Superstitions

Tyson is respectful of other people’s superstitions, though he doesn’t have many of his own: beyond the innate belief that inanimate objects can be spiteful, especially at the worst possible moments.

Soldiers are a very superstitious lot, - in a high stress, dangerous environment built around structure and repetition, it’s not that surprising - and Tyson went through a lot of mental gymnastics to abide by people’s, often contradicting, superstitious rituals. Naturally, ones involving numbers - unlucky numbers, lucky numbers, Friday the 13th, et cetera - are the ones that interest Tyson the most.

He doesn’t believe in lucky charms themselves, but he does believe in the ‘power’ in people wishing for whatever the charm is supposed to give: especially when given as a gift. Tyson thinks of them in the same way he thinks of prayer. Hamsa hands hold a special place in Tyson’s heart, and he also has a great respect for Omamori; far more than lucky rabbit’s feet or horseshoes.

Tyson doesn’t believe it will have any impact, but whenever he knows someone else is superstitious, he will go out of his way to respect that: actively avoiding cracks on the pavement, avoiding walking under ladders, throwing spilt salt over his shoulder, et cetera. He isn’t as aware of ‘knock on wood’ as he is ‘touch wood’, but Tyson still tries whenever he can.

The only common superstition that it could be said Tyson actively partakes in is ‘kiss it for good luck’, most commonly with his dog-tags in his army days and prior to that with his Delaney family crest ring. However, that is more Tyson paying lip service to the tradition than actually believing it will have any impact; a way of reassuring those around him. Also, kissing is fun.

In so far as more supernatural superstitions and beliefs, Tyson’s general rule of thumb is: it might not be real, but why mess with it? He doesn’t believe that ghosts exist, but he believes that they could exist and doesn’t discredit the idea. He doesn’t believe in fairies either, but he won’t walk through a fairy circle.

Belief has power, regardless of whether or not the thing being believed in is real. If it matters to someone, it is real enough to be respected. If someone who does believe in fairies sees him walk through the circle, or sees his footprints in the ground, then that person is the one psychologically predisposed to feel unlucky: to stack the odds against themselves because they assume they will fail.

Tyson does not need to believe in fairies, pixies, ghosts, or gnomes to listen patiently and respectfully as others tell him how to catch a pixie for good luck: with a glass jar baited with honey, then covered with a cobweb to trap them. He doesn’t need to believe anything bad with happen, to give another peace of mind by leaving his breadcrumbs by the pond edge for the garden gnome.

Father

Tyson’s thoughts on his father are complicated. He hates his old man, but he bristles at any unprompted criticism of him; especially the Lucifer nickname. He respects his abilities as a professor, whilst also resenting how harsh a marker he was; almost failing Tyson for spelling errors, that could be counted on two hands over the course of a six thousand word essay.

He still gets nightmares about the beatings his father gave him, the most notable two being when Tyson came out as gay and when his father found out that Tyson was leaving to join the army: abandoning the family legacy. Yet some of his fondest memories are moments where he earnt his father’s approval, sitting in his office and playing chess against him.

He fights any positive thoughts about his father, but Tyson will proselytise about all the good his father did for Cambridge University. The ways he continued and added to the family legacy, and how far he went to help his best students improve themselves even after they graduated. But only his very best students.

Tyson doesn’t want to live in his father’s shadow, but he can’t help feeling that he wouldn’t be where he is without his father’s influence. He wouldn’t have joined the army to spite him, to prove himself without him. He adored his father as a child, always so desperate for his approval. It’s hard not to think of him as larger than life.

However, Tyson could never deny that - despite everything - no one could instil a love for mathematics as Professor John Delaney could. That is the only reason he could forgive his father; for the abuse he inflicted on his mother, his brother, and upon Tyson himself. For everything.

His father was more than just his teaching or just his family, a person: not two entirely separate beings. As mentioned in this blackmail headcanon, it was much simpler to forget that, to look to the Professor with deeming qualities and hold all his contempt towards the elder Delaney. Tyson doesn’t know what to do with John.

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Jethro’s thoughts on his father are largely the same, but clearer and with less emotional conflict involved. The late John Delaney was an incredible mathematician and a great teacher, but an awful man and a worse father.

Jethro shares his father’s quick temper, but he hasn’t held onto the anger at his father. He left that part of his life behind. Jethro doesn’t feel like he owes his father anything, his accomplishments are his own. It’s in the past. It’s done.

He’s dead.

