Welcome to Gaia! ::

[table of contents]

Hobbies:
oi, don’t get clever in latin! (Languages): Ask Simon to his face and he’ll tell you that his interest in languages is primarily professional. The more he can converse with patients in the languages they’re most fluent in, the more he can help them. His choice of languages to study certainly seems to fall in line with that; Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and Hindi are very commonly spoken (in order, they rank first, second, and fourth by global number of first-language speakers), so it’s very likely that someone who comes into the ER while Simon’s on shift will be more comfortable speaking one of those languages than English.

But underneath the practical utility, questions of how different languages work genuinely fascinate Simon. There is exactly zero practical utility in learning Latin, but he still studied it starting from sixth grade, thanks to his private school offering it as an option, all the way into college (he says he only knows enough to complain about bad translations of Ancient Roman poetry, but letting him talk about it for more than a few minutes reveals that he knows more than he lets on). He loves learning different idioms and linguistic quirks, and if he hadn’t wanted so badly to go into medicine, he might have studied linguistics instead. Most of his breaks at work are spent with his Duolingo app (he uses it both to keep up on languages he’s already studied and to learn new ones), and one of the quickest ways to get past his interpersonal walls is to offer to practice conversation in another language with him.

the rise and fall of the roman empire (History): As much as he loves languages and thinks he might have liked studying linguistics, if he hadn’t gone pre-med, Simon probably would have chosen history as his field instead. However, there’s one big reason why it’s good he didn’t pursue history like this: namely, at the graduate level and beyond, historians generally pick one or two specific aspects of history to focus on and Simon doesn’t want to do that. He’ll read about queer, marriage-adjacent practices between same-gender couples in Tang dynasty China as easily and as eagerly as he’ll read about the political history of Imperial Rome, how people in Early Modern Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Germany and Poland related to the multiple non-binary genders outlined in the Talmud, or the latest new assessment of why Napoleon wasn’t that smart and made some of the worst military calls it was possible for him to make. Whatever the old stories of the day are, Simon is probably interested. If he spent more time on the Internet, he’d probably be notorious for arguing about history with proper citations. As it stands, he mostly lurks in subreddits like r/AskHistorians so he can read the answers to other people’s questions and learn more.

i train by sprinting away from my problems (Running): Listen, everybody in this universe needs something they can do that helps them get away from whatever their problems are and just feel at peace. For Simon, that something is running, and he can be very particular about how he enjoys this pastime. He doesn’t like it when other people intrude on his runs; he can share them with a friend but only if he has advance notice, please ignore him if you see him out and about. He strongly prefers running outside, to the point that he would rather run in rain and snow than use the treadmill he and his sister have (Tabitha can get him to yield about this, but mostly by threatening to worry about him and his health). The only person he wants to compete with is himself (he does participate in various city-run 10ks and marathons, but only the ones where the point is getting somebody to stake a charity donation on your performance, so the only real competition remains exclusively between Simon and Himself).

Again, he’s happy to share a run with someone who likes him……but please give him advance notice about this and don’t expect him to handle it well if you just show up while he’s running by himself. Please, please don’t do that to him.

it’s all the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die (Romance Novels): Simon is a very jaded person. Simon usually lets people know how jaded he is within a few moments of meeting him. Simon only objects to being called a cynic because he neither subscribes to a set of philosophical beliefs originally pioneered in ancient Athens by Diogenes of Sinope, nor suffers from facial nerve paralysis that makes his expression resemble a snarling dog. However, underneath all of that, Simon is actually incredibly romantic and sentimental, and romance novels are his favorite flavor of escapism. Stories where love really does conquer all and the main characters get to be happy together, despite all the odds thrown at them and the different attempts at keeping them apart? Yes, please, sign him up. He’s especially fond of romances with fantasy stylings, whether that means the elves and wizards of most Western fantasy, the vampires and werewolves of Gothic fantasy, the heart-demons and cultivators with flying swords of Chinese xianxia, or some secret fourth thing that he hasn’t encountered yet. He’s already here for the obvious fantasy of love triumphing over every adversity, so why not just go all in and add magic and elves and flying swords?


Virtues:
the people who live here don’t deserve to be victims of your misguided attempts at “protecting” them (Compassionate): Simon cares about other people and generally tries make sure they have someone in their corner. While he doesn’t mind standing up to aggressive and off-putting behaviors from others, he still recognizes that such behaviors don’t generally come out of nowhere. He doesn’t want to let behavior like that go unchecked, lest it be allowed to hurt someone else, but he nevertheless sees it, first and foremost, as the actions of someone in pain. Likewise, Simon is inclined toward caring about and standing up for people who seem downtrodden or unable to advocate for themselves. When dealing with sick kids at the hospital, he doesn’t not listen to the parents, but he makes a point of talking to the children directly and getting their feelings about what’s going on. He doesn’t want the perspective of the actual sick person to get completely ignored just because legally, the child’s parents or guardians are the ones who will ultimately make any calls about treatment. Overall, Simon just doesn’t want to be the sort of person who leaves someone else to suffer when he could do something to help.

i know it’s not much, but it’s the best i can do (Modest): Simon tries to keep his feet firmly on the ground when it comes to his assessments of himself. He tries to avoid getting too self-content or complacent, and he tries to avoid letting himself get too high of an opinion about his own abilities (especially because he knows he can be pretty stubborn about his convictions, which can become its own kind of arrogance if left unchecked). Getting all wrapped up in oneself sounds kind of exhausting to Simon, personally. Plus, it’s a really good way to end up screwing yourself over, to say nothing of how much you might let other people down. If you overestimate yourself or your capabilities only to take on more than you can handle, then it’s going to be a huge mess for everybody and Simon would rather not deal with it. Better to n** it in the bud and admit that he has flaws and things he can improve about himself.

