#because gwen has decided she's okay actually and everything is to be forgiven

[kariachi]

Still kinda wild that Gwen was happily hitting Kev so hard in the Coop ep that he was cringing and all but pleading for them to finish up and go despite even in that same episode taking being shot with no reaction and that not only is Gwen doing this not treated as a bad or excessive thing, but that we're supposed to believe that shit was just, fine after that. This is like, a week or less into their dating and it doesn't affect Kevin's feelings at all? She hits him so hard it's seriously more impactful than being shot and we're supposed to believe there was no damage? For real?

[dream-girls-evil]

Ratched: Episode 7 Reactions

Oh wait Hanover has a family??? A child?!

Ahh a classic case of a doctor married to his work

Oh no this is heartbreaking

Ahh and this is when he meets Lenore and Henry, pouring himself into this work

Huck!! The sweetest boy!!!

Ohhh does he like her?? Omg this is precious

I hope she’s honest with him about why she can’t. Cuz he’s so kind and accepting.

And this is the first time she’s really said this out loud to someone

Why couldn’t Dolly have fallen for Huck?

“Blowsy, alcoholic jazz baby” XD that is exactly what Louise is

Finally we’re back to this! Fuck is Betsy going to find out that they’re siblings?!

Oh FUCK SHE KEPT THE PRIEST’S TESTIMONY!!! YOU NEVER KEEP THE EVIDENCE!!!

Damn and Betsy not wasting any time confronting her about it! Everyone finding out her secrets!

Wait she...wants to help her? Is this gonna be actual help or like blackmail “we can benefit each other” help?

“Now I don’t know what I think he deserves” called it! Her conviction is wavering!

Betsy doesn’t think Edmund deserves the death penalty either? Now that’s a surprise. Ah well, I guess she’s got Hanover’s view on things.

Ooh was she discharged for killing that guy? Multiple men, I guess.

Betsy being so understanding is...weird. But I kinda get it? She really has seen Mildred be kind and caring and strong. She knows she’s far from a heartless killer.

Ooh Betsy has a plan? To save the hospital?

Ahh they’re trying to get full private funding, and maybe take over the hospital themselves? Remove Hanover from his position?

Oop Mildred didn’t share everything she knows about Hanover lol

Bucket’s shock is so funny XD that wasn’t on the list!!!

Make Huck head nurse!!! Give him a purpose!!!

So Mildred is definitely setting things up so that she can cut and run, with or without Edmund, when she needs to

Go Betsy go!!! I love her dismissing Hanover

“That’s why I’m letting you go” aw they kinda reconciled

He’s gonna know this is all because of Mildred tho

I bet Charlotte’s gonna regress

Yay racism

Something’s not right with Charlotte. Is she gonna die? Oh no oh no he put her in a closet. She’s gonna regress.

Oh fuuuuuuck and that’s the end of Hanover

Aw poor Charlotte. I’m glad she called Mildred. Mildred’s going to help.

This makes three patients they’ve literally just spirited away on buses or trains lol

How does Mildred know about the hospital in Mexico? I wonder if she’s planning on fleeing there herself

Getting lye for the body? Or a saw?

Oh hey lol now she can deliver his head after all

...I do have to wonder if Charlotte getting triggered and killing Hanover was the best-case scenario all along

Haha IN A HAT BOX

Lenore totally has a little bit of a thing for Mildred

Is Henry gonna kill her? He looks like he wants to kill her.

Dude literally how do you think this is going to work out for you? She’s the one who wipes your ass.

Louise must be so tired of people coming to visit Mildred 😂😂😂

Oh!! The social worker!!!

Justifiable homicide!!! GOOD.

Aw wow Mildred had been looking for him for so long

Hmm why do I feel like he’s not gonna be there when she shows up to get him?

I’m completely lost with the timeline here. How many years ago was this? Did he give her the slip to go kill the priests?

Haha we’re back to “doomed since conception”

Wait, did Mildred not know why Edmund killed the priests until now? That changes things.

Aaand here we go, Anna’s going to confirm to her that Edmund is a lost cause

Gwen’s going East. I wonder if she’ll go to Boston lol

Why the weird focus on her drinking the water? And why looking through this car window?

Okay it’s just Mildred watching from the car

Ooh they need to talk! So things are not all good between them.

Ah yeah Gwen’s pissed. And she’s right on the money. Mildred does whatever is best for Mildred.

Honey this is not time for a love confession. This is time to apologize and then let her decide how she feels.

Gwen doesn’t want a part in this!!!

Really? Cancer? Jesus.

Tbh I’m...not about this kiss?

