#the ghouls are in their human forms at the bar after a gig

[ghcstcd]

if she approached you at the bar, don't buy her a drink. That's Dew and he will drink you under the table.

[sandracarroll]

                                  A  L  L  I  S  O  N     C  L  O  V  E  R                                  S  A  N  D  R  A     C  A  R  R  O  L  L .                   twenty-two                             teamaker.                                 chicago, il.                     psychedelics/coke dealer.                   tramp.                   dropped angel.

cw: maternal death, sexual coercion, frequent drug mentions.

“SANDY CARROLL” --- formerly known as allison clover --- grew up in the underbelly of chicago, raised by a fatally over-protective single mother, who tried to shield her daughter from the grit and grime that covered every square inch of their community.

as a child, allison was kept busy at all costs, distracted by a wallpapering of catholicism from the influence of her peers and the sordid history of her family. she was brought up in the church; she socialized primarily within the church’s community, she played on the church’s softball team, she participated in the church’s charity events and she helped organize the church’s fundraisers.

the clovers ran an online business selling homemade incense, candles, and teabags from herbs and spices grown right in their apartment. it was just enough to help keep the lights on when her mother’s job at the plant nursery couldn’t cut it. this is to say: a young, naive allison wouldn’t have much in realm of inheritance when she would need it.

shortly after ally’s 18th birthday, her mother was killed in an assault.

gang initiation. body mutilated. her teenage daughter had to identify the corpse.

the tragedy shattered allison’s eden. she woke up to the nihilistic nature of the world, in which good people can die with no rhyme or reason. it showed her the true nature of the modern christian and their shortcomings in practicing what they preach. in the wake of ms. clover, the church community offered allison their prayers and platitudes, but no one in their impoverished community had a dime to spare or room on their couches when allison needed a place to stay. every bystander assumed someone else would step up to take care of her.

emotionally distraught and disappointed in her paper thin support system, ally stopped sticking around after mass and isolated herself from the community, eventually opting not to attend altogether.

the scraps of wealth she had left after paying for a catholic funeral would not help her afford the rent. her underwhelming resume would not be enough to get her a job to support herself. with too much grief to handle working two minimum-wage gigs--- with her mother deeply estranged from the rest of their family--- with her long history of being isolated from her neighbors--- she had nowhere to turn when she was evicted.

her naivete and lack of options paved allison’s way to falling in with a bad crowd. her first night at a local shelter, she was recognized outside by a shaggy boy from her graduating class. immediately trusting, she opened up to him about her situation and vulnerability, and he was all too quick to offer her a place to stay until she got back on her feet. she never stopped to question his character or intentions.

she was fast to fall in with the boy and his band of delinquents, which she would later understand to be a gang deeply involved in several webs of drug trafficking in the city. her sheltered upbringing left her unprepared to notice red flags, and her gullibility made it easy for the kids to take advantage of her on the grounds of offering her bedrooms to stay in and spotting her meals in her hard time. when offerings of basic human necessities turned into talking her into smoking with them and bringing her along to parties, it wasn’t hard for them to pressure her into using her inexperienced body to show appreciation for their hospitality.

catholic guilt went head-to-head with disillusioned catholic angst, both raging inside her head with feelings of physical violation she didn’t have the wisdom to identify. in the midst of the chaos, she developed a taste for the escapism. she preferred to live in the haze of inebriation and work out her conflicts of spirituality with mushrooms rather than face her situation or her grief. but she didn’t realize she was running up a tab with her friends.

from a peer’s perspective, she picked up on their culture fast. learned the slang and the technique. gave off the impression of someone who knew what she was getting into when they started sending her to drop off and pick up at college campuses, and when she was smoking herself into debts she’d never be able to repay.

after ignoring the scarier and grittier aspects of the new friends she’d made for a year, and then upsetting them when she started avoiding sex— depriving her friends of their payment— things came to a head after a traumatic trip on DMT, a vision of her disappointed mother sent her into a serious crisis of faith and a fear that her sins were becoming unforgivable, which prompted her choice to branch out to people other than the dealers she was wasting her youth with.

when the ghouls started getting insulted by her pulling away, one of her lovers let her know that she still owed them for all that they had provided for her, and when she stood her ground and put a lock on what they wanted, he told her she owed them at least $4,000 for their troubles before they would let her scurry away.

in a cold sweat for finding that kind of money in the near future and feeling a serious threat to her safety at the mercy of a gang, she opted instead to commit one last sin in the form of stealing a suitcase and backpack of drugs from the trap house and taking a bus as far out of illinois as she could go.

