mirror, mirror on the wall

[nothingbutmemes]

THE MAGIC MIRROR MEME

 

Here's how it works.

1. Your character is walking down a hall when suddenly they come upon a series of mirrors. None of these mirrors show their ordinary reflection.

• The gold mirror shows their ideal self. This could mean a version of themself that's tall and has muscles, or a version that's holding up a trophy or diploma, or dressed like a heroic knight, or whatever else.
  
• The black mirror shows their darkest self. Their most cowardly self, their most violent self, the person they're afraid of becoming - that's what they see.
  
• The cute Hello Kitty mirror shows their childhood self. It's still them, just a younger version.
  
• The heart-shaped mirror is a little different. This one doesn't show their reflection at all. Instead, it shows the person they love the most. (Or the person they most want to smooch, if they aren't strictly "in love" with anyone.)
  
• The scary-looking spiked mirror shows the person they hate the most. Careful not to cut your hand punching the glass.
• Finally, there's the frameless mirror. This mirror shows the person they miss the most, whoever that may be - or however long it's been since they've seen that person.
  

2. Other people can also see what your character sees, and can also look into the mirrors for themselves.

3. That's it.

Do not leave a blank top level. Instead, tell us which mirror your character is looking into, and tell us what they're seeing inside it. Feel free to link an image if that makes things easier.

Tag out and have fun!

Comments

Catherine Volanges | VtM | OC

[jezebelinhell]

She walks right passed the gold mirror, thank you. She already is her ideal self, she will be her ideal self a hundred years from now even if she's a different version of herself and she was her ideal self a hundred years ago.

Without hesitation, she walked passed the black mirror as well. Although many might have an opinion of what her darkest self looks like, she is certain that she's already been there - weak, powerless, mortal. Been there, done that. Decided not to get the t-shirt.

She walks right passed the Hello Kitty mirror. Are you kidding? She was never truly a child. She wouldn't have survived her life is she had been.

Hate is a pointless emotion, that is an easy mirror to ignore.

The heart-shaped mirror is a deception. It doesn't show you who you love, it highlights your greatest strengths and weaknesses. Know thyself. She does. So she neglects the mirror and keeps walking.

The frameless mirror draws her close. Close enough to that if she reaches out she could almost touch the glass. But no matter how close she could get to the image, the truth was that the person reflected there felt lifetimes away.

[terrifies]

"Like what you see?"

Ouija sat against an end table, eyes on the back of her head. They'd made enough noise arriving because it was bad practice to even try to sneak up on any Kindred unless combat was the sole aim. Just got things off on the wrong foot, usually.

As for the mirrors, they were cursed, apparently. Ouija had done their level best to avoid looking into any of them personally, and was succeeding, but the temptation to cover them in tapestries and sheets was positively overwhelming. Catherine looked to be doing a much better job just ignoring them, up until that last one. There was always something - everyone had a temptation.

"It really feels unfair to curse reflections like this. What if a Lasombra wanted to see their worst fear, or whatever these are? That's a lawsuit waiting to happen."

[acaseofyou]

Birdie has been down the hallway once already. Coming through now is much the same, if easier to avoid the ones she'd rather not look into again now that she knows what they'll reflect. Seeing someone else drawn in at the frameless mirror isn't too surprising. Her approach is casual, like coming up on people looking into weird mirrors is just a typical evening's activity.

"This last one is a doozy, huh?"

[agneaux]

"A hall of mirrors. And each one a different aspect of the same whole."

The man who walks up behind Catherine isn't a vampire. He isn't a mage. It's clear from his movements and his beating heart that, while he's in good shape, he's only mortal. Hannibal looks at the gold mirror, and a perfect reflection of him stares back. It's hard to tell what's different. A look in the eye? Perhaps a certain tilt of the head? He walks past the black mirror and it, too, shows a nearly perfect reflection of Hannibal. There's a look of desperation in his reflection's eye that Hannibal fancies his own eyes have never held.

He doesn't glance at the Hello Kitty mirror. Though the young boy in the mirror, so familiar, splattered with blood, watches him as he moves on.

He pauses in between the heart-shaped mirror and the spiked mirror, so that reflections could be seen in both. And they were both the same man. Funny, Hannibal thought it would be himself, but instead, a familiar face looked out. Tousled brown hair, haunted eyes. Hannibal turned away, towards the last mirror, and Catherine.

"It all seems terribly Freudian." As he walked up behind Catherine, Will Graham walked up behind the person reflected for her. "A metaphor as subtle as a boot, all to say "know thyself". I wonder what Freud would say, when one confesses that the person he misses the most is the one who saw all of him, reflected who he was the best?" He smiles softly. "I'm certain he would have something to say about childhood trauma and the like."

