FULL NAME: Atlas Ramsey Poseidon Quigley
NICKNAMES: Oh nothing good.
AGE/DOB: March 22, 2004; Aries
YEAR: Sophomore
BLOOD STATUS: Halfblood!
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, He/Him
SEXUALITY:Pffffbbbbttttt
HOMETOWN:Philadelphia, PA
APPEARANCE:Atlas has an easily weaponized cuteness, with hair that flops over his head, and dark brown puppy eyes that he's not afraid of turning up when he needs or wants for something. He's not a huge presence; no one really knows when he
enters a room, though they'll certainly know he's there later. His clothing is simple, but
absolutely screams that he dressed himself that day, and he's very proud of it, thank you. He can't seem to figure out what patterns go with what shirts, but he's decided unilaterally that he isn't afraid of color. But then some days, he wants to go for Cool James Dean Edgy, and pulls a denim jacket over everything else, and just. It's all kind of a mess, always, and he doesn't have a defined sense of style. He's clearly very adventurous, though.
HEIGHT: 5'7"
BUILD: Small! Stealth Muscles!
PB: Hamzeh Okab
INSPO: Very Small Pinterest that will inevitably Grow.
What would others say is their most prominent personality trait — what's the first thing people notice about them?Is it a prominent personality trait just to always
be there? Not in the creepy way, he doesn't lurk in corners. Not even in a loud way, particularly, he's not a particularly colorful or brash presence. But he's markedly very careful at always making the presence he does have
known. This is, if he's lucky, not particularly annoying. Atlas is friendly; bright-eyed and gregarious, and projects kind of an air of pleasant helplessness. That's how he gets by, because despite every single protestation he'll ever make, he's not good at taking care of himself. It's always worked to loudly proclaim he can do something by himself, and then demonstrate the exact opposite. It's a little pitiful to see. This makes him non-threatening, but in a sort of Oliver Twist-y way. If you were robbed blind by a bunch of background orphans while Atlas was singing you a song, you wouldn't be particularly surprised. And probably you should've called it. But it's not likely you'll get mad at him, because he's purposely very disarming.
How would this character describe themself? What do they think are their best and worst qualities?Atlas fancies himself independent and tries to always be that. However, he often overshoots and finds himself just being contrary. When people expect him to zig, he zags
so hard, sometimes whether he wants to or not.He likes to do things on his own, and will refuse help to the point of stupidity. He likes to pretend he's a superhuman. The worst thing anyone could do is imply he's not good at something, and that they could help him. His would say his worst flaw is his dependence on anyone, and he tries to scrub himself of that with bleach and with sand, and by never listening to anyone. Even or when especially they could help. Welcome to the least tutorable person on earth. His striving for independence, though, did push him in some good directions. He's a hard worker, because he has to prove himself right.
But it's a confusing trait, because his adventuring and rebellion have training wheels. He's very brave, even with a stupid lack of caution, but only to an extent. He wants to run out and prove himself to a certain point, but at the end of the day, if he didn't have the safety and security of his family, he'd be lost. He values that a lot. He'll loudly proclaim he hates everything that's expected of him, but he does his best to meet and exceed those expectations, in his own way. Atlas is surprisingly loyal, but in actions instead of words, half the time. He talks a big talk about being a lone wolf, but he values friendships very much, and he's always the one least expected, there at your shoulder with a listening ear or a revenge plot. He shows up more than he says he will.
What drives them to action? Doing good? Getting rich? Receiving praise?Atlas is always, and exhaustingly, driven to action based on a heavy sense of self-motivation. He's not a natural genius at really anything, but he wants self-made success,whatever that looks like. And it most often looks like doing a bunch of things that no one asked him to, just to prove he can. At the core of it, he wants people to approve of him. He doesn't really ask for accolades, because he's not sure he'll ever earn those. He wants acceptance and close friends, as much as he may proclaim the opposite. He's not sure of any way to gain those other than showing off his most impressive qualities ad nauseum, and that's his big weakness. And maybe greatest strength, because it keeps him motivated and very high-achieving. Atlas is restless, and never thinks he's
doing enough or
valuable enough, even when there's literally nothing else he can do. His energy is always a little untamed, a little manic, like he's trying to always get to his next accomplishment, no matter how affably he goes about it.
