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hersweetrevenge · 1 year

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corey cunningham headcanons [volume three]

corey has my heart, i want to know every single detail about him, and if i am not given that information then i will simply make it up (he told me through prophetic dreams). based on this set of questions. and if you missed the previous instalments, no you didn't: volume one and volume two.

[credit where credit is due, some of these hcs are shared with @/slutforstabbings, and i have merely adopted into my own belief system and expanded on certain points that i latched onto, so please go read through blake's stuff too because they actually know what they're talking about !!]

WARNING for angst, brief talks of sex, and mentions of child abuse, child death, mental health, trauma and sexuality.

[image sources: X, X]

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

corey had a pretty isolated childhood, the internet wasn't really a thing for a while, joan put a lot of restrictions on his television time, and he never had play dates or the chance to hang out with people outside of school. therefore corey is the daydream king, always in his own little world. corey had a lot of spare time and he can sit and zone out for hours, unbothered, if he has the time. he's been chastised so many times by joan for not paying attention or being away with the fairies.

however, that's not to say he can't pay attention when he needs to, he has a very good attention span when he has something to focus on, like school work or reading or watching movies. but, if it's a mindless task he can do without thinking then his mind does tends to wander.

How easy is it for your character to laugh?

i've said this before but the way having a laughing fit with corey until my sides hurt would literally fix me.

corey has a funny sense of humour, kind of dark but kind of dorky. pre-accident corey laughs pretty easily. at school he had a kind of off-beat friend group who had an overall off-beat sense of humour that occupied them in the cafeteria or while they slacked off in gym class.

post-accident corey holds back from making his own jokes or being funny, like he doesn't know the social rules anymore. like he doesn't deserve to laugh or thinks people will be mad at him for thinking he can be funny.

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?)

as previously mentioned, corey has a lot of time to think. he struggles to sleep well at night and honestly his daydreaming can make things worse if he latches onto a thought and keeps following it when he should be trying to clear his mind.

if he wants some stimulation though, he goes on wikipedia. he will fall asleep having fallen down a wiki rabbit hole and wake up in the morning on the page for like the 1847 great fire of bucharest with no memory of how he ended up there.

How easy is it to earn their trust? How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

it's not that easy to earn corey's trust. corey is used to being in a pretty emotionally volatile environment, so he does a lot of premature damage control around people that he doesn't know well enough to read their moods and behaviour. however, once he feels more comfortable, he's a lot more open (though still has a sense of wariness in the back of his mind). basically, it's not impossible to earn his trust.

post-accident corey is a different story though, he has an automatic distrust of everyone. he can't assume anyone intentions are solely good for a long, long time. honestly, he doesn't trust most people, he canonically only goes to one gas station because he trusts they won't speak to him. and he distrusts his co-workers at prevo for different reasons, i.e. he's been low-level pranked more times than he cares to remember.

What triggers nostalgia for them most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

corey gets good nostalgia and bad nostalgia.

bad nostalgia is usually something to do with joan, or remembering how he felt as a child when he was on edge so often. spaghetti truly was joan's worst meal so the smell, taste, texture and look of spaghetti is something he can't really stand anymore. if he never eats spaghetti again, it'll be too soon. rabbit paraphernalia give a lot of bad nostalgia.

corey's sense of good nostalgia is pretty specific. good nostalgia comes from watching old movies. he loves westerns and anything cowboy adjacent. a lot of the shows he watched as a kid were older cartoons so he gets a lot of nostalgia from those too. the smell of night time, where everything feels kind of dewy is good nostalgia for him, as well as the smell of the woodwork room at school.

What were they told to stop doing most often as a child?

i've mentioned before that as a baby, corey was actually very content and not fussy at all, which joan was unreasonably pleased about -- he was her perfect, happy, chubby-cheeked baby. however, once he hit the terrible twos and developed some autonomy, that's when joan's control issues started to really kick in with her parenting.

joan told corey off for doing all sorts of things as a child -- fidgeting too much, being too boisterous, getting grass stains on his clothes, not finishing his dinner, meddling with the rabbits (or anything else around the house), watching cartoon network, not holding her hand around the store, playing with a kid she doesn't approve of, asking too many questions -- the list is honestly endless, and not all of these misdemeanours have any logic behind them other than joan's moods and keeping corey on his toes.

