#turner things

[novelconcepts]

Also please let’s discuss the Other Tai of it all, because this is important to me. She isn’t evil. It’s incredibly important to understand she isn’t evil. She’s hungry. She’s hungry for all the things that kept Taissa alive in the woods. She IS the thing that kept Taissa alive in the woods, in her own way. She was the very essence of nature. She was dirt and trees and need. What kept Tai alive out there? Food. Meat. Van. What does Other Tai naturally gravitate toward, trying to steer Taissa toward the things she needs? Food. Meat. Van. That political career? Theater. That family polished to a shine? Facade. What really matters, when everything else is shorn away? Food. Meat. Van. Base impulse. First loves and full bellies. She isn’t evil. She’s trying to keep Tai fed and alive, as she always has. It just comes at such a terrible cost.

[actually-mentally-ill]

sorry, did you say,

“toxic, dangerous, sexy af and could probably kill me at any given moment if they wanted”?

…

[samcarpenters]

You know what I think? I think you were a sad little redhead, with a drunk for a mom, living in a sad little house.

[girlbragging]

[maxanor]

YELLOWJACKETS | Season 3, Episode 9, “How the Story Ends”

[haltandcatch]

i can’t really think too hard about the tai being trapped in her own body possibly most of this season and desperately trying to communicate with van from the other side of it all because it makes me wanna burst into tears like what do you mean van thinks she’s finally got tai back in her final months and it’s not even the version of her she fell in love with 😖😖

[elventhespian]

So like... it's a Thing in all fandoms where fans sort of latch onto fanon versions of characters and their dynamics with each other that are actually completely off-base, right? I don't know if this phenomenon has an official name, but I've seen it so many times and it's fascinated me every time. Especially when a character's popular fanon selves don't end up just diluted from their source material, but straight up OPPOSITE their canon portrayal.

So one of my "favorite" variations on this was how the early PotC fandom used to get Will EXTREMELY wrong, especially in comparison to Jack, and it made finding in-character fics SO. DAMN. DIFFICULT.

I've talked about this MULTIPLE times before, as have several other fans. It's a dead horse being beaten. But basically certain prevalent takes on fanon!Will have in the past leaned towards a personality that was very patient and grounded and even demure to contrast against Jack's off-beat personality and Elizabeth's fiery rebelliousness. Because Elizabeth has the drive to push back against social norms, Will became the foil who fell back to his pre-pirate version, reluctant to break rules unless she pulled him into it, even in post-CotBP timelines. Likewise, Jack was the one with the WTF decision making, while Will was more rooted in reasonable decisions.

And by their appearances, archetypes, and certain elements of their world views, you'd THINK that's how it works. When we meet Will in the governor's foyer, Will is so lovestruck and doe-eyed and subservient to the governor, I think that people thought that's just Who He Is. Especially because he often acts as Jack's straight-man foil in the comedic elements. Straight-laced. Rigid. Even boring or timid.

But if you actually pay attention to the movies, it's very much the opposite. In canon, Jack's USUALLY the level-headed one who just happens to have chaos follow him, because of the way he can wield it. He thinks in long run, tries to solve problems with words and as little fighting as possible as often as he can. Ideal situations for Jack are more like a thief--he wants to be in and out of the job as silently and slick as possible. The scenarios he's in are insane, because the way he throws other people around with those scenarios is kind of insane, but he himself remains largely cool and collected.

That's Jack.

THIS is Will:

Canon!Will starts out literally so impulsive and rash, Jack has to physically manhandle him at certain points to keep him from blowing up his plans--and then still gets taken out because he underestimates his listening skills and impatience. Will corners Jack into what is functionally a cage match to the death by sanely locking the door with his sword and very nearly wins. He is constantly at 11, constantly demanding things be done faster, more directly, and at the same time quietly scheming behind Jack's back almost from the get-go. He does flashy jumps and flips off of things because using the stairs is too slow or whatever. He shows up in DMC yelling at Jack to give him his compass at the point of the sword, and insisting he'll get Davy Jones' key by just "cutting down everyone in his path."

