Hi! I'm Delaney (aperfecta, Spectascopes, etc) and this blog is about the original novel I'm currently writing, Little Red, which I began writing in 2023.
Little Red is a story about finding safety, family, and growing even when growing is hard. A brief description:
Russel King is a depressed and disabled young man with no resolve and even less purpose. He and his brother Stanley live in a small college town, estranged from their abusive family, just making their way through the days and trying to overcome the dark past they went through together. Stan is optimistic, resilient, and strong; Russel is content to live in his shadow and help support him and his transition however he can. Stanley is just happy that Russel is still alive.
Their lives dissolve into uncertainty when Russel finds a designer pet for the ultrawealthy on their back porch. Fairies are bipedal felines with opposable thumbs, much smaller than a gorilla but just as smart. When the animal speaks to them, all pretense of knowing what the hell is going on is abandoned.
On top of their old struggles the two now have to care for this injured fairy as well as get to the bottom of what's going on.
I'll be sure to update this post when necessary, but right now the 2nd draft is in progress.
If you'd like to read the first 10 chapters of the 2nd draft, please send me a message and let me know! It's uncertain if publishing it online would be an issue, but to be safe I won't be doing that. So just hit me up, I'd love to share!
I'll update this post and add the main characters later
fucked up tonight thinking about the song Always Gold bc it reminds me of how Stanley viewed he and Russel's relationship especially when they were younger or when he's looking back...
I am about to fucking yap under the read more and it is going to be about suicide and suicidal ideation, be warned. Also you should listen to the song first its a good song I prommy (and not about suicide I'm just making it that way to fit my evil purposes)
The song doesn't reaaaaally fit well literally. It's about two brothers, one of them content in life where he is and one that's not happy so he travels and tries to find purpose elsewhere in the world. Comma however as soon as I was like "well all the stuff about leaving and never feeling like he belongs could definitely fit through a lens of him being suicidal even if that wasn't the original intent" and then I was like fuuuuck okay now we're cooking with gas
We were tight knit boys
Brothers in more than name
You would kill for me
And knew that I'd do the same
And it cut me sharp
Hearing you'd gone away
But everything goes away
Yeah everything goes away
Like okay kill me. And kill me again because:
We were opposites at birth
I was steady as a hammer
No one worried 'cause they knew just where I'd be
And they said you were the crooked kind
And that you'd never have no worth
But you were always gold to me
Very accurate to how Rus and Stan's parents treated the two of them. Stanley did well in school and he was also social, and active, and he filled his role of "a good daughter" very well. Russel, meanwhile, was a disappointment to his parents at pretty much every turn and neither of the two knew how to deal with it other than to try to bully him into being better, which obviously didn't work. It's not a perfect fit because Stan very much was NOT fine with where he was at this time (still living with his parents, in the closet, trying to save up enough to move out and be able to support him and Russel with no safety net) however
But I am fine with where I am now
This home is home, and all that I need
But for you, this place is shame
But you can blame me when there's no one left to blame
Oh I don't mind
All I have to do is think of "fine with where I am now" in this context to mean I WANT TO KEEP LIVING SO I CAN FIND A BETTER LIFE and now I'm crazy. Stan wanted to do that for him AND for his little brother but Russel didn't. This poor 17 year old thought a better life for him was impossible so he just wanted a way out, he didn't care how.
All my life
I've never known where you've been
There were holes in you
The kind that I could not mend
And I heard you say
Right when you left that day
Does everything go away?
Yeah, everything goes away.
But I'm gonna be here 'til forever
So just call when you're around.
"Right when you left that day" being, of course, the day of Russel's suicide attempt. Part of the reason he felt driven to that point is because he didn't know Stan still cared about him, so "I'm gonna be here till forever" gut punches me into next week. Before Stan found him after the attempt, he'd never once in his life considered that Russel would ACTUALLY do something like this- which stemmed from sources such as: Stan never being suicidal himself, an ignorance around how mental health worked, and being willfully unaware of the idea that his little brother could be hurt that badly. "All my life, I've never known where you've been" because Stanley fundamentally DOESN'T understand his brother, even to this day, he just has to accept that he never will and do what he can for Russel in the present (because, in his eyes, he failed him so catastrophically in the past and he has to make up for it)
Okay so in summary 1) this song is awesome I do love this song so much, I heard it like 10 years ago I think? In a Gravity Falls post about the Grunkles? Shout out to brothers and being insane about strained sibling dynamics. And also 2) I could see a puddle on the ground and somehow make it about my original characters
Director's Cut for this image bc I still love it: Max is looking up because hes meant to be looking at a human. Maximum Power wants to believe in a world where people are kind when given the chance to be, and he wants the humans to like him. They took so much from him, but that's okay! Those humans are gone and now there are good humans in his life! It's not their fault. Whatever happened in the past, he's okay now.
