Megan "Meg" Gassert

[Monad*]

Name: Megan "Meg" Gassert
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Internet, fanfiction, reading, romantic comedies, Gay/Straight Alliance, Chess Club and Anime Club.

Appearance: Meg is large. At just over six feet - 6'1" - she even overshadows a fair number of the boys at Aurora. With a weight of 220 pounds, she's just shy of being clinically obese. Though her stomach is pronounced and gives her a general egg shape, her legs are thick enough to make her appear almost evenly proportioned in the hips and thighs. Her curly auburn hair is often kept in a tight bun with bangs dangling on her brow, but occasionally she lets her hair down to her shoulders. She's short-sighted, and though she has a pair of contacts she more often wears a pair of rectangular glasses with a gold chain - her so-called librarian glasses. She has a round face with pale skin, and a thick neck that almost forms a double chin. She has high, prominent cheekbones, but her plump lips and large, bright blue eyes give her face a very child-like appearance.

She tends to wear peach-colored or gray shawls worn over baggy shirts or hoodies in pink, green or blue. The baggy clothes downplay her size, but she often pairs these with the tightest jeans available. She is also known to wear the occasional graphic tee - often those sporting anime characters on them - but only does so with a light jacket or shirt to go over her shoulders. No matter what the weather is like, she always wears layers and something is always draping or flowing behind her.

Biography: Megan was the second child born to Michael and Sarah Gassert. Their first was a boy named Samuel, but due to a urinary tract infection he was born weak and died in intensive care.

Michael was a firefighter, Sarah a teller at the local bank. They lived in a subrub of Lynnwood and both of them were prominent among the church and the neighborhood committee. However, after Sarah lost her first baby, that popularity took a sharp decline and the family became more withdrawn.

It took five years for the Gasserts to try again, and they had changed a great deal by then. Michael threw himself into his faith while Sarah stopped going to church at all. They held together despite everything, and once they reconciled with their misfortune they tried again. Megan didn't hear about Sam until she was seven, when a friend of the family brought it up. That conversation solidified in Megan as one of her first childhood memories.

Megan grew up experiencing the slow return of the Gasserts to that picture-perfect American standard they used to have, so she grew up more than a little spoiled. Both parents babied her, allowing her to tantrum her way to almost anything. When she entered elementary school, this attitude raised problems for Megan, though not quite in the expected way; as soon as Megan left kindergarten, she immediately saw that crying for what she wanted would no longer bring results. Instead, she started to grow a little more aggressive. She became a bully in the early grades, but only antagonized other kids when she felt she needed it to get her way. If she could get away with it, she preferred to take what she wanted in secret. However, when she went from the third to the fourth grade, the makeup of her class changed in a significant way - she no longer had the size advantage. A trio of girls began to give Megan some trouble, and ironically by doing so they curbed her own selfishness. She had only picked on people because she didn't think it was a big deal. The instant someone picked on her, she saw that it wasn't any fun at all to be victimized.

Megan had begun to gain weight by this point, and that made sure the bullying never stopped. As the girls of her class matured, they picked out Megan and chastised her for being unattractive. It never escalated to physical violence, but Megan was often subjected to rituals composed by other girls - the most common of which was trying to push her on boys just to see their disgusted reactions. In spite of how the tables had turned for her, Megan still made a few friends, some of whom stayed with her up into middle and high school.

Middle school saw Megan through some of her more extreme changes. All the aggressive tendencies of elementary school faded with the company of her friends. Though they had a penchant for some venomous gossip, they were more interested in writing smutty fanfiction.  First, Megan liked to write about literary characters, but soon she moved to manga - particularly yaoi - and became a popular contributor to Fanfiction.net's manga section. Megan was still discovering herself back then, and went through an awkward phase of bi-curiosity that alienated her from her parents and, ultimately, damaged one of her friendships beyond repair. This set a new habit for Megan; embracing something new, like a hobby, a philosophy, or a religion, and if her friends didn't agree she had a very hard time parting with it. Middle school saw her go through a goth phase, shortly followed by a pseudo-Wiccan phase - the low point of which was trying to summon a demon to return Sam's soul to the mortal plane - and finally, a free-loving hippie phase. The hippie style stayed with her through high school and it was less risky to her self-image compared to her other endeavors, but self-doubt and depression kept recurring in Megan's life. The bullying had never really let up, even though she found some safety in clubs.

During her sophomore year, her father was suddenly hospitalized when a section of building collapsed on him. Though his wounds were minor, both Sarah and Megan were informed of his injury late and with very little information. As a result, there was a great deal of stress over nothing. On the car ride over to the hospital, Sarah gave Meg an earful of what she really thought about life and Michael - that she had told Michael countless times that he needed to settle for a less dangerous job if he wanted to raise a family, and that time and again he would "steamroll right over it" and disregard her concerns. Michael claimed he had found his calling and his purpose. He would say that his faith was in the work and in God. Sarah spoke against those ideas, claiming that Michael was just trying to be bigger than everybody. When they arrived and found that Michael would be fine after a short hospital stint, Sarah told Megan that everything she said was just in the heat of the moment - but to this day, Megan doesn't know what to think about her parents' relationship.

Now Megan gets by depending on her friends and her intense love of fandom. When she isn't reading or writing fanfiction, then she's likely doing school work or participating in clubs - whatever it takes to avoid being alone or inactive. Her style of humor has been seen as mean-spirited, but she thinks it's fine in the company of friends - the problem is, she tries to be friendly with almost everyone, and typically won't admit fault when she steps on toes. She has developed a marked disdain for the popular girls, and if something or someone is well-liked by many people she tends to make backhanded remarks about them.

Advantages: She is generally friendly and not very visually imposing - the gentle giant routine could help her make friends, or just make those friends lower their guard...on top of that, there's her weight class; she's almost a full head taller than most girls her age, and twice as wide. If she can overcome her fear, she could feasibly be a serious threat.
Disadvantages:  Her body type will make feats of agility or stamina significantly more difficult if not impossible, and with her psych profile she might be a suicide risk if she can't get some friends. If she loses track of her glasses, she'll have a hard time spotting enemies or using ranged weapons. Finally, all the traits that endear her to her friends just as easily make her look hostile and judgmental when outside of those friends; there has to be more than one kid out there who would like to shut her up.