IVES, avis

[Avis Ives]

your name | Scarlett
your age | fifteen, turning sixteen this coming January
contact information |yim (ohyeszombiegirl), pm (to 'john' or 'admin'), msn (captainscarlett@live), or email as a last resort (ohyeszombiegirl@yahoo).
characters | Captain John Hart

full name | Avis Doreen Ives
nicknames & titles | Avis has never had any nicknames besides when her father used to call her 'Little Red'.

As for job titles, she has a PHD in psychology, a degree from Harvard University in Abnormal Psychology and Astronautical Sciences.

age | twenty six / January 13th 1984
sexuality | heterosexual
occupation | Besides working shifts at fast-food places throughout her teens and getting a place at the Psychological department in the Cardiff Police straight out of college; Torchwood was her only job. Her current job title at Torchwood is Psychology Expert and Analyst.

family information |

mother: Selma Regine Ives nee Branch; fifty two years old; candle maker in New York, NYC
father: Bishop Louis Ives; fifty seven years old; candle maker in New York, NYC & owner of 'Enlightened Prospects'
brother: Jeremy Bishop Ives; twenty nine years old; unemployed in Cardiff

residence |
Avis has a small house just outside of Cardiff's city limits.

physical description |
Avis has the classic petite body; slender limbs, short in stature, but not so thin that she is unhealthy. Her fingers are just as willowy as the rest of her; long and bony and being of the things that she finds unattractive about herself. Truthfully, Avis does not like her body. She has hardly any curves and doesn't feel she is as feminine as she should be; making her prone to both being sensitive to insults and on the flip side, feeling overwhelmed and flustered when complimented. She thinks her legs, which have hardly any curvature, are unsightly and will usually cover them up as best she can. She also thinks her skin being so pale by nature is something to hide, and has tried so often to try and get a tan but only ended up with a sun burn. All one hundred and twenty pounds of her five feet five inch body is something she wishes she didn't have.

Her hair is another troubling factor for her. Naturally, her hair is a rich color of red; matching the shade of a pumpkin. She had her hair this way until she was about fifteen, when she finally started to dye it. She chose a blond color for her new hair, and wishes to keep it that way. She keeps her hair the same way; the strands silky and straight; and doesn't do much else to it. She isn't very interested in her appearance except when she feels especially self conscientious. Really her hair doesn't need much styling to appear pleasing, but it may be just because of the cut and the way it hangs around her face. Her face is round and the soft way her hair seems to hang does compliment her features well. Her lips are thin but still have a pretty shape to them and a natural rosy tint. Her lower lip is fuller than her top one; above them is a soft looking nose. Underneath her sharp and very neat looking pale eye brows are equally if not more so, light colored eyes. Her eyes are much like a cat's in the way that they are thin and long, nearly almond shaped. Her eyelashes are sparse but she will often try and thicken them with some makeup so that the lightness of her eyes aren't so harsh.

played by | kirsten dunst

personality |

• REALISTIC.
  

  Avis isn't the sort of person to be dramatic or to blow things out of proportion. She sees things how they are and tries to go from there. She can be a little bias towards some things, but usually she tries to keep a complete open mind; especially when dealing with her patients. Sure she may know that she doesn't like something or doesn't agree with something, but she will attempt to her best efforts to be totally fair. She is no optimist, but no pessimist either. There may not be a silver lining in a situation but at least there isn't anything particularly bad, right? She is not the brightest ray of sunshine but at least you won't find her raining on your parade every chance she gets. She will try and be realistic with her opinions, but is not scared (unless she is talking to a higher authority, to be honest) to express her opinion if she feels she needs to be heard. Avis, as always, always thinks her opinion is needed.

  
  
• OPINIONATED.
  

  As said before, Avis seems to believe that her ideas, thoughts and feelings need to be expressed at every moment. If she has a problem with you, she will tell you straight away. She will not fluff it up or make the information easier to swallow, but also doesn't really have the lying skills to do that. She always has an opinion, and always believes that she needs to make it known. This may be slightly self centered, but Avis does not see it that way. She thinks that if people are just open with each other, then most if not all problems can be solved maturely. Sure this after effect has not occurred much when Avis does decide to open her mouth, but she still believes strongly in it. The only real time she seems completely tongue tied is when she is speaking to a higher authority. For instance, there would have to be something she felt incredibly strong about to stand up to Jack. In fact, she is a little afraid of every boss she has, simply because she was always taught never, ever to disrespect someone above her at work. Her peers or her patients? She will tell you exactly what is on her mind, no question asked.

  
  
• UNDERSTANDING.
  

  Avis has always been empathetic and somewhat sympathetic to other people. It could be considered a good thing by some, but since she has started to work for Torchwood, it has become a weakness. She would rather think of killers, or the other people she has to work with as sick rather than evil. She believes that people can change if they are given the chance and that there is always a softer, kinder side to a person. She finds the idea of a person having a deeper core to be fascinating and has become sort of obsessed with digging into people to find it. This is the part of her job she loves most, and the time you can truly view her enthusiasm for her field. She has an open mind with people, and can be very perceptive or accepting. She will not judge you unless you already have a very, very prominent or tainted history to her knowledge. More often than ever, she will just end up afraid of you if your record is that bad, not judgmental of you.

