Sarah Bailey / "Seh-uh Belly"
Sarah is intended to be the main/perspective character when books set in this world are written and later released, having actually entered the Afterlife by being shot in the head on the first anniversary of her little brother's death - which as it happens is the day after a birthday party that nobody enjoyed - at the same graveyard where he cracked his head open and straight up fucking died while trying to perform a back-flip she'd dared him to do under the belief that he'd chicken out and not try it.
The moment that bullet enters her head - wild story behind that (and subject to change: currently going to be some kid who has to kill someone to get initiated into a gang but other possibilities, like her actually attempting the same back-flip and dying or even one of her parents taking her to the graveyard and taking her by surprise if I REALLY wanna slather that sadness on, do exist) - she's in the Afterlife, with literally nothing on her to aid in her survival - not even clothes yeah you die you go to the Afterlife naked hope you don't spawn in somewhere cold or spiky.
She's got the luck of survival skills from being tossed into holiday camps throughout her childhood, but this is pretty thoroughly outweighed by her being physically unfit, underweight, in a mood to just let something eat her oh and of course the Afterlife is an absolute fucking nightmare to survive in I cannot stress enough the fact that Sarah was lucky to spawn into a *relatively* safe region and the odds of her surviving long enough to find something resembling a civilisation (its own nightmare to survive in when you can't speak the local language, know none of the customs, aren't aware of those nocturnal trash-scavengers that will opportunistically kill and eat anyone who's still out after dark, look different and worst of all look like a Brijild (nobody likes Brijilds)) were incredibly low.
Overall 10/10 choice for a protagonist Isekai is a brilliant genre when executed properly / not turned into a lazily-written wish-fulfilment / power fantasy.
It should be noted that characters born and raised in the Afterlife by people born and raised in the Afterlife over so many generations that their entire civilisation which has developed its own languages cultures customs religions and so on is unaware that they're even in the Afterlife ridiculously outnumber characters who actually used to live in our world but have ended up in and survived in the Afterlife. In fact there are only 2 other characters, one of whom has had their second death before Sarah even arrived and only a character because their actions before Sarah's arrival have impacted the current state of things and the other of whom could be retconned into being native to the Afterlife at any moment.
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
At the time when she enters the Afterlife she's slightly underweight. She's surprisingly fit for her lifestyle despite this as she does home exercises and has a very high metabolism.
Body Features
Freckles, some of which overlap to look like a skull to the top-left of her left eye.
Back when she was alive she had some scars from a mixture of the good old "fuck around and find out being followed by going to the hospital" (I should clarify she lives in the UK so her being accident-prone didn't bankrupt her parents), a blood pact she made with one of her friends to be friends forever and self harm while living with the house-owning friend. All of those disappeared on her entry to the Afterlife.
Special abilities
None.
Apparel & Accessories
Generally wore grey or black back before getting her head was cleared. In the Afterlife her first set of clothes are scavenged from a corpse.
Specialized Equipment
Whatever's available to her at the time.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
She was born to a couple that married 4 months before she was born (okay I just made it sound like they were even less prepared than they were they'd already been engaged for a year) and had a pretty average childhood with the main following points:
1. Parents both worked full-time. Sarah was often taken care of by her grandma, who lived with her parents (fast version: Sarah's grandma sold her house so Sarah's parents could afford theirs, and then moved in with them). Because they often worked during holidays, Sarah was usually sent to holiday camps or taken places by her grandma, usually beaches that she loved.
2. Was bullied by girls at her school because 1. She's a filthy fucking ginger and 2. Some of the freckles on her forehead overlapped to look kind of like a skull. This led to her having a lot more friends who were boys than girls, as well as an obsession with pirates. This partially contributed to her being a fucking nerd.
3. Her little brother was born when she was 7. What little attention she used to get from her parents and especially her grandma went to this little brother. She's sometimes tasked with taking care of him but the fact that he acknowledges roughly 0% of any authority she has over him, not least because she's about as assertive as a shy kitten, would usually result in her being scolded for "letting him make a mess".
4. Okay now the pieces are in place. She ends up being a giant nerd who buries herself in videogames, anime and all sorts of other nerd shit with her friends, in addition to constantly dipping in and out of being a goth. For anyone who's seen Attack on Titan, she ends up being one of those cringey Levi fangirls AND one of those annoying people that reads way ahead in the manga and spoils it for the anime-only viewers. Her being a nerd may be acceptable but her being cringe isn't. She's also a giant people-pleaser, which leads to her making friends with more of the other girls at her school and being their resident person-who-can-easily-be-peer-pressured-into-doing-things-they-don't-want-to-do.
5. The day after she turned 18, on Halloween Night (that is to say she was born at 4am the day before Halloween), she was tasked with taking her little brother trick-or-treating but instead brought him with her to hang out with her friends. They each gave him a small portion of their sweets, which added up to a lot, as a bribe to keep quiet about them all going to a graveyard together.
So anyway, after the rest left Sarah's little brother insisted on staying at the graveyard to climb the tombstones and oh yeah have I mentioned how spineless Sarah is yet? They watch a scary movie on her phone but part-way through Sarah stops it and is finally like "yeah we gotta go home we'll watch the rest back there".
