"at least natalie's death was narratively satisfyin—"
no. it wasn't. they gave us a character who has struggled with addiction her whole life. struggled with self-harm in a variety of forms. who has felt lost and guilty for the last twenty-five years. a character who has been suicidal multiple times in the past, a character who was literally suicidal a week ago.
and you killed her a day after she started to actually, truly try to heal.
yes, this show has always been dark. yes, from the first moment of the entire series we knew these girls committed unspeakable violence on one another, and did so ritually. yes, we knew that the adult versions of these characters spent the last twenty-five years struggling with their guilt and shame and trauma, and were doing it very, very poorly.
all of this just shows that the story has been in their struggle. this has been—or at least it was initially sold as—a show about women and their trauma. a show about women who don’t know how to examine their trauma, don’t know how to process it. who can’t take more than small glances at what happened, but who can also never, ever forget that it’s there. this has been a show about women who are coping, most times poorly, but very, very realistically.
and there was so much hope in that, despite (or because) this is such a dark show. these women can screw up and struggle and be real people—which women never get to be on television—and still maybe, they can heal bit by bit. there was always an inherent hope in this story, because they were all still, as adults, trying to make a life for themselves even if they were muddling through it.
in season two, natalie starts to heal at the retreat. (apparently—i personally found her 180 between "qui" and "burial" highly suspect and very poorly executed, but that's a moot point now.) she spends most of the season struggling against lottie, but finally accepts lottie's therapy (thanks to lisa) and beginning with "burial" she keeps trying to get the girls to talk about what happened. she figures out what she needs to move forward—to finally, truly address what happened in the wilderness by talking about it. that becomes her goal, and her focus with the others.
but natalie doesn't get to talk about anything. the girls want to drink instead of talk in "burial". and in "it chooses," the second nat suggests they talk, lottie shuts her down and suggests they drink poison instead. natalie is sober, and trying to do what she thinks she is supposed to do by confronting her trauma. she has made all of the "right" choices to actually heal from her pain, but she never gets to.
natalie’s entire story line, set up in her very introduction in the pilot, is to find her purpose. she talks about her self-destructive behaviors being due to her lack of one, and makes it clear that she intends to find that purpose once she leaves therapy. thus, for natalie’s story to be narratively satisfying, her story needs to end with her finding that purpose, right? which means that, if we are to treat this as a narratively satisfying ending, then natalie physically sacrificing her life for lisa is supposed to be that purpose.
but death is not a purpose. and, to portray it as such for a character who has tried to commit suicide is, honestly, disgusting to me. especially for a character who was saved—again, a week ago—from her attempt by the very woman who then encourages her to drink poison that is used to "put animals out of their misery". who is then told in her death vision to “let the wilderness in” (when "the wilderness" has been a pretty clear metaphor for trauma!!!). they spent all season telling a suicidal character to suddenly let go and give in and stop resisting in a narrative that leads to her “””finding purpose””” in her fucking death. not to mention letting that death be recorded as "an overdose" after she has been explicitly sober as part of her growth!!
a far, far more narratively satisfying path for natalie is for her to actually find a purpose that is consistent with the hunter-protector she’s always been described as. in “no compass” tai says that natalie is the reason they all made it out of the wilderness. (again, wilderness as a metaphor for trauma!) so why, on earth would the better story line, the more consistent story line, the more satisfying story line—especially when this show is all about parallels and cycles repeating—not be natalie leading them all out of “the wilderness” by helping them process the trauma? by getting them all to talk about it?
(i didn’t necessarily need or expect yellowjackets to give a truly “good” message or resolution—bittersweet would be plenty for me—but can you imagine the beauty of that story? the character who has felt nothing but pain and guilt, who has been alone for the majority of her life, who has never felt good and stable love, being the one to break through the trauma first? the one who finally learns to heal first, and protects them all once again by leading them through the wilderness? a story of a woman supporting women through trauma that only they can understand?)
instead natalie's story goes from struggling with her pain and guilt, to trying to find some purpose in her life, to losing that purpose and attempting suicide, to being saved and actually starting to address her trauma head-on. and then dying before she can. i'm sure there are some people who believe that this is character growth (the briefest moment of addressing her trauma), but it wasn't; her growth is blunted by her death.
and this makes her death both tragic and unsatisfying. a character who struggles so hard and so long, who finally, finally sees a light, and the moment she reaches for it, is shifted back to where she was a week ago, having never gotten to actually grow.
so no, just because i am personally devastated by nat's death does not mean that i am blind to the narrative; quite the opposite. i am furious both as a fan of the character and a fan of the story. i feel deceived, disappointed, and insulted by every single part of this story. i feel like we were all cheated out of what could have been a beautiful exploration of a complex and fascinating character. and on top of all that i am very, very hurt.
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hey f1blr
just here to have a quick chat
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?
ARE YOU SEEING HOW YOU’RE ACTING? BECAUSE I AM. I’M SEEING YOU BEHAVING LIKE FUCKING ANIMALS TOWARDS GIF AND EDIT CREATORS. I’M SEEING YOU TREAT US LIKE NEWS MEDIA WHERE ONLY SIMPLE GIFS OF SHIT THAT YOU CONSIDER A NEWS STORY GET NOTES AND ONLY IF THEY HAPPENED RECENTLY ENOUGH.
AND THE MOMENT SOMEONE FUCKING DARES TO TAKE TIME OUT OF THEIR DAY AND MAKE SOMETHING COOL AND CREATIVE YOU FUCKING SHUN THEM FOR IT???? WE SEE YOU NOT ENGAGING WITH IT, WE SEE YOU SEND OUR CREATOR FRIENDS HATE, WE SEE YOU DOING THIS SHIT AND IT WILL DRIVE US AWAY. HELL IT ALREADY HAS DRIVEN SO MANY TALENTED PEOPLE AWAY.
IF YOU DON’T WANNA SEE SOMETHING, THE TUMBLR FILTERING SYSTEM, THE UNFOLLOW BUTTON AND THE BLOCK BUTTON ARE FREE. IT COSTS ZERO FUCKING DOLLARS TO MAKE SURE YOU DON’T SEE SHIT YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE. TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY.
I HOPE YOU KNOW THIS WAS YOUR OWN DOING WHEN THIS FANDOM IS JUST SHIT FROM GETTY IMAGES AND YOUTUBE RIPS. I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU TREATING US LIKE GARBAGE, YOU DO NOT DESERVE ANY OF US.
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James Somerton’s Patreon is back. If you were supporting him, make sure to cancel before the end of the month or you will get charged.
There are nearly 3,000 subscribers on his page. It has been scrubbed of all posts, including his last “statements” about the situation, except for two unrelated ones.
He said he had done this so people would have a chance to cancel their pledge, but he has no post describing the plagiarism and why his patreon disappeared or is back.
If you were one of these nearly three thousand subscribers and if you no longer want to support James Somerton, plagiarist, monetarily cancel your pledge.
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reading the receipts on how bethesda resorted to fucking extortion in a pathetic attempt to force Leona (a trans woman) to resign without pursuing a discrimination lawsuit by holding her fucking surgeries hostage & holy fuck
her experience at bethesda was a harrowing but depressingly familliar one filled with a sudden loss of respect by her superiors, public outing by her manager, falsified reports on her yearly review to convince corporate that she was a liability...
i struggle to find the words to descrive how i felt going through it all.
they were HOLDING HER SURGERIES HOSTAGE TO COERCE HER TO RESIGN
fuck this fucking industry. you cannot fix this. it is beyond saving
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