Jade is looking head-on like she is looking at another fairy or refusing to raise her head to look a human in the eyes, because she refuses to see the humans for what they are (not a monolith, sometimes cruel, sometimes kind, sometimes a mix of both). She doesn't want to give the humans the satisfaction of seeing her rage or her tears. She has decided humans are not worth looking at; they will never make up for what they did to her and they'd do it again if given the chance. She won't give them that chance.
One might assume this is what the characters look like based on the ratio of sphinxbeast Rus and Stan vs human Rus and Stan. But no. I just love the AU I made thats an OC crossover episode
Rus has a Galarian Yamask and a Golurk, Poppy has a Mimikyu and a Snubbull, Stan has a Charcadet and a Volcarona. Jessie has the aforementioned Gholdengo and a Metagross, Maximum has a Pawmot and a Sneasler, Jade has a Weavile and an Obstagoon.
Okay stop what if Russel and Stanley both have mons from the Chandelure line š bc ghost/fire matching twinsies
I am married to creating one-off imagination scenario AUs of the characters in Little Red for my own amusement. Last night I conjured up one such world and this is the rough thought process
I want Poppy to be a little mermaid beast (but w legs, kind of a Luca situation but without a human form) -> I want him to be on his own and stupid and he gets fished up with a hook through his palm -> Stan and Jessie are the ones that fish him up and then have to deal with the lil mermaid kid they just accidentally wounded -> okay well Russel has to be there too but I don't think he'd be a fisherman -> Russel is 16 and going through it but on the mend and in this vaguely fantasyish setting he has a connection to animals and uses it to draw in fish that are usually really hard to catch, so Stan and Jessie do the 'work' and Russel is just kind of the psychic bait that chills on the boat and draws and doesn't do much -> Stan and Jessie are married and left the Kings' hometown so Stan could transition and Russel could Not Be Abused -> Poppy can talk but is terrified and hurt so he's unresponsive for days before Russel finally breaks him down with good vibes and snackin' sardines -> Poppy found their boat because he was scared and alone and didn't know what to do and he felt Russel and figured it was his only chance at surviving even if he didn't fully know what was waiting for him on the scary human boat -> once the crew go back to harbor they try to find another mermaid to help figure out what to do for Poppy and they find Jade who is also a mermaid but hangs out on land a lot. She assumes they're trying to get her alone and kill her so she tells them to fuck off -> Russel finds Max while he's chilling on the beach with Poppy and he, unlike his sister, is more than willing to help
It's like inventing my own toys, to be honest. I do this all the time. I'd love to draw lil Poppy mermaid sometime
I am married to creating one-off imagination scenario AUs of the characters in Little Red for my own amusement. Last night I conjured up one such world and this is the rough thought process
I want Poppy to be a little mermaid beast (but w legs, kind of a Luca situation but without a human form) -> I want him to be on his own and stupid and he gets fished up with a hook through his palm -> Stan and Jessie are the ones that fish him up and then have to deal with the lil mermaid kid they just accidentally wounded -> okay well Russel has to be there too but I don't think he'd be a fisherman -> Russel is 16 and going through it but on the mend and in this vaguely fantasyish setting he has a connection to animals and uses it to draw in fish that are usually really hard to catch, so Stan and Jessie do the 'work' and Russel is just kind of the psychic bait that chills on the boat and draws and doesn't do much -> Stan and Jessie are married and left the Kings' hometown so Stan could transition and Russel could Not Be Abused -> Poppy can talk but is terrified and hurt so he's unresponsive for days before Russel finally breaks him down with good vibes and snackin' sardines -> Poppy found their boat because he was scared and alone and didn't know what to do and he felt Russel and figured it was his only chance at surviving even if he didn't fully know what was waiting for him on the scary human boat -> once the crew go back to harbor they try to find another mermaid to help figure out what to do for Poppy and they find Jade who is also a mermaid but hangs out on land a lot. She assumes they're trying to get her alone and kill her so she tells them to fuck off -> Russel finds Max while he's chilling on the beach with Poppy and he, unlike his sister, is more than willing to help
It's like inventing my own toys, to be honest. I do this all the time. I'd love to draw lil Poppy mermaid sometime
My OCs Russel and Stanley are human men but I love to put them in scenarios including this one where they become magical shapeshifters who can turn into weird sphinx-lion-bird beasts.