What are their opinions on rules? How do they interact with authority figures?Two very different answers! He is kind of a teacher's pet and suck-up, which goes back to his constant wanting to be liked and accepted. He's never really had a consistent authority figure whose attention he didn't have to jump and beg for, so that's what he does. And sometimes it's appropriately for the rules, and sometimes it's not, which is where the other half of this comes into play. Atlas, though he definitely knows what rules are, tends to forget about them, and they almost always come in second to how he's expressing himself at that moment. He sometimes uses them as weapons, and breaks select (generally very petty) ones as a grab to be seen or heard. And sometimes he weaponizes them in the precise other direction and makes a point to rub it in peoples' faces how good a kid he is, and how well he's following the rules. Suffice it to say, he doesn't listen to adults or follow rules because he thinks he has to, it's because of the positive or negative consequences he sees no matter which way he decides.
How social are they and, introvert or extrovert, what sorts of people do they gravitate toward?Atlas seems like a classic extrovert. He's friendly and warm to others, he talks to people easily, and he genuinely enjoys the company of other people. However, he's driven by a steady sense of wanting to be
in the know, as opposed to genuine wanting to seek out other people just for the sake of their company. Fear of missing out is a huge force, and he, like a certain classic mermaid, wants to be where the people are. Once he gets there, he doesn't necessarily charm anyone or demand attention be on him. He's generally happy just being a part of things. (And when he isn't, he'll whine, and you'll know, so it's usually just a good thing to include him. Please include him?) He, markedly, doesn't make strong bonds very easily. It's not that he can't, it's just he tends to pour a whole lot into his close friendships, so it's exhausting to make more than a few of them. He's constantly involved, for better or worse, in the lives of his family and close friends. Which he complains about, for the record, but makes no point to change.
He's also a performer by birth, which is less about a need for attention itself, more a desperate need to show and tell. He likes to bounce his talents off other people and receive both criticism and appreciation, and takes criticism a little better than you might assume, if it's coming from another skilled person. He likes sharing his skills, and his stories, and the worst thing in the world is a room of people who just want to be left to their own devices.
How do they adapt (or fail to adapt) to change?He big Doesn't like it, and he feels like he has to deal with it a lot. He tends to act out and misbehave in one way or another, which is a pretty big hint that he's not as mature as he pretends to be. He doesn't like to be left behind by anyone, and any bonds he forms with upperclassmen are formed with some fear. He knows they're going to leave him, and he doesn't like that. So he ingratiates himself on the person he thinks he's going to lose, and becomes annoying, so it's the self-fulfilling prophecy that maybe they'll actually be happy when they're gone. With the distinct, slightly desperate, undertone that they won't forget about Atlas. He likes to prevent change in general, and holds on pretty closely to traditions and habits, whether or not they still work.
How does this character handle tense social situations like arguments/fights?Distraction from the matter at hand. Every time. And oh
boy does he use this at home. Atlas hates fighting. It makes the space under his skin feel like it's crawling. So he'll do whatever he can to end it, and usually that means just jumping around in a panic, a little. Whenever his brothers or Jup and his mother fight in Atlas' presence, he chooses that exact moment to ask what dinner is that night. Or for a favor. Or just if they think his new monologue is cool. Really whatever. He thinks of this as a peacekeeper role, but of course that's not at all what he's actually achieving. It's just delaying the inevitable, and sometimes it gets the negative attention and fighting turned on him, instead. That's still kind of a comfort; he can take it. When handling his own arguments, he again deflects. He's not going to engage in any kind of meaningful discourse or confrontation, hell no. He
will shout about something completely unrelated or burst into crocodile tears. (That one's mostly with his mother, but still.)
FUN FACTS:
TBD WHEN I KNOW HIM
LANGUAGES:English (fluent,) Farsi (not fluent)
HOBBIES: playing sax, aggressively watching quidditch matches, less aggressively watching quod matches, doing statistics, making coffee
SKILLS:
MUSIC: He's a saxophone player in concert and marching band, because there's nothing quite as rewarding as waking all your older siblings up with Baker Street at 5am over Christmas break in the name of "practice." He only has an alto sax (a rental from school) so far, but he'd like to get into tenor. And other than it being a fun diversion, he's pretty talented. He's a fair hand at composition, but his attention is such that improvisation will always be where he shines, much to the dismay of probably everyone around him. Check out his funeral dirge yakety sax sometime!! And his different versions of happy birthday for everyone he knows.