"I apologise, that was terribly rude. I am Doctor Hannibal Lecter. I hope I'm not intruding."

theo bell | where mischief lies

[backronym]

[If caught early enough, a person might see that the frameless mirror initially took a shivering moment, the face looking back at Theo twisting and contorting, tugging between two fairly distinct individuals--one young and one quite a bit older, flickering between silver and gold, but both quite sharp at the edges.

In a few moments, it settles properly: an older woman, hair tightly wound, features severe, and the thin twitch of a smile at the corner of her lips. The expression is mirrored on Theo's own face as he slumps slightly, gaze flicking wistfully over the image.]

The Doctor | Doctor Who | OTA

[borntolove]

The Doctor finds himself in the center surrounded by mirrors and the door he entered in from. Ten carefully and cautiously observes the mirrors.

The gold mirror, doesn't seem to have anything different about it. Only his exact self-winking playfully back at him with ginger hair.

"Oi! I wanted to be ginger!" The Doctor remarks in cute pout to his reflection and suggestively winks back.

The Hello Kitty mirror shows a small child in red robes standing in a field of red grass and double suns. The Doctor slowly walks over to this mirror and air touches that and kneels watching his younger self when he was a child. That seems so VERY long, ago and watches the child continue into the more barren part of Gallifrey, to the farmhouse and around the farmhouse are very large white egg looking things growing from the ground.

"What would you think of me now?" Ten whispers out-loud, continuing to watch himself.

The Doctor finds himself getting lost in this, that is until he can't ignore the feel coming from the black mirror and very slowly, The Doctor turns around and finds himself staring exactly at himself but with darker features on the face. A much harder and pointed face that has be drained of his humanity. There are crackling and flickering flames on the side of this mirror. He is afraid of how destructive he could be.


"I’m not you." Ten remarks firmly.

Thankfully, the warm gazing of the heart-shaped mirror is more over powering and sends the version of The Doctor in the black shape mirror hissing and hiding for the moment.
In this mirror, Rose, Jack, Sarah Jane, and Reinette are all present and standing together.

“Exterminate! Exterminate!” Screeches the black spiked mirror and finally, the flawless mirror, shows all the companions from his previous lives, up to Ace.

At this point The Doctor hears the famous words of Albus in his head, it does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live, "I need to get out of here."

[illegalgenetics]

It felt wrong. It felt so wrong to be seeing someone else's views in the mirrors. Like he was invading privacy. His own mirrors hadn't been too revealing. He'd already known these things about himself. How can one have an ideal self when one was already genetically enhanced to be 'ideal'? But the image staring back at him was ideal in another way. Happy, aged, the eyes that stared back at him had been those of someone who had lived, truly lived, and done everything he'd wanted to do. It was more of an impression than an image, to him. His darkest self was exactly what he feared. A vision of himself dressed as Khan Noonien Singh with a hateful gaze in his eyes. He'd turned away from that one as quickly as possible. His childhood self was a scrawny child who hugged Kukalaka close to his chest. The child he was before his genetic resequencing. He didn't even need to look at the heart-shaped mirror. He knew who he'd see there. But he stopped at the spiked mirror. It was... empty. In the last mirror Jadzia smiled back at him and it hurt. That hurt too much to bear.

So, when he'd seen the Doctor's spiked mirror, Julian paused. He'd thought maybe the spiked mirror was broken, but... The overly loud, distorted voice of the machine screeching from the spiked mirror made Julian jump. That voice was full of so much pain and anger.

"What is that?" He asked, touching the black rim of the spiked mirror, careful of the spikes. "Mine was blank... I thought maybe it wasn't working. But yours seems to be functional."

[termineur]

"No kidding," replies Sylar, who had been lurking in one of the darker corners of the room. He steps into the light and looks disdainfully at the mirrors. "Sorry, wasn't trying to eavesdrop. But I was pretty curious about you. You really are an alien, huh?"

So he might be a little behind on the Doctor knowledge. He's working on it. It's also obvious that he's avoiding the mirrors like the plague, not coming within six feet of any of them. His hands are stuck in his pockets and his shoulders are hunched, but let's not turn the attention toward him, okay?

Maxwell the Great | Don't Starve Together | OTA

[throneaway]

Another day, another Constant mindgame. A hall of mirrors without a circus theme was at least a refreshing change, and Maxwell stopped to admire the first one instantly; a confident and self-assured reflection looked back, able to flex to handle any stressor without the slightest crack, and in the background, the firelight of a camp where companions - company, help, camaraderie - was only spitting distance away. "What a handsome devil!"

The black mirror, after such a treat, was burdensome in its simplicity. Upon the throne, but without the restraints that had imprisoned her before; a choice, and the wrong one. That was what real freedom was, after all, the option to choose, and fail. "--No."

The Hello Kitty mirror held no surprises. She'd been there for William Carter's debut, and saw nothing of herself in those naive eyes. She stopped briefly, to commune, but there was no way to pass knowledge gained from bitter experience back in time, and so it felt less than helpful to linger. "Fool."

