— Scout Zavala is reconnecting with her sensitive side in efforts to pursue her lifelong dream of at least getting shortlisted for the T.S Eliot Prize. Despite her obnoxiously loud, bubblegum pink rollerblades and matching helmet giving off the impression she’s too cool for school, this wannabe poet will emotionally clam up around other people. Just don’t mistake her emotional wall as a weakness...unless you’re looking to fight a Marine.
BACKGROUND
TW: military, guns, car accidents, distracted driving, death
📑 In defiance of her godmother’s wishes, she followed in the footsteps of her grandfather by joining the Marine Corps. They maintained a strong relationship despite their disagreements, and her godmother attended her Graduation Day.
📑 She became a USMC Scout Sniper. Unlike Hollywood movies, there’s a lot more math, cartography, heat stroke, and eating dry packets of instant coffee involved. They say that marksmanship is only 10% of the job, but she was still exceptional at it. Her longest recorded shot during active duty was at 1,900 yards.
📑 Scout’s posture is still great, but she definitely stopped keeping a 100% cleanly living space after she was discharged. She’s always early to everything, although sometimes appearing with a “Red Bull Breakfast” in her hands.
📑 As a child, Scout was mostly raised by her godmother ( a competitive shooter with Olympic aspirations). Her mother was the victim of a car crash, struck by a distracted driver. She survived with severe complications that left her unable to care for her daughter, as well as making her more susceptible to the pneumonia that shortly thereafter took her life.
📑 If you’re ever driving a car, Scout will chew you out if you don’t keep your eyes on the road. She will rip the fuzzy dice dangling from your rearview mirror and throw them out the window.
📑 Her parents were originally from Salem, and so she’s moved there from Texas after wrapping up her BA in English. She stays in the RV lot, funneling pretty much every dime she makes into Boston’s endless literature programs and opportunities.
📑 She torments herself after these programs for being quiet, hiding in the back, and feeling too awkward to properly participate. Then, when she feels like she blew her last chance, will sign up for another opportunity and repeat the process. There’s something about opening up in front of others that makes her usual blasé attitude and sardonic commentary disappear. Can come across as awkward with people she doesn’t know, and there’s many halts + pauses in her usual back-and-forth than there are with friends & family.
📑 She’s no poetry prodigy, but she’s willing to work hard for what she wants. (If only she could overcome her stage fright and emotional constipation just as easy). Scout knows she’s not the best at everything (honestly, she’s pretty mediocre at most things!), but is a firm believer that regular practice triumphs untrained talent.
📑 Scout works at Salem’s pawn shop, specializing in antique guns and vintage collectibles. She’s generally, on a good day, pretty chatty and confident in front of customers. It’s only where she needs to be emotionally vulnerable that she clams up.
📑 Navigating other people’s crises isn’t her forte. She’s not very good at verbally comforting others, but rather shows affection & care through her actions. Highly reliable, she’s the first friend you call when shit hits the fan & you’ve got nobody to turn to.
📑 Her favorite antiques are two Smith & Wesson Model 19s that she’s affectionately named “Betty” and “Veronica”.
📑 Pretty down to earth, she gets uncomfortable around prestigious, fancy activities and the audiences they tend to attract. Scout is drawn towards people in the middle, people who are balanced, reliable, steady, and without more extremes than she can handle. (For someone who tells people to “go shit a brick somewhere else” and “fuck amazon!”, she is extremely comforted by order and structure.)
📑 Currently, doesn’t suspect that anything is amiss within Salem. Everything is as it should be, right? Just a normal town with too many rumors and a weird history...right?
📑 She watches a ton of Master Chef, is lowkey into Star Wars, and is trying to take up yoga. Watching her take on civilian life is her girlfriend & their rapidly multiplying bowl of pet guppies: “Ken, Kenneth, Kenlene, Kenny, and Kenwald.”
📑 Very much loves paint ball, those foam nerf gun toys, laser tag, and any kind of group activity where she’s mostly off on her own. Those “escape room” type adventures are her worst nightmare because now she has to awkwardly engage with the group instead of lurking around & taking aim with her scope.
📑 She enjoys: zipping around town in her pink rollerblades, playing arcade games, accidentally smudging her eyeliner too much, purchasing adult-sized Heelys at the mall & gliding around the food courts with a dairy-free smoothie, getting drunk & writing threatening letters to companies demanding that they reduce their carbon footprint, being sober and telling people that “plastic is the devil”, totally sucking at poetry open mic nights & hiding in the bathroom until the whole building clears, doing the sniff test on her oat milk & asking her girlfriend to double-check.
📑 Catchphrase: “BALLS!”






