application ;

Dec 13, 2020 22:20

.the mundane;
» Name: Odette
» Journal: odette_river
» Contact: PM

.the myth;
» Pantheon: Greek
» God(dess): Cassandra
» Reference: Here
» Family: {mother & father} Priam and Hecuba {spouse} Agamemnon (well, actually, she was his concubine)
» Played By: Astrid Bergès-Frisbey
» Human Alias: Cassandra Laurent
» Human Age: 22, October 15
» Ability: Cassandra can still tell the future, to a certain extent. She has dreams that often turn out to be prophetic, but things are cloudy, and of course people still don’t pay any attention to what she says.
» Occupation: Waitress

» History: Cassandra was one of the many children of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy and the twin sister of Helenus. When she was still a child, she begged her parents until they let her study at the Temple of Apollo. She quite quickly began devoting more and more of her time to the god. When she was fourteen, Apollo himself began making advances on her, bestowing upon her the gift of prophecy and stealing into the temple at night to visit her. At first, she was flattered by his attention. It quickly became clear, however, that he wanted more than just a few kisses, and so she rejected him. Angered, and feeling like he had been strung along, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her prophecies. And so ended Cassandra’s happy days.

Apollo’s curse caused constant frustration in her life from then on. She saw many things including the destruction of Troy and her own death, but no one would listen to what she said. In fact, they flat-out rejected her claims, even about things that seemed rather obvious, as in the case of the Trojan horse. She was still young, though, and she kept trying to warn people, despite the fact that no one would listen. She told them not to let Paris and Helen return to Troy-she begged her father not to let them return-but to no avail. It was like this with everything, and as Cassandra grew older, she grew more frustrated and more fragile. It wasn’t easy having visions (they regularly manifested in fainting spells), and it was even worse when the people she loved didn’t believe what she said and even went so far as to think she was mad.

As the war went on, Cassandra did act a little unstable. She was seeing everyone’s death twice-first in the future and then in reality. She was afraid of a future that she couldn’t change. Every day seemed a little more desperate, and there was absolutely nothing she could do. She still loved her family, she still hated Helen, and that was all. She was just waiting for the end. She learned to appreciate the little things-the feel of a breeze against her cheek, the red color of a setting sun-but she always knew what was coming.

When Troy was finally sacked, Cassandra sought refuge in the temple of Athena. However, even this sacred space did not save her. Ajax the Lesser found her there and raped her. Afterwards, she was taken as a concubine to Agamemnon and journeyed back with him to Mycenae. There, both she and Agamemnon were killed by his wife Clymnestra, as she had known they would be. At the time, Cassandra thought relief had finally come.

» Reincarnations:

Kingdom of Cornwall - 872

Cassandra’s first reincarnation. She knew exactly who she was. Lucky her. She tried telling people. She muttered a few half-baked prophecies. She was finally executed for being a witch when she was sixteen years old.

Anjou, France - 1352

Cassandra got reincarnated again, much to her displeasure. She was too difficult for her parents, and they dumped her on the church at age six, giving her to a group of nuns. Somewhat surprisingly, this was probably the best reincarnation she ever had. The nuns at the abbey were kind to her. Sure, they thought she was a bit touched, but they felt that she had a good heart, and within their walls she was safe from people who might not see it that way.

She lived out a full life with the sisters, working in the garden, learning to cook, and even finding some sort of contentment.

Seville, Spain - 1675

Cassandra was reincarnated again, this time with a big enough gap in between that she was pretty mad that it happened. She made the best of it for a while, but people still thought she was crazy and she wasn’t happy with what was going on at all. When she was twelve, she killed herself by jumping off a bridge. She figured maybe if she took her own life, she wouldn’t be reincarnated.

Montgomery, Alabama - 1806

But that didn’t work. This time, Cassandra was reincarnated as a slave in Alabama. Once again, she proved troublesome, and in this case that meant that she never lasted long on any one plantation. She was sold over and over again, usually worked in the fields, never escaped North, and died young.

She stopped caring.

Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. - 1910

This time around, Cassandra decided that she would try telling people exactly who she was. She decided this when she was ten years old, so there were a few years where her parents were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, assuming she’d grow out of it. She kept up the claims, though, so at age twenty-one she was admitted into the Athens Lunatic Asylum. She spent the rest of another short life there, befriending some of the other crazy patients. She felt sorry for them; some of them were there wrongly, which was sad, and others were genuinely insane, which was also sad. Again she waited around to die.

New York City, New York, U.S.A. - 1988

And again she was born. And, once again, Cassandra knew right away who she was. Story of her multiple lives. She twiddled her thumbs through her childhood, waiting to grow up, get away from her “parents,” and die. Her parents were concerned about their generally non-responsive child and took her to various doctors and psychologists until she was finally diagnosed with autism. That was fine with Cassandra. She didn’t really care. She didn’t try telling them they were wrong. She’d tried that before, and it never made things better.

The diagnosis, incidentally, wasn’t really accurate. While Cassandra certainly does have the tendency to act like someone with autism, the decision is most definitely hers. She doesn’t want to have to bother with relating to people. She doesn’t want to have to bother with normal social interactions, because then she might actually grow attached to someone, and that would only cause more pain. She’s had enough of that.

So, with the diagnosis of autism under her belt, Cassandra was free to move through life being as functioning or nonfunctioning as she wanted, which was nice. She didn’t really have friends, but she didn’t care. She certainly wasn’t happy, but she also didn’t really care. Some days, she could just go outside and see the blue sky, and at least feel something.

As she got older, her parents were overjoyed to realize that, despite her incredibly odd behavior, she was still able to take care of herself. She showed no interest in going to college (she frankly hadn’t even shown an interest in high school), but she was able to find herself her own apartment and cook for herself and hold down a job. At nineteen, she moved out, and has since been living on her own, working as a waitress at a coffee shop and just generally being a bit crazy.

» Personality: Despite strong indications to the contrary, Cassandra isn’t actually crazy. She just doesn’t care anymore. Cassandra, right from the start, was someone who felt emotions deeply, and that is what led her down this path of destruction. She was once happy, but after the encounter with Apollo, and then the beginning of the Trojan War, she started losing all that. At first she tried reaching out to people, but what with the never believing her thing, that didn’t work out very well. Sure, they still loved her, but that wasn’t exactly what she was looking for. So Cassandra started cutting herself off from people. It was just easier that way. She was trying to protect herself from inevitable hurt.

This is one characteristic that she’s retained through all her reincarnations. She doesn’t let people in. It would be tempting to say that she never lets people in, but if the right person came along… Well, maybe. However, it’s just easier this way. If she does get close to someone, the temptation to warn them about the future always eventually gets too strong, and then Cassandra is rejected. Again. They either say she’s crazy, or they just don’t believe her, or they just quietly edge away, start finding other people to replace her in their lives, and move on.

She’s considered not telling them, but that’s just as bad. She still knows what will happen. She still knows how things will end. But if she doesn’t care about the person, then it should matter to her how they’ll die.

Besides, it’s not like Cassandra is around her family any longer. They were the people she really, truly cared for the most and they’ve been gone along time. No one can replace Polyxena or Helenus (who she still misses every single day, even if she won’t admit it) or Hector. And she’d rather not try.

Because here’s the thing: Cassandra really doesn’t care anymore. There’s a strong will buried somewhere inside her, but she can hardly believe that there were times when she actually argued with people who didn’t believe her prophecies. Now, she’s just a drifter. She detached herself from life because she doesn’t want to feel things anymore and get hurt again.

Interestingly, though, she’s not sarcastic at all. Part of not caring about people anymore means that she doesn’t have to worry about what they think of her or what they think of what she says. This means that she can be completely frank. She doesn’t talk a lot, but if she says something, she really means it.

So, ultimately, Cassandra is fragile and not coping well. She’s coping, all right, but the life she’s built for herself is by no means a healthy one. And she doesn’t care anymore. She’s tired of all this, but killing herself isn’t an option. She already tried that. She’ll talk to people, she’ll get what she needs from them, but nothing beyond that. She’s just waiting to die again.

.ooc

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