#fic: a new religion

[hippolotamus]

Fuck it Friday 🫦

Starting things early (it’s Friday somewhere, right?) with some more of the Eddie wears lace fic (prev snippet here) since that’s apparently where my brain lives now 🫠

It doesn’t help that Buck is so goddamn confident and sure of his own kinks. Since long before they got together. Eddie’s definitely been on the wrong end of hearing about them played out with past relationships and hookups enough times to know.

Not that he ever thinks Buck said these things to hurt him or make him jealous. Regardless, the point is that he feels like they’re unmatched in this particular department. The sex is incredibly hot and Eddie is usually on board with whatever Buck wants to try. By that reasoning it shouldn’t be a problem the other way around.

But this isn’t lusting after his best friend (which came with its own set of ingrained beliefs to work through). This isn’t even wanting to be spanked or restrained. Or discovering how much of a relief it can be to submit to his boyfriend when the world is too much and he just needs someone else to take over. No, this is something else altogether.

This is Edmundo Diaz — a man raised on the ideology that boys don’t cry, don’t become romantically involved with other boys, and they certainly never show interest in anything girly or feminine — deliberately wanting to cross that imaginary gender barrier. To reconcile former soldier, father, and firefighter with the current iteration who wants to slip on lace panties once in a while instead of his everyday briefs. Even if just to find out if he would like it or not. Though he strongly suspects he will.

no pressure tagging @thewolvesof1998 @daffi-990 @disasterbuckdiaz @wikiangela @shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @stereopticons @elvensorceress @giddyupbuck @monsterrae1 @spagheddiediaz @spotsandsocks @forthewolves @chaosandwolves @wildlife4life @heartshapedvows @loserdiaz @your-catfish-friend @statueinthestone @buddierights @911onabc @hoodie-buck @the-likesofus @fionaswhvre @barbiediaz @eowon @ladydorian05 @honestlydarkprincess @spaceprincessem @pirrusstuff @steadfastsaturnsrings @jesuisici33 @apothecarose @rmd-writes @welcometololaland @lizzie-bennetdarcy @watchyourbuck @exhuastedpigeon @weewootruck @underwater-ninja-13 @messyhairdiaz @gayedmundodiaz and anyone else who wants to 🥰

[hana-no-seiiki]

but like midnight darling with popular boy! reader though (inspired by our lord and savior @heartfullofleeches ‘s post about breeding)

for new readers: midnight darling is where my yan! college based ocs come from. you can read more about them via the first tag to this post or my masterlist

everyone would be goddamn pregnant. literally and figuratively. you’d think reader would be cautious enough to use protection since they sleep with so many people but nope! it just feels better when they do it raw yknow?

it’s come to the point that the goons made a system to prevent you (and by extension them) from getting an std at the very least by examining every single person on the campus daily.

dw they’re rich they can handle it.

in any case, by the time you reached your third year you’ve already impregnated most students and all of the teaching faculty with wombs. you’re literally a baby away from causing a crisis equal to those dodgy fertility clinics and the government from hounding your ass.

for some reason none of the rich kid’s parents sue you because like child, like parent they are super obsessed with you and particularly the genes you’d provide their family. besides it’s nothing a quick cover-up can’t handle.

like the only reason you haven’t been sent to jail is because you have connections to many people in power (mostly parents that wanted your sperm).

you had your doubts about your safety until you overheard in a dinner with crisanto salvador (main yan! rich kid) of his dad asking him if they could somehow implant a womb in the poor guy just to hold your baby. (which actually leads to advancements in reproductive technology in the future, im seriously tempted to change the mc’s canonical sex since it makes sense now oh god-)

there are some of the insane yans that use your child as a threat to keep you theirs in which you retaliated by using other yans to save your children.

cold-hearted or not, those babies are completely innocent and your responsibility, so as much as possible you do everything in your power to keep them out of harm’s way.

…

there’s definitely an underground market for your jizz i’m sorry-

©️ hana.no.seiiki - yun | 2023

[crybaby-bkg]

“Are you ever angry?” You ask quietly, head resting in Bakugou’s lap. His thumb pauses where it strokes your cheeks, the far away gaze in his eyes suddenly snapping into focus as he looks down at you. He looks…different than you remembered, before you both were cast out of the pearly gates.

His hair doesn’t shine as bright as it used to, and it falls a little flatter without the halo pulling it up, soft. His eyes still hold that hardened gaze as a battle angel, but they’re deeper now. More sunken in and hollow, the flickering ichor now a stained crimson. His face is scarred and his hands are rough after the fall but he’s just—different.

“About what?” He asks, his lips pursed in confusion. You reach a hand up, stroking over his bottom lip, smooth a hand through his hair. You can almost feel the throbbing light radiating from him, can almost see how broad and ivory his wings would spread and hold you tight to him.

“It all. Everything. The fall.” You whisper, try not to shrink into yourself with the way Bakugou’s lip curls back in disgust. He pulls away from you and you sit up, resting on your knees, looking at him in such a way that his heart pangs in his chest.

His heart, something he’s never had a reason for when he still had his fists bathed in heavenly fire and no ounce of rebellion hidden under sinless skin. It aches in his chest at the mention of life after being kicked out with the only thing he could hold onto—you.

“Why would I miss my thoughtlessness? My inability to make a decision for myself? Why would I miss being a pawn?” Bakugou is all snarls, all snapping teeth and jowls, but it doesn’t scare you. He’s never scared you, even when his gait was limp from the impact of hard soil, and his hands grew rough, and his back grew jagged from ripped feathers.

