( hunter schafer, trans nonbinary ) have you seen AVI MELROSE ? i heard SHE/THEY is/are a EMPLOYEE at HAND ME DOWN. they’re 22 years old and they’ve been living in san verto for 22 YEARS. they tend to be VIBRANT & CREATIVE, but rumor has it they can also be NOSY & RESTLESS.
hii this is my second baby avi. she’s my oldest character and indirectly responsible for the existence of this entire rp bc without avi, tally and i probably wouldn’t be friends. since i’ve had her for so long her backstory is quite detailed lol but i tried to make it comprehensible below the read more. like this and i’ll come @ u for plots.
pinterest
Born on the edge of town, where San Verto ended and nature began, Avi Maura Melrose had a very idyllic childhood. She spent her time surrounded by nature, wandering through the woods surrounding her home, trailing after the many older cousins she shared said home with. It was a happy childhood, despite her not-so-wealthy family often being looked down upon by the rest of the town. Not so much for being poor, more for being weird.
Avi’s family home was known for being the house that you went to to get your palms read, or have an eccentric-looking woman do a tarot spread for you. It always smelled like weird tea and sage. Avi’s mother, Esther, had always had a way with tarot cards and the like. To the Melrose family this wasn’t really odd. Esther and her sisters learned from her mother, just like their mother had learned from their grandmother and so on. Men never stuck around for very long, leaving a huge run down house with just women and children, Avi being one of the youngest ones. The baby of the family.
If there’s one thing that’s gonna make your life even harder when you’re already seen as the weird kid, it’s being the weird kid and being trans. Lucky for Avi, her family has always been more than accepting, there was always space for her to express herself as she wanted to. And a benefit of being the baby of the family meant that there was a team of older cousins ready to defend her at school. If that hadn’t been the case, the bullying she endured as a kid might have had some very negative and lasting effects. Instead, being her most authentic self became kind of an act of rebellion. She learned how to be happy by herself, by being herself.
Avi never really realised how she actually really missed having a friend, always being content either by herself of with the numerous cousins she could play with. It wasn’t until she was 9 that she finally became friends with Mae, the new girl in town. They immediately hit it off, and have been pretty inseparable since.
Avi took on a job at the local thrift shop when she was 16. She’d always been pretty crafty with all the hand-me-downs she got from her family, making herself a very unique wardrobe. But if she wanted something that wasn’t already worn to bits by someone else, she needed money and she wasn’t going to get it from her mom. She could have joined the family business and made a career out of tea leaves like her mother and aunts, but that isn’t what she wants to do with her life. Reading tarot is a quirky party trick for her, not a job.
What she wants to do instead, well she isn’t sure what she wants actually. It’s not that she has no idea, she has too many. She wants to be a therapist, so she can help trans kids like herself, but she also wants to do something artistic because she’s always loved drawing, but she also loves music. And then there’s the issue of paying for college. She has collected quite the following on instagram over the past few months though, but that was never her intention, nor does she know what the next steps would be to make a career out of it. So until she figures that out, you’ll probably see her hanging around town. You can’t really miss her. She’s probably wearing something neon pink.
CONNECTIONS
i’ve got some more specific wcs below but i’m always up for brainstorming smth else of course
- former bully/enemy: someone avi really didn’t get along with when she was a kid. maybe they get along better now, or maybe it’s extremely awkward.
- unrequited crush: avi is quite the dreamer and a bit of a hopeless romantic. but of course not everyone is going to reciprocate those feelings. bonus points if she’s friends with this person because.. angst.
“come in.” freddy spoke after hearing a knock on her door, and looked up from her phone. “i swear avi, i might as well just start charging you for all these bleach problems.” she said as she sat up from laying on her bed. she didn’t even wait for avi to speak, already assuming the worst.
‹ @ofmelrcse· ›
“it’s not a bleach thing.” avi said, flipping freddy off as they entered the room, closing the door behind them. “it’s the moms.” avi said, grouping all of their parental figures together. they were kind of like one entity in many ways, anyway. “they’re cooking up some weird tea and it smells disgusting so it drove me out of the kitchen where i was hanging out and i’m bored so i don’t want to hang out by myself but i’m not about to babysit the kids or be babysat by the rest so you’re left” they flopped down onto freddy’s bed while rambling, “so here i am”
“look what we just got in.” avi practically slams the book down on the table dandelion is sitting at. “this is the one you were looking for the other day, right? someone just brought it back, so i thought i’d bring it to you before someone else can take it out again.”
avi felt like she had somehow gone back in time and now she was a little kid again, held by her collar by granda melrose and put outside to play with ronan while their grandmas discussed town gossip. except that their caretakers had not taken into consideration that they weren’t exactly compatible people. it seemed that nothing had changed, because here they were in ronan’s grandma’s backyard, side to side. avi, seemingly always able to find a topic to talk about no matter the situation or person opposite her, didn’t know what to do with the heavy awkward silence between them. she huffed out a breath, holding up a hand stained with dirt, something wriggling between her fingers. “look, a worm.”
