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I'm rewatching clips from ep 7 of Yellowjackets season 1 for one of the requests that I was given, specifically scenes where Natalie, Shauna, and Taissa are trying to catch the blackmailer and I had an interesting thought

When Natalie and Tai are chasing the blackmailer (Jeff), Tai tells Natalie to "take the wing" and she'll "mark him like at States". They're using soccer terminology to corner him and catch him.

That's how they eventually start hunting one another. When they went after Nat in season 2, they stuck together in a cluster, and ultimately, that "hunt" wasn't successful in the actual hunting aspect. They got a meal (rip Javi) but didn't directly hunt anything when they stayed together.

So, they'll learn to split off, turning what they've learned from soccer into a means of survival. And we see some of this in the original pit girl scene. Their voices are coming from all sides. They aren't together. Soccer teaches them to become wolves.

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something that's been ping-ponging inside my head lately: shauna is much more dangerous than she lets on and than she prefers to be. after 25 years, she can both catch, kill, disembowel and cook a rabbit without thinking twice. after 25 years, she knows exactly how to cut up a human body. after 25 years, she remembers the way skin clings to the body and loathes to be ripped off, the oily smell of it after death. after 25 years, she remembers the thrill of the hunt and the satisfaction of the kill—the look on a person's face when they know they're about to die. but, she knows what had happened to lottie—institutionalized and tortured back to 'normal.' so, shauna hid—shauna cultivated the perfect image of the average, vaguely-depressed housewife. and, yeah, maybe over the years, she's really settled into that role, it's become... almost second nature, maybe. but it'll never be Her, it can't be, because She needs to remain suppressed, buried deep—because She has no place in civilization, She could only ever thrive out there in the woods: where her skills are useful instead of deadly, where they inspire hope of survival rather than fear of hurt. the wilderness had altered her on a deeply fundamental level, it had granted her unconditionally sharp instincts, a strong stomach, and a certain coolness of head that allow her to do what she does—and that deadly little package remains beneath the veneer of an average, borderline helpless, housewife. and, She mostly stays in the dark, where she belongs, but we occasionally see Her surface—to the misfortune of adam martin and that bastard that had stolen the minivan.

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i've been thinking. the cannibalism simply isn't that bad. like, yes it's traumatizing and it could be that they're afraid of being judged over that but it's understandable. that irl sports team who had to eat people to survive exists in this universe so they might, especially now that they're semi-functioning adults, realize that nothing bad will happen if they admit to eating people.

so here's my theory about what they did that's so bad AND who was in the spike trap in ep1: it's other people. random other people. eating jackie, who was already dead, is one thing. even choosing girls from amongst yourselves to eat is understandable and has, in fact, happened for years in similar situations (see the custom of the sea). but finding people who could rescue you? who are hiking in the wilderness and presumably know the way out? finding safety and choosing to stay in the wild and hunt and eat those people instead? THAT is horrifying. THAT is worth hiding.

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I keep picturing Jeff reading Shauna's journals and getting indignant on her behalf that she didn't get crowned cannibal queen.

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okay but here's the thing I can't shut up about. they would have been these people anyway!!!! tai did everything she said she was going to. jeff reminds shauna "secrets have always been a part of us." lottie has struggled with her mental health since childhood. shaunajackie fallout was always going to be nuclear whether it happened in the woods or at Rutgers (shauna was going to Brown the same way she wasn't wearing the red dress). if van and natalie weren't stuck in the woods they'd be stuck with their parents or what was left of them. and everybody knows misty was already who she is. they could have taken any route and they would have ended up at the destination of themselves anyway. say they didn't crash, say they won nationals. it doesn't matter. it doesn't fucking matter!!! fast forward twenty-five years and the class reunion plays out more or less the same. they win nationals and misty is still a nurse playing god and natalie is still in rehab or maybe not because who would be paying for it so scratch that they win nationals and natalie is still dead, and shaunajackie are still swallowing each other whole. they win nationals and nothing singularly or uniquely terrible happens to them and they still grow up to be wracked with anger and guilt anyway! they're still unsatisfied, cheating on their spouses. they're still suicidal, still schizophrenic. terrible things still happen to them but they're commonplace terrible, so who cares? get over it. all this to say the self is inescapable. all this to say this life fucks you up no matter what. there was no other way for them, there was no other fate for them. there is no ideal life where they are perfect and good. the crash isn't the tragedy. the tragedy is that they all are who they are. they are human. they win nationals, and they still have to be these people. they have to be these people, but alone. the tragedy is that they think they could have been fine if they hadn't done such terrible things to survive after the crash. but they were never fine, they were never going to be fine, and that IS fine because neither was anyone else. "we're all like this." we were always going to be. and I don't mean it's a good thing they crashed. I mean it's all a crash. there is no unscathed life.

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Been trying to work out why internally the card deck scene felt like it did i think it's maybe. It's so primal already. like they're gonna be out there for at LEAST another year. and so part of me can't believe they're silently drawing cards to see who's going to get eaten bc how can it get any worse? While the other part of me KNOWS that it definitely is going to get worse BECAUSE THIS IS WINTER ONE OF TWO. AND THERE'S LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTION. The girlprophet who by now they all (save for nat and maybe ben) believe has some commune with the forest gods and who's image has become synonymous with things like Hope and also Food is bleeding to death upstairs cause shauna went rabid on her and it's snowing and it's been snowing and it's going to keep snowing and akilah and mari who's characters have in all of the insanity become comforting if not tragic reminders that these girls are truly just GIRLS (akilah studying for the SAT's because she'll still be a junior when they get back and mari's textbook teengirl deadpan one-liners) are so hungry they're hallucinating (akliah's rat has been dead for who knows how long and mari's seeing the walls bleed) so of course they are going to eat somebody and of course out here where the rules of their internal society bent so far they broke the night jackie slept outside and then the rules of ALL society shattered the night they ate her barbecued corpse they're going to decide who's on the chopping block by drawing straws (they're KIDS) via the card deck (no queens) one of the many talisman's of the religon they created (via girlprophet aka lottie matthews's unmedicated schizophrenia) in an effort to derive some sort of meaning from all of this because when laura lee blew up she took god with her AND ITS SO DEVASTATING. BC EVERY SINGLE THING THAT HAPPENS IN THE WILDERNESS THIS EARLY IN THE TIMELINE ALWAYS HAS THIS UNDERCURRENT OF DREAD BC THIS IS WINTER. ONE. OUT. OF. TWO.

