metemmods

Player Information
» Name: Odette
» Date of Birth: 7/5/1989
» Journal:

righteousanger or odette_river on LJ (better in terms of contact)
» Contact: seerowskindness [at] yahoo [dot] com (PM on LJ is more reliable)

Deity Information
» Pantheon: Hindu
» Deity: Sita
» Reference: Wikipedia
» Divine Family: {mother & father} Bhumi (mother), Janaka and Sunayana (adoptive parents); {spouse} Rama; {siblings} none; {children} Kusha and Lava
» Mythology: Sita is an avatar of Lakshmi. She was found when Janaka, king of Mithila, discovered her while plowing a field. She was taken in by the king and raised as his own daughter. This upbringing taught her how to be polite and demure and to do what was expected of her. It also made her complacent and used to getting her way. In other words, she was spoiled. Not as spoiled as some, certainly, but she never knew a time when she wasn't given what she asked for.

Sita was later married to Rama, prince of Ayodhya. She followed him and his brother Lakshmana into exile and lived with them for some time, something that, perhaps, would have been hard for other women. So she wasn't completely weak, but still used to getting her way? Oh yes.

One day in the forest, a golden deer happened by. Sita thought it was pretty and asked Rama to go catch it for her. After waiting for a while, Sita heard what she thought was Rama calling for help. Worried, she asked Lakshmana to go look for him. Lakshmana said no. Angry, Sita made the accusation that he was staying simply because he wanted her to be his wife. (A ridiculous suggestion, since Lakshmana was always very, very proper around her.)

Finally, Lakshmana drew a protective circle on the ground, advised Sita to stay inside of it, and set out. Not long after, a priest came by asking for alms. The proper thing was for Sita to give him alms, and this is exactly what she did. Of course, to do this she had to step out of the circle and therefore go against Lakshmana's instructions. Basically, Sita didn't really show a lot of foresight. She didn't think seriously about why Lakshmana told her not to leave the circle, and since she wasn't considering the consequences, she took the risk.

A mistake. The priest turned out to be Ravana, King of Lanka, in disguise. He claimed to have fallen in love with Sita and brought her back to his palace in Lanka. She remained there for a year, constantly refusing his advances. This year was punctuated only by the arrival of Hanuman, sent by Rama. Sita gave him some of her jewelry to take back to Rama but declined to be carried back with him as she was uncomfortable with the idea of a man who was not her husband touching her.

Besides Hanuman, Sita also made a friend: Trijata, Ravana's niece. Trijata took a liking to Sita and often argued in her favor with Ravana.

During this time, Sita also matured. For the first time in her life, she had to fend for herself. Granted, the conditions weren't harsh―she was still living in a palace (or, at least, in the gardens of a palace), still had people to wait on her―but in some ways they were harder than anything she'd experienced before. With Rama, if she said no he respected that. Ravana didn't. Sita constantly had to stand up for herself, which was a decidedly new experience. She learned to be self-reliant and became a bit withdrawn.

Finally, Rama did make it to Lanka to rescue Sita. Unfortunately, he declined to take her back as his wife, citing concerns about her chastity. Shocked, Sita had a pyre built and stepped into the flames. This is an important moment in Sita's growth because it shows how much she's changed―it was her decision to step into the flames; she didn't do it because it was what was expected of her as a good woman or daughter of wife.

Because Sita was indeed pure, she was not burned. Seeing this proof, Rama took her back and they returned to Ayodhya together. Sita's happiness did not last long, however. Rama's people were reluctant to accept her as his queen, voicing the same concerns that he had raised in Lanka. She was eventually forced into exile again, although this time she was pregnant. She gave birth to two sons and raised them in the forest along with the hermit Valmiki. Her self-reliance increased.

Eventually they were reunited with their father and Sita made sure that Rama would accept them as his sons. He asked her to come back as well, to be his wife once again, but she declined. She was tired of that sort of life. Instead she called upon the Earth to take her back. The earth opened up and she jumped into the cavity, never to be seen again.

