APPLICATION for LAST VOYAGES

[mirrortouch]

• CONTENT WARNING for some pretty messed up themes are obviously going to be in this application, including such fun mentions of psychological abuse, body mutilation, and cannibalization.
• SPOILERS for both seasons of Hannibal are also going to be within.

User Name/Nick: Mal
User DW: mustakrakish
AIM/IM: AIM: cognitiverecalibration
E-mail: deanpants at gmail dot com
Other Characters: N/A

Character Name: Will Graham
Series: NBC's Hannibal
Age: it is a mystery. 30's?
From When?: During 2.10, just after he attacks an armed Freddie Lounds.

Inmate/Warden:

Inmate. While the argument that can be made about Will's morality teeters between the two, there are definitely some things he's done in recent past that criminalize him, things that can be placed in a decidedly "not good" category. He had every good intention, but not necessarily every right intention. Everything's entrenched in some deeply grey areas, since it doesn't change the fact that he's knowingly kidnapped, murdered, even mutilated. He said killing Garret Jacob Hobbs felt "good", it felt "righteous". Albeit it under cover, under false pretenses, he admits that he's "never felt so alive" than when he was killing Randall Tier. He did terrible things to catch an even more terrible man, and he needs to atone for that.

Item: --

Abilities/Powers:

Simple human being. Will's not without his talents; he knows how to live on his own, mostly. He's a great fisher, deft with a knife, and he's familiar with a firearm (though not incredibly accurate). He similarly likes working with his hands, on motors in particular, and actually told Jack that if he weren't doing what he was doing, he'd work in a shipyard instead. He also has an incredible attention to visual detail that comes with his empathetic way of thinking, expounded on more in his personality.

Personality:

WILL: Don't psychoanalyze me. You won't like me when I'm psychoanalyzed.

Let's take a step back.

At the forefront, we have seemingly quiet Will Graham - he's the talk of the town for someone who couldn't maneuver his way out of a particularly social paper bag. It's not that Will doesn't care for people or that he doesn't even try (very hard), it's just that he really, really does not understand the basics of social interaction. Relationships escape him (which is why he doesn't have very many, he can count them on one hand), and it's nothing to do with intelligence or attention to detail. He's smart, actually, incredibly smart, and he understands the human conscience on a level that escapes most people; it's the transfer from kinetic energy to actual action that's the problem, and for that, he doesn't much bother with his lesser social graces. It's easier to withdraw when he doesn't know the right thing to say, and it's much easier to get a big picture look at humanity when it's at arm's length.

The thing is that Will has an extremely vivid imagination, and his thoughts aren't exactly straying to gumdrops and lollipops. There's a kind of a poetic nature to how he sees the world through his eyes and it can come out a bit disjointed and abruptly in his speech, in distractions and disorientation. It's not just about his job and all the chess pieces and souvenirs that come with it. It's not just about his little parlor trick and what he can do for the FBI when he really puts his mind to it. It's not even just the well-traveled idea that sometimes, when you stare into the abyss, it stares back at you. The being watched isn't the problem. It wouldn't be his first time being under scrutiny. Certainly won't be his last.

What it's about is zipping on the wrong clothes, sewing himself into too-tight fitting skins that leave him mentally and emotionally exhausted. Will has an uncanny (though not supernatural) ability of sorts; some people might call it "pure empathy". Will just calls it "interpreting the evidence". The pendulum swings, the blood washes away, and in the moment he can clearly see a crime scene for what it is. He can begin to look past the mutilation at hand and twist it around so that he's standing in the killer's own two shoes, seeing the world for how they see it and further discovering imperative details about their psyche through it, about the whats and specifically the whys. He can surmise motive, and point the investigation towards its own true north. This is his design. The problem with that designation is long-term outcome.

