Being A Nat Stan Is Like…. Seeing This Amazingly Complex Character With More Baggage Than You Can Imagine

Hey just a general PSA from someone officially diagnosed and documented:

Now is not the time to seek out an autism diagnosis.

RFK's plans have been made very clear and any diagnosis you do get will get you put on this "national disease registry" they're proposing.

Trust me when I say I completely understand the need for accommodations and a better understanding of yourself, but if you have gone this long without being diagnosed, you will be better off waiting.

Furthermore, listen to and advocate for folks who are diagnosed, especially folks with higher support needs. They'll be the first ones targeted for whatever bullshit "experimental treatments" the government tries to push.

Stay safe and look out for your neighbor.

[Image ID: a black and white typography edit. there are two identical white rectangles on a black background. in the left rectangle is text that reads "if you are unwilling to tolerate trans existence i will make your life intolerable." in the right rectangle are two knives and a pair of scissors. they are ornately decorated on the handle & look vintage. the entire image is textured to look aged and photocopied. /End ID]

click for quality (instagram) (my shop) (prints)

yellowjackets specifically focusing on the spiral into madness through a teenage girl lens was sooo crucial to its plot and development. would it have been different if it were a group of boys instead of girls? yes, definitely. would it have been more violent? more brutal? no. there is something so innately psychological about seeing young women at peak adolescence just go mad. the thing with these young women is that they were already trying to balance between so many things at once. school, identity, sexuality, love, loyalty, friendship, socialization, mental illness. them being put in a position where they had to challenge all of these things for the sake of survival pushed them way past a boundary they were told they should never cross. since the beginning of time women have always been these creatures that were either too innocent or too hysterical. no in between. women are very emotional beings. their anger, their sadness, their grief, is always much more complex. it’s something they’ve been taught to always hold in. it isn’t surface level stuff. it builds up. it bubbles and bubbles and then it comes out haunted, and messy, and fucking terrifying. men? they don’t get told to not get angry. they’re allowed to yell, to scream, to tell people off. it’s as easy as that. their spiral into madness wouldn’t have felt like it needed to be justified or have some other meaning to it. these young women however, it’s so much different. it’s bottled up, and shaken. their violence, their love, their grief, their rage is all so much more emotionally driven, there’s always some logic to it. some way to find connection back to it. it has to have meaning. it has to have ritual. and at the end of it, it’s them reclaiming a power they were never allowed to have.

I am going to commit acts of wrath if i see one more person say "trans men/transmasculinity is not under attack"

THEY EXPLICITLY SAY THAT THEY NOW DEFINE TRANS MEN AS "biological women" IN THAT SHITTY UK COURT RULING

THEY ARE INCLUDING US BY FUCKING NAME IN THEIR HATRED

"why are trans men not targeted?" THEY ARE

THEY FUCKING ARE TARGETED

YOU THINK THAT BEING DEFINED AS A "biological woman" IS NOT HARMFUL FOR TRANS MEN

THATS WHY YOU THINK ITS NOT AN ISSUE

BC YOU THINK THAT TRANS MEN GETTING DEFINED OUT OF EXISTANCE BY CALLING THEM "biological women" IS NOT A PROBLEM

Realizing that it’s probably gonna take 2 years for season 4 maybe even more💀

nobody wants to say it but the obsession with male pregnancy on this site is often incredibly misogynistic and transphobic. why do you think it's funny/cute/quirky for a man to be pregnant and why are you associating feminine qualities to a man who can become pregnant. also why are you treating pregnancy as somehow inherently degrading. answer all of this quickly without getting bioessentialist or misogynistic

and no i'm not going to talk about natalie being so good and skillful at keeping quiet during a hunt and listening for her surroundings as a direct result of her abusive upbringing, but we can all hold hands while we think about it collectively in silence

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[ID: Digital illustration of a nude trans masculine person, cropped from thigh to shoulder. They are leaning back, holding a small dagger pointing between their legs. They have red top surgery scars, and a hairy chest and stomach. Two pale silhouettes of hands reach around the figure, as if stroking their belly and thigh. The figures are surrounded by a border of leaves and red flowers, with a star in the center overhead. There is an 8 pointed star covering the figures groin. The piece is done in a minimal color palette of black, red, and warm beiges and yellows. /. End ID]

Let's talk about Yellowjackets

And that bad and lazy writing.

Idk if y’all remember when they said they had a story and drafts for 5 seasons? Yeah, fake news.

They may have had a story for the teen timeline, but it’s clear they have no idea what to do with the adult timeline.

1 - Speaking of the adult timeline.

Sometimes I think there might be a script hidden in the middle of so many plot holes. There are the classics, like Tai’s family and political career being completely erased from the narrative. But there are also things that just make no sense.

It makes no sense at all that adult Natalie would get to the point of wanting to kill Misty but be totally fine with Shauna. Okay, maybe in the next two seasons, we’ll see the reason why — but given how the writing is right now...I doubt it

I think y'all already know this, but in case y'all don’t: ALL the actresses from the adult timeline whose characters were killed off left the show upset, and some even said outright they felt misled by the production. They were promised something that wasn’t delivered. Also, Hilary Swank would show up to film and literally had NO script for her character, who to this day doesn’t even have a last name. And where's is the supposed adult Akilah?

It feels like they only have key plot points like “Lottie’s death,” “Callie kills someone,” “Van’s death,” “Natalie’s death,” “Melissa’s return”... But they have no idea how to get there, how to build up to those moments. So when the time comes, they just throw it in randomly.

