Money

Tyson has a complicated relationship with money.

Though he is incredibly loose with his money, he will never underestimate the value that money has. Tyson only spends what he needs to, with the allowance of ‘need’ being rather malleable when it comes to things that would benefit others. He tips well and rarely looks at the cost of something when buying it.

It was summed up well in this thread with moriartyproperty:

Tyson, on the other hand, only spent what he needed to. Coming from a prominent Jewish family, Tyson had been taught the dangers of drawing attention to his wealth since childhood. Other than what he required for work - to avoid leaving paper-trails from his own accounts - Tyson didn’t use Moriarty’s money. Technically, he wasn’t even paid. Tyson had an allowance of money he could use when needed, but generally it went untouched. Even his work expenses were minimal. He lived well within his means; rarely spending more than he made running his pet store, making maps, and guest-lecturing at universities. 

Tyson own personal savings are extensive and if needs be, Tyson has access to the family fortune, but - unless he’s giving a gift to someone, or donating money: to charity or to someone in need - it’s rare for him to use it. In addition to that, Tyson has money stashed in various places for emergencies in storage boxes around London.

The value and dangers of money was drilled into him from a young age and Tyson spent time without money, busking and making every penny count during his escape with The Colonel/back home to Britain, but ultimately Tyson knows that anything he spends won’t make a dent in his bank account.

He doesn’t bother haggling unless it’s a deal for the web and he operates the pet store at the base rate you’d expect in London, simply to make it look like the legitimate business it needs to be as a cover for his activities in the web. His biggest expense is probably the meat he buys for his dogs, the takeout he orders for himself, or buying a new tailored suit once one gets damaged on the job.

Additional pre-existing money based headcanons:

• What is in Tyson’s wallet?
• Tyson & Jethro have a shared savings account from childhood.
• The Piano Man
• When calling a coin flip, Tyson will pick heads nine times out of ten.
• The women in Khushab.
• Tyson has a coin collection, taken from his father
• Tyson can do that trick where you roll the coin between your fingers.
• His money guilt around giving gifts.
• Tyson has a tendency to forget his wallet, despite his anxiety and OCD, because he spends so much time worrying about forgetting things that he starts running late and, thus, abandons items on his coffee table when he took them out of his bag/pockets to make sure that he had them.

Solo verses Groups

By and large, Tyson is more confident 1-on-1 compared to in groups. However, once the crowd becomes large enough Tyson is even more confident.

Though Tyson may still stutter in a one-on-one conversation until he’s comfortable enough with that person to avoid stuttering, he is still more confident dealing with one person than a (small) group that he doesn’t know.

Tyson needs to know that he can escape any given situation to feel safe, knowing his odds to outrun or beat the other person in a fight goes a long way to soothing Tyson’s anxiety. Even if he knows with certainty that he can outfight each person individually, multiple opponents shifts the odds against him.

However, Tyson spent his entire childhood being groomed to teach large groups of people. The crowds on London’s streets put him on edge, because he’s dealing with many small groups of people all at once. It’s not a continuous surrounding that he can familiarise himself with.

When he has the (near) complete attention of one large group, Tyson is honestly in his element. He can take the stage to guest lecture at any university without stuttering even once, without needing to know anyone in the crowd. Naturally, he is most comfortable when talking about mathematics somewhere familiar, such as Cambridge, but his ability to speak and command attention remains the same.

Largely Tyson’s work with the web is done on his own or with one other person, someone he trusts or one employee of the Moriarty Mirrors.

It’s rare for Tyson to be required to lead a group, but in those cases, Tyson does better than most would expect of the second-hand pet. It’s similar to stepping back into his life in the army. He may not be comfortable, but that doesn’t matter. He has a task and people who are depending on him.

It doesn’t matter if Tyson can’t do something.

He will.

Vision

Beyond the images his Synesthesia causes, Tyson has 20/20 vision and has full colour vision too.

How long that will last is questionable. Tyson isn’t exactly kind with his eyes. He spends a lot of time in low lighting for the web and sleeps erratic hours that cause his eyes to get dry. A lot of his free time is spent reading in low lighting or staring at a computer screen for hours at a time in, once again, low lighting.

He rubs at his eyes far more than he should. In part, this is because his eyes get sore and dry from staying up for 24+ hours on stakeouts, but Tyson also rubs his eyes as a way to focus himself when suppressing his Synesthesia. And then simply out of habit from rubbing them so often.

Hallucinations

Through extreme pain, the effects of strong painkillers, his own recreational use of drugs, Jim’s experiments, fever, and exposure to extreme heat, Tyson has ended up hallucinating many times.