Jasmine Dartmoor

The face claim for Jasmine is Sally Bretton.

Though Tyson only knew Jasmine for three years before going away to join the army, she became a surrogate mother to him in that time. Tyson’s father was hardly affectionate and Jethro ran away from home shortly after Jasmine started working at the family manor; content that there was someone else there to look after Tyson. Originally Tyson was cautious around Jasmine and hid from her as he had done with his tutors. Tyson began warning to Jasmine after finding out she could speak Hebrew too. Over time they learnt how to work around each other. Jasmine didn’t reveal Tyson’s hiding space in the manor’s attic to Tyson’s father if Tyson behaved and attended his sessions with his tutors.

Jasmine had only intended to work at the manor for a year, to help pay off her university debts from learning to be a therapist, but she decided to stay on full time to look after Tyson, having felt so protective of the skittish teen. Jasmine introduced Tyson to a way of calming down after his anxiety attacks; this technique carried into Tyson’s adulthood, becoming more effective when Tyson learnt to meditate too

When Tyson ran off to join the army, Jasmine stayed at the manor to make sure that when Tyson returned he’d still have a home. Tyson’s father didn’t see eye to eye with Jasmine, but he respected her opinions and Jasmine knew how to manipulate the late John Delaney into being less strict about his sons.

Currently Jasmine lives at the family manor and looks after Jack for Tyson. Once a month Jasmine sends a care package of cookies down to Tyson. Whenever Tyson goes up to Cambridge to guest lecture he makes sure to stop in and visit Jasmine.

UNIVERAL TRUTHS

• Blood Type: A Positive
• Date of Birth: August 2nd 1972 - Leo - Year of the Rat (Water)
• DnD Alignment: Neutral Good
• Dominant Hand: Right
• Ethnicity: White, British
• Myers Briggs Type: INFP-A | The Mediator
• Orientation: Heterosexual
• Religion: Atheist
• Signature:

FAVOURITE

• Favourite Animal: Guinea Pig
• Favourite Author: Agatha Christie
• Favourite Colour: Orange
• Favourite Film: Johnny English
• Favourite Food: Fruit Cake
• Favourite Plant: Hydrangea
• Favourite Poem: Double, Double Toil & Trouble - William Shakespeare

VERSE DEPENDANT

• Avatar Element: Earth
• His Dark Material’s Dæmon: Sugar Glider
• Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff
• Hybrid!Verse Pairing: Persian Cat
• Mass Effect Species: Quarian - Jas’Min nar Dartmoor
• Pokémon Team: Furret, Bellossom, Pachirisu, Tangrowth, Cinccino, & Swanna

Colour Tyson’s Synesthesia Projects Onto Them:

Anne Samantha Williams

Tyson knows very little about his mother. He knows what she looks like, but not much else. She left his life when she walked out on his father, when Tyson was four years old. Almost everything Tyson knows about his mother comes from things Jethro has told him.

He discovered his mother’s art room when exploring the Delaney family manor. As a child whenever Tyson wanted to be alone, and he wasn’t in the mood to climb up into the attic, he could go into his mother’s art room. His father never went in there and for Jethro it brought up too much emotions so Tyson could always be alone there. She was a talented painter and Tyson keeps one of her paintings in his apartment.

Tyson doesn’t know what has become of his mother and doesn’t want it. There is a lingering curiousity and a need to ask why she left without bringing him or Jethro, but not much more: Tyson knows she left his father to avoid his abuse, but he’s never understood why she left them too. Jethro, on the other hand, did look into it and discovered she passed away in early 2006; he didn’t bother telling Tyson.

UNIVERAL TRUTHS

• Blood Type: A Positive
• Date of Birth: July 9th 1953 - Cancer - Year of the Snake (Water)
• Date of Death: April 5th 2006
• DnD Alignment: True Neutral
• Dominant Hand: Right
• Ethnicity: Jew, Ashkenazi / White, British
• Myers Briggs Type: ENFP-T | The Campaigner
• Orientation: Bisexual
• Religion: Jewish
• Signature:

FAVOURITE

• Favourite Animal: Flamingo
• Favourite Author: James Patterson
• Favourite Colour: Maroon
• Favourite Film: The Mask of Zorro
• Favourite Food: Lamb Henry with roasted sweet potato & parsnip
• Favourite Plant: Carnations
• Favourite Poem: Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep - Mary Elizabeth Frye

VERSE DEPENDANT

• Avatar Element: Fire
• His Dark Material’s Dæmon: Blue Jay
• Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
• Hybrid!Verse Pairing: Marsh Harrier
• Mass Effect Species: Human
• Pokémon Team: Ampharos, Smeargle, Ludicolo, Infernape, Kricketune, & Mantyke

Colour Tyson’s Synesthesia Projects Onto Them:

Mother Figures

Tyson has two mother figures in his life, his mother and Jasmine: a maid at the family manor.

