Hiii, if i get this right, this should be posted right at 12 AM here meaning it’s officially my birthdayyy (feburary 1st) and for my birthday im posting more postal 1 dude headcanons and no one can stop me on my Special Dayyyyyy >:)
His mental collapse in Postal 1 is mostly due to a progression of several events in his life, but mainly due to a sort of midlife crisis escalating his worsening mental health.
I kind of take the advertisement quotes as a kind of semi-canon, which includes the “His classmates voted him most likely to succeed” one as well. I generally kind of think of him as being not a very popular kid (mostly due to his ‘strange’ behaviors and lack of social prowess) nor a very athletic one, but he was a Smart kid.
Being Smart meant he got told he was doing a good job, that people were proud of him, so he had to keep being smart, even if it killed him. And it worked through elementary to middle school to high school, however he completely crashed and burned once he couldn’t stretch himself any further.
The lack of a more rigid class schedule, the stress of expectations, his candle of mental energy being essentially a charred pile of wax embedded to the table, his worsening mental health and lack of medication, it all lead to him having a pretty bad breakdown and dropping out shortly after with everyone else kind of keeping their distance from him due to his “sudden” freakout.
From there he stagnated heavily, having to watch everyone else he knew make it and do what, to him, was supposed to be easy. Everyone expected such good things from him, and in his mind, he failed to go over the last hurdle at the finish line watching everyone else run right past him and over his exhausted body. Now he was stuck back at home in a dead-end job after already taking so long to get out the nest already.
The feeling of being watched started as the feeling of persecution from his peers due to his perceived failure, then paranoia that they were going to harass him, then delusions of a sudden intense increase in violence that spread as he left for college mixing with paranoia about world events and government surveillance, which well... You know how that ends.
I personally don’t know what I headcanon his major as, usually i default to an english major however i have seen other headcanons i like, so admittedly it's kind of in the air for me. However, even if it's not his major, I think he’d enjoy english and writing often. He's got a good flair for melodrama.
Because he’s paranoid of any potential issue happening, he’s self taught in first aid care either for himself or others as well as several other essential skills like hand-sewing. Both to keep himself busy in that downtime after his plans fell out and because of the fear of the worst case scenario that eventually became reality.
This one is more just a fun one, but I like to imagine he was a dinosaur and dragon kid growing up, he just kind of has that energy to me. Another fun little note is that actually, Postal 1 was released on November 14th, which is exactly nine months before Valentine's Day! I just think that's neat. :) (It’s also National American Teddy Bear Day!!)
Prone to compulsion and repetition, it provides the feeling of something familiar to him with the uncompromising spontaneousness of life. Some are simple, quick ones and some are more complex, some even potentially harmful but he greatly fears the consequences of not following through. Probably superstitious as well, things like knocking on wood or avoiding walking under ladders still get him even as an adult.
He’s not as judgemental of other people dealing with similar delusions and issues as he is to himself. He does panic a bit when confronted with a breakdown as he usually has no idea how to help in the moment, but he tries to be helpful how he can, even if that’s not very much. At the very least he tends to be more sympathetic towards people he notices struggling like he does.
Simultaneously fascinated by and terrified by horror movies, he finds the theming and cinematography of them very enjoyable but he’s also very prone to insomnia afterwards. Y'know the whole “watched a horror movie before bed and now i’m afraid the horror monster is in my hallway” deal, it’s a nasty cycle. </3
His love language is acts of service, he likes to feel useful to others and doing tangible things for them partially so he can feel worthy of love at all. In terms of receiving he prefers quality time, but for those who aren’t used to him it’s hard to tell what he even qualifies as “quality time”. Since he grew up mostly by himself either hiding in his room or with his parents out, he’s been alone for a good while and mostly just wants someone to physically be there even if you don’t do anything.
He’s picked up woodcarving as a small hobby, he’s gotten better at it over the years but perfectionism leads to little abandoned projects left behind before they’re ever finished. He’s fairly creative and has a sense of wonder under all that grunge, just not the energy or confidence to really pursue anything with that.