taking out scumbags of this magnitude won’t cause me to lose any sleep (Firm Convictions): Simon has a set of principles that guide him in his life and generally speaking, he sticks to them regardless of whatever situations he may find himself in. Even when it seems like he might personally benefit more from shifting his stance on something—or at least pretending to do so in public—Simon rarely yields to anyone in this way. As far as he’s concerned, all of his convictions are fairly commonsense things that more people should believe in and practice (e.g., “First, do no harm” but applied to situations other than medical practice; that life has inherent value even if some people don’t make the most of theirs; that someone should advocate for those whom society won’t listen to or who are deprived of a means to advocate for themselves; etc). Don’t blame him for standing by what he sees as fundamental principles for how to be a person and live in society with other people. It’s not his fault that other people in this world choose to be b*****d-coated bastards with b*****d filling, or allow themselves to become numb to the suffering of others just because of said bastards.

it’s pointless, i know, but if i can do some good out here, i have to try (Idealistic): It can be easy to miss this because, in all fairness, Simon cloaks it under a heavy amount of sarcasm, deflection, and generally acting like the opposite of an idealist. Beneath all of that bluster, though, Simon is motivated by a desire to make the world a better place and for people to be better than they may choose to be. He tries to keep himself in check—having been burned and having become quite jaded, he does know that most people and situations aren’t going to go the way that he feels like they should—but Simon is still motivated by notions that the world should be better than it is. He believes that life is precious and that people should care about each other. He believes that people in trouble should be given help without any need for recompense and without holding it over them later. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, Simon wants to believe the best in people and he wants to believe that people will choose to be their best selves when push comes to shove.


Flaws:
i’m really very boring, the social equivalent of a deer in the headlights (Asocial): Simon is not antisocial and doesn’t appreciate being labeled as such. He really has nothing against people or most normal social interactions, and he doesn’t go out of his way to avoid social interaction or to make people hate dealing with him. He’s just……not inclined to reach out to people, most of the time. His loyalty is hard to shake once you’ve got him, but getting him can be a challenge because he’s been burned before and mentally pushing past his own emotional walls takes a lot of effort. He’ll agitate the administration about getting more respect and better working conditions for the other nurses because he does care about his colleagues, but getting him to meet up for drinks outside work is going to require about two weeks’ advance notice so he can prepare for it. He can be a bright and engaging conversation partner once you perk him up, but even Simon doesn’t entirely know what will or won’t perk him up at any moment. Honestly, he thinks you’d have more fun talking to someone else, he’s not that interesting, is he.

you’d get better stories out of a starseed junky (Self-Deprecating): The issue with Simon’s commitment to staying humble is that he often lets it go unchecked. Then, it quickly devolves from “not flaunting his accomplishments” and “trying not to get an ego the size of Jupiter” into the realm of “actively downplaying his accomplishments (sometimes to the point of acting like they don’t matter at all, even when they are genuine big deals)” and “talking himself down, insulting or berating himself, overplaying his less pleasant qualities and behaviors, and otherwise trying to give you the worst impression of him that he can manage.” Worse, Simon regularly makes self-deprecating jokes that he means more in jest than anything, and he struggles to recognize when said “jokes” have stopped being funny—both in that they can easily upset other people and in that they can (and often do) reflect negative things that Simon actually believes about himself.

i’ll never understand the allure of giving your money away to the rich (Inflexible): Simon has his commitments, he usually knows what he thinks is right (or at least the best you can do in a bad situation), and he doesn’t allow a lot of leeway for people to disagree with him or have other approaches to any given situation. Things he firmly believes in, he will treat like basic common sense, regardless of whether or not that’s true, and if your plan goes against that, he will break before he bends to accommodate you about it. You might get him to at least back off and let you do as you please, but he’s still going to think you’re wrong and make sure that you know exactly how wrong he thinks you are. Even at work, where he has to get along not only with coworkers and superiors but also with patients, corporate pharmaceutical reps, and board members (among others), Simon does everything he can to avoid compromising his own personal moral standards.

excuse you, i’m not so open-minded that i’ve lost my brains (Impudent): Hierarchies and chains of command mean little and less to Simon. Arbitrary standards of respectability, other than the ones he decided on for himself, are in pretty much the same boat. Even though it makes dealing with people very difficult, he refuses to be shamed into behaving himself according to standards that he doesn’t agree with or consider valid. He doesn’t care how great you think you are or how awesome everyone else thinks you are; he wants to see all the receipts about your amazing actions and badass behaviors or the best you’re ever going to get from him is “[citation needed].” (He thinks you should probably consider yourself lucky that he isn’t going in harder.)

Worse, Simon generally does not care who you are or why you think that he should respect you. If he doesn’t respect you, then you are going to be made aware of it with very little in the way of a verbal filter. The closest Simon gets to having one of those is just not saying anything, and even then, his facial expressions and body language make it very clear when he respects an under-cooked kosher hot dog more than he respects you. This tendency is also notably more pronounced when Simon’s convictions come into play, or when he believes he’s right about something. If you didn’t want to deal with him being rude about your stupid choices and calling you out on them, then maybe you should have tried not making the stupid choices in the first place.

[family!]

he does not speak to his parents and prefers not to acknowledge them at all

he lives with his older sister tabitha and her wife

[do YOU want to get told that you are a ******** idiot by an overworked nurse-practitioner after someone else beat you up in a battle req? RELATIONSHIPS!!]

[does he have a past life? HMMM, MAYBE SO.]

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