Skateboards

Tyson skateboards in many of his verses, but the deck he uses changes depending on the verse.

The blue alien workshop skateboard with the grey outline is the skate deck that Tyson uses in this main!universe and in any other universe, unless otherwise stated.

The other grey outline is Tyson’s dirtboard, which remains the same regardless of universe. Outside of his mountain board, Tyson also has a bicycle (and motorbike) in his main!universe which also universally transfer over to his other universes.

Within Pokémon AU, Tyson uses his mountain board to get around. Often attaching a harness to Zenobia, his Zebstriker, and having her pull him around or removing its wheels and attaching a rope to Hermes, his Dragonair, and using it as a wakeboard.

* In Orphan AU 3 Teen!Verse, Tyson has the yellow/white panda skateboard with the blue box outline. The other blue outline is the skateboard that Tyson is saving up for as a replacement for when the panda one gets broken.

Though he takes good enough care of his things in this verse to keep the same deck from childhood to adulthood, as main!verse Tyson has, teen!verse Tyson has very limited money and had to get the panda skateboard secondhand from someone else in the orphanage.

* Within Hogwarts AU, Tyson’s skateboard has an enchanted deck that changes between those three designs/colours in the orange box depending on the angle that the board is leaning in. It’s designed as a beginners board to help understand their balance, but Tyson liked it enough to keep it.

To muggles, the board appears to be holographic/iridescent when viewed from different angles rather than dynamically changing because of the balance. 

In Redemption!Verse, a sub-verse of Corruption!Verse, Tyson is teaching his nephew James how to skateboard when they take the dogs out in the morning. James’ skateboard is the Punisher Cherry Blossom skateboard within the purple box.

In HDM AU, Tyson uses the surfskate longboard within the green box instead of a skateboard. He does this to make room for his dæmon, Yenta, to hop onto the board when she gets tired of running alongside him. This also makes room for his dogs when they wish to join, but only for one passenger at a time.

Within Veteran AU, Tyson has taken to rollerskating with the pair in the brown box as a form of physical therapy in his recovery. He sometimes finds long walks difficult and rollerskating is an easier way for him to move around, Meg and Jack love to run after him like that.

* Currently unpictured in his Orphan AU and Hogwarts AU, teenage Tyson absolutely has heelys. Those will be appearing in their respective Pokémon headcanon marathon posts, which sadly must wait for Generation 5/6.

Zoo

As with most social attractions, Tyson’s issues with zoos stem more from his social anxiety rather than any objections towards the attractions themselves.

He is always keenly aware that animals can easily be mistreated within zoos and that they can cause misinformation to spread, but for the most part, Tyson falls on the side of zoos being overall beneficial as a place to protect endangered animals and to safely provide education about various animals.

Though Tyson will always gladly take his nephew to the aquarium whenever he wants to go, he does enjoy the days when James wants to visit the London zoo instead. It’s something where Tyson can actually help explain things for James and answer his questions about various animals.

James’ favourite stuffed toy in his massive collection is Kevin, a lion that Tyson brought for him at London zoo.

Laughter

When Tyson laughs, it comes as a soft amused huff or a bark of laughter: shocking and brief, escaping before being clamped down again.

He dislikes how vulnerable laughing makes him. He’ll hide his laughter by smothering himself with his bicep.

His father used to snap at students for laughing during his lessons and at his heirs for disturbing him when he was marking papers or doing research, so Tyson got into the habit of keeping his laughter as quiet as possible and avoiding laughing openly.

Humour

Tyson’s sense of humour fluctuates wildly between a quick deadpan wit coupled with macabre gallows’ humour, smooth as butter flirtations, & awful plays on words and puns.

The latter mostly only comes out with people he’s comfortable enough around to make a fool of himself with, such as his family and old friends. He is a very guarded person with strong social anxiety. It takes a lot of courage for him to purposefully act the fool and to avoid flinching away if someone mocks him for doing so.

The middle one is either for those he’s comfortable with, used as a reflexive defence, or in response to another person’s flirting. He likes making other people smile and flattery is a good way of doing that. He finds flirting fun, so it comes more naturally to Tyson.

The former is most commonly seen, though the full extent of it is usually awkwardly stilted - as much of his words and speech patterns are - until Tyson feels comfortable enough around a person to speak freely.

Unown

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.

Tyson will always be endlessly curious and the unknown is simply a new puzzle for him to play with.

