Atticus Jericho Jacques, District 7

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( N A M E ) Atticus Jericho Jacques
( N I C K N A M E S ) Atti; Attidarling (only by his mother... and me XD)
( A G E ) 17
( G E N D E R ) Male
( D I S T R I C T / A R E A ) District Seven

Oh, how we lay like spoiled skin beneath the leaves
Oh, how the ring will never fit the finger properly
If I could rip it from it's bond
I'd tie your eyes to me so tight
Because the years are getting slippery

( A P P E A R A N C E )

Atticus has never felt quite at home in his own body. His pale blond hair has always attracted more attention than he would like, as if wanting to ensure the whole of Panem notice just how tragically awful his haircuts are. During childhood, his mother would trim it for him, unceremoniously tipping a bowl onto his head and haphazardly following along the brim with a pair of dull kitchen shears. When he moved out of his parents house to apprentice under his grandfather, he had high hopes for his new-found freedom and believed he could even utilize it to break free from the lopsided bowl cuts of his youth. Instead he discovered he had inherited his mother's talent, or rather lack thereof, cutting lines too sharp and missing other pieces entirely.

His obvious lack of self-confidence is compensated for by the somewhat endearing air harmlessness he projects in it's place. Although he is prone to stuttering himself into incoherency or instinctively hunching when caught in conversation for too long, as if attempting to curl into himself in a desperate act of self-preservation, there is an underlying kindness in his dark brown eyes that reassures it's not you he's terrified of, but himself. Awkward uncertainty may be his personal curse, but he's aware that it's mostly self-generated.

Built from lanky limbs that strive to be tangled up with one another, his six foot frame is often more of a hindrance than a help. It is only his hands that he trusts — they are the reliable hands of a craftsman. While Atticus is rarely graceful, his wrists are steady and his fingers skilled. He may be unable to walk a straight line to save his life, but the script of his handwriting is refined and fluid, reflecting a rare moment of self-confidence. Relishing any opportunity to put his abilities to use, he has thrown himself into learning the trades of a Bookman, earnest and full of excitement, even when he so often falls short of his grandfather's high expectations.

Now that he's assisting with the bindery and trying to pretend he's a responsible adult, Atticus attempts to counterbalance his grandfather's (and, frankly, his own) lack of professionalism by dressing nicely. Although he can't afford particularly high quality clothing, he has a penchant for the classically geektastic librarian style. Especially partial to cardigans, vests, and suspenders, he'll patch and mend his favorites until the cuffs and tears are too threadbare to support his makeshift repairs.

Oh, I'm a suitcase with the hinges bursting free as to say
"You're stuffed too full, you have to give your lover's load away"
So through each pore,
I sweat the linger of your love away so fast
Because our love is getting slippery

( P E R S O N A L I T Y )

It's not that Atticus is quiet or shy, but rather that he has simply never been quite certain as to what he ought to do with himself. The decision between greeting hi versus hello is a conundrum that he's convinced can influence the entire course of a relationship with someone. Beginnings have always been difficult for him to navigate, especially in the social sense. At the best of times this leads him to be excessively polite with people he doesn't know well, stumbling over himself to open doors or apologizing for his every self-perceived shortcoming, but at the worst it leaves him stuttering into awkward silence. While his well-intentioned bumbling and good manners often charm the older patrons of his grandfather's bindery, it generally leaves anyone nearer to his age with the impression that he's completely inept.

Honestly speaking, Atticus is certainly an amateur, but his dogged determination can make him quite capable in the long run. Few things in life have come easily to him, so each piece of knowledge and skill has been painstakingly earned through trial and failure. This has made him rather methodical, as creativity and spontaneity have seldom served him well, and he prefers learning things from a technical approach. In the bindery he is responsible for straightforward tasks such as assembly and printing, but never artistic duties like paper marbling. The exception is, of course, most anything pertaining to calligraphy or typography, which is one of the few areas he naturally excels at.

Having been born into an excruciatingly intelligent family, Atticus has always been intimidated by the brilliance of those surrounding him. The scientific minds of his parents were not something he inherited, a fact he became painfully aware of when his younger brother started showing early signs of following in their footsteps. He began feeling misplaced, half-convinced he had been switched at birth, and started searching for something he could identify with. Chasing blindly after any subject he felt even a passing interest in, he became a jack of all trades, but a master of none (and a wretched failure at others). Whether collecting butterflies and moths, studying abstract poetry as an attempt to broaden his creative mind, or folding a thousand paper cranes in the name of learning origami, very few of his interests were maintained consistently enough to develop beyond mediocrity.

