Fiddleford Hadron McGucket

💀 Player Information
Name: Inkwell
Age: 23
Contact: mister_inkwell
Characters In-game: None!

💀 Character Information
Name: Fiddleford "Old Man" McGucket
Canon: Gravity Falls
Canon Point: Post-Finale.
Age: Late 60s

Description: Imagine the sound of a slightly out-of-tune banjo being played, and then imagine that sound given physical human form. That's Fiddleford McGucket. He used to be quite tall (about the same height as Ford Pines, who is himself very large) but age and some very unusual and unhealthy living conditions have made him stooped and permanently bent-kneed. His head is bald from years of pulling out his hair due to nerves and he has a scruffy white beard that's long enough to touch the ground. His nose is huge and incredibly ruddy and he's missing teeth (one of the few remaining ones is gold). His blue eyes stare in two completely different directions unless he's actively looking at something or wearing his glasses, which swap between normal round glasses and steampunk monstrosities with green lenses. He's more often than not covered in bandages (even his beard has a bandaid on it) and wears only a pair of overalls and a big floppy hat that he allegedly got off a scarecrow thirty years ago. He's pretty much every stereotypical hillbilly meshed into one, like some kind of megahick. As he's post-canon, I'm going to hazard a guess that his situation and sanity improving also mean some of his hair's coming back in and he might have started wearing real shirts again, but it's been a slow process.

Physical changes: Just one to start with: a long prehensile possum tail.

Powers: I'd say 'none', but apparently he can drive a stick shift with his beard. I think prehensile facial hair probably counts as a power, even if he's never shown using it for anything else other than driving robots.

History: Here ya go!

Hell Status: Hell Newbie

What Brings Them To Hell: Oh boy. Let me count the reasons. He helped to build a portal that led into an alternate dimension, indirectly aiding in bringing about the end of the world. He started a cult dedicated to erasing the memories of the townspeople of Gravity Falls to 'help' them forget the strangeness around them, despite obvious consent issues (even going so far as to use the gun on his best friend without his permission). He built multiple giant robots that terrorized and destroyed parts of the town. He married a raccoon (pretty sure heaven frowns on inter-species dating). He murdered a baby pterodactyl by eating his way out of it while it was still alive.

No, seriously, that happened.

Then he laughed about it.

This boy's not going to heaven.

The Pitch: Well, first off, his name's Fiddleford Hadron McGucket so you know you're in for a treat. I'm just going to list off, out of context, some of the things this guy has done: turned a small woodland cottage into a giant robot. Threatened to eat a man alive. Crowdsurfed at a boy band concert. Scuttled face-first down a 90 degree incline. Encouraged children to eat books. And that barely scratches the surface!

You'd think regaining his memory as he has by the end of the show would return him to the much more down to earth 'normal' self he used to be, but nope, he stays kooky as ever. It's been a part of his personality for so long that it's never really going away, and beyond that it's fucking fun -- and it gets him attention. This is a guy who's constantly trying to insert himself into groups whether they want him there or not and who built a giant robot to get his son's attention instead of just talking to him (to say nothing of the other many giant robots he built in response to feeling snubbed). He feeds on attention and being a complete weirdo is a good way of getting it. If you want something done you have to do it yourself, and Fiddleford is pretty good about being proactive in cases like this. Want to help the people around you but have no way to actually get rid of the weird things in town? Start a dang cult to cover it up instead. Want to save your best friend you haven't seen in thirty years? Organize a ragtag group of mythical creatures and apocalypse survivors into helping you convert a cabin into a giant robot, because nobody else was coming up with anything. The most extreme solution is always the right one, if you ask him. Sometimes this approach bites him in the ass, as in the case of the memory gun that ultimately ruined his marriage and destroyed his mind, but he's the kind of guy that has to do something. He doesn't hold with inaction, even if the action he takes is a dangerous one.

