Gerel

A kind but closed-off woman with a chip on her shoulder.

45

Female.

5'7"

139 lbs.

Square shoulders, rectangle form, longer legs than torso, very slight and flat curves.

Pure black

Long hair, wavy and prone to frizzing; she tries her best to keep it all concentrated in a low, tight braid down her back, with hair-clips for her bangs.

Human; Mongolian.

Very tan

Steel grey

Naturally arched eyebrows, so, coupled with her unblinking stare she looks permanently unimpressed.

PTSD - violent and and scared and uncontrollable reactions that are triggered by things like cat-calling, non-consensual advances, and any situation that could spiral into sexual violence. Gerel is, oddly enough, only triggered when she sees these things happening to others, not herself.

Has a subtle accent. Has a piercing, drilling gaze. Holds her head high and does not falter in her step, nor her gaze. Gerel does not mince words, and does not regret what she says, as it is always thought-through. Steeples her fingers when she is thinking hard about something.

It can be argued that, under the guise of "freeing" those with no power, she is simply carrying out her own revenge based on her own experience and biases. At the end of the day, it's still murder, but Gerel is very good at convincing herself that she is right. It's simple payback.

She knows she is growing old, but still she finds it hard to "retire", to "settle down", though it has always been a far-off wish of hers to choose a second family, after she moved on from the loss of her husband. She fears that if she stops moving, her sins as well as her demons will finally catch up to her.

Very biased against straight men and white men in particular; actively looks for reasons, in her interactions with them, to dislike them.

Vengeful: she feels a heavy weight from the constant violence against women around her, and feels the responsibility to save those who cannot save themselves, while punishing those who have, indirectly, through their actions, hurt her as well. When they hurt a woman they hurt her, and when they get away with their actions Gerel is left without justice for herself.

Doubtful of good intent, skeptical to favors; there is no such thing as a free lunch, after all. She despises being in debt to anyone, in any way, because she believes that as soon as you accept help from someone they will expect something in return, and she would rather die than put herself in such a degrading position. She always expects the worst, from people, from circumstances, from the universe.

Sets the bar too high for herself, and often for others as well. Very slow to trust, and even then may doubt a person's sincerity a good portion of the time. She is not insecure, but she has no faith in others and does not trust them to be truthful with her, does not trust them to genuinely care for her and expect nothing in return.

Perhaps she's simply pushing it down, simply lying to herself, but Gerel does not often feel regret for her actions, though she's aware of their severity. There's an angry numbness to it now.

She does not mourn the loss of loved ones: rather, she resorts to everyday habits and schedules, mechanically goes on with her life until the pain fades, until she is not thinking of them every hour of every day anymore. She forces a productivity to counter emotions she doesn't think she can deal with.

Obviously, fluent in Russian and Mongolian, and is slowly learning Finnish out of interest (she likes the challenge). She speaks very concisely, very clearly, and is a good orater.

Possesses heightened strength, speed and agility. Sharpshooter.

Making jam and fruit preserves, letting herself get swarmed by birds at the park when she feeds them, petting people's dogs (only ever smiling at the dog, not the owner). Knits occasionally.

She collects odd trinkets, simply for aesthetic purposes; garden gnomes, creepy dolls, glass heads, papier-mâchés of dead birds. They sit around her apartment as decoration.

Gerel comes off very, very cold, even judgmental. She has no patience for small-talk, and cares about earning respect much more than she cares about building good relations. She is stubborn but not ignorant, and definitely not close-minded: her opinions shift quite periodically depending on the new things she learns, on the debates she has with people who's intelligence she respects.

Has a dry, oftentimes pitch-black sense of humor. Her laugh sounds more like a scoff than anything, and she's more likely to smile sardonically than to actually laugh. She does not suppress thinking something is funny, but people are still surprised when they manage to please her with a joke. Jokes aside, she is easier to please than many seem to think, she simply doesn't show it very easily.

Neither does she open up easily, but Gerel is upfront about her goals and dislikes, appreciating when others can reciprocate this bluntness. She prioritizes clarity of communication over feelings, and may have trouble realizing how she may have upset someone until she replays her own words in her head several times and really scrutinizes them.

There's a kindness and a goodwill to her actions, and to her work as a superhero as well as a teacher, but she does not give away this kindness freely. She shows she cares through actions of practicality, and these often have little delicacy, simply a "I know this is useful to you, take it" kind of vibe.

She is pessimistic, cynical, her faith in humanity having been chipped away over the years by personal misfortunes and her inability to understand herself. She is not timid, not anymore, but she can be self-conscious, especially around those few she tries to impress, to connect with.

Currently a Linguistics professor at UCLA.