Character Information
» Played By: Dia Frampton
» Journal:

chose_fire
» Current Name: Tessa Rialdi
» Birthdate: 6/22/1994
» Height: 5'3"
» Distinguishing Marks: Pierced ears
» Family: {mother & father} Charles and Rebecca Rialdi; {marital status/spouse} single; {siblings} none; {children} none; {pets} none
» Occupation: Student (Biochemistry major)
» Currently Residing In: Berkeley, CA
» Ability: Tessa has a slight resistance to fire. Meaning that if she holds her hand above a candle flame it takes a while longer for her to sustain any burns than it would for others. And that's as far as her abilities go.

» History: Tessa Rialdi began life as a baby, abandoned at a hospital in a small town in Maine, as her first and only reincarnation. Her parents couldn’t be found, and after being passed around from one family to the next, she was eventually adopted by Charles and Rebecca Rialdi. They were on the older side to have a baby in the house--already in their forties--but they had no children of their own and they’d fallen in love with the baby, who was as mild and well-behaved as you could expect from a baby.

Under the care of her adoptive parents, Tessa grew into an amicable, well-behaved child. From an early age, it was impressed upon her that she should be good and do what her parents and teachers and other adults told her to, and so she did. After all, they were older than her and presumably wiser. She never really questioned authority. The rules were there for a reason, and usually her parents would explain that reason to her.

As Tessa grew older, everyone pretty much forgot her mysterious origins. Sure, it made an interesting story, but everyone already knew the story and as far as everyone was concerned, Tessa was just like any other kid in her class.

Tessa, though, knew differently. When she was younger, she’d often talked about how she was waiting for her handsome prince to come find her. Even as she got older, her parents still liked to talk about her invisible friend the monkey. Tessa let them think that these were just a child’s flights of fancy, but she knew that they weren’t. She’d always had memories of living another life before this one, a life where she was a princess named Sita who lived in a forest and faced horrible monsters. By the time she was old enough to understand that she hadn’t just made up these stories, she was also old enough to know not to talk about them, so she kept quiet.

This slow realization that she was Sita was just about as non-traumatic as it could have been. The memories had always been there, and the older she got, the better she was able to comprehend them. She didn’t spend much time worrying about why she’d been reincarnated. She did wonder whether Rama had been reincarnated too, but she saw no evidence of this and he remains in a shadowy place in her mind. If there’s one thing she isn’t sure about, it’s how she feels about him.

But she had other things to focus on, like school. Her parents encouraged her to try her hardest at school and so she excelled, getting good grades and generally being the well-behaved, smart, slightly over-eager student that most teachers want in their class. She didn’t think to rebel. What would she have done, anyway? Skipped class and gone and smoked cigarettes with some of the other kids? Smoking cigarettes seemed sort of gross.

And so life went. She did homework, she practiced violin (she’d started taking lessons when she was ten), and she hung out with her friends but was always home before curfew. And then the end of high school started to draw near. Most of her friends were planning to go to the state college located an hour and a half away. Tessa figured she’d do that too, until her teacher took her aside and suggested she apply to some out-of-state schools. After consulting with her parents and receiving their approval, she did. And she got in.

Which is how she found herself in Berkely. She’s still a bit dazzled by the place, but she’s in her sophomore year now and has stopped gaping at everything. Plus, it’s not like she has a lot of time to gape at things anyway. She spends most of her time studying. (Hey, biochem isn’t easy!)

» Personality: If there were one word to describe Tessa, it would probably be ‘obedient.’ She follows the rules, she does what she’s told, and she never questions authority. Basically, she wants to do what’s expected of her. She doesn’t want to disappoint and she tries her hardest to please others. She is very conscious of what other people expect of her and her goal is to fulfill those expectations.

Tessa also has a strong mothering streak. She likes children a lot and actually enjoyed her babysitting job. This mother quality extends to her friends. She’s the one who offers a shoulder to cry on, who tells people to be strong, who offers advice and assures you that it’ll be okay. Of course, since she tends to fill this role in whatever group of people she’s in, this means that Tessa doesn’t often get the chance to share her negative feelings with others. But, like so many other things in her life, she just accepts this. If she’s the one who has to be emotionally strong, she can do it.