BROOMSPORTS BETTING In every Quidditch family, one child must find a way to monetize it, and Atlas has taken it upon himself to be that brave soul. This is where he has chosen to place all the knowledge about strategy he's acquired by watching so many Quidditch games over the years. He runs a little bookie operation out of the stands during school games whenever he can/ whenever he is not immediately caught doing so.
MATH: With betting comes statistics and numbers, and Atlas has a head for these. He took special pride in math ever since he first decided to really apply himself at school,but he applies it in all the wrong ways, see: bookie operation.
ACTING: Of the facial expression heavy,falling down and pretending to be dead variety. He's capable of very little nuance, having never had the need or the time for it, but he's a brash entertainer who likes being onstage, and sometimes that means delivering loud monologues.
FAMILY:Kian Quigley Father. Seems to know Atlas is alive just under 47% of the time, which is actually a pretty handy ratio for attention::getting away with stuff.
Mozhan Quigley: Mother. Seems to know Atlas is alive just
over 47% of the time,which is, decidedly,more an inconvenience than anything else, these days.
BROTHERS Atlas has four brothers, all of whom he thinks are the coolest, all of whom he exists only to torment. Their names are Orion, who is 27 and works for BoMB (Thorntrail Grad,The Most Mythic Brother; he graduated high school when Atlas was only 6, so he's kind of more like a Cool Young Uncle,) Mercury, 25, broommaker (slightly less Mythic, but still not close,former Mothgarden),Castor, 23, former Wildgulch (Ah nooow we're getting into territory of people whose dates Atlas crashed to be a brat,) Oberon, 19, college student and ex-Mothgarden (placed second for idol)
Jupiter Quigley: Big Sister. 17 year old Thorntrail, equal parts the greatest pain in his life and the one he'd like to please pay attention to him.
BACKGROUND:(For a more thorough story please see
Jupiter's bio!!)
Atlas is the Very Last Quigley, which is probably mostly a blessing, more than a curse. He was born at best an afterthought, at worst an accident, to a family already in a constant state of explosion. His mother had already had a daughter, and he seemed to just mostly be there as a nice bookend, and proof as to why stopping babies was a good idea. And he stepped up to that plate. He didn't have quite the same relationship to his parents as his other siblings had. At first, he never had to struggle for dominance or take care of himself. He was just the weakling youngest, relying on primarily his siblings for support. He quickly figured out that it wasn't enough to just assert himself, he had to yell the
loudest, or risk being buried in a pile of oblivion. So,like so many youngest children, Atlas made himself the most annoying. The
most demanding. He was an absolute pain in the ass as a child, always wanting attention from someone. He refused to do things for himself, simply because making someone else do it was easier and a lot more amusing. Although he was very bright, he pretended to not be able to tie his shoes til he was in grade school and it became less funny to be less independent than his peers.
The thing was, year after year, there were fewer people to demand attention from. He was only six when Orion left the house, and the rest of his siblings trickled out after that. All the other boys went to Ilvermorny when they were eleven, so there were a lot of long years spent with just himself and only a few siblings during the school year. The house would fill back up in the summer with people he loved, but didn't really
know. It was a recipe for a slight rebellion, which certainly did come, especially when Atlas began to figure out the reputation that had been carved for him in school, and he didn't like that. Why should what his
older brothers did at school affect what
his future would be? So, in a really big show of sticking it to the fam, Atlas Quigley became a nerd. He studied a lot. He picked up the saxophone instead of a broomsport. He liked
Math. Granted, he could ignore genetics as much as he wanted to. Nature and nurture were still the big pillars, and he still got in trouble a good deal of the time
for this approach to school. It doesn't matter how much of the answer you know, if you still yell it out without raising hands. It doesn't matter what a star you are in the school play if you push someone out of your way. And Atlas absolutely didn't try to temper any of that.
When he was twelve, though, all of his asserting his own independence felt a little empty. That was the year even Jupiter, who had been the one to take care of him most often, went to Peckenpaugh. Atlas quickly learned how different just a few people at home was to
nobody else being there. The fact that he was the only one around didn't automatically make his parents have more attention to give. It mostly just meant lots of hours spent scattering himself around empty rooms. One kid can only trespass in his siblings' rooms and send them howlers about what he found there so many
times without becoming very lonely. By necessity, he learned how to cook himself meals, and get himself to school. Where he really had made a completely new reputation all for himself, but it rang kind of hollow without anyone to show off to. Music became pretty big to Atlas, in these few years. He kept himself entertained and kept his parents in headaches
just fine. A normal child would, perhaps, have joined a bunch of extra-curricular activities and made a bunch of outside friends, but he didn't really want to. They wouldn't ever completely understand him, and he still felt that he needed to be loyal to his siblings, more than anyone. Even if loyalty, in their absence, meant waiting and filling the halls with somber music. And then making dumb jokes for hours as soon as they got home.
