"Doc" Theodore Lovett Sweeney

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Seeming Wizened Chirurgeon
Court Autumn Court ••••
Freehold The Freehold of Toronto, Ontario
Player Derek Burrow
"Doc" Sweeney
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"Doc" Sweeney
October's Kiss
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October's Kiss

Contents

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Overview

Alias(es): Doc Sweeney, Soldier-Who-Heals, Dr. Theodore Lovett Sweeney
Real Name: Technician Fifth Class (Corporal) Ted "Doc" Sweeney
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Age: 35 (chronologically 84)
Seeming: Wizened
Kith: Chirurgeon
Court: Autumn
Entitlement: Bishopric of Blackbirds
Virtue: Charity
Vice: Wrath
Concept: Nightmare Medic the Lost
Former Life: Medic (Technician Fifth Class), A Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division
Physical description:
Character Livejournal: Doc Sweeney: Unlicensed Practitioner

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History

Basic Timeline:
-1924: Ted Sweeney is born on a farm in rural Kansas, where he lives with his parents and siblings for the next 9 years. The family is hit hard by the Great Depression in 1929, and Ted's father and older brothers work hard to eke out what they can during the period.
-1933: In November, the Dust Bowl begins, and within a few months the Sweeneys are forced to relocate to live with Ted's mother's relatives in Kokomo, Indiana, making a hard trek out East. Ted's father manages to get a job through his father-in-law at a neighborhood general store, and the family tries to rebuild itself in the midst of the Depression.
-1938: At the age of 15 Ted gets his first job running deliveries from the general store.
-1940: Ted leaves high school at the age of 17 to get a full time job at a local barber's shop, but is unable to escape a growing discontent with his life at home.
-1942: Ted is fired from his job at the barber's shop, mainly due to an angry argument with his boss over a variety of smaller issues. Ted finds it hard to get another job at the time, and eventually in the later days of the year, after much thought, and a few too many drinks, he heads down to the Army recruiter's office and ends up enlisting in the paratroopers. Through several twists of fate, however, Sweeney's course of basic ends up with him being shifted towards work as a medic.
-1943: Sweeney finishes his training and is sent off to England with the rest of his regiment.
-1944:

  • June: Sweeney and the rest of his regiment drop on Normandy on D-Day. Sweeney manages to survive, despite the problems faced by the scattering of elements of the paratrooper divisions across Normandy due to planes coming under attack. He hooks up with several other paratroopers and they manage to rendezvous with the rest of their regiment. And Sweeney's war begins.
  • December: During the Siege of Bastogne, while out in a foxhole with the rest of his unit, Sweeney is grabbed by a strange, barely coherent man wearing the tattered remains of a German officer's uniform. A WWI-era German officer's uniform. Thanks to a better-than-basic command of German, Sweeney is able to understand the words "I do not know you. I am sorry. It is better you than me." Without further ado, the German grabs Sweeney and pulls him through what at first seem to be dense pine trees, but then begin ripping thorny hedges.

-Arcadia:

  • Abduction: Sweeney emerges into Arcadia, specifically into the frigid throne room of a massive, corpulent monster, sitting upon a rough stone throne, snoring louldy, the remains of a severed human arm clutched in one massive hand. The German explains to Sweeney in a mix of German and broken English that this is "the Butcher" (the only word Sweeney could pick out from the rather longer title given by the German), and that in return for allowing him (the officer) to leave, he had to find a replacement. It is now Sweeney's job to tend to the Butcher's horrible teeth, which rot out many times a day and must be removed so that new ones can grow in, and further to tend to the small army of slaves whose limbs serve as the Butcher's primary means of sustenance. Sweeney is chained to the Throne, and the German runs out the door before the Butcher wakes from his current slumber.
  • Servitude: Sweeney spends an incomprehensible time in Arcadia (even while he was there he wasn't sure, there were no windows in the throne room and the temperature never really changed), removing the Butcher's teeth at an almost constant rate while trying to tend to keep the other slaves from dying from the loss of their limbs (severed by another captive in the kitchens named Tim [played by Simon McNeil], and cooked over another captive who had been transformed to living fire [played by Helene Neal]).
  • Escape: Sweeney eventually, after untold years, manages to concoct a plan to engineer his own escape. He isn't sure how the German managed to get out himself (its possible, from what he's surmised, that the Butcher never even realized that his choice physician had changed), but he has his own plan. It just takes a lot of resolve. Sweeney resolves that he will saw off the arm chained to the throne (the chain itself being magic and allowing him to go to his patients, but nowhere else, and no further), and throw it to the Butcher, distracting the massive Keeper long enough for him to make a run for the doors that the German exited out of. This succeeds, and results in a small palace revolt once the doors out into the Hedge are opened. Sweeney flees initially with several others, but when he arrives in the real world, the only thing left of them is a pile of bloody bodies...and a new arm attached to his shoulder. A new arm with a slightly different skin color, different hair...and different finger prints.

