For not being all that fond of milkshakes, Tyson ends up drinking a lot of milkshakes. It’s one of the few guarantees in his fridge.
He is sick to death of artificial banana, chocolate, and strawberry, but Tyson has an ingrained compulsion to make sure he’s always getting some form of calcium; from a childhood calcium deficiency that led to weak ankles.
He’s managed to shake the tick now, but one of his OCD twitches was having to tap the top and bottom of a milk cartoon three times before pouring himself any milk for the better part of his teens and twenties.
Another factor is that Tyson knows that milkshakes tend to have a high amount of calories for how easy they are for him to consume. It means that, even on days where Tyson fails to eat more than a slice of toast, he’s not burning more calories than he intakes by drinking them instead.
That is the same reason you won’t find ‘low calorie’ versions of food in Tyson’s home at all.
Though Tyson’s mother was the designated artist of the family, Tyson has a good hand for sketches.
He has a steady hand and a good eye for detail, helped along by a great memory. When Tyson doodles things, he tends to focus on a single subject with an occasional landscape that are usually done in monochrome with pencil or pen, but occasionally he’ll push into light watercolours if he likes the image enough.
When it comes to looking at art, Tyson enjoys almost all of it, but he cares about so little. It’s a passive appreciation for most pieces rather than actually enjoying them. He can appreciate the effort that has gone into them and occasionally summon the emotion its supposed to invoke, but they don’t typically leave an impression.
That said, Tyson has a real soft spot for pointillism pieces; especially the work of Théo van Rysselberghe, though he enjoys all of Rysselberghe’s work regardless of style. His favourite pieces of Rysselberghe’s is Sailboats on the River Scheldt.
He honestly loves concept art, for games he’s enjoyed playing or even seeing the original character concepts for films.
[Hybrid!Verse] is centered around the idea of everyone being animal-human hybrids; i.e. a human with cat ear/tail. Everything else in this verse remains the same as the normal verse outside of everyone being a hybrid.
In this universe, Tyson is a Stag-Human Hybrid, specially a Roe Deer.Though Tyson is very dog-like, he’s also very deer-like. Tyson’s personality fits both, but he’d be a deer-hybrid because (unlike a dog) Tyson’s more likely to bolt than try to befriend a stranger.
In this UA his nickname is still ‘Pup’, but here it’s more teasing; because people who know him are surprised that he’s not a dog-hybrid, even though a deer is very suiting to him.
Tyson’s antlers shed yearly; he’s okay with them being touched, aside from when they’re newly regrowing and more sensitive. However, throwing hoops onto his antlers to score points will result in being maimed with those antlers.He’s not fussed about his ears being touched, but he doesn’t like his tail being touched; ever. Everything else about Tyson is human.
Animal Pairings within Hybrid!Verse:
I should preface this by saying that a person’s view of different animals doesn’t change the type of hybrid they are - i.e.: if someone dislikes cats, they can still be a cat!hybrid if they are catlike themselves -, that though coming from a family of dog!hybrids makes one more likely to be a dog!hybrid it doesn’t guarantee it, & that different people have different levels of physical traits from their animal-hybrid: Hybrid!Tyson, for example, has the tail, antlers, and ears of a Roe Deer, but not the eyes or colouration. [x]
Though Tyson doesn’t much care for holidays, he will occasionally join his family for Chanukah.
With both Jethro and Tyson being largely non-observant in their Judaism, it was hardly ever going to be an orthodox celebration. The most noticeable change is that Beyblades are sharing a space with the dreidel.
Though James is interested in his Jewishness and their traditions, it was obvious to every adult in the room that he had no interest in playing with the dreidel. Knowing that his nephew watched and enjoyed the anime, Tyson excused himself to go walk the dogs and returned with a group of Beyblades from the local newsagents.
A spinning top is a spinning top, at the end of the day. The game is different and the overtly Jewish symbolism is gone, but that didn’t matter to Tyson’s family. It was a game they could play that kept the spirit of the holiday.