She paused in front of the heart shaped mirror, both intrigued and somehow satisfied to see Wilson there. From early enemy and kidnapped pawn to savior and party leader, Wilson was certainly of power and poise, a mettle that, when tested, only grew more determined, merciful and mercurial. "Satisfactory."

Of course the black mirror was Alter, as a representation of what she understood of Them, but it was a relief not to see herself. At least she wasn't that far gone. "Whatever you want can't possibly be worth it."

The frameless mirror showed Charlie, with none of the blameless savagery she had acquired from her time in the darkness. "As for you... I'm coming. I promise."

[fausted]

Wilson had shown up after Maxwell, and hadn't noticed that she was already there immediately. She was fascinated by the mirrors, examining each of them, less what was in them and more them mirrors themselves. How did these work? Could they be reverse-engineered? Sure, these ones didn't exactly serve a helpful purpose that she could see, but if they could make other types maybe they could land on something... Showing where someone they wanted to find was, maybe? Two-way communication through sign language?

Ironically, her own reflections were much like Maxwell's. The golden mirror had held Wilson at her best, with the camp and the others at her back, smart and dependable and well-dressed, cutting a smart figure in her mad scientist coat-"dress." The black mirror had, of course, yes, been her back on the throne, a smirk on her face as she looked out of the reflection as if at Wilson herself, at all of the fascinating things that she surveyed, eyes and hair and suit all dancing with a dark fire. The Hello Kitty mirror had been her young and lonely and discontent with her path in life, serious and so tired.

The heart... the heart-shaped mirror had been Maxwell, and by then she'd noticed Maxwell there, and had moved on quickly so that reflection might not be noticed in turn, a little red in the face. And she had stopped to examine the black mirror, the shadowy figures within her own understanding of Them, even more a target of her hate than the more distant-feeling visage of Alter, who she was... less sure about. She had not moved on to the frameless mirror herself, but at this angle she could see what Maxwell was seeing in it without yet seeing her own.

She did speak up, finally, quietly. "We'll figure something out."

Shu Itsuki | Ensemble Stars

[oshisan]

[Shu does a double-take when he catches a glimpse of the frameless mirror, his face turning shocked at what he sees: a young man with pale blue eyes and blond hair, dressed all in white and sporting a deceptively angelic-looking smile.]

T... Tenshouin...?!

[His expression transforms from one of shock to one of rage. He glances furiously over his own shoulder, as though expecting to find that man standing behind him, but of course there's no one there.]

Claire François | I'm in Love with the Villainess

[revolily]

[She stands in front of the heart-shaped mirror, which flickers between three images: the first image, the one that stays the longest, is of an elegant-looking man with long silver hair and an unsmiling face.]

P... Prince Thane?

[But then as soon as she's grasped what she's seen, the reflection changes, flickering between two more people: an androgynous-looking blond woman with a confident smile, and then a plain girl with short brown hair, whose school uniform matches Claire's own. Claire's expression twists; she looks bewildered.]

What's wrong with this thing?

Birdie Lewis | OC | Vampire: The Masquerade | OTA

[acaseofyou]

Well, it's not as if Birdie has ever been particularly averse to looking at herself in mirrors. A little bit of plain old vanity, mostly just making sure her braids are even. When the mirrors do tricks, it's a little harder to look away.

She doesn't linger much in front of the golden mirror, it's similar enough that she doesn't notice much difference. Maybe something warmer, something a little more alive, but still very much the same. The black mirror is the one she hurries away from -- it's Birdie gone Banshee, mouth open in a scream. Something mindless and violent and bloody, completely without control. All it takes is a glance to have her hurrying on to the next.

The Hello Kitty mirror is a lot less distressing. Anyone looking in that knows cars or fashion might easily tell the little girl in roller skates is going up and down the street in the 50's, which doesn't match anything Birdie has ever said about her age. The funny thing, then, is that the heart-shaped mirror has such a crowd in it. Not that she doesn't genuinely care or anything, just that her want of affection is spread generously around. And she manages to not hit the spiked mirror when she gets to it. The image of a man (pale, dark hair, a little shorter than her and looking very smug) only gets her flipping it off and sticking her tongue out at it before she moves on.

It's the last one that holds her attention the longest. A frameless mirror showing a young man in military uniform from early on in Vietnam. He looks a lot like Birdie, the name 'Lewis' stitched over the right breast pocket of his jacket, and he looks very very young. It's not that she hasn't seen his face since he died, but old pictures don't quite compare to this.

[ info & permissions! ]

[terrifies]

"There's something deeply wrong with these things." Ouija actually risked getting a bit closer, holding one hand up to block even peripheral vision of the mirror's motion. No. No thank you. Not tonight.

"But at least you were a cute kid." They finally consented to glance into one from a comfortable angle that showed nothing of themself, "--No opportunity for nerd blackmail..."

Not that it matters. Just empty nonsense words, the kind where the brain is elsewhere, and they stop to take in what she's looking at. "Oh-... Is-... is that him?"