Sarah does a back-flip off a tombstone, having challenged him that if she could do it they'd go home and he'd stay quiet about not actually trick-or-treating. Her brother pulls the old "okay well now if I pull it off we stay here and keep watching the movie", she pulls the old "ha as if you can back-flip off a tombstone lmao" and lets him try with the intent of catching him before he lands so he doesn't fucking crack his head open and die. Problem is that the mud from it raining earlier that day made it rather slippery for her trying to catch him...
And then he fucking cracks his head open on the cobbled way next to the tombstone and dies in an ambulance.
So some stuff happened after that y'know and then she moved out of her parents' house and into a house that her friend had just bought using money she'd gotten from her multi-billionaire uncle's will. It was there that the following happened:
1: Sarah learned that her bisexuality doesn't just apply to anime characters by unintentionally interrupting her homie's shower. She got a giant crush on her homie, which was neither voiced nor reciprocated.
2: Basically did all the cleaning, laundry etc.
3: Unironically just spent almost all her time chilling in that house with her friend mooching off the interest from the money from that inheritance, just waiting for their whole way of life to be flipped upside down for the next time hyperinflation comes for us all.
Yeah some stuff happened after that but the core thing is that on Halloween night 365 days after her brother died she was shot in the head in the same graveyard he died and was buried in.
Sexuality
Bisexual.
Education
Flunked her final exams at school cos of the whole "fuck no image of my brother's split skull get out of my head I'm tryna remember Pythagoras theorem" thing.
Employment
Has literally never had a job. Unofficially her house-mate's maid.
Accomplishments & Achievements
Serious under-achiever.
Mental Trauma
Watching your little brother's head crack open like an egg and then watching him die in an ambulance do be fucking wild. Oh yeah and when she was shot in the head she had a split-second after hearing the gun click to look right down the barrel before the trigger was pulled.
Intellectual Characteristics
Despite her under-achieving and all of that, she's actually incredibly cunning, inventive and generally intelligent when she really applies herself. Despite that she's bad at communicating anything she comes up with to others, lacks confidence, lacks acting skills, has a terrible memory, isn't good at keeping her priorities straight and is easily distracted...
Look she's the perspective character that we actually get to see the inner workings of the brain of it's easiest for the sake of writing it to just make her into me when I was a teenager.
Morality & Philosophy
Pretty basic sense of morality honestly, but will internally beat herself up over minor things while completely overlooking gargantuan red flags in other people.
Personality Characteristics
Motivation
She's literally just appeared in an entirely different world, survived for a few days in terrifying wilderness and found a society in which she doesn't know the language her primary focus is not dying and learning the local language as a means to not die.
Likes & Dislikes
Loves the ocean and pirates. Likes anime, videogames, books, horror movies and all sorts of nerd shit.
Dislikes sugary food ever since the whole brother-died-on-Halloween-shortly-after-me-and-him-stuffed-ourselves-with-sugar. Doesn't like confrontation.
Virtues & Personality perks
Kind, capable of extreme bravery despite being fairly timid. Upon getting her first taste of not being free she gains and overwhelming desire to take and protect her freedom.
Vices & Personality flaws
Usually passive up to a point, after which she snaps. This applies to a lot of things, not just her being mistreated. Exams coming up? She'd procrastinate until the last few days before the exam and then cram it all in just beforehand (this is not an effective study method). Seeing someone being beaten up, or being beaten up herself? She initially freezes in fear and only after a bit does she suddenly gain the overwhelming impulse to act without thinking. She's generally 0 to 100 and will both accelerate and decelerate real fucking fast.
Personality Quirks
Laughs when nervous or stressed, but will also scratch herself, tap/grab things and in general doesn't respond well to stress or nervousness very well... at least at the story beginning that is. Oh yeah character development does do its thing here.
Hygiene
Clean freak.
Social
Family Ties
Show spoiler
She is related to the Brijilds.
Religious Views
Catholin't. Doesn't really believe in anything religious but still does some Catholic stuff.
Social Aptitude
Error: Social skills not found.
Relationships
Age
19 at story start
Date of Birth
30th October, day goes before month suck it yanks
Year of Death
2021 Post-A
Circumstances of Birth
Pretty normal. Parents were already engaged when a little something broke and the little "blessing" was almost strangled to death by her umbilical cord while being born 8 months later.
Circumstances of Death
Just vibing in the graveyard where her little brother both died and is buried when some kid with a gun gave her early access to the Afterlife. Oh and it was Halloween Night.
Birthplace
UK innit m8
Spouses
Siblings
Children
Gender
Female
Eyes
Green
Hair
Dark red
Skin Tone/Pigmentation
Pale with lots of freckles
Height
5'2
Weight
42kg (slightly underweight)
Character Prototype
Fun fact: I imagine this story being animated rather than live-action.
Anyone seen Attack on Titan? Slap a shitload of freckles on Sasha, make her have short-ish messy untied hair.
Alternatively, take that shot from Black Lagoon of Revy as a kid (the one where she's just shot someone), age her up with the same hairstyle, slap on the freckles and make her paler with slightly lighter hair.
Finally, if you want a real person... uh... I can't think of any actors lmao.
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