He sprang into the arms of Peckenpaugh just as soon as it would have him. It was, at first, another great exercise in proving he was not the same as his siblings. He was sorted into Deeplurk, a family first, which he immediately told them about, and was a little dismayed that it was likely not the big controversy he thought he'd raise. He also quickly figured out that his hard work and (somewhat) good-kid effort was not the earth-shattering rebellion it may have been in the past. So in freshman year, he erred in the other direction, and acted up doing the
dumbest stuff. Stupid pranks, refusing to do his homework but getting A's on tests, just to get noticed.That, also, was not so impressive. So by now, begrudgingly, he's falling into a Place. That Place is somewhere between overachiever and shady guy behind the bleachers betting on Quidditch games. (Always with really good odds on Thorntrail. He DOES have some loyalty you GUYS.) He got a job, when he could, so he can save up for college. But for now, he's settled a little more into his own life away from his family. It's thrilling at some points, lonely at others. And maybe this is the best place for the Littlest Quigley after all.
WAND: Persimmon, snallygaster heart, 9". It's a very pretty wand, well-carved with flourishes, and he's proud of it. But it's as stubborn as he is. Sometimes it doesn't feel like doing spells, and he has to deal with it.
FAMILIAR: No Animals For Atlas!!!
CAREER GOALS:PFFFbbbTTTT. He'd say out loud to whoever even half-asks that he doesn't want to work for the family business, but that could just be a teenage thing, and might change.
PART-TIME JOB: Barista at the Gastrognome. It's the equivalent to teenage bartending which he finds fun. It's also a lot of power, and he maybe abuses this by smuggling decaf espresso to those people who have made him angry. But only just occasionally enough to Not get caught.
CLASSES:
Charms: (H) A key class to show how hard he fakes it til he makes it. Atlas has no real talent for Charms. They either come naturally or they don't, and he's frankly not patient enough for a natural memorization of words and pronunciations and wand work. But oh, he practices. It's enough to be an honor student.
Transfigurations: Kind of the same as Charms, only he can't try so hard at everything, so he's holding off here and only taking the normal class. But he's still doing well! He'd like you to know!
Potions: While he's not an expert or anything, he's a fair hand at precision and following instructions. He doesn't like potions; there's nothing particularly fun about the smells, and most everything you can do with these, you can do with charms. But he makes a point to do well.
Hermeticism (H): He's trying for Arithmancy next year REAL HARD because he thinks it well help him more correctly predict Quidpot scores. That's it, that's the reason.
Music (H): He's very much at home here! He never takes a solo and runs too far with it or anything! (Never.)
Defense Against the Dark Arts: So this is probably not going to happen, but at one point, Atlas thought it would be cool to be an Auror. So he decided to take this class. And he does well, but he really loves comparing people he wants to annoy to the dark wizards they're learning about, this week.
Artificing: He thought very, very long and hard about completely subverting everything his family has ever stood for, but in the end...no. He couldn't. He even does well in this class. Good enough for his family to recognize him as one of their own, but not so good that he seems destined for broommaking, so like, solid A-.
EXTRA-CURRICULARS: Band! (Concert/Marching.), Performing Arts, Muggle Magic Club (I mean...free ice cream,) Magirobotics (unfort he is good at artificing after all)
SORTING?: Atlas had some pretty strong ideas going into this. He didn't want to go to Thorntrail or Mothgarden, because those were the houses of his siblings. But he really would've done well in Thorntrail. He was only on the trail for a short period of time. The door pretty much told him at the end there was one best house for someone who so obviously wanted a revolution.
Which is like...kind of a burn, but he shrugged that off easily enough, and for once in his young life, took a recommendation. He chose the winter door when it glowed.
NAME: Lyss!
EMAIL: facemcfacerson@gmail.com
CDJ: ~helplyss
OTHER CONTACT: you know where to find me ;)
yikes just kidding
TIMEZONE:CST
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