Klaus Von Reinherz | Blood Blockade Battlefront

[purered]

He pauses for a long time in front of the gold mirror. The differences between him and his ideal self are small, but striking. The man in the mirror is still tall and broad, but on the slimmer side, less robust, and far less muscle definition. His sideburns aren't so bushy and his red hair has been combed out of his face which is far more handsome for its lack of large fangs protruding from a prominent underbite. The man in the mirror seems pleasantly normal, smiling warmly as though someone just told him something amusing.

The black mirror paints an ugly picture; the man in it a wretched thing, with unruly long hair, matted with dirt and blood. He's partially submerged in a stone obelisk, held in place by massive hooks and chains. One can only see the lower part of his face, revealing a mouth full of fangs. Branded in blood red, mere inches from his heart, is some kind of mark depicting the roman numeral XII.

He doesn't linger at that mirror. He knows exactly what kind of monster he was. And could be. There are only so many bitter reminders he needs.

The Hello Kitty mirror gets a bit of a chuckle out of him. He looked like an unassuming child, bright-eyed, beaming, and covered in freckles. But the boy in the mirror darts out of frame, laughing gleefully as he's pursued by an infuriated teenage girl who, going by the colour of her hair, could only be his older sister. Once upon a time, Klaus had a rather mischievous streak. Who would have guessed he didn't spring from the womb, stern and dour-faced?

Visibly flustered, Klaus promptly covers the heart shaped mirror with his waistcoat. Affairs of the heart are private, thank you very much.

The spiked mirror is ... murky. But there is a figure in it, looming out of the shadows, its eyes pinpricks of red light. Before it can come fully into view, it disperses into a cloud of bats and the glass hangs empty.

He barely spares it a glance; it doesn't show him anything he doesn't already know, and he has no desire to wallow in bitter memories.

The frameless mirror shows what can only be his family; two older brothers, an older sister, and his parents standing outside the Reinherz estate, laughing and waving, as though trying to beckon him to this idealized world. His fingers brush the glass longingly, before he finally manages to pull himself away. It's true what they say; you can't go home again.

[tetrahedonist]

"Looks like you're pretty good at this game, pal!" Bill floats near the heart shaped mirror, censored for the approval of anyone who Klaus might be close to. "You don't kiss and tell, you don't stare at the badself, you don't even spend time hating your enemies and letting them steal your joy!"

After a pregnant pause, Bill moves a bit closer, jovial, "You should teach classes! I bet a lot of people would pay good money to stop beating themselves up over the past, people who've hurt them..." That slit pupil peers at the black mirror again, "Or hurting themselves."

[machinebodyhumansoul]

[The cyborg pauses in front of the Golden mirror, his breath catches. Gingerly, he presses the tips of his machine-gun fingers against, as a hand of soft skin and flesh mimic his action, a gold wedding band on the mirror's hand.

Blue jeans, a tank top that exposed his well-developed arms, silvery-gray hair cut in a shag, ice blue eyes glinting with a joy that matches with a small, sly grin. This reflection sharply contrasts with his lens-like eyes, his too-wide mouth, and his body-concealing red suit.

His idea self wasn't a knight, a genius, or billionaire.

His idea self was human.

Not a cyborg.

Not a weapon.

For a moment, a hot flash of anger shot through him, the impulse to fire on the reflection nearly took over, but it dissipated as quickly as it came, leaving only a hollow sense of loss]

...What's the use?

[combatmiku]

[curious, all of this. no matter how Vivy tries, no signal to Archive or any other AI system responds to her calls. curiouser still is the anguish on display just ahead of her.]

Sir. Are you in need of assistance? [she will approach, but stop shy a few steps, folding her hands in front of her as she further scans the situation. from this angle, she cannot see what troubles the augmented man; perhaps she won't even wholly understand it when she does.]

mara sov | destiny

[bomblogic]

[ Mara is no stranger to the usefulness of mirrors. For one, the Awoken employed reflective surfaces in strategic locations to allow for seeing through Ahamkara trickery and similar magics. These mirrors belong to some other design. Curious relics, perhaps, or left as bait to entice those too weak to handle where different realities could lead.

She has no use for this but, best to at least make sure none of them were portals in disguise.

The gold mirror may as well be plain and ordinary; there is no change in the reflection, it shows Mara as she is, as she has been for centuries and longer.

At first glance the black mirror doesn't seem all so different, but in it her eyes glow with hateful light, posture as stiff as the soul is hollow, like all the hope and energy and will has been drained. Behind the deceitful reflection is only shifting polished darkness; a person with certain knowledge might recognize the interior of a Pyramid ship. It is what the Witness would make of her, if she were twisted into a Disciple.

The Hello Kitty mirror is perhaps the most curious one, making her pause, as childhood was eons ago. While Mara remembers her birth in razor-sharp clarity, the nineteen years before have grown ever more blurred and out of reach. The mirror shows her human, clad in some wildly colorful zero-gravity dress as she walks alone through a flowering field on Earth, one of only a handful of times she had ever visited the planet.