“I miss it.” You whisper so carefully into the humid night, hands reaching for his own trembling ones. “I want to be holy again, Katsuki.”

He hisses at you, snatching away like you’ve burned him, like you’ve seized his halo and ripped it into two until it split into horns. Looks at you with such heavenly fire burning in his gaze that you want to shrink beneath him.

“Well—well I don’t. Find someone else who will, cause it sure as hell ain’t me.” You wonder who he’s trying to convince here, with his shaky voice and fluttering eyes and trembling mouth. You stare at him for a long while, lips wobbling at the gravity of it all. Your head hangs low, gathering yourself in your arms, head bowed to him—it’s the only thing you’ve ever known.

“Just hold me for now.” You murmur, eyes low as you settle yourself in his arms, forcing your way into his hold. “Please?” You tack on, unafraid of his bite, his snarl, his growl. Bakugou sits there stiffly for what feels like a century, but you’re used to waiting.

He gathers you in his arms slowly, pulling you into his chest, his body covering yours completely. And if you let yourself relax enough, you can almost feel the warmth of his wings surrounding you again.

[kaipendesarapen]

i love how the most well-articulated fic I've read is porn. the words used to describe how character b is sucking character a's dick is like how Shakespeare would've written but modernised. i could vividly visualise how they're fucking and i'm honestly eating that shit up.

[the-hilda-librarians-wife]

In the road rn (when will it end) and I took the time to write down what I want/need to do as soon as I get home. But then I took a look at how insane the list ended up and I need to show you for whiplash purposes alone

Sums up who I am as a person tbh

[whump-card]

Forged Divinity Chapter 1: Phineas Acquires Leannan

1618 words

CW: institutionalized slavery, religious themes, abuse, implied murder, derogatory language

Masterlist, Next

~~~

Revelation 8:7

The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

~~~

The merchant's tent was a fire hazard, that, Phineas knew for sure. The canvas structure hung low, the underside painted with long-since faded suns, moons, and stars. The peeling sky resided over an impossibly huge pile of junk. Trunks, fabrics, clothes, cookware, ancient electronics, blunt weapons, farming tools, window shutters, a bedframe, an armoire. Herbs, spices, and mixes of the two claiming to have magical properties filled jars, cans, pouches, and incense boxes that lined rickety shelves alongside trinkets, baubles, and kitsch. A handful of prayer and psalm biblets, but no other books – never any other books. Lines strung from the shelves to the tent posts hoisted flickering lanterns that barely lit the dark interior.

Phineas drew closer to the herb shelves, doing their best to ignore the sense of impending doom the precarious lanterns evoked. They scanned the shelving with a practiced eye, wasting no time on the many, many distractions around them – until one of those distractions was not a grinning animal skull or rhinestone-backed handmirror, but instead the unmistakable tread of another person.

Phineas was facing him straight on when the person ducked around the shelf into sight. He blinked, surprised by Phineas’ confrontational stance and the unusual weapon they carried, but collected himself quickly.

“Are you finding what you need?” he asked in a smooth, low voice. His tone was obviously loaded, and Phineas didn’t like that. What Phineas didn’t mind, however, was the stranger’s appearance. Everything about him was pleasant, soft, and round – his body, his face, his lips, his pale curls that crowned him in gold. His clothes were simple, ragged, scavenged things, like most people’s, but he wore them with a particular taste for layering and color-matching, making the most out of a range of faded blues. Long sleeved, of course, to protect from the sun. A small golden religious symbol rested on a delicate chain around his neck. His hands hovered in front of his chest, fingers linked. As Phineas continued to unabashedly look him up and down, he smiled and ducked his head.

“Maybe I can help-”

“I’m fine,” Phineas cut him off, snatching a small paper box off a nearby shelf. “Where’s your boss?”

“Oh,” the man laughed, bright and short, “She’s not my boss.”

An obvious cue to ask what their relationship was, then. Phineas ignored it, and started weaving their way through the chaos towards where they’d last seen the merchant.

“Hej, sinjorino!” they called. Their Esperanto vocal habits they’d grown up with in the southern deserts were hard to kick.

“Pafanto?” The merchant answered in kind – another nomad, perhaps, fleeing the heat – and her head popped up from behind a stack of computer parts. “All done?”

Phineas made their way over to her, glancing over their shoulder. The blue and gold man was gone. They met the merchant over a dusty counter.

“Who’s your assistant?” they asked, setting the box down.

“Assistant?” she frowned at first, then smiled knowingly. “Ah, you met Hiram. No, no assistant. He’s a holy Iowan concubine,” she spoke proudly, “Worth a fucking town, that one.”

“I thought the Iowan stock died out.”

“So did I! But he’s got the dark blood and everything.”

“How much?”

She laughed in their face.

“More than you’ve got, pafanto!” Her chuckles slowed. “Unless…” Her eyes drifted over their shoulder.

Phineas’ hand went instinctively to the strap that held the Barrett M95 sniper rifle in place on their back. The weapon loomed over their shoulder like a specter, always watching, always ready. A gun like that was rare. Priceless. It was why the merchant called them ‘gunman,’ revealing that she’d noticed the uncommon weapon the moment they’d walked in. Not that it was hard to notice.

Was it worth a human life?

It had certainly taken plenty.

The merchant could tell they were considering it.

“The gun, and any ammo you have. That’ll get you the Iowan, and your…” she picked up the box, “Henna?”

