Illya Kuryakin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
perilicious) wrote2016-01-13 09:16 pm
perilicious) wrote2016-01-13 09:16 pm
Entry tags:
Altered States: App
Character Information
Character Name: Illya Nikolaevich Kuryakin
Canon: The Man from UNCLE 2015
Canon Point: End of movie
Character Journal: perilicious.dreamwidth.org
Appearance: "You're shaped like a powerlifter, not an architect." -- Uncle Rudi
Illya is tall, about 6'5" tall, and solid without being too muscular. His short blond hair is combed without gel into a side-part in a style that was old-fashioned in the 1960s, though it's often covered by a pageboy cap in a neutral gray tweed. When he is not dressed for a mission, he favors black turtlenecks and gray slacks and boots, clothes that are neutral and easy to move around in. The brown suede bomber jacket is his favorite. He keeps his hands in the pockets of his jacket whenever he can, sitting or standing, and if he can't keep them in his pockets, his arms are folded across his chest. He is always, always wearing a clockwork watch with a broad face and brown band on his left wrist. It's his father's watch, tied into the complications surrounding his family, and he will rage if anything happens to it.
His English is fluent but he has a heavy Russian accent, and sometimes the quirks of the language will cause him to leave off articles and swap the order of phrases.
Photo references:
KGB outfitting now at JC Penney
no hat or sunglasses
East Berlin
Illya and Gaby for stature comparison
table flip for reference
Age: 32
History: Illya Nikolaevich Kuryakin was born in July of 1931, the son and only child of Nikolai Kuryakin, a prominent Politburo member and personal friend of Stalin. As such, he and his father and mother Yelizaveta were well taken care of and provided for, until his father was discovered stealing money from the government. Nikolai was sent to a Siberian gulag when Illya was ten years old, and in order to keep them in the style to which they had become accustomed (and later just to survive), Yelizaveta became "very 'popular' among your father's friends," as Napoleon Solo suggestively put it. Less than a year later, Illya flew into a rage and came close to killing a high-profile 'visitor' to the house, and earned the scar next to his right eye because of it.
The rest of his childhood was spent at a "boarding school" that was closer to a combination prison camp and training ground for Russian special forces, where Illya learned to be fast, hard, strong, and keep any and all weaknesses to himself until he was confident no one could beat him at his own game. Within three years of recruitment to the KGB, he was their best agent.
In 1963, he was assigned on a mission to East Berlin, to prevent a German mechanic from crossing the Berlin Wall and ending up in the hands of the CIA. His failure led directly to a partnership with that same German mechanic, Gaby Teller, and Napoleon Solo, the CIA agent who had barely gotten them out ahead of Illya. The combined talents of these agents of the CIA and KGB (and, as it turned out, MI6) kept an atomic bomb out of the hands of the Nazi party, and they were so successful that it was decided they would stay together as a covert operations group independent of their national ties, the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, codenamed UNCLE. Unfortunately, before the new team could jet off to Istanbul for their first official mission together, Illya somehow disappeared from a balcony in Rome and woke up in the Hudson River.
Personality: Illya Kuryakin is a loyal son of Soviet Russia. He is the KGB's best agent. He is also consistently surly, possesses some exquisite anger issues, and has (most unfortunately) a heart of gold underneath the professional prickly exterior. He is ruthless when focused on a target, but still pays attention to the innocents that surround him. He will fire several shots into a closed trapdoor to a roof, then apologize to the little old lady whose apartment he needs to walk through in order to reach the fire escape and continue his mission. He has a sardonic sense of humor and a complex eye for Western fashion while feeling nothing but disdain for decadent Western lifestyles. He is all sorts of contrasts mixed into one lanky frame, jostling uncomfortably beneath the surface.
Externally, Illya is coldly professional, trained not for deep cover or infiltration but as a blunt instrument, and he wears his covers like overcoats. He is able to grudgingly but efficiently improvise during missions when necessary, but he can be hyper-focused to the point of tunnel vision and he is terrible at BSing on the fly. Word games are not remotely his strength. He would much prefer to take the physical way out of a situation, whether that is a direct fight or intimidation, and is not one to talk his way out of things. That said, he is very good at being the silent menacing presence behind someone else talking their way out of a situation. He has a way of looking at someone curiously, as if assessing which way would be most interesting for dispatching them as best suits the situation.
