Application: stedelweiss (Patient)
PLAYER
NAME: Herit
AGE: 22
PREFERRED PRONOUN: She
PERSONAL LJ: setsuninto
TIMEZONE: CET
EMAIL/MESSENGER(S): chabliya [gmail] / DISCORAEP [aim]
EXPERIENCE RPing: I mod here and play here. :D Kojiro, Paul, Shira.
CHARACTER
NAME: Huey Laforet
AGE: 241 (21 physically)
GENDER: Male
ROLE IN CANON: Side-antagonist at times (depends on which side you're on, really), mostly neutral. Terrorist-leader and researcher/alchemist. He did it for the lulz, no exception. Well. For his research, but you know what that means. He's causing more trouble than solving trouble. A lot more. Therefore, I guess it all boils down to antagonist.
FANDOM: Baccano!
FANDOM MEDIUM: Anime, with novel-background due to lack of screentime and background in the anime canon.
TIMELINE PERIOD: Just at the start of the 1931 arc, while imprisoned in Newfoundland. Before learning about the Flying Pussyfoot Incident or being transported to New York for questioning.
ABILITIES: Immortal. Regenerates any injury in no time, including lost limbs, which reattach automatically. He can "eat" other immortals by putting his right hand on their heads and thinking "I want to eat", which also gives him their memories and knowledge. Likewise, he can share information by just putting his hand on somebody's head. He's furthermore an alchemist and can, with knowledge stolen from fellow alchemist and immortal Szilard, create homunculi. In the anime, one scene implies that he is able to communicate with his daughter Chane through telepathy, although this is never fully explained.
CHARACTER HISTORY: The story of Baccano!'s immortals starts in the year 1711, on board the Advena Avis. A group of alchemists gathered there, with the intention to perform a ritual and summon a demon in order to find what all alchemists have ever been searching for: the elixir of immortality and eternal youth. Huey, 21 years old at that time, having been born in 1690, was among them. He had been studying at a private school teaching the hermetic arts as a teenager, where he had also met Elmer C. Albatross, who had become his only friend and was present on the ship as well. Before the ritual, however, a heated discussion started between the alchemists, about whether or not the ritual made any sense and there was any chance of achieving their goal at all. Huey spoke up, interrupting a discussion between Szilard and Gerd, the younger brother of the group's leader, Maiza. He did not only voice his support for the ritual, quoting the Emerald Tablets to disperse the doubt of some of the present alchemists, and giving as reason for his support simply that the experiment and its effect on the people was interesting to him, but also was the first and only one of them all to claim that the demon they were planning to summon did not necessarily have to be evil - claiming that for alchemists using black magic, it all came down to the same thing anyway.
Later, when Maiza performed the ritual as it was taught to him, it indeed proved successful: the demon appeared, at least in voice, and freely offered the group his immortality elixir. Szilard, previously critical of the whole plan, was the first to claim his part of the elixir, claiming that it was only to end the farce. When he felt no effect after drinking it, the demon simply and brutally murdered him. However, much to the surprise of nearly everyone present, Szilard came back to life a few moments later, completely healed, and most of the group stormed forward to take their share of the elixir, despite the demon's claim that there was enough for everybody. Huey and a few others, on the other hand, waited calmly, then drank their share. Afterwards, the demon told them the secret to end their immortal existence, should they become tired of it: an immortal could "eat" another by putting his hand on their head, and simply thinking, "I want to eat" - a process through which also the victim's memories and knowledge would be transferred to him. He also informed them that the one who had performed the ritual, Maiza, was capable of recreating the elixir himself. Of course, it was only a matter of time now until things went horribly wrong.
The ritual was followed by yet another discussion - this time about whether or not the newly gained knowledge should be shared with the rest of the world. Szilard was all in favour of it, others (most notably Maiza himself, Gerd, and Huey's friend Elmer) spoke out against it. When the discussion turned into a vote, Huey, speaking last of all, announced that he would be suspending his vote, explaining that he neither believed that this problem could be answered so quickly, nor that it could be answered by a majority vote. When asked when he intended to let the others know his decision, he simply answered that it might be in a hundred as well as two hundred years - which for immortals would not be too late either. The group ended agreeing, again.
That night, however, Szilard began pursuing Maiza's knowledge. Maiza had expected a turn like this, and had intended to rid the world of Szilard and the danger he posed, but was stopped by Elmer, who - as usual - was convinced that everybody should be happy. Maiza realised too late that Szilard had tricked them and left his room long ago, and after "eating" Gerd had started assaulting the rest of the group one by one. It was Nile, another alchemist, who stopped him when he attacked Gerd's fiancée Sylvie, and Huey and a few others pursued him until he jumped into the water to escape. While trying to distract both the group and Szilard from their fighting, Elmer had fallen into the water, too, but could be rescued.
During the time the alchemists needed to do that and wait for Elmer to wake up, Huey had withdrawn and was watching the scene from the ship's crow's nest. There, the demon approached him. Talking very familiarly, the demon, after voicing his own surprise about how quickly things had gone wrong, told Huey that the two of them were quite alike, watching things from above and only being interested in what was going on in an unaffected observer's way, and should get along. He also announced that they would meet again, being stuck together for a long time, before disappearing.
