Robert "Robbie" Folke

----Subject Investigations Report-----

Name: Robert "Robbie" Folke
Age: 37; born December 9th, 1974
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Caucasian; mostly German and Russian heritage
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Occupation: Currently unemployed; former research assistant and professor of Folklore with a focus on the occult
Characteristics: Sane
Placement: Non-Patient


Personality:
Robbie has a bit of an odd relationship with his own life. After being told over and over from a young age that he wasn't going to live very long, he became a little detached from the the world. Why make friends in school, he was just going to die soon anyway. Why make any sort of long term goals or plans, he was just going to die soon anyway. Much of his youth was spent thinking like that, and the only thing that really comforted him was a genre called horror. Maybe it was getting to watch or read through other people's deaths instead of imagining his own, or maybe it was just that morbid thrill that so many people experience, but it made his life more livable.

These days he still doesn't worry so much about death, though his tentative personal goals are, for the first time, giving him something to live for. He only just seemed to realize that he wasn't going to die immediately, and as such has begun the long and sometimes agonizing process of retaking his life. Though he still struggles with apathy sometimes, he is slowly coming into his own.

While not the most socially graceful man a person could hope to meet, he has an honest desire to connect with other people. After he rejected most human companionship early in life, he sometimes does not understand how to react in emotional or traumatic situations. Comforting another person is awkward for him, though he tries his best. Women are a mystery to him, though his loving relationship with his mother was probably the only thing that stopped him from believing they were horrible; he read a great deal of Lovecraft when he was younger, and his grandmother wasn't the most endearing person.

Robbie is the sort of person who spends days listlessly flipping through TV channels until a thought or idea hits him and then he's all business. If he wants to know something he'll do endless hours of research, pester suspected witnesses, write letters requesting information and do just about anything short of stalking someone. Once he gets his hands on what he wants he'll read almost nonstop until he finishes, and then he'll reread it to make sure its ingrained. Because of these habits, he often goes for long periods of time without shaving, eating or sleeping.

Though he could easily come off as slightly unhinged, and who's to say that the isn't, he prides himself on having a very stable grasp of reality. However, his belief is that reality is mutable, so in essence nothing is truly stable. This sort of seemingly circular logic is bread and butter for him.


Appearance

Robert is tall and very thin. His hands are almost too large for his skinny arms and his dark brown hair is slowly receding. The cut of his cheekbones and jaw could almost be attractive, but there is something about how gaunt they look beneath his grey eyes that most people find a little off putting.

Physical Condition:

• Organized Mind: Robbie rarely forgets something once he knows it. While he doesn't have a photographic memory or anything of that magnitude, if he has had an in-depth conversation on a topic and feels he understands it, he does not forget it. Things he has trouble understanding tend to slip away. It is not difficult for him to call specific details or scenarios to mind.
  
  
• In-depth Knowledge: He did not waste his years in college. Robbie has a wide range of information on folklore and the occult at his disposal, in the form of his personal memory, notebooks, and accumulated texts.
  
  
• Patience: Robert Folke can spend hours upon hours doing research, studying an image or simply waiting in his car like a creeper. He's not afraid to put long hours into a project, even if it ends up being completely useless.

Character Accessories::

• Handgun: This old thing belonged to his father, and potentially his grandfather before him. If it didn't terrify him so much he might be interested in its antique nature, but Robbie is skittish around guns. While he knows the technicalities of how to fire it, he has only done so once, to prove he could do it. Currently he keeps it in the glove compartment of his bus.
  
  
• Volkswagen bus: This was the first and only car Robbie ever bought. It was once painted white and green, but now most of the white paint has become an unfortunately sort of grey and the green is beginning to show signs of rust. It is, however, in very good repair and full to the brim with his personal possessions, mostly including various occult paraphernalia. He also currently lives in it.
  
  
• Portable library: Robbie's extensive collection of occult literature is tied up in neatly stacked bundles on the floor of his Volkswagen. It would probably be more efficient for him to throw books at something that was attacking him rather than try to figure out what to do with the gun.

