Aleksandr Grigory Mihailov

Individual

Character's full name: Aleksandr Grigory Mihailov
Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: None
Gender: Male
Age: 29
Birthday: April 30, 1988
Nationality/ Ethnicity: Russian
Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: Saint Petersburg, Russia

Appearance

Hair colour and style: Alternating black and off-white color worn down, reaching a length approximately in line with his waist. That is, if it can truly be called hair at all. Aleksandr's "hair" is made up of  numerous snake tails. He is uncertain if they will grow much any longer.
Eyes: His eyes are almost entirely a golden yellow color, with the exception of his pupils. It has become nearly impossible to distinguish his irises from the rest of his eyes any longer.
Height: He usually "stands" at about 6'9", though his height often changes depending on how high he holds himself at any given time. His full length is approximately 18 feet.
Build: Lean and muscular.
Visible mutation: Aleksandr is what some might call a Naga, or more plainly put, someone who is part snake and part human. He is covered in sleek cream colored scales alternating with patches of black. Where his waist once met his hips, he now possesses a serpentine tail. His fingernails have extended into something more akin to claws, his nose has flattened, and teeth have become somewhat thinner and are angled backward, his canine teeth having grown into impressive fangs which can be extended and retracted at will.
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: None.

Everyday clothing style: This particular snake man prefers to travel au naturale.
Uniform: N/A
Sleepwear: N/A
Miscellaneous clothing: Should a particular occasion arise, ornamental bits of garments and decorations may be worn.

Character

Personality: Overall Aleksandr is fairly laid back. He attempts to enjoy life when he can with the occasional flare up of his temper. To him, it is easier to forget about the troubles that bare down on him, particularly when faced against the prejudices of the human race. It is, of course, much easier to let it all rub him the wrong way, but in the end he tends to remind himself that most of the time it's not worth the trouble to get angry and cause a scene. It's no skin of his teeth if some snooty biped doesn't like the way his scales gleam so nicely in the sunlight.

He could also be called a charmer, using his silver tongue to flatter those he desires good graces from. He loves making friends and attempts to uphold the highest respect for those he interacts with and does his best to show them as much kindness as he's capable of. There is very little chance that he would ever take advantage of others for the mere enjoyment of it. If, however, there is something that he desires from his social interactions, his personal rules may bend a little.

That last bit might get him labeled as being somewhat sneaky. Certainly he takes advantage of his mostly silent movements, but rarely does he ever abuse the ability. He does, of course, enjoy a little mischief every now and again and anyone he's mingled with may find one or two of their belonging mysteriously missing. He has a penchant for things that gleam.

Vanity is perhaps one of his greatest downfalls in personality. Rather than being horrified and ashamed of the changed his mutation inflicted upon him, he embraced them and became very proud of the creature he turned out to be. See how long and perfectly forked his tongue is? How sleek and shiny his scales are? The striking contrast of his patterns and the exotic structure of his face? Who wouldn't be impressed by such a unique individual? He is not at all shy about flaunting himself and will openly parade down a crowded street to see the reactions of those he passes. Their surprise is nothing but flattering. It's not every day you see such lovely features. And it's always amusing to toy around a little with those that exhibit a fear of snakes.

Because of this it is somewhat easy to wound his pride, particularly when jabs at his appearance are made. It's highly likely that a quick verbal strike in retaliation will be made before he slinks off to sulk somewhere. This bruise to his ego is not always easily repaired and hard feelings may be harbored for a while. However, if enough flattery is directed his way, he may be persuaded to forgive the offending individual.

Hobbies/ Interests: Aleksandr is a lover of the outdoors and attempts to spend a good deal of time outside. Swimming is an enjoyable pastime, but one of his favorite outdoor activities would probably be hunting, though he doesn't use traditional methods when engaged in this sport. He also finds reading enjoyable and simply adores sunbathing.
Job or part time job and description: None
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: He hates the cold with a passion and has accumulated a mild fear of freezing to death. Looking the way he does it's a reasonable concern that he'd be without a warm shelter when the weather dives down into lower temperatures.
Special talents: He can lick his elbow.