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

he swears sometimes but not that much. his first swear word was probably 'shit' (he overheard joan mutter it once), like out in the yard at recess him and his little friends all went around in a circle and said the worst swears they knew. once he hit middle school and high school, swearing becomes more common and he sprinkles it through his vocab. then when he starts at prevo it's a much more rough-and-ready attitude to language and he gets (light-heartedly) teased for how much more reserved he comes across compared to the other mechanics.

joan would kill him if she ever heard him swear, so he'd never dream of swearing in front of her. he has a distinct line he draws between his language at home and outside.

What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

corey lies a lot, but none of his lies weigh too heavily on his conscience.

corey would sneak out at night to parties and joan never found out about it. he can navigate his house is total darkness as to not wake his mom, and to his credit joan never found out. he used to lie about his day when he was in college all the time, and he lies saying that he comes straight home after work now.

i guess you could say he emotionally lies a lot? it's easier to placate joan with being agreeable than to admit anything (to himself or joan).

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?

joan used to (and still does) tell him off for fidgeting so he will restrain himself until he can leave the room and will then become a grizzly bear and itch his back on the nearest doorframe.

Are they easily embarrassed?

yes. end post.

but seriously, he is pretty easily embarrassed. corey has never had a very good self esteem, he honestly is under the impression he's kind of unlikable and that all his actions are under some kind of social scrutiny.

pre-accident his self confidence was healing a little bit with his growing independence, so he could more easily brush things off but awkward moments still stick in his brain for him to agonise over later.

although he's learnt to deal with it in most situations, if he's feeling more vulnerable or he's with someone he really likes/admires then he does not cope well when he feels like he's being made fun of -- he gets all defensive and sulky.

What is their favourite number?

i don't think corey has a favourite number, but if he had to pick one, i think it'd either be something like a mathematically "special" number, or something sentimental like his dad's birthday.

If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?

oh man, this is not corey's forte at all. corey does not have a very good grasp on (his own) boundaries or the lines between different types of relationships.

i've said this a million times before (and no one has stopped me yet heehee), but because he's so used to the lines being pretty blurry with joan and having such an insular upbringing, he doesn't really know how to draw lines between how he loves someone. he's a real all or nothing type of person -- he's only ever learnt how to put all his feelings onto one person. joan wants that person to corey, because corey is that person to her.

subsequently, corey has only really experienced familial love in this abusive way, so projects the opposite (and what he reasons to be "normal") onto his imagined relationship with his father, idolising him to an unrealistic extent.

platonic is a sort of grey area for him, he tends to feel emotions either very intensely or not at all. he can go from really "loving" someone (either a friend he already has or someone he wishes he could befriend) to being mostly indifferent. the strength of his emotions tend to mean he can't really pinpoint exactly what he desires from the friendship/relationship. that's not to say he doesn't understand what "being friends" is, he does, but it doesn't always feel as poignant for him. it's something he was starting to figure out in high school and college, but then regressed with after the accident.

[this isn't the case for everyone] for corey romantic attraction and sexual attraction are usually linked, so romance does becomes slightly easier to differentiate. however, coming back to his boundary issues, even if he undeniably feels romantic love for someone, he's hesitant to communicate it unless he's figured out "the rules". everyone has rules (boundaries) to learn, and once he understands them, corey knows how to play the game -- he can do what he has to to be loved/wanted/tolerated enough to satiate his own feelings.

