APP
User Name/Nick: AMY
User LJ: gualtieri
AIM/IM: Beadledumpling
E-mail: --
Other Characters: NONE.
Character Name: Mikhail Bakunin
Series: LOST
Age: 43
From When?: After he handgrenaded himself in "Through the Looking Glass, part 2"
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. If the Soviet Union told Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. If Jacob told Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. If the Island told Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. If Ben told Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. If Sideways!Keamy, via Sideways!Danny, told Sideways!Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. A PATTERN EMERGES. He's surly, occasionally massively deceitful and LOL SPOILERS. Look at that trollish grin, man. Look at it.
Item: --
Abilities/Powers: Despite proving to be particularly hard to kill, (and having a freakishly quick recovery time) Mikhail is as human as the next guy. He is, however, skilled in the use of weapons, can take a beating like a manly man, is tall/physically fit, and appears to be trained in Sambo, so although he has an almighty blind spot, it's fair to say that he has good odds in a punch up with a similarly sized opponent. He seems to be badass with technology, particularly with communications equipment, and is a polyglot, able to speak a load of languages, including, but not limited to: Russian, English, Ukrainian, Italian, Portuguese and Korean. If his sideways counterpart is anything to go by, he's fluent in around nine, give or take. (Given that he's one of the 'Others/hostiles', I'm guessing his non-sideways self can speak Latin too.) ALSO, having worked as a field medic, he's got himself some decent first aid skills, and can ventilate lungs like a boss.
Personality, with a slice of history: Mikhail's sense of loyalty is undoubtedly one of his defining characteristics. Every time we see him pull the trigger, it's because he was either told to, or because he's out to protect somebody else's interests. When Beatrice Klugh demands that he shoot her, Mikhail seems EXTREMELY hesitant, to say the least. Mikhail's actor, Andrew Divoff, claims that he played the scene as if the two had been banging each other, which would no doubt further complicate things? But yeah, despite that hesitance, he ultimately goes through with it, before trying to turn the gun on himself. To him, the most important thing is that the survivors don't find the rest of his people. When his suicide attempt is prevented, he repeatedly demands to be killed. Later, when he gets thrown into a bigass sonar fence, he thanks Locke, the guy who does the throwing. It's better to die, than to be used as a bargaining chip to give the survivors an advantage.
On a later occasion, Ben manages to convince him to kill two more of his own people, saying to him, "You've always been a loyalist, Mikhail" as if that's justification enough. Ben insists that it's for the good of the island, and that the women (Bonnie and Greta) have to die because the rest of his people can't know what happened at the station. By implication, Ben appears to be saying that Bonnie and Greta can't be trusted, whereas Mikhail can be. Now Ben's a dude who is very talented at saying the right thing to manipulate people into doing exactly what he wants. Mikhail, he knows, views himself as fairly important in the hierarchy of the others and, given the amount of time he's spent on the island and his proven dedication, feels he should be privy to information. If you look at Ben's diary, it seems Mikhail was included in a chin scratching 'what the hell do we do now' meeting with him and Richard, and from Mikhail's reaction to being lied to, it's clear he knows Ben to be a liar, but doesn't expect Ben to lie to him. He deserves better!
While Mikhail certainly isn't a religious man in the conventional sense, he is completely devoted to, and believes implicitly in Jacob, the mysterious derpy figure pulling the strings. Mikhail has never seen, nor spoken to Jacob, yet he describes him as "a magnificent man" and would (and does) willingly die for him and the island. His reverence of him is very very real, and borders on religious. The island, he believes, is a place where miracles can happen, and where normal rules don't apply. Wounds heal quicker, cancer is cured and the lame can walk. It is, therefore, somewhere worth protecting. His devotion to Ben, Jacob's voice box, is a little more diluted, though still very present, and it's only on discovering that he has been directly lied to that he ever actually questions Ben's motivations. On Barge, he'll defend Jacob/Ben/The island whenever shit comes up in conversation. He may also eventually be drawn to those who are good with words or have strong leadership qualities. If you have some spooky awesome powers, he'll probably be all D: over you.
The whole loyalty trait can be traced waaaaay back to his youth. Growing up in Kiev, back when Ukraine was still part of the USSR, Mikhail was exposed to a hell of a lot of propaganda and not-so-casual patriotism. Like many young men, convinced by the supposedly egalitarian daydream of Mother Russia and friends, he joined the army as soon as he hit the right age and went off to fight the good fight. His army career included a typically horrific stint in Afghanistan, (The Soviet's Vietnam) where he served as both a soldier and field medic, and work at a listening post in Vladivostok, where he practiced being a complete and utter creeper. He discovered very early on that on the battlefield, it was much easier (and healthier) to view things in black and white. The minute doubt seeps in, you have to face the painful reality of what you're doing, and so to protect himself from that, he learned the art of having blind loyalty to one's superiors, forcing himself to believe that every unpleasant act he committed was ultimately for the greater good. Although he's now jaded and rather critical about what happened during the Cold War, (his extensive alone time seems to have resulted in the beginnings of a not-so-rosy novel/account of his experiences in Afghanistan) the fact that he can look back and claim that he was simply following orders allows him to get to sleep at night. He would argue that none of his crimes were his fault -- he's the weapon, not the person pulling the trigger. It's worth noting too, that Mikhail didn't leave the army out of a sense guilt or because of a change in morals; his unit was simply decommissioned. Had the Cold War not ended, he would have remained in service.
