CIVILIAN . JAEGER, ATTICUS

Male

Heterosexual

Forty

July 12, 1972

American/Irish/German Descent

Atticus has some experience with the Portuguese language; his former wife was from Brazil and her fluctuation between English and her father and mother’s native tongue exposed him to it early on in life. This does not, by any means, make him an expert at it. He knows about as much as he would need to know to survive, and could likely puzzle out the rest—verbally—if he lived in a country like Brazil for another year or so.




None. Sometimes goes by Jaeger.

0.5

Civilian

N/A

N/A

N/A

Cathal

Mirach Dia
Dominic R. Marsten
Elena J. Anderson

Yes.

Volke from Fire Emblem

“Bleeding Ink” Tattoo Parlor Owner & Artist – Specializing in original designs for twenty plus years, Atticus A. Jaeger has a fairly nice operation going on in L.A. that caters to all walks of life and styles—and does it with astounding quality; his mastery of needles and ink has solidified a longstanding reputation amongst younger competitors, and while he still claims there’s “shit tons more to learn”, his skills pay the bills so to speak, and affords him the ability to hire apprentices and aspiring artists looking for a break.

Occasional Commissioned Work- Atticus doesn’t typically dabble in other venues beyond his tattoo work, but if paid the right amount of money, he’ll take a sudden interest in other styles; he has a particular affinity for spray painting, but if he’s feeling traditional, good ol’ brushwork or polished charcoal pieces can usually get the job done.

Basics: Though Atticus will swear up and down that his hair is brown—not gray—he’s only kidding himself. If anything, there’s a touch of color left in it to give it character. That said, in spite of his age, he’s still a solid looking guy—not to mention physically fit—and on lazy days can look a little gruff with unshaven scruff around his jaw. His eyes are russet brown, and typically speaking he’s easily recognizable by his black jacket, the purple-mahogany band across his forehead and a pipe either between his teeth or clutched in hand. From time to time his age begins to show in stress lines or wrinkles around his eyes. He prefers darker clothes in general, but he’ll wear whatever makes him comfortable.

Other: Atticus has a number of tattoos on his arms, beginning at his knuckles and ending up toward his biceps and shoulders. Some of them he obviously needed help to ink, but the designs are entirely his own and because of that, are the definition of unique. His right arm is more coherent than the left: his open palm has a well-defined all-seeing-eye etched at its center, in which the careful, inky lines of the pyramid break out into unhappy snarls of bramble. These lines snake around his wrist and up to his knuckles, thickening out into a strikingly bold skeletal design of the bones in the human hand, and it doesn’t end there. Every image on this arm seems to bleed into another; animal designs like the snarling face of a spotted hyena, religious symbols from various cultures, familiar kanji, tribal lines that spill into the cavernous mouth of an unknown monster, an open book with blank pages, the cracked skull of a buffalo, weapons…a true jungle of images that could tell a secret story simply in their mingling together. Atticus couldn’t tell you what that story is, but there’s something hauntingly beautiful in how it melts together in a riot of color and lines.

And then you have his left arm.

The design here is more questionable and chaotic. There are no meaningful shapes, only violent colors and lines that collide together like hateful tide waves. They rip their way up his skin from the base of his knuckles to his high shoulder, the black dominating, almost swallowing the iridescent hues that thread their way through it. Some people compare the left arm to the opalescent sheen that oil sustains and see a work of art; others take one look at it and peg Atticus for a crazy man. The question why he did this—why he designed something so ugly and odd and deceptively alluring—is a common one, and his response is always a half hearted shrug and a vague answer of, “It felt right.”

Unknown to most, Atticus also wears a golden chain around his neck under his clothes and jacket. This chain totes a golden ring that holds great significance to him.

“All right, kid. You’ve been talkin’ my ear off about this tattoo you may-or-may-not-possibly-want for the past two hours. I can’t take it anymore. If you don’t make up your mind in the next five seconds, I’m going to start stabbing you with random pointy things from my drawer here. So. What’s it gonna be?”