The ghost of Garret Jacob Hobbs is haunting him. The Minnesota Shrike wasn't necessarily the one that got away or anything; rather, Will emptied ten bullets into him. Hobbs tried to slit his daughter's throat and in that failure everyone else identified Will as victorious in the situation, saving her life. It didn't feel like triumph. Stepping into the mind of a serial killer and a cannibal was difficult enough without having to hold tight to Abigail's weeping arteries in his bare hands, but it's a case that left a residue. His first one. His first kill. A horror for most - a horror for Will! - but just as similarly a window to something bigger than even him.

Empathy doesn't sit well with a killer. This is a man who lives in the middle of nowhere with only his dogs to keep him company. He hands out biting remarks like complimentary mints, and he's really not a big fan of eye contact ("[his] horse is hitched to a post that is closer to Asperger's and autistics than narcissists or sociopaths"). In a defining moment, after Hobbs' death and the applause that comes with the apprehension of the man, Will tells them all - in words that are nearly as kindly - to shut the fuck up and concentrate on the class at hand. Will Graham, ostensibly, just wants to be left alone. It's not surprising with a mind so malleable as his ends up being.

Which brings this essay to Hannibal Lecter.

WILL: Captor bonding. It's a passive psychological response to a new master. Been an essential survival tool for a million years. You bond with your captor, you survive. You don't, you're breakfast.

There's been plenty of speculation on what particular brand of crazy Will Graham comes with, whether it's true of him that he is afflicted with this empathetic condition or if he's just merely as insane as the deranged creatures that he's hunting, a sociopath with a keen awareness of what he's doing, taking full advantage of the perks that come with being a part of the FBI's investigative means. Unfortunately, it comes with a psychological profile with the kind of public exposure his has had (if it hasn't been with his newfound career than it's been, well, at a murder trial, but that fun comes further down the road), and opinions are, in fact, like assholes. Most people just think he's nuts. Hannibal thinks he has unrealized potential.

When you open a door, particularly one to your mind, you can let anything in; pests, insects, wild animals. Strangers. Will opens that door and often, inviting inside a whole plethora of criminals, murderers, worse. He thinks he can control it. He's had years of practice controlling it. Will's got an arrogant side to him that's used to being one of the smartest people (if not the smartest person) in the room, and with that arrogance can come a blind side when it gets down to mental hygiene. He's affronted by the idea that he's insane. He's scared stupid by the fact that he might not be fixable. Including a healthy side of encephalitis to further confuse the situation, all equal parts add up to him being a perfect prey for someone like Hannibal Lecter.

It's on more than one occasion that Will's spoken of how much Hannibal is in his head. Under the guise of being his psychiatrist, the two have shared a wealth of conversations regarding Will's psychological condition and where improvements can be made - "improvements", it should be noted, are probably safely in the eye of the beholder in this situation. Hannibal finds that ravine Garret Jacob Hobbs left behind and wriggles his way right into Will's psyche. He starts playing with connections, and for a while, Will sees nothing. He thinks of Hannibal as a confidant. He thinks of Hannibal as a friend, as he has had so little to compare it to otherwise. He thinks of Hannibal as a savior, because in a world where he's being plagued by night terrors, hallucinations, and large bouts of lost time (or at least none of them his regular breed of psychosis), he was an extended hand, a face to a name to a mind that understands him.

Being understood, as it turns out, isn't the secret to Will's happiness. Being understood was way more like a plunge downward with no parachute and only his own ministrations to save him.

To understand Will now is to understand where it is that he's come from. Hannibal fashioned Will into a blade of his own making under the pretense of making him his own secret weapon - specifically, a scapegoat for a rash of copycat kills in the area. An overwhelming amount of evidence planted casts more than a substantial amount of doubt, and suddenly Will Graham is getting what it is he's always wanted: A period of time where he is truly alone in the world. He's arrested, he's detained, he's held on trial for being one of the most psychotic minds of his generation, a few deaths supposedly under his belt, the least of which being Abigail Hobbs. Will has admittedly thought of her in the past as a sort of surrogate daughter, and for a moment, thinking that he's not only killed her in a disassociative state but eaten her, he could completely and utterly lose his mind. He does, for a bit. Then the accusations start piling, and something overwhelming turns into a stark and very acrid sense of clarity.