Despite his numerous failed and fleeting interests, he has fixated on one with unwavering fascination: Bibliophilia. His father was always intrigued by history and although his knowledge of it was often astoundingly inaccurate, the stories of former cultures that he shared with Atticus throughout his childhood captured the boy's imagination. There were never enough tales to satisfy his curiosity and eventually Atticus went in search of his own, seeking out any remnants of Pre-Panem books he could find. It wasn't until he gained the assistance of his grandfather's rather dubious bartering connections that he was really able to start his collection. Although he can never hope to lay eyes on a fifteenth century illuminated manuscript or a Gutenberg Bible, fragments of twenty-first century paperback romances or other once widely distributed publications occasionally find their way to the Districts. To Atticus they are clues to a mythic civilization that exists in his mind like fairy tales from his youth and even though such a collection is most certainly illegal, he's more than willing to risk his tongue for the opportunity to own a half-destroyed pulp fiction novel.

Somehow the sky is holding up the heavens
But I can't get the ground to hold the earth up anymore
And all our friends are finding life inside the ocean
But my pockets scream,
"You can't afford to live there anymore"

( H I S T O R Y )

The son of renowned inventors, Olivia and Dimitri Jacques, Atticus spent most of his childhood falling short of everyone's expectations. His parents were the minds behind the majority of District Seven's technological advancements in production equipment and yet he had difficulty changing a burnt out light bulb. Although he certainly never felt unloved, he was always hyper aware of the indisputable fact that the whole of the district expected him to be a genius and, more importantly, that he wasn't.

His school attendance was infrequent at best, his parents preferring to teach him themselves, convinced his future lay in the family trade with a specialization in mechanical development. The homeschooling wreaked havoc on Atticus' social skills; his relative solitude, coupled with the preconceptions others held toward him, made it difficult to form friendships. Growing almost inseparably close with Jasper, his prodigy of a younger brother (now fourteen), may have filled that gap in his life, but only made the weight of his self-perceived failure heavier on his shoulders. Despite Atticus' earnest efforts towards studying, it didn't take long for Jasper to defy their age difference and surpass him in almost every subject.

The shame and self-doubt became irreversible when seven-year-old Jasper began making corrections to his older brother's homework, lecturing him on proper sentence structure and pointing out yet another area of mechanics that Atticus didn't quite understand. That was the day he truly realized that he needed to find his own future instead of trying to force himself into the one everyone else had planned for him. Suddenly, it seemed as if he were methodically working his way through a list of hobbies and interests, each one more random than the last. Astronomy, biology, traditional music, wood carving, bird watching, gardening, fishing — everything he could think of, he tried. It took him a year before he discovered something he actually enjoyed, books, and several more until he realized he could turn that love into a profession.

At the age of fourteen, Atticus moved from his parent's relatively secluded house to his grandfather's bindery in the district's metropolitan center. The expert book binder and paper maker extraordinaire, Anselm Christophe Jacques, had requested for one of his grandsons to come apprentice under him and help with the work his slowly failing hands were no longer capable of. Atticus leapt at the opportunity, having been both searching for an answer to his uncertain future and enthusiastic at the prospect of working with books. Despite some inner reluctance at the idea of moving across the district, leaving behind his parents and especially his younger brother, he was also intensely excited to be able to spend time with his grandfather, who seemed to be a personification of his father's stories.

Anselm's eccentricity is notorious and its rumored that in his youth he was once a wanderer beyond the bounds of Panem's districts. Often looking more like an aging circus ringleader than a successful businessman, his appearance only hints at the strange inner workings of his mind. His bindery is the true manifestation of his peculiarity, housing an extraordinary array of bizarre oddities and broken logic. Defying expectations for a clean and efficient work shop, it is instead like walking into a curio cabinet grown out of control, with the half-truths of Anselm's history elusively hidden in the nooks and corners.

When Atticus arrived, he instantly felt a sense of home and belonging that was always missing in his previous residence. The shop was full of mysteries, but they were ones he could relate to — relics of aging memories instead of scientific theories and equations. He had always daydreamed of traveling, exploring his way across Panem and learning about everything that was so clearly beyond himself. While he still secretly wishes to do so, another part of him is content to live vicariously through the tall tales his grandfather tells him as they work, creating financial ledgers for local businesses or hand-bound novels for the Capitol and wealthy upper districts.

For all my life, I will keep you in my lower lay
Where all my sins are piled right up to my shoulder blade
And I will visit you with thoughts
From the left side of my brain
And take the artery that leads me back to you

( C O D E W O R D ) Odair
( F A C E C L A I M ) Lee Hong Ki

( C O M M E N T S / O T H E R )

Slippery by Page France

I don't know where these blond kids are coming from. I never make blond characters. This is so weird, mang. Yet, what's weirder is that someday Attidarling here will inevitably be avoxed over Twilight. It'll be a tossup if I die from laughter or horror over it.

( O T H E R S P E A K I N G ) 6A8A94
( T H I N K I N G ) 8DADA6
( T E X T ) 9DCEA2
( O T H E R ) B4E189
( S P E A K I N G ) CCF36F