That in and of itself doesn’t mean much, but the way it interacts with his Synesthesia becomes tricky. His form of Synesthesia projects over everything he sees, including his memories.

Whatever is a part of Tyson’s reality can become covered in maps, provided he can construct a mental map or blueprint of it. A single sheet of paper, unless depicting a sketch or photo of something his Synesthesia would normally colour, won’t be of any interest.

When it comes to hallucinations, his Synesthesia gets very confused. The effect varies depending on what is causing him to hallucinate and how strongly it is affecting him. Sometimes his vision becomes unbearably colourful and messy, layering over his actual vision as well as the images his mind has created.

Overtimes, his hallucinations will be the only things coloured as he locks the real world away complete, and sometimes his hallucinations will lack additional images from his Synesthesia, whilst the real world still appears in the background with those images.

The only eventuality that never happens is that his Synesthesia colours nothing with maps. Tyson can suppress his Synesthesia, push it away into the back of his mind and focus on the real vision his eyes provide, but he can’t make it go away. It’s the equivalent of training yourself to tune out roadworks or banging as white noise. It’s still there, just distant and not given conscious acknowledgement.

Dreams are varied, though more consistent. If it’s a memory, the colours and maps remain as they were; with some allowance for changes in his emotional response if the memory is adapted whilst he dreams. If it isn’t a memory, then only things that Tyson does remember will get coloured.

For example, if he dreamt that he was walking through a fake building with Jethro, then the building would appear in its ‘natural’ state, whilst his brother would get his normal colour palette.

Scent

Tyson’s apartment generally smells like sweetpea, and dog. Mostly dog.

He washes Lily and Bobby regularly with a eucalyptus-scented shampoo, but in such a tiny - cozy - apartment it’s hard to remove the smell completely. Honestly though, Tyson likes that smell. It’s earthy and homely, and familiar.

Tyson himself generally smells like:
Vanilla, (-milk and honey) apple, earth, parchment (+almond)

Despite his intense dislikes of cars that borders on a phobia, Tyson rather likes the smell of diesel and petrol. Smoke is familiar from his time in the army and smoking, though not necessarily liked. More of a neutral acceptance. The scent of gunpowder and oil go into a similar place.

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The scents he tends to associate with other people are: *

• Moriarty Mirrors : Apples, Smoke, Blood, & (Burnt gases from) Electricity
• Sebastian Moran: Blood, Gun Oil, Whiskey, & Ralph Lauren Polo Aftershave - Black  †
• John Watson : Antiseptic, Tea, Home, & Clean Cotton

• Jethro Andrew Delaney : Leather, Pears Soap, & Cotton-candy 
• Jasmine Dartmoor : Star Anise, Shortbread, & Poison Perfume
• James Delaney : Plush Fabrics, Talcum Powder, & Pencil Shavings
• Rosie Delaney : Printer Ink, Mud, Rubber, & Bacon
• John Delaney : Old Books, Scones, Old Spice, and Dolce & Gabbana
• Richard Delaney : Feathers, Diesel, & Burning Wood
• Anne Samantha Williams : Paint, Daisies, & Dust  ‡
• Grandmother - Ellen Delaney : Jasmine Tea & Pomegranate Perfume

• Lex : Candy, Leather, and kinda of like a Chip Shop honestly: salty and kinda like vinegar, but in a good, delicious way
• Dick Gannon : Cheap Takeout and, even cheaper, Booze
• Kim : Sawdust, Grass, Coconut, & Citrus

* Several side characters are skipped here as he doesn’t have a specific scent he’d associate with them instinctively.
† Only applicable to Tyson’s main Sebastian Moran/The Colonel.
‡ Tyson doesn’t remember what she smelt like specifically, but he associates those scents with her as her art room smelt that way.

Manga

Tyson doesn’t read much manga, comparatively to his comic reading, and most that he does are ones recommended to him by Rosie. She tends to favour four types of manga - romantic, comedic, smut, & dark as all hell - so that’s the majority of what Tyson has read. With the notable exception of Dick proselytizing about Bleach to him.

So far the ones Tyson has enjoyed reading the most are:

• Ambiguous Relationship by Masara Minase
• Assassination Classroom by Yusei Matsui
• Black Bulter by Yana Toboso
• Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui
• It Takes A Wizard by Thomas R. Hart
• Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service by Eiji Otsuka
• No Touching At All by Kou Yoneda
• One-Punch Man by ONE
• One Piece by Eiichiro Oda
• Yu-Gi-Oh! by Kazuki Takahashi

Comic Books

When it comes to physical copies, Tyson favours trade paperbacks over single issues, so that he can read the complete story in one go. These days, however, he largely favours getting digital editions: so that the fold/spine never ends up hiding part of the image and he can zoom in to look at little details of the art.