When the ship returned, the alchemists all split up, going different ways. Huey (as well as Szilard, who had, of course, survived) started his research to recreate the elixir. He used knowledge he had stolen from Szilard in order to create homunculi, which he called "Lamia". These homunculi, human in appearance (with the exception of a few having some inhuman traits, such as Christoper Chareau de Red, who sported red eyes and sharp teeth) were used as test subjects for his experiments. A few of them indeed lost the ability to age, some lost other abilities, such as the ability to feel pain.
Huey himself became the leader of a group called Lemures, who were considered terrorists, as well as two other groups of his followers - the Larva, led by a man only known as "Tim", a genius Huey had recruited at a young age, and the Lamia, a group that most of his homculi belonged to, led by the eccentric Christopher Chareau De Red. By the 1930s, Huey was a feared criminal, considered a "menacing traitor to the U.S.", and was hiding in Canada. He also had at least one son and two daughters at this point, all from different women, but - with exception of his son Luchino Campanella, whose mother was another student at Huey's school - raised by him: Chane and Liza. While Chane did not know about her half-sister (OR her half-brother), she is the only of Huey's children actually treated like a daughter by him, even though he raised her as a soldier in his private army, as his protector as well as his secret-keeper. His manipulation of his young daughter went so far that when asking her to keep a secret he would tell her and not share it with anybody, for which he would treat her one thing - anything she liked - the girl only asked that he would take her voice, so she could not give anybody information about him or his secrets, ever. That was, of course, a full success in Huey's experiment, and even later, he would refer to Chane as his "animal experiment", a "pitiful guinea pig". Chane, however, was always perfectly loyal and devoted to him, even as an adult, considering him the only one who would ever love her. He also told her that she was named by her mother, whom she didn't know. His other daughter, Liza, was less lucky when it came to meeting his expectations and winning his approval; childish and overall less effective than Chane even though skilled at fighting with chakrams, she wanted to be treated like his daughter as well, but never succeeded.
In late December, 1931, Huey was arrested in Canada thanks to a traitor in his group. It was no secret to him or Chane that the Lemures were in truth only after Huey's secret of immortality and had no affection for either of them - going as far as to planning Chane's death in case they could free Huey. While Huey was being held in prison in Newfoundland and waiting to be transported to New York to be handed over to the U.S. government, the Lemures and Chane boarded the continental train "The Flying Pussyfoot", which would go from Chicago to New York, planning to take the passengers (including the wife and daughter of Senator Beriam, who appears to have a rivalry with Huey) hostage to demand Huey's freedom in return.
CHARACTER PERSONALITY: Huey is a person who leaves you unsure what to think of him. Calm and quiet, intelligent, urbane, and incredibly cold and bitter, he is a ruthless man who pursues his aims with no regard for morals or ethic concepts. While he does not engage in needless sadism or killing, he goes to whatever lengths he has to in order to advance in his research, not hesitating for a second to experiment on humans or sacrifice who- and whatever he has to, including even his own daughter whom he raised himself. A scientist and researcher to heart, Huey observes rather than participates. Humans are interesting to him, and he sees no reason not to flat out say so. He is curious about their reactions and how circumstances influence them, watching them detached and "from above", which he considers his duty as a researcher. Death, violence, loss - all those things have no visible effect on him. Even when imprisoned as a terrorist and traitor to the U.S., he is calm, disinterested, thoroughly unaffected. He rarely sees things as a threat to him, at least not enough to be openly worried. He is, however, also perceptive and analytical enough to see that even his own organisation has no interest in him past his secret of immortality. While never shown feeling fear, neither during imprisonment nor when facing a demon, he also trusts nobody. Even with his daughter Chane, he only relies on her so much, and only because he has carefully and thoroughly manipulated her, made her dependent on him over years.
He has only one friend, Elmer C. Albatross, who is the one person Huey admits to consider human. And yet even with him, although Huey openly and honestly calls Elmer his friend, he also considers him "pure evil" and disturbing, because Elmer aims to making everybody happy - without distinguishing between good and evil. Huey also has a curious interest in him because due to Elmer's highly traumatic childhood and past, he does not believe that he knows the meaning of happiness himself. Nonetheless, according to himself, Huey admits that it was Elmer who first made him smile in front of other people. They have been friends since they were teenagers and at the same school, but even back then, perfect contradictions of each other. Huey was, contrarily to Elmer's typical optimism, the kind of teenager who hated the world and wanted its destruction, and would counterfeit money (with the knowledge of his principal) to finance his research even at the age of only 15 years. His pessimism and disgust against the world and humanity are the main source of his lack of sympathy for anybody. Huey is a man who is entirely disenchanted and cold, expecting nothing good from anything in this world and valuing nothing. His humour is cynical and cruel at best, full of loathing and a certain, spiteful sadism.
