Tyson's apartment incredibly difficult to navigate - an explanation of why.

Here is a picture of Tyson's apartment:



The living room especially is cramped with lots of potential to trip over, even though Tyson keeps the rooms tidy and floor as clear as possible, part of his low level OCD. The small corridor that leads from the front door into the living room is made more difficult to move through because that is where Tyson stores his bike, meaning that should one wish to enter the living room they'd have to sidestep a mountain bike. This isn't just because I failed to scale my sketch correctly. It is done because of how Tyson moves.

Tyson, when at home, moves around on his tiptoes. In the words of Sebastian Moran (or Jethro, depending on the verse / if he's interacting with a different Sebastian), "the kid prances around like a pixie." He is trained in classical dance and ballroom dancing. When he moves around the room he really does move like a pixie. It's as though his feet never touch the floor. He goes up on the pads of his feet and, essentially dances around the room, through a series of pivots, though always accommodating for where his dogs are in the room. He only ever does this in company if he is comfortable with the other person, otherwise he'll walk with his feet flat - as he does when in public. It is one of the many ways Tyson tried to control his life, to make it more organised. When his is comfortable he is up which means he has to concentrate to walk as most people would, it helps him stay focused and give him a sense of control in the scenerio.

He knows the layout of his apartment like the back of his hand so can navigate it easily despite having to side step around most of the apartment; and normally having awful balance. For anyone else though it is a death trap made four times as hard by having two Dalmatians wondering around it. Lily and Bobby also find getting relatively easy, because they are dogs.

The neck line

After an incident in Afghanistan, a mission gone wrong, Tyson doesn't wear anything with too tight of a collar.
The clothes that he wears are either very loose and bellow his collar bones [t-shirts and polos] or stop on the collar bone and are tight enough that they can't slip any higher [basically anything else other than dress shirts and formal dress shirts*].
When he wears a dress shirt he doesn't do up the top button and lets the tie or bow tie [or any other type of fabric worn around the neck] keep the collar closed. When he wears a formal dress shirt he'll close the top button but keep the neck wear loose to avoid triggering any flash backs. 

*Having come from an upper class family Tyson considers anything worn on the torso that isn't a vest or item of clothing worn over a shirt [blazer, jacket, coat, et cetera] to be a dress shirt. What most people would normally call a dress shirt Tyson calls a formal dress shirt.

Tyson's eyes

Tyson’s eyes are brown (Hazel). In this particular picture of Damien Molony his eyes are green but if you look at others his eyes are clearly brown. This is very common for people with hazel eyes, so I will always say that Tyson’s eyes are brown but on occasion they may have a green hue to them.


Tyson’s brother’s, Jethro Andrew Delaney, eyes are usually green but occasionally become green, like their mother’s, Anne. Whereas Tyson takes after their father, John, and his eyes are usually brown and only occasionally green. Due to the resemblance to his father’s Tyson has never liked his eyes, except for when they become green; which happens more in the summer when the brighter light brings out the green pigment better than it does during the other seasons.

When Tyson served in Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, 2001-2006 and 2006-2008, the brighter light in the Middle East meant that Tyson’s eyes were green more often than they are now that he is in Britain. This also applies to the time Tyson spent running away from the army both with and without Sebastian, 2008-2011.

This topic on the Damien Molony forum: link.

Christmas or therefore lack of.

Head Canon:

Tyson doesn’t celebrate christmas. Having grown up in a Jewish household he didn’t as a child and without a family he sees no need to now.

Unless he knows that someone definitely does celebrate the holiday Tyson doesn’t both getting them a gift or a card as he knows that most people would then feel obligated to get him something, and he doesn’t want anything*.

The only difference is that he is more charitable, though only because it is nearly impossible to turn a corner without finding a donation box set up specifically for christmas and Tyson will always give if he has money on him at the time. 

*That statement isn’t entirely true. There are items that he does want but he’s has never been in a position where he has been lacking money. With access to the family fortune Tyson doesn’t need to wait till Christmas to get something he wants.

Even then he doesn’t buy all that much. He limits himself to buying one book a month and, unless it was a digital book, at the end of the month the book will either be placed in the library at the family manor or given to a charity shop. 

Tyson's Education

The secondary school Tyson attended was Cambridge International School, a private school. He attended until he was fifteen when his father had him moved to Cambridge University, four years early.

His father was able to do this because he’d held a position at Cambridge University as a Professor of Mathematics for over twenty years.

At Cambridge Tyson studied mathematics and military history. His anti-war father disagreed with his choice of minor but agreed to let him continue it rather than taking political studies. Tyson was also able to study law at Cambridge for half a semester when he finished mathematics early. 