Their menorah is always traditionally Jewish as is their food and the trip to Synagogue. The dreidel stays beside the menorah and the Beyblades are brought out of their box to play with, a little tradition just for them. Something to bring them together.
When Tyson went out during Chanukah 2012, he originally came back with four Beyblades from the (at the time) current series/toy line, Metal Fury: Cosmic Pegasus F:D for James, Fang Leone 130W2D for himself, Blitz Striker 100SF for Rosie, & Meteo L-Drago LW105LF for Yithrô.
Since then, one Beyblade is added to the box every year: Bandit Genbu F230TB is never used and is committed to the memory of John Delaney, Rock Orso D125B became Jasmine’s, Cyber Aquario 105RF became Charlie’s, Twisted Tempo 145WD, & Driger MS was the latest to be added in 2017.
Tyson works better as part of a team, rather than as part of a group.
He doesn’t have the same level of focus on a patrol with another soldier, both with the task of completing that patrol whilst watching for enemies, compared to going off as a team with Sebastian Moran, as sniper and spotter both with separate but complementary roles.
That doesn’t mean that Tyson can’t be very effective when taking part in combined, singular efforts, but he does much better when each person is a cog in a bigger mechanism.
It helps him focus on his own task without worrying about carrying the weight of someone else and gives him better perspective on the strengths of the employees he’s working with. It’s easier to spot the weak link and fix the issue before it becomes a problem when there is a link to point at, rather than one action spread across several people.
When people are given an individual goal as part of a team effort, Tyson finds it much easier to support another employee/pet to overcome their difficulties and understand where attention needs to be given. He knows that people are disposable within the web, but Tyson wants to give people the best possible chance of remaining useless; remaining alive.
Tyson can avoid stuttering completely and be completely in front of his actions, but only in short stints. After his time with The Colonel Tyson had been damaged physiologically, mentally, as well as physically. He was still the solider he once had been, but only in times of need. In the heat of battle or when medical care was needed The Solider comes out, as strong as he’d been in Afghanistan, but as soon as that need was taken care of he slips away, using the thousands of broken shards of submissiveness Tyson has become as a shield to hide behind.
Tyson has been too messed up to maintain that nature indefinitely. When there was need he could be in control, but afterwards he hid away again. It exhausted Tyson to take on this soldier like nature, but when in need his instincts took over and dropped his shield. That strength was always there and occasionally bleed across when Tyson felt strong enough about a topic, but otherwise it hid behind Tyson’s submissiveness for when it was needed.
Tyson isn’t that aware of this, nor does he know that it is the beginnings of stress-induced split-personality disorder. He knows that when threatened he would be stronger, more like he had been in the army, and that it felt like it wasn’t him doing the actions he had, but he doesn’t know that isn’t just his imagination.
The Soldier is purely instinctual survival, a defence Tyson’s brain has created to protect him from the trauma of his past.
A fragile shield that Tyson can’t choose to wield or lower; often only broken by direct pain that wasn’t accompanied by adrenaline, or after the adrenaline - or conflict - had long since faded. Tyson isn’t even aware of The Soldier, beyond a sudden surge of inner strength and acting on instinct. He has no choice, it’s an instinctual reaction.
The Soldier is aware of a strong desire to protect Tyson, but doesn’t recognise himself as being separate from Tyson. Though Tyson could defend himself the majority of the time, situations that evoked an unnervingly deep emotional response are more likely to trigger his stress-induced split-personality-disorder than purely physical threats that Tyson has endless plans to survive.
As such, they are rare and The Soldier hadn’t devolved his own full personality separate from Tyson, he was only a piece from Tyson. He existed to protect. The Soldier is very mission orientated, needing a focal point even more than Tyson goes to even exist.
