Application, Contact Info, OOC
.the mundane;
» Name: Jill
» Journal: la_belle_roo
» Contact: AIM: la roo terrible / Email: mcgrath.jillian@gmail.com
.the myth;
» Pantheon: Greek
» God(dess): Echo
» Reference: Wiki source, Theoi source.
» Family: {mother & father} As a nymph Echo claims no parents.
» Played By: Kaya Scodelario
» Human Alias: Erica Monteverde
» Human Age: 23
» Ability: Mimicry: Echo can repeat someone's words last words to her down to inflection and tone - and in rare cases where the speaker's voice is similar to her own she can even imitate their voice.
» Occupation: Student at Julliard, assistant dance teacher at the New York School for the Deaf
» History: Echo, a young and beautiful nymph who possessed a great love of her own voice, along with singing and dancing, lived in the mountains as a follower of Artemis in the mountains near Mount Olympus. Zeus, who greatly enjoyed consorting with the nymphs, would frequently visit her sisters and herself at their home to enjoy their attentions. Often, this would go on without any problems, until the day Hera caught wind of Zeus' behavior and went to investigate.
On that day, Echo took it upon herself to distract Hera by telling her an amusing but elaborate story. At first, Hera was entertained, but when she realized the extent of Echo's duplicity she cursed the nymph by taking away her voice except when it came to the repetition of others words. This left Echo only able to speak when spoken to, and her answers would be whatever the other spoke last.
One day, she came upon a gorgeous young man named Narcissus. He had been separated from his hunting party and was looking for them. Utterly enamored, she followed him waiting for her chance. She wanted nothing more than to get his attention and speak to him, but was unable to speak first. When he finally heard her footsteps and called out to her, she repeated his words as she showed herself.
Rushing to embrace him, he rejected her, telling her to leave him alone. Heartbroken, she spent the rest of her life in the lonely glens where he cruelly turned her down, crying. Some say she cried so hard that she eventually became invisible, only her voice remaining as she waited for Narcissus to return, but others believe that she cried until she turned to stone.
» Reincarnations: The first time Echo was reincarnated was during the late 1600's, and a trying time for her. She was born with a condition nobody in the small Greek town where she lived understood, though they believed her to be deaf and mute she proved able to hear fine but could only repeat others, and had eventually been sent off by her family to Italy to seek help from a noted doctor. While he had been unable to do anything for her, he gave her a job and delighted in her dancing for him. It was through his care and tutelage that she learned how to fend for herself.
The second reincarnation was slightly easier, England in the early 1900's, especially when a well-meaning young man in the asylum where she had been placed when she recovered her memories got her released into his care. He was studying sign language, and taught Echo how to communicate without a pen and paper for the first time in her life. The decision to go to America with him was both one of the scariest and hardest decisions Echo had ever made, but he promised to take care of her.
In this, her most recent incarnation, she is the daughter of a psychologist and a housewife living in San Francisco. Once her condition became apparent her father diagnosed her with Echolalia, a disorder on the autism spectrum common with those diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome (explained in her personality section), and enrolled her in special classes to help her adjust. As she grew older, she started to remember bits an pieces about who she really is and chafed at her parents' continued attempts to keep her 'safe' by limiting her time in the outside world, eventually running away to go off to New York City and follow her dreams of becoming a dancer. While she struggled for a few years she's finally beginning to get somewhere.
» Personality: When it comes to Echo, what you see is rarely what you get. When she's feeling at her best she's bright, bubbly, and fun to be around; constantly in motion dancing and smiling with the best of them. When she's frustrated by how difficult her ability to interact can be, it's easy to consider her cursed in some fashion or possessing some kind of social disorder. While that is indeed the case - the curse that Hera once placed upon her having becoming modernized in its own fashion to a high-functioning autism - thanks to her condition it’s not like she can confirm that without people asking her very specific questions.
Diagnosed with the autistic disorder known as Asperger syndrome from a young age, she rarely speaks unless spoken to and in that case all she does is repeat the other speaker’s words back at them in an almost parroting fashion. Between that, her inability to look people in the eyes without blatantly staring or holding contact for far too long for it to be comfortable, and the hang wringing and flailing that she sometimes engages in when gripped by nerves, she felt isolated growing up. In an effort to overcompensate she developed an almost automatic smile and no matter what anyone said or did to her tried to be friendly whenever she could.
She made certain that she never let anyone see how hurt she was, except for one time when she had fallen for a boy and he told her she was weird and pushed her away; because of that she refused to ever grow close to anyone again. She had dreams and goals, and she would make her parents proud even if it meant running away and learning how to make it on her own to do it. When she was younger, thanks to her mother’s interest in the arts, Echo developed a fascination with dancing and worked her body to exhaustion learning how to do the moves she saw on the stage and screen as perfectly and precisely as possible, often forgetting to eat or sleep unless someone stepped in to stop her.
Thanks to medication and specialized classes she was able to attend a normal school, using sign language to speak, though the flailing and hand wringing caused many problems with people who didn’t have the patience to deal with her. Along with that, her completely inability to lie or understand sarcasm made her an easy target for bullies. In spite of her social handicaps she has made friends and attracted attention for her pretty face as well as her abilities, though in her efforts to make friends she often overcompensates by learning what her new potential ally might like and doing her best to provide it as perfectly as possible. If they enjoyed baking then she’d greet them with cookies or cakes every day; flowers would mean a new plant or bouquet, and in the situations where she can’t meet their needs she develops a depressive funk and falls back into her old patterns until she remembers to take her medication or get help elsewhere.