Word related head canons

Burn

Since a young age Tyson had been scared of fire.

Whilst his brother would watch the flames in the fire place and be transfixed by how they moved, Tyson would stare at the flame to make sure they weren’t touching anything flammable. As if looking away from the flames would mean that the house would suddenly turn to ash as the fire burned it down.

Quiet

From toddler to early teen Tyson was quiet, father was working.

For the rest of his teens Tyson was quiet, father was working.

Twenty to twenty seven Tyson was quiet, there was work to be done.

Traveling to India Tyson was silent, Sebastian was talking.

Fleeing back home Tyson was silent, the police were coming.

Hiding from the Colonel Tyson was silent, everyone was coming.

Now safe and sound with darling dearest Tyson was resounding, the consulting criminal was calling.

Tyson's gadgets.

Tyson buys gadgets he thinks will do a good enough job for his purposes then hacks into them and edits the softwear / hard wear to fit his needs. Using the technology in his owner's compound Tyson learnt how to edit his devices to fit his needs.

Due to the family's wealth money isn't an issue but he prefers not to buy anything overly expensive as most of the time he can find a relativity cheap gadget to get what he wants done; and its less likely to get stolen. Tyson's three main gadgets are his phone, tablet, and laptop.

Laptop

Tyson mainly used his laptop to write. It doesn't show very well when he speaks but Tyson is very literate and enjoys writing stories.  The top or back laptop is "decorated" with stickers ranging from the stickers that come on apples to promotional 'Pedigree' stickers that came with the dogs treats. His nephew has also contributed several stickers to it.

He uses the laptop's keyboard - though he's replaced alternate keys to make a black (keys with white text) and white (keys with black text) checkerboard board, similar to this but with normal laptop keys not Mac keys  -  but has a separate wireless mouse.

Phone

Like everything in Tyson’s life, his phone was well organised. There was a code for everything in his phone: resources (ammo and gun suppliers, knife makers, fabric makers, tailors, butchers, bakers, anything Tyson used) were listed as different pieces of classical music, for example, his German tailor was listed under Schäferoper, one of Wagner’s operas.

By default, Tyson's phone displayed all manner of incrimitaing data, but if he enters a different password when unlocking it, his phone will enter a mode where only data that he specifically flagged as safe will appear; it was easier than attempting to tag everything that wasn't safe.

If the person matters to Tyson and is ever likely to call, Tyson will give them a personalised ringtone. His default ringtone, for people he doesn't know/those he hasn't gotten around to given a specific ringtone, is the chorus of 'Pumped Up Kicks'. Whenever Tyson is out and about, his phone is on vibrate, but whilst at home he finds the music more useful to avoid unnecessarily springing into action.

Tablet

For Tyson, his tablet is purely person. His laptop will be used for work, but his tablet is just for entertainment purposes: for reading digital books, listening to music, and watching films. He uses the tablet for these things rather than his laptop because it is more portable than the laptop and needs charging less often.

Nervous ticks.

There are three main types of twitches that Tyson has; twitching the first two fingers of his left hand, flexing his right hand, and toying with his dog tags.

He does different one depending on how nervous he is at the time. Twitching the first two fingers of his left hand happens when he is nervous about anything as a general that is what he'll do, the other two happen when his nervousness is more specific.

If he feels threatened when he'll flex his right hand. It is fairly common in soldiers and is often a reflex left over from adjusting ones grip on a gun.

If he doesn't know what to say then he'll toy with his dog tags, either by rolling them through his fingers or straightening them out, depending on how nervous he is.

The Delaney Family Heritage

Source(s):

• http://www.houseofnames.com/delaney-family-crest
• http://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?view=2&surname=delaney

Tyson's bike

Model:   Trek 3900
Colour: Dark Olive

Since having a car in London is often expensive when living inside the congestion zone Tyson gets around in cabs, bus, the underground, on foot, and on his bike. Whilst having a light weight street bike would be more practical Tyson's bike is a mountain bike because the better suspension doesn't jolt his ribs as much meaning they are less likely to be damaged whist riding around.

When at the pet store Tyson keeps his bike in the backroom, lent against the wall so he can get under the stairs and up the stairs with ease. When at home he keeps his bike in the hallway where he has to side step it to get in and out which makes his already difficult to navigate home a death trap that is impossible to get in and out of, this had lead to Bobby jumping out of the window rather than using the door. Tyson has considered joining him in this.

Equipment:

• Lights

Tyson is often up in the early hours of the morning and late at night, when there are fewer people around, so he needed to fix lights on his bike. Not only a light so that he could see where he was going but also ones so that cars could see him.