Anne walked out of his life when Tyson was only four, to escape the abuse of his father. Any memories that he has of her are so faint that Tyson doesn’t know if they’re actual memories, or events that people have told him about. When Tyson thinks of ‘mother’, he thinks of Jasmine. He even calls her ‘אִמָא’.

This isn’t a one-way street, she calls him ‘מתוקי’. When she started working at the Delaney manor, she never expected it to become her home. She was there to pay off her student loans, from studying to become a therapist*, but now? Tyson is her son by everything but blood and law.

Whenever Tyson wanted to be alone, yet find-able, he would hide in his mother’s art room in the family manor. He tried to piece together an image of who she could be based on that room, and stories from Jethro. Tyson keeps two things that he found in that room in his apartment: the painting in his bedroom and the teddy bear in his walk-in cupboard/panic room.

When Tyson’s father sent him to bed without dinner unjustly, Jasmine would leave food out on the kitchen counter for him to sneak up to the East Wing’s attic. She taught him how to calm down after a panic attack by keeping his hands behind his back. Her baking is his favourite and he loves the raspberry white chocolate cookies she makes.

Tyson’s Synesthesia says a lot about his view of a person. Tyson views Anne in bright, primary childlike colours; shades one would associate with bottles of paint in a classroom. Jasmine is viewed in homely, earthen tones that feel grounding with a delicate pink and blue woven in. He views his mother with the idealistically simple eyes of a child, but views Jasmine with the nuance of actual memories and more tangible feelings.

* Though Jasmine will often say that she abandoned therapy as a career path because Tyson needed her, it’s more complicated than that. Working at the manor - cleaning, managing, arranging events with the university, et cetera - was largely simply work, but in doing that, Jasmine realise just how stressed and unhappy she was with therapy.

She liked being a maid with extended duties, and now practically serving as the head of the Delaney family. It’s simpler work, but Jasmine enjoys it and there are people who need her involved, people that she cares about and wants to help.

Earth

Of the four traditional elements, Tyson has the strongest connection to Earth.

Earth - Connection

Of the six medication elements - Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space, & Consciousness - the one Tyson connects most with is earth.

Earth in Tyson’s mind is about connection, everything being the same. This appeals to his mathematical mind because to him everything is connected through numbers and patterns. His favourite example of this is the hexagon…

…when Tyson just wants to calm himself he will think of nature - of earth - and how everything is connected. This also relates to his thoughts on how he is never alone because of mathematics. Full headcanon [x] 

Tyson can very easily be kept entertained by giving him an hourglass or zen garden, but he is absolutely on the side of #fucksand. Sand can become annoying for anyone, but with his OCD, sand - in collaboration with glitter - is the bane of Tyson’s existence.

To touch on some of his verses, Tyson’s Marvel AU is called Earth!Verse and his mutant power is Geokinesis. Naturally following on from that, Tyson is an Earthbender in his Avatar!verse and in his Hogwarts AU, Tyson’s connection to earth carries over into being a Hufflepuff.

In Tyson’s Pokémon AU, he makes use of whichever Pokémon is best suited to the job and has trained many Pokémon for other people. However, Tyson has the strongest connection to Rock and Ground-type Pokémon; with Steel coming a very close second, and Grass & Water tying for third place.

In expanded earthen headcanons, Tyson has a rock collection.

Tyson doesn’t have a rock collection because he’s interested in geology, but rather because he finds the rocks he finds pleasing to look at.

He keeps his rocks as souvenirs of places he’s been or memories he has. Some rocks he finds in nature, others are bought from tourist shops that he’s passing: he doesn’t actively search through the rocks, but if one catches his eyes in passing he’ll usually buy it.

He keeps the rocks, like most of his possessions, under his bed in a box. Though he hasn’t labeled any of the stones he knows where he got all of them and the story behind them too.

Some of the stones aren’t nice to look at, those are rocks he’s kept from places with bad memories. The smoother the stone then the nicer the memory, usually. There are some exceptions where it was the colour or shape that took his fancy.