Fog obscures the heart-shaped mirror, at best a silhouette drifting through but not lingering or taking clearer shape. Mara does have love in her heart: for herself, for life. She cares for her people, and humanity, and those precious few close to her. But it is as she once told her former beloved — she could not love that which held no power over her, and her status as Queen and increasing divinity by their natures beckoned others to yield their own power.

The spiked mirror holds no surprise; an image of Savathûn hovers, and Mara lifts both hands to cast a barrier of deep blue crystal over the mirror, taking no chances.

The image in the frameless mirror brings a faint pang in her chest, unable to stop it through she anticipated what might be shown. Her twin brother Uldren is vibrantly clear, smiling and proud, from a time before the Black Garden poisoned him. And behind him stands Sjur, casually stringing her mighty bow.

Mara sighs at the mirrors and closes her eyes to center herself. ]

Kylo Ren/Brianna Solo • r63!Star Wars

[umbraeternam]

[ Oh no, she already hates this. Brianna eyes the mirrors with distrust and trepidation; she's reminded of when Snoke took her to Dagobah and she was forced to go in that damnedable cave.

The gold mirror shows her comfortable and at ease. Smiling, even. She's dressed a lot like her father, and behind her is some manner of sleek starfighter, clearly her pride and joy.

The black mirror might be a surprise to some. It doesn't show a Dark-sider, but a weak girl. Frail, broken, nary a sign of hope to be found.

Within the Hello Kitty mirror the snapshot of childhood is quite early, if somewhat shifting. Brianna no older than four or five, her long hair in braids and a child's innocent smile on her face. One glance at the mirror might show her sitting in the front of the Millenium Falcon with her father or Chewie, playing with a familiar pair of dice. Another glance might show her the same age, outdoors with blue crystalline butterflies happily fluttering around her (x).

In contrast, the heart-shaped mirror is less clear, like a picture out of focus, but clarity might take shape depending on who happens to find her with the mirrors.

She bristles reflexively when looking at the spiked mirror, hands curling into tight fists. Snoke's malformed visage fills the mirror. (Though if incorporating TROS, the mirror shows both Snoke and Palpatine.)

Lastly, the frameless mirror has nothing but heartache for her. It shows both her parents, from before she was sent away began her Jedi training. ]

spiked - post tros

[jedied]

[ Rey's spent a little too long in front of her own mirrors, so much that she nearly runs to catch up to Brianna once she notices that she's gone on ahead.

She comes to stand next to the taller woman and flinches involuntarily once she sees the two men whose faces seem larger than she'd ever seen them in life. ]

Come on. Let's not linger at this one.

Poe Dameron (AU) • Star Wars

[poeticforce]

[ While Poe tries to ignore the images that fill the mirrors, the temptation is difficult to resist.

Perhaps how soul-weary he's become is what draws him to the Hello Kitty mirror that shows his younger self. He's only a few years old, sitting in his mother's lap as she takes him for a flight in her A-wing. They're both smiling and joyful.

There's a knot in Poe's throat as he reaches toward the mirror, stopping before he touches the surface.

It probably isn't surprising that his eyes then get drawn to the frameless mirror, which too holds a vision of Shara Bey. ]

I hope I made you proud, mom. [ Poe murmurs, reaching up to the simple necklace he's never without and curling his fingers around his mother's wedding ring that hangs from the chain. ]

elias bouchard | the magnus archives

[ruinedworld]

[ It's bizarre, looking into something as objectively ridiculous as a Hello Kitty mirror and seeing -- not a child, exactly, but a young Jonah Magnus. Different face, different body - hunched under those layers and high collars, tense as a bowstring - and yet the same eyes.

He smiles at it, but tips it over, and it shatters. ]

Sylar | Heroes | OTA

[termineur]

Sylar does not make it very far into this set of mirrors. The gold mirror is fine, of course- it should him a person very similar to himself. Only the eyes are different, not so sharp and predatory. A kind smile looks like it comes easy to this face. Sylar studies it for nearly a minute, wondering if he could recreate it in real life, or if that's just a totally pointless endeavor.

The black mirror shows him a totally different man, dressed in black ops gear. His face is lumpy and indistinct, and could be nearly any army man in his 20s. The man in the mirror is not idle- he's pulling extra teeth out of his mouth. The mirror appears to ripple, and the man in the mirror's skin ripples with it, changing into another man- then a woman- then Nathan Petrelli. Sylar moves on quickly.

The Hello Kitty mirror shows him a small boy with thick black-rimmed glasses- and Sylar immediately puts a hand out, palm flat towards the mirror. Nothing happens, which is not what he expected. With a growl, he turns away. He's done indulging this. Time to get as far as possible from this place.