For that reason, he does not see anything wrong with his experiments; he lacks a conscience to feel guilt over what some of the results mean for the people he experimented on, and lacks the empathy and interest to care. Humans offer him nothing, and all favours look like bribes to him, because everything is, in his scientist's mind, done for a reason, and every creature has only itself in mind. That is also why he does feel the cynical sympathy he feels for Elmer, and is intrigued (but not completely convinced) by Chane's absolute loyalty to him, which he admits was a reaction by this guinea pig of his that he had not expected. Above all, however, Huey is ruthless and unscrupulous; he has no qualms that hold him back, and sees no reason not to use what nature and chance have given him - a brilliant, scientific mind and immortality. With these abilities, he believes - very Darwinian - that because he can, he has the right to do, even the obligation to do what he wants, and has a rightful power over people's lives, such as his homunculi and his test subjects, including Chane. He does not believe in morality or justice, or that they have or should have any power, even less about him. Even though he is not directly fond of taking hostages and killing, he would stop at nothing if it were necessary. Sometimes, this goes as far as that he takes unnecessary risks completely out of proportion to his gain, just to sate his curiosity; for instance, he prefers a life on America's Most Wanted list to an existence where he could calmly do his research under somebody else's supervision.
HOW IS THIS CHARACTER APPROPRIATE FOR THIS SETTING: He is a 241-years-old alchemist/scientist/terrorist, feared enough to be sent to Alcatraz later in canon, responsible for experimentation on humans and a massacre caused in his name. He spends the entire anime in prison. Baccano! is a very brutal series with (occasionally exaggerated) gore and dealing with the organised crime in the American 1930s. Also, it's obvious in canon that he has a few screws loose, and not in the funny sense; Senator Beriam goes as far as to only address him directly as "monster".
WHAT WILL THEIR DIAGNOSIS BE: Psychopathy with severe dehumanisation, Cotard's Syndrome (delusion of being immortal, specifically)
PREDICTED PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS: A real psychological effect is hard to tell, since this is already his core personality and he is, essentially, calm and calculating in his insanity, if irresponsible at times. The effect the setting is going to have on him is hard to tell; however, seeing the possibilities it gives him, and the ruthlessness he has as a psychopath, in the beginning at least it will animate him rather than discourage him. The circumstance that for once, he will be the test subject will of course cause grudges and subliminal anger, though, since he will feel that he does not belong on this side of the scalpel. Even with his own research, he may develop paranoid tendencies of the doctors reaching his aim before him, getting ahead of him, or even steal his own research. He will develop sadism under the surface, however; or rather his already present, subtle sadism will increase - seeing the opportunities the experimentation and lack of interference give the staff here. Being the manipulator that he is, he will quickly go back to patterns of using people to get ahead, fully within his "every man is out for himself" mentality. That is why his distrust will grow, especially against a potential roommate and the people he will have closer contact with. He's in hell, and he should be put in charge, because this environment has many possibilities that only he can use - those will be his feelings, and they will fuel him, causing him to suspect others of being as manipulative as him, but inferior. Therefore, it will lead to both caution, and a hyped feeling of superiority and ambition. Overall, he will be ruled by cold, paranoid scientific excitement.
PREDICTED BEHAVIOR/PLANS: He will be calm about the environment, judging that this is far better than prison for him - here, he has all the means and test subjects to perform his own research, without the outside interference he had to fear at home. For the most part, even talking to fellow patients and keeping his true intentions secret for the most part, he will be watching them, making notes on them, possibly even a research journal that he will try to keep hidden even from his roommate. He won't interfere in plots or big events, but observe them, to both get a better impression of his fellow patients and the staff, and out of simple curiosity. The more horrible things happen, the more extreme the reactions and impact on the people, the more interested will he be. When called for treatment, he won't resist; on the contrary, he will cooperate, even try to come to an agreement with the doctors (less likely the rest of the staff) to let them experiment on him without resistance and share some of his own research, in return for receiving the results of theirs as well. This, he will figure, will be the fastest and most effective way to come to his own aim regarding the recreation of the immortality elixir, even though he won't trust the doctors and be prepared to engaged in mutual manipulation with them. In this, he may be dangerously reckless sometimes, as with the manipulation of his fellow patients that he will try, too, scientific curiosity winning over reason sometimes. He will keep his deals with the doctors secret for the most part, and will keep contacts with the other patients, but in the end, there is only one person that he supports and would not sell out: himself.
DANGER LEVEL: 1.
PATIENT/NURSE/DOCTOR/SECURITY/ASSISTANT/OTHER: Patient.
SAMPLES
THIRD PERSON:
Cold sweat running down his back.
That was the first thing that Huey noticed when he woke up from a sleep that wasn't sleep so much as dizzy, dark haze. He tried to breathe in deep and lift his hand, expecting pain, but there was none; just cold and the heavy weight of stress pressing down on his lungs. Everything was fine, and he knew it. There was no pain and no real weakness, but he felt nauseated without a physical source; stripped, raw, cold, and wound up to the highest pitch under subconscious, instinctive warnings he couldn't identify. Physically, everything felt more intense than normally, and he wished it wouldn't, because his rational mind was in chaos. The more urgently he tried to grasp the fleeting pictures in his memory, put them in order, and make a sense out of them, the quicker they slid through his fingers. He inhaled a shivering breath and sat up instantly.