The Soldier doesn’t stutter and he doesn’t bother suppressing Tyson’s Synesthesia. He isn’t bound as tightly to Tyson’s OCD ticks, and none of his nervous twitches appear, but some of his older most ingrained OCD habits happen as simple muscle memory from endless repetition.
* Stress-induced split-personality disorder isn’t an exact medical term, but extracting The Soldier from Tyson’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, (Generalised & Social) Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and other potentially un-diagnosed conditions (insomnia, depression, and eating disorders that may simply be symptoms from other conditions) to understand whether he has Dissociative Identity Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder is tricky when Tyson refuses to even get treatment for the mental disabilities he’s confirmed to have.
The exceptions would be Chicago!Verse, Cat!Verse, and Veteran AU where Tyson is seeing a therapist with varying frequency and willingness. Chicago!Verse is a resigned allowance, Cat!Verse it’s slowly being broached by Jasmine who is qualified as a therapist to see if he could handle therapy yet, and Veteran AU where Tyson’s counting the days until his obligation to see the army’s veteran therapist ends.
For most circumstances, The Soldier comes from the beginnings of stress-induced split-personality disorder. However, to provide a distinction to those verses where Tyson is willing or unwilling seeing a therapist, The Soldier instead comes from Borderline Split Personality Disorder.
The verses where The Soldier plays a stronger role/has a slightly different stresser are Bioshock AU, MassEffect!Verse, and Earth!Verse; respectively, a side-effect of the Blind-Faith plasmid, potentially caused by the surgery on Tyson’s L2 implant, and the side of Tyson with complete control over his mutation.
The Soldier does not exist in the following verses: Army!Verse, Hogwarts AU, and all three Orphan AUs: Child!Verse, Child!Verse2, & Teen!Verse.
Within Bioshock AU, Tyson is given the nickname/trigger word Pup as part of project Blind-Faith; funded by a man claiming to be called Jim Moriarty.
Where Tyson is spliced with Telekinesis, Electro Bolt 2, Peeping Tom, & Blind-Faith, The Colonel is spliced with Old Man Winter, Gravity Well, & Incinerate! With the exception of Blind-Faith, Tyson and The Colonel were the ones to inject each other with those plasmids to help the First Bangalore Pioneers schemes.
Additionally, in his work for Moriarty, Tyson has been given the Gene Tonics Natural Camouflage and Brain Boost to make him more useful in the time remaining before he is thrown away as an abandoned test. He’s a useful guinea pig for the time being.
Tyson lives in a shoe box apartment in Pauper’s Drop. After completing his work for Moriarty, Tyson limps home to lick his wounds in squalor before being called out again to complete his dirty work. He’s an old hand at hacking the various machines around Rapture to pool together resources and enough money for food.
He hates living in Rapture. He never even wanted to come to Rapture. Tyson was brought in with a wave of works to take care of Rapture’s bountiful troubles, specifically to work with the Atlantic Express, and later found himself stuck at the bottom of the ocean, and not long after without a job as he was replaced by a wealthier engineer who bought out Tyson’s position.
Tyson would give anything to go back to the surface. He feels cheated and alone, and he’ll throw himself at anyone who offers the tiniest piece of kindness. The Soldier, on the other hand, is completely loyal to Moriarty’s cause; unlike the normal Soldier, he would absolutely sabotage Tyson’s attempts at freedom.
Tyson doesn’t generally care about celebrating any holidays, least of all Christmas. Even when it comes to Jewish holidays, unless joining Jethro and his family in their celebrations, Tyson only ever pays attention to Passover.
Growing up, Tyson had never struggled for money. He had every luxury at his fingertips. Throwing money at gifts felt empty when he didn’t work to earn that money. It was empty. In making those personalised boxes, in carefully designing and toiling to craft them, Tyson earnt the right to give something from his heart.
Here are the gift boxes Tyson has designed that have been mentioned already. There are several which have been designed for various characters/version of characters, but the surprise shall remain until Tyson supplies them in threads/submissions.