[coldsong]

"If you don't like those," says Loki sepulchrally from a space off against the wall, "you'll want to avoid looking at the last two."

Point of fact, he seems to have settled seated on the floor, knees to chest, as far away from the visual area of the spiked mirror as possible, where it cannot reflect him and he cannot see any reflection from it. He looks perfectly calm, but it's probably not normal for a god to just be hanging out on the floor like a child hiding from closet monsters.

[onepip]

[You want to see the Gold Mirror? Mariner doesn't. That's her with a nice neat bun and rolled-down sleeves and a done-up collar that has four, count 'em, FOUR rank pips on it. Because she's a captain. Yeah.

The Black Mirror, curiously enough... has the same image. But the background's a little different. The captain's chair behind her isn't quite the same; the carpet is a different color. Does that mean the ship is better or worse than the one in the gold mirror? Hard to say.]

Ugh. Go awaaaaay.

[As for the Hello Kitty mirror? Well. That's an interesting study in children's fashions of the 2360s. IN CASE YOU WANT TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO WHETHER OR NOT IT IS POSSIBLE TO CREATE SPANDEX OVERALLS.

Wow. I can't believe I ever wore that. I can't believe I wanted to wear that.

loki | mcu

[conceivedeceit]

[ ooc: can be vague or the afterlife or a survived-au! ]

[ Curiously, Loki's reflection in the gold mirror is a haphazard network of gold and green threads, jumbled and knotted in the vague silhouette of what one can only assume is meant to be him. The loss of purpose followed the loss of Asgard; he does not know what his ideal anything is anymore.

The shards of ice threatening to overtake the frame of the black mirror is hint enough: the glass reflects a frost giant, though everything but the arms sporadically melts into black ink and then back again, as Loki has adamantly tried to avoid filling the gaps in his imagination from what both the battle in Jotunheim and the casket exposed to his own vision -- dark blue seeping proximally, etchings digging into the back of his palms. Two spots of dark red flicker like a candle's flame where his eyes ought sit. If he wielded this truth like one of his daggers, then it could not hurt him. That is the strategy he employed with others, with Asgard -- and yet, still, he could not and cannot will himself to embrace his true blood.

He itches for a dagger now, to drive it into the glass. Instead, he moves onto the Hello Kitty mirror, more eager to escape the image within the black frame than scrutinize this frame. The image of a younger Loki in silk clothing, holding a tome as thick as his head in scrawny arms, twists the lungs beneath his ribs. The loss of innocence, ignorance. The boy who had not known why he looked so different from his family, golden as they were. The boy Odin claimed to love, and Loki struggles with his passing words still.

Glancing at the frame, nose wrinkling, he then looks at the heart-shaped mirror with an equal amount of skepticism and decides to skip it altogether. As he walks past, eyes pointedly on the next mirror, the reflected individual(s) mirrors his brisk pace, their image fleeting.

Upon viewing the spiked mirror, he blandly wonders if he might relieve it of one of those spikes to share with the black mirror. Then he pauses in front of the glass properly, immediately cringing when he sees Thanos standing opposite. Perhaps the most troubling matter, however, is how small the mad titan is, encompassed in the frame, not towering above Loki as he'd done in life. It leaves him feeling decidedly uneasy.

The scowl on his face falls into melancholy when Loki meets the final, frameless mirror. Frigga returns the look, her manner of dress the same as the last Loki had seen her alive, silver and blue -- the same intensity of blue as her eyes, the hurt that simmered behind them when Loki had cruelly denied her position in his life. As before, he reaches out to her. As before, he fails to touch anything of importance; the glass is dull beneath his fingertips. ]

Anna Hetfield | Marvel TSR RPG OC | OTA

[eights_and_aces]

Anna walked slowly through the hall, pausing at the first mirror. The gold one, the reflection that stared back at her was dressed like she often did for a show but instead of the hall behind her, it was a stage. Not one of the small venues her band played in, but an actual stadium. The woman within the glass raised her hands as the lights came on, revealing thousands in the crowd before the light washed out the image. After a moment the light faded revealing a different image, this one there is a child clinging to her leg in a field. The young woman was smiling softly, a finger tracing the reflection only to see it change and swirl again. Other images were hinted at but none would resolve into anything defined.

Moving to the next, the Hello Kitty framed one showed her as girl trailing after her father as they entered their house. It may strike how much the young woman took after her father between the hair, and her not yet defined features. He mother, much shorter than her father looked up from her drawing pad as they entered and smiled. Something Anna mirrored herself. That, that she got from her mother.

Across from this mirror, was the other frameless one. In it was a similiar scene, but there was another young woman with her now older mother and father. It had been years since she has been home, and she missed them terribly. Even her younger sister.

A spike framed mirror stood alone and empty, the woman giving it a curious look before looking to its opposite the heart shaped mirror. This one was not empty, nor did it contain a solitaire image. A taller, dark haired woman with exotic features and sharp features. Next to her a man with short dark hair, serious, an artists eyes and a soft smile. The witch traced each cheeks, the polished glass frustrating flat and denied the curve of each that she knew so well.