WILL: It isn't very smart to piss off a guy who thinks about killing people for a living.

Will becomes a man possessed. He spends a good percentage of his time talking about Hannibal (and the other percentage, praying for someone to bring him up just so he can talk about him more). He could hear people getting bored with him! But he couldn't stop. The man was in his head in a big way - Will even admits that the voice of his thought process has mutated from his own to Hannibal's - and in a high security locale for the criminally insane, there's really not much else to think about when you are inexplicably and psychotically sure of your own innocence. But nobody else is.

Release from Baltimore has landed Will with that same, upsetting amount of aforementioned lucidity, and the one goal he uses as a crutch and a brace both to get him through the lot of the aftermath is catching Hannibal as the Chesapeake Ripper, it doesn't matter what it takes. Lying, sneaking, deals with the devil. Live bait. Murder. He kills Randall Tier with his bare hands while he's under deep cover, mutilates his body and leaves him on display in his own museum as a show of faith to Hannibal. He knowingly consumes human flesh as a show of faith to Hannibal. Though his motives might be pure in nature, there's certainly a big moral question that comes with getting into Hannibal Lecter's metaphorical bed. It comes with a cost.

This is his design.

Where Will sits now is at a crossroads between the white and the black, the sane and the not so much, with a very fuzzy edge as to where Will Graham ends and Hannibal Lecter begins. He thinks he knows, and he tells Jack Crawford as much. He knows he knows; there are times when he thinks it has never been clearer where his feelings on Hannibal lie. He tries to know, but in a game between the mentally wobbly and the frighteningly stable, it's difficult to find which ground it is on which he has level footing. There's a point where justice doesn't quite cut it for reasoning, where self defense turns into much darker pastures, and sick to his stomach as he might feel about the things he's done in recent past, it doesn't change the fact that he's done them.

Hannibal Lecter's voice is still in his head. Garret Jacob Hobbs' never quite left. Will sees and fully recognizes this new darkness inside of him (often, it appears to him in his dreams as a stag, much like in the design of Hobbs' kills; the larger the antlers, the more sinister), and while he doesn't necessarily embrace it, it hasn't left him. Killing Hobbs, he says, felt good. It felt righteous. He fantasizes about killing Hannibal more often than not - with his bare hands, ideally, and it's likely he transferred that fantasy from Hannibal and onto Tier. Will is capable of frighteningly horrendous things and, perhaps as a kind of super sanity that Hannibal has helped supply, is fully aware of how liberating and how powerful these actions can feel. It doesn't mean he's going on a killing spree tomorrow. But it doesn't mean he's incapable either.

Barge Reactions:

It's not going to be an initially smooth transition. Being confined doesn't sit well with him. If and when he's allowed out, ports could actually be helpful. Floods, depending on their nature, could cause turns for the worse. He's just not used to all of this new stuff, especially some of the weirder (supernatural, magical, what have you) characters aboard the ship - especially the ship itself, while we're at it. It's space travel, and that's a bit of culture shock there for him at first when he's already in a stressful mental place.

Finding something approaching routine in this place will help, especially if Will can keep busy and not flounder, or worse, stagnate in his own thoughts. One of the defining factors of how Will's transition into the barge is going to be like will depend on the balance between his castmates and himself, especially when he's coming in from a later canon point. A lot of this is going to depend on who has what persuasive means over him first, whether it be a good or bad influence. Will tends to be reclusive, and getting him up and out in the open will be key. Eventually, the strangeness of the Barge is going to be something he welcomes just as he welcomes the strangeness in himself - with bated expectations and a less than healthy fascination.

Path to Redemption:

Will's ideal mentor has to first and foremost be a persistent son of a bitch. It's not that he's irredeemable at all - he used to be a cop, after all, and there is a stricter sense of justice that's gotten skewed along the way - but rather that he doesn't like being picked at. He's had his head muddled enough that he doesn't like people getting inside there and getting to know the real him, though most specifically not strangers. He can open up easily if given the time, though often cryptically and after more than a few mental barriers to get past first. He likes to think of them as forts.