Internally, he feels everything so close to the surface that if he didn't have such a steel exterior, he would wear his heart on his sleeve. His temper is right beneath the surface, ruthlessly controlled unless triggered, usually by references to his father or his mother. The rage can be bypassed if someone is there to hold him back, or if he can excuse himself, but his anger will be taken out on another target. His insecurities and anger issues have almost certainly been exacerbated by his KGB training, which focused largely on Illya's usefulness as a tool in their arsenal, and emphasized his father's disgrace with Illya's own future disgrace if he fails them. Consequently, he feels he has a great deal to prove, to everyone, and many things that do not need to be contests become contests for him. Despite all he's lost, he does not lose gracefully, and he has a fierce sense of pride that is easily bruised, not so easily lost.
Illya has a good soul. He goes after his reluctant ally Napoleon Solo after he was taken prisoner, when he had no real reason to do so beyond the mission not yet being completed. It might have been possible to complete the mission alone. No one would have questioned it if he had let Solo die, certainly not his KGB masters. But he did not hesitate, because after Solo saved his life, there was no question he would do the same. He would have had a great deal of difficulty with it if directly ordered to leave Solo behind. He takes everything seriously. If it's happening, it's happening 100%. When he is engaged to Gaby Teller for a cover, he treats it as an engagement, to the point of growing jealous and angry when one of their targets flirts with her and she flirts back. His insecurities are vulnerabilities and if an opponent knows how to find them, they are easily exploitable, but try as he might, he still cares too much.
Illya is going to hate the 21st century. He will be utterly dismayed to discover that the Soviets lost the war and capitalism has spread throughout the world. Western values are everywhere now, and the jump in technology has left him far behind. He will get used to it because it has always been a survival technique to get used to new technology, but he will not understand the greed and frantic pace of New York in 2015. He will need to make connections with people before he finds himself feeling comfortable there. In addition, becoming an American citizen chafes like nothing else, and having no connection with the KGB (which no longer even exists, and did not employ him when it did) will push him even further off-balance. He will be snappish but desperate to find how he fits in now, the place he belongs.
Powers/Special Abilities: Sharpshooter with handguns and long-distance rifles. Very strong (though not supernaturally strong). KGB-trained fighting abilities. 'Berserker' mode potential when extremely angry. Fluent in Russian, English, German. Ranked International Master in chess.
River Power: Lucky Charm. Upon arrival, Illya will be surrounded by an aura (approximate ten-foot radius) of low-level good luck for everyone he comes in contact with. People who encounter him are more likely to find twenty dollars in their pocket and less likely to have a pen start leaking. As he starts to realize the effect he has, he will start testing it to see how far away he can be from someone before his lucky influence fades, and if he can increase it to make someone extra-lucky (landing the job of their dreams) or keep it from affecting someone entirely. Like anything else, it will take practice to control it, but he will start to be able to sense the edges and intensity of his luck-generating field when he tries manipulating it. As he gains more control, the effects of the luck will start to last longer after people have moved on from him. Eventually, he might be able to shake hands with someone and seriously increase the odds that they have the best day of their life.
He will be disgusted with this ability at first. What a useless thing this is. Depending on luck is a ridiculous soft Western idea. But despite trying to deny it, his innate good nature will win out and he will find himself practicing and refining his ability to help the people around him. Although he will probably always be a little surly about it.
Reason for Character Choice: I have a soft spot for Russians, and I adored the Man from UNCLE TV show growing up, so I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to be bringing home a tall surly Russian murderpuppy when I went to see the Man from UNCLE movie, and I was not wrong. I love exploring Illya and finding out what happens when his sweeping assumptions are challenged. Altered States will give me a chance to play Illya Kuryakin Versus the 21st Century, one of my most favorite things, and making him a lucky charm just ties in so well with his reluctant good nature. I'm really excited to find out how this goes.
Additional Information: Illya's anger issues sound like more of a problem than they are. In daily life, he will never reach full berserker mode. His parents are a very dangerous subject, but he will deflect the conversation rather than sitting back and letting himself get angry.
Writing Samples
First-Person Transmission Sample: [When the video clicks on, the audio picks up some very irritated-sounding muttering. If anyone understands Russian, it's mostly creative insults. Once the speaker realizes he's broadcasting, there is a "finally" in heavily accented English and the view stabilizes at arm's length. The handsome face beneath the pageboy cap is thunderous.]