The room was silent, dark, and empty.
In the darkness, Huey's chest heaved and sank slowly, while he let his eyes, golden and dead and with a nervous flutter, wander through the room.
He was alone. The realisation brought back rational thought, and let him close his lips with a shallow exhale at last. His hand wiped over his forehead, almost making it look like a gesture of relief, and for the moment, he was relieved enough not to feel disgust at the wetness of sweat on his skin. It felt even colder now that he had risen, but he did not notice that. There was something else. Dropping his feet off the bed, he took another look around, at the door, at the walls, scrutinising and impeccable again, as people would remember him. There wasn't anybody here. He shifted, making as little noise as possible (he hadn't forgotten about those intercoms, now that his sense and reason were back) when he pulled out a bunch of papers and a pencil from under the mattress.
He'd actually passed out. The notion was so ironic, so tasteless, that it made him smile dryly, but it was a smile that never reached his eyes. Pain and fighting weren't Huey's world. Immortal or not, he preferred to leave that part to others. His tasks and talents lied elsewhere, and so, being confronted with the limits of an immortal body so directly wasn't something he enjoyed. On the other hand, there was so much he had gained simply from this one meeting that he couldn't help but feel oblivious about that one unpleasant circumstance. Other things took priority now.
He shot a glance out of the window, and then began writing, in the hasty, brief style of a researcher. He had started, almost instantly after he had arrived, to use the sun - or, at night, the stars - to determine the hours more or less accurately. No matter what people of the newer times said, astronomy was certainly a useful skill in situations like this one. He wrote fast, putting his memories down on paper while they were fresh. There had been a lot that the doctor had told him, had mentioned casually during the treatment, and there had been a few things Huey had told him in return - things that one better remembered to have mentioned. His records were not safe even on paper, of course, but writing them down, studying them again would train his memory, and even if they should be found, he supposed that there weren't too many here - staff or patients - who could decipher Paracelsus' Alphabet of the Magi. For now, his work was relatively safe, and Huey was more than content with this relativity. He had always been a man for the bigger picture, not for details. Details were the obsession of bureaucrats, scientists and researchers like him - and especially researchers doubling as terrorist leaders, like him - had to do a work far more on the edge than that.
For a second, Huey's frantic scribbling stopped. A dull numbness spread from his fingertips and darkened the frames of his field of vision, along with a light-headed, nauseous feeling that spread inside his throat. Looked like he had gotten up too quickly, he realised, and mentally snorted a cold laugh. He was excited - excited enough to feel light-headed even without this reminder of human fragility, and excited enough to be amused by it. His old friend Elmer would have been overjoyed by a laugh, even more so from him, in a situation this dark. What would Elmer think of him now? While waiting for his momentum and consciousness to fully return, Huey tipped his head back and considered the question for a moment, dissecting it with analytical precision. Not only in prison, but in an asylum, declared legally insane - there was no doubt that many had done that before, that even more believed it, and that Huey himself could only laugh. Elmer was, most likely, the one person who appreciated his genuine laugh, and that was only because Elmer was what he was. Huey was a terrible man; he only laughed about terrible things. And Elmer? His pure smile made him quite demonic himself, and it very much more likely one of pure evil than pure good. This place would suit them both.
Even Elmer wouldn't have been able to lighten up this dreary place, but for Huey, it was a chance beyond his wildest hopes, if a risky one. Here he was, a criminal and terrorist feared throughout the United States, an alchemist, a scientist, leader of people who had come to consider themselves living ghosts, and creator of artificial life in his homunculi. And suddenly, he himself was a test subject - even worse, had freely offered his cooperation to those strangers with their scalpels. There were sacrifices a researcher had to give for his work. There were sacrifices he had taken from others, and his were small by comparison, small compared to the gain especially, and here, his eyes were on a gain that captivated and mesmerised him with its existence, like a snake. It was only times like these that something actually lit up in Huey's eyes and gave him this unfathomable smile that was genuine. Silently, he finished his notes and carefully hid them under the mattress again. He leant back, feeling the cold of the wall through the back of his drenched shirt, and smiled at the ground.
"And Chane, what about you?" he pondered quietly. "Would you choose, if you could?"
For a moment, he was silent. His smile stayed consistent, even when his eyes narrowed and darkened in chilling curiosity.
"Would you follow me even here?"
FIRST PERSON:
[There is a deep breath audible some time after a while of silence; almost like a sigh, almost with a tinge of resignation. Then a calm, bored voice.]
This is more luxurious than what I expected. New York has seen a lot of change since the last time I was here.
How interesting...
You didn't even lock the door. So, I'm permitted to leave my cell now? Alone even?
[The shuffling of bed sheets, then the sound of slow steps directly approaching the intercom. Silence for a second or two, and a tapping sound against the speaker. There is an audible, cold smirk in his voice.]
Senator Beriam? This looks almost as if you're expecting something from me.