He needs some kind of music or sound while he sleeps, mostly through an old CD player resting on his nightstand. He’s got a small folder of easier listening cds he’s gotten from thrift stores as well as the ones he already has, the kind you find that are heavily discounted in the back. They’re in fairly bad condition and it’s definitely not helped by him constantly having to replay them, but it’s better than laying in complete silence.
He’s gone through a few jobs, especially after his college time trying to keep afloat. Most jobs he left were ones he had to quit due to the stress or he ended up being let go due to complaints of his uncomfortable behavior. Mainly unintentionally disturbing staff members and being fired for unaffiliated reasons on paper so they can just let him go and not have to tell him why to his face. It’s not even that he does a bad job or that he’s rude, it’s mainly his height and mixture of quietness, muttering, and lurking around the area that gets him written up.
He greatly prefers winter to any other season, partially because it allows him to layer up more without overheating to feel a bit safer and partially because he isn’t as sweaty when it's colder. But during summer he usually cycles through a couple old band shirts that still mask his form well enough, the boots are all season though. He’s also generally grumpier during summer, even having grown up in Arizona the heat bothers him as well as how bright it gets outside.
What doesn’t help him with that is how easily he burns up in the summer, partially because he still dresses pretty heavy even with his “warm weather” clothes, but also because of how pale he is. It’s like he freckles a little and then it’s all pain from there. </3
He doesn’t have a proper driving license and never learned how to, which adds onto his feeling of being far behind where he ‘should’ be. He did use to have a bike he rode to and from work but it got crushed under one of his neighbor’s cars and was completely irreparable, meaning he had to walk to and from work leading to him eventually stopping showing up at all.
Prone to zoning out, either lost in thought or just kind of a gap where he really isn’t there. He enters a state of auto-pilot, his mind either unraveling a thread that got too messy or trying to boot back up, it can lead to him accidentally hurting himself by either tripping over something or if he’s doing something like needlework, partially why he doesn’t cut his own vegetables very much.
In addition to that, he’s got a lot of small nicks and cuts on his hands, it’s not that he’s klutzy, just sometimes unaware of his surroundings. The only time he’s been fully, 100% there and in the moment instead of fretting over the past or future was during the events of Postal 1, and even then it was more because he was in a state of a very high adrenaline rush trying to stay alive. He most likely had to be hospitalized by the end of it, considering how far he’s walked as well as the inevitable blood loss and bullet wounds even if he’s using first aid kits.
When he’s unemployed his sleep schedule is a rotating nightmare, he starts with waking up incredibly early and progressively sleeps at later and later times until he ends up getting up by nighttime and falling asleep in the morning. When he isn’t, his sleep schedule is a bit better, but due to bouts of insomnia he sometimes has to run on basically nothing for the entire shift. At this point he could probably sleep standing up, or at least start to before waking up in a jolt of panic.
I feel like as a kid he was pretty gullible, though that was half because his parents didn’t teach him better and half because the world seemed so strange already, it was hard for him to tell lies from reality. As an adult he’s gotten better about being skeptical, fool him once shame on him, but you won’t fool him twice. At least if he can help it you won't. In exchange however, this has made him very skeptical of genuine things as well, even positives.
Even before The Incident he had an interest in guns, as I said in my previous headcanons post I imagine he was taught how to use them by his dad, but he’s mostly fascinated by how they work. Maybe a little too curious for his own good towards them. He could find himself staring endlessly at something like a handgun trying to figure out how it worked and looking into its different mechanisms and little design quirks.
If he wasn’t afraid of accidentally blowing his arm off and of the government tracking his package orders to get parts, he probably could have made his own firearms. It doesn’t help either he finds this an incredibly hard hobby to just discuss casually to others especially considering his already ‘off’ look to others, so he often just keeps his mouth shut about it and enjoys it in the privacy of his own home.
He’s had a couple relationships, some mutually, some more one sided through his own ideas of the person and how their relationship would be. With new partners he tries to give an impression of being ‘normal’ VERY hard, almost walking on eggshells because he’s worried about them seeing his true colors. In a way, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as he starts to burn out on having to mask his actual personality, leading to a very sudden cold shoulder and often the relationships were dropped right there as the expectation of how he was suddenly broken and they had to see him at his worst.
