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Description
The next humanized ship is another Titanic-related one: the CS Mackay-Bennett, one of the ships responsible for collecting the bodies of Titanic victims and either bringing them ashore or burying them at sea. In total she picked up 306 victims, far more than any of the other ships chartered for the task.

The piece’s title comes from the name of Mackay-Bennett’s onboard magazine, The Cableship.

Design Notes:
-Mackay-Bennett’s career, while long and successful, was mostly overshadowed by her retrieval of Titanic victims from the sea. That is primarily what she’s famous for; because of this, I decided to give her a dark, eerie aesthetic reminiscent of the Grim Reaper. This seemed fitting given her strong association with death. Also, a long, heavy cloak would likely be quite useful as protection against the rough, chilly weather of the North Atlantic.
-Originally, the colors I had in mind for her were quite different. Her cloak and dress would be black, with the lining and front panel respectively in indigo, rather like the depths of the ocean. If you’ve seen Ruby Gloom, think of the color of Misery’s dress - that was what color those elements were originally going to be. Her hair was also going to be white instead of black. I ended up changing the colors of her clothes around to make them match her real-life appearance more closely; I was really torn between white and black for the cloak, and ended up settling on white as I thought it looked more striking and stood out from the black of her dress more easily. The front panel on the bodice of her dress was likewise changed to a deep red, with a silver design over the top meant to resemble the texture of a steel cable. I also changed her hair to black to contrast with the white cloak. Overall, her colors were the most difficult aspect of her design; if I wasn’t careful, she’d end up looking more like a stereotypical edgy oc from like 2013, and that would certainly not be ideal.
-The little skull decorations on her cloak and dress are there both to really drive home the Grim Reaper motif and to symbolize, in what is perhaps an odd way, her role in the retrieval and embalming of those 306 people. Those made the red/black/white color scheme a bit tougher to work with, as they make it a lot easier to slip into that overly-edgy aesthetic.
-Her dress (and hair, to a lesser extent) is supposed to be Victorian in style, as she was built in the 1880s. I took a few artistic liberties so as not to compromise the relative simplicity of her look, but overall it’s supposed to be at least Victorian-esque.
-Originally she wasn’t supposed to be wearing black lipstick. The ink when I drew her mouth just kind of looked that way, so I just went with it.
-Her eyes underwent multiple color changes (Dovewing, is that you?) before I finally settled on a very dark blue/indigo color. Originally I considered a pale yellow or buff color, as apparently her funnels and vents were some variety of buff, but I thought that looked to similar to an original character of mine, who’s also a short, pale-skinned goth girl with black hair and wide yellow eyes, so I changed the color to red. That looked too edgy, though, so I finally went a deep oceanic blue.
-The reel of cable in her hands is a nod to her true function. If you look at pictures of Mackay-Bennett or other cable ships such as Minia or Great Eastern, you’ll see a big cable reel attached to the bow (and likely the stern as well), so I added that to her design since it’s so important to her role. The cable’s texture is drawn with my trusty silver pen, giving it the same metallic shine as the design on the front of her dress.
-The shape of her nose is inspired by the dramatic swoop of her bow!

Personality:
Dutiful and hardworking, Mackay-Bennett is renowned for her willingness to take on any task, no matter how difficult. She’s generally very obedient and dislikes complaining, especially since she strongly believes in trying something before dismissing or deriding it - even if that something is searching for corpses in the ocean. Regardless of the job, Mackay-Bennett takes great care to do it well; her work is always meticulous, and she never lets a job go unfinished. Sloppiness, after all, is not something one can afford when working on such delicate things as cables or corpses, and she knows that very well.
Her interactions with others are somewhat less well-thought-out; social interaction is usually not her prime concern, and she’s generally content to focus more on pursuing her interests or working on whatever needs to be done. She’s always friendly, however, if a bit unapproachable, and she has a surprisingly good sense of humor. Still, others sometimes find her weird or even creepy, and she’s both self-aware enough to understand and independent enough to not really mind anyway.
Much of what makes other ships consider her weird is not her introverted personality, but her odd interests. She’s one of the only cable ships in the group, so few others share her interest in and knowledge of telegraph cables; it doesn’t help that many of the younger ships take long-distance communication for granted and don’t understand what Mackay-Bennett’s job really is. Generally, though, nobody’s weirded out by that, per se - rather, the thing that creeps them out is her more recent interest in death and mortuary science. This is an interest that was awakened in her following her stint as a mortuary ship, and now that she’s been turned into a human she has far more opportunities to pursue it. This can be a bit alienating, as Titanic and other sunken ships tend to avoid her so as not to be reminded of the fates of those they were supposed to care for; thankfully, Mackay-Bennett understands this and isn’t at all offended by it.

Mackay-Bennett is most notable for the darkest moment in her long career, in which she retrieved the bodies of Titanic victims. She was also involved in other exploits, such as rescue missions and of course cable laying and maintainance, but unfortunately less detail is readily available regarding most of the rest of her career.

