#I am not well enough to move jobs

[applestand]

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[ruvviks]

// oc deep dive.

tagged by; @aztarion and @devilbrakers, thank you so much!!

tagging; @mojaves, @deadrlngers, @ordinarymaine, @claudiawolf, @adelaidedrubman and YOU!

What common/uncommon fear do they have?

Nathan has a lot of fears stemming from his paranoia. Tangible ones such as getting captured or killed by MOBIUS, his friends walking away from him, or someone following him home; as well as more unrealistic ones, such as somehow ending up back in STEM, or getting stuck in a time loop, or a giant sinkhole all the way to the core of the earth opening up right at his feet.

It also happens often enough that certain actions don’t necessarily scare him, but make him uncomfortable or highly on edge (often with good reason); think of someone locking the door of the room he’s in– especially when it’s just them two– or getting too close without warning. He often fears people he gets too close to will end up treating him like the Administrator did, which is why it takes a while for him to let Sebastian get any closer physically, despite warming up to him relatively fast.

A more uncommon fear he has is waking up one morning and having lost one of his senses or his ability to speak. Aside from the mental erosion that had become a growing issue among Union citizens, MOBIUS observed a similar kind of process in its agents who regularly jumped in and out of STEM for general maintenance and the like– presumably caused by the constant changes in brain activity, which more than often led to exactly what Nathan’s fear mentioned above describes. While he was among the agents who worked both in and outside of STEM on the Union environment, he was lucky enough to never suffer the consequences.

Lastly, he is deadly afraid of Anima. Despite not having shown any other symptom of succumbing to the STEM domination process, Nathan would have started seeing her around sometime before Lily vanished– presumably got her attention after some of his escapades in the secret labs in the Marrow– and he has not been able to sleep soundly in STEM ever since. While his fear of her mostly acts up when he’s in a STEM environment, it definitely translates over to the real world as well; during bad mental health episodes he has auditory hallucinations of her, and she makes regular appearances in his nightmares too.

Do they have any pet peeves?

When people are too passive. Nathan can’t stand it when he’s expected to initiate everything, from conversations to taking action, both in a work context (scheduling meetings, deploying new code) as well as personal context (scheduling to hang out, doing household chores). He also doesn’t like having to constantly ask people to do what they’re supposed to do– though this irritation more than often extends a little too far, to things he is expecting of people but never told them about.

Loud and unexpected noises, especially when done on purpose. Fireworks would be a great example of this, and they piss Nathan off no end. He gets snippy when people raise their voice at him for no reason, or when they keep banging their fist on a surface to get others’ attention.

Getting cut off in traffic. Nathan’s road rage is easily awakened and he can get a little drastic with it. His reflexes are fast enough to brake on time to avoid ending up in someone’s trunk, but will in that same breath speed right back up to crash into them on purpose as revenge for pissing him off.

What are three items you can find in their bedroom?

A large ring binder full of old code snippets, notes from various projects he worked on back at MOBIUS, and all his research ranging from neuroscience all the way to electrical engineering. Nathan is a little old-school in that regard– he’d much rather have all his research physically with him than save it all to some online storage platform and risk losing it like that.

A jigsaw puzzle, made entirely out of different pieces that he’s collected over the years (stolen from others’ puzzles, found in various locations, stolen directly from the store, etc). The full piece would total up to nearly 2000 pieces, though it is still missing a large chunk in the center; the result is an abstract piece containing mostly darker colors, though with various bursts of color scattered around like flowers in a field. Nathan isn’t the artistic type, but the project keeps him busy and he considers it a type of self-expression.

The knife he killed his parents with when he was sixteen years old. He’s not entirely sure why he kept it all those years– perhaps to remind himself what got him to where he is now, or because it’s the only thing he still has from that time of his life. Either way, it’s kept safe in the top drawer of his nightstand, easy enough to reach in case someone breaks into his apartment.

What do they notice first in a person?

First: State of mind, overall mood. How approachable do they look; can he afford to lower his guard or does he need to tread with caution, can he get close without worrying about a knife to the stomach or should he keep his distance? Nathan rarely shows immediate interest in someone’s overall personality, he would rather want to know which of their emotions he’s gonna have to deal with during their interaction(s).

