Mirrors

◆ Mirrors ◆

Summary

Mirrors are a special type of demon residing in the afterlife completely dependent on another living demon. Their body colours are all sorts of blues and their appearance resembles the demon they are mirrored to. They have the ability to watch over their original and their entire culture is based on that little fact.

No one really knows where these demons came from, nor has a Livian Demon ever seen a Mirror in person or do they even know about their existence.

Functioning

Abilities and purpose 

A Mirror is born whenever a regular Livian Demon is born somewhere in the universe, doesn't necessarily have to be on Life. From their birth Mirrors share a deep spiritual bond with this demon, and they call them their original, less frequently even their regular. Mirrors are born as adults who bear no markings but who resemble what their original would look like at adulthood. As their original approaches adulthood, the Mirror's markings appear.

Mirrors possess a unique ability: they can merge their own senses with their original and see what they see, feel what they feel. This ability doesn't extend to thoughts. There's a second, weaker version of this ability; a state where they can observe their original from outside the body where they only have a weak connection to their original's senses. When they're in this state of observation, depending on which of the two states they are they can feel everything their original feels.

Upon choice, a Mirror can choose to feel double the sensations of what their original is feeling at that moment in order to dull their sensations. It's impossible to take everything away but when at its most focused point, a Mirror could take away up to half of their original's sensations. No matter which sensations they take away, this is a very draining action and can even end up being traumatising. It depends on the individual if they will lessen their original's pain and risk not daring to merge with them again, or if they pass up on lessening their pain and fail at keeping their original in as good a state as possible.

Culture

Society is based around this observation of originals and mimicking them as much as possible. While Mirrors can't access each other's originals they do often stay very close to the Mirrors their own original hangs around and can judge how well they're performing. Bad mimicking is demonised and can even lead to being cast out. The same goes for protection and observation of the original.

In terms of naming, Mirrors choose their own name based on the name of their original. Sometimes their name uses the entirety of their original's name and changes just a letter, sometimes only one letter of the original's name remains and the rest is improvised. As long as there's some aspect of the original's name in the Mirror's, it's accepted.

Personality

Mirrors have a personality independent from their original. Because of both a cultural drive and a natural instinct to do so, Mirrors feel responsible to protect their original from harm even if they can't physically be there. Survival means finding the very thin middle way between avoiding traumatisation or overexposure to pain, and being there for their original often enough not to feel guilty about inability to act or society disapproving of their passiveness.

Physical appearance

Primary traits 

Mirrors share a lot of their physical traits with Livian Demons; they are humanoids with two horns, a tail, internal genitals, pointed ears, and sharp teeth. Unlike Livian Demons, they have four arms, their hands and feet bear four fingers each and are much larger in size, their tail is thick and lacks the arrow-shaped tip, their eye colour is inverted, and they consist almost completely of blue colours. Their ears are longer than a regular demon's and their lips show two fang-like bumps.

Because of their four arms, they also have four pectoral muscles. The top ones tend to be a bit thicker than the bottom ones. Only the top pecs have nipples and for female Mirrors only the top breasts are swollen while the bottom ones are identical to a male Mirror's.

As for natural features, in most cases Mirrors display some features identical to their original and some that deviate slightly, like a different nose bridge shape or a slightly pointier chin. Since these features can't be changed, they're not counted into the mimicking process.They have the same predisposition to gain weight, muscle, etc. but due to personal choices can have a different body status than their original. Despite their need to mimic their original, Mirrors have some freedom in their hair. It's often worn longer than their original and it isn't unseen for the hairstyle to be slightly different or personalised; it's the only trait that isn't looked down upon when it doesn't match entirely.

Colours

Barring the eyes, Mirrors only come in blues. Their colours depend entirely on their original; they bear the same saturation and darkness of both their skin tone and their hair colour, only the hue is variable and even then is based on how orange or how red the original's skin colour is. Hues can go from teal blues to more pure blues. Markings are always a darker version of the hue of their skin colour. Their eyes have black sclera and their iris is a very washed out pale version of their original's eye colour with no visible pupil.

Markings

Most notable about a Mirror's appearance are the markings. No two Mirrors bear the same markings. Markings assume geometrical shapes in the majority of the cases and often show a combination of sentient patterns such as triangles, squares, straight lines, and perfect circles. Natural markings are always symmetrical on a vertical axis and always follow a certain theme throughout the entire body. It's impossible for a Mirror to be naturally marked for more than 60%, and usually the percentage of skin marked lies around 15-30%.

Mirrors always have the typical markings seen in the reference sheet on their feet, but the only defined parts of these markings are the two solid bands around the ankes. The rest of the marking can be anything, from a gradient to a pattern to nothing at all. In a similar fashion one part of both ears is always marked in some way and their lower eyelids have markings resembling eyebags on them on every Mirror. In turn, toes are very rarely marked.

Places that often have markings but not always are the wrists, the face, and the arms. These markings can be anything following the body's theme. The markings that appear on the lower arms can differ from the ones that appear on the upper arms but are more likely to be either very similar or the exact same. Fingers are rarely marked. Specific patterns aside from small details such as stripes and dots are less common on the chest, belly, and back but can still appear.

It's possible for unnatural markings to appear. If their original develops permanent scar tissue, this will show up on the Mirror's skin as a slightly darker marking. When a big limb is amputated, the Mirror keeps their limb but it will turn completely dark in one solid marking. This doesn't happen to fingers and toes. For now these are the only markings that can change throughout their lifetime, though I may change this detail.

Clothing

Mirrors are nudists for the largest part, but in their attempts to mimic their original will sometimes wear clothing pieces that are significant to their original or they see them wearing often enough for it to be memorable. As such, nudity isn't looked down upon at all and clothing has no fuction to cover up nudity. Wearing a piece of clothing is an individual choice and is often opted out of. Clothing can range from copying the full outfit of their original to just taking one detail, like a scarf, a hairpin, a pair of glasses, earrings, or a particular armband, to name a few.