Name:

n/a

Alias:

The Mimic, Marjorie Dawes

Age:

Unknown, but young, or at least seems to be. When taking the form of Marjorie, late twenties.

Personality:

Quiet, childlike, innocent, unsettling, inquisitive, subtly humorous, evanescent

Archetype:

Alien, most likely

Powers:

The Mimic has only one power: it can become something or someone else. It is not sure how it does this or what its limitations are. It only knows that it cannot become anything exceptionally large or small. Perhaps it cannot become another thing for too long. In any event, it has never tried.

Weaknesses:

The Mimic itself possesses a type of sentience (if indeed, it can be called sentient) that is profoundly different from that of humans and most alien races so far encountered. In its base form, it either cannot or will not verbalize. It takes on not only the abilities of things that it transforms into, but also their weaknesses and, if those things are sentient, some semblance of their characters. It’s believed that The Mimic grows more sentient by living as others. From them, it learns all of the constructs and values that govern human society, such as right and wrong, strong and weak, and male and female. It is learning that these things are not as easy to define as they would initially seem to be.

The longer that The Mimic spends imitating something else, the more that it desires to be that thing and the more impact that thing will have on its character. Obviously, this can be a double edged sword.

Appearance:

In what most people consider its basic form, though nobody truly knows, The Mimic is a roughly watermelon-sized and shaped blob in a pale greyish-blue that usually hovers two to six feet above the ground. It seems to have a fixed shape, though this will change in colour and texture depending on its impression of the people around it. Sometimes, when faced with unusual or unexpected stimuli, and particularly when someone’s behaviour does not match his or her words, it forms exaggerated faces, almost as if it’s lampooning its surroundings. It seems to be able to turn itself into a flat, disc-like object with a hole in the center. In terms of human forms, it favours that of a young woman with red hair, freckles, and mousy features. Her hair is often pulled back into a messy ponytail, she’s wearing jeans, a sleeveless t-shirt, and a light button-up sweater. Nobody knows why The Mimic chooses this form so often. Perhaps even it doesn’t know.

Character Evolution:

The Mimic isn’t sure what its purpose is. Perhaps it has no inherent purpose and must find one. It doesn’t know, and so it will learn so that it can know.

Bio:

The Mimic does not know what it is. It does not know if it is a living thing or a piece of technology, or if it can be both at the same time. It does not know where it is from. In fact, it does not know when it is from either. Time is a concept that it is attempting to understand. Really, The Mimic does not know what it can do. It has noticed that it takes the form and the qualities of other things around it, so long as they are not excessively large or infinitesimally small. It is not sure how it does this or even why. It just does. If there is any mechanism governing what it decides to mimic, it doesn’t understand how that mechanism works. It just chooses things and becomes them unless there is a direct threat. Then it responds by becoming something more powerful and neutralizing the threat. It is not sure why it does this. The Mimic is not much of anything, after all. The Mimic does not know much of anything either, but one thing is certain: it is learning.

Notes:

The Mimic does not need to take notes. When it sees something, it understands all of its physical details immediately and is incapable of not understanding them after that.

Sample Post:

On the first day of the new Justice League, there are throngs of well-wishers outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the new superheroes. Among them is a small, red-haired young woman with mousy features, freckles, and dimples. She stands beside a streetlight on an uncluttered part of the sidewalk and whoops and cheers with the others. Nearby, there is a teenaged boy with shaggy blonde hair and a pair of beat up skateboarding shoes. She studies him carefully, closely, for just long enough not to unsettle him. She wouldn’t want to make the subject uncomfortable. It would be rude and unprofessional.

On the second day, hanging around that same streetlight, the teenaged boy whoops and cheers with thousands of others. Not far away is a portly middle-aged woman with dark skin and hair pulled neatly back in a bun. He looks at her for a second, fidgeting as he gets all of her details down. He’s trying not to sketch her out. That’d be a bit fucked up.

On day three, the middle-aged woman stands beside that same light and adds her voice to the crowd. It’s a bit smaller than it was the past few days, but she remains enthusiastic. Not far away, an old Asian man seems just as energized. He’s wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and socks under his sandals. The woman gets a read on him, notes what she needs to note, and looks away. She’s not trying to make anyone uncomfortable. That’s not how you make the world a better place.

On the fourth and final day, an old Asian man stands in that same spot amid the crowd, beaming and waving as the final group of superheroes walk past. Nearby is chubby young man in his thirties, with a batman shirt and a bag of takeout. The old man decides to take a gander in that direction, but then he reaches up and clutches at his chest. A look of shock and dismay crosses his features. It’s what one would expect and it isn’t. It’s unsettling. A couple of people look in his direction. He slumps to the ground, but when the crowd parts enough to allow others to help him, he is gone without a trace. There is only a fire hydrant close to where he was standing.

Hours later, once the hubbub has died down, a man walks his dog along the sidewalk. The dog stops beside the hydrant, lifts its leg, and lets loose with a foul yellow stream. The Mimic is disgusted. It nearly turns itself into a larger angry dog in response. In the event, it does not, but it feels satisfaction at this reaction nonetheless. It believes, to a certainty of over eighty percent, that it interpreted the construct of ‘disgusting’ accurately while not being in the form of something that would have an innate understanding of such.About ten minutes later, a bus stops in front of the hydrant. When it drives off, there is only an empty sidewalk and a stray cat walking away.

The cat walks into a nearby park. It trots into a public restroom. There is a long period of silence. Washrooms are convenient, The Mimic has learned. They are places of secrecy because of ‘disgusting’. About twenty minutes later, a young woman with red hair, freckles, and mousy features walks out of the washroom, hands tucked into her pockets. She is not the real her. She is The Mimic. She is attempting to understand superheroes. She is reviewing right and wrong. Insofar as she can determine, it seems that the latter is more prevalent but the former is received more positively. Is it due to a scarcity effect? Why do these beings consider a more difficult, less common, and statistically less materially rewarding behaviour to be more desirable? The Mimic does not understand, and it wants to understand. Perhaps it can learn about ‘good’ by doing ‘good’. Perhaps it can do so as a superhero.

The young woman is so wrapped up in her thoughts that she doesn’t see the man come up behind her until he is almost upon her. She takes a few steps back and he pulls out a knife. “I want your money, not your life,” he demands, “But if you try to make a move, I won’t think twice.” The Mimic bolts. This is a bad man, it determines. This man is threatening it with physical harm. The Mimic runs behind a tree. From the other side emerges Batman. Batman kicks the bad man so hard that there’s a sound from his abdomen that indicates bodily injury. He crawls away, coughing up blood, eyes wide with fear. The Mimic wonders if it just did a bad thing. Then it decides that it’s safer as a cat.