#jackie long

[yankeeblue]

[rnbria]

Binder files: 2008

[disgracedaantt]

ok wait. hallucination/dream jackie actually brings up a great point! shauna is possibly the worst communicator out of the yellowjackets! she deceives, she lies, she covers things up and then gets mad when people don't know what she wants. like girl, jackie had NO idea that you didn't want to be called shipman. she didn't know you liked jeff, she didn't know you resented her or how inferior she made you feel because you never fucking told her! the crux of like 99% of jackieshaunas issues stems from the fact that shauna is incapable of communicating issues before they bubble over into fits of rage! which shauna knows! because when she told jackie she was bothered by the dress/randi hookup thing in season 1 jackie immediately dropped it! COMMUNICATE SHAUNA!!! pls for the sake of literally everyone COMMUNICATE!

[alicentsgf]

im very set on there being 8 survivors now, anything else cheapens the story a little for me. i think it was always going to be 8, no matter what else changed. even before the writers were set on who the 8 would be they knew the 8 roles the characters would have to fill. this was always implied in the pilot, but now im convinced.

even just going off what we've actually heard via dialogue, any more than 8 feels unlikely. at lotties compound one of them said they were "all here" implying it was just the 6 of them left alive. the other 2 would then be travis and someone else who is either dead or assumed to be dead. i know people have speculated on that line in season 1 about some survivors living off-grid but personally i still think jessica just meant travis.

the number 8 has come up a couple of times in meaningful ways and its especially relevant to understanding why it matters that they're the Yellowjackets, a soccer team. it isnt just backstory, its like the key on a map, symbolic shorthand to help you understand the wider story. their on-field dynamics and roles so often mirror the ongoing dynamics and roles of the characters.

minus duplicates (like allie/akilah being nat's duplicate) there are 8 positions in a starting line up and we know via their shirt numbers all but 1 position is assigned to a specific varsity player. i know this is super hard to visualise if you arent a massive soccer nerd like me so i repurposed a graphic i made a while back.

in soccer specific jersey numbers are traditionally worn by particular positions, e.g 1 for a goalie, 9 for a striker, etc. every single varsity player in this show wears a traditional number. theres no way that happens by accident, it was a choice. the image above shows you what it tells us about their field position. as you can see the unassigned role is the attacking playmaker position, the person who makes the most pressurised, pivotal decisions. the real life or death stuff. misty fills this role, she has both ended and saved more lives than the rest and i'd say destroying the blackbox was pretty damn pivotal. in the pilot when the girls run out for the pep rally she is the only one thats focused on apart from the varsity girls and theres a player missing from the line up. that seems deliberate.

you can also see the only (teen) dead of the 8 are laura lee and jackie. this is where our reserves come in. sometimes also called substitutes or game-changers (subtitution is a major theme in this show just by itself but thats another post). when a player goes down you look to the bench to see who can fill their role. laura lee and jackie have both already been subsituted: travis takes laura lees place at lotties right hand, becoming her partner in the right side of defense, naturally protective but can progress with the attack to support his winger (nat), and then melissa takes jackies place as shaunas focal point, encouraging progression and driving the attack. however, even then travis and melissa dont fit quite right. simply put, people (and cats, no matter how similar they look to the original) cant be so easily replaced. travis, melissa, and misty are often othered. never accepted as part of the core team. (i have a suspicion van was meant to die and have javi take her place positionally. for a while he seemed like he might have a similar ability to deflect death against the odds and a closeness to the wilderness travis and lottie would want to defend. imo whenever the writers decided javi was dying or van was living, the others story inevitability changed too.)

the number 8 relates to the wilderness too. the 8 the knife made at the seance when javi asked if they were all going to die? the way the symbol of the wilderness has 8 elements?

im not saying this diagram shows for sure which element represents who, but i thought i'd give you guys an idea of what im seeing.

to be clear, im absolutely not saying the survivors are all that the symbol represents. if an in-universe explanation is given it will obviously be something else (i.e. that its a map of some sort) but i think the creators of the show chose this design for a reason that perhaps relates more to the survivors than anything else. it being a map would be more of a visual backgronym, with the characters as the actual inspiration for it.

for me the symbol has to represent them because the entire point is that they and wilderness are indistinguishable. us not knowing whats the wilderness and whats them is by design. that promotional poster of the characters forming the symbol? sitting inside of it? supernatural force or not, its in them. like lottie said, "is there a difference [between it and us]?" thats the shows thesis statement.

