California girls
We're unforgettable
Daisy dukes
Bikinis on top
Sun-kissed skin
So hot
We'll melt your popsicle
~Katy Perry, “California Gurls”
We're unforgettable
Daisy dukes
Bikinis on top
Sun-kissed skin
So hot
We'll melt your popsicle
~Katy Perry, “California Gurls”
Name: Jessica Sartore
Age: 19
Birthday: February 20
Gender: Female She/Her
Species: Reaper
Category: Student
Class: College
Grade: Sophomore
College Major: Business + Culinary Arts double major
Career: Lifestyle Blogger
Appearance Description: Jessica is the quintessential California beach girl: long blonde hair, tan skin, an athletic build, and pretty damn busty. She stands at 5’ 7” and loves a good high heel shoe regardless of her height. Her large, green eyes that are almost always accentuated with thick false lashes. Her waist is tiny and her legs are long and muscular from years of playing soccer and dancing.
Jessica is very confident in her body and everything she wears is fashionable and flattering. She especially loves summertime, when she can wear her cutest shorts and bikinis. She always takes the time to do her makeup. Her nails are always well manicured and painted in bold colors.
She wears a hearing aid in her left ear, although most people don’t really notice.
Personality Description: On the surface, Jessica seems like that perfect mix of beauty and brains. She’s a fast learner and seems to perfect anything she does. She maintains a 4.0 GPA in school. She’s athletic. She speaks three languages fluently--English, Italian, and Spanish--and has a basic knowledge of others, not to mention ASL on top of it. She’s a fashionista and highly skilled with makeup. She can sing and dance and act. And on top of all that, she’s nice! She is always eager to make new friends and is a total chatterbox.
Of course, there is no such thing as true perfection in any person. As much as Jessica likes to be friendly, she has little patience for rude people. She will get passive-aggressive with people who are rude to her, but she will get flat-out aggressive with anyone who mocks her friends. Her temper is short and it has gotten her into trouble before.
Because Jessica has led a rather privileged life, she can be clueless when it comes to how other people live. She can come off as a braggart when she starts talking about famous people she’s met, all the places she has traveled to for vacations, and the other extravagances of her life.
Below the surface, there is a darkness that she hides--Jessica suffers from PTSD and depression from her experiences prior to her coming to Manta Carlos. In addition, she was raised by her father to always act happy and hide her more honest emotions. He expected her to always be perfect in all that she did, and she obeyed with a constant smile regardless of how she really feels.
Fortunately, therapy and medication have been very beneficial as Jessica works out her complex feelings.
Active Abilities:
Reaper Form: When shifting into her Reaper form, Jessica’s skin and muscle melts off and her organs turn to dust until she is left just a skeleton. She becomes ethereal in this form, able to slightly float off the ground (only about a foot at the most) and is able to pass through solid barriers. She cannot be harmed by physical threats in this form, but magic can still cause harm.
Once Jessica has shifted into Reaper form, it takes 24 hours before her organs, muscle, skin, and all that regenerate.
While Jessica can change into her Reaper form when necessary, she also has a tendency to start shifting automatically if she is angry or distressed. She can stop the process if she calms herself down, but any flesh that melted off will take 24 hours to regenerate regardless. The flesh on her hands and arms tends to melt off first.
A Reaper’s Duty: Only active in Reaper Form. Jessica’s duty as a Reaper is to help lost souls with ‘unfinished business’ find peace so that they may return to the cycle of life and death. Souls who had identified as female in their life seem more gravitate to her mostly, much like the young girls who her father killed sought her out.
In theory, Jessica is able to send souls directly back into the cycle regardless of whether their ‘unfinished business’ is actually taken care of by reaping them with her scythe. Being the kind of person she is though, Jessica is always compelled to try and help them first if she is able.
Scythe: Her Scythe is slightly taller than her at 6 foot tall, with a 30“ curved long blade. It can be summoned at Jessica's will, but she also likes to fold it up and keep it in her purse. Yes, her scythe has hinges so she can put it in a purse.
Consensual Possession: Jessica is able to allow spirits who may not otherwise be capable of communication to temporarily possess her so that they may use her voice. She must give permission first, and can push the spirit out of her body at any time.
Any spirit, demon etc. that attempts to possess Jessica without her permission will be immediately rejected. If she does allow the wrong spirit into her body though, they will have complete control of Jessica for 24 hours before her body will forcibly release them.
Infinite Purse: You know Mary Poppins and her magic bag? Yeah, it's like that, except not hideous. She can store anything the size of her surf board or smaller in the void of her purse and pull those objects out whenever she pleases. Living beings can not be stored in the purse.
She can change the look of the purse so that it always matches her outfit. It can be made as large as a (small and fashionable) backpack or as small as that tiny purse Lizzo has (about 2” high and 2” wide).
It is possible to steal her purse and anything inside it--with the exception of her scythe which she can summon back to herself at any time.
Passive Abilities:
Semi-Immortality: Jessica is a difficult girl to kill, though it is not entirely impossible. Flesh wounds won’t do much, since her skin can just melt off and regenerate anyway. The ideal time to kill Jessica is between her going from her human form to her Reaper form by stealing her heart and brain and destroying them before they turn to dust. Both the heart and brain need to be destroyed in order for her to truly die.
Awareness: Jessica has heightened awareness of any spirits or undead within a 5 foot range.
