The boy likes Clifford the Big Red Dog. There needs be no other reason.
Earth!Verse - Bee - Benjamin The Wasp is James’ favourite Superhero in this verse.
Avatar!Verse - Turtleduck - Cheese Turtleducks are James’ favourite animal within the Avatar universe.
Pokémon AU - Snorlax - Jeremy James got this plush as a tenth birthday present from a friend who’d left to have a Pokémon adventure.
HDM AU - Cat - Luna It was always obvious that his dæmon would settle as a cat.
Within Redemption!Verse, James’ favourite stuffed toys are the same as the main!universe, but Tyson now keeps the crow plush that James gave him - called Shadow - on his person at all times.
Outside of Shadow, there are a few other stuffed toys kept in Tyson’s apartment. In his walk-in cupboard/panic room, there is the teddy bear that used to belong to Tyson’s mother and three stuffed toys kept on the shelves in the living roomfor Tyson’s dogs: a teddy bear for Bobby, a lion for Lily, and a Sackboy plush that they share.
Until was twelve and his father forced him to throw it away, Tyson’s treasured stuffed toy was a Grumpy Bear plush. Jethro won the toy at a school raffle when Tyson was six and gave it to his little brother.
And in many ways, Tyson continues to be a dumbass punk.
In most of his verses, Tyson wore his brother’s leather jacket and used the same pins/patches as his main universe. There are three exceptions that we shall get into below.
In general terms, Tyson largely goes for positive pins/badges/patches. As is true in most of Tyson’s life, he would rather fight for something than against something: even if the end goal would be the same for both messages.
Main Universe
The first thing to note about Tyson’s main universe is that the jacket he wore is the jacket Tyson continues to wear in his main outfit, the leather jacket that used to belong to his older brother Jethro.
This means a) the jacket is not a style that Tyson would otherwise choose to wear, especially with the lack of pockets, b) that despite his decent height and broad shoulders, the jacket always looks slightly too big for him and c) that Tyson would never dare damage the fabric.
It’s a little tricky to see in the picture, but that union flag has a tab to attach it to something; the other side of the flag when looped over Tyson’s right shoulder like a pauldron. This meant that Tyson had something to attach things to without damaging the fabric and that he could quickly remove it, to hide this side of himself from his father at a moment’s notice.
That flag and almost everything that was attached to it was left behind in Tyson’s bedroom at the family manor. However, two patched remain attached to the jacket; the two that Jethro added before he ran away from home: ‘I am my brothers keeper’ & ‘O Pos’.
The blood type patch is stitched on the inside of the hood, by the collar. Easy to access and to point out to a medical team. Jethro attached that one when he decided he would be leaving that jacket for his brother when he ran away from home. The brother patch had been stitched inside the cuff of the left sleeve for almost as long as Jethro had the jacket.
Of all the pins, the one that meant the most to Tyson - the one that felt like most like rebelling against his father - was the ‘Not Perfect’ shield. He took it with him into his army service and now it’s hidden away in the bag of his old army gear, stashed away under his bed as a not-so-secret treasure.
As a teenager in Orphan AU, away from his father’s abuses, Tyson has much more confidence in expressing his own style; rather than the more subdued, secretive choices of the teenage Tyson from his main!universe. Also, he leans more towards being a pastel punk/hipster than his purely punk counterpart.
In this verse, Tyson chose to buy that jacket in particular. Second hand as that was all he could afford. It came with the Wonder Woman patch attached on the bicep of the left arm and Tyson had absolutely no inclination to remove it.
The other patches were stitched on by Tyson, on the right inside of that jacket, easy enough to see when its unzipped, but they are more for Tyson’s satisfaction than to be viewed.
Above the zip-pocket on the left side of his jacket, Tyson always has one of the ‘Please Adopt’ pins attached. Whenever there are people visiting the orphanage, Tyson grabs his spare version of the pin and attaches it to whatever t-shirt he was wearing that day.
Of his nine other pins, Tyson only wears three at a time on the right side of his jacket, rotating through them depending on his mood that day.
Though Tyson’s jacket is technically a very dark brown, within Hogwarts AU Tyson is loyal to the Hufflepuff colours scheme with his choices.
Here Tyson is largely away from his father, but Tyson is still bound by his responsibilities to the family legacy. His style remains less subdued than main!verse Tyson, but there is a stronger themeing and sense of loyalty to it.
He also isn’t afraid of damaging the jacket he snagged from a muggle market, as he can easily repair it with magic. Tyson cut out the inside lining of his jacket, originally an odd paisley, and replaced it with the Hufflepuff Quidditch Banner seen in the top right.