Anna moved on to the last mirror on the wall. Within was her reflection staring back at her for a moment, before going wide eyed, and flames surrounding her body. Her reflection was unharmed, but the surroundings were not as fortunate. Everything burned, everyone, her hazel eyes turned hard. Callous. Cruel. No matter how bright the flames became, the darkness surrounding the woman's figure only deepened. It would be hard to tell which fed which, but in the end of the vision, this version of the woman was wrapped in fire, surrounded by darkness and ever alone. In the hallway, Ann cried out softly one hand covering her mouth, the other wrapping around herself as she turned from the vision. She did not want to become that. Destruction, death...alone.

The Outsider | Dishonored | OTA

[whalefall]

It's always fascinating to find mirrors that will reflect him, he so rarely casts a reflection in reality or with light. Mirrors that reflect eddies in time are even more novel. If there's one thing The Outsider loves, craves like a drowning man scrambling for breath, it is novelty. Whether the experience is good or bad, a painful tragedy or transcendent ecstasy, it beats the endless crushing weight of nothing.

So he stays, and looks and the eyes that look back at him, when they do, are not all alike.

(Mirror's by shape in case you just want to deal with one. Content Warning: So much death, self harm, gore.)

(Gold) In a mirror of pressed brass, framed in beveled glass and gold filigree, a slender figure identical to his sways slightly. He's dressed in rags, roughspun and soiled with mud from the banks of a long forgotten river. His cheeks are wan, his skin is tanned and cracked in the way that endless exposure causes. He's a vagrant, starving and scared, bruised, beaten,...sickly but struggling against the ropes at his wrists and feet. In his hand, torn dark cloth and a jagged bit of stone--his arm is dark to the elbow with someone else's blood.

(Black) It's a polished slab of black stone--the strata warps the mirror beneath the surface but the surface itself is perfect. Flawless and clear. He stares into the void, black and starless, terrible and empty, and the reflection there is his perfect mirror. He can see no difference, discern no discrepancy, and that doesn't shock him much.

Some mirrors are just mirrors, in the end.

(Childhood) The small mirror, a bit of glass backed in cheap grey metal, polished to a high shine stands no taller than his shin. It's smudged and grimy and the reflection blurs everything that moves more than an arm's length from it. This mirror doesn't reflect him well, its hazy--foggy as if the room has filled with steam, but on the opposite side of the glass.

If he gets very close, holds it up almost to his face, he can see pieces--a cheek, an arm, a mop of hair, the hands of an adult and the shape of a toddler being lifted. It doesn't clear and even his fathomless black eyes can't see everything.

(Heart Shaped) This mirror is warped. A record left in the sun might play a warbled rendition--this mirror is degraded the same way. There are shards of clarity in it, places where it sits flat against the glass, where the chipped red frame still retains its lustre, but the images are unclear and flicker. He knows the faces he sees, dozens of them--they're his marked, his chosen. Misfits all.

Between them, the shadows of great beasts like whales seem to drift in the distance.

(Spiked Mirror) This mirror is dangerous--not because of his anger. His anger wore away into fine dust and void centuries ago. This mirror is dangerous because the eyes, the face, the creature it contains cannot look upon him anymore than he can look upon them. He tries, because he was mortal once, adopted by the void rather than born to it, but the face of a dead god should not be beheld by anyone, let alone its successor.

The longer he looks, the more brittle the space becomes, vibrating and shuddering as it sheers and strains. Shadows of warped men and women twist and jump around him, his head pounds and if he had blood, he has no doubt it would pour from his eyes like seawater crushing a bulkhead.

He looks away and none of it has ever happened. The world is righted. He wonders what someone else might see in that mirror while he stands before it, or if he should warn them not to look.

(Frameless) The last mirror, he thinks, is little more than grubby glass. The reflection it throws is weak, almost transparent, but once he sees the discrepancy it shakes him. So few things shake him.

He stands in the mirror, staring back at himself, but the eyes that look back are not fathomless void. They're green.

(OOC: Is your character doing something that would result in them finding a weird mirror? Any of the weird mirrors? Is it in some ruins they are plundering? An estate sale at their house? A haunted carnival? Sunken ship? The back of their storage unit?

Well, I hope you wanted a weird goth twink with solid black eyes staring at it regardless of location or habitability. Fortunately, he's pretty entertained, so if its a life or death situation for your character, he'll intervene. If they own this, he'll even harass them (unfortunately) to learn all he can. If he's not supposed to be there, feel free to attempt to kill him. He won't even take it personally.

Canonmates super welcome but not required.)

Wormwood the Lonely | Don't Starve Together | OTA

[aloefriend]

Wormwood wandered the halls to each mirror, incredibly curious; they had learned quite a while ago that reflections were not other, were not friends, though the meaning behind some of these was a bit beyond them. They could recognize themself when they saw them, but the deeper meanings, what it was trying to say, was not always as obvious to them.

