[hider=Isaac Graham]
[center][h3]Isaac Graham[/h3][/center]
[center][h3][sup][sup]Male | 30 | 6'1'' | 200 lbs[/sup][/sup]
[sup][sup]American | Journalist[/sup][/sup][/h3][/center]

[sub][h2]Profile[/h2][/sub]
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[indent][b]Appearance[/b]: Isaac has a rather full figure, with broad shoulders, a barrel chest and a thick neck, reinforced by a slight layer of fat. Despite his large physique, however, Isaac definitely doesn’t look much like the hardy type, mostly thanks to a facial expression that seems to say he’s not really focused, accentuated by a shit-eating grin. Isaac’s limbs are long, and his hands and feet are large, although quite soft and gracefully shaped despite their size. His unevenly tanned skin is soft to the touch; although his left lower arm and torso are peppered with small scar marks that disrupt the coloration and the texture. 

Isaac has an oval face, with blue eyes and brown hair, that doesn’t bear anything worthy of note aside from faint pockmarks scattered throughout, and a small scar on his left cheek, courtesy of an amateurish removal of the skin tag that was once there. His aquiline nose crooks slightly to the right, thanks to a car crash. Isaac’s hair is swept back, mostly to cover the slight thinning of the hair on his scalp, and partially as an imitation of Clint Eastwood’s character in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Above his lips stands a mustache of regular size, often accompanied by a five o’clock shadow thanks to his habit of procrastinating.


[b]Background[/b]: Isaac is quick to point out that his life story hasn’t been all that worthy to tell. Whether that is true or not is up for debate, but it is an unmistakable fact that at the very least Isaac’s childhood was uneventful. His father, Samuel Graham, who would, in the future, be a veteran of the Second World War, was a high school teacher, and his mother, Margaret Graham, was likewise an elementary school teacher. The two, having met at a mutual friend’s birthday, quickly started dating, and married soon after, probably not wanting to take their chances for waiting for the ‘one’ in Montana of all places. Isaac was born not long after, in 1939.  

One of Isaac’s earliest memories, around the age of 5, is that of his mother reading a letter from his father, who was in France by that time. Of course, Isaac can’t remember anything about the letter. He does, however, remember hearing about the nuclear bomb on radio, and his father hugging his mother by the entrance of the house. Overall, it can be said that, unlike many families, Isaac and his parents had gone through the Second World War without much damage. His father, a non-commissioned officer, had earned the Bronze Star in the war, and somehow, had come back unscathed, thankfully both mentally and physically. 

After the war, his parents continued their regular jobs, and Isaac naturally grew up, with both his parents ending up being his class teachers sometime throughout his education.  The sly Isaac used this situation to his advantage by playing his cards to get elevated grades – something his parents tried to avoid, to no avail. It was around this age that Isaac came to the conclusion that you could get things done without effort, if you knew where to position yourself. Some laws of physics from the physics lessons, twisted in his mind because of confirmation bias, also helped cement this outlook on life. Throughout primary and high school, Isaac showed himself to be sociable, and despite his acne-ridden face, quite a womanizer, at least, for his age.

Growing up proved tougher prospects for Isaac, however, as his parents got more and more irritated by his ne’er-do-well demeanor. Wanting to diffuse the tension and wanting to get away, Isaac somehow enrolled into the Richmond Professional Institute, where he found himself amongst likeminded students. Isaac actually found a passion in his life as he studied painting, a passion that started as an excuse to convince fellow students of the fairer gender to ‘strip down’ in his ‘art studio’ for ‘aesthetic’ purposes. Over time, Isaac’s means to create an intimate environment with the ladies became ends in themselves, and Isaac slowly took up photography, where a blossoming aesthetic concern merged with his basic instincts. For Isaac, the art became not only an excuse to be close with ladies, but also an idea. 

Isaac, however, no matter how passionate, was lazy, and ended up having to drop out of Richmond – and, not wishing to go back to Montana, began wandering the states as some sort of drifter, one of the many that would appear in the counterculture movement. Isaac became a stringer, putting his enthusiasm about photography and people skills to good use. Often spending the least amount of effort to get the highest amount of money he could, the lad sometimes resorted to making up events to sell to papers. Eventually, he moved to San Francisco, where he hoped to immerse himself in the newly blossoming movements growing there. In San Francisco, he indulged in many things, ending up becoming part of the hippie and drug culture, where a newly found political responsibility, and encouragement from his friends, made him decide to go to Viet Nam as a war correspondent, to document the horrors and atrocities in the country.

Visiting during 1967 and 1968, Isaac quickly found himself out of his element in the hostile environment of Viet Nam, where he was consistently drained of his idealism. Isaac did not like the country – he did not like the people, he did not like the smell, he did not like the military folk, he did not like how it was harder to get drugs. The life-threatening dangers were just icing on top of it all. But, despite it all, he didn’t do a half bad job – one could almost say that the stressful environment served Isaac to get a hold of himself. But his avoidance of work reached an all time high, making up stories for his editor to delay things, and just stalling. 

Isaac got his break from Viet Nam, and his big break, when he ended up in an ambush during the Tet Offensive, where he was wounded in a car crash caused by the sudden chaos of a landmine going off in front of a convoy. Isaac used this opportunity to take some nifty pictures of the horrors of war, despite his (admittedly not at all debilitating) wounds, and exaggerated his role in the ambush to get a nice paycheck from his editor. In truth, all he had done was to take photos of the wounded soldiers, damaged equipment, gore, and the muzzle flashes coming from the woods, but getting wounded by shattered glass allowed him to twist the story, claiming he was wounded by shrapnel.