Morality

Good/ bad/ neutral/ other: Neutral. Aleksandr has rather flexible morals, leaning to good or bad whenever interest in either rises. He would not consider himself a bad person, nor would he truthfully refer to himself as all good. While he still resides on the fence of the morality issue, he could very easily be swayed to move to one side or the other. Should one fluff his ego and feed his vanity effectively enough, he could be persuaded to stick around and help them wherever he can.

Mutations

Mutation description: On top of taking on an appearance that is for the majority a snake, Aleksandr has gained a few extra serpentine capabilities.

Strengths: Firstly, his scales provide him with some added protection against outside influences, as the surface of his body has become somewhat tougher than normal human skin. He can still be injured easily enough, particularly between scales or if any are removed, which is entirely possible.

His tail makes for a useful weapon and means of transportation, that section of his body being mostly made up of pure muscle. It can be swung, twined, curled and twisted in numerous ways. It is also good for constricting any creature unfortunate enough to get caught up in its grasp. While this ability is not his strongest, nor his most utilized, it does come in handy. His "hair" is also capable of independent movement, much like the tail. As for transportation, having scales makes his movements much quieter, especially with a complete lack of footsteps. Also, like most snakes, it makes it exceptionally easier to scale surfaces, such as walls, rocks, and trees. The number and power of the muscles also makes traveling at faster speeds simple for him. While he may not look like speed would be paired up with the sheer size of him, he can move faster than any normal human is capable of when he needs to.

His upper body possesses an average amount of strength, the claws at the end of his fingers giving him a minimal amount of usefulness in means of attack and defense. His hair, while possessing constriction capabilities, is rarely used as a weapon, instead used for more of a scare factor. His teeth are the things to watch out for. They have become similar to that of a snake. They have become thinner and are angled backward to keep anything from slipping out of his mouth. His molars have shifted to become nearly identical with the other teeth, and his canines have become retractable fangs capable of delivering a venomous bite. Thin sacs of venom line his cheeks and connect to these teeth.

In order to accommodate his orthodontic changes, his cheeks have also become more flexible and his jaw is capable of dislocating and then relocating, allowing Aleksandr to open his mouth far wider than a normal human, making it easier to utilize his fangs.

His tongue has also changed, becoming thinner, longer, and forked. The color ranges from a light blue at the base to black at the tips. To make up for the shift his nose went through he gained a tongue that reaches a length right around his collar bone. It greatly increases his sense of smell and allows him to taste any particular scent he is pursuing, making him a decent tracker.

Weaknesses: While his scales provide a decent amount of protection, the defense isn't prefect. Each and every scale is flexible to allow movement, and as such each can be also be moved by an outside force. This can be extremely uncomfortable as well as making Aleksandr more vulnerable. When moved, the gaps between each scale can be widened by a certain amount, making that patch of skin more susceptible to damage. His scales may also be removed, doing damage in itself, and making an offending blow more effective.

Movement and attack are strengths as well as weaknesses when it comes to the tail. He is allowed a greater range of flexibility and possibilities when moving across and around an object, but the sheer size of him also makes it more difficult to travel within certain places such as narrow spaces and tight corners. Doors always seem to be an issue, particularly the revolving kind. His flexibility is certainly a plus, but to him the constriction always seems to be more trouble than it's worth. A lot of energy is expended if and when he constricts around something. He tires very quickly with any kind of consistent constriction, much less energy expended in only squeezing when necessary, like when the target begins to squirm and struggle.

The similar abilities his "hair " shares with his tail are rarely if ever used, as the number of additional tails that extend from his head are often tangled around each other and make the movements of any single one much more complicated. In a real pinch, they may be used, but for the most part they are purely decorative.