NOTES: Activity Check. And Reserved.
NAME: Herit
AGE: 22
PREFERRED PRONOUN: She
PERSONAL LJ: setsuninto
TIMEZONE: CET
EMAIL/MESSENGER(S): chabliya [gmail] / DISCORAEP [aim]
EXPERIENCE RPing: I mod here and play here. :D Kojiro, Paul, Shira.
CHARACTER
NAME: Huey Laforet
AGE: 241 (21 physically)
GENDER: Male
ROLE IN CANON: Side-antagonist at times (depends on which side you're on, really), mostly neutral. Terrorist-leader and researcher/alchemist. He did it for the lulz, no exception. Well. For his research, but you know what that means. He's causing more trouble than solving trouble. A lot more. Therefore, I guess it all boils down to antagonist.
FANDOM: Baccano!
FANDOM MEDIUM: Anime, with novel-background due to lack of screentime and background in the anime canon.
TIMELINE PERIOD: Just at the start of the 1931 arc, while imprisoned in Newfoundland. Before learning about the Flying Pussyfoot Incident or being transported to New York for questioning.
ABILITIES: Immortal. Regenerates any injury in no time, including lost limbs, which reattach automatically. He can "eat" other immortals by putting his right hand on their heads and thinking "I want to eat", which also gives him their memories and knowledge. Likewise, he can share information by just putting his hand on somebody's head. He's furthermore an alchemist and can, with knowledge stolen from fellow alchemist and immortal Szilard, create homunculi. In the anime, one scene implies that he is able to communicate with his daughter Chane through telepathy, although this is never fully explained.
CHARACTER HISTORY: The story of Baccano!'s immortals starts in the year 1711, on board the Advena Avis. A group of alchemists gathered there, with the intention to perform a ritual and summon a demon in order to find what all alchemists have ever been searching for: the elixir of immortality and eternal youth. Huey, 21 years old at that time, having been born in 1690, was among them. He had been studying at a private school teaching the hermetic arts as a teenager, where he had also met Elmer C. Albatross, who had become his only friend and was present on the ship as well. Before the ritual, however, a heated discussion started between the alchemists, about whether or not the ritual made any sense and there was any chance of achieving their goal at all. Huey spoke up, interrupting a discussion between Szilard and Gerd, the younger brother of the group's leader, Maiza. He did not only voice his support for the ritual, quoting the Emerald Tablets to disperse the doubt of some of the present alchemists, and giving as reason for his support simply that the experiment and its effect on the people was interesting to him, but also was the first and only one of them all to claim that the demon they were planning to summon did not necessarily have to be evil - claiming that for alchemists using black magic, it all came down to the same thing anyway.
Later, when Maiza performed the ritual as it was taught to him, it indeed proved successful: the demon appeared, at least in voice, and freely offered the group his immortality elixir. Szilard, previously critical of the whole plan, was the first to claim his part of the elixir, claiming that it was only to end the farce. When he felt no effect after drinking it, the demon simply and brutally murdered him. However, much to the surprise of nearly everyone present, Szilard came back to life a few moments later, completely healed, and most of the group stormed forward to take their share of the elixir, despite the demon's claim that there was enough for everybody. Huey and a few others, on the other hand, waited calmly, then drank their share. Afterwards, the demon told them the secret to end their immortal existence, should they become tired of it: an immortal could "eat" another by putting his hand on their head, and simply thinking, "I want to eat" - a process through which also the victim's memories and knowledge would be transferred to him. He also informed them that the one who had performed the ritual, Maiza, was capable of recreating the elixir himself. Of course, it was only a matter of time now until things went horribly wrong.
The ritual was followed by yet another discussion - this time about whether or not the newly gained knowledge should be shared with the rest of the world. Szilard was all in favour of it, others (most notably Maiza himself, Gerd, and Huey's friend Elmer) spoke out against it. When the discussion turned into a vote, Huey, speaking last of all, announced that he would be suspending his vote, explaining that he neither believed that this problem could be answered so quickly, nor that it could be answered by a majority vote. When asked when he intended to let the others know his decision, he simply answered that it might be in a hundred as well as two hundred years - which for immortals would not be too late either. The group ended agreeing, again.
That night, however, Szilard began pursuing Maiza's knowledge. Maiza had expected a turn like this, and had intended to rid the world of Szilard and the danger he posed, but was stopped by Elmer, who - as usual - was convinced that everybody should be happy. Maiza realised too late that Szilard had tricked them and left his room long ago, and after "eating" Gerd had started assaulting the rest of the group one by one. It was Nile, another alchemist, who stopped him when he attacked Gerd's fiancée Sylvie, and Huey and a few others pursued him until he jumped into the water to escape. While trying to distract both the group and Szilard from their fighting, Elmer had fallen into the water, too, but could be rescued.
During the time the alchemists needed to do that and wait for Elmer to wake up, Huey had withdrawn and was watching the scene from the ship's crow's nest. There, the demon approached him. Talking very familiarly, the demon, after voicing his own surprise about how quickly things had gone wrong, told Huey that the two of them were quite alike, watching things from above and only being interested in what was going on in an unaffected observer's way, and should get along. He also announced that they would meet again, being stuck together for a long time, before disappearing.