Going back to America, Isaac spent about a year living off the money he got off from spinning his story to various news outlets and selling all the photos he got there, as well as reverting to his previous lifestyle of freeloading off fellow-traveler hippies. Slowly running out of money, he decided to convince his editor to get a travel permit, claiming he would be writing a series about Southeast Asia and the perspectives of the war in the area. In truth, he just wanted to see Japan. But would he?


[b]Personality and Outlook[/b]: Isaac has a friendly, outgoing exterior. He presents himself as someone who encourages different perspectives and outlooks on life, and claims to have a strong sociopolitical insight. His relaxed, humorous attitude easily allows people to be at home alongside him. In truth, Isaac is pretentious, selfish, and is completely unaware of this. Having made himself at home in the growing tolerance and free spirit ideologies, Isaac often abuses his privileges as ‘vagabond’ and ‘revolutionary’ to throw courtesy out of the window. Believing that people should share everything, he often helps himself with supplies of others, and, being a thinker, he often simply shouts for others to do the work. Under stress, however, Isaac’s demeanor changes – much more quick thinking and much more active, he can even be helpful, but definitely drops the pretense of being friendly, and instead turns into an annoying, constantly complaining cunt. He constantly hits on women to see how liberated they are mentally, and if they are, often attempts to consummate a physical bond with his fellow traveler. Refusing his advances easily helps you get branded as a creature of the past, a misogynist, and a blind idiot. On the other hand, he defends women’s rights, claiming that they should be free to express themselves mentally and (not that he would say it out loud, but especially) physically.
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[sub][h2]Capabilities[/h2][/sub]
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[b]Skills[/b]: 

[i]Man of the Commons[/i] – Isaac can easily become friends with people. He’s extremely sociable, even annoying to an extent, and is quick to help people get a better understanding of things. He has a penchant for choosing the ‘right’ side in an argument, often the populous one, for the majority’s opinion is never wrong, and can easily convince people.

[i]Artist[/i] – Isaac’s got good visual memory, and can easily make competent sketches, or describe things, where they’re different, where they’re weak, where they’re strong. Skilled with prose as well, he can polish his bullshitting in a way that it becomes an intricate, believable, and competent story. He’d be one hell of a writer, if he had the mettle to actually pick it up.

[i]Vagabond[/i] – Having spent a few years drifting from state to state, Isaac has a vague idea of how to stay in one piece in the wild – he can tell mushrooms apart, can easily identify hallucinogenic ones, and can prepare a simple campfire. Having had to deal with shady people in the past as part of his life as drifter, he can also swing a mean left hook, but doesn’t have much except his natural body strength to back it up.


[b]Weaknesses[/b]:

[i]Genius[/i] – Isaac’s probably got the right opinion, and if he’s wrong, it’s probably because everyone, including himself, is looking at things from the wrong perspective, and he’s willing to change perspective to put himself in the right position. Needless to say, most people don’t have the free mind necessary to appreciate this constant change of position.

[i]Free Spirit[/i] – Isaac does not believe in responsibilities, nor does he believe in antique concepts such as property, or set-up work. A true Marxist, he does things he wants to do when he wants to, for he does not want to be alienated from labor, and will not be goaded by those still too deeply ingrained in the conservative Western mindset to be consistent about his actions. An impressionist, he also has a habit of expressing things as they appear to him, and not as what they are.

[i]Child of the Spirits[/i] – Isaac enjoys communing with other planes of existence through use of enlightening substances, which coincidentally seem to be outlawed in society, and hard to come by in the wild. This lack of contact with his soul ancestors has put him on a constant edge, where he sees things as they are, very cruel, and lacking in chi. 

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[sub][h2]Inventory[/h2][/sub]
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[list]
[*] A duffel bag, with two spare sets of clothing tucked inside and four spare sets of underwear
[*] One Kodak Instamatic 404 Camera
[*] Two Kodacolor 126 Film Cartridge Rolls
[*] Toothbrush
[*] Journal
[*] Ballpoint Pen
[*] Pencil
[*] Passport
[*] Seventy five pellets of mescaline
[*] Five sheets of high powered blotter acid
[*] Wallet, containing 200 dollars, ID, and some phone numbers
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[sub][h2]Opinions[/h2][/sub]
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[indent][b]Athena[/b] – Isaac always puts women who have decided to free themselves from the bondage of unhappy marriage in high esteem, and Athena is no exception. He appreciates her mental durability and willpower, and thinks she’s got quite the derriere as well.

[b]Jack[/b] – He may be a Muslim, but Isaac doesn’t care about that. Isaac knows better than to judge Muslims, and bears some kind of sympathy against the man for being a representative of the mystical, free Orient that Isaac yearns for and wants to explore. 

[b]Julian[/b] – He’s a soldier, and Isaac doesn’t really like soldiers, but he’s also black, so Isaac can sympathize with the fact that he was likely a victim of circumstance. He still feels kind of hostile, though. 

[b]Charlotte[/b] – A strong, independent woman, just the way they should be. Although she was born into riches, she has thrown that away and made her own legacy, and Isaac thinks that only adds to the woman’s attractiveness.

[b]Lulu[/b] – [s][i]Nice rack.[/i][/s] Oh wait, who? Oh, her. Isaac respects her for working and going against the domesticated lifestyle endorsed to women, but doesn’t like how her job forces her to emphasize her looks. Boy, her looks.

[b]Edward[/b] – Edward reminds Isaac of his youth, as a questioning, introspective, smart young boy. While he doesn’t look like he amounts to much right now, Isaac feels he’ll be able to reach greatness in the future, provided he survives the experience.[/indent]
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