The changes in his molars make eating anything that's not meat a difficult task, leaving him to lean toward a carnivorous diet for the sake of giving up some of the trouble it causes him to eat anything else. Speech was an issue for a while. On top of speaking with a Russian accent, it was like trying to relearn the English language all over again when his teeth reshaped themselves. There is still an occasional lisp in his speech and every now and again the stereotypical exaggeration of the 's' sound slips out.

The venom that can be secreted by his fangs, while dangerous, is usually not delivered in a deadly dose. Most frequently the bite will make it much more difficult for a target to control its muscles, making certain movements very sloppy and sometimes impossible. Should enough venom be delivered, the muscles in the lungs and heart may be affected and it is possible for the victim to go into cardiac arrest. However, the amount of venom it would take to affect the heart would almost completely exhaust what's stored in the sacs. Aleksandr much prefers to administer small doses of it with several bites, rather than to pump it all at once.

With the change in the structure of his nose, the sense of smell has also been impaired, making the use of his tongue a necessity if he would like to catch the scent of anything. Damage to his tongue is damage to his senses of smell and taste, something he'd greatly like to avoid.

There is also the issue of shedding. Like normal snakes, Aleksandr continues to increase in length as he grows, making it necessary for him to shed old layers of skin to accommodate his continuing growth. Shedding is both time consuming and annoying. It can take up to three or more days to be completely rid of his old skin, depending on how smoothly the shedding goes, how much moisture he has access to, and how much of a rush he's in to be rid of the dried layer of skin. It itches unmercifully, it's messy, and on top of it all it affects his sight. As time for shedding grows nearer, his eyesight gradually decreases until everything to him appears to be veiled with a milky film. His eyesight returns to normal once the dead skin on his face has been peeled or rubbed away. Fortunately for him, shedding only occurs between two and three times a year and may become even less frequent as he ages.

Lastly, Aleksandr no longer deals with the cold very well. He has become similar enough to the cold blooded reptiles he resembles that he becomes miserably sluggish, groggy, and uncomfortable in lower temperatures. Long, luxurious sunbaths are often taken to keep his temperature up. He abhors cold weather as it usually means he'll be trapped inside soaking up the artificial heat that is produced.

Secondary mutation description: N/A
Strengths: N/A
Weaknesses: N/A

Fighting Style

Explanation: He tends to improvise a lot if caught up in a scuffle. He tends to do a lot of dodging and weaving with timed strikes delivered in the midst of it.
Pros for fighting style: He's not attached to any particular style, and as such it may not be so easy to learn how to defend oneself against him. Improvisation is extremely flexible and allows him freedom of thought and movement.
Cons for fighting style: Thinking on his feet, so to speak, can mean a good amount of miscalculations on his part when engaging a sparring partner. No discipline in his fighting style makes it harder to judge how an opponent will move and how best to deal with those movements, leaving him a little more vulnerable.

Faction Allegiance

Unaffiliated


History Of Your Character:
Aleksandr possesses a rather common and unimpressive history. He attended normal schools, made plenty of friends and shared a good home life with his parents and several siblings, three younger brothers and two sisters, one older and one younger. Both of his parents worked, leaving him to tend to his siblings a decent amount of the time when he was not busy with school work. In his down time he usually immersed himself in books, a number of them written in English to help him in learning the language. It would come in handy for him should he ever travel and could be useful when applying for a job. It also aiding in helping to tutor his siblings.

His mutation manifested later in life than is typical of those possessing the X-gene. It wasn't until he had reached the age of nineteen moving on to twenty that the mutant gene became active and he underwent his physical changes. The first sign of the changes was the discoloration of his eyes. The whites of his eyes rapidly yellowed, initially causing fear of illness in himself and his family. As the whites darkened, his once brown irises faded and took on a similar yellow tint until eventually the colors were no longer distinguishable from each other. The play of the still dark pupil against the lighter color of the rest of his eyes was a rather unnerving thing to observe, but it didn't seem to be connected to anything that was harmful to his health.