“What’s he like?” Phineas had already forgotten the name the merchant had used.

“Oh, he’s perfect,” the merchant hummed with a sly smile, “A dream in bed. You know, you’d really be doing me a favor, I need to get rid of him before the season ends and I have to go home to my husband!”

The merchant wasn’t being subtle. The gun was worth more than the Iowan.

“He is…” Phineas wasn’t quite sure what they were asking, “Obedient?”

“Very.”

Phineas took one last look around the tent, huffed a breath, and unslung the weapon from their shoulder. The merchant beamed, yet again giving away the game. Phineas delicately set the gun on the counter and took their tall and hefty backpack off, rooting through it and producing two boxes of ammunition.

“That’s not a lot,” the merchant observed.

“It’s a sniper rifle,” Phineas snarked, “You shouldn’t need a lot.”

~~~

Twenty minutes later Phineas was striding away from the merchant’s tent, the Iowan practically jogging to keep up. He’d managed to pack a meager bag of things that now bounced on his back. Phineas, on the other hand, was feeling strangely unburdened. They didn’t like it. The gun meant safety. The gun meant food. What would they do without it?

They walked through dense pine forests, the trees looming overhead in ominous spikes. The narrow track they followed was dutifully marked out by swipes of white paint on the occasional trunk, left by trailblazers not too long ago. Phineas took a deep, calming breath of the evergreen scent, clearing their head.

“What’s your name?” they asked, without looking back.

“I have been called Hiram for some time now, ma’am – sir? – m – uh,” the Iowan replied breathlessly, “But you may call me what you like!”

“Pick something better than Hiram, or I’ll pick something you won’t like.”

“Oh! Well… If you’re letting me pick, I’m partial to Leannan.”

“Leannan it is. Call me Phineas, and nothing else.” Phineas abruptly turned off the path into the dense woods. They could hear Leannan panting and stumbling behind them, his shoes scraping over roots and snapping every twig underfoot.

Hunting with this thing was going to be a nightmare.

Phineas stopped, shrugging their backpack off and finally turning to look at Leannan. The Iowan staggered to a halt, out of breath and awkward.

“We’ll camp here,” Phineas announced.

“Oh!” Leannan looked around.

“Problem?” snapped Phineas.

“No!” Leannan said quickly, “Only, I have nothing to lie on.” He gestured to Phineas’ bedroll, prominently visible across the top of their backpack.

Phineas shrugged. “It ain’t cold.” The summer air was clear and warm.

They crouched to dig through their backpack, and pulled out two wax-cloth wrapped bundles. They offered one to Leannan.

“Eat.”

Leannan accepted the bundle and unwrapped it, finding it a single ration of a homemade granola bar – dried fruit, nuts, and grains – and jerky. He watched as Phineas sat back against a tree, as easy as can be, munching their own food.

Leannan sank to the ground and sat cross-legged, observing his new master like a hawk.

~~~

Later, as the sky darkened and the birdsong began to shift, they lay side by side on their backs. Leannan was on the ground; Phineas lay atop their thin bedroll.

Knowing they were still awake, Leannan rolled onto his side to face Phineas, propping his head up on one hand.

“Phineas,” he asked in a near-whisper, “Why did you buy me?”

Phineas slowly sighed before mumbling, “Because I wanted to.” They didn’t open their eyes.

“What am I, to you?”

“An annoyance, right now.”

“So, you…” Leannan ventured a hand out to caress Phineas’ shoulder, “Don’t you want to touch me?”

“Mmmnope.”

“So, you… You’re saving me? From the life of a whore?”

“Jes, whatever.”

“But you gave up a gun for me, and I’m so, so grateful, Phineas…” Leannan leaned in and pressed his lips to Phineas’ shoulder.

“God, you’re stupid!” Phineas sat up and swung their arm, backhanding Leannan across the face. Leannan gasped and cowered away.

“I’m not interested in fucking you, you idiotic little slut!” Phineas shouted, “I’m selling you the first chance I get!”

“I’m sorry!” Leannan doubled over on his knees, pressing his forehead into the pine needles. “I’m sorry, Phineas!”

“Go the fuck to sleep,” Phineas growled, lying back down.

Leannan lifted his head. Seeing Phineas had already closed their eyes, he rolled his own with a silent sigh and curled up to sleep on the spot.

At least this one was a traveler. They’d find him a suitable buyer better than that merchant could have, God willing, though Leannan would have to be the one to pick the buyer and put the idea in Phineas’ head. The gunman was a fool for giving up their weapon, they clearly had no business savvy.

Leannan just had to be careful not to trigger another temper tantrum.

God would see him through this.

~~~

When Leannan was shaken awake, he opened his eyes to darkness.

“Up. Up, slut.” Phineas.

Leannan blearily started to push himself upright, but a hand fisted in his hair and yanked. He yelped and scrambled to his feet. Suddenly he was face-to-face with Phineas, their dull reddish-brown hair sticking up in tufts around their head, their warm tan skin cast cold by the wan moonlight, angular features sharp.

Over their shoulder loomed the barrel of their gun. Back in its place.

Leannan knew immediately what had happened, but he blinked in confusion for Phineas’ benefit anyway.

“What…?”

Phineas released Leannan’s curls.

“Follow.” They turned on their heel and headed off into the woods, back towards the trail.

Leannan scooped up his bag and hurried after, stumbling in the dark.

He wouldn’t underestimate Phineas again.

