Tim Tavares

[teamsleep*]

Name: Kenneth Timothy Tavares
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Political action, anti-capitalist schools of thought, counter-culture activities, skateboarding, music, prose, "quoting dead people".

Appearance: Tim Tavares looks like a man sick of the world at much too young an age. A 5'9 featherweight at 146 pounds, Tavares has inherited his Peruvian-American mother's green eyes and thin body and his father's black hair and sallow skin tone. He usually keeps his hair short in the front and long in the back, slicked down with pomade- in a way resembling 50s greasers without the pompadour. He has several piercings, two small black gauge earrings one in each ear, and a lip piercing. His nose is thin, and his eyes are uncommonly sunken, with highly visible stress circles underneath the eyes. His default facial expressing seems to be set on bemused- a permanent "ugh, now what happened" look seemingly etched there like a Moai statue.

Tim's build is thin and wiry, prompting some of his anarchist buddies to refer to him as scarecrow, because of his long bony limbs. Both of his arms from his shoulders down to the wrists are covered in tattoos, effectively forming a sleeve on both. The most common theme among the tattoos appear to be symbols not unlike those worn by monks and vagabonds that eschew most material goods.

His preferred outerwear is a black sportcoat over a t-shirt emblazoned with some band logo or proclaiming opposition to mainstream political powers. On the day of his abduction, Tavares wore a black sportcoat, a red TSTA06 Touche Amore tee, and Free World Messenger Khaki Chino Pants over his Blackspot Unswoosher V2 shoes.

Biography: Tim was born to Sheila Ranieri and Paul Tavares on August 29th. A well-to-do banker, Paul met Sheila at his workplace; her workplace, too. Paul was a big time investor at a large credit union, Sheila was the receptionist. Paul was enamored with the young lady, immediately- he was making all sorts of moves on the poor girl. A determined banker is only a little less dangerous than a shark; they were dating in 2 months, engaged in 9, married a little over a year later. Tim was born a week after their first anniversary. This would be their only anniversary together. Paul Tavares was a man who was relatively shallow. A natural lounge lizard, Paul's natural habitat were the bars and nightclubs that the Pacific Northwest had to offer. He slept with other women regularly.

After years of subtle and not-so-subtle infidelity, Sheila and Paul divorced when Tim was 6 years old. Almost immediately afterward, Paul, he got hitched with a blonde girl from Vancouver named Helen. In a perfect world, his ex-wife and kid did not exist; yet it was impossible to deny that fact when Sheila was at the receptionist desk every morning.

Despite all this, Tim as a young child was inquisitive and somewhat boastful of his father's achievements, despite Paul's indifference (Tim only saw his father when it was his birthday or Christmas). Tim, oblivious to the real reason behind his parents' separation, could brag in the school yard to his buddies that his dad probably lived in a mansion, and that his net worth was in the millions, even though at that age he nor his classmates had any idea what that meant. He could go home, and ask his mother why dad was so rich and famous but he wasn't around- and Sheila's face would darken, but only slightly- then she'd answer toquinho, I don't really know, for sure. As the years passed, Paul's visits became more and more infrequent, and Tim was more and more upset and curious as to why.

This went on for 5 years until Paul was promoted to executive vice president of financial relations. Citing budget costs, Paul's first act was to fire half the staff- Sheila included. Sheila's struggle to find a well-paying job meant that they abandoned their home for a flat in Rainier Valley, one of the lowest income districts in Seattle. Paul paid welfare, but only for three years, and the bare minimum at that. Tim's family wasn't to the point of food stamps, but it was definitely a stark contract to his generally well-to-do life up to this point.

For Tim, this was the end of his early life and the beginning of his new one. The mystery of his childhood had finally been solved. His own dad, he thought, was more concerned with money and sex than his own flesh and blood. His own dad had relegated him and his mother to the slums and toeing the poverty line. Tim was disgusted and embittered, and began holding a grudge towards his father and the affluent at large- something that would no doubt shape his future behavior.

The beginning of his high school years marked Tim's submergence into the counter-culture. Skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock and the works of Emma Goldman surrounded his free time. For him, the lyrical content and do-it-yourself attitude of the punk genre and the works of anarchist writers like Goldman and Pierre Joseph-Proudhon intrigued him immediately, while he had already endeared himself to skateboarding's DIY values and relative status as an "anti-establishment" hobby. He spray-painted a couple buildings, but he ended up falling out with the street art subculture due to the legal ramifications- despite all his huff and puff, Tim has never been arrested.