I BET LENORE LEFT EVERYTHING TO PETUNIA HAHAHA

Lmao Mildred’s look when Betsy says she’s an example of grace

WHO NEEDS DOCTORS okay Betsy loving the confidence but also...you do. You need doctors.

Thoughts and Theories

Only one episode left to go!!! Tbh, I keep waiting to suddenly realize the meanings between the red and green lights, but it seems like they’ve abandoned the whole thing at this point, so who knows? Also, pretty sure my favorite character in this whole thing is Betsy Bucket. She’s just so delightful. I also really liked how she called Mildred out this episode, and I love that she got over Hanover and realized she deserved better and could run things on her own. And speaking of Hanover, what an ending! I feel horrible for Charlotte, but we all saw this coming. And despite everything, I really like Hanover as a character. He’s weak-willed and very idealistic and has a drug problem, but he’s a compassionate man. I think he’s a really good example of how despite the rampant corruption and abuse in psychiatric hospitals at the time, which Cuckoo’s Nest was written to comment on, there were also a lot of very well-intentioned doctors and nurses who truly did believe these treatments were what was best for their patients. They were products of their time. 

On to other things, I must admit I’ve been excitedly waiting for Gwen and Mildred’s first kiss and I was...really disappointed by the whole scene. I don’t like how Gwen’s very real and reasonable objections to being in a relationship with a liar and murderer are dismissed as a tactic to make Mildred go away because Gwen is scared of dying. I don’t like how Mildred reacts in the scene either. The way keeps trying to touch Gwen even though Gwen is batting her hands away is not an okay thing to do, and she really seems to thing that everything should be fine between them and she should be forgiven because she had reasons for killing and hurting people, but that’s not a decision she gets to make for Gwen. She doesn’t really seem to acknowledge or respect that Gwen is not comfortable being with her, and in a situation like this where someone is trying to tell you “no” and trying to explain their feelings, insisting on how much you love them is not a comfort; it’s a manipulation.  Idk, the friends I’ve talked to who have finished the season say that their dynamic improves in the last episode, so I’ll try to go in with an open mind, but this is not what I’d hoped for. It’s completely understandable that Mildred has some unhealthy relationship behaviors, but they need to be portrayed as such, and this kind of thing often isn’t. Gwen has always been so straightforward and insistent about being heard and respected that her giving in like this seems out of character, too.

[kariachi]

Fic! Namely fic of the Joneses reaching their final straw and damn well doing something about it.

Warning: This fic is not nice to Gwen or pro-Gwen people. It’s not nice to Charmcaster either, but y’all should expect that from me by now.

~~

Valerie ‘Turbine’ Jones wasn’t really any more concerned for her baby cousin’s safety than was normal for anyone related to him at first. The girl in the picture he sent her- his new girlfriend- was vaguely familiar, but nothing seemed too amiss.

When Suzana called though, teeth snapping on every other word, to bitch about her baby brother dating a Tennyson- a word she snarled like a curse- a bit of a niggling started up.

When rumours started going around the family of her being rude, and passive-aggressive, and not treating him with the respect he deserved as a person, nonetheless one with overprotective relatives, the niggling got worse.

When Kevin called her in the middle of the night, midway through a breakdown and just so tired, in pain, half sure everything was his fault-

Well.

That was where she drew the line.

~~

She got the call at 10 pm. By 11 pm she and the boys were back on the road with a new pair of big rigs under them. By midnight she’d gotten ahold of JJ and she was heading west too. There’d been a strong urge to call Molly and Auntie Eva, but they were only a few hours away from him. She’d call in the morning.

It was a two-day drive if you paid attention to things like traffic laws and speed limits.

Through the power of coffee and Val’s protective rage they cut it down to sixteen hours.

~~

It was agreed, during the early morning phonecalls, that they would go in as one unified force. Strength in numbers and all that. Just a wall of Jones clan and associates bearing down on the university like a tsunami. After all, Kevin had survived this long, he knew they had his back even if he didn’t know they were coming, and if something did happen to him they’d just burn the entire fucking campus down in retribution.

The fact JJ agreed to that said more than anything.

~~

Kevin was in the library when they showed up, at 3 pm. There was shock, relief, bonecrushing hugs from all sides, and a look of dismayed hope when they told him they were there to get him gone that just got everyone’s hackles up all over again.

They stormed into his apartment as a team on a mission- pausing only long enough for Auntie Eva to literally throw that murdering whats-her-fuck Tennyson’d moved in out with a string of curses that would’ve killed Gran to hear them come out of one of her children. There were some Kevin had to rush and write down because they were in Oneida and none of them had heard them before.

Hopefully they would be forgiven in the afterlife for being present for it, given the circumstances.

