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Dec. 20th, 2021
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Name: Yasmine Age: 27 Contact: PM this journal; Timezone: EST Other Character(s): N/A! |
Name: Nikolay Komlev Door: Door Pass Canon: The Pilot Canon Point: Early summer, 1942 - he saw Olga perform and has been practicing extensively with his prostheses, and has heard about the pilot Douglas Bader, a double amputee who still flies. He's sworn that he'll be one of the ones who fly and has redoubled his efforts at conditioning, but hasn't yet written Olga or reunited with her. Age: 32 Appearance: ( Image. ) Tall and broad-shouldered at 5'11, with dark eyes and dark hair flecked with gray at the temples. At this canonpoint, he's lost a lot of weight, and gives the impression of a large frame that isn't completely filled out; there's a hollowness to his cheeks that isn't there when he's in good health. His legs are both amputated ~3 or 4 inches above the bony point of his ankle, and he wears era-typical prostheses that cover his legs to the kneecap. He usually carries a wooden cane. History: Nikolay was born in 1910 and grew up in the Saratov Orphanage; beyond that, little is known about his background. At the beginning of canon, in 1941, he's been off-duty for a month and is a ranking captain in the Soviet Union's VVS; he meets Olga, the woman who becomes his girlfriend, after chasing off muggers who attack her in an underpass. After a few dates together he's assigned a test model IL-2 aircraft, and in his very first engagement, the plane begins to leak fuel. Their emergency landing is noticed by Germans; a mortar blast knocks Nikolay unconscious, so his rear gunner carries him. They reach a dead end, but the rear gunner puts Nikolay on an ice floe and runs in the opposite direction to distract the Germans. He spends the next 14 days fighting for his survival in the wilderness, and is eventually found by sympathizers and brought to the front lines by Misha, a medic. When he reaches the military hospital, both legs have to be amputated to save his life, as he has severe gangrene, but he does survive. At his current canonpoint, he's just seen Olga performing for the hospital but hasn't actually written her yet because he can't find the right words. He's heard of Douglas Bader, a pilot who flies with similar prostheses, and is working day in and day out, moving relatively well on his own, with the hopes of flying again. CR AU (Optional): N/A Personality: Positive Trait: Determined: Nikolay is defined byāand alive because ofāhis remarkable determination. When his plane goes down, he survives two weeks in the Russian wilderness in December, walking for miles in brutal cold despite the excruciating pain of severe double pneumonia, a fever, eventual blood infection, frostbite on both feet, and an untreated gunshot wound on his shin. He endures all of this because of his sheer determination to return to the girlfriend he promised to stay alive for and a desire to keep fighting the Nazis; when he finally makes it to a hospital, both legs are amputated and he sinks into a deep depression, with no initial interest in learning to use his prostheses at all—but when he sees his girlfriend performing through the window of the ward after staying behind instead of going outside, his desire to return to her and to fly again is renewed. That same determination leaves him undeterred as he practices with his prostheses constantly, enduring very intense physical strain and exhaustion as he tackles the very, very hard task of relearning to stand and walk without feet and with near complete atrophy of the muscles that are supposed to keep him upright because heās been on bedrest for months. Nikolay then hears about the pilot Douglas Bader, who flies with two prostheses in a similar arrangement to his ownāand this gives him the small amount of hope he needs to begin pushing himself even harder, determined to fly again and keep fighting. He now not only conditions himself to use his legs for complex tasks but begins to tone the rest of his body until heās collapsing with exhaustion, forcing himself to eat hospital rations despite their unappealing nature and his loss of appetite, etc, all because he's simply decided that he will be one of the few pilots in the war who fly with prostheses. Negative Trait: Shortsighted: Nikolay doesnāt always think about the potential consequences of his actions, and suffers physical harm on multiple occasions because of it. The most important example of this in canon comes after he falls into a deep trap dug into the ground: cold, he lights a fire without thinking about the consequences of doing so down the line. He is confined with the smoke from said fire with no air circulation because heās several feet into the ground, and he already has pneumonia, so within minutes heās fighting to breathe because of smoke inhalation, eventually losing consciousness. If the fire had been any bigger and hadnāt naturally died out from lack of fuel, this misstep would have cost him his life. Similarly, when he sees Olga performing, he goes for his prostheses and puts them on with the intent of using them to go to the window and see her, not considering what will