Barry 'B.C.' Taylor

[Namira]

Name: Barry Clark 'B.C.' Taylor
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 12th
School: Saint Editha's Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Cricket, cooking and baking, nature walks, animal welfare

Appearance: Barry's lineage is West Indian, but thanks to the mixing of white British into his ancestry, his skin is a light brown, almost like a very deep tan. His hair is black and kept short with a buzzed frizz texture, whilst his eyes are brown. He stands a tall 5'10 and a sturdy 167 lbs, with his most obvious muscle being in his arms and legs from walking and sports alike. He has a fairly long face, an impression exaggerated by a hawkish nose and high hairline, along with a slim jawline which comes to a narrow but pointed chin. Barry has recently been making some overtures towards growing a beard, but much to his frustration can only manage small sideburns and a slender chin strap.

Barry wears a shirt, tie and trousers along with sensible brown shoes when he's at school, but doesn't wear the blazer, preferring instead a school sweater if he's too cold. Outside of school, he has very little time or money to attend towards being fashionable and sticks to tshirts and old pairs of jeans and comfortably worn trainers.

During the abduction, Barry was wearing his school uniform.

Biography: Barry is the second of three children to William and Martha, a Bellington-based couple whose respective families ran either side of a local baker/greengrocer. The childhood friends became childhood sweethearts, eventually growing up and getting married, with William inheriting the Taylor bakery after the retirement of his father. Their three children came in a seven year stretch, first Sarah, Barry five years afterward and Luke two years after that. The young household was a bustling and busy one, both of Barry's parents spending much of their time working in the bakery, usually having their respective parents babysit as necessary. The young Barry didn't mind his grandparents too much, but always hoped for his parents to be looking after him instead.

From an early age, Barry picked up great enthusiasm for baking thanks to his constant interest in his parents' activities. He always wanted to help them out and as a child, dreamed of growing up to be a baker just like his dad. Some of his earliest memories are of an early birthday when he received a classic chef's hat and apron along with a plastic oven. In his eagerness to emulate his father, he also started to follow his dad around in the evenings when he was preparing meals for the family, miming and copying along with everything he was doing and as he got a little older, giving small bits of help where allowed and where he could. William found this to be very sweet and encouraged it, and the two of them would often present the fruits of Barry's baking escapades (with a generous amount of assistance) to the rest of the family. This instilled a certain amount of patience and willingness to take his time into Barry, something which carried through both to his general personality and his overall outlook on life. Relax, take a step back, let things happen as they're going to happen and then come up with a resolution once you have all the facts.

Barry has been an animal lover since he was very young, mostly thanks to his mother's collection of animal art and photography books featuring watercolours and sketches. Noting his interest, Martha frequently purchased colouring books of animals for him, as well as taking opportunities to let him see animals and other people's pets. Although they didn't have any animals themselves, Barry would be the first to run up to a dog he saw playing in the park to join in, a habit which caused no end of worry and consternation from his parents and grandparents as he was knocked over more than once by large dogs. His mother also went on nature walks and short hikes with him to give him the opportunity to see animals out in the countryside around Bellington, and Barry was endlessly fascinated even by the relatively mundane animals he could see out there like birds and farm livestock. He continued with this as he grew older, and although his various hobbies leave him less time for this now, he still tries to go out for a walk at least once every couple of weeks, with his mother if she's available.

Barry became vegetarian at ten years old after putting together that the animals he was so fond of and the food he was eating were one and the same and getting upset. This was of great frustration to his father, who saw it as a lack of gratitude towards the time and effort spent preparing meals, but Barry stubbornly held out, refusing to eat any meat that was put on his plate, immediately offering it to Sarah or Luke at every meal. He also refused to assist in preparing any part of a dish that contained any meat, driving a rift between he and his father's bonding experience. After three months of this, William conceded defeat and, on Martha's encouragement, actually sat down with Barry to talk about it. Explaining why he wasn't comfortable with eating the food, Barry was able to convince his father he wasn't just being picky for the sake of it, and the tensions were diffused. When Luke followed suit a year or so later, the transition was much smoother; in more recent times Barry has shouldered the cooking arrangements for both him and his younger brother, and he enjoys the opportunity to chat with his dad as they're both working in the kitchen. Barry experimented with veganism for a short time when he was fifteen, but was unable to maintain the lifestyle due to the high protein demands of his sporting activities and the lack of affordable alternatives to eggs and dairy. Barry instead tries to ensure that any animal products he does consume are properly sourced and ethically consumable.

