Hear Him Out

Q&A: Kolya Reizner

oh hell no who put grandpa on the mic

me: saving a file locally any program: hii 😏save it on the cloud... 😫🫠hey did you know we have a cloud service??😳🤤 hey🥺. you want to save locally 😫😭but pleassse upload. 🫠😫😫omg our service now includes😈 online sevicr😏👄. upload it to 🤤clowud👄..we have a 👀 cloud🤤🥺🥺. give it to me Rachel😳😫hey! 😘 look!!👀👀 online servbive .save it on 💦 our 💦 server💦🥺🥺 😈. oww m g 👉🏻👈🏻pleasss😳🥴 uploard your fileee on our cloud service😭😩. it's so good!!😵‍💫 give it to mmmeee 😫🥺 do it.👄 noo 😮not locally🥴😭😭. use our 😘online servjceeee👉🏻👈🏻😩

i have never met an unpsychotic person who knows what it actually means to “not encourage the delusion” …not a single one

i want john to narrate an ocean nature documentary

“OH ORTHER…. that jellyfish… it’s.. massive”

also he’d make everything sound like some hideous sea monster

“it’s fins turn up in knife-like spikes, it’s bulbous eye, protrudes from its head…” (he’s literally just describing a common sea bass)

thats my emotional support spicy kitten

Both me and my friend felt nostalgic so we made Techno and Philza into Honkai Star Rail characters

What's up with the Reizners (Kolya & Nikita)?

Better late than never: the loredump on Nikita and Kolya Reizner is finally here!

If you read my blog, you may already know some of this information. But it's always nice to have things organised.

So let's talk about them.

Childhood

Nikita and Kolya as kids.

Nikita and Kolya grew up in a small countryside town, with Nikita being older by three years. Their mother was a nurse, their father a factory worker.

Nikita was always positioned as an example for Kolya: he was the smarter one, the one that knew how to get along with people, the one that could stand up for himself. Kolya, on the other hand, was absent-minded, meek, and showed little interest in communicating with others.

This made him an easy target for bullying. Sometimes Nikita tried to ignore it, sometimes he stood up for him. Kolya would have preferred if he stuck to the former - having his brother defend and then scold him for not being assertive enough was more degrading than being picked on.

University

Kolya always enjoyed tinkering with electronics, so he went for an electrician degree. He wasn’t an exceptional student, but he enjoyed it significantly more than school. People didn’t bother him nearly as much.

Nikita enrolled in the biology department of a pedagogical university. He worked hard to get rid of his countryside accent and blend in with the more “educated” crowd.

He joined the admission committee after his first year, which is how he met Nadya: she was applying to the philology department of the university. Their relationship began shortly after.

Joining the stalker business

Kolya wanted an escape from society more than anything. And the anomalous Zone outside the city called to him, insistently so.

It was a time when the border was significantly less tight, when big stalker groups were still prevalent, but already on their way out. He met Victor Kazarin in one such group. The latter was still a young stalker, with only a couple of years behind his belt.

Still, under his guidance, Kolya’s abilities developed incredibly fast - he was a total natural. And it wasn't just his sharp talent, it was the way he walked the Zone, the way he loved it with all of his heart.

Experiencing a sense of freedom and levity isn't uncommon for stalkers. But to Kolya it went far beyond that. To him, it felt more real than anything else in the world, it was the only place that felt truly alive.

When Nikita found out about Kolya’s side gig, he was mortified. How could his slow, empty-headed brother survive in those conditions? How could he ever navigate that dark criminal business? He had to keep an eye on him.

After realising he cannot talk Kolya out of it, Nikita joined the same group. He never developed a strong sense for the Zone’s anomalies, but his biological knowledge paid off in a major way. Despite not having a medical degree, he knew more than enough to take on the rare doctor role.

After finding somewhere he finally felt complete, Kolya was once again treated as a clueless, incompetent child.

When the big group was showing signs of deterioration, Victor offered the brothers and several other stalkers to leave and form a smaller, more tightly-knit team. His connections from working in the militia (local police) created a solid basis for finding potential clients and covering things up.

Nikita's arrest

Maybe somebody snitched, maybe Kolya’s behaviour raised suspicion among his day job coworkers - whatever the reason, his house was searched and numerous artefacts were found.

But what would someone as soft and careless as him do in prison? Somebody as naive and weak could never last there, Nikita thought.

So he did what he had to: acted like the artefacts found in the younger brother’s apartment were his and then aggressively resisted arrest - just for good measure. Hell, maybe he would have managed to get away.

