#not to ask-bait but. if yall are ever curious abt domino pls do shoot me an ask i literally love talking abt them-

[axemetaphor]

Character Backstory: Domino Dog

finally got Domino’s backstory all straightened out in a way that I can comfortably share w yall! this is a long post, but hopefully it’s fun to read. Warnings are placed before potentially-triggering content but overall their story has a big warning for child abuse, though it’s not written out in great detail. 

ETA 2020, I think it’s important to note this backstory is from Domino’s perspective, and sometimes, things aren’t entirely accurate! This is part fact, part what they believe has happened.

Domino was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 13th around twenty-ish years ago. Christened “----,” they spent the first twelve years of their life growing up in Glasgow before their family emigrated to New York in search of work. They spent much of their time alone, as their family was fond of locking them out of the house, viewing the puppy as a nuisance constantly underfoot. (Domino got in the way of their parents’ fighting, mostly.) Due to this they developed a love for foot-travel early on in life and quite a lot of stamina to walk for hours on end in any sort of weather. They didn’t have many good things growing up, and haven’t held on to many items from that time in their life, the only notable object being a small solar-powered handheld video game console they played endlessly on days when it was too hot and sunny to walk. (They also still own a hoodie, pair of jeans and a tank top from that era, because it’s what they were wearing when they left home.)

At the age of around seven it was already obvious that they were a little… off. They didn’t get along with other children, primarily on account of being a dog but secondarily because they were already clearly nonbinary, but had no vocabulary to express it yet. Both these factors made it very hard for them to fit in with any group, and left them feeling like a stranger no matter where they went—no place for them at home or at school. They grew up quiet and reserved and shy, not too far off from how they are now but with much less of a spine. 

Their family moved to New York when they were twelve, and they attempted a fresh start. It didn’t go well; they still could not relate to people at all, and being in a completely new country didn’t help at all. Things were still tense at home as living conditions didn’t improve, and the abuse they weathered only grew worse, but having grown up with it and never having any other families to compare it to (due to, well, having no friends) they were unaware it was abnormal. Their father left the family shortly after this.

At around age seventeen they’d wisened up to what was going on and began to try and plan some way to have a future away from their family. In addition, they finally learned about the LGBT+ community from a local shelter they quite literally stumbled upon while wandering especially far afield; they’d been entertaining the idea of simply running off from home, as their home dynamic only got even worse over the years, beginning with verbal abuse and ending with physical abuse, and so had decided that day to just walk as far as they could and spend a night sleeping in an alleyway. (They figured it would be good practice… they’ve never been the brightest of bulbs.) Through a bit of conversation with the staff and residents, they learned what being nonbinary was, and immediately knew it fit them. (Unfortunately they did not learn about asexuality or aromanticism until much later.) They returned home with the triumphant announcement… 

It didn’t go well. But that was the first night they ever stood up for themself, and the fights after that time were a lot less one-sided. 

A year or so after that, once they’d graduated from high school and (earlier in the year) turned 18, their mother kicked them out of the house for refusing to let go of their nonbinary identity, along with other contrived grievances. They scrounged together enough money before leaving (having known it was an eventuality, they’d been saving up) to buy a one-way train ticket out of state and never looked back. 

And so began their life as a vagabond of sorts, completely independent and entirely isolated. For a half year they wandered as far afield as they could, having absolutely no goal, and entirely nameless. They discovered they quite liked being alone rather than being lonely, and, given the self-sufficiency their shitty life forced on them from a young age, they did perfectly fine for themself, all alone. That is, until they ended up running into a rather large, powerful gang in Georgia, who immediately saw a use for them. The gang offered them a place to stay, and they accepted without much thought; through that they learned how to truly stand up for themself, how to use a switchblade knife better than before, and who they really were. This was a huge period of growth in terms of their personality; namely, they actually had the space to develop one. They grew to love the goth subculture and frequented a lot of somewhat-shady goth clubs; this was the fashionable period of their life and they finally felt in-charge of their appearance as well as the way they were perceived. To this day they keep up a more gothic sort of aesthetic, as the androgyny common in the subculture serves them well. 