On top of that, Fiddleford is a genuinely kind soul. Just as he wants attention and validation, he wants very badly to be helpful. He left behind the home life and dream business he was just beginning to settle into to help his best friend from college. He is a very giving person, and more than that he is a very forgiving person. This is probably how he stayed friends with Ford Pines for as long as he did, and why he was able to forgive Ford so quickly when they reunited thirty years later. He is willing to overlook and put up with a lot in the name of friendship, and he tends to try and see the best in everyone. He even managed to have a positive opinion about Gideon Gleeful while watching the kid stomp away in a giant robot to destroy two other children (possibly this has to do with this being something he'd do himself). On the flipside, when he hits his breaking point he hits it hard. It might take him far past when anyone else would have given up and cut ties, like it did with Ford, but once he decides he's had it he tends to do a total 180 into vengeful giant robot mode.

Speaking of giant robots, that's probably the best part about Fiddleford McGucket. He's a hodgepodge of so many different things and they all come together into a perfect whirling dervish of an old man. He plays the banjo proficiently, and he's also an incredibly gifted mechanical engineer (likely with a doctorate) who can create lifelike advanced robots out of scrap he found in a junk-heap. He's great in a fistfight (he'll whomp you with his banjo, too, don't think he won't), but he also loves boybands and has recently discovered a love of anime. He often jigs uncontrollably, he hambones when he counts in his head, and he's a millionaire living in a mansion with his son and his raccoon wife. If that's not perfection I really don't know what is.

Setting Fit: Honestly? I'm pretty sure he'll just keep going like normal once he dies. McGuckets aren't quitters, and that includes after blowing themselves up. He already lived thirty years of his life in a shitty hellhole and he seems to take most things in stride; this won't change much for him. Presumably there's some kind of horrendous hellish junkyard he can scrounge in, and so long as he's got that, he'll be fine. Current plans are for him to settle right in building awful whosits and whatsits, probably supplementing with reaping because you know what every newly-dead person needs? A overly-enthusiastic old coot with a possum tail shrieking HOWDY Y'ALL, WELCOME TO HELL! He's lived a good full life -- probably overly full, if he's being honest. Now it's time to die a good full death.

Samples:

[Now, Fiddleford has been in Little Hades for long enough to at least know the basics. Eternal damnation, community service, yadda yadda and all that horseradish. That's fine and dandy. It's something new, and to a scholarly mind like his (for a given value of scholarly) something new is always welcome. Something new invites new possibilities.

Possibilities like, say, Hell Rodeo. There are ever so many strange and dangerous beasts roaming around Little Hades and its outskirts and in his opinion it is a crying shame that very few other residents have taken it upon themselves to ask, well, what would happen if I tried to wrassle that there varmint? Naturally it has once again fallen to Fiddleford McGucket to ask the important questions and push the boundaries of science. Today, pushing the boundaries of science involves clinging to the back of a very displeased wild Nightmare as it attempts to dislodge and horribly maim him. He got it all the way from the outskirts and into the city proper by sheer force of will (it would probably be more fair to say that's the direction it ran and he managed to hang on), so this is going well thus-far.]

You're gonna hafta do better'n that, you hornswogglin' --

[The Nightmare whinnies with the voices of a thousand suffering wraiths, gives an almighty buck, and tosses him into a wall. It stamps, gives a few disgruntled whuffs, and gallops off down an alley. It hits a dead end, whinnies in frustration, and turns to start coming back.

Fiddleford, meanwhile, gets to his feet. Hm. Not bad for a first go, but there are some kinks that could be worked out. Like the one in his tail, which is bent at a crazy angle and bleeding a little. He can deal with that later, once he's dealt with this.]

Probly woulda had better luck with the helligators. Hey!

[Congratulations, whoever you are, because there's a big angry hell horse giving you the death stare. You're in the way of it getting out of this crappy city. That was a bad choice.]

Don't make any sudden movements, now. Y'know these things can smell fear. [He may or may not just be making that up. He also may or may not be right by sheer luck.] Just get out of his way, easy-like. You'll be fine, unless he settles on knockin' you over and stompin' your head in. So. Like I said. No sudden movements.

[Hell Rodeo was an excellent idea.]