CS Mackay-Bennett
An Echo of a Past Tragedy
List of bodies recovered by Mackay-Bennett
Mackay-Bennett, Commercial Cable Company

Description
The next humanized ship is another Titanic-related one: the CS Mackay-Bennett, one of the ships responsible for collecting the bodies of Titanic victims and either bringing them ashore or burying them at sea. In total she picked up 306 victims, far more than any of the other ships chartered for the task.

The piece’s title comes from the name of Mackay-Bennett’s onboard magazine, The Cableship.

Design Notes:
-Mackay-Bennett’s career, while long and successful, was mostly overshadowed by her retrieval of Titanic victims from the sea. That is primarily what she’s famous for; because of this, I decided to give her a dark, eerie aesthetic reminiscent of the Grim Reaper. This seemed fitting given her strong association with death. Also, a long, heavy cloak would likely be quite useful as protection against the rough, chilly weather of the North Atlantic.
-Originally, the colors I had in mind for her were quite different. Her cloak and dress would be black, with the lining and front panel respectively in indigo, rather like the depths of the ocean. If you’ve seen Ruby Gloom, think of the color of Misery’s dress - that was what color those elements were originally going to be. Her hair was also going to be white instead of black. I ended up changing the colors of her clothes around to make them match her real-life appearance more closely; I was really torn between white and black for the cloak, and ended up settling on white as I thought it looked more striking and stood out from the black of her dress more easily. The front panel on the bodice of her dress was likewise changed to a deep red, with a silver design over the top meant to resemble the texture of a steel cable. I also changed her hair to black to contrast with the white cloak. Overall, her colors were the most difficult aspect of her design; if I wasn’t careful, she’d end up looking more like a stereotypical edgy oc from like 2013, and that would certainly not be ideal.
-The little skull decorations on her cloak and dress are there both to really drive home the Grim Reaper motif and to symbolize, in what is perhaps an odd way, her role in the retrieval and embalming of those 306 people. Those made the red/black/white color scheme a bit tougher to work with, as they make it a lot easier to slip into that overly-edgy aesthetic.
-Her dress (and hair, to a lesser extent) is supposed to be Victorian in style, as she was built in the 1880s. I took a few artistic liberties so as not to compromise the relative simplicity of her look, but overall it’s supposed to be at least Victorian-esque.
-Originally she wasn’t supposed to be wearing black lipstick. The ink when I drew her mouth just kind of looked that way, so I just went with it.
-Her eyes underwent multiple color changes (Dovewing, is that you?) before I finally settled on a very dark blue/indigo color. Originally I considered a pale yellow or buff color, as apparently her funnels and vents were some variety of buff, but I thought that looked to similar to an original character of mine, who’s also a short, pale-skinned goth girl with black hair and wide yellow eyes, so I changed the color to red. That looked too edgy, though, so I finally went a deep oceanic blue.
-The reel of cable in her hands is a nod to her true function. If you look at pictures of Mackay-Bennett or other cable ships such as Minia or Great Eastern, you’ll see a big cable reel attached to the bow (and likely the stern as well), so I added that to her design since it’s so important to her role. The cable’s texture is drawn with my trusty silver pen, giving it the same metallic shine as the design on the front of her dress.
-The shape of her nose is inspired by the dramatic swoop of her bow!

Personality:
Dutiful and hardworking, Mackay-Bennett is renowned for her willingness to take on any task, no matter how difficult. She’s generally very obedient and dislikes complaining, especially since she strongly believes in trying something before dismissing or deriding it - even if that something is searching for corpses in the ocean. Regardless of the job, Mackay-Bennett takes great care to do it well; her work is always meticulous, and she never lets a job go unfinished. Sloppiness, after all, is not something one can afford when working on such delicate things as cables or corpses, and she knows that very well.
Her interactions with others are somewhat less well-thought-out; social interaction is usually not her prime concern, and she’s generally content to focus more on pursuing her interests or working on whatever needs to be done. She’s always friendly, however, if a bit unapproachable, and she has a surprisingly good sense of humor. Still, others sometimes find her weird or even creepy, and she’s both self-aware enough to understand and independent enough to not really mind anyway.
Much of what makes other ships consider her weird is not her introverted personality, but her odd interests. She’s one of the only cable ships in the group, so few others share her interest in and knowledge of telegraph cables; it doesn’t help that many of the younger ships take long-distance communication for granted and don’t understand what Mackay-Bennett’s job really is. Generally, though, nobody’s weirded out by that, per se - rather, the thing that creeps them out is her more recent interest in death and mortuary science. This is an interest that was awakened in her following her stint as a mortuary ship, and now that she’s been turned into a human she has far more opportunities to pursue it. This can be a bit alienating, as Titanic and other sunken ships tend to avoid her so as not to be reminded of the fates of those they were supposed to care for; thankfully, Mackay-Bennett understands this and isn’t at all offended by it.

Mackay-Bennett is most notable for the darkest moment in her long career, in which she retrieved the bodies of Titanic victims. She was also involved in other exploits, such as rescue missions and of course cable laying and maintainance, but unfortunately less detail is readily available regarding most of the rest of her career.

CS Mackay-Bennett
An Echo of a Past Tragedy
List of bodies recovered by Mackay-Bennett
Mackay-Bennett, Commercial Cable Company