As a hero she's... very unpredictable in the work she does: in fact, news anchors constantly question whether she's a hero or a villain, and have labeled her a vigilante although she doesn't seem to ally herself with any particular organization. People will praise her for arriving to derail a terrorist attack, and then will murmur about how she eradicated a huge sample of individuals for seemingly no reason (she knows they were all men who had abused their partners or sex workers or their children, but it's not like she left a note). She very much serves her own agenda, stands by what she believes is right, and her moral compass tends to shift depending on every new experience, every new person she talks to and who's story she learns. In many ways a hero "for the people", for those who are systematically marginalized, but stays in the shadows despite this, not searching for recognition.

Keeps her opinions to herself, political debates get too out-of-control for her liking. She knows that just because she is safe in a system, doesn't mean everyone is, though she is rarely in the satisfied majority; and she knows it's impossible to please everyone.

Buddhist, not particularly practicing, it's more of a cultural thing than a spiritual one for Gerel.

A necklace she inherited from her mother, that has been passed down for generations: it's the only sentimentality Gerel will stand for.

Likes tea, black, and likes coffee, black.

She tries to cook meals for herself, but it never tastes quite how she wanted it to, and it's not the same as her mother's cooking, or when Nick used to cook with her, or for her.

Blue and beige.

Really likes dogs, but also cows and horses. Just, all animals are wonderful, with no ill-intent because they lack self-awareness.

She wishes she could ride into battle on a horse, but alas that would just create more challenges in an urban area like LA.

A tie between her double-edged battleaxe, and her bow and arrow. Is fascinated by flails but doesn't have complete mastery over one.

August 29. Virgo.

PhD in Linguistics.

Gerel grew up in Darkhan with her mother, her father a deceased man. She was usually regarded as "that strange girl with a man's walk", but was usually left alone, or else kept people at a distance with a sour face.

She was 15, walking home from the grocery store during the evening, when she was backed into a dark alleyway by a group of men, significantly older, and significantly bigger than her. (She tried to get away, to avoid them, she did she really did.) She could recognize their voices but could not see their faces, and she didn't have to listen to them talk to know what they had in store for her. (She kept telling herself the biggest lie of her life, that she wasn't scared, that she would be fine.) I need to get home she told them. Please let me get home she told them. You're not going anywhere they told her. You're gonna have some fun with us they told her. One of them grabbed her, and her groceries fell to the ground. She heard the eggs crack, and she could no longer pretend she wasn't scared. (She was scared she was scared she was so scared.) She could not scream, she had no time to scream with all the fear and ice in her bones, shocking her, freezing her. Another one grabbed her, made to roughly tug at her clothes.

And then it gets blurry. Not blurry, dark.

I was saved she tells the officer later. A lady appeared, I don't know from where, and she saved me she tells him.

The four men are dead. Dismembered in an alleyway.

(It wasn't her. How could it be her? How could she have done that to four grown men?) There's blood on her, from her close proximity to the victims. I don't know where she is now she tells the officers. I don't remember what happened, I think I passed out she tells them.

(It was her. But it wasn't her, it was her but a different her. It was a her that was in control, that was enraged like she was not usually, violent like she never allowed herself to believe she could be. It wasn't her but it was her it wasn't her her it was it was.)

The case is abandoned. Gerel is released without charges.

She moves to the U.S with her mother a few years later.

Wrong Bitch - Todrick Hall ft. Bob The Drag Queen
Nightmare - Halsey
Anck Su Namum - YEZI
You Don't Know Me - Jax Jones
Sorry - Beyonce
Monster - Gabbie Hanna
Back To December - Taylor Swift

• Nick, deceased husband: He courted her for several months at the bar Gerel went to to watch football. He never touched her, never asked for a date (after the initial refusal of being bought a drink), just chatted with her occasionally about the game and sat next to her as they both watched the screen.
  He helped her warn a girl that some men were planning to follow her outside and possibly ambush her, as Gerel's English was not very good yet, especially in her panicked state. He was all the more smitten with her after that; but he invited her out, as a friend, to the Natural History Museum, assuming correctly that it suited her tastes. At this point Gerel regarded Nick as a harmless, if not benevolent, acquaintance, and slowly a genuine friendship developed, slowly developing into a mutual courtship.
  They dated for several years before getting married, and Gerel, at 24, figured she might actually be happy now: Nick genuinely loved her and he kept her safe and, really, his only flaw was the smoking, the only flaw she saw in him.
  Nick was diagnosed with lung cancer three years into their marriage. There wasn't really anything anyone could do, unless they wanted to amass gigantic hospital bills that would still fail to save Nick. It was a long, prolonged, painful goodbye.
  Gerel still wears his ring sometimes, when going to a new place, for comfort and irrational luck.

Bisexual.

• Likes long skirts and cardigans, many layers, warm socks.


• Shades of faded blue and beige, the occasional spark of color that signals she felt better than usual that morning.


• Doesn't really know how to accent her body in attractive ways, because she has never tried; on the contrary, prefers to hide her shape with slight bagginess, with full coverage.


• Doesn't care much for jewelry, nor for heels, but wears her mother's necklace even in her sleep.