Why do they get up in the morning?

currently, it's because ronald will kick his ass if he doesn't show up to work. well, ronald is usually pretty lenient on him, (maybe too lenient, and the other mechanics know corey doesn't get as much shit because he's ronald's step-kid). corey does actually like going to work though, his dream didn't pan out the way he expected but he does love being a mechanic -- it's just dampened by the rest of his circumstances.

corey has never been very good at getting up in the morning though, and back when he was at school he was no stranger to nearly missing the bus every morning.

during the manslaughter trial, he had so much to do, between trips to his lawyers office and then the courthouse once the trial actually starts, he is stressed enough that he gets up and ready for the day pretty early and then just sits and worries until someone tells him what to do.

after the trial though, he honestly just doesn't get up in the morning. he has no job, no social life, and honestly no reason to do anything at all. he spends most of his time in bed, unless joan nags him into showering, eating or running errands with her, or if he has an appointment with his shrink.

Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom?

as previously mentioned, corey is pretty self conscious so he won't admit to a crush under any circumstances, and he doesn't have a lot of his own experiences to talk about, so he's kind of refrained when talking about sex. he is a known prude, to be honest.

but, he is also a teenage boy with a weird friend group, so sex is a frequent topic. he can't talk about sex in regards to himself at that point, but he'll laugh at jokes and is kind of enthralled by hearing anecdotes (not that his friends have many).

in a relationship, i think it takes corey a while to open up and be comfortable talking about sex outside of doing the act itself. dirty talk makes him blush, and he's never really had a lot of experience or opportunity to seriously think about what he likes and then be able to convey that out loud.

What are their thoughts on marriage?

i don't think corey cares about the legal aspects, but he does like the idea of marriage. devoting yourself to one person and one person only, whom you love dearly, forever and ever until you both die? literally exactly what corey wants, the legal part doesn't really matter.

the only wedding he's been to was when joan and ronald got married at the courthouse. he was 15 and honestly had surprisingly few feelings about the whole thing -- he caught on pretty early on that his mom and ronald were hardly "in love" but this is what adults do, so here he is in his best clothes and thinking about the wedding cake he'll get to eat later. this is partly why he doesn't care too much about the legal side; anyone can get married, but the real true proven commitment if what love really is.

corey would be more than happy with a courthouse wedding himself, he just wants to be with his s/o forever, so a simple, no guests, sign on the line type wedding is good enough to get the job done.

What is their preferred mode of transportation?

motorbike, of course. he knew his dad had ridden a motorbike since he found some old photos, but corey never actually rides one himself until ronald gives him the kawasaki. he knew theoretically how to ride, because he knows the mechanics of a basic motorbike, but he truly learns as he goes when he fixes up his own bike. the motorbike gives him a huge sense of freedom, and fulfils all of his easy rider (1969) and the wild one (1953) fantasies.

corey learnt how to drive at 16 through drivers ed, but joan rarely lets him drive her car, and he obviously can't afford his own. sometimes she lets him drive them home from the store, but she is a serious backseat driver so it's sort of just a nightmare for everyone involved.

corey hasn't travelled very far before, so he's never been on a train, but i think he'd enjoy it. long journeys where he can zone out and just look at the landscape? a very good combination for corey.

and how can we forget his trusty bicycle. corey learnt to ride a bike as a child, joan wasn't a very good teacher, but he got the hang of it pretty quickly anyway. corey has had his current bike for almost 10 years now. the chain constantly comes loose, and he's had to tape up the seat and the handle grips more times than he can count. it mostly does the job, and it did give him a lot more freedom as a teenager than he'd had before that.

Who do they most regret meeting?

is it cliche to say the allens? maybe so, but it's definitely the allens.

if he never met the allens then jeremy wouldn't have died and corey would have gone off to college and got his degree and a graduate job at mercedes or boeing or somewhere and --

mostly corey tries not to think about the "what ifs" but they do creep into his mind.

