app for tlv!

[friendsfordinner]

User Name/Nick: Kates
User DW: kates
E-mail: allikateor @ gmail.com
Other Characters: n/a!

Character Name: Cornelius Hickey.

This one's fun because spoiler alert, that's technically not his real name! We get a final episode reveal that the real Cornelius Hickey is dead, and this Cornelius Hickey stole his identity. (Presumably the showrunners did this because having your murderous cannibal villain also be this poor dead real-world twenty-something is a BAD LOOK.) We never get Hickey's real name during the show, only his initials: E.C. But as he's been using Cornelius Hickey's identity for the past few years, E.C. responds to, answers to, and calls himself Cornelius Hickey, so that's the name he'll go by on the taken list, on in-character paperwork, to other characters, etc. Thanks, E.C.
Series: AMC's The Terror (show)
Age: We've got no idea! Certainly over 18, though. I'd place a guess at early 30s.
From When?: Post death. Hickey cut out his tongue in order to try and appease tuunbaq, tuunbaq responded by chomping his hand and then chomping him in half.

Inmate/Warden: Inmate. Hickey needs to learn to give a shit about other people and put others' needs/the general good before his own selfishness. Also, MAYBE stop trying to justify the cannibalism, corpse mutilation, identity theft, cold-blooded murder, and attempt to sacrifice your friends to a powerful bear spirit in order to gain godlike power.
Item: n/a
Arrival: Snatched at the moment of his death. He's one who agreed to come onto the Barge, mostly because Hickey is laser focused on survival.

Abilities/Powers: Hickey is a decent enough sailor, decent enough caulker's mate, and very good with knives. Aside from that, he's a normalass human, no matter what his god delusions say.

Personality: CW: MURDER, CANNIBALISM, SELF-MUTILATION

There are moments in The Terror where each character realizes that they're not in an adventure story, they're in a horror story instead. Hickey is the exception: he knows he's in a horror story right from the get-go. He's driven first by survival by any means necessary, second by advancing his station.

Hickey is a man who is well aware that his current situation sucks and is always on the look-out for something better. He is well used to being on the bottom of the food chain, partly due to his social status (nothing close to well off), his personal life (he's a gay man in the 1840s and has to keep that on the down-low because again, he's a gay man in the 1840s), and his legal status (we don't know what it was that made him decide he can never go back to London, but it's a pretty solid assumption that it's something criminal). Hickey isn't willing to stay in a situation when it turns bad and will gladly take any opportunity to advance, no matter how morally bankrupt that opportunity will be. Want to get out of your terrible situation in England? Kill a dude and take his place in the voyage. Want to get out of the no-win situation as the voyage is stuck in the ice? Do a mutiny. Want your mutiny to have stronger support? Kill a few people. His advancement is purely selfish: he never does anything for the good of the group, not unless it would also benefit him as well. What matters is that he keeps surviving and he keeps moving forward. He can be chameleonic, changing to fit his situation and changing well. After all, this is a man who managed to keep up the ruse that he was someone else for three or so years.

His idea of advancement and bettering his situation takes multiple forms. Sometimes it's quick and easy: go stab Irving because he's a pain in the ass. But more often than not, Hickey's willing to play the long game. He holds onto the piece of information that Crozier was planning to abandon the men and walk out for years, only revealing it when the time is right. And again, he murdered a man and has been living in his identity for like three to four years now.

Hickey is somehow one of the smartest people on the ship while also being a goddamn moron. He connects the dots that others don't or might not want to connect: he puts together that the tins are bad and susses out tuunbaq's not exactly a bear status before a lot of the other crew does. He manages to organize a pretty solid mutiny right under the captain's nose. He puts together the pieces of what Lady Silence was trying to do to try and control tuunbaq despite the fact that she never told him what everything entailed. And yet, there are moments where he's dumb as a bag of bricks, where Hickey tends to miss the forest for the trees.

And then other stupid moments are just him getting a bit of a god complex and not realizing that you count as part of the forces of colonialism, you massive dipshit, you cannot horse girl your way into getting tuunbaq to recognize you just because you do the right ritual. He has a much higher opinion of himself than is deserved, whether it's thinking of himself and Crozier as equals or again, trying to convince the anti-imperialist avatar of the north that he's not like other girls, just give him some of that sweet godly power, baby.

His morals are a little bankrupt in the sense that the Arctic is a little cold. People do matter to Hickey. He wants recognition from Crozier, he tries to cut open the tent to save people during the carnival fire, and he actually does a few nice things for Gibson. But at the same time, the practicalities of a situation usually win out over the realities. He likes Gibson but if Gibson's dying and can't haul a sledge, might as well put him out of his misery then and there. Fitzjames isn't using his boots, don't mind Hickey if he just loots the corpse. This corpse is going to be buried with a perfectly fine ring that he can steal and use himself. Cannibalism isn't ideal but at the end of the day, it's meat and they need food. Hickey is capable of love, affection, and care (though good luck seeing any of those), until the point comes when various other things (including food, godhood, and someone's usefulness) outweigh those other emotions.