~~~

Masterlist, Next

Taglist: @angst-after-dark, @sunshiline-writes, @flowersarefreetherapy

Let me know if you want on or off the taglist!

[trans-cuchulainn]

i do think it's kind of funny that ao3 seems to have made a blanket change to all the "mythology" tags to make them "religion and lore" (not a good change) EXCEPT the "arthurian mythology" tag, which remains intact despite a Number of people trying to get that one reworked or at least different wrangled for ages. they're like "we're taking mythology away from all the contexts where it might be applicable. and leaving it in the context where it's dubious. this is a sensible change"

[yonemurishiroku]

I’m not sure if you ever specify what nearly killed Nico in the events prior to “and I befriend the pit in me” but imagine (an au of this au?) where the two are bound when Nico has almost completely faded due to using his powers and when he gets better, he’s brought some of the shadow with him.

that’s all, thanks.

Ohhhhh an ask about my fic, this is exciting!!! I'm so glad you enjoy it that much! xD

So, though it's true that I do not specify what befell Nico in and I befriend the pit in me, I did, in fact, have a background for that. I didn't include it but technically, Nico kind of picked up on Erebus' calls and wandered too far off to a dangerous place and ended up severely injured. He managed to escape with Erebus' help, and what came next, you've already known.

Regarding your AU (of my AU. wow saying it is exciting!!), though, I'm fairly curious as to what you mean by "bring some of the shadows with him."

I've always loved the idea of Nico being adored by all sorts of ominous forces (as if you couldn't tell from all those fanfics of mine lolol), and my interpretation for this is that he earned a shadow friend? Like how I portrayed Erebus in befriend the pit I mean. Nico can have a skeleton pet and a shadow pet. I think it's pretty cool actually.

On the other hand, if we're heading to something darker though, I would say it could have been a bad thing.

Now, bad is a social construct. The shadows can be bad towards the others but not Nico - straightforward favoritism, I mean. Or the shadows favor a little too much and turn out possessive and overwhelming over Nico (which I have dabbled a little in it was almost love pt.II. I'm not sure I've made it clear in here but the shadows in here are crazy over their King lolol).

In a much more dire situation though? It's just bad. Plainly awful, vicious, wicked, all that stuff. Now, I can't make any promises, but I do have a scenario in mind about not the shadows, but Tartarus haunting Nico, which later manifested through his power of darkness.

Basically, it's about the idea of Tartarus using Nico as a... conductor, I think? It's different from how Kronos possessed Luke. This is about Tartarus attempting to open a connection to the overworld through Nico's shadow-traveling and henceforth take over it. This has once been mentioned in one of my if Nico dies scenarios, as I've used this as an excuse to get Nico to kill himself with his sword to cut off the connection (it's bad, I know). I suppose this is the most similar to your suggestion, yeah?

That's everything I have in mind up to now.

All in all, this surely makes my day!! ỜvỚ)/ <3 I'm flattered that my writing inspires you that much ehehe. xD Always happy for more discussion if you want to succumb to my rambles of Nico and darkness. 👀👀👀

[hippolotamus]

Tease Tidbit Tuesday 🫦

Tagged by @thewolvesof1998 @daffi-990 @wikiangela @disasterbuckdiaz Thank you loves 💖

I have zero explanation for this other than my brain latched onto a line from @thewolvesof1998’s snippet and spun it in a vastly different direction. So, uh, bon appetit 😘

Excitement and apprehension simmer under his skin. Twin currents spiraling together in an intricate dance along every nerve as he reaches for the dresser drawer.

For peace of mind, he spares a glance at his locked bedroom door to ensure it hasn’t slipped loose. He’s half tempted to walk across the room and physically check the lock. But that will only waste time he’s not sure he has. Christopher doesn’t need him as much these days but that doesn’t mean zero chance of intrusion. Especially if his son discovers a locked door.

Eddie could wait until tonight, after Chris is in bed, but it’s not a viable option. For all the waiting Eddie’s done, patiently holding back until the right moment, he decided he couldn’t anymore today. Not after continuously getting distracted while making a store list and doing laundry. Accidentally putting fabric softener in the wrong dispenser was the last straw.

He slides the drawer open and just looks at the neatly folded piles of socks and underwear concealing what he’s actually there for. Anxiety overpowers anticipation, making his heart beat faster and louder. As he pushes past it, thumbing through a stack of boxer briefs, a voice that sounds suspiciously like the priest from his childhood church shouts about sin and immorality. The voice becomes sharper when Eddie’s fingertips land on a distinctly different fabric.

Soft cotton is replaced by patterned lace. Still gentle, sliding between the pads of his thumb and pointer finger, but slightly rougher. The kind of delicate abrasion that feels pleasant against bare skin, like scratching an itch.