It will take an especial while to get Will to come clean about why he would actually be here, if at all, though being in a place of honesty and simple conversation will get you far. He's not good at small talk, though he will try if necessary, but rather more cerebral conversations are where he excels the most, keeping his mind at ease but also stimulating it. He gets bored with people who don't interest him. The biggest problem is that he knows his ways in and out of the mind well enough to portray a different kind of picture than he actually is; that is, he's well-versed in being elusive about how he's feeling.

The best path for him is going to be one of a kind of stability. He has a tendency to think he can psychologically handle more than he takes on and he can get lost in that. He is unstable, prone to nightmares and mild hallucinations, and sometimes he can get scattered and easily distracted. When it comes to Hannibal, he's focused like a laser, but not necessarily one pointed in a safe direction. Along that same vein, getting to know any castmates would be very beneficial, as they all have plenty of insight as to who they think Will Graham is as an individual.

He's also got his dogs back home. At the very least, getting one back's a good motivator.

Deal: --

History: Will Graham @ the Hannibal wiki

Sample Journal Entry:

[ It's not something that really ever becomes routine, it doesn't matter how often he wakes up someplace strange and uncharted. The voice on the line sounds about as scattered as he feels. ]

My name is Will Graham, it's- [ He's pulling back his sleeve to look for a watch that's not there. ] I don't have the time. I don't- I don't have the time.

[ Hang on, don't get too lost. ]

It's not clear to me exactly where I am, but- [ a dry laugh ] you probably already knew that. This isn't even my phone. But you probably knew that too.

[ He's missing details. He's missing plenty. His voice trails off for a short while before he can get his bearings enough to speak again, and even then it's almost unconsciously. ] I don't know. I don't know.

[ It's as if the fact that he has no idea sparks him back into the present. His voice grows more composed, if somewhat cracked. ] So if you're hearing this, if anyone is hearing this - [ is anyone hearing this? ] - any singular indication will be key.

[ Another beat. ]

I feel as though I've strayed a long, long way from home.

[ The air goes dead, and then so does the line. ]

Sample RP:

It's been an entire day now and all he's really done is sit out on the deck.

It's not for lack of trying. He knows - No, he's been told where he is, and there's a vast difference between that and knowing, really knowing, which in the end is the part that really eats away at him under his skin. It's space, apparently, and so he can't know, not for sure, not when it's still stuck in that fuzzy in between area where everything feels like something ethereal. Not real, inconsequential. A vivid waking nightmare from which he's yet to wake. He's never been particularly good at directing his dreams where he'd like them to go.

He's familiar with this disjointed sort of feeling, though maybe not one of this exact breed. Funnily enough, it all seems a bit too much to be something he's come up with in his head. It would all be very... flagellant. Too flagellant, almost degrading, the situation he would have had to come up with. He's here, there are people he knows here, and they know everything and nothing at once. There's this layer of unfamiliarity that skews him once again, as though he's attributing things that aren't there once again, as though he's read more in a book they haven't quite finished.

It frightens him, to be back in such a place. Scares him stiff.

And so, well, this seat on the deck. The air is crisp, not dank like back in his bed. The stars are nice too, something that can focus his perspective. As if they're the porch lights twinkling in front of his house rather than what the actuality depicts. A planet he doesn't recognize scrolls by and it entirely ruins the illusion, has his hands scrubbing over his face and leaves him bent over in this chair that isn't his own, this place that isn't a world he knows. Head in his hands, pads of his fingers pressed tightly into his eyes; it's not the first time either that he's tried merely wiping it all away, as if he can dust this free like a chalkboard and start writing anew.

His eyes open. The song remains the same. Repetitively, Will can't help but ask himself an all-too familiar question:

"What's happening to me?"

Special Notes: idk just one