The gold mirror was Wormwood as they always looked in bloom, resplendent and with flowers blooming both on their person and all around themself, butterflies and bees plentiful. They crooned happily at that sight, a pleased didgeridoo noise. "Look so pretty."

The black mirror, on the other hand, got a short unhappy squawk as Wormwood backed away from their reflection immediately. Tinged brown, leaves cracked and drooping, surrounded by flies, all foliage around them unhappy with their presence. "Sorry... so sorry." They moved on from that one very quickly.

They stayed longer at the Hello Kitty mirror, meowing at it at first, though still upset by the last mirror. This made them feel better, though. Just baby vine shoots tentatively starting their creeping in the forest. "Was a cute baby..."

When they felt better they moved onto the heart-shaped mirror, which they really didn't understand. This one wasn't quite as explicable, to be fair; that heart shape was just what brought friends back from being floaty friends, all except for floaty sister. And this was the first mirror that didn't show Wormwood at all. Instead it showed... others. Cycled through people Wormwood knew; started with one and stayed at that one and then suddenly changed! So strange, but they liked that it showed friends that they liked so much. Maybe this was a mirror for showing friends you most wanted to help stop being floaty? "Make better mirror," they decided, content with that understanding.

The spiked mirror they definitely didn't understand and didn't have any guesses for. It was just empty. They shrugged. "Spiky broken."

The last mirror they stopped in front of was, of course, the frameless mirror. Wormwood wasn't sure they understood this one, either. It was just their own reflection, this time. Just like any normal mirror. "Just like in twirly tail home."

It was only a little surprising since it was after all those other fancy mirrors. After a moment, Wormwood sat in front of the frameless mirror, thoughtful at their normal reflection. Not upset but... feeling a little melancholy, maybe, and not sure why, making another quiet didgeridoo noise.

[inorganism]

It took WX only a few seconds per mirrored analysis to reject each and move onto the next, although (and this was not a fact they would brag about) they circled back to a few of the more pleasing ones and spent additional seconds on... secondary analysis. They also viewed a few with more caution when they realized not all of them were pleasant, and actually hastened away from the Hello Kitty mirror as if it were a real enemy.

"THIS IS VERY STRESSFUL." WX announced, to no one in particular, moments before recognizing Wormwood. "THE PLANT CREATURE! GOOD, I WAS CONVINCED THIS WAS A SHUTDOWN HALLUCINATION. BUT IF YOU ARE HERE, IT IS NOT."

They peered over Wormwood's shoulder, seeing ...Wormwood. Normal mirror? Perhaps not. Then they looked down at their plant companion. "DID YOU ALSO FIND THE CONTENTS OF THESE DATA-SHEETS ...ANNOYING?"

Youko Kurama | Yu Yu Hakusho | OTA

[afterredfades]

Why did it always have to be mirrors?

The golden mirror was a curiosity, he'd admit. A form that was between his human form as Shuiichi and his demon form as Youko. Red hair streaked with silver, eyes that shone green and gold at the same time, like he was in the middle of changing from one to the other. Something he’d done many times by now.

He might have passed the black mirror without noticing there was anything special about it if he hadn’t paid attention. Himself in his demon form as he stood now, and yet… the gold eyes were cold and cruel and without mercy. Kurama turned away. He couldn’t claim that he was no longer that same demon, only that the only ones who were faced with that side of him had to truly deserve it.

When Kurama saw the third mirror, he blanched and summoned a thick drapery of vines to cover it, looking around to make sure that no one saw. Because the mirror depicted two figures in it, a young child with brilliantly red hair, and a very small, and hopelessly fluffy white fox kit. There were photographs of him as Shuiichi when his human form had been a child, but as far as he knew no one alive had ever seen what he’d looked like as a kit and he was hoping to keep it that way! Making sure that every inch of the mirror was hidden, the demon cleared his throat and moved on.

He didn’t spare more than a glance at the heart shaped mirror. Going through human high school, he’d had more than his fair share of heart shaped things thrust at him, thank you. He didn’t need another to tell him where his affections stood.

When he saw the next one, surrounded in spikes as it was, he rather wished he’s lingered at the earlier ones longer, just to put this one off as it made his blood run cold. Deep red eyes, a mask covering the lower part of his face, and a hand reaching for him as though to grasp him by the throat again. The tree that rose up through the floor and shattered it couldn’t have grown fast enough, in his opinion.

Because Karasu’s hated image didn’t deserve to stand in the same room as the last mirror, nor the gentle face that looked back at him. Kurama took a deep breath, reaching out to touch the glass. Loving and caring and all too human Shiori. She’d deserved a human son who would marry and give her grandchildren. But the least he could do was give her a frame. So he grew one, delicate vining roses entwining and framing the mirror. And ready to protect it. “Better.”