Cannot just talk to someone in the future, this is not—
[He cuts himself off and the view skews as he lets his arm drop for a moment. When it centers on his face again, he sounds colder but calmer. Businesslike.]
My name is Illya Kuryakin. I am from...out of town. There are questions I have about this place. Have been told this is where I can find answers.
[He looks like he wants to say more, then huffs and glares at the screen again, stabs at it with a finger, and the transmission goes dark.]
Third-Person Log Sample: Illya Kuryakin had sometimes wondered if he would see New York one day. It seemed likely that the KGB's best agent would someday be sent to America's largest city, and now here he was. Everything about it had been terrible at first, and if pressed he would argue that everything about it was still terrible, but this little section of Rockefeller Park was not so bad. The permanent installation of old men playing chess and complaining in a multitude of languages had welcomed the new blood, especially once he demonstrated that he could hold his own when it was his turn to sit on the stone seat, scowling at the chessboard.
New York was fast, loud, angry and kind by turns. He was more comfortable here in this park (and among his contemporaries, if they only knew it) than anywhere else he had found since crawling out of that river. He could be a little bit more himself here, speak in Russian or in German, reminisce (carefully) about the old days with others who had lived through them. They liked him, too. Every time he turned up, one of them found ten dollars in his pocket, or won a coin flip, or managed to recover his tipped-over coffee without spilling it.
He was fifteen moves from checkmate against Sergei now and the game progressed at a leisurely pace, slowly enough for him to glance around in between moves and watch the other occupants of the park. A young woman jogged by wearing what would have been termed next to nothing in the old days, with white wires coming out of her ears. No one took much notice, but Illya's head snapped around as he heard, "Booster, no!"
"No cheating," he said sternly to Sergei as he stood and took off across the park to intercept a happily running dog trailing a leash behind it. But as it got within a few paces of him, the dog just stopped its headlong rush for no reason Illya could see, and sat down as if commanded. After a moment, he picked up the leash and held it out to the young girl finally catching up with it.
"Hold tight this time," he advised, and she nodded with wide eyes before flinging herself at him in a surprise hug. "You're welcome?" he added after a moment, giving her an awkward pat on the head before peeling out of the hug and slinking back to his seat.
He endured a pat on the shoulder and a jovial accusation of being a good luck charm before scowling across the table and pointing at the board. "That is not where that pawn was."
Sergei chuckled and moved the pawn back to the correct square.
Character Name: Illya Nikolaevich Kuryakin
Canon: The Man from UNCLE 2015
Canon Point: End of movie
Character Journal: perilicious.dreamwidth.org
Appearance: "You're shaped like a powerlifter, not an architect." -- Uncle Rudi
Illya is tall, about 6'5" tall, and solid without being too muscular. His short blond hair is combed without gel into a side-part in a style that was old-fashioned in the 1960s, though it's often covered by a pageboy cap in a neutral gray tweed. When he is not dressed for a mission, he favors black turtlenecks and gray slacks and boots, clothes that are neutral and easy to move around in. The brown suede bomber jacket is his favorite. He keeps his hands in the pockets of his jacket whenever he can, sitting or standing, and if he can't keep them in his pockets, his arms are folded across his chest. He is always, always wearing a clockwork watch with a broad face and brown band on his left wrist. It's his father's watch, tied into the complications surrounding his family, and he will rage if anything happens to it.
His English is fluent but he has a heavy Russian accent, and sometimes the quirks of the language will cause him to leave off articles and swap the order of phrases.
Photo references:
Age: 32
History: Illya Nikolaevich Kuryakin was born in July of 1931, the son and only child of Nikolai Kuryakin, a prominent Politburo member and personal friend of Stalin. As such, he and his father and mother Yelizaveta were well taken care of and provided for, until his father was discovered stealing money from the government. Nikolai was sent to a Siberian gulag when Illya was ten years old, and in order to keep them in the style to which they had become accustomed (and later just to survive), Yelizaveta became "very 'popular' among your father's friends," as Napoleon Solo suggestively put it. Less than a year later, Illya flew into a rage and came close to killing a high-profile 'visitor' to the house, and earned the scar next to his right eye because of it.
The rest of his childhood was spent at a "boarding school" that was closer to a combination prison camp and training ground for Russian special forces, where Illya learned to be fast, hard, strong, and keep any and all weaknesses to himself until he was confident no one could beat him at his own game. Within three years of recruitment to the KGB, he was their best agent.