[and, if you're that way inclined, if corey had never met roger he could have saved himself so, so much heartache, and maybe not have ruined his perceptions of relationships for the foreseeable]

Could they be considered lazy?

on a superficial level, maybe. he sleeps in late and doesn't do any housework, so maybe out of context he could seem lazy, but he actually has a really good work ethic and likes to be doing something. joan doesn't enlist him to do chores because chores are skills and she wants him to be dependent on her.

he definitely is not lazy at work though. when he first started a prevo, he mostly just did grunt work and the easy tasks that the other mechanics were too busy for but still needed to get done. he pulled his weight, no one can deny that. a few years in, he still doesn't handle many full jobs himself, but he is trusted to do more specialised things.

How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt?

joan ingrained it in him to feel guilty about a lot of things that aren't his fault. baseline guilt like that he can cope with, he just grovels and submits himself enough to earn forgiveness and then the whole thing starts over the next time joan finds a bone to pick.

after the accident though, his guilt is pretty constant. everything serves as a reminder of what happened, and even if he got acquitted, he does feel like it was at least partly his fault jeremy died.

Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?

corey has a great memory but he doesn't really have any particular system, things just stick with him. he's great with remembering conversations, and when he was studying he could retain information in maths/science pretty easily, but his "less strong" subjects required more work on his part.

he does remember all the states and their capitals because of the animaniacs song.

What memory do they revisit the most often?

it's not his most frequent, but there's this memory that corey has about his dad that usually comes to him when he's on the cusp of sleeping and awake. subconsciously, i think he's aware that it's probably a false memory. wally "died" before corey could really form any proper memories of him, but he loves this one anyway. corey remembers himself, as a baby, laughing while his dad is holding him, maybe he's playing with him, or bouncing him on his knee, but the details are pretty fuzzy -- it's barely a fragment of a memory but it makes corey happy.

a memory that has involuntarily has made it's home in corey's brain is from the accident. the blood was bad, but mostly it's the sound that corey can't forget. that sick thud sound.

How do they feel about children?

pre-accident corey didn't care much about children. he doesn't dislike them, but he doesn't really interact with them (he doesn't have any family, and at the houses he does yard work, the parents tend to keep their kids out of his way so he can work without dodging any kids). he's kind to them though, if a little awkward.

post-accident, corey avoids kids as much as possible. he's no more mean to them, but seeing kids just brings back too many memories of the accident and also it just is not good to be seen near kids when you're regularly called a kid killer in public.

corey never wanted his own kids. maybe in some half-baked daydream he thought about a life of college, then a salary job and marriage and 2.5 kids, but i don't think he ever took it seriously.

part of him kind of wants the chance to be a better parent than his ever were, but he also worries that he'd just fuck his kids up like his parents did him. maybe he'd be unable to break the cycle (no matter how badly he wanted to) and be destined to become a helicopter parent -- trying his best to protect his child but ultimately smothering them.

to be honest though, i think his idea of love is so skewed towards obsession, that a kid would just get in the way. he wants to be the only person his s/o loves, and they will be the only person he loves in return, a baby is going to take that love away from him.

How badly do they want to reach their end goal?

at one point, all corey wanted was to go to college and get out of his house, out of haddonfield. he wanted that more than anything else, and if he just worked hard enough, for just a little bit longer, he'd make it. if he were in a better position (more supportive family, better socio-economic status) his goal would be much easier to attain, but if he did have those benefits, would he feel so strongly about that goal?

i feel like even though college is his way out, corey requires and enjoys mental/intellectual stimulation enough that he would want to go to college anyway, even if things were better for him at home.

post-accident, he doesn't have a goal at all beyond surviving, and even then we see his commitment to that goal is pretty tenuous.

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so?

ahh well if you read my hcs about corey's sexuality, you would already know. but that will not stop me repeating those hcs here.

corey doesn't really consciously label his sexuality, but if he was asked point blank i think he could probably connect himself with bisexuality, but he's way more of a euphemism person -- "swing both ways".

#corey cunningham #corey cunningham x reader #not directly but i mention an s/o who could easily be you #also just tagging it because look at my hcs boy #take a shot every time i say 'i've said this before but...'#joan cunningham hate club #this is 3.5k words of me saying joan ruined a perfectly good boy

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