Not to mention how it was way better when the adult timeline was about them worrying that the truth — the crimes committed in the wilderness — might leak and destroy their lives. Now it’s some Scooby Doo mess where one tries to kill another just because the script says so, with no proper construction. Like… why did Melissa wait until now to come back?

2 - Does that mean the teenage timeline is perfect?

No. The writers still haven’t decided whether there’s a supernatural element or not. And if they really have 5 seasons planned, we’re heading into the fourth without answers to questions like: Who was the guy in the cabin, and why did he appear in Jackie’s hallucination? Why did the bear just lay down and let Lottie kill it? Was Travis speaking for Jackie or just hitting a nerve in Shauna after what she said? Laura Lee, completely forgotten. Same with Crystal. We don’t even get mentions of them. It’s like they never existed. And who was Javi’s friend?

And the worst of all: Shauna’s plot armor.

And if you defend everything she does, you can leave now because the rest is going to be a hate post on her.

3 - That bitch is straight-up EVIL.

“Oh but she’s traumatized.” Who isn’t? Travis was SAed by the girls, lost his brother and had to eat him, and still doesn’t do half the messed up stuff Shauna does. Because Shauna is the ONLY one who turns her trauma into a collective problem.

Yes, she is very complex and still a pathetic character, and even though she stresses me out a lot, I still like her because of that. It’s just hard to swallow the Arya-Stark-level plot armor they give her. EVERYONE knows Shauna is out of control, violent, and therefore a liability to the group. And still, no one does anything about it. It’s not like she’s Rambo — there are like 10 girls there. The fact that not one of them jumped her sadistic ass is the most unrealistic part of the show to me tbh

There are no more excuses. If you say you’re a fan of Shauna and try to downplay what she does, you’re not a real fan — you just like your headcanon of her, not the actual character. A real fan stands by their favs’ messed-up choices and doings.

What Shauna did to Mari has no excuse. Mari died three times: during the hunt, when she was eaten, and when Shauna made a point of dehumanizing her and stripping her late body of all dignity. Why? Because Mari was the only one (along with Natalie) who never bowed down to Shauna’s madness and was never afraid of her.

Worse, like Natalie, Mari saw Shauna for what she really was: a deeply insecure girl who uses violence to take something you’re usually born with: leadership. Her monologue at the end was pathetic but totally in character, because yes, she is pathetic.

And her deep anger toward Natalie? It’s because she knew Natalie, thanks to her usefulness to the group, was untouchable. Mari didn’t have that privilege, so Shauna channeled all her rage toward both of them onto the weaker link: Mari.

I’ve seen people comment that the writers kind of turned Shauna into a racist character, based on how she acts toward POC characters. I personally don’t think the character is racist, but it’s very clear the writers’ room is mostly — if not entirely — white.

“Oh but the girls can’t turn on Shauna because she’s the group’s butcher.” Natalie can do that job. The only thing protecting Shauna from a mutiny is plot armor. And that’s never a good sign.

That scene where Shauna chickens out when Tai stands up to her just proves how weak and insecure she is. Like when a fake alpha acts when a real alpha show's up

To be fair, the group did use her for a while as a scapegoat for their dark desires. The problem is that Shauna ENJOYED the violence. She’s sadistic. That’s canon. And she acts like a dictator. It’s funny being in both the Yellowjackets and Arcane fandoms because Shauna is everything Caitlyn haters claim Caitlyn is, lmao.

Lottie, at least, is clinically ill and acts based on her beliefs, not out of joy. The only time she kills someone and smiles about it is when she kills the hiker. And except for Natalie, everyone — girls and boys — did something bad to survive, whether actively or passively.

The thing with Shauna is that she enjoys what she does.And again, what she did to Mari was sickening. I’m not naïve, I knew a show about cannibalism wouldn’t pull punches. But I personally don’t like seeing such cruel scenes of violence for no reason other than shock value maybe.

And back to Shauna’s plot armor, we can clearly see that some of the girls were really sad about Mari’s death, and maybe even a little angry at how Shauna handled it. And the writers want us to believe they wouldn’t say a single word to her? Again, there are like ten of them, and Shauna isn’t irreplaceable in the group. And that plot armor just makes all the other girls (except Natalie, who really is an angel) look dumb and weak. Which they’re not.

Just for comparison, even in Game of Thrones’ worst seasons, we had Cersei doing insane stuff but without plot armor. People didn’t rebel against her because of her last name and her 7-foot zombie bodyguard. Shauna has none of that. The girls just don’t turn against her because of plot armor.

4 - The missed opportunities

It would be so easy to make Walter being the son of one the hikers and he got close to Misty with the intentions of expose and/or kill them for what they did in the wilderness. He could even be Melissa brother in law, which would make her appearance don't be so outta nowhere. And a lot of good things could go from there.

Callie killing Lottie could be a lot better too.

Why do all these characters have nicknames and why can i never clock them. I’ve spent the whole time in the yellowjackets fandom slowly figuring out everyone’s given names from their nicknames and it’s psyching me out. It took me so long to figure out that lottie’s given name was charlotte and every time i remember that van’s given name is vanessa i have a miniature heart attack. Mari’s full name is probably maria. Fuck. Gen’s full name is probably genevieve. Shit. Jackie might be short for jacqueline. Crying rn. The fifth season is gonna come out or smth and tell me misty’s real name is mysterious quigley and i’ll have no choice but to keel over and die