and a blazer. He works out enough to keep himself healthy, but isn't particularly buff, and he's noticeably paler than Ford or Stan because he's worked a desk job his entire life.
~*~ May ~*~
May is fun! One of the surprise twists of her introduction is that she has symbrachydactyly on both hands, with three fingers on one side and four on the other. It means that she and Ford make insufferable hand jokes when they're near each other. (Ford doesn't know this, but Fil actually used his "six fingered uncle Stan" as a pickup line. It was very awkward and cringey of him. May found it hilarious.) She's part Japanese-American.
May was once an angry, reserved, difficult woman, but therapy and stability have made her grow into a very vibrant and pleasant person. She's loud, silly, and creative. She's obsessed with musical theater. there is quite a lot of her in Mabel. One reason her relationship with Fil works out is that she's able to surpass the Pines spirit in both absurdity and bull-headedness, and those are extremely high bars to clear. When we first meet her in the story, she is dressed like a werewolf for no apparent reason.
May's childhood was rough, but her young adulthood was rougher. She married her first husband, Joss, way too young, and he turned out to be absurdly violent to both her and their son. One of May's biggest regrets is that she didn't take the latter seriously: as long as she was around, the worst of Joss's temper fell on her, and so she didn't realize just how bad things were for Will until she'd been married to Fil for a year or two. When Will was eight, they finally sued for sole custody and were granted it. The entire process was horrible for the entire family.
Will's legal first name is Joss, after his biological father. He hates it and May regrets it. When she had twins and Fil didn't insist on naming them after himself, May got a little power-mad and named them both after herself. Dipper regrets this, but Will thinks it's great. May sometimes refers to her children as The Maylings.