ASSOCIATIONS

• Friends:
  Mark Wall {male; 24; former student}
  Colin Gordon {male; 35; fellow researcher}
  
• Enemies:
  None, as of yet
  
• Rivals:
  Gregory Upton {male; 42; Folklore specialist}
  
• Lover(s):
  None
  
• Relatives:
  Hallis Folke {mother; 68}
  Baldwin Folke {father; 74}
  Nadia Folke {grandmother; deceased}
  Mary Folke {sister; 45}
  Amelia Folke {sister; 40}
  Arnold Folke {brother; 42}
  Toby Folke {brother; 48}
  a large extended family that shows up whenever it wants to and stays for however long it likes
  

History
Robbie was born to Baldwin and Hallis Folke on the backseat of a cab, on the way home from a trip to the hospital. It was the sort of pregnancy that made doctors shake their heads and sit Baldwin down to explain why this needed to be their last child, for his wife's safety. Hallis's other children had come easily, a joy to carry and easy to birth; this one came as a surprise. The morning sickness was severe, and even after it had lightened some she couldn't seem to hold onto the weight she had, let alone gain any. It was as if the child were not a sweet, growing life, but a parasite eating away at her. When Robbie finally came, it was after hours of contracts that stopped abruptly, leading doctors to believe that it was not, in fact, quite time. They suggested an overnight stay in the hospital, just to be sure, but Hallis insisted on being taken home. She was convinced the contractions had stopped because her about-to-be-born son was away from th comfort and love of their home; he was shy, afraid to come out into an unfamiliar place. And so, they hopped in a cab and got halfway home before they had to go straight back, the cabbie none too pleased at the state of his seats.

The first few years of Robbie's life were difficult. His family lived in what would have been a spacious apartment for a family of three, but he had four siblings and extended family was almost always there to stay. Sometimes there were upward of twelve people trying to live in that now-tiny set of rooms, sleeping packed like sardines on the beds and the fold-out couch. His grandmother was also a permanent fixture, and being old, she got a whole bed to herself. He slept in his crib until he was five, which suited him fine. At least he got some space to himself, even if it was a bit of a tight fit.

He was sick for much of his early childhood, developing croup as a baby and was almost hospitalized by chicken pox once he was old enough to go to daycare. His grandmother was convinced that he wasn't meant to live: in her mind, that explained the problems with the pregnancy, his weakly constitution and his propensity for falling down and breaking bones. He was a doomed child, and she often told him so. As such, Robbie grew up with the idea firmly implanted in his mind that he was going to die young, no matter what he did. It was meant to be.

From a young age he developed a love of books and reading. His favorites were the collector's editions of Poe his father had given his mother as an anniversary gift. The pages were filled with those tantalizing, morbid stories and image spreads drawn especially for this purpose. As he got older he developed an affection for Lovecraft and the emerging writer Stephen King, though he was never quite as much of a favorite. He read all the horror he could get his hands on, branching into the occult and finally coming across a copy of LIBER ABA by Aleister Crowley, which changed everything. This book he had to hide from his grandmother, who might have killed him herself; she was devout.

During his teen years he turned to 'new wave' occultism and came up with very little he could actually believe in. It was one thing to read Crowley's treatise and Lovecraft's horrors-from-beyond-the-stars, but when books written by people who had renamed themselves after waterfalls and twilight shadows told him to draw a pentagram, light some candles and chant to summon something, he just had to laugh. Ritual magic did nothing for him aside from make him question who these authors were, and if they were delusional. Instead, he decided to stick to the realm of conception. Anything else felt too mundane.

In college he majored in Folklore, which prompted some good-natured teasing about his name. Mostly he focused on fairy tales and ghost stories from around the world, through music, poetry and written traditions. He kept a master notebook of myths, legends, and all the different variations a single story might have. He also spent quite a bit of time researching ethnic forms of occultism, reaching back into the Germanic roots of his family. He graduated easily and moved on to a Masters degree in Folklore, specifically in folk magic. From there he wrote a few books, which drew minimal attention, and ended up working as a research assistant for a bigger name in the field.

After several years of this, he decided to try teaching, but that was very short lived. He taught for two years, which he believes were the two worst years of his life since early childhood. Robert was still a fragile man, often ill and with more old broken bones than most people. Throughout his life love had evaded him, though for the most part he had been so caught up in his own mind and research that he hadn't even noticed. It took him until he was 32 to notice that, aside from his wealth of knowledge and accumulated collection of occult books and paraphernalia, he had nothing.

And so he left Boston, where had returned to stay near his family, though he wasn't quite sure why. He loaded up his old rusty Volkswagen bus with everything he absolutely wanted to hold onto, which was quite a bit, and gave the rest away; mostly, that was clothing. In a few short days he readied himself to begin his drive across America, during which he would gather firsthand tales of the supernatural instead of relying on other sources to tell him what to think.

And so we find him now, with only two pairs of jeans and several sweaters, on his way across the country.

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An interesting character with several open-door opportunities.
Cant wait to see the possible story-lines that can develop.