As with most things that Tyson keeps in his apartment, his (single issue) comics books are stored in a box under his bed. In that same box, there are a handful of Beano annuals; and the one, and only, pornography magazine he’s ever purchased.

In his Main!verse, Tyson has a bias towards DC, whereas Orphan AU Teen!verse Tyson has a bias towards Marvel. He likes both, as well as Valiant and independent comics, but he has a clear preference for what he’ll go out of his way to read in his free time.

Tyson’s favour comic book characters change around, a lot. However, the five characters that would appear somewhere within his top ten regardless on when he made the list would be:

• Batman - Bruce Wayne - DC
• Hellblazer/Constantine - John Constantine - DC 
• Iron Man - Tony Stark - Marvel
• Magneto -  Max Eisenhardt - Marvel
• Wonder Woman - Princess Diana of the Amazons - DC

It can safely be assumed that Tyson will have a read of book about anyone on that list, as well as the main team up books (Avengers, Justice League, Teen Titans, X-Men, et cetera), but to cherry pick* some of his favourite trade paperbacks/graphic novels of all time to get a general feel for his tastes:

1. All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison
2. Batman Earth One Vol. 1 by Geoff Johns
3. Batman The Complete Hush by Jeph Loeb
4. Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph and Torment by Gerry Conway
5. Gotham Academy Vol. 1 by Becky Cloonan
6. House of M by Brian Michael Bendis
7. Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer
8. Injustice: Gods Amongst Us (Year 1) by Tom Taylor
9. Iron Man: Rapture by Alex Irvine
10. Kingdom Come by Mark Waid
11. Magneto: Not A Hero by Scottie Young
12. Midnighter and Apollo by Steve Orlando
13. Superman: Red Son by Mark Miler
14. The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
15. Wytches Vol. 1 by Scott Snyder

*Caveat of not being part of long-running series, otherwise we would end up with multiple volumes from the same series or several Vol.3/4′s that only work as part of the series (rather than self-contained stories) here. Volume 1′s are accepted if they’re his favourite from that series.

Bats

Tyson likes bats.

They are the dogs of the skies and he thinks they are adorable.

Singing

For a time, when he and Sebastian were low on money during their escape and during his own escape through Europe, Tyson busked for money. He can sing and play the piano, and when in need of booze money, Moran was willing to play the guitar.

Though Tyson is an excellent singer, he rarely elects to do so when he’s on his own. He spent the majority of his childhood being taught to stay quiet unless addressed directly. He doesn’t tend to make any noise unless he has to. On a good day, he’ll hum - very quietly - to himself, but singing is rare.

When Sebastian’s beating were particularly vicious, Tyson would sing Oh Danny boy to himself, because it is what Jethro sang to Tyson when he was young. The advantage of that was that, no matter how much his voice shook through the pain, it was enough to appease Sebastian that Tyson wasn’t going anywhere, so he wouldn’t return for another beating.

Tyson sings Chocolate by The 1975 with his nephew.

When Tyson babysits his currently seven year old nephew James - born March 20th 2006 - they sing this song together, and because of this it is one of Tyson’s favourite songs.

Tyson was a great singing voice and James likes listening to his uncle sing. James used to request that Tyson sung this song a lot and eventually it became their song to sing when going on a road trip (to the zoo, aquarium, beach, et cetera) or when just in Tyson’s apartment.

Tyson is very close to his nephew, even though they only see each other a few times a month.

Tyson would like to see his nephew, and brother (Jethro) and sister-in-law (Rosie), more often, but Tyson and his brother came to the agreement not to because of Tyson’s work for his owners and Jethro’s work as a police officer.

Tales

Tyson likes getting to learn about different cultures and time periods, through their legends, ‘old wives tales’, and folk heroes. Though they don’t always hold much credence, Tyson enjoys seeing how some values remain the same but others will deliver a different moral or tell the story in a different way.

Where one culture might tell of a child disobeying their parents to chase their passion and say the child was right to do so and prospered, another will use it as a tale of humility and listening to the advice of others, still others will strike a middle-ground between the two.

The same applies to urban legends. He likes hearing which impossibly tall tales change depending on where they are told, and finding out that certain ones are actually true. Even more than that, Tyson loves hearing about times people tried - and failed - to replicate an urban legend.

Cryptids, he simply finds fun. Tyson absolutely does not think The Jersey Devil exists, but he will always tell Dick to watch out for the Jersey Devil whenever he goes out for a walk at night; because it absolutely followed Dick from New Jersey to New York.