Even when Will mellows out significantly in AWE, there are remnants of this contrast still there. Jack's plan for leading Beckett to Shipwreck Cove seems to have been a very reasonable and underhanded effort to deliberately make sure Elizabeth is inside the Cove while Will is on Beckett's ship, in command of the Compass. Meanwhile Will's plan was to leave a breadcrumb trail of vulture-sea gulls feasting on dead soldiers' corpses.

What I'm getting at is, yeah, Jack's a charismatic "rogue" and Will's a "romantic hero" TECHNICALLY. Jack makes quippy jokes, and Will glares and scowls and WTFs back. But not only are they are both more alike than people give them credit for, they are also totally opposite their roles' traditional personalities in ways that the fandom tends to overlook.

TLDR; Jack's crazy, Will's a sweetheart. But Will is also a manic gremlin, and Jack doesn't always know what to do with him about it, so they often end up something like this:

And more fans need to play with this fact, the end.

[alicentsgf]

Yellowjackets x The Reluctant Bride (side-by-side)

[1warpspeedch1c]

[petercushingscheekbones]

Rivals really had me going ‘why are straight people like this?” So here are some moments where gay sex would have genuinely made it better

[actually-mentally-ill]

“I can fix him!”

Him:

[amira-house]

[Dev can't remember what his godfather looks like, he misses him; the only feeling of paternal familiarity and 'human' affection came from a man who is unable to remember...]

[girlbragging]

[dance-in-the-morning-glow]

[n0eyed-taissa]

sorry but i actually love that season three of yellowjackets turns the viewers' expecation of shauna on their mf heads. since the first season, shauna is our focal character, the one we see the most and know the most about in the present timeline, with the teen post-crash timeline informing how/why she came to be the way she is 25 years later.

through season 1, we THINK that shauna is unhappy in her adult life because of the way she fell to the wayside, lost in jackie's shadow. we THINK that she starts her affair with adam because she's bored with the stagnancy of her life, but after 19 months of life or death survival in the wilderness, any semblance of safety and normalcy would be mind numbingly boring. adult shauna is a stay at home mom. she collects ceramic bunnies and goes to yearly birthday lunches with her dead best friend's parents. it doesn't always read that she has the capacity for cruelty within her, but it's always been there. we see that immediately in the adult timeline as shauna has no qualms about killing the rabbit thats in her garden and preparing it like she would with any other game meat (HOW she killed said rabbit also speaks to her cruelty...bluntly with a shovel, rather than slicing its throat like we see in the wilderness). teen shauna's capacity for cruelty is revealed slower, with the pressure building as shauna fucks her best friend's boyfriend and becomes pregnant with his baby. as she lies to jackie, fights with her, and pushes her away (ultimately leading to jackie's very preventable death, as even taissa points out that jackieshauna's squabbling could be resolved if only she Talked To Her). this capacity for cruelty is then overshadowed by the strength of her grief, which informs the bulk of her season 2 characterization.

in season two, we THINK that adult shauna's actions can be explained by the deep amount of grief she felt at the loss of jackie. and the guilt she holds knowing that she could have saved jackie if not for her own stubbornness, her own cruelty. which is all true! shauna's grief is only heightened by the complications of her pregnancy (re: months of starvation / jackie for dinner / belt soup / starling stew all not providing enough nutrients for neither shauna nor the baby) and the loss of her firstborn child (who is unfairly deified by lottie and her wilderness cult because they, like shauna, are looking for a way to persist through the horrors that they are forced to survive). the psychological fake-out of shauna Feeling and Sensing her child, but not being able to physically reach him or comfort him. similarly to how she Feels and Senses jackie despite not being able to physically reach her. so shauna sits out there in the meat shed with jackie, playing MASH and doing her makeup and talking her literal ear off trying to ignore that she was who put jackie there. and taissa? poor taissa's well-meaning, pragmatic attempt at helping shauna go through the motions of grieving by laying jackie to rest via cremation goes horribly awry when The Wilderness 'decides' that feasting on jackie is the only way for the yellowjackets to stay alive. and if grieving jackie isn't bad enough for shauna, she loses one child and then is forced to butcher another. javi was a little boy!!! and was clearly shauna's surrogate brother/son figure in season 1!! so YEAH, if i just ate my best friend in a not-fun-gay-way, lost my wilderness pregnancy but hallucinated that i didnt (and also hallucinated/dreamt that my teammates helping me through labor ATE said baby because that's something that they Do Now) ((also x 2, if my whole soccer team saw my v*gina i'd become evil too lbr)), then had to carve up and eat one of the few people i had the ability to feel soft/protective towards, i think i too would be Not Doing Well!!!!!