Tessa is also rather idealistic and naïve. She looks for the good in people, even if they don’t seem good. She trusts easily and accepts apologies easily. Does this mean that it’s easy to take advantage of her? Yes. It’s not that she won’t notice if you’re taking advantage of her, it’s that she’ll forgive you soon after. She’ll give you a speech about not treating her that way, and she’ll finish it with, “Can we be friends again?”

Tessa isn’t weak, per se. It’s more that she really, really thinks people have good intentions at heart and she wants to give them the chance to show those good intentions. In that sense, Tessa is a bit dreamy. She believes in ideals and abstractions of what it means to be good.

But Tessa isn’t just the quiet, obedient princess of her first life. Yes, she’s still quiet and obedient, but society has changed since then. Now women aren’t just around to be pretty faces in the home. They’re told to be strong, to make something of themselves, and Tessa has paid attention to that. She knows that her thoughts and opinions have value and isn’t afraid to speak up if she thinks she should. After all, she used to be a princess who survived a year-long hostage situation with compromising her morals and then went on to raise two children as a single mother. If she managed to do that, she can manage today’s world, no problem.

It should also be noted that even when she was known as Sita she wasn't always calm and demure. Used to getting her way, she could be quite babyish about things. If she wanted something, it was assumed that she'd get it. If she didn't, she'd throw a fit. In her case, that usually meant making rather wild accusations of whoever was preventing her from getting what she wanted.

In this present incarnation, Tessa doesn't feel this same sort of sense of entitlement, but she does still have that temper. If she gets irritated―something that, granted, can take a while―she'll get accusatory and wheedling. An angry Tessa is a passive-aggressive Tessa. She's still conscious of the fact that she wants to look like she's doing the right thing, and so to compensate she starts pointing out the things that other people have done wrong. And if there aren't any real things that they've done wrong, she isn't above twisting the facts around until it sounds like they have. Eventually she will calm down, and usually she'll also apologize, but not before having said some very nasty things. Thus, if someone's been on the wrong side of her anger at some point, they may very well no longer be her friend.

» Other Notes: None

» Sample Journal: I think I'm ready for this semester to be over so that I can get back home ~~and away from all of this~~. The only problem with that plan is people keep telling me I should stay here and look for internships. I guess I see their point, but I really just want to go home. And also I haven't actually found any internships. I also don't really have time to look for internships what with all the work my professors keep throwing at us.

Seriously, I had a meeting with my adviser yesterday and he said I should go to the Career Center and start looking at internships or maybe REU or even jobs. Then I had lab with him later that day and he said next week there's going to be a lab practical. And the week after that there's a test. And that's just his class. Does he think I'm magic or something?

Anyway, I hear the real world is better, right?

» Sample Log: Sita had not wanted to show up to this party. An event where the whole point was to wear as little clothing as possible? Yeah, really not her scene. But she was also not good at saying no, so she'd been coerced into it. It had taken some pleading on the part of a few of her classmates, but she'd eventually given in.

The one good thing--the only good thing--about the situation was that she'd managed to convince her classmates that bedsheets didn't count as clothes. So now here she was, looking vaguely like a Halloween ghost, surrounded by mostly naked people.

It was awful.

Sita liked to think that she wasn't a prude. She liked to think that she was as accepting as the next person. And she was. As long as she didn't actually have to be there with all the sweating, dancing, naked people.

So she was hiding by the refreshments. It wasn't the best place to be, but she figured it was better than being in the middle of the dance floor. She snagged another handful of chips.

"What are you supposed to be?"

She looked up, startled, at the guy standing in front of her, also going for the chips.

"A ghost."

"What?"

"A ghost!" she shouted.

The music was too loud. That was another thing she didn't like.

He nodded. "Uh huh..."

"I mean, it's like I'm not wearing clothes at all, right?"

The guy was already walking away. Oh well. She hadn't really wanted to talk to him anyway.

NAVIGATION