He continues to roll the material, not yet allowing himself to bring it into view. It was only a few days ago that he was able to get to this point. To touch and acknowledge the existence of the black cheeky shorts that he hid there two weeks before. It’s enough for now.

no pressure tagging @shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @stereopticons @spotsandsocks @elvensorceress @giddyupbuck @monsterrae1 @eddiediaztho @forthewolves @chaosandwolves @wildlife4life @heartshapedvows @loserdiaz @your-catfish-friend @statueinthestone @buddierights @911onabc @hoodie-buck @the-likesofus @fionaswhvre @barbiediaz @eowon @ladydorian05 @apothecarose @vanillahigh00 @rmd-writes @welcometololaland @lizzie-bennetdarcy @honestlydarkprincess @spaceprincessem @pirrusstuff @steadfastsaturnsrings @jesuisici33 @watchyourbuck @exhuastedpigeon @weewootruck @underwater-ninja-13 @messyhairdiaz @gayedmundodiaz and anybody else who wants to

[essektheylyss]

okay but actually I'm remembering all of the things that slap about the Circle of Magic series and... perhaps instead of starting my rewatch of c2 I will just finally do a full proper reread of the whole series now that I own every Emelan book and finally read Battle Magic

also tbt when I reread Briar's book in April 2020. never question my resolve my sheer force of will is stronger than you can imagine

[callipraxia]

The Unexpected Memoirs of Fiddleford H. McGucket: Prologue and Chapter One

I was going through my writing desk and found a notepad I had scrawled about seventy pages, I think, of an attempt at first-person narration on a while back. It was about Fiddleford, attempting to type his way into his own memory in the gap between "Society of the Blind Eye" and his flight from town at the beginning of "Not What He Seems." Figured I might as well type it up in a few installments here if only so I have an excuse to remove the notepad and make some storage space, and to help with wanting to write so bad when I know I have too much work going on to commit to a brand-new project.

For whatever it's worth, Chapter One *probably* isn't as dark as the tags might suggest. It just includes Fiddleford typing up a basic overview of his life before he met Ford, and since that period involved being poor and living in the Deep South in the fifties and sixties...Certain topics are inevitable, at least in passing. Religion gets most of his focus, but there's also brief mentions of racism, classism, homophobia...good ol' days, am I right?!

Prologue

My name is Fiddleford Hadron McGucket, and I wish to remember what I have seen.

Or at least, I want to be able to wish to remember what I have seen.

Or at least, I think I do.

Maybe I just know that I have to, now. I don’t know what I helped create, or why, but I know one thing: from what I saw of myself in those tapes in the museum basement, and from what I read in the Journal, I either went crazy a lot earlier than I thought, helped create something that could end the world, or both. If it’s just that first one, well, that's all right - but what if it's one of the other two?

I want to run, but there’s nowhere left to run. I want to hide, but too many folks know where I am, now. I’ve got no choices left, besides sitting here at this typewriter and letting my fingers lead me back thirty years, into a world I gave up everything to forget about. All I’ve got is a story.

My name is Fiddleford McGucket, and I need to remember what I have seen. Whether I want to or not.

Chapter One

I think I might have tried to forget everything, but if I did, I messed up at least twice. There's two things I've never forgot about. I've always known my name, and I've always known that I’ve got a son. It's from the time after my life starts up again that I also know that if I said I was a bad father to him, I’d owe all the bad fathers of the world an apology for comparing them to the likes of me. Even a bad father is one who’s around to be bad, I think, and I wasn’t. I'd forget that, if I could, but somehow, I ended up without the gun....

My son hates me, and I can’t rightly blame him for that. He’s ashamed to be related to me, too, and as much as I’d like to, I can’t blame him for that, either, not with the fool I’ve acted. He was little when I left. I know that in part from such memories as I already had, and for sure because there was a picture in that Journal-book Dipper showed me. For some reason, the Author drew a picture of a picture that used to sit on my desk – copied it just like it must have been in life. He even bothered drawing the way the light reflected off the frame and hid my wife’s face, so I still don’t know what she looked like. I reckon I ought to be annoyed about that – but all I can think is, oh, you. You would do that, wouldn’t you?

Who are you, you faceless son of a cornshuck? Why did you do this to me? Why did I do that to you? What did we do? What’s this? What’s that?

The boy doesn’t know much about it. He was so young, then, and his mama didn’t like to talk about me later. Or so he says, and I guess I got no choice other than to believe him, because who else can I ask? My wife’s dead – I remember when he told me about that, a few years ago – and there’s nobody else in town that knew me before I lost my mind and remembers it, at least as far as I know. Not that that means much, of course.

More to the point, the boy does remember a few things. I was born in Tennessee, where I lived up to the age of seventeen, and where I’d probably be today if not for two things. One of them things is that I can’t think of many things more boring than plants – I liked machinery before I even knew what it was. The other one, probably more important, is that I caught every virus known to Man, probably, or at least Tennessee Man, as a baby, up until I took the rheumatic fever when I was six. If that hadn’t happened, then I probably would have been expected to quit school – assuming I went at all – and help Papa on the farm until I was old enough to get married and start my own, but instead, I got sick.

Mama and Papa, though – they didn’t know what they were supposed to do with me, but they knew I was theirs and they had an obligation, and that it wasn’t my fault I was feeble for a long time and peculiar even after I got my strength back. They lost their tempers with me all the time, sure, because I was so peculiar, but once they were done yelling, they knew I couldn’t help it, being like that. Mama, who was born a Baptist, used to say it was God’s will and proof of His marvelous constancy from generation to generation – Hannah had prayed for her son, and when she got him, it was with conditions, specifically, that she’d have to return him to God. Mama had also prayed for a son, and she’d got...me, who was clearly not going to be of any use to anyone unless I got me some schooling. Well, that was all right; the best preachers didn’t go to school, of course, everybody knew that, but she’d hauled off and married a Catholic, and they expected their folks to have some book learning even though that didn’t make much sense for men of God. Sense or no sense, though - that was how my mama decided I was going to be a priest.

I can’t remember much about how I felt about this, no matter how hard I try. The one thing I remember is that I did have one sister, name of Gladiolus, and that she used to think it was funny. Fatherford, she’d call me, when she thought Mama couldn’t hear her, especially when she thought I was being stupid on the subject of our mutual religion.