“Ohh, look, look!” Fawn called across the aisle in a hushed tone, beckoning Avi over to their side of the little thrift store. Avi had probably already seen the antique section, given that she worked here, but Fawn hadn’t been into the shop for a few weeks and was always excited to see something new, “Think it’s authentic?” They asked, holding up a ·delicately painted teacup set, claiming to be from the Victorian era on the price tag.
@ofmelrcse
avi made their way over to fawn, looking over their shoulder at what they were holding. “that’s so pretty! not sure if it’s authentic though.” avi had noticed the cup when they were stocking the shelves, but it was only now that they really took a good look at it. “sometimes people, like, lie about their stuff being older than it actually is because they think we’ll pay them for taking it in. this is a donation based store, like what’s not clicking?” they rolled their eyes. “it’s still pretty though. like you can just tell people it’s victorian, who’s gonna know?”
humming quietly under his breath, min’s gaze followed avi’s hand, before returning to the puppy by his feet. “i don’t know. i guess small would be better seeing as i don’t have much space, but-” he trailed off with a shrug of his shoulders. “i like this little dude.”
“i mean they don’t get that big, i guess...” avi considered, narrowing their eyes at the puppy. “they can have a lot of energy though, so lots of walks and play time.” they smiled at the way the puppy was looking up at hyunmin. “they like you too, i think.”
do you think there are family members you favor over others?
'i wouldn't call it favoring them over others. of course i'm closer to some. like me and my mom, we've always been super close. and i get along better with some of my cousins, but that doesn't mean i don't love them all equally.'
‘1. we’ve lived in the house that we currently live in for a couple of generations, though through the decades it has been expanded quite a lot. i’m also one of the few ‘kids’ who has their own bedroom, probably because i don’t have any siblings.
2. we’re known as the weird occultists but most of us actually have normal jobs as our main source of income because, well, as you can imagine reading palms doesn’t make you much money.
3. as a kid, my cousins and i would press our ears to the door to the reading room to listen in on our moms/grandma doing readings for clients, and let me tell you, i know a lot of juicy gossip i probably shouldn’t be aware of.’
Hibiscus - Did you ever play an instrument? If so what?
‘i like to sing to myself sometimes and i’m not bad at it, but i’ve never played an instrument.’
Azalea - What’s a movie you cried while watching?
‘it’s probably faster to name the ones i haven’t cried to while watching. 10 things i hate about you is a movie i can watch over and over again though. i also love studio ghibli movies, they’re so comforting.’
“what about this guy? he seems sweet,” min said, glancing up at avi as he lightly petted the head of the australian shepherd puppy through the bars of it’s cage. “how big do they get?”
“oh they get like... medium high? like, this high. ish.” she said, holding her hand at the approximate height of how big australian shepherds usually get. “do you want a small dog or a big one? that one is very sweet though, one of the more mild ones in the litter. i think they’d be a great fit honestly.”
“as much as i would love for us to have matching tattoos, you know i will never get an unplanned one. so, no. also, you’re fucking high.”
avi let out a dramatic sigh, pouting and slouching in their chair. but as per usual their bad mood didn’t last very long. “okay honestly, that’s probably smart. you are like... most of my conscience. like you hold the brain cells here.”
location: skin deep
status: closed for @emorttuus
even though avi liked to say that their perpetual good mood was indestructible, she had to admit that maybe it was taking a beating today. she’d gotten stuck in some family drama back home, she’d been late for her shift at the animal shelter because of that, and then after her shift they had to bike all the way into town through a torrential rain storm. they’d though they could hide out at skin deep, petting the cats and waiting till the weather got a bit more dry again. one of her cousins usually worked at this time, but when she stepped into the store she was instead met with a different familiar face. “oh.” avi said. seeing salem always caused some very confusing feelings, even on good days. and this was not a good day. “hey you. sorry for dripping all over the floor.”
dark hues are quick to spot them at the shelter , proceeding with a wide grin and resting elbows on the counter . “ are you busy ? i feel good things coming and i need to be sure .. as in you read my palm or whip out the tarot cards . what do you say ? ”
“never too busy for you.” avi quips, leaning forward on the counter. “my cards are in my bag in the back. i can get them if you want? or i can just read your palm.” they were trying to decide if this was going to be a serious reading or if they were going to make up some wild dramatic story just to be able to see soren’s reaction. “any specific reason why you want me to do a reading right now?”
“seriously? i always miss the good stuff. tell me all the details. did anyone go in for a right hook or was it just a lot of shouting?” min asked, leaning forward on his elbows in anticipation.
“just a lot of shouting, but also drinks were thrown. i think this girl found out her boyfriend had cheated on her. but it was with her ex girlfriend.” avi pulls a shocked face. “happy pride, right? like if you’re gonna cheat, at least find someone your partner doesn’t know.”