It was also during this time that they earned a new name for themself. Newest members to the gang were simply called “Rookie” or “Newbie” and would be given a loyalty test to ‘earn’ a new name after a certain point (which, in Domino’s hindsight, is a little bit cult-ish), and Domino passed their ‘test’ with flying colours. 

(TW for murder, assault)

Their test was a hired hit on a man who assaulted the daughter of the gang-leader and got out on bail. He was a repeat offender, and the gang-leader finally decided the world had had enough of the piece of shit; it is the one time Domino has ever killed anyone in cold blood, and the one time the gang ever asked any of their Newbies to murder. 

It earned Domino both their name and the role of “attack dog,” going after the gang’s most stubborn opponents. Even though they’re only five-foot-five-and-some-change, they can be quite intimidating; having never learned proper dog etiquette, they are not at all afraid of biting and clawing the hell out of someone in a fight. They prefer knives for their efficiency but they absolutely can and will bite someone’s neck out if they have to, and their general demeanor when pissed makes that… obvious. That being said, given how easily-identifiable an anthropomorphic dog with bright red hair is, they were only sent after the difficult folks who would only suffer worse if they went to the police. 

By that point they’d made a lot of good friends in the gang, but the one they were closest to was a girl called Faith. Faith was enamoured with them from the beginning, but they didn’t catch on whatsoever, which eventually ended with the friendship souring after Faith made an (unsolicited) move on Domino, which shocked and unnerved the dog. Faith, not handling rejection well, refused to speak to Domino again, calling them frigid and dead-hearted. The memory still hurts, and made them wary of befriending anyone else for a while, lest they once again miss the “obvious” cues towards a romantic relationship. These days they fancy themself more aware, but really, they’re not at all, they’re just much better at deterring people in general by… well, by being a jackass, in short.

(TW for alcohol mention/alcohol abuse, drugs)

Their gang unfortunately had to disband after a police raid captured a good amount of them. Domino fled with a few of the other members of the gang, headed north away from the gang’s usual stomping grounds (in the hopes they’d evade jail), and fell into something akin to a worse depression than before, if possible. They’d always used alcohol as a bit of a coping mechanism and social crutch, though not to excess before, but at this point in life—having had both a purpose in life and power unlike that which they’d had before, only to have it ripped from them—they felt their lowest since joining the gang. Fortunately they were cognizant enough to realize it was getting to be a problem right at the tipping-point-of-sorts where it would have/could have veered into hardcore alcoholism and, fearing ending up like their parents, they quit it cold-turkey and haven’t had a drink since, nor will they even talk about it. They’re embarrassed by the possibility of even letting themself get that bad-off with it and petrified of being categorized as anything similar to their parents. 

The next few months consisted of the little rag-tag group traveling north, bouncing from motel to motel with what little money they had left, usually spending their time high as a kite lying on the bathroom floors. (Domino still tends to lie on tile floors when they’re upset about something, for reasons even they can’t fathom.) After around three months, during which the group fragmented more and more until it was just Domino and three other people, one of the group was informed by a relative that there were good job opportunities in New York City—namely, a pizza place needed drivers. The group member informed Domino of this opportunity because Domino was (and is) a fairly decent driver and, having nowhere else to go and being painfully aware of where their current path might lead, decided to go for it.

At nearly-nineteen, they finally reached New York City, and were immediately given a job on the credentials of being alive, mostly functional, and capable of knowing where the driver’s seat in a car is. They had no home or car, but they did have a knack for hotwiring cars, and some fool left theirs unattended for more than five minutes; thus began their first legal gainful employment. They worked that job long enough to become a sort of Designated Indestructible Employee—they were sent to the deliveries no one else wanted to do, either because the person ordering lived in the most dangerous areas or because they were a creep. Domino has a bizarre knack for not dying despite getting themself into incredibly dangerous situations, and maintaining a blasé attitude about the whole thing as well. In addition to that, their reputation precedes them, as most of the local gangs already knew about Attack Dog Domino and were most definitely not keen to get on their bad side; many were quite surprised to find a relatively-pleasant, quiet dog behind the brutal stories. No one was too keen to push the envelope, though, even though Domino did not reprise their role for a New York gang. They’d decided they were done with gangs, mostly due to not really wanting to have any friends anymore.