When the ship returned, the alchemists all split up, going different ways. Huey (as well as Szilard, who had, of course, survived) started his research to recreate the elixir. He used knowledge he had stolen from Szilard in order to create homunculi, which he called "Lamia". These homunculi, human in appearance (with the exception of a few having some inhuman traits, such as Christoper Chareau de Red, who sported red eyes and sharp teeth) were used as test subjects for his experiments. A few of them indeed lost the ability to age, some lost other abilities, such as the ability to feel pain.
Huey himself became the leader of a group called Lemures, who were considered terrorists, as well as two other groups of his followers - the Larva, led by a man only known as "Tim", a genius Huey had recruited at a young age, and the Lamia, a group that most of his homculi belonged to, led by the eccentric Christopher Chareau De Red. By the 1930s, Huey was a feared criminal, considered a "menacing traitor to the U.S.", and was hiding in Canada. He also had at least one son and two daughters at this point, all from different women, but - with exception of his son Luchino Campanella, whose mother was another student at Huey's school - raised by him: Chane and Liza. While Chane did not know about her half-sister (OR her half-brother), she is the only of Huey's children actually treated like a daughter by him, even though he raised her as a soldier in his private army, as his protector as well as his secret-keeper. His manipulation of his young daughter went so far that when asking her to keep a secret he would tell her and not share it with anybody, for which he would treat her one thing - anything she liked - the girl only asked that he would take her voice, so she could not give anybody information about him or his secrets, ever. That was, of course, a full success in Huey's experiment, and even later, he would refer to Chane as his "animal experiment", a "pitiful guinea pig". Chane, however, was always perfectly loyal and devoted to him, even as an adult, considering him the only one who would ever love her. He also told her that she was named by her mother, whom she didn't know. His other daughter, Liza, was less lucky when it came to meeting his expectations and winning his approval; childish and overall less effective than Chane even though skilled at fighting with chakrams, she wanted to be treated like his daughter as well, but never succeeded.
In late December, 1931, Huey was arrested in Canada thanks to a traitor in his group. It was no secret to him or Chane that the Lemures were in truth only after Huey's secret of immortality and had no affection for either of them - going as far as to planning Chane's death in case they could free Huey. While Huey was being held in prison in Newfoundland and waiting to be transported to New York to be handed over to the U.S. government, the Lemures and Chane boarded the continental train "The Flying Pussyfoot", which would go from Chicago to New York, planning to take the passengers (including the wife and daughter of Senator Beriam, who appears to have a rivalry with Huey) hostage to demand Huey's freedom in return.
CHARACTER PERSONALITY: Huey is a person who leaves you unsure what to think of him. Calm and quiet, intelligent, urbane, and incredibly cold and bitter, he is a ruthless man who pursues his aims with no regard for morals or ethic concepts. While he does not engage in needless sadism or killing, he goes to whatever lengths he has to in order to advance in his research, not hesitating for a second to experiment on humans or sacrifice who- and whatever he has to, including even his own daughter whom he raised himself. A scientist and researcher to heart, Huey observes rather than participates. Humans are interesting to him, and he sees no reason not to flat out say so. He is curious about their reactions and how circumstances influence them, watching them detached and "from above", which he considers his duty as a researcher. Death, violence, loss - all those things have no visible effect on him. Even when imprisoned as a terrorist and traitor to the U.S., he is calm, disinterested, thoroughly unaffected. He rarely sees things as a threat to him, at least not enough to be openly worried. He is, however, also perceptive and analytical enough to see that even his own organisation has no interest in him past his secret of immortality. While never shown feeling fear, neither during imprisonment nor when facing a demon, he also trusts nobody. Even with his daughter Chane, he only relies on her so much, and only because he has carefully and thoroughly manipulated her, made her dependent on him over years.
He has only one friend, Elmer C. Albatross, who is the one person Huey admits to consider human. And yet even with him, although Huey openly and honestly calls Elmer his friend, he also considers him "pure evil" and disturbing, because Elmer aims to making everybody happy - without distinguishing between good and evil. Huey also has a curious interest in him because due to Elmer's highly traumatic childhood and past, he does not believe that he knows the meaning of happiness himself. Nonetheless, according to himself, Huey admits that it was Elmer who first made him smile in front of other people. They have been friends since they were teenagers and at the same school, but even back then, perfect contradictions of each other. Huey was, contrarily to Elmer's typical optimism, the kind of teenager who hated the world and wanted its destruction, and would counterfeit money (with the knowledge of his principal) to finance his research even at the age of only 15 years. His pessimism and disgust against the world and humanity are the main source of his lack of sympathy for anybody. Huey is a man who is entirely disenchanted and cold, expecting nothing good from anything in this world and valuing nothing. His humour is cynical and cruel at best, full of loathing and a certain, spiteful sadism.