But he didn’t. As opposed to other stalkers having their scars bestowed by the Zone, the one on his neck was the result of a police confrontation. Nikita did not expect them to open fire when he ran. He was surprised he lived at all - the bullet grazed uncomfortably close to the carotid artery. He lucked out.

Kolya had never felt that insulted. He tried to come clean about being the real culprit. But Nikita knew how to be convincing; Kolya didn't. And Kolya felt no gratitude. 

Breakup with Nadya

The breakup in the Mill.

Nikita was given 4 years in prison, but got parole after serving just 2. He immediately returned to helping injured stalkers.

Nadya waited for him through all his prison years. Considering how their relationship was going, some part of Nikita secretly hoped she wouldn't. She was a very self-conscious person, one that was infatuated with someone who seemed so much more confident than her. To the point where she felt like without his guidance, she’d be completely lost, and useless, and stupid.

Nikita both liked it and didn’t. Who wouldn’t enjoy a beautiful girl obsessing over them? But dealing with all of that baggage was inconvenient, it was tiring. Was it even worth it? Sometimes he wasn’t sure.

Still, things looked sweet on his release. Everyone, Kolya included, seemed glad to have him back.

Then, several months later, Nadya announced she was pregnant.

Nikita didn't want a child, especially not one that would have an almost guaranteed mutation. He proposed an abortion, but the woman refused. His reasoning that she usually took as gospel did not work. And no matter how much Nadya cried or pleaded with him, no matter how much she tried to convince him it would be okay, Nikita refused to take that burden upon himself. 

There was no easy compromise. He left.

Kolya didn't have much of an opinion about Nadya. He didn't have much of an opinion about most people. And really, he didn't feel particularly bad for her.

However, hearing about what had happened made him repulsed in a quite satisfying way. The brother that always knew best, the brother that was so condescendingly self-sacrificing, had finally levelled himself with the rest of the earth's scum.

Months later Nikita would seek out the maternity hospital Nadya gave birth in. He wasn't registered as the father - he could not access any information about her. He couldn't contact her himself either.

Her acquaintances refused to talk with him. But eventually, one of them caved.

Nadya was pregnant with twins. Died while giving birth. The offspring was transferred directly to the institute. And that was it.

Raising Sergei and Sasha

It was a dumb death. A misstep. Kolya wasn’t sure what he felt when he saw Victor’s body turn to mush. It was so instant and so simple. Natural. Kolya’s breath halted, but just momentarily.

They had a plan prepared long in advance in case something like this would come to pass. Sending Sasha and Sergei to the orphanage was not an option, everyone had been well aware of the state of those systems. Instead, Victor Kazarin would live on, if only on paper.

They held a funeral of sorts: to onlookers, it was just an uncharacteristically big visit to the grave of Maria Kazarina. That was where Kolya informed Sergei about the plan. Him and Nikita would help raise the siblings until Sergei turned 18 and could become his sister’s legal guardian. Of course, they’d help him afterwards as well.

Kolya and Nikita raising Sergei and Sasha.

Sasha was fascinating to Kolya in a “child of the Zone” way, but he wasn’t very interested in her on a personal level. To her, he was the strange spaced out uncle that had cool electronics around the house and took pictures of her and Sergei. He also played the guitar like her dad used to.

Kolya and Sergei had a lot more to talk about. Kolya’s calm demeanour helped Sergei feel more at ease despite the terrible circumstances. Even with his ditzy nature, Kolya provided a certain sense of security and comfort. Kolya always considered Sergei a good kid, though he did believe his treatment of Sasha was too overbearing, especially considering his own relationship with Nikita.

The latter, on the other hand, was much closer to the girl. She liked to play with Nikita even before her father’s death, so the adoptive uncle role came to him naturally. Sasha grew very attached to him, especially since he was significantly easier to talk to than Sergei. Nikita, in turn, was happy to have Sasha around.

The Grinder incident

The group heading out to the mission in the Mill.

Beyond the Grinder lies the wishing room. At least, that’s what they say. It’s a rumour impossible to confirm or disprove. Can you really pass the whole stretch of the tunnel before your legs, your arms, your face, your whole body disintegrates? You don’t know. Do you want to find out? Probably not.

The natural human instinct for survival can only be superseded by total desperation – or apathy in equal measure. Did Kolya have enough of any? Neither Sergei, nor Olya knew. They didn’t know why he had to enter the Grinder, either. Was that what he had wanted from the start? When was “the start”? Maybe it didn’t matter.

They could not follow him. And that alone was good.  

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