On the back of his jacket, Tyson has gold/silver wings like a Golden Snitch painted on; though magically enchanted to ensure the rain doesn’t wash them off. Though the Hufflepuff tie always remained around his left arm, Tyson daily chances which pin he has attached over the knot of the tie.
Along the line of the wing on his right shoulder, Tyson has handstitched the words ‘Half-blood and proud’ with white cotton. It felt important to him to do that part without magic and, though clearly amateur, Tyson is pretty proud of how neatly he managed to stitch the words.
The Nirvana patch is stitched over his right-hand pocket, with the flap covering the name, and the Robin patch is stitched neatly onto his left pocket. The feminist patch goes above the left pocket, like a name tag, and the Arc Reactor is stitched a little higher up over his right pocket; enchanted to illuminate when pressed, giving out just enough light to let him read in the dark.
The leather diamond patches are stitched across Tyson’s right bicep, whilst the two round fabric patches are stitched onto the left: one above and one below the permanently tied tie. The bee patch is only 1cm big and stitched onto the back of his jacket, when pressed the bee will walk to a new location to settle in.
Within his Honey Badge SU, Tyson has moved the tie over to his right arm to conceal the werewolf patch.
He knows that it is incredibly unlikely that someone would decide that patch made him a werewolf, but Tyson is afraid of being discovered; whilst stubborn enough to want to be proud of who he is and refusing to remove the patch.
Though Pokémon is where Tyson’s jacket becomes most like the more subdued style of his main!verse and where he spent most of his childhood under his father’s thumb, Tyson had more independence due to having his own Pokémon; actually having those friends and companions outside of his brother and Jasmine.
In this verse, his jacket is thicker and more designed for rough treatment to better survive various Pokémon and travelling around with them. With the exception of the leather fish patch on his right bicep and the ‘mistake’ patch stitched inside the jacket, all of Tyson’s patches are on the back of his jacket in this verse. He always has the ‘sad soul’ pin over the ‘not dead yet’ patch.
With the exception of whichever pin or gym badge he has chosen to put as his ‘lapel’ pin on the left of his jacket, Tyson puts all of his pins/badges on the back of his jacket in his verse. This tends to avoid any of his Pokémon accidentally pulling them off when he’s interacting with them.
Tyson will occasionally pull out this jacket when he needs to go undercover with Team Skull, throwing it over their signature tank-top to better cover his scars. When he puts the jacket on these days, Tyson will pin a few of his league gym badges onto the jacket.
Travelling around in the Pokémon universe can dangerous, so Tyson has the First Aid and Nurse patch stitched onto his bag to reassure any trainers that he comes across that he can help patch them or their Pokémon up.
Tyson loves to learn about different cultures and time periods, through their legends, ‘old wives tales’, and folk heroes. However, Tyson has a definite bias towards the Greek and Roman tales; their history in general, in truth.
Their tales about the stars and sky are always in the back of his mind when he looks up at the beautiful maps above him.
He finds a lot of comfort in those tales, they’re familiar and always there. Even through dozens of iterations and interpretations of them. Tyson actually enjoys that there are so many different versions, different ways to hear his favourite tales again.
Though Tyson loves all those tales, he does have his biases. He finds Hades to be fascinating and loves any tale with Athena. Neptune and Poseidon never fail to capture Tyson’s imagination. He enjoys the stories of Nike and Mercury. Prometheus is a secret favourite of his.
As has been mentioned many times, Tyson is Icarus and - even knowing its hubris - he embraces the moniker with open arms.
After parting ways with Sebastian and escaping military capture, Tyson had simply accepted that he wasn’t going to make it. He never considered giving in or stopping trying to find safety, but somewhere in his heart, he’d accepted that the odds were stacked against him; that this would be his undoing.
He had played it safe and taken a necessary risk, but it wasn’t going to pay off. He didn’t think he could survive on his own, but Tyson never stopped trying. He refused to stop pushing himself to make that next step, to live for another day.
It doesn’t matter if Tyson thinks he can’t, he will. He will survive and fight to his last. He has proven that a dozen times over, with Moran’s encouragement.
There have been many times, knees caked in dirt and hands covered in blood, where Tyson has thought, ‘I can’t.’ I can’t go on like this. I can’t make it home. I can’t leave Sebastian. I can’t do that. I can’t. I cannot. I’m not good enough.
He did keep going. He did make it home. He did leave Sebastian’s abuses.
On his own.
Brave, stupid, Tyson. Too damn stubborn to die, marching forward and refusing to fail.
After all, he has to live to see that new day. Tyson can’t throw his life away for someone else tomorrow if he lets himself die today.
Though Tyson weighs every risk against its reward, never taking an unnecessary risk and having a backup plan for every backup plan, Tyson’s interpretation of which risks are worthwhile is a little …off and his confusingly big heart betrays him every time.