Mikhail needs a cause to fight for. When his unit dissolved, he was forced to try to live in a normal, civilized society, and he, like many other veterans, soon found that he just couldn't engage with the real world anymore. He no longer had an enemy to fight. To a civilian, the act of killing another person is something to be punished, but during the war, he'd received the power of life and death over others. He couldn't just do a desk job. What's more, without distractions, he had to face what he had done during his years in the military, and upon bitter reflection, he found himself yearning to do something good. (That was when he finally accepted Richard Alpert's proposal!)
Unsurprisingly, Mikhail has developed a very abrasive side to his personality. He has learned to live by a 'shoot first, ask questions later' policy, and doesn't appreciate surprises. When Sayid Jarrah approaches his station, Mikhail greets him with a bullet in the shoulder, and an angry, defensive rant about being left alone. While this certainly serves as a table turning strategy, (He's just wounded Mr. I-can-break-a-guy's-neck-with-my-legs, while adding credit to his "I'm the last living member of the Dharma Initiative" story) we later realize it's not a unique incident, and is a reflection of his hermit-y LONE VETERAN mindset. Ben, in a later scene, proves this, first by attempting to radio in to Mikhail, (who, being super sociable, apparently never has his own radio switched on) instead of just knocking on his door, and then, when he fails to make contact, by feeling it necessary to shout to announce his presence, muttering "Don't shoot us" as he nears. Experience has taught him the importance of watching his back, and on barge, he'll be very suspicious of new people and their intentions, regardless of how harmless they may appear to be. He's very much a man living in a near-constant survival mode, and as a result, he will initially come across as solitary, unfriendly and misanthropic. While in reality he doesn't exactly hate people, he certainly seems happy enough in his own company, and even described one of the biggest perks of his job on the island as being its resemblance to the reclusive life of a lighthouse keeper. He comes across as a bit of an outsider, even to the Others, and likely talks to his cat more than he does to actual people. Being constantly surrounded by eccentric personalities will probably be jarring for him, and as a result, he may prove to be that little bit more reactionary.
Mikhail is cunning, but not overly so. He also knows a thing or two about strategy. (According to Divoff, he's a master at chess. Go figure.) When talking to Sayid and Kate, he knows that ultimately, the conversation will end in violence, yet he keeps his mask on until he's absolutely certain they know who he really is. Before then, he lays down little tidbits of information, curious to see what they pick up on, while trying to draw what he can from them and deciding when and how to close his trap. He's not Ben; when he tells a lie, he keeps it fairly small, peppering it with honesty, both because lying doesn't come naturally to him (he's a soldier, not a con man, dammit) and because he knows that the bigger the lie, the harder it is to keep track of. Ninety percent of what he tells the survivors is true.
Funnily enough, he's actually capable of being very personable. He's polite to those who are courteous towards him, knowing when to say please and thank you, and is an excellent host. Regardless of whether you're thirsty or not, he'll offer you whatever drinks he has in his cabin, and will take it as a personal insult if you refuse them. Like every fictional Russian/Ukrainian/East European ever, he's shown in canon to have a half-finished bottle of vodka and mini supply of alcohol in his room. Because I'm cool, I'm going to use this as total free license to say that one, he drinks, and two, if one were to spend any real time with him, and if he actually likes you, like a true stereotype, he'll propose a toast. This will devolve into a heavy drinking session where, if you can keep up with him, he'll share stories and open up to you in a way that he never normally would.
If he doesn't like you, or sees you as an enemy, he will revel in your misfortune, and he isn't above kicking people when they're down. (Both literally and figuratively.) There's a trollish side to him, which again, will come to play against people he dislikes. WHILE ONE MIGHT ARGUE THAT MIKHAIL'S TROLLISH PERIODS ARE LIKE... HIM TRYING TO GET LOCKE AND CO TO KILL HIM, HE LATER BEHAVES IN THE SAME FASHION WITH DESMOND AND CHARLIE, AND IN THAT INSTANCE, IT'S REALLY NOT IN HIS, OR THE OTHERS BEST INTERESTS FOR HIM TO DIE.
