application ;
.the mundane;
» Name: Odette
» Journal: odette_river
» Contact: PM
.the myth;
» Pantheon: Christian
» God(dess): Mary Magdalene
» Reference: Here
» Family: {mother & father} N/A
{spouse} N/A
» Played By: Natalie Portman
» Human Alias: Bernadette Johnson
» Human Age: 28, November 23
» Ability: N/A
» Occupation: Director of volunteers at a nonprofit that works with homeless families
» History: Mary is mentioned only a few times in the Bible, and this is what is known: she was the victim to seven demons until Jesus saved her from them, she was a follower of Jesus, she was at the cross when Jesus was crucified, and she was the first person to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection. She is mentioned a bit more in the apocrypha and Gnostic gospels, where she is depicted as a close follower of Jesus who often had greater insight than the other disciples. She also sometimes was at odds with the other disciples, in particular Peter.
» Reincarnations:
Béziers, France - 1194
Mary’s first reincarnation was as a resident of Béziers. She was born to a Cathar family and, by the time she was fifteen, had acquired a deep faith that many in the community recognized as being beyond her years. She was also fifteen when she died, one of the many killed during the Albigensian Crusade. She hadn’t realized who she really was.
Provence, France - 1210
This was Mary’s second reincarnation, though at the time she thought it was her first. She’d had dreams ever since she was a child-strange, fascinating dreams about another time and another place-but it took her until she was a teenager to figure out who she really was. And then she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Clearly she’d been reincarnated for a purpose, but what was that purpose? Why here? Why now?
By the time she decided to stop waiting around waiting for answers, she’d already married and had a daughter, Sarah. Luckily for her, her husband was very supportive of her convictions toward the church, allowing her to spend a significant amount of time in prayer, and even allowing her to teach. Eventually she retired to a cave, where local people and pilgrims would come, seeking her wisdom. After her death, the locals began venerating her as the real Mary Magdalene.
Cologne, Holy Roman Empire - 1330
Despite all the insight that she’d gained in her previous reincarnation, this time around those memories were again only manifesting themselves in dreams. Again, by the time she was a teenager, Mary had started to figure things out. This time, though, she had been raised as a Jew, and so the conclusions she was coming to were slightly different. It felt like she shouldn’t have doubts about the Christian’s Messiah, but at the same time her own religion did, and she understood that, too. She was confused. And she died, still confused, in 1349 when she and all the other Jews in Cologne were killed because of fears of the Black Death. Ironically, at that point, half of Mary’s family had already succumbed to the disease.
Grand Duchy of Moscow - 1475
Mary died at the age of seven from severe pneumonia. Throughout this short life, she was unaware of who she was and, except for some nightmares, never suspected anything.
Xi’an, China - 1605
Throughout this reincarnation-and she lived to be almost sixty-Mary never realized who she was. She was a devout Buddhist and follower of traditional Chinese folk religion. She did have her interactions with Jesuit missionaries from time to time, and they always left her with a slightly unsettled feeling, but she remained a staunch follower of her own religion and never converted.
Manassas, Virginia, U.S.A. - 1845
In this reincarnation, as well, Mary did not know who she was. This time, she was back to being raised as a Christian, which felt right and was not something that she ever questioned. She had a strong, deep faith. The Civil War led her to question some of her definitions of what was right and wrong-she understood the arguments of abolitionists; she even agreed with them, but at the same time she felt a loyalty to her state. She understood what her neighbors were fighting for. Despite this inner conflict, Mary saw no choice but to become a nurse for the Confederacy, helping wounded and dying soldiers as best she could. After the war, Mary continued to work as a nurse, and did so till she died, helping people as best she could.
Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. - 1982
This time around, Mary was born to a family in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. She had an older sister, Sheila, who was good at school the moment she walked through the door to kindergarten. Mary was not. She was just little Berny, who was cute, vaguely clumsy, and didn’t really get noticed. So she did something that her sister hadn’t done. She begged and begged until her parents sent her to ballet classes. Berny never got good at school, but that didn’t matter, because she got good at ballet.
By thirteen, she’d convinced her parents to let her move to New York to train at the School of American Ballet. Her parents were not exactly pleased with the idea, but they did recognize Berny’s dedication to the art, and they also saw that she had the talent to really train for a professional career. So Berny started at boarding school and began progressively distancing herself from her family. This wasn’t intentional, but she’d never quite fit in with them, and it was just something that happened. She was focused on training. She was focused on her body and on discipline.
And, in the end, that was her downfall. By fourteen, she was forcing herself to throw up. At sixteen, things had gotten so bad that her teachers issued her an ultimatum: gain weight or lose her place in the school. She couldn’t do it, and it took years and a lot of help before she recovered enough to function normally. By this time, her body had sustained enough damage, both because of the loss in training and because of the eating disorder, that there was no way she could hope to dance professionally.