Typically a tolerant guy that can bear the company of thugs, druggies, prostitutes, snobs, wise-guys and dumb asses alike, every now and then Atticus experiences a bout of impatience that harkens back to his young, brash days as a misguided teenager. He’s not a man known for his temper, but he does have a tendency to be blunt when he’s irritated, and that down-to-earth honesty can rankle the easily offended—that said, as a man only ten years from the middle age marker, he’s got quite a few years of experience on his hands and might be a great person to approach for objective advice. Some have come to see him as a gruff father figure—which he supposes is fine, a little weird, but what the hell—while others seem to think he doubles as a personal therapist—which is not fine, nope, not in the least. His resilient attitude has come in mighty handy when dealing with these talkative, sometimes concerned strangers that have a tendency to drop their problems on him from out of nowhere. Usually a drawled, “Mm-hm,” or a growled, “Go on,” make these people feel better, but somehow or another the poor guy always ends up tackling a conversation he doesn’t want to have; at least he comes out alive and pretty damn sure that compared to some people out there—we won’t mention names—that he’s a relatively sane and happy person.

While it’s true that patience is a virtue, that money talks and bullshit walks, Atticus’ world doesn’t revolve around any of it. He’s a man absorbed by his art, and that hard working, nose-to-the-grindstone attitude has earned him everything he has—without the benefits of a college education or traditional training. He’s proud of what he’s managed to accomplish after twenty years of blood, sweat and tears, and is a firm believer in good ol’ fashioned hard work to smooth out the rough patches in a person’s soul. As a result, Atticus A. Jaeger is the kind of person that prefers to solve a problem while it’s in front of him, rather than put it aside for a later date. He can casually make or break friendships, joke, argue and relax as much as the next person, but procrastination, according to Atticus A. Jaeger, is a quiet, tiny form of cowardice, though it’s well known that too much initiative can get a man into big trouble. This is only compounded by his tendency to suppress what is emotionally bothering him; Jaeger might be good at listening and offering advice to others, but he downright sucks at tackling the deep seeded issues in his own head.

His insecurities include a still-growing contempt and frustration for his dyslexia; on a bad day he can spend more than five minutes reading the same sentence and finding himself unable to comprehend what he’s looking at. He’s paranoid and angry that if people know about his learning disability, they’ll consider him stupid or somehow not as capable as anyone else. This can cause an enormous amount of stress and grief for those that attempt to decipher why Atticus never seems to read something for himself—he masterfully dances around this issue, and if he can’t attain the necessary privacy, nonchalantly assigns the task to others to read aloud—or why his signature is purposely illegible—to hide any likely discrepancies in his scrawl. Obviously, if he let it, this could interfere with his work. It took many years, but he’s managed—at least when tattooing—to stop viewing letters as letters. Rather, he sees them as abstract shapes with no meaning that he can etch into the skin like any picture. This change in perception is not without consequences—at times it’s worsened his ability to read, exacerbating an embarrassing experience into a humiliating one.

It’s easy to see that the problems Atticus can’t solve are the ones that haunt him the most. Poor decisions made in his past and irreversible issues, like his dyslexia, are the bane of his existence. Unfortunately, the guy’s not one for talking about himself, and people who pry are quick to realize that Atticus is neither passive nor meek when it comes to defending his unpleasant secrets. Sometimes the most charismatic and casual people have demons they can’t share easily—and he’s one of them.

“I hate talkin’ about it. Here’s an idea. Let’s not, and say we did. Then everybody’s happy.”

Atticus grew up without a father, and while it didn’t seem to get the best of him in his early childhood, buried resentment and anger for a man that wanted nothing to do with him did eventually manifest in his rebellious teenage years. Needless to say, his mother was a struggling single mom, and she fought tooth and nail to give her only son anything and everything he needed—which was more than either of them bargained for. Atticus was unexpectedly diagnosed with dyslexia when his mother and teachers realized how difficult it was for him to read and write—a task that most kids were learning at a steady pace while he was still fumbling over the alphabet. Even as a kid, his dyslexia was both frustrating and embarrassing; Atticus quickly learned to cope with it by pretending he didn’t have it—and focusing his pent up anger and energy elsewhere.
It didn’t bode well for the future.