He can hide those awful morals and uncaring tendencies, though! When he puts his mind to it, Hickey can be charismatic. He's a natural leader and is able to convince multiple people to join his mutiny through persuasion, revealing the right details at the right time, and just a tiny bit of manipulation. He uses that persuasion to help convince others in Team Mutiny that they're doing the right thing, that everything will be fine, just eat this dog and then your friends. He's able to make friends and, at the start of the voyage, is close enough with some people that he can shoot the shit with them. If it weren't for the cannibalism and god delusions, he'd be a pretty swell guy!

But there's the cannibalism and the god delusions. The cannibalism can be justified (or at least, in Hickey's mind will 100% be justified) as a man trying to live, trying to make the best out of a bad situation. The god delusions can't really do that. Before dying, Hickey believed that he was achieving something close to godhood, that he would have a glorious future with tuunbaq under his thrall. Obviously that didn't work, thanks to the whole dying thing, but that little notion that he's destined for something better than this will probably still live rent-free in Hickey's head for a while.

Finally, this guy is just so goddamn petty. He's a man in favor of pragmatism over morals...except when your ship boyfriend just broke up with you so you poop in his bed in retaliation. Or when you've got the opportunity to kidnap the man you desperately want to impress and force him to eat part of the surgeon. Or when you've got to keep quiet and suffer through the pain of being lashed because fuck you Crozier. Hickey tries to put up a big front of letting go of his morals and doing what he can for survival, but there's a large part of him that also does what he can because fuck you. Morals < survival < petty bullshit.

Barge Reactions: Hickey is a man from the 1840s so anything too sci-fi will fly right over his head. That being said, he is a man from the 1840s who's main trait is adapting to circumstances no matter what's thrown at him, so while he might not understand how sci-fi knowledge or magical nonsense fully works, he'll understand enough to piece out how to deal with it. Also, as someone who's been at the bottom of society for a good portion of his life, he's going to absolutely enjoy things like "an actual bed," "knowing where his next meal is coming from," and "central heating." He'll happily entertain this bullshit redemption nonsense if he gets to keep those!

Path to Redemption: The long and short of it is that Hickey needs to learn how to care about other people and prioritize other people over his own needs. Crozier called him a surpassingly lonely man and that's not wrong! He views the world entirely through a self-serving lens: the world is designed to kick him down, so he'll take whatever opportunity he can get to advance, even if it means burning through other people. Hickey can make friends: he's close with his ship boyfriend Billy Gibson and his mutiny buddy Solomon Tozer. But then he kills and butchers Billy when the man's on death's door and tries to feed Tozer to a murder bear spirit in order to gain godlike power so that shows how well that friendship lasted.

This 'learning how to care about other people' aspect also ties into Hickey's petty cruelty and spite. He can be mean for the sake of being mean or spiteful for the sake of being spiteful. Getting him to cut back on some of that nonsense would be good.

A good warden would be somebody who can cut right through Hickey's bullshit. Hickey has some big cult leader vibes, in the sense that he is very good at convincing people to do some pretty heinous things (mutiny, cannibalism, kidnapping, etc.) He also is very good at justifying all of his heinous things. Billy couldn't pull any more! He was just putting Billy out of his misery when he stabbed him in the back! He needs someone who could acknowledge and recognize the terrible situation Hickey and the rest of Terror's men were in, but who could routinely puncture his justifications.

Deal: n/a

History: Our story starts with this guy named E.C. We don't really know E.C.'s backstory, except that he grew up wanting. One day, E.C. was talking with this guy named Cornelius Hickey who was telling him about this voyage he was going to go on, a voyage with the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The voyage would stay in the Arctic for a few years, but then they'd go to tropical islands on the way back.

E.C. really didn't want to stay in London for some ill-defined yet probably illegal reason. And scoring a free trip to Maui sounded really nice. All he had to do was survive the Arctic for a year and then desert somewhere warmer! Sounded easy!

So our good buddy E.C. murdered Cornelius Hickey, dumped his body in the river, and then stole the man's identity to take his place on the voyage of Erebus and Terror. And then everything goes to shit very quickly.

Sample Journal Entry: [ Having watched some other people write and respond on this thing and read some entries, Hickey very quickly decides that he is not going to go the expected route and do a 'hey there, I'm new here.' He can get all the new conscript information by reading other people's responses. Instead, he goes right into his request. ]

Might I prevail on one of the wardens for a moment of their time? I'm interested in fully exploring the art room but alas, it's closed off to inmates such as myself. I'll only need you to open the door and then you can be on your way while I see what the place has to offer.

I'll be waiting outside should you wish to help me.

[ This is a goddamn lie, Hickey just wants to steal a palette knife or two. The message is also anonymous because guess who hasn't actually said his name over the network yet (and who plans to not say his name over the network for as long as he possibly can). ]
Sample RP: tdm threads

Special Notes: Hickey will be arriving without his tongue, as he cut it out right before dying. Someone in the infirmary plz help him. I'll also have an opt-out in his permissions post because not everybody might want to deal with a murderous cannibal man.