Archive of Our Own ^beta

Met on a crooked game show some time before the fall of the Berlin Wall

Had some laughs. Lost an eye and a hand. Gained a memory wipe and an Airstream trailer.

Suddenly, we're at a yard sale in 2004.

That leaves fifteen years unaccounted for.

A spin-off prequel series of Master Billy Quizboy, boy genius, and the ever popular Pete White's "lost years" between the end of The Invisible Hand of Fate and their "first" appearance in Tag Sale You're It— 1990-2001.

Shitty Detective Work to Lock Down Billy's Age

For this series' purpose, Billy was born in 1974. According to St. Cloud (S05E01), they were both 15 when they completed on Quizboys. (How long was Billy's winning streak on Quizboys? More than a year?) Billy's game show downfall takes place before the fall of the Berlin Wall (Nov '89); if the Bilderberg Group decided it at that year's meeting, is Invisible Hand also set in 1989? If so Billy is 15 in 1989 making him 22 in 1996 (the setting of Tomorrow's Just Another Day).

Billy says he is 35 in S03E05, first aired in 2008 (making his birth year= '73) and 37 in S04E03 in 2009 (birth year= '72). But are the episodes taking place in the year they're aired? I'm not even factoring in the month and when Billy's birthday is. When is Billy's birthday? No idea.

The only other Venture Bros character to state his age on screen is Doc Venture (he's 43 in S01E08, 2004 - born 1961). Pete White has to be within three years of his age as they were at school together (Past Tense, S01E11) and neither was a Freshman. I didn't want more than a 10 year gap between Pete and Billy, so I fudged it. Maybe Pete skipped some grades to get to college early? For this series' purpose, Pete White was born in 1966, making him 29-30 in 1996 (during Tomorrow's Just Another Day)

Pete White is the oldest end of Gen-X; Billy is the youngest Gen-X.

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Misc Canon for Series (Used and Unused)

→ Billy is 3’9 (45 inches/111.3 cm) —the average height of an American 6 year old boy, but a third of that is his head, so he actually has a body size closer to a 4 year old.

→ Billy’s medical diagnosis: “idiopathic hydrocephalus-induced hypopituitarism (growth hormone deficiency)" which causes a form of dwarfism (proportionate short stature), but not the most common type of dwarfism (achondroplasia, like Kevin & Tim-Tom) so he insists he’s not technically “a dwarf” and won’t identify as such. He also refuses to identify as “disabled,” drummed into him by his mother’s obsession with self-reliance/internalized ableism.

→ Billy chain-smokes. He started when he was 17 to “look older” and give himself an excuse to take breaks at work, but it also calms his nerves. He is prone to both bursts of rage and anxiety attacks. (You don’t get that many lines on your face at 35 unless you’re smoking or tanning and Billy doesn’t seem like a sunbather). He knows it’s unhealthy but points out lung cancer is far behind all his genetic shit of the line of diseases likely to kill him. All doctor’s smoke and the ones that don’t are drunks or pill-poppers.

→ Billy can read and understand about two dozen languages, including ones he studied in high school and in summer programs (French, Spanish, German, Latin, Russian), ones he taught himself from books and tapes (Finnish, Arabic, Vietnamese, Korean, Hebrew, Xhosa, etc.), dead languages (Ancient Greek, Phoenician, Old Norse), and constructed/fictional ones (Quenya , Klingon, Esperanto). His slushy pronunciation renders him incomprehensible but he still tries to converse with native speakers whenever he can.

→ Billy’s hair is rough, like a dog’s hair. White’s hair feels like limp plastic, like a Barbie doll’s hair, until he puts all his products in it to make it hold a shape, then you’re not allowed to touch it.

→ White is legally blind. He wore thick coke-bottle glasses as a kid and contacts & prescription sunglasses now, but it only improves his eyesight slightly. He still can only see about 3 feet in front of him. (And you expect him to hit a target?)

→ White grew up in an economically-depressed factory town in New England, where his parents were involved with a blue-collar Satanic Church and Sex Magick Circle that aimed to summon Satan to copulate with his mother and impregnate her with the antichrist. His mother believes a demon is Pete’s biological father, but as an antichrist he’s been a disappointment. The albinism was a good sign but he ended up more annoying than actually evil. Pete was brought up in the Church of Satan but is now a non-believer. (This never comes up in any story, but I thought you should know.)