Charlie Hotchner A completely silver box with a gyroscopic inside with green lining that spins upside down when opened to keep the content safe when she’s fidgeting with the box.
Dick Gannon Delicate waves of silver just above the bottom edge of the top of the box a deep blue lining inside.
James Delaney Polka dots of various metals and sizes around the box with a yellow lining inside.
Jasmine Dartmoor Series of silver butterflies engraved into the container, a twist lock in the shape of a butterfly, with a white lining inside.
Jethro Andrew Delaney Checker-board pattern in dull brass and shiny bronze on the container with a red lining inside.
Rosie Delaney Intricate silver vines wrapping around the box with an indigo lining inside.
Sebastian Moran A simple bronze box with the Hindi for I love you (मैं तुम से प्यार करता हूँ) in silver below the latch, with an emerald lining.
@blackvclvct || xx A few millimetres away from the middle, where both sides met at the opening, two thin lines ran parallel on both sides to reveal the stainless silver beneath the bronze coating. Libra’s scales (♎) were etched above the latch into the stainless silver. In place of Ganymede, Jupiter’s symbol (♃) to the left and Mercury’s symbol (☿) was used as an equal substitute for Hermes and completed the triangle: to the right of the latch.
@captainspangly || x The box was almost entirely coated with brass, but sun streaks of bronze and copper burst out from the latch to encompass the small container. The latch itself was a stainless steel version of Steve’s shield the size of a five pence piece that opened the box when turned to the left. Inside the box was lined with bright yellow felt.
Given how much importance Tyson puts on earning the right to give gifts, he is surprisingly willing to pour money into random gifts: be it something he saw in a shop in passing or bringing along food treats. His thought processes is ‘Hey, I saw a thing and thought of you’ and ‘since I’m rich I bought it for you whilst I saw there’ is more of an afterthought.
It’s a habit that compounds his need to make the gift boxes, to make giving larger gifts or gifts for special occasions actually mean something, but Tyson likes giving people surprises and little treats whenever he sees something he thinks they might enjoy.
Tyson makes a variety of different maps for the web and on commission.
Though Tyson makes his maps and treats any that aren’t for employees of the web as more like hobbies than anything else, he takes great pride in making his maps the best possible quality that he can. Maps are his life. He literally sees them with his form of Synesthesia and it informs much of his thinking/organising process.
He wants to be able to share them. To pour his time and love into those maps and for them to be appreciated in the same way that Tyson appreciates all maps.
Of course, he knows how to make incredibly accurate maps, but Tyson also makes sure to spare no expense in making sure that he uses the best quality paper, fabrics, and inks. Even though he doesn’t necessarily need to, Tyson does make a small profit on his maps to justify the time spent making them.
As much as he loves topographical maps, Tyson prefers to make city maps. Both can be incredibly detailed and take a long time to complete, but the contour lines of topographical maps are particularly involved; especially on delicate fabric maps where Tyson is having to poke a lot of the thinner lines into the fabric with an ink-dipped needle.
Tyson stores his map making materials under his bed at his pet store, often using the upper floor as an extended drying rack. Sometimes simple cheap options offer the best solutions. Within the box of expensive inks, some of which have to be specially ordered weeks in advance, Tyson has a cheap tub of lube picked up at a nearby garage whilst buying a sandwich for lunch.
He uses that lube on his needles to make sure that the part not covered in ink cannot snag the delicate fabric or disrupt the drying ink and remove hours of work in seconds. Tyson had tried a few other solutions before that, but they would all discolour the paler inks too much when drying or cause the ink to spread too far; leaving fuzzy edges where he had spent so long crafting clean lines.
Where Tyson’s opinion of coral is largely lukewarm, Jethro is fascinated by it.
Between Tyson’s army deployments and when Rosie & Jethro were engaged, they all went on holiday together and went diving. Or rather, Jethro went diving, Tyson was strong-armed into following him, and Rosie stayed up on the boat to sunbathe.