As a teen, the destructive behaviors developed. Harmless doodles and drawing turned into gang related tagging and graffiti. Atticus would later describe himself at this time as “an ungrateful little shit, kind of like most kids at that age, you know, the ones that pretend to hate their parents and don’t want to do a damn thing they’re told,” but he would always downplay his growing alcoholism during these years, which was fueled mostly by older friends, parties and frankly, stealing. The booze managed to take the edge off his anger and keep the temper tantrums at bay on good days, but true salvation—for both him and his mother—didn’t arrive until he met Alessa through another gang member. A quiet, and serious girl, Alessa might have grown up in the rough side of East L.A., but her heritage was strictly Brazilian, and it showed in her mastery of capoeria, which was passed down, and taught to her, by her unrelenting father. It was through Alessa that Atticus learned to guard his temper—and learn the martial art himself. Their first meeting was in fact, punctuated by too many drinks and a thorough ass kicking when he attempted to bully her younger brother into a fight.

She was 16, and he was 17, and sometimes Atticus thinks it strange, the way things worked out in spite of being the proud owner of a broken arm after that first long night. They were both running with the same crowd of people in East L.A., and it was unavoidable that they would meet again, but who would have thought they’d be inseparable? Interestingly enough, Alessa’s presence helped to cool his temper, and after spending more time with him, she managed to convince her father to help teach him capoeira; it would be many years before he reached her current skill level, but nevertheless, it intensified their bond. By the time Atticus hit 20, he accepted a cleaning job at a local tattoo studio for extra cash, where he had ample time to study some of the best—and worst—artists that passed through the area. These years were crucial to the development of his career, but he wouldn’t get to touch a needle or a machine until he was 23, when his clients consisted mostly of friends and family. Throughout all of it, however, Alessa was there to encourage him—and it came as little to no surprise when the bond between them flourished and eventually led to a deep and meaningful relationship.

Their years together were easily the best ones of his life, where he felt free of the judgment of others and capable of anything.
It was a pity the universe would conspire to ruin it. A terrible car accident not only caused permanent damage to his right leg, it took Alessa away from him; she’s been locked in a coma for sixteen years and shows no signs of recovery. It’s by sheer force of will—and the thought, the agonizing hope, of being there for her when she awakens—that Atticus has managed to come so far in his life after experiencing such a traumatic event. Life has seen fit to challenge him in quite a few ways, and while Atticus would like to think he’s become a better man for it, it remains to be seen just how much pressure he can take before he breaks. Now, with his mother gone and nearing middle age, he can feel himself wavering—he just isn’t sure which way he’s going to lean.

-Atticus practices capoeria and has practiced since he was a teenager. Most of his physical fitness stems from this, but these days he uses it mostly as a means to focus his mind and reminisce on the past. It doesn’t hurt, however, to know he can defend himself if necessary. Maybe not to the extent that he used to, but experience has tempered his skill to a fine point.

-He suffers from dyslexia—it’s a constant source of embarrassment for him.

-Atticus has only experienced one major (car) accident in his life—at the age of 24—and it left him with a severely broken right leg and damaged muscle tissue. This old injury has a tendency to flare up, and if one looks close enough they might notice the slightest sign of a limp as he walks. He doesn’t let this deter him from arduous physical activities, but on bad days it does have a tendency of slowing his reaction times.

-Atticus is a married man, but his wife has been in a coma for 16 years. He’s currently unable to let her go, though he’s been told numerous times that her chances of revival are slim to none. The necklace he wears around his neck was a gift from her, and the ring attached to it is his wedding ring. He still visits her at the facility on birthdays, holidays and during general free time, though it is apparent that this takes an enormous toll on him.

-Atticus might keep a nice tattoo parlor, but he doesn’t invest substantial money in a good home; he’s been known to rent apartments that will satisfy his needs but aren’t particularly impressive.

-Smokes like a freakin’ chimney.

-He’s ambidextrous! And I’m sure he’s lame special in a lot of other ways, but for now, that’s all.