祝日 / Permanent Vacation
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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@strangercrime
THE HOUNDS OF PERDITION ARE AT YOUR DOOR.
low-activity, slow-reply writing blog for the antagonists from THE STRANGERS ( 2008 ). written by makwa, 25, two-spirit ( they / them ). highly triggering. minors, please do not interact. originally est. 2018. #STRANGERCRIME.
HIATUS. FIND THESE CHARACTERS ON MY MULTI.
⁰¹. CARRD. ⁰². INTEREST FORM. ⁰³. UQUIZ. ⁰⁴. MEMES.
lis/charlie as hell
i love trios. there’s always gatekeep (lis) gaslight (charlie) girlboss (naomi). ego (lis) superego (charlie) id (naomi). nice (lis) mean (naomi) and in-between (charlie). bitch (naomi) bastard (charlie) asshole (lis). TWO GIRLS AND THE GUY THEY TORMENT!!!!!!
new national holiday just dropped (my yearly return to strangercrime)
the tumblr rp lifespan. single muse blog —> single muse blog —> i have too many blogs [makes a multi] —> this shit sucks so bad let me make a —> single muse blog [cycle repeats indefinitely]
@whitelace : 030, an empty stretch of road beside a broken down car.
[ &. SCENE. ] MIDWESTERN AMERICA, BIG SKY COUNTRY. wheat and grass and burns. rust and roots and god on billboards. lis chews her nails down to the cuticle while arguing with a mechanic over the phone. they bleed; she keeps on chewing. a crow sees this and begins circling above them, anticipating death. when they’ve decided that they're done with the call, they toss the phone back into the truck through its open passenger window. it hits the stick shift, but the screen’s already too cracked to care. the man on the other end of the line sounds like a broken engine. he’s still talking. he doesn’t know lis hates small towns and the men they breed.
' tow won’t come 'til morning. ' she drives the toe of one sneaker into the dirt road; a cloud of dust jumps up in alarm. goodwill had sharpied the price along the rubber tread, and lis never rubbed it off. now she’s worth $7.99 and the cost of a broken-down truck. they hold their forearm above their eyes, squinting at the light of a slowly setting sun. summer air swims thickly above the ears of corn, and it doesn’t shimmer. it just hangs there. ' next town’s three miles back that way. –––two, if we cut through the field. ' somewhere in there, a scarecrow sits in a clearing and carves apples out of bird hearts. somewhere in there is a pitchfork, and somewhere beyond it the farmer that wields it. lis feigns a smile, but it’s rotted and bitter around the edges. ' what do you say: you wanna risk it with the townsfolk of america? ' or out here with me.
2014 makwa was so wahh why don’t i have a billion followers on my roleplay blog for a niche character that nobody remembers. GROW UP
[ p. 86 ] her bloody hand squeezes the knife. in a quiet voice she sings: ' i don’t care if it rains or freezes ... ' / [ p. 89 ] ' ... as long as I got my plastic jesus. ' he sings to himself the same song that kristen sang minutes ago. / [ p. 96 ] ' i don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as i have my plastic jesus ... ' kristen sings softly to herself, and the man watches her lips say the words they both remember.
set the scene setting prompts (but a little more specific) from yours truly.
001, a convenience store past midnight.
002, a hospital waiting room at 3 in the morning.
003, a photoshoot outdoors in the middle of winter.
004, an indoor filming set of a detective's office.
005, a new house/apartment filled with unopened cardboard boxes.
006, a swing set in an empty playground at night.
007, on stage in an empty theatre.
008, inside an old abandoned house.
009, an empty cemetery at night.
010, the arrival hall at an airport.
011, the last train compartment that's not full.
012, the roulette table in a casino.
013, on the deck of a cruise ship.
014, a kitchen during a black out, surrounded by candles.
015, a treehouse in the middle of the woods.
016, on the dance floor during a wedding.
017, behind the chapel before the wedding ceremony starts.
018, backstage during the middle of a concert.
019, a crowded club during a bachelorette party.
020, standing in front of a painting at a museum.
021, a small, intimate family barbecue.
022, a gazebo while it's raining.
023, the back of an empty bus.
024, a hotel room with only one bed.
025, an empty balcony while a party goes on inside.
026, a bar just after closing.
027, an empty sports stadium.
028, lakeside while the sun is setting.
030, an empty stretch of road beside a broken down car.
031, in front of a suspicious pool of blood in an empty parking lot.
032, in the crowd of spectators during an underground fight.
033, a plane during a bout of turbulence.
