Wdym vertina doesn't have bangs

Vertina

This character is technically a very small role, but I am bored, so here me out.

Vertical is actually a half human, half elf, and she was trapped inside the mirror by the Council to avoid letting the species continue to mix. The Council originally used these mirrors as a way to store prisoners, but erased the idea from their brain to avoid the guilt of it.

These mirror prisons are actually massive, mainly their depths, large enough for a person to stand up and squat, but for the prisoner, they are extremely small considering.

The Council made it so that the prisoners would have sedated air sprayed whenever a person was not within range to interrogate them, so the prisoners often became very forgetful of their past selves. They could dream, but that amount of time would keep them from remembering their old lives.

Since the memory of this was erased, the Council did not know that these were genuinely trapped prisoners and ended up "programming" these people to hwlp with beauty care. However, almost all of them did not work, except Vertina, who had previously worked at a salon and whose father was a dressmaker and used to teach her the skills before he died, having been a human.

Due to the lack of knowledge the mirror prisoners has about beauty, and how the technopaths could not figure out how to program them before putting them in stores, most of the mirrors were discarded and ended up stacked up in Mysterium after the noble families rejected them. Jolie was one of the only ones who kept her mirror, and she could never shake the feeling that the programming was too much like a real person. She was going to get Tinker to look at Vertina after she learned of a technopath in the Black Swan, but Forkle denied her the chance until she would figure out at least one identity of the Neverseen. Tinker was going to do it in Jolie's memory after Forkle eventually told her, trying to respect the memory of a fellow Black Swan member, but when she attempted to go there during Jolie's funeral to fix the mirror, she was unsuccessful in the hour she had.

Vespera was the creator of these mirrors. Once they put her relative, Vertina, in one of the mirrors, she refused to continue them, breaking a lot of the mirrors. Had she not done that, they would have put her in one when they finally realized that she had been searching to find the ability to be ruthless. Vespera had cleverly made a condition that she did not tell the Council the way to create the mirror, so the secret to its making was put away with her. Had she not gone numbers, she would have searched for Vertina. Her search for ruthlessness had started with the want to be strong enough to fight to regain Vertina without her mind shattering from whatever she had to do to bring back her relative.

A lot of the designs that Vertina favors tends to be older styles, similar to what Vespera wore.

Vertina used to have a short haircut (just above the shoulders), but had started to grow her hair out to look more like Vespera. Now, it is grown out by choice. There is no way for her to cut her hair, and the mirror makes her appearance look nicer than it is.

Vertina is really good at finger combing her hair as a result. She also gets nutrients from an air filter in the mirror that reflects the gnomes' photosynthesis.

Any time the mirrors tried to discuss their predicament, the mirror would force itself to shut down, sedating the prisoner, which is why it took Jolie so long to figure out that something was wrong about the mirror.

Here's an old drawing of Biana and Vertina. I like to imagine that her sort of rudeness comes from the fact that she was around twelve years old when she was trapped, so while she has aged, she has not gotten the chance to mentally mature. Her mental capabilities are that of a fourteen year old now because of how much Jolie talked to her, but she still lost a huge amount of the teaching that would have been given to a twelve year old. Her lack of maturity would translate to moments when she thinks of scars as ugly, but then has to rethink her thoughts and "see beauty from the heart" as Jolie used to say.

The last panel is hard to read, but it is supposed to be Vertina telling Biana, "It's nice to dee someone who embraces naturlal beauty." I kind of hate this art cause it didn't come out the way I wanted and it's half a year old, but it fits with the theme of the post, so I might as well include it.

cime get yalls vertina

the bond between a girl and her sentient mirror entity bff ˆ_ˆ nothing bad could ever happen to them. surely

do you think brant and vertina would hate each other

I'm gonna say yes.

Vertina definitely knows of Brant and very positively at that, as she would've gotten all her info from Jolie. Years of hearing praise and doting, blushing and gossip. And we know Jolie didn't tell Vertina Brant was with the Neverseen, much less that he killed her (seeing as she was dead at that point). So I imagine she's got bittersweet memories of him

Unless someone thought to update Vertina on what was happening, in which case I'd expect she'd get pissed. But she's programmed, so would one main negative event be enough to override the years of positive feedback she's gotten? She'd pick Jolie over Brant, I'm sure, but Jolie cared so much for Brant...would Vertina have picked that up, too, even if she didn't "want" to?

So I imagine Vertina would be furious, yet her programming struggling to adjust, conflicted.