Weaknesses:
Weak to Healing: While Jessica is capable of regeneration, any use of healing magic on her will actually cause her more harm and delay her regeneration.
Weak to Holy magic: Holy symbols, holy water, powers that come from a Divine being--they can all cause Jessica harm regardless of what form she is in. The power of a Divine being especially could likely kill her without too much difficulty.
Vengeful Spirits: While Jessica did kill her father, she isn’t particularly interested in ever committing murder again. Unfortunately for her, vengeful spirits seeking to destroy living beings tend to be the most aggressive, the most clingy, and the most difficult to get rid of. They can’t hurt her, but they can constantly follow her and psychologically torture her if they are really desperate.
Because they are the most desperate, they won't go down without a fight. Jessica can eventually reap them with her scythe, but it takes a huge effort to weaken them enough first.
Warning: Mentions of murder, child abuse, and sexual assault
-Born with the name Jessica Marie Cox and raised in San Diego, California, Jessica is a total surfer girl. She was born with a deformity inside her left ear that has made her partially deaf for her whole life, but otherwise she lived the good life of a rich kid.
-She lived with her wealthy father, who worked in the entertainment industry. Jessica never knew her mother, but she has a handwritten cookbook that her mother left behind of her best Italian dishes. Jessica loves to make the recipes in this cookbook to feel connected to her mother. Her father would never share anything about her mother--Jessica is still not even sure if she is dead or alive.
-She always seemed to have a deeper awareness of the supernatural than any human should. She was always telling her father that their home was haunted, but he always brushed her off. She tried her best to just focus on having a normal life, but there was always that chill that ran up her spine or that brief image in the corner of her eye that was quick to vanish.
-As Jessica got older, she slowly started to get a clearer image of these spirits that haunted her, and could faintly hear their voices in her dreams. A name finally managed to come through clearly, and after a bit of investigation, Jessica realized this girl was a fairly recent murder victim from her area. All of those souls were girls who had disappeared.
-Jessica started to snoop around the mansion while her father was away, even going so far as to learn how to pick locks, crack safes, and hack computers so she investigates everything she could. It became clear that her dad was a serial killer, and she came to understand why these girls had clung to her.
-That realization is what prompted her to go through a painful transformation and an unbearable rage. She stole one of his pistols and attacked him. She successfully shot him in the head, but he managed to inflict some stab wounds. She bled out, died, but then returned in her reaper form, with a scythe.
-When her skin and organs regenerated from the transformation, Jessica was in a panic. But she was lucky--the moment she had become a Reaper, a scout has sensed her presence and came directly to her before she had to make any decision.
-Things were confusing and moving so fast, but nonetheless she did as she was told and wound up at Manta Carlos via a portal. The trauma of her experiences lingered, but she saw this new place as an opportunity to start again. She would choose happiness.
-After school, her ultimate goal is to eventually open an Italian restaurant by the sea using her mother’s recipes.
-She lived with her wealthy father, who worked in the entertainment industry. Jessica never knew her mother, but she has a handwritten cookbook that her mother left behind of her best Italian dishes. Jessica loves to make the recipes in this cookbook to feel connected to her mother. Her father would never share anything about her mother--Jessica is still not even sure if she is dead or alive.
-She always seemed to have a deeper awareness of the supernatural than any human should. She was always telling her father that their home was haunted, but he always brushed her off. She tried her best to just focus on having a normal life, but there was always that chill that ran up her spine or that brief image in the corner of her eye that was quick to vanish.
-As Jessica got older, she slowly started to get a clearer image of these spirits that haunted her, and could faintly hear their voices in her dreams. A name finally managed to come through clearly, and after a bit of investigation, Jessica realized this girl was a fairly recent murder victim from her area. All of those souls were girls who had disappeared.
-Jessica started to snoop around the mansion while her father was away, even going so far as to learn how to pick locks, crack safes, and hack computers so she investigates everything she could. It became clear that her dad was a serial killer, and she came to understand why these girls had clung to her.
-That realization is what prompted her to go through a painful transformation and an unbearable rage. She stole one of his pistols and attacked him. She successfully shot him in the head, but he managed to inflict some stab wounds. She bled out, died, but then returned in her reaper form, with a scythe.
-When her skin and organs regenerated from the transformation, Jessica was in a panic. But she was lucky--the moment she had become a Reaper, a scout has sensed her presence and came directly to her before she had to make any decision.
-Things were confusing and moving so fast, but nonetheless she did as she was told and wound up at Manta Carlos via a portal. The trauma of her experiences lingered, but she saw this new place as an opportunity to start again. She would choose happiness.
-After school, her ultimate goal is to eventually open an Italian restaurant by the sea using her mother’s recipes.
Resources: She managed to transfer her father’s money to Manta Carlos, so she’s living very comfortably. She lives in her own spacious apartment instead of the dorms.
However, she has pretty expensive tastes and may need to get a job at some point so she doesn’t deplete her savings entirely. She has started a “lifestyle blog” which she hopes to monetize once it becomes popular enough, but at some point she might try to seek out something part time.
Additional Information:
-Jessica’s lifestyle blog is called “California Gurl on Manta Carlos” and her twitter is @CaliGurlInMC.
-When judging by the way she looks, people are often shocked to learn that she’s not attracted to men. She is a “total lipstick lesbian”, as she puts it.
Artist Credit: From the manga "Gyaru Gohan" and vector by Dekodere.
