Howdy. I'm Derek Fuller. I'm the best looking of our little Circle, and the best in general. 19. Janitor. Perpetually single...gentlemen.
In this several-part miniseries I'll be talking to you guys about the childhood of the fabulous five that is Yr. Humble Inner Circle. What it took to get us all here, with just the slightest whiff of tear-jerking nostalgia topped with a fucking cherry made out of lameness. See? I'm already posting like this is a fucking middle school fanfic intro. Heh. Well, I've never been the writer--that'd be A.S. and Garry, and they're awkward as shit. So they're not faring much better than me! Which makes me glad. At least I've got spelling and grammar down shipshape.
So.
Our Boring Childhood (TM).
It all began when we were born. We were originally from the Twin Cities (except Qom, who was from Iran via missionary parents) but we didn't know each other then. That's why we're as hip as we are now, which I saw with a capital HAHA. Poor Qom was the youngest of all of us, but we were all eventually transported to the miserable hole known as Alberta, MN. We were students at the high school there, and Qom is still imprisoned there. And he will remain there. FOREVER.
(See, I'm really not good at this.)
Of course, we had to grow up before we could go to high school. And so it's better to say that we ended up in elementary school together. Each of us being spoonfed on the culture of outsiders, we found a common ground in our pursuit of pop culture and monsters. A.S. had his inability to shut the fuck up about idiot comic books. Garry and Marcel loved cryptids, while Qom was into magic. I loved boys, but I didn't say so at the time. I guess I sorta liked witchcraft and monsters too. Why not.
Our bond was strengthened by a series of childhood adventures we had delving into the paranormal. Now, I'll be honest, a lot of that was in our heads, which caused some serious problems with a few of us later on. In those days, A.S.'s younger brother Jacob liked to come out with us--he doesn't care for us much anymore, though, possibly because we (a/we)re so stupid. This miniseries is meant to cover some of the weirder aspects of those adventures we had in and around Alberta, and how we dealt with them. I'll probably be doing most of the talking unless Marcel or someone else wants to say something. Reason I reference Marcel in particular is because he needs to get past being so fucking bashful about shit. So, that's a message to you, Marcel. Talk, now.
So I'm gonna tell the first story. Which, ironically enough, is one of the last stories in the big cycle of things that precluded the multiple mental breakdowns that afflicted Garry, A.S., and Yers Truly. I love my irony so let's dig into this motherfucker, the first and last.
When we started to seriously consider that we were the Chosen Ones or whatever the fuck, we started to contact or be contacted by spirits. Marcel in particular had one that he always called up, way more than the others. He would go into a sort of trance, with his eyelids flickering and shit, when he called him in. This ghost or angel--he did call him an angel sometimes, too--was named Terry. And Terry was a weird sort of thing. He never claimed to be an angel from God or any god in particular, which, given Marcel's Christian upbringing, was borderline blasphemous. Terry's story alternated between being an ascended sort of ghost and something vaguely Lovecraftian--a powerful alien that was beyond our comprehension. Though not as far sunk into malevolence or insanity-inducing as one of H.P.'s thingies.
Terry's role was to tell us about our futures as the Chosen Ones. Most of our communion with him was composed of sound bites of moralizing dialogue stolen from Star Wars. So it wasn't too helpful. I don't remember too much of what he said, overall, if anything because I have severe doubts about any of it being actually useful. There is one that drifts into my head: "Hide within humility". Well, some of us managed to pull that off. A.S. is a gardener, Garry and Marcel are TAs, and I'm a janitor. I ignore the fact that JANITORS ARE OMNIPOTENT for the sake of argument.
(In case you couldn't fucking tell, the advice is not followed by at least one of us.)
So Terry was a fun sort of Easter egg in our old lives. If I think of any more stories involving him, I'll tell them. 'Cause this wasn't even really a story at all. Though I guess it did give us all a setup.
Because it sets a precedent of how pointless A.S.'s blog here is, and because it also preludes the fact that we were set up for destruction.
But hey, I'm a fun-loving bastard, so I don't want things to add on a bad note. Here's a picture of a baby pufferfish that I originally saw on Tumblr.
I'll tell some good stories before I discuss how we all had nervous breakdowns before we were teenagers. So long!
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Part of this blog's policy is going to concern honesty when it comes to sharing our experiences. Before posting this, I ran the text Derek sent me by the others, and they said it was okay by them. So post it I shall. Just remember: if you need to leave a comment when one of us does talk about our issues with depression or anxiety, please be polite. We're all nice people but it was legitimately a hard time for all of us, even if we have made it to the other side. Hopefully, as Derek says, the stories won't be all doom and gloom, because those were some of the best days we've had. And if things are dragged too far into the dark--well, we've been having ourselves some wonderful parties recently. So we'll catch up to the present day and focus on what's happy.
I do remember Terry as Derek describes him. I remember that I was into "weird media" even then, though, so I excitedly compared him to Marlon from The Brady Kids. A harmless genie sort of figure that was ripe for deconstruction (I wish Grant Morrison would get his hands on Wonder Woman's "Mister Genie" after what he did for Mister Mxyzptlk). Marlon was in fact deconstructed in this Wold Newton article--I think maybe I read that in late elementary school? Maybe? In those days I probably thought the WNU was real--but I'm rambling. Clearly, I had energy to talk about Terry--maybe I'll do so at a later date.
Until then, follow Derek's advice--don't focus on the bad! And maybe, for Terry's sake, be a little humble today too. Though don't walk around parroting fortune cookies in return, like me.