The risk of fugu verses its deliciousness would not be worth it to Tyson as he generally dislikes having to eat anyway. In that case, the risk exists for the sake of a risk rather than any tangible reward for Tyson.
The risk of burning up to bask in the warmth of the Moriarty Mirrors or The Colonel is a risk that Tyson will take every time without failure. Even in Tyson’s mind, it’s not a risk of burning up. He knows he will burn to make them happy, and Tyson is fine with that. He welcomes it with open arms.
Our dear Icarus will not flinch from his fate.
He trusts in mathematics completely, he trusts his ability as a mathematician to weigh the odds in his favour, and minimise the risks. To mitigate them. He plays it safe. However, Tyson knows that his emotions will always override that reasoning. He will do everything he can to reduce the level of risk, to ensure he can survive the repercussions, but Tyson is compelled to make those risks if it will benefit another. Those risks become worthwhile.
Tyson would claim that the biggest risks he has ever taken were joining the army to spite his father and trusting The Colonel. Those were risks he took blindly - without thinking through the consequences and without accepting the cost before he paid it, as he accepted them when he chose to join the Moriarty Mirrors - but Tyson will never regret taking those chances.
For all his incredible talent to survive, Tyson sees any damage to himself as far less important as the risk that someone else might be briefly inconvenienced by him not endangering himself; an exaggeration of the situation, perhaps, but truer than Tyson would ever care to admit.
He won’t risk a hand in a game of cards, because Tyson can card count flawlessly and has removed practically all risk. He knows the outcome already, and any loss of money is meaningless to him regardless.
It is unnecessary for him to risk getting hurt by someone he suspects could be untrustworthy, especially after everything The Colonel put him through. However, Tyson will view it as entirely necessary to throw himself in the line of fire to protect a complete stranger from harm or slander.
It’s not that Tyson never takes a risk.
Tyson has an incredibly risky job and shockingly little self-preservation, self-worth. Tyson will never take an unnecessary risk, because Tyson has the skills to justify why every risk that must be taken and to make those risks near inconsequential; by going out of his way to ensure their success and his survival.
He takes calculated risks. The risks where Tyson deems the reward worth the danger it presents. Risks where Tyson is either completely confident in his ability to succeed or where Tyson has accepted the price that must be paid and deemed it worthy, whether he succeeds or fails.
Though Tyson rarely opens Pup’s Pet Store for the public, one of the services he offers when the store is actually open is to help people find the right pet for them; and more importantly in his eyes, the right person for that animal.
Tyson struggles to read and understand people, but Tyson knows animals and he’s good at reading how they’re feeling.
Within his main!verse, he found homes for all of Lily’s puppies: with the exception of Bobby, the runt of the little whom he always intended to keep. He was also the who found Toby (the Beagle) for John Watson to adopt and helped train him in the year that Sherlock was pretending to be dead, and he took Billy to adopt her cat, Quip.
He has a good memory for the general behavioural quirks for the majority of cat and dog breeds, though Tyson will admit that he can give far more detailed answers when it comes to how a dog can be expected to respond.
Having spent so much of his life handling service dogs for the army, Tyson has a good understanding of what an animal will need in those first few weeks and what they will need once they’re acclimatised. He knows how to train them and how much energy/time is needed to achieve certain things.
Tyson is an incredibly patient person, but he still understands the frustration of not feeling as though progress is being made with an animal. He is in a good position to help break through that communication wall and encourage a person to keep trying, to offer alternative solutions and provide that training himself if needs be.
Though Tyson was pretty good at rock climbing when he went with his brother, Jethro, to his classes, it wasn’t one that Tyson particularly enjoyed. He prefers the freedom to pick his own paths that climbing trees, mountains, or parkouring around London provides.
He doesn’t find climbing rewarding in the same way as other exercises. He doesn’t mind being at heights and the view can be enjoyable, but the actual task is one that disinterests Tyson.
To take a break - or stop altogether - when he’s running or lifting weights before meeting any significant stopping point doesn’t feel like a defeat, as he has still achieved whatever distance and however many lifts as the point he stops at. Whereas when he’s climbing, Tyson has either completed that attempt at climbing the wall or he hasn’t. It feels like a defeat to lower himself back to the ground without completing the wall.
Parkouring around London goes into the running category for Tyson. It’s like running through an obstacle course in his army days. Every building he manages to get over, around, or through counts as a success.
Even when he needs to haul himself over a ledge or climb up drainpipes to make his way to a window, Tyson would never put that into the same category of climbing up as a rock wall. In his mind, it’s more dynamic and involved than a climbing wall.