For the ones he imagines, it’s always from a distance as he finds it incredibly hard to even initiate contact with someone he’s into, incredibly petrified of coming off as weird. Still, when he crushes on someone, it becomes a small bout of fixation until they either get freaked out by him and distance themselves or the daydream fades away. He had tried lying about being in a relationship with a past crush of his, but she eventually found out and was well, frankly disturbed and disgusted by his actions.
He’s partially a romantic, at least compared to the other dudes, however it’s mostly in theory and far less in practice. He has a lot of thoughts about romance and doing grand gestures, but as mentioned before actually getting that off the ground is practically impossible if the person doesn't know how he is going in. If they do get past that initial crash, he does try to be traditionally romantic, just not entirely well. He got you flowers. Or well, a single flower. That he hurriedly yanked out of his neighbor’s garden so he wouldn’t notice him so it’s kind of crumpled up. There’s also still a clump of dirt stuck to the stem.
He had tried to go to therapy, mostly at the insistence of family after noticing his isolation and volatile nature, but he finds it very hard to open up to health professionals. There’s a feeling of disconnect with him and them, either with his past therapist or the psychiatrists evaluating him at the end of Postal 1. It’s hard to open up, even harder to do so to someone writing down things about you like you’re a lab rat in a test, or at least that’s how he feels about it. Eventually due to being busy, visit rescheduling was forgotten and he figured it was best to not remind them.
His dreams tend to be very strange and slightly unsettling when he can remember them, semi lucid at times but in places he REALLY does not want to be conscious. He figures it’s best to avoid thinking about them, trying to parse any meaning from them just leaves him panicked about what it could mean for his future or what it means inside his head. Usually sleeps curled up in a sort of fetal position, he snores but in very long gaps, so you may be a little worried seeing him laying there and breathing so softly it looks like he isn’t alive until he lets out a loud snore.
Not actually much of a drinker, he already deals with fairly frequent headaches and the thought of getting black out drunk and doing god knows what worries him. He’s mainly only a social drinker to try and get that ‘liquid confidence’ but since he’s not really getting invited out to drink or inviting anyone IN his tolerance is pretty low.
Drink of choice is really just shitty canned beers, it’s what he can afford and while he hates the taste, when he needs to be drunk it gets the job done. I don’t think he’s on the same level of drug cocktail that Postal 2 and onward dudes are on, but he’s probably experimented with some pot before. Hallucinogenics would be a fucking awful idea though, don’t give him those.
His hallucinations tend to get worse and worse the more tired he is, he mostly experiences visual hallucinations as well as audio-based ones, but also some physical ones too. It’s kind of a sign that he needs to book it to bed once he starts noticing them ramping up worse and worse. Sometimes he does not get the luxury of being able to go right to sleep though, those are his least favorite times to be awake.
He can be pretty protective, both of his things and people in his life. In terms of his belongings, he’s worried about them getting broken leading to him kind of hovering over people who borrow things from him and making sure they aren’t too rough with them even to the point of coming off to others as obnoxious about it. It’s not that he means to come off as rude, he’s just very worried since he has to kind of hold onto them a while and gets attached.
In terms of people however, it’s a mixture of his brewing savior complex and desire to keep those who can stand him from getting hurt on his watch. Mostly in terms of making sure something won’t fall on them with his height advantage, stepping in to do more dangerous things, it can come off a little patronizing but he means well. If you come at him gently about it and explain he’ll back off, but there’s still that air of anxiousness to him, that fear of something terrible happening extending outwards to others as well.
Very much prone to a black and white view of the world. Good and bad, right and wrong, he was taught over and over what they were, so breaking from that is hard for him. And he wants to do good, he wants to do so much good and make others happy, but the world is a messy shade of gray that he just. Can’t comprehend sometimes. Good people are supposed to protect others, not harm them, he knows that. But sometimes you have to hurt a few to protect the many, at least that’s his justification for it all.
And to end this on a kinder note i wanted to share things that reminded me of him but i don't want to potentially spam to random tags cause tumblr search is weird, so small collage of stuff that makes me think of him
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