Until that boat trip out, Tyson had forgotten quite how much Jethro enjoyed coral. Or perhaps a better way of putting it would be that Tyson had suppressed the memory of how much Jethro knew about coral.
The expected whining of his anxiety about being his oxygen tank exploding every few minutes aside, Tyson actually found diving to be rather peaceful. He always enjoys water, and especially when he gets the enjoy the experience with his older brother.
It was a good holiday all around, actually. They got a little tipsy, found the time for a BBQ, lost and subsequently found a pair of Rosie’s shoes, managed to break a rented bike, and Rosie & Tyson learned more about coral than they ever really wanted to.
Though many things that Tyson found enjoyment in from his time in the army with The Colonel and their escape across the Middle East have been sullied by bad memories, there are ones that only conjure up good memories of those days.
One of those is hot-springs, hot tubs, and saunas; of the conventional forms of stress relief, Tyson does tends to get good results from those that require heat. Since those days, there is an added benefit in helping to soothe the pain from his old wounds.
Something that Tyson has observed when travelling around is that certain people have a ‘radar’ for finding certain places within a city. Dick and Sebastian, and many others with a dependency on alcohol, will immediate narrow in on the location of a bar.
Without failure, Kim would make a beeline for any stall selling sweet, sticky treats in the ever-changing and rearranging marketplace in Turkmenistan. He can always trust Billy to track down the best Italian restaurants and Nate seems to have a magnetic connection to any place that sells brunch.
One of the other places that Tyson could reliably expect The Colonel to home in on as reliably as Tyson’s Synesthesia could were hot-springs and saunas. He has good memories of team bonding exercises, The Colonel dragging the First Bangalore Pioneers out during a week break between deployments to go to an artificial hot-spring he’d managed to track down.
Tyson remembers passing through one of the few larger towns that Sebastian and he dared to brave during their escape, his entire body aching and being surprised when Sebastian decided on impulse to spent their scraps of money on a hotel room/suite. Looking back, he should have guessed that there would be a hot tub on the balcony. The hot food that they absolutely did not pay for was also a nice treat.
Though Tyson wouldn’t choose to cosplay on his own volition, he is willing to do so for his nephew, James. Especially in Redemption!Verse, where Tyson’s anxiety is - practically speaking - non-existent and going to events with his nephew is much easier.
The characters that Tyson would agree to dress up as are characters that Tyson likes and that James likes, and specifically requests his uncle to do. The general theme of them are characters that James sees a little of his uncle in, but there is an occasional exception that James simply thinks would be fun to see.
Tyson is a decent sewer and painter, he’s pretty good with makeup, and money is no object when it comes to getting materials. So, the main barrier for Tyson is needing to find the time to create whatever his nephew asks for. It’s easy to justify the time in his mind as good practice for disguises for the web.
Within Tyson’s main universe and Redemption!Verse, these are the characters that James has asked Tyson to do so far. The pieces of those costumes are stored in Tyson’s storage locker on the other side of London, where he keeps his motorbike.
Garrett Hawke (Mage) - Dragon Age
When James plays Dragon Age 2 as male!Hawke, James always ends up playing him as he imagines his uncle. This began the first time he picked one of the purple/humorous dialogue options and recognised it as exactly what his uncle would say in that situation.
Any time that Tyson has to grow a beard for one of those costumes, Tyson never wants to keep it - to avoid looking even more like his father - but he does prefer the way he looks with facial hair; and the way his nephew’s eyes lit up with glee is worth it every time.
If he could get away with wearing armour every day, Tyson one hundred percent would. He wears particular sets of clothing as armour anyway. The bloodswipe/kaddis on his nose is never perfectly correct, but that’s because James always likes to apply it himself and then to put a matching one on his own face.