I was scared of God – not possessed of a holy and proper fear of God, just plain scared, like you’d be of a monster under the bed. I’d heard since I was a baby that it was only through His mercy that I was living, and I remembered just enough about being sick to know how bad it had usually hurt. I don’t know how, but I took it into my head that this meant I was bad, somehow – worse than everyone else, that was, a sinner among sinners, mainly because sometimes I asked questions that made Mama tell me that I was questioning God Almighty and that she’d have Papa take a belt to me if I done it again. Every time the priest raised the Host and talked about the transubstantiation, I’d imagine God looking out at me from inside the monstrance and whispering: just you watch yourself, Fiddleford McGucket. You better get your crazy ass right with me, or I’ll send it right on to Hell. And I would have - if I'd had any idea how. How many times did I sit there and pray, crying on my knees to stop thinking wrong and wanting wrong and doing wrong? Pulling out my own hair, because that was the only thing that could calm me down on a real bad day? I’d learned by the time I was ten not to ask my family such questions – that me asking Mama how I was supposed to just not think things that went through my head when I knew it upset her so – but I thought surely, surely, if God cared about me at all, despite knowing all my wrong thoughts….

Well – maybe He will have mercy on me for my doubts and questions and pride. Maybe He will take me in even if I keep an inability to see why it’s supposed to be so wrong to marry someone who doesn't look enough like you, or happens to be another man, or whatever else folks down home would say today. Or maybe He won’t. I don’t know. That was one thing I could never take about Mama’s people – this “I know that I know” attitude. Arrogant, ain’t it, assuming you Know anything about what God’s going to do? The predestination people are mighty peculiar, too, but that doesn’t even seem as arrogant as this idea that you can know you’re right with something as alien as God -

Or that’s the theory, anyway. In practice, the predestinationists aren’t any better, as far as I can recall, but even though thoughts like that kept me from ever considering going Evangelical or Holiness or any of that stuff, I still didn’t become a priest. I never even applied to try to be a priest – heavens to Betsy, I didn’t even apply to no Catholic universities! Admittedly, that was in part because of money – Mama went to work after she decided I was gonna live after all, so we could afford enough shoes for me and Gladiolus both to go to school all year in, and the sewing plant was real generous in giving out scholarships to the best-performing employee kids in the high school. I’d have been the biggest ingrate in the state of Tennessee if I’d started quibbling over which college I was going to go to, even considering that I broke every record my high school and that sewing plant had ever seen. And that’s how I ended up at Backupsmore University.

*********

Had to take me a break from typing – got to going too fast and my hands locked up. But the boy says he always heard I went to Backupsmore University, so I reckon I did. Makes as much sense as anywhere else, though from what I came to understand, the degree to which my crazy ass went really wrong, at least by home standards, while I was there could have happened in any reputable college or university in this country just as well.

I try to think back to it, and I have just a – blur. Strings of colored lights, which I’d never seen before. The taste of beer, and later of stronger stuff – took me two months to work up the nerve to try the beer, of course, and then I reckoned it was nasty, but I was so tired of being the oddball hick by then that I figured it was the lesser of two evils, even knowing what my mama would have said about it. Not like she wouldn’t have said worse about other stuff, such as when I went to required classes and didn’t say a word in protest when they taught that the world was millions of years old, or when I was all right with the idea of the rules changing to allow for blue jeans in classes, or when I discovered my roommate didn’t go to Mass and stayed roommates with him anyway, or when I would occasionally kiss girls and a few times boys, or….

Well. Maybe I went a little wild my first year or two, but I know that I know I didn’t ever risk my scholarship. Partially, of course, this was because of how easy everything was to me, but I did my work, no matter how tedious it was. I knew within a week that I didn’t want to go back to where I come from, and I knew that doing real well in college was my best way out. So I did real well in college, though it probably helped that my roommate was so dang uptight that I was partially obliged to drop the wayward habits of my freshman year, because there was no questioning which of us would have won in a fight.

I was taller than him, though. I remember that. Didn’t seem to bother him much. Not much did, I reckon. He was there to work, not to deal with people no more than he could help. I had to drag him out of the room most every time he left it for anything except for class, after we became friends...because we didn’t do for a while after we moved in together, not right away. I remember that first day - how I introduced myself, trying to be friendly and polite, and how he acted like the idea of shaking hands offended him, even if he did finally do it. I remember, too, that I thought he seemed like he got mad about my name for some reason? Though how that makes any sense, I don’t know. I think he might have just been mad at everything, the whole world, even himself, but definitely most everybody else.

I’m starting to type too fast again. Got to put down everything I can remember – it feels like I might forget it again if I don’t get it down fast enough, and like I need to remember this man. Like he’s got something to do with what happened, though it might be just that I can’t remember his face, either -

That does seem strange, and not only because I lived with him for a right long time. There’s also the other things that come back to me, strange little things. He’d done some kind of athletics in high school, for instance – why do I know that, but not what the feller looked like? That makes about as much sense as this band-aid being on my beard!

I remember that, though. And I remember that time when it snowed a foot, real early in the year that year even for that far north, and even though I'm sure that he was funny about his hands for some reason – fancy-pants musician, maybe? But that don’t explain this – how he let me borrow a pair of gloves upon realizing I’d never had any cause to own such an item before – and by ‘borrow’, I mean ‘threw ‘em at me without comment before leaving the room.’ And the first time he unbent enough for us to have a real conversation, and what it felt like, realizing I was really talking to someone who was a little like me – someone else who worked just fine, but his circuits were just arranged different than most folks’. Never thought it could happen, but....