it makes sense Tai's jersey number is the 8 when she most embodies what the wilderness represents. shes the central midfielder, equal parts attack and defense. two warring halves, neither one exactly good nor bad, just primal vs civil. as shes placed at the very center of the game she has to play equally in both her own half and the other. her finding a way to balance both sides is key and this follows because historically and mathematically 8 has often been the number that is used to represent balance, splitting evenly from 8 to 4 to 2 to 1. life vs death, creation vs destruction, spiritual vs physical. neither can exist without the other. "does a hunt that has no violence feed anyone?" = living requires killing. but too much of either and theres disruption, a hole in the ecosystem as a species exhausts its food source. I wonder if thats what the yellowjackets did. killed too freely and disrupted the balance. once again, tai would embody this. her arc this season would reflect the wider narrative in its entirety - the primal takes over and natures left unbalanced. its why i dont think any of the survivors end this show alive. not because of cosmic justice, this story isnt so much about morality, its about duality and balance. when the wolves are killing too many deer the only thing you can do to reset the scales is cull the wolves.

so yes, it always had to be 8. if the 8th survivor is melissa, then it was very likely decided long ago that one of the extras would eventually come to the fore to play this part. ultimately they were just waiting to see who they thought was the best fit (or maybe what big name older actress they might be able to snag and match to a teenager lmao). either way it always had to be someone who could step into the space jackie left in order to complete the team. no more practices or scrimmages, they know their roles now. the ones we met in the pilot; the butcher, the overseer, the shaman, etc. for so long they had no striker, no sharp point to their attack, but thats not true anymore. melissa subs in for jackie, but soccer is fluid. players can switch position due to substitution. now its shauna who leads the attack, becomes the striker, the captain, placing melissa in the space shes left behind. no more killing for necessity, this is killing for sport and every position is filled. the story until now was just match prep, this is where the game begins.

[the-lazy-cat-bakes-souffles]

Who is the Antler Queen? A Theory Deep Dive

The identity of the Antler Queen has been a mystery at the heart of Yellowjackets since the pilot, and in the time since fans have speculated about many possible candidates. But there’s one in particular that’s been rapidly gaining traction in the fandom: that the Antler Queen is none other than everyone’s favourite lesbian ghost, Jackie Taylor. With the launch of Season 3 I wanted to delve deeper into the idea and why I think it would make perfect sense for the series, especially after the latest two episodes. Cork boards and post-its at the ready folks, this is gonna be a long one. And of course, spoilers. 

I’ll start off by referring to this Vanity Fair article from 2023, which gives a succinct rundown of this theory. To summarise, it posits that the Antler Queen as an individual doesn’t exist, per se, and is instead a manifestation of the girls’ collective perception of ‘the Wilderness’. This would track with what’s been established in the show and how the Antler Queen has been framed thus far; as an esoteric, supernatural figure that haunts the narrative in a similar way to The Man with No Eyes in Tai’s storyline - or indeed, the figment of Jackie in Shauna’s. The Wilderness is already personified extensively by the girls owing to Lottie’s visions and the religion that sprouted around it, referred to as a sentient entity with a will of ‘its’ own.

This is where Jackie comes in. Jackie as a character, from the very beginning, is defined not by who she actually is or was, but by how she is perceived - by both herself and those around her. Jackie is the first character we’re formally introduced to in Yellowjackets, and the scene is centred on her performative pleasure for her boyfriend Jeff while looking utterly miserable. We immediately cut to her aggressively brushing her teeth before clutching her iconic heart necklace with a forlorn expression. Her reflection is split across several mirrors, symbolising her fractured self and the many roles she plays, none of which are a truly accurate representation of Jackie the person.

The smitten high school girlfriend (who can’t stand her boyfriend), the queen bee who has it all (who is unfulfilled and lost when nobody's looking), the charismatic soccer captain (who is constantly undermined by her team), the self-centred, stifling best friend (who loves Shauna more than anything). Later she’s the pariah (who was one of the few remaining voices of reason), the first sacrifice (who never believed), the dearly departed teenage girl who so loved rabbits (she was indifferent to them at best). In death, as in life, Jackie is forever condemned to be what others make of her. That’s the inherent tragedy of the character, to never be truly known, to be an idea more than an individual. 