Second: Body language. Ties in with the first thing mentioned– cautiously watching for threats, waiting to see if they make a move to touch (or harm) him so he can step out of their range. But it also extends a little further; Nathan tends to mimic others’ body language in conversation to make himself appear more approachable. If someone gestures a lot, he will do the same.

Third: Their smile, if relevant. Smiling is an eye-catching action to him, since he’s not one to quickly do so himself. It’s attractive to him; if someone smiles at him, you’ll be able to catch him staring.

Fourth: Scars, and other (skin) details. Nathan isn’t one to ask about them, of course– but they’ll catch his attention anyway, for a brief moment, since some of them already tell a story on their own even without words.

Fifth: Nervous tics, if relevant. By this point he’s been in conversation long enough to pick up on the little details– a slight thrill or shakiness to their voice, a thumb running over the side of their index finger, a nose twitch. In some cases it eases his mind, knowing the other person isn’t confident in their conversation either; in other cases it sets off alarms in his mind, and makes him wonder if there’s more going on than what they’re showing or telling him.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is their pain tolerance?

Physically: 7. While he doesn’t quite look like it, Nathan can take a hit or two. Most of his injuries happen in STEM– though with the way the technology works, the pain is very much real, and in some cases the scars are lasting even in the real world despite the damage having been sustained in STEM. To an extent, Nathan even enjoys the pain; it’s grounding for him, and keeps him from dissociating. When it gets too much to handle he simply drinks it away.

Mentally: 10. Nathan’s life has been a constant downward spiral; sent to a youth detention center after being wrongfully accused of killing his younger sister, and he was bullied relentlessly there, which continued until long after his release both at school and at home. At MOBIUS, he was required to work shifts in their HQ as well as in the Marrow, in the Union STEM environment– he was required to be mentally strong, or he would have already started suffering from mental erosion by long-term STEM exposure after his first few trips in. It takes a lot to break him (or so he likes to believe).

Emotionally: 4. Once you get past all the barriers, Nathan is pretty sensitive. He doesn’t deal well with rejection or misunderstanding, and is prone to assuming things are all his fault the second something goes wrong. It’s easy to upset him, though he won’t easily show; but the damage often takes a while to repair.

Do they go into fight or flight mode when under pressure? (Or freeze or fawn?)

Fight, more than often; though it may appear as flight at first, since Nathan’s favored combat approach is stealth and he will always find cover before doing anything rash. In certain cases, however, he would be more likely to freeze; especially anything related to Anima or an enemy type like her, where fighting is out of the question, and he knows that a single wrong move can mean his demise.

It translates to non-combat situations too– often willing to talk to people but his initial response is to get defensive and close himself off, and if not given a moment to regain himself it can lead to either fighting or freezing; biting back with similar ferocity or shutting down altogether, unable to pick up his rational train of thought in the heat of the moment.

It really depends on the type of confrontation, though; taking his own state of mind and who else is involved into consideration. He’s known to fawn when a situation starts feeling a little too familiar– generally surrounding the abuse he suffered from partially his parents, but mostly the Administrator.

What animal represents them best?

Wolf; bordering on dog motif, but cautiously so, requiring infinite patience and understanding to win his trust. Nathan is loyal and guarding to those he cares about, but he values his freedom– his choices and decisions are his and his alone, and anyone who tries to take that away from him will suffer the necessary consequences.

How would a stranger likely describe them?

Curious, above anything else. Distant, reserved; surprisingly well-spoken, almost technical in his interactions with others as if the whole conversation is pre-programmed in his mind. Nathan isn’t necessarily cold towards others, but people would also not be quick to describe him as kind; though there is a certain warmth to the way he speaks and looks at people, despite the fact he very rarely smiles and isn’t one to quickly compliment someone else.