I can't think of an intelligent way of phrasing it, so I'll just say the guy is a bit of a badass. Believing that Sayid is keeping him alive for his HARD SOUGHT EX-SOVIET knowledge, Mikhail tells him that there is nothing he can do to make him talk. Even though Sayid's an ex-torturer. And Mikhail knows Sayid is an ex-torturer. He usually comes across as pretty unfazed when threatened, but he isn't stupid. He knows his own mortality. If someone has a gun to his head, he'll be quick to judge whether or not it's in their character to pull the trigger on him and will then make a snap decision, either begrudgingly holding his hands up, or retaliating. He's confident in his ability to defend himself, and is capable of doing so very well. Unfortunately for him, however, he's also very familiar with things not going his way, and has spent a fair amount of time bleeding out on the floor. As a result, he can take a bit of a beating and boasts a pretty high tolerance for pain. The fact that he can still act like a Bond villain after he's been impaled with a harpoon says something about both his physical strength and his mental determination. He's the Black Knight of the LOST world. You cut off his limbs and he'll still try and bite you.
Mikhail is also pretty damn intelligent. He's fairly good at reading people, will listen intently whether you are speaking to him, or to someone else, and will pocket little details that he picks up for later. He makes a habit of playing chess against abusive computers and is a total languages geek. Given enough time and boredom on barge, he may start hitting up the world dictionaries as he tries to add to his language library. He is also probably going to keep track of each and every one of the barge's residents OUT OF PURE HABIT, because someone he trusts asks him to, and/or because he who has knowledge holds the key or whatever. If he gets too carried away with it, he might try hacking filters and bugging places if he can work out how to do it.
Also, it's worth pointing out that he has NO QUALMS about hitting/killing women if the situation calls for it. He doesn't have some big moral code thing holding him back in life. A person is a person, and if they're in his way, he'll fuck em up regardless of age or gender. If you're not a threat, fine, he won't go out of his way to hurt you (he's not particularly sadistic!) but if you are he'll do everything in his power to bring you down.
[YEAH SO THIS SECTION STILL NEEDS FINISHING AND NON-TURDIFYING. SUE ME.]
Path to Redemption: Mikhail needs to learn that there's a point where blind loyalty is no longer a virtue, and that his past actions have had serious ramifications on innocent people, and that's not okay. Socialize the fucker. Don't let him sit in his room hacking away at every filter out there; force him to get a job where he needs to be a team player. He's gonna block you at every turn, but shove through that and talk to him. Work on his loyalist tendencies. Be someone he can respect. Guilt trip him. Give him some element of comfort, LIKE NADIA, (the cat, not the gymnast) so he doesn't feel like a total prisoner.
Also, the second Mikhail sees you as his enemy is the second things get ridiculously difficult. He might be all polite and seemingly open or whatever, but all the while he'll just be trying to figure out what makes you tick whilst see-sawing on whether or not it's in his interests to break your head. The best way to steer away from that, initially, would be to avoid prying in too deeply on big personal matters, (IE. THE ISLAND) so he doesn't get all defensive, and work on striking up some kind of positive relationship with him instead. Alcohol! Tea! Lame card games! Chess! Shooting practice! Bigass hikes in the CES! Try your hand at speaking Russian! Deflect his attempts to wind you up/creep on you!
Eventually, when he's willing to actually hold a conversation with you that lasts more than five minutes, try digging in a bit about his past. What was it like for him growing up in Kiev during the cold war? What were his parents like? Communism, Marxism and why Stalin was a dick, etcccc. If you're feeling particularly brave, ask about his experiences in Afghanistan and don't be too soft on him. Challenge his justifications for what he did during that period. Bring up his work in Vladivostok and take the moral high-ground. Ask about his eye.
LATER, maybe bring the island up. Bring up the fact that he's doing the exact same thing there as he did back in the war. Talk about the purge, ask if he was involved, his thoughts on it morally, etc. Ask about his relationship with various 'Others', namely Richard, Tom, Juliet and Bea. Talk about Ben and use the fact that Mikhail knew he lied to him as like... a base for hacking away at the loyalty there. And then try tackling Jacob and the island itself.
IDK, just break down those barriers, man.
ALSO, his loyalties will probably transfer to other inmates, so, uh, watch out for that.
History: LINK TO WIKI LIKE A BOSS
Sample Journal Entry: [5-10 Sentences]
[When Mikhail speaks, his accent is a little more pronounced than usual, and his features WAY more animated. He's totally been drinking.
In the background, there's a poster of a young gymnast balanced on a beam. He keeps glancing back at it with COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT ADORATION throughout the transmission.]
During the Olympics of nineteen seventy six, Nadia Comăneci was faced with the uneven parallel bars.
(BLAH BLAH BLAH NADIA IS AWESOME.)
How could such a magnificent performance receive such a low score? And then it-- [He hesitates, struggling to come up with the right word] then it dawned on them. The scoreboards simply weren't built to accommodate what they had seen. It had never been done before. Ten out of ten.
[There's a very long pause. His expression hardens a little and he averts his good eye.
With a sigh:]
I understand that some of my actions since my arrival here have... shall we say, ruffled a feather or two. I can only hope that we can, perhaps, start on a new slate, or... to wipe it, or...
[Frowning, he waves his hand as if to say YOUR COLLOQUIAL PHRASES CAN FUCK OFF, and clears his throat.]
And so, let me begin by reintroducing myself. My name is Mikhail Bakunin, and by way of an apology, I offer a toast. To all of you. [CUE CREEPER SMILE.] To new beginnings. To the wardens successes... and to their failures. And to the lost causes. Like Nadia, may we never cease to surprise our captive audience.
Будем здоровы!
[And with that, he downs his shot.
There's a loooong, calculated pause.]
Unfortunately, I now find myself with an empty glass. [To illustrate this, he lifts an empty bottle of Dharma Vodka up to the screen.]
And so regrettably, I must prey on your generosity once more.
Sample RP:
Mikhail could feel the weight of his head pressed down into the crook of an elbow. He knew his body was lying flat on something fairly solid, but what, he couldn't be sure. All he knew was that everything ached. There were sharp, prickling sensations across his skin and a rhythmic pounding inside his skull. As a man who had never held much stock in the concept of the afterlife, the fact that he was even capable of thinking was disconcerting, to say the least. For the longest moment, he'd even thought he was in Afghanistan - the familiar ringing in his ears taking him back to the explosions, the gunfire, and the cold silence that followed both. He knew now, of course, that he was dead. He'd known it long before he'd even pulled the pin. Hell, he supposed he'd known it even before Locke had unceremoniously shoved him through the fence. If, by some ungodly stroke of luck, the grenade hadn't blown him to bits and he'd been left with a bleeding stump for an arm instead, he was as good as dead anyway. He'd been half way down to the bottom of the ocean, with no breathing equipment and a harpoon sat bang in the middle of his chest. You didn't bounce back from that.
He let out a shaky breath. Any minute now, he knew he'd have to try opening his eye, but he... didn't exactly feel inclined to. The tiny, fluttering bit of hope inside of him was too busy yelling at him that maybe, just maybe he was still alive, and he didn't want to shatter that hope just yet. Dead people couldn't feel pain, could they? Dead people couldn't think or recite poems or... or count to one hundred, could they?
After a moment, he mentally shrugged. Why not.
"Один..." he began, "два... три... четыре... пять... шесть..."
---
He awoke with a start; survival instincts kicking in as everything suddenly seemed to vibrate. Light flooded in as he opened his eye and he sat up, wincing at the stiffness in his joints. While everything remained surprisingly out of focus, it didn't take Mikhail long to recognize his surroundings. When he did, he almost laughed. So he was dead. It was either that, or the grenade had turned him into a damned time traveler. There, on the oh-so-familiar desk, was his oh-so-familiar lamp. On the table across the room, sat his typewriter. Behind him hung the dressing-gown he never wore.
There was a long moment of contemplative silence, then he reached down and pulled his t-shirt up, dragging it over his head, while successfully dislodging the patch that covered his right eye. He gave a crooked smile. Where there should have been a gaping hole, there wasn't even a mark. No, his chest appeared to---
Oh God.
With a sudden coppery drop in his stomach, he realized that it wasn't his chest. Ignoring his muscles screaming in protest, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and jumped to his feet, heading straight towards the bathroom.
Having spent years in the Soviet army and over a decade on the Island, Mikhail had come to believe that he was beyond shock. The sight of the wide, blue eyes that stared back at him in the mirror, however, was enough to force out a loud, strangled yell from deep within his chest. He reeled backwards; a cold, suffocating panic coursing through him.
"Benjamin?" he finally hissed; surprising himself with a remarkably even tone and a voice which he knew belonged to the man in the reflection.
After a considerable pause, Mikhail swallowed; Ben's pale neck bobbing in time. He waved one hand, then the other. Ben mimicked the motion exactly. Gathering his courage, he cranked his head to one side, tentatively running a hand across his now clean-shaven chin. Ben's chin. A sudden wave of revulsion hit him, and with it, anger, confusion and a host of other undefined, unpleasant emotions. What was this? Death he could understand. Death he had even welcomed, but this?
Special Notes: DFDFHGHFGHFG. YES SO THIS IS ALL BEING ALTERED WHEN I'M NOT WORK CRAZED AND STRESSED AND I'VE SLEPT. I KNOW IT'S BEYOND TERRIBLE. I'M A BAD PERSON. STOP JUDGING.
NEXT TIME LET ME LEAVE IT A MONTH OKAY?
User LJ: gualtieri
AIM/IM: Beadledumpling
E-mail: --
Other Characters: NONE.
Character Name: Mikhail Bakunin
Series: LOST
Age: 43
From When?: After he handgrenaded himself in "Through the Looking Glass, part 2"
Inmate/Warden: Inmate. If the Soviet Union told Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. If Jacob told Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. If the Island told Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. If Ben told Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. If Sideways!Keamy, via Sideways!Danny, told Sideways!Mikhail to kill you and your baby momma, he would. A PATTERN EMERGES. He's surly, occasionally massively deceitful and LOL SPOILERS. Look at that trollish grin, man. Look at it.
Item: --
Abilities/Powers: Despite proving to be particularly hard to kill, (and having a freakishly quick recovery time) Mikhail is as human as the next guy. He is, however, skilled in the use of weapons, can take a beating like a manly man, is tall/physically fit, and appears to be trained in Sambo, so although he has an almighty blind spot, it's fair to say that he has good odds in a punch up with a similarly sized opponent. He seems to be badass with technology, particularly with communications equipment, and is a polyglot, able to speak a load of languages, including, but not limited to: Russian, English, Ukrainian, Italian, Portuguese and Korean. If his sideways counterpart is anything to go by, he's fluent in around nine, give or take. (Given that he's one of the 'Others/hostiles', I'm guessing his non-sideways self can speak Latin too.) ALSO, having worked as a field medic, he's got himself some decent first aid skills, and can ventilate lungs like a boss.
Personality, with a slice of history: Mikhail's sense of loyalty is undoubtedly one of his defining characteristics. Every time we see him pull the trigger, it's because he was either told to, or because he's out to protect somebody else's interests. When Beatrice Klugh demands that he shoot her, Mikhail seems EXTREMELY hesitant, to say the least. Mikhail's actor, Andrew Divoff, claims that he played the scene as if the two had been banging each other, which would no doubt further complicate things? But yeah, despite that hesitance, he ultimately goes through with it, before trying to turn the gun on himself. To him, the most important thing is that the survivors don't find the rest of his people. When his suicide attempt is prevented, he repeatedly demands to be killed. Later, when he gets thrown into a bigass sonar fence, he thanks Locke, the guy who does the throwing. It's better to die, than to be used as a bargaining chip to give the survivors an advantage.
On a later occasion, Ben manages to convince him to kill two more of his own people, saying to him, "You've always been a loyalist, Mikhail" as if that's justification enough. Ben insists that it's for the good of the island, and that the women (Bonnie and Greta) have to die because the rest of his people can't know what happened at the station. By implication, Ben appears to be saying that Bonnie and Greta can't be trusted, whereas Mikhail can be. Now Ben's a dude who is very talented at saying the right thing to manipulate people into doing exactly what he wants. Mikhail, he knows, views himself as fairly important in the hierarchy of the others and, given the amount of time he's spent on the island and his proven dedication, feels he should be privy to information. If you look at Ben's diary, it seems Mikhail was included in a chin scratching 'what the hell do we do now' meeting with him and Richard, and from Mikhail's reaction to being lied to, it's clear he knows Ben to be a liar, but doesn't expect Ben to lie to him. He deserves better!
While Mikhail certainly isn't a religious man in the conventional sense, he is completely devoted to, and believes implicitly in Jacob, the mysterious derpy figure pulling the strings. Mikhail has never seen, nor spoken to Jacob, yet he describes him as "a magnificent man" and would (and does) willingly die for him and the island. His reverence of him is very very real, and borders on religious. The island, he believes, is a place where miracles can happen, and where normal rules don't apply. Wounds heal quicker, cancer is cured and the lame can walk. It is, therefore, somewhere worth protecting. His devotion to Ben, Jacob's voice box, is a little more diluted, though still very present, and it's only on discovering that he has been directly lied to that he ever actually questions Ben's motivations. On Barge, he'll defend Jacob/Ben/The island whenever shit comes up in conversation. He may also eventually be drawn to those who are good with words or have strong leadership qualities. If you have some spooky awesome powers, he'll probably be all D: over you.
The whole loyalty trait can be traced waaaaay back to his youth. Growing up in Kiev, back when Ukraine was still part of the USSR, Mikhail was exposed to a hell of a lot of propaganda and not-so-casual patriotism. Like many young men, convinced by the supposedly egalitarian daydream of Mother Russia and friends, he joined the army as soon as he hit the right age and went off to fight the good fight. His army career included a typically horrific stint in Afghanistan, (The Soviet's Vietnam) where he served as both a soldier and field medic, and work at a listening post in Vladivostok, where he practiced being a complete and utter creeper. He discovered very early on that on the battlefield, it was much easier (and healthier) to view things in black and white. The minute doubt seeps in, you have to face the painful reality of what you're doing, and so to protect himself from that, he learned the art of having blind loyalty to one's superiors, forcing himself to believe that every unpleasant act he committed was ultimately for the greater good. Although he's now jaded and rather critical about what happened during the Cold War, (his extensive alone time seems to have resulted in the beginnings of a not-so-rosy novel/account of his experiences in Afghanistan) the fact that he can look back and claim that he was simply following orders allows him to get to sleep at night. He would argue that none of his crimes were his fault -- he's the weapon, not the person pulling the trigger. It's worth noting too, that Mikhail didn't leave the army out of a sense guilt or because of a change in morals; his unit was simply decommissioned. Had the Cold War not ended, he would have remained in service.
Mikhail needs a cause to fight for. When his unit dissolved, he was forced to try to live in a normal, civilized society, and he, like many other veterans, soon found that he just couldn't engage with the real world anymore. He no longer had an enemy to fight. To a civilian, the act of killing another person is something to be punished, but during the war, he'd received the power of life and death over others. He couldn't just do a desk job. What's more, without distractions, he had to face what he had done during his years in the military, and upon bitter reflection, he found himself yearning to do something good. (That was when he finally accepted Richard Alpert's proposal!)
Unsurprisingly, Mikhail has developed a very abrasive side to his personality. He has learned to live by a 'shoot first, ask questions later' policy, and doesn't appreciate surprises. When Sayid Jarrah approaches his station, Mikhail greets him with a bullet in the shoulder, and an angry, defensive rant about being left alone. While this certainly serves as a table turning strategy, (He's just wounded Mr. I-can-break-a-guy's-neck-with-my-legs, while adding credit to his "I'm the last living member of the Dharma Initiative" story) we later realize it's not a unique incident, and is a reflection of his hermit-y LONE VETERAN mindset. Ben, in a later scene, proves this, first by attempting to radio in to Mikhail, (who, being super sociable, apparently never has his own radio switched on) instead of just knocking on his door, and then, when he fails to make contact, by feeling it necessary to shout to announce his presence, muttering "Don't shoot us" as he nears. Experience has taught him the importance of watching his back, and on barge, he'll be very suspicious of new people and their intentions, regardless of how harmless they may appear to be. He's very much a man living in a near-constant survival mode, and as a result, he will initially come across as solitary, unfriendly and misanthropic. While in reality he doesn't exactly hate people, he certainly seems happy enough in his own company, and even described one of the biggest perks of his job on the island as being its resemblance to the reclusive life of a lighthouse keeper. He comes across as a bit of an outsider, even to the Others, and likely talks to his cat more than he does to actual people. Being constantly surrounded by eccentric personalities will probably be jarring for him, and as a result, he may prove to be that little bit more reactionary.
Mikhail is cunning, but not overly so. He also knows a thing or two about strategy. (According to Divoff, he's a master at chess. Go figure.) When talking to Sayid and Kate, he knows that ultimately, the conversation will end in violence, yet he keeps his mask on until he's absolutely certain they know who he really is. Before then, he lays down little tidbits of information, curious to see what they pick up on, while trying to draw what he can from them and deciding when and how to close his trap. He's not Ben; when he tells a lie, he keeps it fairly small, peppering it with honesty, both because lying doesn't come naturally to him (he's a soldier, not a con man, dammit) and because he knows that the bigger the lie, the harder it is to keep track of. Ninety percent of what he tells the survivors is true.
Funnily enough, he's actually capable of being very personable. He's polite to those who are courteous towards him, knowing when to say please and thank you, and is an excellent host. Regardless of whether you're thirsty or not, he'll offer you whatever drinks he has in his cabin, and will take it as a personal insult if you refuse them. Like every fictional Russian/Ukrainian/East European ever, he's shown in canon to have a half-finished bottle of vodka and mini supply of alcohol in his room. Because I'm cool, I'm going to use this as total free license to say that one, he drinks, and two, if one were to spend any real time with him, and if he actually likes you, like a true stereotype, he'll propose a toast. This will devolve into a heavy drinking session where, if you can keep up with him, he'll share stories and open up to you in a way that he never normally would.
If he doesn't like you, or sees you as an enemy, he will revel in your misfortune, and he isn't above kicking people when they're down. (Both literally and figuratively.) There's a trollish side to him, which again, will come to play against people he dislikes. WHILE ONE MIGHT ARGUE THAT MIKHAIL'S TROLLISH PERIODS ARE LIKE... HIM TRYING TO GET LOCKE AND CO TO KILL HIM, HE LATER BEHAVES IN THE SAME FASHION WITH DESMOND AND CHARLIE, AND IN THAT INSTANCE, IT'S REALLY NOT IN HIS, OR THE OTHERS BEST INTERESTS FOR HIM TO DIE.
I can't think of an intelligent way of phrasing it, so I'll just say the guy is a bit of a badass. Believing that Sayid is keeping him alive for his HARD SOUGHT EX-SOVIET knowledge, Mikhail tells him that there is nothing he can do to make him talk. Even though Sayid's an ex-torturer. And Mikhail knows Sayid is an ex-torturer. He usually comes across as pretty unfazed when threatened, but he isn't stupid. He knows his own mortality. If someone has a gun to his head, he'll be quick to judge whether or not it's in their character to pull the trigger on him and will then make a snap decision, either begrudgingly holding his hands up, or retaliating. He's confident in his ability to defend himself, and is capable of doing so very well. Unfortunately for him, however, he's also very familiar with things not going his way, and has spent a fair amount of time bleeding out on the floor. As a result, he can take a bit of a beating and boasts a pretty high tolerance for pain. The fact that he can still act like a Bond villain after he's been impaled with a harpoon says something about both his physical strength and his mental determination. He's the Black Knight of the LOST world. You cut off his limbs and he'll still try and bite you.
Mikhail is also pretty damn intelligent. He's fairly good at reading people, will listen intently whether you are speaking to him, or to someone else, and will pocket little details that he picks up for later. He makes a habit of playing chess against abusive computers and is a total languages geek. Given enough time and boredom on barge, he may start hitting up the world dictionaries as he tries to add to his language library. He is also probably going to keep track of each and every one of the barge's residents OUT OF PURE HABIT, because someone he trusts asks him to, and/or because he who has knowledge holds the key or whatever. If he gets too carried away with it, he might try hacking filters and bugging places if he can work out how to do it.
Also, it's worth pointing out that he has NO QUALMS about hitting/killing women if the situation calls for it. He doesn't have some big moral code thing holding him back in life. A person is a person, and if they're in his way, he'll fuck em up regardless of age or gender. If you're not a threat, fine, he won't go out of his way to hurt you (he's not particularly sadistic!) but if you are he'll do everything in his power to bring you down.
[YEAH SO THIS SECTION STILL NEEDS FINISHING AND NON-TURDIFYING. SUE ME.]
Path to Redemption: Mikhail needs to learn that there's a point where blind loyalty is no longer a virtue, and that his past actions have had serious ramifications on innocent people, and that's not okay. Socialize the fucker. Don't let him sit in his room hacking away at every filter out there; force him to get a job where he needs to be a team player. He's gonna block you at every turn, but shove through that and talk to him. Work on his loyalist tendencies. Be someone he can respect. Guilt trip him. Give him some element of comfort, LIKE NADIA, (the cat, not the gymnast) so he doesn't feel like a total prisoner.
Also, the second Mikhail sees you as his enemy is the second things get ridiculously difficult. He might be all polite and seemingly open or whatever, but all the while he'll just be trying to figure out what makes you tick whilst see-sawing on whether or not it's in his interests to break your head. The best way to steer away from that, initially, would be to avoid prying in too deeply on big personal matters, (IE. THE ISLAND) so he doesn't get all defensive, and work on striking up some kind of positive relationship with him instead. Alcohol! Tea! Lame card games! Chess! Shooting practice! Bigass hikes in the CES! Try your hand at speaking Russian! Deflect his attempts to wind you up/creep on you!
Eventually, when he's willing to actually hold a conversation with you that lasts more than five minutes, try digging in a bit about his past. What was it like for him growing up in Kiev during the cold war? What were his parents like? Communism, Marxism and why Stalin was a dick, etcccc. If you're feeling particularly brave, ask about his experiences in Afghanistan and don't be too soft on him. Challenge his justifications for what he did during that period. Bring up his work in Vladivostok and take the moral high-ground. Ask about his eye.
LATER, maybe bring the island up. Bring up the fact that he's doing the exact same thing there as he did back in the war. Talk about the purge, ask if he was involved, his thoughts on it morally, etc. Ask about his relationship with various 'Others', namely Richard, Tom, Juliet and Bea. Talk about Ben and use the fact that Mikhail knew he lied to him as like... a base for hacking away at the loyalty there. And then try tackling Jacob and the island itself.
IDK, just break down those barriers, man.
ALSO, his loyalties will probably transfer to other inmates, so, uh, watch out for that.
History: LINK TO WIKI LIKE A BOSS
Sample Journal Entry: [5-10 Sentences]
[When Mikhail speaks, his accent is a little more pronounced than usual, and his features WAY more animated. He's totally been drinking.
In the background, there's a poster of a young gymnast balanced on a beam. He keeps glancing back at it with COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT ADORATION throughout the transmission.]
During the Olympics of nineteen seventy six, Nadia Comăneci was faced with the uneven parallel bars.
(BLAH BLAH BLAH NADIA IS AWESOME.)
How could such a magnificent performance receive such a low score? And then it-- [He hesitates, struggling to come up with the right word] then it dawned on them. The scoreboards simply weren't built to accommodate what they had seen. It had never been done before. Ten out of ten.
[There's a very long pause. His expression hardens a little and he averts his good eye.
With a sigh:]
I understand that some of my actions since my arrival here have... shall we say, ruffled a feather or two. I can only hope that we can, perhaps, start on a new slate, or... to wipe it, or...
[Frowning, he waves his hand as if to say YOUR COLLOQUIAL PHRASES CAN FUCK OFF, and clears his throat.]
And so, let me begin by reintroducing myself. My name is Mikhail Bakunin, and by way of an apology, I offer a toast. To all of you. [CUE CREEPER SMILE.] To new beginnings. To the wardens successes... and to their failures. And to the lost causes. Like Nadia, may we never cease to surprise our captive audience.
Будем здоровы!
[And with that, he downs his shot.
There's a loooong, calculated pause.]
Unfortunately, I now find myself with an empty glass. [To illustrate this, he lifts an empty bottle of Dharma Vodka up to the screen.]
And so regrettably, I must prey on your generosity once more.
Sample RP:
Mikhail could feel the weight of his head pressed down into the crook of an elbow. He knew his body was lying flat on something fairly solid, but what, he couldn't be sure. All he knew was that everything ached. There were sharp, prickling sensations across his skin and a rhythmic pounding inside his skull. As a man who had never held much stock in the concept of the afterlife, the fact that he was even capable of thinking was disconcerting, to say the least. For the longest moment, he'd even thought he was in Afghanistan - the familiar ringing in his ears taking him back to the explosions, the gunfire, and the cold silence that followed both. He knew now, of course, that he was dead. He'd known it long before he'd even pulled the pin. Hell, he supposed he'd known it even before Locke had unceremoniously shoved him through the fence. If, by some ungodly stroke of luck, the grenade hadn't blown him to bits and he'd been left with a bleeding stump for an arm instead, he was as good as dead anyway. He'd been half way down to the bottom of the ocean, with no breathing equipment and a harpoon sat bang in the middle of his chest. You didn't bounce back from that.
He let out a shaky breath. Any minute now, he knew he'd have to try opening his eye, but he... didn't exactly feel inclined to. The tiny, fluttering bit of hope inside of him was too busy yelling at him that maybe, just maybe he was still alive, and he didn't want to shatter that hope just yet. Dead people couldn't feel pain, could they? Dead people couldn't think or recite poems or... or count to one hundred, could they?
After a moment, he mentally shrugged. Why not.
"Один..." he began, "два... три... четыре... пять... шесть..."
---
He awoke with a start; survival instincts kicking in as everything suddenly seemed to vibrate. Light flooded in as he opened his eye and he sat up, wincing at the stiffness in his joints. While everything remained surprisingly out of focus, it didn't take Mikhail long to recognize his surroundings. When he did, he almost laughed. So he was dead. It was either that, or the grenade had turned him into a damned time traveler. There, on the oh-so-familiar desk, was his oh-so-familiar lamp. On the table across the room, sat his typewriter. Behind him hung the dressing-gown he never wore.
There was a long moment of contemplative silence, then he reached down and pulled his t-shirt up, dragging it over his head, while successfully dislodging the patch that covered his right eye. He gave a crooked smile. Where there should have been a gaping hole, there wasn't even a mark. No, his chest appeared to---
Oh God.
With a sudden coppery drop in his stomach, he realized that it wasn't his chest. Ignoring his muscles screaming in protest, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and jumped to his feet, heading straight towards the bathroom.
Having spent years in the Soviet army and over a decade on the Island, Mikhail had come to believe that he was beyond shock. The sight of the wide, blue eyes that stared back at him in the mirror, however, was enough to force out a loud, strangled yell from deep within his chest. He reeled backwards; a cold, suffocating panic coursing through him.
"Benjamin?" he finally hissed; surprising himself with a remarkably even tone and a voice which he knew belonged to the man in the reflection.
After a considerable pause, Mikhail swallowed; Ben's pale neck bobbing in time. He waved one hand, then the other. Ben mimicked the motion exactly. Gathering his courage, he cranked his head to one side, tentatively running a hand across his now clean-shaven chin. Ben's chin. A sudden wave of revulsion hit him, and with it, anger, confusion and a host of other undefined, unpleasant emotions. What was this? Death he could understand. Death he had even welcomed, but this?
Special Notes: DFDFHGHFGHFG. YES SO THIS IS ALL BEING ALTERED WHEN I'M NOT WORK CRAZED AND STRESSED AND I'VE SLEPT. I KNOW IT'S BEYOND TERRIBLE. I'M A BAD PERSON. STOP JUDGING.
NEXT TIME LET ME LEAVE IT A MONTH OKAY?