[0xEF]

> who says that?

People who watch US TV shows about the American South. Having lived there for awhile and still travel there for work today, I can say with some certainty that the folksy dialect that media gives to people of that region is either largely embellished or made-up. If we stay on the word "fix," I mostly hear it in context of someone making a meal ("Fixing breakfast," etc). The Appalachian regions are must more creative and cant-like with the language historically, but even that is being lost as the generations are exposed to more modern settings, I think. In my experience, the idioms used usually come down to the individual, which has more to do with how their sense of identity was cultivated, a concept that runs quite deep in the American South, but that is a much longer and more complex thread for another day, I reckon.

[marky1991]

"("Fixing breakfast," etc)." Yes, this makes sense, you can fix ('make', off the top of my head, only used in this sense for cooking really) breakfast, but surely the author doesn't mean the woman was materializing/cooking a shrine as a dish with her eyes either.

[mock-possum]

No, it’s “fix” in the sense of “fix in place” - to pin something to one spot. “I can’t move the table, it’s fixed in place.”

Her gaze is fixed upon - her gaze is fixing. Within her field of view, her deliberate staring at the shrine has fixed it in place. Her eyes are fixed in place, focused on the shrine.

‘In place’ is implied by the context.

[genghisjahn]

In Texas we’d say things like “I’m fixing to go over yonder.” Meaning “I’m about to go over there.”