They get silly in beast mode. rough-housing and nonsense occurs
I have been trying to draw stuff with more than one character interacting in an attempt to improve, and obviously it ends up being characters from Little Red a lot of the time
First up is magic beast sphinx Stan letting Rus use him as a bed/pillow combo. In the like 10k oc x oc crossover fic I wrote for the sphinx Kings, Russel is not even 18 yet, which makes him more or less a baby
Next is Russel showing Max the scars on his arm. I didn't finish it and the perspective is wild (I used a ref for Rus but not for Max haha) but an attempt was made
Below is a copy/pasted message convo between 2 characters and there's a brief mention of suicide, so I'll put it under a readmore
Unfortunately I've discovered how fun it is to just have the characters message one another. This is not part of the story, its in the file called "Little Red Snippers" (it's supposed to be Snippets but I misspelled it and grew attached to the misspelling)
In which Jade asks Russel, after the two have been roommates for a few months, about his attempted suicide 6 years prior.
hmmm I am beginning to think I am writing a story that is in part about masculinity and I didn't even realize it
Russel is the main character and he is a cis guy who suffered heavily under the pressures of patriarchy. It's not something I've delved into (the exact flavor of the bullying and trauma Russel's parents put him through) but a lot of it was based on the fact that he was not performing masculinity "adequately" per his parents' definition which was shameful and bad. He's too sensitive, too quiet, he's not confident enough, he's never dated or even shown interest in women, etc etc. But shaming him for that did not ever make him more masculine, just depressed as all hell (and he was already mentally ill from a young age but expected to just suffer through it in silence) so now he's got a hundred different Complexes about the most normal things possible.
Stan is a trans guy who does a lot of gender stuff to spite people- his parents in hindsight, or anybody who tells him how he should be living his life or expressing his gender. He's like the opposite of Russel in that he has no shame in himself and will do shit just to make somebody mad. Russel is jealous of Stan for being so brave and open about himself and Stan is jealous of Russel for, well... being a guy without having to try at all, though he's aware enough of the situation to not joke about that and give his little brother another thing to be self conscious over. As a transgender man I think Stan's whole relationship with masculinity is the most obvious, bc it'd be hard to write a trans man like Stan and not, at least a little bit, talk about the fact that he is trans.
Poppy is just a little guy being raised amongst queerness and he has little attachment to his gender. It was assigned at birth and, hey, his two favorite people are boys! He is just fine being a boy too :] he doesn't really count for this, he is 10 years old and hasn't thought about this and nobody is holding him to any standards of masculinity haha
Jessie is nonbinary, they consider themself specifically to be agender, and they are most comfortable presenting masculinely. To the point that 99% of people who meet them for the first time assume they're a man with long hair. And Jessie is fine with that! They don't care much at all about how people that aren't close to them perceive or interact with them. They only care that their friends and loved ones know the truth and gender them correctly. It isn't going stealth or being closeted so much as them not feeling it worthwhile, for them specifically, to spend time and energy making sure people they don't know can get their gender right. They truly just don't care.
Max is the most performatively Masculine of the cast, but that's mostly because his idea of masculinity is newly formed and he's still trying to figure out where he fits into the world, being a fairy and all, so he's performing what he thinks is the right stuff. He's really only been a member of "society" (digitally) for a few years, so he hasn't had a lot of chances to make self-determining choices like what he wears, his hobbies, how he talks to people, etc. He's definitely not unhappy with where he's at (exercise is his main hobby, he plays video games, he wears masculine clothes and takes pride in his physical strength, he is confident and brash) but down the line he'll probably end up branching out and trying new things.
It is interesting and maybe I'll push it enough to make it a Thing within the story, but also on the flip side of this: the next story I write needs to have more women/femininity in it alksdjflkas