Berny was lost. It was still a struggle to eat, but at least she could do that again. But now she had no idea what to do. She was eighteen years old, unemployed, and had no real usable skills. She could teach ballet, but-especially in New York City-there were people with more qualifications and more clout. So she cut off her hair, experimented with lesbianism, and generally went a little crazy. That was a dark time in her life.
At twenty, she still wasn’t really back on her feet. Her parents constantly begged her to come home, but she knew she didn’t want to do that. She liked the city too much. She didn’t want to go back to Ohio. She did, however, take them up on their other offer: she went back to school and got her GED.
This shocked a little bit of reality back into her. She was with all these people, her age and older, who were actually trying to get their acts together. Meanwhile, she was just there because her parents had sent her. She was still living off their money and that fact had never really bothered her before.
After that class, Berny found a job working at a nonprofit that helped families who had recently found themselves homeless. She’s been there ever since. She found that working with the families gave her something to fill the hole inside herself that ballet had once tried to fill. It’s not a perfect fit, but it’s closer.
» Personality: Berny is searching for something. She doesn’t know what, and if you asked her if she’s content, she would probably say yes. Deep down, though, she isn’t. There’s still something missing. Over the years she’s tried to fill it with various things, most notably her eating disorder. She has a mind that’s somewhat susceptible to obsession, if only because she wishes to have extreme control over herself. Part of this comes from the ballet and all the discipline it taught her, but a good deal of this comes from her own nature.
There are two other things Berny wants: she wants to be helpful and she wants to understand. Perhaps it wasn’t clear when she was younger, but once she started working with her families, she knew it was exactly what she should be doing. Yes, she misses dancing, but this is the most right her life has ever felt, and she’s willing to go on that feeling.
The more Berny worked with her families, the more she started asking big questions about life. She wants to know why these bad things have happened to them, why they haven’t happened to her, what the point of it is. She wants to know about everything, but she doesn’t know where to turn to get those answers. Her parents weren’t religious, so she’s never really been to church.
Berny doesn’t placidly sit around thinking about the meaning of life, though. She can be loud and irreverent. She likes to think of it as sass, or as speaking her mind, but it’s more like she says what she thinks when she feels like it, even if it’s the inappropriate time. She’s stubborn, she likes to have fun on occasion (though she’s calmed down a lot since her glory days), and if there’s something a little sad behind her eyes, well she hasn’t quite figured out what that means, but she’ll blink and bury it a little deeper.
» Name: Odette
» Journal: odette_river
» Contact: PM
.the myth;
» Pantheon: Christian
» God(dess): Mary Magdalene
» Reference: Here
» Family: {mother & father} N/A
{spouse} N/A
» Played By: Natalie Portman
» Human Alias: Bernadette Johnson
» Human Age: 28, November 23
» Ability: N/A
» Occupation: Director of volunteers at a nonprofit that works with homeless families
» History: Mary is mentioned only a few times in the Bible, and this is what is known: she was the victim to seven demons until Jesus saved her from them, she was a follower of Jesus, she was at the cross when Jesus was crucified, and she was the first person to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection. She is mentioned a bit more in the apocrypha and Gnostic gospels, where she is depicted as a close follower of Jesus who often had greater insight than the other disciples. She also sometimes was at odds with the other disciples, in particular Peter.
» Reincarnations:
Béziers, France - 1194
Mary’s first reincarnation was as a resident of Béziers. She was born to a Cathar family and, by the time she was fifteen, had acquired a deep faith that many in the community recognized as being beyond her years. She was also fifteen when she died, one of the many killed during the Albigensian Crusade. She hadn’t realized who she really was.
Provence, France - 1210
This was Mary’s second reincarnation, though at the time she thought it was her first. She’d had dreams ever since she was a child-strange, fascinating dreams about another time and another place-but it took her until she was a teenager to figure out who she really was. And then she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Clearly she’d been reincarnated for a purpose, but what was that purpose? Why here? Why now?
By the time she decided to stop waiting around waiting for answers, she’d already married and had a daughter, Sarah. Luckily for her, her husband was very supportive of her convictions toward the church, allowing her to spend a significant amount of time in prayer, and even allowing her to teach. Eventually she retired to a cave, where local people and pilgrims would come, seeking her wisdom. After her death, the locals began venerating her as the real Mary Magdalene.
Cologne, Holy Roman Empire - 1330
Despite all the insight that she’d gained in her previous reincarnation, this time around those memories were again only manifesting themselves in dreams. Again, by the time she was a teenager, Mary had started to figure things out. This time, though, she had been raised as a Jew, and so the conclusions she was coming to were slightly different. It felt like she shouldn’t have doubts about the Christian’s Messiah, but at the same time her own religion did, and she understood that, too. She was confused. And she died, still confused, in 1349 when she and all the other Jews in Cologne were killed because of fears of the Black Death. Ironically, at that point, half of Mary’s family had already succumbed to the disease.