034, on kiss cam at a sports game.
035, at a table during a charity gala.
036, a masquerade ball.
037, a halloween party in a suburban house.
038, the beach in the late afternoon.
039, a dressing room after a big performance.
040, exploring the depths of a mysterious cave.
' ––– and stay gone! ' lis tries to slam the door shut, but it settles against the frame with nothing more than a gentle gust of air and the jolly tinkling of the bell above. they’ve spent a life-time slamming doors; they should be better at this, but they’re not. this, too, makes her want to slam a door. to compensate, she flips the lock with great flourish, four hours before closing, and feels vaguely satisfied about the click that it makes. the man on the other side of the glass looks bewildered, if a little disgruntled, and walks away with a shake of his head.
they totter off to find alice, side-stepping book displays of varying sizes and colours. when she finds her, she steps into the room before rapping her knuckle against the wall. knock knock! ' hey boss? girl talk. ' the feigned familiarity sounds out of place; they’re veritable strangers, orbiting each other loosely on the pretence of professionalism. anything lis knows about alice, they know from charlie / everything alice knows about lis, she doesn’t know ––– it’s a lie.
' got a lotta weird guys coming around here, and they all claim to be regulars. ' an idea seems to strike them. their expression changes, but only just. something ––– some wild fancy or fantasy ––– creeps below the surface. ' you host a fight club after-hours? ' lis leans in with a hyena’s stoop and grin. their voice drops to a whisper, limning the edge between sweet and suggestive. ' you can tell me. ' / @ravenskeeper
his office was more inviting than most, and that's why hannibal had set it up the way he did. blues and golds and browns, the accent wall a deep red. bookshelves made up most of the other walls, but the space was open and airy. the sunroof brought shining rays down upon them, the two nearly haloed in it. most of his clients said they felt at peace within the first few sessions they attended with doctor lecter. having read over her file, hannibal couldn't imagine naomi would be the same. he's dealt with difficult clients, but doctor lecter has a way of taming them. this one would pose more of a challenge. but he was never one to shy away from anything, let alone a troubled woman who clearly believed she didn't need any help.
he watches her watch the file, as if it were going to gain life and strike her like some sort of snake. they're just words, he wanted to assure. she shouldn't worry about them ; she should move forward and start anew. but hannibal wasn't interested in making naomi forget, nor changing her. whatever she is now is good enough, interesting enough. if hannibal were to push her, it'd be to free herself even more. ' would you like to read it? ' the doctor finally answers, glancing to the folder and back to her with a quirked brow. curiosity mixes with the attentive way he gazes at her, the man still and steady in his seat. ' i believe in full transparency with my clients. if you'd like to know what your last psychatrist wrote about you, i encourage you to do so. however, i must warn you you may not like what you see, '
' wait ––– let me guess. ' naomi inhales deeply; exhales sharply. she’s preparing for a presentation. a job interview for the position of palatable monster, if ever there was such a thing. ' deeply troubled young woman with violent impulses. problem with authority, stemming from an unhealthy childhood and overbearing parents ––– that bit isn’t true, by the way. my parents are so nice. ' she hates them anyway, but that’s neither here nor there. ' …. what else … hmm. compulsive liar. manipulator. whatever the psychological term for ‘bitch’ is. '
her lips twitch; she’s held them in a snarl for so long that she can’t remember how to relax her mouth. if you stand far away enough, it just about looks like a smile. ( is hannibal far away enough? or does he see her for the rabid dog that she is. ) ' am i close? ' naomi runs her palms down her thighs, as though she’s smoothing the folds of an appropriately polite summer dress ––– but there is no dress. she’s wearing jeans. it’s all an act. this is a game. ' i’m not actually a bad person. promise. she just didn’t like me very much. '
the rooftop garden is a decade-old F&ES student project that has seen better days, equipped with an irrigation-catchment system that reduces run-offs by distributing stormwater into tough, wind-tolerant evergreens and purifying basins. olearia, and phormium, and spotted laurels overflowing out of lightweight, recycled wooden troughs. amelanchier and multi-stem heptacodium trees that flower in autumn, irresistible to bees. a jade-green shadow stretches across this solitary ecosystem from porous tarps, dappled sunlight adorning her hands like gold. illuminating the mist of rainwater and milk spraying like opalescent confetti from the watering nozzle tucked inside the curl of her fingers.
