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Name: Tyson Christopher Velasco

Nickname: He shortened it to Ty as a kid to avoid the inevitable "Tyson Chicken" taunting. (His family didn't help. "Look, Tyson, we're eating your chicken tonight!")

Age: 23

Birthday: 27 December

Sign: Capricorn

Gemstone: Black tourmaline

Blood Type: A-

Fav. Food: Ty is a diehard carnivore. He likes steak, and he likes it very rare.

Hated Food: Chicken, for reasons stated above.

Occupation: Ballet dancer with the Destiny City Ballet Company.

Hobbies:
Ballet -- His raison d'être. Ty has taken ballet lessons since age 7, and is currently a member of the corps de ballet of the Destiny City Ballet Company. He loves ballet for its athleticism and expressiveness, and he loves being able to communicate with the audience using only his body. He pushes himself to the limits of his physical ability, and then pushes more, just to test himself. If there were such a sport as Extreme Cage Ballet, he'd be all over it. He dances as though he were dancing on a knife-edge, desperately and as if his life were on the line, which in a sense it is, given his asthma. As if to prove how hardcore and dedicated to pure classical ballet he is, Ty is one of those relatively rare male ballet dancers who can work en pointe. Deeply confident in his ability as a dancer, he aspires to someday join a premiere international ballet company, dancing a principal role in all his favorites.

Physical Therapy -- Getting, not giving: the price he pays for his ambition. Thanks to how hard he works himself, Ty is in a near-constant state of pain from over-extended muscles and tendons in his legs and feet. Besides availing himself of the ballet company's physiotherapy staff, he has a standing twice-weekly appointment with his oldest sister, who's a certified massage therapist. He also gets weekly acupuncture treatments to keep the pain at bay. Dry saunas and long soaks in the family hot tub help, too.

Cleaning -- Ty is something of a neat freak, and not just in the sense of keeping his room tidy. Not quite a germophobe, he is obsessed with dusting and sweeping and ensuring the entire house is clean. This is due in no small part to the asthma he suffered as a child. Too much dust in the house and Ty feels like he's suffocating, even though his asthma eventually cleared up. Once a week he will don an N95 respirator mask and clean the entire house from top to bottom, and he'll do little spot cleanings when he sees something that he doesn't like. The only thing he doesn't do is the dishes. His parents and sisters don't have to lift a finger otherwise.

Virtues:
Clever -- Ty's mind is constantly in motion. Too clever for his own good sometimes, he is quick-witted and intelligent, though while he's no dummy, he thinks he's smarter than he actually is. He's good at coming up with inventive solutions to problems and situations, and quite happy to offer his two-cents' worth to address his friends' problems, usually without mincing words, regardless of whether his opinion was asked for or not. He enjoys being challenged, and will often go about deliberately doing something the hard way because it's more of a challenge that way.

Protective -- Anyone who has been sucked in by the cyclone-on-two-legs that is Ty will tell you that he's a good person to have at your back, even if he does sometimes come off a raging a*****e. If you are his friend, he will defend you to the ends of the earth with his fists and his mouth, no matter what the reason, even if you are in the wrong. It's not just his friends he looks out for -- he adores his family and would do anything for them, often getting into fights as a kid to protect his older sisters.

Driven -- Ty is a force of nature, competitive and driven and completely fearless. He throws himself at life and ballet with a fierce, determined abandon. Once he is challenged with something he wants to achieve -- a rival to defeat, a role to win -- he goes after it with astonishing single-mindedness, even if he has absolutely no chance of victory. To Ty, it's not a matter of winning or losing. It's all about the battle. Ty's competitive nature reflects most strongly in his dance. He attacks ballet with the same fierceness as he attacks everything else, and this gives a wild passion and power to his performances.

Flaws:
Mercurial -- Volatile and unpredictable, Ty can be Mr Nice one moment and a rabid mongoose the next. He has a hair-trigger temper with ever-changing hot buttons -- it's nearly impossible to know what will set him off on any given day. As noted above, he's not afraid of a physical confrontation, and while he generally doesn't throw the first punch, he'll make sure he throws the last. Ballet is actually the best outlet for his volatility, and much healthier than beating people up or mouthing off at them.

Sharp-tongued -- While he won't back down from a physical fight, Ty's preferred weapons are his smart mouth and sharp tongue. He'll verbally tear your throat out and snark you to within an inch of your life. He never ever backs down from an argument, and lives to engage in a battle of words, often playing Devil's advocate in heated debates with his friends just for the sake of arguing. He has a direct brain-to-mouth connection and no governor on his tongue, and will speak his mind even if it hurts people he cares about. He's actually quite a pleasant conversationalist if you can ever get him to SHUT THE ******** UP so you can get a word in edgewise.

Arrogant -- Ty is the absolute best at what he does. Just ask him. Self-confident and egocentric, he is utterly convinced of his own awesomeness and is possessed of a sense of self-worth as big as all outdoors. He feels he should win the best parts in ballet productions, has all the right answers for your problems, is smarter than anyone else in the room. The problem is, he's good enough often enough to back his talk up, and that only reinforces this belief in his mind. He's very much a sour-grapes type when he turns out not to be right/the best, too.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Eyes: Gold, almond-shaped and narrow, with thick dark lashes and moderate brows.

Hair: Blue-black, sleek and slightly wavy, Ty's hair is thick and long, down to just past his shoulders. He wears it parted on the right side and hanging halfway in his face. When he's dancing, he ties it back in a tail and/or pins it all up.

Face: Ty's face is spade-shaped and clean-shaven with a fairly strong chin and jawline, a strong nose and a full-lipped mouth that has a natural tendency toward pouting. His ears have multiple piercings.

Skin Tone: His skin is fair to medium with olive undertones.

Body: At 6'3", Ty has a dancer's build, long and elegant, with a naturally casual grace to his movements even when he's just walking. He has a very strong body sense and excellent spacial awareness, and dances like he was born to it, natural and effortlessly. Lean, toned and athletic, he keeps himself fit not just for dancing but for his overall health as well. His single tattoo, a tribal-style design that could be a butterfly, could be a bird, is on the back of his neck beneath his hair. No body piercings... yet.

Clothes: Ty wears close-fitting t-shirts, arm warmers (usually striped), skinny black jeans, hoodies, and Vans or Chuck Taylors. His preferred color is black, though he does wear a lot of white. When it's cooler out, he'll add a black motorcycle jacket of the old-school biker variety and adds a thick scarf he pulls up over his mouth and nose in winter. For ballet training and practice, he wears plain white tees, black tights or leggings, ballet shoes, and sometimes leg warmers. (And a dance belt, of course.)

Looks good to me, have fun!