so yeah, in the months before season three, i am absolutely not surprised that shauna's unchecked grief has turned into anger. months and months of lottie's religious fanaticism asserting that the loss of the baby was a sacrifice to the wilderness that brought on the miracle of spring is incredibly dismissive to shauna's experience with pregnancy and grief/loss. we see in season 2 that lottie (and others) had attached themselves to the baby as a factor to motivate their survival, but lottie always took it one step further, claiming group parentage (ownership? of "our baby" aka shauna's baby, aka the team's motivation to survive). as lottie's mental state continues to deteriorate, her dedication to the wilderness, its messages, and its sacrifices reaches a new level of intensity (as proven by her consistent attempts to sway travis and akilah into connecting with 'it', even when both characters voiced their concern about the potential dangers). of course shauna wants nothing to do with the summer solstice ceremony, even when she is being honored as The Mother of The Child. she doesn't want to be honored for hers/the child's sacrifices, she wants to grieve!! and honestly, the only healthy grieving we see from shauna come in episodes 1&2, as she vents in her journal about the current state of her world and then reburies the child on her own terms. of course shauna is carrying resentment for coach scott ditching her in labor (only to later flee the scene after the cabin was burned down). of course shauna is power hungry, she was made to feel secondary to jackie her entire adolescence and now has been stripped even further of her autonomy. so shauna results to some desperate measures in order to reclaim her identity within the group. BUT!!! shauna's rightful anger causes her to lash out in some un-rightful ways. her capacity for cruelty outweighs her grief. her competitive edge resurfaces during the game of capture the bone, where she tackles/bites mari as a ill attempt at reclaiming her power and autonomy. she spits in mari's food, doesnt offer to help find her. she wants to make coach scott pay for what she THINKS that he did, so much so that she strong-arms the rest of the team to vote ben guilty. she wants to burn him at the stake???? and then enables melissahat to slice ben's achilles???? she restrains the scientists who can offer them all a way home. she shoots at melissa, the only person who has been exhibiting any softness/kindness towards her. the more shauna gives into her anger, the more primal and connected to the wilderness she is. the more she comes into her own power, the less she wants to go back home and fade back into the shadows. she wanted this. she always had the power to become this. why are we surprised about how she ended up 25 years later?

[builtintripping]

never forget...

read again?

no you did not see me repost this, shh

hemlo!! thank ya'll so so much for enjoying this lil comic series!! i know it's been a year since the first part, but most importantly i finished it 💀✨️

every single tags ya'll leave on me posts and past questions i recieve about this au is super appreciated, they make me smile the widest you have no clue!! im just a lil mad at myself that i couldn't expand on this au more so yall could have had more crumbs. irl stuff happened + still getting the hang of drawing and socializing again after years of doing neither of those 😭

but still, im glad i could share this comfort comic i made for myself, and for you guys too. it's a pretty personal one despite the characters not being mine 😅 i hope that you can walk away from this story believing (entirely or not) that someone out there still thinks of you, whether they're from a late/absent loved one who still wants the best for you or a dear friend who will make room in their hearts for you. life will never not be hard, but if you keep them close to your heart, adulting will be bearable 🫂

thank you so much for reading 💕