Barry was introduced to cricket after entering secondary school in PE class. Having found he had little skill or enthusiasm for football and rugby, he was very surprised to find that he was a natural with the ball and not too bad with the bat either. Excited at the prospect of being good at something, Barry put a lot of effort into the PE class and begged his parents to let him join a youth team, which he successfully tried out for just under a year later. He swiftly developed into a strong pace bowler and a good higher-order batsman, and over the next few years to the present became perhaps the best all-rounder on the Saint Editha school team. Barry's main weakness in the sport is that he tends to play very defensively with the bat when left to his own devices, and has to be coaxed or ordered to play more aggressively and go for big run totals. He would like to play county cricket when he leaves school, although he worries there may be few openings due to the decline of the sport in recent years thanks to American activities. Cricket is also the origin of Barry's occasional nickname B.C., as per cricketing convention which lists players by their first and middle initial, then surname, resulting in him showing on scorecards as B.C. Taylor.

As a teenager, Barry decided to take one step further with his love for animals and started volunteering at a Bellington animal shelter, something which eats up the majority of his free time not already dedicated to cricket or helping out at the bakery. Barry prefers to be involved in the more hands-on roles where he gets to help and look after the animals more directly, although he's happy to do more or less anything that's needed of him since he knows it's all going to the same cause in the end. He doesn't particularly advertise the charity work, but does tend to interject socially both in and out of school if he hears about or suspects the mistreatment of animals from others.

Barry is of middling popularity at school, as he has nothing in particular that would cause him to be picked on or singled out, but also little in the way of magnetism or social charm to attract friendships. Instead he tends to generally get along with most people but not be especially close with anyone who doesn't share in some of his hobbies. Those who are friends with him tend to appreciate his calmness and slow and steady approach to most of what comes his way. Barry is academically average, neither excelling at anything or falling especially short in any areas, his best subjects being (marginally) maths and science and his worst (equally marginally) english and history. He puts in an acceptable amount of effort to complete tasks and submit homework, but doesn't attempt to excel, prioritising social, hobby and sporting commitments above doing extra work.

He is close with his family, with one notable exception. He and his father still cook and bake together, and Barry has in Luke a younger brother that looks up to him in every possible way, sharing a similar personality and outlook and often playing cricket together. He is also still close with his mother, and whenever he goes on a nature walk without her, always tries to bring back a photo or two of some sight he's seen. Unfortunately, however, Barry along with the rest of the family had a falling out with Sarah a few years back after she dropped out of university to pursue a military career. William and Martha were furious at what the saw was the squandering of an opportunity and ingratitude towards the amount of money they'd put towards sending her to college, and the hostility bled over into causing bitterness from Barry, too. They have not spoken for three years and Sarah remains on bad terms with everyone in the immediate family save Luke.

Advantages: Barry has decent stamina and good upper body strength from his sporting endeavours and is able to walk around tirelessly for hours. He has few if any enemies and fits in well with most people.
Disadvantages: Barry's indecisiveness is likely to play against him when it comes to the type of life-or-death decision making he's likely to be confronted with in SOTF, especially when combined with his slow-and-steady, relaxed approach to problem solving. His stubbornness when it comes to areas he's passionate about may also give him some grief; Barry doesn't tend to give much if any ground and usually waits arguments out rather than escalating them or trying to find a way around them.

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Hey Elena, sorry for the long wait. Barry looks great and is only denied pending one small thing: I don't really see anything in the profile to indicate his disadvantage of being indecisive. A little bit of elaboration on this point, maybe in a summarizing paragraph of Barry's personality, should do it.

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This character biography has had no alterations for more than two weeks and has been put in the abandoned characters forum. This profile is eligible for resubmission by the handler upon alterations requested by the staff.