Brant likely also heard of Vertina fondly, and I think doesn't hate Vertina as a "person", but rather as one more reminder of Jolie--and he cannot stand those, because they remind him of what he's done. Vertina also loves Jolie, and Brant can't stand that either. He's desperate to be the one and only memorial to her memory--no one knew her like he did, no one loved her like he did, no one suffered her loss like he did, etc. In trying to honor her he'd destroy every trace of her to try and hold it all himself.

Vertina would beat Brant's ass for killing Jolie if she wasn't a mirror because she and Jolie both loved him and Brant would shatter her upon first interaction because they both loved Jolie, I think.

the ultimate off-page kotlc love triangle was between brant and jolie and vertina. discuss. 

vertina... that ai girl in jolie's mirror. they were best friends, right? verti was distraught after jolie died.

jolie probably confessed and confided in vertina, her closest friend. they made nicknames and shared stories and laughed and cried together. and at times vertina would desperately wish she was truly real, so just once she could reach out and touch jolie. to hold her hand, hug her, ...perhaps even kiss her.

what i'm saying is vertina had a crush on jolie

MY WIFE 😍

vertina angst story about how she's just like a magical forest nymph bound for eternally to a mirror and that's why she's so pissy all the time.

whatever you so don't think about Jolie Vertina "window sleepovers"

what if we were girl best friends and i was in love with you (also i’m a mirror)

Jolie and Vertina Sketch

This is based off the mirror lore I made in a previous post.

The swirl is a mirrored version of a crest design I created for the Councillors based off a symbol for thankfulness/gratitude I found on the Google. The design on the side is Vespera's signature, which goes along with my idea of the mirrors being created by Vespera. Also, the lines at the bottom are thin slots to convert outside air into breathable air inside the mirror. The mirror uses a technological advancement similar to the gnomes to translate the light on the mirror into a form of nutritious air, like a form of photosynthesis but converted back to energy in the air. It doesn't make sense, but in the context of elvin technology and gnomish capabilities, it can work. The vine like structure emphasizes how whoever is in the mirror is trapped. I imagine that Vertina would wear clothing similar to the time of Vespera. Also, she would have really long hair since she cannot cut it.

(Btw, Jolie's left arm is on the other side of the mirror. She does have a hand; I was just too lazy to draw it.)

I think there's going to be a plot twist about Vertina in a future book.

when you are a mirror and slightly in love with your (taken) best friend

i don’t think we talk enough about how hilarious it is that the elves invented AI, like on a sentient (but still programmed) level, but stopped and abandoned the idea because it kept insulting their fashion choices. like that’s such an impressive feat and such a petty reason. the whole series is fantasy except for whatever sci-fi fuckery is going on with spectral mirrors

obsessed with the idea that vertina was programmed to visibly age alongside her user. obsessed with the idea of grady and edaline giving vertina to jolie as a gift when she was a kid, and the two of them growing up together. obsessed with the idea of jolie and vertina being fast friends and constantly learning from each other, from the beginning to the end. obsessed with the idea of vertina being technologically advanced enough to fight back her original programming in favor of becoming someone she wants to be, because of emotional seeds that jolie planted in her. obsessed with the mental image of jolie sitting in front of her mirror at godforsaken hours over the years, chatting about everything and nothing to vertina. obsessed with the idea of jolie trying and failing to get grady and edaline to find a way to transport vertina into a smaller handhold mirror that could go everywhere with her, because they enjoyed each other’s company so much.

obsessed with the mental image of vertina begging jolie to stay out of rebellions and live a long and happy life. obsessed with the idea of vertina quitting trying to convince jolie after jolie insists that this is what she wants to do with her life, and vertina caring about her too much to try to deny her that. obsessed with the mental image of vertina freaking out over jolie’s injuries and near-death experiences just as much as her parents would, and not just because her coding’s screaming about flaws in appearances, but because of an intense type of care that’s not platonic, that vertina doesn’t understand yet. obsessed with the idea of vertina waiting for an ungodly hour where the only witness to what she asks jolie is the moon coming in through a crystal wall, when she asks in an uncharacteristically shy tone, could you try to kiss me for real? instead of just blowing a kiss like usual? and having years of anticipation fall out beneath her and leave her in an emotional heap of bruises because all she can feel is cool glass, and not the warmth that she’s been imagining longer than she’d ever admit to anyone. obsessed with the idea that all the kiss leaves behind is a lipstick stain that eventually gets scrubbed away; an almost always present reminder even after the glass is clean that what vertina really wants from jolie could never work out, because jolie is alive and vertina is just a mimicry that could never come close to the real thing. 

obsessed, i tell you. obsessed.