Cornelius Hickey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
friendsfordinner) wrote2023-06-21 08:40 am
friendsfordinner) wrote2023-06-21 08:40 am
singillatim app ; cw: cannibalism, murder, self-mutilation
PLAYER INFO
Player Name: Kates
• Player Contact: allikateor @ plurk and @ discord
• Player Age: 31
• Permissions: Here.
CHARACTER INFO
• Character Name: Cornelius Hickey
• Character Age: Scripts and real life claim that he's 24 despite this very obviously being a man in his 30s. Terror ages are weird like that.
• Character Canon: The Terror. Specifically the AMC television adaptation.
• Canon Point: Halfway through episode 10, after cannibalizing Harry Goodsir but before his final conflict with tuunbaq
• Character 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 and he grew up alone. 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.
• Character Personality:
— Positive Trait: Adaptable. Hickey is a master at shifting himself to adapt to whatever circumstances are going on. He's fine working in new information with regards to his schemes and is never so fully set on something that it's to the detriment of his plans: his plans being 'find a way to claw yourself to the top of the food chain by any means necessary.' He places a focus on his own practicality and his own adaptability, viewing himself as someone who can move through whatever poor situation he finds himself in. Finally, there's the simple matter that his entire plan for being on Terror (kill and replace a sailor) involves him being able to adapt to life on a ship and adapt to whatever the hell a caulker's mate does on a short notice.
— Positive Trait: Canny. Hickey is the dumbest smart man that's ever lived. There are moments when he can't see the forest for the trees, but there are also moments where he's the only one who notices something. He picks up on the realities of the voyage a lot quicker than everybody else: he notices that the tins are poisoning everybody before many of the other men do and resolves to find a way to keep him and his men from eating them. Aside from that, he manages to organize a pretty solid mutiny right under the captain's nose. He also puts together the pieces of what Lady Silence was trying to do to try and control tuunbaq (a large god-bear-spirit thing that is perfectly happy fucking up Brits) despite the fact that she never told him what everything entailed.
— Positive Trait: Charismatic. Hickey is very good at saying the right thing at the right time to the right person. He gets along well with the rest of the crew before everything starts going to shit. It's probably his charisma that helps him get away with doing what little of his actual job we see him doing. And likewise, he's able to convince a decent amount of people to join him on his mutiny. He's good at rationalizing things away, spinning them so that they'll benefit whatever situation he's currently in, as well as playing off of whoever is in the room.
— Negative Trait: Narcissistic. There's one line where Crozier points out that Hickey must be a surpassingly lonely man. He is, just because he views everybody else beneath him. In his deranged little supervillain monologue at the end, Hickey points out that all these storied institutions don't mean shit, simply because they didn't want anything from him. He thinks that he and Captain Crozier are going to be the best of friends simply because they shared one drink. He views himself as above everybody else. He views himself as the man with the plan, someone who knows what's going on, someone who's top of the pack. This ends up being his downfall in the end. Do you really think the avatar of the North is gonna like you, Hickey? After it's been terrorizing your ship for years? After the shaman's daughter tried and failed to bind it? I know you know the proper rituals, but you cannot horse girl your way out of this one, Cornelius. He's so certain in his own beliefs, his own superiority, and his own conviction, that later in canon, he cuts out his own tongue to feed to tuunbaq, under the belief that it'll recognize him and give him those sweet godly powers.
— Negative Trait: Petty. This guy is just so goddamn petty. Hickey is 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.
— Negative Trait: Fucked up morals. 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 cuts open the tent to save people during the Carnivale 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.
• Character Skills:
• Stabbing people.
• Caulking (truly, the most useful of skills).
• Basic 1840s firearm knowledge.
• Arctic/cold weather survival tactics. Granted, they are survival tactics developed by an 1840s man with zero Arctic experience beforehand, but those still count.
• Character Inventory:
— ITEM ONE: His knife, engraved with the word 'HICKEY' on the handle.
— ITEM TWO: A sachet of tobacco.
— ITEM THREE: A cheap ring, on an equally cheap chain.
• Important Notes: Hickey is going to arrive in the game SEVERELY fucked-up healthwise. While he's looking more healthy and hale than the rest of the men (and probably is more healthy than SOME COWARDS who don't want to eat dog and/or people), he still has traces of lead poisoning and scurvy in his body, as well as probably every vitamin deficiency known to man. He's capable enough to walk about and do things, but his bloodwork is a total mess.
Also, as he's arriving from the Arctic, he gets the benefit of having the clothes on his back be more fit for cold weather than others. Granted, they're 1840s and wool so not as useful at keeping him cold as other more modern materials, but hey, any port in a storm!
Finally, considering that we've got no damn clue what Hickey's actual name is, just his initials, he'll be going by 'Cornelius Hickey' in-game, on taken lists, etc.