Secondly, Jackie is often described as the embodiment of civilisation’s values in Yellowjackets, but she is also the unwitting architect of the Wilderness’ new status quo. Out of everyone, it was Jackie who committed the first act of brutality after they crashed: leaving Van to burn alive to save Shauna. This was long before anyone had descended into savagery, and set a precedent for the Yellowjackets as a whole. Although her intention was to grasp onto some semblance of normality and bolster team morale, Jackie also sowed the seeds of the spiritual practices they would go on to adopt. It was Jackie who organised the séance, in doing so triggering everyone’s first exposure to forces beyond their understanding as Lottie is seemingly possessed by the spirit of Dead Cabin Guy. It was Jackie who came up with the idea of Doomcoming where, with the help of some hallucinogenic shrooms, the girls surrendered to their most primal selves and attempted to ritually sacrifice Travis. And of course, Jackie’s death is a paradigm shift where the old order crumbles to make way for a new one - and so passes the glory of the world.

After her death, Jackie continues to be a catalyst for the Wilderness’ machinations. She is the first person to be cannibalised, marking a point of no return for the Yellowjackets. Unlike the bleak horror of eating Javi, Jackie’s consumption is a heightened, ritualistic affair, presented as a bacchanal feast - a religious festival. In one of the rare cases of the camera assuming the perspective of the Wilderness, the wind rushes through the pines, blowing the snow perfectly onto Jackie’s funeral pyre and cooking her corpse. As the starving Yellowjackets congregate around her charred body later that night, Shauna says, “She wants us to.”

Jackie is portrayed posthumously in much the same way as the Wilderness itself: even though she has no voice, a will is ascribed to her. It’s important that Shauna is the one leading this. Although she doesn’t buy into the mysticism like Lottie and many of the other Yellowjackets, Shauna instead envisions Jackie as her personal saint (“They were all so tragic”) and tormentor. There is every possibility that this season, either spearheaded by Shauna or in spite of her, ‘Jackie’ will become the figure the Yellowjackets worship, too.

Lastly, there’s a heavy amount of foreshadowing and symbolism lending to Jackie as the Antler Queen. The obvious being that she was the Yellowjackets’ team captain. As the Vanity Fair article points out, Coach Martinez’ words to her in the pilot could well be more than dramatic irony: “You possess something no one else on this team has: influence. When things get tough out there, those girls are going to need someone to guide them.” We even see this called back to in ‘It Girl’ when Lottie says, “We call to Jackie, now with the Wilderness. Guide us.”

Then there’s the vision Jackie experiences before she dies, surrounded by doting teammates expressing their admiration, cloaked in a blanket beneath the antlers suspended above the cabin’s hearth. It’s all she ever truly wanted, to be loved and seen for who she was. How tragically poetic, then, would it be for her to finally receive the adoration she craved in death as a bastardised and diefied version of herself.

And of course, there’s the necklace. To Jackie it was a symbol of protection and her love for Shauna, but we know that it ultimately comes to be worn by those ‘chosen’ to be hunted by the Wilderness. Shauna initiated this with Nat, who continues to wear it after being crowned the first leader of the survivors. This practice of being marked for leadership or death by the necklace is an extension of Jackie becoming mythologised by Shauna and the rest of the Yellowjackets. Again, the line between ‘the Wilderness’ and ‘Jackie’ is blurred.

Let’s look at the show’s promotional material, a lot of which heavily features Jackie throughout the series. The main poster for the first season features a dirty and dishevelled Jackie sporting a bloody nose while a single yellowjacket wasp perches on her cheek. What’s often missed, however, is the reflection of the Antler Queen in her left eye. This symbolises Jackie as a victim h(a)unted by the Wilderness, but it could mean something even deeper than that: the living, real Jackie could be staring at a dark mirror of herself. 

A poster for the second season again features Jackie’s face, only this time that of her frozen corpse. Here there are two yellowjackets perched on her lips, and she’s wearing her heart necklace.

Another poster for Season 2 depicts the Antler Queen standing ominously in the snow. She’s wearing a Yellowjackets varsity jacket, cuffed jeans, a sweater, and a pair of sneakers. While some details are different (the sweater being black instead of striped and the sneakers being pink instead of white), the basic outfit bears a striking resemblance to the clothes Jackie was wearing when she died.

A teaser video for the third season shows a dirty skull carved with the Wilderness symbol. Three yellowjackets buzz around it, and Jackie’s necklace hangs from its right eye socket. In this context, it’s safe to assume that this is Jackie’s skull, especially as we know that the girls retrieved and buried her bones offscreen between seasons. We’ve already seen Shauna tamper with and project onto Jackie’s remains, and it isn’t that far-fetched to see them repurposed in that way once again. 