For that reason, he does not see anything wrong with his experiments; he lacks a conscience to feel guilt over what some of the results mean for the people he experimented on, and lacks the empathy and interest to care. Humans offer him nothing, and all favours look like bribes to him, because everything is, in his scientist's mind, done for a reason, and every creature has only itself in mind. That is also why he does feel the cynical sympathy he feels for Elmer, and is intrigued (but not completely convinced) by Chane's absolute loyalty to him, which he admits was a reaction by this guinea pig of his that he had not expected. Above all, however, Huey is ruthless and unscrupulous; he has no qualms that hold him back, and sees no reason not to use what nature and chance have given him - a brilliant, scientific mind and immortality. With these abilities, he believes - very Darwinian - that because he can, he has the right to do, even the obligation to do what he wants, and has a rightful power over people's lives, such as his homunculi and his test subjects, including Chane. He does not believe in morality or justice, or that they have or should have any power, even less about him. Even though he is not directly fond of taking hostages and killing, he would stop at nothing if it were necessary. Sometimes, this goes as far as that he takes unnecessary risks completely out of proportion to his gain, just to sate his curiosity; for instance, he prefers a life on America's Most Wanted list to an existence where he could calmly do his research under somebody else's supervision.
HOW IS THIS CHARACTER APPROPRIATE FOR THIS SETTING: He is a 241-years-old alchemist/scientist/terrorist, feared enough to be sent to Alcatraz later in canon, responsible for experimentation on humans and a massacre caused in his name. He spends the entire anime in prison. Baccano! is a very brutal series with (occasionally exaggerated) gore and dealing with the organised crime in the American 1930s. Also, it's obvious in canon that he has a few screws loose, and not in the funny sense; Senator Beriam goes as far as to only address him directly as "monster".
WHAT WILL THEIR DIAGNOSIS BE: Psychopathy with severe dehumanisation, Cotard's Syndrome (delusion of being immortal, specifically)
PREDICTED PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS: A real psychological effect is hard to tell, since this is already his core personality and he is, essentially, calm and calculating in his insanity, if irresponsible at times. The effect the setting is going to have on him is hard to tell; however, seeing the possibilities it gives him, and the ruthlessness he has as a psychopath, in the beginning at least it will animate him rather than discourage him. The circumstance that for once, he will be the test subject will of course cause grudges and subliminal anger, though, since he will feel that he does not belong on this side of the scalpel. Even with his own research, he may develop paranoid tendencies of the doctors reaching his aim before him, getting ahead of him, or even steal his own research. He will develop sadism under the surface, however; or rather his already present, subtle sadism will increase - seeing the opportunities the experimentation and lack of interference give the staff here. Being the manipulator that he is, he will quickly go back to patterns of using people to get ahead, fully within his "every man is out for himself" mentality. That is why his distrust will grow, especially against a potential roommate and the people he will have closer contact with. He's in hell, and he should be put in charge, because this environment has many possibilities that only he can use - those will be his feelings, and they will fuel him, causing him to suspect others of being as manipulative as him, but inferior. Therefore, it will lead to both caution, and a hyped feeling of superiority and ambition. Overall, he will be ruled by cold, paranoid scientific excitement.
PREDICTED BEHAVIOR/PLANS: He will be calm about the environment, judging that this is far better than prison for him - here, he has all the means and test subjects to perform his own research, without the outside interference he had to fear at home. For the most part, even talking to fellow patients and keeping his true intentions secret for the most part, he will be watching them, making notes on them, possibly even a research journal that he will try to keep hidden even from his roommate. He won't interfere in plots or big events, but observe them, to both get a better impression of his fellow patients and the staff, and out of simple curiosity. The more horrible things happen, the more extreme the reactions and impact on the people, the more interested will he be. When called for treatment, he won't resist; on the contrary, he will cooperate, even try to come to an agreement with the doctors (less likely the rest of the staff) to let them experiment on him without resistance and share some of his own research, in return for receiving the results of theirs as well. This, he will figure, will be the fastest and most effective way to come to his own aim regarding the recreation of the immortality elixir, even though he won't trust the doctors and be prepared to engaged in mutual manipulation with them. In this, he may be dangerously reckless sometimes, as with the manipulation of his fellow patients that he will try, too, scientific curiosity winning over reason sometimes. He will keep his deals with the doctors secret for the most part, and will keep contacts with the other patients, but in the end, there is only one person that he supports and would not sell out: himself.
DANGER LEVEL: 1.
PATIENT/NURSE/DOCTOR/SECURITY/ASSISTANT/OTHER: Patient.
SAMPLES
THIRD PERSON:
Cold sweat running down his back.
That was the first thing that Huey noticed when he woke up from a sleep that wasn't sleep so much as dizzy, dark haze. He tried to breathe in deep and lift his hand, expecting pain, but there was none; just cold and the heavy weight of stress pressing down on his lungs. Everything was fine, and he knew it. There was no pain and no real weakness, but he felt nauseated without a physical source; stripped, raw, cold, and wound up to the highest pitch under subconscious, instinctive warnings he couldn't identify. Physically, everything felt more intense than normally, and he wished it wouldn't, because his rational mind was in chaos. The more urgently he tried to grasp the fleeting pictures in his memory, put them in order, and make a sense out of them, the quicker they slid through his fingers. He inhaled a shivering breath and sat up instantly.
