Hobbies:pouring out the elixir of life to the world (Tea): There is a process and a sense of calm about making tea, and Avery finds both of these things deeply fulfilling. Sure, he loves drinking the tea also (he’s always looking to test out new flavors, and he welcomes recommendations). But tea is never
just about the end result, and if it is, then you aren’t enjoying it correctly. Tea is about getting the correctly purified clean water, heating it to the exact correct temperature for the kind of tea it is, and steeping it long enough to bring out the flavor without burning or overtaxing the leaves. Tea is about pouring it precisely and letting it soothe your spirit. Avery doesn’t care if it makes people pick on him: he will have a very silly tantrum if you call tea “
hot leaf juice” where he can hear you do it.
simply a form of moving meditation (Swimming): Avery doesn’t enjoy
not being active; it makes him feel constrained and spiritually itchy. But a lot of the options out there do nothing for him. Swimming doesn’t run into the same issue as other forms of physical activity, though: he doesn’t get bored, the way he does with running and lifting; he doesn’t get totally lost in his own thoughts to the exclusion of any enjoyment, the way he does with biking and a lot of strength training; and he doesn’t feel overly reminded of his own limitations in ways that make him feel like quitting, as tends to happen with things that require any physical flexibility. Following
his bestie to the gym and logging some time in the pool while Shulang works with some of his self-defense students gives Avery the activity he needs to stay sane, and helps him chill out.
i have always imagined that paradise will be some kind of library (Going to the Library): Yes, he dropped out of DCU and yes, he did that because the academics of it all were stressing him out. But the thing is, Avery actually deeply enjoys learning……just not if it’s on someone else’s terms. He likes going to the library and wandering around the stacks, looking around until he finds something that looks interesting, then setting up at a table or in a chair to read for a while. Because he’s very aware of how libraries are community institutions, Avery doesn’t check a book out unless he samples it first, to see if he’s actually interested. Plus, it’s a free excuse to spend more time at the library itself, same as going to some of the community game nights and similar things that sometimes borrow rooms at the library. Listen, he just finds the library a very soothing place to exist in, okay?
i think emily dickinson’s a lesbian (Poetry): Avery didn’t actually like poetry very much when he was in school. Everyone who tried to teach him about the joy of poetry managed to fail in some pretty spectacular ways and the constraints of the education system left him both confused and upset about that confusion. When he ******** off on his own after dropping out of DCU, though, one of the few non-essential things he had with him was a backpack full of books, and among those books were a few books of or about poetry from his least favorite course (one critical anthology of world poetry, one critical anthology of LGBTQ poetry specifically, and one book about poetic forms and devices). On his own, without being forced to learn only on terms that didn’t work for him, Avery has come to learn that he actually enjoys poetry a great deal. He doesn’t really get
why he likes picking poetry apart now, nor does he particularly want to think about that question; he just wants to be left alone to read his poetry books and scribble notes all over them, probably in bright pink pen.
As for the thought of writing his own poetry……he’ll get back to you on that? Maybe? He has built up some attempts in the notebooks he happened to have in his backpack when he ran away, but he currently only sees them as attempts. Messing around with the idea of writing poetry without entirely committing to it because he wasn’t actually sure that he had anything worth saying.…… But hey, what does he know? Maybe he will have something to say, now? Maybe he’ll look for some writers’ groups in town and start going? That might be fun??
you put the lime in the coconut (Cooking): Much like with stealing, this is a skill that Avery has mostly developed due to necessity because prior to running off on his own for almost nine years, the most he could really do was put something in a microwave. Having had to learn more than that in order to survive, though, he thinks he’d really like to experiment some more, now that he is back in Destiny City and has access to fun things like an actual working stove (as opposed to a fire that he built in a pit), spices that don’t require him to ask questions like
“Refreshing tea or deadly poison??” before using them for anything, and
real jasmine rice and coconut milk.
He’s going to take avid longhand notes while watching Food Network shows for ideas, maybe look into taking some rec center classes or trying some tutorials off Youtube, since………that’s apparently a thing now?? Last Avery was aware, Youtube was mostly for weird Internet challenges, dubious quality sketch comedy shorts, music videos, and people’s personal storytimes, but all the assorted tutorials out there on Youtube now are
fascinating and highly appreciated. Thanks to said videos, Avery wants to try making farmer’s cheese—and with it, some Ukrainian sweet cheese pancakes that he literally just learned about today—like all these weird white ladies dressed like they’re cosplaying
Little House on the Prairie or
Little Women.
emotion_kirakira Virtues:this might as well happen. adult life is already so goddamn weird (Calm): Avery knows how to keep his cool in stressful situations and generally has a pretty easy time of doing so. Most outside stressors feel, to him, like “Eh, I’ve dealt with this or something like it before. Obviously, I’m still standing. I will try my best, keep it loose so I don’t get locked into a course of action, remember that the sunk costs fallacy is not my friend, and everything will be okay. I’m stronger than my own fear.”
how dare you clap! how dare you clap for the worst financial decision i’ve ever made in my life! (Passionate): Avery is very capable of controlling his emotions, but this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care. On the contrary, when he gets invested in someone or something, Avery does not half-a** that interest. Getting into a new hobby means he will investigate all kinds of avenues for exploring it and different perspectives about it. Loyalty to someone he cares about will always be of the “ride or die” variety, and will inevitably feature Avery standing up for His People even if they’re in the wrong (he’ll likely call them out when others aren’t around, but see, they are
His People, so he’s allowed to go “You aren’t being your best self”; but you are not afforded the same privilege unless they say so). Most of Avery’s thoughts and feelings about larger-scale issues like politics, faith, etc., he keeps in the realm of
ideas rather than beliefs, but when he
does commit to something hard enough to call it a belief, Avery will be incredibly difficult to shake from his convictions. All up, his approach to caring about anyone or anything is to go all in or not at all.