she started going by the new name SANDRA CARROLL, and planned to keep moving and sell the stash of psychedelics to keep her afloat until she could start using her legal name again and get a law-abiding job. she tried to go to hipster bars and college parties, looking for less dangerous people to pick her up as a sugar baby and give her a couch to sleep on until she was far enough and emotionally stable enough to take care of herself. 

the panic attacks and paranoia made it hard for her to nail a trustworthy hookup, but she found a way to survive by couch surfing at a state university in kentucky. the low threat level and high libido of clients on a college campus makes it easier for sandra to deal, especially to inexperienced freshmen who were too insecure about playing it cool to ask questions when she hiked up her selling prices. it was a perfect environment hustle free food and beds to sleep in, and she could have stayed afloat there for long enough to let her trail run cold, find a new social circle, and eventually even heal. 

that is, until she spotted one of the gang members looking for her at a party.

sandy wound up packing up her things that night to flee to a remote place she’d heard about, in the countryside of north carolina, serene and inexpensive, far away from signals or surveillance, in a quaint little camp town called wrenbury.

(( TL;DR: sheltered church girl is ill-prepared and too naive to survive on her own when her mother dies unexpectedly; she falls in with a gang and loses control of her expenses and her body; steals an enormous stash of cocaine and psychedelic drugs and flees chicago, going by a false name and dealing to stay just barely afloat. spent the last year dorm-surfing on a college campus before coming to wrenbury. lives in fear of her ex and his gang who are still looking for her. haunted by the specter of her mother, imagining she is devastated to see how far her harlot daughter has fallen from grace. ))

                                  > PERSONALITY / FAST FACTS.

pleasant. gentle. hazy. airy. strange. erratic. passive. flighty. compassionate, but unreliable.

the usual refrain you’ll hear is, “SHE’S NOT ‘ALL THERE.’”  sandra mostly comes across as dreamy or dazed out. you might assume that extreme levels of stress and substance abuse have fried her brain, and she might agree with you, but don’t be so sure. there is a part of her that prefers to buy into that story and assure herself that she’s too disconnected with reality to process it. and she’s willing to stay as high as a hot air balloon to make it convincing. 

she zones in and out during conversation, absent-mindedly wanders into places she shouldn’t be while lost in thought, and tends to lose track of time or forget important things, like curfews or notices of restricted areas. she has a mind that can muse a mile a minute, and she tries to keep it busy with innocuous thought tangents about what type of flower a person would be, rather than focusing to what the person tells her about the latest murder, for fear of ruining her vibes and falling into a panicked spiral.

she grows flowers, spices, and herbal plants all over her cabin, taking advantage of the rustic life to relive her childhood of making homemade teas and incense. she has yet to ask if marnie and regina mind all of the aromas and dirt she brings into their common area.

she views sex as something that’s casually transactional. might get confused or even suspicious if you do her a favor without accepting a lay in return.

wrenbury and its glitching borders have fanned the flame of her lack of faith in her own sanity, and made her unsure of what to believe with regards to the killers. she tries to take the word of the townspeople over her fellow campers.

the kind of person who you might see sway-dancing like a twin peaks character, stopping in her tracks to stare at a caterpillar on a tree trunk, sticking her hand out of a moving car’s window and surfing it in the breeze, or praying only when she thinks no one’s looking---and if you look close, you might catch a tear streaming down her face while she does so.

she still has a trace of purity to her that most people don’t pick up on until they outright find out about her religious upbringing. she comes off as an eccentric wallflower sitting in a circle with the stoners at a party; not unfriendly, but not the person to start the conversation; doesn’t instigate the orgy but she certainly keeps up. innocent but not inexperienced. very good at maintaining lucidity just long enough to escape any witnesses when she’s having a bad trip.

some sandy carroll pinterest boards created by myself and my friends: (i), (ii), (iii), (iv). 

                                      > WANTED CONNECTIONS.

friends, especially people with easygoing personalities. someone who can make her feel comfortable enough to have more sober conversations. people who buy from her (she’s currently carrying cocaine, ecstasy, and acid). enemies (could be on the grounds of sandy being twee, inconsiderate, or a liability). a disinterested person for her to have a crush on even though they wouldn’t notice if she was hacked up by one of the killers. a kinder person with a crush on her that she’ll never pick up on. 

hookups~ sandy is pansexual and doesn’t realize that she’s been traumatized by years of sexual coercion, so she consents to a lot of bad ideas, and is still conditioned into the mindset that it’s something you use to pay gratitude to people for being nice to you. 

someone she met from the college she was squatting at, especially if they’re a hippie who brought up wrenbury when they were having a stoned dorm room conversation about wanting to move off the grid.

someone, either from or hired by the gang, who was sent to track her down and collect her debt and is now trapped in wrenbury with her  👀 :GRIM_REAPER_EMOJI: