▼ PERSONAL DETAILS
► Age - Twenty-four ► Gender - Cisgender Male ► Sexuality - Queer ► Nickname - Ted, Redac ► Occupation - Freelance and Independent Software Developer ► Qualifications - Graduate of Ritman Associate's in Software Engineering, Southern Maine Community College ► Residence - Delton, Maine ▼ PHYSICALITY
► Scars - Ted is not the most careful person. Most of his scars are results of negligence or they're self-inflicted. He has a complicated relationship with his physical body, and he has tried to mutilate it on multiple occasions. His scars are mostly faded and hidden away, though. ► Tattoos - Couldn't be bothered. ► Piercings - Pierced ears that he gave himself during his college years. ► Style - Like almost everything else, Ted couldn't be bothered with his appearance. So long as his clothes don't smell too bad, he'll put it on. Style means nothing to him, so he wears the dullest things he can find. His wardrobe has a preference for comfort over style, and muted colors. Due to his abnormally tall height (6'3) and being built like a bus ticket, most of what he has is rather ill-fitting. He irons nothing, usually covers himself in a baggy hoodie, cuts his hair, and only owns two pairs of shoes. Ted only crawls out of his room to do laundry bi-monthly. He looks disheveled on a good day. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ | LIFE AT RITMAN In one word? Forgettable. In fact, Ted is sure he couldn't recall most of it if he tried. The gist of it is familiar, though: sheer utter boredom. School days were monotonous, and the people even moreso. He never made any lasting friendships because he had a tendency to freak people out if they spoke to him. He doesn't remember it much, but people were…intimidated by him, to say the least. Ted was never that physically strong or loud, which set him apart from those in the hierarchy of teenage angst- that is to say, he wasn't in the hierarchy in the first place. To most, he was invisible. Quiet Ted, who hung out with nobody. Ever. He steered clear of any niche. The popular kids were too loud, and the nerds were pretentious, but the jocks were too stupid. He couldn't be at the bottom rung if he abandoned the ladder in the first place.
Anybody who ever tried to get close to Ted would be met with a blank stare, an odd phrase, and maybe some inappropriate laughter if he was in a good mood. His apathetic behavior is what saved him from being relentlessly bullied. That and his tendency to concern both teachers and students alike with his often macabre fixations (he’s just a horror enthusiast, nothing dangerous). Sure, sometimes people tried to mess with him, but he never stuck around long enough to let them win. He often vanished for days at a time, either skipping or being genuinely sick. He was not oblivious to his strange reputation, and he would often use it to mess with people when he needed something to do. Maybe he’d pass a weird note, perhaps, or maybe a weird email. Didn't matter. It was funny. Nothing seemed to matter to Ted during high school, anyway. Not his grades, not his appearance, not his social life, and not his attendance. He spent any and all of his free time rotting in a chair behind a computer screen with a pair of clunky headphones. PSYCHE Ted lives in his own little world, and it's quite literal. He has a strangely severe case of early-onset schizophrenia. It has and does impact his life greatly, but it's almost all he's ever known. He hasn't gone a day without hallucinating, and not doing so would scare him greatly. This mental "illness" is so ingrained into him, it's become part of how he functions as opposed to a complete hindrance. He loves certain aspects of his psychosis, as it sometimes fills the void of loneliness or sparks his creative process. Living with it is far from easy, though. It used to scare Ted greatly as a child, and sometimes still does. Apathy seems to have helped, or maybe he's just jaded… Some days are better than others, and episodes can be tricky to catch. Despite his inexpressiveness, this can make Ted's mood rather unstable. Sometimes he just needs to sit in bed all day. Or all week. His diagnosis is relatively unknown, as he doesn't talk about himself much.
Ted is a little disappointed with himself. He is almost too aware of his limits, and he lets them hold him back. He has given up on the idea of getting a regular college degree in the near future, as getting his Associate's proved to be a much harder task than anticipated. College, even if it was just community, knocked the wind out of him. Sometimes he can't help but feel as if it's because he's stupid. He's still recovering from the stress it put him under. That, and his decision to stop taking medication is what made him move back in with his parents not two years ago. He knows this is mildly embarrassing, but then again he feels that way about most aspects about himself. He can’t drive due to how acute his condition is, or do just about anything else a sufficient adult can… His current goal is focusing on his career as an indie developer for video games- it's what he loves to do. He's always enjoyed telling abstract and terrifying stories. Being a developer and learning to cope without medication are the main concerns, as the side effects were becoming debilitating.
As to be expected from somebody like himself, Ted has a reserved- almost avoidant nature. People are messy and usually very scary, so he'd rather stick to the sidelines. Social anxiety, agoraphobia, avoidant personality disorder? Whatever. Labels have come and gone over the years to the point where he doesn't really bother with it anymore. Long story short, he doesn't particularly enjoy people. In fact, he seems to have found solace in his isolated lifestyle. It's not particularly healthy, and he risks falling off the deep end the more he gets stuck in his own head. It's fine really, he's come to terms with the fact that he was robbed of the chance of living a "normal" life. Fuck normal. It's boring…and yet, he can't help but yearn for it late at night. Ted is still human, he still somewhat desires actual relationships with other humans, but he gets in the way of himself. He's cynical, a bit rude, and overall very socially inept. ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ |