cw: underage sex mentionC A N O N
real name is Alexei
22 years old, birthday is October 27
is of Russian descent, born on a Mars colony (no. 5)
loves whiskey and smoking
earring in his left ear
does not know how to swim
got into bad stuff re: crime
has an older sister who married and left
parents are factory workers
5'11"
H E A D C A N O N*
His full name is Alexei Nikolev. His older sister would call him "Aly" to tease him.
He is pansexual and is not attracted to any single biological sex/gender/gender identity. He lost his virginity when he was 16 to an older woman (Sonya), and the experience itself was pleasant. However, he developed feelings for her and discovered she was seeing someone else. They broke it off soon after. After that, he was loose and fast with his physical relationships, developing a bit of a reputation in his small rural community for it.
His sister, Mila Nikolev, is four years older than him. Alexei idolized his sister for most of his childhood and leaned on her more than he did their parents. She taught him how to do almost everything, including how to shoot a rifle, how to cook, and how to drive. When she got pregnant and left to start a family, he was devastated. They did not speak much since she moved to a colony further away, but she demanded he go to visit her. He had plans to do this until his final arrest by the Alliance military.
Parents are Grigory Nikolev (father) and Irina Nikolev (mother). He's not close to his father, who was a strict and old-fashioned man devoted to his work. Grigory worked long hours at the factory and was not often home. He did give Alexei his first glass of whiskey and his first cigarette. Irina, on the other hand, was Alexei's primary caretaker, but she was often sickly and emotionally absent as a parent, struggling with the burden of both motherhood and being a laborer. She died a few years after Mila left, and Alexei was arrested on assault charges at the time (due to an incident with Sonya's boyfriend) so he could not attend the funeral. He and his father are now somewhat estranged.
Alexei dropped out of school around 14-15 years old, soon after Mila became pregnant and moved out of the house. Originally his goal was to enlist properly in the Alliance military as a soldier and work his way up the ranks; this plan was abandoned when he failed his entrance exam. After that, Alexei became more rebellious, loathing the thought of factory work for the rest of his life.
From age 15 on, he developed a hefty rap sheet for various petty crime including theft, vandalism, illegal firearms, breaking & entering, trespassing, public brawling, assault charges (dropped), underage drinking, and resisting arrest.
At the age of 18, he was caught outside an Alliance military outpost presumably to steal supplies including firearms and provisions (this was never proven and the official charge was trespassing). He was arrested and incarcerated at the New Volga Correctional Facility. He was eventually approached by an Alliance agent and blackmailed onto Project Thebes. He trained several months before becoming an official fighter unit.
Alexei grew up watching grainy vids from Earth and became fascinated with plants and animals. He thinks cats are neat (pseudo-canon). His favorite time of day is sunset (which is blue on Mars, this is legit), and he wants to see an Earth sunset. The rifle he got from his sister has her initials scratched into it; he added his own after she left. Also, he pierced his own ear because he thought it looked cool.
* most of this won't come up in threads on any regular basis and is for my own benefit in fleshing out a stronger backstory to deepen his characterization; my goal is just to expand on what little is already canon.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
