#anyway I just like pondering how carpenter gathers the most dysfunctional family around her at all times

[notbecauseofvictories]

do you think carpenter has had any time to think about how faulkner killed the maybe-sort-of-uncle(ish) who brought her back to her faith? do you think carpenter, of all the people in this podcast, misses mason the most? not....a lot, because of....well, reasons too numerous to name, but once she's had the chance to breathe and sleep and eat a couple half-burnt pancakes, do you think she realizes that literally no one else alive remembers when she was eighteen and carried a knife just in case; when she was twenty-two and high on the thrill of being in same room as the gulfwalker; when she was twenty-six and went to him, begged him, and he didn't ask why her new partner needed to be reassigned, just pursed his lips and reassigned him. they never even really talked about their lives outside of the parish. he tried to manipulate her, propel her to higher heights, but she wriggled out of those attempts; disappeared into the wilderness for months on end. she once tried to ask if he had---a wife, a child? family of any kind?---and in retaliation, he sent her to the other end of the peninsula for six months, chasing a lead that might have been entirely made up. probably by him.

mason was selfish and power-hungry, and definitely using her, and carpenter knew that---she knew it deep down from the start, and then later with a kind of weary acceptance. she knew. but he knew her too, and until she got assigned to a recent convert with just a little bit (a lot bit) of hunger and madness in his eyes....mason was the only one who did.

#I had another terrible date so here is a silt verses headcanon. #I miss mason and I think that him and carpenter having a very complicated mentor/mentee relationship #where he tried to make her his tool and successor and she resisted every attempt #while simultaneously not quite being able to leave #is a good and interesting thing and I would like to think about it more. #anyway I just like pondering how carpenter gathers the most dysfunctional family around her at all times #it's nice. soothes me. #the silt verses