It all blurs, even now. I can’t see his face, however I try to think on it. But I remember another thing, too. I remember one day when I fell down because I was laughing so hard. I was in Gravity Falls already, then, and I started laughing till I ended up on my knees as I thought to myself – there was a time I’d have said that I would follow that man into Hell - but this ain't what this was supposed to be!

*********

In between them memories, I’ve got what the boy told me I did. He doesn’t know why I did it or when, but at some point, I did go back to Tennessee. That’s where I met his mama. She was a schoolteacher, one of the only other folks my age who’d been anywhere near a college, at least that I could find to talk to. So, for lack of anything better to do, I suppose, she became a Catholic and then we got married.

Emma-May Dixon. Couldn’t get a name more like where we come from than that if you tried, but Emmy wasn’t too much like Gladiolus or my girl cousins or most home folks. Well, if she’d been like most folks, she wouldn’t have got lonely enough to marry the likes of me, would she have? Emma-May. Emmy.‘Emmy’ is what I called her sometimes, I think. Just Em when she was annoying me, though, which she did sometimes, as everyone you ever live with or know especially well must. I’ve remembered that for a while, somehow – that, and how she didn’t like being called Em or Emmy very much. After we left Tennessee, she tried going by Emma, out in California. Like Jane Austen. She had a whole set of books by Jane Austen, and every house we ever lived in, she made sure they were as prominent as they could get in the living room.

They weren’t just for looks, though. She had read them. She read them every year over again, in fact. She had the darkest, curliest hair I’ve ever seen – when it came into fashion, she started putting permanents in it the same as everyone else, of course, but she could have saved herself some time and just left it as it was, because she got close to looking like she had one just in her natural state. She wore perfume – Evening in Paris, I think it was – which was the kind of thing that would have gotten a gal talked about back home even if she hadn’t had the audacity to go buy it for herself, long time before she ever met me. I didn’t mind it, though; I liked that she didn’t need me, because I might not have pulled my hair out over my fear of God as much anymore by then, but someone needing me – that I couldn’t stand. Which did make it mighty inconvenient that she got pregnant not too long after we got married, because you ain’t never known how Necessary you can be until you get stuck being responsible for a baby human.

These days, of course, I doubt that would have happened. For one thing, I’d have been on ten different pills time I left Backupsmore, so I probably never would have gone home in the first place. For another – well, back then, it just didn’t occur to us to do much of anything to not have babies, because that was what you did, wasn’t it? You got married, you had a bunch of kids. That was what the Church said was proper, but it wasn’t even just the Church – my mama was a Baptist and had ten brothers and sisters. You had ‘em to keep up the work on the farm with you; that was why everybody felt so sorry for Mama and Papa, only having two young’uns, and one of them being me.

I don’t know what would have happened had we stayed in Tennessee – but thing was, Tater was still a baby when I realized we was not staying in Tennessee. For one thing, Mama and Emma-May couldn’t get along at all after the baby was born, Mama being intense on the subject of her first and only grandbaby – and for another, we just couldn’t stay there. I would have gone crazy a lot sooner than I did if we had. After Tater was born, all I could think was – my God, I can’t have a young’un of mine grow up here. If this place isn’t dead, it’s definitely dying. What if he’s like me, but he doesn’t get sick enough? Of course, this wasn’t rational of me – by that time, going to school was not only mandatory in the law, but it was something that was actually enforced even for backwoods families – but I couldn’t even think about the likes of ration, not then. I scratched up my head so bad trying not to rip out my hair that I ended up getting some kind of skin infection for a while – and then, once I was over that, we got as far from everybody we knew as we possibly could.

*********

California. On a map, it was easy to say what California was; where I come from, it was a whole different question. To some, it meant everything you could ever want, everything that home wasn’t; to others, it was a neat bit of shorthand just for Hell on Earth, for all the sins of the world (I reckon home folks didn’t all know about Las Vegas?). To my mama and papa, and Em’s mama and daddy, it was the second one; to me and her, it was the first one.

I think we were happy there? It’s another blur – but the edges don’t hurt, wherever an object or an image floats to the surface and gets clear enough to see. I remember shoes in the hallway a lot. Some balls and bats, a lot of books. Tater was reading before he was three, and we made sure he had plenty to read, because as I told my wife – it was pretty clear, from early on, that the boy was indeed like me, so he might as well lean into it and get as smart as he could, so he’d have the best chance to find some way, some place in the world where he could be happy.

You say that like you aren’t happy where you're at, Fids, said she – she was the only one who called me that, I’m assuming as retaliation for the Em thing. What am I supposed to do with that?

But I think I was. That we both were, for a while anyway. In a way, I think we both felt about like young’uns ourselves, because of how odd we could be in California without anybody knowing or caring at all. It was 1975, baby! Every woman in America had a right to her own bank account, whether she was married or whether she was not, and Emma-May got one I reckon just for the hell of it. Or because she was the one with more to put into it, though she never once mentioned it, and she was a saint for that. Who ever heard of a woman with a baby going back to teaching school, and letting some fool of a man look after a baby? Nobody, but we weren’t in Tennessee, we were in California, and it was 1976, 1978 – the world was all on its head and it was going to keep spinning like that forever, up and up, freer and freer, no stops!