Sunglasses were an easy fix to the rather exotic new look of his eyes and consideration was put into buying colored contacts to replace the glasses, as they were not always the best solution. Its was hard to navigate indoors or after the sun had set with the added darkness placed in front of his sight. He managed to make it a few weeks before the next advancement in his mutation manifested himself. His skin began to itch, first in small, barely noticeable intervals, and then more consistently. At times it was almost unbearable, causing him to scratch so long and harshly that his skin began to tear and peel away, revealing to cause to be two tones of colored scales growing beneath his skin. It took at least a month before the itching stopped, which was only because all of his skin had been lost and replaced by a shining layer of reptilian scales.

Soon after Aleksandr was confined to bed as the last stages in his transformation ran their course. The change from legs to a tail was excruciatingly painful and often caused him to black out when his pain medication wore off. As if the pain in his legs were not enough, more often than not his head felt as if it were trying to split itself open as his teeth and tongue moved and changed, room was made for the venom sacs, his nose flattened and the bones of his skull shifted to create the tails that replaced the hair he once had.

When his unusual growth spurt and skeletal changes had finally subsided, he underwent the frustrating task of learning how to move all over again as well as trying to remaster his native and English languages without injuring himself with his newly formed fangs and the venom they delivered. During his downtime he invested his attention in researching reptiles, hoping the information would help him out somehow.

Throughout the whole process of change and afterward, his family did their best to remain supportive, though he couldn't find the heart to blame them for any distance that seemed to invade their relationships. He did appreciate whatever affection they continued to give him and took any level of separation from the individuals he had once been so similar to as a chance to flex his own sense of independence and worked to regain the confidence he'd possessed before he had changed.

He had long before then figured out that he was a mutant, something that wasn't largely uncommon, but was certainly still considered to be out of the ordinary. There had been a big scare for those with an active X-gene when news of the Registration Act in America swept through his homeland. The strained and fading relationships with his friends were quickly severed with a feeble excuse that it was for safety's sake. They all knew it was truly the fear and distrust that was growing at an alarming rate in his city and others in Russia.

It was the fear and unease in his own home that hurt him the most. Aleksandr was quickly becoming the outsider and he knew it. His parents and siblings were growing closer to each other while he was left to his own devices. Fewer questions were asked when he went out and didn't return in increasingly longer intervals. In turn, he began speaking to them less and at times ignoring them completely. Although it pained him deeply to do so, he was trying his best to put distance between himself and his family, both emotionally and physically. The further away he got from them, the easier it was to believe that the Registration scare would not affect them so strongly.

He took these feelings and used them an as excuse to leave his home for good and set out to more fully pursue his individual existence as well as to try and keep his loved ones safe. He laid low as best he could as consideration of something similar to the Registration spread across the anti-mutant population of Russia. It wasn't until the mutant act in America began to go downhill that he reemerged into his society with less apprehension and more confidence. Mutants were rallying to keep their freedom and to prevent any sort of oppression that might arise in response to the actions of those in the U.S. Aleksandr took interest in this, but rarely ever joined in, preferring to observe rather than to participate. These observations and a growing sense of pride that arose in him after seeing his fellow mutants fighting so hard to be who they were may very well have lead to the vanity that took hold of him and has remained with him to the present day.

It was the long Russian winters that finally forced him to leave his country entirely. Since the activation of his X-gene, the cold had gained a devastating effect over his body and without a constant source of heat nearby, it was very likely that he could have frozen to death. Since he had been following any news he could find of the mutant activity in New York, which seemed to be unusually high, particularly after the Registration Act had been broken down, he decided that it would be a decent place to travel to. In the least he assumed he'd find some sort of kinship with the resident mutants, especially those that made it a point to stand out like he had been learning to do. Not that he had to try all that hard.


