ABOUT BLYTHE || Cruelty wins in the movies.
CHARACTER BASICS
FULL NAME: Blythe Alexander Sweetwine
AGE: Twenty-Two
GENDER & PRONOUNS: Cis Man, He/Him
FACE CLAIM: Timothée Chalamet
EYE COLOR: Green
HAIR COLOR: Black
HEIGHT: 6′0″
DATE OF BIRTH: November 23rd, 1997
ZODIAC SIGN: Sagittarius
SEXUALITY: Bisexual
LEVEL OF EDUCATION: Bachelors in Biology, Masters in Forensic Science, Other Certifications
OCCUPATION: Forensic Pathologist Assistant, Medical Examiner’s Assistant at LVPD
CRIME ROLE & AFFILIATION: Civilian pending affiliation to white snakes
RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION: Judaism
HOMETOWN: Las Vegas, Nevada
CHARACTER HISTORY (TW: MENTAL HEALTH NEGLECT)
While the Sweetwine’s family business was mortuary, their household was always full of life with their twelve children running around. All of the children played their own role in helping the business, even if they took different paths as they grew up. When Blythe was born, however, the home wasn’t the same. His parents were burnt out and another child had come to them by a mistake. They were much older than they had been when they had their other children, but swore they could manage.
As an infant, he had been a godsend. He was never fussy and they rarely struggled. It wasn’t until he got older that they had complications. Blythe was neat and intricate with his help around the house, helping his father in the mortuary with a careful eye. But when he transitioned to middle school, things changes drastically. He presented behavioral problems, was up late at night creating a ruckus about the house, and the once organized boy found solace in a chaotic system only he could understand. He presented behavioral problems at school and the counselor suggested he get an evaluation. These results revealed that he had OCD, but it was rather mild. As soon as he received counseling, it was promised that they could ease his struggle with the transition and help his manage his disorder.
His parents refused to believe it and it took the involvement of his other siblings, who were nearly strangers to him, to help get the intervention he needed. They challenged their parents and the caved, but it wasn’t very helpful in the end. They found loopholes. He was taken to a family friend who prescribed him medication for the anxiety component of his disorder, but he was never informed as to why. His parents did their best to reshape his behavior but many compulsions remained. These were even reinforced as Blythe’s mother also had OCD. It was part of the reason she insisted that so much of his behaviors just came from him mirroring her and he would grow out of it.
Blythe excelled in academics, his attention to detail and rigor concerning tasks aiding him to graduate from high school at just sixteen and be offered admission to Duke University. When Blythe attended college to become a mortician and continue the family business, he realized he didn’t want to be bound to their dysfunction forever. He ended up pursuing a career in forensic pathology where he eventually interned for a variety of programs, but more importantly, an internship at Durham’s Medical Examiner’s office. His attention to detail was noted and his work in post-mortem decay and injury had caught the eye of an someone in the office who was paid to hold bodies in the morgue for a local organization. After a poor handling of a body, Blythe had offered help to cover up an injury by brushing the damage under a detailed explanation he added to paperwork. His talents were duly noted, as was his growing debt as he had taken on the mortgage of his parent’s home and funeral parlor, and he was offered the chance to breathe a little easier. Blythe initiated into a local crime organization who promised to pay for his schooling as long as he pursued his medical degree and would work for them privately.
While he moved quickly through his field with built up credits from dual enrollment, Blythe moved just as fast through friend groups. As the youngest, it was hard to find those who related to him but by his senior year, he found the one. Blythe had proved to be a challenge to her, and she liked it. What drove them closer was the mark they both shared after his initiation, and being the outlet for the heavy of the world they lived in together in the shadows, they grew even closer. By the end of his two and a half years at Duke, they were engaged. However, their engagement didn’t last long. They attended grad school together, an institute Blythe pushed for believing it would help his education rather than stall it, but problems soon arose.
PRESENT DAY [TW CHILD NEGLECT]
The engagement ended when Blythe’s OCD became more apparent and affected their lives daily. He blamed it on routine and learned habits from his mother but as he tried to ‘fix himself’ things only got worse. Blythe rejected that he had any problems and their engagement fell apart at his denial. His fiancé had decided this was not the life she wanted for them, and even less for herself.
The youngest Sweetwine that he left behind had seemed to fall through the cracks despite everything he did to ensure he was taken care of. With his mother’s memory struggling and the old age of his parents catching up to them, Cole Sweetwine had been indirectly neglected by being left at school hours after pick up, hungry from a forgotten breakfast, and careless left in the same clothes from the day before since no one wanted fight the child on the need to bathe. His brother had been taken in by Child Protective Services a year into grad school, and everything began to unravel.
Upon graduation with his master’s in 2018, the time for medical school was on the clock and his vow was in tow. He applied to a school closer to home to keep an eye on his brother where he can despite the foster family he lives with but he’s yet to actually attend. Blythe jumped at the chance to be the Medical Examiner’s assistant in his hometown of Las Vegas, but he’s been putting off medical school for nearly four years now. If he doesn’t attend soon, he’ll sow the consequences of what he’s reaped. For now, his attention to detail has been put to use where he does more than just alter the paperwork for the dead. With the right pay off, secrets get buried along with their keepers under arrangements only his hand has been able to craft.
Blythe’s brother, as of August 2020, is in the process of a closed adoption.
HEADCANONS
When Blythe was in high school, he assumed he was gay because if you liked boys, the only other option seemed to be that you were gay. Blythe was made to believe that bisexuality was just a cover-up for someone wanting to experiment, or someone who wasn’t ready to come out as gay. Blythe wasn’t very convinced, though, and when he went away for college he found not only acceptance from others but himself.
The first time Blythe met most of his siblings, aside from the few times they showed up to his birthday parties, was at a funeral when he was eight. Funerals seemed to bring the Sweetwine together more than joyous events. Even the birth of his little brother didn’t bring many of them flying back to Chicago.
Blythe met his brother Nathaniel at the Medical Examiner’s office in a body bag as his body had been found after an accidental overdose. The only reason he knew who he was had been because of the identification provided to him in the report.
Blythe is very religious and goes to synagogue services at least once a week, though he finds it difficult to stay for the whole service because he has trouble sitting still.
His OCD has number based obsessions and he tend to measure things in terms of three and five. He also follows a specific pattern that is one, two three, one, three, two, one, one, two, three that he typically taps with the coordinating finger.
He loves lemon. With everything. Be weary of stealing his water or a drink at a bar, because there’s always lemon in it.
He had a lip ring when he was in college and it was ripped out of his mouth when he was at a frat party There is a faint scar under his lips where it was.
Blythe’s ambition to join a crime organization came from desperation and the relinquishment of doing what is right because every good solution had turned on him. His family failed to protect his brother, the system failed him to get him back, and his fiance as well as his friends failed. Cruelty wins in the movies for a reason, and now he’ll take that chance.
WANTED CONNECTIONS
A co-worker connection, maybe even one with a potential past hook up
A neighbor who is aware of the strife in the Sweetwine family home
Someone affiliated with the White Snakes family who knows why he joined and is weary or supportive of his decision when he eventually joins. They provide some kind of shoulder to lean on, or they’re a pessimist.
The Medical Examiner
Friends at the LVPD
People who have paid him to make alterations to those in the morgue for pay, preferably crime organization affiliates
His ex-fiancé