In 1963, he was assigned on a mission to East Berlin, to prevent a German mechanic from crossing the Berlin Wall and ending up in the hands of the CIA. His failure led directly to a partnership with that same German mechanic, Gaby Teller, and Napoleon Solo, the CIA agent who had barely gotten them out ahead of Illya. The combined talents of these agents of the CIA and KGB (and, as it turned out, MI6) kept an atomic bomb out of the hands of the Nazi party, and they were so successful that it was decided they would stay together as a covert operations group independent of their national ties, the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, codenamed UNCLE. Unfortunately, before the new team could jet off to Istanbul for their first official mission together, Illya somehow disappeared from a balcony in Rome and woke up in the Hudson River.
Personality: Illya Kuryakin is a loyal son of Soviet Russia. He is the KGB's best agent. He is also consistently surly, possesses some exquisite anger issues, and has (most unfortunately) a heart of gold underneath the professional prickly exterior. He is ruthless when focused on a target, but still pays attention to the innocents that surround him. He will fire several shots into a closed trapdoor to a roof, then apologize to the little old lady whose apartment he needs to walk through in order to reach the fire escape and continue his mission. He has a sardonic sense of humor and a complex eye for Western fashion while feeling nothing but disdain for decadent Western lifestyles. He is all sorts of contrasts mixed into one lanky frame, jostling uncomfortably beneath the surface.
Externally, Illya is coldly professional, trained not for deep cover or infiltration but as a blunt instrument, and he wears his covers like overcoats. He is able to grudgingly but efficiently improvise during missions when necessary, but he can be hyper-focused to the point of tunnel vision and he is terrible at BSing on the fly. Word games are not remotely his strength. He would much prefer to take the physical way out of a situation, whether that is a direct fight or intimidation, and is not one to talk his way out of things. That said, he is very good at being the silent menacing presence behind someone else talking their way out of a situation. He has a way of looking at someone curiously, as if assessing which way would be most interesting for dispatching them as best suits the situation.
Internally, he feels everything so close to the surface that if he didn't have such a steel exterior, he would wear his heart on his sleeve. His temper is right beneath the surface, ruthlessly controlled unless triggered, usually by references to his father or his mother. The rage can be bypassed if someone is there to hold him back, or if he can excuse himself, but his anger will be taken out on another target. His insecurities and anger issues have almost certainly been exacerbated by his KGB training, which focused largely on Illya's usefulness as a tool in their arsenal, and emphasized his father's disgrace with Illya's own future disgrace if he fails them. Consequently, he feels he has a great deal to prove, to everyone, and many things that do not need to be contests become contests for him. Despite all he's lost, he does not lose gracefully, and he has a fierce sense of pride that is easily bruised, not so easily lost.
Illya has a good soul. He goes after his reluctant ally Napoleon Solo after he was taken prisoner, when he had no real reason to do so beyond the mission not yet being completed. It might have been possible to complete the mission alone. No one would have questioned it if he had let Solo die, certainly not his KGB masters. But he did not hesitate, because after Solo saved his life, there was no question he would do the same. He would have had a great deal of difficulty with it if directly ordered to leave Solo behind. He takes everything seriously. If it's happening, it's happening 100%. When he is engaged to Gaby Teller for a cover, he treats it as an engagement, to the point of growing jealous and angry when one of their targets flirts with her and she flirts back. His insecurities are vulnerabilities and if an opponent knows how to find them, they are easily exploitable, but try as he might, he still cares too much.
Illya is going to hate the 21st century. He will be utterly dismayed to discover that the Soviets lost the war and capitalism has spread throughout the world. Western values are everywhere now, and the jump in technology has left him far behind. He will get used to it because it has always been a survival technique to get used to new technology, but he will not understand the greed and frantic pace of New York in 2015. He will need to make connections with people before he finds himself feeling comfortable there. In addition, becoming an American citizen chafes like nothing else, and having no connection with the KGB (which no longer even exists, and did not employ him when it did) will push him even further off-balance. He will be snappish but desperate to find how he fits in now, the place he belongs.
Powers/Special Abilities: Sharpshooter with handguns and long-distance rifles. Very strong (though not supernaturally strong). KGB-trained fighting abilities. 'Berserker' mode potential when extremely angry. Fluent in Russian, English, German. Ranked International Master in chess.