Grand Duchy of Moscow - 1475
Mary died at the age of seven from severe pneumonia. Throughout this short life, she was unaware of who she was and, except for some nightmares, never suspected anything.
Xi’an, China - 1605
Throughout this reincarnation-and she lived to be almost sixty-Mary never realized who she was. She was a devout Buddhist and follower of traditional Chinese folk religion. She did have her interactions with Jesuit missionaries from time to time, and they always left her with a slightly unsettled feeling, but she remained a staunch follower of her own religion and never converted.
Manassas, Virginia, U.S.A. - 1845
In this reincarnation, as well, Mary did not know who she was. This time, she was back to being raised as a Christian, which felt right and was not something that she ever questioned. She had a strong, deep faith. The Civil War led her to question some of her definitions of what was right and wrong-she understood the arguments of abolitionists; she even agreed with them, but at the same time she felt a loyalty to her state. She understood what her neighbors were fighting for. Despite this inner conflict, Mary saw no choice but to become a nurse for the Confederacy, helping wounded and dying soldiers as best she could. After the war, Mary continued to work as a nurse, and did so till she died, helping people as best she could.
Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A. - 1982
This time around, Mary was born to a family in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. She had an older sister, Sheila, who was good at school the moment she walked through the door to kindergarten. Mary was not. She was just little Berny, who was cute, vaguely clumsy, and didn’t really get noticed. So she did something that her sister hadn’t done. She begged and begged until her parents sent her to ballet classes. Berny never got good at school, but that didn’t matter, because she got good at ballet.
By thirteen, she’d convinced her parents to let her move to New York to train at the School of American Ballet. Her parents were not exactly pleased with the idea, but they did recognize Berny’s dedication to the art, and they also saw that she had the talent to really train for a professional career. So Berny started at boarding school and began progressively distancing herself from her family. This wasn’t intentional, but she’d never quite fit in with them, and it was just something that happened. She was focused on training. She was focused on her body and on discipline.
And, in the end, that was her downfall. By fourteen, she was forcing herself to throw up. At sixteen, things had gotten so bad that her teachers issued her an ultimatum: gain weight or lose her place in the school. She couldn’t do it, and it took years and a lot of help before she recovered enough to function normally. By this time, her body had sustained enough damage, both because of the loss in training and because of the eating disorder, that there was no way she could hope to dance professionally.
Berny was lost. It was still a struggle to eat, but at least she could do that again. But now she had no idea what to do. She was eighteen years old, unemployed, and had no real usable skills. She could teach ballet, but-especially in New York City-there were people with more qualifications and more clout. So she cut off her hair, experimented with lesbianism, and generally went a little crazy. That was a dark time in her life.
At twenty, she still wasn’t really back on her feet. Her parents constantly begged her to come home, but she knew she didn’t want to do that. She liked the city too much. She didn’t want to go back to Ohio. She did, however, take them up on their other offer: she went back to school and got her GED.
This shocked a little bit of reality back into her. She was with all these people, her age and older, who were actually trying to get their acts together. Meanwhile, she was just there because her parents had sent her. She was still living off their money and that fact had never really bothered her before.
After that class, Berny found a job working at a nonprofit that helped families who had recently found themselves homeless. She’s been there ever since. She found that working with the families gave her something to fill the hole inside herself that ballet had once tried to fill. It’s not a perfect fit, but it’s closer.
» Personality: Berny is searching for something. She doesn’t know what, and if you asked her if she’s content, she would probably say yes. Deep down, though, she isn’t. There’s still something missing. Over the years she’s tried to fill it with various things, most notably her eating disorder. She has a mind that’s somewhat susceptible to obsession, if only because she wishes to have extreme control over herself. Part of this comes from the ballet and all the discipline it taught her, but a good deal of this comes from her own nature.
There are two other things Berny wants: she wants to be helpful and she wants to understand. Perhaps it wasn’t clear when she was younger, but once she started working with her families, she knew it was exactly what she should be doing. Yes, she misses dancing, but this is the most right her life has ever felt, and she’s willing to go on that feeling.
The more Berny worked with her families, the more she started asking big questions about life. She wants to know why these bad things have happened to them, why they haven’t happened to her, what the point of it is. She wants to know about everything, but she doesn’t know where to turn to get those answers. Her parents weren’t religious, so she’s never really been to church.
Berny doesn’t placidly sit around thinking about the meaning of life, though. She can be loud and irreverent. She likes to think of it as sass, or as speaking her mind, but it’s more like she says what she thinks when she feels like it, even if it’s the inappropriate time. She’s stubborn, she likes to have fun on occasion (though she’s calmed down a lot since her glory days), and if there’s something a little sad behind her eyes, well she hasn’t quite figured out what that means, but she’ll blink and bury it a little deeper.