Post by jim on Jan 9, 2011 12:09:55 GMT -8
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★ AGE: 67
★ GENDER: Male
★ SEXUAL PREFERENCE: Heterosexual
★ HEIGHT: 6' 1"
★ WEIGHT: 196 lbs.
★ JOB: Department Chair of Social Sciences, University of Saint Calais
★ RACE: Human
★ FACTION: Sacred Archive
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Your ★ Beauty,
Appearance,
Since accepting a position at the University, the professor has gleefully adopted the stereotypical style of his position, complete with rumpled button-down shirts, ties clearly either bought in bulk or gifted on Father's Days, ill-fitted Dockers (pleated and cuffed, thank you) and, of course, a wide array of sports jackets - all tweed, and all with leather patches at the elbows. The defining feature of his wardrobe, however, is his eccentric assembly of socks. Animal print, neon argyle, tie-dye, Jim collects them all; his sock drawer is a cornucopia of the weird and eclectic.
Throughout his adventurous existence, James has fought a losing battle with his hair. Whether it was the sun-kissed amber of his youth, the dark chestnut of his middle years, or the silvery-gray it is today, Jim's short-cut hair has always stood upright from his scalp in an undignified sheaf. He has long since stopped any attempt to tame it, letting it do what it will when it wills it.[/ul]
LIKES +
★ Puzzles (Su Doku in particular)
★ Children
★ Spaghetti
★ Cats
★ Controlled substances
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DISLIKES -
★ Pharmaceutical companies
★ Indoctrination
★ Golf
★ Zoos
★ Tom Cruise
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POSITIVE TRAITS +
★ Brilliant
★ Perceptive
★ Encouraging
★ Imaginative
★ Relaxed
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NEGATIVE TRAITS -
★ Eccentric
★ Erratic
★ Distractable
★ Slovenly
★ Disorganized
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OVERALL PERSONALITY
However, his peculiar mein hides a keen and agile mind. Jim is dangerously perceptive, taking note of his surroundings and assimilating details on a constant basis, often reaching conclusions about circumstances long before others have the opportunity to assess. He is capable of running a phalanx of thoughts simultaneously, reading people and situations in a holistic fashion, making logical leaps most would be incapable of grasping. And while this often leads to statements that make little to no sense to their listeners, the Archivist is rarely incorrect in his determinations.
As a professor, Jim is a strong advocate of the Socratic method; he does his best to avoid telling his students anything, far preferring to encourage them to reach their own conclusions through critical thinking and logic. In this fashion, he assesses potential candidates for the Archive, testing to what extent they are willing to discard their assumptions in the pursuit of the truth. Despite his standoffish (and sometimes outright adversarial) educational techniques, Professor Baker is a nurturing teacher, keeping a well-publicized open-door policy at the university and always encouraging self-direction in all his students. [/ul]
Background ★ Info,
History,
In this environment, young Jim flourished. His was an inherently curious mind, and with his father encouraging the exploration of all kinds of culture and counterculture, Jim naturally fell in with the Beat Generation in the late fifties and stayed with it as it blossomed into the Hippie Movement of the sixties. He attended college at the University of Toronto in 1961, where he fueled his passion for societies and culture with a major in anthropology. Upon graduation, the young scholar spent his years traveling all over Canada and the States, watching and chronicling the counterculture as it gained momentum through the latter half of the decade. The Acid Tests, the draft card burnings, the Love Pageant Rally, the Human Be-In - James Lightley was there, watching, learning, and understanding.
The late summer of 1969 found Jim closer to his home than he had been in four years, attending a three-day music and arts festival in Bethel, New York. Somewhere between Creedence Clearwater Revival and Jimi Hendrix, he met Mary Hogan, a lovely young woman with the strangest outlook on death and the most fascinating job. Overnight, James was introduced to the occult, to the secret reality running parallel to the world he lived in. Mary showed him what it meant to talk to ghosts, to weave the real magic of the spirit, to see the things mankind had decided to stop seeing. At the end of Woodstock, she headed back to her home in Saint Calais with James Baker Lightley hand in hand.
Jim's addiction to academia led him straight to the University of Saint Calais, and by the end of 1970, he was enrolled in their doctorate program. By now his focus had sharpened, and his passion for anthropology had graduated to a fascination with legends and folklore, with a particular interest in the archetypes found in every culture's stories. It was in the course of his graduate work that he came to know Reginald Geoffrey Fox, a fellow cryptophile and academic. The two of them struck up a fast friendship as they pursued their respective studies.