happen if he suddenly tries to stand up and put his weight on what amount to stilts with no training after atrophy from months of being bedridden; of course he immediately falls. After seeing Olga, he begins to practice nonstop in his prostheses, up at night climbing stairs, walking, learning to use his caneābut his lack of foresight rears its head again, as he doesnāt consider how pushing himself too hard might set him back in the longterm. This is what almost happens before the surgeon intervenesāhe causes intense inflammation on the ends of his residual limbs, which almost causes pressure sores or his wounds to reopen, which would, in the surgeonās words, make all of the work that was performed "for nothing". Negative Trait: Insensitive: Nikolayās sensitivity toward others is sometimes eclipsed by his own wants and emotions. Canonās best example of this is when he finds a letter that Misha, the young medic who saved his life, wrote to his parents on the back of a map but didnāt live long enough to bring to them. It turns out that Mishaās father was a high-ranking medical officer. Nikolay and Olga visit his parents—and minutes after breaking their sonās death to them, while theyāre devastated and Misha's mother is crying a few feet away from him, Nikolay tries to leverage the situation to get back into the air, imploring a man who is trying to process the last words of the son who saved his life to let him go risk it again. Negative Trait: Thrillseeking: Even though Nikolay has someone at home whose emotional state depends on his survival, he remains in a very dangerous, very action-oriented career. At one point in canon, despite only having two rockets left and his rear gunner—the plane's only defense from behind—having no ammunition at all, Nikolay doubles back after narrowly escaping with his life to make another pass at the original target when it would be much safer and more advisable to simply return to base, reload, and try again. His main motivation throughout the film is to return to a dangerous situation—he loves how flying and fighting make him feel because of his tendency to thrillseek, even though he's done more than anyone could ask him to, and goes to great lengths to fly again. Powers and Abilities: —Piloting: Nikolay pilots an Ilyushin IL-2 ground attack aircraft without the assistance of a copilot and is shown to be a very talented operator during a time when planes were much more complex and difficult to pilot than they are today; he has to operate dozens of controls and continuously monitor more than 15 different gauges all while using the control stick just to keep her in the air. He's shown to be able to perform aerobatics and complex evasive maneuvers, engage in dogfights with much faster aircraft, and make very difficult emergency landings with minimal physical harm. —Balance and proprioception: Nikolay is gifted with a very robust vestibular system, and is able to make sharp, jerking movements midflight and even bank until the aircraftās wings are perpendicular to the ground without motion sickness. —Resistance to G-Forces: When the body accelerates through space, positive G-forces (multipliers of the earthās gravity) are applied to the body, making it feel heavier. As the number of Gs (ex: 3 Gs or 3 times the earthās normal gravitational pull) increases, it becomes increasingly difficult for the heart to push blood to the brain, and blood instead begins to pool in the lower extremities. Between 5 to 9 Gs of positive gravitational force, most people lose consciousness in what is called GLOC, when an adequate amount of bloodflow ceases to make its way to the brain. Nikolay is not a fighter pilot or specifically trained to pull very high Gs, but his tolerance to positive G-forces and resistance to GLOC is still much higher than the average personās - or the average ground attack pilotās. In addition to training and excellent muscle tone (used when tensing the body to push blood north to the brain) his lower extremities have been partly amputated, so blood canāt collect in them and his circulatory system stays closer to his heart and braināless of a distance to travel, which matters for the same reason that a pilotās height does. —Use of prosthetic limbs: Nikolayās been practicing aggressively on a daily basis to learn how to use his prostheses, and heās gotten to be a pretty advanced user. Simply to stay upright on dual prosthetic legs is extremely difficult because the small muscles in the feet and lower legs cannot regulate the bodyās balance with minute contractions and shifts of weight; itās much harder than using stilts because heās balancing on the blunt end of a residual limb with little surface area. At this point in canon he can not only stand but walk with a cane, climb stairs without assistance, and has requested to start playing football. —Marksmanship: Nikolay carries a sidearm and is shown to be a good shot both with a handgun and with missiles and rockets. —Survival: Nikolay shows knowledge of herbalism as well as training in survival skills such as making a fire that will last and avoiding hypothermia after one's clothes become soaked. Inventory: — pistol — spare magazine of ammunition — wooden cane Samples: Thinking & Communicating |