Finding something that he doesn’t understand and getting to poke at it until he does understand it is one of Tyson’s favourite parts of science and mathematics, and his work with the Moriarty Mirrors.

He has an ingrained fear from childhood about being reprimanded for not knowing everything - to admitting that he doesn’t know something that he feels as though he should, which is everything - but that doesn’t dim the spark of wonder in Tyson’s eyes when he finds something new.

He is a scholar in his heart of hearts. Any new knowledge to discover is a gift.

Tarot Cards

The tarot card that matches Tyson - both in the sense of traditional tarot cards and their usages within the Persona universe - would be the Hanged Man.

Three cards of the major arcana could easily be drawn from the deck and justified to personify Tyson: Hierophant, Justice, and Hanged Man. So, what makes the Hanged Man the card to represent Tyson?

Portrayed as a man hanging upside-down from one leg with his other leg crossing it, forming a “4;” the Hanged Man Arcana is associated with self-sacrifice for the sake of enlightenment, the bindings that makes one free, paradoxes and hanging between heaven and earth. In Tarot readings, this card’s appearance can be seen as an advice to take the time necessary to reflect over one’s upcoming actions.

Personas of the Hanged Man Arcana are commonly Personas excelling in survivability. Hanged Man Personas are typically mythological figures that exist between two different forces, or find themselves in transition. They are also sometimes martyr figures.

Hanged Man characters are sometimes self-sacrificial, but are more often notable for being caught between two different extremes, parties or stages in life.

Our dear sweet Icarus will always be carried by themes of self-sacrifice and the idea of getting caught between two extremes, good and bad. 

Tyson has structured his life around bindings to make himself free, to avoid having control taken away from him by giving away control and keeping in constant control of himself.

Despite his best attempts to run away from the family legacy and his upper-class upbringing, Tyson will always be a scholar in his heart of hearts; and his endless curiosity will always lead Tyson straight into trouble. Any risk he takes and price he must pay is worth it in Tyson eyes to find the answers he seeks, to find the truth.

The Lawful Neutral Tyson will always be balancing the scales of two extremes. He has a confusingly big heart and will go out of his way to do good, because he genuinely wants to, but also to make up for the evil he does: to survive and out of love and loyalty to the Moriarty Mirrors.

One of his defining characteristics is that his determination to live - to survive - is (almost) as strong as Moran’s to kill, and Tyson takes all the time in the world to consider his options: a backup plan for every backup plan.

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Beyond commentary on Tyson’s personality, tarots also carries weight in Mythical!Verse and Tyson reading the cards for cons, weaving tales around those he knows to sell his story to his audience.

The following are how Tyson associate people with different arcana for storytelling and for magical purposes, depending on the verse.

0 Fool - Bùi Kimiko & Jim Moriarty (Mischief)
I Magician - Jeremy Thornton & Rosie Delaney
II Priestess -  Dōjima ‘Tae’ Taeko
III Empress - Charlie Hotchner
IV Emperor - Jethro Andrew Delaney 
V Hierophant - Professor John Delaney 
VI Lovers - Liam Edward Xavier
VII Chariot - Captain Andrew Samson
VIII Justice - Professor Reginald Arlington
IX Hermit - James Delaney & Professor Isaac Alinson
X Fortune - Anne Samantha Williams & Levi McCullum
XI Strength - Second Lieutenant Hal Malone & Sienna McCullum
XII Hanged Man - Lieutenant Tyson Delaney 
XIII Death - General William Clarkson & Jim Moriarty (Sunshine)
XIV Temperance - Greg Lestrade & Billy Ramsey
XV Devil - Irene Adler
XVI Tower - Colonel Sebastian Moran
XVII Star - Jasmine Dartmoor & George Cartwright
XVIII Moon - Dick Gannon
XIX Sun - Nathaniel Morrison & Molly Hooper
XX Judgement - Professor Richard Delaney
XXI World - Captain John Watson

Moriarty and Animals

Over the years, Tyson had heard the Moriarty Mirrors compared to many different animals.

Crow/Raven

Every now and again, and constantly in Redemption!Verse, Tyson keeps a crow plush in his bag as a good luck charm because it reminds him of the Moriarty Mirrors.

He understands the comparison and at times enjoys it. They’re smart birds and he certainly does enjoy seeing them in black, but Tyson cannot take hearing another ‘sly’ reference to the Raven poem directed at them.

Fox

An apt comparison in Tyson’s mind. One that he hears most often from the Moriarty Mirrors themselves or those within the web, rather than those he meets on business for the web.

