Mosquito week, day 7

“Go on, laugh! Laugh at me all you want! I’ll be laughing with you!”

Name: Gerald Lexington

Alias: (The) Mosquito

Birthday/Age: February 6, 35

Height/Weight: 5’11”, 128 lbs.

Relatives: Raleigh, Autumn, and Verne Lexington (older siblings)

Occupation: former chemist, current car salesman

Interests: chemistry, classical music, board games

Powers/Equipment: tough skin, quick reaction time, insulated suit, syringe gun, jetpack

Weaknesses: electricity, his poor senses, the color blue

Bio: Gerald has always had a strange life, right from the start. He was used as part of a genetic human-animal hybrid experiment, as were his three siblings before him. Somewhere in there he’s part mosquito, though it’s not extremely obvious when looking at him. The geneticists were mainly looking for ways they could improve humans, not ways of creating abominations.

Gerald wound up with a strong resistance to disease and improved reaction time, but a lot of his other senses suffered, primarily his vision and hearing. He also became asthmatic and diabetic, and thus he was considered failed. He sought refuge in his siblings, but they refused to give him much acknowledgement, as they were all relatively similar in age and hung out together, but Gerald happened to be much younger and thus undesirable to them. They were also “cooler” animals—a badger, a crow, and an iguana—and all these things compounded in Gerald’s mind gave him the start of an inferiority complex that would haunt him for years to come.

After enduring many bullies in school due to his odd appearance, he eventually graduated college with a major in chemistry, and later on took over an ecology project that had suddenly been put on hold. However, he still felt unsatisfied with himself, and used his knowledge of chemicals to look for other escapes; namely, synthesizing drugs. He knew what he was getting himself into, but he couldn’t help himself. He had a mad desire to be relied on, even if that meant being relied on by lowlifes. Soon enough, he was discovered by his coworkers, and promptly arrested.

Prison was nightmarish for him: he’d get taunted and beaten up by staff and inmates alike, to the point where he had to be put in solitary confinement just so people would leave him alone. After his sentence, he still hadn’t learned his lesson, and remembered one Michaela Quovis that was at the black market, back when he sold drugs.

The problem with Gerald is that he longs badly for a purpose in life, but he keeps looking in all the wrong places to find it. Deciding supervillainy would be his newest flavor, he acquired some equipment through some backwoods scientists and went under the moniker Mosquito, in reference not only to his condition, but also a subtle self-mockery caused by low self-esteem.

Mike figured he was a poser at first, but she let him into her gang anyway, and currently he’s earned a stay at the hotel if he needs it. A lot of his attacks are indirect, but he can create a good offensive force when teamed with Toxin. Yet Gerald still feels deeply upset. He wasn’t a good chemist, he doesn’t seem to be a threatening supervillain, and he wants to do more than just sell cars. Considering he also ages a bit faster from his genes, he’s terrified of the future. If he does find his niche, will it be too late?

Character History: Gerald has a really simple start compared to other characters. Really, if anything, it was a matter of jumping on the bandwagon—my friends that I were rping with at the time created quite a few bug anthro characters. They were using bugs they thought were “cool” and all, so I decided to be a little unconventional and make something annoying: a mosquito salesman! Genius! Gerald got a good run in that roleplay and popped around in other canons, but never as a main character of sorts.

When the superhero rp came along, I wasn’t even thinking of him; he seems like one who keeps appearing suddenly throughout my stories. I was simply asking my friend to give me superhero character suggestions, and she liked Gerald. I had never actually thought of humanizing him, but the idea of a superhero based off a mosquito was too great, especially after I came up with the whole syringe/proboscis motif. He almost didn’t make it into II, since Toxin’s chemical theme was similar, but I figured the story needed an animal-related guy. Plus, he and Toxin have an epic teamup now.

As for his design, he took some inspiration from Batman’s villain Firefly, and the syringe gun was shamelessly ripped from the Medic of Team Fortress 2. The jetpack also references a Blackout character named Fuse.

Next week: everyone's favorite golem!