the more you do stuff, the better you get at dealing with how you still fail at it a lot of the time (Non-Judgmental): In Avery’s experience, life has a way of happening to everybody and it can take you in some pretty weird directions if you let it. When he was doing all those “What do you want to be when you grow up but for teens and young adults?” questions in meetings with his high school teachers and guidance counselor, Avery said a lot of nonsense but honestly thought that he might have been on to something with his answers about
“I want to lead a space revolution like Princess Leia” and
“It’d be really cool to be a rock star? I don’t have any musical talent but all you need anymore is a good producer who knows their way around autotune.” Instead, neither of those things happened and Avery wound up living off-the-grid for a while.
After everything he’s gone through and how most people wouldn’t guess it from looking at him, Avery doesn’t see a point in judging other people too harshly. He doesn’t know them. He doesn’t know their lives. However things with them seem to him at first blush, he might be wrong in his initial appraisal of them and even when he has more context, he can’t know another person’s heart as well as he knows his own. Best then, he thinks, to let other people speak for themselves and to meet them on their own terms as much as possible. Being overly judgmental just sounds like a good way to be wrong about things.
you have your law practice, and me? i have all these ******** markers (Humble): This does not mean “self-deprecating” or “incapable of appreciating his own strengths,” and Avery very quickly loses his patience when people start acting like it does. For a long time when he was younger, Avery
did do a lot of self-deprecation (usually masked as “humor”) and genuinely didn’t think very much of himself. But he’s learned, while surviving on his own, that he’s a lot better than he used to think he was. However, he has also learned that he can’t expect to be in control of everything, all the time, always. He can’t expect himself to be perfect, and he can’t let himself get cocky or he might end up getting very badly hurt.
So, he puts a lot of effort into checking the negative thoughts about himself that he learned and internalized when he was younger, reminding himself of all his good qualities in the process, yes. He just also puts in the work to maintain a realistic outlook on his flaws and shortcomings so he’s less likely to get himself in trouble by taking on more than he can handle.
Flaws:just because you’re accurate doesn’t mean you’re interesting (Aloof): Avery is Not Very Good At People. He isn’t particularly misanthropic or anything, and he has by and large gotten over his pointlessly edgy,
“I’m a weirdo, I don’t fit in, people shouldn’t care about me because I don’t care about them” garbage from when he was a teenager. But overall, he’s still pretty bad at dealing with most people on more than a superficial level. He gets awkward with them very easily, he often forgets what he wants to say in the middle of trying to say it, and too much prolonged social interaction can very easily become stressful for him (especially after so much time on his own). Hoping to avoid making those kinds of messes for himself and everyone else, Avery keeps his distance from most people. He doesn’t go out of his way to be rude, most of the time……but he also doesn’t go out of his way to be particularly nice (see below at “Blunt”). He’s open to the idea of letting people in, but he needs time and patience to decide that he trusts someone enough for that. Even if he wants, in his heart, to trust somebody, really getting him to warm up to you will be a
process and A Whole
Thing.
because it’s the one thing you can’t replace (Hyper-Fixated): When Avery gets attached to an idea or a project, he can be incredibly difficult to sway onto a different path or to sell on a different course of action, even if the alternate idea is safer, more effective, or otherwise better than the way he’s decided to approach things. Likewise, when he gets swept up hard in any particular emotion and/or situation, it becomes very difficult for him to pay attention to anything else. Trying to make him look away from the issue that he’s gotten all wound up about is a good way to make him either get angry and frustrated (and then he’ll probably continue what he was doing anyway), or hit a mental wall because trying to redirect his focus from where it wants to be will drain him and stress him out.
i paid $120,000 for someone to tell me to read jane austen, and then i *didn’t*! (Blunt): Even before Avery spent nine years off the grid, on his own, he wasn’t particularly well-known for his social skills, and it would be an understatement to say that this state of affairs hasn’t improved any. Censoring himself, even in the name of tact or diplomacy or just not upsetting people, often edges way too close to Bad Feelings for him, so his usual way of speaking to people doesn’t bother. His biggest exceptions are that: 1., he makes a concentrated effort to be nice to service workers; and 2., he always tries to tell his Mom the truth in the way that seems least likely to make her worry—but aside from them? Even people he considers friends will probably need to deal with him being
very unfiltered with his opinions (even when they’re negative), harsh truths about XYZ given situation (even if stories like “the time I almost got busted stealing propane from a vacation cabin because some lady in the nearby town had also broken in there for some relative privacy while cheating on her husband” tend to make people upset), and/or how little respect he has for that stupid idea you just proposed (it’s probably a negative amount of respect and he is not sorry).
“enough” is a myth (Immoderate): Most people hear the story of Icarus and take it as either a cautionary tale or a great tragedy. Avery, however, looks at Icarus’s plight and goes “Yeah, I’ve been there, buddy.” When he throws himself into something, he generally does not have a sense of “enough” or “too much” until he’s already crossed the line enough to hurt himself and sometimes not even for a while afterward. Very much that “He’ll tell you when he’s had enough to drink by throwing up and needing to go to the hospital” sort of energy. Also, the sort of energy whose response to his terrible family situation was having a complete meltdown after failing the last round of final exams he did at DCU and ******** off to rural Maine for almost ten years.
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