#Hayward

[phantomrose96]

I'm actually deeply obsessed with the tiny little anecdote Hayward tells about the god Henge and it makes me insane again every time I remember it.

You know the best god I ever met - they called him Henge. He haunted a village up north. He didn’t ask much of you. He liked keepsakes. Things that were no longer useful. Maybe you had a ring you didn’t want to wear any more because it hurt too much. Or you had a key that you weren’t going to use for a very long time, but you wanted to be able to find it again when you did. Or maybe your kid would be born with their eyes and throat shut tight and you didn’t know how to move on. You’d wrap your keepsake in green cotton, and you’d bury under a pile of pebbles in a place only you knew. And you’d make the prayer-marks so that Henge would know just what was being offered. And then one day, years later, when you were ready to pick up whatever you’d left behind but perhaps you didn’t even know it yet yourself, you’d turn and look outside your window, and the ring would be hanging from a tree-branch outside. The key would be resting on your sill. There’d be a newborn child, wrapped in green cotton, resting upon your doorstep. I never understood what Henge wanted with that stuff, but I understood the appeal of going through it. How nice it was to feel that someone had stopped to pick up the things you needed to drop.

The image about the stillborn child just stops me cold like. A child you loved and wanted and is born dead and you can't just part with, can't just accept it, can't find the way to put the work into the funeral and have them gone, forever, to nothing.

That you could put the child down and Henge will just... pick them up. Not save them. Not change what happened. Just give you time to step away. To not need to say "goodbye" to the child yet. To not have to deal, just yet. Just that one day, in the future, when you're ready, whenever that may be, the child would be back on your step for you to bury...

Hayward plays down the ring in his example of just hurting too much but, he plays down the kid too. Is that ring of your dead spouse? A dead family member? What kind of key do you need out of your possession until you're ready - or, Hayward, is this honestly just a strategy to keep something where you yourself can't lose it...? Can it be that simple?

I'm insane about Henge. I'm insane about putting a thing down temporarily, and having a god which will hold it while you can't.

[mossgoblins]

You gotta find pleasure in the little things if you’re gonna get through the day.

[rottingraisins]

[cosmichorrorlesbians]

WHY DID HE SAY THIS. WHAT POSSESSED HIM.

[melandrops]

every friend group gotta have:

-aspec bitch

-transmasc failure

-lesbian who worked in advertising

-ex cop

[red-canaryy]

Hayward you will always be famous

[unteriors]

N Evergreen Avenue, Hayward, Wisconsin.

[carolinawrenn]

The relationships between the main characters in The Silt Verses (Carpenter and Faulkner, Hayward and Paige, Carpenter and Hayward) are so meaningful and not at all romantic. It feels very real, but also so unfortunately rare in media. It’s one of my favorite things about the podcast.

The relationship between Hayward and Carpenter—two weary, jaded middle-aged people trying to find a new way to be in the world after the institutions they served betray them—is especially wonderful. I would happily listen to a separate podcast that is just the two of them on a road trip.

[thekhaninglass]

I am in Eskew Episode 30 // The Silt Verses Episode 45

[the-zenith-calls]

“How is Carpenter?”

“She pushed me off a train.”

Hayward and Paige as Will and Hannibal

[mindthewitch]

Carpenter and Hayward: *making guitar noises and bickering*👨‍🎤👩‍🎤🎸✨️

Devereaux and Sebastian: *literally being consumed by a sentient hotel* 👁👄👁🔪

[phantomrose96]

Season 1 Hayward is the funniest motherfucker in the show for numerous reasons, but one of them is that he’s the closest thing to an atheist in a world where gods are Very Very real and all of society is defined around them

[catsofcalifornia]

Solace from Hayward Animal Shelter in Hayward, California

Click here for more information about adoption and other ways to help!

Click here for a link to Hayward Animal Shelter's main website.

[rottingraisins]

reality doesn’t stay still, when the winds blow from the south

[eyesteeth]

love the diner scene in episode 5 so much. on the surface it's hysterical, hayward just dumps this rant about his wife (soon to be ex-wife) onto carpenter, someone he fully believes to be involved in the deaths of five men, with barely any prompting. and carpenter cringes through the whole thing and it's so awkward to listen to. it's four minutes of an incredibly realistic rendition of the worst conversation possible.

and then later you learn that there is no ex-wife. hayward just said that shit off the cuff. and it's so fucking funny on a second listen. all that awkwardness, to a stranger, about something that didn't even happen.

when he mentions his wife again in episode 14, something's clearly off - his speech about the good man running, it feels more like him talking about himself than describing what someone said to him. then, when he says his wife knows he's at the party in episode 18/S2E3, we know he's been on his own for a while. finally, it comes out in episode 27/S2E12 that she was never real. and this knowledge completely recontextualizes the whole encounter in episode 5.

him talking about fear and apprehension, that mounting feeling, desperately wanting something to be over but not wanting to make it be over, feeling like you're giving more than you're taking, it's very clearly him ranting about his job and his associated insecurities. he goes into feeling like he's going to lose himself if he pulls away from this "relationship" or come out the other side worsened from the whole ordeal.

and then carpenter pipes in, and says that there's another option - he can destroy the other party. and that's where this scene really clicks and comes together, because the thoughts hayward is having about his job are the same thoughts carpenter is having about her faith.

she also doesn't want to be here, both in the sense of being in this town and being in this position. she's tired of gods and the problems they cause for her and everyone, and she's struggling with leaving. hayward and carpenter foil each other incredibly in this regard. they even have similar forces pushing them to make this choice in the first place - hayward got into the police because he didn't want to let his mother down, and carpenter got into the church because of the fear surrounding her brother's death. it's guilt and family for both of them.

then, in season two, we get to see them both existing outside of their respective "bad partners" - hayward abandoning his job and working with paige, and carpenter traveling alone to bury the body she's given. (the similarities diverge here - carpenter spends this time alone reflecting and ultimately decides she needs no higher force in her life, while hayward feels directionless without a higher authority and so goes all in on the new god - they both go in very different directions with the momentum they're given)

now, with season three six days away, they're both being pursued by that same "bad partner" from before - hayward was already on the run from the police and making a god isn't going to put him in any better graces, and carpenter has the forces of the river faith coming after her for a double-murder she didn't do. when their paths converge, which is very likely, maybe they'll foil each other again. only time will tell.

[melandrops]