Roleplay

What’s your OOC alias?: Isabel
Where did you learn about this site?: Google
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Isabel

Sample RP:
Summer was beginning to wind down at an alarming rate as Fall gradually edged its way closer and closer. The weather mercifully remained comfortably warm, raising hope that the chillier temperatures would hold off for a while longer. Aleksandr was one individual that fully planned on soaking up as much sunlight and warmth as he possibly could before Winter arrived and he was forced to move indoors for a majority of his time until Spring came again. He hated Winter with a passion. The thought of the temperature drop, the biting wind, and the horrible snow that blanketed everything from time to time all sent shivers down his exceptionally long spine. Sure, the snow was very pretty to look at, but it occasionally got stuck to his scales and allowed freezing water to seep through the gaps between his them as it melted, his traction was sometimes cut down to a third of what it normally was, and being buried in the stuff approximately a human's knee high was an awful feeling.

To combat his creeping unease over the inevitable cold, he had decided to spend as much of his day sunbathing as he possibly could. The trick was finding somewhere to curl up in the busy city where he could slip away if any nosy humans decided to make a scene over seeing such an unusual creature. Traveling through the city was always a sort of adventure. Any mode of travel with an automated door was a possibility for him, such as the subway. There wasn't as much of a chance of his tail getting caught as there was with regular doors. He also almost always had at least half a train car to himself. People tended to be a little on edge around giant reptiles. However, most of the staff that worked on the railroad didn't appreciate his impact on their customers and the decreased number of them the employees were able to herd onto the train. Besides, the turnstiles were always a little trickier than was worth it.

He didn't fit in anything smaller than a van, and buses had far too little room to move around in with all those seats. In any case, curling up in a cold metal vehicle sort of defeated the whole purpose of going outside and seeking out a nice sunny spot. Traveling down the street was so much easier. Not only was there warmed pavement beneath him as he moved, but the people around him were always so gracious in clearing a path for him once he'd been noticed. He didn't particularly care if the path was made out of fear or revulsion. He'd long since rearranged his pattern of thought into taking such actions as a compliment. He was a rarity, and deserved stand out in a crowd.

And so, gliding through the city along sidewalks and over crosswalks, Aleksandr snaked his way along the confusing jumble of streets, paying little mind to the humans milling around him. He would, of course, flash a smile for some, particularly those that either exhibited a touch more fear than others, or a particularly eye-catching young woman. He should be appreciated for his outstanding looks, so why shouldn't they receive the same treatment? No matter if they appreciated the gesture or not. In the end he'd be making his way away from those creatures in the end, so there was little harm in playing around with a handful as he went.

By the time he'd made his way to Central Park, he'd noted several different police vehicles cropping up in his path of travel, some stopped while others simply slowed down before proceeding. Some people would alert the police at the drop of a hat. Though in the end, he was next to harmless and hadn't so much as advanced upon anyone in any manner as he went, leaving no cause for New York's Finest to interfere with his outing. By now they'd grown to be nothing more than background noise anyhow. Those than stand out get used to attention eventually, event he unwanted kind.

Following this or that path, he gradually made his way deeper into the Park, carefully observing the flow of people that passed by him, looking for a spot that carried a lesser amount of visitors. Eventually deeming one spot as good as any other that seemed to receive less foot traffic, he didn't hesitate at all in stopping in the dead center of the path. Most that stopped to enjoy the scenery or the sun would likely make themselves at home on one of the many benches spaced out on either side of the paths. Aleksandr rarely ever used any item of furniture nowadays. Besides, the pavement held so much more heat than the wood and metal of the benches, and the majority of his body would just hang off the things anyhow. Paying little to no attention to anyone that kept walking by, rather than changing their course, he shifted his torso from an upright position to sprawling across the heated ground, his stomach flat against the asphalt as his arms crossed in front of him and acted as a head rest where he could place his chin. If the people became too much of a nuisance, he could always curl himself up or find somewhere a little more remote. But for the time being he was content in lazily stretching at his full length and soaking up as much sun as he possibly could.


Photos by kyoht and Natalie Hijazi