Appearance-wise, people tend to notice the white strands in his black hair first. They’re clustered at the front of his head, and match with the white hairs in his left eyebrow and the white eyelashes in the outer corner of his left eye. Nathan has very pale and rough skin, patchy but dark facial hair covering up most of his acne (/scarring); and part of the skin around his left eyebrow is lacking pigment, though it’s a little hard to see. He has very pale and bright blue eyes, which can be a little unnerving when staring at them for too long. Many people cannot maintain eye contact with him for very long.

Do they have any hobbies?

Nathan’s career is directly intertwined with his hobbies, and he enjoys working on code even long after cutting ties with MOBIUS. Software development, application optimization– his laptop runs on an operating system that he coded entirely himself, and whenever he has some time to spare he can be found tweaking and optimizing it and adding new features.

To no one’s surprise, he’s a gamer. Shooters, roguelikes, survival horror– he does not play all too often as his schedule often doesn’t allow for it, but he generally doesn’t have a hard time playing on higher difficulties and enjoys the challenge. Nathan has tried his hand at game design and development too, but stopped quickly when he found it too similar to developing the Union environment in STEM.

And last, surprisingly, would be writing. Journaling, some sort of attempt at poetry, or articles he would want to send in to some website or appropriate magazine but never does– a lot of Nathan’s writing is for his eyes alone, but it helps as an outlet, it keeps him grounded. For a while after leaving MOBIUS, he worked on writing tech manuals for various employers to earn some extra cash, which also ties directly into his interests.

[irrealisms]

having disabilities that are very sharply stress-triggered is....weird. i am hella privileged and so i can live my life basically entirely supported by others (cf #housecat arc) and when im doing this i can basically pass as normal and not have any serious mental breakdowns* . i hang out with friends and i watch videos and i read books both fiction and nonfiction and i play minecraft and i write stories and i go to church on sundays and it's a boring life and i don't always feel like i'm living it very much but i'm not really in crisis. i feel like, basically normal. like i am basically a regular person. i am no longer freaking out about being watched by a mysterious Them who are tormenting me; i can basically live my life as though it is real; my hallucinations are uncommon and not particularly distressing when they happen; i am not suicidal; outside of occasional episodes of speech loss, i am coherent--articulate, even!--in my speech and writing; it's been many years since my last violent meltdown; i eat three meals a day; i am able to get out of bed every day. and then i try to do productive things for like 3 hours and i start banging my head against the wall and crying because i Can't i just Can't. it's incredibly stark. it's a pretty good justification for being a housecat honestly because if i weren't then i would not only be "losing money to groceries rent etc" i would also be "losing money much more quickly to intensive treatments and/or bad decisions" and i think "losing money more quickly" is the opposite of the goal of "trying to have a job" but definitely uh if i were less privileged wrt Ability to housecat indefinitely i would be Fucked. i deteriorate Terrifyingly Fast under Literally Any Stress.

this isn't a new observation or anything--chat message from august of last year--

It’s kind of eternally astounding to me how much my issues are ~stress-mediated? I can basically be fine and normal-passing if I’m not expected to do anything ever; the amount of breakdown i have correlates pretty directly w how much is expected of me. This feels incredibly fake when I’ve been doing nothing for long enough and think i have gotten better but then i am expected to have pretty basic conversations with people irl for like two weekends in a row and i spend 20 minutes pacing my room and hyperventilating and self harming and i would not be surprised if i end up having a [I stop moving] episode before the weekend is up. and this is not very bad or anything on the scale of things but notably also i am not being expected to do very much!!! Idk it’s weird how like. When I am being a house cat I can be— not maximally fulfilled or anything but basically okay and normal. And then I do things for more than one day and it’s like Oh this is why I housecat. not even in a bad way fully just. huh yeah

and it doesn't even surprise me or feel fake to me at this point but it's weird and i don't like it. i don't like how fast i can go from "i am basically doing fine" to near-crisis when i am expected to do very basic everyday life things. it scares me. i'm getting better but it's hard to tell how much of that is just....redefining my goals and expectations, rather than actually having more abilities. even writing my "i'm basically a normal person when not expected to do things" i kept running up against. like. oh yeah. i don't actually shower/clean myself with any sort of regularly. i don't cook for myself. i spend long stretches of time only changing clothes or leaving the house for church on sundays. i could probably make life changes to do better at some of these things but it's all tradeoffs and idk if it'd be. worth it. i keep coming back to this post bc it really is how i feel. i run into my limits drastically less often than i used to and i am doing much much better. this is mostly because i am living my life so very very carefully within those limits. i am like a delicate orchid who does okay in Ideal Conditions but threatens to die at the slightest hint of overwatering. and i am very lucky to be carefully managed by people who love me immensely and have a lot of resources and many people do not have this and i really do not want to understate this!!! but being a very lucky orchid is still ... very different than being a mint plant