focus feels like a solitary tunnel. a matter of muscle memory and basal-cognitive fixations. but charlie cuts it like a ribbon with the sharp edge of his voice. feeling caught, claudette swivels her body on the heels of her boots, blinking at the transparent container, the flex of charlie’s hand as he vices it between his fingers. finds herself flinching against the hollow clap of plastic hitting wood; the sharper rattle, as a black cicada bounced inside it. “o-oh," careful, curious, she peels away the lid with the same sentimentality afforded to christmas wrapping. pinching the arrowhead-shaped cadaver and turning it over with the pads of her fingers. ”neotibicen canicularis. or dog-day cicada. canada has them, too.“
claudette decides that she appreciates the gesture. shares it with a corn spider, her steady hand fitting charlie’s offering into the dew-sprinkled webbing canvassed across the guardrails. “…thank you. really. the rain this week has been triggering all sorts of mold. it’s safer for the wildlife to eat something that isn’t from the garden right now. um, at least until i’ve reduced the spread.”
it’s football season again, maybe. he doesn’t have a calendar to check exact dates, and all of the university’s weekly updates sit, unopened, in an equally unopened email account. raised voices lift over the rooftop garden like symphonies; sometimes a father-mother-daughter-son-dog’s voice rings out louder than the rest. and so he makes a deduction: it’s football season ––– or, the world is finally coming to an end. neither strikes him as more significant than the other. they ( and maybe the display of fervent collectivism below has had an effect, because he finds himself considering claudette as an extension of the self ) are above it all. they are in the garden.
the sunlight is soft here, moisture-laden, filtering through leaves in slanted pillars. he’s grateful for it. the sky is very blue on some days, and it blinds him. he still squints as claudette strings her offering into a fine-spun web, but this is happenstance. ' i thought spiders were live-prey hunters ––– uh, attracted to the vibrations of insects trying to escape the web. ' predators eat prey, scavengers eat bodies. these are things he holds to be true. claudette is kind and good, claudette is prone to sentimentality and wasting her time. these are also things he holds to be true. the smell of soil overcomes him, and he wrinkles his nose.
' will it … accept it like that? ' he imagines himself eating roadkill / he imagines claudette scraping roadkill off the tarmac and serving it on a plate on the pretence that the tire-treads are grill-marks. probably he wouldn’t accept it like that, either. but on some days he feels so wolffish and hungry.
all i know is go inactive, come back, and post months-old drafts to a dash that has forgotten my very memory
charlie rolls out his trap, sets his bait, and waits ... all while mari has never been able to resist giving him a more-than-carnivorious bite where it counts. he knows her, just like she knows him, and his nonchalance is a screaming tea kettle that she's only cranking up the heat to. why stop there? why stop now? where he ends, she begins, and together, they're a conglomeration of all the blind-eyed caution-signs they're chasing in heart-hammering successions. ' legally binding contract? ' a brow slants upward slowly, sweetness selling itself short. ' if you were smart, you'd know th — that statistically, you have almost an 100% rate on being the home invader. not the i — invadee. i'm the 0.01%, and your survival skills are lowering down to a wonderfully humbling 0% as we speak. ' her jaw tightens, then releases into a low thrum of a smile. ' statistically. '
MARI DAI HAS BAD LUCK. she speaks in threats, and charlie hears in mathematical miscalculations. his world is a small and reductive one: boring, by all accounts ––– aside from its antisocial underpinnings ––– and certainly not large enough for a personality as chemically reactive as mari’s. ' saying ‘percent’ after a number doesn’t make it a statistic. that’s not ... ' he shuts the tap off. the drain gurgles and swallows the cigarette whole. ' ... how facts work. ' her willful misunderstanding of statistics seems to upset him more than a burned palm, occupied counter, or broken-into apartment ever could. he regards her plainly, ignorant of ( or at least indifferent to ) the visual cues of the rage beneath her surface. the frown has lessened, but in its ease becomes contemptuous. ' what you’re saying is that in ninety-nine-point-nine percent of all home invasions, i’m the perpetrator. and that in zero-point-zero-one percent of home invasions that happen to me, specifically ––– getoffthecounter ––– you’re the perpetrator. ' not nearly a high enough number. she's a bona fide serial offender.
charlie snaps, crackles, and pops into a reprieve from a stalemate of tension. ( she pushes, pulls, and pries until he's nothing but fragments. she supposes it's fair, for what it is, but nevertheless: mari's never been one to abide by those kinds of rules. ) he plays his hand, stifles his winnings, and folds himself back into an obscurity that skews the very perception itself. can she truly be blamed, for trying to pull the curtains back once more? ' i don't think you h — have any place to talk about what either of us should be doing. ' her calm creeps and crawls along the floorboards, lifting up from her place to trail behind him like a shadow that just won't quit. her form slides onto the counter beside the sink, tilting her vision back in alignment with his. a hum. ' does it matter? ... n — not like you'll have this apartment for much longer, anyways. ' her hand twitches. ' right? '
the cigarette, doused by a stream of water, hisses out of existence. ' it’s a yearly lease. ' signed and dated after they’d already moved in together ––– but what's the difference? ' you can’t just break a lease, mari. it’s a legally binding contract. ' charlie leans against the counter; it’s smooth beneath his palm, the laminate cooled by the autumn air that’s made a home here. his finger runs the trail of a crack from years ago, feigning nonchalance while practicing violence. push peel push slice dig dig dig a hole nick a vein bleed out. she settles down beside him and he imagines pulling her off the counter by the crooks of her feet. he doesn’t, though, and this makes him a much bigger person than the world at large gives him credit for. ' i’m being smart. ' i’m planning ahead. ' statistically, the average relationship lasts two years and nine months. ' factually, theirs is no average relationship. it’s an anomaly, even by empirical standards.
she flicks ash onto the ground again , watching as it flutters to the ground like some fucked - up version of a butterfly : burnt . it elicits a raw , rusted over kind of taste in the back of her mouth ─── one she swallows down , because she knows that if she spits it outward , she won't stop there . for all the calm , cool , condescending comments she'll make , are all the vile , violent , visceral amounts of hatred she aches to enact . but a game is a game , and there's no fun in winning if you don't play a little , first . ' and i want a relationship w — where you choose to hide normal things . like texts , or money , or drugs . ' another flick of ash , scraping the chair against the floorboards to finally face him . a smile works its way onto her lips , near reminiscent of the ones she gave him in the very first few months of their relationship . small , and innocent , and dangerous in all the ways its deceptive . ' but we don't always g — get what we want . '
RELATIONSHIP [ n. ] is a relative term ––– a psychosocial state of madness. he watches her blandly, his eyes uncommunicative / his expression falsely innocuous. partner, captor, victim, friend. they say boundaries start to blur at the three month mark. ( it’s been twenty-five months and thirteen days. prognosis? he’s fucked. ) ' i don’t do drugs. ' intentionally obtuse or obtusely intentional. he grabs her by the wrist with one hand, and with the other snatches the cigarette by its flickering end. it burns and sputters and burns and dies and burns and ' –––neither should you. ' his grip is a dog bite, punishing but fleeting. first it’s there, bone white blue bruise, and then it’s not. charlie turns away / heads for the sink, cigarette crumbling in his fire-pit palm. with his face safely turned from mari’s view, he scowls. ' did anyone see you? ' / @godsgun
of course, of course, of course... she should have known there was a chance it would come to this. what was her life without the risk involved in stepping place she had never truly belonged? was anyone going to be surprised the day her nosiness got her killed? what would the papers say? 'amateur detective found dead; hometown left unsurprised'.
doors, windows, curtains — everything shut and locked and obscuring her, but she still felt incredibly exposed as the picture of her stared back from her screen. the small voice, ignorable at the time, that had screamed at her that getting involved was reckless had risen to a crescendo. too little, too late.
the silence stretching between them, as if it could create physical distance. "then talk," she countered finally, snapping the band back, reality setting in. he was outside. there was no avoiding this. but maybe there was a way of surviving it. "i'm listening."
charlie lowers the paper, holding it stiffly against his thigh. silence settles between them for a moment, indeterminately long. he hums quietly, or maybe it’s the porch light whirring. then he speaks and this, too, is quiet. ' the home invasions. how did you know? ' how did you know they were related, he means but does not say. he’s always leaving his sentences hanging, the conclusion to his stream of consciousness perpetually out of reach. his thoughts are a rock and he’s kicking it down the street and eventually it skitters too far away and he loses it to a storm drain and then he turns the corner and he feels ( wolfish and empty. )
he closes his eyes ––– not that she can see it / he imagines what nancy is doing behind the door ––– not that he can see her. ( what are you doing with your hands? can you point to where the pain is? is it everywhere? is it made up? do you feel fear intensely? anger? are you grinding your teeth? how safe do you feel? rate it now on a scale of one to ten. ) charlie tilts his head; something cracks along the neck, but it brings him no relief. he’s still got his eyes closed, and when he talks it’s addressed to the version of nancy in his head. ' what ... gave it away? '