If he hears the comparison to a fox outside of the web, it’s usually in more vague terms that Tyson has to intuit from: sly, Wiley, et cetera.

Magpie

The Magpie is the comparison that Tyson agrees with the most. It’s the symbol they always use on their wax seals, to which Tyson answers with a compass.

Though the Moriarty Mirrors may deny this, Tyson can say with certainty that he’s seen them acting like magpies before. Mischief with new tech and trinkets, and Sunshine with antiquities and trinkets too. Not that Tyson is any better, always snagging shiny objects from passing pockets that he thinks might interest them.

Snake

His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his face protrudes forward, and is for ever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion. 

Tyson is fortunate enough to have avoided having their fangs directed at him, but he has seen the consequences of their venom plenty of times.

It’s a comparison that Tyson agrees with, but one that he prefers not to think about.

Spider

Their criminal empire is called the web.

Stress Relief

When it comes to stress relief, we already know that meditation works well for Tyson and that he tends to avoid sex or masturbation, but how does Tyson handle other traditional ways of relieving stress?

Tyson has the same problem with distrusting strangers and not wanting to be touched by anyone he doesn’t know with massages as he does with sex. That said, Tyson enjoys giving massages and finds the repetitive actions calming.

He has never tried acupuncture, but Tyson doesn’t trust strangers to be near him with sharp objects enough to let them cut his hair. He cuts his own hair for that very reason. On the other hand, fear of needles isn’t a problem.

The dent in his torso stops Tyson from doing yoga, but he isn’t against the idea and if it weren’t for the pain from that hypersensitive wound, Tyson would probably get the same amount of stress relief from yoga as he would his meditation.

He tends to get good results from anything that requires heat, however. Hot springs and saunas are great for getting Tyson to relax and, even though trusting a stranger is still a problem, hot rocks do help Tyson unwind his stress.

Mud baths go into the category of acceptable dirt with Tyson’s OCD, but he doesn’t enjoy them that much. He dislikes being stuck in a bath anyway, vulnerable on his back like a turtle and forced to stay in one position, and adding a thicker liquid that restricts his movements more simply makes it worse.

But for Tyson, the best stress relief of all is laying on the settee with something warm and fuzzy snuggled on top of him. Even if Bobby wiggles too much.

Plays and Opera

As a child, Tyson was dragged to dozens of plays and operas whilst his father entertained his fellow professors or schmoozed with potential donors to the manor.

He definitely prefers watching plays rather than performing them, but being in a theatre isn’t something Tyson would choose to do on his own. Even if one of the opera top boxes, Tyson’s anxiety is set off by the sheer number of people below.

Pagliacci was a favourite of Tyson’s father and the young heir was dragged to several performances. He’s convinced that he’ll never get the words out of his head now, but Tyson never grew bored of hearing it as he did some of the other performances he was taken to.

Tyson saw Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with Sebastian whilst they were between deployments. It was one of the few moments that they stole together between times in uniforms that could be called a date; not their first, but close to it and certainly more memorable than the café that took that honour.

The Pirates of Penzance was one of Jethro’s favourite performances. He’ll squirm in his seat and deny it now, but Jethro adored that performance when he was eleven. That Jethro was firmly in his pirate phase at the time probably helped.

Despite Jethro’s concerns that it might be a little too mature for him, James shared his mother’s love of The Who’s Tommy. Though that might in part be due to Rosie always playing The Who’s music and James already knowing the songs from her.

Sunlight

Though Tyson has rather sensitive skin when it comes to chemicals, he doesn’t get sunburn easily nor does he tan. His eye colour is affected by light exposure, but Tyson’s skin is always pale from a lack of sun, and far too long spent working by night.

Tyson’s freckles come and go but on his left shoulder, there are always a cluster of five soft brown freckles on his pale skin. It takes a lot of sun for freckles to appear on Tyson’s face, but he can end up with a few across the bridge of his nose. It’s most noticeable in the photos from his days serving in Afghanistan.

In bright sunlight, Tyson needs his sunglasses far less then he acts as though he does. He picked up the habit of always wearing his sunglasses during his army days and it never really left. He can’t afford to miss a threat because he’s squinting against the sun. Plus, it gives him an excuse to conceal his eyes from view; to avoid direct eye-contact and flit his gaze around for threats.

He tends to wear sunglasses with straight arms, because he hates the feeling of anything behind his wear.