1975 was a big year for Jim Lightley. He was awarded his Ph. D. in Cultural Anthropology in the spring (complete with a job secured as an Assistant Professor at the University), and married Mary in the summer in a beautiful lakeside ceremony. Come the fall, he was approached by his longtime friend with a curious offer.
For two years, apparently, Reginald had been working for the Sacred Archive, a secret society devoted to the unearthing and cataloging of the strange and the arcane, the unearthly and the unreal. They were always on the lookout for brave souls and inquisitive minds, and, with Reginald's ardent recommendations, James was a prime candidate for the job. Without hesitation, Jim Lightley accepted their offer and began his work as a seeker and custodian of the weird.
The decades that followed were wonderful and odd; his fieldwork with Reginald was never disappointing - the Ghost Battery they found underneath St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York in '77, the Troglodyte Uprising they quelled in '80, the search for Martin Luther's mummified left foot in '86. In between it all came the simple joys of wedded bliss - a son in 1979 and a beautiful daughter in 1981.
By the time 1992 rolled around, James and Mary's professional lives began to get complicated. Through the years, Jim had worked his way through the ranks, from Page to Assistant to Keeper, handling mission after mission with stunning alacrity and poise, often with an unorthodox approach and unexpected clarity. As field work on both ends grew more intense, the husband and wife found it more and more difficult to coordinate their schedules to tend to the children. When Jim was offered the chair of the Social Sciences department, he retired from active duty for the Archive, accepting at long last their promotion to Curator of Lore. No longer was it his duty to gather the world's secrets; now, he would organize them, catalog them, digest and understand them.
Years passed. Professor Lightley's life was more stable now, but no less interesting. He had become a bit of a recruiter, keeping a watchful eye out for new talent as it streamed through the university. Day in and day out, he challenged the young minds under his care, nurtured them, prodded them, sought out the brightest, the most open-minded individuals to introduce to the Sacred Archive. Data rolled in, brought to him by the Archivists under his direction, each a puzzle piece to be fitted to the greater network of mysteries. It was a good life, and Jim relished it. Things at home were never better; Brook and Fawn grew into sharp young people, surrounded since birth by secrets that most would never realize existed.
In 2000, James was called before the Old Man, the Director of Knowledge for the Saint Calais branch of the Archive. Deep within the hidden chambers of the Library, the Director told the Professor that he was being summoned by the Council. It was a new decade, and it was time for new leadership... and again, with strong suggestions from his longtime friend and partner, the position of Director was offered to the Professor.
It took Jim all of two minutes to mull the offer over before he, with a cheerful grin, respectfully refused.
The position, he reasoned, should go to Fox. It was Fox who had always put the Archive first. It was Fox who had the passion for the knowledge. Jim was a people person, more concerned with the initiates who brought him the data than the data itself. On Lightley's commendation, Fox was promoted to Director of Knowledge, and therefore the head of the Sacred Archive's Saint Calais division. Within the next year, Jim saw his old friend promoted to Dean of the university.
Today, James Baker Lightley carries out his duties as Department Chair of the Social Sciences at the university and Curator of Lore at the library with the same impassioned enjoyment he always has. His son took after him, and works as an Assistant at the Archive's facilities in Philadelphia. His darling daughter Fawn followed in her mother's footsteps, quickly making a name for herself as one of Chiaroscuro most capable agents. Amelia Micawber, one of his star pupils and earliest recruits, rose swiftly through the ranks and works with him now as a Keeper.
In 2004, his beloved wife, Mary, disappeared on assignment in Hungary, something Jim has never quite gotten over. He still suffers from rare bouts of melancholy, moments of silence spent staring out of windows.
★Circumstances of Faction Initiation: Described in history.
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The ★ Puppeteer,
★ WHAT SHOULD WE CALL YOU? Phil. I want to try it out as a new name.
★ HOW TO CONTACT YOU? Don’t bother – I can’t read.
★ HOW DID YOU FIND US? Someone looked in a mirror and said my name three times. And when I find them…
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FACE CLAIM
[color=e10e3f]★[/color] [b]WALKEN, CHRISTOPHER[/b], [s] james baker lightley[/s]
The ★ Copyright,
Rosen Nocturne Kai & Kiare.♥
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