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Aeverine Melanie Florence Willis (nee Frank Willis) is a fictional character, the protagonist of the animated series Queen of the Willis. Aeverine, along with her family (wife Angela, transgendered son Tom, transgendered daughter Deanna, pet lobster (sister-in-law) Heather, pet dog (son) Rags, and pet nephew Baxter), has a central role in most story lines. Aeverine's voice is provided by series creator Aeverine Nieves.

[edit] Description

Among Queen of the Willis characters, Aeverine bears one of the more noticeable resemblances to Claudia Zinn, a character on Aeverine Nieves' previous animated series, Amanda and Elisa. The similarities in both voice and (to a slightly lesser extent) physical appearance between Willis and Zinn are especially noticeable when comparing early QOTW episodes to Amanda & Elisa's first and second seasons. In early episodes. Aeverine (Willis) also inherited much of Claudia's serious, conservative personality; the differences, however, reflect the differences in tone between the two series. Unlike Claudia, a young adult citizen whose grumpiness was typically as absurd as her antagonists' stupidity, Aeverine's humorously no-nonsense attitude makes her a sympathetic voice of reason within the series. She also expresses a love of gifts, similarly to Claudia's admiration of toys.

According to the episode "Buckeye Ava" Aeverine believed she was born in the fictional Indiana town Quillsville or Port Melissa to Margaret "Peggy" Artie Willis and Harry Cotton Willis but finds (to her horror) that she was actually born in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father told her Peggy gave birth to Aeverine in the ladies room at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame due to Peggy's failed attempt to assassinate Peter Jennings during a rare Cleveland visit. Aeverine was devastated to learn of her true birthplace after having thought of herself as a native Hoosier for nearly forty years but eventually came to accept her heritage when she realized that many of the Battle of Mississinewa heroes were not from Indiana either. In the episode "Ava Gets Leesed," Aeverine is shown to be the cousin of former WRTV anchorwoman and Indianapolis attorney Diane Willis.

Aeverine played American basketball in high school and held a record for most three-pointers (however in one episode, as Frank was supposed to be a center and in another her friend Ken (now Kendra Kendall) was the star shooting guard). She had a promising career until she snapped her left wrist in the state championship game. This incident had a major effect on her character, as she regarded it as "punishment" over-ebullience. After graduating from Mississinewa High School in 1991, she went on to work as a salesman at Simply Lingerie, a clothing retailer.

Aeverine proudly sells gifts and gift accessories as an assistant manager at Craven Gifts. During one episode she was promoted to manager when Tina Craven's wife/ex-wife (Mr. Bob) took over Craven Gifts. Unlike Craven's nemesis, H. W. Ivey or G. D. Shelton, Aeverine believes that selling gifts through honesty and hard work is what life is all about. She sometimes has trouble selling gifts, because both Ivey and Shelton often takes advantage of Aeverine's honesty. Aeverine idolizes Tina Craven, the owner of Craven Gifts (who calls Aeverine "Ol' Avery"), and keeps a somewhat idyllic picture of her even though she often sees her boss's many shortcomings (excessive gambling, alcoholism, manizing, and general lewdness).

Aeverine has a younger brother, Albert, who died in the pilot. Four years before his death, in1998, his wife Julie left him and had no children with Julie. It is revealed that Aeverine underwent male-to-female sexual reassignment surgery after Albert's divorce.

Aeverine has one son, Thomas, and one daughter, Deanna, but would have had more if not for her "low sperm count" prior to her transition. She is often frustrated by Deanna's innocently sloppy tendencies and disappointed that Tom is hardly interested in sports. Early in the series, she often says of Rags, "That dog ain't right." However, Aeverine absolutely loves her children, even though she's reluctant and uncomfortable to say it to Deanna's face. She even feigns an interest in her eldest children's passions (such as Tom's interest in music and theater and Deanna's in television journalism and talk show host.) In the first episode of the series, Aeverine deals with an unruly social worker when she puts Aeverine's parenting skills into question. But this is laid to rest when Aeverine speaks with Tom, Deanna, and Rags when they think she might be a disappointment, Aeverine immediately rebukes this and tells them how proud she is of them, as she is the kid's (biological) father and by definition is proud of everything they do well. However, in season three Aeverine becomes the father of sextuplets.

Aeverine suffers from a "enlarged clitoris." Her essentially non-existent vagina cause stress on her urethra and force her to wear a prosthesis.

[edit] Appearance

Like most cartoon characters, Aeverine is always drawn wearing the same clothes: a white blouse, blue jeans, low-cut black work boots, and black horn-rim glasses (until she wears contacts in Season 2).