*ok in 2024 i did have a few months where i was actively suicidal and regularly self-harming and not really eating much and having nightmares all the time. um. i don't have a defense here that isn't "you should've seen me before i dropped out" or maybe "okay but it wasn't that long". i didn't have to go to IOP and....i would say "i didn't drop out/get fired from anything major" but that's because i already didn't have any responsibilities cf the rest of the post........ummmmmmmmmmmmmm anyway. i didn't do anything drastic (not exclusively a suicide euphemism) despite considering it. does that count for anything

[leviiackrman]

I am fighting for my life to be mentally stable and it’s not working

[icewindandboringhorror]

currently at That Point which occurs once every few months where one briefly begins pacing around the house teary eyed contemplating selling their own organs or becoming an online scammer or getting on anxiety meds so you can bear the risk taking required to be a hitman or so on and so forth.... why must everything so Expensive... Surely all would be healed in life if only I had one big plate of lasagna and a simple loan of $40,000 ... auoughhh....

[francisforever2014]

most of the time i feel like it really just Is Not That Serious and really truly believe that everything just works out and sometimes i’ll be hit by a fear of the future so debilitating i actually wanna throw up

[mspeevee]

the fact im alive is a cruel joke, not a miracle

[lysgaardsbakken]

long personal rant incoming 🫠 ignore

[jakeperalta]

spent weeks psyching myself up to stand up to my mum and then immediately got shot down by her 😃👍

[chronal-anomaly]

job hunting is just so :bleh:

[seilon]

pro: ran into a coworker at a bar last night who I don’t really talk to usually (he works upstairs, I work downstairs) and we talked and im pretty sure we were highkey flirting and he bought me a drink and the bar merch shirt i was interested in and thanks to the power of alcohol i guess i asked for his number and he gladly gave it to me and. yeah

con: i have the second worst hangover i have ever had and have been fighting for my fucking life just to eat saltines

[ayakashibackstreet]

With how much I pursue academia despite it literally causing me this much distress, I guess I have to be some sort of a masochist

[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

I got a packet from the social security people I have to fill out and have sent back in--by mail--by the 26th. I got it on Friday. And I haven't looked at it til now, bc I was so stressed out about my dog being sick and i feel so overwhelmed. They want all my medical records from the last year, which I don't have, because I've only started keeping that stuff since I had my complete mental breakdown and she took me out of work. And there's so many pages and so much information they want. They have to nitpick my whole fucking life, before they can decide I deserve health. Being disabled in this country is a fucking nightmare. Instead of trying to hep, the just look for reasons to disqualify you. Because they don't want to help us; they just want us to go away

[tj-crochets]

Hey y'all, weird question time! Do you have any advice for stretches/exercises to improve finger dexterity/range of motion? This question brought to you by a childhood history of being really spectacularly bad at catching footballs, several instruments I'd probably be better at playing with a better range of motion, and also the fact that I can't raise just my middle finger by itself without my other fingers also going up at least a little bit

[pepprs]

my depression is getting really really bad. like it’s been bad before but this is like… consistently really bad. like a long unending stretch for several weeks (and tbh months) now. to the point where no inoculation actually sticks (and im isolating myself from most of my inoculations anyway and feel unable to stop doing it even though i know it’s self destructive). im either helplessly unbearably miserable or numbing out on video games. i just don’t feel like it’s going to get better for me and i KNOW that is factually untrue but the feeling is louder than the knowledge and it’s just utterly immobilizing. ive been sinking in quicksand for 2 years.

[theyarebothgunshot]

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