Finally, let’s look at the recently released poster depicting the Yellowjackets dancing around a fire. Note how all of the main girls are here, including Nat, Lottie, and Shauna (the main living candidates). The implication here is that the Queen’s identity can’t be attributed to any single one of them. Maybe it’s a rotating role, but it also lends credence to this idea of the Queen being a construct. There are three skulls burning in the fire, representing those of the fallen - Javi, Jackie and Shauna’s child (Laura Lee and Crystal’s remains aren’t exactly accessible, after all). From the flames rises the figure of the Antler Queen: symbolically, she is born from the remains of the dead, and she’s burning just as Jackie burned on the pyre. 

With all of this in mind, I think there’s plenty of solid evidence to suggest that Jackie’s bones could end up being repurposed into some sort of effigy, mounted on a stick, adorned with locks of hair and a veil fashioned from a soccer net, and crowned with a pair of antlers. Jackie would finally lead the Yellowjackets in a way she never could while alive.

In conclusion, despite her death relatively early in the series, Jackie’s presence looms large over Yellowjackets. She remains an integral part of its iconography, its themes, and Shauna’s character (the closest the show has to a de facto protagonist). After her agency, body, and legacy have been repeatedly consumed, appropriated, and warped throughout the series, it would be a natural evolution for the Yellowjackets to fully transform everything Jackie was in making her their idol for the Wilderness. It’s human nature to anthropomorphise what we don’t fully understand, to give it a face and a name. It’s also human nature to deflect the responsibility for monstrous acts to avoid looking at the monster within ourselves. For most of the characters, this is the Antler Queen. But Shauna will only ever be able to see the girl she loved, the embodiment of her guilt. Perhaps, somehow, the true Jackie will finally find a way to reclaim her agency and personhood through that. There is no ‘it’ there’s only ‘us’. But is there really a difference?

[rogdona]

[lottienatsbian]

call me crazy or gay but i genuinely think the writers, directors, and hell, even the actors knew what they were doing when it came to how they portrayed shauna and jackie's relationship in the pilot. watching it for the first time, i went in completely blind, with no exposure to the fandom, the ships, or anything beyond the core premise of "a group of teenage girls get stuck in a nightmarish lord of the flies/lost scenario after a plane crash and do crazy shit to survive." i fully anticipated any romance in this show, if at all, to be straight. yet i still saw how they established shauna and jackie and immediately thought "my god, these bitches are gay"

from the very first scene we see of jackie (almost) by herself being her faking an orgasm with jeff, clearly implying that she's disinterested in her own boyfriend, to the very first scene we see of shauna and jackie alone together starting with this rom-com esque image of jackie stepping out of her house while music plays in the background and shauna goes from resting bitch face to all smiles

from the longing stares they give each other in their school gym, to shauna responding to tai's "freeze allie out" proposal simply with, "jackie wouldn't like it"

from the scene of shauna dressing with jackie in her room before the party, her snapping at jackie when she merely suggests that shauna sleep with randy and jackie looking genuinely hurt and apologetic by it, to the infamous party scene where shauna looks on at jackie and jeff longingly– except, she's only really looking at jackie, because the entire shot is framed around jackie. for the majority of that scene, jeff is barely even in frame, a faded blur in the background, until he puts his arms around jackie and physically puts himself in shauna's line of vision

the way she immediately takes a pained sip of her beer after

the way she turns around to randy flirting with her, only to turn away with a look of disgust on her face (just like how jackie looked disgusted during jeff's attempt at getting her off)

the way she can't pull her eyes off jackie even when jeff is dropping them off, even when she knows she's about to fuck her boyfriend once she's gone

the way she says goodbye to jackie, tells her she loves her, and jackie doesn't say it back, so she asks jeff to say it to her when they have sex

the show sets up their dynamic to be one that feels inherently romantic to first-time viewers, only to flip it on its head when its reveled that shauna's true interest is in... jeff. she's really in love with jeff? the guy who's face we see maybe a couple of times total, that jeff? the guy who's basically a background character the entire episode, that jeff? yeah, i don't buy it

you could argue that the show places so much emphasis on jackie because it's trying to convey that the affair is eating away at shauna. to some extent, i agree with this, but i really doubt that it's only this. it would explain shauna's snappy and, at times, cagey behavior around jackie, but it doesn't explain the way that jackie is framed by the camera, music, or even some of the writing choices. whenever we see jackie through shauna's eyes, the camera is always focused directly on her, often times with her face illuminated brighter than anyone else. the music that plays behind her is shauna's kind of music (both supernova by liz phair, which shauna chooses to listen to in her car's tape deck, and miss world by hole, which undeniably fits her grungey music taste). she's joined at the hip with shauna, even in scenes where she's with jeff– seriously, there's only one scene where she's completely alone with jeff without shauna, and it's that one. and the same goes for shauna

