A red crayon and... a red broach... A red rose and... red blood... Red is the most beautiful color, yet it comes at a price. It is my most favorite color and my most hated color.
ABOUT
There is no way around the bush: Jennifer is a very traumatized young girl. She is extremely courteous, subservient, and empathetic. She tries her best to not be noticed while trying to find the truth and beauty in the world. Because her most formative years happened seeing and experiencing abusive relationships in various ways, she is reluctant to date, even when she has very romantic ideals. She is also very solitary, and doesn’t want looming figures to have power over her any longer.
Jennifer is a skilled calligrapher and analytic reader, and would like to publish poetry or short stories. She can sew delicates and make lace, and tailors her own clothing. She has a very simple art-style and loves to journal, and while she thinks it could be worth it to make a living of either of these one day, her inheritance suits her just fine, living her life introvertedly for the time being, healing slowly.
Backstory
Jennifer was born to loving parents in 1921. At the age of eight, she and her parents boarded a luxury airship headed towards India, however, it crashed and everyone but her died. She was found by a pea farmer named Gregory Wilson, a longtime widower who had also lost his son Joshua to illness some time ago, and whose loneliness had loosened his grip on reality. In his delusion, he mistook Jennifer for his son: he rescued her, trimmed her hair, dressed her in his clothes, and locked "him" in his basement.
Jennifer would think of him as kind, however, he would never let her leave. Gregory was a complicated man: an alcoholic, suicidal, delusional, and a cannibal, though Jennifer repressed this memory had does to this day. (As they lived in poverty, he might’ve fed her human meat disguised in pea soup). He would also read ‘Joshua’ twisted fairytales that contained sadistic and horrifying plots every night, not seeing anything wrong with them, which he wrote and made art for himself.
By the end of the year, a resident of a nearby orphanage called Wendy (An orphaned but wealthy child) noticed her through Gregory’s basement windows, and started exchanging letters with ‘Joshua’, eventually falling in love. Wendy exchanged an emotionally significant rose brooch for a stuffed bear, Jennifer’s last item from her life as Jennifer, as proof of love and trust, and later helped her escape. It had been dangerous, as Gregory could get violent when his delusions were challenged, and Jennifer was weak from poor eating and emotional scarring, though they arrived to safety.
The orphanage staff accepted Jennifer, and they even tried to corroborate who she was, but her extended family had taken possession of her estate, and they pretended she was a stranger. She was later on bullied by children over the “delusion” of being a rich heiress, specially because the children had a very complicated inner hierarchy, where Jennifer was given the lowest rank.
It was a complex half game, half social hierarchy system. Whereas Wendy was their ruling princess, and Joshua her secret prince, she could not assume the prince’s identity without being ridiculed. In her stead, her toy bear sat besides her own girlfriend. The other higher ups called themselves the Red Crayon Aristocrats, where the girls had several titles and the boys were knights. Only the "royals" could color using red.
Wendy reassured her that once her talents in the game showed, the other children would trust her more, and she’d take her rightful place. The game consisted of finding a precious gift once a month, chosen by the child aristocrats. They could range from real (butterflies) to the absurd (mermaids), where the players would have to find out a way to poetically represent the gift. While playing, Jennifer found out all about the secrets of the orphanage. She found out and experienced physical abuse, that the headmaster was a pedophile abusing his oldest charge, and sometimes innocent secrets like who had a crush on who, or useful like where extra food was hidden. This caused her to be hated and bullied and neglected even more. Her few items of clothing were often stolen, including her socks and shoes, which made it torturous to walk in the laundry basement, where she’d often sleep after being locked in.
All of her suffering seemed to ease up when she found a puppy that she named Brown. As she was often left alone, she’d keep him in the garden shed, frequented by nobody, and slowly started to spend more and more time with him. Wendy became jealous and hurtful, at first helping Jennifer feed Brown and trying to find a new owner, but eventually she became hurtful and resentful. Wendy’s anger at Jennifer made itself known, and all the other child aristocrats became more and more hurtful and willing in their abuse of her. Around this time, the headmaster died, the cleaner disappeared (And would later be found dead from a beating), the oldest charge fled with the orphanage’s bi-yearly money and the children were left alone, in the cold, with no supervisors as they only went to the orphanage twice a year.
The children became hungry and dependent on their game to continue on. It was then when Wendy decided to make Brown the monthly gift, which Jennifer assumed would be so they’d have a loving companion to share between them all. However, Brown was killed, and it made Jennifer’s energy emerge. She beat Wendy in front of everyone, blaming them all and herself for the terrible things they’d done and how they treated each other (And implicitly, for allowing each other to be cruel and to suffer) finally taking her small throne.
Wendy did not take kindly to this humillation. Dressed up as Joshua, she visited Gregory, and made him pretend to be a villain from his horrible stories, a creature called Stray Dog which the child aristocrats feared. However, she couldn't fully control him in the end, and he killed all children in the orphanage but Jennifer before committing suicide. She had hid herself inside a broken grandfather clock, and was found days later by the authorities. She was the only survivor.
This time, due diligence was made, and Jennifer could corroborate her identity. Furious, her aunt and uncle fled, stealing all they could from her home and burning everything not stuck to the floor. Jennifer has an empty home and little money, though it was enough for a modest living. She supressed her painful memories for a few years, but now holds them deeply in her heart.