River Power: Lucky Charm. Upon arrival, Illya will be surrounded by an aura (approximate ten-foot radius) of low-level good luck for everyone he comes in contact with. People who encounter him are more likely to find twenty dollars in their pocket and less likely to have a pen start leaking. As he starts to realize the effect he has, he will start testing it to see how far away he can be from someone before his lucky influence fades, and if he can increase it to make someone extra-lucky (landing the job of their dreams) or keep it from affecting someone entirely. Like anything else, it will take practice to control it, but he will start to be able to sense the edges and intensity of his luck-generating field when he tries manipulating it. As he gains more control, the effects of the luck will start to last longer after people have moved on from him. Eventually, he might be able to shake hands with someone and seriously increase the odds that they have the best day of their life.
He will be disgusted with this ability at first. What a useless thing this is. Depending on luck is a ridiculous soft Western idea. But despite trying to deny it, his innate good nature will win out and he will find himself practicing and refining his ability to help the people around him. Although he will probably always be a little surly about it.
Reason for Character Choice: I have a soft spot for Russians, and I adored the Man from UNCLE TV show growing up, so I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to be bringing home a tall surly Russian murderpuppy when I went to see the Man from UNCLE movie, and I was not wrong. I love exploring Illya and finding out what happens when his sweeping assumptions are challenged. Altered States will give me a chance to play Illya Kuryakin Versus the 21st Century, one of my most favorite things, and making him a lucky charm just ties in so well with his reluctant good nature. I'm really excited to find out how this goes.
Additional Information: Illya's anger issues sound like more of a problem than they are. In daily life, he will never reach full berserker mode. His parents are a very dangerous subject, but he will deflect the conversation rather than sitting back and letting himself get angry.
Writing Samples
First-Person Transmission Sample: [When the video clicks on, the audio picks up some very irritated-sounding muttering. If anyone understands Russian, it's mostly creative insults. Once the speaker realizes he's broadcasting, there is a "finally" in heavily accented English and the view stabilizes at arm's length. The handsome face beneath the pageboy cap is thunderous.]
Cannot just talk to someone in the future, this is not—
[He cuts himself off and the view skews as he lets his arm drop for a moment. When it centers on his face again, he sounds colder but calmer. Businesslike.]
My name is Illya Kuryakin. I am from...out of town. There are questions I have about this place. Have been told this is where I can find answers.
[He looks like he wants to say more, then huffs and glares at the screen again, stabs at it with a finger, and the transmission goes dark.]
Third-Person Log Sample: Illya Kuryakin had sometimes wondered if he would see New York one day. It seemed likely that the KGB's best agent would someday be sent to America's largest city, and now here he was. Everything about it had been terrible at first, and if pressed he would argue that everything about it was still terrible, but this little section of Rockefeller Park was not so bad. The permanent installation of old men playing chess and complaining in a multitude of languages had welcomed the new blood, especially once he demonstrated that he could hold his own when it was his turn to sit on the stone seat, scowling at the chessboard.
New York was fast, loud, angry and kind by turns. He was more comfortable here in this park (and among his contemporaries, if they only knew it) than anywhere else he had found since crawling out of that river. He could be a little bit more himself here, speak in Russian or in German, reminisce (carefully) about the old days with others who had lived through them. They liked him, too. Every time he turned up, one of them found ten dollars in his pocket, or won a coin flip, or managed to recover his tipped-over coffee without spilling it.
He was fifteen moves from checkmate against Sergei now and the game progressed at a leisurely pace, slowly enough for him to glance around in between moves and watch the other occupants of the park. A young woman jogged by wearing what would have been termed next to nothing in the old days, with white wires coming out of her ears. No one took much notice, but Illya's head snapped around as he heard, "Booster, no!"
"No cheating," he said sternly to Sergei as he stood and took off across the park to intercept a happily running dog trailing a leash behind it. But as it got within a few paces of him, the dog just stopped its headlong rush for no reason Illya could see, and sat down as if commanded. After a moment, he picked up the leash and held it out to the young girl finally catching up with it.
"Hold tight this time," he advised, and she nodded with wide eyes before flinging herself at him in a surprise hug. "You're welcome?" he added after a moment, giving her an awkward pat on the head before peeling out of the hug and slinking back to his seat.
He endured a pat on the shoulder and a jovial accusation of being a good luck charm before scowling across the table and pointing at the board. "That is not where that pawn was."
Sergei chuckled and moved the pawn back to the correct square.