for the entirety of the pilot, they are in a constant state of push and pull with each other, almost all of their actions being dependent on one another. jeff feels like a plot device at best, a character designed to come between them and to be thrown away once they realize who each other's real love interest is. even upon several rewatches, it still feels this way. even in the adult timeline, it still feels this way. we barely see adult jeff, but we feel both jackie's literal absence and her metaphorical presence in the form of shauna's collection of porcelain bunnies

there is so much foreshadowing and detail packed into the pilot that i have a really hard believing that this was just an oversight or mishandling of their relationship on the show's part. do i think there's going to be any kind of big love confession from shauna any time soon? no. but do i think they intentionally laid the groundwork for her to realize the feelings she had for jackie at some point? yes, i really do

[sejjiplinth]

CALLIE X JACKIESHAUNA : FAMILY TREE BY ETHEL CAIN

[poorlittlegreenie13]

Saltburn / Jackie & Shauna, Yellowjackets

[nataliesscatorccio]

YELLOWJACKETS

[krys-kros]

Jackie is an "ally"

(insp.)

[yankeeblue]

[rnbria]

Binder files: 2009, 2010, or 2011. Definitely between late 10th grade and senior year.

[soapybananaz]

Day fourteen of doing these studies, today I drew Spanish Jackie!

[alicentsgf]

The snap bracelet that strangles Shauna is representative of jackie's necklace, I am so sure of this. The necklace reappearing in the same episode as Shaunas vision isnt a coincidence and it all ties back in to the power struggle we can see forming this season.

Lottie's right, the necklace doesnt mean what Shauna thinks. It doesnt mark death, it marks sacrifice and thats not the same. Like yes for Jackie and the girl in the pit that meant a literal sacrifice, dying for the others to live, but not for Nat. For Nat being given that necklace meant living to lead them into the little golden age they've been experiencing. Thats why the necklace has belonged primarily to Jackie and Nat, their leaders, even if it spends short periods with others/is placed on sacrfices during a hunt. Because leadership is a sacrifice too. But Shauna doesnt understand that, she never has, its why she doesn't understand the necklaces meaning even now as an adult. (lottie was still wrong to give it to callie but thats another post)

The snap bracelet being Jackies and her being the one to place it around Shauna's neck - just like the necklace. Suffocated still by her jealousy towards Jackie, her desire for that leadership role, for power, just like Jackie said. As an audience we can already see a power struggle bubbling beneath the surface, with Shauna poised to take over from Nat, and in the vision Jackie says 'you want to try?' to the others. I think the implication here is 'you want to try to lead?' It didnt hurt Akilah and only scratched Van, some of the least power hungry. But it almost kills Shauna. Her exercising power over Melissa is just the start. Melissa says it in the trailer, "you feel that? thats fucking power?". This season is Shaunas power and corruption arc. Its going to show us exactly why the others are all so afraid of her.

So what does that say about Callie's part to play in this? Is she marked for death, another type of sacrifice, or for some kind of leadership role? I think that depends on Shauna. Because its Shauna who actually marks people for death. Those the others percieve to have been taken by wilderness, Shauna was the one who decided, willingly or not. She sent Jackie out that door, she told them to wait as Javi drowned, and (if we believe lottie) the wilderness heard Shaunas plea not to die giving birth. but it had to take someone. even as an adult, its shaunas decision to run in the hunt at camp green pine that led to Nats death. Its always been Shauna who actually decides who the wilderness does or doesnt take, she just doesnt realise it.

[thelesbianluthor]

A lot of people dislike the adult time line but I love watching hot milfs being awful and the actors in the show are far too good to not enjoy their scenes.

I am still side eyeing the writers for what happened with Lottie in episode 4 (especially with how Simone has been talking) and enjoying both timeline and the show doesn't mean that the writers can't do bullshit moves but I am gonna wait to see what they do with the cause of death and her last moments before I give my judgement on that choice.

I am well aware of what type of show Yellowjackets is and I have always had the idea that it will end with all of them dead at one point but knowing that doesn't exclude that I can find certain characters wasted. I still think that Lottie had so much potential to do more and it hurt like hell to see her go so early.