  
  
• CLUMSY.
  

  Avis is no James Bond when it comes to guns, stealth or the spiffy accent. She can't walk into a room encased in darkness without tripping over herself, if not the tiniest crack in the floor. Though she is one of the fasted runners you'll ever meet, you do not even want to try counting how many times she has fallen flat on her face. Sports, dancing or anything else like that just make her so jittery and nervous. Even things like driving can be a hazard with her since she can't seem to coordinate using the steering wheel and the floor pedals. Stick shift? Do not even try it. Bikes? Nope. Roller skates? Never. This is why she tends to stick to water sports or just plain weight lifting whenever she decides to work out. In fact, since starting her work at Torchwood, Avis has started to go working out much more.

  
  
• QUICK TEMPERED.
  

  Avis may be a little shy at times and have a low level of self confidence, but she knows how to get angry fast. She can be a real, ahem, bitch when she let's all her nerves and values go down the drain. She has been known to say things or do things that she will always regret when she is angry, so she tries to avoid the situations where she can lose her temper. Confrontation or arguments just are not her thing, and she will lose her tightly bound maturity if you mess with her enough. In fact, she will always seem to forget just how small and not that powerful she is when she becomes mad. Avis has started and lost many fights in her life, and has trained herself to steer clear of such times. It has become even more dire since she is an inexperienced young woman armed with a firearm at all times. It just isn't a very good combination for the work place, that is for sure.

  
  
• PROTECTIVE.
  

  Tagging along with her hot temper, Avis is very protective of those she deems to be in need or who she cares about. When she used to get into fights with her parents concerning her brother, Avis would defend every single bit of him to the end. She is very stubborn that way and she will sometimes let it get the best of her. She can get this way about patients, since she considers them 'in need' rather than 'unsafe', sometimes. She is probably most shielding of her older brother Jeremy, who she had always really had to take care of. She will do almost anything to defend him from what people say and does often worry if her job would endanger him as it has for so many other of Torchwood's families. He is the most important thing to her, and always will be no matter how many people tell her he is a bum and holding her back. Really, if it was not for him blowing most of her money every month, she could have a much more expensive life style.

  
  
• SELF CONSCIOUS.
  

  Avis has never really grown out of the quintessential teenage girl though process in terms of how she feels about herself. Situations like dating, or other social outings will make her very, very nervous and she will usually be very quiet and smile to no end. Why? Because she can't seem to stop smiling in awkward situations or when she is anxious. She is the sort of person who will laugh at a funeral even if she is crying and feels horrible. It is just something she can't help but do. She is very sensitive in the sense that she takes everything to heart but will still try desperately to pretend like she is always bright and cheerful. She doesn't feel very comfortable in her own body and often is very jealous of people she considers 'prettier' or 'better'. She often questions her intellect, worth and how likable she is. She will probably never grow out of this, but she has tried before to branch out and accept herself. On the other hand, Avis is also very appreciative of compliments and is usually incredibly surprised when she receives them.

  
  
• PATIENT.
  

  Her job requires her to slowly allow people to be comfortable around her and for then to begin to trust her for her work to be successful. She has to learn to go slow, and be careful at her approach when she works since most of who she has worked with, whether it be the criminals she had to study when she worked at the police department or the aliens she has to evaluate for Torchwood, are reluctant to open up to her. Her patience with people has helped her grow a little bit more and be a bit more mature instead of trying to force her way into your head like she used to. In a few short years, she has found that the slower she takes things, the easier it will be for her. For a person who has very poor social skills and abilities, Avis actually gets along pretty well when she isn't trying to force her way into someone's Circle of Trust (yes she calls it that) or Friend Zone (double yes she calls it that).

  
  

greatest fear | the thing she fears most is a slow and painful death. she isn't afraid of dying really, just any sort or type of agony. even the idea of getting shots makes her flinch.

greatest desire | honestly? avis wants nothing more to have a family, get married, settle down, to have her brother be on his own... she wants to have the 'classic' woman's life as a housewife and a mother.

personal treasure | her brother, for sure, is the most important person in her life. she would never be the same without him.

biggest secret | Avis isn't great at keeping secrets. She doesn't usually hold anything about herself back and will answer almost any question except she will never admit to being in a bad mood. This may not seem like a really impressive secret, but the truth of the matter is that she sees unhappiness as a weakness deep, deep down. She doesn't want anyone to see her cry, or angry or anything.

