character card comm by @retroautomaton of my beloved boy and his beloved girl, big iron!!! im so so so excited that i finally got to comm some art of them together, since they're inseparable of course <3 be honest should i start a toyhouse page for her yes or no
howdy pardners this is theodore dawson, my courier from new vegas :3 he is very large and very angry yet very soft and very gay and he is so precious to me
here's his playlist!! once again it's chronological so u can listen to his story like a fun yeehaw jukebox musical. i think his is my favorite of all my character playlists
alllll the teddy stuff (appearance, stats, story before the canon events of the game, fun facts) can be found under the cut!!! if you feel so inclined to read The Long Version written like a story where my longwinded ass spends about 7k words talking about themes and character motivations (and some soft gay longing perhaps), it's up on ao3 here.
appearance
41 years old; birthday may 3, 2240
6’6 with broad shoulders, generally built like a securitron.
patches of vitiligo splash across his face, chest, and arms
bennys bullet hit the right side of his face, carving a path from his eye to his ear, where a chunk of his ear is missing
because of this, he's blind in his right eye. the blind eye (a light, milky blue) is always a bit more closed than the seeing one (a dark, warm brown)
dark auburn chin-length hair and a short beard, both peppered with white because of his age and vitiligo. a big chunk of hair behind his ear is white as it grows from the scar.
he wears a horse or cow-skin vest with a great khans patch on the back
signature black cowboy hat, either on the top of his head or tied around his neck so it hangs down his back
gold jewelry - dangly cross earring in his left ear, upside down cross on a leather strap around his neck, big ass belt buckle
bright red shotgun shells on leather belt slung around his waist for his shotgun, dinner dell
his dad was raised in utah and was very strictly mormon. when new jerusalem collapsed, dad moved himself, his wife, and his first son to the mojave and found work on an NCR sharecropper farm.
teddy was born fifth of six kids: four older brothers and one younger sister. he, his sister hannah, and his brother noah all have very visible vitiligo.
the kids were all also raised strictly mormon. his whole childhood, they were very poor. "at least we have each other" poor. his dad blamed it on the NCR, who owned the house and land and animals they ranched. they owned nothing, and the NCR paid them little more than that. teddy was quickly disillusioned with the NCR, then with the three of his brothers who decided to join them. one brother stayed back to inherit the ranch.
turns out, the NCR was paying; dad was just gambling it all away. he was so deeply in debt to all the families on the strip that they all decided to cut their losses and burn his farm to the ground.
that's... that's the story teddy decided to tell hannah, anyway (he wouldnt tell u this but he totally burnt that shit down on purpose). mom, dad, and one of his brothers were lost in the fire. teddy and hannah made it out, waved goodbye, parted ways.
teddy took his horse, old red, and began running jobs for whoever needed them. he never tied himself to one organization aaand his jobs weren't always above the ethical board. really, it was luck of the draw that, on any given day, he was the one defending the caravan instead of stealing from it
when he eventually went searching for his siblings, he found that two of the three brothers that had enlisted, predictably, were killed on duty. noah, though, had absconded almost immediately upon arrival due to a nasty chem habit
he found hannah "working" in front of gomorrah on the stip - her vitiligo made them instantly recognizable to each other - but she pretended not to know him because she was ashamed. he understood and gave up, but not before she hinted that he could find noah at the old mormon fort
he did, in fact, find noah there, medically detoxing under the care of some hot, blonde doctor (bweheheh....). they reconnected and it was..... really nice, even when they talked about how ashamed their dad would be if he could see them. it didnt matter. the family disappointments were the only family survivors.
teddy and arcade quickly grew very fond of each other, with arcade even being the first one to call him "teddy" after he told the doctor his name was theodore. he decided, despite its cutesy nature, to keep it.
after finishing his open jobs, teddy decided to stay with noah at the fort and run jobs for the followers when they needed it. he got reeeal comfy with arcade, and their subtle, playful flirtations eventually became noticeable to others. his brother, angry and sick from chem withdrawal and still fighting his religious upbringing, could not handle finding out that his baby brother was gay. when he did, he angrily shouted slurs and threw bottles at them until he was sedated and returned to bed.
teddy left the fort that night while everyone but the night watchman slept. he struggled to recover from what happened and drifted listlessly for a while... until he heard the news that noah had fled from his "rehab" program in the fort the day after teddy left, overdosed, and died.
the news spurred something in him, and he went looking for a real family and place to call home. after excelling in his initiation trials, he found one with the great khans. for two years, he was their resident rancher, runner, therapist, you name it.
then: 2278. the bitter springs massacre. teddy was away when it happened, and he still hasnt forgiven himself for it.
he spent the next three years drifting - again. hunting NCR. somehow racking up bounties in seemingly every single tribe in the mojave. his infamy, believe it or not, helped him survive: when he came across those who would kill him or turn him in, they seemed to prioritize who got to turn him in and collect the bounty over keeping themselves alive. whoops!
it was exhausting, though. drifting, killing, taking on the wasteland completely alone (except his beloved animals) took a heavy toll on teddy. he'd always been a killer and an outlaw, but he'd always been paid to clear other people's consciences. now, he felt he was only killing people to run from the consequences of his own actions. it was exhausting.
so, when three strangers – one in a loud, black-and-white checkered blazer – tried to knock him out and bind his hands, well… he had no reason not to let them.
*aint that a kick in the head starts blaring*
fun facts
hes not a big chem guy but hes such an alcoholic. in game he keeps at least 10 whiskeys on him at all times but would prefer to drink a sarsaparilla over using a stimpak.
he needs glasses pretty badly for his one seeing eye but he’s too stubborn to wear them
his scars always look a bit irritated because he doesnt take care of himself
he was a big pistol guy before benny shot him, but after he went blind in his aiming eye and started suffering from bouts of dizziness, he became a shotgunner. they require a far-from-perfect style of aiming
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
have u ever wondered "hm, how would oldworldwidgets' new vegas oc teddy would react to the honest hearts DLC if he was trapped in there with another courier"? lucky for you, i come bearing answers! well... one answer. one 40k+ word answer.
introducing honest hearts, a collaborative story in which my teddy and @odd-ball-out's amantis have to find their way out of zion together. an indifferent cowboy and a cares-so-much-it-hurts sniper, puttin' their heads together. i mean, what could go wrong?
we had so much fun writing this beast together!!!! like truly it was such a blast putting teddy and amantis is a big rocky terrarium together and shakin' em around real good :3 and it'd mean the world to us if you gave it a read!!! we hope you love our guys as much as we do <3
im no artist but i wanted to make teddy a real nice, comprehensive ref sheet :P
the full art and credits for his eye scar (top right) can be found in his toyhouse gallery!! and shouts of course to @omkdear and @odd-ball-out for the inspo <3