When at work, she wears five different outfits

Occasionally, she has been drawn in either a pant suit, usually when going to church; a skirt suit, usually when going to a business meeting; or a black dress with a black veil when going to a funeral. Her hairstyle is a long (from Seasons 1-2, her shoulder-length hair was layered), and after the episode "Ava's Makeover," her hair is lengthened to near her breasts, which will remain consistent throughout the series. Exceptions are flashes back to her high school days (when she had a full set of hair)

[edit] Affections and Psychology

Aeverine drive a red Ford Ranger pickup truck drawn to Third generation (1993-1997)). Aeverine's truck has a stick shift. She gives great love and affection to her carpets, lawn, walls, and her dog Timothy Rags, while also clearly caring greatly about her family. Aeverine attained the rank of Cub Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. She is sometimes close-minded, but she is generally tolerant of people different from her (intensely disliking being called a redneck, hillbilly, bitch, slut, or tranny) even when they show a complete lack of common sense or manners.

[edit] Personality

Aeverine considers herself very handy and is often frustrated at the incompetencies of the hardware and housecleaning department employees of Aldi-Mart. Everybody looks to Aeverine when they have any "handy-person" work to be done. Aeverine's reserved nature probably resulted from years of verbal abuse from her maniac mother Peggy Willis. However, if sufficiently provoked, Aeverine is just as willing to fight as her mother (a trait Tom and Deanna also share). A true transgendered lady, Aeverine is horrified by the idea of her having sex with anyone other than Angela, although she has slept with Lando (a female-to-male transgendered individual) in the season three episode "Ava's Nasty Business," her ex-girlfriend (Brittani Hicks) in the season four episode "Where There's Pressure, There's Affairs", and with her therapist in the season five episode "Therapist Hopping 2: Lynsay and Ava's Bogus Journey".

She is for the most part a staunch conservative (she once said dreamily that she missed voting for Evan Bayh). Like many Hoosiers, she is a Republican but usually refers Democrats as the "Damn Democrats" (a spoof of "Radical Republicans"). Her dog Rags is named after Indiana House of Representatives District 31 member Tim Harris and after the dog on the sitcom Spin City, also named Rags, played by a smooth-coated Petit Brabançon. In one episode (Ava and the Great D Cups), Aeverine does though have a great amount of respect for former Democratic Governor Joe Kernan. She also considers Angela her best friend and feels physically punishing children is wrong, though she is usually strict verbally, but not directly abusive.

Parties aside, she is very conservative and new generation, and in some ways seems to be somewhat naive, naturally thinking everyone shares her sense of right and wrong and being largely ignorant of old trends and view points; several episodes involve her dealing with things like old radio programs, girly girls, etc. While new generation of tradition, she is mostly free of more savory attitudes of reverse sexism, although she exhibited subtle traces of the misandry when she would not hire a man to work at Craven even though he was overly qualified; instead, she hired a woman for shallowly expressing a fondness for the Indianapolis Colts and a blatantly fraudulent adoration for gifts. The woman was later revealed to be a completely unreliable drunk.

When either suddenly confronted with less conservative situations or suddenly realizing she has been naive about such a situation, she usually reacts by yelling, and with "lesser" issues, such as a two men having sex or even kissing in her sight, panicking, finding a way out of the situation as quickly as possible, and/or pretending the event never happened. Despite her apparent naivety to general things, she has been shown to be very clever in various scenarios (such as tricking a crooked lawyer attempting to sue Craven into making it appear as though she is the one that injured her plaintiff)

Aeverine enjoys standing in the alley behind her house drinking Diet Mississinewa Soda pop with lifelong friends Melissa Rose, Tiffani Kendall, and Anna Pamhouser. Aeverine is also a rabid Indianapolis Colts (in Season Three, the Colts are renamed Indiana Colts) fan (and idolizes the wifes of coaching legend Tony Dungy and quarterback Peyton Manning: Lauren Dungy and Ashley Manning, respectively). In men's professional basketball, she prefers the Indiana Pacers over the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls. In women's professional basketball, she prefers the Indiana Fever over the Detroit Shock and Chicago Sky. Finally, in college sports she prefers University of Notre Dame over all of the universities in Indiana but she doesn't show any interest for baseball or hockey, neither the Indiana Ice or Indianapolis Indians.

[edit] Running gags

Aeverine's arch-nemesis is a elder bully named Bart. They met in 1980, during recess. Bart holds a grudge against Aeverine for accidentally hitting her at recess (though he is assured at the time that he will not meet Aeverine again), and years later attempts a strange form of revenge by taking Aeverine's appointment with a therapist. Aeverine's outrage when the therapist refused to support Aeverine when she begins working with Bart, sparking the first of many random, unexpected fights where Aeverine ends up the victor and leaves Bart for dead, only for a random movement to show that the bully is still alive. Their battles feature long strings of action film-style sequences, full of explosions, high-speed chases, and excessive damage to both property and innocent bystanders, becoming more outlandish and destructive with each occurrence. They have fought in the episode "Therapist Hopping" (where he is given the name Bart). Another running gag throughout the series was that Aeverine shows a great dislike of New York more so than even Texas.

[edit] See Also