The room was silent, dark, and empty.
In the darkness, Huey's chest heaved and sank slowly, while he let his eyes, golden and dead and with a nervous flutter, wander through the room.
He was alone. The realisation brought back rational thought, and let him close his lips with a shallow exhale at last. His hand wiped over his forehead, almost making it look like a gesture of relief, and for the moment, he was relieved enough not to feel disgust at the wetness of sweat on his skin. It felt even colder now that he had risen, but he did not notice that. There was something else. Dropping his feet off the bed, he took another look around, at the door, at the walls, scrutinising and impeccable again, as people would remember him. There wasn't anybody here. He shifted, making as little noise as possible (he hadn't forgotten about those intercoms, now that his sense and reason were back) when he pulled out a bunch of papers and a pencil from under the mattress.
He'd actually passed out. The notion was so ironic, so tasteless, that it made him smile dryly, but it was a smile that never reached his eyes. Pain and fighting weren't Huey's world. Immortal or not, he preferred to leave that part to others. His tasks and talents lied elsewhere, and so, being confronted with the limits of an immortal body so directly wasn't something he enjoyed. On the other hand, there was so much he had gained simply from this one meeting that he couldn't help but feel oblivious about that one unpleasant circumstance. Other things took priority now.
He shot a glance out of the window, and then began writing, in the hasty, brief style of a researcher. He had started, almost instantly after he had arrived, to use the sun - or, at night, the stars - to determine the hours more or less accurately. No matter what people of the newer times said, astronomy was certainly a useful skill in situations like this one. He wrote fast, putting his memories down on paper while they were fresh. There had been a lot that the doctor had told him, had mentioned casually during the treatment, and there had been a few things Huey had told him in return - things that one better remembered to have mentioned. His records were not safe even on paper, of course, but writing them down, studying them again would train his memory, and even if they should be found, he supposed that there weren't too many here - staff or patients - who could decipher Paracelsus' Alphabet of the Magi. For now, his work was relatively safe, and Huey was more than content with this relativity. He had always been a man for the bigger picture, not for details. Details were the obsession of bureaucrats, scientists and researchers like him - and especially researchers doubling as terrorist leaders, like him - had to do a work far more on the edge than that.
For a second, Huey's frantic scribbling stopped. A dull numbness spread from his fingertips and darkened the frames of his field of vision, along with a light-headed, nauseous feeling that spread inside his throat. Looked like he had gotten up too quickly, he realised, and mentally snorted a cold laugh. He was excited - excited enough to feel light-headed even without this reminder of human fragility, and excited enough to be amused by it. His old friend Elmer would have been overjoyed by a laugh, even more so from him, in a situation this dark. What would Elmer think of him now? While waiting for his momentum and consciousness to fully return, Huey tipped his head back and considered the question for a moment, dissecting it with analytical precision. Not only in prison, but in an asylum, declared legally insane - there was no doubt that many had done that before, that even more believed it, and that Huey himself could only laugh. Elmer was, most likely, the one person who appreciated his genuine laugh, and that was only because Elmer was what he was. Huey was a terrible man; he only laughed about terrible things. And Elmer? His pure smile made him quite demonic himself, and it very much more likely one of pure evil than pure good. This place would suit them both.
Even Elmer wouldn't have been able to lighten up this dreary place, but for Huey, it was a chance beyond his wildest hopes, if a risky one. Here he was, a criminal and terrorist feared throughout the United States, an alchemist, a scientist, leader of people who had come to consider themselves living ghosts, and creator of artificial life in his homunculi. And suddenly, he himself was a test subject - even worse, had freely offered his cooperation to those strangers with their scalpels. There were sacrifices a researcher had to give for his work. There were sacrifices he had taken from others, and his were small by comparison, small compared to the gain especially, and here, his eyes were on a gain that captivated and mesmerised him with its existence, like a snake. It was only times like these that something actually lit up in Huey's eyes and gave him this unfathomable smile that was genuine. Silently, he finished his notes and carefully hid them under the mattress again. He leant back, feeling the cold of the wall through the back of his drenched shirt, and smiled at the ground.
"And Chane, what about you?" he pondered quietly. "Would you choose, if you could?"
For a moment, he was silent. His smile stayed consistent, even when his eyes narrowed and darkened in chilling curiosity.
"Would you follow me even here?"
FIRST PERSON:
[There is a deep breath audible some time after a while of silence; almost like a sigh, almost with a tinge of resignation. Then a calm, bored voice.]
This is more luxurious than what I expected. New York has seen a lot of change since the last time I was here.
How interesting...
You didn't even lock the door. So, I'm permitted to leave my cell now? Alone even?
[The shuffling of bed sheets, then the sound of slow steps directly approaching the intercom. Silence for a second or two, and a tapping sound against the speaker. There is an audible, cold smirk in his voice.]
Senator Beriam? This looks almost as if you're expecting something from me.
NOTES: Activity Check. And Reserved.