In his Freshman year, he discovered Adbusters- that summer he already had two articles published in the magazine. With sophomore year came his participation in marches and protests, and the cultivation of his ability to hold a grudge. During freshman year he had gotten into a shouting match with one of the richer students. Nearly a year and a half later, that student went into his locker to find it filled to the brim with empty pill bottles.  Not long after, the student transferred to an Oregon-based high school.

In junior year, his budding interest in anarchism, socialism and other alternative political ideologies became full-fledged beliefs- though not old enough to vote, he did go door-to-door giving out pamphlets supporting the Freedom Socialist Party.

Moreover, Tim found himself getting multiple tattoos- unrepentant despite the law regulating against giving tattoos to minors- that began as small designs, yet by the end of the year he was "completely inked", as the slang term invokes. The majority of them had come from his summer spent in Portland, Oregon, riding bikes for the Critical Mass event- of course, with his parent's permission. A small amount had been obtained illegally through hush-hush parlors on the wrong side of squatter communes.

While his relationship with his father is increasingly bitter and abhorrent, Tim cares deeply for his mother, which is possibly why he feels so betrayed in the first place. A demure, if not pushed-around woman, Tim's mother has grown increasingly numb to becoming one of the doormats of the world after being repeatedly given the shaft by big businesses and men in power. While her son fires back to wrongdoing in rage and action, Sheila has been indifferent- if not completely apathetic- to what she believes is wrong. In her eyes, she's seen what these people in power can do, and if they need be, they can and will absolutely bury you. She isn't opposed to Tim's actions, but isn't fully supportive of them, either. Her toquinho is a smart boy and could easily get into the University of Oregon, but it's a struggle for him to even want to prepare to move into a system he hates.

At school, Tim was never an extremely social type, but is able to be a guy who sympathized with many of his peers, provided they didn't come from the castes he detested. As a student, Tim has never really pushed himself to the limit, more interested in communes than calculus. At school, he hangs out with many kids from the working and lower class, but rarely if ever participates in any clubs or sports. When not in class during school hours, he's usually loitering the halls of the student center, or reading anything to do with current events or politics in the library.


The advent of The Program, as the Survival of the Fittest "initiative" was referred to, did nothing but further infuriate him. Children and people with futures died, and everyone just watched. They gnashed their teeth, but outside of STAR, no one did anything. To Tim, this was a microcosm of society as a whole. These terrorists- much like the social terrorists that in his mind were ruining American society- were able to come in and take with few repercussions. The supposed end of program in 2008 did little to quell his anger. Too little, too late, he said. Hundreds of kids were dead, even more families were broken, and the world idly watched for four iterations. Made shirts out of the thing! For him, it was repulsive, disgraceful.

When not in school or socializing, Tim was spending time down at the docks, or the squatters housing, with the scum of the land. Druggies, homeless, prostitutes, made up his social circle, connected by one bond: Wealth, and the lack of it. Wrath and the amassing of it. Worth, and the hatred of the fact that to corporate America, they had none.

Advantages: Tim is intensely loyal to almost a fault, and with that brings a strong determined personality- whenever it's a cause he feels it is worth fighting for. If he feels he can trust you or otherwise identifies with you, he will run through walls if asked. More than anything, he's a perceptive young man- he doesn't exactly look, or act like a shrink, but he considers himself the kind of person that can become in tuned with someone's struggles.
Disadvantages: A combination of distrust of authority and apathy to things he's not interested in has made him sort of a social leper. He could probably be an intelligent, friendly guy, but Tavares is the kind of person who would rather hoist the black flag and tear down infrastructure if it meant benefit to what he believes. On the flipside, he considers himself to be more politically active than your neighborhood Seattle granola-eating hippie, but he's still a teenager. A short guy who is not muscular even by the loosest use of the definition, most of his exploits with Black Bloc have resulted in the police smacking him once or twice and sending him home with his head between his legs. Because of his lack of strength, he shies away from physical confrontation if he has the chance - he is almost always overpowered by the males at his school. Tim also can hold a grudge; he's been holding one against rich kids for years. Moreover, those he feels betrayed by have found that it's incredibly hard if not completely impossible to get back in his good graces. His desire to get back at those who he believes has wronged him does have a bad habit of clouding his better judgement.