• Writing Samples:
— SAMPLE ONE: Here
— SAMPLE TWO: Here
Player Name: Kates
• Player Contact: allikateor @ plurk and @ discord
• Player Age: 31
• Permissions: Here.
CHARACTER INFO
• Character Name: Cornelius Hickey
• Character Age: Scripts and real life claim that he's 24 despite this very obviously being a man in his 30s. Terror ages are weird like that.
• Character Canon: The Terror. Specifically the AMC television adaptation.
• Canon Point: Halfway through episode 10, after cannibalizing Harry Goodsir but before his final conflict with tuunbaq
• Character 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 and he grew up alone. 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.
• Character Personality:
— Positive Trait: Adaptable. Hickey is a master at shifting himself to adapt to whatever circumstances are going on. He's fine working in new information with regards to his schemes and is never so fully set on something that it's to the detriment of his plans: his plans being 'find a way to claw yourself to the top of the food chain by any means necessary.' He places a focus on his own practicality and his own adaptability, viewing himself as someone who can move through whatever poor situation he finds himself in. Finally, there's the simple matter that his entire plan for being on Terror (kill and replace a sailor) involves him being able to adapt to life on a ship and adapt to whatever the hell a caulker's mate does on a short notice.
— Positive Trait: Canny. Hickey is the dumbest smart man that's ever lived. There are moments when he can't see the forest for the trees, but there are also moments where he's the only one who notices something. He picks up on the realities of the voyage a lot quicker than everybody else: he notices that the tins are poisoning everybody before many of the other men do and resolves to find a way to keep him and his men from eating them. Aside from that, he manages to organize a pretty solid mutiny right under the captain's nose. He also puts together the pieces of what Lady Silence was trying to do to try and control tuunbaq (a large god-bear-spirit thing that is perfectly happy fucking up Brits) despite the fact that she never told him what everything entailed.
— Positive Trait: Charismatic. Hickey is very good at saying the right thing at the right time to the right person. He gets along well with the rest of the crew before everything starts going to shit. It's probably his charisma that helps him get away with doing what little of his actual job we see him doing. And likewise, he's able to convince a decent amount of people to join him on his mutiny. He's good at rationalizing things away, spinning them so that they'll benefit whatever situation he's currently in, as well as playing off of whoever is in the room.
— Negative Trait: Narcissistic. There's one line where Crozier points out that Hickey must be a surpassingly lonely man. He is, just because he views everybody else beneath him. In his deranged little supervillain monologue at the end, Hickey points out that all these storied institutions don't mean shit, simply because they didn't want anything from him. He thinks that he and Captain Crozier are going to be the best of friends simply because they shared one drink. He views himself as above everybody else. He views himself as the man with the plan, someone who knows what's going on, someone who's top of the pack. This ends up being his downfall in the end. Do you really think the avatar of the North is gonna like you, Hickey? After it's been terrorizing your ship for years? After the shaman's daughter tried and failed to bind it? I know you know the proper rituals, but you cannot horse girl your way out of this one, Cornelius. He's so certain in his own beliefs, his own superiority, and his own conviction, that later in canon, he cuts out his own tongue to feed to tuunbaq, under the belief that it'll recognize him and give him those sweet godly powers.
— Negative Trait: Petty. This guy is just so goddamn petty. Hickey is 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.
— Negative Trait: Fucked up morals. 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 cuts open the tent to save people during the Carnivale 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.
• Character Skills:
• Stabbing people.
• Caulking (truly, the most useful of skills).
• Basic 1840s firearm knowledge.
• Arctic/cold weather survival tactics. Granted, they are survival tactics developed by an 1840s man with zero Arctic experience beforehand, but those still count.
• Character Inventory:
— ITEM ONE: His knife, engraved with the word 'HICKEY' on the handle.
— ITEM TWO: A sachet of tobacco.
— ITEM THREE: A cheap ring, on an equally cheap chain.
• Important Notes: Hickey is going to arrive in the game SEVERELY fucked-up healthwise. While he's looking more healthy and hale than the rest of the men (and probably is more healthy than SOME COWARDS who don't want to eat dog and/or people), he still has traces of lead poisoning and scurvy in his body, as well as probably every vitamin deficiency known to man. He's capable enough to walk about and do things, but his bloodwork is a total mess.
Also, as he's arriving from the Arctic, he gets the benefit of having the clothes on his back be more fit for cold weather than others. Granted, they're 1840s and wool so not as useful at keeping him cold as other more modern materials, but hey, any port in a storm!
Finally, considering that we've got no damn clue what Hickey's actual name is, just his initials, he'll be going by 'Cornelius Hickey' in-game, on taken lists, etc.
• Writing Samples:
— SAMPLE ONE: Here
— SAMPLE TWO: Here