-1997: Sweeney emerges into rural Alberta and is found wandering the Transcanada Highway by a small Winter motley calling themselves "The Dusk Report". Under the command of an imposing ogre named Miriam Dusk, the Dusk Report acts as a traveling Radio Free Fae station, driving up and down the Transcanada, reporting on the safety of the Canadian roads for the Lost. Sweeney is able to join the group, but is put in service as a general odd-job man. His passage through the Hedge results in a strange affinity for medicine and manual dexterity, and he ends up treating small wounds and scrapes in addition to doing minor repair work. In return for the work, the Dusk Report gives him a place to stay (the motley drives two vehicles: a reworked news van, and a large RV), and eventually works out some official credentials for him, with the promise that if he stays on longer they may eventually be able to lay a paper trail for him. Despite his association with this primarily Winter group, Sweeney finds himself more drawn towards the Autumn Court in the person of Ambrose, an odd Darkling with keen ears and a way with the dead. Ambrose's strange creep tugs at the part of Sweeney still connected with his horrific Keeper, and he finds that it is easier to embrace his fear of the world rather than running from it. Ambrose also teaches him formal medical skills, which Sweeney takes up with an astounding degree of talent.
-2003: Sweeney works off his debt to Miriam Dusk and is let off in Toronto. Now calling himself "Doc" Theodore Lovett Sweeney (in homage to the Demon Barber of Fleet Street and his pie-making accomplice), he begins work for the local Lost as a mix of country doctor and back alley surgeon, helping them with injuries and health problems that they can't bring to a normal hospital. Through Dusk's paper trail he sets up shop as a dentist, running his formal medical offices to the Lost out of the back of his practice. During this time he also starts seeking outwards for other Lost who were taken in the midst of their own wars. He remembers Bastogne like it was only a few years ago, and the result is that is still plagued by memories of fallen friends and a feeling that he failed them by missing the war.
Current Activities: "Doc" Sweeney still works in the role as town medic to the Changelings of Toronto. Many don't have health insurance, and almost none of them are registered with the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP), which means that few can go to a doctor or a hospital with their medical concerns.
Merit Details:

  • New Identity: Obviously you can't go around claiming to be an American Army medic who died in 1944. Also, its hard to be a dentist when you never when to dental school. A good bit of money, a favor here and there, and a judicious use of fingerprints not his own, have lent "Doc" a new identity (albeit one so mind numbingly dull and close to his old that it suggests that the man had other things on his mind at the time).
  • Court Goodwill: Summer 1
  • Court Goodwill: Winter 1
  • Mantle: Autumn 4
  • Lethal Mien: Sweeney's mien takes the form of a cauterizing touch. Any part of his body can be made to glow a dull red that pulses in tune to his heart beat, instantly cauterizing flesh on contact. As a side effect of this, Sweeney's body does not support foreign bacteria, and his touch is, in and of itself, antiseptic.

Background:

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Associations & Associates

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Associates

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Antagonists

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Character Inspirations

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Characters

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Literature

  • Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter (Laurell K. Hamilton)- Dr. Lillian
  • Discworld (Terry Pratchett)- The Igors
  • DMZ (Brian Wood)- Zee
  • Fables (Bill Willingham)- Dr. Swineheart
  • The Three Army Surgeons (The Brothers Grimm)
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Television, Movies, and Theatre

  • House- Dr. Gregory House (as played by Hugh Laurie)
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005 film)- Dr. Wilbur Wonka (as played by Christopher Lee)
  • Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street- Sweeney Todd (various actors)
  • The Dentist- Dr. Alan Feinstone (as portrayed by Corbin Bernsen) (more Sweeney's persona rather than his actual personality)
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Media

  • Band of Brothers (both the TV show and the Stephen Ambrose biography)
  • House, M.D.
  • DMZ (by Brian Wood)
  • Fables (by Bill Willingham)
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Soundtrack

  • "Like a Surgeon" (Weird Al)
  • "Cavity Search" (Weird Al)
  • "Danse Macabre" (Camille Saint-Saëns)
  • "Blood Upon the Risers" (US paratroopers song)
  • "Billy Don't Be a Hero" (Paper Lace)
  • "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (The Andrews Sisters)
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Quotes

  • "So much potential. Theodore saw what evil existed in flesh and blood prior to being taken. He discoved his own breaking point, his own threshold, on Normandy. He survived being taken simply because the Others could never exceed that threshold. The danger is whether or not Theodore will ever choose to knowingly exceed it himself." - Alexander Delapore
  • "One hard-nosed muthafucker. Make no mistake, s'all biz." -Jersey Boy of the BBP
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Rumors

  • Doc Sweeney, despite his incredible medical prowess did not, in fact, ever attend medical school.
  • Doc Sweeney traded one of his eye teeth at a Goblin Market just to set up a situation to get his way with a particularly beautiful Fairest of the Spring Court.
  • Doc Sweeney once performed open heart surgery on an ailing Changeling using only a kitchen knife, a box of tooth picks, a pair of tweezers, and an air pump.
  • Doc Sweeney sawed off his own arm to escape his Keeper. How he acquired his CURRENT arm is unknown, though saavy Changelings have noted that Sweeney has two different sets of fingerprints.
  • Doc Sweeney has an irrational hatred of all current and former Nazis, and has a tendency to try to shoot first and ask questions later.
  • Doc Sweeney goes ballistic if you question how he treats his patients. He has a real sore spot for civilians (read: non-medical personnel) trying to tell him how to do his job.
  • Doc Sweeney may be a skilled pistol marksman, especially with his vintage Luger, but his preferred method of combat is with a particularly vicious looking cuthroat razor that he calls "October's Kiss". Some even go so far as to speculate that the razor might be some form of Token...or possibly forged of Cold Iron.
  • Doc Sweeney's razor is not named "October's Kiss", but in a terrible pun is, in fact, actually named "Occam".
  • All humor aside, Doc Sweeney is actually an alcoholic, and has been attending AA for almost 8 years.
Retrieved from "http://changeling.cam-wiki.org/%22Doc%22_Theodore_Lovett_Sweeney"
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