Tino Kantrell*

[Cake]

Name: Tino Kantrell
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Jokes, video games, hanging out with friends, playing the harmonica

Appearance: Tino Kantrell is an African-American teenager, with brown skin, who stands 5'9" tall and weighs in at about 155 pounds. He has an average and decently healthy build with very little body fat. However, he appears quite skinny due to a lack of muscle mass. His frizzy black hair is shaved quite short, as Tino does not like the texture and look of his hair when it's longer. His face has warm and youthful features which are usually accompanied by an ever present and playful smile, which stretches his somewhat full lips. He has an average sized, rounded nose and brown eyes framed by straight eyebrows. He usually keeps his face clean-shaven, but occasionally lets some stubble grow, but even then he keeps it at a minimum.

Tino loves to dress trendy and colorful. Although he prefers colors, he doesn't mind dressing in darker shades, such as black or gray, as long as the clothing looks cool or stylish enough for him. His shirts come in a wide variety of tastes, be it plain, designs, popular brands, or specific pop culture graphics or print, because his style is very eclectic. He likes to wear opened casual sports coats or opened vests over these shirts. Tino has a variety of accessories of which he loves to wear as well, including a number of different necklaces or gold chains, belts, designer sunglasses, and fedora hats with contrasting trim. He wears one of these fedora hats every day and is almost never seen without one, due to the fact that he likes to keep his hair hidden and feels empty up top without one on. He normally wears a gold coin pendant around his neck which was a gift passed to him by his grandfather. His pants are usually long and snug fitting. His shoes are normally black and white colored kicks.

Biography: Tino Kantrell was born in Seattle, Washington to Malcolm and Diane Kantrell. Tino was given his name after a nickname his grandfather, Anthony, had as a youth. He grew up in the suburbs in a decent middle-class environment. His father, a jeweler, and his mother, a clothing store manager at the nearby mall, earned a respectable amount of money for living.

As an only child, Tino did not have much interaction with other kids until he started going to school. His primary source of socialization and fun for the first five years of his life was with his jovial grandpa. Tino's grandpa, a very talkative man, made time to come over often to watch and play with his grandson while Tino's parents were busy with their jobs. Tino and his grandpa got along very well, due to their similarly talkative and energetic personalities. In contrast, Tino's parents tended to be somewhat stern and authoritative. Although they could be tough to deal with sometimes, Tino knew that they were still very caring and loving parents. He understood that they were only looking out for his best interests and he respected them for that throughout his life. Overall, his relationship with his parents is good, with a few occasional disputes like many other families.

Once Tino started school, he ended up being well liked by his classmates due to his fun attitude and friendly personality. His teachers liked him as well, but had some trouble with him being a distraction in class quite often. His natural traits and behaviors earned him a bit of a reputation as a class clown throughout the years. Fortunately, it was virtually the one issue of concern that his teachers had, which was eventually toned down a bit after conferencing with his parents. Tino wasn't interested in or did particularly well in any specific subject in school. He did however manage to maintain average grades in everything, though his parents still wish he would do a little better.

As middle school approached, Tino easily befriended many other kids from his school and was allowed to hang out at his friends' houses. Tino learned to adjust to all these different personalities easily when he hung out with them and would often just do whatever fun things his friends wanted to do. He began to adopt the different interests of his friends, whether they were different fashions, different types of movies or television shows or even different hobbies. He also gained a vast knowledge of pop culture knowledge, due to all the differing media he was exposed to. Often times he references things he'd seen on television, movies, music or the internet, in regular conversation sometimes without even knowing it. Tino was also introduced to one of his favorite hobbies this way, when he first played video games at a friend's house. Ever since then, Tino has enjoyed playing videos games, but particularly fast paced games, such as those of the fighting or combat genre, like "Street Fighter" and "Marvel vs Capcom" franchises. He also prefers multi-player over single player games, such as "Team Fortress 2" and the "Call of Duty" series.

Even though Tino enjoys trying many different activities with his friends, he prefers to avoid those which take place at night or in dark places, such as camping. Although he tries to keep it a secret from most people, Tino has a fear of the dark which he hasn't quite outgrew. Even to this day he sleeps with a lamp on. He is usually okay with being in the dark if there are good number people with him, but he gets easily frightened in the dark if he is alone.

Tino also gained a love for humor and comedy from shows he's watched on TV or even comedy videos on the internet. His interest in comedy grew; when he ended up watching a few of his grandpa's favorite comedians, such as Richard Pryor, perform stand-up. Tino also tries to emulate them by telling his own jokes, but his jokes are mostly misses rather than hits. His grandfather also taught Tino how to play the harmonica after Tino heard him play it, at age twelve. Tino continues to play the instrument for fun, when he's waiting outside. He makes quite a bit of mistakes, but is generally alright at it.

In Aurora High School, Tino stayed more in the middle of the school's social hierarchy, neither being part of the popular crowd nor being an outcast. His grades are average overall and the classes he enjoys are more based on how fun the teachers are rather than the subjects themselves. He is still a hyper and fun guy who jokes around in classes and with friends sometimes. He hasn't joined in any extra-curricular activities and instead focuses on his job at the Castle Family Fun-Plex, thanks to his parents' encouragement in making his own money rather than depending on them for financial support. He uses the money he earns from his job to buy the latest trends of clothing and accessories available.

For friends, Tino has a large amount of people he interacts with in differing levels of closeness, most of which are just school acquaintances, though he has some other friends closer to himself as well. His need to keep things fun and light-hearted makes him a likable person who people enjoy being around with. He has a tough time keeping serious and jokes often, just to keep the status quo. When dealing with stress, he tries to avoid thinking or worrying too much and tries to keep things light-hearted, even when something is bothering him, to deal with it.

Whenever he had problems, Tino could also depend on his parents or grandfather to understand and for emotional support. Tino's relationship with his grandpa has remained close even in his teenage years and he would sometimes visit and hang around him whenever he could.

Tino isn't quite decided on what he wants to do with his life after graduating high school. He feels that he should probably go into college first because it's what he knows to do and what his parents encourage of him, but doesn't know what to major in. In the back of his mind, he hopes to possibly be involved in doing stand-up comedy or television shows and movies of the same genre.

Advantages: Tino has a very affable and fun personality which is good for morale. He has an easy time getting along with different sorts of people, which could allow for more allies.
Disadvantages: Tino's sometimes loud and constantly joking personality might be obnoxious to some of the other students. He also has a fear of the dark and if he is alone at night or in a dark place he might panic.