• Mudguard

There is a mudguard for the back wheel but not the front wheel as Tyson rides in the city, only.

• Stand

Tyson fitted a stand to the bike after finding that just leaning the bike against the wall meant if fell over, constantly and that this would also happen at stores.

• Lock

He lives in London, self explanatory.

Towels

Tyson has three types of towels in his airing cupboard: red, blue, and purple. The blue are for Lily, her white coat means she needs to be cleaned often to keep it white, which is the same reason why Bobby has his own towels, the red ones. The towels Tyson uses to dry himself are the purple towels because he is, on occasion, pedantic and would rather not get covered in dog hair straight out of the shower.

why does Tyson act to needy when confronted with affection?

Good question, no one. Let’s start with Tyson’s childhood. His father never gave him any affection which meant any he got came from his brother and mother. His mother and brother abandoned him when he was young meaning for a long time of his life, a time when affection and support is incredibly important, he got none.

Then he joined the army and (almost) the only affection that he got came from Sebastian, hard to believe but on occasion Sebastian was nice to Tyson. By now you should notice the theme, Sebastian also abandoned him (after months of abuse.)

This means Tyson is both deprived of affection and afraid of it. He desperately wants it because he’s been starved of it, but at the same time he’s afraid to have it because he’s afraid that it’ll disappear if he has it. He clings to the affection so much because he’s afraid that if he doesn’t hold onto it tightly it will disappear and leave him like everything else, it’s why he doesn’t let Lily and Bobby out of his sight.

Tyson's handwriting

His signature (below) is generally much neater than his handwriting and is closer to how his writing looks when taking his time and being extra careful, such as when writing on his maps, as opposed to his general/note taking writing above.

The leather jacket.

Jethro knew Tyson would be upset that he was running away so left a note on his bedside table and put the leather jacket over Tyson as a blanket.

He didn't want to abandon Tyson, as their mother had abandoned them both with their father, but Jethro knew that he wouldn't be able to take care of Tyson on his own. Not properly.

Tyson's Triggers

• Being called Poppet
• Being called Kitten
• Being called Kiddo
• Being around alcohol
• People touching the dent in his torso.
• Barns
• Raised, angry voices
• Hands being raised quickly, close to him
• Men with grey hair
• Men with similar voices to Sebastian
• Thunder and Lightening
• Cold water on his head

Though these are all triggers, rather than things that make him uncomfortable, they are not always going to cause a flashback or break him. It depends on the moment and his mental state at the time.

Fevers only

Tyson never gets 'ill', he gets fevers. 

If he catches any form of sickness it becomes a fever almost without fail, if it is anything more than a cold or a headache.

His fever normally breaks after two days.

The severity varies depending on what he actually came down with. Sometimes he'll just be running unhealthily hot, but power through it. Other times, he'll be unable to lift his head from his pillow without feeling lightheaded.

Map of Tyson's scars.

Tyson has more scars than purely those pictures bellow, however, those are a combination of the most severe and the ones that Tyson cares about: ones that came from mistakes, unavoidably his fault and his fault alone, or caused by The Colonel.

He is littered with small scars from a hard fought life, working in dangerous places in the web/the army and from surviving everything The Colonel/being abandoned in the desert threw at him. These scars largely small things attained over the years/changeable depending on the thread and Tyson's experiences within them. Nicks from working with knives in the kitchen and in the web, grazing wounds from shrapnel in the army, et cetera.

Tyson's twitches master list.

• First two fingers of his left hand. – Nervous / fear. His default nervous tick.
• Rubbing the back of his neck. – Self conscious / nervous.
• Rolling his dog tags. – Unsure / deep in thought / doesn't know what to say.
• Putting a hand over the dent in his torso. – Vulnerable.
• Running a hand through his hair, hastily glancing. – Floundering.
• Taking a sharp breath and tensing. – There is thunder.
•  Left ring finger twitches. - Lying.
• Playing with his zippier. – Shy.
• Biting his lip. – Not saying something / thinking.
• Wrapping both arms around himself. – Vulnerable.
• Stuttering on letter P and twirling his thumbs. - Becoming ill.
• Tracing a word with his right index finger. - Confused/doesn't understand the word.
• Flexing his right hand - Feels threatened.
• Right eye twitching - OCD being affected.

His dog tags are a mask to hide behind.

Tyson is ashamed of how his military carrier ended so he always wears his dog tags and introduces himself as 'Lieutenant' because to him it feels as though he is still part of the military that way.

Originally he joined the military to annoy his father, who spent most of his time out of work promoting anti-war ideals, but he became attached to the military because it gave him a purpose.

Fear of water.

When they met Lily was afraid of water, Tyson taught her to swim.