That being said, they began going to see Sybil (when she was a psychotherapist, so, somewhere around season 1) to sort through the absolute mess of their mental state. It took them a long while to be comfortable enough with Sybil to open up about the past few years of their life, and they’re still not comfortable enough to talk about their childhood, but they continue to make progress; they went from Sybil being the only person they’d speak to (outside of work) to having 3 roommates in their apartment to ease the cost of rent and somewhat-adopting a mischievous rabbit named Joey [owned by archielemon] as their sister. Getting them out of their shell has proven to be a slow process with quite a ways to go, but they are slowly becoming less guarded. While Sybil’s therapy helps them deal with whatever trauma may remain, it’s been Joey who’s taught them how to open up to people in a more healthy manner, and, thanks to her, they’re a lot happier, generally speaking. They still have bad days, of course, but they feel less miserable and are finally starting to learn how to let other people in, and begin to process what’s happened to them. 

Their career as a pizza-delivery-person came to an unfortunate end when the pizza joint was destroyed during Monster-Max’s rampage at the end of Season 3, while Domino was briefly out of town for a vacation of sorts. They came back to find most of the city, including the apartment building they lived in, at least partially destroyed. From then, they were once again listless, but no longer coping with it alone—while their roommates left for greener pastures, they still had Joey and her girlfriend, Kathy [also owned by archielemon], who is also someone they consider a friend. This second bout of unemployment thankfully didn’t last long, as they ended up meeting Flint Paper through an odd series of events. As it turns out, their family were curious to see how they were doing (read as, their mother wanted to see if they had any income to exploit, unaware of Domino’s newfound emotional strength as well as the general insanity of New York), and hired Flint to tail Domino and report back. Something in Domino reminded Flint of a different listless young dog he once met, and so he decided to take them under his wing, just as he had done twenty-five years ago; at first, they declined, believing they wouldn’t be good at it, but after receiving encouragement from their roommates (as well as having their natural knack for figuring out people’s motives pointed out to them) they decided to track Flint down themself and rescind their rejection.

Since then, they’ve been working alongside him as his apprentice-of-sorts. After a while he started to treat them more like something between an adopted child and a pet dog, which they don’t particularly mind, surprisingly. This has brought them into more contact with Sam and Max than before (they’d delivered pizzas to the duo before, and simply thought them a very, very strange married couple), who, at this point, they view as a mild but funny nuisance. They don’t have much in common with the Freelance Police, though the anarchist side of them does appreciate their personalized take on justice that seems to have a more accurate and reasonable aim than the vocational police. They consider them somewhat-reliable and it’s been proven that, when in a pinch, they might consult the duo for help.

Recently, they reunited with their little brother Adam, and since then the two have been closer than ever, although they had quite a rocky start to it. They do their best to be some sort of a good role model for him, though they’re not always successful... but they try pretty hard. They’ve done their best to keep their act cleaned-up, and they converted the living room of their apartment into a permanent pillow fort so there would be space enough for everyone to sleep. They’re quite protective over Adam, though not to a stifling degree. They tend to take care of him before they’d take care of themself, is all.

These days Domino is a more… balanced individual than before. Working with Flint helps them channel aggression in a (debatably) more positive manner, and in their off-time they’ve taken to wandering the streets. Having always been an urban explorer and slight packrat, they have a tendency to acquire virtually any items not nailed-down in abandoned buildings. Amusingly, these do sometimes come in handy during their cases… but not as often as they’d like. A majority of their finds collect dust in their room until they pitch them out the window in the spirit of “spring cleaning.” Near the first day of spring, standing outside their window is a nice way to find new treasures. Or new head traumas. Whichever!