history |

Children? Children were easy. It was getting past the screaming, the shrieking, the crying, the hollering, the whining, the agonizing screeches that seemed to never stop being produced from a young girl's mouth. Avis, meaning 'bird' in Latin, and her never ending song was not that of a mocking bird that was for sure. Her cries would never cease; day and night, night and day they continued; she never really wanted anything. This was just, from the very beginning, the beginning of a woman who liked to hear the sounds of her own voice. Her parents' sanity and mental states meant nothing to her at least until she got to an age where she figured out how badly it aggravated them. At least she had stopped talking to herself at age nine, but she hardly would ever stop opening her mouth to spread her wisdom and word. Whether she was reading to her older brother Jeremy, who struggled in schooling even from an early age, or if she was chatting the ear off her parents who spent hours upon hours attempting to support a family of four on a candle salary. Yes you heard right: a candle salary. The Ives owned a tiny shop underneath their apartment that sold designer homemade candles for every occasion. Sadly, hazardous mood lighting did not seem to be the sort of thing that New York, New York needed.

Besides a slow, loud, busy and dirty start to her childhood, Avis had a pretty happy life. She was sent off to school every day no matter rain or shine, sickness or health. She was a wondrous student, thought never really having any more than a few friendly acquaintances. She was a lonely child for the most part; releasing a heaping pile of thoughts and feelings suppressed by her shy self once she got home. She would crawl up in her brother's lap in the old wicker chair they had stored away on the roof of the house every night to read to him almost anything he wanted; Jeremy being sure to blow the smoke from his cigarette away from her. Avis can remember the last time she read to her brother down to the exact date. December 11th. She was thirteen years old; with her bright carrot colored waves falling lightly down her back until the rain from waiting for her brother to come home from school that day flattened the strands against her skin. He was sixteen years old when he didn't return home that evening. They didn't see the Ives son for nearly three months when the police were already ready to give up on the kid who already had a reputation with the force.

She had never been so enraged, so utterly pissed off. Jeremy walked in the home; his hair matted with sweat and filth to his head; the smell so foul, a mixture of an unwashed body, liquor, smoke, bleach and other nearly indescribable odors; a grin stretched as always across his face and a black eye tainting the heartbreaking (the girls used to consider him the 'bad boy') face. He was thinner than his lanky body had ever been, a layer of stubble ran across his face and his hands shook despite the piercing heat of the summer. Outside the bright sunlight and almost cheerful feeling in comparison to Jeremy, made him look so utterly out of place. Selma Ives was slumped in an arm chair in the sitting room, staring blankly at a wall. Bishop was in the kitchen boiling water for no particular reason but to watch the air bubbles rise to the top as the heat intensified. The first thing Avis did at the sight of her brother, who had been lost for months and she thought was dead or worse; she blackened his other eye.

Jeremy refused to tell anyone, even Avis who considered him her only friend, what he had been doing or where he had gone all that time. All that Avis could tell was, when she had been working the filth out of her brother's hair over the bathroom sink since he was too jittery to do so properly, were the dark bruises speckling down his arms and even a few on his neck or back. To be completely honest, Avis did not even want to know what her brother had been doing. She just knew she wasn't going to let this happen again. Ever.

- - -

Nothing scared her more than adulthood. She had started going to college, attending Harvard University at the tender and probably too early age of sixteen. She had been accepted through a scholarship, her impeccable grades and extremely impressive test scores brought her to be one of the better of her classes, studying both psychology and various astronomical sciences. She had chosen her path as a therapist, for no real reason other than the fact that people fascinate her. And she had a crush on her psychology professor, but that was hardly a good reason in her eyes to make life choices. He still helped. When Avis was twenty four, she moved to Cardiff. She was growing tired of living with her parents, and plus she had a friend who could hook her up with a job there with the police department. So after saying good bye to her parents, kissing her brother on the cheek at the airport, and walking through the gates, she heard a piercing scream behind her.

She turned around frantically, recognizing it as her brother and didn't know whether to laugh or punch him in the gut. He explained that he wanted nothing more to go with her, (their parent's rolled their eyes) and that he could help around the house (their mother snorted), or get a job at the department (both Selma and Bishop laughed out loud). Avis said alright, but only if he got a job. Jeremy said he screamed so she would hear him. Avis smiled. She had figured that.

- - -

The 456 had been defeated not too long ago. She knew her brother was doing drugs again. Gwen, a close friend back from the police department, had offered her a job. Avis had been struggling to pay the bills on the (considerably horrible) pay she and her unemployed brother were living on. Torchwood. What a fancy name.

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[Avis Ives]

FINISHED. <3

[Fiver Rye]

LOVE HER - greatest secret is empty [and Fiver is dying to know, but not know!] and i love jeremy. moira and jeremy need to be friends [or as close as she gets] because of the awesome!

[Avis Ives]

oh right. XD sorry wife. fixed. <3 yes to moira/jeremy and avis says she will put your PDA where the sun don't shine if you look.

[Administration]

Congratulations! Avis Ives has been accepted. Fiver is looking forward to being driven crazy by her - well, he's not really. But I am! *does cheerleader impresson* GO AVIS! GO GO AVIS!