I know how wrong we was now – but even today, it makes me smile, when I think of this one picture in my head. It was Emmy, just outside the church – since she took it sort of serious, after having gone to all the trouble of converting, we still did go to church. She was standing on the stair, wearing this dark blue dress with little white polky-dots on it, and one of them big, wide lace collars – this thing was up to her throat, and the ends of it were on her two shoulders – and by standards of the time, she was looking sharp! But she had on these sensible shoes, you know, and little white gloves, because she had a habit of that from her mama, who had not been one bit amused by Jack Kennedy taking his presidential oaths with no hat on and thereby giving everyone permission to run around in their bathing suits in broad daylight. Jack Kennedy was dead, though, and Jackie had betrayed all of America, to my folks’ way of thinking, by marrying some foreigner instead of gracefully playing the queen dowager until John, Jr. could take his daddy’s place, and I had two suits, one for every other Sunday, and a pretty wife with more dresses than there were days in the week standing there with her rosary in one hand and Tate by the other one, and I imagine we looked at each other like – you believe all this? You believe we’re here acting like decent people, without a soul in this church knowing you’ve got your own bank and them new pills, or that I get what money I got by some combination of picking a banjo while I run around in floweredy shirts like a hoodlum and spend my days trying to build the machines of the future? This is the craziest thing I've ever heard of!

Of course, I don’t know that this memory is real. Even if I do remember it right, there ain’t no guarantee that Emma-May was thinking anything of the sort, about how we looked like everybody else and were yet living in ways that would have shocked out parents out of this life. I felt like a young’un lifting candy from the store, though, and I recollect I laughed – from her point of view, for no good reason – and gave her a kiss right there on the stair.

What was that for?

You just looked pretty.

You crazy fool.

She’d call me that again another time, and it wouldn’t sound anything like it did then. Another time, she was screaming at me, shaking me, telling me to snap out of it, to quit what I was doing, to look what I was doing to my own son, to quit it right now and be a man, be a father, for the love of God, Fiddleford! But that day, it wasn’t like that, and I never could have guessed how soon it would be.

*********

I don’t remember much about how it started, that day. Right now, I remember everything about that afternoon and evening – the afternoon that marked the beginning of the end of my life – but not so much about the beginning, not even what I was doing right before the phone started to ring. I assume it was all normal, though: that I’d got up like I most always did, got the kid off to school, got the wife some kind of lunch put together before she went off to school, and then it was out to the garage and another day of trying to scrape together a dream. Just like so many days before. There was no way, no way at all, I could have ever known what was going to happen.

It was getting late, I think, when the phone started to ring, but in July it’s hard to be sure. Only the sounds of Emma-May and the boy in the house gave away that we’d passed the hour where most folks called the day finished. Despite that, I wasn’t working on one of my own projects yet – was still working on something for a client, scraping together the money I needed to keep working on my prototypes. Well, to my way of thinking, I was working on a client project, anyway – to most folks’ eyes, it would have looked like I was just picking on my banjo, but that was what I did when I needed to think about a tricky problem with some wiring. I was chewing on some chewbacca, too, as I was accustomed to do, and I recall I gnawed on it some just about the time the ringing started.

Why do I remember that? Nothing that unusual about that moment. Nothing should have made that specific plug of tobacco brand itself into my neurons, but I remember it right now, as clear as I do anything else – I can taste it as if I was chewing on it this moment, practically feel it between my molars again, though unfortunately, just remembering the feel of getting a hit of nicotine doesn’t do much to sharpen me up and calm me down all at once the way an actual portion of the drug would. It was real that day, though, and hit my system as I picked up the phone, and, without a care in the world, said, “Hello! Fiddleford Computermajigs!”

Another man’s voice came through the other line, and for a few seconds, I didn’t even recognize it. It was the kind of landline connection you got back then, I reckon, along with me having not heard this particular man’s voice in...Lord, how long had it been? Going on five years, maybe. Even during those few seconds, though, before my life changed, I felt a sort of – ripple – go through the world, as though I had gotten a shock, as the voice spoke, getting straight to the point without any salutation or introduction of its owner. Guess he was already too close to the edge to care about such things by then – that is, unless he knew that, just from the sheer audacity of the proposition alone, I’d know exactly who it was by the time he got to the end of his sentence.

“What would you say,” he said in a low, almost conspiratorial tone, “if I told you that I’m building a trans-universal polydimensional meta-vortex?”

By the end of the sentence, I knew who I was talking to – but that was bizarre enough even for him that I had to repeat it back to myself to be sure I’d heard it right. “You...say you’re trying to build a trans-universal polydimensional meta-vortex?”

“Yes.”

And then I did it. Without even knowing I was doing it, I said the words that would near enough to damn us both, and my wife and son along with us, and who knows how many others, before it’s done.

“Well,” said I, and the numbers were running through my head – I hadn’t felt them like that since college, that was how quick I started on the problem, even before I had any confirmation that it was any of my business. “that’s...mathematically feasible, I reckon!” I spat to clear my mouth, just in case the next remark he came up with was somehow even more surprising than the one he’d used to barge back into my life without so much as a howdy-do, and then I added, “Stanford? That really you?”

Click here to proceed to chapter two!

[hoedameron]

back to the fanfiction grind

[dwoality2123]

I’m just saying, you can’t really be an atheist in the Marvel (and DC) universe in the sense of “not believing or lack of believe in gods”.

[iheartmoons]

should i create a whole new religion or should i make the entire book christian 😭😭😭