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what I think is so great about Yellowjackets is that not a single one of these girls have moved on. shauna is married to jeff and reenacting high school flings with strangers. nat escapes in addiction and still dresses like she's 16. misty went into medical and stalks her teammates. even taissa, who seems like she's come the farthest, we find in the end is still eating dirt in a tree outside her son's window and ritual sacrificing in the basement. and that's trauma!!!!! it never leaves you, and no matter how far you go you never leave it either. nat was right when she told tai and shauna they're just as close to the brink as she is, they just hide it better. and now season 2 "it's happening again" it will always happen it's the cycle it's unbreakable. it's in you. "i thought we left it there when we were rescued, but now I realize. we brought it back with us."

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Travis really gonna eat his own brother huh

I will never have anything bad to say about him ever in my life. No wonder he killed himself. Fuck. And he's never not gonna hate himself. Because he told him to go after her. To save the girl he loved. And Javi, non-verbal Javi, knew his brother so much, knew his heart, they didn't even have to speak to communicate that. All it took is a look from Travis and a nod from Javi to decide that they have to save Nat. And now his love for Nat is tainted. Everytime he remembers he loves her, he remembers he sacrificed his brother for her. Of course they were toxic for each other, of course they were on again off again, they both carry the same guilt. Javi died for them to have this, how could they throw it away, how could they keep it

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yellowjackets

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callie: this is great. i am going to get a good grade in helping my mom get away with murder, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve,

mother-daughter bonding over being women in stem (stealing, trespassing, evading arrest, manipulating cops) 🫡

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Jackie’s “I don’t belong here & I know that” in season 1 vs. Natalie saying to Ben “you really don’t belong in this place” in season 2…. the fallen leaders, meant for society. they both represent everything the wilderness is not…An order that fell when the plane crashed…

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YellowJackets 2.06 + text posts

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also i'm like. Obsessed with jeff's whole thing. he's so fucking boring. he owns a furniture store. he was homecoming king. he has vanilla fantasies. he married his high school girlfriend's bff whom he slept with on the side. he keeps himself in top physical shape. he's having an affair--except, no, he's actually just in debt and blackmailed the yellowjackets so he could keep shauna living a comfortable life because he loves her, and oh yeah, the stuff he's using for blackmail? it's shauna's firsthand account of all the truly fucked up shit she did in the wilderness. he's known forever. he doesn't care! he loves his wife! she had an affair and murdered the guy, he doesn't care! he'll go to prison for her! he'll burn the evidence! shut the fuck up, jackie's parents! his wife is so smart and cool! he chooses her over the glorified memory of your dead daughter any day! it's shauna appreciation 24/7/365 baby! he literally just wants to provide for and look hot for his wife & make her happy. the really insane thing is he can't. of course he can't. he's just jeff, he's boring, he's not of the wilderness, he's completely irrelevant. he's not jackie. can't wait to see whatever fucked up thing shauna does next and how jeff is like yes ma'am about it

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hey coach, sorry we cannibalized your team captain. in our defense, her pregnant gf said that's what she wanted and we are running out of meat rations and our developing bodies need nourishment. no, I get that it was absolutely terrifying to witness teenagers devour their former leader who was a symbol for societal expectation so voraciously and with such excitement, but you gotta understand we're hungry and the wilderness slow-roasted her to perfection. also you're probably next. xo.

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shauna shipman is redefining the toxic girlbestieship game. “codependent” cannot even begin to describe shaunajackie, and we’re starting off wrong by implying they’re even distinct enough to use that label. are you codependent with your stomach? your liver? death tore them apart permanently - jackie frozen eternally young and impossibly perfect - but in doing so, eroded all the other boundaries between them: emotional, mental, physical. you’re with her boyfriend. you’re playing sleepover games with her corpse. eventually you’ll bury yourself in the life she might’ve had, in the way you’ll never bury her. you can’t. she’s in your head. she’s in your mouth. and once you digest her, she’ll be in your baby too.

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jeff is the only malewife because he’s like Yeah my wife murdered her piece on the side and then dismembered him with such precision that it was surgical but in all fairness she lost her baby and the girl she had a homoerotic friendship with when she was 17 so like who am i to judge… in fact, this is My burden as well… i should turn myself in for her :/

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i think yellowjackets is fun because the two timelines allows the show to recontextualize itself constantly. like how adult misty’s devotion to adult natalie in s1 feels a bit misplaced especially considering adult nat acts like she can’t stand misty. misplaced, until you see teen misty save teen natalie from death in 2x08. until you see misty’s face the moment it became clear it wasn’t going to be nat, but javi. until you see that the wilderness didn’t choose in the middle of that lake. misty did. she always picks the choice that will save natalie in s1 because she chose natalie in 2x08 and paid the price of a life for it. and i just think that’s neat.