~~

Kevin had so much shit. So. Much. Shit. It was a good thing they’d brought the big rigs because they really needed them. Enough so that Kevin took one look at them, and at the first load of boxes, and immediately set to work rigging some sorta tech up inside that just, made more shit fit. Without changing the space at all.

“How does that even work?”

“Trust me, Baron, the geometry alone would have your brain meting out your ears.”

~~

As soon as he was done with the trucks JJ pulled Kevin into his little kitchenette, outside the view of the rest of them, claiming that the whole lot of them needed feeding and his fridge pantry was gonna need clearing out, so may as well hit two birds with one stone.

She came out five minutes later, gloves gone, tears in her eyes and murder in her step, and ordered Molly- as soon as they were done there- to go back home and make it known the Jones clan and the Bellwood pack were no longer having anything to do with Tennysons or those who supported them.

She didn’t have the authority to make either call, but the look on her face had Auntie Eva backing her and Uncle Luka surely would too.

~~

The university’s Osmosian population trickled in slowly, all curious about why the High Priest’s apartment was being cleared out by strangers and just as much willing to help move him out. They didn’t even need to know why, just to get his assurance that yes he was moving out and yes the people helping were kin (and the boys were too choked up on hearing that, given she’d met them fresh outta high school and been bringing them to Solstice for years). It did his mood wonders to have them all join in on packing and moving his things, handling every book or machine like it was an ancient holy relic, and wishing him only the best.

It was especially nice for there to be that barrier around him when Tennyson showed up. Not that she managed to get an actual statement out given Auntie Eva took one look at her, nostrils flaring same as they had when she’d seen the other bitch and her aura, and nearly caved her head in with a tire iron. JJ probably would’ve helped if Road Rage hadn’t been close enough to get his arms around her waist before she could throw herself into the fray.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, the girl was smart enough to just retreat, but that was all any of the young Ossys needed to see to figure out exactly what was going on. It was a treat Val had never expected, getting to see the information travel through the small pack and the change in every one of them as they decided their schoolmate was clearly an enemy.

That many packs were going to be joining the Bellwood one in their stance against the Tennyson family.

Good.

~~

Auntie Eva may have been the eldest member of the family there, and technically the family matriarch with Gran gone, but Val was the one running this show and so it was her job to plan shit out. With the extra hands the Ossys granted she was free to figure out where they were going to put Kevin’s shit, and more importantly where they were going to put Kevin.

Because she didn’t trust the Tennysons as far as she could throw them, and she’d be damned if they came within a mile of her baby cousin.

In the end she started by calling up Argit and suffering through the screeching tirade that came with admitting she’d not called him earlier so he could come out and help. A flowerbed died next to her. It was almost worrying if she didn’t know hurting clan was a line he wasn’t about to cross, for Kevin’s sake if nothing else. She did manage to convince him to go a warding, giving him the relevant address and grinning when he started ordering his robots into action before even hanging up.

Then, she called up Mary Jo. It was short notice, but if anyone was going to understand it was her woman, right? Right. There was a reason she loved her, beyond the enthusiasm and brilliance and pure showboatsmanship, and that was solidified when Val got as far as ‘we need to hide my cousin Kev for a while’ before getting a bright ‘he can stay here’. The only other words she got in were ‘keep in mind, he tries to keep kosher and has a strawberry allergy’ and ‘thanks babe, bye’ before Mary Jo was darting off the phone to go prepare for her guest. Hadn’t even gotten to tell her Argit was coming to ward the place. Still, she’d probably take it in stride.

Damn, she loved that woman.

~~

Kevin did not make his way to Mary Jo’s alone. Fuck no. He had a whole fucking convoy of escorts, because the Joneses were fucking done. His shit would get stowed away, and everyone would go home, once they knew for certain he was safe and sound and not a heartbeat before.

Mary Jo, of course, welcomed him with open arms, once she got the chance. Argit got there first, snapping and hissing and checking him over frantically like he might have lost a leg or something in the weeks he’d been out of his sight. It was charming, in its own way, and Val wholly expected her brother to react the same way the next time they saw each other.

She sent the boys off at that point, to get his things squared away, but the family? Oh, the family stayed the night. To make sure Kevin was alright. That he settled in. That Val and Mary Jo were properly teased and subjected to half-hearted ‘leave room for propriety’s. It was worth it though, to know that now all her cousins were as safe as she could make them. To stand by the cot that’d been set up in Mary Jo’s office, where Kevin was curled up with Argit draped over him like a spiky shield, and know he was going to be okay.

With a bare smile, she reached out and mussed his hair, just like she had when he was small and she and Casey were a step down from gods in his view.

From now on, they were going to keep a closer eye on things.