Kaidan Alenko - Mass Effect
Kaidan was chosen for a similar reason as Hawke, though not for the humour part. Kaidan’s awkward seriousness, yet open honesty and gentle understanding is exactly what Tyson always shows his nephew.
James didn’t mention that to Tyson, however. He simply told his uncle that he thought biotics were really cool, which is true. Though Tyson suspects that there is more to it than that, he isn’t going to press his nephew too hard over something that makes him happy.
Tyson finds that costume much easier to wear, it’s not as bulky as Hawke’s armour, and it was easier to make too. He’s gotten pretty good at pitching his voice to match Kaidan’s for James’ amusement.
The Outsider - Dishonored
James’ reasons for wanting Tyson to dress up as The Outsider are far less profound.
He simply thinks the Outsider is a really cool character and Dishonored is a series that he only ever plays when visiting his uncle, taking turns after every death or getting spotted to do no-kill stealth runs through the game; or various other self-imposed challenges.
The eye makeup is a little bit of a pain, but The Outsider is one of the easier ones for Tyson to do.
Red Robin/Tim Drake - New 52 DC
Tim Drake is James’ absolutely favourite Robin and DC character overall.
He started reading comic books during the New 52 era of DC, so when James thinks of Tim Drake, he thinks of that version of the costume first. Though James likes Tim’s character more, he wanted to dress up in Damien’s Robin costume and to be a character with a skin tone more like his own.
Tyson is always happy to pull out the two superhero costumes if that’s what James wants, but he really wishes that Bobby would stop standing on the cape and tripping Tyson.
Adam Jensen - Deus Ex
Though James doesn’t know what Tyson does for a living, he’s not stupid.
He knows that Tyson used to be in the army and that he does something dangerous, something that James’ father doesn’t want him to know about and to James, that means it must be even more dangerous than his father’s job as a police officer.
James knows that for two years, from when he was three until he was five, his uncle disappeared and that he won’t talk about what happened. He’s since read news articles about events around Tyson, but James has also read that Tyson was innocent of that shooting.
He assumes that Tyson has a job like Jensen, just real. Something special ops and important where he had to go undercover, or that he used to and is somehow still involved in that life. Like an informant, perhaps. James keeps that assumption to himself.
On Tyson’s end, the hexagon makeup is a little fiddly, but he’s happy enough to throw on Jensen’s coat and glasses for his nephew’s amusement. Though shaving the scars through Jensen’s facial hair involves a lot of swearing when using a straight razor.
Rhys - Tales from the Borderlands
James honestly doesn’t know why he thinks of his uncle when playing Rhys. They just seem… similar somehow.
On Tyson’s end, that hits a little too close to home frankly. To where he is in his life now, or where he used to be in Redemption!Verse.
However, Tyson isn’t going to burden his nephew with that knowledge. The paint for the tattoos and makeup for his info-port are a nightmare to do in the mirror, but Tyson will gladly do it for his nephew’s amusement.
It’s as good an excuse as any to play with Nerf guns and calling out attacks as Borderlands damage types.
Tetsuya Kuroko - Kuroko no Basuke
Dressing up as Kuroko began one Halloween at Rosie’s request. She watches anime with her son and gave the suggestion when it was decided that Tyson would be babysitting James for Halloween.
Tyson is honestly happy for the excuse to have light blue hair again. He likes his normal hair colour the best, but he does have a soft spot for that blue hair as well.
He absolutely hates having to play basketball against Jethro, however.
Dr Strange - Marvel
It was somewhat inevitable that once Tyson handed James a Marvel comic with the good doctor in it that Tyson would end up having to stitch together a cloak of levitation.
The combination of beard and touch of grey in his hair reminds Tyson all too much of his father, but - as you may have gathered by now - Tyson won’t let his own discomfort get in the way of James’ enjoyment.
He isn’t entirely certain that the comparison to Dr Strange is a good thing, but James seems to mean it in a good way. He loves the things Tyson teaches him and the ways he seems to do magic with animals.
